Laurie Depies “A Loriella Compilation” circa 1991. Remembering Laurie today, September 17th, which would have been her 55th birthday. She made this mixtape for our friend Jim around 1991 (based on the some of the songs included), around 30 years ago and about a year before her disappearance. Jim gave me this tape that he’s had in his collection a few months ago and I absolutely started crying, so grateful for this made-with-heart gift. In the 80’s and early 90’s me and my friends were all about the mixtape, choosing songs that we were into, both old and new. Laurie’s eclectic tastes are 100% represented on this tape, too, ranging from classic and prog rock to 80’s new wave and goth to late 80’s/early 90’s alternative and most assuredly a glimpse into her mindset when she put it together. And in true Laurie fashion, there’s just a bit extra R.E.M. and Siouxsie. 

For some of my memories of Laurie and photos from around that time, please see the post I wrote in 2022 on the 30th anniversary of her disappearance.

Tracklist of “A Loriella Collection”

Side One

The Guess Who “No Time”

King Crimson “Man With an Open Heart” 

The Doors “Tell All the People”

Jefferson Airplane “Somebody to Love” 

Van Morrison “Moondance”

Paul Simon “Was a Sunny Day”

Talking Heads “Warning Signs”

Yes “It Can Happen”

R.E.M. “1,000,000”

Rolling Stones “Shattered”

Kate Bush “Running Up That Hill”

Donovan “Hurdy Gurdy Man” 

Side Two

Primus “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver”

Eurythmics “Who’s That Girl”

Wall of Voodoo “They Don’t Want Me”

Throwing Muses “Mexican Women”

Fred Frith “Too Much, Too Little”

? (this is Fred Frith “The Welcome” — Shazam didn’t exist back then)

Siouxsie & the Banshees “Spellbound”

Soup Dragons “I’m Free”

P.I.L. “Seattle”

R.E.M. “Finest Worksong” 

Red Hot Chili Peppers “Show Me Your Soul” 

Siouxsie & the Banshees “Kiss Them For Me”

Bauhaus “Slice of Life” 

Fat Mattress “Fat Mattress” 1969. As if the cover doesn’t make it crystal obvious, Fat Mattress were a psychedelic folk band from England, formed in ’68 by vocalist Neil Landon and guitarist and vocalist Noel Redding, known also as the bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix himself appears on one track, “How Can I Live,” credited with “percussion.”

Fat Mattress was the band’s debut LP (they only released one more, in 1970) and it squeaked onto the charts, going to #134 on the US album chart. The sole single, “Magic Forest,” a funky little ass-shaker with trippy hippie lyrics, charted but only in the Netherlands at #11. Less funky and even more trippy English countryside twee (think fairies, gnomes, Stonehenge – you know what I mean) is “Walking Through a Garden” but honestly the whole record is just dripping in late 60’s vibes. It opens with the flute-forward track “All Night Drinker,” the flute performed by Chris Wood, founding member of Traffic. I didn’t know that until I just now looked it up but even before I could hear the Traffic influence woven through much of the rest of the record. “I Don’t Mind” feels like a mashup of Amboy Duke’s “Journey to the Center of the Mind” and all Beatles releases from ’67-’69. “Bright New Way” has an Americana-Grateful Dead-hippie (less twee, more twang) while “Everything’s Blue” leans jangly hard blues rock…a little Them influence maybe. We picked up Fat Mattress at a record store in Appleton (Eroding Winds) over Labor Day weekend – this one might not be staying long in our collection.

Rocket From the Tombs “The Day the Earth Met The…” Subtitled “Live From Punk Ground Zero, Cleveland 1975.” 2002. Smog Veil Records. Subtitled “Live From Punk Ground Zero, Cleveland 1975” on marbled vinyl. Spinning this pre-Dead Boys comp of demos and live tracks in honor of Cheetah Chrome (b. Eugene Richard O’Connor 1955, d. September 13th 2026) who died yesterday at the age of 71. We briefly met Cheetah almost 10 years ago in April 2017 at Rush Mor Records (and saw he and Johnny Blitz perform later that night down the street at Club Garibaldi). That’s Cheetah giving Joe bunny ears. Sides 1 and 2 were recorded in February 1975 at the band’s rehearsal loft onto a borrowed reel-to-reel; Sides 3 and 4 are from a show on July 24th 1975 at The Piccadilly Inn in Cleveland (Television also performed and the internet tells me tickets were $3). I wrote about this LP back then and here’s what I had to say:

The Stooges-influenced 70′s band, plagued with internal strife from the outset, split after just a couple of years and formed The Dead Boys (Chrome and Blitz plus the fantastic Stiv Bators). The other half, Peter Laughner and David Thomas (Crocus Behemoth) formed Pere Ubu. This double LP (“the greatest album never recorded”) has early versions of “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and “Final Solution,” which Pere Ubu would later rerecord and self-release as singles, as well as the entirely insane “Life Stinks” (on The Modern Dance). “What Love Is,” “Ain’t It Fun,” “Down in Flames” and “Sonic Reducer” all showed up on on the Dead Boys’ debut Young Loud and Snotty. RFTT also honor The Stooges with fairly authentic covers of  “Raw Power” and “Search & Destroy” plus there’s a sludgy punk version of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”

Here’s a video from someone who was at that Club Garibaldi show in 2017: