Bogshed. Morning Sir.

"I once ran into a pillar and knocked myself stone-cold out, dancing to Bogshed."
(someone reminiscing on the web)

That sounds about right. I should hope similar tributes occurred at every Bogshed gig. They poured a boundless amount of energy into their mayhem, and listening to them is likely to inspire a similar lack of self-regard for personal safety. Rock out 'til you knock out.

Morning Sir

Unofficial website

Boghsed on myspace

Bogshed. Brutal.

I love that they were originally called The Amazing Roy North Penis Band. That they made supremely weird, herky-jerky, spazztastic, monstrous, thrash-pop should come as no surprise. Just brilliant in every way.

Brutal

Unofficial website

Bogshed on myspace

Bogshed. Tried and Tested Public Speaker.

Like Captain Beefheart suffering from St. Vitus' dance. You'll find them either terribly fantastic or fantastically terrible. And they will eat you alive.

Public Speaker

Unofficial Website

Bogshed on myspace

Bogshed. Let Them Eat Bogshed.

Bogshed thrash and stomp with all the precision and grace of an amputee ballet recital. Which is to say, actually quite well, but with a rhythm and meter that shocks you out of seeing what's underneath. There was something ingeniously imperfect about them that made them all the more exciting. The more I listen to them, and other like minded bands, the more shocked I am at how little they are remembered. Someone desperately needs to put together a box set of the "Death to Trad Rock" bands.

You can grab a live set from them here.

Eat

Unofficial Bogshed Website

Bogshed on myspace

Les Rallizes Dénudés. '77 Live.

When the end of the world comes, it will be a relief. Sister Ray prepared the way, and now Les Rallizes Dénudés have given us a glimpse of the disintegration awaiting us in the universe's sub-atomic foam, and there is nothing to fear. There is no afterlife, and no one is being punished. Creation and destruction are merely different verses of the same song.

Oh holy fuck...Guitars are slowly burning...It is the ecstasy of noise that prevails...

This is the ur-sound; the abyss and pinnacle of rock. It seems like it has been playing forever, but this is undoubtedly their finest moment. Every song on here feels like the GREATEST SONG EVER, and then you hear the next one and it's even better.

Disc one welcomes you gently, building slowly from Enter the Mirror's sparse guitar carefully filling the empty space, gradually joined by a wandering base and minimal drumming as Mizutani ratchets up the tension and squall. it's followed by their most "song-like" moment, Night of the Assassin. This song alone could power all the primordial engines at the Earth's core. Yes, they are playing the bass line from Little Peggy March's 1963 hit, I Will Follow Him. No, I don't know why. It's hypnotic in the extreme, and it will keep you sane when Mizutani rips off the veil of reality with the most painfully exhilarating guitar shriek-out ever recorded.

By disc two, you are subsumed in a massive sea of feedback; an infinity of noise and obliteration. The peace that surpasses understanding is pure annihilation. This is the holy grail of sound.

Disc 1
Disc 2

Gaze. Shake the Pounce.

The second (and final) album from the Calvin Johnson approved indie sweethearts. It's more bitter-sweet, jangly, confessional pop with a punk heart. Overall, it's a tad more melancholy than Mitsumeru, but their cover of Game Theory's Nine Lives to Rigel Five will make you happier than a kitten on the moon.

Shake

Gaze on myspace

Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons. Best Off.

Wonderfully manic, deranged, tightly-wound, minimal, cold-wave synth band that sounded like a Teutonic Siouxsie fronting Liliput covering Devo. Fantastically barking mad in all the right ways. This was out of print for a while, but I believe you can buy a copy from the band on their myspace page.

Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve dance: Happy Funeral, Liberty, The Poet (kind of bauhaus-y), Filmen, Polska Korridoren, Instrumental

Best Off

K&TPS on myspace

K&TPS official website

Wingdings. Wingdings I: Return to Earth.

Windings traverse the same sunny, intergalactic, hypnagogic, scrambled-tape recesses of space as James Ferraro and Matrix Metals. There are two more Wingdings tapes available from Outer Limits Recordings, all of which come with extensive inserts that read like Dr. Bronner's spaced out cousin explaining his theory of everything.

Return to Earth

Buy a copy

Tuscadero. The Pink Album.

Leather fits in all the right places.

Word on the intertubes is that both Sleater-Kinney and Rilo Kiley nicked Tuscadero's riffs for their own songs. I don't blame them, as this album is a candy-coated classic. It's effortless-gangly-confident-goofy-adorable fun, like sex in high-school.

Heat Lightnin' starts things off with a choppy riff, blitzkrieg drums and a exuberant "Woo!". It's instantly irresistible. Quick as a flash / The Light can ride you / Like having a motorcycle stuck inside you, which pretty aptly describes the whole album. Tuscadero catalog, celebrate and mourn all the tacky splendour and junky fun of growing up in the 70s—songs about board games, the best candies, crayola crayons, Nancy Drew books, their "beaver cleaver neighborhood", and teen idol crushes. What could so easily have come off as unbearably twee is instead non-stop, action-packed, punky pop. I'd bet the Rondelles and Shitt Hottt had Tuscadero in their record colelctions. You should, too.

P.S. This is the original Teenbeat release, not the re-recorded, slicker sounding Electra version (which I haven't heard, but by all accounts, this one is far more amateurishly fun).

Pink

Tuscadero on myspace

The Rondelles. Shined Nickels and Loose Change.

Someone should make a "New Tape Smell" unisex cologne/perfume. Wear it to your next concert and guys or gals old enough to remember would be inextricably drawn to your hazy aura of nostalgia. You'll smell like each person's best memories of youthful musical discovery. It will subliminally make them want to unwrap you. And after they sidle up to you, you can slip them this little album from shoulda-been, indie superstars, The Rondelles. They're fun incarnate. It'll totally get you laid.

Before they were even out of high school The Rondelles had an album under their belt and had toured with Sleater-Kinney and Sonic Youth. In fact, they sound a bit like S-K crossed with the Shangri-Las, with a heavy dose of garage rock fuzz organ and cheerleader choruses. This is actually a collection of their early, vinyl only singles and a handful of new songs, all of them catchier than the swine flu.

Seriously. You're gettin' some.

Shined Nickels

Rondelles on myspace

Yah Jazz. Six Lane Ends.

UPDATE: OK, I've got a new rip linked in the download. There shouldn't be any problems with it playing on "unauthorized" computers. Sorry for that. If you have any more trouble getting it to play, let me know.

Yet another lost 80's British indie band. I can't find much about them online other than who was in it and a list of their albums. They formed in 1983 in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, if that means anything to you, and are described as having a "folk oriented" sound. If you downloaded The Sound of Leamington Spa Volume 6, you heard their song "Julie and the Sea Lions". They remind me of the Apple Moths, Candy Darlings, Remember Fun, and the Ammonites, or any of the other Leamington Spa bands. Several of the songs seem to be about class issues and display a distinctly down-at-the-heels working class life. "Sharon"—about a guy turning to someone (a girlfriend? an ex?) for help, but angry at his own desperation—is guaranteed to get stuck in your head. "All of My Days" and "Stones" are pretty wonderful, too. They played on and off throughout the 80s and 90s, and later changed their name to Big Red Kite to release an album in Germany (which you can find here).

Six Lane Ends

Yeah Jazz on myspace

Shitt Hottt. Are You There God? it's Me Shitt Hottt.

Shitt Hottt are indeed just that. They are also defunctt (the extra t is for "typo"). Thankfully, before they left the stage, they put out one hell of a kick-ass, sing-along, tambourine-shaking, farsifa-organned, cowbelled, garage-rock, party record. It's like Bratmobile, Tuscadero and Sleater-Kinney got together and wrote a Sweet Valley High concept album over a few too many beers. It's sexy, sloppy, happy music to jump around your bedroom to. "Boxx Damage" and "Tony Danza Dacestravaganza" rule your school.

Are You There God

Shitt Hottt online (you can get a free ep here, too)

Shitt Hottt on myspace

The Grateful Dead & John Oswald. Grayfolded.

I feel like I need to make all sorts of excuses for posting something related to the Grateful Dead as they seem to be the one band permanently barred from hipster/music snob appreciation. I don't think you're even allowed to like them ironically. I never thought they were the greatest band on the planet, but they're not the worst, either. LiveDead is a magnificent album, American Beauty is a ramshackle gem, and other than those two I'm pretty "meh".

This, however, is a magic mushroom of a different color. John Oswald (a way early proponent of the mashup) took twenty years worth of live recordings of the Dead's signature song Dark Star, fed them into his computer, twisted, sliced, folded, and did all sorts of unnatural things to them, and spit out a two hour version that was simultaneously something created by the Dead, but unlike anything they had ever played. Guitar solos from the 60s float atop drums from the 80s. A Chorus of a hundred Garcias are layered into infinity. At other times his voice starts a line, only to stretch out a single note until it melts into the sonic tapestry. It's deep and spacey and, in places, transcendently beautiful. At various times I'm reminded of Hovercraft, Yume Bitsu, Emeralds, and any number of recent, underground, psychedelic tape releases. If you enjoy any combination of turning off your mind, relaxing, or floating downstream, it's worth a listen.

Transitive Axis
Mirror Ashes

Listen to Grayfolded online

John Oswald online

Magic Hour. Will They Turn You on or Will They Turn on You.

Leaf changing music.

After the demise of slowcore giants Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang ventured forward as the even more dreamy (and aptly named) Damon & Naomi. Unbeknownst to even most Galaxie 500 fans they also briefly joined Boston psychedelic/garage fixture Wayne Rogers (of Crystallized Movements) as the new rhythm section of his band, Magic Hour. Still as nimble and light as ever, they added depth and nuance to Wayne's neo-psychedelic style.

Perhaps taking a vacation from themselves, they don't sound anything like their more well known incarnations here. The music is densely textural, at times stately, often erupting into fiery bursts of bright, speaker frying guitar squall. The first five tracks are great, buzzing, college rockers, but the main reason to have this album is the 20 minute jam that closes things out. Passing Words twists and darts like a bottle rocket. Building up to crescendo after breathtaking crescendo, it pauses for a moment to breathe and then erupts once more into a profoundly satisfying guitar freak-out; as crisp and wondrous as the chlorophillic death throes of flame-hued trees scoffing at the winter ahead.

Turn You On

Yamamoto Seiichi & Acid Mothers Temple. Giant Psychedelia.

Yesterday, the end of two weeks of rain announced the first day of Fall: frisky breezes, cool sunlight, deepening shadows stretching away from our bodies like pulled taffy. All I wanted to do was lay in the grass with my girlfriend and feel the pink, pulsating glow of the sun through closed eyelids. It was this sort of weather—crackling with the energy of possibilities—that, back in high school, always had me throwing open my windows and blissing out to Wish You Were Here; the music and cold air raising goose pimples on my skin.

This album would be suitable for either activity. Hooking up with former Boredoms (and Rovo, and Omoide Hatoba) guitarist, Yamamoto Seiichi, the Acids leave (most) of their usual frenetic scribbling behind and aim instead for pure, gorgeous, stardust, hippie nirvana. And god damn do they hit it. Kawabata and Yamamoto meld the acid drenched DNA of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Dark Star, and their own Pink Lady Lemonade into spiraling, mutating, transcendent comet tails of sound, forever rising into the stratosphere, pushed upwards on gusts of nimble fretboard runs—the necks of their guitars veritable stairways to the heavens.


Disc 1
Disc 2