The Electric Eels - Agitated b/w Cyclotron (Rough Trade - 1978)

During the 1970s after the optimism of the 60s, the 70s  arrived in a pretty deflated way and seemingly died before it even began culturally, any nihilistic teenage attitude and spirit was lost due to the quagmire of Heavy Rock groups, wimpy folks duos or over-dramatic stadium rock dinosaurs in the vein of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Pink Floyd et al. The Early 70s, particularly in the US was as stale as gone-off bread in terms of music and youth culture, there was nothing!... even in the UK all we really had during this time was Roxy Music, David Bowie, T-Rex and Gary Glitter (yes seriously the Shining Paedophile was all that was good during this time, there were exception such as Crushed Butler, Lord Baltimore and The Hammersmith Gorillas - but aside from this music SUCKED!)

The Spirit of teenhood took a back-seat during the early to mid 70s and hid well under the radar awaiting it's re-emergence  in 1976/77 in the form of the music genre we all know now as PUNK ROCK. This was when teenagers reclaimed music from the has-been's and picked up their guitars, ditched their flairs, sang songs about their own lives and held a total disregard for their parents' generation, also what was great is they refused to except the over-indulgent music which was currently at the time being sold to them by the masses.

The thing is and not a great deal of people know this, but New York wasn't the birth place of this scene of music, way before 1976. The state of Ohio was churning out primitive-teenage frustration and desolation at least a good 3 years before the the ' New York' punk scene came into it's own and it was at least 7 years after the last of the 60s teen-bands died out in that area.... so during 1972-75, Ohio of all the places in America created some of the most amazing bands and most influential bands and these groups are now dubbed 'Proto-Punk'... even though a great deal of it is more Punk than what followed.

Some of the pioneers of 70s punk had formed in the squares-ville setting of Ohio cities like Cleaveland, Akron and Cincinnati, these groups would be bands which later became, The Cramps, Pere Ubu, The Dead Boys, Devo, to name but a few.

However the guys who began this treadmill of inept teenage music rolling was the following group of misfit outcasts... The Electric Eels.

The Electric Eels formed in around 1972 and were active from between then and 1975, their output was minimal, but their legacy is huge.

The Electric Eels featured the following guys -

John Morton - Guitar

Dave 'E' McManus - Vocals and Clarinet

Brian McMahon - Guitar (on and off)

Paul Marotta - Guitar (when McMahon wasn't in the band)

Nick Knox - Drums (although to begin with the group had drummers come and go)

Originally formed to play music which resembled the free-jazz of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman  and Albert Ayler, The Electric Eels created a racket which I would defined as some of the most primitive recordings ever made and possibly the most snottiest teenage attitude committed to tape.

The Electric Eels in their 4 year career only played 5 gigs, each one full off confrontation and frustration, at each of these shows, some sort of trouble was attached for example, The band had been arrested by police on their first gig, they had fist fights with audience members and each other on stage, they had the power shut down during half their set and told to get out of the venue on one occasion. 

Also they looked like social outcasts too, wearing swastika's and Nazi paraphernalia to enrage the public, not to mention wearing leather jackets adorned with hypodermic needles and safety pins (way before those London street urchins The Sex Pistols) and also the bands guitarist John Morton looked like some sorta fucked-up transvestite serial killer on Valium, Morton himself had a leaning to unprovoked violence towards members of the audience. Morton's love of angering people also came in the form of taking this out into the world around them, an example according to myth suggests that Morton and Singer Dave 'E', would go to the hardest drinking bar's and dance together in a camp manner as to make out they were homosexuals and to anger the locals.

Actions like the ones above are pure genius and a total 'FUCK YOU' to the horrible and totally un-coolelements of 1970s society.... this kind of youthful spirit is still totally required in this day and age too... but everyone is so goddamn up their own rectal passages.

The Electric Eels are what bands should be all about.... for me it is almost a primal thing, a gang, a clan if you'd like?totally doing things on their own terms and not putting up with the bullshit the rest of the society is telling them.

Although the Electric Eels split up in 1975, they did have a small wealth of recordings and two of these gems became the bands debut single on Rough Trade records in 1978.

I have included both sides of the 7" single below and also have included a bonus track called 'You're Full Of Shit'.

The three songs attached as possibly the pinnacle of Punk music and the a-side 'Agitated' is possibly the only song which defines the whole of what Punk is all about for me.

Agitated

This track is the epitome of Punk Attitude for me... any one who relates to the utter madness on this song, can in my book be considered a pretty cool and interesting person.

Cyclotron 

You're Full Of Shit

I had to include this because it's simply a great statement the lyrics are amazing and full of 'Fuck You' attitude, I like the lyric "You're so full of shit, you know it's true, 'cause we heard you' talking on the telephone, full of shit, full of shit".... pure GENIUS!

Enjoy Retards

Paul

Anorexia - Rapist In the Park EP (Slim Records - 1980)

The formation of Punk Rock in the 70s, was possibly the most important thing to happen on the British shores during the 70s, it was one of the most important counter-cultural movements since the radical left of the 60s, it was also a movement which made the youth finally stand up and speak out and express itself in a creative way.

Thousand upon thousands of 7" singles were released in the UK by many aspiring bands throughout and during the late 70s and early 80s, all put-out under the 'punk' moniker, many of these bands' releases were self-financed and released by the band members themselves in very limited quantities on their own independent record labels, this do-it-yourself attitude was kick started by the few and later went on to influence a whole generation of bands who were all just teenagers, this amazing self belief and self determination, brought to the surface many great musicians and records which otherwise would have never been heard in ordinary circumstances.

One such group of misfits came in the form of Anorexia with their fantastic 7" single 'Rapist In The Park' on Slim Records in 1980.

Anorexia formed in Hertfordshire in 1977, they self-financed this single which was put out three years later in 1980, it became an underground hit, receiving a fair bit of airplay on the John Peel radio show. This radio exposure made it possible for the band to do their one and only tour of the UK.

Anorexia were  Kim Glenister - Vocals

                       Nick Page - Bass, Vocals

                              Kevin Leigh - Guitar

                              Andrew Leigh - Sax
                              Graham Snell - Drums

The single is a classic punk 7" with three absolutely raucous and catastrophically great tracks, the lead track the politically incorrect 'Rapist In the Park' is backed with the snotty 'I'm a Square' and chaotic 'Pets'..... It's a killer punk single and possibly one of the best in the genre in my opinion.

Each song is fantastic, my favourite is 'Pets' because it is so absurd and totally teenage and yet at the same time is still sticking it's fingers up to the older generations whilst putting the next door neighbours pet cat in a black bag and throwing it in the canal!!! ... I want a CAT!!!

Punk Rock influences me greatly!

Have a listen below to each track.... you're lives will be much better in the process.

Enjoy

Paul 

Beat Happening - Jamboree (1988)

The musical landscape of America in the 80s was not a very pleasant one, the 80s musical world in the states lacked any real substance, aside from a few hardcore punk bands that came out of Los Angeles and San Francisco during the early 80s, a few post-punk style groups such as Devo and Pere Ubu (who had funnily enough begun in the 70s) and black America expressing itself in the music of Hip-Hop and Rap, the musical airwaves were mainly consumed by god awful hair-metal styled rock bands such as Metallica, Guns N Roses and Van Halen, also the charts were full of self-indulgent crap which consumed the billboard, stuff like Tiffany and Milli Vanilli etc etc.

It wasn't until the advent of 'college radio' that some of the more obscure groups begun to get recognised. The UK had a wealth of "underground" groups which were an influence to listeners of these American college radio stations, however there was a distinct lack of American groups, you had to search beyond the radar to find cool bands amongst the wealth of shit which was the 80s American  music scene.

The band and album I am going to write about were one such instance when the music was spot on, fresh, new and raw, it had the spirit of the current times yet also had the spirit of the past making for great songs and a fantastic album.

The Band were, The Beat Happening.

The Beat Happening formed as early as 1982 in Olympia WA its members include Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis & Bret Lunsford.

Calvin Johnson was one of the founders of cult indie label 'K records', the label re-established a DIY punk ethic and released a shed load of stuff from a bunch of bands including The Beat Happening's own records.

The Beat Happening had 4 studio albums before they silently stopped recording and playing live, however it was their second LP, 1988's Jamboree that saw them make waves on the Indie scene and the album in question influenced a load of musician who would later cover the Beat Happening's songs and state their influence onto their own recordings, one such person was Nirvana's Kurt Cobain who claimed that 'Jamboree' was one of his all time favourite albums.

The Beat Happening's influence can be heard all throughout American Alternative music now and I guess if anything that alone is their sole legacy.

What I really dig about the band is they remained totally true to themselves, they never sold out to convention, despite the many times it was offered their way, they remained in Olympia WA and recorded primitively in their own studio and own style, they released albums and singles on their own independent record label and totally didn't care for the corporate side of things, they made a success out of humble origins and although they didn't make money, they at least influenced people in a way that taught them "HEY you can do this TOO" and I feel this idealism is what was important in the beginning stages of the 'Grunge' genre before the corporate strangle-hold tore that scene to shreds and Kurt blew his brains out.

Jamboree is a cult classic, it's a great album and I feel if you like what you hear below you should indeed purchase the album.

The album has a wealth of material which stands out and makes a great impression.

Below are my favourite tracks on the album...

Indian Summer - This song is as Dean Wareham from Galaxie 500 stated "....Indian Summer is like the 'Knockin' on heavens door' of the indie world, everyone's done it...".It's true, a wealth of bands have covered Indian Summer, I myself have recorded a demo of it at home. The song is beyond Velvet Underground in its style, the monotone of the drums, the two chord simplicity and the twee lyrics about a perfect summer time adventure around Olympia WA.... what more do you need from a song?

In Between - 'In Between' is my favourite song on the album, it's a perfect track, raw, to-the-point and more expressive than most bands' whole albums... I love the vocal style and the way the guitar sounds so discordant, I love the lyrics.... "I asked you about the past, you didn't wanna talk about it, you didn't want to trouble, it's just all history" & "Try so hard to make you forget, see yourself in the TV set".... Brilliant!!!

Bewitched - The fuzzed out garage punk guitar riff running through this is genius, the Mo Tucker styled drumming is far-out and the simple lyrics... "I Gotta Crush On You, I Gotta Crush On You, What am I Gonna Do? I Gotta Crush On You!!!"... Amazing and straight to the point, what is great to me is, shit bands like Bon Jovi and Brian Adams spent years trying to write perfect love songs, but then you hear this and its right there up in your face attacking you and making you confront your feelings and internal emotions, to me 'Bewitched' is a perfect modern day love song!!

Enjoy 

Paul Messis