Chrome: C or D?

The first disc (best of) starts out with five great cuts from HMLM, but they are edited terribly. They add "Danger Zone" from the 12" single (1981); "Isolation" from Red Exposure; "The Need" and "Brain Scan" from Blood on the Moon; "Shadows of a Thousand Years" and "Future Ghosts" from 3rd from the Sun; plus "Gehenna Lion" and the great single "Anorexic Sacrifice".

As far as The Visitation, I am still fond of the phaser-drenched instrumental waltz, "Nova Feedback". But Alien Soundtracks was a HUGE step forward... or s'ways.

If you were listening to Cabaret Voltaire back then, you could have put "Nag Nag Nag" on a mix tape with Half Machine Lip Moves!

I think the songs on the Visitation were initially recorded as a porno movie soundtrack (no joke!)

how is liquid forest and no humans allowed?

anyone?

No Humans rules.

I really prefer contemporaries like VON LMO, the Twinkeyz, and Todd Tamanend Clark.

(sorry, not to those records but to Chrome in general)

I love Chrome

we are familiar with your wrongness on this issue, tim.

and your defensiveness!

Pere Ubu > Chrome > Debris > MX-80 Sound > Twinkeez > VON LMO > Todd Tamanend Clark

VON LMO > Todd Tamanend Clark > Twinkeyz > Pere Ubu > Debris > MX-80 Sound = Chrome

I cannot get behind that theory there, and I own and like the Twinkeyz LP. But I haven't heard the Clark CD.

No Humans Allowed is a patchwork LP that includes most of the Read Only Memory EP, a 12" from a year or two later, and (I think) a B-side from a single. All of it is stun-tastically great scifi heavy metal riffage. The 12" ("Dangerzone" and "In A Dream") is a particular favorite of mine.

I love all these artists, but Chrome will always have a special place in my heart. I just found out the new Noiseville re-releases of "Alien Soundtracks" and "Half Machine Lip Moves" and couldn't help to buy them again.

I don't think I've ever heard Twinkeyz or Debris. But Chrome are better than Von LMO and Todd Tamanend Clark (both of whom I like) for sure. Pere Ubu (when they were great) are head and tails above all these bands, and between MX-80 and Chrome it's a tossup.

chuck you should hear both the twinkeyz and debris. seriously.

Both bands were great: I'm particularly fond of Debris', another perfect encapsulation of everything I love about 70's American rock.

Todd Tamanend Clark is like a warmed-over Jandek - total WFMU fodder. Chrome, on the other hand, doesn't get the attention it deserves - it's like nobody even knows they exist.

chrome is fucking great

By the way, Happy Dragon Band or Creme Soda, anyone?
Not as crazy as the artists mentioned below but still weirdly unbalanced in their own way.
Also, Bobb Trimble comes to mind - "Another lonely angel" is one of the most unsettling songs I ever heard.

i gotta hear twinkeyz at some point, i think i'd really like them. chrome are, of course, godhead. one of the only bands i've ever heard described as "acid punk" that actually justifies the term. i want the chrome box so bad ;_;

chrome is fucking great

I have the Chrome Box - it's not bad, but they cut all the albums on it short.

Todd Tamanend Clark is like a warmed-over Jandek - total WFMU fodder.

wha? i don't hear that at all, unless we're talking lo-fi basement sound quality.

By the way, Happy Dragon Band or Creme Soda, anyone?

i guess the former cause i haven't heard creme soda. another one for the list. HDB are pretty bizarre.

xp - better than not having any of them! i used to have blood on the moon via the magic of computers but no more.

(any of them save half machine/alien soundtracks)

someone reissue the box set. with the whole albums. anyone. soon.

nah TTC has some pretty awesome songs; I guess as far as the DIY lofi goes

i guess the former cause i haven't heard creme soda. another one for the list. HDB are pretty bizarre

yeah, they made a truly bizarre lp. I love that album, I just would like to know a little more about the guy who was behind this project.

Yay more Chrome love. Yay also the Bobb Trimble mention, which I am not surprised to find Marco likes.

I only have Trimble's second album, and I like it a lot.
Don't know why, but I find its cover (the black & white shot with the unicorn) rather disturbing.

Supposedly it's all being reissued properly, at least that was Kris Thompson of Abunai! was telling me.

Wow, how is it I've never encountered the name Todd Tamanend Clark?! I love this sort of stuff. And there appears to be a double-disc comp on Anopheles! I gotta check this guy out...

[BTW, the proper hierarchy is: MX-80 Sound > Pere Ubu > Debris > Von LMO > Twinkeyz > Chrome. But who cares, it's all good. Oh, and Simply Saucer belong in there too, somewhere in the middle.]

Check him...there's some fantastic stuff in there.

I didn't think I was going to like The Visitation (debut recorded before Helios) but it is great. Closer to 70's weird Southern anthem rock, but still weird ringmod details and over the top vocals keep it mutant, and the songs are deep

the 3 CD Chrome Box is good for compiling some of the odd singles but it's true, it leaves out way too much, you need the albums

Checked out TTC and Twinkeyz on myspace - low-fi with sci-fi for sure, but nothing to compare with Chrome's incredible waves of distorted noise. Surprised people don't like 'Third from the sun' - I really rate it.

anyone see them in portland like a month ago? kinda disappointing. the show itseflt was great, as it included smegma and soriah, but chrome just seemed a little limp, even the guitar tonez weren't that cool :( i was really sad

Well, since I'm the only one taking the stance, I'll elaborate. Twinkeyz and Todd Clark and VON LMO - IMO - had songwriting skills that were at least as good (sometimes better), had more spirit, and were more fun. I don't get the big Chrome canonization at all.

Pere Ubu is incredibly overrated. Their first couple singles were real good. Like, as good as the Twinkeyz' first couple singles. Which is saying something. They took a dive when they went to the one guitar lineup.

And, yeah, Todd Clark is nothing like Jandek. At his best, his music sounds like Chrome or somebody playing eight minute long through-composed '60s garage band psychedelic songs with some intense dude doing "Horse Latitudes"-type stuff throughout.

you know what's great on the clark anthology? "x-ray x-tasy." holy shit, what a riff.

Pere Ubu is incredibly overrated. Their first couple singles were real good.

this i agree with.

"I don't get the big Chrome canonization at all." - depends on how you look at 'em. It's all about the sheer hallucinogenic NOISE for me. I agree they don't really rate as pop songsmiths, but at 3AM when the carpet is boiling over, that's really beside the point.

I see them somewhere between the Butthole Surfers, Hawkwind and (early) Cabs, rather than as a low-fi psych-pop outfit - though they could be that too, at times.

It's all about the sheer hallucinogenic NOISE for me.

I get this, but I think disc one of the Clark anthology has everything a record like Half Machine Lip Moves has but just literally IN SPADES.

By the way, Marco, have you heard Trizo 50? If you like that Creme Soda record, I'd really recommend this! It's kind of comparable, but I think they had a greater scope. More ambitious. They were from Missouri.

http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/trizo.50.html

There's supposed to be a second volume coming out on the same label.

haha, Tim doesn't like the Buttholes either!

Double xpost (or more)

By the way, Marco, have you heard Trizo 50? If you like that Creme Soda record, I'd really recommend this! It's kind of comparable, but I think they had a greater scope. More ambitious. They were from Missouri

There's one of their songs on the "Love Peace & Poetry" comp and I like it a lot. I'll search their album, your description sounds really promising!
What I like about Creme Soda is the way they were all over the 60's musical map (folk, pop, garage) but with a sort of personal take: also the song "Numero Uno" is made out of that Stooges/VU cloth that Spacemen 3 would have used later.

And if anyone can provide any info on this recent pressing of 'Alien Soundtracks', I'd appreciate it. The cover says limited to 300 copies, no label info. The guy at the record store says that Damon Edge's family released this after taking the rights back from Touch and Go last year. It's one of those chintzy record-in-a-bag-with-color-xerox-artwork type deals, comes with a badge and a patch, sounds fine for white vinyl... but I can't for the life of me figure out why it wouldn't come with a back cover (I'm unconvinced by the clerk's opinion that it shouldn't).

Apologies for consumerist query, but has anyone seen/heard Cleopatra's 7LP Chrome Box reissue from last year? I haven't been able to dig up any information beyond what the label says about it.

Chrome US tour from mid-May to mid-June.

http://scontent.fphl2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/30531552_10160536427735227_7728194264991006720_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=30584895122caff4353caaaff2eeecc0&oe=5B29588C

Barring hell or high water, I shall be at the Philly date.

this band is good

Just remembered I was going to look up a Chrome thread and mention that the Stench brothers played with Jorma Kaukonen in his late 70s solo band which I only found out from reading his memoir.
Haven't heard what they sound like with him yet though.

I want to know more about the circumstances of John Lambdin playing with Flower Travellin' Band before Chrome (see top of thread). I love that there's a connection.