Broken Legs, Broken Face, Blood Everywhere

NECRONOMICON (Ger) - Tips zum Selbtsmord (1972)

The next time some needle-dicked knowitall tries to lay that "there was nuthin' as heavy as Sabbath in the early 70's, dude" trip on ya, sit their sorry ass down for a spin of this beast (Hopefully you have the original edition, limited to 500 copies, with the six-panel gatefold that forms a huge cross and the insert that features a pile of mangled corpses). If ya don't smell 'em first, these "people" are easy enough to spot: they tend to wear denim jackets with the sleeves crudely hacked off-- at least a size too small-- covered with patches of mediocre bands, nicotine stains up to their elbows (yup, I smoke too, but I also bathe) and facial hair that resembles a diseased Chia Pet. I wish I was being a smartarse or merely exhibiting my not so latent misanthropy, but take it as a Public Service Announcement. Trust me: I know these things.

Speaking of misanthropy, ya gotta know that a band that takes the name of HP Lovecraft's (or the "Mad Arab," Abdul Alhazred depending on your level of naivety) infamous fictional manuscript, and calls their first (and only) LP "Tips to Commit Suicide," ain't exactly "People Persons". That impression is reinforced by the subject matter of their lyrics which deal almost exclusively with man's impending demise. In fact, much of it seems like giddy anticipation for Armageddon; a fully-formed philosophy of "Love Earth, Hate Humanity" (which would become the stock-in-trade of SoCal sludgesters, Dystopia, for an obvious example, twenty years later). The music conjured to orchestrate their grim tales of ecological disaster and the inhumanity of humans is built around barbaric acid-prog, with mammoth power chords and dense percussion. Detours are made into Pagan Ritualistic motifs that seem designed to awaken lost memories of ancient times in the collective unconscious. With nigh operatic, funereal femme backing vox, Aphrodite's Child is a comparison that springs to mind, but this shit is far more diabolical, intangibly sinister and emotionally suffocating.

Postius Scrotius: Although they are almost always lumped in with the innumerable hordes of so-called "Krautrock" bands, I feel Necronomicon stand alone as a genre unto themselves. I have yet to hear music as outrageously original as "Selbtsmord" by any of the beyond boring swill that most often sounds, to these ears at least, like a buncha hippies desperately trying to emulate turgid wank like Yes or ELP without the chops. A certain outfit that has a name that sounds an awful lot like a deodorant comes to mind. Oh well, not everybody could be Can, Faust, Neu!, Amon Düül II... or Necronomicon.

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VARIOUS - Can't Stop It!: Australian Post Punk (1978-82)

"Post-punk" is one of those bourgeois rockcrit terms that makes my stomach turn. What it basically implies is that the music is influenced by punk, but has been neutered by their kind; not the hapless proles that came up with the shit in the first place. So lesee, if Gang of Four say, are "post-punk," does that make Bobby Vinton "post-rockabilly"? Or, for a more modern take, the Afghan Whigs "post-hairbands"? Really. Fucking. Stupid. Term. Be that as it may, whatcha got here is a collection of Aussies injecting some art-wank tendencies into their punk.

I must admit that a lotta this stuff fails to get me even a tenth hard. Far too often I'm reminded of the Talking Heads crossed with the Undertones-- which is a mixture they'll be playing to me in Hell if such a place exists. But then, as almost all hope has disintegrated, synth-punk monsters the Primitive Calculators (watch for a full-length feature/LP in the near future if I haven't gone self-destructo on you ungrateful bastards by then) who take Suicide's blueprint, throw it down the toilet and create something as ferocious as it is high-falutin'... that's more like it, about three-quarters erect now... then, the Slugfuckers. Their contribution, suitably entitled "Cacophony," is a miasma of treated analog keyboard skronk that rivals early Half Japanese in lovable unlistenability. Now I'm standing at attention!

Track List:

1 The Moodists - Gone Dead
2 Voigt/465 - Voices a Drama
3 The Take - Summer
4 Essendon Airport - How Low Can You Go?
5 The Apartments - Help
6 Ash Wednesday - Love By Numbers
7 Primitive Calculators - Pumping Ugly Muscle
8 The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast - The Dumb Waiters
9 Ron Rude - Piano Piano
10 Xero - The Girls
11 The Limp - Pony Club
12 The Fabulous Marquises - Honeymoons
13 The Slugfuckers - Cacophony
14 Equal Local - Lamp That
15 Tame O'Mearas - Sweat and Babble
16 The Particles - Apricot's Dream
17 People with Chairs Up Their Noses - Song of the Sea
18 Wild West - We Can Do
19 The Pits - Words
20 →↑→ - One Note Song

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BURMESE - A Mere Shadow & Reminiscence of Humanity (2001)


San Francisco's Burmese had a serious dilemma: do we wanna play like Whitehouse or Man Is the Bastard? After what I'm sure was a long, frustrating bout of pondering this stylistic quagmire, they came up with Thee Perfect Solution-- by playing both simultaneously. If yer a fan of serious scree, a glance at the song titles will letcha know this can't miss: the title of this post is one of 'em, as well as "Bukkake Ongaku" and "Stripped Clean"-- and I can assure y'all that they're every bit as pulverizing and obnoxious as would be expected. The "Two Mikes and a John" utilize a two bass/drums lineup-- no guitars to inject unneeded subtleties like melody-- that's for pussies. The vocals range from Cookie Monster grunts to a positively uncanny approximation of William Bennett's high-pitched caterwauling. One of the most extreme bands still  terrorizing people who buy their style and outlook from Hot Topic today.

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