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Year: 1985

Country: Germany

Genre: Post-Punk

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The northern German city of Bremen is small, but its legacy is built on the spirit of freedom and music. In Grimm’s fairytale, the Bremen Town Musicians never even make it to the eponymous city, but the famous crew made up of a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster still have a bronze statue in the middle of the square. Made by Gerhard Marcks in 1953, it appears on the cover of Bremen-Deutschland, a 1985 compilation from Fuego Records. A quote from the story appears on the back of the record as well: “Come along,” said the dog, “we shall find something better than death everywhere.”

Because all good things come in threes, curators Emilio Winschetti and Michael Bultman felt that this record had to be made. Bremen’s rock scene had already been compiled twice by the city’s first punk label, Heimat Records, first in 1981 on Unser Sampler and then in 1983 on Musik aus Bremen. But Winschetti and Bultman had some new ideas, new bands, and improved production values by partnering with Fuego and local newspaper Bremen Blatt. To best represent the taste of Bremen’s scenesters, the two put their record up to a vote. A warehouse event with 250 people served as the test audience for a group of 26 tracks, from which the crowd would rank them. When the final scores showed that Winschetti and Bultman’s own 13 picks matched that of the audience, they knew the project was ready.

The main difference between Bremen-Deutschland and the Heimat releases, the curators note, is that most of the bands now sing in English. But this wasn’t a new fad; in fact, they pose it as a return to form. The past few years of German pop musik were characterized by the Neue Deutsche Welle craze, where acts like Nena and Trio gained international appeal for singing in their native language (most German bands you know were probably part of that scene). But by ‘85, the wave had been exhausted: “people simply didn’t want to have to understand lyrics anymore,” and thus came the English. Of the 13 acts on this record, only two sing in German, and artists from other international scenes felt the same way about English lyrics as well.

Of all the records chronicled in this column, this one had some of the least information available on its artists. Only a few of these bands went on to release albums, and some never had another song at all. Most of the information here comes from the album’s insert, without which this research would have been near-impossible. It also has little photos of all the bands, 80s hair and all.

Content

The compilation opens with the Jayhawks, a band who had not released any music, but was the project of Benno Blittersdorf, the curator of Musik aus Bremen who had been in a few other bands as well. In addition to inspiring the comp, Blittersdorf gave them “My Mirror,” the album’s longest song. Sludgy undergrowth combines with sharp flourishes on the electric guitar and dramatic vocals, but the gothic themes never wallow to the point of apathy. A few demos and EPs would follow after, and in 2023, Spanish label Dead Wax Records would combine the Jayhawks catalog into a proper release: The Endless Mirror. Shizzo Flamingos were also part of Musik aus Bremen, but their track here, “Hangman,” is an exclusive. Dark, messy post-punk filled with blaring horns and a dizzying mix that slams your head into the music. Bremen-Deutschland doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable; its biggest strength in curation is these risks.

The Parapluies walked the line between minimalist and avant-garde with synths and saxophones. Their self-titled tape was released on the label P.A.P. (Programming Art Productions), whose sole focus was precise, technical acts like this. Although it still sounds just as fresh years later, that was all the band put out. It seems a private press 10” was made in more recent years with the original tapes, but it’s not for the general public. What we do have on vinyl is “Necessities,” a track that’s simple in composition but a journey in its vocal performance. Singer Christine Köhlen hops from disaffected monotone to passionate crooning and even growls and barks against the steady, haunting synths. And yet it’s actually one of the band’s instrumental players, who went on to be a pretty successful German character actor.

Dub City also worked with P.A.P, appearing on their cassette mix, Fabriqe Electriqe, in the same year. But the only proper releases from this project were handmade tapes that don’t exist on this internet. This is because Dub City was the brainchild of 8-track producer Finn Halle, born out of his studio of the same name where Halle would bring in musician friends to realize his concepts. The liner notes say that his arrangements “sound decidedly American,” if that has any meaning, and the song “Different Times” is a throbbing electronic groove not too far from New Order. From an engineering side, Halle recorded Kocoé’s entry on this comp, as well as some of Saâda Bonaire’s songs (they were from Bremen), and Rage Against the Machine’s track for The Crow soundtrack, of all things.

Originally from Oldenburg was Egal 88, who had been clankling around since 1982, rubbing elbows with popular NDW acts like Trio. They recorded an album in 1982 and distributed a few tapes around town, but the masters got stolen, halting their progress and almost ruining the band. Around ‘85 their original frontman disappeared (he was fine; he just got fed up with the industry and wanted to start over in a new city), and the lineup went through multiple changes. In this iteration, drummer Szy-Slo took charge of a local crew to produce “Lost in a Target,” an upbeat and poppy rock song with a driving chorus and some creative production choices on percussion; 808s and bells.

Fünf Blonde Schwestern (Five Blonde Women) were not any of the identities they claimed, nor were they of any relation to the Four Non Blondes. According to the liner notes, these two brunette friends had already released two tapes when this record came out, but Discogs only lists one. Hmmm. In 1988 they’d put out a pretty cool dance 12” on Heimat, and in they covered Kraftwerk’s “The Model” for a compilation called Bremen Under Cover, but it’s nowhere to be found.

The one cover we do have on Bremen-Deutschland is “Goldfinger,” the 1964 James Bond theme made popular by Shirley Bassey. Taking this challenge on is Der Herr Kam Über Sie (The Lord Came Upon Them), an experimental group led by Sabina Mai, who arranged and produced the track herself. She was a member of punk bands A 5 and Die Hits before this project, which included one of the curators on bass, “Mr. Claptrap” on the drums, and André Szigethy on synth, who made an amazing solo album of his own in 1983. If you were to imagine what a German version of “Goldfinger” sounds like, you’re not thinking weird enough. First there’s Mai’s blood-curdling scream to kick things off, dictating more so than singing; then there’s the unending drone of synth tones that slam like a fire alarm, a non-guitar solo that sounds like someone dropped their instrument on the ground, and the star of it all, the sound of scraping metal that overlays the entire song. It’s brilliant. Der Herr would later release a 7” of covers in 1986, including this one, the 1928 Broadway tune “Love Me Or Leave Me,” and “The Witch” by German psych group The Rattles. They did eventually come out with original songs on a pretty good album in 1990 called Enter The Center Of Lust that DOES include their Bremen Under Cover cut, a version of Modern Lovers “She Cracked.”

Less Funny Beduins had just released their first EP when Bremen-Deutschland came out, a 12” 45 with sides for Im Sommer (in summer) and Im Keller (in the basement.) “Es Könnte Viel Bedeuten (It could mean a lot…),” is one of the few songs in German, and opens the second side of the compilation. It’s cleary from the basement. Funky industrial is the best way to describe their sound, with unexpected percussion provided by glass bottles and cartoon “boings.” In 2017, the reissue label Phonomenal Schallplatten would put out a small run of their best works on vinyl, which was exciting because aside from Im Sommer, they mostly worked on tape.

Gerechtigkeits Liga (Justice League) had the biggest career of any of the artists featured on this compilation, and already collaborated with SPK and performed in the US by the time this record came out. An industrial noise project with an extensive live catalog. The group worked with cassettes, vinyl, and VHS to produce multimedia performance art. “Media Distortion - The End And The Evolution” is the result of two tracks combined, both of which would appear in full on their album Hypnotischer Existenzialismus the same year. They’re both abstract sound collages, the latter featuring dub, church bells, and sampled speech.

And then theres the odds and ends. Although the liner notes paint Software Excess as a popular act with a bright future, they never released another song. “Utopian” is more of the wallowing type, but crawls its way out of the muck to explode on each chorus. Kocoé and Zeno Synthesizer never made music again either. The former were cousins with a boss nova-tinged piano ballad called “Read My Lips,” while the latter was a comedic synth-based solo project, harshly lo-fi and heavily filtered on album closer “Brötchen (Bread Roll).” And positioned as the exact opposite of Zeno Synthesizer’s minimal slant was Tox Movement, yet they still ended up playing shows together. The liner notes state that Tox Movement is a band where “instruments are tortured, not played, and when lighters and gasoline are also involved, things get dicey.” Their song “Hit The Beat” is the exact sort of squeaking gothic romp that they sound like they’d make. Their only tape, Instructions, is practically absent from the internet. I’m sure none of these acts expected some random American girl would still be writing about them years later, but that goes to show the longevity of physical media.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 3/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 16/20

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Year: 1985

Country: New Zealand

Genre: Indie Rock

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The tuatara is a species of reptile that is native to New Zealand. Outwardly, they resemble lizards, but they descended from the Rhynchocephali, an ancient order of which they are the only members left. In the Māori language, tuatara means “peaks on the back,” which are more pronounced in the males of the species. Other features include a second row of upper teeth and a third “eye” that can detect light. They have more than twice the amount of DNA base pairs as humans and can live for over one hundred years. The tuatara has been protected by NZ law since 1895 due to their endangered status, with populations only residing on offshore islands. In Māori legend, tuatara are the messengers of Whiro, the god of death and disaster.

Here’s a bad joke that an Aussie friend told me:

“Who owns all those reptiles down in New Zealand?”

“I don’t know, but two are Tara’s.”

Tuatara is also the name of a 1985 Flying Nun compilation, which I was able to nab at the WFMU record fair for a cool $40. It’s more than I typically would pay, but for a fan of DIY music scenes, this is an essential artifact. Flying Nun is one of the best-documented small labels to ever exist, to the point that this article only provides a cursory glance at the Dunedin Sound’s legacy, and a whole lot of die-hard fans are going to tell me about the things I got wrong in my research, but it can’t hurt to try.

Founded in 1981 by Roger Shepherd, the label was originally intended to release 7”s in support the music scene of Christchurch, New Zealand, but its trajectory was changed by the scene brewing up in the southern city of Dunedin. 1982’s Dunedin Double was a unique 2×12” featuring four acts that would go on to release again with the label: The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, The Stones, and The Verlaines. Soon, the label moved into LP production, developing a strong roster of jangly, smart, and scrappy bands that would define the musical legacy of New Zealand in both cities for years to come. Their first LP compilation was a series of live recordings in 1984 called The Last Rumba, but 1985’s Tuatara would be their best-known.

From 40 years in the future, it’s easy to depict Tuatara as a mix between a label sampler and a greatest hits collection, but in 1985, Flying Nun didn’t even have a logo yet. At the time, label guru Roy Colbert claimed that there was no defining sound, but “a definite Flying Nun way of doing things. Flying Nun workers, in fact, run from conventional record company practices like mice from a cat.” His liner notes for Tuatara posit a brief history of the label and its influences, mainly that of Toy Love, who only lasted two years and for most of that time were stationed in Sydney in an attempt to make a name for themselves. The band quickly became disillusioned by the industry and couldn’t find a foothold in the mainstream music market, but their combination of raw aggression with pop-craft sensibilities left a mark on the kids back home, inspiring a “whole wave of young, exciting song-oriented bands.” When Toy Love’s Chris Knox agreed to produce a Clean EP for Flying Nun, Colbert says that the label was marked for success.

The striking cover art comes from Lesley Maclean, who went by the pseudonym Black Spot, and defined the label’s visual presence during the mid-80s. The bright primary colors and hand-drawn details are a nice contrast to the gatefold, which is filled with scanned monochrome photos of the bands. My version of Tuatara has a big ol’ notch taken out of the top right corner and comes from the only US pressing by Strange Weekend in 1986, a short-lived Kiwi label based in San Francisco. There’s some additional text on the front and back covers to denote the pressing, and the color of the band’s photos in the gatefold is red instead of brown. The weirdest difference is that the orientation of the label print is entirely wrong, making it hard to read which side of the record it is. No matter, it’s the same music.

Content

The Clean were Flying Nun’s second band to sign, but to this day, remain their most popular. More interested in singles and EPs than albums, their output was quick but fleeting. “Fish,” the opener of Tuatara, also opened their second EP, Great Sounds (the actual title is much longer), which also included hits like “Beatnik” and “Slug Song.” As a fully instrumental track, each member of the band is focused, playing with a complex, fast rhythm unlike their more loose lyrical work. In a drawing, drummer Hamish Kilgour describes it as an “Eastern-Acid inspired rave-up.” From my perspective, these are the best two and a half minutes of a jam session in its most refined state.

When the Clean split up for the first time in 1982, its members continued to work on other projects. The Great Unwashed became a psych-pop outpost for the Kilgour brothers and original Clean bassist Peter Gutteridge. “Neck Of The Woods” is a natural extension of the jangly sound they were best known for, adding in some kaleidoscopic piano flourishes. This track was first released on a double-7” wrapped in splatter-painted red plastic before switching to a more subdued paper sleeve.

Meanwhile, Clean bassist Robert Scott was working on music with his roommate Kaye Woodward and moved in with Toy Love’s Paul Kean and drummer Malcolm Grant. They formed the Bats, a rare band in that they’ve retained all four members to this day. “I Go Wild” was the opening track off their debut EP By Night, a sturdy strum of hazy memories that combines the band’s delicate nature with their strength as songwriters.

When the Clean were on the bill, it was a good chance that the Chills were there too. Martin Phillipps’ project grew out of the teachings of his musical peers and his time in punk band the Same, which also birthed members of the Stones and Verlaines. After years of experiential education, the Chills felt like a thesis statement. Their second solo single, “Pink Frost,” hit #17 on the pop charts and stuck around for 18 weeks. It’s melancholy yet catchy, and a little weirder than straightforward guitar rock, the best ilk of work that came out of NZ’s indie pockets.

The Verlaines worked with Flying Nun from the very beginning, appearing on Dunedin Double in 1982 and releasing their first solo single, “Death And The Maiden,” inspired by 60’s pop and ramshackle guitars, plus an organ interlude, faux-innocence lyrics, and a tiny speck of garage dirt to show you that these guys did it themselves. Graeme Downes pushes his voice to shine through a sullen gaze and a massive fringe of black hair. You can see it yourself in the music video, with the band playing in a pink living room and on top of a blown-up industrial building. The rest of the cast, dancing with abandon, features a who’s who of the surrounding scene, with members of the Stones, Look Blue Go Purple, and the Chills all in attendance. The group had grown up together in the local schools, went to the University of Otago (where Downes is now a Senior Lecturer), and followed the Clean to projects of their own.

The other Dunedin Double alumni who appear on this record are Sneaky Feelings, who took their name from an Elvis Costello song. They were self-proclaimed outsiders in the scene, but their resulting work had just as much influence in hindsight. “Throwing Stones” from their 1984 EP is a sparkling swirl that calls for lying on the floor and wallowing in your feelings. Even if Sneaky Feelings didn’t feel a part of the Dunedin Sound, there was a whole host of non-conformist bands on the label as well.

Jay Clarkson was a singer-songwriter with a couple of bands over the course of her career, but the one featured on Tuatara is Expendables. She had previously released a 12” EP on Flying Nun with the band They Were Expendable, but when the lineup changed, so did their name. “Man With No Desire” is the B-side of their 1984 single “The Flower,” and although slower and more introspective, Clarkson’s craft feels completely ahead of its time.

On the gothier side of things, Auckland’s Children’s Hour offer up “Looking For the Sun,” a pounding, magical pool of emotions. It’s Tuatara’s longest song, at over six minutes, and builds in tension as the vocals drop out and the chaos swells; relief comes in the form of silence. The song was the closer to their 1983 12-inch Flesh, and in 1984, they joined a Flying Nun group tour with The Chills, The Expendables, and the Doublehappys. Scene figure Doug Hood put the tour together with his agency Looney Tours, and despite none of the bands having released more than a couple of songs before heading out, it was a success. By the end of the year, Children’s Hour had decided that the band had run its course, but some of its members would soon form Headless Chickens, which went on to greater success by delivering Flying Nun’s only #1 single, “George.”

The Gordons of Christchurch never released original music with Flying Nun, but are featured as #2 on this tracklist. They were a true DIY outfit, with all of their works put out on the self-funded Gordonoid, Inc. In 1988, Flying Nun would reissue their first two releases and put out a cassette compilation with both combined. In contrast to their peers, the Gordons were dark, heavy, and loud. Audioculture.co.nz, whose archival work was essential in crafting this article, said that “sensitive souls complained of hearing loss while enthusiastic skinheads stuffed their skulls into the speaker boxes for an all-out audio assault.” Their track “Coalminer’s Song” comes from their self-titled 1981 album, with nearly 6 minutes of mournful, filtered sludge rock- the sound that would dominate avant-garde post-punks through the rest of the century.

Fetus Productions pushed post-punk freak to an even deeper, clinical level. They spun off from punk band the Features and took a more industrial, art-world approach to being a band, equally concerned with sound, visuals, and fashion.

“I was inspired by images found at various medical libraries of genetic mutations found in humans and animals and began to Photostat the images and cut them into collages,” Town has said. “I showed them a friend, Mike Brookfield, and he was inspired to create many works with fluorescent colours on canvases.” - Jed Town

The band left New Zealand in 1981, but they kept their connections to home. Their first label release was with Flying Nun in 1983, an EP called “Fetalmania” that featured the project’s most “song-oriented” work and their biggest success in the alternative sphere. This included comp track “State To Be In,” built from mechanical loops and vocal manipulation. I’m not sure the music video I found online is official, but the juxtaposition of a mundane, time-lapse cafeteria with overlaid flames seems like a Fetus Productions vibe.

Marie and the Atom were experimental as well, made up of Gill Civil, Sara Westwood, and Virginia Were, making them Flying Nun’s first all-female group. Civil was a classically trained pianist, but had already played in a few rock bands and was a member of the Big Sideways collective, a “government scheme for unemployed musicians.” When Civil needed a new creative outlet, she began street performing with strange costumes and musical elements. There she met Were, an art student who would play drums and eventually start experimenting with guitar. Westwood, an architecture fan, joined when the initial pair started exploring demolition sites, which inspired some of their future collaborations. The haunting composition “Isol” features a fretless bass, two violas, and a violin, guided by Civil’s affecting vocals. The track comes from the band’s first album, Yellow Read Aloud, which was funded by a small Arts Council grant in 1983. Knox and other Flying Nun artists had come to know Civil through her street performances, so the label offered to put out 500 copies. Civil says she never saw any profits, despite the album receiving multiple pressings. The band would release a cassette on Industrial Tapes and one other Flying Nun collaboration, this time a 12”, before losing connection.

And then there’s Tall Dwarfs. Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate’s post-Toy Love project that defies all typical conventions of the music industry in favor of raw 4-track insanity. Toy Love had ended things in 1980, and while Knox was more keen on recording new bands and working on his solo craft, he was still interested in continuing a creative partnership with Bathgate. A year later, they would re-emerge with Three Songs, an EP on Furtive that utilized toy instruments and ramshackle compositions that resembled nursery rhymes more than rock music. Some Toy Love fans were dismayed, as Knox described their new performances as “two minutes of song followed by five minutes of fucking around.” But the change-up would prove good for the duo as the project lasted for decades and garnered its own legion of devotees in the Elephant 6 movement. “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” is the opener of the 1984 EP Slugbuckethairybreathmonster, their third with Flying Nun, a hypnotic stream of consciousness delivered in a breathless run-around-the-room style (one take, so Knox claims). Inspired by the 1962 horror movie of the same name, the music video looks like a lo-fi German expressionist movie, with white face paint and practical effects abound.

So what does this record have to do with the tuatara, other than its Kiwi origins? I could make a vague comparison between the species’ longevity and the legacy of a compilation. Its endangered status is similar to that of the DIY cultures Flying Nun was brought up on. But that feels like a cop out. It’s really like if American record themed itself after the bald eagle. Animals are cool.

Other Versions

Only four years into their tenure, and 12 bands weren’t enough for Flying Nun to show off their roster. When the European CD version of Tuatara came out in 1988, it included extra tracks from Scorched Earth Policy and the Doublehappys, who are both thanked in the original liner notes, but also a song by Look Blue Go Purple, who joined the Flying Nun roster the same year that the original compilation came out. The Doublehappys track “Needles and Plastic” would end up lending its title to a retrospective book on the label in 2022.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 5/5

Final Score: 17/20

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Year: 1986

Country: U.S.

Genre: New Wave

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To prove the point that there aren’t enough GOOD pop movie soundtracks on vinyl, this is the first time I’ve reviewed one since 2023! I always check the soundtrack section when I go to the record store, and finally, Academy Annex delivered the goods. 1986’s Something Wild is a dynamic mix of new wave, synth-pop, and reggae that could only be delivered by one very unique vision. Jonathan Demme was one of the most musically literate directors of the 20th century. Of course, his direction of Stop Making Sense is more than enough to prove that fact, but there’s also his music videos with Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, New Order, etc. This is the man who heard the song “Goodbye Horses” in a taxi cab and loved it so much that it was included in two of his movies. This is the man who fell so in love with Haitian music that he produced his own compilation of it, which was a favorite of Lou Reed.

And despite the fact that Demme knew music, 1986’s Something Wild was the first time it played a major role in one of his narrative films. His first pop soundtrack for Crazy Mama was full of ‘50s classics and never had a vinyl release, but Something Wild was current and innovative. Did it have commercial value? I’m not so sure. The album only charted in Australia (peaking at 62), and The Village Voice gave it a B+ for “novelty fetishism.” At least they said it was better than the soundtrack for Top Gun.

The movie follows a New York yuppie (that’s an ‘80s word for ‘finance bro’) played by Jeff Bridges, who gets caught in the chaotic whirlwind of manic pixie Lulu, played by Melanie Griffith. And of course, they fall in love. There’s a lot of great cameos, Su Tissue, Sister Carol, John Waters, and the Feelies, who play “Fame” and “I’m A Believer” in a high school reunion scene. Sadly, those tracks don’t make it onto the album. It’s not a perfect movie, kind of disjointed and aimless in its plot, but it is a lot of fun.

The record was pressed by the supergiant MCA Records in more than eleven countries. The packaging is without thrills but very cute, with the film’s poster on the cover and some stills on the back, framing a painting by Tony Fitzpatrick. Combining cartoons of the actors, lyrics from the titular song, and lots of abstract 80s coloring, the painting is so charming it really should have been the cover!

Content

1986 was the same year that Talking Heads released True Stories, the movie/album combo that explored midwest mundanity with the same level of multi-cultural enthusiasm that Demme approached for Something Wild. He tapped David Byrne for the soundtrack in collaboration with the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz, resulting in the film opener, “Loco De Amor (Crazy For Love).” The combination of David y Celia (as they’re billed on the tracklisting) works surprisingly well due to their distinct voices. No “azucar” from Celia, but there is a good line about “pizza in the rain.” It feels like a precursor to Talking Heads’ 1988 album Naked, which also took cues from Latin rhythms for the band’s final outing. “Loco De Amor” also appeared on Byrne’s solo jaunt, Rei Momo, in 1989.

“Loco De Amor” also features interpolation of “Wild Thing” by the Troggs, the original of which does appear in the movie, but not the soundtrack. Deejay Sister Carol ties this theme up with her own cover of “Wild Thing,” which is performed live as the credits roll. As Carol was already a staple in the dancehall community, her skilled toasting shines in this re-interpretation, which even includes some country-style fiddling in its instrumentation. MCA released this track as a promotional 12” single, and later, Carol re-recorded the track with producer Glen Adams in 2020, which is just as good. Carol would go on to appear in three more Demme movies, often as herself.

Back on the T-Heads trail, Jerry Harrison serves up instrumentals on “Man With a Gun,” his first solo work since 1981’s The Red And The Black. Later in 1988, Harrison would flesh out the track on Casual Gods, with an all-star crew of collaborators such as Alex Weir, Bernie Worrell, and Chris Spedding. This version of “Man With a Gun” would appear in the critically panned film Two Moon Junction. Harrison also produced another song on this soundtrack. Two years before their radio hit “She Drives Me Crazy,” Fine Young Cannibals were making strides as their own band apart from the English Beat. They had a top 40 hit with their cover of Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds,” so their Something Wild song followed the same formula, this time with the Buzzcocks. There was a music video that featured singer Roland Gift as a projectionist screening the movie to an audience of bizarre characters. The track would also get an album release as the closer to 1988’s The Raw & The Cooked.

The great Jimmy Cliff, who recently passed, contributed his reggae expertise to “You Don’t Have To Cry,” written by producer Arthur Baker and Steve Van Zandt of the E Street Band. The trio had worked together the previous year on “Sun City,” the Artists United Against Apartheid song that Demme directed a music video for, and which you should watch for the sheer quantity of celebrity talents crammed into Washington Square Park. But the Cliff track is good, not as good as his other soundtrack work, but a solidly breezy choir song with a heaping dose of 80s production.

British reggae group UB40 were three years past “Red Red Wine,” but still releasing an album at the impressive rate of every year or so. Side note: I never realized just how large UB40 was, with eight to twelve members at any point in their career. “Zero, Zero Seven Charlie” is from their “Rat in Me Kitchen” era, and very much sounds like it, getting more experimental with electronic instruments for a real new wave sound. There are no lyrics to this song, which makes the zaniness of the instrumentals a little too clear.

Oingo Boingo makes an appearance with the song “Not My Slave,” a fairly conventional bit of Boingo that was an outtake from the Dead Man’s Party sessions. The subject matter chronicles a difficult relationship, maybe chosen to parallel the one in the movie? The track was later released on their 1987 album Boi-ngo as the third single. Founding Sex Pistol Steve Jones was at the beginning of his solo project when he wrote “With You Or Without You,” a tender pop-rock single that was properly released by MCA the next year. It’s not what you would expect from an anarchist, but Jonesy was always the most subdued of the King’s Road crew.

It’s impressive that for a pop soundtrack, only two of the ten songs had previous releases. New Order’s “Temptation” and Sonny Okosun’s “Highlife.” I feel like for my audience, “Temptation” needs no introduction. It came out five years before Something Wild, but it’s such a perfect carefree bite of synth-pop track that no wonder Demme wanted it in the film. This is, however, a shorter mix than the one most people know, clocking in at 3:28. Sonny Okosun, you might not know as much; the Nigerian guitarist and composer was releasing music since the mid 70s and grew to international acclaim in the 80s. Okosun would often tour with Jimmy Cliff and was, for some reason, the sole African artist featured on the “Sun City” track. “Highlife” was released in 1984 as a 12” single with three different versions: radio, dub, and dance. This is the radio version, which features a clap-along beat and sunshiny vibes. The track-listing on the record, however, spells Okosun’s name with one too many “s.”

Further Listening

Demme’s next film was Married to the Mob, a crime comedy set in Long Island with an equally 80’s soundtrack. This one is less cohesive than Something Wild, but there are still some gems. Yes, this is the movie that includes “Goodbye Horses” before the famous Silence of the Lambs scene. There’s also originals from Sinéad O’Connor, Chris Isaak, and Brian Eno, a cover of “Liar, Liar” by Debbie Harry, and another New Order classic for good measure (this time it’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.) And the Feelies FINALLY get their soundtrack appearance with “Too Far Gone!” Add in some Ziggy Marley, Tom Tom Club, and a band called the Voodooist Corporation, and that’s a whooooooole lot of 80s.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 3/5

Cohesion: 3/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 15/20

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Year: 1981

Country: U.S.

Genre: New Wave

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I’ve played a few cuts from A Wicked Good Time! on my radio show before, but I was thrilled to pick up my own copy at the WFMU record fair this year. The blinding teal cover is unmistakable, and those weird, amorphous faces grin with joyful menace. But wait a second, isn’t that the Newbury Comics logo? The beloved New England area book and music store chain? And isn’t “A Wicked Good Time” their slogan? Yes, that’s the one. As a child visiting relatives in Rhode Island, Newbury Comics was a staple escape from familial obligation. It was also the first place I smelled weed. Nowadays, the Newbury Comics retail focus is more on Funko Pops and new colored vinyl, but there was a time when the store was more tapped into actual comics and music subculture. One early ‘80s ad positioned them as “Simply Boston’s best new wave import record store,” but local music was important to the team just as well.

Mike Dreese opened Newbury Comics in 1978 on the eponymous street, in a studio apartment, and started producing records under the label Modern Method a year later. With local acts like the Cars and Mission of Burma receiving mainstream attention, this scene was rife with bands clamoring to be the next big thing, and many were very talented. The label released around 30 records and was active until 1985. A Wicked Good Time! was their first proper LP, and a great snapshot of New England punk, art rock, and new wave. According to Boston Rock magazine, another Dreese production, “more conventional stuff is on side one, while the more experimental material fills side two.” Along with plenty of free advertising in Boston Rock, the comp was co-produced by 104.1 FM WBCN, the freeform(!) rock station that also got its start on Newbury Street. The record came out in May 1981 and was by all accounts a success, eventually earning a second pressing.

Content

Album opener Pastiche came from a long line of Boston music royalty. After rocking with a Modern Lover in the Real Kids, Curtis Naihersey formed his own act under the name Mr. Curt. Initially in the vein of retro-tinged power pop, a B-side called “I’m Going Blind” introduced the world to Ken Scales, the gangly bald-headed singer who would launch the group to local stardom. With the spiffy new name of Pastiche, they were now new wave and cinched a win at the 1980 Rat Rumble Battle of the Bands. “Psycho Blonde” became their college radio hit, a dynamic opener with a grooving set of keys and out-of-breath energy. “This Reminds Me Of The Future” is more pensive and Cars-ish, but so pop perfect that it really should have had a bigger life. You can see the band perform these songs, among others, online on a Boston TV show, which would be a great set of performances if it weren’t for the godawful video effects used in the broadcast. Scales is dressed like he’s about to teach a couple of Rex Kwon Do classes, but his draw as a performer is undeniable; you cannot take your eyes off the guy.

Called “one of the best damn bands to ever come out of Boston” by the local rag, the trio of La Peste was already well established in the scene by the time Modern Method rolled around. Their raw, high-energy power rock led to collaborations with the Clash and studio sessions with Naihersey and Ric Ocasek. They even won a few local band competitions and recorded ad spots, because an artist has gotta make a buck somehow. But when guitarist Peter Dayton left the band to pursue a solo career in 1979, the remaining members had to regroup. A year later, they returned with a new member and new tracks, like “Lease On Life” and “Army Of Apathy,” both featured on Side A of Wicked. And for once, this information is actually relevant: Wharf Cat is releasing a new collection of La Peste recordings in 2026!

Mission of Burma were local darlings at the time, but Wicked marked the birth of the band’s next project, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic. After being asked for a song, Roger Miller and Martin Swope grabbed from a makeshift recording session to combine chamber music practices with rock sentiment. Miller’s solo piano compositions came into contact with tape loops and guitar overdubs to make the pensive, complex “Pulse Piece.” The quirky name came from new theories about the ancestral connection between birds and dinosaurs. It sounds heady, but according to synth player Erik Lindgren: “Believe it or not, 1I think we’re more of a pop band. It isn’t academic music; we’d be thrown out of school if it was.”There was no intention to play live until they were asked to for the album release party, the response to which was so strong that they booked a few more shows. After MoB broke up, Birdsongs became a full-time project.

My favorite discovery from this album is Bound & Gagged, the all-female art-punk group that was equal parts funky and experimental. Wicked was released after their breakup, but both “Black Sand” and “Personal Monsters” are highlights of the album, with percussive minimalism on the former and saxophone beat poetry on the latter. Despite being just as innovative as Birdsongs, their narrative wasn’t so successful. Swope was a frequent collaborator and is cited as wishing audiences would have given them more of a chance. He thought they may have been too forward-facing for the nostalgic rock crowd. And the band agreed, as in a Boston Rock interview, it’s frequently mentioned that the local crowds weren’t taking them “seriously.” You can blame that on their improvisational style, their theatrical performances, but the reality of it was that they were women. They speak about getting flak from radio personalities, sound guys, guitar store employees, and even their fans:

Marcia Maglione: I think that when a woman gets up and does something very visible and the world looks at her, they’re no looking at her as an individual; so that if you fuck up it’s not like you that makes the mistakes, but more like ..

Boston Rock: Every woman that ever was or will be.

Marcia Maglione: Yeah. Like when I was a kid playing softball, that’s how I felt. Every time I was going to make a catch, if I dropped it it wasn’t me, Marcia dropping the ball; it was ’Girls can’t play softball.’

One can only imagine how many other experimental female-led bands were halted by this kind of behavior. But a few other ladies from the scene make it onto this comp. Young Snakes was the band of Aimee Mann before Til Tuesday, and “Brains And Eggs” was their first release, a super freaky new wave track that in no way resembles her later work. Apparently, the rest of the band thought that Mann’s writing was too “melodic.” Go figure. The oddly named Swingers Resort made twitchy power pop on their only single from the same year, but their Wicked selection, “Hit List,” is more slow and straightforward. Bassist B.C. Kagan would end up having a lucrative career as a scene photographer.

Boy’s Life and the Outlets released a split 7” on Modern Method in 1980, two bands who were very young at the time, probably shocked that anyone wanted to press their music, let alone listen to it. The Outlets’ “3rd Floor For Me” is a solid, gritty garage punk tune. In the most Boston turn of events, one of them went on to found the Dropkick Murphys, and another joined Gang Green. One of the later Outlets singles would include a member of Boys Life on bass, who features here with two songs. “I Wasn’t Me” “Heroes of the Dead” Another young band on this comp, Future Dads, comes from the ashes of Unnatural Axe, but there’s a saxophone on their track “New Feeling,” and a saxophone is always a welcome elevation.

Rated the #3 local band in a 1980 Boston Rock poll, Someone And The Somebodies opened for U2 and had a minor hit with a cover of “Workin’ in a Coal Mine,” before DEVO did the same thing by coincidence. Their three releases on Modern Method, however, show that status in the scene was undeniable. The track here, “Before And After,” has a frenetic energy that’s a nice combination of analog and electronic. The Loners’ "Planet Spirit” has a little bit of DEVO energy as well, mixed with an old movie about aliens.

And now for the one-and-done category: bands that never released anything after Wicked. Vacuumheads appeared with the track ”Preppie Girls,” another graduate from the Cars school of songwriting. Their write-up in Boston Rock is pretty enticing, because “Who can resist a band with members named Luther Consequences, Steve Stench, and a drummer called Rod Drumma?” Those same articles aren’t so into the mismatching aesthetics that built Suade Cowboys, but I think their punk funk waviness on “Master” is a lot of fun.

Other Versions

If it works once, why not do it again? A Wicked Good Time, Volume Two features four bands of the same bands from the first edition, but the rest are entirely new. There’s the freaky intensity of CCCP-TV’s “Rasputin,” the feral punk of The Freeze’s “American Town,” and a grab bag of power pop acts who, once again, just really like the Cars.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 5/5

Creativity: 4/5

Total Score: 18/20

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Year: 1982

Country: Japan

Genre: Experimental Rock

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It’s been too long… Between festivals, my radio show, and end-of-year content, I have not had enough time to dedicate to my precious comps! This project started as a way to exercise writing at regular intervals, and frankly, I am out of the groove. I needed something really strong to pull me back in. And so in walks Rebel Street, the Japanese experimental rock gem and first non-Western record on this column. Frankly, it’s time, but I’ve found it kind of hard to find records from outside the U.S. and Europe, especially when it comes to my specific niche. Japanese records are especially marked up for the import fees and collector novelty, but if you know where to shop, you can get a pretty good deal. My saving grace came just a few blocks from my apartment, as the community space Selva just started selling records as Selva Sub Discos. Their focus on Brazilian and Japanese releases features both expensive rarities and accessible prices for the everyday listener. At $20, this record was probably marked down because it’s missing the original obi strip, but I’m not precious about those things; I’m just here for the music, and it is truly great.

Japan Record was founded in 1980 by Koki Miura and Tomita, both giants in the music industry and known supporters of new sounds. Their first compilation was a cassette called Japan Program, which interspersed acts on their label with Rough Trade artists, but the second installment was exclusively Rough Trade. Weird. Next came the beachy Ocean Paradise, most of the songs on which were exclusive to the record, and then the Japanese edition of Morgan-Fisher’s Miniatures, which I am still too intimidated by to review.

But Rebel Street was unique to the Japan Record catalog, as very few of the bands had previously released with the label. It was compiled by Arimasa Oikawa, who was an assistant music director for Cabaret Voltaire’s Japanese live album Hai!, and Shozo Shiba, who had no previous credits but would go on to be a music director for many of Japan Record’s subsequent releases. Information about these curators is sparse, but the results of their work speak to the scenes that were most vital to Japanese rock music at the time. Punk had already made its way over to Tokyo and its underground groups, but what was next, and how would these artists make it their own?

Content

One thing that sets this group of bands apart is that they’re not afraid to go long. Like E.D.P.S., whose six-minute funk/psych jam only has the lyrics “whatchu gonna do?/whatchu gonna say?” “Turnin’ Loose” was previously released via an 8” EP, a format that was popular in Japan, and is probably the reason why extended play was so common outside of dance music. E.D.P.S. was also one of the couple of bands on Rebel Street who had worked with Telegraph Records, the trailblazing indie label founded by Yuichi Jibiki, but they later went on to put out three albums with Japan Record.

E.D.P.S.’s drummer would end up playing with the band Chance Operation in the ‘90s, but at this point, they were just another band on Rebel Street. Frontman and free jazz pioneer Higo Hiroshi founded Japan’s first indie label, Gozira Records, in 1978 and would bring his unique sense of musicality to saxophone rock. Chance Operation put out three EPs starting in 1980, the last being a 2x7” called Spare Beauty, from which “Erua Ela” comes. The song is built around a steady repetitive structure with avant-garde flair on top and underneath. The dual, phonetic vocals on each chorus are a lot of fun as well.

Lizard (Benitokage) was part of the “Tokyo Rockers,” the earliest group of bands that set the foundation for punk and new wave in Japan. They were prolific, having already released three LPs and seven 7 singles by the time of Rebel Street. Their featured track, “Modern Beat,” comes off their 1979 debut album. Lizard’s style is here cool and slinky, with Doors-style organs, Television-esque noodling, and futuristic synths.

Another member of the “Tokyo Rockers” was Zelda, the girl group named for Zelda Fitzgerald. Their early work was heavy and experimental, almost proggy, with their first single on the iconic label Junk Connection, which had only three releases. This was quickly followed by their major debut on Philips. Singer Sayoko Takahashi was fifteen when she joined the Zelda in 1980, and led the band towards a long, fruitful career that wove through new wave, J-pop, and eventually, a full-send tilt towards reggae. “Sonata 815” was a self-recorded demo of the song that closed their debut album; in this for, to close the compilation, and sounds like someone jerry-rigged a Bop-It to make experimental music, but the rough, distorted mix is charming and inventive.

Last of the “Rockers” is NoN baNd, a group that I’ve been SUPER excited about thanks to Coco Brigette’s fanzine, Research & Document. They were led by bassist/vocalist Non, already an impressive solo artist in her own right, who made challenging, rhythmic avant-garde music. “Bubbles Song” was the last track on their 1982 10,” a bright burst of parallel play between violin, keys, and percussion. The original album was released on Telegraph Records and is now considered a cult classic, but the copy at Selva was way out of my price range.

Allergy takes us from rock to goth on “Wake Up,” the opening track to their EP the next year on City Rockers, who had also worked with Lizard. The band dressed the part too, with both male and female members in Siouxsie-style eye makeup and enough hairspray to burn a hole in the ozone layer. Vocalist Chu-Ya is the star, wailing and jumping with an unwavering energy, but it’s the bass prowess of U-co that really makes their track something special; her clean, low tones shine without showing off.

Of all the legendary bands on this comp, the most beloved is P-Model, the rock project of synth genius Susumu Hirasawa. In many ways, P-Model was like Japan’s version of DEVO: a quirky electronic punk group who, for some strange reason, signed to Warner Bros. At the time of Rebel Street, they had made Japan Record their home while building their own label, Model House. The track “Fu-Ru-He-He-He” would later come out in 1984, but here its lo-fi punch is delightfully staccato, with labored breathing and handclaps as percussive elements.

Shampoo was one of the bands that was later managed by Model House, as its members met studying under Hirasawa at the Yamaha synthesizer school. The female new wave duo has one of the album’s few exclusive tracks, “Rondhe,” a slow, grooving creep with a great bass line. The band broke up after their single “Tonight,” as one of its members moved to the U.S., but they ended up reuniting in the late 90s for their first-ever album.

Translating to “Suddenly Cardboard,” Totsuzen Danboll were known as oddballs in the Japanese rock scene, flirting with folk and psych before moving onto new genres entirely. The brothers from Fukaya even put out jazz sessions with English musicians like Fred Frith and Lol Coxhill around the time that Rebel Street came out. Their song “Nomimizu,” however, shows them at their most straightforward, with bright, pop-rock.

The oddly named Daisack & Prostitute was one of the many projects of Daisaku Yoshino, who transitioned from folk rock to no wave in the 80s. Their raucous sense of orchestration on “KoKo soshite kokojanaibasha” is heavy on the high and low ends. Trash can-style drumming, bass that can’t be contained by the recording, and a combo of sax and guitars that screech to no end.

Wada Tetsuro and Machida Machizo, in their only collaboration, a racing punk song with upstroke funk contrasted with manic drum solos. They’re the one group on this compilation about which very little exists online.

The collective portrait put together by Rebel Street shows a group of bands that pushed experimentation in the sphere of popular music. Their work is challenging in that it defies genre and niceness, yet still led to long legacies and successful careers. People often say that the 80s were a lot where lots of music that would have never gotten popular had its chance to reach the public, and in this situation, it is the same, but even more brilliant.

Further Listening

Rebel Street was reissued in 1987 and turned into a series. Well, some pre-existing compilations by Japan Record were turned into a Rebel Street series. Great Punk Hits from 1983 was reissued as the sequel, but features punk groups that were much more straightforward in their sound, like Gism, the Execute, and Aburadako. 1984’s Jumping Jam became the third installment, a 2XLP that was shortened to one for the reissue, with full-on pop tendencies. The only true sequel from the start was 1987’s Some Girls/ Rebel Street IV, which focused entirely on female artists, all of whom are entirely new to me. Let’s hope these records come across my way another day.

Score

Variety: 5/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 5/5

Creativity: 5/5

Score: 19/20

Stats

Year: 1988

Country: U.K.

Genre: Beatles

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This statement is going to make some people mad: I did not grow up with the Beatles. What was a staple in the households of most Gen X parents was completely absent from mine. For most of my life, any knowledge of the Fab Four came through cultural osmosis. I knew “Good Day Sunshine” from a Sun Chips commercial. I knew “Yellow Submarine” and “Octopus’ Garden” through other kids on the playground. In college, I took a music history class that featured an entire day on the Beatles, where the professor asked us to go around and share what the Beatles meant to us. I told the class that I had only just found out “Dear Prudence” wasn’t by Siouxsie and the Banshees; laughter ensued.

I have no issue with the Beatles; I just understand them as history: teen icons turned hippies turned cultural martyrs. My neutral stance is probably why I decided to pick up Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father when I saw it in the arrivals bin at Academy Annex, I felt like my lack of affection would give me more to say. The compilation was put out by famed music rag NME, which already had its skin in the game due to C86. The tribute album, however, was an entirely new venture for them, as this predated the tribute album boom of the CD-centric 90s. The album was also a fundraiser for Childline, a free national helpline for children in danger that is still available in the UK today. And being NME, of course, they got all their favorite bands to join in on the cause. But because the bands chosen for this record are… assorted, it becomes a true novelty act. The aggressive shifts in genre and quality create whiplash. The magazine itself published a two-page spread on February 6th, 1988, to celebrate the comp’s release. Here’s what they had to say:

Charity records are traditionally awful. "Nice cause, shame about the record” was NME's review of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, and in the few years since that most successful of charity records, there's rarely been a record to change that view. The aim of this Sgt. Pepper is partly to change all that. Picking on a hoary old rock icon might wind up a few purists, but Sgt. Pepper must be one of the few LPs that both Sonic Youth and Frank Sidebottom are conversant with.

The album was put out on LP and cassette, as well as a few CDs for radio promo only. Mine has a nice red Japanese-style obi, which includes a quote from John Peel on the back, saying about the album: “This has made my year.”

Content

Like a proper tribute, Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father follows the original Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’s setlist to the letter. Opening with the theme song are Three Wize Men, an early U.K. hip-hop group from Camberwell. Hm. I understand why the British Empire was late to rap as a genre, but I don’t see why they felt the need to do it in a way that feels so… pale. This track is produced into oblivion; there’s not a single second that avoids piercing the ear with its choppy loops. From what I’ve read, people seem to respect the Wize Men’s work outside of this compilation, and I can see why NME wanted to involve genres outside of pop and rock, but this is not it, and even worse as the opener. Just listen to Wu-Tang instead.

Wet Wet Wet were a Scottish soft rock band whose rendition of “With A Little Help From My Friends” feels so earnest you almost forget the song is about drugs. This track was released as a single and ended up peaking at #1 on the UK Singles Charts, despite its sickly sweet delivery. The B-side was Billy Bragg and Cara Tivey’s “She’s Leaving Home,” which also hit #1. It’s a pretty tune, and a lot of people speak highly of the cover, but I find it odd to hear Bragg without a guitar! The Christians (terrible name) also play it straight on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” except for the polka interludes?

I was starting to lose faith in this purchase and the editorial taste of NME until I heard “Getting Better” covered by the Wedding Present. By pumping up the speed and angst without turning into parody, the band injects a jangle-pop energy that never feels too sappy. NME called it “one of the shortest Beatles covers in history.” Tapping Amelia Fletcher of Talulah Gosh on backing vocals puts the cherry on top; her voice soars. What frontman David Gedge had to say about “Getting Better” was:

I don’t like the original LP, to tell you the truth, it’s not the greatest Beatles LP, but that is one of the best songs. It’s a pop song.

Another positive note: the sophisti-pop rendition of “Fixing A Hole” by Scottish brothers Hue & Cry is so utterly bizarre that I’m impressed by the transformation. They take the original from meandering and quaint to a funky, blue-eyed soul ballad that sounds more like ABC than anything else. The strutting guitar licks and sexy backup singers are so different than anything the Beatles would have ever done, so I will give these boys a good grade on the assignment.

I was thrilled to see cult icon Frank Sidebottom make an appearance at the end of Side A due to his history with the Beatles. Back when the man in the papier-mache head was just 16, Chris Sievey hitchhiked to Apple Records and staged a sit-in with his brother, demanding to see the band. Somehow, management agreed to let him record a few songs, and when the labels Sievey sent them to all rejected the work, he published their letters as a book. I don’t have the time to explain Frank Sidebottom for the uninitiated, but that anecdote should be enough to get you to look up the story behind the bizarro children’s (?) performer. Frank’s track is “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite,” which is already wacky and drugged out to begin with, before Frank turns it all nasal and interpolates “Twist and Shout”. At the end of the song, you can hear Little Frank repeat the phrase “never could be any other way,” which appears backwards on the original records. Big Frank is a purist and yells that the segment is on the other side of the album, stupid. Now, you turn your record over.

Side B opens with Sonic Youth, who play the only Harrison-penned track from Sgt. Pepper, “Within You Without You.” Leave it to Sonic Youth to cover the “obscure” Beatle. It’s a grunged-up cover, with lots of guitars and distortion, but this version still retains the hypnotic raga qualities of the original.

Much like the Beatles, British jazz musician Courtney Pine was awarded by the British Empire for his contributions to music, but for Pine it was as a saxophonist. Here he leads a quartet in a pleasant version of “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Maybe it's for the best that the cover is entirely wordless because ever since we had to sing it in middle school chorus, I thought the lyrics to this song were pretty awful. The Beatles make it sound like you’re on your deathbed when you’re 64, an age that two of them never even made it to.

Another transformation comes at the hand of Michelle-Shocked, whose “Lovely Rita” brings to mind the work of K.D. Lang. Aussie band the Triffids turn “Good Morning Good Morning” ominous and industrial at the album’s final hour.

And now for the grand finale. The Fall covering “A Day In The Life” is by far the most exciting prospect that this album offers, as Mark E. Smith can do no wrong, even when he covers a song that’s far out of his vocal range. It’s okay, Mark, I have also made the same mistake at karaoke many a time. In the hands of the Fall, “A Day In The Life” doesn’t feel so theatrical, even when done over four minutes; instead, there’s a ramshackle intimacy. It’s still got all the wacky sweeps and changes as the original, but Smith keeps it all under one cohesive, crackled voice. And in its proper place this time, the backwards message persists: never could be any other way.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 2/5

Cohesion: 3/5

Creativity: 4/5

Total Score: 12/20

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Year: 1981

Country: UK

Genre: Dance

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As much as I enjoy my sonic travels to far-off places, it’s always nice to come back to New York. If only I could have been here in 1981! The electricity of the city was well captured by ZE Records, founded by Michael Zilkha and Michel Esteban. ZE was a combination of their last names, and they started it after they left John Cale’s imprint Spy Records in 1978. Much like the city, ZE’s roster was a melting pot, and made up of artists that defined their own cultures and times: Suicide, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, the Waitresses, and Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Mutant Disco, however, does not feature any of these people. This compilation features six disco single previously released by the label, each in their entirety, that cover a wide spectrum of dance music across cultures.

But for as much as I praise ZE Records for being a New York label, you might be wondering why I noted this record as a UK release. There were actually two different versions of this record; each was marketed to a different audience. In America, it was Seize The Beat (Dance Ze Dance), and in Europe, it was Mutant Disco, a genre term that the label coined to describe their output. This distro plan came courtesy of Island Records, a connection made by Esteban’s girlfriend at the time, Anna Wintour. The packaging and liner notes were changed to address the New York of it all, but minus one song, everything else remained the same. I may be biased by my own copy, but the neon skyscrapers of the Euro release make for a more memorable cover art. And for the DJs who don’t like that all of this great long-play was squished onto one LP, don’t worry, the 3x12” box set exists out there as well.

Content

The extra song added to the UK version of Mutant Disco was “Maladie D'Amour” by Kid Creole And The Coconuts, and it makes sense, as this is the group that ties togehter most of the acts on this records. 1981 was also the year of the band’s first international appearance in Great Britain, where they were more popular. Its members were already seasoned in the industry; however, a few got their start as Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band in 1974. The multicultural swing group had a number one dance hit, were regulars at Studio 54, and were nominated for a Grammy. But after leaving the band in 1979, August Darnell from the Bronx still had musical ambitions, and adopted the name Kid Creole, as well as a character, wearing oversized Zoot Suits and learning the moves of Cab Calloway. His backing band of collaborators both old and new became the Coconuts. This 1980 track “Maladie D'Amour” isn’t so much of a showcase of the Kid himself, but more so the band, with tropical instrumentation relying heavily on the bass and vibraphone. And a lot of dog barking.

Speaking of the vibraphone, it was played by Kid Creole’s right-hand man and musical director, Coati Mundi. Also a larger-than-life character, Mundi was actually Andy Hernandez, who grew up in Harlem to Puerto Rican parents. While the Coconuts became more famous in the long run, it was actually Mundi who had the first hit by leading the group on "Me No Pop I." The track was subsequently added to their sophomore album Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places due to its popularity. The version on this compilation is the B-side to the original single, an extended cut of the English/Spanish rap called “Que Pasa / Me No Pop I.” Focused in Latin rhythm, this version adds a female chorus to call and respond, adding another layer to the already witty track.

Coati Mundi also produced and arranged the music for Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band and their #1 disco hit “Deputy of Love,” led by another former member of Dr. Buzzard. At almost nine minutes, it's the longest track on the comp, and was extremely popular with NYC DJs when it came out in 1979. By the magic that makes disco so good, it never gets old, peppering in keys and horns at just the right moments. Vocalist Fonda Rae, whose smooth crooning keeps the track cohesive, also had a few other successes throughout the 80s, but this was her most memorable.

Last from the Coconut crew was Gichy Dan, a crooner from Staten Island whose real name was Frank Passalacqua. 1979’s Gichy Dan's Beachwood # 9 was produced and arranged by August Darnell, one of his first side projects after leaving Dr. Buzzard's, and made a major impact on Darnell in the creation of Kid Creole. But Dan’s only solo release was “Cowboys & Gangsters,” a driving disco track with a stronger energy than the island breezes of his previous album. Tragically, the reason Dan never released again was that he died prematurely of AIDS. The members of the Coconuts speak fondly of him in interviews.

Material came from an entirely different scene of New York musicians. The group began with bassist Bill Laswell, and after an ad was placed in The Village Voice, he was joined by a bunch of teenagers, all of whom went on to do pretty big things. They hung out at Zu Club, the West 24th street home of Georgian patron Giorgio Gomelsky, who was trying to bring European avant-jazz to the American market. Initially, the band was called Zu Band, and they served as the house act to back visiting European artists. Materialfinalized their name around 1979, and their roster of collaborators rotated just as much as the people who came to the Zu house, including the likes of Henry Cow, Daevid Allen, Kramer, R. Bernard Fowler, and even Whitney Houston. Their funky 1981 single “Bustin’ Out” is the one featured on this compilation, includes vocals by Nona Hendryx and guitar from Ronnie Drayton. This is the most commercial direction the band had taken at the time, and despite their origins residing so far from their compilation companions, the music somehow wound up in a similar place.

I try my hardest to find cool music for this zine, but sometimes, you hit Was (Not Was), the people behind “Walk the Dinosaur.” By the way, I never realized, because my childhood was filled with so many sanitized versions of the song, that the final chorus actually says “KILL the dinosaur.” Anywho, before the late 80s came for everyone’s cool factor, Was (Not Was) made political dance music that incorporated beat poetry and Wayne Kramer. "Out Come the Freaks" reads like the title track to a dollar bin horror movie. There’s some Sugarhill Gang-style rapping, a wailing sax, and a full section of backup singers on the chorus. But a track as funky as this was actually written by two white men from Michigan. Huh? The 80s man…

Other Versions

The one song different from the American version of this release is “Drive My Car” by Cristina, who was the true link between acts on this compilation, working with both members of the Coconuts and Material. She was a writer for the Village Voice who married Michael Zilkha around the time he started ZE. Her John Cale-produced track “Disco Clone” was the first released by the label. “Drive My Car,” on the other hand, is a Latin-style lounge number arranged by Dr. Buzzard's Stony Browder Jr. where the Beatles’ original gets twisted into a strange softcore pastiche. The liner notes praise Cristina's Marilyn-esque ability to amplify the innuendo, but I can see why this track was switched out for the European release.

Some music fans may wonder, if Mutant Disco wasn’t the American release of this record, then why do I recognize it? That’s probably a result of the well-circulated 2003 2xCD reissue, which bolsters the track count by nineteen. It serves as a retrospective of ZE’s dance work (not a ZEtrospective, that was another release)by including all of the label’s famous stuff as well. A 2005 2xLP re-issue cuts down the CD version but still amps up the original by double the songs. There were also a couple of CD sequels, including Volume Two, Volume Three: Garage Sale, and Volume Four: The Last Dance. They all feature the same iconic skyscraper cover art translated into different colorways. So much ZE, so little time.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 3/5

Cohesion: 5/5

Creativity: 4/5

Total Score: 15/20

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Stats

Year: 1987

Country: UK

Genre: Alternative

Purchase

This record was a gift from my dad, who shipped this copy all the way from Japan because, somehow, that was the cheapest option on Discogs. This compilation holds a bit of lore in my family because, as the story goes, my dad attended the release party back in 1987, rightfully assuming some of the bands would be playing there, but it was just a listening event. Still, he got the record and swears that it’s one of the best in his collection.

When Lonely is an Eyesore came out, 4AD was one of the most respected sources for alternative music. Like Situation Two, it started as a sub-label of Beggar’s Banquet, founded as a breeding ground for new talent, but that image changed quickly when 4AD’s bands grew cult followings. Their roster was full of soft-hearted intelligentsia; bands that yearned and wept as much as they referenced literature and fussed over pedals. Famously, this caused a lot of internal strife within the business of the label. But before people were kicked out and ticked off, this compilation put all of the brightest stars in the same place. For all but one, the tracks on this compilation were exclusive and not available anywhere else until years later, when the bands were of age to release rarities collections. The quality of the packaging is very deluxe, with a fold-out sleeve showing images from the album’s companion VHS, vague artsy liner notes, and a well-organized catalog of the label’s releases. And the cover art, as usual for a 4AD release, comes from the design duo 23 Envelope.

Content

The title Lonely Is an Eyesore comes from the track "Fish" by Throwing Muses, 4AD’s first American signing. The band had gained some attention after their self-released EP garnered a college radio hit, and their self-titled LP debut came out on the label a year later. They’re one of the most forward-facing acts on this compilation, embodying the earthy “alternative” that would only grow more popular as the 80s made way to the 90s. Their track here swirls with a discordant clang and bleated vocals. It’s raw and new.

Also on the futuristic track is Colourbox with “Hot Doggie.” Brothers Martyn and Steven Young were incredibly inventive, creating music in a wide range of styles under the same band name, reggae jams, big sweeping ballads, and sample-heavy electronics. “Hot Doggie” is the latter of these forms, choppy and raucous by infusing the technology of hip-hop with the genre of rock, and as they had started using these methods in 1983, they were one of the earliest to do it. In 1987, the mainstream took notice of “Pump Up the Volume,” a track they recorded under the name M|A|R|R|S in collaboration with pop group A.R. Kane. It was a top 20 hit, but the pressures of fame and legal issues that came from their use of sampling turned the brothers off from recording in the style again, and Colourbox was dissolved. It’s a shame because they were truly pioneers of form.

Most of 4AD’s lineup in the late ’80s was focused on the dark, dreamy, dreary. For this aesthetic, the Cocteau Twins were poster children. They signed to the label in 1982 under the suggestion of Phill Calvert from the Birthday Party, and remained on the roster for eight years. By this time, their most famous work had not yet even been conceptualized, but “Crushed” points in the right direction. The track is massive, with the crash of 808s on the shore of shimmering melody. Elizabeth Fraser’s indecipherable herald is the star as usual, her gift of vocal delivery both commanding and intimate.

Not uncommon for the time, the Wolfgang Press weren’t fans of the “goth” label, preferring monikers like post-punk and “avant-dance” to define their sound. In a 1995 interview with 3D World Magazine, singer Michael Allen said:

I feel its just a label that people put on it because they don’t quite understand. Is Nick Cave Goth? I can understand the Sisters Of Mercy and Siouxsie as Goth but Nick Cave, no? People aren’t still doing that black hair, black clothing stuff are they?

I’m sorry Michael, but in 1987, you, Nick Cave, and a majority of the 4AD lineup were pretty goth. Pasty white British people don’t wear black eyeliner and have blonde dreadlocks for no reason. The Press’ contribution to the album is a six-minute wallow into warbling reverb and, once again, booming 808s. “Cut The Tree” is despairing, but its rises and falls in extreme emotion keep the momentum going.

There are two tracks from Australian duo Dead Can Dance, the only band on this compilation with that honor. “Frontier” is the only song on this album that was not a new recording, as it was made in 1979. It employs the international style they are best known for, combining African rhythms with vocal styles from archaic Europe and the Middle East. The result is beautiful in some ways but vaguely spiritual in others, like the music you hear at a store that sells gemstones and incense. “The Protagonist” is the stronger track at over eight minutes, fully instrumental with a heavy brass section. Yet despite the strength of the horns and medieval undertones, there’s an ambient quality throughout the song, a testament to the band’s development.

From Holland comes Clan Of Xymox, whose “Muscoviet Mosquito” takes a hint of Joy Division and a dash of Bauhaus to result in a track that’s honestly just been done already. Purely instrumental act Dif Juz provides a nice tune on “No Motion,” but I can’t help but spend the runtime thinking how much better it would sound with Elizabeth Fraser over top of it.

Finally, there’s This Mortal Coil, 4AD’s rotating internal project that they refuse to call a house band. Label head Ivo Watts-Russell and producer John Fryer were its only official members; otherwise, the near-entire lineup of this compilation was involved, in and out, over three albums. Singer-songwriter Alison Limerick is the main contributor on “Acid, Bitter And Sad,” and its five minutes of industrial beats and ethereal whooshing. It’s a very cool, experimental song, finding new movements before one even ends.

Other Versions

A music video was made for each of the songs on this compilation, and they were put together on VAD703, the VHS companion product. You can watch many of the individual clips on YouTube (in varying levels of quality), which feature a lot of monochrome, haziness, and sad British people. All of the videos were directed by Nigel Grierson of 23 Envelope except “Fish.”

And although Lonely Is An Eyesore was re-released and repackaged many times, the most famous version is filed under AD703X. This handmade wooden box contained the LP, CD, cassette, and VHS copies of the compilation, as well as two fine art prints. Only 100 of these boxes were made, and as they were incredibly expensive to produce, only 30 were made available to the public. Some remain with the bands, some belong to private collectors, and one is housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 5/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 5/5

Final Score: 17/20

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Stats

Year: 1985

Country: U.K.

Genre: Rock, Goth

Purchase

This compilation came to me by a fortuitous occurrence, a yard sale in Ridgewood that I just happened upon while walking to meet a friend. For an eight-crate affair, there were some mighty fine selections if you could muscle your way through all the other record freaks. I found One Pound Ninety-Nine (A Music Sampler Of The State Of Things), which had been on my watchlist, and I got it for just about the original price. The cover features a collage of a capitalistic robot? I think the music speaks better than the visuals in this situation.

You’ve probably heard of Beggars Group and its holdings like 4AD and Matador, but before the entirety of indie distribution was under one roof, Beggars Group was Beggars Banquet, founded in 1977 to release 7”s by the Lurkers. By the mid-eighties, the label had grown into a brand and invested in employees at its record stores to start sublabels with upcoming acts. Peter Kent was one of these, who first founded 4AD and then Situation Two, named for Bauhaus’ old management company, Situation 1. The Bauhaus inspiration went into the acts they worked with as well, as Ministry, Gene Loves Jezebel, Lydia Lunch, and the Cult all released with the sublabel. Not everyone on Situation Two was “goth” per se, but there was a clear focus on darker entries. One Pound Ninety-Nine is a collaboration between Situation Two and its parent label, combining releases from the two as well as acts who made the transition upwards once they got big. Due to the cross-label synergy, the selections on this compilation are a bit disorienting, but it’s nice to have all of this music in one place.

Content

Bauhaus fans will be thrilled to find that One Pound Ninety-Nine has one of their biggest hits. “She's In Parties” was released by Beggar’s Banquet in 1983 as both a 7” and 12” single, but the short version is what appears here. It’s still all the indulgent romantic stomp that they’re best known for. That same year, however, the Bauhaus broke up. Interestingly, the label kept both sides of the schism on their roster: Peter Murphy’s solo project and the rest of the band’s new group, Love and Rockets. In 1985, both of these projects were new, so from a compilation standpoint, it makes sense that they’d use an old favorite to propel fans to try new work.

Murphy’s “The Light Pours Out Of Me,” a cover of the Magazine track from 1978, had not yet been released when this compilation came out, and is different than the final release on Should the World Fail to Fall Apart. In all honesty, the original song is already too Bauhaus for Murphy to cover without comparison. I see what he’s doing here by employing a funkier, more staccato guitar (did I also hear a freaking harmonica?) but it’s not enough of a transformation to warrant a full cover. But hey, it’s Peter Murphy, and I always love to hear his voice. His solo career would pick up more steam later in the decade. Love And Rockets, on the other hand, was a little more alternative-leaning than goth, but still had a few hits. “Haunted When The Minutes Drag” ended up being one of these, and it’s good, moody, floaty, but too goddamn long.

From another famous schism, we have John Cale and Nico, now long settled into their post-Velvets careers. In actually, the two had worked together a few times since, as the track Nico track came from a Cale-produced album. This album, Camera Obscura, was the last before her death. “Win A Few” is rhythmic and haunting, with unconventional electronic percussive elements that manage to feel natural, almost primitive. As usual, Nico’s voice is the star; she’s almost in her fifties here, but her resonance is just as strong as ever. Cale’s “The Sleeper” comes from his 1985 album Artificial Intelligence (oh no!), which was made directly following Nico’s album, employing her backing band. It’s less experimental than the Nico track, almost yacht-rock (non-derogatory) in approach. I love hearing him talk about cigarettes.

Now back into goth territory. Gene Loves Jezebel and the Bolshoi were both signed to Situation Two before they made the jump to Beggars. It shows how keyed in and essential the sub-label was to keeping things relevant with its parent. “Worth Waiting For” is an awesome Gene Loves Jezebel track, winding and catchy, it deserves more love in their catalogue. “Fly” came from the Bolshoi’s debut album, pretty fast and almost pre-grunge in its chorus growl. The final goth favorite on this compilation is the Cult, with the opener “Nirvana” from their most iconic album, Love. It’s great, it’s goth, I’ve run out of different ways to describe goth music.

Gothic in theme is “Spoilt Victorian Child” by the Fall, but we all know the Fall defies genre convention. This track has manic/depressive moments, where high, rampant energy is contrasted by whispering breakdowns.

The Icicle Works were a one-hit wonder in America, as “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” came out on Situation Two in 1983, hit the US singles chart a year later. In the U.K., they had a much longer career, with popular tracks released both before and after the big one. “Perambulator” is the comp opener, and much harder hitting than I expected from the new wavers.

I’ve heard a couple of people say “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg” is the Ramones’ best song, and while that may be up for debate, it's undeniably their most political. The song was written in response to Ronald Reagan’s visit to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, where about fifty Nazis were buried. The very Jewish Ramones saw this trip as an affront to survivors of the Holocaust. Joey said in a TV interview:

We had watched Reagan going to visit the SS cemetery on TV and were disgusted. We're all good Americans, but Reagan's thing was like forgive and forget. How can you forget six million people being gassed and roasted?

Named after a title from Reagan’s film career, “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg” was exclusively released as a UK single by Beggars Banquet. American audiences first got to hear the track from college radio imports, and soon could purchase it when it was included on the album Animal Boy in 1986. Although this track is late-career Ramones, Joey’s performance is so clear and passionate, and the bell accents do a lot to punctuate the track’s pop satire.

Finally, we have the Hank Wangford Band, a British country act, truly the biggest oddball in this bunch of oddballs. During the day, Wangford was a drug-addiction doctor, actually named Samuel Hutt, and his musical side-project gained local fame after their show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1984. The following year, they were tapped to release an album on Situation Two. I’m kind of into their comp closer “Never Wear Mascara,” which also takes influences from sock hops and soul.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 3/5

Creativity: 4/5

Total Score: 15/20

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Stats

Year: 1981

Country: UK

Genre: New Wave

Purchase

People don’t dance these days. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a tap of the toe, a nod of the neck, or that one drunk girl who’s having the time of her life, but all in all, I declare this a dance epidemic! Standing stiff and silent does not make you look cool; it makes you a bore. If you are afflicted by the curse of groove cessation, I may just have a cure.

Methods of Dance is “a design for the movement of body and feet to tomorrow’s disco beat,” or so says the printed inner sleeve, which promotes the individual release each track comes from. But when you’re a release from Virgin Records, I’m not too surprised when promotion is the name of the game. Aussie A&R man Ross Stapleton is credited with the “concept and childbirth” of this collection and was instrumental in getting many of these acts signed. It does lean on the pop side, but I don’t mind indulging in a little bit of pure ‘80s cheese every now and again. Besides, there are a few more “alternative” selections here that you won’t find on other mainstream comps.

The cover combination of Pepto Pink and CMYK is energetically nauseating. The imagery is so blinding that it makes the tiny liner notes difficult to read, which is too bad because they’re written in madcap prose by NME journalist and Art of Noise member Paul Morley:

So, lovers, this selection introduces you to the better, flirtier sort of show people. It invites you into a divine, flow of scheming schismatic stylism. It draws together compelling examinations and delineations of city life, possessiveness, uncertainty, demonstration, impulse. It improbably brings together such stars as Phil Oakey, Howard Devoto, Glenn Gregory, David Sylvian, Jim Kerr, Gerry Cassale, and Gabi. It’s nothing to sulk about.

Content

From an American perspective, the Human League is a one-hit wonder. Walk into any karaoke bar and you’ll hear about how some girl “was workin’ as a waitress in a cockt-ai-l bar.” But you’ll be hard pressed to find a person in that room who knows much more. A lot happened between the band’s inception in 1977 and their big break in ‘81. Founded with a focus on space-age synths, Martyn Ware and Ian March led the charge on sonic experimentation to the point that David Bowie saw them and said he "had seen the future of pop music.” The band saw the promise of success and signed to Virgin Records, but the label wanted the band to change their sound: more conventional instrumentation, more commercial appeal. Discogs says that “Virgin were afraid that the general public would not accept a synthesizer-only group at that time.” Ware wasn’t ready to give up, and only conceded under the stipulation that their label work would be released under a different name, the Men, which flopped. As Ware and March returned to their previous ambitions for a few releases, singer Philip Oakey was more keen on trying the proposed Virgin sound, so in 1980, the band split. Oakley stayed on with The Human League, which became the Patrick Nagel painting come to life that we all know today, while Ware and March founded B.E.F., the British Electric Foundation.

B.E.F. was more of a production company than a band or a record label, and became an outlet for multiple projects in the Ware/March duo. Their first release was a tape called Music For Stowaways, featuring eight instrumentals on the “Uptown” and “Downtown” sides. “Groove Thang” was one of these, a frenetic, ear-piercing stroke of genius. There’s a new and unexpected element introduced with just about every count of eight. By opening with this track, Methods of Dance sets the bar high.

Now, if “Groove Thang” sounds familiar, it’s probably because you know it in its second form: “(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” the debut single by Heaven 17 from 1981. For this group, Ware and March tapped vocalist Glenn Gregory, who was asked to be the original vocalist for the Human League. By expanding on the instrumentals of B.E.F. with vocal sampling and political lyricism in a tongue-in-cheek parody of yuppie commercialism, their debut Penthouse and Pavement became a sleeper hit. “Soul Warfare” is this compilation’s pick from the album, which misses the adrenaline kick of “Groove Thang” but works with some soft slap-bass movement at the end of the night. I can imagine the final dancer on the floor overly feeling this track while the employees sweep up.

Back in Human League world, Oakey was working on Dare, the album that would propel their new lineup to stardom. This compilation’s edition of “Do or Die” was never released anywhere else, perhaps due to its experimental slow-cut slant. It’s a completely different song from the hedonistic pop of the original, where the teenage backup singers’ voices are dropped to a growl and Oakley becomes a digital demon. It’s distorted to the point of being disturbing, and therefore, fascinating.

Japan (the band) was the inspiration for this compilation’s title; they appear and they appear on “The Art of Parties.” They’re a prototypical ‘80s band with the expected electro-pop sound, while Simple Minds are the prototypical pop-rock band on “Love Song.” Then there’s Fingerprintz, the only band on this compilation I was unfamiliar with. The Scottish new wave band exclusively released with Virgin, and on “The Beat Escape,” they spice up pop sounds with a little bit of hornwork.

And it wouldn’t be a party in the 80s without my beloved DEVO, who appear with “Going Under” from their 4th studio album, New Traditionalists. I prefer early DEVO for its herky-jerky insanity, while this track feels more so, pardon the word choice, robotic. In all honesty, they sound tired of the popularity they gained from Freedom of Choice.

The least expected choice on this compilation is “Der Mussolini,” the German hit from electropunks D.A.F (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft). The project from Düsseldorf was the Platonic ideal of a German synth band, but made it big by moving to the U.K. and signing to a major label. Clad in black leather, sharply narrating sweaty industrial sex anthems. “Der Mussolini” was incredibly taboo, as it instructed its listeners to “dance the” way of its eponymous fascist, Adolf Hitler, and Jesus Christ. If that wasn’t enough, communism makes an appearance as well. But the winking political humor landed in their home country, where it charted in for 46 weeks. It’s said that Paul Morely was heavily influenced by this band when he marketed Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Another gem is Magazine’s “The Great Man's Secrets,” a slow jam that crawls with organ and world percussion. The band was best known for their early post-punk aggression on singles like “Shot by Both Sides,” but this track comes from their fourth album, which was released after the band broke up. Styles and members had changed so many times that the remaining members became disillusioned. But this track deserves a reevaluation, it’s what I wish more Halloween parties sounded like.

Other Versions

Virgin being Virgin, this album was pressed for a variety of international markets, including Portugal, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as a Spanish repress in 1986. The cassette version begins with the titular Japan song omitted from the original release, as well as six more songs, including ones by Magazine, John Foxx, Cowboys International, and Richard Strange. It’s a bit of an odd mix as everything on the to find contemporary tracks next to Can’s “I Want More” from 1976, as well as less danceable, but still great songs like Snakefinger’s cover of “The Model.” An even wilder version is a Saudi Arabian bootleg I found on Discogs, which features an entirely different order and new nonsensical additions by Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons? Who the hell are they?

In 1982, Virgin released Methods of Dance Volume 2, a second LP with some familiar faces and new additions.“No Ordinary Lover” is a fitting dose of 80s cheese by China Crisis, whose questionable band name ended up producing some even more questionable song and album titles… I-Level’s “Give Me (American Remix)” is easy listening pop that is minimally improved by some heavy bass and inventive percussion. Rip Rig & Panic is definitely the most interesting addition, formed from the ashes of the Pop Group with vocals by Neneh Cherry. “You're My Kind Of Climate (Party Mix)” is both familiar and unexpected, mixing funk, synth-pop, and avant-jazz into a wild mess of fun.

In more recent times, CD versions of the compilation have been made, including the tracks from both original LPs and more. The 2008 CD adds “Flesh And Blood” by Allez Allez as well as additional tracks by DEVO, Simple Minds, and B.E.F. A 3xCD from 2013 expanded the lineup even further with the subtitle “Electronica & Leftfield '73 - '87.” This adds Orchestral Movements in the Dark, Faust, Sparks, Cabaret Voltaire, Public Image Limited, and many, many more. Even Giorgio Moroder makes the cut with his movie soundtrack collaboration with Philip Oakey, “Together In Electric Dreams” from Electric Dreams, the OST, which I do own and love. But as much as I enjoy all these bands and songs, each subsequent new edition starts to feel overstuffed. There was something so straightforward about the original release that made it fun, with all the fluff, I’m not even sure if the goal is dancing anymore.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 3/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 3/5

Total Score: 13/20

Stats

Year: 1985

Country: U.K.

Genre: Poonk!

Purchase

The British miners’ strike of 1984 had an undeniable impact on the music of the time. When the Thatcher government began closing coal mines, more colloquially known as collieries, en masse, unions were mobilized under the slogan ‘close a pit, kill a community’. Punks contributed in their own way, the Clash staged two massive benefit concerts at what is now the O2, while Billy Bragg’s performances revived “Which Side Are You On?” a coal union song from 1931.

While Leeds is one of the largest cities in the UK, its county is West Yorkshire, where many key events of the strike took place. London punks may have supported the cause, but those who worked with CNT Productions would have known it more intimately. CNT was named after the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, a Spanish union organization with anarchist values. Politics were clearly important to the label, but so was specificity. Cofounder Jon Langford said in an interview with NME:

We got lots of tapes from dull political groups, saying, You are CNT, you will put this out, revisionist scum!

Langford was a member of Leeds group Mekons, who started CNT with the aid of producer Adrian Collins, who had worked at Polydor and Red Rhino. Between the years of 1981 and 1983, they had fewer than twenty releases, and only one LP, but their impact sustained for much longer. Fictitious executive “Barry Gordy” described their work as so:

CNT was a label that defied labels, never following obvious routes of style but rather traveling along a parallel axis of hip. Our motto was - Nothing succines like succinctness. Ours was a label fine-tuned to the immediacy of pop… Our history vindicated out hype.

They Shall Not Pass was compiled in 1985, during the tenth month of the strike. Fueled by the political tension of the times, Mekons, who had previously broken up, got back together to make new music, as well as a fundraiser. The compilation was released by Abstract Sounds, a London label that had worked with CNT’s the Three Johns. The cover art is an edited version of a 1930s propaganda poster from the Spanish Anarchist Party, and the title is a translation of a slogan from the communist Spanish Civil War: “No Pasaran.”

Content

Mekons’ contributions to They Shall Not Pass are also part of the Mekons’ story. No, literally, they appeared on a CNT’s only full-length album called The Mekons Story, which redefined what it meant to compile your “greatest hits.” But before that, a group of Leeds art students who wanted to disrupt the punk rock status quo; their first single, “Never Been in a Riot,” took aim at the Clash. Folky, minimalist, avant-garde screaming was their game, and always rooted in political activism. “This Sporting Life” and “Fight the Cuts” were also released as a single in 1982, but on this compilation, their order is flipped, and show two very different sides of the band. “Fight the Cuts” is raw and aggressive, while “This Sporting Life” features clean, disco-like percussion.

After The Mekons Story, the band took a break to work on other projects. Jon Langford formed the Three Johns, although only two were Johns by birth, who appear here with a trio of songs. They were an early adopter of the drum machine, which they named Hugo and never traded for a live human. Their debut single, “Pink Headed Bug,” is an absurdist pop song, while “ Men Like Monkeys” and “Two Minute Ape!” feature dance goth textures and DJ mixes.

I wonder if Hugo was friends with Doktor Avalanche, the synthetic member of Sisters of Mercy and the only consistent member besides Andrew Eldritch. The good Doktor even ran an advice column on the Sister’s website. Can bands go back to making batshit HTML pages instead of instagrams. The Sisters of Mercy went on to have the biggest career of these bands, but “Body Electric/Adrenochrome” was their third single, a double hit of their trademark gothic dance, pre-album. Typically, the Sisters used their independent label, Merciful Release, but a fansite claims “the band didn't have the money to release the single themselves.” They were the first non-Mekons signee to CNT in 1981 but wouldn't release “Body Electric” until April of 1982, despite evidence that they were sending it around earlier.

Redskins open this comp with “Lean on Me,” the boisterous ska single that was their second with CNT. The York skins were previously in an anti-nazi band called “No Swastikas” and became active members of the Socialist Workers Party. Their lead vocalist, Chris Dean, was a journalist who wrote for NME under the name “X. Moore” and covered the miners’ strike in a two-part article. Their involvement in political causes was a core tenet of the band’s message, as Bassist Martin Leon is quoted in the liner notes saying:

Too many people get away with preaching politics on stage and not getting involved in the struggles they sing about.

Their second track, “Unionize,” reads like an anthem for organization. You often think of political work as heavy and sneering, but the tone here is truly celebratory through bright horns and rhythmic drums.

Newtown Neurotics are more straightforward in their politcal message, take “Kick Out the Tories” for example which sounds like it was written by a literal-minded student of the Clash. “Mindless Violence” is the stronger selection with its punchy energy and echoic chorus. While they quickly rebranded to be simply the Neurotics, they became one of the first Western bands to play on the other side of the Iron Curtain a year after this comp was released.

The most experimental act on CNT’s lineup was Carlton B. Morgan, who in his solo career only released one “mini-album” called The Devil’s Music under CNT00666. His song on this compilation is “Shave the Ayatollahm,” a wiry, humorous track that name drops Frank Sinatra while flirting with a fatwa.

Finally we come to the hidden gem that is Vicky Talbot, who, from the quality of her improvisational skills, I assume was a toddler. May I ask whose child is this? Her ramshackle drum machine and keyboard pounding interpretation (?) of the Who, titled “We Don’t Get Fooled Again,” was never released as a proper single and isn’t available online. The liner notes claim that “Victoria Talbot, disgusted at the label’s attitude, sacked CNT and returned to cult status and her homework.”

Other Pressings

In 1987, Abstract Sounds re-released They Shall Not Pass on a dark translucent blue vinyl, as part of the Six Disques Bleu box set from their catalogue. The other compilations are the oft-reissued Punk And Disorderly from 1982, as well as albums from the Three Johns and New Model Army, each. The last two LPS are various singles and rarities that include not a single band I’ve ever heard of, but with names like Bomb Party and Global Infantilists, I’m definitely intrigued.

The CD version came in 1988 with a booklet that included some photos of the bands, but not much else. I’m not sure how I feel about re-releasing an album made for a specific political moment in collectable variables.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 5/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 4/5

Final Score: 17/20

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Stats

Year: 1978

Country: UK

Genre: Punk/Rock

Purchase

I can’t remember for the life of me where I picked this record up. Was it a gift from a friend, a cheapie from the bin, something I spent way too much money on despite its low value? Not a clue. But the narrative of a hazy-brained regrettable purchase fits the ethos of Stiff Records to a tee. I’ve covered some Stiff offshoots before, the Akron Comp and Start Swimming from their American escapades, but Heroes & Cowards is one-hundred-percent pub-rocking, trash-mouthed Stiff. This is the drunkest, most British, most mannish music I have in my collection. I was going to have to get around to it eventually…

So here’s a Stiff history lesson. Founded in 1976, the label was a dual-headed snake made up of Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera. Both had established themselves in the local music biz, managing pub rock bands, but a small loan from one of their acts led to the creation of a proper label. Nick Lowe’s track “So It Goes” became Stiff’s first single under the catalog number “BUY 1,” and Lowe would become their in-house producer. Within the next few years they picked up Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, and The Damned, whose "New Rose” is considered the first punk single from the UK. Despite their success, Robinson and Riviera had a lot of issues and parted ways in 1978, each taking a few artists in the messy divorce.

Stiff put out many compilations in their time, but this one, which has all of the songs and all of the stars, was actually Italian. Heroes & Cowards was technically compiled for a foreign audience by record exec Carlo Basile, but is that going to stop me from treating this like a primary document? No way. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the hits.

Content

It’s a bold move to open your punk compilation with a punk parody band, but that’s 100% Stiff’s sense of humor. Named for Alberto y Los Trios Paraguayos, Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias were just a couple of blokes from Manchester. They started in 1973, parodying the Velvet Underground and other rock groups, but the punk explosion was so ripe for comedy, and Los Paranoias were so quick to the trend, that they became part of the scene. “Snuff Rock” was their genre, and the title of the 7” where these songs come from. Each track is a take on a different punk band, "Snuffin' Like That" is the Clash, “Gobbing On Life” is the Sex Pistols, and “Kill” is the Damned, who appear later on this very compilation. They do a good job distilling some of each act’s quirks; stop-start counting for the Clash, the vocal trill of the Pistols, and general morbidity for the Damned. Thankfully, punks have a good sense of humor, and Los Paranoias were supported in concert by just about all the bands they took the piss at.

Lots of Elvis Costello is never a bad thing. I grew up on his music, but never really understood the “angry young man” thing he was known for. From my perspective, he’s always been an old nerd with Buddy Holly glasses and poor taste in hats. I understood why some of the more outwardly outrageous acts were shocking at the time, but this? I guess cynicism and downtrodden judgment weren’t enough to shock me in the early 2000s. Clearly, I wasn’t listening to the lyrics of his debut single, “Less than Zero.” Here, Costello confronts white nationalism head-on, critiquing historical fascist Oswald Mosley, who had ties to the Nazi party in WWII. It was a TV interview that sparked Costello to write this song, upset at the contemporary media for giving a platform to such a dangerous figure. Replace Mosley with any far-right podcaster, and the sentiment still holds today. It’s a powerful first statement to make as an artist and puts Costello’s persona into perspective.

Costello’s second single was the tragically beautiful “Alison.” Fun fact: my parents considered naming me after this song. I’m glad they didn’t because I don’t think this narrative would have set me up for success in life. “I know this world is killing you,” yikes. I will give them clemency in the fact that it is a great song. I don’t know any great songs called “Sydney.”

The third Costello here is “Mystery Dance,” which appeared on his debut album My Aim Is True, but was only released as a single in France and Belgium. It screams Presley more than Costello, an avenue he had to at least try with a stage name like that, but a story of rock’n’roll teenage love would have sounded better in his own voice.

Nick Lowe makes for another trio on this compilation, but if we were to really count all tracks he had a hand in, it would probably be the whole damn thing. “Born A Woman” and “Marie Provost” come from his 1977 EP Bowi, while “Heart Of The City” was the B-side of “So It Goes.” “Marie Provost” is the haunting story of a silent film actress who met an early demise. The rest, I’ll be honest, are not my favorite Lowe tracks. I’m surprised “I Love My Label” didn’t make the cut.

For some odd reason, Stiff staples Ian Dury and Wreckless Eric don’t have more than one song on this comp, but the ones they do are their biggest. It seems all so normal now, but “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” was banned by the BBC upon its release. I don’t think they understood the irony of Dury’s straightforward delivery. There are a few different origin stories for the song, but each involves stealing the bassline from a famous jazz tune, which in turn was stolen from a folk song. Eric’s “Whole Wide World,” on the other hand, has become a pop standard in its own right through the sheer amount of coverage it received over the years. The Monkees, The Proclaimers, Cage the Elephant, and even Costello himself have taken a crack at finding that perfect girl.

The Damned have two tracks, their debut single “New Rose” and its B-side “Help.” I was always more familiar with goth the Damned than punk the Damned but that darker throughline has always been present in their work. I was, however, surprised to find out how “Memphis design” the cover art for their second album was: pink and green, egad!

Stiff’s biggest fumble was the Adverts, who released their second single “One Chord Wonders” with the label. Rivera had the idea to put the band’s bassist, Gaye Advert, on the cover art without approval from the band. Between that and the rest of the label’s crude marketing around their sole female member, singer TV Smith said:

“We hadn’t expected that. The music press were just as bad. It was so misogynistic that it caused huge ructions in the band. Gaye was so annoyed she refused to have her picture taken at all later on, because she was being used as a sex symbol.”

Some will say this behavior was a product of the time, but I respect the band for not working with Stiff again.

Motörhead also only worked with Stiff for one single. The heavy metal band didn’t make much sense in a pile of punks, but punks love Lemmy, and the B-side “Leavin' Here” isn’t so out of place with this group. Word is that Lemmy frequented the Stiff office to ask for royalty payments, of which he did not receive many.

Finally, there’s Mick Farren & The Deviants, a band who were a decade old by the time this comp came out. Farren’s work is mostly considered “proto” or “garage,” but he was well involved in the punk scene, writing for NME and collaborating with Chrissie Hynde. “Outrageous Contagious” definitely feels more classic rock than anything else on this collection, but between the aggro punks and soulful singer-songwriters, all you need to fit in is British sensibility.

Further Listening

If you’re in the mood for some more of these boys at their drunkest and sloppiest, may I suggest Stiffs Live Stiffs, the ambitious live album that put all the acts on the same touring bill. Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric, Nick Lowe, and Larry Wallis had all signed to Stiff as solo artists, but had to put together bands for the 1977 tour. These makeshift acts of session musicians were named things like Last Chicken in the Shop, New Rockets, and Psychedelic Rowdies. Costello’s Attractions and Dury’s Blockheads were the exception to the madness, and stuck around with their artists after the tour. All 18 musicians would end the night with a conjoined “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos.” I can only imagine the stories of what happened on that tour.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 3/5

Final Score: 15/20

Stats

Year: 1982

Country: UK

Genre: New Wave

Purchase

According to the fine people at Love Not Money, the Compact Organization was “too smart for its own good.” Founded in London by Tot Taylor in 1981, he took to the project like art, with a hand in every aspect of the label’s output from songwriting to marketing. I have never seen a label head with such strong involvement, my theory as to why is Taylor’s previous singles with EMI and GTO, and unreleased work with Island. After trying the corporate route for long enough, any self-respecting artist would want a little more creative control. Or a lot. And so we have the Compact Organization, partially a vanity outlet for Taylor’s own work, along with co-conspirator Paul Kinder, but with a roster of hipsters, models, and art students in pursuit of a singular vision: mid-century pastiche.

Compact’s take on corporate pop from the 50s and 60s is incredibly on the nose, and funny because it was delivered it was no sense of irony. Just see their order form titled “Consumer Test Card Survey No. 1” which asks “Which is the Compact Record you most hate?” I could see how this didn’t land with the general public of the early 80’s, they understood the B-52s, sure, but this was subtle and complex; countercultural because it tried so hard to not be counterculture. I think the Compact Organization was just a bit ahead of its time, and would have done very well in the '90s among the likes of Edwyn Collins, Combustible Edison, Space, and why not, The Mike Flowers Pops.

And who else is making a The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra joke besides these people and Wes Anderson? A Young Person's Guide To Compact was the label’s first compilation, and first proper LP, as their previous output had only been singles and 12” “maxi-singles.”My copy is the 1983 yellow cover LP, but the original 1982 box set was way, WAY more involved. The edition of 3000 was 2XLP with a pink cover and included four artist prints, two posters, a business card, a badge, and a randomly chosen 7” from the catalog. All I got is this lame black plate. The printed pink inner sleeve, however, is pretty cool. The original also included a letter from the fictional “Rex Luxore,” who says:

Easy for all who have sampled the Compact product to see that here is an item which hasn't been hastily assembled by some manic executive from a huge recording conglomerate but which is a meticulously perfect representation of premeditated pop in its finest format.

Now here are some words from the actual Tot Taylor from a CD reissue of the comp in 1989, who describes how his work fit in with what else was happening in London at the time:

The Compact Organization never really fitted in with the philosophy of despairing youth anthems and xerox-sleeved hell-noise. Most of that stuff sounded harsh to our ears. They appeared to be fostering a plot to overthrow the world, but really they just wanted a piece of the record business. Their idea of 'pop' was to make everything real and to be opposed to 'image' and packaging. We loved 'image', were totally opposed to anything 'real' and wanted everything to be make pretend.

The Compact Organization closed its doors after five years and sixty-plus releases, but that was not the end of Taylor. He founded another label called London Popular Arts in 1986 to release more work under his own name. And in the decades since he’s remained extremely active: he’s composed and produced soundtracks for film, theatre, and video games, opened galleries, and written a novel, all to high praise. And yes, he still makes great pop music. I don’t think he’d be able to live if he didn’t.

Content

The only song I knew prior to this purchase was the opener, “Attention Stockholm” by Virna Lindt. Its Cold War thriller coolness fits the soundtrack of what I thought being a spy was like a kid, intrigue and glamour abound. Lindt was a twenty-year-old Swedish student who met Taylor on a train, and soon became the voice of Compact’s first release, which even drops the label name in song. By indie metrics, it was a hit, the first pressing of 3,000 sold out in a month and Lindt was making TV and magazine appearances. Although her image was highly crafted, Lindt took to it well, her somber gaze, husky tone, and striking blonde hair an extension of the sound, written by Taylor. But not all of her work hits the same highs: “The Dossier On Virna Lindt” is simply a list of her physical qualities, which compared to “Attention Stockholm” is pretty awful. The heavy-handed sexual undertones come off more softcore than parody. Her second B-side “Pillow Talk” is a more serious take on the theme which works better, heavy synths counteract her airy voice to an almost haunting degree.

Described as an “Amazonian mix,” New Yorker Cynthia Scott’s Compact Organization single is “The X-Boy 12,” which uses plastic chairs as drums. She has a very strong jazziness to her voice, and her international lounge singer vibe is particularly fun on the organ-heavy exclusive “Dancing With You.” The RISD grad released another single called “Juggler Of Hearts” on Red Flame in 1983 before going on to do some pretty impressive work as a sculpture artist.

Of all the acts on compact, Mari Wilson had the longest discography. Both she and Taylor previously released singles on GTO, but Compact soon became the center of her output through the mid-80s. Taylor also wrote music of her music under the alias Teddy Johns, which she performed while flaked by various bands with a beehive hairdo and opera gloves. The whole vibe is very… Lawrence Welk Show. Her bright poppy jazz is most potent on “Beat the Beat,” where most of the instrumentation is driven by handclaps and backing vocals. Her biggest hit was “Just What I Always Wanted,” not featured here, which made it to #8 on the UK singles chart in 1982, and soon her debut album at #24.

“The Beautiful Americans” was another Taylor composition, an epic self-titled sample-heavy ballad that closes the compilation. The vibe is Oscars in memoriam segment meets vintage TV commercial meets David Bowie. A lament on the beauty and failure of American consumerism, perhaps? The original single was two parts of the same song, but only the first appears here, sung by another faux-spy crooner, Dale Hargreaves. The liner notes claim that they were “accompanied by a 60-piece orchestra,” but according to Taylor, they only had “one violin, one cello and synthesizer French Horn,” which made the recording process for this ambitious piece long and laborious. Their side A track “Sparkletones,” is most definitely named for the 50s group and sounds even more Bowie. Despite its more traditional pop format, never received a release outside of this compilation.

I’m going to assume Taylor also created the Popheads, who has no other note of credit anywhere on this release, but his write-up from ‘89 does mention the aid of Blair Cunningham, the brilliant drummer known for his work with The Pretenders and Haircut One Hundred. Their synth instrumental “Headpop” is so bright and cheery it’s almost menacing.

There are a few non-Taylor-crafted acts that still fit nicely into Compact’s shiny worldview. Shake Shake! made it to the top of the UK Indie charts with their self-titled track, the only single released by the East London group. People often compared them to the B-52s, and reasonably so with their multiple vocalists and retro-dance energy, but their robotic delivery and freaky synths read more DEVO to me. A-side track and comp exclusive “Shuttle Service” is a glorious industrial musical that feels like faux-propaganda for the tube. Their third and final track “Yellow Ditty” appeared on the 2xLP version of this album.

Fontana Mix was the only act unique to the yellow edition of A Young Person's Guide, a 1983 signee who earned their future through sheer willpower. Bandleader Michael Atavar had previously released a super esoteric solo 7” that he funded by “working nights in a glass manufacturing plant.” If you listen to “Fire-Anchor” you can tell just how much he loved John Cage. But Atavar also wanted a band, and formed Fontana Mix intending to make his experimental work more collaborative. What came out was pop, pretty good pop. “Cherry Lips” combines synth-drum minimalism with phonetic doo-wop harmonies in a yearning way while “Citadel” goes full Carnival Cruise tropical. It appears that Atavar went on to experiment with performance art and now writes books with titles like How To Have Creative Ideas in 24 Steps, but I can’t confirm if this is the right person.

Further Listening

The Compact Organization’s later compilations were less dependent on the work of Taylor, with new artists joining the fold, mostly the same on each album, Pens, Guns And Riffs and Do They Mean Us. These acts were all just as short-lived as any other Compact roster member and included names such as The Bushmen, The Academy Of Fine Popular Music, and Oceans Eleven.

Unique to Pens, Guns, And Riffs is the work of Richard Hartley, a film composer whose “Fog Theme” also appeared on the soundtrack for 1985’s Dance With A Stranger, whose soundtrack Compact release and whose theme song, a Peggy Wilson cover from 1951, was sung by Mari Wilson. There’s also the Poptowners, who I assume are another iteration of the Popheads. You can’t stop Tot from being Tot.

Both compilations still include Mari Wilson, Fontana Mix, and Virna Lindt, who began to write and produce her own music. Fans of Severance should take note of her off-kilter take on “The Windmills Of Your Mind.”

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 5/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 17/20

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Year: 1980

Country: U.S.

Genre: New Wave

Major corporations know nothing about the cutting edge, and Warner Bros. is no exception. By 1980, punk had been reincarnated in at least five different ways, yet now, the suits decided, was the time to take advantage of the alternative youth and their disposable income. But not with a well-crafted release, god forbid, but with an overstuffed 2XLP thrown straight into the bargain bin: Troublemakers, the final installment of the budget mail order series Loss Leaders. It seems the whole series was a joke anyway— a loss leader is a product sold at below-market price to drum up new business. Starting in 1969, the project released thirty-four titles, all populated with the type of music we now consider “dad music.” Kenny Rogers, Gordon Lightfoot, Tim Buckley, Randy Newman, you get the idea. Although Troublemakers is by no means the most nuanced statement on punk in the early 80s, you gotta admire the stark change in direction. Most of the Loss Leaders were curated by Dr. Demento himself, Barry Hansen, whose very normal choices were a shock to me as well, but the final two were curated by a guy named Jim Bickhart. I can’t find much info on the guy, but his first Loss Leader, Eclipse, foreshadows the shift with the Ramones, Funkadelic, Talking Heads, and Sly & The Family Stone amidst the usual Van Morrison and Bonnie Raitt selections. It makes me wonder if Bickhart made Troublemakers because he knew the series was ending, or if this was the release that canceled it. Here’s how the liner notes set things up:

There is a new mood in Burbank, and new music to go with it. The mood and the music don’t always conform to the rules by which Big Time Radio chooses which records it plays. This does not necessarily reflect poorly on the quality of the importance of new music, but says rather that seekers of the status quo tend nonetheless to look upon those who promulgate new things as Troublemakers.

Big Time Radio? Status quo? Does this guy know who he’s speaking on behalf of? There’s no better way to alienate the youth than to use words like promulgate from your office in Burbank. But I’ve seen Troublemakers in more than a few record stores and it always stands out. The garish new wave colors, monochrome anonymous hipsters, and hand-scrawled font from famed illustrator Gary Panter pop like a bag of penny candy.

And then there’s the content. To be clear, I shelved this article for a while because I didn’t know what to make of the mix. You’ve got live Sex Pistols next to The Buggles to Marianne Faithfull in such an overstuffed pile of b-sides and label pushes that your head begins to spin. When I asked my boss for his take he said this is an example of what used to be called “new wave,” before it was used as an actual genre marker. New wave used to be a catch-all term for whatever didn’t fit in the agreed-upon sphere of popular music. Troublemakers, so to say.

Content

And so we open with the biggest troublemakers of all. The Sex Pistols had already been done for two years and Sid Vicious already died, but here they are. “Anarchy in the U.S.A.” is cheeky at least. When on tour in the States, the band changed the lyrics of their most famous song, because of course, and this one was captured at a January 1978 gig in San Francisco. They broke up immediately after.

Rotten’s follow-up band is a part of the mix too, Public Image Ltd, which despite the insane modern-day politics of its frontman, I do like a lot. “Public Image” and “Swan Lake” are solid picks, their straightforward debut, and the much weirder Tchaikovsky-sampling dance floor freakout.

If you don’t recognize one of the acts on this setlist it’s probably because they were Warner Bros. signees were forced to show their worth. Urban Verbs got signed after drumming up some good press at CBGB. The lineup included Chris Frantz’s brother, and the band was set to open for the famously canceled Joy Division tour in America. They get the comp’s number two spot with “Subways” and a later ballad with “The Only One of You.” I don’t think either of these tracks is particularly bad, they have a great sense of those 80s-special quirky technology vibes, but other bands were doing this sound better, including some of the ones on this very comp.

Robin Lane & The Chartbusters were one of those bands with one woman, four men, and three guitars. Their music is way more classic rock than anything else on this compilation, but Lane’s folk roots are clear via the strength of her vocals in “Don't Wait Till Tomorrow” and “Kathy Lee.” Despite a co-sign from Jerry Wexler, an ex-Modern Lover in the band, and a day-one spot on MTV, they only put out two albums before Robin went her own way.

The last of the Warner projects is Pearl Harbor And The Explosions, a crazy name for a relatively tame band. Their fifties-style harmonic pop comes from both sides of their singles “You Got It (Release It)” and “Busy Little B Side.”

Now who the hell is Brian Briggs? He’s not famous, he’s not on Warner, and he’s covering Eddie Cochran in the style of DEVO. The recording project of John Holbrook, an engineer at Bearsville Studios, channeled his breadth of experience into something entirely new. His first album Brian Damage is delightfully scatterbrained, and “Nervous Breakdown” is the perfect gateway into his zany world that includes everything from country to ska.

Now let's get back to the people you know. Here’s a speed run: 154 isn’t my favorite Wire album, John Cale’s piano composition is beautiful but out of place, and Nico’s medieval hymns on “My Only Child” are just straight-up bizarre. DEVO’s double B-side “Social Fools” is funny because it cuts off with “THIS IS THE END.” “Working Class Hero” by Marianne Faithfull is good, but “Broken English” deserves top billing every time. Troublemakers is the only compilation of the time to have Gang of Four’s “Damaged Goods,” so I’m glad to have it, and “Love Like Anthrax” is a bold second pick that pays off.

“Video Killed The Radio Star” is on the nose in the complete opposite way of the Sex Pistols, but I do appreciate the second Buggles cut, “Clean, Clean.” I don’t think I’d ever heard a second Buggles song before this. “Clean, Clean” is impressive in the sheer skill of songwriting, how it goes from straight pop into a military march and ends with tropical rhythms.

I’m surprised to see a nice Jewish boy like Johnathan Richman bestowed the moniker of troublemaker. Especially when the first of his songs here is “I’m Straight, well known for its unabashed anti-drug stance. Even though he means “sober” instead of “heterosexual” I still find the song hilarious. He hates this Hippie Johnny guy so much and wants this girl to date him instead so bad. It’s just like Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” “Government Center” has that clap-along 50’s flair that I think of whenever I have to do anything mildly municipal. These songs are the oldest of the entire set, as Modern Lovers was released in 1976 but recorded around ‘71.

And to close it all out, oh look, it’s the Pistols again. “No Fun (Excerpts)” attempts to whittle seven-plus minutes of Stooges-aping insanity into four and a half. But maybe it’s for the best, that original never seems to end.

At first, I gave this collection the biggest eye roll. Yes, it’s a nonsensical cheap-ass piece of genre-deaf garbage, but now I admit that it is, unless the Pistols would like to differ, fun. If the Loss Leader model just got one of your average Top 40 listeners into Gang of Four, then maybe it was worth it.

Score

Variety: 4/5

Quality: 2/5

Cohesion: 1/5

Creativity: 2/5

Total Score: 9/20

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Year: 1984

Country: U.S.

Genre: Alt Rock

Purchase

For a city with such a wealth of musical talent and history, it’s a shock I haven’t covered a Boston compilation sooner. Some of my favorite acts come from out of the area: Modern Lovers, Pixies, Mission of Burma, and the Magnetic Fields. Let's Breed! does not include any of these bands, in fact, I don’t know a single one. The real reason I chose this compilation was to make a Valentine’s joke, but time got away from me. Please laugh now that you understand the context.

Brookline-based label Throbbing Lobster (imagine that in a Boston accent) put this record together under catalog number BISQUE-2, both their second compilation and second release. This is generally regarded as the favorite of the label’s comp trilogy. Owner and “president-for-life” Chuck Warner was the brains behind the operation, providing “gossip, hype, and wretched crustaceous excess” to all who bother. He notes the label came to be on the Hyped to Death CD Archive:

After 8 years off-and-on in college radio I decided to do something about all the demo tapes from Boston bands that never made it to vinyl.

Let’s Breed! made it #1 on many college radio stations and according to Warner, went through about 5,000 copies. A copy from the first pressing of 2,000 is the version I was gifted and has a cover printed with purple and brown ink. The second pressing was in pink and black ink. Each band is represented by a humorous pair of figures. Some are straightforward like two flies for Flies, while the croissants that represent the Underachievers are a little more abstract.

Content

Scruffy the Cat had many a story to tell, and cowpunk was the medium*. It’s a bold move to open your punk comp with a scrambling country ramble but it sure does get the blood pumping. “Oldest Fire In The World” is the band’s first-ever outing, featuring a pedal steel guitar and a chorus that slows down the rolls at just the right part. It’s so good you forget this is a country band from Boston. I also quite appreciate their logo, a cat with a guitar head for a tail, which makes it onto the album’s cover.

"Close Your Eyes" by Unattached has a twang to it as well, but follows more on the trail of a gunslinger’s anthem. The vocal harmonies are good, and the guitar solo is robust, but according to the liner notes the band had already broken up by the time this comp was released So did Noonday Underground, not to be confused with the way more successful trip-hop group Noonday Underground. How in the hell did two bands end up with that name? But the first NU was pretty good! It’s exciting to hear women on the bass and drums in an era where there wasn’t a lot of that. Their fast and fun track “Simple Man” gets straight to the point.

The trio of Michael, Liz, and Dan make up Christmas, a trio best known for a minor MTV success video called “Big Plans.” They were known for being offputting and quirky, which somehow people were still phased by in 1984. Here, “Boys' Town Work Song” employs a cheeky phonetic use of call and response that resembles the end of “The Rich Man's Frug.“ Heck, the band would end up making music that sounds like the rest of “The Rich Man's Frug” later on. After releasing a final album on Matador, Liz and Dan adopted the stage names “Miss Lily Banquette” and “The Millionaire” to form the lounge jazz group Combustible Edison, which signed to Sub Pop. It’s a weirdly genius switch-up that could have only worked in the ‘90s.

Busted Statues have a fresh, dreamy sound with their “Heart Upside Down.” They previously made an appearance on the local comp Bands That Could Be God, which also included Christmas. Other small highlights include the run-around-in-circles sound of the Underachievers on "Wasted Youth” and acclaimed live band the Outlets, with powerful fist-bumping energy on “Not Too Late.”

Of this entire bunch, Dumptruck was the most successful. Their debut album from 1983 D is for Dumptruck was well-reviewed by Trouser Press and the Village Voice. "Thanksgiving” sees the wind around a punk ballad in the same vein as Minutemen’s “History Lesson Part 2,” released the same year.

The back half of Side B starts to get a little same-y. Flies’ "Say You Love Me," the Edge’s "The Recruiter" and Prime Movers’ "See That Girl” are all the same song to my passive ears. None of it is bad, but it lacks variation. The pile-drive punk approach only works for so many songs before it gets tired.

And then we get to some of the stuff I don’t like all that much. There’s a lot of derivative power pop in this bunch that only recalls better, more popular acts. We can’t all be the Replacements. Chain Link Fence was a Throbbing Lobster exclusive, appearing on their first comp and only releasing with them afterward. “All Except You” sounds like a slightly edgier “What I Like About You” by the Romantics. So does “Cryin’ Shame” by Worcester band the Odds, and "That's Why I Always Dress in Black” by Blackjacks.

Further Listening

The two other compilations in the Throbbing Lobster saga were 1984’s Nobody Gets On The Guest-List! and Claws! from 1985. They both had a lot of the same bands as Let’s Breed but with a few additions such as Noise Pencil, Baby’s Arm, and Johnny and the Jumper Cables, all great names.

Throbbing Lobster continued operations until 1988 but never released another compilation. There were actually two more planned that just never saw the light of day, Lobster Quadrille and The Stomp of Approval, the latter featured bands from outside of the Boston area.

*Apologies for Primus joke

Score

Variety: 2/5

Quality: 2/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 3/5

Final Score: 11/20

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Year: 1982

Country: U.S.

Genre: Experimental

Purchase

This review is going to be a little different. Most of the compilations I cover are straightforward in their aim: a few bands, a few songs. But State of the Union has much more. These 34 pieces of one-minute audio tell the story of an artistic underground and the systems above that they are raging against. A community built on breaking down forms and creating something entirely new This story has been told many times, but never in this way.

A friend picked this out of the new arrivals bin at Record Shop in Red Hook. I’m not sure how I passed it over in my search; the blinding red and green of the cover art must have accidentally read “Christmas” in my brain. It depicts a group of men in hats, shoved together like cattle, peering into the abyss. There’s another mysterious image on the label— tree roots? We were so intrigued that my friends and I spent the rest of our shop time passing headphones around to hear snippets on the test player.

Elliott Sharp founded zOaR Records in 1977 while receiving his Master’s at the University of Buffalo. At first, he used the label to publish his own experimental jazz albums, that I can’t even find online to describe. But then he moved to New York City in 1979 and began to put out works by his colleagues and collaborators. The vibrant downtown scene took artists of all disciplines, theatre, jazz, poetry, painting, classical, filmmaking, and punk, and shoved them into an underpriced industrial loft. State of the Union is an overarching survey of the scene across mediums.

It’s more than likely that Sharp got the idea from the brilliant Miniatures, a 1980 Morgan-Fisher production that also compiled minute-long pieces. But when you put together a group of 34+ entirely different artists living in America under Reaganomics, you’re going to get a whole other beast. Yes, it was 1982, and everyone was on drugs amidst the war on drugs. But I need to stress how good this selection of artists is. Even before diving into each individual backstory, to see the names Spalding Gray, Tuli Kupferberg, and John Lurie on the same comp is nothing short of insane. I can only imagine what a release party for this would have looked like.

Content

So how am I going to cover this in a way that makes narrative sense? Not with a note on each of the 34 tracks, no way. For the sake of time, I’m only going to cover a few selections that I found most interesting. I’ll make sure to hand out some honorable mentions at the end for some of the things I skipped.

What better way to open an unconventional compilation than with the sounds of breaking things? “Good Morning Dear” is a jolt to the senses with a talented artist at the helm, multi-hyphenate John Lurie, who was a classmate of Sharp’s at Bard. You would think that Lurie’s contribution would be related to the Lounge Lizards, the satirical jazz band he founded during this period, but I appreciate his reach towards the avant-garde. One full minute of crash.

The first semi-musical track of the album, “Like A Baby,” comes from artists Peter Blegvad and John Greaves, formerly of Slapp Happy and Henry Cow, respectively. Both bands with a long history of collaboration throughout the 70s, but by the 80s the two had mostly gone solo. The major expectation was their collaborative work, here named The Lodge. This spoken poem has the same soft melancholy as retro kids’ TV segments but is even trippier due to its lack of educational value. Henry Cow member Fred Firth also has a piece on the compilation, “I'm Still Here And I Know What Time It Is,” which combines backward vocal recordings with industrial machines. Firth also appears on Miniatures.

In the realm of what we can define as music dwells the Social Climbers. “Standing in the Need of a Prayer” is deliciously busy, the band furiously playing conflicting pieces over a religious recording. Member Mark Bingham is often recorded as regretting the name choice, but I think it’s funny.

Adele Bertei was a player in James Chance and the Contortions, an actor in the film Born in Flames, and the impetus behind Brian Eno’s No New York. On “Baal” she recites Brecht over droning guitars.

I was already a fan of Pulsallama, one of the wildest bands to come out of the downtown party scene. Best known by the descriptor “thirteen girls fighting over a cowbell,” they actually had anywhere between ten to seventeen members at a given point. Actress Ann Magnuson of Bongwater fame founded the group, which also included members like Min “The Bonefinder” on the bongos and Stace “Timbalina” on the timbales. They wore 1950s cocktail dresses and played with basses, garbage cans, and kitchen utensils. Their idiosyncrasies were many. But here they play “May,” which, based on the content, I’m guessing was written for their debut show, a Rites of Spring Fertility Bacchanal. It’s a shoddy recording but their irreverent rage is felt through the fuzz.

Rapping and rhyming in the style of Blondie, Squat Theatre was an experimental troupe from Budapest who made their new home in New York City. Eszter Balint, who appeared opposite Lurie in the movie Stranger than Paradise was a member of the troupe. They rented a storefront on West 23rd Street and performed subversive plays with its large window in the backdrop, often to the shock of passersby. The title of their track, “Mr. Dead & Mrs. Free” comes from a play of the same name, which premiered in 1981. The centerpiece of the play is a giant paper mache baby with stereo headphones and TV eyes. This song is performed by the “unidentified flying dancer” who wears giant headphones as well. What is the play about? The media! Society! The effect of drugs on your creative conscious!

Also from the theatre scene, albeit a very different one, is Spalding Grey. Before he gained notoriety with his 1985 monologue “Swimming to Cambodia,” he performs a similar piece here. “Address” speeds stream of conscious-style through the many great states in this union. He says Rhode Island’s beaches have gotten too expensive, New Hampshire is too conservative, and California is so sunny that living there would drive him mad. He probably could have gone on about all 50+ (he includes Puerto Rico) if the time limit didn’t drag him offstage with a hook.

Political themes of the album are explored with more explicit vitriol in Tuli Kupferberg’s “A Rant,” fitting due to his time with the Fugs and their satirical tirades on the government. In extension here he rhymes that “you lay low and they live high/you work that way until you die.” Ivan Kupala draws a similar take on the assignment. Over a funk beat a Russian voice appears to recite segments from the Declaration of Independence on “Discoration of Independence.” I only assume that’s the document because it’s recited in English in the latter portion. The liner notes list translation by Jon Scieszka. Jon Scieszka as in the beloved children’s author? I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised if was, he’s listed on his website as an anarchist.

Side B opens with Christian Marclay, who I promised in my last column that I would cover again. Like in my last entry, his piece “Disc Composition #23” uses his unique plunderphonics style of composition, but this one uses some pitched-up opera to create a singing mice on speed effect.

Composer/conductor Butch Morris plays with his own innovative practices on “Crayon Bondage.” Starting in jazz, Morris used improvisation and harmonic techniques to revolutionize the musical medium, especially in his practice of “Conduction.” But Crayon was a method of composition, Morris says his methods were “set up as an exercise for me to think about music in another way,” but I can’t find any documentation on how Crayon exactly worked. Performed by artist Jessica Hagedorn and Systems Orchestra, she speaks in a proto-ASMR hush while the band twiddles around her, mystical and sexual but a little uneasy.

Honorable Mentions go to Bill Obrecht for an all-honking brass piece. To Michael Boom for predating Nine Inch Nails. To A.C. Chubb for a perfect name and her composition of “violin, motorcycle boots, and dumpster.” To Charles K. Noyes for using a tape of Basil Rathbone reading Edgar Allen Poe. To F.A. Nettelbeck for the story of “Beer Notation.”

Other Versions

It happened again in 1992. This time on CD by Arrest Records and repressed by MuWorks. 34 new tracks (making the total 68) include the work of Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Syd Straw, Krackhouse, and more. The liner notes describe the state of the project.

Changing political, cultural, and technical climates plus inspired response yields biting satire, bracing sounds, sly observations.

It happened again in 1996. A double CD release on Atavistic. Now at 147 tracks, new additions to the project include Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Kaye, Ikue Mori, and more. It is now suggested that you play the collection “on random shuffle.”

It happened again in 2001, but it was entirely different. A 3 CD set on Electronic Music Foundation with 171 unreleased tracks made up the latest installment in the series. Some tracks are new works by repeat artists, but most of them are completely separate such as Jad Fair, Merzbow, Nicolas Collins, Phill Niblock, and more. Are you tired yet?

I am curious to know what today’s State of the Union would look like. zOaR Records is still active today, with a large roster of new, interesting acts to mine from. And if my own experience in the music world tells me anything, the avant-garde is very much still alive. With the way the world is going these days, we might just need it.

Further Listening

If you need a break from all the avant-garde, zOaR’s first compilation, 1981’s Peripheral Vision, follows a more traditional format. “Bands of Loisaida, New York City” is the subtitle- that’s the phonetic transliteration of the Lower East Side coined by Puerto Rican activists. It’s all great art-punk performed by many of the artists who appear on State of the Union. Lots of saxophone, lots of fun. Honestly, it’s a way better introduction to the zOaR crew than State of the Union, but hey, I haven’t come across a copy yet.

Score

Variety: 5/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 4/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 18/20

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Stats

Year: 1985

Country: Switzerland

Genre: Noise Rock

Purchase

I’m a terrible gift-giver. Not because I don’t know what to get for people, but because the gift has to be perfect. It has to straddle that ever so slight line of something the person will use, something they will love, and something you have in common. That’s why I’m always so surprised when people give me great gifts, another one of which I am covering today.

The beautiful darkness that is Plow! covers the intersection between the noise rock scenes of New York and Switzerland. It was curated by Marcus May, a promoter for the venue Rote Fabrik. The “Red Factory” opened in 1980 and was built due to protests by the Zurich youth movement, who advocated for their own “independent cultural center.” Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Bad Religion have all played at the venue, which is still open today. In 1985, however, the center was only a temporary arrangement with the city. The store/label Rec Rec created Organik as a sub-label for May’s unique ear, and Plow! was its first release, leading to a strong run through 1994.

But why New York and Switzerland? The last Swiss comp I covered was from 1980, and at the time, general interest was in bands from the UK. What changed in five years? On Discogs I found an image of an insert, not one that came with my copy, mostly written in Swiss German, which we can read thanks to the Rosetta Stone that is Google Translate:

“And what about the New York-Switzerland connection? Roll Mosimann, drummer with Swans and sound artist with Wise Blood comes from Zurich. Likewise Alexa, drummer in Hit by a Truck. The Swans song was recorded in Zurich and Christian Marclay is a Geneva native in New York. Dressed Up Animals, Copulation, Abt.409 and Eigernordwand are true Swiss.”

The nice thing about this comp is the even distribution of Swiss and American bands, but not programmed back to back. There’s a freeform flow to the curation that helps soften the harsh noise focus, each song melting into the other in a continuous loop. I put this on while cleaning my bathroom and got completely lost. A review from the mysterious Discogs insert agrees:

“Everything else that can be criticized about collective LPs is refuted here... the sampler seems to be made from a single mold." - Mario Scherrer

Content

A lot of the New York bands on this comp are ones I have little authority when speaking on. So intelligent in their musicianship that I will never really understand them. Sonic Youth is one of these. I like Kim Gordon’s solo work, I like “Kool Thing,” but I have no idea what they’re doing. I think they detune their instruments and stuff. I didn’t take music theory. The point is that they are very esoteric and very cool. And so is Lydia Lunch. Both parties spent their early years in the city rattling around poetry readings and performance arts. Both indulged in the darker tendencies of their milieu. “Death Valley '69 [Version]” is the opener of this compilation and the only track I knew before listening. This mix features alternate vocals from the official release, but with the same winding whirlwind of a growl throughout. The soundscape here reminds me of a plane flying too close to the ground; dangerous, tortured, maybe even sexy.

I’ve been told that Lydia Lunch still prowls the scene in this city, but I have no evidence to prove it. Live Skull I’m certain is around, they played a show with my friends once that I couldn’t make (I’m sorry guys!) They make a lot of smashy noise on “Flake Out,” a song that appeared at the end of their first album.

Also from the same 80s scene are Swans, who I only know from appearing on those dude-bro /mu/ grids from 2018 ( I’d only see this stuff on my Instagram explore page - be rest assured that I would NEVER go on 4Chan.) The fact that that’s my only touchpoint feels actively offensive to the band. “I Crawled” came out the prior year on their EP Young God, an opening track there but a middle-game pick here. This is what I meant about the curator doing a good job with the mix because the track would be crazy as an opener, but makes sense in Plow! It sounds like really really slow heavy metal and is all about daddy issues. I guess that’s where all this slow rock music comes from nowadays. I just think it’s boring.

Swiss Swans member Roli Mosimann is also a member of Side B opener Wise Blood, alongside Australian Clint Ruin. Their track “Cough'n'Kill” is as aggressive as Swans, but 100 times more chaotic, which I prefer, even if their content is still all about violence and such. Chopped and screwed into insanity, I think there are actual coughs embedded in the industrial beat.

When album closer Christian Marclay moved from Geneva to New York he found himself collaborating with John Zorn, Kronos Quartet, and of course, Sonic Youth. Although sound is his focus, Marclay is more of a fine artist than a musician. “Pandora's Box” is a good example of this, employing Marclay’s exploration of turntables as an instrument, winding and rewinding vinyl on up to eight machines at once. This one mostly plays around with big-band jazz. What I would give to crate dig with this guy. This track would be later included in collections of Marclay’s work, but Plow! was its original location of release. I’ve actually covered his work before on What Else Do You Do, and I will again. Right now you can go see his famous film The Clock running for its entire 24-hour runtime at MOMA.

Copulation (also stylized as Copvlation) is a pretty harsh name, but I’m into its percussive industrial clang on “Delenda Cartago.” The band was able to follow up with an album that same year, but no other information is out there. Hit By a Truck are also elusive, a New York band with slow thrashing cymbals and the dark resonant scream of its singer on “Crash ‘84.”

Dressed Up Animals close side A as the winners of the best name competition. I think it’s also my favorite on the whole comp. The Zurich band combines abstract percussion on “Love Does Not Remain” with a siren wail of a vocal riff and speedy call-and-response verses. They released with Organik that same year, the last of their work. Abteilung Nr 409 (stylized here as Abt. 409) are another highlight. The drum and bass band give a dizzying performance on “Abnor Cha.” They combine the manic energy of talking heads with the droning darkness of their compilation neighbors.

The only song I cannot find online is “Dummheit / Die Erde Ruft” by Eiger Nordwand. Any work of theirs not from this album was only released on cassette. How indie. But is that even them? Named after a Swiss mountain, the only member listed on Discogs is a completely different person than in the credits on the album insert. This is a mystery that requires a better understanding of the Swiss German language to do the research. I’d say the song reaches over the line from noise into full-on hardcore.

Further Listening

A lot of the New York bands would appear on compilations together in the future, but the Swiss ones are more interesting. Dressed Up Animals contributed to Voices Notes & Noise, an experimental German comp made up of very short clips in 1984. They were also on Definitiv, a massive guide to the underground in Zurich from 1976 to 1986 that included two LPs and a single. Copulation got some love from the hardcore scene and made it to America on Flipside Vinyl Fanzine Volume Three in 1987, released out of a California record store.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 5/5

Creativity: 4/5

Total Score: 16/20

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Here’s to another year of crazy awesome music, friends, and fun! I’ve compiled my favorites, in no order at all, with very few thoughts.

Albums

• Earthworks - Straw Man Army

• Leather Trim - Dom Sensitive

• Lullaby for the Debris - Peace de Resistance

• Artificial Go - Artificial Go

• Penelope Noid - P. Noid

• Pomp and Circumstance - Lunchbox

• Imaginary Girls - Sun Cousto

• O Seintero Futuro - Porta D’Oro

• Something Looming - Marcel Wave

Tracks

• “LEGO DE GO” - pandagolff

• “Siren Dance” - Plexi Stad

• “Occupied” - Resept

• “Salad Days” - Linda Smith

• “Cubes” - Antenna

• “Surrender” - Qlowski

• “Four Kinds of Lonely” - Cardi O.

• “Go” - Pom Poko

• “Elude the Torch” - The Drin

• “Shake it Down” - C Turtle

Shows

• February 15 - Trophy Wife, Monica Bang at Purgatory

• April 4 - Lael Neale, Anastasia Coope at Public Records

• April 28 - Choncy, Balaclava, CS Cleaners at 148 Frost

• June 13 - Kim Gordon, Sun Ra at Summerstage

• July 17 - Snooper, Macula Dog at Elsewhere

• September 14 - Lemongrab, Figure of Fun at Alphaville

• October 9 - Tube Alloys, RMFC at Baby’s All Right

• October 10 - Gee Tee, Sick Thoughts at Home Sweet Home

• October 12 - Jonathan Richman at White Eagle Hall

• November 30 - Artificial Go at Sandwich

Until the next one,

- Sydney

Stats

Year: 1991

Country: U.S.

Genre: Rock

Purchase

If you have one of the print editions of this column, you may have seen the exclusive wish list that I put at the back of every issue. It started as a page filler, but I enjoyed writing about rare albums so much that it became a regular feature. Kill Rock Stars was on that list in Volume 2, and a good friend of mine, who I appreciate for actually reading the zine all the way to the back, gifted me a copy! Not only that, but he picked it up on a trip to Olympia, the city that it hails from, and got one of the artists (Lois Maffeo of Courtney Love, the band, not the person) to SIGN it for me. I was so thrilled, so here’s another big thank you through this column.

Kill Rock Stars is not only the name of the compilation but the label. Founded in Olympia, Washington in 1991, Tinúviel and Matthew “Slim” Moon had the intention of releasing spoken word 7”s in a format Moon called "Wordcore.” But after two of those they decided to screw being arty and just put out music instead. This self-titled compilation was their third release and was first sold at the 1991 International Pop Underground Convention organized by K Records. Many of the bands featured here played at the event, a poster of which is included in each copy. With new scenes like grunge and riot grrrl rearing their heads in the Pacific Northwest, the move was genius from a business standpoint, but Moon didn’t see it that way:

I just wanted to put out my friends’ records because nobody was putting out my friends’ records.

As a majority were based in Olympia, most of these bands would work with the label again, and even those who didn’t would go on to do momentous things. If you look at the track listing, you’ll agree that’s all I need to say on the topic. In some ways, Kill Rock Stars is the platonic ideal of an indie label, wildly successful to the point of legend but still faithful to its outsider roots.

By the time KRS released a CD version of the comp in 1992, a stronger mission statement had been made:

All of these bands have faith in the future of punk rock and they are, without question, punk rock. Kill Rock Stars is a collection of people who believe that rules are for squares only. If pre-determined definitions of music are your style then you aren’t ready for Kill Rock Stars. The weak need not apply. Long after the fads, Kill Rock Stars will stand out as the stellar example for punk rock of the 90’s. Fuck alternative.

Amen to that.

Content

Kill Rock Stars makes it exciting to hear beloved bands in their earliest form, one of which is Bratmobile. The opener, “Girl Germs,” was their first-ever release. The pounding, scratchy quality of the recording is filled with charm, but the musicality is without nonsense. Here they sound more like twee than punk, but speed is built from a solid foundation. They were already great by the time they hit their first chorus. As the cassette notes say, “they’ve come of age and no one can ignore these terrors.”

Another band in its infancy is Unwound, one of the first that Moon tapped for the collection. “You Speak Jealousy” was released the same year as their self-titled cassette and fills the same post-hardcore niche as their later works. A more conventional take on hardcore comes from Fitz Of Depression, who fuel their way through “Everybody And Their Dog” with force and rage.

Some Velvet Sidewalk define themselves as “anti-grunge and love rock,” purposefully disconnected from the predominant sound of the PNW. Despite being made up of four men in Eugene, OR, their sound is brighter and sharper than their sludgy compatriots. “Loch Ness” screeches poetically on the Scottish lake of fame. This is what grunge would sound like if it took a shower… which also sounds a lot like the Pixies.

Another love rock” group is Kicking Giant with the driving and messy “Make You Come.” The duo formed in NYC but transferred to Olympia for the music, an unheard-of move these days, but a testament to how strong the scene was at the time. In true DIY fashion, most of K.G’s music was released on their own tape label, Loose Leaf.

Courtney Love, which I state again, is the band, not the person, comes from the minds of Lois Maffeo and Pat Maley, the latter of which runs the famed Olympia studio/label Yo-Yo. He would end up recording and releasing albums from a lot of the bands featured here. But Courtney Love was a short-lived project that only released an EP and two singles within the span of a year. “Don't Mix The Colors” wasn’t on any of those, but is a strong selection, highlighting their playful strum and drum duality.

At the time, Mecca Normal was one of the more established groups in this bunch. They were known for their work with K Records through the 80s. Jean Smith and David Lester created “Narrow,” their droning, moaning addition to this comp, which would later be released on the 1993 album Jarred Up, the band’s own compilation of singles and rarities. An old website of their claims that the band is “not just an underground rock duo.” In the Vancouver magazine Noise, the write-up says:

“A very interesting two-piece outfit (Mecca Normal), combining a single heavily distorted electric guitar played at times with karate chops, mike stand and the stage floor and at others doing straight ahead power chords with bitterly intense vocals. They’d make an amazing full band, I think; ‘We are a band’, they responded when I said so.”

Like many other acts on this comp, I respect their dedication to the duo.

As Mecca Normal ties up side A, one of their biggest fans opens the flipside. In the Bikini Kill fanzine, Kathleen Hanna wrote, “Mecca Normal: it makes me wanna cry, I am so glad they exist.” Hanna was already well acquainted with Mecca Normal on a personal level, who played with her first band Viva Knieval. She also was well acquainted with KRS, appearing on their first release, a Wordcore 7” with Slim Moon called Mean/Rock Star. Jean Smith also had her own Wordcore release called Carboni Angel.“Feels Blind” is the featured Bikini Kill track, which would also appear on their first album Revolution Girl Style Now from the same year. It’s slow but energetic, picking up speed until it bursts.

The acts that don’t necessarily fit the preconceptions of the 90s are the most welcome surprise. If you listen to “Cooking With Gas!” you would think Nation of Ulysses is an improv jazz group, and a very good one at that, but they identified as a political party. Eschewing drugs and alcohol and dressing cleanly was their hallmark, as well as extremely aggressive live shows. But don’t call them straight-edge or hardcore, the only label they claimed was their own “Ulysses Aesthetic.” My favorite anecdote about the band is that Vocalist Ian Svenonius ended up winning Sassy magazine’s “Sassiest Boy in America” contest by lying about his age, before the band had even released any music, as an extension of his political directive. With their own zine, Ulysses Speaks, and were a staple of DC’s beloved label Dischord Records. I cannot find any other documentation of their jazz career.

Witchypoo brings out a true oddity in the minimalist monotone pluck called “Reaper Song.” The band was Slim Moon’s supergroup made up of a rotating door of artists. They’re listed on Google as “children’s music,” but I’m not sure I agree. Unexpectedly, the group kicks things into overdrive in their song’s latter half before descending into fuzz.

Also in the weirdo realm is “President of the punk rock club” Jad Fair, who brings his brilliant credentials to the closing track. “Red Dress” sounds more like a hand game than a genuine song, but that’s what I love about it! The backing loop that appears to say “A-E-O” on repeat is haunting, with a mild drone in the backdrop resembling the whistling wind.

The darkest genres are represented in this comp as well. Heaviest of them all are Melvins, who bridge grunge into metal. They existed long before this collection and have existed long after. Infamous Menagerie, a post-punk industrial band, brings the gothic vibes on “Immediate Impound Zone,” a track that allegedly includes a shopping cart and anchor chain as percussion.

And finally, Nirvana is Nirvana. Everything that has ever needed to be said about Nirvana has already been said. Their song “Beeswax” has been separately uploaded to YouTube on the band’s own channel. I assume there were legalities involved.

Other Versions

The original release of Kill Rock Stars was only 1,000 copies to be distributed at the convention. Attendees noted that the silk-screened cover by Tinúviel in shiny gold ink was still slightly wet. The back covers were blank, so the bands went around signing each other’s copies like they were a yearbook. Freaking adorable. But there’s no way I’m ever getting my hands on one of those; that’s museum-worthy. My copy is a reissue for the label’s 30th anniversary in 2021, on clear vinyl with a reprint of the original poster insert. It looks very sharp, and the gold features embossed on both sides for an even further level of shine. The front illustration depicts the Washington State Capitol Building, while the back features a crest for “Olycore” and photos of the bands. There was also a gold vinyl reissue for the 30th anniversary limited to 500 copies, but I like mine better.

The 1992 CD release came with a fold-out of further information on the bands and the thesis of the project. It also included five extra songs from Heavens to Betsey, Steve Fisk, 7 Year Bitch, Kreviss, and a mysterious “Unknown Artist.” The 20th-anniversary reissue, with 2000 copies and a special gold-ink version of the poster insert.

Further Listening (And Reading)

The name International Pop Underground comes from a singles series K Records started in 1987, which still runs to this day with over 140 titles. But the event, which happened in August of 1991, only occurred once.

As the convention’s organizers, it would only make sense for K Records to release their own take on the event. And they did in 1992 as a release simply titled the International Pop Underground Convention. Recorded live at the show, many of the same bands as Kill Rock Stars are featured but with different song selections. Bratmobile sings “Punk Rock Dream Come True” while Kicking Giant rides with “This Sex.” There are a lot of great bands unique to this double LP as well. The Pastels, L7, and Fugazi are all included, but none of those are PNW-based, truly making the convention international. It would be really nice if I could get one of these for a future column…

There’s also a really amazing oral history of the event that Chickfactor Zine did in 2021, which you should read. I’m kind of obsessed with the convention passes and I think we need to bring those back.

Score

Variety: 5/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 3/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 17/20

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Stats

Year: 1988

Country: U.K.

Genre: Post-Punk

Purchase

The WFMU Record Fair is one of my favorite events of the year, but also the most stressful. Picture me (5’2”, female, easily overstimulated) versus the hordes of old, male record enthusiasts vying for vinyl glory. In the battle for who can be more pushy, pretentious, and penny-pinching, I was never going to win. My most heartbreaking defeat involved a cheap copy of C86 swept away before my very eyes! Then there are the spoils. I only walked away with two records like the prior year, but they’re both winners. I’ll start with my favorite.

Mark E. Smith of the Fall founded the label Cog Sinister in 1987 to release his anthology Palace Of Swords Reversed, but he had an idea for a bigger project. For their second release in 1988, Smith put out The Disparate Cogscienti, a who’s who of his beloved Manchester scene at the time. As the Fall had upwards of 60 members during its lifespan, he clearly knew a lot of people. Most of the “forgotten” artists here are friends of Smith, who he pulled into the studio for a recording session. When you’re as respected as the Fall, people will listen to anything you touch. Rough Trade handled American distribution for this comp under the label ROUGH US 46, which is the version I picked up. The distribution sheet notes, however, that “this is not a sampler!” That statement held up, as Cog Sinister wouldn’t put out another compilation, nor much from anyone outside the Fall, for that matter.

One weird tidbit is that the liner notes on this compilation were written by Saffron Prior, Cog Sinister’s office manager who Smith would leave his wife for the following year. Whoops.

Content

A hairdresser/DJ is the typical job of anyone who lives in Bushwick in the current year, but in the ‘80s it was unique for Andrew Berry, who cut hair out of the basement of Factory Record’s Manchester club, the Hacienda. The salon, called Swing, even had its own catalog number from Factory, Fac 98. There’s a great interview with Berry on Electronic Sound about how Mark E. Smith forced him into making music.

He went round the pub going, ‘Right, you and you and you, you’re all signed to my new label’. So that’s how I ended up doing a record. It was more Mark than me, though. I turned up at the studio with this jangly, folky song I’d written and he said, ‘Alright, forget all this fucking medieval poetry rubbish’, and totally changed it.”

That song became “Unsatisfied,” a pretty good club track considering the circumstances it came from. Berry is the only artist from this group who received a Cog Sinister release separate from the comp.

Another Manchester staple are the Hamsters, who have two songs on the A side of this compilation, “Ole Spain” and Stupid Songs.” The greatest wealth of info on the group comes from Fuzzy Warbles Cassettes, who released a series of the band’s work in 2019. Started by a group of friends who drunkenly crashed a UK Subs show, they were offered a proper gig at the same venue a week later, and soon gained a local following. I can hear what Mark E. Smith liked about the band, they have a sense of humor amidst strong political values.

John The Postman receives the heaviest feature with three songs spread out among the sides. Yes, at one point he was actually a postman. Legend has it that John was one of the lucky few who attended the first Sex Pistols gig, becoming a punk folk hero of sorts in the process. He would drunkenly perform rock standards acapella once the actual bands were done performing, which he turned into a legitimate musical project. This is a common theme for bands in the Manchester scene. John helped run Cog Sinister, and two of his songs here, “Come to the Sabbat” and “Work,” were previously only available via bootleg, and they are wild. “Come to the Sabbat” is a sacrilegious chant that poses John as a satanic cult leader, aided by a large chorus and fervent drumming. The hymn devolves into speed and screaming. “Work” is similarly unhinged, a lament on the displeasure of, well, work. Talking to people in the restroom amidst mind-numbing repetition, I kind of love it. His other track is under the name John The Postman's Peurile, a spoken word (and non-word) piece over wild guitar solos, which he jokingly compares to Jimi Hendrix. That recording session was released ten years prior in 1978 with the track, here called “Kowalski” under its full title, “Kawalski Of The Seaview Has The Best Hairstyle I've Ever Seen.”

There’s also the Obi-Men, who according to the nonsensical liner notes, “are a curse to property owners.” Their frontman was a member of the local band V2, which had a much longer career than this group, but his wavy-voiced shout struts through the room with a sound that could have done better if they had put out more music earlier. After this feature, their first proper release wasn’t until 1991, and by then, the 80’s punk sound had long overstayed its welcome.

Side B opens with a twenty-second unlisted intro by the Fall, where Mark E. Smith speaks unintelligibly into what sounds like an awful megaphone. Similar in avant-garde weirdness is the selection by Philip Johnson, called “One Forty Three,” which is a slowed-down sound collage made from the Fall song “Repetition.”

No information about the band Beatrice exists on the internet. I’m assuming the band is from New York City as the picture of them on the album cover is labeled “Beatrice NYC,” but it feels like a weird inclusion for a majority Manchester album. But Beatrice is an uncommon band for this compilation, the only female-led group of the bunch, nay, the only group with females at all. Their sweet twee pop song asks “What’s a girl like me doing in a place like this?” I echo the sentiment.

It can be assumed that many of the anonymous groups featured here were the friends who got roped into recording. Mr. A Valler is one of these, providing a jaunty self-titled organ tune perfect to soundtrack your kitschy Halloween party. The Lowthers and the Next Step have little information on them as well, but both released a second song on Are You Ready? a cassette from Windmill Records, a small label from Cheshire.

The last band formed specifically for this release was the very ungoogleable God. They still have a MySpace page of all things, which is where I got this information, as the project ended up having a life into the 90s. Led by Kevin Martin, an experimental musician who’s been in over a dozen groups, their track “Sounds Like Thunder” is a wild thrash through guitar noodling and cymbal crash.

Further Reading

When looking for supplemental material for this column I never want to cover potential compilations for future issues, that would just be a disservice to my limited content pool! But this release was hard because Cog Sinister never put out any other comps, and the Fall are a part of too many GREAT comps, so instead I offer you a zine.

Between 1982 and 1985, the Melbourne-based fanzine Distant Violins interviewed the Fall, a fairly big get for an independent publication, as even the interviewers can’t believe what they’re conducting. All the issues are available for PDF download on the Toytown Music WordPress, which I highly suggest for the charming handmade quality of the zine and the very good writing. Mark E. Smith rants across three issues, dogging on everything from television to rock press to other bands. As Rough Trade ended up distributing the Fall again through The Disparate Cogscienti, I found this segment particularly funny:

D: Why did you leave Rough Trade when you did? M: Ummm. I'd just had enough. Rough Trade were just... they were taking more than they were giving, I think. They were always alright with us, it's just that we were a part of that fucking morass of untalented groups, we were just being treated the same as other groups, and we're not like that, we're better than all that other shit. D: It seemed like it was a really obvious company for you to be with. M: We stuck with 'em as long as we could, I'd just had enough of fucking idiots who'd been working there for about 3 weeks, fucking socialist art student never done a day's work in his fucking life, coming up and telling me what he thought would be a good idea for the record. I'd rather hear it coming from a fat executive. It was so commune run, every idiot thought he had a fucking say in everything.

Now go read the full thing, you won’t regret it.

Score

Variety: 3/5

Quality: 4/5

Cohesion: 3/5

Creativity: 5/5

Total Score: 15/20

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