Last Days of May "Sand, Sea and Space"

Last Days of May Last Days of May CD (No-Fi Records, 1997)

When I was in Charlottesville, VA ten years ago, where I'd lived ten years previous to then, my friend Tom Howard gave me a copy of the newest CD, Radiant Black Mind, by his new (since I'd left town) instrumental trio, Last Days of May. I forget how they met, but LDoM was Tom, Jim Ralston, formerly of (DR.) GöTLöD (whom I featured back in September), and Karl Precoda, formerly one half of the original guitar team of Los Angeles psychedelic rockers The Dream Syndicate! Today's song is from their eponymous debut album, released three years prior. Two more albums followed, Inner System Blues and The First 7 Billion Miles, released under the name LDOM. I've not heard of anything further since, unfortunately.

The Barry Sisters "Roumania"

The Barry Sisters Sing LP (Cadence Records, 1954)

Claire and Merna, FTW!

Sativa Luv Box "Groovy Kurtain"

Sativa Luv Box
The Bad Sleep Well
LP
(Splat-Co Records, 1989)

Wayyyyy back in the '80s, Patrick Mata led the band Kommunity FK, who played a mix of punk, industrial and proto-goth. Their debut album, The Vision And The Voice, is an absolute classic in my book. The follow-up, 1985's Close One Sad Eye, was good, but they'd eased up on the punk end a bit too much, in my opinion. After that, they split.

In 2003, Mata re-emerged with a new band called Sativa Luvbox and an album called Beloved Satellite. What I heard sounded OK but nowhere near as quality as KFK. I mentioned that on a message board and a buddy of mine contacted me and told me it was actually their second album, and, just like with KFK, the first was better. Today's tune is from that first album, which was released only on vinyl and took me a couple of years to find, probably because the band name was slightly different: Sativa Luv Box. It's the most straight up, hard rocking thing Mata has done, and I like it quite a bit. Three of the ten songs were redone for the 2003 CD, but the originals rock harder.

---

NOTE: Mata restarted Kommunity FK a few years back, and their long-awaited album, La Santisima Muerte, finally came out this year. 'Tis a fine album, too.

Talk Engine "Dream Me Coupled"

Talk Engine Talk Engine CD (Engineous Productions, 2005)

Another free bin snatch, and an odd one, at that. The band name is quite appropriate, as the album is primarily blues rock with spoken word vocals rather than singing ones. It works, though! Vocalist Jackie Sheeler is an award winning poet, and she writes some pretty powerful stuff, based on this CD. Patti Smith started the same way, I believe: poet then band leader. Not that Talk Engine sound anything like Patti. Before I forget, guitarist Landru von Dige is, to use the vernacular, shit hot.

Half Japanese "1,000,000 Kisses"

Half Japanese Charmed Life CD (50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts Records, 1988)

As mentioned in yesterday's post, here's the follow-up to yesterday's jukebox selection. Enjoy!