You hear about early MBV being influenced by The Scientists, Birthday Party and The Cramps. I did hear some of these early MBV recordings once and they were not the best. Listening the other day to an old Scientists record though made me go oh here's a connection to the My Bloody Valentine we all know and love. So they didn't necessarily jettison their old influences in favour of new ones. Much respect. It might be a tenuous connection, I can hear it anyway. And when that Swervedriver song came out we all thought "How Blatant is that?" Anyway see what you think.
Glaring Omissions started as a series of records that deserved to be in The Top 100 Australian albums book and the Age's Top 50 Australian Albums list. This is the 3rd installment with perhaps another 4 or 5 to come. This record came into my life as a teenager living in er....Cardross. For those who don't know that's like 15 KMs out of Mildura and over 600 ks from Melbourne. My bro was living in Melbourne and would often bring back strange and interesting things for me. This was pre JJJ National Radio/ pre internet etc. This record probably reached me pre Rage era perhaps. BeatBox and Rock Arena were probably the only 2 shows on tv at the time where you could hear the weirrd, wonderful and independent. So sometime in the mid to late 80s I first heard The Primitive Calculators. The LP also came with a postcard and a 7" single and was recorded in 1979 in a Melbourne pub. Many years after leaving home I asked my Dad where were the records I left behind? he said I gave them to the op shop. Anyway I still had a Sony C90 tape of it in some kind of working order until that reissue on Chapter came along in the 00s.
Me and my little sister used to put it on and go what the fuck is this? It was so anti social and noisy we thought it was hilarious and a bit frightening. Were they for real we wondered. Or were they just havin' a laugh. The music was a harsh onslaught of electroncly fucked with guitar, 2 keyboards and drum machines with what seemed like no regard for recording technique or er.. melody. Were there really people like this living in Melbourne? It was great music for a teenager because it was so obnoxious and fuckin funny. Mum didn't like hearing that one comin out of the bedroom. Anyway over time it seemed to never leave me and never get old. It sounds just as great now as it did over 25 years ago. This was no fuckin' Clash record. This was beyond punk, what punk should have been, sonic violence for the demented. So over time I have noticed the chaos is more controlled than I used to think and just maybe there were some great pop songs hidden in there somewhere. It is not a record I expected to still be diggin at my age. I think I love it more than ever actually!
So maybe they are pop songs. Stuart says he saw the band as an Australian Boogie band in the vein of The Purple Hearts, The Throb, Chain and Billy Thorpe. It starts to make a lot of sense they were an electronic version of a one chord Aussie boogie band with a bit of Stockhausen chucked in. My favorite track from the album bake in the sun was so funny and had great lyrics. These are some I randomly recall probably not in the right order. This could be our national anthem.
I'm bake in the sun
I wanna spend my life down by the sea
I wanna shrivel up
I wanna smell some seaweed
I wanna peice of cake
I wanna go home
I wanna revolution
I don't wanna do another days work in my life
I want some food from the kiosk
"If their intention was to be hated then they certainly acheived that.....on a personal level as well"
Rowland S Howard (Guitar/Saxaphone/Vocals in The Birthday Party)
Back cover to Primitve Calculators LP
"Nothing else in Melbourne influenced us. We were such obnoxious little shits, we didn't give anybody a chance to like us" Stuart from Primitve Calculators.
Stuart Grant (guitar and vocals) in the We're Livin On Dog Food doco and RadioNational's Hindsight: Do That Dance radio show has been incredibly insightful and articulate about what circumstances, theories and attitudes shaped the band and that entire Melbourne Post-Punk scene. He really enjoyed the idea of punk and the fact it was saying something truly antisocial. He thought the anger and disillusionment of it just seemed right. He thought with the Ramones arriving there was a strong sense that his culture had arrived. Stuart aknowledges the legacy of the Whitlam Government and their making the dole liveable with my favorite quote of his."The State Paid us to Reject it!"
Stuart is eminently quotable. I could quote him all day but here is one last one that sums up the bands ethos. "What we realised when we started using the drum machine and we got electronic (was that) we sounded much nastier. We started to actually try and make music that would hurt people. Making the sounds as brutal and horrible as possible. Making the drumbeats as repetitive and fast as possible and tried to get it ugly"
I Can't Stop It-The Primitive Calculators
Their one and only film clip I think.
"The Primitive Calculators were a completely unreal band and there's no 2 ways about it! Live and on record."
Quote from Natioal Treasure Philip Brophy.
*One cool thing I've just noticed that I'd forgotten is that this record was recorded at Hearts in North Carlton where my brother's band did some gigs and even my old band played there once,
**Here is where to download that podacast Do That Dance about the Melbourne Post-Punk scene.
***Many quotes taken from Richard Lowenstein's doco We're Livin' On Dogfood. Thanks Dick I'm sure you won't mind anarchy and all that.
I was thinking about that former post where I asked about The Flying Lotus album and whether I'd missed anything. I don't really have any anxiety there. There are hundreds of top records out there. I can't listen to all of them. So it doesn't really bother me when I get rid of something or don't give something much of a chance. Maybe if someone exposes me to that Dick Diver record more, I might come around but I can't see any reason to seek out another listen of my own free will.
It's what makes you go back to something that interests me. Like why do you do it. Records I don't understand when I first hear them is a pretty strong reason for a repeated listen like when I first heard Slint, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Mars, New Kingdom, Sly Stone's There's A Riot Going On, early Roxy Music, Chrome, The Fire Engines, This Heat's Deceit, The Axemen or Royal Trux's Twin Infinitives. Had to keep playing them, to in some way try and figure out what was going on or what was making it interesting even if it was just plain bafflement. But when I got it fuck I really dug it. Then there are some things that are more immediate that you're just gonna dig no matter what, like when I first heard Kraftwerk, The Fall, Prince, Neu, The Clean, The Pixies, MBV and Boards of Canada. I love these bands just as much today as the above bands.
This is a mental LP.
Wholesome family fun by a couple
of lovely boys.
I don't really care to analyse why I reject things. Usually they're just shit or I've heard it all before. Some things just seem gross or wrong. Sometimes it's just not my bag alhough I have e very open mind when it comes to music. Don't get me wrong I like cheap and nasty as much as drug fueled over budget/production.
God I don't really get this and I've been a fan of James Ferraro for many years now and pretty much enjoyed everything I've been able to hear of his, which is over 30 releases (I think there maybe twice as many I haven't tracked down) This new release however under the name of Bodyguard I can't seem to grapple with. I don't really get it but I'm not sure I want to listen to it for the 4th time. I must say he's had a bloody great run over the last 6 or 7 years so one disappointing record is hardly going to ruin his reputation with me. Will I give it another spin or is life too short?
I was listening to Nudge Squidfish on my Ipod last night and was thinking are they the one's who do a rude Gilligan's Isle song and then bang this came on. A little bit funny and a little bit wrong. How old am I?
I did such a bad attempt at a review of their latest self-titled double LP on Spectrum Spools I thought they deserved another try. For me it all started with the tape Seeping Through The Veil of Unconsciousness on Digitalis. This came out of the blue for me and was a cut above the rest of the field with their unique pretty haunting echoes and immersive electronic drift. In my top 5 for 2010. I thought they were going to struggle to top this but they have at least twice.
An auspicious introduction.
Then there was Awakening a 3 track tape which may have been recorded earlier than the previous tape I'm not sure. More vague allusive bubbling drones, haunting ebbs and flows with waves of of wordless vocals. Side B gains an atmospheric intensity.
Released on Dial Square Tapes
I think I have missed a few in between(try a gazillion, check bandcamp) but my next one was the 2011 classic Luminaries & Synastry. This release containing shorter tracks. Is this their attempt at a pop album? Dunno about that. Electronic pulses, synth ambience and even some textural guitar. There may have even been words hidden in the swarms of buried of vocals. I described it in my top 11 LPs of 2011 as all the Vs - vaporous, vague and vacuous. All meant as compliments. Lovely.
Did you read your Stars today?
Now for my 2nd attempt to make this album sound as appealing as it is. Motion Sickness of Time Travel's self titled 2012 epic double LP. They really stretch out here with side long tracks and it suits them. They voyage out into the the cosmos in a holy manner with heavenly pulsating tones Tripping through intergalactic aquatic landscapes and then into ominous black holes and back again. Nobody has come up with a true Kosmische masterpiece such as this since the 1970s.
I was just deleting some stuff from my computer today and deleted some music. Some of it listened to, some of it not and some of it half listened to. How many chances does an LP, MP3, CD or Tape get nowadays? Not many. Gone after a few listens Prince Rama, White Poppy, Nite Jewel's latest, Zomby, Dick Diver, Twerps, Real Estate, Cruise Family, Raw Thrills and John Maus. Others in the last few years I got rid of very quickly include Demdike Stare, TheNecks, Mordant Music's Symptoms, Gonjasufi, Flying Lotus, Hype Williams, Forest Swords, Micachu & The Shapes and Black Moth Super Rainbow's Dandelion Gum, maybe some of these deserved a 3rd or 10th chance. In this day and age of information overload, being ruthless seems the way to go. Time and space are of the essence in my home and on my computer. I also don't waste time listening to the radio for hours on end or really at all anymore. I am my own radio station now! With hundreds of records, cds, tapes, digital music, Youtube and Soundcloud I am in no need of anyone to make me listen to anything. Sure I read reviews in archaic paper media and on websites and blogs but with many pinches of salt because the sound of what's being reviewed is an instant click away. But maybe my hasty decisions have led me to miss some great stuff by not letting things grow on me. It took me many attempts over about 12 years to get into Exile on Main St by The Stones and probably at least 15 listens to start not hating Love's Forever Changes. These are now 2 of my fave records of all time. More recently Peaking Lights936 and Rangers Suburban Tours had to grow on me before I thought of them as modern day classics. Something drew me back to them though even though I didn't think much of either record on first listen as previosly mentioned elsewhere on this blog. Wasting Time(it may not be though) V Missing Out (you might not though).
A classic of the 2010s after many listens and letting
it grow on me.
*This piece was inspired by a bbq conversation in Sydney in January where Sydneysiders started saying 'Melbourne radio is so good. You must love it blah blah...'and I just said "I am my own radio now! I don't listen to real radio. Why would I?"
Some of my favourite blogs have been disappearing for a while now and another one has just bitten the dust, Turkish Psychedelic Music. This was an incredible resource of its namesake. This music is not easy to find in Australia. There was so much good stuff on there i didn't download. Will this music ever be accessible again? I can hardly see a rush of Turkish reissues forthcoming although I do have a few. A lot of the content from this blog though was scratchy old vinyl nobody was ever gonna reissue.
Glowing Raw was another fave who has packed up shop recently along with Holy Warbles and Flashing Light Will Blind Us who have disappeared without trace. Woebot disappearing (a while ago now) was the weirdest. He didn't have illegal downloads so why didn't he just leave his discontinued blog up there? It was one of THE Great blogs! Was he embarrassed by his old content? If anyone knows how to find the Woebot archives let me know.
Now this a bewdy. One dude from Portishead and one other dude. It's a soundtrack for a movie that didn't want it in the end I think. Anyway it's good gear, probably the movie's loss there, even the Mrs was diggin it. She said it would be a good soundtrack to Neuromancer, did they ever attempt to make a movie of that? So you're probably gettin a picture of dystopian future cities, cyberpunks, 2000AD, old fashioned ideas of futures that never arrived etc. This is a topshelf homage (and there are a few) to the music of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth (and inadertantly or not to thier influences like Goblin, Tangerine Dream et al.). One track had me wanting to dig out my old Add N to X cds. Weird 3/4 of a cd cover, which I kinda like. Harsh minimal synth tones for the escape from Mega City One.
Diggin these grooves.
More Nigerian 70s gold. Soundway Records have
done it again!
On the fence at the moment
with Laurel Halo's 2012 LP Quarantine.
