DETAILED TWANG

R.I.P. DETAILED TWANG – COME VISIT THE HEDONIST JIVE INSTEAD

2009-12-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

DETAILED TWANG has been put out to pasture after a solid 3 years in existence - thanks to everyone who read about, commented on & enjoyed downloading the music here. Most of the links to music will remain active, so if you're coming here for the first time, feel free to scroll around - maybe I've posted something that'll blow your mind. I now have a newer blog that I post to. It's called THE HEDONIST JIVE, and it comprises all my micro-interests like music, film, politics, books, navel gazing and extreme narcissism. I know you’ll love it almost as much as this one. I've also got a beer blog called BEER SAMIZDAT I'd love for you to come visit. Thanks again!

TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME TWO

2009-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

The next volume of garage punk 45s and LP cuts I made for myself a few years ago moves partially out of the 1980s and into the first year or two of the nineties. Looking at the assembled lineup here, which I have to say is pretty goddamn impressive, it’s running about 50/50. As I made more volumes of these – and don’t worry, I’ll probably end up posting them all before this site runs its course – I added an incremental year before tapping out around 1994 (which, to my way of thinking, is right around the time the third wave of punk rock tapped out as well).

Several of these tracks have been posted on Detailed Twang before, sure, but certainly not grouped with garage punk rock of this order of magnitude. I do so very much hope that you enjoy it.

Track list:

TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME 2

1. THE GORIES – Telepathic
2. CLAW HAMMER – Bullet In My Head
3. MORLOCKS – By My Side
4. CHEATER SLICKS – Why
5. DIRTY LOVERS – Teenage Love Bomb
6. THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – Diddy Wah Diddy
7. HONEYMOON KILLERS – Get It Hot
8. SUPERCHARGER – Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo
9. BOYS FROM NOWHERE – Beg
10. LAZY COWGIRLS – Goddamn Bottle
11. GORLS – Bongo Beat
12. FALL-OUTS – Greed
13. MYSTREATED – Wait and See
14. THE MUMMIES – I’m Down
15. THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – Goes Without Saying
16. THE HUMPERS – My Machine
17. ART PHAG – Molly n’ Bobby
18. MORLOCKS – In The Cellar
19. HONEYMOON KILLERS – Gettin’ Hot
20. THE GORIES – Hate
21. DIRTY LOVERS – All I Want
22. CLAW HAMMER – Self Destruct
23. THE MUMMIES – Whitecaps Pt. II
24. SUPERCHARGER – South City Psycho
25. LAZY COWGIRLS – Sock It To Me Santa
26. THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – Yeah
27. MYSTREATED – Listen
28. THE HUMPERS – Loser’s Club
29. BOYS FROM NOWHERE – Rocket to Nowhere

Download TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME TWO (this is a .zip file)

THE WHITEFRONTS - "6 BUSES"

2009-09-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

(This is adapted from a post I published a couple of years ago in which I posted this song as well).

Who were the WHITEFRONTS? Well, when I started college at UC-Santa Barbara in 1985, they were sorta my hipster cousin & his pals' favorite local band down there. I never got to see them; I think they graduated or got kicked out or something around '86 and moved to San Francisco, where they gigged around for a bit and then called it a day a couple of years later. My cousin used to play me some great "cassette tapes" of their stuff (do you know what those are?), which ranged from Velvet Underground-inspired freakouts (like the track I'm posting here, the fantastic "6 Buses" from the "Roast Belief" album) to Hawaiian slide guitar weirdness to hippie bongo workouts to Meat Puppets-style fake hardcore punk. And lots of genres and styles in between.

When you hear this track, perhaps you'll wish to start the Whitefronts revival with me?

Play The Whitefronts, "6 Buses"

Download THE WHITEFRONTS - "6 Buses"

GRASS WIDOW & THE SPECTRES OF MINIMALISM PAST

2009-09-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

I’d have to vote GRASS WIDOW as my favorite current band right about now. This new San Francisco trio have one-upped themselves on their newest 45rpm 12”EP on the Captured Tracks label, moving greatly into an echoey, treble-heavy, clattering sound ripped straight from the late 70s Los Angeles scene, and most specifically from THE URINALS. I have heard bands take stabs at approximating the unique, monotonic, minimalist DIY sound of this particular band for thirty years, never once achieving anything as good as Grass Widow do on their new record – which, you may not be surprised to hear, has a cover of The Urinals’ “Black Hole”.

GRASS WIDOW, though, are all female, and they add a level of off-kilter harmonization that achieves the same sort of effect that John Talley-Jones did with poor recording equipment and echoes layered into the vocals. All three women sing, usually in high-pitched, sing-songy cadences that, in unison, sometimes sound as if they’re ricocheting around a Vatican cathedral. The new record has only four tracks, two of which I’d like you to listen to today. When they get to “Black Hole” at the end of Side 2, they do it so straight & so naturally that it could very well be called “claimed”. In other words, they do nothing special with it, and it sounds almost exactly like the original in spirit, tone and form. Totally love it. They rip it up live as well. See what I mean by jumping on this bandwagon before they become even bigger than 100 FLOWERS.

Play Grass Widow, “Tattoo”

Download GRASS WIDOW – “Tattoo”
Download GRASS WIDOW – “Thirsty Again”

TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME 1

2009-09-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few posts ago about my 2000-2004 fetish of digitizing just about every piece of 33rpm and 45rpm vinyl I’d ever owned, which back then was pretty considerable. Now it’s paltry, but then again, everything I own has been converted to ones and zeroes, and can be quickly posted here now for your listening pleasure. I then made myself themed CD compilations, much like “The Ultimate Post-Punk C-78”. One of my favorite series that I roasted up was my own TWIST AND BURN! set of CDs, which encompassed my favorite 1980s and 1990s garage punk records. This was, by many accounts including my own, a golden era for punk rock music, a “third wave” after the 1960s and 1970s eruptions.

Actually, let’s be honest here: the 1980s by themselves were pretty beat for garage-influenced punk rock music, while being fantastic in other regards. I was only able to get one full CD together of the really, really great stuff, whereas I have multiple CDs’ worth of 1990s stuff, and that’s only the first half of the 90s. Jeez, my CD cover art even includes THE CRAMPS, a band more famously associated with the 1970s. TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME 1 is kind of a whopper, though – I think you may agree when you download and burn the whole thing. From ART PHAG to the SUICIDE KINGS, from THE NIGHTS AND DAYS to the ORIGINAL SINS, there was some pretty twisted, righteous, raw noise erupting from garages all over the planet. Almost everything here comes from a 45. Here’s the track listing:

TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME 1

1. DEVIL DOGS – Twist and Burn
2. BO-WEEVILS – That Girl
3. DWARVES – Lick It
4. THEE HYPNOTICS – The Girl’s All Mine
5. THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – Garbage Can
6. ART PHAG – Golf
7. SLOTH – Fetch The Wedge
8. EASTERN DARK – Julie is a Junkie
9. ORIGINAL SINS – Just 14
10. ELECTRIC MANCHAKOU – She Said
11. SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE – Public Enemy #1
12. SISTER RAY – Purgatory
13. SCIENTISTS – There’s a Monster In Me
14. THIRSTY BRATS – White Ghetto
15. DWARVES – Nothing
16. SUICIDE KINGS – Take Yer Medicine
17. EASTERN DARK – Johnny & Dee Dee
18. BOYS FROM NOWHERE – Goin’ Too Far
19. DEVIL DOGS – North Shore Bitch
20. CRAMPS – Weekend On Mars
21. ART PHAG – A Boy and His Gun
22. SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE – Hup Two Three Four
23. THEE HYPNOTICS – All Night Long
24. BOYS FROM NOWHERE – I Don’t Bother
25. SLOTH – Miss Sleazy Underbelly
26. WORKDOGS – Funny $

Download TWIST AND BURN!, VOLUME 1 (this is a .zip file)

ALL SPIT & VINEGAR: THE MEKONS' "NEVER BEEN IN A RIOT"

2009-09-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of fortysomethings - as opposed to fiftysomethings - my first exposure to Leeds, England's MEKONS came in the mid-1980s, when they garnered a ton of critical acclaim for their countrified stabs at Americana and released LPs on American labels. People I know who were into The Mekons were really into them. Though I never had a problem with any of that, I'm still waiting to hear the Mekons record that gets me on board - I've just never gotten so much as a tingle from the 80s-90s stuff.

Then there's the 1978 debut 45, "Never Been in a Riot". It is a masterpiece of simple, scattered, clattertrap rock and roll. Right up there with the Desperate Bicycles and their ilk for sheer DIY mastery. I'll cop to only owing this song via mp3, and I've never even heard the two B-sides. Anyone know where I can find them, outside of paying $100 for the original 45?

Play The Mekons, "Never Been in a Riot"

Download THE MEKONS - "Never Been in a Riot" (A-side of 1978 EP)

DEMENTED ARE GO – MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS

2009-09-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from 2007)

I’m not the only person to have posted these tracks in the quote-unquote blogosphere, but I’ve lived in perpetual terror for too long thinking that there might be some of you who’ve yet to hear them – so here it is, MORTY SHANN AND THE MORTICIANS. As I understand it, these two guttural howls from 1960 remained unissued and unloved until Norton Records set fit to put them on a 45 a few years ago, and then later comped them on the “KICKSVILLE VOLUME 2” rockabilly acetate collection. I was floored the first time I heard them. Think screaming HASIL ADKINS-style hoot, mixed with raunchy throat culture vocals a la THE TRASHMEN (an inspiration? When did “Surfin’ Bird’ come out? Wow – the always-reliable Wikipedia says 1963), and then muddle up the fidelity real real good until you’ve got an absolute Top 10 contender for the Primitive Shit Rock hall of fame. Plus the songs just scoot, too. I wouldn’t call it rockabilly at all – it exists in an almost otherworldly place of its own, and if it’s really from 1960, as Norton says it is – holy crap.

Here’s what I wrote about this record (the 45) a couple years ago:

Made reference to these guys a few posts ago and got an email saying, "who??". Well. MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS were unknown to history until Norton found their unissued 1960 recordings of these two songs and quietly set them loose along with all the other sleeveless 45s they pushed out a few years back. I sort of picked this one out of a catalog on a whim and was just floored when I heard it. Primitive Shit Music? Puh-leeze. This is so raunchy and bug-eyed insane it puts even the TRASHMEN to shame. Morty is a frog-voiced, gravel-throated belter and his band plays off-the-rails, poorly-tuned madman's rock that's completely frantic and pulse-quickening. Before your breath can be caught and your nerves steadied, each 90-second retarded wonder is over in a big unexpected flame-out or quick fade. Fans of BUNKER HILL, THE PINETOPPERS and the fastest of the early lo-fi rockabilly pioneers will be very pleased, but this really ain't rockabilly, nor R&B -- just pure white frat trash. It'd be real nice to know who these guys were and where the hell they came from & if they ever tried to inflict this sound on a paying audience.

Play Morty Shann & The Morticians, "Movin' In"

Download MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS – “Movin’ In”

Download MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS – “Red Headed Woman”

ROCKABILLY FIREBREATHING FROM FIREWORKS

2009-09-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from a couple years ago)

Circa 1991-94, no rock and roll label could touch In The Red Records. Most still can’t. I remember tearing up packages that would arrive in the mail from them, breaking nails & bloodying fingertips, all to hear the latest & best garage-inspired rock released in decades – during an era when the “form”, such as it was, was in a decided renaissance. At the time, outside of THE GORIES and the CHEATER SLICKS, my favorite In The Red platter was this 45 from Dallas, Texas’ FIREWORKS. Consisting of two obscuro rockabilly covers, the double A-side “Untrue” / “She’s a Tornado” are such wild paintpeelers you can hear the steam pouring out of the back of the amps. Full of reverb, distortion and great whooping, yelping vocals, it begs the question, “who were Fireworks, and why do I love ‘em so much?”. Glad you asked.

Darren Linwood, well, he seemed to be the main honcho behind this crew, and though I know he went onto ’68 Comeback and Mick Collins’ Blacktop (and had been in Dig Dat Hole too!), I kind of lost track of him. James Arthur, he of the mighty stun-guitar on this 45, now helps run Hook Or Crook records with el jefe Chris Owen, and went from Fireworks to killer combos like A Feast of Snakes and the Golden Boys as well. In any case, there were about 3-4 great Fireworks singles, none better then this firebreather on In The Red. Enjoy it here and let me know what you think.

Play Fireworks, "She's a Tornado"

Download FIREWORKS – “She’s A Tornado” (A-side of 1993 In The Red 45)
Download FIREWORKS – “Untrue” (other A-side of 1993 In The Red 45)

MONOSHOCK: FREAKIN’ TWEAKIN’ MECO MEN

2009-08-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Without going into too much detail, the late 80s/early 90s, Oakland-by-way-of-Santa Barbara band MONOSHOCK were both personal friends and a favorite mind-erasing band of mine. Aside from the more classic local “garage” acts of 1993-94, it was my contention that they were the San Francisco Bay Area’s finest band when they were around – a total monster of fuzz, distortion and really inventive ways of blowing apart a conventional rock and roll song. I’ve told their story a couple of times and a couple of different ways – here at my old blog Agony Shorthand, and again here at Detailed Twang, when I posted the 45 of theirs I put out on my short-lived label. (I’ll re-post those songs again someday).

Not long after that first one, bassist Scott Derr’s Blackjack Records put out a second, “Soledad / Striking a Match in the Year 4007”. That’s when I knew these guys were for real, in a recording sense (live it was already a no-brainer) and had a pretty deep bench of material to pull from. This is when they were still a trio, mind you (I think some of the blood got sucked when they added sax & keyboards), and at the point where they were realizing how much noise and panic they could wring out of three guys and a batch of distortion boxes.

It’s been said before, but singer/drummer Rubin Fiberglass was absolutely born to rock. I can totally see him at the start of “Striking a Match...” - where they do a couple of piss-takes before getting into the song - with his sunglasses donned even at 11pm, lubricating his vocal cords with god-knows-what, and getting’ his Iggy on before switching over to “the voice” that he used so fetchingly on all their material. In fact “Soledad” is a pretty great study in vocals, when you pay close attention to it. All three fellas get their god-given turn at the mic, with Fiberglass leading things in the chorus and main verses. The whole stream-of-consciousness bizarro-world lyrics & vocals from guitarist Grady Runyan during the “break” were not only the inspiration for this post’s title, but also for the title of the band’s posthumous collection “Runnin’ Backwards From The Ape-Like Superman”.

These recordings came straight from my 45, and not from that collection, which has slightly cleaned-up version of all their 45s. Please do your best to secure both, and keep supporting goodtime rocknroll music.

Play Monoshock, “Soledad”

Download MONOSHOCK – “Soledad” (A-side)
Download MONOSHOCK – “Striking a Match in the Year 4007” (B-side)

THE ULTIMATE POST-PUNK C-78

2009-08-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

When I got big into digitizing my vinyl, it extended my already-crazed obsession with creating personal compilations of music, which started off in the 80s as tapes for potential girlfriends (who didn’t do that, right?) and continued into self-loving compilation tapes for myself. Then in 2000 I bought a car with no tape player, but with a killer CD sound system. When combined with a long commute to work, and these new digitization capabilities, many new 78-minute compilation CDs were born.

One particular “C-78” that I made back in 2004 – the C-78 reference is a respectful nod to the C-60 and C-90 nomenclature previously reserved for blank tapes – was a response to Jon Savage’s article on post-punk in a 2003 issue of MOJO magazine. Savage made a pretty solid list of 1976-1981 songs that stood aside from punk by virtue of their general weirdness and/or instrumentation, or both, while still being very much informed by it. No one has ever seemed to have come up with a better moniker than “post-punk” for this music, ridiculous as that descriptor is, considering that many of the best post-punk tracks were made before or during what’s commonly referred to as punk’s heyday. “Post Punk” is meaningful only in the sense of being a catch-all term – i.e. those bands and artists who built upon 1977 punk with new instrumentation, song structure and a more “artful” approach while retaining the aggression or the experimentation inherent in the medium. I’m comfortable with it, even if others aren’t.

I made my own list of classic post-punk songs from the 1976-1981 era, then pulled out the vinyl and the CDs and made a 78-minute CD out of my pickings. In what will probably become a more frequent occurrence here at Detailed Twang, I’m uploading the whole thing for you in a .zip file, so you can download it and burn it into your own CD (or put in into iTunes or whatever it is you kids do these days). I’m strongly considering making a second volume soon that takes in some classics that I left out, like THE MISFITS’ “Cough/Cool”; RED TRANSISTOR’s “Not Bite”; the VIRGIN PRUNES’ “Twenty Tens” and SPK’s “Mekano”. In 2004, these are the songs that I thought would represent both my tastes, and the entire “post-punk” genre, the best.

Track list

1. PERE UBU – Street Waves

2. DESPERATE BICYCLES – The Medium Was Tedium

3. THE NORMAL – Warm Leatherette

4. GANG OF FOUR – What We All Want

5. MARS – Helen Forsdale

6. THROBBING GRISTLE – United

7. TWINKEYZ – Aliens In Our Midst

8. JOY DIVISION – No Love Lost

9. SWELL MAPS – Vertical Slum

10. YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS – N.I.T.A.

11. THE FALL – Prole Art Threat

12. GORDONS – Adults and Children

13. URINALS – Black Hole

14. DOW JONES & THE INDUSTRIALS – Ladies With Appliances

15. DELTA 5 – You

16. CABARET VOLTAIRE – Nag Nag Nag

17. METAL URBAIN – Panik

18. ANIMALS & MEN – Don’t Misbehave In the New Age

19. MISSION OF BURMA – Max Ernst

20. SEEMS TWICE – Salient Feature

21. TWO BY FOURS – Little Cities

22. SHOES THIS HIGH – The Nose One

23. FLIPPER – Sex Bomb

24. BILL DIREEN & THE BILDERS -- Alien

25. NEW ORDER – Everything’s Gone Green

Download “Detailed Twang Ultimate Post-Punk C-78” (this is a .zip file)

XYX SUMMON THE MICROVIBRACIONES

2009-08-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

My favorite record last year by a mile was the debut four-song "Sistema De Terminación Sexual" 7”EP from Monterey, Mexico’s XYX on S-S Records. They make a big, loud, crazed, echo-chamber version of ’77-style no-wave with only two members – a woman (Anel) playing rough, throbbing bass guitar run through a ton of effects (she also twiddles knobs from time to time on a primitive synth of some kind), and a guy (Mou) who is an absolute spasmodic wild man of a drummer. I was ready to dream the impossible dream, and stay up past midnight on a Monday to see them live a couple of weeks ago, and I did just that when they played the El Rincon in San Francisco and blew the fairly small crowd away. Most of their songs are short, chaotic and splay in a zillion different directions while remaining shockingly tight. I’d seen this two wandering the crowd during the evening and figured they were just a couple of new wavers (like me, of course) out to enjoy a little goodtime partytime rocknroll. Then they got up on stage and totally went berserk. These are the times when one is thankful that earplugs have become so ubiquitous, and that I’d remembered to pack mine for the club.

Since this EP from last year is already out of print, I reckoned it would be appropriate to present it to you. I want XYX to be huge, bigger than the Stones & the Beatles. I bought their new edition-of-300 45 on Skulltones records as well, and while it has even more loud, ear-scraping psychedelic oomph than the one I’m posting today, I’d have to say the recordings sound more like stopgaps until the inevitable monster LP comes out. Until then, do what you need to do to see this band, own the recordings of this band, and feel this band. They’re Detailed Twang’s pick to click for the time being.

Play XYX, “Anel and Her Problem”

Download XYX – “Anel and Her Problem” (Side A, Track 1)
Download XYX – “Pan de Muerto” (Side A, Track 2)
Download XYX – “Nunca, Nunca” (Side B, Track 1)
Download XYX – “Microvibraciones” (Side B, Track 2)

THE PRATS BELIEVE IN THE DISCO POPE

2009-08-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from mid-2008)

I discovered THE PRATS, a ramshackle, quintessentially-DIY late 70s/early 80s Scottish group, just this past couple years or so on the “EARCOM 1” compilation. We posted those tracks here (but we need to re-post them due to them being removed a while back - don't worry, we will). If THE PRATS retired right then and there, they could leave the world knowing that they’d given the globe a primer into how to make much more with much less – less money, less quality, less capability, and less talent. Well somewhere along the way they went out and acquired a little talent. In 1980 THE PRATS released a 7”EP called “The 1990s Pop EP”. Now a jagged, well-recorded, thumping sort of post-punk band, The Prats gave their masterwork to the people in the form of the song, “Disco Pope”, which I’ve discovered this year. Every year I seem to find a new couple of obscurities that become among my all-time favorite songs, and this is the one for 2007-08.

Play The Prats, "Disco Pope"

Download THE PRATS – “Disco Pope”

CANADA SCREAMING

2009-08-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Around the turn of the 21st Century – that is, about nine years ago - I started seriously digitizing my vinyl collection, and even made a quick foray into hooking up my tape deck to a computer. I only actually successfully digitized one cassette tape, and for some reason I can’t remember where I got the tape from. It’s a bunch of 1960s Canadian garage-rock obscurities – I believe it was sent to me by a fellow DJ on the late 90s/early 00s ANTENNA RADIO (I hosted a pre-punk show called “No Count Dance Party”), but I swear I can’t remember the guy’s name, or even if it was he who sent me the tape. In any case, I called my CD-R “Canada Screaming”, and I was pretty excited to rediscover it the other day. There are some MONSTERS on there.

Take THE PACERS from 1965, and their totally slipshod “I Want You Back”. This is raw, learning-to-play amateurism at its best, and it’s a totally longing, clashing slice of early punk rock music from a Vancouver-area band. Or how about Toronto’s A PASSING FANCY and their fuzzed-out 1967 “I’m Losing Tonight”. You’ve been there, haven’t ya? Genius. My favorite of the three I’m posting for you is 1965’s plodding, minor-key psychedelic howler “She’s My Lover” by THE DEVERONS. Now I totally flipped for this song before I knew that the lead singer in the band was one Burton Cummings, later the frontman for THE GUESS WHO, “arguably Canada’s most influential rock band”. Whoa, more influential than SAGA? Than CHILLIWACK? This song needs to be digitally tattooed upon every hipster’s cranium from this moment forward; it’s as easy as clicking the links below you.

Play The Deverons, “She’s My Lover”

Download THE DEVERONS – “She’s My Lover”
Download THE PACERS – “I Want You Back”
Download A PASSING FANCY – “I’m Losing Tonight”

SHREDDING THE BIG ONES WITH THE TIKI MEN

2009-08-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Reposted by request)

I own exactly one record by a modern instrumental surf band (correction: make that two records), and it’s the raw-ass 1994 EP I’m posted for you here today by Sacramento, CA’s TIKI MEN. “Sneak-A-Drink With The Tiki Men” is as hot and loud and bothered as the best reverbed-out 1960s stuff, and outside of a few drunken PHANTOM SURFERS live shows, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a modern band capture the esprit of that sound as well as it is here. This record is so underground that even the venerable Grunnen Rocks database doesn’t even list it in the band’s discography, but I’m pretty sure this home-pressed job on “Secret Center” records was their debut. Covers appear to be run off at Kinko’s, but only on their best printers, naturally. A total lost slab of wave-shredding garage punk righteousness from the Capitol City, the camellia capitol of California, Sacramento C-A.

Play The Tiki Men, "Tiki Torcher"

Download THE TIKI MEN – “Tiki Torcher” (Side A, Track 1)
Download THE TIKI MEN – “Swingin' Creeper” (Side A, Track 2)
Download THE TIKI MEN – “Black Cat” (Side B, Track 1)
Download THE TIKI MEN – “Incoming!” (Side B, Track 2)

THE REVILLOS' "MOTORBIKE BEAT"

2009-08-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Note: I wrote the following on my old blog AGONY SHORTHAND in April 2003. Then I posted the song here on Detailed Twang in early 2007, using the exact same copy from four years earlier. Then I told and retold my same goddamn music discovery stories ad nauseum. Who cares, right? Now I'm doing it again, so you can hear this awesome tune):

I was 12 years old in 1980, and had had some limited exposure to what was then known as "new wave". Punk was still something I wasn't ready to fully tackle, given that the bands & audience actually spit on each other -- or so TIME magazine said -- but I was definitely extremely curious. Anything that might sound "punk" or "new wave" sounded it might be really fucking cool, so armed with a rudimentary knowledge of what it actually might sound like (having heard Devo and the B-52s, I was certainly an expert), I would tune in to various FM dinosaur rock stations and see if I could find any. These stations, which at the time normally played a mix of horrible AOR like Journey, Styx and the Eagles, were being forced by program directors to play some of this new shit, because everyone said it was "about to break". So you'd often hear some crap power pop trotted out as punk/new wave or my favorite, "modern music". And believe me -- and many others who've testified to this fact -- kids in my suburb, at least, used "punk" and "new wave" interchangeably and almost always as a negative, and the main epithet hurled at kids who dressed like funny new wavers or hardcore punks was ALWAYS "Hey, Devo!!".

So my plan was to write down the names of the performers and songs that sounded new wave or punk, and then I'd go look for the records at the mall. The first thing I heard that was definitely new wave to my 12-year-old ears was LOU REED's "Vicious", from the "Transformer" LP, but when I saw the cover at the Wherehouse or the Record Factory or whatever, I decided it probably wouldn't be any good. The wisdom of youth! It was a blast, though -- this was how I discovered ROXY MUSIC ("Virginia Plain" -- totally new wave), among others. But the big eye-opener was finding college radio. In the area south of San Francisco was (and still is) a great college station, KFJC. It was there that I heard new wave song after punk song after new wave song, but I'll definitely remember the first one I ever heard and loved: "Motorbike Beat" by the REVILLOS. Trouble was, I didn't write it down -- but the song stuck with me, and stuck with me, for years.

Once I found out it was the Revillos, sometime in the 1990s, their comedic image as "wacky space people with ray guns" totally turned me off (even though I like the REZILLOS first LP, and it's essentially the same band), so I never tracked the 45 down. An ill wind of nostalgia swept over me recently, though, and I bid for the 45 on eBay -- and won. And you know what? It holds up. It's a top-flight corker, this song -- ultra-frantic, rockabilly-tinged punk with dueling male & female vocals, squealing motorcycle sounds, and just a can't-beat-it FUN vibe that's not contrived or too loony to listen to. It was really nice to have it back, 23 years later, since I hadn't heard it since 1980. The flip "No Such Luck" isn't half bad, either! What about the rest of their stuff? That goofball space thing still has me pretty wary.....

(Here we are back in 2007, I mean 2009, again…) I since learned that most of their stuff was OK, but that this is still their crown jewel. Understand and accept that it’s probably closer to the B-52s themselves than it is to, say, The Cramps, and if you’re cool with that, then here’s the song for your listening pleasure.

Play The Revillos, "Motorbike Beat"

Download THE REVILLOS – “Motorbike Beat” 45

TWINKLE'S OUTSTANDING DEAD BOYFRIEND 45

2009-08-07T11:16:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks back we posted the great 60s girly screamer "Don't Drag No More" by SUSAN LYNN and called it her "dead teenager anthem", before I realized that the guy in the song doesn't actually die. He just gets warned that he's going to die. It's still part of a very prevalent 1960s "meme" with the clueless gearhead boyfriend and his level-headed, pleading girlfriend, but we need to be accurate here.

Now, here's a total girl-pop masterpiece where the hedonistic youth speeding through life with the throttle wide open does meet his maker. It's a 1964 single from British chanteuse TWINKLE called "Terry". It was a pretty decent-sized UK hit at the time, and its B-side "The Boy of My Dreams" is almost as good. I even found a magazine ad for you. If you want to see the review I wrote of a posthumous collection of her singles, and I know you do, click on over here.

Play Twinkle, "Terry"

Download TWINKLE - "Terry" (A-side)
Download TWINKLE - "The Boy Of My Dreams" (B-side)

OH! THAT HACKAMORE BRICK ALBUM

2009-07-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Back in the 1980s and early 90s me and my pals Grady & Jon took an interest in discovering what one of us, I’m not sure whom, termed “Stigliano bands”. These were groups that, to us, only existed in the pages of this guy Chris Stigliano’s 80s fanzines PFUDD! and, later, BLACK TO COMM – mostly raw, guitar-heavy 70s groups like Simply Saucer, The Plastic People of the Universe, Kongress, Hackamore Brick and others. Really lost-to-time, proto-punk stuff, and while some of the chases for the vinyl inevitably led down a rathole of mediocrity, there were certainly multiple times (like hearing the 1971 HACKAMORE BRICK LP) where this one individual’s hyperbole totally delivered, and was all the more impressive since he seemed to be the only one who’d ever waved the flag for these bands.

Now I wasn’t always impressed with Stigliano’s written shtick back then and later, and said so in a (long-deleted) post on my old blog. This particular gentleman was less than pleased about it and made a bit of a stink about it back in ‘04 on his former blog. Not sure where he went after that, but in the meantime, the HACKAMORE BRICK album got reissued on CD, perhaps thanks to the years of cheerleading led from the PFUDD! pages. I don’t know why it took so friggin’ long. My guess is that aside from a recent UGLY THINGS piece on it there just hasn’t been enough recent fanfare for it, and I want to make sure you get a chance to hear some of it. “One Kiss Leads To Another” – the album’s title - is fantastic, redolent of all manner of heroic bands that were actually around when they were active - and afterward. I feel embarrassed drawing this comparison for the millionth time, but the fantastic “Oh! Those Sweet Bananas” sounds like - yes! – a hippie Velvet Underground circa the "Loaded" era, somewhat like if they'd plied their trade in Santa Cruz rather than Manhattan. It motors with that chugging, propulsive Velvets sound that has been intoxicating music freaks for years. “Zip Gun Woman" is another great, guitar-freakout number that closes the LP, and sounds like the Patti Smith Group fronted by Edgar Breau. Much of the rest is laid-back rock and roll with a distinct sense of aggro when it's time for the guitar break, as well as first-rate vocals unmarred by any Brooklyn-ese (these guys were/are from Brooklyn).

Members of the band are recording under the HACKAMORE BRICK name now, with live shows and everything. Get connected to the original 1971 good-time mojo (taken from the LP, not the reissued CD) by clicking on the links below.

Play Hackamore Brick, “Oh! Those Sweet Bananas”

Download HACKAMORE BRICK – “Oh! Those Sweet Bananas”
Download HACKAMORE BRICK – “Zip Gun Woman”

MO-DETTES “WHITE MICE / MASOCHISTIC OPPOSITE” 45

2009-07-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

This is another bellwether 45 in my teenage musical education, and for a long time I felt like it was a record that only I knew about. While THE MO-DETTES’ 1980 “White Mice” single is fairly well-known now, I’d never met anyone in the 80s who’d heard it besides me and others who heard it played to death on KFJC in the early 1980s. It reached some ears when it came out on one of those Bomp Power Pop compilation CDs about 15 years ago; and when I saw the LONG BLONDES play live a few years ago I was floored when the between-band DJ played the song and people got up to dance to it en masse, like it was one of their well-known favorites. Who knows, in the UK this may have been a touchstone 45 for thousands of quote-unquote post-punk lovers, as it was for me.

“White Mice” arrives at the perfect intersection of rough English D.I.Y. and pure golden girl pop, and has one of the most lilting harmonies you’ll ever hear. Among the more charming aspects of the band were the garbled vocals of Ramona Carlier, she being of Swiss descent and a then-recent UK immigrant (which helps explains it). It’s hard to put a bead on exactly what she’s saying beyond the song’s chorus, which starts with the first-rate couplet, “Don’t be stupid, don’t be limp / No girl likes to love a wimp”, and contains a throbbing bassline that leads, rather than follows, everything else in the song. The guitarist is practically invisible throughout – her ineptitude in moving from chord to chord is part of what’s so special about “White Mice” and indeed, the small handful of other good tracks this band produced in their short life (like the B-side, “Masochistic Opposite”).

I also love the sleeve for this single, which is so awful I could have doodled it during a particularly boring Powerpoint presentation. Glad the single has reached so many ears the past couple of decades – I’d like to bring it to another 200 or so ears if I may.

Play The Mo-Dettes, “White Mice”

Download THE MO-DETTES – “White Mice” (A-side)
Download THE MO-DETTES – “Masochistic Opposite” (B-side)

BILL DIREEN & THE BILDERS : “ALIEN” 45

2009-07-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a re-post from 2007. The song had disappeared when my old hosting provider did, and I want to make sure you hear it.)

I once knew a woman in the early 90s named Sharon McKenzie who had just come off a college stint as a “disc jockey”, as had I (she at KDVS in Davis, CA; me at KCSB in Santa Barbara, CA and KFJC in Los Altos Hills, CA). She went to every show I did – and at that time we were averaging 2-3 per week – and when she told me she was starting a record label, I thought that was pretty cool. She stumped me with her first artist, though, telling me it was something by BILL DIREEN & THE BILDERS, and then getting a little annoyed when I didn’t know who that was. She was all, “You don’t know who that is?”, and I was all, “No”. So she goes, “He’s a New Zealand outsider pop legend”, and then I go, “Oh, well I haven’t heard of him”. So she’s all, “later”. Of course I bought Direen's “Alien/Skulls” 45 that came out a few months later on Sharon’s HECUBA RECORDS, and became a BILL DIREEN convert shortly thereafter.

His story is arguably the most unsung of the great New Zealand 1980s outsiders (I say arguably because there’s also THE KIWI ANIMAL and SHOES THIS HIGH, not to mention THE GORDONS), and you’d be well advised to pick up the FLYING NUN series of CDs that came out in the mid-90s that collected his early works. Direen still records music to this day and is a published poet of much renown; Hecuba folded up shop very quickly after this single; and I haven’t seen Sharon in a coon’s age (you can still say “coon’s age”, can’t ya?). I’m posting “Alien” because it’s my favorite of Direen’s many eerie, organ-heavy loner pop records, which always seem to be uplifting in their way but are full of strange stumbles down dark musical alleys. This particular version is a later (1990?) run-through one of his earliest songs, originally from 1981. It’s a good one, and you will like it.

Play Bill Direen & The Bilders, "Alien"

Download BILL DIREEN & THE BILDERS - "Alien" (A-side of 45)

HOW LIVES ARE CHANGED: THE LAZY COWGIRLS

2009-07-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

This post is seriously cribbed from a review of THE LAZY COWGIRLS' masterpiece "Tapping The Source" that I wrote for my old blog, Agony Shorthand, back in 2003. The band - and this record - were seriously developmental stepping stones for me personally, and I believe that its profile is way too low in the world today. Therefore I'm going to post several tracks from it so you'll have no choice but to purchase the full CD or LP if you can find it. Here's what I said six years ago:

"You know how some people are always asking couples how they met? For these kindly inquisitors, all romantic beginnings set the full context for everything that followed (never mind what really happened as the couple came to truly know each other). I'm kind of the same way when it comes to music. It's mildly exhilarating to learn of individuals' discovery processes; those happenstance instances where their musical tastes experienced a tectonic shift, or when they were introduced to a band or genre that ended up setting their standards for years to come. You know; the older brother who played you the Velvet Underground for the first time; the time you stumbled into the Minutemen show; the Skip James track you downloaded because someone said you might like it. I love that shit.

I was very recently presented with a crisp compact disc version of the LAZY COWGIRLS' "Tapping The Source", the popularly-recognized best record from a truly formative rock and roll band for me. My over-involvement with them led to a real love for raw garage-oriented rock; the deep discovery of bands such as the MC5, NY DOLLS, RADIO BIRDMAN and even the SHIT DOGS; and a period in which I bought more 45s of this "sound" than anyone would consider healthy. Listening to it again inspired a torrent of insular words. The Lazy Cowgirls showed up at the right time in my life, when I was 18 years old and ready for a home-town band to rally around. In 1986 these newly-minted Los Angelinos played a bill in Santa Barbara, California with AGENT ORANGE, the MENTORS (yes! The Mentors!), AGGRESSION and at least 1 or 2 other horrid hardcore bands. I attended with hopes of hearing Agent Orange play "Bloodstains", but it was the Lazy Cowgirls who blew me clean away.

These guys were the most incongruous garage-based punk band imaginable; total Indiana hicks with farm boy accents as deep as you can imagine; a balding, slightly overweight frontman who was MC5-style energy personified; and a total steamroller approach to the "live event". This approach boiled down to revving up the audience to religious levels, bashing it out for 45 minutes, then wrecking everything on the stage after an 8-minute scream through "You're Gonna Miss Me"; (always, always the set closer). Before that show I knew of the band from their debut LP "The Lazy Cowgirls", which was mostly notable because it was produced by Chris D. of the FLESH EATERS, who were a godhead band for some of my influential peers at the college radio station I was DJ-ing at (and who at this time were in the process of becoming my "favorite all-time band").

After that "tectonic shift" of a show, I saw the Lazy Cowgirls, no kidding, at least 25-30 times; every time they played in Los Angeles from 1986-1989, I and a posse of similarly-oriented drinkers with fake IDs would head down to the Anti-Club or Raji's to watch them deliver. I think there were at least two caravans up to San Francisco/Berkeley to see full weekends of shows there as well. Sick! I'd tell anyone who asked that they were my favorite current band. New records came out, the lineup changed a bunch, the band soldiered (and continues to soldier) on, and I more or less forgot about them around 1995 or so. I hear they're now a "bar rock" band a la the Stones or Divine Horsemen. Might be worth checking out one of these days for shits & giggles, right?

So I listened to "Tapping the Source"; again this week, this time attempting to hear it with the ears of a man unencumbered by all the baggage collected in the previous paragraph. I have to say it still holds up! No, not in the sense that it's a life-changer, but it is still a drop-dead raw and searing 4-track punk rock record, with every single track cranked out in glorious shit-fi. "Goddamn Bottle" was the "hit", but this record also has the longtime show opener "Can't You Do Anything Right?", "Mr. Screwdriver", and my fave, "Bullshit Summer Song". If I was hearing it for the first time I'd probably call it a real good record, and would maybe pull it out for a spin every year or so. Subsequent four-on-the-floor bands such as the New Bomb Turks owe a huge debt to these guys, as it was the Cowgirls who did the Ramones/Stooges/Dolls hybrd first and certainly the best. It (strangely) sounds fantastic on CD, as well."

Play The Lazy Cowgirls, "Bullshit Summer Song"

Download LAZY COWGIRLS - "Can't You Do Anything Right?"
Download LAZY COWGIRLS - "Bullshit Summer Song"
Download LAZY COWGIRLS - "Goddamn Bottle"

BEAT HER WITH A RAKE AND MAKE HER PAY FOR HER MISTAKE

2009-07-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Note - this is a re-post "by request" of a song we put up here back in 2007)

This is a very classy proto-punk, metal-tinged scorcher from 1978 – an act called THE WEASELS set off all sorts of alarms with this number, the immortal “Beat Her With A Rake”. Word has it that they were 1977 contemporaries with & pals of both the nascent LA post-glam, pre-punk bands of the day (RUNAWAYS, IMPERIAL DOGS, BERLIN BRATS etc) and with VAN HALEN, who played the LA club circuit as openers for The Weasels on more than one occasion. It got a lot of airplay on KROQ, pretty much America’s first commercial station to play real punk rock, and caused a lot of (deserved) hemming & hawing. There’s no question that it indeed “rocks”, and I’ve long called it a favorite, though I'm not really certain why since it borders on doofus metal and has lyrics I’d hate for my mommy to hear. I can’t even remember the B-side. I’m not sure anyone does.

Play The Weasels, "Beat Her With A Rake"

Download THE WEASELS – “Beat Her With A Rake” (A-side of 1978 single)

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE FRENCH GIRLS

2009-07-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Two more 1960s “ye-ye” tracks for you today, both as pretty as a poodle. “Le Chevalier” from JIJI is all raw, twinkling guitar and come-hither vocals, and I gotta admit it’s pretty irresistible as a slice of bold, vintage, innocent-girl pop music. JIJI only put out a lone four-song 7”EP in her brief career, this one from 1966. Her teammate in this edition of the ‘Twang is ANOUK, and the much louder “Jimmy Est Parti”. It’s a stellar thumper from 1965, with an ear-bleeding harmonica trailing across every slurred, sexy verse. I promised you I’d unload a bunch of these swinging mademoiselles on you, and I’ll try and throw some more up in a couple weeks.

Play Jiji, “Le Chevalier”

Download JIJI – “Le Chevalier”
Download ANOUK – “Jimmy est Parti”

THREE SLEAZOID ZONKERS FROM L.A. DRUGS

2009-07-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from early 2007)

I missed the one and only LP from Boston's L.A. DRUGS when it came out in 2003 – it existed first as a CD-R and later was put out as a one-sided affair on Twisted Village. It has the potential to both anger and dazzle all comers, given that it’s simultaneously one of the most annoying and yet most crazed and unhinged, dirty, noisy, lo-fidelity records I’ve ever heard. I think they were around for less than a year, tops.

Obviously they found a lot of comedic value in early 80s LA punk (as we all do), given that the album is bookended with verbal clips from “The Decline of Western Civilization” (“I swear, I hate cops to the MAX”) and the Germs’ final show (“We’ll see you all at Oki Dog”). The singer has a bratty, whining tweener voice that she uses to fine effect on tracks like the ones I’m posting for you today – sorta like what one might have called a quote-unquote “riot girl” fifteen years ago, but even more annoying. The band exudes learning-to-play confidence, utilizing cheapo keyboards, fucked-up guitars, and all manner of crashing & bashing to get their point across. It sounds like a goddamn lights-out teenage pajama party with peanut butter smeared all over the floor and pharmaceuticals piled high in punchbowls. See what you think by clicking the links below.

Play LA Drugs, "High School"

Download LA DRUGS - "High School"
Download LA DRUGS - "Casual Sex"
Download LA DRUGS - "Sinful Youth"

STATE OF THE KIDS, JULY 2009

2009-07-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

It’s time for a rare look at the present tense here at Detailed Twang, as part of our ongoing series of tastemaking we call “State of the Kids”. Great 45s, LPs, CDs and one-off downloads keep coming out by the crateful, and I’m trying to keep up as best I can. As usual the most exciting stuff to my ears is happening in the rough-edged garage, pop & post-punk influenced worlds, but of course I’d say that. That’s what I’m seeking out online and elsewhere. First up today is the song of the friggin’ year, “Stick To The Formula” by EAT SKULL, kicking off their latest CD on Siltbreeze. Now we never really cottoned to these guys before this particular record, but when their new one came out I kept reading all these comparisons to The Clean and to scattershot lo-fi pop bands I luv & respect, and I said, “that doesn’t sound like the bucket of noise puke these guys have been coughing up to date”. And it isn’t. “Wild & Inside” is a strong record all the way through, particularly in its first one-third or so. This particular track is a total standout, and we sincerely hope you agree.

GRASS WIDOW (pictured) are a new all-female San Francisco band who skirt early UK angular, reverb-drenched pop music like they’ve been playing it together since 1981. Their new self-titled LP just came out and it’s going to be huge; so huge, in fact, it’s already sold out. We told you about THE BLANK-ITS a few months ago; they’re still bringing a robotic, uber-distorted chromium punk to the people from the Great Northwest; this is the A-side of their most recent single. WOUNDED LION are a Los Angeles five-piece who have their one and only 45 on the excellent S-S Records. The A-side “Carol Cloud” is total Archies/1910 Fruitgum Co. bubblegum dross for meathead garage dork nation. Try to keep your fingers from snappin’ during this one. Finally, just in under the wire is the new CD from TY SEGALL, a fellow San Franciscan who records for both the Traditional Fools and The Sic Alps. His new record “Lemons” is on Goner Records, and this 80s-style noise punk crack up called “It #1” is something pretty special. See, the good stuff is all out there – you just need to find a chair to park your tuchus in to figure it all out.

Play Eat Skull, “Stick To The Formula”

Download EAT SKULL – “Stick To The Formula”
Download GRASS WIDOW – “To Where”
Download THE BLANK-ITS – “Windows Are Dirty”
Download WOUNDED LION – “Carol Cloud”
Download TY SEGALL – “It #1”

YOU KNOW HOW WE DO TWO OTHER BLOGS?

2009-07-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe you don’t – or more likely, you could care less. I rarely do any “cross-promotion”, but maybe once a year is OK, right? So these two blogs are called HEDONIST BEER JIVE and FIRST PRINCIPLES. The first one is updated with passion 4-5 times per week, and has been going nearly three and a half years now. It delves into the, uh, fascinating world of craft beer in all its forms. Not content to simply drink good beer, I’m aiming to foster the same level of beer dorkitude that I myself possess. It covers Belgian beer, American micros, and the places and locales where people – mostly me – drink them. This one gets about 100 visitors per day and has its own little ecosystem of readers going, which is awesome.

The second blog, FIRST PRINCIPLES – well, yeah. I posted my final post there today. Apparently beer and music writing is easy, but coming up with engaging political rants isn’t. It’s not the first time I’ve killed off a blog of mine – other past efforts include AGONY SHORTHAND and CELLULOID HUT – and it probably won’t be the last. But take a look at the final post and the archives if you get a second. I gave it a good thirteen months. If you need to grow a set of first principles of your own, you’re welcome to borrow mine.

THE MEAT PUPPETS’ MUSHMOUTH BLACK FLAG TRIBUTE

2009-07-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

When THE MEAT PUPPETS arrived less than fully-formed in 1980, their stock in trade was to play a blistering, art-damaged, wild-eyed sort of hardcore punk that enraged just as many punk acolytes as it did blow the other half away. I only caught on to them as a “fan” when they’d fully shed this early skin around 1984, and were playing their laconic, loping, sun-damaged country art music. When I bought their first LP “Meat Puppets” and even better, their first EP “In A Car”, rather than be propelled away, it only made me love them more. The music careened in strange, multimodal directions; the drumming was Charlie Watts-steady but at a hardcore tempo; the lyrics were incomprehensible, and when they were printed, were even more incomprehensible; and of course, Curt Kirkwood’s vocals were awesome. His was a mushmouthed, slurred, all-vowels delivery screamed into the microphone, and at times it almost sounded like he was about to swallow the thing. I can definitely see why some lesser-educated BLACK FLAG fans often pelted the band off the stage with garbage and loogies; the band’s approach was one that required more than a modicum of patience. Their closest compadres in this confrontational approach were FLIPPER, and if you were a fan of one, you were usually a huge fan of the other as well.

So when the “LOVEDOLLS SUPERSTAR” soundtrack album came out in 1986, long after the MEAT PUPPETS had slowed down and become a quieter, more tame sort of indie rock band, it was a fantastic shock to hear the band taking on BLACK FLAG’s “No Values” in that early who-cares style. Better still, I’d argue that their version - which is what I believe one might call a “piss-take”, or “taking the piss” – is just as good as Black Flag’s. It’s great! The soundtrack is a good snapshot of SST Records around that time, along with some fellow travelers in the barely post-punk rock world. The Meat Puppets dared to regress about five years, and with all their newfound playing chops, actually did a version of this song that totally slays. Here, see what I mean by clicking the links below.

Play The Meat Puppets, “No Values”

Download THE MEAT PUPPETS – “No Values” (from ‘86 “Lovedolls Superstar” soundtrack)

FEMMES DE PARIS - SOME OF MY FAVORITES

2009-07-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've written too many times of how smitten I am with female French pop of the 1960s, and I've posted a few songs on this blog to boot, including one of the single most popular posts I've ever done, the complete works of CLOTHILDE. If you want to read some more, click here or here. I've really only scratched the surface, though. There are at least three dozens total classics from this era, and as long as this blog continues I'm going to make it my life's work to make sure you hear them.

Three of my very favorites are posted for you today. I'm not going to go too deeply into my CD/record collection to figure out where I got them from, but dollars to donuts they came from the "Swinging Mademoiselles" or "Ultra Chicks" compilation series. First up is ARIANE and "Tu Vondrais Que J'oublie", just perfect booming pop music. Next is the somewhat kittenish CLAIRE DIXON and "On M'appalle Petite Bout de Chou", which is something like "My cute little cabbage". At least that's what someone who took high school French told me once. Finally, CHRISTINE PILZER's "Champs Elysees" is a great ode to a place I've never been, but no doubt some of you world travelers have.

Play Ariane, "Tu Vondrais Que J'publie"

Download ARIANE - "Tu Vondrais Que J'oublie"

Download CLAIRE DIXON - On M'Appalle Petite Bout de Chou"

Download CHRISTINE PILZER - "Champs Elysees"

PETER BLEGVAD’s “ALCOHOL”

2009-07-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a re-post from earlier in this blog's life, back in 2007. I know it will squander a great deal of goodwill I've built up since that time)

One of the strangest records I’ve ever heard, and one of the most oddly compelling. A friend of the distant past bought this solely for the cryptic cover; check out the back cover and inner labels pictured here – we had NO IDEA who this was by until I sent out a plea on my old blog back in 2003, and was told that it was PETER BLEGVAD, a member of the avant-rock band SLAPP HAPPY. Is this from 1972? Or 1980? I know the 45 pictured here is from ’80 but the track may be from much earlier. It may have only existed as a bonus one-sided 45 that turned up with the reissue of a Slapp Happy LP called “Sort Of” in 1980. Regardless, it’s totally fried and out of time, the sort of oddball madness that sucks you in & makes you watch/listen, rather than turn you away in horror. Well I guess that’s really for you to decide, isn’t it?

Play Peter Blegvad, "Alcohol"

Download PETER BLEGVAD – “Alcohol” 45

I’M NOT TALKIN’, THAT’S WHAT I SAY

2009-07-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

There are some 60s punk tunes that are still hard to track down, even when all veins have been tapped, every compilation LP has been bought, and everything’s been electronically scattered to the great digital jukebox in the sky. One of my favorites of all time is “I’m Not Talkin’” by Chicago’s THINGS TO COME, which, as I understand it, is a song they learned from the YARDBIRDS. These guys absolutely revved it up into a primal, adrenaline-fueled, gut-it-out punk rock monster, and created one of the great sloppy, snotty masterpieces of the 1960s.

Tom Mirabille of the THINGS TO COME wrote into this web page to talk a little bit about the song, and had this to say:

“It seems like so long ago. We really were not keen on cutting a cover on "I'm Not Talking" as it was exceptionally well done by the Yardbirds on one of their albums. Dunwich's A&R, Bill Trout, had just had great success with The Shadows of Knight with a cover for "Gloria" by Van Morrison. Bill liked to search English albums for songs that didn't get A play and cover them. Thought that he could have a repeat of the success he had with "Gloria." Our group thought that the tempo of our rendition of "I'm Not Talking" was too fast and that it wasn't a single release. Oh well, "I'm Not Talking" was released to tepid airplay.”

Yes, but it’s an immortal, godlike slice of teenage garage punk abandon, too. What radio station in the world was gonna play this thing, even with “Psychotic Reaction” at #1? See if you would’ve done the Popeye or the Hully Gully to this one back in ’66 by clicking the links below.

Play The Things To Come, “I’m Not Talkin’”

Download THE THINGS TO COME – “I’m Not Talkin’” (A-side of 1966 45)

SPK’s “CONTACT” & “MEKANO” 45s

2009-06-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

SPK were an Australian group who recorded into the late 80s and whose music ended up in the lower-case “industrial” zone – industrial as in disco-dance, heavy-BPM goth garbage; very popular in the late 80s as I’m sure you’ll recall. But in 1978 and 1979 they were an incredible upper-case Industrial band all the way, as it was defined at the time – jarring, abrasive, percussive, and other employing mangled synth sounds and rhythm patterns on scrap metal and cans & the like. I’m a recent convert to their early stuff. I wrote about it over here in 2004; here’s an excerpt from what I said then:

……I am floored by how fantastically harsh and rhythmically complex their debut 1979 singles are: “Contact” and “Mekano” in particular. These are the records that are not only mind-numbingly rare and collectable, but have been popping up on certain collectors’ lists of the world-beating best DIY 45s of that era. I’d have to agree. The 1979 version of SPK took a straight-to-the-gut punk rock approach to early industrial noise, and made a handful of tracks that you simply have got to hear if you haven’t before. I’d count them among my favorite discoveries of the many things I’ve undeservedly ignored over the years……

Both these songs are available on a CD compilation called “Auto-Da-Fe” (buy it here), but if you can’t find that, they’re available right here as well. Prepare to be floored.

Play SPK, "Contact"

Download SPK – “Contact” (from 1978 45)
Download SPK – “Mekano” (from 1979 45)

MUSIC FOR MODERNS: RACHEL SWEET'S "CUCKOO CLOCK"

2009-06-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

I typically won't back away from my strong new wave (a.k.a "modern music") fandom during my junior high & high school days. While I'm proud of being a strong real-time supporter of THE CRAMPS and assorted hardcore bands (uh, SIN 34?) during their heyday, the truth remains that during 1978-1984 or so I was a huge fan of rock and roll that was far less cool. I was a teenager; I turned 12 in 1979, so the fact that I even knew where the left of the dial was is remarkable in & of itself, I guess. My favorite bands in coming years were Siouxsie & The Banshees; Bauhaus; Simple Minds; Cramps; Xmal Deutschland (who??); the Dead Kennedys (I'm far more embarrassed by that than the Smiths 45s I stockpiled around 1983-84); etc.

One song that totally stands up for me now & then is "Cuckoo Clock" by RACHEL SWEET, one of the Stiff Records mafia in the late 70s and a total Midwestern American girl. Yes, despite the fake British accent on this one. Hey, you might totally hate it, but it still brings a chortle to my belly every time I give it a spin. I've written before about how I'd sit by the radio and listen to boring FM rock, just hoping that I'd hear something even vaguely "new wave". Then I'd write down the name of the song, and when my parents would take me to Musicland or The Record Factory or Tower Records, I'd spend hours searching the stacks for those records, and generally lusting after records in general. I got the RACHEL SWEET "Fool Around" LP from 1978 (I bought it a year or two later) around the same time I got LOU REED's "Transformer" (because I heard "Vicious" on KSJO or KOME) and ROXY MUSIC's "Greatest Hits" (because I heard "Virginia Plain" and "Love Is The Drug" on some Casey Kasem countdown show).

See what you think about the track "Cuckoo Clock". I think it rules. I wish someone besides "The Mr. T Experience" would cover it.

Play Rachel Sweet, "Cuckoo Clock"

Download RACHEL SWEET - "Cuckoo Clock" (from 1978 "Fool Around" LP)

MASTERPIECE: THE JONESES’ “PILLBOX"

2009-06-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

When I think hard on what might be the greatest rock and roll songs of all time, I get stuck on a small handful that I’d easily listen to anytime, anywhere, tracks I doubt I’d grow tired of in any situation. Even if my car plunged off a steep ravine and I became stuck in a ditch with my hands bloodily pinned behind my back for five days & nights, steering wheel painfully thrust into my chest, with one song playing over and over on a Cassingle auto-loop. I’d probably want to hear PERE UBU’s "Heart of Darkness" if I were stuck in such a pickle. Then maybe “Gimme Shelter”, "Fallait Pas Ecraser La Queue Du Chat" or PINK FLOYD’s “See Emily Play”. Yet I swear I’d be just as pleased if this swaggering 1983 Heartbreakers-inspired punker from THE JONESES were keeping me company in my hour of darkness.

Haven’t heard this one before? What, you don’t own the “Someone Got Their Head Kicked In” comp LP on Better Youth Organization records?? What the Joneses were doing on this thing is beyond comprehension – only their Los Angeles address and their nods to speedy punk rock form keep them in company with lunkheads like YOUTH BRIGADE, 7 SECONDS and AGGRESSION, and the raw glory of “Pillbox” stands out like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Moishe's Pippic knish counter.

I don’t know all that much about THE JONESES, really, just that after this era in their career they piled their hair up in big poofy poodle cuts and released a mediocre album around 1985 called “Keeping Up With The Joneses”. Their checkered career is captured on the Sympathy CD “Criminal History” (pictured here), which “Pillbox” righteously and deservedly kicks off. I also know that Jeff Drake, more or less the band leader, went on to the SUICIDE KINGS with his kid brother Scott “Deluxe” Drake (later of THE HUMPERS and today’s SCOTT DELUXE DRAKE & THE WORLD’S STRONGEST MEN), and then later went on to the klink for various crimes. If pills are truly a gateway drug to a life of vice, then “Pillbox” is more than prophetic.

The song somehow correlates drug use and the love of a good woman into one fantastic, rollicking blitzkrieg of a glam/punk song. Every big of rockstar swagger you associate with kingpin swaggerers like the NY DOLLS, ROLLING STONES and aforementioned Heartbreakers is rolled up into this song, then played quickly and aggressively like the bastard sons of James Williamson might. The vocals are easily of a league with Mick and David Johanson, at least this one time, and you get the feeling that, A.) the band poured every ounce of talent they possessed into this one 2-minute masterpiece, and B.) that you’d have given a left arm to watch them play it in person. I’d heartily recommend a quick free play or download of “Pillbox” - like how about right here?

Play The Joneses, "Pillbox"

Download THE JONESES - "Pillbox"

SUSAN LYNNE’S DEAD TEENAGER ANTHEM

2009-06-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

If I was the sort of fella who liked to rank & order things, I’d probably have to call this song one of the five finest examples of 1960s girl group pop ever. SUSAN LYNNE’s “Don’t Drag No More” from 1964 may or may not have been the girl-group “answer” song to JAN & DEAN’s “Deadman’s Curve”, as it isn’t really an answer song per se. Yet the first half of the 60s was awash in these crazy dead-teenager anthems, always with some guy being warned not to go to fast, and always with a crying girl by his side as he breathes his final words, which are predictably some variation on “I love you”. Though this one doesn't actually capture the dying - just the warning, I discovered it on the “One Kiss Can Lead To Another” box set (pictured), an amazing artifact of 1960s girl sounds contained in a hatbox. It’s among the treasures of the era, and I want you to please give it a listen right about now.

Play Susan Lynne, “Don’t Drag No More”

Download SUSAN LYNNE – “Don’t Drag No More” (A-side of 1964 single)

HELP WANTED: SCANNING & PRESERVING FANZINES

2009-06-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, I used to publish a music fanzine in the 1990s, and stupid me, I sold or gave away every copy of most of the issues until I only had one of each left (SUPERDOPE #1-4 and #7 – one copy!). I want to scan them and put them online for easy reading. I’ve noticed in a bit of searching that hundreds of old science fiction ‘zines are scanned and very easily accessible, but I have no idea how to upload them to host so they open with one click and can be read like a magazine. Like this one. If anyone knows how to do that and where to go, I’d be eternally grateful. Contact me at the link to the right.

DEMOLITION DOLL RODS DEBUT

2009-06-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from early 2007)

In 1994, for about five minutes, I fashioned myself a budding record label entrepreneur to some extent. I'd heard pals wax rhapsodically about how incredibly easy and cheap it was to put out a 45, and for the most part - since I put out or helped put out all of two - it totally was. I started a label called WOMB RECORDS, and was lucky enough to be allowed to put out MONOSHOCK's first record, "Primitive Zippo" - a searing, wild-ass overloaded mindfuck that kicks off their posthumous CD, a disc that you simply must get. What was I gonna do next? Well, I kind of knew the folks in the GORIES a little bit, as I'd interviewed them for the fanzine I did in the early 90s, and I also met & hoisted beverages with Dan(ny), their guitarist, in Detroit in 1993. My friend Anthony, who ran PAST IT RECORDS and was in the Icky Boyfriends at the time, also knew Danny & the flaunting ladies from his brand new band, the DEMOLITION DOLL RODS. We decided to team up and put out their debut 7"EP together, so it ended up being a Womb/Past It co-production.

What was cool was that the two of us got to pluck the songs that would kick off this still-active band's recording career from a tape they gave us, and the Doll Rods gave us full rein to select our favorites, track order, etc. I think we chose pretty well. The band never really touched the Gories for raw, unadulterated stripped-down soul power, but I feel to this day that this is the closest that they came. It sold well enough that Anthony & PAST IT did a solo re-press of another 500 copies with a blue-tinged cover; I opted out and threw in the towel for record mogulship. If you ever see the black-and-white cover pictured here, that's the one that we did. If you never see it, well, here are the songs.

Play The Demolition Doll Rods, "We're The Doll Rods"

Download DEMOLITION DOLL RODS - "We're The Doll Rods" (Side A, Track 1)
Download DEMOLITION DOLL RODS - "Give It Up" (Side A, Track 2)
Download DEMOLITION DOLL RODS - "No Tickets, No Passes" (Side B)

OSCURO FILES: HIGH SPEED & THE AFFLICTED MAN

2009-06-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

The kind gentleman who runs Holy Mountain records actually tried to turn me onto the HIGH SPEED & THE AFFLICTED MAN record called “Get Stoned EZY”, a couple years before I was ready to open my cranium to it. I don’t know why this severe fuzzorama guitar-damage LP didn’t do me right on the first go-round, but it didn’t. Now only mere seconds into the incredible side-long track “Sun Sun” and it’s careful with that axe, Eugene. Steve Hall is the guy behind this one – I did some research and realized that one of the all-time great mp3 blogs, CRUD CRUD, already posted (and subsequently deleted) this track in 2007.

His write-up – which swipes from Tom Lax’s write-up – tells the tale better than I ever could:

“Among DIY psych & private press enthusiasts, The Afflicted Man (AKA Steve Hall) is pretty legendary. To the uninitiated, his is just a name. Maybe you might read a reference to it, some review by the Bull Tongue duo name drops Steve Hall or you see an Afflicted Man comparison in a Forced Exposure listing. You note the name and keep going. But, if you are like me, it is a name you never encounter in the record bin, because, hell, this shit is impossible to find. Even rabid music freaks are eluded by gems like Get Stoned Ezy. Too bad, because this stuff is dynamite. Grenchingly rabid guitar fuzz squall is what High Speed & the Afflicted Man is all about, perfect for the High Rise/Mainliner/Monoshock set. So what is the background on The Afflicted Man. I'll let my friend and colleague Roland Woodbe tell you. This from The Siltblog:

Afflicted Man (or Afflicted) was the charming moniker of a Londoner by the name've Steve Hall. Up to this outing, Afflicted Man's style could best described at stock-in-trade Brit DIY w/an almost Street Level sort've quality to it. Then at some point Hall lost the Afflicted tag & went on to the Accursed, which was a decidedly Nation Front styled punk trio who knocked out (at least) 2 lp's. And somewhere between that transformation came this amazing anomaly. Too freaked out for punks, too punked out for freaks, 'Get Stoned Ezy' is a bloodbath of pedal stomping carnage. Recorded & (originally) released in 1982, it must've felt like a rusty safety pin stuck straight through the heart of whatever DIY fanbase Hall had acquired. And for all the Pink Fairies or Hawkwind type's that mighta come across it, it was too primitive & animalistic for their quid. And forget about the psych & prog clowns. To them this must've seemed like a soundtrack to the Manson Family. In a country where the pigeonhole is everything, this record wouldn't play by the rules, was deemed "esoteric" & banished into the fog. See ya!"

Love it. “A bloodbath of pedal stomping carnage”. That tells you everything you need to know, sports fans – that and downloading the track below.

Play High Speed & The Afflicted Man, “Sun Sun”

Download HIGH SPEED & THE AFFLICTED MAN – “Sun Sun” (from 1982 “Get Stoned EZY” LP)

THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON SCRITTI POLITTI

2009-06-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was exposed to the compleat early works of England’s late 70s/early 80s DIY critics' fave SCRITTI POLITTI as those “Messthetics” compilations started coming out. Oh, you mean that horrible mid-80s “new wave/disco” group? Yes, the very same. As it turns out – and I did actually know this already, but am pretending it’s a new discovery – the band started life as arty, highbrow intellectual class warriors with a feisty independent and DIY ethos before drifting into a “moderne rock of the 80s” mode.

Taken as a whole, their pre-1983 work is a mixed bag, but man, there are some really fantastic standout moments in their track record that I’ll rank up with the giants of shambling, post-punk independent rock music. And the thing is that these are definitely not grabbers, if you know what I’m saying. Even their best songs from their first single from 1978 (posted today) – “Is and Ought The Western World”, for instance, or that same EP’s A-side “Skank Bloc Bologna”, had to be spun repeatedly before their brilliance and sardonic charm sank in (I’ve known “Skank” for probably 25 years now due to its inclusion on the classic Rough Trade anthology “Wanna Buy a Bridge?”, but only after repeated recent listening did I remember enough to have the riff stuck in my head).

What’s generated any recent interest at all in SCRITTI POLITTI – aside from the fact that elements of the band are still performing under that name – is this relatively recent article on them in Perfect Sound Forever, and more importantly, the inclusion of two early tracks (“Is and Ought…” and “Messthetics”) in Chuck Warner’s Hyped2Death label series dubbed, that’s right, Messthetics. Their earliest records – the aforementioned 1978 debut, the two John Peel sessions EPs and the loose and experimental “Four A Sides” EP – are quirkily exotic and complex, like fellow travelers The Homosexuals or Beyond The Implode. There's also a real feel that this is a band who understands the vagueries of creating difficult rock music that transgresses the era and will stand the test of time, a la the SWELL MAPS, who were met with only slightly less critical and more popular acclaim than Scritti Politti in their earliest years. I’ll even put in for their 1981 pure pop single “The Sweetest Girl”, which I remember had the NME and Melody Maker critics raving, and which has some very Roxy Music-like shifts in tone and even some cool hypnotic dub elements, but after that it was clean synths, black female backing vocalists, and several UK chart hits. Actually, I take it back – after an awful 1982 white boy soul 45 called “Faithless”, they bounced back briefly with a loping and clever Jamaican-influnced pop record called “Asylums In Jerusalem” (that I only this week remembered that I had owned in high school in 1982!) before heading the way of their new brethren Spandau Ballet and the Human League and what have you.

That early stuff is worth exploring if you can seek it out, and if you're still interested, check out this "labour" of love from a dedicated fan, who has transcribed and archived every article he/she could find on the band.

Play Scritti Politti, “Is and Ought The Western World”

Download SCRITTI POLITTI – “Skank Bloc Bologna” (A-side of 1978 single)
Download SCRITTI POLITTI – “Is and Ought The Western World” (B-side)
Download SCRITTI POLITTI – “28/8/78” (B-side)

BEFOUR THREE O’CLOCK – SALVATION ARMY 45

2009-06-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

(Note - this is a re-post from last year. The songs were taken down by the previous hosting provider; thought you might want to scoop them up & read my tale as well)

Like a lot of teenagers, I had my share of angst-filled difficult years. Growing up in San Jose, California during the early 80s, and going to what could ungenerously be called a “burnout junior high school” (see another post I did on this here), there were a couple years there where I felt, um, kind of alone, or at least pretty much divorced from my peers. We’re talking Ages 13, 14, 15 – grades 8, 9, and 10 – and the years 1980-83. Perhaps not coincidentally, these were the years when I threw myself in completely and totally into rock and roll; more specifically, punk, new wave and American/UK post-punk indie music. Whatever it was we called it then, that was what I liked. I bought all the English papers (Melody Maker, NME, Sounds) when I could find them; I took monthly pilgrimages to the amazing record stores of Berkeley, CA; I listened to college radio something like 6-8 hours a day, and I even subscribed to TROUSER PRESS magazine. Once a mag that focused on British bands of the punk/pub rock/hard rock variety, Trouser Press toward the end got very new wave, and was sort of a hybrid American college rock / “Rock of the 80s” magazine toward its end. They had a small piece on Los Angeles "paisley underground" band THE THREE O'CLOCK around 1982 that struck a chord with me, all due to one quote. "We make music for kids who don't have any friends". I hear ya, brothers! I went out and bought their "Baroque Hoedown" EP posthaste, sound unheard (I thought that whole paisley underground thing was the sh*t for about five minutes).

Well, turns out I found some friends soon enough, and as it turns out a lot of that THREE O'CLOCK material was too weak for words, but there were a few numbers that were bouncy, fake-English-accented soda-pop psychedelia. Who doesn't dig their cover of THE EASYBEATS' "Sorry"? Or even their smash alternative nation hit "Jet Fighter"? Once I got to college I learned a little more. Turned out the band actually was a ripping, punk rock version of a psych band called the SALVATION ARMY in their early days, and they actually had released a 45 called "Mind Gardens / Happen Happened" on Mike Watt's New Alliance Records in '81! Son of a bitch! I was just then getting way into all that New Alliance/New Underground/SST stuff, and though it seemed sort of incongruous for me (still does), once I heard it on an LP called "Befour Three O'Clock: Happen Happened", I was floored. What a great 45! Though you might have a good laff at the psych-by-numbers song titles, listen to this record - it's fantastic. Again, from 1981 - band changed their name the next year, and started making music for teenagers without friends from suburban rock-n-roll hesher towns like mine.

Play Salvation Army, "Mind Gardens"

Download THE SALVATION ARMY - "Mind Gardens" (A-side)
Download THE SALVATION ARMY - "Happen Happened" (B-side)

ACTION SWINGERS: STUPIDO IGNORAMOUS ROCK

2009-06-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

Once you’ve gladly and willingly zapped a few brain cells, it’s not hard to give yourself totally and completely to the utterly destroying riff that underlies this 1990 single from the ACTION SWINGERS. “Bum My Trip” was such a revelation when it came out, hot on the heels of similar releases by bands like Pussy Galore, the Honeymoon Killers, Union Carbide Productions and the like. Totally dumb, totally mindless rawk and roll from a New York-based, revolving-door band who never even touched the limited greatness of this one song, not even on their debut record’s B-side.

The band was essentially vocalist/guitarist Ned Hayden and whomever he could get to play with him. Luckily for him that often included Julia Cafritz and Bob Bert from Pussy Galore, and at other times included J. Mascis, Don Fleming and other leading lights from the scumrock & indierock nexus. I remember a lot of noise and excitement about “Bum My Trip” when it came out, and the 45 definitely made its way to a lot of mix tapes I was mixmastering at the time. I never again heard a track by them that could touch this circuit-blowing powerhouse. Please enjoy it responsibly this weekend.

Play Action Swingers, “Bum My Trip”

Download THE ACTION SWINGERS – “Bum My Trip” (A-side of 45)

ATTENTION ALL YOU HUMANS: WEIRDOS BOOTLEG (1977 REHEARSALS)

2009-06-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

My friend JB was really big on going to record swaps and scooping up CD-Rs of Masque-era Los Angeles punk bands a few years ago. As it so happens, this period and scene of music (Los Angeles 1977-82) happens to be about my favorite music ever created anywhere. So naturally when a CD burner came with my then-new computer, I was all over his collection of LA punk stuff like the proverbial white on rice. Back in 2004, on my old blog Agony Shorthand, I reviewed this amazing disc he let me burn that had some SCREAMERS ’78 live stuff (from The Masque, of course) and an incredible set of WEIRDOS rehearsals and/or demos. I’m still a little lukewarm on the Screamers in general, but my rabid enthusiasm for all late 70s WEIRDOS stuff – especially the first two 45s - is unflagging.

Here’s what I had to say about this bootleg back then:

“….Ahh, the Weirdos. Now we’re talking. What a powerhouse. Listening to this helped me realize (again) that in their earliest incarnation, they were easily one of the top 10 punk rock bands ever, right up there with fellow Californians CRIME and THE BAGS, and often surpassed both for sheer wall-to-wall sonic roar. Unlike a Screamers’ performance, which appeared to be more akin to a lecture or an art opening, the Weirdos were all about fun, just letting it rip and maximizing audience enjoyment (and I’ve seen the videos to prove it, and saw the band in 1985 on their first of many reunion showcases). Some of this sounds like the same practice tapes that led to the posthumous bootleg “Ranting in a Rubber Room” double-7”, but I could be wrong – nevertheless, every song is gold. “Message from the Underworld”, “Neutron Bomb”, “Teenage”, “Do The Dance” and this incredible start-stop number (really fast and short) that I don’t know the name of (my research assistant believes it may be called “Scream Baby Scream”). The recordings are raw and unkempt, just the way you like ‘em, but mixed loud and in the red…..”

I thought about sharing them with you, in the interest of being a good musical citizen and all. All song titles are within the .zip file itself. Thanks again to superstar record swapper JB and his golden collection of Masque-era bootlegs.

Download THE WEIRDOS – “REHEARSAL/DEMOS 1977” (this is a .zip file)

I’VE GOT A YEN FOR THE GIRLS

2009-06-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a total full-blown sucker for the large hooks, gum-smacking vocals and general bouncy feel of 1960s girl group music. The trashier and more “teen”-sounding, the better. I have a pretty good digital selection of this stuff, and I don’t post enough of it on this blog. I want each of you to become a fiend for this stuff the way I am – and I suspect that there’s still a few great reissued 60s girl group songs out there. There are so many compilations in the racks, some of dubious origin, and yeah, I’ve bought a lot of them. They almost always contain two or three mindblowers, and 28 boring toss-offs. I’m going to start posting some of the mindblowers for you here.

One of my all-time favorite girl songs is “Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard” by DIANE RAY. It first reached my ears on the Boyd Rice-curated "Music For Pussycats" compilation, and I've since found the song on at least two other CD collections - so it's out there if you need it. Or just download it here – but no matter how you come to it, it’s a glorious slice of total teen trash. My other selection today is not quite as buoyant, but arguably as good. I love the mournful “It Hurts To Be Sixteen” by ANDREA CARROLL – the backing rat-a-tang, rat-a-tang, too-tang too-tang really says it all about not growing up fast enough, doesn’t it? Enjoy these tracks – more are coming.

Play Diane Ray, “Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard”

Download DIANE RAY – “Please Don’t Talk To The Lifeguard”
Download ANDREA CARROLL – “It Hurts To Be Sixteen”

GIRLS AT OUR BEST!: “GETTING NOWHERE FAST” 45

2009-06-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

(Re-post of this fantastic 1980 UK post-punk masterpiece which has gone criminally unheard)

I have only known the brilliance of this 1980 British punk song for about six years now, having heard this for the first time fairly recently, but damn if “Getting Nowhere Fast” isn’t one of the classic songs of that or any other era. GIRLS AT OUR BEST! have a terrific fan site that is located here; I myself wrote a thing about them in 2003 right about here.

As I said then, “’Getting Nowhere Fast’, from their 1980 debut 45, is one of those face-slapping moments any music obsessive lives for - a fantastic, classic, top-tier rock and roll song that I’d never heard before, at a time when sometimes I snobbishly think I’ve heard everything brilliant this era had to offer. Picture a driving, snotty, femme-voxed cross between “Pretty Vacant” and “Suspect Device”; “Getting Nowhere Fast” is easily as good and catchy as both.....”. Alas, beyond this record’s outstanding Siouxsie and the Banshees-esque B-side “Warm Girls”, the band never duplicated their feats here, but I could play this song on endless repeat for at least a couple of hours – what about you?

Play Girls At Our Best!, "Getting Nowhere Fast"

Download GIRLS AT OUR BEST! – “Getting Nowhere Fast” (A-side of debut 45)
Download GIRLS AT OUR BEST! - "Warm Girls" (B-side)

SLOTH - SLEAZOID ROCK FROM THE GLAM/GRUNGE ERA

2009-06-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

(Note - this is a re-post from a couple years ago)

A few years ago I picked up a book about a late 1980s San Francisco club called THE CHATTERBOX that I used to go to when I was underage. I wrote a piece about it for my old blog Agony Shorthand – check it out by clicking here. The funny thing about it was just how long-past that era seems now. “Long-haired punk”, or glammy, grungy metal/punk, or even speed metal are all totally antiquated forms of rock and roll, but in the Chatterbox era, man that was IT. Those were the bands the Chatterbox made their stock in trade – bands that wore scarves, bands that didn’t bathe, bands that drank way too much, bands with tire tracks on their arms, bands that held up JOHNNY THUNDERS as a patron saint, and even East Coast bands like SLOTH.

I saw SLOTH at the Chatterbox, actually. I had purchased their 45 “Fetch The Wedge/Miss Sleazy Underbelly” on a recommendation alone (this was before Soulseek and mp3 blogs, kids!) and dug it a lot, and they stumbled into town not long after that. I don’t think they wore any scarves – they were more like a bunch of dirty pizza delivery guys with long hair and t-shirts kicking out the motor city jams. Tons of attitude and west coast dissin’, but all in good fun. At least two guitarists – maybe three? Listen to this 45 and you’ll hear THE HEARTBREAKERS, STOOGES, STONES and all the hesher heroes of long-haired punks everywhere. Great record, way OOP as they say.

Play Sloth, "Fetch The Wedge"

Download SLOTH – “Fetch The Wedge” (A-side)
Download SLOTH - "Miss Sleazy Underbelly" (B-side)

PSYCHEDELICO ULTIMA #2

2009-05-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

(This is another re-post from early 2008, with the Knights Bridge track replacing a previous one I posted from WATERS - I'll work on some original stuff next week)

As I was in the process of putting together my own personal CD-R of “outrageous”, “acid-drenched”, “deadly”, “lethal” 60s psychedelic rock, I decided to share some of my better mp3s with the world at large last April, calling it “Psychedelico Ultima”. Nearly a year later, I’ve found three more mp3s that I think you might wanna hear.

SCORPIO TUBE, whom I know nor can find a thing about, are about as “lysergic” as this music gets – whatever that means, right? A total riff-heavy, fuzzed-out gem that treads on MC5 territory and just screams. Right up there with “On The Road South” by THE STEREO SHOESTRING for sheer wah-wah bigmuff action. "Make Me Some Love" by Texas' KNIGHTS BRIDGE is a deservedly well-loved classic, about as "pop" as super-heavy psych-damaged guitar rock gets. THE LIBERTY BELL were a Corpus Christie, TX psych band from the latter part of the sixties – something about Texas and the sound of wild guitar during this era – it’s a conundrum, but one we’re happy to have.

Play Scorpio Tube, "Yellow Listen"

Download SCORPIO TUBE – “Yellow Listen”
Download KNIGHTS BRIDGE - "Make Me Some Love"
Download THE LIBERTY BELL – “Reality is the Only Answer”

PSYCHEDELICO ULTIMA

2009-05-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

(Note - this is a re-post from 2007 so you can download these amazing tracks again)

I make all these custom CD-R comps at home for myself, now that I’m commuting again and need new music in the car, and blank CDs are rapidly approaching a price point that enables them to be easily disposed of. In other words, at roughly 10 cents a pop, I can start making a CD, lose interest, botch the whole thing, take the CD out and snap it in two (before recycling it in an eco-friendly landfill, of course), all without too much of an impact to my bottom line. Remember way back in 2000 when a CD-R, which almost always came in its own case, was like $1.50 or more? I sure do. Anyway, one CD I’m working on is a “monstrous compilation of fuzzed-out world-destroying 60s psychedelic nuggets to fry yr brain”, or something like that. I don’t yet have the 20-25 absolute face-melting, mind-expanding, acid-damaged screamers that I need, though. It’s gonna be called Psychedelico Ultima, ‘cause that sounds kind of Spanish and rad. I know what the three lead tracks are going to be, though.

First’ll be THE TWILIGHTERS’ “Nothing Can Bring Me Down” for sure. This Texas howler from 1968 is just an incredible tune, later covered as you may know by PUSSY GALORE on their live album. Right on. Next’ll be “Cuttin Grass” by the CARETAKERS OF DECEPTION. Thank you Grady Runyan! 1968 on this one – read more about it here. Finally, the wah-wah crazy “On The Road South” by THE STEREO SHOESTRING will take you into the howling, sucking void & leave you there for good. Sound fun? It is. These are the three best psychedelic rock and roll songs America ever produced. I hope you agree.

Play The Twilighters, "Nothing Can Bring Me Down"

Download THE TWILIGHTERS – “Nothing Can Bring Me Down”
Download CARETAKERS OF DECEPTION – “Cuttin’ Grass”
Download THE STEREO SHOESTRING – “On The Road South”

THE FIRST DMZ SINGLE THAT WASN’T

2009-05-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

In all of DMZ’s discography, ironically the best record of them all was a way-posthumous 1986 single that was recorded ten years earlier (1976, if you need some help counting). Until very recently I actually thought this was a re-press of a real lost 45 from this proto-punk Boston band, but no, it was just some tracks that hadn’t found their way to vinyl yet, and Telstar Records had the good sense to dig them up.

Whatever, “First Time Is The Best Time / Teenage Head” is one of my favorite singles of all time. This record is one of the premier obnoxo-punk records of any era, with some of the worst/best deflowering come-on lines ever, and a killer fake retch in the first two seconds. Absolute genius. The FLAMING GROOVIES cover on the flip is pretty hot as well.

I figured with a big three-day weekend coming here in the USA, you probably needed something nice & wild to help you through it. So here goes.

Play DMZ, “First Time Is the Best Time”

Download DMZ – “First Time is the Best Time” (A-side)
Download DMZ – “Teenage Head” (B-side)

THE CRAMPS – “ALL TORE UP” ’79 DEMOS

2009-05-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

On my previous site/blog I wrote about how THE CRAMPS were the one band who wholly changed my musical taste (which for all intents and purposes, is the same as saying they changed my life). After hearing “Garbageman” and “Goo Goo Muck” on college radio in the early 80s, and then seeing their insane stage-wrecking performance of “Tear It Up” in URGH: A MUSIC WAR, well, that did it for me – that was it, The Cramps were it, and I wanted to hear anything else I could that was this unabashedly wild and raw. I believe at one point or another in my life I’ve owned just about every pre-1985 record in their catalog, including over a dozen bootlegs, but there’s one that stands head and shoulders above the rest. Why it has not been given official release with great fanfare, and is not physically in the hands of everyone reading this, is a mystery for the ages. I wish I could say “Of course you know I’m talking about The Cramps’ 1979 Alex Chilton Ohio demos", but there’s a very good chance you’ve not heard of these, am I right? Well, all I can say is this collection of crisp, loud and extremely crazed 1979 demos blow clean away any official Cramps release, and that includes “Songs The Lord Taught Us” and “Psychedelic Jungle”. I’ve gone on record as calling it the greatest bootleg of all time, and now I’ll tell you why.

I own this collection as an LP called “All Tore Up” (pictured), but it has also been unofficially released as an LP called “Ohio Demos” and a 3x7” box set called the same thing, as well as a CD called “All Tore Up” with a different cover than the one that is pictured here. Every song is a total raw-assed blast, full of hot fuzz and ultra-reverbed chords, as well as minimalist drumming recorded so up front & alive you’ll swear that Nick Knox was an understated genius (as I do). The lineup includes what are arguably their best set of tunes not called “Human Fly” or “The Way I Walk”; they are: Teenage Werewolf/Jungle Hop/Mad Daddy/Rockin' Bones/What's Behind The Mask/Sunglasses After Dark/All Tore Up (also known as “I Can’t Hardly Stand It”)/Twist And Shout (essentially what later became “Drug Train”, but with totally different lyrics)/Uranium Rock/Subwire Desire (this was on the “Psychedelic Jungle” LP as “Under The Wires”)/Mystery Plane/T.V. Set. Everything that was great about 1950s rockabilly was vacuumed up and then owned by The Cramps, and they happened to infuse what was already a wild form with a simultaneous punk rock abandon and a sense of detached cool that made for a pretty goddamn compelling package. You’ll never hear them better than on this collection; the set that came out soon thereafter as “Songs the Lord Taught Us” sounds so thin and lifeless by comparison – and I love that record.

When Lux Interior died earlier this year, I have to be honest, it was the first time I’ve ever been seriously and truly bummed to my core about a “rock star death”. Usually these people are such an abstraction to me – paid entertainers that I’ve never known and never will know, and who usually are well past their creative powers when they expire. I try to take a pretty sober & realistic view on death in any case – after all, it afflicts 100% of the population. But Lux was different. He & Ivy were such beacons of unrefined taste, and these amazingly giving cultural pied pipers who led thousands of people to incredible cultural riches that were just out there, waiting to be heard and seen. Knowing what that sort of musical leadership meant to me, and being totally unaware that the man had health issues, I was pretty startled the night he passed away. I got all maudlin on Facebook and Twitter as I drank my sorrows away (OK, I was already drinking at a bar in Boston when I found out).

Here are the complete 1979 Ohio demos, a.k.a. the “All Tore Up” LP, zipped up into one convenient package for you.

Download THE CRAMPS – “All Tore Up” LP (zip file)

INTRODUCING....THE NOW-DEFUNCT BRISTOLS

2009-05-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a re-post from 2007, when I'd first discovered The Bristols. I'm re-posting the tracks here, because they were taken down. I've subsequently heard their entire back catalog and remain a huge fan. This band should have had a lot more supporters than it apparently did.)

"....I'd like to turn you onto an extant combo from the UK called THE BRISTOLS. Sure, I'd heard of them as well and always figured they were one of many HEADCOATS knockoffs playing marginal if catchy garage rock. (I believed this beause a Headcoat, one Bruce Brand, was also a Bristol). It was only when I was turned onto lead singer Fabienne Delsol's excellent solo spy-girl surfbeat record from this past year, "No Time For Sorrows" that I decided to dig further, and hot dog, this is probably my favorite no-longer-new band of the hour. Here, don't let me tell you about them, let's hear what their label has to say:

Fabienne Delsol & Liam Watson's garage supergroup featuring amongst its ranks Bruce Brand (Milkshakes/Headcoats), Owen Thomas (Graham Coxon Band/Cee Bee Beaumont), Parsley (The Adventures of Parsley / Dutronc / Dee Rangers), and the glorious vocal talents of Miss Fabienne Delsol. They released two full length albums on Damaged Goods and three singles.

They released their first single on Hangman's Daughter in 1994 followed by a split single with Japans Thee Michelle Gun Elephant a year later on Vinyl Japan. Then they released two singles and albums on Damaged Goods before calling it a day in 2003.

After the split Fabienne Delsol has gone solo and released one album so far, 'No Time For Sorrows' (produced by Liam Watson at Toe Rag) and is currently working on her follow up due for release in 2007.

THE BRISTOLS' music is exuberant, simple as hell, fuzzed-out and stripped-down girl pop, the kind that makes a ye ye fan like myself swoon. Check out these two killers from their back catalog, and then order yourself up the new compilation of their stuff that recently came out."

Play The Bristols, "The Way I Feel About You"

Download THE BRISTOLS - "The Way I Feel About You"

Download THE BRISTOLS - "Questions I Can't Answer"

INTO ABSURDUM WITH THE ZIP CODE RAPISTS

2009-05-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

When the inane comedy-noise-schlock duo the ZIP CODE RAPISTS started booking gigs around San Francisco around 1992, I was thankfully already a big fan of Gregg Turkington’s absurd body of work – a body that only amplified & enlarged in the years to follow. He was one of the prime movers behind “Breakfast Without Meat” fanzine in the 80s, along with Derek Bostrom from the Meat Puppets, yet he really became a personal hero of mine with the 1992 “GREAT PHONE CALLS” LP, a prank phone call album that’s still one of the all-time high-water marks for puzzling, incredibly funny misanthropy I’ve ever heard. I listened to that thing to the point where I could recite virtually every gag on it, and when I’d play it for friends, half of them just loved it, and the other half couldn’t understand why I thought it was so funny. Mind you, this was the time of “The Jerky Boys”, who were another solid (and far more popular) prank phone call outfit, but one whose jokes could be understood & appreciated by even the lowest common denominator. Turkington, on the other hand, would get on the phone with someone who barely spoke English at a Chinese restaurant, loudly request a “sausage-pepperoni-Chinese pizza”, and before they could answer, start babbling all sorts of non-sequiters: “I’m on television right now, turn to Channel 2”, followed by, “I’m lonely here, I’m dying – you got to help me here, I’m dying” etc. It was also the place that the “Neil Hamburger” character got his start. The record totally holds up. Look for it on CD.

Turkington was good friends with some folks I sorta knew in the whole WORLD OF POOH/THINKING FELLERS universe, and since I went to all those shows back then, it got out pretty quickly that he & John Singer from their previous band THE EASY GOINGS were putting together a “new thing” called the ZIP CODE RAPISTS. I went to some pretty early shows by them, and they were a total blast. Again, Turkington’s humor is “anti-”, as they say, sort of like the shtick that guys like David Cross and others would do later in the 90s, but far more uncaring & far less seeking of external validation or attention. The music, which was atrocious and pretty much a total afterthought, took a complete backstage to whatever Turkington was ranting about stream-of-consciousness style onstage, or whatever cockamamie lyrics the guy had cooked up on the spot. I saw them at the Covered Wagon early on with maybe 10 other people, and they did this song, an original called “Ranch Style Beans” – the lyrics were pretty normal at first, until they just veered out of control: “I’ve got them in my ears / Ranch style beans! / You’re all a bunch of queers! / Ranch style beans!”, and then the song just sputtered out into feedback and chaos. Then they’d do a stupid Doors cover, or some horrible analog synth thing, then a tender take on “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”, with improvisational spoken lyrics tacked on like, “He’s got the whole world / In his hands / He’s got the whole world / In his parched, bloody, fucked-up hands – and they’re covered with semen!!!”. Please download and listen to the 1993 live version of this song below – in one song, it gives you the ZCR live experience in the proverbial nutshell.

I always was bummed when the drunken audience (a drunken audience that naturally included me) would hoot so loud at the band that I couldn’t hear what Turkington was saying. If you listen to the live songs on the band’s atrocious first record, “SING AND PLAY THE THREE DOCTORS AND OTHER SONGS OF TODAY”, the crowd is totally whipped into a frenzy by the comedic shitstorm on stage. Hear the woman yelling at the band between every song? I know that voice. That is the woman who became Dame Darcy, a then-San Francisco resident, budding animator, CAROLINER member and scene denizen who added her own soundtrack to many a live show during that time. I bought that first album just because it looked so ridiculous, and outside of a couple of tracks (“Presidents Song”, which I’m posting for you today; maybe one more), I could barely get through the thing. The next two records, a 10-song 7”EP and a 12”EP, were arguably worse. Toward the end of the band’s life, they’d get on stage like the time at the Nightbreak (maybe it was called The Thirsty Swede then?) with mirrored shades on like Alan Vega & Martin Rev and just play synthesizers and moan into the microphones for 20 minutes. At least that’s how I remember it. I do know it was often painful.

Perhaps the best part was the “break up” of the ZIP CODE RAPISTS. One of the most hilarious pieces of avant-theater I’ve ever seen was their carefully-orchestrated feud, where John went and formed the pedestrian “Therapist John's Zip Code Revue” and in retaliation, Gregg formed the awful 70s boogie band “The Three Doctors Band”, and then they’d fight about who was better in the pages of fanzines. Both even recorded LPs to prove the point. (Nobody won, if you ask me). If anyone has the a scan from the issue of SNIPE HUNT magazine where they gave dueling interviews about the circumstances that led to their dissolution, because of course they weren’t on speaking terms, I’d love to see it again.

The other day I received a comprehensive overview of the band’s oeuvre in the mail, a new CD put out by Eabla Records. Loads of extra tracks and a cool booklet with lots of photos – and even a temporary tattoo! You see what happened? It got those memories just floodin’ back. Turkington now is making his mark as NEIL HAMBURGER, the worst standup comedian of all time, and he’s finally found the audience he was denied during the ZCR years. Meanwhile, you can dip into the refracted glory by listening to and/or downloading a few tracks from the CD below – and better yet, ordering the CD here.

Postscript – I’ve been corrected by both the record label and a member of the band: there were never any synthesizers or keyboards on stage during a ZCR show. I maintain that I saw them, and the whole show at the Nightbreak where they at least sort of dressed up like SUICIDE & played droning synth “music” wasn’t a complete hallucination, but I guess these guys would know better than I would. What would make me remember things so differently? Oh wait – I know.

Play The Zip Code Rapists, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”

Download THE ZIP CODE RAPISTS – “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”
Download THE ZIP CODE RAPISTS – “Darn It Duck”
Download THE ZIP CODE RAPISTS – “Presidents Song”

SHAPE-SHIFTING, EAR-SCRAPING HARMONY POP FROM THEE OH SEES

2009-05-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

So my favorite release of 2009 so far is easily “Help” by San Francisco’s THEE OH SEES. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed their previous releases, but on a track-to-track basis, this new one on In The Red is their finest collection of slippery, noisy, shape-shifting pop music. Previous stuff by them had me tagging them as a messy, harmonious 2000’s version of CAN or THE FALL, but their songwriting got kicked up a notch, and “Help” is totally playful, joyously tuneful, and yet a real stereo-wrecker on most tracks. Forget The Fall or krautrock - this has more in common with some detuned, bouncy, noisy version of Merseybeat this time. No one in the band can sing particularly well, but the vocal sum is most definitely greater than the individual parts. If you’re not singing along by the end of this LP/CD, then you’re not human, my friend.

Ever since I read an essay in the SF Bay Guardian around 2002 that effectively said that bandleader & guitarist John Dwyer walked on water and was a stone-cold, unrecognized musical genius, I’ve always kept a wary and watchful eye on the guy. I really liked about every fifth COACHWHIPS (one of his many previous bands) song, but thought the live shtick was so, you know, shticky. I wrote about them in 2005 that “…Live, the Coachwhips are all hat and no cattle, with every move choreographed to remind you what a wild fucking party you're witnessing, and how the band just "showed up" all of a sudden to set up on the floor with their broken equipment….”. Likewise, I saw his pre-OH SEES band called YIKES a couple years ago, and the posing, strutting and “guitar face” fake-grimacing was enough to send me packing to the bar for a much-deserved drink.

I hear THEE OH SEES as Dwyer’s “grown up” band. There are very few if any cringe-inducing tricks, other than an over-reliance on weirdo splice-in tape edits. The songs, as I’ve indicated, are just fantastic, and as I listened for the first time I kept waiting for one that I didn’t enjoy – and it never came. Now I haven’t said that about a new release in many a year, so odds are this is going to be the finest thing I’ve heard this annum. Now let’s see what you think.

Play Thee Oh Sees, “Rainbow”

Download THEE OH SEES – “Rainbow”
Download THEE OH SEES – “Enemy Destruct”

THE CHEATER SLICKS’ “DON’T LIKE YOU” DEMOS

2009-05-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Calling this material "bootleg" is far too generous, since I know of no format in which these recordings truly exist, outside of a tape that the CHEATER SLICKS’ label head was kind enough to make for me 15 years ago. Forgive me if I may be so bold, but I will go on record as stating that not only are the demos for the 1994 “Don’t Like You” LP the finest set of recordings ever produced by the Cheater Slicks (by a mile – and this is one of the five great rock bands of the 1990s), but it’s potentially the hottest set of uncirculated rock music recordings I’ve ever heard. At least until the “Don’t Like You” double-LP reissue comes out next year – yes, you read that correctly – with the entire set of demo recordings on one disc. I’ve been given express permission to post a couple of teaser tracks here today.

Let me provide a bit of background, at least as I understand it. In 1994, In The Red received these from the band and were targeting a release of them as the follow-up to the previous year’s destroying “Whiskey” LP. At this point the band were bar-none the most raging and hard of the class of early 90s garage punk acts – and they were light years ahead of the pack, incorporating controlled feedback, feral drum bashing, a double-play of raw, throaty, vocalists, and a demented 60s psych approach that has started to creep in and lord over the sound like an unseen, angry hand. When I heard the demos for what would (sort of) later become the “Don’t Like You” album, I was floored, and couldn’t believe they’d topped “Whiskey”, which was a near-masterpiece. This was the track listing for said tape:

1. Feel Free
2. Trouble Man
3. When She Comes
4. Wedding Song
5. Spanish Rose
6. Lost Inside
7. Sadie Mae
8. Walk Up The Street
9. Hook or Crook
10. You Ain't Good
11. Mystery Ship
12. Ghost

I played the magnetic backing off the thing, and was ready for the band’s dominance at the top of the rabid punk/psych/puke food chain, where they belonged. Unfortunately, and I could be telling this wrong so let me know, but the band got it in their head that their best set of songs ever could be improved by bringing non-producer – and then indie rock star – JON SPENCER into the studio to re-work and “produce” the album. The thinking was with the Spencer “brand” on the band, the better the chance to shift a few units and unearth a few new fans. I can’t argue with the logic, but I’ve been arguing with the results for years.

Sure, what eventually emerged as “Don’t Like You” was a great record, but I was so let down by how much they’d jettisoned – and how songs that had soared were now mucked up with tons of aural garbage & atonally weird bits that added zilch to the sound – that I refrained from playing it all that much after the first spin the month it came out. I was seriously bummed, as we say in California. I hated the one with Jon Spencer intoning in that dumb Elvis voice of his about the band over a moronic slow riff – a complete waste of LP space that would have been far better served by including the ear-destroying original version of “Sadie Mae”, for instance.

2 tracks from the sessions that produced the tapes did come out, eventually, as the – the “Walk Up The Street / Wedding Song” single on In The Red. If you’re a Cheater Slicks fan, and I know you are, then you’ll probably agree that this is one of the finest singles in their outstanding discography. I will also say that I saw the band live on this tour twice, and they were nothing short of incredible, but I have long pined for this tape to come out and bring an entire generation to its knees, 15 long years after it should have. Of all of the 20th Century's many crimes (the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, Rwanda and all that), this is the one that personally hurt me the most, and it’s a great credit to the 21st Century that In The Red are going to be rectifying the suffering next year.

Play The Cheater Slicks, “Feel Free” (demo)

Download CHEATER SLICKS – “Feel Free” (1994 demo)
Download CHEATER SLICKS – “Sadie Mae” (1994 demo)
Download CHEATER SLICKS – “Spanish Rose” (1994 demo)

BO-WEEVILS: A FORGOTTEN CLASSIC OF 1980S GARAGE

2009-05-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from 2007)

THE GORIES claimed this particular song as a big influence, and it's not hard to understand why. Total stripped-down primitivism, but with a simple, well-played melody in the background that adds some romping bounce where The Gories subtracted chords, structure and skill. These Australians continued for many years beyond this 1986 classic, but to the best of my knowledge this was the single example where they really and truly nailed it.

Play The Bo-Weevils, "That Girl"

Download THE BO-WEEVILS – “That Girl” (A-side of 45)

THE TYRADES’ RETRO PUNK BOMB

2009-05-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

There was this band THE TYRADES who were all the rage on the punk rock bulletin boards and in the all-ages coffee klatches in the first half of the 2000s, remember? Not that I necessarily read the magazine after I turned 21, but this Chicago act were the patron saints of Maximum Rock and Roll magazine and a good percentage of its followers. Putting yourself in their shoes, it’s not hard to imagine why. Rough-and-tumble female singer with a great Penelope Houston sneer? Check. Fast, tight, supercharged riffs? Check. A legion of boutique labels rushing to put out their 45s? Check. The innate ability to rhyme the words “in my veins” and “makin’ me go insane”? Absolutely! They seemed a nice throwback band, sort of late 70s in the songs they wrote, with a lot of the rawness of the early 90s garage punk acts as well.

In my early days prowling around the apparently deceased Soulseek, I noticed that someone had a folder with the complete discography of THE TYRADES, and presently, I commenced to download it. I learned a couple of things – that, no, I was not really a Tyrades fan, but that wow, when they were on, they were as fantastic as everyone was saying they were. There were two tracks that stood out for me – “Detonation”, from a 2001 single on Big Neck records, and “Former Airline”, a just about perfect cover from 2002 of a WIRE song. Let's say these two made up a single 45. That would easily be one of my favorite records of the decade, and in my imaginary world, it still is. I blasted these on the car stereo the other afternoon and remembered that I had a blog from which I share music with the people. So here you go.

Play The Tyrades, “Detonation”

Download THE TYRADES – “Detonation”
Download THE TYRADES – “Former Airline”

FLY ASHTRAY’S SECOND TESTAMENT

2009-05-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

I came into contract with FLY ASHTRAY not long after this 1990 7”EP, their second release called “Extended Outlook”, and I was hooked right away. This New York-based group existed (should I say exists) way sub-underground, and have been churning out weird, sometime heavy, psychedelic pop music for two decades & change. The band’s MO in their heyday, which I’d roughly date as the first half of the 90s, was by turns whimsically brilliant and annoyingly infantile. At its best, like on this excellent single, FLY ASHTRAY took an oblong approach to the jagged edge of loony psychedelia manifested in weirdos like Henry Cow, Slapp Happy and, at times, Captain Beefheart. They then married it to a propulsive sort of simple pop music the likes of which were best made popular by dozens of New Zealand bands in the 1980s. Their closest ideological soulmates during this early 90s period were the west coast’s THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282, at that time one of the best bands on the planet. I never did get to see Fly Ashtray play, and that bums me out.

At its worst, Fly Ashtray’s “art” was a who-cares sort of in-jokery that’s off-putting to just about everyone not in on the joke. Whimsy and silliness for the sake of same wasn’t something I felt like I needed to spend a lot of time with, and I guess I tired of the band when I grew tired of humoring their ridiculous song titles and intentionally strange in-song musical interludes. Same thing happened with me & the Thinking Fellers – I think some people call it “growing up”. As it so happens, I’m still really fond of that early stuff, and so I’d like to present the band’s second record to you today. Not too long from now I’ll re-post the third single “Soap” as well, since it was taken down by my fascistic former hosting provider along with every other pre-mid 2008 file.

Play Fly Ashtray, “Ice Cream Cone”

Download FLY ASHTRAY – “Ice Cream Cone” (A-side)
Download FLY ASHTRAY – “My Teeth are Looking at you and they are Smiling” (B-side)
Download FLY ASHTRAY – “President Stoned” (B-side, Track 2)

THE FLESH EATERS MADE A VIDEO & NO ONE TOLD ME

2009-05-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Damon H for finding this one in the bowels of YouTube – an actual promotional video for THE FLESH EATERS’ song “The Wedding Dice”, taken straight from the “Forever Came Today” album in 1982. It stars Chris D in a lead role, both as actor and singer, and unfolds pretty much like you’d expect a Chris D-scripted video might: vampires, violence, beds of roses and a burning cross. Add some awesome sleeveless vests, sleeveless shirts, a fog machine and eerie shadow effects and you have something so totally “of its age” it’s almost from another world. I’ve made tracking down Flesh Eaters ephemera from this era a personal crusade, but I had no idea they’d actually shot a video. Please enjoy.

MALFUNCTIONING ROBOT ROCK: THE BLANK-ITS

2009-04-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Take a listen to one of the most crazed rock and roll songs of the past half-decade, the 2005 track “Master Intellectual” from Seattle’s BLANK-ITS. This came out on a split 45 with a band called The Feelers, and it was immediately the most throat-grabbing slice of loud, echoey, blistering, malfunctioning robot rock of that year. I fear it will be forever lost to the sands of time should I not post it for you today. As a bonus, you’re also getting the band’s debut 45 from the same year, 2005 – “Johnny’s Tongue/I’m OK”. As I said about it and the split 45 on my then-blog:

“…Super panicky, up-tempo and razor sharp garage pop from a Seattle group who’ve come a ways since I saw them play up there a couple years ago. If Regal Select were still pumping out pressing-of-400 singles by the likes of THE NIGHTS AND DAYS and FALL-OUTS, it’s not at all a hard stretch to see the BLANK-ITS as their labelmates in slashing, well-informed & non-cliché garage moves. It’s like you either get it or you don’t, and unlike the Northwest bands who dress up in monkey suits, KISS masks or skinny ties, this crew certainly gets it. “Johnny’s Tongue” is live-from-the-basement stupito ignoramus rock, in the best sense of the term – just wind it up & let it fly fast, hard and waaay loose. “I’m OK” is like a sloppy DICKIES minus any cornball stupidity, just loud chords & solid action. Also highly recommended: their side of a split 45 with THE FEELERS; the Blank-Its' “Master Intellectual” is echoey, robots-taking-over-the-planet garage punk with phaser vocals……”

The band, who’ve been making it happen since 2003, are still around and creating dirty masterpieces for a variety of labels. Catch up with their recent stuff here.

Play The Blank-Its, “Master Intellectual”

Download THE BLANK-ITS – “Master Intellectual” (split 45 with The Feelers)

Download THE BLANK-ITS – “Johnny’s Tongue” (A-side of 2005 single)
Download THE BLANK-ITS – “I’m OK” (B-side of 2005 single)

A PLEA FOR POP

2009-04-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post from July 2008, "by request"....)

Behind my face tattoos, an obvious tough-as-nails exterior and a total punk-‘til-I-die attitude, I’m actually a sweet mewling kittycat when exceptional female-voiced pop music is put on the table. I know the good stuff is quite few & far between, and as a result, I don’t even know the first thing about seeking it out. I’m not talking about the generally mainstream stuff, it’s more like 60s-inspired and/or more thumping, vaguely garagey pop music, with big hooks & top-drawer vocals. Stuff like some of those LONG BLONDES singles from a few years ago ("Separated By Motorways" and their first 45). Those first couple LOVE IS ALL records. CAMERA OBSCURA. Stuff like the song I’m posting below, “You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve” by a UK duo called JOHNNY BOY from 2004. That year & 2005 were years in which I did my greatest digging for the very few gems that exist in this quote-unquote genre, but since then I guess I just don’t have the patience. I want it brought to me. My hunch is that there are probably a half-dozen more great songs & bands, probably in England, maybe in Sweden, and maybe even here in the US that are mining similar territory. I saw a picture of the women in THE PLASTICINES and of course that & a description of their influences piqued my interest, but once I heard it, it was off to the recycle bin if you know what I mean.

Take a listen to this incredible JOHNNY BOY track below. Who else is making music these days with these sort of giant hooks, killer production & that sort of instant-classic feel you get from the best pop songs? Anyone out there?

Play Johnny Boy, "You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve"

Download JOHNNY BOY – “You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve” (A-side of 2004 single)

THE GORLS – “BONGO BEAT”

2009-04-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

(Note - this post was originally put up here on 3-28-2007...)

One of the many bands that sprung from the genius of Seattle garage punk legend ROB VASQUEZ were THE GORLS, a short-lived combo who recorded their own 45 for Vasquez’s Dope Records and then a minimalist (both in look and feel) split 45 with FLATHEAD. I’m not sure how I stumbled across the latter in 1993, but I’m pretty sure it was a blink-and-you-missed-it affair, probably pressed around the 200 mark or so. I love everything about this Gorls track – the mushmouth, strange, seemingly improvisational vocals; the way the song revs up slowly and winds down at the same speed; and of course, that patented Vasquez guitar sound that you, me or anyone could easily pick out of police lineup of stellar axemen. If you’re wondering who this Vasquez guy is, go here, here and here, and also download his late 80s band THE NIGHTS AND DAYS’ first 45 here, and second 45 here. You can also get an early single from his early 90s band THE NIGHT KINGS here.

Play The Gorls, "Bongo Beat"

Download THE GORLS - "Bongo Beat"

ROYAL TRUX – “RED TIGER / LAW MAN”

2009-04-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

The "art" of ROYAL TRUX used to give rise to much hyperbole over their many musical journeys – back in the 1990s they were alternately outcasts, saviours, sell-outs and saints to the same talking head. Their most lavish praise, however, has generally been accorded to their work between 1988 and 1992, the bookend recording dates for this mind-bending 45. The record effectively serves as a marking point between periods, a time when the delightfully idiosyncratic duo were drifting from the drug-fueled bafflement of their double LP "Twin Infinitives" into the spaced-out but rock-structured sonic freedom of their third record. Linear thinking was only now becoming part of Royal Trux's musical vocabulary, and "Red Tiger", its actual pre-"Twin Infinitives" recording date notwithstanding, is their unequaled masterpiece.

Comparisons to past psychedelic warlords are futile, because Royal Trux were decidedly of their own time and place. As one pundit put it, "it is as if they compose their works in Esperanto". Theirs was not a universal language of the world, however; "Red Tiger" moves to a rhythm that is jagged, semi-improvisational, and yet ultimately rooted in rock. Its chorus is a distant chant, and its last minute is a slow, heavy-lidded fade into another world. One expects to flip the disc to hear a continuation, a "Red Tiger Pt. 2", but......no. For a band that until this time had eschewed cover songs, their take on Jefferson Airplane's "Law Man" is wonderfully in character. It fits in snugly with their sorta hippie-ish, sorta rebellious, we-oughta-be-busted vibe. They churn through the tune with great dual vocals (Neil Hagerty's voice was the duo's secret weapon) and a throbbing bass sound -- new equipment, new regimen, new attitude! Where they actually thenceforth traveled with that attitude is up for debate, but for a few years there Royal Trux were quite possibly among America's leading lights.

Play Royal Trux, "Red Tiger"

Download ROYAL TRUX - "Red Tiger" (A-side)

Download ROYAL TRUX - "Law Man" (B-side)

KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “36 PATRONER / SVETSAD” 45

2009-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here’s the second of the two promised KRIMINELLA GITARRER 45s, this one from 1979 – the band’s third. This one is an absolute punk rock monster, with “36 Patroner” being one of the wildest punk rock songs of any era. It’s somewhere between a raw version of sing-along British “lads’ punk” and total art-damaged spazz. I know for a fact that I’m not the first individual to post this thing on the web, but the more the friggin’ merrier, don’t you think?

Play Kriminella Gitarrer, “36 Patroner”

Download KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “36 Patroner” (A-side)
Download KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “Svetsad” (B-side)

KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “SILVIAS UNGE / HITLERS BARN”

2009-04-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I think it’s high time for anyone who’s yet to hear the early 45s from Swedish late 70s punk heroes KRIMINELLA GITARRER to get their heads expanded. I’m going to do my part by posting a couple of them, starting with their second single from 1978 – “Silvias Unge / Hitlers Barn”. I think Sweden produced some incredible, raw and experimental punk from this era, none better than this particular band. Here are a few words I wrote about them in 2006 in the course of reviewing a compilation LP….

“…First got a load of the wild, raw/fuzzed early Swedish punk band KRIMINELLA GITARRER when I mailed off the first MONOSHOCK 45, which I was fortunate enough to have been allowed to release in 1994, to Tom Lax of Siltbreeze Records. I can't remember whom he paired the x with in "Monoshock sound like a cross between x & y", maybe it was Chrome or Hawkwind or the Lemon Pipers, but I do know the y was Kriminella Gitarrer. I said "tell me more, o wise one". He told. Right around that time the band's 1977-78 tracks began showing up on collector scum punk comps, most notably those excellent "Bloodstains Across Sweden" records, and I quickly added them to my internal pantheon of the most fire-breathing, raw, devour-you-alive punk bands of all time. I resolved to tell others the news. I played KG for the Monoshock guys and they couldn't see the resemblance, but what are you gonna do, right?

Kriminella Gitarrer released three 45s that are so over-the-moon killer & slashing, you'd have to be a Mountain Goats fan to stay away -- of course I'm talking about the records with the immortal "Silvias Unge" (whoa!), "Vardad Kladsel (wow!), and my favorite, an easy candidate for Top 40 punk songs of all time, "36 Patroner". Two, the guitar on these is like a rubber band rocketing off its hinges directly to your exposed eye -- totally wobbly & weird, but run through acres of distortion pedals so the cumulative effect is muy dense, and still incredibly fast & propulsive……”

Play Kriminella Gitarrer, “Silvias Unge”

Download KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “Silvias Unge” (A-side)
Download KRIMINELLA GITARRER – “Hitlers Barn” (B-side)

SOUTH CITY'S AMBASSADORS OF DOOFUS ROCK

2009-04-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

(Note - this is a re-post of a thing I wrote last year)

THE BRENTWOODS are so undocumented on the world wide internet, that outside of a couple previous posts of my own, I can't really find anything on them beyond what I've already written. In case you're wondering about this lost mid-1990s spin-off from SUPERCHARGER and the TRASHWOMEN (two 50s-inspired garage/"oldies" groups of some renown), there's this here and this here, and not much else. 1994's "Go Little Sputnik / The South City Shingle & Shake" is absolutely par for the course for this wild, rawer-than-gravel, ear-bleeding party band. They did more to improve the image of South San Francisco, "the industrial city", than anyone before or since. Welcome to their world. Please play LOUD.

Play The Brentwoods "Go Little Sputnik"

Download THE BRENTWOODS - "Go Little Sputnik" (A-side)
Download THE BRENTWOODS = "The South City Shingle & Shake" (B-side)

THE LONG BLONDES GO NEW WAVE OR BUST

2009-04-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

(This one's being re-posted by special request from Elisa. Originally posted last August.)

Me, I like a taste of the new wave every now & again, and what better new wave record of the past five years than the debut 45 from Sheffield, England’s LONG BLONDES? “New Idols / Long Blonde” is sharp, somewhat danceable stutter-pop that plays well in both the raw DIY and “alterna-rock” ghettos, and is certainly the most low-fidelity and unpracticed of all their records. It came out in 2004 on Sheffield Phonographic Corporation in the anachronistic “vinyl 7-inch” format. I heard the band’s second (and latest) CD, “Couples”, a couple of weeks ago, and it’s almost an entirely different sound than what they were putting out 2004-06 – very mersh, very dancefloor-centric, and very, very lame. Predictable, I suppose. These pop bands don’t start raw, get less raw, and then go deep into the underground again once they taste success. Doesn’t happen. I actually saw the band live last year and swear to christ, it was one of my favorite shows I saw all year, embarrassing as it almost feels to admit. I’d have to vote for “Separated By Motorways / Big Infatuation” as their best 45, but this one’s right up there, and hasn’t been heard much to date.

Play The Long Blondes, "New Idols"

Download THE LONG BLONDES – “New Idols” (A-side)

Download THE LONG BLONDES – “Long Blonde” (B-side)

2 FROM HUMAN SWITCHBOARD’S DEBUT

2009-04-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Until this month I couldn’t really tell you a whole lot about Cleveland, Ohio’s HUMAN SWITCHBOARD, a band active from 1977-1982 who made it to the semi-major label IRS in the early 80s and floated under most folks’ radars even then. I remember getting a flexidisc of theirs in my Trouser Press subscription when I was a teenager, and “recycling” it when I found it to be middle-of-the-road new wave college rock. At least that’s what I thought then. In my head these guys & gal were lumped in with those American half-power pop, half-new wavey rock bands that got snapped up by bigger labels in the great late 70s/early 80s feeding frenzy – your Holly & The Italians, your Robin Lane & The Chartbusters type of groups. But what did I know.

Then SH emails me a link to this MIKE REP guest-hosted radio show from a station in Columbus, Ohio this past January. Rep was the special guest on PAT RADIO, and he did a set of D.I.Y. rock and roll in Ohio through the years. There were a couple of revelations for me, and I heard some amazing stuff for the very first time, including a fantastic track from the HUMAN SWITCHBOARD’s 1977 EP called “Fly-In”. This is probably the best new discovery I’ve heard in a good year – a dark, simple sort of skeletal proto-indie rock, firmly rooted in the nascent Cleveland D.I.Y. aesthetic, and something that would stand tall on any of the HOMEWORK compilations that feature “too weird for punk” obscurities from that era. Absolutely love this song, and I’m proud to unearth an mp3 copy to share with you today.

As it so happens, that whole David Thomas (Pere Ubu)-produced first EP is outstanding. There’s another total ringer on there called “San Francisco Nights” that I’d like you to hear. I can’t quite put my finger on the band they ape so successfully here; jeez, it’s on the tip of my proverbial tongue. If only they employed some more of the vocal and tempo-building mannerisms of that band, whoever they are. Maybe you can help me figure it out.

Play The Human Switchboard, “Fly-In”

Download THE HUMAN SWITCHBOARD – “Fly-In” (from 1977 debut EP)
Download THE HUMAN SWITCHBOARD – “San Francisco Nights” (from 1977 debut EP)

WORKDOGS – “FUNNY $” 45

2009-04-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on April 19th, 2007)

I once remarked in the early 90s that if I ever had to rip off the record, film and pop culture ephemera collection of one single individual, I’d have chosen Larry Hardy’s – Larry of course being the wunderkind behind IN THE RED RECORDS, for many, many years one of the world’s finest rock and roll record labels (still is to this day). I said this not because Larry’s vast holdings were necessarily more valuable than anyone else’s (of course I’d truly go into Joe Bussard’s basement first), but because he seemed to have every cool record that I wanted that had just gone out of print, and because he always seemed to get that edition-of-100 7” single that I always found out about one minute too late (from people like Larry).

Naturally it was Larry who turned me onto this 1986 scorcher from THE WORKDOGS on “King Dog Bisquet” records. This two-man, lo-fidelity, crazed blues/comedy band have played with many heavyweights over the years, but back in ’86 they were just starting to build their mythos and put their raw sounds out directly to the people. “Funny $” has a riff that will claw its way into your cranial lobes and never leave, which I assure you will be crazy-making for most folks, but me, I’m happy to have it bouncing around in there. It’s a marathon workout by “garage punk” standards, too – at least six or seven minutes, right? For fun, here’s the phonus-balonus liner notes they included with the single way back then:

The Workdogs are the hot, new blues sensation that has all of New York on it's ear. A two man rhythm unit employing the services of a third - replacable - instrumentalist, the Workdogs have cut a wide swathe across the contemporary music scene. Equally versed in rock, jazz, trash and noise as well as their acknowledged mastry of the blues idiom; the 'dogs are in high demand - not only for their legendary live performances but also as New York's premier rhythm section for hire.

In spite of the Workdogs' phenominal popularity, little is actually known about Robert "HiRex" Kennedy. His name appears on the 1980 census three times - aged twenty seven - residing in Los Angeles, New York and Helena, Arkansas. Sources in these cities describe him variously and contradictorily.

It is thought that Kennedy spent his teen years following the fabled "Dumb" John Gomer (Cosmar) who apparently was his first and only teacher. Gomer would play the blues but he would (or could) not sing them; perhaps this accounts for "hiRex's" idiosyncratic vocal techniques. Likewise his lyricism, in which verses have little logical sequence and may - as rumour has it - flow directly from his subconscious mind. Besides these many intangible nuances his work is spiked with vocal asides, topical references and other special effects that suggest the buffoonery of the Workdogs' live performance.

Of Scott Jarvis we know considerably more. Jarvis' North Carolina Piedmont background is well documented. He himself often speaks fondly of his maternal great grandfather who is still something of a Piedmont legend for his drumming at most major local sporting events - especially baseball games. This, apparently, is the inspiration for Jarvis' sobriquet: "Blind Frothin' Baseball."

Sometime during his twenties, "Frothin" became acquainted with J.F. "Peck" Curtis and subsequently taught him everything he knew: the "controlled skid", the "hesitation recovery", the "stop immediately" and the "blues waltz" to name a few. Listening to his playing, one might think that he had set out deliberately to develop a style that could never be reproduced by machine - an all too common practice at the time. in fact, first person accounts confirm Frothin' Baseball's obsessive - some say superstitious - distrust of the newfangled technology.

Perhaps this explains the Workdogs' shunning the recording studio in favor of live performance. It is said that the 'dogs will set up anywhere, anytime and do virtually anything to hold an audience's attention. Numerous stories and hundreds of "bootleg" tapes attest to this fact. Yet these two sides are currently the only Workdogs material available anywhere in print, a sorry situation that King Dog Bisquet hopes to soon rectify.

Play The Workdogs, "Funny $"

Download THE WORKDOGS – “Funny $” 45

GREEN ON RED’S SHAKY PSYCHEDELIC LA BLUES

2009-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school in the early 80s, a DJ named Ransome Youth on college radio station KFJC in the San Francisco Bay Area used to give up an hour of his slot every week to a “guest DJ”. In order to be considered, you had to submit a list of 10 songs you might play. I was 15 years old, but I knew what I had to do to get considered – pick the coolest, strangest stuff out of KFJC’s current programming lineup that I actually dug, and tell them that I’d play that. I remember leading my list off with “Aspirin” by GREEN ON RED, a wheezy, druggy psychedelic pulse-rusher from a new Los Angeles band that was getting a lot of press at the time as being part of some “paisley underground”. I got the gig, and I think my lead track actually helped out quite a bit. (For what it’s worth, other songs I remember playing were “Happy House” by Siouxsie and the Banshees, "The American" by Simple Minds and “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps). I listened to a tape of the show a while back and it’s a hoot. Nervous, jittery high-voiced fifteen-year-old rushing through his back-announce just to get off the air as soon as possible. Maybe someday I’ll post an mp3 of the thing.

That first six-song GREEN ON RED EP on Steve Wynn’s Down There records from 1982 is still my favorite record of theirs, though they had a pretty good run of drunken Americana records up into the 1990s. That first one, though, is a cool trip through a flickering, late-night Los Angeles where speed is plentiful and troubles come in bunches. Chris Cacavas’ keyboards are put way up in the mix and are just dripping with treble, and the result is that wheezy, carnival-like soporific psychedelia that stands proud to this day. I figured I’d post a couple of tracks from it, ripped straight off my 80s-vintage vinyl, so that you could hear it.

Play Green On Red, “Death and Angels”

Download GREEN ON RED – “Death and Angels”
Download GREEN ON RED – “Aspirin”

THE VIRGIN PRUNES - YES, THOSE VIRGIN PRUNES

2009-03-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

(Note - this was originally posted on Detailed Twang on 8/28/07 - I'm re-posting it because our old hosting provider took the file down).

Maybe it's old hat to you, but I just heard this 1981 EP from arty, goth, big-haired doomkings THE VIRGIN PRUNES this month, and I gotta say, one song in particular just knocked my friggin' socks off. That would be "Twenty Tens (I've Been Smoking All Night Long)", the lead song of their debut EP, the rest of which is just abominable. A stuttered, totally wacked-out PUBLIC IMAGE-esque dance macabre, with this whomping bassline & creepy-crawl guitar that's near-perfect. I remember these guys found a home in the hearts of some hardcore punk heavyweights back in the day - Jimmy Johnson at Forced Exposure & Tesco Vee of Touch and Go fanzine - and now I know why. It certainly can't be for the other stuff. The haircuts - maybe.

Play The Virgin Prunes - "Twenty Tens"

Download VIRGIN PRUNES - "Twenty Tens (I've Been Smoking All Night Long)"

FREAKWATER “YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH / WAR PIGS” 45

2009-03-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I got into FREAKWATER at the dawn of the 90s mostly because Thrill Jockey Records, then a young label helmed by my pal Bettina Richards, put out their stuff. I was slowly getting into country & western music (well no western actually, just country), and my entrée into it back then was full-throated female singers of the 60s. You know, the holy trinity: Loretta, Dolly and Tammy. Still love that stuff to this day, along with their 60s brethren Conway Twitty, Johnny Paycheck, George Jones and Merle Haggard. Though I enjoy a lot of ruff-n-ready, “outlaw” stuff, it’s the syrupy, strings-and-backing-vocals cheeseball country of the 1960s that I listen to. For example – my favorite Wanda Jackson thing I’ve ever heard is a cornball countrypolitan LP called “Cream of the Crop” that’s never been reissued.

Why am I telling you all of this? Aw hell, I don’t know. Blog posts just have a way of writing themselves, usually poorly. So anyway, around this time, 1992-93 or so, my mind was opening to country music in a big way, and that’s when Bettina turned me onto her new signing, FREAKWATER, featuring not one but two fantastic female vocalists. The sad one and the happy one! They’d just released a 45 (not on her label) called “Your Goddamn Mouth”, backed with a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”, done all country/a capella-like. I thought the B-side was pretty unamusing, but “Your Goddamn Mouth” totally slayed me. It still does. The follow-up album, the band’s third, on Thrill Jockey, “Feels Like The Third Time” (ha!), was just as good if not better, and I bought pretty much every LP or CD that came after it. Live, they were a hoot. They played a free show in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on my 40th birthday last year – uh OK, the year before – and I had to get together with my family or whatever. So I’m not sure what’s going on with them now. This 45 represents when they burned their brightest, though the rest of the discography definitely deserves some scourin’.

Play Freakwater “Your Goddamn Mouth”

Download FREAKWATER – “Your Goddamn Mouth” (A-side)
Download FREAKWATER – “War Pigs” (B-side)

THE SOFT BOYS’ SWAGGERING “ROCK AND ROLL TOILET”

2009-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

There’s no magic in this post today – no rarities, no vinyl-to-digital transfers, no 45rpm-only treats that I’m presenting to the world for the first time. Nope, it’s just one of my all-time favorite songs, “Rock and Roll Toilet” by THE SOFT BOYS. This is easily the band’s most Stones-ian, raw, snotty, punk-infused track ever, and was a cut on the 1983 album “Invisible Hits”, the band’s third. My college radio station of choice back then played this to death, along with the great “Kingdom of Love” from their previous album, and coincidentally or not, those two have fused in my brain as the band’s high-water marks.

Here’s what I wrote about this song on my old blog in 2003 after incessantly playing it one weekend:

Untold repeated spins this past weekend of my #1 favorite SOFT BOYS tune, the overlooked and underplayed “Rock and Roll Toilet”, from the "Invisible Hits" LP. If anyone not named the Glimmer Twins has written a Rolling Stones song as fine as this one, I haven’t heard it. This is first-class gutter rock, played with a cocky, bold swagger unbecoming of a band better known for psychedelic, thoroughly English eccentricities. It’s a killer. Listen closely and you can even hear the groupies mounting the tour bus in the background.

It would make me so, so happy if you’d listen to it or download it and see what I mean.

Play The Soft Boys – “Rock and Roll Toilet”

Download THE SOFT BOYS – “Rock and Roll Toilet” (from 1983 “Invisible Hits” LP)

EVERY WORD IS A PRAYER: THE FRAGILE & SPECTRAL 80s FOLK OF THE KIWI ANIMAL

2009-03-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a re-post of an unpublished piece I wrote in 2007 for a Canadian magazine called ACHE that has yet to see the light of day. With their permission, I'm posting it here. The actual written piece also will contain an interview with Julie Cooper of The Kiwi Animal).

We are currently in the midst of an extended revival and belated celebration of lost outsider folk music of the 1970s, defined by obscurity more than anything else, with simplicity & pureness of sound running a close second. Examples of said 70s folk artists include the excellent VASHTI BUNYAN, LINDA PERHACS and SIBYLLE BAIER. It may be many years before the lost acoustic children of the 1980s are accorded the same due respect, yet the magical, often experimental New Zealand duo THE KIWI ANIMAL deserve their just psychic rewards posthaste. It’s probably a decent time to be paying them as well, as there’s an oft-delayed CD retrospective set to come out “soon” – current rumors place it this year, in 2008 – on a German label called Pehr. This set encompasses both of the band’s LPs: 1984’s minimal, beautifully weird “Music Media” and the following year’s sinister, ten-song acoustic concept piece “Mercy”. Completists, of whom there will surely be more of once this music sees a wider release, will be shattered to learn that the band’s 1983 7”EP “Wartime” & assorted cassette-only live tracks won’t be on the CD, but I’m certain that this is due only to the 80-minute space limitation of the storage media itself. These fragile and wonderful sounds weren’t asked to be “file(d) under New Acoustic Music” on the back of their first album for nothing.

Let’s take a step back for a second and think about what the 80s represented in terms of New Zealand and its place in the larger world of independent rock music. This small two-island country garnered an obsessive amount of “indie cachet” during the decade – I knew of Americans at the time who would have given a left arm for the complete discography of Flying Nun records; later in the decade, the rough & homemade Xpressway label burrowed an even deeper level of allegiance to the country and its seemingly endless supply of strange & unique bands.

A partial role call would include larger acts like THE CLEAN, THE CHILLS and THE VERLAINES – all pretty much on the fuzzed-out, alterna-pop side of the spectrum – to more difficult-to-peg acts ranging from all of BILL DIREEN’s projects to THE GORDONS, THE BATS and even smaller-scale bedroom geniuses like SHOES THIS HIGH, SCORCHED EARTH POLICY and MARIE & THE ATOM. This lowest level was the milieu in which The Kiwi Animal worked during their career – 1982-1986 – while still touching a fair share of their countrymen & -women thanks to a well-timed video of their lovely 1st-album track “Blue Morning”. They arose from the aforementioned Shoes This High – in a matter of speaking. Brent Hayward, one half of the duo that formed the core of The Kiwi Animal, was the vocalist for that fantastic art/punk act, who left behind a criminally underpressed single that was very much akin to a spastic Pere Ubu or a de-bluesed “Safe As Milk”-era Captain Beefheart. Hayward struck out on his own, after that act imploded, and released a small handful of 45s under the appetizing moniker of SMELLY FEET; I’ve not heard them but intend to, as I’m sure you will as well.

When Hayward, then in Auckland, met theater performer and local artist-around-town Julie Cooper, a bond was sealed, a pact was made, and in 1982 The Kiwi Animal arose. Both played guitar, and both sang, sometimes in unison but more often taking turns or signing entirely different but complementary vocal lines at the same time. I’m unfortunately unable to comment on the band’s work the first eighteen months of their existence, having mistakenly spent my time in America as a teenager during those years, while also not having sufficient current adulthood resources to procure a copy of their debut single “Wartime”. But here’s what Gregor Kessler wrote about it online (see the bottom of this article on how to access this piece on the “internet”):

“….their first output, the purely acoustic Wartime five-track 7" EP, released on their Brent and Julie Records label, oscillated between near-classic minor-key folk territory (in the achingly beautiful "Flying (Again!)" or the sinister "Back to the Moon" which, in all its purity, gains a menacing touch through the floating chord changes that convert dissonance into sinister hypnosis) and Smelly Feet-like sparse and angular song sketches like "Private Stanley." Julie’s input and especially her crystal-clear voice had added a breathtaking gentleness, and at the same time intensity, to Brent’s formerly often harsh musical ventures. The combination of their voices and guitars in songs such as "Jokers & Clownes" make the back of your neck tingle time and again…..”

I can imagine, because that’s what happened to me the first time I heard their debut album “Music Media” a couple of years ago. I immediately decided I needed to spread the word about their majesty, in hopes that others could approximate the same sensations. This twelve-song set could be easily, and somewhat mistakenly, summarized as a lovely acoustic folk record with a not-too-well-hidden experimental streak. The strange echoes, baroque instrumentation and the uplifting, pitch-perfect clarity of Julie Cooper’s vocals have many parallels with Barbara Manning’s late 80s LP “Lately I Keep Scissors”, especially on ghostly, hypnotic tracks like “Just How Close”. Her voice has this ethereal but not corny quality that drifts way, way beyond “pretty” – it’s an accented aural massage, one that you can’t imagine ever shifting out of pitch or yelling, screaming or cursing.

When Cooper is not singing, Hayward is sing/shout/talking over their folk-cum-acoustic rock music, like on the pulse-quickening political murder tale “Assassin” or the pseudo-pornographic “Performance Peace”. The two sing together on the opening “Union Song”, which puts one in the mood for an album’s worth of reflective protest/troubadour music that never follows. These different moods slot in very well between Cooper’s more spectral (the incredible “Time of the Leaves”) and sometimes buoyant tracks (“Every Word is a Prayer”), making this a carefully crafted, multi-varied, every-track-a-winner LP, the likes of which I’m sure you’ll agree are exceptionally rare. It’s a fairly quick learn that the album is not all sweetness and light by any means – there’s a somewhat nasty undercurrent to some of the tracks, carefully camouflaged by the sparse instrumentation and lovely vocals. Something sinister and jarring is hiding within the grooves, only peeking its head out in strange couplets about stiff penises, government cover-ups and tired, frustrated clock-punchers.

This darker undercurrent comes full circle on 1985’s “Mercy”, a record almost completely taken over vocally by Hayward, though still very much a Cooper/Hayward production. Patrick Waller, who played a bit of viola and cello on the first album, is also given equal billing on this one as being a full-fledged member of The Kiwi Animal, and he plays on nearly all of the tracks. It is a record that perhaps lacks the instant gratification and classic status of “Music Media”, but its rewards are returned in proverbial spades with repeated listens. Only one track truly sounds like something that could be plopped back onto “Music Media”, and that’s the opening “Flesh and Time”, perhaps not coincidentally only one of two songs that feature Brent & Julie and no one else. The experimental nature of this LP at times reminds me of soundtrack work rather than out-and-out folk music. I hear the sorts of sounds in “Conversation Piece” and its companion “Fag Piece” that could have scored bleak, wintry tales like those in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s incredible 10-part “Decalogue”. Haywood works some anger loose into these songs, some of which appears to be remotely political in nature, and yet it’s a sort of gently seething anger, on a slow boil rather than a big bang of released tension. As mentioned previously, one also gets the feeling that there might have even been a “concept” at play behind the record, but it’s certainly not easy to put a finger on. Pluck just about any single track from the record and you’re left with stark, minimalist folk music, full of warmth & depth, and bursting with strange & wonderful feelings of all kinds. Peter, Paul & Mary this most definitely ain’t. I can only hope that when the 80s folk revival steamrolls through your town in a few years, you’ll remember to give your thanks & prayers for the glories of The Kiwi Animal, and tell that bandwagon that they arrived just a little too late at your house.

** Much – no, check that – all of the “history” portion of this article was swiped from a great online piece/interview on & with Brent & Julie, written by one Gregor Kessler, who appears to be one of the folks behind the upcoming CD reissue. You can find said piece by typing the following into your browser window: www.pehrlabel.com/kiwianimal/index.htm .

Tracks from "Music Media" LP

Play The Kiwi Animal, "Time of the Leaves"

Download THE KIWI ANIMAL - "Time of the Leaves"
Download THE KIWI ANIMAL - "Assassin"
Download THE KIWI ANIMAL - "Blue Morning"
Download THE KIWI ANIMAL - "Just How Close"

GIBSON BROS - "MY HUCKLEBERRY FRIEND" 45

2009-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Our final post this week during "Detailed Twang Gibson Bros mania" is this 1991 single that came out on a great short-lived Australian label called Giant Claw. This label also put out a fantastic Gories single, and was run by a cool fella named Bruce Milne, who might even still read this blog. If so, I think I'll use a couple of Australian phrases on him right now: "Good on ya, Bruce", and "Don't mean to piss in your pocket or anything".

Wait, where were we? Oh yeah, THE GIBSON BROS put out a rash of 45s on this time, including whoppers on Siltbreeze, Sympathy and elsewhere. "My Huckleberry Friend" has a riff I'm pretty sure you're going to recognize right away, and "Old Devil", like a lot of this band's later-period B-sides, is just strange. It wasn't too long after this that the band toured the west coast of the United States, and I got to see them play live at San Francisco's Paradise Lounge, along with about 15 other people. They were outstanding - kinda surly, kinda pissed-off, maybe a little drunk, and really raw & loud as hell. Hope you've enjoyed listening to this band this week as much as I have posting their stuff for ya.

Play The Gibson Bros, "My Huckleberry Friend"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "My Huckleberry Friend" (A-side)
Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Old Devil" (B-side)

GIBSON BROS – “EMULSIFIED / BROKE DOWN ENGINE”

2009-03-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

This 45 came out in 1991 or so after an extended “quiet period” for THE GIBSON BROS. I actually thought they’d broken up, but then this torrent of singles started flooding out, led by this excellent one on Siltbreeze. A strange and loopy take on Rex Garvin’s “Emulsified” leads off, and then on the flip is Furry Lewis’ “Broke Down Engine”, which I remember saying at the time was the absolute best thing they’d done. I know it made its way to about 100 comp tapes I made folks in the early 90s. (The other day I was wondering what I did to fill my time when I was single, childless and with an easy job. Make compilation tapes for friends and potential lovergirls, that’s what).

I also have this great photo of guitarist/singer Don Howland with a tuff “FMLN” hat on, live at the Paradise Lounge in San Francisco, 1991. Photo courtesy of Nicole Penegor, the staff photographer on my own SUPERDOPE fanzine back then. Enjoy.

Play The Gibson Bros “Broke Down Engine”

Download THE GIBSON BROS – “Emulsified” (A-side)
Download THE GIBSON BROS – “Broke Down Engine” (B-side)

GIBSON BROS – “KEEPERS” EP

2009-03-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a re-post that we originally published on 11/2/2007).

I credit the GIBSON BROS for being my entrée into the world of pre-WWII blues and early country, and they hit me with a wallop when I heard their debut album around 1988. They arrived in 1986-87 at the height of indie rock’s fascination with noise, “scumrock” and SST/Homestead/Touch & Go heavy punk rock. Somehow this roots-reverent band was quickly grasped to the bosom of budding - mostly east coast - scenesters , likely due to their '86 debut 7” EP “Keepers” , which we’re posting for you today, and their '87 LP “Big Pine Boogie”’s loose-limbed Cramps-style primitivism and heavily reverbed, cranked-up guitars. The records have been seemingly lost to time, and criminally remain out of print and unavailable on CD. Their sound had a fantastic front porch feel to it, like no one’s taking the whole thing particularly seriously, and there’s a big bucket of beers beckoning nearby for consumption when the set’s wrapped up. Guitarists Don Howland, Jeff Evans and Dan Dow and drummer Ellen Hoover took their cues from the pantheon of rough-hewn American genius, from shambling Bo Diddley thumping, deep-South country a la Charlie Feathers, and pre-WWII delta blues giants like Skip James and Charley Patton. Trouser Press generously called it “intentional amateurism”, which perhaps bestows musical abilities on the band they hadn’t yet earned. But you won’t care.

Play The Gibson Bros "My Young Life"

Download THE GIBSON BROS – “My Young Life” (Side A)

Download THE GIBSON BROS – “Parchman Farm” (Side B)

Download THE GIBSON BROS – “Dirt” (Side B)

IT'S GIBSON BROS WEEK @ THE 'TWANG

2009-03-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've decided that this week we're going to present a handful of the early 45s from Columbus. Ohio's GIBSON BROS, a band that I credit more than any other with introducing me to the scuzzed-out delta blues of the 1920s and 30s, as well as the one that helped me appreciate, admire and celebrate the slapdash, one-take, who-the-fuck-cares ethos inherent in so much of the rock and roll I love today. These records are really hard to find, and I get the feeling that most folks today don't know how great or revered by record dorks the GIBSON BROS were in their time.

I bought the band's "Big Pine Boogie" LP in 1987 - I can't remember why; I'm guessing because I'd read somewhere that it was a raw, feedback-drenched country/blues record on Homestead - and it opened up all sorts of new worlds for me. The record, and those that came before and after it, was this righteous blend of cornpone, nearly-comedic hucksterism and this great, loose-limbed approximation of some killer 1951 radio station from the deep, deep American South. I love every song on it to this day, and from around 1987 to about 1993, there were a bunch of us who were deeply indebteded to and huge boosters of this band, & talked 'em up every chance we got.

So let me take it from the top. First, I have an apology of sorts to make. I sold most of my 45s earlier in this decade in what's now known in the Hinman house as "the great purge", which proceeded after I had digitized each of them. I needed some cash to buy an ipod or some beer or something. What I could not have forseen back then was that I might want to scan the covers of these 45s on my 2009 mp3 blog Detailed Twang, so that readers might then be able to "envision" the 45s that they were listening to on their computers. Because nobody else on the Interweb has scanned the single I'm posting for you today, you're going to have to make do with a 1992 promo photo of the band, which only includes two members (Don Howland & Jeff Evans) who were in the same 1985 band that actually made these recordings.

The 45rpm EP I'm posting for you today is called "Southbound". Though the recordings are from 1985, and originally came out on a great cassette on Mike Rep's Old Age/No Age label called "Build A Raft , this "Southbound" EP came out on German label Glitterhouse in the early 90s. They culled 5 humdingers from the tape (including great Charley Patton & Charlie Feathers reinterpretations) and presented it to a mostly uncaring public, and after I bought the thing I maybe saw it once again. "OOP", as they say. I hope you like it. We'll have more GIBSON BROS later in the week, so click on back here now, ya hear?

Play The Gibson Bros, "Big Pine Boogie"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Big Pine Boogie"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Arkansas"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Mississippi Boll Weevil"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Southbound (Intro)"

Download THE GIBSON BROS - "Tongue-Tied Jill"

THE BANGS - "GETTING OUT OF HAND" 45 (1981)

2009-03-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Note - this post originally from 9/10/2007, which I'm re-doing now so those of you who missed the tracks can get them again, is easily the most popular post in the history of this blog. I've had mulitple requests to re-post these songs. I'm also adding the super-rare "No Mag Commercial" as a bonus; thanks very much to Leah for sending it....!)

Totally have appreciated the seething scorn heaped upon me every time I mention my love for the first couple of BANGLES releases. It certainly makes it all worth it, doesn't it? Well in high school I got really into that first EP of theirs on IRS (recorded when they were still called THE BANGS), and I still believe every track on it to be fantastic 60s fuzz/jangle with harmonies to die for, including their outstanding cover of New Zealand 60s punkers THE LA-DE-DAS ("How Is The Air Up There").

When their real first album came out, of course it was a total slide down the dumper, and after that into the realm of the unmentionable. I've told this story before on other blogs, but I've got a pal who claims he saw the very early Bangs totally blow away BLACK FLAG and RED CROSS at the Cathay De Grande in LA around 1981; four mildly scared, miniskirted young women who decided to play their bouncy 60s pop at lightning speed to the assembled meathead multitude, and won at least one new fan in the process.

So I got to college and had this clued-in next door neighboor in the dorms, and he had that first BANGS single, the one I'd never heard. Totally dug it, and still do. "Getting Out Of Hand / Call On Me", from 1981 on Downkiddie Records, apparently got a smidgen of local airplay, but was really only one of dozens of cool Los Angeles records coming out at the time. Because of their sixties leanings, these ladies got lumped in the with "paisley underground" of the Three O'Clock, Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade et al. I guess that's fair, but they exited the paisley ghetto just about as fast as they could, and their bank accounts are undoubtedly still thanking them. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do - c'mon, it's OK to fess up.

Play The Bangs, "Getting Out of Hand"

Download THE BANGS - "Getting Out of Hand" (Side A)
Download THE BANGS - "Call On Me" (Side B)

As a bonus, I'm also including a very early send-up The Bangs did of "Getting Out of Hand" for the Los Angeles art/punk magazine NO MAG in 1981. The magazine was great and incredibly un-PC; each issue filled in every random spot in the layout with scary pictures of mentally retarded individuals. It was comped on the first "Radio Tokyo Tapes" LP the next year. Again, thanks to Leah for sending this track along to us here at the 'Twang.

Download THE BANGS - "No Mag Commercial"

NIGHT KINGS “BUM / AIN’T NO FUN” 45

2009-03-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was already a big NIGHT KINGS fan when this single arrived in the mailbox from IN THE RED in 1992, but whoa…..this might be my favorite thing they did outside of their lone LP, “Increasing Our High”. I’ve written so much about Rob Vasquez and his bands, including this one, over the years that I’ll spare you another re-hash on why I think he’s one of the most important and underrated guitarists and songwriters ever to play simple, raw, aggressive rock and roll. Instead, you can read what I’ve written about his ouvre here, here, here, here and here. But just to fill out the post a little, here’s a smattering:

“….brings forth Link Wray’s pencil-poked amps as played through by a ham-handed SONICS. And that voice – man, what a howler. Loud, overloaded, garage scorch with no precedent and no antecedent – something pure & unique and totally wild….”

“Bum / Ain’t No Fun” came out the same year I interviewed these fellas for my then-fanzine SUPERDOPE. These poorly-scanned photos are the only NIGHT KINGS documents I could find to represent the 45; I actually sold this thing years ago once I digitized it, so I don’t even have the single anymore. Someone in Europe probably does. I know, right? But these two tracks are available nowhere else, and to the best of my knowledge, are making their first world wide web appearance right here. Prepare to be bulldozed by the sound of Vasquez’s guitar – it’s represents the most animalistic guitar screech from the early 1990’s “third wave of punk”.

Play The Night Kings “Bum”

Download THE NIGHT KINGS – “Bum” (A-side)
Download THE NIGHT KINGS – “Ain’t No Fun” (B-side)

HERE COME THE BRIDES

2009-03-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

(This is a re-post of our June 20th, 2008 post - by popular and overwhelming request)

I had a pretty sizable yen for a few of the short/fast garage-influenced punk rock bands of the mid/late 90s, most affiliated with Greg Lowery’s RIP OFF RECORDS – you know, Teengenerate, Loli & The Chones (more from them another time), Motards, Registrators, that whole crew. I simply took my brain out of its hinges, placed it upon the bar, picked up a beer, and proceeded to get down. The best of these records, I’m thinking, is the 1997 debut one-sided 45 from THE BRIDES, from Chicago. I saw these guys burn the house down at a “scene showcase” called The Rip Off Rumble in San Francisco with the Oblivians and I bunch of I-forgets….they were fantastic. Total snotty, punk-by-the-alphabet, lightning-fast rock and roll, the sort where you can’t help but want to get your shirt dirty a little bit from everyone else’s beer, sweat, and tears of joy. This single gives you an idea of how hot they were; their other two records were merely average, if that.

Play The Brides - "Pushed Around"

Download THE BRIDES – “Pushed Around”

Download THE BRIDES – “Get To You”

BREAKING THE '78 SOUND BARRIER WITH ROCKS

2009-02-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Play ROCKS - "You're So Boring"

Download ROCKS - "You're So Boring"

Download ROCKS - "Dam You"

Download ROCKS - "Chaos"

Download ROCKS - "Kick Her Out"

Download ROCKS - "Too Bad"

Download ROCKS - "Hanging On"

OUI OUI, CLOTHILDE

2009-02-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

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.