Monday 27 July 2015

Illyana Rasputin in Pittsburgh (1988) C60


This was myself and John Jasper, the man behind the Joneses, thirty minutes of which can theoretically be found by referring to the index. I had been recording my own stuff under the name Do Easy since about 1982 or thereabouts, the problem with which was - as I began to realise - lack of quality control and the absence of any clear idea of what I was doing. Pieces of music which were obviously rubbish were taped over at source, but unless it was completely shit, I usually stuck it on a cassette in the hope of someone buying it. Additionally there was the problem that my tapes would vary wildly in style and quality from one track to the next. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to be Throbbing Gristle, Soft Cell, Karlheinz Stockhausen, or Leonard Cohen, so it probably all sounded wildly inconsistent. By the time 1988 wheeled around I fancied a fresh go at it with a new name and efforts made to ensure that successive tracks would at least sound like the work of the same person. Illyana Rasputin was a character whom I fancied from the X-Men comics, of which I was reading a ton at the time due to having very little in the way of a sex life. It sounded vaguely exotic and not even remotely industrial, so that was what I went with. This tape was recorded on and off throughout 1988 around at John's house. I and the Village, Pure Finger Point at Earth Scum, In the Ruins of Becelaere, Waterside at 12, Let the Bayonets Speak! and Groove 1889 all came from previous incarnations as Do Easy songs, or at least demos left at varying stages of completion, but half of these compositions are John's doing, and he's the reason I can still listen to any of it without wincing too hard.

The details at which I still wince are entirely mine, and time hasn't healed the wound. Because it was the eighties and I had everything Throbbing Gristle ever recorded (including the ludicrously rare private Death Factory tapes from '76, so nyer nyer nyer all you Johnny-come-lately part-timers) I spent at least some of the time exploring controversial ideas and imagery, just like every other sad fucker with a delay pedal and a copy of that Emlyn Williams book about the moors murderers. Accordingly one of these songs is named after a painting by Adolf Hitler, and another was one of Mussolini's catchphrases, to whom there are a number of additional lyrical references for the sake of flavouring one's Riesling with just a splash of urine for sake of texture. Personally I always saw the referencing of the transgressive as roughly in the tradition of the Surrealists and their like. It honestly never occurred to me that there might actually be genuine Hitler enthusiasts out there strumming acoustic guitars whilst singing about Himmler being a bit like some nice flowers, and getting away with it because industrial music fans are generally as thick as fucking pig shit. When not making daring references to bad 'uns, I was mostly singing about how I hadn't had it off in ages. Why this should have been so is obviously a mystery to me.

It actually took me a couple of years to get around to shoving this tape out under the banner of Runciter Corporation, a name stolen from a Philip K. Dick novel under which I also produced various comics and fanzines. I ran off about fifty or so copies, so far as I can tell, although I'm not sure how many of those I actually sold. The tape was also released by Carl Howard's Audiophile Tapes in the US. I'm not sure how many Carl sold, but from what I can tell by looking at his facebook page, he doesn't appear to own a yacht, so US sales may not even have hit single figures. I probably should have recorded a better tape, I suppose, although for all its innumerable flaws, I've heard worse - even if I do say so myself. I only wish the good bits had been my fault.

Whilst I'm here, I feel I should mention Space Patrol!, Carl Howard's net radio show for which there is a facebook page to be found here, and a dedicated group here. It seems like something worth supporting, so you know what to do.





Tracks:
1 - Rorschach Love Song
2 - I and the Village

3 - Sad Fascination February 1988
4 - Pure Finger Point at Earth Scum
5 - In the Ruins of Becelaere
6 - Scavenger
7 - Waterside at 12
8 - Let the Bayonets Speak!
9 - Musik in My Gasmask
10 - Pittsburgh
11 - Groove 1889


Return to Index

Monday 20 July 2015

Enhoenta Bödlar - Ogreish Guttural Wounds (1984) LP


Vinyl album rather than cassette this week, but this one seems conspicuously absent from the internet so far as I can tell, and I haven't noticed any boutique labels fighting over the right to reissue, so here we are; and here we are because Ogreish Guttural Wounds is a lost classic in my opinion, one of the greatest (or at least weirdest) records ever to be saddled with the unfortunate label of industrial. Enhoenta Bödlar - Swedish for One-Handed Tormentor - were Uddah Buddah and X-Terminator of Ljungby, Sweden or thereabouts. As I understand it, X-Terminator operated the synth whilst Uddah Buddah handled vocals and percussion, although it may not have been quite so clear cut as that. X-Terminator later became better known as the Brighter Death Now guy, and I gather that he and Uddah Buddah may have fallen out shortly after this was recorded. Uddah Buddah was known to his mum as Lennart Eilersen, and he was the person to whom I wrote in his capacity as big cheese of Selbstmord Organización, his tape label which branched out into at least this one slab of vinyl with its photocopied cover held on by masking tape. Its apparent subsequent lack of availability may be on account of the group being so ashamed of it that they buried all the unsold copies, at least according to what Lennart Eilersen told me in one letter:

We have our 1st LP our by Enhoenta Bodlar, but that was so bad that we don't even wanna sell it anymore. The rest of the copies left are meant to be buried in cemetries.

I suppose how bad
it could have been is now the obvious question. Personally I wouldn't say it was bad at all, but it is seriously fucking odd, and it doesn't bear much comparison with many other things which have been labelled industrial. One of the greatest things about the Roland SH101 synth is, in my opinion, the arpeggio feature, or whatever the hell it's called - hold down as many keys as you like and the synth runs up and down the sequence over and over like some sort of seasick Dalek pumped full of nose-candy. It's a peculiar, disorientating sound without which Ogrish Guttural Wounds would have been a spoken word album. Aside from the afterthought of metal percussion - teatray, spoon, and metal chair leg by the sound of it, and occasionally apologetic taps on the pads of an MPC Industries Kit - this incarnation of Enhoenta Bödlar had more or less the same dynamic as Whitehouse, but for sounding nothing like them. Instead of the screeching feedback we have that weird electronic sawing noise, and instead of a man ranting about his plonker we have this disturbingly polite Derek Nimmo version of someone from the Church of Satan; or something like that. It sounds like it was recorded on a music center in somebody's front room, and yet the sheer insanity of the enterprise renders it much, much greater than the sum of its parts. Lennart Eilersen cited Monty Python as at least as big an influence as any of the usual droning suspects, which makes a lot of sense, and which probably makes this album at least as great as it is in my imagination. Seriously, if you'd rather listen to Lustmord than this, I feel sorry for your parents.

Oh... and also, I've included Antichrist Ne Telleth which comes from the Carnage in a Country Garden cassette compilation on Anal Probe (1983).


I'm Jesus Christ masturbating.
Just give me concentration, will you.
I need concentration.
I'm Jesus Christ masturbating.
Just give me your hands, will you.
Do it faster!
Do it nicer!
Do it slower!

It's good, you know
...



Tracks:
1 - Ogreish...
2 - One-Handed Tormentor

3 - We Will All Be Warm-Eaten
4 - Thee Only Way...
5 - Semene Stains
6 - Heathen Nordic Temple
7 - Thwart Thy Lethal Leprosy
8 - Mere Dewy Christian Cunt
9 - I'm Jesus Christ Masturbating
10 - Antichrist Ne Telleth

Return to Index

Monday 13 July 2015

The Joneses - Keeping Up With The Joneses (1989) C30


The Joneses were John Jasper, just one bloke with a portastudio who lived around the corner from me in Chatham, Kent. John was musically prolific, recording his own rhythmic dub material heavily influenced by Adrian Sherwood and the On-U sound under the name Regular. We also collaborated on a cassette recorded as Illyana Rasputin, and then there was all his other stuff - things which just never quite seemed to fit in anywhere else. Foremost amongst this most severely mutated material was one side of a cassette he gave me containing these fourteen tracks. The Joneses were unlike his other imaginary bands, particularly in terms of the raw force of sarcasm utilised during recording - assuming it was sarcasm, because frankly it was sometimes difficult to tell what the hell he was playing at. The Joneses most obviously rips huge streaks of piss out of the Smiths, but also seems to take sideways potshots at Mark E. Smith, the Cocteau Twins, and possibly Alan Bennett. The other side of the tape appeared to be taken up by something called Reg Varney's Mobile Coconut Shy.

John was a lovely guy but a pain in the arse, one of the least reliable, most pathologically flaky people I've ever met. He would lend me tapes of Keith LeBlanc albums and swear blind they had been recorded by a friend of his, some guy who lived in Devon. Then he was going on tour, playing bass with Wolfgang Press - really he was. He would fail to show if you arranged to meet him at the pub, or you would go around to his house and he'd pretend he wasn't home. He seemed, at times, a bit mad, and thus provided some evidence in support of that equation about the thin line dividing madness from genius, as expressed in his music. The Joneses, with all its deliberate mistakes, tape distortion, pointed crash edits, and armpit farting noises is a long way from the Barron Knights tradition of satire, comic send up and note perfect pastiche, so far in fact that it exists more or less on its own terms and as such predates Chris Morris and Blue Jam by nearly a decade.

I don't know how well this stuff will translate. Maybe you had to be there. All I know is that the Joneses still make me cry with laughter a quarter of a century later.


He sometimes likes to lie in his bedroom and remove his trousers,
But sometimes his trousers remove
him...



Tracks:
1 - Edwardian Trout Feef
2 - Reg

3 - Tossing and Turning
4 - Bending Down, Naturally
5 - Don't Eat Sausage
6 - Cor - Strewf!
7 - Night-time Biscuit Horror
8 - Walnuts
9 - Horror in the Office
10 - Spoons
11 - I 'Ad a Ake
12 - Ronnie Rowe
13 - Bedtime Cigar Interruption
14 - Fluffy Fluffy Big Pink Man

Return to Index

Sunday 5 July 2015

Index & Disclaimer

Index

Each link should take you to the blog entry from which the named item may be downloaded. Each blog entry should also feature a link which brings you back to this index.


Acrobatic Champions (1985) C15 
Acrobatic Champions (1985) C60
Acrobatic Champions - Strange Days (1986) C60 
Acrobatic Champions - Inbuilt Psychedelia (1986) C60
Anarchist Angels - As the Innocent Suffer... (1983) C30+
Anschluss - Fall Apart (1992) C60
Antonym - Native Dystopean (1990) C46 
Antonym - Blood and Aphorisms (1991) C60
Antonym - Statues in Ice (1992) C50 
Apricot Brigade - Practice September 1985... (1986) C60
Asepisis - The Glory of Punishment (1984) C60
A Shadow of Light - Awaken (1986) C15
Basement Mania - Alive and Dying (1988) C20
Basic Humour - Basic Humour (1983) C10 
Brides of Christ II (1983) C30
Bubble Eyed Dog Boys (1990) C15
Ceramic Hobs - Station Bar 17/6/03 (2003) C40
Ceramic Hobs - The Garage 21/6/03 (2003) C40
Clench - In the Garden (1984) C46
Cloister Crime - Devilish Music... (1984) C46
Condon, Paul - Fiery Bliss (1996) C60
Condon, Paul - Mixed Results (1996) C90  
Condon, Paul - The Night Factory (1997) C90
Cox, Andrew - Methods (1980) C46
Craptones - Hi, I'm Geoff (1990) C60  
Craptones - The Tenderest Touch... (1992) C60 
Cyclic Amp - Deviations of the Impulse (1986) C60
Cyclic Amp - A Certain Sacrifice (1988) C30 
Cyclic Amp - Concrete Island (1989) C90
Dada X (1992) C90  
Death in Venice - New Year's Dawn (1988) C10
Death Magazine 52 - Mermaid 27.8.83 (1983) 
Death Pact International - Fear Eats the Soul (1986) 2C60
Die Brücke - A Time and a Place (1983) C60
Doc Mustard and the Cobalt Kid - Nudie Beaches (1986) C20
Do Easy - The Metal Tape (1982) C60

Do Easy - The Second Metal Tape (1982) C60
Do Easy - The Fourth Metal Tape (1982) C90
Do Easy - The Sixth Metal Tape (1983) C60
Do Easy - The Ninth Metal Tape (1983) C60
Do Easy - The Twelfth Metal Tape (1983) C60  
Do Easy - The Fourteenth Metal Tape (1983) C60
Do Easy - Purifier (1986) 3C60
Do Easy - Death in a Milan Square (1984) C60 
Do Easy - The 35th Release (1985) C60
Do Easy - In the New Southern Territories (1986) C60
Do Easy - Italia 1912 (1986) C90 
Do Easy - This Can't Go On Forever (1987) C90 
Do Easy - Don't Talk (1987) C60 
Do Easy - Gravesend (1987) C90 
Dovers - Rehearsals 1 & 2.1 (1987) C60
Dovers - Rehearsals 2.2, 3 & 4.1 (1987) C90
Dovers - Rehearsals 4.2 & 5+ (1987) C60
Dovers - Rehearsal 6 / Live Sunset Strip 23.12.87 (1987) C90
Dovers - Rehearsals 7 & 8 (1988) C90.
Dovers - Rehearsals 9 & 10 (1988) C90.
Dovers - Live Sunset Strip 27.1.88 (1988) C46.  
Dovers - Hammersmith and Chatham (1988) C90
Dovers - Adam Ant... (1991) C90
Dovers - The World of the Dovers (1991) C60 
Dovers - 8-Ball 8-Ball Martin De Sey (1991) C90
Dovers - Water Pistol Filled with Beer (1991) C90
Dovers - Nobody Never Told Me Nothing... (1992) C90+
Dovers - More of the Same Old Thing (1992) C60
Due Process - RRRadio 41-55 (1991) 2C60
Duncan, Chris - The Broken Crucifix II (1981) C60
Duncan, Chris - The Vanishing Mother (1981) C60 
Enhoenta Bödlar - Ogreish Guttural Wounds (1984) LP
Enhoenta Bödlar - William Bennett in the Sky... (1985) C60
Envy (1986/7) C46
Envy - 1987 Demo (1987) C20
ESP Kinetic - Dance as Hallucination (1985) C60
ESP Kinetic - The Message is No Message (1985) C60 
ESP Kinetic - Mission (1985) C90
ESP Kinetic (1985) C15
Family of Noise - New Golden Age (1992) C90
Family of Noise - Rough Versions (1996) C60
Family Patrol Group - Fear Death by Water (1983) C60
F*** F****** - Stupid (1988) C15
F*** F****** - Enjoy! (1991) C60
F*** F******* - For Our Real Fans Only! (1992) C60+  
Frenzied Encounters - From The Mind of Frenzi (1986) 2C60
Fysisk Fostran - Vi Behöver Ett Odöpt Barn (1983) C60
Godless Pinkoes - There's a Communist in My Soup (1982) C46 
Grey Wolves - British Blood (1986) C90
Headmen - 1986 Demo Tape (1986) C30
His-Create-He - The Prison (1982) C20 
Hole - Mr. Bojangles 28/9/90 (1990) C30
Human Trapped Rhythms - And to Z (1984) C60
Hunt, Jonathan - Who is the Captain of This Ship? (1983) C46
Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck - Forced Cohesion (1990) C46 
Scram Ju Ju - February 1984 (1984) C30
The Shining - Green Dragon 2/8/84 (1984) C40
Sin - First Movement: Disease (1985) C90
621 Monosodium 621 - Torn from the Earth... (1992) C15+
Smell & Quim - The English Method (1988) C60
Soul - Demo Tape (1986) C15
Soul Providers - Cipactli Nahuatlamatl (1998) C90  
Soul Providers - Ehecatl Calli (1998) C90
Soul Providers - Calli Yei (1998) C90 
Soul Providers - Last Tape (1999) C90
Spinning Pygmies - Spinning Pygmies I (1987) C60
Spinning Pygmies - Spinning Pygmies II (1987) C60
Spinning Pygmies - Spinning Pygmies III (1987) C90
Spinning Pygmies - Spinning Pygmies IV (1987) C60
Sputniks - Six by the Sputniks (1986) 10"
SWANC - Mouldy Roll (1992) C90
Symboliks - Ticket to Everywhere (1991) C60  
Total Big - Rehearsals 1 & 2 (1985) C90
Total Big - Rehearsals 3 & 4 (1985) C90
Total Big - Rehearsals 5 & 6 (1986) C90  
Total Big - Rehearsals 7 & 8 (1986) C60
Total Big - Rehearsals 9 & 10 (1986) C90
Total Big - Rehearsals 11 & 12 (1986) C90
Total Big - Rehearsal 11 - Complete & Unabridged (1986) C90
Total Big - Rehearsal 13 & 14 (1986) C90
Total Big - Rehearsals 19 & 20 (1986) C90 
Trilogy - Tapestry (1984) C60
Trilogy (1984) C15+
Trilogy - Other Input (1985) C90 
Tryouts - The Look On Their Faces (1983) C30
Tryouts - On the Outside Bog (1983) C30+
Unkommuniti - Brutality of Fact (1984) 7"
various - Allegory (1992) C40 
various - Another Bouquet... (1982) C60
various - Another Lost Cause (1984) C90
various - A Person's Healthy Guide to Listening (1991) C70 
various - Ars Magna et Ultima (1984) C60
various - A Sudden Surge of Power (1983) C90  
various - The Best of Italian Opera (1982) C60
various - Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1980) C60
various - Carnage in a Country Garden (1986) C90
various - Cassette Music 1 (1993) C60
various - Cassette Music 2 (1993) C60  
various - Cassette Music 3 (1994) C60
various - Cassette Music 4 (1994) C60  
various - Cassette Music 5 (1994) C60
various - Circumcise the Foreskin of Your Heart (1983) C60
various - Eat the Rich (1984) C60
various - From Down Yondah (1984) C120
various - Impulse 2 (1992) C40
various - Impulse 3 (1992) C40 
various - Impulse 4 (1992) C40
various - Impulse 5 (1993) C40
various - Impulse 6 (1996) C40  
various - Impulse 8 (1996) C30
various - International Sound Communication 10 (1986) C90
various - Meridians 1 (1983) C60
various - Moraals (1985) 2C90
various - Paranoia is Awareness (1982) C90
various - Political Piggies (1984) C60
various - Power to Destroy (1993) 2C60
various - Radio Hajra (1989) C90
various - Raw Opium Enema (1994) C60
various - Realities (1982) C60
various - Real Time 1 (1982) C90  
various - Real Time 2 (1982) C90
various - Real Time 3 (1982) C90 
various - Real Time 4 (1982) C90 
various - Real Time 5 (1983) C90
various - Real Time 6 (1983) C90
various - Real Time 7 (1983) C90 
various - Reflections of a Past Age (1984) C60  
various - Shake the Foundations (1991) C90
various - Sinn & Form (1982) C60 

Disclaimer
This blog is maintained for the sake of sharing music from my own private collection, most of which derives from tape cassettes dating from the eighties or nineties. Some of this music was recorded either by myself, or by bands of which I was a member at the time. Some of the cassettes digitised here are simply by people I knew, or people whose work I came across and which impressed me so much as to preclude the possibility of my taping over the thing. So I suppose I own the copyright of some of the material here, but not all of it. In the case of the material for which I don't own the copyright, generally I have tried and failed to track down those responsible in order to seek permission for my sharing their material (excepting people I can't fucking stand or who can't stand me), but honestly I don't even know if some of these people are still alive. I've done what I could. This material is shared purely for the love of music, and in the hope that you too, whoever you may be, will appreciate a few lost gems. I'm not trying to cash in here, and neither should you.

Also on that score, I've noticed someone selling old Trilogy cassettes for $70 a pop over on Discogs, and so I have been advised to reduce the quality of my scans, or maybe watermark them so as to prevent anyone faking vintage tapes from material obtained here and then selling them for a million quid. I'm not going to do that. My take on this is that if you're stupid enough to pay $70 for music copied onto a WHSmiths C15 back in 1984, then that's your tough shit, particularly when you can get the same thing free right here from this blog. I'd rather people didn't attempt to accrue a personal fortune by selling faked copies of ancient Tryouts masterpieces, but I'm just as keen to discourage the sort of exclusivity and collectard mentality which inevitably results in the only way to get to hear Matfield & the Pond being to sell a kidney.

...and if I've gone and shared your shit and this pisses you off, let me know and I'll take it down, mkay? Oh - and whilst we're here, please investigate my other blogs, and buy my fuckin' book!


Finally, it should be noted that, depending on what you use to play MP3s, how your computer works or whatever, these tracks will probably download in alphabetical sequence rather than the order in which they should appear as derived from the source recording. It has been suggested that I need to prefix my tracks with A1, A2, B3 and so on, but I haven't because it gets on my tits when I download other people's stuff and have to go through it editing the titles because Jonathan King never recorded a song called A7 Lad's Bums Yum Yum and it sends me into a blind rage when my PC tries to suggest that he did. Therefore I respectfully suggest that you download the shit then order it accordingly within your iTunes or whatever you use by referring to the track list provided with each blog entry.

My pleasure.

The Product - Erotic Pink Pelicans (1985) C60


The Product were two blokes with a pile of synths, drum machines, at least one guitar, and sharp flat-top haircuts of a style which was pretty popular in the Kentish town of Chatham in the mid-eighties. I think I saw them two or three times, most memorably at the Good Intent in Rochester. For a band playing what was essentially slightly angry Blancmange they were pretty incredible live, despite the stiff competition of a million rock and roll bands with actual drummers, about half of which had featured the mighty force of Billy Childish at some point or other. At least some of the Product's stage presence was probably down to the novelty of a song about fellatio (which would later be covered by both the Cure and Morrissey) and a substantial following of local fans ready to engage in the dispensation of lively and good-natured violence at the gigs. With hindsight it seems odd that a band who sounded like this should have accrued such a following of keen Special Brew enthusiasts, many of whom were conveyed to the concerts by means of scooter, but that was Kent in the 1980s for you, and it made sense at the time.

I've no idea what became of the Product, but this stuff still sounds fucking great to me even now, thirty years later.

No idea how I even got hold of this tape. I was probably drunk.



Tracks:
1 - Production Line
2 - Crash Course

3 - Chaos
4 - Love Shine
5 - If Only We Were Alone
6 - Concrete Scar
7 - Kind
8 - COBSMW
9 - Jester
10 - Pain That Exists
11 - Treasure Cave
12 - F.A.B.

Return to Index