Hear out-of-print, largely forgotten recordings of rock, jazz, and other music; or, records that I have and I think more people should hear, because I like them!
A generous reader has donated a rip of an early single by Vigil, back when they were called Here Today: "The It" b/w "On Me". The Bauhaus influences are on full display here: "The It" has a beat similar to Eno's "Third Uncle" (by way of Bauhaus), and Jo Connor echoes Peter Murphy's vocal cadences (but not his voice, their timbres are totally different) on "On Me". It's quite exciting to hear something from so early in their career! I can't find a solid date for it, but I would guess it's from around 1983. Get the vinyl rip here or here. (See here for a FLAC rip of the Vigil CD.) And many thanks to our benefactor!
Black Rock from the Red Centre from 1987 is the first US release by Australian Aborigine rock band Coloured Stone; the twelve songs are taken from the band's first two Australian albums from 1984 and 1985. The album profile from Rounder Records reads:
With the emergence of two groups, Coloured Stone and the Warumpi Band, Aboriginal rock 'n' roll is becoming a significantand exciting genre in Australian popular music, with two albums to their credit in their homeland (from both of which Black Stone From The Red Centre is drawn), Coloured Stone saw its first release sponsored by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association's own record label, lmpaarja. Recorded in one night, their debut LP contained "Black Boy" and "Kapi Pulka," which became #l hits, via Radio Australia, in the Pacific Islands Region.
Composed of two sets of brothers, the Lawries and the Coabys, with Buna Lawrie as songwriter, lead singer and drummer, Coloured Stone's songs and their sounds are naive, which is not to say simplistic, and they're straightforward and disarmingly honest. On this record you have straightahead rock songs devoid of the usual aggression and hostility and you have unique mixtures of all the different shades of modern pop from country to R&B to rock and reggae mixed up in totally new ways.
Finding original rock in the Australian bush is like finding a punk band in Dubbo —- it happens, but don't count on it. The uniqueness of this new breed of desert musician is that they play fast, loud and often raucous music in a landscape otherwise dominated bythe perennial C&W tunes and easy listening folk, not so much in the fact they are black. The melodies are there, the beat is there and the performances are uniformly strong. . . Coloured Stone is not some kind of folk or ethnic band; they make rock & roll with all the wit and taste that one can expect or hope for, from the personal to the political without heavyhandednesss or didacticism. Years of discrimination and determination, and long days and nights on the bush tracks have honed Coloured Stone and Lawrie's songs to afine edge.
Recommended Cuts: "Island of Greed" "Breaking Hearts" "Dancing In The Moonlight" "Take Me Back To The Dreamtime"
The full track list is:
01 Island of Greed 02 Breaking Hearts 03 Sacred Ground 04 Michael William Lawrie 05 Kapi Pulka 06 She's the Girl with the Broken Heart 07 Dancing in the Moonlight 08 Take Me Back to the Dreamtime 09 Magic Girl 10 When I'm Gonna Learn 11 I Wish I Was Living In Your Dreams 12 Black Boy
Jimi Hendrix disciple Jon Butcher achieved some moderate chart success in the mid-'80s as the singer/guitarist for the Jon Butcher Axis. Coming out of the Boston club scene in the early '80s, the Butcher Axis (which also included members Chris Mann [Chris Martin, actually] on bass and Derek Blevins on drums), issued such albums as 1983's self-titled debut, 1984's Stare at the Sun, and 1985's Along the Axis (Butcher dropped the Axis for such releases as 1986's Wishes and 1989's Pictures From the Front), opened for local Boston heroes the J. Geils Band in addition to other harder-edged bands, and issued a few singles that enjoyed some success on radio and MTV -- "Wishes," "Goodbye Saving Grace," and "Life Takes a Life." Butcher continued issuing solo albums in the '90s -- Positively the Blues (1995) and Electric Factory (1996) -- while a hits compilation (1998's The Best Of: Dreamers Would Ride) and an archival concert (1999's King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents) were also issued. In addition to his musical career, Butcher founded the Electric Factory Recording Studio, which focuses primarily on film, TV, and multimedia work. (Greg Prato)
According to Wikipedia, "Jimi Hendrix disciple" is a bit of an overstatement:
"If you grew up in the era of Jimi Hendrix as I did it would be nearly impossible NOT to be influenced by his brilliance and amazing facility as a guitar player. To be sure, my early impressions of the Jimi Hendrix Experience were completely life altering, but so too were my impressions of Albert King. Jeff Beck was and remains a constant source of inspiration, and working with Jeff on the MTV/ VH-1 video Ambitious remains an all time high." Jon also lists among his influences Richie Havens, John Lennon Bob Dylan and Keith Richards. While Butcher is humbled by the Hendrix comparisons he emphasizes that they may be superficial. " Being black and playing a Stratocaster might lead one to assume Jimi was my sole influence but that wouldn't be true. Like most musicians, in fact like most people we're a complex mix of a lot of things."
The 1984 album Stare At The Sun contains nine original compositions and a cover of Bill Nelson's "Eros Arriving" from his groundbreaking album The Love That Whirls. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
Of the three members of the Go-Gos to release solo albums, drummer Gina Schock was the last, her House of Shock album appearing in 1988. Although it's technically not a solo album, as "House of Schock" is the name of the partnership between Schock (drums, vocals) and Vance De Generes (bass, backing vocals, brother of Ellen). Then backing up House of Schock is "The House Band" of Chrissy Shefts (all guitars, backing vocals), Steven Fisher (drums--I guess Gina didn't play all the drums), and Jim Biggs (keyboards, backing vocals). The album leads off with the sublime single "Middle of Nowhere"; I was going to post the video here, but it seems to have disappeared from the web. Nothing else on the album rises to the same level, but Schock makes it clear that she is by far the rockingest of the Go-Gos. The full track list is:
01 Middle Of Nowhere 02 Just To Dream 03 Walk In My Sleep 04 Love In Return 05 Where Love Goes 06 Never Be Enough 07 This Time 08 Seems Like Forever 09 The World Goes Round 10 Walk Away
The CD format of this album must have had a very small run, as it's now a collector's item fetching upwards of $50. If you would like a vinyl rip @192kps to listen to while you save up for a CD, get it here or here.
Here is Club Sandwich from 1981, the third and final (for now, at least) vinyl rip from 101 Records' series of budget-priced live compilations. All the songs were recorded at the 101 Club in St. John's Hill, Clapham. The previous two LPs posted here each had two or three bands that went on to greater fame. On Club Sandwich, though, only one band broke through: The Fix added another X to their name to become chart-toppers The Fixx. The song included here, "The Strain", appears on some versions of their Shuttered Room album. The full Club Sandwich track list is as follows:
01 Repro Central - Ring-a-ding 02 The Fix - The Strain 03 Rock Salmon and the Pomme Fritts - Fast Cars 04 Victims of Pleasure - Slaves To Fashion 05 Nautyculture - Someday Sunday 06 Rainbow Remipeds - Tropical Milk 07 Rank Amateurs - Games Up 08 The Edukators - Electric 09 Daddy Yum Yum - Mind Over Matter 10 The Mistakes - Jukebox 11 Malchix - Demons of Light and Sound 12 Repro Central - God Don't Bleed
After The Fixx, the Rainbow Remipeds produced the largest catalog of the rest of the bands here, though mostly as simply The Remipeds. They had a horn section and played the melange of rock, funk, jazz, dub, and Latin music commonly known as "postpunk" and most often associated with Pigbag. The Remipeds don't quite have Pigbag's wit and energy, and their calypso accents in "Tropical Milk" are in questionable taste, but if you like the genre then you shouldn't miss them. They reissued their only album, The Tahiti Syndrome, in 2005 with bonus tracks. Check the album webpage for samples of all songs, and be sure to check out the opener, their signature tune "Hawaii Five-O." The Remipeds MySpace page has loads of videos which could keep you busy for half an hour or so. Rock Salmon and the Pommes Fritts and Daddy Yum Yum both contribute decent rockabilly tracks (the later featuring an accordion). I can't find any information on Rock Salmon, but Daddy Yum Yum left a bit more of a trail. A Brighton band, percussionist Willi Kerr describes their music as "thrash skiffle." Kerr and Dave Simner are now members of the "Old Time, Hillbilly and Hellfire Gospel" band The Curst Sons. Repro Central got two tracks on the album, though they are not noticeably better than the other nine bands. Rank Amateurs sound more than a bit like the Police, and the rest of the bands play competent new wave that is good for a listen but not particularly memorable. If nothing else, Club Sandwich is a fantastic time capsule, a snapshot of the bread-and-butter of new wave as opposed to the most popular stuff that is remembered today. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
(I thought for a long time that was Jim Skafish on the cover, but according to the fine print on the back it's Rick Mann.)
I'm back! This time I bring you the final album by Living In Texas, Believe, released in 1991. It's a far cry from their great recordings of the mid-80s, mostly due to guitarist Daniel Glee's absence. Believe really emphasizes how much Glee contributed to the band's sound: his unique fusion of gothic, punk, and rockabilly styles made Living In Texas stand out. While Glee gets a couple co-songwriter credits, he apparently left the band before the recording sessions. Guitars on Believe are handled by former second guitarist Jeff Wallace and newcomer Claudia Pinto, plus various solos and extra guitar parts by Marc Sullivan, Steve Forward, and Laurent Roubach. A lot of the guitar work is disappointingly generic, in the manner of middle-of-the-road radio fodder. Only Stephan James's lyrics and singing provide continuity with the band's past, but even he has indicated that his involvement at the time was half-hearted. Judging by the number of people involved (in addition to the five band members and three extra guitarists, there are five more musicians credited for keyboards, percussion, and backing vocals) it sounds like the recording process was rather scattershot. The ten songs are good; the execution is hit-or-miss. But even if it is not the band's best work, it is still better than a lot of more popular music. Get the rip (from the Cent Pour Cent vinyl release) here or here.
This concludes my Living In Texas discography project, in the sense that I have ripped and uploaded everything I could find, including generous contributions from Stephan James and some helpful readers. If I unearth any more I will add those as well; likewise, if you have anything I've missed, please contact me (through the comments or at funderglass at yahoo dot com) if you would like to contribute some rips to the cause.
I haven't had any time for ripping lately, so this installment features another reader contribution. Marco provides us with the Living In Texas single "Beautiful" b/w "Television," which was released in 1985 on the French label Comotion Musique and did not appear on any of their albums. Once again this is the band in their prime, featuring the two-guitar lineup of Daniel Glee and Jeff Wallace. Marco has lovingly ripped the 45 at 320kbps and scanned both sides of the sleeve and both sides of the label as well! Get the archive file here or here. Thanks, Marco!
Last July I posted a rip of a 1982 cassette by Onyx, an obscure Boston-area New Wave band. Their two 45s had long eluded me, but last week a generous reader provided me rips of them. (Thanks, Martin!) They are:
Call of the Wild b/w S.O.S.
Jet Set b/w Saturn 09
"S.O.S." and "Jet Set" appear on the cassette as well, but these vinyl rips obviously have better sound quality. "Call of the Wild" and "Saturn 09" round out the Onyx canon with more of the same sweet blend of minimal electronics and heavy basslines. Martin has also provided nice scans of the sleeves. The back cover of "Jet Set" contains the most information about the band I have yet seen: production and copyright credits are for Judd Stone and vocals are by "Beveur." The songs were recorded and mixed the The Loft in Boston and engineered by M.J. Klein. Web searches have turned up no more information on these people; does anyone out there know of them and their pre- and post-Onyx endeavors?
Here are some more Living In Texas tracks from a CD-R compilation sent to me by frontman Stephan James (now known as Stephen J. Munson of Spacegirl and the Cowboy). The eight songs in this batch come from three records:
My End of Heaven (1983)
My End of Heaven
Awaken
God Bless America (1984)
God Bless America Part 1
God Bless America Part 2
The Day of All Days
The End of the Beginning (83-89 compilation?)
Mexican Nun
I'll Always Remember You
She Lives Inside My Head
If you were a fan of Living In Texas, or if you have come to know them through this blog, you know what to expect and these tracks will not disappoint! I am tantalized by the possibility that the 2-CD The End of the Beginning collection may hold tracks yet unheard (and unshared); anyone have that? There is still more Living In Texas in the queue; the next to appear will be the 1991 album Believe. In the meantime, grab this set here or here.
From a fan's perspective, one of the worse practices that the major labels refined in the 80s was a long wait between albums, the limitation of bands' releases to a mere trickle to be dispensed every few years. In the 60s it was not uncommon for bands to release two or more albums per year, then the 70s ushered in the one-album-per-year schedule. But in the 80s the labels found they could keep working an album for years, gradually releasing songs as singles to prop up sales of the album. (I blame Michael Jackson's Thriller for this practice.) The flip side was that independent labels found another way to compete with the majors: in addition to releasing fresher, more adventurous music, they could release it at a faster pace, without necessarily waiting for an entire album's worth of material. A band could produce a steady stream of singles and EPs (4-6 songs) to keep put music in front of the public several times a year. (And with the impending demise of the CD we may see that model come back.) That was a double-edged sword for fans: more music from favorite bands is a good thing, but the vagaries of independent distribution also made it easy to miss something. Thus it is that twenty-odd years after the fact I am still finding music by Living In Texas that I missed when it was new. One of those records is the Kingdom EP, released by the band on their own Chainsaw label in 1984, consisting of four songs:
Department Store Graveyard
Kingdom 2
Lollipop Sperm
Godemocrafasc
"Department Store Graveyard" is an odd gothic dirge; "Kingdom 2," previously presented here in a live version (as "Kingdom III"), benefits from a studio recording. The long jam is similar in structure and rhythm to the great early Modern English B-side "The Perfect View" but with more energy. The two songs on the flip side bring in the "jungle" drums for the band's trademark "voodoo gothic rock" sound. Kingdom is another top-notch release from an overlooked band; get the rip here or here, and check back for more archival material from Living In Texas.
I'm back with another Living In Texas record, once again provided by the band's singer Stephan James. The elusive The History of Rock & Roll EP, released in 1986 by the Italian label Supporti Fonografici, is Living In Texas in their absolute prime, every bit as lively and raw as Glad Bad Sad and Mad. It opens with an Adam and the Ants cover (!), "Lady", and while the Ants really rocked on their original, LIT rock even more. "Lady" is followed by "A Taste of Mary," a bit of psychobilly with voodoo drums and spooky backing vocals; and that's it for side one. Side two consists of the rocker "Apple Red Convertible," an Italian-language version* of "A Taste of Mary," and "No:" which is... a rap! With main vocals by drummer Mathew Frazer! Rap songs by rock bands are usually cringeworthy, but "No:" is surprisingly good. And that's it, just five tracks. Producer Martin Young (of Colour Box) adds keyboards, and the manic cover art is by guitarist Daniel Glee, as usual. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
* "At least we tried to sing in Italian. At least we tried!", it says in the liner notes.
I am delighted to announce that I have some more Living In Texas rips to share, thanks to none other than the band's frontman Stephan James! First up is the compilation album Everything Was... from the French label Made In Heaven, which collects the earlier album Everything Is... and a few other tracks:
Sweet Little A-Bomb Baby
Something Wonderful
Oh Yeah
Everything Is
Kill
Can You Touch the Sun
Superman Is Dead
When I Close My Eyes
Heart
Where Do We Go From Here?
Love That Child
I'm not quite sure where these songs fit in the Living In Texas chronology, but the bulk of it sounds similar to The Fastest Men Alive (1985) in terms of musical style and production, so I'm guessing it comes between 1985 and the 1991 album Believe. The most notable difference between this record and (presumably) earlier material from Living In Texas is the prevalence of piano in the mix; there is even a full-fledged piano ballad, "Superman Is Dead." A larger trend that was happening in the late 80s was "dark" bands becoming poppier (think of The Cure's progression from "A Forest" and "The Hanging Garden" to "The Love Cats" and "Why Can't I Be You"), and that trend is reflected in this music as well on tracks such as "Sweet Little A-Bomb Baby," "Something Wonderful," and "Kill." But true to form, Living In Texas put a little more bite into it than the norm. Another standout in the sound is the chiming acoustic rhythm guitars in "Oh Yeah" and "Everything Is," the latter of which intercuts the band's trademark manic rockabilly with an expansive, arena-worthy chorus. And speaking of arenas, the album closer "Love That Child" is what U2 might have sounded like at the peak of their popularity (early 90s?) if they remembered to rock! In short, these eleven rare Living In Texas tracks rank with the band's finest and make an already-impressive body of work even moreso; get them here or here.
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:
Cabal - Null Theme (Tracks 1-6 are from the Cabal EP)
Cabal - In Touch
Cabal - Future In Pain
Cabal - Blissful Trust
Cabal - Fall Flat
Cabal - New Horizon
Cabal - Open Up (Cassette only track from the Cabal EP release)
Cabal - Assistance (Live at The Marble Bar Baltimore 1983)
Cabal - Brash Finale (Also live at The Marble Bar 1983)
Cabal - Check This Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
Cabal - No Way Out (Recorded live in Bill's basement 1984)
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)
Null Set - Perception
Null Set - Go!
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
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:
Red Tape - I Know
exibit A - yippi-i-o
Beyond Words - On the Moon
Thee Katatonix - Ordinary Sunday
The View - Only Water
Mission - When Thunder Comes
Off the Wall - She's All Mine
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.)
Manchester band The Umbrella released this 3-song 12" in 1985, and nothing more. They had a great sound, 60s pop overlaid with raucous postpunk guitar and organ; pretty close to what The Last Shadow Puppets are doing today. I've had this record for over twenty years without knowing anything about the band, but thankfully someone has filled in some history on discogs.com:
James Gardner: Founder member, in 1990, of the pioneering Apollo 440 together with his school friends Noko and Howard Gray, and Howard's brother Trevor Gray. He had previously played keyboards with The Umbrella and a variety of well known artists, including Pete Shelley's band and Luxuria. He left Apollo 440 in 1993 to concentrate on composition, and in 1994 moved to New Zealand where he formed the contemporary music ensemble 175 East. He is an active broadcaster on music for the eclectic Radio New Zealand Concert.
Norman Fisher-Jones: Multi-instrumentalist and sonic visionary Norman Fisher-Jones, aka Noko, had already gigged with The Cure, and The Buzzcock's Pete Shelley before he released his first 12" with his own band The Umbrella. He formed Luxuria with Magazine's Howard Devoto in 1987 and released two albums with Beggars Banquet. Together with original Umbrella member, James E. Gardner, their school friend Howard Gray, and Howard's brother Trevor, he formed Apollo 440 in 1990. An original member, he'd be at The Hacienda if it was still open.
As for the other two blokes in the band, I still don't know who they are; backing vocals (female) are credited to Alex & Julia. Make Hell... was released on Immaculate Records, which also put out some of Pete Shelley's solo singles. The three songs are "Make Hell (For the Beautiful People)", "William Brel", and the instrumental "The Persuaders". Get the vinyl rip here or here.
I always thought of Paul Roessler as the keyboardist for L.A. glam-punk-horror-metal-kitsch band 45 Grave, but he was also a member of techno-punk band The Screamers, and has played keyboards for about a zillion other acts, including Dead Kennedys, Nina Hagen, DC3, Saccharine Trust, Geza X, and many more. In the 80s he formed his own band, Twisted Roots, which featured his sister (and Black Flag bassist) Kira Roessler and at one time Germs guitarist Pat Smear. For the 1983 album Pandemonium Shadow Show (title used by permission of Ray Bradbury) Dix Denney is the guitarist, Michelle Bell sings, Gary Jacoby plays drums, and producer Paul Cutler plays guitar and percussion here and there. The liner notes mention that "Pat Bulsara contributed to guitar arrangements on It Must Be The Weather, White Limousine, Fill Your Heart." I'm guessing that "Pat Bulsara" is actually Pat Smear, who recorded a song called "Holy Bulsara" on one of his own albums; Smear and Jacoby also made music together as Death Folk. There are two fantastic tracks on this album, the closers on each side. "Fill Your Heart" closes side one, and could be a song by "White Rabbit"-era Jefferson Airplane, with its psychedelic lyrics and expansive chorus. Bell's voice does not have the fullness of Grace Slick's, but on the other hand, the band creates a groove here much more compelling than anything the Airplane ever did. The side two closer, "You're Perfect," is a sci-fi number about loving a robot that also works up a killer groove. Of the eight other songs, four are instrumentals and four are not; they're pleasant enough, but for me they are the appetizers leading up to the main course at the end of each side. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
While I'm at it, here's another 1980s album from Philadelphia, Stranger To Stranger's Casting Shadows from 1984. With a title like Casting Shadows, you probably won't be surprised at the heavy 4A.D. influence in evidence here. Lead singer Gary Eshbaugh is now in the band Rose Parade, but one page of their website is devoted to Stranger To Stranger, from which I have taken the following text:
From 1984 until 1991 Stranger To Stranger produced seven recordings. Stranger To Stranger's music was alternative in its flavor, borrowing from the early Cure and Echo and the Bunneymen. They played clubs and venues from Boston to Virginia, but experienced their greatest success at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. The title song from 1985's The Child in Me experienced particularly heavy airplay on college and commercial stations in that area. Subsequently, record sales in the area were very good and the shows at the 9:30 Club drew a good audience. Recently, an amalgam of The Darkest Dreams and Shatter the Night was produced as a CD by drummer Eric Carlson. That was the impetus for creating this page... I hadn't listened to the material in a very long time. I felt compelled to put up this page so some of our friends could get their hands on some vintage STS in MP3 format. We hope to come up with a good copy of The Child in Me in the not-too-distant future.
Stranger To Stranger was:
Gary Eshbaugh - Vocals/Guitar/Keyboards
Sean Hopkins - Bass/Vocals (1983-1987)
Rand Hanson - Guitar
Eric Carlson - Drums/Percussion
Steph Lentz - Bass (1988-1992)
The track list for Casting Shadows is:
01 Easter Night 02 Crowded Room 03 In Your Eyes 04 Voices Calling 05 Flux 06 Cry To Dream 07 Evening Opus (Pts 1, 2 & 3) 08 Lonely Winter 09 Wind On Skin
The aforementioned "The Child In Me" came after this album, but I have included it in the archive file as a bonus track because it's simply exquisite. (It's a copy of the file offered on the band website.) In the words of one of my favorite song blogs, it should have been a hit. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
Here's a fairly obscure album from the 80s: Wild! by Exposure, Statik STAT LP 19, 1984. Of the nine bands named Exposure at discogs.com, this is the ninth, and at the time I'm writing, this album is not listed on their page. Exposure was a multiracial five-man band that played the kind of new-wave-tinged mainstream rock that was so successful for bands like INXS and The Fixx. Members were:
Ashton Liburd: voice
Boy: guitar synthesizer
Tony Doyle: lead guitar
Paul Gold: bass guitars and voice
Ed Butler: drums and heavy percussion
None of these fellows seem to have many credits after Exposure; any info on their later careers is welcome. "Edge" on side 2 (track 8) could have been a hit, I think, but for the most part Exposure was stuck between genres, neither traditional enough nor quirky enough to really break through. Maybe not distinctive enough, either, although still pleasant enough to listen to. Get the vinyl rip here or here.
Here is the elusive final album from the mighty SLAB!, Sanity Allergy, on Ink Records, 1988, ten more reasons to get excited about Slab's resumption of operations:
Last Detail
Fourth Warning
Station KY
Son of Sloth
Born in a Wreck
Sanity Allergy
Cancer Beach
Switchback Ride
Land of the Midnight Sun
Visiting Hour
These are some of the heaviest grooves ever committed to vinyl; the beats and scraping guitars and menacing vocals really do hit like slabs of granite, and I mean that in a good way! The uptempo instrumental "Son of Sloth" has the sheer animal vigor that more modern "action music" groups like The Crystal Method can only aspire to. The other uptempo track, "Cancer Beach," is catchy as hell with a killer bridge; don't listen to the people who slag it off! Get a vinyl rip of Sanity Allergyhere or here, and keep an eye out for a new Slab album (which will not be posted here--support the band and buy it!).
Pleasure and the Beast was the band formed by Robert Pereno and L.A. (Lowri-Ann) Richards after the breakup of Shock. Shock is best known (when they are known at all) for their pulsating electro cover of the Glitter Band's "Angel Face" (which appeared on the popular Blitz new-wave compilation on RCA)--
Robert Pereno is the frontman, looking and acting uncannily like Will Arnett as G.O.B. Bluth, and one of those women is L.A. Richards. (Also seen are robotic mime duo Tim Dry and Sean Crawford, who became Tik & Tok after Shock disbanded, and went on to record several records of prime minimal synthpop on the Survival label.) Pleasure and the Beast recorded only two singles during their short career. The first, "Dr Sex", was released in 1983 and was produced by Jimme O'Neill of Fingerprintz (and later Silencers) fame. The 12" release, offered here, has an extended version of "Dr Sex" and four additional songs. The title track is upbeat synthpop with lecherous overtones; Pereno and Richards seem to be positioning themselves as a raunchy, new-wave Captain and Tennille. The next two tracks, "Snake" and "Creep", hit a gothic funk groove not unlike early Brilliant; "Rock the House" has a glam-rock shout-along chorus that echoes Shock's glam influences; and the record closes with the pseudo-liturgical "Hymn". The band is listed as Pereno and Richards only, though there are two women with Pereno in the back cover photo; no musicians are credited. For their second release, 1984's "Gods Empty Chair", Pleasure and the Beast expanded to a real band: in addition to singers Pereno and Richards, there are Marty Williamson (guitars), Cheyne (bass), Simon Ellis (keyboards), and Martin Hanlin (drums). This record, produced by Rusty Egan (Visage) marks a turn away from sleaze and toward more "serious" pop. "Gods Empty Chair" sounds like a second-generation copy of New Order (or a copy of Secession), while the B-side, "Sometimes", has a more intense sound in the vein of Killing Joke. Not bad! It's a shame they never made any more records. Robert Pereno went on to have some success as a DJ, but I don't know enough about that to expand on it; I don't know whatever happened to L.A. Richards. I don't have the 7" releases with the single edits, but you can get rips of both 12-inch records here or here.
Recordings are provided for review and evaluation purposes only; if you can find a real copy, buy one! All recordings are out of print to the best of my knowledge, and thus are not diverting earnings from the artists. In fact my purpose is quite the opposite: to stir up interest in the artists. However, if you are the copyright holder and want a recording removed, let me know and I will do so. Thank you for visiting.
Pleasure and the Beast
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