My New Soundtrack to Raising Children on the Commune as an Acid Burnt-Out Hippie Farmer

YETI

A classic, straddling raucous fuzz-tone garage rock and psych with all the musical scholarship that made the krauts known for their rock. This pines less for analysis than simple, stoned, couch-sunken appreciation... ahh yea.

Psychsquatch 

Electrocuteness

WE ARE ELECTROCUTION 
This is essential, no two ways about it. None more snotty, obnoxious, sloppy or flamboyant, Le Shok held for a hot minute the highly coveted 'most-hated-band-in-Cali' throne. Driven by an affinity for pills not prescribed to them and a relentless vehemence towards their audiences, Le Shok managed to summon the kind of rambunctiously violent angst not present in punk since The Screamers or Land Speed Record. This record sits very happily in between garage and synth-punk making it a prized possession in mine and anyone's vinyl collection. The sheer originality this music presents is a great testament to the band's message of 'be different and be loud, no matter how many people will beat you up.' This album stands as their definitive statement, one no one has dared try and imitate, not even Le Shok. I know you're fucking ready...

Do The Dramatic 

   

Get Yer Pot Holderz Out

Yes, I like Hip-Hop. Yes, I am white...

Munch Up 

Canadian Metal Classics Pt. 1

Inspired by a recent Cosmic Hearse post, I've decided that its totally necessary that I submit to my one nationalist passion and wax boneheaded on the essential contributions my homeland has made to the development of extreme metal.
EVIL INVADERS

While not the first band to emerge from the Great White to make a dent in North American steel, Razor seems a great place to start when documenting historic Canadian Metal.  It is their sophomore effort Evil Invaders that holds a very special place in my heart. Upon first hearing the opening chords to the title track - whilst being mystified by the footage of fist pumping hosers in the music vid - I fell deeply in love with these Guelphians' Ontarian bludgeon. This album transports me to a time when leather-clad, poofy-haired teens braved their town's cold, bare streets to warm-up by headbanging arm in arm to the fiery sonic assault of their local Speed Merchants. Razor, on this record, ignites that warm and cold feeling of metallic brotherhood in any thrash maniac. From Stace's opening "Up your ass, right here, right now!!!" to Iron Hammer's heartfelt pledge of keeping metal alive and the declaration that the "Speed Merchants live for pleasure, live for pain, live for understanding and the sparks to start the flame" one can hear the honesty, authenticity and dedication with which Razor set out on a path of aural and physical destruction here. Guitars as graceful as meat-cleavers, drums soothing like jackhammers and Stace's shrieks soaring over it all, Evil Invaders weighs in with nearly as much heart and soul as muscle and metal. Also, is that not the best air-brushed album cover ever? 

THRASH!

 Oh, and here's some post-Stace Mclaren insanity fer ya!

Words being futile deices ...

The Age of Adz is one that seemed to have come and gone too soon. A highly anticipated outing that didn't manage to garner very much cohesive discussion long after the point of release. A dramatic re-conceptualization of compositional aesthetic that would divide fans of 'Jan's earlier output, it got past front lines fairly discreetly. Whether or not we're listening, it sounds as though this album is, perhaps, one of the few singing songs of this age. On Adz Stevens subjects his inspiration for each song  to a rigorous emotional process which, depending on song length, can travel the roads from health to disease, hope to disillusionment, madness to sanity, descent to transcendence and immaculate conception to human deception. No one song is spared from this programmatic display of self-reflection except for perhaps the extended nostalgic gesture that is tranquil centrepiece 'Now That I'm Older'. At the other end of the spectrum, the album closer, perhaps the longest Stevens track to date at this time, is the 25 minute epic 'Impossible Soul'. If there is one criticism I've heard of the album more than once it is how the songs struggle to stand on their own, however, as somerevieweroranother put it, the completely self-contained masterpiece 'has more good ideas than some careers'. The song sounds like an involved document of or revelation from the events occurring up to and during the writing and recording of the album and manages to cram in a diversity of musical styles achieved by few before him. Whether it's the T Pain-styled auto-tune breakdown, the sped-up skronking no-wave guitar solo or those ominously disco horn and string lines, Stevens packs this epic track with the musical equivalent of the confusion he'd been experiencing in the throes of disease months prior to recording. It is this type of emotional chaos that this album captures so well and that makes it relevant in an age where digital externalizing of one's feelings may be giving rise to more detached and transient experiences of our world. In any one of these songs there is a simultaneous expression of love, joyousness, sadness, anger and fear that makes this one of Sufjan's most compelling endeavours. 

Get Right With The Lord

I AM THE KING

As a kind of mission statement for this blog I am making this first post the album on which the title that this blog borrows appears. Aside from being an under-acknowledged, totally decrepit classic instrumental in influencing various 80s underground, post-punk movements, this album sets the tone for posts to come. The trajectory of Nick Cave's career - from proverbial punk rags to mustached cult-cred indie-rock riches - is indicative of the type material I will cover on this blog: Weird sounds surfacing parallel to the mainstream as well as forgotten and discarded albums that should have made it, and all between.
JUNKYARD
Cave and company stumbled through the bathroom door of the 80s, needle in arm, in much the same fashion as Iggy did a mere decade earlier, taking Michigan's biker bars by surly surprise. And their degenerate angst-y din did much the same job disrupting punk's already fragmenting aftermath as the Stooges had their unwitting audiences. But while Iggy shouted in the face of the every-man as they hurled beer bottles, the Birthday Party sought to alienate their audiences and more so themselves from any previously formed unity within a scene; by making an ugliness which was trendy, ugly again. Hailing from that isle of petty thieves down under, they made quick work of becoming almost as notoriously hated in London as they had back at home. Eventually the smack wore off, having claimed bassist Tracy Pew for greener pastures, and in its wake Nick Cave got a 'real' job writing songs and lyrics he remembered. But if this album shows us anything it's that the nightmare was beautiful while it lasted.    

  

BITE!