Capers "The Only Thing I Really Want"

Capers Mahlzeit 7" EP (Extraplatte, 1988)

Capers were another of Hans Platzgumer's early bands. This 7" EP was their lone release (not counting songs on some compilations), and today's selection was inexplicably omitted when it was reissued in 1995 by the U.S. label Sunday Drive Records. An instrumental version of another tune, "I'm Going Out Tonight," was also omitted, and, oddly enough, an exclamation point was added to the title, making it Mahlzeit! The cover art was completely different, as well, and there was no indication anywhere that two songs were missing.

Σάκης Παπαδημητρίου "DM/βήχας"

Σάκης Παπαδημητρίου
Πιανοεπαφές
LP
(σειρά αυτοσχεδιασμός, 1980)

I first discovered free improvising pianist Σάκης Παπαδημητρίου (Sakis Papadimitriou) in a bargain bin at a record show around ten years ago. There was a dealer with several boxes of $5 CDs, and Plus and Minus, by Papadimitriou and percussionist Lefteris Agouridakis, looked intriguing. Plus, it was on Leo Records, an excellent jazz label generally worth a risk (other Leo risks that proved fruitful have included South Wind by the Satoko Fujii Orchestra and Hidden Music by the Scottish improv combo Green Room).

Plus and Minus turned out to be a very cool album, and I've been searching out more Papadimitriou ever since. He's released several solo albums, in addition to collaborations with others, and today's piece is from his second release and first solo outing, Piano-Contacts (in English). The name of this piece translates to "DM/Cough." No, I don't speak or read Greek; there are translations for everything on the back cover. Papadimitriou sticks strictly to the keys on this number, but he often plays inside the piano as well, strumming, scraping, and plucking the strings. No matter how he plays, he's a master, imo.

Restoration Is Imminent

The Jukebox is still on hiatus, but will be back in the next few days. I had to go out of town and did not have time to pre-schedule daily posts, and I did not want to announce, of course, that I was gone. I am now returned, however. After I get caughtup on things around the house, the Jukebox will once again flow.

O Captain! My Captain!

I was invited to a Sadie Hawkins Dance my senior year of high school. Since the girl* I liked hadn't asked me, I accepted for the heck of it. It was my first (and last) high school dance. There was a live band, and they were horrible. The drummer cleverly added an extra beat to "Highway to Hell," thereby rendering the usually very danceable beat totally awkward. That was the only song to which we danced. The girl didn't want to dance or talk after that. We just sat there. Strictly. Dullsville. Afterward, we went to her house and watched Saturday Night Live. The musical guest was Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. I thought they were bizarre but cool. It was by far the highlight of my evening. Sadly, the Captain passed away this past week. Another of my heroes is dead. His music will live forever, though. Here're the two songs from that night; both from his then new record, Doc at the Radar Station, his penultimate album. *I was still in heavy, heavy denial at the time Still on hiatus . . . this is a special post.

Brief Hiatus

Due to circumstances pretty much beyond my control, the Jukebox must take a brief hiatus. My apologies.

The Membranes "Get a Head"

The Membranes Crack House 12" EP (Criminal Damage Records, 1983)

A lot of bands start out noisy and become less so as time passes; Einstürzende Neubauten are a good example of this. Some start out relatively tame and get progressively uglier and nastier, like The Birthday Party. The Membranes, however, took a rather different route. They started on the more sedate end of punk, got noisier, got way noisier, mellowed out again, started to get noisy again, got really noisy, broke up. Weird, huh? Crack House was the bridge between the first "nice" era and the advent of the noise. A few records later, they ditched the The at the front.

Steve Cameron "Truck Stop Café"

Steve Cameron Overloaded Diesel various artists LP (Power Pak, 1973)

It's been two months since the last one, so here's another tune from the Overloaded Diesel compilation. As with Pam Gilbert, I've not been able to find any info on Steve Cameron, other than, unlike Pam, he co-wrote his lil' contribution. You may have noticed I spelled the last word of the title Café; on the album itself, it's spelled Cafe. I'm sorry, but I could not bring myself to spell it that way in the post title. I'm such a pedant.

Dagmar Krause "Song of a German Mother"

Dagmar Krause Radio Sessions CD EP (Voiceprint, 1993)

If I had to pick my favorite vocalists of each gender, they'd be Tom Jones (male), Dagmar Krause (female), and Antony Hegarty (transgender) of Antony and the Johnsons.

Korog "Varàzsgömb"

Korog Álmodj makkal CD (Bahia Music, 1999)

I first heard these folks on one of those Southern Lord sampler CDs, Let There Be Doom II (A Kult Collection Of Massive Sub-Harmonics). They were on there 'cause Attila Csihar was their current vocalist, and one of their songs was on his album The Beast of Attila Csihar, on Southern Lord. Of all the bands on that comp that I did not know already, their track jumped out at me.

Two "In My Head"

Uh, oh! You either don't have the Flash plug-in installed, or you have it disabled.
Otherwise, there'd be a cute lil' streaming audio player on the left, rather than this message.

Two
Voyeurs
CD
(DML Music Entertainment, 1998)

I think I'm one of about five people that actually dug Rob Halford's dance-metal-thing Two. Sure, Fight (his first post-Priest band) had gone splitsville, and he'd said that metal was dead, but he meant popularity-wise when he said it. Not long after Two kinda fell apart, I guess when it hit that lotsa folks hated it, he fired up the metal again with his third band since leaving Judas Priest, Halford, then rejoined Priest, for a really good album, Angel of Retribution, followed by a stinky embarrassment, Nostradamus. They'd gone poop before, can you say Turbo?, then flushed it with good stuff, aka Painkiller, in the past, though, so my fingers are crossed.

Oh, yeah, so, like, today's selection is the bonus track from the Japanese version of Voyeurs. Unlike the Japanese bonus track on his previous outing, Fight's otherwise heavy-f'ing-kick-ass second-and-final album A Small Deadly Space, it's an actual song!

Nuit Noire "Lutina"

Nuit Noire Lutina 7" EP (Drakkar Productions, 2002)

Nuit Noire are the world's greatest fäerical blasting punk band. I started listening to them when I found their second album, Infantile Espieglery, in a used CD store near my house. Something about the raw, frantic, screaming, almost naïve sound of them really drew me in. The fact that they're a duo certainly helped, too. Oh, and that the handwritten text on the cover looked like it'd been written on notebook paper by a little girl. And they're French, like toast, Jacques Tati, camembert and S.V.E.S.T. And they write lots of songs about fäeries.

The Velvet Underground "She'll Make You Cry"

The Velvet Underground
Squeeze
LP
(Polydor, 1972)

My goodness, what a naughty cover!

If you look at the release date, you'll note it's 1972, the same year that Lou Reed hit the charts with Take a Walk on the Wild Side. But, wait, Lou was the leader of The Velvet Underground! What gives?

For the folks who don't already know, this is Doug Yule's Velvets. He replaced John Cale after the second Velvets album, White Light/White Heat. When Lou left two albums later, he proceeded to replace Lou. Squeeze was released only in the UK, and Doug played most of the instruments himself, as Sterling and Moe were also gone by the time it was recorded. If you find yourself wanting to set fire to a recording studio whilst listening, however, that's 'cause you're hearing Ian Paice, of Deep Purple, (uncredited) on the skins. Lotta folks hate this album, and I can understand why. I, on the other hand, have grown to like it over the years. I will say, though, that I'm glad I bought it for $4 rather than a crazy collector price. If I had spent a lot on it, I just might hate it, too.

Hex Error "Deerlodge Prison"

Hex Error Hex Error CD (self-released, 2001)

I saw these local folk open for someone and thought they were terrible. Just awful. A few months later, I saw them again and was blown away. After that, I made a point of it to get out whenever I saw they were playing. The guitarist's style reminded me strongly of MX-80 Sound, though in a rather different context.

Last Days of May "Sand, Sea and Space"

Last Days of May Last Days of May CD (No-Fi Records, 1997)

When I was in Charlottesville, VA ten years ago, where I'd lived ten years previous to then, my friend Tom Howard gave me a copy of the newest CD, Radiant Black Mind, by his new (since I'd left town) instrumental trio, Last Days of May. I forget how they met, but LDoM was Tom, Jim Ralston, formerly of (DR.) GöTLöD (whom I featured back in September), and Karl Precoda, formerly one half of the original guitar team of Los Angeles psychedelic rockers The Dream Syndicate! Today's song is from their eponymous debut album, released three years prior. Two more albums followed, Inner System Blues and The First 7 Billion Miles, released under the name LDOM. I've not heard of anything further since, unfortunately.

The Barry Sisters "Roumania"

The Barry Sisters Sing LP (Cadence Records, 1954)

Claire and Merna, FTW!

Sativa Luv Box "Groovy Kurtain"

Sativa Luv Box
The Bad Sleep Well
LP
(Splat-Co Records, 1989)

Wayyyyy back in the '80s, Patrick Mata led the band Kommunity FK, who played a mix of punk, industrial and proto-goth. Their debut album, The Vision And The Voice, is an absolute classic in my book. The follow-up, 1985's Close One Sad Eye, was good, but they'd eased up on the punk end a bit too much, in my opinion. After that, they split.

In 2003, Mata re-emerged with a new band called Sativa Luvbox and an album called Beloved Satellite. What I heard sounded OK but nowhere near as quality as KFK. I mentioned that on a message board and a buddy of mine contacted me and told me it was actually their second album, and, just like with KFK, the first was better. Today's tune is from that first album, which was released only on vinyl and took me a couple of years to find, probably because the band name was slightly different: Sativa Luv Box. It's the most straight up, hard rocking thing Mata has done, and I like it quite a bit. Three of the ten songs were redone for the 2003 CD, but the originals rock harder.

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NOTE: Mata restarted Kommunity FK a few years back, and their long-awaited album, La Santisima Muerte, finally came out this year. 'Tis a fine album, too.

Talk Engine "Dream Me Coupled"

Talk Engine Talk Engine CD (Engineous Productions, 2005)

Another free bin snatch, and an odd one, at that. The band name is quite appropriate, as the album is primarily blues rock with spoken word vocals rather than singing ones. It works, though! Vocalist Jackie Sheeler is an award winning poet, and she writes some pretty powerful stuff, based on this CD. Patti Smith started the same way, I believe: poet then band leader. Not that Talk Engine sound anything like Patti. Before I forget, guitarist Landru von Dige is, to use the vernacular, shit hot.

Half Japanese "1,000,000 Kisses"

Half Japanese Charmed Life CD (50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts Records, 1988)

As mentioned in yesterday's post, here's the follow-up to yesterday's jukebox selection. Enjoy!

Jad Fair "Another Silent Night"

Jad Fair
Everyone Knew . . . but Me
LP
(Press Records, 1983)

I saw ½ Japanese, who featured Jad Fair on vocals and guitar, open for the Dead Kennedys when I was 17. Based on that performance, I was firmly convinced they were the worst band on Earth. Later, I was shocked to discover they had a 7" single out! I mean, someone was stupid enough to put out a record of that? They just made a buncha noise, and, out of six people on stage, only one of them appeared to know how to play his guitar, and he looked all of 14 (he, Mark Jickling, was actually quite a bit older than me)!

I didn't know at the time that the single, Spy, was from a full-length album, Loud, now on CD with the b-sides from the aforementioned single plus the also excellent Horrible EP. Or that Loud had been preceded by a couple of 7" records, a couple of cassettes, and a triple-LP box set, 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts!

Jad and his brother David founded ½ Japanese in 1974. David wrote the majority of the songs in those early years, so I guess that's why Jad started doing solo releases. Jad's solo songs gravitate mainly towards love, mostly unrequited, and monster/horror movie themes; today's song, Another Silent Night, is one of the former. Musically, the album veers from noise collages to frantic anti-rock to beautiful sadness. As far as I know, it is the only of his solo albums to never see reissue, in CD or any other form. That's a damn shame.

NOTE: There was a follow-up, of sorts, to this song called 1,000,000 Kisses on the 1988 ½ Japanese album Charmed Life.

Tormentor "Branded with Satan"

Tormentor The Seventh Day of Doom CD (H.L.K. Prod., 1997)

It musta really bit to have been a rock'n'roll band behind the Iron Curtain. I would think it was probably completely illegal when Tormentor started, though I could be wrong. Today's song is from their 1987 demo tape, which was officially reissued on CD in 1997 in Italy. I've also seen a pirated CD version with a solid black cover and the band name written in white in a completely different font. I'm guessing the sound quality here is kinda crap due to probably not being recorded under ideal conditions. Or maybe the CD was just mastered from a crummy copy of the tape. I EQ'd it a tiny bit to lessen the mud; hope you don't mind.

I Almost Saw God in the Metro "Surveillance"

I Almost Saw God in the Metro
The Sound I Want to Make Is Only in My Head
CDR
(Cracked Egg, 2003)

I found the debut CDR EP by these folks in the bargain bin at my fave local store. It turned out they were locals and a power trio of guitar, synths and drums. The bass end of things was usually held down by the guy who plays just keyboardy things (the guitarist/vocalist also played synths), and I love deep, rumbling, dense synth drone in r'n'r. All of the songs on the EP were on the follow-up album featuring today's song, so I passed it along as a gift to a friend. I never really listened to stuff like Gary Numan (love the song Cars, though), but I imagine fans would find something here of appeal. They released one more album on their own Cracked Egg label, this time on pressed CDs, Silver Dust of the Funk Age, then disappeared, though I did see MiniMoog man Zachary Hollback later play with the rather completely different (but also good) Brodie Stove.

Nutchild "+[.o.] . i ° .3 . ° . ."

Nutchild Nutchild CD (self-released, 2000?)

I found this bizarre CD in the free bin at my favorite local store around a decade ago. There was no info other than the artist name on the cover, song titles on the back in spidery handwriting mixing letters and symbols with little regard to standard capitalization, and an e-mail address. I sent him a fan mail and he responded, but I lost it long ago when I moved my e-mail from one platform to another. I just did a search, though, and found his website. It's jam packed with some pretty amazing artwork, sculptures, and tattoos. Plus, if you poke around, you can find samples of more songs from this CD plus another called Ignakiiiatussin Epilektum, though I'm not sure that it's been released in physical form.

The Freeze "Paranoia"

The Freeze
In Colour
7" EP
(A. 1. Records, 1979)

No, this is not the hardcore band from Boston. This particular The Freeze were late '70s punkers from wee Scotland. They only released a couple of 7" records in their lifetime, and, while they're good records, they're more historically significant for being transgender warrior Gordon Sharp's band prior to Cindytalk, whom I featured back in July. Not to denigrate The Freeze, mind you. I think this is a pretty sharp tune. HA! Pun not intended.

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I've added a download button so songs can now be downloaded or streamed, as you wish. I plan on retroactively adding it to the preceding posts, but there are 140 or so of 'em, so don't expect it to be done overnight.

^_^

sorry

No song for Thanksgiving. Not in the mood. Considering flaking out and shutting the blog down, anyway.

Spahn Ranch "Wonder and Perish"

Spahn Ranch Thickly Settled LP (Insight, 1987)

We got this one at my college radio station and I was pretty blown away. Unfortunately, the album gave no information beyond song titles and who produced it (Matt Wallace, best known for producing a buncha records by Faith No More and The Replacements). Until I found this MySpace page just now when doing this write-up, I didn't even know they were from Michigan; I'd just assumed California. NOTA BENE: There's another Spahn Ranch that plays industrial dance music, I think. Seeing as most of their releases are/were on Cleopatra Records, I imagine they're probably best avoided.

The Burning Hotels "Stuck in the Middle"

The Burning Hotels Eighty Five Mirrors CD EP (self-released, 2007)

I found this one in a dollar bin this past Saturday at a little store around the corner from my house. The band name was intriguing and the cover art eye-catching, so it whored itself out and went home with me (if it'd been in a free bin, it would've been just a slut, not a whore). Today's song is the leadoff track and it jumped right out of the CD player and grabbed me by the ears on first listen. I checked their MySpace and they've released a single and another CD since this, so you'd better believe I will be investigating further.

MX-80 Sound "Spoonfight"

MX-80 Sound
Bloomington 1
compilation LP
(B.R.B.Q. Records, 1975)

DAMMIT! I had a nice writeup started then my computer locked up. Oh, well.

I've featured MX-80 Sound before, but that was before I was setup to rip from records and tapes (I cheated for that post and ripped the song from the CD version of the album where it appeared, but the cover I scanned was from my copy of the single). This was their very first recorded appearance, from a local compilation album released in 1975. From what I've read, they started in 1972, the same year that Suicide and the Swell Maps started. Punk rock ground zero, so to speak.

Thin Lizzy "Mama and Papa"

Thin Lizzy The Lost Recordings CD EP (HotPress, 2006)

Well, Decca finally got off their asses and issued the deluxe remasters of Thin Lizzy's first three albums: Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage, and Vagabonds of the Western World. Back in those days (the very early 1970s) they were a trio with Eric Bell on guitar, rather than the twin guitar attack of Scott Gorham plus another guy (there were several of 'em over the years). These darn things were initially announced as forthcoming close to a decade ago, so it's about darn time! Today's song, therefore, is a tune that predates those records, even.

The Last "Snake in the Grass"

The Last Look Again LP (unreleased, 1980)

This album was recorded with the intent of it being the The Last's second album, following their snazzy debut album L.A. Explosion! For a number of reasons, it ended up never making it past the test pressing stage. Click the album title above for the sad saga from the band themselves. Then, if you like, read the topic about it on their forum; both fans and members of the band get in on the action.

11th Hour "Carpetplace"

11th Hour
11th Hour
7" EP
(Shag Records, 1985)

Barrett Jones is best known for his production and engineering work with the Foo Fighters and other alt. rock bands in the 1990's and beyond. In the mid-80's, however, he was an aspiring musician type, and led a swell combo called 11th Hour, singing, playing guitar, writing, and producing everything. I didn't snag their demo tape, sadly, but I did pick up both of their 7"s, on their own Shag Records, and caught them live (they rocked impressively). The first 7" was this EP, and today's selection is the lead-off track. It was followed by an equally excellent single called Servation, and then they vanished.

One might be tempted to say there's an obvious Dinosaur (Jr.) influence, but Dinosaur's first album was released the same year as the debut 11th Hour 7", so I don't there'd been time yet for them to be influential. On top of that, my buddy Hubert K. Bunwich reviewed 11th Hour's demo in issue #5 of the magazine Live Squid, whereas Dinosaur's album wasn't reviewed 'til issue #6 (by moi). So . . . yeah.