Various Artists
A Sides Part One 1979-1982
A Sides Part Two 1982-1984
1992

As promised, here are the two Crass Records singles collections. I got these both in 1993, a time when I was really exploring punk rock beyond the usual "popular" punk bands. I was getting into some of the newer American bands (Screeching Weasel especially, a favorite to this day), a few old hardcore bands (Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, the bands on that one live NY hardcore comp...what was that called? It had Token Entry, Rest in Pieces, No for an Answer and one other band if I recall), and was just starting to discover some of the stuff from England. I'd been a fan of the Buzzcocks and the Damned for a while, but had just recently become pretty obsessed with Crass. When I stumbled across part one of this comp, there were just enough recognizable names on the disc to get me to plunk down my money. I knew Conflict (I had their live album, Turning Rebellion into Money and a 7") and Captain Sensible. Cool artwork, done deal.

Turns out this stuff was a pretty different breed from the punk, English or American, that I was familiar with at the time. Stuff like Honey Bane, Poison Girls, and The Snipers sounded really out there to my young ears. There's not a song on this one I don't like (though I do usually skip the Annie Anxiety track if I'm being honest). When I posted The Poison Girls record a while back, I mentioned their song on this comp. It's great, and sort of sounds like it could've fit onto side 2 of Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare. For real.

I finally found the second volume while I was on vacation with my family in Florida. The only band I recognized on this one was MDC, but I loved the first one so much I knew I wouldn't be disappointed, and I was right. Anthrax, Omega Tribe, Sleeping Dogs, and Hit Parade all blew me away, and the Lack of Knowledge song on here is probably one of my favorite punk songs ever. Just a really awesome song.

Anyway, I'll admit now what I wouldn't then: the politics these bands were spouting were completely lost on me. I knew there was a general anti-system, anti-capitalism, anti-government stance, and that was enough. I've managed to tune out most of the politics in the music I like over the years (there are some bands I couldn't tolerate otherwise), so the fact that Crass Records considered itself a political movement as much as a punk label matters not at all to me, one way or the other. I liked the songs, the art was great, and it fed into my teenage angst at the time just fine.

For some of these bands, the songs here are all I've heard. Aside from the bands I've already posted, I've got music by Lack of Knowledge, Conflict, Rudimentary Peni, MDC, Omega Tribe, Hit Parade, and Zounds. For the most part, none of it has grabbed me the way these tracks did when I first heard them. Something about these collections, their general weirdness, and the totally foreign imagery and language scratched me right where I itched when I was 15, and so they still do now. Maybe you'll dig it too.

A Sides Part One 1979-1982
A Sides Part Two 1982-1984

Dead Man

Dragonwyck
Chapter 2
1971

Dragonwyck is a band who has benefited quite a bit from the Internet age. They formed in Cleveland in 1969, recorded 2 albums that they never released, and basically made a reputation for themselves with their live show. As far as I understand, the albums they recorded, of which Chapter 2 is logically the second, exist only as a handful of acetate copies out there somewhere. There have been a couple of reissues (or just issues I guess) in recent times, but they seem to survive mostly on blogs. I stumbled across this record a couple of years ago, and while it's not one I rock on a daily basis, it's the kind of thing I put on every coupl'a months and say "Damn this is good. Why don't I listen to it more often?" So here's me doing my part to spread the word.

The music has bits of folk, psych, prog, and just plain ol' rock and roll. There's some big Moody Blues influence, but there's a little Who, early Pink Floyd, Amboy Dukes, etc. They sound more England than Cleveland, that's for sure. But hey, it's great stuff.

Chapter 2

Jump Mama Jump

Poison Girls
Hex
1979

This is a weird little record from a weird band. Poison Girls formed in the mid-70s, and their singer, who went by the name Vi Subversa, was in her 40s at the time w/ two kids. Apparently she heard her kids listening to punk rock and said, "Hey, this stuff ain't half bad," and decided to give it a go. She was born in 1935, which sort of blows my mind. And you know what? She sounds like she was born in 1935.

Anyway, Poison Girls were a part of the whole Crass Records thing, which may be good or bad depending on your perspective. From the music standpoint, I tend to think it's a good thing (ie I like a lot of those bands). Things get into shakier territory when the politics of it all gets involved, but we'll save that for some other blog. But musically this falls into the dark shadows of punk's weirder side. It kind of meanders and noodles, and the vocals often fall into a kind of beat poetry rhythm, but it's pretty cool anyway. Unfortunately, this record doesn't have my favorite track of theirs, "Promenade Immortelle", which sounds like an outake from Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare. It's on a Crass Records comp I've got, though, so maybe I'll post it some time.

Hex

Lay Down and Die, Goodbye

Alice Cooper
Easy Action
1970

Tomorrow marks the 1-year anniversary of this blog, so I since my first post was Alice Cooper's first album, Pretties For You, I thought I'd take this moment to post the band's second release, Easy Action. They were still in the weirdo-psychedellic phase in 1970, though some of the more garagey aspects had dropped away. The next album would be Love it to Death, where they toned down the psychedelia even more (though there's still plenty of weird to be found throughout the band's entire catalog), and reach classic-rock superstardom with "I'm Eighteen". This album has some great Beatles-esque stuff mixed in, too, though, and the production is a little more refined than on Pretties. They never really did the sweeter sounding harmony-laden thing after this album. The lyrical content is still bizarre, though. Oh, and Michael Bruce sings two tracks here, marking the last time anyone besides Alice himself sang lead.

The title is from a line in West Side Story, a musical and film the band liked so much they borrowed heavily from it on 1972's School's Out.

But yeah, just like I said when I posted their debut, let me just stress that if all you know of Alice Cooper is the stuff they play on the radio, give this album a chance. They were a really odd band, especially on the first two albums.

Easy Action

Stoned in the Bathroom

Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker
1971

This is going to blow your mind. A friend of mine turned me on to this record just last week by pointing me to Cousin Mike's blog, and I haven't been so pleasantly surprised in some time. You know the name Chubby Checker, right? He's the guy who did "The Twist", "Let's Twist Again", "Twist it Up", "The Peppermint Twist", "Twist and Shout", "Twist of Cain", "Twisted Sister", and was the inspiration for the 1996 Jan de Bont film Twister. But after his pop career faded, and before he resigned himself to the oldies circuit, he apparently decided to experiment a little (in more ways than one, presumably). This psych/garage/blues record never got a US release, but was recorded in Holland and released on a few budget labels over there. Nine of the Eleven songs were written by Checker himself, and let me just stress how good this stuff is. The first two tracks will convince you.

Check out Cousin Mike, too. Tons of great stuff there.

Chubby Checker

CC Ryder

Iron Maiden
Maiden Voyage
1970

Last weekend I was with my family at my wife's parents' house. My father-in-law and I were talking about music a little, which is rare because honestly we don't relate at all on this kind of thing. But there we were. Somehow or another we get on the subject of Iron Butterfly, and he tells me that when he was in Vietnam, his nickname was Iron Butterfly because he was such a fan of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", which, of course, he identified by asking "what was that one song they did that was like 30 minutes long?" It was painted on the side of his plane or something, anyway. So I'd decided that I was going to post Iron Butterfly's "Metamorphosis" in honor of the guy, and so I could tell this little story here, but as I listened to the record again I was reminded that Iron Butterfly mostly sucked aside from the aforementioned opus. I should track down In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and give it a chance some time. I think my brother had it back in the day. So anyway, instead, you're getting Iron Maiden, who sound like what I want Iron Butterfly to sound like when I think about them. C'est la vie.

This is, of course, not the same Iron Maiden you're thinking of. These guys formed in the late 60s in Essex, England, and played bluesy hard-rock. The funny thing, though, is to listen to some of these tracks and imagine them done by the more famous Iron Maiden. The first track in particular features a plodding rhythm that would make Steve Harris proud. Also, "Liar" could've been reinterpreted to fit in nicely on one of the first two Maiden records. At any rate, this stuff could be seen as another version of the same downtrodden rock that Black Sabbath played, but it's got more of a loose, Pentagram feel rather than the thicker, fuzzier stuff that eventually evolved into doom and stoner metal. Think Jethro Tull, a less motorcycled-out Steppenwolf maybe. I dunno. It's pretty good, though. Better than Iron Butterfly at the very least.

Maiden Voyage

In Search of Peace of Mind

Scorpions
Lonesome Crow
1972

Many people don't realize it now, but Scorpions were awesome in the 70s. I don't mean to take anything away from "Rock You Like a Hurricane" or "No One Like You" (the latter of which is probably my favorite Scorpions tune, honestly), but their earlier work is just on a different plane. This is their debut, and it's all over the place, full of fuzzed out jams, barn-storming blues rock, and borderline psychedelic noodling. Think Led Zeppelin with more jamming, Black Sabbath with faster tempos, Blue Cheer with a little more polish, etc. Klaus Meine is still finding his voice here, and he definitely takes a back seat to the Schenker bros and the tight-as-shit rhythm section of Lothar Heimberg and Wolfgang Dziony (and this is the only Scorpions record they're on). Drop any reservations you might have and spin this a few times.

Lonesome Crow

Bottom of the Barrel

Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush
Tales of the Unexpected
1979

Canada's Mahogany Rush will forever be remembered as being about two steps away from a Jimi Hendrix cover band, but by 1979's Tales of the Unexpected, the first to feature guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter Frank Marino's name in the band name (I think), they'd really moved past that (despite the fact that there's a Hendrix cover on the record). Part of it is the time period, as this is steeped in late-70s arena rock and features some pretty heavy synthesizer noodling in the first and fourth tracks. But part of it is the strength of Marino's songwriting and skill on the guitar. Of the four studio tracks here, two are covers ("All Along the Watchtower" and a particularly cool version of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood"). Of the two originals, the title track is definitely the standout. What begins as a low-key bluesy jam erupts into an 8-minute opus of rock-jazz-fusion wankery. You gotta hear it. The live side is good too, but you know, I've just never been into live records much.

My uncle was a big fan of these guys back in the day, and he had pretty good taste.

Tales of the Unexpected