THE SONIC ALL-STARS: The Sounds Of Star Wars (LP, Pickwick SHM 941, 1977)

February 4, 2018 simonminter Leave a comment

Nestling near to The Sonics, Sonic Boom and Sonic Youth in my collection, The Sounds Of Star Wars is a far less intimidating and weighty prospect than any of those three Sonic-y outfits. I bought this record at some point in the past 15–20 years, although I have no idea exactly where or when. I have a long-standing relationship with silly Easy Listening records, and tend to pick up good-looking examples whenever I notice them in charity shops across the land.

The Star Wars tie-in here doesn’t result in a fantastically-valuable piece of vinyl: Discogs at the time of writing has over 40 copies of the album available, for as little as 50p, if you’d like your own. It’s actually a pretty good record, if somewhat ridiculous. Various Star Wars tunes, including the main theme and the Cantina Band’s song, are offered in an odd synthesised format, and it all feels oddly detached and joyless. It does, however, veer occasionally off into new and made-up places, giving it at times the feel of Tangerime Dream during their more mainstream times. Here’s the end title:

Bruce Baxter, the ‘conductor’ here (although perhaps, in reality, more like the guy who played this all on a few synths in his home studio), may also be responsible for work relating to Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy (according to Discogs) and/or the music for Phil Cool’s dire 1980s comedy series Cool It and something called Doctor Snuggles (according to IMDB).

The artwork is uncredited. The front cover is a masterpiece of airbrushing, and is the kind of thing I would have endlessly attempted to recreate when I became airbrush-obsessed in the late 1980s. The back cover features a surprisingly creepy and odd face looming out of an all-black background, and some brilliantly bizarre copywriting. See for yourself:

Indie Rock Punk Noise, LP, Weirdo Folk Music, Weirdo Noise Music

THURSTON MOORE: 12 String Meditations For Jack Rose VDSQ – Solo Acoustic Volume Five (LP, Vin Du Select Qualitite VDSQ-005)

January 20, 2018 simonminter 2 Comments

Thurston Moore was, of course, the frontman of my all-time favourite band, Sonic Youth. He – and they – are therefore responsible for a hefty wedge of records in my collection. As a band, their output is pretty huge and varied in style; as a solo artist, even more so. This album was released in 2011, according to Discogs, although no release date is given on the sleeve – the only date mentioned is that the recordings for the album were made in ‘early 2010’. Sonic Youth ended in late 2011, after the unfortunate shenanigans going on between Moore and bandmate/wife Kim Gordon, so this album was released at around that time. Before and after that time, Moore is/was involved in a relentless number of solo and side projects – he’s famously a fan of records, musical history and the avant garde, and seems keen to make his mark in recorded form whenever possible.

Jack Rose, for whom this album is named, was a much-loved American experimental guitarist, who sadly died in 2009. The ten tracks on 12 String Meditations For Jack Rose, performed on an acoustic twelve-string guitar, are in a Jack Rose style, but are I think original Moore compositions. The rear sleeve mentions “song titles courtesy Byron Coley”, suggesting that the pieces on the record were played and recorded first; named second. Vin Du Select Qualitite released ten of these Solo Acoustic albums, including work by Chris Brokaw, Sir Richard Bishop and Bill Orcutt. Read about the label, and its output, here.

The artwork for the record is in the style of the whole Solo Acoustic series: thin white card stock, typography in Trajan, and a high-contrast monotone image on the cover. It feels like it’s letterpressed. On the rear, simple centred type has credits and a track listing. It’s clean, neat and slightly boring, although I don’t know who is pictured on the cover, so perhaps that carries a story that would add depth. The design is credited to Anthony Pappalardo, which is the name of a famous skateboarder, according to Google. Is this the same person? Who knows. An ‘Artist’s Edition’ of the record also exist, with ‘limited exclusive artwork’. It’s signed and numbered by Thurston Moore, limited to 100 copies, and on coloured vinyl.

Freebies and inserts, LP, Space rock, Weirdo Noise Music

YOU’RE SMILING NOW BUT WE’LL ALL TURN INTO DEMONS: Contact High (2LP, Cardinal Fuzz CFUL013)

January 7, 2018 simonminter Leave a comment

Nestling down at the far end of the alphabet – in between Young Knives and The Zodiac – it’s the heftily-named You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons. This is a band that’s hovered around my radar for quite some time; I seem to remember that they once sent a demo and asked about playing the music festival that I help to organise, many years ago. It didn’t work out that time, I’m not quite sure why, as they’re a good band with a strong line in fuzz rock that ticks a variety of boxes for me: a bit late-1960s, a bit Melvins-esque noise, a bit Hawkwind.

This album was released in 2014, according to Discogs, but there isn’t a year mentioned on the sleeve or on the records. I bought it around the time of its release, not only because hearing about its availability tweaked my “oh, them!” memory banks, but because the Cardinal Fuzz label is a reliably strong source of decent music that’s likely to be positioned somewhere or other up my street. The label’s run by a hard-workin’, good egg named Dave, who also produces – every now and then – a great-looking and great-reading fanzine called Optical Sounds. According to the blurb on this album’s Bandcamp page, Cardinal Fuzz was partly kicked off in order to release this YSNBWATID album: “One of the main reasons we at Cardinal Fuzz entered the choppy waters of record making was with the sole intention of doing justice to this gloriously fuzzy psych/garage monster on the format it truly belongs.”

The record’s front cover, and a photograph on an insert contained within, hints at the four-piece band – I’m presuming it’s the band members shown – being part of some kind of robe-wearing, Satan-hassling cult. There’s some groovy-style hand-done typography on the sleeve, and the back cover (shown below) follows in its style, with a tritone high-contrast image of the band members. (A tritone is, of course, The Devil’s Sound; how appropriate). The artwork overall is credited (on the insert) to the band. The insert also mentions that the record was mastered by one ‘Peter J Croissant’: I don’t believe that that’s a real name. Those jokers.

The album is out of print now, but can be listened to and downloaded via Bandcamp:

<a href="http://cful.bandcamp.com/album/youre-smiling-now-but-well-all-turn-into-demons-contact-high-cful013">You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons – Contact High (CFUL013) by You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons</a>

1960s, LP

VARIOUS: Pebbles Vol. 5 (LP, BFD BFD 5022, 1979)

August 28, 2017 simonminter Leave a comment

This record popping up as a random choice for discussion acts as a useful reminder: I need to continue building out my collection of Pebbles albums. I’ve got quite a number of them, but there are at least 28 ‘official’ volumes in the series, so I have some way to go.

I’m sure everybody knows it already, but if not, the Pebbles albums are self-described as follows: “only the best and rarest recordings from the 1960s, including original punk rock, psychedelic, mod, girl group, and surfing music. If purchased on their original labels, these records would cost thousands of dollars. Now, thanks to Pebbles, they are available again”.

BFD Records was based in Kookaburra, Australia. Or was it? Wikipedia suggests otherwise, and it’s an interesting read. (In brief, there is no city or town in Australia called Kookaburra, and BFD may not even be a real record label!) In some ways though – to use the title of a song by The Lyrics that appeared on Pebbles Vol. 2 – “So What!” This is a legendary, comprehensive, brilliant series of albums. Not every track on every one is gold, but the sheer scale of the whole Pebbles set is breathtaking. Choice cuts on Pebbles Vol. 5 include:

The Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2: ‘I Wanna Come Back (From The World of LSD)’

The State Of Mind: ‘Move’

…but, really, just buy all of the albums and listen to everything. That’s my aim; as stated above. I bought this one some years ago, somewhere, some time; possibly at a record shop in Reading, UK. My first Pebbles was bought way back when at the (locally) legendary Langland Records in Wellington, Telford, UK. These records get around! From Kookaburra (well, possibly) to… everywhere.

The first few Pebbles shared a similar cover style, as shown by this one. I really dislike the imagery on this one, though – it’s just not cool.

12", Electronica, Hip-hop/'dance' music

MARRS: Pump Up The Volume (12″, 4AD BAD 707, 1987)

August 20, 2017 simonminter Leave a comment

This may be the first 4AD release I’ve mentioned on here, and I’m pleased it’s come about, as 4AD is a label with almost invariably good artwork. As the spine of this 12″ proudly states: “Art Direction & Design : Vaughan Oliver; Photography and Set Construction : Panni Charrington; MARRS”. So, in a traditional Western left-to-right reading hierarchy, the credits for the design and photography come before the artist.

Vaughan Oliver is, of course, something of a legend in the area of music design. Through his work for 4AD, he’s responsible for the very familiar, now iconic visuals for releases by Pixies, Lush, The Breeders, Cocteau Twins and a huge number beyond that rather obvious selection. On this Marrs 12″, there’s a typical use of jarring layout (the orientation of text elements is designed as shown in the image here, if we use the opening of the sleeve being on the right as a guide to ‘correct’ positioning), mysterious imagery (the rear sleeve, also shown here, depicts a highly colourised image showing what looks like Elvis atop a burger, holding a bottle, surrounded by guitars, swans, TVs and maybe a gun), and a strong sense of typography and space (large blocks of colour, the distinctive use of somewhat bland typefaces). The circled AA device is a particularly nice, albeit subtle, way to denote a ‘double A-side’ record, where both sides share equal importance.

Panni Charrington, based on having a distinctive name, and hoping that Google is quite clever in joining together the dots of the internet, seems now to be known as Panni Bharti.

This was a pretty revolutionary record. MARRS are summed up neatly by Wikipedia: “MARRS (stylised M|A|R|R|S) was a 1987 recording collective formed by the groups A.R. Kane and Colourbox, which only released one commercial disc. It became ‘a one-hit wonder of rare influence’ because of their international hit ‘Pump Up The Volume’.” That hit was everywhere around the time of its release, and in part heralded the introduction of ‘dance’ music, and sampling, into the mainstream musical mindset. Although I bought this actual record much later than its release – it was a charity shop find in the mid-2000s – as an inquisitive and inventive 13 year old, as I was in 1987, ‘Pump Up The Volume’ was one of tunes I listened to a lot, recorded from the radio, and self-remixed into several different versions using a double-tape-deck player, which allowed one tape deck to play while the other recorded.

7", Freebies and inserts, Indie Rock Punk Noise

SONIC YOUTH: Helen Lundeberg (7″, SY-0001)

February 26, 2017 simonminter Leave a comment

This is the first 7″ record that my random number generator – the website I use to decide which record from my collection to write about – has pointed me towards. That’s a little intentional, as until very recent times my 7″ records were in no order whatsoever, and it would’ve been tricky to track down any specific one. However! I spent a couple of weekend days a little while ago organising them into alphabetical order and, naturally, life now feels much more intentional and relaxed.

This seems to be only the second Sonic Youth record I’ve written about here, which is somewhat surprising, as their records occupy quite a hefty chunk of my collection overall. Quite an odd record, this one: I think it was released by the band, but I can’t remember. It doesn’t state a label, or indeed a release date, on either its sleeve, its labels, or the insert included within the sleeve. Discogs tells me it was released in May 2006. I will have almost definitely bought it as soon as it was released, such was my approach to any new Sonic Youth release; I think it was ordered online and delivered mail order.

Not a great deal to say about the sleeve design; the front and back are almost identical, except for in the positioning of the letters. One side has ‘SONI / C YO / UTH’, the other has ‘SONI / CYOU / TH’. Dull stuff. A stencil font (the font is actually called Stencil, as well as being ‘a stencil font’), black on white, no nonsense. It’s a relatively commonplace design, although not entirely unpleasant.

The insert seems to have been cut to its square shape with a rusty butter knife – it’s all rough-edged and crappy-feeling. It shows nothing more than the lyrics for the two songs on the record (‘Helen Lundeberg’ and ‘Eyeliner’), presented in plain old Verdana, black on white, no nonsense.

A weird record, a weird release. So little effort seems to have been put into the physical presentation of these two songs. The songs are fine – latter-period Sonic Youth; i.e. melodic and nothing like as freaked, spaced, or zoned out as in their earlier days.

12", Indie Rock Punk Noise, Space rock

VERVE: She’s A Superstar (12″, Hut HUTT 16, 1992)

February 12, 2017 simonminter 4 Comments

That’s Verve, of course, not The Verve, as they became, slightly later in their career. I can’t quite remember why they changed their name, but it may have been to do with potential mixups with the Verve record label…? I think they were also known as The Verve UK in America: it must be pretty painful to have to lessen the coolness of your one-word band name when market forces come into play.

Anyway. What a band! This 12″ is from the sweet spot for this band before Richard Ashcroft decided to sing and sing and sing all over every second of every track. ‘She’s A Superstar’, along with other singles from around this time, and the album A Storm In Heaven, was for me some of the best music around. It dovetailed perfectly with the chemically-altered/chemically-enhanced sound of shoegaze that was sweeping the world at the time. Dreamy, tense, soulful music.

Around the time of this record’s release I saw Verve supporting Smashing Pumpkins in, I think, Wolverhampton. Smashing Pumpkins were fine, pretty enjoyable – even despite Billy Corgan deciding to end the set with a fifteen-minute solo poetry reading – and Verve were outstanding. The enjoyment was doubled because the band I was in at the time used to include a cover of Verve’s ‘Slide Away’ in our set – as did, presumably, roughly 1,000 up-and-coming-but-never-really-going-anywhere bands of the time.

The artwork on this record is proper Hipgnosis-style conceptual ambition: bearing in mind that in 1993 digital retouching would have been much more expensive and difficult than now, I’d love to know how this sleeve was put together. The band look on, Pink Floyd Live In Pompeii-style, as multicoloured waterfalls swoop over the band’s name, spelt out in (real?) neon. It’s a Brian Cannon / Microdot design; Brian Cannon was responsible for much of the tripped-out look of Verve’s output and, in later times, went on to craft the record sleeves of Oasis, which I have no doubt played a huge part in that band’s success and image. There’s a Microdot archive of sorts here. I think Oasis supported Verve in their early days – not, unfortunately, on any Verve gigs that I saw.

12", Indie-pop, Normal music

THE SMITHS: I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish (12″, Rough Trade RTT 198, 1987)

November 12, 2016 simonminter 2 Comments

The Smiths are, for me, an odd band. I’ve got a few of their records, but I’d never really describe myself as a fan. Whenever I hear any of the vast majority of their songs, I’m reminded that I like them, and ‘This Charming Man’ and ‘How Soon Is Now’, in particular, I really like. Yet still, I’d never really describe myself as a fan. I’m not sure why this is, but I’ve an inkling that the root of the problem is… Morrissey.

His singing voice often threatens to slip into self-parody, and the way he carries himself has always been kind of a bother. His questionable use of the Union Jack, and more so, his vocal support of Brexit, set him out as somebody who clearly has a very different worldview to me – to put it kindly. Obsessive Smiths fans are a weird phenomenon, too, although I used to enjoy seeing Morrissey-haircutted groups of scrawny lads hanging about in town.

‘Sleeve by Morrissey’, it says on the back of this 12″, and I guess that for all his faults, at least Moz had a certain sense of style or what would now be referred to as ‘branding’. The Smiths’ record sleeves were unfailingly good things – very simple, very effective, very consistent in their approach, and a pleasing connection between sound and image.

On this cover is Avril Angers, in a still from The Family Way from 1966, which I haven’t seen but have just read about. It starred John Mills, grandfather of Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills, so there’s a six-degrees-type connection between The Smiths and Kula Shaker, if you want one. Despite it being a ‘sleeve by Morrissey’, there are also credits for Caryn Gough (layout) and Jo Slee (art co-ordination), which perhaps brings to mind an Apprentice-style scene with Morrissey sitting next to trained experts, telling them how to do their job. What fun.

According to Wikipedia, Morrissey fronted Slaughter & The Dogs in the late 1970s, which I didn’t know – and which I’m not quite sure is true? He was also a huge New York Dolls fan, which makes me warm to him. A little.

Indie Rock Punk Noise, Indie-pop, LP, Weirdo Noise Music

UNCLE WIGGLY: Non-Stuff (LP, Hemiola HEM 7, ?)

August 13, 2016 simonminter Leave a comment

The lot of a small-time reviewer is an odd one. I reached merely moderate levels of coverage and/or influence with a series of fanzines – and an associated cassette tape label – back in the early/mid 1990s, selling fanzines to people around the world and maintaining an enjoyable and rich amount of postal-based correspondence with huge numbers of people. However, you’d think I was single-handedly running NME based on the longevity of mailing lists on which I seem to have found myself; only after several moves of house have the postal submissions for reviews been stopped, and I still receive emails asking for demos to be listened to.

Back when review submissions took the form of actual, physical discs and cassettes, it was a rare treat to accidentally stumble onto somebody’s press list and to receive wares from labels I actually wanted to hear. Hemiola was one such label – a Leeds-based emporium that released great things by bands including Fly Ashtray, Cha-Cha Cohen, Eggs, Unrest, Dymaxion and Kenny Process Team. These may not all be familiar names, but they’re all good bands that are worth looking up. Uncle Wiggly are too; an (I think) New York band that combine slacker-esque indie rock with odd hints of Krautrock repetition and experiment, all wrapped up into a fuzzy melodic ball. Here’s side A of Non-Stuff, with the lead track ‘Kakaphonic’ elegantly summing up the feel of the album:

Some facts about Uncle Wiggly according to Wikipedia and Discogs: They released records on the marvellous Shimmy-Disc and Teenbeat labels. Non-Stuff was only ever released in this format, even though “many consider this to be their finest work, deftly combining their art-rock influences with some killer pop tunes”. The band has not played together since 2000. Band member James Kavoussi played in Fly Ashtray before Uncle Wiggly existed; and continues to play in Fly Ashtray to this day.

No credit is given for the album sleeve design – with its understated typography (including, in my opinion, a pretty ugly typeface for the band name) and somewhat sinister cut & paste photographic montage. The back cover shows a distorted, TV interference-like image, which is credited to Tonya Smay. If it’s the same person I just found on LinkedIn, she has a massive amount of experience in digital art and animation, including working on a Kanye West video and the “Yahoo 2014 Logo Rebrand Animation”!

7", Freebies and inserts, Indie Rock Punk Noise, LP, Post-rock-type Stuff

HOOD: Silent ’88 (LP, Slumberland SLR 59, 1996)

February 16, 2015 simonminter Leave a comment

Hood - Silent '88

Hood always felt very much like an English band – specifically, Northern English. Their songs had a gritty, blurred, romantic, hopeful and bleak combination of things going on. For a while, it seemed like they were on their way to becoming a bit of a Big Deal; Silent ’88 represents their ‘let’s break America’ album, in as much that it was released on the always excellent Slumberland Records. They went on to sign to Domino, play All Tomorrow’s Parties, gather a growing amount of positive vibes from around the globe before… fading away. How appropriate for a band that felt like they were documenting thoughts and memories, rather than contributing to an overall grand plan either within their own minds or within a wider context.

Slumberland, by the way, are a great American label, having released hundreds of records with a discography that stretches way back to the late 1980s. They’ve released Velocity Girl, Black Tambourine, Stereolab, Lilys, Boyracer, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Crystal Stilts and, well, endless lists’ worth of good stuff. They were always plugged into the rich underground world of pop-influenced independent music; and in fact they still are, as they remain active to this day. Their priorities were often right; for example, the rear sleeve of Silent ’88 includes the message “thanks for buying this record on vinyl”. There are treats within, as the sleeve not only includes the album, but also an A4 photocopied insert and a four-track 33rpm 7″ single.

There’s no credit given for the sleeve or insert artwork, but I’d hazard a guess that they’re at least in part due to Hood mainmen (and brothers) Chris and Richard Adams. Throughout their career Hood’s artwork maintained a strong feeling of mystery and a conscious air of DIY – from the hand-coloured artwork of early releases to their last, which still used the familiar Hood logo, photographs taken by band members, and hand-scrawled/typed track listings and notations. That hand-scrawled writing was in the familiar handwriting of Richard Adams, who was an active participant in the vibrant 1990s fanzine/letter-writing/tape-and-record-exchanging scene and from whom I received many letters.

Some great song titles on this album, by the way: “Trust me, I’m A Stomach”; “Delusions Of Worthlessness”; “Smash Your Head On The Cubist Jazz”; “Being Beaten Up”.

Links: Hood / Slumberland Records

Vinyl Destination