Archive for July, 2008

Tad - Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears DVD
MVD Visual

During the Sub Pop/Grunge Years in the early 1990s while bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney were getting a large share of the attention there was a very large individual by the name of Tad Doyle who was making every bit as much noise as those bands, and often times more and better. He started out by doing a 7″ by himself and then formed a full band under the name Tad. Both Tad the man and Tad the band was a powerful musical force that should have made a much bigger splash than they actually did. If you haven’t heard Tad before, do yourself a favor and track down the song “Axe to Grind” from the Salt Lick EP as it stands as one of the best things ever recorded on the Sub Pop label back then. The how and why Tad didn’t leave a bigger mark on musical history is the subject of this DVD.

Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears tells the full story of Tad the band, from its start as a lone man with the same name who recorded a 7″ for Sub Pop to how it evolved into the full band who went on to put out a handful of really good records that didn’t always get the recognition they deserved. It is told through recent interviews with the members themselves as well as people who were involved with the scene at the time such as Bruce Pavitt and Jonathon Ponnemon of Sub Pop Records, Mark Arm from Mudhoney, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and many others. It covers everything including the legal troubles over record covers, band members leaving, the band moving on to major labels, drug use and the eventual demise of the band. I learned a hell of a lot about the band watching this documentary and the pacing and content were perfect from start to finish. I was literally so enthralled with this thing I did not leave my couch for the full 90 mins it was on. Not only do you get a rich history of the band but you learned a lot about how things worked at Sub Pop at the time too which was equally fascinating as at that time I was buying everything the label was releasing and going to see those bands play all the time. It was one of the best put-together documentaries I’ve come across in awhile now, so much so that it would be an interesting watch to someone who doesn’t even know who Tad is.

The video is presenting in letterbox (non-anamorphic) widescreen. The audio was 5.1 surround. The mix of music and interviews was really well done and not once did I feel the need to adjust the volume for different segments of the film. Bonus material is comprised of five music videos that span nearly the entire career of the band.

Having been a fan for awhile of Tad when they were on Sub Pop, but then losing track of them around the time they moved onto major labels, I found this documentary to be a great way to remember the past and learn what I missed when I let it get away from me. It makes me want to go back and get the rest of the Tad records I overlooked and I have a much greater appreciation for the man and the band. I’ll easily be re-watching this on a regular basis and showing it to my friends. The people responsible should be proud of the fine documentary they’ve put together.

Related links:

order the DVD from amazon.com

Tad official myspace page

MVD Visual

Lair of the Minotaur - War Metal Battle Master CD
Southern Lord Recordings

Despite this being their third album and evidently the band being from my own city, this CD stands as my first exposure to Lair of the Minotaur. The band name alone conjured images in my mind of something dark and sinister and I suspected perhaps some sort of cheesy fantasy role-playing theme to the band. I was correct on the former and thankfully incorrect on the latter.

What initially stood out upon listening to War Metal Battle Master was I couldn’t pigeonhole the band into a specific category of metal, it was instead as if each member of the band were from different metal bands and all decided to form a band and each write different parts of each song. The end result is a really cool mix of a variety of styles such as hardcore blast beats, sludge, black and death metal not fighting for dominance but co-existing and working well together. Listening to this album sort of gave me flashbacks of various bands and style throughout the last 15 or so years of metal without sounding like a re-hash of anything. Their songs are almost a highlight reel of all the cool sub-genres of metal handed to me in on one plate.

The band is relentless in their delivery, there is no breaks for any slow songs or ballads on this disc, it’s a non-stop attack on the senses. The production leans slightly to the rawer side of things which gives the entire album a sort of gritty undertone. I think that was the best choice for the band’s sound as trying to add a layer of polish which would have taken away from the power and intensity of their songs.

The bottom line is this was a great surprise that ended up in my mailbox and Lair of the Minotaur is definitely a band I’d like to not only hear more from, but I’d also like to check out one of their shows sometime to see and hear what these songs are like in a live setting. If you are looking for something a little different than the norm in your metal, you’d be hard pressed currently to find a better album worth taking a chance on than War Metal Battle Master.

Related links:

Lair of the Minotaur website

Southern Lord Recordings

buy the CD from amazon.com

D.I. - The Suburbia Sessions 1983 DVD
MVD Visual

I think it may have been the movie, Suburbia, that first turned me on to D.I. when I was a young teenager. The song they performed in that movie, “Richard Hung Himself” is one of the all time punk rock classics. I’d soon find out that D.I. spawned from the Adolescents, a band I had already loved at the time (we’re talking about nearly 25 years ago), and it made sense to me that I found D.I. so appealing as they had a similar style. D.I. went on to release a handful of very good records during the 1980s and are still active today (with Casey Royer being the only original member left).

This DVD was recorded by Flipside back in 1983 at one of the band’s practices. It was shot on one camera and because of the controlled environment, it was well lit and the picture quality was a lot better than some of the other flipside videos that have been released. The sound was really good as well making this one of the best flipside related videos on a DVD to date. It was a ten song set with many of the tracks being from their first record (later reissued at Team Goon) which was just about to be released at the time.

The disc runs about an hour long between the set and the bonus interview footage recorded at the same time. The video is full frame as it originally was shot. The audio has two options: stereo and 5.1 surround with the stereo track sounding a bit better. If you are a D.I. fan, this is a pretty great piece of early footage that warrants the purchase price and hopefully this will mean more old Flipside videos being released in the future.

For those of you who are familiar with the old (and great) band, Middle Class, you’ll be happy to know in September Frontier Records will be reissuing their early material. For you record collectors out there, Frontier Records has available some original sealed copies of Homeland, the band’s only full length release. These were unearthed from storage of the owner of Pulse Records who put out that record 25 years ago! They are selling them for an extremely fair price too so do yourself a favor and grab one before they are all snatched up and you are stuck buying it from some pimp on ebay.

The series of Unrest Records Dayglo Abortions reissues continues with all the later releases that until now were never released on vinyl. As far as the music goes, these albums were really hit or miss, sadly with the emphasis on miss.

Dayglo Abortions - Two Dogs Fucking

This was the album that followed Here Today Guano Tomorrow. That album definitely showed the band going in a more metal direction and this album lived up to my fears that they’d take it too far. The songs pale in comparison to anything they did until this point, and a lot of the stuff just came off sounding like retarded metal with adolescent humor trying to save it. There’s a couple of decent songs on it but even the vocals didn’t really sound the same as the previous albums.

Dayglo Abortions - Little Man in the Canoe

This Dayglo album was a bit of a return to form for the band. It sounds more like something between the Feed Us a Fetus and Here Today… . They ditched a lot of the adolescent metal baggage that plagued them on the album before this and it turned out to work for them as it’s a pretty solid album overall. Of all the “newer” Dayglow Abortions albums, this is easily the one you want to own. This also came on white vinyl as you can see in the photo.

Dayglo Abortions - Death Race 2000

Another in the line of never before on vinyl releases, Death Race 2000 unfortunately doesn’t pick up where the previous album left off. In fact it really seems to pick up where Two Dogs Fucking left off. The songs are once again more metal and the vocals sound different again. It’s almost as if there were two versions of the band taking turns releasing albums. The songs are more generic sounding than anything in their past, and nothing really stood out for me on this gray vinyl record.

Dayglo Abortions - Fin.

Judging by the title, I’m assuming this was the final release ever for the Dayglo Abortions. Instead of following the pattern of good/bad, this one just continued where Death Race 2000 left off. The songs were pretty generic and way too metal for their own good. Whatever magic they had early on in their career (and boy did they have magic!) was long gone by this point and you’d be hard pressed to know it was the same band that put out such classic records back in the old days. It wasn’t a very good note to end on but at least they called it a day eventually.

All of these records can be purchased directly from Unrest Records or should be able to be picked up from the usual shops/mailorders that carry punk records. I’m pretty sure they did color vinyl for most of these reissues (though most of mine were black) so it’s worth ordering direct if that is the only place to get the colors.

Lydia Lunch - Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006 DVD
MVD Visual

Lydia Lunch has been an icon in the underground culture for three decades now. She has had a very long and diverse career that took her from punk rock singer to artist, to poet, to author, to film star, to “celebrity crush” of a teenage MXV, to so much more, the woman has done it all like no other before or likely after. Whether working alone or collaborating with any number of people, she’s consistently put out interesting and original material in every medium she’s put her hands in. What’s even more amazing is she is still at it today and shows no signs of ever quitting.

This DVD compiles live footage from various projects in the long career of Miss Lunch. It starts off with the legendary Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and goes on to 8 Eyed Spy, then is followed by lots of collaborations that spanned the course of another two decades. The one project I was always a big fan of which wasn’t represented at all here was her work with Clint Ruin (aka: Foetus) under the name Stinkfist. Most of the projects only feature one live song but the really early stuff has anywhere from two - six live songs which was a pretty amazing inclusion considering those shows were almost 30 years ago.

Video quality varies by clip and ranges from very good to excellent with a few of them being shot on just one camera. All the footage is full frame. The audio has two options: stereo and 5.1 surround with the nod going to the 5.1 mode which filled the room up nicely. Bonus materials include a view various interview clips and a really cool photo gallery featuring some really great photos of Lydia. Total run time of the main feature is around 80 minutes.

Since I have been a fan of Lydia Lunch for more than 2/3 of her career, I was pretty excited to check this disc out when I received it in the mail. It is a cool document that shows a good slice of her long and varied career and will enjoy repeated viewings and a permanent place in The Punk Vault.

Related links:

Buy the DVD from amazon.com

Lydia Lunch official website