Beneath nobby knees, stripey socks, and the formidable hit of a dozen cups of acidic coffee, lay the baddest 5-piece band ever to stalk the Earth. The flipside of their TV Party 45 EP (SST Records, 1982) proves it once and for all:

Thanks to Glen E. Friedman and We Got Power for the image

There are facts, and then there are facts. Yes 2 + 2 = 4, and they tell me sunlight can trigger photosynthesis. But then . . . there are those things that might as well be facts, things you’d just be fucking wise to expect. Things like: when you run your fingernails down a chalkboard, someone in the room is gonna end up with goosebumps. Or: separating two burly Englishmen in a Harringay pub punch-up will get you brained with a pint glass. And so forth. Facts and facts.

Now there was once a group of underappreciated SoCal oddballs who called themselves THE CENTIMETERS. They clawed their way out of a cesspool of obscuro mid 90’s aggregations like THE BOYSCOUTS OF ANNIHILATION and the misleadingly named PARKAS, who I’m fairly certain never did any WHO covers. They were young but attracted patronage & musical support from an aging bunch of certified LA nutcases: Joseph Hammer of DINOSAURS WITH HORNS/STEAMING COILS/SOLID EYE, stinky Michael Sheppard of the old 80’s Iridescence label, and of course ex-GERM Don Bolles, who not only sang vociferous CENTIMETER praises back then, but also produced and played on a number of their releases. All of this can be easily verified.

But there were less tangible forces at work too. To my grave I will maintain that repeat exposure to THE CENTIMETERS does trigger certain odd phenomena with disturbing predictability. Like: listening too closely to their single “I’m Not Exercising Enough” has caused me trip and fall on London Underground escalators not once but twice now. Or when I sing along to “Dracula Gary” I invariably develop a temporary case of the hiccups. And after much research I am now confident that it’s CENTIMETER singer Nora Keyes’ voice, and not poor skin care, that has given rise to an itchy rash in my armpit in recent months.

As unique a presence as Nora is, I always reckoned her CENTIMETER musical partner, Max Gomberg, to be an even subtler musical magician. His was a grounding force in this often chaotic soundworld, providing a calm, Dean Martin-like foil to Nora’s unhinged Jerry Lewisisms. Max was more than capable of matching odd, Syd Barrett-inspired chord changes with assbackwards lyrical content in deeply intuitive, painfully funny ways. And his idiosyncratic performances humanize & alienize quite disparate sentiments, weaving it all into one swirling, tapestried singularity.

People often point out the Brechtian inspiration behind THE CENTIMETERS theatricality. And yes, I suppose they did once do a cracked version of Jacque Brel’s “Next” not to mention a chromosomally-challenged take on “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. But it’s actually the dank, dislocating shadow of early LA artpunk that they appear to be channelling – MONITOR’s electro seances and JOHANNA WENT’s wraithlike babytalk come to mind. Bolles, himself once a member of NERVOUS GENDER and the similarly art damaged YVONNES, must’ve recognised THE CENTIMETERS were in this grand tradition too.

THE CENTIMETERS left us three unclassifiably weird, full length studio CDs (German Verbs, The Facts of Destiny, and Lifetime Achievement Awards) one EP, and a live CD that may or may not actually exist. Everything I’ve heard by them is totally great, full of sounds and songs that once succeeded in turning the burgeoning 90’s emo esthetic insidefuckingout, with bloody entrails on display for all us rubberneckers to gawk at. They were then sucked right back up into the ether from whence they came, protoplasm-like.

Nora has since released a solo CD and now “rocks” with Bolles in FANCY SPACE PEOPLE; Max plays with a post PHANTOM LIMBS act out of Chicago called LOTO BALL SHOW. But such facts only occlude deeper truths, the sorts of facts you’d be wise to heed.

THE CENTIMETERS – “Help Is On The Way” (from Lifetime Achievement Awards, Space Baby, 2001)

And oh my: check out this scorching new clip of WOLF PEOPLE performing “Dorney Reach” at the Moseley Folk Festival last month, which I’m now kicking myself for missing. This is as close as you overseas types are gonna come to experiencing their godlike live thing – at least, until their Jagjaguwar Records CD comes out and they go conquer the rest of the world.

For those not already aware, Joe Carducci (ex-SST producer/engineer and author of Rock & The Pop Narcotic) can now be found blogging over at The New Vulgate. A weekly digital journal bringing together the writings, photos and artwork of a small coterie of very individual and ornery American artists, THE NEW VULGATE has been going strong since July 2009 and shows no signs of abating. Among a diverse array of topics both musical and non-musical alike, Joe’s already covered such vital matters as the chromosomal similarities between BLACK SABBATH, AMON DÜÜL II, & BLACK FLAG here, hidden SF histories of the unholy NEGATIVE TREND/ FLIPPER/ TOILING MIDGETS triumvirate here, and a 9-Step YouTube Plan Toward Understanding The Evolution of STEPPENWOLF here. No, you really don’t wanna miss out on this stuff.

England, Autumn 2009: the temperature has dipped considerably, the sky has faded to the ashen color of a cadaver, and I’ve lost both my voice and the ability to swallow properly due to a nasty, lingering cold. Good enough time as any, I suppose, to suck up my phlegm and explore more of those sounds that helped make this country what it is today:

1. NECROMANDUS – “Orexis of Death” (from Orexis of Death, Audio Archives, 2001) A footnote in the BLACK SABBATH story ca. 1973, since Tony Iommi himself produced and managed these guys for a while back then. But this unreleased Vertigo album shows that aside from a couple of compact heavy rockers, NECROMANDUS mined a much more nimble, hard prog sound – one that was decidely more jazzy than SABBATH ever attempted. While this is a disappointment to some, the agility with which these guys pull it off is mighty impressive. They had a great lead gtrist, a more than capable rhythm section, and they were as comfortable rocking in quieter, introspective fashion as they were ripping proto metal DEEP PURPLEish riffs. No they don’t best SABBATH – who does? – but as runner-ups in the early 70’s UK pagan/downer rock sweepstakes, I say these folks could’ve beat BLACK WIDOW seven days a week. They’ve got another CD on Audio Archives entitled Necrothology that duplicates most of this record – both are great, so either one’s a solid investment.

2. PLUMMET AIRLINES – “The Engine Driver” (from On Stoney Ground, Hedonics, 1981) Apt-named pub rock band active in mid 70’s London who only had a couple 45s to their name during their lifespan, before going down in flames when punk rock changed the face of UK music forevermore. This collection was cobbled together retrospectively from demos, live stuff, & Peel sessions to satisfy their few but rabid fans who swore they absolutely slayed live. While even diehards give this one a mixed review, their stew of mellow BRINSLEY SCHWARZ-like rural rock, earthy r&b pub gruffness, and actually inspired gtr rave-ups will appeal to those like me who like to linger at the MAN/HELP YOURSELF end of the bar. Half the time they were too MOR to translate well to 2009, but if you listen closely to the other half, you too will see their twin gtr thing was actually quite evolved. Yep inspired, end-of-hippie talent was indeed aboard this flight, and the better live cuts here exhibit true GRATEFUL DEAD/WISHBONE ASH exploratory ambition. Though, it’s precisely that kind of talent that sadly got lost in the wreckage of punk’s ensuing floodwaters.

3. DRAGONFLY – “Space Bound” (from their Dragonfly E.P., no label, 1981) Stumbled upon the sleeve sans record of this megararity in a Hornsey charity shop recently, which got me to search out mp3s of it online. And aside from the singer’s kinda flat voice, I reckon DRAGONFLY rates fairly well in relation to other New Wave of Britsh Heavy Metal obscuros. No this ain’t gonna ever reach the, uh, hallowed NWOBHM heights of DIAMOND HEAD, WITCHFYNDE, or even ANGEL WITCH, but it does pretty well encapsulate what was good/bad about that particular scene: the sometimes awkward mix of late 70s prog and metal cliches, the longing for IRON MAIDEN-like commercial breakthrough, the endearingly rough DIY production, the intimate, warts-and-all performances. Meaning: if you’re a metal lifer this will no doubt make you cry like a little baby, but if you’re anybody else, well . . . you’re gonna probably find yourself shaking your head in confusion. And me? I’m just the guy stuck staring at an empty pic sleeve.

4. SHOCK HEADED PETERS – “The Kissing of Gods” (from Not Born Beautiful, él Records, 1985) – Whenever I have doubts about the current state of UK underground music – this is often – I take solice in the knowledge that Karl Blake still walks alone somewhere on this fair isle. The projects he’s led (LEMON KITTENS, EVIL TWIN, THE UNDERNEATH) are all such eccentrically unique takes on modern outsider music that I’m tempted to call this guy England’s answer to Ohio’s Jim Shepard (VERTICAL SLIT, V3). Karl claims to be inspired by William Blake, BLACK SABBATH, and FAUST in pretty equal amounts, and dammit if he don’t always sound it.

Now all you doom rockers don’t get too excited, the SABBATH influences on his early SHOCK HEADED PETERS were more suggested than explicit – you’d have to wait for Karl’s UNDERNEATH project for a SABBATH tribute proper. But there’s a toughassed basskick at work here that his peers – say, PSYCHIC TV and CURRENT 93 – never knew existed. This is the sound of 80s messthetics maturing down any number of hairy eyeball backalleys, as funneled through a hazy blur of studio mindfuckery. The real weapon though was Karl’s beautiful croon, which I always thought sounded like it was emanating from the head of decapitated nobleman, freshly skewered on a pole. His “Kissing of Gods” – a moment of calm balladry in an otherwise restless sea of disquiet post-industrial confusion – is one of the most heart-wrenching performances ever. And while it ain’t exactly rock ‘n’ roll, it most definitely is wig ‘n’ roll – making your scalp itch every goddamn spin.

THE IMPERIAL DOGS – Live in Long Beach (October 30, 1974) DVD.

So: it’s 1974, ok. All across the USA. It’s another year for me and you, another year with nothin’ to do. But there’s an insane South Bay rock band calling themselves THE IMPERIAL DOGS who’ve come to play the student union at a local college campus, promising “an evening of sex, violence and public outrage.” Needless to say, all promises are kept. And somebody brings a video camera to document it.

35 years later, this DVD arrives.

Yep: THE IMPERIAL DOGS were indeed four wildass white guys from the early 70’s who dug gtrs and very loud amplification. Fed up with suburban life, they channelled the Gods of Detroit Heavy Metal and kicked up a racket that sounded like a particularly fun and sloppy night on the BLUE ÖYSTER CULT Secret Treaties tour. Their only claim to fame at the time came when BÖC themselves used an IMPERIAL DOGS song title and refrain (“This Ain’t the Summer of Love”) on their mega-platinum Agents of Fortune LP. But for a few of us, they also remain a vitally important link in the chain that connected 60’s garage rock with early 70’s heavy metal and on into late 70’s punk rock.

Sonically speaking, the music contained on this DVD bests the live stuff waxed on their archival Dog Meat Records LP back in 1989. The fidelity here is equally murky, but the rockin’ is tighter and the song selection superior – check out newly unearthed cuts like “Just Kids”, “Loud, Hard & Fast” and “Sweet Little Strychnine” – vicious little gems, these be. Throughout, gtrist Paul Therrio slashes both rhythm and lead menacingly behind a surfer’s wall of blonde hair, drummer Bill Willett not only plays but looks like the MC5’s Dennis Thompson, and bassist Tim Hilger – dressed in bondage leather, chains, and fur trousers! – keeps it totally cool, and strikes me as the most musical of the bunch.

Visually though, it’s frontman Don Waller who bumps this performance up to a new level. Oh man is he one righteously pissed-off cat. He screams like David Johansen, contorts like Iggy, and stalks this multi-purpose room stage like an crazed S&M biker, hollering more abuse at this polite hippie audience than any sane man oughta. I like that he’s smart enough to keep a sense of humor biting throughout, and that he explicitly acknowledges that hallowed lineage that gave him permission to get this crazy in the first place: Bo Diddley, THE KINKS, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed & THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, MOTT THE HOOPLE. His over the top performance – at various points utilizing a whip, a chain, and a revealing couple of inches of asscrack – renders most of the clueless crowd mute. He does succeed in getting a couple cute girls dancing – which, I suppose, was his not-so hidden agenda all along.

Taken together, this IMPERIAL DOGS performance sounds & looks like what I always imagine Mick Farren’s DEVIANTS must’ve, 5 years earlier: sub-basement primal, burning hot to the touch, and fiercely urgent. It’s four misfits grabbing the time of their lives straight outta the thin, milktoast air in early 70’s suburban Southern California. True, damn near nobody there knew quite what to make of it all. But then such is the fate of so much rock ‘n’ roll greatness, especially that which surfaced before punk made such musical/emotional extremes more socially acceptable. At least now we got the goods to keep their promise alive for generations to come.

Get it here

Visual evidence has arrived: a 64 minute live gig of THE IMPERIAL DOGS, videotaped on stage & on fire at Cal State Long Beach, from October 30, 1974. Proving without a doubt that raw amplification, black leather, and primal screams can turn paisleys into swastikas and wither Flower Power at 50 paces. Who knew such a pre-punk artifact ever existed? Who believed it could still be transferred to digital media after all these years? More importantly: who figured it would actually rock?

Me I’m over the moon, and already placed my order here. If you’re a Hard Core Rock N Roller, no doubt you will too, and pronto.

Sure it was wild punk-rock club action that I really wanted to witness live as a kid in the early 80’s. Once, I even hatched an elaborate rouse involving this church-going family we knew, an older skinhead, and my non-rocking mulleted brother, all to try and get to this show. As one might expect it never materialized, since my parents swooped in to nix it all at the 11th hour.

Stadium shows were the more logical way in: they were marketed toward middle class suburban folks, they were held in well-established venues with sensible parking facilities, and they promised safe, controlled evenings of prepackaged entertainment. Even conservative parents could consider them semi-respectable. And so to stadiums I did a-go, and not infrequently. Yep these concerts were alotta fun but they also helped open my eyes to the increasingly corporate, oppressively slick side of rock and roll. I blogged a bit about some of my early concert experiences here, but I’m gonna talk a bit about those very first few today:

1. DEVO – November 1982, Universal Amphitheater. I’d only just turned 12 and I was going to see my favorite band in the whole wide world! We’d resented hearing “Whip It” a gazillion times a day a couple years earlier, but after seeing them live on TV’s Solid Gold lip syncing to “Jerkin’ Back and Forth” in ‘81, I was hooked. (I’ll go out on a limb and say their ‘82 Oh No It’s Devo LP is an unacknowledged crowning achievement of the Square Pegs generation.) With tickets in hand and my mother chaperoning, for a brief second every cool surfer kid at my school wanted to be my friend. Or something like that: “hey dude, if your mom can give me a lift there, we won’t even have to sit together!”

My buddy bought an energy dome, but I felt that was passé by ‘82. I opted for the tour t-shirt, which I still have to this day, though it’s since shrunk to the size of my fist. The show itself surpassed my wildest expectations: 2+ hours of a bank of synths blowing new earholes in my head, vertiginous video images projected on multiple screens, and singer Mark Mothersbough appearing on the balcony after intermission, climbing down a rope to the floor, and making his way through the crowd on foot while leading a call-and-response version of “Jocko Homo” with crazed fans. Nuts! Choreography synced to video may sound dated now, but it was totally state of the art then. And when that corncob screwed into the donut (DEVO fans will no doubt be familiar with this effective bit of phallic imagery) my mom’s eyes just about popped out of her head. No, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

2. HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS – January 1984, Universal Amphitheater. I’m actually blushing as I type right now. This friend of mine got a bunch of tickets to this show for his birthday, and invited me along. I couldn’t say no, could I? It’s little more than a bad Sports injury now . . . all I really remember was that Huey sang into an old fashioned-looking ribbon microphone, and that he didn’t do any CLOVER songs. Oh! And that tense moment Huey called out to the audience: “you guys wanna hear us sing a little A cappella?”

3. PRETENDERS – March 1984, Universal Amphitheater. A crucial chunk of this band (Pete Farndon, James Honeyman Scott) had died and already were being attributed with musical skills usually reserved for Jimi et al. But new members Robbie McIntosh and Malcolm Foster held their own, and inspired songwriting and rockin’ drive remained. And holy cow Chrissie was still totally captivating: wearing black spandex, flicking her bangs, and slinging a telecaster with casual distain. To this day I reckon the first PRETENDERS LP to be a crucial part of my desert island album collection, and no way had the fire of that inferno entirely abated at this point.

This was the first concert at which I’d ever witnessed someone “freak out”: this naked dude leapt onstage dancing manically, only to get viciously kicked in the face and dragged off by security goons. I still have a touch of PTSD from that. But a little violence only served to heighten the drama, so much so even openers ICICLE WORKS(!) hit me as kinda bitchen. At the time I felt I’d was witnessing something normally reserved for folks a decade older. There’s a great live radio broadcast of an LA gig from that same week that gives me shivers listening to it today. Show me the meaning of this word – indeed you did, Chrissie.

4. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND – November 1984, Los Angeles Sports Arena. I’d only recently gotten hip to this man, after someone from the church I was forced to attend recommended I listen to Darkness On the Edge of Town. I did, and all manner of new synaptic connections were quickly forged in my head. We bought tickets late, and so our seats were in the second to last row in the very back of the arena. But never have I had my mind blown in among so much denim, then/since.

Bruce played, and played, and then played some more, for 4+ hours – doing songs from Greetings from Asbury Park all the way up to fricking “Dancing in the Dark”. And when he ran across the stage and fell on his knees to plant a wet one on the lips of big black sax player Clarence Clemmons . . . well, I’ll just be honest and say I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Whatever, I had a ball. Mid-80’s Springsteen shows were a rite of passage for a huge swathe of the radio-listening public back then, and although in retrospect not all of his music still resonates with me, I’ll go to my grave saying this is one guy who can write a fucking great song with timeless lyrics when he wants to. And he often wants to.

5. U2 – December 1984, Long Beach Arena. Like alot kids interested in “new rock”, I kinda/sorta believed the hype about these guys being The New CLASH or whatever. C’mon: if you’re my age and you’re honest, how could you not have fallen under the spell of all the agitprop Rolling Stone mag generated about Bono and Co. back then? And dammit if I wasn’t the only one: there were a more than a handful of punky looking folks in attendance – even a girl mohican! – helping me feel in better company.

Somewhat predictably, U2’s rabble rousing fell a bit flat on this Long Beach audience. Maybe Bono was having an off-night, but I was already getting a nagging suspicion this kinda overblown, hackneyed stagecircus wasn’t what I’d come a-knocking for at the door of Rock N Roll. Even my pal J. begrudgingly agreed that openers THE WATERBOYS were way more, uh, heroic . . . I didn’t mind having to make my way out out of the concert hall and into the lobby for the the emotional crest of the show – a 10-minute version of “October” – to use a payphone to arrange our ride home.

CD BABY is my idea of a great idea. Recordings made and sold by the artists and/or their friends, pure and simple. Where else can you find MP3 downloads of bands by two different ex NEGATIVE TREND singers (Rozz Rezabek and Rik L Rik) next to CDs on tiny labels like LowArtMusic and Trakwerx Records, all bumping shoulders with your crazy Uncle Bob’s homemade banjo CD-R? Only at CD BABY, buster. No it may be socialist, but as an equalizing force in the increasingly genre-specific world of recorded music consumer outlets, it’s pretty hard to beat. While the original owner sold his baby off in 2008, it hasn’t resulted in too many changes, other than a kind of annoying new website interface. But whatever – I’m still a total CD BABY believer and wanna talk recent stuff I’ve stumbled upon there, all SoCal specific.

1. THE FARMERS – “Bohemia” (from Hand Picked, self-released, 2003) – Folky MEAT PUPSian alt rockin’ from this Bill Bowman-led South Bay band of VIDA spinoffs. And as VIDA were originally a DC3 spin-off, and DC3 was originally a BLACK FLAG spin-off . . . yep these boys will always be NeareSST Relatives in my book. Doesn’t hurt to have giant octopus-turned-drummer George Hurley on board to expand the rhythmic kick in dozens of subtle ways. While they don’t strive to give you much more than a collection of appealingly friendly tunage, astute listeners will connect the down-to-earth intimacy at work here to nowhere else but the South Bay. Now if only I could find more bands here in London capable of knocking off stuff this tasty . . .

2. BLUE GARDEN BLUE – “Simple Times” (from Garden Music, CD-R, recorded 1985) Started reading a great blog this year called Stars Eat Toys only to find that the man at it’s helm had once been in a 60’s-influenced garage band who gigged around West LA in the mid 80’s called BLUE GARDEN BLUE. They evoked that optimistic vibe of THE BYRDS and folky spirit of THE BLUE THINGS via VELVET UNDERGROUND strum-a-go-go more so than even THE RAIN PARADE were capable of back then. Though I like that they are honest about their actual influences: “Joy Division, The Kinks, Bowie, U2, Beatles, Echo & The Bunnymen, Chameleons, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, AC/DC, Rodney on the ROQ.” Ha! The cave-like acoustics give them a real period charm, and their earnest tunes really do stick – methinks this lead vocalist coulda gone on to pop/rock greatness. Had BLUE GARDEN BLUE scored a track on a mid-80’s Enigma Records comp LP, not only BOMP’s Greg Shaw, but Yours Truly would have tagged em Ones To Watch back then.

3. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT aka FOUNTAIN – “Addicted” (Weird, CD-R, recorded ‘90-’92) Real People rock from my neck of the woods back in the day, this actually has a heck of a lot going for it. Do I kinda sorta remember their homemade cassettes for sale on the counter at Go Boy Records in Redondo Beach at the end of the 80’s? Kinda sorta yes. By this time, they’d had ditched the happy-finger gtrist who dragged down their early recordings, developed a knack for writing unhinged but still catchy songs, and started using their 60’s/70’s influences to good effect. Not unlike Brian Kild’s ELECTRIC PEACE or Honey Davis’ HOLLYROCK, Clark Hagins’ THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT might actually be remembered by a few more folks today, had they been able to convince audiences they were part of any of the prevailing trends of their day. As it is what they left us is histrionically weird fr sure, but wholly their own. It exudes a nagging loneliness few wanna talk of, but we all know exists just the same. Bravo, Clark.

4. WIG TITANS – “What About Us” (from End of the World, 4Q2 Publishing, 2002) Veterans of a few dozen rock n roll wars, THE WIG TITANS might call San Diego and environs their home, but dammit if the core of this band weren’t born/bred around the South Bay. Tom Gardner was once a great writer for the mythic (in my mind anyway) Back Door Man magazine outta North Torrance; Mary Fleener grew up near me in Palos Verdes, and has been inking trippy, comic/cubist-inspired art since the mid 80’s; and Paul Therrio was in Torrance’s godlike pre-punk IMPERIAL DOGS back when I was still sucking my thumb. This CD teeter-tooters between Mary’s straight ahead ROCKPILEisms & Tom’s more PLIMSOULSian subtleties, and therefore might feel a bit schizophrenic to some. But hey, I’m a mental health social worker by trade, these are the kinda juxtapositions I live/die for, and oh fuck how I love “What About Us”. You’re gonna remember to blast this one at my funeral, right?

Back on the Recon attack again, in somewhat typically SoCalCentric fashion. So what if I wear my musical obsessions on my shirtsleeve! Betcha you can’t beat me to the end of this post . . .

JEFF SIMMONS – “Appian Way” (from Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, Straight Records, 1970; reissued by Collector’s Choice Music, 2008) There was this older, Seattle-born gtr player I once knew, he’d seen Jeff play with ETHIOPIA, a Northwest-based band in the late 60’s. And he swore that Jeff was actually waaay better on lead gtr than on the bass he played with THE MOTHERS throughtout the early 70’s. Now while I’ve always wanted to believe him, this record ain’t gonna set the record straight, since it’s Craig Tarweather (ex DAILY FLASH) and Frank Zappa himself who are ripping the killer leads here.

But I can see why both this guy and Zappa dug him: Jeff’s influences are vast, reaching back to 20’s tinpan alley, doo-wop, jazz/blues, Sunset Strip freak rock, all the while foreshadowing the restless prog constructions of the coming decade. His bizarre and wryly ironic observations (often about LA life) are beautifully crooned, getting me to think I’m listening to Richard “MacArthur Park” Harris belt out passages from John Fante’s Ask The Dust. Unlike Zappa – who half the time was just a fucking comedian – Jeff was obtusely humorous but actually quite poetic and self-effacing. This ultimately served a much less irritating, delicate artistic vision. If Emitt Rhodes succeeded in giving me a version of THE BEATLES I can actually appreciate, then Jeff has damn nearly done the same for FRANK ZAPPA’s aesthetic. Jeff, we wish you’d given us some more.

GROUNDSHAKER – “Abaseal” (from their self-titled LP on Red Lounge Records, 2007) First time this world’s been privy to this wild, early 70’s unreleased studio recording. Yep this LA by-way-of SF band clearly learnt important lessons from early BLUE CHEER recs, but the earthy gnarl is turned so far up on this one, you’d be forgiven to think this wasn’t a lost session by Houston’s god almighty DEAD MAN, or even an early PENTAGRAM set. The mood is dark and heavy, the vocal/gtr histronics way pronounced, the material better than average.

So I admit I don’t ask much more from my early 70’s longhairs than to get heavy, start screaming, and whip off a paint-peeling solo . . . but GROUNDSHAKER was more exciting than dozens of other bands that actually had contemporaneous releases back then. I’m now wondering who guys like this woulda opened for along the Strip back in ‘72: STEPPENWOLF? Late era IRON BUTTERFLY perhaps? Maybe Arthur Lee’s rebuilt LOVE? I can’t think of too many others in LA willing to go to such dark places. Yet another record that’ll burst your Brian Wilson fantasy about SoCal in the time it takes to smoke the PCP cig that biker just handed you.

THE NERVES – “Hanging on the Telephone” (from One Way Ticket, Alive Naturalsound Records, 2008) Finally the world has easy access to the oeuvre of the most important just-pre-punk band LA ever gave the world. This makes that 80’s French LP on Revenge obsolete by pulling together their crucial ’76 studio/demo material, the unreleased ’77 BOMP single, a gaggle of live tracks, and a few stray NERVE endings (tracks by Paul & Peter’s BREAKAWAYS, the JACK LEE BAND, early PLIMSOULS, etc). It’s a grand total of 20 songs that take less than 40 minutes to listen to, but that’s ok cause it’s some of the best stripped down DAVE CLARK FIVE-on-speed DIY pop this world will ever hear. Forget about BLONDIE and check out any of the first half dozen songs on this baby – clean, razor sharp, and succinctly urgent, rarely has so-called powerpop ever sounded this raw and alive. Peter Case coulda shat bricks in his PLIMSOULS and I woulda still bowed down to him on this basis of these hallowed recordings. Trebly NERVES jangle will continue to light up my night sky for decades to come.

RHINO 39 – “Sleepwalking” (from their self-titled double CD on Nickle & Dime Records, 2007) RHINO 39’s “Xerox” 45 may have been the least crucial thing that Dangerhouse Records ever gave the world, but HEY: did your/my shitty band ever put out a record on Dangerhouse? I think not. By the early 80’s, they had morphed into something pretty damn distinctive. Like fellow Long Beach dwellers SECRET HATE, RHINO 39 displayed a loopy ambition that derailed any rote HCisms that might’ve otherwise crept in.

This 2-CD anthology is one loong set, collecting damn near everything they recorded. This includes their Dangerhouse recordings, an entire album of unreleased demos from 1979-80, unique contributions to the Hell Comes to Your House, American Youth Report, and When Men Were Men And Sheep Were Scared comps – pinnacles of individualistic suburban noise, those LPs were! – and their Flipside Records LP from ’86. Paralleling THE WEIRDOS’ musical development, RHINO 39 matured with time but with their underlying yahoo outsider stance intact, ringing true no matter how short/long their hair or how fast/slow they were bashing it out. While RHINO 39 may never be first tier, they were quite appealing in a wild, messy sort of way. No doubt they’ll help you flesh out that crazy SoCal HC punker jigsaw puzzle in any number of subtle but vital ways.

———–

And on a separate note: the best band in England right now, WOLF PEOPLE, have signed to Jagjaguwar Records and are promising a new album in 2010. This means you stateside folk will soon be able to bask in their trippy, dual gtr JETHRO TULLy, TELEVISIONoid rocking in the comfort of your own homes/I-Pods! If anyone can succeed in restoring belief that London is still capable of creating distinctly powerful rock and roll, it’s these guys.