Painted Willie - Upsidedowntown (1987, SST)

I was pleased as punch to learn that the first Painted Willie album, Mind Bowling was reissued on CD (and digitally) this summer. Arguably the runt of the SST Records litter, the Willie's skewed indie-punk struck a chord with yours truly, upon hearing a selection of theirs on The Blasting Concept Vol. II compilation when I was a wee tyke. I shared their debut release, a feeble but scrappy 7" ep back in the spring of '08. By the time the L.A. trio got around to recording their sophomore effort, Upsidedowntown, they had grown a thicker skin and sounded strikingly more taut and assertive, as evidenced by the pulverizing power chords that commence the opening cut, "Mother Nature's Breakdown," as well as several other destinations on the album. Total SST punk with trace elements of the Germs and Dead Milkmen finding their way onto my beachcombing "mental detector," but executed in an overall tenor that was somehow indigenous to Painted Willie. A neat record, save for perhaps the jammy, long-winded "Personality and Style" that occupies the better portion of side two. I call it a cure for insomnia. Here's two cents worth courtesy of Trouser Press:

Upsidedowntown has spiffy cover art and more taut riff-rock songs, this time on such less intriguing topics as "My Seed," "Personality and Style" (thirteen minutes of it!) and "Totem Pole." The playing keeps getting stronger, but the Willies should put out an APB for a songwriter.

 

01. Mother Nature's Breakdown

02. Upsidedowntown

03. Saturized

04. Totem Pole

05. All Over It

06. Son of the Night

07. My Seed

08. Subject

09. Personality and Style

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Painted Willie - My Fellow Americans ep (1984, Spinhead)

This is one of the scarcer Painted Willie recordings out there, which by the way didn't come out on SST Records.  Typically a fun, artsy punk band, the band's muse waxed a more serious tenor on My Fellow Americans, a concept piece inspired by Cold War tensions.  No liner notes accompanied the record per se, but the Painted Willie website linked above offers a great deal of insight regarding the provocative themes discussed within.  Definitely not as freewheeling as their "Ragged Army" 7" that I shared a few years ago, though it does feature one of my favorite PW tracks, the atypically weary "Crossed Fingers."  The Willie's first album, Mind Bowling was re-released on CD in 2009.  Enjoy (or not).

01. My Fellow Americans
02. Part II
03. Crossed Fingers
04. Republican Suntan
05. My Fellow Americans (inst)

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Singles Going Single #26 - Painted Willie 7" (1984, Spinhead)

In reference to the title of this single's lead-off cut, Painted Willie were a ragged army indeed, and the band's ramshackle debut 7" is a stumbling-block-to-stepping-stone chestnut for the ages. Released on what would appear to be a tiny, local imprint, Spinhead Records, this record would lead to greater things, more specifically being ushered under the wing of the burgeoning SST Records for a number of LPs during the Reagan era. Painted Willie's quasi-minimalist post-punk, was unabashedly nascent and shambolic at the time of this release, but endearing in it's own rite. The curiously esoteric subject matter disclosed in "Ragged Army" exemplifies this aesthetic the best, while it's flipside, "Kill It," packs a serious, metallic bite, that's the yin to "Army's" playful yang. Two of the three songs here also appear in the "jukebox" portion of their Myspace page, but these particular rips were extracted directly from my own copy of the single, tattered sleeve and all. Enjoy (or not).

A1. Ragged Army
A2. Paper Tiger
B. Kill It

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Painted Willie - Live From Van Nuys ep (1986, SST)

I'm always a bit late to cracking open books I purchase, even when I obtain them relatively close to their publishing date.  In fact I'm usually a couple of years behind the curveball with anything I read, save for the occasional periodical.  Jim Ruland's Corporate Rock Sucks - The Rise and Fall of SST Records has been no exception, and as I write this I'm about three-quarters of the way through the tome in question.  If you've been an early adopter of Wilfully Obscure, Painted Willie might not be quite such an arcane quantity, as this is the fourth post I've dedicated to them, yet despite their SST pedigree there isn't much in the way of ephemera to be had on them, online or otherwise.  Maybe you can chalk up their low-key legacy to the trio's stubbornly "intermediate" aptitude, which entailed no shortage of skate-punky riff-ola, and a prowess for arpeggios which never completely gestated.  Their reliably fun, albeit good-but-not-great penchant did however translate effectively in a live setting, and this bite-sized chunk of a March 1986 gig situated near their home turf is actually a decent introduction for the uninitiated.  The track selection for Live From Van Nuys is wisely cherry-picked, centering on some of the Willie's most immediate and memorable salvos, chief among them the power-chord ridden "The Big Time" and "Crossed Fingers." They plow through Love's "Little Red Book," upping the tempo of the chorus, just shy of butchering the overarching effect. Truthfully, I admired P/W for what they were, meager as their capabilities sometimes were - and therein resided 90% of their charm.    

01. Crossed Fingers

02. The Big Time

03. Kill It

04. Upside Down Town

05. Little Red Book

06. Cover Girl

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Love Camp 7 - s/t ep (1989, Bowlmor)

Love Camp 7 were a little known NYC export who issued a couple of albums in the '90, but this five-cut ep is where it all started.  "Take Love Where You Can Find It" is a dichotomy of feeble Beatles-esque harmonies clothes-pinned to dissonant instrumentation that only a slacker would applaud.  Their approach is not dissimilar to that of some of the more oddball SST Records bands like Painted Willie.  In fact, this wax doesn't really hit it's proverbial stride until "Janice in a Green Light" kicks, proving that LC7 can project a serious hook when they make the effort.  Ditto for the equally tuneful "Under the Sign of Saturn," bearing lite post-punk textures.  Indie rock, baby. 

01. Take Love Where You Can Find It
02. Father Serra's Children
03. Janice in a Green Light
04. Under the Sign of Saturn
05. Myra Breckenridge

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