Edible Fetus

No mas...

2006-04-24T19:39:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I'm done. Not that anyone'll really give a rat's ass, but I found doing a blog to be very tedious...I have decided to post in the forums I post in and concentrate on my other on-line venture - my adult site. At least for now, that seems to be taking a shitload of time to get off the ground. So, I'll see ya when I see ya. It's been real.

Venom - Possessed

2006-02-28T06:50:00.000-05:00

I remember buying this LP (yes, as in record) when it came out and I can also remember how much I loved it. 20+ years later and I still rank this as one of the most influential metal albums in my life.

There has always been this raging debate about whether this album sucks or not, with most people saying it does. Even guitarist Mantas has expressed displeasure with this album.

I disagree.

No, it's probably not as good as "Black Metal" or "At War With Satan," but "Possessed" has some really stellar moments which I feel are tooo often overlooked in favor of just bashing the album outright. "Satanachist" is superb, the title track is downright spooky in a lo-fi way and "Suffer Not The Children" still ranks as one of my favorite Venom anthems of all time.

Perhaps the fact that all of Venom's little children of the day - Slayer, Metallica, Exodus, Megadeth, etc. - were releasing albums at the same time as "Possessed" that Venom just couldn't keep up with. Venom was minimalist metal - their admitted lack of individual talent being made up for in collective brutality - and the aforementioned spawn were all quite technical...the metal world was shifting and Venom got lost in the shift...sadly I feel that "Possessed" was one of the great overlooked casualties in the rise of the new breed of metal.

Well, judge for yourself. This is the re-release with bonus tracks. Props to ChaosAD on Evil's Metal Vault forum for requesting this post and making me revisit one of my favorite albums of all time.

1. Powerdrive

2. Flytrap

3. Satanachrist

4. Burn This Place To The Ground

5. Harmony Dies

6. Possesed

7. Hellchild

8. Moonshine

9. Wing And A Prayer

10. Suffer Not The Children

11. Voyeur

12. Mustique

13. Too Loud (For The Crowd)

14. Nightmare (12'' Mix)

15. F.O.A.D. (12'' B-Side)

16. Warhead (12'' B-Side)

17. Possessed (Remix)

18. Witching Hour (Live)

19. Teachers Pet/ Poison/ Teachers Pet (Live)

{I killed this link because some scumbag with a blog who can't be bothered to upload his own albums pulled a cut and paste. One note: UPLOAD YOUR OWN FUCKING ALBUMS YOU LAZY DOUCHEBAG.

Motorhead LIVE!

2006-02-26T15:46:00.000-05:00

Back in the day, during the "Operation Rock 'N Roll" our with Motorhead, Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, Dangerous Toys and Metal Church, I was fortunate enough to score backstage passes at Great Woods in Mansfield, Mass. I was absofuckinglutely psyched and looking forward to meeting the Priest guys, Cooper and, of course, Lemmy.

So, I go backstage and, lo and behold, no Cooper or Priest. I looked aorund in disappointment at the B-Team I was left with (no offense to Church and Toys, I loved and love ye both, but let's face it, you were no Judas Priest) and then, out of the corner of my eye I caught a welcome glimpse of Lemmy Fucking K!!! He was sitting at a table beneath an umbrella, drink and smoke in hand and was, by far, one of the nicest, most amiable folks I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I came away with no Priest or Cooper autographs, but I did (and still have) go away with a picture of myself with Lemmy.

Rock And Fucking Roll...

This is a bootleg with an odd set list from 1983 at the Sheffield University on June 9....

Enjoy.
http://rapidshare.de/files/14210389/MH-Live_In_Sheffield_1983-1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/14212522/MH-Live_In_Sheffield_1983-2.zip

Ronnie James Motherfucking Dio!!!!

2006-02-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

Nobody is more metal than RJD...NOBODY. Ozzy's more Rock 'N' Roll, Rob Halford is....well, you know. Lemmy might've had a shot, but then came that unfortunate quote of his claiming that he liked Ozyy better post-Sabbath than he did whilst Ozzy was fronting Sabbath - and that's just dumb.

So, we are left with lil' ol' Dio. Even though I gave up on him sometime around 1990, Dio continues to amaze me, especially since he is humping 50 now and still has the pipes to pull off the classics...if you've heard his most recent DVD, you know of what I speak.

Anyway, I came across a good Dio boot and an audio rip (both from the 80s-era Dio) and figured they warranted a post here on the Fetus. Do enjoy.

First up is the audio rip to the Dio video (as in VHS) "A Special At The Spectrum" from 1984...the tracklist for this bad boy is:

1) Stand Up And Shout
2) Don't Talk To Strangers
3) Mystery
4) Egypt
5) Heaven And Hell
6) The Last In Line
7) Rainbow In The Dark
8) Mob Rules
9) We Rock
I killed this (see the Venom post above)

Second up is a 1983 Bootleg from Vrendenberg...the set list for this would be:
1) Intro
2) Stand Up And Shout
3) Straight Through The Heart
4) Shame On The Night
5) Children Of The Sea
6) Holy Diver
7) Drum Solo
8) Stargazer
9) Heaven And Hell
10) Guitar Solo
11) Heaven And Hell (reprise)
12) Rainbow In The Dark
13) Man On The Silver Mountain
14) Startstruck
15) Man On The Silver Mountain (reprise)
16) Evil Eyes
17) Don't Talk To Strangers

As you can see, this is right before "The Last In Line" and thusly concentrates on Dio's earlier and pre-solo materials...

I killed this (see the Venom post above)

Venom - 7th Date Of Hell

2006-02-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

Ah...Venom. There will always be a dumb-ass debate about what band "created" what form of Metal and what band falls into what category and all that other happy horseshit. Who cares, really? No matter what your position is on any of these arguments, there can be no denying that the U.K.'s proudest Satanic sons are at the head of the class. Before they were plagued by line-up changes and general stupidity, Venom ruled the roost in my opinion. And this video (the audio rip of which is featured here,) was absolutely killer.

I'm not sure where the last two songs came from, as the video ends after "Bloodlust," I believe, but they're pretty great versions, so they stayed in my upload. Enjoy...

1 "Leave Me in Hell"
2 "Countess Bathory"
3 "Die Hard"
4 "7 Gates of Hell"
5 "Buried Alive"
6 "Don't Burn the Witch"
7 "In Nominie Satanus"
8 "Welcome to Hell"
9 "Warhead"
10 "Stand Up (And Be Counted)"
11 "Bloodlust"
12 "Witching Hour"
13 "Teacher's Pet"
http://rapidshare.de/files/12867603/7th_Date_Of_Hell_VHS_Audio-1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/12922789/7th_Date_Of_Hell_VHS_Audio-2.zip

The Freeze - Token Bones - Cape Cod-core

2005-11-16T20:25:00.000-05:00

Ok, now that I got my Matisyahu post out of the way, I can get back to the business of doing this big-assed run of Boston punk/hardcore. First up is the wonder and beauty that is The Freeze. Since starting out playing in lovely Cape Cod in the '80s (their first single, "I Hate Tourists," accurately captured many full-time Cape Cod resident's feelings, especially during the traffic-heavy summer months,) The Freeze continue to play to this day, albeit with only one original member.

This collection covers their whole career, from the comewhat sloppy, but undeniably inspired early days to the more metallic, yet still very good "Misery Loves Company" era plus everything between and beyond...try them, you'll like it!

http://rapidshare.de/files/7559724/Freeze_-_Token_Bones1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/7559538/Freeze_-_Token_Bones2.zip

Matisyahu - Live At Stubb's

2005-11-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

Hasidic-hop?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Ok, I've heard pretty much everything in my day and very little gets me really excited nowadays (at least musically.) That being said, this CD absolutely stunned me (and continues to do so) from listen one. The live version of "King Without A Crown" on this release is totally incredible. As is the "Beatbox" jam. As is "Sea To Sea." As is nearly everything on it.

If you know nothing about Matisyahu when you listen to this, the vocals alone are enough to give you pause. Peter Tosh's smoothness meets Eminem's frantic wordplay and the resulting child is near-genius. Add to this the oddness that Matisyahu (the singer) is Hasidic and you have quite the enigmatic soon-to-be-superstar. Really. This will be huge in a couple of years. My wife and I are going to see him live in Boston the day after Christmas making Matisyahu the first musical act we can agree on. Enough said.

Code:

http://rapidshare.de/files/7739174/Matisyahu-Live_At_Stubbs1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/7739207/Matisyahu-Live_At_Stubbs2.zip

This Is Boston, Not L.A.

2005-11-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

I couldn't think of any album more fitting to start this monster thread of Boston punk/hardcore/metal than the phenomenal compilaiton, "This Is Boston, Not L.A." Featuring eraly-career tracks from such Boston punk/HC luminaries as Gang Green, The F.U.'s (later to become the Straw Dogs,) Jerry's Kids, and The Freeze among others, "This Is Boston..." served as the defining moment in the very early Boston scene.

The following review was written and posted online by someone who has a great grasp of what this album meant to people when it dropped. FYI - this is a review of the original vinyl release from '82. The rip here is from the CD re-released by Wicked Discs. The re-release also contained the "Unsafe At Any Speed" EP, which accounts for the extra songs at the end of this upload:

"You know those moments in your life when you experience something for the first time and you think to yourself, “Wow! This is amazing! I like this so much I’m going to ______ for the rest of my life!” Now unless the ______ you’re filling in is “shoot heroin” or “listen to my talking dog” this is usually a positive development. It happened to me when I first met my wife. And when I first went steelhead fishing. But my very first life changing experience, the first time I knew that things would never be the same, I was much younger….

Becoming Punk

I was 13 in 1985. I remember that summer more clearly than any other time in my childhood. ’85 in Boston was a very hot summer. When I close my eyes now and think back, I can almost smell the melting asphalt of the streets that I would race down on my fat, bright green, Sears-bought skateboard. I can see the broken glass on the sidewalk glinting in the sun and hear the static skit-skit-skit of the wheels beneath me.

I’m not a very sociable person, never have been, but at 13 I was feeling particularly alone. That summer my older brother Ed, who I usually hung out with, had gone off and got himself a job scooping ice cream at J.P. Licks. With no one to hang out with my days were spent cruising around the city streets on my cheap skateboard and sitting at home in the air conditioning figuring out how to use my parents old TRS-80 Model 3.

One day my brother brought home a very strange looking kid that he worked with at the ice cream shop. I knew he was from my bother’s job because he worked in Cambridge and there is a lot of weird looking people in Cambridge. We were introduced and I leaned that his name was Rusty. Rusty Nails. Rusty had brought a bunch of records with him that he was lending my brother. They both disappeared upstairs to Ed’s room and soon I heard the muffled sound of music and my brother’s god awful bass playing filtering down through the floor.

The next day I sneaked into my brother’s room to peruse his minute collection of old porn mags and found Rusty’s pile of records sitting in the middle of the floor. I was curious as to what kind of music interested someone who looked so much different (and cooler) than the people in my neighborhood. Up to this point music wasn’t really important to me, it was just something that provided background noise to whatever activity I was involved in. Listening to music was not an activity in and of itself.

I pushed the records around in front of me, fanning them out like a deck of cards. I played the records one by one from the top of the pile down. Looking back now I realize that Rusty had some pretty eclectic taste in music, everything from Echo and the Bunnymen to Fishbone. I liked most of it, especially the funny stuff, but I’d hit a slump of three or four slow goth albums and was quickly getting bored. Deciding to give Rusty’s music one more shot before I went out skateboarding I reached for This is Boston Not L.A. and experienced the mystical revelation that is Punk Rock.

My jaw dropped and the hair on the back of my head stood up as flailing guitars and screeching feedback turned me into a new person. 30 second songs filled with chaos and immediacy poured out from my brother’s cheap speakers and into my ears, entering my brain and changing me forever. I felt the metamorphosis come over me as I slowly became charged with this vital energy. I thought to myself, “Wow! This is amazing! I’m going to listen to punk rock for the rest of my life!”

The Record

I didn’t know it then, but I was listening to some of the finest hardcore punk rock ever created.

With the success of other regional punk scene compilations like Flex Your Head and Process of Elimination, the Boston record and comics store Newbury Comics decided to release their own comp., documenting the bands who made up the Boston hardcore scene of the time. This is Boston Not L.A. was the 12th release on Newbury’s label, Modern Method, having been recorded in 1982, a time when the sound of American punk/hardcore was still evolving. This diversity of style is well represented in the artists selected in the compilation. Some of these bands have talent and some do not, but they all have something to say. Remember, these bands were young and raw, the average band member age in Gang Green on this recording is 15.

There are thirty tracks in all, from seven different bands. If you care, the average time on these songs is about minute each.

The Songs

Jerry’s Kids have the first six songs:

1. Straight Jacket
2. Uncontrollable
3. Wired
4. Desperate
5. Pressure
6. I don’t wanna

Jerry’s Kids play with a full-on sloppy/fast hardcore style reminiscent of Minor Threat or a sped up Circle Jerks. The songs are short, with simple to the point lyrics. The stand out cut here “Uncontrollable” about how much it sucks to be the unpopular kid no one wants to be around. The singing is so full of anger, the lyrics are almost choked out instead of sung. Like most of the bands here, if it wasn’t for the lyric sheet I’d be lost. Jerry’s Kids were never known for being the most talented band in Boston, but the ferocity of their playing and the desperate, emotionally raw sound they generated, created some of the most “punk” music I’ve ever heard.

Proletariat

7. Options
8. Religion is the opium of the masses
9. Allegiance

Proletariat are the odd men out on this record. A highly political leftist/communist band they sound more like the British punk of the time than anything coming out of the US. Their stand out song is “Religion is the opium of the masses”, a rallying cry to enlightenment and a wake up call to people following church dogma like sheep. Not technically hardcore, this is still good, sparse sounding punk rock reminiscent of non-ska Citizen Fish.

Groinoids

10. Angel

The Groinoids have only one song on This is Boston not LA, but it’s still a good representation of garage punk. Played fast but very sloppy, with lyrics that make no sense at all, The Groinoids are probably the most forgettable band on here. Maybe if I’d ever heard more of their stuff I might feel different, but I was never compelled to search that out.

The FU’s

11. Preskool dropouts
12. Radio UNIX USA
13. Green beret
14. Time is money

The FU’s were an amazing and influential hardcore band from Boston who put out quite a few excellent records. Sounding a lot like bands from the early New York scene the FU’s blazed through their minute long songs with a thumping double time put down by a unusually talented drummer. Their stand out cut is Radio UNIX USA, a song which encapsulates all that punk and hardcore music was created to rally against.

Gang Green

15. Snob
16. Lie Lie
17. I don’t know
18. Rabies
19. Narrow Mind
20. Kill a commie
21. Have fun

How can I describe the God-like punk rock experience that is these seven songs from Gang Green? Blazingly fast on all fronts, with a lead singer forcing his voice to do things no human throat should be forced to endure, these Gang Green songs ALL stand out. If I were to play this record for someone with absolutely no exposure to hardcore, they would recognize that what is happening with this band transcends the intensity of anything else they’ve heard. Speed, intensity and cohesive song structure are the traits that put Gang Green in a class all their own. All of these songs clock in at under 35 seconds, most with 2 to 3 second insane guitar solos. From the initial blast of feedback to the final chord played Gang Green never lets up. If I had to pick a favorite song I’d have to say “Rabies”, but really they are all better than 99% of all the other punk rock music ever made.

Decadance

22. Slam

Decadance also have only the one song here, but it’s a classic nonetheless. Remember when slam dancing and the mosh pit weren’t parts of the popular lexicon? Back before the days of football jocks making football field sized pits at Woodstock? Well, that’s what this one’s all about. A little dated now, but if you close your eyes and listen closely, you can still hear the honesty in this song. LA style mid-tempo hardcore that gets you ready to Move some SH!theads Over.

The Freeze

23. Broken Bones
24. Idiots at happy hour
25. Now or never
26. Sacrifice not suicide
27. It’s only alcohol
28. Trouble if you hide
29. Time bomb
30. This is Boston not LA

The Freeze are probably the most musically talented band represented here. Known for writing longer songs (up to 1minute :30!) with clever, story based lyrics, they played some of the best punk rock loser anthems ever recorded. Their songs are about racism, townie-ism, and narrow minds. Finest among them is "Broken Bones", a rousing sing-a-long about being the only weird kid at the party and what pea-brained drunks will do to prove their man-hood. With an amazing rhythm section, The Freeze drop seven golden gems of punk rock goodness. Of all the bands on this compilation, The Freeze were the one band who would go on to continue recording relevant music. If you pick this up and like their stuff go get “Token Bones” the Freeze retrospective, it’s an excellent overview of their music.

The Lowdown

Sitting down in front of my brother’s stereo with that pile of records during that hot summer afternoon in Boston was the first time I ever heard music that forced me to listen, music that would never allow itself to become just background noise. It changed my life forever. If you are at all interested in early 80’s punk/hardcore and have never head This is Boston Not LA, drop what you’re doing and go get it. You’ve been missing a classic.

If you’re into today’s music, nu metal (bizkit) or pop-punk (blink182) and are not hopelessly narrow-minded pick up this comp and get educated.

With that I’ll leave you with a snippet of the lyrics from The FU’s song Radio UNIX USA. This pretty much sums up what punk rock means to me…

I wish I was a man like you
I wish I could look so bad
As you sing all your hit songs
‘bout all the sex you’ve ever had.

Your riffs are so mean and professionally clean,
I’m impressed with all your preteen groupies,
And how you really know how to rock.
I’m impressed with all the money you’ve made,
Sucking record executive c*cks.

Your riffs are so mean and professionally clean,
So tight-@ssed controlled are your five minute solos,
But you’ve got,

NO BALLS, NO BALLS, NO BALLS, NO BALLS! (X8) "

The only issue I have with the above review is the author's assertation that The Freeze is the only band that went on to record anything relevant. I think that statement is not only untrue, but borderline idiotic. Gang Green released the genuis "Another Wasted Night," The F.U.'s released "My America" and then became The Straw Dogs and released a couple of killer albums and Jerry's Kids would go on to release "Is This My World?" which I think is one of the best Boston HC albums to come out...not to mention that members from these bands went on to play with such bands as Agnostic Front and Mung. I think a sweeping statement on a band's musical "relevance" is ill-founded, especially in such an otherwise killer review.

Get this.

http://rapidshare.de/files/7546445/Boston_Not_LA1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/7546567/Boston_Not_LA2.zip

The heavier side of Beantown...

2005-11-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

Ok, so iunex at the skafunk board asked for some Tree and it got me thinking about how incredible the punk/hardcore/metal scene used to be in Boston back in the day. I can remember being able to see two or three shows in a single day - all-ages afternoon show at the Paradise, then a late-afternoon show at TT The Bears and then a night show at a YMCA gym. Those were the days. Now, you're hard pressed to find anything going on in the Boston/Cambridge area at all.

Anyway, after getting the Tree upped and posted, I figured I'd start on a grand undertaking and upload a shitload of Boston acts and do a massive bunch of posts for everyone. I started today and want to get at least 75% of my planned uploads done before I share with anyone. I encourage you to listen and then go out and buy these - most are released via small, independant labels by bands that could really use and benefit from the sales. Most bands which will be featured are defunct (or should be at this point,) but all of them hold a special place in my blackened heart.

Without blowing the whole load at once, I will tell you that some bands which will be featured in this on-going post are: Post Mortem, Sam Black Church, Stompbox, Mung, Jerry's Kids, Gang Green, SSD, High Defiance, Roadsaw, as well as a bunch of killer comps. featuring Boston area bands...keep checking back, it'll be a monumental bitch of a post run.

Leonard Cohen

2005-11-11T01:17:00.000-05:00

Ah, good old Leonard Cohen...he of the eerie voice over the eerie music which has complemented movies a-plenty such as "Natural Born Killers." Here are two offerings from master-poet, monotone genius Cohen, "Songs From A Room" and "Death Of A Ladies Man."

First, an Amazon.com user review of "Songs From A Room":

I once spent the whole of a night in Vancouver, B.C. filling a small apartment with balloons as a gift to the woman I lived with at the time. I imagined her delight at opening the door to find the rooms crowded with inconvenient color. But she didn't come home that night.

Leonard Cohen's Songs From A Room played continuously until the sun rose. It was a perfect Cohen moment: pathetic but also comical, lonely but not altogether lost, in turn full of bright buoyant images and pale, creeping light.

He likes his rooms more spartan, but he would have appreciated the irony: Cohen's heroes often balance on a knife edge between sacrifice and suspicion; ready to give it all up for love one moment, and caught in wry resignation the next.

Although overshadowed by its haunting predecessor, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room is probably my favorite of Leonard's albums. It is - unbelievably - more personal than the first. It seems to begin and end in resolute introspection. As Cohen fans may agree, one almost wonders after living with his songs for years whether Leonard wrote them and sang them for you, or whether you wrote them and gave them to him - so much do they become a magnetic North for our own emotional compasses. In Songs Leonard seems to explore every human relationship: that of lovers certainly ("Tonight Will Be Fine"), but also father and son ("Story of Isaac," "The Butcher"), patriot and country ("The Partisan," "The Old Revolution"), and ambiguous, erotic friendship ("Seems So Long Ago, Nancy").

In this album more than in any other, one of Cohen's most consistent themes repeats: that of the revolutionary. Specifically, how revolutionaries embody an awkward convergence of the saintly, the solitary, and the social. As the heroine in "Joan of Arc" (Songs of Love and Hate, 1971) declares,"..."I'm tired of the war,/I want the kind of work I had before,/a wedding dress or something white..." Like Joan, these heroes are often betrayed by the forces they fight for, and they tend to disillusionment. "I fought in the old revolution/," sings the narrator of "The Old Revolution", "on the side of the ghost and the King./Of course I was very young/and I thought that we were winning/I can't pretend I still feel very much like singing/as they carry the bodies away." To what does the song refer? The Vietnam War? Rock and Roll? It doesn't matter. We know what it feels like.

Love is a revolutionary act. It may overturn countries, or it may not. But it does overturn us.

The sixties saw the appearance of a phenomenon called the "singer-songwriter." We were told that in the best of their work, popular singers were writing and singing poetry. Only a bare handful - among them Paul Simon and Bob Dylan - were legitimate contenders. Leonard Cohen, despite the self-consciousness of his early work, will join Dylan as the best of these. Stack any line of Yeats against this from "The Stranger Song:" "And while he talks his dreams to sleep/you notice there's a highway/that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder..." (Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1968). The image in its compactness chills.

In "The Butcher" the protagonist comes upon a man slaughtering a lamb only to recognize that the butcher is his father. We are always at the mercy of what we love, Cohen seems to say. And betrayal is just around the corner when we dare to love - whether it is a country or a woman. But in the end, however pointless the exercise seems - like a roomful of balloons - we sometimes find ourselves surrounded by beauty. I recall that when Jennifer Warnes put out Famous Blue Raincoat, a compilation of Cohen's songs, the master himself seemed astonished that in her mouth his songs were so "beautiful." They are beautiful, Leonard. They're just not pretty.

http://rapidshare.de/files/7424313/Leonard_Cohen-Songs_From_A_Room.zip

And now a RollingStone.com review of "Death Of A Ladies' Man":

When I first met Leonard Cohen, he was telling a good friend of mine that his mother was seriously ill. My friend, whose father had recently died, was so moved by Cohen's mesmerizing familial compassion that she quietly began to cry. Seeing this, Cohen jumped up, left the room and quickly returned with his famous blue raincoat. "Please cry on this," he said. "It soaks up the tears." And you wonder why I like Leonard Cohen.

Unfortunately, the tales surrounding Cohen's seventh album, Death of a Ladies' Man, produced by the once-famous but lately infamous Phil Spector, are neither poetic nor kind, and the LP probably has fewer admirers than buyers. Cohen himself, though he feels the songs are unusually strong, has expressed severe dissatisfaction with the record. Spector, it seems, simply took what the singer felt were tapes still in progress, kept them under lock and key, mixed them like a solitary mad genius and released the album without bothering to consult with his artist. Not everyone likes a surprise, but Cohen has both dealt out and dealt with enough superromantic irony in his lifetime to walk through it as if it were a fine spring rain.

With such a history, it's fitting that Death of a Ladies' Man more than lives up to its notoriety. It's either greatly flawed or great and flawed — and I'm betting on the latter. Though too much of the record sounds like the world's most flamboyant extrovert producing and arranging the world's most fatalistic introvert, such assumptions can be deceiving. To me, both men would seem to belong to that select club of lone-wolf poets, Cohen haunted by new skin and old ceremonies and Spector by the reverse. While the latter apparently begs to differ with most of the contemporary world, the former has been known to defer to amatory begging to gain all the experience he possibly can from the sisterly sea around us. Both these guys know what fame and longing are.

But it's silly to take sides about this LP because so much of it is first-rate. Contrary to popular opinion, Leonard Cohen's lyrics, arguably the best in rock & roll, are easily decipherable through the calliopean claustrophobia of Phil Spector's sometimes-padded wall of sound. Actually, except for the very minor "Don't Go Home with Your Hard-On" (a rather pointless wallow in raunch) and "Fingerprints" (wrongheaded country music), Spector displays a good deal of sensitivity toward a type of material (chansons, for want of a better word) with which he's never worked. Though his rock & roll hits were often delicate and deliberate mixtures of the simple and the grandiose, it was usually the music that was grandiose, not the words. With Cohen, everything's the other way around.

A self-taught singer, Leonard Cohen can get by with six strings and a homemade melody if he has to, but his words are so moody and complex you can't tell up from down, implosion from explosion. Yet Spector's melodies, arrangements and production generally swim rather than sink, and though he provides an unusually dense aural fog (some thirty musicians and seventeen backup singers) for Cohen's inner storms, no one gets run over here because of lack of vision. (Who knows, "Death of a Ladies' Man" might turn up someday on an album of Phil Spector's greatest hits.)

While Spector's contributions to Death of a Ladies' Man are anything but lethal ("Memories" is an effective doo-wop nightmare), Cohen's are still the kiss to build the dream on—if you can get to sleep at all after hearing "Iodine" and "Paper-Thin Hotel." The latter is one of his double-edged, liberation-and-revenge songs about infidelity and a cheated lover's claim of lack of jealousy ("A heavy burden lifted from my soul/I learned that love was out of my control"). Then, as the vocal begins to turn murderous ("I felt so good I couldn't feel a thing"), you realize the lover hasn't been telling the truth. Then you realize he has been. It's like thinking back to the beginning of one's great failed romance or thinking ahead toward the inevitable finish of what is now sublime: after a while, you don't want to, but what else is there? ("What happened to you, lover?" someone asks the singer on "I Left a Woman Waiting." "What happened to my eyes/Happened to your beauty," he answers. "What happened to your beauty/Happened to me.")

"Death of a Ladies' Man," one of Cohen's finest songs, is a seriocomic marvel that leaves you either anticipating great adventure or wondering if you've just had it. A man and a woman fall in love, and eventually the more realistic woman completely trashes the poor, romantic man, taking everything, including his sexual identity. ("The last time that I saw him/He was trying hard to get/A woman's education/But he's not a woman yet.") The song's incredible last verse manages to be terrifying, funny and philosophically awesome, all at the same time. It's about life and love and could serve as an epitaph for most of us sharing this planet:

So the great affair is over
But whoever would have guessed
It would leave us all so vacant
And so deeply unimpressed
It's like our visit to the moon
Or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing
If you really want to go that far.
—By Phil Spector and Leonard Cohen. ?? 1977, Stranger Music, Inc. Back to Mono Music Inc. (RS 258)

http://rapidshare.de/files/7424407/Leonard_Cohen-Death_Of_A_Ladies_Man.zip

Waylon Jennings - Right For The Time

2005-11-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

Time for some country in this schizophrenic stew I'm cooking up here at the Fetus. DOn't know why, just feel like it. Anyway, this is outlaw country the way outlaw country should be. Done on an independant label, "Right For The Time" is a great testament to Jennings' talent and is free of the trappings of "proper" country. Further review from AMG:

"Waylon Jennings' later albums have consistently been more interesting than those of most others from his aging generation, and Right for the Time -- his first for his new label, Justice Records -- is one of his strongest of the '80s and '90s. His voice is rich and beautiful, his arrangements are spare and casual, and his songs explore life, love, and dreams with honesty and wisdom. He waxes nostalgic for small-town life on "Cactus Texas" and mixes bitter sentiments with a snap-crackle wit on "Kissing You Goodbye." Never shy about his feelings, Waylon again comments (as he has on recent albums) on the "new hats" in country music, doing so with good-natured sarcasm on the spoken word acoustic song "Living Legends, Pt. 2." ~ Kurt Wolff, All Music Guide"

http://rapidshare.de/files/7335184/Waylon_Jennings_-_Right_For_The_Time.zip

Sober Thoughts

2005-11-07T22:43:00.000-05:00

My uncle died Wednesday and we buried him today. He was just over 24 years sober when he died. In the course of those 24 years, he helped MANY people (including myself,) get sober, stay sober and change their lives. Generally for the better.

He was a power of example to me because he showed me that people can be good. Humanity wasn't dead, it had just been trapped beneath a landslide of apathy. Once you began to care about another person unconditionally, when your only concern is to help without glory or reward, then you begin to show signs of life and, more importantly, of living. He did this daily and I can only hope to emulate 1/10 of one percent of what he did.

I loved him a lot and am eternally indebted to him for offering me his experience, strength and hope in my own battle to recover from the clutches of alcoholism and drug addiction. I will miss him greatly and will do my best to carry on his message of hope and healing to another alcoholic in need.

Buddy Guy - Stone Crazy

2005-11-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

This is, hands down, my favorite blues album of ALL TIME. Buddy Guy beats the living shit out of you on this CD. I can't say it any better than this review from muze:

"STONE CRAZY! is one of the real landmark blues guitar recordings. The powerful, (seemingly) out-of-control blues leads of Buddy Guy, scream and roar and rumble all up and down the groove. Influential guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan all point to Guy as a major mover in terms of their own stylistic breakthroughs.
STONE CRAZY! is a benchmark by which to judge Buddy Guy`s contributions to the blues. On performances like "I Smell A Rat" and "Outskirts of Town" the listener is propelled along a roller coaster ride of emotions, as Guy`s fierce attack and screaming tone mark him as one of the great electric blues virtuosos in the Chicago style. And on song after song, his fervent vocals match the epic, manic intensity of his guitar playing, making STONE CRAZY! one of the definitive desert island discs in the blues idiom."

'Nuff said...check this shit out!

http://rapidshare.de/files/7330824/Buddy_-_Stone_Crazy.zip

Mass - New Birth

2005-11-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

Sweet hair metal. Mass was, in my humble opinion, one of the most underrated of the 80s-era "hair" metal bands. Perhaps I'm jaded because they're from my home state, but they absolutely rocked. "New Birth" was, by far, the heaviest of Mass' releases, the absolutely horrendous "Do You Love Me?" notwithstanding.

This is a vinyl rip, because this has never been released on CD. I went on a search through CD Tracker and found someone who had this and we traded (CDRs even, very "old school" huh?). The rip is a good one and the CD f-ing rocks. Against all odds (and perhaps against all advice,) this band is still around, though I have head absolutely nothing from them in many many moons.

Mass - New Birth
http://rapidshare.de/files/6131359/Mass-New_Birth1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/6131376/Mass-New_Birth2.zip

Dark Angel - Classic American Thrash

2005-11-07T18:48:00.000-05:00

Ah, Dark Angel. Someone requested some for the skafunk MetalFest and I promised I'd upload a bunch. So I did. Now I'm tired of waiting for the Fest and figured I'd start this bitch off right.

I remember seeing Dark Angel opening for Possessed back in the day at The Paradise in Boston. They rocked and my friends and I got to head back to their hotel and have some dinner with them and listen to their stories about Kerry King hanging out at the mall in L.A. Good times.

Still, after all this time, Dark Angel kick ass. I've upped and posted most of their discography here...

Dark Angel - Gonna Burn Demo
http://rapidshare.de/files/6811528/Dark_Angel_-_Gonna_Burn_demo.zip

Dark Angel - We Have Arrived
http://rapidshare.de/files/6854069/Dark_Angel_-_We_Have_Arrived.zip

Dark Angel - Darkness Descends
http://rapidshare.de/files/6811992/Dark_Angel_-_Darkness_Descends.zip

Dark Angel - Leave Scars
http://rapidshare.de/files/6812023/Dark_Angel_-_Leave_Scars.zip

Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal
http://rapidshare.de/files/6812016/Dark_Angel_-_Time_Does_Not_Heal1.zip
http://rapidshare.de/files/6853822/Dark_Angel_-_Time_Does_Not_Heal2.zip

Welcome to the Fetus!

2005-11-07T18:02:00.000-05:00

Hey all...welcome to Grandrev's Edible Fetus Blog...here I will bore you with some random musings, share with you some random music and point you to some random silliness. If I offend you with anything I say, sorry and tough shit. If I post something you enjoy, please let me know. My interests (especially musical,) vary greatly so one post could be all Slayer, the next could be Enya. Get used to it.

Also, if oyu know of anything I may enjoy, please fill me in. That's all for now. Peace out.