Mudhoney / Halo Of Flies - Mod Showdown!

Another split single of obscure cover songs featuring Mudhoney. This is a good one too.

Mudhoney covers Billy Childish (again), this time it's Billy's first band, the Milkshakes, with "She's Just Fifteen". You don't see too many songs celebrating pedophilia out there these days, do you?

Halo Of Flies covers mods/psychedelic pioneers John's Children, famous for having Marc Bolan of T.Rex in the band briefly. It's a sped-up noise-rock reinterpretation of a  60's classic. Good cover.

A: Mudhoney - She's Just Fifteen
B: Halo Of Flies - Jagged Time Lapse
Enjoy!

Boss Hog/Cows - Porn Vol. 4

The last in a four-part 7" series, this was supposed to be the soundtrack to a documentary on the porn industry named, fittingly, "PORN". The film was later retitled as "Screwed", and the compilation of these 7" was released under that name instead. I never did get parts 1-3, and those look pretty good, with Mudhoney and The Melvins on there. The series was made up of bands associated with Am Rep in some way, so you know what you're going to get. Throw in the topic, and you get some very noisy, raunchy songs.

$3.39 at Main St. Records in Northampton. Still got the orange price sticker on the back. I vaguely remember buying this, only because the notion of taking a record with "PORN" in huge letters home to my Womens' Studies minor girlfriend seemed a little daunting.

A: Boss Hog - Black Throat
B: Cows - The Pictorial
Enjoy!

Cows - Plowed

Ah yes, more Cows. This is the 2-song 7". I know there's a 12" version with more tracks out there.

They outdo themselves on this one. Starting with the scratchy vinyl sample of someone saying "Hello baby" over and over, "Plowed" then rips into quite the hellacious hi-speed guitar riff.

"In The Mouth" is some sort of trashy noise-rock blues-esque thing with horns. It's a big fun mess of a song.

The vocals on these tracks seem much stronger than the ones on Slap Back. Two more years to work on them probably helped.

A: Plowed
B: In The Mouth
Enjoy!

Cows - Slap Back

As mentioned earlier, one of the more polarizing bands, that people are into or they just aren't. Not a lot of gray area. Someone mentioned to me that the vocals might have been part of that. That's quite possible. Everything comes out sounding kind of forced out, and he's a bit high pitched. They were also experimental to the point of being near unlistenable, at least early on.

This single isn't quite that far out there. The A-side is straight up and straighforward noise rock, a mess of distorted bass, trebly guitars and a heavy echo effect (a slapback) on the barely comprehensible vocals. Classic AmRep noise rock.

One O'Clock High is a wordy number with a fast-paced 1-2-fuck-you beat about a guy picking up his hot stripper girlfriend at work. A little weak on the vocals. The rest is fun and noisy.

A: Slap Back
B: One O'Clock High
Enjoy!

Halo Of Flies - Big Mod Hate Trip

The guy with the gun there? That's the guy behind AmRep, and this is his band. I bought this based on that alone, experimenting with something non-Sub Pop or Dischord. I'm pretty sure I picked this up at a Newbury Comics, based on the remnants of a huge price sticker on the plastic sleeve.

It's got the noise-rock staples; incredible amounts of treble in the vocals and guitars. But they do add some interesting elements to these songs that you don't always find in noise rock. The creative and just plain weird use of a wah pedal in the intro to "Wasted Time" along with the poppy background vocals softens it a bit, keeping it from becoming total noise. Tired & Cold features some Who-like rhythm section work. There's the "mod" for you, I guess. Solid single, on both sides. I liked this one when I bought it, and it holds up pretty well.

Halo of Flies were pretty much a singles band. I've got one or two more here somewhere, but that's it. They stopped recording shortly after this release, making it hard to find their stuff in stores. Their singles were compiled on one LP, "Music For Insect Minds". Might have to hunt that down. Should have bought more of their stuff when I had the chance. They made a comeback as "H-O-F" a few years ago (apparently the Melvins were involved in this somehow) and just released an album this year.

A: Tired & Cold
B: Wasted Time
Enjoy!

Smells Like Smoked Sausages EP

This was a Sub Pop Singles Club release, a double 7", for February and March of 1992. If you can't tell by the title, former Sub Pop band Nirvana had broken it big at this point. There 8 bands on this release, and I remember really liking this one.

If you were a badass noise rock band from the Midwest in the early 90's, chances are you were on either Touch & Go or Amphetamine Reptile Records. The bands on this double 7" are all on loan from Amphetamine Reptile (AmRep). It's a bit of a departure from your standard Sub Pop fare. It's definitely more aggressive and harsh sounding stuff.

So what are these bands doing on the label that defined Seattle? I had to look this up, because there had to be something to it. AmRep started in Washington before moving on to Minneapolis, and Steve Turner and Mark Arm's pre-Mudhoney super-trashy Thrown Ups were the second band to appear on the label. I'm guessing there were still plenty of people connected to both of these labels who saw this as a great opportunity, especially since Sub Pop was riding Nirvana's coat-tails at the moment.

I had a bitch of a time working with this one. I had forgotten that these were completely mislabeled, (the sequence below is going by the labels, the discs themselves are all over the place) and no matter how much I cleaned the vinyl, there was a ton of crackle. Also, there's no leader on the grooves when you play these, the needle just skids over into the song unless you guide it by hand. Bad day at Sub Pop QC. The bubblgeum pink vinyl looks cool though.

Some highlights:

• Tar's track is pretty good. Very Chicago-noise. They worked with Albini and you can tell.
• Cows (a band you either love or hate, it seems, more of their stuff will be coming...) does a Noise-Rock Lead Belly cover that would become far more famous just a year or two later under the title "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" 
• Helmet brings their distinctive metallic riffs to the Melvins' one-minute sludgefest "Oven". I like this version a lot.
• Cristina's vocals on Boss Hog's track are a bit of welcome relief after 6 chest-thumping guys. Still pretty noisy. Jon Spencer's old band.

Hey, this is my first request. Thanks Thom! Also, no post for Thanksgiving, but the 2 X 7" should tide you all over. Have a great holiday.

A1: Tar - "Deep Throw" / Cows - "My Girl"
B1: Helmet - "Oven" /  Surgery - "Our Demise"
A2: Vertigo - "Dynamite Cigar" / Helios Creed - "Hideous Greed"
B2: Boss Hog - "Fire Of Love" / God Bullies - "Bullet"
Enjoy!