I had to upload three of these songs myself. You know you're in for the good stuff!
Lawsuit, "Thank God You're Doing Fine"
I just noticed now that I have a typo in the song title for my rip of this song. Huh. Anyway, Lawsuit were a local band that my friend Bill encountered in Davis, CA. They played a super fun sort of horn-and-bongo-driven rock. They never got any kind of national profile at all, or really anything outside of California, but they put out an album and EP that are both brilliant. One of the band member, KC Bowman, has showed up here before. Paul Sykes, the singer who also contributed to the songwriting, in particular was a real treasure. His mix of bounciness and despair was unique, and there's nobody really quite like this band.
Treepeople, "Slept Through Mine"
Before Built to Spill, there was the Treepeople. They had a tumultuous three-album run in the early 90s, including faking breaking up in order to get a tour canceled, following that with an album called Just Kidding, and then losing Doug Martsch for their last album (which this song comes from), amid lots of other drama I've forgotten by now. Through it all, they still managed to put together three very good albums, even the Martsch-less one. You'd hardly know he wasn't there!
Tom Gibney, "Johnnie, Oh Johnnie"
Every now and again, we'll get a song from a folk artist that comes from Megan's collection, and I won't really know anything about it. Other than many of them are family friends of hers.
Bullfrog, "Hello"
Why, hello yourself, Bullfrog! Next time, show up with a longer song!
The Unsemble, "Circles"
The last time we had the Unsemble on was almost a year ago. We're coming up on a full year of Five Songs here! And, geez, looking at that old entry, I used to write a lot more in these entires. I think I might be getting worse at this. That's not how this is supposed to work!
At any rate, this is far more of a song than might be suggested from the description of the band. Also, this closes out what is probably the most obscure set of songs we've ever had on here. The Treepeople might be the most famous act of this bunch. Five Songs: come for the chaotic mess, stay for the relentless obscurity.