Agony Shorthand
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Tuesday, December 23, 2003
AGONY SHORTHAND QUICK SEARCH…..Well, we’re getting toward the end of the year and nearing the one-year anniversary of this web site/blog, a vanity project I hit upon one early February morning and had up & ranting within hours. I think I’ve written at least as much stuff in total for this site as I did during my 7-year run of SUPERDOPE fanzine from 1991-98. At this point it’s becoming unmanageable to find a particular rant/opinion/review unless you choose to comb through the entire archives, month by month. Harnessing the power of “the Internet” and search technology made possible by “Google”, I’ve hit upon an ingenious way to find the Agony Shorthand posts most relevant to your life and what you might be in need of knowing at any given moment. Get this: all you need to do is go to Google or Yahoo and type in (“Agony Shorthand” AND “____”) and you’re nearly certain to find what you’re looking for. A nearly complete, unalphabetized list of the “____”s are listed below:
Hasil Adkins, Scientists, Clothilde, Pop Group, Charley Patton, Seems Twice, Birthday Party, The Fall, Maestros and Dipsos, Willie Brown, Pussy Cat, Numbers, Rolling Stones, Hunches, The Clean, A-Frames, Dust Devils, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Flesh Eaters, Mission of Burma, Sahara Hotnights, Green River, Dictators, Piranhas, Monks, Big Black, Death of Samantha, A Feast of Snakes, Gories, Scratch Acid, Nathaniel Mayer, Sex Pistols, Slugfuckers, Mudhoney, Blutt, Lili Z, Raincoats, Volt, Right On, Mars, Wavis O’Shave, Carter Family, Blind Willie McTell, Ghana Soundz, Country Teasers, Naked Raygun, Die Kruezen, Augustus Pablo, Trojan, Rembetica, Flowers In The Wildwood, Teengenerate, Come, Pink Floyd, Das Damen, Lightning Bolt, Pink and Brown, Zoomers, Son House, Crime, Bags, No Night Sweats, Rocket From The Tombs, Velvet Underground, MC5, Bunker Hill, Pussy Galore, Neil Young, Hot Women, Lazy Cowgirls, Revillos, Mo-dettes, Delta 5, Desperate Bicycles, Dolly Mixture, Soul Asylum, Simply Saucer, Dwarves, Stooges, Aislers Set, 24 Hour Party People, Velvet Goldmine, Cosmic Psychos, Kent 3, Bill Direen & The Bilders, Zodiac Killers, Comets on Fire, Modern Lovers, Can, Sunburned Hand of The Man, The Spits, Blank-Its, Vom, White Stripes, Squirrel Bait, Spacemen 3, Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue, John Coltrane, Pere Ubu, Warlocks, Tokyo record stores, Hackamore Brick, Johnny Hash, Happy Flowers, Bangles, Homosexuals, Green On Red, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Lee Hazlewood, Crack: We Are Rock, Staple Singers, Monoshock, The Fall, Rogers Sisters, Peter Blegvad, Dinosaur Jr., Trashmen, Geeks, Diane Ray, Cheater Slicks, Cat Power, Killdozer, Laughing Hyenas, The Fluid, Instant Automatons, Revolutionaries, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Native Hipsters, Twilighters, Captain Beeheart, Love Child, Roxy Music, Swearing At Motorists, Controllers, Public Nuisance, Nubs, Solger, Eyes, Liimanarina, Kitty Wells, Union Carbide Productions, Prince Buster, Drunks With Guns, Brentwoods, Scritti Politti, Mr. California & The State Police, Love, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Drop, Skip James, Hospitals, Mirrors, Girls At Our Best!, Icky Boyfriends, Frisco Styles, Money Be No Sand, Black Flag, Music From Kentucky, and Nancy Sinatra
So search away, thanks to our new easy, time saving shortcut! Giving you the gift of time and the freedom of place – that’s Agony Shorthand’s brand promise to you!
Hasil Adkins, Scientists, Clothilde, Pop Group, Charley Patton, Seems Twice, Birthday Party, The Fall, Maestros and Dipsos, Willie Brown, Pussy Cat, Numbers, Rolling Stones, Hunches, The Clean, A-Frames, Dust Devils, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Flesh Eaters, Mission of Burma, Sahara Hotnights, Green River, Dictators, Piranhas, Monks, Big Black, Death of Samantha, A Feast of Snakes, Gories, Scratch Acid, Nathaniel Mayer, Sex Pistols, Slugfuckers, Mudhoney, Blutt, Lili Z, Raincoats, Volt, Right On, Mars, Wavis O’Shave, Carter Family, Blind Willie McTell, Ghana Soundz, Country Teasers, Naked Raygun, Die Kruezen, Augustus Pablo, Trojan, Rembetica, Flowers In The Wildwood, Teengenerate, Come, Pink Floyd, Das Damen, Lightning Bolt, Pink and Brown, Zoomers, Son House, Crime, Bags, No Night Sweats, Rocket From The Tombs, Velvet Underground, MC5, Bunker Hill, Pussy Galore, Neil Young, Hot Women, Lazy Cowgirls, Revillos, Mo-dettes, Delta 5, Desperate Bicycles, Dolly Mixture, Soul Asylum, Simply Saucer, Dwarves, Stooges, Aislers Set, 24 Hour Party People, Velvet Goldmine, Cosmic Psychos, Kent 3, Bill Direen & The Bilders, Zodiac Killers, Comets on Fire, Modern Lovers, Can, Sunburned Hand of The Man, The Spits, Blank-Its, Vom, White Stripes, Squirrel Bait, Spacemen 3, Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue, John Coltrane, Pere Ubu, Warlocks, Tokyo record stores, Hackamore Brick, Johnny Hash, Happy Flowers, Bangles, Homosexuals, Green On Red, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Lee Hazlewood, Crack: We Are Rock, Staple Singers, Monoshock, The Fall, Rogers Sisters, Peter Blegvad, Dinosaur Jr., Trashmen, Geeks, Diane Ray, Cheater Slicks, Cat Power, Killdozer, Laughing Hyenas, The Fluid, Instant Automatons, Revolutionaries, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Native Hipsters, Twilighters, Captain Beeheart, Love Child, Roxy Music, Swearing At Motorists, Controllers, Public Nuisance, Nubs, Solger, Eyes, Liimanarina, Kitty Wells, Union Carbide Productions, Prince Buster, Drunks With Guns, Brentwoods, Scritti Politti, Mr. California & The State Police, Love, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Drop, Skip James, Hospitals, Mirrors, Girls At Our Best!, Icky Boyfriends, Frisco Styles, Money Be No Sand, Black Flag, Music From Kentucky, and Nancy Sinatra
So search away, thanks to our new easy, time saving shortcut! Giving you the gift of time and the freedom of place – that’s Agony Shorthand’s brand promise to you!
Monday, December 22, 2003
“SON HOUSE AND THE GREAT DELTA BLUES SINGERS”…..
It’s been said before, and it’s been said before that it’s been said before, but it hasn’t been said enough: SON HOUSE was one of the most wildly inventive and brilliant musical geniuses of all time. His three two-part 78s from 1928-1930 are at the top diamond of the pre-WWII blues pyramid, rivaling only SKIP JAMES and CHARLEY PATTON for prime placement in the plaintive pantheon. I’ve found myself coming back to those three amazing compositions – “My Black Mama”, “Preachin’ The Blues” and “Dry Spell Blues” – of late, and finding it easy to do so thanks to the paradoxical virtues of CD technology. The best collection of his work, for my money, is the 24-track collection “Son House and The Great Delta Blues Singers – Complete Recorded Works (1928-1930)”. This is assembled in typical completist fashion by longtime UK blues archivists Document Records, and contains not only House’s complete works (including the unissued, post-mortem discovery “Walking Blues”) but those of 7 like-minded contemporaries like BLIND JOE (WILLIE) REYNOLDS and KID BAILEY.
You have to wonder how many incredible unrecorded blues classics were completely lost to history, given that these guys were generally documented at the whim of producers looking to make a buck off the “race record” market. Thus we are left with only two tracks in total from Patton pal WILLIE BROWN (whom I’ve discussed previously), the stunning “Future Blues” and railroad classic “M & O Blues”. It’d likely be like having “Lexicon Devil” and “Circle One” being the only surviving GERMS material; can you imagine what it would be like to later stumble upon “Forming” and the “(GI)” album? I suspect it’s not going to happen with Brown or any of his and House’s kin; that vein has been thoroughly drained as deep as it’s going to go. What I like about this collection is the fact that it’s not clogged with alternate takes and different versions – I know that pleases a lot of archivists, and often it’s a great way to gain insight into the creative process. But sometimes you just want the best of the best, the stuff that was agreed to be definitive at the time, and that’s what you get here. In fact, if different versions exist of these songs, I don’t know about them. This collection is as essential as any Yazoo assemblage, given the complete recordings of the aforementioned House and Brown, as well as the booming voice & slide guitar of Reynolds, the sole 1930 recording of slack-key master JIM THOMPKINS (“Bedtime Blues”), and other great works by pioneers GARFIELD AKERS, JOE CALLICOTT and RUBE LACY.
As an aside, one of the more interesting cultural archeology stories of the past 50 years is the epic 1960s quest & discovery of the original giants of blues by blues-crazed, eggheaded northeastern college students. You know what I’m talking about – the John Faheys of the world taking long road trips into the deep, deep south in order to go door to door, saloon to saloon, farm house to farm house to track down Son House and his brethren. I think it’s a pretty fascinating tale, and it pushes all my buttons in a positive way: the thrill of the chase, the clash of cultures, the birth of racial tolerance/respect, and of course, complete & total musical obsession. I’ve read some great articles about this, but is there a definitive, well-written book or resource that captures this story well? I’d appreciate any suggestions for further reading.
It’s been said before, and it’s been said before that it’s been said before, but it hasn’t been said enough: SON HOUSE was one of the most wildly inventive and brilliant musical geniuses of all time. His three two-part 78s from 1928-1930 are at the top diamond of the pre-WWII blues pyramid, rivaling only SKIP JAMES and CHARLEY PATTON for prime placement in the plaintive pantheon. I’ve found myself coming back to those three amazing compositions – “My Black Mama”, “Preachin’ The Blues” and “Dry Spell Blues” – of late, and finding it easy to do so thanks to the paradoxical virtues of CD technology. The best collection of his work, for my money, is the 24-track collection “Son House and The Great Delta Blues Singers – Complete Recorded Works (1928-1930)”. This is assembled in typical completist fashion by longtime UK blues archivists Document Records, and contains not only House’s complete works (including the unissued, post-mortem discovery “Walking Blues”) but those of 7 like-minded contemporaries like BLIND JOE (WILLIE) REYNOLDS and KID BAILEY.
You have to wonder how many incredible unrecorded blues classics were completely lost to history, given that these guys were generally documented at the whim of producers looking to make a buck off the “race record” market. Thus we are left with only two tracks in total from Patton pal WILLIE BROWN (whom I’ve discussed previously), the stunning “Future Blues” and railroad classic “M & O Blues”. It’d likely be like having “Lexicon Devil” and “Circle One” being the only surviving GERMS material; can you imagine what it would be like to later stumble upon “Forming” and the “(GI)” album? I suspect it’s not going to happen with Brown or any of his and House’s kin; that vein has been thoroughly drained as deep as it’s going to go. What I like about this collection is the fact that it’s not clogged with alternate takes and different versions – I know that pleases a lot of archivists, and often it’s a great way to gain insight into the creative process. But sometimes you just want the best of the best, the stuff that was agreed to be definitive at the time, and that’s what you get here. In fact, if different versions exist of these songs, I don’t know about them. This collection is as essential as any Yazoo assemblage, given the complete recordings of the aforementioned House and Brown, as well as the booming voice & slide guitar of Reynolds, the sole 1930 recording of slack-key master JIM THOMPKINS (“Bedtime Blues”), and other great works by pioneers GARFIELD AKERS, JOE CALLICOTT and RUBE LACY.
As an aside, one of the more interesting cultural archeology stories of the past 50 years is the epic 1960s quest & discovery of the original giants of blues by blues-crazed, eggheaded northeastern college students. You know what I’m talking about – the John Faheys of the world taking long road trips into the deep, deep south in order to go door to door, saloon to saloon, farm house to farm house to track down Son House and his brethren. I think it’s a pretty fascinating tale, and it pushes all my buttons in a positive way: the thrill of the chase, the clash of cultures, the birth of racial tolerance/respect, and of course, complete & total musical obsession. I’ve read some great articles about this, but is there a definitive, well-written book or resource that captures this story well? I’d appreciate any suggestions for further reading.
Friday, December 19, 2003
ZOOMERS : “EXIST” CD…..My first stab at the new batch of Hyped2Death reissues & unearthings is this CD from 1979-82 Baton Rouge, Louisiana space punks THE ZOOMERS, and I am coming away from three back-to-back-to-back spins extremely impressed. In a town and geographic region not especially noted for out of the box rock and roll thinking (SHIT DOGS notwithstanding!), The Zoomers were cranking up the phasers, delay effects, plinky keyboards and distortion pedals and layering them on top of genuinely offbeat song structures. Their only 7”EP, “From The Planet Moon / You’ll See / Somatic”, collected here along with what looks to be a cassette-only release, has probably the most pedestrian bunch of tracks on the disc, yet even these are truly unique slices of early underground lunacy. “Moon” (which appears in two versions) is just a hands-down absolute left field classic, starting with the opening proclamation, “My space ship landed” and spinning off into oddball time structures & new invented on the spot choruses from there. Later in the CD you get a sense of the LSD obsession that band leader “Zoomer” describes in his liner notes: some not-too-annoying jams, and all the controlled musical experimentation you can handle, yet still well within the confines of what we might call “late 70s/early 80s American punk-influenced DIY”. The notes make reference to a pretty sizable band hostility to the day’s punk rockers, and laughs wistfully at their ill-starred gig opening for the BAD BRAINS in Baton Rouge. Eventually it was the drugs that did the band in, and I think it’s hard to come away from this and not infer the influence of heavy stimulants on the band’s creative process. That or they were just wacked to begin with; likely both. I’m thankful the Hyped2Death organization took the time to put it together; Chuck’s track record of finding the best and weirdest treasures from this era continues to impress.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
BRETT MILANO : “VINYL JUNKIES – ADVENTURES IN RECORD COLLECTING” book….Couldn’t resist a book purporting to explore the deep neuroses and off-putting rituals of the record collector, even though I’m one of the many accumulators who loudly insists that he – and it’s almost always a he – “is not a real record collector”. My defense is that I’m nearly as happy with a burned CD containing MP3 files of songs I want and need as I am with the original vinyl. So does that give me a pass, even if there seems to be a never-ending stack of new things to listen to and file? My wife argues that no, it does not. Anyway, Brett Milano, the book’s author, was known to me only via some ribbing he endured in mid-80s issues of Forced Exposure, rendering him decidedly uncool at the time (I seem to recall a “Worst of ‘85” poll result for “Worst t-shirt” being one that read “I Am Brett Milano”). I decided to give his book a try, and I’m glad I did. It’s a real simple and quick read, with fairly breezy prose profiling the different aspects of collectordom: Traveling great distances to find vinyl; love of your first record shop; brain chemical-based explanations for collector behavior; the hunt for every collector’s holy grail record; “extreme collecting”; and what record collecting can do to relationships with females, assuming one is ever consummated in the first place. Some of the characters who make appearances are well-known for their collecting pathologies: Jeff Connolly/Monoman (who my wife and I viewed in his native habitat, a Boston record store, two summers ago, loudly expounding on multiple music-related topics to anyone within earshot), Thurston Moore, Robert Crumb, Steve Turner and Nick Saloman/Bevis Frond. I’ll quote from some of the better pages I dog-eared whilst reading:
“(There’s an) egalitarian aspect of collecting, in that rich and poor collectors devote the same space to their collections – namely, whatever space they’ve got. In either case, you’ve made a decision to accumulate. And somewhere along the way, you’ve lost the possibility of keeping track of it all. Thus it’s always a collecting rite of passage when you first buy something twice by accident”
During a passage on Steve Turner’s collecting habits: “’70s and ‘80s punk singles are Turner’s specialty, and he wound up perfecting one shopping tactic: ‘I know how record store people work – if they don’t know what something is, they’ll just ignore it. So let’s say I’m poking around an attic of a store, and I find something great. I’ll stick those at the bottom of the pile and stick something crappy on top – say, a single by Generation X [Billy Idol’s first band, not quite revered by punk scholars]. They’ll see my pile, say, ‘The one on top is ten dollars, but the rest are a buck.’ So I’ll put the Generation X one back and take the rest.’”
Interview with filmmaker Alan Zweig, who directed a good but ultimately quite sad documentary about record collectors called "Vinyl": “The problem is, you have to make a decision in your life to have room for a girlfriend. Collectors have already made a decision not to do that, because the only room they have in their lives is for records. It’s not that women don’t like it, it’s that you’re not really in the game. You wake up in the morning, and you’re thinking about records. Some of the people I know have records lying around everywhere, and if you’re with a woman, you’re asking a lot for them to get past that. A lot of collectors have found a way to create their own world, they’ve found a way to make themselves, in quotes, happy. In that way they don’t need anybody else.”
Peter Prescott: “Now that I’ve owned up to being a collector, I’ll say that what really gets me off is knowing that I have this personal library of everything that appeals to me, and that I can pull any of it out whenever I want to. That’s the wonderful thing, customizing the soundtrack of your life. It goes against the fact that so many things are considered disposable now. Music has always been the center of my life, and to some extent it keeps you from just walking outside and fitting into the crowd. What better way to avoid that than to surround yourself with the music you relate to the most? That really is a way of adjusting the world to you.”
I devoured Milano’s book with time to spare on a 4-hour flight to Chicago this week, and it was even interesting enough for me to want to transcribe the above paragraphs for you, hand cramps be damned. As the saying goes, read the whole thing.
“(There’s an) egalitarian aspect of collecting, in that rich and poor collectors devote the same space to their collections – namely, whatever space they’ve got. In either case, you’ve made a decision to accumulate. And somewhere along the way, you’ve lost the possibility of keeping track of it all. Thus it’s always a collecting rite of passage when you first buy something twice by accident”
During a passage on Steve Turner’s collecting habits: “’70s and ‘80s punk singles are Turner’s specialty, and he wound up perfecting one shopping tactic: ‘I know how record store people work – if they don’t know what something is, they’ll just ignore it. So let’s say I’m poking around an attic of a store, and I find something great. I’ll stick those at the bottom of the pile and stick something crappy on top – say, a single by Generation X [Billy Idol’s first band, not quite revered by punk scholars]. They’ll see my pile, say, ‘The one on top is ten dollars, but the rest are a buck.’ So I’ll put the Generation X one back and take the rest.’”
Interview with filmmaker Alan Zweig, who directed a good but ultimately quite sad documentary about record collectors called "Vinyl": “The problem is, you have to make a decision in your life to have room for a girlfriend. Collectors have already made a decision not to do that, because the only room they have in their lives is for records. It’s not that women don’t like it, it’s that you’re not really in the game. You wake up in the morning, and you’re thinking about records. Some of the people I know have records lying around everywhere, and if you’re with a woman, you’re asking a lot for them to get past that. A lot of collectors have found a way to create their own world, they’ve found a way to make themselves, in quotes, happy. In that way they don’t need anybody else.”
Peter Prescott: “Now that I’ve owned up to being a collector, I’ll say that what really gets me off is knowing that I have this personal library of everything that appeals to me, and that I can pull any of it out whenever I want to. That’s the wonderful thing, customizing the soundtrack of your life. It goes against the fact that so many things are considered disposable now. Music has always been the center of my life, and to some extent it keeps you from just walking outside and fitting into the crowd. What better way to avoid that than to surround yourself with the music you relate to the most? That really is a way of adjusting the world to you.”
I devoured Milano’s book with time to spare on a 4-hour flight to Chicago this week, and it was even interesting enough for me to want to transcribe the above paragraphs for you, hand cramps be damned. As the saying goes, read the whole thing.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
COME WITH THE GENTLE PEOPLE…..No rock and roll/comedy/sexploitation film ever touched as deep a nerve for me as the hilarious “BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS” did the first half dozen times I saw it, and to this day I think I would drop everything to watch it should it ever come on TV (which it won’t, but there is a cheap DVD out now that I need to get). I not only instantly fell for Kelly MacNamera and thrilled to Z-Man, Lance Rocke/Jungle Lad and all the brilliant one-liners this film had to offer, I actually really enjoyed the fake music of Kelly’s fake band the CARRIE NATIONS (nee the much superior moniker THE KELLY AFFAIR). Somehow their songs in this Russ Meyer film transcend novelty and end up being terrific, brassy 60s pop, even when divorced from the context of the on-screen action. Now you can get the expanded soundtrack on a new 2003 edition from Harkit Records. It has all the corkers from the film: “Find It”, “Look On Up At The Bottom” (later covered by RED CROSS!), “Sweet Talkin’ Candy Man”, “In The Long Run” and of course “Come With The Gentle People” (“….they’re the only ones who understand…”). It even tosses in (inferior) original versions with a different (inferior, over-emotive) vocalist, along with all the original instrumental soundtrack music, the two ditties from hairy hippies the STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK (which are actually pretty good), and the devastatingly bad muzak of a title track from “The Sandpipers”. Yeah, I know that it’s schlock, but it’s my schlock and it freaks me out!
TEENGENERATE : “GET ACTION” LP/CD…..
I’ve frequently held these guys up as a representative example of the cream of 1990s garage punk rock, but I’ll now admit that I’ve only done so on the basis of their excellent 45s, especially the raw power of their one-sided Rip Off disc “Out of Sight/Pushin' Me Around”. I’d never owned their one and only official full-length release until now. Do the raves still hold? A definite maybe. If any band could be said to personify a garage punk ASSAULT the way Black Flag personified a hardcore punk ASSAULT, that band would be TEENGENERATE. That’s absolutely something to be proud of – and there are numbers here that are just pure, unabashed, hook-filled fury, such as “Radio 55” and “Fake Fake Fake”. Yet it’s really too much to take in one sitting, even in a 35-minute serving doled out in two-minute portions. There’s too much repetition, too much painting by numbers, a few too many covers and a little too much self-conscious rawness for “Get Action” to be considered a real timeless classic. My litmus test: What will people say about it in thirty years? I suspect they won’t, not the way they’ll be cheering the GORIES ' first two records or SUPERCHARGER’s “Goes Way Out!”. Teengenerate are the best Japan’s had to offer in this crowded field by a mile, but I can’t in good conscience elevate them from the upper middle of the worldwide garage punk pack.
I’ve frequently held these guys up as a representative example of the cream of 1990s garage punk rock, but I’ll now admit that I’ve only done so on the basis of their excellent 45s, especially the raw power of their one-sided Rip Off disc “Out of Sight/Pushin' Me Around”. I’d never owned their one and only official full-length release until now. Do the raves still hold? A definite maybe. If any band could be said to personify a garage punk ASSAULT the way Black Flag personified a hardcore punk ASSAULT, that band would be TEENGENERATE. That’s absolutely something to be proud of – and there are numbers here that are just pure, unabashed, hook-filled fury, such as “Radio 55” and “Fake Fake Fake”. Yet it’s really too much to take in one sitting, even in a 35-minute serving doled out in two-minute portions. There’s too much repetition, too much painting by numbers, a few too many covers and a little too much self-conscious rawness for “Get Action” to be considered a real timeless classic. My litmus test: What will people say about it in thirty years? I suspect they won’t, not the way they’ll be cheering the GORIES ' first two records or SUPERCHARGER’s “Goes Way Out!”. Teengenerate are the best Japan’s had to offer in this crowded field by a mile, but I can’t in good conscience elevate them from the upper middle of the worldwide garage punk pack.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
WHAT’S WITH THE HIPPY DIP TRIP, VOLUME TWO….I thought that maybe some of you would get a kick out of a thorough bashing of the modern hippie scene and the high-minded liberal reactionary rhetoric that often accompanies it (see “What’s With The Hippy Dip Trip?” below). It was certainly fun for me! I’m gonna call "Derek"’s bluff and take him up on his challenge, right around Comment #10. To quote:
"B. Coley made political comments all the time in FE in his reviews, etc.
It's funny that you can't seem to help admitting you like Sunburned Hand Of The Man when you saw them.
Sorry, but Comets On Fire are also part of this movement that is coming to take over my scene (yeah, right) too.
If we're comparing pathetic cultural anachronisms, 'punk' 'wins' every time."
First, “SUNBURNED” were fine when I saw them – I know there’s some talent lurking there, and you get me in a small club to see live rock music for the first time in months, I’m likely to be pretty open-minded & positive about just about anything, even a dancing hippie. It’s only when I’m back at my keyboard that the curmudgeonly cynicism kicks back in, and I thought it might be pleasurable to have a cheap chortle at their expense. But the more broad – albeit mocking and somewhat tongue-in-cheek -- point was being made about the modern underground taking up common cause with the reactionary left (not to be confused with the reasoned, informed, change-embracing left). The politics associated with the underground really don’t interest me much, since we’re talking about people who wear their lefter-than-thou personas with the same amount of well-crafted consideration and urge to shock mom as they do their hair and clothing styles. Whatever. My antipathy to these people dates back to my weekly date with the Maximum Rock and Roll radio show in the early 80s, when “Tim and the gang” would argue for hours about who was the better communist, or mercilessly harangue MDC because they took a plane to Canada rather than drive a beat-up bus fueled with potato oil. Now it’s all about the chasm between September 10th Americans and September 11th Americans, and I resent the insinuation that everyone with any interest in the musical underground has to make their bed with the former. Thurston Moore’s ranting in ARTHUR and the general spirit of that magazine personifies the groupthink that I have absolutely no time for, whether it comes from the right or the left.
Recognizing fully the risk of taking this down to the level of a high school pissing match, I have to comment on Derek’s statement regarding what’s more of a pathetic cultural anachronism, “punk” or “hippy”. Who cares? I only make fun of hippies in the happy-grinnin’ mocking spirit of early LA punks Eugene, Mugger and The Deadbeats. Let’s remember, though, that one (punk) is a music that necessitates no lifestyle to be wrapped around it, whereas the other (hippy) is wholly defined by the lifestyle, and only vaguely represents music. Far be it for me to be the sacred defender of punk, but there’s no getting around its relevance to the furthering of the rock and roll form. At some level, that’s even true today. But let’s not confuse wardrobes, attitudes and political associations with the actual music. Isn’t it great that blogs like mine can really get to the meaty issues of our times? Glad to help!
"B. Coley made political comments all the time in FE in his reviews, etc.
It's funny that you can't seem to help admitting you like Sunburned Hand Of The Man when you saw them.
Sorry, but Comets On Fire are also part of this movement that is coming to take over my scene (yeah, right) too.
If we're comparing pathetic cultural anachronisms, 'punk' 'wins' every time."
First, “SUNBURNED” were fine when I saw them – I know there’s some talent lurking there, and you get me in a small club to see live rock music for the first time in months, I’m likely to be pretty open-minded & positive about just about anything, even a dancing hippie. It’s only when I’m back at my keyboard that the curmudgeonly cynicism kicks back in, and I thought it might be pleasurable to have a cheap chortle at their expense. But the more broad – albeit mocking and somewhat tongue-in-cheek -- point was being made about the modern underground taking up common cause with the reactionary left (not to be confused with the reasoned, informed, change-embracing left). The politics associated with the underground really don’t interest me much, since we’re talking about people who wear their lefter-than-thou personas with the same amount of well-crafted consideration and urge to shock mom as they do their hair and clothing styles. Whatever. My antipathy to these people dates back to my weekly date with the Maximum Rock and Roll radio show in the early 80s, when “Tim and the gang” would argue for hours about who was the better communist, or mercilessly harangue MDC because they took a plane to Canada rather than drive a beat-up bus fueled with potato oil. Now it’s all about the chasm between September 10th Americans and September 11th Americans, and I resent the insinuation that everyone with any interest in the musical underground has to make their bed with the former. Thurston Moore’s ranting in ARTHUR and the general spirit of that magazine personifies the groupthink that I have absolutely no time for, whether it comes from the right or the left.
Recognizing fully the risk of taking this down to the level of a high school pissing match, I have to comment on Derek’s statement regarding what’s more of a pathetic cultural anachronism, “punk” or “hippy”. Who cares? I only make fun of hippies in the happy-grinnin’ mocking spirit of early LA punks Eugene, Mugger and The Deadbeats. Let’s remember, though, that one (punk) is a music that necessitates no lifestyle to be wrapped around it, whereas the other (hippy) is wholly defined by the lifestyle, and only vaguely represents music. Far be it for me to be the sacred defender of punk, but there’s no getting around its relevance to the furthering of the rock and roll form. At some level, that’s even true today. But let’s not confuse wardrobes, attitudes and political associations with the actual music. Isn’t it great that blogs like mine can really get to the meaty issues of our times? Glad to help!
Monday, December 15, 2003
MISSION OF BURMA LIVE TO AIR…..Was re-blown away by the majesty of one of my all-time favorite bands, MISSION OF BURMA, this past week, courtesy of a CD that comprises two on-air recordings they made for Boston’s WERS radio in 1980. Last time I remembered how great and ahead of the curve this band were was during my post-2002 reunion show Burma frenzy, when I re-listened to their entire, every-song-a-classic catalog over AND over AND over again. That show, by the way, dispelled any hide-bound notions I had about the lameness of reunion gigs. The July 2002 show in San Francisco was easily most fantastic rock show I’ve seen in, like, a decade! Just when they were peaking during the encore, having kicked out the jams through “Fame and Fortune” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate”, they cranked out a million miles fast cover of one of the greatest first wave punk tunes ever, THE DILS' “Class War”. I’m pretty sure I fainted.
These radio sets are from April 1980 and September 1980 respectively, pretty early in the band’s brief career – in the first one, Roger Miller talks skeptically about whether or not their first 45 (“Academy Fight Song / Max Ernst”) will ever be released (!). “Max Ernst” in particular, always a quirky and confusing (but good) song on the 45, is delivered in raw and aggressive fashion live – somehow they missed the spirit of their own world-beating song when they got it onto vinyl. The April 1980 set also has a Peter Prescott-sung tune that has never appeared elsewhere and to the best of my knowledge was unrecorded. It’s lopey and a little more whimsical than most Burma output, maybe more in line with Prescott’s later Volcano Suns work than with the most refined and geometrically angular Mission of Burma. Both sets contain a great many of the unreleased tunes that never saw official light until long after the band’s demise, like “Execution”, “Peking Spring” and “Progress”. One also has the amazing distorted instrumental piece “Tremelo”, which layers and unwraps a simple riff into its piece parts to hypnotic, entrancing effect. Fantastic stuff, and one of the rare radio or recorded live shows that actually adds to a band’s legend rather than detracts. I’ll make a case for Mission of Burma joining Black Flag, The Flesh Eaters and The Minutemen as the prime exponents of the early 80s American underground, one of the most fertile times and places for rock music anywhere, ever. Now that’s something!
These radio sets are from April 1980 and September 1980 respectively, pretty early in the band’s brief career – in the first one, Roger Miller talks skeptically about whether or not their first 45 (“Academy Fight Song / Max Ernst”) will ever be released (!). “Max Ernst” in particular, always a quirky and confusing (but good) song on the 45, is delivered in raw and aggressive fashion live – somehow they missed the spirit of their own world-beating song when they got it onto vinyl. The April 1980 set also has a Peter Prescott-sung tune that has never appeared elsewhere and to the best of my knowledge was unrecorded. It’s lopey and a little more whimsical than most Burma output, maybe more in line with Prescott’s later Volcano Suns work than with the most refined and geometrically angular Mission of Burma. Both sets contain a great many of the unreleased tunes that never saw official light until long after the band’s demise, like “Execution”, “Peking Spring” and “Progress”. One also has the amazing distorted instrumental piece “Tremelo”, which layers and unwraps a simple riff into its piece parts to hypnotic, entrancing effect. Fantastic stuff, and one of the rare radio or recorded live shows that actually adds to a band’s legend rather than detracts. I’ll make a case for Mission of Burma joining Black Flag, The Flesh Eaters and The Minutemen as the prime exponents of the early 80s American underground, one of the most fertile times and places for rock music anywhere, ever. Now that’s something!
WAVIS O’SHAVE : “THE WORLD OF WAVIS O’SHAVE” CD…..This retrospective collection also goes by the name of “Bedtime Songs for Problem Children”. O’SHAVE is a genuine, no-doubt-about-it specimen of what the English like to call a “Nutter”. You might recognize the name from his genius track tacked on at the end of one of the MESSTHETICS volumes of late 70s UK DIY, “Mauve Shoes Are Awful”. This series always seems to end each volume with a “wacky” number, but for some reason this bizarre, inspired stumble transcends pure novelty and just lets it rip. Totally annoying and yet worthy of repeated listenings. Turns out Wavis O’Shave’s been on the British alt-comedy scene for two dozen years now, and bordered the periphery of sub-underground, home-recorded rock and roll as well. This collection will severely try the patience of many, as the humor is likely SO English that it’ll fly way over the heads of most non-Brits. It certainly left me standing on the shores of the Atlantic more than half the time. But I found a connection with a few of the less cuckoo numbers (“Jeremy’s a Pansy”, “The Fig Roll Song”) and marveled at a time when basement craziness of this kind found its way into record shops with ease. I guess it still does, but there is something worth crowing about to being first on the stick with a home-pressed EP of your own blathering way back in 1979. I have to laugh, even if it’s mostly on the inside.
Friday, December 12, 2003
V/A : “N.Y. NO WAVE” CD….
This new comp of 1978-80 ZE RECORDS selections is sort of the little brother compilation to Soul Jazz’s outstanding “NEW YORK NOISE” assemblage, also from this year. The breadth is limited by the label’s discography, most of which centered around a small knot of key players (JAMES CHANCE/WHITE, LYDIA LUNCH, and LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX) and their respective, intermingled bands. I’m admittedly a little late in discovering some of the glories of New York City no wave, probably because I have for years been underwhelmed by the mediocre, annoying James Chance/CONTORTIONS stuff, by the marginally interesting SUICIDE, & by complete ambivalence to Ms. Lunch’s career, including the promising TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS (who unfortunately are one of those bands you need to hear exactly once, and then you’re d-o-n-e). In so doing, I pretty much missed out on MARS, who are represented here by “3-E” and “11,000 Volts” – both screeching, plodding, pounding dark rock and roll, totally ferocious and unlike anything before it. If I have to pick a personal “retro discovery of the year” for 2003, I’m going with MARS – and yes, I know, it’s not exactly this out-of-left-field find. You were there way before me.
But hey – were you there for ROSA YEMEN? This group, featuring Lizzy Mercier Descloux on fractured, stream-of-consciousness French, are well represented on NY NO WAVE with a big four tracks, all from their s/t 1978 LP. They’re great. The common denominator of the best no wave is that wildly paranoid, adrenaline-packed skittering that races the heart and scrambles the mind; Rosa Yemen were excellent at capturing this sound and making it even vaguely danceable. Descloux really thumped up the grooves that much more on her solo stuff, documented here on “Wawa” and “Torso Corso”. I’m even surprised to find myself really enjoying the solo LYDIA LUNCH stuff here – some entertaining, horn-drenched fake lounge music with naked-city stories of sex and betrayal. In sum, I’m pretty impressed with the compilation & highly recommend it as a darker adjunct to the more funkified “NEW YORK NOISE”.
This new comp of 1978-80 ZE RECORDS selections is sort of the little brother compilation to Soul Jazz’s outstanding “NEW YORK NOISE” assemblage, also from this year. The breadth is limited by the label’s discography, most of which centered around a small knot of key players (JAMES CHANCE/WHITE, LYDIA LUNCH, and LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX) and their respective, intermingled bands. I’m admittedly a little late in discovering some of the glories of New York City no wave, probably because I have for years been underwhelmed by the mediocre, annoying James Chance/CONTORTIONS stuff, by the marginally interesting SUICIDE, & by complete ambivalence to Ms. Lunch’s career, including the promising TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS (who unfortunately are one of those bands you need to hear exactly once, and then you’re d-o-n-e). In so doing, I pretty much missed out on MARS, who are represented here by “3-E” and “11,000 Volts” – both screeching, plodding, pounding dark rock and roll, totally ferocious and unlike anything before it. If I have to pick a personal “retro discovery of the year” for 2003, I’m going with MARS – and yes, I know, it’s not exactly this out-of-left-field find. You were there way before me.
But hey – were you there for ROSA YEMEN? This group, featuring Lizzy Mercier Descloux on fractured, stream-of-consciousness French, are well represented on NY NO WAVE with a big four tracks, all from their s/t 1978 LP. They’re great. The common denominator of the best no wave is that wildly paranoid, adrenaline-packed skittering that races the heart and scrambles the mind; Rosa Yemen were excellent at capturing this sound and making it even vaguely danceable. Descloux really thumped up the grooves that much more on her solo stuff, documented here on “Wawa” and “Torso Corso”. I’m even surprised to find myself really enjoying the solo LYDIA LUNCH stuff here – some entertaining, horn-drenched fake lounge music with naked-city stories of sex and betrayal. In sum, I’m pretty impressed with the compilation & highly recommend it as a darker adjunct to the more funkified “NEW YORK NOISE”.
Monday, December 08, 2003
TOOLIN’ FOR A WARM MEMORY…..
Among the top 10 rock moments of my life was the first time I saw THE DWARVES in 1988 at San Francisco’s Covered Wagon Saloon. The band was in full bloom from their transition from horror-splashed 60s-inspired garage band to raging hardcore-inspired 30-seconds-flat punk rock band, but I didn’t know that yet. Expecting a heavy dose of angry, keyboard-driven psychedelia, I instead got a ballistic six song, five minute set with so much crazed misanthropic energy that the small crowd was driven into the nether regions of the club, fleeing singer Blag Jesus with a mixture of terror and shit-eating glee. Jesus would announce the song title (“This one’s called “Motherfucker”, or “This one’s called “Fuckhead”), and it was 1,2,3, panic for the next forty-five seconds. The whole band was totally nuts, but from this day forward my favorite Dwarve – nay, my favorite rock and roller – was bassist Salt Peter, who affected the most ridiculous bad-ass leather-jacketed rock poses you could imagine, a combination of the exceptionally effeminate and the Hell’s Angel-style ugly. I can’t do it justice in words, but the memories are strong. Needless to say, I was more than hooked, and I proceeded to attend pretty much every show they played in SF up until about 1991 or so, when they had convincingly passed into mediocrity and self-parody.
The band’s whole blood/sex/violence shtick was, I maintain, just that: a shtick. Sure, they might have been violent, hateful losers in real life as well, but there was a real tongue-in-cheek spirit and hidden intelligence there that was hard to locate on the surface. When I wrote the band a fan letter the next month, politely enquiring as to where I could find their “Lucifer’s Crank” cassette, I received a very friendly, conversational handwritten note back from Blag, patiently explaining their discography and thanking me profusely for my fandom. He then signed off with a “PS – Go Fuck Yourself”. The next year that amazing “Toolin’ For a Warm Teabag” 12”EP came out, still an absolute high-water mark for screaming, socket-bursting, in the red punk rock music. It approximates that first live show I saw quite well: 6 tracks, about 6 minutes, and every last one of them a killer. Soon thereafter the rest of the world began to find out. When Mudhoney came to town in 1990, a drunken Mark Arm couldn’t stop shouting “The Dwarves! The Dwarves! Fuck you up and get high!” to the crowd throughout his own band’s set – seems The Dwarves had made their Seattle debut a few days earlier, and secured their Sub Pop deal in the process. They also were playing their best new song since “Let’s Get Pregnant” or “Sit On My Face” – the masterwerk, the uber-genius, the supremely rarified “Fuck You Up and Get High”. Unlike so many of the fake-“dangerous” bands of the era (COWS, HELMET, HOLE, BASTARDS etc.), the 1987-1991 Dwarves stand up tall even today. I’ll advance the proposition that they successfully took punk rock as far as it had been taken up to that point, and subsequent blaze-punk bands like the Zodiac Killers are only basking in the mid-period Dwarves’ considerable shadow (good as they are). For reference, I wholeheartedly suggest the 39-track “Free Cocaine” retrospective CD; the out of print “Toolin’ For Lucifer’s Crank” CD, and the incredible (and incredibly rare) “Lick It / Nothing” 45, a thrilling encapsulation of their psych-to-punk transition that finds them right smack in the middle of the operation.
Among the top 10 rock moments of my life was the first time I saw THE DWARVES in 1988 at San Francisco’s Covered Wagon Saloon. The band was in full bloom from their transition from horror-splashed 60s-inspired garage band to raging hardcore-inspired 30-seconds-flat punk rock band, but I didn’t know that yet. Expecting a heavy dose of angry, keyboard-driven psychedelia, I instead got a ballistic six song, five minute set with so much crazed misanthropic energy that the small crowd was driven into the nether regions of the club, fleeing singer Blag Jesus with a mixture of terror and shit-eating glee. Jesus would announce the song title (“This one’s called “Motherfucker”, or “This one’s called “Fuckhead”), and it was 1,2,3, panic for the next forty-five seconds. The whole band was totally nuts, but from this day forward my favorite Dwarve – nay, my favorite rock and roller – was bassist Salt Peter, who affected the most ridiculous bad-ass leather-jacketed rock poses you could imagine, a combination of the exceptionally effeminate and the Hell’s Angel-style ugly. I can’t do it justice in words, but the memories are strong. Needless to say, I was more than hooked, and I proceeded to attend pretty much every show they played in SF up until about 1991 or so, when they had convincingly passed into mediocrity and self-parody.
The band’s whole blood/sex/violence shtick was, I maintain, just that: a shtick. Sure, they might have been violent, hateful losers in real life as well, but there was a real tongue-in-cheek spirit and hidden intelligence there that was hard to locate on the surface. When I wrote the band a fan letter the next month, politely enquiring as to where I could find their “Lucifer’s Crank” cassette, I received a very friendly, conversational handwritten note back from Blag, patiently explaining their discography and thanking me profusely for my fandom. He then signed off with a “PS – Go Fuck Yourself”. The next year that amazing “Toolin’ For a Warm Teabag” 12”EP came out, still an absolute high-water mark for screaming, socket-bursting, in the red punk rock music. It approximates that first live show I saw quite well: 6 tracks, about 6 minutes, and every last one of them a killer. Soon thereafter the rest of the world began to find out. When Mudhoney came to town in 1990, a drunken Mark Arm couldn’t stop shouting “The Dwarves! The Dwarves! Fuck you up and get high!” to the crowd throughout his own band’s set – seems The Dwarves had made their Seattle debut a few days earlier, and secured their Sub Pop deal in the process. They also were playing their best new song since “Let’s Get Pregnant” or “Sit On My Face” – the masterwerk, the uber-genius, the supremely rarified “Fuck You Up and Get High”. Unlike so many of the fake-“dangerous” bands of the era (COWS, HELMET, HOLE, BASTARDS etc.), the 1987-1991 Dwarves stand up tall even today. I’ll advance the proposition that they successfully took punk rock as far as it had been taken up to that point, and subsequent blaze-punk bands like the Zodiac Killers are only basking in the mid-period Dwarves’ considerable shadow (good as they are). For reference, I wholeheartedly suggest the 39-track “Free Cocaine” retrospective CD; the out of print “Toolin’ For Lucifer’s Crank” CD, and the incredible (and incredibly rare) “Lick It / Nothing” 45, a thrilling encapsulation of their psych-to-punk transition that finds them right smack in the middle of the operation.
TRONICS : “WHAT’S THE HUBUB, BUB?” CD…..Speaking of the MESSTHETICS British DIY series, one of the leading lights so far is the excellent “Shark Fucks” by the TRONICS, a 1979-83 home unit/duo given to recording in the kitchen. A kind Agony Shorthand reader recently sent me a roast of the recent CD re-release of the band’s 1980 “What’s The Hubub, Bub?” cassette, and it’s a strong ultra-indie folk/garage hybrid, tempered by a meaningless dose of squawking industrial electronics and long tape recordings straight off the television. The propulsive “Shark Fucks” also makes an appearance, albeit in a slightly different arrangement. Great track, and a must-hear for fans of the weird world of late 70s homemade UK post-punk. Singer “Ziro Baby” had a very warm and inviting folksinger sort of voice that belies his bizarre subject matter, and his partner in crime and rhythm “Alyce In Wonderland” sounds like her kit consisted of a single tom drum and a spoon. Not the sort of thing that’ll make its way to the CD deck too often, but there is definitely some there there.
Friday, December 05, 2003
HYPED2DEATH IS BACK.....After a long hiatus that had been rumored to be connected to legal troubles -- but was really just the arrival of a new kid (I can relate) -- Chuck Warner's HYPED2DEATH 70s/80s punk/post-punk/DIY archive label is back. He's got a small handful of one-off "complete works" releases by past stars of his HOMEWORK, HYPED2DEATH, MESSTHETICS and TEENLINE comps, including some that sound pretty interesting, like the one from Baton Rouge weirdos THE ZOOMERS (their "From The Planet Moon" is easily one of the top 10 tracks from the exhaustive HOMEWORK series). I'd like to see Warner finish the alphabet for the aforementioned series first, but these'll do. Only $9 each, and he takes Paypal (fake money) -- gotta love it. (NOTE: now I understand why he may never finish the alphabet, as this article makes clear -- thanks for the link)
Thursday, December 04, 2003
KENT 3 : “SPELLS” CD…..
Ever search the $1 or $2 CD bins and leave frustrated because you can never pull a single decent CD out of the flotsam, even at such a killer rock-bottom price? The wait is over, folks – because the KENT 3 have yet another CD that’s fallen on deaf ears, even in their native Seattle. During my two years of residence in the rainy city, the Kent 3 were one of the only local bands outside of DEAD MOON & MUDHONEY I’d regular venture out to see. I think I caught them on at least a half-dozen occasions, and every last one was a great time. What does one call the style of rock they play? Garage? I guess….but the likelihood of their having any supporters amongst what we commonly think of as Crypt- or even Estrus-style “garage rockers” is pretty nonexistent. How about ROCK? Sure! Make that raw, occasionally straight-ahead rock seasoned with the weirdest, most obtuse sense of humor and lyrical wordplay you can imagine. These gentlemen are by no means dumb – there’s a sneaking suspicion I have, borne out in their lyrics and even in the twisting but riff-heavy music, that the Kent 3 are playing at a stratified plain just above the one most mortals occupy, and that they are so stifled and frustrated that they throw caution to the wind & just say “fuck it” when it comes time to compose a coherent lyrical or musical narrative. In fact part of the fun of listening to them is trying to figure out where Viv Halogen’s lyrical and philosophical thought train will take you in a song. It’s not meant to be “funny” per se (though it often is anyway), just “interesting”. And I hate lyrics!
This latest one came out in 2002, a good four years after the excellent “Peasant Musik” emerged on Steve Turner (Mudhoney)’s SuperElectro label. I don’t know how I missed it, but then these guys are used to coping with a fairly low profile. Not even sure if they’re around anymore, really. I’d like to know. “Spells” definitely eschews some of the more mid-tempo meanderings of its predecessor for a lot more fired-up aggression, but even that is tempered by titles like “Man In a Woman’s Body” that sort of act as quiet, puzzling interludes for the rest. Halogen has a terrific voice, which is kind of curious when you consider that an incarnation of this band from a decade ago (“Screaming Youth Fantastic” ) practically fell down solely on their then-vocalist’s rotten set of pipes. I have to live with “Spells” some more, but from where I sit today, it’s their most consistent long player to date, Maybe their best. Yet if people truly vote with their wallets, then this is not a very well-appreciated band. You’ll have to factor that against my glowing appraisal and see if it’s worth parting with your dollar when you come across “Spells” in the used CD bins.
Ever search the $1 or $2 CD bins and leave frustrated because you can never pull a single decent CD out of the flotsam, even at such a killer rock-bottom price? The wait is over, folks – because the KENT 3 have yet another CD that’s fallen on deaf ears, even in their native Seattle. During my two years of residence in the rainy city, the Kent 3 were one of the only local bands outside of DEAD MOON & MUDHONEY I’d regular venture out to see. I think I caught them on at least a half-dozen occasions, and every last one was a great time. What does one call the style of rock they play? Garage? I guess….but the likelihood of their having any supporters amongst what we commonly think of as Crypt- or even Estrus-style “garage rockers” is pretty nonexistent. How about ROCK? Sure! Make that raw, occasionally straight-ahead rock seasoned with the weirdest, most obtuse sense of humor and lyrical wordplay you can imagine. These gentlemen are by no means dumb – there’s a sneaking suspicion I have, borne out in their lyrics and even in the twisting but riff-heavy music, that the Kent 3 are playing at a stratified plain just above the one most mortals occupy, and that they are so stifled and frustrated that they throw caution to the wind & just say “fuck it” when it comes time to compose a coherent lyrical or musical narrative. In fact part of the fun of listening to them is trying to figure out where Viv Halogen’s lyrical and philosophical thought train will take you in a song. It’s not meant to be “funny” per se (though it often is anyway), just “interesting”. And I hate lyrics!
This latest one came out in 2002, a good four years after the excellent “Peasant Musik” emerged on Steve Turner (Mudhoney)’s SuperElectro label. I don’t know how I missed it, but then these guys are used to coping with a fairly low profile. Not even sure if they’re around anymore, really. I’d like to know. “Spells” definitely eschews some of the more mid-tempo meanderings of its predecessor for a lot more fired-up aggression, but even that is tempered by titles like “Man In a Woman’s Body” that sort of act as quiet, puzzling interludes for the rest. Halogen has a terrific voice, which is kind of curious when you consider that an incarnation of this band from a decade ago (“Screaming Youth Fantastic” ) practically fell down solely on their then-vocalist’s rotten set of pipes. I have to live with “Spells” some more, but from where I sit today, it’s their most consistent long player to date, Maybe their best. Yet if people truly vote with their wallets, then this is not a very well-appreciated band. You’ll have to factor that against my glowing appraisal and see if it’s worth parting with your dollar when you come across “Spells” in the used CD bins.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
V/A : “DRINK UP AND GO HOME! – SUN COUNTRY VOL. 2” CD….A few years back I discovered that SUN RECORDS held an embarrassment of country music riches that I’d barely known existed. All the early rock and roll cats that recorded here had dabbled in the genre before their greater glory – in fact, Elvis’ “That’s All Right / Blue Moon Of Kentucky” was marketed and found its success throughout the South on traditional fiddle-dominated country radio. This 1996 AVI Records, Sun-licensed compilation followed 1995’s Volume One, “Defrost Your Heart”, and is a nice elaboration on the drinkin’/cheatin’/lyin’/heartbreakin’ concept initially fleshed out on the first. The ringers on this one belong to Mr. CARL PERKINS and his devastating title track – a demo recorded at home with his children frolicking in the background (!) – and the fantastically boozy “No More, No More” & “They Call Our Love a Sin” from JIMMY HAGGETT. The great CHARLIE FEATHERS clocks in with two numbers, one of which is such a dead-on, unabashed ripoff of HANK WILLIAMS you have to clink a frosty, tear-filled glass his way. There’s also MAGGIE SUE WIMBERLY, whose voice is so 16-year-old raw and nubile that her two tracks sound like nervous auditions for the local community talent show/barbeque/bake sale.
This compilation, like its predecessor, appears to drive for completeness, so you get A-sides, B-sides, demos and toss-offs alike. There are certainly some clinkers in there, particularly the cornpone abomination that are the “Rhythm Rockers”. While I recommend striving for completeness in the case of Sun Country – these guys were absolute recording masters and their crack house band was just the best in the business – the better bet for the neophyte is a subsequent 2000 compilation called simply “The Best of Sun Country” on the Italian Saar Records. Here you get all the heavy hitters representing – Perkins, Feathers, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis and even those harmonizing Miller Sisters. It’s a whopping 60 minutes of tearjerking that’ll lay even the raging optimist flat out & down low
This compilation, like its predecessor, appears to drive for completeness, so you get A-sides, B-sides, demos and toss-offs alike. There are certainly some clinkers in there, particularly the cornpone abomination that are the “Rhythm Rockers”. While I recommend striving for completeness in the case of Sun Country – these guys were absolute recording masters and their crack house band was just the best in the business – the better bet for the neophyte is a subsequent 2000 compilation called simply “The Best of Sun Country” on the Italian Saar Records. Here you get all the heavy hitters representing – Perkins, Feathers, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis and even those harmonizing Miller Sisters. It’s a whopping 60 minutes of tearjerking that’ll lay even the raging optimist flat out & down low
Monday, December 01, 2003
WHAT’S WITH THE HIPPY DIP TRIP??…..Have hippies all of sudden become the focal point of underground taste and style? You’d be forgiven for thinking so after perusing November’s issue of ARTHUR magazine. This is a laughable development in late 2003, and yet considering how hard this paper tries to conjur up the ghosts of the Vietnam-era broadsheet, it’s not at all surprising. (Yes, I know I’ve ranted with tongue partially in cheek about Arthur before, and I promise this is the last one). There’s this weird axis forming now between professional activists devoted to perpetuation of the status quo, the insular, in-jokey private-press noise/improv scene and old-school 1960s-style Vermont hippies. They seemed to have found their nexus in the pages of this free magazine, and also in noodly noise ensembles like NO NECK BLUES BAND and what one Brian Turner presciently dubbed the “beard rock” scene. I think it stems from the bunker mentality common to those who stridently believe that they and they alone have the answer, be it political, musical or social – everyone else be damned.
ARTHUR columnist and rock guitarist Thurston Moore, of all people, seems to carry the banner of this nexus the highest. He’s gone from being a rock hero of mine to a shrill harpy and babbling know-it-all about his pet causes and bands. There’s something about the self-righteousness of Moore, his “Protest” Records and overheated political rhetoric that really tans my hide. Maybe it’s the unspoken assumption that if you have any affinity with underground music whatsoever, you simply must agree wholeheartedly with his sentiments about “fucked yuppie culture” and that Bush = Hitler. Even if I do agree, he’s about the last person in the world I want to be taking my cues from. Newfangled hippies like Moore have potentially even ensnared the formerly apolitical Byron Coley in their net, who now writes in his co-penned (with Moore) “Bull Tongue” column paens to bong hits, hippie noise jams and unfunny George W. jokes. This once-promising column has fallen so fast so quickly I have to think that Coley is barely involved; his distinctive stamp is barely on the thing. Tony Rettman’s piece on a national tour of SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN & a couple of other bands also fits into this nexus. This collective are the poster children for what I’m talking about – lots of chat here about incense being burned, gypsy folk troubadours, magick, that sort of thing. I kind of liked them as a curiosity when I saw them, but honestly, folks. There was a dancing hesher, a woman sprawled out on the floor who intermittently bleated into a microphone, instruments randomly changing hands, and long “peace-pipe friendly” groovathons. It was OK, but “Rock and roll” my ass! Keep a close watch on your scene, folks – these people are slowly training their mystic eye on it, and they’re beginning to smell victory.
ARTHUR columnist and rock guitarist Thurston Moore, of all people, seems to carry the banner of this nexus the highest. He’s gone from being a rock hero of mine to a shrill harpy and babbling know-it-all about his pet causes and bands. There’s something about the self-righteousness of Moore, his “Protest” Records and overheated political rhetoric that really tans my hide. Maybe it’s the unspoken assumption that if you have any affinity with underground music whatsoever, you simply must agree wholeheartedly with his sentiments about “fucked yuppie culture” and that Bush = Hitler. Even if I do agree, he’s about the last person in the world I want to be taking my cues from. Newfangled hippies like Moore have potentially even ensnared the formerly apolitical Byron Coley in their net, who now writes in his co-penned (with Moore) “Bull Tongue” column paens to bong hits, hippie noise jams and unfunny George W. jokes. This once-promising column has fallen so fast so quickly I have to think that Coley is barely involved; his distinctive stamp is barely on the thing. Tony Rettman’s piece on a national tour of SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN & a couple of other bands also fits into this nexus. This collective are the poster children for what I’m talking about – lots of chat here about incense being burned, gypsy folk troubadours, magick, that sort of thing. I kind of liked them as a curiosity when I saw them, but honestly, folks. There was a dancing hesher, a woman sprawled out on the floor who intermittently bleated into a microphone, instruments randomly changing hands, and long “peace-pipe friendly” groovathons. It was OK, but “Rock and roll” my ass! Keep a close watch on your scene, folks – these people are slowly training their mystic eye on it, and they’re beginning to smell victory.
Saturday, November 29, 2003
WE JAM ECONO, THE MOVIE....An underground movement that was once thought so far below the mainstream radar as to be impenetrable, the 1980s American rock/punk underground has lately inspired a ton of media attention and revisionism. Nothing wrong there, and nothing wrong with the upcoming documentary on THE MINUTEMEN called "We Jam Econo", due out Summer of 2004. How about that? Combine that with an upcoming JANDEK documentary, the "Hamburger Martyrs: The Story of Killdozer" film, the "Total Nardcore: The Rise and Fall of Mystic Records" doc and other ephemera floating to the top, and I think it's fair to say that this scene is now ripe for the pickin'. I'll meet you in Telluride for the Minutemen film.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
V/A : “HOT WOMEN – WOMEN SINGERS FROM THE TORRID REGIONS OF THE WORLD”…..
This collection of lost 1920s-1940s 78rpm records was personally collected and arranged by R. CRUMB, and sets a pretty high bar with regard to who gets to participate. First, they have to be female. Next, they need to be from the 78rpm era. Then, they need to be “from the torrid regions of the world” -- we’re talking way balmy at the very least: Mexico, the Caribbean, Burma, Tunisia, Greece etc. Finally, they need to be good. It is only on this last criteria, regrettably the most important, that the collection somewhat breaks down. The ethnomusicologist in you will forgive a lot of the mediocre or grating tracks – ROSINA TRUBIA GIOIOSA of 1927 Sicily, come on down! – and you’ll find that a lot of these women had either lovely voices or terrific, interesting backing musicianship. Perhaps that's enough. I’m especially partial to the Latin/South American music that kicks off the collection, like Mexico’s LYDIA MEDOZA Y FAMILIA's mid-1930s “Mexico En Una Laguna” (god, I can almost translate that!!) or the Cuban GRUPO DE “LA ALEGRIA” and their 1928 representation. On the other side of the globe are the great Burmese and Hindustani entries, both so baffling for Crumb that the titles are simply “(Title in Hindustani)” and “(Title in Burmese)”. The net effect is a fun, somewhat tiring trip around the early-to-mid 20th Century globe, checking in with the sisterhood in each country to see what they have to sing to us. Let’s call it a real nice CD-R to have in the collection and leave it at that.
This collection of lost 1920s-1940s 78rpm records was personally collected and arranged by R. CRUMB, and sets a pretty high bar with regard to who gets to participate. First, they have to be female. Next, they need to be from the 78rpm era. Then, they need to be “from the torrid regions of the world” -- we’re talking way balmy at the very least: Mexico, the Caribbean, Burma, Tunisia, Greece etc. Finally, they need to be good. It is only on this last criteria, regrettably the most important, that the collection somewhat breaks down. The ethnomusicologist in you will forgive a lot of the mediocre or grating tracks – ROSINA TRUBIA GIOIOSA of 1927 Sicily, come on down! – and you’ll find that a lot of these women had either lovely voices or terrific, interesting backing musicianship. Perhaps that's enough. I’m especially partial to the Latin/South American music that kicks off the collection, like Mexico’s LYDIA MEDOZA Y FAMILIA's mid-1930s “Mexico En Una Laguna” (god, I can almost translate that!!) or the Cuban GRUPO DE “LA ALEGRIA” and their 1928 representation. On the other side of the globe are the great Burmese and Hindustani entries, both so baffling for Crumb that the titles are simply “(Title in Hindustani)” and “(Title in Burmese)”. The net effect is a fun, somewhat tiring trip around the early-to-mid 20th Century globe, checking in with the sisterhood in each country to see what they have to sing to us. Let’s call it a real nice CD-R to have in the collection and leave it at that.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
ZODIAC KILLERS : “HAVE A BLAST” CD….
When I moved back to San Francisco in 1999 after a couple of years in Seattle, the ZODIAC KILLERS emerged very briefly as my hometown’s signature punk rock band. I think I caught three rapid-fire, quick succession shows before the band imploded and broke up amidst much acrimony. Their pedigree was pretty stunning if you were/are a fan of ballistic, no-holds-barred lightning-fast garage punk – Greg Lowery, an original third of the brilliant SUPERCHARGER, had come to the band after an ignominious stint in “the Rip Offs”. Not only that, but there was Ross fresh over from THE BRIDES, whose first 45 is still one the best raw & howling modern garage records of the past twenty years, and Jami Wolf, who had a great vocal snarl and was given to dressing in nurses’ outfits onstage (this was definitely the band of choice for nurse fetishists in 1999-2000). Shows typically began and ended within twenty minutes, with about 12-15 songs packed together in a blinding manner that was closer to early 80s aggro hardcore than Mummies/Supercharger/etc. 60s-inspired ramalama. Their 1999 debut CD “The Most Thrilling Experience” captured this speed and power all quite well, I’d say. After they dissolved, I’d heard Lowery had an entirely new group of Zodiac Killers assembled, and, thinking that to be pretty lame, I decided to punish them by refraining from paying attention.
Well! The new line-up’s just as hot if not hotter. The 2nd CD “Have A Blast” from 2001 (brand new to me) follows the exact same recipe – straight-up, loud, blazing, hardcore-style rawness, played as tight as the first DIE KRUEZEN LP and faster than TEENGENERATE and other compatriots. Let’s see, the longest track on here clocks in at 1:48, but I assure you there’s no one-chorus-too-many going on there. Occasionally something a little more late 70s/bouncy sneaks in, and those slight aberrations (“Party For My Enemies”) are among the best of the 13 tracks on here. The riffs are just HUGE, too, and the production couldn’t be better. If this sounds even remotely attractive, trust me, the Zodiac Killers are doing this light-years better than anyone else around. What’s the catch? None really, as long as you don’t understand English. These lyrics and sentiments expressed therein are among the DUMBEST you’ll ever hear anywhere (a typical lyric is “gonna kill, kill, kill, kill, kill you tonight!” or “kamikaze, kamikaze, it’s a kamikaze attack!”), and seriously, there’s actually a dude in the band who goes by the nom de plume of “Billy Badass”. Billy Badass!!! I don’t even know if the band’s still a going concern anymore, but if they’re out there and playing, I think I’m ready to get reinvolved. (UPDATE: stop the presses -- there's a new one out now!)
When I moved back to San Francisco in 1999 after a couple of years in Seattle, the ZODIAC KILLERS emerged very briefly as my hometown’s signature punk rock band. I think I caught three rapid-fire, quick succession shows before the band imploded and broke up amidst much acrimony. Their pedigree was pretty stunning if you were/are a fan of ballistic, no-holds-barred lightning-fast garage punk – Greg Lowery, an original third of the brilliant SUPERCHARGER, had come to the band after an ignominious stint in “the Rip Offs”. Not only that, but there was Ross fresh over from THE BRIDES, whose first 45 is still one the best raw & howling modern garage records of the past twenty years, and Jami Wolf, who had a great vocal snarl and was given to dressing in nurses’ outfits onstage (this was definitely the band of choice for nurse fetishists in 1999-2000). Shows typically began and ended within twenty minutes, with about 12-15 songs packed together in a blinding manner that was closer to early 80s aggro hardcore than Mummies/Supercharger/etc. 60s-inspired ramalama. Their 1999 debut CD “The Most Thrilling Experience” captured this speed and power all quite well, I’d say. After they dissolved, I’d heard Lowery had an entirely new group of Zodiac Killers assembled, and, thinking that to be pretty lame, I decided to punish them by refraining from paying attention.
Well! The new line-up’s just as hot if not hotter. The 2nd CD “Have A Blast” from 2001 (brand new to me) follows the exact same recipe – straight-up, loud, blazing, hardcore-style rawness, played as tight as the first DIE KRUEZEN LP and faster than TEENGENERATE and other compatriots. Let’s see, the longest track on here clocks in at 1:48, but I assure you there’s no one-chorus-too-many going on there. Occasionally something a little more late 70s/bouncy sneaks in, and those slight aberrations (“Party For My Enemies”) are among the best of the 13 tracks on here. The riffs are just HUGE, too, and the production couldn’t be better. If this sounds even remotely attractive, trust me, the Zodiac Killers are doing this light-years better than anyone else around. What’s the catch? None really, as long as you don’t understand English. These lyrics and sentiments expressed therein are among the DUMBEST you’ll ever hear anywhere (a typical lyric is “gonna kill, kill, kill, kill, kill you tonight!” or “kamikaze, kamikaze, it’s a kamikaze attack!”), and seriously, there’s actually a dude in the band who goes by the nom de plume of “Billy Badass”. Billy Badass!!! I don’t even know if the band’s still a going concern anymore, but if they’re out there and playing, I think I’m ready to get reinvolved. (UPDATE: stop the presses -- there's a new one out now!)
MORE FLESH EATERS PROPAGANDA.....Can be found here, in a nice interview/overview by Bill Samaras of one of the great lost bands and rock heroes (Chris D.) of all time.
HAMICKS : “KNEE WALKING” CD…..There’s a whole category of bands, alluded to in my Pink & Brown review a couple months ago, that I like to call “Middle Bands”. These are the rock combos and trios that usually slot in the middle of a three-band bill, and who dutifully keep the stage nice and warm for the headliner you actually paid to see. Usually they’re fairly innocuous, often a little bit talented, and are sometimes even worth watching as long as – and only if – you’ve got a couple of beers on board. If one drew a curve representing all the rock bands on the planet, it would likely distribute into a bell shape, with the 2.4 Billion “Middle Bands” bulging and heaving across the middle. Enter the HAMICKS from Chicago, a clear-cut middle band if there ever was one. Their rompy, calliope-sounding new wave garage rock is outstandingly tepid, wildly middle of the road, and aggressively average. While I’ll give them a few points for the most dead-on David Bowie vocal imitation I’ve ever heard, I’ll subtract for the ham-fisted riffs that fizzle out and crash just when they’re getting a tiny bit interesting. If these fellas hit your town on their big tour this year, try timing your arrival for about 11:24pm so you catch the last two songs & have time to savor a hearty microbrew.
SPUD MOUNTAIN RFD….There was a big upsurge in cool homegrown online radio stations around 2000-01, most powered by individuals spinning their record collections onto some software and uploading them every week. I myself hosted a 50s-60s R&B/garage punk show like this called the "No-Count Dance Party" on the late lamented ANTENNA RADIO. One of the survivors of this era is SPUD MOUNTAIN RFD, a really great Real Audio-powered overview of old 1920s-40s Americana, centered on early hillbilly, bluegrass & country music, compiled with care by a couple of Oregonians who know their Coon Creek Girls from their Skillet Lickers. It’s easy to listen and then listen some more, and they keep a few of the older shows around for archival listening as well. Highly recommended.
PARTY WITH ME, PIRATE.....Here's a nice freebie from the Live Music Archive: three late-period MINUTEMEN shows available for free downloading. Thanks to CS for the heads-up. I checked out the rest of the site for other winners and came up with zero -- the Archive is for the barefoot, jam-band tape-trading crowd, a crowd that I actually have a lot of DIY respect for despite the horrors of the music. How the Minutemen got swept up in that web is beyond me -- maybe the DEAD-worshipping SST connection?
Saturday, November 22, 2003
REVEREND CHARLIE JACKSON : "GOD'S GOT IT" CD....
You know, gospel music is always one of those things that tickles the fancy in the abstract; everyone gets excited picturing a vision of a rollicking, frenzied, rapture-filled black church in the South with holy rollers speaking in tongues, singing & dancing from the rafters. But my experiences with American gospel music have tended to leave me a little cold. It may be my complete antipathy toward religion (a measured stance that mixes begrudging respect with hostile skepticism), but I've been waiting for that one pure gospel record to come out of the woodwork and knock me on my ass (BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON's complete oeuvre & Reverend Louis Overstreet 's Arhoolie CD notwithstanding). Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to report that I have found it. Maybe not found Jesus, but found the one pure gospel shitkicker I've been waiting for.
REVEREND CHARLIE JACKSON was a shout-hollerin' guitar-slinger from the Deep South who cut a small series of impossibly rare 45s from 1970-1978, and lent his considerable axe-wielding skills to recordings by a couple fellow travelers as well. He's still alive, they say, but has been cut down by a series of strokes and is now cooling his heels in Baton Rouge. But man, these complete recordings are some of the hardest-edged, fuzzed-out blues guitar you'll hear anywhere, and when combined with Jackson's almighty shout (think BUNKER HILL or PINETOPPERS-era OTIS REDDING) it's a real raw, primal rush. Though the sides are broken up throughout the disc's 18 tracks, it's obvious to me that the early 45s are the best, especially the debut "God's Got It / Fix It Jesus" and the subsequent "Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus / Morning Train". Picture some holy hybrid of Muscle Shoals soul, early unadorned funk music, and bleary-eyed, desperate sounding blues a la SKIP JAMES, then wrap it up in a prayer shawl with pictures of the King of Kings on it, and you're pretty much there. It teeters between the sacred and the profane by virtue of this rawness, but I've gotta think that if some sort of heavenly inventory is being taken, Jackson'll easily come out on the side of the angels.
You know, gospel music is always one of those things that tickles the fancy in the abstract; everyone gets excited picturing a vision of a rollicking, frenzied, rapture-filled black church in the South with holy rollers speaking in tongues, singing & dancing from the rafters. But my experiences with American gospel music have tended to leave me a little cold. It may be my complete antipathy toward religion (a measured stance that mixes begrudging respect with hostile skepticism), but I've been waiting for that one pure gospel record to come out of the woodwork and knock me on my ass (BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON's complete oeuvre & Reverend Louis Overstreet 's Arhoolie CD notwithstanding). Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to report that I have found it. Maybe not found Jesus, but found the one pure gospel shitkicker I've been waiting for.
REVEREND CHARLIE JACKSON was a shout-hollerin' guitar-slinger from the Deep South who cut a small series of impossibly rare 45s from 1970-1978, and lent his considerable axe-wielding skills to recordings by a couple fellow travelers as well. He's still alive, they say, but has been cut down by a series of strokes and is now cooling his heels in Baton Rouge. But man, these complete recordings are some of the hardest-edged, fuzzed-out blues guitar you'll hear anywhere, and when combined with Jackson's almighty shout (think BUNKER HILL or PINETOPPERS-era OTIS REDDING) it's a real raw, primal rush. Though the sides are broken up throughout the disc's 18 tracks, it's obvious to me that the early 45s are the best, especially the debut "God's Got It / Fix It Jesus" and the subsequent "Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus / Morning Train". Picture some holy hybrid of Muscle Shoals soul, early unadorned funk music, and bleary-eyed, desperate sounding blues a la SKIP JAMES, then wrap it up in a prayer shawl with pictures of the King of Kings on it, and you're pretty much there. It teeters between the sacred and the profane by virtue of this rawness, but I've gotta think that if some sort of heavenly inventory is being taken, Jackson'll easily come out on the side of the angels.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
DOW JONES AND THE INDUSTRIALS....Lame current ska band with the same name notwithstanding, I'm searching for information that any readers can provide me on early 80s Indiana punks DOW JONES AND THE INDUSTRIALS. Not so much their bio, which one can find here, but a yay or nay on their recorded output. They are batting a clean 1.000 based on the two tracks I've heard and taken to my bosom: "Can't Stand The Midwest" from their only 7"EP, and the bizarre robotpunk of "Ladies With Appliances" -- one of the 2-3 top highlights of Chuck Warner's HOMEWORK series so far. What about their side of "Hoosier Hysteria"? Is it worth pathologically tracking down?
Monday, November 17, 2003
NOW A FEW WORDS ON “UGLY THINGS”….Last week I finished this year’s edition of UGLY THINGS magazine (#21) after spending a couple of weeks with it – well, “finished” is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. How does one actually finish a massive tome like this, packed with absolutely insane amounts of 60s rock arcana and incidental, meaningless flotsam? I mean, the cover feature on mediocre London-via-Riverside psych band THE MISUNDERSTOOD is 45 pages of tiny type, in which the band’s marginally interesting back story and sub-stories are flogged into painful submission – and it’s only the second of three jumbo cover stories planned on the group. I’d accuse Mike Stax of trying to grab a Pulitzer if that was even plausible. Likewise, the massive reviews section in the back would garner a lot more credibility if it weren’t for the utter lack of subjectively (yes! more subjectivity please!) and unabashed cheerleading for every tinpot reissue of flowery psych/pop turd, Danish beat combo and marginal 60s garage rock outfit. Isn’t at least some of this stuff just absolute shit? – and doesn’t some of it merit, say, a 1-paragraph review as opposed to 7-8 paragraphs of down-to-the-liner-notes scientific dissection? I think Stax does get it at some level – one reviewer makes reference to a dictat from headquarters asking for “less words” in the reviews. I’d say that judging from the boatload of bloated reviews this issue, the memo hit the circular file the second it arrived.
Hey, don’t get me wrong – I eagerly buy UGLY THINGS every time a new issue hits the stands, and strongly encourage you to do the same. No magazine covers its scene this deeply – and in recent years that scene has expanded to raw music from the 70s and 80s (witness the “controversial” CRIME, UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS and MISFITS cover features). There’s always some features that serve the public interest exceptionally well – witness #21’s piece that sorts through the recent mass of ABKCO Rolling Stones reissues. They’ve even stooped to allow famous record collector Johan (“I owe you one”) Kugelberg on the masthead, and at least he does keep things verbally moving along – and covers micro-scenes that no one else does. Why, this issue JK even tackles DANNY & THE DRESSMAKERS and the legend of Fuck Off Records. And he even prints up a list that he just happened to find in a scrapbook – hey, now where’d that come from??!? – of his favorite records in September 1983 – when he was just a mere teen! Not surprisingly, because he’s always been such a groover, he was way into SPK, PERE UBU, TELEVISION and THE POPES – just like all the other kids! I mean, come on. I lay even odds that this list of “favorite 1983 records” was written in, oh, how about 2003?
Anyway, the new UGLY THINGS is out! Go forth and prosper -- $9 of Paypal and clicking here will get you going.
Hey, don’t get me wrong – I eagerly buy UGLY THINGS every time a new issue hits the stands, and strongly encourage you to do the same. No magazine covers its scene this deeply – and in recent years that scene has expanded to raw music from the 70s and 80s (witness the “controversial” CRIME, UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS and MISFITS cover features). There’s always some features that serve the public interest exceptionally well – witness #21’s piece that sorts through the recent mass of ABKCO Rolling Stones reissues. They’ve even stooped to allow famous record collector Johan (“I owe you one”) Kugelberg on the masthead, and at least he does keep things verbally moving along – and covers micro-scenes that no one else does. Why, this issue JK even tackles DANNY & THE DRESSMAKERS and the legend of Fuck Off Records. And he even prints up a list that he just happened to find in a scrapbook – hey, now where’d that come from??!? – of his favorite records in September 1983 – when he was just a mere teen! Not surprisingly, because he’s always been such a groover, he was way into SPK, PERE UBU, TELEVISION and THE POPES – just like all the other kids! I mean, come on. I lay even odds that this list of “favorite 1983 records” was written in, oh, how about 2003?
Anyway, the new UGLY THINGS is out! Go forth and prosper -- $9 of Paypal and clicking here will get you going.
Friday, November 14, 2003
LET NATHANIEL MAYER TAKE YOU TO THE VILLAGE OF LOVE…..In MOJO’s relatively recent “Detroit” issue, there was a surprising piece on 60s R&B/soul loverman NATHANIEL MAYER, he of the awesome posthumous CD “Village of Love” and its stupendous, doo wop groover of a title track. “Village of Love”, the song, apparently reached #22 on the US charts in 1962, which surprised me since I’d never heard it on oldies radio (and I very much “dig” oldies radio). The 21-track retrospective CD came out in 1996 on Italy’s Gold Dust records, and is a must if you’re in need of an overview of all the high points of early 60s R&B, all performed beautifully by one dude: renaissance man Mayer. There’s 5-years-ahead-of-my-time call & response soul (“I Had a Dream”, later covered by the GIBSON BROS); jiving dancefloor killers (“Leave Me Alone” and “I Want Love and Affection [Not The House of Correction]”); and the collection’s calling card: down and out, done-me-wrong weepers (“Hurting Love”, among others), perfect for play while staring at the bottom of a beer bottle. Tim Warren at Crypt Records was hyping this in his catalog a few years ago with the graceful subtlety he’s well known for (“BUY OR DIE!!!"), and I thankfully took the bait. And wouldn’t you know it, Nathaniel Mayer’'s on the revival circuit now & absolutely knocking ‘em dead, or so Mojo claims. Then again, they say that about everything – critical distinctions and the bearing of unpleasant truths are not that particular magazine’s strong suit. Layouts, bold colors, compleat career overviews: they got that covered. Anyway, the real R&B truth lies in the “Village of Love” CD, and it was nice to see it recognized as such.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
(NEAR)-MASTERPIECE : “PRETTY VACANT”…..I don’t think I’ve written a single thing on the SEX PISTOLS beyond a passing reference in my life – and come to think of it, I’m hard-pressed to name a piece by any cultural/rock critic heavyweight (Byron Coley, Richard Meltzer et al) that goes beyond mentioning them in dismissive passing either. That’s kind of curious when you think about it. Oh sure, the hacks and the phonies and the Greil Marcuses all confuse the band’s media & cultural impact with their musical impact, and because the former was so massive and all-encompassing, I always forget to even consider giving kudos for the latter. I’m not really a huge fan, despite owning a cassette of “Never Mind The Bollocks” (my first punk tape!) since I was a wee lad. Yet I recently got the chance to listen to “Pretty Vacant” – long my favorite number of theirs – with an unbiased, unwaxed, unencumbered ear again, and man, is that one hot tune. Buoyantly fun and angry, with an exuberant, mocking chorus, snotty as hell and a rollicking good time. “God Save The Queen” I can take or leave, “Anarchy in the UK” is fairly useless – but “Pretty Vacant” is punk rock on wheels. A (near)-masterpiece!
"THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS GETTING ITS ACT TOGETHER AT LAST"....Or so says Michael J. Wolf in a piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (who've actually covered the crazed machinations and death throes of the record industry extremely well, with the consumer's best interests front and center in almost every article). Why should we care about the megacorporations and how they divide up their diminishing pie? Well, it's a matter of taste, really, but I think that what happens here -- how music is bought, sold and distributed -- will have repercussions down to the micro-indie label level. Plus I find macro changes in the way the world (or even the world of business) operates fascinating, particularly when change -- which is inevitable and should almost always be embraced -- is forced on unwilling participants (e.g. the record industry). Among Wolf's observations and conclusions:
-- "Despite a sales decline of 20% in the past three years, the sheer volume of online downloads, portable devices and ripped CDs have made music an ever important part of people's lives...and for the core audience of 10- to 24-year-olds, it remains about rebelling against parents, sharing experiences with friends, and setting the moods of their lives"
-- "As digital music devices like the iPod, Sony's Network Walkman and Dell's Digital Jukebox take off in popularity, new marketing approaches should flourish, perhaps bundling pre-downloaded song libraries with devices similar to the way cellular phones are sold with talking minutes."
-- "The key is that in the digital world, the music industry no longer controls the format...Since digital consumers are embracing singles, and no longer will tolerate albums with one or two good tracks, the best music executives will strive to develop commercially viable acts with deep bodies of work and consistent quality"
-- "As the industry works through this massive format shift, there will be fewer music majors releasing fewer albums. But that will create opportunities for independent music labels that operate on different cost structures and can support artists whose albums aren't megasellers. Good music will still find its audience, and audiences will pay for the privilege of receiving it the way they want it. When music companies have pooled resources, lowered costs and extended their marketing reach to deliver on this promise, the industry will resume growing"
Just watching the shift from albums to individual songs is fascinating to me -- and more in line with the way I (and perhaps you) enjoy listening to music anyway. For years I've made tapes, and now CD-Rs, of my favorite stuff -- 45s and LP tracks -- and those are often the discs in heaviest rotation in the car and at home. It's interesting to see how the internet facilitated this mindset/way of listening even further, and how it's caused a seismic upheaval in an industry that refused to acknowledge it. I don't see any downside, since those of us that also enjoy full albums get to vote with our wallets like everyone else. Discuss.
-- "Despite a sales decline of 20% in the past three years, the sheer volume of online downloads, portable devices and ripped CDs have made music an ever important part of people's lives...and for the core audience of 10- to 24-year-olds, it remains about rebelling against parents, sharing experiences with friends, and setting the moods of their lives"
-- "As digital music devices like the iPod, Sony's Network Walkman and Dell's Digital Jukebox take off in popularity, new marketing approaches should flourish, perhaps bundling pre-downloaded song libraries with devices similar to the way cellular phones are sold with talking minutes."
-- "The key is that in the digital world, the music industry no longer controls the format...Since digital consumers are embracing singles, and no longer will tolerate albums with one or two good tracks, the best music executives will strive to develop commercially viable acts with deep bodies of work and consistent quality"
-- "As the industry works through this massive format shift, there will be fewer music majors releasing fewer albums. But that will create opportunities for independent music labels that operate on different cost structures and can support artists whose albums aren't megasellers. Good music will still find its audience, and audiences will pay for the privilege of receiving it the way they want it. When music companies have pooled resources, lowered costs and extended their marketing reach to deliver on this promise, the industry will resume growing"
Just watching the shift from albums to individual songs is fascinating to me -- and more in line with the way I (and perhaps you) enjoy listening to music anyway. For years I've made tapes, and now CD-Rs, of my favorite stuff -- 45s and LP tracks -- and those are often the discs in heaviest rotation in the car and at home. It's interesting to see how the internet facilitated this mindset/way of listening even further, and how it's caused a seismic upheaval in an industry that refused to acknowledge it. I don't see any downside, since those of us that also enjoy full albums get to vote with our wallets like everyone else. Discuss.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
LEFTOVERS : "THE FUCKEN LEFTOVERS HATE YOU" CD.....
So while we're on the subject of Australians (see below), let's take a gander at this CD reissue of late 70s Brisbane punk rock destroyers THE LEFTOVERS' one and only 45 ("Cigarettes & Alcohol / No Complaints / I Only Panic When There's Nothing To Do") along with a large delivery of archival live material. It is a FANTASTIC collection -- and I don't usually dig shitty, 25-year-old audience-recorded live tapes. But taking for granted the majesty of that 45, which is easily one of the Top 50 balls-out, snot-caked raw punk rock singles of all time, this live stuff is hot, hot, hot. I'm talking PAGANS or BAGS hot -- in fact, the Leftovers' cover of the Velvets' "Run Run Run" is so drop-dead great and uniquely-rendered that it reminded me of a similar smoking cover from a 1977 Bags live show I heard recently ("White Rabbit" -- if you can believe it). They also throw some false-start punches at 60s punker "My Flash On You", among others, and they succeed swimmingly. This band is one of the very few punk rock acts that can wistfully brag about fighting with the police at every show & have me buying it ("task force vs. the Brisbane punks" -- different band, but maybe there was something to it). The Leftovers played gnarly, angry and wholly visionary punk rock -- because except for a few of their like-minded peers and a handful of Americans I'm 99.9% certain they hadn't yet heard, this band were pretty much blazing their own shitstorm-strewn path. If they'd been American or English we'd have been taught these songs in school, but that amazing first wave of Australian punk bands (VICTIMS, RAZAR, ROCKS, BABEEZ etc.) get the short straw every time. If I could be a grumpus about anything it's the dumb title, but you won't care once you get a postal order & international cheque out to Dropkick Records for this white-hot platter.
So while we're on the subject of Australians (see below), let's take a gander at this CD reissue of late 70s Brisbane punk rock destroyers THE LEFTOVERS' one and only 45 ("Cigarettes & Alcohol / No Complaints / I Only Panic When There's Nothing To Do") along with a large delivery of archival live material. It is a FANTASTIC collection -- and I don't usually dig shitty, 25-year-old audience-recorded live tapes. But taking for granted the majesty of that 45, which is easily one of the Top 50 balls-out, snot-caked raw punk rock singles of all time, this live stuff is hot, hot, hot. I'm talking PAGANS or BAGS hot -- in fact, the Leftovers' cover of the Velvets' "Run Run Run" is so drop-dead great and uniquely-rendered that it reminded me of a similar smoking cover from a 1977 Bags live show I heard recently ("White Rabbit" -- if you can believe it). They also throw some false-start punches at 60s punker "My Flash On You", among others, and they succeed swimmingly. This band is one of the very few punk rock acts that can wistfully brag about fighting with the police at every show & have me buying it ("task force vs. the Brisbane punks" -- different band, but maybe there was something to it). The Leftovers played gnarly, angry and wholly visionary punk rock -- because except for a few of their like-minded peers and a handful of Americans I'm 99.9% certain they hadn't yet heard, this band were pretty much blazing their own shitstorm-strewn path. If they'd been American or English we'd have been taught these songs in school, but that amazing first wave of Australian punk bands (VICTIMS, RAZAR, ROCKS, BABEEZ etc.) get the short straw every time. If I could be a grumpus about anything it's the dumb title, but you won't care once you get a postal order & international cheque out to Dropkick Records for this white-hot platter.
MAESTROS AND DIPSOS.....It goes without saying that collector & critical types often find it exceptionally gratifying to champion ultra-obscure, limited-press releases that they and only they might be aware of. So what sort of pathology is it when a collector/critic type tries to get his readers hyped up about a band who never even released a single peep, and who only exist in the live tapes and closeted demos of fortysomething Australians? I'm talking of course of Sydney's MAESTROS AND DIPSOS, a short-lived 1983 six-piece who I have been made aware of via Phil Turnbull's excellent NO NIGHT SWEATS web site & some accompanying CD-R material. If this band had released a 45 of "Backslide / Inertia", the two songs I've heard, I am certain that they would have won boatloads of praise from 1983-85 fans of SALEM 66, ANTIETAM and the whole Gerard Cosloy-worshippin' crew. And they're miles better than those decent bands -- obtuse, moody, confessional, strangely-angled thought-rock, with dueling female vocals, packed with tension and coiled up tight -- and still "light" enough to be hummable and even fun at times. I had these tracks on constant rotation this past week and was so PROUD to have new post-punk heroines to champion. And I'm not going to be too greedy about it: if my brief description interests you in the least, you can download "Backslide" yourself for free right here.
As an aside, I have to say that No Night Sweats is the best free and legal MP3 download site I've found. I know that it's quite easy to post obscure or unusual or unhead MP3s out there for the world to download at their leisure, but I know of precious few sites who have done so. Any recommendations out there for secret and not-so-secret sites with unique music content?
As an aside, I have to say that No Night Sweats is the best free and legal MP3 download site I've found. I know that it's quite easy to post obscure or unusual or unhead MP3s out there for the world to download at their leisure, but I know of precious few sites who have done so. Any recommendations out there for secret and not-so-secret sites with unique music content?
Friday, November 07, 2003
MO-DETTES : “THE STORY SO FAR” CD…..
One of the first 45s from the “new wave era” that I ever bought was the MO-DETTES' “White Mice / Masochistic Opposite” in 1980, and it remains one of my favorite records of any era. Played to death on my local college radio station back in the day (KFJC), the song “White Mice” arrives at the perfect intersection of rough English D.I.Y. and pure golden girl pop, and has one of the most lilting harmonies you’ll ever hear. Among the more charming aspects of the band were the mushmouth vocals of Ramona Carlier, she being of Swiss descent and a then-recent UK immigrant (which helps explains it). It’s hard to put a bead on exactly what she’s saying beyond the song’s chorus, which starts with the first-rate couplet, “Don’t be stupid, don’t be limp / No girl likes to love a wimp”, and contains a throbbing bassline that leads, rather than follows, everything else in the song. The guitarist is practically invisible throughout – her ineptitude in moving from chord to chord is part of what’s so special about “White Mice” and indeed, the small handful of other good tracks this band produced in their short life.
So let’s talk about that, shall we? This CD-R – or bootleg CD, I’m not sure – is a complete-works (1979-1981) collection of the MO-DETTES’ one and only album and their 45s. “The Story So Far” LP followed the “White Mice” 45's lead and contained exceptionally crude, poorly-drawn cover art that was sort of a cartoonish, Archies-like version of something you might have found on Fuck Off Records or by THE DOOR AND THE WINDOW. I also bought the LP in high school, and sold it back to a used record store the same year. That’s because outside of a couple of hot ones that’ll charm the pants off of ya (“Fandango”, “Dark Park Creeping”, “Masochistic Opposite”), the band really hid in the shadow of their one and only naïve-pop masterpiece. They knew it too, as the LP contained not only the de riguer “White Mice”, but a sped-up version called “White Mouse Disco”. Kind of sad, actually. There’s an awful STONES and an awful EDITH PIAF cover, too – yet I still have a real big soft spot for the band overall. They honestly sound like a case study for the D.I.Y. archetype: young girls, raw ambition, out-of-tune guitars, lots of stumbling and fumbling, and presto : an instant, all-time classic 45. That the rest of their career didn’t live up to it is fairly beside the point, I reckon.
One of the first 45s from the “new wave era” that I ever bought was the MO-DETTES' “White Mice / Masochistic Opposite” in 1980, and it remains one of my favorite records of any era. Played to death on my local college radio station back in the day (KFJC), the song “White Mice” arrives at the perfect intersection of rough English D.I.Y. and pure golden girl pop, and has one of the most lilting harmonies you’ll ever hear. Among the more charming aspects of the band were the mushmouth vocals of Ramona Carlier, she being of Swiss descent and a then-recent UK immigrant (which helps explains it). It’s hard to put a bead on exactly what she’s saying beyond the song’s chorus, which starts with the first-rate couplet, “Don’t be stupid, don’t be limp / No girl likes to love a wimp”, and contains a throbbing bassline that leads, rather than follows, everything else in the song. The guitarist is practically invisible throughout – her ineptitude in moving from chord to chord is part of what’s so special about “White Mice” and indeed, the small handful of other good tracks this band produced in their short life.
So let’s talk about that, shall we? This CD-R – or bootleg CD, I’m not sure – is a complete-works (1979-1981) collection of the MO-DETTES’ one and only album and their 45s. “The Story So Far” LP followed the “White Mice” 45's lead and contained exceptionally crude, poorly-drawn cover art that was sort of a cartoonish, Archies-like version of something you might have found on Fuck Off Records or by THE DOOR AND THE WINDOW. I also bought the LP in high school, and sold it back to a used record store the same year. That’s because outside of a couple of hot ones that’ll charm the pants off of ya (“Fandango”, “Dark Park Creeping”, “Masochistic Opposite”), the band really hid in the shadow of their one and only naïve-pop masterpiece. They knew it too, as the LP contained not only the de riguer “White Mice”, but a sped-up version called “White Mouse Disco”. Kind of sad, actually. There’s an awful STONES and an awful EDITH PIAF cover, too – yet I still have a real big soft spot for the band overall. They honestly sound like a case study for the D.I.Y. archetype: young girls, raw ambition, out-of-tune guitars, lots of stumbling and fumbling, and presto : an instant, all-time classic 45. That the rest of their career didn’t live up to it is fairly beside the point, I reckon.
VARIOUS ARTISTS : “AFRICA RAPS” CD….No subterfuge involved at all here – this compilation arrived precisely as advertised: a selection of modern RAP music from Africa, mostly hustled out in French & with a sordid legacy of bad, boasting, mainstream American hip-hop propping it up. There’s a bit of African syncopation and instrumentation in there, and given its origination on the streets & in the studios of Senegal, Mali & Gambia, it’s bound to be a little different than the US version. Interesting for about 5 minutes. I’m about as likely to listen to this again as Laci Peterson is.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
GOOD FOR A LARF!.....Never let it be said we can't have a good LAFF! Check out these outstanding record covers from times past. (Thanks to MW for the tip). Anyone have the JOYCE album?
Monday, November 03, 2003
JUKEBOX JURY, ROUND FOUR…..This is the fourth and final round of Agony Shorthand’s JUKE BOX JURY! It’s time once again to face down the demons of our past and bring those now-dated bands and performers that marked my (and perhaps your) college-era experience (1985-89) to their final day of reckoning. Did they really have any relevance beyond the boozing, record collecting 19-year-old demographic? Can we honestly bring ourselves to listen to their once-unchallenged music in late 2003 with nary a wince? If you missed the first installment, in which we took it to KILLDOZER, LAUGHING HYENAS, THE FLUID, PUSSY GALORE, and SCRATCH ACID, you can find it by clicking here. In our second installment, we rendered swift military-style justice to the LAZY COWGIRLS, DINOSAUR JR., NAKED RAYGUN, SPACEMEN 3 and SOUL ASYLUM, and you can find that one here. In the third installment, from which I’m doing a wholesale rip-off of my own introduction, we brought the hammer down on the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, DEATH OF SAMANTHA, DRUNKS WITH GUNS, HALO OF FLIES and DIE KRUEZEN. That’s collecting dust right here.
As before, the ground rules are as follows:
"Just as in our criminal justice system, these musicians will be judged either INNOCENT or GUILTY. If Innocent, they have successfully stood the ravages and judgment of time, and their music still sounds good to this day – not a small matter when the original jury was 18-19 years old. If they’re deemed Guilty, these bands are already being judged harshly by history, and will likely be wholly forgotten when the college students who bought their records in the 80s slowly begin to die off".
Let’s do this, all right?
1. BIG BLACK – I’m just going to say right out of the gate that my relatively recent listens to BIG BLACK show a band that did not age well. In the late 1980s these cats were the true heavyweights of the attacking, rabid noise-punk stable, most of whom eventually found their home on Touch & Go Records. Steve Albini's smarmy, informed, ultra-opinionated scene god persona looked pretty cool to this (and other) 19-year-old(s), and his band’s harsh beatbox assault & sheets of razorwire guitar noise were considered pretty goddamn awesome in their time. When they toured the west coast on their “farewell tour”, I futzed and fumbled for weeks when they chose not to play Los Angeles, and logistical challenges kept me from making the six-hour drive to the San Francisco show. Today the band’s over-reliance on taboo subject matter looks a bit limp, and there’s a certain sameyness song-to-song – and some very thin production -- that keeps any one of their records from being a masterpiece (though many consider “Atomizer” – definitely their best – a lifetime achievement, and will doubtlessly tell us all so). Still, I think it’s fair to say that their clanging, industrio-punk sound was way ahead of its time, and has only been given to imitators since. It may lean a bit to the juvenile side, but as long as I’m a wee young at heart, BIG BLACK = INNOCENT!
2. COSMIC PSYCHOS – There was a brief, crazed period around 1987-88 where anything Australian and garagy and imported was just the bee’s knees. Lubricated Goat, Celibate Rifles, Hard-Ons, feedtime, King Snake Roost, Seminal Rats, Psychotic Turnbuckles, “Waste Sausage” – man, I had all those records, and I’ll bet you had a few as well. The best of ‘em all were the COSMIC PSYCHOS, especially the debut “Down On The Farm” EP and the eponymous LP. Full of fuzz, pissed-off attitude, and drunken down-underisms, the Cosmic Psychos were head and shoulders the kings of the Big Muff scene. Loutish? Sure. Dare I say juvenile? Of course. Does it hold up today? It absolutely does. Still first rate, snarling, kick-ass feedback & fuzz. COSMIC PSYCHOS = INNOCENT!
3. DAS DAMEN – I once read an interview with these guys during the Sub Pop/grunge heyday in which they wailingly bemoaned their lack of relative popularity, actually whining that they “had long hair first” and thus deserved a bigger piece of the action. Yes, DAS DAMEN were indeed the first rock band to ever play with long hair, which really added a lot of heft to their sound. I’ll bet you think I’m going to really take it to these guys, hunh? I certainly wouldn’t be the first, but fact is, I dug them then and I still sort of dig them now. Their first two records never really amounted to much in their entirety, but there were some really great heavy, swirling, pseudo-psychedelic, Marshall stack-pumping rock and roll killers on them – most notably “Tsavo” from the first record and “Trap Door” from the second. These tracks really got the party started when I cranked the “Now That’s What I Call Indie Rock, Volume 1” CD-R at a recent soiree. Their 3rd LP “Triskaidekaphobe” was actually solid all the way through, and I’d be a strong proponent of putting it out on CD. The Das Damen revival may be only weeks away, folks, mark my words. Hey, someone find the hanging judge – this guy’s way too lenient! DAS DAMEN = INNOCENT!
4. SQUIRREL BAIT – Yes, I really was 18 years old once, and that’s when the young lads in SQUIRREL BAIT, all around the same age, came along. They cranked out a melodic, amped-up sub-HUSKER DU / SOUL ASYLUM-style indie rock that garnered a heap of praise, devotion and fawning for about 10 months – mostly from other university children. Their two Homestead records were clogging the used bins by 1990, and anyone who mentioned Squirrel Bait in polite company usually did so by mumbling and covering their mouths with their jacket collars. What the hell were we thinking? Has anyone even listened to this band in 13 years? SQUIRREL BAIT = GUILTY!
5. URGE OVERKILL – I don’t think it’s fair to pile on these guys on the basis of their post-1989 oevre, which is abysmal sell-out material with a “kooky” edge – let’s instead turn our attention to “Jesus Urge Superstar”, which I used to run around calling “The Best Record of 1988” to anyone who would listen. I dug it out of the crates the other evening, put on my Breaking Circus t-shirt & Members Only jacket and let ‘er rip. I can’t say that it blew me clean away again – but it certainly wasn’t an unpleasurable experience. These Chicago cornballs were still in the midst of figuring out their path – were they to be dense, moody noise merchants a la their debut “Strange, I…” EP, or clownish rock and roll rogues a la the 1989 “Americruiser” EP? Right in the middle, and playing both ends, was this one great record, and it totally caught me flat-footed. I loved loved loved “Head On”, “Crown of Thorns”, “Last Train to Heaven”, “God Flintstone” and especially “The Polaroid Doll”, and played the hell out of them on my weekly college radio show. I figure that no matter how lame these guys ended up, Nash Kato and whatever the other guy’s name was – The Big Kahuna or something – were talented songwriters who probably could have channeled said talents to make more terrific records like this one. They just chose not to. But I can’t throw them in the dock for it. A shocked gasp rises from the courtroom : URGE OVERKILL = INNOCENT!
Thanks very much for indulging me on this JBJ stuff the past several months. We’ll do it again in 15 years with the Hunches, A-Frames, Lightning Bolt, A Feast of Snakes and Numbers!
As before, the ground rules are as follows:
"Just as in our criminal justice system, these musicians will be judged either INNOCENT or GUILTY. If Innocent, they have successfully stood the ravages and judgment of time, and their music still sounds good to this day – not a small matter when the original jury was 18-19 years old. If they’re deemed Guilty, these bands are already being judged harshly by history, and will likely be wholly forgotten when the college students who bought their records in the 80s slowly begin to die off".
Let’s do this, all right?
1. BIG BLACK – I’m just going to say right out of the gate that my relatively recent listens to BIG BLACK show a band that did not age well. In the late 1980s these cats were the true heavyweights of the attacking, rabid noise-punk stable, most of whom eventually found their home on Touch & Go Records. Steve Albini's smarmy, informed, ultra-opinionated scene god persona looked pretty cool to this (and other) 19-year-old(s), and his band’s harsh beatbox assault & sheets of razorwire guitar noise were considered pretty goddamn awesome in their time. When they toured the west coast on their “farewell tour”, I futzed and fumbled for weeks when they chose not to play Los Angeles, and logistical challenges kept me from making the six-hour drive to the San Francisco show. Today the band’s over-reliance on taboo subject matter looks a bit limp, and there’s a certain sameyness song-to-song – and some very thin production -- that keeps any one of their records from being a masterpiece (though many consider “Atomizer” – definitely their best – a lifetime achievement, and will doubtlessly tell us all so). Still, I think it’s fair to say that their clanging, industrio-punk sound was way ahead of its time, and has only been given to imitators since. It may lean a bit to the juvenile side, but as long as I’m a wee young at heart, BIG BLACK = INNOCENT!
2. COSMIC PSYCHOS – There was a brief, crazed period around 1987-88 where anything Australian and garagy and imported was just the bee’s knees. Lubricated Goat, Celibate Rifles, Hard-Ons, feedtime, King Snake Roost, Seminal Rats, Psychotic Turnbuckles, “Waste Sausage” – man, I had all those records, and I’ll bet you had a few as well. The best of ‘em all were the COSMIC PSYCHOS, especially the debut “Down On The Farm” EP and the eponymous LP. Full of fuzz, pissed-off attitude, and drunken down-underisms, the Cosmic Psychos were head and shoulders the kings of the Big Muff scene. Loutish? Sure. Dare I say juvenile? Of course. Does it hold up today? It absolutely does. Still first rate, snarling, kick-ass feedback & fuzz. COSMIC PSYCHOS = INNOCENT!
3. DAS DAMEN – I once read an interview with these guys during the Sub Pop/grunge heyday in which they wailingly bemoaned their lack of relative popularity, actually whining that they “had long hair first” and thus deserved a bigger piece of the action. Yes, DAS DAMEN were indeed the first rock band to ever play with long hair, which really added a lot of heft to their sound. I’ll bet you think I’m going to really take it to these guys, hunh? I certainly wouldn’t be the first, but fact is, I dug them then and I still sort of dig them now. Their first two records never really amounted to much in their entirety, but there were some really great heavy, swirling, pseudo-psychedelic, Marshall stack-pumping rock and roll killers on them – most notably “Tsavo” from the first record and “Trap Door” from the second. These tracks really got the party started when I cranked the “Now That’s What I Call Indie Rock, Volume 1” CD-R at a recent soiree. Their 3rd LP “Triskaidekaphobe” was actually solid all the way through, and I’d be a strong proponent of putting it out on CD. The Das Damen revival may be only weeks away, folks, mark my words. Hey, someone find the hanging judge – this guy’s way too lenient! DAS DAMEN = INNOCENT!
4. SQUIRREL BAIT – Yes, I really was 18 years old once, and that’s when the young lads in SQUIRREL BAIT, all around the same age, came along. They cranked out a melodic, amped-up sub-HUSKER DU / SOUL ASYLUM-style indie rock that garnered a heap of praise, devotion and fawning for about 10 months – mostly from other university children. Their two Homestead records were clogging the used bins by 1990, and anyone who mentioned Squirrel Bait in polite company usually did so by mumbling and covering their mouths with their jacket collars. What the hell were we thinking? Has anyone even listened to this band in 13 years? SQUIRREL BAIT = GUILTY!
5. URGE OVERKILL – I don’t think it’s fair to pile on these guys on the basis of their post-1989 oevre, which is abysmal sell-out material with a “kooky” edge – let’s instead turn our attention to “Jesus Urge Superstar”, which I used to run around calling “The Best Record of 1988” to anyone who would listen. I dug it out of the crates the other evening, put on my Breaking Circus t-shirt & Members Only jacket and let ‘er rip. I can’t say that it blew me clean away again – but it certainly wasn’t an unpleasurable experience. These Chicago cornballs were still in the midst of figuring out their path – were they to be dense, moody noise merchants a la their debut “Strange, I…” EP, or clownish rock and roll rogues a la the 1989 “Americruiser” EP? Right in the middle, and playing both ends, was this one great record, and it totally caught me flat-footed. I loved loved loved “Head On”, “Crown of Thorns”, “Last Train to Heaven”, “God Flintstone” and especially “The Polaroid Doll”, and played the hell out of them on my weekly college radio show. I figure that no matter how lame these guys ended up, Nash Kato and whatever the other guy’s name was – The Big Kahuna or something – were talented songwriters who probably could have channeled said talents to make more terrific records like this one. They just chose not to. But I can’t throw them in the dock for it. A shocked gasp rises from the courtroom : URGE OVERKILL = INNOCENT!
Thanks very much for indulging me on this JBJ stuff the past several months. We’ll do it again in 15 years with the Hunches, A-Frames, Lightning Bolt, A Feast of Snakes and Numbers!
Friday, October 31, 2003
V/A : REMBETIKA – SONGS OF THE GREEK UNDERGROUND 1925-1947…..
When I’m out trawling the globe for vicarious glimpses into past indigenous music scenes, I tend to find myself most excited by either 1960s-70s Africa, or by just about anything from that central/eastern part of Europe marked by Gypsies, Greeks and Slavs. I am still very much a voyeur and am discovering this stuff piecemeal, mostly by way of my man on the ground in Belgium and his amazing CD-R-making capabilities. He was kind enough to introduce me to the term “Rembetika” and the music therein – essentially, Rembetica originated years ago in the country’s hashish dens, and is associated with a certain kind of down-n-out, drug-taking creature of the night. It is truly “the music of the Greek underground”, but it has been so well-received in its home country that it’s now seen by many as the official music of Greece. It is often (but not exclusively) marked by much wailing, crying and gnashing of teeth, which can try the patience at times but does certainly have its rewards.
“Rembetika – Songs of the Greek Underground” is full of original 78s from the pre- and intra-WWII years, including 5 big ones from Rembetica master MARKOS VAMVAKARIS, whose “Markos Vamvakaris - Bouzouki Pioneer 1932-1940” collection is a blast – seriously, it has subtle shades of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (before his birth!) and floor-pounding American delta blues, filtered through poverty and drugs and played on the mystical-sounding bouzouki. Beyond Vamvakaris, though, are all the other heavyweights of the time, contributing Mediterranean marvels with translated titles like “The Pain of the Junkie” and “Young Dope Smokers”. At times the discs have the acoustic feel of background music heard at Zorba The Greek’s suburban gyros taverna, complete with women shouting “Opa!" in the background, but there are also times of transcendent, bizarre otherworldliness. Listeners will likely flip over IOANNIS HALKIAS' instrumental “Minore tu Teke”, which ought to be the theme music for a film focused on gangsters and flim-flam men on the take in 1930s Athens. It’s beautiful and menacing at the same time. Likewise, ANESTIS DELIAS' “To Haremi sto Hamam” is just drop-dead amazing, almost like an ethnic take on PERE UBU that just happened to pre-date them by some 40-odd years. (Nothing like a wide-eyed rock critic to compare music he doesn’t understand to music he does). Some of these guys sound like they gargled with gravel, and when spun on an uncleanable, crackling, hissing old-tyme 78rpm platter, the effect is not unlike looking at one of those sped-up 1920s newsreels where everyone looks completely out of reach and beyond time. This 2-disc set is another winner from our German friends at Trikont, and it probably the single place to go if you’re looking for a new subculture to plunder.
When I’m out trawling the globe for vicarious glimpses into past indigenous music scenes, I tend to find myself most excited by either 1960s-70s Africa, or by just about anything from that central/eastern part of Europe marked by Gypsies, Greeks and Slavs. I am still very much a voyeur and am discovering this stuff piecemeal, mostly by way of my man on the ground in Belgium and his amazing CD-R-making capabilities. He was kind enough to introduce me to the term “Rembetika” and the music therein – essentially, Rembetica originated years ago in the country’s hashish dens, and is associated with a certain kind of down-n-out, drug-taking creature of the night. It is truly “the music of the Greek underground”, but it has been so well-received in its home country that it’s now seen by many as the official music of Greece. It is often (but not exclusively) marked by much wailing, crying and gnashing of teeth, which can try the patience at times but does certainly have its rewards.
“Rembetika – Songs of the Greek Underground” is full of original 78s from the pre- and intra-WWII years, including 5 big ones from Rembetica master MARKOS VAMVAKARIS, whose “Markos Vamvakaris - Bouzouki Pioneer 1932-1940” collection is a blast – seriously, it has subtle shades of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (before his birth!) and floor-pounding American delta blues, filtered through poverty and drugs and played on the mystical-sounding bouzouki. Beyond Vamvakaris, though, are all the other heavyweights of the time, contributing Mediterranean marvels with translated titles like “The Pain of the Junkie” and “Young Dope Smokers”. At times the discs have the acoustic feel of background music heard at Zorba The Greek’s suburban gyros taverna, complete with women shouting “Opa!" in the background, but there are also times of transcendent, bizarre otherworldliness. Listeners will likely flip over IOANNIS HALKIAS' instrumental “Minore tu Teke”, which ought to be the theme music for a film focused on gangsters and flim-flam men on the take in 1930s Athens. It’s beautiful and menacing at the same time. Likewise, ANESTIS DELIAS' “To Haremi sto Hamam” is just drop-dead amazing, almost like an ethnic take on PERE UBU that just happened to pre-date them by some 40-odd years. (Nothing like a wide-eyed rock critic to compare music he doesn’t understand to music he does). Some of these guys sound like they gargled with gravel, and when spun on an uncleanable, crackling, hissing old-tyme 78rpm platter, the effect is not unlike looking at one of those sped-up 1920s newsreels where everyone looks completely out of reach and beyond time. This 2-disc set is another winner from our German friends at Trikont, and it probably the single place to go if you’re looking for a new subculture to plunder.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
WHITE STRIPES : "ELEPHANT"....Unlike my grabby consumer behavior when the last one came out (I snapped it up its first week), I decided to take a skeptical wait-and-see attitude with this most recent WHITE STRIPES CD. Initial feedback from earlybirds was not promising, and then watching the thing chart so highly -- and then STAY in the US Top 10 for weeks! -- seemed to confirm that this was likely not a record I would dig much. Hey, unfair as it is, this is just an ingrained mindset. Million-selling rock records worth celebrating have been so few and far between since the 1960s, that I reckoned the Stripes had surely cleaned up that muddy & raw sound, written a few anthemic hook-filled hits and gone fully & totally pro. So if you've heard this record, you know that's not true. I'm hard-pressed to say that it's any more "commercial" than their first Sympathy for the Record Industry CD, the one that had every garage punk hipster pissing his pants. I'm still floored that they are selling like hotcakes -- it goes against every informed preconception I possess about what kids will buy on a mass scale. There are NO hits here. Sure, it's a little clean in parts, and there's some goofy vocal shennanigans that teenagers might bust a gut over, but "Elephant" is a diverse, raw, clever, engaging rock and roll record from a truly talented pair.
Like "White Blood Cells", the record sort of runs out of steam about two-thirds of the way in, but there are some true whoppers right up front, including "Black Math", a sped-up, bonzai screamer that's as pounding and wild as "The Big Three Killed My Baby" from the first record. There's such a lack of artiface from these two -- I mean, drummer Meg can't sing a lick, but that doesn't mean she doesn't get to anyway ("In The Cold, Cold Night"). Jack White is such a heart-on-the-sleeve softy and so goddamn proud of it that he's really hard to mock -- and anyway, "I Want To Be The Boy..." might even be the best song on here. Anything on this record would sound way out of place on FM rock radio as I know it, and yet. And yet! I pronounce these two heretofore innocent until proven guilty!
Like "White Blood Cells", the record sort of runs out of steam about two-thirds of the way in, but there are some true whoppers right up front, including "Black Math", a sped-up, bonzai screamer that's as pounding and wild as "The Big Three Killed My Baby" from the first record. There's such a lack of artiface from these two -- I mean, drummer Meg can't sing a lick, but that doesn't mean she doesn't get to anyway ("In The Cold, Cold Night"). Jack White is such a heart-on-the-sleeve softy and so goddamn proud of it that he's really hard to mock -- and anyway, "I Want To Be The Boy..." might even be the best song on here. Anything on this record would sound way out of place on FM rock radio as I know it, and yet. And yet! I pronounce these two heretofore innocent until proven guilty!
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.....Than to buy THE MISTREATERS' "Playa Hated To The Fullest" CD on the evidence of one raucous song I'd downloaded. Should I have stopped at the CD's lame title? Yes, but I did not. Should I have stopped at the cover shot of the indirectly-lit Milwaukee band, standing in front of a brick wall? Yes, but I did not. Alas, this is generic, boozy, beef-core, with a few promising nods in the direction of the LAZY COWGIRLS and the 1990s RIP OFF bands, but lacking 1/10th of the punch of either. Maybe it's the overwrought, "Come owwwn, bayyy-buh!" vocals, or the soundalike 90-second tracks, all very "punishing" and "meaty" and such, but little more. Trust me, this is a sound you're well, well acquainted with.
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