Coffee and Cigarettes MP3 Mix: I Almost Cut My Hair Today

"Wonderland Woods" - Chris Vrenna beckons us down the rabbit hole
"Paid for Grace" - That nice boy from Currituck Co. has gone insane
:::Interlude::: Hannah Marcus show us the desert
"Sun Song" - Nick Castro sits down
"Git" - Skeletons and Girl-faced Boys shimmy to a smooth finale







h.t. for "git" to credcentral

Blackhouse: Hope

click on image to see cover

(RRRecords, LP dated 1984/1985)

Blackhouse were a 2nd generation industrial band whose influences were drawn from Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Einsturzende Neubauten and the like. Their sound is somewhat derivative of Whitehouse, SPK, Nurse With Wound and Controlled Bleeding... only much more boring, if that's possible. This was in the years before industrial music became just another form of dance music.

The basic construction of the pieces on this record are to choose a repetitive single measure drum beat (they've got a Roland but don't know how to program it) and then lay some overly processed vocals over the top and some repetitive factory or feedbackish sound effects. An "exciting" variation would be to either not use the drum machine or just set the drum machine to make a single monotonous beat. Sometimes the vocals are discernible and other times you can understand them. I'm sorry but I'm nodding off even as I write this...

Blackhouse had a gimmick that made them stand out from the others, though. They were the first Christian industrial-noise-rock band. Whoopee. However, they disavowed the extremist fundamentalism that appears to be the logical conclusion of most religion and instead characterized themselves as good leftist Christians (pro-environment, anti-government, anti-war, anti-death penalty).

They were "pro-life" (there's a cut on this record by that name) but simultaneously said they were for the "right of a woman to choose her own destiny" (quoted from a 1993 interview) .... um... where destiny is spelled (whispering) H-E-L-L in case you're wondering. So its sort of like a strangely passive Christianity - a go forth and make a joyful noise and oh by the way - we think that you, you and you are going to Hell and tough shit. Oh by the way, we're not going to Hell because we both have dicks and would never get ourselves in a stupid mess like you. Dumb girls. Dude, let's party!

They're kinda like the Church Lady but with heavy feedback and a four track recorder.

I mean at least a band like Nurse With Woulnd would try to make the sounds of a million dead babies crying or something interesting and come up with something that actually confronted the audience. When Blackhouse got shit at live shows from both the Xtians who didn't like noise and the noise fans who didn't like Christians, they just stopped playing live. Well, at least they're going to heaven.

Praise the Lord and pass the drum machine!

Record collector geek notes: This is a limited edition reissue of 500 with a different cover for each. It looks like they took some religious art books and a pot of paste and afixed them to blank cardboard record sleeves. Mine has a bunch of people in a boat and the Pope has magically appeared and appears afixed to the mast of the ship. It's quite funny when you look at it - the first Pope on a stick.

Mp3:

• "Hope Like A Candle" - Blackhouse - this cut is about the most listenable (as in something approaching interesting) on the record and, thank you Jesus, it is mercifully short. It's shallow and pretentious but isn't almost all industrial rock of this era... come to think of it, any era? Also, way dated but hey check it out for your own edification and tell me I'm wrong and going to Hell.

Band members:

• Sterling Cross
• Ivo Cutler
• Roger Farrell (although he doesn't play on the cut above)
  

Links:

• The Blackhouse website includes a very pompous interview - money quote: "I prefer to be known as Blackhouse. Blackhouse is who I am." I'm guessing the band is down to one person now.
• Here's the 1993 interview referenced above where they talk about their view on abortion and other things.
• There's also an announcement on their website that Blackhouse has a new albumfor 2005 on Ladd-Frith that will return to the sound of their early "extreme" years and is getting Roland the Drum Machine out of the back of the closet. In the late '90s or so, the band seemingly lightened up and dialed back on the Christianity and the noise to become more of a "good vibe" synth-dance-rave band. Yay, I see Jesus in the strobe lights. Witness, witness...

Big Black: "Big Money" 12" Promo

Homestead Records, 1986

This was the record that ended Big Black's recording deal with the Dutch East India / Homestead label. As explained in the Big Black Portal (from whom we've "borrowed" all images), the agreement between the band and the label was that this record, lacking any cover art or liner notes, was a radio station promo and not to be sold. There were 500 copies released and a couple dozen "test pressings" but then the label sleazes reportedly started selling copies in record stores outside Chicago thinking the band wouldn't find out.

Steve and Santiago: Photo from Sound of Impact

I found mine in a DC record store in a Mylar snuggie with the words "Test Pressing" written on top in Sharpie pen. I've pretty sure, though, this isn't a test pressing but the record collector scum in me couldn't resist laying down the $7.99 for a band I knew would remain big for a long time. Actually, it had been in the bins for several weeks but because the band was so unpopular in DC, it sat there for weeks or maybe all the fans didn't want to pick it up because they sympathsized with the band. After a few weeks, though, I couldn't resist.

The three live cuts (recorded at the Prince's 7th Street Entry club where Prince played in Purple Rain) appeared on the semi-official Sound of Impact (Blast First/UK) and just "Cables" appears on Atomizer.

Songs:

• "Il Duce" - this was a cast-off from the Racer-X session (Naked Raygun's Jeff "Gigantor" Pezatti is on bass) and sounds like one of those songs written in the studio based on a drum riff (and the drum programming here, as always beats most live drummers to badly ground meat) and their famous "knife" and "hammer" guitar interplay. It was then released as a 7" with a photo of Mussolini, the Beast of Rome and the purposely infuriating dedication to "the bambino: il duce benito mussolini, whose life has been an inspiration to us all." The lyrics suggest a fictional child-like (bambino) Mussolini given the ultimate toy to play with:

They gave me this house, and gave me this car
They gave me the cities and streets when they gave me this job

• "Rip" - The explosions you hear in "Rip" are Albini's on-stage pyrotechnics which no doubt had many club owners pissed off and, if memory serves correct, got them banned in several places. When they played in dc space (I saw them twice), I can't remember them actually doing the fireworks - it was an extremely tight and narrow room and probably would have cleared out the club. As noted, this version redeems the previous dorm room recorded version, apparently meant as an ode to random violence.

Acquire This Shit, You Cheapskates:

There is a copy of this 12" promo (not the test pressing) available on Gemm, unplayed, for $57.50. I don't know if this link will work for long.

Touch and Go reissued the "Il Duce" / "Big Money" 7" in the early '90s so you can find it in the used stores and on Gemm, Ebay and the like. You might even find the original 7" (Homestead) there as well. "Il Duce" was also included on the seminal Wailing Ultimate compilation but that's pretty hard to find as well.

"Big Money" which is a fave from Atomizer can now be found on Rich Man's 8 Track Tape which is still available. The original versions of "Rip", "Cables" and "Pigeon Kill" can be found on Hammer Party. Although the live tracks are hard to find, there are still copies of the live 1987 Pig Pile CD available. It has versions of "Cables" and "Pigeon Kill" but no "Rip."

Links and Such:

• There are two great resources for Big Black - the previously mentioned ARBEIT MACHT FREI Big Black Portal and Petdance's Action Park, the latter including a song database with lyrics, reviews and liner notes.
• The Benito Mussolini Wiki entry and an Italian only Il Duce "fan" page.
  
• Mussolini, ally of Nazi Germany, exporter of Jews and the Brutalizer of Ethiopia was voted the 34th greatest Italian in a 2004 Italian television poll.

Volcano Suns: All Night Lotus Party

Homestead Records LP, 1986

The Spiel: There was a lot of attempts in the mid-80's to put a tag on the particular genre of music that bands like Volcano Suns played. Some called it post-hardcore; others post-post-punk and even later it was entitled pre-grunge. Major Chuck Eddy (Ret. US Army; famous rock critic) famously called it all "pigfuck" to describe the squealing guitars, faux-grit vocals and the veritable pre-occupation with dirtball degradation. Ian MacKaye would lump other bands in here and just disparagingly call it "college rock". Since most of these ... types recorded on Homestead -- Breaking Circus, Squirrel Bait, Phantom Tollbooth, Big Dipper, Antietam etc. (exception: Rifle Sport), you could short hand the sound to Homestead band, although that short-changes Sonic Youth, Dinosaur, Jr., GG Allin and so on. So, let's not go there and instead just say its' all fucking rock und roll.

So...Mission of Burma begat Volcano Suns - drummer Peter Prescott taking the Burma penchant for harmonious soaring vocals and occasional anthems and artful compositions into less artful and more hardcore lands. No more references to Dada artists and Henry Miller essays. Although, come to think of it, the last Mission of Burma record (OnOffOn - 2004) sounds a lot like this record so you could say the Suns begat Burma in a way.

After a false start with the crew that later formed Big Dipper, Prescott found in guitarist Jon Williams and bassist Jeff Weigand about the closest approximation to Roger Miller and Clint Conley. The third incarnation (with Shellac's Bob Weston) seemed more a bridge to his follow-on bands. This record is often labeled as the one in which Prescott gave up some measure of songwriting control and credits are given to the band and other members. Weigand contributes "Cans", a lip curling description of factory work and Prescott and Weigand even collaborate on one song ("Room With a View").

If I ever made up one of those dumb Hornbyish lists of "Best Sides of Rock and Roll", I'd haveta give Side 1 of this record serious consideration. "White Elephant" opens up with a shredding guitar solo that settles into riff stolen from "Greasy Spine"... the song apparently is about a guy who hosts or goes to white elephant sales and finds himself somewhat of a white elephant with respect to his girlfriend. The aforementioned "Cans", another shredder follows-up this cut and it's almost as if the record which was rumored to have been named in allusion to masturbation, has blown its collective wad. But the floating "Room With A View" (the only Prescott-Weigand collaboration) allows us to catch our collective breaths and then it's time for the Suns to crank into a fast-slow hardcore song (about the most "pre-grunge" thing here) called "Blown Stack" which segues into"Engines" - these songs fit so well together I just digitized them together. The side then finishes up with the more Bostonish "Walking Around", a seeming reference to slacking off and what rockers do if they aren't addicted to heroin, I guess. See my recent post on the Rock Turns To Stone compilation for more of that. The side is truly a gem.

Side 2 doesn't quite match the standards of side 1, alas. The song subject matter is more vague but the first few songs seem to be variations on Pigfuck's favorite topic -- Dirtball Americanus- you know, trailer parks, men with guns, depraved killers in the suburbs, etc. It doesn't help that there are practically no liner notes or lyrics (which was a common Homestead record trait). Lou Giordano's engineering often obscures the vocals and leaves the listener just resigned to enjoying the sonic attributes of the song and treat the singing like an overheard conversation in which you can't always tell what the words are. If you've been reading this dumb blog long enough, you'll know that this is one of my pet peeves. So I'm listening to "Sounds Like Bucks" and I'm trying to figure out what exactly sounds like bucks. Fucks? Dollar bills? Trucks? Nyuk-nyuks? The vocals on the song gives little clue.

"Dot On The Map" is a nice guy putdown of small town life ("nice but you just can't live there") and its predecessor "Four Letters' is another head-scratcher as to what its about. I suppose this pondering fits well together. "Village Idiot" is set-up in that stupid bouncy style by the guy that is the "whipping boy" at his job and town and presumably with the girls although this might be an allusion to how Prescott felt while he was in Burma. "Ride the Cog" -- well, finally a song about sex on a train -- gives new and improved meaning to the Mile High Club -- I mean really who wants to screw in an airplane lavatory when you can do it on a slow moving mountain train? And in case you're wondering the "Bonus Hidden Track" at the end of side 2 is a :56 second cut that rants and raves and screams like someone just got his chest sliced open. So this is what an All Night Lotus Party Sounds like.

So Where The Fuck Are They Now?

This, the second incarnation of the Suns, broke up in 1987 in a drunken argument in Baltimore (playing on a bill with Government Issue and Dag Nasty!). The third incarnation put out several records before Prescott called it quits and went onto Kustomized and Peer Group. And last year, he got back together with Burma for an album of new songs and a flurry of touring -- word is that the band is back on hiatus.

Jon Williams is apparently running a lowkey rural studio in Vermont where he's recorded Tara Key and John Fahey. The latter is reported to say that Williams -- if we're talking about the same guy -- is the best producer he has ever worked with. He produced and played as a Barton Boys (basically Antietam ++) on Tara Key's Ear and Echo album - another (sigh) out of print Homestead release and also recorded a few tracks on her Bourbon County '93 release. She credited him in a later interview with "midwiving" the record and I'm sure there's probably some good stories behind that. According to an interview with Prescott, Jeff Weigand went to live in Belgium but I know little else. Back in 2001, Peter Prescott said that Jon Solomon of My Pal God records was said to be looking at doing a Volcano Suns reissue but there's been no news on that since.

Songs:

• "White Elephant"
• "Cans"
• "Room With a View"

Links/Factoids:

• Album cover shot courtesy sans permission of The High Hat - there's a not so alternate take on the album near the bottom of this page
• Peter Prescott spoke about this incarnation of the Suns (and other things) in a 2001 Pitchfork interview
• This Suns line-up also served as "the Din" in Dredd Foole and The Din's 1987Take Off Your Skin
• Boston Rock Storybook has some pictures of Williams and Prescott plus some gig posters and a thank you note they sent to Fort Apache.
• Previous Vinyl Mine posting on the great "Greasy Spine" single that preceded this album
• "White Elephant" also was selected for the seminal Wailing Ultimate compilation

Totally Off-Topic - from my other blog:

• Some Showspiel
• Musing on the fact that both Big Black and Sufjan Stevens have both written songs about Casmir Pulaski Day and they even have some similarities
  

My First Mash-Up: Get Behind Me, LL Cool J

"Producer"'s notes: OK, it's a bit lame and stumbles in places... more than once but it's my first one and you didn't want me to continue to obsess about it. As the Ramones would say, "just get out there and do it". I promise my next one will be better....

My original attempt was to marry Low's "California" with "Going Back to Cali" but, wow, that sure didn't work. So I went with the B-side and thought who better to complement LL Cool J's mack poetry than Jack "Ladies Love" White the Ripper and Meg White's back to basics drumming. -- DJ V.M.

"Jack The Ripper's Thinking About the Doorbell" - L.L. Cool J vs. The White Stripes


Source material:

• "Jack the Ripper" came from the b-side of the "Going back to Cali" 12" Single by LL Cool J
• "The Doorbell" comes from The White Stripes' newest CD, Get Behind Me Satan
• mashup
  

Psychic TV: Live In Heaven

A Temple Record, 1987

Psychic TV was one of the bands formed from the cremains of the first incarnation of Throbbing Gristle. The leader was Genesis P-Orridge whose name always made me think about the origin of mediocre British breakfast cereal. Essentially the band is P-Orridge and whatever cast of miscreants and musicians he can assemble. There's also a cultish bent to the P-Orridge's hype about the band. Applicants to the Temple ov Thee Psychick Youth were encouraged to send their bodily fluids -- for Pan knows what purpose. Orridge fancies himself a thinker/artist in the mold of Burroughs and Crowley but then he also thinks Anton Newcombe is one of the most talented songwriters ever. The band, however, mutated throughout the 80's. Whereas at first it tried to shake off the bonds and expectations of being an "industrial music" band and explored post-punk improv and psyche, it later became more well known as an early innovator in Acid House (I have ZERO Acid House albums, so I can't tell ya whether it was good or bad).

So, in the 80's, Psychic TV embarked on this ambitious project to release, I believe, a dozen "limited-edition' live albums sporting this rather keen design and then the plan was to offer a 13th album to the poor sods, er, Psychick Youth who actually bought every record. There's a little insert coupon in each album which I suppose you are to redeem when and if the project ever concludes. To the best of my knowledge, it never did but I haven't done much research on the question.

Live in Heaven was recorded on my birthday (December 23rd) in 1986 in a London Charing Cross club called Heaven. It has a heavy improvised feel - most of the songs are simple two chord jams over which Orridge spits and purrs his surreal and often ridiculous lyrics.

It starts out with a clarinet playing a Pipes of Pan at Dawn of the Gates of Whatever and this culminates with the rest of the musicians crescendoing into a short taped piece about someone hearing voices from beyond. Then Orridge arrives and begins singing a sick song about eating a girlfriend's leg because he wants to protect her and it really looks good.

Or something like that.

"Paradise Lost," though, isn't too bad - it's a sort of an undone Joy Division lock groove overlaid with Orridge's nasal wheeze. But because its early in the record, his vocals are only annoying and not overbearing. Here, he is a misshapen troll singing/improvising a love song: "I like you / because you're very nice" and it all comes together for a moment. Plus its got a pretty bass line.

This is followed by (again, not sure of titles) "Lies and Spies" / "Revenge on God" which reminds one of an experimental pairing of The Birthday Party and Jim Morrison. I'm not exactly saying that's a good thing. After a few minutes into the track, my hand reaches for the needle as there's only so much one can take of Orridge and his vocal overcompensations.

I return to this record several days later to tackle the 2nd side or at least let it ooze through my fingers. The first three cuts are really for fans of Orridge only - I find myself pushing the needle down the groove with each successive track. G, I really hope you have learned to edit yourself by now or have found stronger musicians to play with but I'm guessing from your website that's probably not the case. Well, Throbbing Gristle recently reunited, so there's that.

But the last song on this second side is called "Radium" and it's pretty much a pre-Acid House piece. It's not so much as a mind-fuck but a mind-finger-fuck. And maybe it's only a pinky finger. I mean, take enough drugs and pretty much anything sounds cool. Orridge goes overboard again, though, detracting from the oterhwise nice but jarring ear candy. I wonder what this band would have been like if P-Orridge's ego didn't get in the way?

If I was one of those grader types, I'd give this a C+, mmmm'kay?

Psychic TV line-up for Live in Heaven:
Dave Ball (ex-Soft Cell) - Keyboards
Monte Cazazza - Guitar
Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson - Keybaords
John Gosling - Samples, Percussion
Mouse - Bass Guitar, Clarinet
Genesis P-Orridge - Repartee
Paula P-Orridge - Vibes, Percussion
Live Mix by Ken Thomas


Song samples:
"I Hear Voices"
"Radium"

Links:

Genesis P-Orridge's Website includes a group blog where Genesis turns up occasionally to direct cult leaderish directives to his motley band of Internet followers. Here's a funny quote in which he berates the people who make fun of him and his latest experiments in Pangenderism (he's transforming himself into a boy-girl thing). Stop hatin' on Genesis, peeps!:

All that being understood, we are coumtimes surprised that coum people repeatedly visit whilst proclaiming disinterest, being pointlessly rude and only coumplaining. I.T. has never been appealing to US to devote hours ov priceless T.I.M.E. and L-if-E to buying CDs, paying to go to gigs, coumtimes building websites dedicated to describing what we DON'T like, and emailing disdain deliberately to hurt coumone's feelings repeatedly when I.T. is coumthing, or art, or one we don't enjoy or like! From thee outside I.T. is hard to coumprehend why anyone would waste their energies on negativity alone. To get pleasure from hurting coumone else, or wishing to, especially coumone you probably don't know, seems highly irrational.

Dont' forget to check out his fab bio! And...

A P-TV fan site (FOPI) has put together a list of all the 94 (so far) contributors to Psychic TV and little bios and interviews with many of them.

Trouser Press Psychic TV page (Ira Robbins)

Loki (one of my earliest supporters) seems to be the most knowledgeable of Psychic TV in the "music blog community"... Here's a recent posting on one of the sister albums to the live series. He also expresses frustration with P-Orridge:

When singers who can't sing stop primal screaming/Gristlizing and start doing, well,this kind of thing you sense they've lost perspective somehow, sense they've somehow forgotten that they can't sing, that acclaim and/or raw fame has touched too many nerves and now they don't know which ones are twitching or how to turn them off.

Saved Round:

Thank you to Douglas Wolk who linked to Vinyl Mine and others in his recent article on Music Blogs on the L.A. Times website. Wolk's own music blog/website is Lacunae and he actually writes for a living about music (his website has links to his stuff). He recently wrote about The Fall and in particular Mark E. Smith's voice which turns people off in much the way Orridge's voice turns me off. Smith's voice I can listen to for much longer periods of time -- but he also doesn't over-dominate his band either.

Also, my faves of 2005 and the decade so far.

Coffee and Cigarettes MP3 mix #20(?)

babyfinger mix (and things to read while listening)

"Living On The Outside of Your Skin" - Cloud Cult (Aversion album review)
"Oregon" - The Physics of Meaning (keep up on the NoCal C. Hill scene at the Oakroom)
"I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again" - Kelly Harrell (from Climax Golden Twins Victrola Favorites)
"All That Spring You Could See Halley's Comet" - Madagascar (craig's review)
"Claim" - Cynthia G. Mason (as featured in The Believer Music Ish)


the original babyfinger

Rock Turns to Stone

Various Artists
Vild Records, Boston MA
LP 1988

With a name like "Rock Turns to Stone", you'd think this collection of mid to late 80's New England bands would spell their Rock with a capital rock ... and you'd be right, rocker friend of mine.

While the majority of songs here are duds, the ones that click click hard as in bone rattlingly hard. Reference The Bags, not The Pixies. And not too surprisingly, almost all of the better cuts were recorded at Fort Apache (South) - historically, that makes this record important for future musicologists.

Vild Records apparently released this and a later record by Providence's Rash of Stabbings (their blase' cut on here seems calculated for major label attention) and then I can't find any further mention of Vild. Does anyone know if they had any other releases?

Stabbings, Rash Of (or just Rash) later turned up on Geffen Records and did their fair share of wasting large corporation dollars and further decreasing all credibility of Mr. David G... so we applaud them for that even as we withhold praise for their contribution to this LP.



"La La La" - The Cavedogs went onto some reknown shortly after this. I believe they had a run of releases with Capitol Records. This power punk popper has me so happy I wanted to go out and trample some flowerbeds and throw spitballs at little ol' ladies. The Cavedogs are dead (well, not literally) but long live The Cavedogs - you can get all you need to know from this tribute site plus links to some of the former members current projects. See also a recent Mp3 blog posting on the Dogs courtesy Little Hits.

"Teenage Girls" - The Dogmatics. The tragic tale of this collection, the Dogmatics fell apart after losing their bass, Paul O'Halloran in an accident. Such a loss. This is a great unheard song- sorry for the record skip near the beginning. Originally recorded in 1986. Brett Milano on the 1995 Dogmatics reunion.

"Lunch With Ed" - Dog-zilla ...Most of the (good) cuts on this comp seem to be time-warped from 1979 and totally missed the whole SST/Homestead/Caroline Axis of Love revolution and certainly spurned Mission of Burma and the other art-rockers in Boston. As a collection, the Dogmatics, the Cavedogs and the Titatnics seem to be tailormade instead for Amphetamine Reptile, total retro guitar buzz rock. But someone snuck Licensed to Ill and King of Rock onto Dogzilla's turntable and they were never the same. Here they sing of what happens when you're a fuck up -- eventually you must pay the piper and have Lunch. With. Ed! Oh, if you click on the picture of Dog-Zilla, that's not just some random girl the guy on the right is leaning on - that's Andy MacGuire and she later played with Spoon for their Telephono debut.

"High On Drugs" - The Titanics. Formerly The Flies (authors of an early Homestead fave LP), they reformed somewhat as The Titantics and became a dirty psyche band. This song has a wicket fuzzy electric sitar and pays tribute to getting high. Fuck peace and love. The only song in this collection recorded in Fort Apache North (pre-Lou Giordano) which must have been brand new at that point.

Although not in the same class as the above, one track deserves honorable mention:

"Born Rude" - The Blackjacks - a failed attempt at trying to transform glam into punk. Singer / writer Johnny Angel (also of The Thrills and other bands) now writes about the lowlifes in the City of Angels. Here's the story of why he decided to quit music.








For the music librarians who have linked to this blog, here's the listing of all the bands and songs for posterity.

When Rock Turns to Stone
Vild Records, 1988

Side 1
"Radio Daze" - The Slaves
"La La La" - The Cavedogs
"Stay" - The Matweeds
"High on Drugs" - The Titantics
"Born Rude" - The Blackjacks
"T.V. Salvation" - Neutral Nation

Side 2
"Lunch With Ed" - Dog-zilla
"Somebody's Company" - Screaming Brocolli (the original not that bar band by that name)
"Take Cover" - Condo Pygmies
"Hear My Call" - Rash of Stabbings
"Teenage Girls" - The Dogmatics
"I'm a Suck?!" - Big Huge

BONUS LINK - Your Prize for Reading to the Bottom of the Page

Fort Apache's website is worth reading just to ogle the list of awesome records recorded there

also... I wrote about the recent Bellafea show here.

More Butthole Surfer Tracks

First of all, BRAVO for putting this asshole away. I hope he gets to share a cell with the appropriate inmate. I know, I try not to get political here but this was the best news of the week.

In celebration, here are some more live, previously unknown tracks from the Butthole Surfers.

So, I was contacted by the Butthole Surfer's archivist and he wants a rip of the Columbus soundboard tape of which I posted a few tracks several weeks ago. He actually contacted me on the 20th anniversary of this show and didn't realize it until I pointed it out. We'll trade for a mix CD-R he is putting together from what I assume is a vast collection.

He sent me his 50 page listing of all the known shows available on tape. supposedly this is one of the few shows on tape that has Kramer playing bass (and trombone).

Here are some more tracks from that tape including a song which has Kramer on trombone.

If you know what the name of the song is, drop a line in the comments. I've asked the archivist if he knows and if I get an answer, I'll correct the track and repost.

4 Tracks from Butthole Surfers Show, Stache's, Columbus Ohio, 6-22-85

• ??? (Mystery Track)
• "Graveyard"
• "To Parter"
• "Tornado"

UPDATE: Tracks removed to get space on my server. If you want some of these tracks, drop me a line and an address to send them too.

Here's the set list to the best of my skills:

100 Million Dead (previously posted)
To Parter
Tornado
Cherub
graveyard
The Shah Sleeps
Butthole Surfers
Gary Floyd
Lady Sniff
Something
??? Mystery Track
Suicide
(Space Jams)
Hey
Bar B Q Pope
Dum Dum

Five Songs That Remind Me of Girls That Broke My Heart

(there are no MP3s in this post)

This was an outgrowth of something Eric of SiLT requested. I was kind of kidding when I told him "fuck you" or words to that effect -- I don't remember death threats but it's entirely possible. Anyway, the request for songs that I listen to a lot turned into the following:

Five Songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me That Remind Me of Girls That Broke My Heart:

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - Unknown Artist In sixth grade, I was enamored with this song just as I was enamored with the gray-complexioned, button-nosed and extremely tiny Kris. Her long brunette hair went down back sweeping over her backside as she walked. Her nickname was "Peanut" but she didn't like that name so I never called her that. She was rumored to be the niece of a famous baseball pitcher. She was part of the popular kids clique and I was just a lowly geek without any real clique to run with outside of the AV and student newspaper crowd. I once drew a picture of her supposed Uncle ballplayer (actually traced from his baseball card) and was too shy to give it to her so I put it on the close circuit TV show that showed before classes started. I let it be known that I had drawn it for her but she never acknowledged it so maybe no one ever told her (some of my "friends" teased me about it for weeks). In my next attempt to get her attention I gave this 45RPM single to her as it was the most valuable thing I had in my possession at the time or so it seemed to me. I loved the harmonies that comprised the hook - they were obviously meant to melodically emulate the sounds of the jungle (Weem-mo-let-a, Weem-mo-let-a). When her friends were out of site, she came by and spoke to me through the batters cage that anchored the baseball diamond where I was playing catcher. She spoke to me quietly and so as not to attract the notice of her friends and others and thanked me for the gift and said it was "nice" but that she just wanted 'to be friends' - that is, if the unspoken definition of friend was someone you can never been seen talking or acknowledging their existence. I once covertly spoke with her on a field trip bus ride. She was seated alone in front of me and I was behind her. We talked about our families and I even got her to laugh. It was the closet thing to a date we would ever have (at least in my mind, I think she was just passing time). I can't remember who did this song - this might have been the version by the Tokens - but I'm not sure. I got sad when I would hear this song for years after and embarassed that I gave her the record.

"Tramp" - Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Lisa was another tiny girl but she was the opposite of Kris, a total tramp and this was already in the sixth grade. She wore hip hugger jeans, a big wide belt buckle, blue eyeshadow and Windsong perfume that mixed with her pertual smell of menthol cigarettes. We sat in the same "pod" which was the current vogue in teaching, or at least my school's interpretation of it. Mainly it was four or six desks pushed up next to each other. Some projects would be handed out to work on as a group. Lisa wasn't the smartest pea in our pod and so I subtly helped her with some of her math, careful never to make her appear a fool in front of the others. Her handwriting was still 3rd grade-ish. Still, I was intoxicated by her image (and the Windsong) and I had my first boner thinking of Lisa S. This song by BTO came off an album I stole from Two Guys (RIP) department store. Unlike my previous attempt to win love by giving her the record, I asked her if she had heard the album. Turns out she did and she liked it. We bonded over it. Again, class differences and my basic fear of hanging out with all the tough kids she had befriended precluded any other romance. I hear she is now a hairdresser and has kids and participates in fund-raisers.

"Beth" - Kiss. I really hated Kiss because of the people in my junior high who loved Kiss. They were the mean jocks and the rich stoners - they truly were the evil ones of my high school and often hung together. I looked up to the "good jocks" and liked the Vo-Tech stoners (Lisa was by this time one of them) and I even got along with the rich (non-stoner) snobs. I was against everything the rich stoners and the mean jocks were about and so if they were for Kiss then I was naturally against them. Partly in reaction/rebellion, I became a vocal and proud fan of singer-songwriters like Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, who, to me, were the anithesis of Kiss (this was before I had even heard the word punk). I even wore a Bruce t-shirt and did so proudly. It was orange and it had a large Bruce iron-on patch that my Mom pressed for me even as she was later horrified to see me wearing it to school. On Saturday nights in the Spring and Fall, the local Lutheran church sponsored a teen dance. I would go to it with some neighborhood friends and mostly sit on the chairs that lined the walls. Eventually, I screwed up my courage (egged on by my pals) to ask some girls to dance. Since I only knew how to slow dance, I had to wait my turn. If you waited too late and asked a girl to dance and it became a fast tune, you felt totally asinine jumping about. Plus slow dances meant you got to hold them. One blonde Lutheran girl (I was Catholic) had caught my eye for several weeks. She was a year younger than me but I really dug her fresh innocence and blonde hair/blue eyes. I finally convinced myself to ask her and when a slow song finally came on (it seemed like ages waiting for it), I walked quickly up to her and asked her for the dance. She said yes! Then I realized it was this song by my most hated group. I sighed, swallowed my pride and we shuffled around the floor but we weren't in sync - my version of the fox trot shuffle was different than the version she had learned (perhaps it was that Lutheran-Catholic thing at work). She smelled of a musky perfume that reminded me of burlap bags and spice. She may have been embarrassed by our awkward dancing and so she whispered in my ear, "can I put my feet on top of yours?" I was smitten. We danced the rest of the song with her patent leather shoes resting on top of my black tie shoes. I don't think I touched the ground the rest of the night. I can't remember her name but I always remember this song with some nostalgic fondness.

"Strange Days" - The Doors. Oh Patty. The archetypical hippy chick from college - she reminded me greatly of Lisa (see above) but was way smarter. I first saw her in the dinner hall at my college. She was wearing a dark blue down jacket, very faded and ripped jeans and a tight t-shirt - the overall effect was slatternly and I dug that... She, like her like-minded friends, were so obviously stoned. I laughed as she poked around the salad bar. She slouched when she walked with her tray and her friend said something and she just stopped in the middle of the hall and laughed out loud. My legs turned to water hearing her laugh. So, I admit it - I stalked her. How else would I figure out how to meet her without coming off like a total goon? I observed her friends. Two of them were this mousy little guy and this tall, also perpetually stoned, skinny guy. One night I was walking home from studying as I used to go find empty rooms in the classroom buildings to escape the din and distraction of the dormitories and came across Mouse and Tall, Stoned Guy. They were sitting in the commons strumming guitars and a geeky looking ROTC guy was playing stand-up bass. I recognized them immediately and I told them, "don't go, I'll be right back." On one hand, I wanted to just jam but on the other hand I was going by the maxim of "become friends with her friends and you'll become friends with her.' I rushed back to my dorm room, upsetting my football playing roommate (who was also perpetually stoned). I rifled through my tiny clothes closet and pulled out some cymbals, my snare drum and my drummer's throne and rushed back to the Quad. Mousy and Tall Guy were still there strumming and they broke up when they saw me coming with drumming equipment. I set up and we've been playing together ever since. And yes, I did meet Patty and became, of sorts, a friend to her or at least an acquaintance. She was very honest with people and once told me to my face that I was 'dumpy'. She was a cool geology major (all the geology majors were cool) and I was a nerdy industrial engineering and operations research major - the type of major that you always had to explain what it meant. Despite her brutal honesty, I could often talk with her for periods of time and elicit some wild story or get her to laugh. She was fun to be around and we both proudly shared our eclectic interest in music - she introduced me to Rick James and Grandmaster Flash, I brought her Return to Forever and Stanley Clarke. I slept off a drunk-drug binge at her house once or twice, usually on the dusty sofa that had been moved onto the porch. But, too bad, she had no use for me as a boyfriend and preferred men who would treat her as a 2nd-tier booty call. I became friends with one of these boyfriends (can you see the pattern here?) and found he kept her phone number right under the phone number for pizza. He was very handsome and had no trouble finding women. Even though I liked him, he was a total self-absorbed (like Patty) lout. If he happened to strike out with one of his dates, he told me he'd either call for pizza or call for Patty. Sometimes, he bragged, he even told her to bring pizza and she would, even paying for it herself. What's worse was she didn't have a car and would have to hitchhike out there (he had a motorcycle and two helmets and could have easily ridden into town to pick her up). His roommate, who also became a friend, told me that once he (the boyfriend) called for her and by the time she arrived, pizza under her arm, he had passed out. This tragedy only made me love her more. Once, me and some friends went to Pittsburgh to see The Grateful Dead (shut up) and we found her there. She was a Pittsburgh native and we stayed overnight at her parent's house and gave her a ride back to school. Her Dad was a former train engineer and seemed more like a grandfather than a Dad. I had no idea how Patty turned out so wild as her parents seemed totally normally, although a bit more liberal than my own parents. She had a terrific capacity for booze. I often saw her drinking straight from a bottle of Jack Daniels. She would brag, swaying about with the bottle that she had also taken qualudes and mushrooms (her favorite drug of choice). Most parties would end with Patty passed out on the floor. Drugs were heavily used in those years and life became surreal. Her friends used needles although I'm pretty sure Patty stuck with ingestibles and shied from the white powders. The Doors were a perfect soundtrack to life during those years. I made this tape for her from the album because her tape broke. This song off that album seemed to represent that time and makes me think of her. I hope she's still alive and happy. I've danced around the subject with Mousy and Tall, Stoned Guy and they're evasive about her - they heard this or that from a friend of a friend. In a way, if it hadn't been for her, I might have stayed in my shell and never met all the fascinating people that I did, some of whom became lifelong friends.

"Made to Be Broken" - Soul Asylum. In my third year at college, I met Colleen. She had doe-like green eyes with curly reddish-brown hair and one of the most perfect hour glass butts I had ever seen. We began a long friendship that was never consumated. She confided in me, as I found she had told all her "friends who were boys" that she was a virgin. That only made her all the more desirable in my mind and I pursued her through the years. We did all the things - exchanged mix tapes -- she had an affinity for obscure S.F. 60's hippy music and I made sexy Prince tapes. After college, she moved to DC and, though I was living in Baltimore, I came up with constant excuses to spend time with her. I once took her to the movie "Liquid Sky", a punk Sci-fi film that had a scene in which two lesbians rub up against each other, crotch to crotch. Afterwards, she asked me why the one girl screamed - she wasn't only a virgin, she had never had an orgasm. We went to the Prince movie and she sat there more wide-eyed than usual as the Purple One felt up Apollonia. Even a few years out of school living in the big city, she was still a virgin! We went to a Husker Du concert at the old 930 club and Soul Asylum opened up. She disliked Husker Du but fell in love with Dave Pirner. They played this hokey countryish song and I realized it would never work with her. How cheesy and cliche that this song was about my heart! In a way, my mind was made up when she rejected Husker Du who were to me the best band around at the time. That night she told me she was in love with one of those "boys who are friends" - "I love this boyfriend" as she told me. She started rejecting my excuses to spend time with her (old habits die hard) in favor of him. He married her and they moved to Hawaii where I believe they live today.

Coffee and Cigarettes #19

Shomei Tomatsu
Ô shima Eiko, Actress in the Film Shiiku (Prize Stock)
1961|

A Web Mp3 Mix:

"Daughters Will Tune You" - Br. Danielson
"The Girl From Ipanema"* - Antonio Carlos Jobim
"Tangent" - Burd Early
"Beowulf (I Am Deformed)" - Momus
"My Lazy Muse" - The Caulfield Sisters (obessive fan blog)
"Cannot Eat Better Not Sleep" - The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers
"The Last Last One" - The Weakerthans
"5,6 Kids" - Bear vs. Shark

disclaimer: direct links to MP3s to external sites are subject to change - please visit band sites (links provided) if you are have trouble downloading or have further interest in the band - usually they will have more samples of their music. Bands that object to direct linking, please let me know and I'll fix.

* Song comes from a probably anauthorized index - all other cuts are believed to be authorized by the bands

Photo by the Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation showing currently at the Corcoran - recommended if you are in DC - Thursday nights free admission! biography of Shomei Tomatsu

Hit Me Baby One More Time: Tone-Loc's"Wild Thing" single

b/w "Loc'ed After Dark" (Clean Version)
Delicious Vinyl, DV 102

Der Spiel:

I picked this up at a flea market or garage sale, all dirty and clothed only in a white sleeve, it was sitting right next to it's sister single, "Funky Cold Medina".

Ahhh... A. T. Smith aka Tone-Loc has/had that truly unique laid-back cheeba-infected throaty VOICE. THE VOICE... If God ever does speak to me, I hope he uses Tone-Loc's whisper.: "Let's Do It" y'know, the next time I go up against the Anti-Christ.

But truth be told, I don't really have much play love for this cartoony rap song. Sure it's got a funky beat and if it came up in the Shuffle, say, on a Friday afternoon, I wouldn't rush to to flip it to the next track... but it was so overplayed at the time --remember that cheesy video - wait, ok, that was kinda cool - ripping off Robert Palmer and his slickee girls ... Now "Funky Cold Medina", (heyTone, more cowbell! ), I can listen to that forever.

Alas, Loc was pretty much derided by others at a time when Def Jam and NWA were really hitting their stride - he always said he was a gangbanger but that he just was too cool to sing about it. In reality, he had signed on with Dike and Rossi (producers from Delicious Vinyl) and they wanted to churn out some Top 40 hits. It did introduce a lot of suburban kids to rap, though.

"Wild Thing"'s greatness measure seems to be proportional with the volume and the amount of alcohol you've ingested. It makes for a perfect set-up at a Wedding - turn on the viddy camera, stick this side on the turntable, turn it up and tape ol' Uncle Marty doin' his Robot Chicken dance. Instant Internet success.

The other lesser known songs on the album which sports "Wild Thing", titled Loc'ed After Dark were more in his desired style and considerably smoother - Uncle Marty won't do the robot dance to any of the other cuts (besides "Medina" and that calls more for his Egyptian Limbo dance) - "Cheeba Cheeba" is about the ups and down of too much dope and mixes his self-depreciating humor with a bit more edge.

In that vein, "Loc'ed After Dark" appears on the flip of this single. It's a clean version, alas, all the motherfuckers are replaced by vinyl scratching... It's simple structure along with the old-school Grandmaster Flash style delivery and an extended vinyl scratch makes me nostalgic for the halycon days of rap, even if they weren't that halycon, anything's better than the unmemorable crap today. I think this would make a great track for the next Grand Theft Auto game (I'd love to see a GTA New Jack City).

Sample lyric grab: "I slip off stage / and clear my head / my next thought / hmmm / just to knock them dead"...



Tone Buff

Where is He Now?

He's still out there - touring both with Legends of Hip Hop (along with Young MC, Digital Underground and Coolio) and doing his own shows. He has an upcoming gig in Phillie on June 24th.


A Nice Song For the Kids To Dance To:

"Wild Thing" (Radio Edit) - Tone Loc, recorded straight from vinyl...crackle and clicks and all...(see below for cleaner version)


Links/Further Reading/Listening':

• 2000 saw the re-release of Tone Loc's "Loc'ed After Dark" - the songs were remastered and don't retain the fatter sound of these Delicious singles (I think I bought "Funky Cold Medina" at the same garage sale for 50 cents). Anyway, the album is still in print (or at least still for sale) at many fine outlets.
• Jim Derogatis, an 80's fanzine writer from New Jersey and now an author and a music critic for the Chicago Trib, calls Loc's "Loc'ed After Dark" one of the Great Albums(!) - he interviewed Tone many years back and recounts that discussion.
• After his recording career died down, Tone turned up in movies, usually as a cartoonish villian and he also gives voice to cartoons. His most memorable is as Pee-Wee in the animated "Bebe's Kids" (the premise of which was recycled by Ice Cube in his recent "hit" comedy "Are We There Yet?")
• MTV has a 30 second or so clip from the "Wild Thing" video (Real Player required) if you want to relive it yet another time.
• Delicious Vinyl has a clean version of "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina" for fregal download here. In a way, Tone Loc and Young MC's Rap Bubblegum helped finance what has turned out to be a fine label who aren't afraid to take challenges with experimental artists (how else does one explain Ton's mutant bastard grandnephew Fat Lip?)

Super Bonus MP3:

Wow - you read all the way to the bottom of the page... Noise-acid band Treasure Mammal from Phoenix wrote a tribute, of sorts to the man: "Tone Loc." They seem to have drunk of the Medina... a number of times. (Alternative download site for TM)

Imaginary Friends and Acquaintances

Unlike others, I never had an imaginary friend as a child. There were way too many kids both in my household and in the neighborhood to have to make up kids to play with. But when I was four or five, our family moved in a great big Tudor house. The house, dating back to the 1920's, was the color of shingles and dark brown wood and off-white concrete and seemed to me like a castle from the middle of the woods that had been dumped into a neighborhood with nothing else like it. It had a large basement (where we kids were usually relegated to go play), a spacious first floor with two porches, a giant garage and a second floor with two baths and three bedrooms. And then there was the third floor.

The house, build in the 20's, had all that mysterious energy that a child senses when something large and old is presented. In my youngest years there, though, the third floor held the most mystery to me. The Tudor was shaped somewhat like a pagoda or a big giant bell with each floor getting smaller and smaller in terms of floor space. The third floor windows were the tiny squinting eyes of a giant that looked down upon the alley where we played and the neighborhood of ranchers, row homes and manicured lawns. My brother once spent a summer scaring the neighborhood kids (and my littlest brother) by donning the most realistic Halloween mask and appearing at dramatic moments. Of course, I was in on the trick and would be the one who would point up at the witch staring down at the melee and violence of children's play disapprovingly. I once got in trouble with the Police (I was ratted out, of course) and spent the night hiding up there and peeking down at the damage I had done (I stole something out of someone's garage in stupid revenge for some stupidity done to me). Later, as a teenager, I would open those windows and a lean out late at night to smoke a Marlboro, thinking that throwing the butts down there would do away with the evidence (little did I know of the screens on gutters and rain spouts).

But back to the first night I slept in that house. It was fall and the night fell early. Near bedtime, I had yet been shown the third floor and asked my Dad about it. The lights weren't working yet up there so my Dad, carrying me with one arm around my gut and the other gripping a flashlight walked up the steps. At the top of the steps were the windows that I talked about and then the room revealed itself in the dimming light of dusk and my Dad's three battery flashlight. He led me to each of the three attic doors and showed me the then empty spaces which he claimed wrapped around the entire floor which I found fascinated and imagined crawling through them and finding discarded objects from previous tennants. There was also a cedar closet that I was warned right up there I wasn't to go into for fear that I woudl get locked in and be suffocated by the combined fumes of the mothballs and cedar - in retrospect, I remember a bit of a smirk had formed on his face as he said this. Empty, though, the closet looked like something a Forest King might have carved into his wooden castle. All that were missing were the chains and manacles.

Later that night, I woke up with a start. Sweaty and disoriented in a new house, I got up to look for my parents' room - my brother lay snoozing but I had learned never to disturb him in the sleep or suffer a slap up the back of my head. Somewhere in the dark I made a wrong turn and realized that I was at the foot of the stairs to the third floor, a closed door holding back the secrets. I was still as I felt something dreadful coming and saw the light (probably from the street lights) comging through the bottom of the door. In my imagination, maybe a bit fevered from all the stress, I saw a ghost boy coming through the door, pale and tortured. I sensed he had been wracked with some sort of disease , the type of things that grandparents would talk about in whispers when remembering siblings and schoolfriends ... I knew of the fevers - the yellow and the scarlet. One turned your skin into an odd color and the other made your hair fall out. I had had "the shots" - the paneled waiting room and the dread now remembered as similar to the cedar closet above and the terror now below.

The boy never spoke, he hovered there and I literally felt my knees knock and my crew cutted hair tingle and grow with the goosebumps that were being raised. His message was clear to me - the third floor is death. I don't remember much more than running back to my bed beyond any need for parental comfort but looking more for the only thing at the time that was familiar, my little bed and pillow and sheets. I was scared and crying and fell asleep, still in a sweat. My Mom mentioned that my sheets were still damp and asked if I had a nightmare. Something told me not to talk about the boy from the third floor - but just keep my boundaries and don't ever venture up there alone. As you can guess, I later overcame that fear and eventually claimed the third floor as my own when my older brother moved on to college. I even lost my cherry up there on the very same bed on which I was presumably conceived. But I'm still uneasy of heights and waking up in the middle of the night.

----

Esopus is a bi-yearly magazine that's mission is "to provide an accessible, non-commercial space in which creative people and the public can connect in meaningful ways." Issue 4 includes a history of ice cream truck music, presentations of found art - both in its native form and reconstructed, things that you pull out and look at, a review of a film as told by a cinematographer and three pages of stills and lots of beautiful stuff and words. It's sort of a pop-up book for adults (although there are no pop-ups, per se).

Included in issue 4 is CD entitled Imaginary Friends. Esopus asked their readers to send in stories of their childhood friends and then sent the stories out to a select group of songwriters who penned their interpretations. Most of the results are very good. You can hear short samples at the website. One of the more wellknown readers who sent in their stories was Alan Sparhawk of Low.

He wrote:

As a boy, from perhaps age 4 to 7, my dear imaginary friend was a small girl named Lisa. She lived in a small hole in the wall next to my bed. I always imagined her as a year or two older than me. She always seemed to have heavier, older-person things on her mind, so her demeanor was quite sober and even troubled, but never enough to keep her from finding time for me. She took care of me, gave me advice, and was great to have around when I couldn'’t sleep. I suppose she stayed with the house when we moved when I was 8. She probably has a family now.

Where as many of the songwriters and bands just took the words and constructed lyrics around them in the first person of the story's originator, Perry Wright, who is the front man for The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers decided to take a different approach and produces a classic mope-folk piece told from the vantage of the spurned imaginary friend.

If you can't listen to this with wiping away a tear, you must not be alive.

"Lisa" (3.7 Mb, 128 kbps) - The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (w/John K. Samson and Heather McEntire)

Esopus is available at Amazon for the amazing price of only $10.00 - you can also get it at Barnes & Nobles and Borders. You can hear samples from the other cuts (including Avey Tare, Kimya Dawson, Grant Hart, Kate Pierson(!) and Jon Langford) by clicking on the CD icon on this page here. With the exception of one or two cuts, this is a great compilation - recommended for all the neo-folkies out there.

UPDATE: Oh my, great minds think alike - I just found out that Bars and Guitars wrote about this way back on May 27th and they even fronted the same cut. I feel so late to the party. No offense, I hope Peter. Are all the lumpia gone?

Music for Elvis Impersonators to Dance To

A couple of nights ago I was playing drums for a local production that included an Elvis "interpreter" - this guy had an awesome voice and sang a killer version of "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You." He didn't use the live band (which was me and a guitarist and a piano) and instead relied on prerecorded music. His singing gave me newfound respect for that song which I had previously asigned to Elvis's kitschy stuff (which is, well, pretty much everything dude ever recorded except the Sun stuff) - I didn't realize how powerful it can be when sung well.

However, he did this sort of slow motion dance to the song and (at least during the rehearsal) he did it under blue lights which gave the effect of it being somewhat dream-like... -his dance included the Elvis limp wrist hand shakes, sashay to the left and right, hip twirls the whole nine yards. yeah, yeah, I know but somehow it worked... He never overdid it and never succumbed to Elvis impersonation cliches. I think he was more trying to recreate a Teen Idol in the '50's (the show was called The Fabulous Fifties and no I had no input on the name of the show or what songs they did)... anyway, dude was trying to recreate what a typical teen idol might look and sound like (if they were a bit, um, arty) in the 50's... he didn't even dress like Elvis although when the song went live in front of an audience, he did a "thank you, thank you very much' but he never did an imitation (in his own voice).

But after several rehearsals even I got tired of listening to it, so I fired up the Ipod Shuffle and this song "Seasons" came on. At first I thought it was a Yo La Tengo cut (well, I know the voice is different but the song does appear to have some influences from Hoboken's finest) ...I realized I was confusing it with the Autumn sweater song.

At any rate, the whole f'ing effect was surreal - Elvis dude dancing faux slo-mo and this song playing and mostly synchronizing to his singing.

I then listened to the CD in the car today and realized where it came from.

"Seasons" - Bellefea

from their 2004 EP Family Tree - highly recommended if you like slow but noisy stuff with female vocals - you can download another cut from their web site. The band is playing in DC the 25th of June (Warehouse Next Door). I should add that the band was originally recommended by John (Mountain Goats guy) of Last Plane to Jakarta. He also liked this same exact song although I didn't realize it at the time.

When People Were Shorter and Lived Near The Water

self-titled 7" EP
Trace Element Records, 1987

When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water sprung up in the late '80s in NYC to poke a little fun at music. Led by Kim Rancourt, the early modus operandi appeared to be to find a cheesy Top-40 AM radio hits and give it a snot spewing, spitting up punk rock treatment. Think The Dead Milkmen or A.O.D. but with slabs of squalling art-noise guitar and other sounds (Osterizers, yeah!). Later they did a more aclaimed rock version of Porgy and Bess on Shimmy Disc and a more tongue in cheek (yet still oddly respectful) album full of Bobby Goldsboro covers.

Three songs are covered: the mostly forgotten "Dandy" (Herman's Hermits) and "Danke Schoen" (the signature song of that Vegas schlockmeister Wayne Newton) make the first side the most enjoyable. Peter Noone is even given props in the liner notes for "special inspiration" and indeed the spirit of Noone's sarcastic personna infuses the record. The second side is not quite as good - sure there's the somewhat inspired version of The Association's "Never My Love" (you and I probably know it better as a Musak staple) and but then there's a tedious reading of the Gettysburg Address over a bed of mediocre mid-tempo rock. Keep the former, forget the latter.

My copy is signed by all the band members and I have no idea how I got my hands on this. I think I bought it at Yesterday and Today - no doubt enamored more by the band name and the cut-rate used bin price.




When People... had a sort of ongoing tie-in with some of the assorted NYC indie bands. Ron Spitzer, who played drums on this record, was also the drummer for Band of Susans and in one of the later albums, Robert Poss himself stepped up to play guitar. Later versions of the band included Dave Rick and Chris Xefos of King Missile. And you can imagine Kramer was probably somewhere in the background as well (this was recorded at Noise New York and Shimmy Disc became their later patron).

Kim Rancourt has remained a fixture in New York. He booked music for the Sideshows by the Seaside in Coney Island and has done several projects with Don Fleming (B.A.L.L., 1/2 Japanese). Most recently he (along with Fleming) organized the Vietnam Songbook which, in a burst of anti-war fervor, recreated songs from that war that no one seems to be able to get off their minds. Rancourt is currently playing with Fleming in a band called JFK - a cut of their appeared on the recent esopus magazine CD insert and previously played with Fleming and Jay Spiegel in Idlewild.

Songs:

• "Dandy" - originally written by Ray Davies
• "Danke Schoen"

Links:

• The Vietnam Songbook has a bunch of history and MP3s to download into your brain.
• Trouser Press entry on WPWSALNTW
• These songs are out of print but People's later CDs are still available
• They have a great name - over the weekend I came up with some other "inspired" band names
  

Drunks With Guns (back by popular demand)

(photo of the back cover of Alter Human Industrial Fetishisms)

Well, maybe it's not by popular demand but someone on the previous thread asked for more Drunks so here it tis.

A St. Louis punk band that existed from the mid to late 80's, Drunks With Guns recorded Alter Human Industrial Fetishisms and from the discographies I have read, it was the second to last 7" under the second (and by far, the best) incarnation of the band. From what I have read, they only released 7"'ers and cassettes - although post-break-up, they later collected songs onto full length CDs or LPs. It's all so confusing - like the band.

I previously posted "Leprosy" with the assessment that it was the best cut on this 7" EP. But I take that back. Instead consider "Enemy," a tortured litany of all the peeps, things and Supreme Dieties that have converged on Mr. Doskocil to make his life miserable (this was before his bandmembers launched lawsuits against him, I guess). If you've ever spent time in humid St. Louis during the Summer (hell, for the Winter, Spring and Fall as well*), you can perhaps understand what he's going through. It starts and ends abruptly as if someone has pulled the plug on the whole enterprise.

"Zombie" is on the other side - it goes on too long for me (and that's only at 5 or so minutes) - perhaps this is a band only really suffered in short doses ...

Song:
"Enemy"

Links:

• The Drunks With Guns Website is pretty in line with the pointlessness of the band. There's absolutely nothing there of any value to a fan besides a few pictures of Doskocil and a contact address I was afraid to try. It mostly fronts dead links and missing images and appears to be coded in html 2.0 or something 1997-ish, like there's some sort of joke going on. Who's paying their yearly domain fees and why?
• Trouser Press has a very good (although incomplete - but then who can blame them) summation of the band's recorded output and a little bit of "where are they now?"
• A new music blogger that specializes in 80's HC punk/noise recalls in his blog, dressed for the h bomb, an early show he/she witnessed. They also have some MP3s from the first DWG 7" - check it out before it's gone
  
• Previously linked: Drunks with Guns at Grunnenrocks and St. Louis Punk
  

Saved Round - Big Whoop! Exclusive:
This is a letter I received from Doskocil when I mail-ordered this single (click to enlarge) explaining the title of the EP and "news" of the next release. It has a signature in case you want to bother to analyze this alleged drug dealer's personality or whatever... The letter promises to put me on his "mailing list" - this, in true DWG fashion never happened...:

Coffee and Cigarettes Mp3 Mix #18(?)q

The Switchblade Sisters

Have We All Lost Our Minds?

"Charlton Heston Has Lost His Mind" - The Chuck Hestons
"StoryTeller" - qr5
"r u a jonathan fan?" - Lydia Lunch
"Never the Last Time" - Soft Eyes
"The O.C." - The Assault
"Michael Jackson's Summer Camp For Boys" - Three Bricks Shy
"Druganaut" - Black Mountain


Acknowledgements: This is an update because I originally failed to give props to the websites that host some of these MP3s and hope you can go visit them.

The Lydia Lunch promo/cut came from Cam Archer's website - go check out his short johnny spots based on his short film about the life, the fame and the death of Jonathan Brandis.

The Black Mountain cut comes from their record label, Jagjaguwar. The song comes off the Druganaut EP which was recently released on CD.

The Prevaricators

Detente LP
Disrupted Records, 1986

This collection of mostly garden variety hardcore comes from a little remembered Richmond, Va band and probably rightly so. Collectorscum.com's assessment is "OK hardcore, really nothing to complain about" and I guess that's about right - and given that there are plenty other bands in that subgenre that are worth checking out (see previous posts on Poison Idea and Big Boys), you would only have to be a total collector geek to want this - and even then they'd probably only take it for a pittance. (And I checked MXV and he doesn't fess up to owning any)

I bought this album on the heels of their previous single "Jihad" (a French import) which is remembered as a quite righteous skullcrushing hardcore screamer but was disappointed in the most part by Detente. But the Jukebox Jury is now out on that one as I haven't heard it in a while. I also remember people testifying about their previous album Snubculture but I haven't heard and Soulseek isn't turning up any rocks.

The cover shows a lady suckling what looks like a dog - apropros of nothing that I can tell (maybe its about a detente between man and the animal kingdom? - Richmond humor?) and I suppose that's par for course here.

Most of the songs are pretty much standard 2nd person accusatory hardcore (as in "you're safe within your plastic skin/you're an American mannequin" blah blah blah) mostly aimed at familiar targets - rockstars and betrayers, attempts at "humor" or political ranting- nuclear and religion-fueled wars are once again confirmed to be a bad thing.

The opener is a scorcher (in a manner of speaking) about the Rough Trade record distributors who apparently decided not to carry their previous record ("You're just a slut for money") - way to get back at 'em. One song ("Asente") proclaims that a friend shouldn't move to Philadelphia because its full of "queers and dykes". I dunno - I mean, consider the restaurants and Frank Sinatra kareoke nights. There's also a song or two with sax in it, so I suppose they were trying to think a little bit outside the lines.

So anyway, despite the rest of the album they do know enough about their punk history to have covered a Stooges song and I'm feeling generous enough to pass it on for your own assessment.

Song:

"I've Got A Right" - Prevaricators

Band lineup:
Steve Hunter - vocals
David Stover - Guitar
Hal Imburg - Drums
Alford Faulknier - Bass (R.I.P.)
Zip Irvin - Sax

Link:
Collector Scum review their 1983 single

Unrelated: Old Punks Webzine have a blog now.

No Iron (or Vitamins), Man

I feel like the anti-Iron Man or at least Smelted Down for Scrap Iron Man after one of those marathon cross country trips so the song below - an acoustic version of the great heavy metal standard from Four Tet seems to fit (it comes off this recent tribute record).

This time it was San Francisco but I did get some decompress time downtown - visited the Embarcaro (top two pictures), had some great food and beer and paid a pilgrimage to Aquarius Records (below).


Poison Idea wins the Battle of the Bands competition. Jerry A and Tom Pig are still getting the love after all these years. Thanks for all the votes - there was a request for more Drunks with Guns and I'll work on that this weekend.

"Iron Man" - Four Tet (ripped from WFMU)

I'm going to see Spoon tonight and Malkmus tomorrow night which is a kind of record since I normally don't take in more than two shows a month much less one weekend. My Old Kentucky Blog has some songs from the new Malkmus record - recommended (best for headphone listening). It appears that the songs have been taken down - go to Matador for the one meager track ("Baby, C'Mon") that doesn't give you the full impression of this CD. They have a Spoon track but it too isn't really representative of their sound.

I'm also digging the new Smog record. Just the ticket for some further decompression.