Robert Ridley-Shackleton – "Shut Up Egg" (Self-Released C-30) 2011

The absurdist prince of cardboard funk has less lovely Eggs to poach here which makes The Lovely Eggs themselves sound like Pat Methany in comparison.

Zero-fi and child-like,you will be forgiven in thinking that this was a clandestine recording made at the music therapy day-center for Kidults with learning difficulties.

Is this Outsider Art? Or a neo-Dadaist approach to sound collage,inspired by  Huge-o Balls.

No prizes for guessing that RRS is yet another demented Bristolian trying to eliminate the shame of being in the home town of Massive Attack. Maybe these extremely dull Trip Hoppers are represented by the Egg,as we ALL would like them to shut up,.....permanent like!

Presenting an image not unlike a member of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers gone even more wrong, with a degenerative wasting disease. RRS is the latest in a long line of completely mental musical eccentrics that Britain seems to effortlessly produce with considerable ease.

He either can't get a Girlfriend, or he has a Girlfriend...either way,he's Fucked, or not fucked?! Trapped in vicious circular mental torture specific to heterosexual males that lead to a special kind of beta-male torture like this. Make a cassette called Shut Up Egg or just...well....Give Up.Not something British Legend,and RRS namesake, Earnest Shackleton ever considered during his incredible escape from certain death in the antarctic,almost single handedly saving his crew from a slow death on Elephant Island in the south Atlantic.....maybe RRS is a distant relative,which would explain why he behaves as if he is still stranded on a small rocky outcrop in the antarctic hinterland,surviving on a diet of Penguins and piss.

 

RRS...Not an outsider? and definitely NOT in the Red Hot Chilli Peppers?

With a production rate that puts Jandek in the shade, you can part with some of your hard earned spondulicks at his Bandcamp site for dozens of one take madnesses spread over several formats for around three english pounds a go. A cheaper way of spending time that you will never get back I would be struggling to imagine.

Tracklist:

A1 Shut Up Egg
A2 Coconut Bird Crazy
A3 Flabjack
B1 Silly Little Poochie
B2 Poor Old Humpty

Download and shut that egg up HERE!
Download this and a lot more from the cardboard prince of card funk himself HERE!.....you'll have to pay for it though kidz!

The Lovely Eggs – "Cob Dominos" (Egg – EGG 001) 2011

Yep, People are Twats...it needed saying, and it took professional northerners, the Lovely Eggs, to put this inescapable truth onto vinyl.

Hailing from Lancaster, (the county town of Lancashire,that i was never sure actually existed unless the moon was full) this northern version of John Otway and Wild Willie Barratt obviously have, either, a proper manager or have taken a crash course in 'Rock Management' at Lancaster Polytechnic....just listen to this press release,written by someone who seems to have just read the Bluffers Guide to Punk Rock:

"The Lovely Eggs are an underground punk rock duo from Lancaster, northern England.
They have a fierce punk rock ethos that music should have no rules.
For Holly and David being in a band is a way of life. True to this, they live the way they play. Fiercely, constantly in search of the good times.
With observational and often surreal lyrics about life The Lovely Eggs have a powerful stripped down sound: one vintage guitar amp, one Big Muff distortion pedal, a guitar and a drum kit."

Yeah people are Twats, and being in a band is a way of life, so how's your Punk Rock Ethos this morning? Still Fiercely lookin' for 'the Good Times'? After all, there are no rules in music...except maybe think twice before mixing comedy and music.

Hmmm, comedy music does have a tendency to outstay its welcome after about four jolly amusing numbers, unless you're John Shuttleworth, or Frank Sidebottom,also, incidentally, professional Northerners too?

You know things are wrong when Iggy Pop makes guest appearances on your singles....See the Lovely Eggs' and Ig's 'I Moron' single. And,even worse, once a John Robb interview appears on You Tube you know you've had it.

I'm sure they will be very successful....er fierce punk rock ethos paradox warning....but as funny, or not, as their slightly irritating comedy numbers are, i couldn't play this twice.No matter how charming they seem to be. Mainly its the rent an accent vocals that tend to grate.

Yep People are Twats...including me.

Tracklist:

1 Minibus 1:56
2 People Are Twats 1:16
3 Panic Plants 3:17
4 Print An Imprint 2:11
5 Dont Look At Me (I Dont Like It) 2:55
6 Hey Scraggletooth 4:23
7 Fuck It 3:44
8 Muhammad Ali And His Friends 0:13
9 Why Dont You Like Me? 3:00
10 I'm A Journalist 0:20
11 Books Ting! 0:35
12 Alphabet Song 0:42
13 Watermelons 1:59
14 Pets 0:43
15 Oregon 3:11
16 Real Good Man 2:52
17 Mexico Cant Make You Smile 2:03

DOWNLOAD some dead funeh Manc songs HERE chuck!

Smell & Quim ‎– "Lavatory " (Smell & Quim / Milovan Srdenovic Appreciation Society) 2011

Ha Ha Haaaa!(fake Laughter)

The name of the band(?) is a parody of 'popular in 1987' female pop duo Mel & Kim.The more Attractive of this Stock,Aitkin and Waterman created duo died from cancer at the height of their fame ,leaving the entity as merely just Kim,the less fanciable one.So her career bombed...such is the fickle world of Pop.She died for you, kids!?..but the kids wish it was the other one who died. Thats like wishing Peter Hook had topped himself rather than our fav troubled miserablist singer. That scenario would have at least saved us from that toe-curling John Barnes Rap in the England World Cup song for Italia '90....get 'round the back!??

It says here that The power electronics collective's,"Smell and Quim's", creative output is often associated with controversial and taboo topics like fetishism(OoooYa!), alcoholism (Steady on now!), pornography(Shocking...not), and necrophilia(Now then guys'n'gals)?...well how fucking controversial is that?....not very is the answer.

Another point is that smell doesn't necessarily align itself with a quim. A bag lady's quim certainly would have an unwelcome aroma to it,so i suggest that if a young lady were to indulge in an intimate wash,it would just be 'Quim' we would be a-discussing? A slightly cock-centic point of view there?Appendages that don't have the greatest reputation of cleanliness themselves. A gentleman's wash in the sink before a hot date would work wonders I suggest?

Tee Hee Hee...did that man say 'Cock'?

As Industrial Noise goes this stuff is Power Electronics as seen through the eyes of a Carry-on film scriptwriter.Confessions of a Window cleaner crossed with Merzbow. As a former Window Cleaner myself,what I done to supplement my dole money,to the tune of an extra three hundred quid a week!!!, I can confidently reveal that the film was no exaggeration....yes, it was not a barrel of laughs.In fact at one house we were instructed to hurry up before her Husband got home or he'll stab us up!!!....No gratuitous sex either!?

The wall scraping Noise,of this CD-r not window cleaning, is fine, but the lyrical content is all a bit silly.I suspect that a few of Smell and Quim are in their late fifties by now,and should know better....its not funny.....but i do find myself sniggering from time to time,like Sid James catching Kenneth Williams as 'Doctor Tinkle' at it,or not, as in many English naughty comedies, with Matron (Hattie Jacques).

There is,however, a fine disrespectful tribute to the memory of serial peadophile Michael "Wacko" Jackson. Yes, he who was born black but died white,and in between he fiddled with kids.

Tracklist:

1 Cuntsocket 2:13
2 Thriller 2:44
3 Frau Koma Is Coming (KKKarcher Spraydown Mix) 5:43
4 Peter Was A Truck Driver (Getting Wood At Garrards Mix) 2:09
5 MnM's (Myra's Shovel, Maxine's Car - M62J22 Mix‎) 4:14
6 Cocks To The Left (Northern Arsehole Mix) 3:09
7 Dreamfucker (Pissed Off Mix) 5:01
8 Muff-Diving Accident (Shit, Shave & Haircunt 100 Mix) 5:07
9 In The Brown Girl's Ring Piece (Live At De Hondenkoekjesfabriek - DisRespectable Reconstruction Mix) 5:30
10 Fishy Flirting (The Children Of Cod Vs The Clit Hero Mix) 4:20
11 Sniff Your Fucking Peepee 3:26

DOWNLOAD carry on industrial noise HERE!

Haunted House ‎– "Blue Ghost Blues" (Northern Spy ‎– NSCD 012) 2011

Ten years elapsed between Haunted Houses first and second albums, but nothing much changed,as didn't in the world of pop music in general,except that it probably got more lost in its own stasis.
Loren Connors' attempt at alt rock I suppose,but, as opposed to this very american genre, the emphasis is put on the 'alternative' rather than the 'Rock' bit.
Lets face it, a record recorded at any studio called "Seizures Palace" has to be, at least, good?

Tracklist:

1 Millie's Not Afraid 9:56
2 Blue Ghost Blues 12:29
3 Grip My Hand 3:42
4 Thomas Paine 9:13
5 Hard Roads 3:06

DOWNLOAD some good house music HERE!

Loren Mazzacane Connors ‎– "Red Mars" (Family Vineyard ‎– FV69) 2011

Not only is Mars red, its dead also. Its been probed,and explored by robotic vehicles for decades now,and the best they can find is the odd jet of Methane escaping from the deeply frozen martian dust.
Lets face it, there is no life anywhere in the observable universe,well, at least within a few light years of our blue oasis floating in a very narrow goldilocks zone,and an endless series of good fortune.Our little Earth, you know,the one that we're destroying? And the inhospitability of our dead twin further emphasises that there is NO planet 'B'. We're fucked, and there's Fuck all we can do about it because the ,major cause of our demise is capitalism,the unsustainable manifestation of our own greed and short-sighted stupidity.
In extra-terrestrial life terms we are,supposedly, in the 'Intelligent' bracket,but, if there was 'Intelligent life surviving on any exo-planet within 50 light years in any direction we would know about it. There have been no, zero, alien transmissions detected from any of our neighbouring star systems.And none of the closest exo-planets that have been spectrum analysed, have any polluting or unantural elements. like CFC's, in their atmospheres.Suggesting that if there is any intelligent life on these bodies,they haven't yet achieved any equivalent of the Industrial revolution as of yet.....lucky for them.Of course, there is a very real prospect that there is a natural limit of tecnological advancement that if reached, leads to the inevitable self-anihilation of the incumbant species.A process that seems to have been triggered on our planet,and is currently advancing like a runaway train with no-one manning the brakes.
The odds of the Human race being alone ,at least in this Galaxy, have been slashed to odds-on favorite. And nobody can encapsulate that stark reality better than Loren Mazzacane Connors.
In space there's no-one to hear you scream, or anybody else screaming that we can hear to give us hope we're not alone after all.

Tracklist:

1 On Our Way 10:24
2 Red Mars I 1:56
3 Red Mars II 10:46
4 Showers Of Meteors 6:52
5 Little Earth 4:34

DOWNLOAD some bad news from tne red planet HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Seattle Friday" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0806) 2011

Its Monday,Its Jandek,and the sky is forever cloudy on this particular planet.
I don't know wether Sterling ,the Corwood rep, is actually playing the right wrong notes or, my brain has just become attuned to his out of tune-ness? It all sounds so good to these ears, even in the deaf parts of my audio spectrum. You can train the brane to make sense of anything if its exposed enough to abnormal situations;and anything Jandekian is as abnormal as it gets, both musically and psychologically. All ones normal senses are screaming that something is badly awry, yet,after years of exposure to this madness, its become the new normal.
Recorded live at 'On The Boards'in Seattle,on October 27, 2006. The backing band sports some nifty wah-wah bass,as a tribute to Seattles greatest son, Hendrix,J.I won't mention a certain checked shirt wearing rock revival movement from the early nineties, of which Seattle was the urban sprawl that received the blame;but, Jandek cannot be blamed for being a corporate rock whore of any description,unlike most of that long-haired nonsense was.He also won't be blowing his own brains out either, but you, might, if you listen to his vast back-catalog in one go;of which this double CD is but two hours of.

Tracklisting:
1-1 You On The Plane 12:13
1-2 Queen Anne Avenue 14:30
1-3 Image Of The Lanterns 8:47
1-4 Long Time Coming 8:32
1-5 Across From Me 6:30
2-1 Cathy Sue 12:31
2-2 Live Right 11:21
2-3 Yes Dear 20:19
2-4 No One Around 9:58
2-5 Like You Love Me 7:28

DOWNLOAD from the rainy homeland of grunge HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Houston Saturday 2011" (Corwood Industries ‎– CORWOOD 0815) 2014

'Tis "Jandek Monday" again!
Here we find the Bard of tone deaf Whining,...er... whining, on home territory again from December 17th 2011.Thankfully without proper musicians making him sound like someone else.This the is raw and naked Jandek that we know and love, solo, with out of tune acoustic guitar.
We even get treated to a spoken word piece to open the set.
You lucky people.

Tracklisting:

1 The Door And The Red Tree 5:22
2 Johnny Dupree 8:42
3 Day Of The Afternoon 5:37
4 Down And Out 3:53
5 All About You 3:37
6 You Stole Me 3:38
7 I Die 4:10
8 The Present 4:00
9 My Home 5:06
10 How I Know You 5:20

DOWNLOAD the nightmare before christmas 2011 HERE!

Jandek ‎– "Where Do You Go From Here?" (Corwood Industries ‎– Corwood 0805) 2011

This Monday Jandek goes Outsider-Garde?!
If this was the first and only Jandek record that you had heard, you would think that Jandek was some kind of avant-garde improvised music genius.Its bordering on the very good.Pop this on the stereo when someone you want to impress comes round for canapés and cognac, you little intellectual you.A soundtrack for discussing the merits of Satre,Nietzche, and Kant...you bunch of pretentious Kants you.
The illusion will only break down if one of the Poets, Architects, and performance artists, that you invited, asks what the music was?......er....Jandek?...you reply, uncomfortably.Luckily, these types will not be aware of our favourite Texan nutjob, and will think its some Avant-Garde composer that had by-passed their enthusiastic/desperate revision the night before.They had heard that you were one of thee foremost experts on the Avant Garde in Dalston. Desperate not to be outed as the fraud they undoubtedly are.
This is definitely NOT "Ready For The House" part 2.
I could easily imagine this at the South Bank in London, being absorbed by joyless chin-stroking pseudo intellectuals from the London art set.....otherwise know as 'Twats'.
This is the musical equivalent of that exhibition of paintings made by a chimp which garnered good reviews in those fanciful art rags that lie festooned on pretentious coffee tables all over the world.
I suggest this is majorly the work of the two mainstays of Jandek's live act;stalwarts of the Uk avant garde scene, pseudo muso's,Alex Neilson, and Richard Youngs.
Me being a Pseudo intellectual twat, with his feet firmmly under the ground, I can proudly announce I think this record is fucking brilliant!......but don't expect your normal Jandek with detuned guitar and a load of whining about all things negative here....this is a very positive and musical experience.....commence chin-stroking .......NOW!

Tracklist:

1 Part 1 3:09
2 Part 2 3:45
3 Part 3 5:23
4 Part 4 4:39
5 Part 5 2:50
6 Part 6 1:42
7 Part 7 4:34
8 Part 8 3:49
9 Part 9 4:35
10 Part 10 2:30
11 Part 11 1:28
12 Part 12 14:19

DOWNLOAD and wonder where he goes from here HERE!

Die Trip Computer Die - "Angry Dan Presents: Stop Killing Jelly Trousers" ( Altered States Tapes ‎– AST023) 2011

This is ,arguably, my favourite record of the 'teenies', though how one argues with oneself is worth an argument in itself.......with oneself? 
As i'm high on Volterol's anti-inflammatory magic blended with a swiftly imbibed (the past participale of 'Imbibe') pint of guiness,I will push the boat out and say, "This is a perfect record". It ticks all the boxes in my sad internet fantasyland. It's very funny, innovative to the max, challenging,intellectually stimulating, did I say 'Funny'?......well...all that lot and more.
Yes, there's a lot of Plunderphonia about this cassette, but it's not pretentious like Oswalds' version of the genre, and its shitloads more amusing than Negativland, which is natural because 'Die Trip Computer Die' are English, and Negativland are far too 'clever' for their own goods American types.Amos, aka Xentos Fray Bentos of DTCD, did, again, arguably, invent the genre after all,as L Voag back in '79? No wonder that 'Angry Dan' is livid!
Die Trip Computer Die, are ,of course, Jim Whelton, late of the Homosexuals, Lepke Buchwater (Milk From Cheltenham), and Ted Barrow.....dunno much about him,but he sounds like someone who would have ran a market stall who sold out of print soul cd's.

Here's what it  says on the Altered States website:

"Altered States is proud to plop out this latest steaming opus by the now-defunct, absurdist trio, Die Trip Computer Die. Made up of men who were at one stage or another involved in UK post-punk unit The Homosexuals, DTCD utilise various instruments, circuit-bent equipment and plundered sample loops to achieve lift-off. Most importantly they use their (collective) MIND in order to crumble YOURS. Angry Dan Presents: Stop Killing Jelly Trousers was recorded live in Pontins, Nijmegan during a holiday in 2002 with the verbal verbosity of au pair, Angry Dan mastering ceremonies. However, this recording information may be merely another red herring left in your letterbox by the Trippers. ADP: SKJT is a twice a year listen, but when you do bring yourself to press play, it ll tie your laces and poach your eggs. 60 copies, pro tapes, cover + insert by Myjyerljcle Stevrdjnen Lesteechskinz."

Tracklist:

Side A - (19:48)

Side B - (18:54)

DOWNLOAD the aNGER OF dAN here!

Mick Hobbs and Benb Gallaher - "Bite My knee" (Life and Living Records) 2011

This Strobe Talbot 'spin-off' spoken word project recorded in 2002, involving Mick Hobbs and Benb Gallaher, apparently has sunk without trace in the heaving mires of modern information overload. Ramming headlong into a flatulent Iceberg from the 21st century musical glacier that threatens to consume all noble vessels that sail beyond the middle 'c's' . It rested on the seabed of taste for 7 long years only to be discovered in perfect condition in my e-mail inbox, courtesy of one Benb Gallaher!
Like Sir Lew Grade's abysmal "Raise The Titanic" movie, the album has been raised from the depths in near mint condition to sail,but not for sale, again to a new audience......well probably the same old audience, but who cares huh, it lives? 

This is rather good for the continuity of this blog, because I was looking for tenuous links to post some new 'This Heat' bootlegs. Mick Hobbs' Cold Storage links aside,the original backing sounds for these spoken word pieces were originally to be comprised of unreleased works from the late Gareth Williams.....of This Heat.
A reverence towards Gareth's work, led to that idea being dropped. So that task fell squarely on the more than capable shoulders of mick Hobbs, Benb and the usual suspects including Jad fair, R. Stevie Moore, and Rick Wilson.

Tracklist:

1. 99 Similes (for the Ploughman's Lunch)
2. Upon Waking
3. Sad Saturday
4. I Hate Text
5. After Driving A Considerable Distance Within A Short Time
6. Stock Exchange As Seen From Afar
7. Paintings Of Pears
8. Prompts and Replies (For Dr. Dexter -- My Physical, Revisited)
9. Attempted Definitions
10. Fun
11. The Death Of Dignity
12. New Math
13. Statements
14. Between
15. Bite My Knee
16. A Dozen Things That I Chose Not To Say Today
17. Yourself And Elsewhere
18. Business Is Brisk
19. Comme Tu Dis (Excerpt From The Memoirs Of My Mirror)
20. Someone's Birthday
21. State of Affairs
22. My Latest Theory

words: Benb Gallaher
sounds, Mick Hobbs, Benb Gallaher

aided by various pals:

R. Stevie Moore (1)
Jad Fair (2)
Alig Pearce (3)
Rick Wilson (14)
Andy Fisher (18)

Recorded May 2002 in London, UK
Released on Life and Living Records in May, 2011,

DOWNLOAD and bite someone else's knee HERE!