Halo of Flies - C/D, S&D, Hazelmeyer, AmRep, etc...

I'm half surprised that there's never been an ILM thread for Halo of Flies. Only half, though, cuz they're both overpraised and underappreciated, and hardly the sort of thing ILM tends to go for anyway. A noisy, abrasive rock band with mean-spirited lyrics and tons of spazzy stop-start guitar mangle. Beloved of record collectors, mod-friendly punk rockers, pigfuckers, and nobody else so far as I can tell. My endorsement, very loosely paraphrased from the AmRep thread:

One of the most astonishing bands of their era and still sadly underappreciated despite their ironclad record geek cred. Tom Hazelmeyer at his peak was a stunningly accomplished punk guitarist: furious, imaginative and always completely locked tight. Drummer Tim Mac was a monster of equivalent powers. They get lumped in with grunge and noise rock as though they're second-rate camp followers, but to me, they're a sui generis fit of almost ridiculous brilliance, easily the match of the Big Black, Chrome and Mudhoney in the sense that they defined their own parameters and absolutely SLEW within them. I suspect that their aggression and on-the-cheap noisiness keep folks at a distance, but they deserve a hell of a lot more credit than they generally get.

I was listening to their career retrospective Music for Insect Minds the other day, and I'm not sure there's anyone among their contemporaries who can match their chops, songwriting, attack, personality and synthetic brilliance. they mixed up The Stooges, Chrome, The Who, hardcore punk, 70s boogie, nuggets garage, 80s metal and god knows what. Plus pop hooks and a sneakily ambitious experimental streak. Tragic that they had such a limited recording career during their prime,, but maybe it's a blessing, as they never got the chance to run themselves into the ground.

I just wanted them to have their own thread. Post thoughts, reminiscences, hate, whatever. I understand that Tom has a version of the band going currently, but from what I've heard, they're a very different beast.

The new stuff is kind of more a studio project with Hazelmeyer and whoever he can rope in at the time...some of it is good (I've only heard a couple singles), but nothing like that 80s line-up

hazelmeyer: a real fuckin' piece of work, by all accounts

have wondered, tbh

well, tbh he owns and operates a couple of pretty successful bars in the twin cities area...i get the sense that the label just downsized gradually as interest in that type of music declined, i don't think he's on the skids or anything

yeah, i just thought you meant that he "isn't a people person".

^ that's the impression the music gives, anyway...

HEADBURN = fucking genius. Some of my favorite guitaring ever on that record.

yeah, it's fantastic, especially the title track, so fucking vicious

me, i like the more lyrsergic early stuff: "rubber room", "thoughts in a booth", "DDT fin 13", "can't touch her", "MD 20/20"