Art Punks Attack

our band of the day is The Pop Group. a post-punk band formed in Bristol, England who fused their love of funk, punk, dub, and free jazz into something unlike anyone else ever before. Nick Cave proclaimed them to be his favorite band of all time. they released 1 incredible album, Y as well as another album i've never actually heard called How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? and one classic single "We Are All Prostitutes" for Rough Trade. they predate the No Wave scene but it would seem obvious that they had a major influence on James Chance. their sound could best be described as a combination of This Heat & The Birthday Party with Lee "Scratch" Perry producing it...so yeah, pretty fucking arty shit. if you're a fan of The Slits, James Chance & The Contortions, A Certain Ratio, Public Image Ltd., or the Liars then the Pop Group is for you.

if you can find Y, i highly recommend it. one of my truly favorite bizarre albums.


here's a video for the band's best track "She's Beyond Good & Evil" off the album Y. worst lip syncing EVER!!!

Freaky Japanese Space Jams For Your Ass

this is Les Rallize DeNudes.

they were a Psychedelic Rock band from Japan that existed from the late 1960s and into the mid 1990s. they're sort of a Japanese version of the Velvet Underground...meaning nobody ever heard of them when they started out but it's pretty obvious if you've ever bothered listening to Japanese rock bands like the Boredoms and Acid Mothers Temple that they were a huge influence on the underground rock scene. their sound is somewhere in between The Jesus And Mary Chain during their heavy-feedback era playing long spaced out 13th Floor Elevator songs by way of Sun Ra and the entire No Wave movement....or something like that. maybe a little Can and Spaceman 3 thrown in for good measure. honestly None of those bands really hit the mark at all. they were involved with some left-ist political organizations so an MC5 comparison is probably in order as well...other than the fact nobody in the MC4 ever hijacked a motherfucking airplane like the original bassist did back in 1970.

this is music for noise freaks and obsessive nerds...so if you fall into either of those categories then you will probably enjoy. if not, well then i hear there's a new album by The Fray coming out.

some youtube footage

Guitar Wolf! Rock N' Roll Attack!

i've decided my band of the day will be the single loudest band i have ever seen live (besides Mogwai...but that was just ridiculous), the greatest punk rock band from Japan ever GUITAR WOLF. first off their name has the two coolest words in the English language Guitar and Wolf together...that in it's self would make them worthy of band of the day status. but since i am highlighting them i won't just leave it at that, secondly they are LOUD AS FUCK...as in the ear splitting and headache inducing variety. it sounds like if the Ramones were just a bunch of japanese kids who wanted to play the Stooges song "search and destroy" at the the highest volume possible. which is to say totally awesome. also they coined a phrase for their style of music called Jet Rock N' Roll. what does that mean? who cares? it's awesome. and finally they made a zombie movie called Wild Zero that's like Spinal Tap crossed with Night Of The Living Dead. rock n' roll zombie movies are boss as fuck. buy Jet Generation and start living your life by the code of the wolf. it's really that simple.

"Jet Generation"


and a trailer for Wild Zero

America, America Is Killing It's Youth

today we salute the founders of electro punk and new york city cool, Suicide. who actually started in 1971 and predate pretty much every punk band from new york. Bruce Springsteen loves them and so should you. every band that ever made a buck off new wave pop in the 80's probably should be writing them royalty checks. every artschool dropout in the east village who started a no wave band or started doing performance art in rock clubs owes them their career. everybody else should just buy their first two albums and we'll call it even.

"ghost rider" live. best song ever.

I'm Losing Touch With My Mind

so everyone is so into psychedelic rock amd spacerock and acid and the 60s to the point that i want to barf everytime i see a reference to Hawkwind when describing someone's record...anyways the original band that jumped on that bandwagon and made stealing from the 13th Floor Elevators cool was today's band of the day, SPACEMEN 3.

they were fronted by Jason Pierce aka J Spaceman who later went on to form Spiritualized. their sound was very minimalist with droning guitars, softly sung or spoken lyrics, and monolithic drumming. lots of feedback and they lived by their motto of "Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To" . they created the basis for the whole post-rock movement of the 90s and their drumming style was ripped off by nearly every shoegazer band. The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Suicide, Silver Apples, Sun Ra, and 13th Floor Elevators were just a few of their name checked influences. they released their debut Sound Of Confusion in 1986 and released several albums and Eps until 1991 when the band broke up...in post breakup labels have reissued tons of live and demo recordings as well as numerous greatest hits style packages. it's difficult to pick a best place to start if you aren't familiar with the band. the first album i ever bought was "The Perfect Prescription" and i was pretty much hooked after that, so i'd say that one is as good as any.

the video for "walking with jesus"

Look Out! Soul Is Back

so i've decided to start doing a public service with this blog and highlighting a few bands a week that defined who i am as a music nerd and influenced my ears and my thoughts. i'm sure a lot of these bands you probably are already into. hopefully some of them you will grow to love as much as me.

my first band to highlight is one of my all time favorites, when i think about the coolest bands that have ever existed or when i think about bands that i have tried to rip off the most The Nation Of Ulysses is always at the top of the list. equal parts MC5, free jazz, and art school noise, The N.O.U. spawned from the very fertile DC hardcore scene to become something that was nothing like anyone had seen before. i got into them after the band had already broken up so unfortunately i never saw them live.

their live performances were notorius as the band would sometimes set their shoes on fire while they played as singer Ian Svenoius flayled around wildly and spouted his pseudo political ramblings to the crowd. the group emobodied a rejection of the 60's and 70's rock n roll culture and often called themselves "the real anti-parent culture sound". style was important as they often dressed in suits with their hair slicked up into pompadors. their debut album "13 Point Program to Destroy America" announced them as not a rock n roll group but as a politcal party of the teenage movement concerning themselves with a relentlessly provocative (and entertaining) jumble of teenage rock 'n' roll rebellion, leftist radicalism, anarchist punk polemics, and abstract intellectual rambling.

the band's second album "Plays Pretty For Baby" goes down in my top 5 records of all time. after that they broke up and most of the band went on to form the Make Up while former guitarist Tim Green formed the instrumental metal band The Fucking Champs. since the band only has two real records i just suggest you buy both of them. Plays Pretty is the best but 13 point is a little more straight forward and easy to digest.

here's a couple of live clips of the band
"cool senior high school"

"spectra sonic sound"