We were just talking about Australia's X the other day - man, there was a time when I was just absolutely batso about every archival punk rock record I'd hear from Australia. There were so many, and thanks to bootleggers, they all started surfacing in the late 80s - X, RAZAR, LEFTOVERS, PSYCHO SURGEONS, THE NEWS, you name it. One for the history books, a total stone classic in its own right, is the "You'r So Boring" 7"EP from ROCKS. Such a refreshing wall of sound, just total hard and loud dumb-ass punk, done totally right the Aussie way. What AC/DC were for their scene these guys were for theirs - a total standard-bearer of simplicity. Hell, they even splash "You'r So Boring" on the cover - doesn't get much more simpleton-like than that. I also like the dueling vocalists on the various songs - the brash, braying burly man on the title track & others, vs. the weaselly, nasally fella on "Dam You" etc. Outstanding stuff.
Right around the time I was discovering the band ('88), they were putting out new records as well - I seem to remember a 12"EP on Waterfront or Au-Go-Go with some guns on the cover - pretty good stuff in the Stooges/Birdman vein. But nothing like this massive thud of a record. You can read a lot more about this 1978 record here; I suggest you take a listen and do some clickin' here after you do.
I was introduced to CLOTHILDE about seven years ago by a real, live, honest-to-god frenchman. This guy told me that if I was into those "Ultra Chicks" comps (and I was) and those "Swinging Mademoiselle" comps (and I was), I'd come to worship CLOTHILDE like no other. And so it came to be. He sent me a CD-R of the super-rare compilation I'm posting for you today, which is "Saperlipopette" - the complete Clothilde discography, entirely recorded on two EPs during 1967, along with an Italian-language version of “Fallait pas ecraser La queue du chat“, maybe the greatest french pop song of all time.
CLOTHILDE recorded those 8 songs - that's it. Every one of them is bouyant, alive and totally fun, particularly with her sweet and somewhat mousy vocals leading the charge. The production is just first-rate orchestral pop perfection, and I'd be lying if I told you I liked a whole lot of CD's better than this one. Clothilde's become enough of a cult object that I'm not the first person to post these tracks, no sir, but I wanted to make sure the Detailed Twang audience - such that it is - got a chance to hear this stuff if you haven't been hunting around for it.
You’ll be floating on a cloud of sugar, spice, baguettes and brie. Pay super close attention to “Fallait pas écraser la queue du chat” because it’s 100% perfect. I mean it.
Play CLOTHILDE - "Fallait Pas Ecraser La Queue Du Chat"
(Here's a meta-meta post I wrote back on 6/15/2007. These X songs are so amazing I have to re-post them; if they were a 45 I'd call it one of the Top 20 punk singles of all time).
In our fEEDTIME post a few weeks ago, some mention was made of three tracks from the incredible late 70s Australian punk band X. I said I’d post ‘em – here they are. Here’s what I wrote about the tracks in 2003:
If you ask me, the best pre-1980 Australian punk rock ever recorded was NOT necessarily by the SAINTS. nor the PSYCHO SURGEONS, nor the LEFTOVERS, nor RADIO BIRDMAN -- but by X. The Australian X, of course. The past decade has seen them garner some deserved attention, mostly for the low-profile Amphetamine Reptile reissue of their raw, spastic debut LP "X-Aspirations" (also known by some as simply "Aspirations"). I think they actually topped that monster with their amazing earliest recordings, though: the three tracks "Home Is Where The Floor Is", "Hate City" and "TV Cabaret Roll" that were posthumously cobbled together on the Aberrant Records' "Why March When You Can Riot?" compilation. If these tracks had been put out as a 45, you'd be seeing it on numerous "best punk records of all time" lists, certainly on mine (note: these were put out on a 45 a couple years ago on a US label, now out of print, I'm afraid). We're talking barreling, steamrolling punk rock, but minus the "snotty" vibe and the over-the-top antics that mark some other richly heralded Aussie punk of the era. Not particularly well recorded, mind, but you never cared about that much, right? About the closest equivalent I can think of would be a kindly US punk band like The CONTROLLERS -- not too aggro, not too "punk", but blazing nonetheless. Skip the recent "X - Live At The Civic" CD -- despite looking like it should be an out of control rock and roll juggernaut, it's -- uh -- a bit boring. One last thing: if you now desperately need those 3 aforementioned tracks, you're in luck -- there's a double-CD on Small Axe Records that collects three Aberrant Records comps into one package called "Go And Do It". You can find it here.
Or you can download them right here and put them on your own CD.
(Note – this is a re-post of one I put up on 8/11/2008, and which a reader has requested I post again. Just that easy, folks.)
It’s pretty hard to curb my enthusiasm when I’m frothing and spouting about this band, but I’ll try to speak coherently and in complete sentences. COME, to my way of thinking, continue to be criminally unheralded and forgotten to most. I have a habit of repeatedly going back to check my decades-ago favorites to see if they still hold up (for examples of this bold critical inquiry, check here, here, here and here), and every 6-8 months I throw the 1992 recordings from COME on the headphones and am re-blown away each time. This is one of the great guitar bands of any era, right up there with TELEVISION, CRIME and the motherfuckin’ MC5. “Indie guitar rock” bands were a dime a dozen at the time, and that’s perhaps why COME got quickly and unthinkingly lumped in with their Matador and Sub Pop brethren, & why I still see the genius debut CD “Eleven : Eleven” sitting forlornly in the used bins for $4.95. Whatever. There’s no accounting for taste. But let me try to start you at the start, and see if I can provoke a different reaction.
I didn’t want to call COME’s1992 debut a “CD single” since “EP” sounds so much better, but I gotta admit the only way to enjoy this masterpiece – all three tracks – is with a laser beam. When I first saw this “Sub Pop Singles Club” as a vinyl 45, I got the band confused with another band called COMB and another band called CODEINE (who shared guitarist Chris Brokaw with Come for a short time), and passed on it. Then word got around that it was an absolute monster of whammy-bar manipulated guitar and raw, agonized tension release, so I heeded the call. “Car” was indeed as advertised : a dark, churning, boiling rock and roll wallop that set the pace for everything the band did subsequently (and except for “Eleven : Eleven”, was never equaled). Everything about it lends itself to the night, the later and darker the better – imaging this song being played at a July afternoon picnic is well nigh impossible. There’s a moment toward the end when the whole pounding wall of noise slows down into a sweet, gentle almost-coo from singer/guitarist Thalia Zedek (a woman not given to cooing), and the abruptness of the shift, swear to god, sends a chill every third time or so I hear it. And forgive me the hyperbole, but any real fan of music is gonna get those from time to time – no apologies necessary. Yet the song then explodes and crashes loudly one last time at the final phrase, “….don’t be afraid…..” and goes off into extended guitar jammery. When I saw them play “Car” live in San Francisco and San Jose in 1993 it was nothing short of revelatory, as were “Orbit”, “Submerge”, “Dead Molly”, “Fast Piss Blues” and their other ringers from 1992. Furthermore, “Last Mistake” is a great bluesy, angry, shape-shifting dirge, and the early version of “Submerge” is excellent but was slightly bested later in the year when it kicked off “Eleven : Eleven”.
It’s time to return to the present, the now, 2009, for a friggin’ change, and take a gander at some of the hot, young up-n-comers who are making music every bit as relevant & wild as the old-timers we repeatedly flog on this site. I can’t say that I’m totally up to the moment on what’s going on in the bars & clubs around the nation and the globe, but I still keep an ear to the ground from time to time. There are a few stunners that hit my ears every month, and if you haven’t heard of some of them yet, well that’s what this post is all about.
Take XYX. I figured they’d be another tuneless, formless mess a la Los Llamarada, being from Mexico and all, and then when I heard their 7”EP I heard another thing entirely. Completely off-the-rails, psychedelic post-punk overload, pretty much as good or better than anything I’ve heard in years. Fried-out electronics, braying female vocals, time shifts & delays and all manner of exploding guitar. Wow! Then there’s the TERMINAL WASTE BAND. Now I know for a fact that at least a couple folks from this Portland band are not “kids”, having befriended a couple of them in my 20s (and subsequently lost touch this decade)…..but it’s another big surprise here. Instead of the socket-bursting improv noiseathon I was expecting on their one and only 45, I got a beautiful, laid back LEE & NANCY-style psych/folk groovefest, especially on the excellent A-side “Dial M For Monkey”. This is a new 45 on Black Velvet Fuckere records – I hope there are more coming.
THE NODDZ are getting some good press in & around the San Francisco bay area where they and I both reside, and I reckon I can see why. Their new LP’s a lot of fun in a late 70s power-pop/early 90s garage punk sort of way, and "Is She There" is my favorite song (so far) from it. Now if I could just drag myself the 3 or 5 miles or so it would take to see them live. Nah, forget about it, I’ll stay in tonight instead. Challenging “The Electric Bunnies” for “best music despite worst band name” honors, Australia’s THE OOGA-BOOGAS also have a great new LP out called “Romance & Adventure”. It’s got elements of bluesified punk rock, some blatant 60s throwback jingle-jangle, and a lot of loud, intense riffage. I was told I was going to like it, and I did. “Ooga Booga II” is just a short volt of energy that starts the record, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what’s inside.
Finally, I've got a couple of wild cards, just to throw the proverbial spanner into the proverbial works. First is a track from 2007 (!) that I just discovered this year from THE MAGIK MARKERS called "Taste". My pal JB implored me to check out the YouTube video for this song, and I was absolutely hooked - this came in the same week that I saw Markers frontwoman Elisa A prowl the stage like a feral catwoman in a band called SF DIRTY STEALER (who were great!). Anyway, this track "Taste" is a near-masterpiece of haunting, downtempo, languid sound. Our last one will probably lose me a percentage of my Detailed Twang clientele, but ah well - it's a great 50s girl-ground send-up called "Becky" by a somewhat ridiculous band called BE YOUR OWN PET. This act sounds like something off the Vans Warped tour for the most part, but there are about 2-3 numbers on their latest record "Get Awkward" that absolutely nail it. This is one of them. I'm still "havin' a laff" every time I hear it. Enjoy.
We were just talking about Australia's X the other day - man, there was a time when I was just absolutely batso about every archival punk rock record I'd hear from Australia. There were so many, and thanks to bootleggers, they all started surfacing in the late 80s - X, RAZAR, LEFTOVERS, PSYCHO SURGEONS, THE NEWS, you name it. One for the history books, a total stone classic in its own right, is the "You'r So Boring" 7"EP from ROCKS. Such a refreshing wall of sound, just total hard and loud dumb-ass punk, done totally right the Aussie way. What AC/DC were for their scene these guys were for theirs - a total standard-bearer of simplicity. Hell, they even splash "You'r So Boring" on the cover - doesn't get much more simpleton-like than that. 
I also like the dueling vocalists on the various songs - the brash, braying burly man on the title track & others, vs. the weaselly, nasally fella on "Dam You" etc. Outstanding stuff.
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