Recently Acquired

Thought I'd give a quick review of a couple of records bought recently.

Monochrome Set - 405 Lines 7"/Alphaville 7"

Have to say that these are both very cool indie-pop records from the late 70s. First heard the Monochrome Set with their s/t 7" I downloaded form Soulseek - not sure where I actually heard about them, I presume it was a blog site bot for the life of me I can't remember which one. Anyway, if you're into slightly more pop-styled post punk/rough trade fare then this is definitely for you.

Spizz Oil - 6,000 Crazy 7"

I remember first hearing Where's Captain Kirk? by Spizz Energi on a middling to bad cheap punk comp I bought in a local Woolworths of all places years ago and thinking it was a cool song, if only for novelty value. Fast forward to last year and I'm absorbing the Rough Trade Post Punk vol.1 comp and in the booklet the compiler makes reference to a band called Spizz Oil and I'm intrigued - can two different bands have the word Spizz in the title. Turns out no, the singer had a thing whereby he had to change the band name every year (Athletic Spizz80 are another variant), and Spizz Oil are one of the earlier modes. This single is from 1978/9 on rough trade and is ok, a little same-y to a lot of music coming out at this time, clearly very influenced by the punk 'sound'. The title song is probably the best on the record

Dawson - Romping Egos 7"

Dawson are a Scottish band from Glasgow who were around during the late 80s/early 90s and ran their own label called Gruff Wit on which this record was released. They were contempories of Dog Faced Hermans and a number of other bands (including the fantastically named Archbishop Kebab) who are examined in much better detail here. This record is a jerky, pounding affair with multiple rhythms scuttling off all over the place and a song named for Noel Edmunds (possibly the highlight of the record). Going to need to try and track down some of their other records

Top 50 'Punk' Songs

Way back in my more formative years Mojo ran an article detailing the top 100 punk singles, ach having to have been released on te hallowed 7" format to qualify. Now, I hope to compile a broadly similar list (everyone loves a list, right?) of the top individual songs, regardless of context or format. For the list I have created a broad church, trying to tap into the wide range of music which can be said to come under the umbrella of 'punk'. The only real quaification for a song to appear on this list was that it should have been released or recorded between around 1975-1986 (with one or two exceptions), thus disqualifying any modern bands classifying thmselves as punk. Also, although each song has a number, these do not in any way relate to any kind of ranking - I had a hard enough job just choosing 50 without attempting to pit them in order, they are all worthy of your time. The links next to some of the tracks will take you to a selection of websites who host these tracks, including some of the good folks linked on the left hand side of this page, so if you go to these pages have a look around - there's lots more eserving music within those pages. Well, without further ado, here goes......

1. The Saints - Know Your Product
2. Lipstick Killers - Hindu Gods (of Love)
3. Joy Division - She's Lost Control
4. Au Pairs - You
5. Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business
6. Bloody Mannequin Orchestra - Streets of Saigon
7. The Offs - Everyone's A Bigot
8. The Cure - Killing an Arab
9. The Fall - Psycho Mafia
10. Pel Mel - No Word From China
11. Limp - Marked Man
12. Black Flag - American Waste
13. Minor Threat - Bottled Violence
14. Flipper - Sex Bomb Baby
15. Germs - Lexicon Devil
16. Negative Approach - Can't Tell No-One
17. Weirdos - Life of Crime
18. Kiwi Animal - Blue Morning
19. Animals & Men - Don't Misbehave in the New Age
20. Misfits - Hybrid Moments
21. X - Johnny Hit and Run Pauline
22. Pylon - Crazy
23. Discharge - Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing
24. Wire - A Question of Degree
25. Beaver - Georgetown Sucks
26. Pagans - Eyes of Satan (live)
27. Television - Little Johnny Jewel
28. Savage Republic - Film Noir
29. Proletariat - Options
30. Descendents - Hope
31. Circle Jerks - Deny Everything
32. Fastbacks - Swallow My Pride
33. Clash - Guns of Brixton
34. As Mercenarias - Inimigo
35. Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
36. Killing Joke - The Wait
37. Gang of Four - Damaged Goods
38. Purrkurr Pilnikk - Ovaent
39. Gun Club - Sex Beat
40. Fang - Fun With Acid
41. Metal Urbain - Panik
42. Public Image Limited - Swan Lake
43. Crass - Big A Little A
44. Dead Kennedys - When Ya Get Drafted
45. Josef K - Sorry For Laughing
46. GISM - Endless Blockades for the Pussyfooters
47. Kalashnikov - Laederhalse
48. Slits - Heard it Through the Grapevine
49. Void - Condensed Flesh
50. Cabaret Voltaire - Nag Nag Nag

Phew! That was hard work. For the benefit of my mate who thought it shouldn't be too hard, here's the rest of the songs I wanted to put on the list but just couldn't find the space....

51. Radio Birdman - Aloha, Steve and Danno..
52. Victims - Television Addict
53. Damned - Neat Neat Neat
54. Sex Pistols - Bodies
55. Stiff Little Fingers - White Noise
56. Ramones - We're A Happy Family
57. Rudimentary Peni - Nothin' Like A Nightmare
58. Sonic Youth - Burning Spear
59. Seems Twice - Anglican War
60. AK47 - The Badge Means You Suck
61. Minutemen - The Maze
62. Butthole Surfers - Bar-B-Q Pope
63. Eat - Communist Radio
64. Gorilla Aktiv - Spiegelbild
65. Monochrome Set - Monochrome Set
66. Bad Brains - Right Brigade
67. REM - Burning Hell
68. Pere Ubu - Final Solution
69. The Count 5 - Psychotic Reaction
70. Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer
71. Adolescents - Amoeba
72. Husker Du - Something I Learned Today
73. Angry Samoans - Homosexual
74. Alleycats - Too Much Junk
75. Fartz - World Full of Hate
76. Agent Orange - Bloodstains
77. Throbbing Gristle - United
78. Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want)
79. Pop Group - We Are Time
80. Pigbag - Sunny Day
81. Essential Logic - Wonderful Offer
82. DRI - Violent Pacification
83. Septic Death - Silence
84. Bodies - (Where are the) Bodies?
85. No Trend - Cancer
86. Negative Trend - No Alternative
87. Subhumans - Wake Up Screaming
88. Rip, Rig & Panic - Beat the Beast
89. Liquid Liquid - Cavern
90. Swell Maps - Read About Seymour
91. Cramps - Human Fly (should be in the top 50 for sure)
92. Meat Puppets - Lost
93. James Chance & the Contortions - Contort Yourself
94. Specials - Ghost Town
95. Buzzcocks - What Do I Get?

Abba

Hey, had a few quite serious posts there so here's a more light hearted one. I love Abba, there's no getting around that fact - the Euro-cheese factor or 'Ring Ring' and 'Waterloo', the perfect pop of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', the slightly rocking 'Does Your Mother Know' and the slower, more contemplative later stuff like 'Thank You For the Music' (gets me every time) and 'One of Us', all are equally deserving of my love. But why?? Well, I was brought up on a diet of Abba, Daniel O'Donnell and Cliff Richard so Abba (and silence) became an escape of sorts. On family trips up to the north of Scotland we would listen to Abba Gold and More Abba Gold on repeat (it is like, a four-five hour journey from where I stay) so I got pretty familiar with the music. This came back to me the other day on a trip to visit my Great-aunt and I found Abba Gold in the glove box and thought "what the hey" before putting it in the tape deck. Well, it was wonderful (except for the fact that my younger sister insisted on signing along for the WHOLE journey) and I rediscovered what is curently my favourite Abba song - 'Lay All Your Love': what an absolute belter, makes me want to shake my ass and groove all night!!

Post Punk

Hey peeps, haven't posted for a couple of days now - been far too busy binging on that broad musical movement known as 'post punk'. Seriously, I've been dragging out records from the darkest recesses and I've rediscovered my love for all things noisy and funky. I have to say, how great is Penis Envy by Crass? Not a band usually noted for their musical talents (can I just state here and now that The Feeding of the 5000 and the Big A Little A records are also fantastic) they totally amped it up on this album, with funky bass lines and strangled guitar noise (slightly reminiscent of PiL, but for my money more enjoyable over the course of an album) abounding, particularly on the first two tracks 'Bata Motel' and 'Systematic Death'.

Also been giving airtime to various Icelandic and Australian bands and made a couple of discoveries, namely Bodies and the Slugfuckers (whose song 'Poem' is astounding) . Bodies appear on the Rokk i Reykjavik compilation alongside bands such as Purkurr Pilnikk (featuring Einar Orn Benediktsson), Theyr and Tappi Tikaras (with a young Bjork - wait! There's no need to run away!) with their track 'Where are the Bodies', resplendant in all their Joy Division worshipping glory. This is a seriously great song - does anyone know if they released anything else? The other highlight from the album is 'Ovaent' by Purkurr Pilnikk, a frantic minute long energy bolt.

A Little Grab Bag

Though I'd run through a quick list of some of the stuff that has been penetrating my personal space over the last few days (some of it uninvited) so here goes-

Birthright by James Blood Ulmer- this record has come as a surprise, as I was expecting full blown freako-jazz with wailing sax/trumpet/trombone/whatever but instead received some very laid back and mournful blues, perfect for summer evenings out on the porch (if I had one that is). Anyway, the track 'White Man's Jail' is the standout to me, just kinda taking me to that humid scene on the front porch somewhere in the Mississippi delta. As an aside, didn't Ulmer have some connection to Ornette Coleman (I have the Shape of Jazz to Come and was expecting a similar sound to that record)?

Sonic Youth by Sonic Youth- this first EP is just peerless, possibly my favouite release by the band (alongside Evol and Sister), you've got to love Kim's simple bass lines and the atmosphere being created within the sounds. It's even danceable, at least as far as SY go. Saw about 10 minutes of their appearance at T in the Park festival a number of years ago and they stunk (my mate will kill me for asying that) but nothing can tak away from their recorded legacy of the 80s.

Smile by Lily Allen- I can picture you all now exclaiming "what the £&$%" with this selection but bear with me. For any non-UK readers, this song is currently number 1 (I believe, I don't follow the charts for fairly obvious reasons) over here and is damn near unavoidable on mainstream radio (which I must confess to listening to in the car). Fortunately, at least for my sanity, I find this a bizarrely fitting tune for driving around in the summertime with its catchy lyrics and jaunty, reggae style backbeat (similar to 9-5 by the Ordinary Boys with Lady Sovereign which I also like, for the same reasons). I realise that I should be floged for this given my often strident feelings to anything remotely in the same ballpark as this but it floats my boat and makes me smile (pun only kind of intended).

Lost Records

For those of you out there in the know, you'll be aware of where this blog takes its name - the early 80s prog masterpiece by Bad Religion. For those of you who are BR virgins, the band started out as a third-tier Los Angeles punk group (behind the likes of the Circle Jerks, Germs, Black Flag, Minutemen, Alleycats, Flesheaters, X etc, etc) before following the 'anything goes' maxim of punk (or what they saw as punk) and falling back on their prog rock roots (Greg Graffin's early years in Wisconsin) for their sophomore effort Into the Unknown. Well, it seems that the LA punkers at the time were just not ready for such a leap and were hostile to the release (two of the band even left during recording so as not to spoil their name). As a result, the group disowned it, refused to repress or reissue it in any form and after a brief hiatus came back with the Into the Known EP (a return to their punk sound) and from there released Suffer, the album which almost single-handedly kick started the SoCal punk revolution that would grip the world (for better or for worse) for the next decade.

However, what of this record - overall I have to say that it isn't bad, clearly there are some wince inducing sounds which are far too 80s for my liking and an air of pomposity but then that was the point of prog was it not? It took me a long time to get a listen to this album (if you fancy it head over to Strange Reaction and hunt around - I'm sure it's on there somewhere) and if I have to pick a favourite it would have to be Time & Disregard, which is probably the most overblown song on the record. Still, for something a little different this is more than worth a shot - I just wish that Brett Gurewitz at Epitaph would consider reissuing it on CD some day.

On the subject, are there any albums any of you out there would want to see reissued - my wants would have to be Mystery Spot by Angst (my shout for the most underrated SST band, although I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on that one), Gone Fishin' by Flipper and Too Many Humans by No Trend. There are probably loads more but I can't think of any other standouts right at this minute so that can wait for another day.

Saturday Afternoon and All Was Not Well

Well, although my profile claims that I work in education I'm afraid that's not quite true until next month so until then I still have to bear with my long running student job of shop assisstant - I can feel the shivers down your spine from here. So, normally it's not too bad, I work in what could loosely be defined as a 'boardsports' kind of store though fashion seems to be playing a bigger and bigger part (ps. for a clue on who I work for - get the first album by C.Aarme and listen to track four - tells you all you need to know). Anyway, on Saturday just past the music hit a new low when the manager (whose taste is, well screw it, they have none) decided that Geogaddi by Boards of Canada was far too depressing and had to be changed. Long story short, they went to the Virgin Megastore across the road and bought an abomination called R&B Classics or suchlike depicting a curvaceous Hispanic lady on the cover in cut off denims and a HUGE diamante belt buckle sporting said title. Well, it was worse than it sounds - all ear-bleeding three discs of it. Let's just say that Dy-Na-My-Tee-Hee by Miss Dynamite was the highlight of proceedings.

Suitably chastened, I had to escape to the local record emporium (not the Virgin, what do you take me for!!) - Avalanche records. Aaahh, sweet relief - despite being skint I managed to pick up the following: !!!:Louden Up Now, Nightmare of You:s/t and A Tribe Called Quest: Midnight Marauders. Not a bad trip all told - although I only got to play A Tribe Called Quest in the shop. However, have since been impressed by both !!! and Nightmare of You in differing ways. First up, !!! - a band of whom I've heard quite a bit but never actually heard up until this week and I'm impresed with their punk/funk (uurgh) stew, bringing to these ears mind a sprinkling of Liquid Liquid and their 99 Records Ilk, a smatter of a number of Rough Trade style bands of the early eighties (those whose singer clearly pretended to be Ian Curtis in the bathroom mirror) and a bit of the less demented Warp records groups (the labe on which this was released) - not a bad heritage. Just found out that their new album is due out in the next couple of months, maybe one to watch out for.

On a different tack, the eponymous debut by Nightmare of You is something which I really should not like, and had I heard it a couple of years ago during the darkest trough of my depths into US HC and the Discharge clones from the continent I belive I may have hurled said platter across the room, uttered a curse and stomped off - but alas I am no longer quite such an angry young man and can appreciate the charms of the odd nice record - and this is a very nice record. My main reason for nuying this is the presence of one of the guitarists from the Movielife (Hey, I like them) and Sammy Siegler (a legend in some circles for his past bands - a decent drummer to my mind but then I'm not as ready to worship at the heels CIV, Rival Schools et al). It's poppy, upbeat, eigthies influenced and has washes of synths and hits the right chord with me at this point - maybe it's the longing for summer (I should point out here that the old joke about Scotland having only two seasons and those being winter and JUne has a certain element of truth) and brighter, carefree times. Either way, I'm glad it was bought and it can now no doubt sit in a rack for another ten months until the urge to hear it again overtakes me with the first wisps of spring.

A Little Introduction

Well, here we go people - a spangly new blog on the market. I have no idea where this blog may go in the future but for the minute I hope to give my two cents (or pence I should really say) about music which floats my boat, whether it's brand spanking new or old stuff which I've been turned onto by some excellent blogs who do a better job than I could ever hope to. With that out the way here is a brief taster of the sort of stuff which I hope to wax eloquent (or at least rant a little) about in the forthcoming weeks and months - punk music (specifically Amercian) from 1976-1984 (everyone should ahve a little HC in their lives), reggae (about which I am striving to learn more) and some hip-hop/electro type stuff (start with DJ Shadow and move from there...). I also hope at some point to mount a defence of a number of artists whom I feel have been hard done to by sections of the blogging community eg. Metallica, ABBA and Girls Aloud to name three and waffle about my recently acquisitions and discoveries. However, I want to point out that I will cover a much wider breadth of music than this and also that I am neither an English major (hence the possibility of poor grammar at some point) nor as knowledgable as I would like to be about many styles of music and am always ready to listen to knowlegde, opinions and suggestions where appropriate and hope both myself and others can take something away from this here blog. Well, that's it from me just now.