20130218

Bronzspondi, Twin Sister, Portland's 90's underground, & Bandcamp

I published my Top 50 albums of the 1990's last week, and it's been a popular post. One of the comments I got today mentioned the Bronzspondi compilation, and how it was relevant to my list.

I had to Google "Bronzspondi", as it seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. The search quickly led me to this page, which has the entire Bronzspondi compilation streaming or you can download all 14 songs for 99 cents. I think maybe I owned this comp at some point, but it has been 15 years since I have seen or heard it.



Not only is the Bronzspondi compilation online, that Bandcamp page has dozens of obscure releases from the 1990's Portland underground scene. The tracks most intriguing to me are from Twin Sister, and the entire Twin Sister album (which I couldn't even find myself in the 90's) is also streaming or downloadable for 99 cents (and I am about to buy it):


As you can see, Twin Sister is a Star Wars band. Not only are all the lyrics inspired by Star Wars, the band members (many of whom were also in Sometime Sunday) dressed as Star Wars characters for every show.

I was fortunate enough to see Twin Sister in concert twice in 1996, once at the Crush Warehouse in Birmingham, and once at the Ace of Clubs in Nashville. The Ace of Clubs show is notable because that same night at the same location I saw Poor Old Lu, Mortal, Seven Day Jesus, Dimestore Prophets, PlankEye and Black Eyed Sceva. I took pictures of this show but the quality is pretty poor (someday I'll scan them anyway).

On this same Bandcamp page you can listen to or download a ton of music that only previously was available on cassette. Bands include Sometime Sunday, the Clergy, Pep Squad, The Five O'Clock People, and another compilation called Songs from the Rain Factory that has songs from Poor Old Lu, Don't Know, and others. The Sometime Sunday demo cassette is essential if you are familiar with that band.

Lastly, let me just say that Bandcamp is tremendous. I am having trouble keeping track of all the great old stuff I am finding on there. Just this week I found that Michael Knott and his band L.S.Underground has much of their back catalog up. Then of course there was that amazing Kerith Ravine find a couple weeks ago.