Drop of Blood in the Bucket - Les Vamyprettes

Outside of "Thriller" there's not much popular music geared towards Halloween, though I'm probably forgetting a ton of stuff as I'm not a fan of Metal music and don't have much time to investigate.  Last year I focused on Slang's album The Bellwether Project, and while that's a really good album its not exactly horror-based.  Greetings from Burkittsville was closer but wasn't always creepy (though that last track was pretty chilling).  Luckily I combed the bowls of my computer and found a group not only explicitly horror-related but also expertly creepy, the enigmatic one-single electronica project Les Vampyrettes.  A one-off collaboration between Holger Czukay of the seminal Krautrock group Can (whose solo electronic projects were already pretty stellar) and producer Conny Plank (who did production on most of Kraftwerk's stuff and Devo's album Q: Are We Not Men...), Les Vampyrettes only existed long enough to release one 12'' single, putting them in the class of Karen Verros and Geechie Wiley who didn't even release a whole album before fading into the night.  As per the oblique moniker, it's not only common but practically industry standard for electronic artists to work under pseudonyms, such as Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada, but in the case of Les Vampyrettes the lack of a human face only furthers its cause.  Not that the deliciously unsettling music needed any help, though.

Side One has the song "Biomutanten" which gets things rightly foreboding right away with metallic drumming and a slow bass flange, making me think that tomandandy had the song on their mind when writing the soundtrack to The Mothman Prophecies.  This continues steadily throughout the track, with random sirens, klaxons and screeches peppered along for good effect.  At the center is a deep, reverbed voice incanting what is apparently nonsense, though I can't understand him and wasn't able to find the lyrics online - but does it really matter what he's saying?  He might as well be reciting a lasagna recipe and I'd still have to order express delivery on several pairs of brown pants.  The best information I've been able to find on the single comes from the excellent mp3-distribution goldmine Egg City Radio where, as you can see here, he includes both tracks for download.  The guy who runs it is usually really good at unearthing info on super-obscure artists but he was at something of a loss, aside from a hilariously translated paragraph I won't spoil for you.

"Menetekel" swaps out metal for a swamp, the bass slow-marching along on two notes while underwater beasties burp into your ears.  Somebody forgot to turn of a metronome in the other room and Plank is having a lot of fun warping record scratching and radio noise with the bend dial.  This results in the song being shorter and a little less spooky but nonetheless not something you'd like to meet in a dark alley adjacent to a discount chainsaw store.  Once again I haven't the John Carpenter's The Fogiest what the singer (?) is droning on about, so I'll just have to assume it has something to do with wearing someone's sideburns as coattails.

If there's one thing this record really reminds me of, especially "Menetekel", it's "There's a Planet in My Kitchen", one of the two B-sides on the 12'' single of Siouxsie and the Banshee's cover of "Dear Prudence".  My Dad had this single and the song remains one of the most goofily enigmatic LP's I've come across, but I'll let you make the decision with this handy YouTube recreation:

It's funny how the digi-processed ramblings of potential serial killers can bring back the memories.  The problem with assessing Les Vampyrettes as a group is that they only have two very similar songs to their credit, though that may have been their intention anyway.  Perhaps some questions are better left unanswered, such as how a pair of such spooky tone slabs escaped from the bathouse, and since every re-release of the single has gone under we may never know for sure.  I'm thankful once again that YouTube exists so obscure wonders like this can go straight for the jugular.

~PNK

Drop in the Bucket - Inflatable Boy Clams

While many rock groups remain obscure that doesn't mean info on them is difficult to find, and nearly any group you've never heard of has a fanbase waiting in the wings to tell you all about them.  Inflatable Boy Clams isn't one of those groups.  Their sole EP is a bizarre anomaly in rock music, akin to the Shaggs covering Siouxsie and the Banshee's "There's a Planet in My Kitchen", then playing it reverse.  I was considering swapping the "Post-Punk" tag for "Post-Music", and I haven't even played a single track for you yet.  Just listen to this:

I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes*.  Writing about these guys is a unique challenge, and the only suggestion I have is to keep an open mind.  I can only assume the name is nonsense, and that trying to decode it will result in a nice long stay in a padded room with a Chinese finger trap for sleeves.  The best information I've been able to find is on this helpful site dedicated to the group's EP and unraveling their mystery.  It's actually a little shocking to see that people made this - I would have assumed it materialized from the Mongo Dimension.  The four women went on to play with other obscure San Francisco Post-Punk/New Wave groups like Voice Farm, The Pink Section and Longshoremen, but I have no idea how they formed, except to speculate upon back-room plots conducted in their private loonspeak.  I have a theory about what they're going for, but I'd like to play another track just to be sure:

The fansite includes a section called "Stories", and at the top Jojo Planteen, one of the members, wrote a poem about the group that includes the line "sounding like 10-year-olds."  The songs are all purposefully sloppy and seemingly improvised, and the singing and instrumental skills all point to a massive dose of "cute".  After I thought their Post-Punk credentials were dubious, it hit me that the album works best as the tape a bunch of 10-year-olds would make in imitation of their favorite Post-Punk band.  "I'm Sorry" infers a demented sense of humor akin to the bantering inside the piano in between bouts of music on Frank Zappa's album Lumpy Gravy.  This can't be seen as unintentional, Shaggs-style, because everybody involved is an adult, and from what I've gathered from stories about the band they considered it a goofball art project.  While "Skeletons" may have been borne out of Halloween memories, "I'm Sorry" seems to refer to the complaints and stories that fly around female friend circles, so analyzing the group as an airtight conceptual project is a lost cause.

The EP is one of those odd cases where I can't explain what it is or whether or not I like it, but now that I've experienced it I can't imagine a world without it.  It's a credit to democracy that something like this can exist, and I can imagine most listeners getting annoyed after 30 seconds (like I did with Cibo Matto**).  The fansite wasn't created by a hardcore fan, but rather by somebody like me - a curious listener who stumbled across the album not knowing what it was but in the mood to find out.  I'm glad they got in contact with some people involved with the group, as that can be a rare experience.  Inflatable Boy Clams shouldn't be viewed as anything more than an object unto itself, making a home outside of trends and fashions.  I'd be tempted to call it a brilliant piece of outsider art if I didn't know the members' pedigree.  If you don't like any of it I certainly can't stop you, and maybe that's what they wanted.  This whole article may have been a waste of time, but I certainly had fun speculating and any chance I can get to link to their songs is a good chance to me.

The only way to end the article is with the last song on the EP, "Snoteleks".  I'll let you guess what it sounds like before you listen.

~PNK

*Yes!

**PSST!  Don't tell anybody that I don't like Cibo Matto, they'll revoke my Music Critic license!  I'm not kidding!

Drop in the Bucket - Mogul Thrash

Drop in the Bucket is a new series, created for the exploration of groups that only released one album before disbanding.  These lonely discs, often riveting and sometimes mysterious, are the sole eternal output of an enormous range of artists that are more often than not left in the dustbin of history (dollar CD racks).  Drop in the Bucket aims to investigate as many as possible, taking the good with the less than good, and giving these artists the consideration they deserve, because even getting one album out there is quite a feat.  And who better to start with than one of the best-named: Mogul Thrash.

Mogul Thrash was a British progressive funk rock supergroup, formed in 1970 from members of such bands I've never heard of as Electron, Colosseum, Splinter and Brotherhood.  The most recognizable name is John Wetton who would go on to found such groups as Wishbone Ash, Roxy Music and Asia*.  I'll save you some search time and point you to the best information on the group I could find, an interview with member James Litherland (who as in Colosseum).  The name apparently comes from a spoof of a British TV show called the Michael Miles Show by Spike Milligan, where he would wear a fake nose and be called Mogul Thrash.  I think this band should be less spoken about and more listened to, so on with the songs.  Soon after forming they dropped this single:

Miles Davis fans should spot at least a passing similarity to "Freedom Jazz Dance" there.  Damn, that's a hard beat drop, and the horns just sell it.  Why horn sections don't show up in rock more will forever be a mystery to me.  Anybody who insists that every group in the early 70's was on drugs needs to shut up for a second, because you can't possibly be sub-sober and pull this off.  They actually released this after the album had come out, flying in the face of most debut paths.  There other tracks included saxophones to great effect, another indicator that Pink Floyd had the right idea with Wish You Were Here:

There's a fine art to minute-long noodle, and Roger Ball here has it down.  The soprano saxophone is an unusual sound in rock music, and the groove it drops in to is unparalleled.  All the tracks are groovy as all heck, bringing early 70's prog to the front steps of the hard groovers with ease.  It's a fantastic album, one for all seasons and moods, and it invites repeat listens with memorable hooks and digressions both distinctive and nicely concise.  As far as single albums go this is the one to do - hard-hitting and sumptuous.  As the CD's get a bit pricey used, somebody was kind enough to put up the whole thing on YouTube so you to can thrash mogully.  More entries are to come, so hold on to your socks - they will be blown off.

~PNK

*One particularly funny bio I found said that Mogul Thrash was primarily of interest to Asia fans.  Just think about that for a second.

"Alexander" and the Guttural Cough of Psychedelia

(I understand that this isn't the most factually accurate piece of writing I've done.  However, it was part of my initial burst of blogginating and I think it's pretty funny, errors notwithstanding.  There aren't too many of the older posts left anyways, so just hang tight and new material will be on its way :))

It had been dragged in the patchouli ditch, overstuffed by an uninvited foreign exchange war, and came up from the drink in a rented hangover costume two weeks behind in payments. It was 1969 and, though the American Industrial Music Conglomeriana wouldn’t admit it for the better part of a decade, the Psychedelic movement was pretty much over. As with all outgrowths of 60′s drug culture the original point had been lost and accessible and well-known headliner groups (such as the Doors) had catapulted what started as subterranean and murkily understood by its inventors into that ever-so-dangerous “clean-cut” realm. And at the peak of the buzz two groups attempted to take things up a level: Vanilla Fudge (now considered a seminal cross-genre band and very much worth investigating) and Alexander’s Timeless Bloozband.

I don’t know who Alexander is, or the contents of the Bloozband. I don’t want to know. It would diminish the magic. Careening wildly between a genuinely vervy psychedelic jazz blend (such as in the above Horn Song) and a Bouncing Betty in the form of back-of-the-basement blues revivalism, I’ve never heard a record capture a genre’s collective direction quite like this one. I can’t be sure if most of you will like every track you hear. That may be part of my point. Actually, this first track is probably the best, with a neat grove and harmony, and less boozy than most late psychedelia. However, many other tracks (all available for download on Amazon) smack of a different beast. And all are defined, alpha and omega, by Alexander.

I can’t imagine a better descriptor than “big floppy lawnflamethrower.”. His voice is a hairball expo on karaoke night, almost too lovely to behold. From what little information I was able to gather on the group they played venues all around SoCal in the late sixties. I’ve never heard of any of them (Greasy Slew Duck Club?!), so I can only assume they were flattened by Alexander’s visionary warble.

In a way this record is a testament to just how much the psychedelic movement owed to the blues. Perhaps if this record had sold better people would have latched onto this notion. I think a big part of why nobody did is a central conceit to the genre, in that most psychedelia is about as bluesy as the Beatles. One thing is for certain, though: Alexander was at least channelling the spirit of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and every whiskey he ever played footsy with. He understood the Bloozband for what it was: a vehicle to let his wobbly soul dance. Perfection is out of the question.

I apologize for rambling, but maybe I was trying to skirt the real reason this record exists, and has to exist. It is the last genuine psychedelic blues statement of its time, and between the maybe-once-rehearsed ensemble effort, a recording quality that suggests a garage at the bottom of the Hudson, and the incomparable Alexander, we realized that it couldn’t go any other way. It’s both glorious and disarming. The glory is obvious, but the disarmament comes when the weight of the thing comes crashing to our shoulders. Did the gods bless this as a living funeral, or was Alexander really as clairvoyant as I hope he was? Was it planned from the start to mark the death of the psychedelic music in LP form? Is this what a death rattle plays on the guitar?

I see now why the Bloozband is Timeless. The gutteral cry of humanity’s search for answers in the face of oblivion can never be silenced. Alexander’s unique art merely made it timely.

~PNK