A straight shot west out of Boston on I-90 will carry you, in two hours or less, to Western Massachusetts, where the country still looks like it did twenty or even 40 years ago: college towns, I-91 tracing the same lazy ladder from Springfield up through Holyoke and Northampton, Amherst and Deerfield. Out there it's taken for granted that the houses will be drafty, the winters uniformly long, and that, on any given trip to the local supermarket, one might spot Thurston or Lou or Kim or J, on-and-off locals for more than twenty years. {audio}http://www.archive.org/download/DinosaurJrDrawings/07Drawerings_64kb.mp3{/audio} ... Drawerings Read More ...
By way of decrying a society that left its citizens unbearably restrained, Edith Wharton describes how in New York in the 1870s, women would order dresses from their Paris dressmakers and then leave them in tissue paper at least two years before wearing them in public; the thought of showing them "in advance of the fashion" was unforgivably vulgar. Social life has changed, but cultural life seems just as restricted now – even Animal Collective are held back by trends that seem a couple of years old (and that they helped to invent). When I think back on 2009, I’ll first remember how our impoverished aesthetic generation repeatedly scraped the resin from the cultural trash barrel. Every second person is wearing neon leggings, and the ones who aren’t rock a ‘70s aesthetic, with high-waisted jeans and moccasins. Christmas sweaters are getting impossible to find at the thrift store. Ska revival. Garage rock revival. It never ends. Read More ...
For just over 10 years, London's Guapo has been working in the world of avant and progressive rock. The band's past is a bit hard to track with its numerous lineup changes and guest musicians. The most recent change in roster was the resignation of Matthew Thompson, the founding member of Guapo, which occurred just before the release of 2005's Black Oni. The departure of Thompson has left Guapo with percussionist David Smith and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan. Though O'Sullivan is by no means a founding member of the band, but he was essential in honing the sound on Guapo's last two LPs: Five Suns and Black Oni. These two albums have been pivotal in building Guapo's following of fans, so it's hard not to credit O'Sullivan as an asset to the band.... {audio}http://www.neurotrecordings.com/artists/guapo/audio/Guapo-The%20Selenotrope.mp3 {/audio} ... The Selenotrope Read More ...
Basic Atari Teenage Riot iPhone app philosophy by Alec Empire + London gig+ 4CD, 1DVD free download
The free iPhone app features all ATR albums and songs, all videos, a photo archive, bio, news updates and also a ‘Riotsounds Produce Riots’ audioplayer. This audio player includes all the sounds/WAV files that ATR used at the May 1st 1999 demonstration (very low sub basses, square waves, noise sounds which trigger hysteria and panic within the audience) & would make them available to every political activisit out there. The idea being that you can hook up your iPhone to a speaker system if there is a rally: Apple/iTunes is arguing that they still need to investigate further, because it is legally a grey area and ATR has been indexed in Germany before (censored). Read More ...
The Swans - THIS IS NOT A REUNION - Message From Gira + free discography download (20 CDs)
Michael Gira's re-activated Swans will be undertaking their first U.S. performances in 13 years, celebrating the Fall release of the first new Swans album since Soundtracks For The Blind (1997). The album was recorded by Jason LeFarge at Seizure's Palace in Brooklyn and is currently be remixed by Gira with Bryce Goggin (Antony & The Johnsons, Akron/Family) at Trout Recordings. Read More ...
The Ex are one of those rare bands that, despite being around for 25 years, have neither gone soft nor stagnated. The 23 tracks on this album all date from their first decade of existence (1980-1990), and if you compare it with recent milestones like Starter Alternator and Turn, you’ll see that while many of the Ex’s virtues are long standing, much has changed. The Ex grew out of Amsterdam’s once-fertile squatters’ subculture, and have always been politically conscious; Singles. Period. includes screeds that oppose American cultural hegemony, Dutch apathy, and eugenics. Their most recent album Turn likewise includes protests against globalization, consumerism, and cultural erosion, but its lyrics are quite nuanced and in touch with the grey areas of the issues when compared with the black and white prescription of 1981’s “Weapons For El Salvador”: .............. {audio}http://www.theex.nl/mp3/The%20Ex%20-%20Trash.mp3{/audio} ... Trash Read More ...
Dirty HC Punk explosion - Bristol scene Rise up + Disorder 9 free CDs
From The Cortinas to Lunatic Fringe and Disorder, Bristol had a huge Punk scene that has influenced, affected and stimulated a vast range of artists that operate in the city. Many of these artists produce music that wouldn’t necessarily suggest a Punk heritage but scratch beneath the surface of a lot of the major players in the Bristol milieu and you will find a fondness for the times of `spikey barnets’, limited musical ability, a `F*** You’ attitude and disrespect for the music industry and its poseur hierarchy. Read More ...
A live album can be many things: a candid snapshot, a footnote to a scene, or even just a thrifty alternative to studio time. Antlers, a collection of live Bastro recordings from 1991, is the rarest kind of live album: it illuminates a side of the band that, in turn, casts their previous work in a new light as well.“1991 has been called the year that punk broke. Some of it broke into the mainstream, but some broke into more irregular shards.” David Grubbs’s observation, from the liner notes to Antlers, could also describe the varied musical paths that led from his former band Squirrel Bait to the disparate ’90s groups he and his ex-bandmates went on to found: Slint, Palace Brothers, King Kong, Bitch Magnet, the For Carnation, Tortoise, and of course, Bastro. Read More ...
Japan’s Annual Penis Festival – Celebrates Fertility
KOMAKI, Japan — It's springtime in Japan and that means one thing. Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals. It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan's agricultural past. They're held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making. Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman), which experts blame on stagnant incomes and changing gender relations. Read More ...
Black-lip Rattail ............ These sorts of rattails feed in the muddy seafloor by gliding along head down and tail up, powered by gentle undulations of a long fin under the tail. The triangular head has sensory cells underneath that help detect animals buried in the mud or sand. The common name comes from the black edges around the mouth. Read More ...
All world secret underground bases build for space travelers
The following material comes from people who know the Dulce (underground) base exists. They are people who worked in the labs; abductees taken to the base; people who assisted in the construction; intelligence personal (NSA,CIA,FBI ... ect.) and UFO / inner-earth researchers. This information is meant for those who are seriously interested in the dulce base. for your own protection be advised to “use caution” while investigating this complex.Does a strange world exist beneath our feet? Strange legends have persisted for centuries about the mysterious cavern world and the equally strange beings who inhabit it. More UFOlogists have considered the possibility that UFOs may be emanating from subterranean bases, that UFO aliens have constructed these bases to carry out various missions involving Earth or humans. Read More ...
"I forgot to remember to forget," Elvis Presley sang in 1955. I know that it was 1955 because I just Googled the title and clicked on the link to the Wikipedia entry for the song. How cool is that? Not long ago, I would have had to actually remember that Elvis recorded the song as part of his monumental Sun Records sessions that year. Then I would have had to flip through a set of histories of blues and country that sit on the shelf behind me. It might have taken five minutes to do what I did in five seconds. I almost don't need my own memory any more. That strikes many of us as a good thing: the costs low, the benefits high. We can be much more efficient and comprehensive now that a teeming collection of documents sits just a few keystrokes away. Read More ...
These days, with all the pundits preaching doom and the impending collapse of society into some kind of Mad Max style wasteland, it's easy for us to imagine that the economy is as unhealthy as it's ever been. But any historian would give you a hard backhanded smack for even saying that out loud. History is full of economic idiocy, and here are five economic collapses that make 2010 feel like the Renaissance. Read More ...
Island of Ghosts: Hashima Island - Japan’s rotting metropolis
Hashima, an island located in Nagasaki Bay, is better known as Warship Island (Gunkanshima). The island was inhabited until the end of the 19th century, when it was discovered that the ground below it held tons of coal. The island soon became a center of a major mining complex owned by Mitsubishi Corporation. As the complex expanded, rock brought out of the shafts was used to artificially expand the island. Seawalls created in this expansion turned Hashima into the monstrous looking Gunkanshima; its artificial appearance makes it looks more like a battleship than an island. Read More ...
Dreamachine - stroboscopic flicker device enter you to a hypnagogic state - try it right here in your browser
The dreamachine (or dream machine) is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, The Living Brain. In its original form, a dreamachine is made from a cylinder with slits cut in the sides. The cylinder is placed on a record turntable and rotated at 78 or 45 revolutions per minute. A light bulb is suspended in the center of the cylinder and the rotation speed allows the light to come out from the holes at a constant frequency of between 8 and 13 pulses per second. This frequency range corresponds to alpha waves, electrical oscillations normally present in the human brain while relaxing. Read More ...
The Peyote Way Church of God - believe that the Holy Sacrament Peyote can lead an individual toward a more spiritual life
The Peyote Way Church of God is a non-sectarian, multicultural, experiential, Peyotist organization located in southeastern Arizona, in the remote Aravaipa wilderness. It is not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Native American Church, or any other religious organizations, though we do accept people from all faiths. Church membership is open to all races. We encourage individuals to create their own rituals as they become acquainted with the great mystery. We believe that the Holy Sacrament Peyote, when taken according to our sacramental procedure and combined with a holistic lifestyle (see Word of Wisdom), can lead an individual toward a more spiritual life. Peyote is currently listed as a controlled substance and its religious use is protected by Federal law only for Native American members of the Native American Church. Read More ...
The Marijuana Conspiracy - The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal
MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people. The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies. Read More ...
Learn How to Pronounce the Iceland Volcano Eyjafjallajokull and remember; When He Erupted In 1821, it lasted 2 years
The last time Eyjafjallajökull erupted, it lasted 2 years stretching from 1821-1823. It also erupted in 920 and 1612. Eyjafjallajökull's eruption usually precedes an eruption for another Icelandic volcano called Katla, as it did in 1823. Katla's eruptions are usually more violent than Eyjafjallajökul's. Due to the second activity on Eyjafjallajökull volcano since April 14, there are thousands of flights have been cancelled not only in Europe but also some flights from Asia, America and other continents. More over, it was also reportedly more than ten thousands of air travelers still stranded after a plume of ash cloud spreading across thousands of miles. No need to repeat the same news in every single post, actually there’s an interesting thing from the Iceland volcano’s name Eyjafjallajokull. Pronunciation is so difficult for some of us. Even, many people still don’t know what’s the right pronunciation of Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Did you know that? Read More ...
The Drivers Of Tropical Deforestation Are Changing
A shift from poverty-driven to industry-driven deforestation threatens the world's tropical forests but offers new opportunities for conservation, according to an article coauthored by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. "New Strategies for Conserving Tropical Forests" will be featured in the September issue of the leading journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Rhett Butler of Mongabay.com, a leading tropical-forest Web site, and Laurance argue that the sharp increase in deforestation by big corporations provides environmental lobby groups with clear, identifiable targets that can be pressured to be more responsive to environmental concerns. Read More ...
The CIA and the Nazis - Declassified archives document ties between CIA and Nazis - Where Is Hitler?!
The US national archives released some 27,000 pages of secret records documenting the CIA’s Cold War relations with former German Nazi Party members and officials. The files reveal numerous cases of German Nazis, some clearly guilty of war crimes, receiving funds, weapons and employment from the CIA. They also demonstrate that US intelligence agencies deliberately refrained from disclosing information about the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann in order to protect Washington’s allies in the post-war West German government headed by Christian Democratic leader Konrad Adenauer. Eichmann, who had sent millions to their deaths while coordinating the Nazis’ “final solution” campaign to exterminate European Jewry, went into hiding in Buenos Aires after the fall of the Third Reich. Read More ...
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution. They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent. Read More ...
The international community has come out in force to condemn and declare war on the Somali fishermen pirates, while discreetly protecting the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fleets from around the world that have been poaching and dumping toxic waste in Somali waters since the fall of the Somali government eighteen years ago. In 1991, when the government of Somalia collapsed, foreign interests seized the opportunity to begin looting the country’s food supply and using the country’s unguarded waters as a dumping ground for nuclear and other toxic waste. Read More ...
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. There are one billion squatters globally, that is, about one in every six people on the planet. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, "squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualized, as a problem, as a symptom, or as a social or housing movement. In many countries, squatting is in itself a crime; in others, it is only seen as a civil conflict between the owner and the occupants. "Squatters are usually portrayed as worthless scroungers hell-bent on disrupting society." Property law and the state have traditionally favored the property owner. However, in many cases where squatters had de facto ownership, laws have been changed to legitimize their status. Read More ...
9/11 has inspired a myriad of memorials who are scattered all across America. Some of them are of questionable taste, others contain strange occult symbolism while others simply piss people off. Here’s the five most offensive. Read More ...
The World's First Commercial Brain-Computer Interface + history of BCI
A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. BCIs are often aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. Research on BCIs began in the 1970s at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) under a grant from the National Science Foundation, followed by a contract from DARPA. The papers published after this research also mark the first appearance of the expression brain–computer interface in scientific literature. Read More ...
Seven theories of everything that pretend to describe the fundamental nature of the universe
We still don't have a theory that describes the fundamental nature of the universe, but there are plenty of candidates.
The "theory of everything" is one of the most cherished dreams of science. If it is ever discovered, it will describe the workings of the universe at the most fundamental level and thus encompass our entire understanding of nature. It would also answer such enduring puzzles as what dark matter is, the reason time flows in only one direction and how gravity works. Small wonder that Stephen Hawking famously said that such a theory would be "the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God". But theologians needn't lose too much sleep just yet. Despite decades of effort, progress has been slow. Rather than one or two rival theories whose merits can be judged against the evidence, there is a profusion of candidates and precious few clues as to which (if any) might turn out to be correct. Read More ...
The Secrets of Coral Castle and pyramids EXPLAINED by Leedskalnin's Magnetic Current theory
Coral Castle doesn't look much like a castle, but that hasn't discouraged generations of tourists from wanting to see it. That's because it was built by one man, Ed Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant who single-handedly and mysteriously excavated, carved, and erected over 2.2 million pounds of coral rock to build this place, even though he stood only five feet tall and weighed a mere 100 pounds. Ed was as secretive as he was misguided. He never told anyone how he carved and set into place the walls, gates, monoliths, and moon crescents that make up much of his Castle. Some of these blocks weigh as much as 30 tons. Ed often worked at night, by lantern light, so that no one could see him. He used only tools that he fashioned himself from wrecks in an auto junkyard. Read More ...
The T2K Experiment - From Tokai To Kamioka - Where is the anti-matter?
From the beginning of 2010, the T2K experiment will fire a beam of muon-neutrinos from Tokai on Japan's east coast, 300km accross the country to a detector at Kamioka. It hopes to investigate the phenomenon of "neutrino oscillations" by looking for "muon neutrinos" oscillating into "electron neutrinos". A million pound detector has been built at the University of Warwick as part of a vital experiment to investigate fundamental particles - neutrinos. Read More ...
The giant ALICE detector is already underway at CERN, and researchers are scrambling to add an electromagnetic calorimeter to capture jet-quenching, the newest way to look inside the quark-gluon plasma — the hot, dense state of matter that filled the earliest universe, which the Large Hadron Collider will soon recreate by slamming lead nuclei into one another. CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is known mainly as the accelerator that will soon begin searching for the Higgs particle, and other new physics, in proton collisions at unprecedented energies — up to 14 TeV (14 trillion electron volts) at the center of mass — and with unprecedented beam intensities. But the same machine will also collide massive nuclei, specifically lead ions, to energies never achieved before in the laboratory. Read More ...
Vadim Chernobrov & Russian secrets experiments with time machines
A disturbing story in the March, 2005. 1 issue of Pravda suggests that the U. S. Government is working on the discovery of a mysterious point over the South Pole that may be a passageway backward in time. According to the article, some American and British scientists working in Antarctica on January 27, 1995, noticed a spinning gray fog in the sky over the pole. U. S. physicist Mariann McLein said at first they believed it to be some kind of sandstorm. But after a while they noticed that the fog did not change its form and did not move so they decided to investigate. Read More ...
If you're trying to buy happiness, you'd be better off putting your money toward a tropical island get-away than a new computer, a new study suggests. The results show that people's satisfaction with their life-experience purchases — anything from seeing a movie to going on a vacation — tends to start out high and go up over time. On the other hand, although they might be initially happy with that shiny new iPhone or the latest in fashion, their satisfaction with these items wanes with time. The findings, based on eight separate studies, agree with previous research showing that experience-related buys lead to more happiness for the consumer. But the current work provides some insight into why. Read More ...
It's not just a good idea, it's the law: 186,287 miles per second. The fact that sound waves travel at a finite speed--roughly 330 meters per second--has been known since ancient times. It's obvious, really, when you stand back a ways and observe the falling of a tree or the clapping of a pair of hands, and the sound arrives noticeably later than the sight itself. The fact that light waves also travel at finite speed is much harder to notice, because that speed is almost a million times faster. But by the end of the Renaissance, astronomers--viewing events much more distant than a few hundred meters--had begun to suspect the truth. Read More ...
It was nearly the end of WWII. At that same time, scientist Viktor Schauberger worked on a secret project. Johannes Kepler, whose ideas Schauberger followed, had knowledge of the secret teachings of Pythagoras that had been adopted and kept secret. It was the knowledge of Implosion (in this case the utilization of the potential of the inner worlds in the outer world). Hitler knew - as did the Thule and Vril people - that the divine principle was always constructive. A technology however that is based on explosion and therefore is destructive runs against the divine principle. Thus they wanted to create a technology based on Implosion. Read More ...
The Size Of Our World or How Insignificant the Earth Really Is in the Universe
Compared to you and me, the Earth is really big. But compared to Jupiter and the Sun, the Earth is pretty tiny. There are many ways we can measure the size of the Earth. Let's look at how big the Earth is, and then compare it to other objects in the Solar System. The diameter of the Earth is 12,742 km. In other words, if you dug a hole down into the Earth, passed through the center of the Earth, and came out the other side, you would have dug a hole 12,742 km deep (on average). That's about 4 times longer than the diameter of the Moon. Read More ...
Strange Images from Space - Photos&videos of the Bizarre in Our Universe
Some weird and unusual objects are floating around in the cosmos. Space is always serving up something new, unusual, and unexpected. Here are images and explanations of obejcts that have amazed and delighted astronomers. Read More ...
Mysterious Radio Waves from Unknown Object in M82 Galaxy
There is something strange is lurking in the galactic neighborhood. An unknown object in galaxy M82 12 million light-years away has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before except perhaps by Ford Prefect. M82 is starburst galaxy five times as bright as the Milky Way and one hundred times as bright as our galaxy's center. "We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK. But its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light. This "superluminal" motion occurs usually in high-speed jets of material bursting out by black holes. Read More ...
Unsettled Mechanism of Supernova Detonation Gets a New Twist
Type Ia supernovae, often used to calibrate cosmological measurements, may arise from merging white dwarfs, after all
When stellar cataclysms known as type Ia supernovae flare up far across the universe, their brightness and consistency allow astronomers to use them as so-called standard candles to measure cosmological distances. Just over a decade ago, two teams used the supernovae to show that the universe is accelerating in its expansion due to the influence of dark energy, a shocking discovery that thrust type Ia supernovae into the astrophysical limelight. But how exactly did these cosmic mileposts come to be? Read More ...
Black Prince, alien space probe, orbits Earth watching humans
Alexander Kazantsev, a Soviet author of sci-fi books, once said that a mysterious “unaccounted” satellite called Black Prince was spinning around Earth. The writer believed the object might be an alien probe, a messenger from extraterrestrial civilizations. Some people including scientists paid attention to the writer’s hypothesis.U.S. astrophysicist Ronald Bracewell was the first to take the hypothesis seriously. In 1960, he published a study to back his conclusions with data of practical radio engineering. Read More ...
Secret Robotic Space Plane Launched By US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) has launched a secret space plane into orbit, carried in the nose of an Atlas 5 rocket. The USAF is not calling the X-37B a weapon or anything else, and the classified mission was broadcast live, but only for several minutes into the flight. The plane, built by Boeing, was originally part of a NASA programme but was later abandoned and turned over to a secretive USAF unit. There are no details on how much it costs or when it is coming back to earth, but when it does return the unmanned craft will land itself, using the onboard autopilot. Read More ...
Hubble telescope captures image of mysterious x-shaped object in space
Is that a smashed comet or an X-Wing fighter? Scientists are offering up their own theories as to what created the striking star-inspired image, which was captured by NASA's Hubble telescope in January. "Two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. Read More ...
All Radio music can download from "free music albums"
For a small country New Zealand has long been pumping out some impressive music. Way back in the 1960s it was crazed long-haired punkers messed up on all sorts of stuff - musical (the Pretty Things, Love, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Troggs and who-knows-what-else) and I guess otherwise. Some of the best of these bands (at least, the ones that recorded) can be heard on Wild Things vol 1 and 2, compiled by NZ music historian John Baker, the first of which came out on Flying Nun, the second probably on Baker's own Zero Records, also the home to No. 8 Wire: Psychedelia Without Drugs.
These compilations are way up there with the best of the Nuggets, Pebbles, Back from the Grave et al collections and are a pretty good outline of the New Zealand scene of years gone by.
The late 60s/early 70s supposedly weren't too bad, either; with the psych/hard rock bands Space Farm or Living Force (if you're into this kind of stuff), Jessie Harper and Human Instinct and, I guess more importantly, Billy T.K., a member of Human Instinct for a few years and later Powerhouse. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site All these groups have incredibly rare originals floating around; if you're willing to enter the bizarre world of the psych collector be prepared to kiss your cash goodbye. Luckily (?) a couple of reissue labels Kissing Spell and Little Wing took it upon themselves to re-release some of these recordings a few years back. Which are probably no longer available, but who knows. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site The most important is supposedly the Human Instinct - Featuring Billy T.K 3LP box set released by Little Wing from Germany. Bringing some sanity to proceedings is the Human Instinct homepage listing currently-available recordings and news for those interested. I've yet to hear any of this other than Jessie Harper's LP on Kissing Spell...this particular era of hard/psych rock doesn't really appeal to me so much, though the Harper album definitely does it's "thing". I guess one day.
What I like, however is the Vermonster "tribute" to Human Instinct, Instinctively Inhuman (Vermonster is/was a Twisted Village in-house "supergroup" from back in the early days of this label indulging the heavier psych tendencies of those involved. Their debut, Spirit of Yma, is ear-blowing rock of mega proportions. Instinctively Inhuman record number two, is also "bent". The third album The Holy Sounds of American Pipe is a little less focussed but still has it's moments. There were some tracks on singles and compilations too. Except for LP #3 which may still be available the other releases were pain-in-the-arse limited pressings - 500 copies, long since gone, etc.) This carried it's NZ links to extreme proportions featuring Bruce Russell (Dead C/Handful of Dust/Corpus Hermeticum/Xpressway) as "guest" guitarist. If you get a chance to hear it, do. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Something that may be a little easier to lay your hands on is Stranded in Paradise by John Dix. A very wide-ranging history of New Zealand rock music from the mid-1950s up to the late 80s, this is where you should be looking to find out about the above bands. I have no idea if this is still in publication, but it probably can't be too hard to find.
Jump to the mid-1970s and punk rock was having it's effect on New Zealand just as the rest of the world. One person particularly affected was Chris Knox who along with Mick Dawson, Mike Dooley and Alex Bathgate formed the Enemy. Not only one of the first punk bands in NZ, they were apparently the first NZ punk band to play their own material...and influenced or encouraged lots of others to form bands. Read all about it in Forced Exposure #18 which contains a huge in-depth interview with Knox pretty much touching on everything you need to know about NZ music up to the beginning of the 1990s. Essential reading. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
The Enemy never left any offical recordings (although there was some primitive, wild film footage and you may find some MP3s floating around), and they eventually mutated into Toy Love who were in their time probably one of the most important NZ bands. Toy Love did leave some recordings, a bunch of singles and most notably the Toy Love album. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Toy Love lasted a few years, Knox and Alec Bathgate going on to form Tall Dwarfs while bassist Paul Kean ended up in the Bats along with Robert Scott from the Clean. Tall Dwarfs have released a whole bunch of EPs and albums of unparalled beauty, mostly on Flying Nun... Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Nowadays most of the Tall Dwarfs releases should still be available; this includes the two anthology CDs on F.Nun, Hello Cruel World and The Short & Sick of it which collect all their early recordings: Three Songs, Louis Like His Daily Dip, Canned Music, Slugbuckethairybreathmonster, from 1981-1984, on Hello Cruel World; That's The Short & Long Of It and Throw a Sickie, 1985/86, on the second collection. This may well be the best the Tall Dwarfs will ever "get" especially the first four EPs as documented on ...Cruel World. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Lovely fractured songs inhabiting a world defined but not restricted by Barrett-Era Pink Floyd, Beatles psychedelia Incredible String Band, T. Rex, P. rock, etc etc, mixed up with the unique musical vision of Bathgate and Knox filtered through a lo-fi experimental sensibility and demonstrating just what can be achieved with a four-track recorder and a bunch of instruments like guitars, organ, clavinet, mellotron, percussion, tape loops. They have managed to successfully carry this on for over a decade now, with sporadic releases plus the occasional Knox solo outing to fill the gaps. These solo things tend to see his more experimental side get a good airing (not that it doesn't turn up on the Dwarfs releases) but still follow a similar path to the "band" releases. Knox-wise things to look out for include obviously his first solo album Songs for Cleaning Guppies from 82 or 83 (if you can find it) while amongst the later-era releases 1995s Songs of You and Me stands out. Although Polyfoto Duck-shaped Pain & Gum is OK. I guess you should just listen to all of 'em; Seizure, Croaker, etc and make up your own mind or something. Though one warning, Yes!, features for some unfathomable reason a horrid 1980s new wave drum sound, but once you get used to this it sounds OK. Tall Dwarfs-wise the later releases have their moments... Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Stumpy is actually a collaborative release; the group elicited tape loops from listeners and utilised them in the album. And yeah, it all sort of fits together and makes sense, but doesn't really go very far. The 3 EPS triple 10" package from 1994 is way more satisfying. Fifty Flavours of Glue has some nice pop ditties and a few interesting bits. I hope Bathgate and Knox have a few more good ideas in them, but I guess if not they still managed to make some of NZ's most memorable music.
Probably the most important band to record on F. Nun was the Clean. David and Hamish Kilgour and Robert Scott (there were different line-ups, all based around the Kilgour brothers. In terms of records, this is the "important" line-up) not only recorded some of the best music to have came out of NZ but also defined an entire sound and helped create a world-wide interest in music from this particular neck of the woods. In fact, Flying Nun was basically formed for the Clean, according to some reports. Although the honour of first release on the label belongs to the Pin Group. But who cares, right? The Clean, with their five original F.Nun releases (the Tally Ho! and Getting Older singles and the Boodle, Boodle, Boodle, Great Sounds... and posthumous Live Dead Clean EPs) pumped out a timeless psych-pop-folk amalgam. The enthusiasm and energy of their music plus the sheer...I dunno, oneness, of their playing draws you into their music every time. Listen if you haven't already. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Like all good things the Clean quickly fell apart. Robert Scott went on to the pastoral pop of the Bats (a load of releases on F. Nun) while the Kilgour Brothers moved onto the Great Unwashed, kind of a low-key version of the Clean. Not as focussed as the latter, the Great Unwashed seemed more of a home recording project. Their one album Clean Out Of Our Minds is a collection of 4-track home doodles, but still has a shit-load of classic moments. Like the Clean, the Great Unwashed were probably a band better experienced live, although they reached a high with their seven inch single pack, two singles enclosed in a paint-splattered vinyl cover which played havoc with the enclosed records and is now long-gone (although the songs were reissued on an EP and more recently the F. Nun Great Unwashed CD retrospective), this saw Peter Gutteridge rejoining the fold (he'd been in the Clean at one time) and yet another bunch of classic songs molded in a much more stripped down format. Sparse rock and roll, including one of the all-time great Kilgour and Gutteridge songs Born In The Wrong Time, 2 minutes of melodic bliss. Love that droning guitar! Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Mention should be made here of Snapper, formed mid-80s by Peter Gutteridge and including Christine Voice, Dominic Stones (ex-Bird Nest Roys, in their time an excellent pop band from Auckland) and Alan Haig (ex-Chills). Developing out of a home taping period Gutteridge passed through, Snapper were a howling full-throated version of the music documented on his Pure Xpressway cassette release. The group released an self-titled EP plus two full-length releases Shotgun Blossom and A.D.M. Distorted keyboard throb, reverb and rhythm defined the Snapper sound, they were a monster live, something at least approximated on the EP and Shotgun Blossom. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Back to the Clean. They reformed for whatever reasons and released three new albums plus some singles. Vehicle, the first of their "new" releases stands as the best. Unfortunately the other two, Modern Rock and Unknown Country just sound a little dull and formulaic, lacking any of the sparkling highlights of earlier releases. Shouldn't complain, though; they are still strong pop albums from an "important" band. David Kilgour has continued on with a few solo releases, most notably the Here Come the Cars album, perfectly-realised pop songs. This is the kind of album a lot of other bands of the 80's/90's would have loved to make but just didn't have it in them to...1999 and 2000 saw brief Clean reunions with live shows in Christchurch and Dunedin, but whether anything else will come of this is unknown for now.
Something a lot of bands never had was whatever "it" was that made the Gordons so good. In existence in Christchurch for a little while in the early 80s this group only released three recordings: the Future Shock EP, a self-titled LP and their second LP titled II. I can't remember what labels all these came out on; I know the 2nd LP was on Flying Nun. Future Shock was reissued here, and later turned up on a F. Nun CD reissue along with the first LP but the 2nd album is long, long gone. The Gordons were all about volume and noise; they were before my time but legendary in Christchurch for the sheer volume and power of their performances at places like the Gladstone (a real dive of a pub where once in a while some of the best musical events of the last 20 years took place.) And I know I've been throwing around way too many adjectives and hyperbole but bear with me here and consider "under-heralded masterpiece of pure shredded guitar blather" or "monster noise/psych splurge that'll fry your brain" or "extreme rug-cutting riffage overload" or something along those lines re: the first Gordons LP. This is really very excellent and you really should hear it. Apparently still available as the above-mentioned CD and yes, Future Shock is as gushingly good as the rest. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
It was kind of surprising when Alister Parker (he played guitar and did vocals in the Gordons) suddenly re-emerged in the late '80's with Hamish Kilgour, Ross Humphries (from the Pin Group) and Glenda Bills as Bailter Space (originally Nelsh Bailter Space). This line-up played live a few times and released one EP Nelsh Bailter Space on Flying Nun, all of which seemed pretty important at the time, and looking back, probably was. The line-up changed; Humphries and Bills left after the first EP, Kilgour a little later (up to the first album) until suddenly we were back with the Gordons again; Parker joined by John Halvorsen (who had been playing with the dark/industrial Skeptics in Wellington) and Brent McLachlan. Bailter Space have been around as this line-up for a while now, released a bunch of albums, etc. The first few, Tanker and Thermos were OK in a 90s new wave-style but really I can't be bothered with them any more and I'm sure you have better things to do, too. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
The Pin Group was mentioned somewhere up above - Roy Montgomery, Ross Humphries and Peter Stapleton were together for a bit more than a year, only ever released three records (2 7"s and the ...goes to town ep) and rarely played live (never out of Christchurch?) Yet the late 90s saw them receiving all kinds of attention culminating in the Retrospective release on Siltbreeze. So what's the big deal? Well, wait until you hear Retrospective and you may begin to understand. But earlier than this the deserved attention relates back to the early 1990s when Peter Stapleton persuaded Montgomery to join him, Kim Pieters and Janine Stagg in a band called Dadamah. They made some recordings which Bruce Russell took with him on a trip to the US hoping to find someone who'd release them, and lo and behold, they had a couple of singles and an LP out on Majora. And this stuff was...different. Velvets-style strum'n'clatter destroyed by freaked electronics and very "out" vocals, Dadamah sounded as if they were beaming direct to your frontal lobes from some distant reality. The album and 7-inches are gone now, but luckily for you Kranky re-issued the whole bundle as a CD compilation. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
As well as reviving interest in The Pin Group and their dark, low-key Velvets-via-Joy Division influenced songs, Dadamah re-started Roy Montgomery's musical career. In a pretty big way, too. He's released albums and singles on all sorts of labels and been the subject of lots of interviews and articles. And I guess you can kind of understand the fuss when you hear his recordings, especially Fantasia on a Theme by Sandy Bull, his contribution to Drunken Fish's Harmony of the Spheres box-set. Montgomery's side-long guitar piece wraps around you like a warm, narcotic fog into which you'll want to immerse yourself again and again. Temple IV on Kranky isn't too slack, either. Shorter songs this time, but still more of his rich, melodic and incredibly atmospheric playing. Scenes from the South Island features evocative images of the New Zealand mainland, a release many regard as Montgomery's best. Personally I find the dark ringing tones of And Now the Rain Sounds Like Life Is Falling Down Through It to be particularly satisfying with "In Our Own Time" one of the best vocal performances I've heard from the man. 324 E.13th St. #7 is a compilation of various singles/random tracks from different sources, necessary if you don't have the original items but a bit patchy as it lacks the coherency and consistency tying his longer releases together. The Allegory of Hearing released in 2000 by Drunken Fish (as with the previous-mentioned three) contains more excursions into reverb-drenched guitar/organ/e-bow harmonics. It's a sound instantly familiar yet Montgomery's expansive melodic sense keeps it fresh.
One other project Montgomery was involved in is Dissolve, a group based around him and fellow New Zealander Chris Heaphy. Dissolve put out two albums on Kranky, That That Is...Is (Not) and Third Album for the Sun. The first of these is duo recordings, not quite your "typical" Montgomery release because it's not Montgomery, it's Dissolve (sorry!) two guitars, kind of dark, imaginary soundtracks, etc etc. I like it and I think you might too. Third Album... is different. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Other people contribute here, at times: The Bats' Kaye Woodward plays guitar and sings on a few tracks (the Bats were Robert Scott (Clean, etc), Paul Kean (Toy Love, etc), Kaye Woodward and Malcolm Grant, they released a lot of records on Flying Nun, toured a lot and were generally a very very pleasant experience. I guess they finished up a while ago now), John Chrisstoffels (Terminals and a whole lot of other ChCh scuzz bands) contributes cello while Arnie Van Bussel (the owner/operator of Nightshift Studios in Christchurch, recording site for a lot of hot poop the likes of we'll probably never hear again) plays bass. It's a more song-based release than other Montgomery recordings, owing maybe to the collaborative nature and there's a sort of non-linear reference to certain 80s groups but obviously moving forward from there. Both Dissolve albums are good but again, they are more than just Montgomery. A third Heaphy/Montgomery collaboration is available, True on Kranky. The Dissolve name has been dropped here and it's half solo Montgomery, half Heaphy/Montgomery but the music (originally scored for a live theatre project) is as image-laden and emotionally-charged as anything from Dissolve.
Various periods throughout the 90s saw Montgomery slumming it with a few other interesting bands both in the US and UK. He recorded an album with American drug-rockers Bardo Pond, the name was changed to Hash Jar Tempo for the proceedings and the end result, Well Oiled with its murky guitar extrapolations definitely suggests a very smokey session. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
The players met up again in 1998 and recorded a second album Under Glass. Listening here you're funneled through some very loose guitar drone/howl, it's quite transfixing. The second collaboration was with Flying Saucer Attack in the UK. Montgomerey played live with them one night and one song made it onto the Goodbye EP (on VHF.) A meeting of great rural pyschedelia, and you'd never realise it had happened. Guess we should have been there...
Jumping back in time here; at about the same time as the Pin Group (beginning of the 80s) Peter Stapleton was playing in another band, the Vacuum, along with Stephen Cogle, Bill Direen and Alan Meek. According to some reports seeing the Vacuum play was like seeing the Velvets live in Christchurch and from what little recorded evidence exists (a couple of songs on Split Seconds, the third in Flying Nun's excellent Bill Direen re-issue series. Direen has long been a part of the NZ music "scene" but is generally ignored/underappreciated(?) by just about everyone. Right this wrong and listen to the first three of the CD re-issue series!) I wish I'd been old enough/known enough to be there.
Vacuum fell apart, as seemed to be the way back then, transmuting into the Victor Dimisich Band. Cogle, Stapleton, Meek and newcomer Tony O'Grady made the music this time, continuing with that Christchurch sound and that style. The Victor Dimisich Band...here's a criminally under-heralded group. They released one long-gone EP on F. Nun which I'm sure no one has ever heard, let alone seen (you should try and hear it.) Bruce Russell documented some of their archival recordings (live and studio) on his Xpressway label with the Mekong Delta Blues cassette; again, it's gone now. But there's another addition to the continuing re-discovery of Christchurch with the release of My Name is K on Stapleton's Medication label. This is a reissue of the F. Nun EP and a number of tracks from the Xpressway cassette. Plus there's some different stuff here too, and it's all as important to hear as the Pin Group.
For the F. Nun EP the Victor Dimisich Band had one extra member, Mary Heney. A while later she and Stapleton and Brian Crook (later in the Terminals and the Renderers, see below) turned up as part of Scorched Earth Policy. Also involved here were Mick Elborado (again in the Terminals) Andre Dawson and Andrea Cocks. They were scary, musically and otherwise, perhaps the best "punk" group to ever come out of ChCh. Raw and intense and wonderful. Two EPs came out on Flying Nun-Dust to Dust and Going Through a Hole in the Back of Your Head-later reissued on the Xpressway cassette Foaming Out along with a bunch of live recordings. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Not suprisingly they approximate a rougher version of the Terminals even down to a few of the songs (the Xpressway release has yet another version of the epochal "Mekong Delta Blues," though perhaps not one of the best.) The F. Nun and Xpressway releases are no more but they have been compiled on the Medication release Keep Away From the Wires.
It was more than good news when, in the late 80s, Cogle and Stapleton and some others appeared out of seemingly oblivion to form the Terminals. Since the early days of their Flying Nun releases this band have developed from playing "gothic garage" into a howling, intense beast. Quite possibly NZ's best rock band, and to see them live on a good night is a revelation. Held together by Stapleton and bassist John Christoffel's thick, dense rhythms, Brian Crook (also in the Renderers) draws beautiful noise from his guitar. Meanwhile Cogle strums away seemingly detached and filling the spaces with his unique voice. On top of all this Mick Elborado lays down the kind of gorgeous keyboard-splurge rarely heard since the days of Eno-era Roxy Music or early Pere Ubu singles. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
Fortunately the Terminals recorded their progress. There were two F. Nun releases, an EP and LP reissued as the Cul-de-Sac CD compilation (now deleted?) which caught the band in more of a 60s garage style than the darker sounds of later releases. These were two studio albums Touch and Little Things, the latter a terrifyingly wonderous product. Plus one live CD on Stapleton's Medication inprint. That and a bunch of very good singles, including Psycho Lives/Witchdoctor; to these simple ears one of the best rock singles of the past decade. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
You should listen to the Terminals. You can read more about them in an interview with Stapleton. And know that in 2007 they released Last Days of the Sun, their first new studio album in about twelve years, and it's simply fantastic. Cogle's in strong vocal form, Stapleton and Crook have delivered another set of darkly-themed lyrics, and the band have come up with some of their most densely melodic music yet. Out on Last Visible Dog, who said "Close in spirit to Touch and Little Things, but with some maturity and perspective added. Shades of Velvet Underground and Wire, but as always, the Terminals remain their own band." A group of middle-aged men from Christchurch produce the best rock album in ages. Excellent. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site
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For a small country New Zealand has long been pumping out some impressive music. Way back in the 1960s it was crazed long-haired punkers messed up on all sorts of stuff - musical (the Pretty Things, Love, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Troggs and who-knows-what-else) and I guess otherwise. Some of the best of these bands (at least, the ones that recorded) can be heard on Wild Things vol 1 and 2, compiled by NZ music historian John Baker, the first of which came out on Flying Nun, the second probably on Baker's own Zero Records, also the home to No. 8 Wire: Psychedelia Without Drugs.
