One of the best, most unique bands I’ve ever seen or heard. Period.
Born in the working class L.A. port neighborhood of San Pedro.
Punk, funk, jazz, integrity, activism, honesty, passion, humility, humor.
Dissolved in 1985 when lead singer/guitarist D. Boon died in a car accident.
Inspired greatly by Wire. One of the few bands of the hardcore era to have a tribute band. Enjoy!

Minutemen – What Makes a Man Start Fires (1982)  The story behind the album.
Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime pt. 1 & pt. 2 (1984) The story behind the album.

(Justin, here’s the download instructions in case you need them and don’t have ‘em in front of you.)

Here are a couple of random points in the career of an excellent, undersung artist named Richard Kirk. Born in the northern British industrial wasteland of Sheffield, he started Cabaret Voltaire in 1973. Among other things, they were driven by rhythm, exotica, a fascination with religious dogma and ritual, and electronic sound and noise. You’ll hear the experimental aspects of that in The Original Sound of Sheffield below, and see a more pop notion of it above in “Sensoria”. After they broke up in the mid-’90s, Kirk went on to record stuff that went from the dystopic (like his Biochemical Dread work) to the opaque (like his Sandoz in Dub stuff), all informed by hypnotic repetition and the sounds of technology gone haywire. Enjoy!

Cabaret Voltaire–The Original Sound of Sheffield ’78/’82
Biochemical Dread–Bush Doctrine
Sandoz–Live in the Earth: Sandoz in Dub

This 1981 release was the third longer EP that the Long Beach-based SST label put out after a bunch of alternate Black Flag and Minutemen 7″ers, the ‘Men’s Paranoid Time and the Flag’s terrifying Jealous Again. It was also the label’s second release that didn’t feature one of Raymond Pettibone twisted pieces for its cover.

Paganicons impressed some folks on release for good reason.

Get it.

Anyways, from 8:40 until the end on pt. 2 and then the first 20 secs of pt. 3, director Grant Gee and writer Jon Savage use stock footage of Northern Soul nights in the ’70s to establish the connection between the band and that really fascinating, seemingly very bright movement, about which you can watch the as-it-happened documentary done by Granada TV.

Pt. 2

Pt. 3

Northern Soul – This England

Perverted by Language (1983)
This album was the start for me. I bought it at a local chain record store called Moby Disc, which stocked a lot of imports. I used to go there during my lunch breaks while I was working at a hippie vegetarian restaurant in the area. My junior high friend Matt and his little brother Jeff mentioned the Fall a lot, so I figured I’d try them out. I was hooked by the first track, the stomping “Eat Y’self Fitter”, which to my largely hardcore punk-oriented ears sounded both awkward and ferocious. And the lyrics! Random chants that alternated between pub anecdotes and techno-fear and international paranoia:

On the screen
Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear
On the screen
…
Where’s the cursor?
Where’s the eraser?
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
…
Panic in Sudan
Panic in Wardour
Panic in Granadaland
Panic all over

Of course, Marc E. Smith’s reciting his absurdist lyrics in his thick Manchester accent made it all that much disorienting. But combined with the double-guitar chug and pounding rhythms, it was impossible for my 17-yr-old ears to resist. I was hooked.

Get it!

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The Wonderful & Frightening World of the Fall (1984)
Great title, another wonderful bit of cover art by Claus Kastenjold, and another 16 spot-on tracks, which along with the material on This Nation’s Saving Grace, saw the Fall truly become accesible beyond the nascent post-punk indie scene without compromising. Includes the swashbuckling “Draygo’s Guilt”, the brightly melodic nu-wave “CREEP,” the rousing “No Bulbs,” and “Copped It,” which features ex Virgin Prune (and Bono child-buddy) Gavin Friday on sinister, whining backing vocals. Again, as with most of these songs, the lyrics:

Can’t get far in land of immovable frogs
Can’t get far in home of horrible hoax
And you don’t last long on a diet of tea and toast

Get it!

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This Nation’s Saving Grace (1985)
Their finest album, and one of the finest hours of the post-punk era…it reached #58 on the UK album charts. Every tune betrays a supreme working confidence, from the layered Can tribute “I Am Damo Suzuki” to the cut-up cannabis dream “Paint Work” and the loping, relentless, quotidian chant of “What You Need” (“Get up!/Make a buck!”). Also features one of the few vocal solos by Smith’s then-wife Brix, who would shortly leave the band and divorce the grumpy bastard. Clear, clear vision, and a great soundtrack for cleaning the house.

Get it!

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50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong: The Best of the Fall and 458489: A-Sides
A couple of very good compilations out of the 40 or so that are out there.
Get 50K and 458489: A-Sides

TheBradMiller, who curates the excellent & erstwhile pretty esoteric/industrial album blog Because God Told Me to Do It, posted this amazing 1981 compilation of LA and Long Beach hardcore and goth on Valentine’s day this year.

I had this on tape and couldn’t stop playing it, both because of the quality and variety of the material and how it was sequenced. You had the Anglophile poolhall punk of Social D.; Red Cross finding their glam; the imaginatively named Modern Warfare, Secret Hate and Conservatives throwing all kindsa arrangemental monkeywrenches into the gears of hardcore; the quality goth punk of 45 Grave, Christian Death, and the Super Heroines; and the great art-punk of 1000 Flowers and Rhino 39 (this comp might also hold the record for bands with numbers in their names).

Go get it!

Enough has been written about what Kraftwerk mean to modern music. Here’s what they were doing 38 fuckin’ years ago.

Kraftwerk – Ruckzuck (Live on WDR TV in 1970)

Dub Police on Mary Anne Hobbes BBC 1
Check it before it’s archived. (Someone grab this on MP3, pleeeze.)
Lots of good stuff courtesy Caspa & crew–The Others, Unitz, Orien and MC Rod Azlan. Highlights include a ‘step-mix of Lennie Di Ice’s classic rave anthem “We Are E”.

Related: Rusko Cockney Knees Up Mix, also from Mary Anne Hobbes BBC 1 (MP3)
Courtesy of the one nicc0 at murky I-think-Russian-based blog idm/electronic music exchange.

iTAL tEK – Cyclical
Debut by this babyfaced maniac on Planet Mu, courtesy of androosha, the head geezer at abovementioned idm/electronic music exchange.

Damn…Martini & Jopparelli come with a nice treasure: a 1983 mix on WHBI by the one like Afrika Islam. Kid was, what, 16 at that point?