A-Z PROJECT: #221-236

The number of CDs I listened to in a day was drastically lowered as a result of training new staff at my job and from spending a week at my grandmother's house the week of Thanksgiving. I'm still right on track for finishing this before the year is up, though. Again, I'm not a writer or an expert on music. I'm just fucking bored.

(*) asterisks note things that are burned copies and not an original release. CDRs without asterisks behind them were originally issued as CDRs.

Day #221
PUBLIC ENEMY - "Yo! Bum Rush the Show" CD (Okay, so some of those cliche rap trappings were here on their first album. There's some talk about having buckets of money, hyping themselves up, etc that isn't on the other albums I've heard. I can look past that stuff, I guess. This is a pretty good album. Chuck's voice sounds awesome on it.)

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. - "Flowers of Romance" CD ("We're not a band, we're a company." What a bunch of shit, haha, but that clip on the Tom Snyder Show would turn anyone into a fan. One of the worst/best interviews ever. After the Sex Pistols fell apart, Lydon started this up. I've read several places that he was a big fan of the krautrock stuff he heard John Peel playing on the BBC. A lot of people credit the krautrock band Neu! as being somewhat responsible for the start of punk rock in England. This sounds as if there's tons of kraut influence on it. There's parts that sound like they could have been lifted from an Amon Düll II album, other parts that sound like Faust. Sonically this is fascinating. Occasionally Lydon's vocals cross over into annoyance, but most of the time it's okay. His vocals are an acquired taste anyway. It could be at this point I'm just used to them. A lot of the songs have sparse instrumentation with spacey noises over them. I really like this album and have been meaning to check out more of their stuff but never got around to doing so.)

PUNGENT STENCH - "For God Your Soul... For Me Your Flesh" CD (I was listening to this album a bunch when I was writing stuff for Mummifier. I don't think anything I wrote sounds like them, but they were an influence. I had "Been Caught Buttering" in high school and loved it. For the longest time, though, I thought the title was "Been Caught Butchering". When I found out I had the title wrong, I sat down a read the lyrics. They were so fucking dumb, I couldn't listen to them anymore and ended up trading that CD away. It wasn't until years later when I found this CD used at Half Price Books I decided to give them another chance. Other than the shitty drum sound, this CD is great. I've never read the lyrics (I usually don't, now), so I don't know how stupid they are compared to the other CD I had. The vocals are awesome on this CD and the songs are pretty memorable if you spend enough time with them.)

PURULENT WORMJIZZ - "Bizarre Wormjizz Ritualism" CD (Another of Ray Rivera's projects, the person behind The Person Inside of Reagan. This is sort of hard to describe. It's got upbeat industrial dance drumming, reverbed out, almost ambient keyboards, hushed growls and the occasional sample peppered throughout. It's pretty cool, and I'm not into this sort of stuff usually.)

PUTRESCENCE - "Mangled, Hollowed Out and Vomit Filled" CD (I think this was their first album. Not terribly fast or technical, just chunky and heavy. I like that the bass guitar is as loud or louder than the guitars. Mike's vocals are awesome, really throaty and angry sounding. Pitch shifted vocals would have ruined this for me, and this is exactly the kind of grindcore people would usually slop those kind of vocals over. I've seen these guys live a few times and they were always intense. They seem like nice guys, too.)

PYURIA - "One Way Traditional Explanatory Thoughts" CDR (You ever have the feeling that you're the only person on earth listening to a particular piece of music at that exact moment in time? I have that feeling all the time. I'm experiencing it right now listening to this. Pyuria were a one man grind project done by a chap named Jon Bellon from Ontario. I don't remember how or why Jon and I started writing, but we traded a few tapes and he sent me some tracks for the "Attacked By Bees..." compilation I did 13 years ago. He played in a punk band, too, but I don't remember their name. I don't think I ever heard them. I'm pretty sure this Pyuria disc was the first the first CDR I've ever owned. I didn't expect it to play when I pulled it out to rip it to my iPod, but surprisingly it did. The playing on this is pretty good, song writing, too, but the recording leaves a lot to be desired. It's probably a 4 track recording, but it's pretty flimsy sounding. You can get away with that with other styles of music, but shitty grindcore recordings are only okay if they're maxed out and distorted. I haven't listened to this in ages and none of this sounds familiar to me as it's playing, but I'm enjoying it. I'm not sure if I'll enjoy all 58 tracks / 71 minutes of it, but this is sitting well with me at the moment..... 48 tracks in and it's still great. Some of these songs are fucking crushing.)

RADIOHEAD - "Amnesiac" CD (I'm not going to attempt to describe Radiohead's music. Everyone knows who they are and what they sound like. This is a good album, not one of my favorites, but solid nonetheless. All of their albums are sonically interesting with flawless production. I like Radiohead, but I'm not crazy about them. All of the CDs I have I found used.)

RADIOHEAD - "The Bends" CD (One of my favorite Radiohead albums, their best rock album. This is the one that hooked me. Not a clunker on the disc, all great.)

RADIOHEAD - "Hail to the Thief" CD (This is my second favorite album of theirs, sort of a return to rock after veering off into more experimental territory.)

RADIOHEAD - "Kid A" CD (I'm kinda burned out, don't feel like writing anything.)

RADIOHEAD - "My Iron Lung EP" CD (Single from "The Bends", plus 7 tracks. This stuff rules.)

Day #222
RADIOHEAD - "OK Computer" CD (This one is pretty great, too. It's been a while since I've listened to this stuff, I forgot how much I liked it. This might be my favorite after "The Bends". Parts of this album gave me goosebumps today.)

RADIOHEAD - "Pablo Honey" CD (This album only sucks because of what came after it. On it's own, it's a decent album, but it's the worst Radiohead release, in my opinion. I put this on expecting shit, but it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being.)

Day #225
RAMONES - "All the Stuff (And More) Vol. 1" CD (This is the first two Ramones albums on one disc with some demo tracks as bonus material. I've never been a huge Ramones fan, have always been of the mindset that if you've heard one of their albums you've heard them all. I'm probably missing out on a lot of great stuff, but between this CD and "Ramones Mania" I feel as if I've got most of the bases covered. I'm sitting in the back seat of my dad's car driving to my grandmother's house while listening to this. When "Blitzkrieg Bop" started up, I couldn't help but the think of Audrey Griswold and the first National Lampoon's Vacation movie. I had the biggest crush on her as a teen.)

RANCID HELL SPAWN - "Axe Hero" CD (RHS are one of my favorites. I ordered their "Jumpin' Jack Flesh" LP from Wild Rags ages ago thinking it would be heavy, some sort of death metal. Boy was I wrong. RHS are a one man band who play the craziest, buzzsaw, fuzzed out casio-core ever. It's like pop music ran through a blender with the worst production imaginable and always with the most ridiculous artwork imaginable. There's nothing else that sounds like it. I went from liking that album as an oddity to buying more of their stuff cheaply (I found "Gas Mask Love" for $1.00!) to seeking out and paying collectors prices for the ones I missed. Eventually I found all of them, thanks to eBay and Charlie Chainsaw, Mr. RHS himself. Charlie seemed really cool based on the few emails we exchanged, though he seemed confused as to why people were still interested in his music. Turns out records I ripped and posted online inspired a few people to email him about placing orders for the first time in several years. This shit isn't going to appeal to many, but it's filled with hooks if you can look past the noise.)

RANCID HELL SPAWN - "Scalpel Party" CD (A 43 song retrospective CD spanning their entire catalog and includes the entire "Chainsaw Masochist" LP. This would be a great, accurate introduction to this project. This is difficult, but rewarding listening. Poppy keyboard ditties, all around 1 minute in length, ran through abrasive distortion. It's punk to it's core, but anything but punk in it's execution. It's brilliant, one of those "Fuck, I could have done that" bands, but great because no one else did. I have all of this stuff on vinyl, but bought the CD because RHS are one of the few band's I get into "completist" mode with.)

Day #226
RAPT - "Mind Your Head!" CD (Amazing mid-80s French noisecore who's members went on to form Psycho Sin after a move to the states. This stuff is savage, probably the craziest stuff recorded in 1984 anywhere. Speed State Records did a nice job with this collection, it looks and sounds great. I picked this up while I was in Japan years ago.)

RATOS DE PORÃO - "Crucificados Pelo Sistema" CD (Brazilian HC legends, their first album from 1984. I heard "Anarkophobia" first and thought it was pretty lousy, so I never investigated any further. It was only at a friend's insistence that I bought this and gave them another chance years later. This was really good, but didn't move me to pick up any of their other albums. I did download their 2nd and 3rd albums a few years ago, both were great. This first album is really fast and angry sounding D-beat punk with some shorter, faster songs mixed in. It's only 19 minutes long, so it goes by pretty quickly. I'm really digging it this morning.)

RAINCHOUS BROTHERS - "Die! Faggot Die!" CDR (This isn't as good as their split 7" with A.C., but it's pretty gnarly. They either replaced some members or really learned how to play between their two releases. This is way more metal sounding, too. Aside from the throwaway Black Sabbath cover, this is great. Raunchous Brothers are like the bastard son of Mentors and Meat Shits, but better than both. Openly homophobic, sexist and stupid, capable of writing catchy, memorable and shocking songs. If these songs weren't so damn good they'd be easy to dismiss, but they'd be great if they were singing about gardening.)

RAW POWER - "Burning the Factory" CD (Awesome Italian HC from the early 80s. Their studio albums never had the crushing power this stuff had. This recording is just about perfect for this type of music. This stuff was originally released by BCT tapes in 1983 or so. Grand Theft Audio reissued it on CD, thankfully. GTA were an excellent label. I'm glad I picked this up, but I was holding out for the "Fuck Authority" 2CD.)

RAYMOND AND PETER - "Shut Up Little Man (The Best of)" CD (Some guy taped hours of his drunk, elderly and possibly homosexual male neighbors arguing and threatening to kill each other through the air vents. He started taping them for evidence because he seriously thought one of them would kill the other. This shit is simultaneously really funny and completely frightening. You really do get the sense that one of these days one of them will eventually snap.This is fascinating, but not good for repeated listens. I haven't heard this since the 90s, though, so it's holding my interest tonight. I bought this through Relapse ages ago. Apparently a boxed set of cassettes with all of the recordings exited at one point.)

Day #227
REAGAN YOUTH - "A Collection of Pop Classics" CD (Reagan Youth were a hardcore band from New York who released one album on MDC's R Radical label. I was never quite sure of their politics. Their album covers were plastered with Klan photos and pictures of Hitler, one of their songs, "A Beautiful Day", has one of the members donning a fake old-timey black accent, etc. I don't suppose MDC would associate with an openly Nazi band, though. I don't care what they believed in. Their earliest recordings were straight-up hardcore with nice, snotty vocals. Later on rock started creeping into their music, but not cheesy like some of those HC bands. They were still great, just more guitar solos than before. Their song "Degenerated" was covered by the band The Lone Rangers in the movie Airheads. One of these guys went on to form the NY band Nausea and a couple of them were in an early version of Samhain.)

REBELION DISIDENTE / MESRINE - split CD (Short, only 14 minutes long. R.D. are a crusty, metal-free grindcore band from Ecuador. Paul from the great Cacasonica and Colico plays in this band and it sounds as if it was recorded at the same rehearsal space. The two Mesrine tracks on here are both live, but sound pretty decent.)

RED CRAYOLA - "The Parable of Arable Land" CD (Great Texas psychedelic from the 60s. This is their first album and it's filled with noisy bits and weird shit. They even dragged a motorcycle in the studio for the opening track. There are segments of this album in which it sounds like they invited everyone they knew into the studio to bang on stuff and make as much noise as possible. Among these noisy parts ate really great psychedelic songs with lots of interesting sounds going on over them as well. The vocals tool a little getting used to at first, but they're not so strange. They're just nowhere near as powerful as the music is.)

Day #228
RED CRAYOLA + ART & LANGUAGE - "Corrected Slogans" CD (I was never able to get into this one. It sounds like something you'd hear on a Monty Python sketch, like a group of snooty people reading from a book in silly voices over piano and acoustic guitar. I tried giving this away to the one person I knew who would appreciate it, but he already owned it.)

RED KRAYOLA - "God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It" CD (Their second album, and a real departure from their debut. There was another album between this and their debut, but the lab rejected it and it wasn't released until 1995. Instead of the noisy freak-out psychedelic rock of their first album, this album is made up of shorter, stranger minimalist pieces in comparison. There's moments where this sounds like a lost Residents album and the songs have an almost punk nursery rhyme quality. The absence of electric guitar is hard to miss, but it's what gives this such a unique sound. Mayo's frail vocals don't sound so out of place on this one. This is a great, weird album.)

RED KRAYOLA - "Live 1967" 2CD (What a noisy mess, haha! Two CDs of improvised noise recorded in front of an audience that probably left right after they started. You can hear people crying out in pain because of the feedback in the opening number. This also contains the infamous block of ice show. In lieu of a front man, they attached a contact mic to a sheet of tin foil and placed it under a melting block of ice, each drop of water creating a sizzling percussive noise. Brilliant!)

Day #229
REDD FOXX - "Both Sides of... / Huffin' and Puffin'" CDR* (Love Redd Foxx, always have. A lot of people consider him king of the party records. Much like Rudy Ray Moore, though, information on his discography is scarce online. I found some of his albums on soulseek, burned them to CD. These two are both great, but as with a lot of comedy albums, there's some repeated material.)

REDD FOXX - "Uncensored / Life of the Party Vol. 8" CDR* (More stuff I found on soulseek. "Uncensored" seems to be the same album as "Huffin' and Puffin'" on the CD above. I'm not sure how I didn't notice that until today.)

OTIS REDDING - "The Very Best of Otis Redding" CD (Otis Redding is great. I knew his songs growing up, but never knew who he was exactly. I developed a deeper appreciation for his music after visiting the Stax/Volt Museum in Memphis and buying the 10 disc Stax/Volt singles collection. I always wanted to pick up that 4CD set of his music, but never got around to it. Instead, I bought this at the pawn shop. It will do until later.)

REGURGITATE - "Carnivorous Erection" CD (This has to be one of my top 10 most hated album covers of all time. It's nearly impossible for me to look past it and enjoy the music for what it is. Regurgitate are a gore/grind band from Sweden. They released some shit in the 90s, disappeared for a while, cleaned up their sound and started releasing stuff again. This album is pretty good, but the older stuff is better, in my opinion. I prefer a little more dirt and sloppiness in my grindcore. While I don't think I've listened to this more than 5 times total, it's pretty good. I don't like other than the cover art and the production that's too clean for my tastes. Musically it's top-notch and this shit sounds great at high volumes.)

Day #232
REGURGITATE - "Effortless Regurgitation... the Torture Sessions" CD (Relapse made it easy for us Johnny-come-lately types to pretend we were down with RGTE all along by compiling all of their earliest recordings on one CD. Everything they recorded during their initial run is on here except maybe their split with Dead, can't remember without looking. There's a lot of Swedish HC/crust on their demo, way more so than the rest of the material on this disc. The early 7"s are the highlight of this CD, bit the whole thing is great. This should be in everyone's CD collection.)

REGURGITATION - "Backwash" CD (Pre-Old Lady Drivers. This bootleg compiles everything they released, which wasn't much, with some crummy sounding live stuff. During their existence they released the "Bathrooms Rule" demo tape, "Organic Backwash" demo tape and a track on the "Speed Metal Hell Vol. 3" compilation LP. There's another unreleased demo on here from 1987, too. Musically this is quite a bit more "straight" sounding than O.L.D. were, at times it sounds like Possessed and Kreator. There are cover versions of Wehrmacht and Sacrifice on here. This is pretty good stuff, worth picking up if you can find it. I actually prefer this to anything O.L.D. released.)

REMAINS OF THE DAY - "An Underlying Frequency" CD (I had these for sale for a while and nobody bought them, so I ended up keeping on for myself just so I'd have one less to try and pass off onto someone else. I'm not really into this sort of apocalyptic crust stuff. I imagine there's some Neurosis stuff that sounds like this somewhat, but I don't really know because I stopped listening to them before they went that direction. There's shades of Dystopia in this, too. This just isn't my thing. I can tell it's well done, but I just don't give a shit about this sort of thing. The honey badger probably wouldn't, either.)

RENALDO & THE LOAF - "Renaldo & the Loaf Play Struve & Sneff (original mix)" CD (This stuff is great. It's like a less talented, sillier version of the Residents with all the art and pretension stripped away. In a lot of ways they managed to out-weird the Residents. This was their first release before signing to Ralph Records. It was remixed and re-issued by Ralph years later. This album is really strange, but they became better musicians and toned down things a bit on subsequent releases. All 5 of their releases I have are great, I'm glad I picked them up when I did. They're quite hard to find now.)

RENALDO & THE LOAF - "Songs for Swinging Larvae" CD* (Their first proper album and a big step up in quality from their debut. There's a lot more tape manipulation on this one, less kazoos, etc. Musically it's not all that different, just cleaned up a bit. I have this one on LP, burned this CDR from a friends CD.)

REPULSION - "Horrified" 2CD (Who would have guessed that grindcore as a genre would peak before it even had a name? Before it even got started, really. The 30 intense minutes on Repulsion's only album are a high water mark in the genre, an album so brutal it didn't even get a release until 3 years after it was recorded, well after the band decided to call it quits. It's become a cliche now, but it's true: if your band doesn't sound like this (and it doesn't, trust me), give up. Nothing you string together will ever be as good as this, so stop trying. Relapse reissued this a few years ago with a bonus disc with the Genocide demo, the "Excruciation" 7" and some other rarities. They seem to be enjoying a surge in popularity as a result, but when I bought the first Relapse version of "Horrified" in the 90s nobody was talking about them. It's possible that I just caught on to them after their first wave of popularity had died down, but both Repulsion and Autopsy are more popular now than they've ever been for some inexplicable reason. I'm not sure I like it.)

Day #233
RESIDENTS - "Baby S#x" CDR* (I found this on soulseek a couple of years ago. I spent half of the 90s wishing I could find a copy of this somewhere, but knew it was impossible as it was never released. They recorded it, then shelved it because they didn't think it was good enough to release. A couple of the songs were pieced out on samplers, but never released as a whole. I was, however, aired once in it's entirety without interruption over the radio at some point in the 80s. Someone must have taped the broadcast, either that or the Residents leaked it themselves. Who knows? I would have hated this as a teenager when I was hardcore into the Residents. It's probably a good thing I didn't hear it until now. To say this is primitive would be an understatement. There's no real way to describe this without doing a track by track analysis, and I'm not up to that. Everything I love about them is here on this album, just reeeeeeeally rough around the edges and juvenile. Their cover of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Dick" brought a smile to my face, as did a Peggy Honeydew's heartfelt song "Go Fuck Yourself on the Doorknob, Mom". There's a lot of acoustic guitar, tape manipulation, overlapping tracks and general confusion and weirdness. It's an interesting glimpse into their formative years, but they were probably right to leave it unreleased.)

RESIDENTS - "The Big Bubble (Part Four of the Mole Trilogy)" CD (There were supposed to be 4 albums in the Mole Trilogy, each alternating between the story line ("Mark of the Mole") and the music representative of the time ("Tunes of Two Cities" and "The Big Bubble"). The second installment of the story never happened, so only parts 1,2 and 4 exist. Without getting too far into the story line, there were two races of "people: the moles and the chubs. This album was recorded by a band called The Big Bubble, made up of mole/chub offspring, half-breeds. The plastic, cookie cutter music of the Chubs and the dark, almost tribal Mole music we were introduced to on "Tunes of Two Cities" is blended to a bizarre effect. The vocals are a mixture of English and the mole language, which sounds like gibberish most of the time. The vocals are mixed way out front, typical with pop music production, but the music itself is all over the place changing tone. None of it sounds particularily poppy or dark. It's just fucking weird, the sort of stuff that only makes sense in the world of the Residents. I liked part 2 of the trilogy better when the music of the two races were separate, occupying one side each. "Cry to the Fire" was The Big Bubble's hit song and it's probably the best song on the album. I don't listen to this album very often, it's not one of their best. "Safety is the Cootie Wootie" in it's original 3 part, 10 minute+ version appears as bonus material and it's the best part of this CD.)

RESIDENTS - "The Commercial Album" CD (Deciding that pop music was a simple repetition of parts in 3 minute lengths, the Residents scaled the formula down to songs that were exactly one minute in length creating their own top 40. The liner notes suggest programming your CD player to play each song three times in a row to get the full pop experience. It's interesting to see how much they were able to cram into 60 seconds, and there's a lot of variety on these 40 songs, but a lot of this stuff would work better if the songs were longer. I've never tried listening to each song three times in a row, but I guess that might help. I doubt they really wanted people to do that, though. The bonus tracks culled from various sources bring this CD to an even 50 tracks. This is one of their best albums, high concept stuff that's actually fairly listenable.)

RESIDENTS - "Duck Stab / Buster & Glen" CD (One of my favorite Residents albums, easily in the top 5. The shorter songs make this slightly more digestible than their previous efforts. While I love their earliest albums, to me, this is the first one that sounds like the Residents. When I think of them, this is the one that comes to mind. This CD has the "Goosebump" as bonus tracks, an EP composed and performed entirely on toy instruments. I have "Goosebump" on a 12" with "Diskomo" on the other side, too.)

RESIDENTS - "Eskimo" CD (While this one doesn't do so well on repeated listens, this is a great album and it gave me chills (no pun intended) when I heard it the first time. They attempted to tell the story of the Inuit people through a bullshit story, sound effects and faux-tribal music. The results are awesome, especially when you follow along with the written descriptions for each song in the booklet. It's like reading a story with the sound effects happening in real time. Unfortunately, without the written text you're left trying to remember what was happening during the songs and it's not always so easy to figure out based on song titles alone. Still, this is awesome. This CD has their songs from the "Subterranean Modern" compilation as bonus tracks.)

RESIDENTS - "Fingerprince" CD (Originally planned as a three sided LP with a blank fourth side, they abandoned the idea due to expenses and released it as a single LP. The third side was released as the "Babyfingers" EP later. This CD has the EP on it and restores the originally planned running order. "Six Things to a Cycle" is a dizzying side-long suite with clanging percussion and repetitive chants of "Chew chew gum, chew gum gum, chew chew" (!!!), but the other sides are shorter songs, similar to the stuff on their next album, "Duck Stab". One of the things I like most about these guys is that it's not always apparent what's creating the sound on their albums. It would be easy to just dismiss most of it as synth, but I doubt that's always the case. There's some stuff on here that sounds like guitar, but is so twisted it's impossible to know for sure what it is. Like all of their 70s output, this is amazing.)

RESIDENTS - "Heaven?" CD (I'm not quite sure what this is. There's a lot of previously released stuff on here I recognize, but there's other songs I don't. There was another CD titled "Hell!" that came out at the same time. These might have been compilations released by their new label, Rykodisc, to introduce people to their new signing. I didn't like this one enough to bother picking up "Hell!". I've decided over the years that with the exception of "Mark of the Mole", 80s and beyond Residents isn't my thing. I've tried repeatedly, but failed at getting into their material after 1981. Still, 1972-1981 is a pretty good stretch.)

RESIDENTS - "Meet the Residents" CD (This was the second Residents release after the brilliant "Santa Dog" 2x7" (which is included here as bonus tracks) and sold under 50 copies within the first year it was released. Unlike "Mark of the Mole", the first Residents album I heard, I took to this immediately and it blew my mind. As a teenager, Sore Throat and The Residents had a profound effect on my musical education. Sore Throat's short 2-3 second bursts of noise broke down any notion I had that a song had to be a certain length or contain more than one part. The Residents, this album in particular, completely destroyed my definition of what "music" was. There were other artists before the Residents that completely abandoned traditional song structures, instrumentation, etc, but "Meet the Residents" was my first exposure to this world of music that existed on the outside. It was my first exposure to challenging, side-long stream of consciousness songs that had nothing to do with pop music. Had it not been for this album, I probably would have just continued in my quest for harder/faster music until I got bored with it all completely. It's still my favorite Residents album, and one of my favorite albums of by any artist, really.)

Day #234
RESIDENTS - "Radio Special 1977" CDR* (Another rarity I found on soulseek. It was available for purchase on cassette through their fan club for a while, but it's nearly impossible to find now. The Residents take over the radio station to play some stuff they've been working on. The group themselves tinker around in the background making noise while their manager gives an interview. The person giving the interview sounds exactly like the guy who does most of the singing on the Residents albums. A lot of the material on this special had never been available before this, some of it was newly recorded, others extracted from the vaults. It's a fun listen even if you're familiar with that material already.)

RESIDENTS - "The Warner Brothers Album" CDR* (Another album that wasn't supposed to be available anywhere but leaked somehow. I found this on soulseek the same time I found "Baby S#x". They recorded this before they had a name, sent it to Warner Brothers for consideration. They figured if they signed Captain Beefheart, they might have a chance. Warner Brothers mailed it back to them and because the tape didn't have a name on it, they mailed it to "residents". Supposedly that's how they got their name, but there's a good chance it's all bullshit. This album is a fucking mess, even noisier and more juvenile than "Baby S#x". There are 40 tracks in 40 minutes, mostly short snippets that start and stop abruptly. None of them sound like completed songs or even thought out ideas. It just sounds like a group of people playing whatever they feel like without considering what the others are playing. "Mad Sawmill of Copenhagen" appears on here five times in various forms. Interesting to hear, but nowhere near enjoyable. There are supposedly two other full albums recorded before this one. I imagine they're a mess as well.)

RETALIATION - "The Execution" CD (I've always like Retaliation. I like their older stuff more than this CD, but this is pretty great. I'm repeating myself, but I prefer a little more sloppiness in my grind. There are 22 songs on this 16 minute disc, all filled with sped-up crust riffs, blast beats and vomited vocals. Henke seemed like a nice enough guy, but Retaliation were the only band in Mortville's history I worked with that accused me of ripping them off because they didn't get their records as quickly as they would have liked. He apologized once they arrived and saw the postmark, but stuff like that was precisely why I tried not to release records of bands I hadn't formed some sort of relationship with. No hard feelings on my end, though.)

RETALIATION - "Exhuming the Past - 14 Years of Nothing" CD (Discography CDs are great for convenience purposes. I had all or most of this stuff already, but I listen to this CD way more often than any of the records. There are 85 tracks on this monster in 71 minutes. The demo tracks are the best, it's too bad they didn't record more stuff that sounded like that.)

LITTLE RICHARD - "The Georgia Peach" CD (Another pawn shop find, a 25 track "best of" CD of his recordings from 1955-1957. Everyone should own at least one of his albums. He may or may not have invented rock 'n' roll (I'm still giving credit to Chuck Berry for that), you owe him some attention for giving this gift to us. It's not his fault people ruined rock 'n' roll after him.)

LIONEL RICHIE "The Definitive Collection" 2CD (A good chunk of his output was cheesy as hell, but when Lionel slowed things down and stopped dancing on the ceiling, he was fucking smooth. This stuff is panty-peeler.)

RIPCORD - "Hardcore" CD (I first heard Ripcord on the "Digging in Water" compilation. It was reissued on Weasel Records as "Hardcore". Ripcord were the best band on that CD and I was dying to hear more of them. I found the "More Songs About..." CD years later and was pissed it didn't sound anything like the song I heard. Years after that I found this CD and learned they had some personnel changes, including the singer, and that's why they sounded so different. This CD is great, everything with Buzby on vocals is great. The rough production works to their advantage, and the playing is fast and angry without crossing into grind territory. This is just great HC, plain and simple. These guys and the Stupids don't get enough love. Both played top-shelf HC but were overshadowed by the other UK bands that were more extreme.)

Day #235
RIPCORD - "More Songs About..." CD (As I said above, I'm not really into this one. Compared to the "Hardcore" CD, it's tame and boring. Most of the songs are drenched in reverb and sound overproduced, too. It's not a bad disc, just bad when compared to the earlier stuff. I bought this as a teen, sold it, then bought it again a couple if years ago thinking maybe I dismissed it without giving it a fair chance. I still don't like it, and today might be only the second time I've listened to it since re-buying it.)

RIPPING FARTS FROM THE ASS - "99 Pieces of Shit" CDR (These guys are a real mystery to me. My friend Dav from Whoreton sent this to me because he's awesome and he thought it was something I'd be into, but I'd never heard of them before that point. I guess this is a discography disc. The minimal insert lists the songs coming from different releases, but it's hard to tell if those other releases exist or not. There's no release information provided and searching Google turned up nothing. This CDR is a home made job, labeled with a Sharpie and the insert is one sided photocopy with a crude and quickly done drawing of a pile of shit complete with buzzing flies and stink lines. There's no doubt these guys are American, probably east coast based on their accent and there's enough HC in their music to make me think they might also play in another "real" band. All of the songs have lyrics about shitting, farting, underwear, etc. It's close to being noisecore as it follows the German noisecore formula. There's a short, slower HC part with goofy singing followed by the same riff sped up with manic high-pitched screaming. Only a handful of songs break the 1 minute mark, most are around 30 seconds long. It never goes into full-blown noise, though. It reminds me of a better version of Intense Mutilation, a noisier version of Shat and a tamer version of the great Crab Society North demo. Like Shat, the joke wears out it's welcome after about 15 minutes, but it's better than a lot of shit in my CD collection. I wonder who's behind this project. My guess is it was recorded on the spot one day as a joke by another band, possibly even a well known band.)

ROACH MOTEL - "Worstest Hits" CD (This CD is awesome. I didn't give it much attention when I bought it. In fact, this was in my "to sell" pile for a while, but I re-listened to it and couldn't figure out why I wanted to sell it. I must not have been in the right mindset when I heard it the first time. Roach Motel were one of the earliest HC bands from Florida. Their songs weren't terribly fast, but they were catchy, snotty and angry sounding. The singer has a great, gruff, snarling vocal style that suits this stuff perfectly. The recording is a bit on the rough side, but better because of it. They could have been recorded cheaply in a studio, but more likely on a 4 track. Burrito Records released this and was selling them for a measly $6.00. It was well worth that low price tag.)

ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS - "The Day the Earth Met..." CD (Arguably one of the earliest punk rock bands, and from an unlikely place. There was a lot of great proto-punk from Ohio in the early 70s: Rocket From the Tombs, Devo, Electric Eels, etc. RFTT didn't release anything while they existed for just over a year spanning 1974 and 1975. Only rough rehearsal quality recordings exist from those days. They've been bootlegged countless times, but Smog Veil released them officially years ago. The rough audio doesn't bother me. I'm just happy this stuff exists. I view this as a historical document, not as a band's release. The instruments and vocals are all more than audible for most of these recordings, as well as can be expected for songs not intended for release. Once RFTT broke up, the members splintered off into The Dead Boys and Pere Ubu, both drastically different in sound from each other and different from RFTT. A lot of these songs ended up on albums by both bands. Musically, this is closer to Dead Boys, though. This is loud, raucous, high energy rock music with powerful vocals and lots of great guitar solos. If you're a fan of either Dead Boys or Pere Ubu, do yourself a favor and check this stuff out.)

ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS - "Rocket Redux" CD (In 2003 the remaining members of RFFT reunited and recorded their "debut" album, 28 years after their breakup. That has to be some kind of record for "most delayed album". This recording is clean, but not too clean, and is fully appropriate for these songs. They sound like an energetic bunch of youths with something to prove, not a bunch of has-verbs milking their former glory, mostly because there was no former glory to milk. The songs aren't cheapened any, instead they sound better than ever.)

ROCKING DILDOS - "Horny Hit Parade" CD* (On at trip to Iowa City years ago, my wife found this CD while at the Record Collector. I found SHAT's "Cunt Chronicles" CD the same day. We laughed so hard at each CD we decided if I bought one, she would buy the other. Both CDs ended up being pretty lousy. There's no way either could live up to our expectations based on the song titles alone. Rocking Dildos were a project band of one of the guys from Impaled Nazarene and the owner of Osmose Productions. It sounds like a black metal tinged Motörhead with crust riffs, stupid lyrics and Popeye vocals. It's not good.)

ROLLING STONES - "Forty Licks" 2CD (I'm still on the fence re: the Stones. I like some of their songs, but hate others. I think Jagger is a douche, but after reading Keith's memoir I think he's pretty cool and is playing music for all the right reasons. I bought this at Goodwill for $3 while reading his book. This is my first time listening to it. The second half of the second disc sucks. Most of the first disc is decent.)

ROLLING STONES - "Hot Rocks" CD (The song selection on this is better than the set above, but it's a lot older and was compiled before the "suck" started to set in. I could probably only have this CD and be fixed up for Rolling Stones.)

Day #236
ROSE TATTOO - "All the Lessons" CD (This is a bootleg I got a few years ago, released by an Australian hardcore label. It was recorded in 1981 at Reading Festival and it's got more power and guts than any of their studio albums do. The sound is excellent on this, one of the best live recordings I've ever heard. These guys have always been compared to AC/DC, and that's a fair comparison. It's high energy, blues-infused boogie rock with powerful, raspy vocals. It's a good way to start off the morning.)

ROSE TATTOO - "Assault & Battery" CD* (Sporting a nice, thick Vanda & Young production (the same guys responsible for most of AC/DC's catalog), Rose Tattoo's second album is a heavy, fun romp. There's nothing life-altering on this CD, no musical innovation, just good time rock 'n' roll. Sometimes that's enough, you know? Few bands rocked this hard when they were doing it, so credit where credit is due. I should probably check out their first album sometime.)

ROT - "Cruel Face of Life" CD (Every time I listen to this CD I think about Ray Rivera and how vocal he was/is about his hatred for Rot. I've always liked Rot. They've been around forever and have been consistently good throughout their long history. This album does suffer from strange production, though. The triggered drums sound fake and Marcelo's vocals sound like he's singing through a ham sandwich, but those are the exact qualities I like about this album. Sure, their rougher recordings are better, but this album has character. I always expect South American recordings to sound a little "off", anyway. No big deal. Their "Drowned on Restrictions" 7" is on here as bonus tracks.)

ROT -"Sociopathic Behaviour" CD (Straying away slightly from their Napalm Death and Agathocles influence, this album is a little more hardcore in style, more crust riffs. The "ham sandwich" has been dialed back a bit, too, and the drums are trigger-free. They sound so much better on this recording, like a real band instead of a recording project. 5 added years of experience doesn't hurt, either.)

ROTTEN SOUND / VOMITURITION - "Psychotic Sick Bastards" CDR (I was a pretty big Rotten Sound fan at one point, but when I went on tour with Bodies Lay Broken and had the chance to see how boring and lifeless they seemed on stage, I couldn't listen to them anymore. It looked complete effortless, like they were machines programmed to play grindcore. They didn't even seem to be enjoying themselves. The experience put me off of them completely and I ended up selling off all of their releases I owned. I haven't listened to them since then, but own this bootleg from the Tomas Canceras label with their first two 7"s, first 10" and a 7" from Vomiturition whom Rotten Sound shared a couple of members. The Vomiturition stuff is pretty typical Finnish death metal, good, but not great. The second Rotten Sound 7" is still pretty enjoyable to me, but the vocals are kind of annoying. By the time they got to the 10" their music is too polished for my tastes. Sometimes I wonder if I convince myself I'm a bigger fan of something than I really am just because I own a lot of their releases.)