Mike Rep and the Quotas - Rocket to Nowhere on Mighty Mouth Music

Mike Rep is one of those underground dudes with an output that always seemed overwhelming....I would hear about the Ohio based lo-fi legend here and there in reviews for hissy, home recorded stuff I was super into, but just didn't know where to even start. Mighty Mouth Music comes along and says, "Well... how about at the beginning dummy" with Mike's first single recorded in 1975 of which Mike says:

To the best of my recollection it was pressed by Moxie in late '76 or early '77 , but Moxie really did not try to 'market' it for a year or two (Moxie Dave G. used to call it "my funny little record" , I don't even know why he really did it, then later he sold a few to BOMP! / Greg Shaw around '78 and that was the extent of 'distribution' for that record)

I once had a painting teacher who would stress over and over the most important thing about a painting was it's date. She could have been talking about this single. It's impossible to even imagine the hoops Mike would have had to jump through to get this out into the world back when the rest of lo-fi wasn't even a genre yet. To think there was an alternate R. Stevie Moore out there plugging away in his own no-fi version of the world...practically before punk as we know it! Well I'm so grateful this kind of thing is made available by Might Mouth and Siltbreeze still because this is an insanely important document.

The amount of hiss on "Rocket to Nowhere" is insane even by today's standards. The silent hiss takes over the whole spectrum before this even has a chance to be instilled with meldoy or instrumentation. A muffled distortion fades in.. wait now I think that hissy yell is a crowd... people clapping, an enormous live crowd hopefully from another live album.
I know this thing says "33 half stereo", on the center label but I had to try this out at 45 because of a positively disturbing lack of speed on the vocal. But of course it's still deliberately just a little off at either speed. Mike seem to adopt an almost dirty metal persona to crunch into a warbled disrtortion. The whole world is cheering on this maniac and his impossibly low repeating verse "A Rocket To Nowhere', the voices colliding, layered all over this. I love he wanted to create a live album where the audience inexplicable drops out completely at the drop of a hat. Right from the beginning he wants you to know this lives in the deliberate home recorded experimental world...as if the hiss didn't give it away. Save one of those 4 tracks for the crowd sound to mess with. The trick is that there really isn't one, this is heavily manipulated and those awkward 'accidents' are done with a sense of humor that I can completely get behind. Don't take yourself and this rock and roll game so seriously. One of the founders. A mythical story that is pretty incredible to actually have agan on vinyl.
"Quasar" I know those stations exist of 'classic' rock that play the same 20 somgs from 1975 and guess what? This genius was out there crafting away in the bowels of basements and sheds working on this avant garde noise composition. Thank god he pressed a document thad finally got some kind of recognition. Amidst the hiss is a rising weird tone which leaves you with no clue how it was created. Coming into focus occasionally... it's a guitar sine wave, or feedback held at the perfect distance for a slow wavering, falling hum. Insanely controlled feedback, but I'm not sure this isn't synth somehow or at least manipulate tape.
Phillip Glass or Bun Ching Lam, why'd we forget about Mike? Pure experimental sound...and to press this as a B-Side. Mike drops this gem:

Remember songs like "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and "My Green Tambourine?" The label they were on, Buddah Records, used to put CRAZY things on the "B" sides, to make sure the disc jockeys played the side that they wanted them to! Like they would put the "A" side BACKWARDS.....Or they would put something equally unplayable on radio like a guy banging on one chord on a piano just yelling (1910 Fruitgum Co.'s "Sticky! Sticky") while a roomful of people beat on phone books and shouted along, GREAT DADA STUFF!!!.....However "Quasar" WAS a serious music piece, I wanted something to wash through my headphones while ingesting nitrous & pondering the universe......I am sure I had heard Fripp & Eno's "No Pussyfooting" by then, so draw your own conclusions.

Distributors must have thought "this guy has really lost his marbles" until they sat through Rhys Chatham years later. Another layer? A couple of layers have crept into the track, all that same ungrounded cable buzz and rising and falling in pitch? Not even overblown, it's the idea of space, that endless void is coming across here. If I could have been throwing this on anywhere under any context in that time period, it would have been mind blowing. And it holds up. Completely unexpected, but then I expect nothing less now. Criminally neglected (probably just by me). Stays mysterious the entire time.

Harry was kind enough to send an extra copy to giveaway - send me an email and by the 23rd I'll pick a winner. Be prepared, you'll be in for a long Rep ride once you get started.

On black vinyl with gutter messages...get this one over at the label that's changing lives.

There is a double album on siltbreeze that now I have to freaking hear, and a great interview from the Agony Short Hand blog...seems like a cool dude.

Grudge on Mighty Mouth Music

It's weird when all of these seemingly random things you've been thinking about happen to come together. I think this one actually started when I found out that Word bookstore in my neighborhood was hosting a music book club with Daphne Carr and Tobias Carroll, the first book being "Hot Stuff, Disco and the Remaking of American Culture" by Alice Echols. This was the last era of music I would ever choose to read about but knowing the editor of The Best Music Writing series wouldn't steer me wrong I gave it a chance. It was a little challenging getting through the playlist in the appendix, or maybe just plain embarrassing on the train, but I'm starting to come around to thinking there might just be some positive things to come out of this seemingly commercial, easy to hate target.
For one, the politics of the disco scene...it was the only place for lots of previously marginalized groups to have a cultural voice...hell, to have a place to just get together. I also like the idea of these audiophile extremists coming up with a perfect listening environment, with massive sound systems for listening parties that evolved into the later clubs. To think you would go over to this empty loft and just hang out with other people and listen to an album sounds like I might be into that today...and not because it's being hosted by a record label, thanks.
It's also good to step out of the music you listen to everyday and think about why people like Skrillex or whatever contemporary form of disco is going on these days. Does Disco still suck? That's too easy.
So what does all this have to do with this single from Might Mouth Music? This single by the band "Grudge" was the early creation of Canadian disco star Laurice. From this interview Dean at MM did, he had a pretty insane career and this bizarre single was probably the first thing released on vinyl from the still producing pioneer, and leave it to this punk reissue offshoot label to rerelease this piece of work from 1973.

"When Christine Comes Around" sets the tone for this borderline gag single with some gorilla sounding hooting right off, leading into a real deep groove with an alternating slightly bluesy bassline. The guitar, the parts that make it past this almost funk foundation are covered in gutsy distortion....I could hear this being a real precursor to the Hunx sound, and they should absolutely be covering this in homage to the sound as much as the gender politics. But then again they might want to steer clear after the "I'm gonna smash her face in" lyric What!!!? Is Laurice just playing a complete lunatic? He's delivering this vocal in a kind of effemenate mocking tone while he's slowly getting more and more demented: "No one can hear her screaming..."
I don't know who would have even bankrolled this thing back in '73, and definitely not these days. There's a sort of honkeytonk Jerry Lee piano roll added to complete the extra layer of creep, along with this '50s "uh huh ha" chorus and surf style Chuck Barry hollow body guitar. He's really fighting that Madmen nightmare of normal culture in the early '70s that must have driven Laurice completely crazy...really this thing belongs in the Rocky Horror picture show, all bubblegum pop with a real twisted mean streak. Almost parodying the entire genre before it's born.

But the A-Side was just getting started, he might go even further with "I'm gonna smash your face in" which aside from being self explanatory (and definitely a single that you would pick up without a sleeve sight unseen) could even be a kids classic album with an early Ramones slant, but still heavily '50s pop, or would this be considered early Weird Al? It's that far out there...but there's always someone that has to be out there working in the opposite of popular culture...it's still shocking to hear this sweet mean pop and from this time period. Dick Clark would have never played this single, which counts for a lot
"...behind this dungeon wall" ? That's a lyric. "Its time for you to pay the price for calling me a queer". That's another one.
There's also a baritone elvis impersonator voice that echo's from beyond the grave combining the Smashing face lyric with lonesome tonight? Impressive. "Begging me for bread and water". Another lyric delivered in creepy enunciated, proper english style. Employing a friend even to record some frightening cries from the female character he's going on about. Super extended long mix of this one with verse after verse. I get the feeling he was pretty serious about practicing what he preached.

Pick this one up from Mighty Mouth Music, leaving no stone unturned. They also have a full length LP of Laurice hits...which were obviously numerous. The first Volume of many.

This Saturday's book club is "But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz" By Geoff Dyer. I don't know anything about Jazz either and this ended up being abstract fictional essays about the greats, now I have to go listen to that Spotify channel that Dan Hewins made.

The Psychopaths on Mighty Mouth Music

So Harry decided taking on reissuing out of print punk from the 70's just wasn't enough and started up this PRE-punk reissue label Might Mouth Music...I get it, there's all kinds of gaps in music history that have been overlooked by oldies radio and Casey Kasem, or locked away in collectors humidity controlled vaults. I've seen the photo's on Termbo...the barns or garages outfitted with walls of glass cases of records and carefully hung framed punk posters. I'm definitely glad you guys exist...but can I hear the damn record already? Is it that great? So here comes Mighty Mouth Music to actually put this single in your hands...for SIX BUCKS! This one is from The Psychopaths from Boston and the year was 1967...it's impossible to even imagine what the musical landscape was like back then, but needless to say this holds up nicely, and is super weirdo creepy psych...this stuff has a long history people...starting pretty much with this killer single.

A-Side's "Till the Stroke of Dawn" features David Arvedon's signature high... almost falsetto vocal, I get it now, these guys are the psych-opaths. Can you imagine what it ws like to have set up all these effects and really spent the time to capture them, and sounding like nothing before it? Really being worried that people might not know what to do with this weirdo combination. The cool slow tremolo on electric, the tight snare beat coming in right before the high echo vocal. This beat seems to slowly be creeping up faster and faster, it sounds like this narator is scaring 'his love'. He wrote her a letter but he's coming for her, a little obsessed maybe. Crisp 13th floor elevators style, none of the esoteric jamming, succinct and to the point. One of thsoe tracks that would have been in a Vietnam war movie when they were smoking pot. Super groovy, and guess what? This is the real deal.

B-Side's "See the girl" sounds just so good, completely clean and understated, you have to love this drum tone, the snap of the tom fill running straight into the snare, plonking out this steady beat waiting for the brief moments to get this thing rocking. This one is more of a ballad, like they're trying to disguise this great understated melody, running a little jagged, pre new wave of course and revolutionary but then having to dive into this sappy lovesong about this lost love. Still would have had to be fairly mindblowing around this time. You want to talk about going back? I don't even think my parents were married yet. It's inspiring to know this was going on, and so clean sounding on this single, like those criterion reissues, so cleaned up when you hear a pristine copy pressed by Mighty Mouth you can hear exactly how revolutionary it was without all the scratches and pops....jsut like the day your dad came home from the record shop with a new 45 he bought instead of lunch. I would have listened to the shit out of this thing.

Get it from Mighty Mouth Records, no art, just plain paper sleeve like the old days...lots more coming soon I'm sure. Check out the A-Side on the tubes of you.