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!

Happy Flowers "Razors in My Apple"

Happy Flowers
Now We Are Six
7" EP
(Catch Trout Records, 1986)

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I know I posted a song by this band just last week, but, well, I've not been able to think of any other Halloween-releated songs by LGBT folk and/or bands!

:'-(

This litle ditty was from their second 7" EP, and was one of the first of their songs to feature actual percussion . . . of a sort. Mr. Anus played two cookie tins with contact mics taped to them. As with the other Happy Flowers song I posted, it was improvised live in the studio with no overdubbing or mixing afterward.

Happy Flowers "Jenny Tried to Kiss Me at Recess"

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.

Happy Flowers
My Skin Covers My Body
LP
(Homestead Records, 1987)

The . . . um . . . vocalist on this "tune," Mr. Horribly-Charred-Infant, didn't come out 'til a few years after the band split in mid-1990. This track is probably their gayest, in retrospect.

Random facts:

• All Happy Flowers songs were recorded live in the studio, with no mixing or overdubbing done afterward. In addition, the majority were improvised on the spot.
• Mr. HCI is playing bass and guitar at the same time on this song. The bass was strapped on over the guitar, which mostly just provided feedback.
• Mr. Anus is playing the drums. He does like girls.
• The song is mostly a true story. In reality, however, Jenny never caught and kissed him, and her name was actually Amanda.

Stalaggh untitled

Stalaggh Stalaggh 7" EP (New Era Productions, 2001)

I think I'll let the insert speak for this one: Stalaggh is a Misanthropik-Nihilistik projekt of leading Individuals from both the Dutch and Belgian Black Metal and Elektro/Ambient scenes, with as prior aim propagating the sonic ideology of human genocide. With among it's members a murder convict and mental-institution patient, STALAGGH is bound to awaken emotions of depression, hate, nihilism, misanthropy and to drag you deeper down into it's pits and voids. :STALAGGH:'s :projekt nihil: was improvised and directly recorded Ina 24 track studio, driving the producer to Insanity. "Never again" were his words... Excessive self-mutilation took place while recording these streams of black emotions, evolving into a 35 minutes piece of Art, which is to be considered the soundtrack to humanities global suicide... We will destroy, we will hate, and we will spread our misanthropic audio-terror until there Is nothing left but scorched earth. ...KILL YOURSELF!!! They followed this lovely little record (today's piece is side A) with three albums of considerably less musical material, Projekt Nihil, Projekt Terrror, Projekt Misanthropia), plus variations on the same, like the remix album Nihilistik Terrror (not dance remixes, mind you). They've now changed their name and sound, to a degree, to Gulaggh and have released one CD, so far, Vorkuta. I quite like it.

The Velvet Underground "I Heard Her Call My Name"

The Velvet Underground White Light/White Heat LP (Verve Records, 1968)

And then my mind split open . . . Favorite Guitar Solos Week draws to a close with the greatest guitar solo ever in the history of recorded music, from the second album by The Velvet Underground, 1968's White Light/White Heat. Now, there's crazy soloing all over the place here, so, to be more specific, I mean the solo starting at roughly the -2:20 mark, right after Lou "Walk on the Wild Side" Reed says the above line.

Hotguitars "Budapest Bukkake"

Hotguitars
Confessions
CD EP
(BV² Productions, 2004)

As the name implies, Hotguitars play guitars, and they're a duo (hooray!). Guitarist Jyrki Laiho used to play guitar with Finnish krautrocky metallers Circle, and guitarist T-mu Korpipää was Circle's soundman. I found their second album, Hierarkia (recorded with Finnish poet Santtu Puukka joining them), in a bargain bin. The cover was interesting and it was only 25¢, so how could I pass it up? How, I ask you?

Today's song, however, is from the Confessions EP, released in-between Hierarkia and their debut, Duets, Duels & D.I.Y.'s (a CDR limited to 150 copies). It's one of their more pounding numbers, and I dig it rather a lot.

They released their third full-length album, ...pronounced (hɔt gi'ta:s), in 2007. There was talk in 2005 of reissuing Duets, Duels & D.I.Y.'s on CD, with new cover art and bonus material, but that doesn't appear to have happened.

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.