This is a re-post of the Mike Rep & The Quotas posthumous 45 that Detailed Twang wrote about on 3/2/07.....I plopped this on the turntable this past weekend and was again blown to friggin’ kingdom come by its glory. These 1975-76 recordings from original recipe proto-punk space teleporters MIKE REP & THE QUOTAS were lost to the wilds of history until Jacob Olausson's Sverige Age Records in Sweden brought them to life again in 2002 – and you know what? These two tracks are every bit as raw, wild & grimy as Rep’s original legit 45 “Rocket To Nowhere” – and if you know that one, you know it’s an all-time freak-rock knockout. Both of these tracks are mono, shit-fi productions before there was any cachet in such a thing, but Rep pretty much wrote the book on making ends greatly exceed the means, starting here. So when you listen to “Mama...” you hear drums that are every bit as heavy and echoing as Bonzo’s – and louder. The force of a thousand amps projecting simple, screaming chords into space is as alive as any other punk, pre-punk or proto-punk whatsis of the 70s. I guess the real true heavy metalloid music of the era was being created in places like Hamilton, Ontario; Chickasaw, Oklahoma and REP's Columbus, Ohio - not NY, SF and LA.
Download MIKE REP & THE QUOTAS - "Mama Was A Schitzo, Daddy Was A Vegetable Man" (A-side)
Download MIKE REP & THE QUOTAS - "Rocket Music On" (B-side)
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5 comments:
Thanks for posting this -- I'll definitely take a listen when I get home today. Is the "Vegetable Man" a reference to Syd Barrett's track of that name? If I've got my chronology straight Barrett would have recorded that in about 73.
(That cover art just blows me away every time I look at it.)
Thanks for posting this (i sent you an email about it a week or so ago...)!
Keep up the good work.
alex
THANK YOU Jay! This is the first time I've ever heard the original version of "Rocket Music On." I don't believe you posted it the first time around. I've been enjoying the "Mama Was a Schizo" mp3 you posted for over a year and a half now.
I'd heard the other two versions of "Rocket Music On" (from the Siltbreeze Records 7-inch and the "Black Hole Rock" CD) -- the former a live shit-fi assault of the highest order, the latter a "cleaner" but still-scorching studio version.
One of the best parts of musical fandom is reading a description of a record (in zines, blogs, the Forced Exposure catalog, etc.) and just imagining what it sounds like before eventually hearing it (or maybe never hearing it). Thanks for revealing this particular piece of the puzzle for me. I look forward to discovering many more of Rep's gems in the future.
you can still score vinyl copies from the label: olausson_jakob (at) hotmail.com
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