Them Wranch Discography

lotta folks might not understand that this is DANCE MUSIC but i straight dare 'em not to shimmyshimmykokoPOP when shizz like "whip" comes on. lotsa stuff too ridiculous & diseased about this combo for 'em to really catch on in the unimaginative doldrums that are "garage rock circles" but at least they skipped the very col's thing where they didn't make any good sounding records. plenty here - two lps, two 45s, a whole sonics-of-the-sonics-obsessed session recorded in 'the garage behind the deal' and a short session from a cle studio - to reflect the real go that the r.a.n.c.h. had at it for a few years in the late '90s (post-hairy patt/pre-tough & lovely). these whackos' ideas of what might pass for entertainment are so off the mark that they actually fucken WORK: what sounds at first like pure novelty reveals itself very quickly to be funnier than the cramps/way, WAY groovier than "beat" dreck like the woggles/more imaginative than honestly anyone you can think of. (only band that eventually came anywhere close was the howlies and even they don't touch the copious far reaches of them wranch's ecelcticism.) "beware them that lurk in the shadows," INDEED!

lps
45s + sessions

Action Family Discography

action, action, ACTION!! whether yr down or not with chris elliott the serpentine grime-rock stooges-worship SCUZZ of this combo should still stain yr trouser bottoms if yr heart's still beatin' hard enuff to pump all them drugs thru yr system. relocatin' themselves all over the country didn't fuckin' help anyone care at all but really in the long run we're all just shit and pollen anyhow so fuck it, here're some BLISTERING tunes ("i feel fine" will SAW YOU IN FUCKING HALF) that ain't in any danger of disappearin' unless the whole damn world blows up real good so fuck…throw 'em on some shitty juke/roll around on a barroom floor/puke in yr shoes/stop goin' to werk/live on high life for awhile. it ain't the worst life. (p.s. there's one more tune over on bandcamp, dig.)

you ain't no brian jones!

Near Paris 12"

so two of the three geniuses from post industrial noise decided to get a little more radio-ready (?) with their next project, and here ya have it, for what it's worth (which is about $300 [!!!], if ya ask discogs). i dunno even what to say about this, it just sounds like some idea of the early '80s that people who wanna hate the early '80s prolly have in their head: goofy synth-percussion noises that aren't any fun, vocals straight out of a bret easton ellis novel, etc. songwriting this wrongheaded is so often scattered, smothered, & covered with some gloppy genre trappings or other so, y'know, no surprise. (shoulda studied a little more snapshot, if they'da asked me.) the attempt at human league/breakdance rock is hilarious. it wasn't all like this, folks - i promise you.

you got the moves that could start a fire

Post Industrial Noise - Anthology cassette

welp, here it is, the $900 cassette. 1982-3 recordings from soon-to-be near paris members. who cares? i dunno. i guess enough people (read: 2) (i mean 7) to punch the value of this thing up to almost a grand. i mean, even i prolly woulda paid two bucks for it just to get it on the blog (the other $887 or whatever i woulda kept) but lucky for you i gots it for free and now so can you. not as cool as antena, not as propulsive as "planet earth" by duran duran, not ANYWHERE near as inventive as the second flying lizards lp, not as reverse psychologically POP as "the model" by kraftwerk, this is a bit too undercooked to really shine texturally and the male voice sounds like a resident impersonating groucho marx…but SERIOUS. reissue on cleopatra? why not? dull, monotonous, behind its own times - this is not the sound of excited, inventive, forward-thinking, fucked-up individuals manipulating/overcoming/destroying/reveling in the (available) tech of the day to make something resonant (like, say, social climbers), nah, this is folks with too much $$$ boring everyone including themselves to death with midwestern art gallery social circle jerk. as good as a seven dollar bottle of sake in an indianapolis sushi bar. i'd rather listen to lestat.

it gives me plee-zha

Offbeats 'Dumb Looks Still Free' Vinyl

offbeats were in th first generation of goofball speedcore thrash pop in th US - perhaps th finest non-genre of musick ever to bounce around vfw hall walls. on th strength of manifestos like 'our immediate goal is to buy some more beer', offbeats were snatched up late in th game by relativity in order to function as that label's very own replacements clones. it did not work and th US sank further into th great depression. before that, tho, they recorded a bunch of stuff they lost th masters to and then way later they dubbed their cassettes onto this record. latter-day member doug enkler went on to form prisonshake with griffin from spike in vain. read up, kiddies: clepunk article

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Guided By Voices 'Crying Your Knife Away'

sleeve notes:

Bela Koe-Krompecher's 26th birthday party at Stache's in Columbus, Ohio, June 18, 1994. The party actually started at 3:00pm in Bela's backyard. Kegs were flowing and Pete Jamison manned the grill while Bela's grandmother (beer in hand) presided over the whole affair from a La-Z Boy in the middle of the yard. Records were traded, lies were told, and perception was severely impaired. Around 10:00pm the party went mobile, stumbling a few blocks away to Stache's. The drink of choice was Rolling Rock, and before GbV took the stage at least one band member caught a nap.

recorded, edited and mastered by Dave Doughman
house engineer Tera Stockdale
all songs copyright Needmore Songs (BMI) except last song (not from same show) by The Breeders, copyright Period Music

[note: this is ripped from th original vinyl - green & yellow wax]

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FENSTER

fairly mersh, nicely orchestrated third wave ska. some distorto guitars but not so much punk to it. some melodic nods to th green day side of things on tracks like "fly as chuck" and some nice '70s jazz-funk type stuff on th following track, "pride and a pack of smokes". i'm sure th lyrics are fine but they might even suffer from a lack of th puns so many later ska bands live(d) on. a huge slice of a notable corner of late-'90s col's for ya here, with members of trigga happy and burlap sun guesting on th aforementioned tracks.

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The Staggers Will Make Hundreds

when i mentioned th pillowbiters' misogynistic streak i mentioned th staggers' even BIGGER one, simply because their other lp ('the staggers are dead, long live the staggers') is - seriously, here - th ONLY lp that has ever actually disgusted me. for some reason this one doesn't make me feel fucking filthy (no pun) when i throw it on. that may bum them out, but i'm not exactly sorry about it. of course they'll never top th wicked comp track "hell" (which they evidently despise), but this is some hella decent sub-amrep scuzz. members of classical ass, whose kickass lp i'll dig out & post one o' these days.

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Anna Ranger 'Dolphin Blue' EP

three fucking stellar tracks from recent full-band sesh, check it out. not downloadable (who knows why, but i'm sure you can figure something out if that bugs ya). full lp to come this fall.

http://annaranger.bandcamp.com/

Jim Shepard & Charles Cicirella 'The Dispossessed'

This entire session was recorded as you hear it - no planning or disgusting egos intervening. I came in from Cleveland, Jim already had music laid down (except for typewriter, acoustic guitar, violin, and aerosol can which were all laid down live and this includes dead traffic you hear throughout recording). I listened through headphones while reading poetry that in a large part was written either that day or previous afternoon. This CD is released as an honest & quite sublime testament to Jim's diverse artistic nature/temperament & how when the chemistry is good & stinking, like an over satiated sun, anything can and does occur. Jim and I were and still very much are caterpillar astronauts and I'll miss being his friend and foil FOREVER… ONWARD FORWARD INFINITE
Charles Eric Cicirella

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Tree Of Snakes 'Beheaded' + "I Am A Lion"

'nuf said! (except that this file also includes th four songs from th "i am a lion" 45!)

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Frostiva 'Ochnomos'

my first encounter with frostiva was when they were already broken up but some of 'em were called rabbit and they got a song on an alive comp, so forgive me if i completely missed th boat. this disc knows what it's doing and clocks in at th perfect 26 minutes, tho' with six songs ya gotta wonder what th ladies are doin' rilly, i mean 15 songs/26 mins, sure, one song/26 mins, sure, but six/26? hm. well i can tell ya what they're doin' in fact is darkly jammin' around with some smooth and sinister harold faltermeyer synths they hint at with th first tune ("la magia verde") but there they are knee-deep in track three ("zero hour") after begging ya to notice in track two ("paramount impostor"). kind of a siouxsie-without-a-budgie vibe in some ways, or a magneta-lane-without-th-pop-songcraft. fourth tune ("eros") is straight in with a throwing muses approximation that almost immediately gives way to something that coulda been on th fourth or fifth lush lp. certainly a post-shoegaze vibe that carries over into th fifth track ("pathos") but th kind of shoegaze vibe that's aware that lush covered zounds on a single, and isn't afeared of borderline prog/math arrangements and that kristen hersh warble. this sounds more cle that col's even down to th post-industrialisms (lestat, i mean) of th final number ("suspiria" - complete with those goblin synth-swathes). more than anything tho' i'm thinking they were a VERY indie heartthrobs which makes sense i guess i mean they shoulda had a tune in th end credits of th l-word too. i think they're pretty much back together or at least were as behind you with knives (possibly th best kitchen reference band name ever).

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Human Boys

human boys have a lot in common with ipps for sounding exactly dick like them: they play shows slim-to-no times a year; their tapes, tho' killer, pale extremely seriously in th face of those rare live shows; and they're in th tippity-topmost percentile of insanely great bands to ever aimlessly wander col's streets. th first of th two cassettes here compiled finds h.b. in a similar setup across th tracks, with one of 'em on drums, one of 'em on vocals (predominantly positively SPAT across whatever room they were in), and one' of em (i should mention there's only two of 'em) on grinding, distorted keyboards; th second tape obfuscates this arrangement (if indeed it's employed) with jackhammered samples and an even-more boombox-esque recording quality, but weaving thru th bilge is some of th most aggressively inventive aand necessary musick this side of th suicide, throbbing gristle, & this heat records that it belongs in league with.

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Superstar Rookie // Early Empire

roughly 150,000 years ago i was talking to kevin from 84 nash and he mentioned that they (of consistent drummer woes up to that time) were almost positive they were gonna hire this dude dan i'd never met and would i like to go "check out" his band even though he played guitar in it? yeah, sure, ok, sez i, so we go to th then-newly-reopened northberg tavern (aka basement of donato's) and see superstar rookie play. i left afterward pretty jazzed aboot it cuz they were doing a sort of jawbreaker thing that was a lotta fun and (i know it seems impossible to believe) no one else was mining th same territory, so (for that as well as myriad musical reasons) it seemed damned fresh. after meeting those dudes my old band (don't ask) played with them many a time and they at one point dragged me to this funky, failing bar/grill they said they were gonna turn into a rock club by badgering th weirdo old dude there who would nuke you a hotdog for 75¢ (which they did, that place is our beloved bobo) and then of course after awhile they broke up like everybody does. dan (bandman) did indeed play with and eventually quit 84 nash and started the handshake and is now back drumming in kyle sowashes and for awhile a coupla th other rookie guys (travis & cop) had a band called early empire (with another handshake guy - joel walter, who also plays with kyle sowash now, but in his other band, animal cubes - as it happens), whose ep i am so nice as to include in this file here available as well. listening to th 'problem with words' disc after digging it out from oblivion a few months ago, i was pleased as PUNCH to note how well it's holdin' up. i ended up playing it three times at th bar that nite and no one bitched.

early empire are maybe a bit more "serious" - with some uncomfortable nods (probably inadvertent) toward th crummy butt-rock side of 'emotion' so prevalent in th late '90s (and still) - but it's good to hear th dudes let go on some of th mid-song passages and fast bits. their love for intertwine-y treepeople guitar figures really shines on "january one" - probably th most rookie-like of th songs on their disc - and their abiility to write sunny day-style stuff without completely ripping them off quite maybe inspired a little jealousy from th rookie's recordist jon chinn. (file includes th aforementioned 'the problem with words' cd & early empire ep - 'resolutions and a gun' - as well as superstar rookie's way-great debut 45 on diaphragm.)

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16 Bitch Pile-Up

sarah bernat was in town last last wknd (at least) & talkin' to her briefly at th bar reminded me that i'd found a few instances of their tapes &c being available to dl but hadn't mentioned that on this here blarg yet. as with all (sure) groops that get lumped in with their peers, 16 bitch are about as different from sword heaven as they are from rc mob, but their recordings are of such a consistently high quality that i wouldn't hesitate to mention them in th same breath with not only s.h. but mb, pengo, sightings, &c. if you actually downloaded th magician killer record (if not well DO IT NOW), dug it, & haven't heard these ladies, fucking pucker up. they released appr. 7000 records; here's four. thanks to not noise music and the static fanatic for these.

b.f.f.
lord hall
make like a fetus and abort (with mike shiflet)
ADAD