Laceration / Avulsion – split 7″
Laceration / Agoraphobic Nosebleed – split 7″
Prototype – comp 7″
(on the comp are also Default, Unsettled, Disdain, Ulcer, and Apartment 213)
All these bands are included in the zip.
I’ve had this record forever. I borrowed the other two records from DJ Invisible Touch.
Here’s a track, Duct Tape, from the Avulsion split.
The lyrics: “Saves my shoes. Saves me money. Duct Tape. Thank You.”
Basically, Laceration play short, fast, dirty thrash. Songs about the suckage of cops, fashion punks, cranky old people, and so on. I like the songs on the Avulsion split more than the ones on these other releases. The others seem similar… more of the same, but they aren’t drilled into my head like the ones on the Avulsion split are.
Avulsion is rad. Basically dual-vocaled grindcore, with (at times) Slayer-esque guitar riffs. Songs about not being into drugs, etc. Pitch-shifted vocals.
These are all from around 1996. Scans of the covers and inserts are included. About 40mb. About 35 tracks total.
I was sorting my records over the weekend, and came across this 45 with no cover, just a paper sleeve. So I searched my memory banks and discovered that this is my dad’s high school band! He’s on drums. It’s from 1965, which I believe was his senior year. They called themselves The High Numbers, which is a name totally stolen from The Who (The Who temporarily changed their name to The High Numbers at one point). From what he’s told me, he played in a couple other bands in high school, one of them was called The Gratzmen (My dad’s name is Alan Gratzer, and he was pretty charismatic and funny and took a leader role in bands). But I don’t think those other bands recorded anything.
This is my dad’s description of this record:
The year was probably 1965 and we recorded it in downtown Chicago. We made up a record name ‘Ocean’ because we were looking out at Lake Michigan and thought it looked like the ocean. I think we also used the name of the Yardbirds or Stones producer on the record because we thought that sounded cool (highly illegal!). We recorded everything live with no overdubs with a minimum of takes because we couldn’t afford much time. I think it was either the studio or somewhere else we found that pressed 1 or 2 hundred copies which we just kind of gave away to people…all done very quickly and on the cheap, but we were proud at the time. Dad
Here’s a picture of my dad from a couple years earlier (he looked younger than he was; he was 90 pounds when he graduated high school):
After high school, he attended the University of Illinois. During the first year he and his dorm mate, Neil Doughty, started REO Speedwagon. And my dad was the drummer of REO for the next 21 years. Here is a picture of him from the back cover of REO’s first album.
And here he is rocking out in the early ’80s!
In the very early days of REO (and in earlier high school and college bands), he would sing and play drums. But no recordings from those times were ever made. And he’s bummed out about that. But still, it’s nice to have at least one 45 from the pre-REO days.
This record contains two songs – High Heel Sneakers, and I’m A Man. Both are blues-driven pop songs. The recording is not the greatest, but that’s part of the charm! As only 100-200 of these were pressed in 1965, the chances are great that none of you have ever heard this record (I doubt my dad’s even listened to it in over a decade). So, here you go!
I recently picked up In/Humanity‘s Gets Killed by Robots 7″. Previously, I’d only heard a couple songs of theirs from comps (Amnesia, and I Can’t Live Without It), and while I liked those songs, I failed to seek out more. But this 7″ is rad. So here it is!
Also, you can snag their entire discog from Illogical Contraption. Apparently it was mixed differently than the original material – so that’s, in part, why you may want to d/l this 7″ in addition to getting the discography.
In an interview, the singer, Chris Bickel, says that this 7″ marks the point where In/Humanity first started getting good. It’s sort of wild, and artsy/unusual, loud/soft (emo violence! – Bickel’s terms). Reminds me a bit of Assfactor 4 crossed with Hose.Got.Cable. This came out in 1994.
Excuse the crackles. And I scanned the insert. It has some cool stuff.
Here’s the 2nd movie in the Search series: The Search II!
I have some trouble choosing a favorite in the Search series, but I will say that there are times when this one tops them all for me. It might have something to do with how it ends with a calm montage showing empty line-ups, African street art, and boats sitting alone in the Indian Ocean. Like the first Search, much of the action takes place in Africa (with a stop or two in Bali). Curren is at his peak (luckily, it’s a peak that’s lasted a good while). And Shane Beschen and Brock Little join the crew.
Unlike the soundtrack from the first Search, this one contains songs with vocals. Track 6, 7, and 8 are all by African artists. I’ve heard a couple versions of this song, Nehamusasa, but I think the one on this soundtrack is the most solid of them all. Listen:
For the “high octane” sequence they chose an Offspring song. I don’t really think it fits in with the rest of the songs, and I usually skip it when listening to this soundtrack. Overall, though, this soundtrack is a great compliment to the first Search’s. Guitar-driven jams, audio-clips from their travels, etc.
Some months ago I posted this segment from the video. Two songs worth:
Once again, this was recorded from VHS to DVD, and then the audio was extracted. It is crackly at times, and I can’t always tell if that’s from the VHS tape, or from the songs themselves. Also, I made up the song titles. I don’t think I’ll be posting The Search III: Beyond the Boundaries. It is a great surf movie, and carries on the feel of the first two – but the soundtrack has quite a few commercial rock songs (like, post-Pearl Jam’s “Ten” -type bands), and I don’t want to step on any toes by posting it. But, maybe I’ll change my mind.
Kinda like the Bali High soundtrack, here’s a soundtrack from a surf video. This one’s from the ’90s! The Search, The Search II, and The Search III (Beyond the Boundaries) are my three favorite surf movies of all time. And I think of those three, The Search II tops them all. But just barely. And only when I feel like it. I’ll have that soundtrack up shortly, but first here’s The Search: An Indian Ocean Sojourn.
The Search follows the Rip Curl team as they takes big boats around to exotic locales around Southern Africa (they also drive to spots). And there’s some Bali. This series (there are five in total… I believe – I have five of them, at least) was made by Sonny Miller. And he did a great job. You get a great sense of the adventure, and of the foreignness of the countries they visit. He makes a point to intersperse landscape shots – signs, businesses, people, animals, underwater, etc. It’s shot with style, and the surfers are great. And he fits in some local music. Unlike Bali High, there is no narration. But you will hear some chattering in between songs. One funny part is when they’re at Frankie’s house in South Africa, and are trying to jam in the basement, and his dad keeps flashing the lights and hitting the floor to tell them to shut up. “It comes up through the floor. The whole floor vibrates!” (what you can’t see is that he’s holding a washcloth when he says this, and inadvertently makes a “jacking off” motion with his hand – the whole floor vibrates!)
This soundtrack is pretty much all instrumentals. There’s a focus on jazzy tunes, and there are also heavy screaming surf guitar vibrations. I don’t know the bands – I could probably stare hard at the credits to figure it out. But even then it’s difficult to tell which listing is for which song. Many of them are Tom Curren’s (a featured surfer) band. Near the beginning they pop into a cave and show him and his mates jamming. Other songs are by, I think, Satriani.
This tune is a top fave of mine. This is when they leave the city behind for the country, and hit up some kind of big beach break. When I first got this video I was really excited to come across this section. Curren had recently been featured on the cover of Surfer Magazine (as a sequence of photographs). And when the video got to this section, I could tell right away that this was that session – from the color of the water, mostly. Also, this was during the rioting and protesting of apartheid – and we see clips of some of that action overlapping the session. The guitar on this song basically sings the song. It tells a tale, speaking a language all its own. And the organ provides a nice atmosphere.
Once again, this rip is from a VHS tape that I transferred to DVD, and then ripped the audio off of. I think it’s a great soundtrack. And I’ll have The Search II up here soon!
Here is Car Vs Driver‘s Under a Silent Sky. I think this is a good album – the best of their stuff. I’m sure this can be found elsewhere. But I wanted it on my computer, so I just went ahead ripped it.
Also, there seems to be something wrong with the mastering of this record (or something). The volume goes up and down at times.
At any rate, it’s catchy, with good drumming, and pretty clean vocal stylings. And it’s a solid album – like, the songs really work well together.
Hey, here’s a single song by Loomis Slovak. “Band Stab” from the KSPC compilation, The Basement Tapes: Volume 1. Apparently this song was impossible find online. It’s surprising, because this lp is still available.
Loomis Slovak’s other stuff – a song on Ebullition’s Heartattack #10 comp, and a 7″ called “1917-2917 · 1000 Year Reign Of Terror” – are easily found on other sites. So check it out. And enjoy this song. Also, if you’re on facebook, there’s a pretty sweet group called “Mid 90’s” that has a lot of sweet photos and fliers and stuff. Israel from Loomis Slovak (and MITB) is pretty active on it.
I didn’t know squat about this band before looking it up just now (which most likely means that when I got it for review like a decade ago I wrote an awful review). This is All Scars’s first record, a seven inch, released on Ace Fu Records (Portland label). All Scars was from Washington DC, and this was recorded in 1996 and released in 1998.
After this they put out a couple full lengths. The material on those is more experimental/ambientish, from what I read. This interview on WFMU from the year 2000 goes into how their live sets were entirely improvised. They had a bit of a rotating cast of musicians, and the members also played in a bunch of DC bands that you’ve probably heard of (like Fugazi and Beefeater and stuff). Here’s their last.fm page.
This seven inch being their earliest material, it’s fairly structured, post-hardcore. And it’s good!
Update: Since this post was made, Michael Sena left some great comments (see below); Anthology Records listened to the dub I shared here, and contacted me to see if I can share Michael’s contact info (I did); and then they remastered and released the album on CD and vinyl! GET IT HERE. It’s way better than the recording in this post. Here’s my post about the release.
This is the soundtrack to one of the most awesome surf videos ever made. Bali High came out in 1983 or so. It was written, directed, and shot by Stephen Spaulding (he later made a bunch of snowboard vids, and wedding videos…). A friend of mine had this while I was in high school, and it was in our top rotation (we tended to watch a surf video or two every day). So I’ve watched this video like 50 times at least.
A few years ago I tracked it down on dvd. But it had the “original soundtrack.” Originally when it was released and played in little theatres on the coast the soundtrack was an underground soundtrack, featuring tracks by the Rolling Stones and many other bands who would likely never agree to release their songs for this movie (or if they did, the cost would be prohibitively expensive). So for the VHS release (in 1984), Spaulding had a new soundtrack made. This VHS version is the one I’d grown to love. Hearing the Rolling Stones doing the intro, rather than the wild jungle rhythms in the theme song, was disconcerting. Despite what Spaulding was into at the time, I do not think that classic rock fits this vid at all.
The new soundtrack is sort of mysterious. At the end of the video it says recorded by Mantra Sound, with all songs written and performed by Michael Sena. However, if I had guessed I would have guessed the soundtrack contained a number of distinct bands. There is a fairly wide array of styles here. It’s very possible that he had a bunch of session musicians and singers at his disposal. The styles are all kind of in a psychedelic-70s genre: bongo jams, ballads, dubbish rock, soft folk, instrumental guitar rock, synthy-disco rock, etc.
After the disappointment of the DVD, I tracked down a VHS copy. Then I transferred it to DVD, then zapped the audio off of it. So, the audio quality is not the most pristine. On top of that, the quality on the original VHS is not even that great – it’s sort of warbly, and some songs peak at points. However, I still love it!
It’s probably a much different experience to listen to this without having watched the video. But, to help set the mood for you, the narration is included (it’s interjected into the songs, so I couldn’t remove it)! Spaulding’s narration is golden. He speaks in a pretty monotone, west coastal accent, and tells us about the mysterious places we’re scoping, and the surfer’s who’re braving the odds. Example: “From the human perspective, the going is a bit rougher. But you can get there just the same if you keep your mind set upon the goal.” (There’s a video from the ’90s – I think it was Above and Beyond – that had Spaulding narrate one section in his trademark style… it was funny!)
Back in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when this was filmed, Bali was obscure and difficult to access (for surfers). It was first gaining exposure at this time (and I’m sure this film went a long way in getting people pumped about it). Bali High is the definitive take on this region.
p.s. hardcore punkrockers – I was just at my parents’ house, and picked a little stack of 7″s I had in their garage – a lot of stuff that I had received for review for HaC, and kept because it was good. I’ll get cracking on posting it. Hopefully there’s some stuff in there you haven’t heard.
Since the “download” section of Creation is Crucifixion‘s site is an invalid link, and because seasoned downloaders report only having found two releases by them, here’s every Creation is Crucifixion record I have!
I first encountered these guys at the second Goleta Fest, in 1998 (I think?). They were touring with Suicide Nation. Incidentally, the day before they played I was given the In Silico album/CD-ROM to review for Heartattack, so I had a brief moment to prepare.
Here are my vague recollections of the show: both guitarists had the straps on their guitars set very tightly, so that the guitars were almost chest-high. Their left hands were basically spider-crawling all around the fretboards throughout each song (aka way technical playing). There was about a five minute break between each song, during which the singer, Nathan, and guitarist, Paul, would discuss things like artificial intelligence, and computers, and how soon the human brain will be binarily coded, and how nanotechnology will be able to physiologically manipulate and control us, how the human is being deprecated and soon AI will have control of the world. Nathan was at the time attending Carnegie Mellon (as an art student, I believe), and Paul was working for a company that made super computers. They both had a lot of first-hand knowledge, and their presentation of it, coupled with this dark, fast, noisy, caustic, and deathly music, made for quite an intense and gloomy situation. I remember being seriously scared and anxious during the show.
From their liner notes, it seems that they recognize the irony in their music: by constructing songs, recording them, and distributing them, they’ve essentially coded themselves, thus setting up a structure that can be deconstructed and devoured; a methodology they detest and warn against throughout their music. Their songs frequently repeat the fatalistic notion that “they are coded.” The singularity is inevitable.
They formed in 1997, and were mostly active until 2003 or so (but not totally inactive after that). They were based around Pittsburgh. But I believe they relocated to San Francisco in 2000 or so. I wanted to interview them once for Heartattack… but they basically disagreed, and said they’d submit a manifesto instead. But it didn’t happen.
They are quite metallic and brutal and noisy (techcore!). The vocals are somewhat like Rorschach (Protestant-era), and the recordings are, in general, a bit on the muddled side (which I love, of course).
So, I separated all the records into separate zip files, so it’s not one ginormous download. And so you don’t have to get anything you already have. As seen from the discography on their site, this isn’t everything. However, it’s a lot. The only 7″ missing is the split with Fate of Icarus. (I used to have the split 7″ with Unruh, but I can’t find it! But I had it downloaded, so I’m including that file, too, for the sake of convenience.)
In Silico is a full length. 19 tracks. Every other song is a short noise track. The day after their show, I told Nathan how much I liked the album. I remember him being concerned that the noise tracks would turn people off. But I assured him they wouldn’t/shouldn’t. They are short, never long enough to bog you down, and they serve as nice interludes between the songs. As mentioned above, this CD is a CD-ROM… but, you obviously don’t get that with the download.
The Automata ep is a 12″. But there are a lot of noise and misc. tracks on it (some not found on the CD version). There are only four musical numbers. The beginning of side b wins my heart.
The split 7″ with Suicide Nation is a favorite record of mine. Suicide Nation blew me away at Goleta Fest. They were super intense and emotional, and I think this is one of their better songs. CIC’s song contains a soft/gentle part in the middle that’s overlayed with samples from Texas Chainsaw Massacre – pretty creepy!
“All our songs are about cyborgs!” Nice drummer shots in this vid.
The Descent from Heaven 7″ is a one-sided record (but the second side has grooves…. but they don’t produce any sound. It’s odd.) I remember one of the members telling me something about this – something like it being demo material. This stuff is definitely more raw than their later songs. In fact, I don’t think there’s much distance between this and, say, Usurp Synapse.
The Child As Audience CD (“Where Technology and Anarchy Fuck”) comes with a guide for hacking Game Boy games, to make them educational. It’s part of the Hactivist Tactical Media Network. I didn’t scan the booklet. It’s huge, and in a lot of languages. But it’s very interesting. CIC was/is an integral part of the Hactivist network, so I recommend scoping that link for a deeper idea of what they were about. Or… check out this pdf I just scanned.
