Friday 19 April 2013

Polyvinyl Craftsmen Transmission 87


Happy Friday PVC'ers, pop these in your ear 'oles and give you brain a little aural tickle.

Here be your download.


thee selection
Coldest Morning Light – The Pharmacy
In India You – The Brian Jonestown Massacre
I Like LA – The Intelligence
I Come From the Mountain – Thee Oh Sees
Say Goodbye – The Wrong Words
Blow Dumb – Nobunny
Do You Understand Me – Jujus
When You Sleep – My Bloody Valentine
Convinced of the Hex – The Flaming Lips
Get Out Of My Life Woman – Allen Touissant
Sebastiana – Gal Costa
Eleanor Rigby – Booket T and the MGs
Hilly Fields (1892) – Nick Nicely
Lenny Valentino – The Auteurs
Beach Bums Must Die – Thee Headcoats
What – A Tribe Called Quest
Asshole – Beck
The Gift – Velvet Underground
Houses in Motion – Talking Heads
Do You Remember – The Horrors
I Am With You – Ty Segall
Look Now – The Fall
In Your Night of Dreams – The Masonics
Teenage – Veronica Falls
I Can’t Get Over You – Monks
Minotaur – Thee Oh Sees
Money to Spend – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band

Friday 12 April 2013

7 Inches review Wobbly Lamps' "Drella"



7 Inches is a blog that reviews a different 45 every day and is one of the blogs that I make sure I keep up to date with as their reviews are always spot on. It was a treat then when Jason who runs the site tweeted that he'd reviewed the Wobbly Lamps this week. It's a cracking good review and the most in depth piece that's been written about the record. Cheers Jason, very much appreciated.

The Wobbly Lamps - Drella EP on Polyvinyl Craftsmen Records

The best singles come from fans that are obsessed with records so much that they end up being compelled to press their own. The Polyvinyl Craftsmen began as a great podcast playing Pavement next to Pere Ubu or The Modern Lovers right after Deerhoof while generally having a drunken good time (highly recommended). It didn’t take long before this group of UK hooligans came across The Wobbly Lamps and put together a second single with the label, Drella. Not much factual information about the Lamps out there, other than being from Sarfend, which I can’t find on any google map and I have a hunch that the Wobbly Lamps may in fact be the guys behind the podcast…and that gentlemen is a CHECKMATE.

A-Side " Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever" finds the Lamps getting extra heavy here, the mellower psych has gone sinister, I don't remember them having such a deep streak of thundery garage on their last one. This double kick throbbing beat has some serious low end under the jangle and snare snap. The bass and rhythm section is plowing away back there, almost feeling early heavy metal inspired…or the slogging long hair grooves of Hot Lunch. A tom beat drops in with far off distortion and the track gets optimistic, showing their expansive side. They have huge dreams of pop drums and indie aspirations with guitars dueling in either channel. That vocal is blowing out the infinity delay while a repeated riff slowly grows, getting bigger with cymbal crashes and fluttery picking. Inevitably going hypnotic in a combination of English shoegaze and Happy Mondays, rom a San Francisco perspective. Drawing out the repeated pop riff, faster, slower, strip out the beats and lay the attitude back in .

Switching up the rpm to 33 on the B-Side (thanks, giant red numbers) they jam in "Haxan" with rumbling, rattly reverb and clean drums adding up to a full bassline rhythm again, another freight train flying along the tracks. Beating the hell out of the tom. When that fantastic melody finally rolls in they've committed to their dark ways. “If the money’s good!!! / my hands are tied!!!” They’re compelled to do something bad, synthy low end chorus yelling underneath in a wavery raspy distortion like some kind of werewolf pop. The full moon shining on the hood of the hotrod and that guitar blasts in with serious underworld blues. Almost in line with the great Deadbolt or the Mummies, they've taken these riffs and attached them to a solid low end. It's not enough to be overdriving this into the red if you can't back it up. 

"Gretchen Fetchin" has a three chord surf style but they have to break the verse chorus structure with a Sonics scratchy dance party sound and a menacing reverb that starts to border on dangerous. Reverb from the Chuck Berry decade. The Dirtbombs or Bassholes...those proimal garage blues players come to mind with this similar feedback and rattling cones, which might as well become an instrument to these guys. Ear splitting shrieks are dropped like melodies. The cymbal crash is just an appetizer; you want hissed out “sssssss”? Do you? Another drop out to a quieted tom and muted barred chords. We all know this is all going to blow again, why are they torturing you? At 33 the speed only improves this, jam the grooves as close together as you want mastering guy it’s only going to get better.

Thursday 11 April 2013

Polyvinyl Craftsmen Transmission 86


Blah blah Thatcher,blah blah Iron Lady, blah blah funeral, blah blah blah........here's some music, turn it up loud. Download.




The Selection

Toe Cutter/ Thumb Buster – Thee Oh Sees
Pocahontas Was Her Name – Thee Headcoats
My Group and Me – Raga and the Talas
What’s Guinness Like, Gary Moore Asked Me – Stackwaddy
Serial Killer – Los Peyotes
Mary Ann – Subsonics
Maggie Maggie Maggie – The Larks
Borrowed Time – Parquet Courts
Communist Eyes – Chelsea Light Moving
When You Cut – Moon Duo
Dedicate – The Amps
Too Young To Burn – Sonny and the Sunsets
Best of Friends – Palma Violets
Someday – The Growlers
God Bless Her I Miss Her – Sic Alps
Don’t Shilly Shally – Edwyn Collins
Do It Clean – Echo and the Bunnymen
Two Weeks – Scott and Charlene’s Wedding
When the Levee Breaks – Kristin Hersh
Modern World – The Modern Lovers
White Lightning – The Fall
Don’t Cry To Me – Jerry and the Others
Black Mold – John Spencer Blues Explosion
Contraption/ Soul Desert – Thee Oh Sees
Number 10 – Giuda
Heavy Heart – OBNIII’s
Posing at the Roundhouse – Television Personalities

Saturday 6 April 2013

Mad Mackerel review Wobbly Lamps' "Drella"



Thanks to one of my favourite music blogs, Mad Mackerel, for another fine review of Drella.


We are a little later than intended in posting this, but Southend’s Wobbly Lamps (who featured on MM last year) have a new EP on release.

Drella is three more tracks of psych infused proto garage punk and lead track Never Ever Bloody Anything Ever is a particular, deliciously sleazy, delight. On the reverse is the ominous sonic mayhem of Haxan and the well, ominous sonic mayhem of Gretchen Fetchin.

In fact if the phrase “deliciously sleazy” could ever be thought to make any kind of sense then it could only ever be in the context of describing this record. Wobbly Lamps are single handedly dragging Southend back to the flick-knifed threat of a brylcreemed 1960s (unless it is like the Isle of Wight of course and never left).

Whatever. Listen to all three tracks below. Go and order the EP here.




Friday 5 April 2013

Polyvinyl Craftsmen Transmission 85


This week got off to a cracking start for thee PVC with a trip up to London to see Wobbly Lamps rock the Dirty Water Easter all-dayer in Hoxton. A good evening was had by all, photographic and video evidence can be found on Facebook.

Transmission 85 is a thumping mix of old and new nuggets to give your ear 'oles a party.

Here's your download.



The Songs
God Bless the 45 – Barracudas
Wheels – The Rebel
Hey Boy – Magic Kids
Diddy Wah Diddy – Thee Headcoats
Midnight to Six – The Pretty Things
Three Girl Rumba – Wire
While I’m Away – The Skee Brothers
Right Now – Grey Montgomery
Ghost Train – The Swanks
Gammy Leg – Scott & Charlene’s Wedding
Little Honda – Yo La Tengo
West Texas Sound – Deadly Snakes
Trigger Cut – Pavement
Non-Alignment Pact – Pere Ubu
Down in the Bottom – Howlin’ Wolf
Dismal Swamp – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Scuffling – Magic Slim
Bermuda Shorts – The Del-Roys
Skip Off School – The Pop Rivets
Lip – Chelsea Light Moving
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit – Half Man Half Biscuit
Scream Team – Deerhoof
Someone I Care About – The Modern Lovers
The Girl Can’t Help It – Little Richard
Gold Records Diamond Minds – Parquet Courts
Drinking the Juice Blues – The Growlers
Glyphs – Sic Alps