New Dischord Records Website

Dischord Records discovered that the year 2001 was over and updated their website. I can't fault them for waiting so long - the label has always been a labor of love and who has time for computer shit when there's music to be made.

Upsides

- downloads! A HUGE amount of downloads from the entire catalog (even the 25 year old stuff). There's also a promise to bring in videos and stuff from the archives. This is really the most exciting thing about the new site. They made it so you can't "hotlink" to an mp3 or download (you have to right click on the flash arrow thingie to download - something they don't tell you about unless you experiment).
- clean and simple design wins the day
- they've kept the band pages pretty much the way they were and as I had no complaint about it (except perhaps they should have links to MP3s), that's an upside

Downsides - as they say here, this is a work in progress so take this as constructive criticism

- the store which was hard to deal with before now seems totally inoperable. Stuff you select for your shopping cart doesn't get in there (I'm using Firefox so maybe this works with other browsers). CORRECTION: Whatever the problem was - whether it was on my end or theirs, it's fixed now and I justed busted my budget on some Evens CDs... kidding, $10 each and free shipping - sweet.

There's no email links on the store page to make a manual order (there is a street address and phone number though). There is an email address for them but it's kinda hidden. Really, I know you guys see commerce as being icky but we want to buy your records at your great prices - make it easier for us.
- I hope they are planning to sell DRM-free digital (loss less or high bit rate Mp3s, please)
- no RSS feed for the news page - boo. Really, this is 2007. I want new announcements to come to me not have me have to go to their page. That can't be too hard to fix.
- the tour page is great and it does offer a way to subscribe but it's with icalendar?! Not a bad idea for the band manager and real fanatic fans but most people don't need to know when The Evens are going to be in Pittsburgh (unless you're in Pittsburgh). Wouldn't it be cooler if new tour announcements was also delivered to an RSS reader? Bloggers who love you guys would get the word out. And yeah, I know publicity and advertising is icky, too.

Well, this wouldn't be an MP3 blog with something I plucked from their download page. Embrace was a band I wished had stayed together longer but it was not to be. Viva la Revolucion Summer. I got to see them live at least and somewhere I have a soundboard tape.

"Dance of Days" - Embrace (see here also)

From the Vinyl Mine: Brave New World

Initiation (Homemade Record, BN-84, Distributed by Fartblossom Enterprizes, 1985)

There's no references to this band at all on the 'net but I do know they came to do a distribution deal with Bob Durkee's Fartblossom Enterprizes label in the mid-80s and despite his stint with Pillsbury Hardcore, Durkee had one of the good ears for bands in Southern California at the time - his own label having released Subculture, Ugly Americans and Dain Bramage. So maybe if Durkee isn't too pissed off still about my treatment of his Pillsbury Hardcore 7", he might pipe in and tell us some more about the band.

Far as I know, this mini-LP is all the band came out with - it's hard to search for anything with the words "Brave New World" and not run into millions of sites discussing the Huxley novel. Like Huxley's novel there's a strain of social criticism running throughout the record. The music is a hybrid garage punk-psyche (keyboards) and with occasional moshing hardcore guitars/drumming constructs. The song topics veer more towards hardcore and post-hardcore topics - anti-society ("Sitcom"), pro-self improvement ("Initiation") and probably other things I'm not getting because there's no lyric sheet and vocals are often indistinguishable from the din and racket of the effects pedals and guitar buzz. There some similarities here to Rites of Spring's LP that was released in the same time period - in songs like "I Care!" and especially "3 Days After Liberation" you can almost hear singer James Roebuck pulling his hair out and rending his shirt to shreds. One of the more obvious comparisons -- thanks to Roebuck's voice mostly - is to Public Image, Ltd - the album opener almost sounds like Lydon doing guest vocals. Elsewhere such as in "The Worker", Roebuck sounds more like Jello Biafra so maybe he's choosing vocal styles to fit the song - the worker being about his most political song here. I'm also reminded of Reptile House - listen to "Like Van Gogh" and I can't help but be reminded of weird viciousness "Keel-haul Love"...

Best tracks here are the title track and "3 Days After Liberation" but I'll put up all the tracks

My complaints about this aren't that many - it's a shame this band didn't get more attention or get a chance to "spread their wings" beyond this record. Mainly I will make the typical complaint of music from this period/genre - it could use better recording/engineering. Also, keyboards are sometimes ladled on a bit too thick such as in "Sitcom" where the organ dominates a song (is it just me or are these chords the same ones Dylan used in "One More Cup of Coffee"?).

Anyone know more about this band? What happened to them - was there more music recorded?

Liner notes:
Produced by Brave New World
Lyrics - James Roebuck
(p) and (c) 1985 Brave New Music
All Rights Reserved
Recorded & Mixed at Joint Session May 1985
Eng. by Max
with help from
THE GOD OF IMPERFECTION

Band Lineup:

• Vocals - Guitar - Ratiug(?) -- James Roebuck
• Guitar - Bass - Kirk Burnett
• Bass - keyboard - Tom Howard
• Drums - Wayne Brown

Side 1:

• "Initiation"
• "3 Days After Liberation"
• "The Worker"
• "Like Van Gogh"

Side 2:

• "Sitcom"
• "I Care!"

All music recorded directly from vinyl with pops and clicks mostly intact (I do a little editing and cleaning up). You may need to adjust sound levels up on these tracks.

Suicide: 1st Album

I hadn't thought of this until today but 2007 will mark the 30th anniversary for this album. I was listening just yesterday to an oddball song by a band that made it to alot of Best of Lists (The Knife's stomach-turning - but in a good way - "Na Na Na") and it struck me that if Suicide hadn't invented the cold, horror movie electronic landscapes in this album that it might have taken us about 30 years to figure it out.

I'm gonna forswear posting or talking too much about the obvious ones here - I mean they're all great tracks which if you haven't already heard then shame on ya-- everyone listens to "Rocket U.S.A." and "Ghost Rider" over and over again, right? The thing that strikes me from listening to those more well-known songs and some of the others here is how influenced they were by 50's rock and roll and 60's garage rock. It's said that Vega used Elvis Presley as a model for his singing and I can believe it, kinda like a half-dead Elvis but then again he was kinda half-dead for most of the '70's.

I think one of the things that made the band's later records a bit lame was the "updating" of the influences (hip hop, new wave) rather than this more, uh, removed feel that they got by "futurizing" the past - that sort of retro-sci-fi feel, neh?

Then there's "Frankie Teardrop" -- that's in a class all of its own although it's what I think about most when I listen to a lot of bands these days -- and back in the '80s when bands like Big Stick were doing their more lo-fi thing. It's a song that I often find I can't listen to all the way through - but not because it's bad but it's so terrifying and real.

That said, I'm going to recommend today we consider the girl songs... start with uhm "Girl." The cha-cha beat and lounge lizard organ riff complement Vega's slinky yet sleepy seduction. He's like Iggy in another more laid-back dimension. That said, was I the only one surprised to learn Vega wasn't gay?

"Cheree" has the same feel, using those infamous "Wild Thing/La Bamba" chord riffs that fueled many, many garage band marathon jams. Rev's atmospherics, though, are what make this special to me - I can see why Steve Albini said that this was the only album he listened to that made his mother question whether he was on drugs. It was either this song or "Frankie"...

Suicide selections (all songs deleted after a few days so keep up with me here):

• "Girl"
• "Cheree"

a scan of the back cover photo (credited to Michael Robinson)

These songs were ripped from the Dutch East India / Red Star mid-80's reissue of this classic album. Since then, Mute Records has been the keeper of the flame for Suicide. Their Suicide web page bio is as good as any and you can probably still find some new copies of the 2002 reish (and remaster) of the Blast First 1998 reissue - both of which came with a second CD of live performances from 1978.

In 2005, an "oral biography" of Suicide - called Suicide: No Compromise was released. I have yet to read it but it looks pretty cool. The previous link comes from the Suicide fan web site which includes a pretty extensive discography.

Some related listening:

• "Crosses, 16 Blazin' Skulls" - Alan Vega from the latest Wire Magazine Tapper CD suggests that maybe he's kinda getting it back. Still I miss the "soul" of Martin Rev in here - Liz Lamere, his partner, does some of the keyboards. It's from a Spring 2007 release Station which is described as: " It is a diamond hard, gritty, electronic album with Vega’s signature neartime sci-fi , twisted vision of life & love in the 21st century & beyond."
• "Na Na Na" - The Knife (in m4a format) in which a scared housewife wishes chemical castration upon a rapist uses the same minimal cold electronic soundscapes that Suicide might have coupled with a affecting voice (like Vega) and a warmer throbbing electronic sound that mirrors the essential bleakness the hopeless - yet very human - prayer.
  

And In Other Blogs:

• 20 Jazz Funk Greats has a 1981 live version of "Ghost Rider"
• If you want to sample something from the follow-up studio album, Prettiest Pony still has "Dominic Christ" up on their blog.