The Evens
The Evens – Vowels (Pancake Mountain, children's television show, 2003)
Get their records here.
20 Jan 2013
2 Dec 2012
How minimal can you get? #42
The Fall
“Songs like ‘Industrial Estate’ – that was the second or third song that I wrote the music for, but the lyrics came first – it's a sort of poem, a hard poem. You can tell it was written at work. It's about working on the docks, on a container base. So of course I presented it to the group and they want to know what it's all about. They would prefer me to write about velvet shiny leather, the moon and all that kind of thing, like Televisiono or The Velvets. As a compromise I wrote the chorus – ‘Yeah, yeah, industrial estate’ – to make it a bit more American rocky. And I wrote this sub-Stooges music to go with it, Stooges without the third chord. At the time, people thought it was terrible because it wasn't the way it should be, it wasn't ‘in tune’. But I never wanted The Fall to be like one of those groups. I didn't care what people thought.” Mark E. Smith
The Fall – Psycho Mafia & Industrial Estate (So It Goes, 1978)
“Songs like ‘Industrial Estate’ – that was the second or third song that I wrote the music for, but the lyrics came first – it's a sort of poem, a hard poem. You can tell it was written at work. It's about working on the docks, on a container base. So of course I presented it to the group and they want to know what it's all about. They would prefer me to write about velvet shiny leather, the moon and all that kind of thing, like Televisiono or The Velvets. As a compromise I wrote the chorus – ‘Yeah, yeah, industrial estate’ – to make it a bit more American rocky. And I wrote this sub-Stooges music to go with it, Stooges without the third chord. At the time, people thought it was terrible because it wasn't the way it should be, it wasn't ‘in tune’. But I never wanted The Fall to be like one of those groups. I didn't care what people thought.” Mark E. Smith
The Fall – Psycho Mafia & Industrial Estate (So It Goes, 1978)
12 Nov 2012
In search of the catchiest garage-pop song ever recorded Pt. III
 |
| I.Q. Zero Insects EP (Object Music, 1979) |
I.Q. Zero – Insects
Get it here.
 |
| VA Enemies Of The State LP (1 In 12 Records, 1984) |
Chinese Gangster Element – World's On Fire
Get it here.
 |
| The Go-Betweens Lee Remick 7" (Able Label, 1978) |
The Go-Betweens – Lee Remick
Get it here.
Nerdy footnote: Years later, the German twee pop group 50.000.000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong did a cover version of this song, titled ‘Amelia’ (for Amelia Fletcher, of course).
How minimal can you get? #41
Get Smart!
“Minimalist rock'n'roll. Two guys and a girl. Their skeletal sound is refreshing. Lots of space – you'll rarely hear a guitar chord. ‘Eat, Sleep A-Go-Go’ is a dance hit and features Lisa on vocals. It is from their upcoming 4-song EP.” Bruce Pavitt
Get Smart! – Eat, Sleep A-Go-Go
More info here and here.
“Minimalist rock'n'roll. Two guys and a girl. Their skeletal sound is refreshing. Lots of space – you'll rarely hear a guitar chord. ‘Eat, Sleep A-Go-Go’ is a dance hit and features Lisa on vocals. It is from their upcoming 4-song EP.” Bruce Pavitt
 |
| Get Smart! Words Move EP (Syntax Music, 1981) |
Get Smart! – Eat, Sleep A-Go-Go
More info here and here.
10 Nov 2012
Vitamin
“Vitamin's core was Jason Shapiro and Michael McGlinchey, who started playing together in 1979–80 (when Jason was 13–14, Mike was 5 years older). Jason Shapiro taught himself to play guitar at the age of 12 on a Sears guitar given him by his mother after much begging. I consider him to be a prodigy.”
“One of their influences was the Boston band, the Girls (I was in the Girls for a few months and am in the video). I also played violin with Steve Stain's Stains. Jason and Michael asked me to jam with them. It was so much fun, I joined the band. There had been other members of the band before me, but none lasted long. We had a few different drummers (Shelley Lake, Steve Stain), but Chris Gill lasted the longest. With Chris in the band, we had a wide age spread: about 14–30. I think that our different musical influences made the music interesting.”
“We played the Rat, Underground, Cantone's,
and some other clubs I don't remember, and various lofts (including our
own rehearsal space at 38 Thayer St.).”
“I left the
band in fall 1981. Chris Gill left some time thereafter. Jason and Mike
got another drummer (Dave?) and they continued playing into 1983.”
“Jason and Mike were influenced by the hardcore scene, so the music went more in that direction. Also, the lyrics of our songs started changing from the fun and childlike ‘Bugspray’, ‘Mommy’, ‘French Fries’, etc. to songs like ‘13 whore, she wants to score’. I felt it was time for me to leave as that direction didn't interest me. Vitamin continued on without me for another 2 years. For one gig, ‘Vitamin’ was misspelled in an ad as ‘Vitamen’ and they decided to go with that change, which they felt reflected their new direction.”
“No, I didn't feel a part of the hardcore
scene. I didn't like the music, and I felt the attitude brutish. I
resented the changes that happened on the dance floors. The slam dancing
got too rough for women (and smaller men) to dance anywhere close to
the band. We played at least one gig with SS Decontrol (as they were
known then); I knew them in passing. I remember Springa dancing to our
set.† I don't know if artier bands and hardcore bands continued playing gigs together as time went on. I left Boston in spring of 1983.”
“After Vitamin, Jason was in the (glam) band Celebrity Skin‡ from the mid 80s through the early 90s. Jason is now in the band Redd Kross.”
† I realize that my memory is of the guitarist dancing, not Springa (though he may have as well).
‡ I should have mentioned that Celebrity Skin also included Don Bolles, drummer for the Germs.
Vitamin – Black Sheep
Get it here.
* * *
Endless thanks to Margie Politzer for being so kind to get in touch and for writing Vitamin's biography. For more Vitamin tunes and information, please go here and here (with a demo and two lives).
 |
| Michael McGlinchey and Jason Shapiro @ The Underground, Boston, ca 1981. Pia Francesca |
 |
| Margie Politzer @ The Underground, Boston, ca 1981 |
 |
| Vitamin (Jason, Chris and Margie) @ The Underground, Boston, ca 1981. Pia Francesca |
“Jason and Mike were influenced by the hardcore scene, so the music went more in that direction. Also, the lyrics of our songs started changing from the fun and childlike ‘Bugspray’, ‘Mommy’, ‘French Fries’, etc. to songs like ‘13 whore, she wants to score’. I felt it was time for me to leave as that direction didn't interest me. Vitamin continued on without me for another 2 years. For one gig, ‘Vitamin’ was misspelled in an ad as ‘Vitamen’ and they decided to go with that change, which they felt reflected their new direction.”
 |
| Vitamin (Mike, Dave and Jason) @ a loft gig in Boston, ca 1982. Margie Politzer |
“After Vitamin, Jason was in the (glam) band Celebrity Skin‡ from the mid 80s through the early 90s. Jason is now in the band Redd Kross.”
† I realize that my memory is of the guitarist dancing, not Springa (though he may have as well).
‡ I should have mentioned that Celebrity Skin also included Don Bolles, drummer for the Germs.
 |
| VA A Wicked Good Time Volume 2 LP (Modern Method Records, 1981) |
Vitamin – Black Sheep
Get it here.
* * *
Endless thanks to Margie Politzer for being so kind to get in touch and for writing Vitamin's biography. For more Vitamin tunes and information, please go here and here (with a demo and two lives).
11 Oct 2012
In search of the catchiest garage-pop song ever recorded Pt. II
 |
| The Wimps At the Discothèque 7" (Sniff Records, 1979) |
The Wimps – At the Discothèque
 |
| VA Sent From Coventry LP (Kathedral Records, 1980) |
Wild Boys – We're only monsters
Get it here. For a slightly poppier and slower version go here.
 | |||||||
| VA Pordenone / The Great Complotto LP (Italian Records, 1980) |
Sexy Angels – La Beat
Get it here.
22 Sept 2012
Phranc
“‘Lifelover’ is a song that I wrote a very long time ago. It was one of the very first songs that I wrote, around the time of ‘Take Off Your Swastika’. I wrote the song in a suicidal state. I wrote the song because I was so depressed that I wanted to die and I thought, if I write this song and I kill myself, I'll look really stupid. It was self-preservation that I wrote that song out of. And I tell you it has completely turned around and become my anthem. And… well that's where that song came from. It came from a very dark place, and my life has become very bright, because of it.” Phranc
10 Sept 2012
How minimal can you get? #40
Animal Things
“Animal Things was part [of] the early San Francisco Bay Area Punk Rock/Underground/Experimental music scene. They existed from late 1970's through mid to late 1980's. They now exist in cyberspace.” Official website
“They were the first
official P.E.T Rock band; other notable P.E.T. Rock bands are Flipper
and Church Police. P=Potentially E=Entertaining T=Torture.” Dominique Leslie
“The ‘Red Spot’ compilation is from 1981, and it also happens to be the
best representation of the great mixing of ‘art’ and ‘punk’ from this
time. You get the Fried Abortions doing one-take proto-hardcore with ‘Joel Selvin’ (‘you're such a lively fart’, a brutal takedown of the
ossified hippie culture still dominating local media) along with some of
the early kings of artpunk in Minimal Man, the Wounds and the menacing
Animal Things, who really should have produced their own full-length.
Their track ‘Wanna Buy Some?’ is a simultaneously scathing and hilarious
attack on the looming hard drugs scene and the over-worshipped New York
no wave posse: ‘Wanna buy some fucking heroin, wanna buy some fucking
dust… get the funk outta punk!’” Sgt. Slaughter
Animal Things – Wanna Buy Some?
Animal Things – It’s Dark in Here
“Animal Things was part [of] the early San Francisco Bay Area Punk Rock/Underground/Experimental music scene. They existed from late 1970's through mid to late 1980's. They now exist in cyberspace.” Official website
 |
| Animal Things on tower at New Method, San Francisco. Joe Mama Nietzburg |
 |
| P.E.T. Rock flyer |
Animal Things – Wanna Buy Some?
 |
| VA Red Spot LP (Subterranean Records, 1981) |
Animal Things – It’s Dark in Here
4 Sept 2012
How minimal can you get? #39
Brain Damage
“In 1985, after the deaths of Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor Moscone and the infamous ‘Twinkie-defense’ trial of their assailant, Brain Damage rush-released their ‘Kill Dan White’ EP, which showcased a dizzying range of musical stylings. The spectacularly wheezy, garagey loopiness of ‘You're Not the One’ is our favorite…” Chuck Warner
“I believe this was recorded in 1979. 4 tracks of male/female vocal sloppy artpunk, title track is great.” Chris Renna
Brain Damage – You're Not The One
One more song here.
Any info related to Brain Damage would be greatly appreciated.
“In 1985, after the deaths of Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor Moscone and the infamous ‘Twinkie-defense’ trial of their assailant, Brain Damage rush-released their ‘Kill Dan White’ EP, which showcased a dizzying range of musical stylings. The spectacularly wheezy, garagey loopiness of ‘You're Not the One’ is our favorite…” Chuck Warner
 |
| Brain Damage |
 |
| Brain Damage Kill Dan White Party 7" EP (More To Come Productions, 1985) |
One more song here.
Any info related to Brain Damage would be greatly appreciated.
28 Aug 2012
Mission for Christ
Originally posted December 5, 2009
“Experimental punk, No Trend meet Blight at a Nuclear Crayons gig… some traces of the NY no wave sound, too. Interesting but a bit too artsy for my taste. B side has same music but vocals in dub reggae style (taped-delayed voice fragments).” Burkhard Järisch
“As the harDCore promoter, I ‘discovered’ the noise band No Trend and ran their label — releasing their first four discs (7", 12" and two LPs), and a single by John Gibson’s fucked-funk band, Mission For Christ.” Steven Blush
“Centered around bassist John Gibson (aka JC Agnatha), MFC featured a rotating cast that was equally well-versed in full-throttle punk, go-go funk, and art-damaged junk. Active when DC was too often portrayed as an urban wasteland split by racial and geographical divides, this loose-knit project flaunted an absurd, topical, and gleefully bizarre mesh of styles that recklessly disregarded subcultures, colors, and easy definitions. Its personnel casually bridged the disparate scenes that boiled over in their backyards, using dissonance, dub, and Dadaist nonsense to aesthetically fit in with the varied likes of Bad Brains, Scream, Void, 9353, Half Japanese, Outrage, the Psychotics, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, and anonymous street-corner percussion ensembles.” Jordan N. Mamone
“The
personnel in MFC were a diverse lot with diverse tastes. The band was
kind of a mash-up of all those influences shoehorned into a punk format.” John Gibson
“Mission for Christ might not have been as confrontational as No Trend, but its mix of sounds certainly challenges notions of hardcore’s orthodoxy: It excitedly combines elements of dub, dance, noise, art rock, and, most interestingly, unmistakable go-go beats. Perhaps that stylistic line-crossing was a political statement, but the band seems less interested in any radical message than a radically open musical sensibility. That’s evident by its name, which was neither a spiritual call to arms nor a sarcastic dig at religion, but simply a tribute to a musical inspiration: the in-house band at a church called Mission for Christ.”
“The original version of the band was a side-project of my band the
Psychotics a funk-reggae-rock band and the Static Disruptors, later to
become Outrage, a Go-Go-Rock band. We figured let’s do a punk band, and
that’s what came out. The second version of the band was some college
buddies of mine and I having a good time. But in both cases, the
aesthetic was ecclectic and indeed not tied to any punk orthodoxy. A good example is the time we played a gig in Stamford Ct., and pulled
up to the venue blasting Miles Davis on the car stereo. The punks looked
on with WTF expressions on their faces.” John Gibson
“In the annals of East Coast hardcore, Mission for Christ is a largely forgotten footnote consigned to the memories of erudite collectors and No Trend obsessives. Frantic Google searches yield scant revelations save for an impressive array of Lutheran churches. This is a pity because the group's unselfconscious style-smelting and boundary-breaching still stounds necessary in the balkanized, tidily categorized tonal landscape of the present, where factions, cliques, and fashions abide despite the alleged democratization of music afforded by technology. But such is human nature. As a result of this CD retrospective, one can only hope that a disenfranchised punk or an enterprising DJ might concot a freaky cover or remix of ‘Pennies from Hell’. Perhaps they may feel compelled to join forces for the occasion, then utlimately opt to make their own glorious mess together instead.” Jordan N. Mamone
Mission for Christ – Pennies from Hell
Great news! Ektro Records has released Mission for Christ: The Complete Sessions, a CD that reprises MFC's nine-song 1983 demo cassette and adds six previously unheard compositions dating from 1984.
You can also listen to their song “Nancy Reagan” from the 2 Jews, a Black, a Woman and a Cripple 1983 demo cassette here.
“Experimental punk, No Trend meet Blight at a Nuclear Crayons gig… some traces of the NY no wave sound, too. Interesting but a bit too artsy for my taste. B side has same music but vocals in dub reggae style (taped-delayed voice fragments).” Burkhard Järisch
“As the harDCore promoter, I ‘discovered’ the noise band No Trend and ran their label — releasing their first four discs (7", 12" and two LPs), and a single by John Gibson’s fucked-funk band, Mission For Christ.” Steven Blush
“Centered around bassist John Gibson (aka JC Agnatha), MFC featured a rotating cast that was equally well-versed in full-throttle punk, go-go funk, and art-damaged junk. Active when DC was too often portrayed as an urban wasteland split by racial and geographical divides, this loose-knit project flaunted an absurd, topical, and gleefully bizarre mesh of styles that recklessly disregarded subcultures, colors, and easy definitions. Its personnel casually bridged the disparate scenes that boiled over in their backyards, using dissonance, dub, and Dadaist nonsense to aesthetically fit in with the varied likes of Bad Brains, Scream, Void, 9353, Half Japanese, Outrage, the Psychotics, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, and anonymous street-corner percussion ensembles.” Jordan N. Mamone
 |
| Trouble Funk, Minor Threat (last show) and Big Boys @ Lansburgh’s, September 23, 1983 |
“Mission for Christ might not have been as confrontational as No Trend, but its mix of sounds certainly challenges notions of hardcore’s orthodoxy: It excitedly combines elements of dub, dance, noise, art rock, and, most interestingly, unmistakable go-go beats. Perhaps that stylistic line-crossing was a political statement, but the band seems less interested in any radical message than a radically open musical sensibility. That’s evident by its name, which was neither a spiritual call to arms nor a sarcastic dig at religion, but simply a tribute to a musical inspiration: the in-house band at a church called Mission for Christ.”
 |
| Noise-A-Thon '83" @ Lansburgh's, October 30, 1983. Mission For Christ as the opening band |
“In the annals of East Coast hardcore, Mission for Christ is a largely forgotten footnote consigned to the memories of erudite collectors and No Trend obsessives. Frantic Google searches yield scant revelations save for an impressive array of Lutheran churches. This is a pity because the group's unselfconscious style-smelting and boundary-breaching still stounds necessary in the balkanized, tidily categorized tonal landscape of the present, where factions, cliques, and fashions abide despite the alleged democratization of music afforded by technology. But such is human nature. As a result of this CD retrospective, one can only hope that a disenfranchised punk or an enterprising DJ might concot a freaky cover or remix of ‘Pennies from Hell’. Perhaps they may feel compelled to join forces for the occasion, then utlimately opt to make their own glorious mess together instead.” Jordan N. Mamone
Mission for Christ – Pennies from Hell
Great news! Ektro Records has released Mission for Christ: The Complete Sessions, a CD that reprises MFC's nine-song 1983 demo cassette and adds six previously unheard compositions dating from 1984.
You can also listen to their song “Nancy Reagan” from the 2 Jews, a Black, a Woman and a Cripple 1983 demo cassette here.
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