Severed Heads: CDSD

They are incredible.. the album HAUL ASS is amazing.. It was put out by SEVCOM... check out Tom and the Sevheads on http://www.sevcom.com

I'm not as enamoured with anything post (and including) Gigapus but it's still good. I could listen to Bulkhead all day.

The electronic sounds: very innovative and definitely ahead of their time, for the most part. As brian mentioned, should definitely appeal to a lot of current IDM fans--those artists might kill for some of the sounds Ellard achieved using only tape or vinyl.

The vocals: very cartoonlike, sometimes annoying; at other times that quality is just what the material needs.

I actually draw the line at Big Bigot in terms of the really interesting stuff...after that point it was all about dancing and was a lot less innovative. Though I'll still admit I like "Hot With Fleas". Just picked up the Gashing the Old Mae West EP as penance, though.

I did a search for 'Severed Heads' and Dan Perry's name kept popping up again and again and again

I may be getting hold of a cheap copy of "Clifford Darling" which I'm very very excited about.

I recently paid, like $9 for a copy of Gashing the Old Mae West, but it was worth it I guess.

and A.R.E. Weapons could go a great "Now, an Explosive New Movie"

i was speaking about this eralier with a friend - if they hadn't had such an intimidating (to some) name, could severed heads have been as big as new order?

anyhow, here in the uk, they were never even a blip on the radar. very sad but very indicative of the (pre techno) uk conservatism for any electronic music that wasn't kraftwerk.

Tom doesn't have a single kind word to say about Ink records, the UK label that ripped the band off, but did pretty much got their stuff distributed on vinyl... and is the reason most of us on this thread might actually own any Severed heads vinyl pre-1985 at all.

sean - please do make that available as an mp3. i'd like to hear it, even just out of curiosity. i adore 'dead eyes opened'. joakim from tigersushi has done a really excellent re edit of it that should be out soon. i was a bit wary as it's such a sacred song but he has done a very respectful job.

i never knew that ink records ripped them off but i have to say, if it wasn't for ink releasing their stuff over here, i don't think i'd have discovered them until much later when nettwerk started putting their music out.

and dan, i used to be mad about skinny puppy but i can't say i have put on any of there records in the last decade whereas severed heads are always on my stereo. most people in the uk probably only know 'greater reward' and think they made house records as it was a huge dancefloor hit in the summer of love ('88). that piano - mmmmmm!

I'll be seeing them in New York, though not the show with Pop Will Eat Itself, who may not even make it as they're having visa issues, and even if they did make it and I was going to that show, which I'm not, I'd probably be better off as I'm not sure how I feel about a PWEI without Clint Mansell and I'm pretty sure they're music has not aged as well as Severed Heads, but the nostalgia is STRONG.

ha ha, the Houston show was meant to be a co-headline with Pop Will Eat Itself, but got price-reduced to just Sevs playing live at a goth/alt DJ night bcz only 26 tickets sold. you'll have room to dance!

(last night was also meant to have PWEI, but the US embassy did not process their visas)

go! the show is a lot of fun.

xpost

PWEI toured a This Is The Day... 30th anniversary show in the UK this year with four out of five classic-lineup members, but the US tour was/maybe is going to be more Graham's industrial metal nu-PWEI

hahaha, don't worry, I've spent plenty of evenings dancing at Numbers when it's 3/4ths empty

dammit why is the NYC show next week

This was fun in SF. Wish I'd known about the CD.

American tour CD now available on Bandcamp:

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/living-museum

Oh a reissue of Clean with extra tracks, my twisted arm, etc.

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/clean

Also Tom sez "If you have to have cancer, then the thyroid is a good place to have it, so I’m not worried, but I’m bloody cranky about it let me tell you."

interesting bits here http://tomellard.com/wp/2019/12/plans-for-2020/

Ellard's latest rebrand as an unsevered solo artist is up:

https://nilamox.bandcamp.com/

At launch there's a CoKlaComa best of, an unreleased 2002 CoKlaComa album, and a $2 mini-album of interpretations of Pachelbel's Canon, under a new alias. He's said that Nilamox is intended to become the home for his future activities.

A new C21st best-of-rarities mix streamable now, conceived for vinyl and out on December 8th in that format.

(Commissioned by Medical Records,) Heads mastermind Tom Ellard compiled this collection of work from the ‘00s from a variety of sources, from limited, hand-cut discs to video game soundtracks, and then wove snippets from those pieces into a stream of electronic consciousness. Four sides, four songs, all Severed Heads.

ooh

!!!!

Ellard has remixed the first four Music Server albums into binaural sound

and 5 and 6 are on Bandcamp apparently in a format that works in 5.1 surround if you have that, or 360º if you have the latest unwired Apple Airpods, and they don't fall out of your ears when you move your head to follow the sound

Here's an hour of radio from a few days after Robert Racic died, playing tracks he edited or produced and talking to collaborators about his work. Pause-buttoned in 1996, and uploaded in 2021, by a guy who was in Sevs in between those dates.

(mp3 on dropbox)

We're making a spreadsheet of every Severed Heads live show. 250+ shows - but with gaps & errors. e.g. Brighton 1985 where? Melbourne Music Expo in 1987? Wollongong in 2007?
If you have any documentation all replies welcome. https://t.co/ugFXBGaXi0

— Tom Ellard (@t0m3llArd) April 30, 2021

There's a vinyl reissue of Rotund for Success coming out this year on Medical Records, fwiw

it might be an acquired taste but the ButchCrutch releases on nilamox* where ellard is just doing the vocals are pretty good

Tom:

After ~30 years in service, some SH albums on Bandcamp have minimal audience. I'm planning a compilation that will condense these 'zombie titles': Cuisine, Gigapus, Haul Ass, Under Gail Succubus.
If you own any of these please download your files SOON.

Cuisine With Piscatorial was the last Sev Heads album I bought during the height of my fandom and I still love it, I'd say nearly as good as Rotund for Success.

The compilation above now exists, and people who already owned Gigapus on Bandcamp now own "Focus (A mid-life crisis compilation)" instead. (Otherwise it's five bucks, and includes a 45-page pdf - healthy notes from Tom on the purchase page too.)

this means that Gigapus has existed as:
a 14-track CD plus Metapus CD-Rom
a European CD with thirteen of the fourteen tracks mastered by the co-founder of Yello instead of Ellard
a 2xCD with the Dead Eyes Opened Remix 1994 EP included
an American single CD with no bonuses or differences
a CD plus Vidipus VHS
a 17-track Gigaplus CD-R reissue with one track swapped out for a remix, plus three bonus tracks / mixes
a 2xCD-R issue with the 14-track/one-track-swapped album remastered, and a bonus disc of demos, mixes and versions (also the Bandcamp version)
and a U2/iphone style 'surprise, you have a different record now'

In more rationalising, all the tracks from the Twister / Retread club mix compilation are now bonus tracks on "Dead Eyes Opened 94 ++", which is 100 minutes long and free for a limited time.

The 2019 live-versions-at-home farewell CD is set to be reissued, and will come off bandcamp once it's a physical item again. And the 1982 Blubberknife live-plus-8-tracks album is back up in its 2002 expanded form, for $5.

Why is this guy always tinkering.

a GB RIP thread from TE:

1960 - 2022

— Tom Ellard (@t0m3llArd) January 8, 2022

oh no!

Always kicking myself for missing the show in Baltimore in Feb 2020, but I think he was not in the lineup? Came to this group too late love Petrol so much.

don't think Bradbury has been in a lineup in a longtime. Was interesting discovering some of his solo stuff, gave a good sense of what his contribution might have been.

(he was p much only involved in 1982-83 and 1985, but had solo and other-band releases on Terse Tapes beforehand and on Sevcom much later)

saw GB play live solo maybe 10 years ago, was an extremely good show - and as suggested upthread he definitely possessed a good amount of whatever made Sevs weird and great when they were weird and great

Just heard this, how fucking sad

Upcoming livestream on Bandcamp

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/merch/seance

We announce a Seance to be held with the departed spirits of Severed Heads for Halloween 2022. Based upon the freshly restored backing tapes and instruments used by the band in performances in the year 1982, before any hint of acclaim or recognition. You will enjoy an hour of sight and sound from beyond the grave (and probably a bit of in-studio malarkey if the OUIJA board is a bit dodgy. Please join us Saturday 8th October @ 7pm PDT. - The Severed Seance System

Excellent!

ooh

starting soon

Yesterday my shuffling iPod threw up "We Have Come to Bless the House" and I was transported with ecstacy

*ecstasy

*pingers

how was it, with pingers, or not?

Great show!

It's up for 48 hours replay, so latecomers might still be able to buy a ticket in that window? Worth it just to hear Tom doing a Beatles cover.

London tickets for July! Anyone else going? Super excited for it. I don’t really know what to expect. Come on you people.

ooh. it's the day after a 4-day weekender so I may faint with exhaustion but otoh, want to go

also seeing them in July at the VOD festival!

One of Tom’s blogs aboutthe planning for these two one-off shows (take yourself forward or back to November for more)

i saw them three times on their last venture to europe. it was great fun. 100% entertainment!

A cover version prepared for the Jazz Cafe show.

Can confirm they played this ^

Been on a Severed Heads kick (again) due to that Triple J Top 100 thing, and really enjoying Tom's notes/writing on random Bandcamp releases/Nilamox - did anyone ever do any longfrom writing on Severed Heads? Feel like they deserve a book more than most.

as far as I'm aware, no longform writing on all things Clifford related exists.
Which is completely criminal considering what they have done.