V/A - Love & Napalm vol. 1

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Surgery - Feedback / Fried

 

Label: Amphetamine Reptile

Year: 1990

Surgery were sorta perfect, weren't they? They somehow managed to take the black gutter grime of NYC and craft with it a skuzz rock that took blues damage and caveman pounding and brought forth a compelling, catchy, and musical oeuvre. Holds up today. Check it. I wouldn't lie to you.

DL

Man Matters - Man Matters

Label: self released
Year: 2020

Quarantine does strange things to people. The isolation, the tedium, the heavy blanket of boredom thrown atop much needed expression...it's not been easy. Stranger than usual anyway. Maybe some of you were fucked up to begin with, and this year has been a welcome reprieve from "normal social expectations"? I don't really know you, and that's probably a good thing. On both ends. Wouldn't you agree?

For Londoner Dave Wortrich, quarantine has given him the gift to experiment with "shitty beats" and craft some demented post-pig-fuck noise. So, for that, we should be grateful. Or at least, I think that's the word. Man Matters has Dave and one of his buddies warping some pretty ugly Men's Recovery Project inspired turbulence, that sounds like the kind of thing you might get if you staged a tug-of-war match between the Skin Graft Records roster and the Riot Season roster, and had the GSL Records roster refereeing. They are "songs", but they are songs that throb and pierce and skitter about. So, not "songs" that your mother would ever commit to memory, more like songs found on the hard drive of a serial killer's computer. Which, should be taken as a compliment (cause...you're mom is a terrible barometer...and she's fat). 

Cover has been censored to keep me out of Facebook jail, not because I don't enjoy the beauty of a flaccid dong or anything. Cause, I do. Ask around.

DL

Shellac - Live In Tokyo

Label: Nux Label

Year: 1994

Recorded in 1993 (November 21st to be exact), released in Japan only, and now here. Have we posted this one before? If so, a thousand pardons. 

As you would guess, the sound quality is superb. The performance is superb. The songs are superb.

I'm not sure what else needs to be said. Enjoy your weekend.

DL

V/A - WMBR Presents: Clear The Room!

 

Label: No Life

Year: 1992

Who would have guessed the eggheads at MIT's student run radio station would have such good taste in music?

Well, turns out they do. Or did, at any rate. 

This three song 7" collects some live recordings made by the station as a fundraiser (to purchase a full-on live recording truck!), so, you can feel extra shitty about downloading it for free. JK dudes (and that one girl), this thing is decades old...that radio station has already made millions of the sales of the 2000 copies they pressed of this record...they're good. Don't sweat it.

It should be noted the house engineer on two of the tracks is Bob Weston...not bad.

The bands are:

The Jesus Lizard

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

Velocity Girl

You know all them, right?

DL

Urge Overkill - Now That's The Barclords

Label: Sub Pop

Year: 1991

A little audio sorbet from our usual fare? I don't know, maybe. I was never a big fan of urge Overkill, and this particular two song 7" (the May 1991 Sub Pop Singles Club installment) is the only representation of their output in my collection, so I'm far from an expert. But I do dig these songs, especially the B-side, "What's This Generation Coming To?". 

By all accounts the band changed with the success of their major label debut and the hit "Sister Havana", which would come out a couple years after these songs, and they maybe dicked over Touch And Go in the process. I don't know.

It's a sunny Friday afternoon where I am, so this one is doing alright by me. See if it do you.

DL

The Mercury Players - Hollywood Of Bust

Label: Bovine

Year: 1992

How's about some more Bovine Records goodness?

Good. Cause I got some.

The Mercury Players debut outing is this two song 7" of Chicago born and bred noise rock. 

It's good. Of course it's good, or I wouldn't be fucking around with you, wasting everyone's time, posting it here. You know my good reputation is paramount to this whole endeavor! You think Imma fuck around and besmirch that shit? Fuck that! I ain't besmirching shit! Not on my watch. Not today, Satan. You got another thing coming!

DL

Plainfield - One Through Eight / PCP Headquarters

Label: Bovine

Year: 1993

The long running brainchild of Smelly Mustafa, Plainfield (named after the Wisconsin hometown of John Wayne Gacy, naturally) has created in their wake a fairly substantial discography for your pleasure(?). Some of it traffics in a cow-punk kind of aesthetic, some of it is straight up punk rock, and some of it, this two song 7" in particular, utilizes a noise rock foundation to stagger and  antagonize. It has a Killdozer meets Hammerhead sensibility. As much as you can call that a sensibility. Regardless of what you call it, you will like it. I assure you.

DL