Meat Kiosk - "The Ipcress Symphony" (Year Zero Records ZERO 019) 2012

DIY is stronger than ever thanks to the wonders of that Internet invention thingy.
So its time to feature the latest release from Die or DIY?'s favourite Netlabel, Year Zero Records.

Ever wondered what was on the rest of the tape found in the movie version of Len Deighton's "The IPCRESS File", starring Michael Caine? Well wonder no more, as Meat Kiosk painstakingly recreate/reimagine the full recording, presented here as "The IPCRESS Symphony"....
Think of an underwater version of Fripp and Eno meets Cluster and an iPad2 with a lysergic acid app, then you're getting close. Meat Kiosk are an International ( Franco-Anglo-Australian) collaborative project, performed over the Interweb.

Personnel:
Jonny Zchivago: Treated electric guitar, "prepared" iPod
wharf99: iOS gizmos, "unprepared" loops, Sphero

Track Listing:
Part One : "The Assimilation Process (16:17)
Part Two : "The Colour of Dreams" (20:56)
Part Three : "Resistance Through Pain" (20:40)
(see video for Part Three below, as made by Phil Allison)



DOWNLOAD some meat from the meat kiosk HERE!

Beyond The Implode ‎– "11th Hour Breakdown EP" (Diverse Record Label – DIV 102) 1980

Here we have Beyond The Implode's second EP, and they've got more competent, and have listened to the Fall. A fine example of do it yourself post punk that sank without trace under the torrent of such product in the so-called Post Punk era. Released in a limited edition of 250,how could they compete with Factory, Rough Trade and Virgin,who had the market sewn up. But that's why we love the also-rans like this classic Fall-wanna be nugget of DIY majesty.

Track Listing:

A		11th Hour Breakdown
B1		Look Back And Crash
B2		Lassitude

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Beyond The Implode ‎– "The Last Thoughts" ( Diverse Record Label – DIVE 001) 1979

More classic 'Crap Punk' or messthetics,whatever you want to call it. A classic DIY EP, crammed full with weak vocals, cheap guitars, muffled drums, and buckets of charming naïveté. Sounds like it was recorded in a council house living room, full of synthetic curtains, flowery wallpaper, and shagpile carpets.There's even a few infectious, but spidery, melody lines to jolly the uncommited along.This is POP, yeah yeah!

Track Listing:

1		This Atmosphere
2		Midnight Adventures
3		Lassitude
4		Escape Thru Levitation
5		Steel Car

 Get more unreleased BTI by clicking HERE!

Download this  HERE,

Kevin Harrison & Steven Parker ‎– "Against The Light" ( Illusion Production – IP 011) 1982

Young men buy synthesisers, can't stretch to a drum machine, but release a C-30 cassette of their clumsy attempts to be a post punk Tangerine Dream. Sounds great dunnit?
These two young men avec synths, accidently made a dark electronic folk record, well before industrial public schoolboy Current 93 turned to the genre. Dunno who sings, Harrison or Parker, but his voice has that simple Shirley Collins effect. Which, when coupled with the electronic accordian style backing tracks, have a very chilly effect not heard this side of the Eraserhead soundtrack.Very much a solid state Shirley and Dolly Collins.

Track Listing:

A1		State Of Attrition
A2		Rope Of Sand
A3		And Through The Furnace
A4		Cavalcade
A5		Distant Truth Of English Dreams
A6		Swings And Roundabouts
B1		Green Mantle Of The Standing Pool
B2		Continuation Song
B3		Sahasara
B4		Caught Then Drowned Affection
B5		After

DOWNLOAD this solid state Shirley and Dolly Collins HERE!

He's Dead Jim - "World Of Violence (Live at Rocky's)" (self released cassette) 1984

To conclude this excellent series of cassettes from Aberdeen's (also the fictional home town of Chief Engineer Scott of the USS Enterprise!) He's Dead Jim, I will leave you in the capable hands of mr HDJ himself, mr Neil Christie to explain:

"Scraped from the very bottom of the Aberdonian lo-fi barrel come these two 1984 recordings of He’s Dead Jim performing ‘live’. All our other recordings were made live direct to tape so these only differ in that there was an audience present, which encouraged us to unleash an aural attack that was perhaps faster and louder but no less unremittingly grim and turgid than the terrible thrashing sludge you can hear on the tapes recorded back in the garage (without our bullshit detector).

The two gigs captured here were at Rocky’s Nightclub in Aberdeen and the Royal Court Hotel in Forfar. They were originally collected on the tape ‘World of Violence’. Completist alert: there are a couple of songs here not found elsewhere, notably Bridges, a song about… bridges.

“Cantilevered suspension,

A gargoyle proud and free

They give me some kind of comfort,

They’re uglier than me – bridges!”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trawl through the He’s Dead Jim archives. Live long and prosper!"

DOWNLOAD a world of violence(live at rocky's) aka side one HERE! 

DOWNLOAD a world of violence(live in forfar!) aka side two HERE!

He's Dead Jim - "Toys Attack The System" (unreleased recording) 1983

Here's a treat for all you vast legions of avid He's Dead Jim completists out there! Some unreleased garage recordings from those grey days of 1983, when we had to endure all things Goth. This trend went merifully unnoticed in the HDJ garage.
 As the nations' youth dressed for the funeral of rock'n'roll,and Bauhaus finally gave it the coup de grace; HDJ continued making energetically dissonant punky pop songs in their Aberdonian garage.
This collection shows a musical sophistication of sorts,its even 'funky' in parts; and there's a.....gulp!.....ballad?
Don't worry, its still a raw lo-fi racket, albeit a more cultured raw lo-fi racket.

As Neil (HDJ) says:

"More garage recordings, this time from 1983. These have never really been distributed in any form, until now. By this point we'd learned to play, a bit, Andy had joined on drums and brought his bass pedal with him, and we were experimenting with different musical styles. Depending on your point of view, this may be a blessed respite from the grindingly primitive monotony of earlier recordings, or laughable jazz-odyssey pretension. On Siren you can hear the distinctive sound of the shittest and tiniest keyboard ever invented, the Casio VL-Tone, and we even attempt a ballad with Stolen Heaven. But fear not, most of this is still a grim and cacophonous sonic ordeal."

 Enjoy!

Tracklisting: 

1 Green For Go

2 Back To You

3 Siren

4 The Land Where The Dolls Go

5 Eternally

6 Tomorrrow is Yesterday

7 Stolen Heaven

8 The Process

9 Swim to Oblivion

10 Line of Brroken Hearts

11 Kiss Tonight Goodbye

DOWNLOAD these attacking toys HERE!

He's Dead Jim - "Bad Noise For Tuff Trendies" (Savage frenzy productions) 1981

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HDJ’s first release from the garage is thee ultimate 80’s lo-fi fuzz punk cassette classic. This recording has the best fucked up fuzztone guitar this side of 1960’s technology. Mix this up with some punk influenced melodies,lo-fi sci-fi, a sense of humour, and you get a heady cocktail of DIY garage punk rock. Thank fuck these boys were never allowed near a proper studio! I dread to think what Martin Hannett would have done to them.

Instead, glory in the raw dissonance of this carbon monoxide fuelled smog fest, and wonder at its simple genius.

As a bonus, you also get no less than four versions of the eponymously titled “He’s Dead Jim”, where the lyrics are wholly made up from titles of Star Trek episodes, from the days when ,thankfully, there was no ‘Next Generation’! Which is apt indeed, because was this part of the last generation of the rock age? 

“He’s worse than dead Jim.......his Brain has gone!” (Dr Mcoy, from ‘Spock’s Brain’)

Neil Christie (HDJ) fills us in on some of the finer details behind this recording:

"This was our first cassette, from 1981, recorded within weeks of most of us (apart from lead guitarist Neil "minor chords are for girls" Smith) picking up an instrument for the first time and released in small numbers under our own 'Savage Frenzy' imprint. What you hear is a combination of ham-fisted thrashing, sub-lo-fi recording and hoarse screaming. We didn't have a microphone or PA, so vocals were simply shouted above the noise. The borrowed drum kit had no bass pedal, which made for an idiosyncratic approach to rhythm. The guitars were channelled through knackered amps and usually further distorted by the use of the 'Big Muff' fuzz pedal."

Tracklisting:

1 He’s Dead Jim

2 Wild Thing

3 Lampshade Lampshade

4 Towel on the Radiator

5 We Want Groupies

6 Headache

7 Rachel

8 Klingon Stomp

9 Archibald Willingham Butt

10 All About Losing

11 Bread and Circuses

12 Something awful

13 He’s Dead Jim (Mur)

14 He’s Dead Jim (Dub)

15 He’s Dead Jim (Remix)

DOWNLOAD this bad noize HERE!

He's Dead Jim - "New Gods For The Smug" (Self released Cassette) 1983

This is how pop music should be. Played by dilettantes* outside of the accepted system,with only a passing thought of appealing to an audience other than themselves. With no other decernable ambition other than to create something fleeting; worthwhile only to a small section of the planet, and be satisfied with that! A healthy bi-product of this healthy attitude, is that it often leads to something bordering on greatness. Not saying that He's Dead Jim are Great, but they definitely score 10 out of 10 for doing it right. This is perfect Pop music,done perfectly.

More thoughts on the subject by Neil Christie(HDJ)  :

"New Gods For The Smug: another bunch of garage recordings, this time from 1983.
This captures us at a point where we had started to sweeten the primitive metallic sludge of our earliest recordings with touches of melody and even, occasionally, vocal harmonies of a sort. It's still not exactly Haircut 100 though.

We were quite proud of the (mostly inaudible) lyrics to Terry Burns, a song about lovers (perhaps the same Terry and Julie from Waterloo Sunset) who burst into flames:

Thrashes to ashes, lust to dust
When humans spontaneously combust.
There's no explanation for the conflagration
When humans spontaneously combust.

The song Oil was a move away from our usual subject matter of science fiction and gurls with its biting critique of the oil industry and its effects on our home town.

Oil - boring! Oil - boring! etc

Poetry? I think so."


 *

dil·et·tante/ˌdiliˈtänt/

Noun:

A person who claims an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge. A person with an amateur interest in the arts.

Track Listing:

1 His Own Number
2 Haywire
3 The Hour Steals On
4 Terry Burns
5 Oil
6 Jeepster
7 Wonderful Times
8 Prisoner of the Atom
9 Jenny Channel
10 Point Blank range
11 Backburner

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He's Dead Jim - "A Great Way to Die!" (self released cassette) 1984

"Punks not Dead Jim", said Bones as he reads the cover of the Exploited lp released a year or so before this DIY effort from Aberdeens fifth finest garage band.
"Mmmmm, Illogical", says Spock, as he finds it hard to comprehend how a group as miserably shite as the fucking Exploited had the shear  nerve to say something is 'not dead' when they have evidently played a major role in killing it!?
Luckily, other parts of bonnie Scotland did their best to counter such celtic musical atrocities such as Deacon Blue, Hue and Cry, and Big Country, by creating a special strain of unmacho punk influenced pop.
This 5 track demo cassette from HDJ, does have a please like me tone to it, but only to serve the purpose of securing Gigs from the cloth eared promoters of 1984. That being so, this has a great lo-fi sound to it, emphasised by the metallic sound baffling of the steel garage door. Another great touch is the recycling of an evil Barry Manilow cassette, to house these fine tunes. Top labels pay high flying designers thousands to come up with sleeve concepts that don't come close to this. The genius of necessity cannot be recreated by millionaires.
But what I really wanna know is..... who's Manilow cassette was this originally?
"I shite the songs that make the whole world SICK!", sings Barry in Vegas.

Neil Christie of HDJ explains:
"A Great Way to Die! was recorded about 18 months (after 'Lionise the Masses') and was done in an original edition of just one (the one you see in pics here), recorded on top of a Barry Manilow cassette. We used this as a demo to get local gigs. For this tape Andy Milne had taken over from Murray on drums, and Allan had mostly taken over from me on lead vocals, while I had taken up guitar. This all made us sound slightly more competent but, let's face it, this was not a sonic makeover of Scritti Politti proportions - we still made a bloody racket."

DOWNLOAD a great way to die HERE!

He's Dead jim - "Lionise the Masses,Massage the Lions" (self Released Cassette) 1981

As the Subway Sect had a disproportionate influence in Scotland, after their sojourn north of the border as part of the White Riot Tour in 1977; one thought it apt that we are now exposed to some classic scottish DIY Punk. That said, it was brought to my attention that the 'Sect Effect' only centred itself around Glasgow, Edinburgh and the general M8 area. So naturally, we go to Aberdeen, where we find "He's Dead Jim" grinding out sub lo-fi punk pop classics in their garage. Plenty of weedy Ron Asheton riffs, Swell Mapisms, and a sense of humour; this home-made classic could have been massive had it been  from 1981's fashionable place to be, Edinburgh. Not bad from, as Neil Christie of HDJ said,"(for)unquestionably Aberdeen's fifth best garage band of the early '80s."

He's Dead Jim has the honour of having a compilation Cd-r of their cassette greatest hits released on the great Hyped2Death label.....you can buy it HERE!

More from Neil:

" Lionise the Masses, Massage the Lions was recorded late 1981.

It features the original line-up, struggling with our equipment and incompetence. 

It was recorded in the garage, in mono on a reel-to-reel machine and distributed in very limited numbers to friends and 'fans'.

The garage had a large metal door that reverberated as the volume increased and I like to think gave the recordings a uniquely harsh metallic edge. The neighbours enjoyed our practising so much that they complained to the council and got an injunction for 'noise pollution' to stop us from rehearsing. It was inconvenient to be shut down by The Man, but we were delighted to be officially classified as 'noise pollution'. That seems like a pretty good genre name for what we did."

DOWNLOAD this diy guide to lion massagerie HERE!

Subway Sect - "We Oppose All Rock & Roll" 1976 - 1980 (Overground Records) 1995

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“No Elvis, No Beatles, No Rolling Stones”, slurred diplomat’s son and ex-public school boy Joseph Mellor. The Clash wanted to destroy rock’s history book by playing......er.......trad rock??

The Pistols wanted to do the same by becoming rock clichés and playing a more sneery version of heavy metal.

"We oppose all Rock'n'Roll".......except our version of it

Now, the Subway Sect, there’s yer proper reactionaries. No white Gibson Les Pauls for them, they went for those weedy fenders that no-one wanted, mustangs, jaguars,and jazzmasters. No designer gear, they preferred grey jumpers and slacks. They seemed to have the necessary lack of ambition also to reject the chart bound treadmill of their contempories. Recorded an album, but never released it, the ultimate adherence to N.Senada’s theory of obscurity as per the Residents “Not Available” album; except that this really wasn’t available, and still isn’t.

Their rejection of the butch world of punk orthodoxy makes them more punk rock than the punk rock of their supposed superiors in the genre. Rotten would absolve himself with the beyond great PiL, but the rest of the hierarchy would become part of the rock royal family that they pretended to despise.

The Sects greatest legacy, I hesitate to suggest, is laying the foundations of Indie pop; but maybe that was the real punk music,.......that is, without the rock bit. Also showing the budding cassette underground the right attitude; the lack of ambition, the non-rock poses, the weedy guitar sound. A sound that created as many DIY hero’s as did the Pistols myth.

Vic Goddard went on to make some real shit records in the 80’s. Especially the northern soul stuff. Then again i do have a problem with the wigan casino crowd, as I grew up surrounded by these Soul Boys(or Arsehole Boys). And being the only weirdo on my street I got plenty of shit. One of my mates jumped ship from Punk to Northern Soul in 1978, saying that it(punk rock) ,had gone commercial(?). This was good ‘cus he sold me all his records for very little dosh, haha! Pretty soon he was the butt of the jokes when he wore his 100 inch flares(not joking here!) to school; Oh the ridicule, it really looked like he was wearing a skirt, at least a calotte! What a Tit!

DOWNLOAD some early sect when they were good HERE!

PiL / Public Image Limited - "Live at the Rainbow, 26th December 1978"

As Controls had the sheer nerve to cover "Public Image" it could well be time to remind everyone of the genius of PiL mark one.
Christmas day 1978 was lacking something for my 14 year old self. My brother and cousin were noticeably absent from the family festivities. Then the gutting news filtered out that they had gone to London to see Johnny Rotten's new group!! Left to watch the Morcambe and Wise christmas show, while they were lording it down at the Rainbow!
One anecdote sticks in my brain, as relayed by my older sibling, was when a lack of appreciation was evident for support band Basement 5, the droning voice of one J. Rotten was heard over the PA suggesting some activity in this department;
"I hear no applause???", said mr Lydon.
The response of the audience was obedience personified, and they applauded as ordered by their leader. Oh those rebellious punk rockers eh?
As the christmas day show wasn't bootlegged, we'll have to make do with the boxing day show instead. In all its warehouse style acoustic glory.
Lydon, the voice that launched a thousand DIY bands.

DOWNLOAD boxing day 1978 HERE!
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DOWNLOAD boxing day 1978 HERE!