Wednesday, July 18, 2007

WALL OF VOODOO-S/T, 12" EP, 1980, USA






It's sorta amazing that no one's thought to post this out of print monster somewhere in the music blogosphere before, but then Wall Of Voodoo have always been a pathetically misunderstood and underrated band, whose early MTV-generated fame gave the impression of a new wave novelty act, which completely belies their origins, their intent and their absolute musical singularity (Ennio Morricone meets Kraftwerk after a trawl through the bowels of L.A.'s synth punk underground). Few realize that before MTV, Ridgeway and co. were a fixture of L.A. art punk fringe, frequently gigging and jamming together with synth punk titans Nervous Gender, and that their monster ace-in-the-hole percussionist Joe Nanini had previously been a member of Black Randy's Metrosquad. This debut EP captures them at a screaming peak of originality, never more so than on their bleak, severe and searing cover of Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire.

Get it Here

13 comments:

  1. Simply great. At last i get this recording. Wall Of Voodoo even played in Bodø (Just north of the arctic circle in Norway) in the mid 80`s. First big name to ever do a concert in our town since Millie (You know here with "My Boy Lolipop") was in town sometime late 60`s.

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  2. Are these not the same tracks released (with added live material) as "The Index Masters"?

    http://www.amazon.com/Index-Masters-Wall-Voodoo/dp/B000003BFB/ref=m_art_li_1/002-8459244-7012829

    The CD seems to be OOP, anyway....

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  3. wall of voodoo at its best.
    still one of my favs

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  4. Anonymous-Evidently so. Never knew about this CD! Thanks for the pointer...

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  5. Don't forget about their AMAZING first LP, Dark Continent.

    Check out the live shows on YouTube. Great performances.

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  6. One of the first records I ever bought, and still one of my faves. Absolutely essential, people.

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  7. I just found a copy of this on vinyl a few weeks ago. Amazing record! Thanks for posting it, now I don't need to rip my copy.

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  8. The first Wall of Voodoo album I bought was Call of the West, which also still sounds surprisingly fresh! Big thanks for this one!

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  9. Extremely personal hangup: I just hate hate hate that twang in the singer's voice. This guy must be drinking the same herbal extract as Fred Schneider or something- that somewhat Southern-inflected portentious over-declamatory drawl sends me screaming out of the room when either WoV or the B-52s come on.

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  10. fuzztunnel - different strokes for different folks and all that....

    Thanks for all the WoVD - I think Stan Ridgeway is a genius as well!

    Merry Christams

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  11. Hi! Is that your copy of the EP in the picure posted here? If so, just in case you don't know, that is a rarer pressing of the EP, as it has the gold accents printed on the bulldog on the front and back cover. I've only seen a couple such versions of this EP around. So, if that is your record, do hang on to it!

    Thanks for posting this. I have this on vinyl and on the "Index Masters" CD. However, since I don't have an active turntable at the moment, I haven't been able to listen to the vinyl pressing in a long time, and I always like to have the original vinyl mixes of these records. So, thanks for making the original vinyl version available.

    By the way, Stan is still very much active - touring and making music. Check out his website at www.stanridgway.com

    RIP - Joe Nanini and Marc Moreland

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  12. Great. Simply great. It's refreshing to hear more 80s music that didn't fit into a niche and deal exclusively with cold beats. Love it. Thanks

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  13. Thanks, been after ROF a while.

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