various artists - The Infinite Zero Almanac: 1996 Sampler V

I ran out of time coming into today, so it's time for an easy write up. The fifth in the series of six Infinite Zero samplers; this one is one of the more comprehensive, coming as it did in the last year of the reissue label's existence. Most of these are available here on the ol' blog; just type in Inifnite Zero and expand your mind. I'm feeling the cover of this one most of all; the caricature of Rollins, flanked by the Def American and Infinite Zero logos, big, stronge fonts. It's a golden joy to behold.

While lacking the superior graphic design and the even-deeper record selection, it's no surprise that my early exposure to these drew me into an ongoing love of the Numero Group and Light in the Attic. I kind of got a kick out of watch the Grammy pre-broadcast show on YouTube tonight, seeing Numero's 90 Day Men set get a Grammy nom. It's great to see even the most obscure bands get beloved treatment, the expense of which makes a hell of a lot more sense then that double LP Chappel Roan release at $50 retail.

I'm all over the place tonight; forgive me, friends. I'm looking at a big record purge within the month, so my head isn't thinking about anything particular.

Discogs

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James White's Flaming Demonics

This is the last of the mid-90s reissues of James Chance's records, re-released by Infinite Zero. Let's face it; it's my least preferred Chance release, but it's still pretty damned good. And if you're stopping by here, you're probably a degenerate completist like I am, so you'll download it anyway.

I passed up a very nicely priced Japanese pressing of the Contortions' "Buy" over the weekend, along with Eno's three 70s art rock records on Editions EG. I brought home pretty of good stuff, to be fair, but those are the ones I've thought about since Saturday. C'est la vie; life will go on.

Discogs

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various artists - DB Sides

If you're reading this, that means it is now 2025, which means I'm in the eleventh year away from my homeland of Baltimore, and six years into the revival of this here bloggin' concern. It's a pretty nice feeling, yet bittersweet. We've made it another year, a bit farther away from then and much closer to tomorrow.

I don't know why I don't recall Decatur Blue; it's the exact kind of place I would have been stoked to visit in DC, during a period in my life when I would have been most able to do so. This 2003 comp commemorates that period, courtesy of Planaria Recordings. Don't let the minimal artwork below fool ya. This was home to a lot of DC's cutting edge visual art and music, ranging from the noise rock of Early Humans to the one-two no wave punk of Black Eyes and Measles Mumps Rubella to Canyon's winsome Neil Young-goes-emo alt-country. These are the folks that played the Talking Head, CCAS, the Ottobar, the Sidebar; some spots long gone, others still kicking against the pricks. It was a good time for DC independent music and art, and this, a fine document.

And if you came here thinking this was a collection of late 70s/early 80s Peter Holsapple/Chris Stamey tracks, well, sorry to disappoint cha.

Discogs

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various artists - Golden Grouper Vol. 1

The subtitle reads "18 California Bands You Won't See On The Warped Tour!", which is an awfully quaint sentiment twenty years after the fact. I can't imagine anyone born in 2003 involved in music today seeing fulfillment in the grimy DIY world that I lived in. They'd probably think old Uucle Ape has brain worms.

I probably do have brain worms. It has nothing to do with an adolescence spent in basements, garages, and out of the way clubs listening to loud-ass music, tho.

But this comp, from the esteemed and missed GSL, takes a pretty important snapshot of the noisy punk scene in California state circa 2004. When indie sleaze was just starting to fall apart, bands like 400 Blows, Wives, Wires on Fire, and Mannekin Piss were up and touring, making a racket to tens (literally TENS!) of fans across the country. I was one of them.

That time is long gone, y'all, and I don't see it coming back. The circumstances that allowed us to rent out warehouses and storefronts to throw $6 shows for these bands just don't exist any more. I have no doubt that kids today are still finding a path forward; I commend them for it. But I don't envy anyone trying to make or support art today, especially art that is patently anti-commercial. It's a fuckin' drag, every time I think about it.

Discogs

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James White & The Blacks – Off White

I digress from the current formatting to share this, the second of two James Chance records from 1979. Originally released by ZE Records as a no wave reaction to disco, this is far funkier than anything the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote, and a lot cooler.

This is the 1995 Infinite Zero reissue, the first time "Off White" had been available since its original release.and the first time it was available on CD. Apparently, there's an 8-track available, and if you want to hook up your boy as a holiday gift, I certainly wouldn't decline. It also appends the James Chance contribution to 1982's "A Christmas Record" on ZE, "Christmas With Satan", a track my mom would probably hate but one that fits on every holiday mixtape worth a damn.

Discogs

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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

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various artists - Mojo Presents: I ❤ NY Punk!

Clear definitions meant a lot more when I was younger. A younger Ape would say, "hey, the ain't punk!" "These bands are from New York City!" "That wasn't part of the CBGB scene!" And I wouldn't have been wrong. Bad Brains and Stimulators probably hew closer to hardcore, Television, Blondie, the Contoritions aren't your typical "three chords and a holler" types. The Real Kids (Boston), Destroy All Monsters (Detroit), and Bad Brains (D.C.) all made their names outside of NYC. The New York Dolls, Mink Deville, and Suicide were Mercer Street and Max's Kansas City players long before "Punk" was a magazine, much less a genre. 

But I've grown into more of a "let people enjoy things"-type of person in my dotage. I don't have time to quibble; I just want to listen to the Dictators, the Heartbreakers, Jayne County, Suicide. If I do have a gripe, it's that a lot of these cuts are drawn from inferior live tracks; cheers to fair amount of ROIR representation, but I wanna hear the 1977 single version of "Rip Her To Shreds", not a version broadcast on TV in 2004. I suppose that's the price you pay to get that iconic Debbie Harry photo as a cover, and a collection of real solid songs from the first wave.

Discogs

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various artists - Troubleman Mix-Tape

I look at this and think of the old adage, "How you goin' to keep 'em down on the farm when they've seen the big city?"

How are you going to keep the kids from getting even freakier with their sound after they've been on the bleeding edge for years? When they've gone off to college and broken edge and read Baudelaire and taken modern lit and political science and moved past three chords and the truth?

You can't. You never have been able to. It's how we got this comp, 52 tracks from folks who had populated your 7" collection back in the 90s but were ready to reintroduce disco and no wave and free jazz as the  new century dawned and before the world went to shit, all filtered through this lens of basement shows and fanzines. DIY as an ethos, art as a goal. Tell the story however you think fits the moment.

It absolutely shows that it took Mike S. 4 years to put this one together, because it is more than a kwal-lit-tee compilation. It's a perfect mixtape.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Change The Beat

The subtitle here is "14 Tracks From Madonna's New York Scene", which, if it's not a good selling point for ya, then, homey, you've come to the wrong place.

Herein is a sampling of what you might find playing in the DJ booth at Danceteria, back when Ms. Ciccone was still modeling and working through demos of her first record. My pockets are a bit light and my septum a bit fragile for the sort of pharmaceutical intake these jams call for, but I'm not certain that's even necessary to appreciate the likes of ESG, Delta 5, Judy Nylon, and Funkadelic all showing up to the same party.

It's just good jams for 68 minutes. And who amongst us is having too great a life to want that?

Cool cover photo, too.

Discogs

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Contortions - Buy

Fuhhhhhhhhhhhh...this record is sooooooooo good. Like, "knock your dick in the dirt with the ants and cocaine" and "slap yr mommy" good. Without a doubt one of the highlights of no wave and the Downtown scene and definitely probably my favorite James Chance recording. At least for today.

Words escape me. Skronk away.

Postscript: I didn't know it when I wrote this, but the masters at Superior Viaduct just announced a vinyl reissue of "Buy" is coming in June, all for the measly cost of two sawbucks. This is a MUST own.

Discogs

Click here to download.

James White And The Blacks - Sax Maniac

The older I get, the closer I get drawn to mutant disco.

There's something delightfully weird and, dare I say, special about that scene, so well documented by the likes of ZE Records back in the early 80s. This one didn't come out on ZE; it came out on Chris Stein' Animal Records, alongside Iggy's "Zombie Birdhouse" and the Gun Club's "Miami". A hell of a trio, if you ask me.

So, anyway, it's after midnight, and I have "God Told Me To" streaming on the TV, and Mr. Chance's version of "That Old Black Magic" stuck in my head, and maybe, just maybe, I'm longing for a New York City I only got to see the very tail end of. Fuck it; it's either this, or contort myself.

Discogs

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various artists - Singles: The Great New York Singles Scene

So what we have here is a load of classic record sides from various New York independent bands of the mid- and late-70s, collected on a single cassette, courtesy of the gang at ReachOut International Records, better known to the likes of youse as ROIR. What a great label: the home to the first Bad Brains and Bush Tetras records, the Stimulators tape, Glenn Branca and Suicide and Lee "Scratch" Perry and G.G. Allin and the Raincoats and just a metric fuckton of amazing sounds from downtown when it was still a beautiful shithole where you could get an apartment for $75 a month.

They're all stone cold hits. One could slap the original 1974 cut of "Piss Factory" of Patti Smith on as side A, track 1, fart on a snare drum for the remaining 87 minutes of a C90, and it'd still be worth it. But to then follow up with a pair of Ork Records releases ("Little Johnny Jewel Pt. 1" and a pre-Voivods "Blank Generation"), and you know you're in for sheer excellence. While the remainder of the tape isn't quite as Hall of Fame as those first three, they're all an awesome sampling of pre-Koch DIY NYC. There's the John Cale-produced Model Citizens, and Theoretical Girls, featuring Glenn Branca, both presaging the No Wave scene. Invaders and the Speedies turn out a pair of power pop cuts that, had they come out of L.A. or the Midwest, would have influenced generations of tunesmiths who wanted to be something more than KISS or Cheap Trick. Even the Mumps, playing something akin to post-glam, wouldn't truly get their due for years until after vocalist Lance Loud died.

Despite the last release of this coming in the early 90s, only some of these cuts have gotten collected elsewhere; I'm thinking specifically about Numero Group's awesome "Ork Records: Complete Singles" box set from 2015. Still, with the weather turning a bit cold and a leather jacket becoming climate appropriate, this is a good way to tune into some old stuff that wouldn't otherwise be easy to track down.

Discogs

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Infomatik - demo

The fun part about moving to the Seattle area is discovering those local bands that never really broke out regionally. I'm sure you can do the same thing regardless of where you move, but there's a rich vein to be tapped here, dating back to the area's jazz scene in the 40s. The craziest part is the secondary market on something you find at a Goodwill or at the Half Price Books warehouse sale. And much like Greg noted at MusicWhore.org, you have to judge these finds by their covers. That's how I came across a copy of Infomatik's 2004 demo.

To tell the truth, I honestly thought this had been misplaced in the CD section at St. Vinnie's. Infomatik had gutted a 5.25" floppy disc, replacing the magnetic disc with a CD-R. I thought it was a clever package; I'll almost always pick up cheap colored vinyl, die-cut covers, and weird CD trays. If the music doesn't pan out, c'est la vie.

Thankfully, these four tracks DO pan out. Sonically, these cats come from the wellspring of Joy Division, albeit with vocals A LOT more up front in the mix. They remind me a lot of Baltimore's Two If By Sea, a similarly-sounding contemporary who drew more from the Screamers than Interpol. It's a crying shame these guys had to release their own EP and LP; maybe it's just a fluke of the time when they were playing, but I feel like Infomatik could have toured behind a few limited run cassette releases. Regardless, it's a clever package containing four fun, danceable cuts.

TLDR: if you like your synthpunk dancey and spazzy, you'll definitely dig on this. I spent one dollar American on this bad boy.

Discogs

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Screamers - Live at the Whiskey, 1/6/78

OK, gang, here's the deal. Tomorrow morning I bail out for NYC for a week for work. That means the moderately-consistent posts cease for at least that long. So I'm going to try to put a few things up today for your listening pleasure.

First up: a partial set from the Screamers, circa 1978. This comes courtesy of the crucial In A Better World 2 CD set released by Xeroid Records & Extravertigo Recordings in 2000. I can't stress enough how freaking awesome the Screamers were. If you're into early L.A. punk, synthpunk or noise, you'll probably dig on the one. This recording is missing "Vertigo" & "I'm Going Steady With Twiggy"; if you want those, you'll have to track down the CDs for alternate versions. The great tragedy is, short of a few demos and live recordings, the Screamers never released a legit 7", much less a LP, during their run as arguably the biggest band of L.A.'s first wave of punk.

BTW, I have no idea if you can still track down the CD. If I get some positive feedback, I'll post the whole damn thing up sometime in the near future.










Screamers - live at the Whiskey, 1/6/78
(click the record to DL)

RIYL: organs, hair, freaking out