Death 'For The Whole World To See' (1975)

Recorded by the three brothers Hackney in 1975 but bafflingly left unreleased until last year, Death (not to be confused with the equally trailblazing death/technical metal pioneers of the 80s) left us a mere 7 songs, but what epic and prescient statements they were!

They started as an R'n'B outfit before changing tack - embracing hard rock and the proto-punk of other Motor City originals like the Stooges and MC5 - whilst, to my ears at least, retaining the soul and social conscience of early 70s African-American music.
The result resembles a sound at once like Bad Brains and hardcore punk five years before the fact, with an unmistakable Detroit groove barely contained in a strait jacket of outrage: that of social outcasts trying to comprehend the senseless prejudice and apathy of the world around them. If this all sounds a bit too angsty and sincere to you then you'd do well to remember that this is rock music and getthehelloffamypage.
Now, the Bad Brains comparison isn't just some handy euphimism for all-black (so-called Afro-punk) groups of the 1970s, but one for the political approach and wide range of moods that both bands evoked over the majority of their peers within a raw punk framework. The album begins like any other Detroit garage group, presaging the Dirtbombs et al. Track 2 is spookily H.R, or even the 'black New York Dolls' Pure Hell. However the songs hereafter become lengthier, incorporating time changes and introspective lyrics; there are echoes of Curtis Mayfield's funk, the soul and rhythmic gospel seemingly compulsory for Detroit and even the jaded 1970s psychedelic hangover.

Ahead-of-their-time cuts like 'Let the World Turn', 'You're a Prisoner' and 'Politicians In My Eyes' ought to have reached the nascent punk subculture and become bonafide classics, but they didn't. Death self-released one 7'' single - these recordings having been funded by Columbia Records - and were swiftly dropped after refusing to compromise with a friendlier band name. Now is your chance to hear what a generation missed out on.

Alb'm
Afro-punk doque

Black Flag 'Who's Got the 10½?' (1985)

Purpose

Roll call:
Greg Ginn - Mahavishnu improv-punk, dissonant garrote strings
Henry Rollins - Banshee razor throat, vox of conscience
Kira Roessler - Bump buh bum bu bump buh, (see album title)
Anthony Martinez (RIP B. Stevenson) - machine gun allfiller/timekiller

One of me favourite albums (and a live one at that!) period, been meaning to share it f'some time. Ripped from CD (how quaint!). Rollins didn't write any of these songs, but he is on form here, spitting fire and making every lyric his own - if you know the guy you'll know that they might as well have been.
I can't think of any other bands who provoked this white-knuckle rapture of tight-wound, late-night sobriety and damning isolation. It's violent catharsis. A band where the guitarist plays lead and rhythm simultaneously!
True, the post-Damaged era of Sabbath/free jazz-inspired sludgecore yielded some seminal albums that would essentially be responsible for the grunge movement (as I and the 'key players' see it) and an anti-scene vision/work ethic that goes above and beyond the narrow strictures of 'punk' of early 80's west coast US; BUUUT one might argue that the muddy/downright awful/yet-to-be-remastered (come on Ginn, ya c*nt!) production on most of those albums never truly represented the explosive/implosive experience of LIVE Black Flag.

1984's live effort, their only truly inconsequential record, was an example of just about everything going pear-shaped as a recording and as a poorly-mixed slab o' Flag.
Black Flag lived on the road, they played anywhere anytime and, by all accounts, always delivered. A performance band, then. See the Youchoobs for prüf. They developed their sound on the road and through the cassettes played on the van's tape deck. In this van Ginn wrote his lyrics, which set up camp behind Rollins' increasingly misanthropic and punishing thousand-yard stare. They saw The Shit all over and they called it, that's the young man's duty.

And since the Flag were a band that worked more live than in any other medium, thank ___ they left us with a perfect snapshot of their final peak; before the as-yet unexplained animosity of Greg Ginn towards Rollins could sever an already frayed and exhausted relationship. Personally I suspect it was a clash between Ginn's psychotropic use (hear it in the music, the 70's influence) and Rollins' heart-of-stone sober focus. Ginn's music after Flag was, unsurprisingly, mainly jazz fusion guitar jams.

But here on 10½ we gots all the innovations of 80s Flag: the fucked-up time signatures, the anti-solos, fronted by a caged animal, ever-lengthening hair... and the ability to conjure a leaden heart in three chords like no other band on earth. These were never your average L.A. punk wasters. As for more contemporaneous influences they were in good company on Ginn's SST with post-punk expansionists Minutemen, Meat Puppets... you can hear the soundemolitions of their beloved Einstürzende Neubauten in here too.
The extensive setlist is not slim on the old anthemiklassix either - there's the customary freakout stoner jam (what better way to stick it to the skinheads?) and medley, you'll love it if you have ears and any small measure of righteous anger.
I could write endlessly about this record, its relevance to me personally, its meaning to other musicians and how BF were one of the few that 'rose above' (hurrrr) the surrounding pond life-smegma of La-La Swamp. Are you sick of the swamp and its revolting fumes? You aren't the only one. Join yourself!

Better Than the Beatles #234: Cardiacs

^1984

30-year-old (and counting) cult institution from my old hometown of Kingston Upon Thames, brought to you by the ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN.

Despite the fact that Tim Smith (the brains of the operation) has always vehemently rejected the 'progressive' label (he prefers simply 'pop' or 'psychedelic') it is a reasonable point to raise: in Cardiacs' music there is a fondness for unusual chord progressions, chord modulation, and compressing the equivalent of a prog epic into 4 minutes or less... All with the energy of a '77 band. Cardiacs also opened for Marillion in the 80s, apparently Fish was heartbroken when the fans did not take to them...
It's natural that an amateur such as myself who can't write for toffee should always seek to pigeonhole a sound for n00bs, but the Cardiacs are infamous for being one of those idiosyncratic oddities who sound remarkably similar to nobody except Cardiacs. The only comparisons I can come up with are the more anarchic, ambitious New Wavers like XTC and Split Enz (particularly the latter's early years), mixed with the avant-rock of Henry Cow... Infact they straddle all types of 'progness' whenever they feel like it, perhaps playing symphonic Yes-ness one minute and unhinged Gentle Giant sing-songs the next. That's the remarkable quality of this band, there are seemingly no limits. But you can always relying on the delivery being OTT to the point of ridiculousness and bewilderingly melodic - you know that this is Tim Smith's idea of how pop music should be.
They are also obscenely tight live. Unfortunately Smith suffered, erm, a cardiac arrest in 2008, and it's unlikely you or I will ever experience a 'religious' Cardiacs performance.

I think this is as clear-cut a case of love 'em or hate 'em as you will ever encounter on this blog... Unacknowledged genius or bad acid trip in a fairground? Or are they just trying too hard? I don't think so personally, plus buried in the lyrical abstractions are some statements somewhere I am sure of it, which keeps me listening.
Presented here is 'Sing To God', a 1995 double album which will leave you laughing hysterically, then slack-jawed in disbelief as each track reaches new heights of structural insanity and musical prodigiousness. And then the injustice of it all hits you, that by this time the 'classic' Cardiacs line-up had shrunk to a quartet, and they actually somehow played this shit onstage, constantly, to comparatively tiny audiences of loyal fruitcakes. It's just not fair. God bless Cardiacs.
This is from the album, easily the most insane piece of music I have heard in a long time

Métal Urbain 'Anarchy In Paris!' (2004)

Just read this now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9tal_Urbain
Download this compilation that shits from a great height on all your favourite rosbif/scenester/constipated grunters of decades past: http://tiny.cc/Jyw7f

Wesley Willis Sampler

Daniel Crapston

To mark the sixth anniversary of this one-of-a-kind performer's death by heart failure (it was yesterday actually), I've uploaded not an album or one of Jello Biafra's excellent 'Greatest Hits' compilations but all of the free tracks from the Alternative Tentacles website. That's 24 tracks in total, a pretty good deal I think. Note that this comprises Wesley's extremely prolific solo output (he once recorded 4 albums in 36 days) and only one track by Wesley Willis Fiasco, the punk band he fronted.

Wesley Willis was a cult legend in the 90's, a hit in the early days of P2P filesharing, and certainly not your run-of-the-mill Chicago street musician. He was a clinically obese, diagnosed chronic schizophrenic and talented felt-tip landscape artist who liked to greet new friends with a headbutt (thus the ever-present third eye bruise on his forehead) and relay his totally unique, blunt and childlike worldview via simplistic three chord songs - each one as bewildering and hilarious as the last. The songs will crack even the iciest veneer, and as well as making you laugh give you plenty of food for thought when you look at his life - it was traumatic by all accounts as he suffered child abuse and abject poverty, only to later have to (literally) battle his inner demons. This was not a well man. But far from his music being some sort of exploitative arena for the Wesley Willis Freak Show (it sure as hell woulda been if he'd been picked up by a major), it seems like 'rock-a-roll' was Wesley's catharsis and therapy, his means of suppressing the voices in his head. He actually named these demons, and the accompanying psychotic episodes they induced he referred to as 'warhellrides'; apparently he normally experienced these riding on the Chicago bus lines - one of his favourite hobbies. Wesley mainly sung about things he enjoyed, and having opened for many bands in his time was particularly fond of writing songs about them: 'Foo Fighters', 'Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers', 'Swervedriver' being just a few.

'Rock over London, rock on Chicago'

Check out the Alt. Tentacles tribute page and enjoy the music. It will bring a smile to your face at the very least. Whilst Willis is obviously the star of the show with his out-of-tune voice and unique wisdom, his band/producer clearly knew how to tap in to the weirdness of the uncategorizable songs and the sprightly backing is prone to long instrumental passages and weird, Ween-esque pitch-adjusted harmonies.
Listen:
Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds
Northwest Airlines

If you are taken with this stuff, the AT prices seem more than reasonable and the CDs come with an obscene amount of extras. One of the best parts of ordering from an indie or direct from the artist is the personal messages ('Keep on rockin' Jinsie!' etc) and the occasional freebie thrown in the parcel you didn't ask for. Then there's the fact that you're helping to stem the tide of mainstream cattle music; and who knows maybe less great bands would split prematurely and fewer promising labels would go under if people actually did things the old-fashioned way and bought stuff they liked. Mindless acquisition will only take you so far if you have half a brain. I personally can't wait to start buying up my most cherished digital music hoardings on CD.

Perhaps that's why most major labels have been turning a blind eye to mp3 blogs, it's free advertising... fortunately however there are still people who are opposed to lining the pockets of corporations who, for many decades, have overpriced awful, awful music and gone out of their way to screw the artists. But, hey, as long as fashion fascism exists and the apathetic populace continues to buy what they are told to, it'll go on. I'd sooner pay 9 quid for a Wesley Willis record than a single penny for a fucking chainstore Calvin Harris album on Sony BMG or Polydor or whatever... Especially as that penny would not be going to Harris.

The Saints - (I'm) Stranded (1977)

The album cover you viddy to the right belongs to arguably the greatest Australian record of all time - certainly the most influential on the Antipodean music scene, and definitely one of the finest first wave punk albums. Now, check out the unlikely purveyors of the scuzziest kinda garage punk photographed on the sleeve. You'll notice that not one of them is dolled up in leather or safety pins - that Richard Hell-inspired scene uniform of the time, popularized by the CBGB's bunch and the London movement...
This is because in 1975, when the Saints formed and started pressing their own singles, there was no D.I.Y./punk scene in Australia to speak of, and indeed when '(I'm) Stranded' was released in February 1977 the band were still on the very cusp of an international punk explosion. The song of the same name was the first Aussie punk single and would more readily be considered one of the progenitors of the genre, had it come out of either the US or UK.
The band (and most of the songs on this debut) not only predate more well-known seminal releases like 'Damned Damned Damned', 'The Clash' and 'Never Mind the Bollocks', they really give those records a run for their money, whilst recalling the best proto-punk stylings of the Stooges and MC5. It's proper, back-to-the-wall garage rock in the 'Raw Power' sense, not only in terms of the fuzzed-out, ear-splitting production but also the 50's rock'n'roll influence - they do lean, mean covers of 'Kissin' Cousins' and 'Lipstick On Your Collar' (I suspect they covered the Platters' version actually but there's no video for it anywhere).
So that's all very nice, but the cover versions (the other being 'River Deep Mountain High') are by no means the highlights of the album. In true early punk style the songs mainly deal with teenage travails related at a reckless and parent-bothering velocity, with a welcome sentimental streak occasionally rearing it's head. The Saints (for this album at least) were every bit the louder Oz contemporary of the Ramones, one of the only other bands on the planet in 1975 to be delivering fun songs with such no-bullshit, solvent-pumped gusto. A large part of the album's appeal is also that the Saints were well outside the punk zeitgeist that was developing, none of them were photogenic... it's almost like they happened by accident - proving the theory that had London been nuked in 1976 (we can only dream!), some other gaggles of bored kids somewhere would have put their Stooges records to good use and made a beautiful, inept noise.

^Great band, rubbish crowd ('twas ever thus)

The album did get some minor attention in Orstralia and the UK (oddly enough they were the first punk band to be signed to EMI's prog imprint Harvest), but it seems like one of those records where over the years word of it's influence and following has snowballed - you are now liable to see 'Stranded' mentioned in any mainstream punk 'all-time' list - but I still feel it is ludicrously underrated in our oh-so-jolly Northern hemisphere. This is a 320 rip of the CD remaster, and comes highly recommended (what doesn't?) - treasure it as if you were 16 and discovering punk for the first time.
After this the Saints did two good-to-average albums: the second was tinted with more of an R&B influence but still packed a punch and had a more political edge, the third was a full-blown hornfest called 'Prehistoric Sounds'. Of course the vitality of the first album was totally lost by this point and the Saints spent the 80's carving out a name for themselves as one of Australia's foremost soft rock outfits (joy).

Afterthought: doesn't the drummer (second from the right) look exactly like Brian Eno circa 1978-ish? With a teeny bit more hair? Answers on a postcard!

Dead Kennedys - In God We Trust, Inc./Plastic Surgery Disasters (1981/82)

You lucky people!
We're on a mini-tangent of conscious punk rock here, and what history of sober reality-music would be complete without a look-in from San Fran peeploids the Dead Kennedys? (Explanation of the name: Biafra's idea was that the Kennedy assassinations marked 'the end of the American Dream' and a point where the mainstream populace tuned in and turned off, so to speak).
If you've never heard 'Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables', the hallmark West Coast punk album, you had better be ready for fast, loud music that is a total subversion of the meatheaded, cultish nihilism that had come to characterize the stale punk scene of the early 80's. If it weren't for these guys and a few select believers really pushing the limits, slapping the kids out of an insular scene mentality, then punk would not have been the all-important social movement it was and the 80's underground wouldn't have happened. Period.

The band, fronted and personified by the brilliantly-named vibrato/activist Jello Biafra, also manage to introduce no small degree of musicality into the mix . The other Dead Kennedys were seasoned guitarists (both in their early 30's by 1980) with a fetish for surf music, rockabilly and Ennio Morricone; these influences do plenty to illuminate just what made the band's take on hardcore punk so unique and apealing. But they didn't stop them diving in head-first and play everything at 1000 miles an hour, of course.
Over the four LPs they banged out no social hypocrisy was safe from Jello's fearsome pen, no politician or evil-doer let off the hook. The result being that by album number three the music was starting to take a backseat to Biafra's soapboxing. They never made a truly poor album by anyone's standards though, always challenging what was then-acceptable in Reagan's America of suppression and under-the-counter dealings. It's the job of art and succeeding generations to challenge, in case you forgot. And for several years after that debut landed, it must've seemed like the Dead Kennedys would keep accelerating and mouthing off until they dashed themselves to pieces (or at least until the CIA did some tour van brake-tampering).

'In God We Trust, Inc.' is the mini-album breaker between 'Vegetables' and 'Plastic Surgery'. It's their most conventionally 'hardcore' album musically, and I included it because it's better than everything you cherish and includes some of their catchiest ditties.
The production on the sophomore album presented here, 'Plastic Surgery Disasters', is even louder than on the previous records, amped up right across the board, frequently fuzzing out and coming off like 'Raw Power' as written by Noam Chomsky. It's as good as, if not better than 'Vegetables'. The lyrics are razor sharp, often hilarious and encouraging, and much of the album resonates even more in today's society; although there are a couple of topical references that might warrant a wiki ('Kepone Factory'). Biafra's sense of humour as usual keeps things ticking and there's no air of preachiness about songs like 'Forest Fire' or the classic extended metaphor of 'Halloween' - he's just pointing out the bloody obvious, and it's both funny and infuriating. They call it satire, I believe?
Jello is still going strong as an activist and musician with the inspirational label he founded in 1979, Alternative Tentacles (love the 'batcasts' and free mp3s on that site); he briefly ran for leadership of the Green Party in 2000 and I intend to post at least one of his better spoken word-tour albums on SS at some point. Some of his collaborations down the years are surprisingly good, too, he's done an album and tour with Melvins and a handful of albums with Ministry as Lard.

If you're one of the uninitiated and are by some freak chance still reading, you'll doubtless be sucking your thumb and wondering why all the 'Plastic Surgery' songs sound the same, with indecipherable but articulate-sounding lyrics garbled over the top. To this I would counter: a) yer wrong; b) remember what it was like to listen to music? Didn't think so; c) if you are still having trouble go here & here and see if you can't clear some cobwebs. If you require incentive, just imagine you're being told to do this by the Wire/Pitchfork/NME/Guardian supp./Daily Mail (delete as applicable).

Ripped @ 320 avec R't.
1 2

Jello Biafra meets the mighty Nardwuar

What do you MEAN you've never heard...

Rage Against the Machine??

Their 1992 self-titled debut is surely a musical rites of passage for teenagers everywhere - I've met surprisingly few people who didn't grow up with this album. Tom Morello and the band's relentless alt.metal riffage assault must work in tandem with the most explicitly anti-authority lyrics any 14-year-old was/is likely to come across. So RATM was the perfect hormonal release, and at that age not much thought went in to the Zack De La Rocha's words beyond 'shit, he's got some problems too...'. It's funny, because in school this was the only music anybody could universally agree on, it spoke to that barely-suppressed torrent of teenage angst. Kids had problems with bullies, parents, puberty, and this album always did the trick - people went mental when RATM came on.
So what can I say about this album in the 'sober light' of adulthood? Hmm. It's been a good few years. It gives me kicks of a different sort now, which manifest themselves in much the same way - hyperactivity and indignation. I've come full circle in terms of my worldview and, this being something of a manifesto of left-wing sloganeering clearly written to be screamed on the street, RATM ticks all the right boxes. One can't escape the knowledge that this debut album (at the very least) should have been de-licensed for free distribution amongst the populace once the group broke up, but it hasn't been. Hopefully this full-quality download (with artwork scans) will make a notch in some blowhard bank accounts... yeah, right!

So you've got the rage there, clearly. Rage against capitalism, exploitation, suppression, greed, religion, inequality and the general population's booze 'n' lard-fed apathy in the face of it all. It's a direct challenge to mainstream beliefs of the time (and now); very much a product of the disillusioned underground swell that bubbled under the surface of Reaganite Bullshit America. Bill Hicks spoke to that youth with comedy and reason, Rage with music and reason.
And musically? Sure, RATM almost single-handedly kicked off the vogue for rap-metal as a means of delivery, and this might understandably send retrospective shudders at that culmination of hip-hop's influence on metal: 'nu-metal'. But nu-metal this ain't. This is the best underground hardcore punk and metal of the 80's, condensed, fed through a Jimmy Page cookie cutter for catchy-ass riffs, and infused with the political activism of Public Enemy. Morello's guitar is more 'metal' on this, but shows early signs of the hip-hop/electronic sound it would later assume, and the occasional flourishes of slap bass are rather anachronous... but all is forgiven as it's heavy as fuck and never misses a step. RATM doesn't pretend to be the answer all wrapped up in a neat little package, but it's such a forceful and compelling wake-up call you'd need to be completely beyond the McPale to not sit up and listen.

If you missed out on jumping around a room and throwing chairs to 'Killing In the Name's final refrain (you'll see what I mean), then you should jump on board right now and see what you done missed. And don't pretend you're too highbrow for it, because we both see through that smokescreen. Testosterone booster strictly optional.

Download
Origins of the artwork
Bonus wisdom

Cows - Cunning Stunts (1991)

For Tomahawk bassist Kevin Rutmanis' post I could throw up any number of latter-day Melvins albums but his first band are a far more interesting proposition, especially since most of their albums are out of print.

As one might conclude from the band name, Blue Note-parody record sleeve and spoonerism title, Cows were an offbeat and manically unhinged take on the innovations of the hardcore punk fallout and, like the last couple of posts, a somewhat legendary band of the American underground... Except you would be afraid to make eye contact if you met them.
Taking their cues more from Captain Beefheart and his demented avant-blues than heavy metal, you sort of know something abnormal is about to go down when 'Heave Ho' opens the album with sound of a baby being smacked, blurred guitars and infamously-erratic singer Shannon Selberg's bugle. The album continues in this vein and never lets up, one moment recalling cowpunk and early Meat Puppets, the next Thor Eisentrager is doing a great impression of Melt Banana's ingenious noise riffage well before they made a name for themselves.

The overall result is more melodic perhaps than the pure atonal punk of their earlier records, but this is an unmissable gem of noise rock made by men who almost certainly sprinkled skag on their cereals. If you like early Sub Pop and even early Nirvana, but with an eclectic twist, thou shalt dig.

V/A - Sub Pop 200 (1988)

^ Monkey? Back? Geddit?

Apparently in the 80's some American people started a label as a launch pad for this thing called 'grunge' that sounds a bit like punk and a bit like metal, whilst not quite settling for either. I never understood all the hoo-hah myself... I lie of course, early grunge is a wondrous, marvellous thing, second only to a testosterone drip.

Sub Pop 200 is the second label sampler from, er, Sub Pop. Still one of the most successful independents to this day (one might argue that's down to major-label distribution deals but this is beside the point), the music may have broadened out a bit and calmed down for the most part, but there are still some great bands on their roster, the Flipper-meets-Jesus Lizard antics of Pissed Jeans being a favourite.
Here's the list.

This compilation though, is a five-star snapshot of the times, capturing the nascent Seattle grunge scene when it was still a homegrown explosion of scuzzy distortion, tattered jeans and plaid. No international unit-shifters here in 1988, no copycat, watered-down nonsense, and a fair few surprises.

^ Great fat blokes in rock & roll - how many can you name?

For the most part you get hot and heavy, revved-up, slowed-down hardcore mixed with 70's hard rock theatrics; but look out for an acid-munching wall of FX from Screaming Trees, lo-fi college radio stalwarts Beat Happening with easily their least annoying song (a Suicide-esque dirge), the tedious spoken word of Steven J. Bernstein and the de-tuned home recording of the Thrown Ups (great track).
The best thing about Sub Pop 200 though is not just the quality of the obscure bands, but also the total absence of sheen that would characterize the later albums of the more successful groups, bar the obvious exceptions. I guess in 1988 they were still young, filthy and hungry... that's certainly how it sounds.
Oh, and almost all of these songs are exclusive to the compilation. Whatever happened to the fine tradition of the label sampler? Cracking semi-relevant article here.

So, Sub Pop 200 - yet another reason to thank our lucky stars that Black Flag decided to grow their hair...?

Fat
Corporate
Cigar
@320 + art