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Check out this sloppy spirit-of-‘78 punk rock from Minneapolis’ THE SLEAZE, released on a new 12" on – that’s right – “Total Punk” Records (!).
Outstanding CRIME-like guitar, mushmouth vocals and a lackadaisical aimlessness that stands far above the punk rock pack in 2013.
With the express written consent of Byron Coley and Chris D, I’m posting an outstanding, well-recorded 45 minutes of THE FLESH EATERS, practicing new and recent songs in 1983, right before they broke up. I’ve had this on tape for a number of years, and it’s a not only a ripping set of “heavy punk thunder from the lake of burning fire” (to coin a phrase), it’s a fascinating look into what the band might have evolved into had they continued. As it was, they’d hit their proverbial limits, and shortly after this, Chris D put together his acoustic “Time Stands Still” album before getting a full-blown band together again with his wife Julie Christensen, THE DIVINE HORSEMEN.
After a few well-oiled, blowout “Hard Road To Follow” numbers (their album which had come out earlier that year), you get to hear sketches of songs Chris later put out with other bands, like “All I Have” with Stone By Stone, and “Love Call” & “Stone By Stone” with The Divine Horsemen. Fantastic stuff. Download it and share your Flesh Eaters stories in the comments – because, alas, I never saw ‘em until they’d started up again seven years later.
Download THE FLESH EATERS – PRACTICE TAPE, 1983
Tracks:
1. Every Time I Call Your Name
2. Buried Treasure
3. Poison Arrow
4. Hard Road To Follow
5. Father of Lies
6. Louie Louie
7. All I Have
8. Down In The Ditch
9. Stone By Stone
10. Love Call
One of the best spazzy, detuned garage punk songs of the past year is by Sydney, Australia’s RAW PRAWN, and it’s called “None Left”, and you get to listen to it here.
Download my Dynamite Hemorrhage Radio podcast #12, and you’ll not only get to hear the song there, you’ll get to hear me say the band’s name in Australian as well.
Look at these 1978 lineups, playing at 1839 Geary in San Francisco (which is now “Tommy’s Joint”, a touristy burger place, and which was once 60s rock palace The Geary Temple). CRIME, WEIRDOS and THE GO-GOS on one bill.
This 45 from a late 70s New York group called the HAND GRENADES has been fooling “punters” for years who mistook it for a British DIY record from the same era, myself included. When I found out these dudes were from “the Apple” I was incredulous. I guess I still am.
But here you go – a really great, lost-to-time stark and strange inepto-garage record from a band who have very pleasing elements of the Swell Maps, Wire and Steve Treatment. Enjoy!
Chris D – Flesh Eater, Divine Horseman etc – has finished and released his long-promised encyclopedia of Japanese Gangster Films.
…and here’s Kendra a few years earlier, in the classic DREAM SYNDICATE lineup, the ones who recorded “The Days of Wine and Roses” and the outstanding first Down There EP.
Cool early picture of the little-seen Kendra Smith/David Roback band OPAL, circa 1988 or so. By the time they played my town, they were called Mazzy Star, and Kendra was off to new things.
AGONY SHORTHAND 