Bim Skala Bim, "Set Me Up"
This is another one of those songs that has a tremendous sense of place about it in my memory. This came out early in 1995, in my last year of college, and my friend Miranda and I listened to it over and over sitting in the lounge of my dorm. We'd get my roommate's Super Nintendo with the floppy drive going, and fire up a bootleg copy of Super Bombliss and spend the afternoon blowing each other up. I can picture the crappy TV, the empty pizza boxes, and my shitty toaster in the corner of the lounge. It's a gift for a piece of music to call up such a vivid memory like that, and I can become Captain Cheap Tetris again, if only for a couple of minutes.
The Meters, "I Need More Time"
A b-side from 1970, this is around when they made Struttin', which absolutely makes sense with the sounds on the song. As this is my favorite era of the Meters, I dig this.
Pond, "Gone"
As always, not Tame Impala's touring band, but the Portland band from the grunge era. This is from their self-titled debut, where they tap into some of the same veins of psych that bands like Love Battery were successfully mining. Or, say, some songs from Mudhoney. There's a lack of overt grunting masculinity here that helps it stand out from a lot of their peers, and I think it helps it age pretty well.
Anti-Flag, "Tearing Everyone Down"
Pittsburgh punks Anti-Flag play punk straight up. There's nothing fancy about this, this is all just energy and attack, and it's fun to hear something as guileless as this.
Skinny Puppy, "Nature's Revenge"
It's funny to me that Skinny Puppy would sometimes get played in clubs. Well, some of them. During industrial nights. But still!
"Nature's Revenge" has that stick bass in it, where the organic sound just manages to amp up the creepiness.