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I love this whole album and it’s completely wrapped up with the sensory memories of my shitty Madison apartment, blasting this on my JVC cd boombox while getting ready to go out to bars since I was finally legal. My top songs include the four singles Sonic Youth released from Dirty: “100%” (#4 on the US alternative chart, #28 UK) about the murder of their roadie Joseph Cole in ’91; the video was directed by Tamra Davis and Spike Jonze and features Jason Lee skateboarding, pre-acting days; “Youth Against Fascism” (#52 UK) which features Minor Threat/Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye on guitar and the still-resonant lyric “I believe Anita Hill; “Sugar Kane” (#26 UK) – its video is the first screen appearance by Chloe Sevigny; and “Drunken Butterfly” – I don’t know if it charted but the video was a result of a 120 Minutes contest and the song’s lyrics are composed entirely from Heart song names and lyrics. I also like the punk grrrl growl of “Orange Rolls, Angel’s Spit,” the super-short, super-punk’d Untouchables cover “Nic Fit,” and “Purr” which has a late 80’s grungy Seattle feel in the vocals and guitar. The track “Stalker” is not on the CD version, it was added in 2003 when the record was released on vinyl in the US.

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The Flowers of Romance is highly experimental post punk, prog-punk with extended and hypnotic drum solos, weird and exotic instrumentation and innovate sampling and looping techniques. Levene said about the record that it is “the least commercial record ever delivered to a record company.” It is definitely not ass-shaking, nor head-banging. But it’s really interesting. The title track, the “hit single” “Flowers of Romance” went to #24 on the UK singles chart, though it’s a different version than on the album, and was described in 2002 as “the strangest chart record of the last 25 years, maybe ever.” I love the deep industrial groove of “Banging the Door” (about John Lydon’s irritation of fans banging on his London home’s door at all hours of the night). “Four Enclosed Walls,” the lead track, has a crazy mix of sounds, including a “Mickey Mouse pocket watch [which was] placed on a floor tom so it would resonate and have more tone.” And “Go Back” is angular and sparse, with a sort-of Lydon rap about the repressive political climate of early 80’s England.

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Featuring Birds is fairly mellow with lovely melodies backed by some buzzy guitar and sometimes wild keyboards. My top tracks are “I Never Want to See You Again,” the rocking and dissonant “Ape Self Prevails In Me Still,” the 60’s organ-forward garage rocker “I Give Up,” and the only Weiss-lead vocal’d “Tomorrow You’ll Hide.” A lot of the record is a little too indie-twee for my tastes (the ukulele-styled guitar ditty “Please Do” for instance, and “You Fucked Yourself” which, despite the title, is a jazzy piano little number). April isn’t that long ago but I feel like they played a much more dynamic show than Featuring Birds would indicate for their style.

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While the title track “Memphis is Dead” does not actually appear on the record – it appeared on the EP 1+1=Nothing (Empty Records, 2000) – it’s one of the only videos of the band from that time available.

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Pussy Galore “Feel Good About Your Body” released on or around this day, December 21st, 1985. Today is also the anniversary of Pussy Galore’s first show ever, at the University of Maryland (that info most excellently provided by Pop-Catastrophe). Feel Good About Your Body is a 4-song EP on Shove Records, Pussy Galore’s own label, and Adult Contemporary Recordings, another DC-based micro-label that only put a handful of releases from ’84- present including another Pussy Galore single and a few albums by Peach of Immortality (like Pussy Galore, a noise-rock band). As one would expect, the songs are noisy with lots of distortion and off-kilter rhythms. “Die Bitch” has buzz-sawed guitar and “drums” that are more like hammers pounding on metal (Bob Bert wasn’t in the band yet but clearly was destined to join based on Pussy Galore’s rhythm section aesthetic). “HC Rebellion” has Julia Cafritz taking spoken-word lead vocals (read from letters in the Maximum Rock ‘n Roll zine) over a droning raga-styled guitar hook and then layers and layers are added into the cacophony. Jon Spencer and Cafritz share vocals – more like shouts and screams – on “Constant Pain” (the only lyrics are “constant pain”) and “Car Fantasy” is all atonal, feedback and off-key droning.

Pussy Galore recorded the EP at the Laundry Room in October 1985 with Barrett Jones for $150 (the Laundry Room was his house that doubled as a recording studio). In an article on The Stranger website in 2002 Barrett said the recording process was hellish:

“First, Spencer was never happy with the takes. “He’d say, ‘That sounds too good–make it sound worse,’” Jones remembers. Then there was Julia Cafritz, the other singer at the time. She bragged about smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, and filled the house with a dense cloud of smoke. And Pussy Galore loved noise–loud, obnoxious noise. “God, I hated them for that,” admits Jones.

To the chagrin of Jones’ roommates, the band had a seemingly endless supply of noisemaking tools. They’d power up a rusty chainsaw for one song and hammer a steel oil drum on another. They broke glass and banged on sheet metal for hours. They also liked guitar feedback, and would spend forever perfecting just the right squeal. Finally, four days later, his ears assaulted to the point of bleeding and his legs cramped from crouching in the control-room closet, Jones was finished with Pussy Galore’s album. Needless to say, Jones and his home studio soon found another location.”

It’s not easy listening but since it is, I believe, Spencer’s first recorded output, Feel Good About Your Body provides an interesting glimpse into the evolution of his sound and style.

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