IMMORTAL MICE MEN - 4 Songs - Tape - Year???

   Okay, are you ready to get a little weird with me? I was browsing through my stacks of tapes and came across this mix tape from 2001 made by my friend, Amy, which is comprised solely of under-appreciated Midwestern bands from years past. Included are timeless tracks by THE GIZMOS, DOW JONES AND THE INDUSTRIALS, PROBLEMATICS, THE JETSONS and many more classics that are all worth tracking down. Then, I remembered that there are four songs by a band called THE IMMORTAL MICE MEN. I vaguely recall Amy telling me about buying that band's LP at a yard sale (??) in the middle of nowhere in southern Indiana. She dubbed her four favorite songs from the LP onto my tape. The band played urgent, anxious, goofy, shambolic synth-y new wave with a drum machine. The band's only LP was self-released sometime in the late 70's/early 80's. I wasn't going to upload these songs because I was sure that the band's material was all over the internet and probably picked over by the Killed By Death crowd. Turns out that when I started looking around, I could barely find anything at all! I found a youtube video of the band's full LP, which was posted almost four years ago and only has 150 views (as of this writing). The record isn't listed anywhere on Discogs, but a later record by Alan Nelson (the man responsible for IMMORTAL MICE MEN) can be found here. Also, Alan Nelson's youtube page is a treasure trove of 70's/80's weirdness. So, yeah....that's where my search ended. There's not much more info out there that I could find.

   I love these four songs and found some other gems on the full record. I might just be more familiar with these songs, but I think they're the best ones out of all of them (although "Dancing is For Assholes" is great and not on this tape). The download starts out with "Tease and Flirt", which sounds so budget, so fucked, so goofy and so compelling that I can't believe it's not a KBD classic. All of the songs are in that same vein. They're heavily synth based and driving. Kinda new wavey, but still urgent and punk-sounding. I'm pretty sure it's all home recorded. It sounds paranoid and claustrophobic, but also doesn't take itself too seriously/ (side note: the last song on here is called "Useless Chatter", which I have been using as a tag on this blog since day one...meant as a nod towards this song.)
   I highly recommend downloading this one and putting it on at your next dumb party...or listening to it on headphones on the bus to make yourself feel even crazier than you already are. Oh, and if you have a copy of this LP sitting in your garage or attic, I will gladly take it off of your hands.

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If you know any info about this record, feel free to talk about it in the comments. 

TRAUMA HARNESS - "Leechman / New Dark World" - Tape - 2012

    Whenever I see the unmistakable art of Lumpy, I pick up the release and take it without any thought because I know that the sounds contained within will be interesting, thought-provoking and/or fucking punk in the exact way that I like. I ran into this tape on an icy cold January day at a record store in Asheville, NC. It was only $1.95. The clerk looked at it and sniffed "You actually want this?" Yeah.

   TRAUMA HARNESS plays dark, noisy, fucked post-punk and the two songs on this cassingle are a stellar intro into what the band has to offer. "Leechman" is upbeat, yet dark and creepy, but "New Dark World" is what really made my $1.95 feel well spent. The song is held together by a dark, repetitive bass line while the guitar riffs away into single-note abandon. It sounds claustrophobic and tense. It also reminds me of how I wanted JOY DIVISION to sound when I was a teenage punk, rather than what they actually sound like, if that makes any sense. Download it and listen to it while walking down a cold, lonely street at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday and see if you get chills.

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To hear more by TRAUMA HARNESS, check out their Bandcamp page. You could also just download this tape from them, rather than getting my rip from the cassette. To order physical tapes and more, I urge you to click over to Spotted Race and spend your stupid cash on weird ephemera to clutter your room.

I meant to upload this yesterday, but I got terribly distracted by a text flurry...I mean, it's 2013. Deal with it. 

 

LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS - "Bat / X-Rod" - Cassingle - 2012

   You may remember when I wrote about this band's first demo last summer. Since then, that tape went on to be my favorite tape of last year. I would walk down the streets of SF, listening to their spiraling, sprawling, fucked up madness and wish that my head would spin off of my body, fly through the air, crash through the shiny windows of a brand new condo, latch onto the face of a tech worker and chew his/her fucking lips off while screaming "ONE OF THESE DAYS, YOU'RE GONNA FACE THE MEAT!!!!" Yes, it's that good. (The link for the first tape is dead now. Go and get it from their Bandcamp page)
    This two song tape was put out as part of a Halloween cassingle series, which also included TRAUMA HARNESS, ORANGE SODA and KOWABUNGA KID. LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS howl their way through one punishing original song about running from a pack of bats. They have a sound that can only be made by cheap instruments, playing everything as hard as you can and a truly damaged singer. Side 2 is a cover of the MAX LOAD song "X-Rod", which is my first intro to this 1979 punk band from LUMPY's hometown of Belleville, IL. Like the first side, it also destroys.

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The band invites you to send them "bones in viscous substances" at 21 W Garfield, Belleville, IL 62220.

LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS - Demo - Tape - 2012

   I have to admit that I didn't have high expectations for a band called LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear 3 inspired, spastic, fucked up, sloppy, feedback-drenched, weirdo punk songs. Each song is reeling and spiraling, always on the verge of collapsing on itself, but held together loosely by a scraping guitar and a truly damaged, manic singer. It's dirty, fucked up and wrong. I love every second of it.
   Three songs may seem short for a demo, but I think this is perfect. If you'd like to get your own physical copy of this, send a lot of money to the band...I'm sure that something between $4 and $50 will work. Their address is 21 W Garfield, Belleville, IL. 62220. Belleville, Illinois? Is there anything going on there? What is in the water? Lumpy, can I play a show at your house?

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"The world's an abortion!

The future is a lobotomy!!"