Thursday, April 24, 2008

The ROCKY HORROR SHOW (UK) - Original London Cast

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW
-LP
1973 (UKAL 1006)





".....The album that started it all.....
Although TRHS has become a huge pop culture phenomenon today, back in 1973, the original production was a very simple show put on in a very small, intimate theatre. Since there wasn't much of a budget to speak of, very few props and special effects were used (unlike most of the official productions staged by Rocky Horror, Ltd. today). The fact that the first production of TRHS was such a low-budget, experimental piece of musical theatre MUST be considered when listening to the Original London Cast album for the first time.

The album is very different in that it was actually recorded in a day (and you can tell.) The musical arrangements and the orchestrations sound very amateurish, but that's how the music was originally written. Plus, it was recorded back when the show had only been running a short while. This recording is really the only official release of the score as it was originally performed.

Technically speaking, this album leaves a lot to be desired. Compared to the professionally produced Original Roxy Cast album it sounds like a demo recording...

The great thing about this album is the nostalgic value, it's the VERY FIRST production, and the fact that five of the members from this ensemble went on to do TRHPS makes it more appealing...

Another interesting note is that when this album was released in 1973 on UK/King Of England Records, it had a few engineering flaws in the first pressing. The errors were fixed with a bit of re-mixing, and the album was re-issued a short time later. ALL versions of the Original London Cast Album are the re-mixed version EXCEPT for the vinyl UK/King Of England release (UKAL 1006).


***Here are the differences in the 2 versions of the Original London Cast album:

# On the first pressing (UKAL 1006), 'The Time Warp' is mixed very poorly. During the chorus, the voices are mixed unevenly, and all you can hear is Richard O'Brien's voice. This make the song sound like a Riff solo. (Some Ritz junkies may argue that this makes this version superior...) The REMIXED version (all other releases) features an evenly mixed chorus in which you can hear all the right performers.

# On the first pressing, there's a small flaw in 'The Sword Of Damocles'..... in the beginning of the song when Rocky is being created and the music starts, Rocky sounds like he lets out a belch to start out the song. In the REMIXED version, the flaw has been fixed, and the song starts fine.

# On the first pressing, 'Hot Patootie (Bless My Soul)' is a few seconds longer, and the song ends abruptly with Eddie's death. In the REMIXED version, the song is shorter, and it ends in a fade. (Why they remixed this is beyond me.)

Remember that ALL versions of this album are the re-mixed version except for the original vinyl UKAL 1006 release. This first pressing is a bit difficult to find, but the differences in the two versions are few and far apart that it would probably only be of value to the extreme die-hard collectors." - sanityfortoday.com


CAST:
Narrator: Jonathon Adams
Frank-N-Furter: Tim Curry
Riff-Raff: Richard O'Brien
Brad Majors: Christopher Malcolm
Janet Weiss: Belinda Sinclair
Rocky Horror: Rayner Bourton
Usherette/Magenta: Patricia Quinn
Columbia: Little Nell
Eddie/Dr. Scott: Paddy O'Hagan

MUSICIANS
Richard Hartley: piano and organ
Count Ian Blair: guitar, electric and acoustic
Dennis Cowan: bass guitar
Martin Fitzgibbon: drums
Phil Kenzie: sax


TRACKLIST:
01 Science Fiction Double Feature
02 Dammit Janet
03 Over at the Frankenstein Place
04 Sweet Transvestite
05 The Time Warp
06 Sword of Damocles
07 Hot Patootie (Bless My Soul)
08 Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me
09 Once in a While
10 Rose Tint My World
11 I'm Going Home
12 Superheroes
13 Science Fiction Double Feature (Reprise)

DOWNLOAD (256k, 68 Mb)

OUTSIDEINSIDE (USA)

SIX POINT SIX
-CD
1994 (Hell Yeah)


Re-Up!


"Lee Joseph used to be the guy with the weird 'bowl-haircut in the Yard Trauma and he more recently played in the Outsideinside. He also owns the excellent Dionysus, Hell Yeah and Bacchus record labels that have gained a lot of respect in the garage and surf community throughout the years and more blabla..." - Dan Podakin

Cosmik: Why did you start Hell Yeah Records?

LJ: When the "garage" bands dried up and there was a lot of cool non-60s music happening in the 80s, we released some records that...fans of Dionysus didn't dig. At the same time, I'm sure that a lot of others would have liked the records but..they couldn't get past the name Dionysus cause they expected a 60s sound. Stuff like Kings Of Oblivion,Trash Can School, Dana Lynn, Lance Kaufman, Axel Grinders, later Yard Trauma... So, we decided to get a new identity for the release of these kinds of records. - Cosmik Debris Feb/96

"Meandering between feedback-heavy punk raves to near distortion-free pop gems and then finally descending into a hellish storm of electronic squeals, OI have what it takes to satisfy.

I've liked everything I've heard from the folk, and well, this is the most coherent bunch of songs they've committed to disc yet. I can hear a real band sound developing. While this does limit their scope a bit, it's probably for the best.

And don't worry about a lack of experimentation. Just flick on the title track and find yourself lost.

Perhaps the slightest bit mellower, but still light years from being mistaken for Green Day. Outsideinside is still foundering in the gutter, and I couldn't be more pleased. "
-reviewed in
Aiding and Abetting issue #52, 4/15/94


Vocals, Lead and Rhythm Guitar: Lee Joseph
Lead and Rhythm Guitar: Eric Arn
Bass: Melanie Bruck
Drums and Percussion: Allen Baxendale
Produced by Geza X., Lee Joseph, and Billy Bizeau


Tracklist
Sky's On Fyre
Big Hero, Big Zero
Two Weeks In Twelve Hours
Crimson Witch
Goldstar
Baklava
Desire
Non Sequitur
Chaos
Wet Majik Sex Dream
You Make Me Laugh, You Make Me Die
Truth, The
Sea, The
Six Point Six


Download (192 kbs, 57 MB)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The BUGHOUSE FIVE (Canada)

DARK DAYS PASSING
-CD
1996 (East Side Records)





"Coming from a world where Gene Vincent and Leonard Cohen share the same brain... Bughouse 5 produces some of the most melancholy Rockabilly to ever stay at home, smash up the furniture, and drink itself to sleep every night." - eastvanmungo


"BUGHOUSE FIVE was formed in September, 1991 by the members of several of Vancouver's most notorious bands; The Nervous Fellas, The Rocking Edsels and Art Bergman, to name a few.

Fronted by the charismatic Butch "Big Boy" Murphy and backed up by the rock solid drumming of Taylor Little(Furies), the band quickly earned a name as one of the hardest working, most entertaining rockabilly bands around.

Their two early releases on East Side Records, Solid and Dark Days Passing, gave evidence to the strong songwriting and cool musicianship that are Bughouse Five's hallmark to this day." - Dense Milt


"Far from a mere rockabilly band, Vancouver's Bughouse Five stretch out in all directions on their first CD. Guitarist Russel Schindel's Peter Green-like slinky blues guitar, clipped country staccatos and pure pop strumming are excellent throughout, and he particularly shines on the opening cut "Move." Not that the rest of the band is to be ignored -- far from it. Upright bassist Ron Hayward is known all over town for his hard-hitting Railway Club jam sessions and he smokes here as ever; drummer Taylor Little has played with almost everyone of note in town, for good reason; and singer Butch Murphy holds down the ruckus with as soulful a set of pipes as Eddie Cochran.

This band kicks up some serious fun and furious frenetic boppin' on cuts like "Really Ugly," and covers like the classic "Tell Me Mama" and Dave Alvin's "I Don't Want To." Or they play sensitive country blues numbers, like Hayward's great "601 South Delta Blues." If they're chasing down a single it would be hard to best Schindel's "Old Tom Mullen," one of those catchy folk ballad rockers that has a timeless quality about it.

It's a hard road to travel down these days, being a rockabilly-influenced country rock band in the nineties, but genuine emotion should stand for something, and the Bughouse Five have plenty." - Stuart Derdeyn


BUTCH MURPHY - vocals, harmonica
RUSSELL SCHINDEL - guitars, backing vocals
RONNIE HAYWARD - Upright Bass
TAYLOR LITTLE - Drums, percussion

TRACKLIST:
01 Move
02 Really Ugly
03 Soothing Green
04 Leaving
05 Old Tom Mullen
06 Linger On
07 Tell Me Mama
08 Dark Days Passing
09 Colour Bearer
10 Truth
11 601 South Delta Blues
12 Sweet Virginia
13 I Don't Want To

DOWNLOAD (192k, 58 Mb)

The MUMMIES (USA)

RUNNIN' ON EMPTY Vol.1
-LP
1996 (Estrus)


Re-Up!


"Garage rock played by psychos who wore nothing but mummy bandage over their naked bodies using instruments who didn't cost more than their clothes and sucking everything from The Sonics. THIS IS ROCK AND ROLL!!" - danelectro


"This is a classic album." - Dirk Ungawa



"Say dig you punkniks this, and lend me your ears. For ‘tis i that have been given the unfortunate task of swaying your better Judgement. To hip you to this swinging group of recking no counts, The Mummies! In the record bizz-nizz that’s got promises no more of blueswailing this, or wilderness that, I say HAH! Dig that this hairy group of hellish Nothings have pounded a bloody trail from BumF#ck Egypt, to San Francisco California, using outta this world Teenage Disaster Hell sounds emitted from the Cheapest of Thrift store instruments. Dig that in which every Mummies show was required by law to be a hard-hat wearing area, and the site condemned immediately thereafter. Dig that daring humans to withstand the onslaught and stench of the Uncooked, Gut-churning throw-up noise those masters of sloppedness call Rythem and Blues (hah!) either run screaming (like a regular L7) , or let out the honest to Gawd Skull-Skorching ugliness burn into there souls. so dig this you wiggy ones, this flaming chunk o’ wax, convulsing with sounds if 4 Ball-Blasting Mofos, and 3 times as many screw ups. Yeah, 3 times as many. It just wouldn’t be the Mummies any other way. So What have you got to say about that, Boys? “ If you Dont like What you hear, BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!!!” The Mummies rule of Thumb: “ When in doubt............Punk it out!!!!” ---Yeah!"- prof. Pap Amen-Kortex March 1990


"The first installment of yet another post-mortem batch of Mummies gems culled from the corroded corners of the wrapped ones' cavernous crapper this LP unearths the very first recordings attempted by the band recorded between the last months of 1988 and the first part of 1989 and a complete, uncut and uncensored Mummies show recorded live at the Chameleon 9/5/91 which is perhaps the best fidelity you're likely to hear from a recorded Mummies show, bootlegs be damned." - Estrus


Trent Ruane: organ
Russell Quan: drums
Maz Kattuah: bass
Larry Winther: guitar


side one are all previously unreleased recordings:
side two is live at the Chameleon 9/5/91:

Tracklist:
1. One Potato, Two Potato
2. The House On The Hill
3. Die!
4. (They Call Me) Willie The Wild One
5. The Mummies' Theme
6. Shit
7. The Double Axe
8. Come On Up (Felix Cavaliere)
9. What A Way To Die
10. The Fly
11. Uncontrollable Urge (Devo)
12. Justine (Don Harris, Dewey Terry)
13. (My Love Is) Stronger Than Dirt
14. Skinny Minnie (B. Haley, A. "Rusty" Keefer, C. Cafra, M. Gabier)
15. One Potato, Two Potato

Download (192 kbs, 56 Mb)

ROY LONEY and The A-BONES (USA)

BOY MEETS BONE
-12" EP
1993 (Norton)

Re-Up!


Frantic 4-pack howled by fab Flamin' Groovie shouter Roy, backed by beer n' potato chip fueled A-Bones! Recorded in San Francisco garage studio! Mighty, mighty all righty!

12" EP version of Roy/Bones single on hideous barfed up soda color wax/no cover/stamped n' numbered labels! Only 99 pressed n' sold at 1993 Garage Shock Fest!


"Norton label honchos and acute garage-slop historians, the husband-and-wife team of Billy Miller (vocals) and Miriam Linna (drums) kept the passionate torch of grimy, booze-soaked dance music burning, fueled by a fanatical homage to their forgotten heroes of the '50s and '60s and grass-roots perseverance. The A-Bones deliberately and sloppily executed their own original brand of spirited, crud-encrusted trash-rock with maniacal fury, ultimately excavating the buried remains of stone-age rock 'n' roll and creating a Frankenstein monster of wildly unmatched proportions." -Ron Bally, Tucson Weekly

"Besides being able to switch from rockabilly to garage to rhythm and blues with seemingly relative ease, the A-Bones were pretty good at getting various rockin' legends to record with 'em...
It was a particular pleasure hearing Loney and the A-Bones tackle the PEBBLES "chestnut" "Stop It Baby" again since it was not only such a good song to begin with, but because hearing Loney sing it would have only been a mad fever dream to most garage band aficionados back in 1978 and you would have to leave it to B&M to have pulled off such a wild stunt..." -Chris

Tracklist:
Side One:
Stop It Baby
You Know What You Can Do
Side Two:
Jump Into The River
Smoke Rings


Roy Loney - lead vocals
Bruce Bennett - guitar
Marcus The Carcass - bass
Lars Espensen - tenor sax
Miriam Linna - drums
Billy Miller - backing vocals
Lance Kaufman - piano on "Jump Into The River"
Produced by Roy & The A-Bones
Recorded May 18, 1992 at Mr. Toad's, San Francisco
Mixed at Coyote Studios, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Also released as a 7-inch with this cover:





















Download (192 kbs, 14 Mb)

Sunday, April 13, 2008

TUNES FROM THE CRYPT (Canada) - V/A

CRYPTIC TYMES presents TUNES FROM THE CRYPT
-CS
1990 (Cryptic Tymes)


Re-Up!


"Alan Wright wrote about rock'n'roll music for a wide variety of zines and magazines starting in the mid-'80s, including What Wave, Feline Frenzy, Maximum Rock 'N' Roll, Flipside, Between The Lines, The Rocket, The Stranger, Brutarian, 10 Things Jesus Wants You To Know, The BOB, Ugly Things, Misty Lane and Hit List. He published his first zine What Now? in 1987 and later produced Cryptic Tymes and Do The Pop!. His head was a library of rock and punk information and he helped coordinate a few '60s garage and '70s punk band reissues and anthologies. Originally from Canada, he and his wife Lisa moved to Seattle in 1993, where he wrote, published zines, played in bands, and worked for the Lifelong AIDS Alliance. He was a drummer and played for a bunch of bands, including The 14th Wray, Thee Upper Crust, The Primate 5, The Castros, The Infernal Three, The Reckless Bastards, and finally The Earaches." - Zine Wiki


"Alan was a freak. A fucking beautiful freak. There was no end to his enthusiasm for music. The guy couldn’t keep track of his glasses for five minutes but could tell you who played bass on the mono British b-side of a Count Five single. He couldn’t load gear for shit, but he would tirelessly promote the band. He sent out over 400 copies of our first demos and I swear it was copy #401 that got us signed. Whatever band he played in he put his entire heart into it. Alan didn’t have perfect meter but he had a hunger that made up for it. If you made even the most casual reference to a band he would immediately inundate you with tapes, CDRs, videos, ‘zine articles or whatever about that band. He was a walking encyclopedia and it was usually hard to shut him up just because he’d be so into it. Fuck, when I think about it, most of what I’ve learned about the history of rock and roll in the past seven years has been because of Alan. He turned me onto so many great bands, both old and new, which in turn influenced the music that we made together. But not just me, Alan would talk about music to anyone who would listen. He just wanted to turn on the world to all the great rock and roll out there." - August




Tracklist:
01 - Marshmallow Overcoat-Cinderella
02 - Smugglers-5-4-3-2-1
03 - 14th Wray-The man who lives next door
04 - Beatpack-My baby left me
05 - Cattle-Little black egg (Live)
06 - Prehistoric Cave Strokers-Cave bangin' (Live)
07 - Silent Mercenaries-I wanna be an accountant
08 - Captain Crunch-You don't exist in transit
09 - Mourning After-Pauline (Live)
10 - Jig Saw Seen-8 Lancashire lads
11 - Misc.'S'-Cream soda kill! kill!
12 - Stand-Losing my frustrations
13 - Sanity Assasins-Once upon a time
14 - Screaming Daisies-Caught within your game
15 - Nightstalkers-Too many images
16 - 1313 Mockingbird Lane-Pretty boy (Live)
17 - Fish Karma-I'm so lonesome, I could cry
18 - Big Scary Daddies-Shrimp aren't vegetables
19 - Deja Voodoo-Swamp of love (Live)
20 - Al Perry-Dancing bear
21 - Hurtin' Kind-Look inside


Download (192 k, 82 Mb)

Monday, April 7, 2008

The DEMICS (Canada)


TALK'S CHEAP
-EP
1979 (Ready
Records)


Re-Up!



"When the Demics' EP Talk's Cheap
later came out I snatched it up. After a few listens I called several people over and dropped the needle on "New York City"... that's all it took. " - Dan Husband




THE DEMICS
-LP
1980 (Intercan Hypnotic)





"It's 1977. London, Canada is a town of 200,000 located in the farm belt of Southwestern Ontario; 120 miles west of Toronto. 120 miles east of Detroit.

Meanwhile, New York City's CBGB's scene and London England's punk explosion set off musical and cultural shock waves so powerful that they are felt even in a remote secondary market.The punk rock aesthetic makes it possible for bands to form and audiences to gather seemingly overnight.

THE DEMICS are the first of many bands to form in London, and they have a crazed audience right from the start. In the fall of 1977 Eddie & The Hot Rods play for three nights at London's premiere rock club. At the same time, the downtown London loft scene, inhabited by artist, printers, eccentrics and drain-pipe jeans began to crop up amid the prevailing flairs and long hair. The members of the Demics first meet in this milieu.The band begins rehearsing with Keith Whittaker on vocals, Rob Brent on guitar, Iain Atkinson on bass and Nick Perry on drums. Keith was from Manchester, England and Iain was from Cambridge, while Rob and Nick were natives of London, Ontario. Keith already had the name for the band, a Manchester slang insult meaning "loser" "dork" or "wanker"." - Mod Pop Punk Archives


"October 1978, there was a Halloween punk rock bash at The Polish Hall on Ann Street. It was sold out. I stood outside with about 30 other curious lost souls listening to the glorious noise within...the building's glass vibrating, walls booming.

Apparently there was a plan afoot ,someone flung the side door open from inside and we all rushed in. The first thing I saw when I rounded the corner, was Keith Whittaker - lead singer for the Demics - diving headfirst into the crowd to confront somebody who was pissing him off. The band kept playing. The crowd was alive, moving, crashing into each other. Heads bobbing up and down through a haze of smoke hanging over their heads.

It's an image I can conjure up at any time... I doubt it will ever leave me. It was one of those defining moments in one's life, when you know you are on to something good. And God Damn, it was good! The music was great, and more importantly...it was mine. I belonged here and I knew it. This wasn't just about the band, or the music, this was about everyone in attendance - the participation and the mad scene sucking us all in. It was electric, startling and it was real..." - Dan Husband



"In late 1978 The Demics recorded a five-song EP entitled "Talk's cheap" for newly-formed indie label Ready Records. The vinyl EP(released in early 1979) went throught a number of pressings and is now a collector's item. One song from the EP, "New York City" a slower-tempo but still punk-rocking song, immediately received airplay on alternative and college FM radio(including pioneer-ing "New music" station CFNY in Toronto) and became the band's signature song. By early 1979 all of the band members had moved to Toronto. Through constant live playing the band added new original songs and covers ranging from rockabilly to 60's garage psychedelia to punk building a repertoire of short, fast, loud, punked-out pop songs about boredom, anger and frustration, all laced with Keith's sarcastic wit. High energy music by and for the pissed off..." - Mod Pop Punk Archives


"The band was wooed to Tom Treumuth's Hypnotic Records label who were more equipped, along with the Intercan label, to take the band farther with its distribution deal through Pickwick Records. The result was the self-titled debut album in 1980 and the band's first legitimate hit single "New York City" -- produced by legendary English guitarist/producer Chris Spedding.

The Demics' rising star was short lived and the band split up amidst lack of a clear vision and musical direction following the loss of their deal on Intercan/Hypnotic." - Canoe


"In March of 1996 Chart Magazine, the voice of college and alternative radio in Canada, voted "New York City" the best Canadian single of all time, placing ahead of the heavyweights like Neil Young and the Guess Who."- Mod Pop Punk Archives

The Demics:
Keith Whittaker - vocals
Jimmy Weatherspoon - drums
Ian Atkinson - bass
Rob Brent - guitar(Talk's Cheap)
Steve Koch - guitar(Demics ST)

TALK'S CHEAP
:
1. I Wanna Know
2. You Tell Me
3. Talk's Cheap
4. New York City
5. Oh Well

THE DEMICS - ST:
1. I Won't See You No More
2. Blueboy
3. New York City
4. The Grey and the Black
5. The 400 Blows
6. Talk, Talk
7. The News
8. The Least You Can Do
9. Lucy
10. All Gone Wrong


Download (128 K, 37 Mb)


Sunday, April 6, 2008

'63 MONROE (Canada)

STINKIN' OUT THE JOINT
-CS/LP
1985 (Savvy)



Re-Up!


" '63 Monroe is a story all by itself. Success, tragedy... it was all there. I'd write a book if I had the time. They were more than just another sex drugs and rock n roll story. To their credit they never gave in to the music industry ..." - band website


"The band's name derived from the obvious; that being the beginning of a new legend. It is also a statement showing the member's feelings towards the insanity, excesses and stupidity of the jet set celebrities and of their own demise. Although influences on the band had included the New York Dolls, The Ramones as well as early London (Canada) bands such as the Demics, they were aware of the importance of finding their own niche. The sound was raw, but enjoyable to the punk/metal crossover generation...and for those who understood that the band was approaching alternative music from a different angle, they were a breath of fresh air." - Danny Napalm


“You can only play so much before you’ve over saturated a market,” says (singer) Steven R.Stunning. “You’ve always got to figure out something to do to make it fun, so that’s what we did..."

...’63 Monroe starting pooling their collective inspiration to adopt a sound that showcased, more than anything else, their desire to just have fun. So, when names like Kiss, The Ramones, T-Rex, Gary Glitter, Motorhead, Alice Cooper, and the New York Dolls were bandied about, one word came to mind.
“Showmanship,” says Stunning. “We were always a punk band and quite well aware of the New York Dolls and Kiss. We were always trying to do the glam thing and it just sort of evolved. It was more about the show – sounding good and looking good...”


In 1985, the band released their second album, the highly praised Stinkin’ Out the Joint. SOTJ is a back alley blast of rattling cans and fists on flesh – a steady and raw groove of chunky metal and slumbering punk. Stunning’s voice on SOTJ is particularly interesting, like a psychedelic Wolfman with a new wave echo and inaudible lower east side tongue. The whole thing lacks severely in production value, giving you a sense of what it would have been like to be front row at The Cedar Lounge for a rock show. The success of SOTJ took ’63 Monroe beyond London’s borders, including a show at CBGB’s in NYC with Johnny Blitz’s band...


The scene was hotter than ever and at the heart of it all was ’63 Monroe, whose stage antics began to take on a life of their own – porno broadcasts, platform boots, nudity, coffins, smoke bombs, dry ice. ’63 Monroe was defiantly flaunting raunchy excess as though they were LA hipsters, not London (Ontario) overachievers. But overachievers they were, contently inventing new ways to tear up their hometown instead of going after the tainted allure of fame and fortune." - Jeff Warren, Sleazegrinder.com


Marky Burnaway - guitars, vocals, synthesizer
Steven R. Stunning - vocals
Jeff "Rooster" Rooth - drums, vocals
Pete Dekoker - bass, vocals

Produced by Davin deKergommeaux


Tracklist:
Horizontal Hold
Yumpin'
Twist My Wrist
Can't Trust Her
Soup To Nuts
Henry VIII
99th Floor
Damage Done
Hey, Little Girl
Cyonide
Wrong To You
The Battle
Weekend Punks

Download (128kbs, 36 MB)

The WESLEY WILLIS FIASCO (USA)

Spooky
disharmonious

conflicthellride
-CD
1995 (Urban Legend)





"People all over the world know about the legend, the rock superstar that is Wesley Willis. Some may say he is the most prolific artist of our time. But one thing most people don't know is that Wesley Willis once had an amazing rock god worthy band, called the Fiasco." - MartianChurch


"His songs were simultaneously disturbing, hilarious, blunt, and intoxicating. Wesley's sheer excitement and unaffected honesty about every cultural phenomenon, defined his music as truly individual, and truly punk rock." - Alternative Tentacles

"In the year of 1990 up 'til 1996, I had 12,852 hell bus rides on the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) bus." - Wesley Willis


"Once Wesley Willis was simply a member of Chicago's legions of homeless, albeit a rather unique and imposing one -- a six-and-a-half foot, 350-pound black man with a brow-to-chin knife scar and severe paranoid schizophrenia who rode the bus a lot and earned a little money selling his colorful line drawings of the city. In the early '90s Willis began writing songs and before long, pre-Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan collaborator Dale Meiners took him in, helped him exhibit his art, and introduced him to such local indie rock luminaries as Corgan, Urge Overkill's Nash Kato and Steve Albini. Soon Meiners and Willis were playing music together in the aptly titled heavy metal group The Wesley Willis Fiasco." - Jesse Ashlock



"Chicago has produced many great things: The Bulls, wind, and the Bulls. But nothing has been more culturally important and groundbreaking than Wesley Willis, a 300-pound schizophrenic black man who is quite possibly the greatest 300-pound schizophrenic black man who ever lived.

Born in 1963, and dead in 2003 from leukemia, Wesley Willis, like the Ramones, proved that talent wasn't necessarily important when it came to making rock music as long as you had moxie by the booty loads - and a keyboard that never said "that's enough, Wesley!"

But with over 1,000 songs in his archive and a cult following of "Harold and Maude" proportions, Wesley still doesn't get the epic respect that Elvis Presley does.

That's indecent. Especially because Wesley did more for music than that hunka hunka burning turd ever did.

Here's why. Back, way back - before Wesley, before even dinosaurs - people were content with songs with "meaning." Songs that really touched the inner hair follicles of their souls. Wesley changed all that.

Instead of making sense like most musicians did, Wesley just started saying nonsense, paving the way for other groups like Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys.

He did this over heavy guitar riffs and dramatic drum solos - and my Lord, it was riveting.



With genre-bending songs such as "Jesus is the Answer," "Stop The Violence" and "Casper The Homosexual Friendly Ghost," Wesley was already making a name for himself. That name being Wesley Willis." - Rich Knight

Wesley Willis - Vocals
Dale Meiners - guitar
Pat Barnard - guitar
Dave Nooks - bass guitar
Brendan Murphy - drums


TRACKLIST:
1. Get On The Bus
2. I'm Doing It Well On The Side Of The REA
3. Pop That Pussy
4. Casper The Homosexual Friendly Ghost
5. I Can't Drive
6. He's Doing Time In Jail
7. Bar Is Closed, The
8. Jesus Is The Answer
9. Blood, Guts & Fire Trucks
10. She Loves Me Truly
11. Drink That Whiskey
12. Steve Albini
13. Steve Albini (reprise)
14. I'm Sorry That I Got Fat

Download Part1 Part2 (you'll need both)

The DICKIES (USA)

WE AREN'T THE WORLD
-CS
1986 (ROIR)


Re-Up!


"Idiocy of a ridiculous, catchy, and hilarious kind -- the best sort one can ask for. Playing up their punk inspirations as much as they did their Mad Magazine upbringings and varying musical touchstones of youth, it's the Dickies in the rawest form around, an hour-long laugh riot that rocks. Aside from an initial four song demo session from late 1977, with extremely rough rips through such beloved first album hits as "Hideous" and "You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)," We Aren't the World captures the band onstage here, there, and everywhere. Huge gigs in the U.K. during their late-'70s pop heyday and club romps and riffs in CBGB's and elsewhere are culled, with the only track duplication being a 1982 take on "You Drive Me Ape." Anyone even slightly in love with the Dickies' studio work will kill for this, but the real joy is that total neophytes to the group will probably find this as equally a perfect introduction as Great Dictations.

While the recording quality varies, to put it mildly, hearing Phillips' often-hilarious between-song comments and introductions and Lee's full-on, balls-out rock heroics in an unrestrained live setting, not to mention rapturous audience cheers and eggings on is more than enough to make up for it. At no point do the band sound like they couldn't eat anyone else for breakfast, however wide the smiles.

Highlights are legion: introducing their hyperspeed cover of "The Sounds of Silence" -- "Paul Simon taught us this next tune...over a highly homosexually erotic game...of Mousetrap!" During a 1985 show, at the height of Live Aid mania -- "Absolutely none of tonight's profits are going to Ethiopia!" Top it off with an abusive (and tongue-in-cheek) essay from Frontier Records boss and former Dickies fan club president Lisa Fancher, and all is well in Dickiedom." ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide


TRACKLIST:
1 Hideous
2 I'm O.K., You're O.K.
3 You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)
4 Walk Like An Egg
5 Paranoid
6 Give It Back
7 Sounds of Silence
8 Got It At The Store
9 Eve of Destruction
10 Rondo in a Major (Midget's Revenge)
11 Infidel Zombie
12 Curb Job
13 Gigantor
14 Nights in White Satin
15 You Drive Me Ape (Version 2)
16 Pretty Please
17 Poodle Party
18 She's a Hunchback
19 She
20 (I'm Stuck in a Pagoda With) Tricia Toyota
21 Manny, Moe and Jack
22 Fan Mail
23 If Stewart Could Talk
24 Bowling with Bedrock Barney
25 Banana Splits

Includes J-card art and liner notes

Download (192 kbs, 87 Mb)

The TOKYO TRASHVILLE! (Japan) - V/A

The TOKYO TRASHVILLE
-cd
(AU-GO-GO) 1997


Re-Up!


Offering a slightly exotic twist on the crude butt-kickin' mayhem that garage punk fans love, this compilation documents an underground scene that began with occasional "Back from the Grave" nights at a club in Tokyo's red-light district. At first people just drank and listened to their favorite records; then they formed bands, performed themselves, and unleashed this music on the rest of the world.
This album provides an overview of this scene, starting at full throttle with Supersnazz pushing the spirit of the Pebbles compilations into the 1990s. Another highlight is hearing the 5.6.7.8's barrel through "Ki-Kiya Shout" with the off-kilter enthusiasm of a band just learning how to play its instruments. Elsewhere on this album, Guitar Wolf steamrolls through the heavy guitar rock of "Kung Fu Ramone"; Teengenerate shows their '70s punk roots with "Johnny and Dee Dee"; Jackie & the Cedrics and Mad 3 indicate they've been listening to Dick Dale and the Ventures; and the remaining bands evoke the spirit (if not quite the quality) of the Stooges, MC5, Radio Birdman, and the great rockabilly artists.
Tokyo Trashville isn't consistently brilliant, and it certainly doesn't feature lush production or pristine performances, but it's definitely a lot of fun. ~ Todd Kristel, All Music Guide

Tracklist:
1. Year 1 - Supersnazz
2. Chocolate - Muddy Frankenstein
3. He's Waitin' - Guinny Vamps
4. Johnny & Dee Dee - Teengenerate
5. Kung Fu Ramone - Guitar Wolf
6. Photographer - Texaco Leatherman
7. Motorbikin' Shake! - Mutant Monster Beach Party
8. Let's Dance - Great Mongoose
9. Squad Car - Jackie & The Cedrics
10. Ki-Kya Shout - The 5.6.7.8's
11. Ali Baba - Mad 3


Download (192 kbs, 37 Mb)

Saturday, April 5, 2008

BIKINI KILL (USA) / HUGGY BEAR (UK)


YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH/
OUR TROUBLED YOUTH
-LP(split)
1993 (Kill Rock Stars)





"Hell yeah! This is how to REALLY do it, two of the finest bands in the riot grrl genre and this is one of both bands' finest moments...Brighton avant-punkers Huggy Bear contribute one side of music (which was their first non-7" release.) and Washington based scene stalwarts Bikini Kill took the other to produce one of the scene's defining moments. Basically if you haven't heard any riot grrl music but are enjoying the current abundance of shouty punks in skirts then you really need to buy this record, I don't think I can stress it any more than this. Originally released back in 1993 when the scene was fresh and young, it's now 13 years later and I'm still just as excited about it. Real attitude, real loud guitars and real grit, none of your haircuts and trendy Hoxtonites. please turn this up very loud and most importantly ENJOY. Essential." - Boomkat


"On the strength of its legendary live shows, Bikini Kill — the archetypal riot grrrl band — was packing clubs before it even had a record out. Singer Kathleen Hanna, an American incarnation of X-Ray Spex's Poly Styrene, worked the crowd like a master preacher, singing, speechifying and switching between a little-girl voice and a full-throated howl, bringing girls to the front and attacking obnoxious guys, sometimes verbally, sometimes physically. Meanwhile, the band...bashed out passionate three-chord punk behind her; every so often, Vail would take over the mic for an even more confrontational number...
Their basic message: girls should be empowered, molesting children is bad, etc. Subtle they're not, but sometimes a two-by-four is the only prescription." - Douglas Wolk


" The band’s music wasn’t stupid, and it wasn’t like its members couldn’t play. But Bikini Kill sure as hell wasn’t subtle, either. Basically, the band...showed the world that the rage and speed of hardcore punk could be co-opted out of the hands of the meatheads.

There were female punk bands before Bikini Kill, but few that had dared to be so primal and raw, and even fewer that made gender so central to their music. Thus, the band’s sound was at once startlingly old-fashioned and revolutionary." - Anthony Ha

Bikini Kill:
Kathleen Hanna
Kathi Wilcox
Billy Karren
Tobi Vail


"When Huggy Bear's first EP came out, there was an instant buzz about the English group in the international pop underground-they were "boy/girl revolutionaries" (translation: a credible riot grrrl band with a boy singing most of the time), they covered their record packages with political manifestos that didn't make very much sense, they refused to be interviewed or photographed, they didn't reveal their actual identities and they were young and irrepressibly energetic." - Douglas Wolk


"That was the greatest thing about Huggy Bear - the argument between Niki and Chris. He shouted and she screamed - it was the sound of pure hate, the sound of two people stuck in a room getting on each others' nerves until all hell breaks loose. Huggy Bear songs were always edgy and brittle like they were going to break apart in a mess of shards." - Marceline Smith

Huggy Bear:
Chris Rawley
Jo Johnson
Jon Slade
Karen Hill
Niki Eliot


TRACKLIST:
Bikini Kill - Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
A1 White Boy
A2 This Is Not A Test
A3 Don't Need You
A4 Jigsaw Youth
A5 Resist Psychic Death
A6 Rebel Girl
A7 Outta Me

Huggy Bear - Our Troubled Youth
B1 Jupiter Re-Entry
B2 T-Shirt Tucked In
B3 Blow Dry
B4 Nu Song
B5 Into The Mission
B6 Hopscotch
B7 Aqua Girl Star
B8 February 14th

DOWNLOAD (256k, 62 Mb)

Friday, April 4, 2008

The FORBIDDEN DIMENSION (Canada)

WIDOW'S WALK
- promo cassette
1997 (Cargo Records)


Re-Up!


"I’ve tried and tried to pin it down, but you just can’t pin down FD’s sound in a word or two. It carries on the spirit of 50’s horror novelty-pop with a more twisted and subversive dynamic similarly to The Misfits. There’s a huge amount of early KISS, Alice Cooper, Stooges, and lots of late 60’s Garage Rock influence, complete with a spooky b-movie Hammond organ. Speaking of Alice, Jackson Phibes sounds just like him although he does occasionally drop down to a Johnny Cash baritone. And speaking of Cash, there’s a whole lot of Country and Rockabilly influence in their sound. Don’t think that I mean good ol’ boy “my dog died and my woman left me and I drive a big truck” country. This is tough as nails with fuzzed-out guitars, aggression and plenty of ghoulishness. Then there’s their habit of including 3 or 4 Surf Guitar instrumentals on each album. So imagine The Munsters playing theatrical Punk, Garage, Country, Hard Rock/Heavy Metal, Surf type music with plenty of gallows humor and horror-obsession.

This is their third, last and, in my opinion, their best album. There’s not much Punk influence this time, but there is more Alice Cooper/Stooges/KISS type Hard Rock than you can shake a femur at. The organ keeps things nice and spooky and Phibes’ Alice-like snarls fit the music like a corpse in a coffin. (Sorry for all the bad graveyard puns, I’m in a mood.) The lyrics are very witty, sarcastic and even hilarious at times. The guitar work on this album is glorious. Phibes is a very talented guitarist and these songs are full of his self-indulgent, wailing solos and killer gothabilly licks. He’s also a very clever songwriter. In fact these songs are so well written, I have a hard time understanding why Forbidden Dimension aren’t hailed as one of the greatest Rock bands of the 90’s. Well, no I don’t actually. These guys were either far behind or way ahead of their time. Probably both." -Crypt


TRACKLIST:
My Family Curse
Satan's Satellite
The Pain Parlor - Instru-mental
Bedroom Despot
House of 1000 Dolls
The Deathbird Song
Terminal Stare
Tiptoe Thru The Tombstones - Instru-mental
Venus On Wheels
A Cold & Lonely Evil
Butcher, Maker, Undertaker
Irricana Bloodbath - Instu-mental
The Devil's Generation



JACKSON PHIBES: Axes, organs, yammering
CARL PAGAN: Blood & gore
BLOODY HOLLY: Subterranean rumbling

Recorded by Dave Harrison


Download (192 Kbs, 52 Mb)