Tape scan: Dwayne "Bonedog" Mileham

My creepazoid lurking around rad old punkers’ Facebook profiles (what?) is always bearing fruit, but never more so than today. It appears obsessive archivist and collector Dwayne “Bonedog” Mileham has uncovered quite a gem!

This is a long lost, three-track SADO-NATION basement recording from 1982/83. Details are hazy but it seems these snarly Portland ragers made a handful of copies of this recording just to send to Maximum back in the day, and the tape found its way to Dwayne’s collection via Aaron Cometbus in the mid-’80s, where it has sat in his cavernous record room ever since.

The band had long since lost their copy, but miraculously this one still plays today, and in collaboration with front lady Mish, (formerly of all-girl group, the Braphsmears) this video has been made to give people access to these amazingly good quality recordings. Mish says they may well be put out as a proper release, 31 years later!

I was doing my review of a German band called Kellerasseln and the vocals kicked in my memory of a comp that I sadly still have back in Chicago with the rest of my records. The comp I thought about is called Welcome to Montana…Come Die With Us, put out by Poisoned Candy Records in 2005, and the band I had in mind is called DERANGED DICTION. Originally from Missoula, Montana, they moved to Seattle, WA, in 1983. Deranged Diction changed singers three times, but still managed to put out some awesome tunes. I would be lying if I didn’t say that my favorite era of theirs was when Tom Kipp sang on their first batch of songs, including “Pruning,” which appeared on the We Got Power comp put out by Mystic Records in 1983, and one of my favorite punk songs ever, “Periscope.” Their guitar player, Jeff Ament, went on to form Pearl Jam, which is pretty much the antithesis of what I am into, and I guess they  jumped on the reunion show bandwagon last month, but shit guys, Deranged Diction’s Montana era is rad and there is no denying…

While visiting my hometown of Chicago, my girl Nicole slapped the SORELLA MALDESTRA LP on and it occurred to me that I hadn’t pulled this out of the MRR collection yet. SORELLA MALDESTRA (translated Clumsy Sister) is part of the zeitgeist of Italian punk bands from the mid- to late-’70s era. Their demo tape, Cadavere, was put out by Harpo’s Bazaar, then Italian Records, Bologna in 1979. In 1997, Flowers of Grain released the tape onto vinyl, which, for us scumbag record collectors, can thankfully still be found. The vocals are raw, just the way I like it, and the music is punk and fuzzed out. The album has some weird audio effects, using synths and crowd cheers in the mix, adding a little new wave flavor. The result is some killer tracks, like their “hit” “Cadavere.” This band captures the creativity that existed in the proto-punk days, drawing influence from Zappa and Stooges rock that was prevalent at the time, while delivering a premonition of the awesome punk-as-fuck Italian sound that was to come. They have recently reformed and have twelve new songs out on a CD called Bad Weather that can be found at www.banksvillerecords.com. I haven’t heard it yet, but what ever your opinion of old bands reforming, their first album is worth checking out.

Tigran, a kind reader from the former USSR sent in this rad selection of Soviet-era punk rock for your listening pleasure. Tigran writes, “It contains great ’80s Soviet punk bands that were really innovative and talented. They created a unique sound not even heard of in western punk at that time.” Take that, Mykel Board!

He also sent these great pics! Here’s the download. Playlist at the end of the post — насладитесь!

[Update from Tigran & Facebook readers: A few bands here are actually post-Soviet — Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Chimera and Nyurnberg are from the '90s. Thanks nerds!]

Grazhdanskaya Oborona (1984)

Adolf Gitler, 1986 (not a Nazi band)

Putti (1983)

Soviet mixtape playlist:

1. mi sjadem na tanki / ADOLF GITLER
2. rejgan provokator / AVTOMATICHESKIE UDOVLETVORITELI
3. rukoyatka / CHIMERA
4. serij golub / ZVUKI MU
5. totalitarizm / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
6. vintovka eto prazdnik / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
7. budushego net / INSTRUKCIJA PO VIZHIVANIJU
8. opredeljonnije / MATROSSKAJA TISHINA
9. deklosirovannim elementam / YANKA
10. epidemija sili / NJURNBERG
11. na blazhennom ostrove kommunizma / KOMMUNIZM
12. novobranci / ARMIJA VLASOVA
13. tretij reih / ADOLF GITLER
14. trezvost / BRIGADNIJ PODRJAD
15. zagovor / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
16. zoopark / POSEV
17. davaj vojnu / PIZHEVIJE OTHODI
18. radiodiversija / AUKCION