Focus in, Focus in, Focus in: The BIZARROS Poll

i have to go with young girls at market cuz it's so undeniable and one of the great album-opening tracks of all time. one of my fave albums of all time. it would make my top 100 if i had one. maybe even my top 50. and their non-album stuff is just as great!

Great band & album indeed! "Lady Doubonette" is my favourite, but I much prefer the early "From Akron" version - dunno why they felt the need to slow the Mercury version to a crawl. I'll go with "White Screen Movies" instead. Any band that channels both Beefheart and the Velvets and doesn't neglect to get their wah-wahs out gets an automatic two thumbs up from me!

I really want badly to own this and the From Akron compilation.
By the way, this "any band that channels both Beefheart and the Velvets and doesn't neglect to get their wah-wahs out gets an automatic two thumbs up from me" is the Holy Truth.

THE Akron compilation, even.

Touch choice between the last three for me. Great album. The singer has a similar singing style to Kenne Highland.

And looks like they're still playing. (http://www.thebizarros.com) You can mouse over their faces to see them age 30 years in an instant.

i listened to this album once and totally couldn't get into it. but i love their first ep.

White Screen Movies.

This 7" is great:

http://www.thebizarros.com/albums/biz7/alb_biz7.htm

I can't remember but I think "A New Order" is the same as "Mind's a Magnet"? Or something else? I'm away from my computer.

Did the repressing of their LP ever happen?

never even heard of these guys...

they were one of the great rock bands of the 70's. you should hear them.

if you like that sort of thing.

I wrote about them when I included a song on one of my Viva Radio playlists...

3. The Bizarros–White Screen Movies
What was in the water in Ohio in the 70s? Don’t answer that. The Cuyahoga River may have caught fire, but that was in Cleveland. Whatever was going on in Akron was equally bizarre. Like their counterparts in Cleveland, the Bizarros had a severe case of Velvet Underground fever. This song, the last on their 1979 LP, has that 1-4-5 repetition, chugging guitars and killer droning combo organ that so many of the best Velvets followers mined. It pretty much starts and never lets go. Also like some of their counterparts in Cleveland, the Bizarros have been severely overlooked. Post-VU rock that fell through the cracks of the mid/late 70s. Clearly too accomplished and too adult to be punk-rock, but too angry and too weird to be mainstream.

http://acuterecords.com/blog/?p=33

are they better than Simply Saucer? 'cos im loving them lately.

cant find em on youtube!

why hasn't someone reissued this? i'd be much more excited about this than, say, Crazy Rhythms.

I have never listened to this album. I love the Bizarros/Rubber City Rebels split From Akron thing and I'd probably go for White Screen Movies from that but I dunno if it's the same version on this LP so I shall abstain.

I was under the impression that there was a repressing of the vinyl in the works a few years ago. I'll look into it. We've got one more CD then we're gonna focus on vinyl/digital releases and see how that goes.

what kind of vinyl stuff are you gonna put out, dan??

it's a secret. We have a few ideas, nothing signed off on yet. One that I can mention as a likely definite yes is the unreleased "third" Lines album, basically a compilation of stuff the did after the singles and LPs that we've already released on CD.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Lady Doubonette."

Great album, as is The Akron Complication. And they put out a pretty good comeback LP (Can't Fight Your Way Up Town From Here) a few years back. Pretty sure I have From Akron around here on a C-90 somewhere; I need to dig it out.

"Quiana" Girls for me. (Everyone likely knows this, but I remember--back when I was playing the song all the time on college radio in the early 90s--being interested to learn that "Quiana" implied silkiness. Something to do with fabric?)

Pretty much every copy I've ever seen has been a promo copy, for whatever that's worth....Maybe didn't make it to stores so much?

it hit the cut-out bins immediately. i doubt they were given any money to promote it. most bands like that on majors got nothing. really more of a tax write-off for big labels than anything else.

xpost - Silkiness, eh? News to me! Until now I'd always assumed that "Quiana" was some kinda Ohio town, a suburb of Akron maybe. That's what I thought it sounded like, anyways. (They've got a "Xenia", after all)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hey, look!
https://www.midheaven.com/item/complete-collection-19761980-by-bizarros-2xlp

Yeah, I just saw that. Have to pick it up. One of the guys from Cloud Nothings got into them and suggested Acute reissue it. I knew the band had been talking about it for ages on their website but was happy to see this.

OHIO!

Bizarros played the RSD show this year, and I heard it was great.

My favorite song on From Akron was the Rubber City Rebels' "Kidnaped" (sic); think I liked "Lady Doubenette" okay.

I am ashamed to not have that, I'll be honest. I've been full of hometown pride lately.

Sorry for the slight derail, but you should hear it. Good song for Mitt Romney: "Rich kids got their problems too."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooYueM80mN0

yeah that is totally 100% rock music gold right there
why did my downtown library not have this, but did have, i dunno, the mighty lemon drops?

It's tough to explain my parents' relationship to Akron without getting into too much detail about my/their lives, but they came to visit me this week and I discovered that they had no idea who the Bizarros were. I played "Young Girls at Market" for them and my mom loved it. My dad didn't know what to say because he was too proud to admit that he was not cool enough to know who they were at the time or now but anyway -- I played that song for my parents and it was a moment.

HUGE disappointment, that reissue - how the fuck can they call it "Complete Collection" when the '77 versions of "Lady Doubonnet" and "White Screen Movies" and the other rerecorded ones are MIA?? (Not to mention everything from 2003's Can't Find Your Way Uptown From Here.) And damn, a CD would've been nice.

since I have that reissue, what do I need to get those versions? Just the From Akron comp, or something else?

There's a useful discography on their website:

http://thebizarros.com/discography.htm

"Lady Dubonnet", "White Screen Movies", "Laser Boys" and "It Hurts, Janey" are the four 1976-78 tracks that reappeared on the '79 Mercury album, in re-recorded versions. The "Complete" collection is missing those earlier versions in favour of the Mercury versions...except for "Lady Dubonnet", which appears in a THIRD version I'd never heard before! Plus there's one other track ("Nova" or "A New Order", I'm not sure) that shows up in an alternate version unfamiliar to me. No great radical difference between the various recordings; it just irritates me. If there were liner notes that explained how the varying master tapes had all gone missing...sorry I never read 'em.

thank you!

Still really glad that relish exists, if I haven't given that impression...although a ceedee woulda been nice. "White screen movies" woulda been my vote if I saw the poll.

Oh wait, I did vote, lol...

looks like the compilation is also missing the A side of their Sordide Sentimental 45.

for those in the NYC area...a little birdy told me there is a sealed copy of the Bowling Balls From Hell vol 2 compilation that contains the Another Desert Story track in the various artists section of Academy Brooklyn for 8 bucks or so. I was going to pick it up but haven't had time to go and try to avoid record stores ( -$$$$$). I may be in williamsburg tomorrow and may swing by, but hey, you never know.