Countdown to Nirvana, Part 1: DGC Records is scheduled to release Nirvana`s ”Throw-Aways,” a collection of B-sides and rare and previously unreleased tracks, on Dec. 15. Covering 1988 through 1991, the album will include songs from the band`s days with the indie Sub Pop label as well as former import material.
– Countdown to Nirvana, Part 2: There could be one more Nirvana track on the market at the start of the new year-the band`s scorching version of the Wipers` ”Return of the Rat.” The song originally was part of a boxed-singles set titled ”Eight Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers” that was released last August by T/K Records, and it`s slated to turn up again on a CD version of that project being readied for early-January release by T/K, an indie based in Portland, Ore.
The original ”Eight Songs” set contained versions of Sage/Wipers numbers by Nirvana, Hole, Napalm Beach, M99, the Dharma Bums, Poison Idea, Crackerbash and the Whirlees. The CD is scheduled to contain added tracks by Mudhoney, Sonic Youth`s Thurston Moore and various bands from the Seattle, Portland and Washington, D.C. areas.
– Among the latest releases from SOL, the singles-only label started in part by Bob Mould, is ”UFO`s, Big Rigs and BBQ,” an outing by Mojo Nixon and the World Famous Blue Jays that rocks a lot harder than many other Nixon numbers as it draws parallels between the dining preferences of truck drivers and space aliens.
The flip side is a cover of Roger Miller`s ”Chug-a-Lug.” SOL`s recent releases also include ex-dB Will Rigby`s ”Dave”/”The Room`s Still Spinnin`.”
If you encounter it, an earlier SOL single worth a listen is ”Red M& M`s”/”We Won`t Give `Em Sex,” by Bianca Bob Miller and Flystrip.
”Red M&M`s,” which was also available on a late-`80s Miller tape, pines for gone-but-not-forgotten (though sometimes hazardous) cultural bric-a-brac, while the flip side revives an ancient idea for peace-making. Both show the clever, gentle, sly humor that should have earned Miller a bounteous record contract long ago.
– For those who like their songs gleefully shredded rather than played, Rhino Records has released ”Spike Jones and His City Slickers: The Radio Years Vols. 1 and 2,” two separate CDs of late-`40s radio shows that featured Jones and his band.
Besides committing mayhem on a handful of tunes, the City Slickers, their leader and celebrity guests perform skits in which Boris Karloff portrays a mad doctor, Peter Lorre portrays a madder doctor, Lassie yaps through an operatic duet and Frank Sinatra horses around with sound effects while Jones sings.
– Pennsylvania-based Video Music Inc. is now distributing ”Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers-Dead or Alive” in the States. The 45-minute British videotape of Heartbreakers performances draws mostly from a show at London`s Lyceum Ballroom in March 1984.
Among the songs included are ”Too Much Junkie Business” and ”So Alone” (during which guitarist/vocalist Thunders delivers a marginally coherent monologue about being sexually assaulted in Manhattan-while a bandmate openly makes facial expressions of disbelief in the background).
– Just in time for the holiday gift-giving season, HarperPerennial will publish ”Marky Mark,” a softcover, photos-and-text-blocks salute to the platinum-selling rapper.
Showcasing photographer Lynn Goldsmith`s shots of Marky Mark, his family
(including brother Donnie Wahlberg) and the Funky Bunch, the $15 book is due out Dec. 1 and will bear a sticker warning that material inside may be offensive to some readers. The sticker refers to some graphic language in the text blocks.
