Waltham

i dunno if it's just hard to search for waltham or if people RILLY don't give a shit - which makes no sense cuz srsly out of all th' why-aren't-they-famous-at-ALL bands i listen to these guys' lack of superstardom confuses me THE MOST - but finding this stuff in some way other than for $1.88 on amazon has been far more difficult than it has any business being so hey as per usual i'm here to help. heard these guys first over at regala's before they got th' ryko deal; JB sez they're rick springfield vs .38 special and that they always make th' right decisions (ex. it would be a VERY BAD idea to add any more .38 special) and i gotta add …IN DROP D. that's their main contribution to th' '80s-revival racket (that exists? -ed.): FUCKING DROP D (and a buncha way-way-WAY-excellent tunes) - and wotta contribution it is! if there's anything catchier than outfield ripoffs played with giant guitars, i dunno at all what it is. without getting too far into bio territory here i do feel it's necessary to mention that basically they recorded this one album three different times and they're all awesome AND THEN THEY MADE AN EP CALLED 'AWESOME' and then they stopped with the existing. only record more unsung (in modern powerpoop circles) than these is that boss samantha 7 disc.

The First Album
Permission To Build
Self-Titled
three covers (Rick Springfield, Oingo Boingo, Rocky IV) and an unreleased track
The Awesome EP (yes it's pretty much itunes only so just pay the five bucks)

note: i am TOTALLY on th lookout for an actual cd copy of the awesome ep so like lemme know if ya see one, alright?

tse tse fly

back in highschool we useta get this catalog called vinyl ink - an exhaustive labour of love that, at the time, also happened to be the only way we knew to track down half the stuff we were getting into. as it happened, the descriptions would often lead us to grab stuff we were unacquainted with as well (which was right in line with my habit of buying at least one thing i'd never fucking heard of every time i went to th' record store); i don't remember if i bought tse tse fly's 'duckweed smuggled home' 10" in this fashion or if my pal bill recommended that i do so, but for sure it came from vinyl ink.

flash forward to now and that 10" is long-gone (who knows why or where) and all i have left to play for anyone who i'm trying to force into caring is a 7" - not bad, mind you, but not as good as 'duckweed' - and for some reason tse tse fly remain one of those bands that NO-ONE seems to want to put on youtube or their blog or whatever. (tho' what a blessed thing that is - when you find that something you know about - something you know is GOOD - has eluded the fucking internet.) and that's just a damned shame cuz outside maybe 18th dye i dunno anyone who rings my fucking early-'90s across-the-pond indie-rock BELLS quite like they do. these cd issues that i finally bought for like 75¢ off amazon (no, REALLY) are nicely mastered but of course lose somewhat that x-factor that helped make the original vinyl releases so god-damn alluringly cryptic (it isn't muddiness, tho' it's not far off - nirvana's 'bleach' and r.e.m.'s 'life's rich pageant' have a similar quality) but at least i can hear this stuff again. fans of bands who don't come right out and bludgeon you with it all the time can't afford to be without this stuff. it'll be holy grail in less than ten years, mark my words.

download includes the comp cd they did ('duckweed', that 7" i mentioned ['fox under diesel'] + a coupla tracks that weren't on it originally & 4 unreleased tunes) as well as their lone lp, 'mudflat joey'.

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Metal Machine Music, remix

now here's something i've been meaning to do for a very long time.

i've been a HUGE fan of this record ever since i first heard it around tenth grade (it may well be my favorite record, if there is such a thing, and of course it inspired the name of this blog), but i always felt like it would be really interesting to slow it down until you could (maybe? hopefully?) identify it as guitar feedback rather than the crazy squalling chipmunk death screeches of glory that it is. recently i read that by slowing it down to 16rpm and listening to either the right channel or left channel independent of the other you could start to make out what's going on, so that's what i did: readjusted the pitch and tempo to roughly 48% of the original and split the tracks into mono files of each channel. unfortunately, that sounded way too slow to me (tho' if you do it without changing th' pitch - just slow the tempo - it does sound pretty great) so i started experimenting with different values, beginning with 75% (seemed appropriate). judging by just kind of an innate sense of how the knocking delay sounds in the left channel of side one "should" sound, i felt like this was too fast so i then tried 70% (still a bit too fast), and then 65% (sounded fucking incredible but something said 'split the difference'), so here ya have it, 67% of the lp tempo. of course keep in mind that i have no idea how much lou sped his multitrack tapes up, if indeed that's what he did - and heck, he could've been messing with the pitch control on the deck the whole time he was recording (…and mixing…and mastering…); this is just something i wanted to hear and i think it sounds fantastic at the same time that it offers insight (well, at least a little) into what the origins of the signals are. this now gives you over three hours of MMM, and taking into account the sad fact that even thurston moore admitted he's never listened to it all the way thru - blasphemy - you can pride yrself on being one of the chosen when you reach the end of this journey!

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THE STORY OF CREATION (VHS, 1992)

hey folks, here's a FIRST fer th' blog, a real, honest-t'-gosh VIDEO TAPE. this silly thing is a remnant of sire's short-lived fascination with the creation label and their (in)ability to make great sacks of loot for 'em over here across th' pond. ya get a few choice vids each from primal scream (at least it has "higher than the sun" on it), my bloody valentine (nothing before "soon", sorry) and ride (criminally missing "like a daydream") and some heartwarming/ridiculous/banal interviews. apart from th' low-level drawbacks listed above, this thing 's a keeper. i mean, i've kept it for 19 years (jeez). lost th' cover tho' (thus th' crummy scan from someazon else).

info

dead link, sorry

Girls Galore 'Weightless'

along with merchandise, girls galore are my favorite band of the past coupla years. i actually broke down and ordered a compact disc (I KNOW) in order to hear their second lp (turns out it's fucking great, and their label sent me a buncha free shit!). anyhow, they've been working on a third record and took a break to remaster their first release, add an extra track, and make it available for free. knock yrselves out!

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Dancing Hoods

before mark linkous was mark he was freddy and before there was sparklehorse there was dancing hoods. he was just th' guitar player in this band tho' and their music bears no resemblance to his later stuff - which is fortunate since after this ep somehow the dancing hoods decided (alongside many of their peers, i must add) to become the del fuegos (or pontiac brothers, or whatever) - but this ep is damned fine, along the lines of what you'd hope for from four dudes trying to make it in the early '80s on the mean streets of nyc, growing up in the midst of luminaries like the feelies and the bush tetras: squeeze-y pop leanings/minimalist beat dance not unlike mid-period fingerprintz/americana closer to let's active than bruce springsteen/&c. "not the only one" even hints at heights bands like the cavedogs (watch these skies!) and odd numbers (ditto!) would commit commercial suicide from in less than a decade's time. my only wish is that these tunes encompassed the flip of an equally great b-side.

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King Louie and the Loose Diamonds

in which king louie musically explains the history and future of all boozy southern rock'n'roll slime-pop in about 40 minutes flat. my favorite record any of these guys have been a part of and that includes those unfuckwithable oblivians lps so you know it's on the stellar side. most of this band is back together with th' addition of one mr. jeff dutton (of action family and barbed wire dolls) as THE FUZZ. includes louie's supreme take on th' lost exploding hearts classic he cowrote, "gypsy switch" (aka "shattered").

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Mark Sultan Mixtapes

some of you may be aware if yr "friends" with him on the internets but from time to time m. bbq sees fit to post a mixtape or two's worth of youtube videos on his page and since they're about 50% shit i love and 50% shit i've never heard before that's very worth hearing of course and since sitting in front of the computer is probably the place i'm least-apt to (wanna) be while listening to music in anything but short bursts i figured i'd dub his "mixes" onto the old ipod. and since he was back at it today i thought i'd post the one from two or so months ago as well as this the new batch here just in case you like me are quite enamored with the tunes he picks. thanks mark!

download the one from march 3rd
download the one from today (june 28)

TILTS

ok so this isn't normally my style. i'm not one fer posting stuff YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BE PAYING for. but th' whole world needs to hear this fucking band by any means necessary. that said, here's th' deal: after starting a new band a few years ago and being a few weeks into it and pretty damned jazzed about what we were doing fucking gene plays this disc by this band SHAME CLUB (coming soon to this blog area) and i suddenly couldn't really give a crap about what we were doing 'cause all the bands on the planet ever just got fucking devastated by this one song "windbag" (no hyperbole). years go by and everyone's brains are so utterly smashed by the simple existence of the shame club that they don't even bother to make those dudes famous and the dudes go their seperate ways. (but stay in town.) (st. lou.) later i learn via some photos posted by their ex-bass player that their (second) drummer and SHIT-HOT LEAD guitarman are in this new act. I FUCKING DOWNLOADED THE SHIT OFF iTUNES. FOR SERIOUS. that's how good these dudes are. and holy asschaps if TILTS aren't even kinda better than shame club in a way. SO MUCH BOOGIE BADASSERY. so well dude who's writing the songs and playing dual leads goes and joins torche (meh.) & moves to hotlanta (rite) but stays in tilts (alls i hafta say is he better) and actually this phenomenon gives way to me actually getting to see tilts since they go on tour with torche so hey alls good that is. anyhow like i said you GOTTA hear this shiz so here's all three o' their eps all junked together by yrs trooly plus whacked-out xmas bonus track and wicked practice space instro demo. PLEASE FIND A WAY TO SEND THEM MONEY OK!!

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PURE JOY 'Carnivore' LP

so i'm a HUGE fan of flop's 'whenever you're ready' and this band captures more of the soul of what i like about that record than any of the other flop stuff does. and maybe he's no mike musberger but rusty who sings and plays guitar also played drums on some of the fastbacks' 'answer the phone, dummy' lp as if i needed other reasons to envy th' guy.

dark trick

the rest of their stuff

Pussy Galore "Exile On Main St"

NAILED IT.

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THE FALL-OUTS

ok funny story, we were supposed to play with the fall-outs in seattle but at some point in the tour heard that it wasn't gonna happen and we thought, oh well they don't play too much and they never have a bass player and it must just be that ok but then we get there and dave's at the show and he says hey, i thought we were gonna play together what happened with that? and i think it was agreed upon that our AWFUL booking agent (AWFUL I TELL YOU) was famous for fucking over bands who wouldn't actually fuck her. thus, we played with the GODDAM PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES instead of the fall-outs. ugh.

p.s. the 'here i come' file is augmented with songs from two splits, that nardwuar comp, & the 'sleep' 45. i don't have their first cassette or their song from the funhouse comp thing. other people have posted the remaining songs they released so here're links to thems too.

self-titled lp
here i come and other hits lp +
sleep lp
summertime lp

this is mine & here i come 45s
don't want the sun 45

The Clean 'Odditties' x2

picked these up in '95 at ajax in chicago. 'odditties' sez '- the 1985 batch' and i think the second one was only printed in '87. imperfection is perfection and the clean are fucking perfect.

download the first one
download the second one

Sounds Of Young Speed (Tantalus Recording Group, 1994)

picked this tape up years ago 'cause it has a princess dragon-mom (his name is alive-affiliated noise project - hnia actually has their own "tune" called "more majic party" on some other comp) track on it. pretty much straight-up abrasive noise with bassy synth every here and there and some highly obfuscated rhythmic shit going on, but some pretty interesting wobbly feedback and chant stuff as well. runs about an hour. definitely better than not bad. dunno what's up with th' unequivocally heinous sleeve art, tho'.

1. Megaspore "Catalina De Eranzo"
2. Princess Dragon-Mom "More Magic Party"
3. Allegory Chapel "Tsutomo Miyazaki"
4. Grace Bros "Primary Feeder"
5. Speculum Fight "Mannose"
6. Fab .44 "Sundown Agaist Club"
7. Cauterizer "Unman"

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FLESH EATERS FLEXI

just read this ok book 'fast sofa' and it had this flexi in it, and it's great even tho' it's from roughly ten yrs after th' flesh eaters were th' awesomest but whatever.

download

don't fucking miss out on this page either:
flesh eaters live shows 1982

DOUBLE NELSON 'Ceux Qui L'Ont Fait!'

without a doubt the best dollarbin purchase of all time (dif juz's 'who says so?' only cost me 50¢). hoping just hoping for some proto-cheveu i was amazed to find that what double nelson have crafted here is more along the lines of th' ciccone youth record - a reimagining of new york post-beatbox culture, though this time through even more skewed late-'80s french sensibilities. it's hard to tell where d.n. are coming from and there's painfully little about them on the internets (in english, anyways) - change the channel one world over and you've got a fucking falco record; reorganize th' ideas more square and it's colourbox anthemic; remove some of th' big-studio sheen on th' drums and it does indeed conjure cheveu. jesse says it sounds like they mixed it five seconds at a time and i can't argue. up there with th' už jsme doma and unicorn records as far as awesome shit sung in languages i don't speak goes. should be unsurprising to and heartily welcomed by people who equate late '80s/early '90s france with delicatessen.

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FESTER 'Liquid Faith' cassette

first 'local' band i eva heard. story goes like this:

when i was living in virginia i had this friend scott, who had a brother. joe. joe had a good friend named bill, who rode the same bus as me. i didn't know him too well tho'. this is about 4th grade for me. scott (and his brother)(and the rest of their family) moved away not too much later (to arizona i think? someone can correct me if they want); after seventh grade i moved to ohio.

turns out scott (and his family) moved right down the street from me right soon after. weird.

anyhow, bill came to visit joe (who i'd gotten to be good friends with by that point - we rode skateboards and joe had a nintendo, 'nuff said) some summer and i got to know him better as well. joe and i were checking out a lot of the same musick (mostly the sst bands in all the santa cruz videos), but bill and i's tastes were eerily similar. he hipped me to a lotta stuff (some that he's probably ashamed of now, like the lemonheads) and we taped a lotta each other's finds. one of the things bill brought with him that summer was a tape of a band from just outside our town in virginia - a band whose flyers i'd been handed when i lived there but whose shows i was just too young to actually go to. fester.

i suppose fester are a typical high school band from the mid-/late-'80s but for me they royally kick the asses of all the bands i've heard that they might be compared to. even tho' their beyond-perfect opening track "jerrychrist" is an "anarchy in the UK" rewrite (and who didn't need another one of those in 1989), the riff goes the original one better, the guitar is several shades more wicked (ah, those dod/practice amp tones!), the tune itself is way catchier, and the band is holding onto its own existence by a quickly corroding thread in a way the media hinted at as far as the pistols were concerned but which felt like a jokey lie when you listened to the frankly steely dan-worthy recordings on their '…bollocks' record. plus, like half of fester's songs had lyrics concerned solely with the old asshole on the hill over our town, jerry fucking falwell - a much more relatable foe for us than all the tiresome politics of boredom the pistols copped a pose about.

the tape jumps all over the place - fester were some kind of haphazard geniuses, stylistically - from intentionally bad reggae to plodding hardcore to lurching crossover with breaks from time to time for let's-see-who-can't-keep-up-this-time covers of the 'sesame street' and 'beverly hillbillies' themes. it's heavyhanded sometimes in the way that only 17-yr-olds can be, and it fucking shines for it. the way they conjure late-summer afternoons jamming in a crummy shed over too many cokes and a buncha stale doritos has yet to be even close to equaled by anything else i've run across (please send me yr entries in this category, tho'!). one of my alltime faves. RECOMMENDED FOR EVERY FUCKING BODY EVER.

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sonic youth reversal

on th' flipside of the first sonic youth tape they put the whole record on there again, but backwards. when the double-lp reish came out i was hella bummed that they didn't use that opportunity to finally issue it - at one point my very favorite sonic youth recording - on wax. and since it doesn't seem like anyone else on these internets likes it or owns it or something, here 'tis.

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THE SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN

first time i went outta ohio to play 'twas up to boston where we shared th' stage with fat day and these lovely lads and lady…bought a shirt they'd spilled coke all over and was dissed for telling the bass player she was "really good" (guess i deserved it?)…then they came to bernie's and before they started and were tuning the guitar player kinda hesitantly plucked out the 'chariots of fire' theme and we all giggled and then THE WHOLE BAND LAUNCHED INTO IT. ya had to be there (perhaps you were). this file has mp3 versions of two little records and two big records in it (which means not one but TWO versions of "fuck you, norway").

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Kodaly - Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8, Yuli Turovsky

i useta work until 3 or 4am. i kept my clock set to greenwich mean time and the radio in my car tuned to the local npr station since they ran bbc world service into the wee hours; the idea being, when i got off work i'd have little idea what time it really was here in town, and - more importantly - even less idea where i was. it worked some. consequently, when the tape deck broke i'd end up hearing some decent stuff from time to time - like the short documentary on how the electrical/appliance hums in yr office may be playing the diabolus in musica - but so often i'd be so bummed by what they played during the day i'd just put on the classical station. one evening i caught a few minutes of a program where the deejay was SO FUCKING JAZZED about the piece he was excerpting that he kept saying how much he WISHED he could play us the whole thing. it was fucking raw, and it was fucking mesmerizing, and the guy was right - you hafta hear this particular recording. it took years and a long, circuitous route, but i finally got an lp copy a few months back. enjoy.

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SLOWJAM FAKEOUT PART ONE

so i've been runnin' in twelve-inchers (predominantly early '80s freestyle/new wave/hiphop), doin' a tiny bit of mashuppin', and makin' comps. they're all cd-length (that's what she said). this here's th' first volume.

dead link, sorry

В БАГДАДЕ ВСЕ СПОКОЙНО: АУКЦЬӀОН LP

picked up some russian lps in th' dollarbin yesterday. great stuff across th' board (this one conjures an alterna-universe pere ubu), but two of 'em (this being one) have nothin' but cyrillic all over 'em. anybody help out with some info?

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CHINESE MILLIONAIRES

life iz a silly stupid wonderful thing an' i dunno what it's all about much less why simple BADASSERY via ELECTRIC PUNKROCK MUSICK is so evil sweet but i'm not aboot to let that spoil my enjoyment of this here manic halfhour…not ALL of their tunes (missing two seven-inchers & like three or four comp traxx) and man my turntable was grotted up somethin' FIERCEAWESOME back in the day but if this isn't fucking good enuff for ya go an' blow it out yr ass. i dunno what accolade to drop on these guys but they's th' BEST SOMETHING OF TH' SOMETHING fer fucking SHIRLEY. RIPPING sinister rock'n'roll, best lp on EARF since 'aspirations' till vee dee's 'furthur' showed up.

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Peter Bagge's Rockin' Poppin' Favorites!

give or take some margin of error that's totally acceptable i was meaning to buy this for my entire life so i did th' other week. got here quick, too, from whatever bullshit EU country has so much $$$ floating around they can afford to send me this WAY GEM fer like $5 including shipping. as pee bag sez, this ain't exactly at all th' comp he orig put together (i'd like to see some alt tracklists, how 'bout it, huh, pete?) and hey even th' SPICE GIRLS MGMT told him what song to put onnit (!), but hey there, kitten, you could do a LOT WORSE. after ya get yr fill go track down th' mötley crüe vers. of "tonight" it's RIDICULOUSGOOD.

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GO•••SONIC001

oh man oh man oh man best fucking little record EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Q: how do you know indie rockers have small penises?
A: 'cause they're always talking about th' seven inches they don't have.

ZIIINNNNGGG!!!!!

opens with the GREATEST outrageous cherry SONG OF ALL TIMES and GETS BETTER FROM THERE. some esp family-style his name is alive in one ear, some blistering noise in the other, and even mice termite turn in an ASTOUNDER. that's an astounding pounder. y'all.

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p.s. fuck you if you don't like th' godzuki song. seriously. fuck you.

CASH COWS

1980 virgin records budget sampler. had this been made by one band it would be heralded without controversy as th' greatest album in thee world. as is, it sells for one dollar and no-one gives a shit.

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Heartbeat Of Soweto ++

one of th' first things i remember getting at th' library after i moved back to ohio. bowled me right over. felt like listening to it th' other day and man was it nowhere to be found in piratedom, so i went to th' record store and hey, what's with it being there? weird. anyhow here it is, along with two more EXCELLENT comps of th' same ilk.

heartbeat
soweto never sleeps
zulu jive: umbaqanga

LIDA HUSIK: YOUR BAG

after gettin' "too much sleep" (PUN) and "b.a.l.l. four: hardball" (in what order i ferget) this is the next shimmyprodukt i procured (in the camelot dollar cassette bin, natch). all th' L-U-V i had fer those 1st two spilled over onto this one (ew.) and it remains a PERSONAL FAVE. "whirlybird" is thee BEST 7+minute single-what-never-made-it this side of "o superman".

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REBBY SHARP

first of two shimmydisc posts here with my fave on that label that ain't BONGWATER - acually betters some 'them B/W concepts in a certain sense and on this or that morning i even like it mostest. o'course kramer's contributions are numerous/obvious, tho' not overbearing, even th' hokey spoken samples interspersed throughout. unfortunately no SLAPPHAPPY covers here anywhere, man… (just a - i can ONLY assume - 'suburbia'-inspired dylan reinterpretation.)

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rebbysharp.com

FATHER JOSEPH DUSTIN

man i looked fer th' "MORE…" lp fer fucking EVER and lo, one day there it was at johnny go's fer 40¢ or something. anyhow one of the odder stories you'll find in blackslab history, 8-yr old detroit junked-mandolin player joe is given tenor-banjo by janitor, enters seminary, jams while on th' road missionizin', makes records fer riverside with one of louis armstrong's drummers (zutty!). &c! fucking GOLDEN when he sings ("i get the blues when it rains"=standout) and simply sensational when he don't.

both them lps

CHASTITY OMPST

mostly variations on the one damned theme here but a REAL DOOZY in the "motel II" track - dusty calls it krautrocky. hard to get ahold of this thing on teh internets due to a million posts with just th' titular track inclusive so i thought i'd help out.

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SNAIL • THE STRAND • BOATZ

WELL THAT'D BE A HELLUVA SHOW NOW WOULDN'T IT?

anyhow since the inaugural post over at the other blog was th' eastenders, it only MAKES SENSE that over here we start off with some of BARRY HIMSELF's fave lps. REAL PRIMO obscuro-yacht ROCK and early '80s TEEN BEACH DRAMEDY shoulda-beens. dig? dug!

boatz
snail - "flow"
the strand