Public Record

In 1977, The Kinks recorded one of the best and nastiest Christmas songs ever, in which a mall Santa gets shouted down and whooped by kids who need much more than presents. On the latest episode of the 7" showcase series The Spindle, Marc and John dig into "Father Christmas" b/w "Prince of the Punks," and John gives us a Kinks primer to boot! 

Your guy Decoy Deloy is back with WASTOIDS Music News! As always, we’re brought to you by Hello Merch and this week we’re saying, “Hey, how are you” to Limbeck. Founded 25 years ago in California, the band crossed pop punk sensibilities with rootsy alt-country.

Limbeck recently dropped a brand new set of songs, “Kooks (Is What We Are)” b/w “Here Me For Free.” Don’t go looking for the songs on your streaming apps—you can only hear these via a limited edition hand numbered, orange flexi disc—limited to only 250 copies:

In other news: A new TV show based on the music of Rancid‬ is in the works; new music  Freckle, a duo of Ty Segall and Corey Madden of Color Green; and Sunny War, who shares a new song with Steve Ignorant of Crass.  And to close, according to a new deep dive from the online site Music Radar, more music is released in a single day in 2024 than the entire year of 1989. Is that too much music? 

Did you know that possibly the most famous Ramones song didn't even come out as a single at first? On the episode, John and Marc drop the needle on their classic "I Wanna Be Sedated" b/w "The Return of Jackie and Judy," released not to promote the 1978 album Road to Ruin but rather the obscure 1980 movie Times Square. 

Check out why it's great and why the Ramones are great (duh) on this episode of the Spindle. 

On Friday, December 6th, WASTOIDS is hosting our first-ever movie screening at Hello Lincoln—our HQ and also home to Hello Merch & Hello Screenprinting. We’re beyond excited to screen the first Phoenix showing of Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story. 

Directed by Andrew Reich, the film tells the story of brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald, who founded Redd Kross as teenagers in the Southern California of the 1970s. Directed by Andrew Reich, this documentary makes the case that RK is the seminal West Coast band of the last half century, a “secret handshake” exchanged between punk, college rock, grunge, glam, power pop, metal, and indie rock fans.

Packed with archival footage, interviews with the McDonalds, and thoughts and stories from members of Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, The Bangles, Dinosaur Jr, The Go-Go’s, Soundgarden, Black Flag, and many more, the movie shows why people like Thurston Moore called Redd Kross "one of the most important bands in America." 

Come hang out with us to close out the year of Redd Kross, 2024, which has also seen a brand new self-titled Redd Kross album—you can get your copy from In the Red Records—and Now You're One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross, a book written with Dan Epstein. Come hang out and eat popcorn with us.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE 

To get your ready for the show, you’re about to hear a talk we taped August 11th at the Valley Bar. It’s WASTOIDS chief Sam Means in conversation with both Jeff and Steve—covering not only the band’s history, takes on the hardcore scene, and Steve’s work with Sam’s band, The Format—but also, the saga of Tater Totz, the McDonalds’ strange Beatles tribute. 

Decoy's back with all the Music News you need heading into the weekend. We're brought to you by Hello Merch. And at Hello, we’re always wondering: how can we keep getting better? It’s important to try new things and not get stuck in the same old patterns. And that’s why we were psyched to see the pre-order for K. Flay's new EP, I’m Making Friends With the Silence. The new project reimagines songs from her 2023 album MONO, taking the rock sounds of that project and shifting them into a lower gear. 

Plus: Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia can read to you via new AI tech; Gina Birch covers Yoko Ono; Angel Olsen announces "Cosmic Waves Vol. 1"; and we review King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard at Arizona Financial Theater. 

It's been a rough couple weeks for everyone, but DEVO are bringing some extraterrestrial cheer early with a holiday drop at Hello Merch.

Plus: We're going to see King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard this weekend, The Dismemberment Plan's Emergency and I turns 25, and WASTOIDS is screening Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story at Hello Lincoln December 6, at 7 PM. Get details and tickets. 

Everyone's got opinions on Steely Dan, so Marc and John are finally sharing theirs—and they don't agree! They've also each got some oddly personal ties to the Dan's 1973 7-inch "My Old School" b/w "Pearl of the Quarter." Drop the needle on this episode and find out who's in and who's out on the latest episode of the Spindle.

Decoy is back with WASTOIDS Music News, where he drops a heap of music stories on you. We're brought to you by Hello Merch, which allows bands to make whatever merch they can dream up—like deathdrinks, a cocktail recipe book companion to Survival Guide's 2023 Double Helix Records album deathdreams. With deathdrinks, she concocted a distinct beverage for each song on the album, ranging from simple stirred, tiki and dessert drinks, to blended fare and mocktails. It’s up for pre-order now, along with gear and music.

Plus, new music from Northwest Indiana’s Cloakroom—think The Cure meets My Bloody Valentine; tour news from Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly’s indie rock supergroup The Hard Quartet and noise rockers A Place to Bury Strangers and a look at the metal core true crime saga of ‪As I Lay Dying! 

Previous Industries is an indie rap trio featuring Chicagoans Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave, and STILL RIFT.  Their debut Service Merchandise (Merge Records) pairs sly and hilariously heartbreaking musings with laidback beats by Child Actor, Quelle Chris, and Smoke Bonito. The writer George Saunders once said, “Nostalgia is, ‘Hey remember the other mall that used to be there?’” Service Merchandise plays like a time-bending, esoteric sci-fi expansion on that quote, utilizing “dead malls” as a metaphorical lens. 

In this WASTOIDS session, they answer calls from the Hotline, addressing—and in no way ducking—calls about batteries, White Hen Pantry, and their fashion style. Tune into HOTLINE: Previous Industries Is Not Ducking to get with it.

You know the Sex Pistols for their album Never Mind the Bollocks..., but the subsequent soundtrack to their 1978 film The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle was just as good! Marc and John dig into a 7-inch from that album, "No One is Innocent" b/w "My Way," exploring how the Pistols flew to Brazil to record the A-side with a fugitive, and how Sid Vicious turned a corny standard into something crazy on the flip.