Thursday, May 01, 2008

Zombies Don't Thrash.....The Charge Of The 7" Brigade




Lot's of records been flyin in & I just ain't had the time to peruse'em all. One of these days I'll try & stay at it longer than a half hour or so, but that's about alls the free time I got right now. Tryin to get myself in shape for the annual Man's Man Contest, this year it's bein held on The Moon. I'm not sure how athletic ridin in a rocketship is but then I don't claim to be a professional astronaut. I is happy to know a couple though & am indebted to them for lettin me in to check out all the NASA contraptions & float around in a gravityless room. I think I've got the whole oxygen thing worked out too but I am a little concerned about havin to go to the bathroom in my suit. Maybe I'll just stick to them protein pills I hear so much about. At any rate, none of it matters much if I don't get enough sponsors or patrons to help pay for my trip there & back.The Moon ain't Pittsburgh, if you catch my drift. It's gonna require more than a bus ticket, a sack've clean duds & a toothbrush to pull this one off. Who know's, I might just have my own donation marathon to pay for it. But until then, here's some record I heard what I thought you should know about:

Not only is Montreal got an amazin array of boucheries to boast, now there seems to be a couple bands what're tryin to raise the awareness of the city as a destination for hog wild rockers to compliment them hog filled terrines. The Nymphets is the latest to stride into my sights by way of this 7" on the Psychic Handshake label, 2 tracks of fem/male vocality & grubby instrum aggression, both tunes comin across w/budget-like VU hum. If I didn't knowed better, I'd have figured this to be one of the lost recordings for the Pre B.S. Records label. That said, fans of (early) Mummies, Fingers & Supercharger won't be dissapointed w/these guys should they cast their coin into the till. Contact; www.myspace.com/psychichandshake or http://www.thenymphets.com/ for further info


What little I've read about concernin Francis Harold & The Holograms embellishes the band as the 2nd coming of Bobby Soxx & the like (you know where I'm goin, right?) so far be it for me to opine otherwise. But I gotta say, I don't hear hear all the "obvious" selling points, could be I'm just a contentious asshole or maybe I'm just listenin better (or just in closer proximity to the New Hope & Master Tape compilations-Capt'n Siltbreeze), who knows for sure. Initially I was intrigued by their moniker, figurin Francis & Co. to be real time livin embodiment of Dry Rib, The Desperate Bikes or somethin along the lines of any tried & true Brit DIY. That's just how their name rung out to me. So when I finally spun it & none of that was apparent, I didn't sob. No sir, I was much too smitten w/their style've hob, a completely no holds barred 2008 take on rat attacks that once assaulted ears 'n minds in the early 80's. So yeah, Stickmen With Rayguns & Flipper comparisons.....that'll sell records, 'cause sayin they's more in common w/Outerwear, PPG, The Pattern or Poison Center ain't gonna raise no eyebrows. Till now. This one floored me. Talk about your Sand In The Face.....I'm hip! Word is the label ain't got none to spare, try http://www.s-srecords.com/
& cross yr fingers.


The French they are a funny race. They like to do it with their________. Drum machines? Synthesizers? Baguettes? Aperitifs? I foget how that old chestunt ends, anyway, the Brut Direct label is doing a fine service to us all by providing the most wonderous noise escargot, seemingly feeding their potent Gros Gris a diet of petit greens & toxic earth. The 2nd release, this 7" from Minitel is a plump bugger ripe w/schizophrenic angst; the a-side is clearly borne out of the avant soil once trod upon by Ilitch & DDAA while the flip sounds like the band harvested an entire field of wormwood, distilling it into a noxious absinthe of Swans like potency. The blind carnage that follows, well what did you expect, A Saucer Full Of Secrets? Brut-Direct is growin real live monsters, no two ways about it. Go to http://www.bruit-direct.org/ & see what I mean.


While's I'm on the subject of France directly & Ilitch (indirectly) I think you oughta know about this reissue of primo Gallic swoon what was spawned by Ilitch mastermind Thierry Mueller. My details on Ruth is sketchy but I think this follows the Ilitch lp 'Periodicmindtrouble' when Mueller decided to drum up a rock ensemble with Ruth bein the end result. Not sure what they was channelin (or ingestin) but this 7" is as jake've an example of proto (Hearthan) era Ubu swoggle as I've ever heard. Considerin this is culled from some 1978 recordings, could it be they was locked into a similar street wave? Hard to know, there's also some aggressive Psychedelic Warlords "thing" goin on too & Francoise Portes vocals (esp. on Mescalito) sound like they's bein blipped in from another dimension. Really, besides Pere Ubu, I can't think of anyone back then KNOWN who was minin a similar shaft in a space/industro/punk vein. This one is impressin the hell outta me. Right up there alongside Angel Face as one of the greatest "lost" French bands of all time. Nice to have it around. Again.
http://poutreapparente.free.fr/ or email; bimbo.tower@free.fr for availablity

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