Monkeyspank - Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth

Here is an artifact from the Baltimore music scene in 1990: Monkeyspank's first album, the 7-song Demons Flew Out Of My Mouth on Merkin Records. The last.fm entry on Monkeyspank reads:

Monkeyspank was a Baltimore hard rock/funk band active in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Monkeyspank featured an unusual lineup of three drummers/percussionists, two bass players, and a guitarist.Monkeyspank’s sound owes equal debts to guitar-driven heavy rock and polyrythmic funk, in some degree similar to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (albeit with a much darker edge) and local Baltimore contemporaries The All Mighty Senators. They released two albums, the vinyl-only Demons Flew Out of My Mouth and Blue Mud.

The band lineup was: Bill Corsello, Allison Futeral, Dave Kahle, Kevin Keelty, Kendall King and Brian Rice. The track listing of Demons is:

1 Snakejuice
2 1000 Dead Jim Backuses
3 Akio's Dad
4 I Am Sam
5 Dr. Omar
6 Hero
7 I Shake My Stick

Get the vinyl rip of Demons here or here; see the Monkeyspank MySpace page here; get some "where are they now" information here.

Vigil - FLAC

This entry is a repeat of one of last month's posts, but with a key difference. The original post linked to a standard 192kbps mp3 rip from vinyl. An alert reader turned up a copy of the CD release, however, and a quick order made it mine. So I am breaking with my normal policy to present a FLAC rip of this special CD, one of the first rock CDs to be digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered. The archive is spread over three files (join with HJSplit or 7Zip):

RS: File 1

MU: File 1, File 2, File 3

BD: File 1

DF: File 1

HF: File 1

This rip eliminates the distorted sibilants in my vinyl rip, and of course the surface noise; it is pristine. (CD ripped to FLAC with Exact Audio Copy.)

For those who missed the band info the first time around, here it is again:

Continuing our brief musical tour of Baltimore in the 1980s, here is the sole major-label release of Vigil, previously known as Here Today. Here is the capsule history of the band from the Vigil MySpace page:

Vigil was a modern rock band that recorded and performed in the mid to late 1980's. Once upon a time in the "Land of Pleasant Living" aka Baltimore there was a group of musicians known as Here Today: Jo Connor, Andy R, X Factor and Gregg Maizel. They recorded a classic song called "Whistle in the Yard" and soon signed to CBS records, changed their name to Vigil and were promptly dropped. Vigil was quickly signed by Chrysalis Records and recorded their debut lp in glorious digital. It was released in 1987 and sold enough copies to allow them to record another lp but only one track, "Therapist", was released by Chrysalis, appearing on the Nightmare on Elm Street 4 soundtrack. Eventually the second album was released on cassette only as Onto Beggar and Bitter Things.

Vigil was influenced by UK bands, particularly those of the Gothic persuasion, and as a result their expansive, dreamy sound was quite different from most of the other Maryland bands of the era. "I Am Waiting" was released as a 12-inch single, but it was the wah-wah-guitar-fuelled B-side, "I Love You Equinox", that garnered all the airplay on WHFS:



I have never found a copy of the self-released, cassette-only second album, but I presume that the first three songs on Vigil's MySpace player come from it, since they are not on the first album. The full track list of the first album is:

1. Until the Seasons
2. I Am Waiting
3. White Magic Spell
4. Gargoyles
5. I Love You Equinox
6. Whistle in the Yard
7. The Celiba Sea
8. The Garden
9. Born Again
10. The Benefit of the Doubt

Vigil singer Jo Connor now fronts the Jo Connor Band, which "performs classic Vigil songs along with new faves."

Cabal / Null Set

By some accounts Baltimore's first and greatest postpunk band, Null Set was the brainchild of singer Bill Dawson (previously seen here with Black Pete) and guitarist Mark Harp. Null Set's highest-profile gig was opening for the Ramones at Johns Hopkins University's Shriver Hall, and they were semi-regulars at the Marble Bar and DC's 9:30 Club in the early 80s. Their Bauhaus fandom shows pretty clearly in their early recordings; "An Evening In Town" is their "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Null Set came to an abrupt end when an identically-named band from another city put out a record; Baltimore's Null Set ended up changing their name to Cabal. In 1984 they released their only record, a self-titled 6-song EP on Buck Awf's ad-hoc Awf-Trak label; on it they started to come out from under the Bauhaus influence and expand their sound, even approaching synth-pop on "New Horizon." Commercial success did not ensue, however, and the band drifted apart. Mark Harp went on to record hundreds of hours of music in a myriad of different projects; he eventually divided them into 24 hour-long thematic sections and posted them on his website (and at the Internet Archive) as 24 Hours with Mark Harp. Mark died in December 2004, but his website is still there. What I am presenting here is the 12:00 AM hour of 24 Hours, containing all the Null Set and Cabal recordings; I have renamed the files and added ID3 tags for better playback display, and put them into a single zip file for easy downloading. The tracks are:

1. Cabal - Null Theme (Tracks 1-6 are from the Cabal EP)
2. Cabal - In Touch
3. Cabal - Future In Pain
4. Cabal - Blissful Trust
5. Cabal - Fall Flat
6. Cabal - New Horizon
7. Cabal - Open Up (Cassette only track from the Cabal EP release)
8. Cabal - Assistance (Live at The Marble Bar Baltimore 1983)
9. Cabal - Brash Finale (Also live at The Marble Bar 1983)
10. Cabal - Check This Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
11. Cabal - No Way Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
12. Null Set - Null Theme (Tracks 12-14 from Null Set's demo recorded 1981 at Eastern Studios in Glen Burnie, MD, produced by Sam Prager)
13. Null Set - Perception
14. Null Set - Go!
15. Null Set - An Evening In Town (synth thanks to Jack Heinicke)

CABAL - Bill Dawson - Vocals, Mark Harp - Guitars and stuff, Rich Dickson - Drums, Dave Zidek - Bass, Dick Hertz - Bass, Danny Brown - Keys, Steve Palmieri - Synth and sound, Les Hendrix - Bass, Mark King - Guitar & keys

NULL SET - Bill Dawson - Vocals, Mark Harp - Guitars & Stuff, John Chriest - Bass, Louis Frisino - Drums

Get the zip file here or here. (New links)

Vigil

Continuing our brief musical tour of Baltimore in the 1980s, here is the sole major-label release of Vigil, previously known as Here Today. Here is the capsule history of the band from the Vigil MySpace page:

Vigil was a modern rock band that recorded and performed in the mid to late 1980's. Once upon a time in the "Land of Pleasant Living" aka Baltimore there was a group of musicians known as Here Today: Jo Connor, Andy R, X Factor and Gregg Maizel. They recorded a classic song called "Whistle in the Yard" and soon signed to CBS records, changed their name to Vigil and were promptly dropped. Vigil was quickly signed by Chrysalis Records and recorded their debut lp in glorious digital. It was released in 1987 and sold enough copies to allow them to record another lp but only one track, "Therapist", was released by Chrysalis, appearing on the Nightmare on Elm Street 4 soundtrack. Eventually the second album was released on cassette only as Onto Beggar and Bitter Things.

Vigil was influenced by UK bands, particularly those of the Gothic persuasion, and as a result their expansive, dreamy sound was quite different from most of the other Maryland bands of the era. "I Am Waiting" was released as a 12-inch single, but it was the wah-wah-guitar-fuelled B-side, "I Love You Equinox", that garnered all the airplay on WHFS:



I have never found a copy of the self-released, cassette-only second album, but I presume that the first three songs on Vigil's MySpace player come from it, since they are not on the first album. The full track list of the first album is:

1. Until the Seasons
2. I Am Waiting
3. White Magic Spell
4. Gargoyles
5. I Love You Equinox
6. Whistle in the Yard
7. The Celiba Sea
8. The Garden
9. Born Again
10. The Benefit of the Doubt
11. Enclosures (I have added this as a bonus track, it is the second track on the "I Am Waiting" B-side and did not appear on the album.)

The CD version of this album is a bit of a collector's item as it is one of the first (possibly the first) rock albums to be recorded, mixed, and mastered digitally ("DDD"). I don't have the CD, though, so I can only offer a vinyl rip for now; get it here or here. (I goofed a little on the track numbers in the tags and filenames, but everything still plays in the correct order.)

Update: I got the CD and have posted a FLAC rip here.

Vigil singer Jo Connor now fronts the Jo Connor Band, which "performs classic Vigil songs along with new faves."

Various Artists - 8 Essential Attitudes

For this entry we remain in Baltimore but go back a few years to 1985 for the Frantic Records sampler album 8 Essential Attitudes. The album cover depicts a can of "Cream of Baltimore" being poured onto a turntable: do not do this! It will ruin your turntable! Fortunately the package contains a solid vinyl LP which is perfectly suited to playing on a turntable. The "8 Essential Attitudes" are eight indie bands from the Baltimore area:

1. Red Tape - I Know
2. exibit A - yippi-i-o
3. Beyond Words - On the Moon
4. Thee Katatonix - Ordinary Sunday
5. The View - Only Water
6. Mission - When Thunder Comes
7. Off the Wall - She's All Mine
8. Clever Lines - After the Snow Melts

The most accomplished band here is Off the Wall, but their big-band rockabilly style is decidedly out of place. Red Tape lean toward an AOR sound, Thee Katatonix are the closest thing to punk rock here, Mission have a gothic vibe belied by their preppy appearance, exibit A have an indie-twee sound, Clever Lines go for the grand sound of UK acts like Duran Duran and Simple Minds, and Beyond Words and The View play middle-of-the-road new wave pop. Not as diverse as the gathering on the Merkin Seedy Sampler, but it's a smaller, earlier sample. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (I'm trying out flyupload with the second link; from what I've seen it has no waiting period and does allow download managers. Please let me know if there are any problems with it.)

Various Artists - Merkin Records Seedy Sampler

Black Pete must have been the only alternative band in Baltimore that wasn't included on this 1989 20-band sampler CD from Merkin Records:

1. U. Violets - Gade (actually Ultra-Violets, must have been a legal issue that prevented them using the name on this CD)
2. All Mighty Senators - Wink (band still active)
3. Lambs Eat Ivy - Serpentine
4. Bazooka Joe - Insomnia
5. Dark Carnival - Back to the Factory
6. Monkeyspank - Dr. Omar
7. Jade - Line
8. Lungfish - Return Descender
9. The Pearl Fishers - Black Box (not the David Scott band)
10. The Unknown - Empty House of Night
11. Rise - God Bless the Creeps
12. Elements of Design - I Love a Man with Rhythm
13. The Last Picture Show - Destination (led by writer Louis Maistros as Lu Maestro)
14. Braver Noise - The Smiths Have Gone to Heaven
15. Seesaw - Rochelle Bridges
16. Motor Morons - Another Girl (may still be active, though no shows since 2007; imagine Devo songs played by Einstürzende Neubauten)
17. Mark Harp - The Drill (guitarist for Null Set/Cabal, also of the Beatoes, Motor Morons, Chelsea Graveyard, the Diamondheads, etc.)
18. Infant Lunch - Cut the Cord
19. Grey March - Beneath the Sea
20. Reptile House - Turning Disease

There's quite a variety of musical styles here: punk, gothic, new wave, Springsteenian populist rock, funk, and more. Get the CD rip here or here.

Black Pete - Mississippi Queen

In the late 80s industrial dance music was all the rage in alternative circles; labels such as Wax Trax in Chicago, Play It Again Sam in Belgium, and Nettwerk in Canada were putting out tons of releases, with many of the acts making the jump to major labels (Ministry, Skinny Puppy, etc.). But one of the only stabs at this genre from Baltimore that I can recall* was a one-off 12" by Black Pete, the duo of George Hagegeorge and ex-Null Set/Cabal singer Bill Dawson. A bass player was added for live shows, though I don't know if one ever happened. I think the record actually got issued by two labels somehow; here is the Calvert Street Records version. The A-side is a cover of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" (which Ministry would cover in a similar vein 19 years later), and the B-side contains the two original tracks "Vicious" and "Ablaze". It sounds more like heavy metal guys adding a drum machine and sequencer to make industrial music rather than an electro band adding metal guitar, but whatever the case it's good for some retro cyber-headbanging. Hagegeorge is now a photographer; Dawson is now a tattoo artist based in Florida. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

* There was also Glitch. Any more?

Growing Up Different: A+B=C

After the (first) breakup of Maryland AOR faves Face Dancer, Billy Trainor and Scott McGinn teamed up with D.J. Long to form the synth-based new wave band Growing Up Different. They recorded one EP, A+B=C; there's no date on it but I think it's 1983. Here it is.