J.T. IV-Cosmic Lightning LP (~1980s//2008)

 "it's kinda hard to write a song/when you've been inside these walls so long...."

This one's personal for a lot of reasons. J.T. IV grew up in my general part of the Chicagoland area (Roger's Park and Evanston), seems to have been a perpetually (and partially voluntarily) marginal member of the Chicago punk scene, and his songs generally evoke a sense of being so fucking neurotic and out of it that they don't fit into any given context, no matter how much one wants to say "Velvet Underground tribute" or "proto-whatever".

One of the frustrating things about the age of digital everything is that chronology and genealogies of influence are totally skewed: Listening to J.T. IV's stuff in the early '10s, it's easy to say "Oh yeah this dude sounds like Pink Reason" or whatever, but he was blasting out a unique blend of garage punk and lonely downer ballads back when "Anarchy in the U.K." was still a novelty. It's hard to imagine these songs in their original context, but my guess is that it doesn't matter much, since I'm pretty sure J.T. (short for John Timmis IV, I think) was doomed to be a loner while alive and now, post-mortem.

That makes it all the more important to keep this guy's work available, even if the originals had almost no impact upon first release, and the Drag City comp is out of print. "I'm Waiting for the CTA" is, you guessed it, a goofy, localized rave up of the Velvets' famous tune. "Death Trip" isn't a cover, but it manages to almost match the Stooges song for hard-edged intensity and the nihilistic glee you get when blasting it. Between them, these two songs set the tone for this compilation: a quintessentially late-'70s mix of glam, hard rock, proto-punk, and sheer outsider weirdness that doesn't fit any of our categories. J.T.'s voice is frail and quavering on most of these songs-especially the beautiful "In the Can/Out of the Can" sequence and "One Fine Day with the Karma Man." On "In the Can," we get a view of life from inside a mental institution, from a guy who woulda known. It's not just a slice of dementia, though: J.T. IV eloquently communicates the experience of total isolation and frustration, of knowing your friends are out there and care about you but won't be in touch for awhile. The best couplet is "When I finally get outta here/I'm gonna buy me a bottle of whiskey and a case of beer!'

As with most of my favorite records, I could rant about this one for way too long. I'd like to expostulate on a wonderfully paradoxical verse like "there are sometimes when I feel good/and other times when I feel fine/but I wouldn't even know it/if I didn't feel bad sometimes" for several paragraphs.  In the interests of getting you fuckers to actually listen to this guy's work, though, I'll shut up. In my opinion, J.T. IV's songs are some of the best, underappreciated bits of outsider punk ever made and you should all listen to this. My boy over at In the Zen Arcade posted this back in 2011, but I'm guessing mediafire killed the link so this is a justified post. If you don't like this compilation you shouldn't be reading this blog: It's that simple.

Tripped over a junky in the hallway....
Then, go BEG DRAG CITY RECORDS to re-release this compilation. I would happily buy 50 copies of any re-pressing and give away 48 of them to friends for conversion purposes.

The Janitors-Worker Drone Queen EP (2012)

Have I ever told you about the first time I took boomers, kiddies? Boy howdy, was that a trip...a trip I'll save for another post.

In the meantime, in the way of fucked up, psychedelic freakfuckouts, I offer thee Stockholm's The Janitors. Serving up trebly, heavily hallucinatory riddims to warm your karma by, The Janitors deliver cleverly crafted drug rock appropriate for sitting on a couch, popping the multi-colored pills that dude who kinda sorta knows your girlfriend  just gave you in exchange for that new Jefferson Airplane LP...
...wait, it's 2012, not 1967. Anyways, "Do it Again" is a slow, measured tune drenched in reverb and perfect for nodding out to. "Death Song" somehow manages to mix Nick Cave-esque vocals with instrumentation BrianJonesTownMassacre wouldn't sneeze at (or mebbe they would, but Janitors would withstand that particular exhalation). The bridge is a vicious drums-n-guitar duel that segues into a bright new day, like when ya sober up and start drinking again immediately after recovering from those pills ya just took.

"Coming Down" is a note-perfect morning-after jam. The thudding drums and scratchy, geometric riffing sounds like I usually do after a night spent drinking Olympia beer and arguing with friends about the relative merits of percocets over valiums. That is, vomitrocious and still, somehow, witty enough to catch yr attention, boppers.

In case you haven't noticed, I both like The Janitors and prefer to describe their music in non-musical terms. Deal with it. If you enjoy effects-laden, blues-croon driven, neopsych space oddities, you'll like The Janitors.


Listen here. Buy here.

Aliosha Give me a chance!-s/t EP (2012)

Even for a blog that specializes in weirdo, left-field eccentricities, Aliosha, give me a chance! is pretty fucking bizarro. These Belorussian punks burble out seven tracks of longform, clanging, relentless glum rock, and in the process manage to turn a Bob Dylan song into something approximating the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray." Which they also cover, incidentally.

I'm usually pretty down on bands that record covers, especially if the covers constitute most of a release. How hard is it to scrape together original material? Apparently Aliosha began as a Sex Pistols cover group(?!?), and morphed into a real band when they started playing real drums instead of books (?).

Anyway, I will say that this thing is a partial exception to the anti-covers stance. The only one remotely close to the original is the "Sister Ray" version, and, as noted, they morph the other covers into droning, humming, bass-driven torment closer to Throbbing Gristle-style industrial misery than good-times rock.

"All I gotta do" scratches out an almost-danceable beat in the midst of xylophone- and bass-driven torment. Forlorn words float in and out under the din, and the end result is the sort of dance music that PiL specialized in ca. 1982: yes, one could dance to this stuff...if the Black Death was the only other gig in town, y'dig?

I have no information on this group beyond their facebook page. I really am at a loss on this stuff, but it's interesting enough to keep me coming back to it, again and again. With no firm conclusions.

DIG IT...or not.