Thursday, August 28, 2008

Fifty Years Is Enough For Those Fuckers

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If I haven't already said this before, I'll stack the 90's Danbury scene up against any other similarly-sized scene in country and come out a winner every single time. "Chop Whip Grate Liquefy" (mudd 1) is one of the earliest documents of that Danbury scene, and was bread-and-butter listening for me back then along with all of the other great records that M.U.D.D. Industries put out throughout the decade (including the awesome Geezer Lake record, which, while they weren't a Ct. band, is still the best Geezer Lake album ever).

I've owned three different versions of this comp-- on LP, CD, and cassette-- although my CD copy has gone missing, and since the CD now lists for $40 - $50 on places like Amazon and GEMM, I don't plan on buying a replacement anytime soon. I've never even opened the wrapper on the cassette; I just like having it around, since it's cute to look at. Each of the three formats have a slightly different pictures on the front or back, and the CD includes four extra tracks not on the cassette or LP, athough they're singles tracks (from Monsterland, HED, Onion, and G'nu Fuz) that I already own on the original 7"-ers anyway.

One song doesn't do enough to show how great all of these bands really were, but I own multiple other records for every band on this compilation (save for Bad Dreamhouse), all of which will get posted eventually, if I haven't already started.

Since I'm feeling especially helpful today, I'll give a quick recap of each of the tracks I've posted here (skip over any of them at your own peril):


Monsterland - Yet another insanely catchy Monsterland song, besides being hilarious, too. Later re-released on an EP once Monsterland got screwed signed to a semi-major label.
G'nu Fuz - The most "trad rock" of any these bands; smoother than a shamrock shake, with hellacious chops to boot.
China Pig - Fudd was in No Milk On Tuesday, of course; China Pig (along with Slint, Dis-, and some other bands) were post-rock before post-rock was even invented, but the local papers never knew what to do with them so they just called them grunge.
Freakbaby - Kind of Antietam/Helium-like, kinda.
Bunnybrains - Legendary noise rockers. They were on Matador. That's gotta make them legendary, right?
HED - Ungodly rock. There's a part in this song after the second chorus (or whatever you want to call it) which is so freaking heavy that it makes Cream sound like, well, Cream. Cream suck.

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Monsterland -

"Girlfriend On Drugs"

G'nu Fuz -

"Warm Feeling"

China Pig -

"Old Man"

Freakbaby -

"Retroactive Karma"

Bunnybrains -

"Whipping Through"

HED -

"The Horror"

(these files are now listen-only)





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10 comments:

ib said...

Another excellent post, Brushback. And another beautiful artifact.

Oddly, G'Nu Fuz's "Warm Feeling" has a vocal eerily reminiscent of Beeheart and not China Pig, as the name might suggest. The harmonica on the intro very nearly put me off at first, but it's a very cool song, even in its orthodoxy. China Pig aren't too shoddy either.

Hed's "The Horror" is great. Very Mascis like riffing.

Very tidy scans and accompanying shots as usual! Cheers!

Brushback said...

Thanks, ib!

I was noticing something odd-- the Bunnybrains song is listed on the label as "The Wilderness" and as "Wilderness" in the on-line Bunnybrains discography, but as "Whipping Through" in the booklet.

I went with "Whipping Through" because it sounds cooler. People may want to adjust their iPods, though.

ib said...

Yeah. "Whipping Through" sounds way better.

Brushback said...

By the way, ib, did you get a chance to check out the King Khan & BBQ Show studio tracks that I posted a short while back? You'd probably dig 'em. I think they're brilliant, at least.

ib said...

Thanks for the tip, Brushback. I will definitely give it a listen.

dan said...

stop th flashbacks

Brushback said...

The mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files. TOUGH LUCK, CHARLIE! No, actually, for those of you who missed the boat, I will do my best to respond to any e-mailed requests for the original files.

Anonymous said...

I was in Freakbaby. Thanks for posting this. I have some other stuff up at at a myspace site:

http://www.myspace.com/freakbabyjetjag

We were kinda like Antietem (Saw them in Naugatuck and at Maxwells). But we were never really into Helium. Hell, we're more contemporaneous with Autoclave, who were kinda boring.

Brushback said...

Yeah, I saw Freakbaby after Todd joined, and I think after you guys changed your name to Jet Jaguar.

I also remember Nevertheless covering "Unable To Turn The Bat On Himself" at a show in Danbury. That was pretty good. That was my favorite Freakbaby song, too. I don't know if I still have that single-- I'd have to look...

Anonymous said...

The Nevertheless covered us! I never heard them do that! Hilarious. We loved us some Central CT. Everybody up there ruled.

UTTTBOH is on the My Pet Pig single. Probably our biggest "hit" (ha!).

Cheers.