The halo of music that graces my ears.
These were all purchased digitally from one site or another.
400 Blows – Angel’s Trumpets and Devil’s Trombones (GSL)
I got to see these guys’ earliest shows in LA. A few years ago, I saw how far they progressed when I saw them at the NY Knitting Factory on Leonard St. Then I heard a few songs that pointed to an annoying direction that I wasn’t so sure about. I was wholeheartedly WRONG! This album is phenomenal! Take heavy metal and strip it to the basest elements of hardcore punk. Add complex syncopated rhythms, replace the bass with low-end guitar and fill it out with sneering vocals about self-loathing and alienation (I think). Remember Karp? The 400 Blows are one step removed.
Eurythmics – In the Garden, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Touch & 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) (RCA)
I used to have all of these albums on vinyl, but I had to ditch them when I left LA. I’ve been missing them ever since. Cold, dark electronic music that was way more experimental than is usually acknowledged. In the Garden has a stark krautrock feel, and even has members of Can playing on it while 1984 evokes the somber nuances of George Orwell and the film adaptation starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. Apparently, the filmmakers hated the Eurythmics soundtrack, but I’ve always loved it.
Rikk Agnew – All By Myself (Frontier)
This is the first solo album by the main songwriter/guitarist of The Adolescents and co-songwriter (with Rozz Williams of course)/guitarist on the first Christian Death album, Only Theatre of Pain. I’ve always though Rikk was an incredibly talented songwriter, but I was completely blown away by the songs recorded here. Not only does he play all the instruments, but the songs themselves are solid, engaging, dynamic punk rock that dares to use keyboards at certain points. This is definitely one of the most tragically forgotten albums of the days of hardcore lore. Get it now!
David Allan Coe – Penitentiary Blues (Shout!) & 18 X-Rated Hits (n/a)
I’m one of those weirdos who got into country music and David Allan Coe through GG Allin. Coe’s First Ten Year retrospective has long been a favorite of mine, but lately, I pulled out my country albums and decided I wanted more DAC. Penitentiary Blues is his first album from 1969. It’s an uncharacteristic electric blues album, but it’s one of the best blues albums I’ve ever heard in my life and it’s all about his time in prison. The X-Rated Hits collection, however, compiles Coe’s most offensive songs. Seriously, this is one of the most offensive albums I’ve ever heard, and I’m a huge fan of GG, Brainbombs and The Dwarves. Racism, S&M, mysogyny, drug-use – you name it, it’s here. By the way, the drummer on these recordings was black, so it was obviously joke, but they’ll still offend your uptight PC liberal friends.
Hawkwind – Warrior on the Edge of Time (U/A) & Space Bandits (Castle)
I have Warrior… on cassette, but tapes suck, so I downloaded a good digital copy. It’s the last album Lemmy (from Motorhead you know) appeared on before he got the boot. It also has the first recorded version of the song, “Motorhead,” complete with fiddles! Very solid space rock, even if the opening track is a rip of Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache.” Space Bandits is a much later album, from 1990, but it’s pretty good, too. It has a distinct ‘80s new wave feel, especially in the keyboards and female vocals. The rare GOOD later Hawkwind album.
Christian Death – Deathwish (Contempo), Catastrophe Ballet (Cleopatra) & Ashes (Irond)
Only Theatre of Pain is one of my favorite LA punk albums ever, so I’ve always wanted to hear the other early CD albums with Rozz Williams as vocalist. Deathwish contains the band’s earliest recordings, pre-??Theatre??, but the latter two albums… Well, they’re dark, depressing, drugged-up psychedelic death rock that STILL kicks the ass out of the wimpy mush that passes for “goth” these days. Rozz was a very talented individual and hearing these albums made me mourn his passing all the more.
The Bar-Kays – Black Rock/Gotta Groove (Fantasy/Stax)
Psychedelic soul funk from the band that once backed Otis Redding. Well, actually, most of the original band died in the plane crash with Otis (ugh – one of the worst losses in rock/pop/soul music ever if you ask me) and this version of the band was rebuilt by the two surviving members, trumpeter Ben Cauley and bassist James Alexander. Well, these two albums easily rival the funkiest funk of James Brown and rockin’-est rock of Sly and the Family Stone. If you’re into the Stax recordings, even just a little bit, you need these albums.
The Bob Seger System – Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man & Mongrel (Capitol)
Yes, THAT Bob Seger! Some years ago, I was looking through the records in the Riverhead Salvation Army when I found Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, the first BSS album. Forget everything you know about Bob Seger post-??Night Moves?? – these albums are pure Detroit psychedelic rock that fit right in with the surrounding scene that included Grand Funk (their first four albums are great), The Amboy Dukes (you know, Ted Nugent before he was “The Nuge”), The MC5 (duh) and even The Stooges (huh?). Mongrel has some songs that foreshadow the path that Bob Seger would take in the future (and some great songs, too), but RGM is a classic Nuggets-style fuzzy rocker that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Just check out the loud heaviness of “White Wall!”
Suicidal Tendencies – Suicidal Tendencies (Frontier)
I’ve been re-flipping through Steve Blush’s book, American Hardcore, lately, and I realized that I didn’t own this album, so I thought I’d check it out. Surprise, surprise, it’s a really great LA hardcore album. I remember seeing Suicidal’s lame thrash metal on Headbanger’s Ball when I was a kid, but this album is powerful punk rock of the hardcore kind. “Institutionalized” is a classic, of course, and Puddle of Mud completely ripped off “I Saw Your Mommy” for their big hit a few years ago, but this album has it’s own charm. Compare to Ice-T’s Body Count.
Eddie and the Subtitles – F*** You Eddie! (Frontier)
Maybe you know American Society from L7’s Smell the Magic. I did, at least until I heard the original version one of the Bloodstains comps. This dirty, drugged-up punk is the closest LA came to producing a Flipper, though Eddie’s songs are distinctly SoCal. “Zombie Drug Killers” is actually a real punk song, but “WW III” (haha – how many punk songs had that title! There should be a compilation that collects them all…) is a hazy 16-minute rehearsal jam. A few years ago, I saw Jewdriver at Saints’N’Sinners in Smithtown, LI, and I filled in on vocals when the band covered “American Society” because the singer didn’t know the words!
