6 Years Mang...

...delicately and maybe not so gracefully, certainly rife with my own special brand of bogus blabbering, I've been doing this here Mustard Relics thing.  It's been a great ride.  This is post #391, with 3637 approved comments (half of which were mine), 100's of thousands of spam comments (not one has gotten thru), and over 310,000 unique visitors (although most of them were probably the spammers).  Not sure what the accomplishment is, but having been a near dead, unemployed, divorced, loser drunk, ever day is a blessing.  10 years at this job, 7 years married and 8 years sober, life has been different for a while now and this blog has been a big part of it.  No matter where I've been, music, to varying degrees, has been a passion, now so, more than ever.  When this thing first started out, it was about, old stuff in my personal collection and related (or unrelated too) thoughts/recollections/bullshit.  Lately I have found myself in the present, checking out the latest releases from the underground and even looking to the future, anticipating upcoming releases.  Good to know that all the good tunes this world has to offer haven't been written yet.

Some random ramblings (like I used to do more frequently)...

Listening to the "Live Session With Aces International - Volume 2" featuring Yellowman and Fathead. That duo constitutes one of only a few reggae acts I listen to, a mortal transgression to some, I know. Fathead was an interesting character, shot to death in 1988 Miami, some kind of drug thing. He is pretty much just known as Yellowman's sidekick (at least in my mind), although he did release a few singles that are hard to come by. Here's one of his rare lengthy solos while backing up the King, from the record I'm listening to... Fathead-Promotion On the off chance you are a fan of Dancehall Reggae (my son admitted to me the other day that he was a fan...so nice when our musical tastes sinc up, a rare event indeed), stumbled across a killer collection of Gemini Hi Fi at Who Cork The Dance, a "mixture of reality and slackness." Just downloaded the first set from 1980, pretty killer (if that's your thing).  The site is huge, with a goldmine of recordings, again, if that is your thing. Along with the usual Mustard Relics fare, I have splintered off and started a site called Church of the Martyred Heretic. Something I've been contemplating for some time now and sort of an extension of my ongoing spiritual journey/hijinks related to being a Reverend and separately a pseudo Catholic. It will not be updated regularly like MR, as posts will be dictated by fate...random stops on my path...deep huh? Notice the newish custom made header? ...the work of a Mustard Relic of the finest sort, goes by the moniker, UnionJack (don't even know his real name), from back in my torrenting days (don't do that anymore as my ISP gave me two warnings and the third they cut off your internet for good...there is only one ISP in my little corner of NoWhere Kansas). He is the driving force behind one of the finest (actually the only one I know of) Photshop forums out there, check it out Photoshop Bus. Here's another he just did for me that I'll put up in the header soon...can you tell they're grooving to the tunes? My buddy Bjorn on his never ending quest to enlighten and educate me came up with this tasty new (to me) flavor... Metal Urbain - Anarchie au Palace Must exploe more from this cutting edge late 70's French outfit... Was joking around with my homeboy Jeff, about a tune (that I think is out of this world good, turns out he wrote it in less than an hour) he had recorded with his now defunct band Fire Demons. On Seinfeld there is this episode where a guy is wearing a cape, not the superhero kind, but the kind men used to use back in the day as part of their daily attire... Cape (from the Bad Move cdr) Cape (live @ Hell's Kitchen) ...so Jeff gives me a lesson in the songs ancestry, turns out it was originally part of his Leftoverking band/project... Cape (Leftoverking)

And lastly, some things on the horizon... A review of a killer garage/psyche band outta England called The Pale Faces and No Comment's "Live on KXLU 1992" 7", a couple a 7"s from a killer Industrial band called ICK, a Reagan Youth live 7", Unter Den Linden's "Lost Tapes", three Humboldt posts; a band from the past, Letterbomb, featuring guys from Grimace and One Man Running, a band from right here and now, Lord Ellis, featuring guys that have played in bands like Garden Weasel, The Hitch, Sake, Grimace and Dragged by Horses, and hopefully an interview with Humboldt musician, artist extraordinaire and one of the reasons I started this site, Jeff Langdon. So 6 years down and I don't know how many more to go...as they say in the meeting halls, "one day at a time." Thanx to everyone who has commented and made this ride a little more interesting (and thanx to those shy little souls who just read/listen, without sharing their thoughts, you are appreciated too).