Give me the money and I’ll see you right between the eyes.

Disk one of a two-CD reissue of this UK bands scant '80s discography, who in their original incarnation only managed a single and an EP.  

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Fischer-Z - Word Paradise - The United Artists and Liberty Records Recordings (2026, Cherry Red) - a brief review.

I often ponder the sizable slate of UK rock acts that took their home country by storm, yet nary made a dent Stateside.  The rock and roll diaspora is filled with them from multiple eras - Status Quo, Marillion, Manic Street Preachers, Slade, and to a less obvious extent Kate Bush and The Jam.  For better or worse Fischer-Z didn't have mainstream appeal in England either, and never came anywhere near striking distance on my side of the pond.  Nonetheless they did have a handful of bona fide hits in locales such as the Netherlands, Portugal, and Australia, and over the course of some four decades the band managed to rack up approximately two million records sold (the bulk of which were from their early halcyon era in the late '70s through 1981's Red Skies Over Paradise.  Cherry Red's reissue of this entire era of Fischer-Z is upon us in the guise of the three-CD Word Paradise, an exhaustive reassessment of the group's initial spasm of full lengths, Word Salad, Going Deaf For a Living, and the aforementioned Red Skies Over Paradise, managing to graft on all contemporary singles and b-sides to each record.  Previous Fischer-Z compilations from this epoch, like 1990's Going Red For a Salad did an adequate job at corralling the quartet's singles and more well known album cuts, but those seeking the complete picture were resigned to sporadic reissues of individual albums, many of which had long been out-of-print.

In today's day an age, Fischer-Z simply don't have any obvious parallels.  While certainly not "wacky," the band's sardonic bite was irrepressible, due in large part to the singular vocal histrionics of prime-mover/guitarist John Watts, who's pitch approximated something that of a falsetto and a tolerable whine, that by some miracle never breached into anything outright aggravating.  Vaguely along the same acerbic lines as early Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Fabulous Poodles, and perhaps less-so, Squeeze, not to mention Yankee contemporaries Donnie Iris and The A's, Watts and Co. were a cheeky lot to a fault.  While not outright punk/power pop/synth, F/Z were ingratiated by said audiences anyway, as some of those sonic sensibilities were casually employed.  They spotted cultural and romantic notions not so much with a full-throated belly laugh rather a wry, sideways glance. What they may lack in obvious appeal to say, nascent Gen-Z ears it doesn't require more than a few listens to these albums to glean why they're still endeared by the folks who were reared by them, circa 1980. 

Infrequently astonishing but consistently confident and satisfying, 1979's Word Salad, is stunning in the respect that it's surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced for a debut, with F/Z genuinely possessing the temperament and poise of a band already several albums into their career.  Generating no less than four singles, ...Salad's arrangements are tight but breathable, bearing an amiable balance between keys and guitars.  A subtle ska bent (a la "Watching the Detectives") was already beginning to infiltrate their m.o. to tasteful and measured effect on "The Worker," which endowed the group their first blush of minor success, scraping the bottom rungs of their home country's chart, and managing to place at #20 on Netherlands' survey.  Hardly an album of extremes ...Salad never necessitates being so. 

Following one year later, Going Deaf for a Living entailed some minor innovations. In an uncharacteristic gesture Watt's timbre temporarily slips into a more natural baritone on the reggae-fied opening salvo, "Room Service," and is no worse for the wear on a tune that also incidentally merges power-chords with strings.  Loosely in sync with strains of New Romantic pop, "So Long" was the 'hit' this time around (another Dutch chart success, not to mention a #9 placement in Portugal).  Fischer weren't ones to wallop listeners over the heads with anything overbearing...with perhaps ...Deaf's one notable exception, the jovial and mildly unnerving "Limbo," analogous to what "Rock Lobster" represented to the B-52's. Elsewhere, our protagonists flex ample musculature on "No Right" and the extra punky "Crank." ...Deaf was the closest F/Z ever came to pushing the proverbial envelope, and their results did indeed vary.  

Polishing off their initial trifecta of acclaimed albums 1981's Red Skies Over Paradise, finds Fischer-Z scaling their absolute summit, with the melodious and genuinely anthemic single "Marilese" serving as not only the most out-and-out catchiest number on the LP, but perhaps the most dazzling song they would ever commit to tape.  Triumphant and buoyed as they seemingly were on the heels of this smashing pearl (#1 in Portugal for chrissakes), the overarching tenor of the remainder of ...Paradise is veritably more sober, with F/Z treading into several geo-political screeds - "Cruise Missiles," "Multinationals Bite," and even Cold War concerns pervading the lamentable title track. The serious yin to Going Deaf's.. oft lighthearted yang, Red Skies... makes for compelling character development and growth in Fischer's little sphere, and for better or worse there wouldn't be a follow-up to the record until a revamped lineup of the group resurfaced for 1987's Reveal, post a John Watts solo stint.

Word Paradise is available direct from Cherry Records hq, Amazon and hopefully your local retailer. 

They’re eating right out of your hand...

Splendid atmospheric, shoegazer-adjacent fare from 1992.  Melody Maker says: ...nerve-sizzling guitars and evocative soul voices.

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The Chills - KCRW FM, Santa Monica 11/14/96

Got a treat for you this weekend, and it isn't even Chanukah - a live KCRW session with none other than New Zealand's Chills, or more specifically the late Martin Phillipps then-current iteration of the band. Touring in support of the Sunburnt LP (their first since '92s Soft Bomb) we're naturally treated to songs from the album and surrounding singles, plus perhaps more revealingly a very early Chill's nugget, "Smile From a Dead Face," that up to that point had never surfaced on a Chills record (it eventually saw the light of day on the 2016 reissue of Kaleidoscope World).  

There's also previews of two songs ("February" and "Bad Dancer") that would appear on 2004's under-the-radar ep release, Stand By.  If you're looking for classics, the pickings are mighty slim here ("Pink Frost" predictably lands on the setlist), yet if you know much about Phillipps the man was never a reliable human-jukebox. Interviews are continuously interspersed with the music, which may require you to adjust the volume here and there, but well worth your effort.  Full tracklist is below, and I'm also making this available in FLAC if that's your preference.  Enjoy.

01. Intro
02. February
03. interview
04. Bad Dancer
05. interview
06. As Far As I Can See
07. interview
08. Pink Frost
09. interview
10. Lost In Future Ruins
11. interview
12. Evermore
13. interview
14. Smile From A Dead Dead Face
15. interview
16. Dreams Are Free
17. interview
18. The Streets of Forgotten Cool
19. outro

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You must be a special kind of stupid...

 A bratty, pop-punkin' fireball from 2023.  

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Greenhouse - Mad as Love ep (1990, Native)

Wish I'd stumbled upon this band sooner - about a three and a half decades sooner would just have about done the job to be accurate. Leeds denizens Greenhouse were sonically situated in the same high-strung environs as the Senseless Things and Thousand Yard Stare, albeit not quite as raucous.  "Mad as Love" (the song) is a lively, sub-three minute stab working in the familiar UK indie punk-pop constructs of its era, nonetheless yielding something fresh and astute.  "On the Occasion" pitches the tempo down a notch, but it's heightened melodic chops help it stand out equally. Nary a bad moment here, even if the concluding "Theft" comes off as a little askew (think pre-stardom Blur) in Greenhouse's overarching context.  

01. Mad as Love

02. On the Occasion

03. Ban the Car

04. Theft

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A weight upon my shoulders, a rope around my neck...

From 1995. Vaguely like Hüsker Dü, only with Swedish accents.  

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Black Sea - An Early Fall (1990, No. 6)

Not resembling XTC in the slightest Black Sea mouthpiece Augustine does however manage to evoke Peter Murphy, minus some of the histrionics. Lacking the overarching mystique of Bauhaus, B/S were nonetheless gunning for the goth set, and their lone LP, an early fall, yields mixed and often derivative results.  The prolonged "Hope" is  a wannabe Disintegration ballad if there ever was one, but still engaging given your tolerance at the given moment.  Side two is an overall improvement, and the grand finale, "the river runs red" is genuinely hot, with the band markedly shifting gears in favor of a far denser sonic motif recalling the finest gestures of the Mission UK.  Can't help but wonder what an early fall would have amounted to had it been modeled writ large on this particular schematic.  Lastly, a run through Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" isn't necessarily a pro or con, rather just sort of 'there.'

01. washed away

02. immigrant song

03. hope

04. mix

05. killing time

06. darkest days

07. empty fields

08. the river runs read 

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In my room on a pad is written a letter return-addressed to you.

From 1995. Incidentally, their first album was recently reissued on vinyl, and is already commanding obscene money. 

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V/A - Every One a Classic!! Vol. 6

Before I abscond on my jet setting lifestyle for the next few days, I thought I'd leave you with this, the sixth installment in the Every One a Classic!! bootleg series compiling neglected, but monetarily valuable British punk/powerpop singles and such.  Vol. 6 is a bit more unique in that it predominantly angles towards the more aggro side of the side of the neighborhood, with many of it's selections bordering the vicinity of straight-up hardcore/oi. If you could go for some rowdy, Cockney seasoning The Rong, Twisted Nerve, The Jermz, and The Commited are practically shouting your name.  The Limps subscribe to approximately the same aesthetic as the Adverts, The Bleach Boys opt for the same strenuous pace as say, Discharge and Dead Kennedys (albeit with a pinch more melody) and Jimmy Edwards dials things down a notch with "Drag it Back," a number suitable for the football hooligan contingent. Tying this affair up, the best known commodity, Protex coincidentally qualify as the most power-pop friendly specimen in the bunch, and "Don't Ring Me Up" is just about as compelling as anything I've encountered from them.  You can access all previous installments in the ...Classic series via the hyperlink above.

01. F-X - South's Gonna Rise Again

02. The Limps - Circa 2

03. The Rong - Union Jack

04. Noise Annoys - Living (in the World Today)

05. Twisted Nerve - Neutral Zone

06. The Commited - British Crimes

07. Machines - True Life

08. The Jermz - Powercut

09. The Bleach Boys - Stocking Clad Nazi Death Squad Bitches

10. Mad Dog - Someone Here Must Like Me

11. Jimmy Edwards - Drag it Back

12. The Ignerents - I Won't Be There

13. Nasty Media - Spiked Copy

14. The Head - Nothing to do in a town like Leatherhead

15. Protex - Don't Ring Me Up

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I'm over the precedent of a false security...

From 2002.  Believe it or not, I already shared the demos for this one closer to when I started this site.

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Buffalo Tom - WERS FM, Boston, 1989.

As much as I love and revere Buffalo Tom's 1992 mature masterstroke, Let Me Come Over, it was that album's two rawer and raucous  precursors, Buffalo Tom (1989), and Birdbrain (1990) that ushered me to the table. While the Boston trio were able to better differentiate themselves from Dinosaur Jr. (comparisons early on in B/T's career were virtually ceaseless) their somewhat derivative embryonic phase gave rise to a phenomenal host of songs.  This performance at WERS FM captured Bill Janovitz and Co's. relatively nascent steps, with an emphasis on the recently released self-titled album.  Visceral previews of Birdbrain's title track and "Guy Who is Me" are also featured in the setlist, and even if this was tracked in the auspices of a cozy radio station, those of us not blessed with the privilege of witnessing Buffalo Tom in the flesh circa the late '80s can be assured this is an accurate reenactment of what they doggedly brought to the stage every night.  This flat out smokes, and I'm making it available both in MP3 and FLAC. 

01 Racine 

02 Crawl 

03 Guy Who is Me  

04 She Belongs To Me (Bob Dylan)  

05 interview 

06 Enemy 

07 Flushing Stars 

08 Deep In The Ground  

09 Birdbrain 

10 Sunflower Suit 

11 outro  

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I don't know what's up ahead, don't think too much it'll hurt your head.

From 1991. Strangely enough this is the record that introduced me to the band, not their more coveted debut.  

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The Tearaways - See the Sound (1993, Fried)

Something of an L.A. power pop institution dating back to the early '80s, The Tearaways didn't get around to issuing an album until 1993, specifically this one.  It's sleeve suggests something a little more gritty than the actual proceedings, but despite the presence of some comparatively precious, and frankly too polished ballads ("Black and Blue," "Leave it to Me") the Tom Werman and Earle Mankey-produced See the Sound houses plenty of meatier offerings, including "Jessica Something" which drops a downright devastating chorus hook.  If you're an aficionado of the Grip Weeds and Rooks, you might already be well acquainted with this these chaps, but if not you're in for a treat. Incidentally, the late, great Clem Burke was a onetime Tearaway (though he didn't lend his talents to this LP).

01. I Walk Alone

02. Nowhere Left to Turn

03. Jessica Something

04. Can't Get Through

05. Black and Blue

06. I'm Lost

07, For Free

08. Leave it to Me

09. 4 Letter Man

10. It Could Take Years

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Itch - Spiraling Paper Planes ep (2001)

Hmmm.  What to make of this one?  Having zero familiarity with Itch, I chanced on this based on the sleeve art, and an irresistible price tag (merely a quarter).  I knew I'd be in for indie rock of some stripe, but superficially there were really no other signposts to speak of. My initial assumption is that Itch may have been Canadian, but alas, this quartet were from Leeds, England - and were a heck of a lot more wrought that anticipated.  Shades of aughts emo and post-hardcore abound, but Itch's method splits the difference between dynamic and mathy, with impassioned and occasionally screamy parlance circa the choruses.  The melody structures could use some expansion, but in fairness there are genuine tunes here.  Am detecting trace elements of everyone from Garden Variety to Jebediah, with "If You Ignore Him He Will Go Away" moving my proverbial indicator the most.  You can delve deeper into the band's catalogue here. 

01. All Our So Called Bad Luck Stories

02. If You Ignore Him He Will Go Away

03. Spiraling Paper Planes

04. Know Idea My Dear

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No bandwidth, all I do is cry.

One of 2024's finest albums, and the runaway winner in the post-punk category. 

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Curious Ritual - "How Fast" 7" (1993, Gila)

Sometimes I'm at a loss for describing music in the written word, but goddamn, it feels like my site outright exists for records like this one.  I didn't know one whit about Boston's Curious Ritual before this landed in my "buy" pile at an indie shop I've long since forgotten the name and place of, but this coed quartet's inclusion of a Big Star cover meant that I was certainly adopting it.  Sonic signposts point to another Beantown band of yore, Christmas, not to mention early Throwing Muses and Vomit Launch.  With it's droney guitar line, and hypnotic, layered vocals, "How Fast" is the stuff of sublime, collegiate radio alchemy.  An impeccable exercise in harnessing the appropriate quotient of every musical molecule without conveying itself as the least bit forced or formulaic. I'm stunned I wasn't tipped off to Curious Ritual sooner.  On the aforementioned remake, the band applies the same earnest veneer to the downcast "Kanga Roo," one of Alex Chilton's most moving pieces from Big Star's comparatively neglected  Third album.  C/R have made a handful of their other recordings available on Bandcamp and are well worth your attention. 

A. How Fast

B. Kanga Roo

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I'll bring the heavens down screaming with me.

From 2003.  As was the case last week I wasn't able to deliver you much.  It doesn't help that I have no convenient way to digitize records/tapes for the time being, but am working on that as I speak. At the very least I'll try to wrangle up a single tomorrow evening, not to mention something more filling later in the week.

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Fine Art - Scan ep (1981, Good)

Minneapolis, circa the early '80s wasn't all hardcore, and Fine Art were one of several anomalies.  The coed band in question were to great extent artful indeed, but I think oblique would have been a more apropos descriptor.  Chilly and vaguely impersonal (thanks in part to the sometimes deadpan parlance of Terri Paul), I wouldn't term Fine Art as coldwave by any stretch, yet still cast firmly in the post-punk mold. The  saxophone-enhanced "You Tell," really abets the tune with some much needed bounce and sway, but is subtle enough not to define it, or for that matter the quartet writ large. "Nerves Ending" is a propulsive two-minute nugget, while "A Scheduled Interruption" plays us off with an air of noir mystique.  

01. You Tell Me

02. Motives

03. Nerves Ending

04. A Scheduled Interruption

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A little bit of fun's never been an insurrection.

Sorry I wasn't able to bring you any new music last week.  I'll try to rectify that within the next 24 hours.  In the meantime, this one qualifies as more of a sampler for a box set, than a bona fide hits collection...which is fitting since they never had any hits. 

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Leave it up to me to mix business with pleasure...

Four eps, including a devastatingly hot demo from 2005 I recently discovered, and a 1996 power pop jewel.

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Club Wig - s/t (1987, Mustang)

This one's quite a mixed bag, so it's apropos that Club Wig sounded like differing music artists from song to song. Ostensibly calling Tuscaloosa, AL home they didn't quite fall under the purview of the Mitch Eastern/Don Dixon sound, so I'll gladly give them credit for not hitching their way onto that bandwagon. The leadoff "Monkey Beach" strikes me as the work of a lesser Feelies or Bongos. Not a corker by any means, but often superior to the remainder of this LP. "The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln" folky lilt is loosely in the vicinity of The Donner Party. "How Can You Be So Beautiful" is a chilled out, hammock-swayer of a ditty sung by Mary Nelson, who splits vocal traipses with the band's more prominent Robert Huffman. "Not Hers Now" is plaintive yet convincing and could have been Club Wig's token single. "Gypsy Business'" meter and parlance is strangely similar to that of the band Felt, so much so that a sheer coincidence is unlikely.  A faithful rendition of Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" does little to persuade, or conversely dissuade from the overall effect of the album. 

01. Monkey beach

02. The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln

03. Fat

04. How Can You Be So Beautiful

05. Naugahyde

06. Not Hers Now

07. I Fall to Pieces

08. The Pine Villa Romeo

09. No Accident/Johnny

10. Gypsy Business 

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Our ideas are adjoining canals.

From 1997.

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V/A - The Sound of Deep Ellum (1987)

Once upon a time record labels (including major ones at that) would take a chance on unproven talent, both on an individual basis, and occasionally multiple artists for compilation albums.  In 1987 Island Records invested a few shekels to showcase ten artists that were part and parcel of Dallas, TX's burgeoning Deep Ellum scene. D/E was a neighborhood in East Dallas wherein there were numerous thriving nightclubs and concert venues.  Said to have peaked somewhere in the vicinity of the early-90s, this hipster locale engendered  a handful of acts garnering national exposure (and even one that was responsible a viral one-hit wonder).  The fact that nearly four decades after it's under-the-radar release, not one but two ...Deep Ellum artists are still performing in one guise or another - Reverend Horton Heat and The New Bohemians (yes, Edie Brickell's gang), is thoroughly astonishing.  

Punky provocateurs The Buck Pets were the main (and perhaps only) initial draw for these ears, and their contribution, the pulsating "Snatch Rap" is as potent as anything on their legendary 1989 debut LP.  End Over End and Three on a Hill sport gritty left-of-the-dial vibes, and The Trees offer a slightly twangier variation on roughly the same sonic motif.  As for the aforementioned New Bohemian's their "Jamaican Lady" is one of the more alluring numbers here, peppered with sweet, chiming guitar fills.  The remainder of the ...Deep Ellum roster delves into genres I'm typically not prone to featuring on these pages, but by no means should you let that dissuade you from investigating them and drawing your own conclusions.  Enjoy. 

01-Three On A Hill – No More Love

02-Decadent Dub Team – Six Gun

03-Buck Pets - Snatch Rap

04-Shallow Reign - Paint The Flowers All Black

05-Reverend Horton Heat – The Devil's Chasin' Me

06-The New Bohemians – Jamaican Lady

07-The Trees - Cattlecar

08-End Over End -  My Dark Earth Edge

09-The Daylights - Man o' War

10-The Legendary Revelations – Sales Tax

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I fly off the handle whenever you're near

From 2008.  Wish I had been tipped off to them sooner.

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