Pukekos

David Earl Buddin

2011-12-25T12:00:00.028-05:00

"Holiday Quick-Step"
Performed by Ron Stabinsky
6/15/11 at BCAT Studios in Brooklyn, NY
From The BJ Rubin Show - In Space

"Gathering Call"
Performed by Rane Moore
3/19/11 at BCAT Studios in Brooklyn, NY
From The BJ Rubin Show - Linda

Composed by David Earl Buddin
Engineered by Weasel Walter
Artwork by Lauren Martin
Produced by BJ Rubin

New York, NY 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, David Earl Buddin.

Holiday Quick-Step b/w Gathering Call (Pukekos)

1. Holiday Quick-Step
2. Gathering Call

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-12-16T00:37:00.008-05:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #107
"Vincent"
Original Airdate - 12/15/2011

Featuring I Don't Hear Nothin' But The Blues Trio (Jon Irabagon, Mick Barr, Mike Pride), American Liberty League (David Earl Buddin), BJ Rubin, Charlie Judkins, Sam Kulik, Greta Kline, Owen Kline, Apollo Liftoff, Kevin Shea, Gypsum Fantastic, Weasel Walter, Nondor Nevai and Moppa Elliott

©2011 Megaton Media

Ernie Kovacs

2011-12-14T06:00:00.011-05:00

"It's Time For Ernie"
Original Airdate - March 7, 1951

"It's Time For Ernie"
Original Airdate - June 1951

"Ernie in Kovacsland"
Original Airdate - July 6, 1951

"Ernie in Kovacsland"
Original Airdate - August 23, 1951

"Kovacs on the Corner"
Original Airdate - January 1952

"Kovacs Unlimited"
Original Airdate - May 28, 1952

Samurai Dreams

2011-12-10T12:00:00.013-05:00

From Videodrome
Directed by David Cronenberg

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-12-01T12:00:00.005-05:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #106
"Technical Difficulties"
Original Airdate - 12/1/2011

Produced by BJ Rubin

Starring David Earl Buddin, BJ Rubin, Kevin Shea and Weasel Walter

Featuring Sexy Thoughts, Peter Evans, Bernice Brooks, Sam Kulik, Owen Kline, Spiked Punch, Nondor Nevai, Sportsbar, Funky See Funky Do, Lauren Martin, Chris Grier and American Liberty League

Produced through the facilities of BCAT Media Center, a community media facility of BRIC Arts|Media|Bklyn.

©2011 Megaton Media

Modern Man Manual

2011-10-31T00:00:00.015-04:00

BOO!

Ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure, Modern Man Manual IV.

Modern Man Manual 4 (Megaton Media)

1. Portrait of Kevin Shea (BJ Rubin)
2. Letter from the Editor (Lauren Martin)
3. Figure Study (Greta Kline)
4. Dots (Kevin Shea)
5. Hit Me (Lauren Martin)
6. Surreal Syllogisms (Justin Bastow)
7. Ambience (BJ Rubin)
8. Michael 2031 (Sarah Palatnik)
9. My Little Boys (Owen Kline)
10. A New Reveille (David Buddin)
11. The Martyr (Charlie Judkins)
12. Self Portrait (Nondor Nevai)
13. Portraits (Eliza Doyle)
14. Portrait of Lauren Martin (BJ Rubin)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-29T00:00:00.015-04:00

Cosmic Pulses (Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-28T00:00:00.016-04:00

Lichter - Wasser (Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-27T00:00:00.005-04:00

Flute and Synthesizer (Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-26T00:00:00.002-04:00

Himmelfahrt (Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-25T00:00:00.009-04:00

Michael's Call (Stockhausen)

Karlheinz Stockhausen

2011-10-24T00:00:00.006-04:00

Sonntags-Abschied (Stockhausen)

Owen Kline

2011-10-23T00:00:00.006-04:00

Charlie Judkins

2011-10-22T00:00:00.003-04:00

American Liberty League

2011-10-06T12:00:00.024-04:00

If you would like to purchase a copy of American Liberty League's Going to Coney Island EP, it will be available for sale during their performance at:

The Rod & Gun
59 Kent Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
11/10/11
8-930pm

"The American Liberty League was a political organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats to oppose the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In its current incarnation, it consists of David Earl Buddin on piano and vocals, Tim Dahl on synthesizer, and Kevin Shea on snare drum. They can be seen regularly as the house band on The BJ Rubin Show."

Produced by BJ Rubin
Engineered by Jason LaFarge at Seizures Palace 9/8-9/10/11

New York, NY 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, American Liberty League.

Going to Coney Island EP (Dick Move)

1. Going to Coney Island
2. Not Ready For Parole
3. Still Fell In Love
4. On The Street Where We Live
5. Better Days
6. Show Business

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-09-22T06:00:00.003-04:00

The BJ Rubin Show is now airing in Manhattan on MNN's Lifestyle Channel (Time Warner channel 56, RCN 83, or Verizon 34):

09/22/11 4pm
10/06/11 4pm
10/20/11 4pm
11/03/11 4pm
11/17/11 4pm
12/01/11 4pm
12/15/11 4pm

If you're in Brooklyn, you can see it on BCAT (Cablevision channel 68, Time Warner 35, RCN 83, or Verizon 43):

10/06/11 2pm
11/03/11 2pm
12/01/11 2pm

The BJ Rubin Show
Starring David Earl Buddin, BJ Rubin, Kevin Shea and Weasel Walter

Stay Tuned

2011-08-21T15:00:00.003-04:00

Soul Asylum

2011-08-20T18:00:00.035-04:00

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep

It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray

Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life's mystery seems so faded

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train

Everything is cut and dry,
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
Little out of touch, little insane
Just easier than dealing with the pain

Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train tearin' up the track
Runaway train burnin' in my veins
Runaway but it always seems the same

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Soul Asylum.

Say What You Will Clarence...Karl Sold The Truck (Twin/Tone)

1. Draggin Me Down
2. Long Day
3. Money Talks
4. Voodoo Doll
5. Stranger
6. Do You Know
7. Sick Of That Song
8. Religiavision
9. Spacehead
10. Walking
11. Broken Glass
12. Masquerade
13. Happy
14. Black And Blue

Made To Be Broken (Twin/Tone)

1. Tied To The Tracks
2. Ship Of Fools
3. Can't Go Back
4. Another World Another Day
5. Made To Be Broken
6. Never Really Veen
7. Whoa!
8. New Feelings
9. Growing Pain
10. Long Way Home
11. Lone Rider
12. Ain't That Tough
13. Don't It (Make Your Troubles Seem Small

While You Were Out (Twin/Tone)

1. Freaks
2. Carry On
3. No Man's Land
4. Crashing Down
5. Judge
6. Sun Don't Shine
7. Closer To The Stars
8. Never Too Soon
9. Miracle Mile
10. Lap Of Luxury
11. Passing Sad Daydream

Hang Time (A&M)

1. Down On Up To Me
2. Little Too Clean
3. Sometime To Return
4. Cartoon
5. Beggars And Choosers
6. Endless Farewell
7. Standing In The Doorway
8. Marionette
9. Ode
10. Jack Of All Trades
11. Twiddly Dee
12. Heavy Rotation
13. Put The Bone In

Clam Dip And Other Delights (Twin/Tone)

1. Just Plain Evil
2. Chains
3. Secret No More
4. Artificial Heart
5. P-9
6. Take It To The Root

And The Horse They Rode In On (A&M)

1. Spinnin'
2. Bitter Pill
3. Veil Of Tears
4. Nice Guys (Don't Get Paid)
5. Something Out Of Nothing
6. Gullible's Travels
7. Brand New Shine
8. Easy Street
9. Grounded
10. Be On Your Way
11. We 3
12. All The King's Friends

Grave Dancers Union (Columbia)

1. Somebody To Shove
2. Black Gold
3. Runaway Train
4. Keep It Up
5. Homesick
6. Get On Out
7. New World
8. April Fool
9. Without A Trace
10. Growing Into You
11. 99%
12. The Sun Maid

Let Your Dim Light Shine (Columbia)

1. Misery
2. Shut Down
3. To My Own Devices
4. Hopes Up
5. Promises Broken
6. Bittersweetheart
7. String Of Pearls
8. Crawl
9. Caged Rat
10. Eyes Of A Child
11. Just Like Anyone
12. Tell Me When
13. Nothing To Write Home About
14. I Did My Best

Liz Phair

2011-08-19T18:00:00.059-04:00

And when I asked
For a separate room
It was late at night
And we'd been driving since noon

But if I'd known
How that would sound to you
I would have stayed in your bed
For the rest of my life just to prove I was right
That it's harder to be friends than lovers
And you shouldn't try to mix the two
'Cause if you do it and you're still unhappy
Then you know that the problem is you

And it's true that I stole your lighter
And its also true that I lost the map
But when you said that I wasn't worth talking to
I had to take your word on that

But if you'd known how that would sound to me
You would have taken it back
And boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Boxed it up and buried it in the ground
Burned it up and thrown it away

And you put in my hand a loaded gun
And then told me not to fire it
When you did the things you said were up to me
And then accused me of trying to fuck it up

But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll be all right

And the license said
You had to stick around until I was dead
But if you're tired of looking at my face I guess I already am

But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll be all right

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Liz Phair.

Exile In Guyville (Matador)

1. 6'1"
2. Help Me Mary
3. Glory
4. Dance Of The Seven Veils
5. Never Said
6. Soap Star Joe
7. Explain It To Me
8. Canary
9. Mesmerizing
10. Fuck And Run
11. Girls! Girls! Girls!
12. Divorce Song
13. Shatter
14. Flower
15. Johnny Sunshine
16. Gushy
17. Stratford-On-Guy
18. Strange Loop

Whip-Smart (Matador/Atlantic)

1. Chopsticks
2. Supernova
3. Support System
4. X-Ray Man
5. Shane
6. Nashville
7. Go West
8. Cinco De Mayo
9. Dogs Of L.A.
10. Whip-Smart
11. Jealousy
12. Crater Lake
13. Alice Springs
14. May Queen

Whitechocolatespaceegg (Matador/Capitol)

1. White Chocolate Space Egg
2. Big Tall Man
3. Perfect World
4. Johnny Feelgood
5. Polyester Bride
6. Love Is Nothing
7. Baby Got Nothing
8. Uncle Alvarez
9. Only Son
10. Go On Ahead
11. Headache
12. Ride
13. What Makes You Happy
14. Fantasize
15. Shitloads Of Money
16. Girls Room

Liz Phair (Capitol)

1. Extraordinary
2. Red Light Fever
3. Why Can't I?
4. It's Sweet
5. Rock Me
6. Take A Look
7. Little Digger
8. Firewalker
9. Favorite
10. Love/Hate
11. My Bionic Eyes
12. Friend Of Mine
13. Good Love Never Dies

Somebody's Miracle (Capitol)

1. Leap Of Innocence
2. Wind And The Mountain
3. Stars And Planets
4. Somebody's Miracle
5. Got My Own Thing
6. Count On My Love
7. Lazy Dreamer
8. Everything To Me
9. Closer To You
10. Table For One
11. Why I Lie
12. Lost Tonight
13. Everything (Between Us)
14. Giving It All To You

Björk

2011-08-18T18:00:00.030-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Björk.

Debut (Elektra)

1. Human Behavior
2. Crying
3. Venus As A Boy
4. There's More To Life Than This
5. Like Someone In Love
6. Big Time Sensuality
7. One Day
8. Aeroplane
9. Come To Me
10. Violently Happy
11. The Anchor Song

Post (Elektra)

1. Army Of Me
2. Hyper-ballad
3. The Modern Things
4. It's Oh So Quiet
5. Enjoy
6. You've Been Flirting Again
7. Isobel
8. Possibly Maybe
9. I Miss You
10. Cover Me
11. Headphones

Homogenic (Elektra)

1. Hunter
2. Jóga
3. Unravel
4. Bachelorette
5. All Neon Like
6. 5 Years
7. Immature
8. Alarm Call
9. Pluto
10. All Is Full Of Love

Sinéad O'Connor

2011-08-17T18:00:00.034-04:00

It's been seven hours + fifteen days
Since U took your love away
I go out every night + sleep all day
Since U took your love away
Since U been gone I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
But nothing
I said nothing can take away those blues,
'Cos nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 U

It's been so lonely without U here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me baby where did I go wrong
I could put my arms around every boy I see
But they'd only remind me of you
I went to the doctor guess what he told me
Guess what he told me
He said girl U better have fun
No matter what U do
But he's a fool
'Cos nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 U

All the flowers that U planted mama
In the backyard
All died when U went away
I know that living with U baby was sometimes hard
But I'm willing to give it another try
'Cos nothing compares
Nothing compares 2 U

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Sinéad O'Connor.

The Lion And The Cobra (Ensign/Chrysalis)

1. Jackie
2. Mandinka
3. Jerusalem
4. Just Like U Said It Would B
5. Never Get Old
6. Troy
7. I Want You (Hand On Me)
8. Drink Before The War
9. Just Call Me Joe

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Ensign/Chrysalis)

1. Feel So Different
2. I Am Stretched On Your Grave
3. Three Babies
4. The Emperor's New Clothes
5. Black Boys On Mopeds
6. Nothing Compares 2 U
7. Jump In The River
8. You Cause As Much Sorrow
9. The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance
10. I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Le Tigre

2011-08-16T18:00:00.016-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Le Tigre.

Le Tigre (Mr. Lady)

1. Deceptacon
2, Hot Topic
3. What's Yr Take On Cassavetes
4. The The Empty
5. Phanta
6. Eau d' Bedroom Dancing
7. Let's Run
8. My My Metrocard
9. Friendship Station
10. Slideshow At Free University
11. Dude, Yr So Crazy!
12. Les and Ray

Elastica

2011-08-15T18:00:00.001-04:00

No need to whine, boy, like a wind-up toy you stutter at my feet
And it's never the time, boy, you've had too much wine to stumble up my street
Well it isn't a problem, nothing we can't keep between the sheets
Tell me you're mine, love, and I will not wait for other bed-time treats

Is there something you lack when I'm flat on my back
Is there something that I can do for you?
It's always something you ate or it's something you hate
Tell me is it the way that I touch you?
Have you found a new mate and is she really great
Is it just that I'm too much for you?

Don't feed me a line, boy, I can hear that voice you use upon the phone
And there's no need to be coy, that is something you can do upon your own
Well it isn't a problem, nothing we can't solve so just relax
Am I on the wrong train, love, and will I have to tie you to the tracks?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Elastica.

Elastica (DGC)

1. Line Up
2. Annie
3. Connection
4. Car Song
5. Smile
6. Hold Me Now
7. S.O.F.T.
8. Indian Song
9. Blue
10. All-Nighter
11. Waking Up
12. 2:1
13. See That Animal
14. Stutter
15. Never Here
16. Vaseline

L'Age d'Or

2011-08-13T18:00:00.006-04:00

Highlife

2011-08-12T06:00:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Highlife.

Best Bless (Social Registry)

1. War Fair
2. F Kenya RIP
3. Burying Stones
4. Tuareg Dancehall
5. Wet Palm Trees

The Normal

2011-08-11T06:00:00.001-04:00

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

See the breaking glass
In the underpass
See the breaking glass
In the underpass

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

Hear the crushing steel
Feel the steering wheel
Hear the crushing steel
Feel the steering wheel

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

Warm leatherette
Melts on your burning flesh
You can see you reflection
In the luminescent dash

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

A tear of petrol
Is in your eye
The handbrake
Penetrates your thigh
Quick
Let's make love
Before you die

On warm leatherette
On warm leatherette

Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

Join
The car crash set

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Normal.

Warm Leatherette b/w T.V.O.D. (Mute)

1. Warm Leatherette
2. T.V.O.D.

Tracy + The Plastics

2011-08-10T06:00:00.006-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Tracy + The Plastics.

Culture for Pigeon (Troubleman Unlimited)

1. Big Stereo
2. Knit A Claw
3. Henrietta
4. Happens
5. Save Me Claude
6. Quaasars
7. Cut Glass See Thru
8. Oh Birds
9. This Is Dog-City
10. What You Still Want
11. + Mountain

Slayer

2011-08-09T06:00:00.040-04:00

Through the night we ride in pairs
Lords at night we ride
From the depths of Hell's domain
Reborn to reign this night
Roam throughout the endless wars
Hold high his name we must
Warriors from the gates of Hell
In Lord Satan we trust

Stalking the night can't you feel I'm near
Watching each step that you take
I take lives and show all no mercy this night
Attack those not knowing my voice

Brothers of the Prince of Night
By bargains we have made
Allies with the darkened souls
Our legions we must save
Fight for our eternal quest
God can't save you in time
Evil stalks the night with us
Your soul it shall be mine

Stalking the night can't you feel I'm near
Watching each step that you take
I take lives and show all no mercy this night
Attack those not knowing my voice

I am the menace in your eyes
The one you can't escape
Your life falls in my grasp
You know your end is near
You pray your God will help
His strength no match for mine
Your last hope slips away
Thy soul begins to bleed
I tear your flesh to shreds
Burn holes throughout your mind
Your eyes now filled with blood
A victim of my force
In endless agony
You realize your defeat
Recite my master's chants
Your soul now his to keep

Stalking the night can't you feel I'm near
Watching each step that you take
I take lives and show all no mercy this night
Attack those not knowing my voice

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Slayer.

Show No Mercy (Metal Blade)

1. Evil Has No Boundaries
2. The Antichrist
3. Die By The Sword
4. Fight Till Death
5. Metal Storm/Face The Slayer
6. Black Magic
7. Tormentor
8. The Final Command
9. Crionics
10. Show No Mercy

The Velvet Underground

2011-08-08T06:00:00.006-04:00

"Back in April of this year, while preparing for the re-release of the three VERVE/MGM Velvet Underground albums, a cache of uncatalogued VU tapes was accidentally discovered. Upon further examination, many of these taps proved to be the missing masters recorded by the VU for their 'fourth' VERVE/MGM album, an album that was never released. Studio time was immediately booked, and with the help of engineer Michael Barbiero and staff, each master was meticulously transferred, and subsequently, reviewed.

In June, ten tracks were chosen for release and mixing commenced at MediaSound Studios. It soon became apparent that the vitality of the band captured on tape, coupled with today's technical capabilities, was to produce dynaimc results.

Although this album is not the oft-mentioned 'Great Lost Velvet Underground album,' it is, however, a collection of tracks recorded between February, 1968 and September, 1969 -- a period of heightened artisic development for the VU. A period previously unavailable on record."

--Bill Levenson

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Velvet Underground.

VU (Verve)

1. I Can't Stand It
2. Stephanie Says
3. She's My Best Friend
4. Lisa Says
5. Ocean
6. Foggy Notion
7. Temptation Inside Your Heart
8. One Of These Days
9. Andy's Chest
10. I'm Sticking With You

Led Zeppelin

2011-08-05T06:00:00.001-04:00

There's a lady who's sure all that
Glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
And when she gets there she knows
If the stores are closed
With a word she can get what she came for

There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
Cause you know sometimes words have
two meanings
In a tree by the brook there's a songbird
Who sings sometimes
All of our thoughts are misgvien

There's a feeling I get when I look
To the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke
Through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking

And it's whispered that soon if we all
Call the tune
Then the Piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those
Who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter

And it makes me wonder

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May-Queen
Yes there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on

Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know
The Piper's calling you to join him
Dear lady can you hear the wind blow
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Led Zeppelin.

Led Zeppelin (Atlantic)

1. Black Dog
2. Rock and Roll
3. The Battle of Evermore
4. Stairway to Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going to California
8. When the Levee Breaks

Electrelane

2011-08-04T06:00:00.002-04:00

As they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender
This I could not do
I took my gun and vanished.

I have changed my name so often
I have lost my wife and children
But I have many friends
And some of them are with me.

Oh the wind the wind is blowing
Through the graves the wind is blowing
Freedom soon will come
Then we'll come from the shadows.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Electrelane.

Axes (Too Pure)

1. One, Two, Three, Lots
2. Bells
3. Two For Joy
4. If Not Now, When?
5. Eight Steps
6. Gone Darker
7. Atom's Tomb
8. Business or Otherwise
9. Those Pockets are People
10. The Partisan
11. I Keep Losing Heart
12. Come Back
13. Suitcase

Suzanne Vega

2011-08-03T06:00:00.001-04:00

99.9 Fahrenheit degrees
Stable now, with rising possibilities
It could be normal but it isn't quite
Could make you want to stay awake at night

You seem to me like a man
on the verge of burning
99.9 Fahrenheit degrees

Pale as a candle and your face is hot
And if I touch you I might get what you've got

You seem to me like a man
On the verge of running
99.9 Fahrenheit degrees

Something cool against the skin is what you could be
Something cool against the skin is what you could be needing

99.9 Fahrenheit degrees

You seem to me like a man
On the verge of burning
99.9 Fahrenheit degrees

Something cool against the skin is what you could be
Something cool against the skin is what you could be needing

99.9 Fahrenheit degrees
99.9 Fahrenheit degrees

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Suzanne Vega.

99.9 F° (A&M)

1. Rock in this Pocket (Song of David)
2. Blood Makes Noise
3. In Liverpool
4. 99.9 F°
5. Blood Sings
6. Fat Man & Dancing Girl
7. (If You Were) In My Movie
8. As A Child
9. Bad Wisdom
10. When Heroes Go Down
11. As Girls Go
12. Song of Sand

Eno/Cale

2011-08-02T06:00:00.002-04:00

WRONG WAY UP

Recorded at Brian Eno's Wilderness

Studio, Suffolk, between April and

July 1990, Recordings engineered by

Brian Eno, except John Cale's vocal

recordings, which were engineered

by Dave Young in Woodbridge, and 'Oz' at

Platinum Island, New York, on Footsteps

and In The Backroom.

PRODUCED BY BRIAN ENO

CO-PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

Mixed by Rhett Davies, Bruce

Lampcov and Brian Eno at AIR

Studios, London, early August 1990.

Mastered by Tony Cousins at Townhouse Cutting Room,

London and

Stephen Marcussen at Precision Lacquer, Hollywood

Cover picture by Brian Eno

Typography by Kevin Cann

Art and design by Brian Eno and Kevin Cann

ALL SONGS WRITTEN AND COMPOSED BY

BRIAN ENO AND JOHN CALE

PUBLISHED BY UPALA MUSIC (HAMSTEIN)/

JOHN CALE MUSIC INC./(BMI), except * by Brian Eno

(UPALA MUSIC/HAMSTEIN/BMI)

With special thank to: Steven Baker, Risé Cale,

Melanie Ciccone, Roger & Bee Eno, Jane Geerts, Mike Kachoeff,

Kevin Laffey, Edwin Maynard, Anthea Norman-Taylor, Dominic

Norman-Taylor, David Snow, Chris at Time Capsule, New York

and Chris Whent.

ENO/CALE

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Brian Eno & John Cale.

Wrong Way Up (Warner Bros.)

1. Lay My Love
2. One Word
3. In The Backroom
4. Empty Frame
5. Cordoba
6. Spinning Away
7. Footsteps
8. Been There Done That
9. Crime in the Desert
10. The River*

Led Zeppelin

2011-08-01T06:00:00.010-04:00

Oh oh oh oh oh oh
You don't have to go oh oh oh oh oh
You don't have to go oh oh oh oh oh
Baby please don't go.

Ay ay ay ay ay ay
All those tears I cry ay ay ay ay ay
All those tears I cry ay ay ay ay ay
Baby please don't go.

When I read the letter you wrote me
it made me mad mad mad
When I read the news that it brought me
it made me sad sad sad
But I still love you so
I can't let you go
I love you--ooh baby I love you.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh
Every breath I take oh oh oh oh oh
Every move I make oh oh oh oh oh
Baby please don't go.

Ay ay ay ay ay ay
You hurt me to my soul ay ay ay ay ay
You hurt me to my soul ay ay ay ay ay
Darling please don't go.

When I read the letter you wrote me
it made me mad mad mad
When I read the news that it brought me
it made me sad sad sad
But I still love you so
I can't let you go
I love you--ooh baby I love you.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh
You don't have to go oh oh oh oh oh
You don't have to go oh oh oh oh oh
(Baby please don't go)

(Whatever happened to Rose and the Originals?)

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Led Zeppelin.

Houses of the Holy (Atlantic)

1. The Song Remains The Same
2. The Rain Song
3. Over The Hills And Far Away
4. The Grunge
5. Dancing Days
6. D'yer Mak'er
7. No Quarter
8. The Ocean

Cars Get Crushed

2011-07-29T06:00:00.002-04:00

From the liner notes of Drag Explosive:

"To call this a new sound would be telling a half-truth, for while it is new in a certain sense, it most definitely is the Swing and Sway sound brought up-to-date with all the taste and articulateness that can come from the marriage of these talents.

But no amount of descriptive verbiage, no matter how accurately attuned it may be to the subject matter, can clearly define anything as well as simply playing and listening and almost unavoidably dancing to this long-play album yourself."

--Cars Get Crushed
1995

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Cars Get Crushed.

Drag Explosive (Deluxe)

1. The Thunderbolt
2. A Slight Sting
3. Deluxe
4. Weather Conditions
5. 18th Nervous Breakdown
6. Drag Explosive
7. Oranjeboom
8. Fabulous

Blue And West (Goldenrod)

1. The Stranger
2. California
3. Optimator
4. Infra Red
5. The Bends
6. Hero City
7. Modern Apollo
8. Blue And West

Gregorian Chants

2011-07-28T06:00:00.006-04:00

May this help you on your path to enlightenment.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Gregorian Chants.

Festival of Gregorian Chants (Madacy)

1. Cantores Chorales Capellae Sancti Casimiri - Vilnius (Litouwen)
2. The Gloriae Dei Cantores - Massachusetts (USA)
3. I Cantori Gregoriani di Milano
4. The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge
5. The Choristers of Westminster Cathedral, London
6. Het Gregoriaans Koor van Pusan (Zuid-Korea)
7. Schola Cantorum Amsterdam
8. Choeur Gregorien de Paris
9. Liturgischer Singkreis Jena
10. Gregoriaans Koor "Cum Jublio" - Watou
11. Schola Cantorum Achel
12. Laudate Dominum - Kortrijk
13. Cantando - Roeselare
14. Gregoriaans Koor van Leuven
15. Gregoriaans Abdijkoor van Grimbergen
16. "Sabbato Ad Vesperas"
17. "Liturgisch Drama"

The Jerky Boys

2011-07-27T06:00:00.002-04:00

"To all our fans, old and new. You guys and gals are truly the best!! Since the mid-'80s when it started to take off on a large scale, you were there. These creations are for you. Everyone of you can relate to these characters in one way or another. Everyone knows a Sol Rosenberg, Frank Rizzo, Kissel and so on. We certainly do and more characters are on the way. In fact, for this CD, we thought we'd share some of them with you and bring you a new twist on the actual calls themselves - eight of the calls are incoming, in response to ads that were placed in several publications by The Jerky Boys. So enjoy there ya sillyass bastards!!!"

--The Jerky Boys

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Jerky Boys.

The Jerky Boys (Select/Detonator)

1. Irate Tile Man
2. Unemployed Painter
3. Laser Surgery
4. Insulator Job
5. Egyptian Magician
6. Sol's Glasses
7. Car Salesman
8. Sushi Chef
9. Super Across the Way
10. The Gay Model
11. The Home Wrecker
12. Auto Mechanic
13. Dental Malpractice
14. Started Motor Repair
15. Hurt at Work
16. Hot Rod Mover
17. Firecracker Mishap
18. Punitive Damages
19. Piano Tuner
20. Gay Hard Hat
21. Uncle Freddie

The Jerky Boys 2 (Select/Detonator)

1. Pablo Honey
2. Drinking Problem
3. Pet Cobra
4. Sol's Warts
5. Breast Enlargement
6. Roofing
7. Gay Hairdresser
8. Volunteer
9. Terrorist Pizza
10. Pico's Mexican Hairpiece
11. A Little Emergency
12. Sparky The Clown
13. Security Service
14. Sol's Nude Beach
15 Diamond Dealer
16. Sol's Naked Photo
17. The Mattress King
18. Ball Game Beating
19. Sporting Goods
20. Scaffolding
21. Sex Therapy
22. Sol's Phobia
23. Cremation Services
24. Pizza Lawyer
25. Fava Beans
26. Husband Beating

The Jerky Boys 3 (Ratchet/Mercury)

1. Santa's Delivery
2. Lawn Equipment Debate
3. Balloon Rides
4. The Dresser
5. Silly Food
6. Sol's Chainsaw Shock
7. Stop That
8. Chainsaw Shock (Part 2)
9. Tandem Bicycle
10. Safety Gates
11. Bamm!
12. Facelift Without Surgery
13. Lawnmower Sale
14. Tarbash's New Shoes
15. Signin'
16. No!
17. Sol's Civil War Memoribilia
18. Civil War Memoribilia (Part 2)
19. Bad Tomatoes
20. Florida, The Tropical State
21. TV Repair
22. 1-800-How's My Driving?
23. Bad Ass Massage
24. Paradise
25. Body Building
26. Kissel Crooner
27. Angry Camper's Dad
28. Bird Feed
29. New Awnings

Silver Apples

2011-07-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

"Silver Apples began in 1967 as a 5-piece band working at New York's Cafe Wha?, calling ourselves 'The Overland Stage Electric Band.' We had 3 guitars, Danny Taylor on drums and me as lead singer. Being that we worked 4 sets a night and only knew so many songs, we took a lot of extended guitar breaks, during which I had nothing to do. One night I plugged in an old oscillator that a friend had loaned me, and started swooping the room with electronic sounds. The band hated it, but I thought it was kind of cool. One by one the guitar players quit, and that left Danny and me! We decided to change our name to Silver Apples after a poem by W.B. Yeats that we liked, get more oscillators, and do all original material. Poet friends gave us poems. The first poem we set to music was 'Oscillations' by Stanley Waren. Every time we wrote another song, it seemed we needed more oscillators, until, by the 6th song or so, we had quite a cumbersome collection. People started calling it the 'simeon' machine, and the name stuck. It consisted of more than a dozen oscillators, 6 of them tuned to bass notes and wired through switches on a piece of plywood that I played with my feet. Our bass lines were always very simple and repetitive, because we only had six notes for any song. The rest of the oscillators (except one) were routed through telegraph keys and used to make rhythmic beeps and boops, and the 'lead' oscillator made all the swoops. So this was Silver Apples. I sang, played bass, beeps, boops and swoops, and Danny held it all together as best as he could with inventive drumming.

The first job we got was in front of 30,000 people! Our manager had a friend who worked in the same office as this big promoter who was booking an all-day concert in Central Park's Sheeps Meadow. Even though nobody had ever heard of Silver Apples, he connived to get us on the bull with The Steve Miller Band, The Chambers Brothers, The Children of God, Sha-Na-Na, The Mothers of Invention, The Fugs, and others. I nearly peed in my pants when I saw the crowd. The promoter guy told us we could only play 5 or 6 songs, then '...get the hell off!' That was fine with us because we only knew 5 or 6 songs, so we played, and got the hell off and felt like we had managed to survive 'the big one.' Then, the next day, when the newspapers came out, we were all over them. They all talked about 'the unique sound of Silver Apples' and we were launched.

On the strength of that one concert we were courted by several record labels but KAPP was the only one that actually propsed marriage so we signed. We recorded the entire first album on a 4 track deck provided by KAPP. We would lay down 3 tracks, then premix down to one, then lay down 2 more, premixing again, and so forth till we ran out of tracks, and that was the end of the song. Simple. With Contact, the second album, we had the luxury of a 24 track board at Universal City. We recorded most of the basic tracks there while on tour in LA, then finished it up at Apostolic Studios in New York. These were the sessions that produced 'A Pox on You,' 'You and I,' 'I Have Known Love' and others that we still do in concert today, along with new music.

It is tremendously rewarding to me as an artist to have my past work recognized, not only through this re-release, but by the numerous tributes and covers that abound now worldwide. If I may be allowed to say so here, it is the new Silver Apples music that turns me on today."

--Simeon
Silver Apples
New York, August 25, 1997

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Silver Apples.

Silver Apples (KAPP)

1. Oscillations
2. Seagreen Serenades
3. Lovefingers
4. Program
5. Velvet Cave
6. Whirly-Bird
7. Dust
8. Dancing Gods
9. Misty Mountain

Contact (KAPP)

1. You And I
2. Water
3. Ruby
4. Gypsy Love
5. You're Not Foolin' Me
6. I Have Known Love
7. A Pox On You
8. Confusion
9. Fantasies

Brian Eno

2011-07-25T06:00:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Brian Eno.

The Drop (Thirsty Ear)

1. Slip, Dip
2. But If
3. Belgian Drop
4. Cornered
5. Block Drop
6. Out/Out
7. Swanky
8. Coasters
9. Blissed
10. M.C. Organ
11. Boomcubist
12. Hazard
13. Rayonism
14. Dutch Blur
15. Back Clack
16. Dear World
17. Iced World

The Velvet Underground

2011-07-22T06:00:00.001-04:00

"In the summer of 1970, the Velvet Underground played an extended engagement at the renowned New York restaurant-club-focal point, Max's Kansas City. One night during that summer, Brigid Polk, a long-time friend and fan of the Velvets, brought a cassette recorder to Max's to preserve a typical performance for herself. This record is a distillation of the cassette Brigid made that night. (In some ways, this record may be looked at as the first legitimate bootleg album.) The sound of the record is surprisingly good, and, of course, is mono. The low price of this album reflects the low recording costs, and is not a reflection on the Velvet Underground performance -- far from it. Given the fact that the Velvets have gone through personnel changes in the last couple of years, this album stands as the exciting and valuable record of a special group at a special moment in time and space."

--Mark Meyerson
Coordinator of A & R
Atlantic Records

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Velvet Underground.

Live at Max's Kansas City (Atlantic)

1. I'm Waiting For The Man
2. Sweet Jane
3. Lonesome Cowboy Bill
4. Beginning To See The Light
5. I'll Be Your Mirror
6. Pale Blue Eyes
7. Sunday Morning
8. New Age
9. Femme Fatale
10. After Hours

Black Sabbath

2011-07-21T06:00:00.004-04:00

"Formed in Birmingham, England in 1968, the four man powerhouse known as Black Sabbath pioneered a bone-crunching rock & roll assault that laid the foundations for the heavy metal revolution that swept popular music in the '70s and '80s. While the band's blistering ensemble playing and evocative lyric blend of machismo and mysticism set a standard for countless groups to follow, their 1970 self-titled debut album remains one of the most innovative and influential long players in rock history.

Comprised of Ozzy Osbourne (vocalist), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums), the quartet was intially known by the name Earth and took their hometown pub-and-club circuit by storm with a high energy blend of blues and rock. Schoolmates from a working class Birmingham neighborhood, the group earned a fervent following throughout the English Midlands and in 1968 changed their name to Black Sabbath. The new moniker reflected the band's penchant for moody, dark-hued music that matched supernatural themes with supercharged ensemble playing. In 1969 they entered the recording studio to cut their first album.

The result is the landmark Black Sabbath. Produced by Rodger Bain, Black Sabbath highlights five original compositions from the band. In addition to such classic cuts as 'The Wizard,' 'Wicked World' and their signature song, 'Black Sabbath,' the album contains two other outstanding tracks, blending road-tested material into eerie, extended song suites. The medley 'A Bit Of Finger,' 'Sleeping Village' and 'Warning' clocks in at over fourteen minutes, while a ten minutes-plus mix of 'Wasp,' 'Behind The Wall Of Sleep,' 'Bassically' and 'N.I.B.' remains one of the most powerful and propulsive cuts in the group's recording history.

Black Sabbath eventually reached the Top Ten on British charts where it remained for three months and earned the band a devoted cult following on both sides of the Atlantic."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Black Sabbath.

Black Sabbath (Warner Bros.)

1. Black Sabbath
2. The Wizard
3. Wasp/Behind The Wall Of Sleep/Bassically/N.I.B.
4. Wicked World
5. A Bit Of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning

The Simpsons

2011-07-20T06:00:00.025-04:00

"On Christmas morning, 1964, I was the happiest boy on Evergreen Terrace. I'd asked for, and receive, my dream Christmas present: a reel-to-reel tape recorder!

Over the next several months I hid out in my bedroom and played with the tape recorder constantly. Inspired by my dad's Stan Freberg records, I made my own Matt Groening Show -- 'starring Maaaaaaaatt Groening, and featuring the Matt Groening Orchestra and the Matt Groening Singers and Dancers!' (Simpsons fanatics will note the almost word-for-word homage in the 1988 catoonlet 'The Bart Simpson Show' on The Tracey Ullman Show.) I sang my own theme song ('Matt Groening, Cool Guy'), acted out jungle adventures, and performed stand-up comedy routines, complete with canned laughter and applause. I forced my sisters, Lisa and Maggie, to listen to my tapes all the time, rewinding and replaying the good parts while they sat there patiently, barely rolling their eyes. I was about as insufferable as a ten-year-old can be.

My other tape project was a compilation of my favorite TV-show themes on one reel. Over the next couple of years, sitting on the floor in the rumpus room with a hand-held mike next to the big Zenith, I built up quite a collection, featuring themes to such shows as The Flintstones, The Beverly Hillbillies, Branded, Green Acres, Astro Boy, Rocky And His Friends, My Mother The Car, and Milton The Monster. I also recorded my favorite TV-commercial jingles, including those for Pepsodent, Salem cigarettes, and Brylcreem. I'd like to think I was fascinated by the well-crafted arrangements, peculiar lyrics, and general absurdity of this TV music, but the truth is I thought these little ditties were catchy as hell.

When I was a teenager, I discovered soundtrack music. I fell in love with the Spaghetti-Western scores of Ennio Morricone, the Alfred Hitchcock soundtracks of Bernard Herrmann, and the Federico Fellini film music of Nino Rota. This was music that messed with my head, altered my mood, and dragged me out of my teenage disgruntlement. The stuff still works on me to this day.

It turned out all this taping and listening wasn't just time-wasting distraction -- it was preliminary research. In 1989, with The Simpsons as a full-fledged TV series in the works, I was able to utilize all those years of musical foolishness. From Rocky And His Friends I learned that you can make a great cartoon show even with lousy animation. (You just need top-notch writing, voices, and music.) From an interview with Mel Brooks, I learned from his observation that soundtrack music in comedies should play the underlying emotion, not the joke. An inspired by that old tapes of TV themes I recorded in the '60s, I knew I wanted to get that feeling of bubbling-over-optimism-tinged-with-frantic-desperation.

The trend in TV themes for the previous 15 years had been this namby-pamby synthesizer schlock, modest in both ambition and execution. These noodly, ersatz-sentimental themes all seemed to whimper, 'We can't offer much, but please like our pathetic little show!' I wanted a big, fully orchestrated, obnoxious, arrogant theme that promised you the best time of your life.

We approached Danny Elfman, whose career I'd been following since I saw him perform as the leader of The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo (best described as an avant-garde Cab Calloway-on-Mars vaudeville ensemble) at the Whisky-a-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip in the late '70s. Elfman had recently composed the soundtrack to Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and I knew he'd be perfect.

I gave Elfman what I called a 'flavors' tape, featuring the kind of sound I wanted for The Simpsons theme. The tape included The Jetsons theme, selections from Nino Rota's Juliet Of The Spirits, a Remington electric shaver jungle by Frank Zappa, some easy-listening music by Esquivel, and a teach-your-parrot-to-talk-record.

Elfman gave it a listen and said, 'I know exactly what you're looking for.'

A month later we were recording the now-famous Simpsons theme on the 20th Century-Fox lot with a huge orchestra. I think all the producers were a little nervous and fidgety about the untrendy audacity of the music. But then-executive producer James L. Brooks came in, listened a bit, then said, 'My God! This is great! This is lemmings-marching-to-their-death music!'

In the ensuing eight-and-counting seasons of The Simpsons, Alf Clausen has handled almost all of the music you hear on the show. He's done a phenomenal job with the writers' odd musical requests, particularly when you realize how fast Alf has to churn this stuff out. This album is a showcase for Alf, featuring some of his finest and funniest work. I think of his music as the secret strength of The Simpsons, delivering the jokes, for sure, but also the real emotion underlying the comedy.

And all for a TV cartoon!"

--Matt Groening

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Simpsons.

Songs in the Key of Springfield (Rhino)

1. The Simpsons Main Title Theme (Extended Version)
2. We Do (The Stonecutters' Song)
3. Dancin' Homer (Medley)
4. Homer & Apu (Medley)
5. 'Round Springfield (Medley)
6. "Oh, Streetcar!" (The Musical)
7. Jingle Bells
8. Springfield (Medley)
9. "Itchy And Scratchy" Main Title Theme
10. "Itchy And Scratchy" End Credits Theme
11. The Day The Violence Died (Medley)
12. Señor Burns
13. The Simpsons End Credits Theme (Afro-Cuban Version)
14. Your Wife Don't Understand You
15. Kamp Krusty (Medley)
16. The Simpsons End Credits Theme (Australian Version)
17. The Simpsons End Credits Theme ("Hill Street Blues" Homage)
18. The Simpsons End Credits Theme ("It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" Homage)
19. Treehouse Of Horror V (Medley)
20. Honey Roasted Peanuts ("Boy Scoutz N The Hood" Episode)
21. Boy Scoutz In The Hood (Medley)
22. Two Dozen And One Greyhounds (Medley)
23. "Eye On Springfield" Theme
24. Flaming Moe's
25. Homer's Barbershop Quartet (Medley)
26. TV Sucks! ("A Fish Called Selma" Episode)
27. A Fish Called Selma (Medley)
28. Send In The Clown
29. The Monorail Song
30. In Search Of An Out Of Body Vibe
31. Cool
32. Bagged Me A Homer
33. It Was A Very Good Beer
34. Bart Sells His Soul (Medley)
35. Happy Birthday, Lisa ("Stark Raving Dad" Episode)
36. The Simpsons Halloween Special End Credits Theme ("The Addams Family" Homage)
37. Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One) (Medley)
38. Lisa's Wedding (Medley)
39. The Simpsons End Credits Theme ("Dragnet" Homage)

Tubeway Army

2011-07-19T06:00:00.001-04:00

"I moved to L.A. from England when I was 7 years old, at the end of 1979. I was becoming cognizant of pop culture and music, just barely. Two songs which instantly teleport me back (still!) to queueing at Gatwick are ELO's 'Don't Bring Me Down' and Gary Numan's 'Cars'... funny how the mind works. For Christmas that year I received a cassette copy of the K-TEL compilation Rock 80, the lead track on which was 'Cars'. That cassette was in heavy rotation for what now seems like years. I don't remember actually seeing a picture of Numan until a couple of years later, by the time I was about 10 or so. I'd ride my bike to MusicPlus in Sherman Oaks to fondle, and occasionally buy, Journey cassettes and those miniature Beatles 'albums' that came with a pink record-shaped disc of Pepto Bismol-tasting chewing gum. While I was there, I'd flip through the racks and racks of fantastic-looking LPs by bands I'd never heard of: the Plasmatics, the Clash, Blue Oyster Cult. MusicPlus was one of those '70s relics I really miss now, all knotted wood-panel interiors, display cases full of badges, racks and racks and racks of vinyl. I remember it was there that I fixated on the cover of Numan's The Pleasure Principle, easily one of the most inexplicable things my 10-year-old mind had encountered: a pasty-looky guy in eyeliner and a tailored suit staring intently at a glowing pyramid on the table beside him. The pleasure principal? This didn't look like that much fun, but I was intrigued. Back then, there was a cheesy Top 40 station in L.A. called KIQQ. I'd waste away the endless hours of summertime boredom calling their request line, feigning my now-faded English accent in hopes of charming whoever answered enough into actually getting my request played on the air. As I recall, I was successful once and once only - getting them to play 'Cars' at something like 2:00 pm on a Sunday. Why I didn't just listen to the cassette, I don't know. I suppose influencing radio airplay is a pretty major deal when you're 10.

I 'rediscovered' Numan, and his truly inspiring Tubeway Army, in the mid-'90s. The fact that the band had started out as, essentially, a hard-rock trio and then almost instantly morphed into flagbearers for the burgeoning synth-pop movement in the UK had obvious parallels to what we in The VSS felt we were doing within the confines of DIY hardcore. That Numan did it with such obvious and undeniable style was awe-inspiring. He made it seem effortless, and he never seemed to break a sweat or show any emotion whatsoever. I was - and still am - fascinated by his asexual, almost android-like image, as if he'd arrived on this planet fully-formed with a Beggars Banquet contract under his arm. His voice is so bizarre, and yet so perfect - monotonous and yet hauntingly complex. His performance in Urgh! A Music War - driving a miniature 'space car' around a stage full of revolving pyramids - is nothing less than mindblowing. Here was a dude who just didn't give a shit about what a pop star is supposed to look like, sound like, or do. Then there's the added paradox of the peripheral details -- find me another celebrity of this magnitude (and yes, he was genuinely mega in the UK) who readily admits to his mother designing and sewing his stage clothes! That he eventually 'retired' from pop to pilot small planes simply affirms his greatness (though not before committing some serious musical blunders starting with album #5 and continuing for... well, far too long. But I digress). Though I care little for what came after 1980's Telekon, I can say without any doubt that he was, and shall always be, one of the great icons of pop culture to me, and a very serious influence on my own artistic expression."

--Sonny Kay

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Tubeway Army.

Replicas (Beggars Banquet)

1. Me! I Disconnect from You

2. Are 'Friends' Electric?

3. The Machman

4. Praying to the Aliens

5. Down in the Park

6. You Are in My Vision

7. Replicas

8. It Must Have Been Years

9. When the Machines Rock

10. I Nearly Married a Human

No Age

2011-07-18T06:00:00.006-04:00

"Open your eyes by gripping the upper lid with two toothpicks and try pouring some apple cider vinegar over them. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes you will see miraculous visions of a web like mother that may or may not leave you speechless."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, No Age.

DVD+R #1 (Pukekos)

1. Get Hurt
2. Dead Plane
3. Chip Off The Bone
4. Vacation Pay

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-07-07T14:00:00.010-04:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #105
"In Space"
Original Airdate - 7/7/2011

Produced by BJ Rubin

Starring David Earl Buddin, Lauren Martin, BJ Rubin, Kevin Shea and Weasel Walter

Music by Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat Dan Singa, Sexy Thoughts, Ron Stabinsky and American Liberty League

Produced through the facilities of BCAT Media Center, a community media facility of BRIC Arts|Media|Bklyn.

©2011 Megaton Media

Modern Man Manual

2011-07-06T06:00:00.010-04:00

"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger."

--Theodore Roosevelt

Ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure, Modern Man Manual.

Modern Man Manual (Megaton Media)

1. Modern Man Cover (Simon Slater)
2. Letter from the Editor (BJ Rubin)
3. Decorative Sculptures I-VIII (Simon Slater)
4. Sketches for "O Gladsome Light" (David Buddin)
5. Go Home, Terry Riley (Dominika Michalowska)
6. Wheelchair Freak (T.S. Dahl)
7. Three Poems (Luke Calzonetti)
8. Gun Titty (Tara White)
9. Portraits (Weasel Walter)

Modern Man Manual

2011-07-05T06:00:00.014-04:00

"The word 'beauty' is as easy to use as the word 'degenerate.' Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you."

--Charles Ives

Ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure, Modern Man Manual II.

Modern Man Manual 2 (Megaton Media)

1. Portrait of BJ Rubin (Simon Slater)
2. Letter from the Editor (BJ Rubin)
3. Statue of Liberty (Guy de Burgh)
4. Portrait of BJ Rubin (Lauren Martin)
5. Our Friend Simon (David Buddin)
6. A Super Bowl Remembrance (BJ Rubin)
7. Linda (T.S. Dahl)
8. Baked Alaska (Simon Slater)
9. Malediction for Rosie O'Donnell (David Buddin)
10. Three Studies (Weasel Walter)
11. Form Plan for Piano Sonata VI (David Buddin)
12. Portraits (BJ Rubin)

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-07-04T15:00:00.014-04:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #104
"4th of July Spectacular"
Original Airdate - 7/4/2011

Produced by BJ Rubin

Music by Starring, Vaz and American Liberty League

Produced through the facilities of BCAT Media Center, a community media facility of BRIC Arts|Media|Bklyn.

©2011 Megaton Media

Modern Man Manual

2011-07-01T06:00:00.024-04:00

Megaton Media is COMING TO GET YOU!!!

Get ready to be amazed by the FORCE OF NATURE that is Modern Man Manual III.

Get ready to be FLOORED by the onslaught of images and words that are about to ASSAULT you.

Get ready to be KNOCKED OUT by the juggernaut of a journal about to ROLL ALL OVER YOU!

Get ready TO NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure, Modern Man Manual III.

Modern Man Manual 3 (Megaton Media)
1. Money (Lauren Martin)
2. Letter from the Editor (BJ Rubin)
3. The Rent is Always Due (David Buddin)
4. Smokestack Lightning (Lauren Martin)
5. Vacated (BJ Rubin)
6. Tiny Sculpture of Viking Man (Kevin Shea)
7. Clayton (T.S. Dahl)
8. Florida (BJ Rubin)
9. Holiday Quick-Step (David Buddin)
10. Julius Martin (BJ Rubin)
11. Psychonautical Journal (Nondor Nevai)
12. Portraits (BJ Rubin)

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-06-02T14:00:00.012-04:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #103
"Greetings Earthlings"
Original Airdate - 6/2/11

Produced by BJ Rubin

Starring David Earl Buddin, BJ Rubin, Kevin Shea and Weasel Walter

Featuring Charlie Judkins, Nondor Nevai and Ted Shumaker

Music by Sexy Thoughts, She Keeps Bees, Old Rugged Sauce and American Liberty League

Produced through the facilities of
BCAT
Brooklyn Community Access Television
Brooklyn, NY 11217

©2011 Megaton Media

The BJ Rubin Show

2011-05-05T14:00:00.010-04:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #102
"Linda"
Original Airdate - 5/5/11

Produced by BJ Rubin

Starring David Earl Buddin, BJ Rubin and Kevin Shea

Featuring Charlie Judkins, Owen Kline, Lauren Martin, Rane Moore, Weasel Walter and Natalie Elizabeth Weiss

Music by Wet Hair, Talibam! and American Liberty League

Produced through the facilities of
BCAT
Brooklyn Community Access Television
Brooklyn, NY 11217

©2011 Megaton Media

Healing Journey Radio

2011-03-25T06:00:00.050-04:00

"This is Dr. Roger Sty Bantam, Certified Shaman of Gehgiah. Gehgiah is a new, exciting religion that combines orthomolecular psychiatry, ancient mystical practice and subsonic frequencies between 411 MHz and 423 MHz to bring people into the landscape of the God Tiger. Before we begin, I want to thank my friend BJ Rubin for offering this sacred space for healing.

Now take a deep breath and hold it. Hold it. Keep holding it. Using the power of the forbidden wilderness, the inner landscape of the God Tiger, I'm going to take you through a basic introduction. The first video you'll watch will begin a process that will change the way you relate to the modern Internet.

Now that you're part of our sacred network, we can travel through a series of liberation modules. This next video will help you unlock the mysteries of your past by helping you reclaim your wounded inner child.

With your wounded inner child at your side, you will visit the crossroads of sexuality and pharmacology. In this next video we will light the fires of tantric ecology and park a dolphin in your mind.

Thriving libidinal energy paves the way to true love. In this audio guided meditation recorded deep in the forbidden wilderness by my predecessor Dr. Morty Satanberg, you will open your heart to the unlikely and impossible.

Our final segment is a journey into your future. Here Dr. Satanberg will bring you to the final gateway, the realm of the Judgment Crow, your death.

You have reached the landscape of the God Tiger, Gehgiah. I honor your work, your gifts, and your inner listener. Thank you for connecting. I open my soul to eternal connection with you.

Namasté!"

-Dr. Roger Sty Bantam

Hurl

2011-02-25T06:00:00.007-05:00

From the desk of Henry H. Owings:

"Whenever people ask me what Pittsburgh was all about in the early '90s, I tell them it's easy: Thee Speaking Canaries, Don Caballero, Northern Bushmen, The Karl Hendricks Trio, and of course, Hurl. Hurl formed shortly after I left Pittsburgh for Georgia and put out a handful of singles, a couple albums and then, poof, they broke up. Not a bad run.

I started working on collecting material for this post almost a year ago, and now here it all is: all of Hurl's 7"s, a few live radio sessions, several live shows and even live video of the band performing. Of course, none of this would've been possible without the incredible assistance of Hurl's bass player Matt Jencik. I'd made quick friends with Matt back in '94 or '95 when Hurl was plotting their first jaunt to the South.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the interview was sent to all members of Hurl, but their drummer (Noah Leger) has been traveling so much with the Blue Man Group (no joke) that he's not had a chance to respond. Hopefully, his witty drummer joke on one of the WRCT radio sessions will shed some light as to what sorta guy Noah is. And hey, drummers are always the quiet ones, right?

I'm proud to have been one of Hurl's first listeners (the Turnip 7" showed up in my post office box the month it was released) and a long-time supporter. There's nothing else really to say, really. Hopefully there'll be more than a few people out there who will find this collection rewarding. So without further ado, after almost a year in the making, it's my pleasure to present Hurl."

So your first single was released by Manny Theiner (Pop Bus Records owner) and perfectly encapsulates that ideal "Pittsburgh Sound" of the early 90's. You had to be a young'n in '92. How in the heck did you hear of Bitch Magnet, Bastro, Live Skull, etc?

Matt Jencik:
The first line-up of Hurl was based out of a suburb about 20 minutes North of Pittsburgh called North Hills. Mat and I went to high school together but Dave went to a performing arts school in the city where he was hipped to a lot of really great music. Funnily enough, one of his classmates was Noah Leger. Dave had a big half pipe in his yard and kids would come from all over the greater Pittsburgh area to skate there. One day, Noah (Leger) and Pat Morris (Don Cab bass player/Northern Bushmen guitarist) came by his place and I remember them playing a Northern Bushmen song using our stuff. Noah would end up replacing Dave 2 or 3 years later. Anyway, Dave introduced me to a lot of great music including Slint, Bitch Magnet and Mission of Burma, three bands that were very important to the development of the Hurl sound. Also, for a smallish city, Pittsburgh was blessed with a few solid stores including Jim's. I still remember pulling Umber by Bitch Magnet off the display rack at Eide's Comics & Records. Finally, like any voracious music fan, once I found something I liked, I tried to connect the dots to similar sounding bands, records by other bands on the same labels. I ordered a lot of records through the mail from Dischord, SST, the back of MRR, etc...

The DeSoto single. Did this happen after you performed with Jawbox in Pittsburgh or DC? Explain.

Dan Wilson:
My DEAD first show in Hurl was with the Jawboxes at the HUB ballroom in State College. If I remember right, that was where we really first met those guys. At least it was my first meeting with them after having seen them at the Upstage once or twice. I remember really getting along well with those guys. Super nice people, and they seemed to really like the music we were playing. I think we went to the College Inn after the show and hung out with them after the show- and I THINK they offered to put out a single for us somewhere in there, and we had really just gone to Lee Hollihan's (recorded early Don Cab 7”s, Karl Hendricks Trio, Blunderbuss, etc.) and recorded a couple of songs so that stuff was already recorded and ready to go at that point.

Somewhere along the way you got lured into performing in Don Caballero. Did this put any sort of strain on Hurl or did it further improve your songwriting abilities for Hurl?

Matt Jencik:
I definitely wasn’t lured into it. I was a really big fan, everybody in Hurl was. If I remember correctly, I was visiting my parents for Christmas and (Mike) Banfield (Don Cab guitarist) called and told me that they needed a bass player for a New Years show in Detroit with Helmet and Rage Against the Machine. It was probably 4 days away. He asked if I was willing to try and I jumped right into it. I started learning the songs from the records that night and probably practiced with them the next day. I don’t think anybody in Hurl was threatened by me playing with them. They were all very supportive and enthusiastic about it. I’d be surprised if any of them missed a show that I played with them. Playing with them helped my playing in Hurl immensely. All of those guys are amazing musicians and I had to get up to their level pretty quickly. I probably improved as a musician more during those 2 years or so than any other time in my life.

Which was your favorite recording session?

Matt Jencik:
Personally, I don’t think I can pick. I love recording. All of the sessions were great. I think Not a Memory is our best album and I think the band was at the top of our game at that time. So if I have to pick, not a memory it is.

Dan Wilson:
I think, for me, it was Not a Memory mostly because it was fully ALL of our own record, and the Matt/Mat/Noah/Dan lineup was fully writing everything. The bugs of the process were worked out having recorded at Steve's (Albini's old home studio) once before, and the whole vibe of the thing was a real snapshot of the time and the 4 of us.

Timeline question: Were there multiple line ups of Hurl? Were you and Mat in all of them? Noah?

TURNIP 7” Daly, Jencik, Brunger 91-92
DESOTO SINGLE & DEMOS: Daly, Jencik, Brunger, Wilson 92-93
EVERYTHING ELSE: Daly, Jencik, Leger, Wilson 93-98

I know you toured with Shipping News but what other notable tours did you do? Did Jon Solomon book all yr outta town gigs?

Matt Jencik:
We did do some touring but that Shipping News tour was definitely the most successful tour that we went on. Most of our trips were short East Coast trips usually 10-14 days. We did do one 30 day long tour. It was a total blast. I remember being blown away during a show in San Francisco when some guys in the front row were singing along with the songs. That was probably the most fun I ever had on tour.

Dan Wilson:
I don't think we really did but short legs with other bands other than the Shipping News tour, but those short legs were pretty notable with folks like Codeine, Lois, Rodan, Shellac, Dianogah, Don Caballero, Victory at Sea, Jawbox, etc. I know I'm forgetting a few, for sure. I know my shitty work schedule always made extended tours pretty difficult, but the long weekends or shortish tours were always pretty great. Our one full national tour was a blast, but it wasn't in conjunction with any other band for the full run like the tour with the Shipping News. Jon Solomon definitely did lots of booking for us out of town, but if I'm not mistaken Matt made quite a few phone calls and worked pretty hard as well on the booking front.

The band sorta lost steam by '98. How did the band break up? Was it amicable?

Dan Wilson:
In the greater scheme of things, I don't know if I'd say CREATIVELY we were 'losing steam', because the songs we were writing were musically challenging, and the deadline we had to put on getting We are Quiet recorded seemed a little short to me, personally. I think some of those songs could've brewed a while longer to hammer out arrangements to fully get them to a more polished state, and probably write more of them. I would've loved to have kept playing to continue moving in different musical directions with people I really enjoyed playing with.

Mat Daly:
Our breakup was definitely a sad but amicable one. I thought we were still writing good songs and I think we all liked the direction the band was going. But it was also that time in our lives, we'd all (except Dan) grown up in Pittsburgh and I think it had become time to spread our wings a little. Pittsburgh, as great as it was, was starting to feel too small to us. Noah was the first to commit, but in a fairly short time we were all gone. Matt J and I relocated to Chicago in '99 where we started putting together the first incarnation of Taking Pictures, and Dan moved up to Vermont to be a farmer. We were and had been putting an incredible amount of pressure on ourselves to get to whatever the next level could be for a band like ours, and I think in the end we probably burned ourselves out. We would practice 3-4 times a week for usually 3-4 hours. Our collaborative songwriting process was extremely satisfying, but naturally way slower than we would have liked. A definite perfectionism and desire to raise the bar on where we'd been and were going without repeating ourselves pervaded, which in the end may have diminished some of the blissful fun part of what being in a rock band should be.

I've tried my best on Pukekos to cover a lot of Pennsylvania bands (T4, Punching Contest, The Karl Hendricks Trio, Slag, Gear Jammer) that have been ignored or marginalized in this highly forgetful blogosphere. If you were to tell those reading about some other bands from that time that've fallen through the cracks, who would they be?

Jumbo, Shale, Meisha (Ken from Meisha plays with Jencik in Implodes now), Blunderbuss and Davenport, Six Horse (Pat from Don Cab on bass), The 1985, The Johnsons, Cuss (Damon Che's little bro's band, Damon played drums for a bit). Honestly I think Speaking Canaries and The Karl Hendricks Trio are some of the most underrated bands ever, Pittsburgh or anywhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Hurl.

Turnip (Pop Bus)

1. Turnip
2. Clutch
3. 12 Ft. Drop

Radishes (DeSoto)

1. Positronic Ray
2. Radishes

Bessemer Process (Peas Kor)

1. Poor Seamanship
2. Amateur Pornographer
3. Faceman
4. One Man Buck

Madison Earful (My Pal God)

1. Madison Earful
2. Dual Showman

Eugene Chadbourne/John Zorn

2011-01-28T06:00:00.002-05:00

"School is a double album released on Eugene Chadbourne's Parachute Records label in 1978. Each of the two LPs was organized by Chadbourne and reedist John Zorn, respectively. This album was Zorn's first professional release. It is an intriguingly raw document of the sort of embryonic, non-idiomatic free improvised music coming out of the American scene in the Seventies.

Disc one features Chadbourne on a variety of guitars, electric and acoustic, in solo, duo, trio and quartet settings featuring accompaniment by Zorn, guitarists Henry Kaiser and Davey Williams, violinists Polly Bradfield and LaDonna Smith and soprano saxophonist Bruce Ackley (of ROVA). The tone of the music is generally very stark, organic and abstract. In this music, there is an emphasis on what can be done sonically with simple tools, i.e. the instrumentalists depend more on contrast, space and timbre than electronic manipulation or effects. Even when sparse, the music is generally manic. It is often difficult to identify who is producing which sound. At many moments, all of the instruments take blatantly percussive roles, displacing any notion of meter violently with shard-like, disjointed atonal outbursts. For the most part, the players investigate the outer limits of extended technique capable on their axes, but at times, disorientingly traditional musical phrases appear, if only for a moment. Of particular note on disc one are the bizarre composed unison figures executed during the quartet piece 'The Shreeve.'

Disc two features three versions of the John Zorn game piece 'Lacrosse.' The group features Mark Abbott on electronics, Chadbourne on various stringed instruments, LaDonna Smith on violin and viola, Davey Williams on banjo and guitar and Zorn on saxophones and clarinet. The music hinges on a continual disruption of silence and harkens back strongly to the seminal work of 20th century composers such as Mauricio Kagel (cf. 'Acustica'). The overall tone is very dry, evoking timbres of wood and blunt metal, peppered with primitive electronic touches. It is a sort of brusque, randomized chamber music, subtly violent and terse at all times.

This vinyl transcription was recorded on a Technics SL1200MK2 turntable through a NAD amplifier to a Sony D-50 digital recorder at 44.1/24 bits. The audio was cleaned up through careful use of the Waves Click and Crackle filters, and limited slightly and dithered with the Waves L-1 Ultramaximizer with IDR."

- Dr. C. Everett Poop, Portland, Maine, 1.24.11

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Eugene Chadbourne/John Zorn.

School (Parachute)

1. Solitude
2. Duet
3. The Return of Romance
4. The Shreeve
5. The Fling
6. Missing Persons
7. Welcome West
8. Lacrosse (take 3)
9. Lacrosse (take 4)
10. Lacrosse (take 6)

Universal Order of Armageddon

2011-01-14T06:00:00.189-05:00

It was in an old house outside of Annapolis that Tonie Joy decided to start a subversive organization, a religious cult without the religion. Their house would be the temple, with the shows being the services. His roommate Andrew suggested "Revolutionary Guard of Armageddon," which was eventually changed to "Universal Order of Armageddon." The Order consisted of Tonie Joy (guitar), Brooks Headley (drums), poet Colin Seven (vocals), and Colin's 16 year old cousin Anthony Malat (bass). He began their indoctrination by forcing them to watch Devo's The Men Who Make the Music.

The house became known as 169 House (or sometimes just "The Temple") and they began hosting gigs in the basement. They all worked day jobs so they could take their message to the people, touring the country in an old church van. They were once asked to take someone's confession -- dressed all in black, it was an easy mistake to make and Colin did indeed forgive her sins.

Tim Kabara was a close friend and compatriot of the band who shared these recollections:

"The first time I saw Universal Order of Armageddon was in a in Pasadena, MD basement on March 19th, 1993. After months of persistent but polite encouragement to come see his band play, bass player Anthony Malat (a grade ahead of me at school but a fellow 'weirdo table' lunch companion) convinced me to show up. I was immediately converted to their cause. If UOA played a show, I was there. Based in Baltimore, I would regularly go to DC, Annapolis, or the hinterlands of southern Maryland to see them play. I even made the three hour drive to Richmond, VA on more than one occasion for a show.

A few months later, I arrived early at 169 House so I could hop in the van and drive to DC with them. After watching Fugazi perform a mind-blowing afternoon set at the foot of the Washington Monument, we headed to St. Stephen’s Church so UOA could play on a bill with Heroin, Candy Machine, Tar, and Jawbox. Despite being good friends with Anthony at that point, I still didn’t really talk to the other members of the band, who were a quiet bunch when not on stage. At some point in the van, I tried to articulate something to Tonie about how beautiful the City EP was, how I wanted to hang one on my wall. Without missing a beat, Tonie, ever the salesman, responded 'Then you should buy two copies!' It may have been the first time we had ever spoken to each other."

Tim was also generous enough to share their demo tape, recorded at The Hat Factory with Tony French. "Painfully Obvious" and "The Entire Vast Situation Act I" later appeared on the split with Born Against, while "City," "Mud," "Close to Far Away," and "The Fence Song" appeared on the City EP. "Desperate Motion" and "Act II" (renamed "Four Measure Start") were both re-recorded for release on Longer, Stranger and can be heard here in their original form.

Thanks to Tim Kabara, Anthony Malat, Tonie Joy, Colin Seven, Brooks Headley, Jimmy Joe Roche, Chris Harring, Josh Bonati, Ari Fishman, Mike Treff, and Lauren Martin.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Universal Order of Armageddon.

Demo (Vermin Scum)

1. Painfully Obvious
2. Act II
3. Mud
4. Close to Far Away
5. The Fence Song
6. The Entire Vast Situation Act I
7. City
8. Desperate Motion

City EP (Vermin Scum)

1. City
2. Mud
3. Close to Far Away
4. Fence

Universal Order of Armageddon/Born Against (Gravity)

1. The Entire Vast Situation Act 1
2. Painfully Obvious

Symptom (Jade Tree)

1. Symptom
2. Visible Distance
3. Flux

Longer, Stranger (Gravity)

1. Longer, Stranger
2. Desperate Motion
3. Four Measure Start

The Switch is Down (Kill Rock Stars)

1. Visible Distance
2. Switch is Down
3. Stepping Softly Into
4. Clear Set
5. Benedict
6. No Longer Stranger

A History of Compassion and Justice (Lengua Armada)

1. Close to Far Away

Rock Stars Kill LP (Kill Rock Stars)

1. Painfully Obvious

The BJ Rubin Show

2010-12-28T22:00:00.003-05:00

The BJ Rubin Show
Episode #101
"Pilot"
Original Airdate - 12/28/10

Produced by BJ Rubin

Starring David Earl Buddin, BJ Rubin and Kevin Shea

Featuring Caroline Contillo, Smokestack Lightning and a Painting by Lauren Martin

Music by American Liberty League and Sexy Thoughts

Produced through the facilities of
BCAT
Brooklyn Community Access Television
Brooklyn, NY 11217

©MMX Megaton Media

A Night of Jazz & Comedy

2010-12-03T06:00:00.099-05:00

From the liner notes:

"The history of humor in human discourse is vast and storied. From court jesters and clowns to the most highly-paid modern entertainers, many cultures have held those among us who can elicit laughter in high regard. As Mr. BJ Rubin himself points out, they have always 'had the ear of the king.'

And on this recording, Mr. Rubin has our ears. Not only are his captivating powers of elocution deployed in the interests of his audience's enjoyment, but his organizational prowess is also on display. This recording was made at an event planned, organized and executed by our heroic Master of Ceremonies.

Between monologues and asides during which he holds forth on a wide variety of subjects, from the eccentricities of his storied friends and guests, to profound observations about life and love, BJ Rubin touches the depths of the human experience.The cogent and cohesive interplay between Mr. Rubin and his comic foil Weasel Walter create seamless transitions between the performances by the evening's musical guests. The music on this recording is by a wide variety of New York's most prominent creative musicians, providing yet another stunning example of BJ Rubin's ability to transform an evening of variety entertainment into high art, not to mention his impeccable tasts.

It is a testament to his gravitas and charisma, that BJ Rubin can bring together such a wide-ranging cast of characters and make a cohesive work of art. Yet more astounding is the burgeoning comedic talent of this brilliant performer and ascendent impresario."

--Leonardo Featherweight

Recorded live at Death by Audio 2/3
Produced by BJ Rubin
Engineered by Don Fierro
Mixed and mastered by Weasel Walter
Artwork by Lauren Martin
"Good Feelings" video edited by Ari Fishman

Brooklyn, NY 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, A Night of Jazz & Comedy.

A Night of Jazz & Comedy (Pukekos)

1. Introductions, etc. (BJ Rubin)
2. This Is A Candy Bar (Weasel Walter)
3. Give That Nigga A Break (Nondor Nevai)
4. Tropical Thunder (Tropical Thunder)
5. Mean Christmas (Weasel Walter & Kevin Shea)
6. The Rings of Neptune (Odysseus)
7. Gays in the Military, Retard (Tim Dahl)
8. Doctor Dave Tickles The Ivories (BJ Rubin & Weasel Walter)
9. I Didn't Know I Was Going To Be Here Today (Matt Mottel)
10. I Was Noticing Something About Comedy The Other Day (Weasel Walter)
11. If You Give Me Your Phone Number, We'll All Hang Out Later On Tonight (Sexy Thoughts)
12. New York, New York/The Girl From Ipanema/Fly Me To The Moon (Puttin' On The Ritz)

BJ Rubin and Weasel Walter present A Night of Jazz & Comedy

Featuring short sets by:

Sexy Thoughts (drums and voice)
Sarah Lipstate and Caroline Contillo (guitar and voice)
Tim Dahl (bass and voice)
Odysseus (moog rogue and bass)
Michael Gallope (farfisa and voice)
Sam Kulik (trombone and bass)
Moppa Elliott (bass and voice)
Cat Tyc (film and voice)
Matt Mottel (turkish organ and voice)
Weasel Walter and BJ Rubin (bass clarinet and voice)

with a very special appearance by Puttin' on the Ritz

Live at Death by Audio
Brooklyn, NY
February 3rd, 2010
8pm

Nondor Nevai

2010-11-19T06:00:00.011-05:00

"This cassette is an unauthorized document of one of the most unsung figures in contemporary art. Nondor Nevai has created a legacy of incredible depth and depravity over close to two decades of professional activity. Nevai has manipulated the very fabric of reality to create his work and as a result, documentation has been scarce. Much of his legend exists thus far in the domain of oral history and rumors. Equal Parts G.G. Allin, Otto Muehl, Andy Kaufman, Kim Fowley, Ted Kaczynski, Charles Ives, Gurdjieff and Dennis Hopper, Nevai has fucked with death and survived so many times we must regard him as superhuman. What you will hear on this release are the ravings of a madman, drunken with lucidity. You will hear the subconscious ripping through song and lyric with unprecedented fury. Assembled from various sources created between 1993 and 2005, The Best of Nondor Nevai allows us to assess but a small portion of the work of this master."

--Weasel Walter

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Nondor Nevai.

The Best of Nondor Nevai (Pukekos)

1. Big Black Boners from Bethlehem
2. Stumble
3. Stab You In Your Sleep
4. The Flying Luttenbachers 2 (excerpt)
5. Fire Fight (Edit)
6. some guitar playing
7. Insect Woman
8. Terry Bozzio Introduction
9. Maggot (Part 1)
10. The Young Girls
11. Speedometer (Part 1)
12. From The Deep Ness
13. I Mine The Ore
14. Lesbian Poetry (Stalemate)
15. some guitar playing
16. Speedometer (Part 2)
17. Gang Rape
18. Maggot (Part 2)
19. Speedometer (Part 3)
20. Hate Your Guts
22. Untitled

The Flying Luttenbachers

2010-11-05T06:00:00.001-04:00

"The title should be Greatest This or Greatest Shit or Greatest Hist. Or Greatest Sith or Greatest Isth or Greatest Htsi or Greatest Tish, not because THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS never had a hit -- 'Pointed Stick' would qualify having been yell-requested by many an Azita Yousseffi-contemporary in beer-soaked conditions (despite their not knowing the title it was the one they wanted) -- but because they're not nearly pedestrian enough for such a generic title, particularly for this valuable NECESSARY retrospective (PROLE, prehaps, but NE'ER pedestrian).

In fact they are eponymous un-pedestrian; these LUTTENBACHERS are FLYING (no surplus of pyrotechnics would be sufficient to distract you from this obviation), vitriol and moxie is their means of staying airborne. THEIR INSTRUMENTS (duct taped, plastic, threadbare, sharpied, weathered, found, abused even before being performance-mangled and then tour-battered and further compromised by the classist conditions of the post-Reaganomics northern Midwest in which a certain bandleader had to fairly abscond with high school woodwinds to practice to THE DAMNED with only the most peripheral of faculty permissions) ARE THE TIGHTROPE. Idiom and physical performance ability is the void of bone-crushing space betwixt their vulnerable sarcoplasma and the antipathetic floor of the audience that must be vaulted at great personal risk when performing and that would be nightly most nights when they were engaged in one of their many storied tours both domestic and abroad.

Q: Anybody up for helming a bloodthirsty quintessentially punk jazz squadron of chain-gang record store escapees to plunder the creatively bankrupt wilds of central North America on the ass end of this century past?

A: (Crickets)

Q: NO?! Well, Weasel fucking Walter is up for it, YOU ANEMIC KNOW-NOTHING PUSH-BUTTON TWAT.

A: 'Weasel who?' you don't ask because you're obviously reading this (or rather reading this surreptitiously).

Q: 'YOU MISERABLE PRO-CHOICE-INVIGORATING TOILET-FEEDER,' I don't answer. Weasel Walter, the modern composer who inspired the like-titled ZAPPA album and who was plagiarized by said composer's synclavier work having preceded it with his own electronic BOULEZ-with-strychnine-poisoning modern-ensemble-simulacrum immortalized during his thorny I-don't-need-to-spoonfeed-the-special-olympics-of-no-wave-saturday-night-live-band-member-understudies-period when he really HAD HAD enough and decided to go it alone...I mean for the sake of regional franchises (BEEF-A-ROO), WEASEL HIMSELF can barely TEACH HIMSELF this disagreeably modern shit let alone some disenfranchised HATEWAVE fan with a cocaine hangover.

The lonely observers of his artistic arc agree: WE'RE SURPRISED it took him this fucking long to do so, so when he finally did complete THIS (one of at least several) MEISTERWERK, he exported it to the future and that monobrowed Californian A-rab got the kudos (you got any gas money before he returns to the present?).

Besides, what's the fuss anyhoo. We have all agreed to agree with THE WIRE magazine -- 'talent ain't in your throat or hands (I'm plagiarizing an '80s skin mag "article" called "ROCK HARD" here) it's between your legs' or in the case of THE WHY'ER fagazine, YOUR WALLET.

Short story long, Weasel's work is just that: WORK.

This is NOT valid entertainment (unless I can have some of that LSD I left in his freezer); this music is DISTRACTING.

It is obstinately rigorous, insists on being payed attention-to, betrays the details of labor-intensive studies, knows who itself is, expects quality to be celebrated, demands to be congratulated for being demanding and assumes that it will be liked just because it often kicks ass.

According to the stringently disinterested and disinteresting trustafarian effluvium so prevalent in these ersatz times, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS are NOT worth reviewing, and when compared to the other acts which have their sartorial priorities wa-ay intact, they pale in comparison because they seem unembarrassed by their own caucasoid contours, testosteriffic formal trials and indefatigable commitment to KILLER ENERGY MUSIC that manifests both epicurean avidity to established musicological conglomerations and as-yet fuck-all-undefined futuristic ambitions.

Nah, better blow THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS off.

Just writing this paltry puff piece I had to activate a somnambulant brain center or three and this band makes me feel weak.......wait......('buh ba-ba bum-Pa!')....EVERY FUCKING TRACK ON THIS BAD BOY IS ENERGIZING MY TORPID ASS."

~Nondor Nefuckingvai

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Flying Luttenbachers.

Greatest Hits (ugEXPLODE/Pukekos)

1. Assault on Apathy
2. Pointed Stick 93-B
3. Cryptosporidium
4. Trauma 1
5. kkringg number one
6. Survivors Suite
7. The Void part four
8. Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts
9. Elfmeros
10. Medley
11. Cataclysm
12. Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth (excerpt)
13. The Holy Mountain

The Flying Luttenbachers
Greatest Hits
c + p ugEXPLODE Records 2010

1. "Assault on Apathy"
from Incarceration By Abstraction (ugEXPLODE) 2007
Weasel Walter - all instruments

2. "Pointed Stick 93-B"
from Constructive Destruction (Quinnah/ugEXPLODE) 2004
Weasel Walter - drums, Chad Organ and Ken Vandermark - tenor saxophones, Jeb Bishop - bass guitar, Dylan Posa - guitar

3. "Cryptosporidium" (Walter/Falzone/Pisarri)
from Gods of Chaos (Skin Graft/ugEXPLODE) 1997
Weasel Walter - drums, saxophone, Chuck Falzone - guitar, William Pisarri - bass guitar

4. "Trauma 1" (Walter/Colligan/Johnson)
from Trauma (ugEXPLODE) 2001
Weasel Walter - drums, Michael Colligan - tenor saxophone, Kurt Johnson - double bass

5. "kkringg number one"
from Spectral Warrior Mythos Vol. 1 (ugEXPLODE) 2005
Weasel Walter - drums, Mick Barr - guitar, Ed Rodriguez - bass guitar

6. "Survivors Suite" (Keith Jarrett)
from Live at WNUR 2-6-92 (Coat-Tail/ugEXPLODE) 1992
Weasel Walter - drums, Hal Russell and Chad Organ - tenor saxophones

7. "The Void part four"
from The Void (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited) 2004
Weasel Walter - drums, Ed Rodriguez - guitar, Mike Green - bass guitar

8. "Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts"
from Destroy All Music Revisited (Skin Graft/ugEXPLODE) 1995

9. "Elfmeros" (Alex Perkolup)
from Infection and Decline (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited) 2002
Weasel Walter - drums, Alex Perkolup - bass guitar, guitar, Jonathan Hischke - piccolo bass

10. "Medley"
from "...the truth is a fucking lie..." (ugEXPLODE/Skin Graft) 1999
Weasel Walter - drums, Chuck Falzone - guitar, William Pisarri - bass guitar

11. "Cataclysm" (Walter/Rodriguez)
from Cataclysm (ugEXPLODE) 2006
Weasel Walter - drums, guitar, electronics, Ed Rodriguez - guitar, Mick Barr - guitar, Mike Green - bass guitar

12. "Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth (excerpt)"
from Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited) 2003
Weasel Walter - all instruments

13. "The Holy Mountain"
from Revenge (Skin Graft/ugEXPLODE) 1996
Weasel Walter - drums, saxophone, clarinet, Chuck Falzone - guitar, William Pisarri - bass guitar

assembled and mastered on oct. 31, 2010 by weasel walter for pukekos.org

all titles composed by Weasel Walter, Sedition Dog Music (BMI) except where noted
http://www.ugEXPLODE.com

1. "Assault on Apathy"

The lead-off track from the final, solo Luttenbachers album, released in 2007. Most of the songs on this album were composed and intended to be performed by Mick Barr and Ed Rodriguez, but by the time the live unit (then feat. Ed, the excellent Rob Pumpelly on guitar and fill-in bassist Tony Dryer) played its final show on Nov. 1st, 2006, this vision would not come to pass. Instead, I set about recording all the songs by myself. At the time I thought I could continue the group, but Incarceration By Abstraction would turn out to be an epitaph. In my mind, the creative possibilities of the Luttenbachers project were far from finished, but the financial and psychic realities of trying to realize complex, rehearsal-intensive music in this era turned out to be an impasse I no longer wanted to fight. What I've left behind is a sonic manifesto: a true assault on apathy.

2. "Pointed Stick 93-B"

A crowd pleaser from the second full-length Luttenbachers release, recorded in late 1993. Some people have sporadically joked that this was the line-up of the group "girls liked." My writing wasn't terribly sophisticated at this early stage, but i was doing the best I could to mate punk energy, proggish riffs and free jazz skronk. The goal was to get out there in the scene and do something different. At the time this sort of punk/jazz fusion was still novel. People were psyched about it, for what it's worth. The original pressing was an LP in an edition of 500 copies. Apparently 200 of them burnt in a fire at the plant, so there are probably less than 300 total in circulation. The covers were hand-assembled by the band and the front plate of each has some unique phrase written under it by myself. I suppose you'd have to destroy your copy to find out what it says!

3. "Cryptosporidium"

The Gods of Chaos album was released in 1997 and it was the most ambitious and complicated group production in the history of the band. Although this track is rather straight-ahead in approach, the rest of the album was a true overdub and mixing nightmare of epic proportions, back when everything had to be manually patched, muted, un-muted, faded, etc. live on the fly. We spent a pretty good amount of time in a cold, empty Chicago loft studio during the dead of winter, freezing our butts off, trying to get this concept album about the destruction of humanity finished. I was also mixing the Lake Of Dracula debut in the same studio at the time . . . At it's core, "Cryptosporidium" simply mated Captain Beefheart with De Mysteriis-era Mayhem (when Gorguts' legendary Obscura album came out a year later and took this kind of ridiculous approach to an amazing new plateau, we definitely felt like we were onto something).

4. "Trauma 1"

After the Revenge trio broke up following a European tour in early 1998, I spent a good amount of time experimenting with different combinations of a small pool of players before deciding to concentrate on a heavily free-jazz informed approach. The stripped down trio of myself on drums (sans snare!), Michael Colligan (a previous member of seminal Chicago group Math feat. Mr. Quintron) on reeds and Kurt Johnson (who also played electric bass in the band Lozenge) on double bass worked very hard on developing a cohesive group sound, utilizing sudden visual cues and intensely discussing aesthetic do's-and-don'ts. Trauma was our sole studio effort, a massive outpouring of searing intensity, released originally as a double lp in 2001. Todd Rittmann (U.S. Maple) and Rob Wilkus graciously helped us capture what we were trying to achieve with the utmost clarity, engineering the session in the front room of Michael's former venue/home 6 ODUM.

5. "kkringg number one"

2005 was a difficult year for the group, mostly due to constant line-up fluctuations and having to relearn or rearrange all this complicated material numerous times with different people as a result. In late 2004, Mick Barr had joined the band on second guitar, so we spent much of that winter learning new material. The powerful new quartet debuted in February 2005, playing a few West Coast shows before the three of us (without Mick) embarked on a previously booked European tour in March 2005. When we returned we prepared for the Cataclysm album recording in July 2005. In the meantime, Mike Green basically decided that he didn't have time to rehearse and play in the live band for a while, which left us to re-configure as another kind of trio (me, Mick and Ed Rodriguez). Between June and December of that year we played only a few West Coast gigs in this formation before Mick left San Francisco to return back to the East Coast. Whew. You following this? Before he left, we jammed out the Spectral Warrior Mythos EP in the practice space for fun and released it as a CD-R on the ugEXPLODE website. This track is a version of the song from the solo Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder album with actual humans playing together.

6. "Survivors Suite"

This was the first public appearance of the Flying Luttenbachers. The group started officially in late 1991, and we got this radio show gig in Feb. 1992. At the beginning we were an acoustic free jazz trio featuring two horn players and myself on drums. The music was very wild and humorous. We played a bunch of Albert Ayler covers as well as some simplistic original material. This stuff is definitely very raw on every level, but there's a carefree sense of fun which makes it enjoyable to listen to (in light of the preposterous levels of bleak obtuseness the band continually rose to afterwards). This music was first released on cassette in 1992, before being reissued on CD in 1996. The master was taped on a boombox directly from the original FM broadcast! Those were different times. I was 19 years old and totally full of shit.

7. "The Void part four"

A powerful Black Metal-tinged track from our 2004 album/suite The Void. The main riff was originally conceived for a fucked-up glam-rock unit I played in during the mid-90s (the group was Vanilla, with myself under the nom de plume "Johnny Holocaust") and it was inspired by certain inappropriately creepy guitar breaks in Olivia Newton-John and Linda Ronstadt songs from the '70s. The entire album The Void was based on a very small amount of motivic material, reiterated and transformed throughout the whole thing. Most people didn't even notice. Too bad for them. At the time I was very influenced by Bartok, Stravinsky and Messiaen, and how they manipulated their ideas with very deliberate intelligence and resourcefulness. Sure, you can just write a shitload of material, but can you take just a few chords and make it into a whole album? Well, we did and it worked rather well.

8. "Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts"

The opening ripper from the third Luttenbachers full-length released in 1995. The opening and closing theme is an allusion to "Shout at The Devil" by Mötley Crüe (at the time I was simultaneously playing Nikki Sixx in a Crüe tribute called "2 Fast 4 Love") and the middle section is a vamp in 5/4 that has haunted me (and popped up regularly in my music) since 1988. Destroy All Music was originally released on LP in 1995 by Elevated Chimp Records, before being reissued in 1998 on CD by Skin Graft. A totally remastered version with bonus tracks and improved artwork (Destroy All Music Revisited) dropped a few years ago, and I consider that version the definitive one of the lot.

9. "Elfmeros"

An excellent composition by our then fretless "earth" bassist Alex Perkolup, "Elfmeros" is one of the gnarliest, most relentless compositions the live band ever pulled off, heavily influenced by Magma and the Zeuhl aesthetic, but charged with ass-kicking Death/Grind heaviness and dissonance. Later this winter, there will be a remastered version of this album (Infection and Decline) featuring some great, previously unheard live tracks and a desperately needed remastering (compare this version with the ultra-tinny original and you'll know what I'm talking about). Alex went on to play with Bobby Conn, Lovely Little Girls and Cheer-Accident and the "air bassist" (he played a bass with guitar strings on it) Jonathan Hischke went on to play with Broken Bells, the full-group version of Hella, Marnie Stern, Bobby Conn and a million others.

10. "Medley"

During the January 1998 European tour we were regularly performing this bombastic medley of early Luttenbachers compositions. This version was recorded live in Hamburg and was released on "...the truth was a fucking lie..." LP in 1999.

11. "Cataclysm"

A gnarly piece of music I wrote using several unique, thorny riffs supplied to me by guitarist Ed Rodriguez as the basic material. I first saw Ed shredding the fuck out of his guitar during the mid-90s with Colossamite and Gorge Trio, before asking him to join the band at a 2002 show in Minneapolis. He moved out to the Bay Area soon after I did in early 2003 and we started a new Luttenbachers line-up that fall. Originally this formation (with Burmese bassist Mike Green) covered the entire 1996 Revenge album in order! It was just for something to do, just to get it up and running, before we figured out what direction the new material was heading in. Well, over the next three years, the material got more and more complex... This song was definitely on the higher level of what the live band was doing towards the end. I'm proud of it. Ed and I also played in XBXRX together for several years before he finally wound up playing in Deerhoof.

12. "Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth (excerpt)"

About half of this monstrous long-form composition from the 2003 Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder solo album. The Infection band with Alex and Jonathan wound down in fall 2002 and I wound up touring for the rest of the year by myself in a rental car with a few amps, a bass, saxophone, sampler, smoke machine and strobe lights. I definitely felt like there were some loose ends that I needed to tie up compositionally, so I also began the intense process of finishing this totally insane one-man Luttenbachers album alone in my bedroom. "Behemoth" is basically three years of work coming to a head. I can't even begin to estimate how many hours that piece took to compose. People often ask me if it will be played live and I usually say: "Sure, as soon as someone will pay me to put a band together to learn it!" With the advent of gravity blast drum techniques, etc. this music is totally doable, but would be definitely extremely difficult.

13. "The Holy Mountain"

A piece written in late 1995 after Bill Pisarri blew my mind by showing me Alejandro Jodorowsky's classic flick. The funereal end track to the otherwise skronk-obsessed Revenge album from 1996, this composition has a place in my black heart - it is simplistic but sophisticated, unique but primordial in nature. Jim O'Rourke always liked this one too, and he has pretty good taste, so I definitely take that as a big compliment. We were really crazy at that point, so everything on the album was mixed in this totally bizarre, unnatural way. Those were different times.

------------------------------

ww - 10.31.10

The Rapture

2010-10-22T06:00:00.114-04:00

The Rapture moved to New York City during the summer of 1999, in search of fame and fortune.

This gig took place at Sound & Fury on 2/12/00. The lineup was:

Luke Jenner - Guitar/Vocals
Mattie Safer - Bass/Vocals
Vito Roccoforte - Drums
Jacob Long - Keyboard/Percussion

Sound & Fury was a Lower East Side record store, located at 192 Orchard Street. Peter Jacobson opened its doors during the spring of 1999, closing them again a few years later after they were priced out of the neighborhood. In the early part of the 21st century if you listened to underground music and lived in New York City, chances are you shopped at Sound & Fury.

I am there in the crowd somewhere, if you look closely enough. I also moved to New York City during the summer of 1999.

The Rapture chose to release the material from this era as two EPs rather a single album. One was Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks, the other a largely forgotten tour CD.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Rapture.

Insound Tour Support 19 (Pukekos)

1. Heaven
2. Echoes
3. Time
4. House of Jealous Lovers
5. The Return of Truth and Beauty in American Popular Music
6. Mirror II

(All photos by Jeff Winterberg, all videos by Kel O'Neill)

"New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling."
--Patti Smith

Runners

2010-10-08T06:00:00.008-04:00

Sprinters burn out in a flash -- flying out of the blocks at full speed when the starter's gun is fired, but the race is over as soon as it is begun. Runners keep a slower pace, better suited for long distances.

The weather in Leeds is perfect for running outside or getting tense and agitated indoors, cold and grey with no sun for weeks on end. Then there is the rain¹.

Select Gear list:
1970's Ludwig Silver Sparkle drums
Davolisint
Jen SX-1000
Roland EG-101
Roland SH-9
Yamaha CS-5
Korg M-500
Casio CT-607
XoXBoX
Electribe ER-1
Roland 626 drum machine (with external modification unit by Wrongbot)
Novation K-Station
Boss PS-3, PS-5, RV-3, RV-5, BF-2B, PH-3, DD-3, VB-2, CS-3, GE-7

Runners is Dom, Leon, Nash, and Toby

Recorded by Ross Halden at Ghost Town Studios
Mastered by Michael Ward

Leeds, UK 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Runners.

Starting Line b/w Stay Frosty (Pukekos)

1. Starting Line
2. Stay Frosty

1. Rain is a source of vitamin B₁₂, but not a significant one.

Cellular Chaos

2010-09-24T06:00:00.015-04:00

There are more ways than ever to hear a band, making listeners more inclined to pick the easiest one. In the past you had to either listen to an actual record or see them perform live. The easier it becomes to hear music, the harder it will become to hear challenging music.

Cellular Chaos is nothing if not challenging. They are a motley crue, indeed.

Your parents aren't going to like them. You might not even like them. They are the new rock and roll, punks in a world gone disco. Their aim is to destroy music, but only so it can be born again.

As they have not publicly released any recordings (and do not plan on releasing scores of their music), the only way you can hear them is at a live performance. If you only go to one show this year, make the next one Cellular Chaos. They are one of the best bands in Brooklyn right now and like it or not, they will entertain you.

Weasel Walter - Guitar
Ceci Moss - Bass
Marc Edwards - Drums

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Cellular Chaos.

Kleenex

2010-09-17T06:00:00.089-04:00

Bless you:

"I've always wanted to write an article on Kleenex (or was it LiLiPUT?, who cares...) and now, after twelve years, I am. To be fair, I had written a review for Ghetto Blaster Magazine in 2001 when Kill Rock Stars re-issued the initial Swiss Kleenex/LiLiPUT CD collection (Off Course Records, 1993) where I quipped that 'The Jatz' would make a great band name (I still believe that). It's just on ten years now and the world has changed. Please note that I don't care about the myriad political changes, or a naturally ever shifting culture, or that we still can't decide between the frosting side or the kid in us. I care that my world has changed, the people with whom I interact have changed, my geography has changed, my perspective on life has changed and I'm not afraid of sex anymore.

During the 80s & 90s suburban Long Island was fantastically boring and like many weird kids enduring school and the social anxiety of soccer, baseball & touch football I found solace in BMX, skateboarding & music. I would shop at the typical parade of music retail outlets available to a pre-teen heavy metal fan (Crazy Eddie, Square Circle, Titus Oaks) and stare unblinkingly at the severe animation and bloodthirsty graphics (Slayer's Hell Awaits, Kreator's Flag Of Hate, Grim Reaper's See You In Hell, Ugly Americans' Who's Been Sleeping My Bed and Hirax's Hate, Fear And Power among countless others) wondering how I was going to smuggle such cassettes/LPs past my parents.

I listened alone, as most kids do, lapping up all the imagery, dreaming of God knows what (a new GT Freestyle bike, a Vision Mark Gonzalez complete set-up, all the weird Iron Maiden cassette singles I saw at Tri-County Flea Market, blacklight posters?) and decided I wanted a guitar. I got one. I took one lesson, farted around with it for a year (if that), got bored and focused on daydreaming. I've since sold my Hondo imitation Strat and my 50 watt Gorilla practice amp, acquired my Kreator LPs and Maiden cassettes and eventually smuggled Master Of Puppets past my mother (until she found it, read the lyrics to “Damage Inc.” and, contrary to my hysteria, didn't give a fuck). I was a lonely kid.

Sure I had a gang of tweens to ride bikes with through the Snake Trails near the sump, hiding Pilot Markers in our back pockets, “2 Minutes To Midnight” and “Aces High” dive-bombing in my head, but it didn't matter, they listened to Rap and I listened to Metal... alas, the twain shall never meet.

The perception of my peer group had focused my sights on the older kids, the derries or derelicts AKA dirtbags, who wore Anthrax t-shirts and listened to Thrash Metal. The denim jackets and white high-tops appealed to me, the cars brimming with cute 16 year old women and Judas Priest blasting through the windows, the spiked belts and bracelets, the flannel shirts, the likely suspicion that every one of them was getting laid, the entire aesthetic burned... In anticipation I read Heavy Metal Rendezvous and Blast! Magazine in hopes of unearthing the most intense groups anyone I knew had ever heard (I read an article on Die Kreuzen but didn't understand it) all the while desperately hoping someone would make me a cassette copy of a Mentors record; they didn't.

1986-89: Junior High School, Hair Metal, Headbangers Ball and Megadeth. Then one day: the Sex Pistols File (Omnibus Press, 1978) -- I was hooked: the clothing, the hair, the attitude, the sense of fun and then my physical world changed...

My parents moved my sister and I from the North side of Plainview to the South, I read something called “Government Issue” written in paint marker on some skaters grip tape at my new school and I met my first Goth chick.

By 1990 Punk Rock and Hardcore became de rigueur and skateboarding took over in earnest. Suddenly I was part of the aesthetic, a thread in an alternate tapestry draping the normal world; I was developing an identity. One kid had colored his sneakers red and blue with a Sharpie, another drew band logos all over his jean jacket, I had my Corrosion Of Conformity nuclear skull t-shirt before I heard a single note. It didn't matter, the impression sufficed. Granted, upon hearing Animosity and Technocracy I did love them (especially Animosity), though it was the details and the emotional sensations surrounding the music experience that were equally captivating; the graphics on the sleeves, the fonts and the typeface, the faint perfumed scent of the cassette itself, the obliquely informative fine print explaining how 'Dolby Sound' worked and the highly entertaining yet masturbatory 'thank you' lists (allowing a glimpse at even more unknown bands and even larger world), all of these comprised the mystery, the allure.

Socially speaking High School was a breeze: I had friends (both skaters and music types), girlfriends. I bleached my hair, dyed it purple, blue, green, black, and in an dubiously lucid moment decided my Senior Quote was to be something my then girlfriend wrote to me in a love letter: 'Don't try to impress anyone, maybe not even yourself.' It was a punk rock gesture and the quote sounds terribly adolescent, though in her own muddled way she meant 'don't be too hard on yourself' (which I stand behind-though conversely it could also mean 'don't bother, you suck,' but that's water under the bridge now, right?)

Anyway, music was vital and as I got older and the mid-90s kicked in I began discovering and buying more esoteric records, the lion's share of which were on independent labels such as Sub Pop, Scat, Merge, K, Touch & Go, Homestead, SST, Alias, Drag City, Teenbeat, Amphetamine Reptile, Kill Rock Stars, Estrus, Alternative Tentacles, Lookout!, 4AD, and a raft of others; each label had its own unique logo, graphic sensibility, sound and humor. There was an entirely new world to wrap my head around, an entirely new language to learn, another new perspective. Fanzines were new to me, and I read them hungrily; CMJ was exciting and their groundbreaking and homogenizing 'R.I.Y.L.' after each record review was all the more addicting.

Records came and went, often based on the persuasive, almost edible designs of Jeff Kleinsmith (Sub Pop), Art Chantry (Estrus), Bruce Licher (Independent Projects Press), Daniel Clowes and Vaughan Oliver's 23 Envelope (4AD). Along the line I was tipped to the 70s New Wave and Post Punk acts, though it was still a few years before the distinction was clear: past was past and whether it was The Ruts or The Wipers or Wire or Nick Drake or The Zombies or The Embarrassment or Cat Butt or Blood Circus didn't mater, its history and influence personified credibility.

Soon Pavement gave way to Brit Pop and Brit Pop to Post Punk which quickly exploded into anything I could find on Cherry Red, Creation, Rough Trade, Les Disques Du Crepuscule, Factory, 99, Faulty Products, Flying Nun, Postcard, virtually anything imported on any label from 1977 to 1986, albeit enhanced with the prerequisite graphic touchstones: diagonal colored lines (check out Scott Wilk & The Walls' LP), razor thin pin striped borders framing a plainly dramatic landscape photograph (dig the Second Layer 12” collection of their two singles), anything minimally black & white (all of the Tools You Can Trust 45s), or, contrastingly, a vibrantly colored collage laden with pseudo-political subtext and imagery (McCarthy's I Am A Wallet or The Wolfhounds Bright And Guilty LPs) or the cleverly seductive portrait of someone almost dressed (the first Swamp Children 12” EP for example). Design became tantamount to the music, like gift wrapping so beautiful that it usurps the gift itself.

Graphic artists became personalities in their own right, especially the subtle rhythms of Jean-Francoise Octave, Benoit Hennebert, Joel Van Audenhaege, Claude Stassaert, Linder Sterling and Peter Christopherson; ideas became addicting thrills (such as The Return Of... The Durutti Column LP with its coarse sand paper sleeve set to intentionally destroy bookended vinyl jackets so as to come out victorious, or A Sudden Sway's maddeningly ingenious Sing Song 12" which was, unbeknownst to the record buying public, eight different songs ALL entitled 'Sing Song' and packaged in the SAME sleeve). While much of the inspiration for such hijinks stemmed from Dadaist, Futurist, Constructivist and Situationist text, sculpture, graphic art and concepts, it was re-contextualizing such fashionable subversion within the modernity of punk that sparked the inception of genius; the old & the new; milk & cookies; black leather & blue jeans; The Cabaret Voltaire & Cabaret Voltaire.

For art students (hopefully), artists (likely) and scholars (certainly) such information is but general knowledge, and, as a certain percent of musicians attend one 'art' school or other, it makes sense that many punk, post punk and new wave sleeves resulted from so informed a vantage point. This is not to insinuate every combo brandishing a peculiar sleeve was privy to such aesthetics (least we forget members of Joy Division were both persuaded and enlightened by Anthony H. Wilson and Alan Erasmus, as many rogue lads tend to be). Too, the late 70s was a golden age of Do It Yourself, and as cheap was a common (and hip) watchword minimalism caught on like wildfire. With punk having unleashed latent creative energies from both the fringe and proletariat element thousands of individuals quickly armed themselves with a contagious zeal and the most rudimentary musicianship. Such enthusiasm resulted in abundant curious records each one rendered as 'skillfully' as the next. Sleeves ran the gamut: some wore basic band mug shots aping the traditional rock & roll cliché (The Banned's Little Girl) while others preferred anonymity (The Frantic Elevators' You Know What You Told Me, whereby a thin black border serves as a picture frame for nothing, no information just a plain white sleeve).

1978 saw the formation of the Swiss group Kleenex, initially a five piece they quickly downsized to the classic all female line up: vocalist Regula Sing, bassist Klaudia Schiff, drummer Lislot Ha and guitarist Marlene Marder. Equally influenced/inspired by the nascent punk movement and Situationist/art school happenstance the quartet moved fast, recording their debut record in but a few months. The four song 7" EP was released on the local Sunrise label home to such eccentric acts as Vogel, Anton Bruhin with Stephen Wittwe and Walter Kaslin with Urs Zumbuhl, was met with instantaneous acclaim and contained the tracks 'Beri-Beri,' 'Ain't You,' 'Heidi's Head' and 'Nice.'

Keeping in step with the times, the sleeve design was minimal yet involving: a relatively hefty 14" x 14" card stock folded twice over baring black and white photographs of all four members in playfully defiant poses surrounded by a smattering of comical gold records, an angular Kleenex interspersed throughout and the 'Sunrise' logo in a far corner. Details scattered diagonally on the inverse fold reveal the pics were shot by P. Mattioli, the material recorded by Etienne Conod and Ronny Kurz at Sunrise Studio, the item was distributed via BAHP Record Distribution in Zurich, the cover was created by Peter Fischli, 'All Songs by Kleenex' and Siebdruck ('screen printing') by Walo.

Song titles are indiscriminately strewn about while an angular Kleenex yet again floats overhead (with an additional reminder Die Kleenex resting on the larger letter 'E'). As for the label on the vinyl: again a basic black and white schematic (all typeface in black, the label all white), the deceptively simple 'Sunrise' logo: the font, a composite stipple effect, is arched so as to resemble rays of light illuminating the Earth as the sun rises (insinuating a new dawn, a new horizon, a new era? perhaps...); the encouraging punk rock slogan 'play loud' just left of the large 45RPM hole on the A-Side while the B-Side encourages one to 'laut spielen;' and, just further left, a curiously cryptic +ML+ encased in a small rectangle, similar to the shape of a battery. No 'thank you's,' no color, no fat. Musically however, there was 'color,' and while they offered no 'thank you's' they made no apologies either.

Short bursts of Ramones riffs pulled and tugged while off-kilter harmonies forced and lurched, notes presented in rich vibrant saw-blades underpinned by a primally explicit beat. Innocent, revelatory and mischievous, a charming ineptitude so rhythmic it incited everyone to dance.

Such a stir this combo created that even London's fashionable Rough Trade caught the twitch and coaxed the group to sign on the perforated line... they did, and soon their second debut came to light.

RT009 was a more streamlined affair than it's Swiss precedent with two of the four tracks omitted for quicker impact (farewell 'Beri-Beri' and 'Nice') as well balanced with a slightly larger master. Additionally the vinyl label itself was brightened up with a pale green tone, a thin red circular border (this time Kleenex in red), the 'Sunrise' logo placed at the bottom, underneath the iconic 'Rough Trade' logo at the top; their ascension had begun.

Too, the paper sleeve itself bore subtle differences: tactically the card stock was thinner, feeling less like card stock and more like paper, and while the black and white photographs of the band members remained their stances were different: Regula Sing's off-putting rigidity was replaced with an amiable smile; Klaudia Schiff's defiant antagonism was enhanced by swapping her casual sweater for the more aggressive jacket; Lislot Ha followed suit by relaxing her bemused smirk into a skeptical leer; and with a sly hand tucked into the front of her jeans Marlene Marder's outgoing awkwardness downshifted to an amateur seduction.

Although 'Sunrise Studio' was still employed the group were no longer 'recorded,' they were now 'produced,' ...by E. Conod no less, not, as previously stated, by 'Etienne Conod and Ronny Kurz.' Personnel adjustments extended further still with 'Pics by P. Mattioli' shortened to 'Pics by Mattioli' and, as Rough Trade had their own Siebdruck, Walo was nowhere to be found.

Not only were there a great many aesthetic changes afoot there were larger, more legal forces at work: The popular American pharmaceutical company Kimberly-Clark sued the band for unlawful use of the name 'Kleenex' thus prompting the new appellation 'LiLiPUT,' referencing the little people, or Lilliputians, from Gulliver's Travels.

However, LiLiPUT's story is an altogether different set of affairs, and seeing as I've both hit the mark and deviated from my story, it's high time to reign things in. The truth of the matter is that none of this insight is anything other than haughty pontification under the guise of intellectual rock-writ hokum -- 'look how well I can articulate what I see!,' though had it not been for the years of social solitude and the few rewarding plug-ins with aesthetically like-minded souls (Cheers! to Lorelle Graffeo and Armando Zufante) my sense of refinement would be lesser, more muddled.

So what now? Perhaps this post may influence someone to look deeper into what's in front of them, to reevaluate the subtler aspects, not only the culture of records but the world at large; because as is evident from the innumerable meticulous designs of duplicitous 45RPM singles such are the innumerable meticulous designs of life; living is easy, all you have to do is notice..."

-- Joshua Gabriel

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Kleenex.

Kleenex EP (Sunrise)

1. Beri-Beri
2. Ain't You
3. Heidi's Head
4. Nice

Ain't You b/w Heidi's Head (Rough Trade)

1. Ain't You
2. Heidi's Head

Narchitect

2010-09-10T06:00:00.001-04:00

Narchitect (like many of my favorite bands) broke up before anyone heard of them. I saw them play a few times in Brooklyn basements, but as the shows were never well attended I know that not very many other people did. They existed in various forms from 2000-2005, but now all we have left of them are these recordings.

The band recorded 22 songs over several different sessions, a few of which surfaced on their sole release -- a tour only CDr that even I missed. The core trio was:

Joel Saladino - Guitar/Vocals
Shahla Atlas - Keyboard
Josh Atlas - Drums

The band broke up for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Joel was touring in Parts & Labor and/or Knife Skills. Shahla and Josh took advantage of the downtime to get married and have a baby together.

"The first decade of the twentieth century may well be remembered for what it lacked. After the ascendancy of hip hop in the 1990's and the stagnation of rock in the post-grunge milieu, the world of popular music found itself shackled to the sinking corpse of the recording industry. Rather than face the dearth of shoddily manufactured pop stars, enterprising and motivated listeners once again turned their wistful ears to the underground.

Here were glimmers of hope: the possible discovery of a new Dylan, challenges to authority, a step beyond the songwriting of the Beatles, a new messiah. But how many of these glimmers proved to be ephemeral, only offered to audiences as a glimpse, and suggestion of possibilities, a nod confirming what we all must know? That truly original and brilliant music is being made all around us, even if we are oblivious to its presence.

Narchitect grew, blossomed, and withered before the vast multitudes could seek the comfort in the shade of their genius. We can now only look back on the great potential and scant recordings of this ensemble and wonder how we could have been so oblivious. Here it is, everything we were and are seeking, fortunately preserved in their recordings. The music of Narchitect confirms that greatness is possible in the darkest of times."

--Leonardo Featherweight

Special thanks to Josh Bonati for mastering these recordings at his beautiful studio, Bonati Mastering. Jason Radich, Aron Sanchez, and Seth Misterka also made contributions at some point along the way.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Narchitect.

We Are Psychic Friends (Pukekos)

1. Glory Daze

2. Fake Hotel

3. Brazil

4. Instrumental

5. Keep Your Job

Problems Flavored Ice Cream (Pukekos)

1. Fields

2. Gasoline

3. Eliza Jane

4. Go Globalize

5. Crushing the World

6. Garbage Heap

7. Five Song

Narchitect EP (Pukekos)

1. Music School

2. Music is Cool

3. One Hand

4. Can of Soup

5. Horizons

6. Light Bubble

Entitled Waves (Pukekos)

1. Tidal Wave

2. Tips

3. Small Town

4. Zero

Puttin' On The Ritz

2010-06-01T06:00:00.014-04:00

Just like Sister Ray said:

"Puttin' on the Ritz, initially a duo consisting of vocalist BJ Rubin and drummer Kevin Shea, return with a new ensemble, new concept and a new album: White Light/White Heat. This new recording is a re-creation of The Velvet Underground's brilliant second album, done as only Puttin' on the Ritz could. The duo has been expanded to a sextet and includes many of New York's most innovative and creative instrumentalists.

BJ Rubin's relationship to the music of The Velvet Underground is deeply personal. Upon moving to New York City from Oakland, CA in 1999, Rubin found himself living in Harlem and commuting daily with only his walkman to keep him company. For several months he listened to a single cassette over and over again -- on one side was The Velvet Underground and Nico, and on the other, White Light/White Heat. He got to know New York City through The Velvet Underground, and Rubin's passion for and obsession with White Light/White Heat motivated him to recreate the album in its entirety.

The rendering of White Light/White Heat that resulted is part homage, part personal exploration, part deconstruction, and part reinterpretation. Perhaps this is what the original album would have sounded like had Lou Reed and company been members of the Sun Ra Arkestra. In keeping with the spirit of the original, the group spent only two days on the recording, preserving the spontaneity of the Velvet Underground.

The jazz ensemble backing Rubin (Puttin' On The Ritz members Kevin Shea and Moppa Elliott joined by Jon Irabagon, Nate Wooley, and Sam Kulik) delivers a mesmerizing performance. Irabagon's tenor saxophone often spars with Rubin's vocals mimicking the interaction of horn players and vocalists during the swing era. Wooley's use of extended techniques references the distortion and noise so prevalent on the original recording while Kulik's trombone work incorporates many of the microtones, smears and histrionics of punk rock. Matt Motel (of Talibam!) joins the band for the album's final piece, 'Sister Ray', bringing with him a twisted interpretation of jazz organ, similar to that of John Cale.

BJ Rubin is a man of many talents. He worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an associate producer, authors the authoritative indie-rock blog Pukekos, and operates Dick Move Records. He also performs as a comedian and with the jazz-fusion ensemble Odysseus.

Kevin Shea performs 300 shows per year with ensembles such as Talibam!, Mostly Other People Do the Killing, People (with Mary Halvorson), Peter Evans, Karole Armitage, and many, many others.

Moppa Elliott is the leader of Mostly Other People Do the Killing and performs with alice., Jon Lundbom and Big V Chord, and many others. He operates Hot Cup Records which releases jazz and experimental recordings.

Alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon is a native of Chicago, IL and winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. His debut album on Concord Records, The Observer was released in the fall of 2009 and he performs regularly with Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Mike Pride, and Mary Halvorson.

Sam Kulik is a trombonist and bassist living in New York City. He performs regularly with Capillary Action, Talibam!, Nervous Cabaret, and his rock band, Starring.

Nate Wooley is one of the most innovative trumpet players of his generation. He has toured and recorded with Paul Lytton, Anthony Braxton and countless other improvising musicians."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Puttin' On The Ritz.

White Light/White Heat (Hot Cup)

1. White Light/White Heat
2. The Gift
3. Lady Godiva's Operation
4. Here She Comes Now
5. I Heard Her Call My Name
6. Sister Ray

Ballad of the Pukeko

2010-05-17T06:00:00.017-04:00

The Pukekos Manifesto:

(sung)

1. Be careful who you do favors for, because they will do favors for you and you might not like them.
2. Karma is real, but only if you are debt free.
3. One is good, two is better, three is golden but five is best.
4. Nothing is perfect, so intend the mistakes.
5. All systems tend towards equilibrium, meaning zero is the magic number.
6. Yes.

The Karl Hendricks Trio

2010-05-03T06:00:00.007-04:00

From the desk of Henry H. Owings:

"I can safely say I've known Karl Hendricks and his music for 20 years. I was going to the University of Pittsburgh in the intensive 11-month MBA program in 1990 and was immersed in my studies. And when I wasn't studying, I was drinking. And when I wasn't drinking, I was seeing shows. And when I wasn't seeing shows, I was buying records with my student loan checks.

I first saw Karl's band Sludgehammer at the Decade Club (RIP) open for King Missile or the Blake Babies in the fall of 1990. I didn't know anything about them other than in their own write up in the local weekly they mentioned Bitch Magnet and Dinosaur so I decided to give them a shot. Now, admittedly, Sludgehammer was a band when they were all in their teens or early 20's, but I still love the hell out of their singles. The drummer was a teenage Ian Williams who has gone on to acclaim as the gum-cracking noodle-meister in Don Caballero, Storm And Stress and Battles. However, at the time, Ian was a janitor at UPitt and a friend that lived only a few houses down from me down in the South Oakland neighborhood near my school.

One night I went to a basement to see Nation of Ulysses perform in Squirrel Hill and ran into Ian. I had twisted both of my ankles while running earlier that week and was on crutches and was able to get Ian to have his bandmate Karl Hendricks give me a ride home after a requisite stop at the local diner for coffee and french fries. Karl was a very soft-spoken guy who I later would run into at Jim's Records over the bridge in Bloomfield and would thrust any one of a number of records into my hand ranging from Vertigo to (the newly released) Slint.

When I moved to Athens, I kept in touch with Karl and when he sent me the Karl Hendricks Trio's first LP Buick Elektra I was hooked. Immediately. He put out that first record on his own Peas Kor label, but it wasn't long before everybody wanted to put out his records. Local labels Mind Cure and Big Ten Rex put out singles and a 10" and Fiasco would release two LPs before Merge would be their permanent home. Er, that is until recently.

Living in Georgia has always made seeing bands difficult, and the Karl Hendricks Trio were no exception. They were to be opening for Smog in 1993 at the Somber Reptile in Atlanta on a Tuesday night and, as was often the case, I drove down solo to see the gig. After offering to have the band stay at my place back in Athens (an hour away), there was an announcement over the PA asking for me to come to the phone. My then-girlfriend was on the line telling me her grandfather had died and that I needed to come back home. So with the band totally understanding my predicament, I saw their gig and immediately left for home. So that was the only time I ever saw Karl and his Trio perform. And so it goes....

In the seventeen years since, Karl has released an armful of LPs and singles for Merge and toured modestly. He still works behind the counter at a record store in Pittsburgh and is busy with his wife and kids when not playing his own music."

H20: So without making you type paragraph upon paragraph, can you tell me how your Trio started?

KH: At the time (1990-1991), I considered Sludgehammer the 'main' band I was in. But I had also been writing songs before Sludgehammer, ones that you could probably describe as a bit more sincere, perhaps. I recorded these songs on a four track and put out three cassettes between 1989-1991. Tim Parker and Tom Hoffman were good friends of mine -- and big fans of the cassettes. To make a long story short, they encouraged me to start a band with them with the purpose of playing these 'other' songs. And that soon became much more serious for me than Sludgehammer had been. The first Karl Hendricks Trio show was Dec. 31, 1991 -- the New Year's Eve crowd was pretty excited, which was a good start for the band. We recorded Buick Electra a couple of weeks after that.

H20: It seems like the records you were doing in the early 90's were similar to records being put out in remote pockets in the US (Seam in Chicago and Silkworm in Seattle immediately come to mind). Why do you think that is?

KH: Well, I was a big fan of both of those bands, though I didn't hear Silkworm until a couple of years later (1994-1995ish). I am certainly a fan of a vast variety of music, but I can't deny that the indie rock from that period (slightly post-SST/Homestead and slightly pre-Nirvana fallout) hit me at the exact moment that I was kind of figuring out who I was (as a person and a musician).

H20: Peas Kor. That was your label, but why did you go from putting out the first single to letting Mind Cure (and later Fiasco, then Merge) put your records out?

KH: Though I enjoyed being able to release my own cassettes and then the first 7" and LP, I did it more out of necessity than wanting to be in control of the process. When other people approached me about putting out records, I quickly jumped at the opportunity (maybe sometimes too quickly). In retrospect, I wish I had approached Merge even earlier -- and I'm pretty sad that they no longer want to put out the Karl Hendricks Trio records. But I'll keep trying to make records, even if (reluctantly) I have to put them out myself.

H20: How much have you toured? Any notable tourmates?

KH: We toured with some regularity between 1993-1996. But even then it was light by some bands' standards, maybe 25-35 shows a year. Since then, it's been more sporadic -- kids and jobs make it harder, but the band has changed line-ups every few years, too. We did a fair amount of shows in 2003 after The Jerks Win Again (the last Merge album) came out. And last year, we played about six out of town shows, which compared to how little we've been touring seemed like a lot. Probably my favorite bands to tour with (in terms of both music and friendship) have been Small 23, Kind of Like Spitting and the Kyle Sowashes (and those three bands cover a wide range of years). Otherwise, the one tour with Superchunk was great, as was an early tour with Smog.

H20: Were there any critical moments living in Pittsburgh that directed your song writing?

KH: I grew up near McKeesport, a dying mill town about half an hour away from Pittsburgh. I have to think something about that has shaped my personality and my songwriting. Otherwise, I think my songwriting in recent years is probably a reflection of trying to both simultaneously pay attention to and ignore the world -- and that's a tension I would probably feel anywhere.

H20: Were you dumped by girls a lot or were girls just a good lyrical mine to go digging?

KH: As a teenager, it felt like 'a lot'. But reflecting on it about twenty-some years later, I think I had a tendency to exaggerate my emotions. And early on, that did turn out to be a good lyrical mine -- because nearly every young person sees him or herself as the center of their universe and so lots of listeners could relate to those songs. But I'm glad that I've found other themes for songs since then (at least I think I have, though I can imagine someone making the case that I haven't really).

H20: In some reviews, The Karl Hendricks Trio were called 'mopecore' or 'sadcore'. Do you think that's a reasonable assessment?

KH: I suppose. The above answers might also shed some light on this question.

H20: I always loved your early singles. You ever considered releasing a singles compilation?

KH: Yes. To all interested record labels: let the bidding war begin.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Karl Hendricks Trio.

I Hate This Party (Peas Kor)

1. She's The Shit

2. Fuck Shit Up

3. Beergasm

4. Ride You Home

Baseball Cards b/w Smarty Pants (Mind Cure)

1. Baseball Cards

2. Smarty Pants

Checking You Out b/w Valentine Melody (Mind Cure)

1. Checking You Out

2. Valentine Melody

Hooked On Hobbit (Egg Yolk)

1. Catch The Wind (The Karl Hendricks Trio)

2. I Love My Shirt (Mothra)

What Everyone Else Calls Fun b/w A Boy Who Plays With Dolls (Merge)

1. What Everyone Else Call Fun

2. A Boy Who Plays With Dolls

Live In Pittsburgh (Self)

1. Live At The Beehive 5.18.92

Live In Atlanta (Self)

1. Live At Somber Reptile 10.25.93

Live In Chicago (Self)

1. Live at Lounge Ax 12.31.93

Live In St. Louis (Self)

1. Live At Cicero's 10.12.95

Toy Killers

2010-03-30T06:00:00.004-04:00

"On Dec. 15th, 2008 ugEXPLODE Records released the great lost New York No Wave record: Toy Killers The Unlistenable Years. This 67 minute CD features previously unheard recordings circa 1980-1984 by the destructive Downtown NYC duo formed by improv madmen Mark E. Miller and Charles K. Noyes with special guests John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Bill Laswell, Arto Lindsay and many more. The Unlistenable Years is a vital document of some seriously weird and awesome music by some seminal musicians at the top of their games early in their careers. The Unlistenable Years is an absolute must-have for diehard No Wave, Noise, Free Improvisation and post-punk aficionados... here's the story....

Back in 1988, when I was ripe 16 years old, I got hold of a compilation on Homestead Records entitled Speed Trials. This LP was a document of an experimental music festival from 1983 and featured early live cuts by Sonic Youth, Swans, the pre-rap Beastie Boys, The Fall, Lydia Lunch, and others. The stand-out track was a very chaotic, violent song by a band called "Toy Killers", seemingly led by DNA guitar mutilator Arto Lindsay. Of particular note on this great recording was the hecticly discontinuous drumming of Charles K. Noyes - I had never before heard anything quite as disruptive and random as the percussion Noyes laid down on this song. I was instantly hooked. I did some further research and found another record Noyes was on: the bizarre 1983 Korean/free improv hybrid double album Invite the Spirit, also featuring guitar legend Henry Kaiser. Over the years I often listened to this single Toy Killers track over and over, wondering what the hell was the deal with this mysterious band. Was it a one-off? Was it a continuing interest? Back in 1988, it was considerably more difficult to find these things out...

Time flies by and we skip forward to 2002. I'm on tour with the Flying Luttenbachers and I'm browsing the great NYC record store Downtown Music Gallery. Elliott Sharp walks in and begins chit-chatting with Bruce Gallanter, the owner. I walk up to them, introduce myself and ask them whatever happened to Mark Miller (with Noyes, the other 'official' Toy Killers member)? They both laugh and tell me some strange story about Miller's love for letting off explosives during concerts as well as an anecdote about some Elliott Sharp gig at the Kitchen where Miller lit his hands on fire and the show got shut down... Bruce tells me Mark is somewhere out on the West Coast...

Fast forward to 2005: I've been living in Oakland, California for several years now and through my associate, bass player Damon Smith, I make the acquaintance of guitarist Henry Kaiser and begin sporadically playing music with him. Charles K. Noyes comes up in the conversation to little ado other than Kaiser and I both agreeing that Noyes is a sort of drumming genius. The following year I notice a listing at local venue for a concert featuring ROVA saxophonist Larry Ochs, Fred Frith and... Mark E. Miller on drums. I get in touch with Miller and ask him to play some music with me. We quickly spark up a friendship and the million dollar question is asked: "What was the deal with the Toy Killers?"

Mark reveals to me that he and Charlie started playing together in the late '70s. The two would often pop up in the nascent downtown New York improvisation scene as a team, notably appearing together on classic records like John Zorn's "Pool", Elliott Sharp's "Carbon" and more. Initially they started just as a two-piece, abusing all sorts of percussion instruments, making feedback and lighting things on fire. Mark explained that his use of fire merely had to do with finding a way of separating himself from the herd of improvising drummers! Mission accomplished.

As time went on, a lot of various people in the scene would play with the Toy Killers, coming and going at whim. For a while Arto Lindsay was indeed in the ranks for a spell, lending his distinctively warped vocal outbursts and trademark guitar skronk to the proceedings. A very rare self-released cassette called Humdrum (of which all the tracks appear freshly remixed from the original multi-track masters on The Unlistenable Years), showed this guest star mania in full bloom with great, off-the-cuff performances by Material bassist Bill Laswell, Sharp and saxophonist John Zorn amongst others.

At one point, Mark suddenly envisioned Toy Killers as a "kick-ass rock and roll band", even though they didn't really rehearse and Noyes had almost no experience or interest in playing rock and roll! Mark morphed from being a drummer to being a true wild card, sometimes singing, sometimes abusing a bass guitar, sometimes deafening everybody with his amplified metal drink shakers, sometimes disappearing into thin-air half way through the set.

While Noyes explored his Eastern music inspirations with the exotic polyglot improv of Invite the Spirit, Miller helped found the Golden Palominos as well as Arto Lindsay's Ambitious Lovers (he appears on both groups' debut releases). By the time the Toy Killers made it to the studio near around 1984, things were beginning to unravel even more and the remnants from this aborted project produced by Bill Laswell (tracked at Martin Bisi's OAO Studios) appear fully mixed for the first time on the new CD. Luckily for us, Mark happened to be sitting on a box of Toy Killers tapes which I began sifting through earlier this year.

Many of the live recordings on the CD were made by DMG domo Bruce Gallanter back in the day and they still sound incredible. On one track you hear fireworks going off. On another track, if you squint you can detect Derek Bailey almost inaudibly fretting a few note clusters before walking out in total disgust. All the spit, sweat and noise of the various Toy Killers bands are in full evidence. The studio recordings sound amazing with their brand new remixes. This is a truly action packed hour plus of intense and varied chaos. Anton Fier was kind enough to write some succinct liner notes detailing yet another anecdote of Toy Killers property-damage-as-performance for us."

-- Weasel Walter

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Toy Killers.

The Unlistenable Years (ugEXPLODE)

1. I'm Embarrassed To Be An American Girl
2. Sex Carp
3. 24 Handkerchiefs for Roger Trilling
4. Smoky Raindrops
5. Green Dolphin Sweet
6. Corrugated Gems of Woe
7. Scabby
8. Bleed For The Mind
9. Shaken Not Stirred (Pe de Boi with M.E. Miller)
10. Dance of the Were-Samurai
11. Teen Sex Carp
12. Where Do We Get The Money To Save Our Children
13. Death Certificate - 14 Dollars
14. Citymulch
15. Away all Pests
16. The Devil May Be Your Santa Claus (Studio)
17. The Devil May Be Tour Santa Claus (Live)
18. Victimless Crime
19. Improvisation
20. Improvisation
21. Improvisation
22. Improvisation
23. Improvisation
24. Improvisation
25. Improvisation

Aa

2010-03-11T06:00:00.109-05:00

From the desk of Sean Neil, teacher at juvenile hall and founding member of Aa:

"Regarding the inserts... I think that we were inspired by the Three Mile Pilot burlap wrapped version of Chief Assassin to the Sinister when we came up with the idea for multiple inserts, hand made by various artists. We enlisted the help of many of our friends in making 500 unique inserts for the record. A total of 1,000 records were printed, so I feel a bit sad for anyone who got a version after the limited edition version sold out. Our record label had some of their friends contribute as well. I'm gonna only talk about a few of the inserts.

Aron Wahl makes all the major artwork for the band, including album covers and show fliers. You can easily spot his work amongst the inserts. He hand drew, hand dunked in ink, or hand burned all the inserts he contributed. Nadav Havusha made 'My Body is a Temple Where Nobody goes to Pray' pulling the title from an old song we used to play called 'Fate Day'. Dav was always the masterful lyricist. I can remember a band argument we got into over his use of the word faggot in a song. I didn't want him to use that word. Mr. Quintron later had a song called 'French Quarter Faggot, and he defends his use of the word on the back of the album cover. I wish I hadn't been so uptight over Dav's use of the word. All his lyrics were spot on.

Our friend Becca Cohen made the sexy dirty lady insert. She played in a band called Split Me Wide Open, that played the first ever show at our house at 502 Warren. Both her and her band mate Giorgio sang and shook a box of cereal on the albums closing track. Our roommate at the time, Peggy Wang and I, played a one off show after that first show at 502 with Split Me Wide Open. We were called Office Supply, and we basically attacked one another while screaming into microphones and rolling on the ground. That band was the primary influence of her current band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

Marisa Jahn (co-founder of the Pond art gallery with Steve Shada) made the America's Next Top Model insert. I loved how she subverted the use of an advertisement for her insert. It reminded me of when we sang the line 'Everybody’s fighting for your attention' on the track ‘Fake War’. Both Marisa and Steve appear in the 'Good Ship' video I shot in Mexico and released with gAame. Sadly, they meet their horrible demise during the video.

John Atkinson made the ‘Ocular Aa Brain’ and then joined the band. We met at a Black Dice show and at the time, he was playing in a band called fuckface2k. When he joined Aa, he initially played his old high school saxophone. John played the saxophone at some of our early shows, but he quickly moved onto to electronics and breakables.

Our friend from Philadelphia, Brendan Greaves, made the see through insert. It's worth a closer inspection as he removed all the A's from the text. He played in a band called Wrists and Pistols, an offshoot of Lucky Dragons, and we all played multiple shows together both in NYC and Philadelphia.

John Dwyer made ‘Garfield Thinking of Boobs’. He informed me that he was really stoned when he came up with the concept. He wanted us to abuse the image in the copy machine, but I thought it looked great pure and clean. I do think we hand drew the Aa on them in green crayon though.

I taped together pages from old biology texts for my insert involving various animal life. We took this idea of multiple inserts to the next level when we had our friends create a music video for each song off of gAame. The band has always been a bit of a collaboration of sorts. Whenever we could we would involve our friends in our shows. We used to start off with a procession through wherever we were playing, and would have our friends march and play along with us. At an early show at Above the Right Bank, we cut off Bonfire Madigan before her set was over. This was an accident and simply bad timing.

Our first show was with Semiautomatic and The Lack, and many more after that. Like magic, all our band fights over names ended and we finally settled on a name that Aron was able to add to the flier. For our early shows, we tried to run all the electronics through one power switch so that we could turn the sound of all at once with the flick of a switch. I think I always fucked up the cables though so we were never able to dramatically drop all the sounds out at sets end.

I was so thrilled to play an early show with the Coachwhips and Guitar Wolf at the Happy Birthday Hideout (now Rubulad). That show led to the record deal with Narnack, who released the vinyl. I think I randomly dropped by the Narnack offices with a demo tape and they soon offered us the chance to play. Coachwhips were insane that night.

Linda Rosenbury played a viola like instrument for the final song. That drone is hers. We had many of our friends play on this final song. We would bring them into our basement studio at 502 Warren (my bedroom) to make whatever noises they could come up with. And then we recorded them chanting over the beat.

I remember when we recorded a song for Kyle Lapidus' daughter called 'Lil' Rama,' we set off fireworks in the basement of 502 to record the sound. I lost my hearing for a few days after that mistake. The song turned out great though, and was released by Luke Fishbeck of Lucky Dragons as a cdr that was reverse shoplifted into stores.

One of my favorite shows we played during this time period was with Japanther at a place called The Chicken Hut. The floors were completely covered with 6 inches of shit. Some guy was moshing while naked during our set, and at one point he crashed into my equipment causing it to drop into the muck. None of my stuff broke. We did have to throw away our clothes though because we couldn’t get the stench off them. Picture the smell, while listening to the music."

Full disclosure: I used to live at 502 Warren Street, played on this record, and attended most of the gigs discussed above.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Aa.

Big A LiTTLe a (Narnack)

1. Side A

Wet Hair

2010-03-10T06:00:00.047-05:00

From the desk of Shawn Reed, record label mogul and organ player:

"A Sunday night 2am, post bleak show at a popular warehouse spot in town, something that seems defeating that I am maybe finally immune too for better or wrose, at least it wasn't a gig I performed at. A night of long discussions about going, staying, moving, traveling, confusion, mixed opportunities and limitations. Do I stay in Iowa City for another set of seasons for another year, I'm annoying myself with my flip flopping on the ideas of it. Do I move to New York, Portland, Austin? or do I stay? I'm fearful that miserable feelings related to this place will come back over and over again, but I worry that there is nothing else out there really that is any different even though I know there is. I keep staying because I am already set up, the total living space, cheap rent, practice space, silkscreen/art studio, storage all in one location and integrated into everyday reality no job just tapes, records, music, artwork, and plenty of financial limitations. Haunted in the house that I live in by the space itself, the time of it, the friends going, that major lost love harbored and dissolved in this place and house over years and now just a memory, the possessions themselves, the piles of tapes, records, amps, and artwork. The labor of love for life and all that it has to offer even the natural decay of it. A life dedicated to all that is creative in it more than to itself, to the constant push for prolific output and a never ending desire for more potential and opportunity. Imaginary momentum towards some unknown horizon, patience upon patience, waiting and working, worrying whether its in the making or the place. Like my father in his youth searching for something he never even knew what he was searching for like an instinct for something beyond the instinct. The feeling is limited, getting older in a Midwestern college town, near where I grew up, but with enough traveling and endless touring under my belt to know the road as well as anything. Changed by it for better or worse, addicted to the inspiration and humiliation of it. Endless horizons often ending at epic ocean views, amazing shows, the meeting of minds, and also broken vehicles, empty rooms, limitation, and harsh realitys.

I pluck away melodies on a bass guitar while I write this, something I have tried to write or sum up before but never could and still might not accomplish now. This one simple riff on a couple of strings speaks for more in my mind then I can even remotely speak for here in words. Sketching out ideas for new Wet Hair songs, bass parts to record onto four track tape to play over live. I'll probably stay in Iowa City another year just to do this band, Wet Hair. I've stayed here for years, to be in a band, to do another tour, to put out another record, to maintain forward momentum for the work that has already been done. Maybe there is nothing outside of me, nothing in me besides these creative instincts. Ryan is staying for his own reasons, stuck in his own confusion and financial limitations, much like my own. Wet Hair spawned out of a few generally miserable years of being lost. What was maintained in all that personal lost was a sense of direction in the spirit of creative act. I just want to see it through, to keep searching for the spirit in it, the potential in it and to realize that potential merging into the moment. I feel like we are getting closer to something, deeper, richer, more imaginative, something with more feeling. We work with spontaneity, years of playing and practicing together to the point of being almost uncritical or unknowing in the conception of songs. We just turn on the gear and start playing and what flows out before us is the result, we play it, practice it, hone it in until it takes the fully realized shape that we see before us, but it still lies outside our knowing our understanding, it just is a result. The visuals seem too much of the same way and just as much from the world, drawn from everything, anything and all experience. Wet Hair is changing it is always changing, we are getting better at it, being a two piece band, 4 hands, two minds. I had no idea when I started it solo in the basement by myself it would grow to involve Ryan so fully and sound like this now. A total change in approach and sound to what we were doing before Wet Hair, the maximal changed to minimal. The songs we are writing now, they are becoming more and more personal to me then ever before, they are just as spontaneous but more aware more critical of themselves, they are striving toward a harmony that I can't get to in words. They are getting closer to describing the ideas and feelings in me, less and more abstractly at the same time. They describe this labor of love that I feel in making the songs themselves, them being this conduit to the spontaneity of the experience of life itself. Wet Hair is just a journey, it's part of the journey, it took years and years to get to Wet Hair, and what lies beyond it I'm not sure, hopefully as much and more then what came before. The creative knowledge that grows from the experience, even in the repetition of things, the endless cycle, the natural decay even of a creative endeavor it speaks for itself. It's as much the process as it is the result. It's confusing to think of where audience comes into all of this, seems like to much for this already windy group of words so I'll think about that some other time.

I wonder if I will ever be done searching and wondering...ever be done playing in 'bands' working on 'projects' putting out 'records' going on 'tours'.... probably not, there is to much beauty even in the decay to stop looking for it, seems like I never even made the choice to express it, it just happens.

Playlist: Les Rallizes Dénudés - Romance of the Black Grief and But I Was Different over and over again, for some reason this seems relevant."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Wet Hair.

Irifi (Night People)

1. Blood Spirits
2. I Am The Jackal
3. Magnetic Youth
4. Could Want Nothing

Wet Hair EP (Night People)

1. Forever Young Ever One
2. Machete
3. On The Lilys
4. The Hermitage

Wet Hair CS (Night People)

1. Whitestrobe Void
2. Black Sand
3. Saturns Return
4. Cult Electric Annihilation

The Beach (Night People)

1. Ordinary Lives
2. Mesmerized
3. Hey Chrome
4. Reprise
5. Crucifix In The Waves
6. Radio Machines
7. Gold Chains

Dream (Not Not Fun)

1. Cult Electric Annihilation
2. Black Sand
3. Ordinary Lives
4. Radio Machines/Gold Chains

Glass Fountain (Not Not Fun)

1. Mesmerized
2. Crucifix In The Waves
3. When The Right Time Comes
4. Cold City
5. Stepping Razor (To Heaven's Door)

Cloudland Canyon

2010-03-08T06:00:00.034-05:00

- Camilla Padgitt-Coles

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Cloudland Canyon.

Lie In Light (Kranky)

1. Krautwerk
2. White Woman
3. You & I
4. Scheisse Schatzi, Auf Wiedersehen!
5. Heme
6. Lie In Light
7. Mothlight Part 1

Beaches

2010-03-04T06:00:00.040-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Beaches.

In A While b/w Halve (Pukekos)

1. In A While
2. Halve

09/3 // Seattle // Sunset Tavern w/ The Shackles, Del Mar
10/3 // Portland // Holocene w/ A Sunny Day in Glasgow
12/3 // San Fransisco // Hemlock Tavern w/ Nothing People
13/3 // San Fransisco // Amnesia
14/3 // Los Angeles // The Smell w/ Sun Araw, Love of Diagrams
17/3 // Austin // (SXSW) Submerge
18/3 // Austin // (SXSW) Rancho Relaxo
19/3 // Austin // (SXSW) Maggie Maes
23/3 // Athens // Caledonia Lounge w/ Love of Diagrams
25/3 // Brooklyn // Bell House w/ Crayon Fields, Love of Diagrams
27/3 // Brooklyn // Death By Audio w/ Total Slacker, Flight
28/3 // Philadelphia // Kung Fu Necktie w/ Love of Diagrams
30/3 // Washington, DC // Black Cat w/ Partyline, Love of Diagrams

Black Flag

2010-03-03T06:00:00.001-05:00

In case of emergency:

RISE ABOVE

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Black Flag.

Damaged (Unicorn/SST)

1. Rise Above
2. Spray Paint
3. Six Pack
4. What I See
5. TV Party
6. Thirsty And Miserable
7. Police Story
8. Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie
9. Depression
10. Room 13
11. Damaged II
12. No More
13. Padded Cell
14. Life Of Pain
15. Damaged I

8 Eyed Spy

2010-03-02T06:00:00.012-05:00

"Teenage Jesus and the Jerks bit the dust in mid-'79 after a torrid European tour featuring a wheelchair bound Lydia Lunch, Jim Sclavunos on bass and Lydia's then-squeeze Johnny O'Kane on drums (in lieu of regular pounder and loose-cannon Bradly Field). Having sonically expressed so much about sheer terror in a corpus adding up to so few total minutes, it seemed that the group was cut down in its prime simply for the sake of sheer nihilism. After Lydia finished the sessions for her bizarre, almost torchy debut solo album Queen of Siam (ZE Records, 1980), she set about forming a new combo with Sclavunos on drums and added ex-Contortions bassist George Scott (who appeared on said solo album under the pseudonym 'Jack Ruby' in an allusion to his defunct '77 hard rock combo named after the famed assassin) along with guitarist Michael Paumgardhen and multi-instrumentalist Pat Irwin to make 8 Eyed Spy.

After debuting in Fall '79, the band lasted shy of a year, but packed a huge musical wallop, as evidenced on their classic, posthumous Live cassette release on New York City-based proto-indie ROIR Records. Operating in a totally different and more mature musical mode than previous Lydia Lunch projects, 8 Eyed Spy fused Beefheartian discord with Surf music and roots-rock earthiness while retaining the bleak lyrics and monotone caterwaul expected of their anti-charismatic front person. The Spy is undoubtedly a rock and roll band - hot, energetic, dirty and emotional. Their songbook included furious and scabrously performed covers of songs by the likes of Bo Diddley, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane and the Strangeloves' galloping 'I Want Candy' (beating Brits Bow Wow Wow to the punch by two years), but don't get the wrong idea here, kids: 8 Eyed Spy wasn't some fogey-ish '60s revival group - when it came to original material, this quintet delivered some truly gnarly, harrowing skronk! On the ROIR tape, ditties like 'Frantic', 'Love Split With Blood' and 'Boy Meets Girl' careen with berserk discord as the guitars pile up in a contrapuntal/polytonal gridlock on top of Jim Sclavunos' busy, angular drum frameworks. On many of the tunes, Pat Irwin (at the time concurrently playing in modernistic, Surf-influenced instrumental outfit The Raybeats with George Scott and fellow Contortions alums Jody Harris and Don Christensen) drops his axe and blows some piquant alto saxophone lines over the whole seething mess. There's a grungy, barwalking feel to the honking horn playing on songs like 'Sorry for Behaving So Badly' and 'Lazy in Love' which really expanded the tonal possibilities of the unit. Lunch is particularly effective as a vocalist when she really lets it rip, almost losing control on the cruelly spiteful dirge called 'Looking For Someone'.

By the Fall of 1980, after a string of killer New York City dates and some European touring, Lydia abruptly quit the band, remarking accusing Irwin in particular (who would later be seen mugging away in the B-52s corny 'Love Shack' and 'Meet The Flintstones' videos!) was trying to push the music into a more polished and cozy commercial Pop direction. To hammer an ominous nail into the coffin, bassist George Scott died of an allegedly accidental heroin overdose on August 8, 1980, pretty much insuring the end of the project. The four remaining members briefly regrouped later that year to record a few over-produced and ineffectual versions of some of their original material, bundling those tracks with a side's worth of live stuff to muster a forgettable eponymous album released in 1981 on UK-based Fetish Records.

The far-superior and vastly more energetic Live release seems to be culled from (perhaps) three separate shows. The versions of 'Sorry For Behaving So Badly', 'Innocence', 'Boy Meets Girl', 'Swamp Song', 'Run Through The Jungle' and 'Motor Oil Shanty' spring from the final live gig at Hurrah's, in New York City on August 3rd, 1980. Video footage of this particular performance surfaced on Lydia's recent Video Hysterie DVD, originally shot by video artist Paul Tschinkel for his defunct NYC cable access show Inner Tube. 'Looking for Someone', 'Ran Away Dark' and 'Frantic' are from a San Francisco gig at Mabuhay Gardens (featuring opening acts Johanna Went - the awesome, uber-messy performance/sound artist - and early-industrial junk-metal percussionist Z'ev) on February 9, 1980. The Bay Area-based video company Target Video filmed this particular gig and it appeared on a long-out-of print VHS video compilation. I'm not sure where or when the remaining quartet of tracks came from, but they sure sound great. All of the audio here was 'reprocessed' (i.e. mostly likely re-eq'ed) by dB's frontman Chris Stamey and the final product was released in late 1981.

Lydia Lunch continued on soon after to lead combos like the quasi-blues Devil Dogs (not the garage band, folks) and the Los Angeles-based death-rock band 13.13 (arguably her finest purely musical achievement) before concentrating on her solo music and spoken word work, amongst many other disciplines. Rock-solid axe-man Michael Paumgardhen would play briefly in Lydia's Devil Dogs and on one track appearing on Richard Hell's R.I.P. anthology before dropping off the No Wave map. Multi-talented Jim Sclavunos - who also was a member of such no-wave related acts like Information, Red Transistor and Beirut Slump - went on to some notoriety in Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds as well as playing in many other acts, including the recently reincarnated - and re-slain - Teenage Jesus line-up. Pat Irwin works steadily in the movie biz, supplying soundtracks to various films and cartoons. Like most of the classic No Wave ensembles, 8 Eyed Spy wasn't built to last, but rather existed to create something brilliantly urgent, jarring and incendiary.

Weasel Walter, Brooklyn, 3/1/10"

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, 8 Eyed Spy.

Live (ROIR)

1. Diddy Wah Diddy
2. Love Split With Blood
3. Sorry For Behaving So Badly
4. Innocence
5. Boy Meets Girl
6. Swamp Song
7. Run Through The Jungle
8. Motor Oil Shanty
9. Ran Away Dark
10. Lazy In Love
11. Looking For Someone
12. Frantic
13. Maintaing My Cool

Golden Triangle

2010-03-01T06:00:00.006-05:00

I did not meet the members of Golden Triangle recently, it would appear.

OJ and I actually met many years ago at The Right Bank. It was a bar on Kent and Broadway, probably best remembered for the Lightning Bolt gig that is documented in the Power of Salad (if you look closely at the video you can see my glasses get knocked off my face by some drunk asshole). OJ's old band Mob Stereo played a gig there with Ferrari Testarossa one night, during which I ran out into the crowd and knocked some chicks' beers onto their boobs (although less intentionally than I am making it sound). We always had a special bond as our names are similar (there was also an NJ in Mob Stereo, although we didn't share the same bond).

Carly is a great photographer, and don't let the fact that she is super hot intimidate you.

Cameron and Vashti run the Live With Animals space, and the studio they share there with Raul de Nieves is one of the more calming rooms I've had the pleasure of entering. Surrounding yourself with beauty can actually add time to your life, so I will be toasting them with all those extra moments.

Alix scares me a bit, I'm not sure if I like it but anything that gets you outside of your comfort zone, etc.

I first met Jay High at some GoGoGoAirheart gig, I think. He has a great last name but he's a ginger so it must be tough going out there. He didn't play on this tape, but best of luck to you bub.

To my knowledge, the information contained on this cassette has been kept secret from the general public until now. OJ seems to recollect the era as being particularly debaucherous:

"Ok that show where the tape was recorded was at Gavin Brown's Passerby Gallery for Useless Magazine. It was the last show ever at that space supposedly. We just set up a mic in the back of the room and pressed record. It was actually the first time TraLaLa (our first bass player) ever played the songs -- I think it was the first time she was actually sober. Our friend Micki Pellerano started off the show by performing a zombie cannibal ritual. At one point he pulled out an eel and cut it open to pull out its heart, and proceeded to devour it and share it with everyone around him -- I even took a bite. Everyone remembers that that eel smelled like a giant dirty ass, though. It threatened to clear the room, but everyone stuck around and it was a rad show.

I also have a story of how we got our current bass player, Alix Brown. We had just played a show at Montana's Party Palace with King Khan and BBQ, and rushed over two blocks away to Don Pedro's to play a late show. It was one of those times where the PA didn't work , and everyone's gear was broken, but people were so wasted by then at 3am, that they were just going crazy for no reason. We weren't even playing songs. People kept jumping onstage and at one point someone got in a fight with TraLaLa, but we kept playing because that stuff always happened with her at shows. Well they kept scuffling, and eventually she was being strangled by a mic cord. Long story short -- she bashed someone with her bass and took off -- and we had to stop the show. We didn't see or hear from her for 8 months after that. We heard rumors that she smashed someone's face with a glass and nearly severed 3 of her fingers that night as well. Anyway, we asked Alix Brown to play bass shortly after this night as we had shows lined up.

This story may be old to some. We were on tour with Knyfe Hyts in early 2008 when we stopped for our show in a town-not-to-be-named. Show was ok -- the weirdness happened afterwards. Locals were warning us of an old abandoned factory where they made pencils, but is now used to hide dead bodies. Then we were offered some rollie cigarettes that may have been laced with I-don't-know-what since all the guys started feeling weird and lethargic and hallucinogenic and feeling messed up -- a couple of us got sick and started vomiting -- and smoking those rollies was the only common denominator. Then as the night wore on, and it was time to leave the venue, some guys offered us a place to crash, but they also strangely offered a separate house for the girls and we were like, 'noo -- sorry, we wanna stay all in one house'. So we all end up in this messed up decaying house, through the kitchen which had a pot of week-old dry mac n cheese on the stove. One guy at the house was like, 'hmmm, I'm gonna add some water and it'll be cool' so he added a cup of water and started stirring up this mess and they showed us to this room with 5 bare stained mattresses. We were scared to even lay our sleeping bags on them. One dude just kept hovering near the door and offered us mescaline and pills which we politely declined -- but he silently just stayed in the doorway anyway for awhile which was awkward. Finally he creeped us out by saying, 'I'm just gonna stand here all night and watch you pretty faces while you sleep.' Finally he went away and we passed out. We overheard someone coming down the stairs in the middle of the night, and heard him say, 'that was easy... I just had sex!!!' I can't really articulate the creepiness of that moment or remember the other details creepy of that night, so this story may not sound so special to read. Anyways we got up early and split the next day really quickly."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Golden Triangle.

Club Bangers (Party Store)

1. Live at Passerby

Haunted Fucking

2010-02-25T04:20:00.026-05:00

Chanted:

"Haunted Fucking is sex with an ex"

Haunted Fucking is Chris and Claire

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Haunted Fucking.

Muffled Metal (Self)

1. Wooden Sword
2. I Want You
3. Wouldn't Go There Again
4. Front To Back
5. Saturday
6. Taunted Love
7. We Were Lying Down
8. ddrruummss
9. No I Couldn't Tell

Joan Of Arc (Hex Out)

1. Side A
2. Side B

Rare Stuff (Pukekos)

1. All It's Teeth Fell Out And This Had Nothing To Do With Telling The Truth Whatsoever
2. Second Guessing
3. Never Not A Vacancy
4. A Gift To Possess Apocrypha
5. Hex Out
6. I Can't Believe
7. I Can See The Differences
8. I Know Never Know
9. Looking So Lost/Give Yourself Away
10. Never Want To Go Home/Dreamworld
11. Whoo

The Fall

2010-02-24T04:20:00.012-05:00

You skinny rats, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Fall.

Slates (Rough Trade)

1. Middle Mass
2. An Older Lover, etc.
3. Prole Art Threat
4. Fit And Working Again
5. Slates, Slags, etc.
6. Leave The Capitol

Contortions

2010-02-23T04:20:00.026-05:00

Skronk:

"James Siegfried (born April 20, 1953) hails from Milwaukee, WI. James was trained on piano from age seven and by his late teens, wound up studying music at a conservatory. His wild keyboard style (informed by dissonant modernists Thelonius Monk and Cecil Taylor) alienated his more conventionally minded instructors. After about a year at school he began blowing saxophone -- a progression inspired by the savage, screaming bathos of Albert Ayler, the subtler bop phrasing of Art Pepper, Lester Young and Charlie Parker as well as the gutbucket funk of Maceo Parker, Fela and various bar-walking R+B honkers. A few years later, the fledgling musical malcontent ditched his studies and joining up with a Velvets/Stooges-style proto-punk band called Death, before splitting to New York City in an attempt to crash the thriving underground jazz loft scene. When James hit NYC in 1976, he was not as well accepted as he'd hoped. Maybe the confrontational outbursts of this overly aggressive upstart were a bit too extreme for the intellectual chin-scratchers in the audience. Maybe his playing was too blatantly raw, unhoned and chaotic for the competitive, dues-minded musicians. Maybe the fact that some bizarre, scrawny white kid from the Midwest was trying his damnedest to infiltrate a predominantly black-identified cultural scene spelled disaster. This lack of welcome possibly embittered James -- in the following few years the issue of race would be unflinchingly referenced (along with plenty of other topics) in interviews as well as on his albums. Obviously James' quixotic energy hit a nerve with a small faction of the jazz contingent, because established players like Bern Nix, Luther Thomas, Joseph Bowie and Henry Threadgill would all eventually pass through the ranks of his various ensembles. Bloodied but unbowed, James hunkered down and studied his saxophone with another young firebrand named David Murray (who would later ascend to the top of the heap of recognition in the jazz world).

Rethinking his approach, James started making the rounds at skuzzy downtown rock clubs like CBGB's. The early punk scene was well in progress, typified by such legendary bands as The Ramones, Suicide and Television. James Siegfried soon made the acquaintance of an equally misanthropic 16 year-old cocktail waitress and renegade from Rochester, NY named Lydia Koch. At some point soon after, the dynamic duo took on the pseudonymous surnames of Chance and Lunch, and the rest is history. A brief black and white movie clip from early 1977 of the two pre-cool icons can be seen in a rare documentary called 'Punking Out': A mute, painfully shy James grins goofily at the camera through huge, dorky glasses while chipper young Lydia, complete with feathered hair, giggles enthusiastically about serving up the Dead Boys her used maxi-pad!

One band from the Max's Kansas City/CBGB's scene that took an increasingly left of center approach was the band China, who would re-christen themselves Mars by the summer of 1977. The group consisted of four enthusiastically non-musical artist-types who took the Warhol/beatnik/Velvet Underground aesthetic and started steadily dismantling it even further, breaking their rock songs down into sheer noise. Mars began sharing rehearsal space with like-minded rock weirdos like The Cramps and a newly formed group called Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. The early Teenage Jesus consisted of Lydia on guitar and vocals, James on saxophone, a Japanese guy named Reck on bass and Cleveland transplant Bradly Field on drum and cymbal. This initial line-up began playing out in mid-'77 and recorded three songs that would be released two years later by ZE Records. The music reflected a primitive but obviously disciplined approach to bludgeoning minimalism consisting of dissonant, pounding repetition and blankly cold shouting. Teenage Jesus pushed the nihilism of punk even further while completely circumventing the comforting rock and roll elements prevalent in most other bands at the time. Pretty soon, another group of inspired incompetents called DNA (a trio featuring Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori) started practicing at the loft. Their own conception was based on deliberately skewed arrangements of brisk, lacerating noise and disorder.

By the end of the year there seemed to be too many egos in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks -- James' sax squiggles were too extroverted for the increasingly monolithic and faceless thud of the Jerks, so James split off to form his own combo. A few people filed through the ranks before the group began to take its definitive shape. James Nares (who directed the hilarious and chaotic 1978 film Rome '78 which featured a cameo by James Chance as a lowly slave boy!) was drafted on guitar. Pat Place, a visual artist who came to New York from Chicago in 1975, wound up wrenching slippery guitar racket with a slide. Reck held the bass chair for a while, but was replaced in December 1977 by George Scott, a tall, lanky surf music aficionado from Iowa who had been gigging with a prototypical no wave band called Jack Ruby. Reck's friend Chiko Hige manned the drums for a spell before both of them decided to head back to Japan, later establishing the long-lived punk/no wave/new wave band Friction. James had been occasionally sitting in with a bar band of transplanted Kansas boys called the Loose Screws and wound up codging their drummer Don Christensen. By early 1978, Nares was replaced by another member of the Screws named Jody Harris. Adele Bertei, who came from Cleveland and had played in a band called Peter and the Wolves with the late Pere Ubu founder Peter Laughner, pounded away noisily on a cheap Acetone organ.

The Contortions began developing a concept that fused brittle, jerky instrumental grooves with careening blasts of atonality. The rhythm section chugged away gratingly as if their prime directive was to substitute rusty razor blades for guitar picks and perform bizarro-world, amphetamine-jitter cover versions of The Meters songbook. Jody's clipped chicken scratch interlocked with George's brutally metallic bass tone and Don's odd, syncopated rhythm patterns to create a frantic foundation, both unnerving and danceable. Pat and Adele's contributions were more expressionistic and asymmetrical -- sharp fragments of sour, pungent sonic commentary filling the remainder of cracks in the sound. On top of the whole jagged musical puzzle James alternately screeched and crooned his own alienated, cynical lyrics or issued forth horrid torrents of saxophone glossolalia. Mr. Chance soon began turning his inner aggression directly towards the audience, issuing vitriolic verbal tirades or leaping into the crowd to smack some complacent bystander in the face. Confrontation became a regular part of the show, adding to the already violent sonic vibrations.

During the spring of 1978, the Contortions notoriety increased steadily while opening up for bands like Suicide, Mars and The Cramps. A pivotal event took place between May 2-6, 1978 as the crème of the Manhattan art/punk/noise bands were presented in a series of concerts at the Soho based Artist's Space gallery. The line-up included The Contortions, DNA, Teenage Jesus, Mars, Theoretical Girls, Terminal, Tone Death, Daily Life, The Gynecologists and Boris Policeband. The press had begun to tag these loosely associated groups with the stylistic demarcation 'No Wave'. At one point in the set James turned his attention towards harassing some unidentified woman when noted rock critic Robert Christgau tried to intervene and cool things out. The scene quickly turned into a bona fide skirmish, James emerging with a cut eye for his trouble. Progressive muso Brian Eno happened to be slumming the downtown scene and caught these gigs. He wound up masterminding a series of recording sessions by the first four units to produce a compilation entitled No New York which was released in November 1978. Although it has become de rigueur for anyone discussing this album to complain about the somewhat flat and muddled recording quality, the Contortions four No New York cuts give ample insight to a raw, feral intensity that would be missing from the later releases.

In the fall of '78 Adele left the fold and James' girlfriend, the notorious downtown scenester Anya Phillips, became the group's manager. Anya quickly involved herself with wide range of the group's affairs including photography (she's responsible for the cover art of these albums) and the cultivation of James' image as a debonair lounge lizard. It would be speculated that their business union signaled the beginning of the end for the band. Tension steadily escalated as Anya encouraged James to set his sights outside of the grungy downtown rock scene. Towards the end of 1978, ZE Records magnate Michael Zilkha supplied James with a large budget to create a disco album. Anya came up with the moniker James White and the Blacks and the band began recording the album Off White. The sessions featured guest appearances by a number of friends. Lydia Lunch (under the alias 'Stella Rico') contributed the distressingly erotic moaning on 'Stained Sheets' as well as some blasting guitar noise stabs on 'White Devil'. Kristian Hoffman, a member of the Sparks-like pop group the Mumps who is listed as 'Tad Among' on the album credits and Anya (a.k.a. 'Ginger Lee') gave their best lounge singer impressions on a version of Irving Berlin's 'Tropical Heatwave'. Bob Quine (who had become known for his utterly manic guitar ejaculations with Richard Hell and the Voidoids) guested on a few tracks. Vivienne Dick, director of the flick 'Beauty Becomes the Beast' featuring Lydia, scraped some violin on 'Bleached Black'. Even Adele Bertei returned long enough to pair off on some superfly-ghetto-race-rap with Ms. Phillips during 'Almost Black'. After the fact, George Scott claimed in print that he kept falling asleep while Off White was being recorded...

The first James White and the Blacks live show took place at Club 57 in New York City on Feb 2, 1979. Although the the Contortions were reaching their pinnacle of popularity in the New York club scene, James seemed to be making plenty of enemies -- for example, an anonymous saboteur ringed up the Village Voice (it wasn't anybody named 'Stella' however) and successfully instructed them to write 'cancelled' across the ad for the show. Local music rag New York Rocker began to document all of this interpersonal baggage as well as the increasingly outre and outspokenly negative behavior of James Chance. During the spring of 1979, several days of sessions for Buy would be recorded and abandoned - in print, James blamed the disaster on the incompetence of the musicians, while the band blamed it on James' technical ineptitude in the producer role. Emotions came to a head when James demanded that the rhythm tracks be re-cut again from scratch and Jody, Don and George decided to take a walk. The band reformed a few days later with Loose Screws/Chinese Puzzle bassist David Hofstra in lieu of George Scott.

At this point, James and Anya demanded that the musicians sign a contract relegating them to 'sideman' status. This reconstituted line-up soldiered on and laid down the final tracks for the album. Meanwhile, George made himself busy by joining John Cale's touring ensemble, as documented on the 1979 live LP Sabotage.

Buy is not considered by the members of the original line-up to be a definitive document (most significantly, Hofstra's neutral fretless bass tone is a far cry from the biting harshness of his predecessor's sound) cuts like 'Contort Yourself', 'Throw Me Away' and 'Bedroom Athlete' burn with plenty of real frenzy to spare. By the way, that's not Adele Bertei on organ (she was long gone by this point) but rather James himself torturing the keys here and there. 'Roving Eye' is a bonafide classic of white funk whiplash (it's hard to believe no one has sampled/stolen the main riff for some pre-fab dance or hip hop track!) Throughout the album, James' vocals set the mood, ranging from the utterly dispassionate to agonized fits of howling and screaming. Although the ragged freneticism of the Contortions live show is somewhat absent from this recording the rhythm section is certainly much better than serviceable and there's plenty of jagged glass guitar raking slathered all over the tracks.

The Contortions embarked on a brief Midwest tour before jetting off to Europe in Spring '79 for what would turn out to be their final show: a single concert in Paris held outside in a tent. The performance approached near-riot status as a cadre of French Communists flung hails of bottles at the stage in protest of some rather indiscreet comments James had made in a local publication. Or maybe it was just a bunch of enthusiastic nihilists, responding in earnest to the Contortions' rumored violence? James and Anya wound up hanging out in France for a while, but the rest of the group were left to find their own way home. By Fall 1979, James Chance/White reappeared fronting an all-new Contortions line-up (featuring Kristian Hoffman on slide guitar and Bradly Field on, um, bongos) in what would soon turn into a rapidly revolving door policy for side persons. James continued to seek out side musicians with more professional chops to fulfill his desire for a slicker group with a faster learning curve.

Off White hit the racks in Europe around mid-1979 and in the US later that year, while Buy saw release in September '79. Jody Harris, Don Christensen and George Scott joined up with multi-instrumentalist Pat Irwin towards the end of 1979 to form a modernistic neo-surf instrumental combo called The Raybeats. Jody also moonlighted in the Lizzy Mercier Descloux band as well as cutting a duo record with Robert Quine the following year. After a stint with Judy Nylon, Pat Place resurfaced in early 1980 with the urban dance/noise beat of Bush Tetras, which also briefly included Adele Bertei. George Scott went on to do double duty with The Raybeats and 8 Eyed Spy (also including Irwin and Lydia Lunch), before dying of a seemingly accidental drug overdose on August 5, 1980. Don Christensen made a few records in the early '80s under the moniker ImpLOG before going on to score cartoon soundtracks and working with Philip Glass. Jody Harris eventually played with John Zorn, The Golden Palominos, Syd Straw, Richard Hell, Kip Hanrahan, Matthew Sweet and others. Pat Place spent a few years in the mid-90s with a reincarnated Bush Tetras after having worked with people like Lydia Lunch and Maggie Estep.

Out of nowhere in February 2001, the Contortions took the stage for two New York shows -- one at The Cooler and the other at Irving Plaza -- with a line-up including James, Jody, Pat and Don. By all reports, the playing was solid and large portions of the sets were dedicated to classic Contortions material. Don't get excited though! It doesn't seem like this brief reunion trip is going any further. Perhaps the revolutionary events of the past should remain in memory, colored vividly by the revisionism of history. People tend to change and most of the time (especially in rock and roll) scenarios resulting from bygone times, places and personal chemistries cannot be merely reenacted like a television show brought to us in progress after a lengthy news report. When most groups decide to reform, the audience usually expects the sublime but is often offered the ridiculous instead. The music of the original Contortions erupted from a New York City that was still exciting, dangerous and full of possibilities. Those halcyon days of artistic insanity are long gone but the musicians remain . . . James continues to refract various musical angles with several groups, Don and Pat have been playing together in in a trio with latter-day Bush Tetra Julia Murphy on bass, while Jody, Don and Dave Hofstra gig about once a month with a singer under the moniker The Band of George.

Weasel Walter, February 2002

Thanks to Pat Place, Don Christensen, James Nares, David Hofstra, David Siegfried, Glenn Branca, Mark Cunningham and James Chance for clarifying details."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Contortions.

Buy (ZE)

1. Design To Kill
2. My Infatuation
3. I Don't Want To Be Happy
4. Anesthetic
5. Contort Yourself
6. Throw Me Away
7. Roving Eye
8. Twice Removed
9. Bedroom Athlete

Off White (ZE)

1. Contort Yourself
2. Stained Sheets
3. (Tropical) Heat Wave
4. Almost Black
5. White Savages
6. Off Black
7. White Devil
8. Bleached Black

The VSS

2010-02-22T04:20:00.076-05:00

I first heard Nervous Circuits in December of 1996. It was a dub of a dub of rough mixes that we listened to on my car stereo, the audio quality left a lot to be desired but that wasn't why we were listening. Leaks were harder to come by in those days, etc.

The VSS were like the Velvet Underground -- not many people saw them or heard the records, but those who did all started bands or labels. This was a different era when to go on tour was to take the message to the people, and the only way to find out about new bands was to go see them -- if you were lucky enough to know about the show. Zines with ads for the tour would be be hit with delays and not come out until after it was over. If you were out of the loop, you missed it. It was an inscrutable world, and the only way to gain entry was to meet someone who already knew about it.

This record is important, so I asked singer Sonny Kay to tell its tale:

"Nervous Circuits was written and recorded in the early fall of 1996. The band had relocated to San Francisco from Boulder, and secured a rehearsal space in the Tenderloin, at what was reputedly the 'highest murder rate intersection' in the city, Turk and Mason. We'd been in limbo regarding a record label for quite some time. Our singles had all been issued haphazardly, far later than planned, and with countless aggravating personal strings attached that we just didn't feel like maintaining at that point. I remember sitting at the bar in Bottom of the Hill one night, chatting with Lance Hahn, who was astonished that no one had stepped-up to offer us an LP deal. He did so on the spot and so the album was suddenly destined for release on Honey Bear (essentially Lance's 'wing' of Revolver USA). I believe that was the impetus that really set the wheels in motion.

The band had emerged from a fairly chaotic summer (including supporting Unwound on the west coast with a fill-in guitarist) but with Josh back in the fold once again, we set out writing the album probably sometime in early or mid-August. As I was the sole East Bay resident, I'd ride BART over during rush hour, emerging from the packed train at Montgomery Street where I'd promptly make a beeline for Taco Bell on 6th and Market, my usual meeting spot with Andy. A rock n' roll romantic might surmise that many a great idea was hatched at that Market Street Taco Bell. But in reality, only lice were hatching there.

I think we all perceived the album as being our most concise statement after a series of singles and EP's - although I don't think any of us suspected at that point that it would be the only LP. We'd been wearing our influences on our sleeves (literally, in Dave's case) since the beginning, and tasked ourselves with molding the quintessential hybrid; borrowing liberally from the Birthday Party, Pornography-era Cure, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, early Public Image Limited, Swans, and The Doors. I don't remember ever sitting down and planning this out - we were all just in the same mindset, thinking like a hive-minded gang at war with the confines of the Ebullition-centric scene which we were struggling to differentiate ourselves from. The indifference towards 'hardcore' that had taken root in Angel Hair really blossomed with The VSS, although we were well aware that 'the kids' who identified with it were the ones coming to our shows. Of course, we knew we had allies - we could sense the boredom and redundancy other people were feeling - not to mention being aware of vaguely similar bands such as Mocket, Satisfact, and Brainiac. I think it's safe to say we felt as though we were fighting our way out of a box - using Rolands and flashing lights to counter the stiflingly dull earnestness of what was in those days called 'emo'. We wanted to inject a cold detachment and aesthetic opacity into what we perceived to be the phony world of 'woe is me' posturing typified by bands like, well, almost anyone on Ebullition, Council, Repercussion, etc. who all just seemed locked in homage to the truly great Rites of Spring.

For my own part, I distinctly remember struggling with the lyrics. Although I feel like I can write on command nowadays, back then it really didn't come easily. I would drive up to the overlook near Lawrence Berkeley Labs to try and clear my head, staring out at the Golden Gate Bridge while tapping my pen on an empty page. A lot of the content, I now realize, was my coming to terms with the frustrating reality of my existence - uprooting myself from the small-town college bubble of Boulder for the added expense and menial employment opportunities of post-graduate life in a big California city. I was striking back at traffic, rent, and exhaustion, and at the same time trying to embrace the precariousness of my/our situation. I mined relationships from years prior for inspiration, and I deconstructed the social fabric of the punk scene we were inevitably a part of. The overall difficulty/object was in how to say things in a manner that wasn't simple to comprehend - I wanted things to be abstract, poetic, and difficult - or at least challenging. Whether they are or not, I don't know. They certainly were to create.

The album was recorded in Denver in late October, culminating with our Halloween-night warehouse performance about 30 minutes after we'd finished mixing it. Ultimately, it was our only record. All I can say it truly represents is a brief window in the lives of four individuals who felt inspired to start with something old in the hopes of ending with something new. Beyond that, it's vague, inarticulate, moody, unpredictable and hopefully a little confusing - everything we meant for it to be."

Dave Clifford also felt compelled to add his two cents:

"Sonny's recollections are definitely very astute, and I look back at the time we spent creating that album as one of the most focused, clear-minded and incredibly inspired recording projects with which I've ever been involved. The thing that still impresses me about it today, despite the flawed, rushed mix and my limitations as a drummer, is that in the writing and recording process it seemed like anything was possible. While we were actively trying to create sounds that embodied many of our most bizarre aesthetic aims, it somehow worked without seeming completely hackneyed.

At the time, Andy Rothbard (bass/keyboards) and I lived in a small group house in the southern outer-reaches of San Francisco's forgotten zone, The Excelsior. We were all working grueling day jobs, then immediately proceeding to practice 5 nights a week, for 3-4 hours at a time working up a set of songs for the album. Afterward, Andy and I would sit up late into the night playing records and talking in abstractions about how to distill certain essences of music into something different. Once, listening to a Stooges CD that suddenly started to skip, I thought, let's make a song that sounds like a skipping disc ('In Miniature').

I still clearly recall another night sitting in my room and hearing a Leonard Cohen record playing in Andy's room upstairs. Muted and transformed by the thick walls, Cohen's gentle acoustic guitar plucking sounded like a rumbling mechanical hum of a thousand synths, his voice like a droning choral lull. That became the foundation of the album's title track droning thud.

All the time in the year or so that we spent composing and ruminating on musical ideas it seemed I never listened to music for the music's sake, but all for a song's mood, how certain sounds smudged into a powerful new and unique voice. Repetition, layering, buried sound effects, rhythmic juxtaposition... we had a screed of odd sonic ideas, and just dove in head-first without hesitation.

The VSS certainly also aimed to revamp the chilly detachment of the post-punk era, inspired both by the faux-earnestness of the major label Grunge ubiquity and the sniveling of the screamo underground. We'd always felt somewhat looked down upon by the white belt coterie for being Colorado hicks playing what some said was too 'rock', and we brandished our over-the-top musical and visual assertiveness in the faces of the foppish, roll-on-the-ground screaming babies with whom we shared the basement and VFW 'stage'.

At the time, I was very fixated on the writing of Antonin Artaud, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and a host of other highfalutin philosophers, whose every idea I seemed to try to find a way to apply musically. I was also listening to a lot of 'tribal' rhythm recordings, Balinese gamelan, Bulgarian folk singing, Funkadelic, 60s soul music, et al. Essentially, listening to anything other than what was going on in the contemporary underground. I'd only begun playing drums one year before we recorded the album, and I was hellbent on avoiding the Jesus Lizard-esque trappings that were so predominant in the era. Likewise, we were all very picky in the songwriting process about what was deemed worthy of keeping. While all of us were bringing in a vast array of influences and ideas, every one of us found a way to building upon the most abstract visions and creating something that I still think is pretty unique. I will always remember that time for our completely aligned sense of purpose and aesthetic."

I got this record the day it came out and I still listen to it. My copy sounds sounds great after all these years, and now you can hear it too.

Thanks to Sonny and Dave and Hyrdra Head.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The VSS.

Nervous Circuits (Honey Bear)

1. Death Scene
2. In Miniature
3. Sibling Ascending
4. Effigy
5. Lunar Weight
6. Conscious
7. What Kind Of Ticks?
8. Chemical In Chemistry
9. Swift Kicks
10. Nervous Circuits

Buckets of Bile

2010-02-18T04:20:00.033-05:00

This is why I like her music so much:

"almost a year ago i had surgery on my foot and they put me under twilight anesthesia, which is where you're not entirely unconscious but you also don't remember beans after the fact. so there i was, lying on the table, waiting for the drugs to take me away while about a dozen people scurry around in scrubs and get ready to break my bones. then this music comes on and i can't believe it because it's this intense, really clangy industrial noise music, and my doctor looks at me and goes 'hey jackie, you like the music we put on?' and all i can think is YOU ARE GOING TO BREAK MY BONES TO THIS? I HAD YOU FIGURED ALL WRONG, BUDDY, YOU ARE TWISTED! the guy always struck me as a who fan. but then the next thing i remember is waking up.

i go home and stay in bed for days. friends come by to say hi and i find myself repeating this story to everyone because i STILL can't believe that the entire room of people could have possibly agreed upon that music. so the next week when i go to the doc's office for my first follow-up i ask him for the band name so that i can listen to more of the soundtrack to my surgery. he goes 'what did you hear?' and i tell him and he laughs and goes 'jack, that was the drugs. we listened to classic rock.'

and i always think of that story now when people bring it up that 'buckets of bile' can be a misleading name for my music (my favorite: 'i was expecting 4 dudes from providence'). i guess deep down i'm not fooling anyone with this home-fried stuff, i'm secretly really all about harsh industrial noise rock."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Buckets of Bile.

Outside Mind (Speed Tapes)

1. Outside Mind
2. Growing Gone

Paid in Puke/Buckets of Bile (Speed Tapes)

1. Broke The Mold

2. Solver

3. My Viking Funeral

XXperiments (Die Stasi)

1. Caught It Still

Ladyz In Noyz: An Addendum (Corpus Callosum)

1. A Sign

2. So Knotted Down

T.M.I. 015: A Compilation

2010-02-17T04:20:00.003-05:00

From the desk of Alice Cohen:

"T.M.I. 015 is a compilation of pop-rock bands from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. It came out in 1983 on the T.M.I. Products label which was started by two of the guys from the Pittsburgh band Carsickness. T.M.I. had put out about 20 products in all when it folded in 1984 or 85, and this comp was the 15th release, hence its name. The Moroccos track was recorded at a place called Linden Studios in Ambler, Pa. also known as 'the Barn' - probably the most magical place I've ever recorded in. It was literally a huge barn, on the home property of the Mauchly family - John Mauchly, the father, had invented the first digital computer there - the ENIAC - in the early 40s. His son, Bill Mauchly, was a musician and had started the studio in the mid 70s with the late Vinnie Moos, who played bass in the Moroccos. The Barn also had a mellotron - sent over from Britain in the early 70s. To this day, I've never seen one anywhere else. The mellotron used a series of tapes inside of it, which play when the keys are struck. This mellotron is used on the Moroccos track, and I think Carsickness used it on their track too. Carsickness and Club of Rome recorded their tracks at the Barn as well. Club of Rome was the band of Charlie Hanson, who later became my bandmate in the Vels. So these are pre-Vels projects. In addition to the mellotron, the 'Wheel of Fortune' track features a piano solo by me, samples of carnival sounds, and a sort of 'ska' rhythm influence, which was popular in bands we liked at that time, like XTC. It was a hugely fertile time period musically, with bands being sort of whimsical, humorous, and colorful, in a way that seemed really lighthearted and fun, and very specific to that moment in time."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, T.M.I. 015: A Compilation.

T.M.I. 015: A Compilation (Three Mile Island)

1. Jungle Book (Dancing Cigarettes)
2. Dream Factory (Carsickness)
3. Nervous Breakdown (Johnny Clampett and the Walkers)
4. Sacrifice (Club of Rome)
5. Lies (Easter Island)
6. Beatsickness (Cold Warrior and the Mercenary Band)
7. It's Not Right (F-Models)
8. More (Nominal Bond)
9. Wheel Of Fortune (Moroccos)
10. Serenade (Tripod Jimmie)
11. A Quick Trip (Chris Koenigsberg)
12. Body Motion (Stick Against Stone)

No New York

2010-02-16T04:20:00.006-05:00

"Let me spin you a tale of yesteryear ... a godforsaken time when sometimes you actually had to wait years (!) to hear certain kinds of music because you couldn't find a copy of the goddamn record!

By spring of 1986, I had deduced from my research at the public library that there was something weirder and better than good ol' Punk: it was a disjointed, surrealistic deconstruction of rock perpetrated by antisocial characters with names like Lydia Lunch and James Chance called No Wave. The rhetoric and pictures sure looked good in books and magazines, so the search began. By the summer of that year I had procured used copies of the Contortions and James White and the Blacks albums (four dollars each) as well as ROIR cassette-only releases by the Contortions and 8 Eyed Spy.

James Chance was an ornery character. His shrill, dissonant saxophone playing and petulant vocal tirades reeked of nihilism and lent a clearly sadomasochistic edge to the thin, jarring mutant funk of his backing bands. I used to stare at the back of James White and the Blacks (the Contortions 'disco' alter-ego) LP and wonder who the hell these weird people were: Pat Place, Tad Among (actually Kristian Hoffman, the keyboardist from the Mumps), Anya Phillips, George Scott, Stella Rico (Lydia Lunch incognito, her portrait consisting only of a set of bound, black stockinged legs) ... the whole milieu just seemed so goddamn PUERILE! As a kid, this was all very 'New York City' in my mind - a fucked up, sleazy place where outcasts gravitated and did their misanthropic thangs and actually thrived ... of course, now, NYC is merely a haven for the rich and debauched, a mere shell culturally of what it was once, but at the time the city's allure was dangerous and perverse in nature.

Lydia Lunch fascinated me. She was an exotic creature - only 18 years old in '78, sexually smouldering, with raven-black tresses - who seemed to utterly despise everything on the planet and did so with unerring articulation and intensity. The ultimate babe! Her 'rock mama' vocals on the 8 Eyed Spy tape were cool, but the shit hit the fan in early 1987 when I ordered her 2 LP Hysterie retrospective album from CD Presents Records. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks sounded exactly the way I knew they'd sound: minimal, cacophonous and terrifying. One reviewer once likened her ultra-assaultive guitar tone to 'a Chilean torture chamber', and I found that comparison completely accurate. Lydia's lyrics were completely alienated and nightmarish visions of abuse and death. Teenage Jesus was a slasher movie as music. I was hooked.

I read about DNA and Mars as footnotes in various geeky rock reference guides from the period. Both group's releases would prove much more difficult to track down. Luckily, Lydia's Widowspeak Productions imprint issued a rather lo-fi and reverb-laden Mars anthology entitled 78, which I got at my local record store in early '88. Mars seemed to be the result of waaaay too much LSD taking. Their lyrics shifted from reality straight into hallucinatory vision and their music corroborated this. Their drummer Nancy Arlen was bordering on inept and couldn't (or wouldn't) play anything resembling a rock backbeat; the guitars buzzed and reeked of filth and decay; and the inhuman, retarded vocals pushed the whole thing past the point of no return: Mars made ANTI-music with sociopathic glee. The DNA EP A Taste of DNA turned out to be in stock at a New York based indie distributor called NMDS (or New Music Distribution Service). I think i paid $8.98 for it via mail order in March '88. I was extremely pleased when it arrived. This 12" EP had 6 'songs' on it and barely lasted 10 minutes, but I couldn't have been happier with the chaotic guitar raking, tumbling drums and oddly lyrical bass playing holding the whole mess together. Once again, the band looked like a bunch of disparate freaks: an Asian woman on drums, some really nerdy guy on vocals and guitar and a lecherous looking bass player. I could strongly relate to the motley crew element of the No Wavers ... this was true individualism without the dress code of punk ...

The elusive No Wave Holy Grail remained the classic 1978 compilation No New York, produced by Brian Eno. I had read so much about it and heard all the bands, but my lust for more of this warped noise was hitting fever pitch. I wised the fuck up around early '89, walked into my local record store, flipped through the pages of the Schwann catalog (at the time, a reference guide to what was readily available from record distributors), pointed at a listing for the album and asked the clerk, 'Can i order this?' They said, 'Yeah, it'll be here on Tuesday.' I couldn't believe it was that EASY. For a long time, most people just assumed No New York was completely out-of-print: well, I know it was available until - at least - the late '90s, just sitting there in the warehouse, waiting to be ordered. I came back the next week, plunked down my $9.98 and that was that. I'm not going to say much more about it, but it's a great fucking record. If you like weird rock music, this is one of the foundations and it still sounds fresh and iconoclastic to this very day. There is a real grittiness here that is mostly lacking from today's neo-no wave experience - it think it has to do with eating fucking DIRT, not graduating from a liberal arts college ... Go ahead, listen to it. Those were different times.

By the late '90s, Antilles Records - the label which released No New York and a division of Island Records - was owned by Polygram Records and due to a technicality, the rights to No New York languished in the 'jazz' division of the daddy label. People like Atavistic Records and Henry Rollins were interested in acquiring the rights to the album, but Polygram's Jazz wing thought they had something to be ransomed off and kept raising the asking price every time someone new inquired about it. Now there's a legit Japanese CD version (far superior sounding to the original vinyl) and a few sketchy 'Russian' bootlegs, but for a while, it seemed like this seminal release was in serious limbo.

Now with the interweb, we have nothing but instant gratification ... but if it's all free and instantaneous, is it really worth anything? No New York is a slice of a bygone era - I ask you downloaders, what does it mean to you right now? Can it possibly mean as much to you as it did to me back in '89? I'm not claiming that struggling and searching to have to find music makes the experience innately better, but does all this free music floating around actually have an impact, or is it all just another download waiting around on the old iPod waiting to be listened to cursorily before moving on to the next thing? I would hate to think that's all this revolutionary music means now. This is not a challenge; it's a discourse. Leave a comment.

- Weasel Walter, 2.11.10"

Thanks to Alice Cohen for lending me her own well-worn copy of this record. I've been collecting records since the mid 90s and I have yet to see one for sale at any price.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, No New York.

No New York (Antilles)

1. Dish It Out (Contortions)
2. Flip Your Face (Contortions)
3. Jaded (Contortions)
4. I Can't Stand Myself (Contortions)
5. Burning Rubber (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
6. The Closet (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
7. Red Alert (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
8. I Woke Up Dreaming (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks)
9. Helen Forsdale (Mars)
10. Hairwaves (Mars)
11. Tunnel (Mars)
12. Puerto Rican Ghost (Mars)
13. Egomaniac's Kiss (DNA)
14. Lionel (DNA)
15. Not Moving (DNA)
16. Size (DNA)

Harumi

2010-02-15T04:20:00.005-05:00

I would like to welcome Camilla Padgitt-Coles to the writing staff of Pukekos, although this is not our first collaboration. She (along with Hilary Zarabi-Azam) did the artwork for Teengirl Fantasy's Hollywood Hils EP, and directed the music video for "The Rings of Neptune" by Odysseus.

I purchased this record during my time as manager at Midnight Records, and Camilla had this to say about it:

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Harumi.

Harumi (Verve)

1. Talk About It
2. First Impressions
3. Don't Know What I'm Gonna Do
4. Hello
5. Sugar In Your Tea
6. Caravan
7. Hunters Of Heaven
8. Hurry Up Now
9. What A Day For Me
10. We Love
11. Fire By The River
12. Twice Told Tales Of The Pomegranate Forest
13. Samurai Memories

Starring

2010-02-11T04:20:00.005-05:00

Starring seem to be PROGRESSing nicely:

"Hey!!

This STARRING tape documents one of our many 'musical' efforts to represent all sorts of dumb things we love: jungle gyms, movie houses, massage parlors, scary situations...yeah, but also things like hugs, roses, cute animals, dinosaurs, etc. Stuff like that. Want in on this? Let's do it, dudes!

Courtesy of our friend BJ here at Pukekos, this tape is going from ugly party favor into a digital FREEBIE! Listen up, ladies!!! There's something for everybody here: Sing-Along, Gypsy Melodies, Holiday Themes, Hawaiian Sounds and other things. It's yours, and we hope you love it. STARRING's PARTY-TASTIC, and this is your party! BE OURS AND WE WILL BE YOURS!!!

xoxo
-STARRING"

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Starring.

Starring CS (Pukekos)

1. Wife of God
2. Aphonia
3. Stop Progress
4. July
5. Take Off Your Clothes