The Birthday Party- Mutiny EP (1983), Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- In the Ghetto (7”) (1984)

The Birthday Party- Mutiny EP (1983)
The demise of The Birthday Party.
Phil Calvert was ejected in 1982 and Mick Harvey moved to drums. When Tracy Pew was jailed for drunk driving and petty theft, Barry Adamson came in as a temporary replacement.
Late In 1982 tension between Nick Cave and Roland S Howard came to a head. Blixa Bargeld from the German band Einstürzende Neubauten was brought in to play guitar on the track Mutiny in Heaven. The Birthday Party eventually disbanded in late 1983, due in part to the split between Cave and Howard, and work and drug-related exhaustion.

Jennifer’s Veil is arguably the point at which The Birthday Party realised the peak of their potential. Its gothic narrative is typical of early Bad Seeds works. According to Amy Hanson in Kicking Against The Pricks The Birthday Party by now sounded like a cross between The Stooges, Dracula and John Milton on smack.

Line up:
Nick Cave- vocals
Tracy Pew- bass
Mick Harvey- drums
Roland S Howard- guitar
Blixa Bargeld- guitar.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- In the Ghetto(7”) (1984)
The emergence of The Bad Seeds.
In 1983, after some studio work Cave’s new band made their first public appearance on New Years Eve in Melbourne under the name Nick Cave - Man Or Myth?.
The band then briefly called themselves Nick Cave and the Cavemen before adopting the Bad Seeds moniker, in reference to the penultimate Birthday Party release, The Bad Seed E.P.
Bargeld and Adamson’s replacement of Howard and Pew was stylistically very much a ‘like for like’.
Writing about rock music? The old man asked me, looking puzzled. Written about Elvis? I told him that no, I hadn’t written about Elvis. How can you write about rock music without writing about Elvis? The proposition was, he made it plain, frankly absurd.
So this is the first single from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. A cover of an Elvis Presley single from 1969, this version was released in June 1984.
The Moon is in the Gutter is a Brechtian murder song that points the way to the Bad Seeds later work. Apparently Bargeld achieved one of his eerie sounds here by massaging the strings of his guitar with an electric shaver.

Line up:
Nick Cave- vocals
Mick Harvey- drums
Blixa Bargeld- guitar
Barry Adamson- bass
Hugo Race- guitar

Crass- Nagasaki Nightmare / Big A Little A 7” (1980)

History is written by the victors.
Winston Churchill

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey; Summary Report. United States Government Printing Office. 1946. pg. 26.


In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1963). The White House Years; Mandate For Change: 1953-1956. Doubleday & Company. pp. pp. 312–313.

The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion , and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman
Leahy, William D. (1950). I was there. New York. pp. 441

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory…New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says.
According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.
"Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds.
Rob Edwards, New Scientist, (July 2005 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7706)

Nagasaki Nightmare deals with the USA’s bombing of Japan in August 1945.
Big A Little A is a Picaresque romp through Thatcher’s Britain. Maybe a sort of anarchist punk’s guidebook. This is what we believe -These are our targets. Know your enemy.

The link is now dead but thanks to Dave Sez for pointing us in the direction of a collection of Crass singles here: http://enemy-of-the-music-business.blogspot.com/2009/07/crass-x-5-eps.html

Au Pairs- Playing With A Different Sex (1981)

If you like The Gang of Four, you’ll love this. Somebody probably actually said that to me at some point. Or maybe I said it to someone?
There are similarities. Funky bass and fractured rhythmic bursts of scratchy guitar, earnest vocals. These were the archetypes of that vague genre Post Punk. Not so much a genre as an era of musical history. Edgy and serious music that was created amid the liberating ‘any one can do it’ fallout of the real punk years.
If you like exploring the social historical context of your music here’s a scholarly reference to the band in relationship to the sexual politics of the time: Gaar, Gillian G. (2002). She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock and Roll. Seal Press. pp. 203–204. ISBN 1580050786
The cover of the LP is a classic, the picture taken from the series Horse Training for the Militia in Inner Mongolia, (1979) by the great American photographer Eve Arnold.
Jane Munro – bass.
Lesley Woods – guitar, vocals
Paul Foad – guitar, vocals
Peter Hammond – drums

Announcement

Walker says: I'm sorry that there have been problems with a couple of the links, and thanks to the readers who drew my attention to this. I want you all to enjoy as much of this music as possible, so if you come across a problem please let me know ASAP.

The Cramps live at Napa is now fixed.

The Starman Uncut Bowie covers is also fixed.

I've split them into smaller archives, but they're well worth the hassle of having to download several files.Bear with me on this learning curve.

Thanks for visiting.

The Stranglers- 3 EP’s and a single (1977- 1980)

There was a time when The Stranglers were almost my favourite band.
What happened? Take the ingredients:
Misogyny, ephebophilia, de Sade, fasciphillia, homo-eroticism, Ozymandias, Triumph motorcycles, pornography, Nostradamus, vorarephilia, exegesis, conspiracy theories, Marx, grail theories, Mishima, Marcel Jean, Surrealism, bushido, ufology, …
That these preoccupations should lead, ultimately to the production of a bland Euro pop rhymes that were more reminiscent of casio keyboard effects rather than the pulsating psychedelic drive of their earlier works is the tragedy of The Stranglers.
Even when, from 1976 to 1979 they were a seriously good band they were victims of their time- never quite mainstream (bona fide troublemakers) but pushed to the margins of punk by their age and their old school attitudes (strippers on stage, songs about nubile girls).
Here are 4 relatively rare 7” records from their earlier days, when The Stranglers were:
Hugh Cornwell- guitar, vocals
JJ Burnel- bass, vocals
Dave Greenfield- keyboards, vocals
Jet Black- drums

1 Choosey Susie / Peasant in the Big Shitty (live) Original 10,000 copies free with IV Rattus Norvegicus LP in orange sleeve (1977). Choosey Susie is a strong number which would have held its own on either of the first two LP’s. It has the energy of punk but is musically more polished, pointing to the bands relationship with the pop combos of the sixties (think of their later covers: The Kinks, ? and the Mysterans).
As for Peasant, as the etching in the run out groove admits ‘what did you expect for nothing…’

2 White EP
Walk on By/Mean to Me/Tits
Original 75,000 copies with white vinyl 7" free with Black and White LP. (1978) It took me a couple of years to get my copy of this having taped the LP instead of buying it when it came out. It’s hard to believe that there really were 74,999 copies out there aside from the one that my mate had. Bacharach said that this version of Walk on By was the best he’d heard of any of his songs. Doorsish and accomplished, its a track which shows how close The Stranglers veered to true greatness, not just within the confines of the ‘new wave’, but in the broader context.
At less than 2 minutes long Mean to Me is a storming RnB number that reflects the pub rock origins of the band.
Tits is just a very long jam with a crass singalong chorus and Hugh Cornwell introducing the band in a parody of muso mentality.

3 Pink A& M promotional EP (USA) (1977)
An A&M freebie that showcases two tracks from Rattus (Hanging Around, Grip) and a preview of No More Heroes (Something Better Change), along with the non album track (Straighten Out). Four vintage Stranglers numbers.

4 EP free with IRS album ‘IV’ (USA) (1980)
A taster of just about everything (much like the album it accompanied)- tracks from Burnel and Cornwell’s 1979 solo projects ( Do the European and White Room), a token rarity (Choosey Suzie) and a single track (Straighten Out).

To me these records epitomised something about my personality during this era. They were rarities, I was a record collector, a fan, I didn’t just buy my records in Woolworths… even handling them now I find them strangely powerful as objects, stimulating as they do such extraordinarily vivid memories of my adolescence.
Think about leather bike jackets, black Doc Martens and enjoy.

Unfortunately these downloads are no longer available.

M.J. Harris & Martyn Bates - Murder Ballads (Passages) (1997)

Here, as promised, is the second installation of the Murder Ballads trilogy. Passages ,released in 1997 features another four chilling tales of cruelty set against lulling waves of dark ambience.
Part three will follow soon.

Harris. Bates.

The 5.6.7.8's -The 5.6.7.8's Can’t Help It (1991)

In 2002 The 5.6.7.8's enjoyed a belated 15 minutes of fame when their cover of the Rock a Teens song Woo Hoo made the UK top 30 following an appearance in Quentin Tarrantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1.
The band was formed in Tokyo in 1986 by sisters Ronnie and Sachiko. Throughout their career the band have drawn heavily on images from American popular culture from the 1950's .
This is riotous, high octane stuff that draws on garage rock and surf music, but it has a much rougher edge than the sound it is modeled on. The lyrics, whether in Japanese, English or phonetic approximations of English are often barely discernable, but the thunderous bass, frantic drumming and psychotic riffs are top drawer stuff.
Line up:
Yoshiko "Ronnie" Fujiyama- vocals, guitar
Fujii Sachiko - drums
Eddie - guitar
Omo-bass

The Pop Group- For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? (1980)

This is the second (and very rare) full length LP from Bristol’s The Pop Group.
I’m sure that all you music lovers will agree that it’s an incredible feeling when you hear something the likes of which you have never heard before.
When I first heard the Pop Group I was astonished. This strange, dissonant fusion of music excited me in a way that I could not describe. This was unlike any pop group. It had all the wrath, angst and energy of the punk groups that I was listening to at the time, and that esoteric air of dangerousness that fascinates. There were elements of funk, jazz and even embryonic hip- hop (The Last Poets guest on One Out Of Many). The lyrics were brimming with anti-establishment political savvy.
Members of the band went on to form Pigbag and Rip Rig and Panic, and their influence was evident in later Bristol developments such as ON U Sound and trip-hop.
Line up:
Mark Stewart – vocals
John Waddington –guitar
Gareth Sager –guitar
Simon Underwood –bass
Bruce Smith -drums, percussion

The Apartments- The Evening Visits…and Stays for Years (1985)

I first became aware of The Apartments when their beautiful song Mr Somewhere was covered by This Mortal Coil on 1991’s Blood.
The Apartments were formed in Brisbane in 1978, and have had a fractured career, splitting in 1979, reforming in 1984 and being sporadically active up to the present day. In fact the first twelve years of the band's existence yielded only 3 LPs. Peter Milton Walsh (singer, guitarist and songwriter) has been the constant throughout countless changes of personnel. Walsh himself was at one time, albeit briefly, in The Go Betweens.
Timeless, quirky and literate, The Apartments gained a cult following in France following the release of this LP. Amongst the numerous guest musicians who appear are Ben Watt (Everything But The Girl) and Graham Lee (The Triffids).
Line up:
Walsh- guitar, vocals

Bruce Carrick- drums

Clare Kenny-bass, vocals

The Slits- Peel Session -19th September 1977.

Mark Perry writing in And God Created Punk :
The Slits were loud brash bold and unrepentant... they never compromised their image or stance...they must have inspired loads of women to pick up a guitar and form a band....they were pure punk driven by female power...they shocked a lot of people, both on and off stage. They were dangerous, and their very presence threatened those that considered rock to be a male-only pursuit.


As a boy I was in awe of The Slits. There was definitely something scary about them. Of course, as a fourteen year old I thought that the cover of their LP Cut was absolutely brilliant. To tell you the truth I still 'appreciate the aesthetics of it' now. And it was a great record to boot.
This is the first session that the ladies recorded for John Peel. It was transmitted on 19th September 1977 and featured the original line up of:

Ari Up -vocals
Tessa - bass, backing vocals
Viv Albertine -guitar, backing vocals
Palmolive -drums, backing vocals

Adam and the Ants- Cartrouble 7" (1980)

Before the pantomime pop of dandy highwaymen and redskins Adam and the Ants were very much a part of the art school punk scene. Stuart Goddard formerly fronted Bazooka Joe, a band that played alongside the Sex Pistols in their first gig at St Martin’s college in 1975.
The early Ants, featuring members who went on to form The Monochrome Set and Bow Wow Wow, made raw, camp records that dealt in fetishist imagery and popular iconography.

Line up:
Adam Ant –vocals, guitar
David Barbe – percussion
Matthew Ashman – guitar, piano
Andrew Warren – bass
Marco Pirroni – guitar
Jon Moss – drums

Various Artists-We Do 'Em Our Way (1980)

Fond memories of this little £2.50 gem, which we played endlessly in my mate Rob's bedroom in 1980. As far as I am aware this was the Music For Pleasure label's only real foray into the world of the 'new wave'. What we have is a selection of punk and punkish groups, some very well known, some not so well known, playing covers of fifties and sixties hits.

Sex Pistols- Rock Around The Clock
Devo- Satisfaction
The Golant Pistons- Friday On My Mind
Sex Pistols- Stepping Stone
Those Helicopters- World Without Love
The Hollywood Brats- then He Kissed Me
The Flying Lizards- Money
The Slits- I heard It Through The Grapevine
The Stranglers- Walk On By
The Hammersmith Gorillas- You Really Got Me
UK Subs- She’s Not There
The Dickies- Nights In White Satin

КИНО- 45 (1982)

“Цой жив!” (Tsoi lives!- still painted on walls throughout the former Soviet Union).
КИНО (pronounced key-no, and meaning cinema) was the most prominent rock group in the Soviet Union.
Formed in Leningrad in 1981 they recorded this, their debut, in 1982. In the Soviet Union rock music was very much an underground affair, and the LP was circulated via unofficial channels. The album derives its title from its running time; 45 minutes, or, conveniently, one side of a C90 cassette.
With the beginning of the Perestroika era rock music became more ‘open’, although КИНО still found themselves on the margins of the accepted scene.
In 1988 however they released an album (Blood Group) which, along with the appearance of frontman Viktor Tsoi in a movie (Needle) raised КИНО to the pinnacle of popularity, and they toured widely, both within the USSR and abroad.
Viktor Tsoi was killed in a car crash on 15th August, 1990. He was 28 years old.

Line up:
Victor Tsoi - vocals, guitar
Aleksei Rybin -guitar
Boris Grebenshchikov - guitar,glockenspiel,backing vocals
Mikhail Vasil'ev - drum machine,backing vocals
Vsevolod Gakkel' - cello
Andrei Romanov -flute
Andrei Tropillo - flute, backing Vocals

Sonic Youth (1982)

This is Sonic Youth’s self titled debut from 1982.
Whilst this is the only Sonic Youth release in which the guitars predominantly use standard tuning and there is very little atonality or distortion, it still gives us a taste of the startling achievements of their later work. As critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: Sonic Youth redefined what rock guitar could do, referring to their employment of a wide variety of tunings,and the preparation of their instruments in order to alter the timbre.
Whilst the band drew on the energy of hardcore punk and earlier bands such as the Stooges , they were also influenced by avant garde composers such as Henry Cowell and John Cage.
You could write a thesis on the subtleties and complexity of Sonic Youth’s sound and its origins. Or you could just turn it up and ride the expressway to your skull.

Kim Gordon – bass, vocals, guitar on The Good and the Bad
Thurston Moore – guitar, vocals, bass on The Good and the Bad
Lee Ranaldo – guitar, vocals
Richard Edson – drums

The Psychedelic Furs (1980)

It seemed in the early eighties that just about everybody I knew had a copy of this LP. When I dug it out the other day I realized that I didn’t know much at all about The Psychedelic Furs. Most people of a certain age remember their association with the film Pretty in Pink, which John Hughes based on their song of the same name.
Sacha Molitorisz, witing in The Sydney Morning Herald (19th June 2006) sums them up nicely: Emerging during punk's heyday, the Furs were edgy, but not punk. They played too many interesting chords for that. Dubbed post-punk, new wave or art rock, their distinctive style came to be defined by Butler's gruff, nonchalant singing and a willingness to experiment with melodies and arrangements.
For admirers of Martin Hannett, he produced tracks 3 and 6.
Line up:
Richard Butler – vocals
John Ashton – guitar
Tim Butler – bass
Vince Ely – drums
Roger Morris – guitar
Duncan Kilburn – saxophones

Uncut Starman. Rare and exclusive versions of 18 classic David Bowie songs (2003)

1. The Prettiest Star: Ian McCulloch
2. Starman: Culture Club
3. Fall In Love With Me: Guy Chadwick
4. The Gospel According To Tony Day: Edwyn Collins
5. Life On Mars (live): The Divine Comedy
6. All The Young Dudes (live): Alejandro Escovedo
7. The Man Who Sold The World: Midge Ure
8. Boys Keep Swinging: Associates
9. Cracked Actor: Big Country
10. Funtime: Peter Murphy
11. John, I'm Only Dancing: The Polecats
12. Heroes: Blondie
13. Rebel Rebel: Sigue Sigue Sputnik
14. Fame: Duran Duran
15. Ziggy Stardust: The Gourds
16. Space Oddity: The Langley Schools Music Project
17. Panic In Detroit: Christian Death
18. Rock'n Roll Suicide: Black Box Recorder
This CD was a freebie with Uncut magazine back in 2003.

Crass / Poison Girls - Bloody Revolutions / Persons Unknown 7" –(1980)

Remember Crass records/ where all the text was printed/ like this?/ and the sleeves opened out and / out until they nearly filled the room/ and the stencil writing and/ slogans and/ photomontages/ DO YOU?
Crass stir memories of impotent rage. I was at their last gig, Aberdare, miners’ benefit, July 7th 1984. One of my college teachers was a sixties counter culture/ situationist survivor, and he gently led me to realise that this anarchy stuff was nothing new, and that these were actually old school hippie communards.
I wonder, if I had listened to different records back then, if I would still be a pacifist, atheist vegetarian?

Happy Mondays- 45EP (1985)

Do I think the Mondays will go down in musical history? I couldn't give a fuck! -Shaun Ryder.
Is it really twenty one years since Bummed?
Salford’s finest had already been around for a while when the Madchester craze swept the country. They entered a Battle Of The Bands at The Hacienda nightclub. They came last but Tony Wilson signed them to Factory Records anyway.
Forty Five E.P. is their debut E.P. (it is often called the Delightful E.P. after its first track) released on Factory Records in 1985.
Notably, Vini Reilly (of The Durutti Column) was originally to produce the EP. After two hours in the studio, Reilly quit - he couldn't stand the band.
Shaun Ryder - vocals,
Paul Ryder - bass,
Mark Day- guitar
Paul Davis- keyboard
Gary Whelan-drums

The Natural-ites- Picture on the Wall (single) (1983)

Time for a piece of great British Reggae.
Picture On The Wall was the 1983 debut single of Nottingham’s Natural-ites. The band's first attracted wide attention when they appeared on Mikey Dread’s television showcase Rockers Roadshow. Picture On The Wall was a favourite of John Peel, and on one occasion I can remember him playing the record and then immediately playing the introduction again.
The Natural-ites were Ossie Samms (aka Ossie Gad), and Percy 'JP' McLeod. The Realistics provided the rhythm and horn sections.

The Cramps Live at Napa State Hospital (1978)

This is our first movie post. In much the same way that I still refer to all recorded music as ‘records' I am still inclined to refer to any moving picture media as ‘a film’. I may post the occasional film, but it won’t happen that often.
The other day I was leafing through The British Journal of Psychiatry and I came across an article on music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia
(2006 189: 405-409. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.105.015073 if you’re interested) that reminded me of this film.
Whatever you want to call that genre of raw B- movie horror horror punk that has its roots in early rockabilly and still flourishes to this day, The Cramps bestrode it like a 60 foot woman. How about Rock n Roll?
Napa State Hospital, California a 500-bed, four-story, Gothic-style asylum opened in 1875, when the institution in San Francisco became overcrowded.
In June 1978 The Cramps gave a free concert for patients at the Napa State Hospital that was recorded on a Sony Portapak by the San Francisco collective Target Video

Line up:
Nick Knox- drums
Lux Interior – vocals
Poison Ivy -guitar
Bryan Gregory –guitar

In his treatise Meanings of the Intellect al-Farabi(872–950), dealt with music therapy, where he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.Robert Burton wrote in the 17th century in his classic work,The Anatomy of Melancholy, that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia.So how about this?

 http://d01.megashares.com/dl/tO0su6C/THE CRAMPS-live at Napa State Mental Hospital.rar

R.E.M- Chronic Town (1982)

Chronic Town was R.E.M's second outing on vinyl, something of a compromise in that manager Jefferson Holt felt that the band should release a longer record, but that they were not ready to make an album.

The hallmarks of R.E.M's early sound are here: jangling arpeggios and sometimes indiscernable vocals.

There was a typical obscurity about the packaging; why have side one and side two when you can have a Chronic Town side and a Poster Torn side, and why put the tracklisting in the correct order?

The House of Love - German LP (1987)

The House of Love formed in 1986 in London.
Signing to Creation Records,they released three singles before their untitled 1988 debut album (none of their LP releases had titles until 1991). This German compilation (also untitled) collected their first two non-album singles (excluding "Christine", which had been featured on the debut album).

Line up:
Guy Chadwick- vocals, guitar
Terry Bickers -guitar
Andrea Heukamp -vocals, guitar
Pete Evans -drums
Christian Groothuizen -bass

The dB's- Amplifier (1986)

The dB's are another example of a band whose influence far outreached their commercial success, and they represented the prototype for many of the USA’s independent acts of the eighties, with their jangly sound and studious manner.
Though formed in New York, the band members all came from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
They released their first album,Stands for Decibels, in 1981, to critical acclaim but negligible sales. The LP featured precise arrangements and highly accomplished playing. The album Amplifier features tracks culled from their first two records and is not a part of The dB’s ‘official’ discography.

Line up:
Chris Stamey- guitar, vocals
Peter Holsapple- guitar, vocals
Gene Holder- bass guitar
Will Rigby- drums

Peter Holsapple went on to work with REM, supplementing their line up for live performances, and from 1989 to 1991 was frequently described as the fifth member of R.E.M, before disputes over songwriting credits led to a rift.

Jeffrey Lee Pierce- Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove with Willie Love (1992)

I beat scars into my arms waiting for an early death- JLP

Here’s a blues album.
Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee, is of course,Jeffrey Lee Pierce (June 27 1958 - March 31 1996) frontman of one of the most exciting bands of the 1980's, The Gun Club, who churned out a haunting mix of blues and punk . If you like high octane music with a dark edge and you haven't heard their 1981 masterpiece Fire of Love, then get it today. If you can't find it anywhere let me know and i'll post it.
Go Tell The Mountain, Pierce's slim volume of autobiography and lyrics, is much sought after, often changing hands for £100 or more, so if you see it in the local Oxfam it's a good investment.
This 1992 LP features a couple of Pierce numbers and versions of songs by blues masters such as Howlin Wolf, Skip James and Son House.
I don’t know much about guitarist Cypress Grove except that he took his name from a Skip James number.Of the others i know even less.
Line up:
Ramblin'Jeffrey Lee - guitars & vocals
Cypress Grove - guitars
Willie Love - drums
Carl La Fong - acoustic bass, bass guitar
Kimberley S. - bluesharp
produced by Jeffrey Lee Pierce

Ultra Vivid Scene-Joy 1967-1990 (1990)

Perhaps somebody can help me out here? I know that Ultra Vivid Scene's eponymous first album was a solo work, with Kurt Ralske performing all the music as well as writing and producing the project. I'm assuming that this was also the case on Joy 1967-1990?

The credits read: 'Performed by u.v.s programming by Kurt Ralske and Hugh Jones with Richard Close, Byron Guthrie and Kristin Kramer.Kim Deal - vocal on '4'. B.J. Cole - pedal steel on '9'. ' I can't find anything on Close, Guthrie or Kramer. Kurt Ralske is an interesting man, and this is an interesting album.

Ralske is currently Visiting Professor of Digital Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Art, in Boston, and is also on the faculty of the School of Visual Art, in NYC, in the graduate program in Computer Art. He has a video instilation on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Pixies- C'mon Pilgrim (1987)

Come on pilgrim, you know He loves you…Christian rock singer Larry Norman.
Come On Pilgrim was the Pixies’ debut, released on the 4AD label in September 1987.
In 1997 Gary Smith, who produced the EP commented on the band's influence on alternative rock and their legacy :
I've heard it said about The Velvet Underground that while not a lot of people bought their albums, everyone who did started a band. I think this is largely true about the Pixies as well. ... It became a kind of new pop formula and, within a short while, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was charging up the charts and even the members of Nirvana said later that it sounded for all the world like a Pixies song.
Kurt Cobain:
I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it ... When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band - or at least in a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.
The songs, with their dark references to incest, sex, religion and mutilation read like the footnotes to a David Lynch text. The music can be mellow at times but is threaded with seismic and breathtaking burts of spleen.
Line up:
• Black Francis – vocals, guitars
• David Lovering – drums
• Mrs. John Murphy* – bass, vocals
• Joey Santiago – lead guitars

*Mrs. John Murphy is Kim Deal

M.J. Harris & Martyn Bates - Murder Ballads (Drift) (1994)

There is no silence – there never has been any silence … Mick Harris.
Mick Harris started out in the 1980s as a drummer with pioneering grindcore band Napalm Death.Since the mid-1990s, Harris has worked primarily in electronic and ambient music,his main projects being Scorn and Lull.
Martyn Bates formed eclectic experimental duo Eyeless in Gaza in 1980.
Both men have worked extensively in a range of musical genres.
Murder Ballads (Drift) is a marriage of isolationist ambience with the murder ballad form. The LP comprises long, (fourteen minutes plus) desolate and beautiful pieces. A second volume Passages followed in 1996, with a third volume Incest Songs released in June 1998, completing the work. The trilogy was later released as a box set (if the response to this is good, i.e., one download, I’ll post the others in due course).
These are haunting pieces, on which Martyn Bates sings tenderly against Harris’ backdrop of mesmeric drones.

The Birthday Party- Mr Clarinet, The Friend Catcher 7" singles (1980)

In 1980 Melboune punksters The Boys Next Door prowled into London and changed their name to The Birthday Party. Ice cream and jelly, and a punch in the belly …Indeed. The Roxy poppiness of their early songs was swamped by the dark Brechtian cabaret that epitomised their work for the next three years. They unleashed an infernal sonic machine that rumbled, screeched, gained pace and exploded in the faces of their audiences.
These are their first two singles. It’s all here, the staccato snare drum, the menacing bass and the wall of tortured guitar sounds.
The Birthday Party 7” singles- Mr Clarinet, The Friend Catcher (1980)

Line up:
Nick Cave- vocals
Mick Harvey- guitar
Tracy Pew- bass
Rowland S Howard- guitar
Phil Calvert –drums.

Unfortunately these downloads are no longer available. Get versions here: http://amputeearms.blogspot.com/2009/01/birthday-party-hee-haw.html