T.M.I. 015 (1982)

Seriously phenomenal compilation of bands from the three states of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The record starts off with Dancing Cigarettes, probably one of the best unheard unrecognized underground bands at the time, and it's a doozy in the Pere Ubu, Styrenes vein of sound. Plus there's the jazz punk weirdness of Stick Against Stone, and Cold Warrior and the Mercenary Band. Johnny Clampett and the Walkers, and F-Models both tear it up, the latter with a with Pagans sounding blast. Easter Island's got the herky- jerky postpunk sound down. I'm not going explain every track, but rest assured it's all a bunch of more great art-wave / postpunk.
 http://www.mediafire.com/download/cds5m69bkru3414/t.m.i.+015.rar

I'llbeonthefönetoyou (1982)

Brilliant and very obscure postpunk / artwave out of Houston Texas. Lot's of cymbal-less drumming, dominate bass and synths throughout, some weird guitar figures. Then there's "Practice Makes Perfect" a kind of cool snark acoustic guitar tune. On the whole somewhat comparable to Monitor, or Savage Republic of the same year, only mixed with their later offshoot 17 Pygmies. Great record! Lyric sheet insert included!

Now on Bandcamp!
https://illbeonthefonetoyou.bandcamp.com/album/illbeonthef-netoyou

Busload of Nuns - Red All Over (1982)

New wave / art rock out of Boston. The A-side is brilliant with the art-wave lament of "Work Song" and a deadpan wave cover in "Stayin' Alive". The B-side isn't really my thing though.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0u80339z15dovy1/BusloadofNuns.rar

Seven 7 inch records

A super smorgasbord post with a little something for everybody. Brought together only because I own the vinyl (except two donations from friends), but don't have any of the picture sleeves.

 B.O.P. - Ouch / Bob Rachet / Mother's Agony (1982)
Synth driven new wave with some Devo quirkiness. The songs on the b-side are pretty cool!

 Blackmail - A Game For All The Family (1978)
A four song DIY EP that's real prog-rock influenced. More infos here. 

 

 Brand New World - Six Feet Under / Monster Love (1983)
Sorta novelty style new wave, think Dr. Demento or polished Marina Swingers.

 The Eighties - No Cruising in an Era of Limits / Letter to Loretta (1980)
Top notch paisley underground power pop jangle produced by Geza X. 

Klingons - Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde / The First Question (1980)
Fantastic energetic UK postpunk. Covering an underrated Who song, and a great original tune. Check out Discogs for the pics.

 L.O.K. - Fun House / Starlet Love / Tell Me (1979)
Real killer Stooges/New York Dolls inspired garage-punk. The guitar player/producer also played with Wayne County. My record seems to be some kind of early release promo. More scans on Discogs.

  Psyche - Never Laugh / The Prisoner (1982)
Synth heavy UK gothic postpunk. Discogs has more scans with the lyrics.


Hear it all here.

Mark Soden - Test Monkey Records Present Mark Soden (1982)

Dark humor rhythm box wave that lends itself in a minimal art. Four weird catchy nuggets from southern California that I really dig. Mark Soden has a tune on the Beginner's Guide to COMA compilation you can buy here.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/c24nuocfow2mfv0/MarkS.rar

Volumatix - Volume One (1982) Fitness / Trashman (1981)

New wave from Houston, Texas. Straight Line, Fitness, and Obscene Phone Call are all well done quirky new wave tunes that I like quite a lot. The rest I don't listen to that much. They put out an LP called In The City in '84 that I've not heard. And made a video for Obscene Phone Call that I'll put below. Seems a weird song choice as it's pretty much an instrumental aside from a few surprised sounding words from the singer. Still it makes a good video story. I wonder what kinds of hilarity they would have come up with for a Fitness video. Again I don't have the picture sleeve for the 7" but scans are at discogs.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/t4bblq9n4dh437h/Volumatix.rar

Color the Reality (1982)

Excellent compilation of four LA bands. Excerpts from the performance Mysteries, is a synth heavy adventure with art afflicted industrial antics strewn about. Strong Silent Types sound of death-wave post-punk, kinda like 45 Grave without the hardcore trappings. Fred Cadaver is a standout track. Hesitations armed with Casio cheese and an upright bass. Entertain and amuse with melodious humor. Romans certainly the most well known band on here. Were kind of an art-punk super group. Having members from Monitor, Bpeople, The Deadbeats, many other LAFMS related bands. Can't speak to their later recordings, but on this the sound somewhat like an instrumental version of The Urinals. This record came with an insert, but I don't have it.

Link removed. This has been remastered and re-released. Get it @
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TPZWIC/ref=dm_sp_alb

https://itunes.apple.com/album/window-love/id425144411?i=425144446&ign-mpt=uo%3D5

https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bffqpvmvxu7vdww7h6eveb5yiiu&tid=song-Tkanagmtx7abe2lpe65s2t6kyhm&rdot=1&rdid=song-Tkanagmtx7abe2lpe65s2t6kyhm

Surplus Stock - Let's Kill Each Other / Dangerous Visions (1982)

Led by Robert Giddens Surplus Stock were a few Brits living in Germany. The original version of Let's Kill Each Other from the Fix Planet compilation is a textbook example of early minimal synth (see the video below) along the lines of The Normal single. The version here finds them in their 'fake jazz' mode. The lyrics are an hilariously sad observation of human nature, and some of it's absurd situations. Dangerous Visions sounds kinda like A Certain Ratio with a drum machine.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qa97bop5xclal1

The Varve - Bamboo Curtain / The Plan / Erotic Frigidaire (1982)

Distinctive audio art from this all female post punk / new wave quintet. They got together in Colorado, eventually moving to San Francisco. Where they recorded this record.

There's a detailed write up on 'em here. The description of their sound from the Colorado New Wave site is pretty spot on."jangly guitar scratches, jazzy multi-note melodic bass lines, poppy yet sinister keyboard, solid drumming, funky alto sax and vocals that someone once said was the result if you mixed Yoko Ono with tribal American Indian music and rockabilly hiccups." There was also a 7" picture sleeve version of this, see the scans on Discogs.

Carolyn Crampton, the guitar player writes -
Haha, what a hoot to hear these!

We were definitely  a weird band -- but noise was big then. We played once or twice a month in SF, and went on a couple of tours. Our singer was influenced by rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson. She got a lot of flack for her style of singing. But she was a great performer. She learned how to play sax in our apartment in SF -- I lived through ever minute of it in the next room.

We recorded this set at like 4am on the sly in Hyde Street studio -- our producer was paying the engineer in cocaine. I had to be at work at 7am as a temp receptionist! I would have preferred a more punk sound on this.

I have a cassette with 5 songs that came in a meat container. I need to digitize it somehow.

We have a cut "frictional drag" on a record called 'live at le disque", this club in the Haight.

Hear Carolyn's new band The Insufferables on Bandcamp and their website.  

http://www.mediafire.com/?shlbx3pb5gpsw8o

Zeitgeist - Shake-Rake (1980) Touch (1980) Ball of Confusion (1981) Stop (1982)

Originally from Cornwall then London. Post-punk with two vocalists alternating male/female. Read the whole history here. Similar to A Certain Ratio, etc. In the sense that they started out with moody post punk explorations and got more and more dance friendly as the years went by, culminating in their last 7" not included here. They cover Ball of Confusion which is nice and all, but I find their own tunes a lot more engaging. I inclued the Shake-Rake 7" which I had previously posted here. Since someone had it taken down, claiming it's a Japanese anime!

 http://www.mediafire.com/?rfx68jq6do997zx

Bee Vamp - Valium Girls / Lucky Grills / Without Barry in Bengal (1981) Our Eyes Met Across the Disco Floor / Jungle Fever (1982)

From Manchester bestowing great post punk sounds with free jazz flavoring added. Music...isms blog has more info. Valium Girls is a fine example of twisted pop, that found it's way to a Messthetics comp.

http://www.mediafire.com/?g5v4iq911ib3bq5

Reasonable Strollers - Tools for Africa / Smile / No Wasting (1982)

I should read the run-out groove on my records more often, as this here's another porky prime cut. Though that's probably the least exciting thing about this record. Mutant Sounds has their Secure tape here. Just as the mutants say you'll find shades of the Pop Group and Gang of Four on this top shelf, post-punk classic.
http://www.mediafire.com/?gxs7zpf5xz72xit

Mofungo - El Salvador / Just the Way / Gimme a Sarsaparilla (1982)

There's an excellent article about Mofungo at Perfect Sound Forever here. So read that and listen to this 7". When Mofungo was still in their no wave type mode. Should anyone want to spill out any of their earlier über obscure recordings i.e. Elementary Particles, or End of the World, I'm all ears. Until then check out this Tape # 1 stuff on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6D1owTEvv0

 http://www.mediafire.com/?17s7fnyl93mpm7k

B Team - Buy American (1983) What Is This? / The Kill / Caught! (1982)

A three piece post-punk band from San Francisco. That really rip it up with moves that will remind you of Gang of Four more than once. Which in my book is a wonderful thing. Buy American has better production values. Usually I don't care to much about such things, but The Kill (fantastic song that it is) is somewhat buried. I upped the volume quite a bit there. Caught! from the 7" was on a Messthetics Homework comp. Curious pick as I find it about their least interesting song. I also included the 7" insert with lyrics to The Kill, and the 7" back cover which isn't much to look at.
 http://www.mediafire.com/?zdi7a6hcy1bwfc4

Fish - Cocks / Nails (1982)

Fish hailed from Andover, England with a dark post punk single. Call it goth if you want to. Shades of The Danse Society, Virgin Prunes, UK Decay. Good stuff with lots of synth rumblings to boot. According to discogs they also put out a cassette entitled Sole Music. Witticisms abound.
http://www.mediafire.com/?ap8322r1p1300eb

La Loora - This Is Not The Use They Are Longing For So They Gonna Be Fascists (1982) N'Avez Vous Rien De Mieux (1983)

La Loora from Berlin, Germany formed in 1981. Shortly thereafter they self released their first LP "This Is Not The Use They Are Longing For So They Gonna Be Fascists". Which is a masterwork, and one of the best LP's of the year. Seemingly informed by the plethora of bizarre undertakings at the time. They craft music here with nods to the neue Deutsche welle, Industrial Records, no wave, post punk or art punk, and minimal electronics. That blends all this strange architecture, and reminds one that all these labels we now affix to this kind of music is sometimes useless. As they have so much experimentation in common, being at times interchangeable.

Their next release a mini-LP. Was released by Gudrun Gut of Malaria!. A slightly better produced affair, which still has their uncompromising unique sound. Finally from the first LP gets redone, and they do an interesting epic cover of Iggy Pop's Tiny Girls. Amidst plenty of other great sounds.

Kill your pet puppy has the Berlin Atonal split with Psychic TV. Mutant sounds has Reseda Revel from 1986. There's also a myspace.

These records really need a proper reissue. You'd be a fool not to hear why.
   http://www.mediafire.com/?ye4b1955935jq55

Willy Nilly (1982)

Interesting Dutch postpunk explorations. The basic guitar bass drums, with synth and sax fleshing things out. On the whole it reminds me of Minimal Compact, especially the vocals. They investigate a variety of tactics, introducing assorted climates. The most freakish being LTD.D.M. Crook's First Big Action, but it's all good, man.
http://www.mediafire.com/?k70zbpb1cj8pkd2