Created and curated by producer/musician TOM DYER, Seattle’s Green Monkey Records operated in the 1980s and early 1990s, covering the city’s independent music scene with as much dedication, but not the distribution, of Sub Pop or PopLlama. The company is probably best known for nurturing the early career of the great GREEN PAJAMAS. This two-disk set presents a 47-song overview of the label’s releases. There’s a fair concentration of 80s-style jangly guitar pop, including some stuff by the LIFE, the QUEEN ANNES and GLASS PENGUINS that genre aficionados should hear. Quirky satirical pop pokes its head out with tracks by SLAM SUZZANE, MR. EPP AND THE CALCULATIONS and JON STRONGBOW, and Seattle scene legend AL BLOCH weighs in with a couple of cool cuts. The WALKABOUTS, the FALL-OUTS and the FASTBACKS contribute some early tracks, and there are, of course, several Green PJs gems (including, of course, “Kim the Waitress”), as well as related items by former PJ STEVEN LAWRENCE and CAPPING DAY, featuring future PJ LAURA WELLER. Dyer includes a few cuts from his own projects (and why not?), and they’re nearly all quite fine, from the straight pop of “I Call Your Name” to the geeky humor of “(Half the World is Made of) Women” to the avant jazz of the appropriately titled “Van Vliet Street.” Dyer also contributes an informative history of the label and track-by-track commentary. It Crawled From the Basement is a substantial collection of music and a vision well worth the discovery.
http://www.greenmonkeyrecords.com
