The Cat is Annoying Me

 

She wants her dinner and thinks monkey shines and jumping in and out of my lap randomly and generally causing problems and being an adorable nuisance is going to get her dinner early.

It is not.

I will finish what I'm doing first.

I'm an asshole like that.

I have a pair of late 80s indiepop flexi discs which I want to post specifically for today because they were both ripped and tagged and dropped into the SSC folder exactly three years ago.
They finally made it.

Don't Let Me Slip Away (1988)

I really kind of hate flexis. They always sound like shit.

But they were a cheap way for lots of late 80s bands and labels in the UK to get started.

So here I am. Buying a format I actively dislike because the music on it is rare as hen's teeth and otherwise unavailable.

Like this one by Mousefolk.

or this one

Under the Weather (1989)

Love Parade.

Love Parade transformed into a band called Pure (that single is somewhere in the pile) and eventually ended up as Eva Luna.

Let the low fidelity and jangle flow through you while I feed the freaking cat.
 

A Classic Compilation

If you know what this is, you're already excited.

Xpressway Pile=Up (1988)


This is the Compact Disc version of it which differs a little bit in content from the original cassette, but I haven't quite gotten around to getting the handful of Xpressway cassettes I've got digitized yet. But some other kind soul on another blog has. Thank them.

Jumping in the Night

I had to flip my schedule this week for a work related two day class. My internal clock is all kinds of fucked up right now and I have to go back to work tomorrow night.

Thusly I fixed the espresso machine last night and am enjoying one right now, though my body really wants to be sleeping instead.

Sick Girls (1979)

The Jumpers were from Buffalo, New York. That's about the only information there really is.

Both sides have been comped multiple times on various KBD type records which is or isn't a recommendation.

Here it is in its original undiluted form.

Death Squad of the Mind (1988)

Johnny and the Jumper Cables was the work of Kenne Highland from the original Gizmos after his stint in the Marines and a subsequent move to Boston and umpteen bands and recording projects before and after. He brings the rock and roll. 

Prepare to be moved.

I Want to Finish Up on an Even Number

I've queued up a bunch of crap tonight.

This will by post number 640 which has no significance in itself, but seems like a better number to end on than 639. There's really nothing particularly wrong with 639, but 640 seems like a more solid number to close out on and a good place to start August.

And start it we will.

with this:

High (1988)

Choo Choo Train is the band that the musical partnership of  Rick Menck and Paul Chastain concocted before forming Velvet Crush. It's a lot lighter fare than would be provided by the Velvet Crush debut a couple of years later, but is still some fine late 80's pop. I'm getting to be somewhat of a completist for this duo's work...

Four lovely nuggets including "My Best Friend" written by Matthew Sweet who they've recorded and toured with for eons.

Just stop reading my blather and enjoy it while there's still a summer to enjoy here in the Northern Hemisphere...

This is just about as good as this stuff gets.

Out of Order

Somewhere along the way despite my semi-meticulous organization, these future posts got slightly out of whack and things got out of order.

This particular post concludes the Half Japanese portion of our current program and sets the order of things and their accompanying post dates back to right.

We apologize for any inconvenience you perhaps might possibly have experienced if you'd actually been aware that anything had gone awry.

You didn't, but feel free to ball up a tiny impotent fist and shake it at the screen in anger anyway.

There.

Feel better?

-The Management

XXOO (1982)

This single came out in 1982. All the people on it are in Half Japanese.
They sound just like Half Japanese. The label is one that released a number of Half Japanese records. There's covers of  both Buddy Holly and the Miracles

This band is XXOO.

Quack, Walk, Duck.

U.S. Teens are Spoiled Bums (1988)

Can't argue with the sentiment.
Purchased directly from Jad himself at a show at the Uptown Bar and Grill in the late 90's. There was a break in the show when the other guitarist broke a string and he performed "Mr. Frankenstein" at my shouted request. It was a great.
 Chatted briefly outside with him afterwards and thanked him for playing the song I wanted to hear. He seemed very nice.

Go to his Fun Store and buy stuff.
It's the right thing to do.

Regional Favorites

Ok, Maybe that's a stretch.

But they are all from Massachusetts.

How about that?

Dorchester Summer (1981)

The plastic outer sleeve on my copy still bears the Newbury Comics $2.98 price sticker on it. I may have even purchased it from Aimee Mann. I don't remember. 1981 was a lifetime and a half ago.

Future Dads were the brainchild of Richie Parsons following the dissolution of Unnatural Axe who put out the punk rock classic "They Saved Hitler's Brain" 7" in 1978.

This is different. Turned up collar, loafers & no socks wearing rock and roll. There's a saxophone.
The songs is about summer in Boston. The title is the only lyric on the  b-side and the final track a bit of studio nonsense that was great when you needed a very very short bit to completely fill up a cassette side.

We in the Northern Hemisphere should be just about starting to consider the idea that Spring is actually going to happen again. There may even be patches of dirt showing. (though five foot snow banks are also a possibility in Minnesota)

Let this be a reminder of things to come.

 
Forced Exposure #8 (1988)

So it's 1988. Mission of Burma have been defunct for half a decade at this point and fourteen more years before the three of them decide to get the band back together and give it another go. Some jolly joker at Forced Exposure Magazine gets a bug up his/her butt to have the single that accompanies the mag be of two local luminaries covering M.o.B.

What happens is Dredd Foole (aka Dan Ireton, long time M.o.B. compatriot) does his solo take on "That's When I  Reach For My Revolver" returning the favor they did backing him on his first single disguised as "the Din"
While Christmas (a personal favorite who would go on to devolve into Combustible Edison) tackle "Max Ernst" which was the  b-side to "Academy Fight Song".
Well, tackle is probably a strong word.

They kind of tickle torture it.


And as an added bonus:

1980 - If You See Kay

Here's the sole single by Fragile and the Eggs who apparently functioned as the house band for a recording studio outside Worcester, Mass. It's a nice little pop number about missing a girl named Kay and primed for radio airplay. The joke being in the title that's sung repeatedly in the chorus. (Sound it out if you haven't already got it.) You could play it for your mom and she'd never even know.

There's a short and a long version on the single.
I'm giving you the long version because I like you.

Seriously? How much of this shit is there?

So yeah, there's even more.

The Disparate Cogscienti (1988)

It's a compilation. It's on Cog Sinister, the label started by Mark E Smith in the latter portion of the 80's to ostensibly handle Fall releases both new and reissue. I would suppose a bit more flush with cash following some minor success this afforded him a bit more control over his own stuff. But he also took the time to work with and release a handful of items by other folks he deemed worthy of his attentions.

Amongst those was this compilation of various artists some whose association with the Fall date all the way back to the Manchester Musicians Collective and the earliest days of their existence like John the Postman (who was an actual mail carrier)

I can't really get into the musical genealogy of this stuff. I just know that Mark E. had pretty decent taste as far as this goes. Very little as far as chaff goes here and an interesting window into the local scene a couple of steps down from one orbiting the more well known Manchester area bands (ie. Buzzcocks or Joy Division)

But of some interest here is that there's an uncredited 18 second bit of what can only be the Fall that opens the second side of this Lp. It sounds essentially like a snippet of Mark E Smith doing a bit of spoken word over a short segment of "Tempo House". Also of note is that Philip Johnson's "One Forty Three" would appear to be a bit of extremely slowed down tape manipulation of "Repetition"

The End?

[Ed. 10/16/17 - Hey there Fall fans,

I see that the Fall Forums have finally found this little corner of the internet, (but for some reason it's taking forever to get validated by the mods to post anything there.) I want to point you all to a series of other posts from last autumn for more Fall stuff. It's all the singles, Eps and various rarities that I have. Not complete by any stretch, but fairly comprehensive.
The Fall of the Fall started 9/22/17 and ran to 12/21/17.
I'll also gladly take it all down if asked by MES or his representatives. There's just too much great stuff not to share with people who will enjoy it.

Otherwise, poke around at some of the other stuff on here. Quite a few things that one may find appealing or at least interesting.

Thanks for your patronage]

Welcome to my world

Live at the Channel 5.12.88


So I was at this show. If you knew what to listen for you could even pick me out in the audience cheering. I can be quite loud when I want to be. This was simulcast on the radio and my friend Mark taped it for me. I appreciated that and still do. This was my first time seeing the band live. It wasn't exactly an amazing show, but it was still the culmination of a long fucking wait for me.

Unfortunately this is a bit of a placeholder until I can track down the original cassette. It's only a 192k rip I made a number of years back and one that is probably in need of an upgrade. If I can figure out where I put the damn tape....

Of interest is their singular nod to the past. The Fall live usually only concentrate on the most recent record and newest songs. Mark E is not exactly one to go out and do a greatest hits show. But they will usually throw the audience a bone and surprise us with an oldie but goodie out of nowhere. In this case it was a version of "Pay Your Rates" from 1980's "Grotesque (after the Gramme)"

It almost makes up for the plodding and seemingly endless version of "Kurious Oranj". I still really don't like that fucking song.

I have to sing gothic, boo hoo

2B (1988)

If I may copy and paste directly from wikipedia:

I Am Kurious Oranj was intended as the soundtrack for the ballet I Am Curious, Orange, produced by contemporary dance group Michael Clark & Company, and loosely based on the 300th anniversary of William of Orange's accession to the English throne.

This is a double 7" box with a nice postcard of tracks and alternates from the "Kurious Oranj" lp the best of which "Big New Prinz" is a reworking of the old favorite "Hip Priest" from back in 1982 which was only 6 years previous, but which may as well have been another cover when it comes down to it. The Fall cover the Fall and make it a Fall cover.

The miserable Scottish hotel, Resembled a Genesis or Marillion, 1973 LP cover

Victoria (1988)

New year, new cover song 12" by the Fall. This time it's the Kinks who get the Fall treatment, which is nice. I'm sure Ray Davies could have used the money as this one rocketed to #30 on the UK charts.

The quality extends to the various extra tracks "Guest Informant" & "Tuff Life Boogie" and "Twister"

Truly these were otherwise magic times for the Fall and I'd finally get to witness them live in this year.

This is a Bad Record.

When I say it's a bad record, I don't mean it in the 70's slang sense that it's actually a good record or a badass record. It's just not very good.

But.

And the but here is important. It's really good Bad Record in that it's entirely entertainingly bad like a low budget horror flick. It's terrible, but you still come away with  some enjoyment in wallowing in it's terribleness.

Ladies and Gents, the Chiefs of Relief

1988 - Chiefs of Relief

Kind of like Big Audio Dynamite's less attractive sister, the Chiefs of Relief were formed by the core of Bow Wow Wow with the addition of ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. They attempted to combine elements of  rock and then current hip hop and electronics into large scale party anthems.

I mean, just look at that cover. I do not think it possible to make an album cover that better encapsulates the horror of the latter portion of the 80's. But damn, if this isn't wonderfully bad.

My only real encounter with this group was a rainy night in early fall of probably 1987. Love and Rockets (the remains of Bauhaus) were playing at the Metro that night. everybody who was anybody was going to that show. My roommate Bruce and I weren't anybody. We went to the Rat to see Chiefs of Relief without having any idea of what they sounded like. All we knew was that we'd be able to be in the same room as one of the Sex Pistols. We were mesmerized. The guitarist/vocalist didn't ever do them both at the same time. It was not even slightly punk rock. It was terrible, but we had a great time anyway.

Add "Freedom to Rock" to your next party mix. You probably won't regret it.

Probably.

A Bonus for the Week

Simply because I can.

So I will.

Google that shit if you need a backstory.

 

Alf Danielson (1992)

Solo single on Merge by a guy in many good New Zealand bands.

 

Death by Milkfloat (1988)

A bit of a mystery to me. But good enough that I added more of the rest of their catalog to my wantlist on Discogs if that means anything too you

 

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.