R.I.P.

yep, it's dead. sorry to get your hopes up there.

(hey, discodeath/no one here is asking guy, is your blog still around? nothing loads except the blogger toolbar when i try to look at it.)

the terminals/scorched earth policy/victor dimisich band

i wrote a really nice, long, boring post about the terminals. then opera crashed and took my post with it, so you get this inane rambling crap. please, please don't tell me to use firefox - it shuts my monitor off and i have to restart my pc. i have no idea why.

alright. music.

the victor dimisich band were a new zealand post-punk band at the dawn of the 80s. they recorded a 12" in 1982 and a couple of posthumous documents were released. their sound was a bit gloomy but unique, perhaps comparable to the pin group with strummy guitar and the howling baritone of stephen cogle. cogle shared songwriting duties with peter stapleton, and that would continue later in the terminals. some of the songs they wrote during this period wound up being recorded by the cogle-less scorched earth policy. "native waiter" is from the 12".

SEP followed the dimisich band and lasted from '82-'86. stapleton and mary heney from continued on from VDB but the most important new element was brian crook... brian crook's guitar playing sounds like the result of a thirty day wander through a desert. it's psychedelic in the way that alchol poisoning and sunstroke are. i don't even think they have desert in new zealand, but if they do - even 10 square feet - i'd wager crook has toured it extensively, and frequently on hands and knees. the scorched earth policy wasn't quite as obvious as the name - a baked, churning mixture of punk rock, 60s garage and psychedelia and a tinge of country. the lyrics began taking a turn from the arty to the bad trip and horror movie side of things. male/female vocals and some of the most excellently raw production in my memory gave the music a sound that is somehow 1960s, somehow timeless. not "paisley revival" bullshit, this, but an atavistic rebirth, a slavering and weird new thing from old roots. "the cult" and "since the accident" are from the fucking essential compilation of their cassette and vinyl releases keep away from the wires.

the terminals picked up where scorched earth policy left off, though their first album really leaves a lot to be desired. it was on their second, touch that they matured the SEP sound but added stephen cogle's strummy velvet underground/post-punk sensibility back into the mix. the sound varied wildly, with organ and synthesizers played by mick elborado (also of SEP) burbling and twittering, and crook's fried guitar noises needling through the holes in cogle's rhythms. "black creek" is the 7" version, far superior to the version on their mannered third LP and going down heavy like a mouth full of roofing tar. "basket case" is the first song from touch and somehow manageds to mix pounding riffs and analog synth warbles without sounding anything like hawkwind. or anything else, really.

since the breakup of the terminals, brian crook has gone on to the renderers (country-rock with occasional acid paranoia) and a couple of solo discs, peter stapleton is in a variety of free/improv projects (flies inside the sun most prominently, also featuring crook) and runs the great metonymic and medication labels with his wife kim pieters and some other members were in a group called "the minus 2" for a while. but you know, WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

victor dimisich band - native waiter

scorched earth policy - since the accident
scorched earth policy - the cult

the terminals - black creek
the terminals - basket case

slaughter (canada)/virulence

(if i need to point out that this band bears absolutely no relation to the sensitive hair metal band from the late 80s... you're beyond my help. go away.)

getting back into the swing of things here, so i'm not going to say much. slaughter got together in 1984 (no doubt heavily influenced by metallica, venom, slayer, motorhead, etc) and released their strappado album in 1986. it was heavily tape-traded at the time and most likely influenced quite a few thrash/death bands. essential if you want to delve into the obscure history of 80s underground metal.

but the tracks i'm posting today are from the surrender or die demo from 1985 (later released on cd by utopian vision music), which shares alot of material with the later lp but is raw, crude and almost hardcore in its simplicity and energy. how can you not want to hug a band with lyrics like "in suits they were dressed as the button was pressed/they fed upon semen - the government's a demon!"

so here are the first two tracks as one file (as god intended):

slaughter - disintegrator/incinerator



special bonus! i picked up this virulence album a while back on the strength of the cover and song titles. come to find out (as they say in the south) that it's got some dudes from fu manchu in it. but instead of skateboarding and boogie vans, this is all depression/self-loathing fodder created by possibly the only band to enjoy both black flag's in my head and the first couple of saint vitus albums (though not enough of the latter). second string all the way, but what the hell.

virulence - blank stare

new stuff coming soon

really. i've just been enoying this abscessed tooth and swollen, aching jaw too much to post.

thank you god, for percocet. or maybe i should say THANK YOU PERCOCET, MY NEW GOD, JUST FOR BEING YOU.

speed

speed were bruce "bruce bruce" dickinson's band before samson and well before iron maiden. their sound is pretty garage-metal with what sounds like a pink fairies and 1960s influence to the fore. the organ - particularly on "man in the street" - is straight out of "nuggets." all of the info i could find is here, but who needs info when you got rock? (excuse, please, the rough sound quality and confusingly labeled mp3s.)

side a - man in the street
side b - down the road

venom "senile decay"

i'm not sure where exactly this song originates from, though i know it was compiled on from hell to the unknown (but not the 'expanded' version from heaven to the unknown). all i know is it's one of the more obnoxious venom songs i can think of, approaching master/repulsion territory with relentless thud.

btw, i got this mp3 on soulseek. which somehow smacks of mp3 blog poseurdom.

venom - senile decay

sorry for the week off, things have been weird. i'm thinking of going with a theme for the next post: CRUDITY.

UK acid and heavy rock I

writing this in the haze of a long, sleepless night, so bear with me.

iron claw - claustrophobia (from dismorphophobia collection, 1970-72)

i know basically fuck all about this band. all i really know is that this band was scottish. maybe. and these recordings were also released under the name 'antrobus' on a split cd with the flying hat band. acid rock (or as the label would have it "downer rock") in the vein of frijid pink, clear blue sky, budgie, etc. production's a little tinny but the 'eavy comes through.


bulldog breed - i flew
bulldog breed - reborn (both from made in england 1968)

i flew but angels burned before me
and amber stallions
i flew but altitude was sliding
like black medallions

sort of a mix of mod, freakbeat and psych sounds, unique to my ears. they did make the odd cringeworthy track like "eileen's haberdashery store," but here are the two hardest tracks on the album. "i flew" - a sneering anti-vietnam number complete with war noises - and "reborn." members of this band went on to form the mighty T2. i'll probably post something about them in the future.


janus - i wanna scream (from janus 1972)

well look at me with my long long hair
everybody complains to me but i don't care

english band whose album was only released in germany, for some reason. it's all over the place and kind of sounds confused because of it, but this amusing and short crotch rock tune is a highlight.


third world war - working class man (from third world war 1971)

english yob rock with leftist, power-to-the-people lyrics and some seriously churned guitar playing. not to mention the 40 grit vocals of terry stamp. there's pretty much a canon of pre-sex pistols punk rock at this point, and third world war need to be added to that.



edgar broughton band - neptune (from wasa wasa 1969)

all at once from blue to black
the colour once more turning back

certain bearded, graying eminences of my acquaintance would recommend the edgar broughton band to me at the drop of a dead hair from their balded pates. they may as well have not, because the albums were impossible to find until they were remastered and reissued last year. bonus tracks galore. later albums tended towards a more beefheartian wackiness jag with more explicit riffs on society, but the debut "wasa wasa" was a slavering and weird acid-blues album, crawling wild-eyed through the swamp of psychosis black sabbath stood on the edge of.