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!

Executive Slacks – "Can't Hum In Europe (Live)" - (World Wide Terror) 1985

Big in Holland........wasn't there a band called that?

Whatever, either way The Executive Slacks were.......Big In Holland.

A fact this live in Europe Cassette demonstrates nicely as all of the Dates on this tour seemed to be in The Netherlands....except a couple,which were in Gay Paris,and the inevitable  appearance in Belgium where every band sounded like this with all that Belgian New Beat stuff and EBM.

As listed in the insert notes,as if you're interested, here's the actual Tour Dates for you nerds out there:

Executive Slacks live in Europe '84: Amsterdam (NL) - Venray (NL) - Tilburg (NL) - Rotterdam (NL) - Vlissingen (NL) - Arnhem (NL) - Utrecht (NL) - Groningen (NL) - Wageningen (NL) - Paris (FR) - Brussels (B) - Sint-Niklaas (B)

Nearly every Dutch person I know comes from Groningen, except for long time commentator on this blog, Henk Madrotter, who has admitted liking The Executive Slacks a lot,so I'm guessing that Mr Madrotter was in the audience in Rotterdam?

New wave / industrial band mixing primitive electronics, harsh guitars and aggressive vocals. From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA...it says here.

And yes we did call this kind of stuff Industrial back in the mid-eighties, although I don't see why,same for Nine Inch Nails. Americans doing this kinda stuff was and is rare.Other examples are Front Line Assembly......or were they Canadian?..Skinny Puppy?.....they were Canadian too I wager? Crash Course in Science came from Philadelphia didn't they?.....as you see we don't google anything on Die or DIY. The Neo-Luddite movement starts HERE!

Well, being the closet Numan Fan fan boy,that I am, I'm hearing Numan here,so I have no right to complain. 

Note the reference to "The Park"...as in,"Down In The Park",Tubeway Army.The same tune fucked over by that Trent Reznor knob,and if i'm hopefully mistaken, by that Marilyn Manson Twat.

Tracklist:

A1 The Park
A2 Sisyphus
A3 In & Out
A4 Cinema
A5 Man Of Christ
B1 Our Lady
B2 Ecce Homo
B3 Electric Blues
B4 I'm Coming

DOWNLOAD executively HERE! 

Deef – "Real Control" (Mass Record) 1984

Starting with a sentiment that we can all agree on, this bunch of brutal Japanese Punk Rockers takes no prisoners,play it loud until you too become Deef.

Old Punk Rocker Heroes such as the terminally awful John Lydon,are almost as bad as their fans,and should do us all a favor and voluntarily turn themselves in at the sadly fictional local extermination camps for gobshite Rockers.

Turning from enemy of the state number one,into housewives favourite, never before have we heard such self-congratulatory verbal vomit as we have in the last decade or so from Neil Young's Punk of preference (says it all dunnit?).Unfortunately,Johnny didn't heed Neil's sadvice and proceeded to fade away rather than burn out.. Having said that I would still turn into a giggling fan boy if by some quirk of reverse indefference I should ever meet Him; He having such a deep influence on the teenage Zchivago,a nose in front of William Shatner and Steve Priest(RIP) would reduce me to a sweating nervous titter should I ever, in earth as it is in Heaven? My Dignity strewn among the wreckage of my free-falling self esteem.

Like a Doubting Thomas of the as-yet unwritten Rock'n'Roll Bible, I have often denied any knowledge of J. Rotten's existence;a Judgement mainly based the endless toe-curling clap-trap this arrogant gob-shite proudly continues to spew forth from 1981 until the present day!? And the public and the dodgier corners of the Media  take it seriously as if this Tubby Tory Tosser is some kind of populist philosopher!? Like his best mate Piers Morgen who would splash a spray of spittle soaked Sycophancy in the general direction of Rottens Arse, whilst exclaiming that he had bought "Never Mind The Bollocks" as a privately educated Yoof..When I die I would love my ashes to be scattered in Peirs Morgans' eyes.

There are similar dick-eads too numerous to list here of course, eg Cave, Geldof.....are they not the same person?....and many others,all of which should have become a noble recluse ,not unlike the Great Syd Barrett,whom I am told was one of Lydon's many influences!???

Then we have the Rebellion Festival look,of beer bellies,fading Tat's,bald heads, shorts and training shoes.Waddling to the Cockney Rejects, reminiscing about their fantasy gig list.Ahhh the night that the UK Subs came to town.

There's a youtube interview with the least stupid member of Spandau Ballet, who went to the Pistol's Screen On The Green show, like I wasn't there too. He saw the Pistol's ,aged 14,and formed Spandau Ballet the next day!?.....let's analyse that for a second? He saw the Sex Pistols and Formed Spandau Ballet? He really couldn't have been listening!?...or there at all, like the thousands who reckon they were.

One always meet these people down the pub and similar social outings,who can't wait to tell you that they're an aging "Punk"?...(If you're a Punk, mate, I certainly ain't). They talk about these fictitious gig nights like they were actually in the Band,and use words like "important" and "crucial"and how they formed a band the next day after seeing 'The Pistols'.

Well, Deef probably have beer bellies forty years on too,but as they are Japanese they're probably genetically slim still;but I'm sure they aren't still touring like The UK Subs...nobodies that irrelevant...surely?

So,"We kill all Punk Rock Heroes"....yes even Gary Kemp,the criminal who wrote "Gold"....cus' he was there you'know...and we weren't.

Tracklist:

A1 We Kill All Punk Rock Heroes
A2 War
A3 脳テン
A4 拷問
A5 メス
A6 Y
B1 Detai
B2 幻想的教育論
B3 キ・ン・タ・マ！？
B4 家畜
B5 ナイ！
B6 自殺
B7 サルの肉
B8 天国パイロット

DOWNLOAD deefinitely HERE!

Die Öwan – "美川憲一" (XA Records) 1983

Another one Hundred.... er.....songs? from one of the world's greatest ever teen bands.

It loiters  like a lo-fi Punk Rock version of those heavily stoopid  medley records that lurked the highways and byways of the top twenty some decades ago. Such as "Hooked On Classics", "Stars On 45", with the reprehensible Jive Bunny.All of whom saw it,somehow, fit to collect all that terrible music from those 'Not Available in Shops" adverts aimed at those poor victims in their 'golden'years, and added a flaccid four to the carpeted floor Discobeat over the top of 'em. A similar thing was done by the Residents for their 'Diskomo' 12", to Disco-up the 'Eskimo album for the general public. It still managed to clear any dance-floor except for the enlightened few. A similar effect would no-doubt occur if Die Öwan's 100 songs were played to one of those 'New Wave' disco's that popped up at the end of the 70's.

No Disco Beats for Die Öwan however, just a torrent of drumbox driven classic Punk intro's and amputated song parts mashed up with a few dozen originals to create a tumult of hurried cutting room floor edits instigated by  a Japanese Dee Dee Ramone delivering a heavily accented 1-2-3-4 and we're away! Beginning with the famous two note intro to The Clash's "Career Opportunities",and then we can play "Name That Tune" with the next 46 minutes,starting with a joyously incompetent version of "21st Schizoid Man", and wait.....isn't that "Smoke On The Water? Guesswork is needed, especially as the tracklist is impossible to read........but, that's how I like it.

This is certainly NOT available in Shops and its certainly NOT on K-Tel,or even Ronco, but this is the Hooked On (Punk) Classics for the Baby Boomer generation, as we are now,sadly, including myself, approaching one's Golden Years. Sadly i was a couple of months too early to be born within the Generation X bracket,sounds better dunnit? Quelle Dommage!? So one consoles myself with the joyous fact that I'm not part of these Ridiculous Gen Z fools,who missed everything because of their mental health acronyms and blame everyone else for destroying their future,whilst doing, precisely, NOTHING.

I suppose the little Twats have got a point,especially as we (Humanity) are destined to be the only civilisation in history to become extinct because it wasn't cost effective to survive.Alas,while the rocks crumble our kids seem content to point the finger slagging boomers  off for not fixing it. That's new kind of Stoopid......but they (Gen Z) can still Fuck Off,like Greta Thunberg apparently has...in-between the odd-Anti-Israel Rally.

 Tracklist:

A 100 Songs
B 100 Songs

DOWNLOAD and get hooked on punk classics HERE!

Die Öwan – "Öwanism" (XA Record – XA-2007) 1981

 

Firstly,I have no idea what the Tracklisting is,but the pix and info here are the best I can be bothered to put forward. Its largely irrelevant anyway.Just see it as 4 long tracks that merge together to become something Avant Garde filtered through the dirty underpants of the collective teenage mind......which this stuff is ,if accidentally ,which always beats the deliberate nonsense that the intellectual elite like us to see as something unattainable.But...There are two types of unattainable; the genuinely unattainable or the pretentious shite that no-one wants to 'attain' anyway. The coming age of Artificial Stupidity is upon us,so the unlearning process that we hear mentioned so often is on its way like a cavalry of good taste coming to kill their women and children in the name of Art. Machines will free us from slavery very soon,and we can live the Nietzchean utopia of the creative ubermensch .

This particular example of Nietzchean Ubermenschen called Die Owan from former the former Axis Hinterland of Japan, involves the DIY lo-fi Punk of a couple of Teenage sons of Nippon banging out endless numbers of short barks and enregistering them within the noble medium of Audio Cassette,back in the daze.

Are these Prats the Japanese Prats, or West Germany's own bunch of Prat-a-like Punk Kinder Die 2.Liga? 

Who knows? Who cares? Either way, its great simple Japanese bedroom thrash,by those who had obviously heard Wire's 'Punk Flag' a few years after it's release.In fact somewhere within the rumpus there pops up a Wire cover,and even "Bored Teenagers" by The Adverts makes an unexpected,but welcome appearance. Dee Dee Ramone countin's and a frantic TR 606 drum machine, makes this an exhausting experience,so when you've had enough,just click the stop button and sit in a darkened room for half-an hour,then hopefully you may forget....until the next time....then you're back in the room

Tracklist: 

1		Anti Children = アンチチルドレン	1:17
2		Where Is Your Love? = ホエア・イズ・ユア・ラブ？	1:19
3		Keihan Ondo = 京阪音頭	1:17
4		No Love = ノウ・ラブ	1:16
5		Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha = ハ・ハ・ハ・ハ・ハ	1:01
6		Hirakata = 枚方	0:28
7		Loadstar = ロードスター	1:03
8		Red Hirakata = レッド枚方	1:39
9		Sadness Song = 悲しみの歌	0:28
10		Kue Song +4 = クエの歌	1:16
11		Gary Koketa = ゲイリー こけた	1:55
12		V's Song +12 = Vの歌 +	1:20
13		Kechi Theme = ケチのテーマ	0:49
14		Cholge Man Theme = チョルゲマン	0:08
15		Bald Eno = ボールド・イーノ	1:19
16		Floor No Kuchi +11 = フロアの口	1:42
17		Sakura = 桜	2:00
18		Lost My Head = ロストマイヘッド	5:12
19		Cholge Man Theme/ Bald Eno (live) = チョルゲマンのテーマ/ボールドイーノ	1:49
20		Ex. Buzzco Timer (live) = Exバズコタイマー	1:54
21		Floor No Kuchi +2 (live) = フロアの口	0:49
22		Harimoto Jin (live) = 張本人	0:16
23		Crying My Hage +11 = 俺のハゲは泣いている	2:42
24		Sabita Hage +12 = さびたハゲ	5:31
25		Hage No Chan Chaka Chan +11 = ハゲのチャンチャカチャン	0:30
26		Suterare Hage + 11 = すてられハゲ	1:53
27		Ikuzo Wa Rasta +12 = イクゾはラスタ	1:52
28		Keihan Dub = 京阪ダブ	2:02
29		Time Shock = タイム・ショック	1:23
30		Chotto Dekakeruwa  = ちょっと出かけるわ	2:18
31		Dareka Haitteruyaro Detekoi  = だれか入ってるやろ、出てこい	1:57
32		Rasta Theme = ラスタ・テーマ	0:44
33		Here Rasta Comes Now = ヒアラスタカムズナウ	3:43
34		Arigataya Song = ありがたやのうた	1:58
35		Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha (demo) = ハハハハハ	1:03
36		Anti Children (demo) = アンチチルドレン	1:25
37		Loadstar (demo) = ロードスター	1:09
38		GHC  (live)	7:53
39		Dareka Haitteruyaro Detekoi  (live) = だれか入ってるやろ出てこい	1:16
40		No Love (1979 version) = ノウラブ DOWNLOAD to achieve  OWANism like a spunking jap-eye HERE!	1:33

Enski Boski – "I Found Jesus In A Gay Bar" (Hamster Records And Tapes – HAM 13) 1984

Sorry for a prolonged absence on my part,but, these guys are just Krazy.

It sounds like the music a mom's basement dwelling guy with ADHD would send to the recording arm of Sony,fully expecting a lucrative contract in response. A sort of a less processable version of mid-period Associates,but with a mentally ill version of that bloke from Spandau Ballet crooning away instead of Billy Mackenzie; albeit with better song titles.

Whether Enski received the cleansing qualities of the Holy Spirit and accepted it as his own personal saviour is unclear.Or, as more likely, he actually found the son of god cruising for cock in in a Soho gay bar around the time that AIDS was becoming really popular. This would explain the presence of the Son Of God in yer actual Gay Bar,personally helping spread the virus person to person;or should i say Deity-to-Deity.

God himself ,as stated in his manifesto,doesn't have much time for Gay versions of his likeness,even though he allegedly created everything himself(?),also one would not be shocked to discover that he magicked up a lethal virus aimed at promiscuous homosexuals,and wanton womanhood to remove them from his DIY planet.That should teach them a lesson alright.

Rather than just conjure up a virus from nowhere, Jesus, being more moralistic than his dad,took the more virtuous route to mass murder, by actually stuffing his unprotected holy Phallus Dei up as many Gays as possible......a more hands on, pants down affair one could suggest? 

Or, Enski Boski could just be making it all up,taking inspiration from many a 'Holy' book filed in the Fiction Section at your local LGBTQ+ library.

Looking at other releases on this Terry Burrows (Jung Analysts) dominated label, there is an impossible to find compilation cassette called "If God Had Meant Us To Dance He Would Have Given Us Legs", which I think sums up everything very nicely.

Tracklist:

A1 The Amazing Inevitable Engendering Gene
A2 Fourteen With Freckles Eighteen With Acne
A3 Without The Enemy Within
A4 George Washington Said
A5 Chantage
B1 Korer Opportunities In Sinking Communtities
B2 Anodyne Noise Psilocybin Sight
B3 The Mercy Killing Conga
B4 The Importance Of Fraudulence
B5 Grocery Trouble
B6 Skid Row

DOWNLOAD HERE! with the thought that if God had meant for us to listen to music like this he'd have given us ears?

Jandek – "Baltimore Saturday" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0865) 2024

 Yet another Jandek recording from 2009.This one has got electronics on it,so it's quite unique in the Jandek canon. Also Susan Alcorn appears again making weird noises on her pedal Steel Guitar.

If that don't make you wanna hear this double CD then there's something wrong with you....well...maybe not? It's a good one though.

Here's that tit (I notice he has two of them) who regularly threatens the safety of your much valued scribe

He's the fat one on the right,meeting his hero......I wonder if this was taken in 2009?...still waiting for the Vancouver release.He says he's gonna 'find me' if I post that......which of course I will.

Tracklist:

1-1 It's All There 6:45
1-2 Love Relation 1:44
1-3 Gone On Me 3:04
1-4 Turn The Key 1:42
1-5 Make Me 1:50
1-6 On The Highway 1:51
1-7 Another Block 4:51
1-8 I Asked 2:38
1-9 Last Friends 4:03
1-10 This Other Me 2:09
1-11 The Minutes 2:58
1-12 The Moonbeam 3:38
1-13 I Talk To My Self 4:27
1-14 The Words 2:39
2-1 Splashing In The Streets 11:42
2-2 Drew On The Meadows 20:06

DOWNLOAD today HERE!

Various Artists – "When Things Were Perfect" (Peeved Records – PV020) 1985

More Cambridge indie pop via Southampton from a time when things seemed perfect, but on the evidence presented here, wasn't. .....which as i've mentioned several times before is a kind of perfection?

Trouble is, this nostalgia trip very accurately recreates the sound and feel of the black hole that was left behind by the great fizzle out of yer Punk Rock.

There was nothing left to populate the event horizon except a sliding slagheap of middle class studentia playing uneventful Indie-pop...the Uneventful Horizon as one calls it. With only Shoegaze,Twee, and Ron Johnson to assist in the awful choice between C-86 and Acid House.

Tracklist:

A1 The Deviance – The Other Side
A2 The Deviance – Watch It Burn
A3 The Deviance – Frozen Moments
A4 The Deviance – Savage Days
A5 The Deviance – Self Destruction
A6 The Deviance – Happy World
A7 The Children Of Some Tradition– The Last Resort
A8 The Children Of Some Tradition– Town To Town
B1 Perfect Vision– Scratch And Howl
B2 Perfect Vision– Engines
B3 Perfect Vision– Co-Incidence
B4 Perfect Vision– Hole In The Sole
B5 Perfect Vision– Laugh At Breakage
B6 Red Over White– Killed By His Own Tribe
B7 Red Over White– Suffocation
B8 Red Over White– No Shame

DOWNLOAD from when things were far from perfect HERE!

Various Artists – "Tickled Pink" (Peeved Records – PV021) 1986

One of a few Cambridge compilations from Peeved Records, unfathomably based in Southampton?

It kicks off with some mannered Indie Pop by, according to Discogs, one of the 96 other bands called "Spike". If that was out of a hundred it would correlate with the fact that 96% of all bands in the UK sounded exactly like this in 1985 to '86. Marking the era when everyone had a Portastudio, nice equipment,and knew how to use it. As a result everyone sounded the same.

It was all 'well played' ,enhanced with cheaply available effects unit,and they all thought they were gonna 'make it'. The result is really rather dreadful, as they themselves would have found the DIY stuff from earlier in the decade, which these self-tutored pop stars in their own lunchtimes would have scoffed at, and binned off in favor of sounding like Aztec Camera....WRONG!

Its rather like a teenagers painting, when they try their upmost to be a sophisticate;leaving the real genius of their earlier years gathering dust in the garbage bin. Only a few get to make art decent enough to break through to win the poverty that awaits them.

Although missing the point entirely, the end result is actually rather quaint? Awwww, bless 'em.

The High Tech Pagodas win the silliest name prize,and also the best track award....what on earth were they doing?

Tracklist:

A1 Spike – I Feel You
A2 Spike – Any Choice
A3 The Force – Sweet Little Girl
A4 The Force – Crazy Affair
A5 Vanishing Point– From The Heart
A6 Vanishing Point– Face To Face
A7 The High Tech Pagodas– Free
B1 The Lovely– Aniel I Said
B2 The Lovely– Catherine
B3 Strange Brew – Don't Wanna Be Lonely
B4 Strange Brew – Normandy Sunset
B5 Worlds End Band– The Party
B6 Worlds End Band– The Party Of Light
B7 The Lonely – Nervous Hand
B8 The Lonely – Something Happened Today

DOWNLOAD and have your pink bits tickled HERE!

Various Artists – "Real Time 3 - December 1982" (Unlikely Records) 1982

Trendy Turtles were definitely going for that elusive Cherry Red contract weren't they? Only rarely does one find Twee Indie Pop arse to elbow with a rowdy Oi groop,especially as both forms of music are long dead. The Oi Polloi don't sound very likely to harbor any signs of being women trapped in a Skinheads' body, but then again Gender politics were thankfully absent from the minds of the average Teenager,or Yobbo in those 'simpler' times around Christmas 1982. Gender Dysphoria was just a technical phrase in a psychologists handbook. Nowadays, one would rule out the existence of a Trans Oi combo at one's peril....and get shunned by society as a reward. I actually do have a Hardcore record by a Trans hardcore Punk band called G.L.O.S.S. which is actually rather marvelous. So come on you gender fuck-ups, get that Trans Skinhead Oi band going and I might understand you a bit more.

I don't envy kids these days at all....shit music...and shit post truth information overload.

Dunno how I got onto this subject, just thought it amusing to imagine The Oi Polloi or even better the 4-Skins as transexuals........should I take the knee now or something?,,,,wot a fuck UP!

Which is not what this very good indeed C-90 cassette compilation appears to be.

We're on the cusp of Indie here it seems,with the only remnants of Punk being the unfashionably stupid comprehensive school politics of the Oi Polloi....luckily I love the sound of "stupid".

There's always Lurch after all, and a bag full of time specific Power Pop and Indie Tweeness.

Tracklist:

A1 Trendy Turtles– Hickory Dickory
A2 Trendy Turtles– Instrumental
A3 Trendy Turtles– Bamber
A4 The Genitals– Out Eyes Met
A5 The Genitals– Sound Of The Spa
A6 Sons Of The Electrodes– Bear In Mind
A7 Oi Polloi– Police State
A8 Oi Polloi– Poppy Day
A9 Oi Polloi– No Future
A10 Oi Polloi– Media
A11 Lurch – Hush Little Baby
A12 Yr Anhrefrn – Stwffiwch Y Dolig
A13 Yr Anhrefrn – Ynni O'r Sebon
A14 Terminal Spectators – Another Day/Reach For The Sky
B1 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– Ronny & The Rayguns
B2 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– My Brain Is Infested With Mince
B3 Future Future– 21st Century (Dreams)
B4 Graham Larkbey– You Look So Lovely Tonight
B5 Graham Larkbey– Your Husband Didn't Like It
B6 The Invisible Band– Alazarin's Castle
B7 The Invisible Band– Doin' The Ton
B8 Idid Idid– Moloko Plus
B9 Ron Ferret– Wasps
B10 Ron Ferret– Train Of Thought

DOWNLOAD for a very late christmas pressie HERE!