Still Flyin': Time Wrinkle EJ

Genre: Pop/Reggae
Year: 2006
Where and when purchased: Promo copy arrived in the mail, 2006
What I paid: Nothin'
Why I bought it: Well, I didn't buy it, but that's not the point. The fact that I didn't buy it is the point. It arrived in the mail, unsolicited, like so much musical flotsam and jetsam. But I listened, as I always do. At first, I didn't know what to make of Still Flyin's askew indie-pop infused with reggae and rocksteady. White indie rockers playing reggae and smoking green? A bright red flag. While my first take on their first five songs was a bit mixed (I dug their slow-as-cold-molasses appropriation of the horn riff from Outkast's "Spottieottiedopaliscious", but otherwise found frontman Sean Rawls' songwriting lacking in the precision necessary to wrangle 18 musicians -- yes, 18 -- and to focus the band's unbridled energy), I eventually warmed up to its charms and found myself anxiously anticipating their next move.
Why I still want it: As it happened, their next move, the 2007 EJ (that's extended jam -- an E.P. in Still Flylin' parlance) Za Cloud, was good. And the move after that, 2009's full-length Never Gonna Touch the Ground, was great. Rawls had provided just what I'd been yearning for: sharp, concise songwriting filtered through one of the most joyous -- and, when necessary, tight -- party bands around. I was even moved to gush about them in the pages of the East Bay Express. Their concert three days later at Cafe du Nord was one of the best shows, and easily the most fun, I've been to all year. And now that I'm a fully-fledged, card-carrying Still Flyin' fan, each of the band's three records makes frequent rotation through my CD player, even if I didn't entirely get that first one, and maybe Still Flyin' didn't either.
Favorite track: You may have thought I'd say "Coupla Smokies," the track that borrows horns from Outkast. You'd be partially right -- it was, for a long while, my favorite song from Still Flyin's debut. But I would be a total IDIOT if I said that now, because "Rope Burn," which has a rad video, is obviously the better song.

Althea & Donna: Uptown Top Ranking

Genre: Reggae
Year: 1978
Where and when purchased: Amoeba Records Berkeley, 2008
What I paid: $9.98
Why I bought it: Serendipity, I suppose. One Saturday after visiting the Grand Lake farmers market down the street from our apartment, my wife and I decided to wander over to Easy Lounge, where we'd heard the bartender whips up unique cocktails every week using ingredients from the market. True enough. We ordered our ginger- and cranberry- and whatever-infused cocktails and enjoyed them with fresh kettle corn from the market. Over it all was a soundtrack provided by a DJ who'd set up next to the bar. At one point he played an old-school roots reggae tune featuring two young (teenage, in fact) female vocalists and a great melody, and I asked him who it was. Althea & Donna was the answer -- a group I'd never heard of -- and the song, "Uptown Top Ranking," came from a Trojan Records compilation. Later that very day, I rode my bike over to Amoeba and snatched up a re-release on Virgin of the duo's one and only record.
Why I still want it: Gotta admit, "Uptown Top Ranking," is the best song on this supposedly classic reggae album. I really dig their relaxed, almost ambivalent vocals paired with such righteous and ridiculous lyrics (try "Jah Rastafari," "The West" (it's gonna perish, you know), and "If You Don't Love Jah"). But none of the vocal hooks, or backing track for that matter, which they borrowed from DeeJay Trinity's hit single "Three Piece Suit," manage to be quite as endearing. Still, the songs (musically, at least) are mostly strong, and the excellent sound and production has become a relic of a distant era in Jamaican roots reggae. It's not top-ranking, and I'd place it a bit below other favorite reggae albums from the era like the Wailing Soul's Firehouse Rock, Bob Marley's Kaya, and Slightly Stoopid's Chronicitis (just kidding).
Favorite track: I already told you. Jeez.

Various Artists: The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru

Genre: Chicha
Year: 2007
Where and when purchased: Amoeba Records Berkeley, 2008
What I paid: $12.99
Why I bought it: It was a fateful day in mid-2008 when a CD from New York's Barbès Records arrived at my desk. The band was called Chicha Libre. It was the first I'd heard of this chicha thing, and it impressed me deeply. Chicha Libre's debut, ¡Sonido Amazonico! won my heart and a few months later landed in my top ten of 2008. Soon I set out in search of more chicha -- a Peruvian blend of Colombian cumbia and American rock 'n' roll, surf, and psychedelia -- and stumbled across an earlier Barbès release, The Roots of Chicha. It features seventeen songs by original chicha bands from Peru in the late '60s (the very bands that inspired Chicha Libre). It's also a revelation. This is music that lived and died in a very short period of time in a very limited geographical area -- music that I didn't know existed and never knew to look for. Yet to miss out on it would've been something of a tragedy.
Why I still want it: It's uncommonly versatile -- you can dance to it, you can trip out to it -- it's immensely enjoyable, and it's completely legit. It's fodder for both the dance floor and ethno-musicological study. It's unique and incomparable. It's chicha, baby.
Favorite track: This changes, but for now I will commit to Los Hijos del Sol's "Linda Muñequita," a largely instrumental piece with playful call-and-response vocals, a driving, chorused guitar riff, and a circular African rhythm. Quite the musical stew.

Michael Jackson: Thriller

Genre: Pop
Year: 1982
Where and when purchased: Walden Pond Bookstore, Oakland, late 2008
What I paid: $6
Why I bought it: For God's sake, it was 2008 and I didn't own Thriller. I had Dangerous on cassette, but no Thriller. So when I walked down the street to my favorite bookstore -- which also sells used vinyl from estate sales and a defunct local record store called Ear Witness -- and found a copy of Thriller in excellent condition for only $6, I couldn't believe my luck. It must've just been stocked, because no vinyl collector in their right mind would pass it up. I sure didn't. Brought it home and it played beautifully. Beautiful.
Why I still want it: Because it's Thriller. Because it sounds amazing on my turntable (thanks Quincy...produced to a t). Because I'm watching my wife dance in her workout clothes to "Thriller" this very moment. And because with Michael gone, it feels more vital than ever.
Favorite track: Track one, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin':" that's truly startin' somethin'.

Pinback: Summer in Abaddon

Genre: Indie rock
Year: 2004
Where and when purchased: Either Amoeba or Rasputin in Berkeley, 2005
What I paid: $12.99
Why I bought it: This was another of those floodgate moments, where a song or a record or a band opens up a whole new musical world. At the time, I was volunteering in the music archive at UC Berkeley's KALX 90.7 radio station. This amounted to spending a few hours per week alphabetizing new and improperly filed CDs and vinyl. To most people on this planet, that would sound like one shitty job. To me, it was great, partially because I'm a tad anal when it comes to organizing things like music, but mostly because KALX has a massive collection and we could pull out and listen to whatever we wanted, as long as it didn't leave the premises. To this end, they provided a turntable and a discman in the music library. Anyway, I was organizing CDs one day and came across this new release by Pinback, who I'd perhaps heard of before but didn't know anything about. Curious, I popped it in the discman and kept filing. But my filing came to abrupt stop when I heard the first song, "Non-Photo Blue." It stopped me in my tracks: a sound I'd been searching for all my life without even knowing it. I bought the CD for myself the very next day.
Why I still want it: Summer in Abaddon is no longer my favorite Pinback record, but the band rapidly climbed into my top five of all time, possibly top three. I own all their records and a few rarities -- not to mention a whole bunch of Rob Crow side projects -- and, by and large, it all kicks a whole lot of ass. I can't see myself ever parting with anything they've produced. Lifetime fan, right here.
Favorite track: Gonna have to go with "Non-Photo Blue," as it will forever be tied to that special moment.

Hot Rod Circuit: If I Knew Now What I Knew Then

Genre: Indie rock
Year: 1999
Where and when purchased: Burned from a friend in 1999
What I paid: Not a dime
Why I bought it: Frankly, I have no recollection of how I first came across this album or this band. I didn't have any of their other records, and still don't, nor did I seek them out in the first place. I believe a high school friend passed along a burned copy of the record shortly before graduation, simply because she thought I'd like them. She was right.
Why I still want it: Along with Sunny Day Real Estate, this band introduced me to emo -- though not in so many words. More accurately, it introduced me to rock that did more than just rock: it carried emotional weight that transcended and superseded angst (the stock-in-trade of my favorite band at the time, Smashing Pumpkins), and, more importantly, its song structures and rhythmic properties, however subtly, drew from outside the rock 'n' roll canon. Hot Rod Circuit's use of driving, repeated rhythms and circular patterns linked them with SDRE (in my mind at least) and taught me that I could get lost in rock the same way others got lost in jazz, electronica, and many Eastern and African styles. I've since learned to cherish those styles as well, but at the time it was all I had. And for that, it'll always have a special spot in my collection.
Favorite track: "Medicated Lungs," a four-minute and forty-second song that can feel like an eternity -- in a good way -- if you time it right.

The Bouncing Souls: The Bouncing Souls

Genre: Punk
Year: 1997
Where and when purchased: Rasputin Records Concord, 1998
What I paid: maybe $11.99?
Why I bought it: There are many things I recall fondly about high school -- wandering off campus for lunch to harass local shop owners, being shat on by a seagull early in Freshman year, being awkward and innocent in general, learning to drive, meeting my future wife -- but one I especially cherish was ditching track practice with my buddies Evan and Pat. We'd often drive around in Pat's silver Subaru GL (we assumed it stood for "goat licker") listening to punk rock bands like the Germs, Wizo, and the Bouncing Souls. The Souls were my personal favorite, and they penned what became one of our trio's most memorable lines: "They ate all the Yoo-Hoo." Out of context it makes no sense, but basically "Shark Attack" was a song about how the Bouncing Souls trashed someone's pad and "ate [note: NOT "drank"] all the Yoo-Hoo." For some reason we just loved that.
Why I still want it: "Shark Attack" happens to be the closing song, but the entire record defines the better points of my high school experience. It summons nothing but warm feelings of suburban rebellion and a care-free youth (of course it wasn't actually care-free, but in retrospect, why not?). During junior year, that future wife and I even bonded over this record.
Favorite track: "Say Anything," because it epitomizes their style at its best and delivered another line that always rung inside my head: "I wish I could say / That I have no regrets today." I'm pretty sure I had no regrets at that time in my life, but somehow the idea was alluring. It also opened with this teenage classic: "I get so nervous and I lose my cool / Every time I pick up the phone and try to call you" -- again, future wife territory.