[Only there are six this time, as Arnott continues to catalogue his 7-inch records.]

1. The Trashmen, Henrietta b/w Rumble.
Rare live tracks from a dance at “Proaches Popular Ballroom” in the summer 1965. Neatly remastered to reduce what must have been a teeming cloud of hiss and crowd noise. What’s notable about these two tracks from the young madmen behind the original “Surfin’ Bird” is how steadily and professionally played they seem. The Link Wray classic “Rumble” is delivered with the subtlety it demands.

2. Ben Folds, Bizarre Christmas Incident b/w Lonely Christmas Eve.
Folds is now the patron saint of collegiate a cappella ensembles, but he used to be an ironic indie Elton John, alternately sentimental and arch. This 2002 Sony single captures those two opposing forces as only a Christmas single can. “Santa he’s a big fat fuck/Down the chimney got his fat ass stuck/Oh honey call the lawyers fast/’Cause Mrs. Claus is gonna sue my ass.”

3. Willie Alexander, Burning Candles b/w In Your Car.
One of many recordings Alexander made with Erik Lindgren’s Arf Arf Records. Some of my Boston local rock hero’s tenderest, most carefully produced work is on those Arf Arf sessions. In Your Car is a poetic late-night remembrance of simpler times, its calm lyrics graced with an elegant sax solo. The A-side is a rave-up by Lindgren, to which Alexander brings his inspired vocal technique, neatly roughing up a song that would otherwise be way too cleancut.

4. Tedio Boys, Go Country!!! EP.
This was the pet management project of Tune Inn clubowner Fernando Pinto, an unhinged punk act from his homeland of Portugal. The colorful yet busy record sleeve design has country & western iconography aplenty (and two of the record’s three songs have the word “Country” in the title), but what people really noticed about it was the legend “Fuck the Beatles” over headshots of the band that vaguely resembled the Meet the Beatles album cover. “Back from the Crypt” is a crazy-fast, snarling lump of fun with an actual rockabilly beat. It upholds the glories of country while scaring off the boring traditionalists.

5. Mark Mulcahy, C.O.D. b/w Kind.
Part of Mark Mulcahy’s genius is that when he made this single, it sounds like a single ought to sound—catchy, short and complete. Yet it’s still a typically dark and warped Mark Mulcahy, sounding bright but full of doom. I still feel shivers (of joy and everything else) whenever I hear it. “C.O.D.” stands for “couple of days,” yielding this refrain: “A couple of days more, and I’m sure that I can find a cure/A couple more minutes and I’ll be fine, for a minute.”

6. Saucers, A Certain Kind of Shy b/w She’s Alright.
Before he started Miracle Legion, Mark Mulcahy was a drummer (and a fine one at that) in this band overseen by Craig Bell, who released this single on his own Gustav Records label in 1980. Bell’s importance in the nascent New Haven original music scene of the 1970s can’t properly be measured. He ran a label, led a fine band, and had come to town from the estimable Cleveland, Ohio scene, where he’d been the bassist in Rocket from the Tombs. This single has always sounded too pristine to me. The wonderful bits when the drums and the guitars come up together must’ve been amazing to experience live.