DJ Lance Lockarm - Wouldn't It Be Ecstasy

(no label, 2005)

A bit of a mysterious one. In early 2005, the waning days of the mash-up fad, a handful of these white-label 45s became available for mailorder through Rough Trade. Laying the Beach Boys’ vocals for “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” (taken from the Pet Sounds Sessions box) over Spacemen 3’s “Ecstasy Symphony” drone, it doesn’t offer any particularly revelatory/amusing new angles on either song, as the best mash-ups did, but it’s still a creepily hypnotic luv-thingy that works more than well enough. And sure, there’s a little cheating afoot as the song’s creator employs some necessary pitch-shifting here and there on the Spacemen component, but who among us hasn’t sneakily pitch-shifted from time to time?

Don’t answer that.

On to the aforementioned mystery: There’s a stamp on the label that identifies the disc as “I Will Always Love You Forever” by Sonic Art Crew, but the now-dead website of DJ Lance Lockarm, where the song was called “Wouldn’t it Be Ecstasy,” always appeared to me to be the original source of the track. No idea whether Sonic Art Crew lifted it and then released this bootleg, or if the thing’s just mislabeled. Anyway, I’m officially giving Lance Lockarm the credit until I hear otherwise. Know the deal, you?

Guaranteed Ugly - The Ugly Ones

(Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1995)

The Guaranteed Ugly – featuring Natty “Mr. Ugly” Brooker – is the most obscure and least likely of all Spacemen 3 spinoffs, a garage-stomp nastyparty that careens in a way that few English “rock” bands are able to manage, enamored with posturing over sound as our Brit-buddies typically are. Cuz instead of focusing on haircuts and press, the Guaranteed Ugly is all shouty, anonymous, fuzzfuck in-the-red-isms that manage to sound effortlessly and legitimately like mid-’60s USA teen freakout, minus any cheap winks and condescension. Amazing throat-shred vocals, hot guitars, pounding toms, crackling organ, brief runtimes, Billy Childish production… it’s all here, DUM as you want it to be and FUN as it needs to be. Perfect shitpop. Tastemakers should push these guys HARD and gain ’em the attention they deserve, a decade after the fact or not. And note ye well that A-side “The Ugly Ones” is far dirtier and screwed on this 7” than it is on the otherwise crackin’ It’s an Ugly! Ugly! World CD. Blown OUT! Yum – hotcha!

So anyway.

Yeah. Today I am sick. I slept on a friend’s couch last night, and I suspect that his cat, Charlie, trod upon my prone being as I snoozed, shedding his fur all over me. So I’ve spent the morning and afternoon sneezing, coughing, and rubbing my swollen eyes, experiencing ever-increasing discomfort in all of my face-holes. Why can’t all cats simply devote themselves to hilarity the way Garfield has?? Seriously, guys: Cut it out with the allergen nonsense and focus instead on joking about your species-wide hatred of Mondays. And lasagna? Hey, I love it too! There’s a compromise to be had, maybe.

Experimental Audio Research - Data Rape (Part 9)

(Earworm, 1999)

“Data Rape (Part 9)” is, you guessed it, a companion to the Data Rape album, and Sonic Boom uses his banks of modified Speak & Spells to create chattering, insectile noises over a machinelike throb. Alienating and distinctly unpleasant; soundtrack to a bad hell-trip. Furthering the scam is the non-audio side B, which is your standard monsters-chasing-each-other Savage Pencil etching… Aw yeh, and KILL YOURSELF NOW if you forget to nab the “special” limited edition, which comes wrapped in a blue outer sleeve. Are you doing it? Are you killing yourself? Wheeeeeeeee!

On that upbeat note, I’ll mention that I’ve been reviewing these crazy 7”s for exactly one year now. So color me thrilled! Thrilled in a blue outer sleeve!

Experimental Audio Research - Transistor Music

(Earworm, 1998)

Releases by Experimental Audio Research tend to deliver what the group name implies, as Sonic Boom and a rotating cast of friends screw around with various electronics in a non-pop, non-“song” context. Unfortunately, with the exception of some early drone-oriented discs, these recordings come across as far more interesting to create than to listen to, a problem that worsened as the ’90s dragged on. The “Transistor Music” single is all Sonic Boom (credited with E.M.S. Synthi VCS 3 & AKS, Serge Modular Music System, OSCar & Custom Human Voice Synthesizer), who produces layered whooshes, whirs, and voop-voop-voops in a chilly, Doctor Who-esque spacescape that’s admirable for its ambition, but not a whole lotta fun coming through the hi-fi. A much more intriguing failure is the near-contemporaneous Forever Alien album (released as Spectrum), which marries EAR’s electronic fiddling to semi-traditional rock/pop structures for a way-out, uncompromising take-off on what mid-period Kraftwerk only hinted at.

The Darkside - Lunar Surf

(Bomp!, 1993)

The final Darkside record, and not a very interesting one, I’m afraid… if these are the recordings that the British label refused to release, I can dig their call. Quality control’s a seeming nonissue with these chunky rhythms and big-blah P. Bassman moaning, especially on “Retroglide,” where the band members are either disinterested (drums) or noodling without regard for what anyone else is doing (guitars). “Spacewalk” ain’t bad, a throbbing, bass-heavy instro with radio-tower transmission samples overlayed, but its stoned formlessness is ultimately just another sign that the Darkside was drifting along minus direction and probably doping it up far too much. A dispiriting curtain-closer of a 7”; go back a few years and find the “Waiting For the Angels” EP or the first LP to get a better idea of what they were all about.

After this, Bassman put the group out of its misery and took off to fiddle with electronics in Alphastone, while Sterling Roswell eventually whipped up a shockingly great single called “Girl From Orbit” and a less-great album called The Psychedelic Ubik. Last I heard, a Darkside rarities box was being assembled, though label indifference and beaurocratic wranglings mighta killed that project by now. As is fitting with most Spacemen 3-related matters, said box lets us conclude with some bitchy gossip: In a bit of too-harsh but amusing message board sniping a few years ago, Sonic Boom sneered that such a compilation would be – and I’m cleaning up the grammar here – “an exercise in the meaningless…can’t wait.” Cold.

The Darkside - Jukebox At Munster's

(Munster, 1992)

All accusations of mediocrity flung at these guys are probably deserved, but I’ve always found the Darkside’s stuff to be a pretty awright noise, and have yet to kick their discs off my player when there they do appear. This one, a Spanish import, is from late in the game, and the A-side pulls off a lumbering fuzz-thick head-nod that’s much closer to Bassman’s S3 roots than most of the Darkside’s work. Heavy drums, repeato guitars, etc.: very Playing With Fire, plus a little amateur-hour stumblebum sass in the performance to lighten the mood. Sure, ol’ Pete’s got a wince-worthy flat croak for a voice, but the croon isn’t the point here, is it? A goodie. Not the B, though, where “Frankie Teardrop” gets a free-psych cover (with trombone!) that’s boring to the point where it actually makes me want to listen to Suicide. If you’re dumb enough to need more “Frankie” a torturous nine-minute version is on Munster’s Rev/Vega tribute CD.