V.A. Last Call Van. Indie '77-'88 (Now with 44 page BOOKLET!)

Once again the magnificent Roberto has come through with hi-res scans of the 44 page booklet [!!!] for the aural history, V.A. Last Call: Vancouver Independent Music 1977-1988. The liner notes are written by Grant McDonagh of Zulu Records (a store and a label, which were both vital to Vancouver's musical development)  and Tom Harrison, supportive music critic of The Province (and leader of Bruno Gerussi's Medallion!) .

Thanks to COMMENTS from readers, as well some further research, I've added lots of new links to  where further music is available elsewhere (including other blogs). If anyone has either rips n' scans of out-of-print releases by the bands herein (or links to other blogs where they are available) please let us know in the COMMENTS section.


1.01     Furies–     What Do You Want Me To Be        
1.02     Skulls –     Fucked Up Baby        
1.03     D.O.A. –     Disco Sucks       (More HERE)
1.04     Stiffs –     Fuck You        
1.05     Generators  –     I Wanna Be A Girl        
1.06     Dishrags –     I Don't Love You   (more HERE)
1.07     Active Dog –    Nothing Holding You  (more HERE)  
1.08     Biz –     I Don't Give A Shit        
1.09     Shades –     New Clientele        
1.10     Pointed Sticks –     Real Thing    (more HERE)    
1.11     Private School –     Science Fiction        
1.12     Subhumans –     Slave To My Dick  (more HERE)      
1.13     Young Canadians –     Hawaii     (more to come)
1.14     Female Hands –     Divided By Three        
1.15     UJ3RK5 –     Eisenhower And The Hippies  (more HERE)    
1.16     Modernettes –     Barbra     (more to come)      
1.17     Insex –     Off The Deep End        
1.18     AKA –     634 Dog        
1.19     Secret V's –     Waiting For The Drugs To Take Hold        
1.20     Tim Ray –     Seen A Fight        
1.21     Corsage –     Shame I Feel        
1.22     Popular Front –     Synchronized Swimming        
1.23     54-40 –     Yank        
1.24     Scissors  –     Mystery Movie        
1.25     Los Popularos –     Can't Come Back    (more to come)    
1.26     Moral Lepers –     Music Is Your Body        
1.27     Enigmas –     Teenage Barnacle       (more HERE)
1.28     Actionauts –     Party Dog        
2.01     Family Plot –     The Crush        
2.02     Nomeansno –     Self Pity         (more HERE)
2.03     Work Party–     Work Song        
2.04     Bolero Lava –     Inevitable     (more HERE) 
2.05     I, Braineater –     Edge  (more HERE)      
2.06     Go Four 3 –     Just Another Day     (more HERE)   
2.07     Animal Slaves –     Learning To Live   (also see HERE)     
2.08     Brilliant Orange –     Happy Man         (more HERE)
2.09     Slow –     Have Not Been The Same    (more HERE)    
2.10     Shanghai Dog –     American Desert    (more HERE)
2.11     No Fun –     Be Like Us       (more HERE)
2.12     Cannon Heath Down –     Bone Of Contention        
2.13     Lost Durangos –     Evil Town         (more HERE)
2.14     Herald Nix –     Dirty Ol' Town        
2.15     Poisoned –     To Tell The Truth         (more HERE)
2.16     Bob's Your Uncle –     Talk To The Birds        
2.17     Rhythm Mission –     King Blood        
2.18     Scramblers –     Solitary Man  (available HERE)       
2.19     Oversoul Seven –     1 + 1 Is 3     (more HERE)   
2.20     Hip Type –     Darker Than This

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If you missed the music itself go HERE.

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Roberto scanned all those pages, e-mailed them out and then I chopped them all down to a regulation size, so please feel free to leave a thought for all the words we've brought you today in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the link for Last Call booklet).

The Suhumans: Incorrect Thoughts (1980)

 
As a disaffected youth, I discovered rival Vancouver punk legends D.O.A. and the Subhumans on the same day, in a musty, suburban basement.

At one time in North America's cultural evolution, no basement would have been complete without a stack of abused and abandoned vinyl records. To be sure, they usually had the words Nana and Mouskouri stamped on them. But some obsessive types, as I was, and remain, are physically incapable of passing  a stack of records without succumbing to the urge to 'flip'.

So on that day in the summer of 1984, buried deep in friend's basement, I hit upon the black sheep of that family's records. A modest-in-size but utterly pure vein of gold among the slag. There, amidst the "Learn French" records and Ms. Mouskouri's purported Greatest Hits, were half-a-dozen or so records that were absolutely not like the others.

I swear it is this particular discovery which makes every stack of worn and beaten vinyl magnetic in a pull. What if, I still ask myself, instead of James Last, Rusty Warren or Strange Advance and other such Columbia House cast-offs, some black sheep's albums are lurking in in there?

What I did find therein was the Buzzcocks's Different Kind of Tension, 999's High Energy Plan, Iggy Pop's Soldier, The Cure's Boys Don't Cry et les pieces des resistance, those hopelessly rare (even then) foundational documents of Canadian punk rock;  D.O.A.'s Something Better Change and The Subhuman's Incorrect Thoughts.

While I took to each of these albums with a sort of fury, I was never uncritical. I scrutinized the sleeves of each LP as it spun, considering what to commit to tape and what to excise. The Subhumans' album made it to tape unscathed. After all, the band's mid-tempo rhythms, melodic guitar lines and bellowed politics reminded me of my beloved Clash, albeit with more audible hard rock roots and less stylistic fiddling. However, while Punk rock has, throughout its history, often rewarded sound-a-like bands, (Ramones-core? D-beat? Street-punk?), The Subhumans played nobody else's game.

In fact, the refusal to play anybody's game may be the defining trait of an album that simply bleeds alienation. Each of the three song-writers appears hopelessly at odds with the culture from which he sprung. Whether it's guitarist Mike Graham saying that "I don't fit the big picture", singer Brian Goble telling us us "I can't stand the new regime" or bassist Gerry Hannah mocking Saturday Fever culture with the charge, "I'm just a slave to my dick", this album is like discontent distilled. More than any other of the albums I uncovered that day, Incorrect Thoughts was the one that that could 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted', even though both affliction and comfort marked the life of that disaffected youth.

Now I post this album with some trepidation. While Incorrect Thoughts itself remains difficult to obtain, thanks to some inexplicable legal chicanery, the band has not only re-recorded the album they've added new depth of experience to the songs. The end result of this being an unusual case where you'd want BOTH versions of the album. So if you're here to get Incorrect Thoughts (1980) feel free to do so but if you sense its power PLEASE go and find the 2010 version, called Same Thoughts, Different Day, and see how much it adds to the band's legacy.


So let us know MRML readers, Any favourite albums found in strange places? Any favourite Subhumans moments? Let us know in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Incorrect Thoughts link).


Subhumans.ca

Alternative Tentacles

Social Distortion: Daytrotter Session

Three new versions of old tracks, "Prison Bound", "Ring of Fire" and "Reach for the Sky" make this another one of the great 2011 Daytrotter sessions. MRML has more more Social D. HERE!





Let us know what you think of Social D.  in the COMMNENTS section (where you'l find the link for the Daytrotter Session).


Support the damn band!

Homepage

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Interpunk

Amazon

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The Obvious: Home 12" (1987)

While The Obvious hail from Dayton Ohio and not Vancouver, B.C. (from which most of recent posts originate and to which we will very soon return), there are some superficial connections. First off, I bought this record from Vancouver's legendary Zulu Record back in '91. Secondly,  I took a chance on this unknown quantity just because one member of the band was wearing a D.O.A. T-shirt on the record's sleeve, which, as I later discovered, was designed by eighties D.O.A. manager David Lester's Get To The Point Graphics. So while the band's sound is a more of a Minneapolis-meets-Athens, Willfully-Obscure bait (please, Spavid post the 1st Short Dogs Grow LP!) sort-of-thing, the songs remain ringing, tuneful artifacts of '87.

A1         Home     4:08    
A2         Black & White     3:07    
A3         Suicidal Anne     1:51    
B1         Sold Out     1:53    
B2         "77"     2:13    
B3         Home (For Radio Edit)     4:08



The Obvious "Home" I Wanna Records (IW 02)


Bass – Gregg Johnson
Drums – Tom Vandervort
Guitar – Nick Kizirnis
Lead Vocals, Guitar – John Dubuc

Artwork By – David Lester, Get To The Point Graphics

Recorded at ReFraze Studios Dayton, Ohio (Winter '88 & Spring 87). Thanks to the many people who have made this record possible through their support and guidance. CRANK IT UP GANG!

So MRML readers, let us know what you think of The Obvious in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Home link.)

V.A. Back to Front (1977-1983) Volume Two

Yeah I pulled the last B2F volume due to lack of comments, then relented in the face of strong, positive feedback. Perhaps my pissy mood came from outside forces, perhaps it resulted from spending a valuable hour that morning setting up the whole series to no avail. It's all irrelevant now, as I'm happy as hell to re-commence the series and looking forward to hearing what you have to say about all this obscurica!

When  Incongito Records began this limited-edition series back in 1993, they made an honest attempt to contact as many of these late seventies/early eighties bands as they could to secure rights. That attention to detail  gave this series a reputation as one of the best in the torrent of punk retrospectives that the nineties unleashed.  On Volume two, compiler Peter Parzinger still has a lot of wilder, cruder punk rock from all over the Western world with bands like Fresh Color, Scrotum Poles and Chainsaw but we also get some catchier, hookier punkishness like Incredible Kidda Band, Sudden Fun, Groove, The Newtown Neurotics and, of course, The Cigarettes who seem to appeal to almost all every faction of late seventies obscurity-fanatics. (Plus we get a visit from Canada's the Demics!)


(Wrong IKB song but one of my fave obscurities of the entire era!)


Previous volumes HERE!

Back to Front V. 2 (Incognito INC. 047, Germany, 1993)

    They're Back Again, Here They Come (Cigarettes, UK, 1979, from 1.7")
    Floozie of the Neighborhood (Features, USA, 1979, from only 7")
    The Source (Fresh Color, Switzerland, 1978, from 1.7")
    Radio Tay (Scrotum Poles, UK, 1980, from only 7")
    Everybody Knows (Incredible Kidda Band, UK, 1978, from 1.7")
    Radio Nation (Subverts, USA, 1981, from only 7")
    Kill The Blanks (Chainsaw, Belgium, 1977, from only 7")
    Ja Vill Inte Ha (Problem, Sweden, 1978, from 1.7")
    Sudden Fun (Sudden Fun, USA, 1981, from only 7")
    Hello From Berlin (Defnics, USA, 1981, from only 7")
    Hate Me Hate Me (Spelling Mistakes, New Zealand, 1980, from 2.7")
    Fuck The Army (Briard, Finland, 1978, from 2.7")
    Hypocrite (Newtown Neurotics, UK, 1979, from 1.7")
    F.U.2 (F.U.2, Italy, 1978, from only 7") [Actually the Downliners Sect from UK]
    Pappas Pojkar (Goteborg Sound, Sweden, 1979, from 3.7")
    Ultimate Orgasm (N.C.M (Non Compos Mentis), USA, 1980, from 1.7")
    Only Fools Pretend To Be Happy (Checkmate, France, 1979, from only 7")
    Hilton Bomber (Thought Criminals, Australia, 1978, from 1.7")
    Talk's Cheap (Demics, Canada, 1979, from only 12" EP)
    Heart Complaint (Groove, UK, 1980, from only 7")

COMMENTS ARE THE CURRENCY OF THIS BLOG, SO HOPEFULLY YOU'LL COUGH UP A THOUGHT OR TWO TO ALLOW THIS BRILLIANT LONG-UNAVAILABLE SERIES TO CONTINUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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