The Van, The Myth, The Legend

I don’t have to tell you how much I love Chad VanGaalen. The guy does basically everything I like about music: high-pitched, Neil Young-esque folk, filtered through the lens of Radioheadian headphone production with lyrics about desperation, longing, and blood machines. And he records it all at home! For Sub Pop Records! Dude is a straight-up hero.

The Canadian multi-threat has supposedly recorded hundreds of songs, but thus far has only releasd two album’s worth – Infiniheart and the upcoming Skelliconnection. “So where are all those songs?” You wonder. “All of Ryan Adams’ unreleased material is online in convenient bootleg format!” Well, VanGaalen has actually released bits of it over the years – Infiniheart bonus EP aside (pretty jokey stuff), he sold a tour CD-R a while back with 18 fresh tracks and packaging from, uh, National Geographic magazine. The disc is currently unavailable (and he didn’t have it when I saw him play at UCLA last year), but maybe he’ll have new stuff on his next tour. Names for these are, unfortunately, just a guess (wasn’t on CDDB, obv.) but better than “Track 01,” yeah? If anyone has this with a proper tracklist, post it in the comments.

Chad VanGaalen – “Pizza Party”: mp3
Chad VanGaalen – “Glad You Called”: mp3

Bonus: Chad VanGaalen – “Flower Gardens”: mp3 (from the upcoming Skelliconnection)

(Buy VanGaalen’s albums from Sub Pop Records)