Archive for December, 2006

I got a package and a Xmas card in the mail recently from the lovely and excellent Lisa Fancher of Frontier Records. What was in the package you ask? Well why don’t I show you…

That is the death rock bible, Christian Death - Only Theatre of Pain LP on opaque red vinyl. They also reverted back to the original and far superior black and gold sleeve. It also comes with a lyric sheet. This limited edition slab of wax can be had for for quick and cheap from the Frontier Records website. If you stop on over there, tell Lisa and Betty that MXV sent you! Thanks Lisa for a great Xmas package!

I just found out that legendary musician James Brown, the Godfather of Soul passed away yesterday. Man what a shitty Xmas that makes! You can read more about it here. While I wasn’t much of a fan of his music, his influence is undeniable and I always enjoyed it when he was a guest on the Howard Stern show.

Merry Xmas everyone. I hope this holiday finds all my faithful readers receiving all kinds of good swag under their tree or wherever they place their gifts. My little unplanned hiatus will come to an end shortly, I’ve been unable to do any reviews due to the Manor receiving an upgrade in some equipment. Thanks to everyone who visits this site and leaves comments, you are the reason I keep at it even when I find it hard sometimes to find the time.

Joy Division - Under Review DVD
Music Video Distributors

One of the more influential first wave of sort of post-punk bands, Joy Division, gets the documentary treatment in the Under Review series. Much like The Velvet Underground one, this focuses on not one record, but the entire career of the band and what happened in their wake.

The documentary starts out talking about the punk scene happening in the UK at the time and how one particular Sex Pistols gig influenced an entire crowd of people who ended up forming their own bands, many of which became rather successful. It was at this gig that three gentlemen decided to form a band and called themselves Warsaw. It wasn’t long before a name change to Joy Division happened and they were gigging and recording. The story is told through interviews with various music journalists and one of the co-authors of the Ian Curtis biography. They leave no stone uncovered, delving into everything including Curtis’ battle with epilepsy, his extra-marital affair and his depression and eventual suicide. There is video footage, live footage, interview footage, and TV appearance footage.

They do an extremely good job in educating the viewer about pretty much anything they’d want to know about Joy Division, and even give some in-depth analysis about the records and specific songs on them. I’ve only been a casual fan of the band and never did much research into their history and now I don’t have to, it has been done for me on this DVD.

The disc runs about 70 minutes long and the time seemed to go by quickly. Extra features are pretty sparse on the disc; there is just an audio interview with Ian Curtis that is extremely hard to hear but there is subtitles to help you follow it, there are biographies on the people who were featured in the documentary, and the “hardest trivia contest ever” feature in the Under Review series is also included here. If you are a fan of Joy Division and wanted to know more about them (which I did), you’ll definitely want to add this to your Xmas wish list.

Related links:

Order the DVD from amazon.com

Music Video Distributors

Pleased Youth - Dangerous Choo-Choo LP (1986 Buy Our Records)

Yes I know, it has been far too long since I’ve done one of these. I always like to try and get some band member involvement in these things and lately band members have been quite sparse. As luck would have it, a former band member posted a comment on this site which enabled me to get in touch with him and that leads us to today’s selection; Pleased Youth.

I first discovered Pleased Youth on the New Jersey’s Got It compilation LP on Buy Our Records. I bought that album because Adrenalin OD were on it and I loved that band. The pleasant result of that purchase was discovering a whole bunch of New Jersey punk bands that I never heard before and I ended up liking nearly the entire album. It wasn’t long after the release of that compilation that Buy Our Records released the one and only record of Pleased Youth, this LP. This LP also has the distinction of being one of the earliest things a label ever sent me to review in my fanzine, Spontaneous Combustion. I couldn’t believe someone would want to send my tiny little fanzine free records to write about at that time. I thought I had hit the lottery. and in many ways I did.

This leads me to the history. I asked Greg Walker to provide a little history on the band so I could do this post and he was kind enough to take some time to accommodate me. What follows is the Pleased Youth story.

The NJ scene of the 1980’s is really divided into two groups. Pleased Youth were part of the central/north Jersey scene along with bands such as Adrenalin O.D. , Bedlam,etc. The other major scene was the shore area/south Jersey scene which focused around the Brighton Bar and Mutha Records in Long Branch. I really don’t know much about that group, so I won’t comment on it.

I remember getting into hardcore when I was about 14 in 1979 and hearing the Dead Kennedys, the Circle Jerks and the Misfits for the first time and being blown away by the power and speed of the music. In NJ at the time the predominant music was Bruce Springsteen, hair metal and cheesy new wave bands. The band started in 1983 when Greg Walker left his band, Bodies in Panic, and met Andy Skovran, a bass player who had just disbanded his group NJF (New Jersey’s Finest) which was one of the area’s first hardcore bands. He started jamming with Andy and other former NJF band-mate Paul Decolator who played guitar. Second guitarist Doug (Sluggo) Vizthum joined the band as well as Adrenalin O.D.’s drummer Dave Scott who took on vocal duties. The name Pleased Youth was chosen as a goof on all the negative “youth” band names at the time (Wasted Youth, Impatient Youth etc.).

This lineup recorded a demo and played mostly in the New Brunswick area, the band’s home base. Due to Dave’s demanding schedule with A.O.D., he was forced to leave the band and was replaced by Keith Hartel. The band played extensively with this lineup in NJ , NY, Philadelphia , Baltimore and Connecticut and eventually recorded an album on Buy Our Records. The band was friendly with the B.O.R. guys and often played shows with other artists on the label. Andy eventually left the group and Keith took over bass as well as vocal duties.

This was the band’s best and tightest lineup. In 1986, Pleased Youth toured the east and Midwest venturing as far as Chicago and playing shows along the way with D.O.A and Toxic Reasons.

The band broke up shortly after this tour due mostly to in-fighting between members. The arguments had been ongoing since the band’s inception and always made for interesting live shows. The arguing often spilled over and involved the audience as Paul and Sluggo were usually feuding with someone.

Where are they now ?
Dave Scott - continued to play with Adrenalin O.D. until their breakup. Eventually moved to Florida where he has drummed for various bands.
Andy Skovran - started an “Oi” band called Niblick Henbane with NJF band-mate Harpo. Played around for quite a few years before eventually calling it quits.
Doug(Sluggo)Vizthum - Started his band Bad Karma playing guitar and singing. Still playing in the New Brunswick area.
Keith Hartel- moved to L.A. where he joined The Nymphs. Moved back to NJ where he played with various bands over the years and is still an actively working musician with his band True Love. Besides creating their own music, his band serves as Richard Lloyd’s (Television) backing band. Keith’s website is Trueloverocks.com
Greg Walker - switched to bass and joined Moby Dick, a heavy drum and bass post-punk band. He later joined an early version of Loose. Greg is not currently playing in order to devote time
to his wife, kids and career as a director of an alternate education program for disaffected teenagers.
Paul Decolator- The true heart and soul of the band. Paul was responsible for bringing many touring bands to NJ and setting up shows as an independent promoter. He also was the author of caustic fanzine Tips n’ Tours. After Pleased Youth he played with G.G. Allin and later with his own band Loose who scored a major record deal only to see it fall apart. Sadly, Paul
passed away in 2002. There is an excellent tribute to Paul at http://www.jerseybeat.com/decolator.htm written by Jim Testa.

Pleased Youth Recordings
Demo tape- 1984
Dangerous Choo-Choo LP- 1986
Various compilation albums including New Jersey’s Got It? and Big City: One Big Crowd

Thank you Greg for sharing the Pleased Youth story for this site!

Listen to “Life on an Edge” from the album (right click it and save)

Dwarves - FEFU The DVD
Music Video Distributors

The Dwarves have become somewhat legendary over the years with their short chaotic live sets and their catchy brand of raw and raunchy punk rock. Also since their first Sub Pop album, they have also been associated with something else; naked ladies. It came as no surprise that the worlds of The Dwarves and Suicide Girls would collide at some point and the two would join forces to make a music video for the song “FEFU” (which stands for Fuck, Eat and Fuck You Up).

The main feature on this DVD is the music video for “FEFU”. The song just so happens to be one of the catchiest Dwarves songs I’ve ever heard, it also happens to be one of the longest I’ve heard (at over two and a half minutes). There is two versions on here; the dirty one and the clean one. The clean one has less nudity and the song itself is edited to be radio-safe. Why they bothered to clean up the song to make it radio friendly but still have nudity on it, thus making in TV-unsafe is a mystery to me, but you get your choice. Of course you’re going to want the dirty one for not only the untainted version of the song, but for the more gratuitous nudity of some fine looking ladies from Suicide Girls.

Aside from the two versions of the video, there is a lengthy feature on the making of the video. While the video itself is only three minutes, the making of is 41 minutes long. There is an “early years” segment which features one music video and three live clips from early in the band’s career. The live clips are one camera fan-cam type of deals with decent sound quality. The “live footage” feature has clips from a handful of tours over the years, mostly from bootleg videos of various quality, most of which is pretty rough. There is two interview features; one from 1992 where the band are pretty wasted and didn’t really want to be bothered taking it very seriously and one from 2005 where they actually seemed to give a shit. Lastly there is an “extras” feature a couple of various Dwarves related clips.

If you are a hardcore Dwarves fan, you’ll likely want this. As a more casual fan who hasn’t picked up their last half a dozen albums, I still found it quite entertaining and a pretty good way to see what they’ve been up to since I last checked them out. The overall presentation of the DVD was well done.

Related links:

Order the DVD from amazon.com

Music Video Distributors website

The Dwarves website