Friday, May 21, 2010

Exile Off Mainstream

There's so much hoo-hah surrounding the reissue of The Rolling Stones' 1972 album Exile On Main Street, it seems like as good time as any to select five favourite Stones' covers that have intrigued over the years. This is not an all-time top five (which would include 'Satisfaction' by Otis Redding, 'As Tears Go By' by Marianne Faithfull and the is-it-a-cover-or-did-they-cover-it 'Wild Horses' by Gram Parsons) nor is it the five craziest covers (coz that would include Jimmy & The Boys' 'Get Off My Cloud'). It's just five randomly selected covers that came to mind and have brought some dance-around-the-lounge-joy at some time or other.

Laibach - 'Sympathy For The Devil'
1988 Slovenian industrial cover of the 1968 track lifted from Beggar's Banquet and it's recording session was central to Jean Luc Godard's French student revolution film of the same name.
Mo-Dettes - 'Paint It Black'
1980 British female punk outfit's reworking of the 1966 Aftermath song.
The Soup Dragons - 'I'm Free'
Scottish indie rock band who, after the summer of house, went baggy on the 1965, fittingly from Out Of Our Heads.
Rotary Connection - 'Ruby Tuesday'
In 1968, this psychedelic soul band from Chicago (featuring Minnie Ripperton) got crazed on their cover of the song released a year earlier.
Devo - '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'
The iconic US new wavers bent this 1965 hit out of shape in 1977.

Laibach - 'Sympathy For The Devil':


Mo-Dettes - 'Paint It Black':


The Soup Dragons - 'Im Free':


Rotary Connection - 'Ruby Tuesday':


Devo - '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction':

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Adam Askew - No Wave Hookers 3 - pt.1


The mixtape follow-up to No Wave Hookers parts 1 & 2.

Aired once on our Kiss FM radio show back on September 6th 2005.
Limited edition of three hard copies.

'No Wave Hookers 3 (side a)' by Adam Askew (direct link)

TRACK LIST (side a):
Frontline Assembly - 'Vexation (remix)' (Concrete Productions)
Steven Murphy - 'Dit Is Belgisch' (Sabam)
Micro Chip League - 'Communicate (#1 Atomik Part)' (Oak Lawn)
DAF - 'Brothers (Gabi's mix)' (Illuminated Productions)
Skinny Puppy - 'Burnt With Water' (Capitol)
Liaisons Dangereuses - 'Kess Kill Fe Show' (Hit Thing)
Test Department - 'The Faces Of Freedom 2' (Some Bizarre)
Cabaret Voltaire - 'Yashar (John Robie reproduction 1)' (Factory)
Fad Gadget - 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' (Mute)
Thug - 'Dad' (Blackeye)

Requests - Pt.3

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Super Wild Horses - Death Mix

drag me away
We're super excited to present an all-new Death Mix by Hayley from ace Melbourne duo Super Wild Horses.

Odes to carpark burn-outs, zine love, psychedelic drum beat borrowing, mental walls of sound, death cream, sunburn, Cambodian rock music AND The B-52's. What more could you want?

'Death Mix' by Hayley SuperWildHorses (direct link)


TRACKLIST (with notes from Hayley):

Sonny & The Sunsets - 'Death Cream' (Soft Abuse)
7" comes with a neato zine. Great little ditty from one of my favourites.
Medication - 'Didn't Wanna Know' (HoZac Records)
Listened to this sad old number on repeat when i first heard it. Great album released by Hozac in the states. Hozac are gonna put out our album this year too ... so excited.
Pearl Harbor - 'Sunburn' (Mexican Summer)
Unsigned LA band. Two EPS out. Love the guitar line in this.
The Moles - 'Europe by Car' (Seaside)
We recently played a show with Woollen Kits and The Twerps who are two of our fave local bands. Each band made each other a mix tape for the night. Rick from The Twerps put this song on his mix and I think it rules. Makes me wanna do burn outs in a beach car park.
The Moffs - 'Another Day in the Sun' (Citadel Records)
Iconic song from this old Aussie band. I think I accidentally ripped off their drum beat in one of our new songs. Woops.
Best Coast - 'Something In The Way' (Post Present Medium)
Another great US band out on No Age's record label. Still a fan of tinny, overblown vocals and big booming drums. This was the kind of sound we wanted for our first EP. Mikey Young who recorded our EP did a darn good job of replicating the noise in our heads.
Meas Samon - Unknown (Sublime Frequencies)
Sublime Frequencies is one of my favourite record labels. They gather cassettes from around Asia and reissue them on comps. This song is real quirky and makes me grin. Off their Cambodian Cassette Archives compilation.
The B-52's - 'Dance This Mess Around' (Warner Bros.)
Best song ever? Could be. Slightly obsessed with this right now .


4 x SWH x !
Super Wild Horses' debut album is due out June/July on Aarght! Records (Australia), and HoZac Records (USA). They're also doing a 7" for round 2 of the HoZac Hookup Klub series.

Their debut EP is out-of-print, but you can still grab the digital version over at iTunes. Keep your eyes on the Super Wild Space for upcoming gigs.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Ears In Space

Last August in the midst of the Dogs In Space mania that swept through Melbourne due to the iconic film's release on DVD with companion doco We're Living On Dog Food, '80s art punk ensemble The Ears reformed. The band took to the stage at the Corner (in Richmond, of course, coz that's where the film was set) to commemorate their influence on the new wave, share household film - Dogs In Space was their story, the band at the centre of the film was based on The Ears - Michael Hutchence was portraying their singer Sam Sejavka. The gig was gob-smacking, one of last year's best. The Ears were ferocious and the songs were sounding fresh as they ever did - hey, these were the guys who put the anger in angular (if you shove hard enough, it will fit). Another gig has been announced as The Ears are set to headline a reunion of-sorts for those who used to frequent this city's most important band venue of the '80s, St Kilda's Seaview Ballroom - footage from the venue's heyday almost stole the show in ...Dog Food. With the Ballroom no longer host to gigs of this nature, the Sunday 9 May gig will be at Ding Dong and also on the bill will be legendary mod revivalists Little Murders (and while you're at it, track down the lil '71 comedy they took their name from). Also playing are The Pang (ex members of Blue Ruin, International Exiles and genius Wild Dog Rodeo) and you can expect to see/hear some faces from the Seaview days spinning 7" vinyl on the decks between bands.

Dogs In Space - The Ears (live at the Corner, August 2009 - filmed by Diabolik68):

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Pair-Shaped - 40 Thieves & Hot Chocolate


San Fran DJ qzen (above) supplies vocals for noddy disco outfit 40 Thieves' cover of Hot Chocolate's 'Don't Turn It Off', which first appeared back in 2008 on Permanent Vacation. The track resurfaced on Chinatown Records last year, remixed by label owner Brennan Green (as heard here on December's Balearic Death Mix), and has sprung to life again thanks to a re-edit included on Greg Wilson's Credit To The Edit Vol 2 (Tirk).

While many have written off UK soul band Hot Chocolate as cod disco, 'Don't Turn It Off' was the band at its super slinky best and appeared on the b-side of their 1979 flop single 'Mindless Boogie'. Commercially it it appeared during a slump period for the band who had enjoyed a string of global hits from '73 to '78 ('Brother Louie', 'Emma', 'So You Win Again', 'I'll Put You Together Again'). Hot Chocolate's mainstream comeback, that made them household names, didn't happen until '82 with 'Girl Crazy', damning them to the casino circuit for eternity. Yeah, they could be schmaltzy ('It Started With A Kiss') and sound like they were cranking out jingles ('Every1's A Winner') but it's hard to deny they could sex it up with the best of them when they set their crotches to it ('Heaven's In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac').

NY team Rub'N'Tug recognised the sultry nature of 'Don't Turn It Off' and included it on their seminal '05 mix set Campfire. An early morning seduction anthem was born. And the song fit 40 Thieves like a condom. Comprising qzen (ex-The Invisibles), Corey Black (Imperial Dub label manager), Jay Williams (Jaswho?) and Layne Fox (engineer on Woolfy's The Warehouse), 40 Thieves followed up their 'Life Is Special' 12" (Rong) with 'Don't Turn It Off' and there's just no getting tired of what could well be a modern disco classic. And the track was the perfect lead-in to last year's 'Beats In Space' 12" (Rong) of edits that shows they can do flamboyant disco too on 'Love To Shake It Baby'.

'Don't Turn It Off (Greg Wilson Edit)' - 40 Thieves feat qzen:


'Heaven Is In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac' - Hot Chocolate:

Buy: Credit To The Edit 2 - Various/Greg Wilson; 'Don't Turn It Off' - 40 Thieves.