The Pessimist Club

SONIC YOUTH - Rialto Tucson 1.04.2010

2010-07-24T14:56:00.005-07:00

This show from January was Sonic Youth's first Tucson show since 1986. In '86 the band played some mob joint and when they went to get paid, the goon opened his jacket to reveal a gun.
Or so the story goes...
This was a fun show. I was working there that night but was cut in time to catch the whole thing. It was recorded by a friend of mine there. It's a soundboard / MIC mix. I don't have any of the tech specs that the fancy bootleg blogs do, but so what. It sounds great. I do know they're high-end mics on booms above the audience at the soundboard.
I got this as one big file and split it into tracks with Audacity. Alas, it's only 128 kbps. I was always supposed to get a lossless version, and if I ever do I will post it.
The "cover" photo of Thurston I took from the side of the stage with my crappy phone camera.
Perusing the set lists online of their short winter Southwest tour I noticed that we were the only ones to get Brother James, one of my favorite old SY songs. We were also one of the only shows to get a full 17-song set.
So download and enjoy, HERE.

Setlist:
01. No Way
02. Sacred Trickster
03. Calming the Snake
04. Hey Joni
05. Anti-Orgasm
06. Poison Arrow
07. Walkin Blue
08. Stereo Sanctity
09. Malibu Gas Station
10. Antenna
11. Leaky Lifeboat
12. What We Know
13. Massage the History
14. The Sprawl
15. 'Cross the Breeze
16. Brother James
17. Death Valley '69

VIDEO: "X Way Vision - Xpressway Artists and Their Friends...Live In Dunedin" (1992)

2009-12-05T23:08:00.007-07:00

Here's a great Kiwi Rock video from that "other" New Zealand label, Xpressway Records. More avant garde and experimental than the more famous Flying Nun, they nevertheless shared many artists, at least now and then. And if you're a Peter Jefferies fan (and you should be) this is a particular boon as he appears in about half these clips. I guess these two facts befit a small, insular country like New Zealand.

These are raw live performances recorded late in 1991. Mostly single-cam and with plenty of low-tech video effects that I once would have found quite annoying but at this late date are rather charmingly anachronistic. My favorites here are the Heazlewood and Plagal Grind clips.

This is a 700MB VHS rip in the Divx format. No whining. The AVI compression I tried looked pretty crappy (and my research tells me this is a dying format anyway). But this actually looks virtually pristine with the VLC Media Player which everyone should have cos it's free and plays absolutely everything flawlessly. Looks much better with that than the Divx player, which is kinda funny/strange. But anyway it's an old VHS not a DVD so no worries. Just get it. It's an amazing video. Right HERE.

Clips:
01. GATE - Cropped Silver Hi-Lo
02. PETER JEFFERIES - Difficult Days
03. CHUG - Oozing
04. SANDRA BELL - Dreams Of Falling
05. HEAZLEWOOD - Surf Shitty
06. CYCLOPS - Steel White Bed
07. ALASTAIR GALBRAITH - Huxley
08. SON OF A GOBLIN - Travelling Grave
09. CARTER/JEFFERIES/BULL - Big Fat Elvis
10. PLAGAL GRIND - Sceaming E
11. THE DEAD C. - Helen Said This

Funny thing about the title of the video, though: It sounds, in my fucked-up mind, like Tweety Bird or Elmer Fudd is saying it. Weird.

Kelley Stoltz - "Crockodials" (2006)

2009-11-29T15:41:00.002-07:00

This is a track-by-track cover of Echo & The Bunnymen's 1980 debut LP "Crocodiles" (or the U.S. version of it since I don't think the U.K. version had the single Do It Clean). It's not a particularly great record (as opposed to the original); more of a curiosity. Liner notes say it was recorded on an 8-track in 2001, though it was not released until 2006. Some of the songs are pretty faithful renditions, others, like All That Jazz, are more inspired interpretations. Either way, it's obviously a labor of love.
I don't know much about Kelley Stoltz or even how I came to acquire this CD. Prolly cos I was always a pretty big Bunnymen fan and was curious. I do know that it's not on the blogs and goes for big bucks on the interweb sites. So ya might as well get it HERE if you're interested. Or just curious as I was.

Marko Haavisto & Poutahaukat - "Lamppu palaa" (2002) & "Kunpa Tietäisitkin" (2004)

2009-11-28T14:46:00.006-07:00

I haven't posted any Finnish music in a while, and since I had a request for this (from Chile!) I thought I might as well. Marko Haavisto & Poutahaukat were the Salvation Army Band in Aki Kaurismäki's film "The Man Without a Past". They are classic Suomi Pop, kind of a cross between Topi Sorsakoski & Agents and Laika & The Cosmonauts with a bit of Rock 'n' Roll and Country thrown in.
Of the two albums, "Lamppu palaa" is my favorite, but probably just cos I've had it longer and have listened to it a hundred times. It includes a great cover, in Finnish, of Hank Williams' Ramblin' Man. It's truly a delight to hear the lyrics in the famously complicated Finnish language melifluously snaking around the melody. Even if you don't speak Finnish.

One note: I only have these albums in the iTunes AAC format, which I usually don't post (and is prolly the only reason I haven't posted these before). If you don't have iTunes you will have to convert them with the free Switch program, or similar.
So don't let that be a hindrance. These are great albums. Both HERE in one download.

Happy 9/11 With...

2009-11-17T16:51:00.003-07:00

This is from a stream available over at WFMU's blog. I recorded it with Audacity and split up the tracks and titled 'em. That's all. Get it while you can.

I can't believe they've reformed and are touring. Or rather, I can't believe they're not coming within 6 hours drive of here. Not even stupid Phoenix. Oh well. I've seen 'em a kajillion times, in their prime. But they are sure sounding fucking great here. Recorded at ATP a couple months ago. 19 songs.

Fuck yeah.

Indian Jewelry - "Sangles Redux" (2008)

2009-11-12T18:54:00.005-07:00

This is a limited edition (500) vinyl-only pressing from Skinny Wolves Records of Dublin, Ireland. It consists of early material recorded 2002-2004. "Collected singles and extra tracks" as it says on the inner sleeve. Tracks 8-10 are credited to NTX, a band which apparently morphed into IJ. Tracks 11 and 12 are credited to Erika Thrasher, an IJ band member.

This is a 320 vinyl rip of a new LP I got at one of their shows. There are a couple flaws in it, despite being an apparently high quality heayweight pressing. But this might just be due to some of the source material (old vinyls?), particularly since the first song on Side 2 (the excellent Bombing Nightclubs) is sorta bad, but the next song perfectly fine. So I dunno.

I am a huge fan of IJ; the show that I got this at being about my favorite show of the year so far. It was in an old quonset hut, the band set up on the floor pounding out their primordial psychedelic stomp. I was pleasantly reminded of long-ago Buttholes shows (though their lo-tech "stage show" consisted only of one strobe light flashing at a very slow rate consistently throughout the set). Band members switched instruments and vocal duties on various songs.
Later they came through town again, opening for !!! at a bar show, but I had to work that night so missed it. Hope to see them again real soon.

If you are already a fan of their great "Free Gold!" album or any of their fine other releases, I highly recommend getting this. Good for filling in the "formative years" gaps, etc. I hear much less of the Buttholesian psychedelia on this and more Suicide and even Throbbing Gristle influences. Not a bad thing at all.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Flesh Floating By
02. Going South
03. The Same Mistake Man
04. Lost My Sight (Lil Electode Vrsn)
05. Chasing Rats Out
06. Downtown
07. Bombing Nightclubs
08. Pain Reliever
09. Warm Boxcutter
10. Pasadena Skies
11. Titanium
12. When We Dead Awaken

As an added bonus (because I've been neglecting you all for so long!), HERE is a 10-minute psychedelic mindfuck called Zing Zang they did on a 12" split with Future Blondes. I was gonna rip the whole thing, and tried TWICE, but just couldn't get through it. And I can take most anything. I love Whitehouse fer chrissakes! But something about their song just bugged the shit outta me. Can't explain it, don't wanna waste time or effort trying to.
But the IJ cut is awesome!

Robert Hazard & The Heroes - S/T EP (2 Versions) (1982)

2009-10-06T15:45:00.006-07:00

While gathering together music for a Philadelphia Music radio special, I went on the blogs looking for some Robert Hazard. After digging around in a haystack I finally found one rip of his first EP. But it was so horribly distorted I decided to suck it up, dig out my old vinyls and rip them myself.

But let me backtrack a bit first. Growing up in Philly, this stuff was inescapable. Looking online now I found that this EP sold either 100,000 or 300,000 copies in Philly alone. Whichever number is correct, I'll believe it. Let's just say it was a shit-ton of records. And deservedly so. This is pure new wave brilliance, every song an anthem. The first two tracks, Escalator Of Life and Change Reaction were the massive hits, but all five songs saw much airplay. And the closing Dylan cover is simply explosive.
The story on the 2 versions is that after Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder wandered in to a bar where they were playing (he was in town to review the Stones' 1981 show at JFK Stadium) and got blown away by their always great set, he wrote about them in the mag. Kind of unheard-of back then for an unsigned local band. Major label boobs at RCA read it and, having had their work done for them, signed the band.
And instead of just re-releasing the perfect original, being major-label idiots, they remixed 3 of the 5 songs. Vastly inferior mixes, of course. But maybe this is just because we were so used to the originals. Though I distinctly remember thinking "What the fuck have they done?" upon first hearing the new versions.
They also dropped the "& The Heroes" part; I guess thinking it was easier to market a solo act in the era of Paul Young and Thomas Dolby, etc. ad. nauseum.

Whatever. I have included both versions in a 320 rip for your evaluation. Keep the one you like best, don't trust my clouded judgment. The RCA version sounds cleaner having of course spent much less time on the turntable. But they're both OK.
The reason there's no cover image up there is that both versions came wrapped in a poster of the man. I couldn't find any decent pics online of it, but the files themselves have art of the underlying cover - the RCA version has lyrics and the indie version just the name and song list.

Robert Hazard passed away at 59 about a year ago. He had recently been signed to Rykodisc and released a very decent Americana/Folk record, "Troubador", that I found while scouring the blogs. I'm sure you can find it too. Don't know much about the intervening years; something about an antiques store in upstate New York. But I'm sure he was well taken care of over the years having written a little song you might have heard called Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

Get both versions HERE.

Tracks:
01. Escalator Of Life
02. Change Reaction
03. (I Just Want To) Hang Around With You
04. Out Of the Blue
05. Blowin' In the Wind

Funny thing about that '81 Stones concert mentioned above: I went to that, pretty much solely because I thought it might be my last chance - them being so fucking old and all. It was ok. You Can't Always Get What You Want was fantastic and is today my only clear memory of the show. That and their garish, ridiculous stage set.
Also, because the scalpers over-bought or sometrhing I got in for a mere $3 from a guy with a fistful of tickets. So it was worth it, haha.

Eugene Chadbourne - "I've Been Everywhere" (1988)

2009-09-28T13:24:00.008-07:00

One of our perennial favorites here at The Pessimist Club, the good Dr. Chadbourne has a seemingly endless supply of fine albums to be discovered. This one from 1988 is no exception, coming from a time of great creative output for him, the late Eighties. This was the time of his collaboration with Camper Van Beethoven, "Camper Van Chadbourne", as well as the absolutely essential "Vermin Of The Blues" (available HERE).
A friend of mine just picked this (vinyl LP) up on a recent trip home to Philadelphia and we listened to it right away upon his return. It's the typically fried and wonderful psychedelic folk he's known for, interspersed with his (I think) grandmother's musings on being a young girl in Nazi Germany. Makes for a unique listening experience to say the least.
Also there is some Legendary Stardust Cowboy contained herein, though I can't tell if it's any more than samples of Paralyzed. The back cover states, somewhat cryptically, "The Legendary Stardust Cowboy would like to apologize for his tape recorder breaking down".

Anyway, after that first listen I brought the record home to digitize. The next morning my friend got called away for an emergency gig filling in on drums on some rock stars' tour (no names, haha).
So, this is for you, D. HERE it is.

(PS - It's been brought to my attention that you might have trouble with Track 10. If so, I've uploaded it separately HERE. Cheers.)

Tracks:
01. The Ring
02. It Takes Longer Saying Yes Than Saying No
03. You Still Live With Mom and Dad
04. The Liar Song
05. Too Damn Bad
06. Buck Owens Medley / My Heart Skips a Beat
07. We Keep the KKK In Line
08. The Mountain Men
09. Oil Platform
10. I've Been Everywhere
11. Neurologically Impaired Leaders

V/A - "Sudden Death" (1982 Smoke Seven)

2009-09-26T15:56:00.006-07:00

Here's a nice little old SoCal comp I unearthed whilst preparing for a record fair a couple weeks ago. Hadn't listened to it in years, and looking at it I remembered how much fun the JFA version of War's Low Rider was. Plus it's got Redd Kross (prolly their first appearance with the 2 d's and the K), Sin 34 and Youth Gone Mad. Looking over the track selection, I smiled at the song Nuclear War. How quaint it was we used to worry about that. I put it on, loved it all over again so I did a nice 320 vinyl rip for y'all.
Back then this stuff got lumped into "hardcore", but it's basically great trashy punk rock.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Low Rider (JFA)
02. Guess What (JFA)
03. American Buttfuckers (JFA)
04. Only Love (Sin 34)
05. Nuclear War (Sin 34)
06. Who Needs Them (Sin 34)
07. America (Moral Decay)
08. TV News (Moral Decay)
09. Life Is Getting Faster (Crankshaft)
10. Massacre Killer (Crankshaft)
11. Twisted Cross (Sadist Faction)
12. Peace Corpse (Sadist Faction)
13. Rat Society (The Sins)
14. All Your Tomorrows (The Sins)
15. Sins Prayer (The Sins)
16. Back To the Bed (The Demented)
17. Deadly Game (The Demented)
18. How Can I Kill You (The Demented)
19. Tatum O'Tot and the Fried Vegetables (Redd Kross)
20. St. Lita Ford Blues (Redd Kross)
21. Ode To Darby (Youth Gone Mad)
22. Diaperhead (Youth Gone Mad)
23. Homo Mommy (Youth Gone Mad)
24. Linda Is a Monster (Naughty Women)
25. Jealousy (Naughty Women)
26. Phantom Citizen (Dead Youth)
27. Kern County (Dead Youth)
28. Radiation Fall Out (Dead Youth)

Years ago at a Pavement show at the Troc in Philadelphia, the guy who looks like Corey Feldman (or was it Corey Haim?) had this LP proudly displayed on his amp during the show. Then he held it up afterwards, showing us all his great find in case we hadn't noticed. Guess he scored it at the Record Exchange...

Yves Mourousi / Paul Hardcastle - Dix Neuf (Single 1985)

2009-09-22T02:42:00.006-07:00

In 1985 I returned to France after 5 years to visit friends I had made there while ostensibly going to school. At the time, Paul Hardcastle's 19 was a massive hit in the States, and we all loved it. Everyone was going around stuttering N-N-N-N-Nineteen like retarded Max Headroom clones. I was not immune. When I got to Paris with some friends, we were quite surprised to hear it was a massive hit there as well. Except they were stuttering D-D-D-D-Dix Neuf. We fell out laughing every time we heard it, so naturally I bought the single. I don't think we thought about the larger ramifications of a French version of a Viet Nam war song. I mean, yeah they had their tussle in Indochine so it made more sense than, say, a German version. But couldn't they have their own song?
Whatever, who cares. It still makes me laugh. Sorta.

I think the song is the basic Paul Hardcastle track with French tacked on top. The awkward chorus remains in English ("Destruction of men in their prime / whose average age was nineteen" I mean, c'mon...)
For refresher's sake, I've also included the American original.
Get it HERE.

THE FALL - "The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall" (1984) [Vinyl Rip: 320 mp3 & FLAC]

2009-09-16T02:43:00.001-07:00

So I thought I'd do a nice vinyl rip of this since the old Beggars Banquet CD is so crappy. Never mind the fact that some record company stooge decided to break up the album's perfect sequencing by putting the bonus tracks between the LP's sides; it just sounds thin and anemic. And yeah, I saw on the "unofficial Fall website" that they're doing a remaster soon. Or someday. But I have a mistrust of remasters. We'll have to wait and see.

I noticed through my sitemeter that lots of people were arriving on The Pessimist Club looking for this, but landed on the similarly titled video doc instead. Oh well, sorry guys. Hope you got the doc anyway, though!

I was quite stunned listening to these mp3s back-to-back with the CD I have in my iTunes. Sounds SO MUCH better. And my old vinyl is in surprisingly good shape. A bit crunchy at the start of the "Lay Chant", but that's it. Smooth sailing from there on in. I don't think I'd want to try this with my vinyl copies of "Grotesque" or "Dragnet", though. Those have always been my favorites. But this is my favorite of the Brix era (I just read in the MES autobiography that he hates the term "era". But I can't think of a better way to put it, so...)

And just to try something new, I uploaded a lossless FLAC version. I don't know much about FLACs; I just put all the settings on as high as they'd go (24 bit, etc). You guys'll have to let me know if you want FLACs in the future. Or WAV or AIFF. I don't mind doing 'em, it's no big whoop. But I'm not gonna bother if no buggers download 'em.

Get the 98MB 320 kbps mp3s HERE.
Get the 486MB FLACs HERE.
Front and back artwork included.

RIP Jim Carroll

2009-09-15T20:28:00.003-07:00

No download here. Plenty bloggers have posted his (classic and necessary) "Catholic Boy" LP. Just enter "Jim Carroll" in the CaptainCrawl box up there and there's tons of hits.
Anyway, I was saddened to here of one of my literary hero's passing on Friday. I remember getting The Basketball Diaries at a boardwalk bookshop in Ocean City, NJ as a teenager. I read it all on the beach that day, laughing my ass off (and boiling like a lobster). Over the years I must have read it ten times. And despite the fact that I've lent it out, eagerly, to anyone interested, I still have that yellowed, frayed copy.
Jim Carroll spoke to me like no one else I had read up to that point. Not that I was a jock or anything (nor was he, just an amazing natural talent). Teachers, older friends and various mentors had tried to get me to read On the Road, but to me it sounded as archaic as Shakespeare. Reading Carroll was as easy and natural as hanging out on a street corner bullshitting with friends. And he fed my fascination with New York City which had started as a wee lad with Simon & Garfunkel. In fact, years later when I moved there, I moved into Carroll's neighborhood: Washington Heights. When friends came to visit me I'd spread my arms wide and proclaim, "This is Jim Carroll's 'hood!". Ok, I lived several blocks to the south; he actually lived in Inwood. But I lived closer to Inwood than Washington Heights proper. But fuck, close enough. It's all that skinny finger on the top of Manhattan when you look at a map. We rode the same 'A' Train.
When I'd go swimming in the Hudson (yup), I'd always recall his tales of swimming on the other side in the Harlem River. Thankfully, the ejections of raw sewage that he would time his dives between were long gone by then.

When the movie came out I was gonna see it but never did. Still haven't. I remember talking with a friend about it back then and she said it was too depressing. I said, "what? It's not funny?". She looked at me like I was talking about something else entirely. So if you've never read it, I highly recommend it. Maybe it would be different for me if I just read it now rather than when I was a teenager, but I don't know. Good writing is good writing is good.
And that fucker could write.

Maybe I'll see if I can DL that movie somewhere...

VIDEO: The Frogs - Coney Island High, NYC 1997 (54m.)

2009-08-28T23:44:00.003-07:00

Here's a fun video I watched the other day and thought I'd post for you guys. If you've never seen Jimmy Flemion in his glorious green glitter angel wings, now's your chance! Pretty fucking glam.
I think I went to this show partly cos there was quite a bit of hype at the time with how un-PC they were. But mostly cos The Bunny Brains also played. It was a fun night and the video's good.
There's even a little surprise for all you ex-hair metal fans (you know who you are don't deny it). Watch and see. 'Nuff said.
I'm going to bed. Good night.

Get the AVI file HERE.
Watch online HERE. (As always, go to the toolbar and switch it to 4:3 to avoid the stretchiness cos it's not in widescreen. Duh, it was 1997).

Beck & Record Club - "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (2009)

2009-08-28T15:04:00.009-07:00

Here's another one from the interwebs, specifically beck.com. As he relates there, a bunch of friends and him got together in the studio for a day to record a "classic" album in it's entirety. The choice was this or "Sex Packets". I think you will agree they made the right choice even before you've heard it. They dubbed themselves Record Club (I have listed them as "Beck & Record Club" - a: to keep this organized with Beck in my iTunes and b: cos it sounds nice with the "Velvet Underground & Nico").
The songs were posted as videos, one a week over an eleven week period. You can go there and watch them all now.
These were posted as Vimeo videos. And even though the videos themselves were charmingly old school, with cheesy pixelation effects, etc. we can be glad they were not on Youtube with their horrendous audio quality. These sound great. I captured them with Audacity mainly to play on my weekly radio program, then made 192kbps mp3s of them.

I am not a huge Beck fan, nor am I a hater. I think they have done a good job and not disgraced the original. It's mostly an acoustic-based affair. I think my favorite is Run Run Run which gets a nice arrangement with cheap keyboards, followed closely by Venus In Furs with it's eastern-sounding raga feel. In fact that vibe permeates the whole session. Waiting For the Man is a gloriously detuned jam. All Tomorrow's Parties is appropriately narcoleptic with a female Icelandic singer providing the necessary Nico-ish accent.
The only one I don't really like on this set is Heroin, which is done as a screaming punky romp courtesy the drummer. Oh well, I guess it's hard to provide the gravitas for a straight reading if you're not, um, a junkie. So why not have some fun with it? After all, I think an overabundance of reverence would have rendered this session flat and dull. Artistic freedom!

All in all, a very interesting and entertaining take on one of my (and I suspect, all of our) all-time favorite LPs.
Good on ya, Beck!

Get it HERE

Tracks:
01. Sunday Morning
02. I'm Waiting For the Man
03. Femme Fatale
04. Venus In Furs
05. Run Run Run
06. All Tomorrow's Parties
07. Heroin
08. There She Goes Again
09. I'll Be Your Mirror
10. Black Angel's Death Song
11. European Son
12. Heroin (Alt. Version)

UPDATE 9/07/09:
There's a new track, an alt. version of Heroin. More of a standard reading than the earlier version I poo-pooed above. Beck takes the vocal on this one. Funny thing is, I've grown to like the other one. Oh well, I'm an idiot, what can I say?

The link above now contains all 12 tracks. If you've already gotten the 11 song version, you can get the individual track HERE.

Mark E Smith - Greenwich Sound Radio 1983

2009-08-26T14:46:00.006-07:00

I got this from the The Fall website which they were so kind to post as a download for all us fans. The only thing I did to it was split it up into individual tracks from the one big mp3 that you get there.
It's MES on a radio program playing records, reading poetry and chatting. Also some then just recent live Fall tracks. It's really good and it's great quality. But I can't get my head around him playing Spandau Ballet!? Oh well, there's plenty of the obscure countrybilly he's known to love.
Oh, and now that they're individual tracks you can delete the radio station's offensive promos. Or not.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. The Fall - Words of Expectation (Live: Arena, Rotterdam, 12 Feb. 1983)
02. Mark E. Smith's Guide to Writing Guide
03. MES Poem: London
04. MES Poem: Manchester
05. Spandau Ballet - Communication
06. Greenwich Sound promo
07. The Fall - Fantastic Life (studio)
08. Chat with Greenwich Sound, part 1
09. Slim Jacobs - That's Truck Drivin'
10. MES Poem: Centimeter Square
11. MES Poem: Village Bug
12. MES Poem: Amsterdam
13. The Fall - Totally Wired (studio)
14. Chat, part 2
15. Bobby Sykes - Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves
16. Greenwich Sound promo
17. Willie Nelson & Dolly Parton - Everything's Beautiful
18. MES reads "a piece I found in an international newspaper on the floor"
19. The Fall - Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot (Live: Arena, Rotterdam, 12 Feb 83)
20. Crickets

In a related item, I just read Guardian writer Dave Simpson's book "The Fallen", about his quest to find and interview all 50-some ex-Fall members. It's really good and I blasted through it in two days. What I found most interesting is that the few who were not sacked but quit all regret their decision, and most of the Fallen would go back in a heartbeat if asked. And all have warm-and-fuzzy opinions on MES, despite the alleged "bad treatment", which is analyzed as his way of getting the most out of his musicians.
There are several laugh-out-loud anecdotes and a few shockers.
It's not out here in the States, but I would recommend getting it from a secondary seller on Amazon.co.uk. It's just come out there in an updated paperback and I got mine new for 3½ quid + 7 shipping = about $15. And it came in 4 days. Or it's on eBay for about $25.

Now I've got to read MES's autobiography "Renegade" to get the other side of the story...

Coin - "Attract Mode" (1999)

2009-07-16T17:50:00.007-07:00

Here is an insanely fun record by Thermos Malling, ex-of Doo Rag.
Here's a description straight from the back cover:

"Every synthetic beep, chirp, buzz, drone you hear on this album was ripped directly from videogame soundtracks composed between 1983-88. The original scores were painstakingly coded in Basic on a Commodore 64 home microcomputer. The raw data was converted by Coin into waveforms and assembled into new full length tracks using cut and paste techniques associated with modern software. Sampled live drumming augments these arrangements by filling gaps from the editing process and offers a unique percussive setting unparalleled by any drum machine. The text-to-speech capabilities of Apple generated every vocal element on this record."

It's a truly great and fun record and yup, very hard to find. Vocals sound very Flying Lizards-ish, adding to it's early-80s charm.
It's only a 128 kbs rip of a CD-R, but sounds fine. A friend of mine has the (very limited) vinyl and I will try to do up a proper 320 rip in the next few days. I'll let ya know. But for now definitely get this and ENJOY!

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Intro
02. Coin (That's Right)
03. Intro
04. Circular Beats
05. 9" (All the way Down)
06. Intro
07. Play Fascination
08. 98 Coins
09. Intro
10. Xmas on a Boat
11. Tuff Actin' Lady
12. Intro
13. Laundrymat B.J.
14. Intro
15. Pod Position
16. Outro

Eugene Chadbourne - "Country Boobs" (2007 CD-R)

2009-07-15T15:29:00.006-07:00

Here's a CD-R the good Doctor has been offering on tour. Don't know if it's available elsewhere. My favorites are the typically fried versions of well-known songs, particularly the Ween/Billy Idol one-two punch. Or slap. I guess these are not so much fried as baked as the whole disc's languidly paced.
Good stuff.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Cowboy Girl
02. Condoleeza
03. Saddamn Me
04. Hello In There
05. Time After Time
06. Jackson
07. Some Velvet Morning
08. We Don't Need The Men
09. Piss Up A Rope
10. White Wedding
11. She Fainted At Bonaroo
12. Danger!
13. Snow (Hey Oh)
14. Feel Good Musik 4 Fucked

The Flaming Lips - Boom-Box Experiment No.19 (1998)

2009-07-14T00:19:00.007-07:00

Here's one I've just acquired after years of searching. I saw it on several "trade lists" online, but none of the buggers ever got back to me. Finally found it from a dude in Brazil (thanks, Luis!). Traded a Melvins DVD I shot for it, and well worth the price.

The Boom-Box Experiments, for those of you that don't know, were 40 volunteers from the audience armed with pawn shop boom-boxes and a bag of tapes. These tapes had various music pieces and sound effects on them and the boom-boxes were wired through to the PA. It was an ungodly racket, made all the more so by people fucking up their cues and the tapes never quite synching. Head Lips Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd "conducted" the participants which were separated into halves, facing each other. Michael manned the mixer.

The main reason I was searching so diligently for this particular show was that on this particular night, September 27, 1998 at Wetlands in NYC, yours truly was a member of the "orchestra". In fact, Steven parked me in a chair at the edge of the stage and shoved about two six-packs of beer and cigarettes under the seat. Not only was I to participate, but apparently was to be his personal valet for the night. Not that I minded since I would be helping myself to the beer as well, haha.
But the best part is that I get admonished by Wayne three (three!) times.
The first time I was fumbling with a tape and he looks over at Steven and asks, "Is Pete kinda drunk?" I was, as he well knew. The second he kinda stutters a "P-Pete..." and looks over at Steven again and asks, "Is he opening that for you?" I guess he got a blank look cos then he says, "I told my side No Drinking... well, maybe it'll help".
The third time he just tells a rather blotto me, in support, "Two more Pete! Hang in there".

It was of course all in good fun. Even if I was famous for drinking copious amounts of their alcohol.
The recording is a real nice soundboard tape. Lotsa loopy stereo effects, and even though you can in no way capture the sonic mayhem that was unleashed it is a fair representation.
A high quality 320 kbps rip. Mind though, that when the music starts there is a lotta hiss: 40 cheap pawn shop boom-boxes will do that.
The "Intro" track is Wayne explaining the proceedings. The Test 1 and Test 2 tracks are just that: tests to make sure everything's hooked-up and operating properly. Things get going for reals on Track 4. And Speed Of Life is my favorite with 40 babies that had to be experienced to be believed.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Intro
02. Test 1
03. Test 2
04. The Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now
05. Car Accident
06. Speed Of Life
07. Heralding In a Better Ego
08. Sunrise
09. Altruism

VIDEO: Six Finger Satellite - Westbeth Theatre, NYC 9/7/95 (46m.)

2009-07-11T16:48:00.006-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. Been consumed with suvival. Trying to find a job in Arizona in the summer in these economic times is needle-in-a-haystack futility. Ugh. All my CD's are gone (except four stacks of The Fall, Mekons, TVPs and Ween each). Records next? I've sold so many records over the years and it's always a regret... "Ah, I used to have this". CDs who cares good riddance. Maybe I could sell hard drives full of music? Would that even be legal??? Anyway, somehow things always work out, more or less. I got a gig at a theater here that usually gets me by but bands tend to avoid this area in the summer. I guess those festivals in Europe are pretty appealing...

Anyway, I just wanted to get this video posted as I've had two requests (from the same person?) for it. So here you are whoever you are. Hope you like it.

Much more soon!

The AVI video is HERE.
Watch online HERE. (Switch it to 4:3 to avoid the srertchiness).

The Buff Medways - A couple singles...

2009-06-26T13:51:00.007-07:00

Damaged Goods 7" DAMGOOD 240 (2005)
A-side is from the Buff's best LP (in my opinion), "Medway Wheelers", wherein we find Billy Childish and the boys in a decidedly mod vein. The B-side, A Quick One, as if to prove this is a cover of the "You Are Forgiven" part of Pete Townshend's first stab at rock opera, A Quick One While He's Away. The sleeve doesn't list this as from any album so you'd be led to think it's a non-LP B-side. However, a different take of this cut ends 2002's "Steady the Buffs" LP, only there it's titled Ivor (as in "the Engine Drivor"). So, for completeists, I guess...

Transcopic 7" TRAN 025 (2003)
A-side is yet another take on Just 15, which Billy originally did with Thee Mighty Caesars in the 80's, and was a live staple with Thee Headcoats in the 90's. And yeah, I bought it anyway cos the song rocks. One of my favorites of his. And if you go back on this very blog and download The Original Sins' Just 14 single, you can play them back-to-back and think you're clever (like I did DJ'ing one night tho no one noticed of course).
B-side is exclusive to this 7" so far as I can tell.

Get them both HERE.

VIDEO: The Fall - Brownies, NYC, 7 April 1998 (56m.)

2009-06-24T00:02:00.006-07:00

As per several requests since my Fall documentary post, here is the complete train-wreck of a show. This is the one with the onstage row. Watching it again after many years, I was surprised how the show even went for nearly an hour since the fracas takes place about 24 minutes into it. MES takes Karl's drumsticks and throws them around on the stage which causes him to jump from his kit and assault him. But shit must have been brewing long before this. And yes, the first half of the show pretty much sucks. MES is wandering around, flipping through papers and barely bothering to sing (strange, too cos the night before at Coney Island High was such a great set).

After the scuffle the band continue on for a song MES-less, then he returns for a scorching take on Lie Dream Of a Casino Soul, preceded by MES whipping the guitarist with the mic cord and finishing with him telling them, "Well done, lads!".
Behind the Counter is next and equally fierce. MES seems to have been awakened from a stupor for these two songs at least, and the beast we all know and love/loathe is in fine form, spitting the lyrics clearly and with venom.
Alas, it is not to last. He Pep is next and falls apart, the band walk off and MES and Julia are left alone for a mostly acapella Powderkeg, with improvised lyrics about the night's proceedings.

But stay tuned all the way to the end cos there's some funny bits with Tommy and Steve, proving they didn't take it all so very badly. Even if they were all sacked that night.

Get it HERE. Watch online HERE.

This is a 775 MB AVI file ripped from my master Hi8 tape (accept no substitutes!). If anyone wants a pristine, uncompressed DVD of this or any show I've posted leave a comment and we'll work it out for postage or something.
Cheers.

Lime Spiders - "Lime Spiders" (1987 Virgin Promo Live EP)

2009-06-22T18:33:00.004-07:00

Here's a cool little 7" I bust out every now and them for some balls-out garage rockin'. I got this as a free handout at one of their shows at Trenton City Gardens. Funny to think now that they were on Virgin Records. Maybe Aussie garage was in line to be the next big thing? 'Til grunge anyway.
The versions here are a lot less psychedelic sounding than their studio counterparts (the 2 songs I got on a comp, anyway). Flat-out rock 'n' roll.

As far as I know, this remains a rarity. There's one on Discogs for 32 euros and one on Musicstack for 12 bucks (well it is in glorious green vinyl. Of course). So ya might as well download it, right HERE.

Tracks:
01. Space Cadet
02. Just One Solution
03. Action Woman
04. Stone Free

Nice sleeve, too, eh?

Television Personalities - "I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod" (1995 Overground)

2009-06-19T16:28:00.007-07:00

Although one of my favorite bands, this is an album that's taken me a long time and some effort to get into. This was their last album proper before Dan Treacy disappeared into addiction and the prison boat and resurfaced some ten years later with "My Dark Places". I don't really know what to say about it. Allmusic Guide calls it "harrowing". There's a few of the typical pop ditties - the title track, Little Woody Allen... But the rest of it I guess is pretty, um, harrowing.
I prefer Side 2 (track 7 on) with the punky romp of Since I Was a Girl and the gorgeous I Can See My Whole World Crashing Down.

All in all, a worthy addition to your TVPs collection. Get the 320 kbps vinyl rip HERE.

Tracks:
01. As John Belushi Said
02. I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod
03. A Stranger To Myself
04. Little Woody Allen
05. A Long Time Gone
06. Evan Doesn't Ring Me Anymore
07. Things Have Changed Since I Was a Girl
08. Haunted
09. I Can See My Whole World Crashing Down
10. Something Just Flew Over My Head
11. Everything She Touches Turns To Gold

As a kind of companion to the album I recommend getting this EP, featuring a remix of the title track and a couple non-LP tracks.

The Cramps - "I Ain't Nuthin But a Gorehound b/w Weekend On Mars" (1984 New Rose)

2009-06-18T15:34:00.010-07:00

These are tracks that were recorded live at NYC's Peppermint Lounge in February 1983. Gorehound was included on the "Smell Of Female" live Mini-LP of tracks from the show. Weekend On Mars is a great little ditty that was a bonus track only available on the New Rose Records' 7-inch box set version of that album. And this single release. (I presume that it's simply one of the 45s from the set). Kinda strange this never featured as a bonus track on any of the CD re-releases of the album, but if you have the CD and you get this you'll now have 4 bonus tracks instead of 3, woo-hoo!

Get the 320 vinyl rip HERE

And while I'm on The Cramps...
A few days ago I was hunting the internet for The Blenders' Don't Fuck Around With Love and The Clovers' Rotten Cocksucker's Ball. I found them on an incredible series of 12 (!) compilations called "Lux & Ivy's Favorites" on WFMU's blog. Now I used to check their great blog almost daily so I was a tad ashamed for having missed something so great that's been posted since February. Oh well, got 'em now! And can't stop listening!

These are very different from the famous "Songs The Cramps Taught Us" comps and the similar "Born Bad" comps. Those featured songs The Cramps had covered, either on recordings or live. But these are all songs that Lux and Ivy have spoken about in interviews or written about as influences, favorites, etc and just generally cool, whacked-out stuff in their record collections. It's not all wild rockabilly, either. Lotsa doo-wop, blues, etc. A deeper look into the soul of our heroes, as it were.

Zip files for the first eleven volumes are HERE. You need them all, trust me. There's also a link there to a cool radio interview and a link to Lux's "Purple Knif Show". What more could you want???
Oh yeah, the 12th volume! Subtitled "The Lux Interior Memorial Edition", is HERE.

And since there is no art for these (except Vol.1), I of course made some up for each volume. Searched out some Lux & Ivy pics, downloaded some suitably Cramps-y fonts, a bit of Photoshoppe and...voila!
I've put all the covers in a zip file HERE.

I didn't make Volume 1's but included it in the file. My favorite is Volume 8's, Lux & Ivy looking all Sailor & Lula Lynch-ian... Hope you like!

Update July 23:
Kogar, who makes these comps, has just posted a new one, Number 13! Visit his blog for it HERE. This edition actually has artwork! And it puts my piddly efforts to shame...

The Fall - "Blindness" US LP Version (2005 Narnack)

2009-06-17T15:54:00.005-07:00

Bit of a late entry in "The Fall Wednesday" for me...
In my tireless quest to post original things not on a ton of other blogs, I give you this: a far superior version of the song Blindness from the 2005 LP "Fall Heads Roll". According to the authoritative Fall website, this has never been released anywhere but on the US double-vinyl release. Not even on that box-set that looked like The Peel Sessions box and where they dumped a buncha other rarities so us Fall Freaks would presumably pony-up the dough for yet another mostly redundant comp.

But whatever. This version is completely diferent, with a fuller sound and very different lyrics (well, it actually HAS lyrics compared to the CD version). I am sure you will like it.

As for the pic, I did a quick image search and found that, a poster for some prolly stupid Miramax movie I didn't even bother reading about. And now that I've mentioned that, the handful of people Googling the movie will come here and go "Huh?".
I am probably taking this artwork mania too far...

Get the 320 kbps vinyl rip HERE.

Billy Childish - "Trembling Of Life" (1993 Damaged Goods)

2009-06-11T12:48:00.004-07:00

This is an out-of-print box set of three 7" EPs and a book and a couple post cards. It's Billy reading his bilious poems for you. It's all recorded at one sitting, probably in his house or something. Billy rages on his girlfriend, drinking and his "inability to even fucking spell". What's funny to me is the contrast in his attitude here from what I've seen of him live, when he's always laughing and smiling and having a good time. Even when I saw him reading poetry at a record store. Maybe this was because it was before he went sober and before he broke up with that Tracy Emin girl who ripped off his art stylee and exploited their relationship publicly for her own personal gain. Whatever, it IS entertaining. Even if it is bleak stuff.

The Poems:
The Magical Prose Of Beer / For the Deceived / My Bitterness / And Hers / Give Me Truly Harts / The Snakes Of Desire / On the Tube / To Understand Murder / The Sudden Fart Of Laughter / Morn the Poor Whores Of Chatham / Under the Clock / Dragin Thru This / Grow You Afraid In Dark / My Hart Dosent Rest Easy (1985) / Poem To the Noseless One / A Darker Currency (Hamburg 92) / Fleas Flys and Women (1985) / The Typeriter That Couldnt Spell / Legercy / Merry Little Fascists / Just In This Way / The Moth / And the Cider Bottle Passes As My Eyes / One For the Bludless (Kunsthaus Zurich 91) / Never To Fake It / Here Let Bitterness Evaporate (Amsterdam 92) / The Unutterable / A Little Less / Gentle Love / And Cruelness Here / Sick September / Trembling Of Life

As in my previous Billy post and as per usual for his releases, Billy's idiosyncratic/dyslexic spelling has been retained.

Get my 192 kbps vinyl rip HERE.

"The Sunshine Hotel" (1998 NPR radio documentary) 21m.

2009-06-07T22:17:00.011-07:00

"Welcome, come on in, if you got the rent money, you can stay, if you ain't beat it! This is an eat it and beat it hotel. Normally, people come in, they stay for a day or two and get out. But for some reason or another, people come here and they like to stay -- for a year, for two years. In other words they like to give you aggravations. If you like aggravations come to the Sunshine Hotel -- it's a lovely place."

It's funny how downloading things off blogs will remind me of something I've got in a box somewhere I had completely forgotten about. I've started several blog posts with the exact same lead. So anyway, I got and listened to "The Evolution Of a CRO-MAGnon" by John Joseph their lead singer (Cro-Mags, duh) from Cosmic Hearse blog. Comes on all like a gutter Jim Carroll, and the best parts are the first half; his fucked-up childhood. I could well see why they titled the post "And You Thought Your Life Was Fucked Up". I really liked that he read the book himself and not some ponce like DiCaprio. The authentic New Yawk accent and his fond reminiscing of "the old New York" reminded me of this tape here, "The Sunshine Hotel".

I was living in NYC when this aired in '98. I wasn't really a regular listener of NPR but I was a straphanger and therefore read the papers. This got a lot of press and so I listened and taped it. Good thing, too, cos it's great!
The Sunshine Hotel was a flophouse on The Bowery. Ten bucks a night for a cubicle with chickenwire for a ceiling. The eccentric and erudite manager, Nathan Smith narrates and introduces us to the likes of Vinny the throat cancer victim and his lovebirds, Cookie the toothless loan shark, etc. A wonderful cast of characters.
I won't say too much, just download and enjoy.
Your humble narrator, Nathan Smith, 1935-2002
In researching a bit for this post, I found it was released on CD but is now out-of-print. There's a used copy on Amazon for $99.99, but it was a good source for the cover.
There is a complete transcript online HERE. Read along! (and Google translate for you less-than-fluent international readers).

The Sunshine Hotel was awarded the Prix Italia, "Europe's oldest and most prestigious broadcasting award", in 1999.

My 192 kbps cassette rip is HERE.

The Fall - "Mixing It" Session (BBC 2006)

2009-06-03T00:07:00.001-07:00

A while back I got a great Fall collection called "Unreleased Radio Sessions 1981-1999" (from YoungMossTongue blog which is now private but you can get it here at Pathway To Unknown Worlds blog). It's a great collection of sessions which are not Peel. It set me on a search for other sessions, and I found this one at Burning World blog. Their download links are down so I'm making it available again here. Lucky you. Cos it's a great session. The versions of three songs from "Fall Heads Roll" are all excellent, especially Midnight In Aspen, as well as the Monks cover Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy which they did for the great Monks tribute CD Silver Monk Time. But the thing that makes this session an extra treat are the two interview excerpts with MES. Not that he says anything particularly insightful, but it's his attitude coupled with his slurring that I find charming. He actually explains the songs and his songwriting process and talks about the Monks. (And he is a bit clearer than the I/V bits in the video...)

As regular readers of this blog are well aware, I often make cover art for things that have no art. I don't spend a ton of time on them, usually about 20 minutes, and I'm not no graphic designer please, but I know what I like, like they say. So I made that one up there from a drawing from a Fall article in Believer magazine a couple years ago. I got that issue (the same one with a CD available on this very blog) but I took the pic from an image search cos my scanner's busted. The page I got it from was from some guy who recognized the drawing as an exact copy of a photo he took. And they didn't credit him. Boo-hoo! Join the club buddy with me and my uncredited footage in the BBC doc, haha.

But the coolest part is I titled it with the Mark E Smith Handwriting Font! How fucking cool is that?! And it's available for free right HERE for Mac and PC.

OK blah blah I've prattled on enough. Get the session HERE.

Tracks:
01. Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy
02. interview pt1
03. Assume
04. Midnight In Aspen
05. interview pt2
06. Pacifying Joint

Note - The folder contains an earlier "cover" I made for it. You may like that one better, who knows. But if you want the one above you'll have to click on it and drag it over.
Ta.

Sebadoh - "Asshole" EP (Vertical Industries 1992)

2009-05-30T22:23:00.012-07:00

Here's a quick one cos I wanted to post a record after all those videos. Back to mah roots, hah! Plus I just wanna see that bright red Asshole heart up there...

This 7"er is pretty much what you would expect: lo-fi out-of-tune Lou strumming and humming, noise collage, scorching punk rockers. Beautiful, in other words!

My copy says it's the 2nd pressing of 500.
There's no track listing and I can't find any online, so I guess they're untitled.
As I recall, this came with a bunch of plastic ants thrown into the sleeve. For some reason. I imagine someone got a tape from Lou to put out a 7" and they sat around their living room getting fucked-up with friends, stenciling and Speedball linoleum printing the labels, splattering 'em with a bit of spray paint and generally doing everything they could think of to make a nice record.
Good job, guys.

Get it HERE.

VIDEO MEGAPOST: The Ex / Royal Trux / Flat Duo Jets / Ruin... / The Wedding Present / Mekons

2009-05-29T12:51:00.014-07:00

I've been busying myself in my free time this past week digitizing my rapidly deteriorating collection of analog Hi8 videos of shows I filmed for my public access show in NYC. Talk about drudgery! But I make the fruits of my labor available to you, dear reader! Several of these shows have glitches edited out, generally at the beginning, and I'll let you know where and how bad (actually I think the problem is my crappy camera not the tapes). But mostly they're just fine. They are all great shows, shot close up and with great audio.

I'm still experimenting with video file formats, etc. So some are AVI, some are MOV. I am leaning towards the MOV format cos the files are smaller, there's less pixelation and the audio is uncompressed. Like I've said before, you should definitely have the awesome free cross-platform VLC media player. It plays EVERY video format in ANY operating system and is FREE. 'Nuff said. No whining.

Alternately, I was surprised to learn that Megaupload has an "Instant Video Link" for these vids. It's pretty cool: you just gotta close one pop-under window, then click "play" again. The viewer is huge, much better than Youtube's, and you can skip to any part of the video. So it's good for preview purposes at the very least; see if you wanna download 'em or not. (I would suggest clicking the "Switch to 4:3" format cos the viewer is widescreen and they do that weird stretchy thing, though it's not too bad).

Alright, here's what I got for ya:

The Ex - The Knitting Factory, NYC, 2/18/99, 78m.
An absolutely furious set from the Dutch anarcho-punks. One of the best shows I've ever seen. Shot close-up with wide angle lens. Awesome. Essential viewing for all, especially if you've never seen them and/or live in some bumfuck burg which they will never visit...
776 MB AVI file HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Royal Trux - The Cooler, NYC, 9/12/98, 57m.
A great set from the classic scuzz rockers. Up close, great audio.
800 MB AVI file HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Flat Duo Jets - Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ, 3/29/96, 78m.
Just saw the Dex Romweber Duo last week and was reminded that I had this old video. The man has mellowed a bit over the years but the set was still great. And his sister is bad-ass on the skins. This set is classic FDJ fury, non-stop.
362 MB MOV file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Ruin... - Upstairs At Nick's, Philadelphia, 11/30/96, 76m.
One of my favorite bands to go see growing up in the Philly area in the early 80's. Read what I posted about them earlier (and download their ESSENTIAL discography on one CD) HERE. This is a video of the second of three shows they reunited to do for the release of said remastered discography. It's about the ONLY Ruin there is on video, according to Cordy and Tom.
799 MB AVI file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

The Wedding Present - Tramps, NYC, 9/7/96, 57m.
Probably my all-time favorite "pop" band, David Gedge and the Weddoes (as the trendy Brit press dubbed them) emerged from the C86 scene along with Primal Scream, Close Lobsters, etc. I could identify with Gedge's melancholic yearnings exploding into passionate guitar fury (I mean, look at the pic!), especially at that time of my life. I always thought they should be at least as big as The Cure. But perhaps it's for the best they're not. Cos last year and the year before they came to Tucson (!) and played intimate club dates. Furiously.

I'll give a set list here cos I know all the songs, woo-hoo!:
Crawl / Come Play With Me / Kansas / Sports Car / Snake Eyes / 2, 3, Go / Love Slave / Drive / Real Thing / Venus / Gazebo / Click Click / Convertible / Montreal / Swimming Pools, Movie Stars / Brassneck / Heather

699 MB AVI file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Mekons - Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ, 10/17/95, 107m.
A much more rollicking set than the previous Mekons video post, this show had lotsa old favorites I thought they'd long forgotten. Much of the typical Mekons banter hilarity between songs. A must for fan and neophyte alike.
(There were a couple nasty glitches I edited out in the first 2 songs. Then it's pretty much smooth sailing.)

Set list:
Last Dance / Fantastic Voyage / Millionaire / Sleepless Nights / Hole In the Ground / Brutal / Spit / Lyric / Wild and Blue / Sympathy For The Mekons / The Curse / Where Were You / Memphis, Egypt / Shanty // Ghosts Of American Astronauts / Prince Of Darkness / Sweet Dreams // Echo / Road To Florida / 100% Song

489 MB MOV file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

More video in the coming weeks as I digitize more tapes, including: The Frogs, Oblivians, Dwarves, Killdozer, Melvins, Jesus Lizard, Mike Watt, Thee Headcoats, Sonic Youth, Trail Of Dead, RL Burnside, Hasil Adkins, Smog, Built To Spill, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Six Finger Satellite, Geraldine Fibbers... to name a few.

Let me know what you'd like to see first. And let me know if you'd like full, uncompressed downloads of any of these things. And generally if you appreciate my efforts here or am I wasting my time???

The Dead C. - "The Operation Of the Sonne" (1994 Siltbreeze)

2009-05-21T19:46:00.005-07:00

As per request, here is The Dead C.'s 1994 vinyl-only release. I think I got this off the Kiwi Tapes blog a while back, and the requester - "Anonymous" - says the link is dead. Well, the blog is pretty much dead so I guess so. Anyway, three long pieces. Fucking Dead C. - what can I say that I haven't before? Plus I'm just lazy and as this is a request I hadn't thought of much to say beforehand.

It's awesome. It's HERE.

Tracks:
01. Marriage of Reason and Squalor
02. Mordant Heaven
03. Air

And a note: If you request something, and I have it, and it's not on a ton of other blogs, I'll be happy to post it. But if you're going to request anonymously at least sign off with a name, any name.
Just so I don't have to call you "Anonymous"...

The Flaming Lips - "The Soft Bulletin - The Companion CD" (1999 Promo)

2009-05-21T17:27:00.005-07:00

I found this thing on a torrent site whilst looking for a particular Lips show boot. Not my favorite era Lips but what the hell it's the Lips... I've decided to post it since I've never seen it around on the blogs. It's a promo-only thing. I think some of these songs/versions eventually came out as tracks on CD singles. There's also lotsa radio sessions. Definitely a must for the Flaming Lips completeist, anyway.

I have a feeling that Disc 1 might be the "official" release and Disc 2 might be a bootleg put together by someone. Not least because it's listed as a 1999 release and the radio sessions are from 2000. But also because it's called simply "The Companion CD", not CDs... If anyone has any info on this leave a comment...

A 2 Disc set at 192 kbps in one download HERE

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. 35,000 Feet Of Despair
02. 1,000 Foot Hands (Early Mix)
03. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (You're Invisible Now)
04. Buggin' (Lips Mix)
05. A Machine In India (Edit Version)
06. Okay, I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand
07. The Captain Is A Cold Hearted & Egotistical Fool
08. Satellite of You (Written by Lou Reed)
09. The Spiderbite Song (Early Mix)
10. Slow Motion (Early Mix)
11. 1,000 Foot Hands (Final Mix)
12. Little Hands (Written by Alexander "Skip" Spence)
13. The Big 'Ol Bug

Disc 2:
01. Race for the Prize (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
02. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
03. The Spiderbite Song (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
04. Above The Daily Hum (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
05. The Spiderbite Song (GLR on 4.23.00)
06. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (GLR on 4.23.00)
07. Everyone's Gone To The Moon (GLR on 4.23.00)
08. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (XFM on 4.27.00)
09. The Spiderbite Song (XFM on 4.27.00)
10. The Switch That Turns Off The Universe (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
11. We Can't Predict The Future (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
12. If Remained Unrealized (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
13. The Captain (GLR on 6.10.00)
14. Waitin' For A Superman (GLR on 6.10.00)

VIDEO: "The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World Of Mark E Smith" (2005 BBC Four) 60m.

2009-05-13T00:42:00.007-07:00

"You are the worst group I've ever seen. In the history of mankind. The worst tuneless rubbish I've ever heard, even worse than Siouxsie and the Banshees. I didn't believe it was possible. Please do a Session."
--John Walters, Peel Sessions producer, in a letter to Mark E. Smith

And thus, ignominiously started the longest stretch of Peel Sessions by any artist: 24. Such are the little nuggets in this great documentary to satisfy the most rabid Fall fan. (Me, I've watched it at least ten times). It's loaded with great live footage, interviews with luminaries such as John Peel, Tony Wilson and oft-time producer Grant Showbiz, interviews with ex-band members Steve Hanley and Marc Riley (lots of great anecdotes), and of course the man himself.

I don't know if this documentary is going to change anyone's mind on The Fall but, you know, fuck them. Who cares? And sure, MES is difficult to understand. He's smoking and drinking and slurring. But I transcribed that quote up there directly from his relating the tale in the film, so it's not impossible. You just gotta... Listen.
There's great old television footage (just clips, alas), and our interviewees take us on a trip through all the ups/downs/ins/outs of The Fall from the earliest days up 'til the making of this doc, which coincided with the taping of the last Peel Session. There's great footage of them recording Blindness and I Can Hear the Grass Grow and Mark admonishing his then-bandmates ("You've got to fucking play a bit harder and you've got to be in tune and you've got to do it on the changes").
The video itself is great quality. Nice widescreen picture. It was digitally recorded and I downloaded it from some forgotten spot a couple years ago (I can't find it today). If you just want to watch the film, there is a single-download 700 MB AVI version that will play in any media player and looks just fine. If you want to archive this or burn it onto a DVD, get the uncompressed 3-part download. It's pristine. But it's an MPEG file, as I got it. But if you have the great VLC Player, which everyone should cos it plays every format perfectly (and it's free and they never bug you for donations), you will have no problems.
And last but not least: My Connection (there always is, isn't there?). This film includes footage I shot in 1998 in NYC. It was their infamous "onstage row". Karl jumps out from behind his kit and assaults MES, to which he implores us to "Bear witness, laddies". Karl, Hanley and that Tommy guy all quit/sacked the next day.
There's about two minutes of my footage and it is really crappy-looking! Granted, it wasn't one of my best shoots, what with Brownies' having just built their gigantic stage and I wasn't prepared for that (TOO close), and of course it wasn't the greatest gig (The night before at Coney Island High was phenomenal - MES positively menacing with a black eye and the band smoking - there's a still photo in the film). But the worst part is it's from a very high-generation copy. I traded this with one guy in Manchester I traded lotsa Fall stuff with, and I assume he traded his out and they traded theirs out... But you'd think a bloody BBC researcher could have easily traced it back? But then maybe it wasn't in the budget. Maybe they liked that grainy bootleg look.
Oh well, at least I can say I've got footage in a BBC documentary!
At least that's something...

The 700 MB AVI single-download is HERE.

The 1.84 GB 3-part download: PART 1 * PART 2 * PART 3
(Download all 3 parts, double click file marked ".001" to extract all 3 parts and end up with one MPEG file. Burn to DVD, etc.)

Also: check out this very excellent compilation, Songs The Fall Covered over at Doctorfuckwit's blog!

The Dead C. - "The Dead C." (2000 Language Recordings)

2009-05-10T13:04:00.004-07:00

An excellent 2 disc set of haunting noisescapes from the New Zealand masters. No vocals on this one.
A cursory interweb search reveals that this, apparently, is sometimes known as "Language Recordings 1&2", though that is the label (not the 1&2 part). I think. Their discography lists this as their eponymous (S/T) album. Whatever; it rules. Recorded between 1995 and 1999. The recording quality is excellent and this is a big 320 kbps rip to take full advantage of that fact.

Necessary. One download right HERE.

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. Accelerate
02. Dec
03. Pussyfooting
04. Speederbot
05. All Channels Open

Disc 2:
01. One Night
02. Realisation con Slider
03. Fake Electronics
04. Tuba is Funny (Slight Return)
05. Drillbit
06. High Original
07. Tidewater

Eugene Chadbourne - "LSDC&W - The History of the Chadbournes In America" (1987)

2009-05-06T12:53:00.007-07:00

Here's a real treat from the fucked-up genius of the good Dr. Chadbourne. If you're familiar with his work with Kramer in Shockabilly, this treads similar ground, but in an even more whacked-out improv vein. The title "LSDC&W" is very apt. The 20+ minute Beatles Medley is worth the download alone. But then you also get his Roger Miller Medley, his take on Burma Shave and Cash's Tennessee Flattop Box. His Third Stone From the Sun is a totally unrecognizable noise-fest. Some truly fried shit.

Very hard to find on blogs and the bricks and mortar, I have to thank my friend Dimitri for letting me rip his double-LP for y'all (no window hopping involved). Ripped at 320 kbps in two downloads:

Disc 1 and Disc 2

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. The Beatles Medley
02. In A Sentimental Mood (The Duke) (Pt. 1)
03. In A Sentimental Mood (Pt. 2)
04. Winchester, Va.
05. Tennessee Flattop Box
06. Dr. Chadbourne's Ordeal In Nashville
07. Burma Shave
08. Dixie Fried

Disc 2:
01. Wine Me Up
02. Roger Miller Medley
03. House Burning Down
04. Third Stone From The Sun
05. Funny How Time Slips Away
06. Ghosts
07. 7 + 7 =
08. Burl Ives Medley
09. Wild Horses
10. W Va Spec (Zorn Tribute)
11. Nobody Loves Me But My Mother
12. No Reason To Quit

ps - My apologies for the crappy cover art. I neglected to photograph the LP after I ripped it and this was the best I could find on the web. Stay tuned and I will soon have a better version for you...

Ween - demos and shit...

2009-05-05T11:09:00.012-07:00

More extreme brownness from the Browntracker Ween collector's torrent site. Such a wealth of obscure treats! My only job here is to make 320 kbps mp3s of the flacs I download and make them available to you for direct download. And since I am a big artwork freak (my iTunes has to have art for everything or I freak out) I've made "covers" for most of these. Except the "12 Golden Country Greats" Demos which someone else did a fine, fine job on!

Chocolate & Cheese Taster - Demos Summer 1992
This is a great collection of songs, only some of which ended up on C&C in 1994. Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 15 remain unreleased in any form. Tracks 3, 5 and 10 ended up as B-sides in finished form. But my favorites are the very different takes on C&C songs like Take Me Away and Freedom of '76 (what I call the "Negro Girls" version, referring to the original lyrics, probably deemed by Elektra as too... racy?). But best of all is the second take of Buckingham Green, which didn't see a proper release until 1997's "The Mollusk" LP. This is a long, proggy take with a little spoken story about the Child of Eye frollicking with gnomes and shit and an absolutely scorching guitar coda at the end. Awesome!

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. I Still Love You / 02. Short Span Of Attention / 03. Ode To Rene / 04. Feed The Fire / 05. Mango Woman / 06. Gabrielle (1) / 07. Freedom of '76 (1) / 08. Buckingham Green (1) / 09. Take Me Away / 10. Sweet Texas Fire / 11. Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down) / 12. Buckingham Green (2) / 13. Gabrielle (2) / 14. The Rift / 15. Pass The Bong / 16. AIDS-Amplified / 17. Freedom of '76 (2)

12 Golden Country Greats Demos
These are the demos Ween sent off to Nashville to recruit the authentic band and/or have them learn the songs. Though there are two songs which didn't make the final album (Tracks 8 and 11, both of which remain unreleased in any form) this collection remains true to the final album's title in that there are actually only eleven songs.
These songs sound pretty much in close-to-final form, except that they are, um, demos. With drum machines and shit. In other words, classic Ween. The mournful So Long Jerry seems to be (and I am assuming here) their farewell to the then-recently died Jerry Garcia. Though not as mournful as C&C's A Tear For Eddie (for Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel), it's a good one and I guess deserving. Though I was never in any way, shape or form a Deadhead so what would I know? (Though I have been to Dead shows to score drugs and laugh at the whole spectacle and scare the hippies with my mohawk and a particularly nasty gash on my face - this was the early 80's - OK I've said too much and will shut up now).

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. I Don't Want To Leave You On the Farm / 02. Piss Up a Rope / 03. Mr. Richard Smoker / 04. Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain / 05. Pretty Girl / 06. Fluffy / 07. Powder Blue / 08. I've Got No Darkside / 09. You Were the Fool / 10. I'm Holding You / 11. So Long Jerry

Bilboa - The Pod Outtakes
I guess at this point the difference between "demos" and "outtakes" is just semantics. At least I'm gonna treat it as such to include this great collection in this post. So there. 17 of these 25 songs remain unreleasesd in any form. Yow! A treasure trove. And the whole thing retains the Scotchguard-and-mononucleosis fueled vibe of their classic second album. I grow weary of typing so just download this and explore the massive brownness that is Bilboa.

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. Fantasy Jam / 02. Jam / 03. Oh My Dear (Falling in Love) / 04. If I Close My Eyes Forever / 05. The Mind / 06. Demon Sweat / 07. Mononucleosis / 08. Don't Yank Me / 09. Fuckholm Suckholm Dickholm Stickholm / 10. I Used to Write Good Songs for Ween / 11. Long-Legged Sally Was a No-Necked Whore / 12. Stallion Master / 13. Don't Sweat It / 14. It's No Good (When You Feel Bad) / 15. Das Bullshit / 16. Weed Whore / 17. No Cheese for the Candyman / 18. Make It / 19. Captain Fantasy / 20. Mr. Mocha / 21. Round and Round / 22. Good Bad Happy Sad / 23. Try To Be Brown / 24. Pollo Asado / 25. I Was Nothing

White Pepper Demos
For me the least interesting of these, from what for me is Ween's least interesting album. Which is not to say it's bad. In fact, I have very fond memories of Ween's 2000 European Tour promoting this album, tagging along in Munich, Zurich, Paris and London, eating their food and drinking their beer and getting hot Eurochicks into shows for free (one of whom I scored with, woo-hoo!). One funny memory: after the show in Munich, my friends and I all piled into her mom's VW Golf (i.e. Rabbit) with Claude and Dave to go to her friend's bar. Room was tight so Dave rode in the trunk. When we arrived we were all heading in when we heard a banging in the distance - we had forgotten Dave in the trunk! "Hey guys, I wanna go to the bar, too!" he said upon release. Haha.
Anyway, back to the demos. These are not much different from the final versions. A couple songs from the final LP are missing and one song, the pretty She Caught My Fancy remains unreleased in any form.

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. Stay Forever / 02. Even If You Don't / 03. The Grobe / 04. Stroker Ace / 05. She Caught My Fancy / 06. Pandy Fackler / 07. She's Your Baby / 08. Falling Out / 09. Ice Castles / 10. Back To Basom

VIDEO: Mekons - Bowery Ballroom NYC 3/9/2000 (99 min.)

2009-05-04T16:02:00.004-07:00

Another one from my Hi8 video collection of NYC shows (See my Ween video post for more information). This show was two days after their "Journey to the End of the Night" LP came out, and the first half relies heavily on that new material. About half-way through it turns into your typically raucous Mekons gig, featuring a great Kinks cover (Fancy) as well as Mitch the Roadie's punk rock Where Were You and their classic take on Hank Williams' Lost Highway.

This is an uncompressed, full-size (3.39 GB) AVI file. You will need to download all four parts, then double click (or single click and choose an app to open with) on the file marked zip.001. All four zips will automatically be extracted and you will have one AVI file which will play on any media player. You can then easily burn this file onto a DVD then delete the file, which is rather large.

Audio and video are both great. I was up close with a wide-angle lens and a good external mic. Please note that this was originally an analog Hi8 tape, not digital so it's not perfect. It's as good as possible, though, and an absolute must for any Mekons fan.

Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 * Part 4

Set List:
01. I'm Not Here (1967)
02. Tina
03. Heaven & Back
04. Last Weeks of the War
05. Gin Palace
06. The Flood
07. Myth
08. Cast No Shadows
09. Ordinary Night
10. Orpheus
11. Poxy Lips
12. Neglect
13. Powers & Horror
14. When Darkness Falls
15. Fancy
16. Where Were You
17. Lost Highway
18. Memphis, Egypt
19. Ballad of Sally
20. Prince of Darkness

John Cale - "Mercenaries (Ready for War) b/w Rosegarden Funeral of Sores" 7" (IRS 1980)

2009-04-23T20:22:00.007-07:00

This was a strange little single release by the major label (A&M) affiliated IRS Records. It is a particularly vicious, scorching track and quite prescient as it's turned out (note the map of Afghanistan on the sleeve) what with the recent Blackwater "contractor" scandals. But the weirdest thing about it is that while the label says it's from the "Sabotage/Live" album, it is clearly a studio recording. And this song benefits much from that fact as I think the live album's production is a bit thin. This is loud and punchy, all the better for the rata-tat-tat buildup at the end.
The B-side is probably more famous for Bauhaus's cover version. And while researching this release online I found a comment as to how their version is much better. I like the Bauhaus version OK, but this is great, too. On the record's label there is a disclaimer: "Vocal distortion intended", haha.
Also strange, these songs seem to have never been released elsewhere. I checked all the Cale albums from the time, as well as the various "Best Ofs" that have come out. Nada anywhere... please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Get this truly great (and rather rare) single HERE.
(If you have trouble with that link try THIS ONE).

Tracks:
01. Mercenaries (Ready for War)
02. Rosegarden Funeral of Sores

Ween - Radio Sessions 1991 - 1995

2009-04-21T21:05:00.005-07:00

Here's a great collection I got off Browntracker, the Ween collector's torrent site. Even being a rabid Ween fan for many, many years I hadn't heard these great versions. Sound is excellent throughout. The folder came with a text file about how it was run through Soundforge and Adobe Audition and whatnot. Good job, too. I was expecting crappy cassette sound like you get from so many unreleased Peel Sessions, with bits of the man himself unceremoniously clipped off. But no, this is pristine stuff. Some versions are significantly different, too, like a very different Push th' Little Daisies which was a delight to hear. And the "Live at The Wireless" thing is a little studio concert with bits of banter between songs ("I need a beer! Gimme a beer!")

So what I downloaded were flacs which I have converted to 320 kbps mp3s for you. If you want the flacs, click on the link above. I also spent about 20 minutes making that nifty cover art up there!

Get it HERE now!

Tracks:
KJJO Wisconsin 1991:
01. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese
02. Push th' Little Daisies

Peel Session 1992:
03. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese
04. Nan
05. Captain Fantasy
06. Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)

Peel Session 1993:
07. What Deaner Was Talkin' About
08. Vallejo
09. Take Me Away
10. Buckingham Green

JJJ Australia Live at The Wireless 1995:
11. Baby Bitch
12. Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)
13. Piss Up a Rope
14. Take Me Away
15. I Can't Put My Finger On It
16. Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
17. Koko

CMX - Kolmikärki Gold (2002 Bad Vugum)

2009-04-17T15:55:00.005-07:00

CMX are Finland's best rock band, in the classic sense. They are still around, but their sound has evolved, with a more prog influence. I'm not so into that fancy-rock stuff, but I do love their early records and this is a compilation CD of the first three. It contains the complete "Kolmikärki" LP from 1990 as well as their first two EPs.

I first heard CMX on the double 7" that Sympathy for the Record Industry put out of acts from Finland's Bad Vugum label ("If It Ain't the Snow, It's the Mosquitos", available on this very blog). So on a trip to Finland a few years ago I made sure to pick this up. Early CMX is pretty hardcore, but you can tell that right from the start they had ideas, and were not going to be stuck in any kind of hardcore orthodoxy. Which is probably why they are pretty much ignored within hardcore circles while bands like Rattus and Terveet Kadet are revered (not that they're not great... I'm just saying is all). Anyway, this is a great CD, fucking kicks ass all the way through.

I've also included the CD-EP version of their last single for Bad Vugum. You can hear their musical growth, which led them to getting signed by EMI Finland.
At least they never sound pompous about it...

Nice big 320 kbps rip of this great-sounding CD right HERE

Tracks:
Original "Kolmikärki" LP 1990:
01. Johdatus salatieteisiin
02. Sika ja perkele
03. Nahkaparturi
04. Kaikki nämä kädet
05. Götterdämmerung
06. Kuolemattomuuden ääni
07. Pyydä mahdotonta
08. Pyörivät sähkökoneet
09. Taivas ja Helvetti
10. Voittamaton
11. Suuri äiti
12. Kolmas Johannes
13. Hiljaisuuden pelko
14. Liekkisusi ja sulkakäärme

"Raivo" 7" EP 1989:
15. Lintu
16. Rituaali
17. Syvä vesi
18. Jumalan ruoska
19. Raivo
20. Hiki
21. Kolme näkyä
22. Anathema
23. Maailmoiden välissä

"Johannes Kastaja" 7" EP 1988:
24. Mielipuolinen rakkaus
25. Lapsi
26. Siunattu otsa
27. My Tribe
28. On the Wing
29. Shaman's Prayer

VIDEO: Ween - Live at Court Tavern 1996 (96 min.)

2009-04-14T14:19:00.008-07:00

Here's something a bit different for ya! Back in the mid to late 90's I videotaped a lot of shows. Primarily because I had a public access live music show (no "videos"!) in NYC, TV KiLL, weekly for about five years. So I've got a bunch of stuff I'd like to get out there. You can see lots of samples I uploaded to Myspace HERE. Feel free to request any complete shows you'd like (I used to have a Youtube channel but the corporate fucks pulled it cos of some stupid PiL video I posted thank you Dick Clark Productions).

This is all new to me, the video ripping and all. So It's a bit of an experiment. This video is an 800 MB m4v file. That means it'll play on your iPod if you're so inclined. It also plays in Quicktime and VLC media Player. I don't know if it'll work with the Windows Media Player cos I have a Mac. I'll try to do a AVI version and post that, too. What I'd really like to do is make uncompressed AVIs, at like 3.5 GB or whatever, but I don't want to have to make like 30 downloads. Having a Mac I seem to be real limited in my RAR options. I downloaded HandBrake to make the files, and it seems to work great. But all I can find to do the RARs is SimplyRAR, and it doesn't seem to want to let me choose my split file sizes. Ideally, I'd like to do just four downloads. It offers several options up to 100 MB and then "User Defined" size, but it doesn't let me define the size! I'm gonna keep researching this and hopefully I'll have it all figured out soon. In the meantime any Mac Techheads wanna leave any helpful advice in the comments section, it'd be much appreciated!

So for now this 800 MB version plays pretty good. The video was originally analog Hi8 format, not digital. Stereo audio and it sounds great. As for the show itself, it was a warm-up for a tour in support of Foo Fighters. Ween had been regularly playing as a full band for about two years at this point, but for whatever reason they reverted to the duo-plus-DAT format of their earlier days for this tour. So that's what we have here. It's a local crowd (not John and Peters in New Hope, but close enough) full of heckling friends etc. As I recall I was shrooming pretty hard by the time they came on and was thus kinda surprised how great this video turned out. Mickey's guitar was loud and rude right in front of my face (you can see how some high notes cause the tape to actually wobble inside the cam!), but it all came out good since I had a real nice external mic (a Sony Professional Walkman accessory).

So if you get this, tell me what you think. Hopefully in a few days I'll have added a link for an AVI version. And at some point down the road a 4-part uncompressed AVI. Like I said, it's all a bit of an experiment for me at this point so any input is greatly appreciated!

Get it HERE.
UPDATE:
Get the AVI file HERE.

Set List:
01. What Deaner Was Talkin' About
02. Don't Shit Where You Eat
03. The Golden Eel
04. The Mollusk
05. Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain
06. Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)
07. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese
08. Piss Up a Rope
09. Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
10. I Can't Put My Finger On It
11. Freedom of '76
12. The HIV Song
13. Mutilated Lips
14. Waving My Dick In the Wind
15. Coco
16. Drifter In the Dark
17. Buckingham Green
18. Buenas Tardes, Amigo
19. Sketches of Winkle
20. Nan
21. Papa Zit
22. Cover It With Gas and Set It On Fire
23. Puerto Rican Power

Mekons - "20th Anniversary Show" (1997 Bootleg)

2009-04-11T17:00:00.008-07:00

I recently got a couple real nice Mekons boots from the CeArt-Bootlegs blog and it got me thinking about some live cassettes I had stuck away in a box. Particularly this very nice audience recording of a celebratory Mekons gig. Recorded in 1997 at Chicago's Institute of Contemporary Art (Langford: "20 years! And now we're in a museum!"), the set is replete with seldom-played mid-period songs like King Arthur and Big Zombie, prose readings by various band members, the usual entertaining onstage banter and the obligatory, raucous Where Were You with Mitch the Roadie.

Sounds great; it's a 320 cassette rip from my 2nd generation copy. No hiss or nothin'! I broke it up into 2 discs in a slightly different order from my tapes (Disc 1's 11 & 12 opened Side 2, and Disc 2's 10-13 were on a 2nd tape). Both discs are in one easy download HERE.

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. Intro: Kathy Acker
02. Reading: Group
03. Brutal
04. Ugly Band
05. King Arthur
06. Oblivion
07. Reading: Tom Greenhalgh
08. Orpheus
09. Bomb
10. Come and Have a Go
11. Reading: Sally Timms
12. Reading: Jon Langford

Disc 2:
01. (Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian
02. Poxy Lips
03. Curse of the Mekons
04. Memphis, Egypt
05. Reading: Rico Bell
06. Heaven and Back
07. Big Zombie
08. Hard To Be Human Again
09. Where Were You
10. Amnesia
11. Reading: Mitch the Roadie
12. Ghosts of American Astronauts
13. Lyric

V/A - "Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Boxset" (2007)

2009-04-03T14:29:00.003-07:00

This amazing, absolutely essential box set was released in '07 in a limited edition of, I believe 2,000. It features 82 songs by 82 artists spanning the Christchurch, New Zealand label's history. It runs chronologically from their first release by The Clean and the great Gordons (who became Bailter Space) through to The Mint Chicks and Shocking Pinks.

This goes for a hefty price on internet sites ($205 on Amazon), and was also quite pricey in New Zealand. If you don't know where to start with the history of the amazing Kiwi scene, this is a great place, as Flying Nun was there from the beginning. I also recommend getting, as a kind of companion set, the 4-disc Not Given Lightly - A Kiwi Tapes Retrospective from the late, great Kiwi Tapes blog (which turned into the equally great though not exclusively Kiwi, Decrepit Tapes - see sidebar for link). The links appear to all be active, but I'd hurry. In fact I wouldn't sleep on this box set, either!

I'm not gonna do a massive track list for this. Suffice to say everyone is represented, and all are properly identified.
320 kbps rip.
Disc 1 * Disc 2 * Disc 3 * Disc 4

Enjoy!

Half Life - "What's Right" (1985 Mind Cure cassette)

2009-04-03T12:14:00.004-07:00

Here's a quick one from my younger, hardcore days. I picked this up at a show this Pittsburgh band did in Philly at Abe's Steak House back in '85. Also on the bill were SNFU and Philly's own Circle of Shit. But Half Life were the best band that night, as I recall. And while this tape suffers from only fair production values (levels are particularly low but hey you can just crank it up, eh), the passion of the music shines through. Not your typical loud/fast hardcore, this has chomping riffs and clear vocals and is just a fun listen. The straight-edgey homoerotic cover notwithstanding. I mean that just screams "Earnest! Not Fun!". But you'd be wrong...
What's It Mean To You? is my favorite on here.

I never heard anything else by this band (or ever saw them again) until just recently when I got a CD release by them off the excellent Lo-Res Viscera blog, which led me to dig this tape out of a box. They look a bit crustier by then than I recall, and only one song from this cassette is redone on the CD.

Get the 320 cassette rip HERE. Complete artwork included.

Tracks:
01. Old Glory
02. Gimme the Gun
03. What's It Mean To You?
04. Stupids Die
05. Revile
06. Just Like T.V.
07. New Blood
08. Their Today, Our Tomorrow
09. Deathtrap
10. Something's Missing
11. Pick Yourself Up
12. United & Strong

The Fall - "Fall In A Hole" (1983 Flying Nun)

2009-03-24T15:49:00.006-07:00

I can't believe it's taken me so long to get around to posting something from my favorite band. The main reason is that they are relatively easy to find on the blogs and I don't really like to post things that are so readily available. But I haven't seen this one. Plus, this is the proper re-issue. The first CD edition of this was mastered from a German bootleg vinyl, with dropouts and everything can you believe it! But this sounds great and it's The Fall at their peak, in 1982. Recorded at one gig in Auckland, New Zealand on the 21st of August (plus bonus tracks from other gigs on the tour).
It was fun for me to read the liner notes by Chris Knox (of Tall Dwarfs and Not Given Lightly fame) having spent quite a bit of time in Auckland: K Road! Queen Street! I know them, haha! Also in the notes is the kinda well-known (among us Fall freaks) story of how Mark E. Smith was pissed off when he saw the LP as an import at his local record shop. Apparently he agreed to the release one drunken night of the tour, and also they had not sent him any free copies. Oh well. It's all water under the bridge now, as this is a proper Cog-Sinister reissue which means it has the man's stamp-of-approval. Still kinda hard to find anywhere Stateside, though.

The original album had the band's set on the LP and a bonus 12" 45 with the encores. This is replicated here with the LP on Disc 1 and the 12", plus the aforementioned bonus tracks on Disc 2. It's a 320 kbps rip.

Tracks:
Disc 1 - The LP:
01. Impression Of J. Temperance
02. The Man Whose Head Expanded
03. Room To Live
04. Hip Priest
05. Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul
06. Prole Art Threat
07. Hard Life In Country
08. The Classical
09. Mere Pseud Mag Ed
10. Marquis Cha-Cha
11. Backdrop

Disc 2:
The 12":
01. Fantastic Life
02. English Scheme
03. Joker Hysterical Face
04. No Xmas For John Quays
05. Solicitor In Studio
Bonus Tracks:
06. The Container Drivers
07. C'n'C - Black Night
08. Look, Know
09. Who Makes The Nazis?
10. Gramme Friday
11. Slates, Slags, Etc.

A Raid On Dimitri's Singles Box

2009-03-23T18:17:00.013-07:00

So while my neighbor was away in Austin at SXSW I busied myself here at home by climbing in his window, peeing in his toilet, eating some food and raiding his singles box. And what a score! Harry Pussy (Harry Pussy GALORE!), Dead C., Church Police, Bunny Brains, to name a few.
I clutched them in my greedy paws, ripped my thrift store Levis as I crawled back out the window and scurried across the street to dump them into my computer then returned them, with none the wiser!
At least 'til he sees this. Then I'll have some explaining to do...

Check out the selection below. I've put them into individual folders (with proper cover art), and tried to keep them somewhat thematic in case you're only interested in the Harry Pussy splits or whatever (the split with Frosty is awesome). And the Charlie McAlister EP is absolutely essential!

Singles 1:
The Dead C. - Forced Exposure 7" 1991
01. Power
02. Mighty
03. Peace

Harry Pussy / Bunny Brains - "Brutarian" Split 7" 1997
01. Open Mike Night At Churchills (Harry Pussy)
02. Whitewater Bathtub (V. Foster Mix) (Bunny Brains)

Harry Pussy / Frosty Split 7" 1997
01. Ice Cream Man (Harry Pussy)
02. Stop (Harry Pussy)
03. Smash the Mirror (Harry Pussy)
04. Drop the Bomb (Harry Pussy)
05. Mongoloid (Frosty)

Harry Pussy - Siltbreeze SB56 (Single-sided 7")
01. Black Ghost

V/A - Cool Beans! Issue #6 7"
01. Situation (Fuck)
02. Dy-No-Mite (Snowmen)
03. Untitled (Harry Pussy)
04. Stripper (Kelly Deal 6000)
05. Lady In My Cab (Matt)

Harry Pussy / Pelt -"Black Fl" Split 7"
01. Untitled (Pelt Recorded 25.10.97 at Patrick's Place, Richmond, VA)
02. Untitled (HP Recorded Summer 1997, Florida)

Singles 2:
Church Police - 7" EP 1982
01. Jarhead
02. Bag of Lumps
03. Robots
04. The Red Glow
05. Killing Myself To Live

Hasil Adkins - Haze's House Party 7" EP
01. Dottie Dottie
02. Sex Crazy Baby
03. Do the Hot Pants With Me
04. She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

Charlie McAlister - Carolina Bi-Product 7" EP
01. Carolina By-Product Beach Ball Boogie
02. I'm Freezing
03. Love You Any More
04. Memories In the Rain

V/A - "Yeah, But It's a Dry Heat" -A Tucson Complication 7"
01. Hog Tied (Doo Rag)
02. The World We Live In (Barely Bipedal)
03. Track No Jewels (Head Cheese)
04. Suicidal Drunk (Skolliwoll)

Some Velvet Sidewalk - K Records IPU-09 7" 1989
01. Earthbound
02. Land.

Some Velvet Sidewalk - K Records IPU-20 7" 1991
01. Pumpkin Patch
02. Apple
03. The Burning World

League of Alien Life - K Records IPU-71 7" 1996
01. Do You Experience Alien Boredom?
02. Idol Worship! Idol Worship! We Offer Sleep To You!

The Velvet Underground - "Unripened" (2007 Bootleg)

2009-03-22T22:35:00.007-07:00

By now it's a pretty famous story of how some guy found a one-of-a-kind acetate pressing of an early, 1966 version of what would become "The Velvet Underground and Nico" album on a New York City street for 75 cents, then sold it on eBay for 25 Grand. It's known as "The Norman Dolph Acetate", and you can read the whole story here.
The acetate itself was of course very scratchy. This bootleg vinyl released a couple years ago, apparently from Sweden but who knows, offers a beautifully cleaned-up version of the acetate. But you should also go to WFMU's blog and get the original, scratchy version. For comparison at least. Or history.Apparently this recording was sent back from Columbia Records with a note that said, "You have got to be fucking kidding!" Note that this version of the LP starts off, audaciously, with an even noisier version of European Son, a whole minute longer at 8:49 and a whole lot more cacophonous than the final version which ended up at the opposite end, closing the LP. Also notable are very different versions of I'm Waiting for the Man and Venus In Furs.

Get the 320 kbps vinyl rip HERE

Tracks:
01. European Son
02. The Black Angel's Death Song
03. All Tomorrow's Parties
04. I'll Be Your Mirror
05. Heroin
06. Femme Fatale
07. Venus In Furs
08. I'm Waiting For The Man
09. Run Run Run

"I Am The Billy Childish" (1991 Sub Pop comp)

2009-03-20T21:31:00.007-07:00

The definitive Billy Childish compilation, still, even though it is now going on 18 years old. Subtitled "Fifty Songs From Fifty Records", it collects music from the first 10-11 years of his career, starting off with a bang with his late Seventies punk band The Pop Rivets. From there it goes on to his retro-Fifties rock 'n' roll combo The Milkshakes (long before such a thing was cool). Then on to what I think is his peak with Thee Mighty Caesars and finishing up with his then-new group Thee Headcoats (a seeming recreation of The Downliners Sect). In between we have sprinkled his various collaborations, most notably with Sexton Ming, and his pre-Headcoatees girl-group The Delmonas, as well as some spoken word, acoustic blues, etc, etc. (You just can't have enough "etc's" where Mr. Childish is concerned).

The whole thing flows beautifully and is one of my favorite CDs of all time to listen straight through. Also, it's been WAY out-of-print for years and is commanding big bucks on internet sites (it's actually a numbered limited edition; mine being #0815). So get it here, especially if you've been reluctant to delve into the intimidatingly huge BC discography - this is a great entry point.

Get the 320kbps rip, Disc 1 HERE, Disc 2 HERE.

Tracks:
(I have retained the idiosyncratic titling for which Mr. Childish is well known)
Disc 1:
01. Fun in the UK (Pop Rivets)
02. Kray Twins (Pop Rivets)
03. Laughing at You (Pop Rivets)
04. Skip Off School (Pop Rivets)
05. Pretty Baby (The Milkshakes)
06. For She (The Milkshakes)
07. I Hate My Little Baby (Billy Childish)
08. Red Monky (The Milkshakes)
09. Black Sales (The Milkshakes)
10. Dog Whatch (The Milkshakes)
11. We Can Only Lose (The Milkshakes)
12. A Girl Called Mine (The Milkshakes)
13. One Day You Die (The Milkshakes)
14. Chatham Train (The Milkshakes)
15. Comanchie (The Milkshakes)
16. I Want You (The Del Monas)
17. Carnt Seam to Make You Mine (The Milkshakes)
18. Mumble the Peg (The Milkshakes)
19. I'm Needing You (The Milkshakes)
20. Why Don't You Try My Love (Thee Mighty Caesars)
21. I Love That Girl Amonia (Billy Childish)
22. Verdun Osserry (Billy Childish & Sexton Ming)
23. Baby Please (Thee Mighty Caesars)
24. Man Taken from Guts (Thee Mighty Caesars)
25. I Feel Like Giviin In (The Del Monas)

Disc 2:
01. Living in a Grave (Billy Childish & Sexton Ming)
02. Got to Get You Outside My Head (Wild Billy Childish and Big Russ Wilkins)
03. Temptress of Love (The Del Monas)
04. I Was Lead to Believe (Thee Mighty Caesars)
05. Don't Say It's a Lie (Thee Mighty Caesars)
06. I've Got Everything Indeed (The Del Monas)
07. You Got Me Restless (Billy Childish)
08. Double Axe (Billy Childish & Sexton Ming)
09. You Make Me Die (Thee Mighty Caesars)
10. Cosmetic Woman (Natural Born Lovers)
11. Give It to Me (Thee Mighty Caesars)
12. True to You (Thee Mighty Caesars)
13. Prostitutes on Chatham Hi St (Billy Childish)
14. Come into My Life (Thee Mighty Caesars)
15. Somebody Else (Jack Ketch and the Crowmen)
16. Just 15 (Thee Mighty Caesars)
17. Yellow Skinned Babys (Billy Childish and the Black Hands)
18. Brimfull of Hate (Billy Childish and the Singing Loins)
19. Can't You See (Thee Mighty Caesars)
20. In Your Hand (Thee Headcoats)
21. Everyday (Thee Headcoats)
22. Squarsville (Thee Headcoats)
23. All My Fellings Denied (Thee Headcoats)
24. Rusty Hook (Thee Headcoats)
25. Childs Death Letter (Billy Childish)

320 kbps Upgrades!

2009-03-20T11:42:00.003-07:00

I've just upgraded the vinyl rips for The Electric Love Muffin's Playdoh Meathook and Decontrol's Songs From The Gut from 160 rips to 320. Click on the links to upgrade! And if you haven't gotten these classic Philly LPs yet, now's the time!
...and now Lydia Lunch's very popular (on this blog anyway) Queen Of Siam LP is at 320!
Stay tuned for more...
Woo-hoo!

Big Blood

2009-03-13T13:24:00.008-07:00

I first stumbled across the awesome Big Blood while downloading goofy shit from the excellent WFMU blog. I was shocked out of my Dr. Demento mindset by the otherworldly beauty of their music. I had to hear everything right away as I was now their biggest fan and found the Grown So Ugly blogspot (link below) where the band so graciously offered their music for download (the links here to their albums are GSU's links, for the record).

Big Blood are husband and wife team Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella of South Portland, Maine. Previously in Boston's Cerberus Shoal and now of Fire On Fire (on Michael Gira's excellent label Young God Records), Big Blood proffer haunting campfire stompers and psychedelic droning of a kind associated with Fursaxa and the "psych-folk" scene. But in my humble opinion they are head-and-shoulders above their peers. Not least of all due to their complete lack of pretension. Oh, and they've got the songs, man! If "The Grove is Hotter Than an Oceans Oven" doesn't floor you, as it does everyone I play it for, then try their cover of CAN's "Vitamin C". If you are still unconvinced, go back and listen to your black metal and stay the hell outta our way.

Big Blood music:
Big Blood + The Grove
Big Blood
Sew Your Wild Days Volume 1
Sew Your Wild Days Volume 2
Strange Maine
Space Gallery

Colleen solo:
Asian Mae 1
Asian Mae 2

Here's some related links. On the GSU blog you can read more about BB (and with less strangled syntax and garbled grammar). DTTR is BB's own brand-new blog. Go there, say "Hi" and tell them how much you love them!
Big Blood Myspace
Don't Trust The Ruin
Grown So Ugly
Cerberus Shoal

Television Personalities - "Fashion Conscious" (2002 Little Teddy)

2009-03-11T15:41:00.003-07:00

Here's another TVPs disc for ya. This is a favorite of what's probably my favorite-era TVPs. I assiduously collected these singles as they came out, and was happy to have them all in one place upon this release.
I normally don't like to just copy-and-paste reviews from the web, but this one by Tim Sendra from Allmusic.com is just about perfect (plus I'm just lazy today), so I will make an exception:

The Television Personalities have been making music for a long time, and they sound remarkably like they did when they started in the late-'70s. The constants in the history of the group are Dan Treacy's quirky sense of melody and humor, his voice, which has only a passing acquaintance with pitch but a great deal of charm, and a lo-fi mod punk sound. This 20-song compilation covers 1993 to 1997, the years the TVPs released records on Germany's Little Teddy label. The first thing one notices about the record is the amazing sound. All the tracks were produced by Liam Watson at his legendary Toe Rag studio in London and have a grandeur and immediacy that don't reflect the small recording budget. Standout songs include a cover of Lee Hazlewood's "I've Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me"; a girl group-style cover of Daniel Johnston's heartbreaking "Honey I Sure Miss You"; the chiming "I Remember Bridget Riley"; the lovelorn and yearning "I Wish You Could Love Me for What I Am"; and the swampy "In a Luxury Dockland Home," which overflows with emotion and low-rent drama. This disc is a very worthy addition to a Television Personalities collection. The music they were making during this time is as good as any they ever made; it is hilarious, heartbreaking, and makes you want to dance. What more do you want from a record anyway?

My fave not mentioned is "Now That I'm A Junkie!" And who Doesn't love "Seasons in the Sun"?, here in a nice bass-heavy, dubby version.
A nice fat 320 rip of excellence for ya right HERE.

Tracks:
01. I'm Not Like Everybody Else
02. I Hear A New World
03. I've Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me
04. Whatever Gets You Thru The Night
05. Honey I Sure Miss You
06. Time Goes Slowly When You're Drowning
07. In A Luxury Dockland Home
08. I Was A Mod Before You Was A Mod
09. Jennifer, Julie And Josephine
10. You, Me And Lou Reed
11. My Imaginary Friend
12. I Remember Bridget Riley
13. I Wish You Could Love Me For What I Am
14. Now That I'm A Junkie!
15. How Does It Feel To Be Loved?
16. Seasons In The Sun
17. Bike
18. Noone's Little Girl
19. When I Grow Up I Want To Be...
20. The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Dreaming

V/A - "Finnischer Tango" (1998 Trikont)

2009-03-09T15:08:00.006-07:00

The first time I remember hearing Finnish tango I was as a lad sitting out on my aunt's balcony at her apartment complex in Turku. The melancholy sounds were wafting out from another apartment across the way and I sat there, transfixed. This was not the music I was accustomed to hearing in Finland, but it was a quintessentially Finnish sound. What I heard as a kid out on the islands to the west of Turku was more Swedish and polka influenced, more upbeat. But these sad sounds spoke to my lonely Finnish soul. Years later I went in search of some CDs for my very own and was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of artists and releases. By then I knew of the "Finnish Frank Sinatra", Olavi Virta and picked up a few of his CDs (from a numbered series well into the fifties as I recall). But a comprehensive, concise compilation eluded me.
Back in the States I resumed my search via internet and found this comp - from a label in Munich, Germany of all places. It contains selections spanning the years 1915(!) when tango first swept the world through 1996, just as they were putting together this comp, apparently.
Tango arrived in Finland and never left. It mutated into a minor key and became the backing for crooners' tales of heartbreak and loss. It truly became "The Blues of Finland". It reached it's peak of popularity during The Winter War with Russia just prior to the outbreak of World War II and declined - but never disappeared - during the British Invasion Rock'n'Roll years. Then a resurgence happened: young artists started appropriating their parents' music and giving it a rock twist in the Seventies and beyond (to best effect by Rauli Badding Somerjoki and Topi Sorsakoski & Agents, included here).
The traditional orchestrated and accordion-heavy tangos live on to this day, and there is an annual Tango Festival every summer.

In many ways this release reminds me of a Finnish version of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, exposing a whole new audience, world-wide, to a quintessential music, this time from Finland. And it's every bit as good as that record.

Get it HERE!
As a bonus I have included a 14-page PDF of the CD's excellent booklet, featuring background, biographies, and translated lyrics - Enjoy!

Watch a lovely little Super8 tango film:
Arctic Finnish winter, small pub & tango. Kaamos is the time of the winter when the sun does not rise at all. Film by Hannu Nieminen

Tracks:
01. Siks’ oon mä suruinen (Olavi Virta)
02. Pieni sydän (Harmony Sisters)
03. Tanko laulu (Ilvari Kainulainen)
04. Liljankukka (Henry Theel)
05. Elsa, kohtalon lapsi (Martti Innanen)
06. Kaiken vaihtaisin tangoon (Markus Allan)
07. Satumaa (Reijo Taipale)
08. Itämaista rakkautta (Pauli Granfelt)
09. Tyttö tiskin takaa (Lasse Santakankaan Yhtye)
10. Syvä kuin meri (Lasse Santakankaan Yhtye)
11. Itämaista rakkautta (Topi Sorsakoski & Agents)
12. Laulu suomalaisesta maalaiskunnasta (Rauli Badding Somerjoki)
13. Hyljätty tanssilava (Kari Kuuva)
14. Ich mit meiner Braut im Parlamentspark (M A Numminen)
15. Rautalankatango (Brita Koivunen)
16. Tango pelargonia (Kari Kuuva)
17. Kohtalon tango (Eino Grön)
18. Täysikuu (Olavi Virta)
19. Valkea sisar (Georg Malmstén)
20. Unohtumaton koti (Olavi Virta)
21. Unikuva (Annikki Tähti)
22. Vain yhtä pyydän (Olavi Virta)
23. Kotkan ruusu (Arja Saijonmaa)
24. Pilvet karkaa niin minäkin (Markus Allan)

The Photos - 4 Track 45 (1980)

2009-03-07T10:48:00.004-07:00

This 4-track 7" by UK new wave act The Photos is probably the only thing you'll need by this band. In fact, the only reason I have even this is because of the song Barbarellas. The rest of it pretty much sucks, or at least is nondescript if you think that's a bit harsh. But Barbarellas has been a favorite song of mine for years and made it onto many a mix tape for friends. Concerning the closing of a club in their hometown of Birmingham, it is sung with a wistful longing and anger ("Now it's just another rotten discotheque") by Wendy Wu which anyone who's had a similar experience with a favorite club can relate (mine became a car dealership - see my Stranglers post).

Years later I got a Clash bootleg recorded at Barbarellas and wondered if ol' Wendy Wu was there that night...

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Barbarellas
02. Shy
03. Irene
04. Cridsilla

Television Personalities - 5 CD EPs (1991-1995)

2009-03-06T10:22:00.006-07:00

One of my all-time favorites, I first heard the Television Personalites on the seminal Rough Trade comp Wanna Buy a Bridge? many years ago, which included their most famous song, Part-Time Punks. The TVPs got a wee bit of notoriety in the early 90's when Kurt Cobain championed them, along with The Raincoats, as one of his favorite bands. They were also a huge inspiration to the whole Creation scene and all those lesser, crappy bands. I think they pretty much invented "twee", for better or worse...
This, their mid-period stuff, is happy jangly pop that belies a dark undercurrent. Dan Treacy, the sole constant TVP is well known for his crushing depression and heroin addiction, all of which has been laid bare in his songs. I remember reading in The New York Times on the occasion of his return to recording with "My Dark Places", that he had been imprisoned on a prison boat! (like wtf is this 1859?!)
I collected these years ago as they came out (in best bleed-the-fans-dry British music biz fashion. At least none of these came out in nearly identical editions with one or two different songs like some Wedding Present and Flaming Lips CD EPs I've got). And one of 'em has me mate Sexton Ming as the cover model!Get the 5 EPs, in individual folders with art, HERE.
(There is one EP missing from this collection, Far Away & Lost In Joy, which you can get HERE).

You get:
The Strangely Beautiful E.P. (1991 Fire)
01. Strangely Beautiful (7" Mix)
02. Reaching For The Stars
03. Not Even A Maybe
04. Strangely Beautiful/Chill Out Reprise

She's Never Read My Poems (1991 Fire)
01. She's Never Read My Poems (7" Version)
02. The Day The Dolphins Leave The Sea
03. Christ Knows, I Have Tried
04. She's Never Read My Poems (12" Mix)

We Will Be Your Gurus (1992 Seminal Twang)
01. We Will Be Your Gurus
02. An Exhibition By Joan Miro
03. Love Is Better Than War

Goodnight Mr Spaceman (1993 Fire)
01. Goodnight Mr Spaceman
02. If I Was Your Girlfriend
03. She Loves It When He Sings Like Elvis
04. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (Lost In Space Mix)

Do You Think If You Were Beautiful You'd Be Happy? (1995 Vinyl Japan)
01. He Used To Paint In Colours
02. Who Will Be Your Prince? (Instrumental)
03. Do You Think If You Were Beautiful You'd Be Happy?
04. I Suppose You Think It's Funny

The Flaming Lips - "The Day Andy Gibb Died" (1996)

2009-03-02T18:51:00.005-07:00

This is a very rare bootleg CD, in an edition of 500. I procured my copy years ago when I was shooting and trading live videos from someone who obviously had a close connection.
It contains an entire live set as one track (I put the individual song titles in the iTunes comment section), then some rarities. Some of these have come out over the years: the Led Zep/Sonic Youth thing came out on the 3-disc Finally, The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid comp, and the Sonics/Elvis Costello one was a Sub Pop single (and I think was on the same comp). But others, like the T. Rex and the (superb) Bowie cover and the medley are to the best of my knowledge still unreleased (and I admit I'm too lazy to do a thorough web check, so there).

The live set that opens the disc is prime era noisy Lips, as is all this stuff. My favorite Lips era for sure, though I have nothing against their later stuff. Just don't prefer it is all.

The disc itself is unlabeled and has all identifying numbers erased with what appears to have been a soldering iron.
I have retained the idiosyncratic song titling just as it appears on the back cover (photo included in file).
Oh, and the cover art is by Mr. Wayne Coyne himself.
Mediafire is HERE.
Sharebee is HERE.
As you like.

Tracks:
01. Live 12-9-90 Norman, OK
02. Strychnine (The Sonics)/What's So Funny 'bout Peace, ♥, + Understanding? (N. Lowe)
03. Thank You (yes, by Led Zep) / Death Valley 69 (the Sonic Youth song)
04. Ballrooms Of Mars (T. Rex)
05. Jesus Is Floatin' (Jesus Song No. 8)
06. Cold Day In Hell
07. Medley: I Started A Joke (Bee Gees) - Happy Hour - Dark Globe (Syd Barrett) - Brain Damage (Pink Floyd) - She's Gone Mad Again (T. Meade)
08. Life On Mars? (Bowie)
09. ------->∞

V/A - "Into The Future" (1979 Konnekschen)

2009-03-01T23:32:00.004-07:00

Here's a rare slice of vinyl for ya... It's a live document of a show on February 24th, 1979 at the Markthalle Hamburg. And what a show it was, as a glance at the track list down there will show: Mittagspause, Kleenex, the great DAF, among others. The only band here I haven't heard before is Ffurs, nor could I find any info on them.
The album sounds like an audience recording; in fact I'm pretty sure it is cos at one point on the first song some guy just starts jabbering loudly. Oh well. It's still a fucking cool record. The record itself and the label have the tracks split up by artist. I've made individual tracks of the songs. And on the back cover they start the song list with the second song. Whaddaya expect from punks, eh?

One thing I found funny was all the English titles/lyrics. At least until Side 2. It's almost like it's broken up into an English side and a Deutsch seite.
And DAF come on and complain about all the hippies, apparently.

I've ripped it at 192kbps since it's not exactly the highest fidelity anyway and this way it'll be one easy file. If any one really really wants a 320 rip, leave a comment and if I get more than one I'll see what I can do...
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. unlisted (Ffurs)
02. I'm Lookin' At You (Ffurs)
03. Terrorists (Ffurs)
04. Wall City Rock (PVC)
05. Berlin By Night (PVC)
06. Kamikaze (Hinterbergers Wut)
07. Heidi's Head (Kleenex)
08. You (Kleenex)
09. Nice (Kleenex)
10. Heimatland (Male)
11. Zensur Zensur (Male)
12. 1 Tag in Düsseldorf (Male)
13. Kommunikation (Mittagspause)
14. In der Tat (Mittagspause)
15. Wir sind die Türken von morgen (Mittagspause)
16. Ich und die Wirklichtkeit (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft)
17. Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um 1/2 3 (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft)
18. Industrie-Mädchen (S.y.p.h.)
19. Lachleute & Nettmenschen (S.y.p.h.)

Die Doraus & Die Marinas - "Fred vom Jupiter" 7" (1981 Telefunken)

2009-03-01T11:17:00.007-07:00

Here's a cute little sing-songy single courtesy German popstar Andreas Dorau. A big hit over there in 1981, it features a chorus of girls aged 11 to 14 (see back cover included in file) singing about um, Fred from Jupiter, I imagine.
The A-side is included on the seminal Neue Deutsche Welle comp Verschwende Deine Jugend which I posted earlier. The B-side is an inconsequential instrumental. So why the redundant post? Well, here you have the wonderful cover art by Moritz R. of Der Plan. But mainly because there is a connection to the Meatmen post from last week: Tesco Vee lifted the opening seconds of this record for the opening of the fake interview, 'Rock Icons' on the flexidisc. Which to me speaks volumes about the man's eclectic tastes (ABBA notwithstanding, haha). I mean, it's just a little thing, but how many people picked up on that over the years? Prolly me and two or three others. So there you go. More pointless trivia for you.

But it is a great single. Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Fred vom Jupiter
02. Auch die Heimat ist nicht mehr schön

Autistic Behavior - "Shattered Cattle" + more

2009-02-26T16:43:00.009-07:00

I got this little collection about a year ago via F.O.D. They posted a bulletin on Myspace with a link. I think this must be from 1981... 1982 the latest. 16 tracks. No song titles or art are included. If anyone can help with that or any other info, please leave a comment!

I saw these guys play many shows in Philadelphia back then. I took that photo of the singer up there. Not sure where, though. I know I saw them with Bad Brains, with Minor Threat and a few other times. I always enjoyed them. They were like Magazine with a harder sonic attack. But maybe I just think that because the guy was a dead-ringer for Howard Devoto; sounded a lot like him, too.
Though this wouldn't be considered very "Hardcore" today, back then it was all more open and unregimented. The phrase "LoudFastRules" had yet to be coined.
They have 2 songs on the "Get Off My Back" Philly hardcore compilation (which is all I thought was ever available). I highly recommend you go back to my earliest postings and get that, too, if you haven't done so already. Those 2 songs are on here, too, in a rougher form. There are some live tracks here and the sound quality varies greatly. Generally it's "OK". Especially considering the recording options available to such a band back then.

Get it HERE. 128kbps, as I got it from F.O.D.

The Meatmen - "War Of The Superbikes" (1985 Homestead) + Bonus Flexi (No downloads, sorry)

2009-02-24T09:12:00.012-07:00

Whenever I get tired of all the eclectic shit I listen to and just wanna rawk out, this finds it's way on to the hi-fi. This, The Meatmen's second album, eschews the sub-hardcore of the first LP for a full-on hard rock assault. No doubt due to the addition of the recently broken-up Minor Threat's Brian Baker and Lyle Preslar on dueling guitar attack. And at a time a lot of hardcore bands were "going metal" this (thankfully) is old-fashioned rock 'n' roll. Think Nazareth crossed with The Pagans - they do a cover of the former's Razamanaz here, and a cover of the latter's What's This Shit Called Love. And of course Tesco Vee's gleeful sophomoric humor is all over it, to best effect in the hilarious Punker-ama, about a punk rock game show: "Slammy likes violence, hatred and drugs and hates Reagan, the Klan and his mother. His hobbies include beating off while watching videos of himself beating off, skateboarding and various inhalants." and "Bambi loves everyone, hates war, famine, disease, injustice, racism, sexism, vivisection and Diet Pepsi. Bambi's favorite bands are Crucifix and MDC and The Clitboys...The Clitboys?!?!".
Oh, and of course there's plenty about Tesco's "veined and swollen blood bomber" and his trademark misogyny and homophobia are in full force. Wouldn't be the fucking Meatmen without it now would it?

Also, this seems to be ridiculously unavailable. There's several CDs up on Amazon for big bucks (yeah, I sold mine there during my fund-raising for the New Zealand trip). And the only one I saw on a blog had a dead link.

As a bonus, I am including this five-track promo flexi. It's got four short radio ads for the LP, all moderately funny. But the last track, a fake interview with Tesco is absolutely hilarious (in that junior high way) and is essential!
Tracks to this are all untitled. I've given them titles so I can identify them in my iTunes. Re-name them or whatever if you want. And being a flexi (R.I.P.), it's got some crinkles that go bump on it.
I seem to remember sending a buck or so away to get this.

I've upped and re-upped 3 times and the blog police keep striking. Hopefully this will be re-issued? Otherwise, I don't really see what's the big whoop. Oh well. You snooze you lose. --P

UPDATE:
Alright, let's try this: Flexidisc only? Can anyone object to that? Well, we'll see, eh?
I've added the flexi for the next album, "Rock 'n' Roll Juggernaut" to sweeten the deal.
Get them HERE. Maybe.

UPDATE AGAIN:
Hahaha, apparently you can't have even the pissant little flexi!!!
CONTROL!!!

Tracks:
01. War Of The Superbikes
02. ABBA God And Me
03. Pillar Of Sodom
04. What's This Shit Called Love
05. untitled
06. Punker-ama
07. Razamanaz
08. Kisses In the Sunset
09. Cadaver Class
10. Pain Principal
11. untitled

The Little Rabbits - "Radio: 45 Hits Re-Arrangés par Jim Waters et Allinger L." (2003)

2009-02-23T11:36:00.009-07:00

While I'm at it, here's another Little Rabbits album I ripped. It's a 3-LP collection of remixes, etc. French import. "Disc 1" is sides A-C and is subtitled Radio Hits. "Disc 2" is sides D-F and is subtitled Inédits Démos Lives Versions Alternatives (in a quaintly French way). Remixed by Jim Waters right here in Tucson at Waterworks Studio. All cover art and inner-sleeves included in the first file. 320 rip. Big fat four-part Mediafire file. Yeah (Oui).

Single Megaupload download:
HERE

4-part Mediafire download:
Disc 1 Part 1 HERE.
Disc 1 Part 2 HERE.
Disc 2 Part 1 HERE.
Disc 2 Part 2 HERE.

Tracks, Disc 1:
01. Le Poste De Radio (Thunder.Mix 96)
02. Lady Money
03. Wasting Time
04. Yeah!
05. Dans Les Bras D'une Autre
06. The Days She Cries
07. L'amour
08. J'ai Faim
09. Le Blé Dans Les Fouilles
10. La Piscine
11. Psychodrama (Doumé Mix 97)
12. Une Belle Fille Comme Toi (Jim & The Lalo's Mix 97)
13. Weather Prophet
14. Karen
15. La Grande Musique
16. In My Coffin
17. La Mer
18. I Gotta Go Home (Inédit, "Yeah!" sessions, 1998)

Tracks, Disc 2:
01. Chanson Horizontale (Inédit démo 4 tracks, 1995)
02. Surfin Mururoha (Extrait du 45T "Holliday in Mururoha" 8 tracks, 1996)
03. Milton's Paradise Lost (B.Side acoustic version "Dedalus" sessions, 1993)
04. Josephina (B.Side "EP" 16 tracks, 1997)
05. Pic Nic Boy (Démo 4 tracks, 1997)
06. A Photograph Of You & I (Inédit démo 8 tracks, 1995)
07. Welcome Home (Inédit 8 tracks 1996)
08. X Rays In My Body (Inédit les 2 nigauds 4 tracks)
09. On Dirait Un Mort Sur Le Banc (Démo 4 tracks, 1999 & live version Black Sessions 2001)
10. Two Apples And A Half (Alternative version 8 tracks, 1995)
11. La Montre Et Le Nez (B.Side "EP" 1997)
12. So Many Friends Of Mine (Alternative version extrait du "Tribute to the Little Rabbits", 1998))
13. Cadillac Eldorado (Les 2 nigauds 4 tracks)
14. Darling Buds Of May (B.Side "Grand Public" sessions, 1996)
15. Cupid's Arrow (Inédit démo 8 tracks, 1995)
16. Abolitionist (Inédit 8 tracks, 1996)
17. Les Boîtes De Nuit (Inédit "Yeah!" sessions, 1998)
18. Bubbles In The Air (Inédit démo 8 tracks 1995)
19. Dopin' Or Not Dopin' ? (Montage Sonore Tucson, 2002)
20. I'm Not The One You Think I Am (Inédit 4 tracks, 1997)
21. Another Breakfast Out (B.Side acoustic version "Dedalus" sessions, 1993)
22. Jesus Son (B.Side 8 tracks, 1992)
23. Winter Dreams (Inédit 8 tracks, 1996)
24. & I Will Cry (B.Side acoustic version "Dedalus" sessions, 1993)
25. Gorgeous Louise (B.Side "EP" 1997)
26. Hooray (B.Side "La Piscine" sessions, 1998)
27. Say Goodbye (Inédit "Yeah!" sessions, 1998)

(Note: See comments in previous post for more on The Little Rabbits, kindly supplied by a reader.)

The Little Rabbits - "Yeah!" (1998)

2009-02-21T07:56:00.006-07:00

I don't really know enough about these guys to say much here. There's not even a Wikipedia entry on them. I recently borrowed this album from a friend, ripped it and have been listening to it quite a lot.
I do know it was recorded here in Tucson. They are from Nantes, France which has become something of a "sister city" to Tucson, at least musically with many of our fine artists going there to play. This past summer a whole slew of them came here to play, including these guys' new band(s). A real cultural exchange going on. I was in New Zealand; missed the whole thing. But people talk reverently about how awesome it was.

As for the album, it's a great mix of rock, punk and turntablism. It's very cool in a very French way. Hints of trip-hop (hey it's from '98) but only insofar as it flavors the album, not that it is trip-hop.
I highly recommend this record!
Get the 320 rip HERE. Link fixed!

Tracks:
01. Yeah!
02. La Piscine
03. In the Bathroom
04. December
05. Casanova the Ancient
06. Pic Nic Boy
07. L'amour
08. Down Here
09. Pity
10. Le blé dans les fouilles
11. A Red Disk Swimming in the Blue Sea
12. Nobody's Birthday Party
13. Roller Girl
14. Let Death Part Us

Half Japanese - "Music To Strip By" (1987 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts)

2009-02-18T09:58:00.008-07:00

Not a particularly hard-to-find one, but one I like a lot. Basically I just wanted to type out all those zeros up there, haha. I looked on the back of the record for just how many zeros were in a "skidillion" and apparently there are thirteen groups of three zeros. But wait, on the record label there are twenty-seven groups of three zeros. I guess a skidillion is whatever fits in the space allotted. Which works for me cos I was limited in my space up there...

Umm, the record... It's a 320 vinyl rip for ya. This is pretty easy listening so far as Half Japanese goes and includes their one "hit", U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums, a minor college radio staple back then. Also great are Sex At Your Parents' House and the closer, My Sordid Past. Nice, (very) short, nearly perfect pop songs. I really love the old abrasive, squalling Half Japanese but it's hard to argue with perfection. The whole album's good so just get it.

In doing a cursory interweb search to see just how easily available this is (or isn't), I found one other post (but not @ 320 kids. I take care of ya). But it did have this "uncensored" cover art:If you look closely at the photo of my album cover up top you can see that the panties are actually a sticker on the cover! Laugh with hilarity all ye world-wide at the American infantilism that can't have a representation of a vulva that looks like it's made of Lego!
So if you want that one in your iTunes you'll have to drag it over cos it's not in the file).
Get stripped right HERE.

Tracks:
01. Stripping For Cash
02. Thick and Thin
03. Diary
04. Big Mistake
05. Hot Dog and Hot Damn
06. The Price Was Right But the Door Was Wrong
07. Blue Monday
08. U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums
09. Point/Counterpoint
10. Sex At Your Parents' House
11. The Last Straw
12. Gator Bait
13. La Bamba
14. Colleen
15. Ouija Board Summons Satan
16. You Must Obey Me
17. Salt and Pepper
18. Ancient Life
19. Silver and Katherine
20. Money To Burn
21. Hidden Charms
22. My Sordid Past

Lydia Lunch / Michael Gira - "Hard Rock" (1984 cassette)

2009-02-16T14:15:00.005-07:00

While I am posting fucked-up shit, here's some seriously fucked-up shit. Well, the Michael Gira side is, anyway. The Lydia side is typical Lydia spoken word. It's good, and has never shown up on any of her compilations. But The Swans' Michael Gira is the reason to get this: His tale of a boy's obsession with Mr. Smother must be heard to be believed. I won't give anything away but it starts out bad and gets worse and worse, spiraling to ever greater depths of depravity. Oh, and it's fucking hilarious! Made all the more so by his ultra-deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery. My friends and I were obsessed with this all those years ago.

This was Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label's first release, E#1, and came out the same time as the original "Sonic Death" cassette. I got both at once from and ad in Forced Exposure. They came on hand dubbed low noise cassettes with handwritten sticky labels. Just as if a friend made 'em for me (and hell, I like to think of ol' Thurston as a friend, haha). The covers were xeroxed on card stock.

Get this cassette rip HERE now!

Tracks:
01. I'm An Infant: I Worship Him (Michael Gira)
02. Wet Me On A Dead Night (Lydia Lunch)

V/A - "Comin' Down Fast!" (1993 Helter Skelter Records)

2009-02-15T11:34:00.007-07:00

Like many of us, I went through the whole Manson-fascination phase, marveling at the almost-really-good music on Lie, watching that documentary, "Manson", with all the family's home movies, interviews with the girls (with guns!) and Charlie's very clear-thinking diatribes at the end (which is why I suspect the VHS tape had a big "Not to be rented/sold to anyone under 18" sticker on it). Not to mention all the Manson covers, from the Beach Boys to GnR and tons of punkers (two of the songs on here are Manson covers). Read all the books. Printed Manson t-shirts to shock all the locals at the suburban mall (got kicked out of a few places wearing them). But I am beyond all that now... Sorta.

Here's a strange compilation of bad hardcore, semi-interesting noise pieces, that idiot David Peel and that genius Eugene Chadbourne. I remember picking this up, the sole copy at Kim's on 4th Street in NYC. It's an Italian import 10" picture disc in a numbered edition of 2,000 (mine's #520). The disc itself has two great Raymond Pettibon drawings, Side 2 with very funny/weird text (I've included photos in the file), and there is a nice 12 page booklet, half in English, half in Italian. I've ripped the record at 320, but you know picture discs: they generally sound pretty bad, at least until the music gets going and covers up all the pops and clicks...
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Hemp Hop Smoker (David Peel & The Lower East Side)
02. Manson's Children (Motorpsycho)
03. You Owe Me (Meathead)
04. Brass Knuckles and Beer (Jesus Fuck & Da Murderers)
05. Sick City (Jesus Fuck & Da Murderers)
06. Mechanical Man (Starfuckers)
07. How Can You Kill Me I'm Already Dead - Pt. 1 (Eugene Chadbourne)
08. Bound In Stone (Controlled Bleeding)
09. Spiderdrift (Skullflower)

Blue - "Solid State" + Singles

2009-02-14T10:03:00.009-07:00

Please see my post for Blue's Blastpheme cassette for all I know about this band (esp. as it relates to me). Classic noise/scuzz rock for fans of Killdozer, Halo of Flies, et. al.
I found these on Soulseek a while back. No art or info... And imagine doing a Google search for "Blue Solid State". Lotsa tubes and transistors came up, haha. And RateYourMusic and Discogs are no help either: the former listed one single, the latter had like 40 entries for "Blue" to sift through. Ugh.

So I guess this genuinely counts as hard-to-find and ultra-obscure. If anyone has the LP and can provide a photo I'd greatly appreciate it! I have 2 of the Blue 45's; the red one I used as art for the (awesome) singles collection, the blue one for the LP. I gotta have something, right? Those stupid music notes piss me off.

If you like this stuff, and you will, go back and get the tape as well.
Get the singles comp HERE.
Get the LP HERE.

Singles tracks:
01. Angels On Hogs
02. Evil Snake
03. Back Of My Nova
04. Bossy Woman
05. Moe Ho Speed
06. Dirty Fingers
07. 969
08. In The Cold River
09. Waistband
10. Flood Gate
11. Gloryhole
12. Freebase
13. Gimme More
14. Johnny Midnight
15. King Faggot Man
16. Long Faced Woman
17. Do-Do
18. Hush Thruster
19. UB Roy

LP Tracks:
01. Smarties
02. Fire Up
03. Fat To Thin
04. Pound For Pound
05. Paul's Baby
06. Get Away
07. Heat Freak
08. My Head
09. Moonshot
10. 10 Yr. Old
11. Giant
12. Hair Grow Long
13. Liver
14. Rock Roach

Set list from Blue's awesome show at the Riverfront Bar, South River, NJ 02/07/1992. Read all about it in the Blastpheme post (I found this tucked into one of the singles).

The Bunny Brains - Bunny Brains Easter (1995)

2009-02-11T10:52:00.010-07:00

This album was released on the major (ok, major indie if you insist) label Matador in '95 on vinyl only. Quite a strange thing to do, especially back then and especially for such a big label. But totally cool. I got it when I saw them open for The Frogs at NYC's late, lamented Coney Island High. They were giving them away for free. In fact they had copies scattered all around the club. And it's not a cheap-o, either. The whole thing comes in a heavy, pink vinyl silkscreened sleeve. The album itself has a nice cover with a cartoon by a New Yorker magazine cartoonist. Inside is a nice inner sleeve (I've included photos in the file) as well as lyric sheet and various sundry items like photos, random porno ads, a Bugs Bunny birthday invitation addressed to "Dear Fan" (Place: Your mouth I'm coming), etc. Quite a package, indeed.

The recording itself is all 1 take live-to-DAT in the studio, completely improvised music and lyrics. The production is real good. There's some hilarious spoken bits as well, particularly Eg The Poet's opening piece. The band were (are?) from Danbury, CT and proffer noise-freakout jams and Fugs-style goofiness. I like 'em. If you don't know them, you should check this out.

A note on the album's title: The only thing on the record and packaging itself is on the spine where it says "The Bunny Brains - Bunny Brains". The band's website, as well as RateYourMusic lists it as I do in the title above (and they list Eddie & the Hot Rods as "similar artists", haha). Discogs lists it as S/T. After I ripped the vinyl to CD and put it in my iTune, Gracenote listed it as "Bunny Brains (aka Pink Bag)". But anybody could have done that. Also, they alternately write their name as Bunnybrains in the liner notes.
Anyway whatever. It's the fuckin Matador album. Get the 320 vinyl rip, Side A + art HERE, Side B HERE

Tracks:
01. Posterboy Gravesite - Eg The Poet
02. (I'm in The) Bucket (Keith)
03. Turnip Trucker Faller Offer
04. Cardinal (You Come Calling)
05. Hello (Reset the Single Malt)
06. Crispy Sensation
07. Seven Steps From New England
08. Mr. Tommy (Poor Henry Style)
09. Triclosan Poisoning
10. (Another Glass Of) Milk
11. Miss Me (Dial-Tone Blues)

The Dead C. - 2008 U.S. Tour 12"

2009-02-10T14:20:00.006-07:00

This past summer I spent about six months in New Zealand, as followers of this blog well know. When I arrived, the one band that I had hoped to see there were The Dead C. They were always my favorite noise-rockers, always providing interesting, challenging and yes, fun listening. And I knew that unlike many of my other favorite Kiwi bands, they were still active. So imagine my surprise and dismay when I tried to find live dates online...and they are all in the U.S. Yes, at the very time I was in their country, they were in mine. On a very rare U.S. tour.

So I pondered the irony of this a bit, checked the dates, decided that yes, were I home I would travel to San Francisco to see them. I also saw they were playing my old home-town of Philadelphia (home of their label Siltbreeze) so I emailed an old friend and implored her to go see them. She told me they were playing the day after Wire at the same place and yes, she would be at both. I was green with envy at the prospect of her seeing two of my favorite bands back-to-back (The Residents also played earlier in the week), but happy for her.

After the show she emailed that she had gotten this tour-only 12" that you are probably downloading at this very minute. When I returned to the States, this was waiting for me. It's two long-ish tracks, both live I think (Side 2 for sure). Side 1 is the more rock-oriented, while Side 2 is more of a tone piece. It came in a plain black sleeve, clear vinyl. The record plays at 45 from the inside (by the label) out to the edge.

Not really the place you want to start if you are unfamiliar with the band, but a must-have for fans. I like it a lot.
Get the 320 rip HERE

Tracks:
01. Golden
02. Canine

Sonic Youth - Forced Exposure FE-001 7" (1985)

2009-02-10T12:43:00.007-07:00

Here's a couple live tracks, recorded at The Loft in Berlin in 1983. This was Forced Exposure zine's first 7" single and as I recall it was not included in the zine itself but you had to send money away to get it. So this was the only one I got as I was way into SY in '85, playing Bad Moon Rising constantly, much to the irritation and confusion of my friends who didn't quite get it. At least until "Death Valley '69" came on, then I'd get "Oh yeah, this rocks". Whatever. Sonic Youth were never much about rocking, at least for me (in fact I've always thought they really never had a clue as to HOW to rock, in the commonly accepted, grooving sense viz. their cover of "Beat on the Brat" on the Master-Dik 12").
That all said, this version of "Making the Nature Scene" positively smokes. Kim's songs were/are always my favorites (in diametric opposition to the songs Lee sings. Sorry, Lee).
Also included in the file are the back cover with a funny misanthropic screed by FE's Jimmy Johnson, as well as shots of the labels. For you completists. Oh, and the front cover (by Raymond Pettibon, duh) came partially colored-in like like you see in the photo. I always wondered if other people's covers were colored in more and they just got tired of doing it by the time they got to mine?
Get it HERE

Tracks:
01. Making the Nature Scene
02. Kill Yr Idols

V/A - "Christmas In Tucson" (2007)

2008-12-09T10:49:00.007-07:00

Once again I come to you, groveling at your feet, apologizing for the severe lack of posts. Though I have been "home" for a month now I am still not settled enough to bring you regular updates. Hopefully this week I will have my own place to live and this situation can be remedied!

So for now I offer you a nice bit of local color in the form of last year's Christmas album by Tucson musicians, "Christmas In Tucson". This album features a wide spectrum of styles, from the traditional to hardcore punk rock and all points in between. My favorites are the cover of Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry by Marianne Dissard and Little Black Cloud's melancholy Holiday Song.

Hope you enjoy it and I wish you a wonderful holiday season.
See you soon with lotsa rare vinyl rips for the New Year!

RE-UPPED 11/23/10: HERE

Tracks:
01. Holly Jolly Christmas (Al Perry)
02. Sleigh Ride (Matt Mitchell)
03. Shake Your Christmas Tree (Lovemound)
04. Holiday Song (Little Black Cloud)
05. Tiny Lights (Creosote)
06. Hacia Belén se Encaminan (José Saavedra & Elise DuBord)
07. I'll Be Home for Christmas (Naïm Amor)
08. Stop the Cavalry (Marianne Dissard)
09. The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) (The Solace Bros.)
10. We Wish You A Shitty Christmas (Bob Spasm)
11. Brainiac Pt.2 (Silent Night) (Blackwood & Co.)
12. Christmas In Tucson (T-Dub Rockers)
13. Little Klinker (Pt.1) (The Pork Torta)
14. In The Beginning (Bebe McPhereson)
15. Silent Night (Bob Log III)
16. The Animals Are Here (Bebe McPhereson)
17. Redemption (Bebe McPhereson)
18. Christmas Donkey (Bebe McPhereson)
19. Little Klinker (Pt.2) (The Pork Torta)
20. Meditations On Greensleeves (B4skin)
21. Dim The Lights On The Xmas Tree For Mother (Al Foul)
22. The Christmas Song (Mr. Tidypaws)

Sonic Youth - "4 Tunna Brix" Peel Session 12" EP (1989)

2008-11-03T12:06:00.006-07:00

It is my pleasure to inform you that soon I will be leaving New Zealand for home in Tucson. For you, dear readers, this means more and frequent posts as I will have access to my music collection. For me it means I will get to see my friends, plan my next move and, um, post music for you in a regular and timely fashion.

So this is to tide you over. Not particularly hard to find, but I wanted to give you my take on it. It is often derided, mostly by avid Fall fans, as a waste of time. But I like it just fine and The Fall are my all-time favorite band. If you are not familiar with this release, a bit of background: The Fall recorded the most Peel Sessions of any band, 24 I think, so when Sonic Youth went into Maida Vale for a Session in 1988 they had the clever idea to do "a Fall Session", covering classics by the band as well as The Kinks' Victoria, which had recently been covered by The Fall themselves on their then-current "Frenz Experiment" album. And while SY do not add anything particularly intriguing to these songs, they are done purely in a spirit of FUN, and should be taken as such. Which is why I've never understood all the shit I've read about this like "worst idea ever" etc blah blah (including from MES himself). Sonic Youth do add their trademark sound to them, which I guess is unavoidable being Sonic Youth, and Psychomafia positively SMOKES.

So download this if you don't already have it, lighten up and enjoy.
It was apparently released on the sly by SY themselves as a bootleg on the pun-ishly titled Goofin' label, though I don't know if that's really true. Probably is, though.
Also, I thought this might be the version I have on cassette off the radio with John Peel adding his comments, but no. I must have downloaded it myself somewhere. Perhaps when I get home I will upload that version...
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. My New House
02. Rowche Rumble
03. Psychomafia
04. Victoria

Cristina - "Sleep It Off" (1984)

2008-10-15T14:49:00.004-07:00

Sorry, dear readers, for the dearth of new posts of late. There's a couple reasons for this, and it's not cos I'm too busy, haha. For one, I am traveling far from home with my laptop and thus have a limited source of material to post for you. Secondly, here in New Zealand broadband is allocated in a specific number of gigabytes (or even megabytes), and once you're over your alloted amount it reverts to dial-up speeds. So while I am wwoofing at a farm in Golden Bay (with broadband, unbelievably), I don't want to use up all of my host's bytes uploading (or downloading *sigh*)...we need those to watch Jon Stewart.

I do, however have a couple things hanging out at Megaupload or wherever that for one reason or another I have not yet posted.
So here is one of them!

This is one of my favorite albums from the Eighties. And it is very Eighties. But among the very best new wave albums, imho.
I was first turned on to Cristina via an untitled track on the first "Rodney On The ROQ" compilation, a bitchy cover of Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is?. For years I had no idea who did the track, but upon buying this LP when it came out immediately put 2 and 2 together.
Imagine if Lydia Lunch were a debutante (they were actually lablemates at Ze Records for a time). That's pretty much the only way I can describe this.
The album was produced by Don Was who was very hot at the time. Cristina's lyrics are bitchy, aloof and hilarious. There's too many gems to begin quoting here; just download and enjoy. There's also a great cover of Blue Money in which I can see Cristina actually contemplating her blue earnings, much more so than Van Morrison.

This album was re-released a few years ago on CD, but from what I've read it inextricably altered the perfect track order, as well as flubbing the remastering. I never got the reissue so I can't really speak to that; this is ripped from my original heavily played vinyl.
This is one of my all-time Top Ten albums so do not take my recommendation lightly!
Get it HERE

Tracks:
01. Don't Mutilate My Mink
02. Ticket to the Tropics
03. She Can't Say That Anymore
04. Quicksand Lovers
05. Rage and Fascination
06. The Ballad of Immoral Earnings
07. What's A Girl to Do
08. The Lie of Love
09. Blue Money
10. He Dines Out On Death

Oh, and apparently this album was such a dismal flop upon release that the artist/photographer who designed the cover saw fit to copy it exactly for Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm" LP a scant year later. Guess no-one noticed...

V/A - "Til Things Are Brighter...A Tribute To Johnny Cash" (1988)

2008-09-28T19:25:00.004-07:00

This is an early tribute album before the glut of them. I remember I had this around the time of "The Bridge", the Neil Young tribute and that NME Sgt. Pepper one. I thought it was a cool concept til it got done to death. Not to mention tributes to people who really didn't deserve one...
But no-one's gonna argue with a Johnny Cash tribute. Especially one as good as this. Put together by John Langford of the Mekons (who also did the fine cover painting). While many of the names may not jump out at you as instantly recognisable, you may know them from their bands: Steve Mack from That Petrol Emotion, Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire, David McComb from Triffids, Marc Riley of The Fall and Creepers... Anyway, in the iTunes comments I've listed them all and where from.
Oh, and this came out before the whole Rick Rubin/Johnny Cash revival. Before the hipsters thought it was "cool". I remember seeing Johnny and Merle Haggard at The Ritz in NYC in '86 and it was all old people and country fans deigning to make the trip into the city for this great bill. A couple of them commenting to me and my friend that they were surprised and happy to see us whippersnappers getting into Johnny and Merle. I commented back that hey I grew up on this stuff (as well as a lot of crap but good stuff is good stuff and will always shine through if you're not an idiot).
Then a few short years later that same NYC audience at the new Ritz (the old Studio 54) now had plenty of spiky green mohawk'd crusties in the audience. And good thing, too.
But I digress. Back to the record (I don't know if it's ever been on CD or not):
I think it's basically the Mekons backing everyone up, and they do their own real nice version of Folsom Prison Blues.
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. One Piece At A Time (Michelle Shocked)
02. I Walk The Line (Stephen Mallinder)
03. Rosanna's Goin' Wild (Steve Mack)
04. Cry, Cry, Cry (Sally Timms)
05. Country Boy (David McComb)
06. Wanted Man (Marc Riley)
07. Straight 'A's In Love (Peter Shelley)
08. Ring Of Fire (Cathal Coughlan)
09. Five Feet High And Risin' (Tracey and Melissa Beehive)
10. Home Of The Blues (Brendan Croker)
11. Boy Named Sue (Mary Mary)
12. Folsom Prison Blues (Mekons)
13. Man In Black (Marc Almond)

The Original Sins - "Just 14" b/w "Sugar Sugar" (1986)

2008-09-27T22:38:00.007-07:00

I used to see these guys open for lotsa bands at Trenton City Gardens, etc. I think they were from the Allentown/Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) area. Good basic garagey rock, nothing extraordinary. But this single is, just cos it's so wrong. The music's a straight-up unabashed Lust for Life rip-off, but the lyrics...I don't think you could get away with it so easily today. Not without ending up on some scary database. So I won't quote them. But download and enjoy. Cos it is a great single, even the Archies' cover flip-side. Which kinda sorta fits in with the theme.
Incidentally, for years I only had this on a cassette that a friend made me that had gone all wobbly from being in the car. So not too long ago I set out on an internet search to find a copy, and when I finally did I had to send away to Italy for it! For 3 Euros! And the guy gave me an even exchange rate which was very nice.

REUPPED 2/20/11 on Mediafire, HERE.

Tracks:
01. Just 14
02. Sugar Sugar

M.A. Numminen - "In English" (1974)

2008-09-23T19:40:00.003-07:00

Here's an album by Finnish avant-legend M.A. Numminen in, as the title makes clear, English. If this is a good thing I do not know. To say M.A. is an acquired taste is an understatement. But the first song, American Patrol is loopy fun (and I've even included the loopier Swedish version from the Swedish version of this album. I got that single track off WFMU's great blog ages ago). And it's not even all in English, with one track apparently in German.
Anyway, thought I'd put this up as a companion to the Arctic Hysteria comps and be done with it.
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. American Patrol
02. I'm In The Mood For Love
03. Society Rock
04. What The Young Husband Must Remember
05. I Saw Miss Helen In Bath
06. Da-Ga Da-Ga
07. La Donna E Mobile
08. Little Broen Jug
09. When You Wish Upon A Star
10. An Die Musik (To Music)
11. I Sat With My Woman Outside The High House Of Ministry
12. All Of Me
13. I Want To Be Free
14. Wovon Man Nicht Sprechen Kann
15. What Is?

V/A - "More Arctic Hysteria/Son Of Arctic Hysteria" (2005 Love Records comp)

2008-09-19T14:46:00.009-07:00

Here's the second part of the "Arctic Hysteria" post. Actually second and third as this is a 2-disc two-in-one sequel. Lots and lots more Finnish weirdness! I neglected in my last post to mention that this is an overview of early Finnish avant garde. Indeed, it is amazing to me that a lot of this stuff was recorded around the same time The Beatles were whining "She loves you yeah yeah yeah", haha. Many on these three discs are legends in certain circles, M.A. Numminen, Erkki Kurenniemi (who invented his own electronic instruments in the early 60's) and The Sperm, to name a few. And god bless the legendary (and sadly defunct) Love Records (also home to prog titans Wigwam) for supporting this music!
Get Disc One, "More Arctic Hysteria", 1964-1982, HERE.
Tracks:
01. Olen väsynyt (Pekka Streng)
02. Kahella sarvella (Karelia)
03. Kiven poiminta (Samsa Trio)
04. Democracy (Omar Williams Experience)
05. Ritual (Osmo Lindeman)
06. Electrocomposition I (Jarmo Sermilä)
07. Kaukonen ennen vanhaan (Åke Andersson)
08. A (Gandhi–Freud)
09. Bhupala I (Jone Takamäki Trio)
10. Y – part V (Lauri Nykopp)
11. Maailman reuna (Edward Vesala)
12. Virkamiehet (Matti & Pirjo Bergström)
13. Kahlaaja ('Wader') – excerpt (Ilkka Volanen)
14. W (Kaj Chydenius)
15. Oigu-S (M.A. Numminen)

Get Disc 2, "Son Of Arctic Hysteria", 1978-1990, HERE.
Tracks:
01. Tähtien rauha (Kollaa Kestää)
02. Rakkaudella sinulle (Aavikon Kone Ja Moottori)
03. Puinen koira (Kari Peitsamo)
04. Apatian tanssi (Yhte)
05. Do You Wanna Dance (Silver)
06. Schrecklich (Hefty Load)
07. Alkuasukkaiden lääkkeet (Vaaralliset Lelut)
08. Musiikki ja urheilu (Jaakko Kangosjärvi)
09. I Love It (Tapa Paha Tapa)
10. Baggage Claim (Swissair)
11. Lippukunta (Harri Tuominen)
12. Mihin sie meet Keijo (Suomen Poliisit)
13. Kalinka (Kansanturvamusiikikomissio)
14. Empty Faces (Joan Bennett Museo)
15. Pallokentällä (500 Kg Lihaa)
16. Olet valloissasi (Super Ladex)
17. Gagarin-Kombinaatti (Raskas)
18. Le Petomane (380v) (Jimi Tenor & His Shamans)
19. Snorkkelijenkka (Reinin Myrkky)

"Mt. Doom", Tongariro National Park, North Island, NZ (Somehow this snuck into my rearview mirror and gave me a bit of a start...)

V/A - "Arktinen Hysteria: Suomi-avantgarden esipuutarhureita" (2001 Love Records comp)

2008-09-19T01:34:00.005-07:00

So I'm driving around the Fiordland region of the South Island (NZ for non-followers) and I'm amazed at how, at first it's very Alpine (the Southern Alps are a bit to the north) but then, true to it's name, it's very Nordic. At least to me. So before I set out to Milford Sound this morning I loaded this up in the iPod. Buncha crazy Finnish weirdness, somehow appropriate. The weather's been great after enduring a drenching antipodean winter, and the crowds haven't started yet with their "campas" that they can't drive and probably half the time on the wrong side of the road...so I've been really enjoying the time out of the city. New Zealand is very beautiful!

I got this from an online shop in Finland, along with the double-CD sequel which will follow real soon.
I figure it's been a long time since I posted any Finnish stuff and my friends over at Progressive Globe blog must be getting antsy, haha, so here ya go!
A Google search only turns up a bunch of hits for an art exhibit exhibit called "Arctic Hysteria" at P.S.1 in N.Y.C. (L.I.C., actually) which pissed me off that I can't go see it but oh well. Can't do everything. Oh, and it's also a Residents song title so I guess this was all ripped-off them!
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Eleitä kolmelle röyhtäilijälle (M.A. Numminen, Tommi Parko, Pekka Kujanpää)
02. Kaukana väijyy ystäviä (Sähkökvartetti)
03. Hysteriablues (Tommi Parko)
04. Information Explosion, Prologue (Salmenhaara Erkki)
05. Shivers of Pleasure (Blues Section)
06. Antropoidien tanssi (Erkki Kurenniemi)
07. Mikä aika on (Jukka Ruohomäki)
08. Vallankumouksen analyysi (Jouni Kesti & Seppo I. Laine)
09. 3rd Erection (Sperm)
10. 1962 (J.O. Mallander)
11. Kuoleman puutarha live (otteita) (Sperm)
12. Pieni sienikonsertto - A Little Soup for Piano and Orchestra op 46,8 (Pekka Airaksinen)
13. Spirea (S. Albert Kivinen)
Milford Sound, Fiordland, New Zealand, September 19, 2008

V/A - "Get A Haircut - 31 of the Best New Zealand Rock'n'Rollers Ever!" (2004 comp)

2008-09-15T12:55:00.003-07:00

I'm sitting in a camper-van park halfway to Christchurch, the ocean behind me, the craggy beauty of the Southern Alps before me. Last night was a beautiful full moon on the serene ocean...

Here's a different concept in compilations: all-out Kiwi rockers from 1958 to 2001, chronologically arranged. While there would certainly be a much different track list had I compiled it, I didn't and this is what we got. Still, remarkably consistent. Plus there's not one but TWO songs with motherfucker in the title. How rock 'n' roll can you get?!
Nevermind that 11-year gap when Kiwis apparently weren't rawking at all...I guess they were noodling around proggily with the rest of the rock world (except AC/DC, of course).
Amazon says it's discontinued with none used for sale, though there's a Buy It Now on eBay at a fair price right now...
Or just get it HERE.

01. Johnny Devlin And The Devils – Nervous Wreck (1958)
02. Clyde Scott And The Zanyopolis – Gravedigger Rock (1959)
03. Max Merrit And The Meteors – Get A Haircut (1959)
04. Peter Lewis And The Trisonic – Four City Rock (1960)
05. Glyn Tucker with Ian Lowe And The Tornadoes – I’m In Love (1960)
06. La De Das – Little Girl (1965)
07. Chants R&B – I Want Her (1966)
08. The Bluestars – Social End Product (1966)
09. The Smoke – No More Now (1967)
10. Ray Columbus and The Art Collection – Kick Me (1967)
11. The Scavengers – Mysterex (1978)
12. The Enemy – Pull Down The Shades (1978)
13. Proud Scum – I Am A Rabbit (1979)
14. The Terrorways – Short Haired Rock And Roll (1979)
15. Toy Love – Sheep (1980)
16. The Spelling Mistakes – Feels So Good (1980)
17. The Androidss – Auckland Tonite (1981)
18. The Dum Dum Boys – Let There Be Noise (1981)
19. Bored Games – Bridesmaid Again (1982)
20. The Henchmen – Bitch Goddess (1983)
21. Flesh D-Vice – Flaming Soul (1985)
22. The Warners – Night Of The Iguana (1988)
23. Sticky Filth – Maybe A Lover (1988)
24. The Axel Grinders – Don’t Hurry Be Happy (1990)
25. SMAK – Aunt Sally (1991)
26. The Rainy Days – Uh Huh (1995)
27. Nothing At All! – Busted (1995)
28. Shaft – Playing With Our Selves (1996)
29. The Rock And Roll Machine – Rock And Roll Disease (2000)
30. The D4 – Rock And Roll Motherfucker (2001)
31. The Datsuns – Motherfucker From Hell (2001)

Cardinal - "Cardinal" (1994/2005 Wonderland reissue)

2008-09-12T16:16:00.005-07:00

I could discern two kinds of Cardinal fans—the ones who hear what’s on the surface and think they’ve got it, and then there’s the ones who keep listening and start to discover the mystery of it, and I think they’re more rewarded. The fans who are a little mystified are our equals, because we don’t quite know how we did it either.
—Richard Davies

Cardinal was a one-off project of The Moles' Richard Davies and Eric Matthews. Davies wrote most of the songs, Matthews took care of the lush orchestral arrangements. The album is a classic and early example of the chamber pop / orchestral pop genre. Originally released in 1994 on the now-defuct label Flydaddy, this is from a 2005 reissue by UK's Wonderland and includes 11 bonus tracks in addition to the original album's 10. It was released in a numbered limited edition of 500.
Get it HERE

Tracks:
01. If You Believe in Christmas Trees
02. Last Poems
03. Big Mink
04. You've Lost Me There
05. Public Melody #1
06. Dream Figure
07. Tough Guy Tactics
08. Angel Darling
09. Singing to the Sunshine
10. Silver Machines
11. Forest Theme
12. If You Believe in Christmas Trees (Demo)
13. Willow Willow
14. You've Lost Me There (Demo)
15. Out-Take
16. Tribute to a Crow
17. Tough Guy Tactics (Demo)
18. Say the Words Impossible (Demo)
19. Poolside '75
20. Sweatshirt Gown
21. Say the Words Impossible

The Moles - "Untune the Sky" (1991/1999 Flydaddy Reissue) & "Instinct" (1994)

2008-09-09T23:41:00.008-07:00

This is a great, sadly neglected Australian psychedelic pop album. Seemingly influenced equally by Velvet Underground and Brian Wilson (note: the bonus track Surf's Up is not the Beach Boys song), The Moles on this album take you on a trip that is pure pop bliss. From the opening track, Bury Me Happy, which would have been a massive hit in a just universe, to the album's harrowing closer (well, for such blissful pop anyway) Nailing Jesus to the Cross and all that lies in between, we are treated to probably the best unknown album of 1991.
Tacked on to the end are a couple tracks from their Aussie-only 12" of Tendrils and Paracetamol and the complete "What's the New Mary Jane" EP, the title track being a staple of The Flaming Lips' mid-90's live set which is, incidentally, how I was turned on to this band. Wayne Coyne often prefaced the song with the tale of how they heard it between sets at a club somewhere and inquired as to who the hell that was you just played and their subsequent search for the then (and once again) hard-to-find Moles records.
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Bury Me Happy
02. Tendrils and Paracetamol
03. This is a Happy Garden
04. Breathe Me In
05. Lonely Hearts Get What They Deserve
06. The Crown Souls
07. Rebecca
08. Europe by Car
09. Curdle
10. Wires
11. Nailing Jesus to the Cross
12. Accidental Saint
13. Rich Man [original mix]
14. Surf's Up
15. What's the New Mary Jane
16. Going Down
17. Saint Jack
18. Let's Hook Up and Get Some

This second (and last) full Moles LP, from '94, is basically a solo album of bandleader Richard Davies, the band apparently having broken up after the EP. This is a natural progression from the psych-pop of the first LP to the nascent chamber pop which Mr. Davies had a big hand in starting. He also released the genre's acknowledged masterpiece, "Cardinal", as Cardinal with Eric Matthews. But I prefer this one. It's short, sharp and sweet. It's perfect.
Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Minor Royal March
02. Eros Lunch (1963)
03. Already In Black
04. Instinct
05. Cars for King's Cross
06. Cassie Peak
07. Raymond, Did You See the Red Queen
08. Treble Metal
09. Crasher

This album also features The Moles' fiercest rocker, Already In Black, which you can see below in a video from '95 I shot of Mr. Davies backed up by the aforementioned Flaming Lips at a CMJ show at Brownies in NYC.
Check out this video: Already In Black (Richard Davies w/ Flaming Lips

Mo-Dettes - "Paint It, Black b/w Bitta Truth" + flexi (1979)

2008-09-07T20:58:00.008-07:00

This is one of my favorite singles, a great Stones cover by London band Mo-Dettes. Mo-Dettes had a sort-lived career, releasing a handful of singles and one LP, "The Story So Far". Of those, the White Mice single, their debut, is awesome as well and I'll try to get that posted soon.
What I like best about this single, besides the spare production, is the French-Swiss singer's charming accent. Simple as that, folks! I've had this since it came out and can listen to this anytime, anywhere and often still do.
Also included is a flexi that came free with the single.
Right HERE.

Tracks:
01. Paint It, Black
02. Bitta Truth
03. Twist and Shout (flexi)

The Mekons - "The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen" (1979)

2008-09-07T13:08:00.008-07:00

The debut album by one of my all-time favorite bands. The title derives from the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" which holds that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters would eventually produce Shakespeare (the title is from "The Merchant of Venice" and the monkey has misspelled strained). There are many references to this in popular culture, my favorite being on "The Simpsons": Monty Burns has a roomful of monkeys at typewriters and he chastises one for typing "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?! You stupid monkey!"
Anyway, back to the LP! The Mekons originated in Leeds, England, also the home of Gang of Four. And not coincidentally, this has much in common sonically with early Gang. In fact, the back cover has a photo of the Virgin labelmates instead of the Mekons, kinda like Stiff putting a photo of Eddie and the Hot Rods on the back of the first copies of The Damned's debut LP. I imagine they came up with the basic sound organically, together, being friends and all.
The bonus tracks at the end are from a 1980 double 7" and finds them developing a more PiL-ish dubby sound. The Mekons moved all over the post-punk map before settling on the post-Gram Parsons honky-tonking for which they became famous, single-handedly inventing alt.country. For good or ill depending on your point of view. I love the band and basically feel they can do no wrong. They are one of the most entertaining live bands I have ever seen. I have in fact shared the stage with them as a rabid fan not once but twice - at NYC's Central Park in '91 when roadie Mitch pulled several of us up onstage to dance (this after passing me a pitcher of ice cold beer - it was crowded and hot as fuck) and at DC's 9:30 Club in '94 where I joined them for the shouted chorus of "Rock And Roll!" on Memphis, Egypt and even a verse after Tom gave me the nod to take it! There ya go, my rockstar moment-in-the-sun!
Anyway, this is outta print, on sale used on Amazon for an obscene sum, blah blah.

UPDATE 8/31/09: Reupped! Mediafire:
Get it HERE!

Tracks:
01. Like Spoons No More
02. Join Us in the Countryside
03. Rosanne
04. Trevira Trousers
05. After 6
06. What Are We Going to Do Tonight
07. What
08. Watch the Film
09. Beetroot
10. I Saw You Dance
11. Lonely and Wet
12. Dan Dare
13. Teeth
14. Guardian
15. Kill
16. Stay Cool
17. Work All Week
18. Unknown Wrecks

Tracks 1-11 from the original 1979 LP, Tracks 12-16 from 1980 double 7", Tracks 17-18 from 1979 single. All tracks from the out-of-print Virgin (UK) CD reissue.

Neil Pye (Nigel Planer) - "Neil's Heavy Concept Album" (1984) & Bad News - "Bad News" (1987)

2008-09-06T20:10:00.006-07:00

Here's a nice double post of "Young Ones" (the British TV comedy series) related albums. First up is "Neil's Heavy Concept Album" by Nigel Planer's hippy character Neil Pye. It's got covers of Sixties stuff by Pink Floyd, Traffic (Hole In My Shoe was a UK hit), Donovan, etc. as well as originals and lotsa Neil's funny/inane spoken bits. A hard-to-find one for hardcore Young Ones/Neil fans (like me).
Get it HERE
Tracks:
01. Hello Vegetables
02. Hole In My Shoe
03. Heavy Potato Encounter
04. My White Bicycle
05. Neil The Barbarian
06. Lentil Nightmare
07. Computer Alarm
08. Wayne
09. The Gnome
10. Cosmic Jam
11. Golf Girl
12. Bad Karma in the UK
13. Our Tune
14. Ken
15. The End of the World Cabaret
16. No Future (God Save The Queen)
17. Floating
18. Hurdy Gurdy Man
19. Paranoid Remix
20. The Amoeba Song
21. Brown Sugar
22. Cassette Jam
23. Go Away

Next up is a lesser-known project of most of the Young Ones (minus Mike): Bad News. This was a Spinal Tap-ish metal spoof band done for a British TV series, and actually pre-dates the Tap by a year (1983, though this Brian May-produced LP came out in '87). I was turned on to this only a year or so ago by downloading the totally awesome track Warriors of Ghengis Khan (with the chorus "Burning, looting, raping and shooting!") from the totally awesome WFMU blog (link on the right).
Get it HERE.
Tracks:
01. Bad Dreams Rehearsal
02. A.G.M.
03. Introducing The Band
04. Bad News
05. Hey Mr. Bassman
06. Hey Mr. Drummer
07. Masturbike
08. Trousers
09. Drink Till I Die
10. Vim Is Angry
11. Warriors Of Ghengis Khan
12. Excaliber
13. Bohemian Rhapsody
14. Double Entendre
15. Cashing In On Christmas
16. Life with Brian
17. Pretty Woman (with Brian May) (bonus track)

Z-Rock Hawaii - "Z-Rock Hawaii" (1996)

2008-09-05T17:07:00.003-07:00

If you hurry over to Amazon right now you can pick up a brand new copy of this great Ween/Boredoms collaboration for a mere $299.98! Don't dilly-dally, though cos once that's gone there are only two used ones left for $499.99--"DISC AND COVER ARE IN EXCELLENT CONDITION! First Class shipping!" You better send that shit first class, motherfucker! Christ...
Or just fuck those deluded, greedy bastards and download from The Pessimist Club!

Not much to say about this. I mean it's Ween. It's Boredoms. Together. Loud burping rudeness as well as Eye incoherently screaming over pretty melodies. A song titled Love Like Cement. Can't you just wait?

It's right HERE, right now. And don't forget to leave me $99.00 or so via my PayPal Donate button on the NZ Psych comp post. I mean, I'm not greedy...

Tracks:
01. Chuggin'
02. Bad to the Bone
03. In the Garden
04. Love Like Cement
05. Tuchus
06. Piledriver
07. I Get a Little Taste of You
08. God in My Bed
09. Meadow
10. Sunset Over Osaka

V/A - "Verschwende Deine Jugend - Punk und New Wave in Deutschland (1977-83)" (2001 comp)

2008-09-05T12:21:00.008-07:00

I don't know much about this great comp and what I can find about it on the web is in German and I don't speak German...
I do know that this is a 2 CD set that came with a book on German punk/new wave of the same title by Jürgen Teipel. I know that the title translates to "Waste Your Youth" and is from a DAF song which is included. There is also a film of the same name which apparently has nothing to do with this book/CD. It's got the greats like Einstũrzende Neubauten and Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, and other greats I've discovered via this comp like Mittagspause and Abwärts. In fact the whole comp is awesome and a good entry point to the Neue Deutsche Welle and once you're hooked you can then go find tons of cool stuff on other blogs. Like I did. Mutant Sounds is a good starting point (link is on the right).
My German friend in Tucson, Jörg (nom de radio The Jorgenator) burned this for me years ago and it has brought me much listening pleasure.
Disc 1 is HERE, Disc 2 HERE.
So get your Sprockets on and DANCE. And touch the monkey!

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01.Testbild (Mittagspause)
02. Innenstadtfront (Mittagspause)
03. Risikofaktor 1:X (Male)
04. Zensur, Zensur (Male)
05. Zurück Zum Beton (S.Y.P.H.)
06. Industriemädchen (S.Y.P.H.)
07. Lachleute & Nettmenschen (S.Y.P.H.)
08. Eisenleer (Depressiv) (Neonbabies)
09. Blaue Augen (Neonbabies)
10. Man of Stone (Hans-a-plast)
11. Stumpf Ist Trumpf (Der KFC)
12. Herrenreiter (Mittagspause)
13. Abenteuer & Freiheit (Fehlfarben)
14. Sei Lieb (Östro 430)
15. So Froh (Ede und Die Zimmermänner)
16. Wir Werden Immer Mehr (Der Plan)
17. Ich und Die Wirklichkei (Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft)
18. Kebapträume (Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft)
19. Ich Liebe Metall (The Wirtschaftswunder)
20. It Always Rains In Wuppertal (Pyrolator)
21. Waschsalon Berlin (Frieder Butzmann)
22. Herzschlag (Mania D)
23. Zuckendes Fleisch (Einstũrzende Neubauten)
24. Computerstaat (Abwärts)
25. Wir Kriegen Sie Alle (Horst Herold)

Disc 2:
01. Da Vorne Steht 'Ne Ampel (Der Plan)
02. Sehnsucht Nach Dem Osten (Andreas Dorau)
03. Der Kommissar (The Wirtschaftswunder)
04. Angriff Auf's Schlaraffenland (Die Radierer)
05. Apokalypse (Ernstfall) (Fehlfarben)
06. Gott Sei Dank Nicht in England (Fehlfarben)
07. Wie Lange Noch (Der KFC)
08. Dosenbier (ZK)
09. In Der Ecke Stehen (ZK)
10. Was Kostet Die Welt (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle)
11. Telephon (Palais Schaumburg)
12. Tulpen und Narzissen (Andreas Dorau & Die Marinas)
13. Fred Vom Jupiter (Andreas Dorau & Die Marinas)
14. Wahre Arbeit, Wahrer Loh (Die Krupps)
15. Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt (Palais Schaumburg)
16. Kalte Sterne (Einstũrzende Neubauten)
17. Sieben Tödliche Unfälle Im Haushalt (Die Tödliche Doris)
18. Your Turn to Run (Malaria!)
19. Ich Will Gewinnen (Tommi Stumpff)
20. 180° (Pyrolator)
21. Etre Assis Ou Danser (Liaisons Dangereuses)
22. Verschwende Deine Jugend (Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft)
23. Happy New Wave (Xao Seffcheque)
24. Jürgen Engler Gibt 'Ne Party (Die Toten Hosen)

"To Sir, With Love" (1967 Original Soundtrack)

2008-09-04T18:02:00.008-07:00

This is one of my favorite soundtracks and not coincidentally one of my favorite films. I've had the film on VHS, it was one of the first DVDs I ever bought and I've had a scratchy old vinyl of the soundtrack since I was a kid. But don't worry, this is from the out-of-print CD release.
The film is a total classic and is basically a remake of "Blackboard Jungle" with Sidney Poitier's graduating from the juvenile delinquent character in that film from about 10 years prior to the teacher character in this one. Except in this one he's a Trinidadian and the setting is moved from the States to London in its mod Carnaby Street heyday, allowing lotsa great fashion watching and even a lesson from the kids in Cockney!
This soundtrack has 3, count 'em!, versions of the massive hit theme song by Lulu. None of them are the super-slick single version, these having a rawer, rougher production that accentuates the thwacking drums and that great bass line. The second (Track 6) version is my favorite. It's also got one of my all-time favorite song titles: Thackeray Loses Temper, Gets an Idea. I know I get my best inspirations in moments of rage, don't you?
It's also got some seriously great psych courtesy of The Mindbenders, particularly Track 2 with Lulu belting the shit out!
The rest of the LP is incidental music all based on the song's melody. Basically it's all over the film, prompting a friend of mine to remark while viewing the DVD at my house, "Man, I am getting real sick of that song", to which I replied "At least it's a good one", which prompted a strange look back...
A must-have, get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. To Sir, With Love (Lulu)
02. School Break Dancing "Stealing My Love from Me" (Lulu with The Mindbenders)
03. Thackeray Meets Faculty, Then Alone
04. Music from Lunch Break "Off and Running" (The Mindbenders)
05. Thackeray Loses Temper, Gets an Idea
06. Museum Outings Montage "To Sir, With Love" (Lulu)
07. Classical Lesson
08. Perhaps I Could Tidy Your Desk
09. Potter's Loss of Temper in Gym
10. Thackeary Reads Letter About Job
11. Thackeray and Denham Box in Gym
12. Funeral
13. End of Term Dance "It's Getting Harder All the Time" (The Mindbenders)
14. To Sir, With Love (Lulu)

A Couple Early(ish) Ween Shows (1991/1992)

2008-09-04T14:22:00.006-07:00

The first time I saw Ween it was all the way back in 1985, about five years before their debut LP, "GodWeenSatan - The Oneness". It was at City Gardens in Trenton which looking back had an embarrassment of riches show-wise, back then. We would go several times a week and I won't get into all the bands that would play there as I think I did in a previous (Johnny Thunders) post. They were on the bottom of a bill headlined by Butthole Surfers. In between were Malcolm Tent and the awesome Cleft Palate. As my acid-addled memory of that night reveals (we usually did acid for the Buttholes, wisely or not) still as clear as yesterday, they were completely wild and blew me away. They must have been about 14. Deaner on guitar, Gener screeching screaming and squirming and some pal of theirs on backing tapes, lying on the drum riser with a microphone held up to the cheap cassette player, stopping starting and RW/FF'ing. Quite a site. And let me assure you their future greatness was evident, clear as day, and I told them as much.
They were local kids often seen at shows there, and after that show I remember heading to see The Cramps in my friend Tim's (R.I.P., buddy) school bus and stopping for gas on the way at the Mobil in New Hope. The bus was full of us miscreants at various stages of being extremely fucked-up on any number of substances and I can't recall which drug(s) I was on but I remember there was a keg in there and it was very smoky and Tim pops his head in the door while fueling and goes "Pete! Ween! Ween!". I hopped out to find Mickey filling the bus and telling us to please believe him The Cramps have cancelled (you can hear his tale of working at the Mobil on the excellent Working 4 the Man on Ween's 1992 "Pure Guava" LP). Of course we didn't/couldn't/wouldn't believe him and headed to the show anyway. Of course he was right and I don't remember what else happened that night cos well, you know...
Mickey still talks about this night when I run into him usually at shows these days.
Another slightly less outrageous but sublime tale is years later Tim (R.I.P., buddy) and I were at a later Buttholes show at the Troc in Philly. Tim had by then become pals with the Buttholes and we hadn't paid for a show in ages. We were hanging out with the band backstage, just Tim, me and the band. After a while someone else walked in; it was Mickey. We kinda looked up and said "Hey, Mick" and went back to our conversations and doing lines or whatever. Paul was a bit taken aback by our nonchalance and asked us "You guys not into Ween?" at which point Tim opens his jacket to reveal a massive Boognish collage t-shirt I made for him and says "Ween fucking rule, man". Also shows off his home-made Boognish tattoo...

As for these shows, I prefer the '91 Court Tavern show. It's rawer and wilder. The Wetlands show sounds much better, though both are ok. The Wetlands show was a pre-major label debut showcase at CMJ.
Court Tav is HERE,
Wetlands HERE.
Both highly recommended.

Tracks:
Court Tav:
01. The Wind
02. Bumblebee
03. Seconds
04. Cover It With Gas and Set It On Fire
05. Sketches of Winkle
06. Marble Tulip Juicy Tree
07. Tick
08. Weed Whore
09. Papa Zit
10. Boing
11. Fat Lenny
12. Cold and Wet
13. You Fucked Up
14. Tastes
15. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese (partial)

Wetlands:
01. Fat Lenny
02. Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)
03. Puerto Rican Power
04. Cover It With Gas and Set It On Fire
05. Big Jilm
06. Sweet Texas Fire
07. The Goin' Gets Tough From the Getgo
08. Marble Tulip Juicy Tree
09. You Fucked Up
10. LMLYP
11. Freedom of '76
12. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese
13. Tick
14. Demon Sweat
15. Captain Fantasy

V/A - "Those Were Different Times: Cleveland 1972-1976" (1997 Scat)

2008-09-03T21:41:00.007-07:00

A cursory web search reveals this great comp as "discontinued by the manufacturer", and nary a one for sale at even inflated prices on Amazon. So get it here now, folks!
This collection features three essential though lesser known (than Pere Ubu and Dead Boys/Rocket from the Tomb, anyway) Cleveland bands that spanned the post-psychedelic / pre-punk era of rawk. The apparently Velvets obsessed Mirrors, the proto-punk of the Electric Eels and the proto-New Wave of the Styrenes. Though all these tracks are raw, they are bristling with life. I can only imagine that these bands suffered in obscurity even in their hometown at the time, all going to each others shows and playing in each others bands. The Eels are the only ones I had heard before I got this (there's plenty on the web by them as they are legends), but I like all the bands here. An awesome CD if you can find it, those screws in the pic actually hold a book together with the CD.
At the time anyway all these tracks were exclusive to this release.

Get it HERE.

Tracks:
01. Annie (The Mirrors)
02. How Could I (The Mirrors)
03. You Me Love (The Mirrors)
04. Living Without You (The Mirrors)
05. Beaver Girls (The Mirrors)
06. Frustration (The Mirrors)
07. Hands In My Pockets (The Mirrors)
08. Sweet Refrain (The Mirrors)
09. I'm Going To Wyoming (The Mirrors)
10. We'll See (The Mirrors)
11. Safety Week (The Electric Eels)
12. Wreck & Roll (The Electric Eels)
13. Splitterty Splat (The Electric Eels)
14. Stucco (The Electric Eels)
15. Circus Highlights (The Men From UNCLE [Electric Eels])
16. Now (The Electric Eels)
17. You Crummy Fags (The Electric Eels)
18. Mustard (John Morton & Paul Marotta)
19. The Big "O" (Dave E. McManus)
20. No Nonsense (The Electric Eels)
21. Spinach Blasters (The Electric Eels)
22. Flapping Jets (The Electric Eels)
23. Thirtyfour (Styrenes)
24. Draw The Curtain (Styrenes)
25. Mr. Crab (Styrenes)
26. You're Trash (Styrenes)
27. Pleasure Boating (Styrenes)
28. Grey Haired Rats (Styrenes)
29. Nineteen Sixtyseven (Styrenes)

Killdozer - "For Ladies Only" (Links deleted; sorry)

2008-09-02T14:52:00.013-07:00

Killdozer were the Kings of the Awesome Cover Version. Period.
Each album had at least one classic that Killdozer stomped and ground into the dirt in supreme fashion. Therefore it was only natural that they would do a whole wonderful album of them. This originally came out as a box set of five 7" singles in 1989, then was released on CD and picture disc (with a far sexier pic) LP in 1990.
For some reason, probably bullshit publishing reasons, their cover of Buffalo Springfield/Neil Young's Mr. Soul was not included in the reissue.
I searched the web for it since I only have the CeeDee, to no avail. I suppose it's available on SoulSeek, but I grew impatient. I did however find several other covers, and along with covers from my Killdozer CeeDee collection, I assembled an "addendum" of bonus tracks that I call (very cleverly) "Bone-Us Covers" geddit? So in addition to the original 8 there's 14 more! Note that these will come up in iTunes as their own album with their own art, not scattered around. So if you have one or three Killdozer albums on there, they won't get mixed up. To find where they came from originally highlight the track and click "info" (apple>i on a Mac sorry but I don't know squat about PCs nor do I care to). I put the info in the "comments" section, and the original artist in the "composer" section, even though they may not be the, ah, composer (Like Hush, a hit for Deep Purple but written by country singer Joe South).

Note:
I've tried re-upping several times, but links are continually deleted. I am beginning to suspect this is the Touch and Go Internet Police. They are, of course an awesome label deserving mad respect (if you haven't read "Our Band Could Be Your Life", do so!), and I was recently saddened to read they are going out of business! Where would us noise rock fans be without them!
Anyway, I have run into this with other blogs posting T&G stuff. So I will not re-up again. It gets tedious anyway.
You can find the Bone-Us stuff that is not T&G (tracks 3, 7, 11, 12, 13 and 14 on other blogs. [Disco Inferno is from the Killdozer Tribute "We Will Bury You", which is pretty easy to find]).

Tracks:
For Ladies Only:
01. Hush (Deep Purple)
02. Good Lovin' Gone Bad (Bad Company)
03. Burnin' Love (Elvis Presley)
04. You've Never Been This Far Before (Conway Twitty)
05. One Tin Soldier - The Legend of Billy Jack (Coven)
06. Take the Money and Run (Steve Miller Band)
07. American Pie (Don McLean)
08. Funk #49 (James Gang)

Bone-Us Covers:
01. I'm Not Lisa (Jesse Colter)
02. I Am, I Said (Neil Diamond)
03. Conquistador (Procol Harum)
04. Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
05. Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
06. Run Through the Jungle (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
07. Hot N' Nasty (Black Oak Arkansas)
08. I Saw the Light (Hank Williams)
09. Unbelievable (EMF)
10. Nasty (Janet Jackson)
11. Let Me Put My Love Into You (AC/DC)
12. When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin)
13. Aquarius/Let the Sun Sine In (from the Broadway musical "Hair")
14. Disco Inferno (Trammps)

The first time I saw Killdozer, '88 or '89 at Khyber Pass in Philly, they did American Pie, and in the middle of the song Michael Gerald leans over the audience and drops a big stringy loogie over some girl's head then sucks it back up at the last second! (Better than what happened to my friend Jesse at a Cows show: the bassist hocked a big loogie right onto his cheek). The next time I saw them, also at Khyber, '94, they opened with Unbelievable. The mic stand was set like eight feet high with a step ladder to it so Micheal would step on and off to sing his lines! Even then it was high, so he had to do the Lemmy-thing where you crane your throat up (and open) to it. F-ing hilarious! The last time I saw them, at Coney Island High in NYC on their "Fuck You, We Quit!" farewell tour, they did Levee, Sweet Home Alabama AND Cinnamon Girl! I videotaped that for my public access show (TV KiLL, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Sundays 5pm, 1995-2000) and here's a taste:Check out this video: Cinnamon Girl (Killdozer)

Sorry it's a crappy Myspace link, but like I said in my Ruin post, the corporate pricks at Youtube deleted my "channel" for terms violation thanks to NBC crybabies...
(More vids I shot on my profile page! Or just click on something at the end of this vid...like the awesome Jesus Lizard New Years '97 show at CBGB!)

Guided By Voices - "Bee Thousand - The Director's Cut" (2004 3xLP)

2008-08-30T01:44:00.012-07:00

This is an out-of-print three LP set subtitled on the Scat Records website as a "10th Anniversary 'What If?' Edition". From what I can remember from reading the liner notes, the "Bee Thousand" LP kept changing as Robert Pollard sent in cassettes to the label, from track listings and songs to the title of the album itself. This release attempts to put it all together. A big convoluted mish-mash, in my humble opinion but that's Guided By Voices for ya, eh?

Copied and pasted from the Scat site:
Sides 1-4 are an early Bee Thousand sequence, at the time titled "Instructions to the Rusty Time Machine."
Side 5 has the official Bee Thousand tracks not included in the 2LP sequence (and a bit besides).
Side 6 compiles the Grand Hour and I Am a Scientist eps, along with an outtake from the latter. This version of My Valuable Hunting Knife is very different, very rock - not just a studio version. A highlight, for sure.

I have put the six sides together as two "Discs", Sides 1-3 on Disc 1 and Sides 4-6 on Disc 2.
This was a royal pain-in-the-ass, as GBV songs not only run together, but often one song will sound like three or four distinctly different songs. I think I did a pretty good job of it and if you have any complaints, well, buy one off eBay and do your own.

If you wanna restore the original 3LP's six sides, go to Scat's page for it Here. They'll also tell you where non-Bee Thousand final CD songs ended up being released, and the six previously unreleased songs and/or versions on here.

My 320 vinyl rip is here: DISC 1 and DISC 2

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. Demons Are Real
02. Deathtrot and Warlock Riding a Rooster
03. Postal Blowfish
04. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
05. At Odds With Dr. Genesis
06. Hot Freaks
07. Queen of Cans and Jars
08. Bite
09. It's Like Soul Man (4 track version)
10. Supermarket the Moon
11. Stabbing a Star
12. Ester's day
13. Her Psychology Today
14. Good For a Few Laughs
15. Smothered In Hugs
16. What Are We Coming Up To?
17. Peep-Hole
18. Revolution Boy
19. Indian Was an Angel
20. Zoning the Planet
21. Scissors
22. Crayola
23. Kicker of Elves
24. 2nd Moves to Twin
25. I'll Buy You a Bird

Disc 2:
01. Awful Bliss
02. Echoes Myron
03. Why Did You Land? (4 track version)
04. You're Not an Airplane
05. Crunch Pillow
06. Rainbow Billy
07. Tractor Rape Chain
08. Crocker's Favorite Song
09. I Am a Scientist
10. Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
11. A Big Fan of the Pigpen
12. Mincer Ray
13. Way to a Man's Heart
14. Twig
15. Gold Star For Robot Boy
16. Hardcore UFOs
17. Yours to Keep
18. Shocker In Gloomtown (demo version)
19. Break Even (demo version)
20. I'll Get Over It
21. Shocker In Gloomtown
22. Alien Lanes
23. Off the Floor
24. Break Even
25. Bee Thousand
26. I Am a Scientist (7" version)
27. Curse of the Black Ass Buffalo
28. Do the Earth
29. Planet's Own Brand
30. My Valuable Hunting Knife (Shernoff version)

Victor Jara (from CounterPunch.com)

2008-08-28T15:53:00.003-07:00

I first heard of (though it took many years for me to actually hear) Victor Jara, the Chilean poet and folksinger, from the line in The Clash's "Washington Bullets" on their Sandinista! LP in 1981: "Please remember Victor Jara / In the Santiago Stadium / es verdas, those Washington bullets again".

Years later I downloaded several songs from Limewire, and though I don't speak Spanish I was struck by their gentle beauty.

The forthcoming Calexico LP, "Carried To Dust" (Download from Bolachas Grátis blog HERE) opens with the song "Victor Jara's Hands", a reference to the military junta breaking his hands and saying, "Play your guitar now!"
--Peter

(from an East German poster)

MASSIVE Victor Jara post at Cuadro Letárgico blog, check it out!

August 28, 2008

Who Killed Victor Jara?

By PAUL CANTOR
CounterPunch. com

A few days after the other 9/11, Victor Jara., a Chilean folksinger, songwriter, actor, director, poet, political activist and teacher, was tortured and then shot to death while being held prisoner by the military. This year on May 15th Chilean Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes found Colonel Mario Manriquez, the man in charge of the makeshift prison where Jara was being held, guilty of his murder. Today Colonel Manriquez is under arrest awaiting sentencing while the judge is attempting to determine who else was responsible for torturing and killing him.

ARREST AND MURDER

Here is some of what we know about the circumstances surrounding the death, the discovery of the body, and the struggle to identify the murderers:

On Tuesday, September 11, 1973 the democratically elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, a socialist, was overthrown in a bloody coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet and supported by the United States. Afterward thousands of Allende's supporters were arrested, tortured, and killed.

Victor Jara was detained on September 12, 1973 at La Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE or State Technical University) where he worked and along with hundreds of students and colleagues forced to jog with his hands behind his neck to the Estadio Chile , a sports stadium six blocks away. Witnesses report he was beaten at the time of his arrest and en route to the stadium. At the stadium an army officer recognized who he was.

"Bring that son of a bitch over here to me!" he ordered a soldier.

The officer's helmet was pulled down to his eyes. Over one shoulder hung a machine gun. On his chest was a hand grenade. On his belt, a pistol. His face was painted. He wore dark glasses. And, he stood with his black boots spread wide.

"Don't treat him like a young lady, damn it!"

The soldier, following orders, struck Victor in the back with the butt of his rifle sending him sprawling face forward to the ground in front of the officer.

"Fuck your mother!" the officer started to rant as he began kicking the well known and popular song writer who now lay at his feet. "You're Victor Jara, asshole! You're the Marxist singer. Your songs are pure shit! I'm going to teach you how to sing Chilean songs which aren't communist you son of a bitch!" Victor's hair and face were soon covered with blood and one of his eyes swollen shut.

Then Colonel Manriquez showed up. With him, under guard, was Danilo Bartulin, one of Allende's doctors. Victor was made to join Bartulin and the two of them were led to an underground walkway. There, according to Bartulin, they were beaten "from seven in the afternoon until three in the morning." Then their tormentors were called away to help deal with the arrival of a new group of prisoners. It was at that point that they managed to join their companions in the stadium's tiers of seats. There they remained until Saturday, September 15.

Saturday around noon word reached Victor that a number of prisoners were to be released. He responded by scrounging two sheets of paper and a pen from Boris Navia, a professor of law at the UTE who had been arrested with him, and starting to write. After a time two soldiers appeared and signaled for him to follow them. Victor passed the two pieces of paper back to Navia as he rose to go. On them was a poem. The poem later made its way to the outside world and became famous.

The soldiers took Victor to a broadcast booth where he was again badly beaten. Later Carlos Orellana, another of Victor's colleagues arrested at the UTE, was approached by a student. The student had seen Victor in a passageway where he was again being held isolated from the others. Victor told him he wanted to talk to Orellana.

As Orellana approached the passageway, Victor persuaded the soldier guarding him to allow him to go to the bathroom. Orellana followed. In the bathroom Victor told Orellana about a prisoner who was acting as a spy for the soldiers. In other words, Orellana later recalled, even after Victor had been tortured and beaten and had good reason to believe that he wouldn't make it out of the stadium alive his concern was for the welfare of others, not himself.

Saturday afternoon, after his brief encounter with Victor, Orellana and other prisoners being held at the Estadio Chile were transferred to the Estadio Nacional, another sports stadium in Santiago that had been converted into a concentration camp. On their way out of the Estadio Chile they saw Victor's body. It was riddled with bullet holes and piled together with other bodies in the foyer of the stadium.

Three days later, on Tuesday, September 18, Joan Jara, Victor's widow, received a visit from a young man she hadn't met before. "I'm afraid to tell you," he said, "Victor is dead. His body has been found in the morgue...You must come, because …unless his body is claimed they will take him away and bury him in a common grave."

TRIAL AND TRANSITION

Until the 9/11 1973 coup d'état Chile had been the most stable democracy in Latin America. It had an elected President, a two house legislature and a free and lively press. The military Junta with support from President Richard Nixon in the United States changed all that. Led by Augusto Pinochet it abolished the Congress, outlawed political parties and labor unions, appointed military rectors to run the universities, censored the press, forbid the playing of Victor Jara's records and other popular music, and established a secrete police force that arrested, tortured and killed those it considered a threat to its rule.

Even in the face of such repression, however, a resistance developed which won international support and 16 years after the coup forced the junta to hold a Presidential election. In the election, Patrico Alywin, a Christian Democrat, defeated the candidate supported by Pinochet.

The transition back to democratic rule in Chile began when Alywin took office on March 11, 1990. That transition led to Michelle Bachelet, a socialist like Allende, being elected President in 2006. Bachelet's father, a General in the Air Force and supporter of Allende, had been arrested after the coup and died after being tortured. She and her mother had also been arrested and tortured. Hence, her election signified for many that Chile was once again a healthy democracy.

President Bachelet, however, does not share that view. Rather, in response to a question regarding the trials of military officials for human rights abuses she said,

"The important thing is in our country we do have trials going on. We are advancing and under my government we will still advance on three great principles: truth, justice and reparation for all the victims, all the families of the victims. We have been walking in that direction. And I will do all my efforts to continue in that direction. I mean -- no impunity -- no! Because I'm a doctor, I know when you have an injury it will heal if it's clean enough to heal; if your injury is dirty, it won't heal. And so when you are talking in societies, we are also talking in healing processes, and for a good healing process, you need to make things right."

That effort to make things right got a boost even before Bachelet was elected when on October 16, 1998 Pinochet was detained in England on a warrant issued by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, charging him with human right violations. Pinochet's arrest set a precedent. It marked the first time anyone had been arrested under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. Universal jurisdiction holds that certain crimes threaten the welfare of people in all countries and therefore all countries have the right to arrest and hold accountable those responsible for them. After his arrest Pinochet was allowed to return to Chile on the grounds that he was not mentally fit to stand trial. After his arrival home he was again detained and charged with human rights violations. Though when he died in 2006 he was still under house arrest he had never spent a night in jail.

Joan Jara first brought charges against those who tortured and murdered her husband in 1978. However, for three reasons -- a decree issued by the military that year provided amnesty to its members for actions carried out in the aftermath of the coup, fear of how the military would react to prosecutions, and the resistance of many Chileans to opening old sores -- nothing came of her action or others like it. But in August 1999, ten months after Pinochet was arrested, when she once again filed a lawsuit against her husband's killers, the climate in Chile had changed dramatically. As a result on May 15 Judge Juan Fuentes found the man who had been in charge of the Estadio Chile, Colonel Mario Manriquez, guilty of his murder. Then by declaring the case closed he provoked an outcry which led on June 3 to him agreeing to continue an investigation which seeks to identify and bring to justice all those who were involved in torturing and killing Victor Jara. Already, a key suspect, Edwin Dimter, has been identified. Dimter is believed to be an especially brutal guard whom prisoners referred to as the "Prince."

WHO KILLED VICTOR?

How important is it to bring to justice every single individual who took part in torturing and killing Victor Jara 35 years after he was murdered? Imagine walking down the street and seeing someone who tortured and killed a loved one sipping tea in a café while knowing that pickpockets and prostitutes are serving time in jail. Chile will only become a healthy democracy again when everyone in the country is confident that wearing or having once worn a military uniform won't provide people with impunity for the crimes they committed.

That is one argument. Others think it is more important to move up the chain of command than down. "Who killed Victor Jara?" The superficial answer according to this point of view is that most likely it was a soldier from a poor or working class background. The more substantive answer is: "the people at the top of the chain of command, a chain which in the case of Victor Jara and other victims of the Pinochet regime leads all the way from Chile to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

How could a common soldier with a working class background end up pulling the trigger that ended Victor Jara's life? Victor answered that question a month before he was killed when in response to a question about his military service he said:

"I think that the professional soldier, from the fact of wearing a uniform and having power over the rest of the contingent, loses the sense of his own class. I think the exercise of command makes him, consciously or unconsciously, put himself on a different plane and see life from a different point of view. He believes himself to be superior. As a shaven-headed private, I remember having to polish an officer's boots or do the cleaning in his house and I thought it very natural…indeed, I thought it almost a privilege to be called upon to do it, because it meant that I was a very disciplined bloke who could be trusted to do the job properly. But looking at it now, without innocence, I think it was a conditioning – it conditions the servility of the private, just as it conditions the superiority of the officer."

THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC

"Duerme, Duerme negrito." That is the title of a Cuban lullaby sung by Victor. When I think of how Victor was killed I think of that song. The lullaby is so gentle, so sweet, so beautiful. How could anyone harm even a hair on the head of the man who sung it? "Sleep, sleep, little back baby." "Que tu mama está en el campo." Your mama is in the fields. "Tabajando." Working. "Trabando duramente." Working hard. "Trabajando sí." Yes, working hard.

Victor Jara was born on September 28, 1932 in a rural region south of Santiago. Joan Jara describes Victor's earliest memories in her book An Unfinished Song: The Life of Victor Jara. His parents, Manuel Jara and Amanda Martinez were dirt poor peasants. Amanda "had a strong strain of Mapuche Indian blood in her" and "was the mainstay of the family" As a child she had learned the folk music of the countryside. Manuel "was embittered with the heavy toil of being an inquilino" or tenant farmer. "He saw his children more as additional labor than as independent human beings." Manuel was illiterate but Amanda had taught herself to read. The relationship between his parents was strained. After Amanda became pregnant with her fifth child they separated and she moved with her children to the city. There she got a job as a cook. When Victor was 15 his mother died and he began living with friends. In the winter of 1950 he entered a seminary. In 1952 he dropped out of the seminary. "Ten days later he was called up for military service." After he left the military he pursued a career in theatre and music. He also joined the Chilean Communist Party and became an active supporter of Allende. And he took a dance class that was taught by a British born and raised woman named Joan Turner who later became his wife. Together they had a daughter. They named their daughter Amanda after his mother. When he learned that Amanda had diabetes he wrote a song which he dedicated to her. The song is called, "Te Recuerdo Amanda." It has nothing to do with diabetes. It is a song about love and loss and revolution

"Te recuerdo Amanda. La calle mojada. Corriendo a la fabrica donde trabajaba Manuel…."

I remember Amanda. The wet street. Running to the factory where Manuel worked. The wide smile. The rain in your hair. None of it mattered. Soon you would be with him. With him. With him. With him. You have five minutes. A lifetime in five minutes. The back to work siren sounds.

"Y tu caminando. Lo ilumias todo. Los cinco minutos te hacen florecer."

And you walking. You make everything brighter. Those five minutes make you flower.

Because he wants more than five minutes a day to spend with Amanda Manuel retreats to the mountains to join others fighting for workers' rights. Five minutes later he is killed. The back to work siren sounds again.

"Muchos no volvieron. Tampoco Manuel."

Many didn't return. Neither did Manuel.

Most of Victor Jara's songs are like Te Recuerdo Amanda in that they are concerned with justice and the people who struggle for justice. Most promote progressive change. And most evince compassion for workers and the poor. An especially lively ditty called Ni Chicha Ni Limonada is one of his most popular and difficult to translate:

Arrímese mas pa' ca
aquí donde el sol calienta,
si uste' ya está acostumbrado
a andar dando volteretas
y ningún daño le hará
estar donde las papas queman.

Usted no es na'
ni chicha ni limoná
se la pasa manoseando
caramba zamba su dignidad.

The song makes fun of those who sympathized with Allende but refused to actively support him. A rough translation of the excerpted lyrics above is: Come closer..here in the heat of the sun..if you're already accustomed..to somersaulting about..it won't hurt you..to be where the potatoes burn. You, you are nothing..You're neither hard cider nor lemonade..you go about putting everybody down.. man you have no dignity.

VICTOR JARA PRESENTE

Victor Jara was a loving, compassionate singer and songwriter who shared the Allende government's goal of moving along a peaceful road toward socialism. His only weapon in the struggle for justice was his guitar.

His brutal murder therefore is seen by many as emblematic of the lengths the U.S. is willing to go to overthrow even peaceful, democratic governments when they pursue policies which it considers a threat to its interests. The military junta in Chile was not out just to kill a man. Rather, acting as an agent of the Nixon White house and the most reactionary force within Chile, it was out to kill the idea that democratic socialism was a possibility. But as the popular progressive singer, actress and songwriter Holly Near points out in her song entitled It Could Have Been Me it failed:

The junta broke the fingers on Victor Jara's hands
They said to the gentle poet "play your guitar now if you can"
Victor started singing but they brought his body down
You can kill that man but not his song
When it's sung the whole world round.

It could have been me, but instead it was you
So I'll keep doing the work you were doing as if I were two
I'll be a student of life, a singer of songs
A farmer of food and a righter of wrong
It could have been me, but instead it was you
And it may be me dear sisters and brother
Before we are through
But if you can sing for freedom
Freedom, freedom, freedom
If you can sing for freedom I can too

That, of course, is the sentiment echoed at political rallies and other events when someone yells, "Victor Jara!" and others respond, "Presente!" Yes, Victor, you are here in our hearts as we search for your killers and struggle for human rights everywhere in the world.

Paul Cantor is a professor of economics at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut.

Notes.

Those interested in familiarizing themselves with the history of the U.S. involvement in the coup might read Covert Action in Chile, the report of the Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate and available on the web at http://foia. state. gov/reports/churchreport. asp. They might also view Costa-Gavras' riveting film, Missing staring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek.
The Estadio Chile was renamed the Estadio Victor Jara in September 2003.

This information comes primarily from Boris Navia, a law professor at the UTE who was arrested with Victor. Navia's account of the singer's final hour can be found on numerous web sites.

"That first night two officers of the Chilean Air Force approached Victor." One of them threw a cigarette butt on the ground. "Want to smoke?" he asked. Victor raised his head but did not respond. "Smoke big balls, smoke!" the officer commanded. Then as Victor reached for the cigarette butt the officer stomped on his hand. "Now let see if you are going to be able to play your guitar, you communist piece of shit," the officer said. That account comes from Juan Cristóbal Peña Fernandez article La Sangre de un Poeta or The Blood of A Poet which appeared in the September, 2003 edition of Rolling Stone-Chile Fernandez attributes the information to Boris Navia (see footnote 2). However, since Navia was not with Victor when the incident he describes took place his story is based on hearsay. Nevertheless, given the manner in which Victor was treated from the moment he arrived at the stadium it would not be surprising if at some point an incident similar to the one described by Navia actually did take place. That certainly would be consistent with Joan Jara's report that when she saw Victor's body in the morgue in Santiago: "His eyes were open and they seemed still to look ahead with intensity and defiance, in spite of a wound on his head and terrible bruises on his cheek. His clothes were torn, trousers round his ankles, sweater rucked up under his armpits, his blue underpants hanging in tatters round his hips as though cut by a knife or bayonet…his chest riddled with holes and a gaping wound in his abdomen. His hands seemed to be hanging from his arms at a strange angle as though his wrists were broken." (Joan Jara, An Unfinished Song, Ticknor & Fields, New York, 1984, p. 243).

The poem, titled El Estadio, is available on the web in Spanish and in translation at http://everything2. com/e2node/Victor%2520Jara and many other places. Pete Seeger set it to music.

Joan Jara, Op. Cit., pp. 241 – 242. See footnote 4 for Joan Jara's description of the condition of Victor's body when she saw it in the morgue.

January 25, 2006 interview with Elizabeth Farmsworth on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Found on the web at: www. pbs. org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june06/chile_1-25. html

Pinochet was also under investigation at the time of his death for squirreling away money obtained from illegal financial operations in the Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. In 2007 his wife and five sons were arrested on related charges.

This question is similar to questions that South Africa, Cambodia, Rwanda and many other countries are confronted with today.

Joan Jara, Ob. cit., p. 36 This response is consistent with the conclusions of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo, two experimental psychologists who carried out experiments which demonstrated the willingness of almost anybody to behave brutally toward others. Milgram discusses his experiment in his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Zimbardo's Stamford Prison Experiment is described in his best selling The Lucifer Effect. It is also important to point out that many common soldiers feared that if they disobeyed orders they themselves would be beaten and/or shot.

On you tube you can listen to Mercedes Sosa singing the lullaby.

www. youtube. com/watch?v=qfESgtCTn1Q takes you to Victor performing Te Recuerdo Amanda on You Tube.

Lydia Lunch - "13.13" (1982)

2008-08-20T18:50:00.009-07:00

While I'm on LL here's another hard-to-find one. This came out on Slash Records' subsidiary Ruby Records and I think it was one left on the shelf when they sold out with/to Warner Bros. No doubt it scared/confused the corporate idiots. It even took them ages to re-release Gun Club's "Fire of Love", a bona-fide classic. And when they did it was with a neutered cover from their art department flunkies. God it was awful: 2-tone baby shit colored with zig-zag triangles on the bottom FIRE get it? Fucking stupid. At least when they put it out on CD they restored the voodoo cover. But this ain't a Gun Club post, it's about Lydia and her howling stomping lumbering caterwauling album that is 13.13. This was pretty radical sounding in '82 and paved the way for the even more awesome sound of Swans. Anyway, it's not a great album, but I like it. Just can't listen to it every day, like "Queen of Siam".
Vinyl rip is HERE

Tracks:
01. Stares to Nowhere
02. 3X3
03. This Side of Nowhere
04. Snakepit Breakdown
05. Dance of the Dead Children
06. Suicide Ocean
07. Lock Your Door
08. Afraid of Your Company

Lydia Lunch - "Queen of Siam" (1979)

2008-08-19T12:59:00.009-07:00

This is one that's been in and out of print over the years, currently out of.
This was my introduction to Ms Lunch, before No New York and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I was immediately smitten with her bad-girl image (not a mere image, as any look into her canon will prove), and loved the trashy-jazzy sound of this LP, which for some reason always put me in mind of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. Probably because I had no real reference point for this music as a Young Amerikan Teenager. And it's deadpan hilarious, lyrically. Hard to believe she was just 19 when she made this LP. This is from the original Ze Records release; I think other editions jumbled the track order and had inferior covers (though one CD on I think the Triple X label was nice, it had a current to the reissue photo of her with her tribal tattoos on display, something she definitely didn't have in '79).
Nice cover of Classics IV's Spooky, too.

UPGRADED 320kbps vinyl rip is HERE!.

Tracks:
01. Atomic Bongos
02. Lady Scarface
03. A Cruise to the Moon
04. Carnival Fat Man
05. Knives in the Drain
06. Blood of Tin
07. Mechanical Flattery
08. Gloomy Sunday
09. Tied and Twisted
10. Spooky
11. Los Banditos

Lydia at Maxwells, Hoboken 1985. By Me.

Velocity Girl - Your Silent Face b/w You're So Good To Me (1994)

2008-08-18T13:02:00.003-07:00

I have been enjoying VGirl's Sub Pop debut "Copacetic" which I recently downloaded from over at YoungMossTongue (highly recommended blog). It reminded me of this excellent 45 of a New Order and a Beach Boys cover which I got after seeing them at FSU's student union in Tallahassee. I first saw them at 9:30 in DC in the early 90's while visiting a friend and just going to the club as a tourist attraction. They verily blew me away, the band jumping and whirling around creating a cacophonous din for the singer's angelic vocals to soar incongruously above. Though they never quite disappointed on subsequent shows I saw, they were never as awesome again. Maybe it was the shock of seeing a band out of the blue and being blown away. Anyway, they were a cool band and this is a great single; the A-side especially which I like better than New Order's original.
Right HERE.

Tracks:
01. Your Silent Face
02. You're So Good To Me

Tragic Mulatto - "Italians Fall Down and Look Up Your Dress" (1989)

2008-08-17T02:15:00.004-07:00

OK, here's the second TM post I promised. This one is basically the complete "Hot Man Pussy" LP of the same year with 5/8 of 1987's "Locos por el Sexo" LP and a couple other tracks from where I do not know. I do know that someone is selling this CeeDee on Amazon right now for $179.00...apparently it's "extremely rare and out of print".
This is a bit rawer than "Chartreuse Toulouse" and features their monstrous cover of Whole Lotta Love. They totally do it justice (which is no big thing in my opinion really cos I've never liked Led Zeppelin much).
And the opener, She's a Ho has Flagella shrieking "when I smell her fishyTWAT!!!", which you just gotta love.
Right HERE.

Tracks:
01. She's a Ho
02. Fist of the Fleet
03. Hardcore Bigot Scum Get Stabbed
04. I Say
05. The Hat
06. My Name Is Not O'Neill
07. Whole Lotta Love
08. Mr Cheese
09. The Sheriff of Weed
10. Ok Baby Ok
11. Freddy
12. Safeway
13. Potato Wine
14. Sexy Money
15. Monkey Boy
16. Twerpenstein

Tragic Mulatto - "Chartreuse Toulouse" (1990)

2008-08-16T19:38:00.003-07:00

The Part Time Christians post got me thinking of another classic on Alternative Tentacles that's been lost to oblivion; this one. Even on the 'net there's an appalling dearth of info on this band: the Wikipedia entry goes to the literary character/device from whence they get their name, with a "for the rock band click here" link, which brings you to a paltry one sentence entry. On RateYourMusic there's a horrendously bad photo of the cover, as well as incorrect info in the comments identifying the singer alternately as Flatula or Fistula. I recall it as Flagella, but who knows, it could have been either/all at one/any time. (If you have any useless trivia to add, please do so in the comments).
All I know about 'em is that Flagella was a big girl, they had a tuba in the band, were from Frisco and they rocked balls.
I have another release that's a comp of their first 2 records I'll post later this weekend cos it's fucking great as well. This record, featuring a green Toulouse Lautrec on the cover (and here I'll go off on a tangent and recommend you rent John Houston's 50's film "Moulin Rouge" which is great for Jose Ferrer playing the drunk with the little legs by walking on his knees and for the wicked Parisian prostitutes cruelly abusing him)...anyway, it's a great late-80's noise rock slab in the Buttholes-vein. It's considerably more restrained and, um, tuneful than their earlier work. This is their last album and is a fine note to go out on. It opens with a great Slade (!) cover, I Don't Mind, with tuba...how can you go wrong?
Nice, clean (for a change) 320 vinyl rip HERE.

Tracks:
01. I Don't Mind
02. Stinking Corpse Lily
03. Debbie
04. My Mother
05. Rhythm of Barcelona
06. Bathroom at Amelia's
07. Scabs on Lori's Arm
08. Farm
09. Man With a Tan
10. Rise Up/Get Down

Part Time Christians - "Rock And Roll Is Disco" (1984)

2008-08-16T14:54:00.006-07:00

Here's a great Alternative Tentacles record that I don't believe has ever been released on CD. Very hard to find anywhere these days.
This was a 45rpm 12" mini-album, half of which concerns...bowling. Hysterically so. As a reaction reaction to all the skate punk releases at the time, PTC came up with a great tongue-in-cheek alternative. Songs like Bowling Pin Massacre, Orthopedic Bowling Shoes and Gutterball made this a must-have for me. Lines like "The pins see you comin and down they fall / I turn to my homeboys and say with a grin, I'm a damn good bowler for the shape I'm in", delivered hip-hop style with already hopelessly dated beats had us rolling on the floor. This segues into Orthopedic in screaming, sandpaper-throated hardcore style but not letting up on the laughs: "My bowling shoes are custom made, cos I know bowling shoes help me get laid / Foxes go into orgasm when they see my shoes, when I ask them for sex they can't refuse" (this couplet in again, already in '84 hopelessly cliched, "Wild and Crazy Guy" accent).
I loved all this back then cos all that skate-this-skate-that shit was boring me to tears, much as I loved JFA. At least they had a sense of humor as well as chops. But most of those bands were, to me, hopelessly earnest. i.e. boring.
And this isn't straight edge (tedious) hardcore, but screaming, screeching loud-ass Rock with a capital R. My favorite off the bowling-tip here is Bonique, with the line "Every time I phone her, I pop a big huge boner". Something I think we can all relate to, haha.
My terribly overplayed vinyl's rip is HERE

Tracks:
01. Religion On A Stick
02. Bonique
03. Case
04. Strength Thru Bowling
05. Bowling Pin Massacre
06. Orthopedic Bowling Shoes
07. Gutterball
08. Salisbury House

The Jam - "Live! EP" (1986)

2008-08-14T19:48:00.004-07:00

Here's a quick little one since I just realized it's been several days since I've posted. Busy, busy, time flies...
This 4-track 7" EP came as a freebie in the initial pressing of the best-of LP "Snap!", no doubt as an inducement to people like me who already had everything by The Jam. Worked, too, as you can see.
Of the four songs, none of them were on the "Dig the New Breed" live LP from a year or two previous. I remember I tagged this onto a C-60 of that album for my cruising-around wasting-gas listening pleasure, and as that record was culled from different performances throughout their career, it flowed more-or-less seamlessly. Since then, Move On Up has appeared on a posthumous live album, but the other three songs are unavailable live elsewhere.
Nice cover, too!

Tracks:
01. Move On Up
02. Get Yourself Together
03. The Great Depression
04. But I'm Different Now

Vinyl rip @192 right HERE

V/A - "Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them" (1989)

2008-08-10T18:32:00.004-07:00

This Shonen Knife tribute album on Gasatanka came out in three different editions: a 23-track CD, a 14-track single vinyl LP and this, a 33-track double vinyl LP. I remember when this came out but didn't get it til I found it cheap at Amoeba on a trip to L.A. last year. I remember thinking I was hopelessly unhip that there was a band from Japan deserving of such a massive tribute and with such mega alterna-stars and that I had never heard of them. Eventually I sought out the Knife's own releases and was smitten along with everyone else. But I had forgotten about this.
It's pretty good; it's got Sonic Youth and Redd Kross, one of my all-time faves. And White Flag and other bands I knew mainly about as an EastCoaster reading Flipside. Horrible cover, though, yikes!
My double vinyl is one each pink and white.
It's broken up as one "disc" per LP, @320, Disc 1 HERE, Disc 2 HERE.

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. Kappa Ex. (Redd Kross)
02. Summertime Boogie (The Freaks)
03. Insect Collector (The Three O'Clock)
04. Public Baths (Frightwig)
05. Dali's Sunflower (Government Issue)
06. Baggs (L7)
07. Froot Loop Dreams (White Flag)
08. Twist Barbie (The Pussywillows)
09. Making Plans For Bison (Big Dipper)
10. Ice Cream City (Christmas)
11. Lazy Bones (Pat Ruthensmear)
12. Elmer Elevator (Krave)
13. Devil House (Chemical People)
14. Burning Farm (Sonic Youth)

Disc 2:
01. Antonio Baka Guy (Lunachicks)
02. Flying Jelly Attack (The Mr. T Experience)
03. Miracle Woman (Project Jenny)
04. Parrot Polynesia (Ultra Violet Eye)
05. Angel Has Come (Angels Of Epistemology)
06. Parallel Woman (Masters Of The Obvious)
07. Blue Oyster Cult (Ella Without The Blacks)
08. Tortise Brand Pot Scrubbing Cleaner's Theme-Bye Bye (Disco Dave Landry)
09. Elephant Pao Pao (Reverb Motherfuckers)
10. Redd Kross (Death Of Samantha)
11. Watching Girl (Babes In Toyland)
12. Riding On The Rocket (Das Damen)
13. I Like Choco Bars (Dem Choclodytes)
14. Animal Song (The Maynards)
15. Ah Singapore (Wendy Horowitz)
16. One Day At The Factory Preface (Phil Blumel)
17. One Day At The Factory (Pippi Eats Cherries)
18. Cannibal Papaya (Smokin' Gas Truck)
19. Cycling Is Fun (The Pandoras)