SELECTRIC F-uneral
Darn those silly Bug-A-Ways! You send for ’em through the mail because they don’t sell ’em at Woolworth’s, ya plug ’em into the wall and that little red light comes on, they work fine for about a year or so, and then all of a sudden one day their warranty runs out and you get all kindsa gross creepy-crawlies with a squillion hairy appendages climbin’ up and down your plaster, and you have to squish ’em with your shoes and flush ’em down the toilet and, boy, does that ever make you mad!
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SELECTRIC F-uneral
Chuck Eddy
Darn those silly Bug-A-Ways! You send for ’em through the mail because they don’t sell ’em at Woolworth’s, ya plug ’em into the wall and that little red light comes on, they work fine for about a year or so, and then all of a sudden one day their warranty runs out and you get all kindsa gross creepy-crawlies with a squillion hairy appendages climbin’ up and down your plaster, and you have to squish ’em with your shoes and flush ’em down the toilet and, boy, does that ever make you mad! What this has to do with the evenmore-fictitious-than-myself Rickie Johnson and his R.E.M. Speedwaggle fixation is way beyond me, and what it has to do with the Selectric Funeralizations of every last mortal soul on the planet Pluto is also kinda hazy, but it’s important and it had to be said. (But then again, that stud Gary Richrath sure does “rock” on that new Speedwaggle LP, don’t he, Rickie? I mean, what do you think those Champaign chumps mean by “Variety Tonight?” Not both cole slaw and tossed salad, I don’t think.. .)
I’m supposed to be writing about underground hard rock records in this column, though, and I guess I better get started. Better warn you that I’ve got nothing quite as “far out” as Rickie’s “unjustly forgotten” (or whatever) other fruity faves, Jefferson Airplaine, and seeing how all these bands were formed sometime after Rickie’s senility set in back in 1972 or thereabouts, he’s probably never heard of any of ’em, but this is the best I can do, honest:
True-blue metaldorks oughta get off on James “Blood” Ulmer for a couple of reasons—first, the guy toughens the true blues like HM’s been asked to do ever since prehistoria, and second, he makes more dangerous close-cropped wailing gruel spew out of his guitar than anybody anywhere (except maybe Sonny Sharrock, more on whom some other month). Plus, Ulmer just keeps digging his Deltabilly roots deeper and pilin’ ’em thicker every time out, and meanwhile he ain’t softening a wink: his new Live At The Caravan Of Dreams (Caravan of Dreams, 312 Houston St., Fort Worth, TX 76102) is my fave since 1983’s Odyssey, but where Odyssey was kinda subdued and even countrified, this new one (with the Odyssey trio plus master hup-two-threefunk bassist Amin Ali) cooks like an Upton Sinclair sweatshop. I’m talking powerhouse rhythmic thump and scraping axewise hog-butcher counterpoint, and if you ain’t one of those worry-warts who wishes Blood would water down his singing growl to the consistency of Eldra Debarge or somebody, I expect you’ll welcome the thing into your home.
Speaking of stuff that’s got a good beat and you can “mosh” (wish I knew what that word meant) too it, I expect Blood Ulmer would appreciate the full-tilt harmelodic-hardcore boogie of Vancouver left-wingers No Means No’s Sex Mad (Alternative Tentacles, POB 11458, San Francisco, CA 94101)—this is one of the most bulldozing youngster-rock rhythm sections I’ve heard in years, veering off toward clipped and spliced funk and fusion, all under total-death guitar galvanizing. Only real problem (as in lots of youngster-rock these days) is the vocals and words, especially the Suicidal Tendencies tendencies of “Dad” and the Henry Rollins damage of “Revenge.” (’Course, they don’t have lots of “comfortable” tattoos or a hole in their chin like muchomacho-man Hank does, so I won’t judge ’em so harshly.) There’s more northwestcorridor-dwelling youngsters on Seattle’s Dehumanizers’ End Of Time (Subcore, POB 99284, Seattle, WA 98199), plus a great album cover featuring eyeballs, brains, a vacuum cleaner and a real scary chess game—and the unflinchingly demented acid-flashback hit-or-miss throwevery-pair-of-undies-you’ve-got-againstthe-wall-and-see-what-sticks cemeterysludge/acoustic-Stones/rap-parody confusion within suggests that all is not well with the youth of today. And good thing, too.
On a way more serious note, we’ve got Feedtime's Shovel (Aberrant import), manic-depressive ulcer-casualty postStooges napalm-palmed swagger from Australia, and the best album I’ve heard this year. No-joke stuff with hammerhead drums and bass and slide-guitar that scrapes up your insides like steel wool, this is the work of three guys who ain’t hateful, just pissed—and when I say “post-Stooges” I mean it attitudinally more than sound-wise; this ain’t no retro crap. Nor, for that matter, is Dinosaur’s You’re Living All Over Me (SST, POB 1, Lawndale, CA 90260), likewise emotionally charged power-triad splat highly recommended to fans of such superb heavy metal albums as (I’m not joshing, now) Zuma, Rust Never Sleeps, and Re-Ac-Tor. Dino’s “Repulsion” was the prettiest single of ’86 in my book, and the new LP takes off from the same never-never-land where amazing folkadelic melodies merge with hoary ocean-liner guitar-hurt in order to express thoughts about loneliness and stuff. Can’t figure how J. Mascis got that nifty sloe-gin drawl in Boston, but that’s his biz, not mine. And you can get yet more tuneful terror on Squirrel Bait’s Skag Heaven (Homestead, POB 570, Rockville Center, NY 11570), released just before these Kentuckians called it quits this spring— and too bad they did, because the record finally breaks ’em free of their influences (who will remain nameless here). It’s detailed, hard-boiled, every-which-way loud-pop, and not much like anybody else (though I guess I should note that the singer’s semi-rough whine makes the songs sound more similar than they really are, and hence the disc has trouble keeping my attention even a side at a time. The Phil Ochs cover is nice, though.)
Music I barely have room for: Born Without A Face’s Worship (BWAF EP, POB 7944, Ann Arbor, Ml 48107) is ultradense Motorhead-toothy metalcore with lotsa dynamics and sicko artfart poetry and a dirgey “Heartbreak Hotel,” not bad for do-it-yourself, not horrible otherwise. . Prong’s Primitive Organs (Mr. Bear maxi-EP, POB 1169, Cooper Station, NY NY 10276) is furious nerve-center-aimed intellectual anchor-thrash with nimble leads and solos skittering off like varicose veins even more than on their demo tape, which I ballyhooed last issue... Soundgarden’s “Hunted Down”/“Nothing To Say” (SubPop single, POB 20645, Seattle, WA 98102) is the latest and maybe greatest in Bigfoot-rock (see also: Green River, Skin Yard)—huge, raunchy, non-sissified, more-Harry-than-Hendersons lowdown hoedown, this time with a Bonham-worthy bottom under the Sabbathisms. All told, one of the most unbelievably catchy 45s of 1987... Last, World Domination Enterprises’ “Hotsy Girl” (Product Inc. import 12-inch) is a gritty bluesish/British boppalong with dub echoes and more feedback then the Jesus & Mary Chain could shake a leg at, plus an idea or two lifted from Captain Beefheart—which is neat seeing as how he’s the Edgar Allen Poe of my hero Rickie Johnson’s (but not my) generation, or maybe even the Ogden Nash. . .A poem: “Fleas, Adam had ’em.” Darn those Bug-A-Ways!
