Friday, April 11, 2008
Decoy X
Kitty Cat Spy Club / Teenagers Decoy X EP (Radio Trash, 1996)
While "South City USA!" was getting all the garage spotlight in the early-to-mid 90s Bay Area scene, there was apparently something brewing down south a ways, just past the San Mateo county seat of Redwood City. Little city called Palo Alto. One high school band called the Electrocutes, who also previously went by the name Ragady Anne. Got an EP out on this same Radio Trash label. They turned into the Donnas once the South City Talent Agency got ahold of them.
And, apparently, there were these two outfits running loose as well. Listening to them now you pick up a definite riot grrl-type sound running through their songs, I'm thinking early Frumpies. You know, that sort of basic surf or garage-influenced rock take with the "riot" aspect primarily in the vocals. But, in kinship with their zip codes mates the Ragady-Electro-Donnas, there wasn't a whole lotta boy-smashery or incest revelry in the lyrical dept; just a celebration of unwholesome teenage suburban degeneracy, party-time stylee!
There some some debate over how many of these things Radio Trash made, I heard either 200 or 300 as the likely pressing size. In any case, pick it up if it ever crosses your path, there's two tracks we left off that should sweeten the deal. And in response to any requests to post that Ragady Anne 45, eh, they're on Myspace, go on... -Ryan W.
Kitty Cat Spy Club - The Searcher
Kitty Cat Spy Club - See Ya Later Alligator
Teenagers - The Teenagers (Theme Song)
Teenagers - Kids from Rosendale High
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Stupid Fuckin' Hippie - River
Stupid Fuckin' Hippie River 45 (Eardrop, 1993)
Call me a stupid fuckin' asshole, but the '90s were not kind to the Stooges. Yeah, sure, that was the decade in which the band finally were universally recognized as God like. And it was in the 90s that the Funhouse box set came out. But, it was also the decade of the most Stooge Clone Bands Ever! T'was hard not to swing a dick without hitting a Junior Iggy. Every ass with some sass wanted to be Ron Ashton. And the result was hundreds of shitty Stooge-oid records. BUT there were some exceptions. This single by Columbus's Stupid Fuckin' Hippie is one of them. SFH hits everything you need to hit to pull of the Stooge influence. They have a rippin' guitarist, the vocalist lets in just enough Ig to flavor the song but not too much, and they write a song which, while it owes something to the Stooges, belongs to them. Great stuff here.
River
Monday, February 11, 2008
TheTonebenders
The Tonebenders s/t 7" (Hit Records Label, 1995)
This little zero-rep 7" made it's way into my trembling mitts courtesy the platinum pen of Mr. Mike Lucas, the widely-acknowledged Bay Area-based sexpert on the subject of what makes a great garage record "tick", regardless of decade of origin. I got an article together back in 2000 for Maximum Rock 'n Roll whose putative purpose was to rattle off all of the best 7" of the 1990's (this was waaay pre-blog mania folks), and Dr. Dante was one of those invited to hold forth. One of his picks was this obscuro, whose mere existence had previously flown completely under my sticky radar up to that point. Couldn't have that. COULDN'T HAVE THAT. So, I started lookin' and lookin' and it took a good year of internet searching to dig up a copy, and one listen to that wall of pickled cardboard fuzz on "Root Beer" makes me realize that, yup, Dr. Lucas knows what ails ya. My personal cure was a one-off 7" by this bunch of clammy Swedish boffs.
The Tonebenders, it turns out, were not really "a band" within the filthy confines of plays-shows-and-actually-exists-as-a-band. They played one show, their recording career barely spanned a single afternoon, and then they moved on. The brief paragraph detailing the full scope of their rise and fall can be found over at the Xotic Mind/Subliminal Sounds website. Just scroll about 2/3 of the way down.
Thanks again, Lucas. You, uh, suck. Right. -Ryan W.
Root Beer
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Decibels - s/t
The Decibels s/t EP (G.I, 1997)
Note perfect power pop from a note perfect band. The Decibels were Dean Seavers' late 90s power pop vehicle and a perfect follow up to his just-as-good prior venture, The E-Types. The few times I saw the Decibels, I thought they were a tad too clean. But I was trapped in the bowels of lo-fi and didn't really get it. The Decibels were all about clean, from their tidy image to the choice of songs to cover. I mean, who but the neatest of the neat cops tunes from the Association? While I might have been blind to these guys, others weren't. Screamin' Apple out of Germany released a fine LP and I believe they even made it over to Europe and Japan a couple times. Great record, get it while it is still easy to find. Here are three of four. --Scott S.
Radio
Jackie
Windy
Friday, January 04, 2008
Rust - Full of Counterfeits
Rust Full of Counterfeits EP (Real Deal Records, 1999)
Here's another one of those frustratingly elusive late 90s Japanese pop-punk-waveish 45s that barely ventured beyond the shores of the rising sun. I found this copy in the only apparent venue for distribution this thing had in the USA: a Bay Area bargain bin. Anyway, the track here, Shameless Thieves, is a savory slice of Tweezers/late-period Registrators rock 'n roll, off of a 3-song EP by these gents Rust. The other two songs are perhaps a notch below this, so I stuck with the A-grade material.
My ability to rap about Rust's pre- and post-Counterfeits projects is as limited as my knowledge of kanji. Nada. Tuff. -Ryan W.
Shameless Thieves
Thursday, December 20, 2007
3 Stoned Men - s/t
3 Stoned Men s/t EP (Bag of Hammers, 1993)
It really would have been a crime if the 90s best punk label didn't release at least one David Nudelman record. There are so many Nudelman projects and a lot of them are really damn good so one was bound to land there. And when I say "so many" I mean a lot. As with Seattle's Rob Vasquez, Nudelman was everywhere in San Francisco of the 90s. And as with Rob Vasquez, we could easily make this seem like a "Nudelman Appreciation Society" blog (we've done one of his bands already). Was talking to famous KDVS dejay Rick Ele yesterday and commented that someone could probably do a whole show dedicated to David Nudelmen projects. So what's the fuss about Nudelman? Well, his stuff is pretty much straight ahead rock & roll, right out of the garage, with no airs or image or hype. It's a little off, but naturally so. And it has good reference points. So, you get three out of four songs off this EP. The whole thing is good rock & roll with a sense of humor. And just so I don't get accused of forgetting the rest of the band: Mike Buzzo played drums and John Blackwell, who co-wrote most of the songs and totally wrote the excellent "Lisa", played bass and far out harmonica. Check it out. (PS: Anyone know if there is any relation between David Nudelman and Todd Nudelman of the In Out?) --Scott S.
Smokin' Pot for God
Don't Clinton the Hit
Lisa
Snap, Crackle, Pop!
Friday, December 07, 2007
Come to Blackjack Country/Bulb
Come to Blackjack Country/Bulb EP (Bulb/Blackjack, 1995)
A perfectly bizarre twin billing 'promotional for sale' EP put out by the two labels that most perfectly continued the weltanschauung of ESP Disc into the 90s; the Blackjack label of California and the Bulb label of Massachusetts. Each label contributes a track from 7 artists on each side, ranging from the "punkier" clangor of Harry Pussy, Sternklang and the Whales (see tracks below) to the ephemeral and occasionally wince-worthy Shriek, Lids and Doodle Dandies, amongst others. I would've included the Lake of Dracula track from the Bulb side, but they only get around to abusing their instruments in the last 10 seconds or so of their track and bandwidth = thousands of dead bunnies so no go. Listening to the whole of both sides is akin to catching a head cold, beating it with a sigh of relief, then having it come back to sandbag you right before the weekend, so you dose on radical head drainers to compete with the viral load. You're left slap happy, feverish, clammy, mobile and slightly sticky, that's the total package on this.
All the tracks on this thing are exclusive to this discus, so you'll have to really wanna dig to get the rest off a copy of the original crap vinyl pressing. Ahhh, they aren't that hard to find, any old hole in NYC or Chico should have one in the bargain bin. We're still waiting for a full court press resurgence in interest in these two labels, someone get started on a noise/rock book that covers the 90s before someone enshrines the likes of Unwound as some sort of gold standard. -Ryan W.
Whales - ????
Harry Pussy - Orphans
Sternklang - Frozen Ice
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Twerps - Amnesia
The Twerps Amnesia EP (Great Skott!, 1993)
The opening drum beat of the Twerps' "Don't Beat Me Up" might sound fey and inept, like a bunch of pale, skinny nerds feckless playing poppy, no-fi, Ramones riffs, but ain't that the point? I spent plenty of evenings in the 90s, watching bands like the Twerps, the Bananas, and the Four Eyes slop out a crowd of eager teen geeks. I don't think any of this stuff ever got lumped into a subgenre or movement or anything like that but I do know that the Secret Center label was home to many of these bands, most of whom appeared on one of many of SC's great cassette comps. I am pretty sure the Twerps, from relatively near by Santa Rosa, appeared on at least one SC comp. I am also sure that I saw them once, but I am not sure if it was in a basement, at the Loft, or in some library near San Jose. Whatever the place, I do remember that they sounded pretty much like this record. No frills, straight, to the point, teen punk rock. -Scott S.
Don't Beat Me Up
Sideways (aka The Kazoo Song)
Amnesia
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Cheater Slicks - Walk Up The Street
Cheater Slicks Walk Up The Street 45 (In The Red, 1994)
Has there ever been a garage-level punk band within living memory to have as much praise heaped upon them as the Cheater Slicks without a commensurate level of scene hysteria? The 'Slicks have put out at least a dozen great-to-greater records, all of them as solidly-of-the-moment and yet instantly classic sounding as your average Dead Moon record, say, and yet there is no tumescent joy upon the imminent release of yet another opus except among a select rabid cognoscenti of jerks, butthairs, longshanks and cock sniffers. Hopefully, you are already among this host, if not, I hope these two tracks off one of their numerous 90s 45s can degrade you into becoming a believer. They simultaneously pummel and offer a salute to their hometown heroes the Modern Lovers on the A-side, the flip finds them in a grouchy grunge slouch that kinda sounds like they were auditioning to open for a 90s-feedback-era Neil Young.
So this 45 is on In The Red Records, plucked from the midst of that label's mid-decade classic run of 45s (they are supposedly working on a wunnerful, wunnerful singles comp, so consider this a Big Teaser) and it's not that hard to track down, but its asskick factor should make it one of the 45s from this era that you just gotta own. Or be owned. And, their last LP was as good as any record they've yet released. -Ryan W.
Walk Up the Street
Wedding Song
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Schwermut Forest - Nischenoperation
Schwermut Forest Nischenoperation 45 (Kollaps, 1994)
Got this gem in a batch of records that I bought off a guy I know. Had no idea what it was before hand, but the stack that I was looking at had enough known winners to take a chance on the others...and I am gand I did.
Schwermut Forest has journeyed from skewed eyed indie rock to post-rock, all the while tossing off bits like Nischenoperation, a great tune which reaches back to Rough Trade's post punk slurge and further back to krautrock classism. It is also not too difficult to find.
Nischenoperation
