Destroy All Monsters - Typical Girl / Attack of the Chiggers (1997)

The mighty Anthony Elms has already posted/covered DAM on this blog, but this may be the only time I'll ever get to compare collector dick size with him. I can't remember what this flexi-record 45 was included in, but I remember (about ten years ago) acquiring a massive pack of DAM stuff including a hand-painted VHS anniversary video, a Jim Shaw silkscreen bandana, loads of misc. stickers, cards, and other printed detritus, a newspaper, and a small cd. All from Book Beat in Oak Park, MI. (see Elms post) Anyway, this is limited to 100 copies.

Paul Nudd

Dundee Contemporary Arts (2006)

...patience is a virtue.

David Shrigley, Ding-Dong, 7" limited edition. It is exactly what it says.

[Ahhhh] Simply put: the brilliance that is Shrigley. Yes, the record is true to the labels. In a deep clear voice: “Ding” [flip over] “Dong.” I love playing this single for visitors. It takes longer to flip it over than to listen to either side. Doesn’t take long to flip over either.

It's the delay. And the return. And knowing when to stop.

Ash International (2007)

Mariachi Azteca Principal Performs The Kingdoms Of Elgaland-Vargaland National Anthem #2

These recordings were made during the inauguration of The Embassy of The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland in Mexico City on August 30, 2002 in the presence of the KREV Ambassador Magalí Arriola and invited guests at Colima 244, Colonia Roma, Mexico City. This is just one of many different interpretations of the anthem, and a very jubilant one at that.

Keep the party on path. Rule number one: Never! Ever! Forget to salute your kings.
Give them their due; they keep the kingdom in disorder.
(Yes, I’m a citizen.)
Raise your glass high!

Povertech Industries (1995)

The B-Side wins again and again, and this time is no different. Just the B-Side this time. Half of the CM von Hausswolff Plays John Cage 7". The other side is a spiritcom version of one of the Imaginary Landscape works. This side is von Hausswolff's cover of 4'33". The great thing is how he recorded this. Cut straight to vinyl, no sound source. The real kicker: instead of time, he translated 4'33" as distance. Vectors, my friend, it is all in vectors. Four feet and thirty-three inches. That's how long the groove is, and determines how long the composition plays. No, it does not translate to four minutes thirty-three seconds. The package recommends you not play this side. I must not love my turntable, because I do anyway.

Locus + and Charrm (2001)

The Kenotaphion project by Jonty Semper. The one minute silence, recorded in Hyde Park, London, 8 September, 1997, from the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Jonty Semper released this 7” as part of his Kenotaphion project. The other part of the project is a two CD set of all the existing broadcast recordings of the two minute silences from Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday in Whitehall, London.

Simply beautiful and clean, nothing else is necessary. Two great and tragic projects? Walk away. Always leave the audience wanting. Quietly.

Colin Smythe (1971)

Konstantin Raudive, Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead

The 7” came free with the hardcover first edition of Breakthrough by Raudive.

An original and without a doubt one of the best. I think the label speaks for itself. I cannot help loving EVP recordings. What other kind of recording asks you to project your belief and hopes as the only possible method to prove its authenticity?

Vacuum Records (1979)

Policeband: Stereo/Mono
A story and then facts.

Several years ago I went to a lecture at the Art Institute by New York curator/writer Bob Nickas. I’d met him a year or so earlier, liked him, respected him, and he seemed to get along with me well enough. We found a quick music and bourbon bond. A late November evening he gives me a call, and tells me he’s coming to Chicago, I should check out the lecture, and that he has a gift for me. “Something you’ll never expect and freak out over.” An obscure record that he learned only recently was actually produced and released by an acquaintance of his; and not just that, this person still had copies. So Bob bought a bunch to give as gifts to the appreciative.

This is great. Fantastic. I’m giddy.

Reality hits--shit, I should give him something. The day of the lecture I grab a copy of a recent book I had published by an artist I am sure he knows and likes. Dike Blair’s Again: Selected Interviews and Essays. Bob and I meet-up real briefly before the talk. He hands me this 7”, I hand him the book. He laughs. Bob didn’t know that I knew Dike and had been working on this book. Predictable really: Dike was the one who released Policeband: Stereo/Mono, the person from whom Bob bought a stack. I love a balance that blindsides you.

Back to the recording: there is a real truth in advertising to the band name and song titles on this one. A nice simple design all around. You can still get a copy.

I’ll let Dike speak for the record:
"Policeband was a one-man act - the man being Boris, a New York City kid and a classically trained musician who picked up on performance art while studying and teaching at Cal Arts in the early 70s. Boris became Boris Policeband after a live performance in 1976 during which he monitored, on headphones, police communications from a scanner and recited their chatter while he accompanied himself on electric violin. Boris was fascinated by cop culture and the often prosaic and sometimes poetic reality of law enforcement. Over the next couple years the cop-talk and violin-screech coalesced into discrete songs. His live performances were extremely loud/edgy aggressive/dissonant, and even though most songs were under a minute long and a set rarely exceeded 10 minutes, Boris could quickly empty a room; and that was something he took pride in. The rooms he cleared included CBGBs, Maxs and the Mudd Club; as well as other venues like the Kitchen and Artists Space. Boris, a self-proclaimed Materialistic-Socialist and Antidisestablishmentotalitarian, was a character and downtown club fixture. His days were spent combing thought thrift and pawnshops for material to add to his collection of used books, sunglasses (which he was never seen without), and wristwatches. Every night he was in clubs where he leaned against a wall while listening to classical music with an ear plug on his transistor radio and bouncing his pink Spaulding off the walls and deftly catching it; all the while engaging in snappy repartee and/or swapping insults with passersby. Boris put Policeband down in the mid-80s to pursue his classical viola practice. His present whereabouts are unknown.”

SOS (1993)

Free Kitten
Företag Special Groupie 7"
"Cleopatra" b/w "Loose Lips"

I have always had a soft spot for Free Kitten (more so than Sonic Youth to be honest). Headed by Kim Gordon and Julie Cafritz, the band usually has Yoshimi P-We on the drums, and then Mark Ibold on bass if need be. This 7” was released for the Lollapalooza tour of 1993, with only Gordon and Cafritz, joined by Wharton Tiers on drums just to mix things up. A true band with an attitude, Free Kitten has cornered the market on a certain insouciant come-hither bratty quality that in a split second of amplifier squall spills over into sweetness or spite. Dreamy. Free Kitten understands infatuation like no other. The less they care, the more I love them. Funny thing is, they can care, aren’t afraid to be fans, and show the love when and where it is deserved. Maybe I just haven’t earned that right.

Who could say it better? “Hey, we want a piece of the action!”

Sympathy for the Record Industry (1994)

"Stop messing with my head with your half baked ragas, dull pseudo ethnic arcana, fake folk etc don't give me 'give and take' improv, and please no 'interesting', I want full-on universal electric blood or nothing (Nothing is pretty good too)…"
— Matthew Bower, from a March 31, 2005 text for Volcanic Tongue record shop.

Happy 4th! In honor of this holiday, I offer a record under the lead of Matthew Bower, one British individual who’d be able to convert us into loyal British subjects again single-handed with just one guitar, an amp and a howl. (As he has in his bands Mirag, Pure, Total, Sunroof! and some later versions of Skullflower.) Thankfully he wasn’t around in the 18th century. We'd be eating grilled tomatoes with fish cakes for breakfast. So I offer a 7” from the first glory days of Skullflower.

I could mention I met him once at the Empty Bottle. Saw him standing alone before a show. I walked up, thanked him for the years of music and pleasure. Bower looked up at me (he's rather short), beer in hand, and replied, in a cold yet somehow not mean or condescending manner, "How do you know who I am?" Didn't have an answer. Then an hour later, electric bliss.

Back to the matter at hand. One of many of the best things about Bower, is his nonchalance about being tough. He came up with a great band name, everything else is malleable. Look at the label. Flies? Gnats? Drooling bumblebees? Ok, maybe a rabid wasp. Not too scared regardless.

And the song titles. You know you aren’t worried about image when you can use these titles for your heavy brutal stomp. If it is gonna pummel you, the title can have a little fun, no? Who needs bluster? I’m skittish just considering encountering any of the fully-grown horses of this “Ponyland.” Only Bower would dream to make a “Fake Revolt” more menacing than a real one. This is the stuff electricity was invented for, to mangle and buzz over paleolithic drums. When other opportunities fall through, sometimes to get the heart racing one must stick out your thumb and hold high that cardboard sign: “Nihilism or Bust!”

Captured Tracks (2008)

What to say? Probably the most beautiful label I own of a band that has excelled at some very good and at times prickly design work. Teenage Panzerkorps (or Der TPK) have released a smattering of 7"s and LPs. All worth having. After a truly hardcore infused full-length on Siltbreeze they took a turn onto post-punk lane, with lo-fi production, moist reverb and warm echo to spare. Wouldn't have been out of character in early 80s London (or Australia really). A sound I can live in. On top of all that, Bunker Wolf's vocals are nearly legible while sturdy and declarative; a sprechstimme to make Mark E. Smith grouse.

Maybe I should mention it is hard to know what to do with the entire package. The name, the band member names (Bunker Wolf, Edmund Xavier, Boy True, Catholic Pat), the album names (Harmful Emotions, Games For Slaves), song titles ("Arc De Triomphe," "Knut Hamsun," etc.), some of the art uses a decidedly German eagle... certainly looking to push a button, or keep themselves marginalized. A place for discomfort. I don't know, but when the reverb wraps me I'm at home.

Grand Royal (1999)

Must start this holiday weekend off right. That, of course, means Biz Markie doing Elton John's classic, sandwiched by a tiny aperitif and little after-mint. Lovers of classic music and lovers of karaoke will all find a way to lose themselves when this spins. So close to perfection. Except he is not so clear on all the lyrics. What he loses in detail he more than makes up for in emphasis. In fact, I wonder if Markie is a bit of a clothes horse, given the enthusiasm and gusto he throws behind: "She's got electric boots / a mohair suit / You know I read it in a magazine."

This flex-disc came as an insert to Issue #2 of the short-lived Grand Royal magazine. The entire issue is a classic: an abusive interview with Ted Nugent, long winding article on Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Thurston Moore's free jazz top ten. But it's Biz that takes the cake, the cupcake, the cookie and any other sweet you've got laying around, including those mangy M & M's lodged under the couch cushions.

Ecstatic Peace! / Father Yod (1995)

I know the labels are wicked crooked. It is better this way, given we are dealing with Destroy All Monsters. I was going to have to represent for the home state (Michigan) eventually. So I decided the original music destroyers fronted by now LA-based artists Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw, with still Michiganders Cary Loren and Niagara, covering, in a matter of speaking, "Detroit: Rock City" live in Detroit was the logical choice.

(Warning: If you have never been to Cary's Book Beat in Oak Park, MI you have no idea what you are missing.)

Recorded at one of the sporadic Destroy All Monster reunions, this single always gets the evening off to a strange start. I love playing this for guests, and asking them to tell me if it sounds better played at 33 1/3 or 45. The voting is split pretty even to date--which isn't so surprising. My copy came in a screen-printed cardboard box, faux fur-lined on the inside, and accompanied by a random assortment of stickers, photos, paper scraps and misbegottens. No two copies are exactly the same. This is sometimes known as the "Monkey Fur Box," but I have to admit I don't know when those times are. Edition of 250.

Make yourself a Motor City Mule. Fire up the Hi-Fi. Put the feet up and let the bastardized tones curl your toes you Peanut Butter Motherfuckers!

By the way... I don't want to ignore the A-Side here. Lest you forget the immortal words popularized by Roberta Flack, here they are:

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
And listen for a while
And there he was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes

I felt all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters
And read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on

He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn't there
And he just kept on singing
Singing clear and strong

Bang Records (1966)

A good song is its own reward. If the song has a good label, that is extra value, no charge. What could be better than Neil Diamond's first single? I don't know. In fact, there is so much I don't know it's best to let Neil have the last word:

Don't know that I will
But until I can find me...

The Sound of White Columns/SmartGuy Records (2008)

British artist Martin Creed takes things down to bare necessities and near dope-slap simplicity. This fine edition is a great example. A classic post-punk stomp (bah, bah, bah, bah, bah-bah, bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah...) in a clear guitar twang driven by crisp drums with the only lyrics the song of the disaffected has ever really required. On beautiful white vinyl. Oh, and not B-side: A or AA.

Dundee Contemporary Arts (2006)

...wait for it... wait for it...