Absolutely killer song in a roaring, clattering, blink-you-missed key from San Francisco’s PAMELA, featuring ex-folks from The Splinters and Wax Idols. They’ve only got one 45 out, plus a cheapo $3 purchase for their entire digitized recorded works over here. Do it!
I’m actually attending a rock and roll event this evening. It’ll be the first – and from what I’m hearing from my sources – potentially the last time I’ll get to see the awesome PAMELA.
I remember ordering the three RATS LPs from Otis, the Rhino Records rare record god of the 1980s, simply because he’d likened them in a printed catalog circa 1988 to the Lazy Cowgirls. If there was a Cowgirl linkage anywhere that year, I was all over it. Dead Moon hadn’t yet begun (had they?), and frankly, I didn’t actually like my Rats albums all that much when I got ‘em.
Now I’m all growed up, and I think this track (“Panic on 39th”) from their 1976 debut LP is a total screamer. Yes, it’s Fred & Toody Cole of Portland, Oregon, longtime denizens of the down & dirty garage punk rock arts.
The first punk rock fanzine I ever purchased, circa 1981. I took three buses from our house in San Jose to Do-Re-Mi Records in Los Gatos to go record shopping, and was intrigued enough by Sid Terror and The Undead (SF version) to buy this San Jose-published ‘zine. More scans from RIPPER in coming days.
Having only heard “The Running Kind” by SALLY SKULL for the first time a month ago, I’m still confident enough to anoint it one of the finest examples of low-fidelity explosive underground punk noise since “Mama Was a Schitzo, Daddy Was a Vegetable Man” – hell, since The Mods’ “Leave My House” maybe.
Information on the UK’s Sally Skull is pretty hard to come by on the Internet. The record from which this was taken, a 4-song 7"EP called “Fractious”, was put out by Slampt Records, who appear to have been super-active UK leaders in the trashy post-riot grrl era of female vocalists, bad recordings, scattershot garage punk and inept sloganeering. I’ve heard Pussycat Trash, International Strike Force and few other very solid acts they put out, but nothing even touches this thing. The rest of “Fractious” is fantastic as well.
Huge kudos to our radio hero Erika Elizabeth, who answered the Dynamite Hemorrhage call and digitized her copy so we could be sharing this classic with you this afternoon.
Flyer for the April 8th, 1989 MONOSHOCK performance on my patio in Isla Vista, CA. The cops were called after three songs because, unsurprisingly, the band were too loud for the neighbors.
Remember all the way back to last week, when we told you about Seattle’s ZEBRA HUNT and their free-to-download 7"EP on Bandcamp, and how it was a loud jangler of Byrds/Verlaines/Clean-like proportions, and how you probably needed to get over there and grab it before they took away the privilege? Here’s another track from it to help seal the deal.
Been sitting around wondering what the best releases of 1994 were? TEEN LOOCH magazine to the rescue. Editor Brian Turner surveyed a who’s-who of scribes, rocknrollers, label heads, pals and various hangers-on on what the ruling releases were in ‘94, and here were the results, as scanned from Teen Looch #8. You’ll find my personal contribution at the top of Page 3 (click to enlarge any of these).
An article on the AU PAIRS from RIPPER fanzine in 1981. This “germinal” UK feminist agitprop post-punk band, one of my all-time faves, is sorta the fish out of water in this San Jose-based hardcore ‘zine, which otherwise features The Lewd, Wasted Youth, TSOL and Black Flag in the rest of the issue. Bully for Tim Tanooka & the boys for some vision and taste.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse :: Fukuoka, Japan – March 8, 1976
I’ve got another “live upload series” contribution to Aquarium Drunkard up now — a truly awesome tape of Neil & Crazy Horse splitting minds in Japan. Guest appearance from Rodan the Flying Monster. Do not miss!
If you like you music you should take this boot for a rip.
AGONY SHORTHAND 