Replicants

Two main guys from Failure? CHECK. Two dudes who used to be in Tool? CHECK. A bunch of awesome cover tracks? CHECK. Me using the check thing again to describe this album? CHECK. Take all of that and you've got the Replicants!

For all the Failure and Autolux love I spread around here, I thought it was time I shared this slept-on gem with you. After Failure recorded their swan song, Fantastic Planet (which is really great and you should not hesitate to purchase immediately, especially the vinyl reissue if you can find it), some tapes of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards jamming on classic rock staples with buddies Paul D'Amour and Chris Pitman ended up in the hands of a Zoo Records A&R. It led to the offer to record an album's worth of these sludgy, slowed-down covers and put them out on Zoo. The label probably figured the synergy of having two guys who used to be in Tool doing a kind-of prog cover band with the guys from Failure was brilliant since Tool was on Zoo at the time as well. The album didn't sell well though, probably in part to Zoo sucking at promoting anyone other than Tool which was mostly left to BMG, despite featuring a cameo from Tool's Maynard James Keenan on a progged-to-death cover of Paul McCartney's Silly Love Songs. Then, in a WTF twist of fate, the album, recorded after Fantastic Planet, came out before Fantastic Planet, by which time Failure toured but had otherwise fallen apart. DAMNIT!

A lot of people I've made listen to this record hate it, which makes sense because they grew up hearing the original versions of these tracks. I grew up listening to the originals too, but I love to hear interesting reinterpretations of songs I love. For the most part, Replicants adds a layer of sludge to these songs, tuning them down a step or two and rocking harder. Cinnamon Girl is about the same tempo but it's beat sounds like a group of soldiers marching in lockstep. Silly Love Songs is slowed to a crawl with Maynard's vocals distorting just about anything left of the original. Competing for my favorite track on the album is their version of Dirty Work, which turns it into a grunge thrasher complete with the band breaking down at the end. Dead awesome, but the rest of the album is just as good, seriously!

The aftermath of Failure and the Replicants has lead to all kinds of interesting events. Ken Andrews started recording as ON and is now an in demand producer and studio guy, still performing The Nurse Who Loved Me live from time to time. Greg Edwards joined Lusk and is now a member of Autolux. Paul D'Amour and Chris Pitman formed Lusk and recorded their sole album, Free Mars, which saw release in 1997 via Zoo and it's new sister label, Volcano. Since then, Paul and Chris have worked on a number of other projects seperately, most notably Paul's solo release as Feersum Ennjin and Chris being a long-time member of the revised Guns N' Roses, which it's worth noting also featured Tool alumni Billy Howerdel and Josh Freese for a time.

Below you'll find the link for the Replicants album with the original performers listed beneath each track, just in case you didn't listen to 100.7 WMMS growing up. Enjoy!


Replicants - Replicants

01 Just What I Needed
The Cars

02 Silly Love Songs
Wings

03 Life's A Gas
T.Rex

04 Cinnamon Girl
Neil Young

05 How Do You Sleep?
John Lennon

06 Destination Unknown
Missing Persons

07 No Good Trying
Syd Barrett

08 Are 'Friends' Electric?
Tubeway Army

09 Dirty Work
Steely Dan

10 The Bewlay Brothers
David Bowie

11 Ibiza Bar
Pink Floyd


PS - The image I've used for this post in from the inner sleeve of the CD. The album's actual cover is the box the guys are in sealed up with only the word REPLICANTS appearing on it. I thought this image was better. Also, enjoy the video for Destination Unknown.

Autolux

I have been waiting years for Autolux to release the follow-up to their debut album, Future Perfect, and that follow-up is almost upon us. The new album is named Transit Transit and will be released in the US on August 3rd.

If you're not familiar with Autolux, they're a three-piece from California that makes music which could be categorized as shoegazer, krautrock or simply experimental, though I hear shoegazer mentioned the most in regards to their style. There is definitely a bit of Kevin Shields in their sound, but there is a lot of Sonic Youth and Led Zeppelin too. Their drummer, Carla Azar, formerly of Ednaswap, is simply a monster behind the kit. Greg Edwards, their guitarist, formerly of Failure, is wonderfully noisy and chaotic. Eugene Goreshter is the bassist and lead vocalist, although all three members share vocals from time to time, but his breathy and haunting voice is impossible to forget once you've heard it.

A lot of people saw Autolux on tour with Nine Inch Nails a few years ago, and it's become a running joke that Transit Transit was a contender for the title of the new Chinese Democracy as it had been in gestation for so long. In the band's defense, they were on a Sony subsidiary when they released Future Perfect, but due to poor sales they were dropped and spent their time since working on new music, looking for a label and touring. Much of Transit Transit had been written and performed live for several years, and the album has been completed for about a year and a half at the very least, but the band knew they needed some kind of support for sales and distribution, so they continued looking for that one elusive label they would sign with. That label ended up being TBD Records, a subsidiary of Dave Matthews' ATO Records that handled the US physical release of Radiohead's In Rainbows, and ATP Records for the album's European release.

With the new album's release being just over a month away, the band has made the first single from the album available for free download via their official site. It's called Supertoys and it's great! They also released the song Audience No. 2 for free download with the option to make a donation via their site, and it will be on the album as well.

If you like these tracks, please support the band. Going to their shows or purchasing their merchandise is great if you're not going to buy the music, but that doesn't mean people should simply be downloading the album when it comes out. Despite being on a label with good distribution, these guys are truly indie, so if you like the songs please download the album when it's released on August 3rd. The band will really appreciate it. Until then, I'm providing links for their website, the front page of which has a link for the download of Supertoys, and a separate link for the Audience No. 2 page as I don't believe it's directly accessible via their site any longer. And if you like what you hear and don't want to wait till August 3rd, their first album, Future Perfect, is still available for purchase digitally via iTunes or Amazon, and it really is incredible. Hope you dig Autolux like I do!


Autolux's Official Website with link to download Supertoys

Autolux - Audience No. 2

Autolux's Wikipedia Reference

The Unheard Music's June 2009 Mixtape

From the moment I started this blog I thought it would be cool to do a mixtape every month or two with interesting stuff that I wouldn't be doing full posts about. This is the first one and I feel pretty good about it. Please let me know what you think about it and, if you like it, I'll try to make sure I post one every month or two. Enjoy!


The Unheard Music - June 2009 Mixtape

01 Liz Phair - White Babies (Answering Machine Version)
Liz's twisted take on "My Bonny" was initially recorded for her Girly-Sound demo tapes. Those recordings are essential but this answering machine recording of the track is a fun alternative. As for the circumstances behind the recording, I've never heard an explanation, so if you know one please let me know.

02 Vanity 6 - Vibrator
We all know that Prince and Vanity were freaks, and this is the kind of track that would have furthered that reputation if it had seen release. Recorded during the early stages of the "Purple Rain"-era sessions that encompassed albums by Sheila E., The Time and Prince himself, Vanity was suppossed to be in the film and another Vanity 6 album was planned for release but Vanity made it clear she wanted more money from Warner Brothers or else she would leave. They didn't give her the money so she left and Prince got Apollonia to take her place in the film and the band, rechristening them Apollonia 6.

03 Beastie Boys - I'm Down
The Beasties and Rick Rubin recorded this tongue-in-cheek cover of the Fab 4's b-side of the "Help" single, but Michael Jackson, who owned a massive chunk of the Beatles' catalogue at the time, declined their request on the premise that he felt their version was a devaluation of the original. Eventually, a slightly different version ended up being leaked to a California radio station, but this was the version intended for "Licensed To Ill".

04 Ween - Where'd The Cheese Go? (Pizza Hut Demo 1)
Believe it or not, Pizza Hut came to Ween asking them to write a jingle for their cheese filled crust pizza. Despite making a rather catchy jingle, Pizza Hut turned it down flat. For a while this was available via the official Ween site.

05 Beck - Death Is Coming To Get You (Folk Version)
This is a funny Beck song in the vein of "Satan Gave Me A Taco". Two recordings of this exist, this being the folkier of the two. This appeared on the "Golden Leftovers" tape.

06 Pizzy Yelliot - Could You Be Loved (Mungolian Jet Set 303 Acid Mix)
It's rather unclear who Pizzy Yelliot is, although I've heard it may be another pseduonym for the Mungolian Jet Set. Regardless, this is a seriously freaky cover of the Bob Marley song. For those unfamiliar with the Mungolian Jet Set, their album is far jazzier than their remixes which are often rather long and trippy, but both sides of their styles are irresistible. If this is your first taste of MJS, you've got to get their remix of the Kreeps "I Just Wanna Break Some Hearts" and their debut album, "Beauty Came To Us In Stone".

07 Autolux - Future Perfect
Title cut for Autolux's first album that doesn't actually appear on the album. This song appeared on their "Demonstration" cd in slightly rougher form, but this version was included as the b-side of their "Here Comes Everybody" single. Great song!

08 J*Davey - Let It Bleed
It's pretty unclear what is up with J*Davey these days. Their two EPs, the first of which was described as a very rough demo despite being lush, dreamy and as sonically deep as anyone could hope for, are the only documents of their studio work as of right now. They signed to Warner Brothers records but nothing has come of that deal yet, so I guess we'll just have to keep waiting, but there are a few great songs they've recorded which don't appear on either of their releases and this is one of them. Let this groove hit you and get next to someone special.

09 Blackalicious - Cheezit Terrorist
This was featured on the original pressings of Blackalicious' "Melodica" EP but was dropped from later pressings due to sample clearance issues. The fidelity of the track is due to it having been taped from a live radio freestyle just as it sounds like it was, not from the track being copied from a bad source.

10 Ween - Where'd The Cheese Go? (Pizza Hut Demo 2)
After being turned down by Pizza Hut with their initial version of this jingle, Ween turned in this significantly more sarcastic version. I don't think I need to tell you what didn't happen next.

11 Steely Dan - The Second Arrangement
Recorded during the "Gaucho" sessions, the majority of the masters of the original version of this song were accidentally erased by an engineer. Becker and Fagen were devestated and initially decided to forget the song, but they were pressed to try to re-record it. They buckled and recorded this fabulous version, but they didn't feel it lived up to the quality of the original and decided not to release it. A sad decision, as this is a heluva song!

12 Cibo Matto - Know Your Chicken (El Diablo Version)
This version of "Know Your Chicken" was most likely a great part of the impetus for the creation of Butter 08, a Cibo side project with Russell Simins, drummer for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and their friends. Simins plays drums on this great version recorded for El Diablo Records. It was initially released on a 7" and eventually reissued as part of a cd featuring both of Cibo Matto's El Diablo singles and their then-unreleased improv "Crumbs".

13 Wordsound I Powa - Bury Dem
I'm a fan of my pal Skiz's label, Wordsound Records. This is from a Wordsound super-group, Wordsound I Powa. This did receive an official release and is still available at least digitally as part of their "Transmitting Live From Planet Crooklyn" album. This track is a little crazier than some of the other stuff on the album, but if you like spacey electro-dub stuff, you should definitely check Wordsound I Powa out. I can't seem to find this on iTunes but it is available via Amazon's excellent MP3 site.

14 DJ Brokenwindow - Shit On My Side
DJ Brokenwindow does manual mash-ups, rarely using computers to assist him in assembling his tracks. This is from his "Parallel Universe #1" compilation, of which a sequel is also available via kid606's Violent Turn label. I don't know if this is still in print, but the first volume is tons of crazy fun. This track is a meeting of the Thompson Twins and Eminem's crew, D-12.

15 The Pharcyde - Ya Mama (Matt Dike Remix)
I don't know for certain that this ever received an official release, but if it did I don't know how they got away with it! This is a Matt Dike remix very much in the spirit of "Paul's Boutique" and it tons of fun.

16 Nirvana - Onward Into Countless Battles (aka Dave's Meat Song)
This is basically a Dave Grohl solo track that he recorded during a Nirvana session in Januaryof 1993 while in Rio. Everyone always paints Kurt Cobain to have been rather gloomy, which is confusing since there was a lot of evidence to the contrary, but it's clear that Dave and Krist were always pretty up-beat guys. This is a funny and goody track that I wish had been released on the "With The Lights Out" box-set, but as it's pretty much just Dave, I can see why it would have been ignored.

17 Beck - Death Is Coming To Get You (Hip-Hop Version)
This is the second version of "Death..." and appeared on Beck's "Fresh Meat and Old Slabs" tape which he made for his mother. I don't know that anyone would call this proper hip-hop, what with walls of guitar feedback and pounding percussion, but there is a funky drum loop running under the track and Beck's flow is far more rhythmic than it normally is.

18 Ween - Where'd The Cheese Go? (All Request Live Version)
Ween recorded this nutty version of "Cheese..." during an online performance that was comprised completely of requests. This is easily the funniest and goofiest version of the song and should be enjoyed by all. The "All Request Live" show received an official release and is available via iTunes.

19 Marilyn Chambers - Benihana
This is the late Marilyn Chambers' attempt to enter the disco market alongside Andrea True and her classic "More, More, More". This track didn't really go anywhere and is kind of rare, but it's been mentioned quite a bit since her death earlier this year. I like this one and it should get more props for being what it is, a fun and catchy dance song with a good dose of sexuality. In fact, it might be too sexual, but it's still a great tune.

20 The Clovers - The Rotten Cocksuckers Ball
I learned of this song through a compilation of R&B singles that influenced the young Frank Zappa. It's just as dirty as it's name should make you think it is, which is still pretty dirty these days and had to be insanely dirty when it was originally released. So, if you're easily offended, skip this track. If you can laugh at obscenities, please check this out!