divided alien | kif-kif da bus

On the eve of Planet Gong's scheduled European tour through March to April, 1978, archastral projectionist, Dingbat Alien was allegedly assailed by dark forces set loose in the here and now. The doors of perception stood ajar but Alien's free pass was permanently revoked.

From Planet Gong:

"I couldn't actually get on stage. It was as though there was a an invisible curtain of force that was stopping me from going through the door. I threw myself at the open door and bounced back, off nothing. And this blew my mind so thoroughly that i just ran out of the theatre into the rain and started hitch hiking on the road with all my clothes, my stage clothes, my costume and face painted with fluorescent colours. And then a woman looked at me so strangely that i started thinking i was a murderer and i was hiding in the bushes. Finally i got picked up by somebody who had left the concert and was taken home, and then i had to realise that i had to leave gong, so that's the way it all ended."

The non event in Cheltenham - a centre of healing since mineral springs were discovered there in 1716 - marked the unforseen end of a chapter. Without fanfare, the alliance forged between Gong and Here & Now simply ceased to exist. In the material world, at any rate.

Allen decreed the band were free to continue to traffic as Planet Gong, but collectively Kif Kif, Steffe, Keith the Bass and singers Ano and Suze da Blooze elected to return the name first assumed squatting in Ladbroke Grove in 1974. Reclaiming the moment, regrouping and scouting Deptford Fun City for props.

Capitalizing - in the kindest sense only - on their sharing the bill with Captain Beefheart at the Paris Hippodrome a year earlier, and the subsequent release of "Live Floating Anarchy 1977", Here & Now embarked on a free tour with Mark Perry's Alternative TV. Falling into loose formation with Mark E. Smith and small wonder, Patrick Fitzgerald along the way.





Profit was never on the agenda. Between March and December, 1978, Here & Now committed to four grueling British free tours, playing several key festivals. Deeply Vale included. The sleeve to their shared live LP with ATV - "What You See... Is What You Are" - poses the family collective in front of their converted bus, No. 777, a motley tribe harking back to Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and the Incredible String Band of "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter".

Only Mark P. vents ambivalence. Stuffing his fingers into his mouth. A half-baked pantomime of self-induced vomitting.

Or merely scoring a jacket potato.

Frank Honest documents in his rediscovered "Gospel of the Free" that Deptford Fun City successfully sabotaged the first 1,000 pressings of the Here & Now / ATV joint venture; ensuring that the Ladbroke Grove side hit point of sale recorded backwards. My own heftily discounted vinyl copy - £1.75 - clearly left the factory after the jest was put right. Like their tour bus, though, it has not survived. Inveterate nostalgics may redress a similar loss in full by hyperlinking promptly to kill your pet puppy.

"It's not surprising that the details of that year are rather blurred. Not surprising really that, on the mid-winter solstice, on the way back in to London after the last gig of the last tour of 1978, our new bus broke down. But completely. The crankshaft had snapped from the strain."

"...thus endeth the Gospel of Free according to Frank Honest", and thus endeth a minor sin of omission.

 Postscript:

The Charly Records EP - released, I believe, in 1979, after "What You See... is What You Are" can be found on the 1996 French Spalax CD reissue of "Give and Take" with two other bonus tracks: "End of the Beginning" and "Choke a Kola".


▼ HERE AND NOW: ADDICTED from "Dog In Hell b/w Floating Anarchy Radio / Addicted" EP (Charly Records) 1978 (UK)
▼ HERE AND NOW: ADDICTED from "What You See... Is What You Are" LP (Deptford Fun City) 1978 (UK)

▼ PLANET GONG: FLOATIN' ANARCHY from "Live Floating Anarchy 1977" LP (Charly Records) 1978 (UK / France)

i steal with a cool hand. look

The Warner Bros. financed "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" - adapted from Robert Elliott Burns' autobiographical account, as serialized in pulp magazine, True Detective - provoked public disquiet and brought the failings of the US penal system into focus.

Nominated for three Acadamy Awards in 1932, while Burns continued to serve out his sentence in New Jersey state, the film's commercial and critical success fueled debate, if not fundamental reforms. As a consequence of civic pressure - fanned by press reports of similar miscarriages of justice on a seemingly grand scale - a significant increase in appeals capitalized on this climate change; a record number of 'chain gang' inmates were granted parole and early release, interstate.

That is not to suggest that pardons were forthcoming. Jurisprudence is not so easily bent on confessing to error.



i am a fugitive from a chaing gang. then and now.

While Burns himself walked in 1933, it should also be observed that Georgia warden, J. Harold Hardy - his character lambasted in the film - successfully sued the studio for "vicious, brutal and false attacks".

Like Muni disappearing into the dark in the final reel, the words "I steal..." trailing on a leash, the prison system publicly exonerated itself and retreated from flashbulb and spotlight. Stepping back into the long shadow behind bullhorn and pump action shotgun.

The rows concealed behind razor wire and fence.

The following overblown 'confessional' was originally culled from a post carried on Record Robot. Seemingly a vanity project - recorded in San Diego, CA and owing more of a debt, perhaps, to "Cool Hand Luke" - it nonetheless shambles, chained, in the footprints of Robert Elliott Burns. And, by tenuous extention, in the brusque foreword or afterword of Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson; themselves some time contributors to Bernaar Macfadden's True Detective.

"Pulp", of course, was the title - fittingly - of Charles Bukowski's last 'novel'. Published in 1994, just ahead of his death. In it, the role of narrator's voice passes from the familiar - Henry Chinaski - to private investigator, Nicky Berlane. "Pulp" punctuates the end of an era. And similarly 'celebrates' what Bukowski defines as "bad writing".

Bukowski may or may not have been justified in digging out an axe to grind. Genre writing, so far as I am concerned, is no better or worse merely for its author's pursuit of the rent; alimony; necessities or vices. It is what it is.

Me. I think he was just poking fun. Kicking back with the dicks for laughs.

I have no clear idea whether Floyd, here, is genuine or not. I suspect the latter.

He most definitely feels he has an axe to grind.

Ignore the window dressing. The pomp and chorus of pickaxe and shovel. The library music. Acquaint your ears, instead, with the private disinterment of a man falling in and out of his cups.

And the tarnished legacy of Robert Elliott Burns.

Raise a glass to the spurious or simply ill considered.

A sequel of sorts, it appeared first on SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS in July, 2008. Nothing much changes when all's said and done.

▼ FLOYD McCLELLAN: I AM AN EX-CONVICT FROM A FLORIDA CHAIN GANG from "I Am An Ex-Convict From a Florida Chain Gang" LP (Sagitario) 1978 (US)

spilt milk in rubber city

A mere two years after Booji Boy stiffed in their native US, and an overseas deal with Stiff Records soured in the UK, Ohioans Devo signed on the line with major league hitters, Warner Bros. The rest - as some say - was almost history.

Produced in Cologne, Germany, by Brian Eno on the recommendation - in part - of chums Bowie and Pop, "Q: Are We Not Men ? A: We Are Devo", the resulting album, eschewed the pummeling Geiger guitar mystery of Clevelanders, Pere Ubu in favor of instant self-gratification. Fiscally motivated, or just commercially astute, "Come Back Jonee" more than amply demonstrated that Devo shared no midwestern manifesto with those neighboring pioneers of "The Modern Dance " and "Dub Housing". Slick, disposable. As kitschy as David Lynch on the Autobahn.

Bob Casale: rhythm guitar, additional keyboards, backing vocals;

Gerald V. Casale: bass guitar, additional keyboards, lead vocals;
Bob Mothersbaugh: lead guitar, backing vocals;
Mark Mothersbaugh: keyboards, occasional guitar, lead vocals;
Alan Myers: drums.

Produced by Brian Eno and Chuck Statler.
Engineed by Patrick Gleeson and Conrad (Connie) Plank.

▼ DEVO: COME BACK JONEE from "Come Back Jonee b/w Social Fools" 45 (Warner Bros. / Virgin) 1978 (US)

pink military cadet school

photograph by richard kern.

Jayne Casey: vocals;
Dave Balfe: bass;
Bill Drummond: guitar; Ian Broudie: guitar;
Budgie: drums.
Recorded at the M.C.V.U. 4 track studio (Teac 3340S), Liverpool, July 1978.
Produced by Noddy Knowler.

▼ BIG IN JAPAN: NOTHING SPECIAL from "From Y To Z And Never Again" 12" EP (Zoo) 1978 (UK)

ein toast

It is my birthday today, siblings. Like those awful greetings cards needle, I have pretty much stopped counting; I know this because often I miscalculate my age by a year of two when somebody has the effrontery to enquire. I have to think carefully and tally up the lost decades.

In preparation for the opportunity at least to engage in polite celebration, I shaved off some alarmingly grey stubble. Most of my head hair is thus far immune, happily, but the growth on my face has been bleaching out for quite some time. Having experimented with some close cropped facial topiary this past several months, I finally decided I was beginning to resemble a Captain Birdseye in training. I can think of far worse potential jobs, of course, but it is not the kind of look one wants to sport recreationally. While a more youthful countenance might comfortably advertise a fashionable pussy tickler, there is a fine line between just that and the suggestion of something altogether more unsavoury in the older male.

In my impatience to vacate the bathroom and pour myself a tall glass of something alcoholic, I managed to nick myself in several places. Those deepening creases between nostril and upper lip; cheek and jowl. I dispensed with the sidewhiskers entirely.

The first glass, then, was ultimately medicinal.

Prost!

▼ ALLEN GINSBERG: PUNK ROCK & OLD POND from "The Nova Connection" LP (Giorno Poetry Systems) 1979 (US)

off white #1

james chance, lydia lunch and chums on the bowery, summer 1978.

No Yorker, James Chance...

found a home on the pages of those earliest issues of 'The Face', a fashion & music monthly launched in the UK in 1979. The writing in that magazine, while mostly fine, unquestionably played second fiddle to its sharp graphic content; in particular the cutting edge typography of Neville Brody.

High contrast monochrome images of Chance with his saxophone jockeyed for column dominance under retro features on US manufactured pomades - 'Black & White' from Memphis, Tennessee - and colour spreads on Vivienne Westwood kilts kissed arse with Jah Wobble, Levine and Lydon. Robert Elms briefly proclaimed Trevor Sorbie the new Vidal Sassoon. Free Jazz was considered the new punk.
The afterbirth of No Wave was considered and cool.

Like a good many New York City icons, of course, James Chance was no native son. Born James Siegfried on April 20th, 1953, his birthplace was actually in the industrial midwest - Milwaukee, Wisconsin - but relocating to NYC in the 70's, the newly Christened Chance / White / Black formed an early alliance with Lydia Lunch (who wrote and sings on "Stained Sheets") in the seminal Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, championed by Brian Eno, and out of the abrasive ashes of the No Wave scene first the Blacks then the Contortions were reborn.

Recorded at Blank Tape Studios, NYC, in the Autumn of 1978.

Jody Harris: guitar; Pat Place: slide guitar;
George Scott: bass; Lydia Lunch: vocals;
Don Christensen: drums; James Chance: saxophone.


Ray Mantilla: congas; Anya Phillips: vocals;
Kristian Hoffman: piano, vocals.

Produced by Bob Blank.
"Tropical Heatwave" written by Irving Berlin.

▼ JAMES WHITE AND THE BLACKS: STAINED SHEETS from "Off White" 12" (Ze Records) 1979 (US)

▼ JAMES WHITE AND THE BLACKS: TROPICAL HEATWAVE from "Off White" 12" (Ze Records) 1979 (US)

PURCHASE OFF WHITE CD REISSUE

f@ck you and the horse you rode in on

scam 101.

Jon posted California's The Dils some time back with good reason, so in reply here's The Germs.

Written by Darby Crash; Lorna Doon; Pat Smear, "Forming" is generally conceded as representing the first punk 45 to come out of Los Angeles, California.

And what a ge(r)m.

"...recorded on a Sony 2-track in Pat's garage and arrived back from the pressing plant with the note, "Warning: This record causes ear cancer" printed on the sleeve by the plant staff, much to the band's displeasure."


This, their second single, remains my personal favourite. Despite the contentious imagery, which I am quite convinced "anonymous" will secretly (or otherwise) relish: here and here. F@cking delusional, presumptuous simpleton.

Vinyl rip courtesy of Killed by Death Records.

▼ THE GERMS: LEXICON DEVIL from "Lexicon Devil b/w Circle One / No God" 45 (Slash) 1978 (US)

PURCHASE MIA: THE COMPLETE ANTHOLOGY

where were you ?

fast 7.

Another from Bob Last's Edinburgh based Fast Product, this one - Fast 7 - featuring a double 'A' side from The Mekons, and one of the best drum intros from the period. Packaged in a plastic coated sleeve.

Jon Langford: vocals; guitar; Sally Timms: vocals;
Sarah Corina: bass; Steve Goulding: drums.

Recorded on 20th & 22nd October, 1978
at Spaceward Studio, Cambridge.

▼ THE MEKONS: WHERE WERE YOU ? from "Where Were You ? b/w I'll Have To Dance Then (On My Own) 45 (Fast) 1978 (UK)

THE MEKONS @ MYSPACE

fly in the ointment

HAR 5151.

Bridging the gap deftly between 1977's "Pink Flag" and their 1978 follow-up, "Chairs Missing", this is the sound of a breakfast hangover overspilling into the studio with unspeakable flair.

A lot of good art - like disease - is born in the kitchen, I firmly believe.

Colin Newman: vocals; Robert Gotobed: drums; Bruce Gilbert: guitar; Graham Lewis: bass.

Written by Colin Newman and Graham Lewis. Produced by long term collaborator, Mike Thorne.

image originally appeared on hasanalmasi.blogfa.com.

▼ WIRE: I AM THE FLY from "I Am The Fly b/w Ex Lion Tamer" 45 (Harvest EMI) 1978 (UK)

PURCHASE CHAIRS MISSING REMASTERED

who's been f@cking with bl*gger then ?

FICS 001.

Well, it's Halloween, brothers and sisters. Some people like to get dressed up; other bastards like to hide behind a mask. Make scary noises and waft a tortured sheet about. A bit like the Ku Klux Clan. Grand Wizards and monkeys scratching their red hairless bottoms.

Well. Here we go then. What else is new ?

It was always shit to begin with. A game full of bogeys played by handicapped humps. Grotesques. Arseholes just like me.

Scratch n' sniff. Bend n' flush.

Based, it would seem, on a rather famous novel by some minor writer or other by the name of Albert Camus. The illiterate PC brigade might well have a fit. In fact, they have already.

Censorship ? What censorship ?

And don't ask me about that f@cking party, either. The hacksaw might just slip and nick my ankle.

▼ THE CURE: KILLING AN ARAB from "Killing An Arab b/w 10:15 Saturday Night" 45 (Small Wonder / Fiction) 1978 (UK)

PURCHASE STARING AT THE SEA: THE SINGLES

stormy

sometime in new york city.

From the album named after the Ballstaan river crossing through the suburbs north of Stockholm, his second release in Sweden. An act of solidarity with Emmett's posting on Wednesday, last week.

Gabor Szabo: guitar; Janne Schaffer: guitar; Wlodek Gulgowski: piano and synthesiser; Pekka Pohjola: bass; Malando Gassama: congas and percussion; Peter Sundell: drums.

Recorded at one of two sessions in Europa Film Studio, Stockholm, on January 6th and 7th, 1978. Written by B. Buie and J.R. Cobb.

Produced by Lars Samuelson; engineered by Leif Allanson.

This one is for Löst Jimmy who is currently weathering the same inclement north Atlantic front. Apologies for the dodgy stereo panning near the end of the track; either that or a fault with the gain.

▼ GABOR SZABO: STORMY from "Belsta River" LP (Four Leaf Clover) 1978 (Sweden)

OUT OF PRINT

no static at all

MCA 374 .

Drums and percussion: Jeff Porcaro; Bass: Walter Becker; guitar: Walter Becker; steel guitar: Cosmo Creek; piano: Donald Fagen; tenor sax: Pete Christlieb; percussion: Victor Feldman; backup vocals: Tim Schmit.

Written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Strings arranged by Johnny Mandel. Produced by Gary Katz. A fine cheese.

▼ STEELY DAN: FM (NO STATIC AT ALL) from "FM (No Static At All)" 45 (MCA) 1978 (US)

PURCHASE CITIZEN STEELY DAN: 1972 - 1980 (4 x CD)

chris bell: i am the cosmos

More ethereal Beatles fare of a sort. With the accent on vulnerability.

From the excellent solo LP Big Star's Chris Bell was in the process of recording when he died behind the wheel in a road traffic accident in December, 1978. The album was not released until 1992 when Rykodisc released it posthumously with recently uncovered alternative takes - and eloquent liner notes from Chris's elder brother, David - although "I Am The Cosmos b/w You And Your Sister" was released as a 45 in Bell's own lifetime; on Chris Stamey's Car label.

It is tempting after reading Scott E. Miller's article on Bell to conclude that his departure from Big Star, prior to the release of "Radio City", in some way mirrors Syd Barrett's exit from the Pink Floyd. I don't know. It does seem wholly fair to agree with Miller - and David Bell - that Chris's depression was aggravated by his failure to convince Chilton to let him back on board.

And cruelly exacerbated by having his contributions to "Radio City" go uncredited, if indeed that is the case; most notably "Back Of A Car", which allegedly was a Chris Bell composition without any contribution from Chilton or the rest of the band.

"I know you're mine
He treats you nice
It's suicide...
I know, I tried it twice."

- Chris Bell, "Better Save Yourself".

Assuming that some of you out there may have never heard this LP, it is very hard indeed to whittle down a fragmentary selection to entice you with. Essential.



Listen to all fifteen tracks on "I Am The Cosmos" and there is little doubting Bell's skewed and shimmering talents as a performer outwith the Alex Chilton franchise which is Big Star - rightly and wrongly - a group always greater than the sum of its parts. It would be criminally unfair to compare Chilton's own post Big Star solo output with Bell's, retrospectively, and churlish even to contrast "Third / Sister Lovers" with those previous Big Star records; but, outstanding though that album is in part, punctured and emotionally drained, it remains unavoidably clear to what degree the group was diminished by Chris Bell's absence. An account of those missing in action and every inch the record of a somehow inevitable car crash in excruciating lingering detail.

In its own way, "I Am The Cosmos" is every bit a lost Big Star classic.

▼ CHRIS BELL: I AM THE COSMOS from "I Am The Cosmos" CD (Rykodisc) 1992 (UK)

▼ CHRIS BELL: BETTER SAVE YOURSELF from "I Am The Cosmos" CD (Rykodisc) 1992 (UK)

▼ CHRIS BELL: YOU AND YOUR SISTER (ACOUSTIC VERSION) [BONUS] from "I Am The Cosmos" CD (Rykodisc) 1992 (UK)

PURCHASE I AM THE COSMOS
THE SAD LIFE OF CHRIS BELL: ARTICLE BY SCOTT E. MILLER

corwood industries #0739

somewhere in houston, texas:
"you are a cowboy when you wear those boots".

A thousand copies printed. Only two sold by 1980. The fools.

"Ready for the House is the debut album by Jandek, and was released in 1978 by his own Corwood Industries label, with the catalog number #0739. The artist has said in letters that the number was meaningless."

Written and performed - quite possibly - by Sterling Richard Smith.

I like the ashtray laid out invitingly on the sofa's armrest. Unsettling.

▼ JANDEK: NAKED IN THE AFTERNOON from "Ready For The House" LP (Corwood Industries) 1978 (US)

PURCHASE READY FOR THE HOUSE
JANDEK ON CORWOOD

brüder des schattens

max schreck in f.w. murnau's original "nosferatu", 1922.

As much an excuse to feature an assemblage of images from Murnau's Expressionist silent drama, as to pay homage to Popol Vuh's contribution to Werner Herzog's 1978 remake.

Bram Stoker's estate successfully pushed the studio, Prana Films into bankruptcy after suing for copyright infringement. The court ordered the immediate destruction of all existing prints. Fortunately for posterity, the restored film in circulation today was copied from the handful of prints already in distribution.

The following selections are from Egg's 1978 French issue (as distinct from those unexpurgated cuts - four tracks in total - released in Germany on Brain Records' "Nosferatu: Brüder Des Schattens, Söehne Des Lichtes" in the same year). This album was reissued on CD in 1999 on Spalax, with a different tracklist and sequence.

Written by Florian Fricke, except for †: Al Gromer.

Florian Fricke: piano, moog; Daniel Fichelscher: guitar; Ted De Jong: tamboura; Al Gromer: sitar.

The kids have their drawing pads out, and my son is humming along to the heavily sitar laced, "Venus Principle" as he maps out helicopters exploding in the sky with robust vigour.

The purple scent of Halloween is in the air.

▼ POPOL VUH: BRÜDER DES SCHATTENS from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

▼ POPOL VUH: MANTRA i from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

▼ POPOL VUH: VENUS PRINCIPLE† from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

PURCHASE NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE REMASTERED

fast 4: being boiled

fast 4A.



fast 4B.

"Okay, ready; let's do it."

From Wiki:

"...The Human League put out a demo tape to record companies under their new name. The tape contained versions of "Being Boiled", "Toyota City" and "Circus of Death". One label, Bob Last’s Edinburgh based independent Fast Records responded and the band were signed."

"Listen to the voice of Buddha
saying stop your sericulture
Little people like your offspring
boiled alive for some god's stocking
Buddhas watching Buddhas waiting."

John Lydon dismissed this outfit as nothing more than "trendy hippies".

Fair enough. But I rather liked it.

And so began a career which was to end disastrously in oceans of smeared kohl eye-liner and disco pregnancies.

▼ THE HUMAN LEAGUE: BEING BOILED (MONO) from "Being Boiled b/w Circus Of Death" 45 (Fast Product) 1978 (UK)

PURCHASE REPRODUCTION
PREVIOUSLY: FAST TOURISTS RUN FROM MAO

industrial IR0003

industrial records IR0003.



Genesis P-Orridge: bass, violin, vocals
Cosey Fanni Tutti: guitars, cornet)
Peter Christopherson: tapes, found sounds, horns
Chris Carter: synthesizer

Quite an interesting one, this. The debut 45 by Throbbing Gristle received a fair degree of publicity through certain 'glamour' magazines circulating newsagent top shelves at that time. Chiefly "Fiesta", a periodical renowned for its popular 'Readers' Wives' content, which engaged artist Connie Jude as its in-house illustrator. This may well have been as a result of members of the band - or those close to them - being in the employ of the pornographic industry at the time, though this is of course mere conjecture.

Given the heavy S&M themes propagated by Malcolm McLaren and even Vivien Westwood in his Kings Road shop, the bondage model adopted by punk rock found a natural bedfellow in London's Soho as early as 1976, with photographers and art directors keen to trade on its provocative imagery. Just as with the Beat Generation, pornographers and artists collaborated gladly in seedy studios at the dark end of a two-way street; a means to generate and sustain a mutually beneficial market.

From their web site:

"Industrial Records began as an investigation. The 4 members of Throbbing Gristle wanted to investigate to what extent you could mutate and collage sound, present complex non entertaining noises to a popular culture situation and convince and convert. We wanted to re-invest Rock music with content, motivation and risk. Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant."

Their motives were deemed suspect by many, the collective's courting of negative publicity spurious at best. The sleeve image to the single's b-side, above, attests to the more obvious methods employed to agitate and provoke.

"United" itself is atypical of TG's generally abrasive experimental output. As a song with a formal structure and arrangement, it might have been recorded by 10CC fore-runners, The Hotlegs. Had Industrial Records succeeded in generating more commercial airplay from this release, it is worth speculating as to what degree of controversy a Top 40 'hit' may have aroused.

From Wiki:

"Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of often disturbing imagery, including pornography and photographs of Nazi concentration camps, gave the group a notorious reputation. However the group always maintained that their mission was to challenge and explore the darker and obsessive sides of the human condition rather than to make attractive music. Throbbing Gristle pioneered the use of pre-recorded tape-based 'samples', and made extensive use of special effects to produce a distinctive, highly distorted background, usually accompanied by lyrics or spoken-word performances by Genesis P-Orridge."

I recently re-purchased "The Second Annual Report" from 1977 on CD, but I'm pleased to still have this 45 on original vinyl. A valued artifact of early Industrial Noise.

▼ THROBBING GRISTLE: UNITED (MONO) from "United b/w Zyclon B Zombie" 45 (Industrial Records) 1978 (UK)

PURCHASE THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT
THROBBING GRISTLE OFFICIAL WEB SITE

in the short grass: residents only

ralph RR87521.



I used to think if I ever got a gig on hospital radio it would be fun to feature The Residents on a Wednesday afternoon as part of a mid-week therapy playlist.

Then I discovered Jandek.

From Wiki:

"The Residents supposedly hail from Shreveport, Louisiana, where they met in high school in the 1960s. In 1966, members headed west to San Francisco, California. After their truck broke down in San Mateo, they decided to remain there. Like all information pertaining to the early days of the band, this is provided by The Cryptic Corporation and may or may not be invented."

Here are two key moments from The Residents' 1978 release on Ralph Records. Who are these crazy kids, anyhow ? I was always too dim to figure it out. Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

▼ THE RESIDENTS: SINISTER EXAGGERATOR from "Duck Stab / Buster & Glen" LP (Ralph) 1978 (US)

▼ THE RESIDENTS: BLUE ROSEBUDS from "Duck Stab / Buster & Glen" LP (Ralph) 1978 (US)

PURCHASE DUCK STAB / BUSTER & GLEN
THE RESIDENTS OFFICIAL WEB SITE

pere ubu: chinese radiation

Tom Herman: guitar
Scott Krauss: drums
Tony Maimone: bass
Allen Ravenstine: synthesizer
David Thomas: vocals

After guitarist, Peter Laughner was forced to leave Pere Ubu as a result of serious health issues, the Cleveland group signed to Blank Records. Recording sessions were initiated in November, 1977. The result was their first long player, "The Modern Dance", released in 1978.

As essential as their first two singles.

What with the Beijing Olympics drawing to a close, I felt "Chinese Radiation" might be appropriate. I'm hoping I won't be compelled to post Georgia Satellites any time soon for much the same kind of reason.


▼ PERE UBU: CHINESE RADIATION from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)
▼ PERE UBU: SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)

BUY THE MODERN DANCE REMASTERED
UBU PROJEX: BUYER'S GUIDE TO PERE UBU

atv: the image has cracked

deptford fun city, DLP01.

I made reference to Mark P. and Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV sometime back in a previous post on Eater, a band the "Sniffin' Glue" editor seemingly - and to my mind, unaccountably - detested.

I mentioned then that "The Image Has Cracked" was every inch one of the most superior and long awaited releases of 1978, and I stand by that claim. The tone throughout the first LP to appear on Perry's Deptford Fun City label is racked with discord and ill-concealed contempt for the self congratulatory illiteracy of shop-lifting punk rockers as 1977 drew to a dreary close, and that sentiment was very much mirrored by the circumstances in which I first heard the album.

The setting for its spinning dansette debut was a shabby front room - my best friend's father's house - the curtains permanently drawn over a formica coffee table overspilling empty lager cans and cigarette ash; the two of us on a permanent vacation slumped in sagging easy chairs trailing stuffing on the floor. Michael's mother had succumbed to cancer a couple of years previously (see previous post on PIL, where Lydon's lyric - a dedication to his own dying mother - overshadows Van Morrison's "TB Sheets" in terms of emotional authenticity), and clinical depression had by this time translated itself into escalating bouts of incoherent rage between intermittently passive oasisses of ennui. The violence was more often than not directed at his father, and even from the considerable distance of thirty years' hindsight I can't help but feel his antipathy was mostly justified. Careful with that axe, Eugene.

"The Image Has Cracked" was our adopted soundtrack, a nihilistic badge of distress for Michael especially. I just went more or less along for the ride. A clueless navigator sunk deep in the passenger seat without crash helmet or map.

As is often the case, we lost track several years further down the line, but not before we registered in each other the appetite for self-destruction and self-imposed exile. I caught up with him entirely by chance a quarter of a century later on a train, and I can report the prognosis was a good deal brighter than either of us had any right to expect. I doubt he has any ATV in his possession these days, and if he does I would confidently wager he seldom plays it.

Alternative TV went on to record a split live LP with Here & Now, an offshoot of Gong, before finally dissolving as the 70s gave way to the brash consumerism of 1980. Fergusson went on to team up with Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P. Orridge in Psychic TV, while Mark Perry turned solo with varying results. Listen closely to the following tracks and you just might hear the faint echo of mutant Zappa and krautrockers, Can. It doesn't make for comfortable listening, so if you would sooner relish more genteel Sunday afternoon fare - as is your right to expect, perhaps - be warned.

This is 1978's soundtrack to the slow-burning fragmentation of ego and the banal subjugation of id.

▼ ALTERNATIVE TV: NASTY LITTLE LONELY from "The Image Has Cracked" LP (Deptford Fun City) 1978 (UK)

▼ ALTERNATIVE TV: RED from "The Image Has Cracked" LP (Deptford Fun City) 1978 (UK)

▼ ALTERNATIVE TV: SPLITTING IN TWO from "The Image Has Cracked" LP (Deptford Fun City) 1978 (UK)

THE IMAGE HAS CRACKED + BONUS TRACKS