From World of Pooh’s 1989 album “The Land of Thirst” – one of the great out-of-print American underground records of that era, and a nervous and most unusual pop classic.
Delta 5, circa 1980, UK
I was right. The new THEE OH SEES album (they’re calling it an EP) is spotty and hard to listen to without your hand hovering near the skip button – like all of their records. A total “singles band” for our time.
This track, and “Flood’s New Light” & the mellow “Goodnight Baby” would have made for a helluva REAL 3-song EP. Overall this one’s got some psych and even Kraut-y touches, along with a dollop of pop and the usual garage wackiness. Their fatal flaw continues to be lack of self-editing. One nice EP-length release every 18 months might be just about right.
Photo swiped from a fantastic, long 2002 interview with Chris D./Desjardins (Flesh Eaters, Divine Horsemen, Stone By Stone etc.) in Sex & Guts online mag.
You know how many bands aren’t particularly talented? This isn’t one of them. Seattle’s ZEBRA HUNT are a new trio with a big chunk of leg stuck in the harmonic mire of 1980s New Zealand (Verlaines in particular, with louder, more ringing guitar). There’s a little Byrds action and more rickenbackers than you can shake a clump of flowers at.
Download their EP for free over on their Bandcamp page – it’s good.
There’s a mind-melter of a mix on 8Tracks that I’d highly recommend you listen to. It’s a set of proto-punk and just general noise and slop from about ‘75 through maybe 1980 or so, placed there by ISITANART and entitled “Kiss My Machine”. We’re talking Simply Saucer, Chrome, Electric Eels, Swell Maps, Teddy & The Frat Girls, X_X, and even a few I’ve never heard before, like Count Vertigo and AK-47. As sub-underground as it gets in an age when everything is on the internet; these are pure pulls from what’s obviously a deep record, or at least mp3, collection.
One of the wildest, weirdest, ahead-of-its-time rockabilly/punk hybrids, “(I’m Chewin’ Gum) by Milwaukee’s CRÈME SODA is one you need to tattoo on your brain right now. It’s especially jarring considering how at odds it is with everything else these folk-hippies did on their one and only album, "Tricky Zingers” (which is a pretty special album title in its own right). I wrote about the whole thing on my old blog Agony Shorthand here.
Here’s an article I wrote in January 2002 about one of my all-time faves, The Gun Club’s “Fire of Love” album, for Perfect Sound Forever online mag.
AGONY SHORTHAND 