kill ugly radio

Horrid 70's Radio

2008-06-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Some unbelievably weird-but-true 70's hits.
I grabbed all these off of SeeqPod from memory. Just the odd songs that got lots of airplay when I was a lad.

Enjoy, if possible.

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Seeqpod Test Post

2007-12-07T14:50:00.001-08:00

If this works, you should see a single player holding a playlist of Hasil Adkins.
If not, this will be purged shortly.
That is all.

Haunted Jukebox

2007-10-28T18:17:00.001-07:00

I actually got through most of October without making a Halloween playlist, can you believe it?
I haven't had the time to do any fancy assemblage or mixing, so instead spent nearly as much time mucking around with SeeqPod and selecting songs.
As much as I like gathering my own songs from my CD, record, tape and MP3 library, it was fun to select only things I could find on the web, as available via SeeqPod.
Plus, my playlist is much less dark and ugly as previous years and much more fun and perhaps party friendly. But then, I assembled it, so it may not be for every taste.

Happy Halloween!

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Don't get too excited, kids....

2007-10-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

This is a test.
For the next sixty seconds, this blog will be testing the Seeqpod playlist system.
This is only a test.

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

I moved most activity to my new home here.

Since Wordpress and SeeqPod don't seem to like each other, I will post playlists in this post from time to time.

Other than that, there's not a whole helluva lot going on here.
Requests for re-ups to this blog fall in my spam filter. I would advise you to visit the new, improved Kill Ugly Radio.
Thanks for listening.

KILL UGLY RADIO HAS MOVED

2007-01-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

The namesake for Kill Ugly Radio was a generic boombox of indeterminate manufacture specially modified to play two tape loops simultaneously and also receive electromagnetic interference from power tools and electronic toys. It was used as a performance instrument in audio experiments until it had a catastrophic power source failure and had to be terminated. It is on permanent display in the Larch Mountain Absurdatory.

I have moved KILL UGLY RADIO

Please update your bookmarks: KILL UGLY RADIO'S NEW HOME

Please come visit me and I apologize for any inconvenience.

Various Artists

2007-01-01T01:42:00.000-08:00

Faster and Louder Vols. 1 & 2

Rhino Records

An absolute top-drawer series from Rhino with an emphasis on hardcore circa the eighties. An unflinching look at the seamy underbelly of American and British punk. What's nice about the collection here is that many songs are culled from singles or in otherwise seldom heard versions. There's also a lot of inclusion of bands that were big back in the day, yet have faded into relative obscurity - and many I've never heard of before. Another nice thing is the very extensive liner notes and biographical info on each band included and Gary Panter's swell wrap-around cover art. If you can find them (I believe they are out of print), get them - you won't be sorry.

Faster and Louder Vol. 1

Tracks:

1. Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia
2. Bad Brains - Pay To Cum
3. Circle Jerks - World Up My Ass
4. Suicidal Tendencies - I Saw Your Mommy...
5. The Dicks - Dicks Hate The Police
6. Angry Samoans - Lights Out
7. Meatmen - One Down Three To Go
8. SSD - Get It Away
9. Redd Kross - Linda Blair
10. D.O.A. - World War 3
11. Really Red - Modern Needs
12. The Stains - John Wayne Was A Nazi
13. Government Issue - Fun And Games -
14. Mission Of Burma - That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate
15. Husker Du - Statues
16. The Urinals - I'm A Bug
17. Bobby Soxx - Scavenger Of Death

Download Volume 1

Faster and Louder Vol. 2

Tracks:

Zero Boys - Civilizations Dying
Husker Du - In A Free Land
Wire - 1. 2. X. U.
The Subhuman - Firing Squads
The Germs - Lexicon Devil
Fear - I Love Living In The City
X - We're Desperate
Agent Orange - Bloodstains
Negative Approach - Nothing
Naked Raygun - Rat Patrol
The Dils - You're Not Blank (So Baby We're Through)
Stranglehold - She's Not Leaving
Wipers - Romeo
DYS - Wolfpack
Black Market Baby - Potential Suicide
GG Allin - You Hate Me And I Hate You (Public Animal No.1)
CH 3 - Fear Of Life

Download Volume 2

Various Artists

2007-01-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

Punk University Vols. 1 & 2

Oglio Records

Another nice pair of punk comps cds, this time from a specialty imprint of Capitol. These offer a mixed bag of British and American punk and a wider chronology - from really early (Ramones) to eighties punk. Could've done without the lesser Iggy Pop tracks, - including the one he whored out to a bourgeois sea cruise line! All in all, a pretty nice mixed bag of early punk music. There's probably nothing here that would turn the heads of most punk collectors, but it is nice to have Suicidal Tendencies best song (maybe only) alongside something by The Toy Dolls, any day.

I think the Punk University motif was an attempt to cash in on the mid-nineties generi-punk resurgence, but thankfully, like a lot of similar comps, doesn't include any Green Day or Offspring, et al.

Punk University Vol. 1:

Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
Buzzcocks - Orgasm Addict
999 - Homicide
The Ramones - Beat On The Brat
Vandals - Ladykiller
Adolescents - Amoeba
Circle Jerks - Wild In The Streets
Redd Kross - Annette's Got The Hits
X - Los Angeles
Fear - New York's Allright If You Like Saxophones
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life
Killing Joke - Eighties

Download Vol 1

Punk University Vol. 2:

X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage, Up Yours!
The Toy Dolls - Nellie The Elephant
The Germs - Lexicon Devil
The Buzzcocks - Something's Gone Wrong
The Dickies - Gigantor
X - White Girl
Iggy Pop - I'm Bored
T.S.O.L. - Dance With Me
Circle Jerks - When The Shit Hits The Fan
Agent Orange - Bloodstains
G.B.H. - No Survivors
Generation X - One Hundred Punks

Download Vol. 2

Various Artists

2007-01-01T00:08:00.000-08:00

Dangerhouse Volumes 1 & 2

Frontier Records

Nice pair of compilation CDs from Frontier (released in 1991 and 1992) of the complete run of Dangerhouse punk singles from 1977 to 1980. Some of the artists involved are The Avengers, The Dils, Black Randy The Metrosquad, The Weirdos and X, as well as some lesser known bands such as The Randoms, Howard Werth and Rhino 39.
It's interesting to hear the genesis of LA punk, which seemed richer in variety and artfulness than it would later become. Many bands seem to feature interchangeable members. This is good music to listen to while reading We Got the Neutron Bomb, a great testimonial, Studs Turkel-type tome about the birth and death of LA punk.

Tracklist Volume One:

Randoms-Let's Get Rid of NY
Weirdos-Solitary Confinement
Black Randy the Metro Squad-Trouble at the Cup
Deadbeats-Let's Shoot Maria
Eyes-Disneyland
Dils-Class War
Avengers-We are the One
Rhino 39-Prolixin Stomp
Bags-Survive
Alley Cats-Nothing Means Nothing Anymore
Howard Werth-Obsolete
X-Los Angeles

Download Volume 1

Tracklist Volume Two:

Alley Cats - Give Me A Little Pain
Alley Cats - Too Much Junk
Eyes - Eniwetok
X - Adult Books
Weirdos - Neutron Bomb
Black Randy - Idi Amin
Black Randy - I Slept In A Arcade
Bags - Babylonian Gorgon
Bags - We Will Bury You
Rhino 39 - Xerox 12
Rhino 39 - No Compromise
Avengers - Car Crash
Randoms - ABCD
Dils - Mr. Big

Download Volume 2

Re-upped Material

2006-12-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

I have re-upped Material - Seven Souls.

Go check it out.

Firesign Theater

2006-12-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death

Rhino Records

Firesign's return after decades of no real new ensemble albums together. This time around, it's all about the hysteria of the (then) impending end of the century, the Y2K conundrum (remember how that was going to end the world?) and bad, bad commercial radio.

From Wikipedia:

It takes the form of a fictional radio broadcast on the night of December 31, 1999. Radio Now is a radio station in FunFunTown whose format changes approximately every hour at the slighest whims of overzealous market researchers and focus groups. The album chronicles Radio Now's attempt to operate normally on the final day before the year 2000, a day riddled with apocalyptic omens, rampant computer errors, and dangerous doomsayers...

...Given specific focus on this album is the Y2K bug. The album, made in 1998, thoroughly lampoons the various world-threatening results which were being predicted from the widespread software defect at that time. Aside from Y2K, topics given satirical treatment include the Y2K bug, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Joe Camel controversy, and the Art Bell radio show...

Many old Firesign characters are there, as well as some new, current cultural skewerings. Some of this doesn't age so well, having crossed one cultural, consensus reality tunnel and well into another, but it is still a hilarious and intellectually rewarding comedy experience in these Dane Cook/Larry the Cable Guy times.

Radio Now!

Have re-upped Laibach Peel Sessions

2006-12-25T20:38:00.000-08:00

It was over here, remember?

More re-ups and perhaps some new stuff soon.

I'm on vacation 'till after the holidays.

Woo hoo!

Firesign Theatre

2006-12-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends

Columbia (Original Masters Series)

Originally released as a multi-LP set, this compilation offers some of
the best bits from their syndicated radio program, Dear Friends that was condensed from a twelve hour LP package sold to radio stations across the US in the early seventies.

No standard characters or long sketches, just four guys sitting around a table and messing with our - and each other's - minds. The largely improvised verbal jam sessions will tie your brain in knots like a pretzel. Falling asleep with this playing will severely tax your ability to maintain any semblance of normal human cognition the following day.
This is probably the rawest (philosophically speaking) form to experience the power of the hellish brains of Ossman, Austin, Bergman and Proctor, still at it after forty years.

Toad Away.

http://rapidshare.com/files/8867665/Dear_Friends.zip.html

Various Artists

2006-12-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

It's Finally Christmas!

Tim Kerr Records

A great, Portland only (I think) compilation of rock covers of traditional and new original Christmas songs, with a Hannukah song thrown in for good measure (by Calamity Jane). The first two or three songs are almost enough to put you off of the concept, but Dead Moon (RIP!) redeem the whole affair and it picks up considerably. Sadly - Dead Moon are no more and The Dandy Warhols live on with virtual impunity.

All your great Portland heavy hitters are there; Poison Idea (RIP), Caveman Shoestore (MIA), Hitting Birth (now King Black Acid - currently being reborn), The Oblivion Seekers (cool, semi-rockabilly band) The Whirlees (who make The Grinch rock!) and of course, what would Christmas be without Smegma?

There's many music styles and genres represented here and lyrically the songs range from irreverent to beautiful and more than one are gloriously messed up. This was released in 1994, so many bands and/or members are defunct/deceased.

I'm not a big Christ-fan, but I want to wish all my Kill Ugly Radioheads a happy holiday season, whatever you are.

Get Christmas

Playlist:

1. Merry Christmas To Me - Swoon 23
2. Gloria In Excelsis Deo - Pond
3. Little Drummer Boy - Dandy Warhols
4. Christmas Rush - Dead Moon
5. Christmas Time Is Here - Meg Hentges
6. Santa Claus Is Back In Town - Poison Idea
7. Christmas In The City - Oblivion Seekers
8. The Grinch - Caveman Shoestring
9. Little Drummer Boy - Hitting Birth
10. I'm Mad At The Fatman - Ray And Clover
11. Christmas Dressed In Blue - Iceburg Slim
12. Hey Santa - Flaps Down
13. I Wonder As I Wander - SVELT
14. Hannakuh Song - Calamity Jane
15. Ave Maria - Sugarboom
16. Happy Holiday - Smegma
17. Rebel Jesus - The Violets
18. Shoplifting You Something For Christmas - New Bad Things
19. The Grinch - Whirlees

Women Take Back The Noise

2006-12-17T17:12:00.000-08:00

UBUIBI recently hosted a 3-day live experimental music series (December 8-10, 2006) that featured a worldwide selection of artists from the Women Take Back The Noise compilation. Each night of performance focused on one of the themes from the 3-disc collection: ORGONAUTA, SCHEHERAZADE & VOCIFEROUS featuring works by the artists in their own unique style & interpretation, reflecting the mood of each theme.

The event took place at 21Grand Arts Space (Oakland CA) and was co-presented by KUSF radio (San Francisco CA). There were several other live events that corresponded with the live series, including a showcase evening of performances at Luggage Store Gallery (San Francisco CA) and live radio performances on local bay area stations KUSF, KFJC, KPFA and in the UK on Resonance FM, hosted by Fari Bradley, who is also one of the 47 artists on the WTBTN compilation.

This has been a labor of love by Big City Orchestra member and noise Goddess Ninah Pixie. The three-disc compilation of nearly fifty female noise/art/musicians comes in a beautiful hand-made package complete with circuit-bent noisemaking adornment.

Check it out here.

The live, in-the-studio radio shows are great, too. I have been listening to the streams and archives.

Re-ups

2006-12-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

Hi all.

I have re-upped the following:

Chu Ishikawa - Tetsuo soundtracks

Flipper - Sex Bomb Baby

Killdozer -Intellectuals../Snakeboy

There may have been more - I've been doing them as time (and bandwidth) allows.

There's been a request to re-up the Consolidated/Emergency Broadcast Network/Disposable Heroes mega-post, so I will when I get a little more downtime.

Andreas Ammer and F.M. Einheit

2006-12-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Deutsche Krieger

Invisible Records

Here's one I've been looking for for years. It's yet another strange collaboration between Einstürzende Neubauten's Einheit and playwrite Andreas Ammer. It tells the story of three influential Germans through grammaphone, radio and television recordings accompanied by Einheit's blippy, bleepy electronics. The three chapters - "Kaiser Wilhelm Overdrive", "Adolf Hitler Enterprise" and "Ulrike Meinhof Paradise" all contain audio verite from their titular character's respective eras; shellac records of Wilhelm II's mobilization speeches and contemporaneous wax records; the story of Adolf Hitler told entirely through radio broadcasts; the suspenseful action saga of the Baader/Meinhof gang -starring supersexy Ulrike Meinhof - as a television drama, complete with 70's disco music. Music samples of Kraftwerk, Bernard Hermann and what is either Blixa Bargeld's patented dentist-drill shriek or just Blixa's dentist drill abound.
Like other Ammer/Einheit recordings (Radio Inferno, Crashing Aeroplanes) it's simultaneously horrifying and hilarious.

Tracklistings:

01 Kaiser Wilhelm Overdrive Vorspiel Das Fünfte
02 I. Akt Sprechmaschine
03 II. Akt 01.08.1914, Königsschloß
04 III. Akt Schlachtfeld
05 IV. Akt 09.11.1918
06 Adolf Hitler Enterprise Vorspiel Der Fünfte
07 I. Akt 30.01.1933, Radio
08 II. Akt Sender 1212
09 III. Akt 24.12.1941
10 IV. Akt 08.05.1945, Bunker
11 Ulrike Meinhof Paradise Vorspiel Die Fünfte
12 I. Akt 02.07.1967, Fernsehen
13 II. Akt 14.05.1970
14 III. Akt 08.05.1976
15 IV. Akt 18.10.1977, Requiem

Download here (rapidshare)

Various Artists

2006-12-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

Die Sechziger:1933-1963 Lieder des Europäischen Widerstandes Gegen den Faschismus
Unknown Label

Nice comp. that's apparently on a German label that collects lots of anti-fascist and Partisan songs from WWII and beyond.
Wish that it included more Yugoslavian Partisan songs. It's interesting to note that most songs come from not just occupied countries, but Germany itself. Fascinating.

I've had this for a while and don't remember from whence they came, but did a little research and corrected the filenames and ID tags, which were a nightmare.

Download Die Sechziger

Cross your fingers kids, my upload speed appears to be back, but I'm still experiencing blogger-burnout, so there's no telling how often I'll post stuff.

Enjoy, Comrades!

Out of Order - Use Stairs

2006-12-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks, but until I resolve my problems with my ISP, there won't be any updates or re-ups for a while.

I am not only getting consistantly slow speeds, but found that they have throttled down uploads, making album-sized zips nearly impossible. I am speaking to half of Southern Asia all about it, but to no avail. And being locked into an annual contract means I can't take my business elsewhere.

Plus, I've really reached that saturation point with music where I'm not doing other things - especially creative stuff. So maybe this is happening for a reason. Sorry to the many who have emailed or commented for a particular album. It might happen, but I can't say when. Please do check in, as an alternative solution may present itself, or I might feel inspired to blog about other blogs.

Not the end, but the start of something else.
~Rich(chardman)

Some MySpace finds

2006-11-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah...
I know, MySpace blows.
You don't have to tell me.
But believe it or not, I've actually found some cool music on it, or should I say it found me.

One cool find has been Doktor Liborius & the Mutants, who hail from France.
It's consciously Residential music - indeed, members met up in the Residents fan club. They really sound like something you'd hear on one of those Ralph comps, circa 1979 or so. I dunno, this stuff is appealing at first, but could grate after awhile. We'll have to see if they put more songs up.
Check them out here.

Another is DJ Tapeslinger, who has the markings of a truly messed up individual. His tape inching, punchup recordings remind me of the audio messes I used to make to cheer myself up and annoy people around me. (make an otherwise normal recording with a cassette recorder, whilst punching the pause button on and off very rapidly, sometimes to the beat of the music).
Nice stuff.
He's right here.

I should mention that both pages feature downloadable songs.
Give 'em a listen and make comments if you dig what they're laying on you.

Hi All, Long overdue post.

2006-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

Hi friends, Mr. Chardman here.
I'm so sorry for the slow down. I've been real busy. having to wrap my lobes around some heavy stuff for work.
Learnin' how to edit video, and shoot better pictures. Deadlines up the wazoo.

I have, however, acquired a shiny new hard drive, making storage and retrieval a breeze.
I had stuffed my poor ol' Mac to the gills, and didn't even have enough room to rip my latest project! I did have a clunky old USB hard drive that took as long as a it does to download a big file from the 'net as it did to transfer between it and my Mac. But thanks to Kill Ugly Radio's patron saint Ralph, I now have a beautiful new(ish) Lacie Firewire drive.
I do so love home computing, how 'bout you?
So now, grabbing zips out of cold storage will be easier, especially since I seem to be concerned with fulfilling Re-up requests, lately.
Yes, I said re-up requests. They are scattered about. I will get to yours as well, I promise.

Black Lung

2006-11-12T01:14:00.000-08:00

Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
Dorobo

Another from ex-Snog member Thrussell. This one takes it's cues from a supposed document found left in an IBM copier in the eighties that allegedly dealt with a secret psy-op war to control the world population. It even gets thrown into uber-wacky conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper's kitchen sink bible of the New World Order, Behold a Pale Horse, one of the goldurned unintentionally funniest books you'll ever read this side of the Book of Mormon.
But what of the music? This time around, there's greater emphasis on spooky ambiances and glitchy, repetitive electronic noises. It's not unlike having a giant, Brazilian aquatic centipede inside your skull trying to gnaw its way out, with just a dash of Kurt Schwitters. Again, many song titles are evocative of the coming psychic battle for men's minds, as with the previous album, Depopulation Bomb. There's even a pretty- albeit creepy sounding - faux-symphonic piece Prozac Parade that features samples of a phone ringing and kittens.
Someone answer the damn phone and save the kittens, for christ's sake!

Everything you know is wrong

Ministry

2006-11-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (Live)
Sire Records

Maybe this slab sounds tame by today's standards, but to my ears back in 1990, this is what I thought was simultaneously the end and beginning of rock and roll. I had always been a big punk fan, and was saddened by the demise and/or co-option of punk. And most attempts to jump start the genre seemed to lack any danger, originality and was simply too nostalgic. Although I was marginally aware of the band Ministry, this album really caught me by surprise. It seemed to meld the best of industrial and punk and graft it to the power and fury of heavy metal, all with the political bent that seemed missing from that genre. Although they'd put out two studio albums that led Ministry away from British influenced dance-rock, this is the one that has a sound one could imagine hearing by sticking your head in the business end of a jet engine. It pummels and pounds the senses with precise and bombastic percussion from twin drummers, oodles of hard-edged synths, razor sharp guitars and psychotronic samples galore.
It also helps that it has more than its share of help with Killing Joke's Martin Atkins and Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly (in his John Lydon impersonation phase) and a guest shot by Jello Biafra (sadly not included on this disc).
The closing track Stigmata burns the venue down and leaves you shaking.
I dedicate that track and Thieves to the circle of tyrants thrown out in our last election and the hopes that it's just the beginning.

Download

Thieves

Thieves, thieves and liars, murderers
Hypocrites and bastards [in laughter]

Hey thanks for nothing!
Morals in the dust
Two-faced bastards and syncophants
No trust

Thieves! liar!
Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know
My side, your side, their side, we don’t know
Which side are they? which side are they?
Which side of their mouth do you suppose that it came?
Which side are they? which side are they?
Which side of the grass is greener?
Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know
My side, your side, their side, we don’t know

You’re like a great big fucking gun,
Just waiting to get squeezed!

Breathe, forfeit erection!
Toxical injection
Geriatric fuck-fest
We still believe in lies

Thieves! liar!
Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know
My side, your side, their side, we don’t know
Who started it? who started it?
Which side are they? which side are they?
Which side of their mouth do you suppose that it came?
Which side are they? which side are they?
Which side of the grass is greener?
Inside, outside, which side, you don’t know
My side, your side, their side, no one knows

You’re like a great big hit of acid,
Waiting to be taken!

Blog report, short form

2006-11-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

So many fine blogs folding up their tents and calling it quits...
What a shame.
Mr. Lucky has finally decided to cease Oranj Aural and Squeezo. We wish him all the best in whatever he turns his talents to.

Totally Fuzzy cannot be subdued by any change. It keeps coming back like a beast from Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead).

But my own blog seems to be neglected. My job is getting busy and my hard drive is reaching the breaking point. I have plans to get a bigger one, but that's in a few months. I'm also thinking about hosting KUR elsewhere and maybe going Wordpress. But I'm not that web-savvy and it might mean long outages as I fuck up the code from time to time.

Plus, I'm reaching this saturation point with music where the more I find, the less I listen to and enjoy. The hoarder instinct is an ugly, maladaptive monkey trait that makes us miserable at times. I really need to just settle down and try to enjoy the music I have and stop compulsively looking for more.
I go through this phase every year or so and the acquisition of broadband and the share scene has just turbo charged the dynamic.
But don't worry to much, this is also the phase where I take all my neglected, unwanted CDs and vinyl down to a decent used record store (we still have a few in Portland) or a swap meet and trade it in for new stuff.
So you will be in on the process one way or another. I'll have new sounds and perhaps some discoveries that are new to both of us.

In the meantime, I'll continue to plug away with a post or two a week as I find stuff, rip the ocassional record or a CD jumps off my shelf that I've overlooked.

Various Artists

2006-11-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2
Mute

This followup to 1994's Kraftwerk tribute album Trans Slovenia Express features many new artists and of course Laibach, who are the best known outside of Slovenia. Like the first album, it's split pretty evenly between straight up homages and complete reinterpretations of this very influential German band. Laibach - a band unabashedly influenced by Kraftwerk - is the purest examplar of their Kling klang muzik on their Bruderschaft, an apparent original (it sounds like Brat Moj, to my ears) very much in the style of Kraftwerk. The band Silence is also there, which is fitting as they now constitute half of Laibach's current configuration. Hard rock band Siddharta turns The Robots into a balls-out arena rocker. It's a fun update to the fascinating original concept and broadens our scope towards the Slovene music scene.

Tracks:

Laibach - Bruderschaft
Silence (Featuring Anne Clark) - Hall Of Mirrors
Siddharta - The Robots
Stroj - The Metal On Metal
Octex - Computer Love
Torul - It's More Fun To Compute
Rozmarinke - Radioactivity
Moob - Telephone Call
Alenia - Home Computer
Bast - Mitternacht
O.S.T. - Metropolis
Lara-B - Hall Of Mirrors
Sequan - Metropolis
iTurk (Featuring Maya) - Sex Object

Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2

This post is dedicated to the amazing Kristof, a reader who was kind enough to post Trans Slovenia Express 1 here. (scroll down through comments in link)
Thanks so much!

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hello all.

It's still not too late to grab (or just listen to) some cool Halloween or creepy-themed music.
Scar Stuff is still your one-stop shopping place for Novelty Halloween records and spooky stuff.
Right now he's featuring a few albums I've wanted for some time. One is the great Horrific Child "L'Étrange Monsieur Whinster" that is on Stephen Stapleton's infamous NWW list. It's a wonderfully creepy Frog-Rock horror masterpiece. Another is the Creed Taylor series (Shock!, Panic!) and Kenyon Hopkins (Nightmare!) - a couple of incredibly strange selections that have been in and out of print for eons, but another great schlocky find is Forry Ackerman's Music For Robots. Nice. I think he was still selling this 1950's robot themed album in 1970's issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Go visit Scar Stuff soon as he's about to go into post-Halloween hibernation.

Kathy of the amazing KBOO radio program The Autonomy Hour (alternating Thursday evenings at 12:00 AM on 90.7 FM in the Portland area) wants to let us know that SomaFM is streaming scary, dark-themed music for our holiday. I listened to it for most of my otherwise dreary workday and it really was great. It darkened my end of the quad and lifted my spirits simultaneously. Safe for most players.

Ninah has pointed out a cool mix of Halloween music that you may either download or play via Flash. I did a little of both. From our fine friends at Oddio Overplay. Check it out here.

Black Lung

2006-10-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

Depopulation Bomb
Iridium/Polygram Australia

Creepy, crypto dark ambient from Aussie David Thrussell (Ex-Snog) under his nom de plume Black Lung.
Like a much of this genre, a lot is implied by song titles and associations and thus a very Philip K. Dickesian paranoia vibe is derived therein. Black Lung's hook is an X-File-ish conspiratorial narrative woven into some very appropriately doomy electronic music. It's a perfect soundtrack to the Alex Jones horror show that serves as our current, collective reality.

Joyful Slaughter (Of The Capitalist Swine)

Kill Ugly Radio Presents

2006-10-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

All Hallow's Eve/Samhain Podcast

As promised earlier this month, here's my offering in hopes of a bountiful music harvest in the year to come.

Death and Rebirth.

Download:
Kill Ugly Samhain Sacrifice.mp3 ( 66.6 minutes, megs)

Playlist in Comments

Laibach

2006-10-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

Kapital
Mute

Laibach's 1992 album was its greatest departure from the industrial path and its most experimental in the pop medium.
It utilizes many techno styles such as Jungle, House and even Hip-Hop. There's very little of the elements one comes to expect from a Laibach album. There's no ironic cover songs as such, unless you count those that served as ready-mades for their sonic sculpting. There's a DJ turntable and sample throwdown, with significant bits lifted from George Lucas's THX1138 among other things. Even Milan Fras' distinctive voice is scarcely heard here. But don't worry, it's all idiosyncratically melded with Teutonic, Wagnerian Gottendammerung and Slavic and German singing. Stylistically, this is a very retro-futuristic album, with the melding of classical and traditional music styles with electronica and many recycled lyrics and samples recur. Les Privileges Des Mort sounds like a remake/remodel of songs from the reissues of Slovenska Akropola and their debut Laibach. Some of the lyrics from Hunter's Funeral Procession sound an awful lot like lyrics that would turn up in 2003's WAT. This album takes a lot of chances and it pays off; it is one of the most consistent albums of their ouvre and offers one of the most rewarding listening experiences.

BONUS: The vinyl-only track Steel Trust, by Laibach sub-group Germania (and sung by Anja Rupel), which sounds like a theme for some retro-futuristic soap opera.

Wirtschaft ist Tot megaupload

300,000 V.K.

2006-10-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

Peter Paracelsus
Ropot

Satanic techno from Laibach sub-group Dreihunderttausend Verschiedene Krawalle (300,000 Different Riots) and philosopher/poet Peter Mlakar, filtered through his weird amalgam of Marxist and Luciferian principles:

"Satanic Techno is that state when the pain or pleasure [of human experience] are no longer submitted to a process of their own natural determination, but are a matter of the will of the scientific mind, which is able solely for its own enjoyment to manage the psychological structure and has an effect on it independently of the subject's will, and which also abolishes a cast-iron law of nature.
In a manner not dissimilar from Laibach, Peter Paracelsus subverts a pop genre to his own ends, injecting it with an overt ideology, in contrast to the insidious but covert commodity fetishizing of most music industry output."

It's a nice blend of Laibach's Euro-techno aspects and dark, ominous disco. If you enjoy some of the electronic elements of Laibach albums such as NATO and Kapital, then this will fit the bill.

Venite Lucifer Rapidshare

Totally Fuzzy ist Tot

2006-10-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

The sharrity blogoshpere is in a panic spiral over the disappearance of Herr K., who hasn't posted since the 12th.
Perhaps he was taken away to the Castle.*
Perhaps he just plain hit the wall of way too damn many blog posts and too much real life going on.
But despite that, TF blogs on. They have taken the fall back position of posting open dexes.
Mmmmm... ..open dexes.
Brings me back in a good way.
I remember surfing around for them, and discovering some real jems amongst the drek (for me, Limp Bizkit or Papa Roach or Death Cab for Cutie in a dex are a good indicator that you're not going to find anything interesting here.). Surfing open dexes is really the sport for the hunter with loads of spare time and the patience of a saint.
Here's hoping he returns, or finds happiness elsewhere. Either way, TF has been such a great resource. It's been our periscope in these murky waters of filesharing. I remember jumping around with idiot glee the day Totally Fuzzy found my meager blog.
We'll push on somehow.

* Bad, incorrect Kafka reference.

Kill Ugly Radio Annex

2006-10-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Kill Ugly Radio Podcast depository.
This is a collection of all my radio mixes to date.

Chariots Of The Gods?	1996	Download
Nazis in Space pt. 1 (Yma Sumac vs Heino in space) Nazis in Space pt. 2 (Church with Anne Thraks) Nazis in Space pt. 3 (You can be a third Uncle in space, this time around)	1999 " "	Download Download Download
Kill Ugly Thanksgiving	Nov. 2005	Download
Old Sounds For New Flesh	Jan. 2006	Download
Edge of Nowhere Mix	Unknown date	Download
An Ugly All Hallow's Eve	Oct. 2005	Download
Godcast (playlist)	April 2006	Download

Francis Dhomont

2006-10-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

Frankenstein Symphony
Asphodel/Sombient

French-born, Canadian composer Francis Dhomont has a long, impressive career and a lengthy discography, but this is his best known work in avant-music circles. It's a wonderful assemblage of other people's musique concrete and electro-acoustic pieces, rendered all the more bizarre by Dhomont's recontextualization and deft use of spatial effects. Some bits of it sound like a soundtrack to some un-named horror movie.

Here's some notes on it by the composer himself:

A hybrid thing in four movements, made of cut-up pieces, pasted, assembled, sowed parts that are alike and contrasted, and that I have named, for obvious reasons, the Frankenstein Symphony: an unusual electroacoustic adventure.
Armed with a scalpel and a splicing (operational) block, I sampled several morphological organs from the the works of 22 composers and friends (many of whom were students of mine), and with their imprudent blessings (on a stormy night?), brought to life this little acoustic monster which I hold particularly close to my heart. —Francis Dhomont

Download

Negativland

2006-10-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

Points
Seeland Records

Followup to 1980's debut S/T album (which I blogged here). Again, less focus on thematic material and more homespun audio mayhem. This one seems more family oriented - somewhat like sitting in on someone else's family barbeque while on some kind of low-grade psychedelic drug. There's an old lady singing and playing an accordion, a lovely little organ tune (with sample of like-minded Doug Kahn's Reagan cut-up), and lots of ambient tv and household noises. And there's also less emphasis on songs or attempts at musicality and more glorious noise. But it was just a sample of the chaos to come.

Potty Air

The Cramps

2006-10-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

Lucky 13
Drug Fiend Records (Bootleg)

Great early concert by The Cramps recorded on Friday the 13th, 1978, at CBGB's (r.i.p.).
This one has Lux introducing themselves as Frank Furter and the Hot Dogs and whoever made this boot touts them as such on the cover. Indeed - the printing on the actual CD itself makes no mention of The Cramps, just the Frank Furter name and the date and venue. Perhaps this is how they were able to get a decent pressing plant to make it on the sly in the pre-CDR era. I don't know.
What I do know is that this is a great set. The sound is so clear that you can hear the cash register ringing and someone not too infrequently throwing beer bottles against a back wall. It features most of what would become their first LP and EP, and Bryan Gregory sounds like he's playing the same songs as Ivy, which was reportedly rare. Lux's between song banter is quite amusing, as well. This has recently been released as the last third of the multi-disc, odds n' ends compilation How To Make a Monster.
A fine document of The Cramps early days, a eulogy of sorts for CBGBs and what's Halloween without The Cramps?

I'm Cramped

The Misfits

2006-10-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Beware: The Complete Singles (77 - 82)
Destroy Fascism Records (Germany - Bootleg)

A really nice little compilation that gathers all the early Misfits singles in one place.
It's a little scratchy - sounding like everything comes from someone's well-loved collection (plus some sloppy queing), and many of these tracks have been remastered elsewhere and released on quite a few legit comps, the best being the wonderful Static Age.
The earliest single, 1977's Cough Cool B/W She - with Glenn Danzig on keyboards ala The Stranglers - sounds like it was cut on one of those old carnival make-your-own-record machines, but it's an interesting glimpse of this band's genesis. There's some swell highlights represented by their subsequent singles and the Beware EP, terminating in the horrid Evillive EP, the band's nadir, where they play faster and sloppier and the horrendous recording doesn't help much.
It's all redeemed by an outtake that was never released until long after the band called it quits, The Return of the Fly, and Last Caress (from Beware), the band's finest song.

The Misfits and Halloween go together like candy-apples and razorblades.

Link and playlist in comments.

NON

2006-10-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Receive the Flame
Mute

An album of ambient noise from the self-proclaimed King of Noise Music and martini swilling misanthrope Boyd Rice.
This should serve as proof of his aforementioned title. It's a wonderful suite of disturbing loops and dissonances, all rendered into a blur of white noise. Some take a the tack of taking a very short loop of otherwise innocuous music and letting it play into infinity, till you submit to the mega-cyclic mind-rape. The effect of most songs is not unlike subjecting your eyelids to a flashing strobe light - only done to your ears. While some of the tracks are rather abrasive at first - and the overall theme is rather dark, the culminative effect is somewhat soothing.

Receive the Flame (Mega)

Death in June

2006-10-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Wall of Sacrifice
Tesco

I've avoided Death in June for years, but have long been intrigued by singer/guitarist Douglas P.'s contributions to other people's work and his taste in music via a podcast he did a while back for Brainwashed.com. I'd always written DiJ off as another dark industrial band that flirted with fascistic imagery and had a misanthropic lyrical bent. Whereas bands like Test Dept. and Laibach openly displayed aesthetics of fascism or nationalistic motifs, they - for the most part - are doing it in a sort of political and artistic detournment and have aspects to their art and music (Futurism, Deconstructivism, Surrealism, etc.) that would never have been tolerated by a genuine fascist government such as Nazi Germany. Death in June, complete with creepy WWII Fallschirmjager jumpsuits and scary looking gargoyle masks, have a tougher go of shaking Nazi allegations. It doesn't help that frequent collaborator (and often similarly attired) Boyd Rice makes an appearance, a spoken word piece where he intones about destruction being an essential part of the wheel of life (Bring on the Night). That little ray of sunshine aside, the rest runs the gamut from smooth death folk (Fall Apart, Giddy Giddy Carousel), industrial loop melt downs (Wall of Sacrifice, Death is a Drummer) and death drones (Heilige Leben) for an alternately beautiful and desolate listening experience.

MegaUpload
Yeah, I ain't too happy about it, either.

Re-Ups and Downs

2006-10-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hi kids.
By request, I have re-upped the following:

Return of the Living Dead OST
Big Black - Hammer Party
Flipper -Blowin' Chunks (missing track replaced - thanks David!)
Laibach - Slovenska Akropola (not really a re-up, but an up)
Laibach - Tanz Mit Laibach single
Greg Sage -Sacrifice

I will try to keep up with requests, but with the shortening of RS, I may use another method.
Update; Uh.. this is a little embarassing, but I've somehow locked myself out of my RS account.
Update 2: I will upload to Megaupload until further notice. I hope this doesn't end up excluding anyone. I am unable to use rapidshare any longer due to some password, login problems.

Poison Idea

2006-10-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

Pig's Last Stand
Sub Pop

Portland's Poison Idea was my first ever punk show. I saw them shortly after the released Record Collector's Are Pretentious Assholes (still my favorite record by them). PI had the heaviest, most blistering sound, thanks to some amazing guitarwork and singer Jerry A's powerful bellowing. They managed to retain the nihilism of punk without succumbing to it's limitations and pitfalls - musically, that is. Earlier this year, guitarist Tom "Pig Champion" Roberts succumbed to a lifestyle that was hedonistic to the extreme. When not ingesting drugs and alcohol, Roberts managed to pack away enough calories to amount to nearly 500 pounds. He died of kidney failure just as PI were about to release a new album, ironically titled Last Will and Testament. I have to say that I wasn't particularly surprised. I had run into Tom and Jerry at shows back in the day, and even talked to Tom (about some damn movie), and a friend once had a very drunk Jerry threaten to beat him up over a shirt he was wearing. Tom also hosted a great radio show in the early-to-mid eighties which was my only lifeline to the world of hardcore punk. Sometimes I used to wish that I'd gotten to know him better, but when I hear tales from friends who did, I'm kind of glad I never had the opportunity.
This album - Pig's Last Stand - was recorded in 1993, the first of PI's many 'farewell concerts'. It's an amazing document to the power and fury of Poison Idea and a fitting epitaph for someone who lived and died for excess.

Death, Agony And Screams

Yeah, I've kinda lost interest in most punk.
I don't really like it much anymore, except for some exceptional bands who managed to transcend the genre's orthodoxy.
Most of my punk LP's and CDs have gone to my oldest son Zack, who turns eighteen today!

Happy Birthday. Love ya, kid!

Samhain Approaches...

2006-10-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

The trees are turning orange and the shadows lengthen...
I might be busy for a spell.
I am knitting you all a new Halloween podcast.

Here is a link to last year's offering.

Kill Ugly Halloween 2005 (mp3 - 58 meg)

I was happy to hear that the muse of that particular show (Kathy Fors of The Autonomy Hour) found it, as it was a stitched together attempt to recreate the spookiness of her shows. I am also delighted to hear that she will do another on Thursday, Oct 26, 2006 on www.kboo.fm, (90.7fm in the Portland metro area).

This made me spray coffee all over my keyboard

2006-10-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

Music Site Race

2006-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Which of these three popular music sites is the slowest?

My contender is Allmusic.

Discuss...

U.S. pushes Russia in WTO talks to close MP3 site

2006-10-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Russia should shut down a pirate music Web site that is robbing U.S. recording companies of sales if it wants to become a member of the World Trade Organization, the top U.S. trade official said on Wednesday.

"I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a Web site like that up and running that is so clearly a violation of everyone's intellectual property rights," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters after a speech to a services industry organization.

Schwab's call for the allofmp3.com Web site to be closed came as the United States and Russia are trying once again to reach a deal on Moscow's 13-year-old bid to join the WTO.

Read whole story.
Found at The Bulldada Newsblog

Laibach

2006-10-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Nova Akropola
Cherry Red

One of the darkest, most frightening album of this band's Slovene-sung era (1986).
Most of the tracks sound like demonic rituals or exorcisms (depending on your perspective), albiet with a strident, martial beat or hunter's horns. Krvava Gruda - Plodna Zemlja (Bloody Ground - Fertile Soil) is especially frightening when one considers what transpired in the Balkans less than a decade later. Vojna Poema (War Poem) sounds like a folk song from another time, but somehow gone horribly wrong. Many of these songs end up in different forms or versions on later Laibach albums around this era, where their discography can be somewhat baffling.
Highly recommended.

"Die Liebe ist die Grosste Kraft"

Nature and Organisation

2006-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude
Durtro

A Neo-Folk project by Current 93 member Michael Cashmore released in 1994.
It's also a (dark) star-studded affair, with Death in June's Douglas P., Rose McDowall, David Tibet and our favorite wounded nurse, Stephen Stapleton.
It's a very mellow, folky outing; perfect for the time of the year when the leaves turn orange and the sun dips low in the sky. It's considerably mellower than most of the constituent contributor's bands and even includes a lovely string section. I actually ran across this album because it contains a cover version of The Wicker Man Song, sung beautifully by Rose McDowall. Proof that Neo/Death-Folk can be both dark and beautiful.

Beauty Reaps The Blood Of Solitude

Bring me the Head of the Wicker Man

2006-10-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

Jim from Gimmie Back My Head (the blog formerly known as Bring Me the Head ) has beat me to the punch and posted the wonderful soundtrack to the original (please!) of The Wicker Man. I was about ten minutes away from uploading it and doing a meager write-up, honestly.

Visit him here.

I agree with his sentiment regarding the remake. I think just based on the trailers that it looks insipid. I also think that changing the Summerisle character into a Wiccan-ish woman shifts the dynamic and metaphor of the movie (or my perception thereof). I liked the paradox of the idyllic pagan cult and Summerisle's apparent deception of his flock. It seemed to me to be a metaphor for the domination by either patriarchal religion or a modern political state. And in the end, Howie lives out the ultimate Christian destiny; that of a martyred saint.
The fact that the studio chose not to screen the movie for the press says scads about how well they think they did this ill-advised remake.

Anyway, this soundtrack has been unavailable for years in this form, and I highly recommend it.

Negativland

2006-10-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

Guns!
New American Radio Series

From the same source as the previously posted Advertising Secrets, comes this lengthy piece all about this nation's obsession with firearms, which aired in 1989. A reworked and drastically edited version of this ended up as the last EP that they rolled out on SST Records. This version (which has also never had a formal release) runs nearly ten minutes longer than the record and includes bit's and pieces that ended up in 1993's Free and a slightly different sequence and mix. In this series, Don Joyce's razor tapes dominate the mix, but these tracks are also a much more successful amalgam of the aformentioned element and the band's musical creations - than their dabbles in three to four minute song structures. Another great piece by Negativland.

"The Motorcade Sped on..."

Negativland

2006-10-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

Advertising Secrets
New American Radio Series

A commission for this long running radio series done in 1991. This is a half hour long piece by Negativland that resulted in the 7" single (on Eerie Records) of the same name, but is a mere fragment of this total work.
From New American Radio's blurb:

A dynamic blend of rhythmic elements and original audio constructs—actual ad jingles, lines and phrases—commentary by and about advertisers—books on tape materials about how commercials are conceived and created—plus various out-takes from commercial productions which depict the sophisticated process (and elaborate cynicism) of the professionals involved.

All sounds - save for some ambient noodlings by the band - are made entirey of book-on-tape sales motivational material and related sources. Much of this ended up on subsequent Negativland albums and singles, but I don't believe that this complete piece has been released in any legitimate form.
This is Negativland in their creative peak.

"Stick 'em on a big piece of tape..."

Robert Anton Wilson

2006-10-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything!
Audio Book

From this report on Douglas Rushkoff's blog, things aren't going so well healthwise for our favorite stand-up philosopher/mind-fucker Robert Anton Wilson. He is dying of Post-Polio Syndrome. Wilson turned our minds upside down with The Illuminatus Trilogy and The Cosmic Trigger. Efforts are being made to raise funds so that he may live out the remainder of his life in his apartment, without being evicted. Here's a link to a Boing Boing post with info on a Paypal fund for him, which in just one day managed to pay his rent! Or you can buy this guy's swell T-shirt (proceeds go to RAW) and become a Pope in the process!

Here's a taste of RAW's 9 hour CD set Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything! - Or, Old Bob Exposes His Ignorance, which you can buy here.

Tracks:
1.Religion for the Hell of it
2.The New Inquisition

I have seen the Fnords!

Reposting: Don Joyce -Mort Aux Vaches

2006-10-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

This rarity has been re-upped by request, but will expire soon.

Write-up here.

http://rapidshare.de/files/35032264/joyce_mort.zip

The Mothers of Invention

2006-09-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

'Tis the Season to be Jelly
Foo Eee Records

I used to own a few of these Beat The Boots/Rhino Foo-Eee series of Zappa bootlegs, but parted with them because the sound was either putrid or simply not as entertaining as their studio album or legitimate live releases. I did hang on to this one as it's rather good and is also a spotlight on my favorite configuration of The Mothers.
And this is a good example of what rock critics used to write about the Mothers; the wacky amalgam of Classical, jazz and 50's hit parade crap. Also, it seems Zappa boots are all the rage, and I don't see this one around yet. Here's a much better review of it (from The Daily Vault) than I can muster:

But what sets this album - and, for that matter, The Mothers --apart from everything else is the mixture of music that they play onstage. From the shuffle-waltz tempo of "You Didn't Try To Call Me," Zappa leads the band into a portion of Stravinsky's"Petroushka," and instantly transforms a classical work into a catchy pop number. (Hardcore classical music fans would call this sacrilege; I call it introducing a form of music to a newaudience.) If this weren't enough, the band segues from "Petroushka" to "Bristol Stomp," then into "Baby Love"...finally into "Big Leg Emma," all without skipping a measure or leaving a noticeable seam. This, my friends, is Talent.
The highlight of Tis The Season To Be Jelly is an early performance of The Mothers' jazz-rock masterpiece "King Kong," including a brief description of the song from Zappa. Admittedly, "King Kong" is the type of song you must show some patience to get through, but in the end, it's well worth it, and may even open up some people's minds and ears to the world of jazz.

Although, I disagree with his assessment of King Kong. I could listen to a whole album of versions of that song.

Track List:

You Didn't Try to Call Me
Petroushka
Baby Love
Big Leg Emma
No Matter What You Do (Tchaikovsky's 6th)
Blue Suede Shoes
Hound Dog
Gee
King Kong
It Can't Happen Here

Get it here.

Updates and cool finds

2006-09-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.
How are you?
I'm feeling alright. Enjoying a very casual Saturday, eating hot Indian curry and posting.
Been doing some thinking about reorganizing the way I do posts and uploads. I noticed quite a lot of downloads but not a lot of comments, other than problems with unzipping. I don't know what I can do about the latter, but the former makes me wonder about putting up a password. I just want you - my loyal readers - to be able to download my shares, rather than let folks sniff them out the back door. Let them suffer through my long-winding posts just like 'yall.
What do you think?
I'm also not sure what to make of Rapidshare's impending shortening of share shelflife. It might really change the whole Sharrity blogosphere considerably. Any thoughts or ideas on that?
Also, if you find that one of my shares has expired, be sure to say which one when commenting. I have blogger enabled to tell forward comments to my Email, but it doesn't always tell me which post it comes from. So often I get an anonymous request to re-up, but don't know which file. It speeds up the process for both of us. I will try to re-up as soon as I can, but will probably only do it on a request basis, unless it's one I feel got lost in the shuffle and should be heard.

I just got through watching The Devil and Daniel Johnston, so may post some. It's a very moving film which I recommend. I was always kind of on the fence about his music, but now find that I like it a lot.
GPOD has it as a bittorent, if you are so inclined.

Are Friends Electric has been posting some very cool late eighties/early nineties dance/industrial, including a band I've been looking for and - until now - not been able to find: Tackhead. He just put up one of my lost faves Friendly as a Handgrenade. I was looking for this stuff when I did my feature on bands like Consolidated, EBN and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, as they're very much in the same milieu. He's got the goods here.

Mr. Lo-Fi Jr. has got another fantastic contender for the title of Ugly Atonal Eighties, with Madison Wisconsin's Tar Babies. I used to play their awesome We Are the New Poor incessantly. He has two albums by them, as well as a swell write-up. Go check it out.

Stefan over at Moodswings Music has been on a World music spree, sharing lots of great stuff. He even put up soem Transylvanian Gypsy music, which I find really interesting, being on a Balkan, Eastern European kick lately.

I'm also on a Cabaret Voltaire kick, and One2zero is holding. He's got their fantastic 2x45 album up, one of the last of the Chris Watson lineup. He saved me from having to rip my vinyl of it and for that I'm eternally grateful ('cuz I'm a lazy bastard).

Our favorite Evil Doer has put up another band I plum forgot all about - but who nevertheless rock, The Nomads.
They are great in a way that so many modern psychobilly bands aren't. Give 'em a listen and tell me I'm wrong.

As the season changes while we slide into October, I dark plans for this site. I will repost some scarier music, will rerun last year's Kill Ugly Radio Halloween podcast and finally put out a new one. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I want to keep it dark and scary and not let the crazy X-tian conspiracy exorcize it of it's darkness.
That's right, the War On Halloween has begun. Do you know that some schools don't let kids celebrate halloween? How will they ever find darkeness?
In that light (hehe) i was delighted to find that someone has posted Art Zoyd's Nosferatu soundtrack.
NNW list devotees One of the Lists is Bending Up has got it here.

That's it kids...
See ya real soon.

Flipper

2006-09-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

Sex Bomb Baby
Infinite Zero

By popular demand, I bring you the 1995 posthumous compilation of odds n' ends from the tragically short career of Flipper. It's a crime against humanity that they are no more and so many lesser bands are still chugging away, collecting money, selling T-shirts, etc...
Kids these days.
Contained herein are various live bits, B-sides, compilation cuts, and -of course - an old lady who swallowed a fly. I guess she'll die.

"Forget it, you wouldn't understand anyway...."
(reupped 12/16/06)

Laibach

2006-09-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

John Peel Sessions
Strange Fruit

In 1986 and 1987 Laibach recorded two sessions for the late John Peel's radio show which weren't released until 2002. With the exception of Krvava Gruda - which sounds indistinguishable from that available on Nova Akropola- all songs are vastly different than we've heard them performed before. Life is Life, which many would hear later on Opus Dei, sounds much slower - with a greater reliance on keyboards than in previous incarnations of this band - and Milan Fras' voice is a hoarse croak. But the real shocker is Leben Tod, which rocks harder than anything that they've ever done before or since, with razor sharp guitars and gut-pounding bass.
For some reason Ti, Ki Izzivaš has become a song called Krvoprelitje. Who knows why? There's even a track performed from Baptism Under Triglav.
An interesting document that catches Laibach in the crossroads between their ~~Croation~~ Slovene-sung, dark industrial music and their Germanic, pop song skewering phase.

Tracklist:

1. Krvava Gruda - Plodna Zemlja
2. Krst
3. Life Is Life
4. Leben-Tod
5. Trans-National
6. Krvoprelitje

Life is Life
(re-upped 12/25/06)

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #7: Flipper

2006-09-27T21:18:00.001-07:00

Blowin' Chunks
ROIR

In all that I can't believe that I forgot to post any Flipper, the band that may have spawned the genre in the first place. The Butthole Surfers have long stated this Bay Area band as a major influence. Poison 13's fuzzed and out of tune guitars sound like Flipper on a good day.
I can't really explain the oversight, or how I managed to ransack my CD shelf and skip over both this and Sex Bomb Baby, another great Flipper LP.
This one wins out because it's live presentation is even more menacing and fucked up than anything else they've recorded and also contains my favorite song 'Life' ("the only thing worth living for...").
Snap it up, Chuck.

Get it?
Re-upped 10/12

Happy Sharetime Shoutouts

2006-09-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

Hi 'yall...
I have gotten a few unfortunate instances of people being unable to unzip some of my ups.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. I may switch to another method, but don't really have the time to do simultaneous uploads (i.e.; having both Megaupload, Rapidshare in the same post.).
But what I need to know is if people are actually being able to unzip them at all. Not to whine, but the only feedback I seem to be getting is from those who are unable to unzip them. My stats say that lots of downloading is going on in any given share, but I can't imaging that all of them are broken, eh?. Casual browsing of other sharrity blogs suggest that there is a certain margin of error where this is concerned. I'd like to do what I can to minimize it as much as is practically possible, but if no one's able to enjoy the shares, I may as well fold up my little lemonade stand and pack it away.
Don't make me write a feedback form....

UPDATE:
An anonymous visitor reports the following:

"I clicked "repair archive" function on WinRar and it worked for me, I was able to extract the files from the repaired .zip, yes as you might have guessed, on a pc..."

Hope that advice turns out to be handy for some of you...

Chu Ishikawa

2006-09-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

Tetsuo - The Iron Man Soundtrack
Japan Overseas

Music from Shinya Tsukamoto's synapse bursting Tetsuo movies. The bulk of the songs are from the second flick, The Body Hammer and most appear to be adaptations of themes and motifs from the movies themselves, rather than the songs actually used in the films, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Megatron is a grand reworking of The Iron Man's theme, featuring Ishikawa's precise industrial percussion and martial rhythms. The faux-Arabic keyboard sounds on Mausoleum are a lot more restrained here, but the song is expanded out to a regular length - something Tsukamoto's unconventional cinematic narrative style and brain-fry editing don't allow. Jerked out of their surreal celluloid context, it's easier to scrutinize Ishikawa's musical style, even if his sounds and his director's images seem inextricably linked.
Nice. I'm really glad I found this.

"Sakoi!"
(re-upped 12-10)

Various Artists

2006-09-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

Return of the Living Dead Soundtrack
Enigma/Restless 1985

Pretty hokey by today's standards, but this punked out (1985-style) soundtrack to one of the first zombie movie revival flicks - and a pretty hot one to boot- was a really big deal at the time. Not only did some very cool acts on the Enigma label get some mainstream exposure, it was the first thing that we heard from The Cramps for at least a couple of years, after IRS stranded them in some contractual gulag. Their Surfin' Dead was a taste of the madness to shortly come when they unleashed A Date With Elvis a year later. Another hot-shit track is The Flesheater's Eyes Without a Face, where Chris D sounds like he's gargling Liquid Plumber.
There's a few pre-Goth horror punk staples; the Damned make an appearance, as well as the vastly overated TSOL. 45 Grave do a metal anthem that would make Quiet Riot proud. Sheesh, it's hard to believe that this is the same band that did White Cross or I Got Fucked By the Devil! SSQ embarass everyone one with a few songs that were dated sounding (whomp-whack electronic drums) ten minutes after they were cut.
Another truly amazing track is Roky Erickson's Burn the Flames, used to great effect in the film.
This soundtrack went out of print awhile back, and even cassettes of it fetched high prices for a spell. Mine is a little odd - not too surprising considering that I dredged it up from Russian sources - in that it includes the title music, not seen on any issues of the album. Hmmm.

Track list:
1.) Main Title -- Matt Clifford
2.) Surfin' Dead -- The Cramps
3.) Partytime (Zombie version) -- 45 Grave
4.) Nothing For You -- TSOL
5.) Eyes Without A Face -- The Flesheaters
6.) Burn the Flames -- Rocky Erickson
7.) Deadbeat Dance -- The Damned
8.) Take A Walk -- Tall Boys
9.) Love Under Will -- The Jet Black Berries
10.) Tonight (We'll Make Love Until We Die) -- SSQ
11.) Trash's Theme -- SSQ

I think it's been picked up by Ryko, and may or may not be OoP again.

"BRAINS..."(rs)
re-upped on 10/12

Problems Unzipping?

2006-09-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

I've gotten two or three meassages from folks who haven't been able to unzip the last couple of downloads from me.
Is this happening to many people? I doubt it.
87 people downloaded the Butthole Surfers Rembrandt Pussyhorse, and two people replied, if only to say that they couldn't get them unzipped. I don't often download mine to see if they are OK, but when I do, they are alright and I end up having to wait an hour to download something else.
I have updated my zip utility - Stuffit, which has been prompting me to update for a week or so - but I don't think that's it.
Anybody hear of some Mac/Stuffit vs PC/Winzip incompatibilty issue?

If you've been successful at unzipping files from me recently, give me a shout-out.
If you continue to have problems, let me know.
Assuming that the majority isn't having any problems, I'm not sure what I can do.
I am open to suggestions....

Cabaret Voltaire

2006-09-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

Johnny Yesno Soundtrack
Mute

Cabaret Voltaire's soundtrack to Peter Care's film I've never seen about a junky. Chances are you've never seen it either. However, it's a great all instrumental album, featuring the last of the Chris Watson lineup - if I'm not mistaken. Having Cab Volt work in the soundtrack genre lets them stretch out compositions and frees them from the constraints of rhythm and beats, although Taxi Music sounds like mutant jungle music. A nice diversion, and a last taste of weirdness before Watson left for a career in television and Mallinder and Kirk went into poppier (albiet still very weird) dance oriented music.

Johnny Yesno

BTW: The awesome one2zero has got the entire 2x45, two disc EP up for us to download. It's probably one of the best of the early dance-era CV. Check it out, as well as his other top-notch shares.

Diamanda Galás

2006-09-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Plague Mass
Mute

Fantastic live album of Galás performing The Plague Mass, recorded at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. It's a culmination of efforts from her earlier albums that indict those who would sweep the AIDS epidemic under the rug and - like many of her pieces - she channels buried victims and lends them a voice.
Harrowing, to say the least.
Here's a snip from a wikipedia article on her:

Susan McClary writes that Galás, "heralds a new moment in the history of musical representation," after describing her thus: "Galás emerged within the post-modern performance art scene in the seventies... protesting... the treatment of victims of the Greek junta, attitudes towards victims of AIDS... Her pieces are constructed from the ululation of traditional Mediterranean keening...whispers, shrieks, and moans."

Utilizing the Book of Revelations, Leviticus, Galás intones pronunciations on the wicked, all the while stripped to the waist and drenched in (apparently real) blood. In a Catholic Cathedral.
If you've ever had the fortune to see her perform live, it's an experience you won't soon forget. Her multi-octave voice is truly stunning and she's one of few performers I've seen who really undergo a frightening transformation onstage.
Difficult listening to be sure, but rewarding nontheless.

This is the law of the plague
(@320kbps - 150 megs!)

Butthole Surfers

2006-09-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

Rembrandt Pussyhorse/Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis
Touch and Go

By request, The Butthole Surfers' follow up to Another Man's Sac...
Not much to write about it. It has much more finesse and polish than the latter album, and was produced by Kramer (Shockabilly, Bongwater...), who also plays some organ on it. Not too bad.
Also includes the EP Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis, featuring the crazy college radio staple Movin' to Florida.

UPDATE: Here's a re-up of Rembrandt Pussyhorse.
If this doesn't work, I don't know what I can do for you. I tested it on someone's PC and it worked fine.
Hopefully it's just a fluke.

Laibach

2006-09-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Tanz Mit Laibach (EP)
Mute

In anticipation of a forthcoming Laibach Album* (Volk, due Oct. 23rd), I present Tanz Mit Laibach, the advance single from 2003's WAT. Tanz was Laibach's answer to George Bush's New World Order - or was it? As usual, you can't take Laibach product at face value. They apparently mock authority systems and methods by imitating and assimilating them. Here they praise German/American relations (and namecheck D.A.F. in the credits) with the frightening couplets:

Amerikano Freunde,
und Deutscher Kamerad,
wir tanzen gut zussamen,
wir tanzen nach Bagdad!

Stylistically the song sounds a lot like DAF's Der Mussolini and also Der Sherriff, their own Gulf War indictment. Lyrics also mention the dictator characters from Chaplin's The Great Dictator (Ado Hinkel, Benzino Napoloni). Included on this single are four rather radical remixes of the song by Slovene DJs Temponauta, Zeta Reticula and others .

EINS, ZWEI, DREI, VIER (@320 kbps)
re-upped on 10/14 (megaupload)

* I plan on upping a few rare Laibach items until the new album is out. Hopefully no one is too offended by them. Even if some folks 'get' Laibach's act, I also understand that their look, imagery and even lyrics can offend some, especially those of you in the EU. I feel that way with some Death-folk and Darkwave stuff that use Germanofilia and Nazi motifs as an overall look/sound.
Thanks for understanding.

Robert Fripp

2006-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Exposure
DGM

Robert Fripp emerged from his music biz exile (where he taught guitar to lucky students for a few years) to play on a few Bowie albums ( with Eno) and to produce one for Peter Gabriel. Somewhere along the way, he ended up in New York and recorded a fantastic solo debut. However, it became his problem child, as his vocalist Daryll Hall's record label didn't think it was an appropriate product to link their employee's image with. Subsequently it was released with fewer vocals by Hall and more with Peter Hammill and Terre Roche and a different mix of guest Peter Gabriel's Here Comes the Flood. Unhappy with the results, Fripp and others allegedly lent out tapes of the original version, probably spawning bootlegs versions.

This is an album I've wanted to own for years, but has eluded me at every turn. When I finally found it on CD, it's mix -and , hell even versions - varied from what I'd heard on the radio, back in the eighties. Honestly - and not to get into some kind of movie director's cut-type debate - I like both versions. Although this album makes me really admire Daryll Hall a lot more, I don't know of any song that smokes as much as Hammill's version of Disengage. When listening to Exposure, I pick some from column A and some from Column B, because even if they didn't suit Mr. Fripp at the time, the compromise album is great as well. It's Fripp at his poppiest, most experimental and - dare we say - punkiest. He's never done another album quite like this.

I'm always a little hesitant to post something new and obviously in print, but feel that everyone who's into Fripp ought to check this out, and has probably -and will continue to - go out and buy it for themselves. Plus the liner notes (with Fripp diary entries) are swell, to boot.

24-bit Remastered version - 2006, ripped @ 320kbps

~~Exposure (First Edition)~~
~~Exposure (Third Edition + bonus tracks)~~

Links removed per request.

Warning! Super-mega post below

2006-09-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ugly Atonal Eighties Series
Wherein I attempt to document a little slice of time and place in the crawl to the new millenium around a segment of bands who shared a similar style and/or lyrical outlook.

The post punk American landscape spawned some mighty ugly music. Festering out of the hardcore punk scene, and perhaps due to punk establishing an orthodox, perhaps even fundamentalist ethos, bands came around that truly sounded threatening again.

It starts here:

Kill Ugly Index:
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #1: Butthole Surfers
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #2: Killdozer
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #3: Scratch Acid
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #4: Big Black
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #5: Poison 13
UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #6: Shockabilly

This is a work in process and might be ongoing. your only warning.
If anybody would like to add to this, or see a glaring ommision, feel free to drop comments in this post and I'll respond accordingly as time allows.

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #6: Shockabilly

2006-09-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Colosseum
Rough Trade

Contemporaneous detractors aside, Shockabilly were one of the great unsung heroes of the ugly, atonal eighties. They beat the Butthole Surfers to the windowpane-acid spiked punch bowl and could out-goon the Cramps on any day.
Actually, most critics of the band seemed to center on guitar molester Eugene Chadbourne's Muppet-on-DMT vocal stylizations, which is understandable and difficult to defend. But in today's musical pantheon, he doesn't sound all that out of place say next to Les Claypool, nor do they sound as hickoid-on-bathtub crank as, say Bob Log III or countless psychobilly cats.

My favorite Shockabilly record, hands down, is Colosseum, their second full-length album.
Here they've edged away from country and rockabilly (save a hilarious take on Roger Miller's Dang Me) and move straight into psychedelic rock and retardo sludge.
The semi-autobiographical The Secret of the Cooler is one of the most beautiful ugly songs I've ever heard. The album also features more original songs by both Chadbourne and Kramer than on their debut EP and subsequent album. A Chadbourne original, Hattisburg Miss. is one of the straightest things this trio has ever committed to vinyl. Eugene really cuts loose on a version of the Byrd's Eight Miles High with a fat, overdriven solo which at times sounds like Robert Fripp channeling the late, great Sonny Sharrock.
Sadly, Eugene Chadbourne claims Shockabilly was one of his least favorite projects and Kramer has apparently desecrated the mixes on subsequent reissues of the Shockabilly catalog he put out on his Shimmy-Disc label.

Secret of the Cooler

Note: This is a repost from earlier last month - a ringer, if you will.

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #5: Poison 13

2006-09-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

Wine is Red, Poison is Blue
Sub Pop

Yet another Texas band (fercrissake! - is it in the water?!) is Poison 13, a Cramps n' Blues influenced unit that crawled out of the Big Boys fetid remains. Don't let the blues leaning scare you off though - it's somewhat more in the vein of Gun Club, though without the histrionics of that outfit. Poison 13's outlook was exceedingly dank, and best typified by vocalist Mike Carroll's (ex-Big Boy roadie) wounded coyote yelp. The fuzzed n' scuzzed guitars of Bill Anderson and tasteful slide work by Tim Kerr , as well as some swell bass playing, drive the swampwater tinged songs along nicely. Covers abound. Bands as diverse as Joy Division, The Troggs, The Sonics and blues standards get the P13 treatment. Doubtless this band was a big influence not only on later grunge rockers, but also today's psychobilly set.
Like a lot of the albums in this mega-post, this is a compilation of LP's and EP's of the type that lots of labels were doing in the early nineties, but stopped doing in favor of individually packaged, 'Remastered' editions. Yeah, right. Snap it up.

Wine Is Red, Poison is Blue

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #4: Big Black

2006-09-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hammer Party
Touch and Go

Big Black came out of nerd-boy and later recording engineer-god Steve Albini's solo taping project. He later found partners in crime in Jeff Pezzati and Santiago Durango (both veterans of the excellent Naked Raygun). Operating without a proper drummer - rather a drum machine they dubbed Roland, the trio made some of the most fucked up noise imaginable, albiet in a very disciplined, orderly manner (especially compared to the rest of the Ugly Atonal Eighties). Obvious influences of Gang of Four, The Pop Group and Wire notwithstanding, Big Black had one of the most innovative, original sounds of the post-hardcore punk era. Their precisely coordinated bass and drum pummeling, as well as Albini's beautifully, messed up, scratchy guitar and lyrics dealing with first-person character studies of depravity made BB a truly distinctive band. Ever the abrasive fellow, Albini's lyrics, album cover and song title choices assured they'd always be controversial figures. One Ep (the aptly-named Headache) featured a grotesque mortician slab photo of a ~~shotgun suicide~~ hatchet victim's head. A late LP was entitled Songs About Fucking. Despite all this, Albini's lyrics and magazine writing were intelligent and above most shock-rock agitators that would engage in such antics. Albini went on to form the not-too-dissimilar Rapeman and Shellac.

Hammer Party
Re-upped 10/12

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #3: Scratch Acid

2006-09-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Greatest Gift
Touch and Go

Scratch Acid came from the same Austin scene from which the Butthole Surfers festered out of and also shared a record label (Touch & Go) with Killdozer. Scratch Acid's sound was driven by some propulsive bass playing and a guitarist (David Wm. Sims) capable of frenzied riffing one moment and middle eastern fingerings the next. But the real selling point was the aptly named David Yow's manic singing/shrieking/hysterical screaming. Yow's lyrics dealt with all kinds of psychotronic imagery and deviations of every sort. The core of 'Acid eventually morphed into The Jesus Lizard, a not-much-less manic unit that traded during the grunge era.

Greatest Gift is a compilation of their first EP and subsequent album.

Greatest Gift

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #2: Killdozer

2006-09-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Intellectuals are the Shoeshine Boys of the Ruling Elite / Snakeboy EP
Touch and Go

Arriving around the same time as the Buttholes, but from Madison Wisconsin, was Killdozer. Killdozer's sound was driven by repetitive beats, a plodding, pounding bass, a fuzzy, wall of sound guitar and frontman Michael Gerald's guttural, hilariously unlistenable vocals. Most of their songs were in a first-person, demented point of view (usually that of a menacing, brainless redneck). Cover songs - amusingly mutilated - figured predominately in their early outings and became more of a feature (even dedicating one album - Burl- to folk musician Burl Ives) until the band split up in 1990 (there were reunion gigs, natch). Many of their songs dealt with cannibalism, murder and going to the beach. I remember playing the last mentioned song when I lived with my parents and my mom kept thinking something horrible was going to happen in it because of the ominous nature of the music, but they lyrics were just about going to the beach:

"We're goin to the beach today, just me and mom and dad..."

Intellectuals are the Shoeshine Boys of the Ruling Elite
(re-upped 12/16/06)

UGLY ATONAL EIGHTIES SERIES #1: Butthole Surfers

2006-09-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

Psychic, Powerless... ...Another Man's Sac
Fundamental

The post punk American landscape spawned some mighty ugly music. Festering out of the hardcore punk scene, and perhaps due to punk establishing an orthodox, perhaps even fundamentalist ethos, bands came around that truly sounded threatening again. Some - like the Butthole Surfers - had strong, chemical fueled psychedelic leanings. The Buttholes came out of the already fertile Austin Texas scene and released a pair of EPs on Alternative Tentacles (Brown Reason to Live and the PCPEP - virtually a live recreation of the former). Their sound is driven by manic twin drummers (literally!) and some loopy, frenzied psychedelic guitar work by Paul Leary. By the time of their first full-length LP, they mastered a grungy (long before it became a household word, it described music such as this - I kid you not!), vomit-tinged sound from some dank dungeon. Formerly un-punk elements such as backwards tape manipulation, loads of guitar effects and Gibby Hayne's (offspring of a TV kiddie-show host) patented megaphone vocal distortions (now de-riguer among generic rockers) all made for bad trip to nowhere that had me wearing out the disc. Strictly apolitical, nothing is sacred with the BH's. Lyrics were meaningless and scatological and were stream-of-conscious in a way that would be unsuccessfully imitated by later grunge-munchers. The Buttholes are true originals.

Psychic, Powerless...

Robert Fripp

2006-09-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Gates of Paradise
DGM

A spooky, yet ethereal soundscape piece by Fripp, recorded in 1996. Fripp's Soundscapes have evolved way past No Pussyfooting and Let the Power Fall; they are much more symphonic in nature and feature many more layers of delay than of those in the past. This one is darkly beautiful, dealing as it does with the afterlife and the imagery suggested by the titles (that being passing through gates and/or planes of existence) fit the music perfectly. Fripp projects falling guitar figures (although it rarely sounds like guitar here) into the aether and they float off in the darkness. At times it sounds like the soundtrack to a frightening horror movie, without becoming schlocky or unrelentingly scary.
Breakdown of the four tracks as follows (from Elephant Talk):

1 THE OUTER DARKNESS
5'02 i The Outer Darkness
1'19 ii Perimeter I
0'58 iii Perimeter II
1'58 iv Wailing I
1'15 v Perimeter III
3'26 vi Wailing II
1'23 vii Perimeter IV
3'05 viii Wailing III
4'05 ix Black Light
1'01 x A Wailing And Gnashing of Teeth
2 THE GATES OF PARADISE
5'22 i Abandonment to Divine Providence
8'34 ii Pie Jesu
3 THE OUTER DARKNESS
10'17 xi In Fear And Trembling Of The Lord
4 THE GATES OF PARADISE
6'53 iii Sometimes God Hides
4'48 iv Acceptance

~~Gates of Paradise (@256 kbps)~~

Links removed by request.

King Black Acid and The Womb Star Orchestra

2006-09-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

Sunlit
Cavity Search Records

First rate stoner music from Portland's King Black Acid, who I posted about here.
Just three long, slow songs that bring to mind Meddle-era Pink Floyd. This is - in my humble opinion - KBA's finest moment, and bridges their earlier experimentalism with their latter poppier, alt-rock attempts.

"Everyone knows you get high..."

Rachid Taha

2006-09-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

Made In Medina
Barclay Records

I don't often find good music at the Goodwill (a chain of charity-run thrift shops here in the colonies), but did this afternoon.
It's Rachid Taha's Made in Medina, a great techno-Raï-Arabic fusion album. I have been keeping an eye out for Taha's stuff since hearing bits of him on the BBC and after his concerts with Brian Eno. Taha has a rich, husky voice and he sounds great in this beat heavy mix, which was produced and arranged by none other than Steve Hillage. Some of the standout tracks (so far - i just got it and haven't stopped listening to it since) are Barra Barra, Qalantiqa and Hey Anta.
Here's a bit from Wikipedia on him:

Rachid Taha (born 1958 in Oran, Algeria) is a French-Algerian musician. His music is influenced by many different styles such as raï, techno, rock and punk. Based in Paris, France where he began his solo career after his beginnings as the leader of the French rock band "Carte de Séjour", he is the only rocker singing in Arabic. Politically-engaged, he has always stood up to defend democracy, tolerance and altruism against racism, communitarism and discrimination.

So far I really like Taha's music and hope to run into more soon. I keep playing his version of The Clash's Rock the Casbah and understand that he performed it live with Eno and Mike Jones recently. There is a DVD available of the Stop the War concert that they all did recently (along with Imogene Heap, among others).

Made in Medina

Bonus:
Rachid Taha - Rock El Casbah (mp3)

A Nice Show About Kittens and Pies

2006-09-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Boomtown Rats - Whitehall 1212
Syd Barrett - Gigolo Aunt
United Mutation - Lice Flies and Vermin
Tornados - Telstar
The Fall - Squid Law
Peeping Tom - Mojo
Motorhead - Overkill
Midnight Oil - Tin Legs and Tin Mines
Karen Finley - Party Animal
Freddy K and the Breeze - Clean Friends
Flamin' Groovies - Slow Death
Chu Ishikawa - Metal Succubus' Dance
Bijelo Dugme - Kad bi' bio bijelo dugme
Suicide - Johnny
Paul Giovanni - Willow's Song
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Wanted Man
Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso
Magazine - Model Worker
Les Rita Mitsouko - C'est Comme Ca
Godley & Creme - Sandwiches of you

Play as stream

Mike Patton

2006-09-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

Adult Themes for Voice
Tzadik

For some reason I keep thinking I already posted this.
Perhaps it's because it reminds me of Marc Ribot's Book of Heads. Like that album, this one really isn't what you expect from the artist. This is singer Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, etc..), while on tour in hotel rooms simply making noises into a tape recorder, and then processing the results ala Musique Concrete. I personally find it pretty damn amusing, even though this album has nearly everyone I've played it for completely annoyed. The best way I've found to listen to it is to have it in an MP3 player (or your computer's jukebox) on random, completely dispersed throughout other selections.
Petula Clark's Don't Sleep on the Subway, Darlin' will never sound the same again, after being sandwiched between Porno Holocaust (my fave) and Red Mouth, Black Orgasm.

Orgy In Reverb (10 Kilometers Of Lust)

Weird DC Hardcore

2006-09-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hiya.
Been too damn busy to do much, having just returned to work and have a pile of crap to get caught up on.
Here's something that I'd given up looking for, but found the other day:
It's United Mutation, a weird thrash-metal punk band that recorded an EP (Fugitive Family) in the mid-eighties.
They are a very bizarre, horror-tinged outfit with cartoonish vocals and everything is drenched in reverb. Frankly, I found this stuff spookier than contemporaries The Misfits; it's psychedelic metallic sludge riffing and the Linda Blair/Evil Dead type singer sounds much scarier than Glenn Danzig's cow-with-a-cattle-prod-up-the-rectum crooning anyday, even if I really liked the 'Fits, back in the eighties.
M³ over at Ochlokratie 2.0 has got a compilation of UM's output and another DC band, Malefice - whom I always thought were some Japanese band for some reason - up and ready for you to download.
Go check out his great post on them here.
Check it out to see the weirder side of 80's hardcore.

Various Artists

2006-09-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

Mesomorph Enduros
Big Cat Records

A slice o' time compiled by Jim (Foetus) Thirwell.
15 very noisy (or otherwise deviant) bands show the more abrasive side to early nineties rock, just to show it's not all about flannel, stagediving and soul-patches. This comp really defines the AmRep/Matador/Touch & Go aesthetic of that era as well, as typified by Jesus Lizard's Stub, Of Cabbaages & King's horrific The Reign and Tad's Pig Iron. This is a dank, noisy trip to the gutter all round. Many of these tracks appear elsewhere, but it's a great standalone sampler of Mr. Foetus's favorite (circa 1992) noise mongers that went straight to the cutout bins and shortly disappeared forever.

Track Listing

1. Cop Shoot Cop - Room 429
2. Melvins - Vile
3. Jesus Lizard - Nub
4. Hammerhead - Louse
5. Helios Creed - Sister Sarah
6. Tad - Pig Iron
7. Foetus Inc. - Incesticide
8. Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - Nothing Solid
9. Laughing Hyenas - Candy
10. Drunk Tank - Hog Ditch
11. Pain Teens - Hands in Fire
12. Of Cabbages and Kings - The Reign
13. Barkmarket - Johnny Shiv
14. Unsane - Bath
15. Motherhead Bug - Blister

Mesomorph Enduros

Greg Sage

2006-09-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sacrifice (For Love)
Restless

Greg Sage's second solo album, recorded after relocating to Arizona.
The difference between a Sage solo record and a Wipers album are relatively minor; save that his solo output tends to be composed mainly of ballad-ish material that pops up from time to time on Wipers outings. His weird, distorted and warbly guitar is usually toned down in favor of delicate acoustic work or gentle, Southwestern tinged modes. It also helps that the songwriting is better here than on 1985's Straight Ahead, which seemed unsure of itself, and somewhat lackluster. Here the songs seem more heartfelt and Sage displays the beautiful side of his utterly distinctive guitar style.

Sacrifice
Re-upped 10-14 (megaupload)

V/A: Fourteen Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers

2006-09-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

Tim Kerr Records

Keeping with the Portland beat for a bit more...
The Wipers were one of Portland's best bands, period.
If you don't believe me, go buy any of their P-Town recorded output (everything up to Land of the Lost, if i'm not mistaken), and give it a spin. Actually, any of Sage's records are worthy of multiple spins, but for the academic spiel I'm layin' on you, the first four will suffice. Can't find any? Slobodan at Only In It For The Music has got you covered here, here and here. Snap 'em up and give it a listen, Pete.

In 1993 Tim Kerr Records put out a tribute album (and aren't we sick to death of those yet?) dedicated to Greg Sage's songwriting - both in the Wipers and in his solo records. Almost every act on the disc (it was formerly issued as a boxed set of 7" records) is from Portland (Poison Idea, Napalm Beach, Dharma Bums, Hazel, etc.) or is a Portland Alumni or neighbor (Nirvana, Hole). As with most tribute albums, some play 'em straight, while others choose to reinterpret them in a unique manner. The Whirlies turn the repetitive grind of Land of the Lost into a galloping, funky death-knell and Crackerbash plays a medley of sorts. The big pull will be Nirvana's take on Return of the Rat, which is available elsewhere and suffers from being by Nirvana.
Fellow P-Towners Poison Idea's take on Up Front is a scorcher.

Sage cut quite a figure, scene-wise, whilst he was here (he's relocated to Arizona). He was often at other band's shows when not performing, looking like a gaunt zombie without really trying. I once ran into him at Sandy Barr's Flea Market (in the Portland Wrestling Arena) and was too stupid to say anything more than that I really liked his music. I always got the impression that his local fame made him uncomfortable.
It's good to see that his post-Northwest output is still really good.

Get it now

Dead Moon

2006-09-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

Strange Pray Tell
Music Maniac (Germany)

Fred Cole, his wife Toody and Andrew Loomis have been cranking out their acid-drenched brand of punk rock scuzz for nearly thirty years now. Allegedly inspired by seeing The Ramones for the first time, long-time band veteran Cole sought out to interpret their fury in a unique way. Dead Moon's take on punk (which owes as much to the sixties, Sonic/Wailers era as it does that mid-seventies band of brothers) can only come from the Northwest - perhaps it's the mold from the constant rain or from inhaling way too many Douglas Fir needles.
I don't know for sure.
1992's Strange Pray Tell is recorded in glorious mono, probably cut right to a record lathe in the Cole's music store/label headquarters Tombstone Music. I once traded them an odd sixties guitar for a fuzzbox and the couple got into a heated squabble about the lineage of the old axe (it was a Kay-built Silvertone, Toody informed me), but that's another story.
If you're familiar with Dead Moon, you are in for a treat. If not, imagine the Seeds meets the Ramones on some very bad windowpane acid and cheap wine.

Room 213

For Korpus!

Hitting Birth

2006-09-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

Thirst of the Fast Three Years
Tim Kerr Records

Compilation of assorted odds n' ends from Portland Industrial heavyweights Hitting Birth Family Circus.
There's tribal drumming and scrap metal percussion to spare, as well as pounding, driving bass on top of the spacey electronics. The unit - which reeks as much of patchouli as they do industrial-strength gear oil - incorporates elements of surrealism and Dada as well as Hip Hop. There is ample evidence to suspect that they were aided and abetted by the mighty Smegma, another Portland institution. This is a savage document of another time and place and a weird artifact of the aggro-industrial period as filtered through P-Town's hippy-dippy sensibility.

Kiss of the Last Three Tears

King Black Acid

2006-09-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Womb Star Sessions
Cavity Search Recs.

Portland Oregon band King Black Acid grew out of the remains of the great Hitting Birth Family Circus as frontman Daniel Riddle's solo project. It eventually picked up members and gained momentum as a spacey, post-rock outfit that recorded four studio albums, a movie soundtrack (The Mothman Prophecies), yet ultimately succumbed to the implosion of the post-Nirvana Northwest scene.

Their first recorded document was a great, live in-studio album recorded at KBOO and broadcast live over the air in 1995.
Opening the set is a lengthy, meditative track that sounds like Tibetan Buddhist's devotional chanting in outer space, followed by the beautifully repetitive and hypnotic Aloha. The remaining two songs (Alone on Mars, Autumn) feature Riddle on vocals and - like much of KBA's subsequent output - are rather reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd.

Womb Star Session @320

Vacation time

2006-09-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I am taking my sons to the coast for a couple of days and so shall disappear of the radar screen till Monday or so.
After Wednesday, I go back to the grind after nearly ten glorious days of leisure, blogging and bamboo wrangling.
See ya,
Rich

In the meantime, go here and check out this guys mixes - freaking fantastic!

Renaldo & The Loaf

2006-09-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Elbow is Taboo
T.E.C. Tones

In response to an anonymous contributor's gift of R & L's Songs for Swinging Larvae, I offer up 1987's Elbow is Taboo. It's a great, characteristically messed up mish mash of faux-ethnic music, grammatically skewed spewings and sampledelica. Most of the songs sound like national anthems from far flung nations in some bizarre alternate universe planet earth. Extracting the Re Re sounds like the bastard offspring of Muslimgauze and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
From Brian Poole's liner notes to the 1993 CD edition:

We were fired up by intriguing phrases like 'The Elbow is Taboo', 'Here's To the Oblong Boys' and 'A Street Called Straight'. In the instance of 'Hambu Hodo' that was seen on the side of a distressed fast-food wagon where some of the letters from 'Hamburgers/Hotdogs' had fallen off; so, naturally, the lyrics had to be equally distressed. 'Boule!' was recorded for a project by the French band Ptose, who invited us to produce a cover version of their song about an itinerant dog. Similarly, 'Extracting the Re-re' was prepared for a touch tapes (UK) project on ritual.
Each song attempts to tell its own story, be it a child's desire to control (A Street Called Straight), the ridiculous purdah of an innocent part of the body (The Elbow is Taboo), a call for help in times of angst (Here's To the Oblong Boys), the rigours of a bread fetish (The Bread Song), the anger of a dance teacher to the terminally inept (Critical/Dance) or a ritual call to prayer, somewhere (Extracting the Re-re).

Personally important is that each song is also a distinct memory of a time, place or observation; a diary of the odd scenarios and obtuse thoughts that, back then, went buzzing through our heads.

It's a great addition to their Ralph output, even though some modern (for 1987) electronic instrumentation (drum machines, 80's pre-programmed synths) make it all sound a bit dated.

Here's to the Oblong Boys

A few albums I've been looking for:

2006-08-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

V/A - Music & Rhythmn (Peter Gabriel, XTC, Lots of World Music) (1982 WEA Rec.)
David Sancious - The Bridge (1981 Elektra)
~~The Golden Palominos - This Is How It Feels~~ Thanks, Milton!
~~Renaldo and Loaf - Songs for Swinging Larvae (Ralph)~~ Thanks, Anon!
~~Sun City Girls (almost any)~~ Thanks, Weevil Doer!
~~Eugene Chadbourne - There'll Be No Tears Tonight~~ Thanks, Secret Whistler!
Shockabilly - Heaven (pre-Shimmy remix)

Anybody got these on a shelf, garage, hard drive?

King Crimson

2006-08-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Live in Warsaw (2000)
DGM Club

A really nice sounding set from the post-double trio Crimson, around the time of ConstrucKtion of Light album. It's a great demonstration of the concept that Fripp has long stated; that King Crimson sounds much better and is more engaged performing live in a way that cannot be replicated in the studio. Everyone is in top form and every track buzzes with electricity. Most of the selections center on the aformentioned album and the previous ThraK. Adrian Belew plays a solo acoustic version of Three Of A Perfect Pair and the album closes with a cover of Bowie's Heroes (which Fripp played on two decades prior to this).

Lineup:
Adrian Belew - guitar & vocals
Robert Fripp - guitar
Trey Gunn - touch guitar, ashbory bass, talker
Pat Mastelotto - electronic drumming

Live in Warsaw disc 1
Live in Warsaw disc 2

DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid

2006-08-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Riddim Warfare
Outpost Recordings

Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky in a great album that incorporates elements of Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, Musique Concrete and Ambient music for a malange known as Illbient. Miller's sonic creations are both post-modern, yet organic in nature and urban without becoming trendy nor easily dated, a common pitfall of mainstream Hip-Hop. It helps that he's also a great bass player (he plays upright and electric) with a great feel for the beat. Guest here include Kool Keith, Wu Tang's Killah Priest, Karsh Kale and even Arto Lindsay!
This is probably one of Dj Spooky's finest albums and offers a good stylistic cross-section of his extensive oeuvre.

Riddim Warfare pt. 1
Riddim Warfare pt. 2

Axiom Ambient

2006-08-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Lost in Translation
Axiom

Nice sonic tapestry woven out of Material tracks, as well as other Axiom releases and original pieces. It's a nice mix throughout, with pastoral, natural background sounds that bridge the tracks. Two late, great guitar heroes - Sonny Sharrock and Eddie Hazel - perform a duet together, albeit in studio edited form.
Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, Buckethead and George Clinton star in Cosmic Trigger. All tracks have really long running time, save for one that clocks in at eight minutes. Fans of the ambient label and mid-nineties Material will no doubt enjoy this two-disc set.

Lost in Translation disc 1
Lost in Translation disc 2

Bill Laswell

2006-08-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hear No Evil
Meta (2000 reissue)

A repackage/reissue of Laswell's 1988 solo album Hear No Evil (the original came out on the Venture label). This album reminds me a lot of the previously posted Hallucination Engine, lineup-wise, but the emphasis is on stripped down instrumentals over classical Indian music. Nicky Skopelitis' Coral Sitar is also a predominant feature throughout. Two songs from the album - Kingdom Come and Lost Roads get lengthy treatments, each being stretched out as two atmospheric ambient pieces on a second disc.

Both Discs ripped @ 320kbps

Hear No Evil disc 1
Hear No Evil disc 2

Material

2006-08-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

Seven Souls
Worldly Troika

"...Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast? If humans and animal souls are seen as electromagnetic force fields, such fields could be totally disrupted by a nuclear explosion. The mummy's 'nightmare: disintegration of souls, and this is precisely the ultrasecret and supersensitive function of the atom bomb: a Soul Killer, to alleviate an escalating soul glut." ~ William S. Burroughs

I couldn't think of anything more appropriate to follow up the last post...
Lots and lots of Burroughs reading from The Western Lands. In this incarnation of Material, some of the music is Hip-hop-ish and features multiple remix/remodels of the song Seven Souls. Some notable guests (other than the usual stable-mates) are rapper Rammellzee, DJ Spooky and Tetsu Inoue.

Ripped @ 192kbps

Seven Souls
(re-upped 12/28/06)

Material

2006-08-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Hallucination Engine
Axiom

What can I say about this release?
It's the one that kicked off my long obsession with collecting all things Laswell and - truth be told - an interest in world music in general.
This album has all the primordial elements for most of Bill Laswell's future projects; a sound that is exotic to the point of being both mystical, ancient yet very modern and urban. Here Material crafts a world fusion sound that is never sentimental or pandering and seems to advocate the dissolution of borders - with regard to both nations and musical genres.
In 1993's Hallucination Engine, they've edged away from funk and reggae (and are miles away from the herky-jerky experimentalism of just- post NY-Gong Material) in favor of a poly-fusion of Arabic, Indian, North African music and contemporary jazz.
Wayne Shorter's saxophone takes center stage of several tracks and Zakir Hussain and Nicky Skopelitis' playing are also predominate features here. At the heart of this album is a William S. Burroughs piece that undoubtedly introduced lots of folks to his words and writing. John Coltrane's Naima emerges from the middle of a beautiful classical Arabic piece that features Simon Shaheen.
One of the wonderful things about Material is that no two albums are the same.
I bought many Material albums after falling in love with this one and haven't found another (although I enjoy nearly every one) that effects me in the same way that this one does. For me, this is truly a desert island disc.

Ripped @ 320 kbps

Hallucination Engine pt. 1
Hallucination Engine pt. 2

Pharoah Sanders

2006-08-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Message from Home
Verve

A really nice n' funky album from the great Pharoah Sanders, produced by Bill Laswell and featuring many mid-nineties Material alumnis (Bernie Worrel, Jeff Bova, Foday Musa Suso, Aiyb Dieng with engineering by Robert Musso, natch!).
Here's what AMG has to say about it:

Message From Home is rooted in, but not exclusively devoted to, African idioms, as the overpowering hip-hop groove of "Our Roots (Began In Africa)" points out. But the record really develops into something special when Sanders pits his mighty tenor sound against the pan-African beats, like the ecstatically joyful rhythms of "Tomoki" and the poised, percolating fusion of American country & western drums and Nigerian juju guitar riffs on "Country Mile."

Get it here.

Share and Enjoy

2006-08-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hey there.
I've been finding so much cool music that I can't even remember where half of it is.
Let's see if I can try.
A great new (to me, anyway) punk blog is PunchDrunk.
He's got (some with nearly complete discogs of) Crass, Rudimentary Peni, Stranglers, Ramones and - my hometown heroes - Dead Moon.

Speaking of Punk, another one I just discovered is Hangover Heart Attack (how can you not like a blog named after a Poison Idea song?). He's got a lot of New Bomb Turks, DRI, 7 Seconds, NoMeansNo and more...
..He also does the great Real Punk Rock - The Spirit of 77- the title of which is pretty damn self explanatory. If you cut your teeth on punk and hardcore, it's well worth visiting.

Another new discovery ( I think she popped in at someone else's digs - I can't possibly remember.) is Sheila is Dangerous. I will take her word for it; nearly every Sheila I've ever known has been. But here she's got a great Masada album (507) on the download that you might wanna snap up - and fast.

Many of us have been on a Eugene Chadbourne kick , sharing what we have and finding new stuff in the process. I gave up trying to document it as it made my head hurt. If you were in our little Potluck (as we call it in the colonies), Potlatch - whatever, feel free to shout out in my comments and I'll bring it on forward.

And now for the usual suspects (not the derivative american movie):
Speaking of Masada, White Noise has up the incredible Electric Masada Live at the Mountian of Madness. Wow! This is Masada cranked up to 11, with lots of great Marc Ribot guitarwork. Check it out.
C'Est la Merde has put up a great Marc Ribot album Spiritual Unity.
Weevil Doer made of the coolest contribution to the above-mentioned Chadfest, with the EC home taped Dinosaur. many of the songs are cruder versions of the ones that appeared on Shockabilly's Heaven, but the real surprise is all of the untitled tidbits that make up the rest of it. Freeking amazing!
Moogpower has loads of cool stuff, including the great Laswell/Wobble's Radio Axiom. Dubtastic!
He also has Consolidated's great Play More Music.
Mr. Lucky (brought to you by the letter M) has got some great shares over at his non-M digs Oranj Aural.
Right now he's got up the dual Axiom compilations Manifestations and Illuminations. WOOHOO!
Post Punk Junk has just put up the entire Steven Jesse Bernstein album Prison. Run and get it now.

Posts might be light for me, I've got to go to a real potluck. In the States - someone inevitably brings one jello salad too many, someone bringing seven kids only brings a watermelon and you get sick on a combination of too much beer, artichoke dip and potato salad all percolating in you gullet.
Cheers comrades!

Bill Laswell

2006-08-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Filmtracks 2000
Tzadik

An odd, mixed bag from Laswell from the ongoing Tzadic film series. It's not altogether clear if any of this songs have been used in any movies and most are only cinematic by virtue of their exotic, world-beat nature, the emphasis here being on Middle Eastern music styles. Oum El Bouaghi is a great integration of Arabic music styles with dub and O Haji Baig has an almost Turkish flavor to it. Some sound like extracts and/or out-takes from other Laswell projects and indeed Deadly Haven seems lifted out of the middle of 2000's Lo. Def. Pressure. Fans and completists of Laswell's recorded output would do well to snap this up (I did), even though, taken as a whole, it seems kind of redundant or unnecessary.

Filmtracks 2000

Marc Ribot & Los Cubanos Postizos

2006-08-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

¡Muy Divertido!
Atlantic

The second album from Ribot and his Prosthetic Cubans relies less on material from Arsenio Rodriguez and includes more originals done in classic Cuban style, save for some crazy instrumental diversions. Los Lomas De New Jersey tells a tale of longing for one's homeland, which Ribot helpfully translates for us. Marc's guitar is on fire on several tracks here, as is Anthony Coleman's Hammond organ. This is a very intense, upbeat record.
Muy Divertido - indeed!

Marc Ribot & Los Cubanos Postizos
(re-upped 11/4/06)

Thanks to C'est La Merde for prompting me to put this up; I was stuck as to what to put up next!

John Zorn

2006-08-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Book of Heads
Tzadic

A John Zorn album that's a Marc Ribot album that's a Eugene Chadbourne album - sort of....
Thirty-five little etudes of varying lengths played by the brilliant Marc Ribot, each displaying one unorthodox guitar technique after another, in a piece Zorn originally wrote for Chadbourne.

From the liner notes by John Zorn:

Composed in the summer of 1978 at a time when I was spending almost every day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in search of inspiration, this music was originally written for and is dedicated to guitarist Eugene Chadbourne. Meant to GAS him, and to stretch his already prodigious virtuosity to even wilder extremes, many of the extended techniques used here (toy balloons, talking dolls, mbira keys, wet finger whoops) were learned from him and were an integral part of his improvisational language at that time. Others are standard to contemporary classical guitar notation (body knocks, whisks, bowing, multiple harmonics) and still others were the product of my own sick imagination (playing with pencils, rice, pulling strings out of the bridge notch).
Marc Ribot tackles all of these effects with unusual precision and an astounding virtuosity, adding his own personal touches to make the music even more beautiful than I could have imagined.

I don't know if anyone's shared this one in the past or not, but I thought as long as we're on a Chadbourne binge...

Get it here.

Eugene Chadbourne

2006-08-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

198666 EP
Ralph Records

Just a brief little Eugene Chadbourne 7" EP this evening.
This came out in 1986 on Ralph Records and as far as I know was perhaps his only release for them. It's nicely recorded affair with a few songs we've heard before as well as a few fresh covers. Amerikka Stands Tall was updated to depict the US bombing of Libya. There's also a rural folklore horror story of The Devil On The Radio.
A few swell guests (Jon Rose on Cello and Violin and one Dr. Johannes Rosenburg on demented backing vocals) round out the proceedings.
Tracklisting:

1. Amerikkka Stands Tall (Libya Version)
2. Jesus Protects Mexico
3. The Devil on the Radio
4. You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd
5. Skip a Rope

This was the last ever item that I ordered from Ralph. I didn't normally buy 7" records from them, but the prospect of Chadbourne recording on the same label as The Residents was too much of an enticement for me. I still have all the catalog/pamphlets that they mailed me over the years.

Download: 198666
(re-upped 1-3-07)

:::More Chadmania::::
Our favorite Evil Doer has put up the amazing Dinosaur tape from the endless mailorder supply house that is the Chadbourne residence. It's fucking fantastic! It contains not only the core of what would become their swan song album Heaven, but has a ton of unlisted material - much of which appears in different forms on other EC albums, most notably LSDC&W. Check it out.

Lots of our comrades have been putting up Chadbourne lately. Dorfdisco is one. Lucky at Orang Aural put up some early EC and Zorn stuff.
There are more, but my brain is too frazzled to sort it out now. Perhaps this weekend.

Eugene Chadbourne

2006-08-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

The President/He is Insane
Iridescence

(Not the original issue cover)

Originally released in 1984, this was one of Eugene's first homemade records. Many of his crazy classics appear here in sketchy, early forms. Topical material consists of the Grenada invasion (America Stands Tall, Greetings from Grenada), Ronald Reagan, then Vice-President Bush, his favorite state Senator Jesse Helms and the KKK.
But the real gem of this album is the full-on gonzo home-taped side two. It features liberal doses of Rake, Plunger, Birdcage and miles and miles of spliced tape samples in a non-stop barrage of noise and low-fi bluster, which I left unbroken, track-wise, as it is on vinyl to preserve its insane continuity.
Subsequent reissues of this record on CD include many more tracks, as well as his own distinctive custom packaging. I suggest you check it out here.

Psycho Birdcage
(tracklist in comments)

Shockabilly

2006-08-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Earth vs Shockabilly
Shimmy Disc

First long-player by this NY-based sonic sludge unit. It expands on ideas from the first EP, but goes much farther in terms of gonzo energy and over the top execution. Chadbourne's vocals and guitar are buried in distortion and way too much reverb. The effect is like listening to an early sixties radio station with really bad reception and another station bleeding over from adjacent spots on he dial. Which is also how a song comes out with this twisted trio; a Beatles song becomes a country song, a country oldie becomes a heavily Wah-wah laden psychedelic tune. The Door's People Are Strange becomes a mutated jazzbo tune before melting into a pile of goo. The Beatles, Johnny Cash, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Roger Miller and more get similarly thrown into the blender. And it was just a hint of the madness to come.
This is the Shimmy Disc remix and may vary from the original Rough Trade issue, which I don't own.

Are You Experienced?