Remnants of a burned-out scene

Dead Moon, Echoes of the Past" (Sub Pop 2006)
One of those bands that doesn't so much have a backstory as a creation myth, a sort of inevitability and necessity of their existence. (Doug Mosurak ran it all down in Dusted better than I could. Required reading, there will be a test.) Fred Cole is like a parallel Neil Young, and it's not just the high singing voice and one-string gtr solos -- they're both true survivors, in it for the long haul, although in Cole's case subtract out the stylistic experiments and substitute a single-minded, almost maniacal pursuit of "Farmer John" three-chord rock. This two-disc set on Sub Pop has 49 tracks selected by Cole, more than enough to get familiar.

Dead Moon - "Dead Moon Night"

Dead Moon - "Johnny's Got a Gun"



Bonus track from the wayback machine: Cole's original band, the Lollipop Shoppe. I always thought the vocals on this song from 1968 sounded strangely like Television.

Lollipop Shoppe - "You Must Be a Witch"