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2LP
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SCAT 089LP
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"The Electric Eels were the first punk band, full stop. They may not have 'started' the genre, but they were the first to tick all the boxes. The eels rejected every 1970s rock convention -- professionalism, virtuosity, subject matter, image. Dave E.'s caustic vocals, complete with an aggressive lisp and a head full of snot, would become de rigeur a few years after the group disbanded. Meanwhile, the songs' focus on car crashes, suicide, neuroses, and generally hating people were as far out of the mainstream as possible. The two eels tracks that do approach the subject of romance couch it in terms of not really caring that much about it ('Jaguar Ride') or placing it in the context of a grisly murder ('Silver Daggers'). Also consider John Morton's signature guitar sound, a nails-on-chalkboard tone with brutally free soloing inspired more by Albert Ayler than the blues or aspirations to technical facility. Ditto Dave E.'s clarinet playing and affection for lawnmowers and vacuums during live performance. They were notoriously violent not only among themselves, but towards audiences, police, and anyone unfortunate enough to be around them when things went south. Then of course there are the leather jackets, the clothing festooned with rat traps or safety pins. And no bass player, why bother. There is simply no other 'proto' band to have had all these pieces in place circa 1973-1975. Yet it is a mistake to consider the eels exclusively in such a context. Yes, the eels could and did shock anyone who encountered them, but they also had great songs. While both Dave and John were visionary writers, they also had rhythm guitarist Brian McMahon, a melody and riff machine who wrote many of the band's signature songs. And they were no one-trick pony. Although much of the band's material is appropriately high-energy, there is also the downer eels -- morbid, harmonically risky, and in full existential crisis. Although it's not a focus of this compilation, the eels also had a penchant for completely free improvisation. Over the last forty plus years, there have been several Electric Eels compilations. Spin Age Blasters is quite simply the best one ever assembled, every single key track is here in its best version, properly mastered by John Golden, and sequenced with an eye towards both flow between tracks as well as individuation between sides. A true monster of an album."
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2LP
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SCAT 089X-LP
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Repressed; LP version. Clear vinyl with black swirls. "The Electric Eels were the first punk band, full stop. They may not have 'started' the genre, but they were the first to tick all the boxes. The eels rejected every 1970s rock convention -- professionalism, virtuosity, subject matter, image. Dave E.'s caustic vocals, complete with an aggressive lisp and a head full of snot, would become de rigeur a few years after the group disbanded. Meanwhile, the songs' focus on car crashes, suicide, neuroses, and generally hating people were as far out of the mainstream as possible. The two eels tracks that do approach the subject of romance couch it in terms of not really caring that much about it ('Jaguar Ride') or placing it in the context of a grisly murder ('Silver Daggers'). Also consider John Morton's signature guitar sound, a nails-on-chalkboard tone with brutally free soloing inspired more by Albert Ayler than the blues or aspirations to technical facility. Ditto Dave E.'s clarinet playing and affection for lawnmowers and vacuums during live performance. They were notoriously violent not only among themselves, but towards audiences, police, and anyone unfortunate enough to be around them when things went south. Then of course there are the leather jackets, the clothing festooned with rat traps or safety pins. And no bass player, why bother. There is simply no other 'proto' band to have had all these pieces in place circa 1973-1975. Yet it is a mistake to consider the eels exclusively in such a context. Yes, the eels could and did shock anyone who encountered them, but they also had great songs. While both Dave and John were visionary writers, they also had rhythm guitarist Brian McMahon, a melody and riff machine who wrote many of the band's signature songs. And they were no one-trick pony. Although much of the band's material is appropriately high-energy, there is also the downer eels -- morbid, harmonically risky, and in full existential crisis. Although it's not a focus of this compilation, the eels also had a penchant for completely free improvisation. Over the last forty plus years, there have been several Electric Eels compilations. Spin Age Blasters is quite simply the best one ever assembled, every single key track is here in its best version, properly mastered by John Golden, and sequenced with an eye towards both flow between tracks as well as individuation between sides. A true monster of an album."
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LP
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SV 059LP
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"Cleveland's electric eels (all lower case in homage to poet e.e. cummings) is America's quintessential proto-punk band. Formed in 1972 by singer Dave E. McManus and guitarists John Morton and Brian McMahon, the group enlisted drummer Nick Knox (later of The Cramps) and producer Paul Marotta to record a flurry of catchy and genuinely fucked-up tunes. After only five legendary live performances -- complete with Dave E. in black leather jacket covered in rat-traps and playing a gas-powered lawnmower on stage -- the eels broke up in 1976 and posthumously released their classic single Agitated on Rough Trade in 1978, blazing a trail for high-art, low-concept rock. As Jon Savage writes in the liner notes, 'There is something heroic about the eels' isolation and uncompromising attitude: a fierceness that you can hear in these songs that still resonates in a different time and world.' This archival LP collects the eels' best material from 1975. From the loud and snotty 'Agitated' and its B-side 'Cyclotron' (which Johan Kugelberg listed as #1 in his top 100 punk singles) to the anarchic anthem 'Jaguar Ride' and the loose, bluesy sludge of 'Anxiety,' the album exorcises the demonic power of the Stooges and Velvets and captures the mystique of these outsider artists inventing a new language. As the eels demand 'Attendance Required' on their flyer for the infamous Special Extermination Music Night, listening is absolutely mandatory for this seminal band. Recommended for fans of Dead Boys, Simply Saucer, and Pagans."
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7"
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SV 060EP
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"Following their legendary punk-as-ever Agitated single, electric eels released their second posthumous single, Spin Age Blasters/Bunnies, on Mustard Records in 1981. Recorded in 1975 and taking the band's free-form jazz and art rock alliances to dizzying extreme, the twin-guitar swirl of 'Spin Age Blasters' sounds like Trout Mask Replica on paint fumes, while 'Bunnies' features Dave E.'s relaxing Bob-Ross-like vocals and frantic clarinet bursts à la Roscoe Mitchell. This first-time vinyl reissue includes original cover artwork by eels' guitarist John Morton and is pressed in a limited edition of 1,000 copies."
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