Links in Music

• General Links.
• World Serpent Distribution and related artists.
• Punk and Industrial Music.
• Progressive Music.
• Russian Music.

General Links.

• Here is a collection of FAQ lists in music from various Usenet newsgroups.

• Here is a mirror site for cs.uwp.edu music archives, which are usually busy. All lyrics, discographies, etc. found here.

• Here is a (comparatively) less mainstream collection: David's Gothic/Goth-Ambient/Dreampop Music Information. Recommended.

• Another such list, mostly modern music, from industrial to goth to Japanoise. Imaginatively titled Music Database.

• The music archive of University of Wisconsin Parkside ( cs.uwp.edu)is usually busy. Here is its mirror, archived at wit.com

World Serpent.

• E-zine Flux has a lot of WSD-related material on its music pages. Please check World Serpent homepage, complete with recommendation how to join WSD mailing list. The music pages of Flux contain links to a number of WSD bands. Especially recommended, Sol Invictus/Tony Wakeford homepage, which has lyrics to the latest SI album (In The Rain). Also, quotes from book and interviews by Tony Wakeford. ``The older I get the more I realise that there probably is no hope or answer to the way we are. We have made this world a mess because the vast majority of humanity are greedy, vicious and stupid and will continue to be so at every possible opportunity.'' -- T. W.

• This was written in the Spring of 1996. Now Flux moved (from gold.net to easyweb.easynet.co.uk, losing ``l'' from .html's on the way) and is updated significantly. There are a lot more World Serpent-related pages.

• The Experimental Record Labels page of maldoror@why.net (Joev Zoch). Discographies of record labels, mostly affiliated with WSD. Joev Zoch also hosts the indispensable Alexandro Jodorowsky homepage.

• An excellent site! Herein lies the superbly detailed homepage of Nurse With Wound, in addition to the writings of Austin Osman Spare. It is maintained by Jeff Reid, whose homepage is also recommended. Nurse With Wound is a group consisting primarily of Steve Stapleton, surrealist and visionary. Its catalogue contains 30+ bizzarre experimental records; in addition, Stapleton worked with artists like Current 93, Death In June, Tony Wakeford and Legendary Pink Dots (Stapleton worked on ``Asylum'' by LPD, one of my favourite records ever). Temporarily out of order

• Current 93 homepage. A good one: its maintaner also writes a massive C93 book, soon to be completed. My favourite group. Sounds like Venusian pop music, assuming Venusians are all schizoid depressives freaked out on acid. No description is possible, because all albums (which are a-score) are so much different. Related to NWW and DIJ.

• Death in June homepage. Death in June is one of the darkest ``racialist'' (the word used by Rev. Boyd Rice to describe DIJ) groups around. Douglas Pierce (who is DIJ for last 10 years or so) is a genius (judging by those of his songs covered by Current 93). Most of DIJ output I came across so far left me disappointed, and I find Douglas' philosophy pompous and silly. ``Racialism'' I might tolerate and even appreciate (Boyd Rice I rather like), but I object to the lack of humor. DIJ gave birth to Sol Invictus who I love.

• Other great folks associated with Sol Invictus:
  • David Mellor of Evil Twin actually maintains his own homepage -- the only one to do so in the whole WSD crowd. And a good homepage it is.
  • The only piece of data I was able to find on Fire+Ice, a solo project of Ian Read from Sol Invictus. I have written a poem after ``Fael Inis'' by Fire+Ice.
  • Crisis, a radical Trotskyist punk group, lead by Douglas P. and Tony Wakeford, which later on became the Death in June.
  • Ordo Equitum Solis first two or three albums (depending on whether you count EPs) were extremely good, with the progressive-medieval sound years before same sound became en vogue. Tony Wakeford facilitated, wrote some lyrics, and, in turn, OES played on some of Sol Invictus albums. Recently OES switched from WSD to the highly inferior Projekt label, and here issued the bland DCD-ish Hecate album.

• Besides cutting oneself up with a razor, the only thing to live for is Throbbing Gristle. I'm just crazy about this group. The best thing about TG is that you (whoever you are) won't like it. The homepage in Sweden looked promising when I first found it, but it seems that no additions were made since then (no way to check -- it`s black on black on my monitor, due to a misguided anti-Exon move on part of a maintaner). An page of TG in found in archives of Michael A. DuVernoi, which are definitely worthy one's attention (Guy Debord, Voynich manuscript, PTV...). To think of it, it's one of the best sites on the Net. TG split to give birth to Coil, Psychic TV and Chris and Cosey (a. k. a. Creative Technology Institute). Another TG homepage is hosted by WWW.BRAINWASHED.COM which also has an LPD homepage and a Coil homepage.

• This site is in Hungary, and consequently extremely slow: Coil Homepage. Coil is an occult/experimental group, consisting primarily of John Balance and Peter ``Sleazy'' Cristopherson. Before Coil, Sleazy was a member of Throbbing Gristle, and (with Balance) Psychick TV. There is an alternative site of Coil homepage.

• Here is the Soleilmoon catalogue. Soleilmoon carries many kinds of obscure music evolving around industrial and gothic genres. Most of this stuff is otherwise unavailable. Their links page is quite impressive.

• Not really a WSD band, Legendary Pink Dots collaborated with Steve Stapleton, and there is much crossover of ideas between LPD as WSD clan. Technically, though, they are a WSD band: their last two albums ``Chemical Playschool 8+9'' and ``From Here You'll Watch the World Go By'' is on WSD. LPD has its own mailing list, cloud-zero, a huge Usenet following and a number of homepages, containing, among other things, complete lyrics to all LPD albums (on the latest records of LPD, you may find the Internet address of their mailing list). Here is the LPD homepage, with most cloud-zero archive, and here is an alternative homepage, modelled on Jeff Reid's excellent pages for Nurse With Wound. There was a delightfully written article, titled The Secret Dance of the China Dolls: The Story of the Legendary Pink Dots on a page which is no more; I stored a copy locally (taken from the Cloud Zero mailing list)

• By no means a WSD group, Psychic TV appeals to the same kind of occulto-fascist discordian sickos and perverts. In fact, half of WSD bands were conceived when the appropriate musicians were members of Thee Temple of Psychick Youth or played in PTV. PTV was founded as a broadcasting medium to spread out the message of a new religion -- Thee Temple of Psychick Youth (TOPY). Or may be it was all an elaborate put-on -- does not matter. Here is one all-encompassing site on PTV and TOPY, by Michael A. DuVernoi (recommended to anyone interested in anarchy, cut-ups, dadaism and everything else).

Industrial, Punk et al.

• An Industrial page. Especially recommended is the couple of archived Usenet essays by BOE666 on the subject of Industrial subculture. ...As for Chris & Cosey, I think the TGT album that they did back in 1990 anonomously along with Brian Lustmord state their take on contemporary "Industrial" quite well. This was a deliberately bad EBM CD, which just happened to sound a great deal like 90% of the crap that WaxTrax! and PIAS were churning out at the time. The constantly repeated lyrics on "Revo" say it all: "This is what you want/This is what you get!"... Quite revealing.
• Al Crawford might be elevated to the status of net.god through the endless reviewing of music on the Usenet, always stimulating and fresh. I used to archive all his postings in these pre-WWW times, but now he has his own archive, with al reviews collected. Essential site. Al also moderates rec.music.reviews. On the same site, you may see the list of all CD possessing Al Crawford.

• The Seconds magazine. Seconds is a glossy medium-circulation magazine (mostly) about music, consisting almost exclusively of the interviews. I love this interview with Genesis P-Orridge (of Throbbing Gristle and Psychick TV fame), dealing with GPO's expulsion from UK due to allegiance of the Satanist child abuse. Michael Moynihan of Blood Axis does an interview with Whitehouse. Also, Allen Ginsburg explains his sexual preference and ruminates about the NAMBLA membership.

• The homepage of Extreme Records, with a lot of material on Muslimgauze and other Extreme artists. Muslimgauze is is a pseudonym of Bryn Jones, an Englishman who is not a Muslim and never was in any of Near East (or Muslim) states. The body of work by Muslimgauze, produced for Western market exclusively (it's probably banned in fundamentalist Muslim states) consists mostly of the extremist anti-Israeli propaganda, with album titles such as Hebron Massacre, Hamas Arc and Vote Hesbollah. Jones does not seem to be able to explain rationally his politics: I suspect that Muslimgauze is a multi-layered hoax. However offensive his message might be for some, the music is decent.

• ``You are not supposed to enjoy a Wire gig'' quoth Wire members. Wire was the first group who consistently pursued that Einstuerzende Neubauten's ``Entertainment Through Pain'' shtick (needless to say, 5 years before EN). Wire and Buzzcocks were two original punk bands who had some musical and spiritual content in addition to gobbing, speed and politics. Turned into alternative dance in 80-ies, no less painful on ears (though by and large less rewarding). Wire solo members (except the drummer Robert Gotobed) all produce magnificient solo works (and Gotobed is credited on one Fad Gadget song). I was happy to find a detailed homepage of Wire, with all lyrics and stuff. ``Drag my canal, you saucy old salt, pale in belief I'm not without fault...''

• Well, Einstuerzende Neubauten have a homepage too. Beware of sound files.

• Nobody I know has ever heard anything by Fad Gadget except in my own apartment. Fad Gadget, a. k. a. Frank Tovey, a performance artist who made tons of excelently weird music. He does not have anything to do with electropop, gothic or industrial, though is usually grouped with electropop, gothic or industrial. Worked extensively with Daniel Miller of Mute Records and made an album with Boyd Rice (``no musical instruments were used in making of this album'' sez liner notes). Toured with Einstuerzende Neubauten and wrote a song ``Collapsing New People'' about experience (one of the reasons I still listen to N. E. sometimes). Avoid his latest album (Frank Tovet and the Pyros, Grand Reunion), it's among the worst dogs of 90-ies. There is a future homepage of Fad Gadget in Sweden, and a smaller page in Austria.

• FINDUSTRIAL: History of industrial music in Finland. [KOI8 | translit], written in Russian by Genrikh Zalkin.

Progressive music.

• Progressive Music Index from Gibraltar mailing list. An indispensable list, containing about everything one ever wants to know about music (at least one who died in 1975). Otherwise not much useful (no way to find most of these records anyway -- all good music is obscure, but the real good music needs (and finds) independent channels of distribution, which ``progressive'' ultimately lacks).

• Here is Progressive Rock Home Page, which was created by Mike Borella, with contributions from other denizens of the Usenet newsgroup rec.music.progressive (formerly alt.music.progressive).

• malcolm's house of vicarious delusions
  The homepage of Malcolm Humes, who is responsible for the most interesting progressive homepages (and sports healthy interest in other interesting things, unlike some other progheads who sport unhealthy interest in all uninteresting things). Highly recommended.

• A nice list of links for Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator, accompanying a German-language VdGG page. Hammill is a unique artist in his ability remaining very productive despite 30 years of complete obscurity (outside of Russia) -- and he's the last of English progressive artists still worth listening after the years. It never ceases to amuse me, in a pleasant way, that in Russia VdGG and Hammill are cult figures of no less caliber than King Crimson, Yes and Genesis, and far more popular than, say, Zappa, Roxy Music or Rush.

• For links and information on Hawkwind, see my article Zvukovaya Ataka Gorodskikh Partizan on ``Effects'' page.

Russian music, also Yury Naumov and Rush Limbaugh.

• A few homepages of Grazhdanskaya Oborona, a number one independent collective from Russia. GO (and associates) has worked under 10-20 names, altogether putting at least a hundred of full-blown albums, with styles ranging from punk to goth to satanist industrial to apocalyptic folk.
  • Here is the lyrics of Egor Letov, in transliterated Russian, with tablatures, at Maxim Moshkov's library. This site also contains the lyrics in all transliterated formats, and a lot of other stuff (complete Pelevin collection, other SF, KSP, rock... Heartily recommended)
  • Lots of lyrics for GO, from MIT Russian Club.
  • Here is another homepage, containing a lot of marvellous interviews, a huge annotated discography and a load of other goodies.
  • On my Kontrkultura archives, there is an interview with Egor, (Oct. 1993) taken from the banned newspaper Den'.
  • An article about the political party under the leadership of Eduard Limonov (the famous poet) and Egor Letov.
  • The most recent addition: a collection of links and a couple of audio files, in Finlandia, courtesy of Timo Hamalainen. Also at this site: Russian toilets page.

  • Here is the site for KOI-endowed Russian-speakers. Almost every lyric piece for almost any popular song: Songs Homepage, from MIT Russian Club

  • A meta-library of Russian music, mostly pop and KSP links.

  • Here is the Aquarium homepage, by Sergey Girlya. Aquarium is a Russian experimental rock group, which degenerated after 1986. However, the first efforts by Aquarium were memorable (tribal percussion, tape experiments, unclean industrial cello on fuzzbox, array of badly-but-forcefully played acoustic instruments and an aura of surreal weirdness). Aquarium is venerated in Russia about as much as Dylan or Dead in US.

  • This is an equal opportunity homepage.
    Here are Rush Limbaugh archives, and also that of Yury Naumov. Naumov is a Soviet guitar hero with less skill than Tommy Bolin a week before Bolin died from heroin addiction and less brain than Yngwee Malmsteen a week after Yngwee dies from putting his wah-wah in a wrong socket. Born in Novosibirsk, now lives in NYC. Terminal case of de-evolution.

  • An ambitious project, entitled Russian Indie Music Homepage. A lot of stuff, if you like 'Merikan college radio clones from Russia.

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