TERMINAL BOREDOM, the longtime online garage punk/punk/underground/etc. forum & digital fanzine, went back in time to the analog era and have published their first print fanzine – along with a compendium of early stuff.
Just got these in the mail yesterday. I think I’ll read them in full public view on my lunch break today. Order yours here.
Originally posted on my Agony Shorthand blog in November 2003)
THE MO-DETTES – “The Story So Far”
One of the first 45s from the “new wave era” that I ever bought was the MO-DETTES’ “White Mice / Masochistic Opposite” in 1980, and it remains one of my favorite records of any era. Played to death on my local college radio station back in the day (KFJC), the song “White Mice” arrives at the perfect intersection of rough English D.I.Y. and pure golden girl pop, and has one of the most lilting harmonies you’ll ever hear. Among the more charming aspects of the band were the mushmouth vocals of Ramona Carlier, she being of Swiss descent and a then-recent UK immigrant (which helps explains it). It’s hard to put a bead on exactly what she’s saying beyond the song’s chorus, which starts with the first-rate couplet, “Don’t be stupid, don’t be limp / No girl likes to love a wimp”, and contains a throbbing bassline that leads, rather than follows, everything else in the song. The guitarist is practically invisible throughout – her ineptitude in moving from chord to chord is part of what’s so special about “White Mice” and indeed, the small handful of other good tracks this band produced in their short life.
So let’s talk about that, shall we? This CD-R – or bootleg CD, I’m not sure – is a complete-works (1979-1981) collection of the MO-DETTES’ one and only album and their 45s. “The Story So Far” LP followed the “White Mice” 45’s lead and contained exceptionally crude, poorly-drawn cover art that was sort of a cartoonish, Archies-like version of something you might have found on Fuck Off Records or by THE DOOR AND THE WINDOW. I also bought the LP in high school, and sold it back to a used record store the same year. That’s because outside of a couple of hot ones that’ll charm the pants off of ya (“Fandango”, “Dark Park Creeping”, “Masochistic Opposite”), the band really hid in the shadow of their one and only naïve-pop masterpiece.
They knew it too, as the LP contained not only the de riguer “White Mice”, but a sped-up version called “White Mouse Disco”. Kind of sad, actually. There’s an awful STONES and an awful EDITH PIAF cover, too – yet I still have a real big soft spot for the band overall. They honestly sound like a case study for the D.I.Y. archetype: young girls, raw ambition, out-of-tune guitars, lots of stumbling and fumbling, and presto : an instant, all-time classic 45. That the rest of their career didn’t live up to it is fairly beside the point, I reckon.
OCTAGRAPE, live last night, November 11th 2014, San Francisco. They were excellently loud BTW.
We took an unforgivable three weeks to get this podcast, our forty-eighth, to the people – but we were sorta busy. There was this, and then there was this. And here’s this – a 1 hour, 3 minute edition of DYNAMITE HEMORRHAGE RADIO (#48), which goes from frantic to frantic-er over its 63 minutes and which might be the most edifying phony radio show since our last one – or at least since this one by our magazine’s esteemed contributing editor.
If you choose to proceed, you’ll be hearing new stuff from Midnight Snaxxx, Primetime, Sauna Youth, Buck Biloxi and the Fucks, Coneheads, Shitkickers, CCTV, Ultimate Painting and Russell Street Bombings. These modern heroes will be interspersed with Grade-A material from winners from the past – like Liliput (pictured); Rema-Rema, England’s Glory, Die Kreuzen, The Minutemen and even Clothilde (she follows a set of hardcore and closes out the show in fine style). You know what? I think you might like it.
Download Dynamite Hemorrhage Radio #48 here.
Stream or download this episode on Soundcloud here.
Subscribe to the show on iTunes here.
Playlist:
MIDNIGHT SNAXXX – Don’t Wake Me Up
ENGLAND’S GLORY – City of Fun
PASTICHE – Flash of the Moment
ULTIMATE PAINTING – Ten Street
ELECTRIC EELS – Wreck and Roll
PRIMETIME – Right Track
LILIPUT – Split
CCTV – Le Jom
THE TAKE – Summer
RIGHT PROFILE – Alien
SAUNA YOUTH – Monotony
THE CONEHEADS – Lizard Lady
THE 1-4-5s – Crush Rush
REMA-REMA – Short Stories
RUSSELL STREET BOMBINGS – Homicide Squad
SHITKICKERS – N.Y. Niceguy
DIE KREUZEN – Hate Me
SIN 34 – Nuclear War
RED CROSS – Burn-Out
QUEER PILLS – Time To Fuck
MINUTEMEN – Below The Belt
THE STAINS – Sick and Crazy
BUCK BILOXI AND THE FUCKS – I’m Useless
CLOTHILDE – La Verite, Toute la Verite
Some past shows:
Dynamite Hemorrhage #47 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #46 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #45 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #44 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #43 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #42 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #41 (playlist)
Dynamite Hemorrhage #40 (playlist)
Hey, thanks for getting in touch. No, I have not heard either of these records, but it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve been trying to find ways to hear it, short of ordering it from Germany (it may be sold out in any case) and paying for the LP. Any ideas?
CLOTHILDE, the queen of the swinging mademoiselles, on her one and only 45 in Italian, 1967.
Pages from DYNAMITE HEMORRHAGE #2, an 84-page fanzine now being printed available for pre-order here. We should have them in stock by November 20th or so.
It’s written by Jay Hinman and Erika Elizabeth, and the thing took the better part of 2014 to throw together. Seemed to have turned out all right despite some typos that I’ve already caught post-production. You can handle it, right?
Learn more about what’s in it and order at this link here….!
TOMMY JAY is one of those legendary American rock underground heroes that we probably need to interview one of these days.
He typically takes a back seat to his pal and longtime collaborator Mike Rep, whom he’s recorded with in True Believers, Mike Rep & The Quotas and other fantastic Columbus combos – but not here. He’s front and center on “Bug Men”, which came out in 2010 on Siltbreeze’s “Skull Without Borders” comp, and which I think was recorded some time in the 1980s. Someone correct me on that if you would?
I’m in the midst of a MINUTEMEN bender the last couple of weeks. Here’s a knockout comp track of theirs, “Base King” from the New Underground series of early 80s LA punk/art comps.
(Originally written for my Agony Shorthand blog, November 2004)
VARIOUS ARTISTS : “CHARRED REMAINS” cassette……
I used to buy Maximum Rock and Roll during hardcore punk’s golden years (1981-83) and marveled at the huge array of “scenes” all over the USA and globe. It was almost downright hippie in the way loving attention was slathered on how “the kids” would organically come together in places like Milwaukee and Fresno to create awful punk music and fight the fuckin’ pigs. All it took to file a scene report was to file one – that is, write up what bands formed in your town, who was putting out 45s this month, which crazy punks got stinking drunk at which parties, detail any police harassment at the VA Hall and add a few parting words on how Reagan was about to murder us all, and your scene report was ready to go.
Chequering all this exciting banter were cool advertisements for micro-releases from around the world. MRR kept their ad rates low enough that a 15-year-old kid with a pressing-of-200 45 could get out his glue sick and a thick pen and have a quick ad in there for maybe $10. It was just such an ad that I remember seeing for this 1981 cassette-only release called “CHARRED REMAINS”, which (retrospectively) is sort of a who’s-who of hardcore, both good and horrible. I’d never heard the tape until last week but had long wanted to, but noooo, I ordered the Wisconsin scene overview “America’s Dairyland” tape instead back then. Someone threw a clean copy of this tape up on Soulseek and I pulled it down, making sure to earmark some royalties directly to SIN 34 and THE MISGUIDED, of course.
Based on what I could track down on the World Wide Web, this tape was put out by a guy named Bob Moore who ran a ‘zine called NOISE and later a record label called Version Sound. DIE KREUZEN fans, of which I am a big one, will remember this label as the one behind the “Cows and Beer” 7"EP and subsequent “Master Tape” LP comp, which featured super lo-fi versions of the tracks that eventually made up the single greatest US hardcore punk album of all time, the self-titled debut Die Kreuzen record on Touch & Go. Their tracks are pretty much the best on “Charred Remains”, but there are a few other corkers I’d never heard before.
Best is “Crime Watch-Block Parents” by DOGS OF WAR, a real spinner from back in the days when crime was out of control in the US and each suburb had “block parents” that kids could run to if some vile creep offered them a ride. It’s got great vocals and reminds me of a faster AUTHORITIES (“Radiation Masterbation” and “I Hate Cops” – you know you love ’em). I’ll still stand by LA’s SIN 34 even though they’ve a longtime butt of wasn’t-hardcore-awful jokes; they’ve got two relatively strong tracks on here, and another surprise was VIOLENT APATHY from the Midwest. You might know these strapping young fellas from “I Can’t Take It” on the “Process of Elimination” EP (famous for also including Negative Approach, The Necros and The Fix), but they’ve got 3 red-blooded meathooks on this, served up fast-n-loud.
There are also two from VOID, who just plain ruled (though their non-Dischord stuff like this is incredibly tame compared to their godhead side of the split LP). On the down side? Well, how about ARTICLES OF FAITH? What a crap band – each track is way too long, too involved, too English to merit even a first listen. Ditto for the TOXIC REASONS, who were a living parody of a bunch of American kids trying to be Discharge or GBH, complete with horrendous British accent. Rounding out the pile are HUSKER DU (a track lifted from “Land Speed Record”), UXB, PERSONALITY CRISIS (Canadians! Guy had monstrous vocals here and elsewhere, but the band was pretty weak), Sacramento’s REBEL TRUTH (horrid) and a handful of nonentities. A total nostalgia trip even if you weren’t there (and I wasn’t), yet one you might not ever want to listen to more than once a decade.
AGONY SHORTHAND 