Esoterica, Exotica, & Underneathica

Re-uploaded by request 3/1/2023.

1980 was my Year Zero.  I was a Midwest high school freshman (class of 1984).   AC/DC and REO seemed inescapable.  It was driving me up The Wall.  I had to go in through the out door, and seek out scary monsters and super creeps.

It was a year of impressive debuts, by the Cramps, X, Pylon, Feelies, Wipers, Pretenders, Young Marble Giants, Killing Joke...  It was also a time of reinvention:  Off the Wall, Remain in Light, and Doc at the Radar Station.  There were endings, too.  In 1980, video killed the radio star.  Chapman shot Lennon.  Ian Curtis cancelled his US tour, and Darby Crash didn't make it to his big screen premiere.   

I started trading tapes and sending away for strange records.  Made a fanzine and got some high weirdness by mail.  I was underage but got into a few clubs where I caught glimpses of hidden places and forbidden rites.

Barefoot on the Accelerator is a soundtrack to my early 80s forays into the American post-punk underground.  These songs still haunt me three decades later.   One is a recording from an Ama-Dots show at the Starship, Milwaukee's mini Masque.  I wish the voice of the incomparable Boolah was more audible, or that you could see Gary scraping his guitar with primitive tools.  But you can sense the Ama-Dots' feral energy and floor-pounding rhythms.

Post-punk is a term that has lost significance with repetition.  In the early 80s, it seemed that anyone could invent all manner of ways to conjure up the unheard music.   The significance of PiL, Wire, the Slits, and the Gang of Four was easy to see from across the pond, and not hard to emulate.  But back then, as now, no one could be certain who would be recognized by future listeners as our own visionaries and pioneers.  We couldn't see our forest; too dizzy swinging from the trees.

Some of our pioneers blazed trails, while others glimmered in dark corners.  Some were lured out into the open by whispers of fame, or were tricked by reflections in the underwater moonlight.  A few carved secret tunnels discovered years after they were abandoned by the archaeologists of post-punk.  Here is a sample extricated from that era's esoterica, exotica, and underneathica.

Various - Barefoot on the Accelerator: Soundtrack to an 80s Foray 
into the American Post-Punk Underground

Chrome - New Age

Plasticland - Office Skills

Pre-Fix - Underneathica

Slovenly - Squeaky Clean

Ike Yard - M. Kurtz

Blackouts - Dead Man's Curve

Pere Ubu - Misery Goats

Ama-Dots - Qualms

Minimal Man - Now I Want it All

Your Food - Leave

Dementia Precox - Dead on 2 Legs Luncheonette

Wounds - Grey

Kommunity FX - Tribulations

Savage Republic - Next to Nothing

Dangerous Birds - Smile on Your Face

Los Nuns - Walking the Beat

Half Japanese - Rosemary's Baby

Mission of Burma - Trem Two

100 Flowers - Strip Club

Raymilland - Tronada (edit)

Factrix - Ballad of the Grim Rider

Flesh Eaters - Divine Horseman

Enjoy,

Jonder