Big Nothing Music Recs: 02/21/22
Bryce remembers a Portland punk icon, Brian goes bootleg on Tweedy
Brian and his wife and their kiddo came over to our house for lunch today and brought over Master Kong which is a phenomenal Chinese dumpling house in our neighborhood. In some ways, even though we’ve been in each other’s “bubble” for most of the pandemic, it feels like things are more and more returning to normal. What’s that feeling? Is it hope? Or am I just full of xiaolongbao and handmade noodles? Who can say?
PS. If you want to contribute or just have a song you think we should hear, give us a shout at bignothingradio@gmail.com
Bryce:
Alien Boy - The Wipers
Sam Henry, founding drummer of the Wipers and Portland punk legend, passed away this weekend. I met him on my first visit to Portland in the mid 00s and in my memory he was as gracious and understated as his drumming was loud and ferocious. He only played on one Wipers record, but set the stage for pretty much every classic Portland band that came after. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Brian:
Via Chicago - Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy's (of Wilco and Uncle Tupelo fame) solo acoustic stuff was super important to me in my early college years. There's an honesty and a simplicity to it that's irresistible to me, and it lets his songwriting shine in a way that the Wilco stuff doesn't always. He and the band are "taper-friendly", so there are a lot of bootlegs out there, and some of my earliest grailed Napster downloads were Wilco/Jeff Tweedy bootlegs, including the incredible Yankee Hotel Foxtrot B-Sides. There are some incredible solo JT show tapes out there, but this song is from the first official release of this stuff, and it's just a treat.
Bonus: Thinking about meeting Sam Henry got me on the track of old punks about town which led me to remembering seeing Bob Murderer at the bar in Minneapolis all the time. If you like your punk crusty and raw, the Murderers did it better than most. Bob died a few years back but I found this late-80s demo on YouTube. Stay punk.
That’s it for today. Thanks for listening.