Romeo Void : Benefactor 1982 Flac & MP3

Romeo  Void was started at the San Francisco Art Institute by Debora Iyall and Frank Zincavage.

The band primarily consisted of saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, vocalist Debora Iyall, guitarist Peter Woods, and bassist Frank Zincavage. The band went through four drummers, starting with Jay Derrah and ending with Aaron Smith.

They released three albums, It's a Condition, Benefactor, and Instincts, along with one EP and singles.

Benefactor is the second studio album  released in 1982.

It was released on CD in 2006 by Wounded Bird Records, with their Never Say Never EP as four bonus tracks. The first version of the song "Never Say Never" is a shorter, "clean" edit suitable for general radio broadcast.

Saxophonist Benjamin Bossi was added to the lineup as an "accident" when Debora Iyall met him while he worked in a deli.

The band's music was generally associated with the New Wave and post-punk movements of the early 1980s, but also experimented with danceable song structures and a saxophonist. Iyall garnered acclaim as a skilled lyricist who explored themes like sexuality and alienation from a female perspective with "dark intelligence" and "searing imagery".

The unforgettable chorus of their best-known song, 1981's "Never Say Never," the phrase on its own makes the song sound like some kind of shock-value novelty, and indeed, that's probably how many people remember it.

Yet a careful listen to the verses, with their intimations of incest, murder, homelessness, and other dark subjects, makes plain that singer/lyricist Debora Iyall has more on her mind than simple salaciousness.


         NEVER  SAY  NEVER

If time itself was his demeanor
There’d be no sunlight or a glimmer
Of sunlight landin on the street
Sunsuit girls must be discreet
Sunsuit girls must be discreet
Nursing their fathers locked inside
They masqueraded as his bride

I might like you better
If we slept together
But there’s somethin
In your eyes that says
Maybe that’s never
Never say never

The slump by the courthouse
With windburn skin
That man could give a fuck
About the grin on your face
As you walk by, randy as a goat
He's sleepin on papers
When he'd be warm in your coat

I might like you better
If we slept together
But there’s somethin
In your eyes that says
Maybe that’s never
Never say never

There’s no easy way to lose your sight
On the street, on the stairs
Who's on your flight
Old couple walks by, as ugly as sin
But he’s got her and she’s got him

Never say never



               Tracks

   
    01. Never Say Never : 3:27
    02.Wrap It Up (Isaac Hayes, David Porter) : 3:15
    03. Flashflood : 4:55
    04, Undercover Kept : 6:05
    05. Ventilation : 3:55
    06. Chinatown : 3:18
    07. Orange : 4:15
    08. Shake the Hands of Time : 3:19
    09. S.O.S. : 5:30

     Bonus tracks :

    10. Never Say Never ( 12" Single Version ) : 6:06
    11, In the Dark ( 12" Single Version ) : 4:33
    12. Present Tense ( 12" Single Version ) : 5:47
    13. Not Safe ( 12" Single Version ) : 3:57

    The Band

    Debora Iyall – vocals
    Peter Woods – guitar
    Benjamin Bossi – saxophone
    Frank Zincavage – bass
    Larry Carter – drums, percussion

    And

    Walter Turbitt – guitar on 9
    Marybeth O'Hara – backing vocals on 7
    Norman Salant – saxophone on 7

 TAKE  IT FLAC HERE

Romeo Void : Instincts 1984 Flac & MP3

Instincts is the third and final studio album by American new wave band Romeo Void, released in 1984. The single, "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)", reached #35 in the US.
Instincts was released in October 1984, debuted at No. 68 on the Billboard 2000 and proved to be the band's best-selling album.
It also launched their most successful single, "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)," which broke the Billboard Top 40 and peaked at No. 35. Critical reactions were positive.

Despite being the band's most successful effort to date, Columbia pulled the band's promotional support while on a nationwide tour.
"The very next town we got to after they made that decision, there wasn't an A&R person there," said Debora Iyall.
There were no interviews and in-stores arranged as they had been.

All that just ground to a halt." The band returned to San Francisco and soon broke up. Constant touring has been cited by Iyall as the primary reason for the break-up.

"You get tired of each other, and you get intolerant of being uncomfortable and away from your family and your friends."

According to a VH1 reunion episode, the issue of Iyall's weight was the reason for the label dropping them.
In 2003,Debora Iyall agreed with this claim:
"Howie sold us to Columbia Records, and they were like 'Who's this fat chick?'
They decided that was as far as it was going to get, and pulled their support."

The combination of Iyall's powerful vocals and searing imagery with the band's muscular blend of Joy Division's atmospherics and the Gang of Four's rattling momentum,
with Benjamin Bossi's splattering free jazz saxophone coloring everything, made Romeo Void one of the strongest of the American post-punk bands.

Personnel

Debora Iyall – vocals
Peter Woods – guitar
Benjamin Bossi – saxophone
Frank Zincavage – bass
Aaron Smith – drums, percussion

Additional personnel

Larry Carter – drums on bonus track
Randy Jackson – bass
Vicki Randle – backing vocals
Tish Lorenzo – narration

Tracks

1 Out On My Own
2 Just Too Easy
3 Billy's Birthday
4 Going To Neon
5 Six Days And One
6 A Girl In Trouble (Is A Temporary Thing)
7 Say No
8 Your Life Is A Lie
9 Instincts
10 In The Dark (Single Version)

"In a palace of lights that dim on command

the wind machine works to cool me again
From the top of the building, six flights up
I watched an impotent city, go up and you

But you, you're always fallin' apart
It was just too easy to break your heart"

Take it Flac HERE

Romeo Void - It's A Condition 1981 [U.S.]

Romeo Void
It's A Condition
415 Records 1981






Side A'
Myself To Myself
Nothing For Me
Talk Dirty [To Me]
Love Is An Illness
White Sweater
Side B'
Charred Remains
Confrontation
Drop Your Eyes
Fear To Fear
I Mean It

Label: 415 Records
Catalog# : A-0004 [85929 GR]
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: Greece
Released: 1981
Genre: Rock
Style: New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-punk
Flac & scans 244 MB
new rip, new scans
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Part 1       Part 2


Biography by Stewart Mason [AMG]
Thanks to the reductive onslaught of the "'80s party weekend" radio format and the numbing similarity of most '80s hits compilations, hearing the name Romeo Void instantly conjures up the phrase "I might like you better if we slept together" in most minds. The unforgettable chorus of their best-known song, 1981's "Never Say Never," the phrase on its own makes the song sound like some kind of shock-value novelty, and indeed, that's probably how many people remember it. Yet a careful listen to the verses, with their intimations of incest, murder, homelessness, and other dark subjects, makes plain that singer/lyricist Debora Iyall has more on her mind than simple salaciousness. The combination of Iyall's powerful vocals and searing imagery with the band's muscular blend of Joy Division's atmospherics and the Gang of Four's rattling momentum, with Benjamin Bossi's splattering free jazz saxophone coloring everything, made Romeo Void one of the strongest of the American post-punk bands.
Debora Iyall, a Native American (from the Cowlitz tribe) born in rural Washington and raised in Fresno, CA, moved to San Francisco in the mid-'70s to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. While there, she fell in with fellow students Peter Woods and Jay Derrah, who had formed a tongue-in-cheek '60s revival band called the Mummers and the Poppers. Iyall became the group's singer and also began incorporating music into her own poetry and performance art projects, drafting Frank Zincavage, a sculptor who also played bass and electronic drums, as her work partner. (Zincavage was also a noted graphic designer and photographer; his name and that of his sister, Diane Zincavage, appear in the credits of many San Francisco and Los Angeles indie albums of the era.) Intrigued by the burgeoning local punk and post-punk scenes, which included fellow Art Institute students like Avengers singer Penelope Houston and members of the Mutants and Pearl Harbor & the Explosions, Iyall, Zincavage, Woods, and Derrah formed Romeo Void on Valentine's Day 1979. Iyall has said that the name, meaning "a lack of romance," was inspired by a headline on the cover of a local magazine that read "Why single women can't get laid in San Francisco."
Shortly after the group's formation, original saxophonist Bobby Martin and another local reedsman, Benjamin Bossi, swapped bands, with Martin joining art punk extremists the Offs and Bossi teaming up with Romeo Void. The revised lineup recorded their debut single, "White Sweater," and a cover of Jorgen Ingmann's atmospheric 1961 twang-guitar instrumental hit "Apache," for the new local indie 415 Records in 1980. Before sessions commenced for their first album, 1981's It's a Condition, Derrah left the group, replaced by ex-Explosions drummer John "Stench" Haines. One of the masterpieces of American post-punk, It's a Condition received rave reviews upon its release. Perhaps even more importantly, Cars leader Ric Ocasek heard the album (supposedly, a roadie played it in the Cars' tour bus) and invited the group to his Synchro Sound studio in Boston. The resulting Ocasek-produced EP, Never Say Never, on the back of the enormous dance club and college radio airplay of the single, led directly to 415 Records' ongoing association with Columbia Records (bringing not only Romeo Void but also Red Rockers, Translator, Wire Train, and others to major-label status), who reissued the EP later in 1981 before ushering the group back into the studio to record their next album.
1982's Benefactors kicks off with a less-impressive shortened mix of "Never Say Never," almost completely eliminating Bossi's squalling, Albert Ayler-like solo, fading out before the hypnotic ending and bleeping out a rude word in the second verse. (This is the version the video, an early MTV staple, features.) A denser album than the sparse It's a Condition, Benefactors is nearly the equal of the earlier record, with the hyperactive dance-pop of "Undercover Kept" signaling a new interest in musical directness that would reap commercial benefits on their next album.
Like It's a Condition, that third album, 1984's Instincts, was produced by 415's former house producer David Kahne, but it's far slicker than the debut, a precursor to the ultra-shiny albums Kahne would do with the Bangles over the next couple of years. Although this newly commercialized approach scored the band their only Top 40 hit, "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)," which Iyall claimed is an answer song to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," the album is a disappointment in comparison to the stellar work that had preceded it. By the time of these sessions, Haines had been replaced by former session drummer Aaron Smith, and relations had become strained in the group. Romeo Void broke up in early 1985.
Debora Iyall recorded one solo album, 1986's Strange Language, which continued the commercial tendencies of Instincts, then returned to her previous career as a poet, artist, and teacher. She formed the noise pop duo Knife in Water in the '90s. Benjamin Bossi joined the Ordinaires. Romeo Void reunited for a few benefit shows in 1992 and later that year released a career-summary compilation, Warm in Your Coat, which featured one excellent previously unreleased song, "One Thousand Shadows," recorded as a live demo in late 1984 for a movie soundtrack, but it was never finished.
Personnel
* Debora Iyall: vocals
* Benjamin Bossi: saxophone
* Peter Woods: guitar
* Frank Zincavage: bass
* John "Stench" Haines: drums (It's a Condition)
* Larry Carter: drums (Never Say Never (EP) and Benefactor)
* Aaron Smith: drums (Instincts)
Discography Albums
*It's a Condition, March 1981
*Benefactor, November 1982
*Instincts, October 1984
*Warm, in Your Coat (compilation), 1992

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