In December 1981, 40 years ago, American Punk rock band Dead Kennedys released their infamous In God We Trust, Inc. EP. It was their first release featuring their new drummer D.H. Peligro. The record is a screed against things ranging from organized religion and Neo-Nazis, to the use of pesticide and government indifference that worsened the effects of chemical catastrophes. In God We Trust, Inc. is also the first Dead Kennedys album released after the presidential election of Ronald Reagan and features the band's aversion towards Reagan, for which they would become notorious.
The EP features also "We've Got a Bigger Problem Now" which is actually a rewritten version of their early “hitsingle” single "California über alles". Originally a rant against California governor Jerry Brown, the band reworked the song addressing the newly elected president Ronald Reagan. Most songs were based on previous unreleased songs and were recorded live in the studio on 19 June 1981, without any overdubs.
Disaster struck when it was discovered the mastertape containing the whole recording sessions turned out to be malfunctioning so the band was forced to re-record all eight songs on 22 August thats same year.
However in 2003 enhanced restoration techniques allowed for five tracks to be recovered from the master tapes. They were released on DVD together with recorded video footage of those original recording sessions.
Dead Kennedys – In God We Trust, Inc. (12" EP)
A1. 2. 3. 4. 5. B1. 2. 3.
| Religious Vomit | 1:04 | |
| Moral Majority | 1:55 | |
| Hyperactive Child | 0:37 | |
| Kepone Factory | 1:18 | |
| Dog Bite | 1:13 | |
| Nazi Punks Fuck Off | 1:03 | |
| We've Got a Bigger Problem Now | 4:29 | |
| Rawhide | 2:11 |
Dead Kennedys (Line-up 1981)
Jello Biafra – lead vocals, artwork
East Bay Ray – guitar, backing vocals on "Moral Majority", producer
Klaus Flouride – bass, backing vocals
D.H. Peligro – drums
Industrial Band IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER Is Resurrected With New Album, 'Retroject'
South Carolina-based industrial project IMPULSE CONTROL DISORDER has just unleashed their first full-length album, Retroject.
Retroject is an album that was begun in 2001 but has just seen the light of day in 2021. Some of the songs may feel nostalgic and dated and that is because, well, they are!!! An excess of free time during the Covid-19 pandemic eventually grew tiresome and monotonous. So, it was decided to finish the album that had begun many years prior!
The songs cover personal battles with self doubt, lost love, rejection, coping with the hellscape of the modern world and ghost stories.
Retroject does not adhere to any one genre. However, it does maintain a cohesiveness that was spawned from the feelings and fantasies that run through the mind of a person ill-equipped to deal with “normal” life. That same mind nonetheless, has found a way to cope and function while internally slipping into lunacy.
An EP and three singles were released between 2020 and 2021.
Retroject is available NOW on CD and digital formats via Bandcamp.
Today, 50 years ago (17.12.1971) the late David Bowie released his first masterwork, Hunky Dory.
“Look out, you rock & rollers."
Following on from the garage-rock of “The Man Who Sold The World” the formula was now in place for Bowie to push the boundaries that bit further and make the world sit up and take notice, his travels to America had inspired the writing of his first masterpiece, the culture and the music soaked into his songs, from the Velvet Underground to Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, all would play a role in the dynamic of David Bowie’s creativity.
From the infectious opener “Changes”, an instant pop-classic with the catchy chorus which would foretell Bowie’s career, the path he would take and the warning to the music world of his arrival.
“Oh! You Pretty Things”, this was “Starman” part-one, the full lineup of the Spiders coming into their own for the first time with the aid of Rick Wakeman on piano.
As “Life On Mars?” became the pivotal Bowie track of the day, the transcendent chorus, the uplifting piano working in partnership with the guitar solos, images of America and childhood dreams:
“It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again”.
On “Quicksand” he went shoulder to shoulder with the songwriting greats of the day in this tale which dealt with the occult, the Second World War and most surprisingly Aleister Crowley and The Golden Dawn. Bowie was at his darkest, pulling images and characters from the abyss and casting them in his latest play;
“I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes,Living proof of Churchill's lies, I'm destiny. I'm torn between the light and dark, Where others see their targets, divine symmetry”
The driving acoustic guitar of “Andy Warhol”, a psychedelic-ballad, an ode to art and it’s creator, though being able to sum up Bob Dylan in one line is an accomplishment all of its own, in his tribute to the folk-troubadour Bowie nailed it perfectly on “Song For Dylan”;
“With a voice like sand and glue”
“Queen Bitch”, was the template for the following albums, Bowie on acoustic guitar, Ronson tearing up a riff similar to The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane”, the melodic bass-run by Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey hammering out the drums, Bowie went at a sonic pace into area of a Glam-Rock.
The sinister folk of “The Bewlay Brothers”, a nightmare which would have fit in on the “The Man Who Sold The World”, the schizophrenic lyrics are terrifying, closing the album in a weirdness, to leave fans and critics warped;
“With our backs on the arch
And if the Devil may be here
But he can't sing about that
Oh, and we were gone”.
The songs were refined so well the album only took two-weeks to record at Trident Studios, he always worked at a frantic speed, creating the cabaret melodrama set the course for his career, his partnership with The Spiders and a world ready for the name Bowie.
A year later the glamrock-alien Ziggy Stardust would land to earth, taking the guitar driven elements of ‘Hunky Dory’ and releasing an album which would change music forever.
Hunkt Dory (1972 LP Tracklist)
01 “Changes”
02 “Oh! You Pretty Things”
03 “Eight Line Poem”
04 “Life on Mars?”
05 “Kooks”
06 “Quicksand”
07 “Fill Your Heart”
08 “Andy Warhol”
09 “Song for Bob Dylan”
10 “Queen Bitch”
11 “The Bewlay Brothers”
DISCOGS
[KB]
"Damnatio Memoriae" is a Latin phrase. It's about the act of destroying physical objects in order to remove the memory of someone from your head. As we start to turn the corner on 2021, and find ourselves into 2022, we might want to look around us, and rid ourselves of what has held us down.
This "Maxi-single" is a nod to the single release of the 1990s which usually contained various remixes to show that no matter what the style, the end result is always the same. From the military stomp of Cellmod, to the exploration into Future Bass with Civet Agent, or the touch of glam rock meets tech house music that The Gothsicles have brought to this track, the idea still stands.
Damnatio Memoriae" will appear on GIANT MONSTERS ON THE HORIZON’s forthcoming EP due out in Spring of 2022.
GIANT MONSTERS ON THE HORIZON exemplifies all of the pitch-black goodness that makes the retro-futurist movement so interesting. Armed with shimmering synths, vocoders, and ambitions as robust as their beats, Vincent Saletto and Madison Olivia Davis create an amalgam of Wax Trax!-ish darkwave/Electro/EBM that pulsates and permeates the night.
The duo have worked or performed with the likes of Assemblage 23, Covenant, GosT, Dance with the Dead, Youth Code, I Ya Toyah, Cellmod, and Angelspit and count 6 major releases so far. New media projects, film scores, albums, and singles are always on the horizon.
A Date In Camden | On this day 43 ago The Fall recorded Live At The Witch Trials!
This day 43 ago was The Fall entered the Sound Suite In Camden, Greater London and recorded their first long-player:
“Live At The Witch Trials”.
Although recorded in one day on the fifteenth of December and mixed the following day, the album would not hit the shops until mid March 1979.
This however was the very moment the alternative, indie and punk scene exploded under a collision curated by the late Mark E. Smith, the Mancunian rebellious wordsmith, one part Johnny Rotten and one part Ian Dury.
The man who steered this ship of alternative post-punk was as scathing as he was intelligent, not yet the commander and chief but his dominance was already in its infancy and rearing its head.
The fearless nature of the collective unit was the original mark of brilliance which made this a standout release in the late-seventies punk movement, its acts as a time capsule of both the social and economic state of Britain forty-years ago, a narrative of council estates, unemployment;”Rebellious Jukebox”,”No Xmas for John Quays”, “Industrial Estate” and of course the opener, the claustrophobic masterpiece “Frightened”.
Martin Bramah, the original guitarist is solid, melodic and at times the centerpiece, he effortlessly provides a backdrop of intensity, as for Marc Riley and his solid bass which holds the band’s direction together but it is the drumming of Karl Burn which was as wild and ramshackle as they come when it came to providing that extra menacing aspect to the music, this was the classic Fall lineup.
The extra ambiance of keyboards by that unsung hero Yvonne Pawlett was the perfect balance to Smith who, is at the very front on the mix, every word and syllable is clear, unlike later recordings, but here they are friends and comrades which adds to the easy flow of “Live At The Witch Trials”, it was never again this relaxed, this brilliant.
Frightened (Smith/Friel)
Someone's always on my tracks
And in a dark room you'd see more than you think
I'm out of my place, got to get back
I sweated a lot, you could feel the violence
I've got shears pointed straight at my chest
And time moves slow when you count it
I'm better than them, and I think I'm the best
But I'll appear at midnight when the films close
'Cause I'm in a trance
Oh, and I sweat
I don't want to dance
I want to go home
I couldn't live in those people places
Oh, they might get to know my actions
I'd run away from toilets and feces
I'd run away to a non-date on the street
'Cause I'm in a trance
Oh, and I sweat
I don't want to dance
I want to go home
I feel trapped by mutual affection
And I don't know how to use freedom
I spend hours looking sideways
To the time when I was sixteen
'Cause I'm in a trance
Oh, and I sweat
I don't wanna dance
I wanna go home
I'm frightened
Amphetamine frightened
I go to the top of the street
I go to the bottom of the street
I look to the sky, my lips are dry
I'm frightened, frightened, frightened.
Original 1979 Track List;
Frightened
Crap Rap 2 / Like To Blow
Rebellious Jukebox
No Xmas For John Quays
Mother-Sister!
Industrial Estate
Underground Medecin
Two Steps Back
Live At The Witch Trials
Futures And Pasts
Music Scene
[KB]
