CDOTD 12/01/2025

Various artists: Hey Folks! It's Intermission Time! Snack Bar Concession Stand Classics & Jazzy Singles From the Good Old Days! (Modern Harmonic)

Purchased at Vinegar Syndrome Pittsburgh

I have an affection for aural ephemera such as this. Sell sell sell! And how do you sell? Optimism! We're upbeat! Make a line for the snack bar now!

At least, outside of politics. MAGA sells a line of pessimism looking back on optimism. Weren't things so great way back then? America was great then. Make America great again!

When exactly was that? Pre-civil rights era? The jazz age? The gilded era?

As you know, there's no answer to that question. It's an elusive sense that things were better back then. But for whom? 

You know, white people. And I don't say that out of misplaced white guilt. For all my enjoyment of listening to these cheerful jingles, it's super-caucasian. How would I feel as an African American, in my car at the drive in? Perhaps I wouldn't think about it at all, accustomed to the majority white presence in culture. Or maybe I'd think....crackers. I'll put up with these crackers. That's assuming Black people attended drive-ins in general, a suburban phenomenon. 

VOTD 11/26/2025

Shirley & Company: Shame Shame Shame (Vibration)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

When I was briefly doing my Nurse With Wound deep dive, I read Steven Stapleton's comments about being a young, obsessive collector of weird records. Among the criteria: the cover art. In his case he sought out psychedelic and surrealist imagery.

There was a time, in my young adulthood, I could look at the cover art or recognize an artist name, and I knew if the record was likely going to be for me. That's not that case any longer. There are a number of reasons. These would include my inability and disinterest in keeping close tabs on current indie and underground trends and artists, and the absolutely glut of product available in a current record store. I'm still willing to drop a few dollars on a gamble if it looks, for lack of a better term "experimental" enough, but I have my limits if I don't know the names involved. Which is most of what I find currently.

It's by happenstance that this record was sitting on the racks of Jerry's Records with the front cover on full display. The image is posted below. It's not the weirdness favored by Steven Stapleton, nor the grimness of early industrial noise LPs I might have sought in my early 20s. But I ask you, how was I to turn up an album with a primitive image drawn in magic marker, depicting (presumably) Shirley next to Richard Nixon, with the title Shame Shame Shame? And for $5? Sold!

The back cover proudly announces "disco dynamite!". Mmmm, maybe, maybe not. This dates to 1975, and disco broke out into mainstream mania in 1977 with the release of Saturday Night Fever. That's not to say disco didn't exist before that year, but this doesn't strike me as a down-the-line disco album. More poppy, funky r-n-b verging on a disco feel. When I think of disco, it's all very close to the same tempo with consistent (or incessant) hits on the snare on two and four. 

Do I recognize the opening title track? I'm not certain. Possibly. As a program I wouldn't have followed the vocal version directly with the instrumental; I would have put them on different sides. Likewise "Cry Cry Cry". Once again, have I heard this before? I remain unsure.

While not as flat and low-quality as the vinyl release of Sex World from my previous blog post, this lacks the high end lush production and arrangements of better known disco albums. It doesn't sound bad, if anything I prefer it less polished.

There are occasional contribution of people playing trombone and soprano saxophone, rather sharp. I'm just as guilty, it's a struggle in my own playing to this day.

The program is pretty good in general. I doubt anyone will claim this is a stone cold classic, but it's a fun listen and end with a strong funky closer in "Keep On Rolling On" with the largest horn section of the album. Shirley, whoever she is or was, has a light but well defined voice. It's been an entertaining listen, and that's not so bad.

$5 well spent, all based on a cover image.

VOTD 11/22/2025

Barry Lipman: Sex World OST (Vinegar Syndrome)

Purchased at Vinegar Syndrome Pittsburgh

Hello, back to typing my thoughts, for the time being.

There's a new store in Pittsburgh, Vinegar Syndrome. VS is a thriving (I assume) blu ray/DVD label dedicated to reissues of horror and exploitation films. Recently they've taken to 4K hi def restorations. Much of it, if not all, isn't readily available for streaming. I'd love to watch some of them without having to spend, say, $47 just to view the ridiculous Mac and Me. (A cheapo ET ripoff blended with one big McDonald's endorsement.) Plus I don't own a 4K player.

Vinegar Syndrome has opened four brick and mortar stores, the other locations being Toronto, Bridgeport, and Denver. Pittsburgh seems more logical than Bridgeport CT, but then I can't say I've ever been there. The label isn't just for mail order or conventions any longer.

The store is dedicated to physical media: used and new DVDs and blu rays, records, CDs, comics, books, t-shirts. It's mostly horror and exploitation-oriented, though I did find a reasonably priced used double DVD set on Criterion of Stan Brakhage's films. 

Among the new vinyl soundtracks was this, on VS's own imprint. If you haven't already guessed, it's a 70s porn take on Westworld. Maybe even taking the idea to its more logical conclusion.

I can say honestly I haven't seen the movie. The very existence of a soundtrack album from a 1970s hardcore feature is enough to pique my interest. The industry, the stories, the sort of care that was put into some of the movies, the adult industry's own star system and theater circuit, all of that is far, far more interesting than the movies themselves.

Each track is accompanied with a still for the associated scene. (The images don't get any more hardcore than a pair of bare breasts.) The Sex World theme itself is a pretty straight forward disco number. It was 1977 after all. Other cues sound a bit like bachelor pad music. Some lighter, some heavier, but generally trying to evoke that "sexy" mood.

The sound is flat, possibly mono(?), and sometimes choppily edited. Did the label have access to the original master tapes? It's well played, definitely professional musicians involved. I don't find it difficult to believe they skimped on recording fidelity, but I really wonder if this was of better quality out of the studio. 

But it's the fact of its very existence that caught my attention. It's so curious that this much effort was put into a movie for the raincoat crowd. Though, it was the age of "porno chic" I suppose, with an industry vying for more reputability in this most disreputable category. Nonetheless, it's a mark of quality. A real studio band playing well-developed charts. Today, for a cheap direct to streaming film, it would probably all be done on a laptop in Ableton Live. Or worse still, GarageBand. (I swear I've recognized GarageBand loops in Syfy Channel movies.) Even the images on the back make it look as though the movie was well filmed, probably on 35mm. 

Is this any less embarrassing or (I'll use the word again) disreputable than Cannibal Holocaust with its original score by Riz Ortolani? I've commented on it in this forum a few months ago. I've seen its trailer which tells me that I really don't need to watch that movie. I don't necessarily object to movies that are bloody or of questionable themes, but I have a big issue with cruelty and sadism, even if they're fictional. With that in mind, I don't need to see Pasolini's Salo either.

With that in mind, yeah I'd watch Sex World before I'd ever watch Cannibal Holocaust.

VOTD 10/14/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Gyllensköld, Geijerstam and I at Rydbergs (L.A.Y.L.A.H.)

I had on this record a day or two ago, to be honest. It's weird but a good record. More well-realized and  self-assured than any previous NWW record. I'd even say it's at the start of a great period in Steven Stapleton's creative work: this, Brained By Falling Masonry, The Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion, Spiral Insana, and several solid LPs of compilation contributions. He's doing most or all of the graphics, and the record covers look great. And in part running his own label. It's a beautiful gesamkunstwerk.

But I'm back to the feeling of, what's the point? It's been interesting to revisit where my head was at in the early to mid 80s, what I was listening to, what really excited me. But describing these weird-ass albums? It seems like a fruitless venture, or at least silly. 

Sitting down and listening to an album, really sitting and listening, is a positive thing. Writing is a positive thing. And I appreciate that there are a few people who read my words regularly. 

I might decide to return to this tomorrow, or six months from now, or never. Tomorrow is too soon, six months maybe, never: probably not. For now, I think I'm out. I'll see you when I see you.

VOTD 10/06/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Homotopy to Marie (United Dairies)

https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Homotopy.html

What does it mean? I don't know. 

I know this much: this was the first NWW that Steven Stapleton was satisfied with, the fifth NWW LP. Why did it take that many? 

John Fothergill is definitely out of the picture now. NWW is strictly Steven Stapleton's aural and visual imagery at this point. He does the cover art, he produces the sounds.

Like the front cover image, this is largely an austere statement. Most of side one is taken up by the sound of a cymbal, with female spoken voices occasionally and unpredictably entering. If a NWW album should be anything, it's unpredictable. He's definitely not afraid to be abrasive, as side two demonstrates. NWW was never an Industrial band, but these records are no less noisy.

Steven's audio landscapes seem to be clearly cinematic in nature. Aural landscapes. Is he dabbling in sampling on this record? My guess is that he's pulling some voices from extraneous sources, but I can't cite anything specific.

In the end, it breaks into what sounds like a small Balkan brass and reed band. Who'd have thought? 

Oh but wait....leave the needle in the groove...there's demonic laughing and more noise at the end. The CD version lists a fifth track, compared to the four on the LP. This must be the "Astral Dustbin Dirge". We'll come back to that.

This album does feel more accomplished, more self-assured than the previous. Knowing what I do about the NWW discography, Steven's work will hit even higher highs than this in the next few years.

VOTD 10/03/2025

 Safo Hene Djeni: Nea Ye Boe (Star Musique)

Purchased at Fungus Books and Records

More autobiography.

My band Bombici was asked by Manny Theiner to open for a west African band upstairs at Spirit House. Unusually, we played our set and had to rush off to another gig, but we got see the headliner do a warmup/sound check. They weren't playing seriously, but even so they locked into as tight a groove as one might imagine.

Colter Harper was playing guitar with Bombici that night. He's spent substantial time in Ghana in the past ten years on grants, teaching at University of Ghana and helping them set up a recording studio. While this band (whose name I don't recall, I'm sorry) wasn't from Ghana, Colter commented: "The bands there are incapable of being bad."

Imagine being in a culture where the music is so deep in your bones that it is expressed as tight, joyful, and a shared experience. That sure isn't the US. My old mentor and late colleague Annabelle Joseph taught Eurhythmics at Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon Universities. She told me how students such a South Americans had the rhythms inside themselves, that it's in the music they'd known for their entire lives. And she asked, what music do all Americans share in common? Rolling her eyes, she said: "Christmas music."

(Annabelle...I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, I look forward to seeing you there. You were always one of the good ones. I miss you.)

I bought this record in the first days of Fungus Books and Records' opening. Michael had included several African records in the stacks. Being not too expensive, and the Colter connection to Ghana, this was my choice.

What's there to say? It's moderately low fidelity but very listenable. The sound is compressed but you can hear everything. The band rips. It's not as grungy as what Fela Kuti does; it comes off as sunnier than him.

When I feel down, I can go two ways when putting on music: something dark that is sympathetic to my mood, or something that I find uplifting. Generally I will go the former, but it's nice to know that this is here if I want to go the latter. Seek it out if you can.

VOTD 10/01/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Insect and Individual Silenced (United Dairies)

Okay, Another NWW listen before moving on to other things. 

This wasn't the first NWW record I bought, perhaps the second. It does make me wonder where my head was at when I was listening to it initially, and playing some of it in my early WRCT days. 

This is a noisy record, abrasive, even unpleasant at times.

Listening to the first side, what is clear compared to the first three NWW LPs is how important tape editing is to this statement. The changes are very abrupt, often happening quickly in succession. A female voice is is in the mix, singing sweetly in the background. Knowing what NWW would be like in the future, this seems to point to the future.

There's no instrumental virtuosity, as in the previous three LPs. Bashing on something metal, some basic drums. Feedback. Speaking. 

I think in a future posting I'll address Pierre Schaeffer vs Pierre Henry as composers. Let's just say, just because you're the first doesn't mean you're best.

Is this just Steven Stapleton at the helm, unlikes LPs 1-2-3? That's my understanding. There are no credits (at least in my copy) and both John Fothergill and definitely Heman Pathak are gone by this time. 

Steven was dissatisfied with this record and didn't make it available for many years after its initial UD release. I don't find it any more or less interesting than the previous three. The majority of side two, "Absent Old Queen Underfoot" is an absolutely bizarre conversation between jazz-brushes drumming and noisy feedback guitar or bass. Less edited than side one, but not unprocessed either. 

On discogs, there's a credit for Jim Thirwell (Foetus) being involved. I couldn't tell you who did what, but he'll be an important element within a record or two.

I'm not saying I hate it, but I think I used to be more excited by someone releasing a record that sounded like this than I am now. It is super-abrasive. If you see the name Nurse With Wound listed with "Industrial" bands, this could be one reason why. Listening to the early compilation tracks might make for an interesting comparison, such as "Dueling Banjos" on Hoisting the Back Flag (mentioned in an earlier blog post here). 

Side two ends with "Mutilés de Guerre", a far more compact work. It's looped yelling voices, processed, instruments run through a high-frequency filter, also not particularly pleasant. But it also gets to the point quickly. 

Should I be seeing a therapist if this was where my head was at one time?

In my defense: in my college radio days, I'd play just about anything regardless of content, unless it was considered NSFW by the FCC. The one piece I couldn't tolerate was Robert Ashley's "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon", which includes a description of a rape. No wonder I couldn't take it. "Mutilés de Guerre" ends with a banjo and voice rendition of "Ode to Joy" while screeching strings underpin it. It's not about rape thankfully, but not easy to listen to either.

I think I need a palette-cleanser after this one.