Iron Oxide “Bass Response EP”

Iron Oxide is a “Noise” band from Cleveland, Ohio—Jeff Curtis and K Stewart—I’ve known both of them for some time and I played in several bands with JC. I believe they refer to themselves as a noise band, but I’m not sure—still, that would be my assessment—though, at one time, similar music might have been called “industrial” or “no wave” or “experimental” or even “punk.” What’s in a label? I don’t know if they’re still performing as Iron Oxide, but I did have the pleasure of seeing a live show featuring them back in 2013, at a bowling alley, memorable for me because of the inspiring performance—at one point Stewart “played” a taco.

This is a 2005 release—it’s an “EP,” due to having two songs a side, I suppose—though it’s 45 RPM. I suppose you could try playing it at 33 RPM—though it’s not recommended. It’s got an attractive red and black cover with some stylized “modern” art which would have been comfortable in the Sixties. There are humorous liner notes, written in an odd way that makes you feel a bit off-balance—my take is that the style mimics English as a second language—and is somewhat a parody of the “audiophile” records from… I guess, the Fifties and Sixties, which exploited the new (at least for the squares in the suburbs) fetishization of hi-fidelity sound equipment. The label is “Coffee-Hut Records” (named after Youngstown, Ohio’s legendary Coffee Hut), and the vinyl, which initially appears black, when you hold it up to the light reveals that it is actually coffee colored! It’s the best vinyl color I’ve ever seen—and may be the only coffee-colored vinyl in existence (though probably not—it’s a big world).

There are four songs. Starting with Side A: “Anglegrinder”—a word which describes it well—just in the title. An instrumental. I don’t think I have the authority to elaborate. Next is a cover, “Not Moving”—which is a DNA song, written by Robin Crutchfield. There is singing in this one, lyrics I can’t make out, except for the chorus: “Not moving, not moving, etc.” This also features the Farfisa organ, and some complex noises, the origin of which I can barely guess. Oddly, I recognize this song! From the DNA tracks on the “No New York” record, a concise document of some 1970s downtown New York “No Wave” bands. I’ve told this story before, but it’s a funny one—after I worked at the Strand Bookstore for a year, 1985, 1986—I moved back to Ohio, and reunited with my records (didn’t lug them to NYC), I got out the “No New York” LP and said, jokingly, let’s see if there’s anyone I know on here—and then noticed Robin Crutchfield, who worked at the Strand. Sadly, I hadn’t gotten to know him—he had worked in a spooky computer shack in the warehouse (as I recall). There’s a lesson here (which I still haven’t learned—because I’m not exactly sure what it is).

Side B starts off with a live song called “Heat Death”—again, an apt title. If you can imagine the massive gush of flame coming from the mouth of one of those dinosaur-like Japanese monster movie monsters, you’ve got the first part—followed by something less menacing, but no less grim, like a haunted sawmill, back in operation just for the hell of it. It’s not unlike the unknowable drone coming from some part of the hi-rise apartment building they built next door to me during the lockdown—except that noise is unpleasant and ceaseless. The song on the record is intriguing and… it ends. Then, finally, another Farfisa song, the organ part repetitive enough to make you second-guess your needle’s dedication to the groove’s progression inward. Interesting—the organ is about six inches in front of you, and then further back there is what sounds like something happening—involving barrels and electricity—but I mean really, really further back—like a block away—yet in the same building. Then it ends, confidently. Did I mention that there are multiple bass parts, throughout—I’m guessing electric bass—bass guitar—not the fish.

Pagans “Dead End America” / “Little Black Egg”

High energy, stripped-down, snarly punk songs from 1979 era Pagans on Drome Records. The B-side, a cover of The Nightcrawler’s “Little Black Egg,” doesn’t do much for me, but “Dead End America” is an approximately 2 minute definition of punk rock. I especially like the weird throbbing noise between vocal lines that sounds like water being agitated in a rubber bladder, but I suspect is something the bass might be doing. (The bass player, Tim Allee, was very good.) I saw the Pagans play a few times—it was at a club in Cleveland, or Lakewood, on Detroit, just west of W.117^th. I might have bought it at a show—or was there a record store next to the club?—I don’t remember. It’s a striking pink and black label, and there’s a heavy paper cover with a reproduction of a 1978 Cleveland Press newspaper clipping of the Jonestown Massacre. The other side is a photo of singer, Michael Hudson, and some credits. It was put out by Johnny Dromette, a kind of punk impresario back then—I heard lots about him but don’t think I ever met him. I also had the single with “What’s This Shit Called Love” (my fav), but I lost it somehow. My friends and I regularly drove to Cleveland from Sandusky for punk shows, and we saw the Pagans as much as anyone—they were a fun and menacing band—not real approachable—they were the cool kids. I remember when they returned after a tour, and now they all had long hair, and them not giving a fuck impressed me, at the time, as the most punk thing ever. I feel like the club had a different name, but I can’t remember it—but it was eventually The Phantasy NiteClub, with the pirate ship inside—saw a lot of shows there. Mike Hudson went on to do a lot of writing. He passed away a few years back. I read his book, Diary of a Punk—it’s excellent, worth reading—and seems to be hard to find now. I gave my copy to my niece—I hope she kept it!

Pere Ubu “Dub Housing”

This is one of those records that—when I’m forced, at gunpoint, to make a list of my TEN favorite records—I don’t have to think twice about. If I had any hesitation at all, it would be to maybe include Pere Ubu’s first LP, The Modern Dance, instead—it’s almost a tossup between these two—this being their second LP. Both came out in 1978. But this was the first one I heard—maybe the first time I heard Pere Ubu at all. I probably bought it not long after it came out, and it warped my mind forever. I saw them live, then, in Cleveland, around 1980 or so—with this lineup. They are still an active band—though only David Thomas, from this record, remains in the band. It’s funny—this was the brief period they were on a major label—Chrysalis—and when you look at the other artists advertised on the inner sleeve (from The Babys to Trevor Rabin to UFO) (the hairstyles!) you realize just how NOT dated this record is. Listening to this now brings back the feeling of hearing it for the first time—and it always has—and the record never gets old, never sounds dated—and it’ll keep giving you some surprises if you listen closely enough.

I have not heard all the recorded Pere Ubu over the years (though, really, as much as I love this band, I should have) but I know they veered to quite a bit more experimental, out there, harder-to-take for-the-average-listener. This record is in a lot of ways fairly conventional—guitar, bass, drums, synthesizer—at least on some of the songs—yet it sounds nothing like a conventional rock record from this or any other time. For one thing, as a rock record, it’s more punk rock than most punk rock (as most punk rock is sadly not punk rock). But also, some of the songs are great, catchy pop songs. And even if you add up all the insane singers out there, no one is quite like David Thomas—his wailing, high-pitched voice and bizarre lyrics. You can’t separate the lyrics from the singing, here—but I’m resisting the temptation to paraphrase—you have to hear it sung. And then, Allen Ravenstine’s synthesizer—it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard—but also, never dominates—it always fits in with the songs. As a “rock” band, they’re a just a great rock band—and it’s worth mentioning, for this record, they have the essentials of the best bands: an excellent rhythm section—Tony Maimone, bass and Scott Krauss, drums. Also a fine guitarist, Tom Herman, who masters the most herculean of rock guitar feats—to not overplay. And on the more experimental-like, noise-like songs—whoever’s playing what—they do it with subtlety and color. They are also always fun—but at the same time also always sound dangerous—on the edge, or verge of destruction, or leaving the Earth.

I don’t like isolating any of the songs—it works best as an album—you play side one, and play side two (recover, and do it again)—but if you, say, have never heard Pere Ubu, and feel like listening to one of the more accessible songs on the internet, try: “(Pa) Ubu Dance Party”—it’s catchy and fun, and still plenty weird. It IS a dance party, in a single song, or maybe a TV show about Cleveland in the Seventies. Both the front and back cover are Cleveland cityscapes—the back a particularly nostalgic and lonely feeling sunset (or even lonelier sunrise). I’ve read that the front is a building in downtown Cleveland where band members lived. I remember driving down Prospect Ave, late at night, in the Seventies, maybe after some music show, and there would be prostitutes leaning out of opened windows, soliciting passing traffic—which is what the cover always makes me think of. But the music doesn’t really evoke a hardcore urban feeling, or anything, really of the time. It’s something else—I guess I’ve always considered it some kind of fiction—an interior landscape—maybe part insanity, part reality, part detective novel or film noir, part science fiction—but really only its own thing—and intricately connected with Cleveland. I guess when people think of Cleveland and rock’n’roll, maybe they think of Alan Freed, or WMMS “Home of the Buzzard”—and, now, the R’n’R Hall of Fame. So in that sense, I guess you could say Pere Ubu are the anti-Cleveland band—which makes them (in the spirit of Ghoulardi and Harvey Pekar and the cursed sports teams and the burning river) the most Cleveland of all Cleveland bands.

Randy Newman “Sail Away”

I first heard Randy Newman’s song “Sail Away” on a Warner Special Products box set LP called Superstars of the 70’s that came out in 1973 and was sold on TV. I heard a lot of music for the first time via that thing, but they placed “Sail Away” directly after Seals & Crofts “Summer Breeze” and The Beach Boys “Surf’s Up” so I kind of dismissed it as “Yacht Rock” (which wasn’t invented, or at least named, yet) and didn’t bother to listen closely enough to the lyrics to realize it wasn’t about… “sailing.” I’m sure I understood irony at the time, but at 12 and 13 I was (like a lot of kids) kind of a raging maniac, and it wasn’t until my first year in high school—when my English teacher Mr. Kimble used a lot of popular songs in his class—that I started to listen to song lyrics a little differently. It’s interesting how kids kind of mature at different rates—I mean it’s both different for each individual and each person has different parts of them maturing—so it’s all out of whack. I think this is fascinating, and can also be scary. Pretty much everyone is born into the pain of a raging narcissist, and you can even keep that childhood part of you vital—I think it’s really built into what’s necessary for “success”—and it’s possible to find a mate who supports it. It might even really not be a problem until you become a parent, or a boss, or the President. Other people keep other child parts vital, which can both make you happy, and suffer (often both simultaneously). I pretty much go by feelings more than intellect, to a fault, and my music listening often reflects that. Like, on that Warner collection, “Tumbling Dice” was my favorite song, and still holds me under its spell, and I still have no idea what Mick Jagger or the backup singers are singing. What’s it about? Tumbling dice, I guess, but also an unspeakable desire.

Anyway, this record is great, I love it from beginning to end. I feel like these songs will work on your computer, or MP3 player, at home, or while walking, but it’s nice the album has the lyrics inside—I think it’s one where you can eventually get more out of reading along at some point. I don’t know about you, but I never like to read lyrics when I first hear a song—I’d rather really get to know a song before I ever go to the lyrics. But it does have some value, I think, reading lyrics, to appreciate songs on different levels. You can find this one in a thrift store, too, but you might overlook it because it has one of the murkiest album covers you’ll ever see, of Randy Newman looking a lot like Ian Hunter—and it’s one of those that annoyingly folds out sideways—so no one ever knows how to put it on a shelf or in a bin. Opened up, it’s like a super closeup photo of him sitting at a piano wearing sunglasses and corduroy jacket in extremely low light, as if the photo was taken surreptitiously with a telephoto lens through door opened only a few inches without his knowledge. In the act, no doubt, of writing a song. Or maybe thinking about writing a song, which, I guess, is the same thing.

This is a record I’m still only scratching the surface of, and it could easily accompany me to my grave (I mean in a good way). A few years back I discovered the Randy Newman song “Wedding in Cherokee County” (from a different LP) and it became my favorite song for about a year, and an example of what songwriting can, could, should (and maybe never, for me, would) be. The twelve songs on this album are sitting there like the complete works of some (pick your favorite) writer, heavy on the shelf, but nothing but wallpaper until you tackle them with all the parts of you working as best as you can aspire to (at this point). What’s kind of amazing is 1972 is getting near half a century ago, and this music feels contemporary (at least to me). Also, several of these songs are under two minutes long and only one is barely over three and a half. The richness can’t be taken in all at once—I mean it can, it’s enjoyable—but to really get at it. I’ve got to go in for just a little bit, and then come back for more later. The title song is a complete experience, it’s just so beautiful on the surface and so angry and caustic just underneath. Randy Newman is an LA guy, but spent a lot of time in the South, has a kind of accent, writes a lot about the South, but it’s interesting there are a couple of songs on this record referencing Ohio. For one thing, he probably understands that southern Ohio is the South, and maybe he even knows, like I do, that so is all of Ohio. His song “Burn On” sounds like it’s in the tradition of southern river songs, but it’s about the Cuyahoga River which famously caught on fire in Cleveland (even much younger people might know about that). It kind of caught people’s attention about pollution, at the time, and provided fuel for those annoying environmentalists. Of course, now we’ve got a genius in the White House, who, if the river was to catch on fire again, would tweet that the river didn’t catch on fire, it was FAKE NEWS, and his supporters would believe him—shit, dude’s got it figured out.

Bernie & The Invisibles “All Possibilities Are Open”

There was a time some years ago when if you asked me what my favorite band of all time was, I would have said Bernie & The Invisibles—mostly based on the memories I had of seeing them live in the late Seventies, I guess it was—though I seem to have failed to document, in writing, much of this time. Around when my friends and I started our first punk band, we used to drive to Cleveland kind of regularly to see the punk bands who were playing at, as I recall, the Phantasy, Hennessy’s, and Pirates Cove. The bands that stood out were were the Adults, the Pagans, the Kneecappers, and Bernie & The Invisibles. I don’t remember The Invisibles all that much (I guess the drummer, the late Peter Ball is responsible for preserving some of this stuff)—but Bernie (who is Bernie Joelson) is just ingrained in my memory—I was pretty entranced with him. More than the other bands, you got the sense that if it wasn’t for punk rock, Bernie wouldn’t be doing this—but he HAD to be doing this. He had songs that needed to be unleashed on the world. His songs and his personalty were coming from some unique, impossible to understand by anyone but him place—and we were just getting this glimpse into his world. I looked forward to seeing him at every opportunity, and I got to know some of the songs, like “Eventually” and “Chinese Church.”

I’ve had some of his music on cassettes over the years, from live shows, I guess, but this is the first I’ve heard on vinyl—put out by My Mind’s Eye Records from Cleveland. (And thanks to Jeff Curtis for sending this to me!) If you’ve never seen Bernie live, this record might not do much for you—the sound quality it rough—and his style is fairly primitive. But it’s a good reminder to me of that time when he was my favorite in the world. There is a zine style insert with some writing and art by Bernie, old fliers, and liner notes by Mike Hudson who was the lead singer of the Pagans, and later a journalist—sadly, he passed away in 2017. I read his book, Diary of a Punk, and I’d highly recommend it. There are some good Bernie & The Invisibles stories here, and he expresses his appreciation for Bernie better than I could. I’ll excerpt part of one paragraph: “(Bernie) would wind his own personal experiences in with the views of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Buddha or Jesus Christ to create brilliant lyrics that hinted at the cosmos and the meaning of life while, at the same time were filled with good humor and a genuine sweetness I’ve never forgotten.” You might have to be a real detective to make out all of the lyrics on the songs, but it’s worth trying. I’d love if there was a lyric sheet. There is, at least, a brief tape review by Jim Clinefelter, a good zine excerpted interview, and some writing by Bernie that’s well worth squinting to read.

Phil McLean “Small Sad Sam / Chicken”

I guess this is considered a “novelty record”—it’s a humorous, story song, backed with music. It seems like if you just pick up 45’s at random, like at yard sales and thrift-stores, you’re as likely to get novelty records as anything (like with Christmas records, for LP’s). Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound good and is not funny enough for me to have even focused on the story. I’ll try again. Okay. It’s the boring tale of a small guy who didn’t do something heroic. The B-side is called “Chicken”—which would normally be more promising, but it’s corny music with an annoying harmonica, and just going on and on—sounding like a musical interlude in a redneck moonshine and smokey movie—and then it pauses and Phil McLean’s low voice says: “I say you’re chicken.” It’s not funny and not weird enough to be interesting. On the other hand, there are much worse novelty records out there. The internet says it’s from 1961, and Phil McLean was a DJ on WERE radio in Cleveland, and this was put out as a parody of Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John.” I suppose if you heard this on the radio when you were little, this might strike you as nostalgic—or it might just bring back annoying memories. If anyone wants this, I’ll fling it in your direction.