One for the 13th

 I got nothing to say.

I do have a compilation lp for you though.

That's nice.

The Iowa Compilation (1987)

This imaginatively titled record is compilation of bands from the state of Iowa.

01. Drednex - Sally Anne
02. The Hollowmen - Never Ending Ceiling
03. Full Fathom Five - Why Their Faces Are So Worn
04. Dangtrippers - Sidewalking
05. Claude Pate - My Turn
06. House of Large Sizes - One and a Half on a Hill
07. Cursing Birds - Popey Sally
08. Shellgame - The Dam Has Broken
09. David Brooks - Music Boy
10. The Shy Strangers - Heat Ray
11. Moveable Feast - Teddy Through the Grass
12. The Eclectics - When I Was Young
13. Four Million - War and Peace

Unlike the state itself, it doesn't generally smell like pig shit. 

(I'm sure that there's a lot of Iowa that is lovely and smells wonderful, but my experience driving through a vast flatness with the stench of porcine manure pits wafting through the air vents. So take that assessment with a grain or two.)

An early appearance by House of Large Sizes is always welcome in my neck of the woods.

a comment on a different blog's post of this says that this was the first in a series of five compilations put together by the a University of Iowa college radio station from its yearly Battle of the Bands.

You can decide your own winners here.

I Did This Wrong

 

I intended to post in the other blog, but somehow got here instead.

No biggie. I'm distracted. I need to grocery shop and I'm hungry.

I may order a pizza.

(Food again. it's always food.)

On the positive side, it's been above freezing the past few days four months ago.

I started thinking about stuff and I wonder if I followed through on any of it....

Among the Wandering (1987)

So without any further ado, here's 15 60 75 again with their third long player, "Among the Wandering". 

The band has been around for half a fucking century at this point is very high on my list of reasons I might actually go to Cleveland besides crossing Progressive Field off the baseball stadium list. I get stuck occasionally in Youtube holes watching clip after clip.

I really haven't spent as much time with  this particular Lp though.

It unfortunately suffers, at least to my ears anyway, of a bad case of 1987.. The sounds and recording/production techniques kind of date it a lot. The songs themselves are up to snuff and as evidenced by some live versions on Youtube quite good stuff with the 80s scraped off of them.

Your mileage will vary and I hesitate to say it's a "bad" record. 

It's not, but choices that seemed good at the time to update a sound don't precisely work as intended a couple of decades later. The updated version sounds more dated than previous recordings. It's a paradox. Go into it with open ears and a bit of caution and you'll be fine.

There are still other things to find and discover by them. If I had a record label there'd be a nice box set. But I don't. 

And I'm hungry.

The end.

Of Mice and Maps

Yeah, I'm on vacation.

Well, burning up some of the Paid Time Off I've earned and haven't used in the last few years and which I've been accruing at a steady pace.

Didn't go anywhere. Been spending my time doing a few things that require me being awake for normal people daylight  hours.

It's odd, but having time off is nice and I earned it.
I've been able to do some record shopping in brick and mortar stores I wouldn't normally get to.
Found a few things too.

This post isn't any of that stuff.

Winter Ocean Mary Go Round (1987)

This is a sweet bit of 80s neo-psychedelia from the Voxx label.
The "Fan Club" address is for Ontario, California which  is 35 miles outside off Los Angeles according to wikipedia
I can't find anything immediately on a quick google, so I'll leave the mystery to unravel itself.

I'm Talking To You (1979)

So if you've been playing along at home in January of last year I kicked the festivities off with some records by Boston band the Dark. One of the songs on their first record was called "Judy" and it starts with a quote from this record and is about Ms. Judy Grunwald who fronts this band, the Maps.

 It's a great, should have been a hit kind of record.

From what I have gathered after Ms Grunwald left the band to pursue other interests the remainder of the band evolved into Art Yard who unfortunately didn't get to release their single on Propeller Records before it imploded.

It would have been amazing.

Oh the things the were and could have been....

Same Song Twice Redux

Doing up records that I won't be posting while I type.
Less discriminating copies of good stuff, but a bit too hacked up and a mish mosh of stereo and mono and skips.
You understand.

But it did at least finally inspire me to get some actual restoration software, so things might be less shit sounding in the future (like in a year maybe when the posts catch up to the digitizing I'm doing now)

So there's that too.

Here's some Lyres singles.

How Do You Know (1979)

The very first thing that Jeff Connolly put out with his post- DMZ band the Lyres.
It's the young sound of 70's kids emulating the sounds of 60's kids that would morph into the so-called Paisley Underground that ran through the 80's.


Connolly was an avid collector 60s Garage/Punk records before it was even a thing.
My singular interaction with him was a brief chat at the In Your Ear records in the middle of the 80s when I was trying to snag a few of my own with my limited budget. When he asked me what the best record was that I had he was impressed that I'd gotten a copy of the Shames "My World is Upside Down" for a mere fifty cents from a record store that should have known better.

This particular record didn't get a reissue until 2007 because as a collector of rare records he'd always wanted to have one of his own. Both sides of this one are original compositions.

How Do You Know (1987)

Eight years and a lifetime later the Lyres rerecorded "How Do You Know" with the then current lineup.

Compare and contrast at your leisure.

It's backed this time by a version of "Stacey" originally recorded in 1966 by the Hangmen of Fairfield County which is a corker of a tune.

The  lyrics of which go :

To heck with pot and LSD too
I’d rather take a trip with you - Stacey

Goodbye to shots of white cocaine
You have put them all to shame - Stacey

I’ve sniffed glue right from a bag
Compared to you it’s really a drag - Stacey

Stacey - You’re quite a child
Stacey - You drive me wild

Lovin’ you is really in
You’re better than Coke with aspirin - Stacey

I’ve heard of the high from Dexedrine
But you’ve got a kick like a 20-mule team - Stacey

I don’t need tea or the poppyseed
Cause with you I can do the good deed - Stacey

Stacey - You’re quite a child
Stacey - You drive me wild

Some go far on magic mushrooms
But with you I’m first to the moon - Stacey

Trading your love for a million bennies
Is like selling New York for a few pennies - Stacey

People go nuts from taking goofballs
But after you I’m climbing the walls - Stacey

Stacey - I shoulda had warning
Stacey - You’re habit forming

(shamelessly copied and pasted from the always enlightening Basement Walls blog. )


And as an added bonus because I'm feeling like it

I Really Want You Right Now (1983)

The Lyres first single for Ace of Hearts.

"Help You Ann" is the winner here without a doubt and the song I first remember hearing once I'd discovered local college radio. It sounds like my high school bedroom on an already old them stereo receiver with a cassette deck in the top.

Soak it in.

It's Raining Hard and I Have Shit to Do

I'm in a bit of a hurry again tonight.

The Meaning of Life (1992)

The Loneliest Christmas Tree

Hey War Pigs! (2008)

Ric Menck from Velvet Crush et al. covers Katrina & the Waves (I told you they was cool posts ago...) and the Flamin' Groovies.

Back Again Soon After

Less talk, more rock.

Cloud Factory (1987)

The second elongated player by Boston's own O Positive.

A bit tighter and with some of the edges sanded down. Much more commercially minded release. They'd go on to make one record for Epic which didn't get much support and would limp along until the middle of the 90s before hanging it up.

I have much less invested in this one than the previous. 

I'd moved on to other things by the time this was released.

My blood sugar is fine.

Back to Business..

You won't have noticed, but I haven't typed out a post in a long while now.
It's also ten months ago.

So there is that.

 1987 - the Big Maybe

One of the nice things for you is that following a nearly a month of Peter Jefferies this and Peter Jefferies that I'm switching gears with a whole new batch of shit that I've been obsessing over.

I've got boatloads of new stuff I want to post. I think I'll start with this.

I've been a fan of Velvet Crush since the first time I heard the "One Thing Two Believe" single on Bus Stop. I played "In the Presence of Greatness" over and over. I sought out other records on the label which introduced me to the Elephant 6 Recording co and those bands and all sorts of stuff that defined my musical life in the 90's.

The main dudes in Velvet Crush, Rick Menck & Paul Chastain have been collaborators for eons and through multiple projects. All of which I quite enjoy.

Here is an early one with Nick Rudd who had been in a band called Weird Summer.

I also discovered another previously unreleased song on Youtube called "A Lesson Learned"

1987 - This Perfect Day

That same year, Mr. Menck put out the first record as the Choo Choo Train without Mr. Chastain, who would join on subsequent releases.

This wonderful fucking pop record was also inexplicably left off of the alleged "Complete Recordings" (as well as a song that appeared on a UK flexi) I guess, the makers of that now rare and expensive compact disc have a very different concept of what constitutes "complete"

Doesn't matter. I have it. You can listen to it. All is good.

Anyway, if you scroll back to August one of the other Choo Choo Train records is there.

You need some more pop in your diet.

(Meanwhile, I still need to find a copy of the Drats! "Fashion Con" double 7" in my bid to secure a complete discography. Life is always a series of challenges....)

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.

55 Miles and 6 Years Apart

It's a combo platter of combos from the New England area.

Hi-Beams (1981)

Hi-Beams were from Cranston, RI.

(This may be the first Rhode Island band posted. Be sure to mark it off on the 50 bands from 50 states sheet)

A side is called "Hyperactive".

It has nothing to do with Thomas Dolby. That wouldn't come out for another three years.

B side is called "White People" which is about as suburban as you can get.

Taken together this single would make a nice vintage New Wave ad for Ritalin.

Hackmasters (1987)



There's nothing to be found about this outfit.
Nothing is necessary.
It appears to be a one-off of some Boston music folks in other bands making with a Surf/Garage trip.


Good enough for me.

My Old Neighbor

I turned the coffee on a little while ago. Right after I woke up for a little midnight nap.

I should make a coffee. It would be nice. I'm still a bit groggy.

the Blue Up? Now (1987)

At one terrible low point in the middle of the 90's I lived in a really sketchy apartment. The kind of place where you knew that security deposit was forfeit because the landlord was never going to return it without a court order. Where every Christmas the heat would mysteriously go out for a couple of days. Where a former building super still had keys and went into random apartments and pilfered things to sell. (He skimmed a few cds off the top of various stacks I had in milk crates so I didn't notice that my Faust imports were all missing until I went to listen to one.) Where walking home from work after the bar closed you'd get cruised by cars with baby car seats in the back and lone creepy suburban guys slowing down as they drove past looking you over for sex.

Yeah, it was a crummy little studio shithole.

But one of my upstairs neighbors knocked on my door one day when I was playing my guitar and doing some crappy home recording to see who I was and what was up. That was Rachel Olson who would go on to be known as Ana Voog.

This was her band. They'd just released a cd on Columbia Records.

We chatted for a while and I played her some of the stuff I had been working on. She was very polite about it. She said I should come and knock on her door sometime. But I never did.

That wasn't the sort of thing I did.

Girls, Girls, Girl Troubles

Jeffrey I Hear U (1979)

This is some serious art damaged synth punk nonsense foisted upon the world by the Girls in 1979 on Hearthan, (Pere Ubu's label and the only non-Cleveland band ever released by them.) 

The title track has but a single chord (an 'E', I believe) and the b-side appears to make fun of a severely deformed Victorian man who would go on to be portrayed by David Bowie on Broadway.

This kind of degenerate forays into our sonic safe spaces cannot be allowed to stand. We must on a sound and moral footing work together to stamp out this kind of debasing poppycock for the sake of good wholesome entertainment.

Perhaps something with puppets. The world needs more puppets.

But not the creepy kind of puppet.
Good happy puppets doing nice wholesome happy puppet shows.

And certainly not this sort of depraved swill thrust upon us by the Girls.

None of that.
Amen.

Girl Trouble (1987)

Girl Trouble are from Tacoma, WA. They are also depraved, but there's nothing  we can do about it anymore. The Pacific Northwest is a lost cause already.

My Cat says eeeee-ack

Hit the North 12" (1987)

Well, this one was Number 57 on the UK charts with a limp dart throw.

I can't say that it's my favorite song the Fall ever did, but I don't immediately reach over and advance anything when it comes on unlike say "Kurious Oranj" which is just a terrible fucking song.

On the 12" you get Pts 1 & 3 of "Hit the North" as well as "Australians in Europe"

Hit the North 7" (1987)

On the picture disc seven inch version you get Pts 1 & 2. 

And my personal, but very intense peeve that no matter how much you try it is physically impossible for the dartboards on the picture vinyl and the outer plastic sleeve to line up. I can only rage silently  and wish a terrible itchy rash upon the designer of this sleeve. You truly are a monster.


But with both of these at your disposal and if you're an enterprising person who is good with editing software you might be able to make a "Hit the North" megamix combining all three which could cause a serious disruption of the Space/Time Continuum and bring about Ragnarok and the end of all life from this particular Dimension all the way into the 23rd. 

I  mean, if you've got the time.

The crux pretty grasped, yet mostly misunderstood

There's a Ghost in my House (1987)

Another day, another kind of improbable cover by the Fall. In this case it's a Holland/Dozier/Holland tune originally recorded by R Dean Taylor on Motown. (Yeah, the Fall do Motown.) But it makes sense in that the song was apparently quite popular in the Northern Soul scene. It is a pretty damn good song and this also somehow improbably broke the Top 50 in the UK for the Fall.

The 7" version, well some of them anyway, featured a nice and nightmarish holographic picture on the front that was sure to confuse the unwary consumer as much as the more typical Fall material that graced the rest of the vinyl for this release.

I mean, the B-side for the single is "Haf Found Bormann" about finding Hitler's personal secretary in South  America which was unlikely to endear them to the unwashed masses who probably never found much reason to flip this record after a single spin. I'm sure there were plenty of "What the fuck is this shit" said in 1987 for the uninitiated.

 "Sleep Debt Snatches" a little number that starts with a jaunty little riff and Mark E. Smith rap about the sleep deprivation before going into a five minute long Fall avant-dub thing. Yeah, purchasers of the 12" version were also not spared.

The 12" also has "Mark'll Sink Us" which is a personal favorite. This one seems to be more or less MES making note of his own propensity for sabotaging the band. Especially noteworthy as this record was the their first taste of the next level of what passes for success.

However. I like all this stuff. But I'm one of those people.

Bits and Bobs

Vinyl Conflict 2 (1986)

An alternate recording of  "Lucifer Over Lancashire" that came on a 7" free with a copy of Melody Maker magazine. Also included are songs by Cocteau Twins, Hollywood Beyond and  Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction. You remember them, don't you?

 Sounds Showcase (1987)

This one came free with a copy of Sounds magazine and along with the original version of "Hey Luciani" has songs by the Cult, the Go-Betweens,

and the Adult Net who were Brix's other band at the time which included some members of the Fall who would subsequently drop out one by one with each release and whose sole Lp "Honey Tangle" (1989) featured the rhythm section from the by then defunct Smiths.
They actually weren't terrible.  

the Five

The Five.

 Napalm Beach (1981)

They originated in Pittsburgh, PA in 1979 or 80. Then they moved to Boston.

I used to see this band a lot. Once again not intentionally, but simply because they played a fucking hell of a lot and played with and opened for lots of other bands that I did intentionally go to see. They weren't my favorite. They were very dark and that just wasn't my thing.

This is their stupidly rare second single. I will have have you know that there is an unfortunate defect in the vinyl itself in my copy that effects the first 30 or so seconds of each side (You know, the fucking quiet bits) I took a while and carefully excised as much of the noise as I could from each track so spare you (and me) from it. You're welcome. It could sound even worse.

The Five (1987)

Sometime just about the point where they were finishing up their run they put this sole Lp.

I can appreciate this so much more now at this distance from my youthful self in the moment. And if I got this Lp for any reason at all its the final track here "When Yr Done".  They definitely grew quite a bit over the years and were a reliable live presence. This is a lost classic.

I've Been Busy.

For the handful of folks who occasionally frequent this page, I missed where a couple of posts should have gone. It happens. I've got shit to do. We went out of town and work has been pretty nuts in an entirely different way as I train into new areas.

The plus side is that I scored a bunch of New Old Stock copies of things on the long ago defunct Akron Ohio label Clone Records that at some point will start trickling down into this shithole of a blog in the future whenever I get around to it or they pop up in the box as I  thumb my through it. You can wait. You don't care. You want stuff to listen to without the fuss of having to pick through hundreds of shitty records to find the gem.

Not everything I post is a gem. There's a lot of half assed turd polishing that happens. Delete is always an option.

So while I toil away figuring out what all else I want to put up here have some more Dentists.

 

Writhing on the  Shagpile (1987) 

I don't actually have a physical copy of this 12" Ep, but I recreated it from the same songs as released on the compilation "Beer Bottles & Bannister Symphonies". Unlike some people, I kind of balk at purchasing redundancies for the collection. Records are heavy and I'll have to move at some point.

  

The Fun Has Arrived (1988)

This was their mostly penultimate release before being snagged up by a major label. The sound is evolving, yo. They're maturing as artists.  The 80's are slowly coming to a squeaky close and Grunge is now on the horizon. Jangly Pop music was becoming unhep. Reagan was at the end of his term and we were stuck choosing between Bush, sr. and Michael Dukakis for "Leader of the  Free World". Yeah, it was a really shit time to be alive.