
To Trigger a Synapse
The extent to which L.A. hardcore punk legends The Germs have been revered, eulogized, and storied is nothing short of bewildering. Perhaps not so much the band, rather the man, "Darby Crash" (aka Jan Paul Beahm) to be more precise.
It's long been espoused that a band is as only as good as their live show, and going solely on that basis, The Germs were rather rank. Their chaotic and cacophonous performances may have done the Germs image (not to mention their genre) justice, but certainly not their songs. Yet Darby and company indeed deserve their fabled fifteen minutes in the spotlight, if only for fantastically pulling things together in the studio in the late '70s, with Joan Jett as producer no less! A-melodic and intimidating as it was, the Germs lone lp, GI, bristling in it's caustic intensity, somehow revealed everything their concerts could have been, with a little more patience and practice.That in mind, the prospect of a bootleg of unmixed tracks for the GI album was more promising than even the crispest of live Germs recordings you could ever lay on these ears. In the grand scheme of things these tracks aren't particularly revelatory, but there's a certain ambiance to these versions that tickles my fancy, whether it be the feedback of guitar cords being plugged into hot amps, Don Bolles drumstick count-offs, or even the copious cassette hiss. Like I said folks, ambiance. "Lexicon Devil," perhaps the Germs signature song, is for some reason not represented here. At any rate, if you couldn't get enough of the Germs GI, you'll want to get this.
01. Caught In My Eye
02. Communist Eyes
03. Land of Treason
04. Dragon Lady
05. American Leather
06. Our Way
07. Richie Dagger's Crime
08. Let's Pretend
09. Strange Notes
10. Manimal
11. What We Do is Secret
12. Media Blitz/The Slave
13. Shutdown (Annihilation Man)
By 1991, when I was a junior in high school, I was completely and utterly immersed in the Sub Pop/Seattle/grunge/indie axis, and at the time it seemed like there was no turning back. So much so that after I acquired a taste for Mudhoney, Nirvana, Swallow, Tad and others, I was more than motivated to burrow even deeper into the trove of Sub Pop Records bands that I was unfamiliar with, but there wasn’t much else to unearth at that time. One unexplored name was a Denver band called The Fluid, spearheaded by John Robinson, a veritable born punk rocker. I took a gamble on a cassette containing their two Sub Pop records, Roadmouth and the quickly followed-up, Glue EP. It was a wager that paid off colossally. Roadmouth, their third album released in 1989, delivered on the bass-heavy, swampy guitar-laden, noisy “new school” of punk rock that I was craving more of. Despite it’s often inane lyrics and random WWII references, it was an album I epitomized just as much as Never Mind the Bollocks, or any given Ramones record. Jack Endino, and later Butch Vig did a real number on the Fluid, entirely for the better I might add, on Roadmouth and Glue respectively. Their 1990 Glue EP wasn’t quite as sonically bludgeoning (the bass having been manicured a few notches), but just as snarling and intense as Roadmouth. Thoroughly in thrall with my newfound discoveries, I soon sought the Fluid’s earlier recordings. Living in a small town in the pre-webtopia era, it wasn’t easy, and in fact, took me a few years to procure the two records this post concerns.
The one Fluid album I don’t own is their debut, Punch N’ Judy on the Denver based Rayon Records imprint. I have spent a little time with it however, and as even the band may concur it it’s less than persuasive. With a healthy dollop of New York Dolls flaunt, Stonsey blues-rock, and some tattered punk fringes, safety-pinned on for size, Punch.., hardly did The Fluid justice.That would largely be remedied on their next album, the internationally released Clear Black Paper, on Sub Pop in America, and on Glitterhouse across the pond. The swagger was still there, but the approach was much linear, and more significantly, leaner. Indeed, less was more for the Fluid circa 1988, but not necessarily memorable. Clear…is solid, tight, and rhythmically aware, but even though it failed to hit the mark, the building blocks were in place for grander things to come. Released almost simultaneously, was the seven-song Freak Magnet, that perhaps more than all their records to date genuinely exuded the Fluid’s potential. On gems like “Kill City,” and “Hall of Mirrors,” it was as if Robinson was seemingly in cahoots with Iggy Pop and Stiv Bators, if only vicariously.
As far as I know, none of the 17 tracks between these records have been ushered into the digital era. The US version of Clear Black Paper, has four songs not on it’s Glitterhouse Records counterpart, and vice-versa. The four missing tracks from the American LP are paired with three more cuts on Freak Magnet, only available as a European import. Confused? Thought so. This post, taken from the Glitterhouse version of CBP has all 17 tracks between them. The complete picture if you will, literally, as there were alternate album sleeves, specific to each continent.
You can check out even more Fluid music at another blog, which has thoughtfully archived the band’s full catalog of albums, some post-Glue demos, and vintage live cuts. I ripped the tracks in this post straight from my original vinyl copies and did not lift them from the above linked website or an alternate source.
Clear Black Paper
01. Cold Outside
02. Nick of Time
03. Lonely One
04. Just Another Day
05. Nashville Nights
06. Tell Me Things
07. Today I Shot the Devil
08. Much Too Much
09. Your Kinda Thing
10. New Questions
Freak Magnet
11. I'm Not Going to Do It
12. It's My Time
13. Left Unsaid
14. Kill City
15. Don't Wanna Play
16. Try Try Try
17. Hall of Mirrors
These have been remastered and are available through Sub Pop!
The Kansas based Pedlajets are yet another in a seemingly endless number of quality '80s/early '90s bands that I have only learned about posthumously. On their debut, Today Today, The Pedaljets are a good approximation of the earnest, but rugged guitar rock of the Replacements and Nils. The band's approach is further coloured with a penchant for ringing, jangly chords, popularised by REM and the like. The Pedaljets followed up Today Today with a self-titled followup on Communion Records in 1990, which did little for their fans, and even less for them. Nevertheless, there are some great tunes on this one. It's my understanding that the Pedaljets have recently performed some reunion shows.
Yet another criminally overlooked and under-appreciated band that came courtesy of the early ‘90s British dreampop movement. In their brief lifespan they eked out about a half-dozen eps and sadly, only album, the superlative Killing Time. Never heard it? Got to half.com NOW, and buy a used copy if a new one isn’t available! It’s that crucial – right up there with Loveless, Raise and the rest of ‘em. Anyway, dealing with the matter at hand this seven track mini-album bares the first two fruits of their labor, the Snag and Eclipse eps, both long out of print.
Band mouthpiece, Salli Carson absorbed the spotlight on any given Bleach record, and this one’s no different. Snag’s “Dipping,” is quintessential slice of shoegazer rock, just as dense and enthralling as any of their contemporaries, Lush, Swervedriver and Chapterhouse included. Further into the ep is “Burn,” wherein Carson is scathingly lambasting something or somebody, but the intended target is beyond yours truly, and possibly ditto for you as well. Less vitriolic, but along the same lines, “Wipe It Away” from Eclipse is another of Carson’s cathartic, mostly-spoken monologues, this one indulging in a delivery, that believe it or not, borders on hip-hop.
There’s lots of dynamics here, and despite the underwritten and/or lengthy nature of some of the selections, this disk (if you can find it) and the aforementioned Killing Time, highlights the best of what Bleach had to offer, and for the most part, it was pretty flabbergasting.
Snag
01. Dipping
02. Seeing
03. Bethesda
04. Burn
Eclipse
05. Wipe It Away
06. Decadence
07. Crimson "o"
“No-wave,” “cold-wave,” an perhaps even “hard-wave,” but definitely not new-wave, Washington D.C.’s Urban Verbs were either defiantly flipping the bird to the man (in this case, Warner Brothers records) or simply progressing on their own weird trajectory, on Early Damage, their second and final LP. It’s hard to believe that any major label would mint an album this artistically disaffected. So much in fact, that some of the eerier selections here would make Ian Curtis sound downright friendly by comparison.
Robert Goldstein’s chimey, clangy fret-work is actually more tuneful than Roddy Frantz’s vocals, which he opts to speak more than sing, so I suppose that’s not saying much. Early Damage is where doomy post-punk flirted with the burgeoning goth scene of the early 1980s. It must have been one hell of an album for the WB to market, and maybe that explains why this slab of licorice pizza assumedly sank without a trace upon it’s ’81 issue. It’s not a big favorite of mine, though it’s more tolerable than I let on. I saw it somehow necessary to archive this record, if only as a curiosity. As for their much user-friendly self-titled debut, it’s been reissued on cd and can be purchased here.
01. When the Dance Is Over
02. Jar My Blood
03. Acceleration
04. Early Damage
05. Promise
06. For Your Eyes Only
07. Business and the Rational Mind
08. In the Heat
09. Terminal Bar