Asbestos Rockpyle ‎– "Dying Of Cancer" (Warpt Records ‎– WPT-003) 1984

One of the best 'Rock' names in 'Rock' was Dinah Cancer (Geddit?), who was in 45 Grave I think...who cares? This use of the phrase is made to look like an undiscovered work by Oscar Wilde compared to ramshackle American duo Asbestos Rockpyle,who seem to have no idea what standard time signatures,or even musical instruments,could possibly be,and why should they(?)...maybe because they couldn't count up to four.

It all sounds like a dumpster emptying a cargo of junk into a disused quarry full of fucked up musical instruments. The lyrical content is not at all your standard literary poetry,with a stubborn refusal to rhyme any of the lines,or even deliver them in sync with the wavering music.

They sound like the bastard child of Half-Japanese and The Happy Flowers;especially when delivering the single best track about the early 80's Punk scene in Washington DC...."D.C. Deadcore".....indeed a classic. 

"The people in hardcore are a bunch of Fucking Dicks"...a erudite observation from underrated (for a reason) singer/lead guitarist/lyricist/producer Paul R.W. Clark of Asbestos Rockpyle, waxing lyrical about Dischord Records and their offshoots.One can't disagree,but then again, this observation could well apply to everyone in the arts.....including Asbestos Rockpyle themselves? And Art it certainly is!?

Tracklist:

A1 Kill The Villagers
A2 D.C. Deadcore
A3 Insanity
A4 Herion
B1 Faces In The Dark
B2 New Year's Resolution
B3 I Like Disco
B4 Addiction
B5 Suicidal Maniac

DOWNLOAD the cure for cancer....suicide....HERE!

Afflicted Man ‎– "The Complete Recordings" (1979-82)

Being Christian is some kind of psychological illness,but then again it has lots of stuff in common with Punk Rock. All encapsulated in the classic ,but fractured outsider punk personality of Steve Hall.

Both Dogma's are full of glaring conradictions,which has their High-Priests muttering wildly opposite statements,although I've yet to hear of a Punk Rock Pedophile as of yet...there's still time.

Joke time.....Q.What's the difference between Acne and a Priest?

A. Acne doesn't cum on yer face before you're Twelve.

Funny huh?

Yeah the morally repugnant Steve Hall embdies the most dramatic shift of polar opposites since Saul turned into Paul on the road to Damascus. If the same journey was made today Paul would have certainly been tranformed, not into a Saint, but into smoldering body parts as he triggers an Improvised Explosive device left there by Islamic State operatives several years hence.

Oh,yes. Mr Afflicted turned from a violent,Nazi flag waving,obnoxious,beer swilling drug and glue abuser.......as in a tabloid newspaper's idea of what a Punk Rocker was, and Steve indeed lived out these  press headlines to the letter;......into a meek and mild Born again Christian. He shifted from 'Punks Not Dead' to 'Jesus' Not Dead' in a matter of hours after chancing upon a devious God Squadder in his squat, banging on about how to let Jesus in your heart.

Here's Hall's version of  how Hall turned into Paul, literally, on the road to the 100 Club for the last time:

"My brother was talking to a guy at the time," he recalls, "who was sharing to him about the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked this bloke, 'Come on, how do you get this Jesus anyway?', in the kind of way that made it look like I didn't care. But deep down I was interested, because no one could help me out and I was desperate for help. He just said to me that Jesus could live in your heart. And I was riding up the road on the motorbike after that just saying, 'If you're there Jesus...' It was a matter, like it is for all of us, of just taking that first step, and once I had I'd never felt anything like it. I really felt God come into my heart and my life and that's what made me cry. It made me burst into tears, I just could not believe what was going on."

Now don't go getting any idea's you lot! I know how impressionable you "The Public" are.....and bloody dangerous too. A the drop of a pay rise, or a compliment you lot can vote in a Hitler or a moron(Trump),or,as in the case of the British,be the only electorate in UK History to vote away Freedom as in Brexit,and Freedom of Movement!

We can also turn into blinkered religious idiots at the mere mention of our mortality.

Maybe Steven was always looking for a Religion,and found it in Punk Rock.The only downpoint was that Punk didn't offer eternal life,no matter wat Wattie (of the Exploited) says.

Luckily Afflicted Man never sang about Jesus,for good reason,as ALL religious pop is appaling....but also funny if its done correctly.

More in the David Koresh school for twisted morals than Handel's Messiah.Christianity should definitely stick with Classical music, and leave 'pop' alone.

Afflicted Man's music is classic DIY Outsider Punk,recorded and released on a shoestring budget,often presented to the world in a candystriped Sweetie bag,the kind that you got your Pick'n'Mix in from Woolworths.His songs’ reliance on repetition have as much to do with the limits of one man’s taste and abilities, along with the studio capabilities of the times, as any sort of applied aesthetics(I didn't write that bit).Anyway, his incredibly rare records feature an impressive talent-stretching cornucopia of sounds, from one chord punk to PiL-type dub noise to glue-fuelled psychedelia, with Get Stoned Ezy (1982) a jaw dropping display of zero-budget production and incompetent guitar freakouts;and we all love that inadvised marriage don't we?

As for live shows:

Hall said: "We had a bit of a political following that I don't really like to mention too much... a Nazi British Movement following. It was our fault a bit, because we got ourselves a following and we just thought 'let's run with this.' I guess we did that because we had no morals really, in one sense, and so we went down that road."

Again he had an uncontrolled need to belong to a religious movement,even though he was obviously the Doubting Thomas of the British Nazi Movement....but as I've mentioned before...Nazi's are Funny......in fact so are Christians......er...and 'Punx' for that matter.

Stevie fills us in on the end of his Punk career:

It wasn't long before he realised that there was no chance that the two lives could co-exist. "At the end of the day I got born again," he says, matter-of-fact, "and I tried to witness to the rest of them, but they didn't want to know. Then I just felt God pulling me out. I played the 100 Club and I was looking across the audience, jumping all over the place, and I just thought, 'What am I doing here?'(Yeah I've been there myself JZ) I came out of there and I didn't go back." Moments later, God began to hit Hall with heavy doses of grace and mercy. "After that I got married,and we had three lovely daughters. At least the God Delusion seemed to save him from his obvious mental crisis,as he admits..."Being saved took me away from the whole drugs scene and the punk music and I really came into Christianity in a full way. I was baptised in the Holy Spirit and started to do God's work.".......fucking hell!.....

Well, i'll help Steve doing God's work, and give his music away for free.Jesus would certainly approve,and maybe even have liked the music too?....notice the use of the past tense in reference to Steven's personal saviour?...if you didn't, you need saving....Please Jesus save us from your followers.

Tracklist:

First 7-Inch (1979)
1-01 I'm Afflicted
1-02 Be Aware

Second 7-Inch (1980)
1-03 All Right Boy
1-04 Who Can Tell

'The Afflicted Man's Musical Bag' LP (1979)
1-05 Hippy Punk
1-06 Piggy People
1-07 Glue Sniffing
1-08 Anywhere Sleeper
1-09 Hippy Skin
1-10 Musically Insane
1-11 Why
1-12 Feeling
1-13 Love One

Third 7-Inch (1981)
1-14 142
1-15 Senseless Whale Slaughter

'I'm Off Me 'ead' LP (1980)
2-01 For The Few I Please
2-02 Survival In The 80s
2-03 Dustbins
2-04 It's Too Easy
2-05 I'm Off Me 'ead
2-06 Crazy 'ead
2-07 I'm Off Me 'ead So Are You

'Get Stoned Ezy' LP (1982)
2-08 Get Stoned Ezy
2-09 Zip 'ead
2-10 Sun Sun

DOWNLOAD without affliction of religion HERE!

Expedient Self - "The Present EP" (Self-Released) 2020

 Ok,Yeah I admit it, I've never listened to the Durutti Column!!?...but if I imagined what it would sound like it'd be like this brand spanking new Expedient Self  EP. It's even available on CD for a reasonale price!!!(that's right not for free download on here!?)...not on a CD-r either...with artwork. I did enjoy the Durutti Column's idea of housing one's LP in a sheet of sandpaper,all carefully glued together by the lads from Joy Division,so as to fuck up the other albums you stored in the C-E section of your meagre record collection.Amusingly they never expected that we would house it in a protective plactic cover!No such innovation occurs here however,strictly Kranky-esque ambient album style artwork that seems to move as one looks at it, like drifting cloud formations through the foliage of a tree grasping for more Carbon dioxide.

There's that insular quality which pervades most of Bandcamp, lost among the hoardes of wannabes,and ignored geniuses who are slowly devaluing music further by the sheer quantity of the stuff. Even the innovative things get dragged into the soup,so everynow and again one must dangle the hook into the murky looking liquid and pull out a plum. I feel that this is one of those occasions,and whisper it loudly in the ear of any mildly interested parties,who may play it at a mildly interesting slumber party one day....bouche à oreille,as they whisper in France.

For a more lucid description of the 'bands' sounds here's an Expedient Self spokesperson using the royal 'we' to deny that they are a Durutti Column for the 2020's......:

"We're Expedient Self, a post-rock/experimental band from Brighton, UK. We like putting our guitars through FX to make them sound weird and wonky, while fitting these weird and wonky sounds into structured 'songs.'"

ps...were The Durutti Column the First Post-Rock band...discuss?

pps...not that I've heard them/him of course,nudge-nudge, wink-wink;)

Tracklist:

1.Sparkly Unicorn 02:48
2.Cancer 04:52
3.The End of History 04:34
4.Skinner Box 04:42
5.Hands for Heroes 02:01

6.The Old Normal 05:19

You can Buy IT HERE

or 

Stream it HERE!

ZOG -"ZOG NOT ZOB !" (Year Zero Records YEAR 049) 2020

 More shameless self-promotion with another 'new' ZOG album......this one's my personal favorite as it 'appens. A more ambient rock approach might I say?

Another lovely album of noisy improvised avant rock from Anglo-French Drums and Bass duo, ZOG.This one has slightly lengthier pieces than usual,but ultimately more rewarding.

ZOB is a french slang word for a penis, which ZOG frequently gets mistaken for....oh how we laugh everytime some clever dick says that...hahaha!

Personel: Christophe Medina....Batterie Jonny Zchivago.....Bass/samples Tracklist: 1. Non-Exist-Ent 19:26 2. This Is Madness 18:39 3. Semen Is Another Word 19:42

STREAM IT HERE! or Album available for FREE download at

https://year-zero-records.blogspot.com/p/zog-zog-not-zob-year-zero-records-year.html or http://www.mediafire.com/file/jbpfyf5...

" Jonny Zchivago's Disco Dystopia": Friday November 13th Edition- The 'Fuck Trump' Special." 2020

Hi Chums ,Here's the November edition of Zchivago's award winning Disco Dystopia radio show.......i'm currently banned from Facebook for wishing a terminal experience on all Trump Supporters,so i have to stick to trusty ol' corrupt Google to promote this Anti-Trump special.(links at the bottom of the page)

Zchivago's Disco Dystopia Playlist : November 13th 2020

The 'Fuck Trump' Special:

1.LIQUIDS – I Killed Donald Trump
2.PRO DEATH CORPS – After Donald Trump
3.NAZI DEATH CAMP – The President Is Dead
4.OI POLLOI – Donald Trump, Fuck You.
5.ANGRY SAMOANS – Stupid Jerk
6.NERVE AGENTS – the Fall Of The All-American
7.BILL FAY – Pictures Of Adolf
8.SONSEED – Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine.
9.SCOUTS OF UZBEKISTAN – Rednecks Are Real.
10.KATINY SLEZKI – Track 4
11.ART PHAG – Golf
12.NEO NEO'S – Hitler Wuz A Natzi
13.ANGRY SAMOANS – They Saved Hitlers Cock
14.UNATURAL AXE – They Saved Hitlers Brain
15.KEVIN COYNE – Nasty
16.SCHIZOID – Whitehouse
17.THE NUB – A Job
18.SWANS – Job
19.MINOY and Donald Trump – Inpatient Angel
20.DEAD NEANDERTHALS – The Bleaching
21.KATHY ACKER – President Bush
22.MEL BROOKS – Hitler Rap

Stream it Here on Mixcloud

or

Stream it HERE on Lyl Radio's archive page

0r

DOWNLOAD it in 320k mp3 HERE!

Ask Dr. Stoopid - "Mommy, What's a Krautrock?"

 I'm trying to keep myself amused during my Co-vid confinement,and also combat a spell of apathy about blogging.....so......having watched three and a half seasons of "Ren and Stimpy"(the greatest TV show ever made!?),my mind is sufficiently out-there/damaged to ask Dr. Stoopid what Krautrock really is shall we?

Dr. Stoopid says:

"Basically, Krautrock was a low grade version of 'Prog Rock', but for people who couldn't play musical instruments.....and specifically for anyone who lived in West Germany who couldn't play a musical instrument;even more specifically,anyone who lived in West Germany who couldn't play a musical instrument between 1969 and 1975.

The main Krautrockers,who actually 'Rocked',and these fellows were in a minority, were Ash Ra Tempel,Amon Düül II.....but NOT Amon Düül I,who were psychedelic hippy primitivists......and Guru Guru. These chaps were the rock element of it all,preferring Jimi Hendrix-style freak outs to wanting to be Pink Floyd at the UFO in 1967. Of course, no real musical talent is needed to play an impression of Jimi Hendrix,who was an innovator on the six strings rather than a fantastic technician.

The large majority of German hippies wanted to be Pink Floyd,who weren't too hot on the musician front themselves. The Syd Barratt Live era from 1966 to 68 was a huge inspiration on the 'Freak Out' front,where the boundaries of Rock traditionalism were completely broken down into free-form freak rock. Then the next era of Pink Floyd,post Syd, was even more influential on the nascent Kraut Rockers.They used syths,and floaty effects.The Space Rock era Floyd.

Being Outsiders, the Krautrockers were, by default, given free reign artistically,because they thought nobody beyond our mates are gonna be interested in this shit? Surely? Never mind buy the records?

How wrong were they?

They didn't count on the endless ingenuity of 'The Record Collector' to create a market to inflate the prices,creedence and obcurity of any second rate genre to boost their kudos in this musical version of Trainspotting.In this world, Obscurity and rarity ruled over musical excellence or innovation. The same thing happened to Soul music in the cess-pits of north western England in the seventies with 'Northern Soul'.....which was really the 'Crap Soul' that nobody bought.These things were rare for a reason,and for the vast majority of Krautrock it was the same.

Naturally there was some genuinely great and innovative music to be dug up, like Neu!,Can,Cluster and,maybe, Faust,but, com'on,most were poor facsimiles of Anglo-prog.There was even a Krautrock band who wasn't even German; the Canterbury style bunch of Brits called Nektar,who incidentally could actually play their instruments.

The best stuff to come out of the Krautrock era was the electronic stuff,which should really be referred to, not as rock,but Das Kosmiche Musik, or, space rock with out the rock bit.Again this didn't require any great musical expertise,but ownership of a vast bank of modular synthesisers, and a couple of Terry Riley LP's.We're talking Popol Vuh, Cluster,and Tangerine Dream here fella's.....and it is only Fella's who listen to this stuff.The ladies are less inclined to listen to anything that may enhance their stature in the tribe,and go for mostly stuff they actually like.

It's debatable whether Tangerine Dream should actually be associated with the rest of Krautrock/Kosmiche musik,as they seemed to exist apart from all that,and would have made the charts in the UK no matter what. As for Kraftwerk,they binned off Krautrock altogether to nobley try and invent some futuristic Pop that also charted in the UK. CAN also existed in that hinterland of accessibility that overlapped Roxy Music territory minus the songs.

For me, there was only one Kraut act that sounded like nothing else that went before,and that was ,of course, Neu!.This was one of those 'What The Fuck Was That' moments that are all too rare in the rock'n'roll era.

Doesn't that drummer play the same pattern on all of the tracks?...er...Yes. Where were the fills,the paradiddles,the 7/5 time signatures? This was NOT Prog!

Probably the greatest influence Krautrock had was not the music, it was the inclusivity of the musicianship.Wait a minute I can play Bass like Holgar Czukay,play drums like Klaus Dinger,and guitar like that bloke from Guru Guru, said the impressionable youth of 1973,having just pilfered the 'European Rock' section of the local record store.

The Euro Rock section was still there in 1978 when i first bought into the Krautrock legend,after endlessly hearing my Post-Punk hero's name-dropping CAN and Neu.Sadly "Tago-Mago" wasn't there, so I got the terrible "Soon Over Babaluma",which was, let's face it...Shit.Although,there will certainly be comments alluding to the opposite. Luckily I fell upon an original pressing of "Neu 1",on Brain Records, in a subterranean hippy record store in Leicester called "The Very Bazaar",from which i spent most of my dole money in in the early eighties. The Euro-Rock section was in Revolver in Leicester market place,which was renouned for its genre spanning sections;the other notorious section in Revolver was the "New Wave" section,where you could find anything from The Drones to The Door and The Window residing there.

When David Bowie was looking for Idea's, as he was inclined to do,often mistaking 'looking' for 'Stealing',he was pointed in the direction of The Motorik section(as in the Neu/Motorik Beat) of the Krautrock genre by fellow 'Ideas' harvester,and fellow non-musician,Brian Eno,or 'Eno', as his mother calls him (Eno,yer dinner's ready!).So...er... Eno,with sidekicks Bowie and Pop (iggy),would hang-out with Harmonia,Cluster,Conny Plank,and the Dingers casually usurping their style for a series of rather unremarkable albums to enhance Bowies legend,including the terminally awful "The Idiot" by Iggy Pop...who wants us to know he,or David's read some Dostoevsky.Luckily,as no-one had heard of Neu or Harmonia in the Anglo-Saxon arena,or even in Germany for that matter;this watered down Motorik influenced Kosmiche Pop was attributed to the Great David,who to his credit would often drop these groups names subtly,to the deaf ears of the Anglo-American public.

Most of it is,like every other genre,over-rated and dross, valued for its obscurity over content. Leave a copy of the admittedly rather good,"Golem" by Sand on your coffee table,and you'll score many obscurity points with the envious eyes that your geek friend Eamonn would cast upon it...That's the Eamonn who changed his name to Aemonn Düül in tribute to his favourite Band.Then of course, there was his quieter namesake, Aemonn Düül Too,who was Aemonn Düül One's shadow world. If these people don't exist there is a need to invent them.

So to close this contentious article on German musik at the start of the seventies,its a Geek tradition to have a Top Five list innit?

1. Neu - "Neu!"

2. CAN - "Ege Bamyasi"

3. Cluster - "Zukerzeit"

4. Harmonia - "Musik Von Harmonia"

5. Guru Guru - "UFO"

All pretty obvious selections,but Obscurity in itself is not a guide izzit?

I assume you've all got these albums? Si I'll provide a download of Sand's "Golem" album......which you've probably all got as well,but its more obscure than my Top Five,and is therefore more 'Krautrock as a result.

Epilogue:

Ok, Yeah Jaki Liebzeit was an incredible drummer,and NO, Einsturzende Neubauten was not a Krautrock band,even if they did steal banging metal junk and using engines from Faust.That's immitation not innovation.And no Ash Ra (Tempel) didn't invent Trance."

Sand  ‎– "Golem" (1974)

Tracklist:

1.Helicopter 13:40
2.The Old Loggerhead 8:20
3.May Rain 4:30
4.On The Corner 4:30
5.Sarah (10:40)

DOWNLOAD some sand HERE!

The Zchivago Reviews Series - 4/ The Nirvana's - "Never Mind" (On the truly very awful Geffen Records) from about 1990-ish!

 

Losing the will to live,.......come friendly Virus and save me from listening to this truly awful overproduced indie rock shiesterpiece!

The reasons "The Public" go ape over certain groups is a complete mystery to most Shrinks,never mind us sad fuckers with...slight vomit...'impeccable Taste'!? The inexplicable thing is that we are told that Cobain had impeccable taste too(more vomit). That's what I disliked about him most, he reminded me of what I dislike most about myself,or more accurately what other people told me I had........yup...."impeccable Taste". This is why I prefer Flock Of Seagulls to Captain Beefheart these days. The dread of playing "Trout Mask Replica" and some fucker saying "Hey, Captain Beefheart...Cool! You're weird man"......Yes I'm fucking Weird,but not if you are....maaan.

I am well aware that being aware of obscure music is an age-old way of Showing off, as is the knob who strums an acoustic guitar as a way of discovering a way one can learn Charisma instead of actually having it. I'm comfortable with having no charisma and so should have poor little Kurt.

Although "Never Mind" is frequently seen in the top ten of these Best Albums charts, the Nirvans album that could render anyone deaf dumb and blind at 20 paces is that beyond terrible "Unplugged" thing they did for the despicable MTV.

Stripped of their electric equipment their songs reveal themselves to be even worse than the electric versions, full of chunka-chunka strummed four to the floor lullabies,interspersed with the lamest jokes ever broadcast.....hey these guys are Fuuuun!?

Cobain again shows his exceptionally good taste with some cover versions including that terribly obscure composeur, David Bowie......."That was a David Bowie song" Kurt informs the ignorant masses from the Hive. We applaud eagerly,then sit quietly like a church congregation and laugh at the humourless jokes.

Kurt sings "The Man Who Sold The World" as if he was taking a crap.Rather like most of the other songs they did...unplugged or Electric.

It doesn't take 'Punk Rocker' Kurt long,of course, to mention the adjective "Punk Rock",when refering to his pet LA Punk, Pat Smear,displayed like a Trophy on back-up Chunka-Chunka guitar,diamentrically opposite to a extraeneous Cello player,whose volume knob had been sereptiticiously turned off,but her prescence added that much needed coffee table friendly appeal to their white collor audience.

As for "Never Mind" itself, I played it in about 1991 and found it terminally boring and inoffensively radio friendly. 

It shifted units and this made Kurt unhappy.....ahhhhh. 

He didn't like the trappings of being a Rock Star,and found he was trapped on the ruthless rock'n'roll rollacoaster. Apparently he couldn't stop it,and continued churning out fashionable long-hair rock revivalism for the disillusioned also-rans of the lower middle classes. The cash kept flooding in,and Kurt got sadder and sadder. Never thought of just stepping off the train and making that experimental rock album he always wanted to make......didn't the Beatles do that?

Credit where credits due however,It was Cobain who finally cured me of wearing t-shirts with Band names on them......did you see that Daniel Johnston Tee? He must be good if Kurty boy likes him......that and the endless name-dropping...The Raincoats were good apparently, Young Marble Giants, The Meat Puppets,please tell us Kurt.....ok christ The Meat Puppets guested on that MTV thing,and things got worse...the i'm a humble rock star act increased in "I'm Cool"laid-back intensity,and when the Puppets sang.....my ears screamed and ceased to function for the duration of some awful americana cat fight which could win wars.Then Kurt competes and goes into top gear taking a shit singing (see,or rather don't see 'Lake Of Fire).......now where's that fucking shotgun!?

The Remixes:

1. Lake Of Fire(Zchivago Remix)

2. Come As You Are (Zchivago Remix)

3. Smells Like Shit (Zchivago Remix)

Click on the title to download or stream

or

Play it on YOUTUBE! HERE!