90s Nostalgia: The Action Swingers

Here's a few clips of the Action Swingers at various stages fronted by singer/guitarist Ned Hayden with Bob Bert and many others. 

Check out some vintage Pussy Galore photos by Rick McGinnis

Here's a rarely seen image of Julie Cafritz smiling in Pussy Galore photo from 1988 shot at the Silver Dollar by Rick McGinnis. 

Writes Toronto photographer Rick McGinnis...

"If most people who lived through the '80s made a movie of their life, they'd probably soundtrack it with, I don't know, U2 or A-ha or Tears for Fears. My '80s biopic would be scored to Pussy Galore - probably my favorite band of the decade, and one whose three albums and four EPs bring me back to the first years of life on my own, post-college, making a precarious living as a writer and photographer. They were another major enthusiasm of Tim Powis at Nerve, and he made the rest of us fans (my then-girlfriend had a maddeningly not-so-secret crush on PG front man Jon Spencer), though they didn't actually show up in town until the magazine was effectively defunct. I was without a steady gig then, but I begged a portrait session with the band during their two-night stand in April of 1988 at the Silver Dollar Room on Spadina. My big memory of the weekend was that Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D was playing the room in the basement under the club, and that Jon and the rest of the band were more enthusiastic about catching his show than doing their own gig."

Check out more photos of Pussy Galore from the session right here. Watch a Pussy Galore performance of "Undertaker" in Fort Worth, Texas back in July, 1989 below. 

Official release of Sonic Youth bootleg Walls Have Ears 2LP due February 9th!

Originally issued in 1986, the brilliant Walls Have Ears boot captures Sonic Youth in action at their best before it all went wrong. 

Here's the scoop...

Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band’s story, Sonic Youth’s ‘Walls Have Ears’ appeared as a 2LP set in 1986, not just a live album but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humor and audio verité on par with elements of side B of ‘Master Dik’ to come later. With a bit of complexity to the situation of the release itself. Deleted as quickly as it appeared, it’s now issued for the first time officially under the band’s auspices.

The ’85 shows were the second time the band appeared on British soil, picking up on a newfound high profile in the press after their 1983 London debut supporting SPK and Danielle Dax. That particular gig, while admittedly a technically-challenged, volumatically room-clearing one for the band, nonetheless wowed music scribes in attendance. This anarchic set cast the New Yorkers in a bit of an exotic light, Brits now getting juiced to the mythos of the emerging guitar-slinging American independent underground; an art/punk band from NYC sporting casual attitudes and tees sporting Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Prince made some good copy on top of their bludgeoning stage appearance. For Brits, Sonic Youth repped an all new avenue apart from the usual 4AD/Rough Trade/Some Bizarre hold on the scene, and were embraced. After a mostly dormant 1984, the band then established a new evolution within themselves via ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and found a home stateside on Homestead. In Britain, SY found its keyhole to the all-encompassing (even on an indie standpoint) music biz via Paul Smith, who was wowed by a cassette passed to him by Lydia Lunch. A promoter and label liaison who had forged many connections locally working for the likes of EMI and Cabaret Voltaire’s Doublevision label, Smith ultimately founded his own imprint Blast First to take on ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and evangelized the band with P.T. Barnum-esque gusto, eventually acting as a strong portal for UK footing for others of the American underground (Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr.). Blast First continued to act as an overseas diplomatic envoy for Sonic Youth through their SST years as well as issuing their classic 1988 Daydream Nation outside the USA. But true to Barnum, Smith’s injection into the band’s creative sphere as a sort of de facto manager type was somewhat in guerilla mode, and the Smith-produced ‘bootleg’ of their ’85 UK gigs surfaced much to everyone’s surprise, just before EVOL, their SST debut, was to be released. It turned out to be a marker of the group’s dissatisfaction that ultimately led to the band and Smith parting ways after Daydream.

In this 2LP set brimming with primitive classics like “The Burning Spear”, “I Love Her All The Time”, “Death Valley 69” and “I’m Insane” (uncredited on sleeve), segues and live guitar changes ooze together threaded by Madonna tapes and vocal loops off the board (somewhat a necessity for distraction until the band had a full fledged stage crew to prepare guitars). Claude Bessy (French punk raconteur who moved to LA for a period to cofound Slash Magazine and notoriously appeared in the Penelope Spheeris ‘Decline of Western Civilization’ documentary) humorously MC’s their intro to a October 30th ULU London gig with a lob at the indie label zeitgeist: vocally detailing how Rough Trade had come down on distributing the “Flower” 12” for sporting a xeroxed, nude female on the cover. The message was that music was reality, not manufactured subcultures, and Sonic Youth was there to present Britain with a healthy dose of it. The first two sides of ‘Walls’ are massive, cavernous, with newly-drafted drummer Steve Shelley in tow taking on past tunes and unveiling “Expressway To Yr Skull” in glorious form. They tear it up especially on one trash-fi excerpt of “Blood On Brighton Beach” (actually “Making the Nature Scene”) from a legendary outdoor gig November 8th where Moore, Gordon and Ranaldo’s guitars treble-blast dissonant shockwaves over the black-stoned beach of Quadrophenia fame.

The record’s second slab spotlights an April 1985 pre-Shelley gig supporting Nick Cave at London’s Hammersmith Palais and was one of the final appearances live of Bob Bert, again featuring some molten takes on “Brother James”, “Kill Yr Idols”, “Flower” (Iisted as “The Word (E.V.O.L.)”), “Ghost Bitch” and others. The emergence of the Jesus and Mary Chain in the world gave Brit scribes a lazy and easy parallel, addressed here with a wink with the inclusion of “Speed JAMC”, another offstage tape interlude playfully scrolling through one of that band’s songs at fast-forward. In six more years the continual evolution of Sonic Youth would find them darlings of The Reading Festival, on tour with Nirvana in tow and continuing to smash down walls, but this document remains an essential representation of some lean and mean years of the quartet’s throttling march out into the world.

– Brian Turner

Watch a Walls Have Ears trailer clip from 1985 followed by the recording. 

Watch Jon Spencer and crew bash out "Ghost" and "Dang"

Here's a Jon Spencer with M. Sord, Sam Coomes and Bob Bert knocking out "Ghost" and "Dang" in Houston way back in 2019. 

Happy Birthday Lydia Lunch!

Celebrating Lydia Lunch's birthday with a Retrovirus performance with Bob Bert at Szene Wien in 2013 and an interview.  

Happy Birthday Bob Bert!

Check out Bob's entertaining chat with Lydia Lunch for The Lydian Spin podcast and another with Rev. Derek Moody.

LINK 

PKM Bob Bert: The View From Behind The Drum Kit

90s Nostalgia: The Knoxville Girls

Here's The Knoxville Girls' demo of "That's Alright With Me" recorded with Jerry Teel at the Funhouse.

Watch Jon Spencer & The HITmakers play "Just Wanna Die" in France

Check out Jon Spencer, Bob Bert, Sam Coomes and M. Sord rippin' at La Rodia last November in Besançon, France.

Wolfmanhattan Project preview new album with apocalyptic "Summer Forever"

"Summer Forever" is the title track off the new Wolfmanhattan Project album from Mick Collins, Kid Congo and Bob Bert. 

Whaddya mean you don't know The Wolfmanhattan Project

Bob Bert, Mick Collins and Kid Congo present their Wolfmanhattan Project at Brooklyn's Market Hotel tonight. 

Watch the video for Martin Bisi's "Save Sludgie The Whale of Gowanus"

"Save Sludgie The Whale of Gowanus" is off the BC35 Vol. 2 celebrating Martin Bisi's Brooklyn recording studio.

Here's the scoop on BC 35...
BC35 refers to the weekend of performances and resulting album making the 35 year anniversary of Martin Bisi's BC Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Musicians spanning the history of the studio were grouped into ensembles— mostly improvisational, although there was new material written specifically for the occasion— and performed and recorded live before an audience of BC Studio supporters and members.

There were also some long-awaited reunions. Martin Bisi with members of Sonic Youth, Swans, White Hills, JG Thirlwell, Cop Shoot Cop, Live Skull reunion, Pop 1280, The Dresden Dolls, Alice Donut, Lubricated Goat, Sxip Shirley, Parlor Walls and many more!

Recorded with a live audience comprised of sound pioneers, social deviants, and studio fans, these tracks were mixed and edited with care over several month by Martin Bisi and by veterans of the studio throughout the decades.

The results were compiled into Volumes 1 and 2, this is the second chapter that will be released on April 19, one year after the first one. Martin Bisi founded BC Studio in 1981 in the desolate and post-industrial (but now rapidly developing) Gowanus section of Brooklyn, along with Bill Laswell, and with financial and technical help from Brian Eno. Eno’s record On Land (released 1982) was the first recorded session at BC Studio.

BC35 Vol. 2: The 35th Anniversary of BC Studio
order your copy here...
BANDCAMP: http://bit.ly/bc35v2BCAMP
SILVER LP (ltd.150): http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-Silver
BLACK LP: http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-Black
CD: http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-CD
Digital: https://www.feiyr.com/x/BC35Vol2

Happy Birthday Bob Bert!

Celebrating the birthday of drummer/photographer and journalist Bob Bert with "The Trip"

LINKS
Louder Than War: Bob Bert – In depth interview with New York legend

Jon Spencer & The HITmakers, Catl, Layrite Boys @ The Horseshoe, Saturday

If Jon Spencer & HITmaker Bob Bert can rock an aquarium, they'll have no problem raising the roof at the Horseshoe Saturday. 

Lydia Lunch Retrovirus @ Hard Luck Bar, Thursday

Don't miss Lydia Lunch Retrovirus featuring Weasel Walter, Tim Dahl and Bob Bert.