V05-T02 I'm A Cadillac

.....About five years ago I tried to research this band to update my notes but couldn't find much in the way of a discography besides Martin C. Strong's "The Great Alternative & Indie Discography" (Canongate, 1999). As of the next edition, The Batfish Boys were one of dozens (hundreds?) of entries excised from future editions for reasons of space. The band could not be reasonably expected to release more material; they had split when the 1990's began and the lead singer/songwriter went into technical work for other bands (reportedly including Sisters Of Mercy). To this day, Amazon does not carry CD format issues of their music. For these reasons, excising them from a print database seems inevitable however disappointing. If a book becomes too large, its own weight will split its spine. It comes down to a choice between expanding the entries of those artists who continue to produce and reprinting already published information about those who do not.

.....For the past few days I've been finding far more luck online than I did five years ago, digging up label and sleeve scans of the original pressings and learning a few things about the band's history. More about that later.

Volume 5: DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL (YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN), track 3

• 03:58 "I'M A CADILLAC" (The Batfish Boys)
• performed by The Batfish Boys
• original source: B-side 7" Batfish Incorporated USS 108 (UK) 03/87
• and my source: LP LURVE-- SOME KINDA FLASHBACK Twilight Records/Fundamental Music TR013 (US/UK) 1987

.....My original notes on this track from 1994 were brief: "According to Trouser Press, this band burned out quickly after this, but this song snagged my attention with the Iggy Pop reference. After playing it on the radio a few times, I learned that it contained what would be one of my all-time favorite lyrics: 'I'm as sane as the next man and the next man is Howard Hughes!' A few years after leaving the station I found a sealed copy (import only!) for just a couple of dollars in a liquidation sale. Ah, vinyl."

.....Thinking about this later it occurred to me that the reason I first tried this song is that there's a Mott The Hoople song by the same title. Everything else in the paragraph above is still true, although there's a pretty complicated qualifier to the remark about the record being an import. The jacket was printed in the UK but the actual vinyl was pressed in the US by a small label in Covington, Georgia called Fundamental Music for an even smaller imprint in Atlanta called Twilight Records. Twilight carried two stateside Batfish Boys albums, the compilation LP LURVE in 1987 and the previous year their second album, LP HEAD, with radically different jacket art. All their early recordings (1985-1987) were released on their own label, Batfish Incorporated. Their later recordings (1988-1990) were on the label GWR Records and consisted of at least an album and two singles. But it's the earlier stuff I find more interesting. Batfish Incorporated issued works by a few other bands as well, but unsurprisingly the Batfish Boys made the bulk of its output. They put out three 7" singles (two of which were also released in 12" format with third tracks), an EP of exclusive material and two albums. The LP LURVE was apparently put together for the US market which had been less singles oriented than England since the mid 1970's. It collects all the non-album tracks from Batfish Inc. except for two. "PEACOCK MACHINERY" from the EP is missing and the A-side "JUSTINE" was more plausibly left out because it was already made available to the US on the LP HEAD. In their place was a track from the first album LP THE GODS HATE KANSAS called "LOOTENANT LUSH".

.....The Batfish Boys formed after the abrupt departure of the March Violets' vocalist Simon Denbigh, who renamed himself Simon Detroit (or Simon D.) and recruited the Skeletal Family's roadie turned drummer Martin Henderson, who became Martin Pink (and later simply Bomber). At first he used a guitarist and bassist who coincidentally(?) had the same last names as two of his March Violets bandmates. They were soon replaced by guitarist Johnny Burman and bassist Bob Priestly (who became Bob Diablo). These four recorded everything after the first single until the label switch to GWR. Most of that was with guitarist Murray Fenton (of Artery), but this song is the B-side of the last Batfish Incorporated single, "THE BOMB SONG", by which time guitarist Zero Rek replaced Fenton. That single was also the only one produced by the band with Vic Maile. Previously Denbigh would handle the production himself.

.....The nature of this series of compilations, being an unthemed cross-section of whatever the gravitational pull of my collection pulled into its orbit, almost guarantees that it will veer off into some outre territory with some regularity. Knowing that, I wanted to start from an accessible sound of guitar driven rock (like this), even if the particular selections aren't well known (like this). There'll be a few artists famous for being guitarists on Volume 5, although not necessarily for what I've selected.

V04-T12 Pinheads On The Move

.....For anybody who remembers Bill Griffith's "The Punks and the Monks"...

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 12

• 02:51 "PINHEADS ON THE MOVE" (Blaine Reininger, Steven Brown)
• performed by Tuxedo Moon
• original source: B-side 7" Tidal Wave Records TWR101 (US) 1978
• and my source: CD PINHEADS ON THE MOVE Cramboy CBOY 5050CD (Austria) 1987

.....Tuxedo Moon would be more accurately categorized as avant garde jazz rather than punk if not for the fact that they played punk venues like The Deaf Club and released records on small independent labels to retain creative control. I could only find one other release on Tidal Wave Records, another 7" from one of several bands called SST, except that this one had the guitarist for Flipper (Ted Falconi). The Tuxedo Moon single was reissued the following year as Time Release Records TR 101 (US) 1979. I have to assume that the same recordings of each song were used and not newly recorded. I have learned that at some point the master tapes were destroyed in a fire. I've also found out that there are at least two other labels called Tidal Wave that were started since 1990, but that's more of a symptom of the problems of modern data retrieval than anything illuminating. An internet term search is such that its greatest strength (it doesn't presume to know your intentions) is its greatest weakness (it just gives you everything). Your best bet is to be happy with whatever the creators can tell you. For instance, here's an interview with Steven Brown from the blog Totally Wired:

http://totallywiredbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2009/03/totally-wired-runner-up-transcripts-1-q.html

.....Granted, he also doesn't mention if the two pressings were identical because it's more of a general interview about the period, but it's nice to have someone confirm that the 'pinhead' term is self-referential. That's not the sort of thing you want to assume.

.....My original liner notes began with a lengthy and ugly diatribe about Los Angeles pseudo-punk bands which, while I still believe it was an accurate description of the time, is a little indulgent even for a blog. It only really served to set the tone for this:

"San Francisco bands, by contrast, tend to have a lot more focus and direction and are usually in a band not to obtain money, but to obtain what money can't. They are often political (Dils, Dead Kennedys) and, as with Tuxedo Moon, their music is not derivative even if it is reminiscent of an earlier band or evocative. Tuxedo Moon specifically were a band that evolved...very quickly. Actually, 'evolved' is probably exactly the wrong word to use, since the changes were not due to environment or outside forces. 'Metamorphosed' is more accurate, as in a cocoon. They seemed more attuned to the internal coherences of film music than the dreck coming over the radio in the late seventies. They obviously weren't concerned with audience feedback."

.....And it goes on:"Although a track like this is no doubt scandalous to the condescending and sanctimonious self-appointed advocates of 'the handicapped', the fact is that such people have themselves never produced a positive popular image of microcephalics (pinheads) and would blanche at the suggestion that a group of pins be 'allowed' to do anything as independent and self-directed as pile into a car and drive to L.A. ("Are you really Clark Gable?...") This, much more than any 'energetic rhythms' you may read about in some Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Top Lists of Things We Can Be Bothered To Half-ass Recall Encyclopedia of Rock 'N' Roll is why punk held on as long as it did, even with small numbers that would spell doom had it only been a fad. The idea of pinheads on the move comes much more naturally to a culture where everyone is a hero if that's what they want and nobody gets hidden away in the shadows, as opposed to our larger popular culture where certain persons are determined to need 'our help', which usually translates to restricting them to a structured environment so that we don't have to look at them. The Tod Browning film "Freaks" is strongly recommended viewing."

.....At the time I wrote that last paragraph, things had already been improving for people with non-standard bodies and abilities. It was really intended to describe the environment at the time the original single was released in 1978. Understanding was a long time in coming for many people and many didn't live long enough to see it. Today things are that much better, largely due to the efforts of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who, if faced with the prospect of a group of microcephalics piling into a car for a road trip, probably would have packed them a lunch. Hell, she probably would have piled in with them. The most revolutionary thing about Eunice is that she understood that what she was doing wasn't revolutionary at all. It was basic Emily Post. Whenever you can't remember the finer points of etiquette or are in an unfamiliar situation, default to the primary rule of treating other people as you wish to be treated. Now all that remains is to remember that those who are not us are people.

Hüsker Dü "...Means 'Do You Remember?'"

.....Happy Record Store Day! Vinyl has been making a bit of a comeback in recent years and no one has been more surprised than the retailers who sell it. In retrospect it makes a perverse kind of sense that a generation who grew up downloading music for free would be mystified that there is a format out there that isn't even capable of supporting anti-copying encryption. Not only that, but there's tons-- literally tons-- of back catalog being sold by the pound in thrift stores and yard sales all over the world. It hardly matters that it can't be transported if you can transfer it to an iPod or other device. In fact, if you're accustomed to listening to the AM radio-like flatness of an MP3 signal, then the old bugaboo of surface noise is probably a non-issue as well.

.....This blog started about a month after last year's Record Store Day, so I never really referenced it. I didn't want to just pass it by, even though the blog is about a series of cassettes that weren't compiled for retail purposes. The fact is, many of the songs I've blogged about (and will continue to, trust me) made their way onto the tapes because I could only find them on vinyl (or flexis) and wanted to make them more portable and accessible. Record stores, including those that sold used (well, especially those that sold used), were an irreplaceable source for those. Finding new music you might like is infinitely easier if you can spot a familiar name in the liner notes or jacket credits while browsing in a store. Electronic sources often don't include liner notes and those that do only reveal them after loading times which, no matter how powerful your computer is, can't compare to the ease of holding something and flipping it over.

.....So, how to celebrate records with just one day's blog? Well, I could always renew my call to reissue the Giorno Poetry Systems catalog on CD. There's fewer than 100 vinyl titles total, maybe no more than 60 or 70, yet less than a dozen have made it to CD. Because their excellent anthologies always contained otherwise unavailable recordings by both famous and obscure artists, I routinely consulted my sparse collection of GPS titles when planning a career retrospective tape or looking for some kind of change of pace track for a 'various artists' tape. If reconfigured, the entire label might fit on 40 CD's, and many of them could be devoted to single artists. There are some musicians who have larger catalogs than that just by themselves (Zappa and Bowie come to mind). Many more artists only appeared sparingly. Some had recording commitments elsewhere, some generally worked in other media. One of the many bigger names to make a rare visit was Hüsker Dü.

.....Warner Brothers is issuing a special "Side By Side" vinyl single for Record Store Day that will pair Green Day's last-decade cover of "DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY" with the Hüsker Dü original on it's silver anniversary. My hair turned a little more silver when I heard that one. Since Green Day probably has fans who weren't born when that song came out, maybe I should share a crash course on Hüsker Dü in the form of a compilation program. It could be timely; Bob Mould just appeared in a Foo Fighters documentary in which he's seen contributing vocals to the recording of their recently released album. They've been hitting the talk show circuit pretty aggressively, so it's not impossible that Bob's name and his old band might pop up. Weirdly, the FF's appeared on the Daily Show without dropping his name (Mould wrote and performed the familiar Daily Show theme music). I'm not certain when I put this compilation together, but I can confirm that it was after the last of the "So, What Kind..." cassettes. (For what it's worth, the previously posted Cramps compilation was probably put together at the time I was finishing the tape with Volumes 3 and 4.) I'll put it at ten years ago. So, gather all the spiky-haired grandkids around, here we go...

.....For the uninitiated, Hüsker Dü was three people:

• [M]= Bob Mould: Guitar and vocals
• [N]= Greg Norton: Bass and vocals
• [H]= Grant Hart: Drums and vocals

.....I'll use those initials for songwriting credits. Anyone unfamiliar with my format notation will find a helpful key at the bottom of the page. My apologies to anyone using automated translating software to read this, since my use of abbreviations might confuse the software. I can only suggest first reading this verbiage in your own language, then reverting the page to English so that the notation will remain unaltered. The compilation was made with two 90-minute cassettes. I'm going to precede each track with an alpha-numeric. If this compilation had ever been pressed on vinyl, the letter would represent the 'side' and the number would represent the track. Every two vinyl 'sides' complete one side of the cassettes. After listing the programs, I'll suggest configurations for CD formats.

....."Everyone Is An Authority"

• [A01] 01:57 DO YOU REMEMBER? (M)
• .....demo recorded live by Bill Bruce in a St. Paul Basement, 1980
• [A02] 04:54 AMUSEMENT (M)
• .....B-side 7" Reflex [no#] Recorded live by Terry Katzman at Duffy's, Minneapolis, October 1980
• [A03] 04:33 STATUES (H)
• .....A-side 7" Reflex [no#] Recorded at Blackberry Way, Minneapolis, 1980
• [A04] 01:53 LET'S GO DIE (N)
• .....outtake from "Statues" sessions
• [A05] 02:02 ALL TENSED UP (M/N/H)
• [A06] 00:54 GUNS AT MY SCHOOL (M/N/H)
• [A07] 01:50 DO THE BEE (M/N/H)
• .....from mini-LP "Land Speed Record" New Alliance Records NAR007 (US?) 1981
• [A08] 02:52 IN A FREE LAND (M)
• [A09] 01:15 WHAT DO I WANT? (H)
• [A10] 01:11 M.I.C. (M)
• .....7" New Alliance Records NAR010 (US) 05/82
• [B01] 01:40 FROM THE GUT (M/N)
• [B02] 02:14 EVERYTHING FALLS APART (M)
• [B03] 01:42 TARGET (M)
• [B04] 00:30 PUNCH DRUNK (M)
• [B05] 01:24 AFRAID OF BEING WRONG (M)
• .....from mini-LP "Everything Falls Apart" Reflex [no#] (US) 01/83
• [B06] 02:25 REAL WORLD (M)
• [B07] 04:40 DIANE (H)
• .....from EP "Metal Circus" SST Records SST020 (US) 12/83
• [B08] 01:59 WON'T CHANGE (?)
• .....an outtake from the "Metal Circus" sessions, recorded 01/83
• .....from VALP "A Diamond Hidden In The Mouth Of A Corpse" Giorno Poetry Systems GPS035 (US/C) 1985
• [B09] 03:56 EIGHT MILES HIGH (Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn, David Crosby)
• [B10] 02:54 MASOCHISM WORLD (H/M)
• .....7" SST Records SST025 (US) 04/84

....."All The Ways Of Communicating"

• [C01] 00:47 ONE STEP AT A TIME (M/H)
• [C02] 03:58 WHATEVER (M)
• [C03] 04:27 WHAT'S GOING ON? (H)
• .....demos recorded Summer 1983
• [C04] 01:24 GRANTED (?)
• [C05] 02:08 SOME KIND OF FUN (?)
• [C06] 03:12 DOZEN BEATS ELEVEN (?)
• .....outtakes prior to "Zen Arcade" Sessions, recorded Fall 1983
• [C07] 01:41 NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN (H)
• [C08] 02:03 THE BIGGEST LIE (M)
• [C09] 02:32 SOMEWHERE (M/H)
• [D01] 00:54 MONDAY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME (M)
• [D02] 02:43 PINK TURNS TO BLUE (H)
• [D03] 04:28 TURN ON THE NEWS (H)
• .....from 2LP "Zen Arcade" SST Records SST027 (US) 07/84
• [D04] 04:03 CELEBRATED SUMMER (M)
• [D05] 03:05 THE GIRL WHO LIVES ON HEAVEN HILL (H)
• [D06] 02:48 BOOKS ABOUT UFO'S (H)
• [D07] 02:08 IF I TOLD YOU (H/M)
• [D08] 02:34 NEW DAY RISING (M/Hüsker Dü)
• .....from LP "New Day Rising" SST Records SST031 (US) 01/85
• [D09] 01:40 ERASE TODAY (?)
• .....outtake from the "New Day Rising" sessions, recorded 07/84
• .....from VALP "The Blasting Concept Vol. II" SST Records SST043 (US) 1986

....."All This We've Done For You"

• [E01] 05:06 HELTER SKELTER (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
• .....recorded live at 1st Ave., Minneapolis on 01/30/85
• .....B-side 12" Warner Bros. 9 20446-0 A (US) 02/86
• [E02] 02:42 MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL (M)
• [E03] 01:46 LOVE IS ALL AROUND (Sonny Curtis)
• .....7" SST Records SST051 (US) 08/86
• [E04] 03:03 FLEXIBLE FLYER (H)
• [E05] 02:46 HATE PAPER DOLL (M)
• [E06] 02:36 FLIP YOUR WIG (M)
• .....from LP "Flip Your Wig" SST Records SST055 (US) 09/85
• [E07] 02:43 TICKET TO RIDE (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
• .....recorded live at 1st Ave., Minneapolis on 01/30/85
• .....from VA7"EP "NME's Big Four" NME GIV3 (UK) 02/86
• [E08] 03:29 DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY (H)
• .....A-side 12" Warner Bros. 9 20446-0 A (US) 02/86
• [F01] 08:24 ALL WORK AND NO PLAY (M)
• .....B-side 12" Warner Bros. 9 20446-0 A (US) 02/86
• [F02] 06:07 HARDLY GETTING OVER IT (M)
• .....from LP "Candy Apple Grey" Warner Bros. 9 25385-1 (US) 03/86
• [F03] 04:27 SORRY SOMEHOW (H)
• [F04] 03:09 ALL THIS I'VE DONE FOR YOU (M)
• .....7" Warner Bros. W8612 (UK) 09/86

....."Coming Back For The Sake Of Retrieving"

• [G01] 02:39 COULD YOU BE THE ONE? (M)
• .....A-side 12" Warner Bros. W8456T (UK) 01/87
• [G02] 01:28 [track A2, introduces members and double LP]
• .....from 2LP "The Warehouse Interview" Warner Bros. Music Show WBMS145 (US) 1987
• [G03] 02:47 EVERYTIME (N)
• [G04] 03:13 CHARITY, CHASTITY, PRUDENCE & HOPE (H)
• .....B-side 12" Warner Bros. W8456T (UK) 01/87
• [G05] 03:20 FRIEND, YOU'VE GOT TO FALL (M)
• [G06] 03:33 SHE FLOATED AWAY (H)
• .....from 2LP "Warehouse: Songs And Stories" Warner Bros. 9 25544-1 (US) 01/87
• [G07] 01:25 [track D5, losing your mind on tour]
• .....from 2LP "The Warehouse Interview" Warner Bros. Music Show WBMS145 (US) 1987
• [G08] 04:22 ICE COLD ICE (M)
• .....A-side 7" Warner Bros. W8276 (UK) 06/87
• [H01] 02:34 [track B1, regarding printed lyrics]
• .....from 2LP "The Warehouse Interview" Warner Bros. Music Show WBMS145 (US) 1987
• [H02] 08:51 HARE KRSNA (H/M/N)
• .....from promo-only compilation CD "Do You Remember?" Warner Bros. PRO-CD 6853 (US) 1994
• [H03] 02:47 AIN'T NO WATER IN THE WELL (M)
• [H04] 02:11 IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE (H)
• [H05] 03:22 NOW THAT YOU KNOW ME (H)
• [H06] 02:25 BACK FROM SOMEWHERE (H)
• .....from CD "The Living End" Warner Bros. 9 45582-2 (US) 04/94
• [H07] 01:30 [track C2, assessing your own work]
• .....from 2LP "The Warehouse Interview" Warner Bros. Music Show WBMS145 (US) 1987

.....There are no songwriting credits for the interview segments, obviously. For more information on the band, I recommend the link on the right side of the screen. Now, that's a proper discography.

.....Earlier I promised recommended CD configurations for those of you playing at home. Here they are:

1. CD1: Use tracks A(all), B(all) and C01-C06
2. CD2: Use tracks C07-C09, D(all), E(all) and F01
3. CD3: Use tracks F02-F04, G(all) and H(all)

.....Most of the singles can be found on the albums. There should have been a comprehensive boxed set for the group years ago, but due to their catalog being almost evenly split between SST and Warner Bros., that's not likely to happen in my lifetime. What should be made available is a CD collecting all the Warner Bros. non-album tracks. I think some of those songs have never been released in their native U.S., let alone on disc. 90% of what's here should be readily available with a little hunting, though.

Update on Volume One

.....Last year I got an e-mail about one of my posts asking for an mp3. Generally I don't embed these because: (a) I don't own publishing rights to any of this music; (b) my computer has limited capacities that I have to use economically; and (c) it's really just a blog, not a full blown website, and the purpose is to organize all of these loose notes I have piling up and loose memories that dim with age and put them into a more manageable and maneuverable form. I admittedly invite millions of strangers to watch, even comment and contribute, but ultimately it can never be anything more than a personal endeavor.

.....That being said, I am not averse to connecting interested parties with hard to find music. In a sense, this blog has always done that by the mere fact of its existence. It doesn't help anyone for there to be millions of uploaded songs online available to be heard if no one knows they exist or knows what their names are to search. As I've said before, there are quite a few songs I blog about that were rare or underexposed back in the mid-90's when I made most of these compilations, but which have become more common since then, often making it to CD for the first time as bonus tracks on remastered albums or incentives in a boxed set. Some just haven't. So when a commenter requested a copy of the punk version of the Mr. Rogers' theme song by P.B.S. (originally on a Troubled Youth 7") I thought I should contact the band (we had friends in common a lo-o-ong time ago) and ask if they had any objections to posting it. Google searches got pretty frustrating pretty quick. I don't normally track down people often enough to make it worth subscribing to sites that do so routinely and I found far more people than I expected to with the same names (complicated by the fact that both the band name and the song title are famous for many more reasons than the record). Then I started developing technical problems, which, when fixed, required me to work through backlogged plans for my comic blog, and if you've been reading for any length of time, you know the rest.

.....Well, it seems the question has been resolved for me. Better than a fourth generation mp3, the band (or a former member) has posted the actual original 1980's video on You-tube. You can find it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ad8PkYZzqU

...and you can find the band's page at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsoww

.....So, if anyone has been attempting to patch together their own compilations following the play order, this shouldn't be quite the obstacle it once was. I should also give the band proper credit.

• Mike Bourque: Vocals, Guitars
• John Saylor: Vocals, Bass
• Peter-oww-Oldrid: Drums
• Produced [actually, "Prduced"] by Hirsh Gardner
• Engineered by Bruce Macomber
• Recorded at Sound Design Studios

.....There are also photo credits and thanks to friends and family members not relevant to most readers. One curious detail I hadn't noticed earlier is that both sides (TR-001-A and TR-001-B) have the same mastering number (23445) both on the labels and in the trail-off grooves. Hunh. Oh, well, small labels have all kinds of quirks much stranger than that. We'll see what I can remember (and how accurately) in the new year.

V04-T08 Love Is All Around

.....At the time I put this tape together I was sorely tempted to pair this song with the completely different song by the same title by the Troggs. I'm not sure why I didn't; it may have been because I had just used one original hit from the 1960's and four sides into a compilation series that emphasizes the obscure it would seem unusual to have two so close together. You'll see that not everything I chose to use was rare or unusual. Avoiding the popular or commercially successful music in my collection wouldn't be genuinely representative of what I was listening to any more than using it exclusively.

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 8

• 01:46 "LOVE IS ALL AROUND" (Sonny Curtis)
• performed by Hüsker Dü
• original source: B-side 7" SST 051 (US) August 1985
• and my source: CDEP EIGHT MILES HIGH/MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL SST CD270 (US) 1990

.....My original notes from 1994 still look relevant:

"Anybody who doesn't recognize this as the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, hold out your hands to be slapped. Bonus points, however, to any who know that the connection between the fictional Mary Richards and the late Hüsker Dü is that they were both based in Minneapolis. Extra bonus points and a big wet kiss to anyone who recognized the style, which is pretty obscured here, of the song's author, Sonny Curtis. Yes, it's the same Sonny who wrote 'I FOUGHT THE LAW', better known from records by The Bobby Fuller Four and The Clash.

"Poor Minneapolis; so much talent, so little focus or cohesion. What is the Minneapolis sound? Hüsker Dü? Prince? Garrison Keillor? Is there some common unifying bond or trait amongst those three that I'm missing? I doubt it.

"Anyway, this track has made the rounds. This and another Hüsker Dü single were compiled onto a four-song 10" EP which in turn was reissued as a CD. All four songs are also found on an indispensable Various Artists CD called SEVEN-INCH WONDERS OF THE WORLD."

.....Now back in 2011, I've added a link to a fan-generated Hüsker Dü Database that provides descriptions of the various formats and configurations in which this recording has been made available. The reference to a Minneapolis sound came from a tendency in the late 1980's to promote upcoming bands by associating them with established bands who've come up through the same club circuit. In some cases the comparisons were valid; scenes would develop with a large number of musicians in one area forming and reforming bands by exchanging members and playing a handful of venues to, by and large, the same audiences. Inevitably they would share the same references and musical vocabulary. Today, with new groups promoting themselves nationally (and internationally) online, I'm not sure the concept of regional sounds has any relevance anymore.

.....Tomorrow, another love song, but with an international touch.

V04-T03 Surfing And Spying

.....I can't believe it took this long to get to an example of this odd little novelty format. There was a time when the three-inch CD was being abandoned by those few labels who experimented with the questionable idea of marketing a single length format of a technology whose selling points were expanded playing times and track maneuverability. As titles were deleted I scrambled to find those with exclusive tracks, or at least tracks not otherwise available on CD. This was one.

Volume 4: "THE LITTLE BROWN ONES ARE THORAZINE, GEORGE", track 3

• 01:50 "SURFING AND SPYING" (Charlotte Caffey)
• performed by The Go-Go's
• original source: B-side 7" I.R.S. 9901 (US) 6/81
• and my source: CD3 I.R.S./A&M CC 31073 CSIG 152 (US) 1988

.....Around the time I was putting together the compilation with Volumes 5 and 6, I.R.S. released a long overdue hits-and-rarities collection, 2CD RETURN TO THE VALLEY OF THE GO-GO'S I.R.S. 7243 8 29694 26 (US) 10/94. This mostly instrumental number was the first track on the second disc. (I say 'mostly' because the title contains the only lyrics.) This single (the A-side was "OUR LIPS ARE SEALED") is often listed as their first release, but that's not exactly true. The previous year in England Stiff Records released two songs from a demo cassette that the Go-Go's had sent trying to get signed, not intending for those takes to be official releases. They released eight more I.R.S. singles. Not counting the Stiff debut, it was three 7"s for each of their three early albums, including one non-album track per set of three. The other two non-album tracks were "SPEEDING" (also on the CD3) and "GOOD FOR GONE". All three are on RETURN...

.....I've always had a soft spot in my heart (or my head) for The Go-Go's. Belinda Carlisle's subsequent drug-and-Republican addled career often distracts people from the fact that they were a killer band live or studio. It's more of an unfortunate comment on the music industry than on the band itself that they were sold as a novelty 'girl-group'-- especially since they were writing retro material like this themselves , doing the occasional period cover (such as "COOL JERK", twice) only rarely. Belinda, for her part, had a genuine punk credential, if you can call it that. As a teenager she hung out with the Germs, the band that gave the world Darby Crash and Pat Smear. Of course, back then her name was Dottie Danger.

.....I don't always bother to mention the names of producers in these notes, although that can sometimes be helpful in distinguishing between different versions of songs when you're shopping and don't always have the option of listening to multiple versions. In this case, the producers Rob Freeman and Richard Gotteher provide a link to another song later in this volume. But first we'll segue to something that makes a smoother transition rhythmically and texturally.

V03-T05 People Like Us

.....The silver anniversary for this item is bearing down like a steam-roller with no mention of a reissue, remastered or otherwise. At the time I put Volume 3 together (1994) I thought it was strange that this wasn't on CD. A charting band who would no longer make new material; a guest vocalist with a hit TV show at the time; an album never released on CD in eight years and a wealth of potential bonus tracks to sweeten the package, maybe even justify a front-tier list price. It's now been three times that long-- twenty-four years-- and the whole shebang is still long out of print.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 5

• 04:23 "PEOPLE LIKE US" (David Byrne)
• performed by Talking Heads w/ John Goodman
• original source: B-side, 7" Sire 9 28629-7 (US) 1986
• and my source: the same

.....Talking Heads released REMAIN IN LIGHT, one of the most- if not the most- ambitious albums of their career, in 1980 and toured to support it through 1981 followed by a sabbatical from the group to release solo projects that year. They reconvened to release SP EAK IN GI N TO NGU ES in 1983 and film the subsequent tour (which became STOP MAKING SENSE). The three years' difference between one tour and the next shouldn't have meant much, but apparently it did. The Heads have always had a reputation as a cerebral band, at least by rock standards. Yet, even for multi-instrumentalist college graduates the activities of recording and touring in a rock band lend themselves to artificially protracted adolescence and arrested development. That's why the hiatus between their first four studio albums (1977-1980) and last four (1983-1988) is worth mentioning. Following their solo projects, they seemed to have considered their own adulthood. And, being academics, rather than run screaming or go into denial, they picked it apart and looked at it under glasses. Themes of domesticity and family relationships permeate the lyrics and the music is less arch and angular and more pliant and sinuous, about continuation and flow and sustaining rather than distinction and precision. And of course the band members would have been fluent enough in art history to make the connections between their own thirty-something nesting inclinations and the Dutch genre painting movement of the 1600's and its potential for liberating the artist through the mundane.

.....Following the tour film came a pair of projects that drew on this new appreciation for the homestead. The first collection of songs became the album LITTLE CREATURES (1985), self-contained songs that occasionally related to each other through the aforementioned themes. The second project required its songs to contribute to a central narrative which became the skeleton of a higher concept, multi-media campaign that took advantage of their label's parent company, Warner Brothers, to carry out. Under the umbrella title TRUE STORIES it consisted of: (1) an album of songs recorded by the band; (2) concept videos for select songs; (3) a feature film for theatrical release that incorporates both the concept videos and performances of the album's songs by cast members instead of the band; (4) a companion book to the movie; (5) a soundtrack album mostly containing instrumental scoring; and (6) three vinyl singles (each in 7" and 12" formats-- so, six singles total) spread out from the summer of 1986 to the spring of 1987 to keep the movie and album on people's minds. There were probably other bells and whistles tied to Warner's cable and publisher empire as well, such as the David Byrne cover of TIME Magazine for October 27, 1986. According to publisher Richard B. Thomas, it was only the second self-portrait ever allowed in the magazine's history (the first was a Robert Rauschenberg collage in 1976). Byrne himself gets six pages by Jay Cocks (incorporating a one page review by Richard Corliss of the movie, directed by Byrne). Related to that are an additional two pages on avant-pop theater coming out of New York at the time, written by Michael Walsh and name-dropping Laurie Anderson (also on Warner's) and Robert Wilson.

.....Each of the three singles tied to the TRUE STORIES project featured A-sides from the band's album and B-sides selected from the cast's performances. The first was the track used here: John Goodman singing "PEOPLE LIKE US". Yes, that John Goodman, the guy who went on to play Roseanne's husband on the long-running TV show. Professional large person. Grossly underestimated actor John Goodman. "Raising Arizona", "Barton Fink", "The Big Lebowski",... um, "King Ralph"...well, you're reading this on a computer, aren't you? Just go to IMDB and knock yourself out. ... You back yet? SEE? I told you. Underestimated.

.....Trying to get any of the non-band tracks is problematic. The soundtrack album is notoriously unavailable, all the more criminal because in addition to the presence of Talking Heads members and Tubes' drummer Prairie Prince, there's a performance by Kronos Quartet and a composition by Meredith Monk. In 1999 the 12" remixes of "HEY NOW" and "RADIOHEAD" appeared on the CD 12X12 ORIGINAL REMIXES. In 2005 there was a cube-shaped box issued containing DualDisc remasters of the eight studio albums. The remaster of TRUE STORIES contained the standard movie version of "RADIOHEAD" as well as "PAPA LEGBA". Early in 2006, as the DualDisc editions were being released individually, iTunes made available the unimaginatively titled BONUS RARITIES AND OUTTAKES, which included this Goodman vocal-- still with no physical disc. The movie itself has been available on DVD for awhile, but I've only seen it offered in the chopped version shown on cable. Not only is it reformatted for television instead of widescreen, but the funeral scene at the end is removed completely. Here's hoping that restorations can be made available, preferably in a single package and preferably before everyone who would care is dead.

V02-T14b Gimme Some Skin

.....As per the previous post, Iggy Pop and James Williamson sold a box of Stooges demos and outtakes to Greg Shaw when he launched a record label named after his magazine, BOMP! Once Iggy curtailed his substance abuse, they recorded an album of new material, KILL CITY, which was released in 1977 with a handful of singles while Iggy was in Europe.

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?", track 14b

• 02:47 "GIMME SOME SKIN" (Iggy Pop, James Williamson)
• performed by The Stooges
• original source: B-side, 7" Siamese PM001 (US) 1977
• and my source: CD IGGY POP AND THE STOOGES Revenge BF 50 (France) 1987?

.....Shaw dipped back into that box again and again over the years, issuing multiple takes of the same songs. Most if not all of BOMP!'s label samplers and VA compilations have one or two of those Stooges songs. The three singles from 1977 were collected as the mini-album I'M SICK OF YOU (Line LLP 5126) in 1981 and just two years later that album and KILL CITY were the sole sources for yet another compilation, I GOT A RIGHT (Invasion E1019). You may have noted that even though the tapes for these records can be traced to BOMP!, the releases appear on labels such as Siamese, Line and Invasion. I believe Siamese was an early division of BOMP!, Line was a German label to whom the material was licensed and I honestly don't know the story behind Invasion.

.....My source for this track was a CD that combined the KILL CITY and I'M SICK OF YOU albums, one of the first releases on the Revenge label. It was also an early example of a French CD, many of which had problems with frequency compression. Admittedly that's more of a problem for classical opera where they use a greater range of frequencies. A little conscientious reequalization on my part made it sound pretty serviceable or at least as good as I remember the vinyl being.

.....In 1995, each of the three singles from 1977 were reissued as full-length CD's by amending them with alternate versions of their songs. This track appears on the CD for "I GOT A RIGHT" BOMP! BCD 139 (US?) 1995. The mix is probably a mite sharper, too.

.....Two tracks to go for this volume, then I'm giving myself a day to sleep before starting Volume 3.

V02-T06 Dad, I'm In Jail

.....Before the introduction of YouTube, short experimental pieces of animation were gathered together into feature-length festivals and tournees and shown in repertory movie theaters. Before they ever appeared on television, I saw the original version of Ren & Stimpy and Beavis & Butthead shorts in a movie theater. That's also the way I first heard the following recording:

Volume 2: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS, AREN'T WE?", track 6

• 01:25 "DAD, I'M IN JAIL" (David Was, Don Was)
• performed by Was (Not Was)
• original source: B-side, 7" Mercury WAS2 (UK) 1987
• and my source: CD WHAT UP, DOG? Chrysalis VK41664 (US) 1988

.....I'm not going to argue with the villainous CheckSpelling feature Blogger uses over what the appropriate plural of "Was" is, so let's just say they're each producers, not brothers. (Two days ago it wouldn't accept the word 'ambience'; I held the American Heritage Dictionary open and looked from the page to the screen and back again, half relieved that I wasn't prematurely senile and half angry that I had wasted time looking up a word I had spelled correctly the first time.)

.....The animation was shown in my area of the country at least as far back as 1991, but could have been made in conjunction with the album's release. In 1984 their work on what would have been their third album, tentatively titled "Lost In Prehistoric Detroit" according to the site WorldWideWas.com, led to chronic fights with the Geffen label and the band's contract changed hands a few times. By the time the final version of the album emerged as WHAT UP, DOG? they had released several singles it would then include, giving it the feel of a hits compilation. This 'song' was the B-side of SPY IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE.

.....The next track goes from cartoon to comic books.

V01-T15 Weinerschnitzel

.....The following seems like an interstitial, but is in fact an entire song:

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 15

• 00:10 "WEINERSCHNITZEL" (Bill Stevenson, Pat McCuistion)
• performed by The Descendents
• original source: 7"EP FAT New Alliance NAR-005 (US) 1981
• and my source: CD TWO THINGS AT ONCE SST CD145 (US) 1987

.....The label New Alliance was formed by members of the Minutemen. After one of them passed away the others sold the label to SST resulting in much of the catalog being reissued in compilation form on CD. Thankfully much of these combined entire albums, EP's and singles with their program orders intact. Such was the case with "Two Things At Once" (actually four things-- an LP, an EP, a single and a song from a VA album-- but everything but the LP had also been repackaged as "Bonus Fat").

.....There really were Weinerschnitzel fast food restaurants somewhere in the western US. I don't know if Bill and Pat worked at one as teenagers but this pretty much sums up fast food jobs for most people's experience. I do know that they worked in commercial fishing as adults. I had heard that Pat died at sea while Bill was touring, though at that point The Descendents were transforming into ALL. Pat didn't really perform with the band, but was considered a part of the band in a way you rarely see. For one thing he wasn't routinely a non-performing songwriter such as Bernie Taupin (The Elton John Band), Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead), Pete Sinfield (King Crimson) or Meltzer and Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult). He wasn't a manager or producer. He was a friend in their lives and like most punk bands they drew their art from their lives.

V01-T14 Ice Cream City

.....Now we go from Radio Tokyo to Tokyo on the radio...

Volume 1:THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 14

• 02:23 "ICE CREAM CITY" (Naoko Yamano)
• performed by Shonen Knife
• original source: BBC Radio 1 broadcast, October 2, 1992
• and my source: CD5 GET THE WOW August CAUG 003 CDL (UK) Jan/1993

.....I don't know if it existed in 1992, but in Tokyo today there is in fact an Ice Cream City restaurant near Ikebukuro Station. Actually, the song was originally recorded for the 1986 album "Pretty Little Baka Guy", but after a growing base of western admirers (principally Sonic Youth) started name dropping them frequently Shonen Knife began rerecording their earlier songs in English in addition to writing new material in order to meet the sudden demand for recordings abroad. This version was recorded for John Peel about a month before broadcast. The 12" vinyl single (really a four song EP) for "Get The Wow" followed closely on August (a division of Creation Records in the UK) but this so-called "Limited Edition" CD5 replaced the last two songs with "Ice Cream City" and "Neon Zebra". I believe the Peel versions also appear on the US Shonen Knife compilation, "The Birds And The B-Sides", from 1996.

.....Both this recording and the earlier Peel session on this volume (Bauhaus' "PARTY OF THE FIRST PART" interstitial) were produced by Dale Griffin. The same Dale Griffin was known as 'Buffin' when he was the drummer for Mott The Hoople.

V01-T11 Mr. Rogers

.....Yes, it's another cover. No, it's not the last (not by a long shot). And, yes, it's the second punky deconstruction of a childhood memory in a four-song string of childhood memories. I couldn't pass this one up though, because I knew one of the members and because this spot on the playlist was the most comfortable fit.

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 11

• 02:48 "MR. ROGERS" (Fred Rogers)
• performed by PBS
• original source: B-side, 7" Troubled Youth Records TR-001 (US) 1986
• and my source: the same

.....First I should explain the name. In the late 70's there was a British punk band who called themselves "GBH", short for the criminal charge of "grievous bodily harm". American police use different terminology, so the meaning is lost on many people over here. To slightly nerdy northeasterners, it meant WGBH, Boston, Massachusetts' Public Broadcasting System affiliate. Because that channel produced or co-produced a great deal of programming syndicated for the rest of the network, the station's call letters became synonymous with national public television. Ergo, the name "PBS" was an acknowledgement of the band GBH.

.....Having recorded a pop-punk original for the A-side ("Girl Of My Own"), recording a b-side alluding to the network would have been too good a joke to resist. The theme to the "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" show (minus the instrumental introduction) would be instantly recognized no matter what they did to it, for those 'of a certain age' at least. Because they worked so prolifically for children, Fred Rogers and his free-form jazz pianist John Costa are usually underestimated as composers (Rogers wrote the songs, Costa the subtle vamps and mood music). A good rule of thumb is that when people will gladly sing along to something you wrote that they haven't heard themselves in decades and they remember all the words, you're a good composer. The new arrangements work for me, too, and lest you think that I'm letting personal bias interfere with my judgement, I should point out that Robert Christgau placed this single at number 22 on his list of top singles for 1986. It beat out Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" at number 23. (From The Village Voice, March 3, 1987)

.....Speaking of punky deconstruction, it continues on the next track but veers away from television. And to switch things up a bit, it's our first medley.

V01-T03 Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores

.....After dubbing the first full song, a T. Rex cover, I considered what criteria I should use when selecting a track to follow it. Should I use another midwestern band? Another label sampler? As I explained in the previous post, I linked to it by countering it with a T. Rex original. Before I came to that decision, however, I toyed with the possibility of a second T. Rex cover instead. The one that came to mind was Bauhaus' version of "Telegram Sam". I knew I had it as a bonus track on the CD "In The Flat Field" but when I found it, I noticed that the next track on the CD was its B-side, a cover of a John Cale song...

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 3

• 05:50 "ROSEGARDEN FUNERAL OF SORES" (John Cale)
• performed by: John Cale
• original source: B-side, 7" I.R.S./SPY IR-9008(US) Jan/1980
• my own source: the same

.....I was concerned that if I chose either of the Bauhaus songs that I'd be running the risk of establishing a pattern too much like the thematic compilations I had already made. If I had wanted a compilation of covers I would have planned and made one. Instead, I was reminded that I had recently acquired the Cale original, the B-side of the song "MERCENARIES". The single was released shortly after the LP"Sabotage/Live" on the same label and with very similar artwork. The single's packaging claims that the A-side comes from the album, but the same song on the album is clearly a live recording and the A-side is a shorter, clearly different studio recording. Half the credited line-up are different musicians as well. To date, I can't recall seeing it on CD. My interest at the time, however, was this B-side. Bauhaus was sufficiently impressed with it to record their cover by September of that year, just after finishing a cover of "TELEGRAM SAM" in August, backed with an original called "CROWDS" dating from a June session. Those two songs were coupled as a 7" in October and a few weeks later their version of "ROSEGARDEN..." was added to make the 12".

.....Flash forward to 1993 when I'm putting together this tape. There exists an undated Canadian pressing of the "Sabotage" album manufactured by Cinram and distributed by A&M which has no bonus tracks. I'm not sure what year I bought it, but if the contemporary single didn't appear as bonus tracks there, I could have reasonably assumed that they wouldn't be forthcoming any time soon. Strangely, the Rhino label 2CD retrospective "Seducing Down The Door" from the summer of 1994 licenses tracks from that period but not either side of the single. By 1999 Diesel Motor Records released a CD with no specific nation of manufacture that includes not only "ROSEGARDEN..." but the three songs that make up the EP"Animal Justice". The John Cale website, "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend" mentions that the studio version of "MERCENARIES" was left off because the masters are missing. So, this track was hard to come by for at least the first six years that my compilation tape was circulating, but had I chosen the A-side on a whim it would have been otherwise unobtainable to date.

V01-T02 Thunderwing

.....The natural follow-up to a T. Rex cover would be a T. Rex rarity:

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 2

• 03:47 "THUNDERWING" (Marc Bolan)
• performed by: T. Rex
• original source: B-side, 7" T.Rex Wax Company MARC1 (UK) 05/05/72
• and my source: CD "GREAT HITS" Sounds Marketing System, Inc. MD32-5018 (Japan) 1983

.....I compiled this first volume in 1993 and this song wouldn't appear on CD in the US until 1997 when it became a bonus track on the album "THE SLIDER", home of the A-side METAL GURU. The label 'T. Rex Wax Co.' was actually an imprint on EMI, not an independent label, and these were the first album and second single (after TELEGRAM SAM) on it. Over the last twenty years Bolan's voluminous recorded output (including demos, live shows and wigged-out radio interviews) has been endlessly repackaged. At the time I put the tape together there were still a few B-sides and other items from Bolan's career I was yet to find and wouldn't be making a definitive compilation on him for a while. This car-cruising tune, I thought, deserved to be aired more often.