Some lovely stuff here, particularly the gorgeous Bedflowers who sound like Opal if Amelia Fletcher had joined up after Kendra Smith left. Also, is it just me or does Bulldozer Crash's Changing sound a whole heck of a lot like Just Like Heaven?
Side A
1. Des Garçons Ordinaires - Summer Games 2. Bulldozer Crash - Changing 3. The Spinning Wheels - Don't Get Me Wrong 4. Meek - Beautiful Day 5. The Straw Dogs - My Cherished Lonelyness 6. La Sintesis - September 7. The Bedflowers - My Ex-Lover's Adress 8. Antiseptic Beauty - Shoegaze 9. Les Daffodils - So Easy As You Lie 10. Flame Up - Let The World Smother You 11. Charming Boys - Rain
Side B
1. The Little Rabbits - The Boy Who Never Saw The Light (live) 2. Penelope Trip - Inside The Taxi 3. The Gravy Train - Happy Again 4. Les Chaplinn's - Sunny Day 5. The Prayers - Sister Goodbye 6. The Lovelies - Stupid Habit 7. Kaleidoscope - Dream 2 8. Koma Kino - Weaky Town 9. The Penelopes - A Place Called Home 10. Alival Tiosihteeri - Nasta Kaupunki 11. Mosaic Eyes - Klaus' Eyes 12. Die Time Twisters, Verdammt! - Denn Jetzt Bist Du Da
These songs are like snapshots; the wet, chemical alchemy of real-life emotions frozen and blurred, crystalized and captured in velvet-grained silver gelatin. That's not a knock. Good pop distills the messy ambiguity of life and rearranges it into perfectly balanced nuggets of time and sound, allowing us to romanticize our pain, or even see it as heroic. (Those old vinyl 45s are legendarily fetishistic, and by their very nature as self-contained physical objects allow us to externalize, manipulate, and catalog our emotions from a safe distance. It's not for nothing that these sleeves all feature the detached, isolated, context-free iconography of romantic cinema. Starlets looking as cool, cold and untouchable as actual stars, and yet here you are turning them over in your hands.)
My experience with so much of C-86 is about what it's like to feel a feeling instead of being the direct embodiment of feeling itself, which is why so much of it evokes things safe and wistful. It's instant nostalgia (I miss the comfort of being sad, indeed) ionically charged with the symbolism of things acutely felt, existing in the infra-thin moment between loss and possibility.
That tart crispness becomes a roundabout way of eroticizing isolation—the tingling sensation of being wrapped in a warm sweater on a cold day and getting goosebumps anyway. While rock and roll of the past aimed directly at the groin (and what it might be doing in the vicinity of someone else's), C-86 is a generation or more removed from the 60's pop it reveres and acknowledges that temporal distance by underpinning the physical and emotional distance between the singer and subject, and between the song and its listener. To make up for the carnal absence it prefers to idealize loss itself the same way it idealizes the white pop and girl group sounds of the 60's. Everything is perfect in memory. Your skin can feel just as electric as your ears when being touched by invisible waves.
I think this is why the majority of C-86 and twee bands of the 80's existed primarily on singles. The songs on albums have to relate to each other, but singles come to you as individuals. You can have private relationships with them. They're meant to be handled. Singles are flirts, constantly demanding your attention to flip them on your record player, or pore over their enigmatic sleeves. Albums belong to the world, but singles are yours, no matter how many other people have one.
But, whatevs. The James Dean Driving Experience are actually pretty upbeat (and as evidenced by their name, a bit cheeky), but mostly dreamy. It's perfectly realized jangle-pop in the vein of the Sea Urchins, Remember Fun, or Hey Paulette. The download includes the singles and eps for World Weary & Wise, Lonely Hearts XI Versus The Rest Of The World, Dean's Eleventh Dream, Clearlake Revisited, and Sean Connery.
Finally, an album that won’t make you want to have sex with your mother!
Tired of music that does nothing but feed your unholy Oedipal desires? Weary of bands whose idea of a MILF is waaay too narrow? Who isn’t? Let’s face it, popular music today is a minefield of pants-tightening paeans to the insatiable itch to put the “mother” in “motherfucker”. Gaga’s miming it on stage, fifteen years ago the Dave Matthews Band devoted a double concept album to it, and back in the 80’s you couldn’t get Phil Collins to shut up about it.
Well, worry no more! The 14 Iced Bears special blend of jangle-pop and psychedelic-punk is 100% guaranteed to take your mind off boning the baby cannon that brung you into this world, or your money back.
This ridiculously hard to find compilation was originally issued by Swedish pop fanzine Grimsby Fishmarket (I think in 1991). The Orchids track was an exclusive to the tape and never appeared anywhere else. Quite a few bands I'd never heard before, too.
1. Eusebio - Louis Philippe 2. Song About Girls - Bummer Twins 3. Walking Back To You - The Cherry Orchard 4. This Friendship Of Ours - This Perfect Day 5. Chick House - Roof 6. Barriers Of Mine - Are You Mr Riley 7. Silent Sigh City - Happydeadmen 8. Shaunty - Joe Clack 9. She Fakes Apples - My Finest Hour 10. I Fell In Love Last Night - Cerise 11. Kymri - The Apple Moths 12. Jennifer Anywhere - The Kitchen Cynics 13. Room - Bridge 14. Turn Over - Momus 15. Into The Morgue - Mary-Go-Round 16. Next Summer - Brighter 17. New World - Venus Peter 18. Chelsea Guitar - Blueboy 19. Not Unusual - BJ Eagle 20. The Light That Will Cease To Fail - Stereolab 21. High Rise - The Cherry Orchard 22. Windmills And Milestones - Bummer Twins 23. Wood Dust - Joe Clack 24. Ralph De Bricassart - Happydeadmen 25. Time Will Pass - The Rileys 26. And When I Wake Up - The Orchids 27. Birds Of Prey - Marble Hammock
The first couple of times I listened to this, I was sure some part of it had been recorded on the wrong speed. The vocals are so damnably cute and coy—a winking come-on from a couple of Ronettes obsessed teenage garage punks hiding switchblades in the pockets of their leather jackets. But now it all falls together. All the great 60's girl-group pop was about love and obsession, so it makes sense that Schatzi and Hazeltine have built their own musical shrine to the sultry sound of tuff-girls and the menacing vulnerability of teen love. You can feel the sway of her hips in the swagger of her voice. They're lipstick killers—gang debs demanding kisses in exchange for the pleasure of their songs.
The hand-made, low-budget wall of sound is exceptionally well crafted and layered, much more so than you'd expect for a couple of songs that were probably dreamed up and tossed off in one exuberant afternoon. It's a total blast. Plus hand-claps! Glockenspiel! That moist, swollen-lipped, tiger-kitteny growl they stole from Ronnie Specter for the "oh-oh bay-a-buh's"! Crush worthy.
A little companion piece to yesterday’s demos. Here’s the Housemartins opening the main stage on the last day of the 1986 Glastonbury Festival. That year also came with The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, The Pogues, Madness, The Brilliant Corners, Nightingales, The June Brides, Robyn Hitchcock, The Go-Betweens, and Half Man Half Biscuit, among others. If only time travel were possible.
A very early demo tape from everyone’s favourite purposefully dorky, sincerely sarcastic, Christian Marxists. Also includes some tracks from a BBC session.
1. All Men Are The Same 2. When Will I Be Released 3. Skatsburg 4. Swansea 5. Singapore 6. It's History 7. Time Spent Thinking 8. The Day I Called It A Day 9. Taxi to Singapore 10. Caravan Of Love (live) 11. He Ain't Heavy (live) 12. Heaven Help Us All (live)
I quite often describe bands as being the equivalent of some hypothetical cross-breeding of their influences. It’s rarely true and can unfairly diminish the singularly unique elements they’ve created. So without discounting the fact that Elf Power really are something wholly more and better than the sum of their antecedents, I think it’s fairly possible to draw an accurate, if inverted, phylogenetic map of their sound.
Really, it’s only because of how secure they are in their own identity that they can be so successful when revisiting the songs of their heroes. It’s why Nothing’s Going to Happen1 is one of their best albums, and possibly the best representation of what they do, despite being made up entirely of covers. The Flaming Lips, Brian Eno, R.E.M., T. Rex, Wire, Sonic Youth, Jesus and Mary Chain, Roky Erickson, Robyn Hitchcock, The Buzzcocks, The Byrds, Hüsker Dü, and The Misfits all find some expression in Elf Power’s perfectly balanced mixture. Maybe it’s because their own songs—filtered and soaked in so many different elements—can function like a simultaneous mixtape that it’s so easy to like the band. They’re clueing you in to where they’ve come from and what they’ve loved along the way like your older sister sending you back all the cool bands she discovered in college.
This album was only available at their Back to the Web tour, and collects pretty much everything they’d done that never made it onto an album, or was only available as part of some other compilation you didn’t have. As an obsessive collector, I have to commend and thank them for really doing this type of album right. I want it all, and they’ve put it on here. Demos, more covers, a few live tracks, a remix, and a number of songs that just never saw the light of day. And they’re all really, really good. Historical Ant Wars rules. Back to the Web was a bit of a return to their old sound after a few albums that had found them stepping away from their early dive-bombing buzz, but Treasures From the Trash Heap is an even better encapsulation of the early days (although it covers every period). Like R.E.M.’s similar Dead Letter Office, it’s like getting to rummage around in your favorite band’s junk drawer. Without the pressure to create a coherent album, everything just reverts to being its own weird type of fun.
1. Temporary Arm (country version) 2. Face in the Sand (demo) 3. Feel a Whole Lot Better (Byrds cover) 4. Dandy in the Underworld (T.Rex cover) 5. Another Face (demo) 6. Hole in My Shoe (demo) 7. All the Same 8. Rise High Giant Fly 9. Historical Ant Wars 10. Empty Pictures (demo) 11. Princess Knows (Olivia Tremor Control cover) 12. Invisible Men (demo) 13. Dark Circles 14. Underneath the Bunker (R.E.M. cover) 15. Arrow Flies Close (live at Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto) 16. Blackbirds 17. Invisible Men (techno version) 18. Run Through the Forest 19. I Know I 20. Spiders 21. It's Not Cold 22. Reuters (Wire cover, live at Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto) 23. Honey (Spacemen 3 cover, live at the Landfill, Athens, GA) 24. The Slider (T.Rex cover)
1. Actually, A Dream In Sound and Creatures are the pinnacle of their work, but Nothing’s Going To Happen seems to hit right in the middle of what they’re usually aiming for.
Update 9/8/10: I've uploaded a new copy of the file and redirected the link. If any of you still have problems with it, let me know. Other than a skeletal entry on Tweenet, there's not a lot of information about these guys to be found. I'm pretty sure they were from Bristol, and a several of their singles were released by Tea Time Records, a label they started with one of my favorite lost bands, Mousefolk. Like a lot of 80s indie groups, they seemed to exist mostly on compilations, appearing on at least fifteen different tapes (including Airspace II, Are You Ready?, Corrupt Postman, and Something's Burning In Paradise). They have a 60's garage pop sound that can fall anywhere between the Kinksian Mrs. Jones to the walloping Call Me Anything. Groovy Little Town was probably their biggest "hit", and like most of their tunes it's a total earworm.
I love that they haven't even bothered to even change their set dressing between these two videos (probably couldn't afford to). Girl, I Want You Back
3. Postman's Knock Recorded at the Portland Arms, November 1978. Left off Live at the Portland Arms album.
4. Look Into Your Mirror Companion Piece to Of a Walnut, which eventually surfaced on 1976-81. Session recorded in 1977 in Robyn's living room.
5. Smoothie Underwater Moonlight outtake.
6. Innocent Boy Possible outtake from aborted 1978 Radar album.
7. The Man Who Invented Himself Different mix from original test pressing of Black Snake Diamond Role.
8. Nightride to Trinidad 9. Kingdom of Love Disco remixes by Steve Hillage.
10. Listening to the Higsons Portastudio recording from 1982. Drum machine programming by Vince Ely of the Psychedelic Furs. B-Side to Eaten By Her Own Dinner 7".
11. Dr. Sticky B-Side to Eaten By Her Own Dinner 7".
12. Surgery Fegmania era outtake.
13. Calvary Cross Live on 1986 US tour.
14. Legalized Murder Globe of Frogs outtake.
15. Ruling Class Queen Elvis outtake. Peter Buck on guitar.
16. More Than This 17. The Ghost In You 18. Birdshead Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop, July 1988.
19. Fairplay 20. Linden Arden Stole the Highlights Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop, May 1991.
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