The Ex - “Mother” from 1998’s Starters Alternators.

Katrin, the drummer, sings lead vocals on this. Very lovely song, and amongst my favorite songs by The Ex ever. It’s a very open-ended song about “Mother”.  Mother Nature, Mother country, one’s mother…

Popular Shapes - “Symmetrical Girl” from 2003’s Bikini Style.

Seattle’s Popular Shapes came and went in a flash, when the band’s vocalist/guitarist left for San Francisco. Bikini Style was a barely 20+ minute 9 track explosion of pop-no-wave — recorded, mixed, and mastered by Kurt Bloch — that rivaled bands everywhere (Futureheads and Ex-Models included) for that No New York/early XTC/Talking Heads pop spaz sound of the late 70s. This album has a strong Fugazi odor all over as well. This seemed like a band that got bored really easily, and were ready to try brand new things before they released anything. They’re missed.

“Symmetrical Girl” would be their ‘hit’ of this album if there was a chance.

Duh - “Spaghetti and Red Wine” from 1991’s Blowhard.

Sub Pop may have had Tad, Nirvana, Mudhoney, and many other sludgey sounding rock bands.

Amphetamine Reptile in Minneapolis was fierce competition, having Helmet, Cows, Hammerhead, Halo Of Flies, etc.

Then there was Boner Records in the California Bay Area, having Melvins, Steel Pole Bathtub, Plainfield, Star Pimp, and the all-star Boner Records band, Duh.

This lineup of the band only released one album called Blowhard. It’s all incredibly silly and thick with nauseous guitars, an effluent bass sound, and an inebriated (or seemingly so) lead singer. Duh would have made all members of Flipper proud.

Then things got strange. I refuse to refer to the facts when referring to the legend of Duh, because the retold version is far, far more entertaining than what is likely the more boring truth. Here goes..

So, Alternative Tentacles, the highly influential independent label in San Francisco, had a series of releases in the early 90s that were collaborations with its captain Jello Biafra. There was the Jello Biafra & D.O.A. album, there was the Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon album, the Jello Biafra vs. NoMeansNo album, Tumor Circus aka Jello Biafra with Steel Pool Bathtub. Outside Alternative Tentacles, Jello led the Ministry-related Lard.  Perhaps as way to tell the world “Hey, I’m still around” after the exhausting 1987 Dead Kennedys lawsuit, Jello went on a collaboration marathon. A lot of fun records resulted from it. Unsurprisingly, some people sought some satire at Jello’s expense for what may have come across as a vanity marathon.

Without much ado, circa 1992, a Jello Biafra & Plainfield collaboration came out. No surprise. This was just another in the series on Alternative Tentacles.

Except it wasn’t an Alternative Tentacles release. It wasn’t even Jello Biafra on this Jello Biafra & Plainfield album. It was a poor imitator on the phone making fun of Jello’s voice over a bunch of Plainfield outtakes.  Apparently, Plainfield had approached Jello on doing a funny collaboration album. Jello politely declined. So Plainfield and Boner Records crew decided to pull a prank, and put out a completely fake Alternative Tentacles “Jello Biafra with” release. The liner notes were even more over the top, containing fake testimonials from “Jello” commenting on the inspiration of the lyrics on each song. “I was really far out on this one” was a paraphrased example of these abstracts.

That wasn’t the end. Alternative Tentacles wanted some fun too.  Years after Duh’s Blowhard was released, without much ado, a second Duh album was released on Alternative Tentacles records.. The Unholy Handjob. The cover art looked very consistent with the first Duh album, and it had an incredible(y hilarious) album title. The members of the band were practically anonymous, with only the grossest Photoshop effects applied to their insert picture.

Compared to Blowhard, The Unholy Handjob had no musical similarity whatsoever, besides being loud rock music. The hundreds of fans of the first record (apologies if I’m understating the Duh fanbase) must have been horrified or disappointed in this record. What the hell happened to Duh?

Well, Alternative Tentacles decided to create their own version of Duh as vengeance for the Jello Biafra & Plainfield prank. Hence The Unholy Handjob.

Ultimately, the score is even. And I gather this was all fun & games between two great Bay Area labels, as it all should be.

Noxagt - “Wall’s End” from Noxagt (2006)

These guys have maximized the most brutal sounds of rock I’ve heard in years. The key is the bass sound, which is some unholy marriage between Flipper and Melvins.

Arab On Radar “My Mind Is A Muffler (live at Graceland @ Seattle, 2002)”…

In light of the news that the band is now back as an acting unit, this will have to do until or if they return to Seattle. Eric ends up in the crowd at least a couple of times here.

KUKL’s “Outward Flight (Psalm 323)” from 1986’s Holidays In Europe (The Naughty Nought)

KUKL were the best collective that ever had both Björk Guðmundsdóttir and Einar Örn Benediktsson. The first album from 1984, The Eye — originally released by Crass — was terrifying and beautiful.  The second album, Holidays In Europe (The Naughty Nought) was much calmer and even stranger.  It’s hard to imagine that just a year before this band called Sugarcubes broke the world with their single “Birthday”, two of its prime members were deep into a Henry Cow phase in their previous band.

Let’s also give credit to the video director here. The power of electrical tape on naked body parts is underrated. The video ends with an extended interview with Einar.

Racebannon — from Bloomington, Indiana — doing “The Killer”(?) live — from their Acid Or Blood album from 2008.

I’ve loved this band ever since my friend Brian introduced them to me several years ago, because they immediately bridged two marriages of loud rock into this sick quadrophilia of volume: Metal/Hardcore + Experimental/Weirdo.  The band are just as much MX-80 Sound fans as they are Slayer fans.

My only shortcoming with Racebannon is that I wish they could taper the songs off sooner than they actually do. On the other hand, I’m still drawn to what they do, and it’s best if I don’t get what I wish.

I can’t think of any other band this constantly energetic.

Coil - Horse Rotorvator (1986): #19 Best Industrial Album Art.

The front cover of the album really set this band apart for me from other groups within the goth and industrial gallery at the time, as — not unlike Throbbing Gristle — the band avoided clichés as much as possible, which the group confirmed often. (One of the members, Peter Christopherson, was a former member of Throbbing Gristle.)

Even though the picture is seemingly really sanguine and calming, the title and the disturbing white text below made it seem something horrible happened wherever this album cover was photographed.  The text reads:

On the Eve of the Apocalypse - the Four Horsemen betray their steeds - slitting open the animal throats - and in doing so release the Second Great Deluge - Horsegore - (The air choked with horsehair) - Infinite Divisibles Split - An infinity of open sewers.

The Four then fashion an immense earth-moving device from the collective jawbones - The Horse Rotorvator - with which to plough up the waiting world - (ROTA turns through 180 degrees to TARO) - Wheels replace Horses - Dark Horses Run - Dark Horses Run Deep (We plough the fields and scatter Our Dead Steeds on the land) … and Hell is paved with horseflesh

Well, at least it wasn’t difficult to figure out what the album title Horse Rotorvator meant — some supernatural mega machine that uses horse jawbones drill and spread about the earth and stuff. Oooh, what a nice thing.

Doing some research on the album cover, thanks to this interview with Coil in 1986 with AbrAhAdAbrA - issue #10, the album title and quote were a product of a dream Coil member John Balance (R.I.P.) had.

Now about that album cover seeming “wrong”, my intuition was right all along. Having just discovered the near 25 year old article in the link above only a day ago, Coil had written this about the album cover (relevant excerpt used):

The front seems innocent. It’s again distorted and is Hyde Park - and a bandstand that was rebuilt after being blown up by the IRA - along with the band! Around the same time the IRA also bombed the horseguards along with their horses. We believe that this minor catastrophy has a meaning and a significance that is more than it appears. It is a portrait. The first manifestations of the explosive power of the ‘Horse Rotorvator’. There were great ariel view photographs of dead horses and blood all over the Royal pavements and roads - the horses that survived became heroes! - while everyone forgot the men.

In a later interview with Coil in 1990, Peter Christopherson confirmed that the inspiration for the photograph (taken by John Balance, according to the Horse Rotorvator CD) was a bombing that had occurred at this location.  Doing some research, there is a wiki page (I know, I know) on the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings from July 20th, 1982, nail bombs set up by the IRA.

While the phrase “the horses that survived became heroes! - while everyone forgot the men” may be an exaggeration, there is truth to the memory of one of the poor horses named Sefton who had survived the Hyde Park blast, despite serious injuries.

Out of curiosity, I wondered if the pavilion pictured on Horse Rotorvator still exists. Thanks to Google Maps, I looked for Hyde Park and Kensington in London, and found this snapshot of Hyde Park with an overhead view of something that looks mighty suspicious, if you note the dark nipple on the left side:

The road to the nipple’s right (south) is called Serpentine Road.

IT’S JUST A COINCIDENCE!

Horse Rotorvator was a game changing album in relation to what Industrial “meant.” Loud drum machines and gargling evil vocal deliveries weren’t necessary. There are quiet moments on the album, such as “Ostia”, “Who By Fire” (a cover of Leonard Cohen), and “First Five Minutes After Death” that complement the more weird and chaotic tracks like “The Anal Staircase”, “Penetralia”, and “Circles Of Mania”. Obviously, Peter Christopherson’s involvement brought along many of Throbbing Gristle’s disciplines (sorry couldn’t resist) to the table, however all three members, Peter, John, and Stephen Thrower, along with many guests, put together one of Industrial’s best albums ever made. It’s a rough, sad album recorded at a time when AIDS was already globally known, while the disease was claiming its first peak of victims. Many friends of Coil’s band members had died or were dying while they were recording the album, so the mixture of violence and calm in something more produced and akin to a horror movie soundtrack was a brave step.  Coil have released dozens of rarities since, and a few notable albums too, such as 1991’s Love’s Secret Domain. However, Horse Rotorvator is timeless.

#20 <— #19 + (Peripheral Slits video link here) —> #18

Stump’s “Chaos” (from 1988’s A Fierce Pancake)

Take Captain Beefheart worship, add highly intensely campy frontman, manage to get both Hugh Jones and Holger Hiller to produce your one and only album, and.. well, the results are strange, but highly inventive and unique.

I can’t blame anyone for not being able to deal with the front man in this video, or even his singing. You either love him or hate him, I guess.

Has there ever been a greater band from Cork, Ireland?

Flipper’s “Brainwash” (B-side to “Sex Bomb” single)

(1 2 3 4!)

Um, ok

like

s-see, there’s this

and

but a-a-and tha’…

never mind. forget it. you wouldn’t understand anyway.

(NSFW)

rRope’s “Nr 23” live at Aron’s Records in L.A., March 1996.

rRope were another great Bay Area rock band that helped expand the “weirdo rock” thing that had a spotlight in the 90’s but has somewhat been put aside.  While bands like Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (also from the Bay Area), Trumans Water (Portland via San Diego), and Polvo (Chapel Hill) had a relatively higher profile under that moniker, there were far more just as deserving who barely got the accolades they deserved. rRope are on the top of that list. One of the band mmebers has thankfully uploaded a dozen live rRope YouTube clips… This is the clearest and best one of the bunch.

Zazen Boys’ “Himitsu Girl’s Top Secret” (from 2005) is the calculus of “math rock”. Zazen Boys frontman Mukai Shutoko, used to front the equally loud but more resonant, texture Japanese indie rock group Number Girl, who could be seen as the Pixies of Japan. Shutoku’s new direction since certainly was more avant-funk for lack of a better term.  King Crimson? No Knife? Plastics?

Spare any integrals.  (Then again, the frontman did name his first band “Number Girl.”)

World Domination Enterprises’ cover of U Roy’s “Jah Jah Call You” from the band’s one and only full-lengther, Let’s Play Domination (1988) is one of the few gutteral rock covers, or just rock covers, of a reggae song that awes instead of irritates.

While World Domination Enterprises were hardly a serious rock band in regards to their covers, they respected “Jah Jah Call You” enough to give it a steady, full treatment, showcasing everything best about the band: the rusty-nails-on-a-chalkboard guitar solo, the detuned bass, the heavily reverbed drums, and the nasal vocal delivery.

“Sum Of The Parts” applies heavily here. Oh yeah, the original songs on the rest of the album are this great as well, mostly much faster.  Now if only the LL Cool J and Lipps Inc. covers were this good.

African Head Charge’s “Elastic Dance”, from 1981’s My Life In A Hole In The Ground, is On-U Sound Records’ greatest breakout moment.  If You Want Bass, You Got It!

While New Age Steppers, Singers & Players, Creation Rebel, and several other pioneers on Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label were worthy extensions of dub music, My Life In A Hole In The Ground beamed down from outer space.  I really hope Sun Ra got to listen to this record.

“Slogun” by SPK (from the “Mekano” single in 1979) is the first “noise rock” song as “noise rock” is defined today.

‘Noise vs. music’ is an age-old subjective Ear Of The Listener debate.  That said, the dawn of the 2000s put many noisy rock bands in a brighter light — notably groups like Boredoms, Lightning Bolt, Wolf Eyes, whatever John Dwyer was in at the time (The Coachwhips? Pink and Brown? Zeigenbock Kopf?), and much more.

What’s united musical artists that are called “noise” is the live experience.  The extremities of the music are too constrained into the two parallel single dimensions that an audio track provides, since no music medium is infinite in capturing high volume and most caustic timbres.  There’s a literal gut level that’s necessary to feel. And in special cases, a communal feel is a major attraction.

However, “noise rock” is a related yet different matter. The “rock” is inferred to be the rhythm or pulse that gives the noise velocity.  “Slogun” is one of the earliest examples of a noise track where the pulse is unavoidable.  One either nods nervously to the track in an adrenalin rush, or is disgusted and skips to something else entirely.

While none of the sounds resemble anything that would be classified as any darker form of metal, the roots of metal are all over “Slogun”.  All one has to do is replace the pulse with a double-kick master, and each oscillator with rapid guitar shredding.

(“Slogun” is also available on the recent CD issue of SPK’s Auto-Da-Fé)