29 March 2024

DECEMBER 1984

 



Thirty-nine years and eight months ago, some motherfucker was absolutely owning the DJ booth at KALX and I'm eternally grateful to Pat for documenting and holding onto the set. You know the deal by now - some punk, some schmatlz, some rock 'n roll, some blues. A time warp. A snapshot. A window into another past. A piece of another life. 

KALX - DECEMBER 1984
•••
For those interested, there are limited volumes of the curated Copy Wright series available from my little cassette label Escape Cassettes. Volumes 15 & 16 are currently in the works.  



28 March 2024

HAROLD TURGIS

 



There are few joys as pure as the feeling of hearing a new and wonderful thing for the first time. Not knowing what you're going to get or what you're about to experience and just letting the sound wash over you. Sometimes it energizes, sometimes it soothes - the best ones do both of course. It's even better when there's a bit of mystery beyond the average unknown, when you listen for the first time without expectation or context, and this was the case when I opened a box from London a couple of months ago. I knew it was from a fellow from HYGIENE and I like the HYGIENE records I have, but all the note said was that these were "...three tapes I released." HAROLD TURGIS went on first and I couldn't have been more engrossed - gloriously minimal and painfully deliberate electronics that border on ambient but are too consistently interesting to fade into the background. If the entire tape were the nine plus minute "Bewitched" with it's stilted fade out ending? I would have been chuffed. Instead The Sentinels is a solid half hour (plus) of glorious modern adaptations of primitive electronic sound. It's mesmerizing and it's beautiful and "Zeethra" (which tapes up the entire second side) will make you weep if you listen deeply. And now my only complaint is that I'm going to listen to Satellite (the other HAROLD TURGIS tape in that box) with expectations. Very high expectations. 



27 March 2024

KILLJOYS

Same four tunes were released as a Studio Demos 18/10/77 EP around the turn of the century, so maybe this is the same recording but my tape is labeled Peel Session 1977 so I'm gonna guess that John Peel's BBC studio was the studio in question (or my tape was mislabeled by some drunk motherfucker slinging recordings in the mail in the '90s). Absolute screamers from KILLJOYS - four on the floor English pub punk that is going to be kicking my ass all day. Bassist went on to GIRLSCHOOL and the singer was in DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS, so that's pretty cool. 

26 March 2024

ADAM VOID

 



Everything yesterday's post was not, today's post is. Every door opened by yesterday's post remains closed today, as ADAM VOID takes your hand and guides you to a completely different place. It's weird here, slightly off in a myriad of indescribable manners...but it's nice here. Simple. Things are okay here even when they are hard, you know? Simple sounds, casually constructed and presented without pretense because things aren't really that important. We aren't really that important either, and it's good to be reminded how rudimentary everything can be. We are just vessels, and these are just sounds created by other vessels...other folks who seem to be having a pretty good time just being okay. Not bad, ADAM VOID, not bad at all.







25 March 2024

POTEMKIN

 

You ever wake up feeling....ugly? I'm not talking about "not feeling yourself" ugly, I'm thinking something more like "willing to destroy yourself" ugly. You refuse to look in the mirror - not because you're scared of what you might see, but because you know what's going to be staring at you. And it's disgusting. You ever wake up feeling....hopeless? I'm not talking about "should have slept in today" hopeless, I'm thinking something more like "hopeless" hopeless. You refuse to see the light - not because you're stubborn, but because you know it's not there. You ever wish those feelings had a soundtrack? You ever wish those days had a soundtrack? Enter: POTEMKIN. Terrifyingly misanthropic sludge that understands your desperation and sees you for the ugly piece of shit you know you are. And sometimes...it feels good to feel seen. 


24 March 2024

GUN SHY



Wonderfully sweet shoegaze / indie-pop with a deadly '90s guitar crunch and hard driving drums that sound borrowed from a local hardcore outfit (ahem....they kinda were). If I had heard this in 1991 I would have lost my shit...Connecticut's GUN SHY are the intersection of college alt and grunge and shoegaze before the guitar effects took over, and that's where I live before a while before DIY punk completely took over. Seems this 2017 blast was everything, but maybe fifty copies of one self titled cassette is all they needed to say. So, "Life Of A Useless Man" it is, I suppose.

 


23 March 2024

LAVENDER

Gloriously minimal proto-space age techno from an SF artist who quietly dropped three quiet tapes in the mid-teens that left me...wanting. Early VOLTAIRE vibes mingling with modern interpretations of primitive house...LAVENDER are (were) a journey inward in the best possible way.