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Live At Cantone’s 1977 Gulcher 409 CD £6.99 Phenomenally good teenage punk ‘n’ roll action from this endearingly snotty super-group. Live At Cantone’s was recorded the day after Gizmo and Korps member Kenne Highland married Miss Lyn, editor-publisher of the notorious Boston Groupie News and functioned as a rockin’ reception. This is the full gig in sick, unedited form, recorded at a venue that saw an insane amount of hot rock action at the close of the 70s. The perfect companion to their studio set, Music To Kill By, this is bloody as all hell, with shredded Chuck Berry riffs and British Invasion-style hooks put to the service of some loudmouth teenage threat. Comes with liners and an absolutely beautiful cover. |
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Law Where Prohibited By Void Gulcher Gulcher-416 CD £6.99 Another formlessly primitive belch from the guts of ex-Gizmo and zine guru Eddie Flowers, Greg Hajic and Joe Dean that mixes hairy psychedelic jams with moments of thug-punk threat, epic sci-fi jams and proto-Industrial DIY cut-ups. Includes a cover of Black Sabbath’s apocalyptic “Into The Void” that sounds like an interstellar phone call from Don Van Vliet. |
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God Bless The Devil Gulcher Gulcher-428 CD £6.99 Another new one from one of the last great rock ‘n’ roll labels, Fearless Leader feature full-grown booze-swollen males in face-paint peeling the pubes from yr chin with a series of primitively executed metal/garage moves that are somewhere between The Dead Boys, Angry Samoans, Venom and The Electric Eels, smack in the middle of that weird zone first mapped by Lester Bangs where the visceral thrill of overamped glam/metal velocity is put to the service of under-the-counterculture staples like hamburgers, doughnuts and repeated crotch-thrusts. One for real connoisseurs of crud, just like yrself. |
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People Is Beautiful Gulcher CD £8.99 Forget the dumb-ass name, Gays In The Military play some of the finest, amphetamine-pickled avant garage threat this side of Pere Ubu and The Butthole Surfers. Satisfyingly non-PC gloop along the lines of “Firepigs: A Tribute To America’s Heroes”, “Beverley Hills Cock Part Two” and a thumping cover version of The Butthole Surfers’ “Human Cannonball”. Fine-as-nuts cover art by Mr Peter Bagge to boot. |
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The Midwest Can Be Allright: 1981 NYC Demos Gulcher Gulcher-501 CD EP £4.99 Beautiful collection of cool rock ‘n’ roll demos in the utopian teenage tradition of The Real Kids, Trashmen, Bobby Fuller, Dale Hawkins, Jan & Dean, Modern Lovers and The Ramones from the late Dale Lawrence/Billy Nightshade incarnation of this phenomenal group. Makes you nostalgic for the small-town Midwestern teenage you never even had. |
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Rock & Roll Don’t Come From New York Gulcher 425 CD £6.99 Rock & Roll Don’t Come From New York traces the arc of this particular incarnation via studio sessions and live blow-outs from 1979-1981 when they eventually called it a day. Although they weren’t as gloriously wasted and garage-inspired as the original Gizmos monster, this was a group that could tear chunks out of classic rock ‘n’ roll form. Although they drew heavily on UK inspirations like The Pistols, The Clash, X-Ray Specs and The Vibrators, these Gizmos were just as conversant with the melodic, 1960s-inspired moves of The Ramones and The Real Kids, birthing a great goober of trans-Atlantic power that crossed killer hooks, swooning locomotive guitar with some real fuck-you venom. The result is an absolute doozy. This is actually one of the most frequently spun Gulcher discs at VT HQ and comes highly recommended. Great liners (as quoted from above) by Dale Lawrence and tons of beautiful pics: dig that cover. |
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Tet-Offensive Gulcher GULCH-603 CD £8.99 Wild trio free jazz moves from a group that includes a slew of players from alla the wrong sides of the tracks, including bassist/saxophonist Todd Homer one-time member of legendary wiseass pro-teen punks The Angry Samoans (best loved for their Rodney Bingenheimer ‘tribute’ “Get Off The Air You Fucking Square”). Something about the abstract groove-based momentum and roaring reed work here reminds most of Brötzmann’s Die Like A Dog trio work but there’s a whole lot of beat/punk flash to this unit that seems more situated in Cleveland-style avant-garage scorch, especially when drummer Larry Copcar (ex-Bougalieu!) starts into his hard-boiled monologues, where he sounds like Brian Hudson during his volatile tenure with The Styrenes. Recommended. |
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Secrets/Struggle Gulcher 414 CD £6.99 This is a real beauty, an unreleased EP recorded by future Crawlspace member Bill McCarter back in 1978 and featuring future Lazy Cowgirls Pat Todd, Keith Telligman, Allen Clark and Mark McCormack. If you’ve ever thrilled to the bedroom-on-the-edge-of-the-world ambience of those early Flying Nun sides then this discs combination of worn magnetic tape, Lou Reed-styled ballads and unarmoured avant-garage emotionality is the ticket you’ve been waiting for. Secrets is bundled with a 41 minute free-metal jam that originally came out on CD-R on Slippytown in 2001 and features McCarter in the company of various Lazy Cowgirl members, ripping the ass out of rock form in a style that’s somewhere between Billy TK’s Powerhouse and Sonny Sharrock’s Last Exit. Recommended. |
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Highway To Helsinki Gulcher 417 CD £6.99 Great reissue of this pluke-popping side from Indiana basement no-counts Retreads who play three-chord grudge with alla the stunted flash of The Ramones and The Dictators. Boasts killer titles like “Kids Wanna Rock”, “Too Much Junk” and “I Quit”. Losers, losing it, on tape. Uh, okay, I’m in. |
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Alone Gulcher 429 CD £8.99 Lou Rone is another sub-underground player whose ‘career’ arc has kept him well beneath the radar even though his presence at certain signal historical/cultural moments has been key as hell. Rone first made a dent in the putty-soft brains of punks back in 1975 when his band Cross played at the now-infamous CBGB Summer Festival in 1975 alongside Television, The Heartbreakers, Blondie et al but it’s his time spent with No Wave legends like Rudolph Grey and Von Lmo that assures him a place in the under-the-counter-culture pantheon. Rone hooked up with Grey in Danger before going on to join zoned avant/punk/metal group Kongress and finally joining future linguists Von Lmo. Since then he has recorded under a bunch of Cross-derived pseudonyms – Double Cross, Kross, Triple Cross – but Alone is the first ever solo release under his own name. Recorded between 2000 and 2002 in Lancaster, PA, Alone features a clutch of wired sci-fi instrumentals that cross MX-80-styled flash with a kind of avant-garage Last Exit feel, plenty of bleeping synths, a bit of Dolls-derived stomp and some epic metal leads. Although the electronics work to date it within the last few decades, the overall feel is of a historically isolated shot of electrified rock ala Simply Saucer, Von Lmo et al… |
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Hell Tonite! Gulcher Gulcher-424 CD £6.99 Another fist in the heart for the legions of Thundertroopers still holed-up in the backwoods stockpiling food, beer and shotguns in preparation for the on-coming Disco apocalypse. Back in 1979 Mach Bell’s garage punk/heavy boogie group Thundertrain saw the first glittering signs of the approach of the disco void and headed for the hills, but before they did they left us a back catalogue that featured some of the most beautifully unselfconscious teenage rocking ever to come out of Boston. These guys formed alliances with all sorts of major Boston scenesters, including The Real Kids, DMZ and Willie ‘Loco’ Alexander, as well as hooking up with high-energy out-of-towners like The Dead Boys. Hell Tonite! might just be their single most solid set, a radio broadcast of a live show from down near the end of the line, February 1st, 1979. Something about the dual guitar action here has a squelch that is deeply satisfying and the versions of tracks like “Hell Tonite”, “I Gotta Rock”, “Hot For Teacher!”, The Standells’ “Dirty Water” and Slade’s “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” are pretty much definitive. As Mach himself puts it on "Readin'Riotin'Rock'n'Roll" - "I can't read, I can't write, havin' the time of my life!" Some hilariously inspired on-stage rants from Mach too, with a particularly crazed anti-disco rant censored by the broadcast authorities, proof that disco was a government-sponsored plot designed to erode the standards of the human race forever, just like you figured. Includes 2004 sleeve notes from Mach too. |
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Simply Good Taste: The Sounds Of Slippy Town Gulcher 413 CD £6.99 Thumping label sampler from this suave imprint run by Eddie Flowers, brought to you courtesy of their sister/brother label, Gulcher. A bunch of otherwise unavailable tracks – including a first take of The Gizmos’ “Hey Beat Mon” with MX-80’s Rich Stim on the horn and a destroyed version of The Yardbirds’ “Shapes Of Things” by the semi-mythical O.Rex (featuring Solomon and Jay Gruberger, Kenne Highland and Eddie Flowers), some solo thought from Joe Tunis aka Joe + N – as well as a clutch of tracks from alla the various limited CD-Rs Flowers has burned over the years, from whacked UK bedroom zoners like Neil Campbell, Stewart Walden, Phil Todd and Ian Middleton through Crawlspace, Not A Sonata, Blackthorne Stick, OvO, Big Whiskey, Allun, Lebedung, Joshua Jugband 5 and The Screamin’ Mee-Mees & Hot Scott Fischer. A whole fistful of fucked up fun and a great way in for Gulcher/Slippytown neophytes. |
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Fall Of The House Of Ruin Gulcher 408 CD £6.99 Speedy as hell wiseass punk from a bunch of plukes that never fucking ever knew better. Features the always nut-crunching vocals of John Barge of garage legends and VT HQ poster boys/gals The Panics alongside Panics guitarist Ian Brewer, drummer John Terrill (of Dancing Cigarettes) and bassist Kevin Loyal. This is some well-oiled amphetamine/beer fuelled threat and should appeal to anyone who thinks Motörhead lost it after Fast Eddie called it “quits”. No quitting here, doughball. |
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Divine Healer Gulcher 415 CD £8.99 Angel works her unique brand of heart-breaking personal alchemy on a bunch of unlikely covers and a clutch of originals with the help of a group of names like MX-80’s Rich Stim and Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500. Opens with a great fuzz and harmonica reading of Motley Crues’ “Home Sweet Home” and takes a few body swerves via “Eve Of Destruction”, Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and Bruce Anderson’s “Clown Sex”. |
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Swirls Away Gulcher 423 CD £8.99 Collection of virtually alla the straight-to-cassette recordings of this early 80s US new wave/avant garage group who cut up Girls/early-Ubu styled fractured rock/pop with downer ballads and motorik Flying Nun-type melodic trance. Liners from vocalist/guitarist Phil Hundley. |
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Xmas Snertz: Have A Very Gulcher Christmas Gulcher 420 CD £8.99 If I know Christmas – and I think I do – it’s gonna be here soon as fuck, so better bone up on the presbos front while you can. Gulcher – god bless em – have only gone and made it easy on alla us with a one-size-kills-all compilation of seasonally themed stupidity that’ll have the entire family guzzling Drano without the help of any Perry Como videos. Result! Features Angel Corpus Christi, The Automatics, Mach Bell & His Elves (good job he ain’t travelling with fairies), Crawlspace, Phil Hendricks/The Stiffs (they’re from the UK!), Kenne Highland & His Vatican Sex Kittens, Phil Hundley, The Korps, Monsterpop, MX-80, Ted Niemiec, Pansy Divison, Stalingrad Symphony, Rich Stim, The Walking Ruins and X-Ray Tango. |
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The Unreel Hits Gulcher 412 CD £8.99 Collection of 1991 Demos and 1997 out-takes from this Milwaukee-based power pop/country unit with the occasional Paisley styling and touch of The Divine Horsemen. |
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Where There Are No Roads Gulcher CD £7.99 Cranky new duo-guitar destructo-psych that gobbles up a whole load of post-Dead C formal obliteracy and floats it out into space in two monolithic glass coffins that flash with the kinda overdriven brainpower that illuminates the bulk of the Ben Reynolds back catalogue. An unexpected detour into stasis-wrestling avant garage for Gulcher. |
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Gizmo My Way Gulcher Gulch-606 CD £6.99 The kinda genius project that only the most genuinely stoopid-doopid of suburban teenage wasters could even have contemplated - never mind having the kind of gonzoid savvy and taste for hamburger to pull off - Gizmo My Way presents a clutch of never-waxed drunken brainstorms shot straight from the collective cakehole of Ken Highland and The Gizmos, all given a metal-as-formulated-by-Bangs/Kirby/Cooper makeover via a weekend teenage shutdown with nothing but a buncha cheap gear, ton of tape, alla the Creem that counts and no Tee-vee. All unreleased tracks that even Mr Chris Stigliano never heard (although he does posit their possible existence in period live sets of Afrika Korps or maybe Slickee Boys) - and if he hasn't, you ain't. Non? Well, yeah. Either way, Mr Mykal Xul has gotta be one dumb kid. Pretty much the perfect contemporary tribute to the garage guts of yesteryear. |
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The Spirit Of '76 Gulcher Gulch-607 CD £7.99 Coming on like Sound Of Confusion-era Spacemen 3 bolstered by Peter Laughner and Crocus Behemoth (not fucking David Thomas's current panto rock style) re-thinking the Trout Mask Replica sessions, the revitalized Crawlspace trio of Eddie Flowers, Greg Hajic and Joe Dean manhandle a whole bunch of inspired cover versions - The Saints' "Erotic Neurotic", Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'", The Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil", Paul Revere & The Raiders' "Just Seventeen", Patti Smith's "Hey Joe" - as well as a bunch of originals and O-Type/Gizmos related trash blats. Great, destroyed garage rock played by men who know their away around chemicals. Excellent. |
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Live In Bloomington 1977-1978 Gulcher Gulch-430 2xCD £10.99 Idiotically good round-up of early live junk from a group that alongside mebbe The Dictators best summed up the whole dumbo/smartass trash guzzling 70s rock-roll aesthetic at a time when fans were first becoming self-aware enough of the basic tenets of primal no-brain ugh to effectively parody/celebrate it without ever betraying the form and its values. And according to that kinda math this makes the Gizmos simultaneously the funniest/greatest rock/roll group ever to run a beer umbilical straight from the source. Live In Bloomington documents a bunch of loose Gizmos line-ups playing places like The Library (same place where that great MX-80 Gulcher set was recorded, complete with a live introduction by John 'Cougar' Mellencamp), the first Cincinnati Punk Rock Festival and a bunch of radio shows with Ted Niemiec's hamburger vision leading a buncha line-ups that kinda fall between the earlier Ken Highland-led monster and the later power-popping Dale Lawrence version. Featuring 18 tracks from the only two shows the Highland Gizmos ever played, 3 tracks from the 'original' band without Highland and 27 by the Niemiec/Lawrence monstrosity. Features a guest appearance by the late Dave Mahoney of MX-80 on drums and inspired covers like "Deuce" and "Strutter" by Kiss (these guys got taste), "Gloria", The Modern Lovers' "Astral Plane" et al. Comes with a book with snaps and liners from Ted. |
