The Beastie Boys, "Hold It Now, Hit It"
I've mentioned before here the ability of certain songs to transport me to very specific places and times. The Proustian recollection for this song is rolling through a lovely Spokane fall evening, crammed in the back seat of a shitty Toyota, on the way to a party at a friend of a friend's house, a high school debate connection. We had this cranked up as far as it would go, plastic interior panels rattling along with the bass, as we headed to this party hopeful of making a connection. Being a hopeless debate dork, I mostly just held up a wall and tried to figure out how to make conversation, ultimately failing, but nevertheless enjoying the novel experience of a house party that was recognizable as an actual party. As opposed the usual gathering for me, which was mostly nerds playing cards.
People Under The Stairs, "King Kuff"
If you're going to have a little interstitial, having a jam like this behind it makes it worthwhile.
Sutekh, "[untitled]"
Experimental electronic artist Sutekh mostly worked around glitch and micro-techno, resulting in these abstract, noisy, but focused compositions. They're more soundscapes than proper songs, the sort of thing that kind of washes over you rather than making you move, but it's interesting stuff nevertheless.
Cringer, "Sunday"
Cringer was the predecessor to the beloved (by Five Songs) J Church, with Lance Hahn and Gardner Maxam going on to found that band after Cringer broke up. They put out an assortment of melodic punk records that never made it very far, but the best tracks got put onto this comp, Greatest Hits Vol. 1. Probably only of interest to a J Church completist, but, uh... Love the Violent Femmes tribute here.
Mission of Burma, "Forget"
As mentioned before, Mission of Burma really laid down one of the templates for indie rock in the early 80s, fusing together all of their post-punk influences into their own sound. After this record (Vs.) and an EP, they broke up for 22 years, having set into motion the sound that would turn into thousands of underground rock bands.