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I made my way through most of the catalog of Scotland’s LUNG LEG this past week, after tracking chunks of it down and ordering it for home and in-car consumption. Lung Leg were an all-female mid-90s garage pop band with what you might call “post-Riot Grrrl” tendencies and an embrace of angular, off-beat rhythms, some shouting and bellowing, and some kitsch. As has been the case recently with many of these mid-90s acts I ignored or passed over at the time, I discovered Lung Leg via the eye-opening Expressway To Yr Skull radio show, which you can download episodes of right here.

Not all of the band’s stuff connects entirely well, but very little of it was boring or blasé. Some of it’s a real blast, miles ahead of more popularly-recognized hard-edged US riot grrl-esque pop bands of the era, and right in there with frantic & fun acts from this time like The Rondelles and Henry’s Dress. In fact, different as they all are, that would have been a hell of a triple bill in 1996. I probably wouldn’t have gone then, because I was sooooo goddamn cool. Not anymore. This one’s called “Theme Park”. Full knobs-to-11 all the way.

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One of the most satisfying and consistent releases of 2012 so far is “Circles” by MOON DUO. I know, right? I’d about given up on Ripley Johnson after his Wooden Shjips albums continued to fall short of the the early promise of those amazing 45s, and paid a cursory passing interest in Moon Duo when they started up and found it to be progressive/psych twaddle-wank. With all due respect, of course! (And he is due quite a bit for those Shjips records). Maybe I should revisit that stuff, or maybe they evolved toward me in an effort to curry my favor. 

In any case, this record is fantastic. Moon Duo are now deeply into Stereolab territory, with a dose of heavy psych and a thin veneer of krautrock. Each song bend and shapes multiple riffs into submission, never tiring and never boring. It’s approachable to all but the most fearful of listeners – a “pop” record coming from deep lysergic territory. It’s listenable over on Spotify for $0.00 if you wanna check it out.

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Severe twee alert!! TENDER TRAP are a fairly longstanding group of lasses from the UK whom I – always late to the party – discovered in the past few weeks. I’ve been in the process of researching SALLY SKULL, and found that Katrina Dixon from that band is now in this one. I’m trying to do what I can to raise Sally Skull’s internet presence to the extent that I’m able, and reached out to her to maybe do an interview or put out a CD or something. Let me know if you can tap her on the shoulder and ask her to return my email, OK?

While my sojourns through Tender Trap’s catalog are by no means complete, I’m liking what I’m hearing. Sunny with a side of feedback and grit. This one from 2010’s a little more bouncy and clever than some of the others and I’m pretty sure you’re going to like it quite a bit, starting right now.

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The Mummies 1991 on Flickr.

One of my all-time favorite live music photos, and it was taken by super-photographer Nicole Penegor for my SUPERDOPE fanzine in 1991. The Mummies were playing live at the DNA Lounge, which was the first and last time I ever saw a show at that venue.

I hope I’m not bumming anyone’s high too much by declaring that I find this band to be extremely overrated and posthumously very uninteresting. Supercharger all the way, baby.

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Eccentric Sleeve Notes

ECCENTRIC SLEEVE NOTES was a UK fanzine active during most of the meat of the post punk era, 1981-84. It didn’t seem to discriminate between the more hard-driving and arty of the bands – Au Pairs, Delta 5 and such – from the fluffy and lightweight pop of Altered Images, U2 and Depeche Mode. Definitely done in early fanzine cut-and-paste style and with real passion. All issues are scanned and available to read at the link.

Eccentric Sleeve Notes

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Believe it or not, for a short period of time, WHITE ZOMBIE were an absolutely amazing molten mess of a band. They played on my radio show on KCSB-FM Santa Barbara in May 1988, and their live show in Los Angeles the next night – at the Alcohol Salad club in the heart of skid row – was at the time one of the loudest, wildest shows I’d ever seen. I wrote a remembrance of the band and their magic Southern California trip on my old blog Agony Shorthand, and you can read all that here.

Here they are on the cover of Gerard Cosloy’s CONFLICT fanzine from a little earlier than that.