Monday 31 December 2018

PREGNANT NECK DISCOGRAPHY



Pregnant neck are a band SO obscure i couldn't even find a picture of them for the top of this post! Back in the early 90's I used to help and occasionally DJ at a local alternative night in my hometown of Perth, Scotland we were very sparsely attended because we played weird as fuck and noisy stuff and we were in direct competition with another (ahem) "alternative" night across town who were vastly more successful as they played it safe with the indie hits of the day and made sure there was plenty of tunes for the locals to stare at their shuffling feet while hiding behind their lank hair wishing they had a girlfriend! We also mixed up some of those indie hits with the other stuff but we also tried to open peoples minds to the more obscure and weird and noisier things basically if you wanted to hear stuff like Revolting Cocks, Lard, Nomeansno The EX, Minutemen and more you'd hear them at our little night and nowhere else!

So nostalgia trip aside Pregnant Neck's debut EP "Scaffolder Olcer" (Pictured above) was discovered by one of the guys who ran the night and the song "Pie And Mash" with it's Insane bouncing bassline, shredding guitars and refrain of "GOT ANY PIE & MASH LOVE?" became a firm dancefloor favourite!

I had completely forgotten about this band till one of my friends from this era posted up a youtube vid of the very song I mention above "Pie and Mash" on facebook! I was very glad of the reminder and immediately set about looking to see if someone had ever done a CD retrospective or if they had any CD's at all, but it would seem this band were destined to languish in the DEEP obscurity from whence they came. I found they had only done one album an EP and a demo all of which I managed to download from various sources.

The reason I am doing this post is because off the back of my mate posting about this band I discovered a lot of people remembered them from that era and i decided to upload the discography to mediafire for my mates and seeing as it was there and I also like to provide the readers of this blog with the weird wonderful and most obscure of music I figured I'd share the link here with you!

Pregnant Neck, if the name hadn't already alerted you are not for everybody they play that Scratchy guitar, loud heavy bass,unhinged vocals and crazy drumming style of Noisy post punk that was very popular in the early 90's with bands like Stretcheads, Dawson,The EX, Dog Faced Hermans etc but if nothing else the song "Pie & Mash" that instigated this whole post should be listened to, you can find it on youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMt9gmofLJU then decide if you think the rest is worth listening to I for one think this band are great, but for me I was there when this music was around, I saw some of these bands live and it brings back fond memories of a pre-internet time of sharing and discovering new music simply by taking a chance on a cover or a heads up from a friend!

Their discography & existence was brief so there's only one file this contains their debut cassette/demo "Stomach" The 7" EP "Scaffolder Olcer" and their only album "Shenanegan-Esque Rapscalianismz!!" So you now have the chance to dive into a full discography of one of the most obscure bands i have posted on here.

Note: Unfortunately due to the fact that no one seems to give a shit about these old obscure bands these files are vinyl / cassette rips and not of the highest quality but i have done the best i can with them and they are all properly tagged with appropriate cover art (I really struggled to find a picture of their album cover as well!!!) but it's all there in it's scratchy noisy glory so hopefully it will reach a few more people than it ever did back in the 90's!


Pregnant Neck Discography - Mediafire

ENTOMBED - CLANDESTINE LIVE



Entombed 2016 L-R Eddie Aftonfalk, Uffe Cederund, Orvar Säfström, 

Nicke Andersson, Alex Hellid


Some of you may have been to my previous Entombed post (See that HERE ) and it was a mission to do that post and i was gonna just tack this onto that post I figured as it was such a special release it deserved a post of it's own I've linked you to the other Entombed post above so if you're looking for more go there.

Back in 2016 it was announced that 3 of the original members of Entombed enlisting the assistance of Orvar Säfström (Ex Nirvana 2002 ) on bass and Eddie Aftonfalk (Vocalist for Swedish OSDM band Morbus Chron) on vocals, were getting together for a special project, they were going to perform their classic "Clandestine" album in it's entiritey live, but not only that they would be playing this at the famed Malmö Concert Hall in 2 Acts one of the band playing the album in it's entirety and then a full orchestra version with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra!!!

Now with the horrors of previous metal/Orchestral crossovers in mind I'm sure this is an abhorrent thought for many of you ("S&M" anyone??) However there's more to this than you think so read on...

Whilst the Band version of the live performance is a simply RIPPING run through the "Clandestine" album there's the addition of an encore of "Left Hand Path" which is simply flooring and is worth taking the time to download just to hear, however it's the Orchestral act that is of most interest certainly to me at least! I had expected a horrific mash of Entombed's punishing death metal backed with an orchestra trying to punctuate such a brutal sound and if you have heard "Clandestine" you know what I mean! However this is not the case what you actually get is a complete orchestral reinterpretation of the album with Entombed sitting in as part of the orchestra rather than being the main musicians and the orchestral version switches from Eddie Aftonfalk handling the vocals on the band disc to Orvar Säfström for the orchestral. What is interesting about this is it strictly classical music but the occasional punctuation of death metal vocals and the stripping away of the heavy riffs ( Alex, Uffe, Thomas and Nicke only providing guitar, bass and percussion accompaniment within the orchestra and not with their trademark heavy instrument sounds) for me was mindblowing and by far one of the most unique and interesting uses of orchestra within "metal" I have heard to date!

The subsequent results were recorded on both video and audio and released as a lush 3 disc hardbound book package with a poster of the Clandestine artwork redone by original artist Dan Seagrave (see pic below) that was only available to people who had pledged for it through Entombed's official website (kinda like a kickstarter?) so as it wasn't made available as a commercial release and even though it was probably not too difficult to find to download , again, it was a case of I uploaded for a friend and it's a nice addendum to the previous Entombed discography post I had done!

I can't stress enough that I am not a big fan of classical music but for me this is classical interpretation of dark source material and heavy riffs accompanied by the band themselves along with the unusual dynamic of having Death metal vocals punctuate the dynamic as part of an orchestral set might sound like it could be an unholy mess it actually works fantastically, And for me this really works I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and I have actually listened to the classical disc more than the live band version!!!

I could spend hours detailing the personnel and other information but I have been trying to keep the write ups short so you can get onto the music and who reads these anyway ha ha! so below is your link go give it a listen and see what you think and here's a link to the discogs page so those of you with trainspotting tendencies similar to me can check out all the info.

https://www.discogs.com/Entombed-Clandestine/release/10967406

Here's the Music.

Entombed Clandestine Live 2016 - Mediafire


OBLIVIANS



Ok so I'm gonna admit, despite being a fan for 20 years I don't know a lot about Oblivians I was introduced to them by chance in about 1998 by a good friend of mine from Scotland who came to visit me after I moved to England with a folder full of new music he had discovered (I also got turned on to the amazing early Danko Jones stuff and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion the same day! WHAT A DAY) at that time i had no reference point for their lo-fi garage rock other than to say "WOW these guys sound like The Stooges" however I have become quite a fan of Garage Rock over the last 20 years and now understand that The Stooges may have been the first to play that style but they weren't the last! I have remained a firm fan ever since and to be honest I didn't really feel that knowing a lot about them was more important than just having my ass kicked by their destroying garage rock!

Oblivians formed in 1993 in Memphis Tenessee, 2 of it's members being from the band Compulsive Gamblers and opting for a more raw and stripped down sound than their previous band and all 3 members assuming the surname Oblivian They lasted from 1993 - 1998 and then broke up, They reformed several times in the 00's for reunion shows but ultimately ended up reforming for a new album "Desperation" which for me was not really a return to former glory and had more in common with the more melodic Compulsive Gamblers who had also been reformed in the interim!

There's not a great deal more i can tell you than that if you really thirst for information you can always go and check wikipedia because basically if i continue this write up i will basically be retreading what wiki says anyway but if you are truly too lazy then here's the link to their wiki page....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivians

So Onto your links...

I have basically uploaded everything Oblivians did up till 2013 including the reformation album "Desperation" this is not quite a full discography as there has been one 7" released this year that I haven't got yet but as I have said i wasn't that impressed by the reformed Oblivians so I'm in no rush if i get round to it I'll add it to the post. So the album links are self explanatory but here's a breakdown of what is in the links Singles Pt. 1 & Pt. 2

Singles Pt 1.

Never Enough 10"
Best Of Worst of (Unr. Tracks)
On The GO - The First Recordings
Six Of The Best 10"

Singles Pt 2

Blew Their Cool 7"
Call The Shots 7"
Go Pill Popper 7"
Kick Your Ass 7"
Split W/ Two Bo's Maniacs
Strong Come On 7"

Never Enough, Six Of The Best & Kick Your Ass are all taken from the CD "Sympathy Sessions" ripped from my own disc 320KBPS as you'd expect and split into their respective releases with their appropriate cover art, Best Of The Worst of was a compilation of Oblivians tracks from their various releases but on there were 10 previously unreleased tracks so I have trimmed off the album and single tracks and just left you with the unreleased stuff.

So here you go a pretty comprehensive pretty much discography of one of the first and best bands from the 90's Garage scene these guys are raw, lo fi and they simply just destroy if you haven't heard Oblivians before i reccomend the "Soul Food" album it's a great starting place and for me contains the definitive versions of some of their best songs and if you aren't thrashing round the room to opener "Vietnam war Blues" well maybe these guys aren't for you!

Enjoy


Singles Pt.1 - Mediafire

Singles Pt. 2 - Mediafire

Soul Food - Mediafire

Popular Favorites - Mediafire
Desperation - Mediafire