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(Nuf Sed, 1991)Look, I’m on the record as adoring “The Prophecy of Daniel and John the Divine” as sung by the Cowsills; it’s fantastic, weird, and catchy. Still, blasphemous though it may be to say, Job’s Daughters (built this time around a core of Mark Davies, Brandan Kearney, and Neil Foot) actually IMPROVE here upon the whacked-out glory of the Cowsills’ version, remaining faithful to the creepy apocalyptic candy-psych pop groove of the original while adding a stronger vocal performance and a meatier instrumental backing. Yes, it loses the sick novelty of having a group of kids singing “six-six-six” over and over, but it has a non-haw-haw power perhaps lacking in the earlier recording, sending it rocketing outta any sort of Dr. Demento gag-bin and straight into the upper stratosphere of Total Greatness. So let me come out and say it: That awe-inspiring greatness is, to be honest, pretty much why I’ve waited a week to write about this one. It’s been hard to get myself to sit down and do a review simply because I feel I owe the disc maximum enthusiasm, ACTUAL EFFORT, not just the standard slap-dash rush-job at 2am before I hit the sack. BECAUSE – ready for this? – THIS IS THE BEST 7” I OWN, HANDS DOWN. Really! I ain’t kidding. I love this thing. LOVE IT. There is no other single in my collection that I can listen to as often and as happily as this one, no other single that I’m more excited about playing for friends than this one, no other single that I TREASURE more than this one. This is IT. Whatever you need to do to find a copy, please DO IT. Trust me. KILL if you must.(But buy or steal, preferably.)
(Nuf Sed, 1993)I’ll admit it. I’LL FINALLY ADMIT IT. Job’s Daughters are, for my money, the greatest of the Nuf Sed bands. Yup! Like the more conceptually-focused Heavenly Ten Stems (almost all of whom appear on this record in some capacity), there’s an incredible devotion to musical/instrumental whiz-kiddery, versatility, and no-genre-left-unexamined obscurity-mining. The A-side is an Ennio Morricone cover – from the soundtrack to the rare-butt film I Cannibali – and its lyrics, which proudly extol the total freedom enjoyed by the song’s cannibalistic hero, are delivered with the necessary hamminess by a fella named Livingstone Semakula (who actually has a vocal delivery similar to that of label-buddy Gregg Turkington). It’s tough to express just how bizarre and hilarious those sing-words are, but please understand that lines such as these are bellowed over the sort of big-band, heavenly-choir pop production that one might hear on a Richard Harris or late-’60s Sinatra record: “I won’t die! / I WON’T DIE!! / Kill me if you can / I will happily fly away / I’ll just fly away / On my sky-blue horse / I’ll just fly away / Happy that my mind is freeeeeeeee.” Insane? Yes! Terrific? Yes again! Hear it and love it! You will! That’s what you’ll do!
According to bandman Brandan Kearney’s Eabla site, the Asian song on the B-side is called “Quiet Night Rain,” but I can’t turn up any further info about its origins. Whatever the thing’s obscuro provenance, it’s a dramatic pop ballad that’s both entertaining and well-played (not to mention well-sung, thanks to the multilingual Mark Davies of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 superstardom), and it points the way to the similar work undertaken by the Heavenly Ten Stems in ’94. A fine and ambitious cover, yet it pales considerably next to the majesty of “Cannibal,” as, to be fair, do most songs that we have heard and will hear in these lifetimes of ours. So that ain’t no knock. BUT! HOLD THE PHONE AND HOLD THAT THOUGHT BECAUSE ON THEIR PREVIOUS SINGLE JOB’S DAUGHTERS MIRACULOUSLY TOPPED THEIR FUTURE 1993-SELVES BY RELEASING THE GREATEST PIECE O’ MUSIC EVER TO KISS A MAMMAL’S EARS, YES, A RECORDING SPECTACULAR ENOUGH TO RENDER “CANNIBAL” FORGOTTEN. Can this BE? Am I a LIAR? Stay tuned, cliffhangerfans!
(Nuf Sed, 1992)The Easy Goings are back for their second and last single, and they’re feelin’ especially cover-y this time around, bringing their beautiful magic to songs by the Beach Boys, Springsteen, and Black Flag. Much more in line with the obnoxious EZ-listening terror of the breakaway Zip Code Rapists than the comparatively tame first single, this record offers fans a smooth torch-passing to that group and its vicious dismantling of “hits” both real and alternate-universe. The demented cheerfulness of musical pep-talk “Life is For the Living” (“Don’t sit around on your ass / Smokin’ grass”) actually keeps quite close to Brian Wilson’s unreleased version, though the addition of John Singer’s noise-guitar and Turkington’s phlegmy bark puncture the unsettling bubble-world naivete of Wilson’s original with their self-consciousness. Still, it’s a typically inspired choice for a cover, and the band even went to the trouble of putting together a video to help this keyboardcheez-driven song on its way to the top of the charts; sure nuff, pairing the music with forehead LP-smashing and glass-cleaner consumption earns the vid the gold medal for Ultimate Easy Goings Thingy. And itself NO SLOUCH is “Born in the USA” (split over both sides of the single), here retaining its signature keyboard line while being otherwise destroyed by Turkington’s increasingly choked gargle/scream, which eventually degenerates into a subhuman bleating of “BORN!” “BORN!” “BORN!” over and over; a nearly perfect cover. Rollins gets it worst, though, as a pressed-at-the-wrong-speed “Scream” turns him into the bawling, pre-adolescent whiner you mighta suspected he was all along. “Boo-hoo” cries the band as the song fades, and “boo-hoo” cries the listener as the record ends. Even more than the previous Easy Goings disc, it’s a hop-to-it gotta-get.
(Nuf Sed, 1991)Culturcide was a group of punk weirdos and smarties from Houston which, while often missing the mark with its experiments, at least had IDEAS up the arse that allowed it to break out of the pissed-off-youngster norm to occasionally interesting effect. The Wolf Eyes-endorsed Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America album – on which the band simply sings over tapes of major hits from the early 1980s – is probably the perfect half-funny, half-obnoxious, mostly-dumb example of the group’s work, but this single (recorded in 1984, released in 1991 on the godly Nuf Sed label) goes beyond that gimmick to show what else the goofs in Culturcide were capable of churning out.
“A Day at My Job,” which sounds like it was recorded live, is noisy social commentary with a decent beat and some OK guitar skree; the lazy, sardonic vocals are the weak link here and hold it back from being a minor knucklehead classic. Split over a side and a half, the delightfully annoying “Mommy and I are One” shows a degree of studio and/or sampler creativity, its looped “check…check…check” providing an introductory beat of sorts to the disturbingly phrased titular sentiment, which repeats endlessly over wisps of non-instrumental field recordings. A jerkoff minimalist’s “Revolution #9,” designed more as piss-take than high-falutin’ art; make of it what you will – Culturcide probably doesn’t care. Absolutely buy the aforementioned LP for yuks and groans, then check this thing out if you absolutely must dig deeper.
(Nuf Sed, 1992)
Another Cul de Sac single rescued from the WERS dumpster (total airings listed on the enclosed log-sheet: zero), and again we’ve got ourselves a loopy amalgam of sounds and influences spread over two instrumentals. But while the guitars still play in that surf-derived style heard on “Sakhalin,” there’s a fine overriding dreaminess to “…His Teeth Got Lost in the Mattress…” thanks to the gauzy production and burbling electronics (which seem to be a nod to the 13th Floor Elevators’ electric jug). Flipping the script somewhat and making the disc a gotta-get, “Doldrums” is a roaring psych-out, Can’s hypnotizing rhythm section plus the Creation’s searing guitars – great great great! Comes packaged in a velour cardstock sleeve and is limited to 1,000, with 100 of those signed and numbered.
(Nuf Sed, 1993)Look, a Caroliner single! Let’s review it, shall we? You can give me feedback when I’m done! But for now, onto the songs! The goofy “Bead Trail to Jardunne” is acid-fried, wobbly hobo music that keeps petering out into grunting or tape effects, only to kick back into those same two measures of halting, lunatic banjo pickin’, again and again. And again. IS THIS WHAT MADNESS SOUNDS LIKE? Or maybe it’s just what a coupla demented yet lovable codgers on a back porch in Appalachia sound like (as played by young San Franciscan art freaks in the early 1990s). Flip it to the B-side for “The Cooking Stove Beast,” which chugs along to the vocalist screeching/growling over squishy electronics and ugly, out-of-tune guitar, the music occasionally slipping into a fast breakdown section before resuming its mutants-on-parade semi-stomp. Not bad, in its own wacky way. Y’know, if the Thinking Fellers were drunk and wanted to make an especially assaultive record, it might turn out a whole lot like this 45. No lie! OK, haw haw, that’s a colorful and interesting description, you say. The reviewer has taken a different band, one that the reader is aware of, and then cleverly twisted that comparison around a little bit to give the reader some idea of what this band is doing, you add. And what about Caroliner’s other discs? you then ask. Is this 7” representative? Well (and this is finally me talking, not you), I don’t know, I’m afraid, for this is the lone musical baby I have adopted from the crazy womb of this particular group. Do realize that Caroliner has released many an LP in its day, though; why not ask Mark Prindle about that?
(Nuf Sed, 1989)
Archipelago Brewing Co. is (was) a buncha weirdos from San Francisco – including some of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 guys, Brandan Kearney, and “FOUR GODDAMN GIRL DRUMMERS” – and this is their one and only single. So let me lay some straight-talk on you: it’s a bona-fide doozy! “Criswell” lurches along to the dinosaur-stomp of those lady percussionists, and the rhythm guitarists thrash away in a delightfully repetitive manner while the lead makes high-pitched little squiggles atop it all. A slower, heavier TFUL282 is a fair enough (and lazy enough) description. The guitars get noisier and the drummers get buried – this record’s sound quality isn’t so hot – on “Fresh Fish,” a grim tribute to the titular ocean-dweller, while “Wussies-R-Us” is a pretty, watery-sounding guitars-and-samples tune. When the full band is a-thunderin’, as on “Criswell” and “Fresh Fish,” the music coming outta the speakers is certainly loud, but you get the sense that this must’ve been absolutely BRUTAL when heard live. Like good brutal.
The Amazing Criswell, who appears on the sleeve, was into the fantastic, so I wonder what he’d have thought of this tidbit: I had been searching for this 7” for quite a while, and when I finally did locate a copy, it was in a store in which I was killing time while waiting for band associate Neil Hamburger to take the stage at a club next door. Weird.
Wait! Before wrapping up, let’s get back to A.B.C. guitarist, tape-manipulator, and vocalist Brandan Kearney, a man about whom you can learn all sortsa interesting facts in this great interview. It’s going to be a while before I reach the “J” reviews, so I want to slip in a mention of another of the (many, many) bands with which Kearney was involved, Job’s Daughters. Those folks released a cover of the Cowsills’ “Prophecy of Daniel and John the Divine,” and it is THE BEST SINGLE THAT I OWN. Really. If you have the ability to hear sound, please do your listening-thingies a favor and find that doggone record immediately. It’s out there; I own two!
(Nuf Sed, 1991)
