Kim Salmon. The last few times I mentioned him in a particular circle of friends, one of them would sneer "oh, the guy who claims he invented grunge ?" Yeah, him. He's also the guy who introduced Jeffrey Lee Pierce to Romi Mori, for better or worse. I've bought a couple of his ...and the Surrealists albums, but they've always been the kind of CDs that have one or two good (great, even) tracks and the rest you never manage to get around to liking particularly much.

I picked up the 1991 Red Eye Absolute Scientists compilation today, mostly out of surprise - I'd seen it a week or two back going second-hand for $50, and $17 seemed much more reasonable. I dunno, is it really worth much these days ? The front-cover artwork's kinda nice, but Citadel's reissue of Blood Red River and Human Jukebox reduce it to little more than a curio. There's only one, maybe two tracks that don't appear on the reissues, but if you're that much of a fan you'd probably rather find the real things on vinyl, right ?

Well, ok, the real reason I picked this up was for its nostalgia value - this was where I first heard The Scientists (courtesy of Adrian T) - the rockabilly-punk of Swampland, the abyss of anguish when he sings "we had love", and a dirty, dirty cover of you only live twice. It's not quite the epiphany you get whilst listening to The Aints' S.L.S.Q. at just the right volume, but it's on the way.