Nacogdoches

Twenty-something years ago I fittingly got dragged down to the Drag in Austin to go see some band my roommate had heard good things about. Evidently the band leader was some underground musical savant who was simply revolutionary when it came to jazz. We sat in some tiny empty upstairs club, my curiosity somewhat piqued but not quite... jazz wasn't (and still isn't) really my thing. Well, two hours later, I was rendered speechless and have recalled the story about seeing the Golden Arm Trio ever since. Theirs was the first band sticker I slapped on my Fender which I still play to this day. Gaudy with two decades of scum and slime (and layered with umpteen other band decals), you can still kinda make out the "Trio" in the band logo. Regardless, composer and band leader Graham Reynolds was on the drums that night (and occasionally the piano) and it was amazing to watch whom you would usually consider a background musician absolutely control the group (it was an actual "trio" at that point; later on, while the band's name stayed the same there could be as many as eight folks playing together but we can discuss semantics later). The drums were what really had me - controlling, heavy, almost blast beat death metal grooves at times as opposed to the casual background jazz-ish rat-a-tat-tat I expected. It was something else and only recently did I take advantage of this new thing we have called the "Internet" and see what the fuck ever happened to the band. Turns out a LOT. A couple albums, a movie soundtrack (A Scanner Darkly, 'natch) and some highly praised stage shows... it has been an absolute joy revisiting some of the music I completely considered a one-off show so long ago. Check out the band website here - it's amazing how the dude looks almost exactly the same as he did back in '96. Enjoy their first album... a real treat.

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Super Wet Cheese

An absolutely astounding compilation from the sadly defunt and clinically insane Tokyo jazz grinders - this epic 45-track retrospect spans a multitude of obscure 7-inches, unreleased rehearsals and long sold-out compilation LPs. Released on Obliteration Records (conveniently owned by C.S.S.O. vocalist Narutoshi Sekine) the CD focuses on the band's material through the mid-to-late 90's. Amazing stuff, some of the songs sound straight out of Meat Shits school while others are ridiculously competent avant-garde grindcore bordering on the complexity of the math metal genre that would surface years later. Somewhat unfairly compared to such goregrind bands as Regurgitate and fellow countrymen Catasexual Urge Motivation, C.S.S.O. easily outshines the competition with their musical skills and absolutely original approach to grind metal. Of course, my favorite material by the band will always be their "Diversion Of Former Customary Trite Composition" EP (which I've already posted on this blog) - an amazing eleven minutes of madness in their coolest surf-music-esque style (very similar to the stuff on their split 7" w/ Dead Infection as well).  As far as C.S.S.O.'s dozens of other releases, I fully recommend their two legitimate LPs - Nagrö Läuxes VIII and Are You Excrements? Both absolutely worth the money you'll shell out for 'em on Ebay.

Shake It Up Bokan

Suicidal Ad-Rock

Digging deep into the mid-90's Grand Royal archives comes a vinyl-only oddity featuring Beastie Boy Adam "Adrock" Horovitz and original Suicidal Tendencies drummer Amery Smith. Between the many B-movie/TV show samples are a bunch of two-minute tracks of Horovitz tinkering with his vintage synthesizer while Smith gets some exercise with a slew of repetitive breakbeats. There are no real vocals per se, just a bunch of silly samples here and there - usually repeating the song title. BS 2000 is best described as a proto version of what Crystal Method and the electronic genre were priming to develop over the next few years. While a good number of the songs are instantly forgettable, there are some real diamonds in the rough. "Baby" is a cool-ass fucking track and deserves to be sampled somewhere by someone. "Copsucker" (which could have easily fit in on the Beastie's Mix-Up instrumental LP) and the weirdly dark "Thrift King" are personal faves. Smith proficiently showcases the jazzy versatility he brought to the best hardcore album of all time and Adrock seems to be having a blast figuring out what his Casio SA-35 keyboard can do. Of course the record has a tough time standing up to the current electronic stuff out there today and most of this could be mimicked today by a 10-year old on his iPad but what can ya do. Enjoy.

Nobody Beats BS 2000

24 Songs For Teens And Non-Teens Alike!

Waaaay back in 1987 a young 15-year old Aaron Freeman sat in his bedroom and crafted an hour-long acid trip of an album - an amazingly astute precursor to what his alter ego Gene Ween would co-create a few short years later on Ween's epic The Pod. The material for Synthetic Socks' eponymous debut was culled from two cassettes recorded over six months by the New Hope, PA native - the "best of the best" were chosen by Aaron and Teen Beat Records founder Mark Robinson. What you get is a strange amalgam of instrumental odes created on a Korg Poly-800 (my favorite being "Tree"), surprisingly humorous teenage ramblings ("Weenstock"), good ol' garage band noise ("Cops" and "Collectives"), sweet "Birthday Boy"-esque love songs, prank phone calls and KISS. From the liner notes:

"Sprouted out of deep psychological problems and blossomed into a young virgin sound just waiting to be heard. It's all recorded in my bedroom with my tape deck and whatever else I can borrow off people. Synthetic Socks consists of me, and various guest stars. This cassette has been recorded over a span of about 10 years. I'm still in high school and plan to move where the trees live."

The guest stars include future Ween brother "Mike" Melchiondo on guitar (his acoustic untitled ditty to close out Side A is probably my favorite track on the album) and Ken Everett who both played (along with Aaron) in the jam band Pine Sheep. All in all, Synthetic Socks is a welcome addition to the Ween catalog - I sleazed out a copy when Teen Beat reissued a scant 55 cassettes in 1998 and it's been the holy grail of my dusty tape collection ever since.

On a side note, I just picked up a copy of Aaron's new CD Freeman. Twenty-seven years since Synthetic Socks yet there's a strange similarity to both records. It took me a while to get over Ween's breakup (and in that weird non-involved sort of way I was siding with Deaner) but Freeman is a solid forty minutes and is much more reflective of what Ween was morphing into than Deaner's "My Own Bare Hands" type of stuff. Worth a listen.

Proto-Ween

In Gnod We Trust

Mesmerizing drone that I can only classify as shamanic tribal chanting. Based in the UK with an ever-changing list of band members, the group's recorded output is as varied and frequent as the influx of new musicians into the fray. Hard to describe other than as a musical collective much akin to the psilocybin-laced drum circles you may remember from college twenty years ago. Needless to say, this album is a perfect companion for your next venture into the hallucinogenic world. The band's founder (and only consistent member), Paddy Shine keeps a few websites active with news about the band and their releases/gigs/whatever - check 'em out here and here.

We are many, they are few

Clotted Symmetrical... uh

The band's finest release, this epic two song 7" showcases this seminal Japanese nutball grind band at their very best. Don't write these crazy fucks off as some token noise cacophony, they are absolutely channeling 50's beach rock/spanish flamenco into weird grindcore hybrid 5-minute rock operas. While the opener "Shake It Up Bokan" is killer (especially the ridiculous ending - perfect for the last scene of El Mariachi), it's the 4-part(!) "Diversion Of Former Customary Trite Composition" whic really shows how talented the band is. I don't even know how to describe what your ears are in for - what starts as a very Tokyo-sounding rock song degrades into a strange grindcore miasma which is simply stunning for the fact that it sounds like it was all done in one take. Bravo gentlemen. C.S.S.O. would continue on until 2004 when they split for greener pastures...

Hey, Tonny!

Umeå Hardcore

Man, what a fucking album. The prototype for a million mathcore/screamo/experimental hardcore bands to follow, Sweden's Refused rewrote the book on what a hardcore album should be. One after another epic song - I can't even name how many genres are touched upon within the tight 56 minutes of this bitch. Sadly this 1998 release was way over everyone's head at the time - Godsmack and Soulfly went on to have multi-platinum albums while Refused simply broke up. What a painful fucking shame. Enjoy.

12 Bursts

What A Magical Fucking Day

Really cool 2008 demo by this experimental sludge duo from San Antonio. The guilty pair are the prolific Ryan and Jacob of both Intestinal Disgorge (brutal death) and Hordes Of The Morning Star (black metal) infamy. Normpeterson reminds me a lot of Black Mayonnaise - lots of huge riffs interspersed with feedback and assorted noise nonsense - with just enough of the latter to not be boring (or get annoying). Vocals are pretty minimalist - think Alien Jourgensen on "Scarecrow." "Traffic" is easily my favorite track - almost two non-stop minutes of an absolutely sick riff that is impossible not to get hooked on. The band folded a few years ago but all their demos are still available here for free so check 'em out. Enjoy.

Ahideoussprawlingasphaltabsurdity

The Vodka Family Winstons

In case the two people who read this blog haven't been paying attention, I absolutely worship the Butthole Surfers and revere pretty much everything they've recorded. I know there are a lot of fans that are divisive when it comes to the band's "golden years" (i.e. everything before Hairway To Steven versus after) and pretty much write off their post-1990 stuff as pretentious mainstream crap. Of course this happens with most cult bands (please see Ween, Mr. Bungle, 311, any group which has a bunch of semi-popular indie/local albums before getting on a label with some national distribution) when they decide to move out of their shitty apartment, stop recording on a 4-track and gasp! try something new. As a fan I kinda agree, it sucks when a band you love starts sounding... well... different. As a musician I completely understand; it is fucking BORING playing the same shit over and over! And if someone wants to pay you to go into a studio and help you record something then fucking try it because it is goddamn tiring trying to do all that shit yourself! Make some scratch if you get the chance. Instead of the pennies you net when the 2000 homemade 7-inchers you pressed sell out, get a label to fund your tour and put some food in the fridge.* So yes, there is clearly a difference between Butthole Surfer albums when you compare the psychedelia from Psychic... Powerless to the post punk (?) of Electriclarryland but give 'em a break, the guys aged almost ten years between the two! What are you still doing today that has stayed just as new and fresh as it was a decade ago?** Trust me, dropping acid and recording for weeks at a time doesn't exactly have the same appeal at 40 as it does when you're 22 and living in from farmhouse with a bunch of transient musicians.  I guess I'm ranting because I keep getting in the same argument with the same two friends of mine about the 'Surfers and it gets annoying. The fact I even acknowledge Locust Abortion Technician is absolute heresy yet I'd be surprised to know if either of them have ever listened to that album more than once. They're the same way with Ween (nothing will ever surpass The Pod dudemang) but that's another story. Anyways, here are the Butthole Surfers circa 1985 from their Blind Eye Sees All live video. Compiled from two shows in Detroit, the band wallows in their hallucinogenic Another Man's Sac chaos and sleaze out a great performance. The video splices some "interviews" in between the live stuff, they are kinda funny but sort of get old quick so I relocated them to the end. Additionally, I included a couple alternate live versions of "Bar-Be-Que Pope" and "Cowboy Bob" (circa 1985 as well I think) and "Negro Observer" from 1991. Let me know if my friends are right.

* And I'm not calling anyone a "sellout" or any of that shit here - to me that is just a term used by jealous wannabes who feel they have been robbed of their nonexistent "status" that talking about a band nobody has heard of earns them. Do you think Offspring would have been labeled a "sellout" for recording Smash if it hadn't sold a billion copies? No, it would have been "another Offspring album," sold 20,000 copies, they would have continued lounging in Huntington Beach with their local fanbase and eventually broken up over the typical "we've been doing this for too fucking long" feud bands tend to get into. Instead they smartly got with a label that had great distro (by figuring local distribution=lots of local fans ∴ national distribution=lots of national fans) and just happened to be in the right musical place at the right time. Good for them and other bands which have done the same.

** I know there are those few bands which have been doing the exact same thing forever and yep, they can sleep well at night knowing they "kept it real" but you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that those bands haven't had significant lineup changes through the years or that their waning fanbase doesn't acknowledge that "they're still cool but kinda boring now."

P.S. My audio rip keeps getting deleted (as has all my Butthole Surfers stuff) so I've linked to a VHS rip hosted by the good ol' blog Kick To Kill. Enjoy mangs.  

Worm Movies

Currently watching: Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things!
Currently listening to: Corrupted Garten Der Unbewusstheit

Lady Sniff

Stolen from the almighty Death Burger since I couldn't have said it any better (or worse)... "What 'bout some more crazed melodies played by those dirty-eeky Butthole Surfers, ya'll honey-bees?! This 1989 4-track ep on Blast First records (England) is just great tmo, Butt-Surf at its best: Whether they painfully smoke bong, take a ballad, go nutz inna helicopter or rage full-on with "BOOZE! TOBACCO! Dope! Pussy! Cars! HAAAAAAAAaa!!!, I love 'em just the way they are."

1401

 
Currently watching: The Oracle

Currently listening to: The Unborn Dead Primitive Origins

Sammy Davis Jr. 1925-1990

Here's a slab 'o back-in-the-day punk from one of my most favoritest bands, Austin's Butthole Surfers. 4 tracks incorporating blues, industrial, psychedelia and country in a way only a ton of LSD can make sense. Of course, "Moving To Florida" is my fave, maybe it's because my in-laws are leaving town on Wednesday to do the same - run out the clock guys, run out the clock...

Dig In

 
Currently watching: The Angry Red Planet
Currently listening to: EPMD Strictly Business

Bbbrrrblababrbrbrbrbleeeeeeyaaaaaaaa!!!

Back in their Pure Guava days, the brothers Boognish, still new to their "big label" contract with Elektra, were still openly jamming (and recording) with whomever they could find (Frente!, Kostars, Green Lipped Mussels, Chris Harford, etc.) with styles that weren't necessarily what Ween's record label endorsed. Among those bands were Japan's institutional Boredoms, four abrasive noise-core gods with whom Gene and Dean recorded eleven strange, quasi-listenable "songs" that start like a typical Ween track and morph into a screaming, blathering cacaphony of noise and babble. I love Ween, but do I love Z-Rock Hawaii? Well, yes and no. It's fun hearing Dean do his best George Thorogood impression while eYe is screaming bloody murder in the background, but to be honest it gets old really fast. It's just too fucking annoying. Sweetly delicate tracks like "I Get A Little Taste Of You" (which thankfully became a sans-screaming staple of Ween's shows in the mid-90's) get lost in the screeching and feedback. I'm sure the whole project was a big joke by two bands who happened to meet in the studio one afternoon and my annoyance is the punchline they're all laughing at but whatever. Boredoms are fine, for like two minutes. So listen to Z-Rock Hawaii one track at a time, it's a lot more digestible.

Chocolate And Cheese Synthesizer

 
Currently watching: Colors
Currently listening to: Cunt Sludge Jane Doe

What the....?

 

The first album by supergroup Praxis is a bit of a tough swallow at first - I can't remember who actually brought it to my attention. Methinks it was the Buckethead-loving bartender at the restaurant I line cooked at years ago; unsurprisingly the guy was kind of a weirdo - one of those "just into weird shit to say that he's into weird shit" folk. In a (somewhat) unrelated story he once asked me over to play some guitar on some godawful Devo-like midi recordings he had done. I reluctantly obliged (gotta keep the bartender happy) and after playing some brutally awful guitar and drinking a ton of beers he throws on some amputee porn to "just chill out and laugh at". No shit. Interestingly, I don't know what was weirder - the fact that he threw on amputee porn or the fact that Tom Byron was acting in it... and I recognized him. I don't know what that says about either me or him but I guess it was a lean month for ol' Tom and ya gotta pay the rent. Regardless - this album is pretty much the musical equivalent of amputee porn - it's enticing in a weird way but annoying in others. Imagine an epileptic mixing a 64-track album mid-seizure and you have some idea of what to expect. Ethereal, heavy, fascinating, cyber-blasting, boring, jaw-dropping, slamming funky shit. Enjoy.

DownLaswell

Warped Lunar Sludge

Black Mayonnaise officially came into existence on August 6, 1991 out of nowhere, crudely inspired by old Godflesh, old Carcass, old Butthole Surfers, old Chapeau, and Big Black. Earlier recordings have been described as "garage Godflesh" and "like Happy Flowers with a drum machine". The gestalt-like change into the "space sludge" sound that occurred in 1992 was the result of purchasing a 4-track, as the previous tapes were recorded with merely a boombox. During the mid-90's this project seemed to mysteriously transmute into somewhat of a living entity with a will of its own, independent of its creator and coming/going as it pleased. This factor would be a partial reason for the random disappearances/resurgences over the years. The somewhat obscure slang-term for decomposing sewage/sediment seemed appropriate for the early sound. This obscurity led to widespread discrimination by the more serious grim-faced metalhead/hipster-noise mamas-boy types living at home earning money off ebay/allowances and enough spare time to post 65498 [this is oftentimes a low estimate] times a day on numerous message boards... as it was misinterpreted by many as "some lame white-trash noisecore band named after expired food". Though by no means has this project ever been one to take itself too seriously. The other crowd of discriminators possess a much higher level of integrity. These are the individuals who have listened to the project and have empirically reduced it to simplistic weird sounds created by an overactive imagination and not "music" at all; more or less a truism... for the most part. (thank you Mike Duncan for the words).

Unseen Collaborator