Black Roses - Original Soundtrack

1988, Metal Blade Records
Tracklist:
01 - Black Roses - Dance on Fire
02 - Black Roses - Soldiers of the Night
03 - Bang Tango - I'm No Stranger
04 - Black Roses - Rock Invasion
05 - Black Roses - Paradise (We're On Our Way)
06 - Lizzy Borden - Me Against the World
07 - King Cobra - Take It Off
08 - David Michael Phillips - King of Kool
09 - Tempest - Streetlife Warrior
10 - Hallows Eve - D.I.E.

link no longer exists. possibly reported, sorry.

I have a friend who just rented the recently released DVD of the movie Black Roses to my suggestion. He seemed to think it was an utter piece of shit... Its possible that the only reason I hold it in high regard in the "Heavy Metal Horror" genre of films that were coming out in the late '80s is because thats when I first watched it. How could it be bad? Look at that cover! The actual VHS copy of it that was available for rental had a pop up textured cover! (you'd have to remember that VHS sales didn't become a household thing until the '90s, and rental copies were the only ones available from companies - generally at the up and up price of $80 or more) Anyways. The movie is directed by the same guy who directed the Thor starring heavy metal horror "Rock'N'Roll Nightmare" a year or two before. This one was a more realistic feeling story about teenage rebellion and a town (Mill Basin) that didn't want the kids favorite band - Black Roses, to play. With good reason, of course. The bands music leads to demonic posession (oh how typical) Anyways, This soundtrack has a bunch of odd-metal ballads (I guess thats what they can be called), and the Lizzy Borden song is actually top notch, I think its playing in the movie during a scene where the guy who plays Big Pussy on the Sopranos gets EATEN BY A FUCKING STEREO. Go watch this movie, and then tell me if you think it sucks too or if my friend is just an asshole.... right now I really just miss the "Satanic Panic" that I was living through firsthand in the '80s. No, I wasn't too young to absorb it all. It was everywhere...
Another friend, when I was about 10 or 11, went through an issue of Circus magazine that I owned and went to the rock and roll t shirts and crossed out the ones he said were devil worshipping bands -the funny thing was he only seemed to target items like White Lion and Guns and Roses while leaving the obvious satanic insignia of bands such as Slayer and Helloween unmarked. Thats the '80s for ya.

For What? #1

mix cd, approx. feb 2004.
Tracklist:
01 - Laid Back - White Horse
02 - Coati Mundi Hernandez - K Pasa Pos I
03 - M-A-R-R-S - Pump Up the Volume
04 - Tuxedomoon - Desire
05 - Luniz - I've Got Five On It
06 - Liquid Liquid - Caverns
07 - Grandmaster Flash - White Lines
08 - The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
09 - Stacey Q - Two of Hearts
10 - Nu Shooz - Baby, I Can't Wait
11 - Quintron - Meet Me at the Clubhouse (remix)
12 - Neneh Cherry - Buffalo Stance
13 - Afrika Bambaataa - Planet Rock
14 - SSQ - Tonight (We'll Make Live 'Til We Die)
15 - Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman
16 - Suicide - Cheree

get it here.

First in a long line of hit or miss mix cds i've made. Named after something a friend wrote on his sweatpants and pointed at when asked questions around that same period of time. Inspired by drug use. Party drugs, duh. Also took a few rip offs from the Downtown '81 Soundtrack. (A running theme has been taking a soundtrack and running with some of the tracks, as seen later in #3.)

Neil Young - Trans

Geffen Records, 1982.
Tracklist:
01 - Little Thing Called Love
02- Computer Age
03 - We R in Control
04 - Transformer Man
05 - Computer Cowboy
06 - Hold on to Your Love
07 - Sample and Hold
08 - Mr Soul
09 - Like an Inca
-----
Bonus: 10 minute "jam" of Neil Young with Devo as his backing band doing "My My Hey Hey", with Mark Mothersbaugh on vocals. From the movie Human Highway.

get it here.

Pretty crazy album here. Most of the songs are sung with a vocoder. The first of two albums that ended up getting Neil sued by Geffen records for turning in "unmarketable albums." How cool is that? Anyways, the sound is very different from an average Neil Young Album, as the compositions represent "future music" - somewhere in between the gap between Kraftwerk and Trans Am... but I know its sort of cheesy to and lame to say that. Whatever.

From wikipedia:
"The story behind its creation is very interesting. Neil Young found that when using a vocoder when communicating to his son (who was born with cerebral palsy) he was able to elicit a better response." wow.

Edith Massey - Big Girls Don't Cry 7"

Egg Records, Unknown year. (approx. 1980ish)
Tracklist (as if it wasn't obvious):
01 - Big Girls Don't Cry
02 - Punks, Get off the Grass

get it here.

As noted on the sleeve pictured above - "the egg lady from pink flamingos", dreamlander Edith Massey reinvented herself as a punk goddess in the late 70s. Unfortunately, this is the only recorded document of that time period, though a few handfuls of photographs exist.
Pretty weird stuff, but really good sounding for some reason.

Short & sweet.

Sidekick Kato - First Class Chump

1995, Johanns Face Records.
Tracklist:
01 - Yellow Fever
02 - 1st Class Chump
03 - Kruses
04 - Valentine
05 - Elephant Shoes
06 - Bruised
07 - Airborne
08 - Orion
09 - Crashhappy
10 - Liquid Courage

get it here.

They brought the weird into the Chicagoland punk. And I think they brought the beers, too. Or maybe Dave Eaves was smuggling them in that fannypack of his. Love songs about drinking, paintings (and paranoias) about aliens, and tight songwriting. I swear though, I think theres something in the water over in Des Plaines... I think it was at one of their shows where I first spotted the modest Eorl Scholl, who was probably taking care of setting up/taking apart the drums. Hes still around. The rest of the guys I don't know about. Had a strange encounter with Tom Anderson (vocals) a few years back, and the Apocalypse Hoboken vs. Oblivion show in December of last year is probably the only time i've seen any of the other guys since the beginning of this decade...

In a clever way to whore this out (I never said I wouldn't sellout if the price was right... we're all whores anyways, right?) and give some search engine fodder i'll go ahead and make note that the boys choir on Kruses had a lil youngin who went on to be every fifteen year old girls heartthrob cream dream, Matt Skiba. At this point in time ('95) Alkaline Trio wasn't even a cumstain on the map yet, they came around a year later and were actually GOOD for about 10 months... prettysure that he wasn't old enough to legally drink yet, but then again Tom probably wasn't either. This was a while before Dave Eaves put a halt to underage drinking at Fireside.. Oh, and on a better note, the mainstays of Apocalypse Hoboken are also part of that choir. (Todd, Andy, Scott.) I'll probably be adding more of their stuff in the future as it has all gone so hopelessly out of print... ((updated 1/21/10, higher quality image!))

Dot Dot Dot - 2 x 7"

Emu Records, Complacency records, 1983/1984.
Tracklist:
01 - And Then You Realized You Haven't Left Yet
02 - Was War Morgen
03 - Just
04 - Not To Say

get it here.

Dot Dot Dot started somewhere around 1982 (hey, just like me.) somewhere around Palatine or Schaumburg (IL), featuring Thymme Jones, Chris Block, Jef Bek, Scott Ashley and maybe a few other guys ended up playing with them too. Thymme is the forerunner for Cheer-Accident, who are still going strong despite a rotating cast of 20 or so people over the years and the death of their guitarist/friend Phil Bonnet. I don't know much else about these recordings other than to say C-A has been incorporating the first track into their sets a lot recently, and possibly the second song as well. I'm never going to get the definitive story, but in the mid '90s, three girls who were prominent in their own bands (jodi mecanic - math/duotron/monotrona, kelly kuvo - scissor girls, rose pm - zeek sheck) later started a all girl Dot Dot Dot, and to make things even weirder friends and members of Cheer-Accident were involved on their one and only LP (Dylan "Mick Mars" Posa was a guest, and during that period he was a member of C-A, Bobby Conn sang for them on a track called "valentine" - I have video of a bleach blonde Bobby belting this one out with the girls at their last show ever..) and now, there is a complete waste of time from the same area going under the Dot Dot Dot moniker, though I don't know anything else about them other than they were winners on some Fox "Making the Band" type reality show. Confused? Good. This is the best band to ever use the name....

Apocalypse Hoboken - "easy instructions for complex machinery"

1995, Johanns Face Records.
Tracklist:
01 - Jerk Lessons
02 - Smoker's Cough
03 - Not My Kind of Guy
04 - Be Alright
05 - Butter on the Rim
06 - Dean is a Punk
07 - Cindy (Nip Drivers)
08 - Kicking my Head In
09 - Hate is Such a Strong Word
10 - Gay Parade
11 - Sixteen
12 - Misguided Memories (the Freeze)
13 - Sorry Bout the Mess
14 - Sorry
15 - Space Glaze
16 - So Emotional
17 - Little Red Riding Hood (Sam Sham and the Pharohs)

get it here.

One day i'll write a very long winded story about my teenage years. One day. Before I die. Maybe. For now I don't really know where to start - it's overwhelming. The fireside bowl was the place to be in Chicago, and if you were around for that and if you were into punk rock in the mid '90s, theres a good chance you saw these guys, unless you absolutely avoided the,. (My toll was probably an average of once every two or three months for these guys. Oblivion, their rivals and good freinds, on the other hand usually played once a month. All that work and barely any recogniton... shame.) A majority of the people who played in this band are still involved in some project or another, with singer Todd ranking most active with at least three new bands under his belt, after a long period of no bands at all. They still rise from the grave from time to time, though those shows are few and far between they're really not something to be missed. I miss these guys more than most bands around from that period (oblivion is on top of that list too) and when I think about how long ago all of this was it just makes me feel like i'm too old for this shit. Maybe. Probably not.

Here is the original album description as recalled by drummer Andy on their now defunct website, with more information that you really asked for:

"Todd insisted on this title, and even had a lyric by the same title, but never used it. We had to record this quickly to finish it for our summer tour, so we've always had little bitches about it. We finally got to do a Nip Drivers song, and I think we did a Freeze cover, too (now there's an original idea). Whereas on past releases Bill and Scott did the majority of the songwriting, now everyone was gettin involved, which made it really fun and different. The cover was our take on The Rolling Stones' "Exile On Main Street", though the only thing we ever heard about it was, "Why are the KKK on the cover? Do you like the KKK? You're going to get in TROUBLE!" As of today, we still haven't gotten 'in trouble', Punk Rock is soooo daring these days. Also, the song "Kicking My Head In" was taken a little too literally. While we were trying to poke holes in "homophobic logic", some people just didn't understand the black humor we intend to inject into our songs. ("Gay Parade" has nothing to do with gay people, by the way). The first song should be a dead give-away as to how we feel about those who take everything at face value. "Little Red Riding Hood" became a regular set closer, and I think we've played "Sorry" live twice. "So Emotional", one of our favorite songs, with guest vocals by Tom Little Face from Sidekick Kato, has never been played live, because screaming for three minutes straight makes Todd a dull boy. "Dean Is a Punk", I think, is about someone in particular, not named Dean, though. The "Baby" (LP insert, CD back cover) is Todd's baby brother, Skylar."

Bobby Conn - Self Titled (LP Version)

1997, Truckstop/Atavistic.
Tracklist:
01 - The Sportsman
02 - I Love You
03 - Whos the Paul?
04 - Crimson and Clover
05 - No Kids, No Money

get it here.

He's still making great albums to this day, but in 1997 Bobby was a lot more edgy, and the music was a lot more raw. Hes since gone on to make very polished yet amazing albums (why his only recognition seems to be in Europe i'll never be sure) and while this one is almost completely different in style, its just as good. Back when he first re-emerged from the ashes of Condeucent, he came with some new stories. Not represented here, but very prominent on the CD, was his "Axis '67" storyline. (of which parts one and three were on the self titled album, while part two ended up on his second album "Rise Up!" a years later) In this prediction, Bobby synced up the year he was born (1967) to the year the world was supposed to end (2000), and Jesus Christ's age when he supposedly died (33). Bobby would sing about how he was the antichrist, how come 2000 we were all fucked. The continuous cash flow system he "invented" also staged for some good hype, stories of taking money from the audience, in which those who didn't fork out a dollar or twenty or fifty were only passed on the person next to them who had the dollar, twenty or fifty to spare. All of this came with a publicist that no one ever saw "Marla Cummings (or is it Marsha, or maybe Martha?)", he did an amazing job getting himself out there and making sure nobody knew if he was for real or not. There are stories still disputed to this day...

During this time, pamphlets and promotional materials were widely distributed, fabrication of events in the press (he had told one interviewer as a joke that he cut off the ring finger on one of his hands, which became a popular myth at the time despite both of his hands having fully efficient sets of fingers) and many more stories came out of it that i've seemed to have forgotten at this point. The strength on these stories alone could probably win in the favor of why '90s Chicago was much more exciting than Chicago now, but who cares?
These days the storyline is pretty much gone, and he's more focused on just writing songs and being a father.


Released on vinyl and CD at the same time, with the same album cover, but that was almost all they had in common. This version is even more raw sounding than the CD, they both have three of the same songs, though each are different versions (the sportsman represented here I believe is also from his first 7", leans more towards funk than rock, while the CD is vice versa), Whos the Paul ended up as an experiement on the CD version, with the 7" 45 rpm version slowed down to 33, and No Kids, No Money has some different arrangments. A re-recorded version of I Love You Ended up on the japanese import of 1999s "llovessonggs" EP. Oh, also, a limited amount of the original pressing of the LP had googly eyes glued on.


This rip is missing track 06, as it is the same version of "Never Get Ahead" that also appears on the CD version of the album. You can find a video of the "clean" version on youtube, edited from footage from Chic-a-go-go, it ended up on MTV's Alternative Nation sometime in 96 or 97, or so the story goes. There is an annoying needle jump in "I Love You", though sometime soon I think I'm putting up another version of that song here anyways, along with a bunch of other non album tracks.

Neon King Kong - Complete Recordings/Live

Approx. 2003. Various record labels.
Tracklist:
Studio:
01 - Mix up the Mix
02 - Jerks are Creeping
03 - Get Whats Going Around
04 - Theres a Party
05 - Annette's Got the Hits
Live:
01 - Mix up the Mix
02 - Hit Me Like a Jet
03 - untitled
04 - Annette's Got the Hits
05 - untitled
06 - untitled
07 - Jerks are Creeping
08 - untitled
09 - untitled

get it here.

Another short lived project from Hot Rod Todd of Le Shok (I'm debating putting up their collected singles, as the official release hasn't come yet.) NKK existed for what seemed like maybe 4 weeks, plowing through and giving up with an impressive catalog for such a short live: two 7" singles and a compilation track. I'm imagining the live set here is one of if not their only show, as they had a tour scheduled but broke up right before it launched. Musically it's pretty similar to Le Shok, unlike the other 4 or 5 projects Todd has been involved with since.

Mort Garson - "Black Mass (by) Lucifer"

1971, MCA Records.
Tracklist:
01 - Solomon's Ring
02 - Ride of Aida
03 - Incubus
04 - Black Mass
05 - Evil Eye
06 - Exorcism
07 - Philostone
08 - Voices of Dead
09 - Witchtrial
10 - ESP

Get it here.

Looks like the artist (or album, I guess) is called "Black Mass Lucifer", right? What you can't see in the reduced image, and is pretty much only visible on an original LP copy itself is the word "by" between the two blocks of letters - making the album titled "Black Mass" and the supposed artist Lucifer. In reality, the person behind this was one man named Mort Garson, who not only pioneered moog music with albums such as this in the early '70s, but also paved the way for a slew of "demonic" albums that were released in the '80s, mostly of the heavy metal variety, although this is a far cry from a typical metal album it was mentioned briefly in the book Lords of Chaos. The LP lays out printed mythos to go along with each song, and if I remember correctly has no mention of Garson on it at all, to make it seem more authentically "evil" (he also had work in music for films.)

My first experience with this album was probably much like many people who also discovered it out of nowhere. Somewhere around 2000 a friend of mine kept telling me about his dad's "Black Mass Lucifer" record, though he believed it to be a true product of evil - mentioned how his parents would play it on Halloween (barf.) and how his dad wouldn't give him the record. So we listened to it, I was somewhat impressed, and looked more into it to find out that not only was the album name not what he had been referring to it as, but that there wasn't even a band involved.

In searching for the cover art to this album I also discovered something unfortunate - Mort Garson passed away not less than a month ago, on January 4th, 2008. Over the next few days or weeks I'll continue to post more records recorded by him, as none of them ever saw reissues in his lifetime, and have more or less faded into obscurity.

Black Randy and the Metrosquad - "Pass the Dust, I Think I'm Bowie"

January, 1980.
Tracklist:
01 - I Slept in an Arcade
02 - Marlon Brando
03 - Down at the Laundromat
05 - I Wanna be a Nark
06 - Give it up or Turn it Loose
07 - Idi Amin
08 - Sperm Bank Baby (lp)
09 - Barefootin on the Wicked Picket
10 - San Francisco
11 - Tellin Lies
12 - Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud
13 - (Theme From) Shaft
14 - Last Stop on the Express
15 - Trouble at the Cup
16 - Loner with a Boner
17 - Sperm Bank Baby (single)
18 - Green Frog Excerpts
19 - Theme from Scorpio
20 - Beershit, Disco Loner

REMOVED. reissued on LP in 2009

Not much I can say about Black Randy other than it's not only a shame that you can't really find this album anymore, but that it's also a shame that he never recorded another album, and most of all, its a shame that he died in either '89 or '90. Hard to explain just exactly what this is, you're better off just following this link:
http://www.furious.com/Perfect/blackrandy.html

Drunks With Guns - self titled 7" a.k.a. "Melissa"

1991, Glitterhouse Records
Track List:
01 - Zombie
02 - Fistpuppet
03 - WW IX
04 - Shredded Meat

Download HERE

The original Drunks With Guns were a "legendary" punk band from St Louis, MO, active in the mid 80s. Internal conflict brought a split between the two "main members" - Stan Seitrich and Mike Doscosil. Each of them continued to record under the Drunks moniker, each claiming they owned the rights to the name, wrote the songs, etc. In a most bizarre movie, Stan's Drunks "hired" a "12 or 13 year old" girl named Melissa to do the singing on the last incarnation of the band. The first time I ever saw this in a record bin it had a sticker that the distributor added to it saying " 12 year old singer! Jailbait!" Stan's new DWG put out this 7", another repackackaged version with more songs, and a more appealing cover featuring the 12 (or 13) year old in all of her glory, with a somewhat questionable picture on the back of her dressed up like a lolita on the playground.

Stan now "plays" in the Strangulated Beatoffs, but that is another band for another day. There is no solid proof of whatever became of Melissa, though I have a vague remembrance of reading someone post on a St Louis music message board that shes gone on to become you're average white trash young mother. No proof to back that up, it's possible that I just dreamed that up...

Mike to this day still claims he IS Drunks With Guns, and someone is still paying the fees for web domain with 2 or 3 pictures of him on it, which looks like it was made in 1998 and hasn't been updated since. But really, who cares anymore? The original spark is long gone and I think Stan's choice in a new singer wins the battle between them hands down. Enjoy.

The cover I've chosen to include is from a different edition of the 7" that was a double and released on Behemoth records. As far as I know the recordings are the same. Lacking from this set is the second 7", which included three songs. A Ramones cover (long way back), a song called "Melissa explains it all" (an obvious reference to "Clarissa explains it all", this one was my favorite song out of the whole set), and one other I can't remember right now. Those songs might be added here later.
-----
From Trouser Press:
Seitrich formed the negligible, less rocking Strangulated Beatoffs with Fritz Noble. Doskocil played drums (quite well) for melodic HC middleweights Ultraman before getting kicked out and moving to Arizona. In exile, he released material with Bootbeast and Bullets for Pussy. DeLeon stayed home and founded Fruitcake. As a result of posthumous notoriety and general idiocy, Mike D. (along with one Malcolm Bliss) reformed DWG at some point. So did Seitrich and DeLeon around the same time, only they had the gall to hire some 12-year-old jailbait named Melissa as their singer. Resulting singles and EPs by both parties are simply flat. Doskocil's version resembled a dull punk band covering Drunks' tunes, while the guitarist and bassist version spat out raw riffery topped with Melissa's annoying (if disturbingly funny) sex-and-blood whimsy.

Hello.

I typically hate these things. "Music blogs." I typically hate the word "blog." (therefore this will be the only mention of it from here on out, aside from the url.) I felt that I have come across plenty of albums/singles that I feel should be more easily available that have either never been released, reissued, or had their run and have since gone far out of print. A fair amount of what I am posting here has come from various sources, and there are only a few rips of my own that i'll be including (for now at least.) Have fun. I've got enough lined up to post one every day or two for the first couple months, we'll see if it gets that far and if it does, we'll see where it goes from there.


How lame.