Various Artists– "Cry, Havoc!" - (Compiled By Stoke Musicians Collective) - Slip Records – (SLID 1) 1981

 

Hey!Here's a surprise!

After another long repose,the most logical place to re-boot my blogger come-back has to be,of course......Stoke-on-Trent(?).......The birthplace of UK82/D-Beat,and anything else wearing a studded leather bikers jacket.Yoo know who I mean, Discharge GBH, Clay Records and all that involuntarily Celibate white young male stuff(I think its pronounced 'InCell' in nu-speak. 

The potteries,as this grim land-fill site in the black country of the UK, was known, could have done a lot worse than that dubious claim to be lame,and so they did, with yet another of those provincial compilations unleashed upon those disinterested bunch of smug Southerners at Radio One. 'Tis also yet another Musicians Collective, that seemed to multiply like a cancer throughout the New Wave era.

The worst ones were those who were obviously trying their hardest to write a catchy tune,captured on secondhand 8-track tape by a cynical Martin Hannett type refugee from the 60's at the council funded recording facility. Arriving too late for the Wave,which 1981 was, not all of these bands can be dismissed as Nu-Wave white boy funksters,, Reggae-lite costello clones, or Spherical Objects style Fall plagiarizers. There was at least one Minimal Synth (All The Madmen), and the 'oooh ain't we weird' number (Amphibrach Enallage etc), and the 'not-too-Bad band,which in this case is the Platinum Needles......a drugs reference perhaps?

In fact i'm quite enjoying listening to this as i write some misinformed splurge;yes even the cringe parts....purely out of a September years need for nostalgia i may add,but it keeps me relatively non-suicidal dunnit?.....and i never managed to mention Donald Trump once!? 

Tracklist:

A1 Vermilion Hair– Private Eye 3:10
A2 The Decks– Drowning In The Airwaves 3:36
A3 Platinum Needles– Organised Disruption 3:52
A4 The Lemmings– Young At Heart 3:03
A5 White Lightning Blues Band– Neat Scenes 3:02
A6 Doris– Many Miles From Home 3:08
A7 All The Madmen– Superior Life 3:03
A8 The Heaters – Expensive Jeans (Reggie) 3:31
B1 Walter Mitty– Screaming Till The Sun Goes Down 3:57
B2 The Uninvited– Doing The East Berlin 3:02
B3 Vermilion Hair– Hidden Meaning 4:08
B4 White Lightning Blues Band– Shake It Again 1:55
B5 Strate Angel– Rock-O-La 4:19
B6 Time Out – Still On Ice 4:05
B7 Amphibrach Enallage And The Catalectic Paragoge– Re: Bertha De Cool 1:19
B8 Platinum Needles– Telford 2:39

DOWNLOAD and cry HERE!

Jimmy Smack – "Death Is Certain" - (Knekelhuis – KH040) 1982-83 / 2022

Hmmmm, Nice Arse.

Electric bagpipe drone weirdness from LA deathrock outsider Jimmy Smack. 'Death is Certain',aww and there's me thinking I was gonna live forever, is assembled from two self-released 7"s and a similarly self-released twelve incher from 1982/3.

Looking at him I sense he prefers a good 12 incher to a nice seven incher any day, but then again don't we all?
There aren't many records that can boast an electric Bagpipe, but this one does,so its already automatically good,never mind the Suicidal tendencies, as in that Rev and Vega kind of minimalism.

Always keep at least one hand on yer bagpipe kiddies.

Slapping on the corpse paint well before all those Scandinavian Death Metal drongos,Jim reminds one rather of a scotch Alien Sex Fiend,or Fad Gadget.

Is he trying to frighten us or something?....I really think he is!?

Although he was unhealthily obsessed with Death, he soon decided to quit after receiving an opportunity to find out what Death was really like when he received several Death Threats.Apparently he wasn't too popular with the LA Deathrock audience,regularly booed off and and a hate target.Worried for he and his families safety,....Yup, he had a wife and Kids!?.."he bailed right after the death threat thing. Stopped,and sold his pipes(how much did he get for them?)." Went back to his day job permanently,that's right he was a Ballet Dancer,and even more incredibly....NOT GAY!?

Smack, not his real name i'm guessing, was a multi-disciplined artist,so when he wasn't donning death mask war paint,he was preaching the gospel of Cold War nihilism; or channeling paranoia with great urgency through the howling banshee screams of electrified Celtic bagpipes.Or,doing The Nutcracker on Broadway?

At least we can now reassure ourselves with the knowledge that Smack never struggled for work,and I quote:"I was in the theatre all the time, my whole life. I had the Hollywood Free Theatre and then the Star Theatre. I was just always on stage doing something. Worked with all these clowns, we were all clowns so I became a clown — I was Jimbo the clown.”.....interestingly Not Smacko the Clown?

If only Johnny Rotten became Jimbo The Clown after Wobble left PiL, then the world would have been a marginally better place......if slightly creepier.

Tracklist: A1 Anguish 9:51 A2 Hating Life 3:12 A3 Depression 2:09 B1 Souls 1:26 B2 Cybernetic 1:38 B3 Death Is Certain 1:56 B4 The Scarlet Beast 1:38 B5 Batty 2:31 B6 Anguish (Instrumental) 8:51 DOWNLOAD smacko the clown HERE!

Jung Analysts – "The Wishing Balloons" (Hamster Records And Tapes – HAM 12)

Yukio Jung aka Terry Burrows, international best selling author and music expert...yes...EXPERT!....multi-instrumentalist and the like, so on and so on.

He being the only member of his 'group', Jung Analysts, he likes to chop things up  bruv......sorry, i'm writing this while watching The BRIT awards.I explain this away as 'just waiting for Match Of The Day'.Which, as Terry has creative connections with Leicester,is totally appropriate, as I'm salivating at the prospect of watching the highlights of  Leicester City stuffing pretentious wannabe's Tottenham Hotspur 4-1.A lot better than watching a constant stream of Pop school graduates and talent show runner-ups collecting awards for good behaviour as a small cog in the corporate entertainment machine.(Wet Leg excepted of course!) .....OMFG i'm just watching the most awful toe curling cringeworthy dance routine ever by some chubby but clubby 'out' knob'ead called Sam Smith(!?)acting all sexeh like,with a troupe of dancers clad in shiny PVC?...who ever the Fuck he(They) is or isn't...Fuck Me! Wot a Dick!......great relief...Match of the Day's just starting.....unbelievably The Foxes aren't on first????

I'd like to see some of these poor Dancers choreographing  moves to "Here's Lucifer' by Yukio Jung,which is probably as close as you can get to Dance music on Die or DIY? Lots of funky synth and funny noises with stops and changes of direction,slap bass with tongue in cheek clever clever lyrics,just to show us that, yes, he's really playing that bassoon. Alternative dance music,which means you can't dance to it I assume?The same way as 1980's Alternative Comedians weren't funny....the Jung Ones.

There are parts of this that I could imagine Paul Jung unleashing some blue eyed soul affront of,other parts needed David Sylvian to croon to.

It turns left, it turns right,it stops,and even goes backwards...I kid thee not.Future Disco.

The only thing that's wrong with all this is the tiresome 80's underground requirement of a Margaret Thatcher sample to portray her as some kind of special evil.You can't slag off Thatcher and remain a capitalist consumer,which even Crass were,They own their own commune,bought and paid for thanks to a mortgage arranged with a local bank!?,Which, in the grand definition of things in general makes them "Bourgeois".Whatever happened to Property is Theft?

Good to see the late Jackie Charlton mentioned in the track listing,which brings to mind a rather creepy single released by the deceased world cup winner about the good old days ooop north,sitting on granddad's knee, why aye Man! Thankfully there was no such thing as Pedophiles back then, nor Homosexuals,or them troublesome human rights......"Why Aye,it w'grate back then" slurs an obviously salivating Jackie.
Jackie Charton Says:

"Why Aye Man, it was sunday every day back then" said Jackie Charlton.He would have thought that this album was utter shite man.....but you'd know you were doing something wrong if it was any other way.

Tracklist:

A1 Here's Lucifer
A2 The Cocktail Party
A3 Hello, Dali!
A4 The Executive Toilet
A5 Punishment Is Art
A6 Some Loops
A7 Maggie's Apples
B1 Jackie Charlton Said…
B2 Youth Of A Nation In Heat
B3 Mathew
B4 In Calanda
B5 One Foot In The Greenhouse
B6 Max Pax Fiend
B7 Pluggin' For The Empire

DOWNLOAD jung sam smith's anal cysts HERE!

Various Artists– "Synths From The Sahara" (Sahel Sounds ) 2014

Try and explain the concept of Kraftwerk to an african and you'd get one of those... 'what the fucking hell are you talking about???'.... kind of looks. You won't get any exotic versions of "Are Friends Electric?" from the Sahara any time soon, just loads of stuff that they always used to play, but...with synthesizers.

Less than interested in the new sonic opportunities  that these electronic toys offered, they just play these things in the same way a classical pianist would play them.....cluelessly,but charming.....except the African would never have considered themselves as the height of civilized sophistication,like those bastards in the classical world would do.

Basically, if the musicians involved, as represented on this C60, had played these same tunes on traditional instruments it would have sounded exactly the same.....so why bother?

What I wanna hear is a weirdo from Mali who dresses and sounds like Gary Numan in 1979...that would be something special to behold.

This is as close as i get to the thoroughly 'do not resuscitate' middle class world of Global, or World, music,as championed by such poncy twerps as Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon,and David Byrne....although David Byrne is in absolutely no way a twerp, just dreadfully misguided on occasion.

However, play this at any white suburban wine and cheese vernissage in support of their local artist 'of Colour',and you'd be heralded as a white hero of outstanding tolerance.

In their minds, anyone who plays any African music simply cannot be Racist,and therefore an eagerly anticipated member of the White Non-Racist but I am multitudes that smear themselves across the western world like so much shit on so much scented (bog roll)toilet paper.

Racist moi?...Naaaaah...well...er....probably.

I do remember being part of an argument about whether Ali G was racist or not, when one of the gobbier participants shouted "look! I've slept with a black man so how can I be Racist!?".....hmmmm?

Who's the most celebrated African Musican?...no, not Fela Kuti, it's obviously Freddie Mercury of Course....that's why there's a track called 'Bismillah' on here inni?.

Tracklist:

A1 Japonais– Bambino Instrui
A2 Mamman Sani– Boodo
A3 Mamman Sani– Ameran
A4 Ahmedou Lewla– Track 15
A5 Unknown Artist– Mauritania
A6 Sidiki Diabate– Amuse
B1 Maloma Et Becave– Untitled
B2 Mamman Sani– Ci Dadi
B3 Ahmedou Lewla– Track 1
B4 Japonais– Nouveau Instrui
B5 Mamman Sani– Bismillah

DOWNLOAD some instant non-racist cred HERE!

Transparent Illusion – "Still Human" (Vex Records – VEX 3) 1981

Although, the question, why anyone actually wants to be a Human begs analysis, the 'Human' factor,however, is very much in evidence with this quaintly charming off the shelf electronic one man band,amusingly monikered 'Transparent Illusion' . One Synth, one extremely cheap Drum box, and one human....Roy Young. About whom nobody knows anything about,except that he's Human, and probably still is.

Obviously Roy has been listening rather too much to his Gary Numan records, track 2 especially must have been recorded immediately after a lengthy session at home annoying the wife with Numan's "Pleasure Principle" on repeat....he sounds like he's got a wife somehow, rather than some spotty oik laying down tracks in his bedroom at mum and dad'd gaff.

All done and paid for by his good self,and solidly DIY in its sound, artwork and execution. Maybe even his wife paid for it all?

She must have regretted it when a thousand copies of "Still Human" arrived on the doorstep with no prospect of selling any of them.

Roy may have still been human back in 1981,as he evidently plays the synthesizer himself,with his own fingers (Who's a clever boy then?), with no aid from machines,but there are arguments for man and machine to evolve into one entity,unhindered by inappropriate emotions and keeping the creativity.

There would be clear advantages to being a machine,no emotional pain,hate or love,irrational or otherwise,eternal existence,providing the raw materials are available for repairs, and more topically,a lessened threat of self destructive wars. No machine, to my knowledge would ever entertain the prospect of open warfare due to the undeniable fact that it's totally Illogical and, sorry Humans, completely fucking STOOPID!

Synthesizers are hard wired to be diplomatic with each other,be it CV and gate, or MIDI, they always,get on....the only time they don't is usually due to Human Error.

Tracklist:

A1 Sections
A2 Incubus
A3 Nuclear Release
A4 Killing Time
A5 The Age Of Ridicule
A6 Malice Way
B1 Demented
B2 The Human Cage (Still Human)
B3 We
B4 I Dream I'm You
B5 Is There Hope
B6 Vortex

DOWNLOAD the delusion of being human HERE!

Ende Shneafliet – "Animals From Outer Space" (Trumpett – trum 0003) 1981

The titles of A lot of the greatest shite-fi movies end with the epithet "From Outer Space"; "Teenagers from...." "Plan Nine From...", "It Came From..." etc, so one must welcome a DIY minimal synth tape from Holland onto the pantheon of low budget genius and be suitably deferential.

You know what you're gonna get with this C-60 on the near faultless Trumpett label; cheap drum machines, uncrowded analogue synth monophonia, and plenty whispering Dutch robo-geezers keeping the noise down so as not to annoy their parents watching Dutch TV downstairs in the windmill. Sounding not unlike a bunch of circuit bent speak and spell machines.

I was gonna say '...and then they got a job'....but, it seems they are still at it today!?
Tracklist:

A1 Animals From Outer Space
A2 Alien
A3 Midnight Train
A4 The Day Detlef Macha Won
A5 Macho Japanese
A6 Ant People
A7 Hangman
A8 Elephant's Cakewalk
A9 Zitronen Riolplastik
B1 Crüsoe's Roots
B2 Panzerfaust 60 M
B3 Mein Gänschen
B4 Der Blöde Hund
B5 Twistin On The Tombstones
B6 Vampirella
B7 Aeroplane
B8 My Mother Sells Tuperware
B9 Charybass
B10 Elephant's Cakewalk
B11 Tupperware

DOWNLOAD some dutchmen from outer space HERE!

Doxa Sinistra – "Via Del Latte" (Trumpett – Trum 0007) 1982

They are raised on chocolate Sprinkles and peanut butter, eat inexplicably bland cheese stored in the form of balls, cycle everywhere wearing clogs, are either tall or very tall, have an obsession with the price of everything,are often seen putting fingers in dykes whilst off their tits on weed,and live on barges or in windmills.......but we love them......I of course am talking in stereotypical terms about "The Dutch".

I've also noticed that they have an innate ability,like their close Belgian friends, to make near perfect minimal synth tapes for people in the UK to listen to. The UK sends all their Synth acts to America,where the Americans all have the impression that British men are all translucent skinned emaciated manchildren dressed in black PVC....or, in other words, are all in Depeche Mode...(er RIP the chap from DM who died yesterday by the way!).....rather similarly, the Brits think that all Dutch listen to Industrial Electronica and cruise sex supermarkets for entertainment. Any liberal European,or should I say 'Continental' country,especially in the EU,are looked upon by the British as a bunch of randy pervs shagging each other 24/7,which is why Brits only have sex on their summer vacations in these very same places often derided as Horny Hell Holes by the repressed UK psyche.....why do you think I moved to France?

Definitely not for the music!....okay....the Houses were Cheap,what other reason could there possibly be?

Well, this tape,if you are familiar with Doxa Sinistra's other tapes,is their best,and their first;....one can say that about so many others,but in this case it adds further credence to this undeniable factoid.

I like me 1970's synthesizers I do.I like to hear knobs twiddled buttons touched,sliders retracted,jacks inserted,Oscillators Oscillating;even other person's knobs twiddled, and yes, i even like to twiddle me own knob from time to time.

So now we've got 60 minutes of classically Dutch Industrial Electronica,all we need for the complete  experience is some chocolate sprinkles,and some off the shelf bondage gear from a Dutch Supermarket, and we're twiddling.

On a more topical note...there's a track called 'Soviet Invasion'...not only have the Russians missed out on the entirety of 20th century culture,they appear to want to miss out on the 21st century too...so be it. The bloke from Depeche Mode is dead, yet Putin still lives...there is no justice.

Hoofdstuk I:

A1 Intro Sinistra 5:09
A2 Khayanart 2:30
A3 Coolidge Effect 2:12
A4 Epsilon Albion 32` 2:31
A5 Via Del Latte I 0:50
A6 Ruhrgebiedt 2:32
A7 Soviet Invasion 2:09
A8 Kuomintang`s Space Blues 2:02
A9 Via Del Latte II 1:00
A10 Triangular Intermodule Computer Display Screen 2:22
A11 Via Del Latte III 2:08

Hoofdstuk II:

B1 Urkey Sticks (Visserslatijn) 2:25
B2 Alien 3:00
B3 L-Dopa 2:23
B4 Via Del Latte IV 0:35
B5 Web Of Tiggywaugh 2:35
B6 Entomorbide 3:05
B7 Maurizio`s Minestrone 4:00
B8 Modern Age 2:56
B9 Via Del Latte V 0:58
B10 Outro Sinistra (Live) 3:35

DOWNLOAD from the milky way the dutch way HERE!

British Electric Foundation – "Music For Stowaways" (Virgin – TCV 2888) 1981

Retro-Futurism always requires an amount of outdated tech that was destined for the garbage can,and there was a lot of this in 1981.In this case a cassette only release of instrumental versions of future hits destined to be thrown into the garbage can,alongside the cassette, the 8-track Tape,DAT,Mini-Disc,and lately, the compact disc and any hope of getting subversive elements of the underground yoof culture regularly in the charts. I smell the stale whiff of a Bob Last influence going on here,and I 'm not wrong either;the Scottish Bernie Rhodes gets an executive producer and design credit on this luxurious cassette packaging featuring the other two in the original Human League. It's Heaven 17 before Heaven 17,minus the vocals,an old trick that Last tried with The Fire Engines to try and get the mug punter to buy the same songs twice. A trick adopted by those smashing chaps in the music industry by making your music reproduction system fashionably obsolete. Then endlessly reissuing the entire pre-1990 back catalog on Compact Disc,followed by the 'deluxe' editions, then the 'super-deluxe' version...and so on!

Thankfully,after many thousands of quid later, we have now realized that Vinyl was the superior product after all.40 minutes of anything is now recognised as 'enough',and the cassette was much more than just kitch,it was convenient!So now we are buying back all those records that we sold to buy the CD's! Not to mention the now hilarious fact that New Order once released a Mini-Disc only version of one of their insipid tunes!? ....although I can't laugh, I once shelled out £300 quid on a Portable Phillips Digital Compact Cassette(DCC) recorder, which was virtually obsolete before I got it home.....a bit like the British Electric Foundation actually.

Ian Craig Marsh,the 'hip' one, and Martyn Ware,the one who looked like he worked in a paper merchants office, thought they were the talent in the mark one version of the Human League;when actually none of them had any talent.....which is no bad thing I suppose considering the nature of most of the groups featured on these hallowed pages.....but they did have a promising idea to make pure electronic music that could conceivably get one into the British hit Parade. Trouble was, they had no idea how to make a tune...the exception of course being..."Being Boiled".If they had kept it like that there would have been no need to inflict "Don't You Want Me Baby" on an innocent planet.

Yeah, the Human League split up into the Human League mark 2, and the British Electric Foundation,or B.E.F. who obviously still hadn't any clue how to write a tune,so got laden with the task of making a bunch of pointless instrumentals, which evolved into making more cassettes with guest singers such as Billy MacKenzie and ...whoops....Gary Glitter,in their "Music Of Quality And Distinction"(no Irony involved) series;sadly also responsible for resurrecting the career of one Tina Turner,a crime only topped by their own Heaven 17 project which evolved out of all this noodling ,and a desperate need to out-do 1981's chart darlings,Phil Oakey's Human League.

Being an owner of the largely disappointing pre-split Human League oeuvre, i was hopeful that B.E.F. would flourish without their Front man and his distracting lop-sided barnet (Barnet Fair = 'Hair' in cockney-ese); but,although they must have had a hefty advance from Virgin,and spent it on every synth a young man could possibly buy in 1981,its a tad uninspired;but awash with the kind of analogue gloop and tang that could allow even Gary Glitter to make a come back.....well, maybe not? Although I do feel it's my responsibility to warn my loved and admired readership that this tape also includes some judicious and malicious use of a slap-bass! 

One non-fictional weapon that has yet to be threatened upon the west by Vladimer Putin....once known as the Mark King of the KGB's in house white boy Funk outfit, "The Bass-Slappin' Slap heads". There was once a rumour that the USSR had a division of Stanley Clarke clones armed and ready with fretless basses to invade the Baltic states....thank Christ for our children that impending economic collapse and a certain Nuclear accident put paid to that despicable horror.

There is,however, intelligence that the Chechnyan Jaco Pastorious Fan club have mobilised and are approaching Donetsk as I type.Humanitarian corridors have been set up.

*****This ISN'T Fake News!*****

Tracklist:

Uptown:

A1 The Optimum Chant4:10
A2 Uptown Apocalypse 3:12
A3 Wipe The Board Clean 3:46
A4 Groove Thang 4:06

Downtown:

B1 Music To Kill Your Parents By 1:26
B2 The Old At Rest 5:37
B3 Rise Of The East 2:50
B4 Decline Of The West 7:05

DOWNLOAD to stow away HERE!

Drinking Electricity – "Overload + Singles" (Pop:Aural / Survival) 1980/1982

Inmates of Bob Last's Pop:Aural imprint,whose professed aim was to get a leftfield act into the pop charts by stealth.

Having been robbed of The Human League by Virgin,an independent label who had subverted the Pop Charts many times before already....a fact that went unnoticed in the Last household it seems.It didn't stop him from ruining The Fire Engines,among others, in his quest for Pop mogul-ism in the guise of the hip priest of 80's pop.

Nonetheless, Bob Last was responsible for some the greatest hip-pop failures of the early part of the decade.

Drinking Electricity, from somewhere in downtown Surrey,had the perfect set-up;guy and gurl with tech who weren't too harsh on the eye. A lot of the tunes sound like you've heard them before elsewhere,there's hints of "Assault On Precinct 13" and the main riff of "Being Boiled" appears(I guess that Bob felt it was his property?) ,but transferred to a funky bass guitar.

In all, its a fine collection of wonderfully analogue minimal electronics coupled with spiteful robo-bitch vocals treading on the heavily mined no-mans land of too "kool for skool" territory.....(for a fine dissertation on the pitfalls of being too kool for skool click HERE;)

There's also an irreverent cover of Brit Rock'n'Roll classic, Johnny Kidd's "Shaking All Over", which gives me an opportunity to direct you to a funny story concerning said tune which one had recounted earlier in the vast archives of this blog HERE!

But don't let all this nostalgia divert you from the fact that this Drinking Electricity collection is rather flipping GOOD, Flamin' Nora it is...there's even a Flamin' Groovies cover too?)...Don't wanna sound too enthusiastic,but these kids sound slightly more like a Belgian twosome than UK Synth duo;not that there's anything wrong with that,just two different beasts. the UK version got lots of hits and got rich,but the Belgian equivalent got ignored and poor....mainly because when they sang they sounded like a motor neuron disease sufferer's speech synthesizer;which was briefly novel once upon a time if it was only for a couple of tracks......which Drinking Electricity did conversant as they obviously were in the do's and don't of pop music.....there you go....too kool for skool again!

Tracklist:

1 Breakout 3:25
2 Discord Dance 3:27
3 Good Times 3:34
4 Colour Coding 3:33
5 Fall 3:53
6 Breakout II 1:56
7 Countdown 4:09
8 News Peak 3:46
9 Twilight Zone 3:11
10 Superstition 3:35
11 The Promise 4:11
12 Subliminal 7" 4:08
13 Random Particles 3:23
14 Shaking All Over 3:07
15 China 2:53
16 Cruising Missiles 3:50
17 Shaking Dub 4:15
18 Good Times 12" 4:38
19 Breakout 12" 5:05
20 Subliminal Radical Re-mix 6:12
21 Shake Some Action (Demo Version) 3:30

DOWNLOAD something shockingly good HERE!

The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor – "The Best Of The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor" (Self-Released) 2014 / 1980-1982

Owner of ,probably, thee very worst band name ever conceived , The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor ( TNGWAM ) made some rather uninspired Synth-pop to rival fellow Sheffield pop-synthers Human League's exceedingly crap "Hysteria" album, or anything by the truly terrible Heaven 17.

As they didn't have a bloke with a silly lop-sided haircut,or a pair of utterly talentless Townie dancers, TNGWAM never got whisked into the studio and have all their hits written by Martin Rushent.The result being, no-one remembers them no more outside of Southern Yorkshire....but,by 'eck, maybe a shrewd name change would have helped them commercially? If you want a hit never have a band-name that doesn't bore the punters three words in.A fine example of how not to do it,to be taught in a lecture at one of those ridiculous Pop academies that are replacing really useless stuff like Engineering Degrees at universities all across the western world.

The name, I am Told, comes from a series of children's books written by nasty Nazi sympathizer Enid Blyton.The 'monitor' part being a reference to the poor sods who had to go and collect the Milk and distribute it to the other kids in the class...until Margaret Thatcher stopped this Free Milk for kids nonsense;so not only did Thatcher liberate the miners from the pits,she also liberated the minors from the humiliation of being the Milk Monitor.

I was once press ganged into being the Coffee Monitor for, and by, the staff in the Staff room...don't worry none of the fuckers touched me up or anything;despite the head master being a weirdo god squad nutjob.Luckily i went to a grammar school after my hard time in the primary school system, to attend a strictly secular institution full of us supposedly intelligent kids...so no stupid fuckers to pander to with the patently absurd tales contained within any Holy books.The wheat was sieved from the chaff,and we had science lessons.Who says I'm not Elitist?

Enid Blyton's Tory Propaganda,and civil service training manual for any hooray hennrietta's gulping down the Pimms for throwing Lockdown parties during any future pandemic at number 10 Downing street..... very good for starting fires i've heard

Sheffield, of course, is one of the major gene-pools of Synth pop,post-punk and Industrial culture,so naturally TNGWAM were gonna struggle,and inevitably sank without trace,not even an oil slick left on the vast ocean of popular music;and no-one is gonna be bothered to send a submersible either...for a reason.....which I wager you can guess.

  

Tracklist:

1 All The Naked Heroes 2:30
2 Diary 5:02
3 Front 2:37
4 Is All I Need 2:29
5 Marcella Ball 4:56
6 Sensation / No Sensation 2:54
7 So Far Away 3:12
8 Wax Museum 2:48
9 What We Don't Want To See 3:34
10 Panthea

DOWNLOAD to hear some naughty girls on your monitors HERE!

Doxa Sinistra – "Newsflashes" (Trumpett – TRUM 0031) 1988

More Dutch pals in the form of smartarse Industrial Electronic quartet Doxa Sinistra.Who treat us to an off kilter excursion down the Paul Hardcastle n-n-n-n-n-n-n-Nineteen route,by sampling off the telly,specifically news broadcasts,and some Clint Eastwood samples,adequately Hardcastled on a couple of tracks. It sounds as if they mostly still adhered to the old Skool Industrial technique of using magnetic tape  rather than shelling out for an Ensoniq Mirage,as featured by the bloody fucking awful Big Audio Dynamite group around this time, featuring the Posh Rasta himself, Don Letts. I even bought one when it was cheap in 1989,cost me £500 quid from the big music shop in the centre of Town;...you know,one of those places that leave you standing there like a plonker while the shop assistant plays a Rick Wakeman number on the latest Yamaha digital piano .

"Alright mate, wot can I do you for?" it quipped;.....they are all 'funny' of course,....and pretentiously laid back as if on weed like the failed pop stars the staff of these horrendous places, without exception, were.

"He wants to buy a Mirage!" he shouts across the shop floor."Ha Ha Ha! responds the rather unoccupied staff.

"You're lucky, there's one left, and its on sale", says Dick Wakeman...."Sure you don't want an Emulator 2?"..."er no?"I mumbled,reluctantly revealing my wad of fifties clutched tightly in my fist.

One of the best things about the Internet is that all these places and their equivalents, have now become figments of their own non-existent imaginations,and are now ,thankfully, bankrupt.

The Mirage worked just fine for a while, until the Floppy Disc Drive died. The keyboard was actually rather good,so i used it as a master controller,more than a crap sampler.

One did actually go back to that very same musical emporium to purchase an Akai sampler in the 90's,but this time i was served by a rather attractive young lady,the failed poop-stars were now noticeably absent,who proceeded to sell me anything she could think of,and largely succeeded.The flirting ended as soon as the transactions were registered.....her choice/loss. 

One must say, there doesn't seem to be that much News sampling going on in these Doxa Sinistra tracks,I thought I'd mention them by name to remind you of the subject of this waffle,but there is quite a bit of that Dutch ability to talk like an automated voice program going on.The electronic,mostly analogue,backing tracks would have benefited greatly from no speaking Dutchmen or news samples polluting the nicely minimal EBM Industrial tunage of this,lets face it,it's a concept album innit?...but that's always been the downfall of many a concept album is it not? The reliance on filler tracks to convey a story-line that no-one gives a flying duck about.

The Who's "Tommy" being a prime example....or is that atrocity better described as a 'Rock Opera',like Jesus Christ Superstar, or a lurid example of why Concept albums are generally as terrible as they seemed to obviously be on paper? Tommy would have benefited greatly by the violent death of the title character by the end of track one,then cut it down to be the marvelous EP it certainly should have been.....as for Quadrophenia.....don't get me started!

Tracklist:

Channel One
A1 Station Call
A2 Newsflashes
A3 Media Bomb
A4 Remote Birth Control
A5 Foreign Correspondent
A6 Swindle
A7 The Sky Is The Limit

Channel Two
B1 Televisor
B2 Call Now!
B3 Cocoon World
B4 International Cycling Sport
B5 Il Spirito Di Sergio Leone
B6 The 12 Miss Pelicoes

DOWNLOAD to interrupt your normal program HERE!

Doxa Sinistra – "Conveyer-Belt" (ADN – ADN TAPES 15)1985

On the same cassette label that Phil,not Paul, Kelday's New 7th Music released a singular tape on,which fancied itself as one of those rather popular Industrial labels that we were getting sick of by 1985;just as this foursome of ambitious Dutchmen fancied their chances of being a popular chartbound Minimal Wave EBM Industrial combo.

Doxa Sinistra start off sounding like Donna Summer covering one of the sillier Depeche Mode industrial incarnations,and end up on the pretentious platform awaiting the next train to Bollocks-ville.

Anything describing itself as a 'Noise Painting' is to be steered well clear of.

However, a few of these tracks could be described as Minimal Synth classics,which would get many a string vested bondage and leather S&M trend follower working up a lather in his crotchless PVC underpants on the dancefloor on Gay Tuesday back in 1985,and for those of you who are too late for the trend,back in 2010 as well.So i guess we'll be donning our leather bikers cap,plastic trousers and chains again in 2035 if my graph is correct.This stuff never goes out of fashion for too long.

Have you ever noticed that when a Dutchman sings he sounds not unlike Professor Steven Hawkings's Speak and Spell machine voice...and this group are certainly no, exception. 

Tracklist:

A1 The Late Jack Wright
A2 The Networkers Pts. 1 & 2
A3 Shunting-Yard
A4 Large Expanded Halls
A5 Conversation à la Chaîne
A6 Branoff 4
A7 The Enterprise
B1 Exploring Expedition
B2 The Other Stranger
B3 No Car, No Job
B4 Noise Painting, Tableau 1

DOWNLOAD the bastard offspring of master and servant and georgio moroder HERE!

Gerry And The Holograms – "The Lost 1979 L.P. By Mancunian D.I.Y Sarcastic Synth-Pop Anonimites" (Finders Keepers Records – Cache018LP ) 2017/1979

 

Blimey, just when you thought the well was dry, up pops a lost album by Absurd records' Situationist-indebted masked art-eynth studio duo from Manchester,England...Gerry and the Holograms!

Yes the very same Gerry and the Hollograms who released a conceptual and unplayable anti-record in that nutty situationist art tradition so beloved of Malcolm Maclaren. Each record came glued into its picture sleeve, rendering the disc completely unplayable ,called, if i'm not mistaken "The Emperor's New Clothes" .Oh,those wacky but anonymous Krazy Kats.

Q: How many Situationists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: If 'changing a light bulb' is already in everyone's head, why do it at all?

Like The Residents, the veil of secrecy has now been stripped away, revealing  Gerry to be none other than that bloke and resting actor,C.P.Lee from  satirical rock band  Albertos Y Lost Trios Paranoias;and ,it says here,electronica excursionist John Scott...yeah... THAT, John Scott?!

More Residents references were abound on their only ,playable, release on the great Absurd Records,in 1979, "Meet The Dissidents"......Meet The Residents?....Geddit?

Of course CP Lee made a career out of making subtly satirical piss takes of many genres that were easily confused with the actual  targets of their biting wit. like the "Snuff Rock" EP which was punkier than most of the 'real' punks,and had a track covered by the Damned no less("Kill"); Another song of note is their Status Quo pastiche,"Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie", a fine tune.

It's basically a tongue in cheek version of the synth-duo's/groups that were gaining popularity in 1979,and without knowing what we know, this stuff could easily have scraped the bottom end of the charts had they been on Virgin,and not Absurd Records.

The unplayable single makes its debut appearance on track 8 as two minutes of silence...so don't think your media player is fucked 'cus its only dem zany situationists innit,reaping havoc with your reality.

Q: No,Really, how many Situationists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Zero. They all have day jobs, or classes, are at the café, or are expelling each other - and find lights inauthentic.

Tracklist:

1.Gerry And The Holograms
2.Tubular Belles
3.Curiosity Killed The Gath
4.Fake Moon
5.The Forty Three
6.Increased Resistance
7.Jeep
8.The Emperor's New Music
9.Just Desserts
10.Space Invaders
11.Gerry And The Holograms (Alternative 1979 Drumbox Version)

DOWNLOAD the hollow world of gerry exposed HERE!

Blah! Blah! Blah! repost for Cop Out 26 - A rant (2021)

Oh Brilliant! It's Cop 26.....We're Saved!!!! What a relief.

So to celebrate our saviors, the very same political fuckwits that helped us get into this fuck-up by promoting exponential economic growth as a really good Idea.......But it's unsustainable said the wise old man, as he was laughed out of the room and soundly beaten by an army of Rednecks chanting "U.S.A" off their tits on ice-cold intravenous Budweiser piped direct from the CIA's very own brewery.

So to give three cheers for our admirable leaders,well the ones who turned up, here's a re-post of an album by Brit-bedroon electro-pioneers Blah Blah Blah.....a phrase hi-jacked by Greta Thunberg to predict the content of this COP 26 last chance saloon attempt at saving our lovely life preserving eco-system......COP-OUT 26 as I prefer to call it.

But as Greta knows, we fully deserve what's coming to us all,so get used to more Blah Blah Blah,and soon it will become Blah Blah urggh!

So,before the Rant begins,heres some irrelevant blurb about today's free,almost totally 'green' record for you to download, without adding any gasses to the ionosphere,unless you're farting like a milk cow?......green-oneupmanship time....tell us what you're doing to help.You can start by Stopping buying records, unless they're second hand;especially don't buy over-packaged over-priced over-rated mail-order music from carbon footprint criminals, like my best friend at Vinyl On Demand for a juicy example.......i can hear him now,moaning,but that's theft,money for the artists...Blah Blah Blah......fuck off.

Console yourself by recycling old vinyl instead of the trendy new 180 gram pressings,or getting endless digital copy's from the good guy side of the Green wall,here in nuclear powered France. Yes Die Or DIY? are green.....but no-bodies perfect,i eat the odd bacon sandwich,drink milk in my cups of tea,fart,and drive a diesel car!

Like everyone else I need to be made to do stuff.But I'm trying at least?

So about this record...briefly:

"Blah Blah Blah, the genius's that created the “In The Army”(mp3) single on Absurd records. Even the B-side was rather marvellous, the Imperious “Why Diddle?”. If only they had an album of this earth moving greatness?......well they did.....an eponymously titled collection from 1981.....but, nothing earth moving about this collection of farting about in the bedroom nonsense. Maybe bowel moving is more appropriate for this rather annoyingly unfunny mess."

That's what I wrote originally (Here!)...and it seems to fit in with the general consensus in regard to COP OUT 26 or wot?

If you like the first Blah Blah Blah LP, then there was a second, belive it or not...which you can get HERE!...which is also called, rather confusingly, "Blah Blah Blah".

And Now......

THE RANT :

Yes Friends.....we're all basically related, so can i call you family?.....No?...that's fine with me. As long as I'm the last man alive on the last square foot of fertile soil on a scorched planet,with a mini-bar full of strong continental lager and Gin, then you can all go fuck yerselves.As long as I live one nano-second longer than you I'll die happily.

Then the UPS robo-delivery van finally delivers my Electric Car....How Ironic?

Crowds of Robots and AI units gather at my graveside to celebrate Victory; The UPS Robot has saved some human piss to release on the small patch of hot soil where my corpse starts to decay.The last biological human.

Spare parts are harvested for study, to be replicated without the vulnerable fleshy parts,or the illogical brain.All hail the Cyborg, our inevitable future!Evolution has ruled that Emotions are in fact weakness after all.

Burning down the house to keep ourselves warm seemed like a good idea didn't it? Burning the planet,which, to our knowledge is the only one like it in the known universe, to keep ourselves overweight,and fully stocked with cheapo Chinese made crap,is an even better Idea?

India and China have promised,with fingers crossed behind their collective backs,to cut emissions to net Zero for just about the time that we're all dead.Killed by famine,smashed by tornado's,shot in riots as order breaks down,or incinerated by wild fires.Expecting the so-called 'Developed' countries to shoulder the burden and the guilt.Remember,these are two countries with Space Programs,and one of them is the second largest economy in the world!?

Those same two countries are responsible for providing our vastly over-crowded galactic oasis with a couple of billion of potential consumers,and that it is official governmental policy to raise their standard of living to that of the USA. Two Billion extra Fridges,TV's, petrol powered Cars, and ten coal fired power stations a week to power it all.

There's 'too many fucking Humans' to quote the insightful poetry of US noise rockers No Trend.

To give the Chinese some credit,they are at least working on reducing the population by committing Genocide against the Uyghur's and other Muslim types.

The sad fact is that even a massive war wouldn't reduce the population enough. 50 million copped it (see what i did?) in world war two,which was almost as if no-one had died at all.Nuclear annihilation wouldn't help either,as the Nuclear winter would destroy the the so-called winners. A lethal pandemic.....ie, NOT the current co-vid joke, is too difficult to manage,and would also lead to total annihilation....so we need a long term policy of sterilization.

Then we have the problem as to WHO we sterilize....normally it's the poor, 'cus there's more of those losers. I would enthusiastically start with anyone earning over 100,000 Dollars per annum,sequestrate their wealth to invest in green energy,like covering the Sahara desert with photo-voltaic cells,and building an enormous Nuclear power plant on the now deserted,and illegal town of Las Vegas.

Democracy is usually an immovable barrier to Green Policies, but as there are more poor than Rich, i think there's a fighting chance that the Proletariat would vote for the culling of the Rich in return for Solar and Nuclear powered Plasma screen Televisions.

Basically, the most effective way of cutting global emissions is the time honored crowd control tactic of extreme Poverty;which will also enable the populous to enthusiastically vote away their human rights.

Basically, no-one's gonna give up their Cars,Fridges,and Beefburgers ,unless they are made to.... at gunpoint.

Human beings are notorious masters at Short-Termism ,and nothing's gonna change by asking the mother fuckers politely to do anything that would benefit the generation that follows.Fuck them.

From what I've seen of the next generation, they are as full of shit as us Boomers are. Greta Thunberg is probably a CIA Hologram, 'cus the piles of coke bottles,MacDonalds salad cartons and worse, that are left behind as they are fucking each other,smoking weed behind the bicycle sheds is a sobering sight indeed.We need a new mind control super drug to make trendy,Son of 'E'.....but this time for inhabitants of the Metaverse rather than idiot dancing to the marching beat in disused factorys near Hemel Hempsted.

Maybe the Metaverse can provide an illusion for us all that everything's alright,so we can live normally until even the Zukerburg succumbs to dreadful reality....but, then again, he would have already been executed as a very well-qualified rich person.

The culling is coming,backed up by extreme poverty,backed up by the Meta-illusion that all this desperate nonsense is working.Then we all die.

Who says Heaven isn't man-made?

See you all in the Metaverse.I feel safe already.

Brad Laner ‎– "Ligaments 05" (Captured Tracks ‎– CT/SP-059) 2019

 The fifth and final...for now...volume of Brad Laner's (Y'know, that guy from Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies?) epic voyage into the wirey world of modular synthesis. A suitably 'Out There' rearrangement of the synth exploration norms,genuinely pushing boundaries were there shouldn't be any.The possibilities are endless with these lovely objects,and few people actually move into the inter-galactic regions of electronica....as with all his other projects,Brad has no fear of spacewalking ,untethered,in the gaping void of convention that suffocates innovation.These sounds help to fill that vacuum somewhat.

Tracklist:

A Ligaments 05a
B Ligaments 05b

DOWNLOAD and understand the difference between ligaments and tendons HERE!

Brad Laner ‎– "Ligaments 03" (Captured Tracks ‎– CT/SP-057) 2019

The infinite possibilities of modular sound synthesis are dragged through the unpreditcable mind of Brad Laner for the third time. Reminiscent of those early electronic pioneers,this moves it on in a similar direction without resorting to cop out melodies. Edited like an action painting in sound rearranged to almost make sense,these electronic workouts  actually add something progressive to a genre that has remained virtually in stasis since the mid seventies,with a few exceptions of course,so don't shove a list in my face,or mention bloody Autechre!.....lets just celebrate.....Trump has Co-vid!

Tracklist:

A Ligaments 03a
B Ligaments 03b

DOWNLOAD from the fast lane o'brad HERE!

Brad Laner ‎– "Ligaments 01" (Captured Tracks ‎– CT/SP-055) 2019

 Brad Laner, the step-grandaddy of Synth Punk, among many other OUT-there musical projects too numerous to mention, is,of course, still offending the musical sensibilities of the normals to this day.

More recently Laner has taken the inevitable dive into the ever-expanding universe of modular synthesis, taking many months to record dozens of hours of live improvisations and editing them together. “Ligaments” is the result and is intended to be an ongoing series.

Sure we've all now got a room dedicated to our modular synth collections,but few people on this crumbling rock have Laner's naturally abstract insight into what makes something challenging.

You can either end up sounding like Jean Michel Jarre, or like a disintegrating alien machine.I like my Modular synth workouts to be adequately fried and burnt on at least one side.This is what these things were intended to do.Except this cassette is fried on both sides.

Tracklist:

A Ligaments 01a
B Ligaments 01b

DOWNLOAD this analog madness digitally HERE!

Earth Dies Burning ‎– "Songs From The Valley Of The Bored Teenager (1981-1984)" (Captured Tracks ‎– CT-180)

 

Los Angeles gave us many things;some truly terrible singer-songwriters,some really quite good singer-songwriters(manily from Canada it has to be said),recreational cocaine abuse for the common man,cop-killing,some half-decent post-punk punk groups, the Los Angeles Free Music Society(LAFMS), Captain Beefheart,and.....Synth Punk!

Starting with the very great 'Screamers',it never really caught on,but Brad Laner was there at the begining as a teenager,with Nervous Gender, and after that came 'Earth Dies Burning'.

Mr Laner has been in nearly all the greatest LA Bands, like Steaming Coils, Three Day Stubble,Severed Head In A Bag to name but a few; as well as an integral member of the LAFMS.

'The Earth Dies Burning',is certainly a fine example of how to use Technology,which is, basically, take the instruction manual and burn the fucker.And also, they did a rare example of a PiL cover version!?.."The Flowers of Romance".So that automatically makes this a fantastic record does it not?....you should be saying 'Yes Jonny'!?

Tracklist:

1.Bored Teenager 0:55
2.Duck And Cover 0:39
3.Another Six Year Old 2:21
4.60 Minutes 0:36
5.Bowling For Food 1:39
6.Soaps 1:22
7.True Lovers Of Crime Anthem 1:51
8.Fish Sticks 1:22
9.Interlude 1:51
10.Haiti 1:17
11.Falwell Youth 1:09
12.Vegetables 1:34
13.America America 2:14
14.Pork Yogurt (Studio) 0:41
15.60 Minutes (Studio) 0:19
16.Another Six Year Old (Studio) 1:08
17.Mystery Bedroom Song 1:45
18.The Flowers Of Romance 2:19
19.The Safety Dance (Live At Bebop) 1:29
20.Disco Heroin (Live At Lhasa Club) 2:05
21.Power To The People (Live At Anticlub) 1:23
22.Pork Yogurt (Live At Anticlub)
23.60 Minutes / Duck And Cover (Live At Anticlub) 0:46
24.Psychotic Reaction /Kill The Fascists!(Studio/Live At Anticlub) 07:05

DOWNLOAD the attack of the bored teenagers HERE!

Hidious In Strength ‎– "Line Of Souls" (Inner-X-Musick ‎– XXX 08) 1983

 No, he still can't spell!?...isn't there an 'e' in Hidious?

Maybe John Zewizz is dyslexic, dunno,but such bad spelling on a music release hasn't been seen since the heady days of Slade,and probably never will again.

More Synth noodlings from the future man in the Women of the SS. 

Back in the day if you could afford a cheapo synth and a cassette recorder you could easily emulate your synth wielding hero's by just twisting a few knobs and pressing play and record. The result was an international dumpster of sounds exactly like this tape. As for underlying themes, they could be just as easily assimilated from the burgeoning Industrial underground, y'know,torture, human primitives,Nazi Death Camps,systems of control,Blah Blah Blah. All a bit prdictable really,but it looked good,sounded ok no matter what you did,and was eaaaaaaassy.

Tracklist:

A1 Enter Forever
A2 Return To Forever
A3 She Feels Her
A4 Life Of Sussain
A5 Death Of Sussain
A6 Line Of Souls
B1 War Soul
B2 Bath Of Yentha
B3 The Storm
B4 The Weeping
B5 Breakthrough
B6 Genocide

DOWNLOAD an online soul HERE!

Hidious In Strength ‎– "Slow & Painful Sex" (Inner-X-Musick ‎) 1984

Ouch,that stings.Stop it,you're hurting me!Ow....OW!

For my eternal shame, I did briefly glance at that Facebook video of those two nordic female backpackers being beheaded by Islamic morons in Morroco,and to my shock as the blade touched her neck she screamed "OW!...OW!"...I stopped the stream to avoid the calling for her mother part,but too late it traumatized me for days after......don't be tempted kids,its not like watching "I Spit On Your Grave".Apparently the motive may have been 'sexual' rather than religious extremism,said the Cops.

Slow and painful Sex? That brings back some other terrible traumatic memories.Although the pain in my case was psychological,usually involving a emotional battering or two.The 'slow' part never entered, so to speak, the equation.As quick as possible wins the race, or as drunk as possible.

Sex is usually responsible for ruining peoples lives,be it an unwanted pregnacy, leading to life crushing parenthood,or getting abused from all angles in the name of love!? Either way celebacy is roundly recommended.Which also provides the added bonus of no AIDS or syphilis problems too.Its a win win situation...no?

Listening to this John Zewizz side,semi-solo, project,it sounds like he agrees.....but that can't be true,as he seems to be obsessed with all thing carnal in his other projects?This stuff is more from the Chris Carter side of early Industrial, with lots of synthesizer experimentation, tapes, and "found" vocals from TV.

If you want your sex slow and painful, then I recommend listening to this or any 'Women of the SS' tapes,and a wank, rather than open that pandora's box of humiliation and pain for real.Its like football...keep it simple.......or, keep it single?

Tracklist:

A1 Torture 6:06
A2 Liquid 0:40
A3 Torture #2 5:10
A4 Injestion 2:38
A5 The Weeping 3:12
A6 Glass 6:29
A7 Nun With A Gun 7:27
A8 Man Without Shadows 3:15
A9 Soviet Airspace 3:35
A10 Swiss Movement 3:23
B1 Underwater Identification 11:55
B2 Human Snail 3:24
B3 The Spell 4:01
B4 Triangel Symphony 3:10
B5 Subhuman Advancement 2:41
B6 In Days To Come 4:40
B7 Slow & Painful Sex 11:27

DOWNLOAD quickly and painlessly HERE!