Twisted Village

[flo's garage]

I got my first experience of TV music yesterday upon hearing Major Stars 'The rock revival' and it's smokin' to say the least. Can anyone here recommend other TV treats? Dave perhaps, you seem like the psych-expert here?

[tinobeat]

I'll go ahead and make a coupla little recco's before Dave comes in with a more informed list...

Major Stars - 4
More awesome Major Stars madness

Wayne Rogers - Constant Displacement
Also on CD via Drag City, this is a real all-over-the-place home recorded album. Some mellower stuff, some searing psych. sweet.

Heathen Shame - s/t
Wayne Rogers and Kate Village and Greg Kelley (dude from Nmperign), crazy free psych noise.

Life Partners - s/t
Some friends of mine from college, this shit was hairy. Real unhinged spazzy rock. look for their new band, Crystal Cock Over Canada.

L.A. Drugs - s/t
Craziness, shouting about high school, gettin fucked on a dance floor, a shame they're not playing anymore. Sandra of LAD is now singer for Major Stars, and the recordings I've heard are awesome.

[flo's garage]

Tino, do you live near this store? It sounds awesome. Do tell!

[tinobeat]

yeah, I live a few miles from it. I used to go in once or twice a week, but I've been trying to curb record buying of late, as I've gotta save $$ for my move.

Its a wonderful little store in a basement in Harvard Sq. in Cambridge. friendly folks, crazy records, good times...

[Dave]

Major Stars - 4
More awesome Major Stars madness

Yes it is awesome. Until two days ago this was my favorite Major Stars record (although to be fair, each new record has become my favorite one. for a band that "always does the same thing" they never fail to add some new tricks or nuances that have me picking my jaw up off the floor.
However the new single that should be out in a couple of weeks is MASSIVE. The Major stars have gone from four piece to a sextet with three guitars and Sandra (from LA Drugs as Tino mentioned) singing. The two songs have been on almost constant repeat for the last two days. Everything I could have hoped for and more. Essential.

Wayne Rogers - Constant Displacement
Also on CD via Drag City, this is a real all-over-the-place home recorded album. Some mellower stuff, some searing psych. sweet.

Most likely Wayne's "best" solo record, this is one that, a few years from now, folks will be pretending that they were into at the time. Unreal. Wayne's other records aren't far off either and he's got a brand new one (I don't think it's even officially out yet) called Blues Ul-Alb that is fantastic. It should be mentioned that there are a few albums that are more drone oriented like Infraction or At Home.

Heathen Shame - s/t
Wayne Rogers and Kate Village and Greg Kelley (dude from Nmperign), crazy free psych noise.

Heathen Shame are pretty extreme (in the best of all possible ways.) Wayne and Kate freak out and Greg does all he can to make his trumpet sound like anything but a trumpet. They have a new CD out now that's really cool.

Life Partners - s/t
Some friends of mine from college, this shit was hairy. Real unhinged spazzy rock. look for their new band, Crystal Cock Over Canada.
This might be more of a "had to be there" type thing, but if you ever saw them they aren't easily forgotten.

L.A. Drugs - s/t
Craziness, shouting about high school, gettin fucked on a dance floor, a shame they're not playing anymore. Sandra of LAD is now singer for Major Stars, and the recordings I've heard are awesome.

For all of the name checking that goes on with No Wave over the past few years I'd say that LA Drugs were one of only a handfull that actually lived up to that name tag. the record is super low-fi, but I think it's a masterpiece. Live they were unreal, with Sandra stalking around shreiking, menacing and coming on all at the same time. The guitarist looked like he was in deepest concentration. It was absolute beautiful chaos.

Some other Twisted Village highlights:
Crystalized Movements. CM were Wayne Roger's high school band and they put out what I consider to be some of the best records of the 80's.
Mind Disaster is an absolutely perfect teenage pysch record. Wayne pressed it in an microscopic edition, Pyscho records in England reissued it and then finally in the mid-90's Twisted Village reissued it on CD.
Dog Tree, Satellite Seers was 2nd. Super limited TV edition followed by two Forced Exposure editions (one with a paste on cover, numbered edition and one with a "real" cover.) Wayne doesn't seem too fond of this (or This Widness either) record, but it has some jams. I doubt it's going to be reissued anytime so if you can find it, grab it. Be warned that a lot of the 2nd FE pressings are off center.
I also have quite a soft spot for their third record, This Widness Comes This is the first record with Kate Biggar on guitar and they were an absolute killer rock machine at this point (although one of the most unlikely of all time.) Kind of hard to track down these days, there was a miniscule Twisted Village vinyl edition and it also came out on the No. 6 label on LP and CD.
Revelations From Pandemonium was the last CM record and it is both more pastoral and chaotic than their other records.

Magic Hour: No one ever expected this. Wayne and Kate team up with Damon and Naomi (Galaxie 500). Really great and now really overlooked. Damon and Naomi, as a rythym section, brought a totally different vibe to Wayne and Kate's music. Most Galaxie 500 fans seemed deeply offended by this band so you know they were doing something right. They have three records, all great, but if you've never heard them then start with the first one, No Excess Is Absurd.

Other Twisted Village highlights:
Luxurious Bags. Three records (available as two CDs) all fantastic. LB was/is Tom Leonard a fellow Nutmeg stater who was smart enough to opt out of St. Johnny early on. His records were basement psych gems where honest to goodness songs fought with guitar overload. I'd recommend either CD.

Bob Bannister Dives and Lazarus An overlooked masterpiece, Bob, one of the best guitar players I can think of (really, I can think of a lot) does an album of traditional folk songs that is just perfect. Bob's other band, Tono Bungay, seem to get overlooked a lot too. both of their TV albums (one LP, one CD) are great.

Another handy item that fills in a lot of gaps is the compilation Deep Funnels of Entry on Shock (The English label that was an outgrowth of the magazine Shock Express - not the Australian label)

There's still more that I didn't touch on like Wormdoom (another Wayne Rogers project) Brother JT, Fuzzhead, Gate, The Garbage and the Flowers Nmperign etc. but that will have to wait for another time.

[flo's garage]

Wow! thanks Dave and Tino. Looks like I'll be out of pocket for another month then!

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Crystalized Movements released a couple of 7"s and the CD version of This Wideness Comes has a bonus track. There's also an LP of pre-first album recordings called Damaged Lights but it's hardly necessary (I think Wayne was 14 when it was recorded and it definitely sounds like fairly clueless HS kids messing around).

Magic Hour also released two 7"s and a 10" in addition to the albums. I still need to find the first 7" and the 10", dammit.

There were also at least three TV comps with exclusive tracks from the above bands. One is called Marvelous Sound Forms (available on CD and LP) and the others were a triple 7" and a single 7". I've got both of those but the names escape me at the moment.