Alternative archives February-March 2008

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Pax Cecilia - 2007 - Blessed Are The Bonds

BLESSED ARE THE BONDS, our 2007 release, is now available for free download on our website, www.paxcecilia.com. We have a few remaining physical copies we will be distributing at shows and in person, we thank everyone who requested a copy, and we hope that you continue to share our music with others...

Reviewers and other friendly web-publications:

The Muse's Muse
"The Pax Cecilia has created an album that reconfigures the possibilities of ambient, art-rock and progressive metal, making it sound beautiful, menacing and refreshingly new as they do it. Blessed are the Bonds is one of the few pieces of art that transcends definition, and transforms nothing more than twelve notes into a musical force that will reveal something different with each listen. For an album that will only cost you an hour, this is nothing short of a masterpiece."

Sputnik Music
"I haven't been stirred by an album like this in a long long time. There is a divine power boiling inside of Blessed Are the Bonds that makes it feel like the stars are aligning..."

Maelstrom Online
"Blessed are the Bonds is an album that reassures people that music is actually art. The hold this album has on your emotion is almost exquisite, as it runs the gamut from sublime to disheartening..."

Deaf Sparrow Zine
"Blessed Are the Bonds is one of those ambitious records that travels through foreign and uncharted territories, conquering all and in the end coming home triumphant..."

Metal Review
"I’ve simply run out of great things to say about this band and this album, and frankly I’m not sure there are enough words to do it justice."

"I just stood in awe of the majestic metal ambient awesomeness."
- John Stepp

Download it here :
http://www.paxcecilia.com/download.html

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Deus Ex Machina - 1990 - Motorpsycho

Deus Ex Machina - 1990 - Motorpsycho

Tracks :
1 Inspiration
2 Mass Media
3 Motorpsycho
4 Unreliable
5 Even If We Lose
6 Curious
7 Chase Me
8 Deus
9 Execute *
10 Iraq'n'roll *
11 False Promises *
12 Killing My Name *
13 December *

Review :
The band's first release came as a violent punch in the stomach to the unsuspecting Greek scene of 1990. Raw and romantic at the same time, established Deus Ex Machina as one of the biggest names for the years to come until today. A true classic! Current CD includes fully remastered original album with bonus tracks of long out of print band singles, complete with extra rare, older material previously released on compilations only, plus the infamous "Execute/Iraq'n'Roll" single.

Bio :
Deus Ex Machina were formed in 1989 by Dimitris Spyropoulos and Dimitris Manthos in Athens, Greece. Spyropoulos and current drummer Yiannis Venardis were veterans of the local punk scene of the early 80s. The band eventually gained overwhelming acceptance of the alternative crowds.In the years to come, this resulted in over 500 concerts with increasing success, establishing DXM as a predominantly kicking live band in spite of their limited discography.

In the course of their history DXM have suffered several setbacks including a number of serious car accidents and repeated personnel changes. So far, not only did they persevere, but on top of every adversity, they seem to come out on a limb with added stamina each time. Nowadays, DXM are considered as one of the major established acts of the greek alternative scene. Some of the highlights of their history include their appearance in landmark anti-Bosnian war concerts in Skopje, FYROM in 1994. In 1995, at the height of the Bosnian war, they toured Serbia. Year 1996 finds them appearing in major festivals in the cause of peace in the Balkans. Year 2000 was marked, among other things, by their memorable appearances at the Biennale 2000 in Torino, Italy.

Furthermore, over the years DXM have performed in a large number of concerts promoting social consciousness, which is also reflected on the lyrics and the overall attitude of the band. More notably, in the last two years, they have appeared several benefit concerts supporting the cause of the Zapatista native insurgents of the Chiapas region in Mexico. A respectable sum has been raised for the erection of a school for Zapatista children to be completed in the year 2004. The band has already accepted an invitation to appear at the completion ceremony.

The next major step is coming with the release of their latest Signs LP/CD in February 2003. This sums up effectively the final result of the last three years of hard work and experimentation. The album was produced by accomplished producer Hardy S. Party (Giant Sand, The Style Lab) marking the opening of a new phase in the evolution of the band.

As active supporters of the peace movement, they participated in several protest activities against the war in IRAQ. Suffice to say that this last war came as if anticipated by the band's grimly prophetic "Iraq 'n' Roll". The song was written back in 1991 inspired by the then recent Gulf War.

More info about the band here :
http://www.myspace.com/deusexmachinagr


Download or Buy

Thanks regularpaul for this one !!!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Hetch Hetchy - 1988 - Make Djibouti

Hetch Hetchy was Lynda Stipe's band (under the name Lynda Limner) after the demise of Oh-OK. Although HH existed for several years in Athens and Gainsville, GA, they released only this mLP and an LP- both on the short-lived but great Texas Hotel records (in 1991 they had recorded several tracks for a third album, that was never released). Hetch Hetchy sound rather different in their two LPs - in fact only Linda Limner/Stipe plays on both - 'Make Djibouti' can be called post-punk, dark, even gothic (as gothic can be a Michael Stipe produced album), though "Swollen" (with Hugo Largo on production) has more ethereal sound.

The album opens with the clarinet of Armistead Welford (Love Tractor, Gutterball, Sparklehorse) and then, over a thick wall of keyboards, comes the great voice of Linda. With 'Prescent' it's moving to a more Cocteau Twins territory, though the music is more unpolished. Bass-dominated and dark enough 'Sad Song' closes A-side. 'Catscan' and 'Hard on Lynda' that opens and closes the B-side are like a lengthy track interruped by the nightmarish 'Urgent'. They both have strong beat and Lynda shows her Siouxsie influences - and an impressive voice.

Although Lynda Stipe in this lengthy interview for Perfect Sounds Forever, refers to 'Swollen' -Hetch Hetchy's second (and last) release- as their best, I find Make Djibouti more interesting and adventurous. Even if 'Swollen' has much improved playing and sound, I enjoy 'Djibouti' better, because it has more edges, great ideas and atmosphere.

After Hetch Hetchy Linda Stipe formed several bands, and today plays cello in Flash To Bang Time 

Here are the links: link1 or link2

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

9353 - 1985 - We Are Absolutely Sure There Is No God

More incredible paranoia pop. Rerelease of the decade  (10 out of 10)

(FLEX discography of US punk & hardcore on the now oop 1993 CD reissue of "We are absolutely sure there is no god" LP)

Back in 80s, Washington DC undreground scene, was a hardcore dominated scene (remember Minor Threat and Governement Issue). There were a few bands with substantialy different sound, like the legendary Crippled Pilgrims and Hyaa!, but these were the exceptions to the rule. And ...there were 9353.

Because of the pain complain to the rain all about this insane game of what you're doing your freedom will be taken away for the rest of your days how can you regard it as only an inconvenience and if you ask him his name he won't have the right answer ask him his name he'll just leave the room ask him his name he won't have the right answer stuck in the wrong place without the right answer because of the pain complain to the rain all about this insane game inside of our minds our freedom is taken away for the rest of our days we regard it as only an inconvenience and if you ask us our names we won't have the right answer ask us our names we'll just leave the room ask us our names we won't have the right answer...

This is an exerpt from the lyrics that fill one entire side of the inner of the vinyl release (in tiny-print). I could have chosen anything from the lyrics and it would be as representative as this one: unstoppable blubbering without any obvious meaning, start or end, yet with an inner logic. With this kind of lyrics, it may be true that they have difficulty to finish their songs, as I've read in a forum.

Add to these the vocals of Bruce Merkle (who is responsible for the lyrics), which are like you have a Dan Treacy (without the accent) and Frank Zappa duet in the same song, the continuous pumping rhythm of Vance Bocknis' bass and Dan Joseph's drums, the heavily echoed but nevertheless clear sound of Jason Carmer's guitar and the music which is kinda post-punk, like a mutated Bauhaus/Gang of Four hybrid, take a look at the photo below and imagine how this band would seem to the hardcore audiences of 1984-85 Washington DC.

From the opening "Spooky Room" (as good as their famous "Famous Last Words" from To Whom It May Consume LP, to the gloomy "Bastard", to the trashed cover of "Born To be Wild" to the mocking "Viva La Sleaze" that closes the LP, there's a twisted sense in this record, yet all fall perfectly in place: there's nothing pretendious here, just four guys trying to wreck everything they can, with their music, humor and energy.

Although accused from Trouser Press as not too accomplished musicians (which I think is not at all true - especially for this album), 9353 created their own sound and made some astonishing music, VERY different from its time and place. After all, one of the good things in rock is that you don't have to know how to play any instrument to make good music - talent and imagination is enough, and 9353 had them both.

There is a widely spread rumour about the origin of their name i.e. that they "were named after the specimen number on a jar the singer stole from a medical museum. The jar contains a dead foetus in formaldehyde. The baby has one eye and a penis growing out of its forehead." Although one of the band members made clear that their name was chosen because these four numbers just sounded good, this foetus did appeared on the label of the B-side of "We Are Absolutely Sure There Is No God" - not very nice to look at.

9353 made two LPs in the eighties (To Whom It May Consume -1984 and We Are Absolutely Sure There Is No God -1985) and one in the nineties (Insult to Injury, Magically Delicious -1994). Unfortunately their two original vinyl albums, their CD re-issues of 1993 (with several bonus tracks) and their 1994 reunion CD are desperately out of print, with no sign of a future re-release.

Regarding the jacket of "We are..." LP, it was made to have two front sides. Although the CD reissue used the 'hell' cover as front, I've always prefered the 'collage' cover.

Recently Bruce Hellington (formerly Merkle) and Vance Bocknis reformed the band and they seem very active. Jason Carmer is now working as a recording engineer in San Francisco Dan Joseph (who is now a composer based in New York) in his site calls 9353 "Washington, DC's notorious Southern New Wave Metal" band.

This is from 9353's myspace page

9353 - OFF AND ON FROM 1982-2008, HAS REFORMED LAST YEAR! THIS IS THE OFFICIAL 9353 MYSPACE PAGE! WE STILL HAVE P.O.BOX 9353 ARLINGTON, VA 22219-1353 DON'T BELIEVE WIKIPEDIA! THEIR 9353 FACTS ARE WRONG!!!! 

This is where I borrowed the band promo photo from 25 years ago and this recent photo of the reformed band. 

There's also a myspace page from 9353's friends, where you can listen to some more of their music.

Detailed discography here

Unfortunately Adult Swim records, the label that reissued both their LPs in 1993, seems to be inactive today. Last time I checked though 9353s releases were officialy out-of-print.

And finaly here are the links for the LP: link1 or link2

This is for my friend gomonkeygo - you should visit his New Disease blog for live recordings with very good sound quality from some of the best bands of the 80s.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

World of Pooh - 1989 - Land of Thirst

"The Yanks have colonized our subconscious" (Wim Wenders - Kings of the Road)

Any kid listening to rock music has his/her mind haunted by America, at least by its image.

I've never been to San Francisco, yet I consider it something like a promiced land, ever since I learned about Ashbury Height and Summer of Love (Yes, I know there's nothing left today, but this doesn't change a bit of the image I have). For many years I've listened carefully to any band came from there - and still do. Every now and then I find music that assures me that my little ...err obsession is not wrong at all, on the contrary it's very rewarding (the latest find is of course Wooden Shjips).

After this rather off-topic introduction, let's go on to World of Pooh, a very promising band from SF, that didn't last enough to get known, yet their few releases are objects of desire in certain circles - not only because of their rarity but for their musical value as well.

Brandan Kearney, Barbara Manning and Jay Paget were World of Pooh. Kearney said that the band existed from 1983, though Manning joined in 1986. Brandan Kearney is a major figure in San Francisco undreground/experimental circles and participated in a million bands - the most known are Caroliner, World of Pooh and Tarnation. Barbara Manning -former 28th Day- while in the WoP, released her first solo album "Lately I Keep Scissors" (with Greg Freeman on production and Kearney playing in it) which is an absolute must have, and if you don't listen to it you'll regret this huge lack in your musical education for the rest of your life. Jay Paget was a long time Thinking Fellers Local Union 282 member.

This trio soon became very hot action, due to their amazing shows in the SF clubs. In 1989 the cult Nuf Sed label released their only LP - unfortunately in very small quantities- which almost immediately went out of print. Shortly after that, the band was no more, due to Kearnan and Manning's differences. There were two more 7-inch releases after their demise and the rest of their output are contributions to numerous compilations (To Sell Kerosene Door to Door anyone?) that are even rarer than the LP.

"Land of Thirst" never re-released, although there's a continuous demand from the fans until nowadays, and became a part of the myths and legends of the US underground. Around 2001-2002 there were discussions about a CD with all the released material of World of Pooh, but Kearney himself put an end to the release of this project, although it had actually started to take shape. This is surely a pity, because this means that their great music will remain unheard and unknown to the unlucky people who weren't in San Francisco around 1988-89 or aren't visitors of Lost-In-Tyme!

Well, what about the music? Described as "terse, poppy and loopy" and "nervous pop/art group" by two gyus who know what they're talking about and, besides that, they have saw them live.
I've started my hunting for "Land of Thirst" after listening to a couple of tracks (Mogra being one of them) in the radio in 1990, believing that World of Pooh was the new Barbara Manning group, and this was a psychedelized version of her "Scissors" album (which I've already had, as a huge fan of hers). When (after several years) managed to find it and listened to it from start to end, I realised that was not Barbara's new band. It's clear that Kearney had the last word to this record - even at Manning's songs - and in a way these songs (some of them already included in "Scissors") got the electrified treatment they need to earn their place in "Land Of Thirst" - not as psychedelic as I've expecting but nevertheless different, as they were performed by a band now and not from a solo artist, as in "Scissors". In fact they sound more "rockin" than the rest, just to underline the difference from the solo recordings. I'll mention that Gregg Freeman produced both records.
Not as chaotic as Thinking Fellers records, not as folk as Bedlam Rovers, more weird than X-Tall and Donner Party, I think that "Land of Thirst" is an essential record if you wanna know what kind of music was created and played in San Francisco in late 80s-early 90s. I wouldn't know if the love/hate relationship between Manning and Brendan was true or not, but "I'm On The Wrong Side", the only track they co-wrote and "Mr.Coffee-Nerves" and "Mogra" on which are both on vocals, are pure magic.

My personal favorites are the weirder tracks, but if you listen carefully to any of the 13 tracks of "Land of Thirst" you will discover a million beautiful details hidden in the background - distant voices, found sounds, tiny organs. You can discover this New Zealand "chunga-chunga" beat, made famous by the Clean, the Bats and the Chills, you can discover the peculiar turns of the song melodies, that drive them out of the regions of pop. You can discover the psychedelic essence throughout the record. And you can discover three imaginative, talented, brilliant artists who made an exceptional record, full of songs that invite you to live with them, and believe me, it won't be a boring life.

Link1 or Link2

You can find their ultra psychedelic version of Carpenters' "Druscilla Penny" here.

Alternative archives January 2008

Monday, January 28, 2008

Ariel (Pink) Rosenberg's Thrash n' Burn (1998)

No longer available 2-CDR issue of early Ariel Pink stuff. Song sketches, noise experiments, and shades of the greatness to come. Ariel Pink's music is spectacular, but even I think this stuff is pretty much for completists only. That said, I'm sure that there are other Ariel Pink completists out there, and this post is for you guys and gals.

Part 1
Part 2

We Are Back !!!

First of all my apologies for no replies to your mails for invitation to our "private" blog(s)...
But I couldn't reply to all this mails and explain why we "close" this page(s) for a couple of days.

"A private blog it's not a solution, so Don't send me requests for invitations. You will not have access for some days...that's all."

We had to back-up all the info and covers for all 4 Lost-In-Tyme pages.
That give us the possibility to open a New Lost-In-Tyme if blogger take "actions" against my account.

"Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account."

Let's focus to the problem.

There is someone out there (mr. Shawn Gordon & P.A.P.)

http://www.progrockrecords.com/

http://www.mindawn.com/
http://progagainstpirates.blogspot.com/

who is trying to stop the illegal downloads...from thieves like us who offering,
and thieves like you who steal the mp3's. (This is his opinion about music blogs)

As you know 90% of the albums posted in this blog(s) are oop or unavailable for purchase, and the main purpose of this blog
it's to introduce the artists/bands to you.

We never said no to someone who request from us to remove the link or a post.
(Actually we ask for them also to give us a link for a place that you can buy the album directly from the artist --If this isn't promotion then what is ?--)

Let's see what albums have been deleted recently (among others)
from mr. Shawn Gordon & his gangs :
The Chemistry Set – Sounds Like Painting (Unreleased LP)
Offered from the Artist
Roger Humphreys - 1996 - Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Offered from the Artist
The Sun Blindness - 2007 - Like Pearly Clouds
Shared with Permission
Various Artists - Maidens In The Moor Lay Vol. III
Homemade compilation - mostly oop tracks
Various Artists - 1988 - The October Country
LP Only compilation (oop)
Various Artists - Boulders
LP Only compilation (oop)
...the list it's huge...

"Look bloggers, its very simple, copyright holder entails that they have certain rights - akin to rights of privacy that you all value highly - that will trump any of the anarchist thought swirling around. There maybe bloggers that actually work w/ the labels and remove stuff when notified but when you see links deleted that get reupped only because folks missed before they received complaints, then you lose the high ground in any event."

So you trying to tell me that this files should not be re-upped ?
I can't know if a link reported from someone who had the right to do it...or from someone who haven't have something better to do in his life (Like you mr. president).

You can ask from me to delete the files and not from rapidshare.
(If you have time for only one mail...otherwise you can contact me And rapidshare)
And i will delete/remove the link(s).


It's that simple. Don't try to close Lost-In-Tyme by sending DMCA complaints.
This will bring a negative result from that you're trying to do.

If you're trying to stop me...I'll try to do the same.
A war you give, a war you'll get.

Read more about those good people here :
http://melosprogbazaar.com/index.php?
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction
http://prognotfrog.blogspot.com/2008/01/


More Tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Lost-In-Tyme It's Under Attack !!!

We have a major problem with this DMCA complaints.
Someone it's trying to close Lost-In-Tyme...

Please note
that repeated violations to our Terms of Service
may result in further remedial action
taken against your Blogger account.

So I have to close this blog(s) before that happens.
I know that it sounds hard for all (especially for me)
But this blog it's not only download links.

It's a HUGE MUSIC LIBRARY and I can't let anyone to destroy it.
I will close tomorrow all pages.
(at least 'till I found a solution for this problem)

A private blog it's not a solution, so Don't send me requests for invitations.
You will not have access for some days...that's all.

Any proposals are welcome.

Monday, January 14, 2008

The Dream Syndicate - 1982 - The Days of Wine and Roses

On the one hand, where the Dream Syndicate came from was so obvious that it almost hurt. The Velvet Underground was a clear touchstone (if not quite the original LaMonte Young ensemble the band name referred to), as were the Doors, the Byrds, and any number of blues and country traditions and more. Had they been around in the late '60s, one might have wondered whether they would have garnered much attention in comparison. But the early '80s was the band's time and place, and their fusions of all the above and more via punk-inspired energy achieved its own level of deserved attention.

Capturing the original killer Wynn/Precoda/Smith/Duck lineup performing with inspiration throughout, The Days of Wine and Roses trumps the "paisley underground" tag the band was saddled with by being a great rock record, full on. While Wynn received the lion's share of attention thanks to his ghost-of-Lou Reed vocals and frontman status, arguably it's Precoda who is the real reason to listen in. Both his rave-ups and gentler shadings are phenomenal, as a random listen of songs like "Definitely Clean" and the sweet, Smith-sung "Too Little, Too Late" show. The Smith/Duck rhythm section grooves along fairly enough, at its best on the Krautrock-inspired chug of Precoda's composition "Halloween." Highlights include the romping "Then She Remembers," with a much more direct Wynn vocal that makes for good in-your-face fun, and the mid-tempo moodout of "When You Smile," Precoda's screeching feedback playing around the mix's edges.

Concluding with the epochal title track, which builds to a frenetic climax not once but twice, The Days of Wine and Roses is a grand treat.

review by Ned Raggett , AMG

watch them live here

Download It Here :

the_days_of_wine_and_roses.rar

Métal Urbain + Metal Boys

Métal Urbain
Métal Urbain were heavily influenced by The Clash and Sex Pistols on one hand, and on the other by an electro approach related to "Metal Machine Music" by Lou Reed. They relied on heavily distorted guitars and replaced the traditional rock rhythm section of bass guitar/drums with a synthesizer and drum machine, a then-unique approach that foreshadowed the experimental possibilities that were explored by later post-punk bands such as Big Black. They were also known for their radical image (the color scheme of albums always being a stark black, white and red), and subversive lyrics sung in French.

They were met with much enthusiasm in England, particularly by John Peel and the Rough Trade label. (Métal Urbain's single "Paris Maquis" was Rough Trade's first release.) They had an enthusiastic but small audience in France, receiving little exposure. The punk rock scene was not as popular in France as it was in England, and they did not interest the French media as English bands like A Sex Pistols did. As a result, the band broke up by 1979, though members scattered to form such groups as Metal Boys, A Doctor Mix And The Remix, and A Desperados.

Métal Urbain - L'Age d'Or (1985)

01 Hystérie Connective
02 Ghetto
03 Clé de Contact [Original Single Mix]
04 Lady Coca Cola
05 Panik
06 Futurama
07 Paris Maquis [Original Single Mix for LP Version]
08 Pop Poubelle
09 50/50
10 Anarchie au Palace
11 E 202
12 Numero Zero
13 Colt 45 [Live in 1980 as Metal Boys]
14 Clé de Contact [Live 11/78]
15 Lady Coke [Live 11/78]
16 No Fun
17 Metal Urbain
18 Anarchie en France
19 Hystérie Connective [Mix 2]
20 Atlantis
21 Créve Salope [1982 Remix]
22 Snuff Movie [1982 Remix]
23 Ultra Violence
24 Tango Sudiste

Combines all the studio tracks from Metal Urbain's three singles, plus live material, tracks from demonstration tapes, and posthumous remixes. Being a singles band, it is difficult to imagine sitting through two LPs worth of Metal Urbain, though as a historical compendium, L'age D'or is an essential document of one of the most innovative punk rock groups. Released on compact disc and double LP by Fan Club in 1985.

download

Métal Urbain - Anarchy In Paris (2004)
01 Panik
02 Paris Maquis
03 Hystérie Connective
04 Lady Coca Cola
05 Clé de Contact
06 Pop Poubelle
07 Fugue for a Darkening Island
08 Ghetto Schwartz
09 Ultra Violence
10 Futurama
11 Snuff Movie
12 Numéro Zero
13 50/50
14 Atlantis
15 Anarchie au Palace
16 E 202
17 Crève Salope
18 Hystérie Connective [Early Version]
19 Colt 45
20 Train
21 Sweet Marilyn
22 Little Girl of Love
23 Tango Sudiste
24 Panik

Anarchy in Paris! is a compilation of the essential 1970s material by France's only punk band to get it — and perhaps the only real French punk band ever. Metal Urbain were the forerunners of post-punk with their nut-job blend of blasting guitars, an over-torqued synth made to sound like a drum machine, and screaming, cheap synth lines marrying everything from the Stooges to Metal Machine Music to early Roxy Music to Eno's "Baby's on Fire" to Suicide's rock craziness. The Jesus and Mary Chain claimed them as an influence, and so did Steve Albini, and Rough Trade launched its label with a Metal Urbain single, yet they remain a myth, and a little-known one at that. Little may be changed by the issue of their complete output on one CD — with lots of unreleased and alternate tracks — but the quality is here. This is still noisy, messed-up, angular, in-your-face blasting, visceral punk — and in French! There are 24 tracks here containing the singles and the band's single long-player. None of the Metal Boys or Doctor Mix & the Remix material is here, as it came after the demise of Metal Urbain. There is little to say about this music except that unlike a lot of their contemporaries, Metal Urbain sound positively timely in the 21st century and just plain timeless, period. There is no nostalgia in their sound; they come across as righteously angry and blisteringly rock & roll, while pointing the way for the bands that came after them more so than just about anybody else. Awesome and exhaustive liner notes by Franco-punk historian Jacques Amsellam are provided, with lots of cool pictures, as well as complete lineup and discographical information. Fans of Wire's Pink Flag will dig this. Fans of the Stooges and 1970s Lou Reed or the Normal will, too. Actually, anybody who claims to like punk rock, historic or current, should appreciate this, not as an historical document, but as something dangerous, beautiful, vile, and necessary. - AMG

download

Metal Boys
Métal Urbain was scandalously ignored within our frontiers. They were the first authentic punk band to jettison guitars and make extensive usage of synths, they were the first signing, RT001 on Rough Trade’s mythical imprint. Metal Boys is one of their ‘nom de plume’. A change that reflects a time when they faced a confused identity and recorded alongside the English performer, China.

Metal Boys - Tokio Airport (1980)
01 New Malden
02 Parlez Moi d'Argent
03 Carbone 14
04 The Pleasure
05 Cafe Sale
06 Love in Dub
07 Colt 45
08 Commando
09 Hurry Back
10 Tokio Airport
11 Un Petit Peu D'Amour
12 Hidden Track

Tokio Airport stumbles at the first hurdle: lyrics and vocals. As with a lot of post-punk, or ‘avant new-wave’, the Metal Boys’ occasional lapses into lyrical dogmatism are hardly becoming: it’s not the content/context of the lyrics, but the way they’re rendered. Large parts of Tokio Airport are rather gauche, evoking the ‘just-out-of-college’ clumsiness that hamstrung a lot of post-punk artists. You can find a similar cringe-worthiness in the Gang of Four’s well-intentioned-but-slightly-trite class struggle polemic, The Pop Group’s Nietzschean abandon, and the declamatory surface-intent politics of some of the Rough Trade label crew.

But the Metal Boys generally win out on sound. There’s something obdurate about their songs, a completely unyielding fascination with the analog sound processing and the eternal endless pulse of Teutonic technology. “Carbone 14” sounds as future-perfect, yet completely of its age, as the early works of Severed Heads, or the Human League’s The Dignity of Labour EP; in these recordings you can hear DIY tactic grappling with then-modern electronics. The Metal Boys, like their predecessors Métal Urbain, were never rigid about ‘opposing all rock’n’roll’. If their relationship with the Rough Trade label contextualized the band within the feverish non-/anti-rock action of the post-punk collective, Debris and Hurbier were never shy of throwing a monstrous riff into their songs, roughed-up through tinny, overdriven production. The Ramones meets Cabaret Voltaire? Perhaps only for a few songs, like the opening “Colt 45”, but they make for nice jolts of energy among Tokio Airport’s more ruminative instrumentals, and the side-glances at warped pop, cabaret, and various other forms.

Were the Metal Boys prescient? That depends on how you view the tributaries that have run from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Electronic/industrial exploration has been taken up again by acts like Wolf Eyes, the post-punk/disco micro-revolution is being revisited by The Rapture, the itchy guitar non-pop by Erase Errata. But the Metal Boys’ aesthetic was too combinatory to be mimicked or followed, and modern practitioners of this music are too caught up following only one path to interpolate other genres into their constructs. And even if Tokio Airport is much less than perfect, if it falls and loses its way, doesn’t manage to fully transcend its era, it still sounds like little else. - Dusted Magazine

download

Enjoy!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Various Artists - 1988 - The October Country

Between exoticism and melancholy, dream and nostalgia, autumn lights and shadows and hidden joys, The October Country is the land of delicacy, of sensibility, of elegial lyricism, but with an element of detachment and nonchalance in the appearance and fading of colours, the anxiety of not immediately perceptible things. (from Viva Los Angeles II booklet)

This record was released in July 1988 (that means almost 20 years ago!), on Native Starkman & Son, and contains 8 tracks from 4 L.A. groups. It's the same scene and same time as Viva Los Angeles II compilation, but there are some differences: while Viva LA tried to present the wider selection possible, October Country concentrated in four only bands, fairly new at the time, with a similar approach. That means that you should expect an atmospheric, passionate music, with touches of 4AD and dark wave (LA style). The concept goes beyond this: Philip Drucker is responsible for this album, as he chose the bands and he produced the tracks of it. To emphasize on the unity of the music contained here, at the back cover are only the titles of the tracks, while on the front are only the names of the bands (no mention of Philip Drucker either!). This caused a minor confusion, as in the KZSU's excellent database, a Marnie's song is credited to the Soul Brothers and vice versa.

A few words about the bands: Dark Arts are (yes! they still exist) the band of Stephanie Payne, their two tracks presented here are dark diamonds, full of passion and their great first mLP,  A Long Way From Brigadoon , was posted by Mystery Poster. Autumnfair were the group of Thom Fuhrmann (Savage Republic) and Val Haller (Jayne County, Flying Lizards, Lords of the New Church), with a sound closer to 4AD than S.R. Recently Mobilization records released Autumnfair 1986-1989 CD, which contains remastered version of their sole release and other tracks. As for Marnie you can read here (and listen to "Songs Hurt Me") and, if anyone's interested, there's a lengthy feature on her first LP here where you can view some photographs of my family as well (yes! I'm shamelesly promoting my blog!). I'll add that here are early versions of "The Courtesan" (instrumental version) and "Shanghai My Heart", which later appeared in her "Songs Hurt Me" LP (the Courtesan with vocals) and are, in fact her first recordings as a solo artist. The Soul Brothers are really brothers and they were the "veterans" of the 4 bands: they had already released three cassettes before "October Country". Their output varies enough (from radio collages to SST heaviness) to forbid putting any tag on their music. The tracks compiled here remind me the Insight bands (Glorius Din, Spahn Ranch) - just another proof of the concept thing: both of them were from their "we were rhythm gods" cassette, but they re-recorded them for this album.

If you want a conclusion, this is a fine dark, melancholic and seductive record. 

traclist

a1 Dark Arts - Egeria

a2 Marnie - The Courtesan

a3 Marnie - Shanghai My Heart

a4 Autumn Fair - Naomi

b1 Dark Arts - These Are Made Of Love

b2 Soul Brothers - Tuesday Morning

b3 Soul Brothers - I Buried Paul

b4 Autumn Fair - Black Spring

Link for massmirror and rapidshare

P.S. - Savage Republic will be in Greece Jan. 18 (Athens) and 19 (Thessaloniki), begining their short European tour.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Tindersticks - 1993 - Tindersticks

A thrilling, revelatory debut, Tindersticks is a chamber pop masterpiece of romantic elegance and gutter debauchery. Within the framework of a remarkably consistent and mesmerizingly dank atmosphere, the group covers a stunning amount of ground -- "Her" is a crashing flamenco number, "The Walt Blues" is a tipsy organ instrumental, and "Paco de Renaldo's Dream" is an impenetrable cinematic monologue punctuated by subdued guitars, pianos, and strings. Stuart Staples' bacchanalian songs are obsessed with fluids, both bodily ("Blood," "Jism") and otherwise ("Nectar," "Whiskey and Water," "Raindrops"); no topic is too personal or too disturbing -- "Piano Song" is frightening in its callousness, while "City Sickness" is an unflinching examination of emotional and physical desperation. Fascinatingly constructed and strikingly ambitious, Tindersticks is insidiously labyrinthine: the music speaks softly but carries tremendous weight, and its hold grows more and more unbreakable with each listen.

by Jason Ankeny , AMG

watch them live here

download it here :
part 1 ~ part 2

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Fad Gadget - 1980 - Fireside Favourites

Pedestrian-State of the Nation-Salt Lake City Sunday-Coitus Interuptus-Fireside Favourite-Newsreel-Insecticide-The Box-Arch of the Aorta

The early eighties saw the emergence of the electronic/dance phenomenon in Europe. At the forefront of this movement were four names: Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, The Normal, and Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey). Tovey released his first single Back to Nature in 1979 and was the first signing to Daniel Millers Mute label. Miller (as The Normal) had previously put out his own composition T.V.O.D. c/w Warm Leatherette and was thinking of starting a label when he met Tovey. As Fad Gadget Tovey played solo with a drum machine and synthesizer confusing audiences at the time used to the standard rock format. Now, obviously, the scene is radically different with electronic sounds and beat boxes being the norm.

His name is quoted by Depeche Mode and Erasures Vince Clark as a major inspiration and the influence of Tovey's early experiments in electronic music can be heard in the likes of the Pet Shop Boys, New Order and all the Techno/Dance Bands of the 90s. The main characteristic of Tovey's work that distinguished him from his contempories and his followers was the quality of his lyrics. Not satisfied with singing pseudo science fiction (a la Gary Numan) or crass love songs, Tovey developed a style more akin to Dylan or Lou Reed, his black humour often confusing the punters at the time more interested in style than content.

His songs 'spoke of the diseases and fears poorly hidden from view. They spoke for and against the little man, the ubiquitous civilian bewildered by the speed of events threatening to sweep him up or leave him behind. And they spoke in a variety of voices: dead pan, severe, sardonic, satirical and, finally, disarmingly sincere....' -Biba Kopf '91

Imagewise Tovey never played the pretty pop singer role preferring to be photographed by Anton Corbin covered from head to toe in shaving foam or tarred and feathered. His stage shows have often been mad acrobatic events. Where most performers remain untouchable he would purposely goad an audience, sometimes somersaulting from the stage (before stage diving became an international sport), like a latter-day cockney version of Iggy Pop his audience passing him around above their heads before depositing him back on the stage and screaming for more.

After four critically acclaimed albums Tovey dropped the Fad Gadget tag and continued to make albums for Mute under his own name. Throughout his career he has influenced and been influenced by many styles, mixing electronics with rock, punk, folk, and dance music. This has inevitably made it hard to pin him down. His last two albums, for instance, featured an electric banjo which he had custom built for Paul Rodden a member of his previous touring band The Pyros. Tovey has continually toured Europe and has over the years built up strong fan base who flock to see his shows never knowing what to expect this time but always leaving stunned by his performance.

The mark of a talented artist is there for all to hear in the ten albums he has created. All challenging musically, all intriguing in their lyrical content. Fad Gadget has recently come out of semi-retirement and done his first performance in six years for Elektrofest 2001 at the Mean Fiddler, London. The eagerly awaited show has left people wanting more. 'It's about time electronic music comes back to something more organic, soulful and powerful, but at the same time meaningful and songorientated.' - aquaplaning, Festival de Musique Electroniques 2001Latest news is that Fad Gadget will be realising a Best of album and will support Depeche Mode on their Exiter Tour in Europe beginning September 2001.

source : http://www.fadgadget.co.uk/html/main2.html

Download It Here :
Fad Gadget - 1980 - Fireside Favourites

Monday, January 7, 2008

We’re Late For Class - A Collection [2008]

One of the band members of We’re Late For Class asked me to give this album some attention, witch I do whit pleasure.

We’re Late For Class is a college band with rotating members who play a kind of music I label as Alternative, Improvising but the terms Psychedelic and Ambient also came to my mind.
And I must say that I like this album very, very much, smooth playing, very likable…

20 posts on their blog so far and the latest post is this best of album, all free downloads provided by We’re Late For Class so there is more you can get from them, all no commercial stuff and only available on the blogsphere.

A quote from their latest post; A greatest hits? Are you guys kidding? Well... sorta. It's just that with 19 posts of original, improvised music (and a Faust cover), who in their right mind is going to weed through it all to hear what we're up to? Certainly not you! So, for those curious about stoned improvisors who give away their music, here are some of our more tolerable jams.
You can read more HERE

Track list;
01 It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
02 Burden Bearers (of Aristocracy)
03 (Hand Me That) Revolutionary Coat
04 (Another) Summer of Heigel
05 Theme To John Carpenter's King Heroin
06 Blunt Force Trauma (Unit)
07 Fukhausen (Excerpt)
08 Tommy Reese's DTs (Relapse)
09 A Buoy, 40 Yards Out
10 Final Moments of Barry Cowsill (Redux 4)



Free downloads from;
MassMirror
Or
DivShare

Style; Alternative, Improvising

BTW. Very nice cover art…

V.A. - We’re All Normal And We Want Our Freedom

We’re All Normal And We Want Our Freedom
A Tribute To Arthur Lee & Love

Tracks :
1 Emotions – Peter Principle
(from the album : Love)
2 Willow Willow – Eggs
(from the album : Out Here)
3 Robert Montgomery – Urge Overkill
(from the album : Four Sail)
4 Message To Pretty – David Kilgour & Martin Phillipps
(from the album : Love)
5 Dream - Johnson
(from the album : Four Sail)
6 Alone Again Or - Gobblehoof
(from the album : Forever Changes)
7 Which Witch Is Witch - Hypnolovewheel
(from the album : Reel to Real)
8 Que Vida ! – Uncle Wiggly
(from the album : Da Capo)
9 Keep On Shine In – Diesel Meat
(from the album : False Start)
10 Softly To Me – The Gamma Rays
(from the album : Love)
11 She Comes in Colours – Mad Scene
(from the album : Da Capo)
12 No Matter What You Do – Love Battery
(from the album : Love)
13 Car Lights On In The Daytime Blues – The Jetty
(from the album : Out Here)
14 My Flash On You – Fly Ashtray
(from the album : Love)
15 Signed D.C. – The Deer Team
(from the album : Love)
16 Bummer In The Summer – Smack Dab
(from the album : Forever Changes)
17 I’m Down – HP Zinker
(from the album : Out Here)
18 Stand Out – Das Damen
(from the album : Out Here)
19 Between Clark And Hilldale – Teenage Fanclub
(from the album : Forever Changes)
20 Can’t Explain - Trycycle
(from the album : Love)
21 You Are Something – Television Personalities
(from the album : Out Here)


Named after a key line in Arthur Lee's "The Red Telephone" (itself a steal from the then-fashionable play Marat/Sade, also parodied by the Bonzo Dog Band in their freakout classic "We Are Normal"), the extremely uneven Love tribute We're All Normal and We Want Our Freedom at least sidesteps the common tribute band malady of songs that sound like the original versions, only not quite as good. Nearly all 21 bands on the compilation interpret Lee's songs in their own styles, a good thing since a band probably couldn't sound like Love's unique blend of hard rock and easy listening if they tried. The tracks by Teenage Fanclub, the Television Personalities, Eggs, and especially David Kilgour and Martin Phillips' sublime reading of "A Message to Pretty" are all excellent. They're not a patch on the originals, of course, but they show what can happen when a good band and an interesting cover come together.
~by Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

"Someone said that money can't buy me love, and this proves it.
This album is one of the greatest honors besides my mother Agnes Lee birthing me into the world. Here are 21 songs, written by the group Love and done by other artists, thanks to Sloan Johnson, as a tribute to my music. Thanks you all."

Sincerely yours...Love
Arthur Lee

@ 224 + covers :
rapidshare.com/files/Tribute_To_Love_And_Arthur_Lee_1994.zip

Thanks luc for this one !!!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Days Of Sorrow

Days Of Sorrow - 1984 - Remembering The Days (ep)

~@~@~@~@~

Days Of Sorrow - 1986 - Thousand Faces (ep)

Label: Rough Trade Germany
Catalog#: RTD 024 T
Format: Vinyl, 12"
Country: Germany
Released:1986
Genre: Electronic
Style: Synth-pop, Minimal

Sorry for the lack of info guys. ..couldn't find anything more.

Very good stuff anyway...

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/81184199/days_of_sorrow.rar

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Doctors Of Madness

Doctors Of Madness were a British protopunk rock band formed in 1974 in a cellar in Brixton, south London by the composer and lead singer/guitarist Richard Strange, known as ‘Kid’ Strange. Active as a recording and touring band until late 1978, they found mainly cult level success and recognition that was not enough to sustain them, but they were later cited as a pivotal influence on the early British punk rock movement .

To provide a platform for his musical ideas and compositions analysing urban neurosis and systems of control; Strange joined forces with Urban Blitz (electric violin, baritone violectra and lead guitar) Stoner (vocals, bass guitar) and Peter DiLemma (vocals, drums) to provide the acclaimed critical link between the early 70’s progressive rock and glam rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music, and the later 70’s punk rock of the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Doctors of Madness cited Velvet Underground and writer William Burroughs as major influences on their music.

Doctors of Madness toured extensively in Great Britain and in continental Europe; gigging in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden.

Doctors of Madness stage shows incorporated costumes, make-up, projected backdrop images, smoke, strobe lights and theatrical spot-lighting and also taped sound effects. Stage props were occasionally used.

Between 1975 and 1977, Doctors of Madness recorded three albums for Polydor records - ‘Late Night Movies, All Night Brainstorms’ produced by John Punter, ‘Figments of Emancipation’recorded at Abbey Road studios with producer John Leckie, and ‘Sons of Survival’.

A posthumous compilation ‘Revisionism’ was released in 1981, the band having split in late 1978.

A single, 'Bulletin' backed by 'Waiting' was released in 1977.

During 1978 the Doctors of Madness line-up briefly included singer Dave Vanian of Punk rock band The Damned, who had recently split.

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors_of_Madness

posted by pj

Download Them Here :

Figments Of Emancipation
Sons Of Survival

Friday, January 4, 2008

Absolute Body Control - Eat This (1980-84)

1 Clouds (3:59)
2 Melting Away (2:40)
3 Faceless (2:43)
4 Love At The First Sight (2:53)
5 Eat This (2:25)
6 A Broken Dream (3:17)
7 What Is The Disease? (3:10)
8 Arabesque (2:42)
9 Automatic (3:51)
10 Lonely This Christmas (3:54)
11 Is There An Exit? (Live) (4:27)
12 I Am Leaving (Live) (4:54)

Absolute Body Control was formed early 1980 by :
Dirk Ivens (synth and voice) and joined by Mark De Jonghe (synths)
and Veerle De Schepper (backing vocals).

After the single "Is There An Exit?", which became a local culthit, Mark left the band, but his place was already taken by Eric Van Wonterghem.
Absolute Body Control was one of the first active belgian electronic bands on stage and the next three years they appeared on many compilations worldwide. In 1984, Dirk became the founder of 'The klinik' and is active as 'Dive' and 'Sonar'. Eric has his own project 'Monolith', but is also involved in the 'Sonar' project.

Download It Here :

absolute_body_control-eat_this.rar

Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Passions

The Passions - 1980 - Michael And Miranda

The Passions were a post-punk band formed by guitarist/vocalist Barbara Gogan, bassist Claire Bidwell, drummer Richard Williams, vocalist Mitch Barker, and guitarist Clive Temperley. Prior to forming in 1978, most of the members had spent time in other groups. Most notably, Temperley was an ex-101'er, and Williams was in Prag Vec precursors the Derelicts. The Passions debuted in March of 1979 with the Needles and Pins single on Soho, which helped them gain a contract with Fiction, home of the Cure. A year passed between the release of the single and Michael and Miranda, the band's debut LP. Another single and a pair of trips to the BBC studios for recording sessions preceded the release of their highest charting song, "I'm in Love With a German Film Star," which hit number 25 on the U.K. pop chart during the winter of 1981. At some point prior to its release, Bidwell and Barker had exited (the former to join the Wall), and David Agar took over on bass.

The Passions - 1981 - Thirty Thousand Feet Over China

The band's second album, 30,000 Feet Over China, was released in August 1981. Something of a split between a compilation and a new record, the LP collected a number of previously released A-sides and added several new recordings. Temperley was out by the end of the year and was replaced by Kevin Armstrong, who had played previously with Local Heroes. The group also added a keyboard player by the name of Jeff Smith, who had played with Lene Lovich. Following another pair of singles, the LP Sanctuary saw the light of day in September of 1982. Shortly after that, the band dissolved. Gogan popped up again in 1998 when she released Made on Earth, a record made with experimentalist Hector Zazou.
~by Andy Kellman, AMG

Download Them Here :
michael_and_miranda__1980_.rar
thirty_thousand_feet_over_china.rar

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Closer - 1998 - In The Market

Greek alternative/indie rock band
(very popular in Greece nowadays)

Band Members
John Ververis (guitar)
Vag (bass, vocals)
Andreas Pappas (vocals)
Andreas Ioannou (guitar)
Thanos Michailides (drums)
Vasso Nikolopoulou (violin)

Discography
Fly In The Milk (Studio II) 1996 - 7"
In The Market (Studio II) 1998 LP
Universe (Chrysalis/EMI) 1999 EP
Suddenly Comes... (Chrysalis/EMI) 2000 LP
Mystery Falls Down (Chrysalis/EMI) 2000 EP
Closer (EMI)2006 LP

Download It Here :
rapidshare.com/files/closer-in_the_market.rar

Alesia Cosmos - 1985 - Aeroproducts

Line up :

Marie-berthe Servier (ch)
Pascal Holtzer (gu & Sy)
Bruno De Chenerilles (gu & Sy)

French minimal /new wave

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/79197704/alesia_cosmos_-_aeroproducts.rar

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

White Glove Test - 1989 - Leap

Although part of the mid & late 80's Los Angeles music scene, (well presented in the blogland the last 15 months), White Glove Test have a different sound. Maybe that's why they seem to have sunk in oblivion : very few mentions of them, even with 2 LPs in their credit (1986's Look and 1989s Leap), two of the most notable members of the scene in the production (Philip Drucker of Savage Republic/17 Pygmies and Vitus Matare of the Last) and Beth Thompson and Courtney Davies of Fourwaycross on vocals and flute respectively. The descriptions I've found are not very helpful and vary from "punky avant psyche" to "80s alterna-rock with a sly fiddle".

The truth is that "Leap" is a bit difficult to be categorised.

Title track (a tight rocker) and 'Poignant' could be (more poppier) Slovenly's songs, while 'Between the Oars' and 'Worshipping Boys', remind me of another California band of the era, the Downsiders with their lysergic guitars. 'Lisa' with the beautiful violin of Annette Taupier shows their R.E.M. influences, while 'Moment' starts in 4AD style and continues in the R.E.M tradition. 'All and Everything' has the sound of the Brittish bands of the era, and the closing track 'Every Day' seems like a psychier Husker Du.

'Leap' ain't no masterpiece, but it sure has some wonderful moments to offer. As for White Glove Test, to tell you the truth I don't know where they intend to go, as they didn't manage to get an totally personal sound, but they surely had the potentials to do it, if they'd continued.

Their connections with Philip Drucker continue until nowadays: Jeff Brennemen and Tony Davis (as well as Dirk Doucette - a WGT member, not on Leap) are now members of 17 Pygmies (which, by the way, have a new -very 60's- record out, as "The 17th Pygmy" by the title of "Ballade Of Tristram's Last Harping")

White Glove Test- Jeff Brenneman, Ken Wait, Patrick Monnin, Tony Davis

Leap (LP, Fundamental SAVE 81, 1989) Leap/Between the Oars/The Worshipping Boys/Poignant/Lisa//Bycycle/Pandoras Song/All and Everything/Moment/Every Day

Here it is on rapidshare and massmirror

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vols 1-3 x2 CD'

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 1 cd1
01 1919 - Crywolf
02 Action Pact ! - Gothic Party Time
03 Alien Sex Fiend - RIP
04 All About Eve - D For Desire
05 Ausgang - Here It Comes
06 Balaam And The Angel - Two Into One
07 Bauhaus - God In An Alcove
08 Blood And Roses - Enough Is Never Enough
09 Charge - Ugly Shadows
10 The Damned - Edward The Bear
11 Dancing Did - Bagder Boys
12 Danse Society - Hide
13 The Dark - Masque
14 Death Cult - Gods Zoo
15 Feud - Witchtrial
16 Furyo - Opera In The Air
17 Gene Loves Jezebel - So Young
18 In Excelsis - Carnival Of The Gullible
19 Leitmotiv - Architect

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 1 cd2
01 Party Day - Atoms
02 Play Dead - Final Epitaph
03 Pneumania - Exhibition
04 Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Monkey's On Juice
05 Ritual - Mind Disease
06 Rubella Ballet - Tangled Web
07 Sexbeat - Sexbeat
08 Sex Gang Children - Barbarossa
09 Skeletal Family - So Sure
10 Southern Death Cult - Moya
11 Specimen - Returning From A Journey
12 Theatre Of Hate - Black Madonna
13 Twisted Nerve - Medusa
14 UK Decay - Dresden
15 Vex - World In Action
16 Virgin Prunes - Pagan Lovesong
17 Vital Sines - Rhythm Of The Dark
18 X-ray Spex - Bondage Up Yours
19 Zero Le Creche - Last Year's Wife

Get vol. 1 Here :
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 2 cd1
01 13th Chime - Cursed
02 Actifed - Innocent
03 Altered States - Is Anyone Out There
04 Anorexic Dread - Tracey's Burning
05 Beast - Empire (1980)
06 Blitz - Acolyle
07 Bone Orchard - I'm Boned (Boneabilly Party)
08 Busaras, Dave-Id - Trapped In A Web
09 Chameleons - Tears
10 Crisis - Alienation
11 The Cult - Spanish Gold
12 The Cure - Mr. Pink Eyes
13 Daemon Preacher - Little Miss Perfect
14 Every New Dead Ghost - Visions
15 Gene Syndrome - Paper Dolls
16 The Glove - Mouth To Mouth
17 Hagar The Womb - Idolization
18 Hysteria - Tears Of Wax
19 Joy Division - Ice Age
20 Killing Joke - Follow The Leaders
21 Kindergarten - Double Standards

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 2 cd2
01 Libitina - Gothic People
02 Living In Texas - Tumbling Values
03 Lost Loved Ones - Raise The Flag
04 March Violets - Lights Go Out (Peel session)
05 Marionettes - Like Christabel
06 New Model Army - Running
07 Nightmares In Wax - Black Leather
08 The Pack - Heathen
09 Panic Button - Malya Neva
10 Second Coming - I Gave You Everything
11 Siouxsie And The Banshees - Make Up The Break
12 Sisters Of Mercy - Dominion (short version)
13 Smartpils - No Good No Evil
14 Smiths - Handsome Devil
15 Spizzenergi - Amnesia
16 Tones On Tail - Christian Says
17 UK Subs - Waiting For The Man
18 The Veil - Sway
19 Vendemmian - The Passing Of Remoteness
20 Zombina And The Skeletons - Ape Man

Get vol. 2 Here :
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 3 cd1
01 Adams Family - Not Me
02 Angels In Aspic - Just Some Kind Of Groovy Mayhem
03 Ausgang-A-Go-Go - Tumbleweed
04 Basta Roc - Monument
05 Bomb Party - Harry The Babysitter
06 Brigandage - Hide And Seek
07 Car Crash Intl. - Crash
08 Cold Dance - Then And Now
09 Crawling Chaos - Sex Machine
10 Dawn After Dark - Crystal High
11 Diatribe - Stop Dancing
12 Easy Cure - Need Myself
13 The Factory - Hold Out
14 Fear Of Darkness - The Virgin Land
15 Fields Of The Nephilim - Volcane (Mr. Jealousy Has Returned)
16 The Fifteenth - She Isis
17 Flowers For Agatha - The Freedom curse
18 In Camera - Final Achievement
19 Into A Circle - Tender Skin
20 Look Back In Anger - Torment

V.A. - Return of the Batcave vol. 3 cd2
01 The Membranes - New Blood for Young Skulls
02 The Mission (UK) - Severina
03 Month Of Sundays - The Kiss of Death
04 Nervous Choir - O David
05 Paranoia - Graveyard Of hell
06 Patti Palladin - The Nuns New Clothes
07 Playground - Violence
08 Poison Girls - Bully Boys
09 Product - Cream
10 Rebel Christening - Tribal Eye
11 Screaming Dead - Paint It Black
12 Screaming Trees - Incinerator
13 Seventh Seance - The Incision
14 Andi Sex Gang with Marc Almond - The Hungry Years
15 Silent Scream - Handstands
16 Sins Of The Flesh - In The Image Of Torture
17 Stunt Kites - Betty's Lament
18 Turkey Bones And The Wild Dogs - Shake
19 Unity Station - It's Perfect
20 Zor Gabor - Tightrope

Get vol. 3 Here :
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3

Happy; New Year !!!

Alternative archives December 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

B.Movie - 1980 - Volume 2 - Radio Days

Released as the counterpart to the Remembrance Day compilation, Radio Days, as the title suggested, covers BBC broadcast sessions from the band's early-'80s existence. Consisting of a Peel session, another in-studio performance on BBC DJ Richard Skinner's show, and a very early local radio appearance, and with no track repetition, it equals (if not surpasses) the regular studio cuts.

The first four tracks come from the Peel session, and they're all winners, neatly showcasing the band's nervy edge of post-punk drive a la the Comsat Angels, balancing a cool synth sheen against understated rock power. "Polar Opposites" begins the set with its mix of low and high keyboard drones, while "All Fall Down" gets a commanding run-through, its unsettling synth lines and pulsing crunch making it the equal of other early-'80s nuclear paranoia classics as the Sound's "Missiles" and the Chameleons' "Up the Down Escalator." The Skinner cuts include a beautiful version of the band's signature cut "Nowhere Girl," its memorable keyboard hook even more prominent. Another track of note is the almost Bunnymen-like "Love Me," with its bongo-like opening percussion leading into a garage/psych jam.


The local radio session tracks, recorded shortly after the band formed in 1980, includes a brisk version of "Remembrance Day," at once more spooky and slightly more goofy than the studio take, and an amiably energetic "Spirit of the Age," with a great closing jam that indeed sounds like they were trying to capture just that.
~Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/79190366/b_movie_-_radio_days_1980.rar

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Kit Ream - 1978 - All That I Am

Kit Ream - 1978 - All That I Am

(Private) 1978 Wonderful Outsider Real People artifact by 60's acid casualty.
Spaced out weirdness with jazzy overtones, indescribable grunting , moaning and hilarious lyrics. One of the strangest records in existence & well documented by now in the "Incredibly Strange" book.

Tracks :
1 Introuniversal Jam
2 Don't Be So Holy Poly Over My Souly
3 Beautiful
4 Memories
5 Wines
6 Cool Water
7 Funk
8 Golden Drops
9 The End

This one is pretty well-known by “incredibly strange” fans and has been raved over by Jello Biafra. To make the story short, Ream was a wealthy 1960s acid casualty and then mental patient whose album was actually released by the "Institute For Creative Living,” a conservative “spiritual growth” center. The spacy, jazzy music on the album is strikingly similar to the equally bizarre Gary Wilson. Ream rants and raves in a completely confident and lounge-inspired way, entreating us not to be so holy poly over his souly, among other things. As real people albums go, this is one of the most endearing, as his life philosophy is even more compelling than, say, Father Yod’s, and the music is never dull. One song has some unexpected female vocals, and a few others have cool and weird vocal arrangements. He grunts and groans and moves from sing-speak to crooning at the drop of a hat. This is absolutely wonderful. “Go down to the beach, baby, get naked at twelve o’clock!” [AM]

~@~@~

Jello Biafra in the book "Incredibly Strange Music Vol II" writes:
The most deranged "rich person do-it-yourself" album is All That I Am by KIT REAM, heir to the Nabisco cookie fortune. According to someone who knew him, he dropped tons of acid in the '60's and wound up in a mental hospital where he spent six months staring at his own reflection in a mirror. Eventually the acid wore off, he was deemed "cured" and let loose in society, whereupon he decided to become a guru and make a record. From his maniacal expression you can see that this is a man who has seen it all and knows that he has "the answer". The songs are light beatnik jazz mixed with pseudo-psychedelia; he chants lines like "Don't be so holy, poly, over my soul-y." As far as I know his cult is still vastly outnumbered by Maharaj Ji, Rajnessh and the Moonies.

Read A Review Here :
http://waxidermy.com/2006/05/04/kit-ream-all-that-i-am/

Get It Here :
rapidshare.com/files/Kit_Ream.rar

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Edie & The Eggs - Big Girls Don't Cry + Punks, Get Off the Grass (1982)

EDITH MASSEY (May 28, 1918 - October 24, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Massey was best known for her appearances in a series of movies by director John Waters. Born in New York, Edith Massey (nee Dornfield) was raised in an orphanage in Denver, Colorado. According to John Waters' book, "Shock Value", she lived in this orphanage "until she was sent out to be a maid at the age of fifteen. Edie finally got fed up and ran away, but was captured by the police and put in a reformatory." She moved to Los Angeles, California in an attempt to start a career in show business. To make ends meet while waiting for her big break, she sold pencils and combs on the sidewalk.

She made her acting debut as an extra in the 1940 film "Arise, My Love". In 1946, she married a soldier (supposedly a Mr. Massey) in Reno, Nevada. In "Shock Value", Edie recalls that the wedding was the happiest day of her life, despite the fact that "he went to the movies by himself right after the ceremony and I [Edie] went to the gambling casino alone." They separated in 1951 after Mr. Massey "got restless." Never really making it as a Hollywood commodity, Edith began dancing in bars, clubs and "honky-tonks" as a b-girl (asking men to buy her drinks). She traveled like a hobo on freight trains and hitchhiking around the country; Texas, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Las Vegas. Eventually she got a bar of her own in Oklahoma and once worked as a madam in an Illinois brothel. While in Tampa, another girl told her the "pickings were good" in Baltimore. She spent 15 years on "the block" (a notorious section of the city) before opening her own thrift shop and working at Pete's Hotel. John Waters met Massey while she was working at Pete's Hotel and offered her a role as herself in the film "Multiple Maniacs". In the early '70s, she quit her job at Pete's and opened a thrift store called Edith's Shopping Bag.

Massey gained a cult following from her appearances in five John Waters films: Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974), Desperate Living (1977), and Polyester (1981).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Massey capitalized on the infamy of Waters' films by touring as the lead singer of a punk band, EDIE AND THE EGGS. She also posed for a series of greeting cards. Later, when the Baltimore winters became too much for her to endure, she moved to Venice, California, where she opened another thrift store with the money she earned from acting in Waters' films. In 1984, Edith starred in the film "Mutants in Paradise". Massey died later that year of cancer-related illness and complications from diabetes and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Director Robert Maier made a documentary short about her in 1975 entitled "Love Letter to Edie". She also appeared in John Cougar Mellencamp's music video "This Time", as Mellencamp's true love after a string of beautiful floozies. EDIE AND THE EGGS were a punk/celebrity-exploitation band. The band's name referred to Massey's character in "Pink Flamingos" who had an obsession with eating eggs and romanced an egg delivery man. Massey sometimes wore her bizarre leather costume from "Female Trouble" during gigs. The group included future THE GO-GO'S drummer Gina Schock. Edie and The Eggs recorded one single in 1982: "Big Girls Don't Cry" backed with "Punks, Get off the Grass".

Get it here:
Rapidshare: rapidshare.com/files/edie_the_eggs.rar
or
Sendspace: www.sendspace.com/file/yj2s9r

Posted by Mister Shabbadoo at 12/29/2007 02:55:00 PM

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Datura

Hard rock of the 1970s provided the foundation for the original songs of New Zealand-based power trio Datura. With his lead guitar enhanced by a variety of distortion pedals, wah-wah, and reverb controls, Brent Middlemiss leads the group through some of the South Pacific's hardest hitting sounds. Although their first album, Allisone, released in 1998, showcased their trio approach, Datura's second effort, Visions for the Celestial, featured guest musicians on Hammond B-3 organ, Indian pot drum, flute, clarinet, finger cymbals, shakers, and tambourine.

Formed in early 1995, Datura have performed frequently in the clubs of central north New Zealand. Two self-produced demo-style cassettes, released in 1996, sold out.
~Craig Harris, All Music Guide

~@~@~@~

Rockdetector Biography :
Eastern flavoured Psych Doomsters from Hamilton in New Zealand’s North Island. Although DATURA have been in existence for many years the present incarnation of vocalist / bassist Craig Williamson, guitarist Brent Middlemiss and drummer ‘Mad’ Jon Burnside have been together since 1995. The band debuted with the inclusion of the ‘Happiness Grows’ track on a Hamilton compilation album ‘Atrocities One’ in 1994. Two demo tapes followed during 1996 and a third the following year.

DATURA released the ‘Allisone’ album for Cranium Music in 1998. The record, which included an unaccredited ghost track, received praise from the global Stoner community. ‘Vision Of The Celestial’ would follow in 1999 although reports suggested DATURA underwent radical line up changes since its release.

In April of 2002 Williamson re-emerged as a solo artist, taking the mystical and Psychedelic influences felt on ‘Vision Of The Celestial’
into mellower territory for his LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE solo project. Under this new title Williamson released ‘The Cosmic Union’ album, following it in June 2002 with ‘Echo Of Light’.

Personnel :
Craig Williamson - bass, vocals
Brent Middlemiss - guitar
Jon Burnside - drums


Datura - 1998 - Allisone @192

(Cranium 1998, CRM 002)

From Aural Innovations #6 (April 1999)

Take a trip down under, hang a left and find the north island of New Zealand. There you will find a pretty cool stoner band named Datura. Cranium Music, the lone Kiwi space/psych music label, found them also and so now their music is ready for worldwide consumption. "Allisone" is made up of seven heavy rockers and one uncredited folksy psych tune hidden at the end, but together total only about 35 minutes of disc time.

Musically-speaking, Datura's style is nearly indistinguishable from either California's Fu Manchu or its offshoot Nebula. Fuzz-heavy riffs, thundering bass, copious amounts of wah-wah soloing, aggressive vocals...it's all in there. One difference though...vocalist (and bassist) Craig Williamson has a voice most similar to Glenn Danzig - maybe not quite so deep and resonant, but Williamson uses the same sort of inflections. It works well here, and for that reason alone I'd say Datura is worthy of checking out. That said, I don't really feel that they've written enough good tunes to jump to the top of the Stoner pile. "Man in the Moon" really gets me going with its funky-fuzz, bass-thumpin', and guitar screamin', but then I had to wait until the finale, "Mountain" to hear something as good. Here, they present a darker, almost-gothic feel that really does sound original. The lyrical lines were well-written, the crazy psych-guitar swashing provided a nice backdrop, and the extended outro jam was a great way to finish off the album. Which then it doesn't, as the hidden track still remains. (Hit the fast forward...there's no sense in waiting.)

OK, I'm ready to give this album a 'thumbs up,' though I think they could do a bit more to distance themselves stylistically from all those jumping on the stoner bandwagon. The gothic quality of "Mountain" was a good start, and tells me they have the tools to do just that. I'll be back to check in on them next time 'round, and see how they've made out.
~Reviewed by Keith Henderson


Datura - 1999 - Visions for the Celestial @320
(Brainticket 2000, BTR-008, originally released on Cranium, 1999)

From Aural Innovations #15 (April 2001)

From New Zealand, Datura play fairly standard stoner rock. But read on as there are some special moments on this disc. Visions For The Celestial is their second CD. It was originally released in 1999 on Cranium and has now been reissued in the U.S. by Brainticket. The band consists of Craig Williamson on vocals, bass, and percussion, Brent Middlemiss on lead and rhythm guitars, and Jon Burnside on drums and percussion, plus guests on keyboards, flute, clarinet, and percussion.

There are 6 tracks on the CD and four of them are decent stoner rock tunes, but don't really make any individual mark. Datura's brand of stoner isn't too sludgy and features heavy wah'd guitar that gives an extra psychedelic kick to the music. The bass throbs but isn't so low-end that it sticks in your chest. In fact, it really has a strong 70's jam rock feel. I'm reminded of Mountain but with a more cutting psychedelic edge. "Reaching Out" is a little different being a bit of good old thrash rock 'n roll set in Stoner land.

On "Euphoria" things get a little more interesting and we really start to trip out. I liked the brain-searing acid metal guitar and the mix has it shooting between left and right such that it jarred my head a bit. Actually it sounds like dual guitars on this track and the whole thing is head banging and mind melting at the same time. But the closing track, the 15-minute "Mantra", is completely different. Keyboards create a mucho spacey landscape over which the guitar plays still slow paced, but less heavy stoner wah'd, and more trippy solos than on the rest of the album. Same for the bass. It aids the drums as a rhythm instrument, leaving the stoner throb behind so the keyboards and guitar can do their cosmic magic. There's just a wee bit of the stoner element from the guitar but it adds a welcome edge to the music and contrasts nicely with the flowing space keyboards. This is a solid piece of tripped out psychedelic space rock and really took me by surprise. It makes the whole album for me.

In summary, Stoner fans will more than likely dig Datura, especially if you like a little less sludge and more psychedelia. But like a lot of stoner rock there's little real structure to the music. It's sounds great, but just jams along at a lethargic pace without really going anywhere. Still, there's enough here to indicate that Datura have the right stuff and if they bring on more songs like "Mantra" I might just be a committed fan.
~Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

And Here You Can Read an
Interview with DATURA (Craig Williamson) - May 2000
@ http://www.monolith.gr/

Download Here :
RapidShare Part 1
RapidShare Part 2
or
SendSpace Part 1
SendSpace Part 2

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The Mighty Lemon Drops - 1988 - World Without End

The Mighty Lemon Drops
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Origin
Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England

Genre(s)

Alternative Rock/Indie Rock
Years active
1985–1992

Label(s)

Sire

Members
Paul Marsh (vocals, rhythm guitar)

Dave Newton (guitars)

Tony Linehan (1985-1989, bass guitar)

Marcus Williams (1989-1992, bass guitar)

Keith Rowley (drums)

Biography

Originally called the Sherbert Monsters, the quartet first formed in the spring of 1985 in Wolverhampton, in the English Midlands The Black Country. Group members Dave Newton and Tony Linehan were the principal songwriters for the group. Their sound can best be described as neo-psychedelia in the vein of Echo & The Bunnymen played with a ringing Rickenbacker as the lead instrument which allowed them to transcend, and not merely imitate, the work of their influences. They were very popular on the College radio circuit and were the soundtrack for many students' lives in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In December of 1985 the quartet, now all officially Mighty Lemon Drops, released their first single, Like An Angel, which shot to the top of the UK Indie charts. They also recorded a session for John Peel around the same time. They soon landed a major recording contract, the matter, in this case, being late summer when Chrysalis Records signed the group for the UK, & Sire Records / Warner for the USA / Canada.. Previously Paul Marsh, Dave Newton and Tony Linehan played together in a band called Active Restraint in 1982 with Newton leaving to become a founding member of another band, The Wild Flowers (who later had an excellent track called A Kind Of Kingdom and the album Dust in 1986). Becoming part of the "C86 movement" which was championed by the New Musical Express they were soon snapped up by Blue Guitar, a subsidiary of Chrysalis, alongside the excellent Shop Assistants (who themselves had considerable success on the "Indie scene" with the brilliant Safety Net single) in 1986.
Derek Jarman produced the video for the polished Out of Hand single in 1987 which was followed by their sole hit Inside Out in 1988. They were eventually dropped by Chrysalis after three albums (Happy Head, World Without End and Laughter) when failing to repeat their initial independent success. During the sessions for Laughter, Linehan left the band being replaced by Marcus Williams.

The band released two more albums, Sound...Say Goodbye To Your Standards and Ricochet before finally breaking up in 1992. Two further posthumous album releases followed (All The Way and the greatest-hits package Rollercoaster) and at the end of 2000 the band played a one-off comeback gig in Wolverhampton.

In 2006 Dave Newton produced Inside Out (as well as played bass on the track) for the LA noise pop/shoegazers The Lassie Foundation's 2CD collection and final album, Through and Through.

Tony Linehan now works as a project manager and emigrated to New Zealand in April 2007.
David Newton still works as a recording engineer / producer, & has recently completed projects for, amongst others, The Little Ones and The Blood Arm.

Discography

Singles
Like An Angel 1985
The Other Side Of You 1986
My Biggest Thrill 1986
Out Of Hand 1987
Inside Out 1988
Fall Down (Like The Rain) 1988
Into The Heart Of Love 1989
Beautiful Shame 1989
Too High (Remix) 1991
Unkind (Remix) 1991

Albums
Happy Head 1986
Out of Hand 1987
World Without End 1988
Laughter 1989
Sound...Say Goodbye to Your Standards 1991
Ricochet 1992
All The Way (Live In Cincinnati) 1993
Rollercoaster: The Best Of The Mighty Lemon Drops 1997
Young, Gifted, & Black Country 2004

Download It Here:

part 1 ~ part

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Certain General - 1984 - November's Heat

New York City bands in the early 80's were overshadowed on the club scene by the visiting overseas and out of town next big things. But there was still life in the local scene. Following in the footsteps of the Contortions, Raybeats, and Bush Tetras, Certain General took the skronky/jazzy rhythms of the first, the art/surf pyschedelia of the second and the skanky semifunk of the latter to create a pop/postpunk hybrid that spoke as much of the garage as it did of the tenement atmosphere of NYC's lower east side.

The album moves from sultry surf/slowdance groove of "Service" to frenetic jackhammer pychedelic dancefloor grooves of "Jack In the Heart" to the wide open vistas of Americana in "Sympathy" and "Maximum G" to pure crazed pounding of "Voodoo Taxi" while all the time carrying a consistent group identity and continuity that belies the potporri of stylistic innovations. Throughout it all lead singer Parker Dulany's poetic vision - think of the Jim Morrison/Patti Smith lineage dances in time with drummer extradonaire Marcy Saddy's funky, yet conversational rhythym patterns. Lead guitarist Phil Gammage unleashes torrents of scattershot, feedback laced riffs, whilst alternating with a Link Ray meets Dick Dale surfadelic party. Certain General were contemporaneous with the Raybeats, Fleshtones, Bush Tetras, Swans and Sonic Youth, playing gigs with all of them plus sharing stages with the Cure, Gang of Four, New Order, REM, and Mission of Burma, to name but just a few.

Orginally recorded in 1983, this 1999 reissue is the first time November's Heat is available as an American Release. It is an indispensible document of a time and place that didn't get it's due at the time, but still sounds fresh and vital today.

By Stephen J. Graziano

Download It Here :

rapidshare.com/files/certain_general_-_1984_-_november_s_heat.rar

Monday, December 24, 2007

The Prefab Messiahs - 1998 - Devolver

from Brian Goslow's liner notes to the album:

In the first half of the 1980s, in the post-industrial landmine known as Worcester, Massachusetts (a/k/a/ Wormtown) -- a city whose two industrial complexes made it number one on the Soviet Union's hit list in case of war -- three wise men, accompanied by an equally strange entourage of followers and inventors, ignored all the rules of how to become successful musicians and created a unique legacy of their own, and with it, the era of "Peace, Love and Alienation."

The journey began at Clark University, where two devotees of Dada terrorism, Seth "Xerox" Feinberg and "Egg" Al Nidle postered its campus with posters announcing "talentless guitarist and drummer seeking bassist and lead guitarist to form post-new wave pop pseudo-psychedelic band." It drew the attention of Kris "Trip" Thompson, a new member of the church of all things psychedelic and guitarist-without-a working guitar Mike "Doc" Michaud. They began practicing at the local community radio station, using only pizza boxes for a drum kit, and were not so politely asked to leave by half the station. The other half demanded they play on the air, and soon afterwards, the Prefab Messiahs were on the airwaves asking the question, "Whatever happened to Cousin Artie? / He blew his mind out at a '60s party...," and intended or not (thanks to the fact the local underground club's doorman was indeed a popular scenester named Artie, and still scarred from having been forced to attend Woodstock), the residents of Wormtown took it as a celebration of one of their own.

With its Betty Crocker-like instant success, and fame (or at least a good used clothing store) just around the corner, "Egg" Al decided to leave the performing line-up and like Gepetto and Malcolm McClaren, pull strings from behind the scenes (he attempted to bring Ronald McDonald into its lineup - but alas, failed by a single screw of pulling off the artistic coup of the century). He was replaced by Ringo, a Casio instrument whose existence irritated serious music fans, but delighted music lovers.

In the spring of '82 the group entered the "Spring Rock Showcase" at the city's largest nightclub [Sanctuary]. Heavily promoted by the region's biggest radio station [WAAF], it attracted a large hard rock crowd, most of who were beyond stunned to see the Prefabs take the stage with Ringo - but not as horrified as when they learned the group had won its preliminary round enroute to the semi-finals.

The Prefabs' belief in their music earned the respect of Nebulas drummer Tony Serrato, who volunteered to replace Ringo. They took their prize and recorded "The 16th Track" and "Desperately Happy", and with a real drummer, rapidly became one of the city's best live acts.

Time constraints eventually forced Serrato to leave the band, and he was replaced by Billy Brahm, from Bobb Trimble's equally mythical Crippled Dog Band.

source : http://www.myspace.com/theprefabmessiahs


"Much of the U.S. new wave scene was as much garage/psych revivalism as anything else, but so long as the music was good fun there wasn't any reason to complain. And thus arrived the Prefab Messiahs, who besides having a great name and a proto-college rock dress sense clearly loved many things acid-ridden and more than slightly spaced out. Devolver, a late-'90s reissue that captured most of what the band recorded via live sets and rehearsals and the like, shows the band -- notably featuring future Abunai!/ Lothars member Kris Thompson on bass and backing vocals -- merrily careening through a series of mostly brisk, ramshackle joys. It might be a bit limiting to say that their contemporaries were probably the Three O'Clock for the sweetness and the Fleshtones for the mania -- if anything, though, songs like "The 16th Track" sound a bit like the Damned in their Naz Nomad guise, while others would fit in well on a Syd Barrett album or two. In any event, the trio plus various assisting performers -- including Ringo Casiotone, cousin to such legendary drummers as Echo and Doktor Avalanche -- manage to nail a good blend of lightness and merry insanity. "Franz Kafka" is a great example of how the band could turn things into a great full-on rave-up. Humor was always core to the group's approach -- while not a comedy band as such, the fact that some song titles included "Prefabedelia" and "Rice 4 a Sheik" says it all. Lead singer Xerox Feinberg's singing is in ways the secret weapon of the band, both beautifully disaffected and snotty in a classic Nuggets sense. Meanwhile, various minute-long songs interspersed throughout are mostly off-the-cuff bizarro dialogues and rants, thus "Got a Hole in Me" (addressed to "Mr. Donut")."

--Ned Raggett AMG

Download It Here :

part1
part2

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Sun Blindness - 2007 - Like Pearly Clouds

The Sun Blindness - 2007 - Like Pearly Clouds

Tracks :
1. Our Glassy Selves
2. Everything Is Imminent
3. Flash in the Cosmic Pan
4. A Crack In The Concrete (For D. Crosby)
5. Jeremy Stares Into The Sun
6. It's Only 3 am
7. A Trip In A Painted World
8. Right Where You Are Sitting Now
9. Sleep Inside
10. Everything Comes Right
11. Panta Rhei'
12. Lazy Livin'

A delightfully lush, druggy & dreamy neo-psychedelic affair is this one. These guys hail from somewhere in Australia and they really have come up with something unique here for their first album. A strange mixture of LSD-era Beach Boys, J.K & Co, Byrds & perhaps the softer side of Spacemen 3.... songs such as "It's Only 3am" and " Everything Is Imminent" really have a warm, beautiful atmosphere to them. Lots of backwards guitars, strange percussion, echoed harmonies and a New Tweedy Bros cover. This is one of my favorite releases of the year.

Shared w/ Permission.... Enjoy!

Get It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/77789145/TSB_-_LPC-__07.rar

If you like the album you can visit band's myspace
http://www.myspace.com/thesunblindness
for instructions how to purchase a copy !

Posted by DangerDuck23 at 12/23/2007 01:30:00 PM

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Blackmail - 1993 - Life After Death

Blackmail was a side project of Last Drive George Karanikolas.
This LP is characterised by shades of psychedelia blended with the spirit of that era.

Blackmail issued three LPs :

Life After Death (Hitch-Hike) 1993
Overexposed (Creep) 1995
7 (M Records) 2001

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/78997040/life_after_death.rar

Friday, December 21, 2007

Mazzy Star - 1993 - So Tonight Τhat I Might See

Thanks to the fluke hit "Fade Into You" -- one of the better beneficiaries of alt-rock's radio prominence in the early '90s, a gentle descent of a lead melody accompanied by piano, a steady beat, and above all else, Hope Sandoval's lovely lead vocal -- Mazzy Star's second album became something of a commercial success. All without changing much at all from where the band was before -- David Roback oversaw all the production, the core emphasis remained a nexus point between country, folk, psych, and classic rock all shrouded in mystery, and Sandoval's trademark drowsy drawl remained swathed in echo. But grand as She Hangs Brightly was, So Tonight That I Might See remains the group's undisputed high point, mixing in plenty of variety among its tracks without losing sight of what made the group so special to begin with.


Though many songs work with full arrangements like "Fade Into You," a thick but never once overpowering combination, two heavily stripped-down songs demonstrate in different ways how Mazzy Star makes a virtue out of simplicity. "Mary of Silence" is an organ-led slow shuffle that easily ranks with the best of the Doors, strung-out and captivating all at once, Sandoval's singing and Roback's careful acid soloing perfect foils. "Wasted," meanwhile, revisits a classic blues riff slowed down to near-soporific levels, but the snarling crunch of Roback's guitar works wonders against Sandoval's vocals, a careful balance that holds. If there's a left-field standout, then unquestionably it's "Five String Serenade." A cover of an Arthur Lee song -- for once not a Love-era number, but a then-recent effort -- Roback's delicate acoustic guitar effortlessly brings out its simple beauty. Tambourine and violin add just enough to the arrangement here and there, and Sandoval's calm singing makes for the icing on the cake.

listen to them here : http://www.myspace.com/mazzzystarrr

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/78831968/mazzy.rar

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Wipers - 1987 - Follow Blind

Follow Blind / Someplace Else / Any Time You Find / The Chill Remains / Let It Slide / Against the Wall / No Doubt About It / Don't Belong to You / Losers Town / Coming Down / Next Time

Follow Blind is basically a cleaner, more contemplative version of Land of the Lost, taking its obsession with melancholy to an even more mysterious and occasionally spooky level. As the lyrics are often simple, vague and enigmatic, uncovering a surface that barely hints at what's really going on below, so does the music also reside in an empire of shadows where black and white are eternally banned in favor of shades of grey. Luckily, this gloomy atmosphere doesn't become a breeding ground for mopey angst or overly depressive messages, which would neutralize the music's impact. As one of the very few truly independent bands, the Wipers have one major advantage that few others bands have, and that is that they're immediately recognizable, even though they're working within a clearly defined tradition and rarely indulge in extreme experiments. It's obvious that the Wipers' albums weren't recorded in this millennium, but on Follow Blind they also manage to avoid the over-production and annoying gloss that marred so many of the releases that appeared in 1987. As suggested above, the direction is basically the same as on Land of the Lost: it's moody guitar rock, sometimes slow, sometimes up-tempo, but always hypnotizing. The rhythm section of Davidson and Plouf may not have anything challenging in store if you're in for versatile musicianship, but along with Sage's dense guitar style, they turn each song into a trip of its own, even though more than half here stay under three minutes. Someday, someone really should try to analyze The Wipers' music and try to find out what it is that makes their releases so effective: it must be a combination of Sage's weary voice, the steady rhythms, the peculiar and rather thin production, as well as his virtuoso guitar playing (but never in a boasting manner), but even that doesn't cover the entire package.

I've been listening to this album for a few days when I walked home from work and while I was listening, it was as if the outside world temporarily disappeared and only a sort of tunnel around me remained. Such is the intensity of Follow Blind's best moments. It makes you feel slightly drugged and a spectator seeing things from the outside, in slow motion. As for the songs: it's hard to point out highlights, yet the best stuff is stacked (as is often the case on Wipers album) in the beginning half. This part of the album contains the slower, moodier tracks that feature a throbbing groove and subtly addictive melodies that appear in the guitar playing and vocals (Sage is a limited singer but a great vocalist). Of the first four tracks, the recurring favorite (probably because it's actually recognizable) remains "The Chill Remains," in which Sage evokes an entire emotional universe with just a guitar and a few simple lines "I wonder how it's been, your ship came in, but the shadow shall arise, you turn your eyes," before launching another one of those metronomic grooves. From "Let It Slide" onwards, the album suddenly heads into a more conventional, immediately catchy and rock-oriented direction with less consistently impressive results. The hard rock riff of "Against the Wall" works just fine, but it might take a while to get accustomed to the nearly rockabilly and blues-directed style of "Don't Belong to You" and, especially, "Coming Down." Yet, for each merely "decent" track, there's a grinding winner like "Losers Town." Follow Blind isn't exactly the Wipers' most inspired album; in fact, it's a bit average compared to their best works (of earlier and later), but that's redeemed by the unique style that's retained throughout the album, as well as the refusal to descend into mediocrity. The kind of mediocrity that makes people come up with stuff like "Every day is a gift, that's why they call it the present" (yesterday's most memorable line!!). In other words: the legend continues, albeit on a humbler level. (Dec. 29th, 2005)

source : http://www.guypetersreviews.com/wipers.php

Download it Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/78819604/wipers_follow_blind.rar

Download Silver Sail LP here

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Fall - Totally Wired : The Rough Trade Anthology

If you've managed to make it this far in life without discovering The Fall, put off whatever purchases you were planning next and buy, instead, three records: This Nation's Saving Grace, Hex Enduction Hour, and this newly released two-disc set, Totally Wired: The Rough Trade Anthology. The music contained here is nothing short of absolutely essential, epochal rock and roll that sounds like nothing else, including the racks upon racks of albums it eventually inspired.

Staggering out of industrial Manchester, England at the height of the post-punk era on a lo-fi bed of jagged, intoxicated guitar work and swaggering rhythm, The Fall were like an alternate rock and roll reality, an entire musical universe unto themselves. Vocalist and band mainstay Mark E Smith's scattershot, loquacious delivery and Northern pride put him in a league of his own, where his sneering, often indecipherable vocals ranged from shocking to hilarious to deeply political, and were never any less than absolutely thrilling.

The Fall's three-year tenure at Rough Trade Records is the stuff of legend, full of rancorous label/band fighting (Smith later said he'd rather retire than record for them again), furious live shows, and music that would forever alter the course of independent music. Some of The Fall's best songs are scattered across the two discs of this set. The only other period during which the band were this consistent in their 2�-decade-long (and counting) career was the one that immediately followed it, when the band signed to Beggars Banquet and released some of their best work-- including 1984's The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall and their 1985 classic This Nation's Saving Grace, both of which saw them incorporating more distinct pop elements into their sharp-witted, staggering cut-and-thrust.

The set opens with the track it was named for, a 1980 single that later appeared on the US edition of Grotesque (After the Gramme). The song is as indicative of The Fall's signature sound as any other, but it's also perhaps one of their most accessible. First come the stomping drums, briefly recalling the opening moments of The Ramones' "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio", though the similarity ends when Smith grandly announces, "I'm totally wired," his voice stuttering and cracking, turning an otherwise routinely declamatory line into a frantic yelp. The band members echo his chorus, but it's during the verses that Smith drops the song's best lines: "You don't have to be weird... uh-to be... wiiiired... and I'm always worried."

It's stunning to hear how consistent this band was in their heyday. Throughout their countless genre explorations, they never failed, and always wound up, somehow, sounding like nothing other than The Fall. "That Man" is old-fashioned 50s rock 'n' roll, as if the Cold War had really become the nuclear holocaust it always threatened to. "The Man Whose Head Expanded" hints at schlocky New Romantic synth-pop with its bleeping keyboard preset (the same one used by Trio for their Volkswagen-resurrected hit "Da Da Da"), but Smith's rant pulls it back from the brink and the guitars send it lurching into a wandering breakdown and frenzied build-up. The mighty "Rowche Rumble", one of the band's defining tracks, soon follows, with Smith's sarcastic opening claim, "Well, this is a groovy number," preceding the nailbomb-like explosion of Marc Riley's and Craig Scanlon's guitars into a jaw-dropping riff.

Elsewhere, "Pay Your Rates" barrels through production that makes Vampire on Titus sound like Kylie Minogue, while "New Puritan" sounds as though it could have been recorded off a depression-era radio show receiving the future of harrowing, abstract art-punk mayhem. And the sinister riffs of "Pay Your Rates" and "Prole Art Threat" are designed for the sole purpose of detonation and destruction: raw pummeling with little consideration for the rest of the band.

Though neither of these discs are arranged in chronological order, the second largely consists of later material than the first, focusing primarily on 1983's Perverted by Language. The album marked the debut of Smith's future wife Brix with the band, and a turn toward slightly more accessible (or at least less grinding) music, and though none of it was ever going to threaten the top of the charts, the group was opening up to a less improvisational stance that made for more direct hooks. In fact, this was the era in which The Fall would do their best work yet, balancing dissonant crunch with more rigid structures.

This compilation is invaluable: it's the first time a truly exhaustive compilation of some of The Fall's best material has been made available stateside, where the stuff has long been difficult to track down. Compiling the work of a band like The Fall would be a maddening task, with literally dozens of releases in multiple formats scattered across more than a half-dozen labels. Totally Wired provides an excellent starting point for one of their best periods. Though it does stop short of the thoroughness that might make it a true anthology, Totally Wired pulls from every Rough Trade release The Fall recorded, providing a quality roadmap for where a listener might want to go next, and that's indispensable for a band so worth exploring.

-Joe Tangari, October 10, 2002

source : http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

watch them live here

Download It Here :

part 1

part 2

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Flowers Of Romance - 1996 - Brilliant Mistakes

THE FLOWERS OF ROMANCE A brief history of the band as written by mrs Darkness: Flowers Of Romance was one of the most successful groups to emerge from the Greek rock scene of the 1990s. They started more or less as a pure punk band (although already their first album, Dorian Grey, showed signs of poppiness and gothic influences as well), then moved closer to traditional gothic rock with the album Pleasure & The Pain and then exploded into a gazillion of styles, combining missionesque riffs, gloomy atmospheres, and electronic pulses with a newly-found love for jazz, industrial, and spaghetti-western film scores.

The band was originally formed on February 2nd, 1981 by members Mike Pougounas-vocals (later will perform keyboards and synthesizers but played the bass when needed), Tasos Dimitriadis-bass and Costas Venos-guitar and were named after Sid Vicious's band (of the pre-Sex Pistols era). Recruiting George Venizelos on the drums, they started gigging regularly and quickly gained a number of followers in the punk rock scene and the university circles with their a la Dead Boys/Lords Of The New Church style. Trying to put down the Flowers Of Romance would be ridiculous as Greece was never a friendly ground for greek bands with english lyrics, playing rocknroll, gothic, new wave, punk rock or whatever you wanna call it. Cause you see, there aren't any famous bands coming from good old Greece that people heard of, except maybe Vangelis, Aphrodite's Child and this means we go a long way back.

It was not until 1988 that the Flowers Of Romance finally obtained a record deal and released their first track Autumn Kids on the compilation "12 Raw Greek Groups", followed in 1990 by the album Dorian Grey. The catchy ditties with distinct, memorable guitar riffs and tight, mesmerizing rhythm sections of Dorian Grey, will get you a complete and pretty meaningful overview of the band's earliest days. Having a talented songwriter (Mike Pougounas who was the only one from the original line up to make it to the first album) and a highly professional rhythm section in every release of theirs, the Flowers Of Romance did everything well, enough to earn their legendary status in Greece and partly in some European countries. They recorded the Love Means Death EP in 1992 with bass player Harry Stavrakas, who became a full-time member to stay with the band till the end. The 7" single "Winter Waltz"/"Pleasure & The Pain" was released in 1993 to be followed by their second album, "Pleasure & the Pain". The album was released on vinyl for Greece and on CD in Germany (the German CD included 4 bonus tracks). Both these first two albums got distribution in Australia too and several songs of the band appeared on German, English and Scandinavian compilations. During 1995, Wayne Hussey came in charge of the production of the band's third album, "Brilliant Mistakes". By that time, the line up was: Mike Pougounas, Harry Stavrakas, Jim Koukas (drums) and Aki Hadziantoniadis (guitars) The album was released late in 1996 in Greece and early next year Hyperium Germany, released a cd single titled "Channel Z" to be followed by the album "Brilliant Mistakes" (promoting the band as the Mission epigons). It is obvious that Wayne Hussey is doing backing vocals and some guitar parts. The album was recorded in Greece and Wayne's studio, Swirlsound - Bristol, engineered by Steve Whitfield. Rumor has it that "Brilliant Mistakes" attracted the interest of american producer/musician Bill Laswell.

Lots of information were spread in the media of a Mission/Flowers Of Romance European tour back in those days but nothing realy happened. One thing is for sure, Flowers supported the Sisters Of Mercy and New Model Army in 1997 to break up in 1998 when Mike Pougounas left the band to launch both the industrial goth band Nexus and his own record label, Cyberdelia Records (released the Mission's album, "Aura" in Greece and Cyprus). Both, Nexus and Cyberdelia Records no longer exist since 2005. A new band was formed in 2006, by ex- Flowers and Nexus members called New Zero God, including Flowers Of Romance matterial in their playlist.

For more infos, pls check: www.myspace.com/newzerogod

DISCOGRAPHY (no compilations included)

LP/CD DORIAN GREY (Only on vinyl released in Greece)
PLEASURE & THE PAIN (vinyl for Greece/CD with extra tracks in Germany )
BRILLIANT MISTAKES (Only CD both in Greece and Germany too)
12" EP LOVE MEANS DEATH (Only Greece)
7" PLEASURE & THE PAIN / WINTER WALTZ (Only in Greece)
CD SINGLE CHANNEL Z (Only in Germany)

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/79002228/brilliant_mistakes.rar

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Gary Wilson

Gary Wilson - 2003 - Forgotten Lovers

(Rarities 1973-1982)

Tracks :
1 Dream(s) (2:36)
2 Rhythm in Your Eyes (2:22)
3 In the Midnight Hour (3:24)
4 Forgotten Lovers (2:05)
5 New York Surf (2:26)
6 It's So Sad to Be Alone (2:08)
7 Soul Travel (2:34)
8 Chrome Lover (5:00)
9 Sick Trip (2:31)
10 Softly the Water Flows (1:29)
11 I Wanna Take You on a Sea Cruise (3:31)
12 When I Spoke of Love (2:26)
13 Another Galaxy (7:23)
14 You Took Me on a Walk into My Mirror (2:36)

Forgotten Lovers is the illuminating companion to geek-funk lothario Gary Wilson's 1977 masterpiece You Think You Really Know Me. A cult record if there ever was one, Wilson's home-recorded debut would influence numerous independent music tastemakers, including Beck, the Make-Up, and Magnetic Fields. But it was a one-off, a fluke, the twisted genius product of a lonely guy busting snarky, R-rated pickup lines on a cardboard cutout of Joan Crawford in his parents' basement. You Think You Really Know Me was so far ahead of its time, it was behind itself. 2003 sees the release of Forgotten Lovers, assembled from Wilson's previously unreleased material, rarities, and vinyl-only pressings from 1973 to 1982. Its awkward funk experiments "You Took Me on a Walk Into My Mirror," Jonathan Richman-style sour grapes "It's So Sad to Be Alone," and bizarre space jazz trips ("Chrome Lover," on which Wilson warbles "Make out! Make out!" repeatedly) are the stuff of creepy genius. "Rhythm in Your Eyes," recorded with Wilson's part-time backup band the Blind Dates, would be a remake of Beck's "Hollywood Freaks" if Wilson hadn't recorded it 20 years before Midnite Vultures ever came out. Some of Wilson's material is more challenging; strange jazz-funk interludes and some odd sampling choices might deter some listeners. And Wilson's vocal phrasing is an acquired taste. But overall, Forgotten Lovers is an odd, yet eminently listenable album, of special interest for anyone who sees You Think You Really Know Me as only the tip of the Gary Wilson iceberg.
~ Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

Get It Here :
RapidShare or SendSpace

Gary Wilson - 2004 - Mary Had Brown Hair

Tracks :
1 A Very Sall Town (0:52)
2 Linda Wants to Be Alone (2:25)
3 Shauna Made Me Cry (1:22)
4 Debbie Debbie (3:10)
5 Mary Had Brown Hair (2:07)
6 Gary's in the Park (2:03)
7 Newark Valley (2:00)
8 Sodus Point (1:41)
9 Gary Saw Linda Last Night (5:04)
10 She Makes Me Think of Endicott (2:02)
11 Electric Depression (2:23)
12 Our Last Date (1:23)
13 Hold Back the Daylight (2:14)
14 Mary, Make a Wish (0:49)
15 6.4=Make Out [O.G. 1976 Version] (7:17)
16 Chromium Bitch [O.G. 1976 Version] (2:28)

Mary Had Brown Hair is Gary Wilson's first new material since he re-emerged in 2002, after reissues of his late-'70s work turned the world on to his crooked and flower-caked smile. But despite his nearly 30-year station break, he's ignored the musical interim. Mary doesn't draw on the whatever-wave climate of 2004, despite parts of it being owed to Wilson's original mercurial horn-dog muse. Nor does the album feature cumbersome, press-hogging guest shots -- this isn't the hipsterati Supernatural. Instead it spools out snips of Wilson's broken fusion style, gluing them together for another neurotic soundtrack to would-be chrome lovers and penned-in thoughts. On Mary there's a second Gary sitting on the real Gary's shoulder. This alternate is in 2-D, sputtering like blistered beta playback. He brandishes the severed arm of a foxy-ass mannequin and speaks in manipulated tone-bank warbles. This other Gary often speaks for the original, who's overcome with love and indecision, anger, or sexual frustration. The sped-up voice tells us "Gary Saw Linda Last Night," and how he was sad. "But then I was glad," Gary himself says, "'Cause now I'd be alone." For, as much as he longs for companionship, it's easier to not subject himself to the pain, to return to the comfort of darkness and the avenue. "Gary's in the Park" bounces all chipper, like a 24-hour supermarket's incidental music remixed for use in cocktail lounges. But while out searching for tail, Wilson and his wavering alter ego turn angry at some perceived slight. They were happier alone, when love was just potential. This is the shift in Mary Had Brown Hair. While Wilson always did more wanting than getting, his desires now seem to guide him to a cynical id dead end. The women that haunt the album don't seem aware of him; they're random bus passengers, or pretty secretaries on the sidewalk. Regardless, they're impetuses for his particular heart damage. "Debbie Debbie" is a love song in the classic Wilson sense, its fuzz guitar and pattering drum machine drenching his pleading in awkward basement slow jamming. And even though "Linda Wants to Be Alone" turns a little stalker creepy, its sharp-angled whir is reminiscent of the Korgis' "Chinese Girl." Of course, Mary Had Brown Hair also has its freaky sketches. "Shauna Made Me Cry" is a brief interlude of, well, Gary Wilson crying. Later, Linda reappears in "Our Last Date." Backed by a chorus of horror film organ and radar beeps, a shape-shifting Wilson describes how he "saw" her name scrawled on a rock. He slept on it, only to wake and find himself alone with painful memories. "I can still see her face in the Jaycee Diner/Where we shared French fries and gravy." And the Donnie Darko bunny beckons from a ravine. Mary Had Brown Hair is an unpredictable and thrilling teeter of nightmare and wet dream. It might be Gary Wilson's official return to our world, but it's clear he's still living deep inside his own. [The album included radically different demo versions of Wilson oldies "6.4= Make Out" and "Chromium Bitch," both dating from 1976.]
~ Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

Get It Here :
RapidShare or SendSpace

Bio :
The brain-damaged electro-funk of Gary Wilson was new wave when the label was still mainly used to categorize punk acts with a sweet tooth for pop. Completely ahead of his time, Wilson used chilly synthesizers and bizarre sound effects and samples to tell his odd tales of love and sex. In 1977, Wilson recorded his debut LP You Think You Really Know Me in the basement of his parents' house in Endicott, NY. Home tapings started becoming prevalent in the '90s, but in the late '70s, Wilson was an indie pioneer, releasing a strange lo-fi record that eventually influenced Beck. Moreover, the LP inspired Olympia, WA, college radio station KAOS to spin underground artists, helping to cultivate a taste for non-commercial music that later gave birth to K Records and Sub Pop. Legendary Seattle DJ Stephen Rabow even presented one of Wilson's gigs in the early '80s. Wilson toured with his group, the Blind Dates, at times covering their bodies on-stage with flour. But the masses were not ready for Wilson's eccentricities. Wilson did not release a follow-up to You Think You Really Know Me; nevertheless, the album's cult status grew as years passed. Finally, in 2003, Motel Records released Forgetten Lovers, a follow-up album of sorts assembled from Wilson's previously unreleased material, rarities, and vinyl-only pressings from 1973 to 1982, further solidifying Wilson's stance as the unsung hero of indie rock. The new record Mary Had Brown Hair was released in 2004 on Stones Throw.
~ Michael Sutton, All Music Guide

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wellwater Conspiracy - The Scroll and It's Combinations

With clever songwriting, a willingness to experiment, and an increased production quality in the studio, the Wellwater Conspiracy have slowly outgrown their side-project beginnings to become a great band in their own right. Co-founder Matt Cameron still gives much of his time and energy to playing drums for Pearl Jam, so it's unlikely that the Conspiracy will ever break big, but that's all the better. The group has the feeling of a cult band, a gift rewarded to the fan willing to put the time and energy into searching it out, and the rewards are plenty on the third Wellwater Conspiracy release (the band's first for TVT). While past albums contained some gems, they often felt like records that were written and recorded over the course of a few weekends off. Scroll and cohort , on the other hand, has the sound of a fully realized album, with CameronJohn McBain taking their love for '60s garage and psychedelia to a new level. "I Got Nightmares" is pure early Who, and "Tick Tock 3 O'Clock" is the best Roky Erickson song never penned. The record also has some heavyweight guests. Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil adds a beautiful guitar part to "C, Myself and Eye," while Eddie Vedder (going under the moniker Wes C. Addle) lends his familiar voice to the jaunty, Byrds-ish "Felicity's Surprise." The production on Scroll is much cleaner, the songwriting is tighter, and the group only sounds better and stronger for it.
~ Steve Kurutz, All Music Guide

RapidShare : rapidshare.com/files/Wellwater_Conspiracy.rar
or
SendSpace : www.sendspace.com/file/h7iqq0

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Dif Juz - 1985 - Extractions

Dif Juz - 1985 - Extractions

Tracks :
1 Crosswinds
2 A Starting Point
3 Silver Passage
4 The Last Day
5 Love Insane
6 Marooned
7 Two Fine Days (And A Thunderstorm)
8 Echo Wreck
9 Twin And Earth
10 Gunet
11 Soarn
12 Hu
13 Re

Dif Juz was a British instrumental band, strongly influenced by dub, who were active in the early early to mid 1980s. Retroactively they can be seen to be most strongly allied with the Post-rock movement.

History :
The members of the group were Dave Curtis (guitar), Alan Curtis (guitar), Gary Bromley (bass), and Richard Thomas (drums, percussion, saxophone). The band developed out of the punk band London Pride that was formed by the Curtis brothers.
In late 1979, Alan Curtis was involved with New Wave band Duran Duran. He apparently disappeared and missed a particularly volatile gig after the band hired the owners of the Birmingham Rum Runner nightclub as managers. In a 2003 interview John Taylor (bassist for Duran Duran) said "straight away Alan Curtis skipped town, thinking getting involved with two nightclub owners meant he would end up in pieces down a city alleyway."

Dif Juz is associated with their more famous contemporaries Cocteau Twins for several reasons:

• Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie produced several of their recordings.
• Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser sang on "Love Insane" from the album Extractions.
• They were (4AD Records) label-mates and toured with the Cocteau Twins.
• Cocteau Twins bass player Simon Raymonde was quoted as saying Dif Juz were the "Best live band I've ever seen".
• The two bands shared some superficial similarities in production style, notably a love of delay and reverb effects.

At one point they served as a backing band for Reggae/Dub luminary Lee Scratch Perry for a few live dates. A studio album of this collaboration was recorded with Robin Guthrie as producer but this album was never released and sits unheard in the 4AD vaults. There is currently some debate as to why. 4AD's current stance is that the Curtis brothers never really appreciated the results. However, Dave Curtis has stated that he believes it's "the best thing Dif Juz ever did".

Source : Wikipedia

Get It Here @ 320
RapidShare : Part 1 ~ Part 2
or
SendSpace : Part 1 ~ Part 2

Enjoy !!!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

The Make up - 7 inch singles

The Make up - 7 inch singles

The Make up - Free Arthur Lee


http://rapidshare.com/files/74693507/Free_Arthur_Lee__45_.rar


The Make up - I want some




http://rapidshare.com/files/74695949/I_Want_Some__45_.rar

Two collective 7 inch singles from the Washington DC band the Make up
Enjoy..!!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Pixies - 1998 - Pixies at the BBC

Pixies at the BBC is a compilation of live BBC radio sessions by the American alternative rockPixies. Released by Elektra Records in 1998, five years after their initial split, it was recorded over several sessions between 1988 and 1991 at the BBC. All songs were written by Black Francis except tracks 1 and 15. The final track, "(In Heaven) Lady in the Radiator Song" was written by Peter Ivers and David Lynch for Eraserhead.

The album is characterised by its raw, underproduced sound.

1. "Wild Honey Pie" (J. Lennon & P. McCartney) – 1:52
2. "There Goes My Gun" – 1:25
3. "Dead" – 1:30
4. "Subbacultcha" – 2:08
5. "Manta Ray" – 2:15
6. "Is She Weird" – 2:52
7. "Ana" – 2:14
8. "Down to the Well" – 2:31
9. "Wave of Mutilation" – 2:22
10. "Letter to Memphis" – 2:33
11. "Levitate Me" – 2:18
12. "Caribou" – 3:18
13. "Monkey Gone to Heaven" – 2:57
14. "Hey" – 3:17
15. "(In Heaven) Lady in the Radiator Song" (P. Ivers & D. Lynch) – 1:51

source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixies_at_the_BBC

listen to the Pixies here


Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/79006928/at_the_bbc.rar

Alternative archives November 2007

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Group Ongaku - 1996 - Music of Group Ongaku

Group Ongaku - 1996 - Music of Group Ongaku 1960-1961

Tracks :
1 Automatism (26:20)
Performer - Chieko Shiomi , Mikio Tojima , Shukou Mizuno , Takehisa Kosugi , Yasunao Tone , Yumiko Tanno
2 Object (7:34)
Performer - Chieko Shiomi , Mikio Tojima , Shukou Mizuno , Takehisa Kosugi , Yasunao Tone , Yumiko Tanno
Metaplasm 9-15
3a Part 1 (14:16)
Cello - Mikio Tojima
Cello, Drums, Tape - Shukou Mizuno
Guitar - Genichi Tsuge
Piano - Chieko Shiomi
Saxophone, Tape - Yasunao Tone
Violin, Saxophone, Tape - Takehisa Kosugi
3b Part 2 (11:26)
Cello - Mikio Tojima
Cello, Drums, Tape - Shukou Mizuno
Guitar - Genichi Tsuge
Piano - Chieko Shiomi
Saxophone, Tape - Yasunao Tone
Violin, Saxophone, Tape - Takehisa Kosugi

~@~@~

Takehisa Kosugi – violin, sax, tapes
Shukou Mizuno – cello, drums, tapes
Chieko ‘Mieko’ Shiomi - piano
Yasunao Tone – sax, tapes
Mikio Tojima - cello
Yumiko Tanno – FX, tapes
Genichi Tsuge - guitar

The story of Group Ongaku (and its founder members Takehisa Kosugi and Yasunao Tone) is essential to the fabric of the post-war Japanese music scene. Their history is carefully mapped out throughout Book 1, Chapter 2 of Japrocksampler.
~Julian Cope



Get It Here :
RapidShare : rapidshare.com/files/GroupOngaku.rar
or
SendSpace : www.sendspace.com/file/6t79x1

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Mass - Labour of Love [1981]

After the breakup of Rema Rema, Gary Asquith, Mick Allen, and Mark Cox formed the art-damaged discordance of Mass with Danny Briottet. One of the earliest 4AD bands, they debuted with the You and I single in 1980, following it up a year later with the full-length Labour of Love. Asquith and Briottet went on as Renegade Soundwave, while Allen and Cox went into the Wolfgang Press. [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01. Mass
02. Why
03. Ill
04. Why isn't life nice
05. Elephant talk
06. Cross purposes
07. F. A. H. T. C. F.
08. Innocence

[192K]

Post-Punk

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Korgis - The Korgis [1979]

The Korgis released their first single "Young 'n' Russian" in early March 1979 on the label Rialto Records, owned by their managers Nick and Tim Heath. Their next single "If I Had You," was released soon after, and moved up Number 13 on the UK Singles Chart, prompting the release of an eponymous debut album, The Korgis, in July 1979.

Their next single, "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" (1980), from their second album Dumb Waiters, was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, hitting Number 5 in the UK, and #18 in the U.S. The Dumb Waiters album reached Number 40 in the UK in 1980 and was followed by singles "If It's Alright With You Baby" and "Rovers Return". The band was alternately marketed as a duo, a trio and a quartet around this time. The commercial breakthrough was however not enough to keep them together, and after a third album, Sticky George - and with lead single "That Was My Big Mistake" being released as 'James Warren & The Korgis' marking the fact that the group had now more or less evolved into a one man band, Davis and Warren went their separate ways. The single "Don't Look Back", originally a demo from the Sticky George sessions, was however remixed by Trevor Horn (at the time best known for his work with The Buggles, Dollar and Yes) and issued by London Records in the summer of 1982. A follow-up single with Horn, "Endangered Species", was planned but never materialised.

Warren would go on to issue a solo LP entitled Burning Questions in 1986, while some of the singles during this era were still released as 'The Korgis' and co-produced by Andy Davis.

The band got back together in 1990 to re-record "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime". The re-formed group consisting of James Warren, Andy Davis and new member John Baker released the album This World's For Everyone in 1992, having some success in Continental Europe and Japan, before breaking up again. [Wikipedia]

The album Sticky George [1981] can be found here

Track list;
01 - Young N' Russian
02 - I Just Can't Help It
03 - Chinese Girl
04 - Art School Annexe
05 - Boots And Shoes
06 - Dirty Postcards
07 - O Maxine
08 - Mt Everest Sings The Blues
09 - Cold Tea
10 - If I Had You

[128K]

New Wave, Pop-Rock

Loop - 1987 - Heaven's End

Loop - 1987 - Heaven's End

Tracklist

1. Sound Head
2. Straight to Your Heart
3. Forever
4. Heaven's End
5. Too Real to Feel
6. Fix to Fall
7. Head On
8. Carry Me

~~~~~

Biography

Discordant, elusive and utterly hypnotic, Loop conjured a dark, trance-like spell that contrasted sharply with the prevailing British pop music trends of their time. Equal parts the Stooges, Can and Hawkwind, in tandem with fellow travellers Spacemen 3 they resurrected the concept of space-rock for a new era, creating droning soundscapes of bleak beauty and harsh dissonance. Loop was formed in London in 1986 by vocalist/guitarist Robert Hampson, who at the time of the group's inception claimed to know only four chords; with wife Bex on drums and Glen Ray on bass, they debuted with the single "16 Dreams," its raw, feedback-powered sound offering clear evidence of a serious garage fixation. New drummer John Wills and bassist Neil MacKay were signed on a short time later, with their arrival heralding a more primal rhythmic foundation; the reconfigured Loop then issued its 1987 full-length debut Heavens End, winning acclaim for its densely distorted sound.

The World in Your Eyes, a collection of singles and B-sides, appeared in 1987; after signing to the Chapter 22 label, Loop resurfaced in 1988 with the 12" Collision. In November of that same year the group also released their second full-length, the excellent Fade Out. Over a year passed before Loop returned to action with the "Arc-Lite" single, now sporting not only another new label, Situation Two, but also a second guitarist, Scott Dowson. After issuing their third and finest studio LP, 1990's A Gilded Eternity, Loop disbanded; a series of posthumous releases, among them the live Dual and the BBC sessions collection Wolf Flow, soon followed. In the wake of the band's demise, its four members split into two camps — while MacKay and Wills reunited in the Hair and Skin Trading Company, Hampson and Dowson went on to form the highly experimental Main.

~~~~~

Review

Had Loop been present at Woodstock, they probably would have hatched a plan to obtain all the brown acid that Wavy Gravy warned spectators not to take. After hearing his declaration that "The brown acid's a bummer, man!," Robert Hampson and his droogs would have likely gone incognito as security staff, offering to rid the concert goers of the bad trips waiting to be had. They would have preceded to ingest what they could and record something like Heaven's End, a filler-free release of warped senses and personal demons, self-contained blues, and psychotic dementia. It sounds like a vast toxic wasteland where all negativity is dumped by the soul. Simple, tense riffs repeat until a state of hypnosis and emotional emptiness remain. "Heaven's End" itself sounds like the soundtrack to a missing hallucination scene from Easy Rider; shifting and shuffling percussion and twisted vapor trails of guitar mutate into utter mush. Samples from 2001 pop up throughout the record, if the music itself wasn't enough to carry a prevailing sense of paranoia and claustrophobia. But all the late-'60s references become stifling in conveying what Loop did. Along the way, Loop gutted all the spiritual mysticism from Can, taking their repetition. They also borrow Suicide's minimal charge and early PiL's wretched anguish, making something rather unique from their influences. Though Heaven's End demonstrates a crystal clear indebtedness to Detroit's high-energy mayhem of the late ‘60s, it's actually the gunmetal gray sound of the Stooges and MC5 filtered through decades of urban decay.
[info: allmusic guide]

discography here

Friday, November 23, 2007

Everything But the Girl - 1984 - Eden (Bianco Negro Rec. UK)

The debut effort by multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt and vocalist and songwriter Tracey Thorn took the alterna-pop world by surprise in 1985. And rightfully so. Watt's lush chamber orchestra jazzscapes, full of Brazilian bossa nova structures and airy horn charts, combined with Thorn's throaty alto singing her generation's version of the torch song, was a sure attraction for fans of sophisticated pop and vocal jazz. Featuring 12 tracks, the album has deeply influenced popular song structures since that time; this is evidenced in the work of more R&B-oriented acts such as Swing Out Sister and Tuck and Patti.

Tracey Thorn
Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Vocals
Ben Watt
Guitar, Piano, Organ (Hammond), Vocals, Horn Arrangements

Simon Booth Guitar
Bosco DeOliveira Percussion
Charles Hayward Drums
Peter King Saxophone, Sax (Alto)
Chucke Meichan Bass
Chucho Merchán Double Bass
Robin Millar Saxophone, Sax (Tenor)
Dick Pearce Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Horn

Mike Pela Engineer - Producer Nigel Nash

needs to sink deep into her protagonist's brokenness. Guitars chime and stagger one another, slipping and sliding just above the bassline, and vanish into thin air. On "I Must Confess," a riff similar to "The Girl From Ipanema" locates The set opens with "Each and Everyone," a slow samba-flavored pop song. The song comes from the broken side of love, with Thorn entreating from the heart: "You try to show me heaven but then close the door...Being kind is just a way to keep me under your thumb/And I can cry because that's something we've always done." A trumpet fills her lines and makes them glide above Watt's Latin mix. Elsewhere, the folk bossa of "Fascination" is all the architecture ThornThorn next to a deep ringing upright bass and Watt's glissando guitar, played Charlie Byrd-style, before Nigel Nash punctures Thorn's vocal with a velvety tenor solo. Once again, the notion of loss, memory, and the resolve of the left half of a relationship to go on, carrying regret but not remorse, is absolutely breathtaking. Thorn continually meditated on broken relationships here, and that extended tome, which echoes through every song on the record, seems to have resonated with everyone who heard it.

The set closes with Watt's vocal on "Soft Touch," a folksy pop song, illustrated with guitars, a fretless bass, and piano, that sounds like something from Supertramp in their better moments — and no, that's not a bad thing. His voice — while not nearly as dramatic as Thorn's — is wonderfully expressive, and his lyrics extend the feeling of Eden to its final whisper. This set proved itself to be an auspicious debut that testified to the beginning of a long and creatively rewarding partnership that has endured.

~by Thom Jurek

Get It Here :
RapidShare or SendSpace

Posted by BlackCatBone (standinatthecrossroads-blackcatbone.blogspot.com)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Thin White Rope - 1987 - Moonhead

Thin White Rope's second album, Moonhead, is the edge-of-chaos masterpiece of the paisley underground, an album that sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse tackling Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. All of the 14 songs, even a pounding cover of Jimmy Reed's blues classic "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," are so wound up and tense that they sound like they could explode at any point; the fact that they don't, not even on extended guitar workouts like "Crawl Piss Freeze" and the epic closer "Take It Home," gives the album an at times almost unbearable tension. The songs all start from basically the same point -- dual-guitar leads over Jozef Becker's almost Krautrock-like steady pulses and Stephen Tesluk's throbbing, minimal basslines -- but Guy Kyser's lyrics and vocals range from tortured wails to mordant, deadpan humor, providing the album with just enough variation that it doesn't become deadening. An intense, satisfying album, Moonhead is Thin White Rope's most substantial and powerful effort. ~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

get more T.W.R albums here

download it here :

part 1

part 2

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Brigitte Bardot - 1996 - Best Of BB

01. L'Appareil à Sous

02. La Madrague
03. Je Me Donne à Qui Me Plaît
04. Moi Je Joue
05. Histoire de Plage
06. Ça Pourrait Changer (Don't You Ever Change Your Mind)
07. Ne Me Laisse Pas l'Aimer
08. Maria Ninguen (Maria l'Amour)
09. Je Danse Donc Je Suis
10. Ciel de Lit
11. Bonnie and Clyde (Avec S.Gainsbourg)
12. Bubble Gum
13. Le Soleil
14. Harley Davidson
15. Contact
16. Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus (1967 Original Version avec S.Gainsbourg)
17. Oh! Qu'il Est Vilain
18. Nue au Soleil
19. Te Veux Ou Tu Veux Pas (Nem Vem Que Nas Tem)
20. Soleil de Ma Vie (You Are the Sunshine of My Life avec S.Distel)

After scaling the heights of international fame as a '50s movie pinup, Brigitte Bardot marked the shifting terrain of the '60s with a plunge into the music world. Like many French singers of the time, she updated the jazz-inspired chanson tradition of Trenet and Piaf with a healthy dose of pop and rock & roll. This 20-track sampler covers the period from her eponymous 1962 debut to the early '70s and such last hurrahs as her cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life." A superbly selected mix, Best of BB hits all the heights, including early beat-style numbers like "L'Appareil a Sous" and "Je Danse Donc Je Suis" and several Serge Gainsbourg collaborations (their infamous duet, "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus," being one of them). Other Bardot-Gainsbourg highlights include such pop-culture landmarks as "Bonnie and Clyde," "Harley Davidson," and "Contact." A fabulous place to start your Bardot collection.

~ Stephen Cook, All Music Guide

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/79180969/brigitte_bardot_-_best_of_bb.rar

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Suburban Lawns - 1981 - Suburban Lawns

Suburban Lawns - 1981 - Suburban Lawns

IRS SP70024

Tracks :

1 Flying Saucer Safari (Ennui/Billingsgate/McBurney) 2:12
2 Pioneers (Ennui/Tissue/McBurney) 2:05
3 Not Allowed (Tissue/Billingsgate) 2:16
4 Gossip (Tissue) 2:29
5 Intellectual Rock (McBurney) 2:05
6 Protection (Billingsgate) 1:54
7 Anything (Tissue) 1:38
8 Janitor (Ennui/Tissue/Billingsgate/McBurney) 2:30
9 Computer Date (Ennui/Billingsgate) 1:06
10 Mom And Dad And God (Ennui/Roast) 1:56
11 Unable (Tissue/Billingsgate) 1:31
12 When In The World (Billingsgate) 2:48
13 Green Eyes (Tissue) 2:53
14 Jam The Controls (Ennui) 1:06

Musicians :
Su Tissue vocals & keyboards
John McBurney lead guitars & vocals
Frankie Ennui guitars & vocals
Vex Billingsgate bass & vocals
Chuck Roast drums
Additional Musician:
EJ Emmons percussion, synthesizer & string arrangements

Suburban Lawns formed in Long Beach, California in 1978, though several members had know each other longer and played together previously under various names such as The Fabulons or Art Attack (two were students at the famous Disney-backed California Institute of the Arts or "CalArts"). They found their stride with a quirky tune called "Gidget Goes To Hell" released in 1979 on their own indpendent Suburban Industrial Records and got a boost when a music video (purportedly produced and directed by Academy-Award winning director Jonathan Demme) for the tune ran on Saturday Night Live.

Thanks to continued airplay (thanks to Rodney Bingenheimer & KROQ), the band was able to license thier self- produced debut LP to I.R.S. Records for a whopping $25,000 -- more than it cost to produce -- and get picked up by Ian Copeland's Frontier Booking International. The arrangement gave them terrific opportunities to open for and tour with dozens of great UK and US bands.

Suburban Lawns on stage in the San Francisco Bay area, circa 1981.
(L to R: Vex Billingsgate, Su Tissue and John McBurney)

The five members of Suburban Lawns took on stage names that would put smiles on the faces of anyone culturally literate: Su Tissue (Sue McLane), Vex Billingsgate (William Ranson), John Gleur (John McBurney), Frankie Ennui (Richard Whitney) and Chuck Roast (Charles Rodriguez). Su was the usual "front-person" though lead vocal duties switched from song to song with everyone except Chuck Roast singing at least one song.

Despite the regional success of the debut LP, a follow-up was a long time coming. And a long time in the pop-world often leads to turmoil brewing within bands. Shortly after Richard Mazda took on production of the their follow up, Baby (which ended up as an EP), John McBurney departed the fold. Other issues took their toll and Baby was released with little fanfare and less promotion. Soon after it hit the street the band folded. Despite a "fan club" address on the sleeve the Lawns were done.

The various members have continued to work since then. Frankie and Vex even briefly formed a new band called simply The Lawns. Su went on to the Berklee College of Music to study classic piano. She later recorded a solo album of piano and voice called Salon de Musique and played the small but memorable part of Peggy Dillman in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild. Producer EJ Emmons is still active behind the Los Angeles music scene...

Get It Here @ 320
Suburban_Lawns.rar

Friday, November 16, 2007

Billy Childish & Holly Golightly - 1999 - In Blood

Billy Childish & Holly Golightly - 1999 - In Blood

Tracklist

1. Step Out
2. In Blood
3. Let Me Know You
4. You Got That Thing
5. Demolition Girl
6. Upside Mine
7. You Move Me
8. I Believe
9. It's A Natural Fact
10. I'm The Robber
11. Move On Up
11. Move On Up

~~~~~~~~~~

William Charlie Hamper – aka Billy Childish – is reputed to have recorded 100 LP’s during his 24-year career. As if that’s not enough to be getting on with, he’s also painted 2,000 odd paintings, written 2 novels & penned 30 plus volumes of poetry.
Born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent, Childish left secondary education aged 16, an undiagnosed dyslexic. After being denied entry to his local art-school, Childish began work as an apprentice stonemason at Chatham Naval Dockyard. During his 6 months on the job (the only conventional employment he has experienced in his 42 years) he produced 600 drawings in the "tea huts of hell". This portfolio eventually earned him a place at St Martin’s School of Art studying painting. Unfortunately, due to his outspoken views & rude writing, he was expelled & signed on shortly afterwards. Childish has continued to paint, write and make music independently ever since.

Billy Childish Bands:

- The Pop Rivets
- Thee Milkshakes
- Thee Mighty Caesars
- Thee Headcoats
- The Buff Medways
- Del Monas

Various bands Billy is or has been involved in:

Wild Billy Childish & The Chatham Singers | Billy & The Blackhands | Billy & Big Russ Wilkins | Billy & Sexton Ming | The Stuckists | Natural Born Lovers | Jack Ketch & The Crowmen | Singing Loins | Thee Stash | New Bomb Turks | Armitage Shanks | Billy & The Deltamen | Billy & Kyra | Billy & Holly | H2F | Mudhoney | Doctor Explosion | Golden Lemons |

~~~~~~~~~~

Holly Golightly (real name) started her musical career as a founder member of all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees in 1991.
She spent four years with Thee Headcoatees before releasing her debut record, 'The Good Things', in 1995. Where the Headcoatees sound was a blend of girl group sounds and three-chord garage-rock with all the original songs coming from the pen of Billy Childish, Holly's solo sound is more a blend of pre-rock electric blues, folk rock, and less frantic rock & roll. Apart from the wide range of covers of such artists as Willie Dixon, Ike Turner, LeeHazelwood, Wreckless Eric, and Bill Withers, Golightly also writes all her own material.
Holly Golightly is definitely the most interesting and diverse artist to come out of the Billy Childish school and is certainly one of the better singer/songwriters of the post-grunge era.

Holly has collaborated with:
- Dan Melchior [in "Desperate Little Town", 2001]
- The White Stripes [in "Elephant"]
- The Greenhornes
- Mudhoney
- Rocket From The Crypt
- Flaming Stars
etc.

While Billy & Holly have co-contributed to garage faves The Headcoats/Headcoatees for many years, this is their first outing as a couple. One chord (with many notes) blues songs with vocal trading, clanging guitars and backed by the Medway Delta Review, which features Bruce & johnny of Thee Headcoats and Johnny Gibb from The Wildebeests.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Mistaken - 1994 - Santa Fe

Pale White Surfer
Medication (The Aktifed Song)
Santa Fe
4ST
My Black Dog
The Kingdom Of My Mind Another Lost Heartache
Tombstone
This House Is Not My Home
Black Sheep
Nowhere Around
Sure It's Good
Venus In Furs
Lost

If all you know about this record is that leader Gregg Turner was in the Angry Samoans, you are probably going to be shocked when you hear it. Turner and the band created a marvelous meld of retro garage-psych and art pop, with oddly naïve lyrics set to occasionally sloppy but often endearing music. Songs like "Medication" and "Kingdom of My Mind" have an enjoyable '60s vibe and boast some pretty tight guitar work, while the title cut shows that Turner can craft a fine piece of melancholy pop. The relaxed atmosphere is all the stranger for the company Turner was keeping -- Polly Klemmer of Pompeii 99 and the original Christian Death plays keyboards and sings an ethereal lead vocal on "Lost." There are some interesting cameo experiences, such as a vocal intro from rock critic Natalie Nichols on the intro to the cover of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs."

source : All Music Guide

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/79168552/mistaken_-_santa_fe.rar

Friday, November 9, 2007

Partly Cloudy - 1987 - Excess Verbiage

I suppose I'm an artist or at least I'll get you to think so

Simple and minimal songs, played mainly with synthesizers and sequencers, but also with real guitars, bass and drums. It's definately a curiosity in the post/dark scene of Los Angeles in the late 80s: a trio, Aliz, Gigi and Robert, possibly art students, created this record of tribal/vocal drone, if such a thing could be said (or writen). Tribal refers to the drums (a key feature of almost every group in this scene), though a great part of them are digital. Yet they add a sense of motion in the otherwise more or less static synth lines. As for the vocal part, we are listening a voice without emotion talking rather than singing, semi-nightmare stories, or to be more precise stories from someone's dream world. A world where there's no heaven or hell, a city with buildings without windows, where sterilized and silent people are living. A flight under an artificial sunlight, just high enough to watch the buildings, the cars and the people. Persons talking about themselves and the others without love or hate, using very common phrases. A neutral voice, showing only a certain irony, just to prevent us from taking the stories very seriously, yet succeeding to make us more curius.

Rooms of joy in a room of sadness

For someone with enough listenings of american underground of the 80s, Partly Cloudy's music would certainly not fit out of place in some more "industrial" city scene, like Chicago or Detroit. There are some very obvius simularities with Chicago's Algebra Suicide, especially in the vocal/synth part, or XeX from New Jersey. But Partly Cloudy are far richer musicaly -due to the use of physical instruments- yet remaing in the minimal/synth genre. Drums make the music more human, while guitars remain a bit in the shade.

I've got to get out of this room

There's a poster on my wall

Talking Heads and David are telling me to leave

A teenager takes a bus ride, after the poster on her room wall tells her to leave. 'Bus Ride' is not a song about a flipped girl, it's a series of thoughts of a girl in her bus ride: common, strange, funny, thoughts without any depth, without strong emotions. This is how the lyrics go in the most part of this record (there are a few songs with more abstract stories, but I wouldn't go so far - anyone who read thus far will try this album), common references, just the surface of things. 

I left some details for the end: the (deserted?) industrial cloudy environment on the front cover and the violent tornado on the back. The grey-blue tones on both sides. The label's name: Forecast Records. The minimal information and the absense (to my knowledge) of any connection with other bands of the time/place -no familiar names in the credits, except Ethan James and Radio Tokyo studio, where this album was edited.

Partly Cloudy intended to release a second album 1990, which never came out - as far as I know (I would love to proved wrong). 'Jihad' from these recordings appeared in "Viva Los Angeles II".

tracks 

Right Hemisphere

Bus Ride/Sunlight/Violated by Pretension

City/Postcard/You Blew It!

Left Hemisphere

Big Trouble/Revelation/Relic Revival

Melodrama/Unhallowed Ground

Lizards/Nice Time

Fucked

Here it is on massmirror and on mediafire

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Gary Wilson - You Think You Really Know Me (1977)

BY REQUEST. I'm a sucker for one-man play-it-all-yourself bands (Todd Rundgren, Emmit Rhodes, the god himself R. Stevie Moore (here also), Roy Wood, Bobb Trimble, Orange Alabaster Mushroom, Bevis Frond, Ariel Pink, early Cleaners From Venus stuff, etc. etc.) and this is one of the weirdest one-man-band albums out there. Crazy proto-new wave keyboard funk-pop weirdness, with a very horny and lonely fellow ranting and panting about... something. Ripped at extreme VBR for your precious ears.

The All Music Guide says:
Wilson recorded You Think You Really Know Me in his parents' basement, and it certainly has an intimate feel. On "6.4 = Make Out," Wilson sounds like he's whispering in your ear. With a voice reminiscent of Lou Reed's, Wilson aches like a sexually frustrated Barry White. Porno-movie synthesizers create a sleazy atmosphere as Wilson reaches new heights of emotional intensity when he bellows, "She's real/She's so real," at the track's end. A person is left wondering if the girl actually exists or if he's just trying to convince himself that she does. Even more unsettling is "Loneliness," wherein Wilson confesses in a distorted, psychotic voice, "Sometimes I wish I were dead," followed by samples of running water and a telephone operator. But this isn't a gloomy LP. "You Keep on Looking" and "And Then I Kissed Your Lips" utilize chirpy new wave keyboards years before they became fashionable. Wilson is having fun on You Think You Really Know Me, and his enjoyment is infectious, especially when his lunatic personality hogs the spotlight.

GET IT HERE.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Spahn Ranch - 1987 - Thickly Settled

This is one of the lost diamonds of the 80s. If you run through my posts, you'll see that I avoid to use this term, but this time I have to. In a future 80s re-issue wave (like the 60s reissue storm we have a few years back), this album will be regarded as one of the most underrated of the era.

Released in 1987 by the very cult Insight Records of San Francisco (label of Eric Cope, founder of Glorious Din - see the posts in Fritz Die Spine and Phoenix Hairpins for their two LPs), Thickly Settled was the sole album of a Detroit, MI band (not to be confused with an industrial-electronic L.A. band of the 90s with the same name - a common misunderstanding - with which they had nothing to do).

About Spahn Ranch from their myspace site

Spahn Ranch was formed in August of 1986 in Detroit, MI. Although the name would suggest a connection with the Manson Murders, the band had no affiliation. In it's infancy, the band played in many local venues on the bill with various local bands. Quickly a strong following developed, which immediately precipitated a self titled cassette release of six tracks on the Ikthus Network label. After having missed their own billing at a show, the band was introduced to Eric Cope of Insight Records from San Francisco, CA. He offered them a contract with Insight after reviewing their cassette and video work. The band accepted and began recording their first LP, 'Thickly Settled' in California where they were welcomed by receptive audiences. 'Thickly Settled' was hailed as one of the best albums of the year by England's Underground Magazine, and also met favorable reception in the U.S. of A. None of the members of Spahn Ranch had any formal music training and had not played an instrument prior to forming the group. "The sound they create is tense and raw, not polished to distract from the music itself. Drummer Odell Nails lays down a thick, almost tribal drum beat, accompanied by Hobey Echlin's bass foundation for the music. Guitarist Brad Horowitz adds the energetic, consuming guitar melodies, changing the tunings for each song in order to make no two sets alike. Bob Sterner's vocals with a touch of folk influence, mesh with the instrumental sounds that give the finished product, intense music which envelopes and audience."

'Thickly Settled' is build on slow, steady rhythms, climbing step by step to high tension. Don't expect frantic playing or crazed solos or anything like that (except maybe "Each Time Centered", which reminds me of 'Man From Missouri'). On the contrary, listening to Spahn Ranch's music is like a dreamy flight straight in the eye of the storm: calm while there's doom all around. The songs have an uneasy feeling, the drums of Odell Nails and the layered guitars creates a tension, an uncertain threat that surrounds the clear vocals of Bob Sterner and the ringing lead guitar of Brad Horowitz. You'll hear the tribal rhythms mentioned above (particularly in 'Trial', 'Countdown', 'Thickly Settled' (a true masterpiece - it deserves a two-page review alone) and 'Lo & Behold'), but you'll find that there's a lot more than the usual 4AD/british influences: there are the vast distances of the american inland, the highways and the factories, in a time when Godspeed You Black Emperor were babies in their mothers arms. They don't have much in common with GYBE though: Spahn Ranch did it 20 years ago, not in 15-minutes-long-tracks with guitars and chamber orchestra, but in perfect 3-minute rock songs with verses and choruses, with guitar, drums and vocals. Yet they managed to create a film-like image, although a cloudy and in cases stormy one. The more I'm listening to "Thickly Settled" the more I think that it has the best things of the Independed Project -and related- groups (Fourwaycross, Drowning Pool, Shiva Bourlesque) along with a strong sense of melody and an amazingly self-confident playing.

Line-up:

Bob Sterner - Vocals

Brad Horowitz - Guitar

Odell Nails - Drums and Percussion

after the recording of the album Hobey Echlin joined on bass and Rob Rude also played bass at various sessions, shows and recordings.

(Odell Nails and Hobey Echlin played with Majesty Crush in the 90s, a much more british-pop oriented band, Odell still plays, most recently with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, while Rob Rude is in HeavenHavnot. Brad Horowitz seems not very active musicaly, although he refers to Spahn Ranch in his page. Bob Sterner had a project with Hobey called Florida Room).

Among their influences -as they list them in myspace- Spahn Ranch include Savage Republic, Virgin Prunes, Southern Death Cult, Sonic Youth, Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV, Test Dept., Coil, Section 25, Dead Can Dance, Echo & The Bunnymen, Simon & Garfunkel, The Doors, Hardcore Jane, The Halfass, the 60's peace & love myth, and I think they're very accurate.

Many thanks to Robert, who ripped (at 320) and send me this long lost album complete with covers. I hope it will find the wider audience it deserves and its place in the rock mythology, even today, 20 years after its release.

Here it is on rapidshare and mediafire

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Comsat Angels - Waiting For A Miracle [1980]

Waiting for a Miracle is a sorcerous first album, at least once it sinks in, after short-to-long phases of puzzlement, bemusement, and fascination. Its songs of romantic ruin, paranoia, and doubt are spare, inelastic, and ceaselessly on edge. Even when the songs are at their bounciest and most alluring, they have an insular and alien quality. The instruments are played with intrepid simplicity, but when they're heard as one, they sound peculiar and complex — the results aren't unlike slow, stern spins on Pere Ubu's "The Modern Dance" and "Street Waves" — albeit with insidious lyrical hooks that are innocuous to the eye and startling to the ear, like "This is total war, girl," "Sometimes I feel out of control," and "I can't relax 'cause I haven't done a thing and I can't do a thing 'cause I can't relax." Acting as something like a minimalist garage band with one foot in the past and the other in the future, with Andy Peake's memory-triggering organ bleats offset by structural abnormalities and twists, the band does come across as a little timid from time to time, unsure of how far to take its uniqueness, but it's only another factor that fosters the album's insistent nerviness. "Total War," a razor-sharp examination of a relationship snapping under the pressure of buried mutual contempt, threatens to stop as often as it appears to be on the verge of taking off, carries a circular arrangement, and provides no release. It was the album's "other" single, nearly as conventions-stripped as PiL's more venomous "Flowers of Romance" (released the following year). "Independence Day," on the other hand, gave the band its greatest commercial success, wrapping all the band's strengths in one concise package, from the brilliantly paced shifts between the sparse and the dense to the balance between the direct and the indirect. Apart from the barren, ominous kiss-off that is "Postcard," each of the remaining songs sound like singles, even if they never had a chance at putting the band on Top of the Pops. (This is a band that called itself "doomsteady" with a hint of seriousness, after all.) While there are crucial differences that reveal themselves after deep listening, this album can be appreciated by anyone touched by other maverick post-punk albums released the same year, such as Joy Division's Closer, Associates' The Affectionate Punch, Magazine's The Correct Use of Soap, the Sound's Jeopardy, and Simple Minds' Empires and Dance. [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01 - Missing In Action
02 - Baby
03 - Independence Day
04 - Waiting For A Miracle
05 - Total War
06 - On The Beach
07 - Monkey Pilot
08 - Real Story
09 - Map Of The World
10 – Postcard

[192K]

Style; Post Punk, New Wave

Saturday, November 3, 2007

LAFMS (Los Angeles Free Music Society)

LAFMS: The Lowest Form of Music
"The unearthing of the LAFMS recordings is experimental rock history at it's most historical and hysterical - a completely bizarro and further-out counterpart to the L.A. punk scene."
~ Thurston Moore

~@~@~

The LAFMS was a lightning rod for pre-punk & non-punk musical whatsis from all over the globe. This compilation deals primarily with the associations core members and their good works, but one of the LAFMS' prime functions was to transform itself (via "mere" extended activity) into a kind of magneto-art-sump for universal noise oddballs. Its name became a kind of secret handshake that allowed culturally disenfranchised puds & pudettes to identify each other.

In a way, the LAFMS bridged the years between the appearance of Meet the Residents in '74 and 1/2 Japanese's first EP in '77; linking the Euro-rooted sophistication of early '70s American experimentation to the insanely intuitive noise gushing that came about after punk unlocked the undergrounds id. The sound of Smegma was the exact kind of thing that every isolated suburban Beefheart fan imagined himself or herself producing in the company of true peers. The same could be said of Le Forte Four, the Doo-Dooettes, Airway, and most of the other units that the LAFMS extruded.

Improvisation, concrete assemblage, kraut-moosh, tinkling, noise, and weirdness for the sake of weirdness were all perceived as hallmarks of the LAFMS ethos. In a year as dull as 1975, the wee-est taste of meat that strong could be enough to separate your head from your body. Forever. Again. For those who were brave enough to send away for LAFMS records or tapes, its name will gawp forever as a wide portal to a parallel cosmos that could only be suspected in the years before the "cassette revolution" (so called). And since almost no one has ever heard all the material that makes up this voluminous compendium, it is guaranteed to be its own set of trap doors to a very special void.
~Byron Coley, Northampton, MA. 1994

~@~@~

Disc One:
Chip Chapman, Le Forte Four
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Two:
Le Forte Four, Airway
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Three:
Le Forte Four Live at the Brand, Live at Century City
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Four:
Doo-Dooettes Live at the Brand, Live Outside, Live Close Radio
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Five:
Blorpe Esette, Smegma, Airway, C.V. Massage
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Six:
Doo-Dooettes Look to this
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Seven:
Joe Potts, Doo-Dooettes, Solid Eye, Monitor, Dennis Duck, and others
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Eight:
Rick Potts Solo
^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Nine:
Tom Recchion Solo

^(Click on title for more Info)^

Disc Ten:
Gerold Bole, Doo-Dooettes, Monique et Aviv, Dinosaurs with Horns
^(Click on title for more Info)^

~@~@~

Lowest Form of Music review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire

~@~@~

Get LAFMS Here :
http://rapidshare.com/users/G7AWMB
(12 Direct Download Links)

Thanks farner for this !!!

Alternative archives October 2007

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Dubrovniks - 1990 - Audio Sonic Love Affair

Dubrovniks - 1990 - Audio Sonic Love Affair

Tracks :
1 She Got No Love 2:58
2 Love Is on the Loose Tonight 3:47
3 Audio Sonic Love Affair 4:38
4 You're Gonna Get What's Comin' 3:24
5 Strange Kind of Love 3:46
6 She Lies 4:11
7 Promised Land 4:04
8 Somethings Not Right in This World 3:42
9. When the Rain Came 2:37
10 Cry Baby Killer 3:11
11 As Long as I Can Listen 2:12
12 Black Vinyl Suicide 3:56

Personnel :
Glen Armstrong (guitar, backing vocals)
James Baker (drums, percussion)
Christopher Flynn (guitar, vocals)
Rod Radalj (guitar, bass, vocals)
Peter Simpson (guitar, piano, vocals)
Boris Sudjovic (bass, guitar, vocals)

~@~@~

Albums:
Dubrovnik Blues (Timberyard, 1989)
Audio Sonic Love Affair (Mushroom/Festival, 1990)
Chrome (Mushroom/Festival, 1992)
Medicine Wheel (Normal/MDS, 1994)

~@~@~

Formed in 1987

Original line-up:
Roddy Radalj (guitar, vocals; ex-Exterminators, Scientists, Rockets,
Le Hoodoo Gurus, Johnnys, Love Rodeo, James Baker Experience)
Peter Simpson (guitar, vocals; ex-Teeny Weenies, Super K, Spectre's Revenge, Hoi Polloi)
Boris Sujdovic (bass; ex-Exterminators, Scientists, Rockets, Beasts of Bourbon)
James Baker (drums; ex-Victims, Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon,
James Baker Experience)

History
When Sydney band The Dubrovniks emerged in 1987, the individual members had personal histories in Australian music stretching back a decade. James Baker, Roddy `The Raj' Radalj, Peter Simpson and Boris Sujdovic comprised an inner-city `supergroup' of sorts right from the outset.

Originally known as The Adorable Ones (formed August 1986), the band had to change names due to a Brisbane outfit already operating under that moniker. The name Dubrovniks was derived from the fact that both Radalj and Sujdovic were born in the (former) Yugoslavian village of Dubrovnik. The band's clattering, yet accessible rock'n'roll was drawn along the lines of The Troggs meets T-Rex by way of New York Dolls. Radalj was also known for his stylish attire and his guitar made from a pine cheeseboard!

Citadel issued the singles `Fireball of Love'/`If I Had a Gun' (April 1988) and a cover of Alvin Stardust's `My Coo Ca Choo'/`Girls Go Manic' (November 1988). By the time the band recorded and issued the single `Speedway Girls'/`Freezin' Rain' (June 1989) and the album Dubrovnik Blues (August), the ever-restless Radalj had left. In late 1988, Radalj formed the sideline band The Punjabbers with Brett Ford (drums; ex-Kryptonics, Lubricated Goat), Tony Robertson (bass; ex-Hitmen, New Christs, Naked Lunch) and Tony Thewlis (guitar; ex-Scientists) and issued the single `Rock'n'Roll Loveletter' on Timberyard (December 1988). Radalj then formed The Surfin' Caesars and recorded several albums.

Chris Flynn (guitar, vocals; ex-Headstones) eventually replaced Radalj, and the band signed to Mushroom. The band's releases on Mushroom, both produced by Kevin "Caveman" Shirley, maintained the revved-up, trashy rock'n'roll tradition. Audio Sonic Love Affair (September 1990) included the singles `She Got No Love'/`Got this Far' (June) and `Love is on the Loose'/`Something's not Right in the World' (October). Glen Armstrong (guitar; ex-Girlies) replaced Simpson in 1991, and the new line-up issued Chrome in June 1992. It produced two cracking singles in `Saigon Rose' (February) and `French Revolution' (June). In between albums, Baker and Sujdovic toured and recorded with Beasts of Bourbon. In early 1991, the two severed their commitments to the Beasts in order to concentrate on The Dubrovniks. Mushroom dropped the band in 1993. German label Normal issued Medicine Wheel in Europe, and Mushroom Distribution Services (MDS) distributed it in Australia.

The Dubrovniks broke up in 1995 and Baker returned to Perth. He joined power pop band Satellite 5 with John Rushin (vocals), Phil Bradley (guitar; ex-Jackals), Doug Thomas (guitar; ex-Dagoes, Spikes) and Howard Shawcross (bass; ex-Elks, Howard I Know, Jackals).

Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop / Ian McFarlane 1999


Get it here @ 320
RapidShare : Dubrovniks - 1990 - Audio Sonic Love Affair
or
SendSpace : Dubrovniks - 1990 - Audio Sonic Love Affair

Saturday, October 27, 2007

16 Horsepower - 2 Bootlegs

16 Horsepower was an alternative/traditional musical group based in Denver, Colorado. Their music was usually serious in tone with distinct Christian religious lyrics dealing with conflict and redemption. They consisted of David Eugene Edwards, Jean-Yves Tola, and Pascal Humbert (the latter two formerly of the band Passion Fodder). After releasing four studio albums and touring extensively, the band broke up in 2005, citing "mostly political and spiritual" differences. Since summer 2007, David Eugene Edwards and Pascal Humbert are performing 16 Horsepower songs like "American Wheeze" or "Harm's Way" with the band Woven Hand.

16 Horsepower - Pinkpop- Festival 06-11-2000

Set List :
Splinters
Praying Arm Lane
Strong Man
American Wheeze
Straw Foot
Poor Mouth
Flowers in my Heart
Cinder Alley
Low Estate
Clogger
======
Black Soul Choir
For Heaven's Sake (incomplete)

rapidshare.com/2000-06-11_Pinkpop_16HP.rar


~@~@~

16 Horsepower - Wesel, Germany 22-03-2001
Wesel, Germany - March 22, 2001 - Karo-Club

Set List :
American Wheeze
I Seen What I Saw
Wayfaring Stranger
Cinder Alley
Straw Foot
Clogger
Harm's Way
Poor Mouth
Praying Arm Lane
Burning Bush
Splinters
======
Silver Saddle
Phyllis Ruth
24 Hours

rapidshare.com/2001-03-22_16HP_Wesel_Karo_Club.part1.rar
rapidshare.com/2001-03-22_16HP_Wesel_Karo_Club.part2.rar

posted by My Russia at 10/27/2007 08:56:00 PM

Woven Hand - 3 Bootlegs + 1 Video

Woven Hand (also Wovenhand) is a band from Denver, Colorado led by former
16 Horsepower lead singer David Eugene Edwards. Most of the studio recordings are performed by Edwards with minimal, if any, additional musicians. However, while on tour he plays with additional musicians such as Ordy Garisson. During a limited 2005 North American tour, Woven Hand consisted only of Edwards and a drummer. Since 2006, Woven Hand has become a regular band instead of a solo project. Permanent members are Ordy Garrison (Drums), Peter van Laerhoven from Belgium (Guitar) and former 16 Horsepower- member Pascal Humbert (bass) from France.

Woven Hand Denver 06-09-2006

Hi Dive, Denver, Colorado

Set List :
Sparrow Falls
Tin Finger
Whistling Girl
The Speaking Hands
Deerskin Doll
Chest of Drawers
Into The Piano
Intro
Swedish Purse
(to the tune of Phyllis Ann)
As I Went Out One Morning
(Bob Dylan cover)

Get It Here :
rapidshare.com/2006-06-09_Woven_Hand-_Denver_soundboard.rar


~@~@~

Woven Hand Seattle 09-19-2006
St. Neumos

Set List :
Intro
Phyllis Ann-Phyllis Ruth-Swedish Purse
The Speaking Hands
Wooden Brother
Chest of Drawers
Whistling Girl
Dirty Blue
Down In Yon Forest - Tin Finger

Get It Here :
rapidshare.com/David_Eugene_Edwards__Woven_Hand_live_in_seattle.rar


~@~@~

Woven Hand Oslo 09-08-2007
Øyafestivalen

Set List :
Harm's Way
Tin Finger
Dirty Blue
Wooden Brother
White Bird
Swedish Purse- Deerskin Doll
Down in Yon Forest- Truly Golden
The Speaking Hands
Winter Shaker
American Wheeze

Audio (best quality):
rapidshare.com/2007-08-09_WH_Oslo__yafestivalen.rar

Video (made by NRK-TV):
rapidshare.com/Video_Woven_Hand_Oslo_09.08.2007.part1.rar
rapidshare.com/Video_Woven_Hand_Oslo_09.08.2007.part2.rar
rapidshare.com/Video_Woven_Hand_Oslo_09.08.2007.part3.rar

Woven Hand - Foto: Kim Erlandsen, NRK

posted by My Russia at 10/27/2007 08:55:00 PM

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Extended Organ - XOXO (1999)

IT'S ALIVE ! ! ! Imagine Frankenstein's monster rising up from the lab table, suddenly brought back to life by ungodly experiments of a mad scientist. Lightning flashes in the sky; a lab-coated assistant cowers, terrified, in the corner. The monster stumbles to his feet, groans and bellows for a while, smashes a few test tubes and beakers, and then lurches toward the nearest recording studio to make a really cool-sounding album of experimental soundscapes, moans, whispers, and creaks.
Extended Organ is Paul McCarthy, Fredrik Nilsen, Joe Potts, and Tom Recchion, so you know it's gotta be good. You'll be the coolest on your block when you play this at your Halloween party...

Get it HERE.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Dead Boys - 1977 - Young, Loud and Snotty

Dead Boys - 1977 - Young, Loud and Snotty

Tracks :
1 Sonic Reducer 3:05
2 All This and More 2:49
3 What Love Is 2:08
4 Not Anymore 3:38
5 Ain't Nothin' to Do 2:25
6 Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth 2:06
7 Hey Little Girl 3:01
8 I Need Lunch 3:36
9 High Tension Wire 3:05
10 Down in Flames 2:15
11 Not Anymore/Ain't Nothin' to Do [medley] 7:15

Members :
Vocals : Stiv Bators (Steve Bator)
Lead guitar : Cheetah Chrome (Gene O'Connor)
Drums : Johnny Blitz (John Madansky)
Bass : Jeff Magnum (Jeff Hellmaggie)
Rhythm guitar : Jimmy Zero (William Wilden)

Review :
Fellow Cleveland types Pere Ubu may have won the artistic kudos for their adventurous, surprising work, but if the goal was just to rock and rock again, the Dead Boys had them totally trumped. As both title phrase and capsule description, Young, Loud & Snotty accurately defines the predominating aesthetic so well that one could just leave it at that, but there's a lot more going on here than on the face of it. With perhaps surprising great production from demi-famous '70s rocket Genya Ravan, the five-some found something sonically smack in-between the US garage/punk heritage of the past and the more modern thrashings from overseas. Bators sneers, gobs, gasps, and whines with the best of them, but he knows his rock history, as does his bandmates. Zero and Chrome aren't guitar virtuosos, but they do know what makes a song great and aren't afraid to concentrate on that, while the Magnum/Blitz rhythm section keeps things moving as it does. In some ways songs like "All This and More" and "I Need Lunch" simply emerge from an alternate '50s, with admittedly much more feedback and stereo sound. Stone cold rock classic "Sonic Reducer" starts things off -- amusingly -- with all sorts of phased drums and other fripperies that later generations wouldn't consider punk at all. That said, it's still blunt, brilliantly sung by Bators and kicks out the jams with messy energy. Other all-time greats include the perfect bored-and-needing-kicks anthem "Ain't Nothin' to Do" and the thoroughly wrong "Caught With the Meat In Your Mouth." There's even a rock oldie -- a cover of "Hey Little Girl" live onstage at spiritual home CBGB's. And why not? With great punk rock and great rock, Young, Loud and Snotty still packs a punch.
~by Ned Raggett [AMG]

Bio (from AMG)
http://wm07.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:g9fpxqq5ldde~T1


Get it here @ 256
RapidShare : Dead Boys - Young Loud & Snotty
or
SendSpace : Dead Boys - Young Loud & Snotty

Monday, October 22, 2007

Fugazi - 1993 - In On The Kill Taker

Fugazi is a band from Washington, D.C. They played their first show on September 3, 1987 and since then they have released seven albums and toured the world extensively covering all fifty United States, Europe, Australia, South America, Japan and many points in between. The band is self managed and release all their material through Dischord Records. The band maintains a policy of affordable access to their work through low record and ticket prices and all concerts are all-ages. In addition to their recorded output, Fugazi has released a documentary film/video called "Instrument" in collaboration with independent filmmaker, Jem Cohen. A soundtrack ("Instrument Film Soundtrack") was released in conjunction with the film. Fugazi's most recent musical releases are "The Argument" 10 song album and the "Furniture" 3 song single, both recorded in the spring of 2001 and released in the fall of 2001. These sessions mark the first studio appearance of long time roadie, Jerry Busher, who plays additional drums and percussion on a number of the tracks. The recordings were made in collaboration with long time Fugazi engineer Don Zientara at Inner Ear studios. Fugazi is currently on an indefinite hiatus as they tend to young families and other musical projects

source : http://www.dischord.com/band/fugazi

In on the Kill Taker is like scrubbing your face with steel wool. It finds the band relying on rusty guitar shards that scrape, seethe, and hiss, further removing itself from the sound of 13 Songs and Repeater. Harsh and grating, Fugazi surprisingly produces sheer noise at times, best witnessed in the lengthy closing of "23 Beats Off" and the unintentional Gremlins

homage that opens "Walken's Syndrome." Joe Lally's bass and Brendan Canty's drums are relegated to acting as a guide; they're pushed — but not squashed — down in the mix, allowing for Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto's guitars to take control, corrosively so. It's probably Fugazi's least digestible record from front to back, but each track has its own attractive qualities, even if not immediately perceptible.

"Facet Squared" and "Public Witness Program" open the record furiously, but the majority of the following "Return the Screw" is hardly audible, aside from occasional vocal tantrums. A good amount of time is spent alternating between low-key guitar noodling and intrusive bursts of aggression. They're smart with their sequencing, placing the gentle instrumental "Sweet and Low" (the only track where Lally plays a prominent role) after the exhaustive cacophony of "23 Beats Off," and generally piecing together a set of rather diverse tracks that flows well. Picciotto's anti-Hollywood rant on the properly titled "Cassavetes" is a classic Fugazi moment, as is his similarly name-dropping "Walken's Syndrome." Buried at the end of the record are two excellent lurchers, MacKaye's "Instrument" and Picciotto's "Last Chance for a Slow Dance."

source : http://www.allmusic.com/

listen to Fugazi here : http://www.myspace.com/fugazidischord

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/79173399/fugazi-_in_on_the_killtaker.rar

Minimal Man - 1986 - Slave Lullabyes

It's too easily the case that so many artists of that came out of the late seventies punk uproar -- and those of the other parallel scenes already coalescing at that time -- aren't as readily remembered or appreciated because they couldn't be specifically pigeonholed. Such was the case with Californian Patrick Miller aka Minimal Man, whose recorded work through the eighties spanned everything from near white noise to calm ambient reflections, scattered among a variety of labels. Born in Glendale in 1952, Miller, originally a student in art and design, moved to San Francisco in the late seventies, starting to explore both film and music more thoroughly as a result. He soon found friends and collaborators via the Subterranean label, notably including members of Tuxedomoon, and under the Minimal Man guise -- what Miller described once as a character who had ‘everything against him…rather than fixing a problem the correct way, he would make up his own delusions to get by' -- he began regularly performing what one critic called ‘antimusic' -- aggressive keyboards, shouted vocals and the use of tapes almost made him a one-person equivalent to Throbbing Gristle, as captured on the debut live single “He Who Falls"/“She Was a Visitor" in 1980. ...[After the first two albums]... Miller followed the example of Tuxedomoon and relocated to Europe, where the remaining Minimal Man albums were recorded and released... Miller then moved to the Play It Again Sam label in Brussels, who released Slave Lullabyes the following year, featuring Tuxedomoon members Peter Principle and Luc Van Lieshout among the many performers. Miller moved back to the United States in the early nineties, battling a variety of personal demons, particularly drug abuse, and setting aside music to create more art, finally settling down in Southern California again doing set dresser work in Hollywood. After contracting hepatitis C, Miller passed on in December 2003, survived by family and friends. In 2004, the LTM label, via its Boutique sub-imprint, reissued The Shroud Of on CD for the first, perhaps signaling a further overall reissue of Miller's often unique, striking work. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Patrick Miller's close relationship with Tuxedo Moon (not only 2 TM members are playing here, but PM himself was a member of Tuxedo Moon in their shows), is apparent: this 1986 release is far away from the almost industrial approach of "The Shroud of..." and yet it has the same feeling. It's Miller's personality who rises above, no matter how he would decide to approach his music. From the electronic-circus-music of the opening "Trains", to the cello of "Heaven Lies", to the music-for-films "War at nite" and "Rue de Cinema", to the voice loops of "Voice Of Vacaville" to the closing tears-of-a-clown "Fun" we are witnesses of an artist who doesn't feel confortable in the conventional rock, punk or electronic music and tries to expand it with an almost theatrical feel, yet - at the same time - he's not acting. He is real.

A side: Trains / Heaven Lies / Far Away / War At Nite / The Light / Noose Gets Tight

B side: I Wish / Rue De Cinema / Voice Of Vacaville / Fun!

Patrick Miller: vocals, keyboards, electronics, drums & films. Ludo Camberlin: drums & keyboards. Kristin Oppenheim: films. Luc Van Lieshout: trumpet & fulgelhorn on 1, 7. Peter Principle: bass & electric guitar on 3, 7. Esteban Castano: clarinet & soprano sax on 8, 10. Ivan Georgiev: bass & synthesizer on 6, 8, 9, 10. Yves Mora: cello on 2, 4, 5. Zelda Ziegelbaum: vocal on 4. Produced by Patrick Miller and Ludo Camberlin at A.B.S. Brussels, November 1985.

Never reissued.

There is a mediafire link and a massmirror link.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Bay of Pigs - 1987 - Plastic Pig

I could find no review in the web for this one (just brief mentions on Colin Edwards and his current band, Tack), except this: "Colin Edwards was the frontman for the Los Angeles band called Bay of Pigs, then began recording and producing material under the name of Tack. He has also produced material for other artists such as the aggressive band Warrior's Path. A multi-instrumentalist with a sometimes startling baritone voice, Edwards should not be confused with several British musicians and the motorcycle racer that share his name. His Bay of Pigs project was influential in the cross-pollination of the L.A. punk and Latin music scenes, resulting in a climate where a punk band could claim Santana as an influence without getting laughed out of the bodega." ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide

Well, it's very hard to disagree with a guitar legend and experienced reviewer like Dr.Eugene Chadbourne, but I must tell you that, after reading the above review, I listened again to "Plastic Pig" very carefully and I can't confirm that this album combines punk and latin music. There is post punk, there is almost 'progressive' rhythm section but there are only a few glimpses of latin feel. This means that the 'latin factor' is not the main thing here. I would call it a post-punk album made by VERY experienced and talented musicians, who have listened a lot to 70s music. I have to confess that I was not in LA in the 80s (not any other decade) and I wouldn't know a thing about the live shows of Bay of Pigs or the relations between the punk and latin scenes or if Colin Edwards states Santana as his guitar hero (just saying that they might were much more close to these latin influences in their shows). 

"Plastic Pig" was recorded at Mad Dog studios in Venice, CA, produced by Stuart Schonwetter. It was virtually self-released and distributed by Chameleon group, and yetit's not a DIY product. I don't know if they had the money to finance the recordings for this or they were a group of very smart musicians and producer, that achieved this rich and crisp sound with very little means, but the sound of this LP is just that: rich. 

Don't get fooled by the opening 'Mary T.More', it's just a misleading almost-happy-start - the rest of the album is rather dark, equally divided between the wilder songs with an almost prog rhythm section and the stellar guitar work of Edwards and Cox (like 'Addiction', the instrumental 'Whore' , or 'Nothing Yet' which, strangely enough, reminds me of 'Out My Way'-era Meat Puppets) and the slower songs (like the title track - you can watch a video for it here , directed by Les Bernstien with a guy in prison, seeing rats, images of killed people, a vision of a lady and ...ehmm a plastic pig), owing much to Joy Division and Bauhaus. You may think at first listen that Colin Edwards' voice is just pretendious, but that's not the case: it's his real voice. To make things more strange I'll just mention that Edwards is one of the greatest known highland bagpipers! (you can hear him in a couple of tracks).

As a conclusion I would say that this record has a noir/dark feeling, like a movie filmed in the LA night life.

PS This is for Curious Guy from Phoenix Hairpins, Fritz Die Spinne, Highlander from Cactus Mouth Informer, Annie's Animal and the other bloggers, who do a terrific job into the most obscure and forgotten bands of the 80s. This is also for AngelaB23, who constantly searches good music.

You can have it from mediafire or from massmirror

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Aztec Camera - 1983 - High Land, Hard Rain [224k]

For most intents and purposes, Aztec Camera is Roddy Frame, a Scottish guitarist/vocalist/songwriter. Several other musicians have passed through the band over the years — including founding members Campbell Owens (bass) and Dave Mulholland (drums) — but the one constant has been Frame. Throughout his career, he has created a sophisticated, lush, and nearly jazzy acoustic-oriented guitar pop, relying on gentle melodies and clever wordplay inspired by Elvis Costello.

Aztec Camera released their debut album, High Land, Hard Rain, in 1983. Before its release, Owens and Mulholland had left the group, leaving Frame to assemble the record himself. Upon its release, the album won significant amounts of critical praise for its well-crafted, multi-layered pop. After releasing a stop-gap EP, Oblivious, the group's second full-length record, knife, appeared in 1984. Produced by Mark Knopfler, the album was more polished and immediate than the debut, featuring horn arrangements and a slight R&B influence. Three years later, Roddy Frame returned with Love, which featured musical support from several studio musicians. Love was a synthesized stab at pop-R&B, resulting in his greatest commercial success — the album launched four hit singles, including the Top Ten "Somewhere in My Heart."

Two years later, Aztec Camera returned to a more guitar-oriented sound with Stray. It wasn't as commercially successful as Love, yet it was a hit with fans who missed the chiming hooks of Frame's early work.Dreamland, released in 1993, followed the same pattern as Stray and achieved about the same amount of commercial and critical success. [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01 - Oblivious
02 - The boy wonders
03 - Walk out to winter
04 - The bugle sounds again
05 - We could send letters
06 - Pillar to post
07 - Release
08 - Lost outside the tunnel
09 - Back on board
10 - Down the dip
11 - Haywire
12 - Orchid girl
13 - Queen's tattoos

[224K]

Style; Alternative Pop/Rock, New Wave

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Plasmatics - 1981 - Beyond The Valley of 1984

As Requested ...

The Plasmatics' 1981 release, "Beyond the Valley of 1984,"is a destructive album that continues attacking the vultures of society. While mixing the rawness of punk with frantic speed metal, the group used this CD to unleash politically-charged hatred upon the hypocrisy of cops, tabloid journalists, and the law. Hard rock fans will be impressed by what this album offers. Blistering anthems like "Headbanger," "Nothing," and live performances of "Hitman" and "Plasma Jam" all feature Wes Beech's squealing rhythm guitar and Neil Smith's hyperactive drumming. All 11 tracks are tuneful yet spontaneous, pushing the volume to sonic overdrive. Meanwhile, the great Metal Punk Priestess herself, Wendy O. Williams, speaks the songs' simplified lyrics with vocals that range from sultry purrs to cynical grunts.

Some of "Beyond the Valley's" tracks indicate a subtle, musical growth in the Plasmatics' material. The studio rendition of "Masterplan" includes the band's first use of overdubs. For "Summer Nite," Wendy sings a tragic narrative about a boyfriend who gets killed in a nightclub brawl. This tune is given a kiss of 1950's nostalgia by Jean Beauvoir's piano and the harmonious background vocals of the Angels. The humorous "Fast Food Service" is a 1-minute track about someone going out on a date. "Living Dead" is a little too polished when compared to the untamed version on "New Hope for the Wretched;" in this particular recording, Wendy's moans seem exhausted and overrehearsed. The sleazy "Sex Junkie," with its distorted echos, may make listeners envision a perverse sequence from a soft porn, sci-fi flick; a cult film that "Something Weird" can make available. Last but not least, "Pig is a Pig" will surprise audiences by opening up as a country western, courtesy of an acoutic guitar. This bitter tune resulted from the attack Wendy suffered back in Milwaukee. After being arrested for simulating self-gratification with a sledgehammer during a concert, she was beaten unconcious by police officers and sent to the hospital with a broken nose.
Although this CD isn't as wild and dangerous as the group's debut effort, I still recommend "Beyond the Valley of 1984" to any fan starving for underground music. As I've said many times before, the Plasmatics will live forever!

review by : By Pamela Scarangello

watch the Plasmatics here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX_GfUaAHtI&mode=related&search=

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/78827456/beyond_the_valley_of_plasmatics.rar

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Feelies - 1988 - Only Life

Only Life

1. It's Only Life (Mercer) 2:59
2. Too Much (Mercer/Million) 4:37
3. Deep Fascination (Mercer) 4:07
4. Higher Ground (Mercer) 4:35
5. The Undertow (Mercer) 3:41
6. For Awhile (Mercer) 4:05
7. The Final Word (Mercer/Million) 2:24
8. Too Far Gone (Mercer/Million) 3:34
9. Away (Mercer) 5:25
10. What Goes On (L. Reed) 3:37

With an unchanged lineup but more attention due to their A&M deal, the Feelies hit the jackpot with their third album, a warm, inviting collection that finally addresses the endless Lou Reed comparisons with a cover of his "What Goes On." With its clearer feeling and peppier overall delivery, it avoids simply cloning the original arrangement and performance. The rest of the album shows off the band's distinctive yet flexible sound, as much jangle as it is quietly moody. Mercer and Million's previously tense guitar power becomes attractive shadings, implying a louder approach without always delivering it, while the Demeski/Sauter rhythm team takes the lead throughout; his steady drums and her low, rolling performances giving the guitarists something to play around instead of dominate. The Feelies always make this tranced-out rock their own, but this time around it's as quietly thrilling, if not more so, than ever. "Higher Ground" is a great example, with Mercer and Million trading off not merely notes and passages but differing approaches, whether laden with distortion or chiming clearly. Though Weckerman's work, as earlier, isn't easily distinguished from Demeski's, from the sound of it everything fit in right when recording. Where appears more audibly, as on the start of "The Undertow," his percussion adds an intriguing wild card to the proceedings, aiming at the same goal with slightly different sonics. Mercer's ghost-of-you-know-who vocals still pop up at times, but here his own ability to actually sing and hold notes comes forward, giving him a technical edge that he uses to great effect on the brisk "Away."

(All Music Guide, by Ned Raggett)

Line up:
Glenn Mercer (guitar, vocals)
Bill Million (guitar, vocals)
Dave Weckerman (percussion)
Brenda Sauter (bass)
Stan Demeski (drums)

Produced by: Steve Rinkoff, Bill Million and Glenn Mercer
Engineered by: Steve Rinkoff

1988 - Coyote/A&M SP- 5214

Get it Here :
RapidShare Link
or
SendSpace Link

(Re-post from "Time Is A Disease" - inspired by WeBuilTArks' previous post!)

Monday, October 15, 2007

The Feelies - 1980 - Crazy Rhythms

The Feelies seem to be the most criminally underrated post punk band of all time. Nerdy, nervous, and noisy, even decades later their droning. This album is great from start to finish without a single weak track. The combination of unorthodox drumming style and the group's collective awkward nervous energy leaves you a taste stuck in your mind even the album is finished.

Well, this is gooood, this is definitely fuckin' good, damn i love this album.


Get it Here :
RapidShare Link
or
SendSpace Link

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Wolfgang Press - 1985 -The Legendary Wolfgang Press and Other Tall Stories

Enigmatic, moody, and challenging, Britain's Wolfgang Press were one of the most mercurial talents of the post-punk era, restlessly moving from gothic noise to dark balladry to eccentric funk; paradoxically, the group was also the 4AD label's longest tenured artist -- even their stylish album packages were all the product of the same designer, Alberto Ricci.

Formed in London in 1983, the Wolfgang Press comprised vocalist Michael Allen, guitarist Andrew Gray, and keyboardist Mark Cox. Allen and Cox first teamed in the group Rema Rema, which also featured Adam & the Ants alum Marco Perroni; after reuniting in the short-lived quartet Mass, the duo recruited Gray, and as the Wolfgang Press issued their cacophonous, gloomy debut LP, The Burden of Mules , in 1983. An EP trilogy co-produced by Cocteau TwinRobin Guthrie followed in quick succession: while 1984's Scarecrow was a lighter, more streamlined affair, 1985's Water spotlighted ominously sparse torch songs, and the same year's Sweatbox explored deconstructionist pop.

The Wolfgang Press' second full-length effort, 1986's Standing Up Straight, incorporated industrial and orchestral influences into the mix, while the Big Sex EP's "God's Number" offered a soulful backing chorus, a harbinger of things to come. Indeed, after 1988's hypnotic Bird Wood Cage and its leadoff single, "King of Soul," introduced strong elements of dub, reggae, and R&B, the trio took the full plunge into the dance arena with 1991's Queer, an idiosyncratic outing admittedly inspired by De La Soul's landmark 3 Feet High and Rising; the first single, a surreal cover of the Randy Newman-penned "Mama Told Me Not to Come," was a minor hit. 1995's Funky Little Demons completed the Wolfgang Press' transition into white funk; prior to its release, however, Cox exited the group's ranks.



The Legendary Wolfgang Press and Other Tall Stories compiles the EPs Scarecrow, Water, and Sweatbox, three strong, eclectic efforts produced by Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie. Displaying marked leaps in sophistication and textural variety over their earliest work, the set establishes the trio as witty and incisive pop deconstructionists: a tongue-in-cheek cover of Otis Redding's "Respect" reveals a newfound sense of humor, while Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" undergoes such a radical transformation that it even receives a new title, "Heart of Stone."

source : http://www.allmusic.com

http://www.myspace.com/wolfgangpressfanpage

Download It Here :

RapidShare : rapidshare.com/files/Wolfgang.rar
or
SendSpace : www.sendspace.com/file/8hc0cc

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Siouxsie & The Banshees - 1978 - The Scream

Review :
After building up an intense live reputation and a rabid fan base, Siouxsie and the Banshees almost had to debut with a stunner -- which they did, "Hong Kong Garden" taking care of things on the singles front and The Scream on the full-length.

Matched with a downright creepy cover and a fair enough early producing effort from Steve Lillywhite -- well before he found gated drum sounds -- it's a fine balance of the early band's talents.

Siouxsie Sioux herself shows the distinct, commanding voice and lyrical meditations on fractured lives and situations that would win her well-deserved attention over the years. Compared to the unfocused general subject matter of most of the band's peers, songs like "Jigsaw Feeling," "Suburban Relapse," and especially the barbed contempt of "Mirage" are perfect miniature portraits. John McKay's metallic (but not metal) guitar parts, riffs that never quite resolve into conventional melodies, and the throbbing Steven Severin/Kenny Morris rhythm section distill the Velvet Underground's early propulsion into a crisper punch with more than a hint of glam's tribal rumble. The sheer variety on the album alone is impressive -- "Overground" and its slow-rising build, carefully emphasizing space in between McKay's notes as much as the notes themselves, the death-march Teutonic stomp of "Metal Postcard," the sudden near-sunniness of the music (down to the handclaps!) toward the end of "Carcass." The cover of "Helter Skelter" makes for an unexpected nod to the past -- if it's not as completely overdriven as the original, Siouxsie puts her own definite stamp on it and its sudden conclusion is a great moment of drama. It's the concluding "Switch" that fully demonstrates just how solid the band was then, with McKay's saxophone adding just enough of a droning wild card to the multi-part theatricality of the piece, Siouxsie in particularly fine voice on top of it all.

~by Ned Raggett

Download It Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/78824022/siouxsie.rar

Blue Orchids - A Darker Bloom_The Blue Orchids Collection [2002]

This thoughtfully compiled 19-track anthology contains most, though not all, of what the Blue Orchids recorded between 1980 and 1992. It emphasizes their early-'80s releases, simply because most of what they recorded was done between 1980 and 1982, though there are three post-1982 songs. On their first pair of singles and their 1981 The Greatest Hit album, the Blue Orchids were very much in the groove of Manchester acts like the Fall. That should come as no great surprise, since singer Martin Bramah and keyboardist Una Baines had been among the uncounted musicians to pass through the Fall. The Blue Orchids were distinguished from the Fall, however, by a greater (though not immensely greater) melodic bent, particularly in the creepy '60s-ish minor-keyed organ lines of Baines. Too, Bramah sounded less histrionic and gratuitously abrasive than Mark E. Smith and other Fall imitators, though he too favored sing/speak stream-of-consciousness ruminations. For the 1982 Agents of Change EP (whose four tracks are all included here), the band actually became more interesting, toning down their punkiness for more ethereal, gentler textures of muted gloom, perhaps influenced by Nico, whom they backed and toured with for a while. Those who collect Fall-ish acts like Marc Riley & the Creepers should check the Blue Orchids out, particularly in the United States, where the band were virtually unknown; they were very much in the thrust of Manchester post-punk, and they were better than some of their competitors that carved a higher profile. (allmusic.com)
~~~~~
An extremely precious band for all music lovers and especially for us Fall-obsessives! “…Think Tom Verlaine guesting with The Doors. So – from being the guitarist in a non singer band he’d become the singer in a non-singer band…and at their best they were one of the most engaging and intriguing bands of the 80’s. ‘Work’…‘Disney Boys’….‘The Flood’…‘Diamond Age’….‘Tighten My Belt’ and ‘Bad Education’ (once covered by Aztec Camera), they’re all here…file the vinyl and enjoy!” [Marc (Lard) Riley December 01]. Ripped using EAC/LAME 3.97 (VBR --preset fast extreme). – K
~~~~~

Tracks :
01 Disney Boys (3:41)
02 The Flood (4:20)
03 Work (4:03)
04 The House That Faded Out (3:18)
05 Sun Connection (3:46)
06 Wait (3:55)
07 Dumb Magician (2:56)
08 Low Profile (4:40)
09 No Looking Back (4:05)
10 Bad Education (2:30)
11 A Year With No Head (2:38)
12 Tighten My Belt (4:04)
13 Agents of Change (4:31)
14 Conscience (3:20)
15 Release (3:16)
16 The Long Night Out (5:16)
17 Sleepy Town (4:29)
18 Diamond Age (3:34)

19 Out of Sight (3:52)


RapidShare Links :
Part 1 : Blue_Orchids_A_Darker_Bloom.part1.rar
Part 2 : Blue_Orchids_A_Darker_Bloom.part2.rar
or
SendSpace Links :
Part 1 : http://www.sendspace.com/file/0o2rfm
Part 2 : http://www.sendspace.com/file/ety8m3

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Various Artists - Sons of Rarer Than Radium

01 Suka - Spit Winter Spit

02 Rip - (Wrecked reversed)

03 Brian Crook - Daggers

04 Kitset - From the hollows

05 Fats Thompson - Midnight Coltrane

6 Lung - Full Moon Again

07 Sferic Experiments - Who Does What

08 Shayne Carter - Seed

09 Mestar - Turtle Control

10 Matt Middleton - Love Theme 03

11 Parsec - Cosmodrome

12 Dean Roberts - Smash The Palace And What Nerves You've Got

13 Peter Wright - Wonderful.mp3

14 Gordon Wallace - Mastery.mp3

Third part of the New Zealand selections of obscure acts, this time with a few brave men from this lovely country. Recordings are low-fi for the majority of the tracks, that means that they just used slightly better equipment than Chris Knox's 4-track! As for the quality, I believe you won't be dissapointed. We have Suka in a track reminding of the best Xpressway music, a low-fi recording of the Rip with a great (as usual) work on violin from Alastair Galbraith. A naked, yet moving song from Brian Crook of Victor Dimisich Band and Renderers leads to an equally strong strong song from Kitset - same mood but ritcher arragement with horns etc. Fats Thompson continues the Xpressway tradition of raw and aggressive guitar-based songs. Things go wilder after this, starting with the very loud (for NZ music) Lung , the primitive sound of Sferic Experiment and Shayne Carter in one of his most wild moments. A short pop track from Mestar leads to the jazzy Love Theme of Matt Middleton and the spacey Cosmodrome from Parsec. Dean Roberts and Peter Wright (both prolific writers) continue in this relaxed atmosphere. For the end there's a bonus track from Mr.Gordon Wallace, a nice little tune, perfect for a night beside the fireplace.

This is the link for almost-an-hour-mp3 file and this is for the
rar file with the individual tracks

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Various Artists - Daughters of Rarer Than Radium

Maryrose Crook - Storm from the East

Francisca Griffin - Medicine for Melancholy

Jay Clarkson - Raise The Glass (demo)

Lovely Midget - Ghost Wall

Melayne Web - Mine

Angela Darcy - Tuesday Morning Addiction

Sola Monday - Medic Kate

Mink - Gold

Cloudboy - Cup of Roses

Demarnia Lloyd - Folding

Minisnap - In My Pocket

Sandra Bell - Holding

The Ghost Club - The Crying Room

Second collection with New Zealand acts, this time more recent - i.e. from the last ten years, and exclusively women. These songs - rock, pop, experimental, personal, or whatever you call them, are far away from the Flying Nun sound, they're differently produced, better recorded (at least not in Chris Knox's 4 track TEAC!) and more ehm... modern. For those not familiar with the names just a few notes: Maryrose Crook is half of the Renderers, Francisca Griffin was formerly known as Kathy Bull and a founding member of Look Blue Go Purple, Jay Clarkson is also a veteran in the scene from the early 80s with the Expendables, Minisnap is the Bats without Robert Scott, with Kaye Woodward as lead singer and songwriter and Ghost Club are Denise Roughan and David Mitchell from the 3Ds. Of the newer acts I must mention especially the outstanding Demarnia Lloyd - included here are three songs of her, one from her Trace album, one from her 90s band Mink and one from her 2000s band Cloudboy, all of them in her very high quality standarts. Lovely Midget is also promising - it's the moniker of Rachel Shearer, former Angelhead, a bit more experimental than the rest.

Here is the single mp3 file 

and here is the rar file with the individual tracks.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Various Artists - Rarer Than Radium

18 songs of New Zealand pop, not frequently heard

Ocean Lover - Kim Blackburn (Lizards In Love)
Somewhere Lovers - Vibraslaps (Vibraslaps)
Say Cheese - Expendables (Between Gears)
Corsican Ride - Raith Rovers (Songs from the Lowland)
Suzanne Said - The Shallows (Suzanne Said 12")
Solomon's Sister - Peter Arnold & Claire Timmings (Rarer Than Radium)
What's In A Name - Orange (Fruit Salad Lives)
Too Far Gone - Scorched Earth Policy (Keep Away from the Wires)
Time of the Leaves - The Kiwi Animal (Music Media)
Ice Lands - Alpha Plan (Stratford Workshop)
Iceberg - Bilderine (Split Seconds)
Thats What Friends Are For - Mainly Spaniards (7" single)
Thursday - The Puddle (7" single)
Not A Private Joke - Letterbox Lambs (Not A Private Joke)
Hey Old Man - Calamari Bushmen (The Ghosts Of Things I've Killed)
Under Your Face - April Fools (Disturbed)
Pinhead - Debris (Super 8 Mayhem)
Anais - Alastair Galbraith (Talisman)

This collection tries to present some of the lesser known New Zealand acts, mainly from the 80s and a few from the 90s.
It starts with the voice of Kim Blackburn, a voice straight from the Valhala, singing about the great ocean. Two groups with more experimental sound - Vibraslaps and the Expentables (whose singer Jay Clarkson we will meet again in a future NZ compilation) and a short track from Robert Scott's band, the Raith Rovers. Then there's the Swallows, the group of Roy Montgomery from 1985, and then a track from a record that became what it's title said: rarer than radium. Following are two real masterpieces of teenage pop (New Zealand way), by the Orange and Scorched Earth Policy. The only way I can explain why these two groups aren't bigger than the Beatles, or even the Chills, is that they never tried hard. They were just kids and they were doing it for fun. Note that Orange's Andrew Brough later wrote some realy great songs for Straitjacket Fits. The pair of Kiwi Animal released a few records in 1984-85 and then went on to other forms of art. Two songs about ice follow, from the Alpha Plan and the great Bill Direen, this time under the name of Bilderine. An equally great musician, George Henderson with the Puddle sings a perfect Creation (the label) style pop hit about Thursday. Then there are 3 groups from the 90s (as far as I know only Debris managed to release some more of their music, Calamari Bushmen put out only this record and the April Fools was a short lived super group including Martin Phillips and David Kilgour) and this collection closes with one of the more quiet songs of Alastair Galbraith from his first album.
Those who are in this scene (i.e. the 'classic' New Zealand or early Flying Nun sound) will find some real obscure names, some of them never heard for over 20 years - not even included in the many F.N. compilations. Anyway this doesn't matter. What it does matter is the good music, and everyone bother to listen to it, I hope will enjoy some real pop gems, made in New Zealand.

Comes in two flavours:
Here you can have a big mp3
and here a rar file with the individual tracks.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - 1981 - Bad Reputation [192k]

By playing pure and simple rock & roll without making an explicit issue of her gender, Joan Jett became a figurehead for several generations of female rockers. Jett's brand of rock & roll is loud and stripped-down, yet with overpowering hooks — a combination of the Stones' tough, sinewy image and beat, AC/DC chords, and glam rock hooks. As the numerous covers she has recorded show, she adheres both to rock tradition and breaks with it — she plays classic three-chord rock & roll, yet she also loves the trashy elements (in particular, Gary Glitter) of it as well, and she plays with a defiant sneer. From her first band, the Runaways, through her hit-making days in the '80s with the Blackhearts right until her unexpected revival in the '90s, she hasn't changed her music, yet she's kept her quality control high, making one classic single ("I Love Rock 'n Roll") along the way.

Joan Jett's debut album is an infectious romp through her influences, ranging from classic '50s and '60s rock & roll through glam rock, three-chord loud'n'fast Ramones punk, and poppier new wave guitar rock. Half the songs on the original album (not counting bonus tracks on the remastered reissue) are covers, but whether it's Lesley Gore's feminist girl-group anthem "You Don't Own Me" (featuring the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook) or a roaring version of Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)," Jett makes them all work. The production can be a little weak in spots, but Jett's exuberance and tough-girl attitude overcome most deficiencies. Plus, the title track is a classic. [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01 - Bad Reputation
02 - Make Believe
03 - You Don't Know What You've Got
04 - You Don't Own Me
05 - Too Bad On Your Birthday
06 - Doing All Right With The Boys
07 - Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)
08 - Let Me Go
09 - Shout
10 - Jezabel
11 - Don't Abuse Me
12 - Wooly Bully

Link

Style; Rock & Roll

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Buddy Mondlock - 1998 - Poetic Justice

Buddy Mondlock - 1998 - Poetic Justice

Tracks :
1 Poetic Justice
2 New Jersey Sunset
3 Sarah Kills the Day
4 Leaving
5 Baby
6 Westbound Fast Lane
7 Temporary Grace
8 Comin' Down in the Rain
9 Magnolia Street
10 Heavy Coat
11 Postcard With Wheat Field
12 No Choice

Although Buddy's discs have never been easily available in the UK, he is well respected and known as a songwriter's songwriter - his compositions have been covered by the likes of Nanci Griffith, Cry Cry Cry, David Wilcox and Joan Baez. This official UK release is deservedly going to increase the profile of one of the very best singer/songwriters around.
Poetic Justice is a quiet, reserved disc, that lets it lyrics and Buddy's intimate vocals do the talking - the stories and imagery in the songs are fantastic, full of description and detail, but with enough left out for the listener to create their own pictures.
The excellent lyrics are not at the expense of melodic accessibility, on the first few listens it's the melody and musicianship that stands out, there's some first-rate acoustic guitar work throughout the 12 tracks. Subtle support is provided by numerous people, including Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith and Ellis Paul - they really add depth to the already superb compositions,
'Poetic Justice' is a classy disc from start to finish; it's an understated collection of great sings from a talented individual.


~@~@~
Hi, Guys, just in case you want some folk-related album, here's Buddy Mondlock.

Get it here @ 256
http://rapidshare.com/Buddy_Mondlock.rar

Thanks bluenorther for this one !!!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Simply Saucer - 1975 - Cyborgs Revisited

Manic CBGB's era electro-punk from Canada. Recorded in 1974 by Daniel and Bob Lanois and bolstered by demos, live tracks, and later day singles.

Tracks :
1. Instant Pleasure
2. Electro Rock
3. Nazi Apocalypse
4. Mole Machine
5. Bullet Proof Nothing
6. Here Come The Cyborgs (Part 1)
7. Here Come The Cyborgs (Part 2)
8. Dance The Mutation
9. Illegal Bodies
10. Low Profile (Demo)
11. Little Sally (Demo)
12. Get My Thrills (Demo)
13. I Take It (Demo)
14. Yes I Do (Live)
15. Bullet Proof Nothing (Live)
16. Now's The Time For The Party (Live)
17. I Can Change My Mind (1978 45 rpm Single)
18. She's A Dog (1978 45 rpm Single)

This expanded reissue contains material from a two-song single, a recording session from 1974,
a live set from 1975, and the 1978 single "She's A Dog".

Simply Saucer :
Edgar Breau (vocals, guitar, Theremin)
Ping Romany (keyboards)
Kevin Christoff (bass, background vocals)
Neil DeMerchant, Tony Cutaia (drums)

Reviews :
Mojo (9/03, p.117) - 4 stars out of 5 -
"A masterpiece of neo-punk/psych outness....
A brain baking feast of proto-punk repetition and overdriven stellar guitar scrawl..."

Uncut (p.130) - 4 stars out of 5 -
"Smalltown freakery was a rock'n'roll staple long before punk gave it a name, and here's a great example of how it could accidentally transcend its limitations."

~@~@~
Here come the Cyborgs: an over-amplified plastic inevitable explosion of Velvet Underground white light/white heat, Pink Floyd interstellar overdrives, Eno's astral synth squelches and insert your own freewheeling free rock titan's antics here. Having the honour of being the most criminally underrated underground band to emerge from 1970s Ontario, Canada's Simply Saucer were the brainchild of Syd Barrett fan and import vinyl fetishist Edgar Breau and a high energy improvisational rock barnstorm to boot. This expanded reissue of 1989's self titled release, draws together a 1974 studio session, a 1975 live disconcert and a 1978 single, ably showcasing the quartet's red hot improvisations, in which songs suddenly leap off into the cosmos, and quirky song-writing skills. It appears that Simply Saucer were as out of step with the general musical consensus of the mid 1970s as Cleveland misanthropes Rocket From The Tombs, and indeed the musical comparison is appropriate; Imagine a psychedelic Pere Ubu with a firecracker up its ass. Breau's switchblade guitar style and the fantastically christened Ping Romany's electronic effects whipped up a synapse-assaulting maelstrom on the likes of Nazi Apocalypse, Dance the Mutation and the preposterously ambitious Here come the Cyborgs (parts 1 and 2). Check out those titles! On the live material included here, we have the insane juxtaposition of the Chrome like acid punk guitar soloing on Illegal Bodies and the smattering of polite applause that follows. The three people that seem to have composed the Jackson Square Rooftop stage audience that night in 1975 clearly enjoyed something a world away from the likes of the Eagles. As the musical zeitgeist evolved again in the late '70s, Simply Saucer were slightly more in step with the spirit of the age with a series of Edgar Breau's shorter, song-based compositions recorded following the departure of Moog mentalist Romany. This later incarnation is represented here with a clutch of live material, studio rehearsals and the aforementioned sole 'official' release of 1978's 7" single. She's a Dog and I Can Change My Mind are catchy and angular punk pop gems, complete with the latter's infectious Lou Reed yelps over the instrumental breaks. This superb reissue confirms Simply Saucer's legendary status as one of the 'missing link' acts, alongside The Pink Fairies, that bridge the gap between punk and psychedelia, their legacy alive and well in the audacious guitar throttling of the likes of Japan's High Rise.

Simon Berkovitch
CWAS #12 - Summer 2003

Simply Saucer - Cyborgs Revisited

Thanks Kaiten for this one !!!

Alternative archives September 2007

Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Pop Group - 1979 - Y

The Pop Group was a post-punk band from Bristol, England whose uncompromising, dissonant sound spanned punk, free jazz, funk and dub reggae. Their lyrics were, more often than not, political in nature.

Formed in 1978 by Mark Stewart (lyrics, vocals), John Waddington (guitar), Gareth Sager (guitar), Simon Underwood (bass) and Bruce Smith (drums, percussion), they issued their debut single, "She is Beyond Good and Evil" on the Radar label the following year.

Their debut album Y, was produced by reggae veteran Dennis Bovell to critical acclaim but low sales figures. Although it did not chart, the album's success was sufficient to convince Rough Trade to sign the band, but not before more line-up changes, with Dan Katsis replacing Underwood on bass.

The band's career with Rough Trade commenced with what is possibly their best-known single "We Are All Prostitutes", which featuring a guest appearance by free improviser Tristan Honsinger on cello. This was followed the release of their second album, For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? in 1980, which included a contribution from US proto-rappers The Last Poets.

Shortly afterwards The Pop Group released a split single, "Where There's a Will...", with The Slits, a band with whom they now shared a drummer and managers (Christine Robertson and Dick O'Dell), as well as a growing interest in exploring musical genres such as dub and funk rhythms.

The band split in 1981, after legal wranglings and internal disagreements. Members of the group went on to form bands including Pigbag, Maximum Joy, Head and Rip Rig & Panic, the latter notable for the involvement of Neneh Cherry.

Singer Mark Stewart, meanwhile, collaborated with the On-U Sound posse, issuing records firstly as Mark Stewart and Maffia, then as a solo artist.

The Pop Group and associated bands started a Bristol 'scene' that would later spawn trip-hop.

The Pop Group - Y (1979)

Flat Duo Jets - 1993 - White Trees

"The first time I ever saw them, I was a teenager. It was in the film, Athens, GA: Inside Out. I was mesmerized, I just remember thinking, “I feel like that! That’s what I want to say!” They didn’t have a record out, so I had to go over to my friend, Bill’s house and beg him to rewind his third generation copy of the movie over and over again. As the years went by, I loved them more and more. I bought all their records (White Trees and The Flat Duo Jets are my faves). I saw many of their heartbreaking live shows, and to this day their ability to thrill me has not diminished. They are the Winchester Mansion of sound. We are still happily married as “shy dork” and “favorite band.” In fact, I think our silver anniversary is coming up." - Neko Case

"Although their work is deeply rooted in vintage rockabilly, hillbilly and blues, this two-man band is no preservationist society. Instead, the pair fuses its timeworn influences (Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Johnny Horton and the Ventures among them) with the primal thunder of the finest punk and three-chord rock. The result is a hurricane swirl that packs more punch and emotion than a month's rotation of Soundgarden, Metallica and Green Day. Better yet, it's completely without pretension." - Marty Jones

"Produced by Caleb Southern, White Trees is the Jets' second masterpiece, proof that Romweber can diversify without losing his frisky urgency. Sticking exclusively to originals, the boy spews out everything from boogie woogie ("Old Soul") to funky rock ("Daughter of the Jungle") to cornball country ("Husband of a Country Singing Star") to spooky mood pieces ("Rabbit Foot Blues"). Holy moly!" - Trouser Press

Track Listing
1. Daughter Of The Jungle
2. Love Can't Be Right
3. Old Soul
4. You Don't Love Me Anymore
5. Husband Of A Country Singing Star
6. Where Are You Now
7. Michelle
8. How Long
9. Rabbit Foot Blues
10. Tura Satana
11. Radioactive Man
12. Interlude
13. Big John
14. Cool Boys
15. White Trees

Download here

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Stranglers - 1984 - Aural Sculpture [192k]

Alex Ogg;
A massively underrated album by a band too quickly dismissed as relevant only to the '70s — fair enough, as the accompanying statement of intent (the title was meant to be descriptive) is pretentious rubbish. Yet there is a real majesty to some of these pop compositions, notably Burnel's devastating "North Winds." The hit single "Skin Deep" is excellent, if a little self-important. Other cuts, like the infectious "Uptown" and "Mad Hatter," reveal the eternally grim Stranglers to be in a playful mood. Not quite what everyone expected, but a great album nevertheless. [Allmusic.com]

Track list;
01 - Ice Queen
02 - Skin Deep
03 - Let Me Down Easy
04 - No Mercy
05 - North Winds Blowing
06 - Uptown
07 - Punch And Judy
08 - Spain
09 - Laughing
10 - Souls
11 - Mad Hatter

Link

Style; New Wave, Punk

Magazine - 1978 - Real Life

Magazine - 1978 - Real Life

Tracks :
1. "Definitive Gaze" – 4:25
2. "My Tulpa" – 4:47
3. "Shot By Both Sides" (Devoto, Pete Shelley) – 4:01
4. "Recoil" – 2:50
5. "Burst" (Devoto) – 5:00
6. "Motorcade" (Devoto, Bob Dickinson) – 5:41
7. "The Great Beautician In The Sky" – 4:56
8. "The Light Pours Out Of Me" (Devoto, McGeoch, Shelley) – 4:36
9. "Parade" (Devoto, Barry Adamson, Dave Formula) – 5:08

All songs written by Howard Devoto and John McGeoch unless otherwise indicated.

Real Life is the debut album by post-punk pioneers Magazine. The album is cited, along with Public Image Ltd.'s debut album, Public Image, and Talking Heads: 77, as being one of the first post-punk albums.


Reviews

AMG Review ~Andy Kellman
Howard Devoto had the foresight to promote two infamous Sex Pistols concerts in Manchester, and his vision was no less acute when he left Buzzcocks after recording Spiral Scratch. Possibly sensing the festering of punk's cliches and limitations, and unquestionably not taken by the movement's beginnings, he bailed -- effectively skipping out on most of 1977 -- and resurfaced with Magazine. Initially, the departure from punk was not complete. "Shot by Both Sides," the band's first single, was based off an old riff given by Devoto's Buzzcocks partner Pete Shelley, and the guts of follow-up single "Touch and Go" were rather basic rev-and-vroom. And, like many punk bands, Magazine would likely cite David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Roxy Music. However -- this point is crucial -- instead of playing mindlessly sloppy variants of "Hang on to Yourself," "Search and Destroy," and "Virginia Plain," the band was inspired by the much more adventurous Low, The Idiot, and "For Your Pleasure." That is the driving force behind Real Life's status as one of the post-punk era's major jump-off points. Punk's untethered energy is rigidly controlled, run through arrangements that are tightly wound, herky-jerky, unpredictable, proficiently dynamic. The rapidly careening "Shot by Both Sides" (up there with PiL's "Public Image" as an indelible post-punk single) and the slowly unfolding "Parade" (the closest thing to a ballad, its hook is "Sometimes I forget that we're supposed to be in love") are equally ill-at-ease. The dynamism is all the more perceptible when Dave Formula's alternately flighty and assaultive keyboards are present: the opening "Definitive Gaze," for instance, switches between a sci-fi love theme and the score for a chase scene. As close as the band comes to upstaging Devoto, the singer is central, with his live wire tendencies typically enhanced, rather than truly outshined, by his mates. The interplay is at its best in "The Light Pours out of Me," a song that defines Magazine more than "Shot by Both Sides," while also functioning as the closest the band got to making an anthem. Various aspects of Devoto's personality and legacy, truly brought forth throughout this album, have been transferred and blown up throughout the careers of Momus (the restless, unapologetic intellectual), Thom Yorke (the pensive outsider), and maybe even Luke Haines (the nonchalantly acidic crank).

Amazon.co.uk Review
Howard Devoto's more arty and intellectual inclinations were never likely to be accommodated by a band as formulaic and reductive--though utterly marvellous--as The Buzzcocks. Devoto left Pete Shelley to it shortly after Orgasm Addict and founded Magazine with guitarist John McGeoch (later of Siouxsie & The Banshees and Public Image Ltd) and bassplayer Barry Adamson (later of Visage and Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, as well as distinguishing himself as a solo artist). As might be guessed from the later careers of the personnel involved, Magazine were and remain a terrifically influential band, whose determined wedding of punkish energy with the art-school delusions of Roxy Music has been echoed since by Blur, Elastica, The Auteurs and Happy Mondays, among many others. That said, Real Life--Magazine's debut album--has not weathered the passing of the years all that well. By far the best thing on it is the anthemic single "Shot By Both Sides", and it is of somewhat dubious parentage, credited to Devoto/Shelley. The rest of the album--with the arguable exception of "The Light Pours Out Of Me"--bears the unmistakable awkwardness that comes of being created by people whose ambitions, at this early stage, are beyond the grasp of their abilities. --Andrew Mueller

Description
REAL LIFE, Magazine's 1978 debut, might be the first true post-punk album. Bandleader Howard Devoto had been the co-leader of Manchester's Buzzcocks, one of the first and most important U.K. punk bands, but he left shortly after the recording of their first EP, SPIRAL SCRATCH. Forming Magazine withguitarist John McGeoch, keyboardist Dave Formula and bassist Barry Adamson (later a noted soundtrack composer), Devoto married the manic energy of the Buzzcocks to a darker and more ambiguous lyrical and musical vision. REAL LIFE is undeniably bleak--"Motorcade" concerns the JFK assassination, and other titles include "Recoil" and "Burst"--but there's a certain black humor in tracks like "The Great Beautician in theSky". Purists should note that the version of "Shot By BothSides" here is a much different and somewhat inferior re-recording than the classic 7". That version is available on the singles compilation RAYS AND HAIL.

Get it Here :
http://rapidshare.com/Magazine.rar

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Einstürzende Neubauten - 2000 - Silence Is Sexy

Einstürzende Neubauten:

Blixa Bargeld (vocals, electric slide guitar, Fender Rhodes piano, Clavichord, Hammond organ); Alexander Hacke (electric guitar, E-bow, viraphone, synthesizer, bass, percussion, loops, background vocals); Jochen Arbeit (guitar, background vocals); AC (Hammond organ, drums, maracas, percussion, background vocals); Rudi Moser (drums, percussion, bells)

Additional personnel includes: Sebastian Reimann, Alexandra Kratsch, Ruth-Maria Kosow, Natalia Domagala (violin); Magnus Dohler, Christoph Rabbels, Manuel Klein (viola); Florian Dohler, Jan Schade (cello); Julia Regehr, Ingo Krauss, Marc Weis (background vocals).

Producers: Einsturzende Neubaten, Boris Wilsdorf.Recorded at Hansa and Trixx Studios, Berlin, Germany between April 1998 & January 2000.

SILENCE IS SEXY continues Einsturzende Neubauten's explorations of individual sounds and anti-sounds. On the title track, several passages of silence are broken only by the sound of singer Blixa Bargeld inhaling on a cigarette; but, given that this is an Einstnrzende Neubauten record, that sound is amplified enough for you to be able to taste his brand.While the majority of the cuts uncoil slowly, sinister affairs constructed around Bargeld's debauched, lounge-crawling, after-hours aristocrat-on-hard-times vocals, there are a couple of danceable tracks. "Newtons Gravitatlichkeit" and "Zampano" both featuring pulsating bass lines and frenetic percussion; though both also have several time-signature changes that might prove hazardous on the dance floor.

Collectors should note that initial copies of the CD included a second disc featuring the slithering 18 and-a-half minute "Pelikanol."

source :http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1165543/a/Silence+Is+Sexy.htm

more info at : http://wm11.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:hifuxqe5ldhe~T1

watch "Sabrina" at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TssuSYrxVI

"difficult" album... highly recommended album

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/57965582/Silence_Is_Sexy_Disc_1.rar

http://rapidshare.com/files/57958703/pelikanol.rar

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Screaming Trees - 1988 - Invisible Lantern

Where many of their Seattle-based contemporaries dealt in reconstructed Black Sabbath and Stooges riffs, Screaming Trees fused '60s psychedelia and garage rock with '70s hard rock and '80s punk. Over the course of their career, their more abrasive punk roots eventually gave way to a hard-edged, rootsy psychedelia that drew from rock and folk equally. After releasing several albums on indie labels like SST and Sub Pop, Screaming Trees moved to Epic Records in 1989. Though they were one of the first Seattle bands to sign with a major label, the group never attained the popularity of fellow Northwestern bands (and friends) like Nirvana and Soundgarden, largely due to their erratic work schedule.

Throughout their career, the Trees were notorious for drinking and fighting, which caused them to break up briefly at several points in their career. Nevertheless, the band managed to cultivate a dedicated following, which included not only fans, but also fellow musicians. Brothers Van Conner (bass) and Gary Lee Conner (guitar) formed Screaming Trees with Mark Lanegan (vocals) in the mid-'80s. Lanegan and the Conners grew up in Ellensburg, WA, a small college-town some 90 miles from Seattle. The trio were the only people in their high school who listened to punk, garage rock, and independent music, so they eventually gravitated toward each other. After falling out with the Conners before either completed school, Lanegan contacted Van Conner several years later. By that point, Van had a band with a singer named Mark Pickerel; the pair had recently kicked Lee Conner out of the band, so they invited Lanegan to sit in on drums. Eventually, Lee re-joined the group and they settled on a lineup that featured Lee on guitar, Van on bass, Lanegan on vocals, and Pickerel on drums.

Taking their name from a guitar distortion pedal, Screaming Trees recorded their first demo tape in 1985, just a few months after their formation.

Their producer, Steve Fisk, was able to convince the head of Velvetone Studios to release an album by the band, The result, Clairvoyance, appeared on Velvetone Records in 1986.

The band's first SST album, Even If and Especially When, was released in 1987 and the Trees began working the dying American indie circuit, playing shows across the country. The following year, SST reissued the band's demo tape under the title Other Worlds as well as their third album, Invisible Lantern.

Following the release of Buzz Factory in 1989, the group's contract with SST expired and they made the Change Has Come EP for Sub Pop early the following year. By that time, tensions in the band had grown somewhat, and the group spent most of 1990 working on side projects. Mark Lanegan recorded a solo album, The Winding Sheet, which featured support from Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic; the album appeared on Sub Pop. Both of the Conners formed new bands and released albums on the SST subsidiary New Alliance. Van's band was called Solomon Grundy; Lee's was Purple Outside. By the end of 1990, the band had signed a major-label contract with Epic Records.

Screaming Trees reconvened to record their Epic debut, Uncle Anesthesia, with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Terry Date as producers. Uncle Anesthesia appeared in early 1991 .

Once Martin joined, the band finished "Nearly Lost You," their contribution to the Singles soundtrack, and their 1992 album Sweet Oblivion.

During that time, Lanegan recorded his second solo album, Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, which was released in 1994. That same year, Martin drummed in the Layne Staley (Alice in Chains) and Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) side project Mad Season, which released its only album in the spring of 1995.In early 1995, Screaming Trees regrouped to begin work on their follow-up to Sweet Oblivion.

The resulting album, Dust, was released in the summer of 1996, nearly four years after its predecessor. Dust was greeted with positive reviews, and its first single, "All I Know," became a moderate hit on modern rock radio.

Following the Dust tour, Screaming Trees took another hiatus, with Lanegan beginning work on his third solo album, Scraps at Midnight, which was released in 1998. When Lanegan completed another solo project the following year (I'll Take Care of You), it seemed to confirm that the Trees' strained relationships would make it impossible for the band to continue. Following a June 25, 2000, concert to celebrate the opening Seattle's Experience Music Project, the group unsurprisingly announced their official breakup. 2005's Ocean of Confusion: Songs of Screaming Trees 1989-1996 gathered highlights from the band's Epic years, and included two previously unreleased tracks.

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine AMG

listen to the Screaming Trees at : http://www.myspace.com/screamingtrees

download it here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/57953779/Screaming_Trees.rar

Monday, September 24, 2007

Dreadful Shadows - 1994 - Estrangement

Written by flowergatherer on June 26th, 2006

Although I`m not a gothic metal fan at all, i still enjoy this album a lot. To me it`s the best of all Dreadful Shadows releases.Firstly, It`s more guitar-oriented album unlike the rest that are more based on keyboard themes. The keyboards are used here too, but for the most part they introduce and close songs. Guitar melodies are very skilled and simple, that strikes you right from the second song Over the Worst- very unusual track mostly consisting of lead parts. Acoustics are also added, so good melodies don`t escape us here again. The music possesses this atmospheric feel that makes you dream and imagine. It is masterly performed and thanks to good execution has a very distinct sound.Secondly, this release simply bursts with hits. Almost every song is a potential hit, sounds incredible but it`s true. There are a couple of beautiful ballads like Funeral Procession and Estrangement ( a real hymn to solitude). Being a bit simple in stucture songs aren`t repetitive. Moreover they display different guitar playing techniques in every song if you listen the album song by song from the start.And lastly Sven`s voice is more melodic here and even tranquil, unlike their other albums where he tends to more harsh singing variation.He sings in a deep clean voice.

This is a very sincere album, you can feel melancholy and sadness the musicians wanted to convey to you in every note. I would include this album in the list of the best music i`ve ever heard. I wish I ever hear something that would impress me so much.

source : http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=48062

Download It Here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/57723077/Dreadful_Shadows.rar

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Patti Smith - 1975 - Horses

Patricia Lee ("Patti") Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American musician, songwriter, and poet. Smith came to prominence prior to the Punk movement with her 1975 debut album "Horses." Called "Punk's Poet Laureate", she integrated the Beat poetry performance style with garage-band Rock & Roll;

her allusions introduced 19th Century French poetry to American teens, while her androgynous public persona and unladylike language defied the Disco era.

From the underground, Patti Smith has become one of rock and roll's most influential musicians. Smith's commercial success has been limited in that she has never had an RIAA certified record and has had just three Top 20 singles (One each on the Hot 100, Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts). However, "Rolling Stone" magazine placed her at #47 in its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. On March 12, 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Horses is the debut album by Patti Smith released in November 1975, produced by John Cale. It was recorded and mixed by Bernie Kirsh. The innovative track, "Land", is a radical reworking of Chris Kenner's "Land of a Thousand Dances". "Gloria" is a similar reinterpretation of the old Van Morrison classic. "Birdland" is based upon "A Book of Dreams" (1973), a memoir of Wilhelm Reich by his son Peter.

At the time she recorded Horses, Smith and her band were cult favorites in the New York club scene. Smith was a rabid fan of many 60's rock idols such as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones and Jim Morrison as well as favorites of Motown and jazz such as Smokey Robinson and John Coltrane. The former's influence can be best heard in the tracks "Gloria" (a radical and attention-grabbing retake on the Them garage rock classic). "Birdland"'s music, in particular, owed more to the jazz music Smith's mother enjoyed than to the influence of punk. When recording this song, which was improvised by the band in the studio, Smith has said she imagined the spirit of Hendrix watching her in the studio (Horses was recorded in Electric Lady Studios). Several of the songs ("Redondo Beach", "Free Money", "Kimberly") were inspired by moments with members of Smith's family, while others ("Break It Up", "Elegie") were written about her idols. "Land" was already a live favorite and featured the first verse of Kenner's "Land Of A Thousand Dances". [1] Guest musicians included Tom Verlaine of fellow CBGB favorites Television and Allen Lanier of Blue Öyster Cult; both had relationships with Smith during the 70's and became the focuses for a song called "We Three" from her third album Easter.
source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Smith

Download it Here :
http://rapidshare.com/files/57661260/Patti_Smith.rar

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Nits - 1987 - In the Dutch Mountains [224k]

Biography;
There seems little doubt that were they not so geographically challenged, the Nits would be one of the most widely respected bands in the world today — at least on a par with smart-as-a-whip types like XTC and Prefab Sprout. Certainly few can match their sheer creative stamina: how many other bands can claim to be still reinventing themselves after 30 years and nearly 20 albums? But the Nits come from Holland. And furthermore, the occasional tour of the U.S. and Canada aside, they quickly made it clear that their only concession to the big outside world, where real rock stars wear shades indoors, would be to sing in English. That aside, anyone wanting them to tailor their unique brand of art-pop to the demands of a broader audience could go hang. In particular, the Nits specialize in making their latest album sound as little like the last as possible — a marketing man's nightmare. This has simultaneously guaranteed them a modest degree of success across continental Europe, where fans appreciate their fierce integrity and commitment to playing intimate venues, and denied a lot of people in Britain and America some wonderfully inventive — and very accessible — music.

In retrospect, you can only wonder what was on the members' collective mind in 1974 when they formed the band in Amsterdam and decided that calling themselves the Nits was a good career move. Apparently, they felt it suggested an insectoid link to the Beatles, but in pop history only Prefab Sprout and lugubrious Aussies My Friend the Chocolate Cake have made more teeth-grindingly inappropriate choices. Initially, the band consisted of Henk Hofstede (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Rob Kloet (drums), Michiel Peters (guitar, vocals), and Alex Roelofs (bass), and it was this lineup that recorded the independently released single "Yes or No" in 1975 and their eponymous debut album in 1978.

On this and the next three albums — Tent (1979), New Flat ( 1980), and Work (1981) — the Nits carved themselves a slice of the post-new wave action that spawned bands like XTC and Talking Heads. Indeed, Hofstede has conceded that both were big influences on the band in those early days, along with the literary approach of Leonard Cohen. Although Hofstede's melodies had often betrayed the odd Beatles influence, this only came to the fore on the Nits' 1983 album Omsk. Where before the band's reluctance to conform had often resulted in a self-conscious quirkiness, suddenly it showed signs of blossoming into something with genuine depth and distinctiveness. Something moreover that drew as much on European traditions like chanson and musical theater as it did on British and American pop. It was also no accident that the album marked the arrival of keyboard player Robert Jan Stips. Having previously worked with the band as a producer, the one-time Golden Earring and Supersister member gave the Nits a whole new orchestral dimension with his rich array of individually tailored samples.

Omsk and the mini-album that followed it six months later — Kilo — also established Hofstede as a genuinely gifted singer. Most listeners instantly pick up on his voice's John Lennon-ish edge, but there's also a touch of Elvis Costello — without the ever-looming threat of a sneer — in the way Hofstede nails a ballad like "Dapper Street" or "Mask." He's also a powerful presence on-stage, simultaneously charismatic and affable.

In the years that followed Omsk, the Nits always seemed to be on a mission never to retrace their own musical footsteps. Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof in 1984, helmed by Stars on 45 producer Jaap Eggermont, was the closest they ever came to courting commercial success, though it includes two of their most memorable songs in "Mask" and the title track — a wistful waltz whose melody once heard is never forgotten. Henk followed in 1986, an album whose heavy reliance on sampled sounds and surrealistic songs like "Port of Amsterdam" and "Bike in Head" contrasted sharply with both its glossy predecessor and the altogether more sober 1987 album In the Dutch Mountains, whose title track gave the band their biggest hit. That in turn was followed in 1990 by the kaleidoscopic Giant Normal Dwarf, conceived by Hofstede as a kind of fairy tale for his newborn child, but sounding more than anything like a joyous expedition to the candy striped psychedelia of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Glass Onion."

In 1992, Ting was a more stripped-back affair, with Stips' piano the dominant sound, and later that year the Nits (who were by then just known as Nits) recorded Hjuvi with a full symphony orchestra. Mostly composed by Stips, the piece mixed songs with instrumental compositions in the style of composers ranging from Satie to the Gershwins, and was mostly led by Stips at the piano. Da Da Da followed in 1994, even securing a release in the U.S. and U.K., though as usual Sony had no idea how to promote it.

By this point, the Nits were reduced to a three-piece, with Alex Roelofs having bailed out in 1981 and Michiel Peters following in 1985. And though subsequently they were often augmented by other musicians, a trio they would remain until 1996 when Stips also departed to form his own band, Stips Egotrip, leaving only founding members Hofstede and Rob Kloet.

It's worth noting Kloet's important contribution to the band. No mere time-keeper, he's a master of economy — the polar opposite of Keith Moon — whose minimalist interjections nevertheless keep the bombast and rhetoric of rock at bay while applying the very sleekest forward thrust. Someone once described him as less a drummer, more a percussionist, and that's spot on. He's never heard simply laying down an off-the-shelf rock rhythm, and it's significant that he always gets a co-composer credit.

With the band down to a core of two members, Hofstede nevertheless ensured their 1997 album Alankomaat still boasted the kind of lush textures with which the band had become associated by focusing much more heavily than usual on his own role as a keyboard player. Similarly, on 2000s Wool (their first for new label Play It Again Sam), Hofstede drafted in a string sextet, a jazz trumpeter and various soulful backing singers to compensate for the Stips-shaped hole in the band's sound.

After a six-year absence, however, Stips returned for the 2003 album 1974. Though the title refers to the band's year of formation, it nevertheless contained little that might be described as backward-looking. In fact, after the somewhat subdued and tightly arranged music of Alankomaat and Wool, it represented a return to a more playful and spontaneous style. There remained a suspicion, though, that Hofstede had expended some of his best music on a 2002 solo album — comprising music written for a video installation — called Het Draagbare Huis ("The Portable House") and was fresh out of top-notch material.

In their 30-odd years of existence, the Nits have notched several chart successes in their homeland and been showered with awards. Around the time of In the Dutch Mountains, it seemed international stardom was theirs for the taking. Yet only two of their albums have been released in the U.S. and U.K., and though they can boast a small but loyal following in Canada — where they have doubtless benefited from the endorsement of the Barenaked Ladies — they remain one of rock's best-kept secrets. And you suspect they wouldn't have it any other way.

About the album In The Dutch Mountains;
After the synthesized hijinks and tomfoolery that blighted much of Henk, the Nits — once again a four-piece with the addition of bassist Joke Geraets — opted for a return to simplicity with In the Dutch Mountains. The result was an album that probably did more to seduce listeners far beyond their homeland than any other, not least because it was the first to secure a release in the U.S. and the U.K. Yet although it was recorded live in the studio direct to two-track tape, this is no mere exercise in bash-it-out, one-take boogie. It's a warmly atmospheric set that contains some of the Nits' most fully realized work to date. Many of the songs are inspired by childhood memories, including the title track with its reference to the young Henk Hofstede's assumption that there must be mountains beyond the borders of his home town of Amsterdam. A massive hit across continental Europe, "In the Dutch Mountains" still generates a storm of applause at Nits concerts. Another live mainstay is "J.O.S. Days," an atypically rustic song about Hofstede's failure to make his local football team, featuring sampled acoustic guitar and (real) harmonica. This contrasts sharply with the dreamy "Two Skaters," at around seven minutes one of the longest songs in the Nits' repertoire and as close as they've ever gotten to an exercise in pure atmospherics. Other highlights include "The Swimmer" (yet another in a long line of film references), with frenzied accelerating piano assaults framing a delicate melody; the faintly berserk "An Eating House"; and the gorgeous lullaby "Good Night," with Hofstede's tender vocals cushioned by a remarkably convincing brass band sample. On the vinyl edition, this made for a wonderful coda to the album, but for the CD release three bonus tracks — none of them quite in keeping with the rest — were tacked onto the end. Nevertheless, In the Dutch Mountains marked the beginning of a richly creative five-year period that the Nits have yet to top. [Allmusic]


A long post this time but read it!!!
The Nits is one of my favorite Dutch bands and when you listen to the album you know why…

And than I need to say something about the comments of my posts on this part of Lost-In-Tyme, I did some counting and came to a number --> 0,54% of the downloader’s give comments.
That’s great, isn’t it?

Track list;
01 - In The Dutch Mountains
02 - J.O.S. Days
03 - Two Skaters
04 - Pelican & Penguin
05 - In A Play (Das Madchen Im Pelz)
06 - Oom Pah Pah
07 - The Panorama Man
08 - Mountain Jan
09 - One Eye Open
10 - An Eating House
11 - The Swimmer
12 - Goodnight
13 - Strangers Of The Night
14 - The Magic Of Lassie
15 - Moon And Stars

Link

Style; Alternative Pop/Rock, New Wave, Post-Punk

Monday, September 17, 2007

Angelic Upstarts - 1993 - Kids On The Street (the best of)

Angelic Upstarts formed way back in 1977 in South Shields, North-East England. Working class punk band with strong anti-fascist views and beliefs.

What more can be said about this legendary band? Influenced by bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols, The Angelic Upstarts are a meeting of working class ideology

and musical aspiration.

Mensi was always liable to provoke reaction, his lyrics making much of his working class roots, and lashing out at police and politicians. The original line up consisted of Mensi (vocals), Mond (guitar), Steve Forsten (bass) and Decca Wade (drums). The Angelic Upstarts launched their punk crusade with the independently released single 'The Murder of Liddle Towers' in 1978. The band paid for the recording and pressing of 500 singles which they released themselves and sold at gigs and local record shops. The single was then picked up by Small Wonder Records who released it nationally. It's attack on police brutality earned them an early patron in Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey, who chased a similar constituency of disaffected working-class fans.

The band then signed to Warner Brothers, Pursey producing the L.P. "Teenage Warning" (1979). The band's wholehearted delivery coupled with their denunciation of racism - a particularly admirable stance at a time when other "skinhead bands", were flirting with right wing elements - made the album a classic. With the UK hit singles, 'I'm An Upstart' and 'Teenage Warning'(both 1979), they focused on the plight of the working class. The band went on to release a number of successful albums and minor hit singles before splitting in 1983. Angel Dust (The Collected Highs,1983) was a useful compilation of their best early work. The band have reformed and split a few times over the years and some of the ex members include... bass players, Ronnie Wooden, Glyn Warren, Tony Feedback, Ronnie Rocker and Max Splodge who also had a stint playing drums. Other drummers have included Sticks (who later joined The Cockney Rejects), Paul Thompson (ex Roxy Music) and Chris White. Decca Wade rejoined the band for a few years before leaving again. (he's now back in the band) Brian Hayes originally joined the band as second guitarist until Mond left leaving Brian as the only guitarist.

The band had two full-length live releases 'Anthems Against Scum' and 'Live From The Justice League'. More recently, Mensi revamped the Upstarts with an all star line-up of Tony Van Frater (Red Alert) guitar, Gaz Stoker (Red London) Bass, Lainey (Leatherface) Drums, and this line-up recorded the first new Angelic Upstarts studio album in years, entitled "Sons of Spartacus". Bringing the Upstarts to a mostly new generation of fans, still playing in tune with the anti-fascist cause. Mensi decided to leave the band in late 2006 but wanted Chris Wright (a long time fan of the Upstarts and singer for Crashed Out) to take over on vocals. (Chris is still singing for Crashed Out)

The current Angelic Upstarts line up is

Chris Wright - Vocals, Dickie Hammond - Guitar, Neil Newton - Guitar, Gaz Stoker - Bass, and original member Decca Wade - Drums, Pure Dedication.

source : http://www.myspace.com/angelicupstartsofficialsite

Download It Here :

http://rapidshare.com/files/56137138/angelic_upstarts_-_kids_on_the_street.rar

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Action Now - All Your Dreams...and more 1981-1984

For reasons that remain mysterious, power-pop remains a cult movement in spite of its overt accessibility. Any number of “lost classics” from the genre sound like they should be just plain classics, and the fact that they’ re not frustrates the musicians who made them as well as the lesser souls who simply want to be able to find them at their local record store. And tough as it is to find the great power-poppers of the ‘70s like Dwight Twilley and Shoes, it can become downright quixotic when the search turns to ‘80s heroes. Luckily, the Let’s Active catalogue has finally come back into print on CD, but the Plimsouls’ first record, the last two dB’s albums, and anything Game Theory ever did seem stuck forever in the gilded cage of eBay with scores of others teetering on the edge of oblivion.

Those watching the wires for the reissues of artifacts of power-pop’s glorious early ‘80s revival may have to keep waiting for any of the aforementioned platters to return to the world, but at least one more obscure disc has come back from the void. Action Now, a California quartet who did th