#Bux

[nordicsublime]

Box hedge

[vinylspinning]

Mariah: Mariah (1975)

The unwieldy size of my record collection and the rising cost of vinyl have made it harder to take calculated risks on musical discovery, so I'll be dialing down my VinylSpinning posts from 18 to 12-per-month in 2025, after cutting back from 24 to 18 in 2023.

Please try to control your delirious cheers ...

But my endless search for the lost treasures of '70s hard rock and metal continues (not least because these LPs are often bargains), and this year's first candidate for rediscovery and reappraisal is Chicago's oddly named (well, not during the Holiday Season, I guess), Mariah.

Their inexpensively packaged (is that a twin-neck butterfly guitar?) eponymous debut arrived in 1975, but singer V.J. Comforte had been rocking Windy City clubs since at least 1967, as frontman for the even more obscure Jamestown Massacre.

But when Mariah was taking their shot, some 50 years ago, music was changing fast, and the rough-edged heavy metal and adventurous progressive rock that characterized the early '70s were giving way to a more polished and melodic sound that would soon become late '70s AOR.

So, in Mariah, Comforte surrounded himself with younger players armed with both the instrumental chops and rich vocal harmonies that were taking over radio, including keyboardist Mark Ayers, bassist Ed Burek, drummer Wayne DiVarko, and guitarists Len Fogerty and Frankie Sullivan.

Yes, the same Frankie Sullivan who would later lead Survivor of "Eye of the Tiger" fame ... see where this is going?

If not, I'll clarify that typical Mariah songs like "Hey Mama" (*) "Mystic Lady," and "I Was Born" would feel right at home on a late '70s Styx or REO Speedwagon LP, while the driving "Feel It" is almost uncomfortably similar to Painter's 1973 gem "Slave Driver."

("Who the fuck is Painter? Well I covered them here a decade ago.)

Moving on, the extensively named "Broadway (How You Gonna Keep 'em Down On Broadway After They've Seen the Farm?)," jams a dozen styles together and yet, somehow, it works, helped by a welcome dose of humor.

Finally, more complex, organ-enhanced numbers like "Reunion" and "Nomad Man" see Mariah edging closer to prog, while "Asleep at the Wheel" swerves towards southern boogie, and the cheesy "Rock and Roll Band" sounds like a poor precursor to Boston's far-superior attempt one year later.

And the Boston reference is certainly relevant here, because it was precisely that ubiquitous group's watershed, mega-platinum-selling debut that would rewrite expectations and raise the bar for commercial melodic hard rock for the duration of the '70s.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if countless bands, when faced with the daunting prospect of competing against Tom Scholz's meticulous hard rock symphonies, simply threw their hands up, their instruments down, and decided there were easier ways to make a living ... say, like selling insurance.

And maybe that's what happened to some of Mariah's players, but not Sullivan, who evidently picked up Boston's AOR gauntlet and formed Survivor with multi-instrumentalist Jim Peterik, who coincidentally wrote almost half of the songs on this LP!

Needless to say, learning about these incestuous musician relationships and their intersecting career paths (see last year's Target, which yielded future Survivor singer Jimi Jamison) is another reason for my fascination with rock's lesser lights and also-rans.

We already know more than enough about the superstars ...

* Trivia time: this is a cover of a song co-written by original Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper for his band Fandango --not to be confused with Joe Lynn Turner's American band by the same name.

More Obscure Mid ‘70s Hard Rock: Armageddon’s Armageddon, Baker Gurvitz Army’s Elysian Encounter, Bedlam’s Bedlam, Black Sheep’s Black Sheep, Black Spirit’s Black Spirit, Blackfoot’s No Reservations, Blackfoot Sue’s Nothing to Hide, Bloontz’s Bloontz,  Blue Goose’s Blue Goose, Bux’s We Come to Play, Brownsville Station’s Motor City Connection, Cain’s A Pound of Flesh, Diamond Reo’s Diamond Reo, Dirty Tricks’ Dirty Tricks, Earth Quake’s Rocking the World, Elf’s Trying to Burn the Sun, Epitaph’s Outside the Law, Gedō’s Gedō, Goliath’s Hot Rock & Thunder, ...

Even more Obscure Mid '70s Hard Rock: Good Rats’ Ratcity in Blue, Granicus’ Granicus, Granmax’s A Ninth Alive, Growl's Growl, Hammersmith’s Hammersmith, Hustler’s High Street, Legs Diamonds’ Legs Diamond, Max Webster’s Max Webster, Mother’s Finest’s Mother’s Finest, Moxy’s Moxy, Murasaki’s Murasaki, Nitzinger’s Live Better Electrically, Nutz’s Nutz, Painter’s Painter, Pentagram’s First Daze Here, Piper’s Piper, Plus’ No Pisar el Infinito, Primevil’s Smokin’ Bats at Campton’s, Silver's Children of the Lord, Starz’s Starz, Stepson’s Stepson, The Storm’s The Storm, Strider’s Exposed, Strife’s Rush, Tiger’s Tiger, Trooper's Trooper, Truth and Janey’s No Rest for the Wicked, Widowmaker’s Widowmaker.

[necessarilyunprecedented]

I am procrastinating severely. Here's some recent photos I took. My bruise is a badge of honor from one direction dance party night.

[britishhiphop]

Slippy Skills X Akme Beats ft. Rev, Slippery Thrashmouf, Rumble (Eche) and Dubplate Bass - Bux [Video]

Last year Slippy Skills and Akme Beats dropped their dope album ‘Deafth Spazio Randagio‘. Bux is taken from that release and is the posse cut which features Rev, Slippery Thrashmouf and Rumble (Eche) alongside Slippy. Be on the lookout for Deafth Spazio Randagio Part#2 coming soon. Produced by: Akme BeatsCuts by: Dubplate BassVideo by: Slippy Skills Slippy…

[mossy-paws]

they’ve been cooked…. (PHIGHTING!)

Yea Twitter really liked these ones lmao, anyways the first one was for a trend and the second one is just a silly follow up to it LMAO

[chillgamesh-the-swing]

calling up the irs like actually rfk said I don't owe those taxes cause I'm autistic. take it up with him

[phightingheadcanons]

err... From the in game dialogue i feel like flipside really likes chaos in the phights

Dom literally recharges phinishers and valk heals you and gives you 100% haste, and knocks u away from the center

so i think if they find a phight is boring or there's not enough action they'll force it with the boosts

and i find it really funny that since these complimentary coloured nepo babies can't fight for themselves and experience the action they watch it from their little tower while people get knocked out during the last one minute of the phight

-err... anon

The rich finding entertainment in the those below them partaking in blood sports per usual </3

[san-hun-po]

The most cool, awesome, sweet, and talented @power-chords sent me this cute card and The Who zine....... I HAVE NO WORDS!!!

[captainpirateface]

Sometimes nothing seems better than grief.

In The NeverEnding Story (1984) the first thing we learn about Bastian is that his mother's died and he's trying to escape. From his father, from his school and from the real world that has erased her. So he disappears into a story but finds a world that’s already ending.

Fantasia isn’t a magical kingdom under threat from a villain. It’s a crumbling place full of tired creatures, bad news, and the slow seep of despair. The threat isn’t conquest. It’s erasure. And the grief and despair hits early.

Artax's death is the moment we often remember as the emotional breaking point, but it’s only the beginning. It’s a child’s first lesson in helplessness: that love isn’t always enough to pull someone through. And the Swamp of Sadness lets you watch it happen. Slowly and quietly without a last minute reprieve.

What Bastian painfully learns is that he can’t go back to before his mother died. He can't even go back to who he was when he first opened the book.

So he's forced to experience the agony of grief: of having to push forward and carry on, whilst yearning for the path back. He watches Fantasia disappear through Atreyu’s eyes, as its inhabitants fall before the Nothing.

The Rockbiter’s final words teach him there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the inevitable:

“I couldn’t hold onto them. The Nothing pulled them right out of my hands. I failed.”

His sorrow isn’t theatrical, it’s flat and exhausted. It's the grief of someone who thought strength could protect the people he loved but learned otherwise.

When the world finally breaks it takes even Atreyu with it and leaves Bastian alone in the dark, with a ghostly Empress and a grain of sand. It's the last piece of a story he has to carry: a memory for him to protect.

Because that's all grief leaves you with.

A memory that gives you just enough space to hold an image or a feeling.

Enough to revisit when it hurts too much. Enough to say their name and make it the spell that conjures them up, if only for a moment. And as much as we wish it could, Fantasia doesn’t return. Not really.

It’s not the same world. Bastian sees Atreyu again. He sees the Rockbiter, the Snail-Rider, even Morla, but they don’t speak. There’s no reunion. No new words. No new adventures. It’s like visiting a memory trapped in amber: vivid, familiar, but ultimately untouchable.

Even the final jubilant scene where Falkor and Bastian scare the bullies in the real world - that's taken away from us too. As the credits roll, an unfamiliar narrator tells us Bastian had more adventures before returning to the real world and the bubble suddenly pops. It was never real.

But... maybe that’s the point?

It might be a fantasy but Bastian doesn’t stay lost inside it. It's not an escape, it's resolve - he can't bring Fantasia back but he can bring the courage he found there into the real world.

So he faces what scares him and keeps going. And we, as children, suffered and hurt with him. But we also watched him return - changed. Stronger.

Ultimately, the NeverEnding Story isn't a fairytale: it’s the story of how you survive without the person you love.

And how you learn to hold the idea of them with you - while you carry on for the ones who still need you.

Because you know that one day, they'll have to continue on without you. Day by day, step by step, we all move forward - living our own tiny part of a neverending story. - Mom

Pain is better than emptiness.

Emptiness is better than Nothing.

And Nothing is better than this.

- (John S. Hall, King Missile, 1992)

[cargopocketcottagecore]

In February, I blew my shoulder out for the third time. It was during warmups for our My Bloody Valentine season opener. I reseated my shoulder and tried to keep going, but with such limited mobility I knew I'd be a liability to my team. So I went to be a track medic for the whole bout ( good thing too, because we had more concussion checks that game than in the entire previous year).

So I was understandably nervous for our Spring Roll game. Hadn't bouted in six months. Shoulder felt okay, but it had last bout too.

I shouldn't have worried.

It was *such* a good game. We communicated so well.

There was an unending stream of support on our team. Cheers for each other. Post-jam admissions of "I should have-" followed instantly by "No worries buddy, we'll get it next time"

The offense was *on point*. My blockers opened holes for me I absolutely didn't expect and scrambled to take advantage of.

My fellow jammer Feral Crow (love her) was caught behind a tripod. I was rejoining my buddies after being recycled and thought "fuck it" as I passed the tripod. Threw myself into the nearest blocker and shouted "FERAL!" A second later and she flew past me on the inside.

Even had someone on Bux-Mont (the opposing team) tell me I was "absolutely fearless" when I was coming up on the pack, a compliment I'm still wearing nearly a month later. My response? "Well I had to be! Your line is like being on the wrong side of The Last Supper, nothing except butts and backs!"

Much love to my buddies, and a huge thank you to the Bux-Mont Valkyries for a truly wonderful bout!

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Will’s parallels >>>

[necessarilyunprecedented]

Also I celebrated Beltane for the first time. New friends and I made a eucalyptus crown. It's hanging on my door now like a little wreath it looks really nice.

[heartonxions]

droy and jet pre timeskip … (jet is wearing the black shirt (he is closeted as fuck))

[scurvyboy]

you should draw more stanley in drag....... with some old man fiddlestan even....... maybe............

i love you stan in drag, you're so cool

[vanisbakery]

stuffs i got at the object show convention today!!!

jazzy (paintys va) was there and she did this AWESOME SILVER SPOON voice

[byler-alarmist]

OK, so as a Stranger Things fan, you know that The Neverending Story has been referenced directly (and indirectly) several times in the show. But have you actually watched it?