China White, “Danger Zone” (Frontier, 1981);Flyboys, “Flyboys” (Frontier, 1980)These were the first two releases from early L.A. HC/punk label Frontier. Named after the brand of designer heroin that would soon kill Darby Crash, China White were as malevolent, fast and snotty as you’d expect – lean and metallic HC with beach-punk hooks and a lyrical […]
Hillary Blaze, “Exposure” (Vintage/Rockadrome, 2011; original recording 1977)This nifty artifact embodies a lot of what was (still) good about hard-ish rock on the eve of punk – weird, inventive, melodramatic song structures and sound effects à la Bowie and Roxy meets a streamlined, hard-hitting attack that recalls “Highway Star” while foreshadowing Van Halen. Most reminiscent […]
Blouse, “Blouse” (Captured Tracks, 2011)More early-‘80s-Brit revisionism from Captured Tracks, this is somewhat reminiscent of mid-period Siouxsie in its femme-voxed gloomisms, but more abstract. It has a tendency to wander off into odd soundscapes that I find quite pleasing.Try A/3, A/5, B/41/6/12
The Blow, “Paper Television” (K, 2006)The Blow achieve the elusive ideal of electro-pop with a loose, flexibly cursive-flowing human touch. Like the best K stuff, it has a certain low-key, everyday drama to it, and here their songwriting at last lives up to its promise. These are pop songs that will stay with you.2 is […]
The Bobbyteens, “Fast LIvin & Rock N Roll” (Estrus, 1999)The late ‘90s/early ‘00s garage-punk era posited an ideal of simultaneous catchiness and sonic attack that proved hard to attain, but on this release the Bobbyteens made it. Classic sixtiesesque tunes distilled to an insinuatingly repetitive essence and rammed home with rattletrap locomotion and precise force.Try […]
Body/Head, “Body/Head” (Matador, 2013)Kim Gordon’s first solo project since the simultaneous dissolution of her band and her marriage is the first Sonic Youth-related project since the mid-‘80s to have that sense of wild menace and possibility that kind of faded during SY’s long years of maturity/domestic bliss. Atonal and devoid of verse-chorus-verse familiarity, this long, […]
Bold, “The Search” (Revelation, 2011; original recording 1985-9)Among the very best of straight-edge HC’s late ‘80s Third Wave. Not as frenetically compressed as Youth of Today, but more expansive and adventurous, as bold as their name promised. Their driving, ever-reaching guitars and drums created music that sounded like the spiritual quest their lyrics awkwardly described, […]
Bolt Thrower, “Realm Of Chaos” (Earache, 1989)A concept album about the end of life on Earth as we know it, from the most heavy-metalloid of Earache’s first wave of grindcore titans. Rhythms range from a stuttering crunch (picture a garbage truck trying to pulp a stack of motorcycles and a Port-O-Potty) to all-out assault velocity. […]
The Bonniwell Music Machine, “The Bonniwell Music Machine” (Warner Bros., 1968)After the success of his classic garage-rock nugget, “Talk Talk,” Bonniwell decided it was time to spread out artistically, so this one feature shimmering orchestral psych-pop balladry, punkoid song structures twisted into weird arabesques, and bewildering quasi-philosophical musings, delivered in Bonniwell’s engaging goofy goon-drawl. Try […]
Bonzo Goes To Washington, “Five Minutes” (Sleeping Bag, 1984) Legendary underground hip-hop/electro classic featuring members of Talking Heads and Funkadelic. President Reagan’s creepy “joke” about starting World War III looped into a variety of disconcerting and funky shapes. Three different mixes, try any. 5/5/12