Archive for September, 2005

Various Artists - Keats Rides a Harley CD
Warning Label Records

Recently I did a “Selections from the Punk Vault” feature on this record and came to learn that a CD reissue was in the works. I was quite pleased to find out this often overlooked, but great compilation would be once again available to the masses. What I didn’t know until now was that it wasn’t just going to be a straight reissue, but it would be enhanced with bonus tracks!

On top of the tracks that appeared on the original vinyl, each band has an additional track that was recorded at the same sessions that resulted in this compilation! Never before has any of this stuff been heard or released anywhere, and it is pretty amazing that it was saved all these years and still intact. On top of that, this CD also contains the Happy Squid Sampler 7″ compilation tracks as well, bringing the total number of songs on this disc to 23 (up from 9 on the original vinyl).

Musically the bands on here, in most cases, were more in the art-punk category rather than the hardcore that was becoming the standard back in 1981 when this was originally conceived. The Urinals, who’s label Happy Squid Records was responsible for this record, were kind of the centerpiece for this fringe of art-punks who didn’t fit into the Hollywood and beach scenes of punk and hardcore, yet were still like-minded punks doing something unique. There is not a bad song on here and aside from bands like The 100 Flowers, Gun Club and Meat Puppets getting their start on this compilation or it being really early in their career, most of the other bands didn’t have any other records out aside from this one (S Squad is a prime example of this). While the sound is a bit lo-fi, I think it just adds to the raw DIY feeling of the whole record and the bands themselves. The bonus tracks, with perhaps the exception of the Meat Puppets track (which instead of being demented and thrashy like their other early works, was more of a precursor to what they would later become), are all nearly as good as the songs the bands had on the original release.

The full band list: Earwigs, Toxic Shock, S Squad, Gun Club, Meat Puppets, Leaving Trains, Tunneltones, Human Hands, 100 Flowers, Urinals, Danny and the Doorknobs, Arrow Book Club, Vidiots, and Phil Bedel.

On top of the fine sound, this CD has perhaps the most comprehensive liner notes I’ve seen on any kind of reissue. On top of a very interesting read about how the compilation and label came to be, there is liner notes by a member of every single band on this disc and made for a long and fascinating read. It is quite obvious this reissue was a labor of love, and a lot of time and care went into it. I’m sure tracking down some of those old band members wasn’t an easy task, something I’m quite familiar with myself.

As a big fan of the original vinyl release, I am quite happy to see that not only was this thing brought back to the public, but done so in such a great way. This CD should be what labels strive for when they reissue their old material.

Friday before I went to see the MDC show, I spent a little time with my family and did a little tourist activity in my own city of Chicago. My cousin picked me up and we met my sister who was in town, and my other cousin for lunch at a pizza place and then went back downtown to see the Palmer House hotel where my sister was staying and to check out Millennium Park.

Millennium Park was a place I was aware of, but never bothered to check out simply because driving and parking around the Loop is a royal pain in the ass (not to mention expensive). My sister wanted to see the place and since we were there and actually found a spot to park (with super expensive meter rates of a quarter for a mere 5 minutes), we took a walk over there. The place is very clean, you can tell the city invests a fair amount of money for maintenance since the park is their latest gimmick. When we waked in, the first thing you see is these two giant towers that have water pouring off of. They look somewhat menacing yet they were also cool and the water hits the ground and is somehow contained in the area between the towers.

The towers on the sides that face each other have video images of different peoples faces. The faces make some different expressions and look around, it is almost creepy looking at times. The faces will change between different races and genders if you were to sit there for a long period of time. After a bit of time passes, the face changes and then the thing spits out water into the center.

After watching this for a bit, we went deeper inside the park and saw what the park is perhaps the most famous for, “the bean”. This is a reflective structure and if you look at it from different angles, you see different parts of the city skyline being reflected off of it. You also see all the people around you as well as yourself being reflected off of it as well.

You can walk underneath the bean too and if you look up, you get some weird and interesting different reflections. I could see myself in like a half dozen places at once in there.

Aside from that there was a garden area full of different trees and plants, some water and there was a bandshell area that had seats, and then a lawn area. It was like a smaller Tweeter Center, but cleaner and they had speakers everywhere so I’d assume you could hear the show a lot better than at the Tweeter Center even if you were all the way back in the lawn. My one cousin told me that a few weeks ago, REO Speedwagon played there. That would have been quite a site to see I’m sure. Above the bandshell area was some cool metal structures and if you looked up a little higher, you got a cool glimpse of the city skyline.

I don’t recall what used to be in the spot where this park is located as I never spent much time in that part of downtown, but the park itself is pretty neat and would be a nice place to eat your lunch outside on a nice day. They, of course, had vendors set up selling “souvenirs” such as coffee mugs, etc. which were of zero interest to me. If you find yourself in the area, its not a bad way to kill some time, not to mention it is free which is the most important form of entertainment for me these days!

Samhain - Live 1984 DVD
Music Video Distributors

While there is plenty of Misfits and Samhain related “product”, the one thing there is a definite lack of on both fronts is any kind of official live videos. I guess you can chalk it up to being in the 1980s and video cameras were a rather pricey luxury. Lucky for the world of punk rock that people like Target Video and Flipside had the good sense to invest in some video equipment and document some of these great bands.

This is one of only two officially released Samhain videos (the other being included in the Samhain box set) and while it isn’t without its faults, it is a pretty nice little document of the band in their earlier years. This was recorded by the Flipside crew in 1984 at the long-gone Stardust Ballroom in Hollywood, CA. At this time the band had only the Initium album out and were in the process of making the Unholy Passion EP (a couple of the songs that would end up on that record were played at this show). The lineup was Glenn Danzig, Steve Zing, Eerie Von and Damien (I believe). The show was 47 minutes in length and featured most of the Initium album, a couple Misfits songs, and the aforementioned tracks from Unholy Passion. It was a pretty energetic set and the crowd were into it. On one of the final songs, “Archangel” Glenn actually plays guitar which is something I have never witnessed him do either live or on any video I had seen before from any of his bands.

The video was shot on a few different cameras all from different parts of the stage so most of the footage is of different side views. At various points in the show the view is through a fish-eye lens which makes for a somewhat neat little effect. The video quality is basic VHS quality, the footage hasn’t aged terribly, but there are some weird lines and glitches on occasion that was a fault with the source material, not a manufacturing error. The audio here is the big issue. It has its fair share of distortion/clipping in certain songs which is again a result of how it was recorded and the limitations of the equipment used. The overall quality is like a pro-bootleg, its better than what you’d get on the tape trading circuit, but not by much. Since there isn’t a lot of Samhain footage floating around out there, despite the quality issues at times, it is a cool document of a time long gone (which is now 21 years ago!). Die-hard Samhain fans and collectors are going to want to have this for completion. I don’t think I’d recommend it for a casual fan or someone who was just curious of what the band was all about just because of how rough the sound/footage is at times.

There are no extras on this disc, which was kind of a shame but I chalk that up to the lack of anything around from the band to add to the disc. It does come with a cool Samhain vinyl sticker which I thought was a nice touch. The relatively low price tag will make it an easy purchase for the hardcore Samhain collector (of which there are many) but the casual fan or someone not needing to own it all might want to pass on this one.

Buy the DVD from Amazon

Various Artists - Noise From Nowhere 7″
(1983 Toxic Shock Records)

When I was a freshman in high school, my friend Mick Calhoun had more punk records than anyone I knew at that point (and the total amount of punks in our school at that time was about 7). I asked him if he would tape some stuff for me because being so young, I didn’t have a whole lot of access or money to buy many records. He kindly obliged and asked me what I wanted and one of my requests was the Peace Corpse 7″. He not only put that on the tape, but one side of this compilation because “one of these bands became Peace Corpse after this record”. I loved the two songs he recorded (as well as the entire tape for that matter) and eventually I was able to procure my own copies of all those records he taped for me. So much for “home taping is killing music” huh?

This record was released in 1983 and was the first release on Toxic Shock Records, who at the time were perhaps the most amazing punk record mailorder/store around. I remember getting their catalogs and drooling over them because they had so many records available, and I learned about bands and labels for the first time just by reading that catalog. When I actually got a job and earned some money, I would occasionally place orders from them because they had stuff that no store near my house had, or would dare carry. Toxic Shock records kept going after this and put out some really great hardcore records by bands like Peace Corpse, Raw Power, Mad Parade, Dayglow Abortions, Decry, and others.

There was four bands on this compilation; Manson Youth, Kent State, Modern Industry, and Moslem Birth. Moslem Birth is the band that became Peace Corpse after this record was released. Many people thought they were some sort of real death rock band, when in reality their whole gimmick was supposed to be making fun of Christian Death. Despite it being a joke, I really liked their gloomy contribution to this record and the Manson Youth song was also a fine slab of straight-up hardcore. Moslem Birth never recorded anything else, Manson Youth recorded some other songs at the time that didn’t see the light of day until 10 years later when Dr. Strange Records released a pair of 7″s of those recordings, which much like Toxic Shock, was the first release for their label. Kent State were on a compilation or two but I don’t recall them ever releasing a record of their own and Modern Industry had a 7″ that came out a year or two later on Toxic Shock Records.

The whole record was great from the packaging with the classic Pushead cover art, right down to the four songs contained on the record, yet somehow this record seemed to have been overlooked compared to other compilations that came out around the same time. Thankfully the music has been preserved for future generations on a CD that compiles four early Toxic Shock records that was released a few years ago on Dr. Strange Records.

As always if you have any additional information, please get in touch.

Listen to “Horror Snores” from Moslem Birth

Listen to “Penis Brain” by Manson Youth

Buy the CD reissue from Amazon

Dr. Strange Records website

Last night, Seňor Citizen and I went to see MDC at the Bottom Lounge. I never got to see them “back in the day” so I wanted to see what it was I missed and since it was the original lineup, I figured it was worth checking out. The show started really early too, 630pm because the club had a late show that night as well.

Raining Bricks

Raining Bricks

Raining Bricks were up first. They sounded like anything on the New York Hardcore: The Way It Is compilation, which I wasn’t a fan of. While they weren’t straight-edge (the singer was drinking a beer), they sure sounded just like all that Youth-Crew stuff that got me disillusioned with punk/hardcore back in the late 1980s. Needless to say they didn’t do much for me, but they only played 15 minutes so it wasn’t bad. Unlike all those Youth-Crew bands however, Raining Bricks had a female in the band, who played guitar.

Chronic Seizure

Chronic Seizure

Chronic Seizure were up next and played some pretty intense hardcore. They had some wild fans in the audience who were jumping all over the place and some asshole twice splashed his beer on me. They also played for only 15 minutes but I was pretty entertained by them. At one point they played an Angry Samoans cover, which breaks my rule of “no new punk bands should ever cover old punk band’s songs”. That was my only complaint, the rest of their set was quite alright.

I Attack

I Attack

I Attack

I Attack were third and barely made it to the club in time to play this show. When they finally took the stage, they blasted through 15 minutes of pretty intense hardcore. Sadly their set was cut short due to their tardiness but the crowd were really into the short set they played and I enjoyed it as well.

MDC

MDC

MDC followed and it was cool that it was the original 1981 lineup, which these days is a pretty rare thing for old punk bands to have. They played a good selection of mostly old songs such as “Born to Die”, “John Wayne Was a Nazi”, “Chicken Squawk” and others. They also played a few newer tracks like “Shades of Brown”. For a bunch of old-timers, they still had it and were tight and pretty energetic. The crowd were into it too, and surprisingly was made up of mostly younger kids. I think Senor and I were easily the oldest people in the club with the exception of the four guys on stage! They played about 45 minutes with no encore as the club had to clear out to get ready for whatever the late show was.

MDC

MDC

All in all it wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening, and the show had to have let out earlier than just about any one I’ve seen in years (we were in the car at around 9:30pm). It was good to see despite all the years and some members’ battles with “personal demons” that they still had what it takes to deliver a solid hardcore show.

MDC

A few more pix after the jump

But when one of my best friends has proven to me that it not only works, but it worked for him on multiple occasions, I finally caved in and figured I’d give it a go. Since some of the offers were free and as simple as filling out a credit card application (and using the card one time once you get it), I figured the price was right. So now I’m trying to get the referrals so I can earn my free Ipod Photo. I am hoping some of the regulars here on my site will take some pity and sign up. This year I lost my job, my lady, am broke and all I have left is a dream - the dream of a free Ipod photo. I will be happy to send a gmail invite to anyone who wants to use one for the email in case of fear of spam.

So if anyone wants to get in on the action, please click here. This concludes my advertising/begging and I hope some people here will take the time to help out (and also get in on the action to get their own).