Monday, June 01, 2009

GRAF ORLOCK & GHOSTLIMB - European Tour 2009


(tour poster by Bis Aufs Messer)

No doubt, one of the happenings this year - and my second or third show within one year (hahahahaha, okay I will attend Yo La Tengo's gig in my town, too). Reviews and shirt postings by both bands will follow.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

4 000 000 TELEPHONES - French Girls (12") Summerhouse #Sums 02 recorded 1986 released 1987




Finally I could get my hands on a copy of this record. It was released after their brilliant debut LP. It's a pity that they never got the attention they deserved.
The title track is way more catchy and pop than the songs on their first release, but still unique. But the other tracks are a fine frowardness in a time when it simply wasn't cool anymore to play that sound. Especially the saxophone is very driving here giving it all a bit The Pop Group or James White & The Blacks feeling. While when it gets more way out in those three tracks The Contortions and La Société Des Timides à l' a Parade Des Oiseau come to my mind. 4 000 000 Telephones even learned some Sun Ra and Art Ensemble Of Chicago lessons here - can't go wrong here.

Is that a xylphone in "Mrs. Brown (The Clown)"? Totally corrosive!

Now: Funk you!

4 000 000 TELEPHONES - French Girls E.P. (12") Summerhouse #Sums 02 recorded 1986 released 1987

side a:
1. French Girls
2. The Same Thing

side b:
1. Mrs. Brown (The Clown)
2. Icebox
[OGG Vorbis, maximum quality, password: antithesis, mirror 1, mirror 2]

ANASARCA - self titled (7") Yuletide Records #04 1995




Again: please do not confuse them with the Death Metal band of the same name!

I was just uploading their split 7" again and I thought it might be nice to post their 7" too. Maybe their two best songs with a lot of mid phase Shotmaker and Thumbnail in here, although I think that those bands weren't an influence to Anasarca. On the other hand the flip side was a huge influence to Blue Water Boy - a band that was better than Anasarca in my opinion just suffering from the European underdog status.

Released on the small label that brought us Frail or Four Hundred Years and produced by no one else than Ken Olden from Battery/ Worlds Collide/ Damnation a.d./ Farcry and and and.

ANASARCA - self titled (7") Yuletide Records #04 1995

side a:
1. East Bunk Hill

side b:
1. Eugene Debs
[OGG Vorbis, maximum quality, password: antithesis, mirror 1, mirror 2]

Links:
Livetrack at The Sound Of Indie
Video at The Sound Of Indie
Liveset at The Sound Of Indie

Friday, May 22, 2009

BLACK VELVET FLAG - come recline with... (LP) Go Kart Records #GKLP008




I have sent Erich a digital version once and he answered with "the perfect nails into the coffin".
Yes, here it is: the nails into hardcore punk's coffin. A big "fuck you" towards exaggerated nostalgia and historiography. It's like the end scene of "American Hardcore" with Keith Morris' statement.

Black Velvet Flag were three guys covering the Westcoast classics they grew up with with their definition of lounge music. Lounge music, a music that is used for non annoying1 background sounding in bars, hotels or malls, is in every way the total opposite to those originals. And it just fits! It sounds like late Frank Sinatra, muzak, lounge and elevator jazz and new bossa jazz with horrible 80ies pop themes.
Although the record got some attention in many magazines and the band having articles in well known newspapers (some of them are featured on the Black Velvet Flag movie homepage) only a few seem to know this record. I always have to copy it to friends, when I try to share my joy with them. Go Kart Records even do not list the record or the band any more on their homepage! Why?
There is even a movie in existence documenting their tour experience but I have never seen it. It was finished in 2003 and it never was up for sale as DVD. The homepage works but there is no contact address etc.. If anyone can help me out here: please drop me a line.
Back to the record - one of the best Go Kart Records ever did: the cover is a wonderful rip off of the The Decline of Western Civilization compilation LP cover with Jeff, Black Velvet Flag's singer, doing a perfect imitation of Darby Crash. I am not sure if the interviews in between are just fake or if they are from the filmed material, I did not rip them separatly unlike the CD version.
When I first got it I tried to find out who did "I shot JFK" for weeks until I was told that this is their own song. I didn't get it since the lyrics easily could have been by Angry Samoans, White Flag, Vandals, Fear or even the Minutemen. My favourite tracks are the Suicidal cover and an overwhelming, mind blowing "I Don't Care About You" by Fear. A fucking highlight, it just blows: Everything brutal and cynical in the original it comes back here, intensified and like a suckerpunch. The lyrics in combination with the music of Black Velvet Flag and Jeff's sublimial staginess, sorry, but it doesn't get any better. The whole album was recorded live at CBGB's.

There is a crack at the end of "Institutionalized" and I tried to remove it but it didn't work. I washed the record but it still isn't gone - no scratch on the record at least not visible to me. Sorry.

They never recorded their second album, and this is their only output known to me - besides their own song being on the "Go Kart vs. the Corporate Giant" CD compilation. The vinyl version does not pop up very often but you all should get the CD version easily at Amazon etc..

Enjoy this big middle finger now!

BLACK VELVET FLAG - come recline with... (LP) Go Kart Records #GKLP008

side a:
1. Wasted (Black Flag)
2. Amoeba (Adolescents)
3. Group Sex (Circle Jerks)
4. I Shot JFK
5. Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies)

side b:
1. No Values (Black Flag)
2. Media Blitz (Germs)
3. I Don't Care About You (Fear)
4. Code Blue (TSOL)
5. Stepping Stone (The Monkees)
[OGG Vorbis, maximum quality, password: antithesis, mirror 1, mirror 2]

Links:
Black Velvet Flag - The Movie
Go Kart Records


1
I found it very annoying - ever been in a mall where they played Chet Baker or Nuyorican Soul? Don't think so.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Simple!

Just looks better.

Black Velvet Flag, V/A - Look at All the Children Now, Deuter, 4 000 000 Telephones E.P. and some reups are next.

Never forget: support the knives!


(Philipp playing in my Neglect hooded sweater - I need that one again! - Bunker Friedrichshafen ca. 1997)

Monday, May 11, 2009

JUD JUD - no tolerance for instruments (7") Victory Records Fan Club Swingin' Singles #02 1998




That was a surprise to me: a hoax interview in the first Victory Megazine following a 7” for the Victory Records Fan Club single series (someone remembers the ugly shirt that came for every member?!). This might be one of the best records Victory has ever done – just kidding. The plastic sleeve is screen printed or sprayed and the record was recorded “on the straightest days of 1998 at the straightest place by the straightest person, Thanxxx to straightness.” And please always keep that in mind: “Jud Jud can only be contact by those who are at least as straight as themselves. From this it follows that Jud Jud can only b[e] contacted by Jud Jud. Sorry, any outside communication would certainly jeopardize our status as the world’s straightest band and we cannot allow this, we are too straight.”

JUD JUD - no tolerance for instruments (7") Victory Records Fan Club Swingin' Singles #02 1998

side a:

1. we're back
2. wah wah song
3. harmonics song
4. speed picking song
5. tune down song

side b:

1. bass in beginning song
2. double bass song
3. grindcore song
4. hammeron song
[OGG Vorbis, maximum quality, password: antithesis, mirror 1, mirror 2]

JUD JUD - x the demos x (7") No Idea Records #57 1997




First of all: thanks to my sister Simone who gave me her USB record player until I buy myself a phono preamp again.

Here they come: the only two straight edge records which ever mattered. Jud Jud are nothing then Steve Heritage from Assück, Bombs Of Death and Anthem Eighty Eight and B. Rouse from End Of The Century Party and Scholastic Deth (Bookstore Core!!!!) doing human beatbox straight edge anthems. Total deconstruction of every cliché, riff, chorus etc. you expect from a drug free hymn. Beside those two singles they had several tracks on compilations (403 comp., Blindspot mailorder compilation, Back to Donut etc.) which are on the singles too. Everything’s a winner here. The Side By Side mocking cover, the flyers and yes, the lyrics. If there will be a “incredible strange music” compilation for the 90ies Jud Jud will be on it.

JUD JUD – x the demos x (7”) No Idea Records #57 August 1997

side a:

1. high hat song
2. gallop song
3. slither song
4. divebomb song

side b:

1. fast song
2. rounds of jud song
3. tuning song
4. backmasking song
5. turn around song
[OGG Vorbis, maximum quality, password: antithesis, mirror 1, mirror 2]

Links:
Jud Jud @ myspace
Jud Jud @ No Idea Records




Sunday, February 15, 2009

Those Who Fear Tomorrow MP3 Blog

"bring honour or walk away RJC - BTBC - CTYC"


(Abhinanda in the 90ies by Henrik)

My buddy Henrik from Sweden started a blog concentrating on the 90ies and some 80ies classic mainly concerning Beatdown and vegan drugfree music. He posted some real burners until now - some stuff we traded a while ago, but were told by other traders to not share it on the internet, but that was quite some time in the past; I think the good old tape trading and even CD-R days are gone forever. So check it out and download all the stuff I needed nearly ten years to get by tapetrading - the world is fucked! Things like the Birthrigt demo, Everlast demo, Flame of God demo, two of the three Contempt demos etc.:

Those who fear tomorrow!

I will also use the opportunity or let's say as trigger for posting stuff I held back for some years now.