Sadly, this band has completly been forgotten.  I haven’t seen their original records on CD ever

Just look at their wikipedia page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_(band)

not even a discography! I first discovered them in high school. I read an interview with the descendents where they gushed over their love of this band. I came across a copy of this album in the dollar bin at poo bah’s records in pasadena. Later on I came across another album “LA Explosion” also amazing.

Painting Smiles came out sometime in the late 70′s (1976 i think?). The record reminds me of a somewhat more surfy mid era Beatles wannabe, but somehow it holds its own, despite the fact you can tell they are really trying to be British (they are from hermosa beach).
The fake accent is a little annoying, but overall it’s catchy, poppy and fun music.

The files below were copied from vinyl and converted to mp3 so the sound quality ain’t that great
Painting smiles 1
Painting smiles 2
Painting smiles 3

The band still plays around their home town of hermosa beach from time to time but I haven’t caught em yet.

UPDATE:
found the official Last website

http://www.laexplosion.com/

turns out the album came out in 83, comprised of songs mostly written earlier in their career (late 70′s)

also found a very early video of the band playing

and a music video from 1982

all good things

My new dr thinks it could be my liver causing these problems, with alcohol as a trigger

So i stopped drinking, and it seems to have gone away.  I hope it stays away

anyway, while my medical life is status quo I’ll be bringing you a new feature “Albums you’ve probably never heard”  I’ll try to review and post videos/mp3s of awesome music that is out of print or forgotten about.  First one should be up by tomorrow

heres a music video

no vomiting episodes since I left the hospital last week.

And i have been eating a little better, up to one meal a day again.

here’s a pic of two cosmonauts feeding a pig booze

Its a burger with grilled cheese sandwich’s as the bun

It needs bacon and better cheese, but otherwise, this may be a perfect burger

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2008/10/the-hamburger-fatty-melt-a-burger-with-two-grilled-cheese-sandwiches-as-its-bun.html

The wonderful hospital staff botched 3 out of 4 of the IV’s

So now I have blown out veins on my felt wrist, left elbow

and the worst one, my right elbow, on the inside

The broken vein is about 2 inches long, you can feel it under my skin, feels kinda like a plastic tube

and my elbow joint bisects it, so every time i move my arm, it bends the busted vein in half

so much fun

in good news, i got a new Dr finally, at UCLA, first appointment is on the 25th.

woo!

favorite song of the moment:

I got really good at sleeping through all the unnecessary waiting and crap in the hospital.  This can usually be up to a day of no doctors, no tests, just waiting. An RN will come around every once in a while to make sure your IV fluid is still dripping and you are still conscious.

This last time was the worst care I have received yet in any hospital (one of the reasons why im starting over).

I was rolled into the ER by my brother in law on Wednesday Oct 1st at about 5pm

after two hour of waiting in a hallway, throwing up violently into a blue plastic bag I was finally admitted into the ER.

This trip inside of the ER had it’s usual homeless man wanting a sandwich, a person who was way too drunk way too early in the day and wanted to kill herself, some old people, and me.  I am hard to miss in hospitals.  The sound of my bile wrenching up my esophagus is quite loud and bothersome.

I finally get hooked up to an IV, and I start to get hydrated.

My fingers and toes and starting to work again, its really quite wonderful.

Then they decide I need to be hooked up to more monitoring machines!

so they stick these eight foam pads with a little metal fastener on the top all over my chest and arms.  Each one of these pads gets a cable attached to a large beeping machine.

A rabbit fart would knock at least six of the eight cables loose, and every time one was disconnected, the machine did what all hospital machines do.

It would beep

Loud

Until i got myself connected again.

By about midnight I had gotten quite good at not moving at all, when a Dr I have never met before comes in and tells me I have Diabetes.

Then things get weird.  I don’t really remember much after that

It may have been the shock of hearing that I have diabetes, it could have been the copious amounts of ativan, or maybe the 24 hours straight of vomiting.  But the rest was a blur.

I have only three memories of Thursday the 2nd and Friday the 3rd

1)  Being covered in blood (from a botched IV insertion) and vomit begging a nurse to let me take a bath, pointing out the fact that there was a BATHTUB IN MY ROOM that was fully functional.

and I was covered in schmutz, really needed to bathe.

She kept saying ‘No you need orders to take bath’ and gave me a new robe.  I could not arrange getting a fresh pair of sheets out of the deal.

2)  I remember another Dr yelling and snapping his fingers at me saying “Stay with me here kiddo, stay with me”.  

3) Another Dr telling me that I DID NOT have diabetes.

and of course, more beeping whenever I moved

This is the main reason why I am switching hospitals

They were charging me $2400 a night (or rather charging the insurance)  to have me sleep in my own blood and vomit

not doing that again.

And so here I am now, 3 am, I am about to officially give up on sleep for tonight and just try to make up for it tomorrow.

wish me luck

It was my patsy.  I thought, it was the cause of my barfing, and the doctors thought so too, so in June, we had it cut out.

What the hell is it you ask?

Its a tiny little organ, almost vestigial, and it resides near the Liver

\ It’s pretty much just a small liver that stores extra bile that your liver produces.

it uses this for when you need extra bile to digest things like deep fried snickers

To remove it, they knocked me out, made 4 small holes in my stomach, put some tools and lights inside, then, they inflated me

they actually pump you up with air to provide more room for them to work

Surprisingly the surgery went very well

I was back at home that day, feeling fine and symptom free

sadly, only for a week…

And no, I cannot sue the hospital for it not fixing me.  At the time it did seem like the best course of action and I agreed to the surgery with full consent.

Pretty much I was Wendell from The Simpsons.  Artist rendition below: