Split Lp Flattened.

 

This post is brought to you by the wonders of gravity.

From Akron (1977)

So a while back on a trip to Chicago while at a now defunct record store I scored among other things a handful of NOS records on the Clone Records label out of Ohio since I liked a few things on the label like Tin Huey and I'm an obsessive collector of things which means that I am required to track down every other release on the label to have it catalogued and properly filed away in my archives.
It's what I do for fun. I probably should have been a librarian.

Anyway. I got a sealed copy of this one. However, as sometimes occurs with ancient sealed records the outer plastic will sometimes shrink. So upon first opening it and tossing it excitedly on the turntable I was met with an unfortunate dish warp which rendered it slightly unplayable.

Having previously done some failed unwarping experiments on other records. I sighed deeply and set it aside. Later on and with nothing else to lose I pulled it back out and stuck it between two large ceramic floor tiles and set it under the stacks of seven inch boxes and promptly forgot that it was there.
It was some long time later. Like close to two years, I think. I found it again and put it on the turntable again and Voila! the magic of gravity and pressure had done a sufficient job to render the Lp playable enough to make this rip.

It's a split lp with the Bizarros and Rubber City Rebels each taking a side to ply their underground rocking wares.

I don't know about you, but I could use a brain job right about now.

I think we as a country if not a planet could do as well.

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.

I Don't Feel Like It

 And I don't have to.

I got an extra night off from work tonight because the census is way down due to the COVID 19. (it's the very end of April 2020 while I type this)

Nobody wants to go to the hospital in the middle of a pandemic unless they absolutely have to. Plus the OR is pretty dead. They're only really doing emergency surgeries and a few transplants as organs become available.

I'm Ok with it. I have plenty of PTO to use and I'm thinking of it as a mental health day.

Here's a couple of obscure singles for your mental health there in the future.

Tonnage (1993)


Kimbashing were from Philadephia, PA
Middle 90s Indie Rock.

You know you love it and know quality when you hear it.

The Dignity Workshop (For Two) (1996)

The Man I Fell in Love With were from Kent, Oh

Middle 90s Indie Rock

You love it still and know this is quality.

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.

Houses. Keeping and Breaking

So, as I type this it's approximately six months ago it's the middle of April.
I'm pretty far ahead of myself as far as this silly thing goes. But that's neither here nor there.
What is here.
Now.
Six months ago for you, but right fucking now for me.

It's a motherfucking Spring blizzard and eight inches of motherfucking snow.
The entire city is shut down for the weekend.

I'm housebound and still in need of a haircut that is unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future.

At least eight volumes of semi-bootleg Duke Ellington radio broadcasts from 1945-6 arrived yesterday, so I have something to listen to. (Maybe I'll post some of those sometime. It's a different animal hearing that band live...)

the Housekeepers (1981)



This is yet another Clone Records record. This appears to be a one off by the Housekeepers which seems to be another band  led by Bob Pfeifer and has another version of his song "I Gotta Know" which he'd originally recorded with Human Switchboard (and which will appear here shortly)



Pretty damn good Farfisa driven garage rock. It's the staff of musical life.

Housebreaker/Helva split (1995)

A mere 14 years later Housebreaker and Helva split seven inches between them for some guitar driven garage rock. Housebreaker was the brainchild of Brian Herb (as truly fine a human being as there ever was or will be) as part of his ill spent youth. When he is not trotting the globe tending to the guitars and metaphysical needs of famous touring bands he is known to front hastily put together versions of Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Excellence that are just about the only thing that I will leave the house for.


Helva were according to their Bandcamp page:

Helva was a ska/punk/metal/swing/reggae band from Minneapolis from 1994-2001. The band started in Western WI and ended up touring all over.

I assume they were also fine people too. One would expect nothing less.

Lost Classics of an Era Long Gone

I have no intro here. I'm kind of hungry.

Let's just get on with the show...

Bob (1980)

"Hey man, what's your band's name, dude?"

"uh,...Bob."

That in itself is enough to endear these San Franciscans to my tiny crunchy black heart. But then you apply the flat vinyl  disc to the turntable and I'm totally smitten. Two sides of wonderfulness.
Side one beginning with the immortal words "You always want to go to discos/I want to go to cheap motels/Keep trying to teach me how to jerk off/ And your name ain't Isabel..." while the flip is a 2:49 love letter to Thomas Edison with a great guitar noise solo.

I don't know anything about them beyond this record. I don't need to. It's enough.

Keith Richards' Dead (1978)

I don't know what's more unbelievable, that this record by Cincinnati's Ed Davis Band  hasn't been more widely celebrated and comped and beloved by record collecting scum of all stripes or that as of the time I am typing out this post, the premise of the A side still has not come to pass forty fucking years later.

I mean, just ponder that for a bit.



Bowie's gone. Lemmy has passed but Keith just keeps on and on and on...

(The B side "Asshole" has been comped on one of those "Bloodstains Across..." collections, but really.)

This one's money...

More from Ohio or thereabouts-ish

Well, it has its roots in Ohio anyway.

More or less.

A Monster and the Devil (1989)

  It was recorded in NYC in 1989.

So what happens when you take author and founder of Cleveland's punk legends the Pagans, the late Mike Hudson and set him up to read his Bukowski-esque stories backed by the Styrenes?

You get this record.

Pour yourself a few fingers of your favorite hard liquor and close your eyes and absorb in a stifling hot room on a late Sunday afternoon while a fat green fly buzzes desperately in the window screen trying to get out. It's not going to get anywhere and gets stuck behind the window banging it's skull uselessly and endlessly between the panes. In a day or two you can find it's dried husk in the sill next to your empty glass.
That's what this record sounds like.

2

Yeah.

New post. Same 5lb bag.

2 (1982)

It apparently took 6 years and a whole lot of whatever before 15.60.75 released their sophomore effort imaginatively entitled "2". 

This one is a studio effort and follows along a progression from the previous Lp. 

I'm still kind of digesting this one. I haven't had it super long, but it's definitely one that's got some songs that stick. ("Summer Fever" and a dissection of Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise" come to immediate mind)

And as the days flow into summer, I can see this record making its way onto my listening for long bike rides should I get off my lazy ass this season and start biking to work again.

I'll probably still listen to it anyway.

Well That Was Fun. Now Back to Business as Usual or Something.

You're back.

Or maybe you never actually left or maybe you've found yourself here for the  very first time.

Doesn't matter. You're here now.

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.

It's a compilation day

Why Do You Think They Call it Pop (1994)

01. Sleepyhead - Hot Stuff
02. Dambuilders, The - Pennsylvania
03. Small Factory - Yeah!
04. Versus - Sunburned (Life's a Beach)
05. Polvo - Colonial Arms
06. Monsterland - Sunburn
07. Wingtip Sloat - Leap Into My Velvet Arms
08. Helium - In a Little Box
09. Ruby Falls - Let Me Go
10. Twig - Airplane
11. Greenhorn - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
12. Kudgel - Friction~Ali Baba
13. Grifters - Black Fuel Incinerator

Home and Hombres

This is another post.

I have business to take care of.

It will be short.

Home and Garden (1986)

"By 1982, Pere Ubu, a band that had blazed a trail of influence (if not outright commercial success) through the punk/new wave scene, had broken up. Scott Krauss, Ubu's founding drummer, who had left a year before the band's dissolution, was already exploring new musical avenues when he was joined by Ubu bass player Tony Maimone. Together they entered the recording studio as Home and Garden" 

That should be enough to start you off. The last update from their site is from 2012. So there you go.

Let It Out (1967)

The Hombres. Garage. The A-side is a classic. B-Side is a lost classic. Let it all hang out, baby.

Round on Both Ends and Hi in the Middle

I  have no time or patience for this right now, but time and progress must march forward...


Two items from the state of Ohio.

I think I've made myself pretty clear on that previously.

Circle A Indicator (1997)

Harriet the Spy.
Emo-ish band from Kent, Ohio.
I don't hold it against them.
They probably need a hug anyway.

That wasn't a haiku.


They are defunct
and haven't even looked at their FB page in a couple of years

I Keep a Close Watch (1978)

Nearly twenty years previous and nearly as emotional Harvey Gold released this tidbit on Clone Records. He's best known for being in Akron legends Tin Huey.

It's a cover of a really lovely John Cale tune that is easily as good as any of a million overly covered tunes you can name.

The other side is a bit stranger.
There's a bridge where the lyrics are:

...Billy get off the toilet
    be a singer (x3)
    just like your father..."


You can take that as a recommendation.

No Outtakes

Nightwalker/Freedom Cruise (1994)

So yeah. this is Robert Pollard releasing a split single with himself. Nightwalker (just him) and Freedom Cruise which is Bob and the Deal sisters, Kim and Kelley, both of whom were in the Breeders, while only one was in the Pixies. The other moved to Minnesota and ended up forming Kelley Deal 6000 who were actually pretty good. (At least that one time I saw them in the 7th St Entry)

Can you guess which is which?

Firehouse Mountain (1997)

An epic length song from Bob. 5:20!  He really stretches it out on this single sided seven inch.  It goes on and on.

It's not my favorite.

Way Too Many Records

So I'm going through the boxes of seven inches and I get up to Guided by Voices.
There's a metric shit ton of singles and records there. I believe that Robert Pollard is the kind of guy who doesn't believe in outtakes or demos for the most part and he releases virtually anything he records.
There are also legions of folks who will lap up every bit and lick the plate.

I'm not quite there, but close enough. He lost me towards the turn of the century when I was poorer and found that I couldn't quite keep up with his prolific catalog of releases to the point that I kind of gave up and moved on.

It was kind of a sad day.

Chunk Split w/ New Radiant Storm King (1995)

So rather than flood this thing for a month and a half with GBV singles, I'm just going to throw you all a bone with some oddities.Nothing impossibly rare and unobtainable, but something less likely to be heard.

I think I picked this one up at a show in the Mainroom at First Avenue for the "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars" tour which was the last hurrah for the "classic" lineup.

Holy shit, was that a good show.

Anyway, it's a split with each band playing a song by the other band.
Enjoy.

Split w/Cobra Verde (1997)

After Pollard disbanded the "classic" lineup he snagged Cleveland's Cobra Verde to be Guided by Voices for a little while. It was a big change from previous versions of GBV and one that didn't really click for me. I would have picked this up at another Mainroom, First Avenue show in 1997.

I wasn't too impressed with this version of the band live. Kind of a lackluster show for me and "Mag Earwhig!" just wasn't doing it for me at the time.

I have since come around with a reassessment of the Lp. It's pretty fucking great.

About all I remember about Cobra Verde's opening set before Bob came on and they became GBV was that they had the same theremin I do.

And that is, as they say, that.

The only song you need to listen to today.

I had some other 60's garage stuff that I thought I was going to post, but it just didn't seem up to snuff after I got to this one. So it's going it alone here today.







Sonny Flaharty & the Mark V (1965)



The song "Hey Conductor" is what the kids and record store clerks like to refer to as a "motherfuckin' Fuzz Monster" from Dayton, Oh. (Just like Guided by Voices.)

It's a zippy little number about a boy who wants to  go on a train ride and is seeking out the conductor in order to purchase a ticket because he needs that slip of paper in order to go on this trip he really wants to go on.

There is absolutely no subtext in that.


I will also add that there is another side to this record. It is precisely as terrible as the one side is awesome. Not a whit more, nor a whit less.

F You

Part of the problem of doing this stupid thing I do is that sometimes shit gets overlooked or misplaced because you're disorganized and have way too much shit to begin with.

These two almost got lost in the shuffle.

F-Models (1981)

From the great state of Akron or Kent or somewhere thereabouts in the Mythic Land of Ohio. Another in a long line of Cold War ditties. Yeah, Russia was pretty awesome.

For me though the money shot is on the other side with their Oedipal Complex raging away at the sad fact that nobody loves them with the exception of their Mom. At least for them, they are as dubious about her loyalties as BB King had reason to be.

And the seemed like such well adjusted young men.

F-Systems (1980)

From  the state of Texas, which doesn't need me to tell you it's great. Texas is like the Vegan at the BBQ. It's going to let you know it's there and morally superior to you in every way imaginable. (And you let it because it's probably packing and you don't want to rile it up after its had a couple of belts.)

They looked like this when they were playing a song that isn't on this single.

F-Systems hailed from Austin, TX. So they were living in the artsy bubble in the middle of all those cows and oil wells and other Texas stereotypes.  "People" is the synth driven winner. Cold and with a lot of flange on the guitar. It sounds like the future as imagined in 1980 and cobbled together from available parts. It's where you are right now. Don't turn around. It startles easily.

August is With Me I Know

Just another post.

As I type this, it's still March. I'm months out with posting. I could die in my sleep tonight and this blog would plod onward like the Mary Celeste without me.

Anyway, I got a crown today. My jaw is killing me and I'm groggy from a painkiller I took earlier when it was quite unbearable. I'm going to attempt to eat soon. I'm hungry.

Factual (1982)

Factual were a new wave synth band from Nashville, TN. There seems to have been a pretty lively scene there for a big chunk of the 80's that never got noticed by the outside world. I wasn't aware anyway. This is pretty much my first taste.

For my part I have to wonder if the graphic artistry for the sleeve and the band name is simply homage to the aesthetics of Factory Records, an attempt to fool the unwary, or some kind of in-joke. Maybe they just wanted a better record deal.

Speaking of in-jokes.

 

Whipped Cream Mixes (1996) 

These days mashups are all the rage and more or less kind a genre unto themselves and infinitely more entertaining than face swaps which I'll never understand the appeal of. But back in the vague and hazy days of the mid-90's such things were relatively unknown or conceived of. I mean, who would have otherwise thought of taking vocal tracks from Public Enemy and matching them up with tracks by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass? The genius's at Evolution Control Committee is who.

My first exposure was walking into a local record haunt the moment they were unboxing that day's shipment and the curious clerk putting it on to see what it was. Much laughter was had. It's still pretty damn funny. Your mileage will vary. But I'm amused.

Erections

Erectus Monotone (1991)

To quote the blurb by their label, Merge :

"Erectus Monotone all had the same goal: to play short, sweet, discordant pop with no guitar solos."

That is an apt description.Let it be your guide.

 

Erector Set (1981)

Pop ska from Cincinnati, OH. 

They seem pretty chipper.