Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column’s theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetic ally through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren’t household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 5^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

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DESTROY ALL MONSTERS “Typical Girl”/”Attack Of The Chiggers” (no label flexi-disc, 1997): Slow slimy sludge-shtup shtick shtuck to the bottom of some sadistic prison guard’s big boot, from Ann Arbor post-Stooge proto-punk avant-garage performance-art legends, allegedly recording live in ’75; the flexi apparently came inside a zine the band put out several eras later. “Typical Girl” addresses its nastiness, in ways sickos may have found erotic, to an unnamed “little girl”: “I know you so good like the back of my hand.” “You look like everyone else! You’ve got no self respect!”  “You’re so typical like all the rest/ That’s why I like my baby the best.” At least he can’t be accused of high standards. A woman gets pulled onto the stage, sounds like, and starts squealing, “Don’t touch me! Get him out of here!,” then gasping amidst rubbing noises from a sax, or saw, or strings, or something. Maybe it’s staged, maybe it isn’t, but either way you get the idea you’re hearing something you shouldn’t. Second song is even slower, with a more distanced vocal; guy yells out “attack of the chiggers!” as guitar makes itchy chigger-attack sounds. On purpose or not, the “ch” word might easily be confused for an “n” word. (www.myspace.com/destroyallmonstersdetroit)

DJ BLAQSTARR “Feel It In The Air”/ BUSY P “Pedrophilia” (Fader, 2007): “I can feel it in the air/I can feel it in the street/I can feel it in my balls/I can feel it in my feet” – or words to that effect. DJ Blaqstarr plays a variation of so-called “Baltimore club music” (sort of a Tourette’s-inflicted distant relative of early Chicago house, Miami bass, and/or Detroit ghetto-tech), with skippity beats under a sample that goes “caw! caw! caw!”; eventually the silly lyrics fall out, so the caws and skippities are all you’ve got left. Busy P, from Paris, makes an even more shapeless brand of hipster-sanctioned dance music – namely, the squelchy, mildly rock-infused techno identified with French label Ed Banger Records, from which Justice also emerged last year. Two electronic themes criss-cross; one fades out while a voice squeaks “Busy P!” Eventually, it slims down to a few isolated bloops. No idea how one would dance to it -- seems kinda slow. But I like the Southern Comfort joint venture slogan on the label: “Start and end things right. Drink responsibly.” (www.myspace.com/blaqstarrmusic; www.myspace.com/busyp)

DOILY “2000 Dumb”/”Welcome Home” (Broklyn Beats, 2001): The martial rhythm sounds submerged – on a submarine, maybe. Springs and gadgets and bellows (both kinds) succumb to nautical miles of deep-sea echo. Deadpan spoken phrases, seemingly  from movie dialogue, emerge out of the abyss: “Shot down in cold blood.” Gradually the music turns into a busted pinball-machine on tilt, or better yet a firing range, heard through static over a broken field radio in the back of a Jeep with no doors. That’s the A-side; the B-side has not-quite-tuned-in shortwave transmissions evolving into dub reggae, or some bassline’s recognizable approximation thereof. The transmissions fade in and out, do backflips over Pymgy of the Ituri Forest drums, thicken into quicksand until you start losing your belongings. Word is that some Brooklyn gal pieced it all together. (www.broklynbeats.net)

DYKEHOUSE “Chain Smoking”/”FYD” (Ghostly International, 2003): The label’s from Michigan and specializes in electro, but the A-side’s music is almost a conventional indie guitar-jangle breakup song – guy makes out with girl in backyard, tries to undo her pants, but now he’s chain smokin’ ‘cause his heart’s broken, so he rhymes “frown” with “upside down” and “loud” with “mushroom cloud.” His voice really does have some of that two-packs-a-day gruffness to it, too, and the melody has some of the pop feel of mid ‘80s Hüsker Dü, but more twee and British. “FYD” starts with a higher voice – probably a guy attempting a Princely falsetto – and has more synthesizers, but depicts a situation no less concrete: “At the club last Friday/You’re all done up in black/I knew I had to have you my way/When I saw you arch your back.” So he buys her a drink, drives her home in his Mercedes, takes her up to “Big Daddy’s room,” where he brings out his “Dutch love broom,” whatever that is. (I chuckled at it, I admit.) Then he switches into minstrel-boast mode, updating a trusty old seduction growl from Isaac Hayes or Barry White amid wah-wah effects: “Who’s the motherfuckin’ pimp? My big dick just won’t go limp.” Not as funny as he hopes. Then simulated sex moans – maybe like fellow Ann Arborites Destroy All Monsters years before. There was a minute or two there in the early ‘00s when work from weirdos named Morel and the Horrorist hinted that techno might turn into a new kind of singer-songwriter music; this’d be another example, I guess, but the idea didn’t seem to stick around for very long. Maybe the problem was that the mundane clubland situations depicted seemed too shallow for listeners to care about them? Just a thought. (www.ghostly.com)

EL CAPTAIN FUNKAHO ”Space Slut”/”Bootay”/“My 2600”/”Evil Goat Interlude” (Stones Throw, 1998): From a reportedly moonlighting San Francisco library clerk, more cartoon pimp shtick, though of the outer-space variety this time. Chipmunk-punked robot aliens seek booh-tay, harking back to Bootsy Collins and Captain Sky and especially Jimmy Castor: El Captian Funkaho requests that you hand over your tutti fruity, and soon it’s time for the post-Hendrix feedback solo. “My 2600” opens with a mega-heavy riff out of Black Sabbath’s “Electric Funeral,” then turns attention to old videogame brands, many of which I’m unfamiliar with: Atari, Asteroids, Bezerk, Combat, Pong, Pac Man, and (in a possibly intentional reference to the great 1984 Rebbie Jackson hit of that name) Centipede. The artist starts rapping like he’s auditioning for Newcleus, and yet more psychedelic freak-funk pours in. “Evil Goat Interlude,” named perhaps for the Satanic inverted ibexes of black metal fame, is just a few seconds of chattering and guitar growl. The 45 sleeve colorfully depicts a mad scientist with star-shaped sunglasses and maroon Bozo the Clown hair, furiously joysticking. There are also goats. What else do you need? (www.stonesthrow.com)

 [Photos, top to bottom: Destroy All Monsters, Dykhouse, Funkaho]

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column’s theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetic ally through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren’t household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 4^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

CRACK ♥ WE ARE ROCK – “Hooker Leg”/”Animal Trap” (no label listed, 2002): Inside a lovely if claustrophobic 45 sleeve with forest animals paint-by-numbered all over it (the opossum and red fox, oddly, are much bigger than the mountain lion), music from Midwest escapees to San Francisco that somehow serves as a bridge between the fleeting quasi-genres “electroclash” and “digital hardcore” – which is mainly to say distanced voices rapping, sort of, over synthesizer abrasions and insane studio glitches and buzzing sounds. The intended speed is never stated outright, but at 33 RPM, “Hooker Leg,” at least, suggests a noise-rock version of some early ‘80s Rough Trade girl band, like maybe the Au Pairs, with distortion working against the tune at riskier levels than Jesus and Mary Chain ever dared. Cyborg voices eventually discuss the shaking of souls. “Animal Trap” has balloon-rubbing effects out of Pere Ubu’s Dub Housing, and what sounds like an off-key trumpet toward the end, clearing some space and followed by the side’s only comprehensible words – namely, a woman politely telling us “thank you.” Notation on a fawn’s back on that cover picture: “Live In Africa 2002 BC.” Or maybe that’s the label? (no contact info)

CRIMSON SWEET – Robot Bus Driver (Crimson Sweet EP, 2000): Bizarrely, I still have four different 7-inches by this turn-of-the-‘00s NYC trio on my shelf, which puts them in the running with Cobra Verde, Shonen Knife, and, uh, Clay Harper (whoever he is) [Harper, ex-Coolies, operated and recorded for his own Atlanta-based label, Casino Music, in the ‘90s—Discography Editor] for 45-shelf indie-supremacy. Don’t recall ever loving anything by them, but apparently I liked all of it enough to keep. In my mind, at least, I associate their co-ed art-punk garage sensibility with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Glass Candy, who both emerged a bit later but ultimately got way more attention. This particular four-song translucent-vinyl 45 (first Crimson Sweet music I heard) switches off between relaxed Bangles-jangle and more hoarsely snarling screech. “CTR” mentions schoolyards; “Robot Bus Driver” follows Morse-code guitar with death-metal grumbling; “Bad Riddle” is live-wire hardcore; “I Can Touch You Now” an apparently sincere lust song wherein the wonderfully named Rooster Booster (who also plays guitar) eventually takes her drink and leaves. She’s hard to decipher when she gets full-throat emotional, but that doesn’t always work against her. Her bassist, Konsulate, looks like a young Mick Jagger. (www.myspace.com/crimsonsweet)

CRITERION – “Race Traitor”/”Honky Talk Hits” (Broklyn Beats, 2001): Two more aural experiments from a mad-scientist laboratory in Brooklyn, working overtime to resurrect dub without reggae life support: “Honky Talk Hits” lets an inverted piano mess and minstrel-show vocals that go “yeaaaahhh…..” and dig through sand dunes’ worth of dirt; “Race Traitor” is closer to some of Adrian Sherwood’s more outlandish ‘80s productions, or maybe Keith LeBlanc’s 1983 12-inch “No Sell Out,” credited to Malcolm X. A repeated sample of Dick Gregory growls “We don’t dislike you, we hate your stinking white racist insti-tooo-shuns,” which slogan performs the musical duty of keeping the experiment grounded, so centrifugal force doesn’t yank everything apart. (www.broklynbeats.net)

DAPHNE’S OPERATION – “Short Disaster”/”Curds & Whey” (Mudslide/Bottom Feeder, 1995): Like all three singles above whether intentionally or not, chaos intersperses here with white space; like Crimson Sweet, this Murfreesboro, Tennessee quintet (instrument credits: “pickin’, singin’”; “beatin’”; “more pickin’”; “washtub, hogcallin’”) refreshingly seems torn between being a pop band and a noise band. Somehow, the gravity of their guitars makes up for their vocals’ meek, muffled bent. And though the music offers up no tangible beat to speak of, the B-side, at least, manages hints of propulsion, and structure, and possibly even a song, albeit introvertedly expressed: “Growing up is so weird,” a subdued voice concludes, sneaking into the clatter’s cracks. “Call or write us,” the liner notes on an insert request, “for your next wedding, barmitzvah, hot rod/custom car show, barbecue, open house, Tupperware party, slumber party, funeral, shindig, hootnanny, fiesta, thingamajigger or, of course, board meeting.” I hope that won them a few gigs, at least; I still wish they would have clarified once and for all, though, whether “Curds & Whey” just means cottage cheese. Little Miss Muffet was always too cagey on the issue. (www.myspace.com/daphnesoperationrules)   

THE DEAD C— “Stealth”/”The Factory” (Sub Pop, 2000): Seemingly recorded from deep inside a radiator in Dunedin, New Zealand, “Stealth” recreates Metal Machine Music as part of the Environments series, and its dune-din ebbs and flows with real beauty. Hard to tell if actual instruments are involved; if so, they’re presumably not being used as their builders intended. The music breathes, though. The Dead C are prolific cult heroes in avant-noise circles; Thurston Moore and Byron Coley may well own a zillion releases by the threesome, but for my own purposes, this taste test seems sufficient. “The Factory” feels even more onomatopoeic, way more “industrial” than most music filed under that heading – an assembly line of clanking and revving gears and motors and spindles and power generators, with heat and sparks blasting off of the steel. Or maybe just guitar feedback, who knows. Both sides are instrumental, and as with Crimson Sweet’s disc, the vinyl is a vague sort of grey you can halfway see through. (no contact address; fan page at www.myspace.com/thedeadc)

DEATH OF FASHION – “These Days”/”It’s All Ours” (Canarsie, 2005): I have no memories of these guys at all, though MySpace tells me they come from New York. The A-side is built on a ringing Velvet Underground (via Smiths or somebody, probably) guitar drone – prettiness given forward motion. The singer’s voice is flat and basically devoid of character, typical college rock. But he picks up energy as he goes, stumbling into tunefulness and emotion simply by varying volume and intensity. He sounds cheerful, determined; worries he “might not make it through the day,” but you’re confident he will. On the B-side – shorter but tougher to get through – he just stumbles. Guitar enters out of nowhere at the start, almost like Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” but the drummer’s attempt to add more rhythm into the equation comes off clumsy. If you’re gonna kill off fashion, it’s best to replace it with more color than what’s here.

(www.deathoffashion.com)

[Photos, top to bottom: Crimson Sweet, Daphne’s Operation 45 sleeve, Death of Fashion (credit J. Wilson)]

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column’s theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetically through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren’t household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. The first two installments appeared at Idolator.com; this month, I pick up in BLURT where I had left off.

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BROKLYN BEAST “March of The Oil Barons”/”The Vampire Strikes Back” (Broklyn Beats, 2002): Clearly there’s a concept of historical importance here, not to mention a craft project: The label – featuring a photo of George W. Bush with fangs drawn on his face — is not actually on the disc, but rather on a sticker inside the sleeve, ready for the listener to cut out and apply. “Since United Records wouldn’t print our label you get to do it yourself!,” exclaims a Brooklyn-addressed press release, which I also tucked into the sleeve. That same one-sheet explains that the record is “a one-off experimental breaks project with production by label heads doily and Criterion,” and calls the music “hard dub and chug fun for the summertime,” which overstates matters somewhat: I hear skipping vinyl noises, cartoon-like sound effects, distorted scratch sounds, all switching gears and shaped and repeated into a clanging facsimile of a rhythm. Sort of reminds me of the early works of U.K. industrial band Test Dept. The flipside is equally repetitive, but faster, and even more disruptive, with abrasive horn-sample additives. An intriguing curio that tries to answer the question: “How far from what people think of as music as you can go and still maintain a recognizable beat?” Not quite this far, but maybe close. (www.broklynbeats.net )

THE BUNNY BRAINS/DESIGNER American Swiss/Cheese Single (LHG, 1996) I saw clamor-crazed Middle Atlantic combo the Bunny Brains play live a couple times (rabbit outfits were involved once), and I should disclose that one of their principal participants, Dan Seward, is the brother of my very good friend Scott Seward, the funniest metal critic on Martha’s Vineyard. Also, I should note that Scott once helped name one of their songs (on their 1995 Beach Bunny Bingo 10-inch EP) “Bring Me the Head of Trent Reznor (Chuck Eddy Mix),” and in 2000 they put out an anthology entitled Sin Gulls: Goring St. Eddy. Other than that, though, I honestly have no connection with them at all, and I’ve never been able to keep straight their apparent feud with some phony group of alleged Bunny Brains alumni who also claim to be the Bunny Brains. Or used to. Or something. Anyway, they split this four-song 7-inch with a Swiss band, and I only realized just this second that both sides weren’t by the Bunny Brains! The two Designer songs on the “Swiss Cheese” side are “My Favorite Toy” and “Beach Bum”; the former has a silly falsetto vocal lightening the horrendous heaviness of some slowly accelerating Flipper-style guitar sludge, while “Beach Bum” actually brandishes some semblance of surf guitars beneath its strangulated Gibby Hayes (of the Butthole Surfers)-style vocal. The “American” (as in Bunny) side soars 80 miles high in “1000 Years Ago” and digs appropriately into some Amon Düül sci-fi fuzz before getting cut short in “Space Noise Symphony  3 (1^st Movement).” Strangely, the Swiss side does not have more holes in it. (www.myspace.com/thebunnybrains )

CHEETAH CHROME & MIKE HUDSON “Downtown Beirut”/”Nothin’” (Or, 1995) I knew Cheetah Chrome was the Dead Boys (and, before that, Rocket From The Tombs) guy, of course, but I might not have remembered that Mike Hudson was the Pagans guy if I hadn’t received a frequently entertaining 159-page memoir by him called Diary Of A Punk: Life And Death In the Pagans last month. Still, these are clearly Clevelanders aging in New York, and they made a way better single in 1995 – almost two decades past their primes – than most would have predicted. “Downtown Beirut” has the sort of hard and lowdown post-Stooges guitar scritch that I would have called “grunge” before that word got codified into a clearly defined genre, and it seems to be about survival in a war zone – love in the middle of a firefight, Vietnamese babies on their mind, that kind of thing. “Nothin’” chronicles a war zone of its own: “just another junkie out of Avenue C,” watching his back for brothers who’ve been hunting for him. “You used to get what you asked for/But not anymore/And I’m just trying to score,” vamping down to a spoken-word section about quitting, giving up. “Baby, I got nothin’/You got nothin’, too.” In 1995, Avenue C was still a good place for the people in this song. Not anymore, though. (www.cheetahchrome.net )

COCOCOMA “6 ¼ - 125”/Take My Time” (Goner, c. 2006) Recorded December 2005 in their hometown Chicago, so my release-year guess can’t be too far off. Either way, this speedy, muffled nugget is the sort of revisionist garage punk that genre addicts pretend rocks harder than it does simply because it’s so inept and incoherent, and it’s got a Mad-type drawing on its sleeve to match (quaintly old-timey handlebar-mustached soldier handing a bomb to a baby in a stroller). You know the routine: sounds like a first take, and isn’t necessarily better for it. The A-side’s title is pronounced “six and a quarter, one twenty five,” and what saves it are gang-shout harmonies trying to sound inebriated, and the fact that it’s over before you can get too annoyed; some apparent sax blat doesn’t hurt. “Take My Time” is even less of a tune, with audible but incomprehensible vocals. Over a whole album, the shtick would get oppressive (and when I heard this band’s CD, it did just that), but at single’s length the slop makes for a halfway diverting novelty. (www.myspace.com/cococoma)

NIKKI CORVETTE ”Love Me”/”What’s On My Mind” (Rapid Pulse, 2003) In Detroit, Nikki is something of a new wave legend, and these are the same sort of hard-popping, glam-riffing, sugar-sweet bubblepunk crush trifles she’s made on and off since the late ‘70s, when her three-girl Corvettes served as a missing link between the Runaways and Go-Gos. “Bonkers boogie from the new wave Betty Boop,” a Detroit News critic raved in 1979. “If Marie Osmond were a juvenile delinquent.” Bomp reissued 16 early Nikki and the Corvettes toons on CD in 2000, and a nifty comeback disc called Back From Detroit came out on Dollar Record Records in 2006. This single, Detroiters will be ashamed to hear, was recorded in Minneapolis and released in Connecticut. But both songs are still innocent come-ons, equipped with super duper hooks just like always -- Nothing more, nothing less. And judging from the three photos included, Nikki still looks adorable. (www.myspace.com/nikkiandthecorvettes )

Chuck Eddy is the former music editor of the Village Voice and the author of several books, including the greatest book on heavy metal ever written, Stairway To Hell. He won’t admit it, but he knows more about rock ‘n’ roll than the entire accumulated BLURT brain trust.

[Pictured: Bunnybrains, Nikki Corvette]