Sebadoh - "Asshole" EP (Vertical Industries 1992)

Here's a quick one cos I wanted to post a record after all those videos. Back to mah roots, hah! Plus I just wanna see that bright red Asshole heart up there...

This 7"er is pretty much what you would expect: lo-fi out-of-tune Lou strumming and humming, noise collage, scorching punk rockers. Beautiful, in other words!

My copy says it's the 2nd pressing of 500.
There's no track listing and I can't find any online, so I guess they're untitled.
As I recall, this came with a bunch of plastic ants thrown into the sleeve. For some reason. I imagine someone got a tape from Lou to put out a 7" and they sat around their living room getting fucked-up with friends, stenciling and Speedball linoleum printing the labels, splattering 'em with a bit of spray paint and generally doing everything they could think of to make a nice record.
Good job, guys.

Get it HERE.

VIDEO MEGAPOST: The Ex / Royal Trux / Flat Duo Jets / Ruin... / The Wedding Present / Mekons

I've been busying myself in my free time this past week digitizing my rapidly deteriorating collection of analog Hi8 videos of shows I filmed for my public access show in NYC. Talk about drudgery! But I make the fruits of my labor available to you, dear reader! Several of these shows have glitches edited out, generally at the beginning, and I'll let you know where and how bad (actually I think the problem is my crappy camera not the tapes). But mostly they're just fine. They are all great shows, shot close up and with great audio.

I'm still experimenting with video file formats, etc. So some are AVI, some are MOV. I am leaning towards the MOV format cos the files are smaller, there's less pixelation and the audio is uncompressed. Like I've said before, you should definitely have the awesome free cross-platform VLC media player. It plays EVERY video format in ANY operating system and is FREE. 'Nuff said. No whining.

Alternately, I was surprised to learn that Megaupload has an "Instant Video Link" for these vids. It's pretty cool: you just gotta close one pop-under window, then click "play" again. The viewer is huge, much better than Youtube's, and you can skip to any part of the video. So it's good for preview purposes at the very least; see if you wanna download 'em or not. (I would suggest clicking the "Switch to 4:3" format cos the viewer is widescreen and they do that weird stretchy thing, though it's not too bad).

Alright, here's what I got for ya:

The Ex - The Knitting Factory, NYC, 2/18/99, 78m.
An absolutely furious set from the Dutch anarcho-punks. One of the best shows I've ever seen. Shot close-up with wide angle lens. Awesome. Essential viewing for all, especially if you've never seen them and/or live in some bumfuck burg which they will never visit...
776 MB AVI file HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Royal Trux - The Cooler, NYC, 9/12/98, 57m.
A great set from the classic scuzz rockers. Up close, great audio.
800 MB AVI file HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Flat Duo Jets - Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ, 3/29/96, 78m.
Just saw the Dex Romweber Duo last week and was reminded that I had this old video. The man has mellowed a bit over the years but the set was still great. And his sister is bad-ass on the skins. This set is classic FDJ fury, non-stop.
362 MB MOV file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Ruin... - Upstairs At Nick's, Philadelphia, 11/30/96, 76m.
One of my favorite bands to go see growing up in the Philly area in the early 80's. Read what I posted about them earlier (and download their ESSENTIAL discography on one CD) HERE. This is a video of the second of three shows they reunited to do for the release of said remastered discography. It's about the ONLY Ruin there is on video, according to Cordy and Tom.
799 MB AVI file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

The Wedding Present - Tramps, NYC, 9/7/96, 57m.
Probably my all-time favorite "pop" band, David Gedge and the Weddoes (as the trendy Brit press dubbed them) emerged from the C86 scene along with Primal Scream, Close Lobsters, etc. I could identify with Gedge's melancholic yearnings exploding into passionate guitar fury (I mean, look at the pic!), especially at that time of my life. I always thought they should be at least as big as The Cure. But perhaps it's for the best they're not. Cos last year and the year before they came to Tucson (!) and played intimate club dates. Furiously.

I'll give a set list here cos I know all the songs, woo-hoo!:
Crawl / Come Play With Me / Kansas / Sports Car / Snake Eyes / 2, 3, Go / Love Slave / Drive / Real Thing / Venus / Gazebo / Click Click / Convertible / Montreal / Swimming Pools, Movie Stars / Brassneck / Heather

699 MB AVI file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

Mekons - Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ, 10/17/95, 107m.
A much more rollicking set than the previous Mekons video post, this show had lotsa old favorites I thought they'd long forgotten. Much of the typical Mekons banter hilarity between songs. A must for fan and neophyte alike.
(There were a couple nasty glitches I edited out in the first 2 songs. Then it's pretty much smooth sailing.)

Set list:
Last Dance / Fantastic Voyage / Millionaire / Sleepless Nights / Hole In the Ground / Brutal / Spit / Lyric / Wild and Blue / Sympathy For The Mekons / The Curse / Where Were You / Memphis, Egypt / Shanty // Ghosts Of American Astronauts / Prince Of Darkness / Sweet Dreams // Echo / Road To Florida / 100% Song

489 MB MOV file is HERE.
"Instant Video Link" is HERE.

More video in the coming weeks as I digitize more tapes, including: The Frogs, Oblivians, Dwarves, Killdozer, Melvins, Jesus Lizard, Mike Watt, Thee Headcoats, Sonic Youth, Trail Of Dead, RL Burnside, Hasil Adkins, Smog, Built To Spill, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Six Finger Satellite, Geraldine Fibbers... to name a few.

Let me know what you'd like to see first. And let me know if you'd like full, uncompressed downloads of any of these things. And generally if you appreciate my efforts here or am I wasting my time???

The Dead C. - "The Operation Of the Sonne" (1994 Siltbreeze)

As per request, here is The Dead C.'s 1994 vinyl-only release. I think I got this off the Kiwi Tapes blog a while back, and the requester - "Anonymous" - says the link is dead. Well, the blog is pretty much dead so I guess so. Anyway, three long pieces. Fucking Dead C. - what can I say that I haven't before? Plus I'm just lazy and as this is a request I hadn't thought of much to say beforehand.

It's awesome. It's HERE.

Tracks:
01. Marriage of Reason and Squalor
02. Mordant Heaven
03. Air

And a note: If you request something, and I have it, and it's not on a ton of other blogs, I'll be happy to post it. But if you're going to request anonymously at least sign off with a name, any name.
Just so I don't have to call you "Anonymous"...

The Flaming Lips - "The Soft Bulletin - The Companion CD" (1999 Promo)

I found this thing on a torrent site whilst looking for a particular Lips show boot. Not my favorite era Lips but what the hell it's the Lips... I've decided to post it since I've never seen it around on the blogs. It's a promo-only thing. I think some of these songs/versions eventually came out as tracks on CD singles. There's also lotsa radio sessions. Definitely a must for the Flaming Lips completeist, anyway.

I have a feeling that Disc 1 might be the "official" release and Disc 2 might be a bootleg put together by someone. Not least because it's listed as a 1999 release and the radio sessions are from 2000. But also because it's called simply "The Companion CD", not CDs... If anyone has any info on this leave a comment...

A 2 Disc set at 192 kbps in one download HERE

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. 35,000 Feet Of Despair
02. 1,000 Foot Hands (Early Mix)
03. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (You're Invisible Now)
04. Buggin' (Lips Mix)
05. A Machine In India (Edit Version)
06. Okay, I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand
07. The Captain Is A Cold Hearted & Egotistical Fool
08. Satellite of You (Written by Lou Reed)
09. The Spiderbite Song (Early Mix)
10. Slow Motion (Early Mix)
11. 1,000 Foot Hands (Final Mix)
12. Little Hands (Written by Alexander "Skip" Spence)
13. The Big 'Ol Bug

Disc 2:
01. Race for the Prize (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
02. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
03. The Spiderbite Song (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
04. Above The Daily Hum (Eve Sessions on 4.21.00)
05. The Spiderbite Song (GLR on 4.23.00)
06. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (GLR on 4.23.00)
07. Everyone's Gone To The Moon (GLR on 4.23.00)
08. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (XFM on 4.27.00)
09. The Spiderbite Song (XFM on 4.27.00)
10. The Switch That Turns Off The Universe (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
11. We Can't Predict The Future (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
12. If Remained Unrealized (Peel Sessions 6.8.00)
13. The Captain (GLR on 6.10.00)
14. Waitin' For A Superman (GLR on 6.10.00)

VIDEO: "The Fall - The Wonderful and Frightening World Of Mark E Smith" (2005 BBC Four) 60m.

"You are the worst group I've ever seen. In the history of mankind. The worst tuneless rubbish I've ever heard, even worse than Siouxsie and the Banshees. I didn't believe it was possible. Please do a Session."
--John Walters, Peel Sessions producer, in a letter to Mark E. Smith

And thus, ignominiously started the longest stretch of Peel Sessions by any artist: 24. Such are the little nuggets in this great documentary to satisfy the most rabid Fall fan. (Me, I've watched it at least ten times). It's loaded with great live footage, interviews with luminaries such as John Peel, Tony Wilson and oft-time producer Grant Showbiz, interviews with ex-band members Steve Hanley and Marc Riley (lots of great anecdotes), and of course the man himself.

I don't know if this documentary is going to change anyone's mind on The Fall but, you know, fuck them. Who cares? And sure, MES is difficult to understand. He's smoking and drinking and slurring. But I transcribed that quote up there directly from his relating the tale in the film, so it's not impossible. You just gotta... Listen.
There's great old television footage (just clips, alas), and our interviewees take us on a trip through all the ups/downs/ins/outs of The Fall from the earliest days up 'til the making of this doc, which coincided with the taping of the last Peel Session. There's great footage of them recording Blindness and I Can Hear the Grass Grow and Mark admonishing his then-bandmates ("You've got to fucking play a bit harder and you've got to be in tune and you've got to do it on the changes").
The video itself is great quality. Nice widescreen picture. It was digitally recorded and I downloaded it from some forgotten spot a couple years ago (I can't find it today). If you just want to watch the film, there is a single-download 700 MB AVI version that will play in any media player and looks just fine. If you want to archive this or burn it onto a DVD, get the uncompressed 3-part download. It's pristine. But it's an MPEG file, as I got it. But if you have the great VLC Player, which everyone should cos it plays every format perfectly (and it's free and they never bug you for donations), you will have no problems.
And last but not least: My Connection (there always is, isn't there?). This film includes footage I shot in 1998 in NYC. It was their infamous "onstage row". Karl jumps out from behind his kit and assaults MES, to which he implores us to "Bear witness, laddies". Karl, Hanley and that Tommy guy all quit/sacked the next day.
There's about two minutes of my footage and it is really crappy-looking! Granted, it wasn't one of my best shoots, what with Brownies' having just built their gigantic stage and I wasn't prepared for that (TOO close), and of course it wasn't the greatest gig (The night before at Coney Island High was phenomenal - MES positively menacing with a black eye and the band smoking - there's a still photo in the film). But the worst part is it's from a very high-generation copy. I traded this with one guy in Manchester I traded lotsa Fall stuff with, and I assume he traded his out and they traded theirs out... But you'd think a bloody BBC researcher could have easily traced it back? But then maybe it wasn't in the budget. Maybe they liked that grainy bootleg look.
Oh well, at least I can say I've got footage in a BBC documentary!
At least that's something...

The 700 MB AVI single-download is HERE.

The 1.84 GB 3-part download: PART 1 * PART 2 * PART 3
(Download all 3 parts, double click file marked ".001" to extract all 3 parts and end up with one MPEG file. Burn to DVD, etc.)

Also: check out this very excellent compilation, Songs The Fall Covered over at Doctorfuckwit's blog!

The Dead C. - "The Dead C." (2000 Language Recordings)

An excellent 2 disc set of haunting noisescapes from the New Zealand masters. No vocals on this one.
A cursory interweb search reveals that this, apparently, is sometimes known as "Language Recordings 1&2", though that is the label (not the 1&2 part). I think. Their discography lists this as their eponymous (S/T) album. Whatever; it rules. Recorded between 1995 and 1999. The recording quality is excellent and this is a big 320 kbps rip to take full advantage of that fact.

Necessary. One download right HERE.

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. Accelerate
02. Dec
03. Pussyfooting
04. Speederbot
05. All Channels Open

Disc 2:
01. One Night
02. Realisation con Slider
03. Fake Electronics
04. Tuba is Funny (Slight Return)
05. Drillbit
06. High Original
07. Tidewater

Eugene Chadbourne - "LSDC&W; - The History of the Chadbournes In America" (1987)

Here's a real treat from the fucked-up genius of the good Dr. Chadbourne. If you're familiar with his work with Kramer in Shockabilly, this treads similar ground, but in an even more whacked-out improv vein. The title "LSDC&W;" is very apt. The 20+ minute Beatles Medley is worth the download alone. But then you also get his Roger Miller Medley, his take on Burma Shave and Cash's Tennessee Flattop Box. His Third Stone From the Sun is a totally unrecognizable noise-fest. Some truly fried shit.

Very hard to find on blogs and the bricks and mortar, I have to thank my friend Dimitri for letting me rip his double-LP for y'all (no window hopping involved). Ripped at 320 kbps in two downloads:

Disc 1 and Disc 2

Tracks:
Disc 1:
01. The Beatles Medley
02. In A Sentimental Mood (The Duke) (Pt. 1)
03. In A Sentimental Mood (Pt. 2)
04. Winchester, Va.
05. Tennessee Flattop Box
06. Dr. Chadbourne's Ordeal In Nashville
07. Burma Shave
08. Dixie Fried

Disc 2:
01. Wine Me Up
02. Roger Miller Medley
03. House Burning Down
04. Third Stone From The Sun
05. Funny How Time Slips Away
06. Ghosts
07. 7 + 7 =
08. Burl Ives Medley
09. Wild Horses
10. W Va Spec (Zorn Tribute)
11. Nobody Loves Me But My Mother
12. No Reason To Quit

ps - My apologies for the crappy cover art. I neglected to photograph the LP after I ripped it and this was the best I could find on the web. Stay tuned and I will soon have a better version for you...

Ween - demos and shit...

More extreme brownness from the Browntracker Ween collector's torrent site. Such a wealth of obscure treats! My only job here is to make 320 kbps mp3s of the flacs I download and make them available to you for direct download. And since I am a big artwork freak (my iTunes has to have art for everything or I freak out) I've made "covers" for most of these. Except the "12 Golden Country Greats" Demos which someone else did a fine, fine job on!

Chocolate & Cheese Taster - Demos Summer 1992
This is a great collection of songs, only some of which ended up on C&C; in 1994. Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 15 remain unreleased in any form. Tracks 3, 5 and 10 ended up as B-sides in finished form. But my favorites are the very different takes on C&C; songs like Take Me Away and Freedom of '76 (what I call the "Negro Girls" version, referring to the original lyrics, probably deemed by Elektra as too... racy?). But best of all is the second take of Buckingham Green, which didn't see a proper release until 1997's "The Mollusk" LP. This is a long, proggy take with a little spoken story about the Child of Eye frollicking with gnomes and shit and an absolutely scorching guitar coda at the end. Awesome!

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. I Still Love You / 02. Short Span Of Attention / 03. Ode To Rene / 04. Feed The Fire / 05. Mango Woman / 06. Gabrielle (1) / 07. Freedom of '76 (1) / 08. Buckingham Green (1) / 09. Take Me Away / 10. Sweet Texas Fire / 11. Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down) / 12. Buckingham Green (2) / 13. Gabrielle (2) / 14. The Rift / 15. Pass The Bong / 16. AIDS-Amplified / 17. Freedom of '76 (2)

12 Golden Country Greats Demos
These are the demos Ween sent off to Nashville to recruit the authentic band and/or have them learn the songs. Though there are two songs which didn't make the final album (Tracks 8 and 11, both of which remain unreleased in any form) this collection remains true to the final album's title in that there are actually only eleven songs.
These songs sound pretty much in close-to-final form, except that they are, um, demos. With drum machines and shit. In other words, classic Ween. The mournful So Long Jerry seems to be (and I am assuming here) their farewell to the then-recently died Jerry Garcia. Though not as mournful as C&C;'s A Tear For Eddie (for Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel), it's a good one and I guess deserving. Though I was never in any way, shape or form a Deadhead so what would I know? (Though I have been to Dead shows to score drugs and laugh at the whole spectacle and scare the hippies with my mohawk and a particularly nasty gash on my face - this was the early 80's - OK I've said too much and will shut up now).

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. I Don't Want To Leave You On the Farm / 02. Piss Up a Rope / 03. Mr. Richard Smoker / 04. Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain / 05. Pretty Girl / 06. Fluffy / 07. Powder Blue / 08. I've Got No Darkside / 09. You Were the Fool / 10. I'm Holding You / 11. So Long Jerry

Bilboa - The Pod Outtakes
I guess at this point the difference between "demos" and "outtakes" is just semantics. At least I'm gonna treat it as such to include this great collection in this post. So there. 17 of these 25 songs remain unreleasesd in any form. Yow! A treasure trove. And the whole thing retains the Scotchguard-and-mononucleosis fueled vibe of their classic second album. I grow weary of typing so just download this and explore the massive brownness that is Bilboa.

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. Fantasy Jam / 02. Jam / 03. Oh My Dear (Falling in Love) / 04. If I Close My Eyes Forever / 05. The Mind / 06. Demon Sweat / 07. Mononucleosis / 08. Don't Yank Me / 09. Fuckholm Suckholm Dickholm Stickholm / 10. I Used to Write Good Songs for Ween / 11. Long-Legged Sally Was a No-Necked Whore / 12. Stallion Master / 13. Don't Sweat It / 14. It's No Good (When You Feel Bad) / 15. Das Bullshit / 16. Weed Whore / 17. No Cheese for the Candyman / 18. Make It / 19. Captain Fantasy / 20. Mr. Mocha / 21. Round and Round / 22. Good Bad Happy Sad / 23. Try To Be Brown / 24. Pollo Asado / 25. I Was Nothing

White Pepper Demos
For me the least interesting of these, from what for me is Ween's least interesting album. Which is not to say it's bad. In fact, I have very fond memories of Ween's 2000 European Tour promoting this album, tagging along in Munich, Zurich, Paris and London, eating their food and drinking their beer and getting hot Eurochicks into shows for free (one of whom I scored with, woo-hoo!). One funny memory: after the show in Munich, my friends and I all piled into her mom's VW Golf (i.e. Rabbit) with Claude and Dave to go to her friend's bar. Room was tight so Dave rode in the trunk. When we arrived we were all heading in when we heard a banging in the distance - we had forgotten Dave in the trunk! "Hey guys, I wanna go to the bar, too!" he said upon release. Haha.
Anyway, back to the demos. These are not much different from the final versions. A couple songs from the final LP are missing and one song, the pretty She Caught My Fancy remains unreleased in any form.

Get it HERE.

Tracks: 01. Stay Forever / 02. Even If You Don't / 03. The Grobe / 04. Stroker Ace / 05. She Caught My Fancy / 06. Pandy Fackler / 07. She's Your Baby / 08. Falling Out / 09. Ice Castles / 10. Back To Basom

VIDEO: Mekons - Bowery Ballroom NYC 3/9/2000 (99 min.)

Another one from my Hi8 video collection of NYC shows (See my Ween video post for more information). This show was two days after their "Journey to the End of the Night" LP came out, and the first half relies heavily on that new material. About half-way through it turns into your typically raucous Mekons gig, featuring a great Kinks cover (Fancy) as well as Mitch the Roadie's punk rock Where Were You and their classic take on Hank Williams' Lost Highway.

This is an uncompressed, full-size (3.39 GB) AVI file. You will need to download all four parts, then double click (or single click and choose an app to open with) on the file marked zip.001. All four zips will automatically be extracted and you will have one AVI file which will play on any media player. You can then easily burn this file onto a DVD then delete the file, which is rather large.

Audio and video are both great. I was up close with a wide-angle lens and a good external mic. Please note that this was originally an analog Hi8 tape, not digital so it's not perfect. It's as good as possible, though, and an absolute must for any Mekons fan.

Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 * Part 4

Set List:
01. I'm Not Here (1967)
02. Tina
03. Heaven & Back
04. Last Weeks of the War
05. Gin Palace
06. The Flood
07. Myth
08. Cast No Shadows
09. Ordinary Night
10. Orpheus
11. Poxy Lips
12. Neglect
13. Powers & Horror
14. When Darkness Falls
15. Fancy
16. Where Were You
17. Lost Highway
18. Memphis, Egypt
19. Ballad of Sally
20. Prince of Darkness