So it’s no small secret that the folks at Newmerica were instrumental in helping us achieve our ambitious Kickstarter goal last fall. They’re funny. They’re inventive. They’re our kinda people.
Well, here’s their newest project featuring Brent Hinds from Mastodon, To those that live outside of Atlanta, this should serve as Chunklet’s Chamber of Commerce obligation for the year. And for those that are from around our parts, well, we all know Brent, Tom and El Myr. Congrats to all involved.
The late 90’s were kind of a blur to me. Mail and email were keeping neck and neck and there was never a lack of people turning me onto new artists. In addition to this, I was booking a club here in Atlanta five nights a week and working for an ad agency during the day. So yeah, I was burning it at both ends. And really, it was kind of a blast.
Jonathan Kreinik (Trans Am’s touring sound man and studio engineer) told me repeatedly to check out this band that had been at his studio recently…and well, that band was Knodel. Knodel was one of those bands that at the time I was really excited about. It didn’t take very long for me to ask them if I could do a couple limited CD-R releases with them. Both in numbered editions of less than 200. And you know what? The EPs are still pretty darned great.
Okay, sure. The band was clearly geeky. Clearly aspiring to be those bands that they loved (Man or Astroman? and Trans Am come to mind). But man, doing Basic programming as lyrics for a song? Yeah, sign me up.
The first CD-R (edn of 100) was later paired up with more material to make up the 1985 EP which I still love listening to. It’s so late 90’s it hurts.
I was lucky enough to see the band perform once at the club I booked in Atlanta in ’99 (I’m thinking) opening for Man…or Astro-Man? and they were kind of a mess. Not bad. Just not that well formed. Then again, they were kids. I also remember their show as being the first time I saw VHS or Beta who, coincidentally (at least at the time), were mining the same musical terrain as Knodel. VHS and I were actually discussing releasing a record. I dodged that bullet.
Knodel went on to release a full length called "Black Hole" which I thought was an overwrought step backwards. Then again, maybe I’m just a softie when it comes to demos. They just come closer to what the band was doing.
I’m including the ten closest "songs" from the two CD-Rs on the site. However, if you want the entire shebang (in lossless format), just click here. Postscript: I’ve got a couple copies of these here. Want ’em? Email me and we can work something out.
Over a year ago, Man or Astro-Man? asked for me to write the liner notes for their reissue of their "Your Weight on the Moon" 10" on One Louder. Of course, nothing has happened (yet) so I’m including this along with MOAM?s very first tape from the fall of ’92.
And finally, I’ve encoded some early video of Astroman from ’92. Darnell’s in Auburn!
LINERS: Second only to five inch records, ten inch records are the pinnacle of collecting fetishism. Fact.
I’m certainly not trying to pick a fight with this broad statement, but it’s true. You, the reader, know it’s true. The labels that put them out know it’s true. Hell, everybody that’s ever collected records knows it’s true. It’s the vinyl equivalent to the dollar coins that the US Mint has tried (repeatedly) to adapt into the American currency. No matter how much they’ve been pushed on the general public, they’re just met with a polite level of interest followed by an oppressive level of apathy. This is fact. The sooner you come to realize this, the sooner your record collection will be able to muster a sigh of relief.
I’ve had extended conversations discussing the fetishistic nature of 10" records over and over again, and when pressed for a counter-argument, the same examples are brought up to champion their validity. The Oblivians. Slint. Teengenerate. Pavement. And then there’s Man…or Astro-Man? They didn’t put out one 10" record. No, no, no. They put out THREE and one of ’em was a double! Pack that in your space bong and smoke it.
1994 marked only YEAR NUMBER TWO for Man…or Astro-Man? in their search to fill record store bins across the world with their absurdly prolific output. The band came out of the gates so fast in 1992 that it became almost impossible to keep up with what they were putting out. As a fledgling music writer in Athens at the time of their first demo tape called "Supersonic Toothbrush" (not to be mistaken for the 7" of the same name) was released, I felt fortunate that I was able to plant a stake at ground zero of the swelling Astro-mania that would swell throughout the decade.
Just to put things in perspective, perhaps it would be best to explain exactly just how prolific Astro-Man? were. In 1993, their first full year as a band, they put out five singles, a flexidisc and their first full length album, Is It… My iTunes library tells me that’s over a full 90 minute mix-tape of exclusive material. An hour and a half! In a year! Perhaps it would also help to understand that when the band wasn’t writing and recording these releases, they were burning out axles and flinging Little Debbie snack cakes all across the Southeast United States. And to top it off, to varying degrees, all four of the Astro-kids were all in school. And let me tell you, as somebody that is all but a few years older than they are, they were kids. But they were kids that were chomping at the bit to get out of Auburn and out to clubs to slap their stickers on any available condom machine, sound board, backstage club door or cocaine mirror they could get their post-teenage hands on.
Man…or Astro-Man?’s visits to Georgia were alarmingly steady in those early days before the rest of the planet fell prey to them. By looking at my dusty tape collection, the band played no fewer than six venues in Georgia that first year. The Star Bar, The Point and the Grooveyard in Atlanta and Club Fred, Hoyt Street North and the 40 Watt Club in Athens. And on top of it, they performed in the Omni Hotel lobby at DragonCon to unwitting comic book and scifi nerds on a Saturday afternoon. You could say that the band was hungry, but so quickly? And so…..I don’t know how else to say it…..CRAZED?!
Their live shows were always a hodgepodge of whatever far-fetched ideas that came out of their collective noggins. Performed songs that were flubbed were met with push-ups. Coco’s brilliant, yet some would say long winded, on-stage rants were met with abuse from behind Birdstuff’s drum kit. Hecklers were met with Tang powder poured over their heads. Unsuspecting audiences were blindsided by Little Debbie snacks hurtling out the Snackzooka (™) at 100 miles per hour. Coco The Electronic Monkey Wizard would ride his trusty Big Wheel around the crowd, and of course, the show was never truly complete until their trusty tour manager Bookman would come out to shake his hips doing the "Bunny Foo Foo" dance during "Reverb 10,000." Those were good times, I tell you. Good times. And don’t let nobody tell you otherwise.
Which, in a roundabout way, takes me to fall of 1993. Birdstuff and I had become quick pen pals in those halcyon pre-internet days where stamps on postcards announcing tour dates were king and our early hang times were spent hovering over the merch table after their sets. Birdstuff would routinely push Astroman?’s newest sellable gimmick on me. Whether it was Astro-Teethpaste (read: a push-tube of Crest), Galactic Fruit Meteors (read: a standard issue fruit cake) or Space Dust (read: dryer lint) they all had an ersatz Man…or Astroman? sticker slapped on it and made their own….and available for only five bucks!
The band played that night with the Smugglers and the Subsonics above a Jamaican restaurant on Peachtree in Atlanta at a club called The Grooveyard. This is back when downtown was still fraught with chances for a small town kid such as myself to get mugged (or worse) on a night out. I vividly recollect Clay from the Subsonics warning me to look out for the heroin needles in the men’s bathroom. Yeah, it was that kind of place. That particular night Birdstuff plopped the "Call of the Wild" flexidisc and Mission Into Chaos single into my hands (along with the newest obligatory Astro-shirt and stickers) before I left for my 2am drive back to Athens.
Getting a copy of those early Astro-Man? singles was palpably exciting. The songs were still fresh. Still new. Still raw. Not obsessed with studio time, they were cranking the jams out at a furious clip and Mission Into Chaos was no exception. Astro-Man? was still around eighteen months old, but learning what they wanted from their records at an excelled rate. As with all their singles of this era, it was recorded out past the train tracks in Wetumpka, Alabama at Jim Marrer’s converted house/studio in a day. The guitar tones were starting to drift away from the clichéd Ventures sound and getting a more punky attack. The ambient drones and howls were more deftly mixed into the songs. The samples were getting more abstract. The 4-color die-cut sleeve (their first for a 7") was far more mysterious and less literal than previous releases (thanks to graphic design master Art Chantry). The band was growing stronger by the day and Mission Into Chaos proves it.
A mere couple months later in December, Astroman? were playing the 40 Watt in Athens on some random Friday night. All of the band were gearing up for their first trip to Ol Blighty and showed up to the club with differently colored Manic Panic-dyed neon hair. I distinctly remember Birdstuff’s electric blue mop as he handed me their (fifth!) newest single of 1993, the vs. Europa UK tour single on Homo Habilis. Again, and I’m not trying to belabor the point as much as make this abundantly clear, this was a band that had started a little over a year before their first European tour. Wrap your head around that.
The winter and spring of 1994 progressed with their same seemingly effortless level of aplomb. And, as had become tradition by that point, Astroman? were hitting Georgia on Fridays and Saturdays amidst their furious school, recording and tour schedule. Amidst the calamity, Astroman? wrote Your Weight On The Moon in a week. Yes, seven days. Following that, the band was holed up at Zero Return for another three days to record and mix their debut 10" record.
note the Cliff’s Notes sport coat!
Your Weight On The Moon signaled the waning days of this first (and some would say "classic") line up of Astroman?. Dr. Deleto’s days were counting down and so was the band’s more elementary approach to songwriting. However, this isn’t to say that Astroman? didn’t have plenty of tricks up their sleeve. As performances around this time would prove, many of these songs became staples of their set for years to come. "Special Agent Conrad Uno" and "Electrostatic Brain Field" were always to be expected for the next year. The Rezillos song "Destination Venus" was too eerily similar to the Astroman? songwriting style of the time (except for the addition of vocals, obviously) and "Rocketship XL-3" became the routine opening number to their shows for most of 1994 and well into 1995.
The 10" quickly became ubiquitous with record stores and collectors alike. Of course, the sign of the diehard fan was easy to spot by owning a glow-in-the-dark copy. And yes, I would turn the lights out in my living room to watch the record dimly glow while "Space Patrol" blasted out of my stereo. Remember what I said about the 10" being a fetishized format? Well, keep in mind that when said format glows, it ramps the record to legendary status. No question.
The band would take a more distinctly post-punk direction over the course of their next lineup which featured Captain Zeno. But really, Your Weight On The Moon is a crystalline snapshot of a young and prolific band writing, performing and recording at a furious pace. Musically, the band never stayed in one place for very long, but after all, these were kids from outer space.
Upon discussing Man or Astro-Man? with a fellow long-tenured fan, we kept revisiting how the band was always on display. This was actually a band whose packaging matched (or even exceeded) their on-stage personas, and you’d always wait with anxious anticipation what the band would bring out. Whereas some bands would have cool looking records, their songs sucked and what’s worse, they sucked live. Or, what would be more painful, their songs were killer, the packaging was killer, yet the band just weren’t that great on stage. But then there was Man…or Astro-Man? who masterfully did all three. They always came up with something fun (and usually funny) for almost ten years. TEN YEARS! Although this might sound brash, I’ll publicly debate anybody that can find a band with such a spectacular track record for an entire decade. Yeah, long live Man…or Astro-Man?
Henry H. Owings Chunklet Magazine Atlanta, Georgia 27 January 2010
Man…or Astro-Man? – Invasion of the Dragonmen (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Organ Smash (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Nitrous Burnout (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Adios Johnny Bravo (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Cowboy Playing Dead (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Alien Visitors (first demo)
Man…or Astro-Man? – Sadie Hawkins Atom Bomb (first demo)
Poly Styrene died Monday after a battle with cancer. I know I’m just one of countless who were affected by her music with X Ray Spex. We were all Germfree with Poly singing.
Back in ’96, I interviewed her via email (which was revolutionary back then) for issue ten of Chunklet, and I’m publishing it here for the first time since it was originally published. At the end of our email exchange, I asked her for an autographed photo and a week later, one arrived in the mail which I still cherish to this day. Goodbye, Poly. You will be missed.
Name: Marian Joan Elliott Birthday: 3rd July 1957 Height: 5 ft. 2" Shoe size: 4 or 37 Prescription Lenses: None but I like wearing shades Other: 36" 26" 36" What sort of background do you come from? Positive family environment, etc? A slightly unusual one I have seven different races flowing through my veins. I had lots of fun & love as a kid, mum was quite strict, I have fond memories of British life. Before the band started, what did you do? School? I was designing wacky clothing and had a small unit in the Kings Road, Chelsea called Poly Styrene. Vivienne Westwood was just around the corner. What were the first records you bought? My Sweet Lord by George Harrison, Aretha Franklin’s first gospel album, Holidays In The Sun by the Sex Pistols. X Ray Spex formed in what year? What was the impetus for the band’s creation? 1976, I wanted to have fun with some kids my own age. I also wanted to communicate with the rest of the world. How did you all meet? I put an ad in Melody Maker for young punx who want to stick it together. Paul Jak came B.P. & Lora came later Lora left and then Rudi Tompson came over from Australia. When the band initially formed, what was the most musical training any of you had? Everybody had some training, Paul & I had the most, Paul played clarinet and guitar as well as bass. I was trained classically at Wigmore Hall and my singing teacher wanted me to sing opera soprano but I had other ideas. Given your ages at the time, how did you fit in with other contemporary bands of the time? We were babes compared to bands like the Pretenders. We said hi to everybody but kept a respectable distance. What was your take on the whole punk scene? A new attitude, we wanted a new world order. Do you believe that punk is still a viable movement? Yes, but it needs to evolve from self imposed negative nihilism to positive thinking. It could also do with a spiritual injection. Did punk mean anything to you? How about now? It meant a lot at the time for lots of people, and now it’s up to capable individuals to build on what was started. How did the lyrics for songs come about? Divine inspiration, I hope? And of course wordly experience. What about your music? How are songs written? Something fires or triggers my imagination, then words, concept & melodies flood my consciousness then I express this to the people I work with and they become a tangible reality. Were you ever turned away from a club you were playing at because they wouldn’t allow minors in or they didn t believe you were in the band? Please elaborate. No because I always drank orange juice or Perrier at the bar and my braces and clothes made me very recognizable. I know you played America in 1979. What was your initial impression of America and Americans? Has it changed? I loved it and the positivity of American audiences was ab-fab. I have some frends in the USA in a band called Shelter and they’re absolutely brilliant. What have been the most pivotal moments in the band’s career? In your life? Playing Victoria Park, East London Anti Nazi League rally, for Rock Against Racism. It was a real political-musical high, thousands and thousands of people marhed and of course making "Conscious Consumer" was a giant step into the 21st Cetury. What was (were) the reason (s) that the band dissolved at the end of the 70’s? I wanted to continue my education and I needed to grow spiritually. How did you initially get involved with Krishna? Singing and dancing with them in the early seventies at various pop festivals in the UK. I also read a book called Easy Journies To Other Planets and when I ate some halava I was hooked.
Was your involvement with Krishna part of the reason that Germ Free Adolescents became the collector’s item that it became (due to going out of print)? When did you decide to allow the first record to be rereleased? I guess you could say Krishna had something to do with the band’s current underground cult status, 1991 we allowed Virgin to rerelease Germfree on CD. Of course there’s been lots of bootlegs which we knew nothing about. Why did you finally allow it to happen? I wanted to continue to communicate with the rest of the world. Have you found X Ray Spex’s popularity to have risen over the band’s hiatus during the 80’s? Yes it has especially in the USA and Japan. Describe what it was like to reassemble the band and record this new album. Great fun. Your lyrics have definitely changed….how do you comfortably go from "I’m a Cliche" to songs about cows and their religious significance? Quite easily, why not? I’m certainly not bound by my own myth, as my consciousness evolves so my songs naturally evolve. Does the Krishna organization encourage your musical endeavors? Please elaborate. I have lots of friends that are Hari’s, but there’s no great plot. Sure they like my music, and true friends are always supportive. Sometimes I might get inspired at a lecture or a love feast to write a song. What is the current status of X Ray Spex? You tell me, I’m a little detached from that side of things. I think we’ve got some cred though. Will America ever see you playing here again? I should most definitely say so – and I hope it’s not in the too distant future. Do you have any suggestions for 13 year olds trying to do what you did 20 years ago? Chant Hare Krishna and be happy, don’t eat dead animals, have fun with your music and keep some straight-edge principles. How has the electronic/cyber revolution changed the way you do things? Artistically, not a lot, but it’s been great for communications and maybe we will utilise it a bit more on future albums. Parting words? Peace, Love & Blessings.
This has been done before. That can be said about many of the motifs, visuals, shots, and mannerisms that are in gangsta rap music videos. It can also be said about a list such as this.
But being the person I am, I wasn’t satisfied with just a handful of examples. Because of course rap videos are similar. Having seen as many as I have though, you start to notice the nuances of these clichés. And by having dedication only when it serves exploring the inane, I thought I could do better.
But what does this all mean? Through this close examination of rap videos will we have a better understanding of rap culture? Or music in general? Will it give us insight into the objectification of women? Will it explain just where all our money went? No. It won’t. That’s the nature of rap music. It’s to put those questions at ease with a beat, provocatively dressed women and money. And that’s all it ever wanted to do.
The following has appeared in at least one video. Rap culture in general is heavily based on replication, leaving us to understand that if it was done once in one video, it’s been done in other videos that followed (most of which probably will never see the light of day and shouldn’t).
The list is not complete, by any means, but it’s a start.
So I’ve been busy changing diapers and dealing with the bang and clang of construction here at Chunklet HQ, but the press juggernaut behind the Indie Cred Test has begun!
I’m also including an interview I did this past week with the kind folks at WREK here in Atlanta. In the ten years since the last time I was at their studio (MOAM? did a radio session), they moved. So I was late. Instead of an hour long interview, you get 30 minutes. In those 30 minutes, I fire across a local music scribe’s bow, explain who Nirvana is/was and get to hate on Perry Farrell. I know, far too easy.
So I’ve been in pretty hardcore daddy duty these past couple weeks, but I’m still listening to new jams. Often.
True Widow is on Kemado and are a self-professed "stonegaze" band from Dallas. The kind folks at Aquarius have been championing them for a while, but yeah, I guess I’d have to read each and every update they do in order to catch all the great stuff they recommend.
Other than this, the new Milk Music LP…..well, it’s just about the best damned thing I’ve heard this year so far.
So I’m looking at an enormous bag of records that I bought on Saturday. And yes, it’s more than many Saturdays I buy records, but it’s a bag nonetheless.
In it are some real finds: The Big Star test-pressing LP, Grinderman 12"s, Velvet Underground, Deerhunter, Off! and other singles.
And then I got a 13th Floor Elevators single which I was very excited to get. However, it was $13. I know, predatory pricing isn’t anything new for major labels…..but for a single? By Roky Erickson? Really? I mean, REALLY?
I also got this video from Eric Levin who owns/operates Criminal Records and is a co-founder of Record Store Day. An insanely insane head scratcher.
Now I know that Chunklet isn’t the appropriate forum to champion my sports teams, but I found a loophole. It is primarily the website I use to make fun of bands. And I’ve spent a good deal of the past eight years making fun of Ministry.
So I always find that there are a lot of Ministry and Blackhawk fans not aware of this abortion. So I sometimes enjoy digging it out for a laugh before I get bored and watch the Calgary Flames video from the 80’s.
Jorgensen gave this song to the Blackhawks as a theme song three years ago. It kind of sounds like if someone was making a low budget film and wanted to use Rock and Roll pt 2, but Gary Glitter is asking for way too much money because he’s in a Thai prison again so they got Marylin Manson’s (more?) retarded brother to write a song that doesn’t sound enough like RRp2 to get sued. Enjoy. But not too much. Sorry.
“We’re all in this together. Except you. You’re a dick.”
