Pussy Galore - Right Now! (1987)

I'm sure most of you are already familiar with this record. I'm listening to this for the first time in a while. They really make "not really knowing how to play" work so well. The quintessential "pigfuck" classic.

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Plows - I Hate My Car And I Want To Drive (2010)

I wrote about Plows excellent first album a while back to little fanfare with no comments and hardly a download. I'm telling you all to give this band a try! I'm really surprised at how unknown these guys are. So this is their follow-up album and it was originally recorded as a demo that they self recorded on Garageband and have been offering up as a free download on their Last FM page. I think the title is a play on words with Nirvana's song (and one time album title for which ultimately became In Utero) I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. I could be wrong on this but what the hell else is this title suppose to mean?

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The Return Of Hammerhead

Looks like they snuck a show in before the AmRep Anniversary. Welcome back boys. I'll be seeing you in August...

Sea Scouts - Beacon Of Hope (1998)

Overlooked noise-rock band from Melbourne. If you like Unwound you should like this. Sorry it's been so dead here at Sister Hell lately. Thing's will pick up again soon.

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Pygmy Shrews - The Egyptian & Lord Got Busted 7" (2009)

The Egyptian is the first full length LP by Brooklyn's Pygmy Shrews. It's one of the more impressive debut albums I've heard in a long time and a personal favorites of 2009 for me. A link for this album was posted by the band's bass player Tia in our message board. This would be a guilt free download so please spread it around because a lot more people should be aware of this band. I've also included a single they put out last year as well which includes a great cover of Pussy Galore's Kill Yourself. So if you include my previous post of their Big Time EP this should be their entire discography so far. Unless there's more you'd like to share with us, Tia?

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RIP Rowland S. Howard

Rowland S. Howard died December 30 of liver cancer at the age of 50. I have to admit I haven't followed his career much since the Birthday Party but he was still playing and making music till the very end. His signature feedback laden guitar style was truly ahead of it's time.

H.O.F. - The Gay Witch Abortion Sessions (2009)

I uploaded this one for a friend and just figured I'd throw it up here while I'm at it. Tom Hazelmeyer's H.O.F. did a collaboration with fellow Minneapolis band Gay Witch Abortion and released this EP in conjunction with a art exhibit/concert called "NON Consensual POST Dada CONSTRUCTIVIST Cerebral WARTS." You can read about it here on the AmRep message board (which I frequent a lot and is unfortunately underused) or here. I have a friend who went to it and said it was a great time. The whole security camera thing seemed interesting and I would have loved to check out Haze perform live which is RARE event. I may be wrong on this but I bet it's been over a good decade since he's hit the stage. It's limited to 100 copies and were sold at the show for $70 which you can also buy here for those of you who have deep enough pockets to fork out $10 per song.

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Serenading Uffizi

Cute dog in a skull and cross bones sweater. In true punk rock fashion.

Honeymoon Killers- 'Til Death Do Us Part (1990)

So I just came across this fantastic blog tonight called "Frog 2000" due to a request from the blogger (which I wasn't able to fulfill unfortunately) and it's chocked full of incredibly hard to find garage rock gems like this album. Not only does the blog have every rare Honeymoon Killers album ever released but it also has just about every single impossible to find single from Pussy Galore, The Gories, Fireworks, 68 Comeback etc. and the list goes on. So I'm reposting this one mostly because I've never come across it anywhere and I've also converted it from the link's OGG files to a bit more universal MP3 format. Anyways, it's a great record from a great band, from a very cool blog.

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Ty Segall - It 7" (2008)

Ty Segall is my favorite of the recent lo-fi-garage-pop bands out there that are so popular with the kids these days. Well... popular in Southern California anyways. Ty's played with The Epsilons, The Traditional Fools and has also played drums with the Sic Alps. The song "It" was rerecorded as the opening track on his most recent LP titled Lemons which is one of the best records of the year so far. It's the stand-out song off the album that always seems to get stuck in my head all day after hearing it. This single is the early "one man band" version of the song that's much more raw than the Lemons version. Ty's music is a bit of a mix of what John Dwyer's been doing in recent years and the more surfy style of Wavves.

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Inappropriate Tough Guy Behavior - S/T (2009)

Inappropriate Tough Guy Behavior is a side project of Melbourne's Fire Witch (see below). Similar to Fire Witch but more upbeat, straightforward rock songs with vocals on some of the tracks. If you haven't already noticed I'm a bit obsessed with the "Fire Witch Family Tree" at the moment. I've already written about Goat Witch and the band Fangs Of A TV Evangelist also belong to that same family tree. All of it is great. This record had a pressing of only 200 copies.

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Fire Witch - Japan (2009)

I guess Fire Witch would be Australia's answer to The Melvins, just as Boris were Japan's answer to The Melvins. Not such a bad thing. Everyone is doing it these days anyways so why not just embrace it, right? The drumming in particular has Dale Crover written all over it. Released as a 10" on the always excellent Wantage USA label with a pressing of 355 copies.

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TJL in LA

So I saw The Jesus Lizard play last night for the first time since '96. I don't care what people have to say about reunion tours. It was amazing. I think they have a few more good tours in them myself. That's wishful thinking I know but anything's possible. Fuckin incredible. I felt like a kid again.

Bipolar Bear - Mountain Dewd (2008)

So I'm feeling a little lazy in terms trying to describe this band so I'm just going to steal the description from the record label themselves. It's a bit of a mix of the whole lo-fi/art/garage-pop scene that's been going on at Downtown LA's The Smell, and the usual 90's style of noise rock that we write about here all the time.

Structurally and melodically wayward, Bipolar Bear’s Mountain Dewd is an album that will deafen you with angular creativity. The album’s ingenuity is in its unyielding approach to defy the laws of music through renegade guitar and bass lines, with innovative rhythms that kick you in the brains in the best way possible, and vocals that are delivered staunchly. The tracks are about two minutes each in length which could keep the attention of a sugar-high six-year-old, and each song employs its own unique musicianship just in case you have no attention span whatsoever. This album is relentless in its desire to make you love this band, and regardless if you like it or not, you will require a new frontal lobe after this record gives you the best lobotomy anyone’s ever had.

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Hoover - Hoover EP (1997)

Hoover has always been my favorite of the whole DC/Discord scene. This is a reunion record they did after their classic "The Lurid Traversal Of Route 7." Members went on to numerous great bands including Regulator Watts, Radio Flyer, Abeline, The Crown Hate Ruin and June Of 44. The stand out for me is Weeds which is a different version of a song off of Lurid which bass-line reminds me of a old Bauhaus song that I can't remember the name of. I'll take it over Fugazi myself.

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Katastrophy Wife - Heart-On EP (2007)

This is the most recent release of Kat Bjelland's (Babes In Toyland) Katastrophy Wife. The single was suppose to be off of an upcoming album called "Pregnant" but here it is a few years later and still no LP. The title song is as heavy as anything she's ever done showing that she hasn't mellowed with age. It could have easily been on Babe's Dust Cake Boy single's b-side and you would never know there's almost 20 years between the two songs. It also includes a couple of different remixes of the song which I usually hate but turned out kind of interesting in this case. There's also an Iron Maiden cover which I wouldn't have known because I never listened to that shit but the moment I heard it I knew there was something really 80's sounding about it.

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The Pope - Ascendo Tuum! (2006)

The Pope are a bass/drummer duo from Los Angeles that sound like Godheadsilo on meth.
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This Sucks...

It really does...

Goat Witch - Blind (2005), Naked (2006) & On Fire (2009)

Goat Witch are another collaboration band much like my previous post of the Moon Phantoms album. The Melbourne bands Spider Goat Canyon and Fire Witch got together and spent two days in a studio recording a improvised jam session that resulted in the trilogy of Blind, Naked and On Fire. This link is for all 3 albums. They sound surprisingly tight and together considering it's all just being made up on the spot. Me, not being a musician myself, am so amazed how two different bands can just get together one day and create music from absolutely nothing and make it sound like it's been written and rehearsed for weeks. It makes more sense when it's solo'ish guitar noodling with a basic repetitious rhythm section like the band "Earthless" or free-jazz etc. It's just when a band can really follow each other with different movements and time changes and make it seem so seamless without any prior rehearsals it's really impressive to me. But like I said I'm not a musician and can't really relate. Maybe it's just instinctual for some people I guess. Thanks to Sludge Swamp for these albums that were recently posted on their site. I just basically took it from them and put it together into one link.

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Moon Phantoms - S/T (2009)

Moon Phantoms is a collaboration between the bands Bardo Pond and Suishou No Fune from Japan. This record came about as most of these collaboration records do by two bands doing a tour together, hitting it off and deciding it would be fun to record a session together. Here's a review I'm stealing from Aquarius Records who always seem to sum up the mood of an album perfectly in just a few sentences:

"Deep in the forest ethno-drones, drenched in buzz and shimmer. Sitar, guitar, cumbas and all sorts of percussion create exquisite layers psych drone Nirvana that will transport you to another dimension. Strangely peaceful, the music we hear in our heads when we lay in grass at night staring at the stars."

This vinyl only release was limited to 500 copies.

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