They Come In Real Low

Recorded to glorious two-track in 1989, the Attic Tragedy 10" was released a couple of years later as part of Scat's Cleveland Archive Series, with the initial pitch from Scat being that it was "trad rock with inventive songwriting" or (alternately) what "Sticky Fingers" woulda sounded like if the Stones were the Minutemen-- though not in those words exactly. Not too far removed from some of their Scat labelmates, I'd place Attic Tragedy as being somewhere to the left of Prisonshake and Cobra Verde, while still to the right of Death of Samantha (who weren't on Scat-- I'm just sayin').

I'm the kind of person who tends to like demo recordings better than finished albums, so the deep, echo-y tone of the recording on this sounds great to me. Plus there's the usually top-notch Scat packaging, including hand-silkscreened covers and a huge, mostly incomprehensible essay from Tim Tobias (read it for a good time, if you must).

Of the three tracks I'm posting here, "Mirror's Broke" and "Hole In The Sky" flash the rock the most, but the pick of the litter is "Quarter Mile Out", which is definitely one of the most "Della Street"-sounding songs that's not on "Della Street" ever, as far as songs about tornadoes or air strikes go.




Attic Tragedy -

"Mirror's Broke"

"Hole In The Sky"

"Quarter Mile Out"

Tombstone Minds

A bulletin on the Tombstone Minds web site indicates that it will take something along the lines of a pledge drive to get the band active again. So, while I start collecting old soup can labels and soda pop tops to donate, here's a song that most ordinary bands would saw their arms off to have written.


Tombstone Minds -

"I Get By"

I'm Really Out Of It

As I've said before, like with the Monkees and the Bee Gees, if a band's going to have 15 or 20 singles out then you might as well try owning at least one or two*... I actually used to own a heckuva lot of Fastbacks singles, and I don't think I got even close to having a full set. I've only got a few left now, though, and (duh) this is one of them.

Two great songs on this, neither of them penned by Kurt, although they're each cool in their own different way. "Wait It Out" has no real verse to it, just an odd percussive organ bit and some strummed guitar parts that I swear remind me of Dinosaur's "Forget The Swan" at times; then when that crunching riff kicks in for the chorus, you start thinking, "Hey, this is pretty neat!" On the flip, "The Jester" (written by sometime-Fastbacks drummer Rusty Willoughby) starts with an almost straight-up Ramones rip, and ends with an extra hook thrown in just to be sure.

This comes in a pretty deluxe gatefold sleeve that includes a message on the spine: "That was pretty good, now how bout some Rock and Roll." Seems kinda dumb, but it beats the standard "Hey buddy, what the fuck are you looking at?", I guess.




Fastbacks -

"Wait It Out"

"The Jester"












*This didn't make much sense the first time I wrote it, either

Doctor Says There's Something Wrong

Even though it's a record that relatively few people paid attention to when it was released, much less now, I think TMA's "What's For Dinner?" oughta rank among the best mid-period hardcore records to ever come out of New Jersey-- and if you don't believe me, check out "Psychopathic" and see if you're not convinced within the first 40 seconds. Okay, so "Psychopathic" sounds a lot like "Lights Out" by the Angry Samoans, but "Lights Out" is a great friggin song anyway, so maybe it deserves to be written twice. On top of that, TMA's "Astrological Geek" (which I didn't bother ripping) is similar to Black Flag's "Damaged II", but to me that just shows that TMA had great influences, that's all.

What TMA stands for is sort of a mystery, I guess; what's also a bit of a mystery is what TMA did to deserve an expertly-recorded, top-notch release like this one (though I'm sure they got ripped off for it), especially since almost none of my NY/NJ friends even knew who TMA were before this record came out, and it seemed like nobody had seen them play live. I realize that Jimboco Records isn't a major label, but it isn't a homemade label like Buy Our Records or Headache, either. There's "all rights reserved" and "used by permission" clauses slapped all over this thing, so you know there had to be a whole bunch of lawyers and accountants pulling the strings somewhere.

I'm pretty sure I reviewed this record in the first issue of Run It, and eventually Flipside and Ink Disease reviewed it, too. At the time it seemed like A.O.D. was the only band from the Northeast that the Flipside types could stand to like, but both Flipside and Ink Disease gave this a rave review, each saying something similar like, "How do we get to check these guys out live to see if they can live up to this record?" Which was the whole odd thing about this; like I said, nobody had seen these guys live, or even knew who the fuck they were... though I'm guessing by looking at the photos here that if you lived in New Jersey and bought gas at some point, or had your groceries bagged or a pizza delivered, there was a good chance you were standing right next to one of the guys from TMA and you probably wouldn't even have know it.

Not being a big Clash fan, this record has one of my favorite anti-Clash swipes ever (right up there next to Government Issue's "Used to listen to the Clash/Now they suck like all the trash") in "You Crack Me Up". Nowadays you've got hardcore kids wearing Clash and Smiths and Joy Division t-shirts and thinking all that stuff's great, but to the hardcore scene back then that shit was the enemy, and rightly fuckin' so. There ain't no goddamn Smiths covers on any F.U.'s records, I can tell you that much.




TMA -

"What's For Dinner?"

"Psychopathic"

"Brain Of My Own"

"Nancy"

"Electric Shock"

"You Crack Me Up"

Don't Know Why I'm So Stupid

I wish I had some funny stories about The Injections, but I don't have any, really, other than Lou Alexander seemed like one of the most normal guys to ever front a punk band and you can practically hear Spaz Jeff's kick pedal falling off during the recording of "Knucklehead". Anyway, good music blogs aren't about funny stories-- they're all about historical details, dammit, and cutting and pasting descriptions from Allmusic.com and stuff. What are you, stupid? Jesus!

The Injections were Connecticut's version of Screeching Weasel and The Queers, 10 years before every town had one. I don't know if Lou had been in any other bands, but Matt Mullarkey was in Blanket of Ash ("Too Messed Up" is awesome, look it up-- I posted it not even three weeks ago) and then Elvis McMan, and Jeff Coleman has been in Seizure and Clusterfuck and a bunch of others, of course.

"Won't Grow Up!" came out after one earlier demo and a 4-song EP ("The Kids Aren't Right"), and the very first verse of the very first song will let you know what you're getting into:

My dad thinks I'm a bum
My car never wants to run
My ex-girlfriend just got engaged
My new one wants me to "change"
Cuz these are the things that I learned today
Yeah, these are the things that I learned today...

I wanna die

If you're still confused, the chorus to "Knucklehead" ("Whoa-oh-ohh, I'm a knucklehead") should ring a few bells. If it doesn't, then you haven't listened to enough Queers records in your lifetime and what the fuck's your problem?





The Injections -

"Things I Learned"

"Knucklehead"

"Brainkill"

"What Can I Do"

The Bright Open Mouths

Check out Bob Weston in the photo above, wearing one of the "I Hate The Bait" t-shirts that I just mentioned in the Bastro post, one post down from this one. The picture was taken after "Bumper Crop" came out, which explains why the Suns put plastic sunflowers on the mic stands in order to enhance their stage presence. It was either that or expensive pyro, and we all know what can happen when that shit screws up.

I can remember back when I began weaning myself off hardcore (a process that would take years to finish), and the first few records in my box of singles were all from Homestead, and bands like Dinosaur, Big Black, Phantom Tollbooth, and Volcano Suns. "Sea Cruise" came out in 1986, but neither song ended up on the album that followed ("All Night Lotus Party"), as you'll note by the "Shinin' The Purple Helmet" reference on the back of the 45 sleeve. There's plenty of in-jokes to spare here; "Drink Fight and Fuck", scrawled on the runout groove of the a-side, is a G.G. Allin song that the Suns used to cover way back when.

This is a great single, obviously, and it showcases the two sides of Volcano Suns: the poppy, hook-happy side ("Sea Cruise"), and the crunching, noise-driven side ("Greasy Spine").





Volcano Suns -

"Sea Cruise"

"Greasy Spine"

Pretty Smart On My Part

After Squirrel Bait broke up in 1987, David Grubbs started a new band, Bastro, only the name wasn't Bastro at first. I was at Bastro's first show-- at CBGB's in 1987-- and right up through the day of the show, Grubbs' band was listed in the CB's ads under a different name; I'm forgetting now, but it was something Big Black-ish, like Racer X or something. Then Grubbs got onstage that night and muttered, "Starting today, this is Bastro," and that was that.

For that first show Bastro was just Grubbs and a drum machine, although a girl came out and joined him on violin for one song (which didn't work out too well). Grubbs was very obviously influenced by Big Black at the time, to the point that he even had the foil sticker from the body bag version of "Headache" on his guitar. Most of Bastro's songs were fairly elementary Albini knock-offs, though there was one song called "Circumcision" that I liked a lot. It was a cover of another Louisville band called The Endtables, but I'd never heard of The Endtables, so when Grubbs introduced the song I thought he'd said, "This is a song by Antietam." Right up until Joe Stumble posted The Endtables EP on his Last Days of Man On Earth blog a year or two ago, I thought "Circumcision" was some great unreleased Antietam song.

I made a tape of Bastro's set, which came out pretty good and so I traded it around a bit-- I don't have a copy anymore, but someone out there might still have it. One other thing, which was kinda funny: the Volcano Suns were also on the bill that night, and brought along "I Hate The Bait" t-shirts just for the occasion.

It was maybe a year after that show that Bastro's first record came out, "Rode Hard and Put Up Wet"; a couple of songs that were on the live tape I had made were also on the LP, but it was just okay. After that, Bastro released a single with a real live drummer, "Shoot Me a Deer"/"Goiter Blazes", and that was a seriously awesome piece of rock.

Oh, yeah, this:




Bastro -

"Shoot Me a Deer"

"Goiter Blazes"

Because Of You I Missed The Ben Folds Concert

Last night at the Charter Oak in Hartford started out looking like a wash out when a bunch of Murdervan's gear wound up missing. Listed as the headliners, Murdervan instead went on second (after Post-Modern Sounds), playing without their pedals as well as without any replacement strings, apparently. A broken bass string mid-way through the third song almost brought an end to their set, and it took a few minutes of discussion before Murdervan finally finished playing using a bass borrowed from one of the other bands.

Steinbeck and Pluto Gang went on after Murdervan and ended up being just interesting (and stupid) enough pull this night out of the ashes, right when I thought things were gonna suck completely. Steinbeck, despite the literary band name and drawn-out song titles like "This Ain't the Age of Aquarius and I'm Not Growing Waterwings," actually rocked out and even reminded me of Dimestore Halos, I swear. Or at least the singer's voice sounded like Chaz Matthews' a bit, when he was in between sounding like Josh Silverman a lot (ex-Shirk Circus/Plus Tax, neither of which you've ever heard of so forget I even mentioned it).

Steinbeck had some, um, visual inconsistencies about them-- most notably the cast-wearing bass player and the barefoot drummer with the goofy kit and splash cymbals-- but they have a song on a brand new Magnetic Fields tribute album (I know, I know...) which I like way too much, actually, once I got past the problematic tempo changes. I'm sure we've all wondered a million times what Stephin Merritt would've sounded like if he'd grown up writing songs for a band like The Ergs!, without ever expecting to get the answer. Okay, maybe you haven't wondered, but here it is anyway:

Steinbeck -

"I Think I Need a New Heart"
(Magnetic Fields cover)






Pluto Gang then played a set of mostly ordinary pop punk, but were hilarious anyway, mostly because their shitfaced singer kept sliding on the carpet and falling down, even while he was picking fake fights with the crowd and everybody else in the band. They played "Coolidge" twice, as well as one song which I haven't figured out yet if it's a cover or not, but it goes, "I don't care what your momma's been thinking, everyone knows that BEER! AIN'T! DRINKING!!" Of course, bourbon is drinking, so eventually Pluto Gang's singer crawled behind the drum kit during the middle of a song and literally passed out, which was the end of Pluto Gang's set and the end of the night as well.

Pluto Gang -

"She Said"

While I'm at it, here's a track from the newest Murdervan CD; to their credit, even with all their technical problems and after going on early, Murdervan stuck around last night to watch the rest of the bands on the bill. By the way, they're playing Cafe Nine on June 12th with The Dukes of Hillsborough. Fukkin' right!




Murdervan -

"The Wheel"

Just Do Everything I Tell You To

Long-haired L.A. band + wah-wah pedal = total crap in most cases; however, two badass, ripping Dead Boys/Pagans type songs that clock in at under two minutes = great punk single every time, so we've got nooooo problems here.




The Humpers -

"Dead Last"

"Super Power"

Drop It Down

Here's the first Sukpatch 7", which was the first vinyl release for the previously tape-only Slabco, as well as the only Sukpatch record I own. I'm not sure why I haven't bought more of their records, seeing how I like this one so much. The best song here is "Empire Waist," which drops a cool low-key vocal over a snazzy keyboards/drums groove-- somewhat like the King Kong "Movie Star" single that I posted a couple months ago-- and has a killer hook, besides.

I remain mystified as to why someone would put a picture of Chris Russo on the cover while using blue and orange Mets colors, since everyone knows Chris Russo is a SF Giants fan.



Sukpatch -

"Cabo San Lucas"

"Empire Waist"

She Won't Fade Out

It wouldn't be much of an overstatement to say that Jim Rao's mid-90's bedroom pop recordings put him at the forefront of the Shrimper Rebellion-- those home-tracked twee pop artists with "thing" names (Refrigerator, Fishtick, Paste, Orange Cake Mix, Beanpole, Wallpaper, Crayon, etc). If you're into the Chilton/Bell songs on Big Star's "#1 Record" and the Chris Bell demos that came out afterwards, as obviously I am, then there's some Orange Cake Mix stuff out there that you've definitely gotta hear.

That's not to say that all of the Orange Cake Mix releases are great; it seemed like Jim had a new CD or 7" or 12" coming out every week once his music started to catch on, and most of them are pretty much crap, actually. For a while there I used to buy one Orange Cake Mix 7" or CD or LP after another, in search of at least one track where Jim would set aside the baby crib synthesizer noises and finally remember to plug his guitar in, but almost always came up empty.

"Observations of Tomorrow and Today", though, represents the peak of Rao's Chilton/Bell-styled output (along with the Orange Cake Mix track on Cher Doll's "Champagne Dancing Party" EP, which is a real gem). But you don't just have to take my revisionist version of history this time; here's my review from twelve years ago, in Brushback #5:


All I have now is the single-channel "mono" version, although I fixed it so that the one track shows up in both speakers. Always fixing what others fuck up, that's my motto.




Orange Cake Mix -

"She Won't Fade Out"

"Closely Guarded Secrets"

"Within"

"Don't Let Tomorrow Get In Your Way"

Thor Is Like Immortal

The Wäntage USA web site is confirming that this-- The Champs' second 7" (duh), back before they became The Fucking Champs-- is now out of print, so therefore I had to dig out my copy and rip it immediately.

"Thor Is Like Immortal" is like the fourth or sixth worst Queen song ever; you might like it, though. "Lee Tom", which is twice as good and half as long, is, as Wäntage says, "a white-hot rock masterpiece that few people can touch in terms of greatness"-- and they're never wrong. Seriously.

As Dark Helmet would say, "Commence to rocking the fuck out!"




The Fucking Champs -

"Lee Tom"

"Thor (is like immortal)"

Don't Go Near The Water

Head of David were like an updated version of Big Black made louder, more metal, and more convincingly British, and I remember playing the heck out of "LP" and "Dustbowl" back in the late 80's. Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death/Godflesh/Jesu) was the drummer in Head of David at one point, which was made into a big deal at the time ("Hey, didja hear there's a Big Black rip-off band that has a metal guy in it?"), but people forget that Paul Stanley was in Raging Slab for a while, and nobody cared.

This is one of the 45s that Blast First released as part of their limited "Devil's Jukebox" 7-inch box set. I don't own the full set of these, though I have at least one other that's kicking around (the Big Stick/Rapeman one, if you're taking notes).

Blast First, of course, is best known for not releasing any records that Homestead and SST didn't release first.




Head of David -

"Bugged"

"Snake Domain"

We Were Still Sleeping So They Started Shooting

This is a compilation LP that I picked up from Ajax Records a bunch of years ago (well, 1997, obviously). No doubt I took a flyer on this because Tim was pushing it for cheap and I probably had a $5 credit slip or something, so I tacked it onto one of my orders. Tim might've had a crummy fanzine and a mostly crappy record label, but he ran a heck of a mail order business, that's for sure.

"After The Divine Diving Insekt" isn't a bad collection, either, if you like little self-recorded bedroom pop songs and things of that nature. Like Blackbean & Placenta and a few other labels from around that time, this is about as D.I.Y. as it gets. My copy came with a record jacket that was recycled from an old New York Philharmonic album sleeve, spray-painted gold with stickers applied to the front and back. Sure, it might seem like an indie label cliche now that everybody's done it, but at one time it was a dumb idea that no one had ever thought of before. You know, like the first emo kid to figure out that a number 75 clasp envelope makes a perfect 7" record sleeve, some shit's so retarded that it was actually kinda genius once.

Most of the bands on this comp are from Florida (Gainesville, mostly) with a few exceptions, including The Philistines Jr., who're from Connecticut. I was never much of a fan of The Philistines Jr. and passed up plenty of opportunities to see them play and buy their records, but their song here is nicely hypnotic ("First came the Russians/And then came the Germans/Back came the Russians"), and I actually like it a lot. Peter Katis, of course, is better known these days as the producer for Interpol, The National, and Tokyo Police Club-- among others-- but back then he was just some guy in a couple of bands with his brother, putting out records that had really ugly sleeves.

I found this to be a pretty good record to have playing in the background while doing household chores and stuff, or as the last thing to listen to before going to sleep. Of course, lots of people wash dishes to Les Savy Fav, too, so that's probably not saying much.




The Philistines Jr. -

"WW II (The Big One)"

Congratulations Fruit -

"TJ Touchstone"

The Horrible Death Sensations -

"To Lure The Enemy's Pity by Intentionally Hurting Oneself"

Dumbwaiters -

"Guilty Gallons"

Added by request:

Furtips -

"Bitter"

The Raymond Brake -

"Curtains"

Talking To Walls

Describing a band by comparing them to a bunch of tiny little indie bands on tiny little indie labels isn't useful in every situation, so if a stranger were to walk up to me right now and ask, "What do Werewolf Police sound like?", I'd probably just say, "Like an underdeveloped Neutral Milk Hotel or Guided By Voices," and then walk away while pretending I didn't just describe a million other outfits.

At their show in Hartford last night at the Charter Oak Cultural Center (which is a church, basically), Werewolf Police were handing out homemade copies of their upcoming CD in a stapled-together paper pouch. Most of the songs are available for download on their web page, so I don't think I'm giving away too much of the store by posting my two favorite songs from the CD (which is coming out on tiny S.F. indie label Goodnow Music) here.




Werewolf Police -

"Birds They Chirp"

"Talking to Walls"

Guess I'm Really Screwed

Connecticut was home to a whole bunch of killer compilations back in the 90's, including the "Chop Whip Grate Liquify" LP/CD, the "One" 7-inch on Capsule, TPOS' "Destroy All Mediocrity" triple-vinyl set, and the Frozen Monkey CD. You're probably thinking to yourself, "I've never heard of a single freakin' one of those records," but trust me, they're all great. You can also add to the list the "I Can't Do Anything With 50 Cents" 7-inch, which came out on Jeff "Spaz" Coleman's Computer Crime label (Jeff was/is the drummer in Seizure, the Injections, Fudge Daddy-O's, and Clusterfuck, among others).

There's five ripping punk tracks here, all of them good, plus a cute Crass rip-off picture sleeve, and then those little extra touches that give a record its character-- in this case, Jeff's goofy explanation about where the comp's ingenious title comes from:


My favorite song here is Blanket Of Ash's "Too Messed Up", which I regard as the one greatest overlooked gem of the 90's Ct. punk scene and remains the only Blanket Of Ash material to ever be pressed, as far as I know. Ugly Truth's "See You Tonight" is another great pop-punk song, as well as being a notch above any of the four songs on Ugly Truth's self-titled EP that came out around '95 also (on Hatebreed's Stillborn record label, no less). The best Ugly Truth stuff, though, is on the Frozen Monkey CD compilation, which I'll get around to posting if I can ever find my copy.

Hardly any two Kitty Badass songs sounded alike, and their song here is one of their catchy, minute-long Cub-type numbers. As for the rest, I'm (rather reluctantly) leaving off the songs from Broken and Fudge Daddy-O's, since this compilation is still floating around out there-- Vital and Trash American Style still had some copies, last I knew-- so now you've got something to hunt for.



Kitty Badass -

"Chevy Impala"

Blanket Of Ash -

"Too Messed Up"

Ugly Truth -

"See You Tonite"

The Worst Record Ever Made

This, the self-proclaimed "Worst Record Ever Put Onto Vinyl", is apparently some Anti-Seen guys goofing around at an open mike night, or so I've heard. You'll either think it's funny as shit, or that it's the worst piece of crap ever. I'm left at a loss for words myself, which has become sort of a problem lately (remember back in the early days of this blog when my posts used to be funny? Yeah, me neither), so I'll let Malcolm Tent-- the star of the upcoming documentary, "I Must Have This Record, Either That Or It's Just A Cold Or Something," and the man responsible for putting Jeff Leopard to vinyl-- to describe it in his own words:

Here, for the first time ever, is the true story of the Jeff Leopard EP. In 1985, Broken Talent undertook its "Barely Alive '85" tour of the Eastern Seaboard. While in Charlotte, NC, we had the pleasure of crashing at the Anti-Seen pad. One day we were hanging around and Jeff Clayton played me the Jeff Leopard tape. Rarely have I experienced such mirth as I experienced when I heard the sheet metal rock anthem "Large Orange". The chorus of "mother... fucker" stuck with me for years. One day about seven years later Jeff mentioned that he still had the tape, and I insisted that I put it out. He was a little bit leery (actually, very leery) but considering that he'd already mastered it for pressing, it was decided that the record MUST come out. Now it's out and I still have to chuckle at "Large Orange".

Only 300 of these records were pressed, although even fewer got out because, as the story goes, after several years the band had the remaining unsold copies destroyed. Anyone who makes it through listening to all 12 minutes of mayhem here should get some kind of medal-- although I did leave one of the "songs" off, to show that I'm not entirely cruel.

There's no track listing for this, so based upon the only two song titles that I could figure out, I made up my own track listing to mark the a-side and b-side. Hey, classy!!




Jeff Leopard -

"Motherfuckin' Large Orange Motherfucker"

"Motherfuckin' Paranoid Motherfucker"

The Giants Had To Trip The Wire

This song has one of the most awesome, soaring hooks I've ever heard, and that's not surprising since Clint Conley of Mission of Burma wrote it. "Red Clouds" was Busted Statues' one and only record, other than some compilation tracks, but it's a pretty damn good one.

Even if you've never heard of Busted Statues before, you've probably heard of some of its members. David Kleiler, who played on this record, was also in Sorry and Volcano Suns, Corey Brennan was in Bullet Lavolta, and Bob Moses played in Kustomized with Peter Prescott. About the only other thing I know about Busted Statues is that Bob L'Heureux was nicknamed "The Grinning Skull", according to a story I once read in Forced Exposure, and, geez, once you know that, what else do you need to know?

A somewhat interesting footnote to this single is that Clint Conley later re-wrote "Red Clouds" as "What a Body Could Do", which appeared on the first Consonant CD, although Conley made mention of Busted Statues in the writing credits.




Busted Statues -

"Red Clouds"
(1989)

Consonant -

"What a Body Could Do"
(2002)

Get In Here Before This Stuff Coagulates

"Regrettably, this album cannot be recommended under any circumstances." --David Cleary, livefrommemphis.com

Jay Hinman posting "Hook or Crook" in his hilariously fake Cheater Slicks post the other week spurred me into listening to Ol' Butch's "Like Flies On Sherbert" again, and reacquainting myself with how great a record it is.

I freakin' love this record, so when I first started hearing that a lot of people can't stand it, I was thrown off a bit. I can sorta understand, though; if you only knew about Alex Chilton peripherally, through Big Star, and you unwittingly bought this record thinking it was gonna be more of the same, you probably got your head blown off by what was in the grooves and never wanted to listen to it again.

For me, though, this is the record that cemented Alex Chilton's genius status; he'd already mastered radio-ready Beatle-esque pop with Big Star, and with "Flies On Sherbert" he did the same for raunchy, gutbucket country/blues power stomp, or whatever you want to call it. It seems like folks have been trying to replicate this record for years-- from The Oblivians to The King Khan & BBQ Show to Paul Westerberg and whomever else-- and most of them have been pretty successful at it (except for Westerberg; "Dead Man Shake" really sucks), but there's nothing like the original.

I came into my Alex Chilton/Big Star worship a little late in the game, though it was before The Replacements released their "Alex Chilton" song, so I can say that at least. It took a few years of listening to a bunch of records from a bunch of bands that listed Big Star as a main influence, and reading in zine articles about how great Big Star was, before I got actually got motivated into going to the source and finding out what the deal was.

As it happened, the first Big Star record I ever bought-- probably around '86/'87 or so-- was actually a bootleg; a 7" that claimed to be a rough mix of "September Gurls", but sounded suspiciously just like the original. My only knowledge of "September Gurls" at that point was that The Replacements sometimes covered it, and I probably only remembered the song title because it was spelled funny. The bootleg was only about 5 bucks, so I bought it figuring it was a cheap way to start learning about who Big Star was.

Hearing "September Gurls" turned out to be like giving candy to a baby; pretty soon I owned a ton of Alex's records, including original Stax pressings of "Radio City" and "#1 Record" (which I later sold for $20 each-- stupid me), the "Bangkok" 45, the amazing "Dusted In Memphis" bootleg, "Singer Not The Song" as an import LP on white vinyl... and, of course, a vinyl copy of "Like Flies On Sherbert", originally released in 1979 as an edition of 500, although the copy I had was some French import or something.

One of the reasons I took an immediate liking to "Like Flies On Sherbert" was the lead-off track, "Boogie Shoes". I like goofy covers as much as anyone else (which explains why I own a bunch of stupid Me First and The Gimmie Gimmies records), and with "Boogie Shoes", Alex took a putrid AM radio memory from my 70's childhood, tore it down, and re-constructed it as an absolutely filthy, almost hard-rock number. The sheer brilliance of how Alex pulled off this stunt amazed me, and it still does.

About the only thing approaching Big Star-like pop on "Like Flies On Sherbert" is the mournful title track that ends the record, and even calling that "pop" would be a stretch. The rest of the album consists of covers of old C&W/honky-tonk artists and a handful of twisted Chilton originals, every single one of them a song that I used to catch myself singing aloud as I'd go about my day. Jim Testa once told me that there's some video footage of the recording of this album that shows the guitar amps nearly bouncing off the floor from all of the volume and distortion. Listening to "My Rival", especially with the way the opening bars could almost cut your head off, I can believe it.

Of course, Alex followed this up with a bunch of crap and then only got worse from there, although I stubbornly stuck with him through the "No Sex"/"High Priest" era, like most fans did. I even got to see Alex play at the old Grotto in New Haven, which was probably around 1988; Alex's stage presence was pretty stale, but the bass player in his band more than made up for it, jumping around and playing with his bass behind his head and so forth. Bill Callahan even made a joke about it in one of his zines, saying that The Replacements probably should've written a song called "Alex Chilton's Bass Player" instead.

I even got to meet Alex the night I saw him play, or I should say I almost knocked him out. He was walking down the street a short distance behind me as I entered the club, and after I was inside I suddenly got the idea that, Hey, I should hold the door open for Alex Chilton! So I hurriedly turned around, swung the door open to let him in, and with the door pretty much smacked Alex Chilton right in the face.

My original vinyl copy of "Like Flies On Sherbert" is long gone, of course, and I was happy enough to find a used copy on CD some years ago. The copy I bought is a bit odd, though; it wasn't until the first time I played it that I noticed that the CD itself, marked "Peabody Record Co.", doesn't match the "Last Call Records" artwork or track listing on the sleeve (Peabody is the label that released the orignal 500-copy vinyl pressing of "Like Flies On Sherbert"). No matter, since the same 5 bonus tracks are on either version, it's just that the one I have doesn't stick to the original running order.

I had a hard time limiting myself to only a few tracks to post here, as I was tempted to post nearly all of them, and then I remembered that most people don't really like this record so it was probably better that I didn't.




Alex Chilton -

"Boogie Shoes"

"My Rival"

"Hook Or Crook"

"Rock Hard"

"Like Flies On Sherbert"

"She's The One That's Got It"

"Baron of Love"

Fuck Your Self Esteem

I found out earlier today that "Fuck Your Self Esteem" is one of the songs Prisonshake is including on their forthcoming "Dirty Moons" album (re-recorded, of course), which made me decide that I should get around to ripping this now.

This is one of my favorite Prisonshake singles, although they're pretty much all my favorite, just some more than others. You can still buy this one from Scat, if you want to hear the two b-sides.

Yet another one of the song titles that nearly became the name of this blog, by the way.




Prisonshake -

"Fuck Your Self Esteem"

I Remember Falling Up My Driveway

Something sinister is happening to the guy in "Ashtray", exactly what I haven't figured out yet. On top of that the song doesn't really have a chorus, just three verses and then a neat guitar part (almost like a hardcore mosh part) where the chorus should be... and then it ends with a wicked ear-splitting guitar solo.

If there's a Pipe record out there that isn't totally the friggin' balls, then I haven't heard it. With "Warsaw" they even manage to make Joy Division listenable, which is somewhat of a first.




Pipe -

"Ashtray"

"Warsaw"

Better Off Blending In With The Crowd

This is the best Connecticut punk 7"-er of it's time, in my opinion, although the Reducers "Out Of Step"/"No Ambition" 45 and maybe the Stratford Survivors record are the only other legitimate contenders.

I guess October Days get compared to the Wipers a lot, but it would take having listened to the Wipers more than once or twice for me to figure that one out. What I like the most about October Days in general, and this record in particular (besides the awesome sleeve, of course, which is one of my all-time favorites), is that they wrote really ambitious songs that have a bunch of different things going on in them, but they don't have a lot of show-offy bullshit. October Days understood the value of punk's aggression, and in keeping things catchy and memorable. Plus, the chorus to "West Coast" goes, "Champagne new-rich new wave punk bitch," which isn't what he really says but it sure sounds like it, at least.

I've chosen ignore the reggae aspects of "Don't Give Yourself Away", preferring instead to think of it as a close relation to the Circle Jerks' "Back Against The Wall" while marveling at that cool pre-Dr.Dre organ riff bubbling along in the background.




October Days -

"West Coast"

"Don't Give Yourself Away"

I Wasn't Paying Attention

A last-minute cancellation of a M.O.T.O. show on Friday night in Providence turned out great for me, as the show was moved to Cafe Nine, which is a hell of a lot closer. And so, last night (or earlier today, actually, since M.O.T.O. didn't finish playing 'til almost 2 a.m.) I was able to take in a whole set of glorious M.O.T.O. goodness. Thanks for sucking, Providence!

Other than a couple of songs from The Vültüres that were awesome and sounded like the Melvins (the rest of their set was too thrashy), the only opening band worth mentioning was Hand Grenade Serenade, who ironically were the band I expected to like the least. Hand Grenade Serenade are yet another band with that crazy leftist politico thing going on, but they sounded friggin' great, and I said to myself, "Gee, this is a pretty damn good song" more than a couple of times while they were playing.




Hand Grenade Serenade's overt Clash-isms aren't as apparent live as they are on their CD, and the first comparison that popped into my head with them was Dillinger Four, which is what I almost always think when I hear a band that mixes politics with pop punk. Their best songs, though, have these cool 90's emo-type parts with some metal breakdowns mixed in, and are like a cross between Texas Is The Reason and Man Without Plan, seriously.

When I talked to the singer, Andy, after the show, he just looked at me funny, like "That's not it, dude," and said they get compared more to Fugazi when I mentioned the part about Texas Is The Reason, but then it all clicked later as I was driving home. I had the Hand Grenade Serenade CD in the CD player, and since I was on I-95 the song that goes "Now I'm driving down 95" on the first Man Without Plan CD popped into my head. It was so similar to the HGS song that was playing that it was kinda spooky.

Well, it was raining hard and my ears were still ringing and I was pretty tired, but that's how I remember it, at least.





Hand Grenade Serenade -

"Lost"

"Clap For The Clap"







As for M.O.T.O., they were on their way from a NYC show at the Knitting Factory to a couple of big shows up in Boston over the weekend, so Paul brought a whole bunch of stuff to sell. I was hoping he was going to have some copies of the Italian import "Turn Your Head And Cough" LP that just came out, but only 300 copies were made and the damn thing's sold out already. Paul's also been re-releasing a lot of the early M.O.T.O. cassettes on CD-R, and he had eleven different CD-R's with him. I grabbed a few of those, as well as a copy of the "Midnight at The Guantanamo Room" 45 on clear vinyl, which looks to be one of the 15-year-old originals and not a re-press. Someone must've found a box in a back room, or something.

Last night's M.O.T.O. was the stripped-down version, featuring Sir Dennis Eton Spaag (Bass MOTO) and Paul (Guitar MOTO), plus a volunteer drummer from one of the opening bands. That made things a little sloppy, of course, but it was still great, and there was plenty of fist pumping and head banging and air guitar going on in the crowd (which by that time was pretty much just me, the other bands on the bill, and a few of the Cafe Nine regulars).

Anyway, here's some stuff from a live M.O.T.O. performance on a college radio station, which is one of the M.O.T.O. CD-R's that I picked up at the show. Dig the classic "retro M.O.T.O." Sharpie-drawn artwork! Paul's got the straight edge!





M.O.T.O. -

"I Can't Stop It"

"Getting It Up For Physics"

"Choking On Your Insides"