Miller AKA Big Boy Pete AKA Pete Miller is probably one of those characters who, despite a long and storied career, is too genuinely wierd to ever become a household word, and this, his first solo single, is an excellent illustration. Shuffled into a set of freakbeat tracks with which it is usually compiled, it almost immediately establishes itself as the work of an odball. That guitar whammo at the top is typical and priceless, but instead of jumping in with the pilled-up-mod-as-soulboy routine, we instead get the chap from the local library earnestly pledging his love, backed by Peter Frampton and the Herd.

I would love to own an original 45 of this. Since they seem to frequently go for 400 GBP, I've had to be content with one of those bootlegs of freakbeat classics that are making the rounds right now. Sound quality is just OK, probably not as good as the version on Searching In the Wilderness comp LP. But as my pal Steve Mitchell says, "You can't beat having stuff on a 45."

I debated for the longest time before submitting this song to Jon for the website, because in some ways, this pretty little country-tinged pop ballad is not really Little Hits material. (Although if you liked the Reivers back in their late '80s heyday, it's not at all far of a leap from there to here.) But in another, more philosophical way, it certainly is, because "Brighter Than The Moon" was a song out of its time. If it had been released in the early '70s, during the commercial flush of country-rock, it would have been a fondly remembered radio hit. If it had been released in 1995, when No Depression magazine and its related bands were turning "alt-country" into its own buzzword (and thank god that one won out over the gaggingly bad "y'allternative," a truly icky neologism that I feel dirty just having typed), then Tin Star would have been bejeaned indie kid badasses alongside Hazeldine, the Handsome Family and various bands who wanted to be the second coming of Uncle Tupelo. (And in either case, it would have been better produced: this is definitely one of those records that suffers badly from Late 80s Production, especially in the inappropriately reverb-heavy drums.) But in 1989, the heyday of the Sunset Strip hair metal scene, Tin Star were an L.A. band playing country-tinged pop. They never stood a chance, especially since they were signed to Rhino Records, a label that never did know what to do with new artists. (See also Steve Wynn's outstanding solo debut Kerosene Man, or Chris Stamey's Fireworks.)

-Stewart Mason

Before she was the second-hottest Go-Go (Jane, who else?), Kathy Valentine was the rhythm guitarist and secondary songwriter for the Textones, Austin-to-L.A. roots-rock transplants led by Carla Olson, owner of the longest, straightest, blondest hair this side of either Joni Mitchell or Gregg Allman. Although the Textones bummed around town for a long time, they never really made it, largely because Carla's songs weren't all that interesting. Kathy's two primary contributions to the Textones eventually became much better known as Go-Go's songs: "Can't Stop the World" was basically lifted directly from the Textones' original, but as you'll see, this version of "Vacation" is only about half of the song you're familiar with. In particular, that great chorus is apparently what Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin did to earn their songwriting credits on the Go-Go's hit. Still, you can tell already from what's here that Kathy Valentine was more than ready to split from the Textones.

-Stewart Mason

Don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure I bought this from the dollar bins at the late great Pennylane Records on Queen Street East in Toronto around 1997. Surplus Stock appear to be a joint Anglo-Deutsch product led by synth player Robert Giddens, who had previously been D.A.F.'s producer. They also had a small connection to the Fall, who are thanked in the liner notes "for their help and inspiration." So the trio had their avant-rock connections down, but in fact, "Spiv" is your basic doomy synth minimalism, not at all far removed from early Human League. I love this particular era of post-punk, when bands were genuinely shooting for something beyond the strictures of rock and roll as it had been, but they weren't quite sure what they were trying to do yet. This kind of innocence can't be faked, which is why the current crop of bands mining this era for inspiration are getting it subtly but importantly wrong.

Incidentally, the flip of this single is called "Vips." Yes, it's the a-side backwards. Neither version appears on Surplus Stock's sole album, 1980's Holland In Not.

I really like Sleepyhead, who were an interesting bridge between Yo La Tengo/Antietam-style Hoboken indie and the more pop-oriented aspects of the Elephant 6 groups. But as much as I love most of their records, the Scott Miller fan in me has to go with this, a cover of Game Theory's "Like A Girl Jesus" from the flip of their "Punk Rock City USA" single. This cover is much more in the YLT half of the above equation, covering the spare acoustic original in a very post-flannel layer of lo-fi guitar fuzz and ending it with a Neil Young-inspired guitar solo that sounds like it was lifted off a Teenage Fanclub record. Good stuff.

-Stewart Mason

We've gone on about the Three O'clock on Little Hits, and some of you may be aware of Michael Quercio's current band, Jupiter Affect, but let's not forget the good stuff Quercio did with Permanent Green Light in the interim. Their best material had the slick, polished sound of Arrive Without Traveling minus the keyboards.

I do love this song, not least because of my own lifelong history of poor eyesight and little luck with contact lenses. (Try growing up in west Texas and wearing contacts: one March sandstorm and you're taking 20 pounds of topsoil out of each eyeball.) But mostly, this is here so I can give a shoutout to the best podcast in the world. Smugglers leader Grant Lawrence is also a radio dude in his native Vancouver, British Columbia, and he hosts the CBC Radio Three podcast, a weekly condensation of his nationally-broadcast Saturday night radio series showcasing the latest in Canadian indie music. I am well known among my peers for being just about the geekiest Canadiana fanboy who has never actually lived above the 48th parallel -- I'm not kidding, as I write this, I'm wearing a t-shirt with the logo of a defunct Canadian hockey team, the Quebec Nordiques, and a baseball cap that has a badge on the side bearing the '50s-vintage logo of the CBC, the national broadcast company -- but even those who don't consider Toronto the greatest city in the world will find much to love here.

-Stewart Mason