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| Will Shatter (photo by Bruce Conner) |
The definitive history of the SF scene in the 80's is yet to be written. Gimme Something Better is an excellent book, but it's both too much and not enough. By covering two decades, it moves quickly "from the Fab Mab to Gilman Street" and I'd love to read more about the former and less about the latter. If someone like Joe Carducci, Jon Savage or V.Vale would excavate Steve Tupper's Subterranean warehouse and catalog its contents -- that's a book I'd pay good money to read.
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| Monte Cazazza |
In 1982, Subterranean went big with the album Generic Flipper. Flipper was a band that both made money and cost money for the label. Read this MRR interview for details. Another big release from '82 was the Chrome Box. The duo of Damon Edge and Helios Creed added the rhythm section of John and Hilary Stench (aka John and Hilary Hanes), who were former members of SF's Pearl Harbor And The Explosions. After Damon split for Europe, Helios released two solo albums on Subterranean. Damon Edge died in 1995. Helios Creed is touring in 2018 with a new lineup of Chrome.
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| Mike Fox (photo by Jeanne Hansen) |
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| Tana Emmolo-Smith (photo by Jim Jocoy) |
Monte Cazazza has recently performed as part of a theremin duo with Mary St. Meri (singer of The Housecoat Project, and mother of two with Bruce Lose of Flipper.) The 1978 debut EP by Negative Trend (with Will Shatter and Steve DePace of Flipper) was reissued in 1983 on Subterranean.
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| Patrick Miller aka Minimal Man |
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| Stephen of Arkansaw Man (photo by Jeanne Hansen) |
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| Richard Kelly Club Foot co-founder |
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| Z'ev in performance |
I can't forget to mention Stefan Weisser (aka Z'ev and Uns). His discography on Subterranean includes an EP (SUB 14), an LP (SUB 30), a cassette box set (SUB 29) and an appearance on the Live At Target compilation. He was also part of the 1980's SF group Rhythm & Noise with Naut Humon and Diamanda Galas. Weisser performed with Glenn Branca, Keiji Haino, KK Null, Stephen O'Malley, Psychic TV, Lydia Lunch, Boyd Rice, Faust, Chris Watson (Cabaret Voltaire) and many others. Stefan Weisser died in December 2017.
SUBTERRANEAN SINGLES, VOL. 3
ReplyDelete01 Anorexic Sacrifice - Chrome
02 Beacons To The Eye - Chrome
03 What Are We Gonna Do? - Code Of Honor
04 What Price Would You Pay? - Code Of Honor
05 Speed Rules - Sick Pleasure
06 I Wanna Burn My Parents - Sick Pleasure
07 Love Song - Sick Pleasure
08 BNS - Sick Pleasure
09 Disintegration - Sick Pleasure
10 Try To Break Me - Sick Pleasure
11 Time To Change - Sick Pleasure
12 Mercenaries - Negative Trend
13 Meat House - Negative Trend
14 Black And Red - Negative Trend
15 How Ya Feeling? - Negative Trend
16 Prime Mover - The Leather Nun
17 F.F.A. - The Leather Nun
18 What's Your Name? - Bruce Lose
19 Waking To Sleep - Bruce Lose
20 Every Job - Arkansaw Man
21 Mark Twain - Arkansaw Man
22 Tired Death - Minimal Man
23 Two Little Skeletons - Minimal Man
24 Prescient Dreams - Tana Emmolo-Smith
25 Zanoni - Joseph T. Jacobs
tinyurl.com/yacv2aw2
That sums up everything that Subterranean released on 7" from 1979 through 1983, with the exception of Contexts/Poextensions by Stefan Weisser. (I own a copy, but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the music on these comps.) Negative Trend's "We Don't Play We Riot" (SUB 32) was a 12" reissue of a 7" EP. A mere technicality, or a monumental error in judgment that invalidates the premise of this entire project?
ReplyDeleteCheers.
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Thanks for continuing / completing this little project. The role of distros like Subterranean, Toxic Shock, Midnight etc. in the early & mid -80's can't be underestimated...Some real classics on this 3rd volume. Always thought Arkansas Man was going on to big(ger) things. Guess not...
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment and I'm glad you enjoyed this series. You are exactly right, Subterranean and other distributors were very important to getting these artists heard, and getting their records into stores.
DeleteI like Arkansaw Man a lot too. If you google Stephen Bartholomew Clarke, you will find a few more Arkansaw Man songs on his youtube channel. I will post their 12" EP here soon. It was reissued ten years ago by Radium (a sub-label of Table Of The Elements) with liner notes that called it a precursor to groups like Tortoise (pre-post-rock?) Arkansaw Man had one other song on a comp called "SF Sound Of Music" but only seven songs were released during their lifetime.
Hi, Jonder. I want to thank you for this series. I was tentatively in the S.F. scene from the start, although (at first) from the suburban perspective of Walnut Creek. We used to make pilgrimages to Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley to buy import CDs and copies of the NME. In '77, I moved to Berkeley just as punk became a "thing" and went to a lot of East Bay shows...and rode the "F" line bus to San Francisco to see shows at the Mabuhay Gardens (we had to RUN through the streets of S.F. to the Transbay Terminal to make the bus ride home after the club closed at 2:00 AM; if we missed it, the next bus left at some ungodly hour like 4:00 AM....). Later I moved to S.F. and ended up renting rehearsal space from Flipper's manager down in an industrial building in Dogpatch at 22nd and Illinois; we got three hours and were sandwiched between Silvertone (Chris Isaak) and Flipper. So we ran into the both bands coming and going...I remember the guys from Flipper were really great guys. Anyway...this brings that era back to me, so thank you. There were a lot of records I missed but would hear on KUSF, and now I have them, thanks to you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great comments! What band were you in? I knew that James Wilsey (the Avengers' bassist) ended up playing lead guitar for Chris Isaak. I used to mail order stuff from Rather Ripped Records but have never visited the Bay Area. I'm glad to share the music with you, and thank you for sharing your memories here.
DeleteAt the time in the rehearsal room, the band didn't have a name. It was a guitar, bass, and drum machine. The guitarist had been in Central File (a mod revival band). A year later, I joined a class at Blue Bear School of Music. The class learns a set of songs and plays a public recital. We did so well (we learned six songs) that we formed a real band. Learned a few more songs and we had enough to be an opening act at the Mabuhay. That band was the Corvairs. There wa an earlier Bay Area punk band with that name; we were not aware of them and would have picked another name if we had known. Our style was rockabilly. We did a lot of covers but started writing our own material...did an 8 track demo, and then broke up!
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