Judo for the Blind

I am more excited about some music tonight than I have been in a long time. For several years I have been hoping to get my hands of listenable versions of some out of print albums put out by Alternative Tentacles.

In the mid-90s, I had a sometimes housemate named T. in both Detroit and Denver. T. was an interesting guy in many ways. I never had any idea what was going on in his head and his only answer (ever) to the question "What do you want to do?" was "A hitter." And yet we had a lot of fun times and, from that phase of my life, he is almost the only friend of whom I have pure good memories.

One of the long lasting results of knowing T. is my love of the band Tragic Mulatto. He had homemade cassette tapes of both Chartreuse Toulouse and Hot Man Pussy and, when he was laid up for weeks and weeks on end at his dad's house recovering from blood clots in his legs, I ordered him "official" copies of the entire Tragic Mulatto catalog. A decade ago, Alternative Tentacles still had the albums and cassettes in stock. But they've never made a CD and I haven't found digital files either. So I have been living without "Scabs on Lori's Arms," "Debbie," "Stinking Corpse Lily," "Man with a Tan," "Hardcore Bigot Scum Get Stabbed" and "She's a Ho." Not to mention a great cover of Slade's "I Don't Mind." The cover of "Whole Lotta Love" is great for about 2.5 out of the 6 minutes. I don't love woman screeches though or meandering punk rock instrumental so the rest of it bugs me.

I was thinking about my friend T. today (he had long, flowing, blonde hair like David Lee Roth and used to use that Mane and Tale conditioner on it)and decided to check again for some online Tragic Mulatto. Success! Someone named Egnu Cledge has a blog called Victorian Squid and uses it to talk about and share music instead of blab on about jumpsuits.

Thank you Mr. Cledge, you made my night.