Weasel Walter Hott Mixx Club #3: Weird '70s

For one year between 2004 and 2005, I created a little mix-cd club. Here is edition number Three from the series. Thanks to Phil Plencner for re-posting it:

WEIRD '70S:
1. Sir Lord Baltimore - “Hellhound” (1970)
From the s/t debut album by this HEAVY new york group. Pretty much all of the songs on the album are about how mean women have been to the screaming, pcp-inflamed drummer. Their second album sucks, so beware.

2. Carmen - “Bullfight” (1973)
The archetypal glam/flamenco/prog group. Make that the only one. From their debut "Fandangos in Space" (". . . and wearing an outfit of lace!"), this incredibly ambitious, warped group weaves an epic tale of loss and redemption through man vs. beast ritual. The band made two other records before going financially (and creatively) bankrupt and the bass player leaving to join Tull and taking the sexy girl keyboardist with him. They had contact mics on the stage floor so their "footwork" was amplified . . .

Gatefold of Carmen's excellent glam/prog/flamenco epic "Fandangos In Space"

3. Amon Duul 2 - “Ladies Mimikry” (1973)
From the progressive group's "glam" album "Viva La Trance". Sort of a weird precursor to the Contortions white-ampheta-funk stylings with kermit the frog on vocals. This band is better known for its psychedelic jamming, but I love this album the best, with its strange, succinct "pop" vibe! (well, at least for them it's pop.)

4. Streak - “Bang Bang Bullet” (1973)
An english glam obscurity featuring two guys that went on to the equally unknown (to us) Arrows and another guy who played in the early punk band the Vibrators. It's impossible not to like this bouncy little tune. Naturally, the lyrics are replete with some not-so-subtle innuendo.

5. Goblin - “Witch” (1977)OK, this is kind of a late year, but this fucked noise-rock comes from the "Suspiria" soundtrack. These guys are italian.

6. Mirrors - “Another Nail In The Coffin” (1975)

Masters of disaster: The Swee

One group from the mythic Cleveland pre-punk axis featuring Jamie Klimek and Paul Marrotta (also of the Styrenes and Electric Eels). Fine Velvet Underground influenced guitar skronk, this track surfaced on a CLE magazine comp CD that came out about a decade ago and is difficult to find these days. This song might have popped up later on something, but I'm not aware of it. (This track was actually recorded in the mid-80s, but let's pretend it was made in 1975, just for kicks.)

7. Sparks - “Lost and Found” (1974)
Killer B-Side to "Amateur Hour", this is one of my favorite Sparks songs, period.

8. Le Orme - “Contrappunti” (1974)
Some wonderfully angular Emerson, Lake and Palmer inspired italian prog from "Beyond L'eng", a comp of middle period trax by these guys who started out psych and went total Little River Band after the mid-'70s. Basically "Beyond" seems to have all of their great trax, so skip the rest.

9. Dictators - “Two Tub Man” (1975)
Hamburger-rock off the debut album "Go Girl Crazy". What more can I say. Including Ross the Boss of later Manowar infamy. Not-on-this-album Dictators bassist Mark "The Animal" Mendoza went on to play in Twisted "fucking" Sister. The only other good song on this record is "Master Race Rock", trust me. It's not about Nazis.

10. Sweet - “Burning/Someone Else Will” (1973)
Fucking blistering live track from the Sweet's new year's '72/'73 show. The beginning of their laughable misogyny-rock outbursts (which usually come off sounding more pathetic and desperate than oppressive), this song features the haunting chorus "if we don't fuck you, then someone else wiiiilllll!" You won't believe your ears.

11. Simply Saucer - “Electro Rock” (1974)These Canuck rockers successfully melded Hawkwind heaviness with Eno's bleeps and bloops as well as a late Velvets pop sensibility before it was in vogue to do so. From their posthumous album "Cyborgs Revisited".

12. Dust - “Suicide” (1972)
More new york heavy from their second album "Hard Attack". The lyrics say it all. Drummer Marky Bell went on to both Ramones-hood and Richard Hell's Voidoids (before landing on the Vegas circuit with the all-new "Misfits" punk nostalgia review) and bassist Kenny Aaronoff (he of the bass solo!) went on to, uh, do a lot of lame session work. There are only two other good songs on this album ("Ivory" and "Ready to Die"), so don't pay more than a dollar for it, unless if you're really into Boris Vallejo.

13. Magma - “Mekanik Machine” (1974)
A wikked single-only track from the French prog masters featuring prime bassist Jannick Top (who achieved his ballsy bass sound partially by tuning his strings like a cello) and master drummer/svengali Christian Vander. This is a bit disco-y for the band, but in a good way. Not in a bad way like their sucky 1980 album
"Merci" though!

14. Debris - “One Way Spit” (1975)

'Debris' killer proto-punk album "Static Disposal

Oklahoman proto-punk rage from their mythic "Static Disposal" album. Just listen. There's nothing more to talk about. The whole album is like this!

15. Jet - “Nothing To Do With Us” (1975)
 A dubious "glam supergroup" (members of Milk 'n' Cookies, various Sparks back-up guys, the original Roxy Music guitarist, and dudes from John's Children) is clearly just totally ripping off Sparks. Since they did it so chillingly accurately, we'll let them live.

16. Residents - “B*by S*x” (1971)
Material from one of the four early pre-"Meet The Residents" album/tapes that never really got released. One can definitely hear the primitive bizarreness of the group budding. Don't ask where I got this. The b*by s*x track "Kamikaze lady" wound up on "Residue" and the band also did a fairly straight-ahead version of Zappa's "King Kong" for the record.

17. Hollywood Brats - “Sick On You” (1973)
An obscure british rip-off of the New York Dolls that actually improves on the formula. Very trashy and ass-kicking. Fuck guns and roses and their McCartney-covering asses. Keith Moon dubbed them "his favorite band in the world" to little avail.

18. Funeral of Art - “Zivoid is Cuming” (1972)
Early Italian-american acid-rocking by the legendary Von Lmo (drums, vocals) with Sal Maida (Roxy Music, Milk 'N' Cookies) on guitar. A basement demo that appeared credited as a Von track on the out-of-print Spanish double lp reissued of his "Future Language" jam.

19. Electric Eels - “Flapping Jets” 1975
Wrapping it up is another stunning track from the aforementioned CLE Mag comp by these seminal noise-punks. A slightly aberrant, long track for the band replete with totally scathing guitar yowling and hypnotic chanting. I used to live a few blocks away from their rhythm guitarist Brian McMahon. He was pretty cool.

WEASEL WALTER HOTT MIXX CLUB #1: CLASSICAL GAS
WEASEL WALTER HOTT MIXX CLUB #4: PUNK JAZZ

ugEXPLODE Influences #1: The Electric Eels

The Electric Eels (or is that "the electric eels", or is is "die electric eels", or . . .) sprung from the filth and boredom of the early '70s Midwest and directly anticipated the artastic nihilism of both punk and no wave in one fell swoop. Between 1972 and 1975, this volatile, Cleveland-based combo only played about five shows total, most or all of which ended in confrontation and/or arrests. The core of the group consisted of guitarist John Morton and vocalist Dave "Dave E." McManus with assistance at variable intervals from guitarists Brian McMahon and Paul Marotta (co-leader of The Styrenes), plus help from musicians like Anton Fier (Golden Palominos), Jim Jones (Pere Ubu), Jamie Klimek (also Styrenes) and Nick Knox (later of The Cramps). Their sound was abrasive, loud as fuck, obnoxious, aggressive and primitive. Their lyrical matter, spat out with nothing less than utter contempt by Dave E., covered a range of trashy impulses ranging from extreme irritation to surreal gibberish to dadaistic beat-poetry parody.

I first heard the Eels in 1989. I was on a visit to Madison, Wisconsin with a few pals and wound up, inevitably, at a record store. As I browsed the racks, I would instinctually scrutinize every single record I saw which I didn't recognize and quickly determine whether or not it was of any interest. Maybe it was the raw, scratchy artwork (rendered by Morton), the picture of four ornery punks or perhaps the naughty swastika, but it became obvious, this disc was worth further investigation. I stood and began to absorb the liner notes on the back cover.

-They formed after a Captain Beefheart show. CHECK.
-They used to pick fights with jocks and win. CHECK.
-At their first gig two of them were arrested for being drunk and disorderly while wearing stupid clothes. CHECK.
-At the next gig they augmented their sound with sheet metal played with a sledgehammer. CHECK.
-Another gig featured the singer trying to start a lawnmower and "singing emotional versions of TV theme songs and commercials." CHECK.
-None of their recordings were made in a studio, but instead made through some kind of ass-backwards, jerry-rigged set up while the band played "just like always, deafeningly loud." CHECK.
-They had guys from The Cramps and Pere Ubu, and mentioned Albert Ayler on the back cover. CHECK.

So, I quickly concluded that this record, entitled "Having a Philosophical Investigation With The Electric Eels", was more than just "interesting": in fact I was going to buy it with my hard earned cash. I couldn't see how this could possibly go wrong. All the signs said "YES".

I didn't go wrong. When I got it home, I put it on the turntable and ragged, scabrous guitar noise sprayed from the speakers like ammonia as the asshole singer reared towards the mic blurting, "OooooohhhhHHHHHHHHH . . . I'M SO AGITATED!"  I was hooked in 5 seconds.

Back then, some records were just like that: you anticipated them so heavily on their reputation and then, sometimes, they would actually sound exactly the way you wanted them to . . . (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks was another example of this effect).

Despite rarely having a bass player, this band was a ROCK band - their crude songwriting definitely had a foot in basic pop structures and owed much to Stooges/MC5/Hawkwind brand of pre-punk savagery. John Morton's rabid, atonal guitar mangling dwarfed the band, brutally bullying the rest of the members who fought desperately for room in the soundscape. His chaotic choice of intervals predated the kind of free-jazz danger Black Flag's Greg Ginn would later become more famous for. The drums were hilariously undermixed and moronically bludgeoning. Dave E.'s vocals were extremely snotty, but had no problem cutting through the wall of fuzz . . . obviously the Eels' message was intended to be heard loud and clear, with zero ambiguity. "God must be . . . IN MY REFRIGERATOR!" "GIGANTO HAS HAD IT WITH YOU FUUUUCKKKKS!" These were cretinous manifestos which my disenfranchised teenage brain could take very literally. I really didn't care for my hometown, school, scene or anybody in it and the level of empowered alienation the Eels were expressing made a direct connection to my own situation.

Needless to say, tracks from this fine LP wound up on a favorite mix tape which I blasted at insane volumes from the beater I drove around town, to and from work, record stores and my few remaining friends' houses. The Electric Eels music fit in well with the harrowing "Soon" by Sonny Sharrock, shrill electro-acoustic music by Iannis Xenakis, Pussy Galore, early Last Poets, second album Pop Group and other aurally offensive skree.

During the early '90s, after moving from shitty Rockford, Illinois to less shitty Chicago, I saw a flier on the wall at my school which said "Brian McMahon from The Electric Eels looking for musicians". I couldn't believe my eyes. I called Brian immediately and we hung out at his office, which was only a few blocks away from my apartment. At first Brian seemed a bit incredulous that I was such a huge Eels fan. I got the idea that he didn't yet realize the massive influence the band had. He didn't even remember anything about the handful of shows he played during his service with the group. I had been listening to them for years at that point and I had a million questions which he politely fielded. We never played any music together, but we stayed friends and talked every now and then.

1996 eventually rolled around and The Flying Luttenbachers were in full gear. The year before, Nondor Nevai and I had crashed some To Live and Shave in L.A. gigs in Detroit and Chicago and we were drawn into the wide aesthetic orbit of The Shave's culturally omnivorous singer Tom Smith. Around the summer of that year, Tom began planning a big festival to be held in Atlanta, Georgia called "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and not only did he invite the Luttenbachers, but, it turned out, there was going to be a reunion set by none other than THE ELECTRIC EELS. I was psyched to hear this news. I tried desperately to position myself as their session drummer, but ultimately the line-up included Morton, McMahon, and Marotta with singer Christian Brown and Marotta's son Paul Lawrence on drums.

When the fest rolled around in December, it turned out to be quite a collection of freaks. We were there, sharing a van with Bobby Conn and Zeek Sheck. Harry Pussy, Eugene Chadbourne, Simeon Coxe from the Silver Apples, Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Quintron and a ton of others also played. Excerpts from the shows eventually appeared on the 2003 compilation "Tarot or Aorta: Memories of a PRE Festival" released on Smith's defunct imprint Smack Shire. The Luttenbachers set was a disaster - essentially we couldn't hear what we were doing, so, after unsuccessfully trying to make it through the song "Death Ray" a dozen or so times, I abandoned ship and just decided to make a free-form energy freak out. Chuck Falzone quickly followed me into this artistic oblivion on guitar, but I remember Bill Pisarri being less than excited about not playing the planned set, so I think he just stood around and pouted for most of it. Afterwards we all felt insecure about what happened, but I think the general consensus was that everybody enjoyed watching us melt down on stage. I wound up jamming with Harry Pussy at the end of their set, Bill performed with Zeek Sheck and Chuck did double-duty with Bobby Conn and Zeek.

At the festival, I remember standing outside and shooting the shit with John Morton for a long time in the parking lot of the venue. He was extremely sharp and witty, but constantly prodded me with pointed barbs as if he was assessing my meddle and worth. I was game and we seemed to hit it off. Earlier this year, we met again when we both performed as members of Scarcity of Tanks at a two-day recording session in Brooklyn. Morton still has that devilish intellectual edge and his guitar playing sounded great. He contributed interesting musical concepts and refused to accept any musical complacency in the group - a man after my own heart. Of course, he also insisted on showing me his tattooed penis. He remains a bold character, true to his roots as a smart malcontent and boundary-defying artist. I look forward to hearing the final mixes from that wild, multifaceted session . . .

The Electric Eels' set at the '96 Tora fest was highly anticipated. I felt a wave of relief when they didn't suck. Ha ha ha. Let's face it: most "reunions" in rock music blow. Why is this? Well, many rock bands are the sum total of certain personalities, times and places. If you remove one or more of these elements, most often, you're not left with much of the impetus which might have made it so good in its original form. I wasn't crazy about the singer - he was irritating in a geeky, somewhat clueless way that seemed to banish him straight into the shadow of Dave E.'s massive reputation - but the guitars were loud and the drumming was supportive. During the song "Anxiety", the room seemed to levitate slightly. There was a distinct sense - and I could even feel this from the band - that SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING. It was a fleeting moment, but I could tell everybody sensed that the Eels could be back for good. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. Morton and McMahon fell out afterwards and that was the end of the Eels, part deux.

Luckily, their recorded oeuvre survives, thanks to the meticulous archiving of Paul Marotta. Without his efforts to protect the funky cassettes all the Eels' music was laid down on, there might be no documentation of their nebulous existence. To date, 50 separate Electric Eels takes have been released on a myriad of CD and LP anthologies. The earliest evidence appeared on two posthumous singles on the Rough Trade and Mustard labels, in 1978 and 1981, respectively. The 1989 "Having A Philosophical Investigation . . ." LP followed those. Homestead Records released an expanded version, poignantly titled "God Says Fuck You" (possibly a jab at the born-again Christian Dave E., who eventually disassociated himself with the band) in 1991. In 1998, UK label Overground issued yet another variant on the now-familiar material under the hilariously unwieldy moniker "The Beast 999 Presents The Electric Eels In Their Organic Majesty's Request". Scat Records dealt a double whammy by vomiting forth both the collections "The Eyeball of Hell" (2001) and the three-band split "Those Were Different Times" (1997), also featuring tracks by CLE-punk comrades The Mirrors and The Styrenes.

ugEXPLODE blog

Welcome to the ugEXPLODE blog. I will use this to update people about new ugEXPLODE label releases as well as a platform for my reminiscences and random writing related to myself and musicians associated with the label. Available October 15th, from http://www.ugEXPLODE.com will be two new compact discs: Jack Ruby - a collection of newly unearthed NYC proto-punk/no-wave from '74-'77 featuring George Scott (Contortions/Raybeats/8-Eyed Spy) and Boris Policeband; and Weasel Walter's "Ominous Telepathic Mayhem", featuring frenetic duos with Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans, Darius Jones and Alex Ward.

These will be available from the site and are also distributed by Revolver, Carrot Top, Stickfigure, CD Baby, Wayside Music and Downtown Music Gallery. If you work at a record store: order these releases from a distributor! They carry other great backstock items from the catalog and you can get them! If you want to order direct, don't hesitate to ask! Many of our releases are available digitally either directly from the site or from all the major digital stores like I-Tunes, Emusic, etc.

Here are blurbs on the new releases. I promise the blog will get much meatier ASAP . . .

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JACK RUBY CD ug50

THE FIRST RECORDINGS UNEARTHED OF THIS SEMINAL PROTO-PUNK/NO WAVE UNIT FROM NEW YORK CITY, CIRCA 1974-1977!!! TWISTED, AGGRESSIVE, WEIRD ROCK ON PAR WITH THE ELECTRIC EELS, ‘DEBRIS AND MX-80 SOUND!

“Seven years ago, a guy named Gary Reese wrote me and said he was friends with the late Contortions bass player George Scott, and that he could probably help me out with some information on the mythic band Jack Ruby. Up until that point, nobody knew of any surviving recordings by this unit. They remained a shady footnote in underground rock history. After years of cajoling and pursuit, Gary finally convinced George’s brother to let him make a dub of a ratty old cassette tape with two Fall ‘77 Jack Ruby rehearsals on them. Those rehearsals belied an incredible amount of guitar-skree bombast. I mastered the tracks to eke out the most clarity possible from them and the result was circulated amongst very few cognoscenti with little fanfare.

In 2009, another Jack Ruby tape surfaced. Gary was in contact with Scott’s old girlfriend Leslie, who had a mysterious 1/4 reel of tape with the band’s name and some song titles scrawled on it. It took some time, but I had the reel baked and transferred . . . and, lo and behold, it featured four crystal clear-sounding ‘74 studio demos!  I kept playing these great demos and I thought to myself, “If I’m listening to this stuff so much, somebody else is going to want to hear it too!” That’s the point where I knew it was my duty to release this anthology.

So, we found all the surviving ex-members of the group and put together this fully-authorized package featuring eight killer tracks of noisy, high-energy greatness and designed a full-color package featuring extensive liner notes and tons of period photos. This release is a must-have for those who crave those truly bizarre missing links from the pre-punk past. Jack Ruby’s tough, sleazy sound is a direct antecedent to both PUNK and NO WAVE.”

 - WEASEL WALTER, SEPTEMBER 2011

“Maybe it was 1976. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I stumbled into Bleecker Bob’s.
Maybe a lanky giant with an immense toxic cloud of frizzy hair and huge hands lumbered toward me.
Maybe it was Chris Gray. Somehow I ended up in a dank rehearsal space. Face to face with George Scott.
Having my head torn off by my ears. Jack Ruby. Music to murder by.
Like 3 hits of acid and a shot of crystal meth after a month long beer binge.
A brutal psycho-delic teenage scream of sexual frustration, disappointment and misery
channeled into sonic overdrive. A beautifully violent horrible throttling. I loved it”

- LYDIA LUNCH, AUGUST 2011

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WEASEL WALTER - OMINOUS TELEPATHIC MAYHEM CD ug51

Frenetic, high-speed improvised duos featuring iconoclastic drummer Weasel Walter with trumpeter Peter Evans, guitarist Mary Halvorson, alto saxophonist Darius Jones and clarinettist/guitarist Alex Ward. Total Communication!

This CD contains 72 minutes of intense, fast, articulate improvised music featuring superhuman drummer Weasel Walter in duos with some of his favorite contemporary sparring partners: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Alex Ward
(guitar/clarinet), Darius Jones (alto saxophone) and Peter Evans (trumpet). Over the course of ten action-packed cuts, a stunning array of musical ideas are investigated as well as some serious instrumental virtuosity. This music is clear and articulate with a complex sense of structure and interplay.

Drummer Weasel Walter is best known as leader of and primary composer for the long-running cult band
The Flying Luttenbachers. Living in Chicago, the Bay Area, and most recently New York, Walter has spent the past two decades bridging numerous factions within the experimental music scene. He has performed with seminal noise-rock acts like Lake Of Dracula, Burmese and XBXRX, maintaining all the while his career as a free improviser.  Walter has collaborated with luminaries like Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Henry Kaiser, Jim O’Rourke, Mick Barr, Ken Vandermark, Kevin Drumm, Vinny Golia and many others. Walter is also a current member the technical metal band Behold . . . The Arctopus and the no-wave trio Cellular Chaos

Guitarist Mary Halvorson has been active in the New York music scene since 2002.  In addition to leading her own bands, she is a veteran of Anthony Braxton’s ensembles and has performed with Tim Berne, Trevor Dunn, Tony Malaby, Marc Ribot and John Tchicai, amongst others. Mary is “the most original jazz guitarist to emerge this decade,” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader).

 In addition to leading his own ensembles, classically-trained trumpeter Peter Evans performs with groups ranging from terrorist-bebop unit Mostly Other People Do the Killing to the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Other collaborators include Steve Beresford, Keiji Haino, Jim Black, Evan Parker and Christian Marclay.

Saxophonist Darius Jones is a critically acclaimed bandleader whose 2009 AUM Fidelity release “Man’ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing” topped year-end critics lists as well as garnering overwhelming praise in publications from The New York Times to The Wire. Jones also performs in the brutal, rock-influenced band Little Women. He recently released an album of duos with pianist Matthew Shipp.

London-based instrumentalist Alex Ward first became known as a prodigious, teenaged clarinettist during the mid-80s in an association with guitar legend Derek Bailey. Since then, he has added guitar to his arsenal and has appeared with a wide range of players including Eugene Chadbourne, Joe Morris and Joe McPhee.