A while back I posted some files from THE KENT 3 and got some pretty good feedback from the people on them. As mentioned before, this simple spaghetti-surf/garage punk/hard rock band are one the most simple & enjoyable bands in my “collection”, a band it’d be easy to ignore yet one I listen to all the time. I’m still partial to the “Spells” and “Stories of The New West” CDs, but this EP I’m posting for you today is the one that sorta woke folks up to what a great friggin’ band they’d become. See, they had this one LP from 1994 called “Screaming Youth Fantastic” that arrived with a thud, thanks to some too-rough, tuneless vocals and pretty uninspiring songs. I forgot they were even around until some Seattle friends clued me to “KENT 3 Mach II” around 1996, telling me that they were pretty much the best band in town, having ditched the vocalist and now rocking some of the strangest, funniest most obtuse lyrics around.
I bought the six-song double 45 they put out on Super Electro records in ’96 and was hooked. Moved to Seattle myself the next year, and they became my weekend live band. Saw them at The Break Room, the Sit-n-Spin, the Crocodile and elsewhere multiple times. I’m going to warn you on something, though – the first track on this one, “Basketball Medics”, is a little wacky and perhaps too cute/clever for its own good. I’d skip straight to “Satellite” and go from there, though completists always download them all. Enjoy.
Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with all the music I’ve been posting here the past couple years. Swear to Christ they told me they were taking it all down yesterday, but this morning, Tuesday 10/28/08, you can still go ahead and download full tracks from all the 45s and compilations I’ve shared here. We’ll see how long it lasts. I’ve got a backup plan in any case. Detailed Twang will continue, and indeed, persevere. We’ll either move the new files to a new server, or we’ll just go ahead and keep using the old one, and hope that the threat of removal was a nasty, nasty dream. So there it is. (late-breaking news - I have been locked out of Box.net for new files, so this track below can be played or downloaded from DivShare).
Next up on our cavalcade of lost hits is this total smoker from LA-by-way-of-San Francisco’s U.X.A., circa 1979. This eponymous track, “U.X.A”, was one of two thumpers from Chris D.’s 1979 compilation LP of LA bands, “TOOTH AND NAIL”, certainly one of the great compilations of that and any other era, boasting contributions from THE FLESH EATERS, THE GERMS, MIDDLE CLASS, CONTROLLERS and others. UXA have mostly been a punk rock footnote from that era, and perhaps deservedly so, though if all the songs were as ripping as the one I’m posting here I suspect singer DeDe Troit would be lionized and worshipped by many a “punter”. Her/their LP “Illusions of Grandeur” from 1980 is sort of a one-note mid-tempo bummer, but I will admit that when I saw the reformed UXA live in LA at Raji’s in 1990 (only 11 years after the real deal – just like seeing a 1997 band today, right?) they were great, and played louder-faster-shorter punk rock like they were back at The Masque, right down the street. And DeDe looked great, a total hot lipsticked punk banshee snarling in everyone’s face. That’s the band I choose to remember.
So the other night I went to this Target Video Night in Berkeley were they showed old clips from “back in the day” (no UXA, though), and someone in the crowd made a comment during the Q&A that DeDe Troit “went Christian” and that everyone needed to pitch in to “deprogram” her. A bit harsh perhaps, but hey, that’s a bitter old punk for ya. Anyone know the truth of the matter? Oh, and caught up in all this conjucture I forgot to remind you for the fourth time to please take a listen to “U.X.A.” by U.X.A. below!
Play or DownloadU.X.A. – “U.X.A” (from 1979 compilation “Tooth & Nail”)
I have received word from Box.net, my mp3 hosting provider, that they’ve received multiple complaints that Detailed Twang is violating copyright by sharing some of the basement-level, pressing-of-400 punk rock, noise, and weird pop 45s we like to share here. Therefore, all of my files will be taken down by them on October 27th, 2008. Do what you need to do – there’s a lot of great music available. I started posting songs with the 1/27/07 post, and have been averaging 2 per week ever since then. I’m going to have to say goodbye for now as I figure out another way to bring you music, which typically is blessed ex-post-facto by the musical artists themselves. For any artists who’ve felt wronged by anything we’ve put up here, say the word and it will down in seconds (the sole time someone – METROPAK – complained, I had the song taken down immediately).
It’s not censorship, and it’s not something I have any right to complain about – the laws are the laws, but I reckoned we’d moved into a world where sites like mine were considered more of a flame-keeping blessing or “help” to the defunct artist than an actual hindrance to future royalties, real or imagined. As I understand it, there weren’t a lot of royalties associated with 45s by, say, the TIKI MEN, JOHANNA WENT or MONOSHOCK, to target my three most recent posts. But it is what it is. In the meantime, see you over at HEDONIST BEER JIVE and FIRST PRINCIPLES, two blogs of mine that violate no man’s laws, and perhaps only their sense of propriety.
Here’s a brief interlude into some early 80s wackness, a track called “Mosquito” by Los Angeles performance artist JOHANNA WENT that I discovered on one of the old “HOMEWORK” compilations, and which is more properly heard on Went’s 1982 EP “Hyena”. JOHANNA WENT is mostly known to me as a woman who opened some of the early punk/art shows in LA, doing strange pieces that involved music and pre-Karen Finlay stabs at attention vis-à-vis gross-out exploitation and general insanity. The photo of her with worms pouring out of her mouth and smeared all over her face is a classic image from the “HARDCORE CALIFORNIA” punk rock history, and is always the image that springs to mind with I think of the young lass. “Mosquito” is a great buzzing minute of caterwauling nonsense vocals, vaguely dub echoes and a frantic percussion that barely rides the rails until it just – poof – disappears. I don’t know if she performed stuff like this live, but I gotta say I like it. Another proof point in the case for Los Angeles 1978-82 being pretty much the greatest, most explosive & inventive scene in rock and roll history. Who’s with me?
In 1994 I learned about the low start-up & pressing costs associated with putting out 45rpm singles, then not entirely uncoincidently clogging up the bins at record stores worldwide, and being a man of limited vision - but with great imitative “follow-on” skills - I decided to start my own record label. WOMB Records is what I called it, after a derogatory but still somehow mildly comic term my insane, germ-phobic, liquid paper-huffing freshman dorm roommate had for the opposite gender. All I needed was a fantastic young band to document where I could get a jump on the competition, and thankfully that young band were good friends who lived in my town of San Francisco or across the bay in Oakland. MONOSHOCK granted Womb Records exclusive rights to their debut record, sealed over a beer (I don’t remember that actually happening, but I’m sure beer was involved somehow).
MONOSHOCK had recently reconstituted in the Bay Area after a few years in the rock and roll wilderness. They were a fantastic loud, fuzz-driven, psych-heavy “college band” circa 1988-89 in Isla Vista, CA, but in the subsequent four years had split off and lived in different locales, playing in various bands like LIQUOR BALL (Grady Runyan), EARLY MAN SITE (all of them, I think), and I forget who else. When they reformed in 1993, as great as they were before that, “in the eighties”, it was like a total 2.0 retransformation had occurred. I remember they played a party at Anthony Bedard’s house opening for Claw Hammer one Sunday afternoon, maybe their second or third gig back together, and they kicked off with a damaged sonic assault of an instrumental called “Nobody Recovery”, and my jaw hit the goddamn floor. For once, one of my friends’ bands was a real band, a band I needed to tell the world about. You know how that worked back in your twenties – you had all those "fun" bands your friends were in that you had to go see repeatedly because they were your pals, very few of whom you’d actually buy a record from or pay money to see if, say, they were from another locale. I was beside myself with how well these guys were playing & how many incredibly spaced-out & feedback-drenched monsters they were pumping out every couple of weeks around that time (1993).
So a little less than a year later, Monoshock’s “Primitive Zippo / Change That Riff / Nobody Recovery” EP became WOMB 001. The band were kind enough to let me pick the tracks to put on the record, so I picked what I thought were the three hottest from their demo at the time – and I worked closely with Rubin Fiberglass, the band’s drummer and occasional singer (lead duties on the verses of “Primitive Zippo” and all of “Change That Riff”), to choose the ridiculous bears-playing-hockey back cover and Gary Usher insert from his collection of saved images (the latter came from a high school yearbook someone found). The front cover is a painting of Fiberglass enjoying some healthy intake from a trusted friend, rendered directly from a photograph by Somis, CA renderer Craig Borrell. Lettering by Kelly Richardson. I’m reprinting all of the images – front and back cover, plus both sides of the insert, here.
The single came out in an edition of 1,000, which seemed like about 400 too many until Julian Cope went bonkers for the band a few years ago and COMETS ON FIRE started namechecking Monoshock as a major influence. I remember throwing a couple of them on eBay in the early oughts and getting zero bids; last year I plopped one of the remaining few up there and nailed $25 after a frenzied bidding war. I think the entire pressing cost $600, plus another $200 for materials – which, when you could wholesale them for $1.50 each or more, meant profit for sure if you kept your pressing at the right level. Anyway, as mentioned before, there were more than enough people putting out 45s at the time, and I figured that any truly great music would eventually get heard without me having to pay for it. WOMB only pressed one more record, and that was a co-release of the DEMOLITION DOLL RODS’ debut EP with Anthony Bedard’s PAST IT records, which we posted in mp3 form in its entirety here, and which Past It generated not one but two full represses of on their own.
MONOSHOCK went on to put out two more outstanding singles and one full-length platter called “Walk To the Fire”. Their entire remaining non-LP discography was cleaned up, remastered, and comped into a CD called “Runnin’ Backwards From The Ape-Like Superman”, which I wrote about on my old Agony Shorthand blog here. It sounds amazing, and it contains the debut EP we’re posting for you here, just cleaned up a bit. I’ll admit it sounds better on the CD, but it you like ‘em raw, here’s Monoshock’s debut EP from 1994, ripped straight from the original vinyl.
Posting the CLAW HAMMER early 1990s discography has been one of my raisons de etre, if you will, since I started putting up mp3s on this site a couple years ago. We've taken their masterwerks and unleashed them to you in order, starting with their earliest compilation tracks, into their first 45 "Poor Robert", through the second single "Sick Fish Belly Up" and up until the 3rd 45, "Candle Opera". Now we come to this Los Angeles band's fourth single, a fantastic slab of white-hot molten grease called "Brother Bricks Says" b/w "Don't Walk Away (live)". The former track showed up in a (very) slightly different version on the band's debut LP in 1990, and pretty much everyone agrees it was one of their finest scorchers, a tribute to an older and more rambunctious brother of singer/guitarist Jon Wahl's, and a track that made just about every set list back in the day.
"Don't Walk Away" is a bit of a rarity - a live song with guitarist Chris Bagarozzi pressed into rare vocal duties, and you can listen & learn as the young man screams his friggin' lungs out. Wahl comes in and rescues the proceedings about halfway through, but the aural damage has been done by that point. Seriously, this has all the hallmarks of the classic CLAW HAMMER sounds - extremely amped guitar, weird Beefheartian riffs, power chords straight off of "Kick Out The Jams" and a supreme dose of righteous boogie.
Seems every time when I buy my umpteenth 1960s girl-group LP or CD, and go through it to pick out the invariable small number of winners, I become frustrated and I go back to the compilations that got me into this sound to begin with – “EARLY GIRLS”; “WHERE THE GIRLS ARE”; “ULTRA CHICKS” etc. Even those are fully packed with duds, leading one to conclude that this vaunted boom-ch-boom, thumping aural candy was really the provenance of a very select group of producers and singers. I think it’s possible, though not likely, that I’ve already heard every great girl-group song of the 1960s. I certainly hope to stand corrected.
Want to hear two of the very best? I thought that you might. JOEY HEATHERTON was an American actress and singer that I seem to remember from really bad TV in the 1970s; her Wikipedia page seems to confirm my suspicions. However this young lass cut the ultimate big-time booming slice of sugar-coated wall of sound in “Live And Learn”, the B-side of her 1966 single, “When I Call You Baby”. This song is just about perfect…..almost as perfect as “Wishing Well” by the SHANGRI-LA’S, who need little or no introduction. I’m pretty much positive that this is the finest of many fine Shangri-La’s numbers, though I do welcome dissent. The A-side of their very first 45, released in 1964. More from other long-ago girls in the near future.
This next track came from the great “CHUNKS” compilation that LA’s New Alliance records put out in 1981, featuring The Minutemen, Black Flag, The Chiefs and a bunch of the other usual suspects in the SST/New Alliance/New Underground orbit. First time I heard this snarling VOX POP track, “You’re My Favorite”, I was all, “hey, that’s 45 GRAVE”. Well, it sort of was, given that Dinah Cancer was on vocals, Don Bolles on drums and Paul B. Cutler on guitar – just like 45 GRAVE. Jeff Dahl was also involved, and if you read this great recap of the band, you’ll get a lot more information that I could ever provide. It’s probably important to note that the band lineup was never really “fixed”, so the band that made the great “Cab Driver/Just Like Your Mom” 45, with Dahl on vocals, sounds not a whole lot like the band doing “You’re My Favorite”, outside of the vaguely metal tendencies. As you can see from the aforementioned link, there’s a spectacular 12”EP on Mystic Records (!), spectacular not because the music’s any great shakes (it’s not), but because of the audacity of the cover photo of Don Bolles dangling his participle for all the world to see. Still the last taboo when it comes to album art, and probably the one thing that pops into peoples’ heads when they think of VOX POP. I just listened to “You’re My Favorite” the other day, though, registered its rulingness, and decided that you needed to hear it. Play or DownloadVOX POP – “You’re My Favorite” (from 1981 “Chunks” compilation LP)
One of the most unhinged pieces of vinyl from the go-go early 1980s is the “Audio Suicide” EP from SHEER SMEGMA, released at the dawn of the Reagan era in 1980. I’d like to post a song from it for you here called “I Owe It To The Girls”. It’s a beautiful aural cancer, destined to drive you to drink or worse. Here’s something I wrote about the band and this song on an old blog a few years ago:
I’ve touted this ear-bleeding band of low class 1980 Florida freaks for a few years on the basis on the two trailer trash tracks of theirs I’d heard: “Club Night” and “I Owe It To The Girls”. Both came from their only EP “Audio Suicide”, a record that’s achieved semi-legendary status as one of more retarded noisy shrieks of the punk/D.I.Y. era. Very soon after its release, the band quickly switched their name to the far more refined TEDDY AND THE FRAT GIRLS (as in Florida mass murderer Ted Bundy). Danger has always lurked in my mind knowing that Jello Biafra put out the 12”EP version by the new group in 1982 (same exact songs), and now that I’ve heard the band’s dumb poop song (“Alophen Baby”) and their dumb fake-German genderbender song (“I Wanna Be a Man”), I can certainly guess which half Jello probably fell for. But those other two, the ones available on compilations (KBD #5 and one of the HOMEWORKs, respectively), are just destroyed.
If it’s true that the band were really sun-baked junkies, you’ll have no problem believing it in a country minute when you hear the gasping cries of terror and withdrawal at the end of “I Owe It To The Girls”. The woman who “sings” sounds about 16, and wise to the evil ways of the world far beyond her years. Her potty mouth and reckless disregard for taste & style is now the stuff of legend, and the music is this barely-registering herk-and-jerk minimalist guitar fuzz and bass. Totally weird and out of step with all that's right and true. Outside of maybe the first HALF JAPANESE record, I can’t think of a really good 45 that would piss off parents, neighbors and your alternajerk friends more then this one.
Subsequent to that post, my Agony Shorthand blog received this comment from one "Jonny 5":
club nite and i owe it to the girls were both written by my mom Sarah P. aka Fish who wrote for the now truly legendary Mouth Of Rat fanzine (1st of its kind in SoFla + eventual record label to beastie boys) before forming this all girl band with a 16 year old singer (bingo!) a 20+ ex-debutante turned punkette and the wife of Eat gttrst Eddie O'Brien. My uncle Mike Allen who lived next door and cleaned pools at Centuy Village w/my mom snuck them into the CenVil club house to shoot the "piano/cello stage shot... the front shot was done in our dining room with a roll of backgroud color and xeroxed at their work fer free. I was 13/14 at the time and co-wrote alophen baby and iwanna be a man with Cookie and my 7 year old sister Lona. Cookie & Spam want to Cali and sold the rights to the tapes to Jello without Fish's consent. The woman who wrote "I Owe It To The Girls" & "Club Nite" has never been addressed for her contribution to the venture... jonny 5
You know how you hear early demos of a band after you’ve heard the official versions, and they most often sound like hollow, shell versions of the song you’ve come to love? That’s why they’re demos – they’re generally forged as the band is learning to play, recorded as a way to get gigs or document existence, with little thought to making records. Often these early recordings are doled out after the fact for free to folks who’re putting out compilations, rather than recorded expressly for the compilations themselves. I’m not sure what the real story was with the LEAVING TRAINS and the “Keats Rides A Harley” compilation of LA bands in 1981, but their track “Virginia City” ended up being the most raw, frantic and alive thing they ever did.
The subsequent recording of the track on their first record blunted its sharp edges and just made it into an average keyboard punker. Likewise with a lot of the band’s material after this. Sure, I dug the Leaving Trains in college – we all did – but you couldn’t pay me to listen to “Kill Tunes” or “F*ck” all the way through now, let alone anything they did after that, when singer/leader/guitarist Falling James began prancing around in a dress and drinking/using drugs to near-oblivion. Actually I never actually saw him use mind-altering drugs, so never mind – just talked to him on at least two occasions as he licked his lips, scanned the room nervously, and spouted non-sequiters.
Anyway, this version of “Virginia City” was the LEAVING TRAINS’ first vinyl appearance, and it sounds even louder and hotter ripped straight off on my vinyl copy of “Keats” than it did on CD when the comp was digitized and released a couple of years ago. Hope you agree.
Folks, I took the last month off from blogging in this spot & filled that time talking trash on my other two blogs (links on the right), while also engaging in a deep dive into modern pop music in search of treasure. Let me tell you, you've got to wade through a lot of thick kelp to find the glittering prizes, but I think I've got a few ringers for you here that'll set your toes to tappin'. First up is a solo act from Glasglow, Scotland called BUBBLEGUM LEMONADE. Lest you think they're/he's totally telegraphing the sound with that moniker - um - aww, who am I kidding, that's exactly what it sounds like. Big beat, fuzzed-out, hook-heavy pop at the intersection of the Mary Chain, the Velvet Underground and the Shop Assistants. I think this particular track was worth taking the month off for, what do you think? They have a new EP out now, their second, and we'll let you know what we think once we get around to buying one.
So this guy Laz from Bubblegum Lemonade, turns out he's something of a renaissance man. He went and started up another band with himself, and this time added a young lady to help out with vocals, and poof: STRAWBERRY WHIPLASH. Turns out they've got an excellent EP called "Who's In Your Dreams", and that happens to the track I'm posting for you today. A little less aggro than the other "band", a bit more sweetness and light, and with whomping hooks and 60s tambourines/percussion that rattle in the head for hours. Finally, there's this track from Omaha, Nebraska's TILLY AND THE WALL. Now, I know that what little you know about these folks probably centers on the tap dancer and the attractive young twentyomethings in the band and stops there. Well, if you ask us here at Detailed Twang, their new CD "O" is the goldmine pop record of 2008. It's about the most commercial thing I've allowed myself to like since The Breeders, I'm thinking, and I'm also thinking that I'm done with thinking in those terms. You know what I mean? Good is good. I think you'll see what I mean when ya click on the link below.
Detailed Twang is going on another one of its extended hiatuses following this post. At this point, it feels like I’ve digitized and posted most of the five-star 45s, comp tracks and strange rarities in my collection that aren’t already on CD or posted elsewhere by other blogs. It only took two years of mp3-rich posts 2-4 times per week, but I’m done tapped out – or at least it feels that way. Sure, I could shift the focus here to politics or beer, but I already carry two blogs under those weighty subjects – check them out at FIRST PRINCIPLES and HEDONIST BEER JIVE if you’re interested. Thing is, I’m sure the ‘Twang will be back sooner rather than later. I’ll find some box of 45s in the garage somewhere, or gather inspiration from some musical obsession or another, and be right back in this space, ranting and spewing.
Meanwhile, let me at least take my leave with the single greatest 45rpm record of all time, 1975’s masterwerk from PERE UBU, “30 Seconds Over Tokyo / Heart of Darkness”. This is, for me, the rock and roll record to end all records. If I had to choose, I’d take the uber-masterpiece B-side as having the edge over the masterpiece A-side. I have no further comment, as none is necessary (plus, I already wrote a bunch here). Thanks, enjoy, and please work your way through the archives, as all mp3s are still live and ready for taking.
In 1988 an "indie rock" magazine much in the vein of today's MAGNET or yesteryear's PUNCTURE called REFLEX included a 6" flexidisc of a 1979 MISSION OF BURMA demo inside all copies. It was a huge surprise, given as how around that time, all the archival Mission of Burma material was spilling out onto LPs and EPs on Taang! Records, save for this one fantastic demonstration recording of one of Burma's finest songs. Nope, that was saved for a flexidisc in some crap magazine with the Cocteau Twins on the cover. Still hasn't been compiled anywhere, so I just went ahead and digitized it for you so you can add it to your collection of mp3s & such. Enjoy!
The 1990s garage punk eruption was already totally on when this thing arrived in my mitts, but it was no less of an upside-the-head wallop for its tardiness. THE MOTARDS were an Austin, TX quintet who played stupid-simple, "learning to play" rock of the highest order, and who never made one this good again (though their follow-up 45 was still pretty hot). Total gargles-with-gravel, treble-heavy, DWARVES-style room-clearing punk rock and roll. I played it over and over and over that year (what was it, 1994?), and now, fourteen years later, I’d like to provide you with the same opportunity.
From my old blog, Agony Shorthand, March 22nd 2003:
Decided to make myself a CD-R of the 1990 DUST DEVILS LP “Struggling Electric And Chemical” this afternoon, and tacked on a four-song 7”EP from the year before called “Dust Devils Is Big Leggy”. Remember this band? Always shackled by frequent, relatively accurate comparisons to Sonic Youth, the Manhattan-based Dust Devils got a bit of late-80s notoriety in Europe, released a few long-gone 12” records out there, put out the aforementioned “Struggling…” on the young Matador label (actually a co-release with Teen Beat), and then churned through a bunch of new members for a few years before packing it in (there may have been another LP in there somewhere, I don’t remember). One time on a visit to New York, I went to see them at CBGB a year after seeing them put on a great, loud-as-hell show in San Francisco with their “Struggling..” lineup of Lower East Side poster girl Jaqi on vocals & guitar, Mark Ibold (later of Pavement) on bass and Michael Duane on guitar (and oh yeah, a drummer). In New York, I walked in to find a band with a DUDE on vocals – no guitar in his hands - and Gerard Cosloy, Matador head, on bass (!). The end was definitely near.
Anyway, so how’s it hold up in 2003? Always a relevant question. Not too bad, I’d say, though this act was always pretty hit and miss. They had a knack for texturing washes of droning, ringing guitar in dense, noisy sheets very very well, and when they applied that to actual songs like “Throw The Bottleful” or “Love You Like a Rock”, it sounded pretty great. They also start the LP with an outstanding 10-minute cover of The Fall’s “Hip Priest” – a bold move that paid off handsomely. Lots of noisy, quasi-experimental filler in there as well that is produced well; that’s about the best I can say of it. I’d put them near the upper 20% of the era’s bands, and if you find a copy of this one used for under ten bucks, hey, why not give it a whirl.
A few months ago Detailed Twang published a couple round-ups of 2008’s prime movers, bands that we feel are the ones moving sub-underground & raw, weird or tuneful rock music in new directions. I guess I was pretty proud that I had 10 different examples I could call up. Now I’ve got five more. This stuff is out there & readily available if you consult the right sources, and there are all manner of gatekeepers who do the real hard work for me. I’m not scouring record stores nor online catalogs quite the way I used to, but if you follow my five-point program for aggressive music discovery, you’ll be able to dig up, download, or purchase the greatest songs of the day in a matter of minutes.
Step 1: Download DJ Rick’s “Art For Spastics” show every week. This is a treasure trove of the best noisy, strange & very limited edition rock and roll out there right now. I swear the guy buys or gets sent every 45, CD-R and tape that matters. His tastes branch a bit further out from noise, so some pop & a little garage punk leaks in as well. It’s all good. Step 2: Buy the Z-GUN print fanzine. Step 3: Read Tom Lax’s SILTBLOG. Step 4: Read the POPULATION DOUG blog. Step 5: Listen to some of the shows on WFMU and KFJC online.
No need to trawl MySpace for music, just follow this program and you too will discover gems from RTFO BANDWAGON, MI AMI, ELECTRIC BUNNIES, METH TEETH and the ESTROGEN HIGHS like I was able to (all of whom were found through one of the mechanisms discussed presently). Who are these mystery children of the oughts? RTFO BANDWAGON are a fairly recent band from Columbus, OH, and their “New Jack” 45 and “Flagships” LP are a great, home-porch hybrid of muted garage skiffle and family-band folk music. The song “New Jack” is pretty much my favorite song of the summer thusfar. San Franciscans MI AMI have brought the wide-groove, big-ass 12” single back from its 1980s deathbed, and their screaming, syncopated debut harkens back to afro-punk warlords of the Lower East Side from around the same era. I totally dig it – but make sure you leave the light on.
The ESTROGEN HIGHS are the living definition of “unassuming”, but try to keep their simple, buzzing teenage 60s trans-punk tune “She Don’t Bother” out of your head this evening. This is the second blast straight outta New Haven from these guys; see what you can do to find one. METH TEETH? Ewww. These Portland, OR titans have impressed many a man with their debut EP on Sweet Rot records, including the man sitting at my computer this very second. It’s a strange and dissonant fog of low-fidelity noise and turns wrongly taken. It feels so right, don’t you agree? Finally, mining a very similar slipshod vein as the aforementioned Estrogen Highs are Miami’s ELECTRIC BUNNIES, sporting the sort of band name so awful it’s either clueless or highly ironic. An incredibly raw, catchy and infectious tune from a band that sounds like they’re about 17 years old. Love it. I guess 2008 is a good year like all those other good years.
Man, by the time this came out I was such a gone CLAW HAMMER fan they could’ve put out a one-sided lathe cut spoken word 45 and I’d have pronounced it a masterpiece. Good thing they kept putting out stunning 7-inch singles containing rock and roll music instead. This one, their third, from mid-1989, was one of the earliest Sympathy For The Record Industry 45s, a label that at least early on shared a strong affinity for the garage-based LA blues common to bands like the Lazy Cowgirls, Crawlspace (mach 1), and Claw Hammer. CLAW HAMMER were getting a little more dirty at this point, I thought, with two mid-tempo songs and no hard chargers like the previous 45, “Sick Fish Belly Up” or “Car Down Again” from their first single. The band that recorded this one is definitely more in a BEEFHEART camp than an MC5 camp, I suppose, and more resembled the debut LP that would come in the following year - but it also could’ve just been song selection. Vocalist Jon Wahl is in top vocal caterwauling form on “Drop”, and I totally love the abrupt punch-out that ends this song. What a great band. Check out and - hey, why don’t you just go ahead and download the first single here and the second single here?
"Don't Give Any Dinner To Henry Chinaski" is hands down the best record of BILLY CHILDISH's most prolific career. I went hog wild scarfing up MIGHTY CAESARS vinyl in the late 80s/early 90s when the first Crypt best-of compilation turned me onto these guys, and at one point I think I had the entire discography before Thee Headcoats went off the deep end and tossed off onto the public every fart & titter committed to tape . This one from 1987, all 19 minutes of it, was by far the boldest and most raw thing this very bold & raw trio put to vinyl, featuring early wide-groove, near-45rpm versions of hits like "She's Just 15", "Devious Means" and "I Can Tell". This is when Childish & co. were deepest into their LINK WRAY fixation(s), so among the 10 tracks are incredible, hotwired versions of "Comanche" and "Run Chicken Run" -- the former is so booming & loud I'd venture to say I'd even take it over Link's version. Also features a thumper of a run-through of THE TROGGS' "I Want You" and several other fantastic originals that never made it to later best-of comps (to my knowledge), like "The Bay of Pigs" and my fave, "La-La, La-La, La-La-La" (easily one of the Top 3-4 Caesars tracks ever). This is a band it's not difficult to forget about sometimes, given their daunting discography and near vanishment from the historical record, but man, if someone was wise & precient enough to re-press this thing, I can think of a lot of ears that'd wanna hear it.
There was this one week around 1994 where this Arizona-based duo called DOO RAG swept into my town and pretty much owned it each & every night. Having heard their awesome debut 45, “Swampwater Mop Down / Engine Bread” on Drunken Fish, I made a date to see one of their shows – and proceeded to see them twice more that week, & interviewed them for the cover of my fanzine as well. DOO RAG mania was on. People were just dumbfounded when they saw these two fellas set up their contraptions on the floor of each club: a drummer (“Thermos”) who smacked cardboard boxes and tubs to keep the beat, and a guitarist (“Bob Log”) who played and sang out of this bizarre tuba/vaccum cleaner-like kit hooked up to pedals and mics and whatnot. I can barely remember, I was so young then.
I do know that ’94 was a good year for this band – their first three singles were all great; a furious, ultra-distorted 1920s delta blues stitched together with duct tape and baling wire, with vocals so loud and echo-laden they could’ve been in Urdu. They even put out a couple of cassettes long before there was an LP, and those made the rounds to lots of hosannas and praise. I think what we all liked about these two guys was their willingness to set up their gear anytime, anywhere – in bus shelters, on street corners, and in dark clubs filled with San Francisco hipsters. Their sound reflected that sort of bootstrapping, and they were a blast live. After a couple of years, they began to strike me more as a novelty than as a band I wanted to spend a lot of time with, and I tuned out. I believe they broke up around 1998, because I started seeing Bob Log play solo around that time, popping up on bills like at Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival, where we showed up to see HASIL ADKINS and BOB LOG III was playing instead (the Haze was sick – I never did get to see him). I spun this debut 45 again the other day, and remembered again why Doo Rag Week ’94 was so much fun. If anyone knows where Thermos is these days, please let us know.
If for some reason you haven't, I figured it's old enough (seven years!) to enshrine it here on our calvalcade of first-rate rock and roll obscurities. Until about five minutes ago I thought this was their debut single, but if you believe S-S Records' discography section (and I do), it was beat out by about five minutes by "Plastica", their almost equally-ripping debut, in 2001. (note: correct that! Min from the A-Frames has set the record straight in our comments section. This one WAS the debut.) I actually discovered the Seattle band afterward, when the debut "A-FRAMES" CD came out as a split release by S-S and Dragnet records, Dragnet being the label that put out this incredible 7"EP.
There, we got all the discographic information out of the way. Why is this 45 so goddamn amazing? Hard to say, really. It's got a raw whoosh of power that carries it proudly as one of the first examples of a semi-unique "21st century punk". It contains a tinge of the cold metal automaton schtick that they mined pretty well on other releases, but only a tinge. You might not notice it if you're not lookin' for it. Guitars are frantic and all over the place; you can imagine the band cribbing a bit from the Dangerhouse collection. This is a good thing. Above all, it's one of the rare moderne rock records that has the potential to totally floor you on first listen. I hope it works for you.
Not much tops getting your face melted off by some hot new jamz sent to you by your pals, and that’s what happened to me in 1992 when LH expressed me a cassette tape of Japan’s HIGH RISE, a trio I’d never heard nor heard of up to that point. It was a tape of their new second record, “High Rise II”, and to say I was pleased with what I heard does little justice to the emotion. I couldn’t believe how crazed the guitars sounded, how high these guys were setting a new bar for garage psychedelia, how feedback had never sounded so over-the-top before – and that was just the 1-minute opening track “Cycle Goddess”. The mystery of this band from Tokyo & their “psychedelic speed freaks” mantra was irresistible, so I got in touch w/ them & actually conducted a mail interview for my fanzine at the time. English being a second language for these fellas, the interview revealed little, but I was already hooked on as a fan for life & remain so to this day.
Still, all told, “High Rise II” remains their masterpiece. The debut record “Psychedelic Speed Freaks” was also insane & wild distortion overload, but it suffered from a SOLGER-like sound that was more akin to a boombox recording than something you’d wanna bang your noggin to; the 3rd record “Dispersion” was just fine but leveled out the chaos a bit and branched the sound into the great improvisational beyond. Others built upon that one, but continued to be a bit less frenzied and more expansive than the first few. But this one – look out. Any true “punk” worth his punker stripes should be getting down with this record in a jiffy, because it’s one of the all-time howlers. The solos are so over-the-top distorted and the drums are caked with so much reverb, it’s a total maddening echo chamber filled with the ghosts of Greg Ginn, Davie Allen, Sterling Morrison, Stacey Sutherland and Grady Runyan. Vocals are pretty much an afterthought, but they are present on just about every track, it’s just that they're buried under the dense layers. There’s a 13-minute “Sister Ray”-meets-“Mother Sky” classic on here called “Pop Sicle” that became a staple of their live show, sort of their own “Black To Comm” & a knockout wailer you’ve got to hear. But mostly it’s just fast, fast, fast and rawer than raw. A stone classic disc that I’d recommend to anyone with a pulse and a tolerance for maximum volume. Now you can download it for free.
In the early 1990s there was a fair amount of spew being spewed about a wacked-out Finnish label called BAD VUGUM. This crew, for a couple of years, were putting out some of the most crazed half-art, half-rock and roll going, and outside of Finland, there were a few dozen American record collectors and fanzine writers who got the cut of their jib. I was turned onto their flagship act, LIIMANARINA, by a couple of them. Once I bought their debut 7"EP, "Maailman Tylsin Vittumaisuus", and heard the the absolutely insane opening track, I was gone, baby. Here was first-EP Meat Puppets reborn as a "Calling All Girls"-era Half Japanese cover band. Aw hell, I already wrote my piece on these guys back in 2003 for Agony Shorthand. I'm just going to lift it for ya below. I'm also presenting you with a downloadable version of that debut EP, all for you. There were two more wild EPs that followed - maybe you'll get those someday as well......
WHO'S FINLAND'S BEST BAND OF ALL TIME?.....Bet you haven't thought about that in a while, have ya? For my money it's LIIMANARINA. I have been associating Finland of late with great hockey players more than I have bands -- my own San Jose Sharks have Teemu Selanne ("The Finnish Flash"), Miika Kiprusoff ("The Kipper") and Vesa Toskala ("Vesa Toskala"). But last weekend I pulled out the Liimanarina 45s from the early 90s, and I had to declare it right then and there -- this is Finland's hottest rock and roll band ever, folks. Yes, better than EPPU NORMAALI and better even than TERVEET KADET, hard as that might be for some of you to fathom. Who are Liimanarina? They appear to be essentially one guy, Olli Pauke, and a cast of revolving charcters who are subordinate to his demented vision. Their early 90s singles are noisy, totally off the wall and out of control early HALF JAPANESE-style lunacy, with a hint of THE FALL and first-LP MEAT PUPPETS (you know, the crazy lo-fi artcore record). The big standout is the first track on their first single,"Kuinka Aku Ankasta Tehdaan Poliisi" (which translates as 'How To Turn Donald Duck Into A Policeman') -- such hilariously anarchic rock and roll is rarely realized. I first heard about them via raves about Liimanarina and the Bad Vugum record label in Forced Exposure and Siltbreeze magazines & then tracked down the 45s. I believe Long Gone John at Sympathy put out a Bad Vugum compilation EP with two great Liimanarina tracks, and then there's their only LP/CD "Spermarket" on Drag City from 1995 that I still have not heard. Someone needs to pull those 7"EPs together for a real good time and get that Liimanarina revival happening!
PS - Since I wrote this, all three of the Finnish players on the Sharks were lost to free agency. All are still in the NHL at varying levels of stardom. Oh, and I heard the Liimanarina LP, and I don't like it much.
Oh, and I just realized that my description of early Meat Puppets and early Half Japanese may fall flat for people who've never heard those versions of the bands, considering how both acts smoothed out any rough edges during the 80s and 90s. It would be quite exciting for me to know that your first time hearing said bands would be by clicking the links below. Maybe you'll even see how Liimanarina possibly ingested the influence of both.
I made this online "MUXTAPE" a while back and for some reason it disappeared, so I'm resurrecting it for your listening pleasure. It's a bunch of 70s/80s thumping post-punk, or as I put it earlier, "features 12 numbers from the 1979-82 period (what a surprise, hunh?) – with a couple of outliers from later years - all of which, with the right sort of libational prodding, might even convince some of you to hit the floor and show off your moves".
(Video removed 3-7-2009 - sorry! Read the story anyway if ya want....)
Here’s one last self-referential post, only because I’ve lately been hooking up my beat-up old VCR to a computer to see what transpires. What transpired recently was me getting some old tapes up onto YouTube, like the UMBILICAL CHORDS MOVIE we shared with you a couple weeks ago. Continuing that theme, I’d like to present you with the poor-quality, 1989, one and only 4-song performance of WE GOT POWER, a faux hardcore punk band that I happened to be the frontman for. The band itself consisted of SD (bass), Grady Runyan (guitar) and Rubin Fiberglass (drums), all then and later of MONOSHOCK. Those nine minutes were pretty much the highlight of my brief and uneventful musical career. See, there was this thing that used to happen every spring in Isla Vista, CA, the incestuous little Potemkin village next to UC-Santa Barbara. It was called “The Battle of The Bad”.
The goal was to be the lamest band in Isla Vista, and if not that, at least the most audacious or most funny or whatever. I was proud to compete in it three years in a row, but WE GOT POWER was by far the best entry I had any hand in. "Battle of The Bad" competitors over the years included a Jewish Supremacy band; a hideous improvisational Devo cover band called STEVE GARVEY’S HAIR; a band who did a rock opera out of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”; a new wave cover band long before “new wave” irony had hit the public consciousness; a band called the BR’S that had members whose real names were Brian, Brett, Bruce, Brig and Bryn, and who did songs with titles like “Brrrrrr!”; a party band who lasted well beyond the competition called THE MYSTIC SULTANS OF BEN-WA and whose signature song had the chorus, “Bounce me, trounce me, 40-ounce me / I’m on fire and nude!”; etc. That sort of thing. It was into this atmosphere that WE GOT POWER stepped, and made its one and only appearance.
The inspiration, of course, comes from the 1983, forty-song hardcore compilation “We Got Power” on Mystic Records, which was inspired by Jordan Schwartz’s fanzine of the same name. I have always teetered between loving this comp and laughing at this comp. Certainly the yuks are a-plenty if you listen to the entirety of this snapshot of lowest-common-denominator punk, though excellent bands like Red Cross, Tar Babies, Nip Drivers, Mecht Mensch and others do make fine appearances. When the 4 of us decided to enter a band into “Battle of The Bad” competition in 1989, the goal was to do all 40 songs in quick succession, and to affect the most ludicrous, over-the-top “punk” personas we could conjure up. A lot of that idea was stolen from the ANARCHY 6, who were a short-lived Redd Kross spinoff and who had a great cameo in the “Lovedoll Superstar” film. We naturally couldn’t learn 40 songs, so we chose a mere 4, and decided to lead with the worst material on the album – though, other than “New Wave Homos” by CRANKSHAFT, I actually still kind of dig the other three songs. We additionally decided that we’d blend some classic onstage hardcore personas into our own magical blend: the homophobic FEAR from “The Decline of Western Civilization”; the late-80s hardcore/speedmetal bands who’d introduce their songs with a big, “Okaaaaaaaaay!” and unintentionally say as many ridiculous things as possible in the course of explaining “this next song”; and of course the extreme hatred of hippies. We even had a hippie “plant” within the crowd who deliberately harassed us after the third song, WILLFUL NEGLECT’s “E.M.S.& D.”, and though the camera misses the actual stagedive I did onto his shoulders, you do see a great fake punks vs. hippies melee take place on the warm spring grass.
I do want to emphasize to my son, any current or future employers, and any would-be guardians of propriety that this was a complete and total joke. As lame as we were, we did not even win, place nor show in the ’89 Battle of The Bad. That’s why this needs to be seen again, and that’s why my inner fire for this magical day still rages.
Songs:
1. “I Hate Cops” – The Authorities 2. “Count The Odds” – Ill Repute 3. “E.M.S. & D.” – Willful Neglect 4. “New Wave Homos” - Crankshaft
Endnotes & Explanations of Stage Patter
1. “OK, we’re fucking We Got Power, we’re from fucking Oxnard” – Oxnard, California was the home of the mid-80s “Nardcore” phenomenon. Nardcore was essentially a grouping of retread, semi-metal-influenced hardcore punk bands from the Oxnard area. Prime examples were Ill Repute, Aggression, Dr. Know, and The Grim. Because Oxnard was only 45 minutes from Isla Vista, and because so much bad punk came from there, we decided to make that our faux home.
2. “This is 1989, man. Can’t you afford to get a fucking haircut?” – ca. FEAR, from “The Decline of Western Civilization”
3. “This next song’s for the I.V.F.P” – Isla Vista foot patrol, local streetwalking cops on the beat.
4. “We got arrested the other night at Club Iguana for playing ‘punk rock music’, or being nuisance in publics or something. Anyway, this one’s for them” – ca. BLACK FLAG, from “The Decline of Western Civilization”, with our local “Club Iguana” replacing “Blackie’s”.
5. “Okaaaaay! This next song’s about Reagan” – Reagan was no longer president, but his contribution to hardcore punk will always live.
6. “We’re dedicating this to our buddies in Threatened Hope” – some lame Isla Vista hardcore band from that time, who were most definitely not our friends. I wouldn’t have even remembered them had I not just watched this again.
We’ve pretty much been an mp3 blog since January 2007, and given our obsessive drive to share the Detailed Twang record collection with you, there’s been a hell of a lot of posts since then. I’ve never willingly taken an mp3 down since we started, so all songs are still available. Here are a few that you may have missed.
A while back I posted some files from THE KENT 3 and got some pretty good feedback from the people on them. As mentioned before, this simple spaghetti-surf/garage punk/hard rock band are one the most simple & enjoyable bands in my “collection”, a band it’d be easy to ignore yet one I listen to all the time. I’m still partial to the “Spells” and “Stories of The New West” CDs, but this EP I’m posting for you today is the one that sorta woke folks up to what a great friggin’ band they’d become. See, they had this one LP from 1994 called “Screaming Youth Fantastic” that arrived with a thud, thanks to some too-rough, tuneless vocals and pretty uninspiring songs. I forgot they were even around until some Seattle friends clued me to “KENT 3 Mach II” around 1996, telling me that they were pretty much the best band in town, having ditched the vocalist and now rocking some of the strangest, funniest most obtuse lyrics around.
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