Category: High Fidelity Castro’s Personal Music Blog: “The Record Keeper”

SYKE!

– mgmt.

Quick note: I know I said on air that I would drop dead before listening to anything by Bebe Qissis but my 2nd cousin Maia is 11 and she likes dancing to Dance Crazy (Just For Me Boi). So….that happened. It’s still bad and terrible but  11 year olds dig that shit. I’ma have to steal her from my auntie and send her to music High Fidelity Castro bootcamp but I’ll wait until she’s outta pigtails. Okay, onto the actual music newzzzz….

Top 5 Worst Tribute Albums of the Year. Reverse order as usual, punks!

5. Grover and Grover. Seriously, guys? Grover covered their OWN debut album. It’s listenable I guess but I’m not sure that society actually benefited from this. Way to go, selling more albums, jerkwads.

4. Applecore Delilah Marquette is an okay singer song writer but her new album is preeeeeeetty bad. It’s all covers of Fiona Apple songs (one of Marquette’s biggest influences) but reworked into emopunk ballads of epic lameness. Delilah needs to just commit to her cute-as-a-button routine. This was embarrassing.

3. Finger Puppets didn’t cover a whole album. They just did a tribute to Visions of You by Labor District. Still awful enough to make this list. Sorry guys but tambourines have a time and a place.

2. Jeannie Monster. Popstar Jeannie (or as I like to call her, Pop Store Jeannie) is a bore-tastic mainstream slutstream and it hurts to hear her slur all over legendary Gaga’s discopop hits from the early 00s. Lady G’s contemporaries thought  she was a whoretastic bitch but listening to Jeannie’s version is like re-inventing the vomit wheel.

(And for real, everyone needed to stop doing covers of Gagas after Lilo & Bitch made Ro-Ma-Ma the master remix of the century in 2029. I never get tired of plugging this even though it’s ancient news.)

and the number 1 worst Tribute album of the year goes to….

1. Bacon Mozzarella’s tribute to Hyacinth. Hyacinth was way underground until the late 2030s before they BLEW THE FUCK UP and rapidly redefined the jazzy drops on metallic hip hop. But Bacon Mozzarella’s cover is just 8 shitty cottail tracks. Nothing added to the original songs, just a jacked noise experiment.  I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a good noise cover but these guys didn’t do it. And they kind of made it worse by tributing one of the best bands of the past 25 years. F is for Failure.

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

If you’re feeling skintight hit a backslash on our UPIX. Best pix gets prizes, either: Tix to see HamGlam on their Cookin’ Up tour or a Trufist swag package (includes entire discography and discontinued shirts from ’15). Ring the bell, bitches.

My review today is for Baby Grave’s newest album Graven Images, featuring their hit single Chiara’s Tiaras. Baby Grave got together in the early 00s and they’ve always had a trancewave 80s dykerock sound. Their first album Dig It was sort of like The Knife meets Gretchen Animal. But Graven Images is like they dialed down all the candy and just went straight for the crunch. That or someone spiked my vein with rollos while I was listening to it. THIS IS GOOD SHIT, PEOPLE.

All in all, an amazing triumph over their second album Baby Gravy which strayed a little too pop-punk for my taste. Graven Images gets a Grade: A

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

Word bombs to the hip hoppers! Have you guys heard this crazy shit about Dim Son?

Hip hop artist Dim Son  has had his face permanently blurred  and voice distorted through surgery. He says it’s to get “the ultimate usage out of his beatboxing” and to further his reputation for being “one hardcore mother fucker.”  — Scuzz Feed

Can you believe this! I expect a bunch of K-Rappers will follow this in typical poser style. I cannot WAIT to hear his new album with this new crazy voice. Though you gotta wonder if his supermodel girlfriend is going to be pissed that he blurred out his face? And we all thought Lady Gaga’s evil-eye in her palm was wack!

Dim Son Bio (in case you’re just tuning in!): Originally from Ganzhou in the Jiangxi Province, Dim Son is probably the tightest XipXopper and Showa’ Chang (slang for Shuochang) scene. Dim Son has been charting ever since the release of his debut album Home Away from Home in 2018. Since then he’s released, an album every year: Chinatown World (2019), Communisn’t (2020), Autumn Leaflets (2021), and his two singles and Manufaxxored and Bamboo Shoots Bamboo Shots each went Gold-Platinum. He even started a new label called The Lab’s Rats that styles itself as even more hardcore, underground version of The Lab label, which currently dominates the alternative scene in China.

 

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

Quick side note: I have finally set a Google alert so that the next time Boban Markovic is trending on Twitter, I will be ready.  No more of this coattails bullshit.

Okay so, starting at the bottom, top five most influential punk-ska albums from 1991-2000.

No. 5) Macia Marcia Marcia’s self-titled debut album released February ’96 by SkaFreak. In the end, these guys did not deliver on their second album but they were definitely the first on the punk-ska scene to introduce tinny&squeak tonalities for trumpet duos. Major points for innovation. Also, an awesome drum line.

No. 4) Bennington Beach Holiday Inn is still, as far as I know, the only punk-ska band to have members from four countries. Dennis Hilks from London, Monique Viscont of southern France and Murrian Dortch from Frankfurt Germany (though, technically he is Scottish). The only American in the band is Bernice Rasher. They all live together at B. Rasher’s house somewhere in upstate New York. Anyway, the band is mentionable for having palpably strong jazz influences, French lyrics, and some of the most fashion-forward album covers imaginable. They broke up in 2002 but released all of their recording sessions from 1992-95 on a single download album called Mister Meister which is no longer available. Check mix CD bargain bins for this gem.

No. 3) Christian Nutrition and the Edible Loaves had released two really solid albums before the release of their triptych single Mary’s Got Long Nails in 2000 under the aegis of legendary label ZiProkMarketplace. It featured a complete overhaul of their instrumentation from gold standard punk-ska to the inventiveness of gospel punk logging.

No. 2)  Viven los Bincos!  dominates the niche genre with outstanding bass riffs, an unbeatable lyricist in Kenny Lagorring. Without a doubt, Jeremy Hills is the best trombonist to come out of the 90s ska scene. On the track Trombotini his shredding is unreal.

No. 1) BoosterMeat kills it at number one. Bo Hendrix. Need I say more?

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.