I realized recently that I chose the 'Notorious' and 'Big Thing' reissues as two of the best reissues of 2011, an honor I also gave them in 2010, the year they actually came out. Whoops.
So, in their place I nominate The Frogs - and, let's be honest, had I known about this before the end of 2011 they certainly would have been on the list in the first place. Five of their home made tapes have been released on iTunes - welcome back to print, 'Made-Up Cassette (A)' and 'Made-Up Cassette (B)', along with 'Made-Up Reels 1,6' 'Made-Up Reels 6,8' and 'Death Songs'. (I previously only had the last one so this is pretty exciting.)
I remember back around 2000 or 2001 they made a whole slew of these things available on CD through their website and at shows. I bought 'Death Songs' and 'CBGayB' from them at a show and always meant to get more - OK, the rest - but never got around to it, and then all of a sudden they were gone. Here's a start to fixing that, let's hope we get more.
In even more exciting Frogs news, their MySpace (!!) has been updated to note that there are not one, but TWO new albums coming out on Valentine's Day. 'Count Yer Blessingsz' and 'Squirrel Bunny Jupiter Deluxe' are less than a month away! They appear to be iTunes only for now, but maybe more later.
(In a bit of unintentional humor, the band are tagged as "Singer/Songwriter" on iTunes - which isn't wrong, I suppose - so when you buy one of these from the site you may get a Ping recommendation of, say, 'The Best of Simon & Garfunkel'. [See above.] Hilarity ensues.)
I was listening to my radio channel on Last.fm while driving around today and it started out promising with Kaiser Chiefs' "Modern Way" and then a track off the Gotye record. All of a sudden something from 'Biophilia' started - how'd that get there? - but before I could get to the fast forward and/or ban button, the stream froze and started to re-buffer. Instead of going back to the monstrosity already in progress, Roxy Music's "Remake/Remodel" started.
