Art for Spastics v. 142 starring Snake Apartment!

Snake Apartment from Providence, Rhode Island, were my guests on air last week, but because the archives and streams were down, you missed their live performance and interview. So this week, I've rebroadcasted most of their live set (excerpting only the first song which was wracked by some technical difficulties with our delay system anyway). Their crushing live set begins at about minute 39 or so of this program and includes six of their writhing scuzzpummellers.

DOWNLOAD AFS v. 142 (within the next 10 weeks) HERE!

...or stream it (before August 1).

MUDHONEY // Twenty Four // v/a: Dope-Guns'N-Fucking in the Streets vol 1-3 // Amphetamine Reptile 1989
PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY // Brainbomb // Secrets 7" // United Artists 1979
ANAL BABES // Sam´s Disciple (.44) // Cocaine Swastika 10" // Incognito 1998
TRACTOR SEX FATALITY // Braces // Braces 7" // Kill Sounds/Unscene Sounds *new
RANCID VAT // Destroy Nature // Justice: This Is What We Do to Traitors // Horton/Reflex 1989
BILLY BAO // Bilbo's Incinerator // Bilbo's Incinerator 7" // W.Mo 2005
BRAINBOMBS // Urge to Kill // Burning Hell // self-released 1992
LANDED // Tip of the Whip // split 7" w/ Snake Apartment // Corleone/Parts Unknown *new


SNAKE APARTMENT live in Studio A

EX OBLIVIONE // Squid // v/a: World War Zero 2xCDR // Deathbomb Arc *new
SEXY PRISON // Teen Wolfes Parte Like Whitney (Harg) // Italians Who Just Saw Rocky // NASCAR 2004
AGENT SIDE GRINDER // Ricochetting Memories // first 7" // Enfant Terrible *new
MATTRESS // In Your Pocket // In Your Pocket 7"+CDR // Malt Duck *new
MATTRESS // Mirror
CHURCH POLICE // Life Is Fun // Gilligan's Wings 7" // Skulltones *new
BLACK HUMOR // Burn the Welcome Mat // self-titled // Fowl 1982
BLACK HUMOR // Neo Hippies
FACTUMS // White Ghost // Alien Native // Siltbreeze *forthcoming

BLANK DOGS // The Doorbell Fire // The Doorbell Fire 7" // Sweet Rot
ARTIFICIAL LIMBS // Sadistic Eyes // self-titled // Eat *new
THE WRISTS // Lights Out/Blackout // split cassette w/ Leper Print // Eye Damage *new
CATHOLIC BOYS // Plaster // Fixed 7" // Sweet Rot *new
THE PIZZAS // Hideous Fashion // Pizza demos // no label *new
EAT SKULL // Dead Families // demo CDR // no label *new
xNOBBQx // title unknown // Sunshine of Your Love // Siltbreeze *forthcoming
NIGHT WOUNDS // Less Dead // Allergic to Heat // Corleone/Woodsist 2007
NO DOCTORS // Man's Eternal Quest for Salty Pleasures // Origin & Tectonics // self-released *new
NO DOCTORS // AAO
BLUES CONTROL // Double Chin // self-titled // Holy Mountain *new



This playlist was also largely inspired by the first edition of the awesome Z Gun zine, published by Scott Soriano and Ryan Wells and distributed through Scott's trusty Ss recordS. I learned a lot about the Brainbombs in this issue, and there's a huge section on them including an interview by Monty Buckles of the Lamps (with an awesome foreword), a complete discog breakdown by Ryan, and a treatise by Ben Wallers of the Country Teasers which suggests how the Brainbombs are like the Rolling Stones of today. Plus, tons of record reviews and an interview with long-lost SF weirdpunkers Black Humor by enthusiast Min Yee of the A Frames. This zine is an enthralling, educational, and fun read, so I highly recommend it!

Revisiting Mudhoney was long overdue, and for a non-drinker like me, "Twenty-Four" reminds me of a few people I've known. It's not clear whether this cirrhotic slumtrip of permadrunkenness revels in far-gone alcoholism or is the first of a sobering twelve steps, but I'm thinking that it's more the former than the latter. It's like I'm wearing play-goggles everytime I hear it. Teetering and tottering and with bile foaming up to the top of his throat, Mark Arm is stumbling, but seemingly under just enough control to make his point coherently. What a fantastic distortion tone and buzzing rhythm attack this song has! It always makes me wonder why I don't come back to this band more often. Surely, Mudhoney made the most enduring music of the 90s ilk whose name shall not be repeated here.

Lesson no. 1 for me as I read Z Gun no. 1 was "Brainbomb" by Punishment of Luxury. Ryan Wells published a full review of it in "the Brainbombs section" of the zine, as the title gave those misanthropic Swedes the idea for their band name. And he's right...This UK band from the late 70s infused their glam with enough punk aggression to sound throttling enough at times to approach the menace of AmRep sounds that came a decade later. I remember listening to everything I could find by them one day, but I must've missed this great nugget.

Can it be long before somebody reissues everything ever by the Anal Babes? I'm pretty sure that this 10" was their swansong, and along with their split 7" with Turbonegro, this is their pinnacle of great scuzzpunk depravity. No "hail Odin" or Viking mythology here, but these Norwegians were probably even scarier than so many buffoonish black-metallers in ghoulish corpse paint. All the Babes' stuff has a tremendous wallop and a slashing serrated edge to it, but on this 10", there were some freakier psycho-delic guitar tricks on parade.

From Seattle, Tractor Sex Fatality show signs of the same degenerative mental disease as the patients we've mentioned so far, but they wield chainsaws (perhaps like the one pictured in the logo of the related Slicing Grandpa), and at the most delicate moments of "Braces," they chop with a set of dull cleavers.

My girlfriend has released her first record on her new label, Malt Duck Records.

Mattress "In Your Pocket"
7" vinyl w/ bonus CDR including sides A and B plus 2 more exclusive songs

Mattress is a fellow from Portland, OR, named Rex who is a mesmerizing maker of minimal electro/wave and a charismatic crooner. This is his first vinyl, too. His previous CDR-only releases have been praised in the shadowiest corners of blogosphere and compared to Suicide. Sure, it's dark stuff, but it's got a really great sense of humor, too. It sounds like it coulda been an ageless wonder from a weirdpunk comp like the Red Spot LP.



$5.50 ppd U.S.
Paypal button on the page...
http://www.maltduckrecords.com/OrderingDisco.html

International orders write: fuzz (at) maltduckrecords (dot) com

More info on Mattress here:

http://www.belowpdx.com/mattress/
http://www.myspace.com/rexmattress

Next up, a Sally Strobelight 7"...a few months away.