Friday, June 13, 2008

Beer. Beach. Bike. Blogging?

It's summer (fucking) vacation!!! For the last five years I have opted to teach the toughest age group of all: 8th graders (that's 13 and 14 year-olds in case your country has a different grade system). Every summer break is more of a necessary period of recuperation than a vacation. It's a time to undo the knots and smooth out the psychological kinks that twist up inside us from six hours a day (and 180 days) dealing with hormonally charged wrecks (who can be downright mean at times!). I'm gonna miss them. But that doesn't mean I'm not REALLY glad it's over!

So with all this time on my hands, that means more frequent posts, right? Not necessarily. With the lack of comments and the sun blaring bright outside, I don't think my motivation will increase too much. Who knows... it may vary from week to week...

But the first post of this season of fun is from a band that I associate with fun too: Operation Ivy. I used to consider them a "guilty pleasure," but after so many years of OPIV listening and skanking joy, I can fully admit that I love this band! The " '69 Newport" EP is an early sampling of Operation Ivy's uniquely great brand of ska-punk that has won over thousands of punks of many persuasions over the years (their battle cry of "unity" seems to have worked!). These two tracks ("Hedgecore" and "Left Behind") have been compiled on some OPIV collections in the past, but in case you haven't heard them, here are some rips from one of the original Very Small Records pressings.

Link has been removed. I believe Epitaph has just released a CD with these tracks included.

Back Cover

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy summer vacation mr. guano. great post to start that off right. Sorry I don't comment more often here, life is just too full sometimes between my blog and everything else. Once again nice post and thank you.

Batguano said...

When I start bitchin' about the dearth of comments, I'm certainly NOT directing the rant toward you, Justin. You and a few others out there are always great about commenting... you set a very "classy" example. Thanks, dude.

javier said...

i'm starting to think we may own a very similar record collection... what's next, plea for peace??? oh no no... it's the week of splits so: false sacrament/schlong??? los crudos/spitboy??? 23 more minutes/logical nonsense??? mk ultra/seeing red??? gasp/suffering luna??? rorschach/1.6 band??? econochrist/detonators???
hehehhe... luv your blog man...

Batguano said...

I have, like, all but two of those recs! Although it wasn't in the "plan" to post any of them this week, you have given me some ideas for next week (or maybe there should be a change in plans...? hmmm.)

javier said...

let me guess... 23 more minutes/logical nonsense and gasp/suffering luna...
let me see if i can find a way to rip from vinyl. i'd love to help...

Batguano said...

Actually, it would be the 23 More Minutes/Logical Nonsense, and the False Sacrament/Schlong splits. It's cool hearing about their existence for the first time! If you do find the time to rip them, that would be great. My vinyl ripping setup is pretty basic. If you can find a way to string RCA cables from your stereo amp to your sound card (you may be able to use your computer's mic jack, but I don't know...), the rest is easy (you can get a little doo-hickey that converts the RCA signal into a headphone plug at the RadioShack for like 3 bucks). Then just download free Audacity software for recording, tagging,and editing purposes...

For further reading...

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CD

Okay, until next time...