SRI

SRI (Sonic Reclamation Industries) PRESENTS:

WHAT IS SRI ?

SRI is a branch of M-1 dedicated to preserving lost, out-of-print (or never-in-print) audio recordings of significant artistic or historical value. These recordings are presented as a non-profit public service and are not for sale.

Previous projects (now off-line):

SRI#1 - Brian Wilson's "Adult Child"
SRI#2 - "Moog Breakbeats"

The entire first album by the Suburban Lawns, including classics like "Janitor," "Flying Saucer Safari," "Anything," "Unable," and "Green Eyes" is available from Post-Punk Junk.

For artist info (if any), click on artist name;
Click on song title to listen, right click, "save as" to download
To listen to the whole album STREAMING, go here and click "Play Page"
Additional notes below

"WEIRDPUNK L.A.: Late '70s/Early '80s Los Angeles Underground Sounds - Rare, Ripped From Vinyl!"

Los Angeles has always been host to the most radical and controversial figures and movements in modern music, from avant-garde titans like John Cage, to free-jazz madman Ornette Coleman; from '60s renegades like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, to eccentrics like Tom Waits. Punk and hip-hop were born elsewhere, but they mutated into their most virulent forms here: hardcore and gangsta rap.

Though hardcore, the fast, furious, guitar-driven form of punk, and it's attendant spikey-haired stage-diving audience, has been extensively

chronicled, and commercial radio-friendly New Wave acts live on in '80s club nights and hit compilations, another side of the late '70s-early '80s scene has largely been overlooked: the intelligent, intellectual, experimentalists. They're sometimes called "art-punk" and, yes, many of these groups had art school backgrounds, or played galleries as often as clubs, but really, isn't all music art? "Synth-punk" is another common term, but not all these groups used synths. The common thread was that they were, whether naturally or by design, weird.

As unique as these groups were, they did have some strong influences. From the Talking Heads they learned David Byrne's urban neurosis and hints of funk and Afro rhythms. From Devo, Ohio natives who moved to LA, they learned herky-jerky rhythms, synth squiggles, and, especially, misanthropic satire. Songs like the Fibonaccis "Slow Beautiful Sex" and Bob and Bob's "We Know You're Alone," both skewering that newly-emerging social phenomenon known as the "yuppie," are steeped in such scathing sarcasm that the effect is more devasting then a whole platoon of angry hardcore ranters. Maybe these groups weren't directly inspired by Devo, but the Spuds certainly opened the door for them, galvanizing the world's smart-alecks into an audience that major label record companies wanted nothing to do with. And they learned yelping, hiccuping vocals from both Devo and the Heads.

All the music featured here is out of print, mainly taken from vinyl. There are some CDs available by Wall of Voodoo and Oingo Boingo, and two Suburban Lawns songs are available on compilations. Other crucial groups from the scene, like Savage Republic, Kommunity FK, and Human Hands are not represented here because they have in-print CDs.

The featured Oingo Boingo song, "I'm Afraid," and above picture, are taken from a 1979 Rhino Records comp called "L.A.In,". It has never appeared on CD. Danny Elfman (far left) is quoted on the cover, "There's one thing that we all share, we're all mutants, but we just don't care."

The Bakersfield Boogie Boys - the liner notes of this 4-song EP claim they were moving from rural Bakersfield to the Van Nuys section of LA to pursue their music career. Don't think anything came of it, unfortunately.

Food and Shelter's sole album "Square Dance," released in 1984 on Resistance Records (Marina Del Rey) came not in a cardboard sleave, but in a sheet metal one! A booklet included info and pictures like the one above, showing members Russell Jessum, Debbie Spinelli (who also played with 17 Pygmies and Cindy Lee Berryhill) and Fey Ruza. The music ranges from ear-piercing tape loop experiments to catchy "pop" tunes. Instruments used include vibes, piccolo, clarinet, horns, xylophone, marimba, and tin whistle.

Orange County's Din, from their 1983 album "Great Tradition" on High Velocity Records.

Susan Rhee and the Orientals, from their sole single (1984, Real Records, Hollywood). Rhee played the violin and the "violectra."

Both Karen Lawrence and Man Child attempted to mix mainstream rock tracks with weird stuff on their releases. Lawrence went from quirky New Wave with requisite put-downs of "normal" people to Pat Benatar-ish hard bluesy rock, and Long Beach's Man Child (picture disk featured at right) began their EP with Foreigner-style rockers before breaking out the Carribean steel-drums and bizarre sounds.

Some of these groups, like the two-female-singers-one-musician group Humanoids on Parade, released but one record (sometimes just one single) before disappearing. Others lasted a few years, but ultimately gave up trying to break through to a bigger audience. Here's hoping the internet will do just that.

The Rick Potts song comes from the 1980 collection "Darker Skratcher," put out by the L.A. Free Music Society, a collective founded in 1975. Other artists on this abum: the first appearance of 45 Grave, Monitor, a pre-Dream Syndicate Dennis Duck, Non, crucial LA weirdos The BPeople and The Human Hands, and guest out-of-towners Daniel "The Normal" Miller and Jad Fair.