Category: Jay Hinman

I’m not the only person to have posted these tracks in the quote-unquote blogosphere, but I’ve lived in perpetual terror for too long thinking that there might be some of you who’ve yet to hear them – so here it is, MORTY SHANN AND THE MORTICIANS. As I understand it, these two guttural howls from 1960 remained unissued and unloved until Norton Records set fit to put them on a 45 a few years ago, and then later comped them on the “KICKSVILLE VOLUME 2â€Â rockabilly acetate collection. I was floored the first time I heard them. Think screaming HASIL ADKINS-style hoot, mixed with raunchy throat culture vocals a la THE TRASHMEN (an inspiration? When did “Surfin’ Bird’ come out? Wow – the always-reliable Wikipedia says 1963), and then muddle up the fidelity real real good until you’ve got an absolute Top 10 contender for the Primitive Shit Rock hall of fame. Plus the songs just scoot, too. I wouldn’t call it rockabilly at all – it exists in an almost otherworldly place of its own, and if it’s really from 1960, as Norton says it is – holy crap.

Here’s what I wrote about this record (the 45) a couple years ago:

Made reference to these guys a few posts ago and got an email saying, “who??”. Well. MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS were unknown to history until Norton found their unissued 1960 recordings of these two songs and quietly set them loose along with all the other sleeveless 45s they pushed out a few years back. I sort of picked this one out of a catalog on a whim and was just floored when I heard it. Primitive Shit Music? Puh-leeze. This is so raunchy and bug-eyed insane it puts even the TRASHMEN to shame. Morty is a frog-voiced, gravel-throated belter and his band plays off-the-rails, poorly-tuned madman’s rock that’s completely frantic and pulse-quickening. Before your breath can be caught and your nerves steadied, each 90-second retarded wonder is over in a big unexpected flame-out or quick fade. Fans of BUNKER HILL, THE PINETOPPERS and the fastest of the early lo-fi rockabilly pioneers will be very pleased, but this really ain’t rockabilly, nor R&B — just pure white frat trash. It’d be real nice to know who these guys were and where the hell they came from & if they ever tried to inflict this sound on a paying audience.

Play or Download MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS – “Movin’ Inâ€Â
Play or Download MORTY SHANN & THE MORTICIANS – “Red Headed Womanâ€Â

In retrospect it’s hard for me to get overly excited about TEENGENERATE, a mid-90s Japanese garage punk band who were a hit with the kidz at the time. They did everything right and yet almost never strayed from an unerring template of fast, buzzsaw-raw, distorted ’77-meets-’81 splatter-punk, with harshly barked vocals and way, way too many covers. Sort of like a whiplash version of early RADIO BIRDMAN or first-LP RAMONES. In the end they won a few hearts, taught a few youngsters how to pogo, and then splintered up into a couple new, similarly laser-focused bands. There is one 45 of theirs that lords mightily over the rest of their catalog, as well as over their likewise unimaginative peers. It’s a 1-sided, two song 45 that came out in 1995 on Rip Off records called “Out of Sight/Pushin’ Me Aroundâ€Â. An absolutely note-perfect, louder-than-loud blast of punk rock blur, with both songs clocking in well under two minutes. A perfect candidate for the “tonearm repeatâ€Â feature on your 1970s-era turntable. Or in the digital age, downloading ‘em right here.

Play or Download TEENGENERATE – “Out of Sightâ€Â
Play or Download TEENGENERATE – “Pushin’ Me Aroundâ€Â

JOSEPHINE FOSTER’s bizarre, avant-folk songs travel musical history via a ghostly linkage with the Appalachian porch whisperers of the pre-WWII era, with a pinch of the British Isles folk touch to boot. One thing for certain about her these days is that she doesn’t stand in one place for too long – witness her most recent CD, “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothingâ€Â, a German-language run through 19^th century tunes that was even too much for me to take. Recently I heard some new material of hers and it was weird-ass, free-form noise. It’s OK – I am fully on board, because I think she is a singular talent, and one of this decade’s true originals. I love the delicate complexity of each ringing tone she coaxes out of her guitar with strange tunings and stranger patterns, and with a voice that’s equally as eerie (and beautiful beyond doubt), and which goes through every imaginable permutation to get to the deep emotional truth at each song’s core. Foster’s lungs take a little bit of patience for the uninitiated, but at least she sounds like a w-o-m-a-n, albeit a woman transported from 16th century England tearooms by way of Mary Poppins films.

I’m picking a representative smattering of five songs from her catalog for ya. Two are from a heavy psych/folk CD she put out with a backing band called The Supposed (“All The Leaves Are Gone”); one is from her second-ever homemade CD-R (“Little Life”) – she has about a half-dozen of those, and you can order some of them right here; one is from her fantastic CD from 2005 “Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead Youâ€Â ; and one was a freebie cover song of THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS, whom Foster has collaborated with) on a comp that came with THE BELIEVER literary magazine. All are superlative. If you like this, there’s a lot, lot more to delve into.

Play or Download JOSEPHINE FOSTER & THE SUPPOSED – “Well-Heeled Menâ€Â (from 2004 “All The Leaves Are Goneâ€Â CD)
Play or Download JOSEPHINE FOSTER – “The Golden Windowâ€Â (from June 2005 compilation CD included with “The Believerâ€Â magazine)

Play or Download JOSEPHINE FOSTER – “There Are Eyes Aboveâ€Â (from 2005 “Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead Youâ€Â CD)

Play or Download JOSEPHINE FOSTER – “Francie’s Songâ€Â (from 2001 “Little Lifeâ€Â CD-R)

Play or Download JOSEPHINE FOSTER & THE SUPPOSED – “

John Ave.

Seen From The Gray Trainâ€Â (from 2004 “All The Leaves Are Goneâ€Â CD)

Among the pearls buried on an unduly unheralded late 80s compilation of “driving bands from Los Angelesâ€Â called “GIMME THE KEYSâ€Â was a band called THE THIRSTY BRATS. There wasn’t a lot to these fellas – their thing was raw, dirty, 50s-inspired drunk-and-roll in the vein of then-current acts like the LAZY COWGIRLS and slightly earlier bands like the SUICIDE KINGS. Little did I know it until today, but SCOTT “DELUXEâ€Â DRAKE claims to have been a member of the band at one juncture. I believe him.

I saw the band one time only, at an all-day free festival/alcoholiday of Trigon Records acts in Isla Vista, California. This’d be around 1989, I’d say. I think the Thirsty Brats might have been hopped up on goofballs, as their set was exceptionally sloppy, the singer harangued the crowd unduly and often, and loads of drunk people danced their asses off to the dirty rock and roll beat. Other acts that appeared that day included CLAW HAMMER, a tripping-on-acid CRAWLSPACE (confirmed to me personally by the band), FEARLESS LEADER (stymied by the Isla Vista Park Service in their attempt to “let a chicken looseâ€Â during their set), and MOIST-N-MEATY. In other words, pretty much all the bands on “Gimme The Keysâ€Â. Eighteen years later I spin the record and my favorite track not by Claw Hammer is easily “White Ghettoâ€Â by those same Thirsty Brats. In fact, I kinda think it’s a classic. Whatever that means.

Play or Download THIRSTY BRATS – “White Ghettoâ€Â (from 1988 compilation “Gimme The Keysâ€Â)

One of my favorite tracks of the past year is “Reputationâ€Â from an LA mersh-garage act called THE ETTES. They say that they are a cross between “Nancy Sinatra + The Stooges + Thee Headcoats + Thee Headcoatees + The Strokes + The Sonics + The Rolling Stones + Compulsive Gamblers + Patsy Clineâ€Â. Well there’s at least a few ringers in there, aren’t there? So I got the CD and I wasn’t particularly thrilled by it – but I’ll admit I probably need to give it another spin or two before reflexively chucking it. But “Reputationâ€Â is a wowzer. Loud, over-amped multitracked vocals, a killer set of riffs, SIMPLY SAUCER-ish “space soundsâ€Â, and all knocking by in under two minutes. A great one, one that it’s hard not to play over and over and over. I’m certain you’ll agree.

Play or Download THE ETTES – “Reputationâ€Â (from “Shake The Dustâ€Â CD)

In our fEEDTIME post a few weeks ago, some mention was made of three tracks from the incredible late 70s Australian punk band X. I said I’d post ‘em – here they are. Here’s what I wrote about the tracks in 2003:

If you ask me, the best pre-1980 Australian punk rock ever recorded was NOT necessarily by the SAINTS. nor the PSYCHO SURGEONS, nor the LEFTOVERS, nor RADIO BIRDMAN — but by X. The Australian X, of course. The past decade has seen them garner some deserved attention, mostly for the low-profile Amphetamine Reptile reissue of their raw, spastic debut LP “X-Aspirations” (also known by some as simply “Aspirations“). I think they actually topped that monster with their amazing earliest recordings, though: the three tracks “Home Is Where The Floor Is”, “Hate City” and “TV Cabaret Roll” that were posthumously cobbled together on the Aberrant Records‘ “Why March When You Can Riot?” compilation. If these tracks had been put out as a 45, you’d be seeing it on numerous “best punk records of all time” lists, certainly on mine (note: these were put out on a 45 a couple years ago on a US label, now out of print, I’m afraid). We’re talking barreling, steamrolling punk rock, but minus the “snotty” vibe and the over-the-top antics that mark some other richly heralded Aussie punk of the era. Not particularly well recorded, mind, but you never cared about that much, right? About the closest equivalent I can think of would be a kindly US punk band like The CONTROLLERS — not too aggro, not too “punk”, but blazing nonetheless. Skip the recent “X – Live At The Civic” CD — despite looking like it should be an out of control rock and roll juggernaut, it’s — uh — a bit boring. One last thing: if you now desperately need those 3 aforementioned tracks, you’re in luck — there’s a double-CD on Small Axe Records that collects three Aberrant Records comps into one package called “Go And Do It”. You can find it here.

Or you can download them right here and put them on your own CD.

Play or Download X – “Hate Cityâ€Â

Play or Download X – “Home Is Where The Floor Isâ€Â

Play or Download X – “TV Cabaret Rollâ€Â

For years the only way to hear the oft-talked-about, under-heard SONIC’S RENDEZVOUS BAND was to buy an expensive original 45 or cheaper bootleg 45 of the one-song single “City Slangâ€Â (with a stereo a-side version and a mono b-side version), trade live tapes or bootleg vinyl (extremely hard to come by), or to buy a semi-legit split LP from France with Ron Asheton’s DESTROY ALL MONSTERS 45s on the a-side and various SRB material on the back, including the stereo “City Slangâ€Â. Me, I’ve heard most of what this 1975-80 Detroit-based act had to offer up, and for the most part, it’s just-above-standard-issue FM power rock, electrified significantly by the wild guitar playing of axe hero Fred “Sonicâ€Â Smith, late of the MC5. I’d position it somewhere between The Stooges and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, except on the longer tracks where Smith gets to go ape, and then it’s “the 5â€Â all the way. You can read a lot more about them here.

In 1990 I was in a band with a fella who saw the band in Detroit many times in their heyday, and we decided to do an instrumental cover of the song “Sweet Nuthin’â€Â from that French LP. It was so easy to play that even I could do it – but the song remains, especially in this instrumental version, to be a singular moment in their catalog: a sprawling, repetitive, understated but nasty rock and roll mauler. The opening guitar riff is just filthy, as they say in baseball. No need for a 6-CD box set – all the magic’s on the “City Slangâ€Â 45 and right here!

Play or Download SONIC’S RENDEZVOUS BAND – “Sweet Nuthin’â€Â (from posthumous split LP with Destroy All Monsters)

This is a very classy proto-punk, metal-tinged scorcher from 1978 – an act called THE WEASELS set off all sorts of alarms with this number, the immortal “Beat Her With A Rakeâ€Â. Word has it that they were 1977 contemporaries with & pals of both the nascent LA post-glam, pre-punk bands of the day (RUNAWAYS, IMPERIAL DOGS, BERLIN BRATS etc) and with VAN HALEN, who played the LA club circuit as openers for The Weasels on more than one occasion. It got a lot of airplay on KROQ, pretty much America’s first commercial station to play real punk rock, and caused a lot of (deserved) hemming & hawing. There’s no question that it indeed “rocksâ€Â, and I’ve long called it a favorite, though I’m not really certain why since it borders on doofus metal and has lyrics I’d hate for my mommy to hear.

I can’t even remember the B-side. I’m not sure anyone does.

Play or Download THE WEASELS – “Beat Her With A Rakeâ€Â (A-side of 1978 single)

I don’t quite have the time or the patience to painstakingly write record/CD reviews the way I once did. That said, some of you out there have sent me 45s to listen to and/or review, and I’m going to do just that, in one fell swoop, in the next few days. There’s still an incredible amount of fantastic music being made or compiled, however. Here’s what’s been floating the proverbial boat this past month – all highly recommended:

TYVEK – “Fast Metabolismâ€Â download CD

CHEATER SLICKS – “Walk Into The Seaâ€Â LP

“REPORT FROM THE COUNTRYâ€Â 60s/70s country music comps from Derek Bostrom

THE BAD TRIPS – “The Bad Tripsâ€Â LP

OPAL – “Early Recordings Volume 2â€Â fake CD

THOMAS FUNCTION – “The Insignificantsâ€Â EP

MESSTHETICS #103 – CD