Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry were another singles band: the compressed sounds and 2 1/2 minute duration of the 7" format suiting them ideally, "Take It All" was my favorite of the 4 pre-LP releases with its stomping verse  and the "sister ray" vocal phrasing crashing into that circling guitar motif in the chorus.
 Ive always had a soft spot for drum machines: the 'Lorries, Cocteaus, Big Black, Sisters of Mercy, Godflesh .....I dunno , its probably that discipline thing again: It means the music has to be focused , no wanky "jamming " or  ad libbed make-it-up as-you-go-along extended solos here sonny.
I think Albini used to cheat with a foor pedal, and anyone who witnessed the epic version of Jordan Minesota  that Big Black ended with upstairs at the Clarendon one night knows just what you can do in terms of dynamics, emotion and atmosphere with a beefed up click track.


Take It All - Red Lorry Yellow Lorry


For some reason I taped the whole of the support band at this show (probly cos the singer was a babe...) but only some of the lorries, let me tell you time has not been kind to the skeletal family, on this  they sound like bloody Terminal Burnz on a bad night ...

 Live at Imperial College London, 3rd Feb 1984 (29mb mp3)
instrumental,
beating my head,
sometimes,
silence,
alone?,
take it all,
monkeys on juice.

Heres some more from the next year but north of the river...





Live Kings College London, Feb 1st 1985 (35MB mp3)
take it all,
this today,
sometimes,
alone,
?
hollow eyes,
hand on my heart,
talk about the weather.

La Muerte

Our local Music website messandnoise.com had one of their free lunchtime shows today in the 1000 Pound bend hipster haunt off Eizabeth street. And I have to say I saw probably the best chinese rock band ive ever seen - '"PK14".
Well ok thy are the only chinese rock band Ive ever seen....  (I think theres only about 8 to choose from anyway). They didnt sound like the fall, joy division , gang of four or fugazi (get a new publicist guys) but they were entertaining - gotta love a singer who round-house kicks and swings the mike around  -at lunch time to an audience of office workers....

La Muerte are definitely the best Belgian Rock band Ive ever seen. ( Ive never seen Plastic Bertrand and Im sure he would have been in the running if i had...and there dEUS I guess , but really who else? ).
The guys voice is awesome and he did one of the best Nick-Cave-release-the-bats "dentist drill" shrieks north of brisbane.

Lucifer Sam - La Muerte
Ok the Birthday party influence is there but songs like " Evil Land", "Haschassin" and "Tiny Bones" have a noise/punk thrust that other Cave derivatives never had. The helter-skelter down-escalator guitar riff of "Blame on you" is a classic and the band only shows a taste of the mediochrity that is to come on "Blues Heaven or Hell" : the debut album was a turgid lowland-swamp blues by numbers job with none of the sense of urgency or credibility the previous 12" had.

LA Muerte,Bay 63 London, 1985
1. Evil Land
2. Haschassin
3. Blues, Heaven or Hell
4. Tiny Bones
5. Blame On You
6. Lucifer Sam
7. Wild Thing

GBH

It seems like every week theres another bunch of wrinkley punk rockers hopping off the jetstar from heathrow and demanding their hard earned share of our retro-punk-nostalgia-dollar. Weve had buzzcocks, uk subs, the addicts (for gawds sake) as well as the more highly suspect lure of a pursey-less sham 69 and weller-less Jam.
From what I see in facebook it does sound like this phenomena has reached epidemic proportions in England with reformations blocking out the calendar like the locusts we expect here in victoria.
GBH are playing a decent sized venue so they are one of the few who may get more out of it than a free holiday and a last bask in pub backroom  glory.

Good luck to them, they will certainly play this litle beauty .... but ...its on sunday night and Im washing me hair (neh neh - yes I'still got some). Its not that Swanston Street is too far to go to revisit the past, its just GBH belong in my teens not the centurys'.

Gimme Fire - GBH




I remember there was this party at Kirstys flat in Epping, somehow Weed got control of the music just as the Acid kicked in, he managed to slip in Killing joke , GBH and then Discharge before nomal service was resumed . My fried brain was converting the audio input into ultra high definition footage of a giant steel and chrome machine pounding and grinding up meat. I still use that experience as my hardcore yardstick: close your eyes and see how scary it gets - it would be a shame to find  the benchmark compromised by age.


This was probably my first real hardcore gig, I remember the vibe was not exactly what you had at your typical Rubella Ballet gathering....but it was an amazing night.

I didnt tape this one , I bought it later cos the show just blew me away, theres no tracklisting but its got all the hits: gimme fire, drugs party, dead on arrival, diplomatic immunity, necrophilia (the chorus : "no remorse : screw the corpse" a personal favourite).

GBH Live at Crocs Rayleigh, April 14 1983 (38mb)

Otomo Yoshihide and Yamatsuka Eye

I went to a (largely improvised) noise festival on saturday night and I have to say one of the highlights was the Agents of Abhorence who are local boys and pretty much an old school grindcore band... you see what they had was starts and ends...I like starts and ends. The rest of the evening was just endless middle...with a few drawn out starts here and there.
I can handle music without rhythm/tunes/coherent lyrics but you need some discipline lads.
This tape is from at the London Musician Collectives 1994 Festival of Experimental Music, at  Conway Hall, Holborn. Phil England (Roachmill Drummer) was one of the organisers and gave me a copy, Its from the desk and exellent quality - I believe he released some ofit on a Resonance 7" single and ts worth noting that this set predates the one on the Blast First Hellshit/Carcrash CD by a year.
Yoshihide and Eye
Yamatsuka Eye is of course famous for his work with the Boredums and Otomo Yoshihide with Ground Zero, this collaboration was like nothing Ive seen before or Since. Yoshihide had a turntable and a huge stack of records that wound up all over the floor smashed to bits, he also had an extreme metal guitar and often he used both simultaneously - Over this cacophony Eye growled, shrieked and emitted allsorts of terrifying vocal spasms.
None of the songs are more than a minute so theres heaps of starts and ends, and I like starts and ends.
Yoshihide and Eye, London 1994 (30mb zip)
The initially restained applause from the seated and bemused jazz crowd is pretty entertaining too..

The Smiths

When I look at the many psycho fan websites dedicated to the smiths memory I learn that this gig is only the 5th or 6th they had played, and this was the first time that "pretty girls make graves " was ever performed.....so how long in the rehearsal room one wonders?

The playing is faultless and Mr Morriseys vocals are pitch perfect - even the falsetto bits that normal people can only attempt in the shower.
So its a actually a nice reminder of good old human falibility when despite Mo's previous call for "decorum decorum" the machine breaks down in the enchore of "hand in glove" , the stage invasion results in a yelp from Morrisey and Jonny Marrs guitar getting unplugged, the rhythm section ,stranded, slip into extended disco mix mode until normal service is resumed.
Hand in glove - The Smiths (live)
I also learn that I wasnt the only one there that night with cassette recorder in sweaty hand, and that this set has been available as a bootleg for sometime, either that or someone stole a copy of my tape.....Alan?

If not? then mine is better than anything by those guys at the back of the room, its a great recording and it brings back heaps of memories ...the the gladioli, Westfield colledge, the homo-erotic bonding,  the stage invasions , the ULU, the quiffs, the un buttoned shirts, where IS fingerprint man now?
Full set from Dingwalls, 30.08.83 (32 MB)

The Leather Nun

Another cool t-shirt, another punch in the face. I think this one (the punch not the t-shirt)put me off taping shows for good, I cant find any that post date this gig ; its safe to say this is the first half of the set not the end...and it definitely was the last and only time I went to that Bay63 dump.

I cant really remember what happened but Im pretty sure my attacker was a "hometaping is killing music" vigilante cos the assult was accompanied by shouting about stealing the bands music. While technically I was commiting copyright infringement I never had any intention of selling the recordings so I felt a bit miffed (and bloodied and bruised).



Primemover is based on one of those classic primeval 2 chord sludge riffs that should be easy to reproduce by the below-average guitarist,  but isnt, in fact the band takes half the song to get the groove right themselves...

The Leather Nun - Primemover

Leather Nun, Bay63 Ladbroke Grove, London. 28th Feb 1986 (20MB)

1. Primemover

2. Im Alive

3. Trick or Treat

4. Lollipop

5. No Rule



Silverfish

In memory of the Falcon......where one night I had my first exposure to Silverfish or parts thereof....they werent playing , we were all there for the awesome splendour of the majestic Sperm Wails. There was a lot of Lurching going on and half way through a song - in a surge of the alcohol- induced-arsewholeness that Im well known for I threw ChrisP (Silverfish Bass) into the Drum kit he wasnt too happy about it and to reinforce the point Stuart (Silverfish Drummer) punched me in the face. But as always at the Falcon all was forgotten as the night wore on and no grudges were borne.



These tracks are from a compiliation Video that Kieth gave me (and a friend of a friend gave Kieth) , its got heaps of cool bands on it (mainly playing in and around Camden) but theres bugger all info..a stcker on the tape just says  "Silverfish -Windsor" - not sure if thats the  Arms, Castle,  Barabara or what.

The band was a force of nature live and nothing compares to Lelslie belting out their anthem T.F.A, I never think the records did them justice in capturing the sheer animalistic energy , boy did those chaps rock.

The T-shirt was a classic too, Cindy still wears hers now and again - and always finds she gets approached and congratulated by trendy feminista or wrinkled fish fans even in Oz.
ha ha - just remembered that article in the sunday times magazine...