Here’s a photo of NOH MERCY playing live in 1979.
Back in the early 80s I’d hear the storming, shrieking “Caucasian Guilt” by San Francisco minimalist art-punk duo NOH MERCY on KFJC, and it would scare the hell out of me. “I didn’t put no JAP in a CAMP!!!”. An enigmatic song and band to say the least, I’d only been able to gather bits & pieces about them over the years. They were a 2-female duo, and two of their tracks were put on one of the Earcom 7"EP comps put out by Fast Records in the UK. I believe there’s a lone photo of them in the “Hardcore California” book which I read and read again at least 1,000 times in the 1980s. Found a photo or two on internet message boards nearly 10 years ago when I was writing something about Noh Mercy for my original music blog Agony Shorthand. That’s about it.
Now there’s this. A complete-works CD, all from 1979 – ten studio songs, plus four August 1979 live tracks from the Catalyst in Santa Cruz (which is still there, hosting shows to this day). I bought a copy, and immersed myself in it this past week. While not an “easy listen”, its sharp-edged experimentation marks it as something weird and wholly original & of its time.
The San Francisco of 1979 wasn’t just slamtastic punk rock bands – there was a dark, often synth-laden underground both on the Ralph Records side of the fence (Residents, Tuxedomoon) and more punk-friendly acts like Chrome, Factrix and many others. I fit Noh Mercy in with the latter, along with gay/political cabaret a la The Cockettes, spoken word attack-acts, revolutionary pre-Reagan-era doomsday rhetoric, and a general theater of the absurd.
With only two women playing, one of whom (Esmerelda) who just loses herself in her vocals, it’s bound to be pretty minimal. Most are just drums and vocals; some guitar scrape and vocals; a couple are analog synth & vocals. All are biting, angry and a bit obtuse. The liner notes confirm art-drenched damaged souls at the helm; women who came to San Francisco as an escape from a previous life and found it to be a place where they could be whatever they wanted to be, and even find an audience for it. Great stuff. I’m posting “Pay The Devil” from the CD here.
Haven’t listened to it yet, but NYC’s HOUSEHOLD are thankfully still around after recording last year’s best record, and played a set on Liz Berg’s show last week that I’m about to listen to now. Let’s listen together, shall we?
Come live in SF 1993 on Flickr.
COME, playing at the Kennel Club in San Francisco in April 1993. One of the best live shows I ever saw. Photo taken by Nicole Penegor. The 25th anniversary release of “11:11” is set for launch later this year.
SILVER SHAMPOO are a Texan band whom I’ve seen described as bubblegum biker punk; given their proclivity for biker imagery on their covers & in their lyrics, I think I can accept that. They’ve got an onrushing whoosh of big, ramalama-style sound, coated in a layer of poor fidelity and mega-amped guitar. The songs are exceptionally simple and straight-up, with weird time-signature changes and lots of blank space when the situation demands it. No other band sounds quite like this, and that’s why I like ‘em.
I was really into “Sonny Barger” on their debut 45 from 2010; this one, “Insect Eyes” is from 2011’s “Higher and Higher” LP. All Silver Shampoo songs have this odd quirk in which the singer follows the music with his lyrically enunciations; in other words, when the pitch changes on a riff, so does the vocal pitch, which follows that riff exactly. Total lack of imagination that only underscores how primitive and raw this stuff is. The cover of the album is pretty great as well – it’ll be too small to see on this post so I’ll post it in blazing color right after this.
Robert Palmer, the longtime New York Times music critic, writing about THE FLESH EATERS in 1982 (!).
The people have spoken. Here’s another track from the rare 1997 “Fractious” 7"EP by SALLY SKULL, one of the coolest pieces of vinyl I’ve discovered in some time. They were, by what rare accounts there are, a female-led UK garage punk band with a hankering for fuzz and an aversion to fidelity. This one’s called “Tear Out”.
I watched the MUDHONEY “I’m Now” documentary last night via online streaming – and you can do the same for $5.99 right here. A DVD’s about to ship as well.
My kudos and proverbial hat off to the guys who made this one. They did an excellent job avoiding a lot of documentary cliches, except for the one that says you have to use “found footage” from the 1950s to cheekily illustrate your points and concepts. They were kind enough to interview me for my commentary on a band I saw play many, many times & whom I know pretty well, and they left the dumbest things I said on the cutting room floor. I was positive they’d use this thing I said (as a complement) comparing Mark Arm to Bryan Ferry as examples of two guys who transcended their limited vocal abilities or something like that, and hack the statement to make it look like a major dis. They did not.
There’s a ton of great footage from 1988 to the present, and a chronological walk through the band’s many eras. The best stuff is definitely the “major label years” and why they jumped to a major in the first place after a particularly gross meeting with a guy from indie label Caroline. There are lots on interviewees, from Thurston & Kim to Keith Morris to the Claw Hammer guys to Soundgarden & Pearl Jam and so on.
Someone needs to explain to me what happened to Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman. This once-hyperactive sales machine is nearly narcotized during his interviews. Then again, there are loads of veterans of the scene wars in this one, and most have served their cause admirably. Check it out if you’ve got 100 minutes to spare soon.
AGONY SHORTHAND 