Archive for December, 2007

The Germs are my favorite punk rock band of all time. They were one of the earliest bands I’d heard of when I first got into punk rock and I instantly fell in love with them upon the first listen. The Germs were also much like the Sex Pistols in that they really only released one album and a couple of singles before disbanding, but there have been countless live albums released posthumously. Thanks to the package I received from Anarchy Music, my Germs collection has once again increased.

The Germs – I Fu*#ed Your Mom picture disc LP

This is a picture disc LP that collects various live Germs recordings. It is essentially the same thing as the Media Blitz CD that came out a long time ago. There is one song recorded from a rehearsal and twelve live tracks from four different shows in 1978-1979. The sound quality varies from show to show, the best stuff being the material that appeared on the Rock and Rule LP recorded by Geza X.

The picture disc comes housed in a clear PVC bag with a sticker affixed to it stating it is a limited edition of 1000 copies and the back of the disc looks like this…

The usual vinyl shops should carry the Anarchy Music releases should you want one for yourself before they are gone. A few places that carry them include:

Cleopatra’s ebay store

Doctor Strange Records

Interpunk

Many thanks to Anarchy Music for sending the records over.

Saturday night I went over to Reggie’s Rock Room for the Naked Raygun DVD screening. The premise of the event was to show the Naked Raygun DVD that was just released and then the band would give a “festive performance” after it was over. I reviewed the DVD recently and was really a fan of it, so the opportunity to watch it again with a bunch of people at a nice club and actually get to see the band perform after was certainly very appealing.

Pierre Kezdy

Jeff Pezzati

When I got there a small line had already formed outside of eager fans waiting to get their signed DVD (part of the admission package included a copy of the DVD signed by the band) and see the show. The doors opened and a pretty steady stream of people filed in and found spots to stand or sit to watch the DVD. An hour later and Riot Mike took the stage and said a few words to the crowd and the DVD began.

Bill Stephens

Eric Spicer

Watching the DVD again really made me want to see the band play and that feeling was shared by the entire crowd. When it was over the crowd loudly applauded and were eager to see the band play. A few minutes later Naked Raygun the stage and started playing. The crowd immediately started bouncing up and down and singing along in approval.

Naked Raygun

Naked Raygun

When the song was finished, Jeff announced that the band does not have a set list for the evening and that it was “danger request night”. The plan was the band would pick volunteers from the audience to request a song and the band would vote on whether or not they wanted to play it. If the band voted yes, they played it, if they voted no, then the person would have to accept some form of punishment.

Picking someone for “danger request night”

Pierre applying the “Limburger necklace”

The first request, “Vanilla Blue” was accepted by the band and Jeff teased the person who requested it for playing it safe. They played a great rendition of it and then it was back to the requests. The first person to pick something that was shot down was brought up on stage and given a “Limburger necklace” where Pierre took a stick of Limburger cheese and wiped it all over the neck of the person, making them smell bad the rest of the night!

A member of the crowd standing on one foot during a song

Hot Funk bribing his way out of punishment!

Everyone who choose poorly took their punishment with a smile on their face, except for Hot Funk who somehow bribed his way out of punishment! There were some oddball requests too and one person also requested “No Sex” which the band hadn’t played in like 20 years and they played it! The entire show was a lot of fun because it wasn’t just the band playing through a set list and then leaving, it had so much audience participation that it made everyone feel a part of the show.

Dispensing of some “free shit”

Eric Spicer

Eventually the crowd started chanting for “free shit”. This time out there was no custom made shit, but the band did throw out some bags of chocolates to the crowd. I was able to snag a piece that fell on stage and quickly gobbled it up since I was so hungry at that point that the chocolate served as my dinner.

Naked Raygun

Bill Stephens

The band had only planned on playing a short set, however everyone was having so much fun, and the crowd kept wanting more that they ended up playing three encores and their total set time was about an hour and a half! The show went way longer than it was scheduled to go, much to the delight of everyone in attendance.

Jeff Pezzati

Pierre Kezdy

Of all the times I’ve seen Naked Raygun this year, this was easily the most fun due in part to the clever way they had the audience be part of the show. It was a great time and really felt like something special for the holidays. I went home with a big smile on my face reflecting back on just what an enjoyable show it was.

Naked Raygun

Additional photos from this show can be found on MXV’s Flickr Stream.

When I was a young boy discovering punk rock for the first time at the age of 13, the Sex Pistols was one of the two punk bands I first heard and they changed my life. I have since that day had such a soft spot for the band that I have collected tons of records by them over the years, including records related to the band such as PiL and the few Sid Vicious records that exist. In the package I received from Anarchy Music, that collection just increased by one.

Sid Vicious – F#@k Off You C#%t picture disc LP

As you can see, this is a Sid Vicious picture disc. This features various live recordings that Sid did with various musicians (some of them if I recall were members of the Heartbreakers) after the Sex Pistols disbanded. Many of these recordings appeared on various records over the years, all of which have been out of print for years and a couple of them I think were from the Sid Sings album. The sound quality is a mixed bag, some of it muddy and some of it sounds pretty good. As you can guess the performances aren’t exactly stellar, I mean the guy was pretty whacked out of his skull on dope at this point in his short life, but they do capture a moment in time that is long gone and is pretty good for historical merit.

The LP is limited to 1000 copies and it comes packaged in a clear PVC bag with a sticker on it. The other side of the disc looks like this…

The usual vinyl stops should carry the Anarchy Music releases should you want one for yourself before they are gone.  A few places that carry them include:

Cleopatra’s ebay store

Doctor Strange Records

Interpunk

Next in the series of Anarchy Music releases I received was a very limited LP by one of my favorite bands of all time, and the band I have more records of than any other in the entire vault.

The Damned – Live at Woolwich 1985 LP

This is a live album from The Damned. It was recorded during the Phantasmagoria era and stands as one of the few live albums that I can recall from that era of the band’s lengthy career. The sound quality is a bit echoey but overall is pretty decent. It was really neat to hear live renditions of a lot of those songs since I didn’t go see them when they toured for that record due to lack of any sort of transportation.

Much like most of the releases on the label, this one comes packaged in a poly bag with a 12×12 single sided insert that serves as the cover. It is numbered out of 300 copies and is on green vinyl. It also contains a patch and a button that I was awfully tempted to take out and put on my jacket but I had to resist so I can keep my package complete. I noticed in my daily record perusing on the internet that this also comes on white vinyl. I am guessing that it is another run of 300 on the other color.

As a huge fan of The Damned, I always welcome another piece of vinyl to my ever growing collection of their records, especially one of such a limited nature.

The usual vinyl stops should carry the Anarchy Music releases should you want one for yourself before they are gone. With only 300 made I’m sure they will go fast. A few places that carry them include:

Cleopatra’s ebay store

Doctor Strange Records

Interpunk

Saturday I shot the Thrill Jockey 15th anniversary show for Spin Magazine’s website. I didn’t bother writing a show review of it for this site because going into it, I was only somewhat familiar with Tortoise. I walked out of the marathon show really only liking two bands; Trans Am and Adult.

Anyway, you can check out the photos over at Spin right here. The day two photos are mine, though they neglected to run the photo credit the way I asked for it. Ah well.

As an aside, it only took me 90 mins to get home from the show because the roads were so bad from it snowing for a full day! Damn the winter!

With there being a vinyl resurgence of late, many labels have started going back and reissuing old material on the superior format, sometimes for the first time and sometimes for the first time on said format for many years. A new label subsidiary of Cleopatra Records called Anarchy Music was recently started and are offering up a whole slew of very limited edition vinyl releases of some fairly well known punk bands. They are all being pressed in pretty small quantities and then tend to be a bit pricey considering the minimal packaging but they are still appealing to this long-time collector, especially since they’re releasing so many of my favorite bands material in these editions. They sent over a few of the releases that I’ll be featuring here over the next few days starting with this one.

Anti Nowhere League – We Are the League limited edition LP

This is a limited edition reissue of the first Anti Nowhere League LP which just so happens to rank very high on my list of favorite punk records. This version actually contains two bonus tracks that were not on the original LP but were from a single (the songs “Rocker” and “So What” are the bonus tracks).

The record comes packaged in a clear poly bag and the cover consists solely of a single-sided 12×12 insert printed on cardstock. The record as you can see is on green vinyl and there was 300 pressed, each individually numbered. It also comes with an Anti Nowhere League patch and button.  The album artwork appears to perhaps be the original advertisement for the LP when it came out about 25 years ago now.

As a vinyl fiend myself, I was happy to add a new variation of a classic record to the vault, and in this case it was one with extra songs on it!

The usual vinyl stops should carry the Anarchy Music releases should you want one for yourself before they are gone. With only 300 made I’m sure they will go fast. A few places that carry them include:

Cleopatra’s ebay store 

Doctor Strange Records

Interpunk