Stümper "Mein Leben"

Stümper
Rasende Stümper
cassette
(Clarita Gomez Tapes, 1989? 1990?)

Jan and Kai Damkowski were a couple of really cool brothers from West Germany with whom I was pen pals in the late '80s/early '90s. Jan put a song from one of my old bands on a compilation tape he released and Kai took some pictures of my band that we ended up using on the back cover of one of our records. Kai also sent me tapes of a few bands in which he and/or his brother Jan played. One of those bands was Stümper, a loose-knit band composed of a bunch of energetic German teenagers.

Kai sent me a couple of Stümper tapes and they are a big mess of chaotic fun. I can't find the booklet he sent that went with this tape, so I have nothing at the moment but the song titles and a note in English that he stuck in the tape box. I don't throw stuff away, generally, so I'm sure I have the booklet somewhere, but I've been searching for days to no avail. Anyhow, per Kai's note:

We rotate on instruments. We use no distortion or effects mechanisms and no fuzzbox apart from one guitar on 'Gitarrenkampf'. . . . We never played a song twice and we are not planning to do it.

The song I've chosen for today is Mein Leben, and Kai had this to say about it in his note:

Translates as 'My Life' and has everything in it. Love, Pain, GG Allin, Highway-deaths, Oliver North, Freezer, Horst Hrubesch, money, sex, HSV, Genscher, Aussiedler, and more. A song about life that offers you absolutely everything. This is the ultimate tragedy.

Tragically, one of the founding members of Stümper, Flassoff, drowned in the Elbe River in the early '90s.

I stupidly lost contact with Kai and Jan ages ago, but I did some research this weekend and discovered that Kai was later in a band called Hrubesch Youth, named for the apparently famous footballer Horst Hrubesch. They released at least a few records and a CD, so I'm hoping I can find copies. Also, Kai is a published author!

Corpses as Bedmates "Willow Tree"

Corpses as Bedmates
Babaa & Scheibel = 69
cassette
(Cow-Op Industries, 1984)

We got this cassette at my college radio station. The band and release name caught my eye, and my ears and brain were immediately transfixed by this bizarre, disturbing, demented, little nursery rhyme of a song. I played it on my show many a time over the years.

Corpses as Bedmates were the augmented duo of Susanne Lewis and Karen Sheridan. The augmentor was Bob Drake, who contributed drums and percussion, in addition to engineering and mixing this recording. By the time of the third and final Corpses as Bedmates album, Venus Handcuffs, Karen was gone and the group was simply Susanne and Bob. In addition, it was pressed on hard, black wax (i.e., vinyl) rather than cassette. Unlike the first two Corpses as Bedmates releases, Venus Handcuffs has since been reissued on CD, but with completely different artwork and the group name changed to Venus Handcuffs. No, I do not know why, and I keep it filed with the C's in my collection, rather than the V's. The second Corpses as Bedmates release, btw, was entitled Halo.

In addition to Corpses as Bedmates, Susanne and Robert were both involved with the Geoffrey Landers LP that I featured here a while back. Bob is also part of the progressive/avant garde group Thinking Plague, for whom Susanne sang for a bit. Susanne and Bob also released a few albums under the name Hail, and Susanne made a couple of albums under the rather odd name of Kissyfur. Most recently, though still a number of years ago, she released a great, eponymous solo album.

I don't know who is responsible for the drawing and poem, but it is from the innermost panel of the cassette cover.

UR KAOS "The Poor Man's Grace"

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UR KAOS
Bad Alchemy Nr 12
compilation cassette
(Bad Alchemy, 1989)

Bad Alchemy is both a record label and a long-running music magazine. The first twenty-seven issues of the magazine each came with a compilation cassette featuring artists covered in the current issue. I think the first issue I bought was Nr 3, as there is a Half Japanese song on it, and I will buy anything featuring them; they being, of course, the greatest band in the history of music. That is beside the point, however.

The cassette accompanying Nr 12 devoted a good deal of its air time to artists from Sweden, many with releases on the Bauta Records label. One of them was UR KAOS (yes, spelt in all caps because they are YELLING at you). Both pieces were cool and dark, and exclusive to the cassette, so I snagged their eponymous debut album (the one with a wolf, or is it a fox?, in a fur coat on the cover) from Wayside Music not long after hearing them. Its contents are much like the piece featured today on the jukebox: short, almost fragmentary, songs with a very dark, foreboding edge. Good times!

Their next album, A Terrible Beauty Is Born, was just as dark, if not darker. The cover certainly upped the creepiness ante, with its depiction of multiple corpses dangling from a desolate gallows. Again, it was full of short, almost fragmentary, songs with a very dark, foreboding edge. I love copy'n'paste.

Nearly a decade later, they released their third album, Av sprucket ut är valt ett inuti. The mood is a bit lighter, but the songs are still mostly short, almost fragmentary. I've been told by Swedes that the title cannot be translated properly into English (too idiomatic or something). Google Translate, however, says it means By Cracking the Selected One Inside. Yahoo Babel Fish, on the other hand, can't handle Swedish, or any other Scandinavian/Nordic language! Oooh, they make me so mad! Poor Douglas Adams is probably spinning in his grave.

NOTA BENE: That's UR KAOS on the cover of the magazine. It is the only picture I have ever seen of them (not counting one of them wearing masks), and it was taken by Anton H. Leclercq, according to the credits in the back of the mag.

Mission for Christ "Nancy Reagan Is a Plastic Bitch"

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Mission for Christ
2 Jews, a Black, a Woman and a Cripple...
cassette
(self-released, 1983)

Politicians sometimes (ok, often) say really stupid stuff. Take former U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt, for example. In September of 1983, he decided to jokingly mock Affirmative Action policies by pointing out the wonderful diversity of an advisory panel with whom he was working. He chose to illustrate this by saying the board had, a black . . . a woman, two Jews and a cripple. Of course, that's pretty tame compared to what former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz said in 1976 about a particular segment of the population: I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.

The latter was the inspiration for the European title of Alex Chilton's final studio album, Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy. His US record company timidly retitled it Set, however, and replaced the nice cover with a particularly ugly one, to boot.

The first quote above, however, was immortalized in the title of Mission for Christ's 1983 demo tape, 2 Jews, a Black, a Woman and a Cripple... The ugliness of Watt's comment complements the ugliness of the music quite nicely. From what I recall, they had a Black on bass, and the singer may have been Jewish. It's been 25 years, however, so I have no recollection of the guitarist or drummer, though I'm fairly certain neither was a Woman [or] a Cripple.

You'll notice on the typed sticker glued to the cassette case that this song is entited simply Nancy Reagan. Well, when I saw them play it live, it had the much longer title as written above, so I chose it instead. It's my blog; you can't stop me. Please forgive the somewhat spotty sound on this one; it was dubbed on a cheap tape twenty-five years ago. I don't know how many they made, but the sticker being manually typed (please, see above) would seem to suggest not many. Who knows, I may have (politely) harrassed them into selling me the tape. It could be the only copy! I doubt it, though.

Though Mission for Christ were a Washington, D.C. area band, they got little attention, sadly. I went though all of my D.C. 'zines from the period and found precisely one mention of them: a short bit in a review of the Rock Against Reagan preview show at Space II Arcade in 1983. If I remember correctly, they and Maryland's Braille Party were the standouts on that (very long) day. It was summer, it was boiling hot, there was no air conditioning, and the friends I took with me kept whining all day:

• Who's playing next?
• When's the next band going to play?
• Are we there yet?
• I have to go potty.
• etc.

Mission for Christ eventually released the song Pennies from Hell as a single, along with the dub version for the b-side. I've always wondered why they did that instead of, perhaps, using Nancy Reagan for the flip? From what I recall, it got good reviews outside of D.C. Sadly, they never released anything else. They do have the distinction, though, of being the only band other than No Trend to be preserved in wax on No Trend Records.

Jad Fair "Kristy"

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Jad Fair
Light Bulb Magazine Number Four:
The Emergency Cassette
2 x cassette compilation
(Los Angeles Free Music Society, 1981)

Kristy McNichol came out the other day, and the first thing I thought was, Poor Jad Fair must be crushed.

Here's Kristy today (right) with her other half of two decades, Martie Allen. From the blurb in People magazine:

McNichol, 49, who has lived with her partner Martie Allen, also 49, for the past two decades, decided to make a statement about her sexuality and share this photo because she is approaching 50 and wants to be open about who I am.

She is very sad about kids being bullied, her publicist Jeff Ballard tells PEOPLE. She hopes that coming out can help kids who need support. She would like to help others who feel different.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of very ugly comments in the People article. I'm not going to reprint any of them here, though. I just want to add my 2¢, that celebrities coming out does have a positive effect on young LGBT folk. So, bravo for Kristy!

There were nice comments, however, by folks who mentioned having crushes on Kristy when she was on TV back in the '70s and '80s. Sure, she was cute, but her older brother Jimmy was the one who caught my eye back then. No, I do not own the magazine with this pic. I did a Google image search, thankyouverymuch. If the results are at all indicative of reality, the poor boy owned very few shirts.

Pansy Division "Bunnies"

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Pansy Division
Undressed
cassette
(self-released, 1991)

Such an inocuous title!

Such naughty lyrics!

7 or 8 Worm Hearts "Shack of Hate"

7 or 8 Worm Hearts All Writhe cassette (self-released, 1989)

What is it with my blog and bizarre coincidences lately? I was on the phone with my friend James on Sunday, right? And he mentioned that Glenn Jones and his (James's) band had played a show the night before. We got to talking about this and he mentioned that Jones had been in a band with Phil Milstein when James moved to the Boston area in the late 80s, and they'd released a cassette. "I think I have that!" says I. So, I went to the shelf and pulled down my copy of the source of today's song to confirm band membership. "7 or 8 Worm Hearts?" asked I. "That's it!" confirmed James. Why is this a coincidence? Well, I'd already ripped said tape to a wav file for use on this here blogger device; I just hadn't yet picked a song. So, without further ado, I present "Shack of Hate" by 7 or 8 Worm Hearts (not to be confused with the also great song of the same title by White Zombie on their 1987 debut LP, Soul Crusher).

Carl Stone "Wave Heat"

Carl Stone L.A. Mantra II 2 x cassette compilation (Trance Port Tapes, 1984)

So a good deal of the USA has been suffering through a heat wave as of late, and where we live is no exception. In celebration of this, our HVAC unit decided it was time to give up the ghost sometime early Saturday morning. Oh, the AC worked fine, but the fan that actually blows the cool (or warm, in winter) air through the ducts and into the house crapped out. I.e., it stopped moving. According to the thermostat, the temperature has hovered around 89°F (32°C) inside our house for the past several days! At night, it would cool to a positively frigid 88°F. It's amazing the difference a single degree can make, really. That difference is, of course, NONE. >:-( Sitting in the sweltering heat outside on the porch, where it was cooler than inside, the song "Heat Wave," popularized by Martha and the Vandellas the year I was borned, started coursing through my weary brain. Just the chorus, though. Over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over . . . You get the point. At some point, I remembered Carl Stone's sliced'n'diced version of "Heat Wave" from the L.A. Mantra II cassette compilation, released the year I hit the big two one. Now that we have a completely new HVAC unit, and finally have inside conditions cool enough for me to sit at the tape deck and computer, I present it to you, my loyal listeners, as a gift.

Gold Sparkle Band "G.S."

Gold Sparkle Band Can't U C ↓ The Sea? cassette (Old Gold, 1994)

When these cats first started playing around town, all the local critics could muster to write about was their choice of attire, and that the Gold Sparkle in their name was a reference to drummer Andrew Barker's kit. I guess the concept of jazz being played by . . . gasp! . . . dudes who'd been in rock bands was too much for their little minds to grasp. You see, Barker had pounded the skins with Melts, featured here last August, and bassist Andrew Burnes had bassed with Barrel, whom I mentioned in my post for San Agustin, since they were his next destination after leaving the GSB. The other three guys in this lineup of the band had formerly been members of Menudo*. This nifty little cassette was their debut release. Three of the five songs were re-recorded for their first CD, Earthmover. Today's piece, however, is not one of them. *this is a lie

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.

Ruins + 梅津和時 "B.U.G."

Ruins + 梅津和時
『Ruins + 梅津和時』
cassette
(F.M.N. Sound Factory, 1994)

Today's jukebox entry is from a live cassette released by the Japanese prog punk duo powerhouse Ruins in-between their third and forth albums, Graviyaunosch and Hyderomastgroningem. 梅津和時 is saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu, but I must confess I know nothing about him other than his bio is impressive, and his playing on this release is ferocious.

The studio version of B.U.G. originally appeared on Ruins III, the first full-length Ruins record. It's available as a bonus track (remixed, however) on the Shimmy-Disc release of the second Ruins album, Stonehenge. It's a little over one third as long as the version presented here, however, as they really stretched their improv muscles on this date with 梅津和時.

Funny aside: When we first got Stonehenge at my college radio station, on LP, I thought B.U.G. was skipping, and actually got up from my desk to check the record player.

Shub-Niggurath "Variation"

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Shub-Niggurath
Live
cassette
(Auricle, 1989)

My friend Greg burnt me a copy of Shub-Niggurath's 1986 debut album, Les morts vont vite, several years ago. They came across to me as a mixture of the darkest elements of King Crimson (ca. mid-1970s) and Univers Zero, who were pretty much 100% dark in their early career. It was (and still is) great stuff. Naturally, I immediately began to search out a hard copy for myself.

In the meantime, since Les morts vont vite was currently out of print, I picked up their second and third albums: C'étaient de très grands vents and Shub~Niggurath. The latter of those is usually referred to as Testament, but that word appears precisely nowhere on my copy.

At some point, I discovered there was a live cassette release, recorded inbetween Les morts vont vite and C'étaient de très grands vents, on Friday the 13th (of January, 1989). The title was a bit more reserved than the albums betwixt which it appeared, but at least Live is descriptive, yes? Of the five pieces included on the tape (four, if you count Phineos 1 and Phineos 2 as a single piece), two later appeared in studio form on C'étaient de très grands vents, but the remainder remain exclusive to it. Today's selection is the final track. Enjoy!

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NOTE: Since the name Shub-Niggurath comes from the pen of H.P. Lovecraft, there are, naturally, at least two heavy metal bands also using it. One is from Mexico and the other from Italy.

Mofungo "Little Giant"

Mofungo End of the World cassette (self-released, 1981)

I read about this tape in an issue of Take It! magazine, which I'd bought because it had a flexidisc with an exclusive Flipper track. The tape sounded interesting, and several years later, I came across a copy at Joe's Record Paradise Too. Naturally, I snagged it (and have never seen another since). I'd write more, but I desperately need to get to bed. Suffice to say, it's a great album, and thank goodness I didn't throw my copy away when I thought it was hosed (one song is mangled, sadly).

Slish "Donna's Bible"

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Slish
The Eight Hundred Dollar Demo
cassette
(not released, 1994)

Slish were led by vocalist and, I assume, bassist ('cause that's his main thing) Michael W. Dean. Unfortunately, I guess they got a publishing deal with Warner Brothers but nothing came of it release-wise, and that's a shame. Today's selection rocks hard, and is my fave of the five tunes they recorded.

Diocletian "Annihilation Ritual"

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Diocletian
Demo I : 2005
cassette
(self-released, 2005)

In my Vassafor post the other day, I mentioned they share members with Diocletian, right? Go check. I'll wait.

 

 

 

See, I was right! And . . . here's the first song from their first, and only, demo tape, which they released themselves in a numbered edition of 99 copies (mine is 44!). They re-recorded it for their split LP, Chaos Rising, with Denouncement Pyre, who are not Kiwis but, rather, Aussies.

After Dinner "Glass Tube"

After Dinner
Souvenir Cassette
cassette
(RēR Megacorp, 1988)

My longest-running roommate back in my college days, Brian, bought the eponymous After Dinner LP released by Recommended Records when we were on a record buying trip once, most likely with our friend Mike. The local stores were OK, but one generally had to drive to Richmond, VA or Washington, D.C. to get the good stuff, and to Manhattan and Hoboken for the even better stuff. Brian thought the packaging for the album was really cool, and I agree. Unfortunately, he decided after a while that he just didn't much care for the music, so he passed the LP along to me. I wasn't sure what I thought at first, but it quickly grew on me. Very quickly.

30 Windswept Dimes "Nestor's Carbuncles"

30 Windswept Dimes
Light Bulb Magazine Number Four:
The Emergency Cassette
2 x cassette compilation
(Los Angeles Free Music Society, 1981)

I love this song. I know nothing about the group, other than it was Ken Patricia and John Rodriguez, according to the liner notes. This was likely a one-off for this compilation. Regardless, it's great!

This Heat "Health and Efficiency"

This Heat
Live
cassette
(IndepenDance, 1986)

write-up to come soon

(DR.) GöTLöD "Death on the Installment Plan"

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(DR.)
GöTLöD
Santa Lives in the White House
cassette
(self-released, 1991)

Some friends of mine formed a slammin' metal band before they scattered like the wind after graduation. OK, after one of them earned his doctorate and skipped town; I think the rest still live there . . . maybe. Mr. Dr. drew the lovely cover, and the name is pronounced "goatload." \m/  ^_^  \m/

The Scientists "Melodramatic Touch"

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Scientists
Rubber Never Sleeps
cassette
(Au-go-go, 1985)

Perth, Australia's The Scientists started out in 1978 as a punkish power pop group. They went through four line-ups, released a few records (a 7" single, a 7" EP, and an LP), did some touring, and split up.