A good sum of you already saw a teensy-weensy part of this post a few weeks back much to my utter surprise. I dunno why I made some stupid flick of the keyboard (not the first time)...c'mon, of COURSE I know why, I'm stupid...but unbeknownst to me I discovered the next day that my incomplete entry had been up all night and had garnered a good 98 hits if you can believe that! (And since then three people espied this 'un which is strange since I took the thing down immediately after discovering my grievous error. Dunno how this happened but frankly I'm scared because if people can do something as nefarious as that what ELSE can they do to me!) Well, thanks to my ineptitude y'all got to see at least part of this post in advance, something which I will say is akin to that story I heard as a mere twelve-year-old which I undoubtedly told you before but wha' th' hey 'bout some truck with the upcoming issue of PLAYBOY overturning and thus spilling the not-ready-for-the-newsstand issue all over the place with alla these young boys runnin' for a copy to get a sneak peek!
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A still from an early-sixties television program made especially for thalidomide babies. |
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The live tracks here are DEFINITELY the exact same ones that popped up on the official UMMAGUMMA album which I know is a bummer that ranks up there with the rest of these albums that promise new and exciting material yet rehash the same-old for a quick buck. I guess the additional stage chat plus a few other numbers that didn't make it to the real deal would be worth the while. The live renditions of various tracks that appeared on the studio version of that particular spinner range in quality from feh to crispy, but then again they will probably disappoint a whole load of you who were fans of that million seller from way back when. Like I said many-a-time, if you're game for the just post-Barrett era Pink Floyd these live efforts and most certainly hit/miss but well...you'll go for it.
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Missed out on this the first go 'round but eh, I just hadda save something for my old age. Here's the noted New York City late-seventies vintage hardcore band that gave us future Cro Mag Harley doing it not quite as fast that I woulda hoped, but these Stimulators are hard and they do rule somewhat. There's nothing here that I would say differentiates them from a whole slew of late-seventies local rock upstarts but the tension is there, and who could hate these guys 'n gal for covering the Kiss classic "Rock 'n Roll All Night" and turning it into a nice buzzsaw. Hey, do any of you know about guitarist Denise Mercedes' mid-seventies glam group Stutz? They're a bunch that I've been curious about ever since I read a Fred Kirby review of one of their shows at Club 82.
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As you more on-the-ball readers should already know, there were a whole slew of under-the-underground musical acts who were playing across the planet in the sixties and seventies (even beyond!) and I'd take a wild guess that a good hunk of 'em were sure deserving of more notoriety and fame than they ever did receive. New York's Science were but one of many who had the oomph but never did get the acclaim that those lesser light "new wave" bands (like the kind Anastasia Pantsios used to come all over---the Adults, Insanity and the Killers---remember any of those all you Cleveland rock 'n roll fans?) were bestowed due to their general safety and ability to keep the youth of this land of ours sparkling and aw gosh.
Very little is known , at least by me, about Science other than singer and guitarist Suzy Science used to wear these really long locks down the side of her face which made people think of Lene Lovich for obvious reasons. I understand that she's a he now, or at least she's a being who THINKS she's a he, or something along those lines. It's hard to keep up with things like this anymore. They also had a 40-year-old German guy playing drums which I'm sure made 'em look all the more sore thumbish next to some of the brylcreamed groups who were popping up around the same time. They also used to get paired with Von Lmo for a lot of shows which I will admit adds to the entire rockist mystique even more. Well, I guess I know more about 'em than most of you ever did.
These pretty good quality (rough yet loud) live at Max's recordings prove that Science were yet another one of those up-from-nowhere acts that had what it took, but nobody seemed to be there to take it. Their sound is brittle and in some ways, perhaps due to their trio setting, reminds me of Au Pairs only without that British neo-working class radical left spirit that ruined European underground music for quite some time. Suzy's singing is natural in its untrained yet wide range --- she sounds like a teenage girl who never had a vocal lesson in her life yet manages to hit the right notes. Her guitar playing is an interesting pluck, sorta like she was playing a zither instead. New wave before the gnu set in...primitive yet smart.
Songs tend to be staccato-y and performed as if they were being typed out which makes their cover of "My Little Red Book" quite driving...way more original than one would expect from any of these 70s/80s cusp underground rock bands. Now I like those Lydia Lunch groups like 8 Eyed Spy 'n all, but Science do the same under-the-underground toss off of sixties heights better and I mean WAY better. Or is it just Lydia's haute New York boho snootiness that's gettin' to me...
Science sure sound as underground intense in the same fashion as the New York rage-on of Suicide and the Contortion, and these recordings only make me wish that their Max's EP came out back in '80 along with that Lmo album, both of which got axed due to a lack of funds. For a taste of Science try searching Youtube for these two shows which are almost as brief as a Red Transistor set with less the carnage but eh!
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Given the VCR dub that's been bootlegged for ages this sounds half-mastered! Much more detailed...the opening drone is hypnotic in ways the original bootleg only hinted at and you can actually hear the chanting weave in and out...I get the feeling that the original opening of "Sonic Reducer" sounded something like this. What once resembled a sagging stylophone now comes off like synthesized bagpipes. It all coalesces into a weird mix of primitive percussion (electronic or not) with bowed guitar and a variety of ethereal sound colorizations sucking you into a vortex that certainly ain't what you'd expect of Led Zep or even the proggy stew of the past. Closer to the Genesis P.'Orridge brand of sonic mangulation in fact. You'll find it somewhere online and when you do, dub a copy for yourself and the person you most likely would want to put a hex on.
And as a special bonus we get another take of the LUCIFER RISING soundtrack appearing in what sounds like a shortened version for radio airplay, before being treated to a somewhat different full-length version with an added acoustic guitar. This 'un doesn't quite make it which is probably why it never showed up until recently but it still holds your attention...somewhat. But whatever, this tossoff does make for fair background music for when you're reading your old NANCY comics or even imbibing in things that might even be legal now. Oh, and in between all of this you get fragments of guitar and synth sounds that actually don't irritate like you would have thought they would given the general dinosaur-ness of Zep at this sorry stage in time.
Somehow I can't see the stereotypical mid-seventies heavy metal fan going for this one iota. Fans of experimental sound mulch maybe, but the arena rock types would probably be as stymied by this music as they would Lawrence Welk having a jam session with the Norman Luboff Choir. Like with SEASTONES or LOW, this is an example of megabucks rock stars doing the avgarde thing and doing it right for once.
Oddly enough the strangest thing about these recordings is the story behind them. I'm sure you all know the saga about Kenneth Anger nixing the original soundtrack for not being long enough and totally unusable, blaming it all on Page's heavy duty opiate usage. However, if this is so why did he eventually use it for his LUCIFER RISING PART ONE (SIGN LANGUAGE), a collection of outtakes and rushes which was shown at a benefit to raise the funds to complete the film that was held at UCLA in September of 1976 (news that was so publicized to the point where even the extremely lame folk at CIRCUS magazine mentioned it --- where do you think I first read about it anyway)? 's one of those things that I guess will come out once time rolls on and even more stories creep out, some of which I get the feeling will chill you to more than just to the bone.
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Billy Bang/Aftermath Band-SAIGON PHUNK live at CB's Lounge 5-12-2002 CD-r burn
Just missed out seeing this via cybercast (by the time I tuned in Bang and band were packing up and some Amerindie-looking types were setting up) so it is grand to finally catch some of it lo these many years later. The title says it all and sentimental me must say that this 'un does bring back loads of memories of free jazz past that used to rate the high hosannas from the press and record companies before getting the ol' heave ho once 1980 clocked in. If I hadda compare it to anything maybe the Revolutionary Ensemble's "Chinese Rock" off of their THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC, but even that really doesn't come that close.
For those of us (like me) who were denied access the first time here it is, and I only hope the entire show has been preserved for the few of us who seem to really care even this late in the game of life.
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Tom Waits-RAIN DOGS CD-r burn (originally on Island Records0
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Last Sacrifice-FOUR TRACKS LIVE AT CANTONE'S, BOSTON MASS. 1981 CD-r burn
These guys' "Acid Rain Dance" single (which McGarry slipped on after the live show) just hadda've been one of the highlights of eighties underground rock snazz and well, given just how much of a damper the eighties were with regards to a rock underground (only to be superseded by the nineties, oh-ohs, teens...) I only wish there were more platters like that one around 'stead of the usual rote efforts that I was plagued with!
These live tracks, while somewhat rough, just go to show you how much Boston had to give us only the usual evil people got in the way of us getting to hear any. I wouldn't say that anything here's as instant knockout as their single but the drive of pre-eighties local rock (when Velvet Underground influences didn't translate into geeky emulation of their too few mushy moments) is loud and clear. Dark and driving, making me wish that someone out there had the nerve to release a longplayer of their assumedly expansive repertoire. For a taste just click on the video strategically placed below:
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If I were to be my old brash and throw fact and logic to the wind sorta self I'd call 'em the best band to come out of Scandanavia since Savage Rose. Heck, maybe I will still call 'em that. Loads of differences twixt the two but still there's that mix of raw tension and sophisticado that both took to their hearts amongst other things. Of course Soundtrack do the hard drive a whole lot better, kinda reminding me of what Roxy Music mighta sounded like in the mid-seventies had they stuck to their original hard "Remake Remodel" credo. Best thing about this 'un is that it was recorded and released at a time when smart and intelligent rock 'n roll was pretty much BANNED due to...well, taste and stuff like that. A nice one...wouldn't buy it on my own but it was good enough to listen to.
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BACK ISSUES TIME, and if you missed out on any of the BLACK TO COMM's that have made their way out of my imagination (and boudoir) then you know what to do with your moolah now, eh? Not only that, but you can bet that every penny received will be put to a good cause, mainly having a wild time!
