Quicksilver Messenger Service - What About Me

Q is a tough one. Not that many bands with Q names in my collection (I’ve got one Queens of the Stone Age album that I’ll sell to someone for a buck). I was going to post up something by The Queers, but most of their stuff is re-released or still available, so I fell back on ole faithful Quicksilver...but which album?

Back in 1971, I had just been released from jail after serving time for possession of mescaline & as a condition of my parole had taken a job at a summer camp for mentally challenged youth. I was a Senior Camp Counselor & had to be with my campers day & night 23 hours. The only time off I got each day was from 2pm - 3pm when they had swimming, as they were supervised by the Junior Counselors & watched over by the swimming coaches & lifeguards. Every two weeks on payday, my friend Mole would come up to the camp. I would sign over my paycheck to him & he would leave me my two week supply of hashish. I made a hash pipe out of some unneeded plumbing supplies & drain screen. Between 2pm - 3pm I would hide out undisturbed in our cabin, listen to one of the two albums I had with me on the cabin’s portable stereo, & smoke as much hashish as I could smoke in one hour. I would play one album one day & the other the next, continuing this alternation every day. The two albums I had were two recently released platters, The Guess Who’s American Woman & Quicksilver’s What About Me. So the choice of Quicksilver album’s was obvious. What About Me! What about me?

Quicksilver Messenger Service was one of San Francisco 's original psychedelic bands of the late '60s . Essentially a jam band, they were popular around the Bay Area & achieved international recognition among devotees of psychedelic rock, though they never gained the broader popularity enjoyed by their San Francisco contemporaries Jefferson Airplane or The Grateful Dead.

What About Me is their fifth album, released in December 1970 & recorded partly at the same sessions that produced Just For Love , their previous album. What About Me is the last Quicksilver album to feature pianist Nicky Hopkins, who had joined the group when one of the original guitarists, Gary Duncan left the band after Shady Grove. Although the fiery guitar duels between John Cipollina & Gary Duncan are missing, Dino Valenti (born Chester [Chet] William Powers Jr., aka Dino Valente, aka Jackie Powers, aka Jesse Orris Farrow, here under his ‘Jesse Oris Farrow’ pseudonym), experiments with R'n'B, Latin, & even contemporary art-rock while never abandoning psychedelia, so it is still a great trip.

Year of Release: 1971
Label: Capitol Records SMAS-630
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
Tracklist:
Side A -
What About Me
Local Color
Baby Baby
Won't Kill Me
Long Haired Lady
Side B -
Subway
Spindrifter
Good Old Rock And Roll
All In My Mind
Call On Me

Download: Quicksilver Messenger Service - What About Me
Download Size: 105 MB(ripped at 320Kbps)

SPK - Leichenschrei

Before Graeme Revell became a very successful Hollywood movie composer, he was a founding member of the early industrial act SPK, one of the bands responsible for helping to usher in what would eventually come to be known as the first wave of industrial Music. Revell met up with Neil Hill while they were both working at a psychiatric hospital. They were both inspired by the manifesto of the German radical Marxist group known as the Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv, hence the group's name. They would later bring teenagers David Virgin and Danny Rumour into the fold, which would serve as the first lineup of SPK.

They recorded and released their debut album, Information Overload Unit in 1981, and followed up Leichenschrei (Translation: The Corpse Screams) the following year. Of all the most influential and historically important first wave industrial acts, SPK has increasingly become one of the most overlooked and underrated. This may be due to the change in style which would accompany their later releases, as their music became significantly lighter in mood than their earlier efforts. Unfortunately, SPK would not release another album of this caliber again.

Leichenschrei still stands as one of early industrial's finest moments. Heart-pounding percussion, mind-bending electronic sounds, and voices that sound like they are from beyond the grave all come together to emerse the listener in a nightmarish world, and made their contemporaries stand up and take notice. Leichenschrei was no doubt one of the most delightfully disturbing albums of industrial's first wave, and still evokes a sense of dread to this day to the uninitiated without sounding dated.

Year of Release: 1982
Label: Thermidor
Genre: Industrial, Noise
Bitrate: 320kbps

Download: SPK - Leichenschrei
Download Size: 99MB

Two Peas from Ohio

Pere Ubu - Waiting For Mary 12" 45rpm ep

Coming off the Ohio Players, I don’t feel like moving far afield for the letter P. Here’s a band from Ohio, from Cleveland to be more precise, that needs no introduction...Pere Ubu.

Year of Release:1989
Label: Fontana UBU DJX 212
Genre: Avant-garage

Tracklist:
Side A -
Waiting For Mary (What Are We Doing Here?)
Side B -
Wine Dark Sparks
Flat

Download: Pere Ubu - Waiting for Mary 12“ 45rpm ep
Download Size: 20MB (ripped from vinyl at 320Kbps)

Penny's Scar - Pleasures

Penny Moorhed was born in Seville,Spain. She is of French/American descent. She is based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. She has been in the bands Penny Moorhed & EOS. She is currently primarily a solo artists. Her musick is haunting, sexy, experimental. Much of her newer musick is on her Soundclick site, but Pleasures is no longer available.

The last time I went back to Pennsylvania, to see my mother shortly before she died, I saw Penny Moorhed in a small club in Ohio. That must have been in 2004. I got a CDR from her that I have always associated with that journey. Her unique blend of sounds & her haunting storytelling technique is what really lifts this up.

Penny has appeared as guest vocalist on Visible Breath’s Degrees of Light singing the song “Frightened Whisper" & Brooklyn Brawler’s Only the Dead Know Brooklyn:The Prelude on the track “Name of God”. You may not have heard this artist before, but give her a try. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Year of Release: 2004?
Label: Penny’s Scar CDR
Genre: Acoustic

Tracklist:
Take Me Tonight
Wake Up
For Love
Frightened
Take Your Time
Follow the Devil
Tumbling All the Way
Feels So Good
Please,(Please)
Dream
No More Crying
I Want More
Hold On (original version)
(This is) My Story
It’s Almost Time

Download: Penny’s Scar - Pleasures
Download Size: 169MB

Old School Hardcore & Punk

Oh, you said PUNK...I thought you said FUNK. Here's another entry under the letter O...as in Old School.

This is a set of bootleg cds I got from my friend Fudgie D. back around the turn of the century. It’s just a crazy compilation of a bunch of hardcore & punk bands (hence the name) from around the world. These two cds comprise Volume I. There were supposed to be further volumes, but I’ve never seen them??? If you’re into punk at all, there has to be a few favorites here, maybe some tunes you haven’t heard for a while or kinda forgot, or some stuff that maybe you never heard before at all. The Ojorojo post had me digging through my punk musick & when I saw this, I just had to upload it. It was always good for slamming into the player & jumping around to while I was doing things around the crib. The first cd is Bands A - M, the second N - Z.

Year of Release: 2001 or 2002???
Label: Bootleg
Genre: Hardcore & Punk
Tracklist:
CD 1
Articles of Faith - Up Against a Wall
Attitude Adjustment - Grey World
BGK - Pencil Pusher
Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown
Bold - Looking Back
Boskops - Skorbut
Breakdown - Kickback
Broken Bones - Wealth Rules
Buttocks - BGS
Canalterror - Staatsfeind
Cock Sparrer - Last Train to Dagenham
Condemned to Death - Gatlands Pit
Cro-Mags - We Gotta Know
Crumbsuckers - Just Sit There
Dayglo Abortions - Stupid Songs
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia
DI - Pervert Nurse
DRI - Couch Slouch
English Dogs - Psycho Killer
Extreme Noise Terror - Murder
FUs - Daisy Chain
Inferno - Ram it Up
Infest - Screwed
Intent to Injure - Silly Putty
Jerrys Kids - Crucify Me
Judge - New York Crew
Los Violadores - Viejos Pateticos
Ludichrist - Green Eggs & Ham
Maniacs - Hardcore Punk
Mass Appeal - Fun Again
Minor Threat - Filler
Mob 47 - Nuclear Attack

CD2
Negative FX - Feel Like a Man
Offenders - Face Down in the Dirt
Point Blank - We Won’t Be Silenced
Poison Idea - Laughing Boy
Raw Power - State Oppression
Razzia - Arsch im Sarge
Ripcord - Abuse
Septic Death - Disinfect
Slapshot - I’ve Had Enough
Spermbirds - My God Rides a Skateboard
Spux - Hasejagd
State of Alert - Gang Fight
The Accused - Martha Splatterhead
The Blood - Stark Raving Normal
The Exploited - Dead Cities
The Freeze - Broken Bones
Toxoplasma - 1981
Uniform Choice - Use Your Head
Upright Citizens - Swastika Rats
Vorkriegsjugend - Aufstand im Ghetto
Youth Brigade - Full Force
Youth of Today - Together
Zero Boys - Positive Change
Zyklome A - People Die

Download cd 1: Various Artists - Old School Hardcore & Punk A-M
Download Size: 150MB (ripped at 320Kbps)

Download cd 2: Various Artists - Old School Hardcore & Punk N-Z
Download Size: 108MB (ripped at 320Kbps)

Ohio Players - Skin Tight

All right, it a new year. Let’s get back to the ol’ alphabet game. I’m up to letter O & counting down. So representing the round letter, what better than those round on both ends & hi in the middle Ohio Players.

By 1974, the Ohio Players had been together as a band for fifteen years. That was before funk per se even existed. James Brown was still doing ballads. But by 1974 bands like Parliament-Funkadelic were starting to blow the roof off R&B with the sounds of FUNK. The Ohio Players were already there to help.

Starting with their 1971 album Pain, the Players garnered a reputation for their hot cover art, usually being so S&M-inspired, that many music stores refused to carry their albums. Albums like Pleasure, Ecstasy, Climax, & Orgasm continued the tradition, but the hits came at a slower rate. Finally, "Funky Worm" became a left-field hit in 1973 & the Players left their original record label Westbound Records for the bigger Mercury Records. Their first album for the new company was 1974's Skin Tight.

Skin tight it is. On the surface, with only six songs, this new album might not seem like a great deal, but with songs that all clock in at over 5 minutes, there is plenty here to like. & unless you’re brain-dead & rigor mortis has set in, you won’t be able to hold still.

Recorded at Paragon Studios in Chicago. The Ohio Players are: Leroy ‘Sugarfoot’ Bonner - guitar, percussion, lead vocals & backing vocals; Marshall Jones - bass; James ‘Diamond’ Williams - drums, percussion, lead vocals, & backing vocals; Billy Beck - piano, organ, electric piano, clavinet, synthesizer, percussion, lead vocals & backing vocals; Clarence Satchell - saxophones, flute, percussion, lead vocals & backing vocals; Marvin ‘Merv’ Pierce - trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, & backing vocals; & Ralph ‘Pee Wee’ Middlebrooks - trumpet, trombone, & backing vocals.

Year of Release: 1974
Label: Mercury SRM-1-705
Genre: Funk

Tracklist:
Side 1 -
Skin Tight
Streakin' Cheek o Cheek
It's Your Night / Words of Love
Side 2 -
Jive Turkey
Heaven Must Be Like This
Anybody Gonna Be Saved?

Download: Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Download Size: 92.8MB (ripped from funked-up vinyl at 320Kbps)

Purple Image - Purple Image

An outstanding example of psychedelic rock and funk fusion that shouldn't be missed.Though African-American and raised in the predominantly black 105th Superior area of Cleveland where jazz, funk, and soul were the dominant musical styles. Purple Image played rock... psychedelic, mind-bending, pass-the-bong, strobe-light, head music. This obscure album recorded on Map Records has risen to the status of cult because of its scarcity and the musical orientation of Warren Adams (vocals, piano, organ), Kenneth Roberts (vocals, rhythm), William Adams (vocals, conga), Frank Smith (lead guitar), Del Moran (bass), Richard Payne (drums), and lone female Diane Dunlap (vocals); Edward Snodgrass, a non-member, augmented P.I. on sax. Purple Image wrote everything except the LP's masterpiece, the 15-minute, 24-second rendition of Bob Craig's "Marching to a Different Drummer." As with all six selections, Purple Image sounds better when the volume is cranked. "Drummer" is an energetic, powerful blend of acid rock and fusion; Snodgrass blows a frantic Coltrane-ish sax, and Dunlap wails like she slammed her hand in a door. "We Got to Pull Together" is an airy, charming, socially significant ballad that urges us to become color-blind, forget the past, and get along. Snodgrass plays a tender horn while a male does a convincing lead wallpapered by some arresting, swooping harmonies. On "Living In the Ghetto," they sing about the woes of poverty. This album is an outstanding example of psychedelic rock and funk fusion that shouldn't be missed. Unfortunately, this was the only album that Purple Image ever released.

Year of Release: 1970
Label: Map City
Genre: Funk/Psychedelic
Bitrate: 256kbps

Track List:
1. Living In The Ghetto
2. Why
3. Lady
4. We Got To Pull Together
5. What You Do To Me
6. Marching To A Different Drummer

Download: Purple Image - Purple Image
Download Size: 74MB