Mortville Noise

CAPTAIN THREE LEG / COP BAR - "C3LVSCB" Free download on Grindcore Karaoke

2012-01-22T06:47:00.004-06:00

I had posted a preview of this earlier, but have taken it down since it's available in it's finished version now. The C3L side of this came from a recently discovered 4 track recording tracked in Denver around 2000 while visiting my good friend Ace. After discovering something was fucked with the recording and not being able to fix it, we just gave up. The guitar track recorded as a faint buzzing noise leaving the drum track as the only salvageable part of the recording. Enough of the guitar bled through on the drums to allow me to re-learn the parts and re-record them using Reaper. Guitar, bass and vocal overdubs were recorded November 13th + 14th of 2011.

Cop Bar are one of very few grindcore bands from Iowa. Their singer, Samuel Locke Ward (famous in his own right, though nobody reading this will be familiar with his output), even came from the same home town as me. Their music sounds like an even angrier version of Dropdead and Anal Cunt.

There will be a limited 3"CDR release of this in a few weeks, but in the meantime you should download the entire thing from Grindcore Karaoke since Randall was cool enough to host it for us.

http://grindcorekaraoke.com/album/c3lvscb

<a href="http://grindcorekaraoke.com/album/c3lvscb">C3LVSCB by Captain Three Leg / Cop Bar</a>

A-Z PROJECT: #258-275

2012-01-20T07:02:00.002-06:00

275 days ago I started listening to all of my CDs in alphabetic order to see if I could do it. I found myself bored with what I was listening to and spending more and more time deciding on what to listen to. I realized I had a lot of CDs I never listened to, stuff I never had the urge to put on, and decided to just listen to all of them in order instead. My goal was to listen to everything in a year, or at least to see how long it would take me to accomplish this. I don’t consider myself to be a writer, a music critic or an authority on music. I'm well aware of the fact that I contradict myself often. This is simply a way to alleviate boredom at a job in which very little is expected out of me. I’m also not posting these playlists to brag about my music collection and I’m not burning copies of this stuff for people, so don’t ask.

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

Day #258
SLAUGHTER - "Fuck of Death" CD (Recorded with Evil Chuck from Death while he was in Canada looking for new members for Death. Apparently, Slaughter thought he was there to join their band. I suppose this is a piece of death metal history, but the sound is so terrible it's difficult to enjoy. This is probably only my second time listening to it, and I wouldn't have done so had it not came up in the line up. Download this, don't buy it. It's pretty shitty.)

SLAUGHTER - "Not Dead Yet / Paranormal" CDR* (Slaughter only released one album during their long existence, but they recorded a lot of demos. This CD collects two of their later demos and was released on Nuclear Blast. This sounds way different than "Strappado" and those early demos. The songs are longer, thrashier and less messy compared to those earlier recordings. It's equally as good, just different. I'd like to find a "real" copy of this some day to purchase, but this shit's so hard to find.)

SLAUGHTER - "Paranormal" CDR* (Nothing like listening to the same material twice in a row. I have this on a separate CD that I got in another trade. I guess I can throw it out now.)

SLAUGHTER - "Strappado" CD (This shit rules. Total dumb, clunky proto-death metal with some of the cheapest riffs ever written. This stuff sounds especially primitive after listening to their later stuff. It's a classic for good reason, nothing else sounds like this except maybe NME, who are also considered to be classic. I still prefer the "Surrender or Die" demo over this album, but this kills. Tom G Warrior would be proud of their heavy "ough!" usage. This version has a full live set tacked on the end as bonus tracks. Bonus tracks are nice, but I usually stop this CD when it gets to the live stuff. 77 minutes is a lot of Slaughter for one sitting.)

SLAUGHTER - "Surrender or Die" CDR* (I don't know if this has ever been released on CD or not, but it's been bootlegged countless times. This is my favorite Slaughter stuff, but all of it is great. The guitars sound like a fucking chainsaw, it's the sickest guitar sound ever. Great stuff!)

SLAYER - "Haunting the Chapel" CD (This is my favorite Slayer release. The first album is great, too, but this is the first one that really sounds like Slayer. Great riffs, stripped down production, etc. "Chemical Warfare" is probably Slayer's greatest song. Awesome.)

SLAYER - "Hell Awaits" CD (This CD is so old it's probably from the original first run. It was among the first CDs I ever bought. A great album, but a slight step back in quality from "Haunting the Chapel". Aside from "At Dawn They Sleep", the songs aren't nearly as memorable and the production sounds as if they ran out of money in the studio. Normally production isn't an issue for me, and I'm probably picking this apart, but listening to them back to back the difference in sound is really apparent. Still wholly enjoyable, lots of great riffs and stupid satanic lyrics.)

SLAYER - "Reign in Blood" CD (I've listened to this so many times I figured I would be at complete saturation point by now, but I'm enjoying the shit out of this today even if I know every word/note/beat of this album. Writing a detailed review of this seems silly, so I'll just say that Rick Rubin is the fucking man and everything he touches sounds amazing. There's never been a better guitar tone captured on a thrash metal album, ever.)

SLAYER - "Show No Mercy" CD (Straight out of the gate with one of their greatest albums ever. This albums gets better the older I get. I remember not being so into it as a kid, but it's awesome now. It's probably my favorite after "Haunting the Chapel". It's weird, I felt the same way about Metallica's debut as a teenager, but it's my favorite now, too.)

SLAYER - "South of Heaven" CD (This was the first Slayer album I heard, so it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. As great as it is, it's the last Slayer album I can get behind 100%. I've bought the next 3 albums after this one but didn't keep any of them.)

Day #259
SLOTH - "Collection 1" CDR* (Years ago I ripped all of my Sloth vinyl to CD because I wanted to listen to it in my car. I ended up with two discs of stuff. I tried my best to arrange them in chronological order, or at the very least group them by style. At one point I really liked Sloth. Not only did their music get really terrible after a certain point, but I grew tired of playing the record collector game after a while, wised up and just stopped buying their releases. Most of their releases are limited to 100 copies, but there are easily 500 or more people who would buy Sloth releases. This bullshit of underpressing records to create demand on the after-market is fucking stupid. I really think bands do it so they can sit back and watch how much their releases fetch on eBay. This doesn't make them "cool" or "cult". It just fucks over fans eventually causing them to lose interest like I did. I wouldn't have such a problem with this if Sloth made this stuff available again down the line, but when I wrote Dom and asked him about releasing a collection of their old 7" material on CD he said he wasn't interested and would rather focus on new material. Fair enough, I guess, but I'm not willing to spend $60+ on one of their 7"s to hear it. I considered myself a fan at one point and felt cheated as a result. The material on this collection is great, though, especially the tardcore stuff. I'm not going to detail what's on here because it's not available anywhere and I'm not copying it for anyone. It would have made a great CD, though, and more than 100 would have had the chance to hear this stuff.)

SLOTH - "Collection 2" CDR* (There's still some good stuff on here, but it's nowhere near as good as the stuff on the first disc. I don't know if Craig quit by this point, but most of this has a drum machine or is drum-less. Black metal influence has crept in and the recordings are mostly saturated and noisy, but not in a good way.)

SLOTH - "Collection 3" CDR* (I had a couple of 7"s I ripped that didn't fit on the other two discs, so I burned them here along with some of Sloth's earliest 7"s I downloaded, stuff I'd given up on finding on vinyl. A couple of the 7"s I ordered as they were released but were lost in the mail are on here, too, as I found downloads of them as well. That was the breaking point for me. Stuff I ordered before they were even released were lost in the mail. When I emailed and and asked where my package was and found out it was lost in the mail he couldn't re-send my stuff because they were already out of print 3 weeks after they were released. I did get my money back, but they were already fetching three times what paid for them on eBay. Fucking stupid. The old stuff on here rules, newer stuff is pretty crummy.)

SLOTH - "Collection 4" CDR* (Some of their old demos I downloaded.)

SLOTH - "Lack of Sleep Volume 2 No Pun Intended" CDR (I think it was with this release that I decided I didn't care about Sloth anymore. Before this I had given up on collecting everything, but this was the last shitty release I plunked down money for. Distorted blackened doom with Casio drums just isn't my thing, I guess. I've heard lots of their stuff after this CD, but haven't liked any of it.)

SLOUGH - "Procreation of Penile Disgust" CDR (Slough were one of the first gore/grind bands I got seriously into. One of the first people I contacted in the underground was Ace from Dismembered Fetus. He took a bunch of C3L tapes for his distro and because I didn't have any idea who the bands were in his catalog, I just told him to send me whatever he thought was good in exchange. I got tapes from Festering Puke, Dismembered Fetus, Vomit Spawn, Catasexual Urge Motivation and Slough among others. All of it was great and defined the scope of my musical tastes for years to come, but Slough sounded the most legit of the bunch, like they might legitimately have mental problems. Ace assured me they were cool and somehow or other I started corresponding with Naked Rick Diamond. Rick and I exchanged a few letters, traded a few tapes and he would call me randomly on the phone with ideas he had for C3L samples, stuff he wouldn't use for his bands but thought it would be perfect for us. During one of those phone conversations I told him I was thinking of starting a label and asked him if he wanted to do a Slough / Warsore - split 7". He agreed, but only sent me three minutes of music. When I told him it wasn't long enough, he apologized, but said he couldn't send me more material. I ended up releasing it on the "Three Bean Salad" tape instead. We eventually lost contact with each other for years until he randomly popped up in a Yahoo chat room where he told me Tyler Gein, the other guy in Slough, died of a drug overdose and that he found god and was going to keep Slough going and release a Christian gore/grind album. That was the last I heard from him. This was Slough's last release. I had a cassette dub of it years before it was finally released. They were supposed to release it as a CD, but when I finally got a copy it was a burned CDR with a sticker label and an inkjet insert. The sound is cleaner than their previous releases, but it's just as sick and disturbing as the old stuff. It's a shame Slough didn't get more attention than they did. They're heaps better than loads of shitty bands that got way more attention.)

SM 70 - "Bleibt" 2CD (The spine and cover of this 2CD set doesn't have a title on it, but I've seen it listed as "Bleibt" online before. This was difficult to acquire as it was never for sale. The band made them to give to friends and fans who were still interested and there's no contact info anywhere on the cover. I'm not ever sure how I found out about it's existence, but I ended up buying a copy from R.S.R.. SM 70 were an excellent fast HC band from Germany that existed from the mid 80s to early 90s before changing their name to Pink Flamingos. I had their great "Krank" 7" and the "Cabuk! Cabuk!" live 7" already, but the rest of this stuff escaped me. The first disc is slower, mostly demo stuff. Things really speed up on the second disc into Lärm territory. This shit is great.)

SNAKEFINGER - "Chewing Hides the Sound" CD (The first "solo" CD from long time Residents collaborator Phillip Lithman. Snakefinger's guitar style is instantly recognizable. These songs are quirky, but poppy and catchy. It's rumored the Residents were his backing band on this one and "Greener Postures". Starts out with a great cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model". This whole album is awesome and loads of fun to listen to. Really unique stuff, worth checking out.)

Day #260
SNAKEFINGER - "Greener Postures" CD (Equally as great as the first album, but slightly less Residents sounding. More of this album sounds like standard rock stuff, as standard as Snakefinger can muster anyway. The guitar is way heavier on this one and plays a more prominent role. I probably listen to this one more than his debut.)

SNAKEFINGER - "Manual of Errors" CD (There's definitely a different backing band on this album. I didn't like it much at first because of that, but eventually grew to like it. I have another Snakefinger album released after this on vinyl, but I never listen to it. I should probably give it another listen. "Manual of Errors" is a lot less quirky than his previous two, but still pretty weird when compared to other music of the time. The music is more fluid, less jarring and angular. It's like a less proggy Frank Zappa, maybe a little like Zoogs Rift, too, but less annoying than both.)

S.O.B. -"Early Years" CDR* (A few years ago someone bootlegged a couple of S.O.B. albums with their earliest recordings on it. Before those I had only heard their split EP with Napalm Death which I had a bootleg of and their "What's the Truth?" album I had a dub of. Neither of those really did much for me and I didn't really understand their appeal until I bought these two bootleg LPs. They don't even sound like the same band. A lot of those old violent HC and early grindcore bands turned into shitty death metal bands, S.O.B. included. This old shit is totally manic, fast, angry and somehow fun sounding. With the exception of maybe the UK Tour EP (don't know without checking) this has all of their releases from the 1986 "Leave Me Alone" EP to 1990's "What's the Truth?" LP. I can even get behind that album now after hearing it in the context of the earlier stuff. I'm glad someone bootlegged this stuff. I would have lived my life in the dark re: S.O.B. if not for them.)

SOCKEYE - "Barf on a Globe: 7" Vinyl Collection" CD (This was my first CD release on Mortville. I was thrilled when Food agreed to do it and both of us were really happy with the results. It took some work tracking down the original tapes and I probably exhausted way more effort than most would for music this dumb, but I wanted it to sound as good as it possibly could. We were able to track down all of the tapes but one, so those songs were sourced from vinyl. I really felt like I had pieces of punk rock history in my hands taking the original 1/4" reels of tape to the local recording studio to transfer them to DAT. The engineer had to do a lot of searching to find a machine that would even play them. I took all of the pieces to Blakk / Angelkill's home studio in LeClaire Iowa and edited all of the gaps, normalized and assembled everything. Blakk was totally cool that day. I'm sure he thought I was pissing my money away on the stupidest music ever, but he didn't say anything. We transferred tapes and assembled "Where's Your Beard?" that day, too. My friend Cole rode up with me to LeClaire to help keep me awake after working an overnight the night before. I've never forgotten this, and I've always been appreciative of his help throughout the years. Cole also helped cut out the traycards, fold the lyric sheets and assemble all 525 copies of this CD, all in one marathon night. My friend Patrick Duplaga in Texas is equally as crazy about Sockeye as I am having grown up in Ohio, so he co-released this with me on his Happy Puppy label. We both sold out of all of our copies in under six months. It fetches a pretty hefty sum on eBay now, but I'm confident there aren't enough people interested in them to warrant a repress. It was because of these quick sales I took on the CD release of "Retards Hiss Past My Window".)

SOCKEYE - "Retards Hiss Past My Window" CD (It took me a while to get into Sockeye. I got a flyer for one of their tapes in the mail from Chaotic Noise Productions and ordered it, but didn't think much of it when I listened to it. The letter Food sent along with the tape was friendly enough, though. C3L had just released our first demo at that point and I just wanted people to hear it, so I sent him a copy and he mailed me their newest release, "Beefing Ting Ting", in trade. For reasons unknown this one clicked for me instantly and with it I became a fan for life. This LP was totally hard to find back in the mid-90s. I saw it in Fudgeworthy's catalog, but when I went to order it he had already sold out of them. I looked a couple of years before I finally asked Food if he had an extra copy and he graciously sent me one. Before that he had given me the label's address so I could try and order one directly, but I never got a response from him. It seems he was happy sitting on 100s of these things. After the success of "Barf on a Globe" and because of how much trouble I had tracking down this LP, I decided to do a reissue of "Retards Hiss..." with bonus tracks on CD. Before I did so, I wrote the label again telling them of my plans and offered instead to buy the remaining copies of the LP at wholesale to take them off of his hands. This time he wrote back saying if I wanted them, I could buy them at full price. It was cheaper for me to do the CD, so I went ahead with it. Again, the master tapes were used for the transfer, done at the same ill-equipped studio and assembled by Blakk in LeClaire. Because "Barf on a Globe" sold out of the 525 copies so quickly, I made 1000 of these CDs. As soon as the CD was released Jettison, the label who did the LP, started selling copies of the original LP on eBay. He wouldn't respond to my letter attempting to buy a copy years earlier, but here it was available for purchase again. Over a decade later, I still have 100s these things for sale. I can only assume that everyone who was looking for the LP bought a copy from him at that point making my CD obsolete. I trickle out 10-15 copies a year to people who have only recently discovered Sockeye, but at this point it will take another 5-10 years to sell the copies I have left. As far as I know, it's the only Sockeye material on CD that's still in print. The band hated this LP and claim it was a bad idea, but I think it's great. I play "Barf on a Globe" way more often, but this still gets played often.)

S.O.D. -"Stormtroopers of Death" CD (One of those albums that blew my mind as a teenager. It was faster, heavier and stupider (not a word, I know) than anything I had heard up to that point. S.O.D. had a lot to do with shaping my musical tastes over the years. Short songs and blasts were there in the beginning and that Megaforce crunch is here in full effect. This album sounds just as powerful and fresh as it did back in 7th grade. I can put this on any day of the week and completely enjoy it. It's one of my favorite metal albums ever.)

SODOM - "In the Sign of Evil / Obsessed By Cruelty" CD (Of the big three German thrash bands of the 80s, Sodom comes in dead last for me. A lot of that has to do with availability, though. Aside from a couple of tracks on compilations I didn't really get to hear Sodom until I was well into my 20s. None of the local haunts carried their stuff and when I bothered to do mailorder I always went for the most extreme shit ever. As a teenager, why would you buy Sodom stuff when bands like Lawnmower Deth, Bloodcum and Gaye Bikers on Acid existed and, judging by their names alone, were probably better? My friend Ace was big into Sodom, though, and he dubbed me all of their albums in the mid-90s, but at that point I had already moved onto noisecore. I bought this CD from a friend last year for $5.00. It's okay, but not something I listen to often. Had I heard it when I was discovering Kreator and Destruction in the 80s I'd probably like it a lot more, but they'd still be third in line after those two bands.)

SOFT BOYS - "Underwater Moonlight" CD (I discovered these guys on a music blog a few years ago and immediately liked their first album, "Can of Bees". This one took a few more listens before I took to it. It's a lot more mellow than the first album, but the music is more multi-layered on this one. There's hints of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd throughout. Lots of interesting guitar work, pleasant vocals and nice melodies. I need to pick up their other album now that it's in print again.)

Day #261
SOFT MACHINE - "Noisette" CD (This is a live album recorded in 1970. Most of it is instrumental and it sounds pretty similar to their "Third" album. By this time they had moved a great deal away from their psychedelic rock sound and have moved into more of a jazz/fusion direction. I love this CD and "Third", but I haven't bothered checking out any of their stuff after drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt left. He has one of the most unique voices ever; fragile, funny, playful and lots of character. I miss his vocals on this album. The sound is excellent on this set of songs. It was recorded slightly hot and the horns are a little too loud, but doesn't suffer because of it. Well worth checking out if you're a fan of their early albums.)

SOFT MACHINE - "Third" CD (A double LP with four side-long tracks. All but one of the songs are instrumental, and even then there are only vocals on the first few minutes. "Moon in June" is the highlight of this CD because of the vocals, though. Wyatt's vocals sound particularly pained on this one, like he didn't want to do them and was put up to it. After nearly 40 minutes of instrumental jazz they leap out at you and really capture your attention. Really makes me wish he stuck it out longer in The Soft Machine. This album was an important transition from their psychedelic days to their jazz/fusion sound, and they certainly recorded more stuff like this than their first two albums, but the quirkiness of their old stuff is what appeals to me. This is a great album, but it's like a door closing on that era of the band.)

SOFT MACHINE - "Volumes One + Two" CD (On one of my many 1990s trips to Iowa City with my friends Brian and Spence to go record shopping this was playing in the Record Collector while we were there. By the time "Why Are We Sleeping?" came on, Spence was intrigued enough to ask the guy working what we were listening to and Spence bought it. I was as immediately taken with it as Spence was, but when I finally got around to properly listening to "Volume Two" I was blown away by it. It still gives me goosebumps today. "Volume One" is very much psychedelic. Maybe not as much as Pink Floyd who were around at the same time, playing the same venues, but this would still be difficult listening to a lot of people. It's a lot jazzier than Floyd ever were, the song structures are all over the place and overall it's fairly primitive sounding by today's standards, but that same sort of excitement and innocence that made the Syd-era Pink Floyd great exists on this album, too. "Volume Two" is the real gem, though. Everything has been tightened up, the writing and arrangement is more complex, the sense of humor is greater and the contrast of that fucking fuzz bass over the rest of the band is amazing. The fusion elements have already began creeping in, but this is still primarily a psychedelic album... just played by dudes who really knew their shit. It's an amazing album.)

SONIC YOUTH - s/t CD (I had friends growing up that were hugely into Sonic Youth. Very close friends, so I was exposed to their music fairly regularly. It's never done a fucking thing for me, personally. I can see its broad appeal, but it's never connected with me. Between high school and now I've developed an interest in no wave and learned that early on Sonic Youth were involved with that scene and that their first album was released on Glenn Branca's label. It sparked my interest enough to give them another listen. I even went as far as buying some of their SST releases on CD used , but aside from "Confusion is Sex", I still didn't like any of them. This first album, however, is a different story. It's the only album in their catalog that sounds like this. Like a lot of the other no wave bands of the time, this takes on a heavy funk / dance feel. There are moments that sounds like Liquid Liquid. The clean guitars jangle over steady drum & bass grooves, and the liner notes sat this is the only album that features standard tuning. The original release was only 25 minutes long, but this has been expanded to 68 with bonus live tracks, including some songs not on the original release. I listened to this heaps when I bought it, but this is my first time playing it in a couple of years. Still sounds good.)

SONICS - "Boom" CD (Their second album, released in 1966. I first heard these guys on the great "Nuggets" box set, their tracks were among the best on a 4CD set filled with great music. Loud, raucous garage rock recorded with everything in the red, the kind of stuff John Waters and the future Dreamlanders probably sat around sniffing glue to. It's fitting there's a Little Richard cover (among many other covers) on here. The whole album sounds like trouble making teens blasting through Little Richard songs on amplifiers cranked to "10". What's not to like about that?)

SONICS - "Here Are the Sonics!!!" CD (The thing about The Sonics is unlike today where recording equipment is everywhere and bands exists for two weeks before releasing a demo, there were probably 100s of bands as good or better than The Sonics that nobody heard of outside of their region. There's been a great deal of work done in preserving obscure garage bands from the 60s, but I wonder what the ratio of bands that were recorded was to bands that never had the opportunity to do so? One can only guess, but I would assume at least 90% of those bands went undocumented. That's pretty shocking, really. I'd trade this heaping mountain of Fruity Loops goregrind garbage and baby thrash metal bands for suburban teens trying to sound like Little Richard any day of the week.)

SONICS - "Maintaining My Cool" CD (I found this used somewhere, had no idea what it was. It's pretty good, but they seem to have a different vocalist at this point and the recording isn't saturated like on the other two. I think I was recorded after "Boom", but I can't say for sure. It's worth the $6 I paid for it.)

Day #262
SORE THROAT - "And We Don't Care" CD (This was the first CD I ever owned, in fact, I owned it before I even owned a CD player. I owned this, the Grindcrusher comp and Kreator's "Out of the Dark..." CD before I had a player. I still have all three of those discs today. As a teenager with a steady diet of thrash metal, Sore Throat were a life changing event for me. I stumbled upon Sore Throat after seeing their LPs in Metal Disc with a description of "101 tracks". I bought it because I thought it would be funny. I was wrong. It was mind-blowing instead. They were the exact opposite of what I had been listening to up to that point. They discarded song structures and redefined what a song was, or could be, to me. Blast of noise for 3 seconds? That's a song... Record your LP while getting progressively more drunk? What a great idea! Completely abandon the verse/chorus/verse formula and do whatever you want? It's about fucking time. As soon as I started playing music myself I was doing noise parts in songs and recording songs that were 10 seconds or less. I'm still doing this now and haven't outgrown it. Other than Sore Throat, I had no idea noisecore even existed. They weren't the first, but they were my first, and they started my now 20+ year obsession with shitty music. This CD came out in 1990 and collects their "Death to Capitalist Hardcore" 7", their "Unhindered by Talent" LP, the "Nevermind the Napalm" 12" and 1 bonus track. If you play the bonus track backwards, you'll hear them talking shit about pretty much the entire Earache roster. 112 songs crammed on to 99 trax. This was a one time pressing and I've seen copies sell on eBay for well over $100 now, even more than the original vinyl sells for. It's hard to believe that this material has been out of rotation for 20 years now. With all of the bullshit getting reissued these days (fucking PSYCHO SIN even has a discography CD now), this has been left out of print. Maybe the band doesn't want this stuff in print now? I don't know. When they resurfaced in the late 90's, they were doing electronic noise, not the sloppy stenchcore they built their name doing.)

SORE THROAT - "Death to Capitalist Halmshaw" CD (This cool CD was released by Area Death Productions in China. It came and went in a matter of weeks and I wouldn't have known about it had I not already been in contact with the guy on Soulseek. The bulk of this CD comes from their "Death to Capitalist HC" 7" (which is also on the above CD), but their "Aural Butchery" demo is on here along with a couple of other demos that had really limited release and a full live set from 1987. The CD looks really nice and came with a sticker, patch, poster and some other stuff I can't remember now. I'm really happy I was able to get my hands on one of these.)

SORE THROAT - "Disgrace to the Corpse of Sid / Unhindered by Talent" CD (This is the 2006 reissue of the long out of print Earache classic. This was released through Disk Union in Japan in a limited edition of 1000 copies that sold out pretty much instantly. Even before this hit the streets there were eBay auctions for it that were selling for over $150. The CD is rarer and probably worth more than the original vinyl is. If it wasn't for my friend Hagamoto, I wouldn't have gotten a copy. The 90 trax on side one are all on one long track here. The "Unhindered by Talent" LP is tacked on as a bonus. Unlike the "And We Don't Care" CD, the indexing is correct on this CD, one song = 1 track ID. However, because some of the songs were too short to constitute a track they had to add silence after some of the songs for this to work. Growing up hearing them they way they were supposed to sound, the gaps of silence on this CD are a bit frustrating.)

Day #265
SOUL CARAVAN - "Get in High" CD* (Soul Caravan started out as a soul group playing Motown and Stax/Volt style soul music. They released this one LP before changing their name to Xhol Caravan (and released one of the greatest krautrock LPs ever), then later to just Xhol. I'm a huge fan of Xhol Caravan and looked for this one forever eventually finding it on a music blog. It's straight up soul music with no psychedelic or progressive elements at all, but it's done really well and you'd have a hard time discerning this from American soul records of the time. I was already a fan of this kind of stuff, so it was a win/win situation finally filling in the gaps of my of my favorite German bands' catalog.)

SPAZZ - "Dwarf Jester Rising" CD (It seems I've spent most of the past 15 years or so complaining about Spazz, but I do like some of their music. I don't think they were good enough of a band to warrant the kind of attention they got, but Chris was a key player in bringing that kind of music to the world's attention, so it makes sense that people went ape shit over his band. Too bad Stikky didn't get that kind of attention instead as they were by far the better of the two. My problem with Spazz has always been the bullshit "fun" samples, stupid lyrics and goofy imagery that adorned their covers. This kind of violent HC is supposed to be dangerous sounding and played by people with questionable backgrounds who you wouldn't want to interact with, not scene darlings who grew up watching cartoons for way too many years, writing songs about pizza. I realize, of course, that these are the very things that broke them to bigger audiences, but fuck it. This kind of goofball stuff works great in the right context, but when I want something brutal, fast and truly pissed sounding I'll never choose Spazz over bands like Rupture, Crossed Out, Despise You and Dropdead. I've spent enough time with this CD and a few of their early records to want to hold on to them, though. I did like it at one point and am enjoying it okay today as it's been years since I've listened to it, but the same things that irritated me about it then continue to irritate me today.)

SPAZZ - "Sweatin' to the Oldies" CD (I've owned most of the records collected on this CD in the past, but a couple of them escaped me. I'd probably enjoy this a lot more without the samples, but people probably say the same thing about my band's recordings. Anyway, this is all the Spazz anyone really needs. I kind of lose interest after the first batch of live songs on here, though. Poor sequencing...)

SPAZZTIC BLURR - "Befo Da Awbum" /" Bedrock Blurr" Demo CDR* (I have both of these on vinyl, the latter as a split LP with Brutal Truth, so I didn't feel like plunking down change for the CD reissue. I bought the LP from Mitch / Gasp who hated it and was happy to find a new home for it. They had one of the most memorable tracks on the Grindcrusher compilation and were always a mystery to me. That particular song makes sense in the context of the rest of the album, but stuck out like a sore thumb on the compilation. Spazztic Blurr was a short lived side project of dudes from Wehrmacht playing way goofier thrash metal with loads of silly stuff going on throughout. Wehrmacht was an amazing super fast thrash band and I guess they felt limited stylistically within that band, but this sounds like an insane progression of second Wehrmacht album. There's some amazing musicianship on this album, no denying that. I'm not sure why this level of goofball is okay with me and Spazz irritates me so much. Usually "wacky" just pisses me off, but I can think of a lot of exceptions. Most of the people I know who shit their pants over the classic Earache releases hate this album, but I've always liked it. The demo sounds kind of rough, but it's the same style of nonsense with the same high level of musicianship as found on the LP.)

SPERMBIRDS - "Something to Prove / Nothing is Easy" CD (Spermbirds are a recent discovery for me. I've heard the name before and when I stayed with Paul / Warsore years ago they came up and he was amazed I hadn't heard them before, but I forgot about them again when I returned to the states. It was a few years ago that Castle Records (of all labels) released a compilation detailing the history of grindcore and bands that influenced grindcore that I finally heard their amazing "Americans are Cool". I was Googling for more info on Killercrust, a great early grind band from Ireland, when I found them on the "Grind Your Mind: History of Grindcore" 2CD compilation. Spermbirds were a late 80s German hardcore band fronted by an American GI while stationed there. Their music was crunchy and metallic and occasionally ventured into blurr territory, but I doubt they had any influence on the grind scene at all. Their vocals were really angry, snarling, sarcastic and sometimes offensive. The first album on here is the better of the two, but both are good. I listened to this a bunch when I bought it. Sounds great today, too.)

SPINAL TAP - "This is Spinal Tap OST" CD (aka "Smell the Glove". Man, what's not to like about Spinal Tap? It's probably the greatest movie made about being in a band. It's funny on so many levels and I don't think it can be fully appreciated unless you've spent some time playing in a band yourself. Even without the movie, though, most of these songs stand on their own just fine. They're cheesy rock with heavy metal overtones and lyrics that don't aren't too exaggerated and easily could have been lifted from other "real" bands albums. Subtlety is what makes this great, but being decent musicians and song writers doesn't hurt.)

SPK - "Auto DaFe" CD (the first half of this disc is great. Totally primitive and noisy psychotic industrial musical destruction. But, like so many other earlier industrial groups, they eventually turned into a dance band. There is nothing enjoyable about the second half of this CD, not for me anyway. I'd like to find more stuff like the first 5 songs of this disc. Maybe someone will make recommendations?)

SPK - "Information Overload Unit" / EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN - "Kollaps" CDR* (This CDR has the first full-length albums by both of these early industrial groups. Both of these albums are great. Great noisy headache music.)

SPOONFUL OF VICODIN - s/t CD (27 songs in 14 minutes. Nice lo-fi noisy grind stuff with screaming vocals. Really sloppy and crummy, just as I like it. I saw these guys in Pittsburg years ago with Rotten Sound and Bodies Lay Broken, but I don't remember liking them much then. I heard them on the "C5" compilation after that and loved them, prompted me to write them for a track for "Small Doses". Because of their name, my spam filter kept sending their email to my spam folder. Bummer. I checked it often, but I think I may have missed one of their emails as they didn't sent me a track after they said they would.)

Day #266
SQUASH BOWELS - "The Mass Rotting - The Mass Sickening" CD (I listened to this while getting ready for work today, so I don't have a whole lot of time to write about it. Polish gore grind band that's been around forever. I've been a fan since buying their "Something Nice" 7" new in 1995. Their older stuff is better, but this is sort of a return to form after their "Tnyribal" CD. Solid release.)

SQUASH BOWELS - "Tnyribal" CD (They ventured a bit from the standard gore grind sound with this one. There are weird instrumental passages between the songs not unlike the stuff Antigama and Cerebral Tuburlency did in the late 90s. The whole production sounds sort of mechanized, but not in a bad way, I guess. I prefer a little more slop in my grind, but this is still really enjoyable.)

STAB! - 3 way stuff + stuff for Niggers split CDR (I don't remember who the third band was supposed to be, but the first six songs were released on the split with Feculence. The intro to the Danzig cover is different than on the finished split, but the rest is the same, I think. The Niggers didn't come through with their side of the split, so it didn't happen. These tracks were released on "The Birkenau Tapes" instead, but these versions are different.)

STAB! - "Black Stabbath" CDR (The first Stab! release, but their second recording. Downtuned, feedback soaked sludge, totally primitive and unrehearsed. Imagine "Stick a Cross Up a Nun's Cunt" era GG Allin mixed with Flipper and Brainbombs, but stupider and noisier than that. Recorded while getting progressively more drunk, so the songs towards the end are sloppier and more stupid than those at the beginning. There are cover versions of People Haters, Flipper and Judas Priest on here. The recording is abysmal, easily the worst of all their releases, but I don't think anyone bought this expecting any sort of quality. Some of their best songs are on this release, though. One of the least popular Mortville bands, but people are stupid. They're one of the best bands on the roster.)

STAB! - "Live @ CBGB's" CDR (The most brutal Stab! recording hasn't even been released yet. Because I released 3 of their released they send me advance recordings all the time. I folded the label before some of their stuff could be released. It's sad, because no other label will touch this stuff. It's too stupid for the skinhead labels and too offensive for everyone else. Stab! exists in that middle ground of bands that don't give a fuck how their music is accepted and are offensive for the sake of being offensive, because it's fun being stupid. Anyway, these seven songs are pure insanity. One of the heaviest recordings ever, totally blown out with some of the angriest vocals ever. You could spend forever trying to duplicate this kind of brutality, but it's the kind of thing that only happens on accident. You guys don't know what you're missing out on. If the other Stab! releases sold better I would have released this, too.)

STAB! - "Stab! Macht Frei" CDR (This was recorded during the same drunken session as the Feculence split. They sent me an advance of this, too. I passed on it because I wasn't doing the label anymore. Mike from Tea Party Violence was supposed to release it on his label, but it didn't happen. Same problem as the above disc, nobody wanted to touch it. Maybe it will see a release eventually, but it's already 7 years old at this point. There's some fantastic guitar work on "Shit Sandwich". It's a shame nobody will ever hear it.)

STAB! / BEARTRAP - split CDR (The first Stab! recording, and the only one done sober, so I'm told. I believe there was a different drummer on this one, too, but nobody listens to these guys for the great drumming. I haven't listened to this one in a few years, I forgot how great it is. Beartrap is Tim from Cadaver Feast's band after he moved from Germany to Japan. Beartrap is easily the better of the two bands on this disc. They play sloppy noisecore, but each song on this live recording has a spoken introduction. At one point I had all of these introductions memorized. I wish I had the chance to hang out with Tim while I was in Japan. He seems like a really funny guy based on his intros and what little interaction I've had with him.)

STAB! / FECULENCE - split CDR (Second time listening to these Stab! songs today, nothing more to add. I've been in contact with J Shithead from Feculence since their first demo. We always seem to lose touch every 5 years or so. I haven't written him since I left myspace, so it's been a while. Feculence is kind of hard to describe. They have a lot of different styles, sometimes even on the same release. There's sludgy stuff, thrashy stuff and even some punk sounding songs on their half of this split. When the recordings aren't too terrible they're a great band. I think they were pigeonholed as a gore band because of their "Shitfaced" CD. It's too bad, they deserve a wider audience. Aside from Rupture's "Soapfarm" EP, this is the only release I've had mailed back to me from someone saying they didn't want anything to do with this piece of shit.)

STEEL POLE BATH TUB - "Butterfly Love / Lurch" CD (I found this used at an outlet mall in Osage Beach of all places. For $4.00 it was worth taking a chance on it. I didn't know anything about them before that, just knew the name. They were on "The Thing That Ate Floyd" compilation, but I couldn't tell you which song was theirs. I think I only listened to it once before today. I'm still not sure what to make of it. It has some lengthy interesting noisy parts with a lot of samples, but I've never really been into this sort of grungy, noisy, indie/alternative rock. I was balls deep in grindcore when this stuff was going on, so I never paid any attention to it. Nothing about this grabs my attention, but at the same time I'm not disliking it. I wouldn't have bought it had I heard it first, though. I did find myself getting into it more towards the end of the disc.)

STERBEHILFE - "47 Menschen, Ein Wunsch" CD (One of the great unsung German grind/fastcore bands. You never see anyone talking about them, but they're awesome. Their music often crosses over into full on blurr territory and the vocals sound genuinely angry in the same way Seth Putnam's did. 21 blasts of angry noise in 18 minutes. Awesome.)

STEREOLAB - "The First of the Microbe Hunters" CD (I didn't always like this album. In fact, it was this CD that made me stop following Stereolab. It was so different from the other albums I had of theirs I didn't know what to make of it. I've since came around on it 100%. It's no secret that I hate female vocals in rock music. Somehow, Stereolab are an exception for me. I'm not sure you'd be able to call Stereolab a rock band, though, especially at this point. Their droning krautrock style gave way to funky lounge music. I don't think it was an overnight change, though. I still haven't heard the 2 or 3 albums before this one, so a gradual transition could have happened and I just missed it, but listening to this after "Mars Audiac Quintet" was quite a shock. This synopsis isn't going anywhere. I'll wrap it up by saying I thoroughly enjoyed this today and I'm glad I didn't sell it years ago.)

STEREOLAB - "Mars Audiac Quintet" CD (I'm having a difficult time finding things to say about this one. It's a great album, fun and filled with catchy songs. It's not one of my favorites, but it's a solid release. I'm burned on writing about music for the day.)

Day #267
STEREOLAB - "Peng!" CD (I lived at home with my parents well into my 20s and they both were subjected to mountains of horrible music coming from my bedroom. One look through these A-Z posts will give you an idea of what they had to put up with, but the only two bands they ever complained about were Fossil Fuel ("What in the FUCK are you listening to!?!") and Stereolab, specifically this album and "Switched On". My mother hated this album, always complained that the droning organ reminded her of funerals. She never asked me to turn it off, but she complained about it often. "Peng!" is Stereolab's first full length album and it's filled with droning one part songs that sound like a poppier version of Can and Neu!. The "motorik" beat even makes an appearance, but they would explore that further on another album. They changed from this droning sound pretty quickly, but this is still my favorite period. This album is great.)

STEREOLAB - "Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On Volume 2" CD (My friend Mike sent this to me years ago along with some other stuff he thought I would like. I got this after "The First of the Microbe Hunters" and had already given up on checking out new Stereolab stuff, so I didn't really give it a fair shake until several years later. Once I did, I really liked it. This is a collection of singles, B-sides, remixes, rarities, etc, not a proper album. It plays just fine as an album, though. There's lots of krautrock sounding stuff on here, in fact, "Exploding Head Movie" sounds like it was lifted directly from one of Neu!'s albums.)

STEREOLAB - "Switched On" CD (This is a collection of their first three releases from 1990. It's the most stripped down and somber sounding of the releases I've heard, and one of my favorites. This was the CD my mother complained about the most. I really have nothing to say about them I haven't said above, though.)

STEREOLAB - "Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements" CD (This was the first album I heard of theirs and because I've spent more time with it than the others it's my favorite. Jon from Green Beret dubbed this for me on cassette in 1995 and it didn't really click with me until I got to "Jenny Ondioline". That was probably first time hearing the "motorik" beat and music that repetitious. The minimalism of it really spoke to me for some reason. Stereolab were my gateway into the world of krautrock and I'll always appreciate them for that. I listened to that dubbed copy enough times to buy this CD and the others listed above. I still get chill bumps when I listen to this albums, it's that good.)

STIKKY - "Demos 1, 2 + 3" CDR* (I bought this from someone, but I'm sure it's an unauthorized bootleg, thus the asterisk. There were some personnel differences on the earliest recordings. I don't think Chris Dodge was in the band at that point. They didn't start sounding like Stikky until demo 3 and a 1/2, but a lot of the songs that made it to their records are on this disc, but much slower and more HC sounding. I wish the sound was better on this stuff.)

STIKKY - "Demo 3 and a 1/2" CDR* (This is the second disc of a set with that above disc. Loads of songs that didn't make it on to their records, some of these recordings ended up on a couple compilations and aren't on the "Spamthology" CD. Sounds like the Stikky we know and love, just a bit sloppier. Too bad this didn't get a proper release.)

STIKKY - "Spamthology Volume One" CD (I first heard Stikky on "The Thing That Ate Floyd" 2LP. They were my favorite band on the compilation and I wrote Lookout for a catalog only to find their LP was out of print. I learned later that there was an argument between the drummer/singer Todd and label head Lawrence Livermore re: Todd's reggae band Inka Inka that resulted in "Where's My Lunchpail?" LP never getting reissued. I searched for that fucking thing forever and finally found one in 1996 for $30.00. Lookout must still own the master tapes, but there was a rough mix on tape recorded as they were doing vocals with all the chatter between songs that was used for the LP reissue and this CD. If you've never heard the LP you wouldn't know what you're missing, bit the Lookout version sounds way better. It's nice having both versions, though. Their two 7"s are on here as well as some compilation tracks and a couple unreleased songs. Stikky played really fast silly HC with sarcastic lyrics and ripping metal leads. Wacky shit, but in the right context. Too bad more people didn't shot themselves over Stikky instead of Spazz. Maybe more of their stuff would have been reissued properly.)

KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN - "Stockhausen: Elektronische Musik 1952-1960" CD* (I know very little about Stockhausen. I know he's considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century, a pioneer in the field of electronics and that he cared very little for traditional methods of creating music. I saw his name mentioned a lot when reading about krautrock, specifically Can, so I downloaded this to see what all the hub-bub was about. It's pretty amazing that sounds like these were recorded this early. The earliest stuff sounds like it's done with tape manipulation. It's not unlike what Tod Dockstader did in the 60s and what the BBC Stereophonic Workshop did after that. It's gets noisier and darker sounding, moving into nightmare territory with the "Kontakte" tracks towards the middle of the disc. This shit's cool. I'd like to hear more of his work.)

THE STOOGES - s/t CD (I like the Stooges okay. I'm not in love with them like a lot of people are, but there are great songs on all of their albums. There are also songs I don't like on their albums, like "We Will Fall" on this one (complete waste of 10 minutes). If you can put the peanut butter and "I invented stage diving" nonsense out of your head, they're a great band when they pick up the speed and rock out. Unfortunately, that only happens about three times on this album.)

THE STOOGES - "Funhouse" CD (This one is more consistent than the first album, but most of it still leaves me pretty limp. The sax is fun, though, and the last song is really noisy. Historically important, maybe, but it's not something I dig a whole lot.)

Day #268
STRANGLERS - "Black and White" CD (One of my greatest musical discoveries of the past few years. My friend Brian is a huge Zappa fan and asked me to look up the Stranglers one day because he read an interview with Zappa that he didn't care about new wave and considered the Stranglers to be the only new wave band worth listening to. I downloaded "Black and White", listened to it once and didn't really pay any attention to it for a while. I'm not sure what made me listen to it again later, but I did and loved it. I downloaded more of their stuff, then ended up buying them all on CD (take that RIAA!). They quickly became one of my favorite bands. "Black and White" is their third album, and my favorite. There's nothing new wave about this, though. They play a blistering mixture of punk, pub rock and progressive rock. Their music is angry, sarcastic, complex, catchy and fun. Their bassist JJ has the most brutal bass sound ever recorded, total thundering power. I've been craving the Stranglers since I started this stupid project. They sound better than ever today.)

STRANGLERS - "No More Heroes" CD (Their second album. It's equally as great as their first album, the same proggy, high energy rock with snarling semi-offensive vocals. The more you listen to this stuff the better it gets. These import CDs are packed with bonus tracks and thick booklets. I'm glad I picked them up. This shit rules.)

STRANGLERS - "Rattus Norvegicis" CD (The music isn't quite as full on this first album, but the lyrics are more mean spirited. They were still a great band this early on, but they got better with time. The epic closer "Down in the Sewer" is the highlight of the album. Like the other two above, this is packed with bonus tracks, all of which are great.)

STRANGLERS - "The Sessions" CD (I was kind of bummed when these guys mellowed out, added a bunch of synths and went in a different direction. I need to give those later albums another listen, see how they sit with me now, but I always wished they recorded more stuff like the first three albums. Searching for demos revealed this CD of stuff they recorded for John Peel, three sessions, I believe. Like the above three, I downloaded this and loved it, then later bought it when I found it used in Iowa City. These recordings don't have the same power and punch as the album versions, but they're cool to have anyway. It's a nice addition to the studio albums, but I don't listen to it very often.)

STRANGLERS - "The Stranglers and Friends" CD (Recorded live in 1980 while singer/guitarist Hugh Cromwell was in jail on a drug possession charge, not released until 1995. Instead of canceling the gigs they had scheduled, musician friends of the band (including Robert Fripp, Nik Turner, Larry Wallis and Robert Smith) stepped in and filled in for two shows. Hugh's vocals are noticeably missing. It still sounds like the Stranglers some of the time because JJ sings on a lot of the songs, but a different singer makes all the difference in the world. It's an interesting document, though, worth hearing once or twice. I found this used in my hometown (an unlikely place) for a couple of bucks. It's not a purchase I regret, but Toya Wilcox's vocals fucking suck.)

STRANGULATED BEATOFFS - "Greatest Hits" CD (This is a purchase I regret, even if I only spent a few dollars on it. I love Drunks With Guns and knew a couple of their members went on to this band after DWG dissolved, but had no idea what they sounded like. I found this used, looked at the song titles and decided it was something I should probably hear. It was pretty terrible. I think I made it 3 songs in on the drive home before turning it off and the CD is 66 minutes long, so I didn't even scratch the surface. It's like lo-fi bedroom industrial with 2 note guitar parts and songs that go on way too long. It's really bad, and not in a good way. This shit sucks.)

STRAPPADO -"Fatal Judgement" Demo / WHITE PRIDE - "Your Loss is Our Gain" CDR* (The guitarist of Slaughter formed Strappado after Slaughter bit the dust. It's more technical, songs are longer, but it's still pretty good. A little too much on the tough guy side of things for my tastes. The sound is pretty great for a demo, too. While Pride were another Drunks With Guns related band (I think?). They only recorded the one demo, but it fucking kills. Some of the funniest stuff ever with great songs to back it up. The sound on this is pretty terrible, but I recently found a great sounding copy of it online on the awesome "Glorify the Turd" blog. Not for the easily offended, but I'm almost certain these guys were just pushing buttons and not legit racists.)

STRETCHHEADS - "Five Fingers, Four Thingers, a Thumb, a Facelift and a New Identity" CDR* (My friend Ace ripped his vinyl and made me a CD copy of this LP years ago when I was still trying to track down a vinyl copy. I eventually found one on eBay after looking for 10+ years and paid $55 for it. It's the most I've ever spent on an LP before, but I didn't think I'd ever see it again. I've seen it only once since then and it the last I checked the auction it was over the $55 I had spent. There was only one pressing of 500 copies of this LP and the label, Moksha, has no intentions of reissuing it. I emailed them about reissuing it and they wanted a ridiculous amount of money for the masters and wanted a percentage of the pressing. I thought about just bootlegging it, but decided against it. I'm sure the band wouldn't have cared. They'd probably be happy to have it in print again. I found all of their other records cheaply and locally, but this one was fucking hard to track down. Stretchheads, from Scotland, were one of the most abrasive bands ever. Imagine Melt Banana without the quirky cute shit and with a madman screaming his lungs out instead of the squeaky female vocals. That gives you an idea, but it's way harsher than that. Rumbling distorted bass, staccato drumming and the thinnest guitar sound this side of a Minutemen album. The whole thing is pummeling, one noisy track after another. The singer, p6, and drummer are both in a band called DeSalvo now. They're also great, and p6's vocals are as brutal as ever. I've exchanged a few emails with him and he seems to be a really nice guy who's appreciative of his fans. Makes his music even better, as if it needed any help...)

Day #269
STRETCHHEADS - "Pish in Your Sleazebag" LP, "23/Skinner" 12", "Eyeball Origami Aftermath Wit Vegetarian Leg" 7" CDR* (I kind of regret not buying that "Pish...." CD when I saw it, but I already had all this stuff on vinyl and bought it all dead cheap in Iowa City. "23/Skinner" still has the $1.00 price tag on it. People are fucking stupid for selling this stuff. Less full-on noisy on these releases, but just as abrasive in a different way. There's more space in their music and their influence from fellow Scots Dog Faced Hermans shows through a little more. The recording is absolutely crushing and p6's vocals are at an a time manic sound. "Pish" is easily my favorite Stretchheads release. This shit gets my highest recommendation. It's better than most of that crud that blew up in the 90s, yet they're mostly unknown. Too bad...)

STUPIDS - "Peruvian Vacation / Violent Nun" CD (This day is starting out great. Another criminally underrated band from the UK, probably because they played US style HC when all of the other bands around them were inventing a new genre called grindcore. Lack of innovation aside, these guys did that ultra-fast HC style really fucking well and with a terrific sense of humor. Unfortunately, they changed up their sound not top long after these recordings, added more melody and slowed things down quite a bit. I heard their "Frankfurter" 12" first, didn't like it much and wrote them off. Years later a tape trading pal of mine dubbed me this CD and it blew me away. If you haven't heard them, this is the best starting place. Their entire catalog was reissued a few years back with loads of bonus tracks. I wanted to pick them up, but I don't have enough green to re-buy stuff for bonus tracks. I enjoy the shit out of this CD, though.)

STUPIDS - "Retard Picnic, Feedback Session + Flexi" CD (The song writing has improved at this point, there's more parts and longer songs. Everything is still really fast on this CD, but the songs that aren't re-recordings of stuff on the above disc are more melodic and make better use of counterparts. I didn't like this much at first, but it's grown on me to the point where I like it about the same as the other. It's just as good, just different.)

Su19b - "Discography" CD (Ryohei from Final Exit drums in this band, originally pretty much a self-professed Crossed Out clone. Aside from there being painfully slow exaggerated slow parts between fast bits, it really doesn't sound all that much like Crossed Out. The vocals are silly, bit this is pretty good. The slow parts would work just fine without the fast parts, too, but they're a pleasant interruption from the monotony.)

SUCK - "Time to Suck" CD (This obscure rock gem comes from South Africa in 1970. It saw a CD reissue years ago, but even the CD is impossible to find now. All of these songs are cover songs but one, Grand Funk Railroad, King Crimson, Free, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, etc. All hard rockin' stuff with strong playing and great vocals not unlike Rod Evans. The band existed for less than a year, didn't get around to writing more music, I guess. How they got a record deal playing covers is puzzling, but this is a great album.)

SUFFOCATION - "Effigy of the Forgotten" CD (This is a solid debut album. Suffocation played a very specific style of death metal, so much so that "Suffo-clone" actually became a semi-legit genre definition. At the time of it's release, this album was fucking brutal, but everything about it has since became a cliche, right down to the Morrisound production and Dan Seagrave artwork that adorns the cover. None of this is Suffocation's fault, though. They just happened to tweak death metal enough to stumble on something hundreds of shitty bands would dumb down and ruin. I haven't listened to this in a long time and didn't expect to like it much today, but I've had enough distance from the death metal scene to enjoy this again. When you're in the mood for this sort of stuff, you'd have a hard time finding better cure for that craving than Suffocation.)

SUFFOCATION - "Pierced From Within" CD (Everything that was great about the first album is even better on this one. I wish I had more of their CDs to listen to now.)

Day #270
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES - s/t CD (I love this album, but it's the only ST album I have. I've owned some of the late 80s stuff in the past, but traded it away. I have no personal connection with this, so there's no story to go along with this synopsis. It's too bad they didn't record more stuff like this. I heard some demo songs on YouTube and they were great, too. They would have made nice bonus tracks for this CD.)

SUICIDE - "First Album + Live" 2CD (My friend Spencer told me about these guys a few years ago. He was friends with a guy who worked at Half Price Books and was privy to all kinds of great music that came through it's doors. I ended up finding this at an outlet mall in Iowa for five bucks a short while after that. Suicide were part of that great 70s NY art/no wave scene. It's stripped down genius, just a guy with a blippy drum machine and a synth belting out repetitive, throbbing noise and another guy crooning over it with his sad, tortured vocals. They came from a different scene, probably had different goals in mind, but some of thus stuff does sound too different than the early industrial bands. You could probably trick some people into thinking a few of these songs were Throbbing Gristle tunes, especially on the live disc that's included as bonus material. Proving Ric Ocasek was cool from the beginning, he was friends with the band and produced this first album. He was instrumental in getting it released, too, using his rock star muscle to land them a contract. The sound is great. It's clean, but the synth has such a gnarly sound it didn't need any help sounding frightening. "Frankie Teardrop" is the highlight. Alan Vega's vocals send shivers down your spine. It's simultaneously frightening and embarrassing to listen to. The live disc is great, and on "23 Minutes Over Brussels" you can hear their set evolve into a full-on riot because the audience hated them so much.)

SUICIDE - "The Second Album" + "The First Rehearsal Tapes" 2CD (Their first two albums were both simply titled "Suicide", so they applied the new titles with the reissues. This second album is a lot more pop sounding, more dancey than abrasive. It's the same minimal instrumentation, but Martin Rev has coaxed more musical sounds from his equipment this time around. It's okay, but I prefer their debut. Theres stuff on here that is straight-up synth pop, not my thing. The rehearsal tracks from 1975 are super minimal and really creepy sounding. I listen to them more than the first disc of this set. I found this for five bucks, too.)

Day #272
SUKORA - "Tower" CD (The most minimal music ever recorded. In the 90s there was a Hermit/ Sukora split tape available for a short while, but Eric/Hermit stopped selling it because people kept sending him their tapes back assuming he forgot to dub the Sukora side. It's easy to see how people would think that if they didn't know anything about them beforehand. I only knew Sukora from that split and I can't say their side was exactly enjoyable. I'm not sure what made me look them up again a few years back, but I found this CD online and ordered it. Like the Hermit split, this is extremely minimal. It's an hour of tape hiss with the occasional tapping sound. Not exactly a tapping noise, it just sounds like *something* happening in the background, like someone shifting in a chair. When I say occasional, I mean once every 5 minutes or so. It's that minimal, and without the volume cranked you'd miss everything. The cover is almost completely white with only minimal text. No song titles, just track numbers with their corresponding times. This sort of stuff fascinates me, but listening to this CD is like sitting in your house alone waiting for the furnace to kick on. It's more fun to talk about this CD than it is to listen to. I'd probably pick up another of his releases, though, just to see if it was like this, too.)

DONNA SUMMER - "This Needs to be Your Style" CD (One of my Canadian tape trading friend's sent me a dub of this years ago. It was probably my first exposure to breakcore, a genre I know fuck all about to this day. I listened to that tape a bunch, though, so I tracked down the CD and bought it. This isn't Donna Summer the disco queen, it's the name Jason Forrest sometimes records under. I can only assume this entire recording is made up of sampled music, some of the sources I can occasionally make out (James Brown, J. Geils Band, Go-Go's, U2, Van Halen). It sometimes crosses into gabber territory, sometimes mash-up, but mostly it's just other people's music broken into tiny snippets and repurposed. This sort of copyright violation stuff sits with me just fine and isn't too different from what ECC, Negativland and John Oswald are doing, just easier to dance to. There's so much going on at once, though, it's a lot to take in.)

DONNA SUMMER - "The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash" CD (Compared to the above CD, this one flows a lot better and is more "musical". It's the same sort of stuff, but with different results. I listen to this one a lot more often than the other.)

SUNN O))) - "ØØ Void" CD (There was a point in my life, not very long, that I considered myself to be a pretty big fan of these guys. I think the rate of which they were cranking out releases and the hype surrounding them put me off to them. I haven't listened to any of their material for several years now. I downloaded "Black One", didn't like it and never bothered listening to anything they released after that. I started feeling stupid for spending money on stuff like this. A part of me felt as if this was some sort of joke I played into. I still feel that way today. Joe Preston is what brought me to Sunn O))) initially and I'm really only interested in their droning "Earth 2" worship. This sounds great to me today and succeeds in sounding like "Earth 2". Taking a break from them may have helped, but I'm not sure I can do 5 of their CDs in a row today and enjoy them.)

SUNN O))) - "Flight of the Behemoth" CD (This one begins and ends pretty much like the above disc, but the middle veers off into some interesting noise stuff that's a welcome change after all of the drone.)

SUNN O))) - "The Grimm Robe Demos" CD (It's a pretty old joke, but this CD really does sound like they're tuning their guitars for 73 minutes. In this instance, the demos were not better.)

SUNN O))) - "White 1" CD (This was the first album I heard and I bought it because of Joe Preston being on it. Julian Cope's vocals over the first track are awesome. This CD is good because they're doing something new instead of just aping Earth's drone period. It's still really doomy and sparse, but in a different way. It's my favorite of the five CDs I have.)

Day #273
SUNN O))) - "White 2" CD (I've decided after listening to all of these again that I only liked "White 1", but because I heard that one first I bought a bunch of their other stuff hoping it would be as good. None of it was.)

SUPER FUN HAPPY SLIDE - "The Undislodgable Nugget Scenario" CD (After a full day without riffs, SFHS sounds like the greatest band in the world. I already thought they were great, but they're better than ever today. I don't know what it is about Australia that produces such terrific grind bands, but there are loads of them. This sounds like Napalm Death with gore vocals, 19 songs in 25 minutes, with a recording that has the perfect amount of crummy sound for this kind of music. It sounds like a 4 track recording with vocals added later. This is an awesome CD, I hope these guys stick it out for a while.)

SUPERCHIEF - "Rock Music" CDR (My friend Joe gave this to me last year. Superchief are a rock band from Iowa. Joe and I went to see them with his brother's band, Snow Demon, in Iowa City. The sound on this disc is great. They either spent some bucks doing it or knew what they were doing, because it's just about the most appropriate recording you could want for this sort of music. I'm not really into this kind of 90s grungy rock stuff, though. There are hints of stoner rock in this, too, which I'm also not into, but I can appreciate it for about 5 songs. The guitarist is really good and it's easy to tell these guys are playing this stuff because they like it, not because it's "cool". I can't begrudge a group of dudes banging out songs and having fun in the process. I saw they had released a new CD recently when I was in Iowa City, but I had already spent more money than I had planned at that point and passed on it. If I saw them live again I'd probably pick it up at their show.)

SUPPRESSION - "Amputated Brain Stem: 1993-2000 Discography" CD (Jason Hodges was instrumental to me getting involved in the underground to the extent I did. I learned about his label CNP in "Book Your Own Fucking Life" and sent him one of my band's demos. The tape he sent in return came with a catalog and tons of flyers for other people's releases and I probably ordered everything in the CNP catalog in the span of a year. Suppression were one of the best 2nd wave powerviolence bands. They were better than most because when they grew tired of ripping off Crossed Out they started adding weird bits of noise. Towards the end, though, the noise seemed to have taken completely over and a lot of people lost interest. I always liked their noise stuff, but I would have liked about a 60/40 ratio of music and noise. After a crummy sounding discography CD their old guitarist authorized on RSR, CNP released this far superior discography CD with better sound, more material and lots of unreleased stuff. He sold them cheap enough that I didn't feel dumb buying it again, too.)

SUPPRESSION - "9296" CD (Apparently one of the old guitarists made this CD of all the material he played on, Regurgitated Semen got a copy of it somehow and offered to release it. The problem is a lot of this CD was sourced from mp3 files instead of the original tapes and sounds pretty crummy. I don't think any of the other members were in on this at all and I'm sure the above CD was released because of how lousy this one sounds. There is a rehearsal demo on this CD that isn't on the CNP release, though, so it was worth holding on to for that. Most of this material overlaps the above disc, though, and with worse sound, so if you had to choose between the two, this one loses out.)

TALKING HEADS - "Fear of Music" CD* (I really liked "Remain in Light" when I heard it and I picked up a bunch of their records for cheap after that. None of them really clicked with me like "Remain in Light" did, so I downloaded them and burned them to CD to listen to in my car thinking that if I spent more time with them I might like them more. It didn't help. This isn't one of their best albums, in my opinion. There are times I find David Byrne's vocals to be really irritating. Today is one of those days. Most of these songs are really funky, but nowhere near as funky as the aforementioned album. The songs that aren't funky are just kind of slow and directionless.)

TALKING HEADS - "More Songs About Buildings and Food" CD* (Their second LP is better than their first and third. This is my second favorite after "Remain in Light". Byrne's vocals are still annoying, but the music is good enough to look past them. The songs are more memorable this time around and while the guitar still has that great thin jangly sound, everything else sounds beefier.)

TALKING HEADS - "Outtakes/Demos/Rarities" CDR* (I found this on a blog site and burned it to CDR because they were flac files and my stupid media player won't play flac. The sound is pretty incredible for being a bootleg. They sound like they were lifted directly from the master tapes. The version of "Life During Wartime" on here with Fripp is awesome. It could be because I'm on my third album in a row and it's finally kicked in, but I'm digging this collection more than the previous two albums. There are acoustic covers of Johnny Cash, Nancy Sinatra and Herman's Hermits at the end.)

TALKING HEADS - "Remain in Light" CD (A great album, probably one of the funkiest albums made by white people. I remember being blown away by this the first time I heard it. I was sitting at a friend's house and someone I didn't know got up to put this on and I had this feeling of "Fuck, I have to listen to the Talking Heads now..." I was familiar with "Once in a Lifetime" from this album, but had never heard the rest of it. My limited exposure to them consisted of what I heard on the radio. I wasn't expecting tight polyrhythmic funk executed with razor precision. At the same time, it's s fairly angry sounding record, though I can't pinpoint what about it makes me think that. Even David Byrne's vocals are pretty good on this one.)

TANGERINE DREAM - "Alpha Centauri" CD (I have this one on vinyl, too, as part of a 6 LP box set with all of their early recordings. This is their second album, well before they became the kings of film scores. Most of the line-up from the first album is gone on this one leaving only Edgar Froese with a new band. This is organ and flute based krautrock with some harsh electronics over top of it. At times the noises are so loud it made me want to rip my headphones off. It's an interesting album, really the one one in their catalog that sounds like it. Later versions of this had the "Ultima Thule" 7" added as bonus tracks, but my copy on Relativity Records doesn't have any bonus stuff.)

Day #274
TANGERINE DREAM - "Phaedra" CD (This is the only TD CD I have that I don't also have on LP. The great thing about TD is nobody gives a fuck about them, so if you look hard enough you can find their LPs for under $5.00. I couldn't find this one, so it was the first one I bought on CD. I read somewhere that Edgar Froese recorded and released his "Aqua" album to finance the recording of this album. I'm not sure how that works as he would have had to of paid to record "Aqua", too, but these albums sound very similar. This is the first of the sequencer driven Tangerine Dream albums, and my favorite period. When I think of TD I think of bubbling synths, repetition and ambience and this one has all of that. The effect is hypnotic. This album is great, probably my favorite.)

TANGERINE DREAM - "Ricochet" CD (Another great sequencer heavy album. This one was recorded live, so it's a little more linear than their other albums and the guitar plays a larger role than on "Phaedra". Everything great about TD is here on this album. Two side long tracks on this one.)

TANGERINE DREAM - "Sorcerer OST" + "Ultima Thule" 7" CDR* ("Sorcerer" is a William Friedkin movie, the same guy who brought us the Exorcist. I haven't seen the movie, but by listening to this soundtrack I'm guessing it's a horror movie. This is some of TD's darkest material. There's some bouncy sequencer stuff on here, typical of their mid-70s style, but there are also some bits that are much darker sounding than you'd find in this period of their catalog, but not too different than stuff you'd hear on their first 4 albums. "Ultima Thule" is an oddity in TD's catalog. It's a fairly traditional piece of instrumental guitar rock with pounding drums and organ and VCS3. The second side is pretty mellow, though, like Ashra Tempel.)

TANGERINE DREAM - "Stratosfear" + "Rubycon" CDR* (While I'm positive I've heard their music on movies growing up as a child, "Stratosfear" was the first time I knowingly heard Tangerine Dream. One of my friend's gave me this LP while he lived in Iowa. It was probably my first experience to electronic music in general. This album marks the beginning of their more melodic period, but there's a lot of tension on this album. Though it's broken in to four songs, the whole thing plays well as one long piece. There's a stream of consciousness quality that really makes this one stand out in their catalog. "Rubycon" was released between "Phaedra" and "Ricochet" and sounds like a mixture of those two. It starts put very ethereal-like, then moves into the sequencer stuff indicative of that period. I bought this LP in Brisbane while I was visiting the drummer from Midget Fetish, ripped both of these LPs and burned this CDR.)

TANK - "This Means War" CD (As a wee lad in middle school I heard the demo version of "Run Like Hell" on one of my friend's compilation tapes he "borrowed" from his older brother. I had forgotten all about Tank until sometime in the 90s when I found their name one a Russian mp3 site I used to download heaps of music from. I grabbed "Filth Hounds of Hades" that day and loved it, but never found a copy of it for sale anywhere. A few years later in Japan visiting a friend I found "This Means War" at Book Off for 800 yen. It doesn't have the same raw energy as their debut and the production is a little weird, but this is a solid NWOBHM album and it's only lane when compared with their earlier releases. The song writing is solid, decent hooks and the vocals are awesome. I need to pick up their other CDs. I'm a Tank poser.)

TASTE OF FEAR - s/t CD (This is the second copy of this I've owned, bought it from some oddball distro in Japan that had a bunch of rare and OOP stuff for sale. I'm not sure what happened with the first CD I had. Daryl's band after Citizens Arrest, more metal sounding and slower than CxA was. Released legitimately by the infamous bootleg label, Lost & Found. This is my least favorite TOF material. The recording sounds kind of flat and lifeless and the vocals have way too many effects on them for my tastes. The songs are all pretty good, but I'd prefer them to sound a little dirtier. The last minute of this CD is pretty silly, even by heavy metal standards.)

TASTE OF FEAR - "Discography: 1991-2003" CD (The first few tracks on this were new when this was released. Since then Justin and Daryl have had some sort of a falling out and Justin released them as a split CD with Voice of Hate without discussing it with Daryl. I guess there are two Taste of Fear bands now as a result, both of which will argue that theirs is the "true" TOF. The 1997 demo is on here as well. I had the pleasure of sitting in on that session. Daryl was living in Iowa and Justin came to visit and record some stuff in this tiny studio in the back of a music store. They asked me to play bass on it, and I tried, but I couldn't pick the songs up at the pace they needed me to. If you listen to the songs, the structures don't make much sense. The riffs weren't a problem for me, just the structures. I'm pretty sure they played those songs together for the first time in the studio that night. You can hear the drums stop more than once to figure out what was going on, then join back in. My friend Brian and I did backing vocals on a couple of songs that were on the demo tape, but didn't make it to this CD. Most of this CD is great, even the messy Iowa recordings. With the exception of the songs from the s/t CD which I just finished listening to, I really enjoyed all of this CD.)

TASTE OF FEAR / VOICE OF HATE - split CD (I had no idea what this was when I saw it in someone's distro list, but they were having a "buy 3 get 3 free sale", so $5 was too cheap to pass up. Surprisingly it's probably Taste of Fear's best material. The sound is crushingly heavy, songs are memorable and Daryl's vocals have never sounded better. Some of the '97 demo songs are on here, too. Voice of Hate are from Spain and play a style of grindcore not unlike Taste of Fear, but faster and more technical. At one point Toñyo from Violent Headache played drums for them. I can't remember offhand if he played on this CD or not, though. There are two different recordings on here, the second is a lot noisier. I'm not digging their part of this split today.)

THE TENANTS - "Drive the Snakes" CD (I have no real interest in traditional Irish folk music, but I recognize quality when I hear it. I met Jake Book through my engineer friend Travis who also recorded this. Jake is a likable, positive, upbeat and talented guy, but don't think I'm being kind because he's a friend of mine. I have no problem shitting all over my friends' music, I've done so often. Jake seems to be really good at what he does. Not only is he a decent guitar player, he has a great voice and sings with such sincerity it's hard not to be interested in what he's doing. I couldn't say how authentic his music is when compared to Irish music of old, but that doesn't matter to me because of how well he pulls this off. The biggest draw for me, however, is that because of this music's limited appeal (even in the backwoods state of Iowa), I'm confident he's playing this stuff because he loves it. Playing music you love with no thought of how "cool" it is is just about the greatest thing ever, even better when you're able to pull it off this well. The playing is concise, the singing pleasant and the recording is excellent. It's short enough to hold my interest, but I've seen them live a few times and have enjoyed them at longer intervals. Recently he's moved to Indiana with his wife, who's also in the band, to have a go at it there. I haven't had the opportunity to hang out with him often, but I'm going to miss seeing him around.)

TERRORIZER - "World Downfall" CD (Some fucker stole this CD out of my car years ago, so I had to re-buy it. Making things worse, the second CD I bought has a huuuuge glitch at the beginning of "Dead Shall Rise". Expounding on the greatness of Terrorizer seems silly. Anyone reading this blog knows them and loves them. It's one of those genre defining albums. Oscar's vocals are what makes this stand out from the other Earache bands, though. They're totally distinct sounding, even today. I've never bothered checking out the other albums, probably won't ever. They accomplished everything they needed to with this gem.)

Day #275
TERRORIZER / NAUSEA / MAJESTY - "Day Zero 4/25/87" - "Split Demo 87-88" - Beastial Vomit 88" CD (This is a bootleg with demos of all the Terrorizer related bands. Packaging is shit and the sound on some of this is pretty lousy, but this stuff rules. The Nausea side of the split is especially great. It would be cool if this stuff was released officially without all the tape hiss.)

TESCO VEE'S HATE POLICE - "Gonzo Hate Vibe" CD (This is my first time hearing this. After finally getting to see the Meatmen live months ago I bought 6 of their CDs and a DVD in a lot on eBay for $30.00. This was one of them and it's just now came up to listen to. When I bought it I was still working my way through the B section. Like most of the later Meatmen stuff, this is just okay. These songs were a blast live, and it sounds like they had fun writing/recording them. I think Tesco plays music because he has fun doing it. He gets a free pass for life for his Touch and Go recordings. I'll see him live every chance I get and if it takes releasing CDs that are just okay to make that happen, fine by me. I probably said the same thing when I wrote about the Meatmen, but whatever...)

THIN LIZZY - "Bad Reputation" CD (Thin Lizzy have kind of drawn the short stick when it comes to great rock band's of the 70s. Historically they've been largely ignored until their recent acceptance by PBR swilling hipsters. It was this recent activity that brought them to my attention. I knew a couple of their songs from the radio before that, but had no idea who the artist was. Their lack of recognition is puzzling, as they were a great band. Phil's vocals are like butter, the songs are catchy, those double leads are killer and, more importantly, they rock really hard. This shit oozes "cool", not try hard or flashy like so many bands from that era that are better known. There's just as much awesome shit going on in their music, but it's smoother somehow, like they can't help but to write great songs, and every song on this album IS great. All of their albums I have are great, so instead of gushing about each individually, I'll probably just list the others by title and let this description cover all of them.)

THIN LIZZY - "Black Rose" CD (Even better than the above album.)

THIN LIZZY - "Live and Dangerous" CD (They're great live, too!)

THIN LIZZY - "The Peel Sessions" CD* (I downloaded this one, I'm not even sure it was released on CD. There are several sessions on here, some live, including the original 3 piece line up.)

THIN LIZZY - "Vagabonds of the Western World" CD

A-Z PROJECT: #239-257

2011-12-31T07:34:00.004-06:00

I found myself trapped in audiobook hell for a few days. While I love David Sedaris, listening to all of his books non-stop in a row isn't very enjoyable. I've spent this past week on Christmas break at home sick with my wife and grandson (who are both sick, as well), so I haven't listened to a damn thing as a result.

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

Day #239
ROTTREVORE - "Disembodied" CD (These guys were great, probably the heaviest and sludgiest death metal band in American history, certainly in the 90s anyway. I never realized how similar Daryl from Funebrarum/Disma's vocals sounded to these dudes. I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence. This CD collects their demos and 7"s, everything but their full length, I think. Necroharmonic are a great label and do nice work with their reissues, usually, but the mastering on this CD is fucked. There's so much bass pumped into this CD it's almost unlistenable as a result. I have both of their 7"s, they weren't this fucking bassy. My stereo farts every time I play this and it's completely fucked on my iPod.)

ROTTREVORE - "Iniquitous" CD (Ah, all the great without the added bass! I got this from Daryl/Disma in 1995 or so. I don't remember what CD I loaned him, but he lost it and gave me this instead. I'm sure I replaced whatever it was he lost, but I can't recall what it was now. I just remember being really angry about him losing it. Not much of a story, sorry. I don't have anything add about the music I didn't cover in my above post, either.)

RUDY RAY MOORE - "21st Century Dolemite" CD (Rudy Ray Moore made his name first by singing legitimate soul music in the late 50s and early 60s, then with some of the filthiest party records ever recorded, then finally with the great Dolemite movies of the 70s. He was a one man mogul, a true independent film maker who succeeded outside of the mainstream on his own terms and left a string of great releases behind him. This is one of his later albums and it's a mixture of filthy R&B ala Clarence Carter and the spoken bits he made famous during his heyday. This shit's ridiculous, obviously, the sort of stuff you can only listen to in private, but it's awesome. I'd love to find downloads of more of his old records. Some of them have been reissued recently.)

RUDY RAY MOORE - "Hully Gully Fever" CD (This is a collection of his old soul records from the 50s and 60s. Rudy had a strong voice and sings better than you would think. He sounds somewhat like John Lee Hooker and Geno Washington mixed. Musically this stuff is similar to what James Brown was doing at the time, the stuff he released on the great "Roots of a Revolution" 2CD set. This stuff stands on it's own even without knowing the Dolemite part of his career.)

RUDY RAY MOORE - "The Sensuous Black Man... / The Player -The Hustler" CDR* (I downloaded both of these, both of them are awesome. "Sensuous Black Man" might be the dirtiest thing ever recorded.)

RUIDO DE RABIA / ULTIMO GOBIERNO - split CD (I really don't know anything about either of these bands. I saw this CD reviewed on one of the blog sites I used to frequent and it looked interesting, so I bought it when I found it for cheap a while later. Both of the bands sound as if they're singing in Spanish. Ruido De Rabia sound like Lärm or HHH, really fast and noisy HC that crosses over into blurr territory more often than not. Most of their half of this CD is really good, but some of the vocals are really fucking annoying. Ultimo Gobierno aren't quite as good or as fast, but play similar type of HC as Ruido De Rabia . I probably wouldn't buy one of their full releases, but they're okay for this split. There's probably a reason I haven't heard of them outside this release, though. There's some surface noise and record pops on this CD, so it it sourced from vinyl, but I have no idea if this is a bootleg or not.)

RUIDO GENITAL / PERMANENT DEATH - split CDR (Bummer, I was looking forward to listening to this one, but something went wrong while it ripped to my iPod. The whole thing ripped as a 2 minute CD with just the first couple of seconds of some of the songs, all of the audio scuffed and damaged. After checking the CD in my stereo it seems to have died. I remember liking this one, but it's finding a new home in my trash can. Sucks...)

RUN-D.M.C. - s/t CD (I read a book about the formation and the first wave of rap/hip-hop and the author considered Run-D.M.C. to be the cut-off point. He said the game changed with them and they were the pioneers of modern hip-hop. I'm not sure what criteria they used to make that distinction, not sure I care, but Run-D.M.C. have always been my favorite rap group. I'm not a huge fan of rap in general, mind you, but I've been listening to these guys since elementary school and they've stuck with me over the years for some reason. I didn't hear this one until just a few years ago, though. I bought it at FYE in Oskaloosa when they went out of business for $1.50 new. I haven't spent as much time with this one, so I don't like it as well as the others, but "Rock Box" and "It's Like That" are both great songs. I'd probably like this more if I gave it a few more spins. Still, it's a pretty strong debut.)

RUN-D.M.C. - "King of Rock" CD (The level of improvement between the first album and this one is really noticeable. The rapping is more fluid, the production is better and there's more guitar on this album. The title track is great, "Roots, Rap, Reggae" is pretty terrible, though.)

Day #240
RUN-D.M.C - "Raising Hell" CD (As far as I'm concerned, this is the greatest rap album of all time, but I barely listen to rap, so don't take my word. Listen to it yourself and form your own opinion. I heard "Peter Piper" on a K-Tel tape compilation in elementary school called "Hot Rap" and became a fan instantly. You can imagine the difficulty I had finding their releases here in small town Iowa 1987. I didn't get this one until years after I devoured "Tougher Than Leather". It was even better than I expected it to be.)

RUN-D.M.C. - "Tougher Than Leather" CD (When compared to their previous work, this one sounds a lot angrier and the production isn't anywhere near as sparse. This was the first album of theirs I heard and I used to own it on cassette as a kid. I lost it somewhere down the line, then avoided it for years because somehow I got it in my mind it was cheesy. I bought this CD a couple of years ago and loved it. I've never heard any if their releases after this one.)

RUPTURE - "Alqahir" CD (Rupture are probably my favorite band ever. I'm unashamedly a fanboy and own some of their releases as many as 4 times because of differences in the pressings. I'll try not to gush too much in my summaries today. This 13 minute MCD was released by an Italian label I've never heard of before this. In fact, a lot of the labels Rupture worked with I'm completely unfamiliar with outside of that one release. Anyway, I'm a fan of both their early blurrcore releases and their slower KBD punk stuff, but I make no bones about saying I like their fast stuff more. Much more, in fact. This one is mostly mid-paced. The recording is clean with some digital crackling on some of the louder vocal parts. 4 of the songs are quick,catchy, sorta sloppy punk songs with clumsy vocals. The fifth is longer than the other 4 combined, a long, droning, noisy mess with rambling nonsensical vocals shouted over it. I actually like this song the most of this release. This isn't one of their best works, but it's worth checking out as its still heaps better than a lot of the shit I own. Most of these songs were re-released with cleaned up sound on the CSMD split.)

RUPTURE - "Australia Day" CD (This is probably the only Rupture release I don't like. Coming off of the 1-2 punch of "Lust and Hate" and "Sex, Drugs & Rupture", I was really expecting a lot from this CD when I ordered it. I don't think I've ever been as let down as I was with this one. That day I learned a lesson about expectations. If this sounds like something that was written (maybe improvised), recorded and mixed in one day, it's because it was. It's sloppy, sounds like shit and the vocals are super annoying. The CD actually gets worse towards the end. The cover art looks as if they maybe spent 2 minutes on it and the whole release stinks of "cash-grab". I don't have a problem with sloppy, quickly tossed off annoying shit, but that wasn't what I expected when I bought this. Everything I heard from them up to that point had been great, I was completely unprepared for this level of crap. This is the first time I've listened to this in at least 10 years and it hasn't gotten any better over time. It's just as shitty as I remembered it being.)

RUPTURE - "Boys, Nuns, Beer Bottles & Cunts" CD (This is one of their better releases and, sadly, one of their hardest to track down. The label sort of disappeared after this making it impossible to find outside of eBay. Firmly in the KBD punk style, this is tight and catchy with great production and Gus' vocals don't sound as if he wasn't too out of it the day he recorded them. The cover is pretty minimal with no lyrics or liner notes, There was supposed to be an LP version of this from the same label, but it never happened. Perhaps the LP package was to be more elaborate? This deserves a reissue, more people should hear it. I'm sure the band would be into the idea if someone wanted to take it on.)

RUPTURE - "Corrupture" CD (My favorite Rupture release changes with my mood, but most of the time it's this one. This is the definitive recording of those old songs that appeared on the Dropdead split and elsewhere. Not only is it Rupture's best release, it's arguably one of the greatest HC records released in the 90s, maybe ever. That's a pretty bold statement, but this thing is fucking vicious and played with razor precision. Gus' lyrics were still smart, clever and angry at this point and reading along with the lyrics is a dizzying experience. I've never considered Rupture to be a powerviolence band, but they sure got lumped into that category often. When people make lists of great powerviolence releases, this one is always left out. This is better than anything Spazz has recorded and they always make those lists. This is a GREAT release, one of those desert island albums. The mix on this CD is different than the original 10". I prefer the original vinyl mix, but I rarely listen to it since I bought this CD.)

RUPTURE - "Cunt of God" CD (Unlike "Australia Day" which I also hated upon it's release, I've came completely around on this one. This often replaces "Corrupture" as my favorite release. I originally dismissed this as sloppy and monotonous, but those are the exact things I love about it now. The turning point for me was when my friend Brian and I were in Minneapolis visiting a friend and we put this CD on trying to convince him how excellent it was. By the time we got to "Poof Biff" we were laughing so hard we couldn't talk. It all seemed so ridiculous at that point. The whole thing is unrelenting, a near constant barrage of hateful, angry noise, blasting and screaming. It's a blurrcore masterpiece and there's nothing that sounds like it, even in their discography. I wish they did more stuff like this. I have two copies of this on CD, for some unknown reason, an the LP on brown vinyl.)

RUPTURE - "Forceps Session + 6 Bonus Songs" CDR (Stumblefuck sent this to me years ago after he did a transfer from the master tape and cleaned everything up. There are 6 extra songs from this session that didn't make it on the 7" release. I don't think I ever got a proper explanation as to why Gus isn't on this recording and Kim from Pestilence/Nailed Down sang instead. It doesn't really sound much like Rupture without Gus singing, but it's great either way as I've always been a fan of Kim's vocals. The occasional low vocals come out of nowhere and really distract from what's going on. The guitars sound especially mean on this recording. This is one of Rupture's earliest releases, before they really sped things up. This has grown on me over time, but I wasn't always real into the first few releases. It sounds great today, though.)

RUPTURE - "Gospel From the Gutter" CD (This was the first release on Stumblefuck's short lived Big Fred Records label. I got a flyer for this in the mail, sent away for it not knowing one of the members was behind it and we've been in contact with each other sporadically since. His only other release was the Heist CD. The bulk of this CD is made up of a then unreleased studio session padded out with some rehearsal and live tracks, including the great "hole in the ceiling" show at the Castle made famous in their "Fuckumentary" home video. All of this stuff is hard, fast and rough sounding. The studio tracks have since been released on the "Spontaneous Simian Combustion" 7". I'm a big fan of these kind of catch-all releases. There's enough great sounding material on this to carry it through to the end. Even if you have the 7" this studio stuff ended up on, this should be an essential piece in your collection.)

RUPTURE - "Great Aussie Tits" CD (I got this from Snapshot after Gus died. It's the "Great Australian Fuckwit" 3 way CD with Stanley Knife and Blurters with a "special" home made cover Gus did with pages from porno magazines. I don't remember how many of these were made, but I'm sure it wasn't many. The Rupture stuff on here is great, a couple songs from the Rape Apes session and some from that big recording all of the later KBD stuff came from. All of these songs are excellent. Stanley Knife are a fun band, too, but I know fuck all about them. Sounds like skinhead music, but stupider and somehow better. Blurters are similar to Stanley Knife, but not as silly and less memorable. I usually don't listen to either of them when I play this, just the Rupture stuff.)

RUPTURE - "Gus Chamber and the Rape Apes" CD (I released this one and it's not a Rupture release, exactly. The band name is "Gus Chamber and the Rape Apes", but I sold it as a Rupture release because nobody was buying it as is. Deception didn't improve sales any, sadly. People are stupid. I shouldn't have had any problem selling the 600 copies of this CD I made, but not everyone can be blessed with the same great taste in music as I. This never speeds up past mid-paced, but the songs are well played, memorable street punk and aside from the vocals being too loud and crackling as a result, this recording is great. Not one of their best releases, but certainly worth the 5 bucks I'm charging for it.)

RUPTURE - "Killing on the Brain" CD (A four minute CD reissue of their material from the split 5" w/ Masskontrol from the Pestilence box set with a bonus 4 second song from the same session. I suppose the box set was limited, but this was a pointless reissue since the material exists on the "Righteous Apes" CD, including the 4 second bonus track. Something for collector scum like me to jump on and boast about. This is my favorite era of Rupture, though. Totally fast and noisy.)

RUPTURE - "Lust and Hate" CD (Another one of my favorites, though it's never taken top spot for me. This was one of the earliest releases I heard. Daryl from Taste of Fear had a cassette dub that Stumblefuck had sent him with this on one side and "Corrupture" on the other side. I must have listened to that tape hundreds of times. They started pulling out of their total blurr sound at this point and working more changes into their songs. The songs have more parts than before, not all of them as fast, but overall this is predominantly a really fast album. They production is real scuzzy, especially on the vocals, but it works to their advantage. Hearing this stuff with more clarity would wreck it. The CD has their material from the split LP w/ Belching Beet and their tracks from the "I Kill What I Eat" CD. Not only do I have the Belching Beet LP, thanks to Stumblefuck I have a test pressing of it as well.)

RUPTURE - "Mass Slaughter Permit" CDR (Another CDR Stums sent me after making a transfer from the master tape. I have these songs on this CD, the split 7" w/ Skrupel, "Fuck Your Life" tape and the original demo tape which took three attempts at buying on eBay before I finally got a copy that wasn't a bootleg. Not my favorite material, but it's one of my favorite recordings. Everything sounds overloaded and maxed out, but in a good way. These demo versions of these songs sound better than they did on the records they were released on.)

RUPTURE - "Righteous Apes" CD (This collects a bunch of their vinyl releases, but a lot of it was remixed, unfortunately. "Righteous Fuck" 7", "Baser Apes" 7", "Electra Complex" 7", the "Live" 7", splits with Senseless Apocalypse, Maskontroll, Cheech & Chong (which I still don't believe ever existed) and some other shit. I never understood people who claim "Righteous Fuck" was Rulture's best release, and I've heard that often. It doesn't even sound like them and it's piss week compared to the others. "Baser Apes" is one of their better 7"s, but this remix is terrible. I don't know what the fuck they were thinking, but the vocals are suuuuuper loud and sort of make the EP unlistenable on this CD. The rest of the stuff on here is great. The string of 7"s that were collected on the "Brutal Badlands" CD and the splits with Masskontrol and Senseless Apocalypse are all awesome. The last bunch of songs are all live. Some of them were released as the live 7" on Vibrator Records in Japan. The rest of them are listed as being from the "Live Sex" EP, the "Fuck You" 9" flexi and the split 7" w/ Cheech & Chong, but in my 16 years of fandom I've never once seen any of these releases outside of being listed on this CD. I suspect they don't exist.)

Day #241
RUPTURE - "Sex, Drugs & Rupture" CD (This is an amazing album and one of the 3 that rotates as my favorite release of theirs. It's the best recording they've done, the songs are great, and the drumming on this is stronger than any of the others. It really sounds like they has enough time to do all of the overdubs they wanted, too, and there's loads of cool guitar bits added that really push this one over the edge. It's still fast as shit, but the songs are more complex and more thought out, it seems. The 16 added minutes of Gus' verbal abuse from the stage is a nice touch, too. It's their best album, in my opinion, and probably the best introduction to the band. My CD copy is of a limited edition printing error, and I own the ski-mask version of the LP, too.)

RUPTURE - "Space Ape" + Live Melbourne 2001 CDR* ("Space Ape" is a cool collection of older marginal recordings tied together with samples from old sci-fi films. The song selection is largely from the "Corrupture" era. The sound quality is thin and rough, but listenable. It's nowhere near as shitty sounding as the similar "S.A.T.A.N." 2xCDR. I have this on LP twice, including the limited test pressing version with different cover art. This was never released on CD, I just ripped mu vinyl so I could listen to it outside of my home. The 2001 live gig was Rupture's last show. It's a soundboard recording and sounds pretty good. Some of this has been released on the split 7" with Brody's Militia.)

RUPTURE - "Supreme Rulers of SADOS" CDR* (This is a bootleg I put together of vinyl rips I did of their records that hadn't been released on CD at that point. I couldn't bring myself to actually make and sell copies of it, though, so only a handful of people got them in trades. It has their track from the "Regurgitation" 7" comp, the Flachenbrand split 7", "Hate Makes the World Go Around" 7", "Freudstein's House" 7", "Get Fucked, Cunt" 7", "Wanksparks" 7", the split 10" with Unborn S.F., split 7"s w/ Antiseen, Stupid Babies Go Mad and the "Alqahir" MCD because there was room for it. This goes from the last of their really fast stuff to the slower punk stuff. There's been loads of stuff that's been released since then. It would be awesome if all of the stuff on this CDR and the others were collected on a 2CD set and released officially.)

RUPTURE / THE NERDS - "Rock Inferno" CD (So, Gus died in the middle of recording a new batch of Rupture songs leaving forcing them to either abandon the recording or find someone else to record vocals. They chose to record some of them with Jeff Clayton of Antiseen and some with the dude from the Nerds. The results aren't great. It's amazing how different they sound when one part of the line-up is switched out (drummers don't count, they never have). Gus' ramblings worked over their more herky-jerky songs, but Clayton sometimes sounds like he's struggling to make the lyrics fit somehow. Gus very well may have stumbled over these songs, too, but his vocal style is as such that he would have made it sound intentional, like he didn't give a fuck if it was right or not. I think Clayton did a better job than the guy from Nerds did with these songs, even if he does sorta like Gus. I have mixed feelings about this CD. The songs are fine, but it leaves me wondering what they would have sounded like had Gus lived to complete them. Nerds tracks on here are great, better than the Rupture stuff, I'd say. I should look into more of their releases.)

RUPTURE / NIHILISTICS - split EP material CDR* (The label pressed up the vinyl, couldn't get covers done, dropped the ball and didn't release it. The entire pressing sat in a storage unit for years except for a few test pressing copies that leaked out. I tried to get one of those tests for ages, but failed. A guy I know who was friends with the label had a CDR copy of the master for the split,including the artwork, and made this CDR for me until I could track down a vinyl copy. Years after it was pressed someone bought the storage unit at an auction and acquired the whole pile of records. My wife bought me a regular copy and a test pressing from him at an inflated price last year for Christmas. Since then, Haunted Hotel stepped in and bought the remaining copies to finally give it a release, but last I heard he was having problems getting the covers printed, too. After a short spoken dedication to Gus, Nihilistics do a new version of "Love and Kisses", I assume because it's the song Rupture covered. Rupture do a new version of "V.C.F." and "Normaloid", both of which have appeared on other releases. It's kind of a let down after all the time/trouble it was to get my hands on this.)

SACRIFICE - "Put Her On the Altar" CD (Classic Canadian thrash metal, a band who's releases were really hard for me to find as a kid. I had "Forward to Termination" on vinyl and "Soldiers of Misfortune" on cassette, but the first album alluded me for years. I eventually bought the CD when it was reissued, possibly bootlegged. This CD is a bootleg and collects their demo tapes for their first three albums. Of course, the earlier stuff is better than the later, but it's all pretty good. The sound quality is decent and there are some liner notes on the inside written by DOTD, who I can only assume us Don of the Dead, the singer of Nunslaughter. These older songs are a lot noisier and more evil sounding than the material I was familiar with as a teenager. I don't think I could have handled this much brutality back then.)

SACRIFICE - "Torment in Fire" CD (I bought this in Chicago a few years ago. I don't think it's a legit reissue, though. It's sourced from a vinyl rip the sound is pretty crummy. Their first demo is tacked on the end as bonus tracks. This shit is awesome, totally extreme and brutal. One of the best thrash albums I missed out on in the 80s.)

SADUS - "Chemical Exposure" CD (Another great 80s thrash band I never got to hear as a teenager. I would have been all over this shit back then, even more so than today. Totally fast and angry sounding, technical without the wank. I love how loud the bass is in the mix and the vocals are some of the angriest thrash vocals ever. This is thrash pushed to the edge of death metal, absolutely as extreme as it can get without crossing over. This was originally released as "Illusions" by the band, then reissued by Roadracer once they signed with them. I can't remember if it was remixed when it was reissued. It doesn't matter, I guess.)

SADUS - "D.T.P. Demo 1986" CD (I bought this in Chicago the same say I bought the above Sacrifice album. I was in town with friends to see Iron Maiden, Motörhead and Dio live. This CD blew away everyone in the car on the drive back home. "Death to Posers" is just as savage and brutal as their first album, just sounds rougher. Their "Certain Death" demo is on here as well, also great. None of us had heard Sadus before that day, but we were completely on board after this.)

SADUS - "Swallowed in Black" (I bought this for $5 in one of those buy one get one free sales some distro was having. This might be only the second time listening to it, though. I got a stack of 10 CDs that day, listened to them and filed them away. I've done that with a lot of stuff, it's one of the reasons I'm listening to everything A-Z now. The songs are longer on this one, a bit more technical than on their debut, but the style hasn't changed all that much. It's still a zillion mph thrash with snarling, angry vocals most of the time. Their "Wake of Severity" demo is on this as bonus tracks and it's a little harsher sounding than the album. This is good shit.)

Day #242
SADUS - "Vision of Misery" / RIGHTEOUS PIGS - "Live and Learn" + "Demo" CDR* (I couldn't get into this Sadus album at all, not just today, but in the past, too. I'll stick to the first two albums, I guess. I had Righteous Pigs' 2nd album, "Stress Related", on CD years ago but sold it. It sounded too close to Biohazard for me to enjoy, and I realize I'm probably the only person to make this claim. Their first album, though, is fantastic and is one of the angriest sounding metal/grind albums ever. I've never found a copy of it on CD to buy, so I just downloaded it and burned it with their demo and this Sadus album.)

SAND - "Ultrasonic Seraphim" 2CD (Sand were a short lived German krautrock band that played minimal psychedelic folk music. Their one and only offering, "Golem" LP, was produced by Klaus Schulze and released in 1973. Without the added swirling synth noises, this would be a lot less interesting, but the songs are all dark in tone and sad sounding. It's a bizarre sound with the added noise, and there's hardly any percussion, so it's particularly sparse sounding. This 2CD reissue came out in 1996 and has a whole second disc of outtakes, demo tracks and a couple of songs the singer did for an aborted solo album. The album is much better than the bonus stuff which is pretty forgettable, really, with the exception of the excellent "Power Station" which sounds like it could be an unused Suicide song.)

SANITY'S DAWN - "Chop Copper" CD (I've never been a fan of these guys. I had their first album, then ended up selling it. I bought this used because it was only $3.00. I think I listened to it once before today. I'm just not a very big fan of goregrind, even when it's done really well. This was their last album before they went off into a more powerviolence sound. They've mostly abandoned the pitch-shifter at this point, but it does make appearances throughout. There isn't anything particularly good or bad that jumps out at me about this release, it simply exists. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit, but I can't get into it. The problem I have with most grindcore is that it just doesn't satisfy my need for noise and distortion, and that's all I'm really looking for in grindcore. It's one of those "Go big or go home" things. If you're not writing memorable riffs, then there's no reason to write riffs at all. Bands like these are middle-of-the-road when it comes to brutality. There's no incentive for me to put this on when I'm looking for something heavy when band's like Anal Cunt, Nilhilist Commando, ASHIAP, etc exist to satisfy that craving. To me, grindcore is for those that haven't progressed onto better/worse things. It could just be that after 242 days of killing my eardrums with shit like this I prefer something with a little more dynamics.)

SANITY'S DAWN / YACØPSÆ - split CD (I dig this SD stuff more than the other disc I have, but I only bought it for the Yacøpsæ stuff. Their stuff is faster, more energetic and more "extreme" sounding. Still not my thing exactly, but it's an improvement. Sadly, Yacøpsæ have gotten so good at what they do at this point all of the personality from their old days is gone. It's fucking brutal, but I miss that gnarly Tumor guitar tone from their old 7"s. Those abrupt stops they do are so clean on this they sound like they were digitally edited. I've seen live footage of them and know they can do it live, but things like that don't enhance the music for me. It just takes away from any human element they had. They peaked on their 10", in my opinion. This isn't my day for grindcore, I guess.)

SAUERKRAUT - "Kuburan Massal Kemanusiaan" CDR (I love this kind of stuff. Sauerkraut are a band from Bulgaria that plays a really primitive mixture of grind/HC and noisecore. It sounds like a group of friends playing music outside of their ability, having a good time with it and making music because they love doing it. It's not "good" by any stretch of the imagination, but it's genuine and that wins out over good any day. It's their lack of skill that pushes this into accidental noisecore territory, and the recording sounds like an mp3 recording device was just dropped on to the floor in the middle of their rehearsal space. There are completely broken cover versions of Napalm Death, Fear of God and Impetigo that showcase their influences and give us an idea of what they were shooting for and ultimately fell short of, but thankfully their lack of ability didn't keep them from trying. If this sounds like a negative write up, you're dead wrong. These are the things I love about them and why I find them more interesting than a pile of bands like Sanity's Dawn and Phobia. This CDR is limited to 30 copies, so you'll probably have a difficult time finding a copy.)

SAUERKRAUT - "Promo 2008-2010" CDR (These guys sound like a different band on each release, that's another thing I like about them. The first stuff on here has a drum machine (not programmed, but played in real time) and a guitar that sounds like it was recorded plugged directly into the 4 track without an amp. There's some serious bacon sizzle going on. The vocals alternate between turkey squawks and a pig snorting. It's awesome. The rest of this sounds similar to the material on the CDR above. There are covers of Sore Throat and Agathocles, probably others I couldn't make out. The playing sounds a little better on this one, but it's still really raw and noisy as fuck.)

SAUERKRAUT / PRIMORDIAL SOUNDS / VAMPIRIC COLD BLOOD - "A Three Way Split CD" CDR (Sauerkraut are sounding more and more like old Anal Massaker. There's a lack of bass on this recording, but the songs are noisier and harsher. The drummer still seems to be struggling to keep up most of the time. Still a lot of fun to listen to. This is my first introduction to the other two bands on this CD. Primordial Sounds are from Belgium and started as a tribute band to Tony/ Permanent Death. Their stuff is awesome, really sloppy and noisy, a fucking mess, but in a good way. They're easily the noisiest of the three, a lot of the time it sounds like the drums are being thrown around the room. The guitar sound is razor thin and the vocals are really dumb grumbles and growls. In other words, good shit all around. V.C.B. are harder to describe, but equally lo-fi and noisy. I'm tapped out at this point.)

Day #243
ANTHONY SAUNDERS - "Rehearsal Tapes Volume 1" CDR (Nearly 80 minutes of almost constant pummeling harsh noise, I assume constructed on a laptop. There's a couple of different sounding pieces on here, but it's mostly full-on. Despite several attempts, I just can't get into this sort of stuff. Not a good way to start today.)

SAW THROAT - "Inde$troy" CD (Sore Throat are absolutely one of my favorite bands of all time, have been since high school, but I never really got into this one. I heard it once in the late 90s, didn't like it, and didn't hear it again until it was reissued on CD. I probably wouldn't have bought this except I was at a concert and saw it in someone's distro box and nothing else caught my eye. I listened to this CD once, then shelved it. I didn't even remember what it sounded like before I put it on this morning. Today I'm listening to it with fresh ears, an open mind and no expectations. Sore Throat have taken on a lot of different sounds over their short career. Both sides of "Disgrace..." sound completely different from each other and different from the rest of their short song crusty noisecore releases. This, too, is different. It's one long track broken into smaller segments. A lot of it is doomy, some bordering on drone. There's some thick metallic riffing mixed with keyboards. Some of this sounds like industrial music, other parts like AmRep noise rock. I'd probably like this if I listened to it more often. I'm enjoying it more today than in the past now that I'm not expecting their stenchcore sound. I'm going to make a note to listen to this more often once I've gone through the rest of my CDs.)

SCAT - "The Pain and Suffering Campaign" CDR (I've blogged at length about my history with Scat. While their music is sometimes directionless and without discernible structure, it's both fun to listen to and play. This was their transition album from doom to a thrasher sound. I recorded and mixed this on my 4 track with surprisingly good results considering the conditions it was recorded in. I've since gotten a whole lot better with my recordings, but this was done before that and I just got lucky. This is my favorite of their recordings. I can't listen to the one I played on because of how things ended. "Killer Instinct" is the best song on here, a total thrash/noise mess with drums that never let up and screaming Kerry King-esque leads. Similarly, "Brunnen G" is a lot of fun even if it is just one riff for the most part. There's a couple of clunkers on here, including "Illusions of My Mind", a crooning love ballad Aaron wrote for his ex-wife in an attempt to win her back. That sort of nonsense has no place on a metal album.)

SCHLONG - "Unessential Schlong" CD (Unessential because this collects a bunch of previously released material. I've always liked Schlong. I bought this because of their name and because at the time I was into Operation Ivy and this is what their drummer did after they broke up. This sounds nothing like Operation Ivy, thankfully. They're kind of a smart assed, country-tinged progressive punk band with a healthy sense of humor and a penchant for covering and speeding up cheesy rock songs. Initially I was on the fence with this CD, but the "Tumors" 7", a cover of Fleetwood Mac's entire "Rumors" album sped-up and shortened to a 7", won me over. The rest of their material grew on me. There's a few songs from their bluegrass band Three Finger Spread, too.)

SCHNAUZER - "When Your Bitch is in Heat" CD (I love Schnauzer, but 69 minutes is way too long to listen to this stuff. They're perfect on split 7"s. That's exactly as long as I can listen to it before the joke wears thin. I've always wished they had less vocals going on in their music, especially the high vocals. This stuff is loads of fun, though. Totally stupid tough guy riffs, tons of breakdowns, songs about lifting weights, killing pigs, etc.)

Day #246
CONRAD SCHNITZLER - "00/106" CD* (Conrad was a German experimental recording artist with no musical background. He was an early member of Tangerine Dream and appeared on their first album and was a member of Kluster who later changed their name to Cluster after he left and found success in the krautrock scene doing much more mellow recordings. Conrad's discography is enormous and a lot of his recordings he didn't make available for purchase and instead just gave them to friends as gifts. Everything I've heard of his has been abrasive and noisy musique concrete that borders on industrial music. This CD was recorded in 1997 and was released on his own label. The sounds range from quiet and disturbing to deafening and disturbing. This music is the sound of my nightmares, recorded with extreme clarity. Unlike a lot of noise stuff, this doesn't get dull for a second. There's loads of stuff going on here, lots of changes to keep me interested.)

CONRAD SCHNITZLER - "Rot" CD* (Recorded in 1973, this was his first solo album after leaving Kluster, two side long tracks of electronic noise. Compared with the CD above, this one is less nightmarish and harsh, but it's still extremely creepy. The first half is slow moving,droning and repetitive with minimal synth being played in opposite speakers behind some looped circuit bending (I think? I don't really know what's creating these noises). The second half is a little more rhythmic and upbeat sounding, but only slightly so. The faster tempo doesn't do much to lighten the mood, really. It's just as weird as the first side. I'd like to hear more of his work, but never think to look for it. Conrad died of cancer earlier this year. RIP, Mr. Schnitzler.)

KLAUS SCHULZE - "Black Dance" CD (When I first started getting into krautrock I bought loads of Klaus Schulze stuff on vinyl at the record store in Iowa City. Someone named Karla Tonella unloaded her record collection, all with her name written on the back cover in magic marker. I started out by picking up the cheaper records, then eventually ended up buying all of them. Klaus started out as a drummer, a great drummer at that, and played on the first Tangerine Dream album and a few Ash Ra Tempel albums. He's more famously known for his work in electronics and synth. The majority of his works are multi-layered, sprawling almost tribal synth drones with swirling electronic noises over them. They're so similar, in fact, I'm going to skip describing each individual album. This is great background music, but it's not so good for sitting and paying full attention to. I don't think he intended people to sit and scrutinize his work, anyway. This is music to drop acid and zone out to. Me? I'll be sipping Diet Coke and staring off into space at work while listening to it. That's close enough.)

KLAUS SCHULZE - "Cyborg" 2CD* (A friend sent this to me as part of a CD trade. It's one of my favorites.)

KLAUS SCHULZE - "Irrlicht" CD (His first solo album, pre-synth material using heavily treated organ instead. Sounds pretty much like his synth stuff. The second half of this is awesome, almost ambient. This was pretty groundbreaking at the time, apparently.)

KLAUS SCHULZE - "Moondawn" CD (This one is cool because he plays drums on the second half of it.)

SCORPIONS - "Lonesome Crow" CD (The first Scorpions album was also the first release on the great Brain Records label. Not only is it not very typical sounding for a Brain release, it doesn't really sound like any of the other Scorpions albums, either. It's also the only Scorps album I've heard in it's entirety and I only bought it because of the label it was on. Turns out this album is fucking great. A 17 year old Michael Schenker played guitar on this and his playing is amazing at even this early age. Not quite heavy metal, this is really heavy rock music. It's great in the same way the first two Judas Priest records are. The line-up would almost change completely on their next album leaving only the rhythm guitarist and singer from this great album.)

SCRAWL - "Q" MCD (Scrawl have consistently been great since they started in the 90s. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say they've gotten better with time and their newest release is their best. This was their second release, the first one I heard. It's difficult to simply call these guys a grind band, but the glue that holds all these weird parts together are short staccato blasts of grind with vocals that sound almost exactly like the guy from Patareni. Between the blasts of grind are thrash riffs, jazz, lounge music, disco, acoustic, etc with keys, horns, accordion and loads of other instruments you wouldn't expect. This CD re-records some of the songs from their great first 7". Seth Putnam from Anal Cunt does guest vocals on a Patareni cover, too. 24 songs in 16 minutes, goes by way too quickly.)

LE SCRAWL - "Eager to Please" MCD (At some point Scrawl added "le" to their name, I assume to avoid problems with the other mainstream band named Scrawl. I have filed in my "S" section, fuck it. This one sounds like all of the songs are cover versions of or were inspired by HC bands. It must be the group shouts that make me think that, because none of them are listed as covers in the booklet. Even shorter than the previous disc, slightly less enjoyable.)

LE SCRAWL - "Snowblind" CD (This CD is great, probably their best yet. I kind of miss the noise parts, but the songs work better without them. The song writing on this is great, very metallic and dark sounding. I go into each Scrawl album expecting a drop in quality, but for the most part they just keep improving.)

Day #247
LE SCRAWL - "Too Short to Ignore" CD* (This is a collection of everything released up to that point with some unreleased demo and live songs. I have this on LP, but the CD version has different live songs that are exclusive to the CD version, so I just downloaded it instead of buying it twice. A great place to start your Scrawl collection considering all of the material in here is out of print now in its original form.)

LE SCRAWL - "Whiskey a Go Go!" MCD (Their shortest release yet, housed in a metal box with a single card insert and a screened patch. The music is the same great blend of grind, jazz,ska, lounge, thrash, etc as the others. The lyrics are all about drinking. Consistently great, they're one of Germany's best bands.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Barrel Fever and Other Stories" CD1 (My boss gave me a copy of David's "Holidays on Ice" audiobook for Christmas one year and I've been a fan since. I knew his sister, Amy, as Jerri Blank on Strangers With Candy, but had never heard of David before then. Most of his writings are really funny, though occasionally too "gay" for my liking. A good portion of this first disc is spent describing fictitious accounts of his relationships with celebrities including Charelton Heston, Mike Tyson and Bruce Springsteen. The joke wears thin after 10 minutes or so, but continues on for another ten. The first half is made up of shorter stories about smoking, odd jobs gone wrong, a great reading of a will and other stuff. David's work is best when you think he's telling first hand accounts of his life. It's hard telling how much of what you believe to be true is really bullshit, but it's a lot more enjoyable than a 20 minute telling of his sex life with famous men.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Barrel Fever and Other Stories" CD2 (The nugget of this CD is the story about his brother, Paul, "The Rooster", and his strange relationship with his father. Again, David is at his best talking about his family life. This isn't one of his best books, but "The Rooster" story was great.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall" CD (Some of his best stories read at the biggest venue in America. My wife and I went to see David do a reading here in our home state and really enjoyed ourselves, though I did feel pretty silly spending money to see someone stand on a stage and read from a book.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" CD1 (This is one of his best books, in my opinion. On this first disc we get stories about sleepovers, strip poker, the prestige of owning a second home and stories of childhood cliques.)

Day #248
DAVID SEDARIS - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" CD2 (This disc brings us stories of a rich dead aunt and the inheritance she left, desires of being a hippie and begging for change, being kicked out of the house by his father for being gay and the pains of being a slumlord. This last story, "Slumus Lordicus", is the best one of this disc.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" CD3 ("Bloodwork", one of my favorite stories is on this disc. to this day I can't hear Fire Island without thinking of this story. The others are great, too. "Repeat After Me" was on the "Carnegie Hall" CD, so I'm listening to it twice in two days.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" CD4 ("Six to Eight Black Men" also appeared on the Carnegie Hall disc. It's a funny telling of Christmas tradition in Holland. We also get to hear the story of The Rooster's wedding and of the relationship between he and his youngest sister, Tiffany.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" CD5 (A lengthy story about homosexual guilt, a short story about a rubber hand and the story of The Rooster's first born child.)

Day #249
DAVID SEDARIS - "Holidays on Ice" CD1 ("The Santaland Diaries" is the story that made David famous. It's the first story I heard of his and the one that hooked me in. David recalls his time spent working as an elf at Macy's. This is my first time listening to it in years and it's awesome.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Holidays on Ice" CD2 ("Based Upon a True Story" is a fictions tale of a television producer trying to extract a signed release from someone who's suffered a tragedy so he can make a new Christmas special from it. After she refuses, he addresses the church trying to bribe them into muscling it from her. It's funny, but not nearly as funny as the Dunbar Family newsletter which occupies most of this disc.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Holidays on Ice" CD3 (A series of angry, harsh reviews of children's Christmas plays starts out this disc and provided a few genuine laugh out loud moments. "Dinah, the Christmas Whore" is next and is a bit of a letdown. Last is a tale of Christmas one-upmanship.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Me Talk Pretty One Day" CD1 (David talks about attending speech therapy for his lisp in elementary school, his father's deep appreciation of jazz and David's failure at learning guitar, and of family pets.)

Day #250
DAVID SEDARIS - "Me Talk Pretty One Day" CD2 (David talks about his days as a performance artist and crystal meth addict, his stint as a writing professor, fancy cuisine and a nightmarish visitor from North Carolina.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Me Talk Pretty One Day" CD3 (This CD starts off with a profile of his sister Amy, moves into a rant about how much he hates computers, a story about the brutality of learning French and the difficulties of explaining Easter to a Muslim woman.)

Day #253
DAVID SEDARIS - "Me Talk Pretty One Day" CD4 (More about living in France. At this point I'm craving some music, but that's still a long way off. Still enjoyable, but listening to someone speak about himself for hours on end can be tiresome.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Me Talk Pretty One Day" CD5 (This is probably the best disc of this book. "Poems About Dogs" is really funny, even if the punchlines are predictable.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Naked" CD1 (Consistently funny.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Naked" CD2 (Not quite as funny, but very revealing. There's a long story about being gay in summer camp and dealing with shithead teachers in school that stood out on this disc.)

DAVID SEDARIS - "Naked" CD3 (David talks about his mother's fight with cancer and her eventual death, then about his experience at a nudist colony.)

PETE SEEGER - "Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits" CD (A few years back when I was exploring folk music greats like Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, etc I'd see Pete Seeger's name mentioned a lot, so when I found this CD used I bought it. I didn't like it then, in fact, it's been in my "to sell" pile for years. I never got around to selling it, so I just filed it back in with the rest of my CDs when I started this project. Today is only my second time listening to it. So much of this sounds like it was performed for an elementary school. You can hear kids talking and laughing in the background. Some of the songs more closely resemble children's books than songs. I was expecting something with more grit when I bought this, not children's music. It's my fault for making a blind purchase. "Talking Union" is what I was looking for, but there's not enough of that sort of stuff on here. This isn't bad, just not something I'm interested in.)

Day #254
SEPULTURA - "Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation" CD (I've owned several Sepultura CDs over the years, but I've whittled it down to just this one. It's the only one I listened to with any frequency, anyway. Noisy, sloppy black thrash. The production on "Morbid Visions" is pretty lousy, especially the guitar sound. The second half of this is much better, songs are better, too.)

SEWERCUNT / BLACK PUTREFACTION - split CD (This CD is only 9 minutes long, so it will take me long to formulate and type out my thoughts of it than it will to listen to it. I don't know who Sewercunt is, not sure where Last House on the Right finds these bands. Their stuff is pretty much straight blasting with noise and pitch shifted vocals over it. Black Putrefaction do dancey techno stuff with gore vocals and periods of sustained drum machine blasts. It's not unlike those techno parts on the later Meat Shits albums, but way less stupid. This is decent, but not something I put on very often.)

SEWN SHUT - "Rediscovering the Dead" CD (I don't remember where these guys were from, but I'm thinking Sweden. I have a couple of their 7"s (maybe all of them?), but picked up this discography anyway because it was cheap. This is good metallic grindcore with some crust riffs peppered throughout. A lots of the riffs are chunky death metal riffs, but there's enough blasting to steer it away from death metal territory. The recording is just dirty enough for my tastes, everything pushed slightly into the red. Good stuff.)

SEX PISTOLS - "Never Mind the Bollocks..." CD (Sharing my thoughts on the Sex Pistols seems sort of silly. Everyone visiting this blog knows this album frontwards and backwards, everyone has an opinion on it. I heard a lot of punk albums before this one, so it didn't have the same impact on me as it may have had for other people, but as an adult I can easily and often enjoy it for the great rock album it is. Contrived, manufactured, punk or not, I don't give a shit. Most of these songs are great and ring around in my heard a long while after listening to them.)

SEXORCIST - "Welcome to Your Death" CD (This CD fucking rules. One of the great unsung bands from the first wave of grindcore, and probably one of the first grind bands from Holland. I remember seeing their releases in the Wild Rags catalog, but never ordered them. Kicking myself now for not buying them then. I have their split 7" with Extreme Smoke and this CD only, but this CD collects everything they released between 1991 and 1993. This shit is total primitive caveman grind with juvenile song titles ("Smoke From a Dildo" comes to mind), spastic monster vocals and crummy recordings. In other words, it's perfect. This CD goes from newest to oldest. The oldest recordings are particularly brutal and noisy. After years of inactivity they released this CD and reformed under the name Brutality Reigns Supreme, but that magic isn't there like it was. Time ruins everything. I often see this CD for sale and recommend it to friends whenever possible.)

THE SHADOWS - "Shadows Are Go!" CD (I bought this years ago looking for the version of "Apache" I heard on the radio. Turns out it was by a Swiss fellow named Jorg something or other, but this CD was pretty great anyway. This is a collection of singles, I believe, of a UK surf rock band that pre-dates the Ventures. I listened to this heaps when I was playing similar music in a band called Honky Tonk Overlords. I haven't listened to this in years, but it sounds great today.)

SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET - "Dim the Lights, Chill the Ham" CD (Most people know these guys from the opening theme and transition music on Kids in the Hall. That's where I heard them first. Had it not been for a friend in high school I probably wouldn't have investigated any further, but a loan of one of their tapes turned me into a lifelong fan. They've tried to move away from their surf sound on this album, but that twangy guitar sound is all over it. I think they disliked being categorized as a surf band, but that's how I would describe this to someone unfamiliar with them. It's like The Shadows on steroids and with a sense of humor.)

SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET - "Savvy Show Stoppers" CD (This is the first one I heard. It's a collection of their independently released 7"s. Of their three releases, this is probably my favorite.)

Day #255
SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET - "Sport Fishin'" CD (This stuff still sounds great this morning, even better than yesterday. That guy's guitar sound is awesome, and he really knows his shit. The whole band does, really. As far as instrumental surfy music goes, I'd choose this before anything else, even the Ventures. This doesn't sound like a throwback, but like a natural progression from what bands like The Shadows started. You get the impression they're not trying to sound like anyone else, but just playing the music they love. This stuff is great.)

SHALABI EFFECT - s/t 2CD (A friend of mine sent me a burned copy of this years ago because he thought I would like it. He described it as modern day krautrock. I liked it enough to buy it when I saw it used. I seem to remember my friend telling me some of the members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor were behind this, but I don't remember exactly. This does indeed sound like something that would have been released back in 1970s Germany. It's sparse, spooky at times and mostly lacking structure. Adding to the krautrock feel is copious usage of middle-eastern instrumentation, but totally abandoning the traditional sounds associated with those instruments. I've probably only listened to this 3 or 4 times in total, but it's really good. It's well over 2 hours long, but seems to go by quickly.)

SHAT - "The Best of Shat: The Cunt Chronicles" CD (Bought this after seeing it used at a record store. It was just too stupid to pass up. I had never heard them before that and had high hopes after reading the track list. Unfortunately, the joke wears thin after about 10 songs, and there's a whopping 65 songs on this disc. The songs are all short, somewhere between nu-metal and bad punk, with lyrics about pussies, dicks, shit, piss, and every possibly combination of those topics. It's not good enough to be funny, it's just stupid. I suppose that's the goal, though.)

SHEEVA YOGA - " Heartotheque" CD (Czech grind/HC. I think this might be all cover songs. I recognize covers of Le Scrawl, Napalm Death, Inferno, Spazz and Beastie Boys right away. This is okay, but not something I listen to often.)

SICKENING MASS OBLITERATION - "... Of Stench After Life" CDR (The guitarist of this band was also in Purulent Shitface and ASHIAIP, both terrific metal free grindcore bands. I think this band existed before both of those, but sounds pretty similar. Really noisy lo-fi Unholy Grave type of grind, bordering on noisecore. These 10 minutes fly by. Awesome stuff.)

SIEGE - "Drop Dead" CD (My copy is the one put out by Lost and Found. I got it from Daryl Kahan when he lived in Iowa years ago. Super fast Boston HC that influenced a lot of the original grindcore bands. One of those CDs I've listened to hundreds of times. One of these dudes died earlier this year.)

SIGUR RÓS - "Ágætis Byrjun" CD (Some of the most beautiful, lush music ever recorded ruined by super annoying falsetto vocals that shouldn't be there at all, but if absolutely necessary, should have been much, much lower in the mix. The lengthy instrumental passages are great, but I cringe whenever the vocals come in. I've tried so many fucking times to look past them, but I just can't. I've been dreading listening to this album. Bummer...)

Day #256
SIGUR RÓS - "( )" CD (If you look at the album title in quotes it kind of looks like a vagina. How fitting.... Okay, not really. I was fully prepared to hate this CD this morning, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. The vocals are still an abortion (hey, abortion and vagina in the same synopsis!), but they're less distracting on this one. If I keep telling myself this is a Radiohead album it works better, somehow.)

SILBERBART - "4 Times Sound Razing" + WEED - s/t CDR* (Amother CD I got as part of a trade years ago. Silberbart are one of the greatest rock band's ever, from Germany or elsewhere. They sound especially manic after Sigur Rós. Like a lot of those krautrock bands, they only had one release, but what a gem this is! Criminally out of print and never issued on CD legitimately, this album is a blur of hard rock, proto-metal, Guru Guru and noise parts. It sounds like the bastard child of Deep Purple and Naked City, but was released in 1971. There's shades of early Blue Cheer and Alice Cooper in this mess, too. It's a total mind-fuck of a release and needs to be back in circulation. Weed are good Anglo style German rock, but not one of the stand-outs from that scene. The last song is instrumental and is the best on the album, in my opinion. I think one of the dudes from Uriah Heep played on this album, for what it's worth.)

SILVER APPLES - s/t + "Contact" CD (Silver Apples existed in the late 60s and were a duo of drums and primitive electronics, oscillators, etc. Their music is stripped down, pulsing and rhythmic. It could be considered electronica or techno, but neither of those existed back then. The vocals are haunting and make this a whole lot weirder than it would be without them. The second album is more musical, less spooky, and they added a banjo at this point. This stuff is great, really original.)

SILVER APPLES - "Garden" + HAWKWIND - "Greasy Truckers Party" CDR* (Silver Apples' third album from 1969 but unreleased until sometime in the 90s. Still great, though some of it sounds like it was completely improvised. This Hawkwind stuff is live, came from a compilation LP of a benefit show. Fucking love Hawkwind...)

SKAFISH - "Tidings of Comfort & Joy" CD (This ranks up there as one of the greatest Christmas albums ever. Jim Skafish made his name in the early Chicago punk/new wave scene as part of the band Skafish who were arguably the first punk band in Chicago. That's his claim, anyway. I'm not a punk historian so I couldn't say for sure. Before Skafish, though, Jim was a childhood prodigy on the piano. Because of a steady diet of Peanuts cartoons growing up, I'm a big fan of Vince Guaraldi and of piano trio jazz in general. Christmas always makes me think of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and of jazz piano, so being a big fan of Skafish the band I jumped on this when I saw it. How demented would it be? Turns out he plays it straight most of the time, and thankfully so. There are enough bastardized Christmas songs out there already. The recording is excellent, nice mix and a great song selection. Each song starts out fairly traditional, then builds up into lengthy solo segments before returning to the main theme. Easy on the ears, well played and very Christmasy. The jazz fusion version of "We Three Kings" is the only exception, but even it is really enjoyable.)

SKAFISH - "What's This? 1976-1979" CD (A few years ago all of the pre-LP Skafish recordings found their way onto a CD. With the exception of the "Disgracing the Family Name" 7", all of these recordings were previously unreleased. This CD is a treasure of introspective, biographical, well played, quirky punk/new wave music. Most of these recordings are studio demos recorded in hopes of securing a contract. A few of these songs wound up on the first LP, but most are exclusive to this CD. I picked up the first LP in Australia. Impetigo covered one of his songs on their first demo and I wanted to hear the original version. It's a strange LP with many styles on it, totally hard to find now. It eventually grew on me to the point I searched the web to see if there were any other releases and found this CD. I can't sing enough praise to Skafish. It's difficult listening, but with a huge payoff. I could have done without the 4 tracks of commentary at the end of the disc, though.)

Day #257
SKEPTICISM - "Ethere" CD (I've heard a few of these guys' releases, but this is the only one I liked enough to buy. Really, I only like the first song on this disc, the piano specifically. The whole funeral doom thing escapes me, but this is short enough to hold my interest and good enough to call for repeated listens. Not a bad way to start the morning out.)

SKREWDRIVER - "Boots and Braces / Voice of Britain" CD (Skrewdriver were a great band. Incidentally, I only own their non-racist stuff, but that's only because they turned to shit once that stuff started creeping in to their music. I don't care what their lyrics are about, what their politics are as long as their music is banging. This CD is the perfect balance of quality song writing and bonehead lyrics. It's as far out as I go in their catalog, but this one and everything before it is awesome.)

SKREWDRIVER - "The Complete Studio Collection 1977-1983" CD* (With the exception of the 1983 tracks, I have all of this stuff on vinyl. I burned this from a friend's copy years ago when visiting him. Great UK punk with lots of hooks and nice raspy vocals before Ian started sounding like the dude from Molly Hatchet. The guitars have a nice overdriven, but not distorted, sound. Its clean, but dirty enough to give this an appropriate edge. This stuff is great.)

SLAPSHOT - "The CD" CD (I'm a big fan of that Last Rites and Negative FX CD, but this stuff leaves me limp. The songs aren't as angry, not as fast and the production is completely sterile. I wouldn't complain if someone had this playing, but it's not something I'd put on myself. As a side note, while driving out of town to a friend's wedding years ago I listened to this CD for the first time and smashed into another car making an illegal U-turn and totaled my car. I can't listen to this without thinking of that day as a result, but I decided way before the impact that I didn't like this CD.)

Day #258
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #259
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #260
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #261
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #262
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #263
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #264
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #265
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

Day #266
(Christmas vacation, didn't listen to anything.)

MORT:029 Deche-Charge / Permanent Death - split 7" 2006 free download

2011-12-19T21:14:00.011-06:00

I'm uploading this tonight because I've had this scrap of paper sitting on my desk since 2006 detailing the pressing info (how many copies of which color vinyl) and I wanted to finally throw it away.

The Deche-Charge / Permanent Death - split 7" was the last vinyl release I did on Mortville. I typed up a long explanation detailing my reasoning and included it with the record, but I'm sure most people didn't bother reading it. It seems I always feel the need to explain myself when I stop doing something (see "Small Doses"). The numbers in my essay have changed some since I wrote it (CDs are even cheaper to manufacture now), but most of what I wrote is still relevant today. I'll post the original essay below the download link.

Tony from P.D. contacted me about doing this split. He arranged it and I jumped at the opportunity to work with Deche-Charge again. I don't think I had heard Permanent Death before he mailed me and sent a tape, and I wasn't quite sure what I was listening to. It sounded like harshnoise, but occasionally you could hear drums and hints of guitar. They managed to sound like Merzbow, but created that noise with a typical band arrangement. I'm not the biggest fan of harshnoise. It's not something I've released a lot of, anyway. I wasn't completely sold at that point, but when he sent me another tape with the material for the split I came around. In an odd turn of events, without knowing who was releasing this 7" when they arranged the split, the D-C stuff was recorded IN 1998 for a split tape with Captain Three Leg that never happened. It's strange I ended up releasing it after all, though 10 years later. This is some of my favorite D-C material, I'm glad they asked me to release it.

The D-C side of the test pressing was botched the first time and had to be re-cut. The second set of test pressings they sent had only the D-C side on it (B side was blank), so full finished test pressing copies don't exist.

I ordered 300 copies of the 7", told the plant to make as many different colors as they could without cleaning the machine between colors. As a result, I got a wide variety of colors, some as few as five copies. The pressing breakdown of the 313 copies delivered is as follows...

116 x grey
80 x toothpaste blue/green
28 x dark hunter green
26 x blue
24 x pea soup green
21 x clear
7 x red
6 x burgundy
5 x teal

(tosses that piece of paper in the trash)

The labels were all blank and required me to hand stamp all of them. The ink took several days to dry, so the 313 copies were strung out all over the kitchen counter on every available flat surface until both sides were finished.

Tony from Permanent Death died sometime after this 7" was released, but I never got the full story as to what happened. It's my understanding it was by his own hand, but I don't know any details. I've known lots of people in this scene that have died way too early, it always shakes me up a bit. We only wrote each other a few times, but it's still sad. RIP Tony Schepkens.

The record sold quickly and was received fairly well. I still get people asking for copies all the time and it usually sells for $20+ on eBay when I see it. Just download it instead and save your money for other things...

DOWNLOAD

Here is the essay included in the vinyl copies...

THIS IS THE LAST EVER MORTVILLE VINYL RELEASE, AND HERE'S WHY...

I've said it a hundred times before, "People release vinyl because they love it, not because it's cost effective". This has to be why people release 7"s, because I just can't see any other reason for it. When doing a price comparison between releasing 1000 7"s and 1000 CDs, CDs always come out on top. Here's the breakdown based on a couple of examples I've found...

(NOTE: I don't necessarily endorse or recommend either of these places, nor do I discourage people from using them. These are just examples I've found on the internet, places I've worked with and have had no problems dealing with. I chose them because they are inexpensive and make good examples. The record you found this essay in was pressed at www.billsmithcustomrecords.com, they're a more expensive, but I've found you get what you pay for.)

1000 x 7" records from United Record Pressing

Mastering and Plating (from www.aardvarkmastering.com - the cheapest place) = $225.00

1000 x 7" 33rpm records with small hole = $440.00

Test Pressings = $22.00

1000 Sets of Labels = $80.00

Postage for Tests and Return of Masters = $28.00

Record Jackets = $200 (this is a very moderate estimate, I've paid as much as $300)

1000 Poly Bags (from www.bagsunlimited.com, before shipping) =$44.00

TOTAL before shipping = $1039.00

Price per 7" = $1.04 each

1000 x CDs from www.wonderdrugrecords.com

1000 x CDs with 4 panel booklet, color front, b/w inside and color tray card = $1090

2 color on disc printing = included in price

Packaged in Jewel Case = included in price

Shrink wrap = included in price

Films / Shipping = $150.00

TOTAL = $1240.00

Price per CD = $1.24

So, which format do you go with?

The difference in price between releasing a CD as opposed to a 7".... About $0.20 a CD. Not a lot, is it? Then why is there such a divide in the price labels sell them for?

Profit from the sale of 1 x CD = $7.00 (give or take)

Even in the underground, factory replicated CD packaged in a jewel case sell for around $10.00 each, some as high as $12.00 and some as low as $8.00, so I'm using $10.00 as mid-ground baseline. Let's say the label gives the bands involved 20% of the pressing, which leaves them with 800 CDs to sell at $1.55 each. CDs might cost $1.50 to send via First Class Mail - add another $1.50 to $1.55 = $3.05 total cost for each CD (shipping goes down for each CD if you ship more than one at a time, but I'm going for the highest estimate here). This leaves almost $7.00 leftover from the sale of each CD for the label. Not bad, eh?

Profit from the sale of 1 x 7" record = $0.21(roughly)

Most labels still charge $3.00 for their finished 7"s, some as high as $4.00, but most are still holding on to $3.00 as their postage paid price. I think if you charged $5.00 for a 7” you’d scare a lot of potential buyers away. Again, the label gives 20% of the pressing to the bands involved leaving 800 copies @ $1.29 each. 7" records cost about the same to ship a single copy as CDs do, so let's estimate at $1.50 again for First Class Mail - add another $1.50 to $1.29 = $2.79 total cost for each 7" record. This leaves a whole $0.21 left over from the sale of each 7" record for the label, a far cry from the $7.00 leftover from the sale of a CD.

I realize of course that I haven't even touched on advertising, promotional copies, etc, but I figured it would be about the same cost for each format. I've been doing this since 1997 and I've never spent a dime on advertising, so I didn't figure that into the cost because you really don't need it.

So why are CDs sold for so much?

I don’t know. I've never figured it out. I sell my factory replicated CDs (same packaging as the other labels, the “Big Guys”, who charge more, so my cost is the same) for $5.00 each. I've toyed with the idea of selling them for less, but after a certain point, people don't take you seriously as a label and think that there must be something wrong with the CD for it to be sold so cheaply. I always thought making $2.00 from the sale of a CD to be pretty good. I have a day job, this isn't my primary source of income (I'm guessing this is the same with most other people who run labels in the underground), and so I can't see charging more than that for a CD. If more labels followed this example, maybe the price of CDs would drop a little across the board. The prices of all electronics have dropped over the years, DVDs have dropped in price after their introduction in the market, but CDs prices are as high as ever. It's the same in the underground, I wouldn't expect it to change. Why spend $10.00 for a CD when you can find the same ting in another distro for $6.00? Sounds good, but it's not going to happen. I've had labels refuse to trade their CDs against mine when they found out how little I was planning on selling them for because they didn't want to be undersold. Still other labels wouldn't trade my CDs straight across for theirs because of how little I sold them for, said they weren't worth as much as theirs and have tried asking for more things to balance out the trade in their favor.

You've decided to press a 7" anyway...

So if you run a label and decide to press a 7", you've obviously done one because you like the format, not because it was cost effective and you thought you would make money from it. Now what are you going to do with your pile of 1000 records? Most labels that do things on the same scale as Mortville trade their records against other people's releases and sell them through their distro. Let's face it, it's a lot easier to sell 10 copies of 100 different records than it is to sell 1000 copies of one. The likelihood of you finding 1000 different people as customers is pretty small, so trading is how I, and most other smaller labels, get rid of their releases. If you're lucky enough to find labels to trade their vinyl releases against yours, you can sell their records for the same price, plus a $1.00 markup to cover your expense of sending your records to them. A $4.00 price tag for someone else's record is still pretty good, most people will pay it, but you're still only making $0.21 or so from each record sod.

If you're trading your 7"s against other labels CD releases, it's an entirely different story. Even though CDs cost around the same price to manufacture, the market price of a CD dictates that your 7" is worth less than their CD is, this is always the case and there aren't any exceptions. Most labels will want to trade 3 copies of your 7" against each of their CD. Some cooler labels will trade 2 of your 7"s for their CDs, and some will try and fuck you over to go as high as 4 for 1 CD. Don't ever trade 4 of your 7"s for 1 CD!!! These people care nothing about the underground, they're there to make a buck from you.

So you've decided to trade 3 of your 7"s against another label's CD because you really like the artist and you think people will buy them from you. You've just spent 3 times the amount as the original label did to carry that title, not including shipping. Shipping is another issue. When you trade 30 of your 7"s against 10 of another label's CDs you're spending at least 3 times as much on shipping as they are. If you're trading with a label from another country, 90% of the time they're going to send you CDs without jewel cases so THEY can save on shipping. You're sending them finished product they can turn right around and sell, meanwhile you have to go and buy jewel cases for the 10 CDs they sent you before you can sell them - on top of paying 3 times as much for shipping you're going to have to pay another $5.00 ($0.50 a jewel case) to sell their CDs. I've never figured out how this is fair, but its standard practice for most underground labels.

What does all of this mean?

Nothing, really... I typed this out as an explanation as to why I'm not releasing 7"s anymore (several people have asked, I figured this was a good place to explain myself). I’m not trying to deter people from releasing vinyl. People should know what they're getting into, know what shit other labels will try to pull on them. My advice is if you release a 7", trade them against other 7"s, not CDs. If you decide to trade them against CDs and someone tries to get 4 of your 7”s for 1 of their CDs, keep in mind the cost and reconsider trading with them.

If you decide to release a CD, consider passing along some of the savings to the customers. Chances are you're releasing something because you feel passionate about the music (or in my case, noise) and you want other people to hear something you enjoy, not to make money.

Mortville is not dead, but as far as I'm concerned, vinyl is. I'll continue to buy other people's records because I love the format and the music, but I'm not releasing it anymore. I've reached a point where I've decided enough is enough.

Billy Crystal Meth downloads

2011-12-19T02:55:00.010-06:00

BCM was an instrumental doom/sludge band I did with my brother and a close friend between the years of 2005 and 2009. We recorded and released 4 CDs, two of which are still available for purchase. I decided to create a Bandcamp page for the project and make all of our releases available for free download. Please consider purchasing a CD if you like what you hear. Like life, they're cheap.

http://williamtownsend.bandcamp.com/album/grand-old-lady-billy-crystal-meth-split-cdr

http://williamtownsend.bandcamp.com/album/meth-metal

http://williamtownsend.bandcamp.com/album/doktor-bitch-billy-crystal-meth-split-cdr

http://williamtownsend.bandcamp.com/album/6-song-promo

V/A - Napalm Death You Suffer Tribute Compilation

2011-12-16T06:33:00.004-06:00

A 100 band tribute to a 3 second song sounds like a ridiculous idea, but this guy made it happen. There's a few familiar names here, but most I'm unfamiliar with. I contributed a track under the band name KRUSHER which will probably only exist for this release. Strangely, my track isn't listed in the description, but the file is listed in the directory. I haven't heard it yet, and most of it will probably be pretty terrible, but I'm sure it will be fun. The great thing about net releases is it doesn't have to be any good to release it.

Tracks in no particular order and to be played on shuffle

Tracklist:

36 Hourshifts - You Suffer (But Me)
Ã - You Suffer (And You Like It)
A Rotten Bit - You Suffer (And The Game Is Over)
A1976C - You Suffer (Sickbrain)
Alex Charles - You Suffer (Lye High Street Dawning Fear Mix)
Ars Sonor - You Suffer (Loco)
Arseterror - You Suffer (I Know Why)
Automageddon - You Suffer (A Reason Why Remix)
Autosomal - You Suffer (In Your Imaginary World, Absolutely Not Linked With The Real One)
Awesome Bin Laden - You Suffer (Butt Wipe)
Bah, Tsar Jenny Troth - You Suffer (You, Suffer)
Bangkai Angsa - You Suffer (Njuk Ngopo)
Bavel - You Suffer (Cover)
Bedawang - You Suffer (Dukkha Karma)
Beta - You Suffer (I Hope So)
Brian McParland - You Suffer (Unplugged)
Cocaine Wolf - You Suffer (From Latvia With Love)
Contraband - You Suffer (Trisectrix Of Daath)
Crude Assembly - You Suffer (Fools gladly)
Cybergenics. - You Suffer (But Why So Serious)
Dao De Noize - You Suffer (Dao Suffering)
Der Domestizierte Mensch - You Suffer (Endloses-Leid-Remix)
Deutsches Kulturgut - You Suffer (Underwaterlove mix)
Divine Shell - You Suffer (Because You're A Stupid Fuck)
DJ MO)))DARA - You Suffer (Napalm Death Cover)
DUGA-3 - You Suffer (Ã°ÃÃÃ¯ ÃÃ¼ÃÃ©ÃÃÃ°Â¦Ã°Â¦Ã°Â¦Ã°ÃÃÃ©Ã°Ã)
Dust Cult - You suffer (33 12 RPM)
Fall the wall - You Suffer (Fall the Wall Remix)
False Flag - You Suffer (Dick Cheney)
Fatal Position - You Suffer (Cover)
Froze.Hatech. - You Suffer (Smashed Down Mix)
Gay Napalm Death - You Suffer (Butt Guys)
Gefilte Fist - You Suffer (Ohkaye)
Gymnastic Decomposition - You Suffer (Your Sinclair, But Why)
Hell Garbage - You Suffer (17 Times)
H-LR - You Suffer (Ein Somchin Al Haness)
HuruHara 696 - You Suffer (Kaos Remix by Harshziqr)
Hyaena Fierling Reich - You Suffer (No More)
Image Boosters - You Suffer (Napalm Death Cover)
Inanition - You Suffer (In Anonymity)
Individual Distortion - You Suffer (Because You Cheated On Me You Bitch)
Jason Kavanagh - You Suffer (And Yet You Still Persist)
Jef der Dood - You Suffer (Danceable)
Kai Nobuko - You Suffer (YoYo, You Hip Hop Napalm Sniffer Of Death)
Kopfschmerztablette - You Suffer (Death Nepalm)
Krang - You Suffer (Burst Violence)
Kroglor - You Suffer (Yeh)
Krokodil - You Suffer (Wololo)
Kustaasiitaakun - You Suffer (Cover)
Lackthrow - You Suffer (Because You Truly Care)
Let's Fight! - You Suffer (Even Though You Could Be Happy)
Lezet - You Suffer (Sungazer's Woe)
Lord CMH - You Suffer (Acapella)
Luca Sigurta - You Suffer (In Silence)
M.Nomized - You Suffer (flux tab mix)
Marax - You Suffer (Long Time Coming)
MARROW - You Suffer (reffuS uoY)
Matt Kiefer - You Suffer (In a Blank Room)
Misantronics - You Suffer (the Decency)
MitÃ¤ - You Suffer (Napalm Death live in the '80s edit)
Molestia Auricularum - You suffer (And So On)
Mutate - You Suffer (Original Lyrics)
My Terminal And The Trip - You Suffer (Cover)
Necrotic Goatslaughter - You Suffer (Napalm Death Cover)
Newton - You Suffer (Saturday Mourning mix)
O.S.I.S. - You Suffer (Even Longer Now Remix)
Oli Traylen - You Suffer (Poolparty)
Out of 20 - You Suffer (Fran Drescher)
Picadillo Genital - You suffer (Joe Super Song)
Plague Rages - You suffer (We DonÂ´t Suffer. Do You Know Why)
Pollux - You Suffer (Vocal Drone Version)
Porion - You Suffer (Po Po Po)
Problem Anderer Leute - You Suffer (Selfdestruction)
PROJEKT666SATANOISE - You Suffer (Tribute to Napalm Death)
Radu Kakarath - You Suffer (Extendoom Mix)
Ralph Brown Extratone - You Suffer (Extratone Rmxx)
Rectal Twat - You Suffer (Cover)
Repulsive Vision - You Suffer (24 Years of Suffering)
Rolna - You Suffer (In Your Thoughts)
Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt - You Suffer (Noise Bent Remix In A Silent Way)
Sete Star Sept - You Suffer (Version 1)
Sicx - You Suffer (In Sexual Intercourse)
Sighell - You Suffer (Suffer It Remix)
Simiapath - You Suffer (Billy)
Sleep of Ages - You Suffer (G.A.C.)
Stress Disorder - You Suffer (..But I Stay Fly)
Supercrabs - You Suffer (Cover)
T-Bone McFlargle - You Suffer (bow bow bow)
The Dan Haynes Experience - You Suffer (Pringles Can Remix)
The PanCake Mafia - You Suffer (Cheesydogcreamcat)
To-Bo - You Suffer (Napalm Macht Frei)
Toxic Chicken - You Suffer (Napalm Death Retarded Clown Cover)
TrashnoiseR - You Suffer (ed)
TuliterÃ¤ - You Suffer (Cover)
Verbalizer - You Suffer (Bastard Drone Deconstruction)
Vrendeferl - You Suffer (Napalm Death cover)
Word Or Object - You Suffer (Hopelessly)
Your Name - You Suffer (Until Death Separates Us)
Zeron Unit - You Suffer (Napalm Breath)

Total: (128:53)

http://www.archive.org/details/siro275VariousArtists-NapalmDeathYouSufferTributeCompilation

Captain Three Leg shirts

2011-12-13T20:33:00.014-06:00

It's been 13 years since the last batch of C3L shirts were printed up, so we decided to work up three different designs and do 12 of each. A lot of these have pre-sold, two of the designs sold out completely, but there's still a few left of the other second design. We only made them in sizes L and XL. Shirts are $11.00ppd inside the USA. Outside the USA? Shirts are $7.00 + shipping, whatever that works out to be.

If you're interested in buying a shirt, send an email to the address listed in the "About Me" section stating which design you want, which size you need and what country you live in and I'll get back to you with a total and information for Paypal payment.

The above design (shirt "B" for ordering purposes) is black print on tan shirts, not white as pictured. There is (1) L shirt and (2) XL shirts available for purchase.

MORT:038 NETJAJEV SS - "Discography 2005-2006" CDR download

2011-12-08T20:48:00.011-06:00

These came and went pretty quickly. I co-released this with Not Very Nice in Michigan, only made 200 copies (I think?) and they were gone within a matter of months. I looked for my copy a couple of months ago and found that I forgot to keep one for myself. Not only that, I've somehow misplaced the master CDR. I guess I'm paying eBay collector scum prices like everyone else if I want one now.

Netjajev SS was Magnus Lundberg's Rupture inspired HC band he did between Ulcerrhoea and Syphilitic Vaginas. What started out pretty much as a continuation of the mid-period Rupture fastcore sound eventually morphed into an entirely different beast incorporating surf parts, atypical instrumentation, etc. This 55 track CDR collected the following releases from 2005-2006: "Rabid Cunts Must Evaoprate" 7", "Surfside Anthems Vol.1" 7", "Surfside Anthems Vol. 2" 7", "Anarchy Andromeda" 12" and the split 7"s with Syphilitic Vaginas, Brody's Militia and Ulcerrhoea.

I was able to find a nice 320kbps upload of this online tonight, so I'll just piggy-back that link and post it here. The download doesn't contain the artwork, though, so right click+save them from this post.

DOWNLOAD

A-Z PROJECT: #221-236

2011-12-05T06:59:00.004-06:00

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.)

ARSEHOLOCAUST - Demo 2011

2011-11-19T19:00:00.006-06:00

My Australian friend Tomachismo (formerly of Midget Fetish, Ghetto Blaster, Malignant Gimp, Dregs of Humanity, etc.) has recently dusted off his drum kit and came out of retirement. ARSEHOLOCAUST is his new grind/crust band he's doing, and it's pretty fucking good considering it was recorded on a handheld digital device during rehearsal. Let's hope he keeps this going for a while and they record something properly down the line. Give them a listen if you've been a fan of any of his previous bands, or if you're a fan of heavy music in general.

DOWNLOAD

Mortville Distribution List, updated 12/13/11

2011-11-17T06:25:00.005-06:00

Prices are postage paid inside of the USA. Outside of USA, add $5.00 for the first item and $1.00 for each additional item for airmail shipping. Payment in USD, either Paypal, well hidden cash or Money Order.

Contact me via the email address on the "About me" section for payment information and to check availability.

7” Vinyl
BLACK MARKET FETUS / BODIES LAY BROKEN split (Crust / extreme grind) $3
BREATHILIZOR “Metal Dump of…” (Great metal pisstake from the Sockeye camp. Beyond great!) $4
BREATHILIZOR / BRODY’S MILITIA split (As great as you think it would be.) $4
COFFINS / LOBOTOMIZED split (Sludgy Japanese death metal vs old school thrash from Scottland. Nice two color sleeves with spines, like a miniature LP) $5
GENITAL MASTICATOR / VAGINAL DISORDER split (63 trax of Spanish noisecore + 330 trax of total noise destruction) $3
GODSTOMPER / XANAX FEAST split (Noisy powerviolence hold-outs vs. harsh shit from Florida) $3
GRUNT GRUNT / YATTAI split (Awesome grind ‘n’ roll and grindcore from France.) $4
OVERPOWERING / LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER split (Spanish grindcore from both.) $4
PENIS GEYSER / LOTUS FUCKER split (Devastating noisecore from both, don’t miss out!) $4
RUPTURE "Soapfarm / Das Waffen SS" (Nazi themed street punk from Oz’s most hated band) $3
SCROUNGERS "Weak as Piss" (Politically charged Aussie hatecore. Recordings from 1992) $3
SOCKEYE “Beefing Ting Ting” (Songs from the 1996 demo. 3 versions, each with different colored vinyl and cover art. Ltd to 300 copies.) $5
TERRORIZOR / SLAPENDEHONDEN split (Sloppy old school German grind + Dutch p-violence) $4

CDs
ANAL CAKE / CEDRIC’S LETTUCE “Meconium Stain” CDR (27 trax of complete noise destruction) $3
ANATOMY “Overtreatment” (Italian Pathological autopsy attack. For fans of Carcass + Exhumed) $ 7
ANTIGAMA / DERANGED INSANE split CD-R (Polish grind / Brazilian grind/noise. Brutal!) $3
AUBE “Variable Ambit” (A rich tapestry of overlapping tones and textures. Eight tracks, 66 mins.) $7
BEAST IN HEAT "The Real Fonzie..." (Aussie "Ape-Core", members of Rupture) $5
BELCHING BEET “Out of Sight” (Interesting German grind with lousy lyrics. Still going since ’87!) $7
BILLY CRYSTAL METH “Meth Metal” (74 minutes of crushing instrumental sludge/doom metal!) $5
BODIES LAY BROKEN “E.E. of E.E.” (Top shelf Euro styled goregrind from MN. Deathvomit Rec.) $7
BROB “Empty Life” (First full length of high powered grindcore attack from Japan. 22 trax!)$10
BUCKET OF PISS / FATAL POSITION split 3”CDR (Noisecore on Babysmasher Recs. Ltd to 50.) $3
CAPTAIN THREE LEG “A Few Lixxx!” CDR (9 trax of instrumental rock, our straightest material to date. Ltd to 100 copies.) $4
CAPTAIN THREE LEG “All Fours” CDR (24 trax of sleazy rock and roll, songs about pooping, etc.) $4
CAPTAIN THREE LEG “Nightly Desecrations” CDR (99 trax of grind/noisegore Pro-CDR from D/A/S) $4
CAPTAIN THREE LEG “Shattered Limbs…” CDR (88 trax of grind/noise + HC from the vaults.) $4
CAPTAIN THREE LEG / WHORETORN / YEAST INFECTION 3 way (Ultra-grind inferno from IA, France and Denver. 37 trax in 48 minutes. Y.I. = ex-Dismembered Fetus.) $5
CEDRIC’S LETTUCE / ANAL SADNESS split CDR (CL mixes lo-fi harsh noise with short bursts of noisecore. AS = 90s style casio abuse and slabs of noise) $2
COLICO / D.F.E. split CDR (Brutal face-ripping noisecore from Ecuador and Iowa. Ltd to 100) $3
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY “Mamalia” (Animal obsessed crazy, noisy impossible to describe...) $6
DAMAGE DIGITAL / ABORTION split (Grindcore from Japan + Slovakia. Packaged in DVD case) $6
DECHE-CHARGE "Vinyl Discography" (All 7"s + new trax. Canadian noisecore.) $3
DECHE-CHARGE / BIG FIST JOHNNY split CDR (Canadian noisecore gods + short blasts of noisecore w/ Juhyo + C3L members) $3
DEEP FRIED EMBRYO / CEDRIC’S LETTUCE split CDR (Noisecore hell + harsh noise slop.) $3
DIE PIGEON DIE “Ripped from V to A” (Aussie goregrind, sick fast & raw w/ pudding vocals) $7
GENITAL MASTICATOR “Ultimate Collection” 2CDR (Old school noisecore from Spain) $5
FISTULA “Burdened By Your Existence” (Thick, massive and brutal sludge/doom from Ohio) $7
GRAND OLD LADY / BILLY CRYSTAL METH split CDR (Ottumwa ADD metal/HC + sludge/doom) $4
GRISTLE. “Cut and Paste v.2.0” (Instrumental funk rock, SST style. Pre-C3L, 35 trax in 78 mins) $3
GRUESOME STUFF RELISH “Horror Rises From the…” (Sick goregrind w/ raw DM influences) $7
GRUNT GRUNT s/t (Metal-free French grindcore with great sound and great sense of humor. Highly recommended!) $6
JESUS OF NAZARETH “The Shame of Being a Child” (US extreme crazy electro-noise/grind from Shit on Command member.) $6
MADIDO RESPIRO s/t (Furious Italian hardcore punk! Indigesti and GBH fueled. 8 trax) $6
MANDATORY “Exiled in Pain” (Reissue of brutal old school German death metal on Obliteration) $7
NECROCANNIBALISTIC VOMITORIUM “Fuxtroat” (Ukrainian noisecore legends. 21 noisy trax.) $6
NECROCANNIBALISTIC VOMITORIUM “Rest ‘N’ Piss” (13 golden noisecore showers, ltd to 300) $6
NECROCANNIBALISTIC VOMITORIUM “True Bondage” (Ukrainian noisecore. Ltd to 300) $6
NECRODAMUS “No Rest for the Wizard” (Throwback blackened thrash from Ohio. ) $8
NEGLIGENT COLLATERAL COLLAPSE “28 Minutes of…” (Remastered demo, split, comp + rare stuff. Brutal Czech goregrind.) $7
NEUROPATHIA / PUTRESCENCE split (Awesome Polish and Canadian grindcore, raw and brutal) $7
NIKUDOREI “Chain of Evil Dead” MCD (Harsh Japanese noisecore captured live. Nice foldout color cover) $6
NOISE NAZI / CEDRIC’S LETTUCE split CDR (Headache music done on a budget. The right people will seek this out) $2
OBSCURE OATH / SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS split (O.O. didn’t do much for me, but the S.O.T.I. stuff on here is amazing grindcore) $7
OLEKRANON “Bilal” (Layered beats, squalling guitar melting in a collision of noise rock and vintage industrial) $7
PATISSERIE / ZILLION split (Brutal Chibaholocaust grindcore + Tokyoerotic cyber-grind) $5
POTTERSVILLE “ Binary” CDR (3 song demo of fun, old-Lookout! Records sounding punk rock.) $3
PTAO “4ka 1/3” 3”CD (Awesome underrated Czech noise/grind. Awesome gatefold cover.) $6
PTAO “4ka 3/3” 3” CD (The final installment, comes with a box to house all 3 parts in. Way cool!) $6
RUPTURE “Gus Chamber and the Rape Apes” (18 trax of abrasive Aussie HC w/ gasoline vox.) $5
S|MAKITA “Cleveland, Ohio” (Apt. 213 guy delivers a focused slab of experimental sound.) $7
SIMBIOSE “Evolution?” (Crusty South American HC/grindcore with great production.) $6
S.L.R.G. / SLOTH split (At least the Sloth stuff on here doesn’t suck. What a strange pairing…) $6
SOCKEYE "Retards Hiss Past my Window" (Goofball punk reissued+ bonus trax) $5
SOILED “Discography” CDR (Whirlwind grind / noisecore holocaust. Harsh and brutal!) $3
SPEW-GINA “Spewgin to the Oldies” CDR (Partial discog of Denver ghetto noisecore. Members of Dismembered Fetus, E.B.D. + Dratsab.99 trax in 80 minutes.) $3
STAB! / BEARTRAP split (Brutal Niggerrock classics vs. Japanese stand up comedy/noisecore) $3
STAB! / FECULENCE split CDR (Feedback drenched scumpunk + depraved sludge/grind.) $5
SUBCUT “Contra Fatos nao ha Argumentos” (Brazilian grindcore old-timers. 20 trax.) $6
THINKSHIT “Discography” CDR (Pre-DAHMER + MESRINE crust/grind, 40 trax w/ demos, 7”, etc) $4
THREESKIN “One Less Than Foreskin / Treatment” CDR (Pre-C3L, sloppy thrash punk. 77 trax!) $3
TRIGGABONE “Head” (Lo-fi Residents inspired weirdness from outer space, reissue on Mortville) $3
UNISEX “Hold Your Breath” CDR (Reissue of Ottumwan punk -HC from ‘93. 56 trax, pre-C3L) $3
V/A – DRENCHED IN PISS – CDR comp. (Pro-CDR 34 tracks of extremely underground brutal bands, for obsessive gore/porno freaks only! Featuring The Anal Tag Team, Cemetery Rapist, Ingrown, Paedo Nanny, Vaginal Cadaver, and PxOxMxIxVx among many others. Limited edition of 60 copies.) $4
V/A – GRIND SOLO GRIND – CD comp. (Ecuadorian noisecore overload from MENSO NOISE,
PROYECTO PANICA, LEECH EATER and CACASONICA. 83 tracks total on Latincore Records.) $5
V/A – GRINDING GOREPRESSION – CD comp. (PATISSERIE, DERANGED INSANE + ARCHAGATHUS. International grind strike!) $8
V/A – SMALL DOSES – CD comp. (100 band international grind/noisecore CD. 44 minutes with 40 page booklet and die-cut sleeve: 2 MINUTA DREKA, 7 MINUTES OF NAUSEA, ALBACH, AGATHOCLES, AKBK, AMNOGOMUSIKIMALO, ATAQUE CARDIACO, BARBARIAN SCUM, BATILLUS, BEARTRAP, BLACK MARKET FETUS, BLAST FEMUR, BLOODY RECTUM, BONESAW, BRAID OF BLACK SMOKE, CACASONICA, CAPTAIN THREE LEG, CAULIFLOWER ASS & BOB, CDR, CEDRIC’S LETTUCE, CHADBURGER, CHOCOLATE CRUCIFIX, COGS AND SPROCKETS, COLICO, COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, CROWD SURFERS MUST DIE, DEEP FRIED EMBRYO, DERANGED INSANE, DIS-EASED, DISPEPSIAA, DOKTOR BITCH, DROGHEDA, DYSMORFIC, EARWIGS, FACIALMESS, FASCIST INSECT, FUNERAL MONGOLOIDS, FUNG TUNT, GANGBANG GESTAPO, GODSTOMPER, GORGONIZED DORKS, GRAND OLD LADY, HARD CHARGER, HARSH SUPPLEMENT, HELLO KITTY MOTHER FUCKERS, INTESTINAL FORTITUDE, IRON BUTTER, JET JAGUAR KR-3 KILL SPREE, JOE PESCI , JOHNSTOMPER, JOSHUA NORTON CABAL, JUHYO, KALI YUGA DEATH PARTY, KUSARI GAMA KILL, LED BEASTIES, MAD EYE DISEASE, MAKUA VALLEY BLAST TEST, MEET THE SQUIDABLES, MELANOCETUS MURRAYI, MESRINE, METROPOLIS, MOLECULAR CLOUD, MUMMIFIER, MUTWAWA, NATURALS, NECROLYTIC, NIHILIST COMMANDO, NIKUDOREI, NUT SCREAMER, PAPACONIA, PARLAMENTARISK SODOMI, PATISSERIE, PENIS ENLARGEMENT, PENIS GEYSER, POTTERSVILLE, PSYCHOTIC SUFFERANCE, PTAO, RATTENKRIEG, RECTAL TWAT, RUPTURE, SAUERKRAUT, SCREWTAPE, SETE STAR SEPT, SHATTER DEAD, SLAPENDEHONDEN, SLAUGHTERGRAVE, SMG, STAB!, SUPER FUN HAPPY SLIDE, TEA PARTY VIOLENCE, TEENAGE DESIRES, THC ERADICUS, THE OILY MENACE, TxQxBx, VIOLENT HEADACHE, VOMIR, VRV, WADGE, ZOMBIE HATE BRIGADE + ZULANWAR.) $6
VIOLENT HEADACHE “The Noisecore Days” 2CDR (Mammoth 300 trax collection of their earliest demos from 1988-1991. Violent and raw noisecore, before the crust crept into their sound.) $6
VIOLENT HEADACHE “Rare Sessions 1991-1997” CDR (60 trax of Spanish crust/HC/noisecore. Unreleased trax + collected rarities. Licensed from Face of Belmez, 100 copies) $3
VOMITING SHIT / NOISE NAZI / CEDRIC’S LETTUCE / HxAxMxNxAxTxUxSxCxHxR “4 way” CDR (Varying degrees of noisecore to harshnoise, all insanely lo-fi, but in a good way) $3
VOMITOMA “Coagulated Dialysis of…” (The sound of a bulldozer that runs on hard drugs plowing through a blockade of rotting cadavers in a sewer tunnel. 47 sickening tracks total.) $7
WARPSMASHER “Hallow’s Eve” CD (Unsettling dark ambient soundscapes.) FREE WITH ORDER
WILT “Scarecrow” CDR (Raw industrial meets fluid waves of death synth. Ltd to 300 copies) $5
ZOMBIE HATE BRIGADE “s/t” CDR (15 trax debut of Denver zombie-metal. Total pro packaging.) $5
ZOMBIE HATE BRIGADE “Hideous Beyond Belief” CDR (Awesome no-frills death metal/grind from Denver. Ex-Yeast Infection + Adnauseum.) $5

Cassettes
COLOSTOMY FILTER / VOMITING SHIT split (Pro tape. Sewer-grind and extreme grind/noise.) $4
STAB! “The Birkenau Tapes” (Pro tape w/ button. Stupid and offensive hate-sludge. Ltd to 100.) $4
V/A – TRIBUTE TO SEAMAN POPEYE – pro tape (RxAxNxGx, SLAUGHTERGRAVE, DIRTPILL, ANTIETAT, HELLO KITTY MOTHERFUCKERS, E.O.L. + CAPTAIN THREE LEG. International noise/grind tribute to Popeye with bright orange tapes and full color artwork. Fun stuff.) $4
WADGE “The Road to Hana” (Awesome Hawaii obsessed Canadian one-man grindcore assault.) $3
WASTEOID “Live on KFJC 03-14-07” (No coast powerviolence live set w/ great sound. Pro-tape) $3

ATTENTION:I have one copy each of the titles listed below, find them a new home! These are all new and unplayed. When ordering, list alternatives, or email to check availability first.

7”
BLACK MARKET FETUS / IMPALER split (Iowa grindcore + MN old school metal. Red vinyl!) $4
BREATHILIZOR / KOLOB TRUST FUND split (Breathilizor might be the most metal band on the planet.) $3
SABOTEUR “Never Ending Bore” (Frenetic + fast fucking Swedish hardcore w/ dual vox. 8 trax) $4
SAUL TURTELTAUB / SLAPENDEHONDEN split (Spazztic HC+powerviolence from IL + Holland) $4

CD’s
ABSCESS / BONESAW split (4 from Abscess + 2 from Bonesaw. Ripping old school death metal) $7
AGATHOCLES / THE VANISHING ACT split (Belgian mince + Death Metal tinged Canadian HC) $6
ARSE “Discography” (Early 90’s Finnish noisecore brutality. Demo, live, rehearsal + unreleased) $8
BUTCHER ABC “Butchered at Birth Day” MCD (1st release with bonus live trax and bonus movie) $6
CATHETER “Preamble to Oblivion” (Crushing first full length with bonus trax on SMG Records) $6
CENOTAPH “Saga Belica” (Turkish death metal full length from 2002. Recorded by Harris Johns) $5
CHACHI ON ACID “Acid Flashback” CDR (41 trax collection of snotty HC ala Crucifucks) $5
CLIT EATER / SUPPOSITORY split (I suppose this is brutal, but it’s a little too dumb for my taste.) $5
CORPSOPHAGIST / MELODICA split (Russian cyber-goregrind / brutalgorepornnoisegrind) $7
DEAD INFECTION “Corpses of the Universe” (8 new trax of Polish grind + bonus multimedia vid.) $8
DOKTOR BITCH / BILLY CRYSTAL METH split CDR (Vomit metal from ex-Sockeye + Minch guys / Crushing instrumental doom metal) $3
FETUS EATERS / DIORRHEA split (17 trax of spastic grind /22 thrashy Italian grindcore blasts) $7
GRIM KIRBY / COLICO / HARSH SUPPLEMENT 3 way CDR (Triple dose of quality noisecore.) $3
HAEMORRHAGE / DEAD split (Spanish goregrind legends w/ sick, sleazy German death metal) $7
INGROWING “Aetherpartus” MCD (7 trax of awesome, technical Czech grindcore. ) $6
MONIGO / MIXOMATOSIS / EL MUERMO 3 way (South American + Spanish grindcore.) $7
SAUERKRAUT / PRIMORDIAL SOUNDS / VAMPIRIC COLD BLOOD 3 way CDR (DIY grind/noisecore) $2
SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM / THIS VIOLENT WORLD split CDR (Raw grindcore, both pre-Green Terror) $3
TEA PARTY VIOLENCE / PLAGUE HOARDER split CDR (Bizarre mix of techno, industrial, hip-hop with gore vox. P.H. features Paul Barfo of Godstomper. Packaged in a 7” sleeve.) $3
THC ERADICUS “Random Sessions” CDR (Minimalist noisecore/harshnoise. Bare-bones cover) $2
TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION “Compact Disc Version 1.0” (Post Brutal Truth band, collection of demos. Extreme fucking grind!) $8
V/A – TRIBUTE TO REPUSION – CD comp. (General Surgery, Impaled, Haemorrhage, Cephalic Carnage, Cretin, Machetazo, Birdflesh, Inhume, Looking For an Answer + more.) $7

Cassettes
YES! YES! YES! “Bedroom Techno Terror” (More synth-punk goodness.Comes with a button) $2
YES! YES! YES! “Wax On Wax Off” (Retarded synth-punk cheese from Oklahoma.) $3

Used Stuff

7” VINYL
DECHE-CHARGE / PERMANENT DEATH – split 7” (Burgundy vinyl, ltd to 6 copies) $20
EATER – “Get Your YoYo’s Out: Eater Live E.P.” 7” (The Label, TLR 007. White vinyl, 1978) $20
FLOOR – “Goddard / Slugthrower” 7” (Rhetoric Records #26, black vinyl) $20
FLOOR – “Heather / When the Pigs Broke Free” (Noise Vacuum, copy # 0807 black vinyl) $20
FLOOR – “Loanin / Figbender” 7” (Dirge Records, black vinyl) $20
FLOOR – “Madonna” 7” (Bovine #018, white vinyl) $20
FLOOR / DOVE – split 7” (Berserker Records #007, black vinyl) $20
FLOOR / ED MATUS’ STRUGGLE – split 7” (Space Cadet Records #7, white vinyl) $20
FLOOR / TIRED FROM NOW ON – split 7” (No Idea Records, clear yellow vinyl. Hand numbered 182/200) $20
MARTIRE – “Lucifer” 7” (Merciless, black vinyl) $10
MOJO NIXON & THE NEW DUNCAN IMPERIALS – “I’m Drunk / Hey Brother, Pour the Wine” 7” (Pravda Records #4515, black vinyl) $10
MONSTER X – s/t 7” (Hater of God Records, black vinyl) $5
MONSTER X – s/t 7” (Ebullition Records #35, black vinyl) $5
MONSTER X – “Demo ‘93” 7” (Anomie Records, black vinyl) $5
MONSTER X / HUMAN GREED – split 7” (Hater of God Records, black vinyl) $5
NULL / LULL – split 7”, pt. 1 (Alleysweeper #AS003, black vinyl) $5
PROGRESS – “On the Rise Again?” 7” (Features Daryl Kahan of Citizens Arrest. Eugene Records, ER08 black vinyl) $5
RELIGIOUS FUCKS / ECOSTENCH – split 7”(Knot Music #08, black vinyl) $5
ROTTEN PIECE – s/t 7” (Lazy Squid Records, black vinyl. Hand numbered 311/500) $5
RUIDO – s/t 7” (Deep Six Records, #DS22. Oversized cover, black vinyl) $5
SINK – “Sad But True” 7” (MCR Company, MCR-076, black vinyl) $5
SKIN YARD – “Stranger / Lonely Place” 7” (Toxic Shock #009, black vinyl) $5
SPAZZ / FLOOR – split 7” (Bovine #016, black vinyl) $25
SPAZZ / HIRAX – split 7” (Pessimiser-Theologian, T-56 black vinyl) $25
SPAZZ / MONSTER X – split 7” (Reservoir, RSVR 015 black vinyl) $25
ULCER / FAILURE FACE – split 7” (Burrito Records #4, black vinyl) $5
VOMIT FALL – “At the Beginning Now and Then…” 7” (View Beyond, black vinyl) $5
WILBUR COBB / HEWHOCORRUPTS – split 7” (Vendetta Records, black vinyl) $5
V/A – DESTROY POWER, NOT PEOPLE – 7” comp. (Lost & Found, black vinyl. Uncurbed, Taste of Fear, Disgust, Cold World, Bastards, Dead Beat, Kaaos, Disrupt, No Security, Confrontation, Siege, Heresy) $25

12” VINYL
BEASTIE BOYS – “Intergalactic” 12” (Capitol Records remixes album, black vinyl) $20
BLOOD DUSTER – “Lyden Na” 2LP (Apathetic View Productions, gatefold black vinyl. Hand numbered 98/500) $20
DEMON – “The Plague” LP picture disc (Clay Records, Clay LP6P) $10
EMTIDI – “Saat” LP (Think Progressive, black vinyl gatefold) $15
MELT-BANANA – “Cactuses Come in Flocks” LP (A-Zap Records, black vinyl) $20
MELT-BANANA – “Charlie” LP (A-Zap Records, black vinyl) $20
SPAWN OF SATAN / BLOODSICK – split LP (Metal Enterprise, black vinyl) $10
WITTHUSER & WESTRUPP – “Der Jesus Pilz Musik Vom Evangelium” (Think Progressive, black vinyl gatefold) $15

RUPTURE / STANLEY KNIFE / THE BLURTERS – “The Great Australian Fuckwit” CD (Snapshot Records #9. Packaged in poly bag.) $20

RUPTURE – “Australia Day” MCD (Yeah, Mate! Records, Load 5. Slimline case) $25

A-Z PROJECT: #214-220

2011-11-17T06:20:00.003-06:00

220 days into this stupid project, and well on my way to getting through all of my CDs in jewel cases within a year. At this point I'm sick of listening to music 8 hours a day, but I'm still finding things I forgot how much I enjoyed that I wouldn't normally choose to listen to.

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

Day #214
PINK FLOYD - "Obscourred By Clouds" CD (Another great album. This one's a little more straight than the others, less psychedelic. Songs are pretty much evenly split between rock and acoustic. The production on this album is awesome.)

PINK FLOYD - "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" CD (It's a shame they didn't record more stuff like this, specifically like "Interstellar Overdrive". Thank goodness the Germans picked up the ball and ran with it. Sonically, this is a really interesting album. There's lots of weird stuff going on throughout and the stereo panning at times seem like strange choices. I'm not real familiar with the psychedelic scene, where Pink Floyd fits in it's history or how well they were received at the time, but I can't imagine this was very popular on it's release. It must have been somewhat successful, though, because they toured North America on this album.)

PINK FLOYD - "A Saucerful of Secrets" CD (This was one of the last albums I picked up because of all the bad reviews I read for it, but it's just as good at the others, just a little different. Syd's songs really stand out on this one in contrast to the others.)

PINK FLOYD - "Ummagumma" 2CD (This is another one of their releases I heard in Denver that turned me around on the band. One of the discs is studio, the other is live. The live album is the better of the two, in my opinion. I haven't listened to this set very often, not sure why.)

PINK FLOYD - "Wish You Were Here" CD (I'm not really into the Pink Floyd stuff from "Dark Side..." on. I've given "Dark Side..." several chances and there's too many things about it I don't like. While I've seen the movie, believe it or not, I've never heard "The Wall". I bought this CD used for $5, and while I've heard 3 of the songs on the radio, I'd never heard the album as a whole until then. It was better than I thought it would be. For the longest time I thought "Welcome to the Machine" was an Ozzy Osbourne song. Syd Barrett's mental illness has been a source of material for Roger Waters more than it should have. Dude should fuck off and find something else to write about.)

PISSED CUNT - "Neni Co Resist" CDR (PC were a Czech noisecore band I was in contact with in the 90s. They appeared on the "Where's Your Beard?" compilation I released. Their recordings were always really lo-fi and distant sounding. These sort of bands have all dried up in recent years. I wish there were more crummy bands like this as opposed to crummy drum machine goregrind bands. There's an Extreme Noise Terror live set from London 1989 on the end of this as an added bonus. I'll never say "no" to more ENT.)

PISSED HAPPY CHILDREN - "Pissed Playground" CD (I listened to this while driving out of town, so no anecdotal summary for this one. Sorry....)

PLAGUE RAGES - "Subordinados pele Peste" CD (Awesome raw grindcore from Brazil (I think?). The recording rules, everything sounds brutal, yet clean, like it's an excellent recording of instruments that sound all kinds of fucked up. The guitar tone is especially great. C3L were supposed to do a split tape with these guys back in the late 90s, but we dropped the ball. Most of the splits we had arranged slipped through the cracks, actually. This CD is great. Bands like this should be getting more attention instead of crap like Phobia.)

Day #215
PLANET OF THE APES - "Original Soundtrack" CD (Walking around at work while listening to this is fucking weird, like I have own incidental music following me around. This soundtrack is awesome, but it's missing loads of stuff from the movie. It was reissued later with more stuff. I've seen the movie so many times I can see the scenes playing out in my head as the corresponding part of the soundtrack plays. Jerry Goldsmith's scores are all easily identified as his. They don't all sound alike, but there's an underlying quality I can't identify that gives him away. This shit is awesome.)

PLANET OF THE APES - "Original Soundtrack" CD (This was re-released in 1997 with tons of extra stuff, not just this film, but the whole series. This one is 68 minutes, the CD above was only 26. Incredibly, "The Hunt" doesn't even appear on the other disc and it's one of the most recognizable pieces from this soundtrack. There's a 16 minute suite from "Escape From the Planet of the Apes" at the end of this.)

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES - "Original Soundtrack" CD (Different composer, but similar style. This one might sound a little more frantic when compared to the first film. There's some great Dr. Who style electronics on this one, the mind control sound effects the underground mutants used on Brent.)

CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES + BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES - "Original Soundtrack" CD (This one is way different than the others. There's even fuzz bass on a couple of the songs.)

Day #216
PLASTIC GRAVE - "Noizy Graves & Plastic Chronicles" CD (This was a lot less noisy than I hoped it would be. It kind of sounds like a less metal version of Exhumed. When I bought this, I got it mixed up with Empty Grave from Brazil. It's okay, but probably not something I'll listen to very often. This seems to be a discography CD. I know nothing about the band, where they're from, if they're still active, etc.)

Day #218
POISON IDEA - "The Early Years" CD (I had the misfortune of hearing their best record first, then kept buying stuff hoping it would be as good. None of it was. The studio (?) tracks on this CD are really close, though, but there aren't very many of them. Most of this CD is live stuff, which is fine, I suppose. The sound quality is pretty decent on the live stuff. I just wish there were more studio tracks on here.)

POISON IDEA - "Kings of Punk" CD (I had this CD as a teenager, but it was stolen out of my car when it was broken into. I re-bought it a few years ago at Extreme Noise for $4.00. Poison Idea were one of the angriest sounding HC bands, this CD is no exception. The vocals are dripping with hate on this. The music is slower than on "Pick Your King" and slightly more metal sounding, but it works on this one. The thick production and pissed vocals make for a mean sounding album. This is the last album of theirs I can get into, though.)

POISON IDEA - "Pick Your King" CD (Flawless HC, perfect from start to finish. I must have listened to this thing 500 times or more. One of the greatest HC records of all time.)

THE POLICE - "Outlandos d'Amour" CD (I've always liked the Police, especially their earliest stuff. My brother had that "Message in a Box" CD set with all of their recordings on it and I listened to it a bunch. I bought this at Sam Goody when they were going out of business for $0.50. Too bad they didn't have more of their stuff there. There was still a lot of punk in their music on this first album.)

POLLUTION OF SOUND - "Unvoluntary Suicide" CDR (This shit is awesome, sounds almost exactly like Necrophiliacs. I don't remember who sent this to me now, but one of the members was in another band I was in contact with before this one. This is really primitive stuff, sounds like they didn't have too many rehearsals under their best before recording this. More practice would have just ruined it anyway.)

POPOL VUH - "Leztze Tage" CD (I'm not terribly familiar with Popol Vuh. Their CDs didn't turn up with any frequency when I was buying krautrock stuff 10 years ago. This one is pretty guitar heavy, for them anyway, from what I understand. It sounds a lot like "Saucerful of Secrets" era Pink Floyd, dreamy and fluid sounding with some middle-eastern influence and female vocals that aren't too annoying.)

POPOL VUH - "Nosferatu Soundtrack" CD (This one is awesome, even with all the sitar on it. This is serious zone-out stuff, almost full on ambient.)

PORCH MONKEYS - "Fear and Loathing in Denver" CDR* (I somehow missed out on this one when it came out. A friend of mine sent me his cassette tape and I made this CDR from it. If you're familiar at all with Ace's noise projects, you've got a pretty good idea of what this sounds like. All of those Dismembered Fetus and Festering Puke side projects kind of sounded the same, but thankfully so. When my band did our second tour back in 1999 we played with these guys at an art gallery. That was a great show, we'd never felt more welcomed than at that show.)

Day #219
POSSESSED - "Seven Churches" CD (I didn't get much listening in yesterday as I spent most of the work day writing lyrics. I'll try to get more in today. I like Possessed, but I didn't hear this album until much later in life, well after thrash metal was "my thing". I couldn't find it as a teenager due to my limited options here in the midwest. Because of this, I don't hold this album in as high regard as others do. I actually prefer "Eyes of Horror" to this one, I'm probably the only one who does. I don't think I realized before today how similar Jeff's vocals were to Evil Chuck's.)

POST MORTEM - "Destined for Failure" CD (I bought this at my brother's store years ago because I recognized the name from an old Ax/ction Records comp and because of the ridiculous cover art and stupid song titles. I knew it was going to sit there forever if I didn't pick it up, too. I probably should have left it sitting there, it's pretty shitty. I guess they're a punk band, but only because I can't think of what else to call them. It never speeds up past mid-paced, songs don't seem to follow any structure, there's occasional breaks for funk bass and jazz guitar, etc. Nope, there's really nothing good about this CD other than the cover art, which is rad. Oh well...)

POST MORTEM - "Festival of Fun" CD (See the description above. Everything I said about it applies to this one, too, including the rad artwork. This one is a little better, but not by much.)

POTABILIZADORA - "2004 Promo" CDR (Manuel from Genital Masticator's noise project. This disc collects highlights from his previous releases. This was my first introduction to the project. I've been dreading listening to it for a while now because I'm rarely in the mood for this sort of noise. Turns out it was a lot less "harsh noise" than I remembered it being and I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty much just short blasts of noisecore with a drum machine and pitch shifted vocals. It kind of sounds like Gruesome Toilet, actually. 60 minutes is an awfully long time to listen to this stuff, though.)

POTABILIZADORA - "Sessions" CDR (Add another 74 minutes to that 60 I just did.)

POTABILIZADORA / MELANOCETUS MURRAYI / FUNERAL MONGOLOIDS / COLICO - "4 Way Split CDR #4" CDR (Potabilizadora sound different on this one, less noisecore and more like a woodpecker hammering away on a tape of unidentified samples. M.M. are a full-on barrage of noise for a full 10 minutes, totally harsh and extreme with tortured screams throughout. Funeral Mongoloids, from Finland, do old 7MON style noisecore, for lack of a better comparison. Short noisecore bursts over near constant feedback. Colico, from Ecuador, finish this out with 24 minutes of what sounds like completely improvised silly noisecore. This is a great CD and all of these projects are a great example of strong noisecore still being made today.)

PRAXIS - "Sacrifist" CD (The second Praxis album is a lot different than the first, but just as good. The brainchild of Bill Laswell, the band had somewhat of an open line up and mostly different members on each album. Whereas the first album was more or less a mixture of funk and metal, this is a lot heavier and darker in tone. The first song on here sounds like Bolt Thrower and Naked City combined, but from there it moves into dub territory, then industrial metal, etc. Somehow it all works. Mick Harris, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Buckethead, Blind Idiot God and John Zorn all contributed to this release. It's a fantastic album.)

PRAXIS - "Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis)" CD (I was straight-up obsessed with this album in high school. I can't even find words to describe it right now, just sitting here staring off into space.)

Day #220
ELVIS PRESLEY - "Sunrise" 2CD (I've been to Memphis enough times to develop an interest and appreciation for roots music. My budget prevents me from diving deeper into it than I'd like to, but I have some great stuff I've picked up over the years. This 38 song, 2 CD set contains all of the recordings Elvis did for Sam Phillips' Sun Records label back in the mid-50s. I'm not an Elvis historian, so I don't know without looking how many of these sides were released, but there's some dreadful sounding stuff on the second disc I'm sure didn't get a release at the time. They were probably taken from acetates. The first half of the first disc is great early rock and roll, but half way through he switches over to crooning ballads and he loses me. I'm just not interested in that kind of stuff, not sung by white people anyway.)

PRETTY LITTLE FLOWER - "Pulverizing Lethal Force" CD (This CD fucking kills. The combination of blastbeats, thrash riffs and deep, gruff vocals is awesome. Strangely enough, when bands do the thrash riff and raspy vocal combination, I just find it irritating. This is "metal", but not overly so. P.L.F. are super tight and fast, the recording is excellent and punctuates everything in all the right places. It's nice when grind bands do it right.)

PSYCHO - s/t CD + DVD (One of Boston's longest running HC bands, Psycho have been around since the early 80s in some form or other, though they've veered off into almost-grind territory at times. This CD collects the "Riches and Fame" 12", "You Love Us... You Hate Us" 12", their split 7" with OUT COLD and some other stuff I can't remember, all stuff from the late 80s. They were still very much a HC band at this point, a pretty good HC band, too. The sound on the second 12" on here is so thin it's really difficult to enjoy, but the rest of this sounds fine. There was another Psycho collection with their earliest recordings, but I haven't picked that up yet. I still haven't watched the DVD that came with this, either.)

PSYCHO SIN - "The Cancer is Still Spreading" CD (Psycho Sin were one of the dumbest, most meat-headed, sloppiest bands ever, and they were awesome because of this. A couple of the members of the French noisecore band RAPT moved to New Jersey and formed this band. They released an LP and a 7", then disappeared into obscurity. I hadn't even heard of them until I saw this CD while I was in Japan. Speed State did this reissue, along with a bunch of other great collections I saw there in the shop. I assumed it would be good based on their other releases and because the CD had 68 songs on it. It was great, I'm glad I picked it up. Musically, it sounds pretty similar to Rapt, but the vocals and the thick Jersey accent sort of reminds me of Intense Mutilation doing noisecore. As far as noisecore goes, there really isn't anything else that sounds like this.)

P.T.A.O. - "4ka 1/3" 3"CD (One of the greatest noisecore band's ever. Thick grindcore production, brutal vocals and awesome drumming. Short blasts of noisecore, sometimes over some weird background noise, not unlike Sore Throat's "Aural Butchery" demo. Rather than release a full length CD, they broke it up into a series of three 3" CDs, all with nice full color gatefold covers, and housed them in a printed slipcase. The noise is just as awesome as the packaging is. More people should be buying these things before they disappear forever. This gets my strongest reccomendtation.)

P.T.A.O. - "4ka 2/3" 3"CD (See above.)

P.T.A.O. - "4ka 3/3" 3"CD (See above.)

P.T.A.O. / MELANOCETUS MURRAYI - split CDR (More excellent Czech grinding noisecore, same high calibre as always. Some of this stuff was on one of the "4ka" CD above. M.M. do one 20 minute long track of full-on blasting grind/noise, never relenting once. I'm pretty sure this is the dame session from the 4 way split CDR listed above. I hate it when bands do that. Limited to 300 copies on the great S.A.O.R.S. label.)

PUBLIC ENEMY - "Fear of a Black Planet" CD (I haven't listened to PE since Flav's reality TV celebrity. I was worried going in to this that "Flavor of Love" would have tarnished their music for me, but that doesn't seem to have happened. Flavor Flav has always been silly, so it's not such a big deal. I'm not hugely into rap music, mostly because the bulk of it is mush-mouthed posturing, but I like PE. Chuck D's vocals are clear as a bell, powerful, angry and his lyrics seem well thought out and genuine. All of the media clips I've seen of him portray him as being a well spoken, intelligent person with a purpose. That speaks a lot more to me than singing about cars, bitches money and guns. I had this on cassette in middle school, liked it okay, but it was Evolution Control Committee's "Whipped Cream Mixes" 7" that renewed my interest in PE and gave me a new appreciation for Herb Alpert.)

PUBLIC ENEMY - "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" CD (I heard this one first, traded my copy of "Licensed to Ill" for it to a kid in my 7th grade social studies class. I later traded this same tape back to the same kid for Twisted Sister's "You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll" on cassette. I still have that tape. I bought this CD at Sam Goody when they were going out of business, the same trip I bought the first Police album.)

A-Z PROJECT: #207-213

2011-11-10T06:33:00.002-06:00

213 days into this stupid project, and well on my way to getting through all of my CDs in jewel cases within a year. At this point I'm sick of listening to music 8 hours a day, but I'm still finding things I forgot how much I enjoyed that I wouldn't normally choose to listen to.

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

Day #207
OUT OF FOCUS - "Not Too Late" CD (Recorded during their last session, then abandoned, then unearthed decades later. It's easily as good as the three albums they released while they were still active.)

OUT OF FOCUS - "Rat Roads" CD (This one was recorded during the same sessions as "Four Letter Monday Afternoon", but wasn't released until decades later. A tremendous amount of music was recorded for that album, apparently. Like the second CD of that album, this sounds as if it was all improvised and takes on an even stronger jazz feel than anything else they've released. The majority of this is left instrumental, too, and sounds somewhat unfinished, which it probably it. It's a great CD, though, with long jams from a fantastic band.)

OUT OF FOCUS - "Wake Up" CD (This, their first album, rocks harder, is less jazzy, more bluesy and more psychedelic. From their very first release they were great. They were one of the best German progressive rock bands. Compare this to other albums released in 1970 and it's pretty incredible. All of these songs are great, but the two longest songs, "Hey John" and "Dark, Darker", really show what these guys are capable of.)

OUTO - "Discography" CDR (I bought this bootleg ages ago. It's since gotten a legit reissue. The first 7" on here is some of the greatest HC recorded, but they got less interesting with each release. Some bands are just better when they suck. I couldn't care less about the Outo at the end of this disc. They should have recorded more songs like "Frog Song" and "I Like Cola". That would have been awesome.)

OVERKILL - "Taking Over" CD (One of my favorite Overkill albums. At one point I owned this on LP, cassette and CD. Blitz's vocals took some getting used to, but I can dig them now. That Megaforce crunch is in full effect on this album. Seeing them live was one of the best, most fun shows I've been to. There are some terribly cheesy songs on this one, on all Overkill albums, really, but they only serve to make it more endearing. How could you not get behind a song like "In Union We Stand"?)

OVERKILL - "Under the Influence" CD (The first Overkill album I heard, still one of my favorites. If you can look past the goofy lyrics and the abysmal "Hello From the Gutter", this is a great thrash metal album with an even crunchier sound than the previous album. Everything's faster and heavier, with the exception of "Drunken Wisdom" which might be the most brutal song they've ever written. I never realized how much "The End of the Line" sounds like Iron Maiden until today. Awesome. This album kills.)

OXIDIZED RAZOR / AUTOPHAGIA - split CD (I don't think I ever cared for these kind of gurgling septic tank vocals outside of Gut and maybe Regurgitate. Sometimes I hate Gut for inspiring so many shitty goregrind bands. These kind of vocals are so fucking stupid and lazy. I might have felt differently at one point, but they're especially irritating today. The alternative is worse, though, a bunch of comfortable fuckers screaming and pretending to be angry. I don't know what the answer is, really. I just know if you're going to take the easy way out of writing lyrics and doing proper vocals, there better be something special going on with your music to rescue it from complete mediocrity. Such is the case with Autophagia, a one man project from Greece. Unlike Oxidized Razor who sound as if they made this shit up as they went, Autophagia wrote short and fast songs with with multiple changes, dual vocals (still really silly) and manage to retain that rehearsed old-school grindcore sound mixing elements of HC and death metal properly. The production leaves a lot to be desired, but manages to sound live and energetic. Oxidized Razor should take notes.)

PANDEMONIUM - "Sex, Drugs, Stocks and an Old Man Talking to Himself" 2CD (Noisy Dutch HC from the 80s. These guys get compared often to Lärm, enough so for someone to do a Pandemonium / Lärm - split bootleg, but they really don't sound all that similar. Their fastest material sounds somewhat similar to Lärm's slowest, I guess, but only if you force the comparison. The LP on here is amazing and the 7"s before and after it, but it takes a while for this collection to get going. Once it does, though, it's great. The second disc is all live. It's okay, I guess. I wouldn't have bought it separately if it weren't included in this set. Years ago I bought CDR bootlegs of this stuff and the Lärm split among other stuff from a famous grindcore celebrity, but I had no idea they were burned CDs when I bought them from him. He made no distinction at all, even though he's quick to point out bootleggers himself, especially of his band's material. Once when I sent him a burned CD as part of a trade he mailed it back and said if I did it again that would be the end of our partnership. All of those "CDs" I bought from him have gone tits up since then and are worthless now because of the sticker labels he used on them. He was a real boner, but his band fucking ruled.)

PANTALONES ABAJO MARINERO - "Communicacion del Infierno" CDR (I think this is a promo of some sort, but not sure what for. I'm sure not many exist, though. There's a chance this material will resurface on a 7 band compilation, "Incident at Ape Canyon", but I doubt I'll ever get around to putting that together seeing as I'm hopeless. This shit rules. I'm taking the easy route and saying if you liked P.A.M.'s older stuff, you'll like this too. Sorry, Miguel.)

PARACOCCIDIOIDOMICOSISPROCTITISSARCOMUCOSIS / BUTCHER ABC - split CD (Mexican gore/grind with the longest and stupidest name ever. Unlike Oxidised Razor, also from Mexico, these guys are pretty entertaining. They still kind of suck, but in a good way that has nothing to do with being a Gut clone. The vocals are really dumb, but funny at the same time. I've never heard anyone "sing" like this before, it's awesome. The music is a primitive mid-paced death metal that occasionally speeds up, but never too fast. The intros before the songs are way too long, too. Still, they're so damn unique sounding it's hard to dismiss them completely. Butcher ABC's stuff on here is is from a 1995 studio session, maybe their first recordings? I read somewhere that they started out as a noisecore band. I don't know if I could call this noisecore. More like 30 second blasts of goregrind. I'm not sure I've listened to this before today. You'd be surprised at how many CDs I have I've never listened to.)

Day #208
PARADE OF THE LIFELESS - "Anatomy of a People's Bondage" CD (I like this CD, but it's miles away from where they started. It's easy to see why the singer, Derrick, parted ways with them. He just wanted to be in a metal band and they drifted pretty far away from the Cryptopsy influenced grind band they started out as. I've known Derrick years before POTL came into existence through his noisecore band Soiled. I liked POTL enough to release both of their 7"s. I love all of their releases, but that split with Noisear is my favorite. They kept adding more and more changes and weird shit until the riffs just disappeared. There's loads of people into that sort of ultra-technical mathcore type stuff, but it's always just confused me and given me a headache. These guys really knew how to tackle their instruments, though. There's no question about that.)

PARADISE LOST - "Lost Paradise" + "Live Liverpool 3/18/89" CDR* (I've always really liked this dude's vocals. They're perfect for this kind of music. I've heard a couple other Paradise Lost albums and this is the only one I like. They were pretty much a straight up doom/death metal band at this point, before the goth influence moved in. Comparing this to early Cathedral wouldn't be too far off. There's an excellent soundboard recording of a very early live set filling out the disc. Too bad they didn't record more stuff like this.)

MACEO PARKER - "Life on Planet Groove" CD (I found this at a pawn shop for $3, figured it had to be at least $3 good. Maceo is a saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown and George Clinton, but he's had a long solo career, too. This is the only solo album I've heard and it's a live album from 1992. It's pretty similar to the stuff he recorded in the early 70s with James Brown under the JB's moniker, in fact, there's three lengthy James Brown songs on this 74 minute CD. He describes their style as "2% jazz and 98% funk". This is pretty good, better than I expected it to be, actually. I'd be into finding more of his albums cheap like this.)

PARLAMENTARISK SODOMI - "Har Du Sagt "A" Får Du Si "Nal"" CD (Blasting one man grindcore assault from Norway. The calibre of some of these one man projects amazes me. Very few are doing it right, but these guys, all of Magnus' projects, Wadge, Patisserie and Autophagia fucking nail it. Super thick production, well crafted old school grindcore song writing and powerful vocals on this CD. I'm not impressed by much in grindcore today, but this stuff sits with me just fine. Apparently this is two of the band's demos collected. Fucking crazy... The guy behind this seems really cool, too.)

PARLIAMENT - "Chocolate City" CD (This is one of my favorite Parliament albums. I've always been way more into the Funkadelic side of P-Funk, but the early Parliament albums are great funky fun. After a certain point, though, it took on too many disco characteristics for my tastes, too slick and processed. This one has a more organic, "human" sound to it and is great because of it. The bass sound on this album is crazy, sicker than on any of their other albums. Recorded before they adopted the interplanetary funk concept, this is just a bunch of great stand alone tracks that make up a great album.)

PARLIAMENT - "The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein" CD (The "P-Funk Earth Tour" live album was my first exposure to Parliament and it was touring this album, so I know these songs really well and find myself singing along with it without even realizing it. Super cheesy + lots of fun. It's the songs I didn't know from the live album that are my favorites, though. My friend Derek in High School was hugely into P-Funk, but hated all the attention they were getting because of sampling, specifically Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" album. If it weren't for Derek, to this day I probably wouldn't have any idea who they were. Funk wasn't on the radar for me, I had to be indoctrinated. We exchanged a few emails earlier this year after a 10 year hiatus. Not surprisingly, P-Funk dominated most of our conversation.)

PARLIAMENT - "First Thangs" CD (I don't remember the full story of this album, but it was released under the name Parliament due to some copyright issue with Funkadelic, who came to be because of a copyright issue with The Parliaments. The history of this shit's pretty confusing sometimes. Anyway, this sounds more like Funkadelic's "America Eats It's Young" 2LP than anything Parliament recorded. It's one of my favorite releases because of that. I didn't hear this one until years after the others. I didn't even know it existed when I saw it at Best Buy or even what it was.)

PARLIAMENT - "Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome" CD (It's right about here in their catalog that I lose interest. It's a stupid thing to complain about when listening to dance music, but so many of these songs are just one part repeated at length for 7 or more minutes, no changes. That might be fine for dancing, but not so good for sitting with headphones on paying attention to what's playing. I'm still on board with most of this album, but I hardly ever listen to it. There's too many other Clinton jams I would reach for first.)

PARLIAMENT - "Live: P-Funk Earth Tour" CD (As I said above, this was the first Parliament album I heard. I'm not totally sure I enjoyed or understood it at first, but it was Derek's passion for it that made me give more attention to it than I would have normally. I'm glad I stuck it out. The set list is made up mostly of songs from "Mothership Connection" and "Clones of Dr. Funkenstein" with a couple Funkadelic songs tossed in. There's a studio track and a promo on here as well, but the cassette version had another studio track this is missing, I think.)

Day #209
PARLIAMENT - "Mothership Connection" CD (When I think of Parliament, this is what comes to mind, not only conceptually, but musically. This is a great album, but I can't think of a thing to say about it right now.)

PARLIAMENT - "Motor Booty Affair" CD (I think I might like this one a little more than "Funkentelechy", though I don't listen to it very often, either. This is the last Parliament album I bought. After being underwhelmed by this one and and the previous one I wasn't interested enough to investigate further. I'm enjoying it this morning, though, more than I expected to, but probably because I've listened to it less often than the others and it's still somewhat new to me as a result.)

PARLIAMENT - "Up For the Down Stroke" CD (Released 4 years after their debut, George Clinton dusted off the Parliament moniker for a more commercial version of what he was already doing with Funkadelic. I've always considered this to be their first album as it's the first to fit in the big picture of what Parliament were to be known for. 3 songs from their doo-wop days as The Parliaments get a style update for this release and are barely recognizable when compared to the originals. This is probably my favorite of their albums and I always listen to this and "Chocolate City" when I'm in the mood to listen to them, sometimes never getting past CC. My funk tangents always include these first two albums and the first 5 or 6 Funkadelic albums. If I'm still into it, I'll venture out further in both bands' releases and add Bootsy's Rubber Band in the mix.)

THE PARLIAMENTS - "I Wanna Testify" CD (I spent $22 on this fucking CD because the price tag said it was an import and a double CD. It wasn't, and when I took it back to the Record Collector on a return visit to complain about it they looked at me like I was retarded. Fucking smug record store pricks. It took me years to fully appreciate this CD. I was initially bummed it didn't sound more like Parliament, then bummed about the crummy archival sound quality, but I overcame both and was able to enjoy it for what it is. We get an early snapshot of Clinton's musical ability, his knack for arrangement and his trademark lyric style. The Parliaments were started in the back of a New Jersey barbershop in the late 50s. There were singles going as far back as 1959, but sadly they weren't included here. Collected on this CD are 16 tracks culled from late 60s singles on the Revilot label written while Clinton was employed by Motown Records as a songwriter. Some of these songs were recorded later as Funkadelic, some on Parliament's "Up For the Down Stroke" album. The version of "Good Ole Music" on here isn't too different than the re-recorded version.)

PASADENA NAPALM DIVISION - "P.N.D. EP" MCD (I picked this up the last time I saw D.R.I. play live. It's Kurt from D.R.I. with a couple of the guys from Dead Horse doing metallic crossover stuff. It's not as good as either of those bands, but it's better than I thought it would be. When I got this I listened to it 20 or more times before shelving it. If they released another album I'd probably go out of my way to pick it up. That's a pretty good endorsement.)

PATARENI - "D.I.Y. - R.Y." CDR (I bought this from their guitarist Davor ages ago. The bulk of it comes from the "Back to the Roots" LP, re-recordings of their oldest material. Patareni are one of the greatest HC/grindcore band's ever, and one of the oldest forming in 1983. I think they did their first demo in 1986, or something crazy like that. Loads of complex changes, tons of parts, tons of noise blasts and, from what I can tell, a healthy sense of humor. They were pioneers in both grindcore and noisecore and from such an unlikely place, Yugoslavia. Unlike a lot of those old first wave grind bands who are still around today, most of their releases are still fucking great. Nothing but respect and appreciation for Patareni. The material on this CDR is great and the sound quality is awesome. There's some Buka tracks on here as well, deliciously noisy and retarded. This exact same Buka recording shows up on several Patareni splits, though.)

PATARENI - "Never Healed" CD (... and the same Patareni recordings show up on different releases, too, sometimes more than once on the same release. There's a lot of overlap between this one and the CD above, but that's okay as this is a CD release and the other is a limited CDR. Like the last disc, these recordings come from the early 90s and mix HC, thrash, noise and grind. There's a few more recent tracks Guilio from Cripple Bastards sings on, too. This shit rules, but I can't figure out why the same fucking recordings are on this disc in different order and with different titles. It's so fucking stupid and confusing. Maybe they thought people would see it had 81 tracks on it and buy it because it was a good deal? It would be a great deal at 40 tracks and the repeated songs left off, too.)

PATARENI -"Nezadovoljstvo je Energija" CD (First 3 tracks on this CD are the exact same recording as the last 3 tracks on the previous disc, and they appeared twice on that disc, not just once. I don't know what kind of shit they tried to pull with these CDs (they were released within months of each other), but it's fucking stupid. We move into some different stuff after that, then some live tracks. The live stuff is awesome. The vocals are three times as loud as the music and sound totally brutal and obnoxious. After the live stuff, the first half of the disc repeats itself, including those same 3 fucking songs for the 4th time in two CDs. At this point I'm thinking Patareni are a bunch of fuckheads for doing this and am tempted to call them "rip-offs" for misleading their fans into thinking their CDs have more material than they actually do. They probably could have condensed this CD and "Never Healed" to one CD had they not repeated the material on both discs, instead they decided to play games with their fans. I don't think this makes them rip-offs, but it's still a stupid fucking decision and these CDs suffer because of it.)

Day #210
PATARENI - "Obrade: A Tribute to Patareni" CDR (Another one I got from their guitarist years ago. The track listing is exactly the same as the LP I have, but the CD reissue done a few years ago has added material. I didn't bother buying the CD, I don't need it 3 times. This should probably be filed away with my compilations, but it's not. Lots of great bands on here: W.B.I., Scrawl, Rot, Cripple Bastards, Beyond Description, Sterbehilfe, Violent Headache, Necrophiliacs, Ruido De Odio and a bunch of others I hadn't heard of outside of this compilation.)

PATARENI - "Same" CD (Recorded at some point in the late 90s, not released until a great deal later. The band claim they didn't sanction this release and consider it to be a bootleg. They were probably just mad it was released without repeating the material at least once on the CD. This isn't anywhere near as fast, noisy or interesting as their other material. It's more metal sounding and precise. It sounds like the drums were programmed on a drum machine instead of someone actually playing them and like they have a different vocalist, too. I'm not digging this one too much.)

PATARENI - " Tko ne Pamti Iznova Proživljava" CD (This is my favorite Patareni stuff, from the oldest split 7"s dating back to the late 80s. "Deadland Massacre" is one of the most extreme pieces of music ever, I couldn't imagine hearing it when it was released. That very first split 7" with Buka with the pitch shifted vocals is total insanity. I was fortunate to pick up most of this stuff on vinyl when it was still around. I'm still missing a few of the 7"s, at least 3-4.)

Day #211
PATARENI / BUKA - "Empathy With Them / It's a Mockery" CD (There's a lot of overlap between this CD and "Never Healed", at least on the Patareni stuff. I'm not sure about the Buka stuff without checking. Within this CD, though, there are no repeated tracks. I probably listen to this one more often than the others.)

PATERNOSTER - s/t CD (Doomy German rock from 1971, their only release, I believe. The singer sounds as if he might start crying at any point during these songs. Joy Division has nothing on these guys. This album sounds like they recorded it as a suicide note, a final plea for help before ending it all. The vocals sort of sound like Dave Thomas from Pere Ubu, but deeper. It's a strange sound that probably takes some getting used to. This doesn't "rock" at all. The droning organ fills every song setting the mood appropriate for a funeral and it never gets faster than a snail's pace. The lyrics to "Blind Children" are really bizarre. This is a weird album, I can't think of anything else that sounds like it.)

PEGGIO PUNX - "Discography" 2CD (Peggio Punx were a pretty good Italian HC band from the early 80s. These discography CDs are great for stuff like this. I probably would never have had the chance to hear them if not for this. There's a good deal of melody in their music, certainly not as harsh as some other Italian HC bands from that era. There's even some funk worked into their music, but not to the extent Big Boys used funk. Like most of the original HC bands, they didn't play HC very long and moved on to other things. Even the slower tracks are interesting, though. It's better than what happened to SSD when they stopped playing punk. I had a few of these for sale for years. I ended up keeping one for myself because I had a single copy for the longest time that wouldn't sell.)

PELICAN - s/t EP CD (I saw Pelican with High on Fire and Floor when this was their only release. I hadn't heard of them before that, but they killed that night. I bought this CD and a shirt and went to see them every chance I had after that. Sometime after "Australasia" was released they stopped playing "Mammoth" live, no matter how many times I called out for them to play it. On my 5th time seeing them I talked to one of the members at their merch table and asked if they were going to play "Mammoth" that night and he said "We've outgrown that first EP and don't want to be remembered for that stuff anymore. We've moved on to better things." I told them it was my favorite song and thought the EP was great. They then told me if I spent $100 at their merch table that night they would play it. There was no smile on his face, he was dead serious.That was the exact point I lost interest in Pelican, completely and forever. At that point I owned all of their albums, EPs, the DVD, etc and I felt like a fucking fool giving them and their label my money, for driving hours to see them play, etc. I won't waste a second describing their music, but thought I should relate this story.)

PELICAN - "Australasia" CD (see above)

PELICAN - "The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw" CD (see above)

PELICAN - "March Into the Sea" CD (see above)

Day #212
PENTAGRAM - "First Daze Here (The Vintage Collection)" CD (I had no idea I owned this. When I pulled it from the shelf to rip it to my iPod I was confused. I had a burned CDR copy of it at one point, I remember that, but I don't remember buying this and replacing that burned copy. Weird... Relapse is really good with their reissues. There aren't too many band's in their current roster I care about, but their reissues are usually worth picking up. This is the only Pentagram stuff I've heard, and then it was only because of a friend's persistence, but it's pretty good mid-70s proto-metal, Sabbath influenced rock. It's okay, not great. I see a bunch of fuckers at shows now with Pentagram back patches and shit, no idea if there's a direct correlation between this reissue and their new crop of fans, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about them before this CD. Even still, I don't see how anyone could be so into this band that they'd walk around with a Pentagram back patch. I assume it has more to do with the giant pentagram symbol underneath the logo and people being fucking stupid.)

PERE UBU - "Dub Housing" CD (Pere Ubu are another one of those bands that are difficult to describe, hard to pin down to a genre and are great because of it. Jon Ezell from Green Beret taped me the first couple of discs from the "Datapanik..." set back in the 90s and after repeated listens I found myself on-board. Their old 7"s and first album are my favorites. This album is a lot more mellow than that early stuff, but still really weird. There's nothing accessible about their music. Their success is really puzzling to me.)

PERE UBU - "The Modern Dance" CD (There's still elements of their punk rock past on this album, but only barely. Almost everything from Rocket From the Tombs is gone. While this is still guitar oriented music, it's miles away from rock. Dave Thomas' vocals take a long time to get used to, and once you get past them there's the obstacles of weird electronic noise over almost every song, instrumental passages that don't really work all that well and the occasional skronking saxophone to deal with. As I said above, these guys are great because of these things, but it's something you have to get accustomed to first. This album is loaded with strange shit, and it's probably the straightest of their albums I've heard.)

PERE UBU - "New Picnic Time" CD (Their third album. I haven't listened to this one as often as the others. Sounds pretty consistent, though.)

PERE UBU - "The Shape of Things" CD (I can remember picking this up at some tiny record store while I was out of state, but I can't remember where I was or who I was with. It might have been in North Carolina, but I'm not sure. This is a live CD recorded on cassette tape in 1976 during the band's first month of existence. The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired, but you can make out all of the instruments okay. Unlike those live Numslaughter albums, I'm okay with archival recordings with shitty sound like this being released as long as people know what they're getting into and they happen after the fact. The cover warned the sound was lousy, so I was expecting something along these lines. The set list is made up of all of those old 7"s that were collected on the "Terminal Tower" CD plus a couple I haven't heard outside of this CD.)

PESTILENCE - "Consuming Impulse" CD (This is a great death metal album, one of my favorites from my teenage years. I still have the cassette tape I bought then, with the stupid fucking perforated J-card that's fallen apart from reading the lyrics too many times. I bought this during that great period in my life in which every death metal album I heard was great, or at least interesting somehow. I either had a lucky streak or, more likely, because I was only hearing albums released by labels I like, they acted as a filter to weed out shit that probably sucked. Either way, this album is great, Martin's vocals were unique and the recording is perfect.)

PESTILENCE - "Maleus Maleficarum" CD (Their first album reissued with both demos tacked on the end. I didn't acquire this one until 2000 or so. I looked for it as a teenager without ever finding a copy. It didn't disappoint. It sounds like Pestilence, but thrashier than their second album. The demo tracks are great, but sound kind of muddy after listening to the album.)

PHANTASM - "Wreckage" CD (Katon's band after Hirax called it quits the first time, with Metallica's first bass player, Ron McGovney, and Gene Hogland on drums. This CD has their only demo (great!) and a live show with thin sound (not so great). It doesn't sound too different from Hirax, though not quite as good.)

Day #213
DAVE PHILLIPS - "Hermeneutics of Fear of God" CD (Cut up, reassembled and reconfigured Fear of God songs by one of the original members. Somehow this stuff manages to be even harsher than originally. I have the 12", too, but bought this on CD because it has tons of bonus stuff on it. The fucking Brazilian glue holding the tray to the digipack gave out before I even had it in my possession.)

PHLEGM - "Mr. Hoo-Ha Visits the Non-Stop Pissing Circus" CD (I'm not sure what to make of this. I remember seeing this in the Relapse catalog years ago and the description made me want to buy it, but not for $20. I saw it a few years ago at Half Price Books (?!?), saw that it was on Dr. Jim's Records and bought it because their releases are usually pretty good. The closest thing I can compare this too would be Faxed Head. There aren't really any songs. It just sounds like a bunch of fucking around in the studio. I've only listened to it once or twice and I'm not enjoying it today. This might be going in the sell pile if it doesn't get any better.)

PHOBIA - "22 Random Acts of Violence" CD (Phobia have always seemed terribly average to me, not deserving of the attention they get. I don't know how I acquired this CD, but I'm sure I didn't buy it. Are there really people who think songs like "Beer, Bitches and Bulletbelts" are cool? Fight the system, guys....)

PINK FAIRIES - "Kings of Oblivion" CD (Pink Fairies were a great rock band. They came from the wreckage of The Deviants. Their singer didn't like the direction they were going in, accused them of trying to be Led Zeppelin, rockstars, so The Deviants broke up and the rest of the band formed Pink Fairies. This was their third album. Guitarist Larry Wallis was in the original Motörhead line up and they re-recorded "City Kids" from this album. "I Wish I Was a Girl" is the best track on this album, 10 minutes of epic rock splendor.)

PINK FAIRIES - "Never Never Land" CD ("Do It" is one of those definitive rock anthems, right up there with "Kick Out the Jams". Perhaps better sequencing would have made the rest of this album sound better, but everything else sounds tame after that monster of an opening number. There's plenty of great, powerful songs on this album, but none that match the intensity of "Do It". "War Girl" is great and sounds like something you'd hear on a Funkadelic album from that time period. "The Snake" appears as a bonus track and is another highlight of this CD. I'm so glad I picked these up, all three at the same time without ever hearing them before. It was a gamble, but with a huge pay off.)

PINK FAIRIES - "What a Bunch of Sweeties" CD (This one isn't as good as the other two, but it's in no way bad. It doesn't even sound like the same band, really. There must be some personnel differences on this one.)

PINK FLOYD - "1967: The First Three Singles" CD (These early songs are great. They're even poppier and more psychedelic than their first album. Pink Floyd with and without Syd really can't be compared. They sound completely different. Most of these songs appeared on the "Relics" collection, maybe all of them.)

PINK FLOYD - "Atom Heart Mother" CD (This one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums. It really stands out in their catalog and there's nothing else that really sounds like it. Side one's "Atom Heart Mother Suite" is one long 23 minute track with a haunting reoccurring theme in the horn arrangement that gives me goosebumps whenever it shows up. "If" sounds like a Greg Lake ballad you'd hear on the first King Crimson album. The whole second side sounds like that, actually, until we get to "Allan's Psychedelic Breakfast" which sounds like bits of unfinished songs strung together by the sounds of breakfast. It's a bit silly, really, but the rest of this album is great.)

PINK FLOYD - "London '66-'67" CD (Two songs from a film soundtrack. The original 18 minute version of "Interstellar Overdrive" and the 12 minute "Nick's Boogie" which is exclusive to this release. These are the oldest PF recordings available for purchase, I guess, recorded before they were signed to EMI. Both songs are instrumental, spacey and fairly noisy. I'd like to see the film someday. Time to fire up YouTube...)

PINK FLOYD - "Meddle" CD (This might be my favorite Pink Floyd album. Its the one I heard, after much protest, that changed my mind about them. My friend Ace was a big Pink Floyd fan and talked about them often, but I always considered it to be hippie shit. Hearing "Echoes" turned all of that around for me. The section of bass on "One of These Days" with the gapper never fails to give me chills when I hear it. Listening to this album will always make me think of summer trips to Denver to see my friends.)

PINK FLOYD - "More" CD (Their third album, another film soundtrack, mixes acoustic, spacier psychedelic songs and a couple of uncharacteristically heavy songs. Most of this is great.)

THE MIGHTY ACCELERATÖR - "The First Year" FREE download

2011-11-09T20:07:00.010-06:00

This is not a new Acceleratör album. This is a collection of unfinished 4 track recordings, live and rehearsal tracks assembled in an effort to document our first year of existence. If hearing the same songs four times in a row in varying degrees of completion sounds like a fun way to spend 97 minutes, this is for you.

The Mighty Acceleratör formed during Oktoberfest 2004 with raised voices and the stench of sawdust and beer. It took another month or two before we stared rehearsing, though, originally at Stephen's house in Hedrick, then at my house in Ottumwa. This was the first time any of us had played together. Inspired equally by Def Leppard and The Jabbers, we started writing songs right away.

Eventually we had enough songs to try and record them. Turned out we were writing songs faster than we could rehearse them. There were so many mistakes on that first recording we decided to scrap it and try again later.

Sometime after we started rehearsing at my house, Tom's brother Aaron joined on second guitar. Tom started missing practice with increasing frequency, never offering an explanation. Often he wouldn't even bother calling, leaving Stephen driving 30 minutes from Hedrick through the snow for nothing. Suddenly there was urgency to record the songs again before things fell apart.

The second attempt at recording went a little better, but the recording sounded worse. My guitar was recorded with the level too high and was distorted as a result. As was usually the case, we were plagued with tuning problem because of playing on absolute shit gear.

It was never our intention to leave these songs instrumental, but we never got around to writing lyrics for them. After doing a rough mix of the second recording, Stephen and I met once to try and write lyrics, but we never got any further than the chorus for "Werewoofs". Most of our songs didn't even have titles at the time. At that point it was apparent the band was falling apart and because I wasn't happy with the recording anyway, we just gave up. Acceleratör didn't break up, we just sort of fizzled out and stopped calling each other for rehearsal.

In our 6 months as a band we wrote 8 songs, played one and a half shows and recorded twice producing nothing worth releasing. It took a 5 year hiatus and 3 new members to finally get a proper recording of these songs.

Get it here for free...

http://themightyaccelerator.bandcamp.com/album/the-first-year-the-complete-2005-recordings

&amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://themightyaccelerator.bandcamp.com/album/the-first-year-the-complete-2005-recordings"&amp;amp;amp;gt;The First Year: The Complete 2005 Recordings by The Mighty Accelerator&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;

A-Z PROJECT: #199-206

2011-11-03T06:47:00.003-05:00

206 days into this stupid project, and well on my way to getting through all of my CDs in jewel cases within a year. At this point I'm sick of listening to music 8 hours a day, but I'm still finding things I forgot how much I enjoyed that I wouldn't normally choose to listen to.

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

Day #199
HARRY NILSSON - "Aerial Pandemonium Ballet" CD (Nilsson is my favorite singer ever. I became a fan in high school when I picked up "Nilsson Schmilsson" at a thrift store based on the cover art alone. To this day, it's the single greatest cover art I've seen. Straight out of the gate Nilsson was great. His first two albums were awesome, but he didn't find fame until "Everybody's Talkin'" was used on the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack. Instead of reissuing his first two albums, Nilsson took the best songs from both, re-recorded a few and released "Aerial Pandemonium Ballet". It was probably the right decision for him, every song on this LP is fantastic. It's crazy to think there were enough songs on two albums to create a "best of" essentially, but there were. A couple of these songs were later recorded by the Monkees and "One" was skyrocketed into fame by Three Dog Night. There was a great story on the documentary about Nilsson where a guy said he loved this album but thought it was fucked he didn't credit any of his backing singers not knowing it was Harry doing all of the vocals himself.)

HARRY NILSSON - "As Time Goes By... / Monkees Demos 1968" CDR* (Harry did a lot of things to sabotage his career. At the height of his fame he recorded an album of old standards against everyone's recommendations. He reasoned that his voice would never sound better than it did at that point and it was something he wanted to do. "A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night" didn't sell very well, but it's a fantastic album and I'm glad he recorded it when he did. The effects of alcoholism were already starting to show in his voice, but his tenor is still clear for most of this album. "As Time Goes By..." is the expanded import version, the full studio session. I only have "A Little Touch..." on LP, so I downloaded this. I had the CD at one point, but gave it away as I had planned on buying the import version. I figured I had plenty of time to buy it, but it went out of print before I had a chance to. I learned today that the domestic reissue has the additional songs as bonus tracks, so I'll be picking that up on my next Amazon order. The added songs are as great as the songs on the domestic release. The Monkees demos were recorded in 1968 during an audition as a song writer for the TV show. Just Nilsson solo with an acoustic guitar, then with a piano. I'm not terribly familiar with the show (though "Head" was a terrific movie), so I'm not sure how many of these songs were chosen. The recording seems to be done all in one take with false starts and talking between songs left in. The audio is great considering it was never released.)

HARRY NILSSON - "BBC 1971" CDR* (The version of "Mr. Richland's Favorite Song" on here is the best I've heard and is one if the saddest things Nilsson has recorded. Nilsson went his entire career without playing one concert. When the BBC approached him about doing a performance, he broke the rules and recorded himself solo, sometimes multiple tracks, and dubbed in audience noise when in fact nobody was there. There's a clip on YouTube of him singing with himself from this session, it's pretty funny.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Harry" CD (When I bought this CD it was years after I had stopped buying Nilsson albums. I had no idea there were albums before "The Point" and had always assumed it was his first. I bought this at Cheapos in Minneapolis, not even knowing it existed before then. It renewed my interest in Nilsson and sent me looking for other albums I missed out on. There were quite a few I had missed. This is a great album. A lot of the songs take on an old-timey feel, the instrumentation is full and Harry's voice sounds great. There's an innocence and child-like quality that's not present on some of his other releases. His sense of humor is in full swing, more so than on his earliest albums.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Nilsson Schmilsson" CD (This was the first of his albums I heard, it's my favorite and most people consider it to be his best. It contains his biggest hit, "Without You", a song he always resented because he didn't write it. It's difficult to consider Harry a rock singer, but this was one of two "rock" albums he recorded. This is a great album with a dynamic range of musical styles throughout, one of those that's great from start to finish without a single track of filler. I can't imagine anyone not liking this. "Jump Into the Fire" is a phenomenal song, probably the heaviest thing he's ever recorded. )

HARRY NILSSON - "Nilsson Sings Newman" CD (This is probably my second favorite Nilsson album, a collection of songs written by a then unknown Randy Newman. His voice is the best it's ever sounded on this release and the simple piano arrangements really allow room for his vocals to shine. The songs are sometimes quirky, sometimes sad, always great.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Pandemonium Shadow Show / Aerial Ballet" CD (His first two albums, later condensed to "Aerial Pandemonium Ballet" (see above). This stuff sounds very European, very schmaltzy, but it's still awesome. His young tenor sounds great and most of these songs are catchy and well written. These songs sound better on the condensed version, but it's great having both.)

HARRY NILSSON - "The Point" CD (A charming concept album, a children's story about a boy named Oblio born without a pointed head in a place where everyone and everything had points on them. Songs are broken up by bits of spoken narration telling the story. I won't give away the story and there was a full-length animated feature based on this album that's worth seeing, even if it is filled the the trappings of 70s hippie shit. This is one of Nilsson's best albums, but it sounds pretty dated.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Popeye Demos and Original Soundtrack" CDR* (Definitely not his best work. At this point Harry has completely lost his voice as a result of alcoholism and his contest he had with John Lennon to see who could scream the loudest and longest. Harry sings on the demo versions and they're quite sad. Not a total waste of time, but he really can't sing at all. The song writing even sounds pretty uninspired, with the exception of "He Needs Me" which is great. It's probably the only reason to check this out. The soundtrack is a little better, but not by much. Feel free to give this one a pass.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Skidoo Soundtrack 1968 / Botkin Sessions 1967 / Smothers Brothers Show 1970" CDR* (Skidoo was Nilsson's first soundtrack work. He and his collaborator George Tipton wrote all of the music, but he sings on only 3 of the songs. A lot of this is instrumental. It's interesting and worth checking out for the songs Harry sings on. Perry Botkin, Jr. was an early collaborator of Nilsson's. They recorded these songs to pitch to different label/artists to try to sell the songs. Some of these songs ended up on Nilsson's first LP, but a lot of them are exclusive to this promotional album. The Smothers Brothers stuff was recorded live, songs from "The Point" and "Harry" album, just Harry solo at the piano.)

Day #200
HARRY NILSSON - "Son of Schmilsson" CD (Nilsson's other "rock" album, just a step below in greatness when compared to "Nilsson Schmilsson". Coming off the huge success of his previous album, Harry was urged to write a single for this album for radio play. He came up with "Your Breakin' My Heart", a song guaranteed never to get airplay because of its continued use of "fuck you" in the lyrics. Harry, still upset about "Without You", decided he was playing by his own rules this time. The album didn't do as well as a result, but this is one of his best releases. The ridiculous cover art would make one think they're in for some acid rock or heavy metal album, but instead we get a lovely mixture of rock, raunch, piano ballads and even a tongue-in-cheek country song.)

HARRY NILSSON - "Spotlight on Nilsson 1966 / Hollywood Dreamer 1962" CDR* (Most of "Spotlight..." is made up of singles Harry recorded and released under pseudonyms while he was still trying to sell his songs to other artists. A few new songs were recorded to flesh it out to an LP. It still sounds very much like Nilsson, but Nilsson set in the early 60s with Phil Spector producing. It's interesting, but not something I listen to often. "Hollywood Dreamer" was Harry's first paid job as a musician, fetching a whopping $5/song to sing someone else's songs for this recording. This sounds more like Ricky Nelson or the Everly Brothers than Nilsson, but Harry's voice sounds great. The legend surrounding these recordings say that they went unreleased until after Nilsson became famous. The song writer wrote to Nilsson about coming to a financial agreement in order to release them and Harry told him he'd already been paid $5 per song, that was their agreement, and he was free to do what he wanted with them.)

HARRY NILSSON - "That's the Way It Is... / Knnillssonn" CD ("Knnillssonn" is a great album with lush string arrangements, and while Harry's voice is damaged at this point, he sings in a range he can pull off fairly well. This is probably his last great album. "That's the Way It Is..." is sort of a mixed bag. Most of it is really good, but clunkers like "Zombie Jamboree" do a good job of dragging the album down for me. It's worth checking out, for sure, and I probably would have bought it on it's own, but being paired with "Knnillssonn" sealed it for me.)

HERMANN NITSCH - "Komposition für Orgel" CD (I'm not terribly familiar with Mr. Nitsch's work, but know that he's a German performance artist of sorts. This album is made up of organ drones with the occasional sound of what seems to be fists mashing against the keys.)

MOJO NIXON & SKID ROPER - s/t CD* (I've never been able to find this on CD, so this is a rip of my cassette tape I've owned since middle school. This kind of stuff gets better with age. It's funnier today than it was when I was going through puberty and it holds up really well musically, too. Mojo does a pretty good imitation of George Thorogood mixed with Howlin' Wolf, good raunchy blues / psychobilly / punk with humor to spare. This stuff works better as a duo. When Skid split and Mojo got a full band backing him it lost a lot of it's charm.)

MOJO NIXON & SKID ROPER - "Frenzy" CD (Huge leap in sound quality with this one. This is a great album, lots of "hits". My CD has the "Get Out of My Way" EP as bonus tracks. I've heard this so many times I have most of it memorized.)

NME- "Unholy Death / Machine of War" CD (Their first album from 1986 with their 1985 demo as bonus tracks. They get lumped in with black metal bands a lot because they were supposedly an influence when Mayhem started, but they sound like a slowed down, sloppier version of Slaughter or a sped up version of Venom. I like a little slop in my metal, so that's okay.Their guitarist killed his mother with a hatchet and a pair of scissors while on drugs claiming he was a robot and wanted to open her up to see if she was a robot, too. After serving a lengthy prison term, he drove his car off of a bridge and killed himself. Neat!)

NO TREND - "Mass Sterilization" 12", "When Death Won't Solve Your Problems" LP, "Too Many Humans" 12" CDR* (Bunch of trouble makers from the 1980's HC scene who went out of their way to piss everyone off, point out how stupid punkers were and made a bunch of great noisy records in the process. They changed musical styles often, but their oldest stuff is great. Similar to Flipper in their approach, slightly more musical and way angrier. They quickly started adding funk and lounge elements to their music, including a saxophone, but it's still stupid, angry and awesome.)

Day #201
NOISEAR - "Red Tape Agenda" CD (There's a severe lack of Noisear in my CD collection. I have a couple of their full-lengths on LP and a few split 7"s, but I'm missing a ton of their releases. This is embarrassing seeing as I released their first record, but it was a matter of thinking I'd pick them up later and never got around to it. I asked them about doing a trade for some stuff I was missing last year, but nothing materialized. Anyway, I'm happy these guys are doing so well today, they deserve it. They're one of the best grindcore bands today and are nice guys, too. This CD is short, only 19 minutes, and the guitars sound pretty thin, but it works as a whole. Alex's vocals are brutal and Joe's high screams give John Chang a run for his money. There was talk of a discography CD. a few years ago. I wonder if it will ever happen?)

NOMEANSNO - "The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed" CD (NMN always remind me of my friends Chris and Jake from high school who listened to them all the time. I had "Wrong" on cassette and loved it, so when Alternative Tentacles had an $8.00 CD sale years ago I picked up a bunch of their stuff. I kept only this one and "Wrong". I'm not terribly familiar with their music having only heard 5 or 6 of their albums, certainly not familiar enough to call myself a fan, but this CD is pretty rockin'. I like their faster stuff a lot more and there's quite a few slower songs on this CD, but the balance is okay. The second album on this disc is the better of the two. It's always amazed me that two people were able to do this band. I've never understood the writing process for guitar and bass when one guy is playing both instruments. Some songs start with guitar, others with bass. How do you rehearse those songs? Do you switch back and forth, or just leave holes to fill in later? I'm sure I'm over-thinking it. Edit: I just read that they were a 3 piece for most of their history, not just a duo. Fuck, I'm stupid. I'm leaving all of this in as supporting evidence.)

NOMEANSNO - "Wrong" CD (There isn't a thing I would change on this album except for maybe stripping the female backing vocals from "The End of All Things". This is a hard album mixing metal, punk, funk and progressive rock. Tempos shift from song to song sometimes crossing into thrash metal territory. The vocals and music are angry and precise. The recording is great and packs plenty of punch. I pull this one out often.)

BRIAN NORING - "Ice and Snow and Ice and Snow" CDR (You know somebody is recording for the love of recording when the release is limited to 10 copies. You don't release 10 copies of something to spread your name or to get pats on the back. You don't even do it for feedback, except from the few people who get one. In my opinion, creating music for the sake of creating is just about the greatest thing ever. I'm pretty sure that was Brian's motivation. I wrote Brian a few times in the 90s, shortly after he stopped doing his zine, but we lost contact with each other eventually. A few months ago my band played a show in Des Moines and someone complimented me on my Sore Throat shirt. After talking for a few minutes we figured out we knew each other, sorta. After the show, I sent Brian some of my releases we talked about that night and he sent this CDR among other things in return. Before this, I had only heard his noise project EHI. This stuff is far less noisy. Sort of short pieces of minimalist sound, some played on piano, some on guitar, some on what sounds like a harmonium. None of it is particularly musical, but at the same time it's not exactly noisy. It's like a snapshot of whatever held his interest that day. The last piece is half as long as the entire CD, clocking in at over 22 minutes. It sounds like Zoogz Rift attempting an Eninno Morricone score. It's bizarre, dark and sloppy, but somehow entertaining and not irritating. I expected to get sick of it 5 minutes in, but it held my interest the whole time. I can't say that about a lot of music people consider essential listening.)

NOSFERATU - s/t CD (Another gem from the early German rock scene. Recorded in 1970, this was their only album. Great hard rock stuff with synth and flute. The vocals are great and fit the music perfectly. This took me years to track down a copy. It was worth the wait. The best song on the album, "No.4", sounds like something you'd hear on the first Mythos album.)

NUCLEAR DEATH - "Demos 1986-1988" CDR (I don't remember where I got this bootleg, but there's fuck all information on the cover. Just a band photo and a tracklist, no address. I probably wouldn't have had the chance to hear these if it weren't for this boot, so I don't care how crappily it was done. It sounds as if it was sourced from mp3s, but the audio isn't too bad. One of the most extreme metal bands for their time, Arizona or elsewhere. These demos are a little less extreme than their LPs and Lori sings more than she did later on, but this shit is fierce and dirty as fuck. Somewhere between thrash and death metal, they got more brutal with each release. These early demos are great, I just wish there was more info, some liner notes, etc. Maybe they'll get a proper release someday? Every other fucking demo recorded is being reissued as a forgotten classic, why not these guys?)

Day #204
NUCLEAR DEATH - "For Our Dead / All Creatures Great and Eaten" CD (The third and fourth albums collected on one CD. These aren't quite as good as the first two, but they're still great. The transfer seems to gave come from a cassette tape,there's a lot of hiss on this CD. Nuclear Death were a bizarre band and hard to pin down to a genre. This is some murky, dark and doomy stuff. A lot of the time it's impossible to make out what the guitars are doing, and those few times you can, the guitar parts sound like they were lifted from a Flipper album. I really can't think of any other band that sounds like them, that has a lot to do with why they're so great.)

NUNSLAUGHTER - "7" Collection" CDR* (At one point I owned all of Nunslaughter's records. I've been a fan since the demo days, but it didn't take long until they spiraled out of control releasing a new record every month and I lost interest. I can't afford to be a fan of a band that prolific, not with a mortgage to pay. After a while I just stopped trying to collect everything, only buying things I could find, then eventually I stopped buying altogether. I think when bands do shit like this they're doing a disservice to their fans. Who can keep up with this shit? Just write enough songs for a full-length, record them and release an album twice a year. Stop trying to create collectors items and start making it easier and more affordable for people who like your music to obtain it. I really fucking like the Nunslaughter records I own, though. I made this CD from rips of my vinyl and probably listen to this more than any of their albums.)

NUNSLAUGHTER - "Devil Metal" CD (This is a live CD and sounds pretty crummy. Not only is the sound distant, but there's an audible hum between songs. I wonder how much I could get for this? I probably won't listen to it again after today.)

NUNSLAUGHTER - "Goat" CD (I suppose it's fitting that I'm spending Halloween day listening to Nunslaughter. Strange timing, I guess. This is a great CD, solid from start to finish, packed with great memorable riffs and a recording that's clean enough to be an asset but still miles away from being too produced. The lyrics have always seemed sort of cartoony, but even more so on this release. No complaints from me, though. Listening to Nunslaughter = good times. At this point I've not heard most of their albums, but this is my favorite of the ones I own.)

NUNSLAUGHTER - "Hell's Unholy Fire" CD (This was their first CD, and if I remember correctly, it's entirely made up of old demo songs re-recorded. This CD is great, too.)

NUNSLAUGHTER - "One Night in Hell" CD (Another fucking live album. How is it that a band can follow up their first studio with multiple live albums? When I bought these, I had no idea they were live albums. The titles gave no indication they would be live. The sound on this is better than on "Devil Metal", the stage banter is way more ridiculous. I don't think I'm in the right mind frame to enjoy this sort of stuff today.)

N.W.A. - "Straight Outta Compton" CD (At one point I thought this was either cool, "hard" or funny. At one point I was really fucking stupid.)

NYC MAYHEM - "Discography" CDR* (I downloaded this stuff before it got a proper reissue. What a weird band... There's some crossover elements to this, but it's also dripping with Possessed influence and full of blastbeats and ripping guitar leads on the earliest recordings. It kind of sounds like a mixture of Crucial Youth and Lärm playing thrash metal, or what I imagine that to sound like. I should probably pick up that 2CD reissue someday before it's out of print.)

NYCTOPHOBIC - "Blast From the Past Takes You Back With..." CD (It's weird. I usually don't care much for these guys. I've given them several tries, have owned several of their releases, but they usually leave me wanting more. Today, just now, I'm enjoying the shit out of this CD. I only picked this CD up because the place was having a buy one get one free sale and I needed an even number to place the order. Nyctophobic were a German grindcore band from the 90s who reached some level of fame releasing a full-length on the great Morbid Records label (who ripped me off for 60x 7"s - I still haven't forgotten). This CD compiles most of their releases. They make nice use of samples, not going overboard with them. The recording on most of this stuff is pretty good with the bass guitar high in the mix, like I like it.)

OBITUARY - "Cause of Death" CD (Obituary are one of my favorite death metal bands. Nobody else sounds like them and their singer sounds like a wild animal cornered, warning you to stay away and leave him alone. Listening to this right now, it feels as if a giant hole is being ripped through my chest. I'm having the worst day I've experienced in years and this music is compounding things, making me feel like crawling into bed and crying for a couple of weeks. This shit sounds so much more brutal today because of my current mindset, it's fucking devastating.)

Day #205
OBITUARY - "The End Complete" CD (The local record shop in town sold me a copy of this the say before it was released because of how hard I hounded him about it. I got it home and didn't like it because of how dry the production was. The production doesn't bother me anymore and I love it today, but it's still a bit of a disappointment after their first two albums.)

OBITUARY - "Slowly We Rot" CD (Probably my favorite death metal album of all time. Nobody mixed doom riffs with death metal better than Obituary, not even Autopsy. The guitar tones on this album are insane and those slow crushing riffs over double bass is something C3L borrowed from often. The contrast is an amazing effect and a big part of their signature sound. I still get goosebumps when I listen to this, even today when I feel like my heart has been ripped from my chest.)

OBITUARY - "World Demise" CD (Their fourth album, and the last one I bothered checking out. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is I don't like about this one, but it didn't move me enough to want to hear any of their releases after it. I remember my friend Brian getting a set of promotional postcards for this album in the mail from R/C and wanting them very badly. After hearing this I didn't want them anymore. I bought this CD upon it's release, sold it, then bought it again a few years ago at a pawn shop because it was cheap and I wanted to give it another shot.)

OINGO BOINGO - "Dead Man's Party" CD (Another one of my high school senior year obsessions, started with finding this album and "Nothing to Fear" on LP at Newsland. Of course I knew them from soundtracks, but hearing "Nothing to Fear" in its entirety hooked me. "Dead Man's Party" was the only Oingo Boingo album I didn't own on CD. I liked it, but not enough to replace the LP I owned. I let my friend Brian borrow it and somehow he got it in his head that I gave it to him, so I just let him keep it. A couple of years ago I found this CD at a pawn shop and picked it up. Their releases on IRS and A&M are the best. By the time they signed to MCA they lost all of the ska influence and herky-jerky sound that made them great leaving only quirky pop music. I shouldn't say "only quirky pop", because they were a terrific pop group who were heads and shoulders more interesting than most of the dreck from that era. I bought several of their albums after this one but ended up selling them to feed my grindcore addiction in the late 90s. I wish I had them back now. I'm sure they're more interesting than the CDs I bought with the money I made selling them.)

OINGO BOINGO - "Good For Your Soul" CD (Their releases got less interesting for me with each release, but this, their third full-length, is rock solid. This is one of their best albums, their last on A&M. I was too busy listening to and enjoying this to find words to describe it.)

OINGO BOINGO - "Nothing to Fear" CD (Their second album, and their best, in my opinion. The perfect marriage of punk, funk,ska and synth-pop. Elfman gets all of the attention for Oingo Boingo, but the band was loaded with players with talent to spare. I think Steve Bartek's contributions, especially, are overlooked. His sharp, angular guitar playing is prominently displayed on this album. If you listen for it specifically, he's all over the place playing weird passages that only make sense in the context of Oingo Boingo. This is a fantastic work of music.)

OINGO BOINGO - "Only a Lad" CD (Their first album is great, though not as great as their second. One noticeable difference is the amount of space in the songs. While still extremely busy when compared to other bands, it sounds a little sparse. This isn't a bad thing, it just gave them room to grow with their arrangements later on. There seems to be a heavier focus on vocals on this one than on later albums. A lot of the songs are crammed with lyrics. "Little Girls" has to be the most inappropriate opening track for a band's major label debut ever. I can't believe that was green-lighted, boggles my mind.)

OINGO BOINGO / DEVO - s/t 10", "Be Stiff" 12", "Sing if You're Proud to Be Devo" LP CDR* (Some stuff I had on vinyl I wanted a digital copy of. Oingo Boingo's 10" is great and has "Ain't This the Life", one of my favorite songs of theirs. "Be Stiff" collects the early Devo 7"s released on Stiff Records and the last is a live Devo bootleg with demo-era intros breaking things up a bit.)

OLD LADY DRIVERS - s/t LP, "Bathrooms Rule" demo, split 7" with ASSUCK CDR* (I don't own any of these things. I've never seen the LP for less than $50, and while it might usually fetch more than that, I'm not paying that much for it. I read somewhere that Plotkin is embarrassed by this stuff and has been the roadblock for this stuff being reissued. I have no idea if this is fact or not. This is the only OLD stuff I like, too.)

THE OLD MAN - "Demo" CDR (There are some great bands here in Iowa. Not a lot, but a few. The Old Man are probably the greatest rock band I've seen in Iowa, but they're a band filled with problems that keep them from doing what they love doing. It's too bad. I'm happy I had the chance to see them as many times as I did, but they had 3 different drummers in the 5 times I saw them live, and this was after their original drummer was gone due to other engagements. They play a gritty mixture of riff-rock, blues and a little country. Both guitarists are great, trading licks back and forth throughout, and the singer/bass player's vocals are terrifically raspy, rough, yet melodic. It blows me away that talent like this exists in my backyard, but kills me that whatever shit is going on with them in their personal lives is keeping them from playing. This 7 song demo is great, but they easily had another 5-6 songs written they were playing out when I saw them. It would be a fucking shame if they don't get recorded before the band falls apart. I'm still holding out for a triumphant return, though. I haven't given up on them yet.)

Day #206
MIKE OLDFIELD - "Tubular Bells" CD (I picked this up at the Virgin Megastore in Melbourne, Australia while I stayed with one of the guys in Warsore for a few weeks in 2000. Paul worked days while I was there, so I found myself fucking around downtown a lot of the time and buying things I probably wouldn't have in different situations. Anyway, Mike Oldfield is a multi-instrumentalist and recorded this album all by himself. It's pretty awesome, like a 50 minute musical landscape with reoccurring themes, different instruments added all the time. The first 5 minutes or so were made famous by use of the Excorcist soundtrack, but this isn't a "dark" album at all. Quite the opposite. A lot of it is upbeat, at times even funny. There's a few surprises here and there that catch you off guard and make you jump because of how drastic the changes are. This is great instrumental music, though a bit linear. It doesn't sound like a band playing, more like a story being told through sound. It's pretty unique. Those twink-like pictures of Mike posing shirtless inside the booklet are ridiculous, though. My Australian host had a good laugh at them, then at me for buying a CD with those pictures in the layout. Like I knew...)

OLHO SECO - "Olho Por Olho" CD (I'm pretty sure this is their first full-length album, released in 1989. Their discography is kind of confusing, lots of releases with the exact same material on it, some as split LPs, some bootlegs. At this point Olho Seco had lost all of the melody in their music and are playing pretty much straight up blurrcore. Instead of turning into a metal band like most punk bands did, they just got faster and noisier. This shit is insane: 16 songs in 17 minutes, no discernible riffs, fucking great.)

OLHO SECO / FOGO CRUZADO / BRIGADO DO ÒDIO - "Botas, Fuziz, Capacetes" CD (This is a weird release, I'm not quite sure what's up with it. I'm reasonably sure the Olho Seco material is their first 7". That same material was released as a split with Fogo Cruzado, then later with Brigado Do Òdio's only 7" as a split LP. I think since the same Olho Seco material was used for all three releases they just collected everything for this one CD, but the traycard and spine don't mention the other bands at all, as if this was just a straight reissue of their first 7". Olho Seco's tracks are from 1983 and are awesome. Nice aggressive Brazilian HC with shouted, angry vocals. There's some life stuff after the 7" stuff that varies in sound quality, but all of it is listenable. Fogo Cruzado don't sound all that different from Olho Seco, but nowhere near as good. Their material is live, could use more guitar in the mix. Brigado Do Òdio are the real gem on here, though. They're one of those great examples of accidental noisecore blasting through 28 tracks of screaming nonsense, completely clumsy and sloppy, but awesome for those very same reasons.)

YOKO ONO - "Plastic Ono Band" CD (I never thought I'd be able to get behind anything John Lennon related, but this is great. Yoko Ono has two things going for her. She might have been responsible for the death of The Beatles and she makes really horrible music, but in a good way. Even with Lennon playing on this, it sank like a stone. Most of the album is filled with primal screaming and sounds of a goat being ass-fucked (not literally) over weird proto-punk or full on improvised crap. Ornette Coleman even guests on a track, sort of a whining / sax duo. I like the idea of this album existing more than the experience of listening to it. It's hard to believe music this dumb existed so long ago.)

OPENWOUND / ANTIGAMA - "Blastasfuck Split" CD (Openwound was Roby's band before The Kill. They released a great demo and a split 7" with Captain Clean Off, probably other stuff I'm forgetting. There was a time when I was really up on the Australian grind scene, but I've lost contact with so many of those people since then. Openwound were great. Not as full-on as The Kill, but great. The recording sounds like it was done on a 4 track, drums are a little hard to make out. Antigama's material sounds like it was done at rehearsal, but gets better deeper into their tracks. Those guys are always great, even the sound is not so great. The Repulsion cover is awesome, totally furious.)

ROY ORBISON - "The Legendary Roy Orbison" CD (I've always like Roy. This is a CD filled with his earliest rockabilly recordings.)

ORTHRELM - "IORXHSCIMTOR" CD (A side project of Cromtech, my brother saw these guys open for Thrones years ago and bought two of their CDs at the show. I liked them enough to buy this CD and three of their LPs, but it's probably been 10 years since I've listened to this. This stuff sounds good on paper, but it's a real headache in practice. Sounds like drums and a guitar fighting with each other, no riffs, just ripping solos for 17 minutes. The guitarist's involvement with Flying Luttenbachers makes sense. Both projects are equally complex and difficult to listen to.)

OUT OF FOCUS - s/t CD (Another great German progressive rock band from the 70s. Without so much emphasis on flash or complex arrangements, these guys excelled at longer, more mellow, slow building moody songs not unlike Embryo, another of my favorite krautrock bands. The closing song on this CD is awesome, a great example of effective dynamics within a song. The vocalist sings in strained English, sometimes with eyebrow-raising word choices, but overall he does a pretty decent job. I just wish more German bands sang in their native tongue. This is a great album, a real improvement over their first album which is also great. All of the rough edges are sanded at this point.)

OUT OF FOCUS - "Four Letter Monday Afternoon" 2CD (Holy fuck, what a way to start an album. "L.S.B." is as strong of an opening number as anyone could hope for. The Monday Night Football horns trumpet over a stomping instrumental number complete with blippy synth noises crescendoing into sounds of exploding mortar shells before bringing it back down to a simpler melody. All this within the first 7 minutes with still 11 minutes of the song remaining! It's really attention grabbing. This was the first Out of Focus album I heard. I bought it used for $18. While it was fucking expensive, I had a feeling it was going to be great. It's their best album, in my opinion, and they're one of the best bands in this style of progressive, jazz fusion. On this album they expanded to an 11 piece line up (!!!) and it shows. It's like the band Chicago joined forces with them to create the biggest sound ever. The second disc is one 50 minute long track broken into 3 segments, all improvised. It drags on a bit, but most 50 minute songs do.)

The Worst Halloween Ever

2011-11-01T05:40:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was probably the worst day of my life. I spent the day at work with a lump in my throat fighting back tears, counting down the hours, then minutes, until it was time to drive my best and most loyal friend to an appointment to end her life. I cried the entire drive home from work knowing my time had ran out. There is no amount of mental preparation that can ready you for taking down a living creature in the prime of it's life, one that's given to you unconditionally, was always there for you and always happy to see you. Gracie was a great dog who made some unfortunate decisions the last 2 weeks of her life. Having her put down was the most difficult decision my wife and I have ever had to make. She would have been 3 years old in January. My chest literally feels like it's on fire, maybe the first time in my life I've experienced true heartbreak. Goodbye, friend. I'm sorry we didn't have more time together.

Mummifier - "Advanced Mummification Procedure" on Grindcore Karaoke

2011-10-28T15:10:00.010-05:00

It's beginning to look as if the Mummifier full-length isn't going to be released on CD. Life has repeatedly stepped in and fucked up any chances I had of saving money for this release. I'm not sure it matters, though. For the most part people don't even listen to CDs. People buy them, then put the audio on their iPods, etc, but loading a CD into a CD player and listening to the CD itself has become a thing of the past. I can't say I'm bothered by this. I don't care how people listen to it as long as they're listening.

The cassette version of this will be out in a matter of days via www.hurtstohear.com with a variation of the cover art (fucken' snazzy, isn't it?!). I'll have a few to sell if people want a physical product to hold in their hands, or they can order them from the label directly. But, like LPs and their download cards, people can get a pristine copy of the audio by grabbing it online from Grindcore Karaoke right now. The download comes with 12 bonus tracks (from our two demos) and a digital booklet. Grab it for free here...

http://www.grindcorekaraoke.com/album/advanced-mummification-procedure

<a href="http://www.grindcorekaraoke.com/album/advanced-mummification-procedure">Advanced Mummification Procedure by Mummifier</a>

Thanks to Kurtis and Randall for their help in bringing this to fruition after 18 months of delays. I hope people will think it's worth the wait.

A-Z PROJECT: 192-198

2011-10-26T06:23:00.003-05:00

198 days ago I started listening to all of my CDs in alphabetic order to see if I could do it. I found myself bored with what I was listening to and spending more and more time deciding on what to listen to. I realized I had a lot of CDs I never listened to, stuff I never had the urge to put on, and decided to just listen to all of them in order instead. My goal was to listen to everything in a year, or at least to see how long it would take me to accomplish this. I’ve been tracking my progress on Facebook by posting daily playlists and giving my immediate thoughts on what I was listening to as I was listening to it. I've since deleted my Facebook and thought I’d post my progress here instead since I need to make more use of this Blog site anyway. I don’t consider myself to be a writer, a music critic or an authority on music. This is simply a way to alleviate boredom at a job in which very little is expected out of me. I’m also not posting these playlists to brag about my music collection and I’m not burning copies of this stuff for people, so don’t ask.

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

Day #192
MYTHOS - "Concrete City" CD (Mythos took a strange turn into synth heavy proto-metal sometime in the late-70s. The guitar and synth sounds and riffing styles are similar to the first Tubeway Army album, but the strong Germanic vocals take forefront here. Whenever there's singing, all focus is on that. This is weird rock-opera type shit, but it's awesome. "Neutron Bomb" has parts that sound as if they were lifted from a Candlemass album. I keep listening to this stuff thinking about covering one of these tracks because they would sound great a little heavier and faster. I'm completely on board with this album.)

MYTHOS - "Strange Guys" CD (The first track on this album, "Aeronaut", is one of the greatest proto-metal tracks ever recorded and I will record a cover of it before I hang up my guitar. That song alone is worth picking this up. "Powerslide" is another heavy and groovy instrumental, the other highlight of this album. The brakes are applied from the second song on to the end of the album, but this is a great synth-heavy German rock record with some flute and piano overdubs that harken back to their earlier krautrock roots. I think this album is unfairly dismissed by fans of progressive rock and krautrock. If only their vocals weren't so stiff sounding, this might have been better received.)

MYTHOS / MESSAGE - "Dreamlab" + "The Dawn Anew is Comin'" CDR* (I received this as part of a trade years ago and never got around to buying "Dreamlab" on CD. Mythos' second album is quite a bit more mellow and relaxed than their debut. Lots of acoustic guitar and loose jamming, still with walls of mellotron providing plenty of ambience. This is a nice, spacey cosmic album, but it's my least favorite Mythos album and that's probably why I haven't replaced this burned copy yet. This Message album is pretty good. Very Anglo sounding rock with some prog tendencies. There are moments that remind me of Genesis and King Crimson, but it's nowhere near as active as either of those bands.)

NAILED DOWN - "Anarchy & Violence" CDR* (This is something I threw together after ripping all of my ND vinyl released up to that point. I was fanatical about Nailed Down in the 90s and still am to some extent today. They were one of the best HC bands to come out of Australia, but they slowed down and cleaned up their recordings too much for my tastes. This CDR has their "Violent Distortion" 3"CD, their split 7"s with Dismachine and D.P.P.S., the "Destroy Deceitful Fellows" 7", "Honour and Glory" 8" flexi and the "Atrocious Damnation" 10", the noisiest shit they recorded. 84 tracks in 78 minutes... That's a whole lot of anger and crust riffs.)

NAILED DOWN - "Resurection" CD (It's nice to hear them playing fast again. 16 songs in 14 short minutes, channeling Negative Approach it seems. This shit is ferocious and unrelenting.)

NAKED CITY - s/t CD (Technically, this was released as a John Zorn album titled "Naked City", but there are Naked City songs on this and it's the same band, so I file it in the "N" section. Another one of my favorite CDs from my teenage years, and another I don't listen to very often now. I've always gotten the impression that Zorn was slumming it playing grindcore, one of those "Neat, I can do that too!" situations. I'm not sure how I feel about jazz intellectuals playing grindcore, but it doesn't sit well with me. The teenage me never considered such things. I should just fuck off, pretend it's 1992 again and enjoy this for what it is)

NAKED CITY - "Torture Garden" CD (This is a great CD. 42 songs in 27 minutes of demented jazz/grind. I can assume most of the people reading this will be familiar with this gem, and if not - you should be. It's one of the craziest albums ever released, and yet contains very little "wacky". Still, this is my first time listening to it in at least 10 years.)

NAPALM DEATH - "From Enslavement to Obliteration" CD (Napalm Death had 1.5 great albums and a whole bunch more that were just okay. This whole album is great and the second half of "Scum" is great. Other than there being too much reverb on the recording, this is just about perfect.)

NAPALM DEATH - "Noise for Music's Sake" 2CD (I bought this thinking it was something else and have been meaning to sell it since then. This is probably a pretty comprehensive collection of Napalm Death's discography, but I haven't heard anything since "Fear, Emptiness and Despair" and haven't enjoyed anything since "Harmony Corruption". I don't know what the fuck I thought this was when I bought it.)

Day #193
NAPALM DEATH - "The Peel Sessions" CD (I forgot about this one when I said they had only 1.5 great albums. This is actually my favorite Napalm Death release after the second side of "Scum". I have the version with the flaming car on the front, atomic green CD and only the first two sessions. Those other sessions are crap anyway.)

NAPALM DEATH - "Scum" CD (I heard this one second, after "Harmony Corruption". Needless to say, it sent me off on a grindcore tangent that hasn't ended yet. I had already devoured Sore Throat's discography before hearing Napalm Death and was well familiar with short bursts of noise, but I wasn't prepared for the intensity of this album.The first side is great, but the gnarly guitar tone on the second side hasn't been equalled since. They should have kept that sound on their next album instead of burying everything in reverb.)

NAPALM DEATH / CARCASS - Split Live CD (Crummy bootleg with lousy sound and very little information in the insert. Mick's between song banter is fucking stupid and annoying. This CD sucks.)

NAPALMED / HERMIT WITH SIST EN 343 - split CDR (This is a reissue by R.O.N.F. of a cassette that was originally released by Abnormal Tapes. Napalmed have been at it forever. I have a bunch of their stuff on cassette, a few 7"s. Radek and I wrote back and forth a few times over the years, seems like a nice guy. There's a lot of variety in his noise, even within a single release. The first song on this is long and sparse with short bursts of noise. Second track sounds like a couple of guys in a factory banging on pipes and dragging sheets of metal around. I've never been in contact with Hermit, but own several of his releases I've picked up from various distros in the 90s. Some of this noise stuff I just happen upon or take a chance with, but Hermit stuff I sought out because it was all good. One of the things I liked about Hermit was that his releases were always so inexpensive. I didn't like them because they were cheap, I just liked that he sold them cheaply. I wonder if he's still recording stuff today?)

NASTY SAVAGE - "Wage of Mayhem" CDR (I acquired this promo somehow, can't remember how. It's two new songs from their new album and their entire "Wage of Mayhem" demo which I already had on cassette. The new songs are good and don't sound too different from their classic albums of the 80s. Good for them for resisting the urge to update their sound in an attempt to make themselves relevant today. The 1984 demo tracks are great and sound like a mixture between "Show No Mercy" era Slayer and Mercyful Fate. How could you not fucking like that?! I'm not sure why these guys were so criminally underrated, but they were. All of their albums were great and Ronnie's vocals were some of the best in the genre. Nasty Savage were a great band.)

NASUM - "En Värld Utan Hopp" CDR (Nasum's pre-Relapse material was some of the greatest grindcore ever recorded, but holy fuck did they suck once they signed with them. Relapse had a knack for getting great grind bands just past their prime. I don't think they had anything to do with Nasum turning to shit, just a matter of bad timing on Relapse's part. As much as I curse Soundlab's cookie-cutter production style for ruining grindcore, this Nasum stuff sounds incredible, even on this shitty Bolivian CDR bootleg with crummy vinyl rips. Tomas Canceras strikes again... I made a better Nasum bootleg for my friend Hagamoto years ago before he moved to Japan, but stupidly, I forgot to burn a copy for myself and have since deleted the wavs I made. It's all been reissued again, so I suppose I could download it if I wanted to. No need to buy it, though, as I already own everything up to the abysmal "Inhale/Exhale" CD. This lousy CDR does just fine in a pinch. Thanks again, Tomas.)

NASUM - "Industrislaven" MCD (Yep, this should have been their last release. Always leave them wanting more.)

NATURALS - "Kaballah-Core" CDR (I assume that's the title, anyway. 3 minutes of grindcore from Las Vegas recorded on a boombox and packaged in a used Phobia CD jewel case with a Priority Mail label stuck to the back of it.)

NECRONOMICON - "Tips Zum Selbstmord" CD (Originally a private pressing of 500 copies, even the CD version of this krautrock oddity fetches big money these days. Crude, rough around the edges and heavy, but not in a Black Sabbath sort of way. "Tips for Suicide" was their only album, and while it's really good, it's nowhere near as great as people make it out to be. I think it's scarcity has built a legend out of this album and created hype it can't possibly live up to. You have to wonder if they had chosen the name Dictionary instead and called their album "Book of Definitions", would anyone be talking about them at all?)

NECRONOMICON - "Vie Kapitel 1" CDR* (At some point their only LP was reissued as part of a 4LP expanded set, the third LP being the album. Call me crazy, but I think I like the bonus stuff more than the album itself. It sounds like it was recorded on two tracks during rehearsal, but the songs are looser and bluesier. I'm used to low fidelity recordings, so the sound doesn't take away from the enjoyment at all. Thanks to the Internet for making this stuff available again.)

NECRONOMICON - "Vie Kapitel 2" CDR* (From the same recording as the above album. The two long tracks that close each side are fantastic.)

NECRONOMICON - "Vie Kapitel 4" CDR* (Eh, see above posts. Fuck it, I can't write about the same album three times.)

NECRONY - "Pathological Performances / Mucupurulent Miscarraige" CDR* (I missed out on Necrony while they were around and don't own any of their releases. I downloaded this stuff a few years ago when I remembered they existed. Nasum formed as a side project of Necrony, then sort of took over. Necrony are more metal sounding, less straight forward grinding. The triggered drums sound horrible, and it could be because I'm 30 minutes away from getting off work, but this CD is putting me to sleep.)

Day #194
NECROPHILIACS - "Discography" CDR (German grind/noisecore with some of the stupidest ham-sandwich-in-the-mouth vocals ever. Contains their "Primitive & Uncultivated" LP, "Hardcore Psychos" 7" and split 7"s with Incisive, Meat Shits and W.B.I., all ripped from my vinyl with the exception of that pesky W.B.I. split I was never able to track down. I was never able to find their split with Leucemie, either. The material from the bands they did the splits with is on here, too. Any band that writes a song about David Hess is okay by me. At least one of these guys went on to form Flachenbrand.)

NECROS - "Bloated Discography" CDR (Someone from a message board I used to post on sent this to me years ago. The guy who owns Touch & Go Records, Corey Rusk, used to play in this band and has refused to reissue any of this stuff. By doing so, he's just succeeded in feeding the bootleggers. I have most of this stuff on a bootleg LP in addition to this CDR, but I'd rather have a nice, official CD release with liner notes, etc. I'm sure this CDR was sourced from vinyl rips, but the audio sounds great. Necros were one of the first HC bands from Ohio releasing their first 7" in 1981. This disc collects all their material from 1981-1983 + a live set and an interview. I didn't like this stuff when I heard it the first time, but it grew on me, enough so to purchase the aforementioned bootleg LP.)

NEE! - "Nee Means No" CD (Nee! were a great noisecore band from Holland. This was a self-released CD they did 300 copies of. They were one of the earliest bands I was in contact with and they were the first band I released a record of. Their singer, Dennis, always sent great letters with weird doodles all over them and even contributed artwork for a couple C3L releases. I tried getting in contact with him a few years ago about releasing a Nee! discography CD, but he doesn't seem to be online and the letter I sent him was returned. He's in an awesome sludgy band called Death to Music now, well worth checking out. Nee! played 30 second or so blasts of noisecore, usually starting out with a riff, then dissolving into noise. Their drummer was fantastic and played strong blastbeats while Dennis made retarded monstrous screams, sometimes with a pitch shifter. Their drummer eventually sold his drum set and got heavily into analog synths and making noise. As great as they were, their material was sometimes spotty. Their demo was excellent and the reason I asked them to do a 7", but the material they sent me for the record was probably their worst. Years later one of the members told me he didn't like that material either and wondered why I didn't refuse it and request better material. I never questioned it. I figured if that's what they sent me, they were okay with it being released. Pairing them with Warsore didn't help matters. Few bands could hold their own when compared with them. Listening to this now fills me with regret. I wish I had done a better job of staying in contact with these guys. The Internet age sort of ended that. Maybe one of them will see this and leave a comment?)

NEGATIVE APPROACH - "Total Recall" CD (Their first 7" is pretty great, the LP less so and the live stuff that fills out this CD is pretty forgettable. Usually when I listen to this CD I just turn it off after the 7" tracks. The 7" alone secures their spot as one of the best HC bands ever. I heard that "Reproach" tribute before I heard Negative Approach, actually, so when I listen to this CD it always makes me think of Rupture, Dropdead and Spazz, haha...)

NEGATIVE FX / LAST RIGHTS - split CD (Today has been a great day for HC. NFX were a great HC band from Boston, harder and faster than most of their area, except for maybe Siege. Last Rights was a band the singer did between NFX and Slapshot. They only released this one 7", but it fucking rules. This CD is great, gets listened to frequently at my house. They should've included the NFX demo, though. It's great, too.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Dispepsi" CD (My first introduction to Negativland was through the Over the Edge series. I found one of them used in my home town and picked it up because I've heard the name before and because it was cheap. I'm not sure what made me buy more of their releases. I don't remember liking the one I bought, but somehow I acquired more. Lots more. It clicked for me when I heard "Escape From Noise". I Picked up "Dispepsi" when it was released and liked it right away. This is one of their more musical releases, compared to a lot of their releases this seems pretty accessible. Essentially a 43 minute commentary of the cola-war mixing samples, sound collage and folky songs. When this was released, that cola-war shit was all over the place. It seems that shit was crammed down our throats everywhere we turned. Nothing is solved, though a solution was offered in the liner notes, but this was very topical at the time and someone needed to tackle it, I guess. "Happy Heroes" is a great song, one of my favorite Negativland songs. This is one of their better albums.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Escape From Noise" CD (This is probably the Negativland CD I listen to the most often. I'm not going to say it's their best, but it's my favorite. Their albums are so hard to describe, that's part of what I like about them. There are several memorable songs from this release that stick with me for days after hearing them. This contains the great "Christianity is Stupid" song the band used to try to inject themselves into controversy by saying the song had nothing to do with David Brom killing his parents. They would later cover this in more detail on "Helter Stupid".)

NEGATIVLAND - "Free" CD (They tackle patriotism, violence, religion and drunk driving on this one. Again, fairly song heavy compared to a lot of their catalog, but still with heaps of sound collage peppered over it. "Happy the Harmonica" breaks up the dark tone of this album with a 10 minute reading of a children's story by the Weatherman. Another great album.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Happy Heroes" CD (A short stab at commercialism with multiple ads for Mertz, a fictitious brain shaped pill that makes your mind up for you. Orson Welles reveals what a colossal prick he is in outtakes for a Green Giant commercial, Col. Sanders reveals he can't fucking talk and OJ Simpson let's us in on his workout routine.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Helter Stupid" LP + "Guns" EP + "U2" EP CDR* (I have "Helter Stupid" on LP, but wanted it on CD, too, so I downloaded some stuff I didn't have to fill out the disc. "Helter Stupid" is great. "Guns" was released as a substitute for "U2" after it was deleted. All of this stuff rules.)

Day #195
NEGATIVLAND - "Over the Edge Vol. 1: Jam Con '84" CD (The OTE discs are great, but they're an endurance test to listen to. Taken from their weekly radio show, it really does sound like tuning into 5-6 different radio stations at the same time. There's always some loose concept involved, but the content is all over the place. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. Years ago I bought loads of the OTE sets from an online distributor that was going out of business. They were too cheap to pass on, but I probably wouldn't have paid full retail for these. I bought loads of stuff from that distro: Residents, Renaldo & the Loaf, Snakefinger, Fred Frith, Drums & Tuba, Henry Cow, Negativland, etc, all at half price or cheaper.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Over the Edge Vol. 1 and 1/2 The Starting Line" CD (Dick Goodbody leads us through a round of automobile trivia and other nonsense. Dick's voice is hypnotic, perfectly suited for radio. This was the first Negativland CD I bought and it's one of my favorites now. I don't think I understood what the fuck was going on at the time, not sure I do now, either. The phone-in singalong is one of my favorite pieces from their catalog. We also get an uninterrupted 5 minutes of the Weatherman's neighbor's Roto-tiller in action. I guess I should feel stupid for paying money for this at this point, but I don't.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Over the Edge Vol. 2: Pastor Dick: Muriel's Purse Fund" CD (When my friend Hagamoto still lived in Minneapolis, listening to these OTE discs on the drive up to see him was sort of a tradition. Being stuck in a car for 5 hours is the best way to listen to this stuff. I think I may have listened to this only once. I'm not remembering anything as I listen to it just now. Dick Goodbody returns as Pastor Dick doing a pledge drive to replace the $180 taken from Muriel's purse. Callers confess to three sins, then Dick tells them how much they should pledge for their sins, then takes a sip of champagne for every dollar pledged getting drunk in the process. As usual with these OTE discs, it dissolves into complete nonsense and overlapping noise towards the end.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Over The Edge Vol. 3: The Weatherman’s Dumb Stupid Come-Out Line" 2CD (David Wills opens up the lines for people to follow his example and come out of the "Homosexual Closet" and attracts a bunch of angry homophobes instead. The Weatherman criticizes people's pronunciation "homa-sexual", claims to have had sex with his Super-Booper and states that he's a complete embarrassment to the homosexual community while a cacophony of noise including "YMCA" and a repeated clip of "fuck this faggot" plays in the background. On the second disc the Weatherman turns into the Clorox Cowboy, but there's no real theme to this disc, just a bunch of nonsense.)

Day #196
NEGATIVLAND -"Over the Edge Vol. 6: The Willsaphone Stupid Show" 2CD (The Weatherman gives us an interesting glimpse into his childhood by playing tapes he recorded of him and his family as a child. David recorded everything, kept everything and broadcast it over KPFA. His whole house was wired with microphones and speakers, he would tape his parents talking in the kitchen, then speak to them from his bedroom over the speaker. His parents were terribly supportive of his hobbies to allow such nonsense. At one point he even gets his mother to say "Are we not men? We are Devo." One of the better OTE installments.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Over the Edge Vol. 7: Time Zones Exchange Project" 2CD (I'm cleaning the house while listening to this, so I'm only half paying attention. This sounds more like a Fireside Theater broadcast than Over the Edge. I'm having a difficult time figuring out what the fuck is going on, to be honest.)

Day #197
NEGATIVLAND - "Over the Edge Vol.8: Sex Dirt" CD (It might be that I've reached saturation level with Negativland at this point, but this CD seems lazy and stupid, like a couple of guys fucking around in a studio for an hour laughing at the same joke over and over, which is exactly what this is. Lazy dance beats with samples of sex ed records over them while the Weatherman talks about Clorox and Formula 409. I understand that coming up with original material for a weekly radio show is difficult, but they probably could have left this off of a CD release.)

NEGATIVLAND - "Points" CD (No, I haven't reached saturation point. This album is great. Their second album, and one if their weirdest/darkest sounding. The krautrock influence is really apparent in this one at at times this sounds like Faust or Cluster. Negativland too their "band" name from a Neu! song, afterall, and their label name, Seeland, from another Neu! song. David's mother starts out the album with her rendition of "Harry to the Ferry", then things move into darker territory after the happiest song on the album, "The Answer is...". We're treated to a mixture of home made electronics, tape manipulation and samples. Without the samples, this really would sound like something recorded in 1971 Düesseldorf.)

NEGATIVLAND - "These Guys are From England and Who Gives a Shit?" CD (The expanded deluxe version of their infamous "U2" single. There's speculation that the band released this themselves, but it's released on Seelard, not Seeland, and is considered a bootleg. The "U2" single is great, and some of these bonus tracks are great, too, but we're hearing variations of the same material for 74 minutes, more or less.)

NEMESIS -"The Day of Retribution" CDR* (I made this CD from rips I did of my cassette I bought in Minneapolis in the late 90s. I don't know if it's ever been released on CD, but there was a 2LP reissue of it a few years ago with bonus stuff. Nemesis was Leif's band before Candlemass. The music is very similar, but the vocals are nowhere near as strong. Awesome mid-paced, doomy metal with decent production. The cassette I bought was the reissue on Metal Blade and has a two song Candlemass demo at the end, also with Leif doing vocals. This stuff is great, right up there with "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus", essential for doom metal fans. I've always wanted to record a cover of "Black Messiah".)

NETJAJEV SS - triangle 8", bonus 5" + final 7" CDR* (Clay from Rescued From Life sent me this after I bought the 8" and it wouldn't play on my turntable. He said I was the only person who complained about it not playing, but sent me this CDR so I could listen to it. Magnus of NSS gets bored easily and ends one project and starts another all the time. Even within one project he'll change styles a few times, as was the case with Netjajev SS. What started as sort of a Rupture tribute band eventually added surf parts, keyboards and other weird shit later on. No complaints from me, though, I loved the changes. I just wish he would stop changing the name of his projects so it would be easier to keep track of this shit. I didn't even realize Syphilitic Vaginas was his band until after he stopped using that name and moved on to something else. I think I liked NSS the most of all his projects, but Rupture are my favorite band, so that makes sense.)

NEU! - s/t CD (I was so happy when this was reissued. I found bootlegs of the other two albums in Iowa City, but never this one, so it was the last one I heard. It's also their best album. Both members of Neu! played in an early version of Kraftwerk. I can't remember if they quit or were kicked out, but the human element of Kraftwerk's sound left with them. Klaus Dinger, their drummer, pioneered the "motorik" beat (if you've heard it, you know what I'm talking about) and in the process created one of the most defining elements of krautrock. This first album is an absolute classic, not only in krautrock, but it's one of the best albums in any genre. It's mixture of light and airy hypnotic instrumentals, dark ambient industrial noise and pre-punk aggression somehow works to create a spectacular album, not just a collection of diverse sounds. This is a masterpiece of sound, a 10/10 album, in my opinion.)

NEU! - "2" CD (A bootleg on the Germanofon label, the first Neu! album I heard. I distinctly remember being completely underwhelmed by it and felt as if I had been ripped off. Having run out of money half way through recording this album, they slowed down, sped up and fucked with existing songs to make "remixes" out of necessity to create a full album. I still think the "remix" songs are terrible, but the proper songs on this album are fantastic. I usually just skip past the fucked up songs, but I'll be listening to them today.)

NEU! - "75" CD (Another Germanofon bootleg. Not able to come to an agreement on styles, the two members decided to split the album up so each could do whatever they wanted on their side. Rother's side is awesome, totally mellow ambient piano heavy instrumentals. Really spacious and melodic, simply great. Dinger's side is much more aggressive, almost protopunk with snarling angry vocals and hard rhythmic beats. Both sides are great, but the mellow stuff wins out by a mile.)

NEUROPATHIA - "Graveyard Cowboys" CD (I bought this in Felix Havoc's distro after looking through it, not finding anything else and not wanting to walk away empty handed after taking up so much of his time talking about stupid shit. This sounds like Exhumed with a touch of early Blood Duster, but with stupider vocals than both. I don't remember the vocals on their other releases sounding like this. I'd sell this if anyone wants it. I'm not digging it today at all...)

NEUROPATHIA / PUTRESCENCE -split CD (Neuropathia's vocals are just at average level of stupidity on this release, sounds as if they've hung up the pitch shifter for the most part. This is way better than the CD above. The songs are faster, recording is better, etc. Putresence's half of the CD is even better. Nice grimy grindcore with unique throaty vocals and a slightly dirty recording that suits this style just fine.)

NEUROSIS - "Pain of Mind" CD (I realize I'm doing it wrong, but I really only give a fuck about Neurosis' early HC stuff. Their apocalyptic doom stuff from "Souls at Zero" and on out doesn't interest me at all. I've come to the conclusion over the years that the "Pain of Mind" CD and "Abberation" 7" are all I need. I have the Alternative Tentacles reissue of this, the one with Bud Dwyer blowing his brains out on the cover. It was reissued again as a 2CD with loads of bonus stuff, but I've not heard that version. My first exposure to these guys was "The Thing That ate Floyd" 2LP. Neurosis and Stikky were the two best bands on that compilation. I bought everything I could find of both bands then, but didn't acquire this one until it was reissued. By that point I had lost interest in them for the most part, but curious enough to hear it anyway. I'm glad I picked it up. It's pretty heavy, but those touches of dark/emotional shit that would take over on their later albums was present at the very beginning on songs like "Black". I'd rather all of it sound like "Dominoes Fall" instead, and enough of it does to secure a place in my CD collection forever.)

NEUROSIS - "The Word as Law" CD (This CD is pretty good, too. The recording is certainly better and the songs are still really heavy and tighter than on their debut, but it's noticeably less HC and Scott started doing that annoying thing where he stretches out words as he sings them on this one. It's also about 20 minutes longer than it should be. It's better than I remember it being, actually. I don't think I realized there was a Joy Division cover on this album until just now, though. It's been a looong time since I've listened to this.)

Day #198
NEW YORK AGAINST THE BELZEBU - "Are You Ready For Noise?" CD (I live for this kind of sloppy noisecore shit. NYAB were from Brazil and essentially played German style noisecore: short musical intros followed by short blasts of noise with shouted group vocals, usually silly. The great thing about having your own label is you can release whatever you want, including your own band. The guy from Rotthenness Records was in NYAB, and while they might have been able to find another label to release this stuff, it might have been difficult talking someone into doing a proper CD of live boombox recordings. There are a couple "studio" sessions mixed in among the live tracks, but the majority of this sounds completely overloaded and maxed out, but I'm not complaining. I traded with Nelson a bunch of times in the 90s. He was always quick with sending his stuff out and seemed like a nice guy. There's 82 songs on this CD and it's just under an hour. It took me years to find a copy of this, and once I did, it was well past noisecore's heyday new for $5.00.)

NEW YORK AGAINST THE BELZEBU / EMPTY GRAVE / PURE NOISE - "3 Way Grindnoisecore" CD (As many times as I've listened to this, I'm completely unable to figure out which tracks belong to which band. It sounds as if there are 4 bands on here instead of 3 and there's way more songs than the 99 track markers indicate. NYAB are easy to identify and play the same silly HC inspired noisecore as on their other releases, but this time with a clearer recording and added keyboards on a few tracks. I'm pretty sure Empty Grave starts at track 29. While still super noisy, they take on sort of a black/thrash feel most of the time, sounding at times like Confusion. At track 51 there's another noticeable change in style with even shorter songs, most under 5 seconds, stripped of any metal influence and with pitch-shifted vocals. Track 99 is 15 minutes long, a bunch of short songs together on one track. The songs are tighter and longer than the previous bunch and with two vocalists, one pitch-shifted and another high and raspy like Nate from Black Market Fetus. It sounds like a different band than whoever tracks 51-98 was and I can't imagine the third band would take up the last 30 minutes of the disc while the other two bands had 15 minutes each. Regardless of the murky tracklist, this is a great CD. All of the bands are super noisy with decent production. I sold heaps of these through Mortville.)

PHIL NIBLOCK - "G2,44+/x2" CD (My good friend Mike sent this to me years ago. I'm not sure who Phil Niblock is or if his other releases sound like this, but this is pure drone, one tone for a solid hour. A solid, consistent note is held for 30 minutes on two tracks played by 4 guitarists (including Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore). The effect is awesome, and this sounds totally different at various volumes and at various distances and positioning from the speakers. "Earth 2" and SunnO))) have nothing on this guy. This is the purest drone I've experienced.)

THE NIGGERS - "Singles" CDR (Two songs of sloppy, poorly recorded garage rock/punk. The vocals are screamingly loud compared to the music which is barely audible. The insert says these guys are from Ohio and that this is limited to 50 copies. This is pretty forgettable.)

NIGH - 2002 CDR (15 minutes of crispy electronic noise done on what sounds like a synth of some sort. There's some tape manipulation going on, too, I think. This kind of home-made lo-fi noise appeals to me in small doses. 15 minutes is just about right for something like this. Any longer and I'd lose interest.)

NIGHT SUN - "Mournin'" CD (Their only album from 1972 reissued on the great Second Battle label. This is heavy German progressive rock, borderline metal not too different from Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and the first Lucifer's Friend album. This shit's all over the place, crazy arrangements and powerful high pitched vocals. One of these guys played with Guru Guru after Night Sun split up.)

NIHILIST - "1987-1989" CD (Swedish death metal, pre-Entombed. This is a collection of all of their demos I picked up at Extreme Noise in Minneapolis a few years ago. The sound is a bit murky, but better than rips I found online, nice thick booklet with lots of liner notes and photos. I probably listen to this more than any of the Entombed albums.)

NIHILIST COMMANDO - "Noisecore Violations 2002-2008" CD (Brutal, angry noisecore violence from Finland, one of the angriest sounding projects I've heard in my life. Take the angriest and harshest 7MON recordings, run it through an overdrive pedal, strip it of all traces of art and politics and you'll have an idea of what this sounds like. This stuff is insane.)

NIHILISTICS - "13th Anniversary" CD (Reissue of the NY scum punk band's "legendary" first 7" from 1979 and LP from 1983. Totally rough, sloppy and stupid, just what they were shooting for, I'm sure. The 7" is better than the album, in my opinion. The cover of the booklet promises a glow in the dark CD, but it's a load of shit. I bought this in Denver ages ago because I remembered them from the great "New York Trash" compilation, because Rupture covered one of their songs and because it was cheap. It's worth the $8 I spent on it, but I probably wouldn't pay $12 for it.)

MIHILISTICS - "Vaginosis Volume 1" CD (This is a live CD Released by Yeah, Mate! Records in 2000 consisting of a set recorded at CBGB's in 1984 and a set on WNYU in 1989 with a silly interview. The audio is okay, not great, soundboard with a lot of tape hiss, artwork is extreme close-ups of diseased, hairy vaginas. I think I prefer the 1984 live set to their 1983 studio album after listening to them back to back just now. The stage banter is annoying, but funny. These guys sound like they'd be total shitheads to hang out with. This was the only non-Rupture release on Yeah, Mate!.)

"Where's Your Beard?" on Grindcore Karaoke

2011-10-18T21:28:00.007-05:00

Speaking of Grindcore Karaoke, MORT:004 is seeing new life as GK#56 and gaining a whole new audience thanks to Randall's impeccable tastes. His download has embedded artwork, a digital pdf booklet and the option of a FLAC download, so even if you've grabbed it from my blogsite before, it wouldn't hurt to grab this updated version, too.

http://www.grindcorekaraoke.com/album/wheres-your-beard

Band list for "Where's Your Beard?"

Bad Acid Trip

Wadge

Captain Three Leg

Gore Beyond Necropsy

Pyuria

Parade of the Lifeless

Hated Principles

Machetazo

Grossmember

N.O.Y.F.B.

Violent Headache

Noisear

Pantalones Abajo Marinero

Krabathor

Autoritar

Humanextermination Project

Blood Suckers

Pissed Cunt

Drunken Orgy of Destruction

Carrion Crawler

Senor Lululalo

Ruido

"Attacked by Bees..." C-35 comp 1998

2011-10-18T21:06:00.012-05:00

"Attacked by Bees..." was my second compilation tape. I ended up dubbing 400 copies of this before stopping. It was loads of work assembling these things between dubbing the tapes at real time, typing out each label, cutting out and numbering each cover and cutting, stapling and folding the booklets. I certainly didn't charge enough for them considering the materials and amount of work involved. Being able to effortlessly sell 400 copies of this tape inspired me to start up Mortville and do my first vinyl release.

As with my other compilation tapes, the majority of these songs are exclusive to this release. The exceptions were Kungfu Rick and Arden Chapman, both of their tracks came from their demos. The tracks from Dahmer, Unholy Grave and Taste of Fear would all be released on split 7"s later, but were unreleased when I compiled this. Overall I'm really happy with the track selection and feel this was a solid release.

A couple of years ago I considered releasing this and "Where's Your Beard?" on one CD, but I've since abandoned the idea. It was 4 seconds too long for both of them to fit on a CD and it would have been too much work tracking down all of these bands to send them free copies, anyway. Some of them I haven't been in contact with since sending them copies of this tape. I decided to just make it available for free download instead.

J. Randall has a great thing going with his Grindcore Karaoke website, so I thought that would be the best place to host it. He's up to almost 100 releases now, all free for the taking. Go over to his site to grab this compilation, then look over his other titles while you're there.

http://www.grindcorekaraoke.com/album/attacked-by-bees

Please note: Because this was assembled 13 years ago, the addresses listed on the bands graphics probably aren't accurate today and were included for archival purposes only.

Band list for "Attacked by Bees..."

Agathocles

Arden Chapman

Bete Noire

Cornucopia

D.U.I.

Dahmer

Depressor

Disability Recovery Project

Dismembered Fetus

Decomposing Serenity

Ear Bleeding Disorder

Feces Munchers

Feculence

Final Exit

Flammable Child

Forced Expression

Green Beret

Hated Principles

Hypo-Christians

Kungfu Rick

Liquified Maggots

Morbid Vomit

Nothing

NOYFB

NY Against the Belzebu

Malignant Gimo

Person Inside of Regan

Religious Fucks

Rot

Sockeye

Soiled

Spew-Gina

Taste of Fear

Tender Love

Unholy Grave

Victims of Tradition

Viscera

Warsore

Yeast Infection

86'd