More hopelessly obscure US Post-Punk quirkiness,or as it is described on the sleeve as "World Class Art-Wave"? A genre within a genre. Just trying to think of other Art-Wave acts who were never referred to as, but were Post-Punk......Talking Heads?...Wire?......things are getting far too complex nowadays! How does an Art-Waver know if he's an Art-Waver or Post Punk?
It used to be far simpler back in the day.....all this was 'punk'.....not even Art-Punk...it was Punk.Heavy Metal was Heavy Metal.There's slow Heavy Metal (Sludge,Funeral,Doom +another 600 varieties), Fast Heavy Metal, (Thrash,Speed,Punk Crossover), Classic Heavy Metal (Judas Priest, Black Sabbath,NWOBHM)...and that's it!
Chemicals Made From Dirt, was a .......they're at it again on these sleevenotes!....a PunkWave.....what the fuck is that?.....Punk?.....from Long Island. So at least they were near the action,rather than some cesspit in Iowa or one of those more medeval states that seemed shut off from the world since the witch trials.
Again we have a group with a name that suggested immediate commercial failure.
At the risk of starting another genre, i'll describe this as that quirky variety of post-Punk which became popular among geeks wanting to form bands in the USA between 1979 and and 1983, approximately between Devo's first album and "Oh No It's Devo".......or Oh No! It's another Quirky Post Punk Band.
Alas, whereas Devo had a compact and memorable name, Chemicals made from Dirt (CMFD....even the acronym is a tongue twister!) had a difficult to remember moniker,if not forgettable.
Me, being a Fan of Quirky Post Punk, or Art Wave, Or art rock in general,beginning with XTC,who were the British Devo/Talking Heads.A face that launched a few post punk novelty acts like The Vapors,but not a wave of the likeminded as in the states.
CMFD left us with 25 songs recorded for posterity back in the day, and put on a disintegrating CD-r by Chuck Warner of Hyped2Death at the turn of the century, and they're all good. Personal fave is "Beatniks Looking For Tourists",'cus I like anything with the word 'Beatnik' in the title.....I'm that deep, that 'arty'.
Let a band spokesman finish off this confused narrative with something sensible:
"We called it an avant absurd experiment...We liked the idea of breaking down meaning to the point of abstraction and then reinterpreting it based on personal associations and meaning rather than having any absolute meaning.".....yep...Artwave alright!
Tracklist:
1 Manikin 2:44
2 M 3:31
3 Hard 3:26
4 Beatniks Looking For Tourists 2:40
5 Protein Pants 2:52
6 Another Dinner 2:41
7 Chemicals Made From Dirt 2:27
8 Panic-No Fusion 2:40
9 Girls My Age 2:40
10 17th Century
11 Communist Calendar Girls 2:41
12 Air Raid Drill 3:04
13 Medicated Elvis 2:09
14 Uh-Oh 1:12
15 Homeless Men 3:25
16 Fast Ocean Puppet 3:05
17 Fly To Work 2:43
18 Multiple Station Wagon 2:15
19 Claus Von Bulow 4:38
20 Dr. Shockley 3:17
21 Lost In The Cave Of Flying Dogs 3:56
22 Barney 4:00
23 Hiding From Bozo 2:48
24 Show World 1:37
25 Rapula 3:39
