MDJ zipped it for good back in 2001. But just to carry on the tradition set forth by my Wally George post from a few turns back, here’s one more grand piece of crap courtesy of yet another guy surrounded by drooling yes men in the 1980’s.
dig those crazy fake chicklets!
Leading things off is Mort’s ode/warning to the scourge of the civilized world, the drug dealer. And who could disagree? (Perhaps a pablum puking liberal?) But alas, it seemed to escape Mort’s airtight logic that nicotine IS A FREAKIN’ DRUG! And sad to say, the BIG ‘C’ took Mort out O’ these 6 years ago.
The young turk version of MDJ with another infamous Dick
And what else could be the big closer other than his signature catch phrase "ZIP IT!"? But I must say, even for a hasty thrown together piece of kitchy Reagen era money-grab junk, this "song" truly sucks in a very special, original way. It sounds and feels like it was structured by an autistic carnival worker – (no offense to the carnival workers of the world). (Anybody know if Limbaugh cut an album?)
Ah, it’s Friday, it’s 4:20 as I type this (no kidding) and I’m ready to have a nice, relaxing weekend. Nothing puts me in a better mood than listening to Van Halen, but nothing puts me in a betterer mood than listening to hilarious David Lee Roth stage banter.
Ah…..the flexible Diamond Dave….
Now sure, Chunklet blew the lid on the whole US Festival ’83 debacle, but Diamond Dave’s been servin’ up his particular brand of goofball for ages. And this recording of Van Halen at the beginning of their 1979 world tour only reaffirms that DLR might not be Charlie Chaplin, but at least he’s a low-rent one-man Abbott and Costello.
With all of this talk of Dan Deacon being the next Shaggs or Daniel Johnston, I thought it best to remind the twee–blog set what REAL outsider music is all about instead of this fake hipster horseshit.
About four years ago, the kids in American Analog Set laid this recording on me of a guy who came into a Guitar Center in Texas and asked for a tape to be transfered to CD. And as you can tell from this mp3, they hit paydirt.
ONE HOUR OF A CAPPELLA SINGING ABOUT MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDERS? Sign me up, kemosabe!
Just to tease you, dear chunklet.com reader, I’m only including half of the tape. However, if you’re super nice……I might unleash the other half at a later date.
This just made me really sad. Dan and I were always friendly with each other and to see shitty, underhanded (read: bad) distribution be the underlying reason that PP has gone kaput……well….it’s just wrong.
Chunklet has endured many similar financial woes, but fortunately, it’s always been solvent. However, read Dan’s little blog entry. I couldn’t echo his sentiments any more succinctly.
It’s close to impossible not to like Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. I picked up their first couple singles on a trip to Toronto in ’88 or ’89 upon recommendation of a record store employee there, but living in Georgia, they only came through once in ’92 (maybe ’91?) but otherwise, only returned with Jad Fair when they were called Phonocomb and played at the 40 Watt Club. I clearly remember Jad performing with a guitar that wasn’t plugged in.
I talked to Shadowy Don that night, we made quick buddies, and discovered we had many mutual friends most of whom were in Chicago. Upon asking if I could release a SMOASP song on a future Chunklet compilation, he smiled and said that he had 3 songs that the band recorded with Albini that might do the trick. The one he was most anxious about was "Autobahn" originally by Kraftwerk.
The Shadowy Men on tour somewhere…
The tape featured "Autobahn," a dirgey drone entitled "Shake Some Evil (Version Fink)" and a beautifully perplexing tune/mash-up entitled "16 Encores". After eagerly asking Don if I could put "Autobahn" on a release, he politely declined stating that all the tracks were to appear on a compilation released on Cargo in the near future.
Well, that was 10 years ago, the compilation has yet to come out and I’ve probably made close to 20 dupes of this tape over the years and have still yet to see it any official capacity. So I’m putting two of the tracks up in the hopes that the surviving Shadowy Men are more happy than irritated that I’m posting them.
I should also add that I have an additional version of "16 Encores" from a Peel Session the band did in the 90’s and the ‘encores’ are completely different…. Ahhh, you gotta love how consumately playful they were with their music.
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet promo pic
CONTEST TIME! The person who shoots me an email who gets closest to citing all the covers that Shadowy Men cover in "16 Encores" will get a Chunklet care package free of charge shipped to their apartment, hotel room or prison cell! How’s that for a deal?
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet – 16 Encores
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet – Autobahn (Kraftwerk)
Many things about Mormon culture are regrettable, look no further than Mitt Romney to understand that. One great thing about Mormons is their complete inability to adapt. Case in point, a mormon take on rap, as recorded by the Walter & Hays Band in 1988. Though I never had a copy of the cassette, I think every single mormon kid in junior high heard it somewhere. The band was made up of several balding, older gentlemen trying to take advantage of the rap music "fad". I remember some bad cover art, and far too many mentions of copyright.
At Eastside Records in the mid 90’s, Bob Schriner [Chunklet contributor –ed] and I rediscovered the cassette, and would play it whenever we wanted to make skinheads leave the store. For lyrics click here….
First off, I’ve included some live mp3s of each band, and three of the four are doing songs from the Whirlyball single. All are courtesy of Sloan who runs the spectacular Southern Shelter blog who is currently posting Deerhunter’s complete show along with a Harvey Milk show from last October.
In the Spring of 1990, I sure was an impressionable young twerp. I was finishing up my studies at York College of Pennsylvania, falling in love with my first serious girlfriend (who’d later prove to be a complete and total psycho) and was getting more and more immersed in underground music. The record stores over in Lancaster (Web of Sound and BBC Records, both RIP) were a constant source of how I would get my weekly injection of new music. The radio station I was at (WVYC, 88.1) was a joke. The music director would speak glowingly of the new Sinnead O’Connor single and all I wanted to do was put on a new Pussy Galore bootleg I scored. And then again, it was York, so what did I ever expect?
One of the best purchases I ever made was the "Richie’s Dog" and Siltbreeze "live" seven inches both by the Minneapolis band Halo of Flies. Without too much to go on (as was common for any band back then), I immediately tried to find out as much as I could which was next to impossible. I wrote to Siltbreeze (never got a reply) and then to Amphetamine Reptile which, as I later found out, was Halos guitar player Tom Hazelmyer’s record label. Friendly letters and packages would follow. Other Halos and AmRep releases, friendly suggestions of bands to check out (many of which are still all-time favorites) and then the odd show that might be in my neck of the woods would come to my mailbox in York and then to Pittsburgh and, later, to Athens.
Halo of Flies…….a classic…
Being notified of Halo of Flies performing at the 9:30 Club in March of 1990 would be a permanently life changing event. Now, let me try to explain here…..just living in York meant that going to see anything was a chore. And seeing as how my curiosity of what was going on in New York, Philly and DC was bursting at the seams, I traveled to these cities a lot in an attempt to see shows and buy records. DC was a 2 hour trip one way which was compounded by the fact that I always had early classes the next morning which’d mean I’d be getting back around 4a.m., tired, ears buzzing and, more often than not, completely broke after buying everything any given band was selling.
The old 9:30 Club was inarguably legendary, and back in the pre-gentrified days of seeing shows there (and at DC Space right around the corner), it was always a dodgy proposition when I was taking my mom’s car down into "the shit". However, looking back on the line-up for the show, it is still an all-time favorite: Halo of Flies, Surgery and Tar. Tar and Surgery were great, but Halo of Flies were…..well, simply devastating.
All three members — drummer John Anglim, bass player Tim Mac and guitarist Tom Hazelmyer — all looked like they wanted to beat the hell out of each other (and then the crowd) the second they hit the stage. I can’t remember exactly what songs they played, but I do remember just feeling that it was savage, sloppy, gruesome and it left the crowd leveled. Unquestionably leveled. Still one of the top 10 shows I’ve ever seen. EVER.
As years have gone on, I’ve met numerous people from different cities who were all at that crucial show from my youth. Furthermore, every last person who I’ve talked to about this show has said the exact same thing. Damon Che (Don Caballero) was there. Justin Chearno (Pitchblende, Turing Machine, Panthers) was there. And, of course, Chris X (Reptilian Records) was there. And we’ve all bonded over how over-the-top and threatening the show was. I’m just glad that I’ve finally found people who were there that agree with me.
And you know what? Halo of Flies did that one teeny tour I saw them on and that was the only time Americans (outside of Minneapolis and Chicago) ever got to see them.
Twin/Tone Halos promo pic
Halo of Flies quickly disintegrated after the Ugly American Overkill tour the next spring at a venue in London. Hazelmyer continued with AmRep, Mac worked for him in the basement of his dentist office-turned-record company headquarters (until he "got weird") and Anglim went off to journalism school. So Halos kinda just stopped. No fanfare, no sentimentality, no nothing.
As the new century dawned, Hazelmyer and I started an exchange that I never would’ve imagined where he wanted me to write THE book on Amphetamine Reptile. Although I was certainly flattered, I couldn’t think of anybody else who would be better qualified for the job. Through Chunklet, I feel like I’m more synched up with what Tom has always been doing not to mention just having the organizational and writing abilities to get things done. Many e-mails were exchanged, a flight to Minneapolis was booked to discuss the whole project and then all we’ve had to do is find a publisher. Which, as you can guess, has yet to happen. However, things change. I’m not writing it off. In fact, I’m ready to start on this the second Tom says that we have financial backing.
And so it was with great glee that I got a few mp3s sent along from Tom about a year or so ago of some soundtrack music he was writing for the artist Dalek. Much like Halos, the music is 100% Tom, but this stuff is much more damaged. Kinda like a post-modern Chrome seen through the eyes of Flipper. So this was the first music he’d written since Halo of Flies’ demise in 1991. I was stoked.
Last week, Ipecac released a deluxe glossy book with a CD and DVD for this project between Hazelmyer and Dalek — Purge of Dissidents. Apart from Hazelmyer (who now almost exclusively goes by Haze XXL for the Juxtapoz crowd), there’s the guys from The Melvins backing him up, cameos from Grant Hart (Hüsker Dü), Craig Finn (The Hold Steady), David Yow (The Jesus Lizard) and old Halos drummer John Anglim. Although I’m not terribly familiar with Dalek’s work, this entire package is certainly compelling if not downright demented. But let’s be honest here, it’s inarguably got style.
I’ve included a few mp3s of Halo of Flies to further reaffirm my point of their importance. The first is a tape I’ve had for years which was turned into a live LP called "Fuck The World" and the next two mp3s are the live tracks from the Siltbreeze 7" which still completely blows my mind. And while I’m at it, does anybody know the story behind the "Pubic Pop Can" record label that put out the "FTW" LP? They also did the "Reverse Willie Horton" LP by the Blues Explosion and so I’m sure it’s somebody we can easily trace. Suggestions?
Try Chunklet: The Slack Jawed… Just read this synopsis:
"All hell breaks loose when a giant Grizzly, reacting to the slaughter of Grizzlies by poachers, attacks at a massive big-band rock concert in the National Park."
