Bush Tetras - Rituals 12" EP

In New York in the late '70s & early '80s, the Bush Tetras blazed brightly in the sweaty clubs of the Lower East Side, playing music that was a blend of funk rhythms & dissonant guitar riffs.

Lead guitarist Pat Place had been the original guitarist & one of the founding members of the No Wave band The Contortions. With the Bush Tetras, she continued to pursue some of the musical ideas she had explored in that band, themes of driving rhythm & nihilistic trance...hypnotic, tribal, & dirty. Together with vocalist Cynthia Sley they produced the most distinctive aspects of the Tetras sound. Sley’s half-spoken, half-sung vocals, often repeating simple phrases over & over again, creating a hypnotic monotony similar to Place's guitar rhythms.

The Bush Tetras toured with the Clash & struck up a friendship with Topper Headon that lead to his producing this, the Rituals ep on Stiff Records in 1981.

The Bush Tetras on Rituals were: Cynthia Sley - vocals; Pat Place - guitar; Laura Kennedy - bass; & Dee Pop - drums. Recorded July 1981 at Electric Ladyland Studios, “Funky Version” remixed September 1981 at Marcus Music, London, Produced by Topper Headon.

Year of Release: 1981
Label: Stiff Records TEES 12-07
Genre: No Wave Dance

Tracklist:
Rhythm Side -
Can’t Be Funky
Funky Version

Paranoia Side -
Cowboys in Africa
Rituals

Download: Bush Tetras - Rituals 12“ ep
Download Size: 27.64MB (at 320 Kbps)

Mr. California & the State Police - I'm Gonna Kick You in the Head (2002 - 320kbps)

If the bastard son of Eugene Chadbourne & the Sun City Girls was a one-man punk band, he'd be Mr. California & the State Police. Terry Ryan is Mr. California & the State Police. He's now moved to Cleveland,Ohio but warns everyone not to call him Mr. Ohio. His album Audio Hallucinations is available but good luck finding this here slab, an ultra rare release on cult underground record label PEER PRESSURE ZOMBIE RECORDS.

Armed with a cheap keyboard, a drum machine & a guitar, Mr. California creates a blend of industrial punk mixed with blast beats of thrash & odd interludes, electronic anarchy mixed with a warped sense of humor. Mr. California & the State Police sound like the music of the pre-teen younger brother of someone from Men’s Recovery Project. Fifty-two really short songs in less than 30 minutes with vocals providing insults, childish behavior & other insane ramblings set to a fast beat with distorted guitar. There are songs like "Hot Coffee" that remind me of early Black Flag while tunes like "Pig Eye Poison" (She's a witch [x3]/first she stabs the eye/then she takes the broth/cleans up the mess/cleans up the rest/pig eye poison [x4]/yeah) that remind me of the Sun City Girls heritage. The world should prepare itself for this weapon of mass destruction. Mr. California & the State Police might very well be insane -- or at least attention-deficit . Blistering noise worthy of Lightning Bolt. This is demented no-wave music that flies in the face of all conventions.


This record is pressed on beautiful marbled blue vinyl, the cover has pasted-on silkscreened & spraypainted cover art, totally DIY. Comes with lyric sheet, Please Don't Call Me Poser ("Poser") drawing by Mr. California & a cool sticker. These songs are so short & many run one into the next that I have simply left each side as a single cut (side A tracks 1 - 28, side B 29 - 52). Mr. C says he's gonna kick you in the head, so be forewarned. Enjoy!

Year of Release: 2002
Label: Peer Pressure Zombie
Catalog #:PPZ-003
Genre: Punk, Noise.

Tracklist:

Download: Mr. California & the State Police - I'm Gonna Kick You in the Head
Download Size: 68.4MB
(Ripped from pristine vinyl at 320Kbps)

The Blues Astronauts - No Sanctuary

From the very first note to the final fade-out, this is one wonderful slab of vinyl here, folks. If you're into trying new musick that you've never heard before, then this one gets five stars. First before you get to the vinyl, the cover grabs you. A hand-made cut & paste cover on a blank white record sleeve. There's no printing on this sucker. The album title & band name, the cover photo - the band photo & tracklist & song info on the back, all pasted on by hand. Inside is some of the greatest crazy Beatnik jazz blues from outer space, at times verging on No Wave. Songs like "Tabor" & "Second Coming" remind of James Chance & the Contortions while songs like "In this Life" are dub-influenced a la The Ruts. Even on the only non-original cuts, two traditional blues songs arranged by The Blues Astronauts, they are anything but traditional. "Help Me" ventures into the blues explosions of Jon Spencer while the other, "Wake Up" is more of the seeds gone bad of Nick Cave. The only thing I find disheartening about this band is the lack of information about them or about individual members. Given the early 80s time frame & the Brighton, Massachusetts locale, it is possible that one on the members is a Harvard grad PhD. in Conservation Biology & perhaps one has gone into the visual arts field. The only member I'm sure is still in musick is the trombonist Boo Elmer, who plays with the world renowned Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne & appears on the avant garde electronic chamber musick production Bang on a Can Live Vol. 1. Other than the Boo Elmer crediting, all the rest of the info on the band is conjecture. If anyone knows more about this great last wonder, please let me/us know.

The Blues Astronauts are: Paul Bloodgood - vocals; Michael Albrecht - guitars & bass on "Wake Up"; Jodie Myers - bass; guitar & vocals on "Wake Up"; Dan Perlman - drums & percussion; Boo Elmer - trombone; Willy MacMullen - harmonica.

All words by Bloodgood, all musick by Blues Astronauts except "Help Me" & "Wake Up" are traditional, arranged by Blues Astronauts. Recorded at Real Art Ways, Hartford,CT.


Year of Release: 1982
Label: Windsor Records BSAS-10
Genre: Experimental Blues, No Wave



Track List:
Side A
1. Tela
2. Sanctuary
3. Tabor
4. Marlboro

Side B
1. In this Life
2. Second Coming
3. Help Me
4. Wake Up
5. Joseph

Download: The Blues Astronauts - No Sanctuary

Download Size: 81.5MB

Ripped from surprisingly immaculate vinyl at glorious 320Kbps

Friction - Atsureki (1980 - 320kbps)

Following the events in Japan over the course of this past week has been distressing. How the situation has been handled by mainstream US media has been a complete failure. I would like to present two facts: a nuclear meltdown to the likes of Chernobyl is not eminent and not all of Japan was hit by the tsunami. Mostly the north east coastline, Sendai region, and some parts of the south eastern coastline was hit. While the companies get the nuclear situation under control, the average Japanese in those regions face loss of: heat, electricity, food, personal belongings, loved ones, and in some cases shelter. Although the entire nation was not hit, the coastlines were populated enough to raise the estimate of dead and missing individuals to 12,000 since the previous estimate of 4,000 some days ago.

Personally, the figure does not matter since I believe that the loss of life on any scale should always be mourned in some fashion. With that, I would like to extend my condolences to the survivors and anyone else affected by this disaster. After posting Enos, I was toying with the idea of at least making a mention of events overseas but what pushed me was a request Zero sent us [the other contributors] asking if we could post something from Japan. My words may not mean much right now and I am pretty broke so the best that I can do is share a great rock classic from Japan with you all today.

Shortly after getting into punk music in general, I stumbled upon the beauty that is no wave. The band that stood out most for me was Teenage Jesus and The Jerks. Their music and Lydia Lunch were equally captivating in their audacity and creativity. So I was pleased to learn that their bassist, Reck, reinvented his old band with Chico Hige once he returned to Japan after their time in New York.

Friction originally formed under the name Circle Triangle Square in 1971 then 3/3 in the mid-70's. This band is considered to be one of the pioneers of alternative rock in Japan. More information:

Originally formed in 1971 as an avant-garde music group by bassist Reck, saxophonist Chico Hige, and drummer Sakuro Watanabe in Tokyo, Japan. They changed the bands name to 3/3 in the mid 70s, and Reck and Chico later moved to the United States, where they would join the band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and later became the original founding members of James Chance and the Contortions before returning back to Japan.

Renaming 3/3 to form Friction, they recruited guitarist Tsunematsu Masatoshi, who had studied art at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music. They released a live album and single in 1979, and their first studio album, Atsureki ((軋轢, meaning 'friction' in Japanese) in 1980, produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

-From their wiki page.

Today I will be focusing on their 1980 release, Atsureki. This album is amazingly complex. It has a very classic punk feel to it that strongly reminds me of Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols and X. But then you get certain intervals in songs that are distinctly more inharmonious than the already very dirty rock being played. The track “Big-S” is a great example of this. All throught this song is a crazy guitar riff that sounds like someone sliding an object along the strings. About 1:35 minutes into it, the misanthropic guitar riff gets it's own solo with stable rock beats being played on the drums and some very audible bass in the background. Which brings me to how audible the bass is in the entire album as is the saxophone. The former I appreciate and the latter I appreciate only in this album (I normally can not stand saxophones). The saxophone is excellently presented in the most sleazy fashion in “Cycle Dance” and “Out.” By the way, this is a very addictive album. You have been warned.

Year of Release: 1980
Label: Vivid Sound
Genre: Punk/Noise Rock
Media: CD
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 320 kbps

Track List:
1. A-Gas
2. Automatic-Fru
3. I Can Tell
4. 1000 Years
5. Crazy Dream
6. Cycle Dance
7. Cool Fool
8. No Thrill
9. Big-S
10. Out

Download: Friction - Atsureki
Download Size: 93.12 mb