Monday, November 30, 2009

Men Without Hats - Safety Dance (extended 'club mix') 12" single

jack-will It took an old bro of mine, Brian, to remind me that as of Novemeber 24th, I've been doing this thing here at Mustard Relics for two years now. Fucking flew by, almost too silly to say time flies when you're having fun, but I guess in this case it's true. Yeah I've whined some about the lack of comments here and there, but I'm wise enough to know now that making your way through my heaps of rambling musings can be as pleasant as cleaning vomit out of carpet. The rambling is as much for me as for anyone else, I get off on putting my thoughts to paper no matter how chaotic, dense or unimportant they may be. Therapy. Something besides rotting my mind and body from the inside out. I don't know if it's constructive or productive outside the confines of my own brain. Even still, real. Anything that has something to do with music is well worth serving. The music here is not always the rarest or even mind blowing sometimes, but for the most part it represents my attempt, to not only share the best of my collection, but to explore and learn more about what is/has been out there. One thing I can say is that around here the music has been varied enough to satisfy the many emotions that swirl around us. It would be difficult, in all modesty, for a person not to find at least one post that was worthwhile. You have to have found at least one tune to have dug on. The site has evolved since the beginning and I hope it continues to evolve, but it will always be a tribute to the variety of music that can be found out there. Even in the ugliest of music that reflects the very real ugliness of our world, there is a beauty in how the artists, who may not describe themselves as artists, string their notes and words together. I've gone on and on again (and ever after), so I will just say that I hope that some of you out there have gotten something out of this place besides me. You guys, the ones who have commented and stuck with me, have made me grateful. It's something extra to turn this whole thing into a dialog as opposed to my own monologue.

"Crazy crazy chain we're strung up again Umbilical cord around the neck and pain is sane Crazy crazy chain gagged & bound inane Crazy crazy chain label underachieve & plain Black statue looms in doomsday rooms Rap fetish worship motivation life-span trap" - Rudimentary Peni

devildrinkerI was a fiend when I was drinking at my heaviest, like this animation except I wasn't that suave and I always drank straight from the bottle.  At various points during each day I of course wasn't very lively, you might say, near death... junkiedrunk Gotta remind myself of that sometimes because I can get envious of my friends who can casually drink. Okay, the industrial/techno musings and samples here were not exactly hugely successful, but I got a little more up my sleeve and after this I will keep my exploration into those genres to myself (for a little while at least).  I've already learned that just within the Techno genre there is, Minimal, Acid, Hardcore, Ambient, Ghetto and Trance, but I'm sure there is more. And it's not just about Industrial and Techno, but there is also Chicago House, Synth Pop, Big Beat, Electro Punk, Rave, and Back Beat, just to name a few. So to rap this up, Jay mentioned The Prodigy in the comments and I had totally forgotten about them. They were big time there for a little bit in the 90's. Huge in that they took some of those styles to the top of the pop charts. So I went off on this wild tangent to see if I could find any of the tunes I remembered them playing because there was one that I knew really liked. Listened to alot of their shit and even though certain tunes were called out as hits I didn't recognize any of them. As you may know I love the early stuff that bands put out, such as demos, because they give you a reference point as to the original inspiration of the band. I found that for these guys in their, What Evil Lurks 12" (featuring demo tracks) from 1991. A lot different than they would later become but still worth a listen, because this is what was going on in this underground scene at the time. Check those tracks, What Evil Lurks We Gonna Rock Android Everybody In The Place (original mix) So after a shit load of listening to the first 30 seconds of a ton of songs, that really didn't jump out at me, I finally found the tune I was looking for off of The Fat of the Land album. Even if the video was a little silly and I remember them playing it live to some fashion show on TV, this tune is grisly. See if you remember it and tell me you dig it. Breathe Anyway I found one more tune that I remembered hearing back in the day (probably during my brief stint as a shit faced drunk idiot at the dance clubs on Mission Blvd. in Pacific Beach, Calif.) This one was cool for all the controversy it caused. The vocals sound a bit like Flavor Flav of Public Enemy. Oh well here's that. Smack My Bitch Up mwh-sdI've been very dissatisfied with my record collection lately, for several reasons I won't go into, but I'm trying to remedy that with new purchases. Maybe I'm just not feeling nostalgic, I don't know. After going through most of the old stuff I ran across this that I've had since about 1982 when it came out. You know that growing up, even though I looked like a stoner and then later a skate punk, deep down inside I was really new wave. Ha, ha, not really but I'm not asshamed to say that there were a few tunes out there that I really dug. Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Gary Numan's Cars, and The Cure's Boys Don't Cry... Now I really never knew much about Men Without Hats except that they had a really good video that used to get a lot of air time back in the early 80's. I wasn't a big MTV watcher (for those youndger people, MTV was very different back then compared to today). I read the above link and I had always thought they were from England or Scotland but they're from Montreal Canada. If you haven't heard the song Safety Dance by these guys, I don't know what to say except that (for some of you unfortunately) I am about to turn you onto them. There is something about the singers voice that's deep and warm, in contrast to what I always though was a somewhat silly song. Who would have thought it was about bouncers not letting people 'pogo' in the clubs back in the day. Read more about that here, kind of interesting. Some of you may think I'm an idiot for posting this, especially when you stack it up against some of the other stuff posted here, and maybe I am, a wierdo at the very least. I know, but try to dig the tune anyway, if it doesn't make your heart warm then you are the spawn of fascist and a gnat. Safety Dance Unfortunately, even though I tried to find some other good tunes, nothing else by Men Without Hats does anything for me. Blah. The other two songs on this single reflect that, sad. I Got The Message Antarctica

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thanksgiving

koththanksgiving2000I'm not one who puts a lot of stock in these big holidays.  There is always a story behind the story of each of them.  With some holidays what we have is an blatant attempt to hide the original pagan meanings, and overlay those with some other, usually Christian, meaning.  Jesus was not born on Christmas and he didn't die on Easter.  Oh well.  With Thanksgiving we get this fanciful idea of some sort of settler/native festival.  Whether or not this event happened or not, because that is what we were spoonfed while growing up, is not as important as what it implies.  Kind of a sad joke in a way.  No matter what some people are going to have more to be thankful for than others, the real issue I have is when it is at the expense of others. The world is full of shit and many people try to ignore it. At the same time, I think it's important to be thankful, or better yet, grateful, for what we have in life. For me it's more of a daily occurance, as opposed to a yearly celebration, because I'm just lucky to be alive and doing what I can these days. Oh well, to each his/her own, just my two cents.  I hope all you guys are doing okay.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Pathological Compilation

angel_and_devilWell I tried something on the last post, attempting to keep my babbling to a minimum.  What I found out though is that it really doesn't matter how much I have to say, the activity that goes on here is completely random.  The reality is, that I am like your favorite homeless guy with the endless schitzophrenic ramblings that you may or may not find interesting at whatever given moment.  I guess in a way I'm talking to myself or even thinking aloud.  I like it that way. Always hid behind dope and the bottle, keeping my weaknesses and insecurities to myself.  Got some good advice from Mike at the ever awesome Strange Reaction and my buddy Jay.  Sometimes it takes someone else to remind you why you're doing this thing in the first place.  In light of that I've got several things worth noting.  First off, got what is now my favorite spam comment.  It was in the form of a link to "voyeur enemas".  I know some of you guys are into that kind of thing but I didn't go check it out, I figured that my imagination would suffice.  Speaking of spam comments, I am now up to almost 10,000 total comments, but of course almost 8,000 of those are spam.  Do they pay people to do that shit?

I heard the word "bitchen" on TV the other day and had to smile, used to be a very important part of my vocabulary. In case you missed those days, "bitchen" was just another way of saying really cool, kind of an 80's thing. I think I'm going to add that to my vocabulary again, might really blow the minds of the rural folks that surround me. Just letting you know now, so that when the word is popular again in your neck of the woods you'll know it was me who started that ball rolling. There is a slightly more obscure phrase, does anyone remember it, "harsh my mellow"?

unxplained-photo-1232700811-77137If you like asking yourself WTF, need a laugh or just a chuckle today, (fucking ugly world sometimes but it doesn't mean you haven't earned a smile, every once in a while) go check out Explain This Image. Not too long ago, discovered another music blog, yeah I know they (we?) are a dime a dozen but this one stood out for me.  I like how he groups things together and posts several bands at once.  A good read too. Anyway if you get a chance, check out Scream From the Gutter and be sure and check out some stuff that is right up my alley these days like... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfJUqkpXN0] I posed a question a couple of posts ago as to if anyone knew of any industrial type bands other than SPK.  What I got was Nine Inch Nails and my bro Brian mentioned a band called Pigface.  You can find several Pigface posts over at Shiny Grey Monotone, a very interesting site that up till now has flown under my radar.  Pigface is a collaboration of a shit load of artists, one of which is David "Jesus Lizard" Yow, so they may be worthwhile for some of you to check out.  A shit load of drums and mostly live music, but with an industrial edge... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RHaauWxKCk&w=790&h=593] I don't know if it was a coincidence or not but Erich just posted something along those industrial lines in the form of a band called Bloodstar.  I didn't like the first tune very much but the second one caught my eye (or ear, I guess) and left me wanting more.  Keep in mind I'm in unchartered territory here, but I think they are more on the techno edge of industrial.  In the comments of that post, Sean of the ever absorbing Damaging Noise blog mentioned that a good place to start as far as industrial was with the label Bloody Fist Records.  Not too hard to find posts with stuff from that label worth exploring (although the stuff  must be somewhat rare as Ebay had practically nothing).  Found a shitload of stuff over at the (unimaginative, but aptly named) Mediafire Sharing blog.  Now this stuff is definitely techno, which is a really loaded term and puts most people off, but I found it interesting and actually kind of "groovy man".  When I think of techno, I think of exstacy, which I tried once, but I was more of an acid/mushrooms kind of guy.  Do you need to be doing exstacy to get techno? I guess that could be a rather lengthy topic, "drugs and how they affect the appreciation of music".  We'll leave that for another time and instead I'll give you some selections from the first release on Bloody Fist Records called "Straight Outta Newcastle", which I stole from the above blog.  At least check out Nasenbluten, some bad ass shit. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtoIrbZ95ME&w=790&h=593]

If you knew my brain (maybe I'm giving hints, I don't know), you'd know that sometimes I get obsessed and don't know when to stop.  So when another guy made a comment about some other shit that may be worth checking out, I went with it.   Now Skin Chamber and Fetish 69 you get more of a Ministry type of feel which was okay but the wind went out of my sails and I didn't feel like exploring anymore. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPewbtAHjKQ&w=790&h=593] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew-uw-63XnM]

path1Now the closest thing I physically have to anything like that is this comp.  Got it when it first came out in 1989 and I must admit I was a little disappointed.  Simple man that I was (and am, yeah right), I saw Napalm Death as being one of the bands on it and thought damn I gotta get this.  Although the tunes are very varied there really isn't anything that I would describe as being early straight forward early grindcore.  This stuff is much more experimental and you might say sometimes industrial.  My first introduction to a lot of these bands that I would get to know better in the future.  The stand out for me is the very un-industrial Silverfish.  This has been psosted everywhere and I guess I could have just linked up to someone else's thing.  The guy over at http://devotionalhooligan.blogspot.com/2009/01/va-pathological-compilation-1989.html did a pretty cool write up, which is where I stole the images from (I still have no working scanner).  My copy is a CD, but apparently they came out with a vinyl version that came with a Silverfish 7", which I wouldn't mind hearing/having.  I don't know what else to say (can you believe it) so let's get to the meat of this post. EDIT: I killed the links during the copyright wars and now all I can find on fucking youtube is the Napalm Death tune... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc6TJn6E0v8&w=790&h=593]