Singles Going Crazy

(Image courtesy of Eyby20 at Photobucket)

Punk bands jam-packed ideas and words into short spaces; hence the necessity of the 7” e.p. A zillion punk band issued seven inches, not for their traditional purpose of ending up on radio, jukeboxes or in the hands of pre-adolescent music buyers (hey, I could afford to buy my friend the Boomtown Rats “I Don’t like Mondays” single for his tenth birthday!) but as the sole way their music could escape their local stages.

The extend play, or e.p., let the band show off more then a couple of songs, often allowing cover tunes or odd tangents to escape. And they played at 33 r.p.m., so if was “too slow” you could speeditthefuckup. The 7” e.p. was that transition between the lowly demo tape and the more rarefied album. Sadly, it could also be a wall. Some bands, when faced with the daunting task of following up crystalline e.p.’s with full albums, just fell apart (even the vaunted Misfits album, Walk Among Us, was considered a let-down after all those blistering e.p.’s like Bullet and Three Hits from Hell).

So many of the obscure bands from the fag-end of the vinyl era (are we still there yet?) re-affirm a heartbreaking truth: most bands have only a few good songs and that later attempts to diversify or recapture the original sound are only the grasping of straws. Bands have a Moment: one time where history and their particular talents align and if they grab it – Bam! - we end up with, at the least, a single. After a few more star-crossed attempts they end up careerists, crack addicts or computer programmers. Writers are the same, Nick Hornby had a rock n’ roll career trajectory; that album of early demos (Fever Pitch), his Moment (High Fidelity) the similar-sounding sophomore album (About a Boy), the Mature album (How to Be Good) and the album that tries to reach old and new fans (Long Way Down).

Glibness aside, this Theory of Brief Moments applies doubly to pop-punk bands. So let MRML (re) present a series; "Singles Going Crazy", wherein we dig-up neglected musical wonders from bands who burned brilliantly, then faded fast.

Kamala and the Karnivores (the Lookout catalog says, "East Bay pop band that featured Ivy, later of Sweet Baby, Kamala, later in Cringer, the Gr'ups, and Naked Aggression, and Todd, of Spitboy. Sweet songs about being in love, killing boys, and black thumbs") sounded a little indie-rock in their tempos and melodies but they pulled it off with a punkish swagger.
Kamala, who got name-checked by both Screeching Weasel and Sewer Trout, wrote sharp and thoughtful little tunes, like this anti-anorexia ripper, "Bone Bouquet".


Their sole e.p., 1989's Girl Band, got tacked onto a gargantuan CD of Lookout also-rans, so if you like it - buy it.

Download Girl Band

Meet Kamala and the Karnivores on my Detrola

Inside, Outside Anarchy

From 1982 onward, D.I. continued the loud, fast and out-of-control Orange county pop-punk of Social Distortion and The Adolescents (both of whom lead singer Casey Royer played with). While they never equaled those bands greatest moments, Casey and his ever-changing band of surfers, did hit a helluva peak with this complete bastardization of Chuck Berry's "Surfin' U.S.A.", featuring new lyrics and and a hopped-up-on-goofballs arrangement.


The cover of Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge" is good but how do you improve on the original?

Download Surfin' Anarchy 7"


Here's their infamous appearance in Suburbia.


Here's a hella catchy song from their best album, Horse Bites Dog Cries.


And proof that that you can't keep a beach-punk down.

The Dylan Mass

"I love that album, Shot of Love. There's no production. You're in a room hearing Dylan sing. "

Bono

From the lounge, to the parlour, to the front porch to the garage, the character of certain types of music can be defined by the exact location of its making. Hence, calling Bob Dylan and the Band's 1967 demos recorded in the house known as Big Pink in Woodstock, New York The Basement Tapes is both location-specific and descriptive of the music's sound - a loose, spontaneous sound, simultaneously rooted in the past and branching out into unknown directions.

The Multitude of Sins' music comes from the nave. The nave (Latin for “ship”) is the long narrow hall that runs from the entrance to the altar in Gothic-styled churches (see here). The band debuted these five Dylan covers sitting at the front of the nave, seated in a semi-circle with their backs to the audience. They chose these specific songs to carry the congregation through the liturgy of an Anglican Mass (see here). Throughout the service, the band remained obscured, the music supporting the proceedings rather than becoming them.

The music heard from the nave that night had the warmth of Dylan and co.'s basement work but rather than being loose and spontaneous, The Multitude of Sins' were polished and tight. Interestingly, such a unified sound comes from a somewhat peculiar aggregation. Mike Koop (guitar, lead vocals), who leads power-pop band, Kicker, and Lee Charles Garinger (bass) ex-member of glam-rockers, the Harlots, are both holdovers from Winnipeg's underground music scene of the 90's. Larry Campbell* (backing vocals) and Allen Fehr (piano) are lifelong musicians, each having logged over thirty years of session work and hard-gigging. Finally, anchoring this assemblage on the cajón (an amplified wooden box) is Bobby James Hobson, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and long-time drummer/vocalist for dance band Caraballo.


The band's choice of Dylan songs brought to mind the old Columbia slogan, “No one sings Dylan like Dylan”. It is true no one can actually perform quite like Dylan, with his playing and his phrasing. Therefore, each Dylan cover ends up becoming an original of sorts, or as class of '77 punk singer/songwriter Tom Robinson said, "Dylan's songs are not arrangement-dependent; anyone can cover them." Which is not say that covering Dylan was easy, for as Koop uttered when early rehearsals bogged down, "Dylan writes songs with only three chords but he plays them in really odd ways".

The following Dylan songs were played that night. For the two previews, click the play button under the songs, to dowload the entire e.p. scoll down the page.

Lay Down Your Weary Tune
This joyous, almost surrealistic hymn to the music of nature dates from 1964 and is, strangely, an outtake from Dylan's most po-faced album, The Times They-Are-A-Changin'. In this version, the rich backing vocals of the group, in particular, Larry Campbell's, intertwine with Koop's distinctive voice (akin to Dylan's sweeter Nashville Skyline voice) in startling and wonderful ways, creating a country-gospel feel.


Every Grain of Sand
A Dylan Masterpiece, from the imperfect but rewarding Shot of Love album of 1981, which might indeed stand with the works of Rembrandt. Here the band delivers a stirring version, played with fire and subtlety.

Father of Night
Half a song written for an Archibald Mcleish play (if Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, is to be trusted) subsequently tacked onto the 1970 album New Morning album is here re-arranged and fleshed out into a rollicking country-rock fusion that Gram Parsons might understand.


Pressing On
This slow-burning track originates on one of Dylan’s most reviled albums, 1980's Saved. The M.O.S.' version, partly inspired by John Doe's illuminating if imperfect version from the film, I'm Not There, builds and builds in intensity, all the way reminding of us of how effective a writer of gospel songs Dylan has been.

I Shall be Released
After his mysterious 1966 motorcycle accident Dylan wrote this metaphor of imprisonment and freedom, which has developed into an anthem of near universal resonance. The long-unreleased version that Dylan and the Band recorded in the basement of Big Pink back in '67 is clearly the M.O.S.' model but they bend and shape the song till, ultimately, they fashion a moving version all their own.

The band maintained both their semi-circular placement and their use of intimate settings when they recorded the entire set using just two microphones in the living room of pianist Allen Fehr. So now you can take a seat near the front of the nave, even if you haven’t done so for a long time.

Download the Multitude of Sins - The Dylan Mass


(MRML recommends WinrRAR for unpacking your downloads)
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* This, on your left, is Larry Campbell. He is not the same Larry Campbell, on your far right, who played guitar for Dylan from 1998-2004.



Nor, as has been claimed, is he either fellow Winnipegger, Randy Bachman or the King of the Ewok village.

If you enjoy this free digi-e.p., please leave a comment for the band and, if you can, please link to this post so that others may hear as well.

Guns, Heroin, Cadillacs etc., etc., etc.

“God’s got an answer in that jukebox,
I pick the wrong song every time.”
Art Bergmann

I turned down a Cadillac ride from Vancouver to Seattle with Art Bergmann and a one-time muse of Guy Maddin. The prospect of a cross-border raid (to which my not-yet-ex was pointedly dis-invited) led by the man who’d screamed out his response to the musical question, “What is your reason for entering the USA?” with the chorus; “Guns and Her-o-i-i-in!” was unnerving. I’m not opposed to celebrity-stalking or name-dropping but the set-up stank. So to avoid becoming an unwitting drug mule or a voyeuristic tag along, I declined.

It was 1991 and it was what must have been, by the standards of Art Bergmann’s career, a good year. In the years previous, the Vancouver punk legend had played with the Schmorgs, the K-Tels, the Young Canadians, Los Popularos and, after giving up the band name Poisoned, he'd put out two solo albums. In 1991 he’d released a stinging, yet wide-appealing, self-titled solo album that got the push from Polygram (even the terrible music store where I worked got a play copy and slick posters). And while those used CD shops of Vancouver (of the type that sprouted up across North America in the 90’s) were full of Art Bergmann play copies that he’d pawned himself, his name was still spoken of reverently in critical circles. While Art sang on "Bound for Vegas" that he was, “a never-was trying to be a has-been on the comeback trail”, he was being lauded as “Canada’s Paul Westerberg”. Art did share a gruff vocal style, an unflinching honesty and a crippling addiction with Westerberg but rather than cleave to a mid-western rock n' roll style, Art adhered to the gutter junkie-poet archetype typified by Lou Reed. Reed's former collaborator, John Cale, even produced Art's solo debut solo –though he supposedly hated the results.

(For more Art history see the sad, yet wonderfully thorough tribute site, For the Love of Art or the new and excellent-looking artbergman.com or even this frequently Googled post of mine.)

Art built a reputation for furious live shows (I saw Poisoned rip through a set at Verna’s a tiny basement club just outside of Winnipeg’s notorious Murder’s Half Acre) where he honed the songs herein. And what songs; “Remember Her Name” with it’s heart-chilling chorus that pays to tribute to Marianne Faithful, the tortured ballad, "Guns and Heroin"and the vindictive pop kiss-off that is, “God's Little Gift” - a song which the mercurial Dylan of '66 might sympathize with.

Irritatingly, the quality of music production declined seriously in the 80's and Art's muse was occasionally bloodied by studio hacks - listen closely and it stops mattering.

So take this ride with Art (the former-muse spoke well of him), and find out how often he chose the exact right song. Guns and Heroin, a compilation of Art's solo material from 1986-1995, is not available in stores at any cost; it exists only in MRML’s hard drive. It was cherry-picked from the following releases: the Poisoned S/T e.p., Crawl With Me, Sexual Roulette, What Fresh Hell is This? and Vultura Freeway.

Download Art Bergmann - Guns and Heroin (1986-1995)

(MRML recommends WinrRAR for unpacking your downloads)

The first two Art Bergmann solo album are available from Itunes, Bearwood Reords is now advertising a forthcoming CD of the demos for the first solo album that Cale supposedly ruined, Other People's Music has a later recording entitled Design Flaw for sale and the K-Tels/Young Canadians compilation No Escape is available Sudden Death Records.

Cow-Punk Addendum: Roots Rock Weirdos

“There’s no such thing as cow-punk.”
Did I say that? Yes, though in my defense it was back in 1985. I was a sixteen year-old loitering in the basement of a sleazeball bar named Wellington’s, after witnessing Soul Asylum play a sweaty, full-bore show. The band had refused to play anything from their first e.p., Say What You Will, instead focusing exclusively on the less thrashy (and perhaps a touch more country) material from the stunning Made to be Broken album. Some fellow-traveler claimed, "Soul Asylum and this band from Edmonton, Jr. Gone Wild, are cow-punk”. I dismissed this possibility out of hand since back in the 80’s I, as narrow-minded music fans will, disavowed all country music.

Soon after the roots-rock sound (one of the more flagrantly critic-created genres) would be in full swing. When faced with an enemy as ugly as soulless and gutless synth-pop, a million bands (often older punks) went back in time. Eighties bands exhumed garage rock, folk-rock and psychedelia with glee. Then of course there was country-rock, which almost every single recording artist of the 60’s claims credit for (by the way it’s all about Buck Owens, the death-deifying Mr. Parsons aside). The less commercial bands (Jason and the Scorchers etc.) got called cow-punk and the ones who made beer commercials (Del Fuegos etc.) got labeled roots-rock. Unfortunately, all of the Bolo tie wearin' twangers got wiped out as the 80‘s bled into the 90’s. However, soon enough Uncle Tupelo managed to steal every ounce of credit leaving those pioneers cruelly empty-handed.

And there, North of all the action, was Mike McDonald, criminally neglected also-ran and linchpin of the Jr. Gone Wild. “They've been called "the Sex Pistols meet Hank Williams." Lead singer and songwriter Mike McDonald once joked that the band had progressed: they were now a cross between the Clash and George Jones” says an article on their thorough (and ten-year old!) web site.

The first album, 1986's Less Art, More Pop, works a punkish R.E.M. angle (though they claimed in old interviews that B.Y.O. Records forced the twee-hippie gear on them). Already Mike and his ever-changing but always talented support cast were writing smart, self-deprecating but ringing songs, such as “Slept all Afternoon" and the hardcore-lengthed (1:19!) yet sparkling, "It Never Changes".

Less Art, More Pop

In between record deals Jr. Gone Wild self-released Folk You a revealing, if artlessly titled, "assemblage of material from various sources, including demo tracks and live songs" (says the band web page). Within the digitized Chromium Dioxide here you will find an archetypal cow-punk double-timer, "Despite the Rain", a pretty ballad "Sleep with a Stranger", the Dylan-esque,"Rhythm of the Rain" plus another of McDonald's hummable jangly-pop numbers, "What's Going On?" (Covered by previous MRML object of obsession, the Doughboys!) which you may listen to right NOW!

Download Folk You

After moving to “rootsy” Canadian indie label Stony Plain for their sadder, wiser second album, Too Dumb To Quit (nice Ramones reference). This incarnation of JGW fell under the infleunce of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and (if McDonald is to be believed) gallons upon gallons of alcohol. The word Mature got hastily thrown around by critics but that can't be a bad thing if it produced sturdy mid-tempo weepers like "Poet's Highway" and full-blooded rockers like “In Contempt of Me".

Too Dumb to Quit



Mike sobered up for what may be their strongest album Simple Little Wish (which like it’s predecessor Pull the Goalie is still available from Stony Plain Records). Then, as is often the case for indie bands who burst out of the gate, things just died out and Jr. disbanded.

So enjoy the songs, even if cow-punk was just a dumb label.