supergroup Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Pailhead “Trait”

sfilzen — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 17:47:10 +0000

Pailhead “Trait” 1988. Wax Trax! Records. 4-song industrial EP by the supergroup featuring Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) on vocals and guitar, Al Jourgensen (Ministry) on guitar plus Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums (both also from Ministry). The EP is a comp of two singles released in ‘88 – “Man Should Surrender” b/w “Anthem” and “Don’t Stand in Line” b/w “Ballad.” Trait is definitely more Ministry than Minor Threat or Fugazi: very hard industrial but a bit of the Fugazi punk sound seeps in on “Ballad” and the lyrical delivery on “Anthem.”

Trait’s singles were the only releases by Pailhead besides another single: “I Will Refuse” backed by “No Bunny” from 1987 which features Eric Spicer (Naked Raygun) on drums. Those two tracks were included with the CD release of Trait in the 90′s. From Allmusic: “Pailhead was clearly a fun project to work on for two musicians who were allowed to make some music outside of their respective genres, and though their actual output was rather minimal, the record still stands as a bizarre time capsule of aggressive musical fringes from the 1980s.”

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The New Pornographers “Brill Bruisers”

sfilzen — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 21:05:49 +0000

The New Pornographers “Brill Bruisers” 2014. Today, September 8th, is New Pornographers co-lead vocalist Neko Case’s 50th birthday (b. 1970). I really really love The New Pornographers, the indie rock super-group with, like, a zillion members (not really, but there are a lot of them). I absolutely adore primary composer A.C. Newman’s songwriting – his solo albums are fantastic – and he also takes lead vocals on many of the New Pornographers’ songs. Dan Bejar (who is no longer in the band – I saw him perform with the group when they toured for Brill Bruisers and it was weird: he only came on stage to sing his songs and then would scurry off; a friend said that he had severe stage fright) also writes and sings lead on some of the songs on Brill Bruisers, the group’s 4th LP which hit #13 in the US. The New Pornographer’s 2007 release Challengers is one of my top records by anyone of all-time and Brill Bruisers is pretty great, too. I love the dense title track “Brill Bruisers,” the swirling of both “Champions of Red Wine” and “Marching Orders” (Neko Case has lead vocals on both of these), the Pixies-ish “War on the East Coast,” the beautiful harmonies on “Wide Eyes” and another dense crasher: “Dancehall Domine.”

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The Firm “Radioactive”

sfilzen — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 20:08:01 +0000

The Firm “Radioactive” b/w “Together” 1985. The Firm were a 80′s rock supergroup featuring Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, Yardbirds) on guitar, Paul Rodgers (Bad Company, Free) on vocals, Chris Slade (Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, he joined AC/DC in ‘89) on drums and Tony Franklin (never an official member of any big-name band but worked with Page, Rodgers, David Gilmour and many others) on bass. “Radioactive” was the first single from The Firm’s debut album The Firm. It hit #28 on the US singles chart and #76 in the UK. I really liked this song when it came out in ‘85 – it’s fairly straight-forward rock with an excellent beat but also has some cool effects that appealed to my 80′s new-wave self (I’m not sure I really knew who Jimmy Page was in ‘85 so the Zeppelin connection did not influence me at all – in fact I probably would have been less inclined to like the song). The B-side “Together” is a guitar-forward rock ballad with way too many 80′s flavors – heavily reverbed vocals, big echoey production and sappy lyrics. This is an A-side listen-only 45″ for sure.

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