Fantod Under Glass

Peter Hope returns!

2011-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

One of the most-represented artists on this blog has been industrial soul growler Peter Hope: as the frontman for Sheffield skronkmeisters The Box, in partnership with David Harrow for the Sufferhead EP, lead singer of Chain and Flex 13, and in collaboration with Jonathan "Jono" Podmore, about which he writes, "I am proud to say that, for my money it remains one of the most compromising & uncommercial albums of all time." (You can listen to it here... and then buy it!) Noisy, visceral, and vital, Peter Hope's music marries punk, free jazz, and electronic avant-garde, and is some of the most exciting music of the late 20th century. But this is all by way of introduction to the following announcement:

I am overjoyed to report that Peter Hope is back! The short version is that he is once again excited about the music scene and has moved to Glasgow from a self-imposed exile in the Outer Hebrides to start his own label, Wrong Revolution, for the purpose of reissuing music from his own extensive catalog (under the Exploding Mind moniker) and also releasing "material by NEW & ESTABLISHED bands & artists with a focus on the EXPERIMENTAL & CHALLENGING end of the Sonic Spectrum" (as Wrong Way Up). (See Pete's full statement here.) The first two Exploding Mind releases are out now: a cassette called Loud/Wrong/Proud (about which more later), and a CD called Hoodoo Dance. Hoodoo Dance is a generous 17-track sampler of both released and unreleased material spanning Pete's entire career (so far), with tracks from Hoodoo, Soup, The Box, Peter Hope/David Harrow ("Too Hot", one of the best songs of the 80s IMO), Flex 13, White Trash, Chain, and two solo tracks. A lot of the material on it I have never even heard before! Hoodoo, Soup, and White Trash are all new to me, and it's great stuff! I can't help thinking this is what Tom Waits thought he was doing on Bone Machine. Anyway, Hoodoo Dance is up for streaming and digital download purchase on Bandcamp, and a CD is available from Klanggalerie. And since Bandcamp streams are embeddable, here it is to listen to right here:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://peter-hopes-explodingmind.bandcamp.com/album/hoodoo-dance"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Hoodoo Dance by Peter Hope's Exploding Mind&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Here Today (Vigil) - The It/On Me

2010-02-23T18:11:00.000-08:00

A generous reader has donated a rip of an early single by Vigil, back when they were called Here Today: "The It" b/w "On Me". The Bauhaus influences are on full display here: "The It" has a beat similar to Eno's "Third Uncle" (by way of Bauhaus), and Jo Connor echoes Peter Murphy's vocal cadences (but not his voice, their timbres are totally different) on "On Me". It's quite exciting to hear something from so early in their career! I can't find a solid date for it, but I would guess it's from around 1983. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (See here for a FLAC rip of the Vigil CD.) And many thanks to our benefactor!

Arthur Blythe - Illusions

2010-01-17T11:23:00.001-08:00

The CD reissue of Arthur Blythe's 1980 LP Illusions is out of print and selling for high prices on the secondhand market, so here is a vinyl rip for anyone who would like to hear it without having to shell out $50-200 for a CD. This album is part of my James Blood Ulmer collection, as his guitar playing is all over it. Ulmer's guitar is also the only electric instrument in this album's lineup, the full list being:

Arthur Blythe, alto sax
Fred Hopkins, acoustic bass
Steve McCall, drums
John Hicks, piano
James Blood Ulmer, electric guitar
Abdul Wadud, cello
Bob Stewart, tuba
Bobby Battle, drums

The tuba gives the tunes a heavier beat and grounding in traditional jazz than the average avant-garde jazz session, and Blythe switches easily between lyrical leads and free wailing. Illusions was the third in a string of nine Blythe albums released by Columbia between 1978 and 1987, and came at the same time as Ulmer's brief tenure at the label, which resulted in the fiery Black Rock and Free Lancing LPs as well as the classic trio set Odyssey. If only Columbia had managed to push this jazz subgenre into the mainstream! The track list of Illusions is:

Bush Baby
Miss Money
Illusions
My Son Ra
Carespin' With Mamie
As Of Yet

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

The Brains - Electronic Eden

2010-01-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

After months of fruitless searching for a rip of the Brains' second album, Electronic Eden (Mercury, 1981), I discovered I still have my vinyl copy, so I've ripped it myself and present it here for your enjoyment. From Atlanta, Georgia, the Brains are best known for their song "Money Changes Everything," which appeared on their first album in 1980 and was made famous by Cyndi Lauper's cover version in 1983. The Brains played solid new wave rock, with a lyrical quirkiness and intelligence (courtesy of lead singer Tom Gray) that gave them more new wave credibility than many of the North American "new wave" bands at the time that were actually AOR bands with a bit of a new wave sheen (e.g. Loverboy, Huey Lewis and the News). There is a lost masterpiece on this album: "Heart in the Street" is an impassioned anthem to the diminished dreams that come with growing up. Stylistically it prefigures the sound of Collective Soul, a band that would spring from the Atlanta area ten years later and achieve much greater success. "Collision" is a rather macabre song about a girlfriend's not-quite recovery from a car accident. The full track list is:

01 Dream Life
02 One In A Million
03 Hypnotized
04 No Tears Tonight
05 Eyes Of Ice
06 Asphalt Wonderland
07 Little Girl Gone
08 Ambush
09 Heart In The Street
10 House Of Cards
11 Collision

For a more in-depth look at the band and its history, see R. Smith's excellent blog post. (Short version: after being dropped from Mercury Records, they released the Dancing Under Streetlights EP on the independent Landslide label in 1982, underwent some personnel changes, then broke up. A couple members joined the Georgia Satellites. Tom Gray now leads the blues/roots band Delta Moon.) Electronic Eden was produced by Steve Lillywhite (as was their first album) and engineered by Mark Richardson, and contains lots of that gated snare sound that was all the rage in those days. Get the kind-of-noisy vinyl rip here or here.

SLAB! archival track

2009-12-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

No new rips yet (having a slow period ripwise), but Steve Dray did drop a comment with a link to a previously unreleased SLAB track, a seriously rockin' rehearsal recording of "Death's Head Soup". It's so good I'm promoting it to a full-fledged post. Here is Dray's note:

finally put up a rare version of Slab doing Deaths Head Soup http://rapidshare.com/files/313490650/DHS_live.mp3.zip
its one of the very first rehearsal versions.... very scuzzy and dirty
vaguely Stooge like ...sorry it glitches here and there

Get it!

God Mother & Country - Foot on the Rock

2009-11-15T11:29:00.001-08:00

God Mother & Country existed for a short time and put out just this one 12" in 1985, on the Kaz label. Official band members where David Wright and Bruce Smith, Neneh Cherry's first husband and likely the reason she sings lead vocal on this track. Other Rip Rig & Panic alumni appear as guest musicians, the whole list being: Sean Oliver, Nick Straker, Paget King, Henry Defoe, Dave Defries, Ashley Slater, Simon Morton, and Afrodiziak. As for the sound it's pretty standard electrofunk, along the lines of the more commercial efforts of 400 Blows or Brilliant, though with a nice skronky sax solo at the end. The B-side is a dub version of the A-side. The record was cut with insanely high levels; I've done my best to tame them, but there's still some distortion and clipping in the rips. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Junk - Continuation of Madness

2009-09-20T08:42:00.001-07:00

Continuation of Madness is the third and final album by Bay Area acid-skronk quartet Junk, released in 1997 on their own Faffco Records label. The core trio of David Robbins (baritone sax), David Schumacher (guitar), and Frank Swart (bass) is intact from the previous album, while former drummer Diego Voglino is replaced by Malcolm Peoples. (See the previous entry for a full band bio.) The band's postpunk influences are on display here: "Ascending Thirds" is a fantasia on Liquid Liquid's immortal "Cavern" bass riff, and "Tippy Top" sounds like a lost SLAB! track. The full track list is:

01-Continuation of Madness
02-F U, Frank!
03-Stoppin' in Gilroy
04-Ascending Thirds
05-Stratesphere
06-Chutney con Carne
07-Leslie B
08-Tippy Top
09-Kojak Girl
10-Bowleeged Otis
11-Foreign Relations
12-Jive Picnic
13-Win Some, Lose Some
14-The Spoiling Kids
15-Junk

Malcolm Peoples was in turn replaced by Ian "Inkx" Herman; that lineup lasted for only a year and did not result in an album. Junk disbanded; Robbins, Schumacher, and Herman continued as Post Junk Trio, releasing four albums between 2001 and 2007. The last, Chinatown, is in print and readily available for purchase in mp3 format. The first three are more elusive, and may eventually grace these pages. In the meantime, get the Continuation of Madness CD rip here or here.

Junk - Kiss My Acid Jazz

2009-09-13T19:44:00.001-07:00

Junk were an instrumental four-piece band who made music somewhere in the borderlands of acid jazz and skronk; the rhythms were too smooth for skronk, but David Robbins' baritone sax was too edgy for acid jazz. The band's bio from their seemingly abandoned website (last updated April, 2001) reads:

JUNK has been called a jazz band, a funk band, a jazzy-funk band, a funky-jazz band, an "anything but jazz" band, even (horrors!) an acid jazz band. While critics can't agree on how to define them, the listeners & dancers who have heard and seen JUNK will usually agree on this: they have a talent for moving their audiences (body and soul) and they do it intelligently, confidently, and without getting hung up on the labels others try to hang on them. Call it what you like--it swings, it grooves and occasionally it goes off the deep end. But label it, and the music will punch a hole through the box you tried to put it in.
JUNK's beginning can be traced back to 1988 when Dave Schumacher (guitar) and David Robbins (baritone sax) roomed together at Boston's Berklee College of Music, while Schumacher played with Frank Swart (bass) in a band that was to have a significant influence on JUNK. Six years later they all met again in the Bay Area and hooked up with Malcolm Peoples, the local drummer of choice for numerous funk/hip hop acts. Their first CD, JUNK was born out of jams worked out in a smoke-filled rehearsal space. The buzz got going right away. "A solid album," said Stepjazz magazine, "which really shows the possibilities of this music and this band." Urb agreed. "Quite against the pretty boy space cowboy pseudo-funkateer pretenders, they are willing to funk themselves into a cold sweat without apology or gimmickry."
Following tours of the West Coast, the band entered the studio with Philip Steir of Consolidated to record Kiss My Acid Jazz. A more varied CD than the first, KMAJ 's jazz/funk mix was spiced with some experimental cuts that raised a few eyebrows but also brought them critical praise, and national radio airplay. JUNK was nominated in the Outstanding Jazz Band and Jazz Album categories of the 1997 Bay Area Music Awards (Bammies).

The "band that was to have a significant influence on JUNK" would be Morphine, whose defining "low rock" sound is echoed in Junk's heavy bass-and-baritone-sax orientation. Get the CD rip of Junk's second album, Kiss My Acid Jazz (Faffco Records FAFFCD-02), here or here; check back in a week or so for their third and final album. (Have a rip of the first? Please let me know, I'm looking for one.)

Coloured Stone - Black Rock from the Red Centre

2009-09-10T03:45:00.001-07:00

Black Rock from the Red Centre from 1987 is the first US release by Australian Aborigine rock band Coloured Stone; the twelve songs are taken from the band's first two Australian albums from 1984 and 1985. The album profile from Rounder Records reads:

With the emergence of two groups, Coloured Stone and the Warumpi Band, Aboriginal rock 'n' roll is becoming a significantand exciting genre in Australian popular music, with two albums to their credit in their homeland (from both of which Black Stone From The Red Centre is drawn), Coloured Stone saw its first release sponsored by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association's own record label, lmpaarja. Recorded in one night, their debut LP contained "Black Boy" and "Kapi Pulka," which became #l hits, via Radio Australia, in the Pacific Islands Region.

Composed of two sets of brothers, the Lawries and the Coabys, with Buna Lawrie as songwriter, lead singer and drummer, Coloured Stone's songs and their sounds are naive, which is not to say simplistic, and they're straightforward and disarmingly honest. On this record you have straightahead rock songs devoid of the usual aggression and hostility and you have unique mixtures of all the different shades of modern pop from country to R&B to rock and reggae mixed up in totally new ways.

Finding original rock in the Australian bush is like finding a punk band in Dubbo —- it happens, but don't count on it. The uniqueness of this new breed of desert musician is that they play fast, loud and often raucous music in a landscape otherwise dominated bythe perennial C&W tunes and easy listening folk, not so much in the fact they are black. The melodies are there, the beat is there and the performances are uniformly strong. . . Coloured Stone is not some kind of folk or ethnic band; they make rock & roll with all the wit and taste that one can expect or hope for, from the personal to the political without heavyhandednesss or didacticism. Years of discrimination and determination, and long days and nights on the bush tracks have honed Coloured Stone and Lawrie's songs to afine edge.

Recommended Cuts:
"Island of Greed"
"Breaking Hearts"
"Dancing In The Moonlight"
"Take Me Back To The Dreamtime"

The full track list is:

01 Island of Greed
02 Breaking Hearts
03 Sacred Ground
04 Michael William Lawrie
05 Kapi Pulka
06 She's the Girl with the Broken Heart
07 Dancing in the Moonlight
08 Take Me Back to the Dreamtime
09 Magic Girl
10 When I'm Gonna Learn
11 I Wish I Was Living In Your Dreams
12 Black Boy

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Monkeyspank - Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth

2009-09-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Here is an artifact from the Baltimore music scene in 1990: Monkeyspank's first album, the 7-song Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth on Merkin Records. The last.fm entry on Monkeyspank reads:

Monkeyspank was a Baltimore hard rock/funk band active in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Monkeyspank featured an unusual lineup of three drummers/percussionists, two bass players, and a guitarist.Monkeyspank’s sound owes equal debts to guitar-driven heavy rock and polyrythmic funk, in some degree similar to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (albeit with a much darker edge) and local Baltimore contemporaries The All Mighty Senators. They released two albums, the vinyl-only Demons Flew Out of My Mouth and Blue Mud.

The band lineup was: Bill Corsello, Allison Futeral, Dave Kahle, Kevin Keelty, Kendall King and Brian Rice. The track listing of Demons is:

1 Snakejuice
2 1000 Dead Jim Backuses
3 Akio's Dad
4 I Am Sam
5 Dr. Omar
6 Hero
7 I Shake My Stick

Get the vinyl rip of Demons here or here; see the Monkeyspank MySpace page here; get some "where are they now" information here.

Jon Butcher Axis - Stare At The Sun

2009-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

The All Music Guide entry for Jon Butcher reads:

Jimi Hendrix disciple Jon Butcher achieved some moderate chart success in the mid-'80s as the singer/guitarist for the Jon Butcher Axis. Coming out of the Boston club scene in the early '80s, the Butcher Axis (which also included members Chris Mann [Chris Martin, actually] on bass and Derek Blevins on drums), issued such albums as 1983's self-titled debut, 1984's Stare at the Sun, and 1985's Along the Axis (Butcher dropped the Axis for such releases as 1986's Wishes and 1989's Pictures From the Front), opened for local Boston heroes the J. Geils Band in addition to other harder-edged bands, and issued a few singles that enjoyed some success on radio and MTV -- "Wishes," "Goodbye Saving Grace," and "Life Takes a Life." Butcher continued issuing solo albums in the '90s -- Positively the Blues (1995) and Electric Factory (1996) -- while a hits compilation (1998's The Best Of: Dreamers Would Ride) and an archival concert (1999's King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents) were also issued. In addition to his musical career, Butcher founded the Electric Factory Recording Studio, which focuses primarily on film, TV, and multimedia work. (Greg Prato)

According to Wikipedia, "Jimi Hendrix disciple" is a bit of an overstatement:

"If you grew up in the era of Jimi Hendrix as I did it would be nearly impossible NOT to be influenced by his brilliance and amazing facility as a guitar player. To be sure, my early impressions of the Jimi Hendrix Experience were completely life altering, but so too were my impressions of Albert King. Jeff Beck was and remains a constant source of inspiration, and working with Jeff on the MTV/ VH-1 video Ambitious remains an all time high." Jon also lists among his influences Richie Havens, John Lennon Bob Dylan and Keith Richards. While Butcher is humbled by the Hendrix comparisons he emphasizes that they may be superficial. " Being black and playing a Stratocaster might lead one to assume Jimi was my sole influence but that wouldn't be true. Like most musicians, in fact like most people we're a complex mix of a lot of things."

The 1984 album Stare At The Sun contains nine original compositions and a cover of Bill Nelson's "Eros Arriving" from his groundbreaking album The Love That Whirls. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

John Fred and his Playboy Band - Love My Soul

2009-08-13T04:31:00.001-07:00

John Fred and his Playboy Band had their biggest hit in 1968 with "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)", which satirized both the Beatles and the huge sunglasses that were a fad at the time. (Everything old is new again!) John Fred Gourrier was from Louisiana and his band excelled at Southern R&B grooves, but this style never translated into a national hit for them. It was only when they went for a pop gloss that their songs broke through. After three albums on Paula Records, the label dropped them and they disbanded. Fred got a new band together and signed to MCA/Uni, releasing a few more singles and one album, Love My Soul (1970). The new band did not include Fred's former saxophonist and songwriting partner Andrew Bernard; he wrote most of the songs on the album with his manager, Lynn Ourso. There is a distinct Beatles influence throughout the album, evident from the first track, "The Big Show", which not only sounds like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", it also references it in the lyrics, along with "Judy In Disguise" (but which was written by outside songwriters). Side one closes with a Memphis-style cover of "Back in the U.S.S.R.", previously released as a single. In the middle of side two, the title track sounds like Fred's "Let It Be": a downtempo ballad that builds to an anthem, at which point the horns play the "Judy In Disguise" riff (co-written with Bernard). Sprinkled through the record are three more obvious singles: "Three Deep in a Feeling" (previously released). "Candy's Candy Kisses" (a dead ringer for Tommy James), and "Sadie Trout" (the album's other Bernard co-writing credit). Robert Christgau evaluates the album thusly:

With his sharp, nasal drawl, Fred was born to pop, and though he's lost collaborator Andrew Bernard, he's keeping Shreveport's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Fan Club going all by himself. Would anyone but a genuine eccentric rewrite "Sweet Soul Music" as a tribute to Johnny Winter, Pete Townshend, and Nilsson? "Agnes in Disguise (With Blanket)": "Sadie Trout." B-

The full track list is:

01 The Big Show
02 He Was My Friend
03 Where Will You Be
04 Three Deep in a Feeling
05 Sweet Soul Music-Can't Be So Bad
06 Back in the U.S.S.R.
07 Where's Everybody Going
08 Open Doors
09 Candy's Candy Kisses
10 Love My Soul
11 Leo Our Hero
12 Sadie Trout

Get the vinyl rip here or here. It's not from pristine vinyl so be prepared for some clicks and pops; if you like it you should be able to find a sealed copy for $40 or so.

Gary O'

2009-08-08T08:48:00.001-07:00

Canadian singer/guitarist Gary O'Connor had been in the bands Cat, Liverpool (a Beatles tribute band), and Aerial before going solo as Gary O', releasing his first solo album on Capitol Records in 1981. Anyone who listened to AOR radio in the early 80s will be familiar with "All the Young Heroes", as perfect an example of that genre as was ever made. About the Gary O' album, Wikipedia says:

The first single "I Believe in You" became a smash hit in Canada, and the follow-up, a remake of The Hollies' song "Pay You Back With Interest" even reached the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, where it peaked at #70.

I never heard either of those songs on US radio; it was "All the Young Heroes" that was a hit with fans of what is now known as "melodic hard rock." The full track list is:

01 All The Young Heroes
02 Pay You Back With Interest
03 California Goodbye
04 I Believe In You
05 Suzanne
06 The Way You Look Tonight
07 Just A Little Love
08 Nightrider
09 Been A Long Time

And the musicians are:

Gary O': vocals, guitars
David Landau: guitars
George Doering: guitars
Peter Wolf: keyboards, synthesizers
Jai Winding: keyboards
Richard Landis: keyboards
Bryan Garofolo: bass
Craig Krampf: drums
Jim Haas, Stan Farber, Jon Joyce: backing vocals
Charlie Calello: string arrangements, conducting

"The Way You Look Tonight" could have been a single as well, though it's awfully close to the Raspberries' "Go All the Way." Gary O' released his second and last album, Strange Behaviour, in 1984; since then he has worked as a songwriter. Get the vinyl rip of Gary O' here or here.

House of Schock

2009-08-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

Of the three members of the Go-Gos to release solo albums, drummer Gina Schock was the last, her House of Shock album appearing in 1988. Although it's technically not a solo album, as "House of Schock" is the name of the partnership between Schock (drums, vocals) and Vance De Generes (bass, backing vocals, brother of Ellen). Then backing up House of Schock is "The House Band" of Chrissy Shefts (all guitars, backing vocals), Steven Fisher (drums--I guess Gina didn't play all the drums), and Jim Biggs (keyboards, backing vocals). The album leads off with the sublime single "Middle of Nowhere"; I was going to post the video here, but it seems to have disappeared from the web. Nothing else on the album rises to the same level, but Schock makes it clear that she is by far the rockingest of the Go-Gos. The full track list is:

01 Middle Of Nowhere
02 Just To Dream
03 Walk In My Sleep
04 Love In Return
05 Where Love Goes
06 Never Be Enough
07 This Time
08 Seems Like Forever
09 The World Goes Round
10 Walk Away

The CD format of this album must have had a very small run, as it's now a collector's item fetching upwards of $50. If you would like a vinyl rip @192kps to listen to while you save up for a CD, get it here or here.

Jeff Sturges and Universe

2009-07-26T15:37:00.001-07:00

And now for something completely different! I have ripped and posted just about all of my postpunk rarities (i.e. out of print and not already served up on another blog), so for the time being I'm going to take a side journey into other odds and ends that fall outside of the stylistic tone of this blog to date. The first such oddity is the 1971 album by Jeff Sturges and Universe, a hard-rock big band recorded live at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Sturges is the arranger and conductor; the mammoth band he assembled comprised:

Trumpets: Bobby Shew (lead), Tommy Porrello, Jon Murakami, Rich Cooper, Derek Watkins
Trombones: Jim Trimble (lead), Bill Booth, Dan Trinter, Stan Nishamura (bass trombone)
Saxes: Archie Wheeler, Burt Esterman, Don Menza, John Phillips, Gary Freyman
French Horns: Art Maebe, Dick Perissi, Aubrey Bouck, Ralph Pollock
Lead Guitar: Dean Parks
Bass: Dennis Kelly, Don Baldwin
Organ, Electric Piano: Hal Stesch
Percussion: Roger Rampton
Congas, Bongos: Mike Lewis
Drums: Jimmy Manone

That's eighteen horns, mostly playing full blast; this record is anything but subtle. Apart from one Sturges original, all the tracks are covers, the most recognizable today being Mountain's "Mississippi Queen"; "bombastic" hardly begins to describe it. The full track list is:

Junior Saw It Happen (Jim Pulte via the Steve Miller Band)
Sin's a Good Man's Brother (Grand Funk Railroad)
Never In My Life (Mountain)
Clown (The Flock)
Rice Pudding (Jeff Beck)
Mississippi Queen (Mountain)
Acid West (Sturges)
Keep On Burnin' (credited to Ryan/Devers, Berwill Publishing... ???)

I can't find any information on whatever happened to Jeff Sturges after this, but if you like to rock out with horns turned up to eleven, he left a nice artifact for you to enjoy. My vinyl copy is in pretty sad shape, and while I did run a click removal on the whole recording, there is still noticeable surface noise. But for now it's the best (i.e. only) rip available, and hey, surface noise adds character! If someone puts up a better one, I will gladly redirect to that one. For now, get the vinyl rip here or here.

Jesse Rae - three 12-inch singles

2009-07-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

Look! There's Jesse Rae before he had his steel helmet and five-foot Claymore (sword)! 1985 was the year of Jesse Rae's career-defining single, "Over the Sea", the extravagant video for which established the helmeted, kilted, sword-wielding image he maintains to this day. But he must not have had the helmet and sword yet in 1982, as that is the year of the record pictured above, the Columbia release of the double-A-side 12" single of "Rusha" b/w "Desire" (the first of the 12-inch three-pack offered here). This is a different version of "Rusha" than the one on The Thistle; it's about a minute and a half longer, and is an earlier recording, though both of them feature Bernie Worrell on keyboards. "Desire" was a single for Rae in 1979 on Bold Records; I have never seen or heard that record, so I don't know if this is the same recording or not. It is a bizarre electro piece with funny sampled voices providing much of the rhythm track and goofy lyrics; its seven-minute length may be excessive, but once you hear it you will never forget it.

Next up is the 12-inch single of "Over the Sea", again signficantly different than the album version. In addition to the hotter mix (which my PC recording setup can just barely handle, sorry for the distortion on the sibilants), there is a more active rhythm synth, no instrumental indtroduction, and an additional 30 seconds of music. The real gem on this record is the first track on the B side, "Party Crackers", a wicked eight-minute funk jam. Closing the B side is an instrumental verion of "Over the Sea", with an extended Bernie Worrell synth intro in his distinctive freaky style.

Rounding out the 3-pack is the 12-inch single of "Hou-di-ni" b/w "Idio-syn-crazy", both of which appear on The Thistle in more or less the same versions (though "Idio-syn-crazy" is decoupled here from the album's "Scotland the Brave" instrumental intro). I've packaged all three 12-inch vinyl rips in separate folders in a single archive file; get it here or here.

Jesse Rae - The Thistle

2009-06-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here is the only album by funky Scotsman Jesse Rae (not to be confused with Oregon "roots pop with a blues edge" band Jessie Rae; why they would choose a name that is so close to an established musician's is a mystery to me). Wikipedia says:

Jesse Rae is a Scottish singer from St Boswells,[1] who is particularly remembered for his single "Over the Sea", which reached number 65 in the UK Singles Chart in 1985.[2][3] The video for the single – which features a kilted, helmeted, claymore-brandishing Rae in both New York City and the Scottish Highlands – won a Vira award.[4] An album entitled The Thistle was released in 1987 on WEA but failed to chart. As a songwriter, he is also remembered for the 1982 Odyssey hit single, "Inside Out".[5][6] In 2007, he stood for the Scottish Parliament as an independent in the Scottish Borders electoral constituency of Roxburgh and Berwickshire.[7] He
gained 318 votes for a 1.2% share of the vote.[8]

The opening track is Rae's own recording of his hit for Odyssey, "Inside Out". What the article doesn't mention is the funk pedigree of The Thistle: it was produced by Zapp leader Roger Troutman, who also plays on most of the songs, and his brother Lester plays drums or percussion on about half of the tracks. As if that weren't enough, Funkateer Bernie Worrell plays on five tracks, and P-Funk guitarist Michael Hampton puts in a couple of appearances as well. That said, the album is definitely a product of the 80s, and while it's among the best of 80s pop-funk, it's not exactly timeless. But it's got plenty of good licks, and the thickest Scottish brogue you will ever hear on a funk record. Get the vinyl rip here or here, and check out the videos below. Oh, and about the outfit: Rae "rarely appears in public without his steel helmet and full Scottish garb."

Various Artists - Rock'n'Horreur

2009-06-08T20:00:00.001-07:00

Here is another album courtesy of Stephan James/Stephen J. Munson of Living In Texas: Rock'n'Horreur, a French compilation of psychobilly bands from 1989 (or 1990, details are sketchy). Most of the bands are French as well, with the exceptions of Batmobile (Dutch) and Hi Grip (Swiss). Living In Texas, represented here by their best song, "The Girl in the Red Leather Coat," were actually English but had laregly relocated to France by this time. While the eleven bands here take different approaches to rockabilly, injecting varying degrees of camp horror, the influence of the Cramps is always felt. The track listing is:

Rock Side:

01 Crabs - Mort Au Volant
02 Batmobile - Amazones from Outer Space
03 Washington Dead Cats - Babe You're a Nightmare
04 Dead Ox Gulch - Vendredi 13 Pour Beurki Crado
05 Rocco and the Rays - Ballad of John Lee Hopper

Horreur Side:

06 Burial Party - Flat Twin Woman
07 Living In Texas - The Girl in the Red Leather Coat
08 Happy Drivers - Nervous Man
09 Wampas - Seul
10 Los Mescaleros - Witches Revenge
11 Hi Grip - Kleopatra

The name of the record company is not even listed anywhere, unless it is AR; the catalog number is AR 002. The collection was compiled by Mat Firehair of the Washington Dead Cats. I have included a large photo of the back cover in case you want to try to read the liner notes (in French and English). The blue type on amber background is hard to read on the jacket itself; it is even harder to read in the pic, but it is still barely legible. And now that I take the time to read it, it's not at all informative, just a few sentences that link the song titles together into a "story". Oh well, delete it if you like, I won't be offended. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Various Artists - Live at the 101: Club Sandwich

2009-05-31T16:26:00.001-07:00

Here is Club Sandwich from 1981, the third and final (for now, at least) vinyl rip from 101 Records' series of budget-priced live compilations. All the songs were recorded at the 101 Club in St. John's Hill, Clapham. The previous two LPs posted here each had two or three bands that went on to greater fame. On Club Sandwich, though, only one band broke through: The Fix added another X to their name to become chart-toppers The Fixx. The song included here, "The Strain", appears on some versions of their Shuttered Room album. The full Club Sandwich track list is as follows:

01 Repro Central - Ring-a-ding
02 The Fix - The Strain
03 Rock Salmon and the Pomme Fritts - Fast Cars
04 Victims of Pleasure - Slaves To Fashion
05 Nautyculture - Someday Sunday
06 Rainbow Remipeds - Tropical Milk
07 Rank Amateurs - Games Up
08 The Edukators - Electric
09 Daddy Yum Yum - Mind Over Matter
10 The Mistakes - Jukebox
11 Malchix - Demons of Light and Sound
12 Repro Central - God Don't Bleed

After The Fixx, the Rainbow Remipeds produced the largest catalog of the rest of the bands here, though mostly as simply The Remipeds. They had a horn section and played the melange of rock, funk, jazz, dub, and Latin music commonly known as "postpunk" and most often associated with Pigbag. The Remipeds don't quite have Pigbag's wit and energy, and their calypso accents in "Tropical Milk" are in questionable taste, but if you like the genre then you shouldn't miss them. They reissued their only album, The Tahiti Syndrome, in 2005 with bonus tracks. Check the album webpage for samples of all songs, and be sure to check out the opener, their signature tune "Hawaii Five-O." The Remipeds MySpace page has loads of videos which could keep you busy for half an hour or so. Rock Salmon and the Pommes Fritts and Daddy Yum Yum both contribute decent rockabilly tracks (the later featuring an accordion). I can't find any information on Rock Salmon, but Daddy Yum Yum left a bit more of a trail. A Brighton band, percussionist Willi Kerr describes their music as "thrash skiffle." Kerr and Dave Simner are now members of the "Old Time, Hillbilly and Hellfire Gospel" band The Curst Sons. Repro Central got two tracks on the album, though they are not noticeably better than the other nine bands. Rank Amateurs sound more than a bit like the Police, and the rest of the bands play competent new wave that is good for a listen but not particularly memorable. If nothing else, Club Sandwich is a fantastic time capsule, a snapshot of the bread-and-butter of new wave as opposed to the most popular stuff that is remembered today. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

(I thought for a long time that was Jim Skafish on the cover, but according to the fine print on the back it's Rick Mann.)

Various Artists - Live at the 101: Band'its at 10 O'Clock

2009-05-11T20:48:00.001-07:00

Here is another album from 101 Records via Polydor, documenting live performances at Clapham Junction's 101 Club. Also from 1980, the track listing on this one is:

01 The Scene - All People Go Mad
02 The Hit Men - She's All Mine
03 The V.I.P.'s - Causing Complications
04 The Piranhas - Yap Yap Yap
05 Real To Real - White Man Reggae
06 Holly and the Italians - Chapel of Love
07 Electric Eels - Thoroughly Modern
08 Jane Kennaway & Strange Behaviour - Catch Cool
09 Thompson Twins - Squares and Triangles
10 Huang Chung - Baby I'm Hu-Man
11 Comsat Angels - Independence Day
12 Wasted Youth - Jealousy

I have determined that The Scene is an early name for the band Giants, who released "All People Go Mad" as a single in 1982. Giants featured guitaris/songwriter Gordon Reaney and singer Paul Cox. The Hit Men soon consolidated their name to The Hitmen, the first band on Ben Watkins' road to fame. The Hitmen's two albums are also available on this blog (with "She's All Mine" appearing on the first); see here. The V.I.P.'s formed at Warwick University in 1978; lead singer Jed Dmochowski left in 1980 to pursue a solo career, the rest of the band forming Mood Six. See below for a vintage video of "Causing Complications." The Piranhas went on to some success, with their song "Tom Hark" becoming an enduring football anthem (I am told). Real To Real included a pre-Depeche Mode Alan Wilder. Holly Beth Vincent/Holly and the Italians had a couple alternative hits with "Tell That Girl To Shut Up" and "Dangerously." I can't find any information on the Electric Eels (they are definitely not the 70s punk band from Ohio); the "Thoroughly Modern" songwriting credits are for Methane Wernick and Mad Molecule, which I am pretty sure are aliases. They are obviously big fans of Eno-era Roxy Music, and their musical chops are far above most of the other bands included here. Jane Kennaway put out a couple singles and has a band now called A Different Kind of Honey. The Thompson Twins really date-stamp this record with a live version of their single "Squares and Triangles" and its repeated chorus of "one-nine-eight-o," bearing little resemblance to their later hit material. Wang Chung appear as Huang Chung; Sheffield's Comsat Angels put in a version of "Independence Day," a song they later recorded for two different studio albums; and Wasted Youth's "Jealousy" sounds like a twisted remake of "Crimson and Clover." Get the vinyl rip here or here.

I've got one more Live at the 101 comp to rip and share, then it's on to other things.

Various Artists - Live at the 101: Warts'n'All

2009-05-04T11:13:00.001-07:00

Here is one of a series of live albums released in the early 80s by the house label (via Polydor) of the 101 Club in St. John's Hill, Clapham. Each of the albums contained tracks by several up-and-coming bands recorded live at the club and was released at a budget price in a rough cardstock sleeve with tabloid-style graphics. From 1980, this compilation includes:

01 Album Intro
02 Thompson Twins - Physics & Chemistry
03 Thompson Twins - Slave Trade
04 Jane Kennaway & Strange Behaviour - Atmospheres of England
05 Philip Gayle - Hermaphrodite
06 Deaf Aids - Heroes
07 Local Heroes SW9 - Competition
08 Local Heroes SW9 - Stabbed in the Heart Again
09 Deaf Aids - Bristol Stomp
10 Jane Kennaway & Strange Behaviour - Scratching at the Surface
11 Philip Gayle - The Ambassadors
12 The Mechanics - If I Make My Own Bed
13 The Mechanics - Higher & Higher

Unless you have heard these early Thompson Twins tracks before, chances are you won't recognize them as the same band who performed "Doctor, Doctor", "Love On Your Side", or even "In the Name of Love"; they sound like a punk-influenced new wave band! David Bowie-ish singer Philip Gayle later achieved some chart success as Philip Jap with his Trevor Horn-produced single "Save Us" (and the Tony Mansfield-produced "Total Erasure"); his lone solo album is quite good and is available on the Off the Record blog. The third and final act on this record to have managed to put out an album is Local Heroes SW9, whose members included Kevin Armstrong (later of the Passions) and sometime Thompson Twin Matthew Seligman. Jane Kennaway put out a couple singles and appears to have a band now called A Different Kind of Honey; Deaf Aids also released just two singles; and I can find no mention of the Mechanics other than on this album. They are more bluesy than the rest of the bands, but work up a nice groove on the original "If I Make My Own Bed" and then encourage an audience singalong in the cover of "Higher and Higher." The only information I have on the band members is that the songwriting credit is for Terry Quinn.

About the rip: the pressing is not great: there is noticeable surface noise and an above-average amount of clicks and pops. I removed as many as I could, but some remain. Also, the sound quality on side 2 suffers from the 29-minute playing time; levels (and general sound quality) are lower than on side 1. I have normalized the levels, but the quality is what it is. It's no worse than FM radio, at least. New links: Get the vinyl rip here or here. More Live at the 101 albums to come.

Living In Texas - Believe

2009-04-25T05:33:00.001-07:00

I'm back! This time I bring you the final album by Living In Texas, Believe, released in 1991. It's a far cry from their great recordings of the mid-80s, mostly due to guitarist Daniel Glee's absence. Believe really emphasizes how much Glee contributed to the band's sound: his unique fusion of gothic, punk, and rockabilly styles made Living In Texas stand out. While Glee gets a couple co-songwriter credits, he apparently left the band before the recording sessions. Guitars on Believe are handled by former second guitarist Jeff Wallace and newcomer Claudia Pinto, plus various solos and extra guitar parts by Marc Sullivan, Steve Forward, and Laurent Roubach. A lot of the guitar work is disappointingly generic, in the manner of middle-of-the-road radio fodder. Only Stephan James's lyrics and singing provide continuity with the band's past, but even he has indicated that his involvement at the time was half-hearted. Judging by the number of people involved (in addition to the five band members and three extra guitarists, there are five more musicians credited for keyboards, percussion, and backing vocals) it sounds like the recording process was rather scattershot. The ten songs are good; the execution is hit-or-miss. But even if it is not the band's best work, it is still better than a lot of more popular music. Get the rip (from the Cent Pour Cent vinyl release) here or here.

This concludes my Living In Texas discography project, in the sense that I have ripped and uploaded everything I could find, including generous contributions from Stephan James and some helpful readers. If I unearth any more I will add those as well; likewise, if you have anything I've missed, please contact me (through the comments or at funderglass at yahoo dot com) if you would like to contribute some rips to the cause.

Living In Texas - Beautiful/Television 45

2009-03-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't had any time for ripping lately, so this installment features another reader contribution. Marco provides us with the Living In Texas single "Beautiful" b/w "Television," which was released in 1985 on the French label Comotion Musique and did not appear on any of their albums. Once again this is the band in their prime, featuring the two-guitar lineup of Daniel Glee and Jeff Wallace. Marco has lovingly ripped the 45 at 320kbps and scanned both sides of the sleeve and both sides of the label as well! Get the archive file here or here. Thanks, Marco!

Onyx - Call of the Wild and Jet Set singles

2009-03-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

Last July I posted a rip of a 1982 cassette by Onyx, an obscure Boston-area New Wave band. Their two 45s had long eluded me, but last week a generous reader provided me rips of them. (Thanks, Martin!) They are:

Call of the Wild b/w S.O.S.
Jet Set b/w Saturn 09

"S.O.S." and "Jet Set" appear on the cassette as well, but these vinyl rips obviously have better sound quality. "Call of the Wild" and "Saturn 09" round out the Onyx canon with more of the same sweet blend of minimal electronics and heavy basslines. Martin has also provided nice scans of the sleeves. The back cover of "Jet Set" contains the most information about the band I have yet seen: production and copyright credits are for Judd Stone and vocals are by "Beveur." The songs were recorded and mixed the The Loft in Boston and engineered by M.J. Klein. Web searches have turned up no more information on these people; does anyone out there know of them and their pre- and post-Onyx endeavors?

Get the vinyl rips here or here.

Living In Texas - An Assortment

2009-03-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some more Living In Texas tracks from a CD-R compilation sent to me by frontman Stephan James (now known as Stephen J. Munson of Spacegirl and the Cowboy). The eight songs in this batch come from three records:

My End of Heaven (1983)

My End of Heaven
Awaken

God Bless America (1984)

God Bless America Part 1
God Bless America Part 2
The Day of All Days

The End of the Beginning (83-89 compilation?)

Mexican Nun
I'll Always Remember You
She Lives Inside My Head

If you were a fan of Living In Texas, or if you have come to know them through this blog, you know what to expect and these tracks will not disappoint! I am tantalized by the possibility that the 2-CD The End of the Beginning collection may hold tracks yet unheard (and unshared); anyone have that? There is still more Living In Texas in the queue; the next to appear will be the 1991 album Believe. In the meantime, grab this set here or here.

The Promenaders

2009-02-23T19:16:00.001-08:00

The Promenaders were a pseudonymous project of musical anarchists (or eclecticists, depending on your point of view) Lol Coxhill and Steve Beresford, among others, and in some respects can be seen as a precursor to their long-running Melody Four group with Tony Coe. A note on the back cover sets the scene:

Pot-pourris of old and new favourites ... unique renditions of established melodies ... some insights into their own personal contributions to contemporary music. That's what you can expect from the Promenaders' first long player. It's been skilfully recorded to capture all the flavour of a Brighton performance ... music, announcements, sun, sea, holiday makers, ATMOSPHERE.

Yes, it's postpunk busking circa 1981, with irreverent versions of a whole slew of songs done medley-style, arranged to fit the (self-imposed) limitations of the Promenaders' instrumentation:

Loxhawn Rondeaux (Lol Coxhill): soprano saxophone and vocals
Stuart Barefoot (Steve Beresford): euphonium and vocals
Steve Topp (David Toop): one string violin
Mike Simple (Max Eastley): one string violin
Derek Nyte (Terry Day): cello and percussion
"Andre" (Peter Cusack): guitar
Paulo "sticks" Birrelli (Paul Burwell): drums
Violet Nightingale (?): guest chanteuse, vocal on "Moon River"

Recorded live by Dirk Pitt on Brighton Beach, with Free Bonus Track (the last track) from their performance in an "Exclusive Brighton Discotheque." And now for the incredibly long song list:

Nellie The Elephant
Louie Louie / The Promenader's Shuffle / Whistle While You Work / Calling All Workers / The Dambusters March / Do Re Mi / Eine Kleine Nachtmusik / American Patrol / South Of The Border / Let's Twist Again
My Grandfather's Clock / Al Capone / Ghosts / The James Bond Theme / Holy Family / Walkin' The Dog / Prommin' The Bass / Oklahoma / Parade Of The Penguins / I Could Have Danced All Night
Chicago
Moon River
Rock Around The Clock / Tin Roof Blues / Philly Dog / Promenaders Jazz It Up / Saturday Jump
Stranger On The Shore / Rondeaux Makes It Up
Happy Talk / The Hokey Cokey / Knees Up, Mother Brown
"A", You're Adorable / There's A Long, Long Road A-Winding / Do Re Mi / My Favourite Things / You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To / Chim Chim Cheree
(Won't You Play A) Simple Melody / Tibetan Promenade / Nellie The Elephant

The last track, which is introduced as "Won't You Play A Simple Tibetan Melody," may be the funniest song you hear all week. This is the Promenaders' only album, released by Y Records in 1982; get the vinyl rip here (new link) or here.

Living In Texas - Kingdom EP

2009-02-21T04:54:00.001-08:00

From a fan's perspective, one of the worse practices that the major labels refined in the 80s was a long wait between albums, the limitation of bands' releases to a mere trickle to be dispensed every few years. In the 60s it was not uncommon for bands to release two or more albums per year, then the 70s ushered in the one-album-per-year schedule. But in the 80s the labels found they could keep working an album for years, gradually releasing songs as singles to prop up sales of the album. (I blame Michael Jackson's Thriller for this practice.) The flip side was that independent labels found another way to compete with the majors: in addition to releasing fresher, more adventurous music, they could release it at a faster pace, without necessarily waiting for an entire album's worth of material. A band could produce a steady stream of singles and EPs (4-6 songs) to keep put music in front of the public several times a year. (And with the impending demise of the CD we may see that model come back.) That was a double-edged sword for fans: more music from favorite bands is a good thing, but the vagaries of independent distribution also made it easy to miss something. Thus it is that twenty-odd years after the fact I am still finding music by Living In Texas that I missed when it was new. One of those records is the Kingdom EP, released by the band on their own Chainsaw label in 1984, consisting of four songs:

Department Store Graveyard
Kingdom 2
Lollipop Sperm
Godemocrafasc

"Department Store Graveyard" is an odd gothic dirge; "Kingdom 2," previously presented here in a live version (as "Kingdom III"), benefits from a studio recording. The long jam is similar in structure and rhythm to the great early Modern English B-side "The Perfect View" but with more energy. The two songs on the flip side bring in the "jungle" drums for the band's trademark "voodoo gothic rock" sound. Kingdom is another top-notch release from an overlooked band; get the rip here or here, and check back for more archival material from Living In Texas.

Vigil - FLAC

2009-02-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

This entry is a repeat of one of last month's posts, but with a key difference. The original post linked to a standard 192kbps mp3 rip from vinyl. An alert reader turned up a copy of the CD release, however, and a quick order made it mine. So I am breaking with my normal policy to present a FLAC rip of this special CD, one of the first rock CDs to be digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered. The archive is spread over three files (join with HJSplit or 7Zip):

RS: File 1

MU: File 1, File 2, File 3

BD: File 1

DF: File 1

HF: File 1

This rip eliminates the distorted sibilants in my vinyl rip, and of course the surface noise; it is pristine. (CD ripped to FLAC with Exact Audio Copy.)

For those who missed the band info the first time around, here it is again:

Continuing our brief musical tour of Baltimore in the 1980s, here is the sole major-label release of Vigil, previously known as Here Today. Here is the capsule history of the band from the Vigil MySpace page:

Vigil was a modern rock band that recorded and performed in the mid to late 1980's. Once upon a time in the "Land of Pleasant Living" aka Baltimore there was a group of musicians known as Here Today: Jo Connor, Andy R, X Factor and Gregg Maizel. They recorded a classic song called "Whistle in the Yard" and soon signed to CBS records, changed their name to Vigil and were promptly dropped. Vigil was quickly signed by Chrysalis Records and recorded their debut lp in glorious digital. It was released in 1987 and sold enough copies to allow them to record another lp but only one track, "Therapist", was released by Chrysalis, appearing on the Nightmare on Elm Street 4 soundtrack. Eventually the second album was released on cassette only as Onto Beggar and Bitter Things.

Vigil was influenced by UK bands, particularly those of the Gothic persuasion, and as a result their expansive, dreamy sound was quite different from most of the other Maryland bands of the era. "I Am Waiting" was released as a 12-inch single, but it was the wah-wah-guitar-fuelled B-side, "I Love You Equinox", that garnered all the airplay on WHFS:

I have never found a copy of the self-released, cassette-only second album, but I presume that the first three songs on Vigil's MySpace player come from it, since they are not on the first album. The full track list of the first album is:

Until the Seasons
I Am Waiting
White Magic Spell
Gargoyles
I Love You Equinox
Whistle in the Yard
The Celiba Sea
The Garden
Born Again
The Benefit of the Doubt

Vigil singer Jo Connor now fronts the Jo Connor Band, which "performs classic Vigil songs along with new faves."

Nort - G.O.D.A.M.B.

2009-02-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

Sheffield's mighty "industrial funk" movement of the 80s fizzled out by the end of that decade. Cabaret Voltaire went house and then split up; Eric Random went AWOL; Chakk and Workforce disintegrated; and the band that best embodied the whole genre, Hula, disbanded despite securing a US record deal with Wax Trax. Hula's catalog has thankfully been reissued in digital form in recent years, but here is a related item that has not. Nort was Hula's drummer, and he put out a solo album in 1988 on Ediesta Records, Games Of Dance And Muscle Blood, usually listed in acronym form as G.O.D.A.M.B. Nort provides drums, percussion, voice, tapes, samples, bass guitar, treatments, sequencers, and keyboards, and is supported by a rather large cast of musicians:

Justin Bennett - drums, percussion, violin, samples, treatments, keyboards
D. I. Anii - drums
D'Silva - saxophone, keyboards
Sara - Voices
Alan Fisch - samples, treatments
Barry Harden - bass guitar
Dave Heppinstall - keyboards, voice, treatments, percussion
Sarah Morrell - trumpet
Alan Russell - guitar
Phaedre Selmes - voices
Phil Wolstenholme - kazoo

It's not quite a Great Lost Hula Album, but about half of it could be: the opener "It's A Dream" could almost fit on Voice, the short "Luther's Scream" sounds like Murmur-era Hula, and there are a couple ambient tracks that would sound at home on Hula's improvised Shadowland LP. Three other rhythm-oriented tracks are in the distinctive Sheffield funk vein but are more akin to Workforce's uptempo "Back in the Good Books." Which leaves a few tracks of odds and ends somewhere between ambient and rhythmic. G.O.D.A.M.B. is thus an essential record for, well, anyone who follows this blog! Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Nort has been active in two bands of late, Yonni and The Cherokees. He has also published an autobiography, A Kill Ease, through Lulu.com.

The cover of G.O.D.A.M.B., while it has some interesting elements, is a bit of a mess. It was designed by Metroviral Visuals, which was Anthony Bennett, now a respected sculptor (and MBE awardee) whose bronze tribute to Beatrix Potter now stands in Bowness-on-Mere.

Living In Texas - The History of Rock & Roll

2009-02-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

I'm back with another Living In Texas record, once again provided by the band's singer Stephan James. The elusive The History of Rock & Roll EP, released in 1986 by the Italian label Supporti Fonografici, is Living In Texas in their absolute prime, every bit as lively and raw as Glad Bad Sad and Mad. It opens with an Adam and the Ants cover (!), "Lady", and while the Ants really rocked on their original, LIT rock even more. "Lady" is followed by "A Taste of Mary," a bit of psychobilly with voodoo drums and spooky backing vocals; and that's it for side one. Side two consists of the rocker "Apple Red Convertible," an Italian-language version* of "A Taste of Mary," and "No:" which is... a rap! With main vocals by drummer Mathew Frazer! Rap songs by rock bands are usually cringeworthy, but "No:" is surprisingly good. And that's it, just five tracks. Producer Martin Young (of Colour Box) adds keyboards, and the manic cover art is by guitarist Daniel Glee, as usual. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

* "At least we tried to sing in Italian. At least we tried!", it says in the liner notes.

Peter Hope - Kitchenette, Leather Hands, Surgeons 12-inches

2009-01-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

I have had little time for ripping lately, but I do have an exciting external contribution to present: three 12-inch singles by Sheffield wild man Peter Hope from the heady 80s. Many thanks to reader Alex for passing the rips along! They are:

Peter Hope & the Jonathan S. Podmore Method - Kitchenette (1986)

Kitchenette
Toilet (non-LP track)
The Unknown Industrial Fatality

Peter Hope & Richard H. Kirk - Leather Hands (1985)

Leather Hands (Master Mix) (ten minutes long!)
Leather Hands (Radio Mix)
Leather Hands (Crash Mix)

Peter Hope & Richard H. Kirk - Surgeons/N.O. (1988)

Surgeons (12inch mixxx)
Surgeons (Beats)
Surgeons (Resurgancy)
N.O. (12inch mixxx)
N.O. (Dub Beats)
N.O. (Giant Dub)

Each record is in its own folder, all three folders in one .zip file: get it here or here. Links removed: Kitchenette to be reissued soon!

Living In Texas - Everything Was...

2009-01-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

I am delighted to announce that I have some more Living In Texas rips to share, thanks to none other than the band's frontman Stephan James! First up is the compilation album Everything Was... from the French label Made In Heaven, which collects the earlier album Everything Is... and a few other tracks:

Sweet Little A-Bomb Baby
Something Wonderful
Oh Yeah
Everything Is
Kill
Can You Touch the Sun
Superman Is Dead
When I Close My Eyes
Heart
Where Do We Go From Here?
Love That Child

I'm not quite sure where these songs fit in the Living In Texas chronology, but the bulk of it sounds similar to The Fastest Men Alive (1985) in terms of musical style and production, so I'm guessing it comes between 1985 and the 1991 album Believe. The most notable difference between this record and (presumably) earlier material from Living In Texas is the prevalence of piano in the mix; there is even a full-fledged piano ballad, "Superman Is Dead." A larger trend that was happening in the late 80s was "dark" bands becoming poppier (think of The Cure's progression from "A Forest" and "The Hanging Garden" to "The Love Cats" and "Why Can't I Be You"), and that trend is reflected in this music as well on tracks such as "Sweet Little A-Bomb Baby," "Something Wonderful," and "Kill." But true to form, Living In Texas put a little more bite into it than the norm. Another standout in the sound is the chiming acoustic rhythm guitars in "Oh Yeah" and "Everything Is," the latter of which intercuts the band's trademark manic rockabilly with an expansive, arena-worthy chorus. And speaking of arenas, the album closer "Love That Child" is what U2 might have sounded like at the peak of their popularity (early 90s?) if they remembered to rock! In short, these eleven rare Living In Texas tracks rank with the band's finest and make an already-impressive body of work even moreso; get them here or here.

Cabal / Null Set

2009-01-06T18:01:00.001-08:00

By some accounts Baltimore's first and greatest postpunk band, Null Set was the brainchild of singer Bill Dawson (previously seen here with Black Pete) and guitarist Mark Harp. Null Set's highest-profile gig was opening for the Ramones at Johns Hopkins University's Shriver Hall, and they were semi-regulars at the Marble Bar and DC's 9:30 Club in the early 80s. Their Bauhaus fandom shows pretty clearly in their early recordings; "An Evening In Town" is their "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Null Set came to an abrupt end when an identically-named band from another city put out a record; Baltimore's Null Set ended up changing their name to Cabal. In 1984 they released their only record, a self-titled 6-song EP on Buck Awf's ad-hoc Awf-Trak label; on it they started to come out from under the Bauhaus influence and expand their sound, even approaching synth-pop on "New Horizon." Commercial success did not ensue, however, and the band drifted apart. Mark Harp went on to record hundreds of hours of music in a myriad of different projects; he eventually divided them into 24 hour-long thematic sections and posted them on his website (and at the Internet Archive) as 24 Hours with Mark Harp. Mark died in December 2004, but his website is still there. What I am presenting here is the 12:00 AM hour of 24 Hours, containing all the Null Set and Cabal recordings; I have renamed the files and added ID3 tags for better playback display, and put them into a single zip file for easy downloading. The tracks are:

Cabal - Null Theme (Tracks 1-6 are from the Cabal EP)
Cabal - In Touch
Cabal - Future In Pain
Cabal - Blissful Trust
Cabal - Fall Flat
Cabal - New Horizon
Cabal - Open Up (Cassette only track from the Cabal EP release)
Cabal - Assistance (Live at The Marble Bar Baltimore 1983)
Cabal - Brash Finale (Also live at The Marble Bar 1983)
Cabal - Check This Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
Cabal - No Way Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
Null Set - Null Theme (Tracks 12-14 from Null Set's demo recorded 1981 at Eastern Studios in Glen Burnie, MD, produced by Sam Prager)
Null Set - Perception
Null Set - Go!
Null Set - An Evening In Town (synth thanks to Jack Heinicke)

CABAL - Bill Dawson - Vocals, Mark Harp - Guitars and stuff, Rich Dickson - Drums, Dave Zidek - Bass, Dick Hertz - Bass, Danny Brown - Keys, Steve Palmieri - Synth and sound, Les Hendrix - Bass, Mark King - Guitar & keys

NULL SET - Bill Dawson - Vocals, Mark Harp - Guitars & Stuff, John Chriest - Bass, Louis Frisino - Drums

Get the zip file here or here. (New links)

Vigil

2009-01-03T06:53:00.001-08:00

Vigil was a modern rock band that recorded and performed in the mid to late 1980's. Once upon a time in the "Land of Pleasant Living" aka Baltimore there was a group of musicians known as Here Today: Jo Connor, Andy R, X Factor and Gregg Maizel. They recorded a classic song called "Whistle in the Yard" and soon signed to CBS records, changed their name to Vigil and were promptly dropped. Vigil was quickly signed by Chrysalis Records and recorded their debut lp in glorious digital. It was released in 1987 and sold enough copies to allow them to record another lp but only one track, "Therapist", was released by Chrysalis, appearing on the Nightmare on Elm Street 4 soundtrack. Eventually the second album was released on cassette only as Onto Beggar and Bitter Things.

Until the Seasons
I Am Waiting
White Magic Spell
Gargoyles
I Love You Equinox
Whistle in the Yard
The Celiba Sea
The Garden
Born Again
The Benefit of the Doubt
Enclosures (I have added this as a bonus track, it is the second track on the "I Am Waiting" B-side and did not appear on the album.)

The CD version of this album is a bit of a collector's item as it is one of the first (possibly the first) rock albums to be recorded, mixed, and mastered digitally ("DDD"). I don't have the CD, though, so I can only offer a vinyl rip for now; get it here or here. (I goofed a little on the track numbers in the tags and filenames, but everything still plays in the correct order.)

Update: I got the CD and have posted a FLAC rip here.

Vigil singer Jo Connor now fronts the Jo Connor Band, which "performs classic Vigil songs along with new faves."

Various Artists - 8 Essential Attitudes

2009-01-01T09:24:00.001-08:00

For this entry we remain in Baltimore but go back a few years to 1985 for the Frantic Records sampler album 8 Essential Attitudes. The album cover depicts a can of "Cream of Baltimore" being poured onto a turntable: do not do this! It will ruin your turntable! Fortunately the package contains a solid vinyl LP which is perfectly suited to playing on a turntable. The "8 Essential Attitudes" are eight indie bands from the Baltimore area:

Red Tape - I Know
exibit A - yippi-i-o
Beyond Words - On the Moon
Thee Katatonix - Ordinary Sunday
The View - Only Water
Mission - When Thunder Comes
Off the Wall - She's All Mine
Clever Lines - After the Snow Melts

The most accomplished band here is Off the Wall, but their big-band rockabilly style is decidedly out of place. Red Tape lean toward an AOR sound, Thee Katatonix are the closest thing to punk rock here, Mission have a gothic vibe belied by their preppy appearance, exibit A have an indie-twee sound, Clever Lines go for the grand sound of UK acts like Duran Duran and Simple Minds, and Beyond Words and The View play middle-of-the-road new wave pop. Not as diverse as the gathering on the Merkin Seedy Sampler, but it's a smaller, earlier sample. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (I'm trying out flyupload with the second link; from what I've seen it has no waiting period and does allow download managers. Please let me know if there are any problems with it.)

Various Artists - Merkin Records Seedy Sampler

2008-12-26T07:19:00.001-08:00

Black Pete must have been the only alternative band in Baltimore that wasn't included on this 1989 20-band sampler CD from Merkin Records:

U. Violets - Gade (actually Ultra-Violets, must have been a legal issue that prevented them using the name on this CD)
All Mighty Senators - Wink (band still active)
Lambs Eat Ivy - Serpentine
Bazooka Joe - Insomnia
Dark Carnival - Back to the Factory
Monkeyspank - Dr. Omar
Jade - Line
Lungfish - Return Descender
The Pearl Fishers - Black Box (not the David Scott band)
The Unknown - Empty House of Night
Rise - God Bless the Creeps
Elements of Design - I Love a Man with Rhythm
The Last Picture Show - Destination (led by writer Louis Maistros as Lu Maestro)
Braver Noise - The Smiths Have Gone to Heaven
Seesaw - Rochelle Bridges
Motor Morons - Another Girl (may still be active, though no shows since 2007; imagine Devo songs played by Einstürzende Neubauten)
Mark Harp - The Drill (guitarist for Null Set/Cabal, also of the Beatoes, Motor Morons, Chelsea Graveyard, the Diamondheads, etc.)
Infant Lunch - Cut the Cord
Grey March - Beneath the Sea
Reptile House - Turning Disease

There's quite a variety of musical styles here: punk, gothic, new wave, Springsteenian populist rock, funk, and more. Get the CD rip here or here.

Black Pete - Mississippi Queen

2008-12-23T16:37:00.001-08:00

In the late 80s industrial dance music was all the rage in alternative circles; labels such as Wax Trax in Chicago, Play It Again Sam in Belgium, and Nettwerk in Canada were putting out tons of releases, with many of the acts making the jump to major labels (Ministry, Skinny Puppy, etc.). But one of the only stabs at this genre from Baltimore that I can recall* was a one-off 12" by Black Pete, the duo of George Hagegeorge and ex-Null Set/Cabal singer Bill Dawson. A bass player was added for live shows, though I don't know if one ever happened. I think the record actually got issued by two labels somehow; here is the Calvert Street Records version. The A-side is a cover of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" (which Ministry would cover in a similar vein 19 years later), and the B-side contains the two original tracks "Vicious" and "Ablaze". It sounds more like heavy metal guys adding a drum machine and sequencer to make industrial music rather than an electro band adding metal guitar, but whatever the case it's good for some retro cyber-headbanging. Hagegeorge is now a photographer; Dawson is now a tattoo artist based in Florida. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

* There was also Glitch. Any more?

Melon - Serious Japanese

2008-12-13T14:42:00.001-08:00

Melon, the Japanese synthpop group founded by ex-Plastics Toshio Nakanishi and Chica Sato, released the "Serious Japanese" single in 1985, between their albums Do You Like Japan? and Deep Cut. A couple odd things about the single are that the song title is actually called "Serious Japan", and it did not appear on any of the group's albums. Another interesting fact about the song that I just learned today is that it is a reworking of the Plastics song "Diamond Head"; visit the Picnic Land blog to hear the original version. On the back cover thanks are given to, among others, "Angie for telling me dirty words", and the dirty words abound in this song, with Toshio and Chica rapping lines like "What's happening bitch", "Too much much shit", "Don't be so fucking serious", etc. An earlier version that included a sample from the movie Rumble Fish was recalled, though samples from The World According To Garp ("Don't you dare say 'sperm' in this house") and other films remain. As on Deep Cut, Nakanishi and Sato are joined by Gota Y (EMU-2 operator & rhythm programmer) and Prince Kudo (DJ & keyboard player). The 12" contains two extended versions of "Serious Japan"--Tokyo Mix (by Franswah) and San Francisco Mix (by Joseph Watt)--and a single edit by Franswah. This record is Melon's most fully-realized foray into the electro genre; get the vinyl rip here or here (new links 1/3/2010). And here is a live performance from YouTube (with the dirty words replaced with clean ones):

The Bridge - Love Dance

2008-12-11T14:48:00.000-08:00

Before founding UK alternarock band Zerra One, Paul Bell released an electro single called "Love Dance" as The Bridge on the Second Vision label in 1984. It is about as close a copy of New Order's "The Beach" as you can get without being sued. The over-8-minute "Love Mix" (vocal) is on the A-side, with the almost-8-minute "Industrial Mix" (instrumental) on the B-side. The "Industrial Mix" should really have been called the "Dub Mix" or "Instrumental Mix" as there's nothing particularly industrial about it. Apparently there is another version of the 12" that adds a 7" mix and is titled "Industrial Love Dance"; I suppose that was the one for UK release, while this one is labelled "Export Only" on the sleeve (because people outside the UK didn't deserve a shorter version of the song?). You can probably recreate the 7" mix by stopping the Love Mix after about four minutes. All that aside, this really is a great dance record, and if you like "The Beach" but don't necessarily want to hear it again, "Love Dance" should do quite nicely. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Surface Mutants - You Take Me Somewhere Strange

2008-12-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

This time the Lost In the Grooves blog has a summary (by Erik of Cult With No Name) upon which I cannot improve so I will simply paste it in here:

smalltime Sheffield combo Surface Mutants only managed one standalone EP, but nonetheless warrant special mention as one of the better obscure bands to record at Cabaret Voltaire’s legendary Western Works studio.it’s hard to resist confirming that ‘You Take Me Somewhere Strange (and you leave me there)’ does anything else than just that. the Cabs’ tinny, scratchy production gives the EP a quite pleasant, if decidedly dissonant, ambiance. the simple bass lines, frequent drum fills and taught guitars of ‘Train’ and ‘Help Below’ rely heavily on varying degrees of phaser, delay and reverb, with additional electronics hissing randomly in and out of the mix. the creepy title track, by contrast, abandons the undanceable funk for something that sounds nothing short of the early Cabs attempting to cover ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, complete with anguished, largely indecipherable, vocals. complete with ill-fitting goth cover art to (somewhat) mislead you, this record is certainly far from superficial.

The year of release was 1982. "You Take Me Somewhere Strange" has always reminded me of "Bela Lugosi's Dead," so I'm glad to see someone else feels the same way about it. Band member Pete Mutant replied to the blog entry:

Blimey. Just for verification, Kent had left to join the Chant, Nort [later of Hula] was with us on Drums and noises, Jules had left, Christine Parker was on sax, Angie Birkett on keyboards (and very good too). Richard [Kirk] was responsible for many of the indecipherable vocals.

Another reader found that Angie Birkett (now Holmes) is now active in the band Siiiii. Get the Surface Mutants vinyl rip here or here.

Isolation Ward - Absent Heart

2008-12-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for the Internet and its volunteers who fill in information about mysterious records I've owned for years but know virtually nothing about. One such record is the "Absent Heart" 12" by Isolation Ward. Here is the Wikipedia entry for Isolation Ward (as of Dec. 2. 2008):

Isolation Ward is a New Wave/Experimental band from Brussels, Belgium. Founding members are Jean Pierre Everaerts (Bass), Stephane Willocq (Guitar), Thierry Heyndericks (Keyboards, Vocals, Trumpet), and Etienne Vernaeve (Drums). Contributing vocals/guitar included, Nathalie Bourlard (Vocals), Anne Kinna(Nanou) (Vocals: Lamina Christus), Sylvie Honnay (Vocals: Absent Heart, A Request), Niki Mono (Vocals: only for the last concert), Eric Vanhoutte(Guitar), and Jerry WX (Guitar). Formed in 1980, the band released Lamina Christus on 7" Vinyl in 1982(Issued through Radical Records, France Crepuscule Section Francaise/Radical RAD 008 ) and Absent Heart on 12 " Vinyl in 1983 on the Les Disques du Crepuscule label. Both of these releases were produced by Gilles Martin and Peter Principle. The band disbanded in 1983. Isolation Ward's final recordings, Point De Départ and Point Final were released on the Présence label in 1984.

"Lamina Christus" reappears as the third track (of three) on the Absent Heart 12", and it's no wonder they re-used it as it is their strongest song. Like many Crepuscule releases, the sound falls somewhere between Factory gloom and 4A.D. gothicism. Get the Absent Heart vinyl rip here or here.

John Stuart - Summer Breeze

2008-11-27T19:35:00.001-08:00

At the height of their success, Sheffield band Chakk had two singers, Jake Harries and John Stuart. Harries had the gritty voice, Stuart the soulful croon. According to Burl Veneer's Music Blog:

Richard Hawley is currently riding a wave of popularity in the UK as the "Sheffield Sinatra," but in 1987 he played guitar behind velvet-voiced ex-Chakk singer John Stuart on Stuart's only solo single, a cover of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze." You will never hear a lusher version. (There's that unmistakable Designers Republic graphic style again.) Rounding out the backing band, billed as The Heavenly Music Corporation, are Dee Boyle (drums, also from Chakk), Darrell de Silva (sax), Jon Quarmby (keyboards), Justin Bennett (percussion), and Heather Allen (backing vocals), with production by Rob Gordon. Alas, that was all from The Heavenly Music Corporation as such. Stuart would go on to be a member of the Lovebirds (with Hawley) and Magic Bullets. He now lives in Barcelona and continues making lovely music as one-half of Forgetting, and on his own as, once again, The Heavenly Music Corporation.

Presented here is "Summer Breeze" and the B-side, "Black and Blue (Parts 1 and 2)"; get the vinyl rip here or here. (Please let me know if the Rapidshare caps downloads at 10 grabs; I am not happy about this new limitation and am looking for workarounds.)

SLAB! - Death's Head Soup

2008-11-19T20:11:00.001-08:00

Slab!'s final recording before a 19-year hiatus was 1989's "Death's Head Soup" single, which I will once again let currybet describe:

The final flurry of the band was 1989’s Cameo ‘Word Up - Sucker DJ’ sampling anti-Thatcher rant of knuckle down and eat your “Death’s Head Soup”. With a sole writing credit to Stephen Dray I have no idea whether it was a solo record or not, but it certainly was a long way from “Mars On Ice”...

I've been listening to "Soup" for nearly 20 years without realizing that was a Cameo sample, but now that I read that it's so bleeding obvious! How could I have missed that?! No, it wasn't a Dray solo record, the full lineup was:

Stephen Dray - Vocals
Paul Jarvis - Guitar / Samples
Nick Page - Guitar
Boleslaw Usarzewski - Bass Guitar
With : Dave Bryant - Drums
Kevin Sanderson - Percussion
Corrie Josias - Backing Vocals
Lynne Gerald - Backing Vocals
Simon Walker - Keyboards / Violin

They sure went out on a high note; I could listen to this driving beat and insistent fuzz-bass riff for hours, shouting along "Knuckle down, drink your death's head soup!" all the while. The B-side is the Descension album track "Switchback Ride"; the 12" single added a club mix of "Death's Head Soup." Get the 12" vinyl rip here or here.

SLAB! - Smoke Rings

2008-11-17T17:31:00.001-08:00

The "Smoke Rings"/"Abbasloth" double-A-side single, released in 1987, was Slab!'s final recording with a horn section, and it's a killer! The tempo and the rhythm are akin to George Clinton's "Atomic Dog", but everything is so much heavier: the slapping bass, the slamming drums, the scraped guitar a la Sonny Sharrock. It's an amazing melting pot of funk and sludge that demands to be played LOUD. On the defunct BBC Collective website there is a good overview of Slab! records by user "currybet" which contains the following about "Smoke Rings":

“Smoke Rings”Slab!’s third single, “Smoke Rings”, a love song for nuclear missiles from the point of view the military, was a disaster. Later, when I met Stephen Dray, Slab!’s singer, he said that it had been led on by the record company asking for a ‘hit single’ - and it was the first time that Slab! had released an edited 7” single to accompany the 12” release. Mind you he also said that he thought the vocals on their debut single “Mars On Ice” sounded like they had been recorded in a toilet, and it is one of my favourite records ever, so what does he know?

I find it odd to see "Smoke Rings" described as a "disaster", as I recall reading several positive reviews of it at the time, and it seemed to be popular in the cutting-edge dance clubs. Perhaps Mr. Dray can give us a little more of the story?

In addition to "Smoke Rings", the 12-inch also includes a dub version, "Cruise Missile Smoke Rings", and the instrumental "Abbasloth", which has a similar monster beat but substitutes free-jazz horn freakouts for vocals. It is a MUST HAVE. Get the vinyl rip here or here. Check out the new Slab! website here. Check the comments here for occasional updates from Steve Dray (the mosesman) on the progress of the new Slab! album! See here for Slab!'s Music from the Iron Lung mini-LP. Click here for all my Slab! and Slab!-related offerings.

Savant - Stationary Dance

2008-11-15T18:53:00.001-08:00

One of the most respected independent electronic music labels of the 80s was Kerry Leimer's Palace Of Lights, on which he released several of his own recordings (as K. Leimer) as well as albums by Roy Finch, Marc Barreca, and Michael William Gilbert. Leimer's music was mostly in the ambient vein; he used the moniker "Savant" for his more rhythm-based works, the "Stationary Dance"/"Sensible Music" single (1981) and the LP The Neo-Realist (At Risk) (1983). Palace Of Lights went dormant after 1983 and Leimer disappeared from the music scene, concentrating on his and his wife's design business, Leimer Cross. After nearly two decades of inactivity, Leimer revived Palace Of Lights in 2002, reissuing his 80s albums on CD and releasing new work by himself and others. I would have expected "Stationary Dance"/"Sensible Music" to be included on The Neo-Realist CD, but it wasn't; the initial vinyl release is all there is. "Stationary Dance" is a classic piece of postpunk art-funk, with an infectious rhythm track (looped?) featuring prominent bass guitar, overlaid with atmospheric synth lines and cut-up spoken vocals. "Sensible Music" is instrumental only, with a slow but insistent rhythm and an overall sound that recalls Jon Hassell's work with Brian Eno. Musical contributors on the record are:

K. LEIMER: SYNTHESIZERS, TAPES, VOICE, GUITAR.
DAVID KELLER: FRETLESS BASS, GUITARS, PERCUSSION.
JAMES KELLER DRUMKIT, GUITARS, PERCUSSION.
MARC BARRECA: SYNTHESIZERS, TAPES.
ROBERT CARLBERG: PERCUSSION, ENGINEERING.

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

The Jackal - Underneath the Arches

2008-11-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

I was going to write "Here's another source record from the Heavy Duty Breaks megamix LP," but it actually isn't, and it's not even on the same label (Criminal Damage instead of Illuminated). The Jackal's mix of sampled and electronic breakbeats with sampled vocal fragments and crunchy guitars would fit right in, though, and it came out around the same time (1986), hence my confusion. So if you liked Heavy Duty Breaks, download this small set (just two tracks, "Underneath the Arches" and "Thunder Machine", nine minutes total) here or here. As with my previous post, the artist is a cipher, real identity unknown, any clues supplied in the comments will be appreciated.

Out - Tough Enough

2008-11-12T20:03:00.001-08:00

I had planned to offer up the Sunfeast/Craving 12" by Play Dead offshoot M.A.D., but it turned up just last month on the Ad Nauseum blog; if you like Play Dead or the Danse Society then you shouldn't be without M.A.D. I don't know how I missed that blog before, but there is a lot of good music there. So, moving on to my next 12", here is "Tough Enough" by Out (1984). "Tough Enough" is one of the songs from the Illuminated catalog mixed into the Heavy Duty Breaks megamix LP; this 12" has the vocal mix on the A-side (6:36) and a dub version on the B-side (7:06). It's not as good as the only other track I know of by Out ("Business As Usual" on the Breaking the Back of Love comp), but it's a serviceable bit of midtempo 80s UK electrofunk. And for crate diggers there are plenty of useable drum breaks and synth and bass fills. Once again I have no idea who the band members are besides the songwriting credits of A. Sharkey and P. Butcher. My Lethal Poor post was wildly successful in drawing two of the three band members out of the woodwork; can lightning strike again? Please leave any info on this band in the comments. Download the vinyl rip here or here. (Sorry about the high levels and clipping on the A-side, my soundcard can't attenuate the phono preamp input enough on some of these hot 12" mixes. Guess I shouldn't have cheaped out and bought a preamp without an output volume control.)

The Umbrella - Make Hell...

2008-11-11T06:21:00.001-08:00

Manchester band The Umbrella released this 3-song 12" in 1985, and nothing more. They had a great sound, 60s pop overlaid with raucous postpunk guitar and organ; pretty close to what The Last Shadow Puppets are doing today. I've had this record for over twenty years without knowing anything about the band, but thankfully someone has filled in some history on discogs.com:

James Gardner: Founder member, in 1990, of the pioneering Apollo 440 together with his school friends Noko and Howard Gray, and Howard's brother Trevor Gray. He had previously played keyboards with The Umbrella and a variety of well known artists, including Pete Shelley's band and Luxuria. He left Apollo 440 in 1993 to concentrate on composition, and in 1994 moved to New Zealand where he formed the contemporary music ensemble 175 East. He is an active broadcaster on music for the eclectic Radio New Zealand Concert.
Norman Fisher-Jones: Multi-instrumentalist and sonic visionary Norman Fisher-Jones, aka Noko, had already gigged with The Cure, and The Buzzcock's Pete Shelley before he released his first 12" with his own band The Umbrella. He formed Luxuria with Magazine's Howard Devoto in 1987 and released two albums with Beggars Banquet. Together with original Umbrella member, James E. Gardner, their school friend Howard Gray, and Howard's brother Trevor, he formed Apollo 440 in 1990. An original member, he'd be at The Hacienda if it was still open.

As for the other two blokes in the band, I still don't know who they are; backing vocals (female) are credited to Alex & Julia. Make Hell... was released on Immaculate Records, which also put out some of Pete Shelley's solo singles. The three songs are "Make Hell (For the Beautiful People)", "William Brel", and the instrumental "The Persuaders". Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Lethal Poor - Trancefloor

2008-11-09T15:46:00.001-08:00

This is the first of several posts that will feature just a single rather than a full album (because I have a bunch of singles that I've put off listening to while I've been ripping albums). In most cases the bands I'll be posting never did release a full album, or if they did they didn't include the single in question. While the next posts will be short on quantity, I have some very high-quality rips lined up.

The first is the sole recording by UK band Lethal Poor, from 1985. The two tracks, "Trancefloor" and "Honour", are both in the "gothic funk" style I love so much. Fans of 23 Skidoo, 400 Blows, A Certain Ratio, or The Men should find this right up their alley. The song credits are to "North, Winter, Musker", and I have ascertained that Musker is keyboardist David Musker (now a patent agent), but I don't know who North and Winter are. Please leave a note in the comments section if you know more. Regardless of their identity, this is one ill slab of vinyl; get the rip here or here.

Billy Sheets' Undercover - Weekend In Dubrovnik

2008-11-03T14:26:00.001-08:00

On This Record!

A MOSQUE IN THE ETHIOPIAN OUTBACK beams a message clear to the Pomona Freeway...

A BASS-PLAYING VAMPIRE stalks his prey in the heart of the Carpathians...

BOSNIAN YOUTHS BENT ON REVENGE besiege the ancient bathing houses of Dubrovnik...

BELEAGUERED TEEN-AGERS pursue masochistic sports... while

A ROVING MINISTER puts aside the cloth for matters of the heart!

So reads the copy on the back cover of this batch of six amusing songs from singer, keyboardist, and accordionist Billy Sheets and his band, produced by Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh and released in 1982 on Big Clock Records. The joke is played out in full on the first track, "Skanking in the Trailerpark," a hybrid of ska and eastern European folk styles. The European vein continues with "Gypsy Camp," and then comes the highlight of the record, the superb faux-spy-movie instrumental "Weekend In Dubrovnik." Side two's three songs ("Skating On Thin Ice," "Love That Lasts," "Downtown B.B.Q. (Shakin' It)") are in a more conventional party-rock mode, a la Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns. The full band line-up is:

Billy Sheets: lead vocal, accordion, keyboards, harmonica
Kent State: guitar, tambourine, vocals
Ricardo de Mayo: bass, keyboards, accordion, vocals
Sammy "Vic" Flores: drums (side A), vocals
Gajate: percussion
Alan Lyle: drums (side B)

Nothing astounding here, just a good solid slice of American new wave with a novelty bent. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Paul Roessler's Pandemonium Shadow Show

2008-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

I always thought of Paul Roessler as the keyboardist for L.A. glam-punk-horror-metal-kitsch band 45 Grave, but he was also a member of techno-punk band The Screamers, and has played keyboards for about a zillion other acts, including Dead Kennedys, Nina Hagen, DC3, Saccharine Trust, Geza X, and many more. In the 80s he formed his own band, Twisted Roots, which featured his sister (and Black Flag bassist) Kira Roessler and at one time Germs guitarist Pat Smear. For the 1983 album Pandemonium Shadow Show (title used by permission of Ray Bradbury) Dix Denney is the guitarist, Michelle Bell sings, Gary Jacoby plays drums, and producer Paul Cutler plays guitar and percussion here and there. The liner notes mention that "Pat Bulsara contributed to guitar arrangements on It Must Be The Weather, White Limousine, Fill Your Heart." I'm guessing that "Pat Bulsara" is actually Pat Smear, who recorded a song called "Holy Bulsara" on one of his own albums; Smear and Jacoby also made music together as Death Folk. There are two fantastic tracks on this album, the closers on each side. "Fill Your Heart" closes side one, and could be a song by "White Rabbit"-era Jefferson Airplane, with its psychedelic lyrics and expansive chorus. Bell's voice does not have the fullness of Grace Slick's, but on the other hand, the band creates a groove here much more compelling than anything the Airplane ever did. The side two closer, "You're Perfect," is a sci-fi number about loving a robot that also works up a killer groove. Of the eight other songs, four are instrumentals and four are not; they're pleasant enough, but for me they are the appetizers leading up to the main course at the end of each side. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Stranger To Stranger - Casting Shadows

2008-10-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

While I'm at it, here's another 1980s album from Philadelphia, Stranger To Stranger's Casting Shadows from 1984. With a title like Casting Shadows, you probably won't be surprised at the heavy 4A.D. influence in evidence here. Lead singer Gary Eshbaugh is now in the band Rose Parade, but one page of their website is devoted to Stranger To Stranger, from which I have taken the following text:

From 1984 until 1991 Stranger To Stranger produced seven recordings. Stranger To Stranger's music was alternative in its flavor, borrowing from the early Cure and Echo and the Bunneymen. They played clubs and venues from Boston to Virginia, but experienced their greatest success at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. The title song from 1985's The Child in Me experienced particularly heavy airplay on college and commercial stations in that area. Subsequently, record sales in the area were very good and the shows at the 9:30 Club drew a good audience. Recently, an amalgam of The Darkest Dreams and Shatter the Night was produced as a CD by drummer Eric Carlson. That was the impetus for creating this page... I hadn't listened to the material in a very long time. I felt compelled to put up this page so some of our friends could get their hands on some vintage STS in MP3 format. We hope to come up with a good copy of The Child in Me in the not-too-distant future.
Stranger To Stranger was:
Gary Eshbaugh - Vocals/Guitar/Keyboards
Sean Hopkins - Bass/Vocals (1983-1987)
Rand Hanson - Guitar
Eric Carlson - Drums/Percussion
Steph Lentz - Bass (1988-1992)

The track list for Casting Shadows is:

01 Easter Night
02 Crowded Room
03 In Your Eyes
04 Voices Calling
05 Flux
06 Cry To Dream
07 Evening Opus (Pts 1, 2 & 3)
08 Lonely Winter
09 Wind On Skin

The aforementioned "The Child In Me" came after this album, but I have included it in the archive file as a bonus track because it's simply exquisite. (It's a copy of the file offered on the band website.) In the words of one of my favorite song blogs, it should have been a hit. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Various Artists - I'd Rather Be In Philadelphia

2008-10-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'd Rather Be In Philadelphia, released by Burn Potential Records in 1983, is the best compilaion of early-80's Philly-area indie new wave there is. It contains early tracks by Bunnydrums, Pretty Poison, Book of Love, and Executive Slacks, all of whom would go on to greater success. Those familiar with Book of Love's synth-pop records for Sire ("You Make Me Feel So Good", "I Touch Roses") will be interested to hear the stripped-down instrumentation and production of "Henna." Pretty Poison on "Secrets" is not recognizable as the same band who later churned out that ubiquitous 80's hit "Catch Me (I'm Falling)." (See here for their self-released EP Laced.) Also present on this compilation are Philly's own No Wave band, the Stickmen. Articles on No Wave always focus on the New York scene--James Chance, Eight Eyed Spy--but the Stickmen could skronk with the best of them, and faster, too. (Wayside Music has released a CD of all the Stickmen's recorded output.) The full track list is:

01 Bunnydrums - Sleeping
02 Pretty Poison - Secrets
03 Sensory Fix - Last Match
04 Impossible Years - Flower Girl
05 Mother May I - When Children Play
06 Book of Love - Henna
07 Red Buckets - Something Else Again
07 Stickmen - Duraflame Dog
09 Girls Downstairs - Steam Rises Off the Jungle Floor
10 Executive Slacks - Sexual Witchcraft

A note on the recordings: this has to be the worst pressing I have ever heard. Usually I don't do wholesale click removal for fear of losing actual music; I just do spot removals of egregious clicks and pops. But this record has a substrate of clicks and pops all the way through; the record itself has tiny bumps all over it. So in this case I did run the whole thing through Audacity's click remover, and it sounds much better, but still far from perfect. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has this album whether theirs is as noisy as mine. Don't let the pops and clicks keep you from checking out this trove of rare regional new wave, though: get the vinyl rip here or here.

Mothmen - One Black Dot

2008-10-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

The Mothmen's first album, Pay Attention, was a trippy dub affair which was released by Adrian Sherwood on his On-U Sound label in 1981. While the band produced the album themselves with no input from Sherwood, it's a dead ringer for Sherwood's own psychedelic dub style. That sound is nowhere in evidence on the band's second album, One Black Dot, released in 1982 on the Do It label. Their style this time around is more conventional, new wave-y with a bit of postpunk funk thrown in. There are hints of other bands throughout the album: the Police, Way of the West, Funkapolitan, The Blue Nile, Modern English, and Medium Medium, for examples. There are many inspired instrumental moments, and it's quite a good album over its ten tracks, but the sound never quite congeals into something distinctive, and there is no killer single (though "Temptation" comes close). The band lineup on One Black Dot is:

Bob Harding: vocals
Tony Bowers: guitar & sax
Charlie Griffiths: synth
Ronnie Hardman: bass
Chris Joyce: drums

Bowers and Joyce would go on to be part of the original Simply Red lineup. The rest of the Mothmen, I don't know about. Get the One Black Dot vinyl rip here or here.

Perennial Divide - Beehead EP

2008-10-09T21:27:00.001-07:00

How about some more Perennial Divide? 1987 saw them release just one record, the four-track Beehead EP:

Beehead
World Spread
Gentle As A Fawn Is Warm
Clamp

"Clamp" is a 40-second sound collage, so Beehead is essentially a three-song EP. But they're good songs, especially "World Spread," which after an excessively long intro settles into an energetic breakbeat groove with a popping bassline. The other two songs are the same kind of noisy, off-kilter funk that made Purge so great. Get the vinyl rip here or here. That does it for my Perennial Divide collection. There was another 12", "Burndown", in 1986, which was packaged together with a repressing of Purge; I didn't buy that one, as I already had Purge and didn't want to buy a second copy just to get a new 12". Then in 1988 there was an unofficial release of "Leathernecks," but I never found a copy. If you come across rips of either 12", please let me know in the comments.

Perennial Divide - Purge

2008-10-06T19:23:00.001-07:00

By request, here is the only album released by Perennial Divide, the Swindon-based group active from 1986 to 1988 and consisting of John Corrigan, Johnny Stephens and Paul Freeguard. ("Perennial Divide" comes from Naked Lunch; it is Burroughs's play on the term "perineal divide," i.e. the "taint." But in the band's case it takes on additional sociopolitical meaning, evoking Britain's historical class system and the struggles of the working class for equality.) Corrigan and Stephens went on to form Meat Beat Manifesto, with Corrigan adopting the pseudonym Jack Dangers. Released in 1986, Purge was another exciting release from Rob Deacon's Sweatbox label, which grew out of his Abstract magazine and LP series. The cover art (of Swindon railway works) recalls Neville Brody's early sleeves for ClockDVA stylistically, and Perennial Divide's music explores the same realm of politically-charged noise-funk as that seminal band, though with more funk and less noise. There are some tasty basslines on this album, particularly in "Captain Swing." Purge is a bona fide postpunk masterpiece. The tracks are:

01 Blow
02 Parricide
03 Word of the Lord
04 Captain Swing
05 Rescue
06 The Fall
07 Trip
08 Tuna Hell
09 Burning Dogs
10 End of the Line

Some of the tracks run together, and I've made my best guess as to where one ends and the next begins. It won't make any difference if you listen to all the tracks in order (which you should!). Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Material - Live In Japan

2008-10-02T19:05:00.001-07:00

When is a Material album not a Material album? Or rather, when is a Material album a Material album? Bill Laswell has produced lots of albums featuring the same rotating stable of musicians that are sometimes called Material, but most of them have given top billing to featured artists or sported other band names: Ginger Baker, Nicky Skopelitis, Aiyb Dieng, Bill Laswell, Deadline, Sacred System, etc. Live In Japan could just as well have been credited to Foday Musa Suso or Ginger Baker. But it has the Material moniker, the only album of original material (as it were) released during the brief association with the Restless label. The recordings on Live In Japan are taken from performances in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Imabari in August 1992 with the following lineup:

Foday Musa Suso: kora, dousongonni, guitar, percussion, vocal
Bill Laswell: bass
Bernie Worrell: piano, Hammond organ, Clavinet, synthesizer
Nicky Skopelitis: 6 & 12 string guitars
Aiyb Dieng: chatan, congas, talking drum, percussion
Ginger Baker: drums

The All Music Guide doesn't think much of this one:

It's a great lineup, and one that should have delivered much more musical interest than it does on this album. "Leaving Earth" is a six-and-a-half minute meditation on a one-chord riff; more than just boring, it's also badly recorded. "Desert Star" is an improvement, with a nice interplay of fretless bass and a bowed African instrument in a much improved mix. And "Out of Dreamtime" affords more dynamic variety, but it leads into an eleven-minute percussion solo which is well executed but drags on forever. Overall, this is a disappointing disc that could and should have been much better.

Hey, if you like good drumming, a long, well-executed percussion solo is fantastic! And something that gets lost in the plethora of Laswell productions is that he is an awesome bass player, but that aspect comes through throughout this album. And it's a generous 69 minutes long. What's not to like? Track list:

01-Invocation.mp3
02-Leaving Earth.mp3
03-Desert Star.mp3
04-Out of the Dreamtime.mp3
05-Obsessed.mp3
06-Into the Seventh House.mp3
07-Dousongonni Song.mp3
08-The Receiver.mp3
09-The Creator Has a Master Plan.mp3
10-The Image of the One.mp3

I don't know where most of these songs originated, just that the last two are originally by Pharaoh Sanders. Anyone know? Let me know in the comments. Get the CD rip here or here.

Ballistic Kisses - Wet Moment

2008-09-29T16:35:00.001-07:00

New York-based Ballistic Kisses released two albums: Total Access in 1982 (available at Mutant Sounds), and Wet Moment in 1983, both on the quirkily-named UK label Don't Fall Off The Mountain. Trouser Press doesn't think much of this one:

Wet Moment is a tedious cross between the B-52's and Gang of Four: minimal melodies, propulsive rhythms and bleak vocals. It's easy to believe freaked-out tunes like "Emotional Ice" and "Everything Leaks," but how alienated do you really want to feel?

But it's really better than that. True, there are not many melodies to speak of, and no real hooks to linger in your mind, but if you just like the sound of 80s minimal synthpop then there's plenty here to enjoy. There's so much, in fact, that it wouldn't all fit on a single record: the 54 minutes of music was spread out over a 33rpm 8-song LP and a 45rpm 3-song 12". The band lineup is:

Michael Hrynyk: keyboards, vocals
Richard McClusky: percussions, vocals
Michael Parker: vocals
Jeff Freund: guitars, vocals

There's some pretty cool bass guitar on several of the songs, too, which I presume is one of the "guitars" credited to Jeff Freund. Get the Wet Moment vinyl rip here or here.

Blue Zoo - Two By Two

2008-09-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Four-man UK band Blue Zoo released just one album, Two By Two (1983), produced by Talk Talk's Tim Friese-Greene. It led off with their sole hit single, 1982's "Cry Boy Cry," which peaked at number 13 on the UK chart. It's a great single, too, with a driving rhythm perfectly suited to, say, sports highlights clips, and features the powerful backing vocals of Stevie Lange in the chorus. (Stevie Lange also provided the chorus vocals to Gang Of Four's "I Love A Man In Uniform," and was the lead singer of Night, who were one of the bands featured in the campy Vincent Price horror film The Monster Club.) The other four uptempo tracks (which I will denote with an asterisk in the track listing) on Two By Two are nearly as engaging, impelled forward by a sequenced instrument that sounds like something between a hammer dulcimer and a glockenspiel; perhaps that is the Celeste 8 credited to Matt Flowers? The rest of the album consists of slower ballads, which are generally pleasant and have a few hooks but mostly have trouble coming to life. The full track list is:

Cry Boy Cry*
John's Lost
Far Cry*
(You Can) Count On Me*
Love Moves In Strange Ways
(I Just Can't) Forgive and Forget*
I'm Your Man*
Open Up
Can't Hold Me Down*
Something Familiar

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

A Popular History of Signs - Comrades

2008-09-21T06:01:00.001-07:00

A Popular History of Signs, led by Andrew Jarman, was an 80s synthpop band that didn't quite fit into any of the standard synthpop categories: not beat-heavy enough to fill dancefloors, too warm and melodic to be lumped in with "minimal wave" bands, and too thinly arranged to take their place with more melodramatic bands like Ultravox. Jarman's vocal style has been compared to David Byrne's, and it's a good comparison, though Jarman's voice is deeper and more wobbly. Jungle Records released the ten-song Comrades album in 1984; there is a thread of socialism running through several of the songs that makes it feel almost like a concept album. The opening track, "Body and Soul", was released as a single, and it is the strongest song on the album, with some nice bass work from Jarman. "Tidy" could pass for a Talking Heads song circa Fear of Music or Remain in Light; "Father and Son" is a touching downtempo ballad; "Comrades" contains echoes of David Bowie's "Heroes" in its melancholy, possibly doomed, optimism. Overall this a stronger album than the Trouser Press Guide gives it credit for. The band members on Comrades are:

Andrew Jarman: vocals, bass, keyboards, drum programs
Lindsey Smith: guitar, keyboards, drum programs
Paul Patient: percussion, pixie phones (?)
Christeen Isherwood: vocals, ideology

Get the Comrades vinyl rip here or here. Andrew Jarman is still musically active, currently with the band Southern Arts Society.

Exposure - Wild!

2008-09-16T15:48:00.001-07:00

Here's a fairly obscure album from the 80s: Wild! by Exposure, Statik STAT LP 19, 1984. Of the nine bands named Exposure at discogs.com, this is the ninth, and at the time I'm writing, this album is not listed on their page. Exposure was a multiracial five-man band that played the kind of new-wave-tinged mainstream rock that was so successful for bands like INXS and The Fixx. Members were:

Ashton Liburd: voice
Boy: guitar synthesizer
Tony Doyle: lead guitar
Paul Gold: bass guitars and voice
Ed Butler: drums and heavy percussion

None of these fellows seem to have many credits after Exposure; any info on their later careers is welcome. "Edge" on side 2 (track 8) could have been a hit, I think, but for the most part Exposure was stuck between genres, neither traditional enough nor quirky enough to really break through. Maybe not distinctive enough, either, although still pleasant enough to listen to. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Various Artists - For Your Ears Only

2008-09-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, here is the massive 1987 Third Mind compilation album For Your Ears Only: 25 songs over two LPs, some tracks previously unreleased, some rerecorded, and some taken straight from already-issued albums. It is the most comprehensive overview of the Third Mind label in existence. In fact it's so much music I wasn't able to fit a complete 192kbps rip into a single archive file, so each LP is a separate download. The track list is:

LP 1

01 Bushido - Introduction (previously unreleased)
02 Bill Pritchard - Pas De Plaisanterie (previously unreleased)
03 Beautiful Pea Green Boat - And She Laughed Too (previously unreleased)
04 Attrition - Fusillade III (Both Barrels) (rerecorded version)
05 All Singing All Dancing - The Rising Tide (previously unreleased)
06 Bushido - Recalled To Life (rerecorded version)
07 CRedit - Almost Virgin (previously unreleased)
08 Beautiful Pea Green Boat - Paper House (from Future Tense)
09 Bushido - Time And Time Again (from "Voices"/"Time And Time Again" EP)
10 Attrition - Into The Waves (from In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts)
11 Bill Pritchard - Greek Street (previously unreleased)
12 All Singing All Dancing - The Grains Of Time (previously unreleased)

Get it here or here.

LP 2

01 Badland - Til the Stars Fall (previously unreleased)
02 Intimate Obsessions - Why Can't I (rerecorded version)
03 Tragic Venus - Paintbox (previously unreleased)
04 Frontline Assembly - Aggression (previously unreleased)
05 Konstruktivits - Nostalgia (from Black December)
06 Bill Pritchard - Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe (previously unreleased)
07 Bushido - Question Of Time (from Deliverance)
08 Simon Fisher Turner - I Love Your Suit (previously unreleased)
09 Jung Analysts - Entrails (previously unreleased)
10 Edward Ka-Spel - And The Lord Said RISE (previously unreleased)
11 CRedit - What Are These Words (previously unreleased)
12 Attrition - Day I Was Born (from The Attrition of Reason)
13 Intimate Obsessions - Erebus To Hades (from Erebus to Hades)

Get it here or here.

I always liked the Jung Analysts song, but I never found any records by them. I've just found their (or his, Terry Burrows) 1985 album Sprockendidootch over on Mutant Sounds, and it's great! I love how the Internet has given me a chance to hear the records I missed the first time around.

Solar Enemy - Dirty vs Universe

2008-09-09T15:57:00.001-07:00

Here's another album from Gary Levermore's Third Mind label, which you may have already realized is a Fantod Favorite. Portion Control, longtime purveyors of "hard, rhythmic electronics", greatly expanded their pallette on their 1987 album Psycho-Bod Saves the World (even recording a ballad, "H.O.T. Matter"), and then disappeared. They regrouped in 1990 as Solar Enemy, a "side project" that just happened to contain only members of Portion Control and sound just like Portion Control. Solar Enemy released an EP in 1990 (Techno Divinity), an album in 1991 (Dirty vs Universe), and one more in 1993 (Proceed to Beyond--Rape of Europa). Offered here is Dirty vs Universe, unfortunately just the 10-track US version and not the German version with several extra tracks. Still, if you like the danceable Portion Control of "The Great Divide" (let's hear it for punchy sequencers!), then these ten tracks will be sure to please you. They are:

Universe
Welcome To Hell
Inca Pisco
Burm-Up
Dark Angel
Massive Radiation
Carcajou
Trojan
Rotator
Sundown

Get the CD rip here or here. Portion Control reactivated and began releasing new material, and new packages of old material, in 2004. Their latest album, Slug, was released earlier this year; you can sample it (and buy it!) here.

Killer Moses

2008-09-07T18:12:00.001-07:00

Slab frontman Stephen Dray put out some records under the name Killer Moses in 1995-96. As he tells it on the Unfit For Print blog (and I recommend you read the whole thing for the Slab history and to see the Slab resuscitation unfold):

Following SLab Paul [Jarvis] and I wrote a lot of stuff together largely based on the slab third album ( never released or even properly recorded but very diverse and way ahead of its time.... again!) At the same time I was writing with Sherman [a member of the last, unrecorded Slab lineup] who had basically single handedly got the NME to write about dance music and championed the Orb and Andrew Weatherall etc in his guise of Sherman at the Controls. He basically introduced electronic music to the NME audience. He was djing a lot and he and I wrote some tracks around 1990 one of which was released on Guerilla Records which was just about the leading dance label at the time. we chose the somewhat dubious name of Euphoria and the track was called Mercurial. It sold bucketloads and is on about 20 compilations....Anyway Euphoria sold and is still coming out on compilations... and me and Sherman got the princely sum of £150 each and a t shirt....After that I became Killer Moses and released 4 eps on Shermans own label called CLoak and Dagger. again it got lots of good press and reviews but the label went bust before an album came out. There are various Moses tracks on compilations... not sure how you categorise it really but the albumm was heroically dark.... a very narcotic Slab....

I would categorise it as instrumental dub/breakbeat, and "heroically dark" definitely fits; something like a cleaner Scorn or Ice. Offered here are three of the EPs:

Seizure EP (1995)

Insomniac
Drive In
Big Wheel

Unseen EP (1995)

Killer Moses
The Hanging Garden
Bogeyman

Succubus EP (1996)

Icarus
Sea of Fear

With tracks ranging from six-and-a-half to nearly twelve minutes, there's plenty to listen to. The A-sides are especially seductive: they gain intensity as they wear on, and you might find yourself headbanging without realizing you'd started. Get the vinyl rips here or here.

SLAB! - Sanity Allergy

2008-09-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here is the elusive final album from the mighty SLAB!, Sanity Allergy, on Ink Records, 1988, ten more reasons to get excited about Slab's resumption of operations:

Last Detail
Fourth Warning
Station KY
Son of Sloth
Born in a Wreck
Sanity Allergy
Cancer Beach
Switchback Ride
Land of the Midnight Sun
Visiting Hour

These are some of the heaviest grooves ever committed to vinyl; the beats and scraping guitars and menacing vocals really do hit like slabs of granite, and I mean that in a good way! The uptempo instrumental "Son of Sloth" has the sheer animal vigor that more modern "action music" groups like The Crystal Method can only aspire to. The other uptempo track, "Cancer Beach," is catchy as hell with a killer bridge; don't listen to the people who slag it off! Get a vinyl rip of Sanity Allergy here or here, and keep an eye out for a new Slab album (which will not be posted here--support the band and buy it!).

See the delightfully-named blog Cliff Richard's Neck for Slab's first collection, Music from the Iron Lung, and their 1986 Peel Session.

Pleasure and the Beast

2008-09-02T02:20:00.000-07:00

Pleasure and the Beast was the band formed by Robert Pereno and L.A. (Lowri-Ann) Richards after the breakup of Shock. Shock is best known (when they are known at all) for their pulsating electro cover of the Glitter Band's "Angel Face" (which appeared on the popular Blitz new-wave compilation on RCA)--

Robert Pereno is the frontman, looking and acting uncannily like Will Arnett as G.O.B. Bluth, and one of those women is L.A. Richards. (Also seen are robotic mime duo Tim Dry and Sean Crawford, who became Tik & Tok after Shock disbanded, and went on to record several records of prime minimal synthpop on the Survival label.) Pleasure and the Beast recorded only two singles during their short career. The first, "Dr Sex", was released in 1983 and was produced by Jimme O'Neill of Fingerprintz (and later Silencers) fame. The 12" release, offered here, has an extended version of "Dr Sex" and four additional songs. The title track is upbeat synthpop with lecherous overtones; Pereno and Richards seem to be positioning themselves as a raunchy, new-wave Captain and Tennille. The next two tracks, "Snake" and "Creep", hit a gothic funk groove not unlike early Brilliant; "Rock the House" has a glam-rock shout-along chorus that echoes Shock's glam influences; and the record closes with the pseudo-liturgical "Hymn". The band is listed as Pereno and Richards only, though there are two women with Pereno in the back cover photo; no musicians are credited. For their second release, 1984's "Gods Empty Chair", Pleasure and the Beast expanded to a real band: in addition to singers Pereno and Richards, there are Marty Williamson (guitars), Cheyne (bass), Simon Ellis (keyboards), and Martin Hanlin (drums). This record, produced by Rusty Egan (Visage) marks a turn away from sleaze and toward more "serious" pop. "Gods Empty Chair" sounds like a second-generation copy of New Order (or a copy of Secession), while the B-side, "Sometimes", has a more intense sound in the vein of Killing Joke. Not bad! It's a shame they never made any more records. Robert Pereno went on to have some success as a DJ, but I don't know enough about that to expand on it; I don't know whatever happened to L.A. Richards. I don't have the 7" releases with the single edits, but you can get rips of both 12-inch records here or here.

Various Artists - Future Tense

2008-08-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

Like Four from the Madding Crowd, Future Tense is a four-artist compilation released by Gary Levermore's Third Mind label in 1986. Future Tense (TMLP15) was actually released first, with Four having the next catalog number (TMLP16). In fact, they released three compilation albums in a row, the third being the massive two-album set For Your Ears Only (TMLP 17/18, coming here someday) (and I definitely have it!). The Future Tense track list is:

The Beautiful Pea Green Boat (Obsessions LP posted here)

Paper House
The Vase

Bill Pritchard

Grey Parade
Cecile
The Invisible State
Springtime in Prague

Attrition

Questions
Which Hand?
A Forgotten Dream
A'dam & Eva

The Legendary Pink Dots

Premonition 5 (previously released on the Rising From The Red Sand cassette on Third Mind)

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Living In Texas - The Fastest Men Alive

2008-08-28T03:52:00.001-07:00

1985 was a busy year for Living In Texas: in addition to the Glad Bad Sad & Mad EP and the Italia Live Eighty-Five LP, they also released this studio album, all on their own Chainsaw label. On this release the band is still a four-piece: Stephan James (vocals), Mathew Fraser (drums, backing vocals), Daniel Glee (guitars), Nicholas D. Denton (bass). They brought in Martin Young of Colourbox as producer, and he also plays all the keyboards on the album (which are very subtle, you'll have to really listen for them to hear them at all). "The Fastest Man Alive" and its instrumental version continue in the amped-up rockabilly mode of Glad Bad (but even faster, as you may have guessed), while the major-chord "Like Thunder" sounds like a precursor of modern pop-punk. "Bomb Generation", heard on the live album, gets its studio release here; "The Fairest Of Them All" sounds almost like Gene Loves Jezebel; and the remaining songs are all in the band's gothic mode. The full track list is:

The Fastest Instrumental Alive (vocal-less version of the title track)
Beautiful
Alone She Cries
Like Thunder
The Fastest Man Alive (I'm calling this the title track even though it has "Man" where the album title has "Men")
Bring On The Rain
The Fairest Of Them All
Bomb Generation

Cover art is once again supplied by guitarist Daniel Glee. I consider The Fastest Men Alive to be the last great Living In Texas record; get it here or here.

Various Artists - Abstract No. 5

2008-08-24T15:29:00.001-07:00

As promised, here is a new rip of the Abstract No. 5 LP from 1985 to replace the one that is no longer downloadable from Waves of Champaign. Rob Deacon started Abstract as a music magazine, then beginning with No. 4 a companion LP was released to accompany each issue, and from this project the great Sweatbox label was born. The cover touts "10 unreleased recordings," and at the time the album came out that was true, though most of the songs were eventually released by the respective bands. What is not true is that there are only 10 songs; there are actually 11, with the last track, "Sentient" by In the Nursery, omitted from all the packaging. The full track listing is:

TEST DEPT. Fuel Foundation Of The Nation
THE WOLFGANG PRESS Fire Eater
400 BLOWS Fire And Water
SWANS Sealed In Skin
CINDYTALK Playtime
COLOURBOX Manic
GENE LOVES JEZEBEL Flame
AND ALSO THE TREES Maps In Her Wrists And Arms
NYAM NYAM This Is The Place
THE JAZZ BUTCHER Leaving It Up To You (live)
IN THE NURSERY Sentient

A couple are quite experimental; the Test Dept. track is a political speech on the Welsh miners' strike followed by Test Dept. accompanying the bagpipe-heavy miners' band; the 400 Blows track is a sound collage not easily recognizable as "music" but with some structure and rhythm that is revealed through attentive listening. The Colourbox track features a great guitar solo by guest William Orbit; if only he had turned toward rock instead of Madonna, then I'm sure I would have listened to more of him in the 90s. The Jazz Butcher track is a John Cale cover, which if I recall correctly was banned from the radio for its mention of Manson Family murder victim Sharon Tate. Abstract No. 5 is another great selection of cutting-edge 80s rock; ripped from oddly mottled vinyl @192kbps, it is available here or here.

Richard Bone - Joy of Radiation 12"

2008-08-19T18:34:00.001-07:00

Another small file for you this time, I'm afraid. I was all set to rip the Abstract Magazine #5 LP, with Colourbox, The Jazz Butcher, Cindytalk, etc., when I did a quick blog search and found that, once again, someone has already posted it, this time on the Waves of Champaign blog. He's also scanned the magazine into a separate file, much more thorough than I would have been, so hurry on over there and download it if you don't have it already. Another record I've been meaning to post is Richard Bone's classic 1983 album of minimal synthpop Brave Tales, but I still can't find my copy. I did, however, find the 12" of "Joy of Radiation", with an extended version of "Joy" on the A-side and three tracks on the B-side: "Sordid Affair", "Do Angels dance", and "A bit of Joy", so I hope that will do for now. Get it here or here; click the Survival tag for other records from the great Survival label available on this blog.

400 Blows - Pressure, Runaway/Breakdown

2008-08-15T20:40:00.001-07:00

A recent visitor left some enthsiastic comments about 400 Blows, who are part of the Illuminated megamix album Heavy Duty Breaks, so I thought I'd offer up some more. 400 Blows may be best known today for "Black and White Mix Up" (a rather ridiculous remix with Mad Professor of "Groove Jumping") on Andrew Weatherall's exquisite Nine O'Clock Drop anthology of eclectic 80s dance music, but they left a pretty decent body of work beyond that. I have always thought of 400 Blows as the poor man's 23 Skidoo, following in their footsteps from dub to electro-soul and being almost but not quite as good. Which is still really good! 400 Blows' first album, If I Kissed Her I'd Have To Kill Her First, is already available on Rho-Xs (with great albums by A Certain Ratio, Rip Rig + Panic, This Heat, and more in the same post!), but I have a couple of 12-inch singles to supplement the album. The first is "Pressure" from 1984 (and the first LP), a mostly-instrumental song with a killer dub bassline presented in three versions plus the found track "Perspective 2". The second is from 1985, the electro-soul double-A-side of "Runaway" (a Rockwell cover, of all things!) with lead vocal by Cheryl Lucas, and the original "Breakdown" sung by Linda Duggan, in two versions each (remixed from the Look LP). That's eight tracks in all, packaged in a single zip file; get it here or here.

Melon - Deep Cut

2008-08-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

Back to Japan: Deep Cut, released in 1987, was the second album from ex-plastics Toshi Nakanishi and Chica Sato as Melon. (See here for their first album, Do You Like Japan?) On this album the band also includes Kudo (turntable, keyboard) and Gota (drums, computer programming, keyboard, guitar, backing vocals); guest musicians appearing on some tracks are Guy Pratt, bass; John L. Walters, Lyricon; Preston Heyman, percussion; Frank ricotti, percussion; and Colette, backing vocals. (See the discogs.com listing for specific track credits.) Deep Cut opens with a cover of Les Baxter's "Quiet Village" (made famous by Martin Denny), and the whole album has a loose "techno-exotica" theme, as evidenced by the song titles:

Quiet Village
Uptown Downtown
Hard Core Hawaiian
Hawaiian Break
Time Enough For Love
Somewhere Faraway
Faraway
Pleasure Before Your Breakfast
Funkasia
The Gate of Japonesia

Also notable is the electro vibe that Gota brings to Melon's sound (which was state-of-the-art back then), with "Pleasure" and "Funkasia" being real dancefloor contenders. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Living In Texas - S/T LP

2008-08-06T03:45:00.001-07:00

I found another Living In Texas album hiding on my shelves, their first full-length album from 1984, on their own Chainsaw label. I can't remember ever listening to it all the way through, but I did while ripping it, and I've fallen in love with "This Blood Religion." It's a full-fledged gothic ballad, beautifully arranged with three divergent vocal tracks during the verses. And the band's Theatre of Hate influence reveals itself also: Living In Texas had a different instrumental lineup (no saxophone) and singer Stephan James doesn't have Kirk Brandon's distinctive wail, but "Here Come the Boat Traders" would be right at home on a ToH tribute album. These two songs and one other, "Me (The Other Side of)", appear on the Living In Texas live album posted previously, but they all come across much better in these original studio versions. This album was packaged in a rather lavish gatefold sleeve; the cover art is a bit drab, but there's a great spread inside the gatefold, by "The Rorschach Design Studios," which I'm guessing is actually guitarist Daniel Glee. I've included the interior art in the .zip file; get it here or here.

Makaton Chat - Strange Beach

2008-07-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Makaton Chat were a four-piece band from Stockton, UK, who released one single (Federal State Chance, 1982) and one album (Strange Beach, 1983) on Trans Records. Band members were:

Anthony Lindo: lead vocal, keyboards
John Hodgson: keyboards, vocal
Paul Fowler: drums
Richard Holmes: bass

On Strange Beach they are joined by:

Sally Jones: saxophones
Roy Neave: guitars
Steve Graham: guitars

I would classify their music as "UK alternative pop," somewhere along the lines of Haircut 100. There are a few really stunning tracks on Strange Beach (Dormant Skyline, Lines, Festival), and several more good ones, ten tracks in all. Get the vinyl rip here or here. I'm not sure when Makaton Chat broke up; there are a couple live clips on YouTube from 1986:

These performances show the band as a five-piece; does anyone know who the guitarist was for that gig (Dovecot Arts Centre, 1986)?

Urbie Green - Green Power

2008-07-27T15:52:00.001-07:00

"The superb Urb on reverb," it says on the back. The concept for this Project 3 Total Sound Stereo album from 1971 is to have master trombonist Urbie Green use some effects on his trombone. The effects are tape reverb (on "Spirit in the Dark") and the "King-Vox Ampliphonic Unit" on "Green Power," "Comin' Home Baby," and "Sidewinder." The Ampliphonic Unit "electronically duplicates each of his notes one octave lower," so the three tracks it's used on have an extra fat trombone sound. "Green Power," Green's sole original composition on the album, is also the funkiest, with tasty breakbeat drumming by... well, the drummer isn't credited, but it's probably Grady Tate, who is the only drummer credited on any of the tracks. The liner notes have a track-by-track breakdown; they are so informative (and amusing) that I've transcribed them here:

Spirit in the Dark A piano chord, a tentative statement by Urbie, and before you know it, everybody is swinging: "funk" style! Urbie wanted to come as close as possible to the feeling established by Aretha Franklin on this tune, while imparting his own interpretation to it. Notice how subtly Urbie leads the rhythm section in and out of double time feelings. The "mysterious" tape-reverb sections were conceived by Urbie, who also had a hand in its execution, along with engineer Don Hahn.

A Time for Love Don Heitler on electric piano (left) and Dick Hyman on organ (right) provide an intimate setting for Urbie's very personal and beautiful rendition of this Johnny Mandel masterpiece. Urbie's control of the instrument and his superb phrasing combine to make this an unforgettable performance. The tune fades out in a mist of delicate tones from the two keyboards.

Green Power This is Urbie's own composition, and it takes someone of Urbie's abilities to play it! Urbie uses the specially amplified trombone on this tune, which electronically duplicates each of his notes one octave lower. As usual, Urbie is "all over the horn", and his exciting performance here includes some remarkable "triple-tonguing" sections. The electric piano solo is by Dick Hyman, and the unusual musical and percussive effects emanating from your left channel are from Vinnie Bells' guitar.

Easy Come, Easy Go Dick Hyman's Lowrey organ, recorded in stereo, together with Jule Ruggiero's driving fender bass line and Grady Tate's "shuffling" drums pave the way for Urbie's commanding trombone. Solo work is shared by Urbie and Dick Hyman. As the tune closes, listen to Urbie hit a series of high "B♭'s" (almost two octaves above middle "C") and then effortlessly jump down three octaves for the final note!

Comin' Home Baby Urbie uses a larger ensemble on this tune and on "Lumps." Adding to the power here is Marion Milam on trumpet, George Opalisky on soprano sax, Jay Leonhart on fender bass, Tony Mottola and Howie Collins on guitar and Kathy Preston vocalist. After the first rocking chorus of this tune, Urbie switches to amplified trombone for an incredible display of the technique of articulation. Dick Hyman's organ solo is followed by a free for all jazz chorus. As the tune draws to a close, Urbie plays a masterful cadenza. Some additional ensemble "wailing" is climaxed by a long unison "fall-off".

Secret Love A Latin flavored rhythmic feeling (bossa-rock) is established in the introduction and forms the background for Urbie's handling of the tune. Urbie plays this tune with a mute, which gives a new sound "color" to the album. Notice the marvelous counterpoint of Russell George's repeated bass notes in the first chorus. A brief drum break by Grady Tate announces Urbie's jazz chorus. Dick Hyman is featured on the organ and his jazz work is wonderfully compatible with Urbie's.

This Is All I Ask Urbie's mellow trombone sings out the introduction of this Gordon Jenkins standard. As the first chorus begins, Dick Hyman's piano interlude tastefully embellishes Urbie's phrasing. A subtle but insistent rhythmic pulse (established by Julie Ruggiero on fender bass, Grady Tate on drums and Don Heitler on organ) carries through both choruses until Urbie's cadenza brings the tune to a close.

Sidewinder The combination of Russell George's fender bass, Grady Tate's drums and Dick Hyman's electric piano establishes the perfect feeling for this tour-de-force by Urbie. Urbie is playing the specially amplified trombone, which magnifies the power of his unique playing. Also featured in this arrangement are Dick Hyman on electric piano and Vinnie Bell, whose guitar solo is punctuated by Urbie's insistent rhythmic accompaniment.

Isn't It Odd This lilting bossa nova (in waltz time!) is the product of the creative mind of composer, Dick Hyman, whose piano playing begins the arrangement. Urbie glides his golden sound through the melody with supreme control. Also "gliding" (or is it "sliding"?) is the rhythm section as it wends its way through an ingenious structure of chords and rhythmic accents. Vinnie Bell's guitar provides the sitar-like sounds in the second chorus, as well as the "waterfall" effect of the introduction.

Lumps Dick Hyman, composer of this tune, starts off on the electric piano (right) and is answered on the left by Howie Collins' guitar. Urbie's melodic phrases are answered by the ensemble in like manner. The addition of Phil Bodner on baritone sax adds to the power. Urbie plays an incredible three and one half octave fall off at the end of the chorus. Solo work is again shared by Urbie and Dick Hyman throughout the tune which rocks its way into the fade ending.

(Yes, they did spell "fender" with a lower-case "f" throughout.) In case you didn't figure it out from the liner notes, Dick Hyman is all over this album with plenty of electric piano and organ pyrotechnics. The Project 3 label was not known for anything funky, so it's pretty surprising to hear a few of these tunes "swinging 'funk' style," as the notes say. Green's trombone prowess is amazing; he really can make the horn seem to speak, with as much expression as a singer. The "ampliphonics" may have been just a gimmick, but they're are fun to listen to for three tracks. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Ronald Shannon Jackson - Mandance

2008-07-24T16:24:00.001-07:00

Very few drummers are also bandleaders, but the bands that Ronald Shannon Jackson has put together (as The Decoding Society) are smokin', and none moreso than the lineup of 1982's Mandance:

Henry Scott, trumpet and flugelhorn (tracks 3-7)
Zane Massey, saxophones (tenor, alto, soprano)
Vernon Reid, guitars and banjo
Melvin Gibbs, electric bass
Reverend Bruce Johnson, electric bass
David Gordon, trumpet (tracks 1, 2, and 8)
Lee Rozie, saxophone (tracks 1, 2, and 8)

And of course Jackson on drums throughout. As someone who grew up listening mostly to rock music, when I ventured into jazz I naturally gravitated toward jazz with a rock edge, and this is one of the rockingest jazz albums I've ever heard. They just don't let up! The list of musicians that Jackson has collaborated with is a veritable Who's Who of free jazz and its modern variants: Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer, Albert Ayler, Bill Frisell, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, and Albert Mangelsdorff, to name a few, not to mention the players on this spectacular disc. The tracks are:

01-Man Dance
02-Iola
03-Spanking
04-Catman
05-The Art of Levitation
06-Belly Button
07-Giraffe
08-When Souls Speak
09-Alice in the Congo

Originally released on vinyl by Island's Antilles imprint, this rip is from the Japanese CD release on Polystar @192kbps; get it here or here.

Blue Rondo - Bees Knees & Chickens Elbows

2008-07-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

For their second album, Bees Knees & Chickens Elbows, Blue Rondo a la Turk dropped the "a la Turk" from their name, several band members, and everything that made their sound distinctive, i.e. the postpunk edge and the retro big-band sound. What's left sounds like countless other mildly funky British blue-eyed soul bands of the day. The original concept shines through a bit in "Masked Moods" with its smoky lounge vibe, and the rest of the songs are pleasant enough to listen to, but the spark is gone. The band had already broken up anyway by the time the album came out in 1984, so Bees Knees stands more as a last gasp than a document of an evolving band. I wish I could sound more positive about it, but I can still feel the disappointment I felt in 1984 when I got the record home and put it on the turntable. Maybe you will like it, though; get the vinyl rip here or here.

I had a request for Blue Rondo's Too Soon to Come album: that is simply a compilation of tracks from their two original albums with no new material, so if you grab the two album rips here, you've got everything that's on Too Soon to Come.

Blue Rondo a la Turk - Chewing the Fat

2008-07-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

What if Pigbag had been led by Desi Arnaz, and he sang in English? That's what Chris Sullivan's band Blue Rondo a la Turk sounded like. With a postpunk take on Latin rhythms, a full horn section (see here for the complete band lineup), and vintage zoot-suit fashions, Blue Rondo in 1982 prefigured the swing craze that would reach full force over a decade later. (Oddly, they did not sound anything like Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk.") Sullivan was quite the dandy; see this profile of him in which he details his fashion history, and even takes credit for starting the New Romantic fashion movement. To be fair, he is also a skilful songwriter, singer, and a painter as well: he painted the album cover art. Chewing the Fat, released in 1982, is full of infectious Latin grooves and more straightforward pop fare. High points include a fantastic cover of Luther Ingram's "I Spy for the FBI" and the originals "Klacto Vee Sedstein" (a single) and "They Really Don't;" even a bit of Spandau Ballet shows through in the guitar intro to the single "The Heavens are Crying." The UK and German releases of the album differ slightly: the German version includes the 1981 single "Me and Mr Sanchez," while the UK version replaces that with its B-side, "Sarava." I have the UK version, so that's what I've presented here, but I also have the 45 so I've added "Me and Mr Sanchez" at the end. The full track list is:

01 Change
02 I Spy for the FBI
03 Coco
04 The Heavens Are Crying
05 The Method
06 They Really Don't
07 Sarava
08 Klacto Vee Sedstein
09 Carioca
10 Me and Mr Sanchez

I found a Blue Rondo TV performance clip (of "Carioca:) on YouTube: just to the left of Chris Sullivan (your left, his right) in the center ring is Christos Tolero, who as far as I can figure was the Paul Rutherford of the group, with his trademark Mephistophelean mustache and goatee:

Get the Chewing the Fat vinyl rip here or here.

Recipe - Skinny-Dipping

2008-07-15T03:56:00.001-07:00

Dave Henderson's liner notes from Recipe's 1986 album on Dead Man's Curve are informative enough to be reproduced here verbatim:

A cold night on Singles duty for Sounds magazine and nothing is shaking -- not even the leaves on the trees. Recipe's debut opus, 'Upriver', slips neatly from its nice cheerful sleeve. It breaks the ice. It moves mountains. It doesn't give me a headache. And, how? How? How come it isn't on the radio at any God-given moment (and every God-given moment).

Further investigation reveals that Recipe had a previous 45 called 'Waterglide'. It's similarly impressive. Douglas Benford (a Recipe) tells me all about it. His cohort, Kevin, is part of Always (they are great, too). Both are on Inertial (an Uxbridge label).

Always sign to El. Nothing happens. Recipe sign to Survival, a single and video are released ... still superb. Nothing happens. Time goes on (as it does) and eventually Always do release something on El, but Recipe are homeless.

Enclosed on this magnificent piece of plastic are the life and times of Recipe. Herein you can study those first recordings, get to grips with their Survival smash. Hear the track that they contributed to Food's 'Imminent 2' and get a lot of other wonderful tracks thrown in for good measure.

If you don't buy this, don't come running to me when your deadliest rival tells you that it's the hippest thing this side of life. Hey, we told you so, everyone doesn't have to be deaf.

Listen in good health.

The Survival single is "Outboard", and the Imminent 2 track is the lovely "Home's Over." The LP contains ten songs plus eight excerpts of other songs interspersed throughout. I have ripped those to separate tracks, as on the LP, and have preserved the playing order. (So it only makes sense to listen to the whole album start to finish!) I would love to see a CD reissue that includes the excerpted songs in their entirety, but I won't hold my breath. Recipe's sound is not far from Furniture, which is not surprising given both bands' origins on the great Survival Records label. So if you like Furniture, give Recipe a whirl; get the vinly rip here or here.

Living In Texas - Cowboy Dream

2008-07-13T08:34:00.001-07:00

1987 saw Living In Texas switching to the Big Beat label to release their Cowboy Dream mini-LP, which continued the blunting of their former hard-edged sound, despite the addition of a second guitarist, Jeffrey Wallace. The disc opens with "The Yellow Rose of Texas," in which the band takes their name literally for a bit of western-style doo-wop (!). The earlier fire breaks through in parts of the second track, "The Civilised World," and again on side 2 in their cover of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life." "Cowboy Dream," presented in two versions, flirts with a reggae beat, and "Julia's Child" revisits the slow-burn goth style of some of their earlier songs. And that's it, there are just six tracks on this record. It's not bad by any means, but it's a far cry from the boisterous glory of Glad, Bad, Sad & Mad. Get Cowboy Dream here or here. (Cover art is again by guitarist Daniel Glee; I don't usually include the back cover but I did this time because Glee's work there is the mostly lively part of the record.)

Various Artists - Four from the Madding Crowd

2008-07-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a compilation on Gary Levermore's Third Mind label from 1986, Four from the Madding Crowd, the "four" referring to the four bands contained on the album: Royal Family and the Poor, Bushido (Levermore's band), Intimate Obsessions, and Ohama Meets Dania. The first Royal Family & the Poor track is an extended version of the title track from their second Factory album (and is the best orchestrated of all their songs), and "Dog Star" was originally available only on this album; both songs were included on the CD reissue of We Love the Moon. Of the Bushido songs, "Time" and the instrumental "Chance Meeting" are exclusive to this album, as are all three instrumental tracks by Intimate Obsessions. Ohama Meets Dania is the Calgary (Canada)-based duo of synth man Tona Ohama and singer Dania George; their two long synthpop tracks were included on their 1986 album Love Only Lasts a While. The full track list is:

01 Royal Family & the Poor - We Love The Moon
02 Royal Family & the Poor - Dog Star
03 Bushido - Recalled To Life
04 Bushido - Chance Meeting
05 Bushido - Time
06 Intimate Obsessions - Mishima
07 Intimate Obsessions - Baruch
08 Intimate Obsessions - Confessions of a Mask
09 Ohama Meets Dania - Lonely Hearts Dance
10 Ohama Meets Dania - Take Me Dancing

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Various Artists - Imminent 2

2008-07-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

In 1985 and 1986 the Food Ltd. label released four compilation albums entitled Imminent 1-4. Each one was a superb sampling of UK indie acts of the day, cutting across all styles and genres of rock music. A rip of the first one, featuring exclusive tracks by Eric Random and Brilliant, among others, is available at the excellent but seemingly abandoned blog Dirk Wears White Sox. A rip of the second volume is available right here. On Imminent 2 we get skronk from Biting Tongues and Gasrattle, a shimmering synthpop ballad from Recipe, an early demo from 400 Blows, Karl Blake riffing on Bad Company (!) with the Shock Headed Peters, an extended soundscape from UV Pop, some hard Sheffield throb from Hula, grebo from Zodiac Mindwarp, and more noisy rock from the rest of the bunch. Some tracks are unavailable elsewhere, I think, though I'm not going to research each song. Here's the full list:

01 Kill Ugly Pop - Church of Bloody Deception
02 Biting Tongues - The Boss Toyota Trouble
03 UV Pop - Zuitar
04 Gasrattle - Beach Party
05 Recipe - Home's Over
06 Living In Texas - Hate Me More II
07 Shock Headed Peters - Head Thorax Abdomen
08 400 Blows - Strangeways
09 Sting-Rays - Never Had It So Good
10 Hula - Bad Blood
11 Deep Freeze Mice - Here Comes the Sun Explosion
12 Zodiac Mindwarp - Drug Shoes

Get the vinyl rip here or here. The LP came with a poster, too:

Onyx - four-song cassette, 1982

2008-07-06T07:41:00.001-07:00

One of the great lost bands of the new wave era is Boston-area Onyx, unmentioned in any online music guide, unrepresented in the online music marketplace but for a single 7" 45 of "Call of the Wild" b/w "S.O.S." on GEMM (as of this writing). Between 1981 and 1983 they released just two singles and a four-song cassette that included two songs from the single releases, all on their own Nu-Age label. They sound like a three-piece: acoustic drums (sometimes phase-shifted), a heavy electric bass that serves as the lead instrument, and keyboards that create a spacey atmosphere; the overall effect is of a more beat-heavy Krautrock. The female vocalist does not sing, but whispers or recites a narrative over the driving instrumental backing. "S.O.S." is particularly infectious:

Presented here is a rip of the cassette, the full track listing being:

S.O.S.

Robot World

Jet Set

Planet X

Total playing time is about 23 minutes. I don't have the actual cassette handy, so the picture above is just a reconstruction; there was no cover art. Update 9/3/08: I found the tape! The actual cassette is now pictured above.

Update 3/7/09: The two Onyx 45's are now posted here.

Update 1/6/11: see comments for new links.

Flex 13 - Candy

2008-06-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

Here's a belated return to my Peter Hope discography project. This time we have Candy, the second CD recorded by Peter Hope and his bandmate from The Box, Charlie Collins, as Flex 13. (See here for the first, Paint My Legs.) Recorded in 1998 and 1999, Candy is a livelier affair than Paint My Legs. "Nothing Starts" is a dead ringer for early Clock DVA (Charlie Collins period), and ex-DVA and Box-man Paul Widger adds guitar to "Leader of the Pack" (co-written by John Wills, who plays on that track and the other one he co-wrote, "Back of Your Mind"). Also guesting is Jonathan S. Podmore, a.k.a. Kumo (a.k.a. Jono), who plays theremin on "Picking Up Speed." Here's the full track list:

Listen Doctor
Nothing Starts
Birdman Falling
Uptown Crank
Grease Junkie
Picking Up Speed
Your Drugs Are Killing Me
Leader of the Pack
Ditch I'm In
Back of Your Mind

It's a fine addition to the Hope/Collins opus, and the last one that I'm aware of. (If you know otherwise, please let me know in the comments.) Get the CD rip here or here.

Furniture - The Lovemongers

2008-06-18T19:58:00.001-07:00

By the time Furniture scored their two big hits in 1986, "Brilliant Mind" and "Love Your Shoes" from their Stiff Records album The Wrong People, they had already been together for seven years and released a string of singles and EPs on Survival Records and its subsidiary Premonition. Premonition also released a full Furniture album called The Lovemongers, which is an original album and not merely a collection of their single and EP tracks. The full track list is as follows:

The Lovemongers
Throw Away the Script
Love Your Shoes (original version; rerecorded for Stiff)
Escape Into My Arms (original version; rerecorded for Stiff)
What the Fog Said
Dancing the Hard Bargain (a 1984 single & Survival compilation track)
Bullet
Talking Kitten
Sang Froid
I Can't Crack (a 1985 single)

If you know Furniture then you'll already know what this sounds like; pick up the vinyl rip (here or here) for more of the same dinky organ and lounge-y crooning, plus some more introspective pieces in the vein of It's Immaterial. Furniture were unfortunate victims of the record business, getting lost in the shuffle with the sale of Stiff Records and never regaining their momentum, despite releasing one more album, Food, Sex & Paranoia, on Arista in 1989. Their spirit lives on, however, in the contemporary San Francisco band The Music Lovers.

James Blood Ulmer - Part Time

2008-06-15T19:05:00.001-07:00

Recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1983 (but not released until 1984 on the British Rough Trade label), Part Time documents the Odyssey trio of Ulmer, drummer Warren Benbow, and violinist Charles Burnham in a live setting. It's heavy on the Odyssey material, and the high point is some righteous jamming back and forth between Ulmer and Burnham on Odyssey's "Swings & Things." Here is the complete track list:

Part Time
Little Red House
Love Dance
Encore
Are You Glad To Be In America?
Swings & Things
Mr. Tight Hat

The album is unfortunately short, clocking in at just thirty-two and a half minutes. But it's a great thirty-two and a half minutes! Get the vinyl rip (not pristine, sorry) here or here.

Living In Texas - Live Italia Eighty-Five

2008-06-13T18:45:00.001-07:00

Continuing the Living In Texas posts, here is their live album, Italia Live Eighty-Five. It contains live renditions of two songs from their first EP ("My End of Heaven," "Julia's Child"), three from their first album ("Here Come the Boat Traders," "The Other Side of Me," "This Blood Religion") a ten-minute version of "Kingdom" (a 12" release), "The Bomb Generation" from the Fastest Men Alive album, and the exclusive "Four Minutes." That's eight songs altogether, plus a spoken introduction in Italian that I have split out into a separate track. One wonders why they chose this particular recording (Genoa, 26 February 1985) to release as a live album: it was recorded in mono on a four-track TEAC. The sound quality is not that great. However, the band does display its range and its rather unusual stylistic potpourri of gothic rock, rockabilly, and proto-grunge. "Kingdom" really is an epic tour-de-force; I don't have the studio version, but I've just put it on my active wishlist. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

The Mothmen - Pay Attention

2008-06-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here's an album I've been after for years: Pay Attention by the Mothmen, a 1981 album on On-U Sound (LP 002). This was actually posted on the "Are Friends Electric" blog some time ago, but it seems to have disappeared. Thankfully a helpful reader who had downloaded it noticed it on my wantlist and sent the files on to me, yippee! It's so good that it deserves more exposure, so I've re-upped it here (or here). The Mothmen have a more rock-oriented sound than any other Adrian Sherwood productions of the same era, and it turns out that's because Sherwood didn't produce them: he merely released the album on his label. The surprising bit is that a band with no influence from Sherwood would fit in so well on On-U Sound. A full history of the band is available here on the unofficial On-U Sound website. The short version is that the Mothmen were formed by ex-members of Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias, the Durutti Column, and elsewhere; they recorded two albums and a handful of singles before breaking up; and two members went on to be the rhythm section of Simply Red. The whole Mothmen concept may have been a piss-take, but it holds up surprisingly well. The dub-inflected rock beats on Pay Attention never get too lazy, there are plenty of meandering psychedelic solos and flourishes, and even the fourteen-minute-long "The Mothman," which has the look and feel of album filler, at least has a driving beat that keeps it moving. A lost minor classic, in other words. Thanks again to the donor! Now if anyone has a rip of the second Mothmen album, One Black Dot, please get in touch (see my profile for my email address). Update: I've found One Black Dot and posted it here.

James Blood Ulmer - Live at the Caravan of Dreams

2008-06-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Nowadays James Blood Ulmer is a sort of elder statesman of the blues, but back in the 70s he was a protege of jazz great Ornette Coleman and a proponent of Coleman's "harmolodics," i.e. everybody play whatever you want at the same time and let the listener sort it out. Which made for some challenging listening! Ulmer's first solo records also had a strong funk underpinning, explicitly addressed in "Jazz Is the Teacher (Funk Is the Preacher)" on his album Are You Glad To Be In America? As for the Caravan of Dreams, I'll quote Wikipedia:

The Caravan of Dreams was a performing arts center located in the central business district of Fort Worth, Texas during the 1980s and 1990s. The venue was best known locally as a live music nightclub, though this only represented one portion of a larger facility. The center also included a multitrack recording studio, a 212 seat theater, two dance studios, and a rooftop garden.[1] The center was located at 312 Houston Street, and prefigured the redevelopment of Sundance Square into a dining and entertainment district. Edward P. Bass, whose family has participated in much of the redevelopment of downtown Fort Worth, financed the project, and Kathelin Hoffman served as its artistic director.[2]
The Caravan of Dreams was self-described as "a meeting place appealing to audiences who enjoy the creation of new forms of music, theater, dance, poetry and film" that was "architected and managed by and for artists."[3] The name was taken from 1001 Arabian Nights, by way of Brion Gysin, who attended the opening of the venue with William S. Burroughs in 1983.[4] The opening celebration centered around performances by Fort Worth native Ornette Coleman, both with his Prime Time ensemble in the nightclub, and with the Fort Worth Symphony at the nearby Convention Center. The event coincided with the mayoral proclamation of September 29, 1983 as "Ornette Coleman Day," when Coleman was presented with a key to the city.[5]
The center operated its own record label, releasing albums by Coleman as well as artists such as Ronald Shannon Jackson, James "Blood" Ulmer, and Twins Seven Seven. Caravan of Dreams also released films (including Ornette: Made in America, a feature-length documentary about Coleman) and spoken word recordings by William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, John P. Allen (as Johnny Dolphin), and others.
The rooftop garden featured hundreds of cacti and succulent plants, as well as a glass geodesic dome. Several years later, Biosphere 2 would incorporate geodesic domes in its structure, with the involvement of some of the same principals behind Caravan of Dreams.[6]
Eventually the facility became less geared toward the experimental (though high-profile) musicians, writers, and artists with whom it was associated in its early days. Caravan of Dreams ceased its production of entertainment media, and the nightclub hosted more mainstream performers outside of the jazz genre.
The nightclub closed in 2001, exactly eighteen years to the day after Ornette Coleman Day, and was converted into a restaurant, Reata at Sundance Square.[7] The theater space continued to be operated as such.

Sounds like a fantastic place, which unfortunately I never got the chance to visit. So, here (or here) is the James Blood Ulmer album referenced above. Released in 1986, it was probably recorded in 1983 or 1984, and includes a good mix of blues and funk numbers. The backing band is Amin Ali on bass, Charles Burnham on violin, and Warren Benbow on drums.

Living In Texas - Glad Bad Sad & Mad

2008-06-02T20:16:00.001-07:00

Living In Texas, despite their name, were from England, not Texas. They released several records in the 80s on their own Chainsaw label, but judging by the lack of any fan websites, they never made much of an impact. That's a shame, because they recorded two of the best raucous guitar songs of the decade, and they are both on their 1985 EP, Glad Bad Sad & Mad. "The Girls in the Red Leather Coat" is built on Peggy Lee's "Fever" riff (and they even acknowledge it in the lyrics), and "Mr Fish", possibly about murderer Albert Fish ("Mr Fish swam home last night / Ate his wife and kids for tea") but a real rocker whatever the lyrical subject. The band consisted of Stephan James (vocals), Daniel Glee (guitars), Mathew Fraser (drums), and Nic Denton (bass) on this record; later releases added a second guitarist, Jeffrey Wallace. Glee also produced most of the band's record sleeve art, including this one. Glad Bad Sad & Mad was their finest moment, and is the first of four or five Living In Texas records I will be presenting. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (And about the distortion: it's the record, not the rip. It was cut way too loud.)

Richard Toro and John Orsi - Music for Bass and Drumset

2008-05-31T21:07:00.001-07:00

This may be the most obscure album I've put up so far: a 1985 live-in-the-studio set by Boston musicians Richard Toro (bass) and John Orsi (drumset), released on Lilith Records. From the press release:

Richard Toro and John Orsi have seen service together in two Providence quartets: 'Tightrope' and 'The Parents'. From there, Richard went onto co-charter the adventurous 'Ante M' who recorded an excellent cassette sampler for Lilith before disbanding last year.

John Orsi, upon relocating to Boston, teamed up with Ann Arbor's 'It Play' who had also recently switched locales. John took leave of absence after eighteen months to develop this lp with Richard and to begin recording his first solo disc. John maintains an active catalog of solo releases on the Lilith label which have garnered him critical acclaim from both print and radio media. The double single 'Can You Draw Attention' is widely considered his finest effort to date.

I really liked Orsi's "Noisy Data" single, but I haven't heard it in over twenty years; if you have it, would you kindly rip it and send it along? Music for Bass and Drumset should not be mistaken for improvisatory noodling, as there are definite song structures in place, with progressions and dynamics that were obviously thought out beforehand. It's rare for bass and drums to take center stage, and Toro and Orsi take advantage of the setup to present a surprising range of styles and textures. Don't worry, there are some funky beats lurking within the album's nine tracks. Get the vinly rip here or here.

Pigbag live

2008-05-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

Pigbag (full band history here) was a fantastic melting pot of rock, funk, jazz, and Latin styles; unfortunately they were only together for three years, 1980-83. After the breakup, Y Records released this album of odds and ends, containing seven live tracks from five shows and a remix of "Jump the Line." Most notable are the live versions of "Sunny Day" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag," and a cover of the Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong classic "Smiling Faces (Sometimes)" which did not appear on any of Pigbag's studio albums. The full track listing is:

A1 Shack of Scraps Live - Berlin Latin Quarter - 5th April 1983
A2 Smiling Faces Live - Berlin Latin Quarter - 5th April 1983
A3 Sunny Day Live - Birmingham Locarno - 17th March 1982
A4 Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag Live - Hammersmith Palais - 16th March 1982
B1 Jump The Line Remix - Jacobs Studio - December 1982
B2 Global Terrain Live - Berlin Latin Quarter - 5th April 1983
B3 End of Ubud Live - Munich Alabama Hall - 6th April 1983
B4 Can't See for Looking Live - Tokyo Sun Plaza - July 1982

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Vital Excursions - Give!

2008-05-29T14:47:00.001-07:00

From the "If you like Pigbag" department, here is the only album by Vital Excursions, Give! (1982). Vital Excursions was led by saxophonist/flautist Tony Wrafter, and had a Pigbag-style lineup of:

Voice: Angela Stewart
Kit: Dan Sheals
Bass: Moen Parera
Viola: Sara Sarahandi
Bass Violin (isn't that a cello?): Pete Brandt
Piano: Fiona Fleck
Congas: Steve Lewis
Trombone: John Fairbrother
Percussion: Paul (Nellie) Hooper

There is a real, albeit circuitous, relationship to Pigbag as well: Wrafter had been a member of Maximum Joy, which included former members of The Pop Group (John Waddington and Dan Catsis), while Pigbag also included a former Pop Group member (Simon Underwood). Wrafter and Catsis were also both members of the Glaxo Babies, as was fellow Maximum Joy member Charlie Llewellin. Clear as mud. Give! is sometimes listed as a mini-LP because it contains just six songs. It's actually a full-length album, though, because the track that takes up all of side two, "Going to the Give", is over eighteen minutes long. It combines rock and Eastern musical styles, prefiguring Eric Random's Ishmael LP which came out three years later. The five songs on side one sound like Pigbag for the most part, with the exception of the mellow jazz "In the Swim." So if you like Pigbag, get the Vital Excursions vinyl rip here or here.

Funkapolitan

2008-05-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

Out of all the British blue-eyed funk bands from the early 80s, Funkapolitan was definitely one of them. They had an eight-man lineup, produced stiff but passable pop-funk, and released three singles and one album (produced by August Darnell, a.k.a. Kid Creole, with a cover design by Factory's Peter Savile) which was generally well reviewed. They tried a little Sugarhill-style rap on "There it is again," even mentioning "wheels of steel." The back cover of the album has a band member/song matrix with an instrument key that shows exactly who (Kadir Guirey, Simon Ollivierre, Nick Jones, Sagat Guirey, Toby Andersen, Terry President, Tom Dixon, Gregory Craig, and guests Larry Greenberg and Annise Hadeed) played what (drums, claves, congas, tambourine, bongos, shakere, agogo, caxixi, cowbell, guiro, timbali, cabasa, steel drums, marimbas, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Clavinet, Rhodes, Synclavier, grand piano, Arp strings, Farfisa organ, Hammond organ, acoustic piano, Vox organ, synthesizer solo, statement, lead vocals, vocal, backing vocal, rap, handclaps, jawbone) on each song. As you can see from the list, the arrangements are interesting and make for good listening, even if the songs are not particularly memorable. Their Top of the Pops rendition of "As the time goes by" has turned up on YouTube:

Get the LP rip here or here.

David Harrow twelve-inches

2008-05-25T21:19:00.001-07:00

As a supplement to the previous post of David Harrow's 1983 solo album, The Succession, here are a couple 12-inch singles from his 80s solo career. "Our Little Girl" is taken from The Succession and extended by about a minute via the rather abrupt insertion of a drums-and-slap-bass break; the B-side is the non-LP "Reflections." From 1984, on Ink Records, we have the "No Easy Targets" 12-inch. On "Targets" Harrow adopts Stephen Mallinder's recitative vocal style and adds a snarl to it which makes for his most effective vocal performance, in my opinion. Pinkie Maclure contributes backing vocals. The B-side, "Complete Control (Night-Time Sleaze)" is a long instrumental with samples of movie dialog, and bass played by Mik Corr. Get both vinyl rips zipped together here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

David Harrow - The Succession

2008-05-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Before coming up with his James Hardway and Technova aliases in the mid-90s, David Harrow had already been recording under his given name for about 15 years. According to obscure.co.nz:

His first recordings were created in Berlin in 1981/1982 when he was working with a woman called Anne Clark. The sound they created was soon termed new beat or industrial and along with DAF they kick started the European electronic dance scene. When Harrow visits Germany today, he is still hailed "The Godfather Of Techno".

Later in the 80s and into the 90s, Harrow would collaborate heavily with Genesis P-Orridge, Jah Wobble, and Adrian Sherwood. He also recorded an EP with singer Peter Hope of Sheffield band The Box in 1985, posted here. Often overlooked, though, is the solo album he recorded in 1983 for release on Red Flame/10 Records , The Succession. Harrow assembled quite a band for the occasion: John White, a.k.a. U.V. Pop (!), on guitar and saxophone, Roger Quail (of The Box and the original ClockDVA lineup) on drums and percussion, Gary Malkin on bass (who? can't find any more info on him), and Janice Chaplin (?) on backing vocals. Harrow is credited with vocals, keyboards, guitar, and percussion. He is obviously not very comfortable as a singer: he tries out several different singing styles throughout the course of the album, but none quite fit. His compositional and instrumental skills, on the other hand, are already fully developed even on this early record. The track listing is:

A1 Introduction
A2 Without Sin
A3 Driving Force
A4 Our Little Girl
A5 Here
B1 Kick
B2 Still Optimistic
B3 Civilised
B4 Belief

Get the vinyl rip here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

Cosmetic - Get Ready

2008-05-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

I had a more substantial post planned--the sole album by 80s funk band Cosmetic--but as luck would have it, EduFunKY just posted it to the Boogie Grooves blog yesterday. At least I checked before I ripped this time! So I'll just offer up this addendum, their 1982 12" single (non-LP) of "Get Ready," the 1966 Temptations song written by Smokey Robinson and recharted by Rare Earth in 1970. Cosmetic's was more or less a pop vehicle for Philadelphia-born electric bassist (and Ornette Coleman protege) Jamaaladeen Tacuma, so if you like kinetic basslines, this is a must have. The lead vocals are by Veronica Johnson, about whom I have no information whatsoever. The B-side, "Put It On," is a ska instrumental with some unusual guitar chords, as if Andy Summers sat in with the (English) Beat. The full band line-up is:

Jamaaladeen Tacuma: electrical bass guitar
Timothy Murphy: electrical guitar/effects
Rick McClary: drums/percussion
James Watkins: guest saxophonist
Veronica Johnson: lead vocal on Get Ready
Greg Allen: Trumpet on Get Ready
Bill Brecker: Korg synthesizer on Put It On

Discogs.com lists this as a Gramavision (US) release, but this rip is taken from the UK Rough Trade pressing. Get it here or here.

The Men - Matrix of Compassion

2008-05-21T16:31:00.001-07:00

Here is the followup to my post of The Men's first record, Herminutics. Its six songs were all very inspired funk-leaning postpunk. To repeat the basic information from the first post:

Men were a Chicago punk/industrial band from the early 80s, sharing or featuring
ex-members of the more popular band The Mentally Ill. Founded by Snat 5 Records head Art MacQuilkin, they released a 12" in 1981. (The Chicago Punk Database)

That 12" would be Herminutics; they followed it up in 1982 with a full-length album, Matrix of Compassion, which finds them either stretching out or dicking around; it seems to be a little bit of both. About half the songs retain the weird, ACR-ish funk groove from the first record, but in between there is the noir jazz narrative "Sorry," the long blues piss-take "Dead Blue," the straight-up punk rocker "Nutron Baby," and a few slabs of pure weirdness. The band lineup on this record is essentially the same as on the first, but with more details:

Sven Herman: guitars, melodies, and piano
Reggie Mars McFadden: guitars, melodies, and synthesizer
Arthur E. MacQuilkin III: guitar, melodies, and vocals
John Sterling Santee: sax, melodies, percussion

also..
Amy Fischer: vocals on "Remain"
Steve George: drums

The album packaging is interesting in itself: instead of a sleeve it's a cardstock envelope (like Section 25's Always Now) with a square hole cut in the front to expose the record label. All in all it's a great relic of the creative side of the early 80s; get the vinyl rip here or here (new links 1/3/2010). (If you have any information on later musical projects of The Men or its members, please let me know in the comments.)

Surprize - Complete Discography

2008-05-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's easy to post a complete discography for a band when they only released eight songs on two records! Italian band Surprize released the four-song The Secret Lies In Rhythm EP on Italian label Base Records in 1982, and another four-song EP, In Movimento, on Factory Benelux in 1984. In Movimento is known primarily for its Manchester connections: it was a "Dojo-BeMusic production," or Donald Johnson of A Certain Ratio (who also contributes bass, Simmons, and backing vocals) and Bernard Sumner of New Order (credited with DMX programming). The main credits are as follows:

Mirko Virdo Pellati: drums, simmons, backing vocals
Wud: voice, synthesizer, guiro, cow bells
Luca Patini: guitars, wood block
Francisco Garau: vibraphone, balafon, bongos, cow bells, cabasa, talking floor drum, kokiriko, backing vocalsLuciano Graffi: bass, click bass, fretless bass
Frank Nemola: trumpet, trombone

With an instrumental lineup like that, and an ACR member at the desk, there is a definite ACR feel to the record, most like their To Each... and Sextet period. On the earlier EP, the back cover shows Surprize as a seven-piece band, though the members are not listed. While there is an arty gloss to In Movimento, the The Secret Lies In Rhythm is more lively, with the horns and varied percussion more prominent in the mix; it's more in the vein of Pigbag than ACR, and it's a lot of fun. Unfortunately it's also very short, clocking in at just over 16 minutes. But put it together with the second EP and you've got a whole album's worth of above-average, occasionally brilliant postpunk art-funk. Get them here or here.

Flex 13 - Paint My Legs

2008-05-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

Peter Hope and Charlie Collins of Sheffield no-wave band The Box (and Clock DVA, in Collins' case), who broke up in 1985, resurfaced in 1998 as Flex 13. They released a CD on Liquid Records called Paint My Legs, which is described on the back cover as "A recording of sonically degraded cinemorphic sidewinder blues... (Flex) 13 uneasy listenings for the escalator down." (Because there are 13 tracks.) Hope is credited with "voice/instruments/theft," Collins with "instruments/boxes/wires." It's a much lower-key affair than The Box; the joyous, frenetic cacophony is gone, replaced by slow to mid-tempo blues and dub beats, often sampled and looped (I assume that's the "theft"). Hope's vocals rarely rise above a murmured growl, with none of the yelping and bursting energy of his 80s work. It's not bad; it seems to have come out of the whole chill-out craze of the 90s, but it has more character than most music in that genre, as you can see from the song titles:

Blind
Trip To The Root
Schizophrenic Lover
Give Me Wings
Ghost Run
Nuthin'
Burning Arms
(conscious withdrawal)
Lucky
Black Air
Wheelhouse
5:53 Madness
(broken)

The variety of instrumental sounds is also interesting; in that respect it bears some similarity to Dry Hip Rotation. No Peter Hope collection can be complete without it. Get it here or here.

(This is the most recent recording of Peter Hope I've been able to find. If you know of any newer material, please let me know in the comments.)