Nomeansno : C/D/S/D

there are four tracks that i think are completely worthwhile, and since having dug some of tha older releases, by comparison if not better in the form of complete mastery over their domain.

On a track like 'hello/goodbye' there's just this immediate comfort in delivery mingled with, 'i clearly don't give a fuck, and mind you i haven't given a fuck for i don't know how many fuckin years. ummm fuck!' but i like the humour, the impersonal feel and i can even easily stand the religious references.

'the call' has plenty of pained neurosis dragging its dirty claws over unwarshed string arrangements. a nice diddy to howl at a starving moon with.

'beat on the brat' good enough.

the 'bitches brew' cover is a nice aural treat from a genre that i woulda never thought to cover it by a band that yawningly unfurles its arms into the strangest beds and rubs them nicely warm.

no one has suited my purposes fine -let me imagine the punk-metal possibilities and made me rage at how bloody effortless it all seems to them. fuck' em!

donut bitch:
maybe you've had your fill of em' and its time to move on. nuf's enough and all that... although i do feel they've pushed themselves to the next not entirely logical (in the linear sense) but plausible step.

its just too bad that i never got into em' ten years ago when i saw all those punk skater kids in Regina wearing nomeansno t-shirts. i probably didn't give those kids enough credit -i thought they were devoid of any form of sentience- turns out they may have been some reasonably enlightened individuals musically/politically but i'll never know.....(or do I?)

if you're more amenable to (slightly) experimental, fucked up post-hardcore, _why do they call me mr. happy_ is great - some amazing bass work and longer, more musically adventurous songs.

also, "mr. right and mr. wrong" is a kind of nice overview of their career via unreleased songs ranging from the 70s to the late 80s (i think), including a hanson bros tune.

would be happy to burn any of these for you.

Also relistened to Sex Mad, and fuck me if "Self Pity" pretty much didn't lay out the groundwork for the more epic rhythm section and guitar screeching and noise of Drive Like Jehu. (of course, the lyrics and voice are totally different, but I'm just talking music here.. as a three piece, that's purty impressive)

Minor autobiographical note: I loaded the Discman with "Wrong" to listen to at work on 9/11, and have never listened to the eerie "The Tower" the same way since. (Lyrics about leaping from burning buildings, etc.)

The only thing in print now is that greatest hits/popularity CD and the In The Fishtank one.. and that's it. For everything else, you either have to browse through the right used bins at the right record stores for CD or vinyl. Not that Nomeansno stuff is criminally difficult to find used, but it is getting harder and harder every year. It would be sad if they went the way of the Volcano Suns, for example.. a criminally overlooked band that will probably never get reissues ever again.

Now, I knew the Wrights were still around, but I didn't know Rob played solo regularly. Is this in Victoria and Nanaimo, mostly, or does he make it out to Vancouver as well?

http://www.no-means-no.de/

Later albums verge on prog-punk, if that makes any sense. Features perhaps the most underrated "punk" bass-player ever, by the way...

I'm all geeked out...what a dork I am.

Damn, if there was some way I could get people from every town they hit to do that, it would be, uhhh, hrm, stroking my ego, I guess. What a lame-o I am.

You'd RULE if you did it though!

Anyhoo, on the band then:
Total classic for me, one of the few bands I got into during my "punk phase" as a teenager that I still have a great time listening to, and whose releases I keep picking up.

I'm not too hot on the earliest stuff, but just about everything from the late-80s and on is searchable, IMO.
I've been up and down on favorites, but at the moment I'd probably just have to agree with the general consensus: "Wrong"!
The later albums mix it up with some of the quick punky numbers and some of the drawn out story telling ones, an dI find that in most cases, it's the latter that I'm drawn the most to, despite not being much interested in lyrics.

Yeah, it's almost 5am.

It changed my life. What a double bill.

Wrong is an absolute must have record.

They were truly incredible/inspiring last night, such a great show, easily one of the best things I have seen in a long time.

The Worldhood Of The World (As Such) may very well be their best album! "Humans", "Lost", "Wiggly Worm" (surprisingly an original song, not a Devo cover), "Tuck It Away", "State Of Grace/The Jungle"... dear god! I think i initially shunned this record because it was not as bass heavy as the previous records.. the Hanson Brothers kinda seaped into the sound at the time, which I somehow (what a dumbass I was) was turned off by. Revisiting.. holy shit. I also remember "Lost" as this song called "I Want It All" from this strange bootleg 7" comp called Pop Bus featuring Gray Matter, L7, and Jello Biafra from MANY years before. The song is co-credited to Andy Kerr, so I guess that makes sense.

The Would We Be Alive EP is odd... the title track is the Residents song covered.. good job. "Rise" sounds like the Wrights' omen to Melvins... sort of. The alt. version of "Big Dick" sounds like they want to be Pigbag or Konk! Only percussion and vocals, and of all kinds! The sole reason to get this release, if any.

The Generic Shame EP is alright.. "Sex Is Philosophy" gets a bit too nu-metal/Alice In Chains sounding, thankfully with escapes from that sound often. "No Big Surprise" is a multi-part thing with a great drum solo in the middle... "I Get Up In The Morning" is a NoMeansSkank, most reminiscent of their earliest stuff. alright.

I need to get No One.

fyi::

Sun Dec. 11 Nomeansno, Carpenter The Boot Pub,whistler,bc 9pm $5

Is this a one-off? Any Vancouver or Victoria show?

And and and and and I've never been to Whistler before!

I think a plan is in order. *grinning hard*

My concern is.. could weather affect one's ability to get from Vancouver to Whistler? Are there public transport options available? I can't imagine there aren't.

Nov.
wed. 30 NELSON
Dec.
Thu. 01 FERNIE, BC
Fri. 02 EDMONTON
Sat. 03 CALGARY
Sun. 04 BANFF
Mon. 05 Jasper - n/c
Thur. 08 LANGLEY, BC
Fri. 09 VICTORIA,
SAT. 10 TOFINO
Sun. 11 WHISTLER

i should really get more nomeansno, all i have is 'you kill me' and 'the day everything became nothing'

xpost
I can imagine bandcamp being a no-go in that case but surely buying through discogs should not be a problem?

Wrong still sounds so f*cking tight

oh, I've been Stanning for it in this thread already :-)

I didn’t know Southern were/are bad news? What’s the story there?

working on a ranking of the NMN albums just for fun. tbh I've never been that wild about the early two-piece material but I'm happy to give it all another shot

i find mama hard going still, maybe one day it'll click

maybe one of the few discographies i find impossible to rank a la fugazi

"Humans" -> "Lost" one of the alltime great asskicking stretches of any rock record afaic

I'm teaching myself 'It's Catching Up' so I can do a lockdown cover version with some buddies, it's such fun to play.

"slowly melting" is an amazing song i hope to hear with not-shitty production/mixing one day

New to me: Generic Shame, aka three outtakes from One. the Miles Davis and Ramones covers are fun, but I think I'd have preferred these songs in there instead.

also this might be heretical but I'm glad the Hanson Brothers records exist as a non-NMN outlet for their Ramones worship shtick, which I find incredibly boring

Ok, so I haven't listened to the Hanson Brothers since Gross Misconduct came out. I can't remember the last time I even thought about them until you posted that. But I'm listening to that record now and realized that I sometimes get Night Without You stuck in my head as an actual Ramones song whose place in their catalog I could never quite remember.

I didn’t know Southern were/are bad news? What’s the story there?

― wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara), Monday, 15 March 2021 16:05 bookmarkflaglink

well as far as I know, they are basically a UK SST - not paying royalties, hoarding master tapes, not keeping things in print but blocking other labels from reissuing things, or demanding exorbitant licensing fees that make reissues impossible.

well as far as I know, they are basically a UK SST

Does that apply to SRD as well? They carry (or carried) loads of reputable labels for the UK and Ireland market.

I like Wrong, One, The Worldhood of the World as Such, and Dance of the Headless Bourgeosie a lot.

which other ones would i like if i like those?

the 85-88 material (which exists in several confusing formats) is largely killer if slightly cruder than what came later, and Why Do They Call Me Mr Happy? (which falls in the middle of the span you just listed) is pretty damn great. Their last LP All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt is more straightforward than usual but still contains maybe a half-dozen killer jams.

^ cosign

The 1988 EP/mini albums would be a good place to go - The Day Everything Became Nothing and Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed, which were released on one CD called The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed.

re Southern distribution, can't say I know anything about it - I have just seen a lot of griping over recent years from old punk bands/labels/fans about Southern's business practices, I think it mostly started since John Loder died.

This is probably beyond the scope of a Nomeansno thread but what is the deal with possessing the masters - do Southern (or SST for that matter) have contractual/legal (on paper) ownership of the tapes and thus the right to refuse to license it or does having physical possession of someone's masters just automatically afford you that right? I guess what I'm asking is if an artist stole their masters back would they be in trouble? Heh.

I'd be down to mount a rescue operation

Didn't The Replacements do that once? One of them distracted the receptionist while another scooted off into the back to liberate the tapes. Might have been someone else tbf.

well, the geniuses got drunk and went in to steal their masters to throw them in the river but ended up just grabbing some safety duplicate masters and some tapes that were other bands not theirs

https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-replacements-decadent-food-fight-and-ridiculous-record-heist-of-1987-210434506391

Call it a reconnaissance mission I guess.

At least with the SST situation, a few bands that had had the wherewithal to lawyer up got their masters back in the late ’90s: Sonic Youth and the the Meat Puppets were the biggies, and there have been a few others over the years. Dinosaur Jr got their stuff back; Soundgarden’s SST debut was remixed and remastered on Sub Pop a couple of years ago. But I don’t know if anyone knows the state of masters that remain in GG’s possession, especially since he moved the label to Texas. Alternative Tentacles used vinyl to master their reissue of the Dicks’ Kill from the Heart, which was deleted really early by SST and the masters were gone. Loads of artists have claimed rights reverted, so you will find some random things on streaming now like Scott Colby’s Slide of Hand that are nearly all vinyl rips. And even some of SST’s CD releases were mastered from vinyl rather than the original tapes (I’m pretty sure Jack Brewer has claimed this was the case for Paganicons).

i hate greg ginn so much, what a shit state of affairs for such a great catalog

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I recently learned that Dukowski wrote "My War" specifically about Ginn

sorry for digressing but yeah FUCK what a shame it is

especially since he moved the label to Texas

Convoy of U-Hauls filled with unsold Zoogz Rift and Leaving Trains vinyl trundling through New Mexico.

Have only ever heard bad things about Southern from numerous people I know who've fallen foul of their business practices. John Loder wasn't much better either I don't think, so don't go imagining he was the ethical giant of legend.

going back through the catalog, so many of their best songs (state of grace, the river, now, give me the push, the tower, the phone call, etc) are fucking great hooky hard rock songs more than anything else, certainly not punk in any meaningful sense

I was very confused when I bought Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie being told they were progressive punk and being very confused.

they're great songs but....only "I'm an Asshole" really felt like 'punk'. but I guess punk is an ethos so it's cool, and they're cool.

I was very confused did you get that, i was confused, i was confused

The Tower is an absolute middle-aged punk dad singalong anthem, judging by the first NoMeansNo show I saw in 2000 at any rate.

This upcoming weekend, we are having our biggest sale...maybe ever?! Help us free up shelf space for Nomeansno.
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$1 CDs - $10 LPs pic.twitter.com/XW83Va9M5o

— AlternativeTentacles (@AltTentacles) April 12, 2021

oooooooooh

I’m really looking forward to firming up my Kerr-era NMN collection. I have the two biggies (Wrong & the 2013 reissue of TDEBI&D) but would relish a chance to revisit You Kill Me/Sex Mad and maybe finally get into 0+2=1.

Kicking myself for not having bought every copy of Mama I ever saw, for any price; I could retire at the prices even the 2013 reissues are fetching now. ... hopefully this reissue series will include it, although with NMN you never know. As I recall it’s “quirkier” than the Kerr-era material but I’d be more than willing to give it another shot.

Lucked into a copy of the “Fear Anger Betrayal Hatred” EP recently & I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Very much embryonic, but it has the spirit.

I only own Dance... and Young and Cuddly on CD and 0+2=1 on LP. What I'm really hoping for is an LP of Worldhood that includes everything from the CD....a boy can dream

I had also forgotten that I had bought the very slim NMN book “Going Nowhere” a while back, & hadn’t read it. This morning, while looking for something else I’d misplaced, I found it! Serendipitously, as I’m going thru a slight NMN revival at the mo.

released 2022: https://sheffieldtapearchive.bandcamp.com/album/nomeansno-live-bradford-1988

they also have The Fall & Crass & lots of other 80s audience tapes - I don't know about selling them though

https://alternativetentacles.com/product-tag/dad-revenge/

"At long last, after many rumors… we can confirm that the NOMEANSNO catalog will be returning to Alternative Tentacles Records." (just in case that "the return of Nomeansno" got your hopes up - they remain retired)

i'm still about that. I never came close to completing my Nomeansno collection

Tired
Tired
Tiredowaiting

BIG DICK

Yes, but Big Dick’s tired of waiting for these reissues.

Oral/visual history incoming and funds needed to help get it printed up:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ww3/nomeansno

(Supported stuff from PM Press before, they're legit.)

https://alternativetentacles.com/product/virus-77-wrong-pre-order

FINALLY

$40 international shipping? Fuck off! I’ll wait till an EU distro gets some.