Sara Goes Pop "Sexy Terrorist"

Sara Goes Pop
Sara Goes Pop
2 x 7" EP
(It's War Boys, 1982)

Poor Sara! I hope popping didn't hurt too much. This was the only Sara Goes Pop record, to the best of my knowledge, so I'm guessing all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Sara together again. Pity the king didn't think to have any, say, surgeons.

Whenever I hear this song, I picture Jack Wild singing it. I do my best to not think about his creepy talking flute, though.

Yes, I loved H.R. Pufnstuf when I was a wee bairn.

Sid and Marty Krofft were the kings of hallucinogenic children's TV back in the 60s and 70s. I watched all their shows, even Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. That one was a bit of a challenge, however, since they chose to cast in the lead role the most horrible boy on TV: Johnny Whitaker, prince of the wussies.

The best Sid and Marty Krofft show, of course, was Land of the Lost. Sleestaks rule!

Baylies Band "Pissing on a Dying Man"

Baylies Band Risibility and Discourse CDR (75 or Less Records, 2007)

OK, perhaps it's cheesy to make a suicidal play on Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский's classic novel, Записки из подполья, but the debut by Baylies Band, Suicide Notes from the Underground, caught my eye in the dollar bin at my second favorite local store several years ago. The album proved to be a cool and bizarre mix of post-punk, noise, and weirdness. Leader Eric Baylies saw me mention listening to them on a message board and sent me copies of their two newest releases: Risibility and Discourse and Fort Thunder Flashback. The former begins with an 18 minute prog rock piece followed by several shorter and noisier punkers, including five versions of "Let's Get Stabbed" and today's jukebox selection. The latter is a mix of free improvisation, radio static, and noise. It's clearly not without reason that Baylies Band were voted Best Category-Defying Act in Providence in 2010! Unfortunately, I lost all my saved e-mails not long after receiving the discs from Mr. Baylies, and was never able to properly thank him. Initial research for this post a few weeks ago led me to the above-mentioned award article and the website for 75 or Less Records, the label that released the CDR albums Eric had sent to me. Baylies Band have released two more CDRs (Man Ray & Vague Knitting and All Clowns No Lions) since the two I was gifted; I ordered copies, of course. The label happened to include a copy Fort Thunder Flashback, as well, so I am instituting the first Lightning Giveaway! The first commenter to request a copy of FTF will win my extra copy! I'll contact said winner, so, please, no address info in the comments.

The Residents "Satisfaction"

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The Residents
Satisfaction
7" single
(Ralph Records, 1976)

So, I'm back!

I've decided to start doing the occasional (or maybe frequent) (it's my blog–you can't stop me) theme week, starting today.

So . . .

This week's theme is Lightning's (that's me) favorite guitar solos. 'Cause, like, I'm a guitarist. Of sorts. Well, I own several guitars. Sometimes I even touch them.

First out of the box has one of my favorite solos and also happens to be my favorite cover song of all time. I bought this as I was easing into punk rock in my 17th year, and it was an ear opener, all right. Up until then, I'm not sure I'd ever heard anything so gloriously ugly. The guitarist on this charming piece is Phil Lithman, better known as Snakefinger. I can't remember where I read this, or who wrote it, but it's a perfect description: Snakefinger plays all the wrong notes in all the right places.

I've flagged this as both USA/Louisiana and England for a good reason. Firstly, The Residents are originally from Shreveport, LA, as am I. Secondly, Snakefinger is a Brit, and he's the soloist. So there. He was formerly a pub rocker in the UK, btw. His playing and singing with Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers is not the sort of thing that would lead one to expect . . . this.

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I cheated on the cover for this one. The pictured cover is the original 1976 issue, which was something like 200 copies. I ripped this from my 1978 repress, which was 30,000 units, allegedly.

½ Japanese "Little Animals"

½ Japanese
½ Gentlemen / Not Beasts
cassette
(self-released, 1979)

½ Japanese are, in my opinion, the best band ever in the history of music. They took rock'n'roll and stripped it down to its basest elements: vocals, rhythm, noise. Where The Velvet Underground grooved out on two chord throbbers like Sister Ray, and the Modern Lovers took it down a level to one-chord wonders like She Cracked, ½ Jap stripped it down even further, to no chords. They had words, they had rhythm, why bother to tune the guitar? Just turn it up as loud as it will go and play it like you mean it.

I wrote a tiny bit about the history of ½ Japanese when I posted Jad Fair's Another Silent Night a few months ago. This particular song, however, falls into a sort of lost era of the band.

After moving to Maryland in the mid-70's, the Fair brothers, Jad and David, released their first two records, 1977's Calling All Girls EP and 1978's No Direct Line From My Brain To My Heart single, as a duo. Or, if you prefer, I believe Byron Coley referred to them as a two-man noise Howitzer in an issue of Spin back in the 80's. Their next vinyl release came in 1980: a massive, triple-LP, box set called 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts. The first two discs were home studio recordings, including some of the songs from the two 7"s (some re-recorded), whereas the third was a live disc, featuring two different gigs with John and Rucky Dreyfuss, of the incredible DC art punkers the Chumps, joining in on sax and drums.

Prior to the triple-LP, however, 1979 saw two self-released cassettes: ½ Gentlemen / Not Beasts (note the use of the ½ character and additional spaces in the title) and ½ Live. The former featured material to later end up on the first two discs of the triple-LP, and portions of the latter appeared on the third disc in the set. Observant owners of the triple-LP and/or double-CD sets may have noticed there are printed lyrics to some songs that do not actually appear in studio versions. One of those songs is today's selection, Little Animals. It does appear, albeit briefly, on the live recording from Baltimore, but it appears on the tape in a studio version, along with a bunch of other songs that also did not make it onto the triple-LP set. As far as I am aware, it's never been released anywhere other than this tape. As you can hear, someone is playing bass, tunefully even, so it's obviously not a duo recording. My copy of the tape was missing all the inserts, so it has no credits, or even song titles. I'll hazard a guess that John and Rucky are on sax and drums, but I don't want to risk improperly guessing at the bassist.

Monitor "Beak"

Monitor
Beak
7" single
(World Imitation, 1979)

OK, so maybe my return was a bit premature; my sincere apologies. I have several things lined up, now, and a ton more stuff ripped from vinyl and cassette, so hopefully there won't be another gap.

I first checked out Monitor because they had the mighty Meat Puppets cover one of their songs on their (Monitor's) eponymous, 1981 debut LP. The majority of the album was on the more mellow end of avant garde rock, with a blast of fairly insane noise rock stuck right near the end of side two. Not that I didn't like the rest of the record, mind you! I used to play We Get Messages and Mokele-Mbembe on my radio show moderately often, and probably other tracks, as well.

I discovered a few years after I bought the LP that it was preceded by a single. Now, you may notice the DM 8.– price tag on the sleeve, unless you're one of my blind readers, if I have any. I honestly can't recall if I bought this via mail order or on one of my handful of late '80s/early '90s trips to Deutschland (the DM is for Deutschmark). I don't like price stickers on my stuff, but sometimes the darn things won't come off without threatening to damage the cover, so they are allowed to remain. Ingrates.

Anyhow, this 1979 single is rather a bit more manic than the album, and sounds rather Residential. The b-side is also cool, but the a-side is the tits, as they say. Not me, mind you; I would never be so guoache, as I've never been fond of watercolors. Regardless, their MySpace indicates 2011 will see a CD containing all of their released material plus unreleased stuff. Yea!

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.

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!

Nuclear Crayons "Teenage Suicide"

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Nuclear Crayons
Nameless E.P.
7" EP
(Outside Records, 1982)

I want to make it absolutely clear that today's post is not making light of suicide. This is an ugly song for a heartbreaking situation.

Brandon Bitner is the latest in the horrible rash of teen suicides in the last several months. He threw himself in front of a tractor-trailer around 3 a.m. the morning of November 5, after deciding he could no longer endure the relentless bullying at school for his perceived sexual orientation. He was only 14 years old.

There have been over a dozen teen suicides that have made the national news recently. All were cases of young people driven to take their own lives after undergoing relentless bullying, either for being openly gay, bisexual or transgendered, or simply for being perceived to be.

Two boys were even younger than Brandon: Asher Brown and Seth Walsh were both only 13. Asher shot himself in the head; Seth never regained conciousness after trying to hang himself.

SadCat started a blog, The Price of Hate (now in my blog links), at the end of September to remember these poor children, who either took their own lives or were killed. There are already fourteen entries dating back to this past July. There are also entries for two boys who were not yet even in their teens when they killed themselves in 2009; Jaheem Harerra and Carl Joseph Walker were each just eleven years old when they took their own lives. The other two entries are a suicide from 2007 and a murder from 2005.

The two children who were murdered were not even school-aged. Ronnie Parris died in 2005, five days after his third birthday, at the hands of his own father, who slap boxed with him to, toughen him up, so he wouldn't become a sissy. Roy A. Jones was beaten to death this past August by his mother's boyfriend for acting too girly. He was seventeen months old.

Unlike other posts with long write-ups, this time I will not shut up. I'm one of the lucky ones; the other kids at school apparently didn't figure me out, even though I knew by the time I was eleven. Then again, I lived in extreme denial for nearly two decades after that realization.

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Nuclear Crayons were outsiders in the Washington, D.C. punk rock scene, hence the label name of Outside Records. Vocalist Lynch Lavoison started the label to document both her own band and others that fell outside the box that was harDCore. In addition to this EP, she also released a compilation of area bands, mixed nuts Don't Crack, and a full-length Nuclear Crayons LP. I'm sorry for not writing more about the band, but there are other blogs out there with excellent info, as I discovered after starting this post. I highly recommend investigating further. By the way, the discoloration on the sleeve is from whatever they used to glue the sleeve shut. The brush strokes suggest to me rubber cement, but I could be wrong . . . or the voices could be lying.

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I should explain Flipper damage, I guess. It was a term coined in the early 1980s to genrefy punk bands who played on the slower end, with bass driven melodies and harsh, noisy guitar, like the band Flipper, naturally.

Man Ray "September's Chance"

Man Ray
Demo – 1983
cassette
(self-released, 1983)

The summer of 1983 was an eye-opener for me, musically. I was living in the Washington, D.C. area, and had been going to see locals like Minor Threat and Government Issue for a couple of years. In 1983, though, a new club named Oscar's Eye opened in D.C. It was a tiny room a couple of floors up from a gay bar. There was a stage at one end where, allegedly, they sometimes had drag shows. Hardcore bands played there, but also bands on the musical fringes played there. Touring bands like Your Food and oddball, abrasive locals like No Trend and Nuclear Crayons.

And Man Ray

I thought they were amazing. They were hypnotic, dark, and the soloing from the guitarist, Neil, and multi-instrumentalist, Eley, was anarchic and free. I mean, what they played sounded random but also perfect. I'd already been enjoying playing of that nature on a couple of songs by Bill Nelson's Red Noise and New Zealand's Split Enz, so it's not too surprising that I loved it. I was also heavily into Flipper at the time, and still am to this day.

I mentioned the guitarist was named Neil, yes? His last name was Hagerty. After Man Ray split, I saw him play with his new band Jet Boys of the N.W., opening for the always amazing Half Japanese. Not too long after, there was this new local band in town called Pussy Galore. I can't say I was a fan, but then, all of a sudden, there was Neil playing with them . . . and they rocked!

After PG split, Neil went on to co-lead Royal Trux with Jennifer Herrema. After they split, he went the solo route for a few records, then started a new combo, The Howling Hex. It's all good.

Jennifer's new band, btw, is RTX, and I may feature them here, too, as I was lucky enough to snag one of the 200 copies of the 7" single with their cover of Pentagram's Vampyre Love.

Chienne 50¢ "Kipiki"

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Chienne 50¢
Blender Mix
compilation LP
(No Pigs Records, 1983)

Here's another record I picked up on my angry, post-teenage trip to Canada. It's an interesting mixture (ha!) of punk and weirdness, and Chienne 50¢ (50¢ Bitch) are my fave band contained therein. They have three songs, and it was a tough pick between "Men Is Dog" and "Kipiki," 'cause I love both; "Sex in Clarinette" is good, just not as.

MX-80 Sound "Someday You'll Be King"

MX-80 Sound
Someday You'll Be King
7" single
(Ralph Records, 1980)

Crap . . . not enough time to do a proper write-up. I'll try to get it done before the day is done.