Brian Eno and David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Written by guest editor, John Edge.

Sire Records ■ SRK 6093

Released in February, 1981

Produced by Brian Eno and David Byrne
Engineered by Neal Teeman, Eddie Kervin, Dave Jerden, Stacy Baird, and John Potoker
Mastered by Greg Calbi

Side One:	Side Two:
American is Waiting Mea Culpa Regiment Help Me Somebody The Jezebel Spirit	Qu'ran Moonlight in Glory The Carrier A Secret Life Come With Us Mountain of Needles

Voices:

Side One:

1. Unidentified indignant radio host, San Francisco, April 1980.
2. Inflamed caller and smooth politician replying, both unidentified. Radio call-in show, New York City, July 1979.
3. Dunya Yusin, Lebanese mountain singer. (From 'The Human Voice in the World of Islam', Tangent Records TGS 131).
4. Reverend Paul Morton, broadcast sermon, New Orleans, June 1980.
5. Unidentified exorcist, New York City, September, 1980.

Side Two:

1. Algerian Muslims chanting the Qu'ran. (Same source as 3).
2. The Moving Star Hall Singers, Sea Islands, Georgia (from 'The Moving Star Hall Singers' Folkways FS 3841).
3. Dunya Yusin (See 3).
4. Samira Tewfik, Egyptian popular singer (from 'Les Plus Grandes Artistes du Monde Arabe' EMI Records.)
5. Unidentified radio evangelist, San Francisco, April 1980.

Hey, everybody!  I made it back.  Didn't drink too much scotch (mixed it up with a little gin, a Fitzgerald cocktail, to be exact).

Anyway, you may have noticed a bit more information up there than is the usual.  That's because this album is a bit different from most (rock, at least) records.  All of the vocal sounds (I dare not say vocals) are sampled from various sources.  At the time of its release, this was a radical move and, in retrospect, was a pioneering one.  This makes for an interesting contrast to my Flipper review, where the lyrics were on the spot.  My Life has no real lyrics to speak of.  In fact, nearly half of the songs (Regiment, Qu'ran, The Carrier, and A Secret Life) are in Arabic¹.  Some that are in English (Mea Culpa in particular) are so heavily edited and modified, that they may as well be in a foreign language.  But, this is a record where the voices are part of the music, rather than cutting through it or floating above it.  The spoken parts add to the mix of instruments (and quite a mix it was, Help Me Somebody featured 14 different instruments allotted their own tracks in the mix) and sustain or even lead the rhythm of the tracks.

Day Whatever - Flipper, Album Generic Flipper

Written by guest editor, John Edge.

Subterranean Records ■ SUB 25

Released in April, 1982

Produced by Gary Krimon

Side One:	Side Two:
"Ever" (Loose) - 2:56 "Life Is Cheap" (Loose) - 3:55 "Shed No Tears" (Shatter) - 4:26 "(I Saw You) Shine" (Shatter) - 8:31	"The Way of the World" (Shatter) - 4:23  "Life" (Shatter) - 4:44 "Nothing" (Loose) - 2:18 "Living for the Depression" (Ant/Loose) - 1:23 "Sex Bomb" (Shatter) - 7:48

Or perhaps the album title is Album and the band name is Generic Flipper.  Who cares?

Anyway, RC roped me into writing these dopey record reviews which I really don't have time for.  I've got a full time job, a kid, and all kinds of other shit begging for my time.  But whatever, I've had a particularly hard day at work and have about five brain cells to work on, so now's the perfect time to write a review. 

This is one of those great punk albums I really cut my teeth on as a teenager.  The sludginess, the depressing/uplifting lyrics, the general us vs them attitude all made me think I wasn't the only one who thought and felt that way.  Seem cliche?  Give me a break, we were all teenagers once and I was a damn good one.  Anyway, this album still stands lyrically as the closest to my personal worldview as any other I've ever heard in the intervening years.  

A little background on Flipper (the band, not the insufferable show): In the early eighties, punk rock bands and especially the offshoot hardcore groups were ratcheting up tempos and honing their sound to razor sharp clarity and tonality, Flipper hazily veered off in the complete opposite direction.  Their sound is mired in a drug fueled stupor. Flipper's songs take the breakneck hardcore of Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat and slow it to a slug's pace.  Maybe they loved Sabbath?  Maybe they were just not good enough to play fast?  Or maybe they were just the perfect foil to Minor Threat: slow, sludgy, long songs, gleefully drunk and fucked up on all sorts of chemical entertainments.  They have two bassists.  That's all you really need to know.  

Intermission MCMXXVI

Written by guest editor, John Edge

Oh he's going to regret giving me the keys to this Cadillac.

Various Artists - Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking in the Streets Volumes 8-11 (1997)

  Amphetamine Reptile Records ■ 9 25194-1

Released April 22, 1997

Technical Credits Unknown, Likely Varied

Side One (Vol. 8 & 9):	Side Two (Vol 10 & 11):
Superchunk - "Basement Life" Guzzard - "Bites" Jawbox - "Low Strung" godheadSilo - "Lotion Pocket" Bordeoms - "Pukuri" Supernova - "Sugar Coated Stucco" Chokebore - "Brittle & Depressing" Love 666 - "You Sold Me Out #2"	Bailter Space - "Glimmer Dot" Steelpolebathtub - "A Washed Out Monkey Star Halo" Chrome Cranks - "Dead Man's Suit" Brainiac - "Cookie Doesn't Sing" Today Is the Day - "Execution Style" Rocket from the Crypt - "Tiger Mask" Calvin Krime - "Fight Song" Gaunt - "Kiss Destroyer" Servotron - "Matrix of Perfection"

I'm often wary, wandering into any record store for the first time. There's no real guarantee of what anyone has or will carry, and in a used store it becomes even more complicated, as they can only carry what records they've acquired to sell. And that, then, depends on the locals. The first time I walked into Dead Wax Records, I wasn't sure what to think. Between the place I now live and the places I work, there's not a lot of music to be found. Even the oft-ignored (for financially justifiable reasons) FYE and similar "TWEC" (TransWorld Entertainment Company, who owns FYE, Coconuts, etc) stores make no appearances. There's a Best Buy, a Wal-Mart, a Target--certainly nowhere you'd find vinyl (beyond the semi-kitschy '7" with a t-shirt' thing Target is doing--but I owned most of the ones that looked interesting to me, or saw no reason to get the 7"), and nowhere you'd find a good chunk of my music collection, vinyl or otherwise.

I found a small used record and used/new CD store about fifteen miles away and had a very strange experience there, locating both upstate New York's Immolation's third album and some Split Enz albums I was looking for on CD. I found some Throbbing Gristle material, too, which is only appropriate for this particular entry--well, parts of it. I couldn't really make heads or tails of the place, though I've intended to go back a few times (never managing). When I started my current job just a bit further out, though, someone there mentioned a local record store, which piqued my interest immediately. I swung by after work that day, only to find it was closed on Mondays, deciding to come back the next. That next day, I wandered in and found it comfortably cozy and close, as you'd expect from a fledgling (only a few months old!) record store. However, its walls were papered with posters and fliers for bands I knew well--but knew well from my forays into music in the last few odd years more than anything else. Snapcase. Gluecifer. The Murder City Devils. The Supersuckers. Turbonegro. Mudhoney. All the sorts of things I'd tried (sometimes successfully) to push on a very picky person I know.

Doomtree - No Kings (2011)

Doomtree Records ■ DTR033

Released November 22, 2011

Produced by Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S., Paper Tiger, Sims
Engineered by Joe Mabbott
Mastered by Bruce Templeton
Beats by Cecil Otter (A1-B1, B3, C1, D1-D3), Lazerbeak (A1-A3, B2, C2-D3), P.O.S. (A1, A2, D1, D3), Paper Tiger (D3)

Side One:	Side Two:
No Way Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S. Bolt Cutter P.O.S., Sims, Dessa, Mike Mictlan Bangarang P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Sims	Beacon Dessa, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Sims Punch-Out Mike Mictlan, Sims Little Mercy Cecil Otter, Dessa

Side Three:	Side Four:
The Grand Experiment Dessa, Sims, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan String Theory Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter Team the Best Team P.O.S., Sims, Cecil Otter, Dessa, Mike Mictlan	Gimme the Go Cecil Otter, Sims Own Yours P.O.S., Sims, Mike Mictlan, Cecil Otter Fresh New Trash Sims, Cecil Otter, P.O.S., Dessa, Mike Mictlan

Maybe it's just the Dessa show I was at two weeks ago, but I feel like I've relayed the story of how I found Doomtree enough times already--I was asked at that show by just about everyone, including associates and one of the opening acts. There's no stranger experience for me than going to those shows. I don't know why it is, exactly, but I end up with people asking me how long I've known them, or when I left Minneapolis, or how on earth, if neither of those is true (there's nothing true in either--I've never even been to Minnesota in general, and the friends I have there have only lived there since I discovered Doomtree, basically). I'd chalk it all up to the general positivity they all exude in person, the down-to-earth appreciation and gratitude they express openly and consistently to seemingly everyone, but then you would think everyone would get asked those questions, or no one would ask them at all.

Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth (1984)

 Capitol Records ■ ST-12309

Released February, 1984

Produced by Thomas Dolby

Engineered by Dan Lacksman
Mixed by Mike Shipley ("Hyperactive!" mixed by Alan Douglas)

Side One:	Side Two:
Dissidents The Flat Earth Screen Kiss	White City Mulu the Rain Forest I Scare Myself Hyperactive!

Oddly, I'd never really heard "She Blinded Me with Science", nor have I (really) even now, though it was a big hit in the decade I've spent my life unabashedly enjoying the resulting pop music from. I bought this LP as well as the Blinded by Science 12" EP/mini-album simply because I saw them for a low enough price. I'm honestly not sure at this point if they pre-dated or followed my father stuffing a copy of 1992's Astronauts and Heretics on CD into my hand while visiting a used music store. It's entirely possible they followed it--"I Love You Goodbye" is a stupendous song, on a really great album. I'd still only heard the clips of that biggest of singles though, on the commercials for 80s compilations, or on any show that was referencing it as indicative of the decade.

When I had the poll up (due to the absence of votes, I simply removed it), a single vote appeared and then disappeared, for the Blinded by Science mini-album, which I decided to sit down and listen to first. While I naturally couldn't recognize the original, I strongly suspected the version of "She Blinded Me with Science" was a 12" extended mix, and I later confirmed it was just that. Those things are difficult to pull off and it rarely happened with much success. The hooks are either beaten into the ground or so severely cropped or inverted as to become thoroughly un-catchy. This wasn't much an exception, so I didn't feel much like trying to write about not only a mini-album that was an attempt to capitalize on the now rather confused release history Dolby had built up (in his native U.K., The Golden Age of Wireless did not contain that enormous single, though the original U.S. did not either--it was initially released, instead, with tracks omitted and replaced with b-sides, in typical U.S. fashion for U.K. releases--though I still don't much understand a lot of the reasons this was and is done) but one that contained one of those mixes.

There Is More to Come

I'm currently settling into a new job and working more hours than I have been for nearly a year, and it's cropping down a lot of my time for both record listening and writing, and much of the time I have has been spent on adjacent activities (like buying more records!) and whittling down so far that I'm left in too great a crunch to take the time I think anyone who stops to read here deserves.

Being at the spot in the alphabet I am has also not helped, as it has left me on an artist I didn't feel in the right place to write about, but with the option to sidle over to a few other options if I reconsider how I treat alphabetization of things like initalizations (that is, I could, instead of hitting Thomas Dolby, hit upon D.O.A. and get into the issue of hardcore punk again, with its very namesake release).

That said, I am about to settle into a more consistent schedule, and it will mean a plan for distinct, weekly entries on Fridays, each week.

If the time occurs, I'll slip a few more in, but look forward to Fridays for records you may know and love, some you may have heard whispers about, and others you'll question my sanity for listening to, let alone owning (perhaps).