12 September 2008

BoneMen of Barumba


UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 10/12.2013.
Enjoy, NØ.

Formed in late 1981, the BoneMen of Barumba was the brainchild of suburban Chicago's Tom Jonusatis & Mark Panick. They had met as part of the cities Super8-film art crowd. They dreamed up the band & concept while on a trip to New Orleans.






The B-Men were an underground art-punk weirdcore group similar in some ways to The Pop Group. They released two EPs & one LP, but never found their audience here in the States. They were popular in England & Europe after their first EP was picked up for distribution by Rough Trade/Green World & after getting airplay from John Peel on BBC. Although they had a unique sound & energy, they never were successful commercially. Their third & final release was a full-length album titled Icons that was a joint release on Fever/Enigma. The album didn’t sell well despite it being a good & diverse record & the band called it quits.

You can read more about the BoneMen & listen to their first EP here.

Their second EP is Driving the Bats Thru Jerusalem.

It features: Mark Panick - language, guitar, synthesizer, percussion; Jeff Jordie - guitar, synthesizer, funny talking, cabasa; Tom Jonusaitis - bass, keyboards; Mike Arturi - drums; & Mike Vicicondi - drums.

BoneMen of Barumba - Driving The Bats Thru Jerusalem,
Barumba Records Bone 002, 1982.
decryption code in comments

Naughty Party Monkey side -

Pity it Ain't
Talk is Fat

Renaissance Chimp side -

Thick Promise
Toombah for Ronnie

Enjoy,
NØ
at

4 comments:

  1. ib9/15/08, 4:53 AM

    Interesting, this one. Certainly the adopted tribal look and jacket design looks like it is indebted in equal parts to both the Slits and Pop Group.

    Neat one liner from Steve Albini, too:

    "Barbeque [sic] music from hell"

    I seem to vaguely remember hearing them first time around, but wouldn't swear to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10/23/10, 9:16 PM

    I went to their record release party in 1980 or 81. it was in back of some record store in Elmhurst, Il. The chant from oneof their tunes that is strangely haunting to this day went something like "Give us money, Give us food,Give us things we need..."

    ReplyDelete
  3. NØ10/12/13, 3:53 PM

    MEGA decryption code
    TCTBCDWmXSf1A2Xs7SfZ4F4EvocT_aOw5dup0qAH-NU

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2/11/15, 3:45 PM

    I saw their name scrawled as graffiti on a brick wall near Telegraph Ave in Berkeley sometime around 1983 or 84. I never could forget the name, but I thought it was just some daft graffiti artist or local gang. Imagine my surprise when the name came back to me tonight and I did a search. Found "Toombah for Ronnie". Yeah, that's right: Barbecue music from hell.

    ReplyDelete