Thursday 30 September 2021

No Trend – "Too Many Humans" (No Trend Records – NT 002) 1983



One of the best albums ever made is my humble assessment of this misanthropic ,environmentally aware dissection of our self-made prison. Well its in my top ten anyway...whether you like it as much or not at all, in classic No Trend style I'll say go and kill yourself then think again.
If one complains that there's too many humans on this overcrowded,and incidentally, very isolated spinning Rock (No Planet B reference), then you're accused of being part of the grand conspiracy,headed by Bill Gates.
"They are trying To Kill Us All" cry the internet informed paranoiac.
Simply, like the No Trend lyricist, Gates is just stating the bleeding obvious...THERE ARE TOO MANY HUMANS!...duh. All it will take to finish us all off is for every Chinese person, and there are a billion of the fuckers,to buy a Fridge then we are way beyond the tipping point,and there is NO going back. The result of which is complete and utter annihilation;but as capitalism doesn't have a reverse gear,we're fucked.
And I'm No better.....i got a fridge, i run a diesel car, I'm a part time vegetarian,but i don't buy stuff, except second hand records of course,and i recycle, even though I know it's all shipped to a holding facility in Hong Kong before it goes to landfill in Mongolia;it's actually more carbon friendly to not recycle....but it makes me feel like i'm doing something to help. Then when i'm starving to death in ten years time,i can die without too much guilt.
Global CO2 emissions went up by 16% this year by the way....and we are supposed to be doing something about it!? Let's face it, we breed like rats, but rats will inherit the earth, mainly because they live within their means and don't need all that plastic crap we salivate over....like over priced vinyl for example.

Tracklist:

Side No
A1 Family Style
A2 Blow Dry
A3 Reality Breakdown
A4 Kiss Ass To Your Peer Group
A5 Fashion Tips For The 80's
A6 Do As You're Told
Side Trend
B1 Too Many Humans
B2 For The Fun Of It All
B3 Mindless Little Insects
B4 Happiness Is ...


Wednesday 29 September 2021

No Trend – "Teen Love" (No Trend Records – NT 003) 1984


 

There comes a time in each man's life when he encounters a group so good on all levels that they are beyond critical praise.Even rarer is one that doesn't 'suck' after their first single encounter with fame in their own lunchtimes. The only other example I can only think of  is The Fall,who,even when they were in their not so good period, still ticked all the boxes. No Trend could never match the longevity and consistency of  Mark Edwards tunesmiths,but for a moment, while the USA were becoming either Sonic Youth or The Dead Kennedys,they managed to make nihilistic musical statements on the unpopular subject of the sheer torture of the human condition on a doomed planet. Don't you know we're all gonna die and there's nothing you can do about it? There's No trend and there's No solution.
Well maybe they ain't that Good in fact,things get a bit moody from the 'difficult second album' going onward,but they were always a different band,with almost as meny ex-members as The Fall.However the first album and single were just as perfect as the Martin Bramah Fall epoch.
Of course I'm talking bollocks,but apparently there's an existential crisis going on?
If we were to apply a 'Trend' to No Trend's american rock at the end of the universe it would no doubt be "Post-Hardcore". It's american Rock as seen through  an occluded lens in a bucket full of an alcoholic's blood infused piss.You can clean your windows with it and stare through the stains to watch your neighbours drive their SUV a hundred yards to the mall to buy more stuff.
We're pushing our way to the front of the moshpit in the same way one could imagine a disabled Jew pushing in to be first in the gas chamber......(and before any Anti-vaxx,Trump voter,conspiracy nut flat-earther raises issues about Gas Chambers and climate change stats...firstly fuck off, and secondly, I'm just using Gas Chambers as an analogy for climate change inaction 'tis all)....but the Gas Chamber's already full and we're all singing No Trend's "Too Many Humans" (from their first LP) as a bunch of drugged up rednecks close the air-tight door......then warm,fluoridated but mildly radioactive water gushes out of the shower heads and we drown.At least your corpse will have strong teeth.
Altogether now.....

"Too many fucking humans, 
You breed like rats,
And you're no fucking better! (Repeat until end)"

Hmmmm,maybe they should have said 'and WE'RE no fucking better'...a tad less superior and accusatory in tone than the finger pointing 'You're' That they opted for in the extensive lyrics published above?No-one is innocent.

Tracklist:

A1 Mass Sterilization Caused By Venereal Disease
A2 Cancer
A3 Die
B1 Teen Love
B2 Let's Go Crazy



Monday 27 September 2021

The Fuckin' Flyin' A-Heads – "Swiss Cheese Back / Watching T.V." (Otaro Records – Catch-2) 1980


If you like your Rock'n'Fuckin'Roll disintegrating into a mass of crumbling notes of indistinguishable noise then you'll probably dig the sole record released in my lifetime by The Fuckin' Flyin' A-Heads!
They do one of theee classic songs,tunes,mess's, on the subject of watching television ever made.
My skewed interpretation of this trashcan symphony is that It tackles the tetchy subject of why the joys and pitfalls of Television (the object, not the trendy 'we invented punk and you didn't' band) are dismissed by condescending book readers,who seem to think that sitting in a comfy chair reading the scribblings of more intelligent people is actually doing something,and proves that they are obviously of superior intelligence than anyone who doesn't indulge in the written word? Some of us have jobs!
What's your hobby?....."I read a lot",they say,bathing in the light of cleverer people who actually did do something creative by writing this book,but as if they'd actually contributed something positive to the world rather than just filling up some spare time.
Me?....I watch Television, so i must be a lazy good fer nuthin' shit kicker, wasting my valuable time on Earth. Whereas, if i spent a month reading Tolstoy's war and peace i would have be doing what precisely?...Yep, sitting down,filling the void waiting to die,whereas at least watching TV is a social activity,yet achieves exactly the same nothing as the pastime these pretentious couch potatoes deem to be a superior form of time wasting to almost everything.
Informative,or thought provoking philosophical books, are of course excepted, whereas Novels,aka Stories, are around the same level as looking at an abstract impressionist painting for half an hour, or watching Tarkovsky's Solaris on DVD of an afternoon when you should be doing something more worthwhile. Listening to music however can always be done whilst one is doing something else;that includes, something creative, or vacuuming the carpet,among other things.
Punk Rock had an unhealthy obsession with TV,also. Slagging off TV Viewers, hinting that they should be getting out and doing something creative like...er....having Fun,and playing three chord dirges? No-one ever made any songs,or dirges, about suburban kids wasting creative time by reading John Paul Satre's "The Age Of Reason",or ruminate on Existentialism, instead of forming a crap band like The Fuckin' Flyin' A-Heads!
Listening to this I can't imagine any of this group have ever read anything more literary than a marvel comic.... once. Then again, being seen with a weighty tome in one's hand wasn't something that would have gone down well with your dumb-assed rock'n'roll image,leading to a severe piss-taking by yer mates.
There's a classic scene in the original mockumentary from the Comic Strip presents... series on channel 4 (1983), which you could have missed because you were too 'busy' reading "Gulag Archipelago". ....."The Bad News Tour"  at about 20:06 on this YouTube clip)..the late Rik Mayall, as Colin, the posh bass player in a terrible sub-Heavy Metal band (Bad News) is caught on the phone to his mum reeling off a list of library books to take back to the library.Noticing he was on camera,Colin changes from very non-metal subjects such as Blair's Origins Of Feudal Britain, to reeling off a list of cool bands to maintain his crumbling credibility.This was the UK's other Spinal Tap,as played by actual English persons....but made before yer actual Spinal Tap movie was released,and probably a far more accurate portrayal of life in a shit band in the UK.
Of course I'm only joking.Reading books is a good thing, just don't think it's anything superior to watching Television,surfing the internet, or wanking.That's all,'cus it's NOT!

Tracklist:

A Swiss Cheese Back (6:30)
B Watching T.V. (4:34)


The Groinoids – "Lost" (Necro-Tone – LA28/NT21) 2018/1986


When a band has a singer called Mongoloid I think you can guess what you're in for? A trailer park trash vocalist out of his brain on Duff Beer and angel-dust,backed by staggering repetitive punk played at 16 rpm.This is what you'd get if you used the teleport device from the Fly if you teleported Drunks with Guns ,The Melvins,and a housefly covered in dog shit, to the same location at the same time.Emerging out of the theatrical smoke arises four spitting and blood oozing pink masses of meat...but with guitars.

Tracklist:

A1 Mindfuck
A2 Dinkweed
A3 Up Your Bucket
A4 Ain’t
A5 Creepy Little Kid
A6 China Lula
B1 The Vault
B2 Flesh Island
B3 Turtle, Duck & Mule
B4 Crematorium
B5 Spread For The Devil
B6 Ratfink


Saturday 25 September 2021

The Sickness – "Complete Sickness (1979 -1981)"


The group that kinda beat Flipper to it,but were in the wrong town were The Sickness from Boston;a town more famous for its straight edge hardcore puritans,rather than the crawling slovenly gutter punk of The Sickness,and her relatives.
If that wasn't good enough, they then divided like bacteria to become Kilslug and The Groinoids.The Groinoids especially often finding themselves on Hardcore compilations surrounded by a bunch of Dischord wannabees,going on about womens rights and other very noble themes.
Minor Threat they ain't!?The Sickness undoubtedly got Drunk,took class B drugs,and celebrated the seedier side of life. They either meant it, or they were living art objects,reflecting their intended targets in noise. This stuff is for people who won't 'Take the Knee', and I'm not referring to our Eastern European chums....those ethnically pure swarthy mono-browed Hungarians actually mean it when they boo and make monkey noises at the Black English footballers. This music is about,but not by, those cro-magnon survivors who are a casually placed Nazi salute away from actually killing someone who isn't like them.They're just waiting for the next term in office for the horrific Mr Trump,or his endorsed clone;but this time it'll be no-more mr Nice Guy...he wants 'revenge'.
I hear the Donald's approval rating is now above Biden's,so get building that bunker now while you have the chance.....and take some Sickness,Groinoids and Kilslug down there with ya.


Tracklist:

Studio - Outlook Studios, Boston, MA. 1981
1.Corpsemonger
2.Regurgatation
3.Die
4.100 Watts Electrified
Studio - Radiobeat Studios, Boston, MA. 1981
5.Slob
6.Shut Up
Live - CBGB, New York City, NY. 1980
7.Louie Louie - Solid Drip Breakfast
Rehearsal - Boston, MA. 1979
8.Neopolitan Pizza
Live - The Underground, Boston, MA. 1980
9.Blame It On The Dog


Friday 24 September 2021

Kilslug – "A Curse" (Stinky Bike – S.B. 002) 1982



Lyrics anyone?...Yes these guys can write it seems!?

Around '82 at the height of the vintage US Hardcore fad, there were some enlightened souls who decided to go in the opposite direction and slow it doooooown.The long shadow cast by Flipper and Swans had rightfully steered some away from the blind-alley of punk stuck in first gear with revs in the red zone and nowhere else to go. To continue the petrolhead analogies (I fucking hate cars!), these clued up slowcore groups took the rev's back down to idling speed,so much so that one could actually hear what they were singing about?
This slowed down Punk rock, nothing mid tempo here, now had choices rather than brainlessly driving into a wall.You could go the quiet introspective route of Low, or the arty direction of Swans, or get brutal like the beyond praiseworthy Drunks With Guns. The fantastically named Kilslug,obviously took the grungy punk route as popularized by Flipper between overdoses.The genre,whatever it was called, also included the magnificent Killdozer,but I think Kilslug got to use the word 'Kil' first I assume. 
Dirge-Punk,Sludge,Post Hardcore,whatever you want to call it,i guess,like Punk proper, led to less attractive Metal offshoots,like Doom Metal,and Sludge-metal,and virtually any prefix you can imagine with Metal added to it.......quite like a bit of Doom Metal personally,as long as the vocalist doesn't try to sound satanic,whatever that may be?....Deranged shouting at the back of the mix is the only requirement vocalistically (made up word)Thank you.
NB:
The long silence and tape disintegration on "Kill The Commies" one assumes is deliberate?....if it isn't it should be.

Tracklist:

A1 Snake Pit
A2 Vampire Fire
A3 Kill The Commies
B1 Elizabeth
B2 A Curse Will Fall


Thursday 23 September 2021

Poison – "Awakening Of The Dead" (Self-released Demo) – BFM 003 1986



By Demo,or Demon,number III, Poison have finally worked out how to operate a mixer,and we can hear all the instruments. Now I can reveal that the Bass Player ,called...don't laugh....Incubus Demon......(muffled giggle)....has lifted the one size fits all Bass riffage from Saxon,whose every song used a one note E-string drone for virtually every tune they did.....just like Lemmy,and probably the four stringed Satan who was in Venom too.....i'm guessing here as I'm not too familiar with Venom's seminal works.
Poison's guitar sound is ruthless as always,the vocals are customarily indecipherable ,but they still retain that special live in the replica Gas Chamber at Auschwitz ambiance. If you ever visit that Nazi Disneyland for ghouls and fools (Don't),test out the acoustics of the Gas Chamber with the impertinent question "Is this the original Gas Chamber or is it a post war replica?"...and count the evil looks cast in your direction......names will be taken.
Metal ,in general, is a difficult thing to admit liking. Saying "I'm into Metal" is tantamount to admitting you're a Virgin,or have no Friends,or were bullied at school. On an anthropological note, I did note that the Bully's were usually Soul fans, and the Bullied were invariably followers of the infinite varieties of Heavy metal. Mirroring the Mods and Rockers' running battles of the 1960's. Punks, of course, were a mixture of the two camps,so generally got left alone,unless Skinheads were in the vicinity....this is why 'Oi' came into existence.
I did get discovered with a Devo album by a gang of Soul-Boys one time,which didn't end well,for me or the Devo LP. Not understanding the appeal of Soul music myself, i guess i lean towards the Metal end of the Pop spectrum,but this doesn't mean I'm a Virgin or totally friendless....although I'm working on that one....because i'm reformed Punk Rocker I suppose? Nowadays I can't stand Punks either.
"Never join a club that would have you as a Member" is my family motto courtesy of Karl Marx's smarter brother....Groucho. 

Tracklist:

...this world (A)

A1 Satan Commands 4:38
A2 Wake The Dead (+Intro) 7:48
A3 Yog-Sothoth 7:34
A4 Antichrist (D.t.C.) - Live '85  3:03

...beyond (B)

B1 Alive (Undead) 6:41
B2 Legions Of Hell (New Version) 8:08
B3 Black Death - Live '85 3:40


Wednesday 22 September 2021

Poison – "Bestial Death (Demo II)" (BFM Tapes – BFM 002) 1985



Oh my God......sorry all you pale blue-veined metallic youths...I mean Oh My God of Evil,the great Satan and all his fantastic demon mates...I fall to my knees in thanks that you are but a very early prototype for a system of control...and a majority of the modern Planet still, STILL(?) falls for it.
Despite hardly ever being mentioned in that toilet fiction best seller by authors unknown, "The Bible", your influence still makes the god fearing  among us fear the concept of 'evil'...even the very intelligent among us are sucked into this ludicrous experiment of mass hysteria.That is far more frightening than any fictional devil,mainly because its fucking real!
The main tripping point for Death Metal,or just plain satanism is ,that if Satan exists then so does God,or Jehova, or Alan.....please don't kill me, I meant Allah!. Therefore,you are condemning yourself to eternal torture because you didn't waste your life grovelling for forgiveness for sins that ,apparently, Jesus Christ had already absolved us all for when he ,allegedly, provided the perverted image of himself nailed to a cross to remind us all.Although there are no photographs to prove it, so we'll just have to take the word of a bunch of madmen, who seem to have an exclusive hotline to the main office of the Almighty God above,and so can inform us of which confused nonsense this evasive deity wants us to know.
So, Death Metal bands are either comfortable in the knowledge that neither God, Nor, Satan, almost certainly do NOT exist ,and are just having a bit of fun, or they are totally stupid,worshiping the wrong side. I've heard that Satan, doesn't pull the punches when it comes to torture and eternity...even though it says fuck all about it in the Bible.However, one must say it's great fun annoying, and better still, frightening the shit out of dumbass believers by pretending to worship Satan,Lucifer, Beelzebub ,or whatever other stupid fucking name they give this ghost.
Now back to the slightly more logical world of terribly bad recordings of Death Metal band Poison, from Germany.
If it could be possible, Poison's second Demo, has an even higher rating on the Shit-Fi scale than the first. This one seems to have been recorded in a shoebox,with the drums outside in the car park,but the vocalist is the same room as you, spraying large clumps of sputum in your ear.The lyrics of which are unlikely to be sophisticated ruminations on the human condition.....well...either that or about death,evil and the Devil.It's truly bizarre stuff,and naturally its also very silly, but there's nothing else that sounds quite like it.

Tracklist:

1 Intro : The Vision 0:54
2 Satan Commands 4:21
3 Witchfynde 3:25
4 Wake The Dead 8:03
5 Antichrist (Death To Christ) 3:09
6 Alive (Undead) (7:55)
6a Intro 1:08
6b Song 6:47

Tuesday 21 September 2021

Poison – "Sons Of Evil" (Self-Released Demo) 1984


 

Death Metal can either sound and feel like you're having your head kicked in, like Slayer's immaculately produced ear batterings; or, like having your inner ears dewaxed by a hammer drill whilst being surrounded by multitudes of arcing electrodes,which is where we find ourselves today. Depending on the group,some of these electrodes will be attached by crocodile clips to your balls,or whatever are now the sensitive parts of whichever gender you self-identify with nowadays.
This demo,is actually an unedited live rehearsal by German Death Metallers Poison, recorded in what sounds like a vast empty gas chamber,or an abandoned public toilet built on an ancient burial ground.
The guitar frequently does a rather accurate impression of one of the more harsher Merzbow albums,with a sound not too far removed from a tethered moped on full throttle in the hold of an oil tanker. The bass is inaudible,and the drums have that adorable DIY biscuit tin and bucket quality,overpowered by one side of a C-90's worth of the last words of somebody being garroted .
Its all quite ridiculous of course,but it sounds fantastic.

Tracklist:

A1 The Omen (Intro) 1:39
A2 Inferno Breaks Out 2:29
A3 Black Death 3:47
A4 Demon 6:16
A5 Reaper 3:08
A6 Possessed 2:06
A7 Angel Of Satan (+ March To Hades) 5:41
A8 Satan's Damnation (Intro) 1:24
A9 Legions Of Hell 3:38
B1 Leather + Metal 4:00
B2 Hell Of The Living Dead 4:55
B3 Slaughter 2:18
B4 Gonna Make You Die 5:21


The Decay – "Tonight, (Back From The Death) E.P." ( Sick Records – Sick 001) 1985


 

Ah bless 'em......classic Swiss punk by numbers with a guitar sound that must have been fed through a transistor radio then miked up through a cheap but louder amp. I had a similar amplification device in the 80's, purchased from Tandy called the Archer mini-amp,which you could easily overdrive the fuck out of and it would sound not unlike Andy Riot of The Decay's fizzing and spitting Guitar sound,if fed through the PA.
The infamous Archer Mini amp by Radio Shack!

The staggering,hopefully intended, incompetence on offer on this EP is as accidentally abstract as The Accused of "Mell Square Musick EP" fame from 1980.(more Accused HERE).
This undoubted charm remains intact from Insane Johnny(the Singer) and the boys,despite the wonderfully meandering time signatures,which in classic Beefheartian style seems to involve at least two different timings playing at the same time,which is very difficult to do, unless you're doing it by the forgivable mistake of incompetence,or got no monitors?
I can't imagine anyone notating the parts on these wild tunes, Drumbo style;but this Drummer, Rotten Love (!?),has that rare talent of doing just what the fuck he feels like doing irrespective of what the other musicians are contributing.This is how Punk Rock should sound.Listen to rock'n'roll decaying in front of your ears and dream of what might have been. 

Tracklist:

Seite Eins

A1 Tonight1:57
A2 Police State USA 2:06

Seite Zwei

B1 Holidays In London 1:16
B2 Anarchy And Peace 1:30
B3 Self Destruct 1:09

Monday 20 September 2021

Anti Cimex – "Victims Of A Bombraid / Raped Ass" (Distortion Records - DISTLP9) 1994/1983)


More Swedish D-Beat from Anti Cimex,who basically played the same track,and wore the same clothes, for the ten years or so of their existence. They sounded like Discharge, looked like Discharge,wrote about the same things...or rather 'Thing' singular(i.e. Nuclear annihilation),as Discharge, and even supported Discharge whenever their heroes played in Sweden. Slightly more conventional, and far less brutal than Swedish faves The Shitlickers, but its still fun to listen,open mouthed, and wonder how groups like this ever came into being,and how they lasted for longer than one demo tape?

What was the game of the Arseholes?......Golf of course?

Tracklist:

A1 When The Innocent Die 2:01
A2 Warmachine 2:01
A3 Total Silence 1:50
A4 Cries Of Pain 1:16
A5 Raped Ass 1:13
B1 Desperate Hours 1:12
B2 Game Of The Arseholes 1:33
B3 Victims Of A Bombraid 2:43
B4 Set Me Free 1:21


Sunday 19 September 2021

Shitlickers – "GBG 1982" (Expanded version) 1982



That Stoke-On-Trent look travelled quickly to our Scandinavian chums just across the North Sea.The American Hardcore dressed down image firmly rejected for that popular Northern English more Sid than Sid caricature that still pollutes the highways and by-ways of many a town from Santiago to Vladivostok (travelling clockwise of course!) . These guys liked Discharge....a lot.And who can blame 'em.Rather magnificent was Discharge for an album and a half at least.....But...This Shitlickers EP,now expanded from the same sessions, wins my personal award for the best Hardcore and its derivatives vinyl EP ever self-released by a bunch of scandinavian spikey tops this side of the north sea oilfields.
Only five years between Wire's seminal "Pink Flag",the LP wot started this ultra reductionist approach, and this bizarre racket is what Punk Rock had evolved into by 1982.Times moved fast back in them daze. Now the renaissance has finished,nu-forms are stuck in the quicksands as is time.
Your author has come across a fan review which included a fine description of the...er... music(?), served rare on this black vinyl platter.I think this sums up the sound most adequately indeed:
"Fantastic EP that sounds like it was recorded in a rusty garbage can covered in piss"(Unknown critique).....one of course concurs somewhat.


Tracklist:

1.Warsystem
2.Armed Revolution
3.Spräckta Snutskallar
4.Leader (Of The Fuckin' Assholes)
5.Silence
6.Desperate Scream From The Heat
7.The Night Of The Holocaust
8.No System Works

DOWNLOAD some shit that can't be licked HERE!

Saturday 18 September 2021

Besthöven - "Os Mortos Insepultos" (Self-Released Demo) 1995


There aren't too many Shitlickers covers going around,but Brazil's D-Beat kings Besthoven did a cover of "Warsystem". Although this demo tape makes Shitlickers sound like they were produced by Trevor Horn.....well,not quite,but you get what I mean.
Who would have thought that a dressing style which once populated the grey streets of Stoke-On-Trent,uk, circa 1981 would crop up in the homeland of Bossa Nova in the mid-nineties?
Its brutal stuff but there's some much needed space in the recording,the clangorous knuckle dragging bass is audible among the six-stringed savage bees attack going on around it;and the drums surf atop,this wave of zero-fi cassette tape meltdown effortlessly.Making a disintegrating bespoke frame for the strangled vocals which seemed concerned very much with human disabilities,although not the disability for the average human to listen to fine music like this without getting a headache.
Just noticed I have yet to put any of the beyond great Shitlickers work on this blog!?....a glaring omission indeed.
Will rectify on next post......many apologies.

Tracklist:

01 Introduchaos - "Em Pesadelos Monstrusos..." Sem Esperancas
02 Seres Deformados
03 Chorando Guerra (Forca Macabra)
04 O Enterro Dos Mortos Vivos
05 Desgraca No Suburbio
06 Dias Cinzentos
07 Blind (Fear Of The War)
08 Septembro Sangrento
09 Medo Da Guerra
10 Warsystem (Shitlickers)
11 No Campos De Exterminio -Ontrochaos-'As Vesperas Do Final...'


Friday 17 September 2021

Hellhouse – "Burn For Peace" (Self-Released Demo) 1986



These fun chaps seem quite literate for metalheads gone wrong.Quoting George Elliot on Loneliness?
The music is such a bizarre distortion of the original Metal template as to qualify for the 'weird without trying' award of the week.This is the stuff that should be in the Rock'n'Roll hall of fame not REM and the like...although I dunno why I chose REM for special attention,because I like REM.....is Meat Loaf in there? If he is then replace REM with Steinman and Meat,slash,Loaf and jim;but the loaf we all prefer would be Renaldo's Loaf,as in Renaldo and the...surely?Hellhouse is the stuff that Hell is made of, and for.A Hell with Renaldo's Loaf and REM in it is not too bad a place to be,and a Hell with this Hellhouse group in it as the house band is but no Hell at all.
How you can start off with Black Sabbath and end up with this bizarre cocktail of barking and 78rpm riffing is a fascinating process indeed.

Tracklist:

1 KIll Your Mother
2 Meat Cleaver
3 Rape Your Mother
4 Crucified
5 Rage
6 Impaler

Wednesday 15 September 2021

Hellhammer – "Triumph Of Death" (Prowling Death Records – PDR 002) 1983

 

Well....We've had a band called "Dead" whom shared a name with the second most mental member of Mayhem...the one wot shot himself. So now we find a very early Black Metal trio in the Venom/Motorhead mode whose name was commandeered by Mayhem's Drummer, Hell Hammer.....one of the more sensible members of Mayhem one must add;but that ain't saying much.
This Hellhammer came from the repressed and impoverished hell hole we know as Switzerland, where life is so unbearably awful that it makes young men so unhappy that they just wanna sing songs about death and violence all the time.
I'm not sure if it's an urban legend or not, but doesn't every Swiss home have a nuclear bunker,and own at least one handgun?
Indeed gun ownership is rife,yet the murder rate is one of the lowest on the planet. Maybe this is achieved because of the cathartic effects of Black Metal? We'll never know,but there seems to be very few Swiss bands that manage to escape the Alps and spread their secret. I can think of Brainticket, Kleenex, Yello and...er....Hellhammer!?....quite a mixed bag,so maybe they're brainwashed at school to be bland,neutral peaceniks with guns.....I dunno.Or maybe they just ain't stupid like American 2nd amendment waving rednex. Having visited this stunning country,they do seem to have the slowest law abiding car drivers i've ever tail-gated. It's all quite weird,especially when the shops close at four in the afternoon on Saturdays!? Its that Nazi-Gold (or dead jews teeth) they stole during the war I reckon?
It seems ,on the insert, that Hellhammer don't like Venom too much,which is obviously incorrect,as they'd be called Venom 2 if they were a horror movie franchise.
Its all suitably raw,and spacious,which is unusual for metal albums.The Bass clawing is particularly impressive,and the vocals very Lemmy-esque,which seems a prerequisite for the birth of Death Metal...the growling and grunting evolved later it seems.
Basically, whoever had the bright idea to take these groups into a good studio should be forced to listen to Metallica (can't believe that was in spellcheck!?) for an unspecified period.....i am aware that this may be against most conventions on Human Rights,but needs must.

Tracklist:

A1 Crucifiction
A2 Maniac
A3 When Hell's Near
A4 Decapitator
A5 Blood Insanity
A6 Power Of Satan
B1 Reaper
B2 Death Fiend
B3 Triumph Of Death
B4 Metallic Storm
B5 Ready For Slaughter
B6 Dark Warriors
B7 Hammerhead

DOWNLOAD to down there HERE!

Tuesday 14 September 2021

Mayhem – "Pure Fucking Armageddon" (Funny Farm inc) 1986


These Notorious Norwegian metallers were very naughty boys indeed. One could accuse them of taking it all rather too seriously, perhaps even taking it all a tad too far maybe? They nicked their name from Motorhead-a-likes and supposed Black Metal band numero uno,the UK's very own, Venom.So that kinda categorises them I guess?
Some call this Back Metal,or even Death Metal? I dunno,but because they dress like Metal kids with make-up on,does that make this metal? Its got some riffage going on,and hints of growly vocals,singing about ghosties,violence,and pure fucking armageddon.....stuff like that. So I suppose the pure derivative silliness of it all qualifies them as 'Metal'.It just sounds like a bunch of mad noise to me,like an avant-garde interpretation of Metal whith large chunks edited out,the opposite end of Sun(((((0. Basically I dunno what I'm talking about,but I like it...(sing).."Mamaaaa, it's only Black Metal but I like it,I Like It Yes I doooo".
Of course the back story to this band is that some of them actually wanted to back up the rhetoric with actions.So if one of the mis-led young fools said I'm gonna actually live out the the Rock'n'Roll endgame of comitting suicide on stage I'm actually gonna do it.
It all started to go wrong with the addition of new vocalist and grade 'A' nutjob, Per Yngve Ohlin,aka "Dead",who had a nasty habit of cutting himself with hunting knives and broken glass on stage.A cry for help perhaps?
The obviously mentalist Dead,did infact end his own life by slashing his wrists and sucking on a shotgun,but he didn't do it onstage,the sell-out! Here's a short extract from his suicide note:
"Excuse all the blood.Nobody will ever understand this, but as a sort of explanation, I am not human, this is only a dream and soon I will awake".......whoops!....Were still waiting for him to wake up thirty years later.
Then the story gets dafter with  the fatal stabbing of founder member,guitarist Aarseth (Euronymous) by Bassist Varg Vikernes,who was only in the band for a year,but seemed determined to make a bigger splash in the Mayhem legends swimming pool.Varg was also responsible for a string of church arsons for which he was convicted in court.Along with the small matter of first degree murder,the punishment for which was to spend a lenient 21 years or so in the unbridled opulence of those famous Norwegian Prison Cells/luxury flats(although he only served 16 granted parole in 2009!?).Surprisingly,and very un-Norwegian he also had to leave the band,which was then reduced to a duo, temporarily,due to murder,suicide and imprisonment.Incredibly replacements for the vacant positions were not hard to find,not that I would recommend anyone should volunteer for such a poisoned chalice i may add.And they are still churning out the filth today;although they've given up murdering each other,toying with Nazi politics and messing about with shotguns.At least for the present.
Now out of prison for the last decade or so, Varge has not rejoined the band surprisingly,even though he still made solo albums in his prison cell,and now a free man,is still plying his trade as a metal musician in,of all places, France (Shit! I live there!?)....although he may,as a convicted Murderer, Arsonist, and neo-Nazi find it difficult to get a visa to visit any of the many non-EU nations who have a Metal audience interested in this shit.
Yes, its all very fucking silly, but early Mayhem were in fact rather good.Making unlistenable soulless metallic noise that would undoubtedly put the shits up any passing Christian or,even better, Muslim.....so anything that can do that is fine by me.
Suicide, Murder,Arson,stabbings,slashings,atheism,ultra right wing paganism,high speed noise,and all in glorious,atrocious,deafness inducing shit-fi too.What more could anyone possibly want from a pop group? 

Tracklist:

Side Fuck (Studio Quality)
A1 Voice Of A Tortured Skull 2:22
A2 Carnage 4:14
A3 Ghoul 3:31
A4 Black Metal (Total Death Version)2:06
A5 Pure Fucking Armageddon 2:50

Side Off (Unmixed)
B1 Mayhem 1:46
B2 Ghoul 3:43
B3 Pure Fucking Armageddon 2:43
B4 Carnage 4:32

Monday 13 September 2021

Dead – "Musical Abortions (Demo Tape)" (Self-Released) 1986

 


If Dead were called, THE, Dead, one would automatically think that they were some uninspiring punky group just making up the numbers.But, AS just simply...."DEAD", that makes all the difference.These Floridian reprobates were obviously going to be interesting.I digress but,Strangely enough 'Dead' was also assumed name of the vocalist in Norwegian Black Metallers Mayhem,who killed himself in the name of art.
However,In their desperation to categorize Dead's bizarre mash-up, most dull as fuck music commentators have graded this as "Death Metal",which evidently means the singer does that growly thing over a load of sped up major chords. One understands that Dead had a career after this demo tape,of which I am pleasantly unaware,but my experience of how most embryonic pop groups turn to shit in pursuit of 'a Career', i have little curiosity to how they turned out.It wouldn't surprise me to find out that they actually are now a standard predictable Death Metal group of half way up the List at Hell Fest level of fame.
Metal is normally a by-word for Shit,but the reinterpretation of the adjective 'Metal' by Dead in 1986,is a wonderful impression of blown speakers wired up to an overloaded amp in a rotating concrete mixer full of rock and metal....as in Rock and Metal the elements as raped from the earth by humans to make amplifiers and speakers for hopeless young men like "Dead" to blow up.
The quality of these recordings lie somewhere between just plain shit and luminous raw sewage from Fukushima piped into your suffering brain.Like being rendered deaf by an oncoming train of impenetrable radioactive smog.
The tape ends,like any worthwhile anti-social behaviour, with a visit from normalsville and law and order officials threatening Jail if they don't stop.And in true Death Metal style, they stopped.

Tracklist:

1 Intro 5:25
2 Azathoth 3:44
3 Chopper 2:07
4 Dead 3:53
5 Mephestopholes / The Cops 3:20


Saturday 11 September 2021

Chemotherapy – "Chemotherapy" (Uprising – 001) 1983



There are certain epoch's in American musical history when they don't make dumb assed rock bollocks for morons and rednecks  and branch out into making something else as dumb-assed but accidentally good.
One of these 'epoch's' in question, would have to be the US Hardcore scene between 1981 and 1983,before it all just became homoerotic Punk Speed Metal. Black Flag were shit of course,but there were legions of kids like "Chemotherapy" who made it their own,and didn't once think about shifting units.
The 'top' Hardcore bands became 'punk' equivalents of Yes,and ELP, in 1975,playing with such impossibly muso intensity,that the kids couldn't play it. The worst bits was sacred cow stuff like The Bad Fucking Brains.....I expect the race hate highwayman to jump out from the bushes to accuse me of genocide,but....come on, or cum onnnnn,...that reggae shit...what was that all about? If I wanted to listen to Reggae I'd put a reggae album on me turntable wouldn't I?
I remember Moby saying the greatest Hardcore album ever was the Bad Brains...then he added, except for the reggae parts? Too right,and then we find out the Bad Brains were originally a Jazz Fusion band called "Mind Power"!?...a bunch of Muso's looking for a market it seems? And all that Jah rastafari codswallop? They were religious for fuck's sake!? Albeit a really made up religion where no whites get to go to heaven,and only slightly less silly than Mormonism....where no whites get to go to Heaven either,because it's MADE UP! In fact they're all made up and no-one no matter where they were born gets to go to heaven, which almost certainly does not and cannot exist.
Chemotherapy, however, were just a bunch of school kids from Indiana...a place that would still lynch anyone who listened to Genesis as an atheist,and burn Beatles records if there were any left...who didn't have a ready made audience,and didn't have access to half-decent recording facilities.
They made one of the greatest Hardcore EP's ,a millions miles away from Roir tapes and their Bad Brains pets.They may have been white kids,but such documentation of apathetic acceptance of a life of wage slavery and pointlessness has hardly ever been created,other than the hundreds of of other similar exercises that have been unearthed since the beginning of Rock tyme. I don't feel this angst in Bad Brains stuff,they looked far too healthy.


Tracklist:

A1 Resist
A2 I Don't Want To Be Watched
A3 Let's Die
A4 Living Your Life
A5 Who Cares?
A6 All My Friends Are Dead
B1 Smart, Tough And Catholic
B2 Why Should I?
B3 Big Bad Man With Your Silver Badge
B4 Pledge
B5 Suicidal Tendencies
B6 Distorted View


Friday 10 September 2021

Genocide Association – "Sonik Lobotomy Demo Tape" + "Sonik Lobotomy Bootleg EP" (self-released) 1983



As a bit of a fair-weather Hardcore Punk fan,if I can,or endorse someone else,being a fan of anything; wot are my bestest three Hardcore albums?......this kind of behaviour strays dangerously into record collector twat-geek territory,but, believe me there is a point to all this,just bare with me.
I like that first Discharge Album,if you can actually call Discharge Hardcore,it sounds more like an avant garde masterpiece to me.Then top of the US Hardcore tree has to be Jerry's Kids' rather good "Is This My World" record....was that drummer on some type of performance enhancing drugs I wonder?
So, number one has to be, no not Minor Threat,nor,Napalm Death mk1,and incredibly not even Impulse Manslaughter.
Of course,and you may have already guessed....especially as the title is on display at the top of the page, It's ,from the home of Grindcore,Nottingham's own, Genocide Association innit?
105 brief tracks,or one long track depending on how you hear it, of cut'n'paste hardcore plunderphonia squeezed into 30 fun filled minutes.Apparently Minor Threat did actually get looped somewhere on this tape.....there's a prize for he who locates it.
What makes this even better is, in the proud tradition of fake bands,Genocide Association are nothing more than Dig of earache Records,before he'd heard of Thatcher's Enterprise allowance scheme....yes,Thatcher gave us Napalm Death and Grindcore...and mate Dayve from some other group. They had the bright idea to cut up a bunch of Hardcore demo tapes,rejig the constituent parts and make some rather crazed backing tracks for their shouty vocals.So, ideologically, this tape has a lot going for it in the Die or DIY? ethos of copying obscure cassette works from the punk hinterland and giving them new life. This was early Plunderphonics for want of a better synoptical cliché. If John Oswald had come up with this, it would have been lauded as an Avant-Garde statement of Noble Prize winning proportions.....rather like Discharge's first album. There are times when one asks oneself,"What the fuck am I Listening to"?...Which is the number one,and increasingly rare, look-for moment in any music is it not?
As mentioned in The Maximum Rock and Roll musical toilet paper, and Hardcore Bore Bible:
"Genocide Association (are) A bunch of xtreme nihilists/anartwits who despise the widely held concept of 'Anarchie' .. Possess no instruments.. Cynical to the point of lunacy."

How much more 'Punk' can one get than having no instruments,believing in nothing as controlling or as silly as Anarchy as your raison d'etre, and best of all, never playing a gig.
The fact that this was before samplers were affordable,and all this was done by laboriously editing the vocal-less parts from a pile of Punk Rock cassettes onto a couple of Cassette decks riff by riff, play/record/pause, change tape, repeat,is nothing short of inspiring .So the time signature can get a trifle eccentric from time to time,and the patchwork style sonik quality is endearingly inconsistent,veering from rich boy demo studio quality to one mike in a garage static fog 
So, yeah, this is the best Hardcore Punk Recording of Allllll Time,musically and ideologically....Discuss.

Tracklisting:

"Sonik Lobotomy Bootleg EP" (13:03)

1.Intro
2.Prostituted by the System
3.Grim Brutality
4.War Machine
5.Sick Society
6.Sonic Lobotomy
7.They'll Do it Again
8.Death Is Their Only Salvation
9.Marker Pen Anarchy
10.Land Of The Free
11.Guilty Before God
12.Nightmares of War
13.For Queen And Country
14.Ground Ero
15.Daily Lies
16.Live in the Past
17.Wasted Life
18.Pass the Ammunition
19.Salvery's Not dead
20.Fields Are Green
21.Desert Earth
22.Retired at Sixteen
23.Organised Disordaaargh
24.Broken Rules
25.War Isn't a Game
26.Laurelled Memories
27.Music for the Manic (S)laughter

The Complete Original Demo:
28.105 Trax (29:57)

Thursday 9 September 2021

Various Artists– Violent Party Omnibus Tape - Downtown Street Punker (Violent Party Records – TAPE NO. 7) 1984


And you thought that Nuclear Weapons were just Fear Porn!?...wrong!!!
There's nowhere else, not even Chernobyl,who's been exposed to more rads on the Geiger counter than the Japs.This goes a long way to explain why they are such a bunch of apeshit muther fuckin' crazy assed muther fuckers.Either that or they have lived in one of the most socially repressive environments on the planet this side of Victorian England.
This is the label that brought us Sieg Heil, but it seems they have ill-advised pretensions towards real music....No.NO NOOOOO!? Why does this always happen?Maybe Sandi Hook (Die or DIY?'s official conspiracy nut) is right, and the new world order has us by the balls?
On the cover it reads; "Very Very Group", like the original Violent Party label tape does instead of "Ragin' Hardcore".
Which means, der management doesn't want to be seen as just another Hardcore label,which is understandable I suppose.
The majority of it is of the type of zero-Fi hardcore lunacy that Seig Heil so generously committed to tape for us future dwellers to enjoy in the 21st century.
However, the other stuff on here,like No Cut and The Craps,flirts with the pure evil that is Melody!?
The outstanding quality of the sound on here is the thoroughly repulsive guitar sounds these kamikaze muso's effortlessly achieved like a divine wind of integrated circuitry.The sound of solid state transistors committing mass suicide is one of thee most subversive sounds on earth.Holing what passes for worthless early 21st century music below the waterline in the process,machine gunning the survivors in the water.Enjoy it while you still can,because they are coming for your mind.

Tracklist:

A1 Gai – Damnation
A2 Gai – Fundmental Human Right
A3 Gedon– Today Is Happy
A4 Gedon– Entertainer
A5 No-Cut– Open Way
A6 No-Cut– Dead Cry
B1 Confuse– Spending Loud Night
B2 Confuse– Fight Against The Plutocrats
B3 Craps– Cannot Stop Laugh
B4 Craps– How Long Do You Give Me
B5 Gess– This Is Religion
B6 Gess– Rock And Roll
B7 Gai – Two Mohicans - Hakata Punk And Punket Story

Wednesday 8 September 2021

Sieg Heil – "First Demo (Nazism)" and "Second Demo" (Violent Party Records) 1984



 Well, here's a novel idea. How's about I post music as featured in the radio show,like the one wot i just posted here! innit?

There's nothing like getting up the noses of the self-righteous, the indignantly politically correct,the 'Likers',or mr and mrs Standard Views,and their rotten children.
Somehow,It got filtered down to the furthest corners of the globe that British Punks wore swastika's and didn't care who knew it.They wrote humorous songs about the Holocaust,spent half their dole money on studs for their leather jackets,didn't like nuclear war,but basically, existed purely to upset as many people as they possibly could in the shortest possible time.
Sieg Heil from, Kyushu Japan, achieved all of this without one moments hesitation, or even Thought!? 
They had a song/thing, called "I Hate Crass" too.Such perfection.
Best not to think about things too much if you're discovering the elemental particles of music,in the rush to shit out the lowest common denominator of music,and/or even Taste....ugh!
'Taste', is a by-word for the kind of awful suffocating type of normal that stifles excitement,and the forward gears of discovery.Even if it means going back to move forward.
Tactical withdrawal was not a phrase that Hitler ever understood....thankfully,or we may have all been wearing Hugo Boss approved outfits for the last 70 odd years....very smart though....nice shiny boots? Or, failing that, for those of us who don't require factor fifty to go out in the sun or have a big nose,stripy pajamas and free accommodation in the east.
The European equivalent of Seig Heil, and also from another former Axis power, was Italy's "Hitler SS",who redefined the word Stoopid with their own special brand of unthinking punk rock.
In the race to reverse back to zero Italians were up there manning the fifth reverse gear of those one forward gear Italian Tanks,and flying the white flag in the face of all those open mouthed Italian Prog groups.
However, the Japanese were never renowned for their surrender habit.They jumped off cliffs with their children to certain death rather than capitulate to the invading normality of the west.I'm surprised they even gave up after being nuked twice.
Sieg Heil only manged two demo's,but i'm sure the constituent parts carried on in a similar vain,hiding out in the dense rain forest on one of those south pacific islands,Still attired in their studded leather jackets and torn jeans, thinking that the Punk Wars were still raging 50 years after we all gave up....sounds a lot like certain parts of rural France actually!?  
How 'Wrong' could one go?.....Sieg Heil are no far off 11 on the erroneous scale of wrong rock...so wrong its right.....and so terribly recorded as if a huge fizzing close-miked alka-seltzer was the guitarist,and the drums were recorded via an antique telephone like the ones seen in those Keystone Cops movies.Somehow,impossibly, the quality even manages to go down for the second Demo.This is a unique achievement,which in other more sedate waters would be bestowed the title of "Award Winning" in the sparsely inhabited field of lo-fidelity pop music.Especially for pop music as Unpopular as this.
Who invented Punk? Who Cares, is the correct answer;but listening to this it was most certainly NOT the fucking Ramones!

Tracklist:

"First Demo (Naziam)"

A1 Nazism?
A2 Terrorist
A3 I Hate Crass!
A4 Anti Nuclear War
B1 (Unknown)
B2 Doll Is Dead
B3 Sweet Memories
B4 Sieg-Heil
B5 Who Killed The Jews


"Second Demo"

1-10 Unknown

Sunday 5 September 2021

Zchivago's Disco Dystopia 03/09/2021


 You got it, i'm getting bored with being bored by music,mainly due to some heavy medication,but........ everything is still shit!So here's da latest argument for shutting everything down.

DISCO DYSTOPIA PLAYLIST 3rd September 2021:

“A Metallic Taste Bypass”

  1. FEEDERZ – Fuck You

  2. HELLHOUSE – False Erotic Love

  3. POISON – Inferno Breaks Out

  4. HELL HAMMER – Messiah

  5. DEAD – Chopper

  6. KILSLUG – Vampire Fire

  7. NO TREND – Mass Sterilization Caused By Venerial Disease

  8. THE DECAY – Holidays In London

  9. THE SICKNESS – Regurgitation

  10. CHURCH POLICE – Gourmet Cooking

  11. PULP MUSIC – Low Flying Aircraft

  12. SLUGFUCKERS – Deaf Disco

  13. FUCKIN FLYIN A-HEADS -Swiss Cheese Back

  14. SIEG HEIL – Who Killed The Jews?

  15. MOB 47 – Fuck David Bowie

  16. GENOCIDE ASSOCIATION – Prostituted By The System

  17. BESTOVEN – Deformed Beings

  18. ANTI-CEMEX – War Machine

  19. CHEMOTHERAPY – Who Cares?.

  20. PARABELLUM – Madre Muerte

  21. MAYHEM – Pure Fucking Armageddon

DOWNLOAD it HERE!

or you can

STREAM it HERE!