Tuesday 5 August 2014

Ulsers - Remember Them 7" reissue and Forget Them LP available now!

Ulsers are go!

Read below for the skinny on the Remember Them 7" reissue, as well as the Forget Them LP of archival, never-before-released material. They look and sound great - we couldn't be happier with how they've turned out. Both records are pressings of 500, but we'll have 100 coloured vinyl copies of each available only through our Big Cartel site. We trust that Australian customers and internationals who are keen on the limited versions will have already clicked the shit outta that link. For non-Aussies who don't care about coloured vinyl, the black vinyl versions will be carried by Easter Bilby and Florida's Dying in the US, La Vida Es Un Mus in the UK/Europe, and NAT in Japan.

To reacquaint yourself with the mystery and majesty of the Ulsers, revisit our interview with Terry Wilson from August 2012.


Ulsers - Remember Them 7" (WBRS-2601)


500 copies. 100 on white vinyl, available only from Wallaby Beat.

Four songs of hilariously obnoxious avant-punk from the living rooms of suburban Adelaide. Originally released in a tiny pressing in 1980, Remember Them was (barely) circulated to friends and acquaintances, finding fleeting local infamy as "the worst record ever made" before disappearing from the collective consciousness for 30+ years.

Remember Them is now rightly regarded as a high-water mark of manic Australian DIY, taking punk rock as inspiration and bludgeoning it with the only instruments at the Ulsers' disposal - guitar, saxophone, harmonica, and cardboard boxes in place of drums. Paired with a slew of shouted profanity and stream-of-consciousness ranting, the result is unlike anything else before or since.

This legitimate reissue - reproducing the original and very rare cover, along with photos and a detailed band history - makes Remember Them available beyond the Ulsers' tight inner circle for the very first time.

Tracklisting:

1. Cabaret
2. Radio
3. Julius Sumner Miller
4. I'm An Italian


Ulsers - Forget Them LP (WBRX-2602)


500 copies. 100 on purple vinyl, available only from Wallaby Beat.

A full LP of previously unreleased recordings from the mighty Ulsers!

The Ulsers didn't manage an album during their loose existence from 1978-1983, but luckily for us, wherever they went a cassette recorder was never far away. Salvaged from the bottom of dusty drawers and long-forgotten boxes in the garage, those tapes survived just long enough for the Ulsers to personally cull their 10 favourite tunes.

Recorded in various Adelaide living rooms in 1981 and 1982, Forget Them captures the Ulsers in full-band mode, i.e. electric guitar, bass and drums. Don't let the conventional instrumentation fool you, though; there is nothing conventional about the sound which ranges from a sped up, punked-out take on their ode to Julius Sumner Miller to the 10-minute endurance test of Nerve Gas (think Flipper with chromosome damage tackling LA Blues). Forget Them's songs are more developed, the vocals more manic and the sax blurts even more spastic than on the Remember Them EP. The band states definitively that it's "better", and we won't disagree.

Comes with full-colour inner sleeve packed with more Ulsers photos than you ever thought possible.

Tracklisting:

1. Alternative City
2. Circumstances Were Conspiring Against Me
3. I'm Not Going To Brighton
4. JSM
5. Take Off Outta Here
6. In Your Eyes
7. I'm Not Going To Stay With You
8. Somebody Loves You
9. Cabaret
10. Nerve Gas

Wednesday 25 June 2014

It never ends: Hitmen - I Want You, 1980

Hitmen's second 7", I Want You / Tell Tale Heart (WEA, 100129) sees them start the move from the perfect powerpop of the first 7" to the less interesting macho hard rock of the LPs. The band were nothing if not a great singles band however, and all the 45s are well worth getting. It was said at the time that the A-side, I Want You, was inspired by Kiss' 1979 hit I Was Made For Loving You. Hmm, we can't really hear it. Even down the decades that smells like Record Company bullshit, riding off the popularity of that year's hit. Further, we're pretty sure a man of taste like songwriter Warwick Gilbert would have ripped off prime era Kiss, like Deuce, Strutter or Cold Gin, if he was so inclined.

What is true though is that said Record Company were too cheap to stump up for a picture sleeve, so the band had some printed themselves and hand distributed them to at least the Sydney shops.

On the other hand, through WEA's worldwide reach, the single also got issued in Italy (WEA, Y 70005) as part of The Sound Of The 80s series. Both white label promos and coloured label stock copies exist.




There are mentions on the web of a German issue with the same catalogue number but we're dubious to the point of saying it doesn't exist.

What is maybe less known is the alternative version of I Want You which appeared on a K-Tel greatest hits LP called Squeezed Out later in 1980, alongside The Aliens, The Angels, The Reels and, um, Christie Allen. K-Tel mastering renders the song two seconds shorter but it's the same version with a different mix - louder rhythm guitar post-chorus (an improvement) and big '80s sounding drums (sad slide whistle).

I Want You (single version) [Download]


I Want You (Squeezed Out version) [Download]


Telltale Heart [Download]

Sunday 18 May 2014

Wallaby Beat Live





On Saturday night May 24, the esteemed R.I.P Society label will be hosting a fifth birthday event, at the Sydney Opera House no less.

Bands playing are:

The Dead C / feedtime / Bed Wettin' Bad Boys / Woollen Kits / Native Cats / Rat Columns / Cured Pink / Holy Balm / Ghastly Spats / Housewives / Constant Mongrel / Half High

More details here.

We'll be playing Wallaby Beat discs between bands. Below is some highlights of Opera House shows in the '70s. We'll be trying to recreate the feel of The Angels getting clocked by bottles at the end of 1979 - read about it in Blood, Sweat And Beers.





Thursday 6 March 2014

Finch - Out Of Control 7" Picture Records PRS 011, 1973

Finch covering The Eagles is borderline genius, but even better, their balls-out take on Out Of Control out-struts Strutter in the shameless Kiss-worship stakes - at least, it would do if it didn't precede the first Kiss LP by a whole year! The flip sees them bust out a rifftastic original that gets heavy when it needs to and swings nicely when it doesn't. The overall vibe leaves no doubt that Finch were no strangers to the bong, but alas, there are no overt weed references this time around - they were probably too buzzed on sugar and caffeine from winning the 1973 Pepsi Pop Poll (the first prize being this one-off deal with Picture Records. EMI Custom enthusiasts, note the unrelated catalogue prefix).

Things have been pretty quiet around here of late, and updates will continue to be sporadic over the next few months as we concentrate on the upcoming Ulsers 7" reissue and archival LP. More news about those soon.

Out Of Control [Download]


And She Sings [Download]

Saturday 1 February 2014

C. C. C. - Welcome To Cordial Land LP Starlight, 1976

So what else was happening in Brisbane in 1976? Apart from the unusual score in the Grand Final, orthodoxy says not much and we’re pretty sure that this time it’s right. If you couldn’t stomach 4IP approved cover bands, country, bluegrass or blues then you’d have been making a beeline for Club ‘76 with the rest of the uplifting gourmandisers.

But what’s this? Coming out of the upper levels of the Penney’s Building at 210 Queen Street (now in the mall), the CCC Band released this obscure LP in yes, 1976.

We’ve long been dubious about a Brisbane Sound – a twee, thin shouldered, short-sleeved shirt and short-wearing light pop. Sure, post ’83 there was a bunch of bands that could be viewed as having taken the Go-Betweens ball and run with it (to use a completely non-apt sporting analogy) – Let's Go Naked, Leap In The Dark, Birds Of Tin, Antic Frantic, Dog Fish Cat Bird, Too Green For Summer, Tangled Shoelaces and others. But prior to that the sounds of Brisbane were way too varied for us to find much of a common denominator (world class punk rock aside).  The Striped Sunlight Sound of the first two Go-betweens always seemed a one-off.

CCC though, at least on parts of their LP, showcase a lethargic, sun-affected whimsy that makes us at least reconsider our stance. Songs about cordial, the Golden Circle cannery (which every Brisbane schoolchild visited at least once), lollies and other childhood signposts make us wonder if those mid-80s era bands were actually riffing off copies of this record found at op-shops rather than Send Me A Lullabye and Before Hollywood. Probably not.

Elsewhere on the album there’s some fairly dire electric blues, and some aimless jamming but the charming faux-innocence means it’s mostly likeable. Faux? Well, Eating Snakes is clearly about fellatio. We’ve picked our favourite tracks below. If we’re really stretching our long bow we could posit Lemon Tree, which appeared on the Left Of The Middle cassette, as early minimal synth.


We once thought CCC were one of those bands who had a Department of Education gig touring schools and playing shows. Doing it for the kids, literally. But we can’t actually find any evidence of that, or of anything really. For now P. Richardson, D. Brown, G. Peters and T. Mullooly remain obscure.

Captain Cordial Rock [Download]


Eating Snakes [Download]


Lemon Tree [Download]

Sunday 12 January 2014

Pupils Of Love - Rock And Roll 7" Rock And Roll Records POL001, 1986

CON: Conventional wisdom is that the first Pupils of Love single came out in 1985. That's well past the golden age, however you choose to define it, and as such this record would probably be maligned by uptight collectors (like us!) if they weren't so busy ignoring it. Well, let's add to the annual incremental Legend penalty - it actually came out in 1986. Gasp!

PRO: A fellow by the name of Mark Taylor (we wish it was this one, but it's more likely to be this one) twiddles the knobs here, and manages to avoid most of the nasty studio pitfalls typical of the era. No gated reverb, no metallic guitars, no overt slickness making the whole thing sound anaemic. The fact that some reasonably astute people have mistaken this for a 1981 release (the year Rock 'n' Roll was written, according to the lyric sheet) says it all.

CON: A rock 'n' roll song about rock 'n' roll named Rock 'n' Roll (on Rock And Roll Records, no less) is about the most off-putting thing I can think of at the moment, and thanks to my Facebook feed I just accidentally viewed an uncensored pic of the Big Black "Headache Pack".

PRO: Rock 'n' Roll is great. Golden Memories ain't half-bad, either.

CON: Hound Dog. We made the executive decision that you don't need to hear it, but it is every bit as unnecessary as you imagine it to be - an unfortunate aesthetic choice, for sure. Pupils of Love had two later, easier-to-find 7"s (1987 and 1992) on which you can hear the sound of their aesthetic standards circling the drain ("Australia's only rock 'n' roll sex show". Um, no thanks!).

PRO: The front cover, which places a photo of the band over the Sex Pistols' Pretty Vacant 45, is an aesthetic triumph. The Thomas Pynchon reference also wins points ("Only pupils of love need be beautiful"), putting them in the company of esteemed Wallaby Beat favourites, the Guest Stars.

STATLER: Boo!

WALDORF: Boo!

STATLER: That was the worst thing I've ever heard!

WALDORF: It was terrible!

STATLER: Horrendous!

WALDORF: Well it wasn't that bad.

STATLER: Oh yeah?

WALDORF: Well, there were parts of it I liked!

STATLER: Well, I liked a lot of it.

WALDORF: Yeah, it was good actually.

STATLER: It was great!

WALDORF: It was wonderful!

STATLER: Yeah, bravo!

WALDORF: More!

STATLER: More!

Rock 'n' Roll [Download]


Golden Memories [Download]