This is a fascinating release from New York's late eighties East Side art scene, the last gasp before the gentrification. Rebby Sharp plays and sings a strange mix of folk and bluegrass, throwing in conscious lyrics with a fried sense of humour. She is ably supported by guests such as the Shimmy Disc head honch, Kramer, and underground legends, Fred Frith and Tom Cora. There's a lovely cover version of The Holy Modal Rounders' Hesitation Blues.
Tracklist:
01 Some Men 02 Up Jumped Chair Legs 03 Hard Acid Rain 04 These Venetian Eyes 05 Just In Time 06 I'm So Hot 07 Crater Creek 08 Gimmee Back My 15¢ 09 Goin' To The Roof 10 Sittin' On Top Of The John 11 Let The Piper Call The Tune 12 Hesitation Blues 13 Tar Baskets 14 Holding Forth 15 He Leadeth Me 16 Walk By The Fire
Jad Fair and Kramer's first album of twisted pop songs is a rich and dense work that is constantly surpising and will reward your attention. Some of the songs are sharp, dissonant and jarring whilst others are warm and elegant, like this...
Tracklist:
01 Cheerleaders Wild Weekend
02 Double For Me
03 Bird Of Prey
04 Subterranean Homesick Blues
05 If It's O.K.
06 Better Safe Then Sorry
07 Den Of Angels
08 Blind Hope
09 California
10 When Is She Coming
11 Second Thought
12 Best Left Unsaid
13 By And By
14 Help
15 Around And Around
16 What I've Been Waiting For
17 Load And Mount
18 Nosferatu
19 Twist And Shout
20 King Kong
21 Rockin' Chair
22 Easy To See
23 On The Sunny Side Of The Street 24 Paths Of Glory
Deeply surreal, in the truest sense of the word, intensely psychedelic, in a way that avoids all the possible cliches, hugely entertaining from start to finish, and totally essential.
Enjoy:
Tracklist:
01 The Living End 02 The Drum 03 Mr. & Mrs. Hell 04 Too Much Sleep 05 Talent Is A Vampire 06 Psychedelic Sewing Room 07 Splash 1 08 He Loved The Weather 09 Teena Stays The Same 10 One Hand On The Road 11 Khomeini Died Tonight 12 One So Black 13 No Trespassing
I've been very busy with one thing and another over the past few weeks, hence the lack of recent posts, and to compound things I'm going away for a couple of weeks of heat and sun, so there'll be nothing new here until mid August. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this big, brash, howling mess of an album.
This was B.A.L.L.'s last (and best) record and you should all give it a try if you're in the mood for some dizzying, fuzzed out psychedelic freak-outs.
Tracklist:
01 Hardball 02 She's Always Driving 03 Timmy The Toad, Man 04 Mary Jane 05 The Road To Heaven 06 Ball Four Prelude 07 Ball One 08 Ball Two 09 Ball Three 10 Ball Four 11 R.I.P.
This is the first of a bunch of occassional Shimmy Disc related posts. Shimmy Disc was a hugely influential New York record label that released a dizzyling variety of psychedelic/folk/noise/outsider sounds from 1987 until people stopped paying attention in the mid-'90s. SOme of the most popular acts they worked with included the legendary Bongwater, King Missile (Dog Fly Religion), Jad Fair, Lida Husik, B.A.L.L., Shockabilly, Galaxie 500, Ween, the list goes on and on. Bad Orb, Whirling Ball wasn't released on Shimmy Disc in the UK, but this great album was produced by Kramer and is a fantastic example of the Shimmy Disc neo-psych sound.
The Walking Seeds were from Liverpool and their grungey wall of fuzzed out rock 'n' roll made them one of the most exciting UK bands of the period. Their live shows were a howling mess of feedback and wah wah, beer and sweat, properly euphoric affairs. Here's what Julian Cope's fantastic Head Heritage website has to say about this great album:
"Every good thing in the World was invented in Liverpool.... ask any Liverpudlian and they'll tell you. Humour, football,fashion, culture ... all invented in Liverpool. Another thing they invented was "Grunge" music. Yes, in 1986, a good year or two before Sub Pop, hairy Liverpool beat combo The Walkingseeds produced a debut LP (on Probe records) of loud, fuzzy, demented evil genius. This LP marked a watershed and was almost certainly exported in numbers to Seattle - it mangled The Fugs and Blue Cheer with punk rock and set the tone for things to come. The album is called "Skullfuck" and I think you can buy it on reissue from Godbless records (or just ask the girl at the counter in Woolworths!). Of course, the British music press ignored them, first in favour of shoe gazing art school boys and then later the very American bands who owed most to Liverpools finest (I'm talking Mudhoney, Nirvana, Tad,etc) but The Walkingseeds walked on, losing some personnel to The La's, getting a second album out (1989's "Down wind of atonement.."), to some acclaim, on Glass records, and then, in 1990, releasing what for many is their defining work "Bad Orb...". Like "Downwind..." before it, this album is produced by the great Kramer and also features contributions from Sonic Youth associate and sometime Dinosaur Jr. member Don Fleming, but even without their stirling efforts this album would have been brilliant! Imagine an album where the vocals are bellowed, like on Floyd's "Nile Song", all the way through so you can actually hear the singer (Frank) going hoarse (and all in that american accent that only people from the north west of England can do!), an album of malign, choppy cosmic fuzz that Killing Joke would have died for, an album that twists American delta blues and English folk shanties into strange psychedelic vistas that far better musicians can only dream of!....... Imagine all this and you can probably hear The Walkingseeds! Hell, they even relieve themselves on the bloated corpse of The Beatles, turning in a cover of "She said, she said" which is both frazzled and spot on. "Bad orb..." is a relentless,cathartic, pysch-rock album that spins with malice towards it's final conclusion ... "You're not fit to live in normal society..." hollers Frank on the final track, harking back to their grizzled debut and paying tribute to the few strange werewolf misfits who liked 'em back then. Get this album, and if you like it then look for the other stuff. They went on to do a mini ("Dwarf") LP called "Sensory Deprevation Chamber Quartet" which was produced by The Bevis Frond (and good it is too) plus a lo fi live album called "Earth is Hell". A band this evil couldn't last and unfortunately they split amid recriminations and genuine heartfelt on-stage violence during the early 90's. Ah, The Summer of Love .... that was invented in Liverpool you know. P.S. After the split bassist Lee Webster (by far the most accomplished musician in the band) went on to form an outfit called Froth and then later Rhombus of Doom, while Frank Martin (Intelligent lyricist/great singer) and Bob Parker (guitar) formed a band called The Del Bloods. Stuff may still be available from both these bands. Tony Mogan was a decent drummer but I don't know what happened next for him."
Unfortunately, there's no live footage of the band available anywhere on the net, so here's a little taste of the album:
Tracklist:
01 The Gates of Freedom 02 Weight of these Years 03 Mortal Blues 04 Broken Cup 05 He Said, She Said 06 Peter's Trip 07 Caged Beatnik 08 World's OK 09 Skullfuck
The music is, of course, for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear then go out and try and buy stuff...or something, give money to a down on his luck musician, or sponsor a good busker, it may be the start of something beautiful.
If any of the zips die, then post a comment and i'll try to repost. And leave comments, abuse, name calling, any response is welcome.
I think all of the albums posted are currently unavailable, but if this is not the case we'll remove the offending files.
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