Detail from a magazine advertisement, 1964
R.E.M., live performance of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”
I can’t figure out what 1995 show this recording is from—it was briefly a staple of their live performance. But it doesn’t really matter, this is the killer take that, had they heard it, they should’ve put out on the promo 45.
The Chris Isaak song, according to Wikipedia, only became a hit after a David Lynch-obsessed DJ in Atlanta got into it through Lynch’s Wild At Heart. The Roy Orbison mode, which Lynch dipped into regularly, you would think would be a bit foreign for chronic mumbler Michael Stipe but he shows himself to be at least equally capable as Isaak in crooning the shit out of it.
Still from an automobile advertisement, 1970s
Hold on to your hats, it’s a new issue of Terminal Boredom: in two installations: A-M and N-Z. Rich Kroeniss chimes in on the new Personal & The Pizzas single:
Personal & The Pizzas “Dead Meat vs. Joanie” 7” The Total Punk offshoot label of the Floridas Dying empire debuts with the latest two song lunch from Personal & The Pizzas (or Pizza, as there seems to be only one other band member here), and it starts with a Stiv-solo style leather jacket power-punker called “Dead Meat” that I think has a motorcycle chain solo on it. Tough as grease. “Joanie” mashes together “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and “Swallow My Pride” (and maybe a dozen other Ramones cuts) with a ballsy little fuzz guitar thing for an ode to eating out and Happy Days perhaps (insert garage Fonzie gag here, harhar). Total ‘End of the Century’ vibes. Scum stats: 600 pressed, hand stamped and totally punk. “Peter Davis = dead meat”?! (RK)
Also includes reviews of Pygmy Shrews, Sic Alps, Nobunny, X-Ray Eyeballs, Thee Oh Sees, a new release of 1995 demos by Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, and lots of other indie gutter snipes. Go get em.
The Clean, “Odditty.” Live at the Rumba Bar, Auckland, 15 May 1982.
In honor of the 30th birthday of the groundbreaking New Zealand indie label, here are some highlights from the incredible show they put together in Auckland only a year into their endeavor:
A very early incarnation of the Tall Dwarfs backed by The Clean (wearing paper bags).
The Clean doing “Two Fat Sisters,” — prompting one YouTube user to declare them “New Zealand’s Velvet Underground.”
The Chills doing the very cut of “Flamethrower” that was pressed to vinyl (though the sound is not the same) and
A rowdy version of The Chills’ “Bite,” guest-starring a large part of the Nun roster.
Advertisement for motor oil (detail), 1951
The Creeper Ohio tape Double Dwa? is one of the many buried treasures of the fertile Ohio scene of the ’90s. Jeff Robertson and Mike Rep’s collaboration paired oddball, stripped-down indie originals with an assortment of idiosyncratic covers (Tommy James’ “Draggin’ The Line,” “Little Bit o’ Soul,” and “In The Pineys” by their pals The Strapping Fieldhands). One of standouts is this cover of the 1966 pop-psych nugget “Little Black Egg,” by the Nightcrawlers. The creepy nursery rhyme is made even stranger in this arrangement. Robertson’s vocals are as endearing as they’re estranging: Double Dwa? is the rare thin, reedy twee indie that verges on precious but is never at all affected.
Mike Rep, whose own consistently excellent output from 1974–1997 is collected on Stupor Hiatus, is sorta the Chris Knox of Columbus: he has credits on records by Guided By Voices, Times New Viking, Bassholes, and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. The “produced by” credit, befitting the anti-production attitude, is LFW—“lovingly fucked with.” He chimed in on a thread somewhere about Creeper Ohio:
The cassette was also available as a CD-R from ORANGE ENTROPY for several years, but I believe it is out of print now. The CDR version was minus the song “Draggin’ The Line” which was removed because; a) R.E.M. did it in the Andy Kaufman “Man On The Moon” movie and b) we really didn’t do the tune that well anyway…. I could not get any labels interested in releasing this “Thinking Man’s Bubblegum” (as I like to call it) classic on vinyl or ‘real’ CD back in ’96. It remains one of my favorite projects and Jeff Robertson an woefully unappreciated wondrous talent. We had a great time making this.
(Their version of “Draggin’” is actually excellent.) The whole cassette here (and possibly only there). Thanks to Kellie for pointing this out.
Video for The Go-Betweens’ “Head Full of Steam,” originally released on Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (1986).
From Robert Christgau’s Consumer Guide (originally printed in the 31 March 1987 Village Voice):
Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express [Big Time, 1986]
The lyrics, which set oblique but never opaque romantic vicissitudes against a diffidently implied existential world-historic, aren’t the secret of their lyricism, and why should they be? These Aussies make music, with Robert Forster’s intensely sincere vocals and Grant McLennan’s assertive but never pushy hooks pinning down the melodies. Granting all reservations about the form itself and with apologies to skillful romantics from R.E.M. to XTC, there are no popsters writing stronger personal love songs. I doubt there are any page poets envisioning more plangently, either. A-