Why haven't I got loads of Fugazi records? I've got no idea. I would have assumed I had loads, but as it goes I've only got the OK but not great 3 Songs 7" (1989). 'Song No.1' is post-hardcore by numbers (although bearing in mind Fugazi basically wrote the post-hardcore rules that's neither surprising nor a bad thing), 'Joe No.1 is a piano and bass led instrumental, again, typically anti-punk punk from Fugazi there, but it's rather pointless, and 'Break In' sounds too much like Minor Threat for comfort. Fugazi made some superb records but 3 Songs isn't the place to start. I must remember to pick up In On the Killtaker one of these days...
Massive desert rock? If you insist. Always destined to be in the shadow of Josh Homme's various projects, Fu Manchu nonetheless put out some great thick slabs of fuzzy sand-blasted rock, including the Godzilla's/Eatin' Dust LP (1999). The Sabbath style heaviosity is pretty solid and there's quality riffage throughout. If there's one slight downside it's that Scott Hill's vocals are too light for this kind of blistered stoner rock, and it's in the slight lack of discipline over the songs that Homme's outfits will always win out. There's a looseness about Fu Manchu which, although entirely in keeping with the notion of stoner rock, in fact means that it's harder to really get inside than Homme's hyper-stylised and mega-tight approach. In any event, Godzilla's/Eatin' Dust is still a great ton of heavy riffage.
Good old Terry Hall, he's always known how to make being on a total downer sound brilliant. The only Fun Boy Three I've got is the Tunnel of Love 7", but it's another example of his usual mordant wit in a supremely well written pop-ska setting. B-side 'The Lunacy Legacy' is less impressive musically but it's still a hilariously bleak bit of lyrical misery.
Many people think that Maggot Brain is the best Funkadelic album, but personally I've got a lot more time for 1978's One Nation Under a Groove. Not only is the title track one of the funkiest bits of funk ever laid down, it's also an album in which funkmaster George Clinton lays back a bit on the often tiresome wackiness and concentrates on the business of getting his total funk on, and combining it with a joyous celebration of all things positive. Although the title track, which opens the album, is easily the high point, all six songs on the album are fantastic, never letting up for a second, and showcasing the really exceptional skills of the whole P-Funk crew at the time. There are some great guitar solos and licks as well as the usual exemplary bass work, and as much as it's a blistering funk album, it's also a hugely successful light-hearted psychedelic rock album.
Things had gone a bit awry in the P-Funk world by 1980's Electric Spanking of War Babies, and the whole record has a slightly wary, uneasy feel to it. It's still as eclectic and funky as ever, but there's a rather timid tone to it all, suggesting that not only was there trouble in the ranks, but there was also trouble in the songwriting. It may also have had something to do with the fact that Clinton was in sort of serious mode, and the overall theme of the album is the role of the media to promote aggressive US military action abroad. Not an easy topic for a fun-loving funk album and the two sit fairly uneasily together. Nevertheless Clinton was always a man with at least part of his mind on higher matters, and the album is still a great bit of funk-rock, it just doesn't scale the heights of One Nation.
My one-time flatmate in Brighton Marianne's insufferably humourless hip-hop loving boyfriend once declared the Fun Lovin' Criminals to be a "novelty rap act". Well, he wasn't far wrong, but I've never seen the need for the sneering disdain with which he made the pronouncement. Come Find Yourself (1996) is a long way from being the best record ever made, but as an exercise in stylization it's pretty successful. There's no reason to believe in any of the schtick of the whole thing, its tales of bank heists, the New York underbelly and dope-fuelled scheming, but it's good fun to play along with and it really has got some perfectly decent tunes on it. The mix up of laid back funk, hip-hop and rock was also not the most original thing going, but there were good and bad ways of doing it and to my mind the Fun Lovin' Criminals made a more than decent stab at creating a unified, sub-Tarantino world in their daft tales and slick songs. Also, contrary to the opinion of most of my friends, I've got a lot of time for Huey Morgan's Radio 6 show, because I think it demonstrates that he does like all sorts of music.
Next are some records by super-ironic New York Dinosaur Jr rip-off lo-fi psychedelicists Further. All of my Further records are on vinyl and very little of it is on the internet, so for a start we have to skip over the 'Born Under a Good Sign' 7" (1992) and move on to the handful of songs that we can find from the Griptape LP (1992). 'Real Gone' is a brilliant bit of muddy indie rock, complete with stoner vocals and juddering drums. It's one of the highlights of the album, a demonstration of just how much mileage there was in J Mascis school of songwriting in the early 1990's. Riffing on Sebadoh, 'Gimme Indie Fox' has the obligatory wah-wah working through the distortion, but again it's a great tune despite being so obviously indebted to its contemporaries. The Sonic Youth references also come thick and fast and indeed Lee Renaldo even appears on a couple of tunes (not that you'd know it though). In many ways Griptape is like a post-ironic masterclass on the indie world of the early 90's (we've got some Superchunk, some Sonic Youth, some Tad, some, well, you name it really, it's all there), and it's reassuring that despite the blatant plagiarism it's still a really enjoyable album.
More of the same, but this time considerably more eclectic is Sometimes Chimes (1994), a double album that mixes up the squalling J Masic guitar style with a more laid back, more immediately psychedelic feel. As a double album without a consistent character there's possibly too much of it, but like Bongwater albums, you can't help but wonder if it's all there through necessity rather than excess. In any event I can't say much more about it because that's really my memory of it, there's not a great deal of it on the internet (only 5 of its 27 tunes). Then we have the double 7" Distance (1995). The stuff on here is a little bit cleaner, a little bit more structured and on the whole it's a decent collection of fuzzy indie rock. Again though, this is memory rather than immediate experience because of the ten songs it's only lead track 'Springfield Mods' and 'Spheres of Influence' on the internet. Considering the tribute to grunge style of the Further records it's sort of surpring that when they split up the various members all went into decent laid-back California Americana style outfits (the Tyde and the Beachwood Sparks respectively).
And next should have been the double 7", 'Dana's Room' by Fuse but once again nothing on the net. I can't remember anything about this other than that I bought it at a record fair in Brighton upstairs in the building that is now the grotesque middle-class nightmare of the Komedia theatre.
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