405. ad nauseum

Fad Gadget’s Ad Nauseum is 1984 in a nutshell. A bitter gagging bile finally coalescing as full-on meltdown into noise … and yet it’s fun and artful, musical even. And it will forever remind me of old friend Carl who never failed to be in ownership of a rusting boat of a car (always GM product), which he’d recklessly plow through traffic, the music cranked loud, his hatred of all other drivers voiced even louder. Yet he never hit anything … until that one time he side-swiped a fire truck, and he was drunk. That didn’t go over well. In fact, I’m guessing it all sounded like the end of Ad Nauseum.”

536. the need

Mysterious live performance from somewhere in Europe, 1983. Chris + Cosey (late of Throbbing Gristle) exploring strange sonic regions via the nebulously labelled CTI – European Rendezvous album. This was the kind of thing you’d record off the radio back in the day, late night weirdness, the DJ never telling you who it was. Maybe a decade later, you’d finally figure it out.

Chris+Cosey-1983

824. triassic jurassic cretaeceous

“Post post-punk outfit Birdsongs of the Mesozoic had a simple enough formula. Turn on a drum machine and then get serious with various keyboards, horns, other devices. And man, did it work on their debut EP! Five genuinely deep and wild yet coherent improvisations that were exactly what the world seemed to need at the moment. My world anyway, particularly when driving crosstown so late it was getting early, trying to get home to bed before rush hour hit.” (Philip Random)

880. hope for the heartbeat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNthGqPb9nY

Bill Nelson first got some notice via the ill-fated glam-art-prog-whatever outfit Be-Bop Deluxe for whom he sang and unleashed gobsmacking guitar wizardry. But come 1982’s The Love That Whirls (diary of a thinking heart), his fifth solo release, he’d ditched the guitar, gone all-in with keyboards, drum machines, tape loops, the future in general. And hopeful it was in an artful sort of way.

billnelson-1982