DEMOS

so believe it or not, there was a time before all the garbage when Metallica didn't make horrible music. before napster, before $300 orchestra seating, before Some Kind Of Monster, even before that wiry Kirk Hammet dude, there was a pretty good thrash band from LA called Metallica. crazy, right?

anyhow, i've been digging these demos and most stuff recorded during the time before Cliff's death and their fall in the 90's, so i thought i'd throw these out there. here's two demos from '82, the No Life 'Til Leather demo and Ron McGovney's Garage demo. Ron's demo is largely comprised of Diamond Head covers (awesome). Lineup for both is:

James Hetfield – vocals, guitar
Dave Mustaine – lead guitar
Ron McGovney – bass guitar
Lars Ulrich – drums, percussion


HERE

TROPICS...

another mix for all you freaks out there.



DJ MICHAEL PAUL HILARIO - THE TROPICS OF OLYMPIA
screwed reggae/rocksteady/dub/dancehall hits



cavernous sizzurp style lo-fi reggae transmissions from the Beach House, oly westside. enjoy under the influence/let me know what ya think...


HERE

MORE MISSISSIPPI...

this is definitely one of my favorite LPs Mississippi has reissued or unearthed, and its also coincidentally the most obscure of all their releases. absolutely no track listing or liner notes, just an eerie cover, assumedly copied from the original LP. and the music is another mysterious thing: titled "70's Thai Orchestra" (though theres no mention anywhere on the sleeve), the music is a psychedelic style of Thai country music called "Molam", which Sublime Frequencies also put out an excellent compilation of. swirling rhythms and strings weave hypnotic patterns with joyous shouts punctuating the mix. total tripped out sound.

here's the good ol' folks at Aquarius Records' review, which will surely do more justice than anything I can serve up:



"A while back we reviewed a cd called Siamese Temple Ball. A truly mysterious disc, with very little in the way of liner notes or any information really, but a record that we all became a little obsessed with and thus listened to it NONstop. We sold tons of copies too.
Then recently, we get a new batch of records from the always amazing Mississippi Records, and one of the records is entitled simply Mysterious Thai LP. So of course we're intrigued. We throw it on, and lo and behold, it's the very same record. Siamese Temple Ball, now on vinyl.
Not sure how this happened, if it was random, or if as we posited back in the day, that maybe Siamese Temple Ball was not actually music from Thailand, but an incredibly well played homage by some Sun City Girls-like worshippers of Eastern musical tradition. Hardly matters, the music is fantastic, wild, emotional, dense, joyous and yes, very very mysterious.
The cd version featured a sticker that proclaimed in faux pidgen English: "Flight comes to Thailand in the Year of the Rat. Siamese Temple Ball provide the lilting soundtrack for a chemical journey. Schoolgirls dance bashfully for the expectant throng. Life continues at a comparatively slow pace away from the rigours of fierce sun-light." Which was then followed by the (label's) description: "In the tradition of Sun City Girls, Ya Ho Wha 13, The Spacious Mind, Taj Mahal Travellers, Mu, Word of Life, Group 1850, and Ghost, Siamese Temple Ball give maximum pleasure for thirsty brains."
Quite a roster of comparisons, the most fitting of which is definitely the Sun City Girls. So while we assume that this record was recorded by a group of precocious, dilettante, ethnomusicologist hipsters, we like to suspend our disbelief and imagine this to be a genuine Folkways-style field recording, as the recording certainly has a genuine field recording presence - a single stereo microphone in a good location. The music itself is a catchy and mesmerizing steady pulse of various and sundry percussion instruments (metal, wood, skin), hollers, yelps, and rococo melodic lines spun out by tinny electric guitars, xylophones, flutes and Khan (mouth organ.) And besides all that, it's really pretty great!
The Mississippi lp version has all new artwork, even more mysterious than the cd, housed in a thick matte finish sleeve, with NO information at all, not even on the lp labels. We're not sure in what capacity, but it was apparently put out in conjunction with Exiled - also from Portland - another great record store. So recommended. And of course, probably WAY too limited..."



so there you have it. limited (and now out of print), mysterious and hypnotic music from "Thailand". excellent.


HERE

DRUG PROBLEM

repost from Kick To Kill. REAL DEAL NASTY RIGHT HERE. a must download.

holy shit this is hard! noxious blend of powerviolence, black/doom metal and total atonal bleakness. samples from STREET TRASH! from wellington, new zealand, where apparently they don't fuck around. theres literally no info about this band online that i can find, and searching "drug problem new zealand" on google turns up some pretty unsettling results. you're just going to have to take my word for it, this shit rules.

album + demo HERE

ITAL DUB

Jamaican records are a funny thing. i can't tell you how many lemons i've bought in the reggae realm. everything from labels on the wrong side, a label that was actually totally ripped and glued on there anyway, warped and almost paper thin vinyl are problems a record collector has to endure in order to hear some classic jamaican cuts on wax.

when i bought this Augustus Pablo record, ITAL DUB, i was surprised to hear the first song on the A side was a full vocal single, not dub at all. then when i downloaded the album, the song was omitted all together. with a little research, i found that the song is actually a classic Jacob Miller & Inner Circle song called "standing firm", which borrows the hook from Dave Brubeck's omnipresent jazz hit "take five" to an amazing effect. so for whatever reason, whoever mastered the record just decided to throw in a little bonus jam in...first thing on the record.

and its kind of a bummer too, because that song is such a scorcher compared to the laid-back heavy dub on this record. but Jacob Miller'd or not the album is pretty sweet, and if you like your dub on the deep bass and melodica end of the spectrum, you'll be stoked.

here's the album, as well as the Miller track so if you're so inclined you can listen to it the way my weirdo vinyl version plays. happy dubbin'.


ITAL DUB
STANDING FIRM