Monday 26 July 2021

"THE END OF MUSIC"


I'm gonna pack this lark in for a while. Sick of death threats,sick of spending my free time typing,ripping and uploading,sick of being accused of being racist,a communist, nazi,and satan knows what else etc......very sick of Punx(especially Punx my age),humanity(with exceptions) ,sick of being sick,but above all I think I'm sick of music.This, i'm informed is a sign of depression.....whatever? Not yet sick of living,as we got eternity to be dead in haven't we? But music has checked out early it seems.

Will continue the radio show(s) and the 'Shadow Blog',will answer comments,keep the downloads alive ,and may produce a concise coffee table book for your entertainment (that was someone else's bright idea).....I'll probably get bored and be back spewing rubbish in cyber-print tomorrow...who knows? Meanwhile the blog will be left to fester,like manure, to nurture new seedlings......but forget about 'the Kids' doing anything exciting with music,they're into something else,and it definitely ain't music i can tell yee that! 

It's an age old rock'n'Roll trick to retire and play the last show...EVER, only to reappear the next year with a new image and a new album innit? This is my 'Spiders from Mars' moment,just humor me will ya?

So,to bow-ie out gracefully, ere's a slightly marxist independent pamphlet ,printed in Glasgow around 1983,that kinda sums up the demise of music into a pointless sludge that any fucker can do, quiet nicely.Its not special no more Bobby Joe, thanks to the success of D.I.Y! Boo-Hoo-Hoo?But DIY was more than just doing it yerself wasn't it? 

Anyway,It's a jolly good read (the pamphlet),and largely correct. Like Artists, musicians are full of shite,and that's how we'd like them to stay,but they do need to be fucking told.


























TaTa fer now kiddies.

Friday 16 July 2021

CAMBRIC MILL - "Not For Cult Approval/The Rehearsal Tapes" (Pumf Records PUMF 812) 2020



 
Everyone likes a cult,especially the music of Cults.Of course I refer to the very Reverend and very dead, Jim Jones,Chuck Manson, and who can forget the great,and gratefully very dead,rockin' Jesus, David Koresh...among other manipulative sex abusers too numerous to mention.....ok I missed out the weirdest of the lot Sai Baba and I'm sorry.
In fact the main reason for joining a doomsday cult,or the new disciples of the latest incarnation of Jesus,is to make wacked out music with some genuine five star dysfunctional loony Toons. I'm sure that was at the top of the list for randy beatnik Father Yod,who used unhinged psychedelia to charm teenage ladies into their gods bed.......and i don't mean just to sleep either.The randy old cunt in a randy old cult is what he was, before crashing to the ground in a bizarre hang-gliding accident.He thought he was invincible and could fly....don't blame it on drugs pleeeeze,he was just a deluded twat with a Messiah complex is all.
No hang-gliders involved in the Cambric Mill story however,unless you can attribute the prefix 'bizarre' to over-indulgence in a cult member's Homebrew washed down with lashings of British pharmaceutical paracetamol. A very British mass suicide.......has anyone written a TV series called that? If not, then someone should. I guess the Homebrew was student strength British bitter ,and not the Jim Jones preferred communal brew of pure cyanide. I guess Jim didn't know that Paracetamol was so cheap at Wilko's, formerly Wilkinson's,and not anything to do with the actual god that is Wilko Johnson? You Europeans haven't lived until you visited Wilko's pharmaceutical section.....mix and match is recommended or they won't serve you at the tills.
Basically,as if you didn't know ,Cambric Mill are the Spinal Tap of Folky Industrial power Electronics with a hint of dr hook,and a smidgen of John Denver from just before his light aircraft crashed....apparently Not into a Rocky Mountain High after all it seems.A livid John Denver fan corrected me on that point...rather tersely I may add.....over liberal use of the word 'Cunt' ...Tut tut tut!The world's full of nutters innit?
Nearly every band I've been in have been conceptual bands,and self-mythologizing is part and parcel of such projects,alongside not being able ,or bothered to learn how to play an instrument properly....fuck that! That's for Americans and similar types.
None of these people, along with John Stumpy Pepys,Joe Mama Besser, Mick Shrimpton of Spinal Tap,are actually dead,nor even spontaneously combusted, they're just having a laugh and playing some nutty music,not unlike the stuff that came out of Father Yods gaff in Hawaii...except this comes from somewhere around gloomy old Blackpool......I am guessing that living members of The Ceramic Hobs could well be responsible for this lovely package on the prolific,and suitably cheap, Pumf Records.
The story/myth is that the band who spent so long rehearsing their new sound which they called 'Industrial Folk Power Electronics" - before tragically committing group suicide in a homebrew death cult ritual prior to even playing a gig!?....also sounds like all the bands I've been in too!?
For many years, there were rumors (pretends ones) circulating around that there were rehearsal tapes of a never heard group called Cambric Mill, and finally pStan Batcow of Pumf Records somehow got his hands on the original recordings,probably because he made them, and released it on CD.This is that CD....but I ain't allowed to share it 'cus it's for sale at Pumpf Records for the nominal transfer of a single lady Godiva into pStan's back bin. If it was on Vinyl On Demand or cash driven collector bastards like that,I would certainly share it....even in FLAC!....but, No, Pumf Records and their contributors are the real DIY thing,and get Zchivago's Seal of approval....I dunno where he is,probably off in the oceans chomping down some fish....the Seal not your author you berk! I call him 'Barky' by the way if you're interested.....

Now where's me Home Brew?

You can hear some handy samples to wet your kissers with a spitball of clarity by clicking HERE!

Tuesday 13 July 2021

Flowers In The Dustbin ‎– "All The Best People Are Perverts" (96 Tapes ‎– 96/14) 1985


Of course, it should read "All the best perverts are People",not too sure that all of those lovely shiny 'Top' people are pervs...maybe 80% but not ALL of them.They ARE better than us after all.
Having said that, not all the best Punks were perverts it seems.Although heavily influenced by Glam, the Punks didn't seem to follow in the footsteps of Gary Glitter sexually...unless someone knows better.
However, if someone was walking around looking like a 1982 Punk in 1985, one would have to disguise a snigger or two. This means they must be thick? Things had moved on by then,but there was always a few Punky combo's what got through the net, like the sartorially awful  Rubella Ballet,and Flowers in the Dustbin. Both associated with the Anarcho-Punks, but far too 'pop' to be taken seriously,Chumbawumba style.The orthodox Punk look in 1982 was not a good one,and as for the punk music wot da punx liked,with the exception of US Hardcore and Discharge, it was profoundly dull,stuck on repeat for  at least the previous five looooong years,and something to be tossed into the Dustbin along with the flowers.
Comfortably 35 years distant from those times, one can now sit back and enjoy the gothy pop/punk of the long defunct Flowers In The Dustbin. They had the tunes if not the hairstyles to match, but their audience were those living museum pieces that still had blue hair and bondage trousers thinking they were being subversive. These people still exist,nearing 60 years of age,and still dressing like they did as teenagers, but worse still their kids and grand-kids carry on the tradition today!? The new orthodoxy.
Awww cum onnnnnn,its only entertainment innit?.....you know what, it was never thought of as entertainment,until these bloody singers started to complain that no-one was dancing. Then,it became entertainment. We live with the flowers of punk showbiz today...its time to send the fuckers to landfill and it's one thing that shouldn't be endlessly recycled. Flowers In The Dustbin were irrelevant in 1985,and their relations still are.
"Last Tango In Vietnam" is quite a good tune however,and I can imagine a bunch of punx dancing to it in their ignored ghetto's everywhere.

The Track listings on the insert pictured above by the way.


Monday 12 July 2021

Anthrax ‎– "Demo Tape" (Self-released cassette) 1982


From what doth an Anarcho-Punk band maketh? Asked one of Shakespeare's rival poets back in 1982.
Anthrax........naaaaaah not that awful speed metal nonsense Anthrax from the United States of pointlessness....Anthrax from Kent you Kant!
Well,as I was about to say before I rudely interrupted myself pretending someone actually reads this drivel, or cares,....take 3.....Anthrax,were often lumped in with the Anarcho-Punk morass,but musically they had far more in common with the 'Oi' bands,or UK82's upteenth wave punk. Most crass-alikes couldn't achieve that sub-metal sound necessary to be the Exploited,so they just played open chords and painted banners,whereas Anthrax could actually play proper Punk Rock,like a yobbish Rudimentary Peni but without the gloomy imagery.
Anthrax had songs about Vivisection,anti-war,and anti capitalism;plus they had home made banners to be a backdrop at gigs....usually with anarcho-punk bands.They also had a single out on Crass Records, so therefore they were gleefully accepted as Anarcho's.
No joke, but I had an auntie whose surname was Waugh....Auntie Waugh!? If she was hip, she could have been in The Poison Girls,or on Penis Envy.
Anthrax,however, managed to write and record one of the absolute classic singles from the 'third' wave of UK Punk in "They've got it all wrong",demo version included here.Released on Small Wonder to add to the legend.
They did the accepted thing in 1982, and recorded a Demo,knowing no-one would release it, and released it themselves. Copied onto top quality Ross cassettes,remeber them?....no?... me neither,and decorated with a photo of Gruinard Island where the British Government tested chemical weapons in World war Two,one of which was....you guessed it,or you gassed it, Anthrax.
'twas finally decontaminated in 1990. Unlike Anthrax ,the Uk punk band,who reformed in the 21st century and made a new album!?.....a big no-no that,contaminating the legend,no to mention looking like a bunch of punk dad's at a punk Darby and Joan club, otherwise known as the annual Rebellion Festival in Blackpool.


Tracklist:

1 All The Wars
2 Capitalism Is Cannibalism
3 Exploitation
4 Vivisection
5 P.P.B.
6 Introduction To War
7 They`ve Got It All Wrong
8 Violence Is Violence


Wednesday 7 July 2021

Alternative ‎– "Isolation From Ones Self - Is Alienation From Another" (Self-Released cassette) 1982


 Hey look kids, that's a totally original group symbol going on there,nothing at all like the Crass one, complete with spray can stencil font to boot.Harry Styles will be wearing this on a T-shirt next spring.....although ZOG beat them to it...see below:
One Direction loved experimental music...Harry's on the right...of the photo,and in Politics I hear?


The drummer on this below shit-fi quality on bullshit detector demo tape does indeed play a few Penny Rimbaud boys brigade fills, and i'm quite sure it isn't the Rimbaud himself.....it undoubtedly was on the LP.
Ah Bless 'em, they bark about alienation, nuclear war, corporate oppression, and that anarcho-staple..."crying children"......well, at least i think they do?They could be singing love songs for all i can make out amidst the hiss and fuzz and cheapo distortion pedals.
It's certainly a Love Song to Crass anyway, may I be so bold as to speculate?
Another sickeningly pseudo philosophical white ghetto pretentiousness of a title.....but don't you just love 'em for it?...not really...I was just trying to look open minded and accepting of difference so i seem Kool to the pinko politico-elite. Please like me!

Tracklist:

1 Propaganda
2 Child In The System
3 Unknown
4 Rising Sun
5 False Visions
6 Can't You See
7 Pick Up The Camera
8 What's So Pitiful


Tuesday 6 July 2021

Alternative ‎– "If They Treat You Like Shit - Act Like Manure" (Corpus Christi ‎– Christ It's 13) 1984


Ay up....it's only the Scottish Crass innit? Just like the Skids were the Scottish Sex Pistols,but were in fact, very good indeed,whereas Alternative are an alternative to nothing at all. Yes they sound exactly like,look like, Crass but without useful Essex boy on shouty vocals. And, oooh look, they didn't like Thatcher,who liberated more working class than any posh Anarchist ever did. Maggie gave us a national wage long before it was ever mooted in the political mainstream in the form of paid mass unemployment,liberated swathes of Yorkshiremen (The very same Tetley Bittermen that Seething Wells used to go on about) from underground slavery,and gave away houses to the lower stratum of society. Three very Anarchist policies. Without Mrs T your scribe would have been stuck in a factory for the last forty years,and now on a zero hours slave contract in an Amazon warehouse,alongside the grandchildren of those Tetly Bittermen who'd preferred them to have been stuck down a coal mine instead. Unlike Penny Rimbaud and mates I won't be entitled to a pension after i'm 67 (correct at the time of writing!)...I've gotta work until I die,mainly thanks to the new anti-Thatcherite conservatives that the very same liberated working class idiots in the north of England who voted for Johnson and his government of lying Cunts!?...can you fucking believe IT!? Lying is something that Thatcher never did....she told you what she was gonna do and did it.
'Big Sister is watching You' it says....turns out she wasn't,but they fucking are Now!
One plus point ,however ,is that Alternative are certainly NOT Posh. So, as usual, they had the joy of the Posher members of Crass inflicting themselves on these useful working class black clad proles,bring in their own drummer (Rimbaud), guitarist (Peter Wright) and ex-finishing school for young ladies screecher Annie Anxiety.Producing it for them...not that they asked! Trevor Horn did the same for Frankie Goes to Hollywood I believe.
I think it was Rimbaud's stealthy way of continuing Crass after they had split up...which was a lie it seems.Find some star-struck Crass worshipping anarcho-punk clones from 'oop norf',then take-over.....life after death Anarcho-Punk style.
And you just know that they are 100% certain they are 'Right',or in football language 120%.Its an effect of the British Public School 'System System System', just like Oswald Moseley,super Posh, and Super fascist, knew he was irrevocably corrrrrect. How wrong could they be?
I do however, have a soft spot for most of this Anarcho-Punk stuff however,in the same way that i get a nostalgic glow for my lost innocence when i watch Childrens TV from my own childhood. There is something so unerringly charming about the pointless adolescence of this toytown utopia that these kids,plus Penny Rimbaud,had built for themselves in their own minds.All they had to do was ask Thatcher to give them a council estate and they could have made it real. Reality is something quite frightening when your dreams are transported into bricks and mortar......but,there's always a 'but' isn't there? Crass didn't want to live in the sewers they sang about,they bought a big house in the Essex countryside far away from the underclass's who would have kicked their collective backsides back to their Trustafarian country retreats.
The album's title is a rather cringing and vain attempt at emulating Flux Of Pink Indians' "The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks",which is one of the best album titles ever or what? Discuss?
Where are YOUR Hiroshimas eh?
Mine are in someones else's dystopia, not mine.

Tracklist:

A1 Another Subversive Peace Song
A2 Seen Through Tear Filled Eyes
A3 Mannequin
A4 Now I Realize
A5 How Many Times Sold?
A6 Love And Life
B1 If You've Got It......Don't
B2 Till Death Do You Part
B3 Death Isn't So Sweet
B4 Caroline's Carnival
B5 Suffer In Silence
B6 Struggling Through The Darkness
B7 Ireland
B8 Where Are Your Hiroshimas?

DOWNLOAD if they treat you like shit act like Crass HERE!