Saturday, March 28, 2009

Jet Staxx - 1978 - I'm Gonna Be the Best Guy [7''] [320k] (BE)

Jet Staxx - 1978 - I'm Gonna Be the Best Guy [7''] [320k] (BE)
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Xdreamysts - 1980 - I Don't Wanna Go 7'' (UK)

Xdreamysts - 1980 - I Don't Wanna Go 7'' (UK)
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Diodes, The - 1977 - The Diodes LP (CAD)

Diodes, The - 1977 - The Diodes LP (CAD)
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Friday, March 27, 2009

Roller Ball - 1977 - Savage Eyes [7''] [192k] (BE)

Roller Ball - 1977 - Savage Eyes [7''] [192k] (BE)
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No, nothing to do with the "Teach Me To Rock'n'Roll" lot, it's way more important than that. This Rollerball was a pre-Elton Motello thing involving Alan Ward and Mike Butcher (Jet Staxx). If Mike himself hadn't tipped me off about this then I'd still be in the dark about it. Here's what Mike revealed...'Rollerball was just a one off, with me on guitar, Alan on vocals and 2 studio assistants, Alex on bass and his brother Pascal on drums. Pascal also played the drums on the Jet Staxx singles. We never played a gig and I don't think we even got many radio plays.'"Savage Eyes" and B-side "Lay You Down", both Ward/Butcher compositions, were recorded late 1976 in their adopted home of Brussels, Belgium (the mecca of pseudo punk), with a production credited to Rollerball as a band. It seems that it was only released in Holland on CNR Records in the first half of 1977 with the Dutch copies also being distributed in Belgium.The B-side is a decent rock number with a few New York Dolls moves, but the real action is on the glorious glam/punk of "Savage Eyes". Considering who was behind this record and how great it is, it's a total mystery why it's remained unknown for over 30 years.
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source Worthless Trash (link)

Brutality,Religion And A Dance 7'' (1977) (UK)

Brutality,Religion And A Dance 7'' (1977) (UK)
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"Brutality Religion and a Dance Beat" was a 7" single compilation of two songs. It contained the songs "Big in Japan", by eponymous band Big in Japan, and "Do The Chud", by The Chuddy Nuddies (later Yachts), both groups formed in the 1970's punk scene of Liverpool. It was released by the Eric's label in September 1977.
The side-A song, "Big in Japan", was an eponymous song of the band Big in Japan. It was a power-pop/punk oriented song, in which the singer, Jayne Casey, sang saying only the song name, plus a chorus. The band comprised future and past successful musician then Jayne Casey, guitarists Bill Drummond (later with The KLF), Ian Broudie (later of Care and The Lightning Seeds) and Clive Langer (of Deaf School), bassist Kev Ward and drummer Phil Allen.
The side-B song, was "Do The Chud", by The Chuddy Nuddies, who later changed their name to Yachts. The song was a bit synthpop oriented, with a synthesizer use, which only was a style of The Stranglers.
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source Wikipedia (link)

Decibel - 1980 - Vivo Da Re (IT)

Decibel - 1980 - Vivo Da Re (IT)
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Monday, March 23, 2009

Monte Cazazza - 1979 - To Mon on Mother's Day 7'' (UK)

Monte Cazazza - 1979 - To Mon on Mother's Day 7'' (UK)
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Monte Cazazza is an American artist and composer best known for his seminal role in helping shape the early landscape of industrial music through recordings with the London-based Industrial Records in the mid-1970s.
Cazazza, based primarily in San Francisco during his early career, is credited with coining the phrase "Industrial Music for Industrial People". This was later used to encapsulate the record label and the artists representing it. Later, the noise collages and experimental sound manipulation coming out of Industrial records came to be known as industrial music. Cazazza had built up an underground reputation as a particularly volatile performer with a potentially dangerous and antisocial aesthetic. Re/Search Magazine's Industrial Culture Handbook described his work as "insanity-outbreaks thinly disguised as art events". The Futurist Sintesi show near the end of 1975 was heralded on a promo flier as "Sex - religious show; giant statue of Jesus got chainsawed and gang raped into oblivion".
Cazazza did not limit his "performances" to the familiar dynamic of stage, audience and audience reaction. Much of his work involved acts designed for maximum shock value. In a well known incident, while a student at the Oakland College of Arts and Crafts, Cazazza created a cement waterfall that permanently disabled the main stairway of the building. He once created a 15'x15' screw-together metal swastika and was known to visit his friends with a dead cat and formaldehyde that he would use to set the cat alight.
Much of his early work is considered obscene and virtually impossible to find. He worked with both print and sound collage, film, performance, and presentation. He was also heavily involved in the "Mail art" movement of the mid-1970s to early '80s. His recordings with Throbbing Gristle in early 1977 are highly regarded among collectors and continue to be esteemed as some of the most significant to come out of that period. Some of his early output was collected and released by The Grey Area of Mute in 1992 under the title, The Worst of Monte Cazazza.
Cazazza worked frequently with Factrix, an early industrial and experimental group from San Francisco, and recorded soundtracks for Mark Pauline and Survival Research Laboratories. More recent activity has included co-creating the independent distribution and film company, MMFilms with Michelle Handelman and various soundtrack recordings.
Cazazza sent out photos of himself in an electric chair on the day of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore's execution. One of these was mistakenly printed in a Hong Kong newspaper as the real execution. Cazazza was also photographed alongside COUM Transmissions/Throbbing Gristle members Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti for the "Gary Gilmore Memorial Society" postcard, in which the three artists posed blindfolded and tied to chairs with actual loaded guns pointed at them to depict Gilmore's execution.
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source Wikipedia (link)

Los Reactors - 2004 - Dead In The Suburbs (US)

Los Reactors - 2004 - Dead In The Suburbs (US)
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Rip Off Records has scored its first archival band of our history, putting out the legendary 1980 Oklahoma band LOS REACTORS for the first time ever on CD. Their catchy keyboard sound has been stolen and copied by numerous bands, and many bands like THE BRIEFS frequently cover their songs, like "Dead in The Suburbs". LOS REACTORS put out a vinyl version of this release out on the Italian Rave Up Records, but this CD has additional songs, enhanced video footage of news clips & interviews of Los Reactors and hilarious footage of the "punk scene" of Oklahoma in the early 80's. The video also has the band performing "Dead in the Suburbs", and a previously unreleased song, "It's a Wonderful Life". The CD has both the classic singles and hits, "Dead in the Suburbs", "Culture Shock", "Laboratory Baby", along with a live set from the band. If you want to hear what the original new wave of bands sounded like, instead of the current crop of imitatation "keyboard" bands buy this enhanced CD of a truly legendary band.
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source Rip Off (link)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Martyrs - 1979 - Pig Pen Victim 7'' (US)

Martyrs - 1979 - Pig Pen Victim 7'' (US)
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Lost Kids - 1978 - Født Som Nul EP (DKK)

Lost Kids - 1978 - Født Som Nul EP (DKK)
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Suburban Reptiles - 1977 - Megaton 12'' (NZ)

Suburban Reptiles - 1977 - Megaton 12'' (NZ)
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The Suburban Reptiles and The Scavengers were the first punk bands to form in New Zealand.
The Suburban Reptiles were first conceptualised by Auckland students Simon Grigg and Brett Salter in late 1976, with some encouragement from filmmaker David Blyth. Grigg and Salter had originally planned to form a jazz band but Grigg was redirected by Blyth after he saw a live review of The Sex Pistols in the New Musical Express.
Grigg, seeing himself as the manager, explained the concept to Salter, who played the saxophone, and other students, William Pendergrast, bass guitar; Clare Elliot, (Salter's partner), vocals; Trish Scott, guitar; Brian Nicholls, guitar; and Kim Smith, backing vocals, were invited to join. Grigg found a drummer, an apprentice butcher and part time juggler, Des Edwards and the original lineup was complete. This group only lasted the first few practices in a basement in Auckland's inner suburb, Ponsonby, before both Smith and Edwards departed. The first practices however produced a nucleus of a live set with a mix of covers (including songs from Roxy Music, The Damned and The Modern Lovers) and a number of originals.
The only live performance from this lineup was an aborted late night set in Auckland University's Student Quadrangle, with the power being pulled by University custodians after one song to a bemused crowd fresh from a concert by Th'Dudes.
Having thought they were the only punks in town, The Suburban Reptiles had a chance encounter in an Auckland pub, The Globe, that night with The Scavengers, who likewise had believed they were the only ones.
A drummer was now needed and Salter and Elliot had a chance encounter with Mark Hough, who had been playing in a band called After Hours, with Neil Finn. Hough, an art student at Elam (Auckland University's Fine Arts School), was asked to join and the first serious lineup was formed. The members then, in the tradition of punk bands the world over, took stage names: Salter became, initially Jimmy Vinyl and later Jimmy Joy and Lino Clone; Elliot took Sally Slag but quickly became simply Zero (although to the band she was simply Zed); Nicholls was Shaun Anfrayd; Pendergrast was Billy Planet; Scott was Sissy Spunk; and Hough was, initially Buzz, but soon, Buster Stiggs. Grigg used the name Partizan Politik as a management coverall.
The first performances were at a variety of private parties in April 1977, but the first major public performance was in June when they, with The Scavengers, and another newly found band, The Masochists, played a party put on by Grigg and David Blyth, for Blyth's forthcoming film, Angel Mine.
Over the next couple of months the band played regularly although Scott and Nicholls left, with The Scavengers' Johnny Volume playing from time to time before Pendergrast moved to guitar and Wayne 'Bones Hillman' Stevens, from The Masochists, joined on bass, the name Hillman coming from the brand of car he drove. Over the period the band was fired from a Catholic Boys School; was pursued and vilfied by a hungry media, repeatedly making the front pages of various newspapers; and were attacked by a vigilante mob at a student arts festival in Wellington.
They also, during this period, recorded their first single, a double A side, 12" (the first released in New Zealand). The first recording sessions were nominally produced by Tim Finn (although he slept through much of the session) at Harlequin Studios in Mt. Eden, and produced four tracks, at the time unreleased. The second session a few weeks later, produced by the band and Doug Rogers, re-recorded two of those songs, Megaton and Desert Patrol, and these, after some gestation came out on Phonogram's Vertigo label in January 1978, selling about 500 copies at the time.
In late 1977 Grigg departed and Hough became the defacto manager, with the band taking on the role of a more conventional touring act thereafter. However, in mid 1978 Zero was arrested for swearing on stage at the Riverhead Rock Festival. The subsequent court case and her acquittal set a legal precedent as to what could be said and where. Over that period, both Tony Baldock and Rolland Killeen played bass for the band at various times.
For the second single, the band brought in former Split Enz guitarist, Phil Judd, to produce and Judd became more and more part of the band over the following months. His arrival caused a great deal of friction between the members who effectively divided into two camps, with Judd and Hough on one side and Pendegrast and Salter in the other, with Zero in the middle. Drug issues also caused problems. However the resultant single, Saturday Night Stay at Home, with Judd's soaring guitar was an instant classic. A Student Radio survey in the early 2000s named it the greatest NZ single of all time.
“ We started off recording on low quality sixes between 1 o'clock and 5 o'clock in the morning, when the recording studios charged the least. As our first songs became popular, we were able to record high quality twenty-fours, in good studios at reasonable times. -Brett Salter ”
It was too late for the Suburban Reptiles however and at the premier of Angel Mine in October 1978 two bands both played under that name. The Hough / Judd led band re-emerged some months later as The Swingers.
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source Wikipedia (link)