Can’t tell you much about Famous L. Renfroe, other than a few basic facts: He recorded this record in 1968, providing pretty much every sound save the drums and excellent back-up vocals, and released a limited run of records on his own private press. Beyond that, not much is certain, other than obvious:  This record rules hard.  Renfroe was a pretty eclectic fellow; the songs augment the standard blues form with heavy doses of soul and gospel sounds.

Big Legal Mess, in conjunction with Fat Possum Records, issued the obscure album last year on CD, pressing it this year on vinyl.  I was seized with the desire to hear it after a couple of reliable sources praised it, and ordered it on wax at Zia Record Exchange.  Listen to the MP3 below for some reference, but trust me when I say this gem is best enjoyed spinning on the turntable, sitting in the back yard with a beer, enjoying the beautiful autumn weather.

• Famous L. Renfroe | Children

I came across this excellent bootleg last week, which finds power-poppers Weezer at a pivotal time in their musical evolution: Following the extended hiatus that befell the band after the commercial failure of Pinkerton, this show features the band blasting out old favorites and debuting songs from the soon-to-be-released Green Album, live in 2001 to a ravenous San Diego audience.

At this stage, it was hard to say exactly where Weezer were headed artistically, but I remember friends ditching school the Tuesday Green came out to run to our town’s lowly record store to pick it up.  I waited till after class, but it was one of the first times I felt important buying a record. I was a member of the cult that had sprung up following the Pinkerton fiasco – one of the nerdy rock kids who took all my cues from that tortured art-pop masterpiece and its predecessor.

This set finds them rocking the Green tunes a lot harder than they ended up on the record, and the songs from Blue and Pinkerton sound energetic, as do a couple of pretty fantastic non-album tracks like “You Gave Your Love to Me Softly” and “The Christmas Song.”

We know now that following Green‘s detached nonchalance, the band tried on cheeky pop-metal with the disjointed Maladroit before sailing into Top 40 waters with the subsequently terrible Make Believe and Red Album Their new record, Raditude, out Nov. 3, features the band at their absolute worst (despite that it’s sleeved in my favorite album cover of the year).  Even “Can’t Stop Partying,” featuring Lil’ Wayne, isn’t interesting in the batshit-crazy way most things involving Weezy are. Instead, it feels lazy, and even insulting as Rivers Cuomo deeply mocks the genre he’s trying his hand at.

But let’s forget that for a moment, and take a listen to a time when it felt like Weezer were about to return home and take their rightful crowns as kings of dork-rock.  The fact that they didn’t is inconsequential – listening to these tunes it’s easy to imagine a parallel universe where Weezer still cared about their sweater clad, horn-rimmed followers, blessing them with hair metal guitar solos and earnest melodies, bestowing on their listeners a sincerity they’ve abandoned in reality.

• Weezer | El Scorcho (live in San Diego, 2001)
• Weezer | Say it Ain’t So (live in San Diego, 2001)

[ZIP]: Weezer | Live in San Diego, 2001 (17 tracks, 65.1 MB)

TRACKLIST:
1. I Do
2. My Name is Jonas
3. El Scorcho
4. You Gave Your Love to Me Softly
5. The Good Life
6. The Christmas Song
7. Island in the Sun
8. Don’t Let Go
9. Hash Pipe
10. In the Garage
11. Tired of Sex
12. Say it Ain’t So
13. Buddy Holly
14. Undone (The Sweater Song)
15. Why Bother
16. Only in Dreams
17. Surf Wax America

The fine folks at Solesides.com never let me down. This time – via Twitter – they introduce us to a vocal/rough version of Artifact, a track off DJ Shadow’s 2006 LP The Outsider, an album that was unfortunately met lukewarm praise at best.

Zack de la Rocha’s highly charged political screeds were meant for this punk-rock-sounding instrumental, which makes you think Shadow concocted the tune in the first place with the former Rage Against the Machine singer’s vocals in mind. Not sure why it didn’t make the album, but glad this version found the light of day.

When we went to San Diego Street Scene last year, The Whigs were stuck in one of those somewhat sweaty/sparsely attended afternoon time slots, when festivalgoers are still shaking off the exhaustion from the previous day. But we made a point to catch the Athens, Ga., trio and it was just the jolt I needed to start the day.

With an opening stint on tour with Kings of Leon last year and the scheduled release of a new album, In the Dark (ATO), due in early 2010, my guess is that more well-earned publicity is headed The Whigs’ way.

To get a jump-start, the band is offering up the title track from the forthcoming release as a free download – another perfectly blended three minutes of energetic power and melody.

• The Whigs | In the Dark

Related:
The Whigs on Jimmy Kimmel
The Whigs: Like a Vibration (video)