Tag Archives: House of Freaks

Flashlite #466 – The Best Albums in 2017 (Part Two)

Best of 2017We continue our list of best albums in 2017, this time with top 14 albums. This year was full of albums that will surely stay and I will definitely keep coming back to these many times in my life. Chris Church has came up with with a power pop album that can stand next to all the classics from that disarming genre that only seems effortless on the surface. Big Hogg offered us their extremely playful version of modern day prog rock. If you think Alien Lanes are a classic record, you should definitely look into Stevens and their album Good. Similar albums with great melodies, low fi and clever segues were always in the top of my albums in the past years. Matthew Melton and his wife Doris started a new project Dream Machine and The Illusion definitely made a mark, even politically (although unwittingly). Hayley Thompson-King and her concept record about the biblical woman is truly a deep album that goes from country over garage rock and ends up in opera. Tin Foil are newcomers from Detroit with an addictive set of songs on their album without a title. Pink Tiles return with a record that definitely puts them on a map of serious bands with fun content. David Nance comes from Omaha and has created an album sounds so well crafted, as if he was putting albums for a really long time. Americans on I’ll Be Yours reach depths and territories that were only visited by House of Freaks in the past. Emmett Kelly and his Cairo Gang continue with a series of truly timeless albums with Untouchable. Harlan T. Bobo’s new album came out only a month ago, and there was not enough time to come back to it many times, but it definitely made me rearrange my playlist and put him up on the high third place. It might be his strongest yet. On the top we have Sweet Apple and Bash & Pop. There’s a lot in common to these albums. Both are genre defying and disarmingly playful works of rock’s veteran warriors who know exactly where the sources of this music is. It was a good year for rock.

01 Bash & Pop - Anything Could Happen
02 Sweet Apple - Sing The Night In Sorrow
03 Harlan T. Bobo - Hector, A History of Violence
04 The Cairo Gang - Untouchable
05 The Americans - I'll Be Yours
06 David Nance - Negative Boogie
07 The Pink Tiles - #1 Fan
08 The Stevens - Good
09 Dream Machine - The Illusion
10 Hayley Thompson-King - Psychotic Melancholia
11 Tin Foil
12 Tall Juan - Olden Goldies
13 Big Hogg - Gargoyles
14 Chris Church - Limitations of Source Tape

Chris Church – Fall Into Me;
Big Hogg – Gold and Silver;
Tall Juan – Cuida Coaches
Tin Foil – Shapes of Savannah;
Hayley Thompson-King – Teratoma;
Dream Machine – Diamond In The Rough;
The Stevens – Grandstands;
The Pink Tiles – Writer’s Block;
David Nance – Ambulance;
The Americans – Stowaway;
The Cairo Gang – Real Enough To Believe;
Harlan T. Bobo – Storied;
Sweet Apple – You Don’t Belong To Me;
Bash & Pop – Breathing Room;
Bash & Pop – Anybody Else;
Bash & Pop – Never Wanted To Know;
Sweet Apple – Everybody’s Leaving.

Flashlite #340: Vinyl Junkyard 13

GutterballThis is another one of our Vinyl Junkyard editions at the Little Lighthouse. In Vinyl Junkyard specials I play almost entire LPs that I found dirt cheap somewhere laying in some bargain bin at a record store. This time we have two more albums from the nineties. Nineties were a time where LPs were being phased out on the market in favor of CDs. Still, some important record also saw vinyl versions. Today we have the first album for Gutterball and The Fall-Outs compilation album Here I Come and other Hits. Gutterball was a supergroup consisting of Steve Wynn (ex Dream Syndicate), Bryan Harvey and Johnny Hott (from House of Freaks), Stephen McCarthy (Long Ryders) and Bob Rupe (Silos). It was formed at the moment where Wynn’s solo career was not performing so well, House of Freaks were critically acclaimed, but also failed to chart in the post Nirvana era. Long Ryders and Silos broke apart, so the quintet went into the recording studio over in Richmond with a lot of good songs and great new-found energy. The resulting album was astonishing. Fall-Outs had a string of perfect singles in the late 80s and Estrus Records put them all together in ’93 on a great compilation record.

Gutterball – Top of The Bill;
Gutterball – Trial Separation Blues;
Gutterball – Lester Young;
Gutterball – Motorcycle Boy;
Gutterball – One By One;
Gutterball – When You Make Up Your Mind;
Gutterball – Think It Over
Gutterball – Preacher And The Prostitute;
The Fall-Outs – Here I Come;
The Fall-Outs – Brothers;
The Fall-Outs – Like Me;
The Fall-Outs – I’m Going Home;
The Fall-Outs – Greed;
The Fall-Outs – Dug My Grave;
The Fall-Outs – Another Fad;
The Fall-Outs – She’s Out There;
The Fall-Outs – Bury My Body;
The Fall-Outs – Made My Bed Gonna Lie In It;
The Fall-Outs – Brainiac;
The Fall-Outs – Scarecrow;
The Fall-Outs – Our Company;
The Fall-Outs – You Just Can’t Win.