Hot on the heels of their release of the DVD/LP of the Chicago punk rock documentary, You Weren’t There, Factory 25 is releasing two albums of vintage Chicago punk on vinyl for this year’s Record Store Day!
DA’s Exclamation Point and Tutu & The Pirates’ Sub-Urban Insult Rock For The Anti-Lectual are the first two records in the You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk 1977-84 LP series, inspired by the film of the same name. You Weren’t There is a rare glimpse into a truly one-of-a-kind American underground music scene that documents the impact that the Punk movement has had on the Windy City. Though overlooked in the annals of rock history, Chicago served as an important early supporter of this burgeoning and controversial scene that could be violent and unsavory at times, but always tempered with large doses of humor, art, and intelligence.
Tutu & The Pirates, Chicago’s first anti-lectual sub-urban insult rock band and perhaps even its first punk band finally gets its due in their first 17-track LP compilation of demos (from ‘77/’78), practice tapes and live material (from ‘78). Formed in 1977 by a cross-section of childhood friends and misfits, the Pirates culled inspiration from The Stooges, MC5, and the New York Dolls, as well as 60’s garage and the Mothers Of Invention. Quirky and fearless, these guys quickly become Chicago’s go-to opening band for The Ramones, the Undertones, and The Pretenders. Despite their influence in and on the Chicago punk scene, the legendary Midwestern pioneers of punk never managed to release an album until now.
An important and influential fixture on the early Chicago (post) Punk scene, DA had its feet planted firmly in the moment while focused on a future yet to come. DA, while influenced by psych, punk and noise, created a body of work startling in its depth and originality. The inventive rhythms of original drummer Dawn Fisher and the muscular backbeats of her successor, Robert Furem layed a propulsive framework for the intertwined guitar work of Gaylene Goudreau and David Thomas. The angular fluidity of their interplay became the perfect backdrop for singer and bassist Lorna Donley’s introspective lyricis and expressive voice. Personal and obsessive, strange yet familiar, the music of DA is ripe for re-discovery.
Record Store Day is Saturday April 17th and many record stores will have a number of exclusive limited edition releases that will be released in conjunction with it.
According to the fine folks over at Riot Fest, the second 7″ in the Naked Raygun 7″ series will be released on June 15th. The band also plan to film their first music video in over 20 years and tour Europe for the first time in just about as many!
Looks like it is going to be a very productive year for these Chicago punk rock super heroes. I’m looking forward to the new release, not to mention hope they will do at least one home-town show this year.
American doom supergroup Shrinebuilder - comprised of Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep), Scott “Wino” Weinrich” (Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, Spririt Caravan) and Dale Crover (Melvins, Altamont) – today embark on their new US tour, kicking it off at The Casbah in San Diego, California. The band will pound the West Coast all week alongside Neurot brethren A Storm Of Light on all shows, and with special appearances by Harvestman (Steve Von Till of Neurosis) on the three Bay Area shows.
Immediately following the West Coast shows, the band will head to New York City for a special show at New York University, and then head to Columbus, Ohio where they will appear as one of the headliners of the now sold-out Scion Rock Fest alongside D.R.I., Brutal Truth, Cannibal Corpse, Absu and tons of other high quality metal acts.
SHRINEBUILDER live dates:
3/02/2010 The Casbah – San Diego, CA
3/03/2010 Echo – Los Angeles, CA
3/04/2010 Echo – Los Angeles, CA
3/05/2010 The Voodoo Lounge – San Jose, CA w/ Harvestman, Brain Oil
3/06/2010 Oakland Metro – Oakland, CA w/ Harvestman, Laudanum
3/07/2010 The Independent – San Francisco, CA w/ Harvestman
3/09/2010 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
3/11/2010 E+L Auditorium @ NYU – New York, NY w/ Wolves in the Throne Room, Salome
3/13/2010 Scion Rock Fest – Columbus, OH
Here’s something I never saw before today, a video made by Placebo Records for the JFA song, “Pipe Truck”! This song, and especially this band, was one of many I’d skate to constantly during the 1980s and my teenage punk rock years There’s lots of great images of the band playing the old Mad Garden in Phoenix which is a place I would have lived at had I been in Phoenix instead of Chicago at the time!
The Village Voice website has a feature on the upcoming Kayo Dot album, Coyote, on Hydra Head Records today and you can download a song from the album on the site for free. The song is called “Whisper Ineffable” and is the second track on the aforementioned album.
Aside from the free mp3, the article gives a pretty good in-depth preview of what to expect from the full album as well as some information from the band itself on what the song is about. According to the article, the band breaks the golden rule of metal by featuring almost no guitars on their album, which will be very interesting to say the least.
Check out the article and hear it for yourself right here.
While I knew that Greg Shaw, the man who started Bomp did a fanzine before it became a record label and mail order, I had no idea just how many fanzines he had done even before Who Put the Bomp! The man practically invented the fanzine as he had been doing so many of them either about science fiction or his own neighborhood or music. I’m willing to bet if it wasn’t for him, music fanzines wouldn’t have become as big as they were in the early punk days, and as a former fanzine publisher, I guess I owe a debt of gratitude to Greg Shaw to showing us how it was done.
Bomp 2: Born in the Garage collects the best of Greg’s various fanzines, most of which he would produce on his own mimeograph machine in his home. The book starts out with a history of Greg and his various writing endeavors written by various friends and associates who contributed to the many zines Greg produced and wrote for, many of whom became quite famous writers of rock music for much larger publications, those names include Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, and Richard Meltzer among others. It then reprints the best of his various zines that pre-date the 1970s punk rock explosion. Those zines include Alligator Wine, Liquid Love, Metanoia, and of course Who Put the Bomp! The zines were true fanzines and contained articles about record labels and various bands including very detailed discographies and record listings as well as various articles about record collecting. It is pretty amazing how much of these tiny little zines were preserved over the years.
The book was compiled by Suzy Shaw, who was married to Greg at the time all these zines were produced and would bail him out when he’d get in things way over his head by taking on a number of tasks including carrying on the label and mail order after Greg’s passing, and Mike Stax who put out a wonderful zine of his own called Ugly Things. The music covered in the various zines compiled here include 60’s garage, Surf, British invasion, girl groups, rockabilly, psychedelia and a little bit of punk rock. There’s a ton you can learn from these various articles and listings and it made me start to compile a list of bands covered here in this book that I want to check out.
The book weighs in at 311 pages and since the pages are jam packed with stuff to read, much of it in small type, it will take you quite some time to read it. There’s lots too look at too as the book also contains many pictures. The chapters are broken down by what zine is being reproduced and are presented in chronological order, which made it pretty easy and interesting to see how Greg’s tastes and interests changed over the years and how either accurate or inaccurate his predictions were.
Overall Bomp 2: Born in the Garage is a wonderful compilation of zines from a time long gone and is as educational as it is entertaining. Any fan of the music covered in this book, or just those of fanzines in general looking for some history would do well to pick up this book, which will give you a lot for your money.
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Hot on the heels of their release of the DVD/LP of the Chicago punk rock documentary, You Weren’t There, Factory 25 is releasing two albums of vintage Chicago punk on vinyl for this year’s Record Store Day!
They MUST come to Chicago and it MUST be at Reggie’s!!!!
Comment by monkee13 — March 3, 2010 @ 11:36 pm