Here's Your Party Album

Hopefully this missive gets to you in time to save whatever lame New Year's Eve party you're going to tonight.

Roman Gods (1981)

Here is one of the greatest party records of all time by one of the greatest live acts of all time, the Fleshtones.
This is music made for playing loud and drinking beer to. Its raucous and fun and dumb and everything you need to liven up any festive occasion.

Seeing the Fleshtones lives was a guarantee that you would emerge at the end drenched in sweat from nonstop dancing and probably pretty happy and drunk at the same time. They never failed to deliver and it was always a good fucking time.

Really. There's a documentary to watch about them. It's inspiring.

Do yourself and others a favor and tear whatever lame bullshit is likely to be played and chuck this on.

You're Welcome.

Things Are Not What They Seem

Yeah, yeah. It's Christmas.

Blah to the fucking blah blah blah.

Holly and Ivy (1980)

Here I got you a Christmas single by Hybrid Kids. Happy now?

Do Ya Think I'm Sexy (1980)

 So I guess, there should be a little bit of explanation about what these two are exactly.

Once upon a time there was a musician named Morgan Fisher who at one point in his career played with Mott the Hoople starting in around 1974 (here they are miming poorly in 1974. Morgan on the piano) until they called it quits in 1976.

Three years later on a cover record appears called "Hybrid Kids: A Collection of Classic Mutants" which appears to be a compilation of various strange bands doing covers of popular songs such as Punky and Porky covering the Sex Pistols in a humorous fashion.

The thing is, it isn't.

It's all the work of Morgan Fisher.

That's him doing the vivisection of Rod Stewart here as well as a piss take on the Perry Como hit on the flip. (and it's already been established how I feel about that generic mayonnaise motherfucker of a singer.)

So there you go. We're done. Go back and spend some time with your family.

I'm working Christmas this year.

Cold Pizza

I'm typing with on hand while I use the other to hold a slice of cold pizza.

 Don't Get Mad (1980)

Power Pop from the Bay Area from 1980 by the Imposters.
It's good stuff.

Hey Who (1967)

What would probably have been a Power Pop equivalent for the time by a band from the Chicago area called the Ingredients.

Also the good stuff.

I Can't Even...But I Did Anway...

This is the preface. It's a few sentences that's supposed to lead into the following post or at least establish my particular state of mind or just some dumb shit that I felt like typing out at the time that I was making this similarly dumb post.. It's not a reflection on you if you skim over it or even choose to ignore it entirely since it really serves no actual purpose beyond fitting a particular pattern I've previously set for the creation of posts on this silly blog and for the visual sense of helping to create a sort of frame for the artwork that follows this.

So there.

Secret Star (1995)

This would be the nail in the Hypnolovewheel coffin. Good songs. Terrible cover.

The End.

Picnic Ape (1982)

The Incredible Casuals from the vague whereabouts of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Now that's better graphics. No eye straining colors. A nice abstraction of a picnic with a picture of a gibbon of some sort for a song called "Picnic Ape" which itself is a short abstraction of a song.
A good balance and use of space and negative space. 
I give it a B+

B-side is a dub version of the A-side which takes an abstraction and abstracts it further and uses some of the inhabitants of David Greenberger's Duplex Planet to recite the lyrics. It works on even deeper levels now.

The universe is whole again.

This should tide you over

I  have to go to grocery store so I have something to cook to bring for lunch at work for this week.
Content yourselves with this brief compilation until I get back.

I Hear the Devil Calling Me (1991)

With this mere seven inches of black vinyl Drag City introduced a larger swath of the American listening audience to the lo-fi goodness that was the New Zealand label Xpressway.

Twelve songs by twelve artists. All around a minute in length.

This was a big fucking deal at the time. Still is as good a time capsule of that moment, that scene, as you're going to get at this juncture and from this distance. We ate it up. We used it as a guide to what we needed to listen to next. We followed things to their logical or sometimes not logical conclusion.

You do the same. It's good for you.

The Horror Continues

I need a snack or something. My blood sugar's getting low.

Buckle up this could be a crankier post than usual...

Sybil ep (1993)

This time around they've thrown together a nice little double seven inch on 18 Wheeler which was a nice respectable little label out of somewhere in New Jersey. I've got a number of their releases.

For this release everybody in the band gets a side to themselves and does their own sort of lo-fi thing. It's actually an interesting concept and has some swell music. It's a little window into the process.

But alas, the bad decisions in terms of artwork continue....

The Perils of Terrible Art Direction

I don't know if today is precisely a day that will live in infamy, but it's a day.
I've got a post.
That's something at least.

 Next Week (1987)

Today's lesson in graphic design is brought to you by Hypnolovewheel. A band whose bio is so nonspecific as to simply place their origin as "Long Island". They are usually described in terms of being some sort of hidden secret cult indie pop band. I read it on more than one page looking stuff up. But I also think that to a certain extent there's some snake eating its own tail to what little there is about them on the interwebs.

They released records for at the very least a half a dozen years including five full length Lps and a handful of singles on various labels including the Alias Records which was a pretty big deal for an indie label back in the day. But they never quite took off. I mean, I like them. They were a good enough band. What went wrong?

A quick glance at the eye bleeding cover for their first single here should be a clue.
Follow that up with a look at their next single...

Wow (1991)

Wow, indeed. I mean, if you weren't a complete nutcase like me, would you even take a second glance at a record with that kind of terrible artwork?
It goes way beyond the terrible "My girlfriend is an artist and she drew a cover" kind of bad cover art that we've seen on here before and into the "somebody with a modicum of actual talent conceived and drew this stuff and the band and label looked at it and thought, "Yeah, this will really sell this record"  (the artist for this one is Lance Laurie and he does some really cool stuff and did do some other good record covers too. This one however...)

It's some good indie pop, but I'd be hard pressed to grab either of these out of the bin without having listened to it first. Unfortunately for them it's a trend that followed them throughout their brief existence...

There's even a video for this particular single that's kind of interesting.

Just Because and Quick About It

I got nothing.
I wanted to get this on the docket before I did actual, you know, constructive things with my sad wasted life.

The Best Thing (1979)

I've previously posted at various times I don't have the energy to look up the two singles by Grow-Up that preceded and followed this Lp. Now here's that Lp. It's fucking great and don't let anybody tell you different. They are liars and terrible human beings who should be ashamed of themselves.

Short, crafted and eccentric and very, very English diy indie pop songs with horns. This is the shit.

I found my copy recently at a record store in the outer burbs that I hadn't been to previously. It was sealed and at a decent price. I also kind of horrified the record clerk when he found out that I fully intended to go home and open a record that had remained sealed for 40 years like some kind of sacred tomb. But what's the point of buying a record if you can't listen to it?

I'm certainly pleased to have opened it and hopefully you'll share my enthusiasm.
This is a great fucking record and I wish I'd had a copy years ago so I could so I could have had more time to enjoy it over the space of years.

Sometime Google is Not Your Friend

I have nothing of import to add by way of an introduction to today's post, so let's just get right into it.
Shall we?

Flyboys (1980)

Flyboys. Sometimes you google shit and you get things you didn't expect.

I was doing a quick search for "Flyboys band California" expecting to come up with stuff related to this Ep and the band involved. Perhaps something related to their previous single "Crayon World" Some solid SoCal Pop Punk that the kids used to pogo to.

Something like this wiki page for Flyboys 

 They looked like this while doing their thing

But then you go past the first couple of entries and Google has presented you with stuff like this: Fire And Aviation-A Love Story. Hot Tub Fantasy

 "...The ladies just gazed at him. He wasn’t sure if he was a slice of meat or a Picasso. Taking charge of his fate he walked to the table and set the plate on it, sat in a chair, feeling awkward, and took off his shoes and socks. He was sheltered behind the trellis. After fortifying himself with a slice of salami he unbuttoned his shirt, got up and strolled to the hot tub. C. J. and Chris were flushed pink with heat and wine, their breasts bobbing, nipples full..."

So there's that too.

Things are a Just Fine

We continue where we left off earlier.

Scan (1981)

Here's the follow up 12" Elongated Player to the previous post by Fine Art.
Everything I said previously still holds though with fewer fuzz guitar solos and some evolution of sound as things push into the 1980s. There's a saxophone. It's gotten a little weirder. More flange and phase.
These are all positives.

It's Only a Matter of Time

I'm going to make a snack or breakfast or whatever after I bang this post out. Probably brush my teeth while I'm at it. Dental Hygiene is important too. The only thing on the agenda for the rest of the day is maybe a trip to the Asian grocery for a few non-essential things that are nice to have around the house but it's not a deal breaker for the day. Otherwise I'm going to just sit here and try and get a bit caught up with posts. If I work at this hard enough I will eventually be a year out in the queue and can ignore it for a good long while.
It's good to have goals.

Fine Art (1978)

If you've been playing along at home for the past few years or have spent considerable time trolling through past posts you may remember the 12x8 compilation from a couple of years back. It's a record of various local Minneapolis/St. Paul bands that aren't Husker Du or the Replacements from the year of 1981. Lots of good stuff on there including the subject of this particular post, Fine Art.

This is their self titled self released Lp from 1978. It's one of those records that is just sitting there waiting for Numero Group to discover for some kind of deluxe reissue that will make the hipsters squeal and drive the price of this record into ridiculous realms. It's certainly deserving of rediscovery. It's a record that I probably would never have come across if it wasn't local to me. I mean, I scored a sealed copy from Electric Fetus for like twelve bucks. I call that a win.

The sound is a particularly interesting crossroads between underground threads and the passing of the torch between the tail end of the garage psychedelia underground ("Freezing Down") and the impending punk rock/new wave tsunami ("My Brain Hurts").  See Virginia, you can have it both ways. Synthesizers and fuzz guitar solos. Everybody's a winner.

As it is the Fine Art lp just sits biding its time. Waiting.
Take a second and sit with it.
Get in on the ground floor so you can yawn when it gets namechecked

When the Overhead Clicks On

I suppose I've been doing a lot of Lps as of late or something. That's what it feels like anyway.
Whatever. It's my party and I'll blog if I want to.
As it is my eyes are particularly itchy this morning.

1980 - Code Blue

In the hospital it's actually kind of amazing how quickly your body reacts in that fraction of a second when the overhead clicks on and before somebody speaks. There's a faint sound that barely registers but your heart sinks and you unconsciously hold your breath before the voice comes over to announce something to see if it's a problem that you have to respond to. Code Blue is an arrest and means that CPR is probably in your future. That's a pretty shitty situation for everyone involved. I mean, the Red Cross or whoever never really make it clear just how physically taxing it is to do good CPR while the statistics of  people who make it through after an arrest even with good CPR is a lot lower than the TV would have you believe. It can be pretty brutal.

This record by Code Blue is a relatively recent discovery for me. I was minding my own business when stumbled across that Rhino Handmade had done a deluxe version of it. So out of curiosity I looked it up. I liked it. I also knew that  copies had been sitting in the bins at a local record store for as long as I could remember. I went out and bought my own copy. It's this one.

The band was formed by Dean Chamberlain after he left the Motels just prior to their first record. I like this better than the Motels entire catalog, so it's kind of a win from my standpoint. But in the wider world it's another major label Power Pop blip on the radar for a band that came and went in the matter of a couple of short years before being swallowed by the sands of time.

Hoosiers Again

When last we had a moment and were posting compilations it was of various 1960's groups from the Midwestern state of Indiana.
I've driven through it. I spent one absolutely miserable Christmas in Indianapolis with a girlfriend and her mother who a) wasn't informed that I was coming and b) took a somewhat instant dislike to me.

Good times. Good Times.

But then there's this, so I don't know what to think...

Hoosier Hysteria (1980)

This album splits neatly between the art damaged nonsense of Dow Jones & the Industrials and the rocking of the Gizmos 2.0 (aka. the Dale Lawrence era) The big fish in the Bloomington, IN pond.

Now I could sit her and neatly type up the track breakdown of each side. But that seems as unnecessary as this record is necessary.
If you're here, you probably already have an idea of what it's about.
Go with your gut. Listen and enjoy the fuck out of it.
It's awesome.

1997

It's one of those nights where I have a sudden realization that there is a cat in my lap. I have no conscious recollection of her getting there. It's as if she magically materialized there in a warm purring puddle.

Cat people will understand.

Lucy (1997)

It's conceivable based on the sleeve for this Hulaboy release that one or both of the boys in the band (Stewart and/or Eric) are dog people. Lucy looks like she was a good dog.

I personally don't understand the division of such things. I just like animals. A cat just fits into my lifestyle better. She can be left alone for long periods of time, shits in a box and curls up very nicely with me when I sleep without hogging too much of the bed.
A dog is just so much more of a time commitment. Love them.
Consider it probably for the best if I  don't have one of my own.

 High School Dance (1997)

With nothing to really link posts together, I'm taking the easy  way out with the year. So in the same year that Hulaboy released the above, Danielle Howle committed this single to wax and Sub Pop found it in their beady little hearts to unleash it upon the world. We're glad they did.
Well I am anyway. And at least one friend who I put it on a cassette for in and or around that time.
So that's at least two people. Maybe you'll make it three.

One can only hope.

(Also I think you can punch South Carolina on your Fifty States card with this one)

The Sum of Parts

I'm not feeling a lot of wordiness coming on here.
That's probably not the worst thing that could happen. I'm mostly waiting for a free minute to go and make myself a cup of espresso so I can stay awake up a little later now that I've had to flip my schedule to days from straight nights for a few weeks.
My whole world is topsy turvy and I feel pretty pathetic when I fall asleep at 8pm and wake up at 3:30am. It's just fucking wrong.

Here's Hulaboy

Slip it Inside (1994)

So what happens when two dudes from Boyracer (Stewart Anderson) and Hula Hoop (Eric Stoess) make records together.
Hulaboy.

Now go buy some of the in print stuff over at Jen & Stew.

January 17, 1912 (1995)

I really have nothing to add. It should ideally speak for itself.

Shhhh....

Be very quiet.

From Here to There (1993)

There are currently a few different bands using the name of Hushpad that I came up with in the few minutes spent looking up things. None of  them are these guys.

Anyway, twee quiet songs about love and longing.
This on is on the Bus Stop Label.

Dear Jenny (1997)

Their second and final single. More of the same. Would have been right at home on Sarah records.
Let that be your guide.

The Roman in the title is Polanski

I remember that from a contemporary radio interview when the album came out.
It stuck with me for some reason.

In a Roman Moon (1981)

The sophomore and final Lp for this particular aggregation of people. Soon after this came out they'd lose the backing vocalists and strip down to a solid quartet that after at least four names finally stuck with the Zulus who put out a few criminally underappreciated bits before dissolving.

But that was in the future. Right now we're dealing with this lost masterpiece. If the previous one was a camp classic, this is where they hit stride. Songs are stronger, some are even stranger and it's heady and delicious. "Andy Fell" and "Land of the Glass Pinecones" are absolute stunners.

(And I lost my train of thought here when my wife woke up and wandered in the room to kvetch...)

Anyway. When I did the digitizing on this one I was thinking that it'd be a nice trip down nostalgia lane, but found myself surprised at how well this Lp has aged.

I don't know. Whatever accolades I'd lined up in my head have been lost.

I love this record.
Let that suffce.

Not Exactly What Masters & Johnson had in Mind

I'm posting a lot of Lps lately it seems. A lot of good ones just came up as I wander haphazardly down the alphabet. So it goes and does and is.

This is one that kind of stuck in my teenage brain for many many listens when I picked it up not long after its release.

Fig. 14 (1980)

So what happens when you take a spunky little (for the lack of a better term) New Wave band and front it with a quintet of singers ala the Supremes. You get Human Sexual Response and this actually rather campy classic Lp. I played it a lot.

Between a song about wanting to be Jackie Onassis and the very important question embodied by "What Does Sex Mean to Me?" there was a lot to absorb and ponder as a teenager in those questioning years of adolescence.

Then there was their appearance on the Saturday afternoon (!) public access show "Boston Live" which may or may not have gotten them in trouble for this number called "Butt Fuck" or their version of the Capitols "Cool Jerk" in drag as nurses.

Those were surely different times. But I still have a special place in my heart for this one.

Hand v. Switchboard

A quickie. I'm doing other stuff plus eating.
I don't always multi-task very well.

I Gotta Know (1978)

As previously noted a few posts back (10/10/18 to be precise) this is the original recording of "I Gotta Know" as done by the Human Switchboard. It's on Clone Records as well. It's also a farfisa driven garage rocker. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Listen to both and decide which recording you prefer.

Blue Eel (1981)

 So at the same time that Bob Pfeiffer from the above band was revisiting the A side of that single with his new band, the Housekeepers, Human Hands got their shit together and put out this wonderful little single.
Everything you may want to know about this band is on their website. But it should also be noted that there's some strong connections to the LA Free Music Society and other assorted wonderful art damaged nonsense in their collective discographies.

I'll shut up now.

To Suffer is to be Human

Freshly showered, beef stew warming up and 16 inches of surprise April Blizzard shoveled off the driveway. (If you haven't been following along. I'm typing this six months ago.)
It's kind of sucked ass today.

Which brings us to today's post.

We're all suffering.

Human Sufferage (1984)

For starters that cover is pretty insufferable. But it's also pretty appropriate for this second and final release from Columbus, Ohio's own Human Sufferage. They made a punk rock noise with a healthy dose of the hardcores. They sound as primitive and amateurish as the cover which is not necessarily bad. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but nobody's going to throw you out of the party for liking it and the record is just obscure enough to be dropped in a record collector conversation to make you seem like you know more than you do.

I mean, I'm beyond that bullshit stage by now myself. But you know how people are.

Oh the Humanity

I need to wrap this up and make some stew.
I'm hungry.

I Live in the City (1980)

The Humans were from Santa Cruz, CA.

They put out a handful of things. Were signed to IRS and the faded back into the aether like so many bands did. "I Live in the City" is a pretty solid Nu Wave rocker though.

But for fuck's sake, nobody really needed another version of "Wild Thing", let alone this rather tepid one.

Play (1980)

IRS seemed to have some faith that these guys could move some units because they went all out for a double single pack for this release. "I Live in the City" makes a return engagement along with another nice skinny tie number "Play".
I could have lived with just that, but there's more.

The other disc is two live tracks: a warmed over midtempo ode to "Tracy" and a passable pass at "Pipeline" that has all the sex appeal of the Eugene Levy cosplayer on the cover. I pass.

Less was probably more for this one.

Hotshots from the Hoosier State

It's the 13th.

This one is entitled Hoosier Hotshots.

It's a compilation of various Indiana bands of the 1960s.

It should not be confused with the vaudeville musical group of the 1930-40s that also went by the name of the Hoosier Hotshots. They are very different things.

Hoosier Hotshots (1992)

Indiana in the Garage Era

Side 1
1 The XL's - Second Choice
2 The XL's - Mary Jane
3 The Cirkit - Yesterday We Laughed
4 Shooting Stars - I Love Her Anyway
5 The Ferris Wheel - Come Back Baby
6 Sir Winston & The Commons - One Last Chance
7 Teen Tones - Long Cold Winter
8 Blues Inc. - Tell Me Girl

Side 2
1 The Endd - Come On Into My World
2 The Tikis - Careful What You Say
3 Wild Things - I'm Not For You
4 The Cirkit - I Was Wrong
5 The Backdoor Men - Evil
6 The Dukes - Take Your Love
7 Idle Few - Farmer John
8 Mere Image - Get Stoned (Goin' Out Tonight)