From Allmusic.com : "The Lemon Kittens' We Buy a Hammer for Daddy was the second release on the United Dairies label (the first being the mythical debut album by Nurse With Wound, Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella) when it was still managed by NWW founding members Steven Stapleton and John Fothergill (the latter eventually handed over the imprint to Stapleton). The UD mission statement spoke of the aim "to release LPs of very progressive/experimental music that do not fit into the neatly labelled boxes of record company A&R men." A perfect description for the Kittens' bizarre mix of chalkboard saxophones, spacy flutes, chunky guitars, and claustrophobic close-miked keyboards, topped off with vocals by Karl Blake (mildly hysterical) and Danielle Dax (curiously detached). The tracks, with one exception all under four minutes duration, are all highly original and have little precedent either in or beyond the annals of British pop/rock (enthusiastic reviews of the time compared the group to the Pop Group, Stockhausen, and Anthony Braxton). We Buy a Hammer for Daddy belongs with Alternative TV's Vibing Up the Senile Man and the first This Heat LP as one of the milestones of experimental rock music."
"We Buy A Hammer For Daddy" was released by United Dairies in 1980, then re-released by Biter Of Thorpe in 1993.
From Allmusic.com : "With no "proper" musical skills upon their formation in Surrey, England, the Lemon Kittens epitomized the "anything goes" spirit of late-'70s post-punk in the U.K. Karl Blake, who cut his teeth in numerous outfits prior to the Lemon Kittens, started the band with Gary Thatcher and a revolving cast of others (which at one point included future Alternative TV leader Mark Perry), but at the time of the release of their first EP in 1979, the seven-song Spoonfed + Writhing 7", the group's lineup featured Blake, Thatcher, N. Mercer, Mylmus, and Danielle Dax. The group was whittled down to a duo of Blake and Dax by February of 1980; the other three members had fled, making for the group's 16th different lineup change since initialization in April 1978. Blake and Dax then decided to operate primarily as a duo, with help coming from whoever whenever they needed the assistance to perform. Later in 1980, Blake and Dax released We Buy a Hammer for Daddy on the United Dairies label (their labelmates included fellow oddballs and noise-mongers Whitehouse and Nurse With Wound), an album that featured the duo swapping a wide variety of instruments. The Cake Beast EP came out in February of 1981; Dax left after its release to begin a successful solo career, which Blake took part in sporadically throughout the '90s. In late 1982, the Illuminated LP Those That Bite the Hand That Feeds Them Must Sooner or Later Meet...the Big Dentist (best referred to as The Big Dentist) became the group's second full-length. Blake rounded up a new group of cronies, laid the Lemon Kittens to rest, and began the Shock Headed Peters."
"The Big Dentist" was released by Illuminated Records in 1982, then re-released by Biter Of Thorpe in 1994.
Side A :
1. Off Shore
2. Demain La Guerre
3. Telegram Sam (Mark Bolan)
4. Reine Africaine
5. Machinery Can Move It
6. Plaza De Toros
Side B :
1. Sailing Boat Brand
2. I'm The Walrus (Lennon-McCartney)
3. Round Voyage To India
4. Improvisation 1
5. Guawa
6. Bourbon St.
Side C :
1. Ready With The Answer
2. Improvisation 2
3. Improvisation 3
4. Improvisation 4
5. Le Maçon Davidor
6. Le Monde En Couleurs
7. Souvent Désert
Side D :
1. Danse Papou
2. Bourbon St. No. 2
3. Miss Vandann
4. 50 Années De Travail
"Live In Acapulco" was released by Illusion Production in 1981.
From Allmusic.com : "Smegma's roots lie in the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) scene of the mid-'70s, and yet this long-running avant-rock collective are one of the few groups from that era that are still active today. With the musicians hidden behind ridiculous pseudonyms, Smegma offered a strange psychedelic improvisational music, throwing in all sorts of odd instruments as well as tapes, and turntables. The group began in Pasadena, CA in 1973 as a reaction to the bloated fusion rock of the day. They were unaware that other nearby groups had also formed to perform similar free-form experimental music. They became part of a gang of similar noise artists who gathered almost nightly in the backroom of the Poo-Bah record store in Pasadena, which in 1975 merged with the LAFMS. Smegma have always been a loosely run collective, and early members included Amy Zonbambi, Chucko D.K. Fatts, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Dennis Duck, Cheez It-Ritz, Cheese-Bro, Dr. Id, Dr. Odd, and Reed Burn. Ace Ford Farren, who joined the group in early 1974, introduced Smegma to crazed street performer and Zappa protégé Wild Man Fisher, and in two sessions, one on New Years Day of 1975 and one a few months later, they recorded some tracks with Fisher on vocals. Smegma moved to Portland, OR by the end of 1975 but remained in touch with the rest of the LAFMS crowd. After appearing on various LAFMS compilations, their first LP, Glamour Girl 1941/Five Years Wasted was recorded and produced in their own studio in July 1978 and released by LAFMS the following year. They also released several 7" singles that same year on their own Pigface label. The next year found them sharing a 7" with industrial pioneer Non (Boyd Rice), released by Mute. Throughout the '80s Smegma kept a low profile and continued to put out LPs, singles, and cassettes on their own label, and occasionally gigged live. With their worldwide reputation firmly cemented, their LP Nattering Naybobs of Negativity was released by the U.K. label Dead Mans Curve and the LP Smell the Remains by the German label Dom. More albums came out in the mid-'90s on the Portland label Tim/Kerr, including the LP Smegma Plays Merzbow/Merzbow Plays Smegma with Japanese noise artist Merzbow. In the late '90s, rock & roll author Richard Meltzer became their vocalist, adding his verbal ramblings and sardonic wit to their improvised sound."
Side "Studio" :
01. Semi-Incongruous Morass
02. Project 22
03. Grammer
04. Hairlip Diary
05. Jungle Ride
06. Now It's Dark
07. Tiny Everlyn
08. Sanctum
09. Imp-Namics
10. Nail Scarred Hand
Side "In Performance 1985-1987" :
01. Intro
01. Happy Baby Rhumba
03. No Eyes
04. Back To Normal
05. Feed Me
06. Everything Grows Together
07. A-Go-Go
08. Well...
Another classic from Déficit Des Années Antérieures !
Side A :
1. Le Cratère Central
2. The R. Standards
3. Les 25 Pièces
4. Psychedelic Song
5. Courir Vers Le Bois
6. Les Yeux Fermés
7. Ne Plus Rien Voir
8. Le Cargo Du Soir
Side B :
1. Loin Dans Le Froid
2. Baltique
3. La Ferovia
"La Famille Des Saltimbanques" was released by ADN Tapes in 1984.
From Allmusic.com : "This obscure group of radical experimental noise makers used improvisation and collage to craft strange sounds and deconstructed songs for highly creative music that is as far off the path of conventions as that of similar but more known visionaries like the Residents and Nurse With Wound. In fact, DDAA roughly began the same time as NWW in the late '70s, started by three visual artists, Sylvie Martineau, Jean-Philippe Fee, and Jean-Luc Andre in Lion sur Mer, France. The multi-talented trio originally formed Illusion Productions to create plastic sculpture and other various artistic pursuits and DDAA became the musical arm of Illusion. Déficits des Années Antérieures, their full name, translates roughly in English as "last year's deficit," though perhaps more appropriate is the fact that their initials are an anagram of Dada, that pre-Surrealism art movement at the time of World War I. As none of the three were trained musicians, their music had a distinct naïve quality of outsider art and with few noticeable influences, exists on a plane of its own. Like others whose music is too uncompromisingly different to become commercial, DDAA began releasing recordings under the umbrella of Illusion Productions, starting with a 7" 45, Miss Vandam, in 1979. Research into various traditional ethnic music resulted in the EP Adventures in Africa in 1981 and the LP Action & Japanese Demonstration the next year, with hand-painted covers and elaborate packaging and inserts. Bernard C joined the lineup to play on the 1984 album Les Ambulants and continued on and off with them until the early '90s. Throughout the '80s and '90s, the group continued to put out records and tapes, as well as perform, and even exhibit artwork in various galleries in Paris and Nice. Starting with the 1992 CD Nouveaux Bouinages Sonores (Dans la Période), DDAA has further enhanced its pursuit of strange sounds with the invention of an imaginary culture, the Maracayace, a theme explored more fully on the three-CD Baggersee and the full-length La Conference Maracayace, as well as live shows. DDAA continues to forge on in the new millennium with its highly creative artistic vision."
"Nouveaux Bouinages Sonores (Dans La Période)" was released by Front De L'Est in 1992.
From Allmusic.com : "The Los Angeles Free Music Society is not one group per se but rather a loose collection of several like-minded noise anarchists from the mid-'70s who found commercial rock too boring, slick, and predictable, and set out to reinvent improvisation and sound experiments with a DIY ethic. Inspired by Zappa, Captain Beefheart, John Cage, the Residents, and free jazz, the LAFMS was an underground avant-rock movement and a record label that presaged everything from punk to plunderphonics, while their utterly unconventional approach denied them any chance of mainstream success. As their movement spread, they became a lightning rod for art-damage, weird-music lovers everywhere.
In the summer of 1973, the threesome of Rick Potts, Joe Potts, and Chip Chapman started to record material under the name Patients in East L.A. These were tape experiments and improvised playing mixed with early sampling from television cartoons as well as Chapman's extensive record collection. By 1974, they changed their name to the Los Angeles Free Music Society to do the album Ka-Bella-Binski-Bungo, however by the time the album came out, in 1975, it had been renamed Bikini Tennis Shoes and the group was now Le Forte Four with the addition of Tom Potts. Unbeknownst to them, during this time another gang of semi-musicians with a similar experimental bent gathered in the evenings at the Poo-Bah Record Shop in nearby Pasadena. Tom Recchion, who worked at the store, had formed Two Who Do Duets with Harold Schroeder in March of 1975, and later that year the group transformed into the Doo-Dooettes with the addition of Juan Gomez. Others of the Pasadena crowd included Ace Farren Ford and the Professor (who performed as the duo Ace & Duce), Dennis Duck, Richard Snyder, Fredrik Nilsen, and Billy Bishop. Members of the avant-rock group Smegma, who had already been around for a couple years, were also part of the Pasadena crowd before they moved to Portland, OR, near the end of 1975. When Recchion arrived one evening with Le Forte Four's Bikini Tennis Shoes LP, the impressed Pasadena contingent realized they were not alone, and immediately joined the LAFMS umbrella as a way to get their own recordings released, and soon Le Forte Four and the Doo-Dooettes were double-billing live.
In 1976, Joe Potts decided to put out a various-artists compilation with an open invitation, selling space on the record at two dollars for every 15 minutes as a way to allow others who couldn't afford their own record to release material. This compilation, I.D. Art, featuring both LAFMS artists and others, came out later that year. This led to several Blorp Esette compilations set up along similar lines in 1978 and 1980, further widening the LAFMS web and their attitude that anyone should have the right to be on record. New projects were also formed out of the pool of LAFMS compatriots, from Joe Potts' live noise-overload project Airway, formed in 1977; to John Duncan's CV Massage a couple years later; and even more groups in the 1980s like Solid Eye, Monique, Human Hands, Dinosaurs With Horns, Foundation Boo; as well as solo efforts by John Duncan, Joe Potts, Tom Recchion, Dennis Duck, Fredrik Nilsen, and Chip Chapman. Though nothing has been released on the LAFMS label since the mid-'80s, many of the participants carried the spirit of the movement onward. It can't be denied that their influence has carried forward through punk in the late '70s to the cassette-tape trader movement of the '80s, while much of their own music is still as unsettlingly weird as it was in the mid-'70s."
"The Lowest Form Of Music" was released by RRR in 1996.
