lydia lunch Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Wolfmanhattan Project “Blue Gene Stew”

sfilzen — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 15:17:19 +0000

Wolfmanhattan Project “Blue Gene Stew” 2019. In The Red Records. No wave garage-noise rock by the alt-super-group that includes Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks, Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers) on drums, Mick Collins (Gories, Dirtbombs) on guitar and vocals, and Kid Congo Powers aka Brian Tristan (The Gun Club, Knoxville Girls) also on guitar and vocals. Lo-fi, swampy and often catchy as hell, Bob Bert smashes the shit out the rhythm section (his preferred drumsticks? Hammers!) and the guitars are garage-jangly mixed with hard power chords. Long-time Bert collaborator Lydia Lunch even makes a guest appearance on the track “Jar in the Staircase.” My top tracks include the garage-blues ass-shaker “Smells Like You” which Wolfmanhattan Project released as a single in 2015, and “Now Now Now” plus “Silver Sun” (both totally danceable, too). There’s some weird shit on the album as well, like the VERY no-wave track “Toynbee Tile Blues” which is long and filled with lots of crazy beat, spacey noise, distorted “vocals” (spoken word, mostly name-checking various cities, planets and Stanley Kubrick).

Last week I got a copy of Bob Bert’s kinda-autobiography I’m Just the Drummer, sent and signed to me by Bert himself. It’s a delightful read, a little bit about the man: his background, musical influences and collaborations, and art – one of his works is featured as Blue Gene Stew’s cover – but mostly it’s short interviews and photographs of the multitude of other artists he’s worked with over the years. Some of those interviews are pulled from Bert’s zine BB Gun from the early 2000′s.

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Sonic Youth “Death Valley 69″

sfilzen — Wed, 29 May 2019 15:45:08 +0000

Sonic Youth “Death Valley 69″ 1985 EP, Homestead Records/Blast First Records. First released as a 7″ single in 1984 and then included on Sonic Youth’s second LP Bad Moon Rising (1985), “Death Valley 69″ features no-wave artist Lydia Lunch on vocals along with Thurston Moore on vocals and guitar, Kim Gordon on bass, Bob Bert – who is currently touring as part of Jon Spencer’s Hitmakers band – on drums, and Lee Ranaldo on guitar. It is a dark, loud, powerful post-punk noise rock masterpiece. This was the first song I ever heard by Sonic Youth; a friend of mine had this EP in ‘85 and I listened to her copy obsessively after making a tape (our vinyl copy is a relatively new acquisition). “Death Valley 69″ is about the Charles Manson murders of 1969 which puts its sinister vibe into serious context. The B-side of the EP has the tracks “I Dream I Dreamed” (a no-wave shoegazer), “Inhuman” (industrial-tinged noise rock), “Brother James” (driving dissonance in minor, creepy as hell yet weirdly catchy) and “Satan is Boring” (all no-wave, really really creepy chanting, no discernible melody or beat).

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Sonic Youth w/Lydia Lunch “Death Valley 69″

sfilzen — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:58:00 +0000

Sonic Youth w/Lydia Lunch “Death Valley 69″ and “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” 1984. Iridescence Records. 7″ single but not at 45 rpm (as I discovered when a chipmunked Lydia Lunch shrieked at me for a few seconds before I turned the speed back to 33-1/3).

According to Allmusic’s Stewart Mason, “The lyrics and title [to “Death Valley ‘69″] reference the fascination with Charles Manson that percolated through some elements of the ‘80s punk scene.” I guess I wasn’t a part of that scene, I thought Manson was for jaded and misled hippies.

Run-off groove etchings:

Side A: “We all sleep here” and “Turn me on, dead man”

Side B: “We went on down, there was no place else to go”

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