Lines In Wax

TWELVE YEARS OF UNWANTED OPINION

Month: June 2012

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Chile (1970)
rock

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Chile (1970)

I always remember my father talking about this record. This was always one of those stories that would come up after a few whiskies. Long and short of the story was that my Dad had swapped this Jimi Hendrix record for something a long time ago, and that the record must have been worth a fortune now. He mentioned it once after my initiation into the awesome world of vinyl and I decided to look online for it. eBay was loaded up, and I quickly bought it for a quid or two. Nevermind. It might not have been rare as fook but at least it didn’t exactly cost me the earth. And that was the end of that story. I considered selling this as I had no interest in Hendrix (the guitar nerds at school bumming fuck out of him really put me off), but I kept it and forgot about it for a few weeks. When I actually listened to it, I really liked it.  I won’t dwell too much on side A because, let’s face it, every person in the world has heard Voodoo Chile. What fascinates me is side B, which stretches 8 minutes (on a 7″ mind) at an astonishing 45rpm with no apparent deterioration or loss in volume. Holy mother, that isn’t physically possible under the laws of vinyl pressing! I don’t understand it at all. Anyway, two of my all time favourite songs on side B; “Watchtower” and “Hey Joe”. I prefer “Watchtower”, but listening to “Hey Joe” is what having a record player is all about. Shivers up the ol’ spine, and all that. Makes me wanna go out to shitty boot sales and buy thousands of crackly old 45s!

Lazarus Blackstar – Lazarus Blackstar 7″ (2006)
doom metal

Lazarus Blackstar – Lazarus Blackstar 7″ (2006)

This is one of my favourite 7″s! Paul Catten fronted Lazarus Blackstar is a rare beastie, but a feckin’ good ‘un. In my opinion their existence can be summed up in this cracking little EP (not that the records aren’t any good), which really acts as an an album sampler for Funeral Voyeur more than anything. Side A eclipses side B, “Make Believe Master” is enormously heavy and ridiculously catchy for something of this slow and brutal nature. “Anaesthetic Stopped Me Screaming” is a lot more drawn out and doomy, opening with a hellish scream from Catten before plunging into the sludgiest, deepest pits of self loathing. Grim stuff! Calculon Records put this out in 2006, and I picked it up cheap as chips from Bri Doom et al at the excellent Deathfest 2009 in Leeds. I am unsure of pressing quantity, but it seems that all of the numbers were pressed on pink vinyl with black splatter. Doomilicious.

Enemy Soil – Casualties of Progress (1995/2008)
grindcore

Enemy Soil – Casualties of Progress (1995/2008)

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve done a post, I’ve been working on other things including behind the scenes work for this blog (writing a lot of posts in advance is a new tactic I’m going for). Today we have a post for Enemy Soil’s classic slice of drum machine grind; Casualties of Progress. The EP was put out on Relapse in April 1995 on a run of both black and grey marbled records. It has since been re-issed on CD, with a bunch of bonus tracks as per usual. It’s a excellent romp in the grindcore template; samples open songs before catchy riffs plunge headfirst into all out blastbeat carnage not dissimilar to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, who would go on to become rather popular (in more recent years). It was a logical progression then, I think, for Enemy Soil main man Richard Johnson to end up in Agoraphobic Nosebleed.  I picked this up for dirt cheap off what looked like a private stall at Hellfest 2010. The guy only had a bunch of records for sale, and this was one of them; a steal at two Euros. It averages about a fiver on Discogs now so go for me bargain hunting. Ha ha

Gallows – In The Belly Of A Shark (2007)
punk & hardcore

Gallows – In The Belly Of A Shark (2007)

I had a passing interest in Gallows when they hit “the big”; they were a gritty band combining the groove of traditional/doom metal with the energy, anger and song structure of hardcore and punk. Unfortunately, I’ve spun the one record with this song on it a few times (I can’t remember what it is called) and I don’t get it. I love “In the Belly of a Shark” as a single though, which is a cracking tune. That is as far as my Gallows-liking goes though, and when the ginger fella left I cut off all interest completely. Oh, and that cover they did with Lethal Bizzle was so fucking bad it was amazing. I got this for a quid in Zavvi when it was still afloat not drowning in debts it couldn’t pay. It has way over-the-top artwork; a full gatefold sleeve and even a full colour printed inner for the 7″ to live in. The disc is purple and spins at 45rpm, so it is over before you even realise what the feck your listening to. Side B is all filler, if I’m honest. This is worth about a tenner now, so I guess I could always sell this in the future. This was put out by nasty media giant Warner Bros (who I won’t link to, thank you very much).