Sunday, January 11, 2009

VAS DEFERENS ORGANIZATION-SWEAT YOUR CHEESES, BUT NOT IN MY SALAD, CD, 1997, USA










Described by Mason Jones of Charnel Music/Subarachnoid Space (who released it) as sounding like a "tribal carnival lounge party", "Sweat Your Cheeses, But Not In My Salad" continues my program of shares of albums from VDO's back catalog, this being one of our more truly fucked and sui generis offerings (along with our most notorious, containing as it does our "reply" to the Nurse With Wound list within the CD's booklet, which WFMU have kindly reprinted Here ), an anomaly in our discography for the novelty of it's central conceit, with all the tracks being built atop/around the tribal poundings of a four-man drum corps; a quartet who occupied the rhythm section of a band that Matt and I were contemporaneously producing at the time, one Primitivecho. Condensing the sorry saga of that aborted project down to a bite sized morsel, we essentially blew a year of our lives helping this local nu-metal by way of Crash Worship outfit completely recontextualize their sound into a face melting avant prog monster in the spirit of stuff like Present (and which would have easily given Yeti a run for their money, had it come out as planned), only to have them take the masters to another studio after it was completed and entirely shitcan our parts, pump up all the guitars and generally demolish the entire album. On the periphery of Primitivecho during that year was one Brian Artwick (on his own, a fabricator of Vidma Obmana cum Robert Rich-like subdued ambient wash), who, by dint of his spiffy new Groove Box toy (employed extensively on the album, albeit in dissected form) and the array of mind altering substances he came equipped with, wound up being the de facto third member of VDO for this one album. All that backstory aside though, the album that resulted from this mid-session VDO offshoot project is the silk purse hewn from this sow’s ear and one which, with eleven years hindsight now sounds to me a bit like dragging Tipsy through a Lard Free time tunnel en route to a Crash Worship gig.

Get Sweat Your Cheeses Here

24 comments:

  1. New Year ,maybe time to go lossless ?

    or am I possibly missing the point ?

    Marc

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  2. Welcome back! Hope you had a good break.

    I've much enjoyed this CD of yours... though I'm surprised that in your review you don't mention the marvelous and at-this-point-impossible-to-be-completist-about neo-NWW list you include in the liner notes!

    And you've mentioned Tipsy before - what do they sound like?

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  3. Not what I was expecting but I enjoyed it. Thanks

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  4. fuzztunnel-Tipsy were amongst the finest (and weirdest) arbiters of Space Age Bachelor Pad Music during the post-Stereolab upsurge of interest in such things. Points of reference would be Stock, Hausen & Walkman circa the second Organ Transplants album and the Tim Gane/Sean O'Hagen
    instrumental project Turn On.
    Detourned kitsch...it doesn't take much to sell me on this sort of thing after teen years lived to the tune of Tom Recchion's Esquivel loop fuckery...

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  5. Seems that the combined archive is missing track 5, so you'll have to get parts 1 and 2 separately.

    That said, thanks again for the post, as well as for the whole recent batch of posts! So far I've had time to listen to this and the Ami Marie album.. marvellous stuff, both of them.

    Keep doing your thing!

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  6. Always liked that Turn On disc so I'll seek out Tipsy forthwith.

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  7. greoj-just tested this out and track 5 is definitely there on the Rapidshare download, so the problem is evidently with your computer and not the link...

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  8. greog-...p.s.---thanks for the kind words about VDO regardless.....

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  9. By the way, you can also get the whole list "The Odd Recommendation" on the WFMU blog.

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  10. Charnel House. Very cool. Three years earlier (1994) Violent Onsen Geisha put out a CD on that label. Do you have that one to share by chance? Many thanks...

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  11. Everything else I tried to listen to after this sounded stale by comparison. Your description was right on dude!

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  12. Hate to beg, but Creeping Dawn Vol. 3 pretty please, if you get a chance later this month.

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  13. Nice to see this one getting out there. I enjoyed releasing it back then. It's worth mentioning that I do still have a few copies of this available for mail order (see www.charnel.com/charnel for details) if anyone would like the "real thing" complete with the NWW list and all.

    About the request up above for the Violent Onsen Geisha... I didn't actually release that one -- Endorphine Factory did, but I was doing their manufacturing and distribution in the U.S. so it was available from me. No copies of that one left for mail order, alas!

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  14. Hey Mason Jones,

    Did you remember that one issue of Rolling Stone (yes, gasp, Rolling Stone) from 1994 that had the Violent Onsen Geisha CD as being one of the months top 10 best sellers? I forget which store Rolling Stone interviewed that month for its list, maybe Other Music or Kim's Underground, both in NYC. It's been soooooo long now...

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  15. Mason, Do you take Pay Pal? I don't think I see it... Please let me know.Do you have 5 copies of VDO? Also do you have any Crash Worship left?

    Thanks

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  16. Happy New Year Eric. Nice to see you posting more of your own stuff since I know how challenging it can be to track it all down. (That illegimate bastard child you so vehemently abhor on TB still eludes me, I wonder if it ever really existed.) I agree with you that among your discography this is the low point to my ears, and your explanations of the proceedings of it's execution explains why. I still will not let go of my copy for the booklet & art tho'. Those who seek originals ought to check MusicStack, Discogs, and ebay almost always offers something for reasonable prices. Peace, (yer "biggest fan")Paul

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  17. Can anyone help me find the single Herr Wunderbar by Tanya Hyde and the album Akiri Non Stop by Nancy Nova?
    email me at discotrash1@gmail.com if you can help
    thanks in advance

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  18. Happy new year Eric !
    It's always a plesure to come here and discorering this Mutants sounds.
    I love when you're talking about VDO's albums. You know this band is my favorite. Could you talk about Screaming zenith from Sound ? And, please, could you tell us if a new a VDO is near to come to us ?

    Thanks

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  19. Bernard Grancher-Good to hear from you. It's been a while. Thanks as always for the very kind words and sorry for the relayed response as well. Things have been nuts. Not quite sure what you're interested in hearing about Screaming Zenith (the second album by Sound, my band together with Joel Zoch), but it's actually not Sound's last statement (to date at least...Sound are on something of an extended and indefinite hiatus). Nearing completion somewhere in the (hopefully) not too distant future will be a three way collaboration thats been something like eight years in the making between Sound, VDO and the insane French band La Societe Des Timides A La Parade Des
    Oiseaux (La STPO for short...they have releases on Beta-Lactam Ring, among others) that will be released on our forthcoming label upon completion by LA STPO. This label will launch in a few months (was to be sooner, but the financing briefly fell through) with the simultaneous release of VDO's latest "Keep Shoving Those
    Double-Thick Slices Of Electric Salad Down My Throat" and the debut by Shits And Giggles, our new band together with Ariel Pink.

    But back to your question...what would you specifically like to know about Screaming Zenith?

    E.

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  20. ATTENTION VDO FANS!! There is a 1 cent listing of "Queas & Art" up on ebay at this time of writing. If you love this band as much as I do, go get this "best of" (sort of)compilation of the early VDO works originally only released on cassette. Eric is only on part of it, but Matt is throughout. AND in case you're wondering, no I am not the seller (I'm keeping my copy, thank you).

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  21. Is that the "Tape Compilation" CD? Does anyone have copies of the tapes in there entirety that would be interested in a trade?

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  22. Hello, sorry for the delay replying to the posts above. Firstly, yes, I remember when that VOG CD appeared in the Rolling Stone list. Very odd!

    Secondly, Charnel does take PayPal for orders of back-catalog items, sure. Drop me a note via the contact form on the site with what you're interested in, and I can reply with the total, details, etc.

    The only Crash Worship item still in stock is the "Pyru" 7-inch single...

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  23. Hi Eric, those are some very good news for the next few months with those new releases !

    There was no specific question about screaming zenith in fact, I just wanted to say that this is on of my favorite.

    I remember that, there was a kind of deluxe edition on sale on Beta-lactam ring with an incredible artwork . Have you got images of this wonderfull object ?

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