Risk-Part Time Lover 7" (UK, 198?)

Happy Valentine's Day! Whether you subscribe to the notion of romantic love or not, I hope that you enjoy something that you love today. Perhaps it will even be this song!

Here's another little gem for you sent to us from our like-minded friend Alex over at Girlz on Vinyl. As with my last post, there is little to no info available on this release but the perfect pop vocals, rock leanings and big synth tick all the right boxes for me. I'm gonna put the B-side up first cause I love it just a bit more than the A-side. Gonna keep this short today as I have a lot to catch up on but I'll be back soon with more! (And hopefully more info!)

XOXO

Megon

Scherezade-Million Years/Seventeen 7" (UK, 1982)

Lately it feels like there are too many catastrophes to keep up with. I mean, US politics alone, amiright? Those of us in Canada have basically been waiting and watching for the sickness to spread. Trudeau's acceptance of the DAPL earlier this week was the whimper and last night the news of 6 dead and 19 injured in a shooting rampage at a mosque in Quebec City became the bang. I usually try to keep politics out of my online life, but it's becoming more and more difficult to justify.

At any rate, this morning I woke up with the general sense of futility and despair that accompany waking up in a post-Trump world and I checked my phone, as per usual, to see what had died, exploded, been raped and/or pillaged overnight and instead of that, this song was waiting for me. Along with a host of new and exciting stuff.

This was sent to me by my new friend Alex who runs the PlanetNamedDesire YouTube channel which you should 100% go check out as well as the accompanying Facebook HERE. The Girlz On Vinyl playlist is basically 74 hits in a row, and I should know cause I listened to ALL of them this morning. Which is why my time for research is a bit short today, so I will just say I know NOTHING about this except what I was told which is basically it's limited to 200 copies. So, if you see one, pick it up. If you see two, send me one. And, just for good measure, here's another track by Somerset group Visibility Zero which was unreleased but killer.

This brought a little happy into my day, as only nerding out about records can do. I hope if you don't find it here, you get a little bit of respite in your day as well.

Love,
Megon

Dogmatic Element-Strange Passion 7" (Ireland, 1982) & Dress Up As Natives-Romantic About You Cassette (US, 1981)

Ahoy hoy!

Been feeling really down the last couple of days and pretty much not sleeping. At all. So, I've actually had a lot of time to think up some new stuff for the blog. I know, right? So, let's do it.

First up is a big track from Pittsburgh outfit Dress Up As Natives. I can't tell you how often this song pops into my brain. Romantic About You is actually from a demo cassette that was never officially released and is difficult to track down info on, but at least some of it is available for download HERE. And if you want to read a bit about them you can do so HERE. They officially released one 7" on Public Records in 1982 which is just as good and worth a listen also.

Secondly, same year but from the other corner of the globe, Dogmatic Element from Bangor, Ireland. This group managed to get out two 7"s, Strange Passion in 1982 and False Emotions in 1984. Again, you can read a bit about them HERE. For my money, Just Friends is a hit, but you can listen for yourself. 

I should probably start a new post now, but I'm too lazy so you'll just have to follow my wandering exhausted thoughts. Dogmatic Element appear on the 2012 compilation Strange Passion: Explorations In Irish Post Punk DIY And Electronic Music 1980-1983 which has some great hidden gems including this lovely and haunting Choice track, Always In Danger, which I will probably listen to like ten more times today. 

Okay, I'll wrap this up here. Gonna try to whip out a couple of long overdue mixtapes before I pass out from exhaustion. 

Love, 

Megon

More Emma Sharpe

So, if you have been with me for a while, you will know how much I love Emma Sharpe & the Features who hailed out of Brighton starting around 1979. And if you've seen me and you've seen her you probably get part of the attraction. Lol. I have actually been trying to track down Emma for several years now and thanks to some very adept sleuthing on the part of my friend Jerrold, I finally found her! This has lead me to revisit her catalog in preparation for an interview. So, for your listening pleasure, I have put a bunch more of my favorite tracks up on my YouTube.  You can listen below, or just go to my channel and listen to them all together and I urge you to do so because the world is grey and cold and often horrible and this will, if only momentarily, occupy your brain and maybe convince you there can be some good in the world.

I was listening to this first track, Carry Me Through The Fire, while reading more tragic news the fire in Oakland. So much shit going on that's devastating, it's hard to stay positive and focused sometimes. I can't say anything that hasn't been said before but just a simple plea to stay safe, stay together and stay strong. 

Love, as always,

Megon

Suzy & The Dentists-Do You Do You Brush Your Teeth? 7" (UK/Canada, 1981)

Ahoy hoy!

I'm still alive! Quit my job and living the high life of unemployment. With all this free time I've gotten back to my old habits of digging up dirt on obscure records, tracking people down, asking them about shit they don't remember for my own, and hopefully soon your, edification. In my travels around the darkest corners of the internet, I unearthed this. You may remember me posting the Marie Marie version of this track recorded in Belgium a year earlier (cause I'm kind of obsessed with it), and here are the same two tracks recorded by a different artist in "Canada" altho I suspect everyone involved was more of the British persuasion. Anyway, you can listen to the tracks together or separately and judge for yourself. It's a shame no one managed to hit it big with this jam. It also really focuses my attention on the trend of producers recruiting young girl singers and dumping them into obscurity when the song isn't a hit. I run into this a lot when trying to track people down. Anyway, here are the two track, big sax:

In other news, the reissue of Household Shocks is out now on Dark Entries. I really just want to register my disappointment that such a well-established label would be so disrespectful and lazy as to blatantly plagiarize from the article on Household Shocks I wrote for the zine a couple years ago. They are not the first site to do this, but man, what a bummer. It just highlights who is in it for love and who is in it for money, in my opinion. You can compare for yourself HERE on their site and with my original article HERE. 

Also, since I'm not really in the mood to give Dark Entries any of my money at the moment, the entire Defectors discography just went up on Amazon UK HERE. I know I would rather give my money directly to the artists who made the music I love so much than a label that steamrolls people for "cool points." Anyhoo, tracks include a remastered version of You Only Laughed which sounds better than the video I'm posting now, although you'll get the point! 

Also, in other news, along with slowly but surely working on another zine, I have started a shop of stuff I make and collect. More stuff will be added as soon as I make it but until then you can bookmark the link. (LOL) Same shop as in the sidebar just now with more crap! But, it's very pretty crap. Buy it!

http://onlydeathisfatal.bigcartel.com/

Hugs and bisous!

Megon

Suzi Hendrix - Zero Zero 7" (UK, 1979)

 So, so, so much is changing in my life I can hardly keep up. I am super excited for summer. Loads of friends coming to visit, coming to stay, loaning me their cats temporarily, all topped off by a little trip home at the end of the month. And if everything goes to plan, a trip to London in August to scope out the city for THE BIG MOVE. That's right, you heard it here first, despite everyone's protestations, we are up and moving to the UK. Everyone keeps asking why and there are a million reasons, I can't even specify. But mostly, "Why not?" The land of my favorite bands and records of all time is calling. 
And, come on, those accents. 

Anyway, here's a little song I have been playing a lot lately. The A-side for one of two singles released by Suzi Hendrix on Radio Records in 1979. Can't wait for my copy to come in the mail.  I know it will probably not provide any more clues to this enigmatic record, but maybe, just maybe I can shake some info loose. In the meantime, you can listen here. I personally think it sounds as good as it looks and it looks pretty awesome. 

Anyway, this will be short and sweet as I need all the sleep. As always, I hope to be back soon, and if not, later days! 

Love, 

Megon

Witha-Alltagsspiele 7" (Germany, 1983)

So, I kind of quit my job yesterday! Pretty exciting. My boss asked me to stay on for a while and if things got better, I wouldn't have to leave at all. Nice try, buddy. That'll never happen. I will say, I totally needed that weight off my shoulders since I'm still dealing with some pretty stressful house stuff and I'm feeling scattered and generally like a crazy person and my job makes all that 10,000% worse. With any luck I will be back home freelancing again with loads of time to make posts and zines for you lovely people again soon. 

I have been listening to a lot music lately though, mostly Men Without Hats, let's be honest, but loads of other stuff too, including and not limited to this Witha song. Like a lot of the records I put on here, I haven't been able to gather much info on this release in the limited time I've had to look into it. I have a crazy theory based on pretty much nothing that Witha might have actually been the singer from The Days, but this is pretty unfounded. Either way, the B-side of this disc, Mir Geht Es Schlecht, is the real stand out here and perfectly fitting my general mood the last couple of weeks. Fun fact: the new banner for the blog/Facebook are taken from the cover of this record.

 If you want to listen to The Days and try to judge if it's the same woman, here's a catchy jam by them from 1982, a year before Witha. Obviously, kind of a different vibe but who knows?

It makes me a little sad when my detective work doesn't yield results but I'll keep digging and maybe someone will just leave a comment below telling us everything we want to know about Witha!

In the meantime, there's some stuff coming up I'm pretty excited about worthy of note here if you are in the MTL area. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Chandra here before and she will be playing April 3rd at Le Ritz, event info HERE.

Not sure how Bleached will be, but I'll probably end up at Le Ritz again for this April 16th. Event HERE.

And finally a show NOT at Le Ritz, Hante will be gracing the stage with the lovely and talented Xarah Dion at Casa April 30th. Event HERE.

And back to Le Ritz for Consumer Electronics on May 6th. Event HERE. 

Chelsea Wolfe will also go up against La Luz on May 16th, but I have a little time to decide where I will end up that night. 

There are lots of other things between here and there where I can probably be found. Hopefully life will settle down a bit. I am going to start my application for Canadian citizenship soon and then with any luck, leave the country soon after! 

Talk to you soon,

Megon!