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Jimmy Bell's Still in Town (1976)

For a few years I was Facebook "friends" with the late Ralph Carney who among a lot of things was in the Akron band Tin Huey. One of the cool things I got from this online "friendship" was an exposure to a number of Ohio related things that I wasn't aware of. This was easily the best. An album by a band called 15.60.75 or more affectionately known as the Numbers Band.

I had no idea that this existed and even if you'd told me it did I would probably have dismissed it as something I wouldn't like without even bothering to give it a try. I would have been very very wrong. I fucking love this record and I can't even explain why. Hell, I kind of stumble around trying to explain what they sound like to people. They're kind of like an avant-garde version of a Bar Blues band like they'd spent just as much time listening to Captain Beefheart and Albert Ayler as T-Bone Walker. The songs hit a groove, there's some low key vocals and it just runs on relentlessly. It's a fucking monster Lp and so oddly compelling listening that I'm having a hard time typing because I'm listening to it again in the headphones.

Here's a video clip of them playing the title track live in 1976. (And that's Chrissy Hynde's brother Terry on the saxophone. I like his band better than hers.)

There's a great and informative post on this blog about the trials and tribulations that went into actually making the record. the tl:dr is that it took three tries 1) show cancelled 2) the recording engineer fucked it up (the bonus track "Drive" is from this tape)  and finally 3) they recorded live in front of an initially indifferent crown opening for Bob Marley. Bob Marley. 1975. In a club in the middle of Ohio long before generations of pot smoking frat boys and Trustifarians ruined his music for fucking everyone.

So there it was. The album existed and came and went and was all but forgotten until 2013 when Exit Stencil put out a "deluxe" reissue with three bonus tracks as a double lp experience that took me a little while to track down a copy before I knew about Discogs and with a few record store people looking at me blankly.

So I present it here. Your mileage is certainly going to vary. But I really dig the fuck out of this one.

Rolls of the Dice

Sometimes you look at a record cover, take a gamble and pick the damn thing up because it's cheap and looks right up your alley. Sometimes you win and sometimes you get a shitty ska band.

But sometimes you get some classic 80's New Wave Pop

Zealots (1983)

Based on the credits these guys were from Houston. There are two songs on the 12". Both are fine examples of the classic New Wave Pop style. Nothing too weird, but certainly something you can strap on a skinny tie and dance around a room to. There's nothing wrong with that. Just be cool and don't make it uncomfortable for others.

Desira/Angel Demonic (1976)

Sometimes you throw your money down and get home and have a WTF? moment wondering what it was you just spent your hard earned on. 

This is one of those times. 

The single appears to be a split between Desira and Angel Demonic but I suspect they're the same people. Both sides are tributes to King Kong probably put out to coincide with the release of the ginormous Dino de Laurentis epic where Kong climbs the Twin Towers instead of the Empire State Building and perhaps cash in a little bit. It didn't work. 

But in the end we're left with this oddity. 

The Desira side "Gorilla" is a woman fronted hard rockin' entity with a bit of that kind of theatricality that Jim Steinman would make bank on with Meatloaf. The Angel Demonic side "Saga to Kong" is just odd and I haven't had enough coffee to come up with things like adjectives for it.

Did I mention that both songs are about King Kong?

Yeah, that's important.

Timing is Everything

There's always somebody who gets lost in the twilight between the big movements of everything but links the two and thus gets no respect in either camp.

Like the Gorillas (not to be confused with Gorillaz who while entertaining and all,  it's a known fact that Damon Albarn is utterly incapable of the epic sideburns of the originals)

She's My Gal (1976)

So the Gorillas were formed in  1974 and they kind of bridged that gap between Glam and the coming of Punk rock (after the English copped it after that infamous Ramones gig)

They're a bit too blues based and capable musicians to be taken seriously by the punkers and probably a bit to loud for the Pub Rockers, and not nearly sparkly enough to be beloved by the increasingly passe Glam folks. so they languished.

They were doomed to near obscurity despite being on the same label as the Damned, Motorhead and Joe Strummer's pre-Clash rockabilly outfit the 101ers.

Gatecrasher (1976)

The front cover looks the part, but there's still no safety pins in the band photo.

A few more singles and an Lp and they called it a day.

The end.

A Missed Opportunity

I usually try and pair singles up with something in common even if I have to stretch it a bit to make it fit somehow. The previous post paired up a couple of bands from New York. That was easy. But too late now (because I'm too lazy to rewrite anything. Fuck, I barely proofread.) I realize I could have had a sweet match up of 3 Initial Bandnames as DNA dukes it out with DMZ.

Oh well, hindsight etc....

 

(rec. 1976) - First Time is the Best Time

DMZ were one of Boston's original punk rock bands, playing a souped up, amped up version of classic American Garage in the mid-late 70's. Leader, Jeff "Mono Man" Conolly would go on from DMZ to head the Lyres who did kind of the same thing, but concentrated on utilizing 60's Garage as the basic blueprint to work with. Both bands were very good at what they did.

This is yet another song about convincing a girl to have sex only this time with a really terrible lie. It's paired with a cover of the Flamin' Groovies "Teenage Head". There might be a theme there.  

 

1977 - DMZ ep

They recorded this 7" for Bomp! records in 1977. It's raw, rough, fast and garagey. It's got a cover of the 13th Floor Elevators. It's the sound of the start of something good. It got them a major record label deal with Sire, the label that had the Ramones & Talking Heads etc..

Unfortunately for DMZ the record came sounding out about as good as the cover looked. Kind of terrible. Sometimes you can not like a record at the time and go back to it years later and it sounds much better than it did the first time you heard it, not this one. I can't even explain it. They play the shit out of the songs, but somehow the production makes it seem awful & dull like Steve Albini recorded it instead of Flo & Eddie. It's too clean sounding or something. I don't know. It's the sound of so much lost potential.

This is the realer deal.