Sonny Vincent - Three Covers

Here's a small update as an excuse for a couple of advertisements.

One, Sonny has a new album coming up and a record release show that I would love to attend, as it features the wonderful Guitar Gangsters as the opening band - one of the three criminally underrated British punk rock bands (alongside The Crack and The (Newtown) Neurotics - you really should check out all of these bands).

Two, the Testors are reuniting for a couple of American shows, one in NYC and the other at the Atlanta Mess Around festival. Some more gigs I won't be attending!

Finally, here's the short EP I made out of the three cover songs released on various compilations. The originals are by Johnny Thunders, the Ramones and Chuck Berry, respectively, but you knew that. The Chuck Berry cover utilises the talents of the late, great Mr. Arthur "Killer" Kane, whose unlikely life story was made into a beautiful and poignant documentary which you absolutely need to see. The movie is called "New York Doll" and here's its trailer. From playing bass for the world's most outrageous rock'n'roll band to employment at a Mormon library and back - wow.

Track listing:

1. Sonny Vincent & the Safety Pins - Chatterbox (2:06)
2. Sonny Vincent - I Just Want to Have Something to Do (2:37)
3. Sonny Vincent, Arthur Kane & Clem Burke - Carol (2:25)

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Grant Hart - Live KST Beograd 17.,18.11.1995.

Picture taken at one of the shows.

Four days ago, on his fiftieth birthday, Grant Hart was supposed to play the KSET club in Zagreb, Croatia, and I was looking forward to seeing him for the second time; sadly, it was not to be, and Grant has spent the night in a Croatian jail for reasons too ridiculous to write about (but which could be described with the term "bureaucratic over-eagerness and stupidity"). Here, for all the other fans who were hoping to see this show, is a soundboard recording from his two shows in Belgrade fifteen years ago, containing an hour and a half of wonderful acoustic versions of his Hüsker Dü, Nova Mob and solo material. I don't know which songs come from which show, but I assume the author of the tape that was uploaded somewhere on the Internet has picked one version each of all (or at least most of) the songs played over the course of the two nights. It's too bad the shows aren't complete but this is still much better than nothing. Here's hoping we will be able to see Grant some time again soon...

:(

Disc One:

1. She Floated Away (2:41)
2. The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill (2:44)
3. Remains to Be Seen (2:52)
4. Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely (3:01)
5. Sorry Somehow (3:16)
6. She's a Woman (And Now He Is a Man) (3:22)
7. Admiral of the Sea (2:17)
8. Ballad #19 (2:55)
9. 2541 (3:32)
10. Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope (3:20)
11. Please Don't Ask (3:11)
12. Pink Turns to Blue (2:14)
13. Never Talking to You Again (1:58)
14. You're the Victim (3:26)
15. Keep Hanging On (4:06)
16. Back from Somewhere (2:40)
17. Over My Head (3:24)

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Picture taken on the 19.03.2011. Belgrade gig by a friend. http://www.andrejgodjevac.com/

Disc Two:

1. Anything (3:48)
2. She Can See the Angels Coming (2:20)
3. The Last Days of Pompeii (3:16)
4. Introduction (2:43)
5. Diane (4:25)
6. Come, Come (2:30)
7. You're a Soldier (2:14)
8. The Main (3:28)
9. Green Eyes (2:14)
10. Old Empire (2:32)
11. Flexible Flyer (2:14)
12. Books About UFO's (2:18)
13. Signed D.C. (2:55)

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Various - Sides 1-14

This is a series of 7" singles with AC/DC covers and songs "inspired by" AC/DC, performed by artists such as Shellac, Killdozer, Mule, and other great bands. I have never seen the actual singles, but the pictures found on the Internet show that they are probably beautiful - they are way too expensive for me to ever own them, too, so here's an MP3 compilation of all the songs, featuring the driest production sound ever heard on a Shellac recording (which is saying quite a lot), beautiful acoustic-ballad reconstructions of AC/DC by Mule and Will Oldham (here under the moniker Palace Contribution), and a great song title in Denison/Kimball Trio's "Back in Blanc" (also one of their more listenable recordings, in my opinion - I was never able to get into them, although Duane Denison is without a doubt my favourite guitar player). A nice listen.

Track listing:

1. Shellac - '95 Jailbreak (4:25)
2. Big'N - TNT (3:34)
3. Brise-Glace - Angus Dei Aus Licht (3:29)
4. US Maple - Sin City (5:40)
5. Palace - Big Balls (3:15)
6. Zeni Geva - Let There Be Rock (4:33)
7. Mount Shasta - Whole Lotta Rosie (4:14)
8. Denison-Kimball Trio - Back in Blanc (2:32)
9. Zeek Sheck - Wowy, the Love Song (5:58)
10. Killdozer - Let Me Put My Love into You (4:19)
11. Yowie - Dunderduck (3:09)
12. Colossamite - Anti-Christ Devil Child (5:03)
13. Pre - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (2:47)
14. Mule - Have a Drink on Me (5:05)

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The Jesus Lizard - Live Primavera Sound 28.05.2009.

As much as I get annoyed by the whole recent fad of every band that has ever existed reuniting, being able to see the Jesus Lizard for one and only time in my life has made all the other half-assed reunions slightly more bearable. I was at this show, which was recorded for posterity by the great WFMU radio station, who had it available for download on their site for a while. What can I say about finally seeing a band I have always thought to be the most perfect musical combo ever to walk this Earth, or at least one of the two most perfect ones (the other being Fugazi)? I was so overwhelmed that I can hardly remember it, mostly in short disconnected fragments - Yow leaping into the crowd during only the second or third bar the band had played; Duane having a series of LED's on his amp that for some reason spelled "Happy New Year"; Mac looking exactly like Jeremy Irons, and playing his drums in the most amazing way imaginable; all the other hipster bands that played the festival looking even more foolish when compared to such a display of sheer musical FORCE. Scratch out that earlier sentence, Fugazi were great, but the Jesus Lizard were the GREATEST. Thank you for reuniting for me and other kids that were born too late to witness your original tenure - your namesake might be late for his Second Coming, but yours was quite enough for me.

Where's Laldo?

Track listing:

1. Intro (0:48)
2. Then Comes Dudley (4:20)
3. Boilermaker (2:26)
4. Mouth Breather (2:26)
5. My Own Urine (3:20)
6. Dancing Naked Ladies (2:59)
7. Fly on the Wall (3:01)
8. Glamorous (3:13)
9. Puss (3:34)
10. Thumbscrews (2:45)
11. Bloody Mary (2:11)
12. Seasick (3:19)
13. Nub (3:08)
14. Blockbuster (3:17)
15. Gladiator (4:13)
16. Monkey Trick (4:31)
17. Chrome (3:57)
18. Wheelchair Epidemic (2:15)
19. 7 vs. 8 (4:14)

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Psihomodo pop - Live Lapidarij 26.10.1986.

Psihomodo pop are one of the more popular Croatian rock bands, which is not surprising, as their singer is a great showman, they write funny lyrics, and their songs are some of the best rock'n'roll songs ever written. OK, so that's because they steal riffs from famous rock'n'roll songs and then write their own lyrics (and songwriting credits)*. But still! They began in the early Eighties, released their first LP in 1986, were great until around 1995 (at least if you were a kid then and hadn't heard all of their material before, on Ramones, Velvet Underground and Blondie records - I was and I hadn't), and then proceeded to become a completely washed-out, unfunny joke band which just won't quit. I saw exactly one good show of theirs in the last ten years, and even that was just because they were supporting Marky Ramone, so 1) they only had some 40 minutes to play, 2) they picked their most punky material for the show, and 3) Marky's show sucked so badly that it readjusted the universal criteria for "good" and "bad". Anyway, their first three or four records are still very well-recorded, well-produced and passionately played power-pop/glam/punk-rock, and this show I am sharing contains my four favourite songs of theirs ("Kad places", "Sve je propalo", "Leteci odred" and "Ja sam"), two songs they have never officially released (one of them quite good - "Istocni vjetar"), a fun, trumpet-aided version of "Zar nebo...", and amusing stage banter, all recorded in quite high quality a quarter of century ago for your present-day enjoyment. Here it is:

Track listing:

1. Evropa (2:14)
2. Ja sam (2:34)
3. Dizanje (3:46)
4. Kad places (2:34)
5. Istocni vjetar (5:21)
6. Leteci odred (3:53)
7. Sve je propalo (4:19)
8. Zar nebo... (3:52)

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_______________
* I stole this from somewhere, didn't I? Mark Prindle probably?

SexA - SexA u Galeriji SC 02.06.1990.

SexA (stands for "Sedatives ex Apotheka", apparently) was a cult post-punk/noise-rock band from Croatia; they were active since the early Eighties, and have ended their career in the Netherlands in the mid-Nineties. They started out as a dark new wave band, but my favourite phase of their existence is the later, harsher stuff, comprising the excellent LP "No Sleep 'til Pussy/Fuck Piction" and 7" single "Tidamja/Pussy in the Sky with Diamonds". This live tape comes from that same era and features a few songs not available on either of those more widely spread releases; it's a good tape, although the sound is a bit chaotic and for some reason varies from song to song - I don't know whether this was the case with the original tape or the mp3's come from different sources (it's not my rip). The last song seems to come from a studio session and could easily have been included on the LP.

Track listing:

1. Pogon (3:43)
2. Widow (2:53)
3. Brain (4:01)
4. Helter Skelter (3:24)
5. No Sleep 'til Pussy (3:36)
6. Bloke (5:47)
7. Oci (4:24)
8. Djevojcica (3:22)
9. Dzin Dzon (5:26)
10. Sex (4:24)
11. Uhode (5:54)

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Sleater-Kinney - Singles and Sessions

Sleater-Kinney were one of my favourite bands, at least until they had released what is universally considered to be their finest album, the Dave Fridmann-produced Hendrix-boogie-rock extravaganza "The Woods", which I was never able to wrap my head around. I guess that album at least made me a little bit less sad when they decided to call it quits afterwards, although I will always regret never being able to see them live. Here I have collected most of their non-album singles output, along with a radio session and five live songs, recorded during "The Woods" era, which I don't get much enjoyment from but perhaps you will. I still consider the pinnacle of their career to be their second and third albums, "Call the Doctor" and "Dig Me Out", which feature the most passionate female vocals this side of Poly Styrene, incredibly interesting guitar interplay, fantastic hooks, and the most romantic sentence I have ever heard, "I wanna be your Joey Ramone". (For the moment we'll ignore the song's second chorus, which substitutes Joey for a gentleman I would never want anybody to be for me.) On to the links...

Disc One:

1. You Ain't It (2:43)
2. Surf Song (2:50)
3. Write Me Back Fucker (1:37)
4. More Than a Feeling (Boston) (3:05)
5. Big Big Lights (2:53)
6. Words and Guitar (live Songs for Cassavetes) (2:11)
7. By The Time You're Twenty-Five (2:09)
8. Tapping (3:41)
9. Maraca (3:14)
10. What If I Was Right? (3:45)
11. Off with Your Head (2:28)
12. Lions and Tigers (3:28)
13. Angry Inch (with Fred Schneider) (2:44)
14. Everything (3:26)
15. Modern Girl (live Burn to Shine) (3:13)
16. Wilderness (live KEXP) (3:28)
17. Jumpers (live KEXP) (4:15)
18. Entertain (live KEXP) (4:46)
19. What's Mine Is Yours (live KEXP) (5:25)

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Disc Two:

1. Everything (live) (3:49)
2. The Fox (live) (3:15)
3. Wilderness (live XFM) (3:31)
4. You're No Rock 'n' Roll Fun (live) (3:12)
5. Modern Girl (live) (3:12)
6. Entertain (live) (5:32)
7. The Fox (live) (3:13)
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Voivod - A Flawless Structure? Demo

This artifact is slightly less rare then most of the stuff I try to find for the blog - it is easily available on file sharing networks - but it is the only Voivod demo (except for the "Rrröööääärrr Rough Mix Demo", which I wasn't able to find anywhere) not available on any blog, so it is kinda exclusive - at least in the sense that no-one else had bothered uploading it before. I am including it here because I wanted to have at least something by Voivod, to celebrate the fact that they will be playing in the city where I live in a few months, and that makes me extremely happy because I had never expected to see them - I was pretty sure they gave up on the band as a live act after their guitarist's death. For the uninitiated, Voivod were formed in Canada in the early Eighties, were incredibly influential in at least three metal genres (black, thrash and progressive metal), yet never sounded much like any other band in any of those genres. They started out as a primitive black/thrash hybrid, went on to incredibly intelligent technical thrash, then to progressive metal (sometimes even closer to rock than metal), and ended up as a band which does whatever they please, basically. (Oh yeah, their last few albums feature a nice gentleman by the name of Jason Newsted on bass guitar.) This live demo was recorded during the peak of their progressive thrash period, and although you should listen to the studio albums first if you haven't heard them before, the sound is good enough to make the demo more than just a curiosity for collectors, and the set list features a brilliant Dead Kennedys cover, way before it was cool for metal bands to flaunt their punk/hardcore influences.

Track listing:

1. Intro + Overreaction (5:57)
2. Experiment (6:14)
3. Tribal Convictions (4:48)
4. Chaosmöngers (5:18)
5. Ravenous Medicine (4:32)
6. Korgüll the Exterminator (5:41)
7. Technocratic Manipulators (4:26)
8. Macrosolutions to Megaproblems (5:53)
9. Medley (7:34)
10. Brain Scan (5:14)
11. Psychic Vacuum (5:17)
12. Order of the Blackguards (4:53)
13. Holiday in Cambodia (3:51)
14. Batman (2:20)

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Various - Let There Be Singles. (The Imports)

This is an out-of-print double-CD collection of 7" singles released by Alternative Tentacles during the 90s - a time when the label moved past hardcore punk and was releasing all kinds of diferent stuff, represented here by several great noise-rock bands (Kepone, Pachinko, Buzzkill), a few Ramones members side projects (C.J. Ramone's Los Gusanos and Joey Ramone's not-that-hot collaboration with his brother, Sibling Rivalry), a couple of uneventful punk rock'n'roll bands (Tribe 8, White Trash Debutantes - notable at least for the lyric "Vanilla Ice is the only person capable of insulting two races just by opening his mouth" - I paraphrase but I have no intention of listening to the song again), some weird ethnic-y stuff (Life After Life, the excellent Radiopuhelimet), and two guises of Nomeansno (a fun Hanson Brothers single and a regular NMN one, unfortunately containing the same versions of songs readily available on the "Sex Mad" LP). All in all it's a rather schizophrenic listen and I don't think anyone will like all the bands on offer here, but if you're into a noisier and weirder take on punk rock, you should at least like some of it.

Disc One:

1. Los Gusanos - I'd Love to Save the World (2:45)
2. Los Gusanos - Keeping Time (2:41)
3. Los Gusanos - Know What I Got Here (3:06)
4. Los Gusanos - Ride (2:57)
5. Life After Life - Harrahya (4:18)
6. Life After Life - Doors (4:55)
7. Life After Life - Mexico (4:13)
8. Pachinko - Bobble Head (2:43)
9. Pachinko - Lesbians or Lovers (1:08)
10. Pachinko - Get Along Gang (3:56)
11. Molotov Cocktail - Drive (3:08)
12. Molotov Cocktail - Aliens (3:02)
13. Molotov Cocktail - Jerks in Progress (4:06)
14. Molotov Cocktail - Tcts (1:28)
15. Buzzkill - Fuck Your Band (1:20)
16. Buzzkill - Meat (1:23)
17. Buzzkill - Thick Slab Meat (1:42)
18. Buzzkill - My Own Self (2:11)
19. Tribe 8 - Wrong Bathroom (3:16)
20. Tribe 8 - Radar Love (live) (4:14)
21. Tribe 8 - Ice Cream Man (live) (2:43)
22. Tribe 8 - Manipulate (live) (1:46)
23. The Hanson Brothers - Brad (2:58)
24. The Hanson Brothers - Hey, There Goes That Kid (1:59)

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Disc Two:

1. Kepone - 295 (2:03)
2. Kepone - Phobic (2:46)
3. Radiopuhelimet - Säälimättömän Ovela Mies (1:52)
4. Radiopuhelimet - Optiolaulu (1:57)
5. Radiopuhelimet - Paha Pouli (1:55)
6. Radiopuhelimet - Jäämeri (2:06)
7. Radiopuhelimet - Palaan Pohjoiseen (Back to the North) (3:12)
8. Sibling Rivalry - See My Way (4:11)
9. Sibling Rivalry - On the Beach (3:02)
10. Sibling Rivalry - Don't Be So Strange (2:25)
11. White Trash Debutantes - Bill Dakota (2:41)
12. White Trash Debutantes - Bad in Bed (2:38)
13. Hack - Rawhead (2:38)
14. Hack - The Promise (3:47)
15. Hack - Everything (5:52)
16. Nomeansno - Dad (3:03)
17. Nomeansno - Revenge (5:17)
18. Tragic Mulatto - Whole Lotta Love (6:42)

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Napalm Death - Noise for Music's Sake, Pt. 2

A photo from a fantastic show at Zagreb's KSET club which I had the pleasure of attending.

Some years ago Earache has released a great double-CD compilation by Napalm Death called "Noise for Music's Sake", the first CD of which contained a "best of" selection from their time with the label, and the second, more interesting one for the dedicated fan, a collection of harder to find stuff, including some EP's and many of the bonus tracks added to various re-releases of their studio albums. This album I have compiled completes the story with other non-album stuff that was left off of that compilation, and presents a neat overview of their career from the early harsh grindcore stuff ("The Curse" 7", split 7" with S.O.B., a couple of tracks exclusive to the "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" 7", and a live compilation track), through the somewhat tedious "commercial" phase (the "Greed Killing" and "Breed to Breathe" EP's, minus the tracks available on the "Diatribes" LP), up to the bonus tracks from limited editions of their two most recent releases, the unstoppable "Smear Campaign" and "Time Waits for No Slave", rounded off by an exclusive track for the Decibel magazine. All of this stuff is easily available across the Internet, but I wanted to have it all in one neat package, so here it is for your enjoyment - it does sag a bit in the middle ("Self Betrayal" is especially painful to a punk rocker's ears; surprisingly, I rather like the remix of "Contemptuous", even though I consider the mid-90s trend of techno remixes to be one of the most despicable ones in the whole history of metal), but most of it is essential music by one of the greatest extreme bands of all time.

Track listing:

1. The Curse (3:17)
2. Musclehead (0:50)
3. Your Achievement (0:06)
4. Dead (0:05)
5. Morbid Deceiver (0:45)
6. Multi-National Corporations, Pt. 2 (1:30)
7. Re-Address the Problem (0:31)
8. Changing Colours (0:56)
9. From the Ashes (0:45)
10. Understanding? (0:05)
11. Stalemate (1:03)
12. Unchallenged Hate (live) (1:56)
13. Nazi Punks Fuck Off! (live) (1:44)
14. Contemptuous (xtreem mix) (4:29)
15. Self Betrayal (4:38)
16. Finer Truths, White Lies (2:59)
17. Antibody (2:51)
18. All Links Severed (2:40)
19. Plague Rages (live) (3:48)
20. All Intensive Purposes (3:23)
21. Stranger Now (3:46)
22. Bled Dry (2:21)
23. Time Will Come (3:22)
24. Call That an Option? (3:02)
25. Atheist Runt (6:43)
26. Suppressed Hunger (3:09)
27. We Hunt in Packs (3:49)
28. Omnipresent Knife in Your Back (5:41)
29. Legacy Was Yesterday (2:15)

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