20 Jan 2013
In search of the catchiest garage-pop song ever recorded Pt. IV (in glorious video format)
Cub – New York City
The Bats – Made Up in Blue
Zuby Nehty - Bílí ptáci
How minimal can you get? #44
The Insulin Reaction
The Insulin Reaction – Ride to Forever
More info here.
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| The Insulin Reaction Wichfinder General 7" (Icon Records, 1987) |
The Insulin Reaction – Ride to Forever
More info here.
How minimal can you get? #43
The Evens
The Evens – Vowels (Pancake Mountain, children's television show, 2003)
Get their records here.
The Evens – Vowels (Pancake Mountain, children's television show, 2003)
Get their records here.
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
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| 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).
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| Michael McGlinchey and Jason Shapiro @ The Underground, Boston, ca 1981. Pia Francesca |
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| Margie Politzer @ The Underground, Boston, ca 1981 |
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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