whatisdereklisteningto

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Static Age was intended to be the Misfits debut album, recorded in early ‘78 with studio time given them by Mercury Records in exchange for the rights to the “Blank Records” name Danzig had used to self-release the first Misfits single (Mercury went on to release Pere Ubu’s first LP and the Suicide Commandos LP on the Blank imprint, and nothing else.) 17 tracks were recorded, 14 were mixed for the album, and reportedly plans changed when Danzig couldn’t find a label interested in putting it out. Four songs came out as the Bullet EP (plus another later on the Beware EP), some came out later in different overdubbed remixes on Legacy of Brutality, and others were never released. The original mix of the 14-song Static Age finally came out as part of the Misfits box set, in this weird plastic case with raised silver print on both sides, and a back panel that slides out / off to access the disc and booklet. 

Static Age also came out separately a while after the box set, with the addition of the other 3 tracks from the session that were never mixed plus a weird unlisted track of little outtake bits and TV static noises. I’ve actually never played this box set version of Static Age before today because I have that other CD and have played it plenty, so I was amused to find this version starts and ends with a 6 second track of TV static noise not heard on the other edition.

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Disc 3 of the Misfits box set is a bunch of poorly labeled alternate takes and / or mixes from various sessions that weren’t used on other releases, plus both sides of the first Misfits single in their original mixes. One thing of note is you finally get to hear “Teenagers From Mars” and “Children in Heat” in one performance as on the Horror Business 7-inch (not the same mixes, but not pointlessly separated as on Collection I and II.) “Spook City USA” is one Misfits song you’ll only find on this disc (a different version is on the Glenn Danzig “Who Killed Marilyn?” 7-inch), and also of note are the songs from the 9/5/80 12 Hits From Hell session that weren’t used on singles found in their ostensibly original mixes. All good fun.

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Boy, disc 2 of the Misfits box set is a challenging listen, but is at least helpful in containing 3 releases you don’t have to own separately. First up is the Legacy of Brutality compilation (which I have on CD separately and posted before), containing mostly tracks from the Static Age session in awful remixes with heavy reverb and Danzig-performed guitar and bass overdubs (not like the original cuts are audiophile gems with flawless performances--they’re awesome for what they are, of course, but the Legacy versions are not an improvement), and a few other tracks with listenable mixes that are among their best recordings. 

Evilive isn’t as bad as I remembered in terms of being sloppy and bad-sounding. It’s not terrible, but not great either. The drumming is solid as heck, the bass and guitar are predictably shitty-sounding and not 100% in tune, and the recording is tolerable / could be way worse, but the Real Problem Here is most of the set is plagued with what sounds to me like poorly used noise reduction, this kind of squeaky sound artifact smeared across the recording that really, really bothers my ears. I’ve never heard any vinyl or CD versions of Evilive outside of this one in the box set so I don’t know if it sounds like this on other editions, I just know it really, really sucks real bad.

Closing out the disc is the Misfits last recording as an active band, the 14-and-a-half-minute Earth A.D. album. It has less of the goofy horror-movie-punk charm of the previous stuff, being more of a scary hardcore record. It’s also one of their best and best-sounding recordings, featuring the band leaning hard into a straight up US hardcore sound with Robo from Black Flag on drums and SST stalwart Spot producing. I feel like if the Misfits had stayed together and gotten any better or better-sounding after this, it would’ve been too far in a bad metal direction (as evidenced by, well, Samhain and everything else Danzig did) so Earth A.D. (and the Die, My Darling EP included on most editions of the album) is a pretty good note for this stupid band to end on.

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Disc 1 of the Misfits box set contains a reduction of the two posthumous kinda-sorta-best-of collections (songs that come from the Static Age session and the Earth A.D. LP appear elsewhere in the box.) The first one--Misfits, retroactively titled Collection I--came out in ‘86 and contains songs released on singles / EPs. Collection II came out in ‘95 and contains the rest of the single / EP tracks, and a handful of others. The funny thing about the non-single tracks on Collection II is they’re technically not even performed by the Misfits. Apparently, Goofy Glenn and Danzig bassist Eerie Von attempted a Walk Among Us II remake album with just them and drum machine, and that’s actually where “Hate Breeders”,  “Braineaters”, “Nike A-Go-Go”, “Devil’s Whorehouse” and the otherwise unrecorded  “Mephisto Waltz” come from. That aside, most of the tracks are original mixes, except the remixed & overdubbed version of “Cough/Cool” from their first single and maybe something else. It woulda been nice if they’d re-sequenced all these tracks into roughly chronological order or something, rather than just “here’s the first one minus several cuts, then the second one minus several cuts”, but whatever. Their whole discography is so annoying and jumbled as it is, what’s the difference.

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Speaking of spooky Halloween crap, how ‘bout that Misfits box set? The box contains 4 CDs covering pretty much everything they recorded in some form that isn’t on Walk Among Us (it being the only set of recordings not owned by the Misfits or Caroline Records.) There’s also a Misfits Fiend Club button (which mine still has despite being bought used) and a 28-page book with photos, liner notes, lyrics and a semi-helpful discography / pressing guide. There’s two versions of the box, this being the first edition with all four discs in their own black plastic cases with silvery printing stamped on the surface (the other version just has two double-disc jewel cases with regular printed front and tray card.) I’ll be posting each disc separately, too, just cuz I have notes to make about each (you know me.) I got this for xmas in 2009 when my mom was like “hey, what do you want for xmas?” and I was like “I dunno, just grab used copies of some stuff on my Amazon wish list if you want”, so she did, and in that sense I’m lucky I would up with the four-plastic-cases first edition of the box since I didn’t specifically make the purchase myself.

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Halloween ‘73 is the latest holiday blessing from the Zappa Vault, presenting both complete shows from the titular holiday and year on 3 CDs plus a 4th CD of rehearsal recordings. Before Zappa’s NYC Halloween shows became a tradition, the ‘73 concerts happened to be in Chicago, and found a new Mothers lineup playing just their 2nd & 3rd ever shows (side note: the SBD recording of their first show in Austin is well worth it if you know where to find that sort of thing.) Lead singer / saxaphonist / flautist / dancer Napoleon Murphy Brock and 2nd drummer Chester Thompson were new to the Mothers, while the rest of the group (Tom Fowler, Bruce Fowler, George Duke, Ralph Humphrey and Ruth Underwood) had been on the road on-and-off for about 8 months. A mere six weeks later, they were performing legendary shows at the Roxy in Hollywood preserved on film and glorious multi-track, but that’s another story. The Halloween shows are “only” 4-track recordings, and notes reveal only 3 of the tracks were used (for a live stereo mix plus a mono audience track) but they sound fantastic and do not disappoint. For one thing, Zappa’s guitar has a louder presence here than on the Roxy recordings, which is awesome. There is some overlap between the two sets because the group didn’t know a huge number of actual tunes, but both feature songs not heard in the other, plus some of the arrangements are a little different even from the Roxy shows a little down the road. The songs you’ll hear twice are Pygmy Twylyte, The Idiot Bastard Son, Cheepnis, Penguin in Bondage, T’Mershi Duween, RDNZL and Dickie’s Such An Asshole, while Cosmik Debris, The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue, Kung Fu, The Dog Breath Variations, Uncle Meat, Village of the Sun, Echidna’s Arf (Of You), Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?, Montana, Dupree’s Paradise, I’m the Slime, Big Swifty, Farther O’Blivion (which contains The Steno Pool, The Be-Bop Tango and Cucamonga), Inca Roads and the medley of Son of Mr. Green Genes, King Kong and Chunga’s Revenge appear once. For me, the highlights mostly include the songs featuring improvisation and extensive use of hand signal cues [especially “The Hook”!] (see “Dupree’s Paradise”, “Don’t You Ever” and “The Be-Beop Tango” but also sections in “Big Swifty”, “Inca Roads” and the “Green Genes/King Kong/Chunga” medley.) As far as sorta different arrangements, “Dickie’s Such An Asshole” has the extended “preachin’” section later shortened and a closing verse that got replaced, “Penguin in Bondage” has this little extra bit before and after the guitar solo and “Village of the Sun” still has an instrumental intro / outro (played a lot faster than on the Road Tapes #2 version) and, of course, “The Be-Bop Tango” was still a part of “Farther O’Blivion” and not yet it’s own event, all of which changed by the time of the Roxy shows. The 40-page booklet has a bunch of cool photos, but more importantly features excellent liner notes from Joe Travers, drummer Ralph Humphrey and everyone’s favorite percussionist Ruth Komanoff Underwood.

Oh, the disc of stuff from pre-tour rehearsals is kind of a fun listen. 9 of the tracks are actually complete takes, while the long journeys into “Inca Roads”, “Farther O’Blivion” and “Cosmik Debris” focus more on building up certain parts of the songs, as well as the audible fun they were having in the process. The one real surprise of the disc is Magic Fingers, which comes from 200 Motels and which this lineup never played live (in fact, none of Zappa’s lineups did until 1978) and not only that, but the outro of the song features a couple weird, bluesy verses no one’s never heard before. What in the hell?They’re not part of any known versions of “Magic Fingers” or any other previously known song from Zappa’s universe (is this related to the never-heard “Slough My Throng” somehow?) so that’s kinda neat / weird. Oh #2, there’s also a one-disc “highlights” version of this release that edits the two shows down to one with none of the rehearsal stuff. No thanks on that.

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About a month back, my homeboy @sofakingmanyrecords​ took me along to see Dweezil’s current tour where they were playing all of Hot Rats and a bunch of other stuff. It was a pretty good show and, among other things, made me wanna revisit the 1987 remix of Hot Rats. This 1995 Rykodisc edition was the first version of the album I heard and purchased when I was about 17 (about 4-5 years before finding my old [free] vinyl copy.) Unlike some of Zappa’s other radical remixes, there’s no newly overdubbed instruments, but the mix is quite different in a lot of ways and there are instrumental parts and lines in “Little Umbrellas” and “It Must Be A Camel” almost buried in the old mix that are loud ‘n clear on this version. “The Gumbo Variations” is a good four minutes longer than the ‘69 mix, and while “Willie the Pimp” is only about 7 seconds longer, some sections of the long guitar solo are shuffled around / re-arranged. The remix is overall a fantastic alternate version of the album (I think this is arguably the better version of “Peaches en Regalia”), but the main drawback of the whole thing is that it’s a little harsh in the treble frequencies (without dialing back the high end a little bit, the cymbals on much of the album almost sounds like an overly-compressed mp3 or something.) This version has been out of print for a while (though not hard to find) but is about to get reissued as part of a multi-disc box set of unreleased material from the Hot Rats sessions (excitement!)

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Coming on the heels of (and enabled by the profits from) the commercial success of “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” and the Apostrophe(’) LP (not to mention two years of almost non-stop touring with fluctuating Mothers lineups), Frank Zappa’s third foray into getting some of his works performed by orchestra (following Lumpy Gravy and the soundtrack to 200 Motels) was recorded at UCLA’s Royce Hall in 1975 with 37+ pieces (including 23 brass and woodwind players, amplified string quartet, three keyboards, harp, electric bass, drums and four percussionists.) Unfortunately, the resulting Orchestral Favorites LP ended up being (along with Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt) one of three albums released without Zappa’s approval following his split with Warner Bros.

This 3-CD 40th anniversary edition of Orchestral Favorites rights one of the big wrongs of the LP version by actually being treated with some respect and care in terms of audio quality; Warner Bros. cut the original without a master tone reel so the EQ is just all wrong compared to what was intended. While there’s another CD version Zappa made with much different EQ and reversed stereo image, this edition returns to the analog master as it should have sounded, and this is an audible improvement over the LP and arguably better than Zappa’s CD version, as well.

The 37+ piece Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra also did two concert performances during the three days it took to record the album. The second performance was recorded and appears on discs 2 & 3. The program includes Bogus Pomp, Revised Music For Low-Budget Symphony Orchestra, Pedro’s Dowry, Rollo, Black Napkins, Dog Breath Variations / Uncle Meat, Naval Aviation in Art?, about 50 bars of music from Lumpy Gravy known as “Sink Trap” followed by several minutes of conducted improvisation, Duke of Prunes, a few sections of The Adventures of Greggery Peccary (including The Steno Pool, Greggery Invents the Calendar and The New Brown Clouds) and, of course, Strictly Genteel. The bonus cut found on disc one is this recording of “Strictly Genteel” with lots of keyboard overdubs by Tommy Mars from 1978, which is kind of fun / interesting.

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Beloved punk uncle and former Minutemen / fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt’s first solo record, remembered for it’s star-studded alternative rock cast of dozens appearing in collaboration with the old sailor (and Kathleen Hanna’s legendary answering machine spiel on “Heartbeat.”) “Against the 70′s” (w/ Eddie Vedder) and “Piss-Bottle Man” (w/ Evan Dando) were the modern rock “hits” from the album, and certainly the reason I bought it. I got this double LP edition for $8 at Checkered Records in the summer of ‘96, a visit I remember for being the first time I blew $100+ on records, and this was the second piece of color vinyl I ever purchased. I hadn’t listened to this in yeeeeears and don’t really remember the last time I did, but it’s definitely one of those things I listened to so many times way back in the day that when I put it on, it was almost like I just heard it a month ago, but the distance and time since the last time I heard any of it made the whole thing a fresh, exciting listen. One of the best features of the album is Nels Cline’s guitar playing on “Drove Up From Pedro”, “Intense Song For Madonna to Sing” (a spooky, jazzy instrumental), a cover of Sonic Youth’s “Tuff Gnarl” (also featuring 75% of Sonic Youth on it) and “Forever - One Reporter’s Opinion” (a longer remake of a tune from Double Nickels on the Dime, with Pat Smear on vocal.) Other highlights include “Sexual Military Dynamics” (w/ barking Henry Rollins), “Chinese Firedrill” (w/ Frank Black, and some lovely nylon-string guitar work from Nels Cline), “Tell ‘Em Boy!” (w/ Dave Pirner) and the lengthy version of “Maggot Brain” wailed on by J. Mascis, sensitively and subtly backed by Watt on bass and Bernie Worrell on organ.

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Walk Among Us was the first Misfits LP that actually came out as such during the band’s existence. It pretty much defines what they were and is considered a classic of US punk / hardcore. For me, it’s a solid album that’s hard to say much bad about; whatever flaws it has are things that kinda sucked about the Misfits in general. Because the Misfits weren’t much a part of my punk rock diet early on and I didn’t bother acquiring most their stuff until I was about 27, I didn’t come up worshiping this record and while I love it for what it is, it also doesn’t stand out to me as, like, the BEST Misfits release necessarily. All their stuff (Danzig-era, obv) is worth having and this is part of that, but this one has the monster reputation [no pun intended] having been around the longest.

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12 Hits From Hell was the Scary Ramones’ second attempt at recording an LP. Of course, instead of putting out an LP they did the 3 Hits From Hell 7-inch and the “Halloween”/”Halloween II” 7-inch (and also fired the guitar player and replaced him with Jerry Only’s much sloppier younger brother; kinda too bad, as Bobby Steele is real solid on these recordings), and the rest kinda end up being demos of a sort for Walk Among Us and / or used on later collections. Around 2001, all the songs from the session were given a fresh, loud, non-ruined-by-Danzig mix like had been done with Static Age, but because Danzig and Jerry Only are both weird old goofs that can’t agree about who even cares what, Caroline cancelled the CD release and had the existing stock of the album destroyed. But a few promo copies had been sent out and maybe even a couple “real” / non-destroyed copies slipped out and have been the basis for a million counterfeit silver CD reproductions, like this one. I never wanted to pay too much for a copy cuz they’re all reproductions, even though like 99% of eBay listings always claimed to be the genuine article. That said, I did kinda pay too much for this thing; nothing stupid but a little more than I would pay for most CDs as a rule. I just wanted the thing and was way more than 99% sure it’s a reproduction just like all the rest are (and I assure you, it is) and in this event I semi-knew the seller and the dollars were for a Good Cause so I was willing to humor the assertion that this was a for realz Caroline copy (dude, there’s no fucking way.)

At any rate, it’s a real good album (this version of “Where Eagles Dare” is kinda too fast but I’m being picky), and as far as I care thus far, Static Age is their first one, 12 Hits From Hell is the second and we’ll get to the rest later (and no, I’m not even touching non-Danzig-era Misfits, get the hell off my yard and my blog.)

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Legacy of Brutality was a posthumous (in the sense that the Danzig-era version had disbanded and stopped recording) collection of some pre-Walk Among Us recordings given mostly terrible new mixes. Most of the disc is songs from the��Static Age sessions that hadn’t been released, and these mixes suuuuuck compared to the later Static Age CD. There’s a common theme in Danzig’s mixes or re-mixes of stuff having too much fucking reverb as well as overdubbed and / or replaced instrument tracks that gets so many chances to shine on this thing! Aside from the not-too-terrible versions of “She, “Where Eagles Dare” and “Who Killed Marilyn?” (which don’t sound great, but better than the mess made of the Static Age cuts), the best thing on here is “American Nightmare” just cuz it sounds so crazily 50′s-ish / Elvis-ish and actually has a kick-ass mix. It nails the one thing it’s trying to do so perfectly, and almost everything else suffers from having been fucked with.

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The Misfits are so stupid, but so good. I mean, they’re kinda bad, but also great, and some of their stuff is just dumb as hell but also awesome. I really don’t like or have any use for “horror punk” or pretty much anything that sounds too much like or was overtly influenced by the Misfits (unless in “parody/tribute” form.) However, Danzig-era Misfits just does this one certain thing that straddles dumb/smart, joke/serious, charming/but awful, terrible/but is awesome in a certain way that I find re-listenable and fun but also annoying, but fun! I was sorta familiar with but never bought or felt a need to own any of their stuff until about 2007, and I started here.

Static Age is the first Misfits album as far as I care. I feel like “everyone” knows the story on this one, but if not, here: Danzig self-released the first Misfits 7″ on Blank Records in 1977, and a year later Mercury Records was set to put out the first Pere Ube LP on their “punk” subsidiary Blank Records (and I THINK the only other LP that appeared on Blank was the Suicide Commandos) and needed to secure ownership of the name. Danzig sold it to ‘em for about 30 hours worth of studio time so the Misfits could get an LP together. Tracks from the sessions got used for the Bullet EP and later in weird different mixes on other collections and Static Age never appeared as an album (and with a fresh, uniform mix) ‘til that coffin box set came out, then also as this standalone CD version with 3 extra tracks. For this reporter, a classic punk recording, and the best actual Misfits album.

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Friday night fusion some more, still drawing from stuff I picked up at Attic Records in Pittsburgh some months back. This is the Corea - DiMeola - Clarke - White lineup of RTF again so I figured it’d be good, but the song titles and cover art had me fearin’ we were in for some prog renaissance faire shit, but it ain’t as bad as all that. “Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant” creeps a little close to that, considering the back-and-forth sections of music with different timbres are, I guess?, evocative / illustrative of the title, and part of Clarke’s “The Magician” has a certain renaissance aroma, but thankfully the whole record doesn’t stink of medieval fantasy prog, or whatever. DiMeola’s “Majestic Dance” is my favorite cut, some of which is kinda Zappa-esque thanks to quintuplets and marimba. A lot of the synth (and other) sounds are kinda thin on this one, and production-wise and tunes-wise I like Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy and Where Have I Known You Before better overall but, you know, not bad. 

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Second Edition is the non-metal-box version of Metal Box, PIL’s second album originally released as three 45rpm 12-inches in a round metal canister. I bought this when I was 18, listened to it a couple-few times then and very rarely thereafter. I just kept it despite not being too into it, and here in the recent past modern times, digital media exposure had me wanting to re-evaluate it; a couple tracks would pop up now and then on my Discover Weekly playlists, and eventually I gave it a good listen so I could then listen to the episode of That Record Got Me High podcast about it. All that said, I’m glad have to have grown-up patience and listening skills to appreciate this album for what it is (rather than shrugging it off like “eh, kinda boring, sorta irritating” as a younger me did without trying all that hard to “get” it, or whatever), cuz it’s a crazy and interesting listen, but also an item I kinda have to “be in the mood for” / want to pay attention to etc. “Poptones” is the best thing on here, followed by “Socialist” and “Graveyard” (both instrumental) and “No Birds.”

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Lou Reed’s time on Arista started with Rock and Roll Heart, another one of those “just okay” Lou Reed records. Way better production than Sally Can’t Dance and Coney Island Baby, and better songs, though not by much in some cases. The backing is mostly fairly energetic if totally basic rock n’ roll but a lot of the songs are kinda forgettable. Most of side one sorta sucks (”Banging On My Drum” and “Follow the Leader” define “under-written filler”), but on side two, “Claim to Fame” and “Temporary Thing” are easily the best cuts on here, “Chooser and the Chosen” stands out just for being an instrumental and “A Sheltered Life” stands out for being a little piece of overtly jazz/blues fun (not a great song, but it doesn’t take a lot to be a highlight on this record.)

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Speaking of Lou Reed albums I remember not being that great, Coney Island Baby isn’t that great. The songs are performances are just kinda there, sorta dull and forgettable. “Charley’s Girl” is by far the best tune, but still not “great”, plus there’s that part where he mentions punching a woman in the face which is nice and horrifying (and the lyric uses one of my ex-’s names, fucking yikes.) “She’s My Best Friend” ain’t shit on any of the Velvet Underground versions, “Kicks” is total boring filler and the title track is kinda nice, but also kinda dull and under-developed. Ho hum. I can’t do any more mediocre Lou Reed today.