31 Jul 2012

Optical Sounds Launches 'Cardinal Fuzz' Label



Optical Sounds (opticalsoundsfanzine) Launches 'Cardinal Fuzz' Label and we'd like to throw our support behind the project:

Two forthcoming releases from Cardinal Fuzz:





Pontiacs - Bursting (CFUL002)

Psych sounds emanating from the Chilean Andes. Blossoming from the ever great Santiago Psych Scene The Cardinal has had this rotating on a burnt silver CD since January where it has burnt a hole right through my cranium. Man some hipsters may find this aint scuzzy enough or
lo-fi enough for that quick fix but this here is a keeper - something to play over and over. Seriously great strong writing coupled with the sweetest of Fuzz tones and some slow burning sike outs...

For Fans Of - BJM, Doors, Santiago Psych Scene... Ltd 100 cds. Mini vinyl replica flipback sleeve (chunky style) and vinyl replica cd made by the great Sam Giles with hand stamped insert as well as a double sided colour insert.





You're Smiling Now But We'll Turn Into Demons - Inner Space Broadcasts Volume 2 (CFUL003)

First release of The inner Space Broadcasts series features The Demons one of thee most under-rated heavy sike bands on the planet. (And by Heavy Sike I mean SIKE not some blundering stoner blues rubbish). This is a 2 disc affair in preparation for Demons supernormal festival appearance and as a way of raising much needed funds for a double vinyl pressing of "Contact High".

Disc 1 bombastic re-hearsal room takes of new Demons tracks...Imagine Hawkwind crossed with The Stooges/MC5 to get a flavour of these braincrushing tracks. Last track is a live take of the Collaborative Angels and Demons At Play form 2010 as we got a 25 minute funked out groove going - like some bad ass 70's cop theme track with Stevie Winwood on Organ..Shake yer ass baby...

Disc 2 is a collection of early sessions for the Contact High LP - Going under the title Contact Raw for those that have not heard the album be prepared to be blown away. Prismatic Reflections could just about be the best blown out track you've never heard.
For Fans Of - The Heads, Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, Stooges, MC5, Black Sabbath...




Cardinal Fuzz albums are available to buy here: cardinalfuzz.bigcartel

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Rocket: This Is Where It All Started - The Sawdust Caesars Story

Back in 1998, Simon Healey & Chris Reeder, hot on the heels of their obsession with Sub Pop & the underground music of the pre-grunge scene, started a record label, that record label became Rocket and the Sawdust Caesars featured along side The Heads, as the labels first two releases.

Optical Sounds fanzine (opticalsoundsfanzine) recently ran a feature in their last issue with the Sawdust Caesars frontman Ian Green, what follows is that interview.

Sawdust Caesars 1995 –

“We don’t stop playing til the guitars break” - Well that was certainly the philosophy of the band when it started in 1995. Trying to remember details of what happened 17 years after the event has proved difficult, compounded partly (I’m sorry to say this) by alcohol and drugs. This is not cool, in fact it’s stupid and juvenile, but it happened. We did it so you don’t have to ...or something equally as facile.

Around mid-1995, I’d been playing bass for a couple of years with Cake a very good Bristol band, but was starting to get itchy fingers for playing guitar again. I had an idea for a band that was a cross between early Black Flag and early Grateful Dead. If you remember what music was like in 1995, you know how out-of-synch with the Oasis, Blur, Britpop, drum and bass times that was.

I was hanging out with my mate Jules we were listening to old 60s/70s music, old hardcore/acid house and some of the modern stuff like Guided By Voices. One of our gang Ian Lee (aka Dylan ,aka Cakebear) was playing bass in heavy stoners Wall Of Sleep (who cut an LP on Bevis Frond’s label Woronzow)and came in to play bass with us. We rehearsed with a couple of friends Fraser and Glen alternating different weeks on drums, until a rehearsal when whichever drummer who could make it that week didn’t .

We were standing around in a paid for rehearsal room, scratching our heads trying to think of a half decent drummer we could get in at short notice, when Martin Ward (aka Sketchy, aka Walnut Mouse) walked in – apparently just looking to say Hi to Dylan, he was duly ordered behind the kit.... AND HE WAS GREAT !

That was it, from that point everything about the band started to come together, the attitude, the songs, the camaraderie - whole lost weekends of oblivion, weekend binges from Friday straight through to Sunday ....BANG BANG BANG !!! We were called Sawdust Caesars, not because it’s a Mod thing - it isn’t. The guy who said it, Dr George Simpson, Margate Court Chairman on May 8th 1964 was referring to both Mods & Rockers.

Partly inspired by local heroes Swell Maps (who’s Ripped & Torn we covered), the philosophy was short 2 and a half minute songs with no fat or gristle. Say what you got to say and get out, but with large chunks of weirdness along the way. Taking some songs I had played with my previous band 28IF (that existed 1988-91), we slashed them into bits – alongside covers like Get Yourself Together (Small Faces), So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star (Byrds), War Sucks (Red Crayola), Back To The Coast (Nikki Sudden), Leavin Trunk (Keef Hartley Band), You Got To Hold On (The Deviants), Flower Punk (Mothers Of Invention), and She Never Understood (Biff Bang Pow !)

First gig I seem to remember was an all-dayer at the Golden Cross, Coventry in the shadow of the Cathedral. Second gig was some friend of a friend’s birthday in Leamington. No organisation, some wedding type DJ playing chart CDs gave us the big build up “probably the best band around in the Midlands right now...come on ladies & gentlemen give ‘em a big hand” etc... followed by the sound of us tuning up for 5 minutes. Still, our particular brand of noise seemed to go down very well with everyone, and I can remember being offered a spliff by an enthusiastic consumer afterwards. We left to go to a Techno night as the guy who’s birthday it was, sat on a stool singing Cat Stevens’ awful cringefest ‘Father & Son’ to his dad - we’d seen him snort at least a gram of speed in the toilets barely an hour before – crazy !

More gigs in Coventry followed as well as the obligatory London date (‘provincial non-entities’ as we dubbed ourselves), a date in Bedford supporting members of Back To The Planet (god help us !) where apart from the soundman we started off playing to an completely empty room, it was summer and everyone was outside. We turned our backs and started some serious jamming for about 10 minutes on ‘War Sucks’ so the sound guy could get a level. When it ended there was a massive burst of cheering and applause, we turned round to see everyone had come in AND a coach party had turned up from Coventry PHEW !. At the end of the night I had a couple of people ask where they could get our records, a more permanent souvenir was obviously called for.

The first record we put out was an EP with 3 other bands we hung around Coventry with, Pip Brigade(with Fraser on drums), The Bensons and the Nocturnal Babies(including Julian on guitar and Glen on drums). We recorded one of our rehearsals at Rockhouse Studios, Coventry (RIP) on a 4 track recorder, which Julian then took to our friend John O’Sullivan’s studio to ‘tart up’. John added some extra bass, guitar and percussion and did a couple of different mixes on a song called Harmonium In The Dust. I picked what I thought was the best, but when Julian came to master it, in an amphetamine haze he used the wrong mix....he also spent so long interrogating the engineer it all ended up being done in a massive rush and the track distorts horribly in the breakdown - you’d really never believe it was mastered at Abbey Road it sounds practically mono and underwater. Anyhow, we pressed up 500 copies and it was reviewed in Record Collector. Each band made their own sleeves as the orders came in. I printed ours on the works photocopier out of hours. I did hear recently there was a box found in someone’s flat in Coventry, but I don’t know what happened to them.

Not long after this Dylan went to live in Ireland, so another friend Mick Fitzgerald (aka Dave Monroe) came in on bass and we made plans for our first proper recording.

The second recording session took place at Cabin Studios, Coventry (RIP) in May 1997. Fuelled by amphetamine we managed to coerce engineer Alf Hardy into letting us record a complete album ‘Psychedelic Concentration Camp’ in less than 18 hours. A few friends dropped in to help : Mike Crabb (from Furious Apples) and Steve Dullaghan (from Means To An End and Primitives) on guitars and Helen Fountain (from Chi Chi Squad), Rich Wall (from Wall Of Sleep) and Stu Cameron (from the Bensons) on vocals.

From what I can remember we recorded You Pigs, Death Of A Guru, Harmonium in the Dust (again), Talk Me Down, House Of Shattering Glass (an acoustic extrapolation in the style of John Fahey, which included backwards 12 string and loads of reverb), Psychedelic Concentration Camp and one I can’t remember the name of, but it sounded like early Hawkwind which had Helen screaming on it. There were about 8 or 9 songs in all, but the tapes got lost after being passed around various people, so I can’t remember all the tracks. I believe Julian still has a copy of it. Death Of A Guru actually rips off Happy Mondays’ 24 Hour Party People riff, mixed with some Hendrix chords and Northern Soul backing vocals....although you can’t really tell. You Pigs rips off The Saints, The Damned ....and folk singer Peter Bond ! The title track includes Julian on bass, Mick on keyboards, Steve, Mike& I on guitars and Helen and I reading cut up bits from magazines.

I heard some friends were starting a new label and the first release was going to be a single by The Heads. They were moaning about how it was taking ages to sort out so I bunged them a tape to see if they wanted to use one of our tracks on the b-side. I was surprised to find they were keen enough to want to give us our own single on the label - in fact Si Healey still maintains it’s the best thing Rocket released when he was involved (Gawd Bless Yer Simon!).

There were 3 different designs made up for the cover, but only one was used. The song is actually titled ‘You Pigs Have Ruined It For Everyone’, but was shortened before the covers were done.

1000 copies were pressed and it received a favourable review in Record Collector, with the ever vigilant John Peel giving it an enthusiastic thumbs up on his show – AHHH played on Peel’s show,....now we can die happy ! Hakan Persson on Swedish Radio also picked up on it and gave it a few plays.

More gigs followed including a great support for The Hypnotics who were very complimentary and the infamous Vote With Your Hips night Xmas 1996 in Coventry – where we played alongside all girl punkers Chi Chi Squad and Pigs & Robots. I can’t actually remember the end of the night, but I’m told I enjoyed it

Around this time Dylan came back from his sojourn in Ireland and back to playing bass for us, with Mick moving onto guitar. So now we had 3 distorted guitars, it was a wall of sound. We did a couple of gigs where Martin couldn’t play and Mick took over on the drums. As it wasn’t really the Caesars without him we called ourselves Deathrow Tull for a Coventry gig with Lillydamwhite and Acid Punk Flashback for an all-dayer at Trinity in Bristol in July 1999 alongside Iron Monkey, Electric Wizard and Chaos UK amongst others.

The third recording session was again at Cabin in April 2000 - Paul Sampson was producing this time and at one point spent ages editing a squeaky lead from one track, which I thought was a waste of time as it added to the general out-of-control-ness. I was quite amused then when he realised he’d missed one Mwahahahaaaa ! For this we recorded The Attack’s Any More Than I Do, Purple Heart Scene (not about drugs, but like a bruised heart), The Day Punk Broke Out (named before the Nirvana video) and Robert Calvert’s Ejection from the Captain Lockheed LP. There were elements of The Seeds, Electric Prunes, The Saints and The Damned...and I can now reveal it included samples of Alex Campbell, the 13th Floor Elevators and Hawkwind. The Label was a rip off of the Toddlin’ Town hard funk label from the late 60s we were listening to alot at the time. 100 copies were pressed on orange vinyl, 200 on normal black with 4 inserts.

Again Peel played it, quite a few times, in fact he actually started his show with it one night and raved about it afterwards, bloody hell.....kill me now! More support came from Hakan Persson, who played tracks off the EP and did a phone interview with me all the way from Sweden. Various folks were getting in touch with Rocket saying how much they loved the energy of our singles and asking what else were we doing.

The only gig I can remember playing was as a 4 piece with Rocket label mates Suncoil Sect in the back room of the Comedy Pub (now the Croft), Bristol. Paul (aka Prof, aka Cardinal Fuzz) and Hugo (aka Hacker) from the Heads guested with us playing audio generator and spoken word records respectively. I made a reel to reel recording of both bands, and gave our portion to Rocket, so maybe it’ll come out one day - I hope not as it was incredibly distorted and we were quite drunk. After the gig I gave my house keys to Dylan and Martin as I had to catch up with a friend. Later on that night Mick and I were walking down the road to my house...I could hear the loud music coming from my flat, really loud and it was 1am. I buzzed the intercom and a very pissed Dylan told me to fuck off...they’d found my bottle of brandy (a leaving present from work) and demolished it ! It took me some time to gain access and they were both completely out of their heads by then. I tried to show Martin a book to calm him down and he grabbed it off me, tore it in half and threw it out of the window.

Something had got to change.

We went into Cabin to record a couple of more times August and December 2001, despite about 10 tracks being recorded, the only thing that was released was ‘Word’s Going Round That You’re Fucked’, which appeared wrongly titled and badly mastered from a cassette I’d given Rocket and they’d passed on to Plastic Crimewave at Galactic Zoo Dossier. He very graciously included it with an enthusiastic testimonial on one of his terrific CD compilations included in the Summer 2005 issue of the mag. A truly incredible work of amazing psychedelic art, I was disappointed our contribution wasn’t all it could’ve been.

Around this time we were listening to The Gorillas, Crushed Butler, The Fugs, The Mothers Of Invention, The Bonzo Dog Band, The Deviants, 3rd World War. We rehearsed regularly into 2002, but people were changing jobs and moving and it became difficult to keep things going. Also, around this time I started Fuzz Against Junk which gradually became my main musical focus.

After a 2-3 year lay-off, we all got together in 2005 and played our 10th anniversary gig at the Beer Engine, Coventry on 27th December. Was a good tight set, the pub was absolutely heaving and we were paid a decent amount for once. Unfortunately Julian gave the other two bands on the bill most of the money, meaning after the cut for posters, flyers etc .was taken, we were left with nothing. Mick later threw Julian downstairs after an argument at his flat over this and that seemed to be the end of that......we’d managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again.

About 3 years later Rocket approached us to play their 10th Anniversary gig at the Cross Kings, Kings Cross on 24th April 2008. Julian wasn’t out the band, but I thought it would be easier to rehearse and play without him as 3 of the band were living in London by this time and there was also the fight with Mick thing. As it was the first time we’d played in 3 years, Martin, Dylan and I had a rehearsal one week and it sounded, quite frankly, fucking great. Mick came down to London for a second one the night before the gig. Unfortunately due to bad planning we all got pissed, but Dylan got more pissed than the rest of us and decided to change all his stings halfway through the rehearsal. Voices were raised and with him shouting ‘I’m on it baby’ at us, we limped through the rehearsal on 3 cylinders. The gig was surprisingly enjoyable, although in a review it was noted we were the ‘odd band out’ as we were acid punk not stoner as the currency mainly seemed to be than.

We contributed an unreleased different mix of (I think) You Pigs to the CD available on the night, which goes for a few quid these days.

And that’s about it really. I don’t think the band will ever really finish as it keeps bubbling to the surface every now and then, and everyone is still friends, despite us living hundreds of miles apart. Even now, I met up with Martin at Christmas and he is keen for us to play for my 50th birthday in November.......and maybe finishing off some old recordings ?........

IAN GREEN

Check out 2 of the tracks from the 1st 7" in the Rocket discography mix track 6 & track 9.

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30 Jul 2012

Rocket Probes July Playlist


GnodShitting Through The Eye Of A Needle In A Haystack
(First Gnod track in this month's playlist...and it is an astounding track!!! Full of Can, PIL, This Heat, Faust and Shackleton reference points, but is all Gnod...it will appear as one half of the Collisions split with $&$ on Rocket)

Shit and Shine – Ladies Circles
(The other track that is to appear on Collisions 3 with Gnod...and my, what a track!!!…sort of a kraut dub-step jazz by a bonged out Butthole Surfers… Craig, the genius behind the band says "I think it's the best 'Shit and Shine' song ever"….so who are we to argue!!)

Beak – >>
(Doing Bristol proud & previously featured on our monthly playlist some time ago, this, the final mastered version features some tracks we hadn't heard - some of the others we had appear as extra's on the bonus disc available on Invada now....go buy!)

Can – The Lost Tapes
(No need to explain for regular readers)

GnodPlease Don't Turn The Light On / Gammel
(Another month, another few Gnod tracks...this time some great dubbed out electronica & 'Gammel' an exploration into repetition to be available on 12" via another label later in the year)

Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Contonou - Echos Hypnotiques (1969 - 1979)
(Organ led hypnotic Afro-beat rhythms with some fuzz guitars)

Peaking LightsLucifer
(Not as immediate as their last album but it is a grower and sonicly amazing in places...nice, headphones listening for a sunny day)

HAstro Soda
(Interesting psych electronica soundscapes from Bristol artist)

New Fast Automatic DaffodilsGet Better (Extended Mix)
(Dont laugh...a great track of fuzz-wah and baggy kraut grooves...good band, well worth a revisit!!!)

Black Sabbath - s/t
(Watched The Sabs on the BBC's Classic albums recently, least we not forget Geezer Butler & Bill Ward.....heavy bands miss the groove these days)

Portishead
Threads
(Lucky enough to hear this played several nights running on tour, the live version is amazing and we would love to hear them record it as it surpasses the version on Third...best use of a Kazoo through a space echo there has ever been)

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Echoes & Dust Review Goats - World Music



Online music site Ech(((o)))es & Dust have reviewed Goats - World Music album:

'This is also music for the outdoors, which we should use to commune and celebrate nature. So crank up the volume, find a wooded glade shed your clothes and dance with voodoo spirits.'

read the whole review: echoesanddust/goat-world-music

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Teeth of the Sea's Sam Barton Interviews Kid Millions



The Quietus have published the following Interview with Kid Millions about his Man Forever project.

Rocket's very own Teeth of the Sea bass & trumpet player - Sam Barton calling the questions.

Although the gig itself has now past, we wanted to post our support to Kid.


Oneida / Mugstar - Collisions II (LAUNCH 044) are still available in all good shops,


Also read this Oneida interview with Rocket posted some time back:


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24 Jul 2012

Big Naturals, Self Release Debut Album



Rocket very good friends Big Naturals have self released their debut album on their own Greasy Trucker label and we'd like to help introduce it to the world.

Big Naturals have collaborated alongside The Heads on all the 'Rituals' CD series & continue to conspire with future Rocket artist Anthroprohh, the lead guitarist from The Heads.

The artwork comes in a 'Crass' styled oversized foldout sleeve as a homage but has their own approach very much incorporated and was put together by Rocket's Mission Control.

See the sleeve & take a listen via their bandcamp: bignaturals.bandcamp

Keep your eye out for Anthroproff on Rocket aswell as both bands up & coming gigs, recordings & future releases with news, posters & other information visit: greasytrucker

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Louder Than War - Goat's World Music Review





Louder Than War website has reviewed Goat's 'World Music' album & they called it
'a thrilling genre and continent melding rhythmical treat that repays repeated listenings and the suspension of disbelief'.


Read the whole article: louderthanwar.com/goat-world-music


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Terrascope - GOAT Album Review


Terrascope give their approval to Goat's - World Music.

This is what they had to say:

'With its Heinz 57 varieties of musical reference points, World Music  is an aptly titled album debut from this mysterious group, reputedly hailing from a remote part of Sweden but who specialise in – get this- Afro Beat psychedelia of the most wacked out and, in more than one sense, highest order.'

Read the whole review  terrascope.co.uk/Goat

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19 Jul 2012

Goat - World Music - Vinyl Edition Preview

Swedish afro-psych-kraut-voodoo space heads GOAT are releasing their debut album WORLD MUSIC (Launch048) on Rocket on August 20th.

The LP is limited to 1000 copies, 300 of those are orange and 700 are black, and both come is special die-cut sleeves.

The first press of the CD is also limited to 1000 copies and also has a special die-cut slipcase.

This is a preview of what the vinyl edition looks like, as you can see its pretty special.

Spread the word!!!

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18 Jul 2012

BEARD ROCK - Goat Review



The good people of Beard Rock have given their approval to Goat's 'World Music', this is what they had to say:


Way up in the remotest hills in Sweden, there lies the mouth of a creepy mountain cave, flickering with writhing bodies cavorting in front of candlelight. Inside, an unholy rhythm pounds and rattles sending the half naked revellers into a dead eyed trance. This is pretty much how I imagine Goat’s 'World Music' was recorded: part ritual, part disco, part psych freak-out.


Read the rest of the article: beardrock.com/reviews/goat

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12 Jul 2012

Introducing World Music, the debut album by Goat



Swedish afro-psych-kraut-voodoo space heads GOAT are releasing their debut album WORLD MUSIC (Launch048) on Rocket on August 20th.


The track list for the album is:

01 Diarabi 
02 Goatman
03 Goathead
04 Disco fever
05 Golden Dawn
06 Let it bleed
07 Run to your mama
08 Goatlord
09 Det som aldrig förändras/Diarabi


The LP is limited to 1000 copies, 300 of those are orange and 700 are black, and both come is special die-cut sleeves. The first press of the CD is also limited to 1000 copies and also has a special die-cut slipcase, this is a sneak preview of what it looks like:



The band are doing a short tour for the album in October, the dates are:



October 19 - UK / London / The Lexington (with Teeth of the Sea and Gnod)
October 20 - UK / Newcastle / Star and Shadow Cinema
October 21 - UK / Birmingham / Supersonic Festival (with Hookworms, Carlton Melton etc)
October 26 - Sweden / Malmo / Debaser
October 27 - Sweden / Gothenburg / Truckstop Alaska (with Acid Mothers Temple)


Here are some videos of three of the tracks off the album, including the sold out 7" of GOATMAN and the sold out tape of GOATHEAD. The third video LET IT BLEED (Launch049) is being released as a download single on July 20th. And finally we have included the video of THE SUN THE MOON, which was the B-side to the GOATMAN 7" and the GOATHEAD tape:













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Nothing is... July 20th featuring rare DJ set by Plastic Crimewave


As previously reported, the psych legend that is Plastic Crimewave will be joining us at Nothing is... on Friday July 20th at our usual venue of The Alibi in Dalston.


This is the first time Plastic Crimewave has DJ'd in the UK and we are chuffed to bits his debut is with us as he is famous for his record collections and one of the worlds most highly regarded 'crate diggers'.


If you are unaware of his history, you can read all about him on Wiki here and see his website here.


The poster above was designed by the man himself


Things kick off at 9pm and finish at 3am...and as always, it is free to get in!!!


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10 Jul 2012

GNOD on Tour in Portugal



GNOD are very much buzzing their bee stings off to be heading out for some shows in Portugal especially to go to..

milhoesdefesta hang out with some heads and play some heavy sounds.

Bring it.

19th July - DJ set @ Milhoes de Festa ‘warm-up’ - Barcelos
21st July - Milhoes de Festa - Barcelos
22nd July - Black Gnod (collaboration w/ Black Bombaim) Milhoes de Festa - Barcelos
25th July - Cafe au Lait- Porto
26th July - House party tba - Porto
27th July - TBA - Lamego
28th July - TBA - Lisboa


Gostaria-mos de agredecer ao Joaquim dos Lovers & Lollypops ,aos Black Bombaim e Mario em Lisboa pela ajuda com esta pequena tournee.

Gnod Bless

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9 Jul 2012

Teeth of the Sea appear on great Robot Elephant mixtape


Robot Elephant have put together a nice little mix tape that features Teeth of the Sea's Cemetery Magnus, alongside tracks by Shit and Shine, Carter Tutti Void, Cut hands...




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Goat get in the 'freak' zone


Stuart Maconie played the track Disco Fever from the forthcoming Goat album World Music on last nights Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music.


You can listen to the show for 6 days here

The album is released on August 20th, keep your eye on the blog for details about the Ltd vinyl and CD versions


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8 Jul 2012

Unearthed... The Heads with Jello Biafra track




Anthroprophh (Paul Allen from The Heads) has digged out an old track The Heads did with Jello Biafra and put it up on Soundcloud.


Jello stayed in Bristol several weeks (at Hotel Hawkwind) while writing an album with The Heads which was unfortunately unfinished, here is a taster of what that album, may of sounded like.





Hopefully more tracks (and the stories) of these sessions will officially see the light of day sometime in the future.


On other Heads news, Rocket are currently shifting through hours of unseen footage of the Heads to add to the two live sets the band performed at the Cube several years ago. All this amazing footage will be released on DVD sometime in 2013.


Also, more news from Anthroprophh, his debut album which will be released on Rocket late 2012 early 2013 is nearly finished and sounds like it is going to be an absolute killer album, up there with the best of The Heads jams!!

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6 Jul 2012

Teeth of the Sea remix Esben and the Witch



Teeth of the Sea were asked by Esben and the Witch to remix one of their tracks after their successful tour together..


Here are the results...lets hope they release it as this has to be heard on vinyl!!!


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5 Jul 2012

'Wine women and song or two' praise Gnod



'Wine women and song or two' have some nice words to say about Gnod:


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I don’t call myself a poet because I’m not one, but I wouldn’t because I don’t like the word. There’s a deal of nostalgia in rock and roll. Just look at the cover of NME on any given fortnight, slathered with the words return, comeback and full of artists familiar twenty years ago. Rock and roll was better twenty years ago, they seem to cry, aching for a return when rock and roll was better. But rock and roll today is fucking superb! You just gotta look at Gnod to know we’re doing better than ever. To NME I say (firstly, give me a job please) write about your own times. Write about your own world. We’re here, now, and we’re livin’ it right now and there are things going on that will hit you like a twenty-foot gong and you won’t stop shaking ‘til yer firmly in the ground if you just let ‘em in. That’s why you mighta noticed I changed my angle of attack, and am writing a whole bunch more on albums that are recent. No I don’t know when recent starts, mid 2010ish. Yah I love my MC5s and my Sir Lord Baltimores just like you guys but there are bands out there sorely missing the kind of lysergic higher rock and roll criticism those bands took for granted and here at this blog we specialise in pretending we can do. Though Gnod need no assistance from us shitheads to convince you that they’re meditatively vital for the ultramodern rock and roll revolution. So our quarry today comes outta the north (though south of here) ready with red hand steady on a bloody machete, slice Jack’s… take an axe and give that motherfucker forty whacks. This spinning disk ain’t gonna stop ‘til heads roll off the cuttin’ block. So why do they seem to fuckingzen? They’ve got away with these sonic crimes for so long because nobody in authority can bring themselves to believe that such chilled out and ultimately harmless people could have so much of the werewolf in ‘em. Well the evidence is there, they’re pushing it in our faces motherfucker and dropping the kind of prolific pseudo-religious drivel that starts actual religions. I say we all just submit because there isn’t anything stopping this four-record-a-year sonic caravan, best to just give in lest we get crushed under its spinning vinyl wheels.


A song is something that walks by itself. I hate to get all fucking contemplative on y’ kiddies because it makes me look like a colossal cunt and leaves ya none the wiser but Gnod are just so far outside my normal(normal? Ya, normal) modes of expression there’s little else to do ‘cept talk like some pop-cult mans-man pseudo-psyche pill freak in slow tones and hope y’all grasp the right end of the spiritual stick and go out and avail yersels of everything Gnod are giving out, shirts, disks, downloads, anything they do is up t’ it’s neck in this thoroughly essential modern statement about the cure for what ails us. Rock and roll has always meantsomething, in the fifties it was about rebellion, in the sixties, revolution, in the seventies it was about the death of the fifties and sixties, in the eighties it was about surviving the eighties, in the nineties it was about all the previous meanings being a dirty capitalistic lie we’re all still falling for, in the naughties there was no rock and roll because everything what called itself rock and roll was a revolting saccharine chart cunt in the worst possible invocation. We’re still figuring out the teens. For me it’ll be Heliotropes, בלטה and Gnod leading a horde of Mongol warriors riding amplifiers, not horses. Of course this’ll be the first decade with true rock maestros waiting in the wings who haven’t as yet been heard to any degree. Heliotropes are NY, the heart of the syphilitic corpse of the west, so they’re poised to nail the beauty right as the whole thing comes tumbling down, בלטה are more essential because they’re right in the heart of the revolution in Palestine which may yet prove to be the end of us all as the mushroom clouds rise and בלטה’s electric fury storms across the nuclear apocalypse-wracked wastes looking for minds to blow. Gnod have a handle on something going on right now, which is nothing. We have no great conflict, we have no great task, our ‘crisis’ is ensuring the economy don’t collapse so we can still buy things that don’t matter to impress people we despise and the only people truly worried are greed heads who don’t realise that anything truly worth having can never be sold for money. While I am endeavouring to write about ma own time, Gnod are playing songs firmly rooted in the now.


Gnod drop with a firework crackle synapse-snap spacerock inadequately described as motherfucking. Cut after cut of pure heavens, stars an’ all, go into each glorious record and they’re so damn prolific. Your first Gnod record is gonna become an addiction, and after a few years of wearing the tee to threads and ruining your neighbours sleep schedules you’ll wonder what you ever saw in that first dead-eyed knockoff compared to what they’re cranking out now. The two-part Chaudelande records are the summation, the mosttogether statement yet by this band, but no doubt they’ll have a few more in place by the time this goes out. That isn’t to diminish the value of the more splintered expressions as additional salvoes to have at the ready in yer sonic armoury. Even their mosttogether statement has languid songs stretched out over ten, twenty minutes, entire side-long explorations through empty plains torn at by howling guitars and the feral cries of wolves. They paint the sort of feelings that never come again, launching into wild energetic workouts to which witnesses to Gnod live will attest. Even when the riffage on volume two of Chaudelande gets into dang heavy territory, giving the final cut from L.A.M.F. or Holy McGrail’s Shake Appeal cover some serious competition, the band never seem out of breath, even while exhaustingly battering their instruments and the listener. A Gnod album will floor you for sure, but the band are barely getting started. This is what they bring that music so badly needs. Perspective. The world is a ride, and we are all part of that ride and nobody wants to get off, so much so that they’ve forgotten that this is a ride at all and believe it all actually matters. They think the fear is real and the spite is real and the more fearful and spiteful y’ are, the more real everything is. Nothing in the world matters, least of all the things people seem to worry about the most. Just as they take a sledgehammer to the shop window of conventionalanything, reminding us that the verse-chorus-verse structure is as much a fable as anything, Gnod put things in perspective. It’s just music. It’s just money and it’s just life. It doesn’t matter and none of it is going to last forever and in two days the things you’re worrying about now will make you laugh so why not cut to the chase. The only things that matter are the things that don’t ever pass or fade from memory, love, happiness, peace, beauty. You’re all beautiful people, not because of what you look like, but because of what you can do. You can make someone’s day, without any effort; just by smiling and having a good time you’ll spread the love at the speed of sound. So why don’tcha?


What matters is that on this ride we have fun, because that’s what a ride is for. If you aren’t having fun at every minute then what’s the point of being on the ride? That’s why Gnod are the band resolutely for now. That is the cure for what ails us. What ails us is a crippling plague of seriousness and a potentally fatal case of taking life seriously, symptoms include a total lack of perspective, thinking pieces of paper are more important than human beings with feelings and the ability to love, doing things you hate to acquire pieces of paper and disregarding music, love, companionship and beauty in favour of chrome and glass and leather and numbers. Urgent prescription is to drop whatever you’re doing, and go and enjoy yerself right now. And there’s not many more enjoyable things than settling down for eight solid hours with your collection of Gnod records and letting them plaster yer brain against the back of yer skull again and again ‘til y’ realise it’s just a ride.


Written under duress by Steven.



See the piece here


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'Wine Women and Song or two' review Goat - Goathead tape


Great blog Wine Women and Song and two have reveiwed the now sold out Goat tape that came out a few months ago:


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“The roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the traveller, who seldom sees himself either encountered or overtaken, and who has nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries.” – Samuel Johnson.


When I first listened to this Goat EP I just laughed manically for the entire duration. I spun it again straight away and laughed all the way through again. The band I was most instantly transported to spiritually was Sir Lord Baltimore, I had a similar reaction to their Kingdom Come LP that is still 37 minutes of more frantic and orgasmic fun than any of us has any right to have. The pseudo-psyche afro-funk junk-drunk guitar workouts of the most psychedelically bizarre are just instantly and eternally exuberant. That Goat are playing shows in deepest darkest Sweden with Acid Mothers Temple ought to come as a surprise to virtually nobody as soon as they get an earful of exactly what these guys do. The songs all bounce with youth and life and make you want to do the same. More and more with each lesson their exuberant rituals embody that statement of the great Hamilton Morris, “life is but a cosmic giggle on the breath of the universe” ‘cuz that’s the mood envoked by this kind of bombastic high-energy lysergic rock and roll; the sound of a laugh at a crowded party; the sound of instantly dissipated cosmic perfection synthesised down in unconventional sound laboratories meant for innerspace exploration, not outerspace categorisation; a volume conquistador conjured to explore us in a way filled with such high energy that it positively fizzes. They’re conjuring the spirits of the still living and they come up dancing. They’re the perfect road record, perfect to watch that white line dance around in front of you as the hot nose devours the road. Hundreds of miles sucked under the spinning wheels. Burning down the highway.Heading west. Chasing our shadows in the early morning.


Yes, unless you’ve recently had brain surgery and are coming off the anaesthetic you’ve probably picked up that today was the beginning of part two (the proper part) of my Highland adventure. While this will by no means be a travel diary, the music we pick is gonna be all about what we’re doing so it’ll inevitably slip in I guess and I’m not even trying to hide from it. Today Goat have been accompanying us across the empty lands of Scotland, between Inverness and the West. The schizo-afro-funk is the trippy concoction that’s taking us across the great literal distances as well as allowing our souls free-reign over a massive sonic plain, we don’t own it, you can’t own this space. It’s a powerful cocktail of collective music-making. There’s a thrumming wah guitar and a fuzzy bass as well as drums thumping to a tribal and million-miles-an-hour beat, but there’s chanting female vocals panning left and right like acid tracers and there’s all kinds of shit. I guess if you’re in the right place at the right time and you wanna make some noise, you too can be on a Goat record because for its entire runtime this thing is just a riot. The thing is essentially structureless, without any coherent beginning, middle or end and is more of a definite trip; the oneness of the experience eclipsing all traditional methods of understanding order. A thing that kicks this musical magicianship above all others in the grand scheme (and possibly the record collection of the Great Magnet) is it’s brevity; too many psyche bands aren’t able to reign in their trips to reasonable lengths; I just took delivery of Electric Moon’s Inferno masterstroke but I’m having trouble clamping down on it with a fifty minute runtime. I know that’s testament to how cluttered my life and my mind has gotten and not a negative reflection on Electric Moon but still; I’m digging on these songs being four-minute spasms rather than twenty minute fits, is the point I’m dancing merrily around. The volume of which the stereo in the car was capable was truly terrific, and it only increased with all the windows rolled down as we let our freak flag fly with repeat following repeat of the single eight-minute span of this distilled genius as we bore down on our destination in an iron steed with fiery nostrils; ready to chill out and enjoy something, we didn’t know what. Back on Friday.


Written under duress by Steven.


See story in full here

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