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.
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.
