Jimmy Smack – "Death Is Certain" - (Knekelhuis – KH040) 1982-83 / 2022

Hmmmm, Nice Arse.

Electric bagpipe drone weirdness from LA deathrock outsider Jimmy Smack. 'Death is Certain',aww and there's me thinking I was gonna live forever, is assembled from two self-released 7"s and a similarly self-released twelve incher from 1982/3.

Looking at him I sense he prefers a good 12 incher to a nice seven incher any day, but then again don't we all?
There aren't many records that can boast an electric Bagpipe, but this one does,so its already automatically good,never mind the Suicidal tendencies, as in that Rev and Vega kind of minimalism.

Always keep at least one hand on yer bagpipe kiddies.

Slapping on the corpse paint well before all those Scandinavian Death Metal drongos,Jim reminds one rather of a scotch Alien Sex Fiend,or Fad Gadget.

Is he trying to frighten us or something?....I really think he is!?

Although he was unhealthily obsessed with Death, he soon decided to quit after receiving an opportunity to find out what Death was really like when he received several Death Threats.Apparently he wasn't too popular with the LA Deathrock audience,regularly booed off and and a hate target.Worried for he and his families safety,....Yup, he had a wife and Kids!?.."he bailed right after the death threat thing. Stopped,and sold his pipes(how much did he get for them?)." Went back to his day job permanently,that's right he was a Ballet Dancer,and even more incredibly....NOT GAY!?

Smack, not his real name i'm guessing, was a multi-disciplined artist,so when he wasn't donning death mask war paint,he was preaching the gospel of Cold War nihilism; or channeling paranoia with great urgency through the howling banshee screams of electrified Celtic bagpipes.Or,doing The Nutcracker on Broadway?

At least we can now reassure ourselves with the knowledge that Smack never struggled for work,and I quote:"I was in the theatre all the time, my whole life. I had the Hollywood Free Theatre and then the Star Theatre. I was just always on stage doing something. Worked with all these clowns, we were all clowns so I became a clown — I was Jimbo the clown.”.....interestingly Not Smacko the Clown?

If only Johnny Rotten became Jimbo The Clown after Wobble left PiL, then the world would have been a marginally better place......if slightly creepier.

Tracklist: A1 Anguish 9:51 A2 Hating Life 3:12 A3 Depression 2:09 B1 Souls 1:26 B2 Cybernetic 1:38 B3 Death Is Certain 1:56 B4 The Scarlet Beast 1:38 B5 Batty 2:31 B6 Anguish (Instrumental) 8:51 DOWNLOAD smacko the clown HERE!

Various Artists – "Real Time 3 - December 1982" (Unlikely Records) 1982

Trendy Turtles were definitely going for that elusive Cherry Red contract weren't they? Only rarely does one find Twee Indie Pop arse to elbow with a rowdy Oi groop,especially as both forms of music are long dead. The Oi Polloi don't sound very likely to harbor any signs of being women trapped in a Skinheads' body, but then again Gender politics were thankfully absent from the minds of the average Teenager,or Yobbo in those 'simpler' times around Christmas 1982. Gender Dysphoria was just a technical phrase in a psychologists handbook. Nowadays, one would rule out the existence of a Trans Oi combo at one's peril....and get shunned by society as a reward. I actually do have a Hardcore record by a Trans hardcore Punk band called G.L.O.S.S. which is actually rather marvelous. So come on you gender fuck-ups, get that Trans Skinhead Oi band going and I might understand you a bit more.

I don't envy kids these days at all....shit music...and shit post truth information overload.

Dunno how I got onto this subject, just thought it amusing to imagine The Oi Polloi or even better the 4-Skins as transexuals........should I take the knee now or something?,,,,wot a fuck UP!

Which is not what this very good indeed C-90 cassette compilation appears to be.

We're on the cusp of Indie here it seems,with the only remnants of Punk being the unfashionably stupid comprehensive school politics of the Oi Polloi....luckily I love the sound of "stupid".

There's always Lurch after all, and a bag full of time specific Power Pop and Indie Tweeness.

Tracklist:

A1 Trendy Turtles– Hickory Dickory
A2 Trendy Turtles– Instrumental
A3 Trendy Turtles– Bamber
A4 The Genitals– Out Eyes Met
A5 The Genitals– Sound Of The Spa
A6 Sons Of The Electrodes– Bear In Mind
A7 Oi Polloi– Police State
A8 Oi Polloi– Poppy Day
A9 Oi Polloi– No Future
A10 Oi Polloi– Media
A11 Lurch – Hush Little Baby
A12 Yr Anhrefrn – Stwffiwch Y Dolig
A13 Yr Anhrefrn – Ynni O'r Sebon
A14 Terminal Spectators – Another Day/Reach For The Sky
B1 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– Ronny & The Rayguns
B2 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– My Brain Is Infested With Mince
B3 Future Future– 21st Century (Dreams)
B4 Graham Larkbey– You Look So Lovely Tonight
B5 Graham Larkbey– Your Husband Didn't Like It
B6 The Invisible Band– Alazarin's Castle
B7 The Invisible Band– Doin' The Ton
B8 Idid Idid– Moloko Plus
B9 Ron Ferret– Wasps
B10 Ron Ferret– Train Of Thought

DOWNLOAD for a very late christmas pressie HERE!

Various Artists - "Real Time 2 : October 82" (Unlikely records) 1982

Are you having a good time? I'm having a real good time 2.

Was it really this good in October 1982. I seem to remember 'OCT 82' appearing on the swastika bedecked sleeve of that Bad Seed EP by the Birthday Party....everything went downhill from there unfortunately, especially for crooning Goth Gargoyle Nicholas Cave.Whatever happened to him?....Don't ask!

Second in the "Real Time" series of Unlikely records Compilations gives us proof that 1982 was better than you think, as the Post Punk snowball rolled on down that hill into the oncoming neo-pop lava flow of synth duo's and silly clothes.

It opens with both sides of the solitary single of the classy New Wave pop of Swimming in the Sea.Might have been a hit a year or so earlier.

What follows is a jolly entertaining plethora of quality DIY, Punk Rock,lo-fi synth Pop, and other forms of what passed for intelligent pop music in late '82.

Of course, none of these people were ever heard of again, and Nick Cave went on to conquer every coffee table in Christendom.

Tracklist:

A1 Swimming In The Sea– Hero For The Heroine/The Presents
A2 The Workforce– 10 Fingers Only
A3 Jonathan Rush– Only A Nightmare
A4 David Rush – Laser
A5 Gunslinger– Someone's Got You In The Gunsight
A6 Gunslinger– Step Into The Future
A7 The Blotchees– Funky Ho ! Down/This Isn't Your Day/Melon-Cauli
A8 Extension-Two– The Black Box/We Care/Summary/Scenes Of Today/Sandra/The Black Box
A9 Extension-Two– Extension-Two (Alone Again)
A10 Lurch – Real Time
A11 Robert Cox– A2 Is Missing
B1 Patrol– SS Officer
B2 Patrol– Innocence
B3 Tom Cramp & The Epilectic Ducks– Cramposaurus Chant
B4 Tom Cramp & The Epilectic Ducks– White Stalk SB
B5 The Puush– Morning Rolls And Hot Coffee
B6 Suburban Strom Troopers– Switchblade & Crucifix
B7 Suburban Strom Troopers– Mau Mau
B8 Switch-Cord Roulette– Theresa
B9 Switch-Cord Roulette– Goliath
B10 The Same – Instrumental 7/3/82
B11 The Same – Auntie Meat
B12 The Same – Sampled & Held
B13 The Same – Sync Or Swim

DOWNLOAD and have a real good time HERE!

Various Artists – "Real Time 1: August 82" (Unlikely records) 1982

Ay Up?  That bloke (Robert Cox) what done "Felixstowe Rocks" is also the brane behind that unlikeliest of record labels otherwise known as "Unlikely Records", from...you guessed it...Felixstowe!?

The label was well known for handing out these compilations for free at gigs. Largely featuring Robert Cox in his various guises.

The catchphrase being : "You Don't Know What You'll Like Until You Hear It!"....which, in my experience isn't entirely true.

There were countless times I knew I'd like a record purely going on Artwork,and any number of those dodgy reviews in the music press from their golden era .The art of reviewing a record has long died a painful death since the birth of the internet. Like the reviews section in Mojo,which sound as retrogressive as Mojo mag is;like it came from the sixties, simplistic and very reverend. Tending to just describe the music rather that the thoughts and attitudes behind it.

But, hearing it first does help....a bit.

So in the post-truth woke conspiracy addled planet of today, hearing it again is all part of the over exposure to information that is fucking up anything with it's own mind...seemingly for good, and certainly for the Bad.

Therefore in 1982, it was necessary to get the kids to actually hear it for free; something we take for granted today. So 'Not' hearing it in the modern context i would argue has many beneficial qualities.

No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no-one expects to be expected to like something one has never heard. This concept is very much part of the culture wars straight jacket we find ourselves in today. Most of the unexpected stuff from the past would have never surfaced were it not for the luck  in appearing in the pre-internet existence. Censorship, i would also argue could also have many beneficial attributes,re-creating the awe and mystery of stuff you aren't allowed to see,hear or feel. Yep, i'm arguing for censorship here, and chinese style internet controls......probably banning me in the process;but i'll take one for the team if it results in the allure of the forbidden to return, and the art world ceasing to be so fucking BORING!

Ok, rant over,and time for me to describe this great tape as if I worked for Mojo Magazine in 2024, or The NME in 1963.

This is one of those classic UK DIY compilations from the Heyday of British cassette culture. Plenty of nice tunes that could be a hit. Especially Pop-tastic being Coventry's favourite post-Jurassic period Donovan fans, the tuneful Digital Dinosaurs.

For all you cool fans of early industrial hits, there's Muslimgauze himself, assuming his early disguise as EG Oblique Graph. The late Bryn Jones and his estate,who is still....,inexplicably, around today, despite the inescapable laws of nature. These laws can obviously be bypassed using the reanimating power of ferric oxide even if he is long dead.

Another myth from the misty shores of a DIY Albion, is the very illusive Lurch, who makes a rare appearance on several of these Unlikely compilations. Ever since he appeared on the classic "Deleted Funtime" C-90 on Deleted records in 1980, i've been on the lookout of that Lurch tape; sadly to zero effect.....one can still dream I guess?

Reading back at this failed attempt to sound as twee and reverend as Mojo and  the 1960's music press, I really shouldn't have bothered.....thankfully, I failed.

Censorship will return to free our minds again., fear not; put into effect by your Woke mates who will be watching you in the emptying Pubs of Great Britain and beyond. That coupled with New Cold War paranoia will ensure the return of music and art in general to a new relevance last seen during  the art renaissance of the 20th century. Blah Blah Blah!

 

 

Tracklist:

A1 Syd Nairda– Nevada
A2 Lurch– High-Steppin' Mamma
A3 Digital Dinosaurs – Sideways Man
A4 Digital Dinosaurs – Red Fire Engine
A5 Jonathan Rush – Synthasalsa
A6 Jonathan Rush – New Dawn
A7 Y Celfi Cam – Mab Y Gweinidog
A8 In Embrace – Excerpts From Clutching/The Air In Between
A9 E. G. Oblique Graph – Scar
A10 The Ffuts (Formerly The Stuff)– Luscious Love
A11 The Same – 453-549
A12 Tom Cramp And The Epileptic Ducks – Die For Doggy
A13 R J Curd– Excerpts From Wastelands 1/The Dream Fades/Interspace/Scepsis/New Dance/Remembrance/Night Flight/Dreaming Of You/Surveillance/Tape Walking/Wastelands 2
A14 Emergency Exit – Falling For You
B1 Emergency Exit – Voices
B2 Part Form– Excerpts From Wire Walking/Waiting Room/Part Form
B3 Future Future – Operator
B4 The Toy Shop – Excerpts From The Maze/Live Wires Kill
B5 Extension-Two – Gaps
B6 General Motors – Tubular Turds
B7 General Motors – Live Wasp Omelette, Lung
B8 Piers Of The Realm– Manic
B9 Someone Else – Something Else
B10 The Same – Set Zero
B11 The Same – Hot & Cold
B12 The Same – Larruping Shuftly
B13 The Same – If You Want To, Do So !
B14 The Same – Du Ma Casa

DOWNLOAD in a faster speed than real time HERE!

XX Committee – "Steel Negro Music" (A.R.P.H. Tapes – AT # 001) 1982

When they should have been working hard doing their philosophy majors at the University of Pittsburgh.Chris Scarpino,and Scott Foust decided to put their Kant and Nietzsche tome's aside and follow the confused philosophy of the recently,in 1982, deceased Throbbing Gristle to the test,and see if anyone,even Philosophy students, could give this new fangled Industrial Music a go.

And Would you credit it, the answer was a big YES.No musical ability needed,or even equipment.Melody?...too difficult.So we'll pretend that we know what we're doing,and explain it away as industrial culture.

Sounds good though,especially if you've got fuck all idea what's going on.

Ironically called Steel Negro Music,and i'm guessing here,that the steel part refers to the future 'Rust Belt' steelworks that purveys the alma mater of their university campus.....Pittsburgh,famous for the steel industry,and perfect inspiration to make this TG-alike racket.Hell, I'm a Metal Worker myself,albeit on the lazy-arsed Artistic/Autistic side of reality;one does share the enviable prospect of contracting one of the few perks of the job, like emphysema or pneumoconiosis. 

Then we have the retrospectively controversial Negro Music part ,which i'm sure refers to the male White Negro doing involuntary 'black-face'thanks to the soot festooned atmosphere inhaled by every white and Black Nigger enslaved to the American nightmare in the land of the Free;and destined to die alone in an american super-prison from acute lung disease.

However,beyond this cassette, I am not aware of any major contributions to Philosophy made by Messers Scarpino and Foust to date.You can never prove a Philosopher isn't working 24/7....its the same excuse made by Artists......just another word for Lazy Fuckers basically.

Tracklist: 1.NP, Ward 3 12:05 2.Metal Worker 5:07 3.National Re-Doubt 5:40 4.Drone 1 6:42 5.Damarc 4:17 6.Steel Negro 4:33 7.Mass Machina 4:45 8.M de S. 6:06 9.Deep Red 3:30 10.Drone 2 6:00 DOWNLOAD some ferric oxide music HERE!

Debt Of Nature – "Robin Diamond's Lungs" (A.R.P.H. Tapes – AT # 003) 1982

Throbbing Gristle played two shows in the USA,and they were both in California;HERE and HERE!

So, kids hear TG,then they play like TG,even securing the dubious skills of Monte Cazazza donated towards the recording of this cassette,which, by the way, features the participation(Again) of one Brad Laner;member of too many groups to remember.

So yeah, it sounds like Throbbing Gristle.There's even a few Charles Manson news reports recorded off the Television,to further flesh out the cliché.....but, i'm a sucker for some Old Skool Industrial.Its the ultimate great leveller in musical terms,like Dub Reggae.Also equally effective as background music for that fondue soirée you've been meaning to throw for the neighbours.

Anyone can do it.Zero Chords required,unlike the one that's recommended for any decent Punk rock tune,or the Mozart-like three that's needed for a Ramones/Status Quo number....Fuck That!

Ironically,as a bonus, any Industrial Artist gets to be taken semi-seriously by the chin stroking bespectacled chumbawumba set from the Artier end of town, whereas Punk Groups or Satus Quo,forward slash,Ramones are looked upon as some sort of tribe of Idiots.

Tracklist:A1 N Counter
A2 Bed Time
A3 Industrial Elitists
A4 Dead Cow Manifesto
A5 All Through The Night
A6 Blood Was Everywhere
A7 In An Orgy Of Murder
A8 DrM/SbC
A9 Intellectual Decompression
A10 The Cross
B1 Inside Out Effect
B2 Graphic Truth
B3 Fascist Insect
B4 Grin
B5 Survival
B6 Fuck Peace
B7 Nothing Matters
B8 To Be Governed

DOWNLOAD this debt free golden diamond HERE!

Trixie's Big Red Motorbike - "All Day Long In Bliss (Singles, Demos And Peel Sessions)" 1981-85

The fairy prince and princess of twee has to be brother and sister Mark and Melanie Litten who,like many of their Twee contemporaries never got to release an album in their lifetimes.

Haling from a pre-Wet Leg Isle Of Wight ,they released their sparkly gentle pre-teen ditties on their own Lobby Ludd label....which is how my father, strangely, used to refer to Robin Hood?...I blame those Nazi's  and their prison camps and stuff i do.

Amazingly,according to Discogs, Mark Litten was something of a sound tech for Def Leppard!?.....I wonder what those clueless oafs thought of  Trixie's Big Red Motorbike,if they ever got to hear it; as the sole purpose of all this Twee stuff was to distance the wimps who made it as far away from the spotty testosterone fueled nonsense of NWOBHM as possible. I'd like to think that Lemmy would have got it,but not necessarily actually liking it....maybe not?

Where did this stuff evolve from? 

I guess the earliest roots would have to be Syd Barrett's solo work,the more whimsical end of UK Psych, and Velvet Underground's third album.Then the proto-punk nerd-chic of Johnathan Richman and Talking Heads,a bit later the TV Personalities,The Raincoats,and Subway Sect, making rejection of Rock music fashionable in 1978 leading to wimps like Orange Juice,Altered Images,Marine Girls (a marine Girl,Jane Fox, actually appears on a few of these tracks),Young Marble Giants,Dolly Mixture and so-forth.

It all gets quite confusing, with a venn diagram of Twee,overlapping ShoeGaze and Dream Pop.You can find Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine, and The Cocteau Twins all in the same space.

However, undoubtedly,Trixie's Big Red Motorbike is firmly entrenched within the Twee area of the diagram, alongside many of the forthcoming entities we shall be visiting making music for Wimps by Wimps.

I may have spent most of my time going to Godflesh and Napalm Death gigs in 1986/7,but nearly every other band on the circuit were Twee befringed Indie pop shoegaze dreamers,which i now realise was rather good,and refreshing......then came the second summer of bloody fucking Love,and the Shoegazers picked up a tambourine and started enjoying themselves,dancing and the like!?.Tut TUT TUT!  

  
 Tracklist:

1 A Splash Of Red 4:16
2 Invisible Boyfriend 3:19
3 Hold Me (Demo) 1:42
4 You Took Him Away From Me (Demo) 3:27
5 Hold Me 1:41
6 Trixie's Groove 2:34
7 One Nation Under A Brolly 0:46
8 Whatever Happened To The Treetops? 2:18
9 You Took Him Away From Me 2:56
10 One Nation Under A Brolly (Demo) 2:23
11 Norman And Narcissus 2:33
12 In Timbuktu 2:00
13 That's The End Of That 1:44
14 I'm In Love With You 2:06
15 When He's By My Side 2:03
16 Fairytales 2:15
17 That's Quite A Lot 2:52
18 What Was In The Loft 7:01

Bonus Tracks:

Peel Session 25/08/1983:

1 That's The End Of That
2 One Nation Under A Brolly
3 Norman & Narcissus
4 In Timbuktu
5 White Horses

Peel Session 28/07/1982:

1 Invisible Boyfriend
2 Splash Of Red

3 Whatever Happened To The Treetops
4 You Took Him Away From Me

DOWNLOAD music for wimps by wimps for you HERE!

The Associates - "Sulk (40th Anniversary Edition) 1982/2022

I'm in a sulk.....there are no associates left. 

Rankine died peacefully a few days previously, which is ironic as Sulk is one of the least peaceful Pop records ever made.Its full of several kitchen sink's worth of suffocating Pop genius. There's so much going on that one needs a crowbar to get the album out of its high viz glossy,but nameless,package.

None of yer average pop consumers knew what The Associates looked like, hence the need for the annoying sticker that fucked up the garishly botanical cover,and was impossible to remove.

There are few stranger records than "Party Fears Two" or "Club Country" that entered the top ten of the UK Charts.Right Up there with PiL's "Death Disco" and "Flowers Of Romance" as the weirdest singles to both chart and appear on Top Of The Pops.Subversive moments both.The associates also got on Top of The Pops with "18 Carat Love Affair", using chocolate guitars,which melted as Alan Rankine mimed playing them,and got eventually eaten by the audience,including the Spare one....Pop eating itself in action.

I'm supposed to write something else aren't I?..but i've been drinking some hard medicine,and i've become lost listening to this work of genius.Food?...who needs it?

One of my few claims to fame by proxy, is that I had an aggressively jealous Scottish girlfriend,who came from Dundee/Glasgow,and went for a night out with Billy mcKenzie!?...a predictably crazy and wild night was had by all accounts.Although if I went for a night out with Billy Mckenzie i'm sure she would have been less generous,and i would have received a few glancing blows from the flying crockery heaved in my general direction.But.....

Of course "Sulk" is one of the greatest ,most perverse Pop Lp's ever made.And Bill remains one of the greatest vocal acrobats ever.

Rest in noisy peace Bill and Alan. This album is your epitaph.

Sulk:

CD1-1 Arrogance Gave Him Up
CD1-2 No
CD1-3 Bap De La Bap
CD1-4 Gloomy Sunday
CD1-5 Nude Spoons
CD1-6 Skipping
CD1-7 It's Better This Way
CD1-8 Party Fears Two
CD1-9 Club Country
CD1-10 Nothinginsomethingparticular

Outtakes, Monitor Mixes & Rarities:

CD2-1 Ulcragyceptimol - Demo
CD2-2 I Never Will - Demo
CD2-3 Club Country - Demo
CD2-4 Me, Myself And The Tragic Story - John Leckie Recording
CD2-5 Australia - John Leckie Recording
CD2-6 Skipping - Monitor Mix Instrumental
CD2-7 It's Better This Way - Monitor Mix
CD2-8 And Then I Read A Book - Alternative Version
CD2-9 Ulcragyceptimol - Alternative Version
CD2-10 It's Better This Way - Alternative Version
CD2-11 The Associate
CD2-12 A Girl Named Property
CD2-13 Grecian 2000
CD2-14 Party Fears Two - 7"
CD2-15 Club Country - 7"
CD2-16 18 Carat Love Affair
CD2-17 Love Hangover - Extended Version

Associates Live - The Peel Sessions:

CD3-1 Me, Myself and the Tragic Story
CD3-2 Nude Spoons
CD3-3 A Matter Of Gender
CD3-4 It's Better This Way
CD3-5 Ulcragyceptimol
CD3-6 Waiting for the Love Boat
CD3-7 Australia
CD3-8 Love Hangover
CD3-9 A Severe Case of Career Insecurity
Associates Live - Gigant, Apeldoorn 10/01/81
CD3-10 Arrogance Gave Him Up
CD3-11 A Matter Of Gender
CD3-12 Nude Spoons
CD3-13 Paper House
CD3-14 No
CD3-15 And Then I Read A Book
CD3-16 Gloomy Sunday
CD3-17 It's Better This Way
CD3-18 Skipping
CD3-19 Australia

DOWNLOAD on this very gloomy sunday HERE!

The Golden Palominos – "A History: Vol. 1 (1982-1985)" (Mau Mau Records – MAUCD 625) 1992

Fuckin' 'ell Anton Fier,of virtually every band that was worthwhile in New York and Cleveland in the 80's bur primarily the mainstay of The Golden Palominos ,has also kicked the bucket;but in this case it was an 'assisted' bucket kicking in one of those dodgy 'non-profit' clinics in Switzerland,Dignitas innit? Of which I saw no mention anywhere.

He wasn't ill apparently. He just decided he'd had enough. He couldn't drum as well as he wanted anymore and said he felt he had achieved everything he wanted and it was time to go. I thought that kind of behavior was illegal if you weren't ill?...or was he? It's been a long time since he had a record out? Did he have some degenerative disease or summut? The drummer with Strobe Talbot has MS,and discovered that by forcing himself to drum,he could regain his cognitive abilities on said instrument......!?...Maybe Anton was a tad hasty with his decision to top himself at the age of 66! What's the point of suicide anyway, we have eternity to be be dead,and we were all dead for an eternity before we were born.Wrong decision Anton. There are plenty of children getting their heads blown off by a bunch of Russian Wankstains who would love to have swapped places.

The list of groups bands and soloists that Anton has added his drumming and artistic skills to is far too long,and boring to list here (Pere Ubu blah blah blah....),but the most Anton-centric of the lot has to be The Golden Palominos,who existed from 1981 to the twenty-teenies. So, as the best days of any band, are the early days, I have decided to post a compilation of the those very ''Early days when he wasn't in 'The Feelies'.

The understated, and under reported, method of his passing,was also a tribute to the man,having never sold out to the commercial opportunities of someone who could boast a Cv as long and comprehensive as Anton Fier's....you know I still dunno how to pronounce his name!?..insult or tribute, you decide.

Here's the legal Swiss  bumpf on assisted suicide from non-selfish motives.It's legal, if, for example, lethal drugs are prescribed and the intended recipient takes an active role in the drug administration? Sounds a bit dodgy to me, but who am I to stop anyone from deciding for themselves when they can end all this surreal madness at a time of their choosing.

He leaves us with a vast legacy of work,some of which is on this early nineties compilation,that even boasts Michael Stipe and John Lydon as guest vocalists,...i'll cease the name dropping and present to you this rather fancy compilation of some genuinely great downtown Noo yawk fancy-pants music...sophisticated and experimental,so you can bet yer bottom dollar that Bill Laswell is hanging out waiting for the photo ops...you know the crowd,Zorn, Lindsey, Laswell etc,the kind of downtown sophisticates that people like us should curtsy to if allowed within their golden auras. 

Quite a bit of the later tracks sound like that terrible PiL album,called 'Album'...mainly because it had...you guessed it Bill Laswell on it...and the drums, played by the late Anton himself,reminds one of the (uncredited) drumming on 'Album',which i had previously presumed was shared by twin legends,Tony Williams and Ginger Baker....by this evidence it was Anton Fier who did the drumming and skillfully avoided a credit in the process;and also why Lydon makes an appearance on this comp, from just around the time he was making that offending disc to confirm to himself,and those dumb enough to think Levene and Wobble made the music in PiL, his own genius....or lack of therein.

Tracklist:

1 Hot Seat
2 Under The Cap
3 Monday Night
4 Cookout
5 I.D.
6 Two Sided Fist
7 Boy (Go)
8 Clustering Train
9 Omaha
10 The Animal Speaks
11 Silver Bullet
12 (Kind Of) True
13 Buenos Aires
14 Only One Party

"Anton Fier is no longer playing drums." (Syd Straw)

DOWNLOAD the results of a life well spent HERE!

Etron Fou Leloublan – "Les Poumons Gonflés" (Turbo Music S.A. – TMSA 3301) 1982

Okay, it had to happen,the french drummer bloke who was in Les Batteries,Guigou Chenevier, gained his fame from playing les batteries in the Rock In Opposition monsters, Etron Fou Leloublan......rolls off the tongue doesn't it?

Rock In opposition,or RIO, is really a more marketable title for Prog Rock of the more Avant variety,which became yet another category after Henry Cow's original RIO festival during those crazy punky rock years of 1978 upwards.So an obvious Punky influence was absorbed into these Avant-proggers repertoire.Shorter,opinionated and angrier versions of the progressive type. Quite a few of those post-punk chaps would have fitted in quite well methinks,but the clothes were bad,so they kept away.

Weird time signatures, played by a drummer sight reading music from a lectern positioned visibly by the Hi-Hat to show the dangerously hippified audience that 'we ain't just making this up y'know!'

Etron Fou Leloublan do all this stuff,ticking all the RIO boxes,but bare in mind that these groovy garcons are indeed French, so you should expect some of that 'orrible screechy shouting that their pallets tend to enunciate from time to time through no fault of their own.I blame the parents....who were probably Artists and as a consequence of this delusion,also bastards.

Anyway I chose this album, because it has a song called Nicolas on it, which is my real world given name,and having spent a week in a French hospital once with a collapsed lung,"Les Poumons Gonflés"(the inflated lungs) has a special ring to it.

 

Tracklisting:

1.Nicolas 4:06
2.Mimi 2:58
3.Exposition Universelle 1:41

4.Nicole 5:42
5.La Musique 3:05
6.Christine 6:46
7.Those Distant Waters 3:24
8.Upsalla 2:05
9.Io Prefero 4:29
10.Pas L'sou 3:11

DOWNLOAD without opposition HERE!

Fall Of Saigon – "Fall Of Saigon 1981-1984" (Gazul Records – GA8851) 2011

No its not a North Vietnamese Fall tribute band!

It's frenchy Minimalist composer Pascal Comelade,moonlighting with his minimalist pop trio named after a This Heat tune. 

Harboring a knowing glance in the direction of Young Marble Giants,and maybe even..... Weekend? 

Pascal is not shy of wearing his influences on his sleeve....that's him on the right there,with influenced sleeves rolled up,trendily, to the elbows.I remember when the Style Council used to do self-consciously french things like that,such as wearing,(or rather NOT wearing) a cardigan tossed stylishly over the shoulders and tying the sleeves into a loose knot atop a Breton inspired polo shirt.You can take the boy out of Woking,but you can't take the Woking out of the boy.....but you do have to leave Woking if you wanna wear a Breton top....fact!

There also a version of my funeral theme tune on here, The TV Personalities' classic "Part-Time Punks",further emphasizing Pascal's fondness for "les Rostbif pop",especially it seems Kevin Ayers too....which i think stems largely from the fact that posh Boy Kevin had a handy grasp of French thanks to the British Public school system. And as we all know,if you slot anything French or in French into an English pop tune you have a career for life..... in France!...just ask Sting.

However, similarly, the Brit's love to hear a French bird singing in Engleesh, which surprisingly didn't lead to Indie success in grey old foggy Albion.They could have stuck to it a bit longer, but i think Pascal had other things in mind for himself,embarking on a prolific solo career that continues to this day.

The other French musical commandment that has been observed here on this compilation,is the obligatory Doors homage.Every household in France has a Doors Album, or Zer Doorsss as they call them.They all think Morrison was a poet....in fact Morrison thought he was a poet too,maybe even a great poet?So as he died and was buried in Paris,this means that their hero is now French,so Zer Doorsss are forever enshrined in marble and stone among the elect of French art and culture......Would i be out of order to suggest that they can flaming well have him...slash...them? Plenty more where he came from.

Nonetheless, this version of "The End" is actually rather good?

The End!

Track Listing:

1.Visions 2:21

2.Blue Eyes 2:08

3.She Leaves Me All Alone 4:22

4.So Long 2:28

5.On The Beach At Fontana 3:22

6.The Swimmer 2:15

7.The Model 3:21

8.Part Time Punks3:12

9.The End 9:43

10.Andalucia 2:02

11.I'll Never Be Back 4:54

12.Sha La La La 2:58

13.Let It Go 2:41

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Steve Beresford /Tristan Honsinger/ Toshinori Kondo / David Toop – "Imitation Of Life" (Y Records – Y 13) 1982

Having been seen doing the donkey-work for the Slits it was inevitable that Steve Beresford would get some product on trendy Pop group connected label, 'Y Records' ,as owned by Pop Group/Slits manager Dick O'Dell. So, Steve and his weird London chums got to do a couple of Lp's of their spontaneous scraping toy instrument and Tuba madness to sit alongside the funky fayre of the Bristolian Illuminati. Unlike label mates Maximum Joy*,Poop Groop, and other suspected Trustfund surfers,there is not one ounce of 'Funk' on Steve's record ,which hardly even has a time signature.It does have however,four very unfashionable people living in four different but related worlds,playing different tunes at the same time.

NB...Maximum Joy threw a mardy*......

*Mardy Arse :(noun) INFORMAL•NORTHERN ENGLISH
a sulky, petulant, or grumpy person.

......about being featured on Die or DIY?,and demanded...yes...demanded(?)  that their work.....did they say 'Work'?,apparently ,yes?...be withdrawn.....so you can't find these suspected suburban  middle  class George Clintons haunting these pages no more.;...but you can,ironically, on YouTube,work that one out......or as Steve Beresford calls it, YouTuba! (ha ha ha)....i suspect it was Dick 0'Dell (who produced this funnily enuff!) wot done it,not the groop.Groops don't do shit like that,unless you're the remaining members of Throbbing Gristle,Cabaret Voltaire,Whitehouse,or Zoviet France?...There seems to be a theme there.....only Industrial Bands are wankers it seems.

Anyway fuck the fuckers and their honkyfied white mans funk, And how dare they share the same label as Sun Ra....yeah I'm a trendy too?Didn't you know?...how Dicky dingleberry O'Dell wangled that I dunno?

Well, at least Y Records have an ex-XTC member (barry) on their rostrum;...yeah,post-punk super group Shriekback's entire fun-filled oeuvre appears there.......not listened much to it however,,only that first single about a spine being a bassline or sum'ting equally cool,as in cool with a capital 'I'...don't care. Nah!

But, Beresford can't do anything wrong to this proudly closed mind,I just don't like Trendy's who'll reveal their under arm portable jazz collection before you can say Thelonius Monk;arranged in chronological order of course;the More Jazz than You Nerd off......yeah yeah I know.....I'm "Pure Scum" etc etc....! for stealing the royalties from these hard working bands blah blah......I wish I could get royalties from work I did 40 years ago, or sell copies of the same work again and again...and incredibly, no-one complains???

Tracklist:

A Whoosshh 21:16
B Please - Thanks That's Alright 17:34

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Doxa Sinistra – "Via Del Latte" (Trumpett – Trum 0007) 1982

They are raised on chocolate Sprinkles and peanut butter, eat inexplicably bland cheese stored in the form of balls, cycle everywhere wearing clogs, are either tall or very tall, have an obsession with the price of everything,are often seen putting fingers in dykes whilst off their tits on weed,and live on barges or in windmills.......but we love them......I of course am talking in stereotypical terms about "The Dutch".

I've also noticed that they have an innate ability,like their close Belgian friends, to make near perfect minimal synth tapes for people in the UK to listen to. The UK sends all their Synth acts to America,where the Americans all have the impression that British men are all translucent skinned emaciated manchildren dressed in black PVC....or, in other words, are all in Depeche Mode...(er RIP the chap from DM who died yesterday by the way!).....rather similarly, the Brits think that all Dutch listen to Industrial Electronica and cruise sex supermarkets for entertainment. Any liberal European,or should I say 'Continental' country,especially in the EU,are looked upon by the British as a bunch of randy pervs shagging each other 24/7,which is why Brits only have sex on their summer vacations in these very same places often derided as Horny Hell Holes by the repressed UK psyche.....why do you think I moved to France?

Definitely not for the music!....okay....the Houses were Cheap,what other reason could there possibly be?

Well, this tape,if you are familiar with Doxa Sinistra's other tapes,is their best,and their first;....one can say that about so many others,but in this case it adds further credence to this undeniable factoid.

I like me 1970's synthesizers I do.I like to hear knobs twiddled buttons touched,sliders retracted,jacks inserted,Oscillators Oscillating;even other person's knobs twiddled, and yes, i even like to twiddle me own knob from time to time.

So now we've got 60 minutes of classically Dutch Industrial Electronica,all we need for the complete  experience is some chocolate sprinkles,and some off the shelf bondage gear from a Dutch Supermarket, and we're twiddling.

On a more topical note...there's a track called 'Soviet Invasion'...not only have the Russians missed out on the entirety of 20th century culture,they appear to want to miss out on the 21st century too...so be it. The bloke from Depeche Mode is dead, yet Putin still lives...there is no justice.

Hoofdstuk I:

A1 Intro Sinistra 5:09
A2 Khayanart 2:30
A3 Coolidge Effect 2:12
A4 Epsilon Albion 32` 2:31
A5 Via Del Latte I 0:50
A6 Ruhrgebiedt 2:32
A7 Soviet Invasion 2:09
A8 Kuomintang`s Space Blues 2:02
A9 Via Del Latte II 1:00
A10 Triangular Intermodule Computer Display Screen 2:22
A11 Via Del Latte III 2:08

Hoofdstuk II:

B1 Urkey Sticks (Visserslatijn) 2:25
B2 Alien 3:00
B3 L-Dopa 2:23
B4 Via Del Latte IV 0:35
B5 Web Of Tiggywaugh 2:35
B6 Entomorbide 3:05
B7 Maurizio`s Minestrone 4:00
B8 Modern Age 2:56
B9 Via Del Latte V 0:58
B10 Outro Sinistra (Live) 3:35

DOWNLOAD from the milky way the dutch way HERE!

Drinking Electricity – "Overload + Singles" (Pop:Aural / Survival) 1980/1982

Inmates of Bob Last's Pop:Aural imprint,whose professed aim was to get a leftfield act into the pop charts by stealth.

Having been robbed of The Human League by Virgin,an independent label who had subverted the Pop Charts many times before already....a fact that went unnoticed in the Last household it seems.It didn't stop him from ruining The Fire Engines,among others, in his quest for Pop mogul-ism in the guise of the hip priest of 80's pop.

Nonetheless, Bob Last was responsible for some the greatest hip-pop failures of the early part of the decade.

Drinking Electricity, from somewhere in downtown Surrey,had the perfect set-up;guy and gurl with tech who weren't too harsh on the eye. A lot of the tunes sound like you've heard them before elsewhere,there's hints of "Assault On Precinct 13" and the main riff of "Being Boiled" appears(I guess that Bob felt it was his property?) ,but transferred to a funky bass guitar.

In all, its a fine collection of wonderfully analogue minimal electronics coupled with spiteful robo-bitch vocals treading on the heavily mined no-mans land of too "kool for skool" territory.....(for a fine dissertation on the pitfalls of being too kool for skool click HERE;)

There's also an irreverent cover of Brit Rock'n'Roll classic, Johnny Kidd's "Shaking All Over", which gives me an opportunity to direct you to a funny story concerning said tune which one had recounted earlier in the vast archives of this blog HERE!

But don't let all this nostalgia divert you from the fact that this Drinking Electricity collection is rather flipping GOOD, Flamin' Nora it is...there's even a Flamin' Groovies cover too?)...Don't wanna sound too enthusiastic,but these kids sound slightly more like a Belgian twosome than UK Synth duo;not that there's anything wrong with that,just two different beasts. the UK version got lots of hits and got rich,but the Belgian equivalent got ignored and poor....mainly because when they sang they sounded like a motor neuron disease sufferer's speech synthesizer;which was briefly novel once upon a time if it was only for a couple of tracks......which Drinking Electricity did conversant as they obviously were in the do's and don't of pop music.....there you go....too kool for skool again!

Tracklist:

1 Breakout 3:25
2 Discord Dance 3:27
3 Good Times 3:34
4 Colour Coding 3:33
5 Fall 3:53
6 Breakout II 1:56
7 Countdown 4:09
8 News Peak 3:46
9 Twilight Zone 3:11
10 Superstition 3:35
11 The Promise 4:11
12 Subliminal 7" 4:08
13 Random Particles 3:23
14 Shaking All Over 3:07
15 China 2:53
16 Cruising Missiles 3:50
17 Shaking Dub 4:15
18 Good Times 12" 4:38
19 Breakout 12" 5:05
20 Subliminal Radical Re-mix 6:12
21 Shake Some Action (Demo Version) 3:30

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The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor – "The Best Of The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor" (Self-Released) 2014 / 1980-1982

Owner of ,probably, thee very worst band name ever conceived , The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor ( TNGWAM ) made some rather uninspired Synth-pop to rival fellow Sheffield pop-synthers Human League's exceedingly crap "Hysteria" album, or anything by the truly terrible Heaven 17.

As they didn't have a bloke with a silly lop-sided haircut,or a pair of utterly talentless Townie dancers, TNGWAM never got whisked into the studio and have all their hits written by Martin Rushent.The result being, no-one remembers them no more outside of Southern Yorkshire....but,by 'eck, maybe a shrewd name change would have helped them commercially? If you want a hit never have a band-name that doesn't bore the punters three words in.A fine example of how not to do it,to be taught in a lecture at one of those ridiculous Pop academies that are replacing really useless stuff like Engineering Degrees at universities all across the western world.

The name, I am Told, comes from a series of children's books written by nasty Nazi sympathizer Enid Blyton.The 'monitor' part being a reference to the poor sods who had to go and collect the Milk and distribute it to the other kids in the class...until Margaret Thatcher stopped this Free Milk for kids nonsense;so not only did Thatcher liberate the miners from the pits,she also liberated the minors from the humiliation of being the Milk Monitor.

I was once press ganged into being the Coffee Monitor for, and by, the staff in the Staff room...don't worry none of the fuckers touched me up or anything;despite the head master being a weirdo god squad nutjob.Luckily i went to a grammar school after my hard time in the primary school system, to attend a strictly secular institution full of us supposedly intelligent kids...so no stupid fuckers to pander to with the patently absurd tales contained within any Holy books.The wheat was sieved from the chaff,and we had science lessons.Who says I'm not Elitist?

Enid Blyton's Tory Propaganda,and civil service training manual for any hooray hennrietta's gulping down the Pimms for throwing Lockdown parties during any future pandemic at number 10 Downing street..... very good for starting fires i've heard

Sheffield, of course, is one of the major gene-pools of Synth pop,post-punk and Industrial culture,so naturally TNGWAM were gonna struggle,and inevitably sank without trace,not even an oil slick left on the vast ocean of popular music;and no-one is gonna be bothered to send a submersible either...for a reason.....which I wager you can guess.

  

Tracklist:

1 All The Naked Heroes 2:30
2 Diary 5:02
3 Front 2:37
4 Is All I Need 2:29
5 Marcella Ball 4:56
6 Sensation / No Sensation 2:54
7 So Far Away 3:12
8 Wax Museum 2:48
9 What We Don't Want To See 3:34
10 Panthea

DOWNLOAD to hear some naughty girls on your monitors HERE!

Paul Kelday – "Centuries" (Music For Midgets – M.F.M.12) 1982

As one received a rare comment on a previous Paul Kelday post bemoaning the fact that as cosmic Paul's soul has now joined Sun Ra's orbiting one of the gas giants beyond the asteroid belt......no jokes about the gases of Uranus pleeze!....that most of his vast catalog of recordings will now never see the light again, or will be compacted into liquid hydrogen at Saturn's core rained on by regular showers of naturally occurring diamonds. And indeed Paul was a diamond,who spent the latter years of his life hiding away from society in general, and indeed giving up music altogether,leaving us with the disturbing suggestion that he may have binned all his tapes.

So,here's one that he didn't bin,and,more importantly, one I haven't posted before,called "Centuries",which surfaced on both Music For Midgets, and Integrated Circuit Records around the cusp of 1981/82.

Klassic Kelday,doing classic early Tangerine Dream meets the BBC Radiophonic Workshop....all captured on a Philips Ultra ferro C-60 bottom of the shelf cassette.

Tracklist:

A1 Legopolis (Nov. 81)
A2 Shadows In The Recesses Of The Subconscious (Dec. 81)
A3 Necessitarianism (Feb. 82)
A4 In The Air (Feb. 82)
B Centuries (Dec. 81)

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Boots For Dancing – "The Undisco Kidds (Sessions,Singles,and Demo's 1980-82) " (A Die or DIY? expanded edition) 2022

Bonnie Scotland were not just responsible for such reasons not to exist as Deacon Blue, The Proclaimers,,and Big Country, they virtually invented Indie-pop the night after witnessing Subway Sect on the Clash's White Riot tour....Josef K, Orange Juice,Fire Engines, Boots For Dancing,and......hold on big man,what was that last one?

Yeah, Boots For Dancing, the celtic cousins of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, so accurately described by Rezillo and Dare-era Human Leaguer Jo Callis as "Schrodinger's crazy cats writhing about in a Faraday cage,all charged up"....couldn't have put it better myself. So  scratchy and funky were they that John Peel once threatened to dance upon aural detection. They did release two singles on Bob Last's legendary "Pop:Aural" label after all...all included here.

It's the kind of off kilter post-punk-funk that gets the white man's foot-a-tappin' for sure.A style that would crop up on Top Of The Pops in the form of cute but funky plagiarists Haircut 100 and floppy fringed cringe-meisters Modern Romance,with a polished up version of ACR and Boots For Dancing for the great unwashed and the even the less great unintelligentia who form 90% of the 'Public'. 

Undoubtedly, these groups were also a major influence on Ron Johnson acts such as Twang! and mid-80's post-punk Scot-funksters The MacKenzies,until the Kids found different ways to dance post-chemical enhancement after 1988....i'll leave it to you to imagine what that could have been?

Anyway...All the singles,three John Peel Sessions,and some demo's for a future Lp that never materialized,are on here......groovy baby.

"I Like Dancing but I don't Like Disco's" is the manifesto from the debut single back in 1980.....as for me, I don't Like Dancing and I don't like Disco's.....but if i'm drunk i firmly believe I could to this?.....hmmmm, maybe not?

Tracklist:

1. Boots For Dancing (Pop Aural Single 1980)

2. Parachutes (Pop Aural Single 1980)

3. Guitars & Girl Trouble (Pop Aural Single 1980)

4. (Let's All) Hesitate (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

5. The  Pleasure Chant (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

6. Timeless Tonight (Peel Session (17.11.1980)

7. South Pacific (Peel Session 17.11.1980)

8. Stand (Peel Session 13.07.1981)

9. Shadows Of Stone (Peel Session 13.07.1981) 

10.Wild Jazz Summers (Peel Session 13.07.1981)

11.Get Up (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

12.Salt in the Ocean (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

13.Style in Full Swing (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

14.Bend an Elbow, Lend an Ear (Peel Session 14.04.1982)

15.Just the Ticket  (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

16.Money (Is Thin On The Ground) (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

17.Wild Jazz Summers (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

18.Shadows on Stone (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

19.Oh' Bop Sh Bam (Barclay Towers Studio October 1981)

20.Hesitate (The Rain Song 7'' Pop Aural 1980).

21.The Rain Song (The Rain Song 7'' Pop Aural 1980)

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