Leslie Nielsen 1926 - 2010 RIP

Surely you can't be serious? Police Squad, Naked Gun, Repossessed. The master of deadpan passed away yesterday. Provider of many laughs and certainly one of the key influences on my sense of humour. Rest in peace.

Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST (1982)

Ennio Morricone's score for John Carpenter's classic. Certainly one of the all time great horror/sci-fi movies. This is a rare case of Carpenter handing soundtrack scoring over to someone else. Kurt Russel needs to have a beard in more films.

The Thing - OST

The Crow - OST (1994)

The coolest thing when I was a kid. A dodgy goth guy in make-up. A pretty violent comic book. The Crow was all of these things. It had a pretty sweet soundtrack. Medicine, The Cure, Rollins Band, The Jesus And Mary Chain. Here's the soundtrack.

The Crow - OST

Fugazi - Inner Ear Demo (1987)

I remember seeing Fugazi back in about 2000/01. One of the most unintentionally terrifying/upsetting moments in my young music goer life was brought on by some metal chump stood right in front of me, throwing a plastic beer glass into the pit. Ian Mackaye saw this. The band stopped. he pointed right at the chump and told him to pack it in. it seemed like he was pointing at me.
Fugazi's 87 demo right here. Songs that would go onto make up on the Fugazi and Margin Walker EP's and Repeater three years later. Recorded at the Inner Ear Studio. Everyone should love Fugazi. These versions really don't differ from the album versions at all. Little guitar tweaks or slight changes here and there. I'm not going to point any of them out for you, work it out yourself. There is the added awesome bonus of the unreleased (officially anyway) "The Word".

Fugazi - Inner Ear Demo

Kittens - Bazooka And The Hustler (1997)

 
You only have to look around the Internet to find out how much love and respect there is for this band. For this noisy, angular bunch of Canadian kids from an isolated town. It sits comfortably between Am-Rep noise and Fugazi/DC sleight of hand while belonging to neither. They released 10 albums between 1992 - 98. After they split they went onto be involved with KENmode, Hide Your Daughters and Projektor. Cursed covered them on the Blackout At Sunrise 7". That should be a good enough recommendation for you. I do not trust anyone who doesn't like this album.

Kittens - Bazooka And The Hustler

I was going to upload this myself but computer problems and the fact that the awesome folk over at [Shiny Grey Monotone] have beaten me to it not once, but twice in the past. This is there link. Show em some love while your at it as well.

Albums that influenced Oliver #2 : Bloodlet - Entheogen/The Seraphim Fall (1996/98)

It was a hard choice to make as I have always, ALWAYS, insisted on The Seraphim Fall as the most important Bloodlet album to myself. But then after several months reacquainting my ears with Entheogen I realised that they both had pretty important reasons for being on here and finally after wussing out I decided to post both.

Bloodlet became known to me through those Victory Records sampler CD's, number 3 to be exact ( same place I discovered Integrity, Snapcase, Earth Crisis and Deadguy ). It was "Dogman With Horns" of Seraphim... that I first heard. I didn't understand it at all. The production was so lo-fi and murky, the vocals didn't seem to suit the music, it had this weird allover the place groove that I just couldn't get my head around. It didn't make much of an impression on me. Then on a trip to Vinyl Exchange in Manchester I picked up the album they did prior, Entheogen, out of interest wondering if it was going to be any different. That's when it clicked.

Bloodlet - Entheogen

I loved everything about this album. The vocals had this nasty, twisted atmosphere to them that at first seemed odd but perfectly suited the way these songs lumbered out the speakers. Still heavily indebted to the whole metal/hardcore chug that Victory was renowned for in those days (before it went) but spiced up with twisted pinch notes and odd timings and a whole load of dissonance. But the single most important thing about this record for me was the fretless bass playing of Art Legere. That is what sealed it in the hall of fame for me. The bass just seemed to snake under the chugging and harmonies, the intro to "Eucharist" still gets me these days.
It was about a year later that I managed to get hold of The Seraphim Fall. After listening to the track of the sampler on repeat for what seemed like weeks I thought I was ready to face this album. Having spent so long with Entheogen I felt I had a good enough understanding of Bloodlet to give it a second chance.

Bloodlet - The Seraphim Fall

It was the production that hit me at first, it was so murky and lo-fi. Almost sounding like it had never been mastered properly. Being the geeky and stubborn minded fan I was, I stuck with it for weeks before one morning when due to a delayed train I had time to listen from start to finish with no interruptions.
All of a sudden the production made sense. It snared you in with the quietly mixed acoustic parts before the almost, subliminal heaviness of the guitars came crashing down and all the while that translucent bass tone was scaling up and down the fretboard like crazy. All the odd chords, strange lyrics, dissonance and weird interludes just made it so much more important to me than anything else I was listening to at the time. I knew no one who was into this. It was my find. I absorbed as much as I could from that album. Hunted for any more information on Bloodlet that I could find. I wanted to know everything about it. Still a very under rated album and certainly one the band never managed to better in my opinion. There are links to both above. Two very important and influential albums to me.

 ( These where the fashions of the time. Blond dreads and shelltoes.)

Shameless plug....but Kyuss content!

Yes, yes. I know its a bit shady but I am so chuffed with the end result of this recording and the fact it seems quite topical in recent announcement's. Its my band, The Ergon Carousel doing "Allen's Wrench" by Kyuss paired with our friends in the awesome Throats covering "Odyssey", also by Kyuss. This is lovingly pressed onto a single side 7". Some very tasty artwork done by the lovely Holly Lucas.

Its limited to 300. The first 50 had a secret, stencilled B-side. they might have some left, they might not. Holy Roar do some pretty sweet stuff so have a mooch around the store while you are there.
In the other Ergon news the album is finally nearing completion. Re-mastering is being worked on now, artwork as well. its all coming together.
Fast is back.

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