various artists - PRO-CD 95.ZERO.1

My preparation for a colonoscopy prevented me from posting this Thursday; mea culpa. Here's a Friday taster for y'all.

10 songs, five artists: you know the drill. Devo, Flipper, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Alan Vega, and Alan Watts.

This makes the second of six samplers that I've posted so far. I've also posted a dozen of the 27 releases that Infinite Zero put out in its four-year history. Should I jump off the ongoing comp theme to get some more of these out these? It's not like any of it is particularly hard to find. But it is all interesting, and, hell, it should be easier to track down Iceberg Slim's album.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Infinite Zero Promotional CD #1

I initially had another release planned for today; you'll get that one next Monday.

But then James Chance passed away Tuesday, June 18th, and I felt like it was a good time to share this label sampler from 30 years ago. I remember finding this in the promo bin at the first record store I worked in, just a year after it came out. But it was a revelation for me, led off by the Contortions' "Design To Kill", and followed by the likes of Devo, Gang of Four, Alan Vega, and Tom Verlaine. Hell, there's a LL Cool J track here. I'm guessing it's a result of Infinite Zero being a Rick Rubin/Henry Rollins joint venture.

RIP to a real one. There ain't many of his like left.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Vile Cherubs - The Man Who Has No Eats Has No Sweats

A comprehensive look at Tim Green and Seth Lorinczi's bands from 1979 to 1989 (from the Thee Evolution Revolution 7")

When you've listened to the Dischord catalog as much as I have, you get real excited when you discover something like Vile Cherubs.

Vile Cherubs seems to have played out from mid-1986 to mid-1988, leaving behind two demos and an LP, "Post-Humorous Relief", that was co-released in 1989 by Dischord. If it sounds to you like it has something in common with Nation of Ulysses, it's because future NoU/Fucking Champs guitarist Tim Green played guitar here as well. It's his first recorded output, along with regular collaborator and future Circus Lupus/Antimony/Quails guitarist Seth Lorinczi & Jesse Quits, soon to play bass for Capitol City Dusters.

I feel like you can draw a direct line from the regional garage 45s that make up the "Pebbles" comps to the demos that make up "The Man Who Has No Eats Has No Sweats". Seeing that Geoff Turner recorded these tracks at WGNS makes a lot of sense; it has more in common with his contemporary band, Senator Flux, than it does with, say, Ignition or Soul Side. I wish I had more trenchant insights for you here. I like it for the same reasons I like New Bomb Turks; it's a big ol' punk rock 'n' roll racket that I wish I'd heard of a lot sooner.

Discogs

Click here to download.

(The) Monorchid - Who Put Out The Fire?

Monorchid (photo by Drew McDermott)

A monorchid is a being with only one testicle. (The) Monorchid was a brainworm I couldn't shake out of my head, with triple the balls the name would imply.

I came to Monorchid in a backwards fashion. I booked Wrangler Brutes into the Art Space, in no small part because Andy and Brooks from Skull Kontrol were the rhythm section behind Cundo from Nazti Skins and some dude named Sam. I liked Skull Kontrol (check the name of the blog, dog), and someone mentioned that Andy and Chris, the singer of Skull Kontrol, had done a band in DC before that called Monorchid. So I snagged a copy of their second and final LP, "Who Put Out The Fire?", and, well...

This is where I finally learned that if Chris Thomson was involved in something, I'd probably like it. The thru-thread spun through DC to Madison back to DC and on to Chicaog, from Ignition to Fury to Circus Lupus to Las Mordidas, on to Skull Kontrol to Red Eyed Legends to Coffin Pricks. It was going to be punk and weird and beyond cool and worth studying. When I sang, I wanted everything to sound like a glorious ad lib, no matter if it was stream of conciousness or written months before...to possess that sense of cool I always heard in Chris's voice.

"Who Put Out The Fire?" came out the same year as "Terraform", "What Burns Never Returns", and "Starters Alternators". It was a veritable murderer's row of great records from Touch & Go in 1998, which makes their infrequent releases in 2020 a goddamned shame.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Skull Kontrol - Zzzzzz...

This is where our names come from...

It's been a little while, so I won't wax poetic. I wish I had been a slightly more hip person in my early 20's, instead of chasing whatever horseshit I listened to back then. I might have, instead of the obligatory Get Up Kids 7"s, rocked this record, even though I could never grow the mustache to go along with it.. This is totally bitchin' post-hardcore from ex-members of Born Against & the Monorchid. Skull Kontrol covers a Screamers track on this, their 2nd and final release. Still in print, available from Touch & Go and your local iTunes icon. Buy it.









Skull Kontrol - Zzzzzz...

RIYL: breaking glass, one testicle, the floor of ABC No Rio