Tuesday 12 February 2008

...with a gut provided by a brewery, and bloody great SIZE TWELVE FEET...

...as promised, it's the Blubbery return of the Hellbellies.

I say return, I mean debut. But it's a return for the Mutant Rock (not the wrestling eyebrow type of Rock). It's only a mini LP, and the tracks were included on a CD re-issue of their first full-lengther (hurr hurr) Flabbergasted (which I will attend to another time. If I haven't already. I'll have to check. If I have, then I'll do Shootin' and Steamin' instead), although that too seems to be out of print these days. Anyway, here it is in all of it's slightly crackly vinyl glory.

The Blubbery Hellbellies - At Large (Upright Records; 1984)

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1 - I Don't Wanna Get Thin
2 - Perfect Woman
3 - Walk Tall
4 - Please Release Me
5 - The Green, Green Grass of Home

Big on the old accordion, At Large is possibly the most pleasing listen of the Blubbery's cruelly brief and meagre output, but that might just be the nostalgia and creaky old bones talking. After all, Flabbergasted has "Food Poisoning" on it. Still, take the (admittedly fun) near-filler off that album, and I reckon you're left with a record the size of this one. "I Don't Wanna Get Thin", a Blubbery staple, is the most typically Hellbellie on the record, but the real fun is to be had with "Perfect Woman" (not unlike "Food Poisoning", only even better) and the the two endearing and slightly shambling covers that close side two.

Because I'm a gloriously kind and munificent man, I've stuck the Hellbellies' quite simply awesome cover of "Champion the Wonder Horse" in the rar for your delectation, delight, and drug-addled demented devouring. Listen to it, be enthused, and then try and get it out of your head. You can't. It'll be there for weeks. It's like musical crack. Just don't tell Amy Winehouse, she'll be all over it like a bony, tattooed munter of a rash.

Monday 11 February 2008

Hello? Hello?

Hello! Yeah, I know. It's been forever. Soz. I do have excuses all lined up. Work has been mental. Quite literally at times, but I guess that's an occupational hazard of working with Incapacity Benefit. Also, I built me a new computer. Unfortunately, I installed Vista. Nothing unfortunate about that per se, but there is when you consider that my previous machine is XP. You try getting the little buggers to talk to each other. No, didn't think so. All my lovingly prepared music, therefore, resides on the other machine, not this. I guess I could just use the other one, couldn't. But then, what would have been the point of all the time, money and effort on this? Answer me that, Brainstein.

Yeah, so basically I'm a lazy little toad and I've been doing stuff. Also, I've been giving thought to the whole direction of this thing. Whilst there has always been a rather hearty Garage-type presence in the Blogiverse, Blogtinent, Blogland, whatever (damn you Blogosphere, I WILL come up with a better term), I've noticed a distinct upsurge in ones dealing with the type of trash I've tried to carve a tiny, fetid internet niche for here. Consequently, several of my lovingly prepared vinyl adventures have been rendered redundant by the big bastard elsewhere of the internets (I could point you in their direction I guess, but hey, you're all worldly netsubjects (damn you netizens, I WILL come up with a better term), you've probably all been there a million times or more (they will start appearing in the links, though. They're places I like run by thoroughly trashtastic seeming folk, so I reckon you should probably go and marvel all over their sites). Where was I going with this? Well, I confused myself briefly, but I've remembered now so I shall tell you. But I will do so in a separate paragraph, as this one is getting distinctly crowded.

New paragraph! So yeah, there'll still be the trash of the kind I've been purveying so far (probably a little more of the Psycho, something still underserved by Blogbourhood (it's not working, is it)), but I'll probably start introducing a wider range of deserving mutiedom. Basically, if it strikes me as sufficiently mutated for my ears, then it'll go on my blog. This may involve the occasional massive riff, so don't say you haven't been warned. It'll all be bloody good, though.

Oh, and it will definitely involve anything else I have by the Blubbery Hellbellies, you can count on that (comments are the way forward. I'm a right sucker for them).