Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel

Anyone heard that Baby Zizane album that came out last year?

Favorite Foetus tune: "Bedrock"
Runner-up: "Free James (so he can run me down)"

Wash It All Off

I'll Meet You in Poland, Baby

Wiseblood LP

I didn't much like Deaf or Ache and never really went much further..

Nail is the classic, though Thaw is particularly gruesome and makes a lot of appearances even now

yes Gash was ace (the mad jazz of Slung is a highlight), despite it getting a little to close to industrial stereotyping for much of the 60 mins, though the spinoff Null ep with remixes was far more concise and enjoyable, but the latest album Flow was seriously back on form with his mutant horns and dark fun. which was remixed to death by various electronica folks for Blow (Young Gods, DJ Food, Amon Tombin being my faves of this set)

recently though he has been discovering the inner workings of his laptop with Manorexia (??) and i have to admit i aint heard that yet.

new Foetus stuff on its way i hear 'Love'

Story : London T&C (1986) - Thaw release - backing band The Swans.

Jim was getting seriously wound up by some kid in the full on mosh pit, the bass monster from the Swans (??) - A LARGE man - also giving ugly gesticulations to said people in the mosh was slapping the bass sooo hard that a string snapped and recoiled around his finger, he than pulled his finger out of the coil string only to create a spray of blood. naturally he continued pounding the instrumnent to the gorebeat.

within a few minutes Jim jumped into the moshpit and started beating the shit out of somebody before climbing back on stage.

not a note was missed.

it was the most intense gig of my life.
whether it was staged or not.
i suspect not.

avoid Boil, not a good live album, especially up against the excellent Male live cd.

enjoy.

As an introduction, the Foetus live album 'Male' is pretty much untouchable for beginners. It has pretty damn great versions of my favourite Foetus songs ("I'll Meet You In Poland, Baby", "Butterfly Potion", "English Faggot", "Someone Drowned In My Pool", "Free James Brown") and two astonishing covers ("Faith Healer" and "Behemoth"), aligned with probably the best backing band Thirlwell ever had (Kizys, David Ouimet, Norman Westerberg).

Studio albums: 'Nail' and 'Hole' are the two real essentials, and the Wiseblood album.

'hole' is a total masterpiece. totally changed my life. 'ache' has actually aged really well, much better than i'd have thought it would.

a perfect evenings entertainment.

bloke next to me was On something .. naked from waste up .. girating constantly .. as if at a Rave .. weird as fuck considering the noise being made by the band.

one freaky time.

only to be followed up by wearing the Foetus Interruptus T-shirt in Leeds a few days later - and being accosted by some girl that it was appalling ..

How the hell did I remember all those lyrics?

HEEEEEEELLLLLLLO operator give me no-man's land
Collect call to no one at all
Been yellin' into an empty closet
To the point of no return and no deposit

killer stuff.

(xpost)

Where next? Gash, Flow or Nail?

WHEN YOU'RE DESTINED TO LIVE IN A STREET OF SHAME!

oOOH ah, DESTINED, destined to live in a street of shame,

STREET OF SHAME

Sounds like a good idea, following the discography back in time like that. LOVE is very different from the older albums, and if you follow that order the trip back could be (slightly) easier, I think.

I've probably listened to my 12" of "Wash It All Off" about 3000 times over the years, but today is a great day because I finally heard the original 7" version from 1982. Ha-ha. That is totally off the hook. What a treat. I love him all over again now.

Seriously, the period from 84 - 87 when he released not only "Hole" and "Nail" but also "Calamity Crush", "Wash It All Off", "Finely Honed Machine", "Bedrock" and "Ramrod". Just.....whew! Fucking amazing. Absolutely fucking amazing.

yup, that was an amazing period. got to add 'motorslug' and 'dirtdish' too.

i couldn't find them at the time but have subsequently and also really love the early records- 'spite your face', 'custom built for capitalism', 'wash it all off' (7"), 'tell me what is the bane of your life', 'deaf' and 'ache'.

i wonder whatever happened to the proposed foetus on the beach triple lp and 2nd f.a.t. 12"?

FORTHCOMING RELEASES ON SELF IMMOLATION/SOME BIZZARE & ASSOCIATED PRODUCT

WOMB FGH 12.8: YOU'VE GOT FOETUS ON YOUR BREATH
"Wash It All Off"/"Today I Started Slogging Again" - 12 45rpm ( Jan '85 )

WOMB UNC12.7 FOETUS UBER FRISCO
"Finely Honed Machine"/"Sick Minutes" - 12" 45rpm ( Jan '85 )

WISEBLOOD ( featuring CLINT RUIN of SFOTW & ROLI MOSIMANN of SWANS )
"Motor-slug"/"Death Rape 2000" ( on K422 ) - 12" 45rpm ( Feb '85 )

"THE FOETUS OF EXCELLENCE" - EMPTY BOX/ T SHIRT ( Feb '85 )

FOETUS ART TERRORISM: 2nd twelve inch - ( Mid '85 )

SCRAPING FOETUS OFF THE WHEEL: 2nd L.P. - ( Mid '85 )

WOMB 6T33: "FOETUS ON THE BEACH" - triple L.P. ( Late '89‡ )

all early Foetus rules, yes. the singles are great, both early albums also excellent. Thirsty Ear reissued them on CD some years back.

don't forget the Foetus Of Excellence T-shirt!

Yeah I forgot about the Motorslug 12" - a work of genius, obviously. What a guy!

I have to get those first two albums sometime. I wanted them for years but when they were reissued I'd kind of moved on and it wasn't so urgent anymore. But I'll pick them up someday.

ahh motorslug.
but seriously - who can listen to Death Rape 2000 all the way through ? the lead track is just sheer class, but i never manage to make it all the way through the flip.
12" came with a great comic as well ..
agree - this really was an amazing period in Jims career.
the Dirtdish cd version is totally worth tracking down, just for the different versions of Someone drowned in my pool (surely one of the funniest/darkest tracks ever ?), and the genius that was Stumbo.
Ahh the days I used to wear my dayglo orange/pink Savage Pencil Stumbo T-shirt and revel in the disbelieving stares, whereas now its banned to the archive as my wife refuses to be seen out in public with me wearing it.
Naturally, he fell in for the Sony dollar, and things were never quite the same again, though the internet only album Damp seems to have some cracking stuff on it, once i get back into the Foetus mood.

who can listen to Death Rape 2000 all the way through ?

Weah, what a headache. David Gedge once chose it in a list of his favourite records along with Spike Milligan's Tape Recorder by the Membranes so he must have an ear for such things. They even played a little bit of it on the radio.

Who knew Dave Gedge liked Foetus!

have to admit my head was spun a little by that fact.

I've been on a Foetus kick for the last few days. The timelessness of these recordings is astounding. The absence of band photos or videos, combined with the facts that he's always been difficult to pigeonhole AND the superb quality of the recordings means they could have been released anytime in the last 30 years. Things like "Diabolus in Musica" or "Sick Minutes" sound so contemporary alonside groups like Battles, for instance.

I'm not surprised David Gedge likes Foetus & the Membranes - apparently the name The Wedding Present was inspired by his being a fan of the Birthday Party.

And the early Weddoes stuff was super-intense too.

Currently listening to Stereoid Maximus's "Gondwanaland". Wild. And GROOVY!

Along with everybody else, I just fucking LOVE the mid-to-late-80s Foetus stuff. Esp Nail, but the singles and side projex too. Fucking Wiseblood! Amazing music and the lyrics are even better. Stuck in that "confrontational" 80s fake tough guy mode, but still so smart, funny, self-lacerating and perversely joyful. I like how he frames the stereotypical pigfuck tropes as 40s hard-boiled noir. Gives it a big wink and makes the nihilist mutilation angle seem a lot less pretentious. Damn fine producer of other folks' music, too (Boss Hog, etc.).

my sister found out she lives in his old house! a pale youth was standin outside the front door looking overinterestedly at her windows and she said "wtf dude" and he explained

of course he might just have been a perve w.a genius line in cover stories

WHEN YOU'RE DESTINED TO LIVE IN A STREET OF SHAME

STREET OF SHAME

OMG I'd just die knowing I lived in the guy's house. Actually, no, I think I'd dress up as Lydia Lunch and rub my body against the walls for a few hours.

I'LL MEET YOU IN POLAND, BABY!

Hole never gets old. What a record.

yeah i totally agree.

i wonder if the remastered version that i read rumours about were actually ever released by some bizarre, and whether they are worth the extra £££ on an album i have already got 4 copies of ..

I'LL MEET YOU IN POLAND, BABY!

i mean to post that line every 1st of september but always forget.

Downloaded Hole, Nail, Thaw and Sink as a result of reading this thread a couple of weeks ago. Damn, that shit holds up. "I'm gonna soak my head under your hose!"

Flow and Love are essential

"Love" remix album is coming soon. Jason Forrest and Fennesz are involved, amongst others. The re-issues are definetely out there now but I haven't heard them.

"Butterfly Potion" as the pinnacle of human achievement: discuss

>"Butterfly Potion" as the pinnacle of human achievement: discuss

Nah, I gotta go with "A Prayer For My Death."

Then it seems we are at an impasse.

All of this shit is still amazing.

>"Butterfly Potion" as the pinnacle of human achievement: discuss

Nah, I gotta go with "A Prayer For My Death."

-- unperson, Saturday, September 15, 2007 3:13 PM (4 hours ago)

"Throne of Agony" maybe?

Louis, I know we've discussed this before, but I have to admit that I think LOVE is the least essential of his work so far (to the point that I got a little worried that he'd fallen off, actually. The first time I bought a foetus rec and had a "eh." reaction to it.)

My cureent high rotation favorite is "Kid Hates Kid", actually.

Love > Gash

Well, if for nothing else, Love is worth it for 'Don't Want Me Anymore' alone, a supreme, slow-building fusion of orchestra and fuzz-guitar with an absolutely lethal pay-off.

Love > Gash

Haven't heard "Love" yet but there is no denying the classic-ness of "Hammer Falls."

whenever Offed comes in on this thread, i always feel guilty for having ignored my Foetus collection for so long. must be a hormonal thing, as i only ever enjoy Jims groove when i am pissed off, which has to be said, is a very rare situation these days.
though i can listen to Nail what ever mood i am in.
oh, and i far prefer Slung on Gash.

Much as I bang on about Foetus, I only have 3 of his albums, namely the last two and Nail (courtesy of JJ). All are very good, but I definitely need to explore further.

That said, I can't imagine anything else of his being better than "Kreibabe". Tenser, fiercer, and more emotionally wrought than most plays, the song unfolds like twisted opera, for a genuinely (as opposed to Lloyd-Webber circus-freak) disturbed mind to find reason within its own depravity, racking up the wrongness and the paranoia by increments throughout its 13-minute runtime. Show-stopping. Stunning. Most unbelievable of all, catchy!

is it too late to trade in my mind

LJ I swear I'm gonna send you Hole if you haven't heard it yet.

I found a promo vinyl copy of the Null EP on the East Coast abandoned under a record rack for a mere six bucks. Never heard it, or any of the Sony stuff in fact. It's pretty damn good! Now I have copied Gash and Love from the radio station and plan on doing a little catching up with Mr. Thirlwell in 2008.

Hole? To my eternal shame, I only have 'Nail', 'Flow' and 'Love' thus far. If you're feeling any seasonal charity, I'd be very grateful!

HUMAN HEIFFER FOR A FILLET VEAL!
HUGH HEFNER AND A HUMAN MEAL!
SOMEONE'S MAKING ME A HUMAN MEAL!

dude, get HOLE immediately.

or else I'm gonna cook you a stew you'll choke on!

I wish someone would write a book about his lyrics - I finally found out that "the snot-green sea, the scrotum-tightening sea" is from James Joyce's 'Ulysses' quite recently, for instance

Louis, your ILX mail address doesn't work?

Hmm. papi3rm4ch3alamph1b1an at hotmail dot com (de-googleproofed, of course) is probably the best one to get in touch with.

not just hole - but Wiseblood aswell sir, and what no Thaw!
natually, i can help you if required sir ..

Well, it is Christmas! Just the time for spinning JT's delightful carols to human depravity.

MAAAANDELAAAAAYYYYYEEEEEEEE

newest remix album is ?? so far as to how i feel about it

speaking of which, is mr thirlwell remixing much of anybody these days? i still have the CD5 with his RHCP remix on it, and some other stuff lying about, but it seems like its been years.

not heard the new remix album, but i loved DAMP, the internet only release. the packaging was perfectly foetus-esque and very high quality, as was the music (off cuts/remixes from the Love-era).
in fact i have listened to that more than Love, actually.
as for remixes ?
well, he's more into the serious art stuff now isn't he ? shows with orchestras and such.
i doubt labels are going to be offering him $$ for remixes these days.
having said that i know he owes a remix to DJ Food, so you never know !

Oh yes:

http://www.williamsstreet.com/kernel/imageload?table=cat_images;ttl2=15;key1=297096_f_EN_;key2=297096_f_EN;key3=297096_f;key4=-100_f_EN;key5=-100_f

is this a website only release ?
that cover is truly fantastic.
fuck you hirst and your diamond skull.

"-This item cannot be shipped outside the U.S.A. and Canada."

bastards. bastards. bastards.

Amazon (US, anyway) has only the LP listed. Give it time, I'm sure they'll stock the CD as well.

Just read the notes/promo piece from Jackson Publick and was struck by the fact that Quilombo, the album that he says got him to hire Thirlwell in the first place, and indeed all the other Steroid Maximus material aside from the last album is long out of print and impossible to find. Not only that, Flow (which is all over the Venture Bros. pilot, "Cirrhosis of the Heart" especially) is out of print and insanely expensive, despite being only a few years old, while its goddamn remix album is still available and easy to find. WTF, Blue Note?

excuse me Thirsty Ear

eh all you jazz labels look alike

lol i got Flow off Amazon about a year and a half ago for like 8 quid

i am concentrating very hard to make your head explode right now

(is it working)

yeah, i am actually wondering to myself "is it too late to trade in my mind"

Seriously though, that is fantastic luck- I've been looking for a copy for ages and did a little dance when I found out CDUniverse had it in stock. Then I waited over a month for it to come in, emailed CDUniverse and told them I never got the package, they said "oh sorry about that we'll send it right out," and another month later cancelled my entire order and gave me a refund, which leads me to believe that not only did they never have the Foetus in stock, they didn't have the rest of my order either. They've shafted me on another CD, too, and haven't even replied, much less given a refund.

Man that got off-topic really quickly. So, um, in summation I like Foetus and CDUniverse can choke on a big ol' kielbasa.

its past midnight.
i have listened to melodic indie pop all day to realign my head for weekend festival.
so why is it, before i go to sleep i now have an urge to listen to Nail on headphones.
LOUD.

because its a great great record, and i used to do the same thing to go to sleep when in college. its weirdly soothing despite being kind of bombastic, and the rise and fall is so enveloping that it is hard to resist

soothing and cleansing.
the big intense finale is just the most amazing end to an album.
Anything! has just kicked in and now i remember why i still have all the cds within reaching distance from the stereo.

just remembered .. doesn't the vinyl of Nail have a locked groove with the end vocal chant ?
also, the reissued remastered edition.
worthy of extra $$ given that i have the original cd.
is there that big a difference ?

I just bought Limb, a recent collection of all super early 80s stuff, lots of Steve Reichian experiments, piano pieces, Severed Heads-esque tape manipulation. Some beautiful and awesome stuff.

i keep meaning to get this. do you know if the version of "sick minutes" is different to the 12" version?

ooh a foetus thread bump! 'finely honed machine' has been on my current ipod shuffle roster and is a most energising 9-minute trip into the dark heart of JGT

I don't know the vinyl bg...the version of Sick Minutes on Limb is 8 minutes long, while it's 2 minutes on Sink.

Looks like it may be the same...from http://www.foetus.org/ under Limb there's a ton of historical info about each track.

Sick Minutes was originally recorded in 1982 at Lavender Sound, an eight track studio in South London where I recorded my first two albums, DEAF and ACHE, with Harlan Cockburn engineering. It's working title was "Six Minutes", as I conceived it as two three minute sections, but I was very ill the day that I was recording it and it got re-christened "Sick Minutes". The percussion is toy wooden marimbas, aerosol cans played with small mallets, prepared piano. You can also detect a tin whistle. I later took it to Wave studios in Hoxton Square where I revamped it and added the vocal loops which pushed it well beyond six minutes.
The revamping session happened when I was recording the Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel album HOLE. I had created a lot of vocal tape loops by multi tracking my voice on 24 track. We then mixed these on to 1/4" tape in major and minor chords. We stretched the tape loop then I would "play" the tape machine as an instrument, pitching it with varispeed , and re-record that back onto the 24 track. I would mark the varispeed knob with a grease pencil to indicate the key notes that worked with the key of the song. Then those tape loop performances were submixed and bounced into an arrangement. This is the same method I used for creating the voices on "I'll Meet You In Poland Baby", like a mellotron without the mellotron.
The phrase "unmutual" that is sung at the end comes from an episode of the TV show The Prisoner, where Number Six is branded unmutual for being uncooperative. I seem to remember a part where the villagers converge on him chanting this. This piece also features acoustic guitars at the end, in one of the only times I have ever used them. It was released as the b-side of a limited edition twelve inch under the name Foetus Uber Frisco.

I have to say, I've always enjoyed what I've heard of his but never fully explored his catalog, I've gotten to know him a bit in NYC over the years, running into him every now and again, the last time at the Fairway supermarket in Brooklyn where he was confused because he misplaced his cart! (I think somebody else took it) but this has been a revelation to me. I randomly put on Primordial Industry which I had off a downloaded rip from the original NWW compilation and assumed it was a different Foetus, but when I looked it up and realized it was the same, I had to buy Limb.

thanks dan. "hole" was my foetus entry point and for years i thought it was the greatest album of all time, but now it's "deaf", "ache" and the early singles i listen to the most, so i really need to get this.

ordered.

ok. i know ysi is a no no but this is long out of print and it's a lo fi mp3, so.....

"kid hate kid"

genius.

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/712507604/587e3a44d33854437d81538080e67fb6

you know he played synth on the pragVEC! Lp before leaving London for NY? Their drummer Nick Cash was also in The Lines but Thirwell didn't seem to remember them when I asked.

Oh btw rife is available on emusic. Trying to resist the urge to burn all my foetus stuff and make a mint on amazon. One of the Marc almond singles is starting at $40!

Today is the first of september......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmO5N5TVwpc

nice. there was a cringe worthy interview on resonance fm this evening with jg thirwell. he seems like a cool a guy who's heavily into music but the interviewer was a complete dick. he even mispronounced einsturzende neubauten

I've been trying to find a podcast of this but cannot. Can you explain further?

(I mean, it just aired today and it's expecting to much that the host has uploaded a podcast and some website maintainer has put it up.)

too much

Feet are smellin' (Foetus Melon)

Today is the first of september......
― stirmonster

Meant to revive this yesterday then forgot all about it. Giving it a wee listen now.

http://www.last.fm/music/Foetus/_/I%27ll+Meet+You+in+Poland+Baby

Three years running this has had a "TODAY IS THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER!" shout.

has Sink ever been remastered? I have an early Wax Trax and a later Thirsty Ear and now I see there is a 2007 Some Bizarre reissue, but no notes about remastering from the original 1989 version.

I don't think it has ever been remastered. The 2007 version in the digipack is not a remaster although it has been described that way when mentioned collectively with the remastered versions of Hole and Nail.

thanks!

JOHN JUSTEN if you are reading, I have now heard the cover of Shrunken Man and I am obsessed with it as it is *PHENOMENAL*

altogether now ..

"Today is the first of SEPTEMBER !!!!"

[anyone heard anything from the new album thats in pipeline .. ]

you beat me to the punch! :)

after my youngest woke me up with 'pinch punch 1st of the month' this morning, i was determined to hit this thread.

of course, reading the news yesterday that jim is to release a new album, hide, kind of got me in gear

Am watching a LOT of awesome Foetus videos tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYhU2RmbA5I

Like, tell me big-band jazz has been done better than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azTQ12nyW_c

slung is the best thing on gash by far.

big-bnad jazz has been done better than that

big-nad jazz has been done better than that

Today is the first of Septembah!

LIVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDre17rNvV0

i love this annual kick in the nuts to help remind us of jims excellence.

there aren't many records that mean as much to me as hole and nail do. there's an element of intense personal expression that i don't really get from his subsequent work. in an interview years ago he said something along the lines of feeling like he was going to die in the course of making each of these albums, such was the effort he was putting in to them.

so great

I listened to "Hot Horse" this morning in honor of the day.

Today is the first of Septembah!

so it is ....

Ach, missed it!

jim actually did the same thing on his official facebook page yesterday ..

made me laugh.

I was wondering about remasters and sound and stuff. Have wanted to get OKFM in decent sound for a while, I love the 3D intro section on that particular track. Subsequently wanted it in best possible sound.

Also would love a copy of Mother I Killed THe Cat. I had the single but every time I put it on tape the tape broke and I wondered if that was just coincidence.

Has anyone else noticed what feels like an unnaturally enormous number of used Foetus LPs out there in the world? I feel like I encounter Foetus as much as Carole King, or at least Poco.

you clearly have some interesting charity/used record shops as i have never ever come across any used foetus albums !

I have two Foetus related trivia questions of my own devising:

1. Which song by the Dickies is apparently sampled on which Foetus song?
2. What's the connections between Foetus and Phyllis Diller?

1. no idea
2. no idea

and i thought i was a fan !

more fool me.

i mean i could ask him, but he does not suffer fools gladly, and i am fearful that this would put me on the 'this f*cker needs to burn in hell pile !"

hole - nail - thaw

best trilogy ever ?

i think so.

just given them all a spin tonight and to say i got the same blood rush as i did back upon their release would be an understatement.

unbelievable stuff given the studio restrictions of the day ..

Male is maybe the best live album ever recorded.

i saw that tour

it was immense.

in london the support was gary clail and on-u sound.

which was perfect for me, but mad as a box of frogs for others.

and then when jim jumped into the moshpit and beat the living daylight out of one of the moshpit crew then the levels of intensity went up to a whole new level.

blood. violence. and elton john cover versions.

what more could you ask from a concert.

Yeah, it was an awesome tour right enough.

I remember hearing the album for the first show in Prong's tour bus - Troy Gregory was unusually proud of it.

Watch out for JG at 2:25 on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No2ukc5V4EM

i hope you guys vote for the Foetus albums in FORGET THE ROLLING STONE CANON HERE IS ILM'S HARD STICK OF 1980'S ROCK POLL ALBUMS/TRACKS VOTING THREAD. (Voting closes September 20) (all welcome to vote inc Lurkers)

In a Rolling Stones poll?

Has anyone else noticed what feels like an unnaturally enormous number of used Foetus LPs out there in the world?

― Clarke B., Sunday, September 2, 2012 9:50 AM (7 hours ago)

yeah, though ime it's mostly the "finely honed machine", "ramrod" and "bedrock" 12-inches, along w/ the wiseblood stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_52241cMx24

lols at the orange juice clip!

two albums announced today.

"JG Thirlwell will be releasing two albums on the same day on Ectopic Ents in early October 2013. The long awaited Foetus album, SOAK, which is a companion to 2010's acclaimed epic HIDE, will finally see the light of day. The 11 track album contains a ton of new material as well as the Foetus cover of "Warm Leatherette", a remix of "Cosmetics" by Secret Chiefs 3 and more. It continues and expands on some of the themes explored in HIDE and features guest appearances opera singers Abby Fischer and Natalie Galpern. In addition, JG Thirlwell's chamber soundtrack to the film "The Blue Eyes" will also be released. The original score was created for Eva Aridjis' Mexican-lensed thriller, and is performed with an ensemble including violin, viola, cello, french horn, contrabass, tuba and bass trombone in addition to piano, percussion and electronics. Both albums will be exclusively available through the website www.foetus.org, and digitally soon thereafter. We will be taking orders around the middle of September.
"

would have been perfect in a couple of days for ilm ..
but hey ..
these sound ace ..

yup, thought someone was posting prematurely. :-)

his version of "warm leatherette" had better be very special as that song has been covered to death.

i am actually looking forward to that version ..

i love how jim has totally embraced the new world and maintains complete control over his work.

he cant sell that many copies of each release, and yet he clearly has figured out how to make the online option work for his advantage.

of course, collabs with commercially viable options such as zola from time to time must help, but the fact remains, jim t has, against all the odds, forged, against all the odds, a rather cool way of dealing with the commercial world on his own terms.

"Today is the first of Septembah!"

:-)

:-)

I got Love a few months ago and it was fantastic. I've been looking for Nail for a while and wondering why the remaster copies are so expensive. Is it really worth getting the remaster?

There are about 17 albums on mp3. I'm still reluctant to get mp3's but they do have Nail for super cheap, presumably remastered.

have wondered the same ..
the original cds are quiet, but sound ok to me, so not that bothered re the remasters ..

I'm in Austria for the night. Best I could do, sorry

"Today is the first of Septembah!"

:-)

"Today is the first of Septembah!"

See you at your FUNERAL, baby

Sieg heil!

"Today is the first of Septembah!"

― stirmonster, Monday, 31 August 2015 23:00 (Yesterday)

someone was keen !

this was a cool watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhxXZa29FVE

o yeah that is very good, Coil footage as well

yeah this is cool

david tibet's a miserable sort tho ;)

someone was keen !

it was actually 00.00 uk time. :-)

haha .. I thought that was the case, but still, you were clearly determined this year !

david tibet's a miserable sort tho ;)

― Yul Brynner playing table tennis with a deviled kidney (imago), Tuesday, September 1, 2015 10:54 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the doc is a pretty wide array of different specimins of miserable sorts!

test depts. young communist drag clothes really cracks me up for some reason, the live footage of them is amazing tho

david tibet is a bit trenchant in this

foetus zings him nicely

i kinda like current 93 but i dunno all this stuff it's hard to know where it ends and all that death in june/boyd rice shit begins, which creeps me out

I feel pretty good about tibet in that regard

yeah they cut ties in the late 90's iirc? when DIJ got kicked off of World Serpent...

haha .. I thought that was the case, but still, you were clearly determined this year !

your turn next year!

his version of "warm leatherette" had better be very special as that song has been covered to death.

in case anyone was waiting for feedback on this statement : it is very very special.

big band noise vs old school jim vocals.

yes, he did something new with it. first cover version of it i have thought was any good for eons.

phew !
was a little worried given your declared concerns.
got SLUNG on headphones v.v. loud at the moment.
it really is stunningly brilliant.
for all the crap re Sony/GASH, for SLUNG alone it was worth it.

need to check it out as i've never heard that one. i hadn't listened to any foetus in a while but dug out "deaf" and "ache" last week. so fresh!

SLUNG = 11 minutes of big band FOETUS.
need i say anymore.
its insanely good.
and i have never heard DEAF/ACHE as i have always assumed they would be crappy lo-fi experiences.
HOLE/NAIL = 24 track + fairlight (NAIL) ..

WHAT

dude I will mail you CDRs if you email me your address

Ache is especially amazing and essential

haha ! cheers sleeve ..

(thumbs up icon)

I was just listening to Vein when I saw this thread revived. I've spent quite a bit of time this month listening to Calamity Crush/Catastophe Crunch. So good, especially the latter. Do you think that was made with a fairlight then? Obviously it sounds like it but how did he have access to one?

I think he rented it?

In the 80s were you eyeing up Fairlight CMIs when they were released, or did you know such budgets would be out of reach and so made the best you could with the tools available?

JGT: I used the Fairlight extensively on Nail. Fairlight had its own onboard computer and sequencing. Within a couple of years it was almost obsolete for me as I moved on to the first generation of Akai S-series samplers and an Atari computer, among other things. Those were my weapons of choice on Thaw, but the difference was I had those for pre-production, whereas the Fairlight I was using while the studio clock was ticking. Again I think there was a big shift between Nail and Thaw.

from

http://thequietus.com/articles/06354-foetus-jg-thirlwell-interview

Yeah, ACHE is essential and I consider it more or less as good as the following two albums. DEAF is closer to "crappy low-fi exerience" for sure but still worth yoir time.

the "deaf" version of "today i started slogging again" is so great!

lots of fairlight sounds on "calamity crush / catastrophe crunch". whatever his faults, one thing stevo was great at was coming up with the recording (and packaging) budgets for some bizzare releases back then.

that bloody tQ interview ;-)

(for a few weeks me and jim proper fell out over a question i asked prior to the end result ..)

in fact, if you listen to "tesla girls" by OMD you'll had a few of the same fairlight library sounds as used on "calamity crush".

mark I did not realize that was you! nice work.

also, not done any interviews since.
felt like i had peaked with jim.
he was the top of the tree (other than bowie of course!) for me.

xp.

Not Jeff Lynne? haha. I just reread that interview. Cool.

haha.
well, yeah.
but the ELO thing only kicks in when i am drunk.

(for a few weeks me and jim proper fell out over a question i asked prior to the end result ..)

Curious about this, if you wouldn't mind expanding on the story...

(I went to his apartment to do an Invisible Jukebox with him for The Wire some years ago. Tremendously nice guy—at least, he is now that he's clean.)

ok, here goes, bear with me, as it was a crap idea.

basically, if you go to pantomime in the UK with kids the opening section is meant to scare the kids to death.
then as the pantomime progresses, good overcomes the evil, and all is well with the world.
hence the opening section of a decent panto is often full of kids screaming and being scared.
well, in my naivety, i put it to jim that the FOETUS groove was akin to panto.
i.e. its full on and rather scary to start with, but as you get in deeper then you realise the truth etc etc.
however, jim took offence to the use of the word pantomime.
he just thought it was all crap second rate slapstick (which most of it is !).
then after i explained my thought process, he pointed me in the direction of a tradition of french theatre thats seriously dark ..
and clearly a cousin of the original ideas behind the uk panto.

and yes, once we cleared the air, it became very apparent that jim is now one of the most warm, intelligent music makers out there.
just that my crappy inane shyte did not sit well with this deep thought groove.

Could've guessed he had a dim view of pantos:
"Look at all the ugly people
Diggin holes to pass the time
Semi spastic weak and feeble
Never ending pantomime"

ahh.
that's not a lyric i am aware of !
pre-HOLE material ?

Horrible/funny image in my head of Hot Horse being used as an end of panto singalong.

hang on .. its on FLOW.

(not that its easy to tell !)

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/798_10156693747130597_6189724996768498576_n.jpg?oh=9d1d2d24186c153da4d345d9b97de9d2&oe=57953072

"Today is the first of Septembah!"

the tradition continues.

:D

Best annual thread bump.

jim posted this onto his facebook earlier :

http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/art/14138064_10155097818838682_8953044966084377601_o.jpg

i was travelling all day yesterday but was optimistic mark e would post. that facebook post is awesome.

Guys

ha !

http://ireallylovemusic.co.uk/art/foetus.jpg

i slept, in but concede eternal defeat in the wake of mark e's greatness :-)

^a mutual non-aggression pact

<3 to all revivers

Tradition!

so soon?! as he has excelled at this in recent years i'm gonna let mark e take it from here.......

TEMBA-TEMBA-TEMBA

Hole never gets old. What a record.

― onimo, Thursday, 13 September 2007 11:41 (ten years ago) Permalink

onimo otm

*feedback squeal*

http://ireallylovemusic.co.uk/art/sept2018.jpg

bloody hell.
no idea why that didn't work.
here is this years image courtesy of jim :

http://ireallylovemusic.co.uk/art/sept2018.jpg

and ta for the nudge stirmonster.
you are more than welcome to step in at the midnight hour as there is never going to be a year when I am ready and waiting at that time.

ha. ok. i can't imagine i'll stop being a night owl any year soon.

I wish he'd reissue a collection of all his earliest singles and non-lp material.

agreed

do you mean SINK or is there a lot of other stuff that's not on there?

yeah there's a lot that isn't on Sink, and most of what is there is truncated

indeed.
a compilation of all the 12" singles unedited would be rather wonderful.
given that he has released compilations of his recent(ish) material, I suspect its cos Stevo has the rights to the old stuff and aint handing the rights over, or does someone here know the real reason why ?

not sure, but the 1st 3 7" singles and the Custom Built For Capitalism EP were self-released

yeah, wasn't sure when the SB deal kicked it as I only came in at the time of HOLE.

I'd assume that by now even the SB releases would be releaseable. The last SB release was 32 years ago so I find it hard to imagine Stevo has much of a leg to stand on legally. As for the earlier releases (all of which i love), maybe Jim would rather his earlier music was just quietly forgotten?

According to the forum on the foetus website, he has been working on a complete-unedited-12-singles-comp for years, but new music projects are always causing delay.

i hope that happens. i'd love to know when they were all actually recorded as Finely Honed Machine and Wash / Slog have always sounded to me like they were recorded earlier, around the time of Ache.

.......Drum roll................

tember tember tember tember

and what a fine day for it!

I'm painting my new house, revive makes me wish I'd brought SFOTW for the boombox..

bloody hell, this annual gathering has come around quickly.
so far, no image from Jim today.
maybe he has forgotten !

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDYO5tHXYAU-9F8.jpg

of course he didn't forget.

We have ways of making you talk

https://babayagashut.seetickets.com/event/jg-thirlwell-ensemble/st-pancras-new-church-london/1482369

well, looks like i will leaving my countryside idyll, to see the FOETUS Ensemble in London :
wasn't that keen at first (what no SWANS as his backing band !!), but then i saw a couple of live videos of this set up, and Jims sounds fantastic.
any other ILM'rs coming along ?

SUCK ON THIS, SQUAREHEAD.....

:)

needless to say the event i mentioned in my previous post never happened.
and by the sounds of it never will now.

oh hi!

no hope of it being rescheduled, mark?

it appears not.
they rescheduled it for sept, but that has been cancelled with the advise that jim has no wish to travel for the foreseeable future.

Here's something interesting...live footage from 1991 of a short-lived side project called Amyl Night Train featuring JGT and members of Unsane, including both Charlie Ondras and Vinnie Signorelli on drums!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8iEaLoE4yI

Saw this revive and thought "shit, is it September already??

I recently stumbled on this and realized it's the source of the samples, "I like the way you fill out yr clothes / I want to soak my head under yr hose", etc.:

https://www.discogs.com/George-Raft-In-Scenes-From-The-Motion-Picture-They-Drive-By-Night/master/1774705

That gets a mention in this interview about the Hole lp.

Saw this revive and thought "shit, is it September already??

exactly the same here.

great to find the "...hose" sample source and thanks for the Hole link.

haha.
me too.
and yeah, i had no idea re the source of the samples.

that inteeview puts to rest lots of things i have wondered since i was 15. fascinating.

love this -

What is your favourite track from the album?

I’ll meet You In Poland Baby, still one of the best songs I’ve written!

guess what?

TEMBATEMBATEMBATEMBA

Yes

good morning all.
here's this years treat from Jim - if it works.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-K7H5xXIAMPATm?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

slackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslackslack
flakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflakflak

Aye!

I hear you got a six inch guarantee of unilateral security

SEE YOU AT YOUR GRAVESIDE, BABY.

*squeals of feedback*

Imponderable soundtrack CD for $5 on Discogs, US peeps. (I'm not selling it I just think you should buy it.)

https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/1298660760

ember ember

too soon for a "me and putin, we just signed..." remake

Best use of a Fairlight in music history

A live chamber music version, from 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPkbh0XAsI8

i was meant to see the ensemble thing in london a couple of years back, but covid etc.

oh, and the picture jim has posted today could have been taken this week.

too soon for a "me and putin, we just signed..." remake

boom!

seconded on best use of a fairlight.

Wasn't Calamity Crush/Catastrophe Crunch done on a Fairlight?

it 100% sounds like it was.

all the orchestral stuff on "nail" too.

Couple nights ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGN7_j7uG3o

The instrumental at the start of Nail is so lovely

another year another love

Thirwell is done with releasing physical media isn't he? I should probably get what CDs I can afford right now if they're never coming out again

I think he mentioned that a CD of Archer music was coming later this year. And he released a 40th anniversary white vinyl version of Ache.

nice, missed that Ache reissue but I have an OG LP and reissue CD already, always nice to see it out there again. Ache is so great and has my single favorite song of his ("Gums Bleed")

Gums Bleed available only on Apple Music almost makes me have an Apple Music account only for this

Thirwell is done with releasing physical media isn't he?

interesting.
has he actually said this anywhwere ?

in foetus related news :
i once ordered a cd from him and it came with a signed sticker.
fast forward years later, and could i find that sticker anywhere ?
i scoured this place from top to bottom for weeks once i had it in my head that i had to find it.
i gave up.
then a couple of weeks back i decided to check out my Motorslug 12" with comic (wanted to look at the artwork etc) ..
and yeah, the sticker dropped out of the comic.

I just have a memory of him and Jarboe saying they wouldn't be releasing physical media anymore. Can't recall sources

put GASH on cos of this nudge.
damn, SLUNG is insanely fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnn-L1utCS8

This interview is from 2020 but he said he has 9 albums in the works! And he lived with Keith Allen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdVxXt4zbqY

And he lived with Keith Allen!

Which is likely why he appeared briefly in The Bullshitters.

It's about time for Mortaring Foetus Back on the Wheel I think.

that soft cell appearance is soemething else. I really loved the soft cell set in SF but this would have put it over the top.

He also says there will be a final concluding Foetus album.

The last few Xordox and Thirlwell albums have been on CD so either I misremembered or he changed his mind

Which is likely why he appeared briefly in The Bullshitters.

Best cameo ever. Nice if he could have been the centre of The Yob instead of UB40 as well

What day is it????

TEMBATEMBATEMBATEMBA

― visiting, Tuesday, August 31, 2021 10:39 PM (two years ago)

We have ways of making you talk

WELL I GAVE YOU A LOT OF SLACK
BUT ALL I GET FROM YOU IS FLAK
-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK

Today is the first first of September without onimo.

:(

JG Thirlwell was in my dream last night ... I rarely have dreams about music

when my sister still lived in london she was leaving her house once and encountered a pasty-looking type on the pavement eyeing her house weirdly. she asked what was up and pasty said the house was a SHRINE* bcz FOETUS once lived there. which she had not till then known (the previous inhabitant had been a sad-seeming lady with many cats). anyway maybe keith allen also lived there…

*i don't imagine they actually said SHRINE, it's what they meant tho (i have a very clear imagined idea of this person lol, based entirely on unjust assumption)

Pasty fans of pasty Foetus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNXroStKqg4

Another interview at Lydia and Tim's podcast. Mostly about soundtrack work, he's writing an autobiography and there's a bit of talk about the best musician autobiographies

https://archive.is/AeGJZ what a beautiful loft <3

https://www.curbed.com/article/brooklyn-artists-loft-law-joshua-charow-book-excerpt.html

original URL

the photos:

https://archive.is/AeGJZ/a7d089fd461a95ddf82f26903a72d52dacf84b54.webp
https://archive.is/AeGJZ/bd32c9244f172a21c23e215b20007763eba93ed5.webp
https://archive.is/AeGJZ/1966299db734f3e3896d7ee18f61112aa28372fc.webp

wow

Lovely stuff

I went there once to interview him for The Wire. It's a really nice space.

All of this shit is still amazing.

― HI DERE, Saturday, September 15, 2007

WHAT TIME IS IT

"you just wear your umbilical cord like a noose and make believe it's a tie" is still all time top 10 lyric by anyone imho

Suck on this, Squarehead

Today is the first of September

We have ways of making you talk

Once more, with feeling :)

https://64.media.tumblr.com/953000f7dc380dacfe16b38cbc62b328/7c964c6bc4072eff-36/s1280x1920/f085c42b1144023a8b77e82a8e7654cb60939936.jpg

Foetus album HALT in mixing stages

JG Thirlwell has been working with Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Z’s, Hubble) at Circular Ruin studios in East Williamsburg Brooklyn, mixing the final and ultimate Foetus album.

unusual details in wikipedia articles

In October 1985, Thirlwell made the album Nail, which became the most popular Foetus album of all time.