V/A PROPAGANDA

When thumbing through my shelf for worthy UBF material, I'd mindlessly bypass this one every time. Not sure why either, because collectors often open their wallets wide to get a copy of this rare compilation LP, released in 1979 on A&M. I scored it for a lone dollar several years back.

With the catch line, "A blatant attempt to influence your musical taste," Propaganda includes excellent, late '70s live cuts from The Police, Joe Jackson, and the Granati Brothers on the A side. Side two features some good studio tracks from The Reds, Joe Jackson, Bobby Henry, David Kubinec, Squeeze, and Shrink.

There were a million good records in the 'buck bin,' but the cover art was, initially, what poked my tummy enough to pick up this LP. It depicts a commy-suited rock band with an upbeat Mao Tse Tung on guitar and lead vocals. During his tenure as the big man of communist China, he was a pretty popular fella with his countrymen. According to this rendering, his rock music was no less desired. It has become some of my favorite album art of all time.

While the flipside of this record is great for a party, it's all still available for purchase on other releases (though I'm not too sure about that Shrink song. I'll research its availability a little more and then post it here if it appears to be commercially unavailable, today). The Joe Jackson track on side two, "Don't Ask Me," was previously unreleased until 2000, when Classic Joe Jackson: The Universal Masters Collection hit the shelves. It's also found as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of Look Sharp!

But I gotta say, I can't remember the last time I've mustered the energy to flip this record over to side two, because the live stuff on side one is enough to get me winded. It's what matters as far as this post is concerned.

Title: Propaganda
Label: A&M
Year: 1979

The Granati Brothers Go Crazy (live)
Joe Jackson Throw It Away (live)
Joe Jackson Come On (live)
The Police Landlord (live)
The Police Next To You (live)

HOLIDAY BIZ

Man oh man. You know how it is this time o' year. In just a couple days I'll suit back up with a full head of hair and a delivery cart of jams and stats. Merry Xmas or Chanukah or Kwanza or whatever you got going on. I hope it was a good one. Talk to you in a bit.

CHEMICAL PEOPLE

Everyday, before I head to work, I scan my music collection for titles to bring along with me. What I pull from the shelves always reflects the mood I woke up with (which doesn’t change everyday) and a prediction of what I’ll want to hear later in the day. Lately, I’ve been toting the jams that make me picture Ed Templeton grinding a rail, Kris Markovich clearing a gap, and Andy Howell busting his ass. I don’t mean just the stuff we’ve heard on skate vids from back in the day, and not necessarily what I was listening to at the time, but anything that helps me imagine the period when I was ollie-ing the cracks in my drive way and painting Deadbolts logos on my griptape.

There’s the automatically associated stuff like Agression, Faction and JFA, but then there’s the attitudinally associated Descendents, Gang Green and Chemical People. Nothing too obscure. It was all snotty and fun and upbeat; perfect good-vibe tunage for the seventy-degree, sunny days that pulled you and your board out of the house and over to the empty parking lot.

I don’t skate at all anymore, and haven’t for some time. But there was an age when I could land some pretty cool shit and I guess the music gets me all nostalgic for those days, and in turn, the nostalgia makes me want to hear more associative jams.

Finally getting to it, the band so far that has been getting the most instances of “Hey, who’s this you’re playing” is Chemical People. They’re not “skate rock,” per se, but I figure if there’s some curiosity going on then it merits my time posting something about them. But if it’s any credit, the liner notes do say “Clothes by Zorlac.”

A description of the Chemical People is easy, though I’m only going to base it off the 1988 release, Ten Fold Hate, as I consider that their “moment.” Mash up the Descendents and demo-era Screeching Weasel and you’ve got this fine Beverly Hills quartet with two-minute songs about food, nudity and stupid girls. Summating the production quality, the level of dead-ahead conscious apathy, a beer-spraying quest for fun, and a “whatever” vocal style, Chemical People is a pretty good ambassador for my *good ol’ days. Heck, you even get some guitar solos.

Sure, a thousand other bands fit the description, but concerning their place at Used Bin Forever: one at a time!

Throw your Rectors to the wind and make a goofy face. Here’s the Chemical People!

Title: [selections from] Ten Fold Hate
Label: Cruz
Year: 1989

New Food
Aquaman
All the Best Things
Nudist Camp

*NOTE: Yeah, I may have only been nine years old then, so I wasn’t yet a beer drinker, but I certainly loved the “beer-spraying” movies. So there.

A NUMBER OF THINGS

I've seen plenty of bad reviews on this LP, which I think may be some sort of domino effect from critic to critic. What makes this record so bad? Sure, there were better hardcore/punk bands in NC's early '80s period (Stillborn Christians, Ugly Americans), but A Number of Things' Toasterhead LP is a fun listen. It's also a nice breather from the serious, politically challenging (ha) stuff that thrashed alongside it. If there was any talk about "smashing the system" among this company, it was probably wedged between a couple dick jokes. (I was only five when A Number of Things were putting the finishing touches on this LP, so all my comments on the members' personal natures are mere guesses from the gut.) Even in their potentially political song, "War Mames," you're still getting lyrics like Fight war, not wars!/Drink beer, not Coors!

If any song is an instant standout, it's "Girlfriend." It's a tune about how [ANOT vocalist] Stephe can't seem to land a hot babe, no matter what he does. The poor fella always winds up with the dogs, which for some reason is presented as if he has no choice in the matter. Apparently he can't stay single.

Here are a couple verses:

Meet my girlfirend,
her name is Jill
Her teeth are greener than a dollar bill
She says to me "I love you honey"
I say "shut up bitch you're not worth the money"

Meet my girlfriend,
her name is Cathy
When I'm with her,
I'm not too happy
Her personality is not too nice
And her hair is full of lice

Remind you of the song you wrote in 6th grade English class? Me too, but ANOT pulls if off.

I will say that side two is a little different than the fun found on side one, as they're recorded an entire year apart. 'One' was recorded in 1984 by Don Zientara at Inner Ear, and the flipside was taped in 1985 at Jag Studios. The flip is a much tougher, perhaps more serious brand of hardcore and it suffers a little because of it. I tend to look at each side as a different release. "Side One" takes it.

Cool trivia? Superchunk's Mac McCaughan once shredded as a member in this band. And a handclap to the great Brian Walsby for the cover art. That's all I got, but you're going to have a good time with this one. It's a mix tape staple.

Maybe this time I've gone too far/All I wanna hear is lead guitar!

UPDATE: This album has been digitally reissued from the mp3s originally posted here. Get it here, right now.

Title: Toasterhead
Label: No Core
Year: 1984/1985

Side One (1984)
Can't Fool Me
War Mames
Barrel of Shit
Girlfriend
Toasterhead
M.T.V.
Confessions of a Congressional Page (U.T.B.)

Side Two (1985)
Self Destruction
Justice For All
Slow Screams
Skank
Big Brother
Moh
Kill Spread

CORNELIUS

My scattered brain could rave all the live-long day with a post on Cornelius (not to be confused with the Japanese electro dude), but if there's one thing I want to convey here, it's this: There has never been an NC-based band, past or present, to rival Cornelius.

It's a pretty loaded claim, yeah, but I'll say it all day long. And I'm not going to list out all the once-great NC hardcore/punk/whatever bands to prove I'm up on my region's rock history, so nobody bark at me with any "Well, you obviously haven't experienced Subculture! Or Superchunk! (har har)" Maybe you haven't experienced Cornelius.

A fair amount of posts I've done here deal with the undergroundies of Carolina's past, and while a post on this band is majorly overdue, it's coming at an appropriate time now. I think it's been about eleven years since this trio played a live show, but out of nowhere, they've booked one final [reunion] setlist for December 30th at the Soapbox in Wilmington, NC.

Wilmington is my hometown, a mid-sized coastal city of which I'm still a happy resident. In the early '90s, before I was old enough to drive, I'd get dropped off at the weekendly punk shows and saw pretty much a repeated lineup of the city's screamers, punkers, and, eh, whoever. The bills always seemed to include Essoasso, Circle One, Griver, Clueless (a band who left a lasting impression on me due to their unparalleled awfulness), Emilio 5, and usually a wildcard band from the Raleigh area. Not to smother you with cheese, but some of the best memories came from this period. Looking back, the musical lot was all pretty amateur, but one band's songwriting and delivery stuck out with a Hell of a lot more potency than their "peers" and, well, you can probably guess who I'm referring to.

They just couldn't be contended with, and I don't feel I have to explain why. It really doesn't matter. Just know that Cornelius is perhaps the one and only band from that period whose music I can still crank and never tire of. Even with the fabled early '90s Richmond, VA scene, who produced that herd of bands everyone references as the golden boys of screamy underground rock, none of them were on level with Cornelius. They had the chops.

Goddammit I don't need to over-hype anything, so I'll go ahead and turn this in. I'm just darn excited I'll get to see them play one last time. If any of those other local bands from back in the day lined up a reunion gig, I'd have to say, "Who cares."

Here are a few Cornelius songs from their catalogue, which included a 7" from 1994, a 10" from 1995 and a smattering of comp tracks. You can get it all on the Cornelius discography, Sounds Like Summer, from Assorted Porkchops.

Like always, these mp3s will only be up for a short amount of time. If you dig what you hear, hit up Assorted Porkchops and make the purchase.

From moody walks to fast, explosive fits, here's some real shit from NC's '90s:

Trondant
Monarch With Fool
Talk About the Moon
Shaking South Dakota

CIRCUS LUPUS

It appears that Dischord has discontinued the Circus Lupus two-song 7" from 1992, and so comes my obligation. But first...

I generally view the Dischord catalogue in three columns:

1) The hard stuff (Void, Minor Threat, Government Issue)
2) The arty stuff (Smart Went Crazy, Lungfish)
3) The stuff in-between (Nation of Ulysses, Fugazi, OLW)

To defy my cheap categories, Circus Lupus wedges in between them all like a fork, and they're easily one of my top three fave bands on the label. To me, they always came off as a stylistic hybrid of Fugazi and the Fall (once I got hip to the Fall). Chris Thomas ran with that same, rhythmless lyric delivery that sounded more improvised than rehearsed, which didn't hinder any head bobbing moments one bit. The music itself is just damn good. If you're a Dischord fan but don't currently own their stupendous 1991 full-length, Super Genius, go to the label's website and have your credit card ready.

While yes, this 7" (produced by one Joan Jett) is not currently available, you can still hear the a-side, "Pop Man," on the 20 Years of Dischord box. Hopefully the b-side won't float off into space, but until fate smacks its gavel, here it is for you to appreciate. It's an insanely raw moment and I love every milisecond therein.

Title: s/t
Label: Dischord
Year: 1991
Pop Man
Pressure Point

P.S. Anyone who wants to pick on my use of "arty" can be assured that I think it's a completely lame term, as are you for being all stuffy about it.

UPDATE: I was just informed by Mike Lupica that these songs are both available on their 1993 recording, Solid Brass, which every last one of you should buy. Right now. You need Super Genius too. Just do it.

YOUNG FRESH FELLOWS

Far from obscure yet still not a dinner table band, Young Fresh Fellows are fun pop with the Kinks at one end of the spaghetti noodle and the Lemonheads at the other. Less concerned with writing epics and more interested in hooks and beats, they take a classic songwriting approach and somehow land a little higher up than other, similar acts.

If you need a history lesson on these Seattleites, try here.

I thought I'd make this an easy one today since we're all a bit more concerned with holiday shopping and how to dull our headaches. That said, let's keep it upbeat. The Sick & Tired of Me 7" was released in 1991 on the Skull Duggery Label and was included on the limited edition singles set Hits from the Break Up Album. You can't get it 'just anywhere' so here's your key to enjoyment. And if you wanna relate to their rendition of "Booze Party," drink along with it. I'm pretty sure they were rather soused at the time it was recorded.

Title: Sick & Tired of Me
Label: The Skull Duggery Label
Year: 1991
Sick and Tired of Me
They Raided the Joint
Booze Party

PINK COLLAR JOBS and RUSTWEILER

The ideology of Boone, NC's Pink Collar Jobs' was made pretty clear through their lightly sarcastic moniker. Comprised of two babes and two jocks (take a joke), PCJ were one of the best mid '90s punk bands in North Carolina, punching out homophobia, sexism, war, drug abuse and whitey through supremely catchy budget punk.

My old trio played a couple house shows with them around '96 and they were easily one of the nicest music gangs I've ever met. Last I heard from any of them, [guitarist/vocalist] Jason and [guitarist/vocalist] Lynn were continuuing the fight in Dead Things (this band actually did long tours on nothing but bicycles and borrowed equipment), meanwhile my information on [drummer] Landon and [bassist] Julie is years of out date.

Rustweiler were pretty much the same brand of political punk, with a just smidgen more of Born Against in the songwriting. I feel funny not having more info than I do, as many of my old friends were buddy-buddy with them. They were from Illinois, their music flooded my mix tapes and their logo had some prime real estate on my high school Eastpak (I wonder where that patch got off to).

PCJ and Rustweiler released a split 7" in '95 (I think), which got it on with my turntable on the daily. These are easily some of the most memorable punk melodies to come out NC in the '90s, and while Rustweiler is great too, there was too much competition in IL for me to say the same for them (though they were still top-shelf).

The digitizing process of this record marked my first time hearing it in a good seven-or-so years. I love how it held up over time.

Title: Pink Collar Jobs/Rustweiler (split)
Label: self-released
Year: 1995 (?)
Pink Collar Jobs / In the Kitchen
Pink Collar Jobs / Dead on the Floor
Rustweiler / Soapbox Ministers
Rustweiler / Dead Poets Society

TIMMY

This is another great 7” you’ll find a million copies of in the used bin (though only 1000 were pressed). It found its way into my collection via interest in the record label, having been based out of North Carolina (A-Team Records, who will remain in these parenthesis since I can’t tell you any more about them).

Back in the early ‘90s, North Carolina hadn’t taken a bath in months. Crust punk and sludgy hardcore was everywhere. If His Hero Is Gone was playing at Dick St. in Greensboro, you could count on a capacity crowd, and quite an odoriffic one too, if I may be so bold. That said, it’s no wonder a North Carolina label was interested in NY, NY’s Timmy.

Right on the rack with Antischism and Blownapart Bastards, this peaceful trio was handing out anti-bad-stuff pamphlets in the form of quick, spastic scream jams. The punchy drumming and male/female vocals are a pretty awesome tortilla wrap for the noisy guitar melodies, the design of which is what makes this record stand out a bit. Just when you’ve accepted this band as crust punk lite, they spin the steering wheel and take you for a more scenic drive, albeit for just a minute. I hate it when I have to phrase something this way, but think Second Story Window meets Sister era Sonic Youth in these instances. Kind of? Gosh I don't know!

I have very little significant information on this band. Seems like the biggest note I can find anywhere is that they did a tour with Assfactor 4.

And I’m not kidding about always seeing this one in the used bin, particularly in the NC area. Pick it up, will ya? Until then, rip your sleeves off and eat the digital version.

Title: Beautiful Unreality
Label: A-Team
Year: 1994
Bestfriendconnectedbytheear
Switched In the Nursery
Unbeautiful Reality (Sticksandstones...)
Redirect
Christmas Bonus
Fatigue

SOUNDTRACKS: HOKUS POKUS & USELESS WOODEN TOYS

(There were two weighty moments in my early life that opened the double-doors to non-commercial music. Here’s the first.)

When I was ten years old, my dad and I would make weekly runs to Schoolkids Music & Video for movie rentals. Our ground rules were “two rentals at a time,” to ensure we wouldn’t rent one-too-many that just sat on the coffee table yet unviewed by the time it was due. So that meant “one movie each,” which I was fine with. My dad had his The Hunt For Red October, etc., and I had my The Blob remake, etc.

If the movie had a cool cover, that was good enough for me. I wanted scary movies and screwball comedies and this place (r.i.p.) had loads. This was also the point in my life where I was getting a little more 'serious' about skateboarding (“I’m gonna go pro someday! Just like Gator!”), but I’d never really had the chance to watch a skate video. Sk8 TV came on Nickelodeon and that was the closest I got. It was time I rented one. The first one I rented, in all honesty, changed my life.

Hokus Pokus, from H-Street, was my first real dip in the skateboarding culture that existed beyond my friends' driveways. Matt Hensley, Danny Way, Ron Allen, Sal Barbier, Jason Rogers and team of others put on a sensational show for the cameras, leading to many a skinned elbow in my attempts to do what they were doing (which never quite panned out).

But it wasn’t the kickflips or pool sessions that caused me to renew Hokus Pokus to the outer limits of Schoolkids’ rental policy. It (you guessed it) was the soundtrack.

It was music that just made sense to me, and never before had I heard anything like it. And not that my ten-year-old repertoire was far-flung at the time, but I hadn’t heard of one single band featured on the video, and since the likes of Kirk & the Jerks weren’t at any of the stores in town, I knew I wasn’t getting their album for Christmas. I wasn’t getting Hokus Pokus either, so I had to keep renting it, treating the video as the album of the soundtrack.



Maybe I just wasn’t a creative thinker, but it wasn’t until my mom brought it up that I realized I could probably just make a cassette recording of the music from the video source. I did, and I listened to it everyday. But with that came more frustration. Songs such as Wheezing Maniac’s “Dollar on a Platter,” were mixed low, not to mention the narration that covered parts of the song completely.

But that’s not important, here. The significance is that Hokus Pokus marks my first cognizance of underground music. If this music was commercially available, I wasn’t going to find it at a mainstream store like The Record Bar. Frankly, at ten years old, I didn’t know where I could find it, if at all. Schoolkids’ music selection couldn’t help me either, hence, my dubbed cassette, rife with wheel clacks, truck grinds and dudical narration. Thinking I could only get great music from skate videos, I rented another one. The second video was just as significant as the first.

Useless Wooden Toys, from the New Deal team, blew my little mind again. But I must’ve been expecting greatness, as I can remember having a blank cassette ready to tape the soundtrack from the start. I haven’t seen this video in about fifteen long years, but I clearly remember it opening with an instrumental intro before Armando Barajas’ session, tracked by the Boneshavers’ “Love Drug.” Next to Kirk & the Jerks’ “One Way To Do It” (which, if I remember correctly, was the cut for Danny Way’s segment) from Hokus Pokus, this might have been my favorite song in the world at the time. The Odd Numbers’ “In This World” was a sweet contender, too.

Another factor, the significance of which I wouldn’t realize until much later, was that it wasn’t just snotty punk rock scoring the videos. There were some slower, more delicate numbers mixed in as well, which functioned with the slow-motion segments. It was a great assortment of enjoyable sounds, which meant I wasn’t just excited about one kind of music. I honestly think that was an important set-up for my soon-to-come binge on bands my schoolmates had no clue about. I was conscious of the non-MTV music world, and I was ready to explore its many continents. It’s a personal quest I doubt will ever end.

Here are a few of my favorite cuts from Hokus Pokus and Useless Wooden Toys (the links for which go directly to the mp3s—no Sendspace this time). You can easily grab the entire soundtracks for these and other great classic skate vids right here.

From Hokus Pokus (H-Street, 1989):
Sub Society / A Lot Less
Kirk & the Jerks / To Be A Hero
Sub Society/ Hard Corey
Wheezing Maniac / Dollar on a Platter
Wonderful Broken Things / Roam Around
Kirk & the Jerks / One Way to Do it

From Useless Wooden Toys (New Deal, 1990):
Boneshavers / Love Drug
The Odd Numbers / The Getaway
The Odd Numbers / Holiday
The Odd Numbers / In This World

ADAM BOMB

From his bio: 1980: Adam met Edward Van Halen in a hotel in Tacoma Washington. He asked Eddie to sign his guitar and wound up getting a three hour guitar lesson. Those three hours changed his life forever.

Bomb’s (I’ll use that like it’s his real last name) music career seems like a chain of frustrating ‘almosts.’ It’s like he keeps throwing perfect rocks from the three-point line, destined for nothing but net, and then, from out of nowhere, the giant point-guard of fate leaps up and packs the ball back in Bomb’s face.

Bomb was the good luck charm that worked for everyone but himself. A year before his way-cool hotel room experience with Mr. Van Halen, he played in a cover band called Tyrant. On vocals was Geoff Tate, who later found himself doing magic tricks on stage as the blondie in Queensryche. I can picture Bomb gritting his teeth and snapping his fingers at life, saying “Man, what a lucky dude. It could’ve been me.”

In 1981, fully charged by his divine guitar lesson, he joined TKO, a Seattle leathercrotch rock band (a genre and image I will now coin as Seattitude). Trying to make it pay, they flew to Hawaii to work with big wad producer Rick Asher Keefer and recorded an image-conscious album so appropriately titled In Your Face. The same year, Bomb “was asked” (by somebody not identified in his bio) to audition for Kiss. I guess they needed a guitarist at the time. According to his bio (which really is humorous in its perhaps intentional vagueness), “He flew to Los Angeles and played three songs with Kiss.” What does that mean? They practiced together and they said "We'll let ya know"? I admit, I’d be stoked with the experience, but as a career highlight, ehhhhh.



Laughter came like a sneeze upon reading this next paragraph (but with the eyebrows of sympathy): 1982: Adam moved to Hollywood and lived with a guy named Jeff Isabelle who called himself "Izzy." (A few years later, Izzy started Guns 'N' Roses.) The apartment was adjacent to a house rented by the rock band Black 'N' Blue. Adam quickly became friends with their guitarist, Tommy Thayer, who suggested to Adam that he should just do his own project and call it Adam Bomb. (In 2003, Tommy took over the lead guitarist slot in Kiss.)

Double whammy! Izzy gets to cross axes with Slash, Thayer tells Bomb to punt and settle for his own band, Thayer “gets the part” in Kiss (albeit much later), and Bomb is left breaking strings on the front porch. An easily defeated soul like me would’ve then taken my B.C. Rich to the nearest pawn shop, gotten my forty bucks and headed to the beer depot. But for Bomb, the harmonic of hope that was 1983 was about to be pinched.

1983: Adam recorded three songs with Rick Keefer and a drum machine. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Adam got a contract to shoot the video for "Shape of the World." TKO reformed (briefly) in San Francisco and played the Troubadour in Hollywood. Adam filled in for two Steeler gigs, replacing guitarist Yngwie Malsteem. Adam attended a Michael Schenker concert at a club in San Francisco where they debuted the video (Shape of the World). In the audience was Aerosmith manager, David Krebs.

Sure, everyone went to Steeler concerts just to see Malmsteen (not, as the bio says, "Malsteem"), but I guess it isn't Bomb's fault he was asked to fill Yang-Wang's shoes. That guy's a jerk anyway. I'm glad Bomb got a crowd-show off of him.

The following year was good, too. Bomb was back in Hawaii to knock out a full album. Keefer (the same producer from before) wrangled Chuck Ruff of Montrose and Cliff Williams of AC/DC into the studio to put a little Mrs. Dash on the recording. The album , Fatal Attraction, came out in '85 on Geffen Records. Adam and that Krebs fella shook hands on a management deal. From here, Bomb put a touring band together with a few more sparkly associations (his drummer and bassist also played with Billy Idol, not to mention a little Aerosmith family blood as well) and raised their flag in L.A.



For the purpose of this post, I'm gonna leave the timeline at 1985. I'm sure most of you haven't heard of Adam Bomb, and if you have, you don't know much at all about him. Other than being the owner of a promotional 7" for a couple tunes off Fatal Attraction, I didn't know jack about the man until I found that bio, which is quite a long read (read it for more 'almost' moments!). It goes all the way up to 2005.

That's right. He's wrinkled but still riffin'. As matter of fact, he's back on tour this February.

Regarding the Adam Bomb promotional 7" I chanced upon, well, I may have been poking a bit of fun in this post, but the music fucking rocks. Right between Killer Dwarfs and AC/DC, with a pinch of Dio, "SST" and "I Want My Heavy Metal" are two sharply sincere rock cuts. They're mascots of the days when commercial rock music was nasty, when every sweaty Jackson guitar was matted with long strands of hair fallen from its riffer's mane.

"I Want My Heavy Metal" is my preferred hair-rock track these days. It's awesome. It's all about having a good time with the music you love. And with lines like You know the only place to go/Is to a heavy metal show! and When I'm walkin' down the street tellin' people "Yeah! I want my heavy metal!", there's really no reason to turn it down.

Sorry it took so long to get here, but Adam Bomb has been on a long trip as well. Show some goddamn respect.

Title: I Want My Heavy Metal b/w SST
Label: Geffen
Year: 1985
I Want My Heavy Metal
SST