When I reviewed Beans’ first free albums I managed to miss their newest effort titled Sundown mainly because the link was suspiciously missing from their main website. Several readers were happy to tell me about the album which was released this year and available on the band’s MySpace page. It is clearly their best effort. While I enjoyed the other albums, Sundown reveals a tighter sound that is equally concerned with melody and lyrics as it is with just sounding rebellious. I still hear The Clash and Rancid but there is now a stronger lean to the driving melodies of Bad Religion. The music is old school punk and just the thing for my more mischievous moods (like when I want to drive my Classical music loving wife a little insane). The first three albums are good but this is the real contender.

The album is available in 128kbps MP3.

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The Croatian band 2227 appears to have been around for most of the 90s inhabiting their own bizarre corner of the rock n’ roll universe. They are (were?) decidedly hardcore but with more than a little sense of the artistic and outrageous. There is also bit of traditional music mixed with the punk atmosphere causing me to compare them to Ne Zhdali or, more recently, Gogol Bordello. Their web site appears to have most if not all of their music freely available. All three of their CDs are here. They are odd but occasionally brilliant bits of avant-rock and hardcore mayhem.

Stripcore appears to have been their first album and the first track exhibits their unique sound. Guitar, bass and drum is joined by violin in a neo-gypsy tune then seques straight into “Like it Like It”; a machine gun paced track with weird Zappa-styled lyrics. The band switches back and forth from metal to cabaret throughout, keeping the listener guessing.

No Brains No Tumor has the most punk sound of the three albums. The title tune and the cover of Tom Waits’ “Innocent When You Dream” are my two favorite tracks. Also interesting is the last track, a bonus live performance showing that 2227 must have been a very intriguing live band.

BI BI BI SABI appears to have been their last album and overall the most consistent and imaginative one. Lead songwriter and vocalist Macek seems more focused and the material seems tighter. There is also a more traditional hardcore rock trio sound on most tracks although there is some nice secondary use of violin and sax. This is the one that most punk and rock aficionados will enjoy. All three albums are a peek at a Eastern European rock scene that most of us were not familiar with until now.

All three albums are in 128kbps MP3.

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Stripcore
No Brains No Tumors
BI BI BI SABI

The Netherlands punk band Beans released their first record in 1999 but their old school punk sound would have felt at home in either the London or L.A. scene of the 70s. It is solid punk rock that way I remember it with the heavy political messages and the pulse of ska mixed with the punk guitar and vocals. They have three full-length CDs available on the web for downloading and listening.

Weapon of The Weak is their debut 1999 recording. The music tends to switch between hardcore and Clash-like ska-punk. I prefer the ska influenced cuts like “Back Off” but they are all top notch punk rock. My favorite track though is the played in hyper-drive “Forced To Violate”. The sound is amazingly professional for what is supposed to be a DIY session from the 90s.

C’mon Get It On!!! is similar but with a lean toward ska. The songs start to be tighter and better structured. An example is “Beautiful World” a ska punk tune that reminds me a lot of Rancid. melody is beginning equal time with the punk attitude. The title tune is also an great track and really shows off Bean’s political social stance. All in all, this is a really impressive effort. This is my favorite of the three albums.

So It Goes is more hardcore that the other albums so should appeal to the more hardcore punk music lovers. It is still a solid effort by a band that knows what it wants.

All three albums are available in 128kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music support the artists by buying their CDs.

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I’m not sure if the world is ready for Italian ska-punk-rock. Talco manages to deliver just that and it’s rude, confrontational and immensely enjoyable. Armed with a pulsing rhythm section, blaring rock quitars, a party-on accordian and a dynamite horn section, Talco should knock you out of your chair and on to the dance floor. The singer is no slouch either as he negotiates a vocal style somewhere between party time and road rage. The free online album Combat Circus merrily skanks through a dozen tracks with the highlights being “Tortuga”, the title tune, “Bella Caiao” and the pretty “Diari Perduti”, a waltz with an atypical female vocal. This is a great party album for the unconventional party.

Tutti Assolti is the band’s newest release, also free and legal from Jamendo. Talco goes from 10 to 11 on the intensity level with this album. They sound tighter and ruder on this sophomore effort. the opening track “L’Odore delle Morte” holds nothing back and it pretty much typifies the rest of the album. I’ve been told that Talco has very politically minded lyrics. Unfortunately I do not understand Italian but the emotional intensity Talco deals in defies all political and cultural boundaries.

Both albums are available in VBR MP3.

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Combat Circus
Tutti Assolti

I was never much impressed by the British punk group The Stranglers but the best thing about them was the testosterone loaded voice of founder and lead singer Hugh Cornwell. While the Stranglers are still around, Cornwell left in 1990 and recorded several solo albums. The latest album is titled Hooverdam and is available as a free and legal download from Mr. Cornwell’s web site.

Cormwell’s voice has mellowed out through the years. The music on Hooverdam is less aggressive than that of The Stranglers which is a plus in my book. There are some nice rock tunes here including “Please Don’t Put me on a Slow Boat to Plowbridge”, “Wrong Side of The Tracks” and “Delightful Nightmare”. My favorite track is “Within You or Without You” with its talking-blues styled lyrics and its Bo Diddley rhythm. Not every song is a winner but there are enough good times to merit a listen.

Hooverdam is available in 128kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music support the artist by buying the higher sound quality CD and check out his other efforts.

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I’m really excited about WMFU’s free music archive which will open in November. Anyone who has listened to the radio station or perused its blog has a good idea about how much great music must be hiding in their vaults. The new Selected Sounds From The Free Music Archives may be just a teaser to what we can expect. Since it is volume one, we might get a few more of these which is fine with me.

Volume one will more than do for now. The offerings are split between cuts from indie produced albums and tracks from live studio performances. The 21 tracks range from punk to experimental rock to world music. In other words, the album is as far-out as the radio station. Most of the artists are obscure so I hope the archive will provide more info on these musicians. It’s hard to pick favorites but Fursaxa’s eerie “Song of the Spindle Berry” sent shivers down my spine which continued with Nautical Almanac’s bizarre take on the children song “Rolling in The Green”. Of the live studio takes, I especially liked New Bomb Turks, Kinski and Citay’s somewhat Celtic “On The Wings”. Of the others, Lucky Dragon does a good job mixing cute with bizarre while Food For Animals w/ Faust provides the only hip-hop track of the anthology. This album will certainly hold you over until the full archive is unveiled in November. Thanks WFMU!

The album is available in separate tracks or a full album zip in varying MP3 bitrates.

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This bit of psychodelic punk psychodrama is brought to you from sunny Spain. Psicodelic FunKilljazz combines 60s psychedelica and 80s funk with a decidedly post-punk mentality. Sort of Country Joe and The Fish versus Funkadelic in a mosh pit. Their self titled album is a bit undisciplined but each track has a certain wild charm. The group sails through jazz riffs, flamenco, cabaret tunes, and screamed vocals with ease as if it makes perfect sense to them. Probably does. Fortunately they have the talent and imagination to get away with it. The four track suite “La Odisea de la Langosta” is the best showcase starting with a quiet mood and ending in hardcore chaos. My advice is to just play the damn thing and go with the flow.

The album is available in separate tracks or full album zip of 128kbps MP3.

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Mary Shelley Overdrive has all the attitude expected from a hardcore metal/post-punk group. From the name to the high velocity music to the gloriously exploitative artwork on their new free and legal EP, this is a band that is not afraid to look you straight in the face and sneer.

Their EP, Hideous Sexy, is a short 15 minutes album of cover tunes ranging from Bo Diddley to The White Stripes. There are also some nice versions of songs by Black Flag, Devo, The Vaselines and others. Some of the better tracks include The Vaselines’ “Molly’s Lips”, Blue Oyster Cult’s “This Ain’t The Summer of Love” and Black Flag’s “Wasted. However the real stunner is “Who Do You Love” in which the band manages to take the blues rocker by the late great Bo Diddley and turn it into a Gothic nightmare. This is a neat brief EP of cover songs that will please your inner punk.

Hideous Sexy is available as 192kbps MP3s in an album zip off the somewhat clunky 2shared web site (see the link below). If you would like hear some of Mary Shelley Overdrive’s original music, go to their Myspace page and listen or download a few tracks.

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Greg Ginn is best known as the founding member and guitarist of seminal hardcore punk group Black Flag and the owner of independent record label SST. He also has fronted quite a few bands and projects since his Black Flag days, one of them being the punk/jazz/funk instrumental ensemble of Mojack. Ginn has placed Mojack’s newest album, Under The Willow Tree on his website as a free and legal download.

Under The Willow Tree may be quite different than anything Ginn did with Black Flag but the attitude is still decidedly punk. Ginn’s guitar playing is hard edged but often leaning more toward avant-garde jazz than rock. Drummer Mike Lopez is hard and funky while the saxophone of Tony Atherton, formerly of Bazooka, adds favorably to both to the funk and the avant-garde aspects of this session. The eighteen tracks are all up-tempo howlers that causes the album to be a bit one dimensional and twice as long as it should be but there is no denying the exiting tension that they produce.

The album is available from the Mojack web site in 192kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music, buy the CD in higher quality sound.

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A little Mysterons goes a long way. Basically shockabilly, The Mysterons are loud, surfcore, coarse, and more comic book funny than scary or shocking. To put it another way, sort of like The Cramps without vocals. Mainly instrumental, the Mysterons often use B-Movie samples to set the mood. Not being a band that advocates moderation, the musicians have placed virtually their entire output on the internet for free for better or worse.

Wiki Wiki has 20 tracks, ranging from 1998 to 2002, of their typical surf rock spiked with a little rockabilly and campy horror. It is mostly guitar based in a Link Wray tradition. In fact, you can hear the ghost of Link all over this album.

Leftovers is just that, stray demo tracks from other sessions. Actually it is one of the most interesting of their albums because the 14 songs do not always fit into the usual Mysteron formula. Try a jammin’ “Boweavel”, the racetrack ready “Frenzy” or the disco friendly “Red Menace”.

Boozin’, Fuckin’ & Fightin’ may have a title meant to raise a few hackles but the music is some of their most straight forward surf rock and boogie sound. While these tracks sometimes sounds like riffs waiting for a melody you can’t deny the party mood in cuts like “Wheels” and “Chicken Skin Gravy”. One of my favorites is “El Santos” which shows a rather pretty side to this usually raucous band.

Velvet Walls was recorded in 1994. Many of these tracks sound like they come from some sleazy exploitation film soundtrack. I think it’s intentional. Certainly much of it, like “Bone Death and “Dance of the 666 veils”, is meant to be tongue in cheek. There’s a lot of wheezy organ in these early songs. I have a fondness for wheezy organs.

Golden Showers offer the first released tracks from The Mysterons. The horror movie theme is already in place and their fondness for surf music a la Dick Dale or The Ventures is unmistakable. These 15 tracks are pretty much straight forward party fun .

There is also a live set, a “prehistory” album, and a huge collection of throwaway demos. But these five online albums are probably all you need of The Mysterons. Here’s a tip. Put on a DVD of Plan Nine From Outer Space, turn off the sound and play Golden Showers for the soundtrack. It almost works!

The albums are available in MP3 with varying bitrates.

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Wiki Wiki
Leftovers
Boozin’, Fuckin’ & Fightin’
Velvet Walls
Golden Showers

Electropunk is basically a catch-all phrase for a genre of music that combines electronic music with punk rock. Like original punk it has the feel of a do-it-yourself music spawned out of someone’s garage. (As a long time observer of grass roots rock from the Kingsmen to the Ramones, I can assure you that the best of all rock music was probably born in a garage) While no one area can claim to be the birthplace of electropunk, some people in the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul states their hometown musicians are at the cutting edge of this hybrid genre. I don’t know about that, but the ongoing album series titled TC Electropunk certainly makes a convincing case.

The Twin Cities Electropunk organization appears to be a collective of Twin City bands loosely headed by Todd Millenacker of Avenpitch. Each volume was printed up and distributed freely at the participating bands’ gigs. They are also available for free downloading at the TC Electropunk web site. So far there are four albums with weird and wild music by very talented and enthusiastic bands. Some are clearly punk with just a little electronic influence. Others veer closer to the electro-pop side but usually with a more boisterous and rebellious edge. Overall I find this music to be exciting and more innovative than any thing you’re going to find on the tired commercial end of either rock or electronica.

Some of the artists show up several times on the four albums so you get a good sense of what these musicians can do. The ones that I thought were consistently interesting were Avenpitch, Zibra Zibra, Mach Fox, and Tim Rally Gold. Best single tracks? Here’s my tentative at-the-moment faves…

Volume 4: Avenpitch’s “Desperado”, Ikki’s “Goodbye Cruel World” (Chumbawamba meets The Cure?), Milkbar’s “Stop (Check Me Out)” (The Spice Girls of electropunk?), Zibra Zibra’s “Lions on The Astroturf”, and Iron Ball Magento’s “Corporate Trance” (The Devo of Electropunk?).

Volume 3: Tim Rally Gold’s well crafted “Break-up at The Waffle House”, Mach Fox’s “Axion/FriXion” which could be called House Punk, Hondo’s all punk “H.A.T.S”, and Unicorn Basement’s way over the top “Necrophilia”.

Volume 2: Uber Cool Kung Fu’s “Stand Together”, Envy is Blind’s “Sea of Flames”, OBCT’s weird and hardcore “Consume Until Rupture”.

Volume 1: More cool tracks by Avenpitch, Mach Fox and Uber Cool Kung Fu, paranoid industrial punk rap in “Two Face” by Neo Void aka Audio Victim, and Endless Blue’s gorgeous “Ninety-nine” which is so trip-hop it sounds a bit out of place.

Over all, I was amazed by the consistently high quality of this overview of local talent in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Prince and Paul Westerberg better take cover. The second wave of the Twin City rock invasion is here.

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The Dead Betties is clearly punk but also more than a little art rock. On their free album F.U.A, You’re in The Army Now, their punk rock credentials are safe with such tracks as “Suspicious Package” and a cover of CCR’s “Fortunate Son”. Yet other tracks stray into a form of collage (the title track and “Message”) or some kind of musical psychodrama (”Slim Fast & Heroin” or “Icee”) resembling East Coast Punk as channeled by Nine Inch Nails or Pere Ubu. All of the nine tracks are fascinating but the last track is the real showpiece. “The Suicide of Britney Spears” is a barrage of sounds and emotions that reminds me of the intensity of Sonic Youth. Artistic and brash, The Dead Betties is a band that is hard to ignore.

The album is available as separate tracks in 160kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music, support the artists by buying their CDs.

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Radio station CHRW is out of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. The station’s web site hosts the very extensive London Music Archive of rare recordings covering five decades of local music from the busy university town of London. There’s so much of it that it is nearly impossible to get a real grip on the good stuff.

Fortunately, I’ve discover three CHRW created compilations that places all this music in perspective. The first one is call The 1991 London Compilation while the next two volumes gets a name change to London Underground. There’s about 3 hours of music from the 1990s ranging from mainstream rock to punk and beyond. As expected, the quality depends on the band and ranges from awful to awesome but the average track is quite good and leads me to believe that London was a great place for some clubbing in the 90s and probably still is. It’s would be best to let you make your own discoveries but just for fun here’s a few of my favorite tracks on the series…

The 1991 London Compilation: The rowdy “Bigh Whey Blues” by Remedy, Free jazz from The Eric Stad Free Music Unit, and tight harmony by Nomad on a world-pop “Afrika”.

London Underground 2: Adam West’s big midwest rock sound on “Things”, Bassbag’s punk excursion titled “The Reaper”, and Suffer Machine’s amazing hybrid of roll and soul on “Revolutionary”. This volume is my pick for the best of the three.

London Underground 3: A Green Day inspired “The Crux” by Blanket, smart pop-rock songwriting on “Ship in a Bottle” by Dumb, Genocide’s pseudo-comic rapping and snarling on “Listen as I Laugh”, and a oh-so-cute Bubblegum rock treat called “Leon” by Scratching Post.

There’s plenty of good bands here. Most of them have albums in the London Archive so you can hear more (and find plenty of other artists in many different genres) if you are willing to search. The albums are available by separate tracks in 128kbps MP3.

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The 1991 London Compilation
London Underground 2
London Underground 3

This Beef is not the Dutch reggae band nor does it have anything to do with the British Energy Efficiency Federation. This Beef comes from upstate New York and may explain why the British let us go in the first place. It is rude, crude, loud, and lots of fun in a sick sort of way.

There are four albums available from Gay Tastee’s Upstate Wasted web site. Frankly two of the albums are not very good. But the other two gets things together and gives you a bit of a country punk roller coaster ride.

Stink, Stank, Stunk starts with a hard metal/punk number called “Food and Punk Boy Scout”. It a good but typical barrage of sounds guaranteed to burn out a few brain cells. This is the type of rock you crave in a dirty juke joint with unwashed glasses of warm beer. Once the electric sounds start to burn you out, Beef moves to acoustic on “Nicole Kidman” I prefer the faux “hillbilly” sounds which continues on “Nitrous”. Some people might be offended by the crude lyrics but I like the satiric poetry of it all.

Drinking in a Drunk Tank, Drunk in a Think Tank is better. The instrumental “Ass, Gas or Grass” moves Beef past the three chord songs on the first albums even if the titles remain a bit sophmorphic. The band is also settling firmly into psychobilly, sometimes sounding a little like The Cramps and other times leaning to the country punk of The Drive-By Truckers. Again, my favorite tracks leans to the country tinged songs like “Mountain Music”, “Native Brook Trout” and “Town Car”. Of the ear busters, I especially like “Superflu”. Beef will never be confused with the first or second ranked rock bands, but I do like their “F— the World” attitude and their rock and roll energy comes through loud and clear.

No longer available

The Wasted is the type of band you either love or hate. There is no middle ground in the angry nihilism howling at you through the lyrics. Sometimes art is ugly and while The Wasted is often ugly, the rough guitar and tough vocals can hit you with all its hard rock and punk intensity and leave you in a pleasant shock. After all, did you think an album titled We are Already in Hell was going to be pretty?

The first track, “Myth of Creation” is rather pretty at the start but Stephen Gaylord, a.k.a. Gay Tastee, delivers a vocal that is a cross between Tom Waits and Wild Man Fischer, dragging the song into a post-rock purgatory. “Jihad vs. McWorld” is a deliciously paranoid rant. The Wasted doesn’t take sides. The whole world is going to hell and that’s fine with them. The album is full of anger accompanied by a barrage of guitars and percussion wielded like weapons. But there is also damn good rock as evidenced by “Son of Sam” and “Bu2″. The cynicism rarely lets up which becomes a major weakness in the album. However, my favorite track, “The Ass End of The Earth” offers a hint of hope and understanding in its bleakness and is the closest thing to a ballad you will probably get from The Wasted. So give it a listen. But stay away from the medicine cabinet and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The album is available in 192kbps MP3.

No longer available

Unfortunately, my call for decent free and legal Christmas albums went unheeded. So instead of decent Christmas music, I give to you Have Yourself A Filthy Little Christmas.

Actually, it is not all that bad. In fact, it is quite enjoyable. The netlabel Filthy Little Angels specializes in campy punk and hardcore from bands who know how to pour it out. Add on the fact that few of these tracks are really Christmas songs and you will have an inkling of the label’s.. and the artists’.. in-your-face attitude.

Of the Christmas songs, The title track by And What Will Be Left of Them is a smart punk moment with lyrics like “Have yourself a filthy little christmas. Hope you choke on cheer.” The Swear cover more common ground with “All I Want For Christmas” as they pine for their loved ones. Captain Polaroid’s “If You Came On Christmas Day” has a bittersweet indie quality somewheres between emo and grunge. The Vichy Government is one of the most intriquing bands on the album. They offer two tracks, an instrumental “One Less White Christmas” and the best track of the album, “Christmas Is Cancelled”.

Of the other artists, I was impressed by The International Karate Plus, Mynx, and The Ape Drape Escape. The effect on most tracks is sort of John Waters meets The Sex Pistols. Overall, this is a very interesting album that may make you laugh or offend you but will definitely not bore you.

The album is available in separate MP3 tracks of varying bitrate. If you like the music, check out what else Filthy Little Angels has and show your support by buying their CDs.

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It is hard to take Stereo Total seriously. Listening to this European group for the first time evoked the same reaction I had when I heard The B-52s…”Damn! They’re good. But are they joking?”

Rare Songs is a free on-line album of 13 tracks that were either unreleased or are no longer available on disc. They were recorded from 1996 to 2002 and represent a hodge-podge of styles from punk to disco to oldie rock. Indeed, Stereo Total’s gift seems to be the ability to lift from many genres and create a music that is fun to listen to and a little bit insane. There’s a lot of intentional humor but never so much that the result overflows into silliness.

The first track, “in/out” is a nice example of the campy lo-fi euro-pop that the band embraces. The song moves along like a beach party romp as vocalists Françoise Cactus and Brezel Göring lay on a mock seriousness. Francoise continues with a sultry but punkish “Prend Moi” then breaks out with “Carta Postale” which is a wild and thinly disquised cover of “California Sun” made famous by The Rivieras and later, The Ramones. I do not understand French but I’ll bet you a warped frisbee that they are not the original lyrics. “Ex Fab Des 60ties” is a sweet and wistful number about dead rock stars while “The Other Side of You” is sweet with a taste of bitters. “Party Anticonformist” reaches back to disco as does “Schon Von Unten”, a breezy little electronic trifle. Each song has its own twisted charm. It can be argued that Stereo Total makes light-weight dispensible pop but I doubt you will be able to get some of these infectious tracks out of your head once you hear them.

The album is available in 128kbps MP3. If you enjoy the album support the artists and buy their CDs.

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When is a bootleg album not a bootleg? When it is freely and legally offered on the band’s official web site.

Which is exactly what the Butthole Surfers have done on their web site. Three entire albums of varying sound quality are available and all three attest to the unique sound of this seminal shock rock / neo-psychedelia band.

Technically only one of these is a bootleg, Tejass was recorded during their 1996 tour but there is no information on time or place of recording. The sound, considering it is a bootleg, is really good. Gibby Haynes’ vocals comes out loud and clear while Paul Leary contributes his hardcore guitar sound that makes this band so distinctive. This is a good album for those who are not familar with this group. There is a nice live version of “Pepper” which is one of the few songs that made commercial air play. The tracks are available in 160kbps MP3.

Double Live has an interesting background. There were so many bootlegs around that, as the web site states, “By ‘88 the band felt they could bootleg the band as well as everybody else, so they joined the crowd and released their own crappy bootleg too.” The album had a very limited release and now available on the web site “since it’s doubtful this will ever be reissued again.” The sound isn’t all that great but it is an excellent example of the energy Butthole Surfers brings to a stage. The album is available in 128kbps mp3.

Live in Fort Worth is an online only release of a 2002 performance. The band continues to present controversial music just as they did in the 80s. This is another good live session and is available in 160kbps MP3.

All three albums are worthwhile, but if you enjoy them you should purchase their excellent albums. You can download a few sample tracks from each of their LPs and/or some tracks from another bootleg titled Caso Raro!.

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Double Live
Live In Fort Worth
Tejass

A little disclosure is needed on this review. I saw the original musical, Grease starring Barry Bostwick in the early seventies. The play was a total delight and is still one of the best stage musicals I have ever seen. In 1978 I went to see the movie and was bitterly disappointed. The music was watered down with no feel for the 50s music it is based on. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John had none of the electricity of the original cast. Obviously lots of people disagreed with me but that was my opinion.

Now here comes an alt. rock/punk tribute from the Filthy Little Angels record label based on the movie. (The music from the movie is substantially different from the play). Down To Grease On Holiday has 26 cover versions of the movie music with a few 50s covers like “Blue Moon” and “Hound Dog” thrown in for the heck of it. It’s fascinating how well these songs work in their alt. rock versions. “Beauty School Dropout” and “Tears on my Pillow” appear to be mostly tongue-in-cheek while others, like The Spells’ “Hopelessly Devoted To You” and Hyperbubble’s “You’re The One That I Want”, are admirable send-offs of the originals. Popkiller’s grunge soaked version of the Grease Theme is about as far from Frankie Valli as you can possibly get but Gracie Duvin’s “Sandy” sounds straight out of the stage musical. Other highlights include a drastically re-worded “We Go Together” by the Debretts (”bang, bang you’re dead / I couldn'’t have you so I shot you in the head”?), another macabre version of “Grease” by The International Karate Plus, and Sunset Gun’s version of “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” that owes its pathos equally to Peggy Lee and Marlene Dietrich. Unfortunately there are more clunkers than ringers on this compilation but the ringers make a listen well worthwhile.

The album is available in 160kbps MP3.

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This is the third post featuring David Markey’s odd-ball collections of West Coast punk from the 1980’s. This one is titled David Markey & Heavy Friends Vol. 1 and is an internet-only compilation. Mr. Markey doesn’t provide any information on these bands but it appears many of them feature him in some way or another. Again, this is the obscure doing the weird.

This collection has the most variety of the three albums featured in the last few days. Some bands, like Anarchy 6 and Society’s Ills, play typical manic punk rock. Carnage Asada’s “Steve’s Mellow Jam” mixes punk with lounge riffs. The first two tracks by Chop (Mike Watts of The Minutemen, Dez Cadena of Black Flag, and Markey) are nice psychedelic pieces. Puzzled Panthers’ “Now I hear the Laughter” gets pretty disturbing. Most of the other tracks range from awful to amusing but never boring. As with Markey’s other albums, these are best seen as period pieces and a enjoyable look at punk rock’s checkered past.

The album is available in 160kbps MP3.

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Party or Go Home is a 1983 compilation of local bands in the Los Angeles punk scene. Producer David Markey does a credible job in capturing the high-voltage energy of these bands. Most of the 40 tracks are under one minute and none are over two minutes.

There are lots of punk bands here but, as one who was on the scene, I only remember Red Cross (Redd Kross before they were forced to change their name), The Minutemen and 7 Seconds with any reliability. The Minutemen were masters of the one minute rock epic and “Party With Me Punker” is typical of their music. It is the best track on the album. “Wasted Life is No Crime” by 7 Seconds, who were actually from Reno, Nevada, is a rather amazing example of nilistic rock. I think I saw The Vacant once but the 20 second “Caught By The Mafia” didn’t ring any bells. Perhaps the most fun track is Adrenalin OD’s “WW4″ which is a punk version of “Pop Goes The Weasel”. The verdict? Punk rockers will love this album, rock historians will appreciate it as a time capsule, and the rest of us will enjoy the chaos for at least one listen.

All tracks are in 192kbps MP3.

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Fanzine publisher and film maker David Markey was a constant in the Los Angeles punk scene. He currently runs a web site for his film company We Got Power that offers short films and video clips of his work. He also made a number of music anthologies featuring both well-known and forgotten artists of the LA punk community. Three albums are available for download and I will be featuring them in this and the next two posts.

Lovedoll Superstar Fully Realized is the soundtrack for his 1986 film of the same name. I have never seen it but I watched the trailer and I can’t say I’ll be running out to buy it soon. The reference to Billy Jack is pretty funny though. The soundtrack features some interesting if not always successful music. The Lovedolls themselves are sort of a parody on The Runaways with plenty of punk attitude that mainly works due to the musical assistance of Redd Kross. Aside from Redd Kross, the album also features Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, Dead Kennedys and Anarchy 6. The other bands are generally unknowns but they represent the vitality of the time. Lynn Portobello’s “Dog of Thunder” pieces are brief industrial gems while Kristian Hoffman’s instrumental scores are eerie. Anarchy 6 is west coast punk at its rawest. There is also a weird but funny “Shoot Me In The Dark” by someone named Brews Springstien. This is a fascinating look back at L.A. punk rock that has both the good and the junk.

All tracks are in 160kbps MP3s

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The Meat Puppets were one of the essential groups of 80s and 90s punk rock. They played hard pulsating punk but was not afraid to show their respect to classic rock and southern rock. In 1995 they recorded No Joke for London Records, which became one of their most accessible albums.

Drummer Derrick Bostrom manages the Meat Puppet’s blog and has made the “No Joke” Demos available as a free download. This is not the previously released album but a online album of the raw demo tracks. These tracks are without the final mastering and mixing inevitable in a major label production and, frankly, I think they are better than the final result. It includes three tracks that were never released; “Not Now”. “Buckaroo”, and “Vaseline”. “Buckaroo” is especially delightful, a country styled hoe-down number used for warm-up and never intended for release. Meat Puppet fans may find this demo album a bit too mellow compared to their usual sessions. Personally, I think the balancing act between punk and melodic rock is just right.

The album is available in a full album zip with all tracks in VBR MP3. If you enjoy the music, please support the artist by buying their CDs.

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