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They shared bills with contemporaries like the Five, Carsickness and the Cardboards, but unlike those bands, Pittsburgh's Dress Up As Natives sounded every bit a "lost" UK DIY act. Boasting jumpy rhumba-bass, thorny guitar and flippant vox, it's hard to believe that this all-female quartet's sole 45 (Public Records, '82) originated in America's formative Rust Belt punk scene.
But, hey: It did. This odd outfit actually began as the Non-Stops, a similarly wavey group with a co-ed roster. "The Non-Stops were basically the original Natives with someone named Rebecca playing bass," said Gina Cotton Simpson, former keys player for DUAN. "Rather than kick her out, they all quit on her and restarted the band to form Dress Up As Natives."
That was sometime in '81, and they'd already forged their own sound through shows at the now-legendary Electric Banana, gigs in Market Square, occasional road trips to Ohio and West Virginia -- and through frequent practices at the Krishna House, where Simpson once lived along with members of the Five and Carsickness.
Martin Newell missed UK punk. Or, rather, it missed him. "I felt that punk was a party which had been partly my idea," he told me through recent e-mail correspondence, "but which I then ended up not going to because it was already too crowded."
He'd skirt the party's periphery some years later, through various in-roads in the late '70s and '80s, but he'd already been making music years before young, excited Brits would shrug off glam-rock hangovers and coalesce into their own units, such as the Damned, the Clash and, of course, the Sex Pistols.
Indeed, before glam flamboyance rolled over to punk's increasingly rabid trappings, Newell was already a seasoned player in the heady bacchanal popularized by Slade, the Sweet and Mott the Hoople. At 20 years of age, he served as the frontman to Plod, a raucous glitter group who played often to great response, recorded a series of clap-and-stomp "hits" in '75, then folded due to what he now characterizes as "a dodgy record company." (Italy's Rave-Up Records issued the recordings on LP some 35 years later.) At Plod's demise, he wasted little time in joining another group, Gypp, and they continued to mine glam territory, now tempering it with prog-like exploration.
Their exploration was largely on-stage, however. "Gypp was a great live band," said Newell, "and a brilliant bunch of guys. I'd just had three years on the road with them and was very frustrated with not being able to spend time recording."
Exacerbating that frustration with Gypp's slim recording schedule was the band's lack of positive critical reviews -- of which there were some, but not enough -- and as the '70s wore on, Newell found himself through with Gypp, done with life on the road. But not with music altogether.
Belgian synth pioneer Snowy Red (neé Mickey Mike, born Marcel Thiel) passed away three years ago last week -- in May of '09 -- so I've been spinning The Right to Die LP (Dirty Dance, 1982) at top volume for several days now. In my mind, the album's one of the most ferocious keys recs of the '80s and onward, and the world's worse for the wear without this moody paragon's presence. Have a listen and hoist a candle, chums. Does someone want to "gift" me the Chainsaw 45? I'll buy you a crabapple cake and a pack of gum.
Suicide may have lit the torch in the mid-'70s, but one could argue that by decade's end, its carriers lived on the other side of the country -- in San Francisco. Sure, L.A. had the Screamers and some other odd ducks. But SF hosted an impressive number of bent bands who used synths, tape machines and other electrical apparatus to extend punk's mutated left end by leaps/bounds. Informed by avant garde composers and performance artists, fueled by apocalyptic abandon and paranoid pop twitch, groups like Tuxedomoon, Nervous Gender, the Residents, Factrix, Minimal Man, Chrome, and Pink Section would release timeless slabs of aggresively bizarre noise -- as would the Units, whose Digital Stimulation LP (415 Records, 1980) remains a personal favorite. The album's a lush and moody salvo if there ever was one, and I was thrilled to ask former lead synth player and vocalist Scott Ryser (right) a few questions about the band and its M.O. by e-mail last week.
Hey, it's Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's coolest punk rock export: Pekinška Patka. Here we see the band ripping through their anthemic "Poderimo Rok" -- behind glass, for whatever reason -- in '79. By the time they filmed this footage, the groundbreaking quintet had already established a sizeable cult following with Yugo Youths hungry for new sounds, and they lose their minds in this manic vid. I would've, too. Enjoy.
This one's especially weighty for me, since I hail from Sandburg's birthplace of Galesburg, IL. Not much I can say about Sandburg himself: he's ingrained in my mind as a legend, due in no small part to Galesburg's constant celebration of his talent. But on Caedmon's 1961 issue of Rootabaga Stories as Told by Carl Sandburg, the bygone poesy's rich voice and lofty cadence bring new life to some of these stories, and they go great with a few highballs and an open window during these wondrous spring months. From the aforementioned recording, enjoy "How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and Six Telegrams," below.
Real quick: Somewhat relative to my post on Henry Miller from a couple weeks back, here's an excerpt of Vonnegut reading his Breakfast Champions. This originally appeared on the appropriately-titled Kurt Vonnegut Reads Breakfast of Champions (Caedmon, 1979), which presented an abridged version of the novel itself, as brought to life by the author's stringy Hoosier twang. The whole LP's interesting, of course -- to me, anyway -- but the introduction here is at least amusing. Also noteworthy: His readings of Cat's Cradle and Welcome to the Monkey House, released on LP in '73 and '74, respectively.
I work about three blocks from Henry Miller's childhood home: 662 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.
I walk by it on lunchbreaks. Sometimes I stroll by after I clock out. Outwardly, the building itself has no real significance. It's an unassuming redbrick three-flat with an unused ground-floor store front. There's little to distinguish it from any other building on the block, but I keep going back. I'm in awe of its cultural importance. I'm in awe of Henry Miller.
The old goat's account of "the neighborhood" is one of many repetitive, hypnotic constants in his writing. His Fourteenth Ward appears promimently in several of his best works -- in essays, memoirs, novels, etc. -- so whenever I pass the rising redbrick, I immediately succumb to a dizzying carousel of comparisons: Miller's Williamsburg vs. its modern counterpart, his Brooklyn vs. others', his struggle to break through a square existence vs. my looming 5 p.m. beer urge.
Just when you think you've heard it all -- after culling through every volume of Back from the Grave, Teenage Shutdown, Garage Punk Unknowns, Highs in the Mid-Sixties and any number of similar '60s trash comps -- it's nice to read and hear something new from a band of old. Dedicated record collector Jay Litchfield's current blog, Rip It Up R.I., will cover the diminutive state's vibrant '60s music scene in great detail, and the first installment showcases the underheard and over-the-top Florian Monday & the Mondos, pictured to the left. Have a look and listen, and don't forget the lampshade on your head.
It's been over 30 years since Roy Montgomery's recorded debut -- the Pin Group's "Ambivalence" 45, issued as the first single on Flying Nun Records in 1981 -- and he remains as intriguing and understated a player as ever in New Zealand's subterranean avant-rock culture. With PG and subsequent outfits, like the Shallows and Dadamah, his guttural baritone and basic sturm-and-drang strum helped shape the inimitable post-punk of "the NZ sound," as popularized by Flying Nun and those associated with it. In the years since, he's collaborated with or released songs alongside noteworthy musicians and projects such as Bardo Pond (under the name Hash Jar Tempo), Flying Saucer Attack and Grouper. Montgomery has also single-handedly fashioned a wide discography of meditative instrumentals -- beautifully landscaped compositions that combine the loping, churning whorl of Krautrock with the fundamentals of minimal composition to yield a remarkably personal and cinematic hum. The Christchurch-based musician took a moment to answer a round of questions by e-mail last month.
Eric Cecil/WFMU: Can you describe the formation of Pin Group?
Roy Montgomery: The band evolved over the period of a year or so, starting with a four-piece known as Compulsory Fun which featured Ross Humphries on vocals, Tony Green on drums, Dave McKenzie on bass and myself on guitar. Dave departed after our first and only performance. We then regrouped as Murder Strikes Pink with Ross shifting to bass and a friend called Paul Champion taking on vocals. I think we may have performed three times. This was during 1980. When Paul left we went into recess, so to speak. Throughout this period I had been conferring regularly with a poet friend called Desmond Brice, who half-seriously went by the name Jim Despondent at the time. He produced screeds of rather dark and gloomy verse (think Doors meets lapsed Catholic) and passed them generously around to people including myself. When my band activities stopped I set about trying to write music to his lyrics with him playing bass. While we found our instrument-playing styles incompatible the songwriting seemed to work so I asked Ross Humphries to take up the basslines and we persuaded former Vacuum Band drummer Peter Stapleton to moonlight while he was still doing the odd Victor Dimisich Band show. Desmond agreed to keep feeding lyrics as and when required. The first two Pin Group singles have lyrics by Desmond on all tracks. Gradually more and more lyrics came from the band members.
"That's probably the hardest I've worked on any project," says Avi Spivak, the illustrator behind Norton Records' recent issue of Kicksville Confidential. And if you've seen Kicksville, released this past October, you'll understand what he means by "hard work" -- the Brooklyn-based artist's painstaking renderings of Norton stars are as detailed as they are funny, and they're clearly the toil of someone with a deep interest in u-ground comics and gutsy r'n'r alike. In Spivak's enthusiastic scrawl -- part Kaz, part MAD, part G. Panter, part urban daydrunk stupor -- some of the Norton stable's more colorful tales come to life, and we see, for example, Hannibal's fabled ride through Midtown Manhattan on an elephant, a Screamin' Jay Hawkins/Esquerita street-level fistfight and Hasil Adkins's rural shootout.
Spivak's resume prior to Kicksville is no less impressive. In addition to commercial art and various other projects, like the mural he painted outside of the now-defunct Mars Bar, he's contributed to Maximum RocknRoll, The Scientist, Vice -- and Al Goldstein's SCREW, for which he illustrated a cover in 2006.
In '79, the Handgrenades issued what would become the best UK DIY punk single not actually from the UK: their "Demo to London" b/w "Coma Dos" 45, self-released in an undetermined quantity on the band's unnamed imprint.
The single is a killer. It was also once a source of profound mystery -- to collectors and wayward punk geeks, at least. Omitted on the sleeve are the band's roster, their location and where they recorded their material, and the only nuggets of information profferred are a production credit attributed to Bob Levitan and the word "phonographix." Given this anonymity, and in light of the title and subject of "Demo to London" -- not to mention the otherworldly cut-up cover art, production, vocals, and musicianship (or lack thereof) -- many took the band's provenance to be London, or perhaps the outskirts of Manchester. The flip's manic "Coma Dos" sheds even less light on the single's origin, and the listener's left with a clang-punk artifact of the highest random order, reminiscent of contemporaries like Swell Maps, the Petticoats, Desperate Bicycles, so on, so forth.
Next Wednesday, Jan. 18, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the Boo-Hooray Gallery will open its latest/greatest exhibition, Artists' Book Not Artists' Book, an oddball showcase of books artistic, non- and all manner in-between.
For the unfamiliar, Boo-Hooray is the brainchild of kingpin rec collector and art aficionado Johan Kugelberg; he and cohort Jeremy Sanders (of 6 Decades Books) have co-curated the exhibit. Artists' Book Not Artists' Book promises an array of curious tomes by the likes of Richard Meltzer, William Gibson, Richard Hell and Ed Ruscha, to name but a sampling, and judging from the gallery's previous shows -- displays of Ed Wood's paperback smut, photos and art relative to the Velvet Underground, Crass-related fanzines, etc. -- this one will be another doozy, even (or especially!) if you can't read.
All and sundry are welcome to stop by the gallery's space in Manhattan, 265 Canal Street (6th floor), where the show will run from Jan. 18 to Feb. 12, much to the delight and confusion of artists and philistines alike. Those wishing to RSVP for the opening should do so here.
It's Thursday, December 29, and the holidays have left their tread; heady drink and hearty food have all but rendered my mind and metabolism slug-like, and I can barely even remember what I did last week, let alone what records I purchased and bands I saw at the dawn of this (or any) annum. In lieu of summarizing this year in recorded music history, then, I will instead say this: My most anticipated release in 2012 is actually from 1973. It's the vinyl reissue of the Coloured Balls' Ball Power LP on Aztec Records, which I hear is due out "soon." While you and I await the long-overdue re-release of this seminal sharpie outfit's best album, we can feast our eyes on this video of the band ripping through a truncated version of "Human Being" on GTK in early '73.
For those of you who can't wait or aren't particular about your media, you can also order the CD reissues of Ball Power and Heavy Metal Kid through Aztec Records' site -- or various distributors, like the ol' reliables at Forced Exposure. Now if you'll excuse me, time to ice my achin' head. Oh, and Happy New Etc.
Jürgen Gleue is done with music. He quit sometime in the mid-'90s. That's when he gave his instruments and equipment away to local musicians in Hannover, Germany. He hasn't played a note since.
"And now," Gleue said when I spoke with him on the phone some months ago, "I have the comics for recreational purposes."
Much like the songs he recorded in his various outfits -- most notably, the legendary 39 Clocks, and his solo project, Phantom Payn -- his comics are playful, sardonic and, above all else, hallucinatory. He self-publishes them in runs of 50 or so, then hands them out to friends, acquaintances and strangers in the streets of Hannover.
"But why comics?" I asked.
"I like the way small fanzines relate to larger magazines, especially in terms of subversion," he returned.
Subversion's always been a big part of Gleue's life, especially in terms of art. Or as he calls it, "primitive art, a sort of anti-art." From the early '70s through most of the '80s, he and co-conspirator Christian Henjes/C.H.-39 took immense pleasure in crafting crude, provocative ditties like "Stupid Art" -- noisy and anthemic tunes that borrowed as much from the monkeyshines of Dada as they did the repetition of the Velvet Underground and the rank confrontation and canned beats of Suicide, whose live show directly influenced the Clocks' antagonism. They played often, despite -- or because of -- threats from angry crowds, cross words from prestigious artists (Joseph Beuys) and a hefty influx of drink and drug.
Such chaotic creative tension couldn't last long. Impressively, though, their self-proclaimed "psycho beat" endured until '87 or so. And when the smoke cleared, J.G.-39 started recording moodier solo efforts under the name Phantom Payn.
"It's weird," says Robin Hall, erstwhile vocalist of formative NY punks/no-wavers Jack Ruby. "But I actually thought we should have hit records."
They didn't, of course. How could they? As early as '74, the toothsome quartet was making quite a racket in Lower Manhattan -- too much racket, really, and the Bowery bohemes flocking to see Television and the New York Dolls were unsure of a band that seemed to thrive on sheets of schizophrenic noise. Robin and his bandmates considered groups like Television and the Dolls distant peers, and they hoped for some sort of recognition in the Lower East Side, but it was clear that Jack Ruby didn't fit. They couldn't, and didn't want to.
"Bands like Television had their thing, which wasn't what we were doing," says Hall today. "We had our own way of doing things. It was more like, 'If everybody's doing that, let's do this.'"
Contrarian and abrasive as they were, Jack Ruby had something. Some of their songs sounded familiar -- at least for the first 30 seconds or so -- borrowing riffs and rhythms from the Stooges, the Velvets, the MC5, various hard rock and garage bands. But there lurked an unhinged, paranoiac collage of amphetemine noise in each of their tunes, due in no small part to drummer Randy Cohen's cracked synth and manipulated sound loops, not to mention Boris Policeband's equally squalid electric viola. While Hall would sneer through his lines and sniff at imaginary jailbait, guitarist Chris Gray wiggled out strangulated leads, and Cohen and Policeband attacked their respective instruments, building a mountainous scraping cacophony atop what began as a fairly planar rock/roll number. In some cases, the sonic bedlam would prove too heavy and unwieldy for the song itself to support, and it would disintegrate abruptly.
My favorite local band, the K-Holes, are currently mixing their as-yet-untitled sophomore LP, due out this coming April. The second album's sure to be a great follow-up to their excellent debut on Hozac Records, since this local quintent's recent live shows tell of a compellingly primal mix of Scientists-mach-two drudgery, desolate Western twang and incisive punk. "Window in the Wall," a serpentine number from their upcoming full-length, also speaks of a band that's learned to exercise a bit of subtlety, a gang that's stretched beyond its own boundaries and moved on to grayer, greater pastures.
But, hey, don't let collected cool of the above fool you -- the K-Holes are still fiery as ever, and New Yorkers can see for themselves this Friday, Nov. 11, at Bushwick's Goodbye Blue Monday, where they'll take the stage with Sediment Club, Monstress, Lobby Art and Geek Skull.
In '79, Leicester's Disco Zombies self-released their debut single: "Drums Over London." The tune was a strong, driving punk number, a mix of the Buzzcocks' charged pop and Subway Sect's ironic commentary on life in the UK.
But the irony largely fell on deaf -- or dense -- ears. While the band intended the song as a swipe at nationalist and racist sentiments pervading the UK in the late '70s, many who heard it on John Peel's program misinterpreted its message entirely. Some complained, requesting Peel remove it from his playlist. Some embraced the song with little regard for Dave Henderson's acerbic vocal, for guitarist Andy Ross's sardonic lyric, and they took the song as a serious anthem. Others understood the band's spirited message and appreciated their energetic take on punk, and the Disco Zombies quickly sold through 2,000 copies of their first 45.
While some bands manage to slag through endless, soulless recs/tours 20-plus years into their existence, Columbus, OH's Cheater Slicks are anomalous in their insistence to continually evolve -- to remain not only a relevant group, but a damn good one after two decades of artful scree.
Indeed, 2007's Walk Into the Sea (Dead Canary Records) spoke of a gang who'd grown sharper in tooth. Recent tours and weekenders have been just as fierce as ever. If anything, the Slicks may be better than they were ten years ago, when most others would've already hit their prime, would've run ragged, recycled same old/same old.
The Embarrassment were an unlikely group. Formed in Wichita, KS, in 1979, they sounded every bit a coastal or foreign post-punk band, one that might've shaken hands with the Feelies (NJ), Mission of Burma (MA) or Monochrome Set (UK) -- contempo units that shared the same aptitude for nervous, twitchy songs, albeit in much more populous and liberal burgs in the U.S. and abroad.
But the Embos called Wichita home, and their location didn't slow them down a damn bit. Because if their area didn't have a scene calling for such original music, they'd just build one. Which they basically did.
"At the time, the local scene -- it was kind of ours to create," explains guitarist Bill Goffrier today. "And the people who came to see us early on were sort of arty, intellectual types."
Most of those arty, intellectual types came from local universities. Some were wayward high schoolers. Some were general outsiders. A few had their own bands, like the Mortal Micronotz and Get Smart!, who hailed from nearby Lawrence, KS.
Of the three mentioned, the Embos were the first to release a single: 1980's "Sex Drive" b/w "Patio Set." Their debut 45 was a smart, minimal, oblique slab of double entendres and angular guitar chug. And it was, like most great r'n'r, an ingenious mix of caveman, troubador and horndog.
In the case of the Embarrassment, it was also an accomplished stride forward from a promising new gang of smartasses. "And we were proud of making that step," says Goffrier. "We had a lot of missteps leading up to that, so the single was kind of a milestone."
It remains a milestone today: one of the Great Plains' coolest forays into cracked post-punk territory. Last Laugh Records will reissue the single early next month. You can contact the label here to get your own.
