Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I guess Drew Carey was right..

...about Cleveland rocking, that is. Here's a compilation I found that provides a pretty good snapshot of the Cleveland proto-punk scene in the early 70's and three of its best groups (Mirrors, electric eels, and the Styrenes.)

We'll be playing some of this on Society's Fault this week, but here's the whole thing. Mirrors is kind of like later Velvet Underground, the Styrenes have an almost Syd Barrett-feel to them, and the eels are just fucked. If you're not familiar with this group, they're definitely worth hearing even despite never cutting any 'actual' records (almost all of their recordings are practice-space demos recorded through a busted PA head.) The group only played about 6 shows, each one ending in multiple arrests/being banned from the club, and they eventually put each other in the hospital and broke up. Yup. Violent fuckin' dudes. The music is something like early punk rock filtered through backwoods-free-jazz...I dunno. It's weird stuff.

Those Were Different Times - Cleveland 1972-1976

Tracklist:

Mirrors
1. Annie
2. How Could I
3. You Me Love
4. Living Without You
5. Beaver Girls
6. Frustration
7. Hands in My Pockets
8. Sweet Refrain
9. I'm Goin' to Wyoming
10. We'll See

electric eels
11. Safety Week
12. Wreck and Roll
13. Splitterty Splat
14. Stucco
15. Circus Highlights
16. Now
17. You Crummy Fags
18. Mustard
19. The Big O
20. No Nonsense
21. Spinach Blasters
22. Flapping Jets

Styrenes
23. Thirty Four
24. Draw the Curtain
25. Mr. Crab
26. You're Trash
27. Pleasure Boating
28. Grey Haired Rats
29. Nineteen Sixty Seven

DOWNLOAD

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