I’m boycotting weather. Who’s with me?

Ed Rush & Optical Present Wormhole
I hype Jerry’s Records a lot, but I’m going to say it once more, if you are looking for some obscure grooves, hardcore house and woofer-throbbing DnB then you owe it to yourself to make the trek. Right now Jerry has hundreds, if not thousands of electronic 12” singles and promos just laying around, so much that he doesn’t even know what to do with them. There has to be some gems hidden in there, this collection being a prime example. Wormhole is a seminal peice of late-90s DnB, a near-perfect collection of pure electronica that combines killer beats with menacing, almost etheral melodies in a way that few others can. While the album is credited to Ed Rush & Optical, Fortran also contributes to the set. I only have the vinyl version, which was shorter than the CD version (but still clocked in at a massive 5-LPs). Thsi sucker is sadly out of print and can go for muco buckos on eBay, so it’s kind of vanished over time. If you like DnB though you need to check it out right now.

Garbage
Stupid Girl (Tee’s Freeze Club)
Stupid Girl (Tee’s In-House Dub)
Stupid Girl (Future Retro Mix)
Stupid Girl (Danny Saber Mix)
Stupid Girl (Shoegazer Mix)
Shirley Manson is on that Terminator show now right? She can totally cause the robot apocalypse at my house anytime. I know that didn’t make any sense but I don’t care.

Two posts in two days! It’s just like old time (old times being three months ago). I’m dreading an upcoming visit from my father and I’m drowning myself in 80s pop music in order to distract myself, which is a great bonus for all you bastards. Hopefully I’ll have at least one more post this week, but I’ve learned not to promise anything about my posting schedule, because the second I do it all goes to shit. I can promise though that the next post (whenver that will be) will include more awesome 80s/e synth awesomeness…possibly in the form of Depeche Mode.

OMD
Brides Of Frankenstein (Mix)
Brides Of Frankenstein (Dub)
Call My Name (12” Version)
Sugar Tax
Pandora’s Box (Diesel Fingers Mix)
Pandora’s Box (Abstract Mix)
Pandora’s Box (Constant Pressue 12” Mix)
Pandora’s Box (Prize Of Beauty Mix)
Holy crap on a stick that’s a lot of OMD. Here’s another example of how my crazy stupid brain works. I go to Wikipedia to check up on my OMD knowledge in preparation for this post. I get distracted and start reading up on their song “Enola Gay” which gets me interested in the actual Enola Gay as well as other 80s synthpop songs about nuclear annihilation so I end up spending 20 minutes reading about the dispute over America’s decision to drop the A-bomb while pulling up clips of “99 Luftballoons” on YouTube. I have problems. But enough about my demented brain, you probably want to know where the hell all these songs came from, well the “Brides Of Frankenstein” mixes are from that song’s 12” promo single; “Call My Name” is from its 12” single, the b-side of which was the same mix of “Brides Of Frankenstein” that was on the promo single, so there’s no need in me posting it; and the “Pandora’s Box” remixes and “Sugar Tax” all come from the American 12” promo single for “Pandora’s Box” which in America was subtitled “Long Long Way.” The song “Sugar Tax” is not on the album Sugar Tax, which is annoying. On a side note, the Sugar Tax was a real thing, it helped lead to the American Revolutionary War, and it was probably a real bitch for 18th century diabetics.

One added note, “Brides Of Frankenstein” (which is actually a megamix) has the best beat ever.

Erasure
Am I Right? (Dave Bascombe Remix)
Carry On Clangers (Full Length)
Let It Flow
Waiting For Sex (Full Length)
Snappy (12” Remix)
Snappy (The Spice Has Risen Mix)
These are the last of the Erasure remixes. I’m sure I’ve said that before but this time I mean it, really, honestly…at least until I buy more Erasure 12” singles.

My best of 2008 list is out. Mine is obviously more credible than lists put out by Spin, Rolling Stone, NME, Q, or Pitchfork.

However, I forgot to add some honorable mentions (links go to my reviews):

Squarepusher: Just A Souvenir – Acid jazz on..well..acid as the DnB god shows that he can fucking ROCK a bass. Download The Glass Road now.

The Fireman: Electric Arguments – So Paul McCartney and Youth from Killing Youth walk into a recording studio…It sounds like the set-up to a weird joke, but it the truth is that these two have been working together since the early 90s, and while their latest effort is more mainstream in nature than their earlier works, it’s still a shocking blast of left-field creations from a man who helped invent the modern pop song.

Toadies: No Deliverance – Texans can still rock out.

NIN: Both Ghosts and The Slip – One was dirt cheap and instrumental, the other was free and angsty. Both rocked.

Motorhead: Motorizer – The day Motorhead stops recording awesome albums is the day I die a little inside.

Ludo: You’re Awful, I Love You – Proof that emo/pop-punk can be smart and well-written (I know, I was shocked too!)

Coldplay: Viva la Vida – I really wanted to hate this record but I couldn’t do it. Brian Eno has saved Coldplay from the adult-comtemporary hell that was XY.

Amanda Palmer: Who Killed Amanda Palmer? – The crazy chick from The Dresden Dolls lets her inner-rocker shine on this solo release (which is odd considering The Dresden Dolls are pretty much a solo project as well, but whatever).

Stabbing Westward
Shame (On You Mix)
Shame (It Up Mix)
Shame (Powdered Cat Mix)
Slipping Away (Suicide Mix)
I think Stabbing Westward was the first band I ever liked ironically. I remember hearing “Shame” as a teen and thinking that this band was so dark and depressing that it was actually kind of funny. Nothing screams way-too-over-the-top self-loathing like the line “I only see myself as a reflection in your eyes.” Even though they were silly and an obvious attempt to cash in on the post-NIN industrial craze, I liked Stabbing Westard, especially “Shame” and these three remixes of that song (plus “Slipping Away”) are all great. I got these off of a weird promo 12” called The Remixes.

Ministry
Stigmata (Remix)
Tonight We Murder
The cover to this 12” single is damn scary, although not as scary as the cover to The Land Of Rape And Honey, since that’s a mutilated head of a dead body. Al needs a hug. The uplifting “Tonight We Murder” was also on the soundtrack to Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight, a great example of a shitty horror movie with an awesome metal soundtrack.

Lords Of Acid
I Sit On Acid (Straight Up Mix)
I Sit On Acid (Just The Basics)
I Sit On Acid (Mixin’ Up The Acid)
I Sit On Acid (The Hard Seven)
What the hell happened to these guys? They completely vanished about six years ago; they’re website hasn’t been updated since 2002! What the world needs now is more perverted techno doing it dirty. This is the best song ever about face-sitting. And if you argue that with me then you obviously have far more interest in the topic than a well-adjusted person should. These remixes are from a 12” single.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/Ramadan (is that over yet?)/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Saturnalia/Boxing Day. I was in Colorado over the holiday and had much fun with my Mom and my slightly insane step-family. Christmas with a 6-year-old is fucking exhausting.

Whilst in the lovely land of little oxygen and excessive Christian pricks that is Colorado Springs, I did get a chance to check out a couple bitchin’ record stores. One was The Leech Pit, an awesome record/vintage clothing store that I have mentioned in the past. If you are ever in the Colorado Springs area I highly suggest checking them out, as they will serve as a much needed respite from all the Jesus freaks that populate the area.

The other was Independent Records, a local chain store that has a great selection of everything from vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and video games both used and new. There are several of them in the area, but I went to the biggest one that had the best vinyl collection. I’ll be posting some stuff that I picked up there in a few weeks, I bought so much vinyl that my mom had to ship it back since it wouldn’t fit in my luggage.

Wildchild
Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim Old Skool Edit)
Renegade Master (Original Mix)
Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim Old Skool Mix)
Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim New Skool Mix)
Renegade Master (Tall Paul Mix)
Renegade Master (Urban Takeover Mix)
Argh. These tracks were SUPPOSED to be the highlight of my mega-awesome pre-Christmas house post, but I forgot to upload them. Which makes it much harder for you all to download them. This was doubly annoying since it was the song that inspired by decision to create an “all-house” post since it’s probably one of the greatest club tracks of all time, made even better by Fatboy Slim’s nigh-perfect remixes. If you call yourself a dance music fan and you don’t have these tracks on your computer then you’re fucking up. The first four versions were taken from a
CD single, while the final two were ripped from a 12” single. They are all must haves. Download them and cherish them.

Clan Of Xymox
Phoenix Of My Heart/Wild Thing Outro (Spicy Mix)
Phoenix Of My Heart/Wild Thing Outro (Mental Spicy Mix)
Phoenix Of My Heart/Wild Thing Outro
Love The Neighbor
Can anyone tell me what a Xymox is? Anyone at all? At the very least can you tell me how to pronounce it? I’d be most grateful. Anyways, I don’t have much to say about these guys other than that these songs were from a 12” single and that, like the band’s name, they confuse me greatly.

Regular visitors to my blog will know that I try to plan a huge post around Christmas both as a special gift to you all and as an excuse for me to take the week off posting when I’m out being all family-friendly with my family (strange concept I know). Two years ago I put up a shitload of White Stripes B-sides, last year it was old-school rap, this year I’m wishing all of you a very Big Beat Christmas with some killer house and techno cuts, along with some industrial thrown in for good measure (and the rest of The Leather Nun tracks just because).

Right now I am in the Charlotte Airpot sitting across from a very angry bilingual chick in army fatigues and a spineless father with a little brat four-year-old who deserves to be thrown into a jet turbine. I love holiday travel.

Enjoy your chosen winter solstice celebration and I’ll see you all in a week or so.

The Creator
The Creator (The 12” Creation)
The Creator (The 7” Creation)
The Creator (The Dub Creation)
The Creator (The Intro Creation)
This is a house track that features an overly enthusiastic black minister spouting the joys of house music. Back in the late 90s I heard about five thousand tracks that followed this formula. Who did it first, and more importantly, who is the dude that has to be on half of these tracks? This is a better example of this kind of house music, with the standard scary hardcore house sound mixing well with the crazy minister guy. These are all from a 12” single.

Nitzer Ebb
Control I’m Here (Hardcore Mix)
Control I’m Here (Command Control Confront Mix)
Control I’m Here (Strategic Dancefloor Initiative Mix)
K.I.A.
Nitzer Ebb is a band I can only listen to in small doses, either because they get on my nerves far too quick or because they’re music gets me so angry and pumped up that I want to punch someone in the head. And since I am currently in a crowded airport that would be especially bad. All of these tracks are from the 12” single to “Control In Here” and while a couple of these tracks have been made available on compilations, those too are also hard to find so I’m including them all here.

Alan Barratt
The Warriors
The Burial
These two tracks are off of a 12” called “Zulu Nation 5.” The cover of the album has a pair of bongo drums on it with some generic African art. Above that someone wrote in black marker “Tribal House” – gee, ya think? I have no clue who Alan Barratt is/was, but these are two good, if slightly droning, house tracks by him.

The Leather Nun
Cool Shoes
I Wish
Special Agent
On The Road
Son Of A Good Family
Desolation Ave
I would say that I’m never going to post another track by The Leather Nun again, but since I’m not counting out any other bizarre Abba covers by them I think that would be a bit hasty. These are from assorted 12” singles.

Ho Ho Ho.

I am once again going to apologize for the lack of updates as of late. Last time I blamed my job, this time I’m blaming the holidays (and Comcast for going down last night just when I was getting ready to hit “publish”). When I apologize next week I’ll blame the moon.

The Leather Nun
I Can Smell Your Thoughts (Remix)
Falling Apart
506 (Re-Visited)
I am seriously running out of things to say about this Swedish punk/goth rock band, which is quite unfortunate considering I still have at least two more posts worth of songs by them. These tracks are from the 12” single to “I Can Smell Your Thoughts” (little known fact, my thoughts smell like bacon).

Jane’s Addiction
So What! (Voodoo Funk)
So What! (Jane’s House)
So What! (Downbeat Addiction)
I have even less to say about Jane’s Addiction. Um…let me think for a second…nope I got nothing. Hey, you hear about those shitheads who are pissed that a bakery wouldn’t make a cake with their kid’s name on it since they named their kid Adolf Hitler? What a couple of fucking pieces of shit. The worthless prick of a dad says he’s non-violent, which is so fucking stupid it makes my brain hurt in ways that I didn’t know possible. Well, he may be non-violent, but I’m not, so if I ever see that fucker I’m going to make sure he can’t contribute to the gene pool anymore than he already has. What a fucking shit.

The Verve
Lord I Guess I’ll Never Know
Country Song
Bitter Sweet Symphony (Extended Version)
So Sister
Echo Bass
Here I am breaking my rules again. These tracks were not taken from vinyl, but were instead lifted from two separate CD singles. I thought I’d post them anyways since I’m feeling oh so very British after seeing Oasis this past weekend. Good show, but Ryan Adams is one of the worst acts I’ve ever seen.

My latest review:
Evil Nine: They Live! – Zombie techno bitches!

Now, as I was saying…

Gothic Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Part 1
Part 2
The Devil Is An Englishman
Okay, I don’t know where to begin with this one. Gothic is a completely forgotten 1987 horror film by Ken Russell, who is best known for directing the film version of Tommy and the 1980 mindfuck Altered States. If Ken Russell doesn’t do LSD then the chemicals used to manufacture it are taken from his body. Other “highlights” of Russell’s career include; The Devils, a film described to me as the most blasphemous movie ever made; The Lair Of The White Worm, in which the bisexual lawyer from L.A. Law attacks Hugh Grant; and the exquisitely-titled Whore, which was written as a response to Pretty Woman.

Gothic starred Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands (The Warlock) and is based on the true story of Mary Shelly’s vacation on Lake Geneva which led to her writing Frankenstein. The word “based” is a stretch though, since I highly doubt that Mary Shelly and her friends spent that winter partaking in drug-fueled orgies and hallucinating about nipples with eyeballs and such (although I could be wrong).

This score was composed by Thomas Dolby. Before this his only work composing music for a film was for Howard The Duck, and that wasn’t even the score, it was the music that Lea Thompson’s band plays. Which leads to the question; how the hell did he get this gig? In case you were wondering, Gothic was the last movie Dolby ever scored.

Anyways, Gothic has kind of slipped into the black hole of anonymity since its 1987 release. It’s available on DVD if you really want to see it, but I haven’t met anyone who has. This score is even more obscure, and has been out of print for years now. It was released on both vinyl and CD, and the latter of the two can go for as much as 70 bucks on eBay (Dolby fans are fucking nuts). I grabbed this from Jerry’s for a tenth of that insane price. It’s pretty good, and combines orchestral arrangements with electronic instruments in a few interesting ways.

The original CD had the score split up into two parts, and I’m keeping with that format since there are about 40 “tracks” listed on the vinyl version. The only change I’m making from that album is that I separated the very end, which is a “pop” song called “The Devil Is An Englishman,” featuring someone named Timothy Spall on vocals. The soundtrack also credits someone going by the name “Screamin’ Lord Byron,” but that is NOT David Bowie, who went by that name in the video for “Blue Jean,” instead it’s lines that Gabriel Byrne yelled in the movie (he played Lord Byron in the movie and he tends to scream lots).

And I think I just wrote more on the soundtrack to this movie than anyone ever has in the history of anything.

The Leather Nun
Primemover
F.F.A.
Pink House (Extended Version)
Speed Of Life (Extended Version)
Lucky Strike (SMC Al Star Blosband) (Not a typo, it’s “Al Star”)

Exciting excursions into the leather nunnery continue with these choice tracks. The first two tracks are from the 12” single to “Primeover” while the last three are from the single to “Pink House,” a song that bears no relation whatsoever to “Pink Houses,” which is a shame because that would have been totally awesome.

Note: “F.F.A” stands for “Fist Fuckers Associated” I’m assuming their offices are not located in the same office complex as “Peace And Love Incorporated.”

Anyone want to set my car on fire so I can collect insurance? I’ll repay you with a 12” single of the Howard The Duck Theme. Seems like a fair trade to me.

Nuclear Assault
Final Flight
Demolition
I knew little about this band until this weekend, when I picked up this 12” single because of the sheer metalness of the band’s logo. I went to Allmusic to read up on them and their synopsis of the band begins with “Nuclear Assault were among thrash metal’s most socially aware groups…” only to click on their complete song list to find that they recorded a song called “Butt Fuck.” Now, that may be a metaphor for World War III (a common theme in other NA songs), but I doubt it. Anyways, this group was formed by Anthrax’s first bass player Danny Liker and a dude named John Connelly, who was a roadie for Anthrax at the time. So they kind of sound like Anthrax. Connelly really can’t sing at all, and the chords are pretty simple (even for thrash) still, they have a simplistic, “fuck you” charm to them that I kind of dig. These two songs were the b-sides to “Brain Death,” and they have never made their way to CD.

Living Colour
Love Rears Its Ugly Head (Soulpower Mix)
Love Rears Its Ugly Head (Hip Hop Mix)
Elvis Is Dead (Elvis Is In The House Mix)
Elvis Is Dead (Zans is Dead Dub)
Hip-hop/house/dance remixes of Living Colour tracks confus me since these dudes were fucking punk rock as shit when they first burst onto the scene. When “Elvis Is Dead” is remixed into a dance tune it’s still good, but it sounds strangely British to me. These tracks are from 12” singles and the Soulpower Mix I have is not the same version that’s on the Greatest Hits.

The Leather Nun
Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) (Chopper Mix)
Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) (The Rejected Version)
Lollipop (Suckers Version)
I recently bought half a dozen singles by The Leather Nun and all of them feature tracks that were never released on CD. Hell, even if they were put on CD at one point I’d still post them since everything released by this great evil group out of Sweden is sadly out of print here in the America. I thought I’d kick off this cavalcade of Swedish glam/goth/industrial/rock by posting the remixes to their cover of that classic ABBA tune as well as a remix of their immensely dirty original song “Lollipop.” (Hint, it’s not really about sucking a lollipop) (Another hint: It’s about his penis.)