Obscuro! mixtape #4, Bizarro Jerry hates you

Well, that's not entirely true, because he did just create a new Obscuro! mixtape for you to check out. The 4th in the series. This one features some of the angriest, most hateful music around. Hence the name, "Hateful." You can download it by clicking here. Also, this week's program will feature groups from the Ohio underground, circa 1975-1995. Obviously, this will include Jim Shepard and Mike Rep, whose music I've covered extensively. Prepare to have it covered even more extensively. But anyways.

Tracklist:

1. Brainbombs - "Die You Fuck" - Obey, 1995
These guys are apparently Swedish, and this is some nihilistic, crazy slime in the vein of The Swans, but a lot more violent. Pretty much every song on this album is about smashing somebody's face or hurting them through other means, and this track is no exception.

2. Jim Shepard - "Pull the Switch, Henry" - Picking Through the Wreckage with a Stick, 1995
The first Shepard-written track on this mixtape. This is some really detuned, dark and narcotic acoustic rock. Poorly recorded, as always.

3. Svaty Vincent - "Nekroman" - S/T, 1990
Russian black metal with virtually no instruments whatsoever. Pretty much just a really angry guy yelling in Russian over the occasional distorted guitar sound. Featured on the "Incredibly Strange Metal" compilation, I'm not even sure what to make of this, but it's definitely angry.

4. Jimi LaLumia and the Psychotic Frogs - "Elenor Rigby" - Typically Tasteless 7", 1979
Don't know much about these guys either, but they seem to have a knack for violent, humorous deconstructive cover songs, like this one.

5. Eddy Detroit - "The Vampire" - Immortal Gods, 1982
Sometimes a cohort of the legendary Sun City Girls, this guy is something of a drifter who makes records with whoever's around at the time. I think this one features the SSG troupe, actually, and it's one of the female-lead-vocal tracks on this record. Not really angry or violent, but it's definitely a bit odd.

6. God Bullies - "I Want to Kill You" - War on Everybody, 1991
Kalamazoo's own pig-fuck enthusiasts. These guys are like the Butthole Surfers, except less abstract and more interested in burning bibles and being psychos. I can never play this one on the radio because of a few well-placed 'shit's, so here it is in all its evil glory.

7. Old Lady Drivers - "Die in Your Beauty Sleep" - S/T, 1988
I guess these guys are pretty important in the history of thrash metal, but man their first album was pretty jokey. See if you can pick out the nursery rhyme in the middle of this one. It's about old people dying, like a lot of the songs on this record.

8. The Electric Eels - "You're Full of Shit" - The Eyeball of Hell, 2001
Actually demos recorded in the mid-7o's, these guys were another of the Ohio underground proto-punkers, along with Rocket from the Tombs and Vertical Slit (Jim Shepard's band). The Eels were so angry and hateful they couldn't even get into a studio to cut a record, and got themselves blacklisted from most Ohio clubs for their destructive behavior. Eventually, they kicked each others asses and broke up.

9. Type O Negative - "Hey Pete" - The Origin of the Feces, 1992
When Roadrunner Records told Peter Steele and co that they needed to produce a live album, they instead re-cut their debut in a basement studio with fake audience sounds and fake heckling. An interesting joke for sure, and it produced this deranged cover of the Hendrix tune.

10. Gary Wilson - "Chromium Bitch" - You Think You Really Know Me, 1977
Gary's psycho-lounge-electro-pop has been turning heads since somebody found him in the early 2000's and got him to finally put out a second record. This one didn't make too big a splash when it was released in the late 70's, but now everybody knows what a fucking crazy dude he is. Pure nerd rage and girl-stalking.

11. Jandek - "You Painted Your Teeth" - Telegraph Melts, 1986
Being one of Jandek's electrified releases, this is some harsh, atonal noise. Known more for his acoustic ramblings, Jandek also makes incredibly yell-y and loud noise-rock, too. Who knows who the other musicians are, and who cares?

12. Wipers - "Over the Edge" - Over the Edge, 1983
A constant purveyor of alienated punk rock musics, Greg Sage and his Wipers cranked out some of the best underground rock of the early 80's and influenced J. Mascis, Kurt Cobain and a million other indie-rock heroes. This is off their angriest, most uncompromising release and is both the opening and title track.

13. Randy Rice - "Mrs. Bitch" - To Anyone Who's Ever Laughed at Someone Else, 1974

Oddball folk-rock double LP from the mid-seventies that finds this outsider complaining about everything from women to his mother to bullies. A lot of the tracks, this one included, take odd detours through the acoustic haze and bring in electric instruments and strange sound clips. This one's really gotta be heard to be believed.

14. Dwarr - "Electric Shock" - Animals, 1986

Heavy metal misfit who concocted his singular vision in a trailer park with a rented tape machine. Apparently he wrote something like 200 songs between 1980 and 1986, then became a re-born Christian and shunned his old recordings. Now, he's a really nice realtor (I think...something along those lines) in South Carolina, and will potentially be a guest on the program in the weeks to come. His style is like mentally unstable doom metal (Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus) with lyrics about being in the psych ward, being electrocuted, and being drugged out like nobody's business.

15. Sound Ceremony - "Tobacco Man" - S/T, 1979

This guy is from the U.K., I think. His album is primitive garage rock with often spoken/shouted lyrics about how he doesn't really understand anything. I don't either, so I know where he's coming from. Some songs are funny (I think intentionally) and some are just angry, like this one.

16. Rocket from the Tombs - "Ain't it Fun" - The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs, 2002

This album compiles the mid-seventies works of the first group to feature Dave Thomas and Peter Laughner, eventually of Pere Ubu (except Laughner OD'ed pretty shortly after they started). Really nihilistic proto-punk from Ohio (where else?) that addresses the drug problems of the underground music scene around this time.

17. V-3 - "End of the Bar" - Photograph Burns, 1996

More Jim Shepard. This is his 'alternative' 3-piece that kind of reminds me of Archers of Loaf, except infinitely more smacked-out and angry. This whole album is fantastic and was oddly released on Capital records, despite its pure-shit recording sound. That's what these guys are into, so I'm glad no label bigwig tried to tone them down.

18. Fudge Tunnel - "Hate Song" - Hate Songs in E Minor, 1991

U.K. sludge metal pranksters Fudge Tunnel cranked out a few really heavy, really nasty albums in the early 90's and saw some brief MTV exposure during the alt-rock boom. They also do really fucked up covers of classic rock tunes. Like the Melvins kind of, except not quite so heavy on the jokes...I don't think they're quite as good, either.

19. Vermonster - "The Lions" - The Spirit of Yma, 1990

New England 3-guitar-attack-psych-rock with VERY extended guitar solos. I think I heard that all these guys/girls worked together in a record store that specialized in the weird collectibles and private-press LP's that I tend to play on my program. They cover really obscure tracks from these albums, and privately release their own stuff in small quantities as well. Not sure why they think that's such a good idea, because this seems like the kind of stuff stations like WIDR would love to get a hold of. Unfortunately, most of their albums are completely out-of-print. This track has SO MUCH guitar noise.

That's the whole shebang. I hope you thoroughly enjoy listening to it. Be sure to tune into the program tonight midnight-2 am.