Named after San Francisco Chronicle's pink-hued arts and entertainment guide, Pink Section coalesced at SF Art Institute and performed their first show at the legendary Deaf Club on Valentine's Day, 1979. These self-taught musicians existed on the fringe (even in the local underground scene), producing an unusual brand of off-kilter post-punk against a backdrop of Dadaist aesthetics.
The group itself was strangely symmetrical: singer Judy Gittelsohn and drummer Carol Detweiler (both members of Inflatable Boy Clams), singer / guitarist Matt Heckert (Survival Research Laboratories), and bassist Stephen Wymore.
While the hallucinatory layers of male / female vocals on "Shopping" conjure images of deranged domesticity and '50s Americana gone haywire, the fractured riffs of "Midsummer New York" deconstruct Yoko Ono's original even further, stripping bare Pink Section's fondness for angular rhythms and out-of-control oscillations. Recommended for fans of Suburban Lawns, Units, and Devo. [SOURCE: SUPERIOR VIADUCT]
Known for their jangly dream pop sound, The Ocean Blue emerged out of their Pennsylvania high school in the late '80s. Drawing upon the guitar and keyboard stylings of bands like New Order and The Smiths, The Ocean Blue quickly became staples of college rock radio and MTV's 120 Minutes with albums like 1991's 'Cerulean' and 1992's 'Beneath the Rhythm and Sound'. Though the group's activity waned somewhat in the early 2000s, they continued to perform and returned in 2013 with their seventh full-length, 'Ultramarine'.
Formed in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1987, The Ocean Blue originally featured singer/guitarist David Schelzel, keyboardist Steve Lau, bassist Bobby Mittan, and temporary drummer Scott Stouffer. Friends since junior high, they came together bonding over their shared affection for bands like Echo & the Bunnymen, U2, The Smiths, and R.E.M. While still in school, they recorded several early demos that earned inclusion on local Lancaster Christian radio station WJTL's 'Preliminary Hearing' compilation album. Following the addition of drummer Rob Minnig, The Ocean Blue signed to Sire Records and within months of graduating high school issued their eponymous 1989 debut, 'The Ocean Blue'. Buoyed by the singles "Between Something and Nothing" and "Drifting, Falling", the album found favor on alternative and college rock radio, and reached the Billboard 200.
The Ocean Blue's sophomore effort, 'Cerulean', appeared in 1991 and found the band further honing their lush dream pop sound. Included on the album were the singles "Ballerina Out of Control" and "Mercury." 'Beneath the Rhythm and Sound' surfaced two years later, with the video for "Sublime" becoming an MTV favorite. The band closed out their Sire deal with the EP 'Peace and Light', which was also Lau's final recording with the group as he left to form his own Kinetic label.
Guitarist/keyboardist Oed Ronne came on board for the band's 1996 Mercury debut, 'See the Ocean Blue', which found their brand moving towards a more robust '60s guitar pop sound. Label mergers slowed the group's progress, and it would be another three years before they returned with 'Davy Jones' Locker' on their own Ocean Blue label. The album was reissued in 2001 on March Records.
While the bandmembers' jobs and family responsibilities found them taking more time away from music, they continued to stay active, playing live and working on material. In 2004, they issued the six-song EP 'Waterworks', featuring drummer Peter Anderson, who had replaced Minnig. Around 2010, they began working in earnest on studio material before returning with their first full-length in over a decade, 2013's 'Ultramarine'. The band's seventh album, 'Kings and Queens/Knaves and Thieves', arrived in 2019. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Nasal Boys were Switzerland's premiere punk band that only released a much acclaimed 7". Some of the wildest and fastest punk around in 1977. A unique and uncompromising sound that was ahead of its time -completely according to their slogan: 'Schneller, Harter, Langer' (Faster, Harder, Longer). "Hot Love" is a monster of a Swiss punk anthem while "Die Wuste Lebt" is a great song about being alive in the Swiss urban desert. In a TV interview from 1977, the band was asked why they didn't dress punky. 'We're against cliches,' the singer responded. 'Our main inspiration is U.S. punk, not U.K. punk.' Guess one can hear that. But still, the bands big break was opening up for The Clash when they played in Zurich in 1977. Shortly after, the band tried to make it big and changed their name to Expo. Former members went on to form a number of bands including Aboriginal Voices, Kraft Durch Freude, Blue China,The Bucks, several of which were highly influential bands. [SOURCE: FORCED EXPOSURE]
Mensen Blaffen is new wave band from Aalst in Belgium. They where often compared in music style to the post-modernist funk of A Certain Ratio mixed with new wave, post punk, and surrealistic dutch lyrics and beautiful female vocals. They did support-acts for bands like Virgin Prunes, Lavvi Ebbel and many others.
Mensen Blaffen was original a five-piece band and later on a band with six members.
Original members: Jan Van Den Brande (Bass Guitar), Mario Segers (Synthesizer), Sylvie Honnay (Vocals), Pascal Baeyens (Electric Guitar) and Steven Lorie (Drums).
For the first record Koen Gisen played sax as a guestmusician.
After the release of the first album Pascal Baeyens left the band. Jan Van Den Brande took over the guitar. Ludo Vervliet came in to play the bass. Eddy Valk (Edward V) joined the band with his saxophone. [SOURCE: DISCOGS]
The only way to survive living in the yuppie void of Oakville, Ontario is by burying your head deep in the intoxicating sands of imagination. For Lou Champagne this meant filling his nose with the sting of solder, his eyes with a labyrinth of circuits, his mind with resistors and his ears with a virtual synthtopia of Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, Chrisma and their analog ilk. Lou’s ‘Champagne System’ is a self-invented device that allows him to control his synths with his guitar so that he can perform as a modern day (pre-MIDI) one-man-band. The beast born of his engineering explorations, 'No Visible Means', sounds at times like a gristleized Swell Maps, at others like despondent Transparent Illusion produced by Rago & Farina. Although Lou’s vision is viewed through singular Chrome & Cristal glasses there is something in these songs that is familiar to anyone who turned to art, music and dreaming to escape the boredom of growing up surrounded by numb suburban slump. Lou’s words are just as true now as they were in 1981, “I’m like a man in a fantasy, and maybe I should just get stoned”. Throw your glass in the fireplace and gulp Lou’s brew straight from the bottle; legit reissue available from Medical Records. [SOURCE: WEIRD CANADA]
Kidd Spike was a guitarist with one of L.A.'s first punk rock outfits, The Controllers, but by 1980 he was eager to do something a little more eclectic, and he joined forces with vocalist Axxel G. Reese to form The Gears. The Gears enthusiastically embraced the fast and loud part of punk, but they also threw in dashes of surf music, garage rock, blues, and cool sounds of the '50s, and their first album, 'Rockin' at Ground Zero', is a killer blend of punk speed and fury tempered with greaser cool. Reese is a solid vocalist with plenty of swagger in his voice but no wasted affectations, while Spike's thick, gutsy guitar work and the crash-boom-bang rhythm work of bassist Brian Redz and drummer Dave Drive keep these songs in forward momentum at all times. The Gears could sing about cars, girls, and good times with tongue just slightly in cheek on tunes like "Let's Go to the Beach" and "Darlin' Baby," but "High School Girls" and "I Smoke Dope" show they weren't afraid of more dangerous pleasures. "Don't Be Afraid to Pogo" is a great (and only slightly ridiculous) punk anthem, and they chronicle one of the most infamous real-life moments in the war between L.A. punks and cops in "Elks Lodge Blues." "Teenage Brain" is angst at its most enjoyable, and "The Last Chord" and the title cut both manage to make the end of the world sound cool. 'Rockin' at Ground Zero' is good, raucous fun from an unjustly overlooked band; the rise of hardcore made bands like this seem obsolete at the dawn of the '80s, but history and this album prove these guys truly had the goods. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
One of Russia's most popular rock bands, Kino came to prominence during the Gorbachev era of glasnost and perestroika, and struck a nerve with many Soviet youths longing for a brighter, freer future. The group's legend was tragically cemented when frontman Victor Tsoi (sometimes Tsoy) was killed in a car crash in 1990, sparking a massive outpouring of grief rivaling that of icons like Kurt Cobain or John Lennon. Tsoi had formed the first version of Kino in his hometown of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) in 1981, along with Alexei Ribin and Oleg Valinsky; the group played the same venues as Boris Grebenshikov's Aquarium. This lineup debuted with 1982's '45', after which they moved to Moscow and splintered; Ribin left in 1983, leaving Tsoi to complete their second album, '46'. In 1984, Tsoi formed a new version of Kino with guitarist Yuri Kasparyan, bassist Alexander Titov, and drummer Georgi Guriyanov; they debuted on that year's 'Nachal'nik Kamchatki' ("The Manager of Kamchatka"). A performance at St. Petersburg's second annual rock festival heralded their return, and their next two albums, 1985's 'Eto Nye Lyubov' ("This Is Not Love") and 1986's 'Noch' (The Night), saw their reputation steadily growing; their sound was commensurate with American alternative rock, particularly R.E.M. and the icier side of The Cure. Tsoi began to pursue an acting career on the side in 1986, and bassist Igor Tikhoromirov eventually replaced Titov. In 1988, the band released its most polished album, 'Gruppa Krovi' ("Blood Type"), which started to increase their international audience (as did more frequent concerts outside the Soviet Union); it even got a favorable write-up in the Village Voice in America. 1989 brought 'Zvezda Po Imene Solntse' ("A Star Called Sun"), a tour of the U.S., and the group's biggest hit, "(We're Waiting For) Changes", which became an anthem for Russian youth after its appearance in the film "Assa". Unfortunately, Tsoi died in an auto accident in Riga, Latvia, on August 15, 1990. The band's unfinished album was released afterwards as 'Cherniy Albom' ("Black Album"). A wall of memorials dedicated to Tsoi still exists on Moscow's Arbat Street, and Kino's music is still highly regarded by teens all over the former Soviet Union. [SOURCE: APPLE MUSIC]
Hal McGee is an American experimental artist and producer, active since 1981. He is widely considered as one of the most important and seminal members of an early homemade cassettes musical movement in USA.
Together with Debbie Jaffe, McGee operated legendary Cause And Effect cassette label and distribution, releasing such artists as Merzbow, Nurse With Wound, Controlled Bleeding, Robert Rich, If, Bwana, Algebra Suicide and others.
In the mid 1980s McGee recorded numerous works as a member of Viscera, solo as Dog As Master, and in collaboration with If, Bwana and JABON.
In the late 1980s and early 90s McGee was operating Electronic Cottage label, simultaneously with an Electronic Cottage Magazine. This was restarted as an online zine and community in April 2018.
In the mid to late 1990s Hal McGee released dozens of cassettes of homemade experimental music, solo and in collaboration with Jeph Jerman, Brian Noring (EHI), Big City Orchestra, Emil Hagstrom (Cock E.S.P.), Charles Rice Goff III and others. Also he produced a series of "Tape Heads" cassette compilations on his own HalTapes label.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s Hal McGee started releasing homemade CDr albums. During this time he collaborated heavily with Brian Noring of the FDR Tapes, in person and via mail collaboration, and with his long-time partner Chris Phinney.
In 2003-04 Hal McGee produced the five-volume 'Quotidian Assemblages' compilation project. In 2005 he recorded and released a 2-hour video film called "The Secret Life Of Hal McGee".
In 2006, with the encouragement of Andrew Chadwick and Christopher Miller, McGee began performing live for the first time since 1987, joining the ranks of Florida's live noise/experimental music scene.
From 2014 to 2015 Hal operated a new label, Kassette Kult Tapes.
Hundreds of McGee’s solo and collaborative releases and compilations, both archival and recent (including many works created in 2012), are available for free from his official Bandcamp page. [SOURCE: DISCOGS]
Prolific and enigmatic, The Hafler Trio masterminded some of the most challenging and innovative sonic experiments of their time -defining music as simply organized sound, their unique synthesis of electronics, samples, and tape loops probed the psycho-acoustic power of noise, exploring not only its sensory effects but its physical ramifications as well. Formed in Sheffield, England, in 1980 by Cabaret Voltaire alum Chris Watson and Andrew McKenzie, The Hafler Trio were never a three-piece in any actual sense -in fact, the third member originally credited to the lineup, one Dr. Edward Moolenbeek, was (according to an interview with McKenzie in the March/April 1991 issue of Option magazine) reportedly an expert in psycho-acoustic research who edited the journal Science Review during the 1930s. Much of The Hafler Trio's mystique stems from the deliberate misinformation the group consistently set forth -although their records regularly came packaged with deluxe graphs, diagrams, and essays detailing the purported effects of sound on the listener, the scientific authenticity of their "findings" is debatable; for example, their 1984 debut, 'Bang! An Open Letter', claims to be based on the studies of an acoustic researcher named Robert Spridgeon, complete with bibliography. Spridgeon later proved to be a complete fabrication, however, and over the course of subsequent efforts, including 1985's 'Alternation, Perception and Resistance -A Comprehension Exercise EP', 1986's 'Three Ways of Saying Two -The Netherlands Lectures, and Dislocation', The Hafler Trio continued baffling audiences with a deluge of propaganda, clouding perceptions to increase the visceral impact of their music.
By 1987's double LP 'A Thirsty Fish', Watson had exited H30, leaving McKenzie the sole constant member; its follow-up, 'Intoutof', heralded a new approach, rejecting the cut-and-paste noise and abrasive drones of earlier releases in favor of a more hypnotically ethereal sound. Released in 1991, 'Kill the King' announced the beginning of a trilogy that continued on with 'Mastery of Money' and 'How to Reform Mankind'; acclaimed in many quarters as The Hafler Trio's finest work, these three records diametrically oppose the soothing, placating effects of most ambient musics -'Mastery of Money', with its extensive use of low-frequency tones, is a particularly unnerving and discomforting experience. Subsequent releases include 1992's 'Fuck' and 1994's 'One Dozen Economical Stories', a collaboration with filmmaker Peter Greenaway. In 1996, The Hafler Trio also mounted "Who Sees Goes On", a series of thematically linked limited-edition releases. In the 2000s The Hafler Trio -in essence consisting only of McKenzie plus occasional collaborators- continued to issue limited-edition releases, often in the range of 300 to 1,500 copies, including 'Hljodmynd' (2000), 'Cleave: 9 Great Openings' (2002), 'No Man Put Asunder: 7 Fruitful and Seamless Unions' (2003), 'Normally' (with Blixa Bargeld, 2003), 'Exactly as I Say' (with Jonsi Birgisson, 2004), 'If Take, Then Take: Tricks, Half-Tricks & Real Phenomena' (2005), 'Exactly as I Am' and 'Exactly as I Do' (both with Jonsi Birgisson, 2005), and '3 Eggs' (with Colin Potter and Andrew Liles, 2006). As the first decade of the new millennium drew to a close, McKenzie was reportedly living in Iceland and had stopped his involvement with CDs and (for the most part) the Internet, and The Hafler Trio website had been shut down. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Galen Herod is one of the pioneering synthesis artists of American cassette culture. From 1979 to 1982 he produced several outstanding and creative electronic tape releases which he distributed either via Eurock or by himself in the Phoenix, Arizona area. His very early tape works are dominated by abstract, austere, experimental electronics in the vein of Conrad Schnitzler, using tape loops and completely homemade synth-equipment includes oscillators, filters, and sequencers designed and built by his friend Gary Dukarich. In late 1981 he met Greg Horn and formed the successful minimal synthpop band Tone Set. [SOURCE: FORCED EXPOSURE]
