MAYBE YOU HAVEN’T HEARD THAT FIRST UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS RECORD YET

I'd like to pay tribute this afternoon to one of the most over-the-top, raw, animalistic rock and roll LPs of all time, the godhead 1987 monster "In The Air Tonight" from Sweden's UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS. You know that band Soundtrack Of Our Lives that got so much ink a few years back? The one whose music you actually heard, & then dismissed in your best 12-year-old girl voice: "whatever"? Turns out that two of those guys were in the mighty UCP, & at one point had three UCP alumni among their ranks. None other than Rolling Stone had this description of UCP in a TSOOL puff piece: "Union Carbide Productions were Sweden's majestic combined answer to the Stooges, Black Flag and the early freaked-out Pink Floyd, a Next Big Thing doomed by missed opportunities and inner turmoil".

That's a good enough description as any, but what they're not telling you is what a quantum leap in quality it is traveling backward through the band's history until you get to their incredible debut. "In The Air Tonight" is one of those legendary records with a rep that keeps growing. When it came out it was a bolt from the blue for those of us who'd never found a Swedish band to dig (I hadn't heard the amazing late 70s punk from Sweden yet), and it was hailed in pretty much all corners who dared to listen. Even Lydia Lunch weighed in with a typically hyperbolic, all-caps review in Forced Exposure that had all the right adjectives: heavy, killer, bloody, blistering, raw, and of course, "over-indulgent fuck inspiring". Whatever.

From Mikael Funke's history of the band on UCP's website: "Here were five guys from Gothenburg who dressed either as slobs or in suits, wore their hair long and uncombed or shaven to the skin. The music was loud, vibrant and - unlike most bands - full of groove and energy. UCP fused the Detroit Sound of The Stooges and MC5 with the weirdness of The Fugs and Captain Beefheart. They let the Stones, Doors and other great sixties acts shine through their songs long before Primal Scream. UCP was the band that did everything right in the wrong time"

This record was also given the full worship in UGLY THINGS magazine #16 in 1998, a perplexing turn for the paisley and romulan scenes, but minor complaints notwithstanding, one that spoke volumes of editor Mike Stax's commitment to high-quality, high-decibel rock and roll. You read this reminiscing about the band now, and it appears that everyone seems to think if it had only been 1994 instead of 1987 these guys would have been huge. I don't think so -- we're talking about defiantly non-commercial heavy punk rock, with sprawling textures, sandpaper vocals and what sounds like fifty guitars roaring at once. The closing 10-minute "Down On The Beach" recalls Husker Du's "Reocurring Dreams" with Steve Mackay's maniac sax on "LA Blues" -- not a recipe for Nirvana-style success, but a fantastic listen for the rest of us. My personal take is that their quality plummeted precipitously on the next two records (both were just okay, even though one had a song called -- gasp -- "San Francisco Boogie"), and by the time of the 90s hit I'd really stopped paying attention.

I thought you might want to hear a couple of songs from their debut in case everything I just wrote is news to you, which is exactly what I’m hoping, then you get to be wholly blown away in the next few seconds….

Play Union Carbide Productions – “Ring My Bell”


Download UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS – “Ring My Bell”
Download UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS – “Financial Declaration”

EXHIBIT A FOR EARLY 90s CLAW HAMMER HYPE

(Note: this is a re-post of some files and a post I did on this site last year).

If you were an ardent fanzine reader in the late 80s and early 90s, particularly certain ‘zines like Forced Exposure, Your Flesh, and Superdope, you probably heard a lot about CLAW HAMMER. For those of us who salivated every time they released a 45 or LP, they were, at least from about 1989-1993 or so, the band of the hour. Here’s what I wrote about them myself a few years ago on Agony Shorthand:

“….When CLAW HAMMER first came up through the Los Angeles micro-clubs, playing low on bills with punk & garage acts like THE LAZY COWGIRLS and their ilk, they were sort of a mystery act that took a while to get one’s head around. Were these guys approximating the MC5 playing for Deadheads? CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND playing acid-laced punk rock? Hampton Grease Band & Roxy Music freaks playing whatever the hell they wanted to play, and playing it really, really loud? Yeah, that one. It took me a couple shows to get the cut of their jib, but in due time they replaced the Cowgirls as “my favorite band”, and from about 1989 to 1993 or so they stayed in the proverbial catbird seat.

I started my fanzine Superdope in 1990 and task #1 was to interview and glorify Claw Hammer, so I commandeered the band in their van in an alley at San Francisco’s most unsafe club ever, the 6th Street Rendezvous, and told ‘em I was their biggest fan and would they like to do an interview with me & be friends. They “made the cover” of my edition-of-400, hugely uninfluential magazine, and we did in fact become pals after that. In 1993 I was even their road manager/driver/drinking partner/merch dork on a 40-date North American tour......I remember that Eddie Flowers, creator/owner of the SLIPPY TOWN empire and then a sometimes-writer for Forced Exposure, did a piece on the early, early Claw Hammer for said magazine truly before even Los Angeles had woken up to the band (one could legitimately argue that LA never really did). Though I don’t have the article in front of me, Flowers saw the sonic connections that these guys were channeling, and how they funneled them into a sound that really hadn’t been heard before.

Claw Hammer, for lack of a better word, were a “greasy” band (not just because of the Grease Band!), in that they played a relatively conventional brand of loud rock and roll that just bled and oozed raw grease and slippery counter-dynamics. When Jon Wahl and Chris Bagarozzi played guitar together, I swear to god at times it was like what everyone said Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd were supposed to have sounded like live – unpredictable bits of chaos, pure unbridled energy and extremely amplified sound, but never “showy” nor “flashy”. Just jaw-dropping, that’s all. These guys loved 70s rock – not just the cool stuff that everyone liked back then like The Velvets and the MC5 and the Patti Smith Group – but acts that have only in retrospect achieved complete critical consensus like the aforementioned Roxy Music, early Eno, Big Star, solo Syd Barrett and even (gasp) Steely Dan. They ingested it, turned it out and filtered it through their own experiences as teenage punks (Jon was in an Orange Country hardcore band wholly inspired by the MIDDLE CLASS called The Idle Rich) to create a rich stew of swingin’ punk rock boogie. That spirit was what Flowers captured in his article & what got the world to stand up and take notice – that and their first crop of singles, all of which were incredible.....”

What perhaps got lost in the shuffle here were their very first recordings, two songs that got put out by Trigon Records on a compilation of LA bands called “GIMME THE KEYS”. These two songs demonstrate what a powerhouse these guys were, and show where their heads were at early on, the first time I saw them live in ’88. I’d go mano-a-mano with anyone who wants to exclude these guys from a list of 20 best bands of the past two decades, Top 5 if you’re only talkin’ live shows. See what you think by following the links here and downloading this pair.

Play Claw Hammer "Self Destruct"

Download CLAW HAMMER – “Self Destruct”
Download CLAW HAMMER – “Bullet In My Head”

MEAN RED SPIDERS - "LAST OF THE TEEN ICONS"

Quite likely, this is the single best originally unreleased punk record of the 70s, a set of grotesquely, insanely over-the-top recordings that sat in a sad sack somewhere until the blink-and-you-missed-'em label Buster Bulb rescued them from oblivion in 1990. Greg Prevost and Andy Babiuk, who went on to form the mediocre Rochester-based 60s rehash band THE CHESTERFIELD KINGS, were two Iggy fiends who upped the dose on even Iggy's most wild-eyed, peanut-butter-smearing, razor-blade-wielding theatrics and created this howling vortex of blister and bile.

First, they put out a legit 45 as the DISTORTED LEVELS in 1978, called "Hey Mister / Red Swirls". We posted it here, but the links to the songs have been taken down. Don't worry, I'll get 'em up there again. "Hey Mister" is a crazed glam-influenced pumper, with screams so beyond the pale that it actually ignites paper when played at "11". The B-side is a series of preposterous grunts and shrieks that makes no sense whatsoever, and is barely listenable. All in all, a nice debut.

They switched the name to MEAN RED SPIDERS later that year, and took the sound even further on this 4-song set of recordings. It features "Rejected At The High School Dance", "I've Got VD", "Diabolical" and, my favorite, "Kick Your Ass Across The USA". Every track appears to be addressed to a female, and these jousters are comfortable bragging about punching, kicking and shamelessly defiling the female(s) in question. In the flip-the-bird world of 1978 punk rock, even that was one toke over the line. The guitar is James Williamson on extreme hyperdrive, and is mixed well past the point of bleeding. For a couple of Stooges fanatics, these guys really took that latter-day, "I Got A Right" template and did something fantastic with it.

Play Mean Red Spiders - "Kick Your Ass Across the USA"


Download MEAN RED SPIDERS - "Rejected At The High School Dance"
Download MEAN RED SPIDERS - "Diabolical"
Download MEAN RED SPIDERS - "Kick Your Ass Across The USA"
Download MEAN RED SPIDERS - "I've Got VD"

THE MUMMIES, SERVED MEDIUM-RAW

This is a full bootleg CD that came out surreptitiously after much hubbub about THE MUMMIES' aborted album for Crypt Records, one that was engineered and/or produced by Mike Mariconda of the Raunch Hands. Seems no one in the band was particularly happy with the lack of raunch on this one, and if you saw The Mummies back then you'd know why. Hell, the band even sounded low-fidelity and cheap-ass even in concert, with a remarkably tinny farfisa organ, fuzz guitar and primitive amps, most of which were being knocked over at any given time as the band careened around in their exceptionally filthy mummy outfits playing patent-perfect garage punk of 60s vintage. Stupid outfits aside, they were a stone gas at the time (1989-92 or so).

On vinyl they just don't really do it much for me. There are a few songs here and there, but I can't get too worked up about this version of their first LP because I don't dig the "real" one that much either. This one has a bunch of tracks that never made it to vinyl in any case, and the bootleg CD tacks on an entire live show from New Jersey one new year's eve many moons ago. The set closes with the band doing their own a capella dis of Mariconda live on WFMU for his production sins. What with the recent Mummies reunion and all, I thought you might wanna hear this thing.

Download THE MUMMIES - "F*ck The Mummies" bootleg CD (this is a .zip file)

THE NIGHTS AND DAYS' "GARBAGE CAN" EP

(Note: this is a re-post of a piece that I did on 4/6/2007. The files were taken down by my previous hosting provider, so I'm righting the wrong now...)

It didn’t seem fair to anyone, let alone me, to sit on the debut 1988 7”EP from Rob Vasquez’ NIGHTS AND DAYS when it was well within my power to put it up here for your listening pleasure, and when the kids have been clamorin’ for it. Oh, and it’s one of the great records of the 80s to boot, and an all-time second-wave-of-garage-punk landmark. One critic who shall not be named had this to say: "....Big, loud, stomping basement rock that approximates a runaway boulder hooked up to a set of clanking chains. Their sorta-cover of Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy" could almost be no-wave inspired, and the frantic chords played on this sound like they're shooting sparks. Rob Vasquez was and remains a singular talent who deserves to be handsomely paid for his genius, and lionized & feted the world over....”.

I could not have said it better myself! I bought mine on a whim because they were from Seattle and had a Sub Pop connection – which in 1988 was a mark of quality, or so I reckoned at the time – and have until now yet to look back. 600 made, released on REGAL SELECT records to a handful of record dorks in ’88, and now ready for you to download and celebrate with your pals all weekend long.

Play The Nights And Days - "Garbage Can"

Download THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – “Garbage Can” (A-side)

Download THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – “Diddy Wah Diddy” (B-side, track 1)

Download THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – “Goes Without Saying” (B-side, track 2)

THE GIRLS, BOSTON FREETHINKERS 1976-1979

A record that’s been criminally under-heard and that remains way, way out of print is a posthumous collection called "Reunion" from THE GIRLS. They were a Boston group mucking around the edges of that city’s punk scene around 1976-79, but who had far more in common with the weird noise and avant-futurisms of kindred souls PERE UBU and THE RESIDENTS. They epitomize the free-thinking boundary pushing that a sub-section of the early American punks quickly made their own into after letting punk fuel the internal fire. Where The Girls differed from the aforementioned is the general lack of art-damaged abrasiveness in their music – though there are squiggly oscillations and heaps of guitar and Allen Ravenstein-worthy synth feedback all over their songs, it’s tempered with a real 4/4 rock and roll structure that keeps a solid beat moving throughout.

Pere Ubu’s Hearthan Records imprint actually put out The Girls’ first 45, “Jeffrey I Hear You / The Elephant Man”, the only non-Cleveland thing the label ever thought worthy of bothering with. There’s also traces of MODERN LOVERS playfulness in tracks like “Pedestrian Walk”, which bounces like a Gidget beach party number played in the MIT quad after science class. The rockers that have been my favorites since I first heard this record are “Methodist Church” and “Keep It Simple” – fast, short, sharp shocks of spazz guitar and very busy keyboards shorting out the mixing board in short order.

Singer David Hild often affected this sort of “demented clown” persona in his vocals and lyrics, which conjures up images of a depressed sad sack pouring his scribblings out of notebooks & onto stages with not a care in the world how it’ll be received. True or not, it’s how great art is often made, very similar in feel to the early HALF JAPANESE in that pleasing who-in-god’s-name-are-these-guys-&-where-did-they-come-from way. You probably won’t mistake the Girls’ “Reunion” LP for great art from a higher strata, but as a lost artifact that’s worthy of serious crate digging – well, I hope you don’t have to for long.

Play The Girls - "Keep It Simple"


Download THE GIRLS - "Keep It Simple"
Download THE GIRLS - "Methodist Church"

3 KILLER PUNK-ERA “ALTERNATE VERSIONS”

The “alternate version” is the modern hook to get you to buy a CD that you don’t need because you already have the LP (granted, no one’s buying CD’s anymore, so even that statement is about two years out of date). The alternate version might be the take that nearly made the cut for the LP or 45, but was shuffled to the side for a better take – or was, for whatever reason, considered ill-suited for the band’s purposes. Maybe it was too noisy. Maybe someone missed a beat. Maybe someone’s voice cracked. Who knows. Sometimes these alternate versions end up trumping the ones you’re familiar with – or by offering a different feel to a song you’ve heard a bazillion times, ends up being your new “favorite” version. Such is the case with the three crackers I’m posting for you today.

The first is an alternate take on “Hot Wire My Heart” by CRIME. This could have been their first 45 in 1976, but was trumped by the version you know & love. It made its appearance on the “San Francisco’s Still Doomed” reissue LP/CD in 2004. It’s amazing. It doesn’t sound like “Ricky Tractor” missed his drum intro this time. The second example is from THE MISFITS’ “Static Age” posthumous LP/CD, which is far and away the finest thing they ever did, and one of the great punk rock records of all time. This version of “Spinal Remains” did not make it onto the box set version of “Static Age”, but when the lost LP was reissued on its own, there it was. It hands-down blows away the version that was on the 1980s posthumous collection “Legacy of Brutality”. That’s what I think, anyway.

Finally, we have “Thirsty and Miserable” from BLACK FLAG from the infamous Licorice Pizza 45. It was bootlegged recently on “Freak Flag” records. When Black Flag was weighed down in court over the not-yet-released “Damaged” LP, they illicitly leaked this thing out in small quantities. Of course it totally rips – it’s the five-piece lineup with Dez Cadena on guitar. Jesus. People I know who saw this version of the band are still yammering about how great it was. If I could go back in time……seriously. Gotta be in my Top 5 bands I wish I’d seen. Enjoy ‘em all – and happy new year to ya.

Play Crime “Hot Wire My Heart (alternate version)”



Download CRIME – “Hot Wire My Heart (alternate version)”
Download THE MISFITS – “Spinal Remains (alternate version)”
Download BLACK FLAG – “Thirsty and Miserable” (Licorice Pizza 45 version)”

HERE’S WHERE I NEED YOUR HELP: 70s BUBBLEGLAM

Detailed Twang readers, I’m in need of some help with a small, potentially made-up sub-genre of 1970s rock and roll. I unoriginally call it “bubbleglam”. Others might call it hard-rockin’ bubblegum, or even power pop. Me, I’ve never been much into power pop, and I don’t know anything much about the glam era outside of the “heavy hitters”. Yet when I hear songs like the two I’m posting for you today, I wonder if there just might be a whole rich set of treasure just waiting for someone to turn me onto it. I need you to please tell me if there is.

See, these two songs by FRIENDS and the WHIZZ KIDDS were discovered by me on mp3 blogs during the past couple of years. Totally love 'em. I want to hear more songs like them: hard-driving, harmony-laden, hook-heavy songs with guitars out front. I can just picture the white man’s afros and leisure suits on the guys in these bands, and it’s an image I’m liking. The FRIENDS song is a real mystery. I can’t remember at all where I got it from, and I’m wondering if it’s an original. I researched it last night and found that other bands have covered the song (even INXS!), leading me to believe that the “FRIENDS” themselves were covering it. If so, they made the thing their own – you know how you can sorta tell when something’s a cover, even when you’ve never heard its precedent? This is one of those songs – totally rollicking, hand-clapping good times.

I got the WHIZZ KIDDS track from the excellent Crud Crud mp3 blog a while back. He says it’s from 1977, though it has more of a ’73 feel to me. Then again, what do I know? I’m the one asking you for help, right? “Sweet Honey” is one of several smile-conjuring songs that, in the course of listing a woman’s positive attributes, mentions her skills as a cook (see The O’Jays’ “She Used Ta Be My Girl”). It’s very pre-feminism, but I’m sure these fellas were just being true to themselves. Good cookin’ is good cookin’.

Anyway, now that you’ve clicked on the buttons below and are playing (and perhaps downloading) these songs, can you please let me know of other obscurities that I might enjoy that sound similar to them? Are there entire compilations of this stuff? Or is there no ridiculous sub-genre of "bubbleglam" to wrap my downloading, 45-buying and CD-buying skills around?

Play Friends “Gonna Have A Good Time Tonight”


Play Whizz Kidds “Sweet Honey”


Download FRIENDS – “Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight”
Download WHIZZ KIDDS – “Sweet Honey”

THE LEGENDARY TAKE IT! FLEXI

(This is a re-post of our April 3rd, 2007 post)

Other than my copies of FORCED EXPOSURE, the one 1980s fanzine I intend to take to the grave with me is the 1982 issue of TAKE IT! magazine, with CHRIS D. and the FLESH EATERS on the cover & nothing but quality on the inside. The magazine perfectly captured the rock n roll zeitgeist of the post-punk, mid-hardcore era, with heavy attention to outstanding bands like The Flesh Eaters, Half Japanese, The Fall etc. & great reviews & columns by the likes of Byron Coley and Don Howland, along with publisher Michael Koenig. It emanated from Florida (!), and this is the only copy I've ever seen or owned.

This is a magazine that on at least two occassions arrived with a "flexidisc" inside, as was fairly popular at the time. This particular flexi is a marvel. It features one of the most crazed tracks ever recorded by TEX & THE HORSEHEADS, with Jeffrey Lee Pierce on guitar. It contains an incredible MEAT PUPPETS track, "Teenager(s)", which features the greatest opening two seconds in the history of music, and which perfectly positions the band between their berzerk-core debut album and their country-fried masterpiece "Meat Puppets II". Finally, a live FLESH EATERS track from the height of their powers, apparently when they shared the stage with DIE KREUZEN on their quote-unquote "Toolin' for Beaver" tour. All copyright 1982. I've taken the Tex & the Flesh Eaters tracks directly from the flexi, but you get the Meat Puppets one from the CD reissue of "Meat Puppets II" (with loads of extra tracks), because - believe it or not - it sounds better. Enjoy!

Play Tex & The Horseheads "Got Love If You Want It"


Download TEX AND THE HORSEHEADS - "Got Love If You Want It"
Download MEAT PUPPETS - "Teenager(s)"
Download THE FLESH EATERS - "River Of Fever" (live 1982)

AMONG THE POST-PUNK CRÈME DE LA CRÈME – ANIMALS & MEN

Few bands represent the early 1980s England DIY aesthetic for me than ANIMALS & MEN, a now-reformed band who received little if any notice during their first time around 1979-82, but who stamped a huge mark on my brain by virtue of their classic 45 “Don’t Misbehave In The New Age”. Until it started coming out again on compilations like “MESSTHETICS” and the recent “Never Bought, Never Sold” LP of early Animals & Men singles and demos, the song was one of those whose name had been completely lost to me in the dim recesses of memory, but a tune I could hum & remember perfectly. It’s a remarkable slice of ramshackle, garagy UK DIY chug from 1980 with a scoop of "the new wave" on top. Listen to those clattering drums, which absolutely sound taped together. The echoey vocals are perfect, and the strange B-side “Machines” is outstanding as well. If I were making you a 78-minute CD of the best English crap from this era, you best believe “Don’t Misbehave” would probably kick the whole thing off, right next to "Prole Art Threat" and "The Medium Was Tedium". Check it out by clicking on the links below.

Play Animals & Men – “Don’t Misbehave in the New Age”


Download ANIMALS & MEN – “Don’t Misbehave in the New Age” (A-side)
Download ANIMALS & MEN – “Machines” (B-side)

TWO SHARDS OF SOUND FROM THE PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS

(Note: this post was originally on Detailed Twang on August 20th, 2007 and is being re-posted today)

Nearly three years ago the first official PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS CD came out, packed with a crateful of lost extras (live tracks, home recordings) that in many ways outshone their officially-released stuff. I love it when that happens. Here’s a meta-meta-meta post, one that references both a 4/20/05 post I did on the band, and then a 1/23/04 post I did as well:

“…Taking the lazy man's approach to review-writing this time in order to herald the release of the official PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS CD. A year+ ago I reviewed a CD-R that had their live album + debut 45 on it -- this one takes out the 45, but adds an incredible batch of unreleased bonus tracks that are leagues better than their official stuff. In particular, a piercing indutrio-punker called "Glitter Kids" from 1979 rules the roost here, & sounds like everything you wished THE SCREAMERS had been, with a cranked-up metronome keeping time over scattershot guitars and screeching keyboard blips. Moreover, there's this hot, metallic, shards-of-sound number called "Casualty Ward" (1977!!) that approximates the URINALS' "U" and SPK's "Mekano" in barely over a minute. You'll flip. Here's what I said last year about the live album:

"....Among the lost artifacts of the late 1970s Australian underground that are now beginning to surface are recordings from Sydney’s
PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS, a polyrhythm- and experimentation-heavy synth-attack outfit who probably tilted closer to their outré countrymen SPK and the SLUGFUCKERS than to similar combos in the UK and US. After being wowed by their berserk “Pumping Ugly Muscle” on the Australian post-punk CD “Can’t Stop It”, I then had the fortune to become privy to a CD-R containing their debut 45 from 1979, “I Can’t Stop It / Do That Dance”, as well as tracks from their 1979 live album (recorded supporting the BOYS NEXT DOOR, aka the nascent BIRTHDAY PARTY). The whole package is decidedly not for the faint of ear; there are not a few moments where the band’s funky, African-influenced slop-rock breaks down into a maelstrom of raw electronic chaos and pure gibbering idiocy. And yet it’s not so messy that you couldn’t stack it next to New York’s leading “no wave” of the day and have it compare quite favorably. A little bravery, patience, and love of well-crafted, ultra-savage electronics will go a long way here. Aficionados of early industrial racket, the aforementioned no wave, or those still bitter over what PiL should have been should check out the Calculators...."

That sentiment has now been multiplied by the discovery of these lost tracks, with the aforementioned caveat and strong warning of bravery & patience. The live album is still not an easy nor consistently pleasurable listen, but the outstanding bonus crap certainly makes up for it…..”

Here’s some of that outstanding bonus crap!

Play The Primitive Calculators - "Glitter Kids"


Download THE PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS – “Glitter Kids” (1979 home recording)
Download THE PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS – “Casualty Ward” (1977 home recording)

THE OTHER GREATEST 45 OF ALL TIME – THE ELECTRIC EELS

A few months ago, right when I’d temporarily decided to pack it in and put Detailed Twang on hold for a while (I do that sometimes), I posted my favorite 7-inch single ever, PERE UBU’s “Heart of Darkness / 30 Seconds Over Tokyo”. Those files have since been removed by my provider, but man, a TON of people downloaded the thing, making me realize that these songs that I pretty much take for granted are still brand new to many folks. That suits me just fine – there’s nothing like hearing a song like one of those to absolutely alter your musical perceptions, scramble your brain, and perhaps change your life. I’d love to think I helped to facilitate that sort of "brain erasure" – even if for just for one child! One tiny, innocent, starry-eyed child!

THE ELECTRIC EELS’ 1978 posthumous 45 “Cyclotron/Agitated” is another one of those records. It might be my other favorite single of all time – and it comes from the same city (Cleveland) and the same year (1975). Wow. In 1997 I wrote the following piece in my fanzine “Superdope”, where I listed it the #2 greatest 45 of all time after the aforementioned Pere Ubu record. Astute readers will note that this is the second post in a week to mention Eric Stone’s “Strictly Disco” radio show on KCSB-FM, thus cementing its influence on my musical development. Wherever Mr. Stone is, I hope he’s smiling for once.

There used to be a fantastic radio show during the mid-80s in Santa Barbara called "Strictly Disco" which was hosted by a guy who owned just about every amazing 45 to ever hit the presses. One night he had Henry Rollins on his show to shoot the shit and spin some favorites. That's where I first heard "Agitated", and it was one of those "Holy Christ, what IS that?!!" moments. I immediately called the show to inquire. Turns out Hank had brought it down to the studio himself, and had long been enamored of the Eels and the raw power of this landmark 45. Who'd have thought?

The Electric Eels were a quartet of socially alienated nihilists from Cleveland in the mid-70s. Their inability to neither win friends nor influence people gave vent to a twisted, confrontational take on "art" that had more in common with guerilla theatre and urban psychodrama than with 70s punk. The fact that it was occurring in a cultural near-vacuum adds exponentially to their lore. Make no mistake, however, these songs are as primitive and high decibel as anything ever released. Obviously semi-live recordings, "Cyclotron" and "Agitated" have been mixed past the point of bleeding and are still a couple of levels in volume above any other records of mine. Electric Eels gigs often ended in violence, sometimes with imposing guitarist John Morton having beat up an audience (or band) member. The Eels vocalist was a developmentally delayed young man named Dave E., an idiot-savant with a genius sense of the absurd who put it to wise use in his lyrics ("Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead / Just like my cousin Fred"). Later he purported to start a record label called "Christmas Pets".

It's also worth mentioning that the drummer on these recordings is Nick Knox, who would soon keep the steady, primitive beat for The Cramps. The world's indifference to such brilliance initially kept these songs from the public, until Rough Trade released them in 1978 under the moniker "Die Electric Eels" & with all credits in German(?). A minor bone of contention I have with the outstanding posthumous Eels collections 'Having A Philosophical Investigation With The Electric Eels' and 'God Says Fuck You' is that both say they include the 45 version of "Agitated", while neither actually does. This record will live in infamy as an out-of-time, mindset-destroying masterpiece.

Good news, folks – the subsequent “Eyeball of Hell” CD on Scat Records contains both songs in their original, pristine, perfect versions. If you don’t have that – and you absolutely need to – you can get the songs right here.

Play The Electric Eels – “Agitated”


Download THE ELECTRIC EELS – “Cyclotron” (A-side)
Download THE ELECTRIC EELS – “Agitated” (B-side)

THE NAUTILOIDS ON REEF & IN SURF

We were just talking about old 60s instrumental music in this corner just the other day, weren’t we? I dropped the name of one of my favorite lost artists from that era, THE NAUTILOIDS, reminding myself in the process that it would be real nice if I exposed their two amazing songs to the people. Now, I don’t own this 1965 single, and probably never will. A Nautiloids page on the www says that “only a few are known to exist”. Both tracks are minor-key, mid-tempo stompers, and they conjure up a contemplative, staring-at-the-surf mood without resorting to any surf music clichés. They might be my favorite instrumental songs of the era. I found them on an LP-only compilation called “CONCUSSION!!!” that came out in the early 90s. The band started up in ’64 in high school in Rockville, Maryland; played the requisite “Battle of the Bands” contests that were big among the teen rock combos of the day; lasted a little over a year and then packed it in. They left behind this surf-n-stomp treasure for you to listen to on your computer 43 years later.

Play The Nautiloids “Nautiloid Reef”



Download THE NAUTILOIDS – “Nautiloid Reef” (A-side)
Download THE NAUTILOIDS – “Nautiloid Surf” (B-side)

THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE “PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE” 45

(Note - this is a re-post of some songs that originally appeared on Detailed Twang on October 4th, 2007)

1984 in England. I get flashbacks to The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smiths, The Cocteau Twins and even “Red Lorry Yellow Lorry” and “Half Man Half Biscuit”. What about you? Under the indie radar and pretty much unknown in the US were a British act called THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE, named after three dead rock music icons. They were a loud-ass, short-lived British group who, on their first of only two singles, produced a hot, panic-filled "Batman"-like TV theme instrumental A-side called “Public Enemy Number One”, matched with an angry, sneering original on the flip called “Hup Two Three Four”. It was produced & engineered to be bleeding way, way, way into the red, and if memory serves me, it was released both as a 45 and as a 12”. (I have the former; I’ll bet the latter is even more damaged-sounding). On their next 45 they took on John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” and totally nailed it, to the point where that’s the version I hear in my head during the rare times it pops to mind.

“Public Enemy Number One” was the intro music to a formative 1984-89 radio show on KCSB-FM Santa Barbara during my late teens called “Strictly Disco”, hosted by Eric Stone. Stone has the greatest record collection of punk, garage & indie 45s I’d ever seen to date, and I still possess a C-90 cassette I got to make of some of his singles that I heard for the first time either at his house or on his show: The Electric Eels’ “Agitated”; The Misfits’ “Bullet”; the Naked Raygun “Basement Screams” EP – and this one. Hopefully it’ll show up on some of your cassettes in the near future, now that you own it – or will when you click the links below.

Play The Sid Presley Experience - "Public Enemy Number One"



Download THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE: “Public Enemy Number One” (A-side)
Download THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE: “Hup Two Three Four” (B-side)

INTO THE NARCOTIC BEYOND WITH VIRGINIA DARE

VIRGINIA DARE were an early obsession of mine, from the time I stumbled upon them playing their first-EP record release party in 1993 in San Francisco for at least another near-decade. I don’t believe they’ve actually officially called it quits, either, and I suspect before this decade’s up I’ll get to see them play again. In ’93 they were a truly welcome anomaly – twangy, late-night-radio countrified pop, with an autoharp & a spastic guitar held together with baling wire and rubber bands. Just when you thought it was safe to get comfortable with Mary O'Neil’s sweet, lilting croon, you realized that these songs were actually (sometimes) about wrist-slitting, excessive drinking and all manner of bad behavior. Their current MySpace page calls it “songs for runaways, alcoholics and deep sleepers”. I'm on board with that description.

Singer/autoharpist O’Neil and doppelganger/husband Brad Johnson were the core of the band, and often they took their very-DIY, unplanned act on stage with just the two of them. The first time I saw them play, however, they had Paula Frazier from TARNATION and FRIGHTWIG on bass and Michelle Cernuto from WEENIE ROAST/SF SEALS on drums, and they totally sucked me in. Subsequent shows were often drumless and sometimes even bass-less. Virginia Dare were more of an idea centered around Mary & Brad anyway, and the amplification, never too loud to begin with, was brought down to the whisper level at times in order to propel the druggy, dreamy pop songs they made their stock in trade.

That “Six Songs” EP they were playing the time I fell upon them is still my favorite, very closely followed by the 1994 follow-up EP “Gone Again”. I’d like to provide you were a sampling from each, and then ask that you visit the band’s site and their MySpace to learn more.

Play Virginia Dare – “Girl King”


Download VIRGINIA DARE – “Girl King” (from 1993 “Six Songs” EP)
Download VIRGINIA DARE – “Liberation Day” (from 1994 “Gone Again” EP)

VOCALS BE DAMNED – "STRUMMIN’ MENTAL PART THREE"

The 1980s and 1990s were veritable bounties of rare & obscure rock and roll/R&B reissues courtesy of CRYPT RECORDS and all of their pseudo-bootleg sub-labels. One guy – one guy! (Tim Warren) – was pretty much responsible for turning on thousands to savage 50s-60s sounds by virtue of incredible LP-only compilation series like “Back From the Grave”, “Sin Alley”, “Garage Punk Unknowns”, “Jungle Exotica”, “Las Vegas Grind”, “Teenage Shutdown” and “Strummin’ Mental”. If I ever got a surprise check – say, a rare bonus from my company, or a tax return, whatever – it never failed that a big portion of it would go to an order with Midnight Records or some other outfit who sold these comps. I was being progressively schooled on amazing, totally lost 45rpm sounds on forgotten labels that likely would never have been resurrected if not for Warren. You always knew when it was a Crypt compilation, even when the faux record label was “Strip” or “Link Wray Records” – there was always that font they used, and Warren’s over-hyperactive, trash-talking liner notes. No one’s ever put together compilations with a higher ration of hits-to-misses than this guy – no one. He’s still doing it now; I just picked up a CD called “STRUMMIN’ MENTAL, PART THREE” , and I want to let you in on it.

The “STRUMMIN’ MENTAL” LPs started coming into the digital era about ten years ago. Until I discovered this new one, I’d thought the series was finished being repurposed on CD; “STRUMMIN’ MENTAL” Volumes 1 and 2 on CD are totally essential collections of berserk instrumental rave-ups in the mode of The Trashmen, the Ventures and the Nautiloids. Some are surf-leaning; most are aggressive, guitar-heavy reverb monsters that speak more to the inner heartland of teenage garage escapades than they do the California coast. Tons of American (and international!) kids were entranced with Duane Eddy, Link Wray, The Ventures, The Wailers, The Champs & other instrumental heroes of that ilk during the 1958-65 time period that these compilations cover; it might be nice if they still were. I guess that’s where comps like this come in. “STRUMMIN’ MENTAL, PART THREE” continues the raw lineage with 33 (!!) two-minute-long wreckers, most of which chug and crash and wipe out with the best of ‘em. A couple are total destroyers, even – most notably the two I’m posting for you today to give you a taste of the thing: LOS SHAINS from Peru, and the incredible “Shains-a-Go-Go”, along with the well-monikered REEKERS and their “Don’t Call Me Flyface”. Just awesome. I hope you agree. You can buy the CD here.

Play LOS SHAINS – “Shains-a-Go-Go”



Download LOS SHAINS – “Shains-a-Go-Go”
Download THE REEKERS – “Don’t Call Me Flyface”

THE BUNNYBRAINS’ EARLY COUP DE GRACE

(Apologies for all the re-posts - I'll have new material up soon - but want to make sure you scoop up these songs that disappeared from their original posts when I changed hosting providers. This one originally appeared 4/20/2007.....)

There was this band THE BUNNYBRAINS that made some strange noises in the early nineties, most of which were entirely unremarkable. Legend has it that this Danbury, CT outfit still won’t give up the ghost, and continue to be an active band with only one constant member. I’m too lazy to check into it. However, in 1992 I bought a 45 of theirs, one of their first, on a recommendation from a friend that just knocked me for a loop.

Of course that would be the one I’m posting for you here, albeit just one side, because the other side as I said was entirely unremarkable. “On The Floor Again” is pure, unadulterated FLIPPER action, but even better (save for “Sex Bomb” and “Love Canal” – nothing can touch those). Creepy-crawling bass riff, oceans of static-laden feedback, great vocals, and a chorus that you’ll be chanting on the floor with your significant other this whole weekend. I bought the next few records with eager gusto after this 45 came out, yet I never found the magic key in them that made this one so goddamn special. Hope you see this one’s bleary-eyed beauty the way I do, because it’s a total classic.

Play The Bunnybrains "On The Floor Again"



Download THE BUNNYBRAINS – “On The Floor Again” (from 1992 45)

THE NIGHTS AND DAYS: “These Days/Lookin’” 45

(Note: This is a re-post of a thing I posted here on Detailed Twang on 2/7/2007)

For me, the great fourth wave of punk rock washed upon the world’s shores in the very late 1980s and continued on well until the 90s. This of course was the era of the CHEATER SLICKS, THE GORIES, THE OBLIVIANS, SUPERCHARGER and all the sick young kids more inspired by the first wave (1965-67) than by the second (1976-79). With the possible exception of the Cheater Slicks, the bands most near & dear to my ears during this time were Rob Vasquez’s two incredibly unsung & lost-to-time bands THE NIGHTS AND DAYS and THE NIGHT KINGS. The latter got a little bit of attention for a few months when their album “Increasing Our High” came out on Steve Turner (Mudhoney)’s Super Electro label, a label that was itself an imprint of the larger Sub Pop records. But finding fellow NIGHTS & DAYS fans in the late 80s/early 90s was a fool’s game, particularly if one lived outside of the band’s hometown of Seattle, as I did. Only record-collecting lunatics knew about the band, and given that their two 45s on the Regal Select label were in editions of 500, until they get reissued, that’s likely to remain the case.

I’d like to do my part in helping move the NIGHTS AND DAYS revival along by providing you with an opportunity to hear (and download) their second 45, “These Days/Lookin’”. This came out in 1989 on Regal Select records from Issaquah, Washington. It is a full-blast wall of sound, with mammoth hooks and enough melodic tuneage (particularly in the case of “These Days”) to generate instant-anthem status. At one point in my life I published an entire magazine devoted to my favorite forty-five 45s; this barely missed the cut then, but would not now, with the benefit of ten more years of hindsight and critical filtering. I know that at some point that some label will rescue the compleat works of Vasquez from ignominy and issue a 2xCD that will knock your socks off your ass. Until then, please enjoy what I believe to be his many bands’ absolute peak.

Download THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – “These Days” (side A of 45)

Download THE NIGHTS AND DAYS – “Lookin’” (side B of 45)

HERE BE THE GORIES

When THE GORIES ' first "real" 45 arrived in 1991 (the other was a promo thing from their second album), they were already easily one of my favorite bands going, but I swear this masterpiece completely cemented their reputation for good. I was floored by the raw, uber-primitive, soulful garage stomp as evidenced on their two LPs ("House Rockin'" and "I Know You Fine, But How You Doin'"), and this early single on In The Red was enough to make me wanna interview them & make sure as many people as possible knew of their genius. Screw The Mummies, this was the ne plus ultra of the scene at the time (damn, I've always wanted to use that phrase). I did a mail interview with Mick, Dan & Peg that same year that was published as the cover feature in my small-run fanzine of the time called Superdope.

I totally dug the Mod Squad look to the band, the clanking I-can-barely-keep-up drumming, and the fact that they appeared to drink even harder than I did at the time. And that's saying something. In short, I admired the general cut of their jib greatly.

"Here Be The Gories" features a stunning original called "Telepathic" with that awesome descending guitar riff that starts it off, as well as a 60s punk cover called "Hate" by THE STOICS. It would please me greatly if someone heard this with fresh ears for the first time right here on Detailed Twang the way I did 17 years ago. Write me if that happens to you, OK?

Play "Telepathic" by THE GORIES



Download THE GORIES - "Telepathic" (A-side)
Download THE GORIES - "Hate" (B-side)

YOUR CHANCE TO JOIN THE SUBURBAN WIVES CLUB

I was going to post the B-side of the SUBURBAN WIVES CLUB’s great 1982 single, “Casual Cat In A Laundromat / Guru Eye” for you today, when I realized that the place that I actually heard this thing the first time still had the mp3 files up & ready for download, in addition to some great info about this early 80s Philadelphia punk/art/disco band. Now, the A-side’s not really my thing, but “Guru Eye” – whoa. A total thumping thud of Bush Tetras/Delta 5 style funk-n-raunch, the living definition of the arty downtown version of “panic rock”. I actually remember the advertisements for this 45 in the pages of "Trouser Press". You’d be forgiven for thinking this band as being from the Lower East Side; nope, they were from an hour away, and I bet that’s cost them major opportunities to get this one comped on Soul Jazz CDs and to make it into No Wave books.

So rather than post the outstanding “Guru Eye” myself, please head over to this link from the excellent LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH blog, where both tracks from the 45 are resident.

Play Suburban Wives Club - "Guru Eye"

QUICK NOTES RELATED TO THE S-S EMPIRE

This long weekend I discovered two things tangentially related to Scott Soriano’s media empire that blew my mind. You’ll need to discover both of them posthaste. First, Scott posted heretofore unheard-to-me tracks from New Zealand’s GRAEME JEFFRIES, culled from his album “Messages From the Cakekitchen”, on his CRUD CRUD blog. The two tracks are incredible, moody, baroque Velvets-style mindflayers. It’s an album I believe I heard not too long after it came out in 1987, but probably wasn’t ready for at the time. Now it’s top of my must-find list. You can still download both the tracks here.

Secondly, this weekend I heard S-S Records’ XYX single, and it’s pretty much the hottest thing I’ve heard all year (sorry, Tilly and the Wall, your reign was colorful and brief). Total spastic sounds from Mexico, like a hopped-up TIMES NEW VIKING playing NOH MERCY's "Caucasian Guilt" with fried-out electronics and a crazy-ass drummer. Amazing. Scott, can you get this band to tour America, right away? The band says they still have some of these EPs available, and I promise you, you’ll thank me for this one. Click here to try and score one.

Play XYX "Nunca, Nunca" (from "Sistema de Terminacion Sexual" 7"EP")