Japrock

Speed, Glue & Shinki....
.... I've thumbed through Julian Cope's new book 'The Japrock Sampler' a few times recently and have been intrigued by the idea of crazy fuzzed out Japanese heaviness...but where do you start? I have the Flower Travellin Band - Satori....but where next? Luckily for me I was over at my friend Michael's house the other day and he was introducing me to the joys of Foodbrain, Flied Lice and the absolute crazed heaviness of Speed Glue & Shinki. ;
Speed, Glue & Shinki was a Japanese psychedelic rock power trio formed in late 1970 by guitarist Shinki Chen and his mentor Ikuzo Orita. They took their name from Kabe's love of sniffing Marusan Pro Band glue and Joey Smith's obsession with amphetamines, as evidenced by the lyrics of many Speed, Glue & Shinki songs (all lyrics being written and sung by Smith). The resulting sound was extremely bleak and raw, with Kabe's crunching atonal bass runs and Smith's stop-start rhythms creating a unique foundation for Shinki Chen's euphoric blues. Song titles such as 'Stoned Out of My Mind', 'Mr Walking Drugstore Man' and 'Sniffing and Snorting', combined with Smith's dangerous outlaw lyrics and caustic Iggy Pop-like vocal asides, gave the band an edge that no other Japanese band could (or would have wished to) achieve. Unfortunately, the band split after the debut album 'Eve', resurrecting briefly (and mostly without Kabe) for festivals and a huge self-titled swansong double-LP, that was mostly the work of Joey Smith and new bassist Mike Hanopol. Check this fucked up number...l 1970?? fuck.
Speed Glue And Shinki - Sniffin' And Snortin Part 1

There Can Only Be One.

Kilt-wearing skinheads: check.
Sword-fighting punks: check.
Castle backdrop: check.
The Outcasts - Winter.

Teenage Kicks

With the aquisition of 400 old Peel tapes, my mind has been on the old fella recently. I was checking out Steve's excelent 'Teenage Kicks' blog which has a ton of cool info about Peel's festive 50's. Here's the Cuban Boys homage to the man himself...

Cuban Boys - The Nation Needs You

We Have Music....

Added some music to some of the earlier posts... The Peace - Black Power....pretty lo-fi, but still ripping. Fuzzbox - Love Is The Slug too....

Two Uncles

Our mate Jon who moved to New York to marry his Swedish sweetheart records music under the name Two Uncles. He is coming back to SF to record with Craig....look below at the US Air Guitar posting. Here's one of his songs....
Two Uncles - Song For The Blind

Airfix Kits

as promised, here is an audio clip of the Airfix Kits. This track is from their demo.... well worth getting! SF heads can catch 'em this week at thrillhouse records in the Mission.

Airfix Kits - Flex Time

Bicycle Film Festival

Click the link above - lots of cool bike films in SF this weekend...and a block party....

US Air Guitar

some of us here in the Bay Area are lucky enough to know last years US Air Guitar Champion 'Hot Lixx Hulahan'. He was pipped to the world title in Finland - but he'll always be our champion. here's an email he sent me about this year championship in SF. Sounds like a blast. Go look him up on youtube too.......


For the past three years the San Francisco Bay Area has proven itself to be an idealic dreamland for the loud, gregarious, beautiful, absurd, and recently, brutal battles of competitive air guitar. The good citizens of the Bay have shown to be accepting, inviting, supportive and downright passionate about this very real *sport* and they will thus be rewarded with the ultimate prize – to be the host city for the 2008 U.S. Air Guitar Finals. No need to pull up the Pay Per View or YouTube or wait for text messages from friends lucky enough to be in the midst of wherever-air-guitar-competitions-used-to-be. Twenty-five regional winners will instead go air-to-air on the rectangled square circle of the Grand Ballroom in San Francisco this year.

8.08.08 – keep the date, as them engaged folk are wont to say. (That’s August 8th, by the way – 2 weeks from now.)

A few reasons why you should go:
- The Finals are being held here because the Bay Area is a place that ‘gets it’. They have earned the position of host by sheer numbers and enthusiasm. Come understand and be a part of the answers to Why Air Guitar? and Why Here? and Seriously?!
- Not one, not two, but three locals are representing the Bay Area – (two-time regional winner) Ricky Stinkfinger, local comedian and long-standing friend The Awesome (aka Shred Begly Jr, aka Alex Koll, and for those who remember the band Your Mother - The Flying Poof), and yours truly, Hot Lixx Hulahan. (Not to mention 22 other regional winners from all over the country who have earned their place in this prestigious competition!)
- HOOO! this stuff is FUN. It is as goofy as it is serious, as much rock show as it is sporting event, as much performance art as it is people just spazzing out for 60 seconds at a time. It is like nothing you’ve ever seen (unless you’ve seen it before).

Artcore

With the advent of crap like this blog, the inky goodness of fanzines seems to be a thing of the past. When I was a nipper there was no other way to find out about underground music except through fanzines. Many a rainy night was spent holed away in my bedroom pawing over copies of Maximumrocknroll, Flipside, 666 1/2, Raising Hell, GO! and Artcore. In the (many) years since then most have gone to the fanzine library in the sky, but one of the best still remains some twenty three years on. Artcore from South Wales has always had something a little special, its founder Welly is a tough cynical son-of-a-bitch which makes for great interviews and reviews and a good ear for what makes a classic band, both past and present. Each issues of the mag has new bands in the first half then deep involved histories of punk bands of the past in the second half. The new ish just hit the deck with interviews with Double Negative, Off With Their Heads and Violent Arrest and a vaultage section with the Nuns, Ripcord and Lookout records amongst others. Also there is a vaultage EP with unheard sounds by the Beef People. I can't speak highly enough of this mag. Click the link and get ordering......

Yank Sizzler

In homage to the late great John Peel, the Yank Sizzler is an infrequent podcast that is really worth linking up to - playing tracks that would appeal to anyone from tweaked electronica to Afican jazz...click on the link above to get to the webpage.

Fuzzbox

Remember them? or "We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It' as they were really called. Andy at work gave me their complete recordings and I'd clear forgotten about them. Peel played them a lot, and even had a session I recall. Their sound fell somewhere between Talula Gosh, Adam And The Ants and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They were pretty punk when they started, but got co-opted by the mainstream and kinda fell apart. The cute amaturishness of their first LP 'Bostin' Steve Austin' (or self-titled as some call it) in '85 is still pretty infectious. Once they tried to be 'sexy' and cleaned up their sound, they lost their charm. I can't believe they were going all the way up to 1990!! Again, keep ears to the ground for some mp3's..... never heard the singers later band 'Vix And The Kix'...but the name doesn't sound too promising....

Fuzzbox - Love Is The Slug

Paul Auster

.... looks like a twat but his books are great. Especially 'The Music Of Chance'. yesterday my mate Mick was reading a story about Paul Auster on the subway, then bumped into him at the airport. What a coincidence. Later that day while drinking his 6th screwdriver on the plane, Mick saw that Auster was on the plane, then they showed a documentary about Brooklyn authors featuring Auster. What's the chance of that? Auster must have felt a right nonce with everyone staring at him. Mick was on his seventh screwdriver by then.

Airfix Kits

When I was a kid I loved Airfix Kits, I was crap at 'em, unlike my brother who was amazing. I haven't seen one in years, but my mate Allan's new band are called the Airfix Kits. Great name, great band. Go check em out www.myspace.com/airfixkits. Allan DJ'd at the last Bricks & Mortar night and rocked it.

John Peel Tapes

Some-one just sold 400 tapes of John peel shows for 500 quid! The John Peel group collected the money amongst members with the hope of sharing this massive haul with interested listeners... once I have worked out this infernal audio link thing I'll post some up... but at least the legend lives on!!

I'm sick. But here is a picture of Mike's son Mika with a 

tiny track bike. Start 'em young.

Zambian Psych

There's some other blogs out there covering this stuff, most notably http://seaneverdry.blogspot.com which has a great rundown of bands I'd never heard of, let alone heard. I have always had an interest in African music, because my family lived in Zambia for a long time (I was born in Luanshya, Zambia), although I left when I was 3 so was unable to to dig for any records! In later years John Peel always played stuff from Zimbabwe (Four Brothers, Bhundu Boys) and Zambia (Shalawambe), which was fantastic. It wasn't until I stumbled upon this LP by The Peace in Aquaruis records that I found there was a thriving psych scene in Zambia! who would of thought. Even though the LP was a whopping 30 bones, I just had to have it.... Just look at the cover! Luckily the music is just as good as the cover - tweaked out psych with hints of the Cream and the Stones filtered through cheap home-mad amps. Stunning stuff. Whats interesting about these bands is that unlike bands like Freedom's Children who were white kids, these Zambian bands were all African's, playing to Africans. No-one I have talked to who lived in Zambia during the 70's had ever heard of any of these bands before.
After sending these tracks to my uncle who was equally blown away, he kindly tracked down this LP by Amanaz- an absolute psych monster hidden in an unassuming sleeve. This LP is a reissue limited to 450 from the German label Shadoks, who have also dug up some Indian and Indonesian psych!. Amanaz was formed in 1973 and recorded this gem in Kitwe Zambia. The sound has fuzzed out guitar and tribal rythmns, mixed with stomping 70's rock. 9 of the tracks are in English, and 3 in the Bantu language Bentu. Once I have worked out how to post up sounds to this blog thing I will drop some of theses on you. I managed to slip a track by Amanaz and the Peace at the last 'Bricks And Mortar' night and they went down a storm.

The Peace - Black Power