SONS OF BITCHES, Death to Music (EEEEEEEE Records)

Oblivion David Stomach - Vocals, guitar, etc
Elvis Khomeini - keyboards, backing vocals, bass
Brain Capacity, Ltd - percussion

In terms of future fame, it might be a bad idea to use pseudonyms on your cassette (1986). Of course, if you’re from Providence, Rhode Island, it might be your idea of fun. Based on what friends have told me about this town, it might be the ONLY way to keep on living…but they could be wrong…I mean, I meet people who HATE the town in which I live, and I can’t picture living much of anywhere else…




Lyndon LaRouche Vs The Abominable Snowman (You Can't Put The Lunatic Back Into The Asylum)

Cheesy coffee-drip beeping and blipping keyboards – growls – some right-wing radio guy rambling on, presumably Mr. LaRouche – then a roar and a rush, and it’s over (I guess Abominable won).


Escape From You

This track opens with a super wah-wah’ed sound of either a keyboard or a guitar (in either case, it sounds right out of the Residents catalogue), which is joined by a growling spoken word vocal which sounds ripped from the throat of the snarly Mr. Skull of that eyeball crew. It’s sort of a romantic song, in which the narrator longs for a place where there’s ‘no syphilis to remind me of you’. Sweet, really…


Coprophagy

A fuzzy sequenced keyboard pulse kicks things off here, right out of Suicide. Eventually, an equally distorted cheesy organ-type sound layers over that repeated throb. There seem to be some deeply buried vocals/vocal samples, but I can’t make them out very well.

Slavelaborer

Ooooh, synth pizzicato strings. The narration is a bizarre shaggy dog story about jock itch, Communism and slave labour in Siberia. There are odd twangy guitar sounds too, but nothing close to a hook. Towards the end, the guitar starts to sound more like a tennis racket being tortured, and still more odd radio/TV samples from the news. It is true, though – the sight of 15 to 20 men scratching their balls in Red Square WOULD be disconcerting…

Michael Jackson

I’m not sure why this track is so named. More odd keyboard sounds and a severely distorted guitar (but not in a garage rock kind of way) and a peculiarly accented voice rambling on incoherently. Would not be out of place on THIRD REICH ‘N’ ROLL – interestingly, the final words of the song are also more or less found in a Girls On Fire track…

Gamelan Of Angry Housewives

Another track in which terrible, unnatural things are done to keyboards, ranging from an electro-beat to chiming sounds to more wah-wah’ing. Pretty much a one-note piece, figuratively speaking, in terms of arrangement.


My Head Is My Only Home

Much as with the previous track, it doesn’t go much of anywhere. If it is true that the head of one of these individuals (assuming there really is more than one person behind this music) is his/her only home, then it must be a rather frightening abode…


Sick 'Em, Reverend

Ah, mid-to-late-80s keyboard sounds. A repetitive clang that would not be out of place on a Deborah Harry record like ‘Feel The Spin’. However, the growling and threatening ‘Reverend’ would probably not be hanging around the sort of clubs where this demented disco genre played – but perhaps he might…

Rhyme/Elements

This track sounds as though it were one of the most laboured over on this cassette. A dense web of sound samples and vocal snippets over a keyboard bed. It is almost tuneful – but not quite.