Started in 2010, the Pow Wows are out of Toronto, Ontario: Chris (guitar & vocals) & Jon (drums) McCann, Ryan Rothwell (bass & vocals). They're garage punks. They're on the preeminent Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's garage punk label Get Hip
Chock full of addictive hooks, hot-wired fuzz guitars, & pounding rhythms that hearken back to the underworld of 60s Garage & 70s Punk while remaining undeniably fresh and modern.
Popdefect is a three-piece rock outfit formed in Seattle in 1980 by guitarist/vocalist Al Anderson, bassist Charlie Hutchinson, & drummer Nick Scott. Nick & Al played in the band Psychopop with Tom Price (U-Men, Gas Huffer, Kings of Rock). When Tom left to form the U-Men, Charlie Hutchinson joined Al & Nick & Psychopop became POPDeFECT. Charlie moved to Los Angeles to attend college & the other two followed.
Popdefect are the perfect example of late 80s indie/alternative before grunge came along. Having toured essentially without a break since the early 80s, Popdefect were a well-oiled machine by 1988. Their sound was uniquely their own, boiled down & crystalized into a distinct voice. No surprise then that their debut album Live with This is full of a sublimated anger at commercialism in a chaotic world. It is a well thought out amalgam of haunted, melancholic spy rock / surf riffs, punchy post-punk swagger, & existential howls.
Playground was started by Richard Johnson & Andy Pearson while they where editing/publishing/writing the Grim Humour 'zine. Intially comprised of Rich, Andy & their friends Dylan Hollinsbee, Harvey 'Havoc' Francis improvising a kind of industrial-tainted noise-rock around a drum machine. The original Playground was guitars, backing tapes & sometimes a keyboard. During the course of their first year together, their sound morphed into a more structured sound with the exit of Dylan & Harvey & the addition of Paul Dudeney on drums and Paul 'Fuzz' Wright on bass.
The band released one studio album, one mini-album, one live album & one 7". By 1989 Playground 1.0 called it quits, with Johnson going on to form the band Splintered.
Playground 2.0 was Andy P. & vocalist Ed Wenn. They had a sound closer to the original idea of Playground, more experimental noise. They even covered several tunes by The Residents on their 1991 release, Resilience, on Steve Pittis' Dirtier Promotions.
Portland, OR musician, Eternal Tapestry guitarist Dewey Mahood is Plankton Wat. His first album was 2002s Interstellar Sounds Of. Thus the world's introduction to the experimental space rock of Mahood's home recording project. Plankton Wat music is ethereal yet grounded rhythmic grooves that blend the cosmic & the earthly in perfect harmony.
Mahood began playing the bass in the Chico, California punk band Empty Offer in 1987. He soon switched to guitar & played in numerous psychedelic, grunge, or free improv bands. He moved to Seattle at the end of the 80s, then settled in Portland in 1992. There he formed the post-punk band Elephant Factory with Larry Crane of Tape Op magazine. He formed the free jazz-influenced Cosmos Group in 2000, then in 2002 he started his solo home recording project Plankton Wat. The name is a tribute to Krautrock producer Conny Plank & bassist Mike Watt.
Pitch Shifter (now Pitchshifter) is a Nottingham "Death Industrial" band formed in 1989 by
lead guitarist / programmer Johnny A. Carter & bassist / vocalist Mark Clayden.
They have been on-again/off-again for much of their career but are still active at present. Their sound has evolved to contain a mix of techno, drum 'n' bass, hip-hop, & punk merged with their original nu-metal sound.
It was after the release of this Remix album that they became known as Pitchshifter (one word).
Phleg Camp was a Canadian band from Toronto, Ontario. It’s members were Eric Chenaux - guitar & vocals, Gavin Brown - drums, guitar, bass, & Sean Dean - bass.
Phleg Camp was a super-group before they knew it. This is the only true full-length. They self released an earlier self-titled & did a 2018 Brave New Waves Session. This one was produced by Steve Albini (R.I.P.).
Peter & the Test Tube Babies is a punk rock band formed in Peacehaven, England in 1978 by Del Strangefish & Peter Bywaters. Due to their humorous tongue-in-cheek lyrics, they have been considered part of the Punk Pathetique subgenre which embodied Cockney culture with a Dickensian working class attitude.
Max Splodge of Splodgenessabounds sez:
"The pathetique bands are the other side of Oi! We're working class too, only whereas some bands sing about prison and the dole, we sing about pilchards and bums. The audience is the same"
This is a 23 track CD compilation of P&tTTB with what could be named "Greatest Hits". It's even got "The Queen Gives Good Blow Jobs".
Not much to say about this one. Thought it was worth the time to fix up so felt it was interesting enough to share.
Penitent started in 1994. Poet Karsten Hamre decided to combine his poetry with music in order to create a more powerful atmosphere than one could get by simply reading his poems. Karsten’s poems where dubbed "mad poetry". They dealt with themes & topics such as life / death, pain / torture, sorrow / depression. By the time this album was released, the music is a melancholic, romantic Dark Ambient with little of Hamre's poetry left to hear.
Pavlov's Dog was a progressive rock band formed St. Louis, Missouri in 1973. If there is any musical ensemble deserving to be called "unique", certainly it is Pavlov's Dog. Founded in 1973 by Chuck Berry drummer Mike Safron, Pavlov's Dog captured the world's attention due to the astonishing voice of David Surkamp.
The band signed its initial recording contract with ABC Records in 1973 for the unheard of figure of $500,000. The group was dropped within weeks of the release of its debut Pampered Menial. Columbia Records re-released Pampered Menial within a month of the ABC debacle, following it's own $500,000 advance. Soon the album began charting on two labels simultaneously on the Billboard charts (a first & last for the recording industry).
Here Pavlov's Dog is: David Surkamp - guitar & vocals; Steve Scorfina - lead guitar; David Hamilton - keyboards; Rick Stockton - bass; Doug Rayburn - mellotron & flute; Siefried Carver - violin & viola, & Mike Safron - drums & percussion.
On October 27, 2021 I sez:
"Over night last night my visitor count passed the 2,000,000 mark. I realize that that's no big deal in light of the length of time I've been doing this, but for a "backwater blog" like I've got going here, it's kinda major to me. In fact, I'm mightily chuffed."
Well, over night last night my visitor count passed the 3,000,000 mark. So in less than three years I’ve had another million hits. So for a "backwater blog" like I've got going here, I'm even more mightily chuffed.
All I can really say to all of you out there cruising the interweb searching for musick is...
Thank you so much.
NØ
I've been fighting my way through a folder I have labeled Musick that Needs Work. I start at "A" in 2015. I'm up to "P" now. When I looked under the letter P I was surprised at how many items I had. So for a while this month I'm gonna do this thing.
I usually try to mix these shares up in some kinda order that seems to make sense but probably only to me, so I'm gonna just dole them out in alphabetical, they way they are in the folder.
Good Frenz of NSS Smashhuggler left word of the upcoming demise of yet another music blog. You might want to head over before they're gone & grab some goodies. Literally tens of thousands of things from which to choose.
MixesDB has been around since early 2008. Here's the word right from the source...
"MixesDB will shutdown on June 29, 2024.
The reason for this is rather simple: The website code is completely outdated and cannot be run on modern servers anymore.
For the technically interested audience: The site runs on MediaWiki version 27 (current is version 41.1) and PHP 5.6 (current is PHP 8.3.7). Mostly everything that is not possible on Wikis by default was heavily custom coded by me or its extension is not maintained anymore (e.g. the comments and the foundation of features like the Explorer).
To make it short: The code ran into a dead corner and is not update-able anymore without months of enormous coding effort. And since ads went towards zero months ago and donation models failed years ago, I decided it's better to shut it down now than later.
I know many of us have put weeks of effort into this database, but this is where we stand."
Go, go,
NØ
Having been working as a visual artist since Xmal Deutschland's breakup in the early 90s, former lead singer Anja Huwe finally has returned to making music . She released her debut solo album Codes in March. It's a great release for this noted purveyor of glamorous gloom.
Xmal Deutschland - Schwartze Welt 7", Zickzack ZZ31, 1981.
all decryption codes in comments
1 -
Schwarze Welt
2 -
Die Wolken
Großstadtindianer
X Mal Deutschland - Incubus Succubus 12", Zickzack ZZ110, 1982.
Seite 1 -
Incubus Succubus
Seite 2 -
Zu Jung Zu Alt
Blut ist Liebe
X Mal Deutschland - Qual 12", 4AD BAD305, 1983.
Over -
Qual
This Side -
Zeit
Sehnsucht
X Mal Deutschland - Incubus Succubus II, 4AD AD311,1983.
Over -
Incubus Succubus II
This Side -
Vito
X mal Deutschland - Sequenz, Red Rhino Europe RRET1, 1985.
a -
Jahr um Jahr II
b -
Autumn
Polarlicht
X Mal Deutschland - Matador, Xile XMAL 112, 1986.
45.a -
Matador (Blood & Sand extended mix)
45.b -
Paho
4
Xmal Deutschland - Sickle Moon, Xile XMAL 212, 1987.
a45 -
Sickle Moon
b45 -
Illusion (version)
In Onyx
X Mal Deutschland - I’ll Be Near You, Metronome 889709-1, 1989.
Seite 1 -
I'll Be Near You (Radical remix)
Seite 2 -
The Girl in the Iron Mask
I'll Be Near You (Retouched radio version)
I've shared & hyped Tricky's debut Maxinquaye here in the past. I still stand behind my claim that it is one of the greatest albums of all times.
Tricky's genius lies in the way he writes songs that aren't songs, lyrics that trail off at the edge of recognition, music that bypasses reason. He doesn't sing, or rap in any recognised way.
Maxinquaye was an album of its time but now, all these years later, it belongs to a category beyond that of mere genre, beyond both time & sensibility. It's one of those albums whose radicalism is matched by its brilliant immediacy, a barrage of sound whose initial revolutionary impact has been followed by an undimmed afterlife.
In 2023, Tricky released Maxinquaye (Reincarnated). The version I bought is 49 tracks. The first 12 tracks are the Abbey Road remaster of the original album. I was initially excited to hear it but less than thrilled with the results after multiple listens. It just pissed me off that where the original was so gringingly primitive, this was just so over-produced.
So I decided to do one of those Albums that Should Exist kinda things & create my own NØ Reblasted version. See what you think. Be brave. Let me know.
