The Buff Medways - A couple singles...

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.)

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)

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?

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

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)

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)

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.

"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)

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.