How many can you spot?

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

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.

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

Mad Mackerel review Wobbly Lamps' "Drella"

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

NEW WOBBLY LAMPS EP

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.

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