Severed Heads: CDSD

They are incredible.. the album HAUL ASS is amazing.. It was put out by SEVCOM... check out Tom and the Sevheads on http://www.sevcom.com

I'm not as enamoured with anything post (and including) Gigapus but it's still good. I could listen to Bulkhead all day.

The electronic sounds: very innovative and definitely ahead of their time, for the most part. As brian mentioned, should definitely appeal to a lot of current IDM fans--those artists might kill for some of the sounds Ellard achieved using only tape or vinyl.

The vocals: very cartoonlike, sometimes annoying; at other times that quality is just what the material needs.

I actually draw the line at Big Bigot in terms of the really interesting stuff...after that point it was all about dancing and was a lot less innovative. Though I'll still admit I like "Hot With Fleas". Just picked up the Gashing the Old Mae West EP as penance, though.

I did a search for 'Severed Heads' and Dan Perry's name kept popping up again and again and again

I may be getting hold of a cheap copy of "Clifford Darling" which I'm very very excited about.

I recently paid, like $9 for a copy of Gashing the Old Mae West, but it was worth it I guess.

and A.R.E. Weapons could go a great "Now, an Explosive New Movie"

i was speaking about this eralier with a friend - if they hadn't had such an intimidating (to some) name, could severed heads have been as big as new order?

anyhow, here in the uk, they were never even a blip on the radar. very sad but very indicative of the (pre techno) uk conservatism for any electronic music that wasn't kraftwerk.

Tom doesn't have a single kind word to say about Ink records, the UK label that ripped the band off, but did pretty much got their stuff distributed on vinyl... and is the reason most of us on this thread might actually own any Severed heads vinyl pre-1985 at all.

sean - please do make that available as an mp3. i'd like to hear it, even just out of curiosity. i adore 'dead eyes opened'. joakim from tigersushi has done a really excellent re edit of it that should be out soon. i was a bit wary as it's such a sacred song but he has done a very respectful job.

i never knew that ink records ripped them off but i have to say, if it wasn't for ink releasing their stuff over here, i don't think i'd have discovered them until much later when nettwerk started putting their music out.

and dan, i used to be mad about skinny puppy but i can't say i have put on any of there records in the last decade whereas severed heads are always on my stereo. most people in the uk probably only know 'greater reward' and think they made house records as it was a huge dancefloor hit in the summer of love ('88). that piano - mmmmmm!

rotund for success is easily my favorite album of theirs. "greater reward", it's b-side "nation", "all saints day", and "big car" all should've been huger than huge.

in the earlier days of sevcom.com, they were offering the entire catalog as a free download. a friend of mine has all of it on one mp3 cd. it's impressive and humbling.

I'd buy something if I ever saw them around.

And Jim, do you still have Priviledge?

i've always thought "Dead Eyes Opened" to be one of Ellard's less interesting works. on the other hand, "Canine" OWNS.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!

Am I right to believe that very few o.s. Heads fans are aware of their earlier material, from Since The Accident backwards to Blubberknife (but not the crap Ear Bitten before that one)? This early Heads phase is pure gold, my friends.

Also, those old Ink records are not too hard to find used.. at least in the states, probably even easier in the UK, Australia, and/or NZ.

The most danceable Severed Heads album is probably Rotund For Success, which is the only album to get an LTM reissue. So that's your best bet. Then again, there's nothing like "Dead Eyes Opened" on it.. the Racic produced "All Saints Day" comes closest, but it sounds closer to late 80s New Order dance type stuff more than anything else (which isn't a bad thing!).

Severed Heads aren't a dance oriented type band.. they just have/had a dance facet (as of 1983) that's part of their overall strange, beautiful architecture.. if that makes sense. I could easily imagine an indie rock cover tribute album for Severed Heads just as easily as a techno tribute album for Severed Heads.

Did I mention that Since The Accident is one of the greatest albums ever?

ps-see you thursday stirmonster! I've been getting nervy!

ronan - i thnk nervous is good. i always get a little nervous before i play. i'm not however looking forward to not beng able to smoke when i'm playing.

yeah the smoking thing will be weird, the door is very near the dj booth but that's not much good while you're playing. I dunno, as the DJ I wonder what would happen if you lit up.

AND WHAT ABOUT "HAROLD AND CINDY HOSPITAL" AND "LEGION"??????????

http://sevcom.com/

;___;

;________________________;

fuck

Well...

http://tomellard.com/

This is Tom Ellard's web site. It's currently in test mode and nothing for the public.

The current experiment is here. It will install a plug in! It will download about 7Mb!

I mean, it's not like HE'S dead.

haha yes well

still the end of an era tho

all the way to the bottom, maggie.. you've made it... *sob*...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGHHH!
-- donut bitch (donut), Monday, March 1, 2004 4:30 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

;_; ;_; ;_;

ohhhhhhh that sucks though

why kill off a name that was essentially a solo project?

Big Severed Heads fan (well, up to Gigapus, at least). "Rotund for Success" is their most accessible, beginner-friendly album, I suppose, but I always preferred the experimental noise of their earlier albums ("Blubberknife", "Since the Accident", and "City Slab Horror"). Favs include "Gashing the Old Mae West", "Acme Instant Dehydrated Boulder Kit", "Dead Eyes Opened", "Goodbye Tonsils", "Harold and Cindy Hospital", "Greater Reward", and "All Saints Day" (that song shoulda been huge!).

Holy crap. Some genius has put their Rock Arena in-studio from 1986 up on Y0uTooB :

Part 1 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OjAnr4dsLs

Part 2 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGiKhPQ-k74

(Fast forward 7 minutes. Turn volume up to 11. Wait for your head to explode).

giving the 'commerz' comp a spin at work today (due to no-one else being around, hah). all that sped-up tape fuckery at the end of 'halo' is pretty inspired.

i thought i'd snagged a copy of the joakim's 'dead eyes opened' edit recently from tigersushi but they said they'd listed it on the website by mistake and didn't actually have any copies left. ;__;

I wonder why disc 2 of ComMerz never got released on emusic? I dloaded half of 1, 2 never came out and now I think 1's been yoinked as well :(

vol 2 is there now. i thought vol 1 came down because it was the wrong album but they never bothered putting up the right one

did you guys read about the dream I had about you on the ILX dreams thread on ILE?

no i've never looked at that thread

did anyone here ever pick up the adenoids box?

Nar i was wrong, 2 was always up and its 1 that was never available. Which is a bugger cos i dont have much of their older stuff. Except for a mangled casette copy of "Clifford", somewhere.

from sevcom: ANNOUNCING ADENOIDS 4 CD SET SOON AVAILABLE

woo

also ellard's blog has been great lately

over at a friend's house rehearsing for a show, I see a copy of 'Since The Accident' on a chair and mention that I've always wanted to hear the early stuff and he just looks at me and says 'I don't understand how you haven't heard the early stuff'. I mention 'Well I have a copy of Cuisine and love it' and he just tells me to be quiet, goes to the shelf, pulls the other 1983-84 CD 'City Slab Horror' off and gives them both to me

so... yeah, okay, this band.

and they did -not- have a sampler? how did they do this much collage & rhythmic collage with just a delay unit? control voltage & filtering on a 4-track? I mean yes Brian's comment upthread about Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire spot the precedents neatly but this band pretty much wrote the earliest formal book on the way sampling was later implemented into industrial dance music, only it's far better, weirder and more musical than most of everything that followed

is that 4 CD set of 77-81 out yet?

they were definitely using a sampler by the mid-late 80s, but i don't know exactly when they made the switch.

the cd box isn't out yet, not sure exactly who's doing it but i've assumed ascension records is because the did the M2 box..

>they were definitely using a sampler by the mid-late 80s, but i don't know exactly when they made the switch.

looks like 1986

http://www.sevcom.com/documentation/harley/14.html

digital delays are samplers too more or less, but still pretty amazed at the results they got scrambling and dicing with synced delays on those early records. can hardly wait for the box of early stuff - the liner notes to the VOD version are online at sevcom as well

fuck i just grabbed a cheap vinyl of rotund for success -- very sick! is this their ecstasy album?

not entirely sure how you mean that

you could argue it's their most euphoric, although Gigapus vies for that title as well

and they did -not- have a sampler? how did they do this much collage & rhythmic collage with just a delay unit? control voltage & filtering on a 4-track?

Regarding City Slab Horror/Since the Accident era stuff, there's a lot of tape looping going on, if I remember correctly. An American in Paris/Tarzan's Grip/That That Revolves, I remember reading was one long live session of tape loops coming in and out.

i think tom ellard's first sampler was the ensoniq mirage which came out in 1984. so prior to that it was all tapes

I figured it out once I heard the epic 25 minute live version of 'Gashing The Old Mae West', which makes it a little clearer. Like a bollywood plunderphonic take on This Heat's '24 Track Tape Loop'.

The Network CD reissue of Since The Accident & the Sevcom Clifford Darling Please Don't Live In The Past comp are my favorites. And that Adenoids box is a lot to digest but has scads of completely addictive little pieces on it.

I'm definitely a Clifford I guess in that they get a lot less interesting once they bought actual samplers and tilt towards industrial pop, I didn't like Come Visit The Big Bigot as much as I thought I was going to, but relistening to Cusine again, that seems like an album where the songs got back into the weirder arrangements from the earlier records. Either way count me in as a big fan, I need to hear some of the more recent albums as well & it's too bad Ellard took down that essay I linked to because it had some of the better critical/theoretical writing on sampling in music that I've read

sean - please do make that available as an mp3. i'd like to hear it, even just out of curiosity. i adore 'dead eyes opened'.

Better late than never....?
Edgar Lustgarden reading Death on the Crumbles

I used to have Clifford Darling on a casette someone did for me and I lost it, buggeration.

Sean you're a peach!

OMG wait, its all on emusic now! Rotund, Clifford,. everything. When the shit did that happen? Gah.

Just listened to "Power Circles" and the tape loops remind me of "Come Out" by Reich, but with music.

Just discovered that Retread, Cuisine/Piscatorial and Gashing the old Mae West are all available for free download at sevcom.com right now - anyone who is wondering about any of these should go check em out!

An ancient curse sweeps over the land!

Severed Heads once more drag themselves out in a shameless display ... four nights in May in four capital cities. Details follow.

Then a serious concert by Tom Ellard in October.

And watch out in December!

???

!

"four capital cities"

er ... Washington DC? Or maybe he means Sacramento? or Albany? what?

my guess is melb/syd/brisbane/adelaide but you never know

i figured but i thought some whining was in order

considering how pissweakly Simstacular the vids were at the first reunion, the fact that he's talking about nothing except new videos, no mention of musical arrangement or performance, doesn't instil too much excitement tbh ;_;

i just closed my eyes iirc

he spent months detailing all the new videos he was making then too

presumably the rest of the performance is just him pressing play on quicktime and then singing over the top, I don't think he rly played anything himself. there was the bloke over on the right hand side though.

was worth it for him telling everyone to hang their heads in shame tho

so it turns out this is a support slot for Gary Numan performing The Pleasure Principle in full

Yeah I just spotted that on facebook and almost fell off my chair. Holy sheet!

Retiring in 2010, SEVERED HEADS will nonetheless come together once again to play at the Sydney show for electro-pioneer Gary Numan, and, prior to that, will give their final live to air performance TONIGHT on NEW WEIRD AUSTRALIA. Over 50 minutes in length, this exclusive SEVERED HEADS set will not be broadcast or performed anywhere else. A little slice of Australian music history tonight on FBi, be sure not to miss it!

streaming on http://www.fbiradio.com/ from 9pm AEST

podcast of ^: http://newweirdaustralia.com/2011/06/nwa-radio-severed-heads-live-to-air-set/

awesome--thanks for this!

blasting this at top volume to drown out the loud roar of hockey fans (and riot cops) outside my door

Should be interesting: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=132

!!

inevitable but also sort of depressing to start the podcast with Dead Eyes Opened (which I love unreservedly, btw)

In an alternate universe "Hot With Fleas" is a chart-topping song

inevitable but also sort of depressing to start the podcast with Dead Eyes Opened (which I love unreservedly, btw)

RA may have required it (they often meddle with dj podcasts, sending them back to the artist and asking for edits, additions, etc)

Sounds like the sort of bullshit they’d pull.

uh I haven't listened but presumably RA put the music bits into the interview, Ellard didn't play them off his phone between questions

he should have

as if he keeps Sevs tracks on his own devices

i can't even begin to imagine what he actually listens to for pleasure

I remember an interview circa 1989 in an alt-industrial magazine where Tom was asked what he likes to listen to. Tom excited said "Madonna, oh and lots of Middle Eastern and Indian soundtracks, pretty much." (paraphrasing)

I...am not complaining.

http://severedheads.bandcamp.com/

is something different?

No, it's just everything all in one spot. Again. Which rules.

I thought it was always there. It was at some point.

I thought he was hosting them directly on sevcom.com

Yeah I think the change is making it newly available this way. And why not?

I also hadn't realized how many things he'd added to some of these albums; there are tracks on Cuisine I've never even heard of before, for example, because I never looked at what he was offering there because I have the CD

these have been on bandcamp for quite a while, though they went up completely without fanfare

(i got stretcher and since the accident from there may '11)

Ellard's blog is worth a read. His recent "Five reasons why I’m not an ‘artist’" is great

And also from his blog, thanks to Dan Selzer for the tipoff:

http://tomellard.com/wp/2013/07/wednesday-night-is-garbage-night-autodidact-edition/

Essentially an overview of Ellard's musical education, what he listened to, how, etc.

Amazing to read what he was getting and who he was getting it from, concisely. So many favorites and things you wouldn't immediately think, and connections being drawn across all kinds of favorites.

SHINE HEADLIGHTS ON ME

really enjoying Barbara Channel 3, released last month (of course it's "not a SH album")

http://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/barbara-channel-3

couple SH reissues coming out on Dark Entries.

And said reissues would appear to be these:

http://thequietus.com/articles/15180-severed-heads-reissue

This news led to discussion on FB about them and a friend just posted this amazing story:

After they opened for Skinny Puppy at The Roxy in '86, I was sufficiently flabbergasted that I walked up to Tom post-show and stuttered something stupid like "Bu ... bu ... but ... how do you DO that?"

He fixed me with the patented Tom Ellard Thousand Yard Stare and replied,

"Well it's not DRUGS if that's what you mean!"

hawww

also that one track

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=24610

If I can be a bit of pedant that review kinda annoyed me:

"Dark Entries will press up an extended version of "Dead Eyes Opened" along with two other tracks, "Bullet" and "Mount.""

In other words...the Dead Eyes Opened single, which is that long, and featured those two songs.

new "solo" ellard

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/rhine-2

sounding pretty good on initial listens

Come listen to Come Visit the Big Bigot with me

np: "Twenty Deadly Diseases"

i've been playing 'harold and cindy hospital' a lot lately - love the total switch-up from punishing slo-mo death-stomp to that really pretty synth melody

and its all kind of the same vibe

Sevs continue to be more active onstage since splitting up than for years before: US tour titled Better Dead Than Head

Sept 18 San Francisco at Elbo Room
Sept 19 Glendale, LA at Complex
Sept 20 Seattle at the Highline
Spet 23 Austin
Sept 24 NYC at Santos Party House
Sept 25 Tampa
Sept 26 Chicago at Cold Wave Fest

Last Thursday they debuted the first "new" Heads material since 2007, a 20-minute piece which was performed live as an entire radio session. Streamable here.

now downloadable

Link doesn't seem to work, could you try again?

it's an rss feed, will work in Firefox!

Eh, maybe he'll put it up on his Bandcamp.

http://fbiradio-storage.s3-website-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/podcasts/144/audio/1465091810270.mp3

?

video snippets up now

(wave hi to me at 0:24)

Been coming back to Rhine a lot recently.

Just two cents from a loooong time Clifford. I wouldn't have guessed it, all those years ago. But it seems to me nowadays that the real genius in Severed Heads is/was not Tom Ellard (though he's def. the best songwriter). No, the man responsible for making those songs/trax so strange and memorable and so memorably strange is/was Garry Bradbury! His solo works (and w/ the duo SIZE) over the last several years are the answered prayers for Clifford's who thought the post-BigBigot era Heads was not exactly the avant cat's PJs, that they were previously. And that's with all the humour and weirdness in full flower. I really can't recommend them all enough.

Listening now to some Garry Bradbury on bandcamp, and it's great stuff! Vyrna is on the money.

vyrna knowl is also wading through a ventilator.

Yeah that Panspermia Plus compilation is 33 tracks long, available free if you want, and extremely good.

thanks for the recommendation, my first exposure to Bradbury didn't click, but this is pure candy

New Sevcom sampler, four tracks, good listen

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/a-sevcom-sampler-2018

And Mr. Ellard has a new album out under his own name:

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/publicist

released simultaneously with a new Severed Heads album-length-project, it might be worth noting:

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/merch/aversion-2-lab-rat-box

(Aversion 2 is the sequel to an as-yet-unreleased album called Aversion, which is covers of classic rock songs; Aversion 2 is built on samples of classic rock songs.)

It sounds like rock but only a memory of it, or an approximation made by an algorithm. I like some rock music, and there’s no criticism implied, just some curious misrepresentation which allows me to practice some heavy psychedelic production.

Started a farewell* tour last night, eight more US dates before the band goes back in the box. Tom announced several songs as not having been played in America before, and a few haven't been played live at all before.

A tour-exclusive CD features studio recordings of the new arrangements of most of the setlist:

https://i.imgur.com/pEldaal.jpg

* yes, they stopped without fanfare once, and played a final show ever twice after that. but Tom's saying that forty years into the band (and ten years of playing boring old songs to boring old farts as a nostalgia reunion act) he's definitely had enough of lugging flight cases around, and he & Stewart have lives & jobs. any future Sevs performances would be one-offs in unusual circs, like the JSPAC show or Beautiful Arabic Surface live-to-air.

oooh I could go see 'em in Houston this weekend!

I'll be seeing them in New York, though not the show with Pop Will Eat Itself, who may not even make it as they're having visa issues, and even if they did make it and I was going to that show, which I'm not, I'd probably be better off as I'm not sure how I feel about a PWEI without Clint Mansell and I'm pretty sure they're music has not aged as well as Severed Heads, but the nostalgia is STRONG.

ha ha, the Houston show was meant to be a co-headline with Pop Will Eat Itself, but got price-reduced to just Sevs playing live at a goth/alt DJ night bcz only 26 tickets sold. you'll have room to dance!

(last night was also meant to have PWEI, but the US embassy did not process their visas)

go! the show is a lot of fun.

xpost

PWEI toured a This Is The Day... 30th anniversary show in the UK this year with four out of five classic-lineup members, but the US tour was/maybe is going to be more Graham's industrial metal nu-PWEI

hahaha, don't worry, I've spent plenty of evenings dancing at Numbers when it's 3/4ths empty

dammit why is the NYC show next week

This was fun in SF. Wish I'd known about the CD.

American tour CD now available on Bandcamp:

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/living-museum

Oh a reissue of Clean with extra tracks, my twisted arm, etc.

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/album/clean

Also Tom sez "If you have to have cancer, then the thyroid is a good place to have it, so I’m not worried, but I’m bloody cranky about it let me tell you."

interesting bits here http://tomellard.com/wp/2019/12/plans-for-2020/

Ellard's latest rebrand as an unsevered solo artist is up:

https://nilamox.bandcamp.com/

At launch there's a CoKlaComa best of, an unreleased 2002 CoKlaComa album, and a $2 mini-album of interpretations of Pachelbel's Canon, under a new alias. He's said that Nilamox is intended to become the home for his future activities.

A new C21st best-of-rarities mix streamable now, conceived for vinyl and out on December 8th in that format.

(Commissioned by Medical Records,) Heads mastermind Tom Ellard compiled this collection of work from the ‘00s from a variety of sources, from limited, hand-cut discs to video game soundtracks, and then wove snippets from those pieces into a stream of electronic consciousness. Four sides, four songs, all Severed Heads.

ooh

!!!!

Ellard has remixed the first four Music Server albums into binaural sound

and 5 and 6 are on Bandcamp apparently in a format that works in 5.1 surround if you have that, or 360º if you have the latest unwired Apple Airpods, and they don't fall out of your ears when you move your head to follow the sound

Here's an hour of radio from a few days after Robert Racic died, playing tracks he edited or produced and talking to collaborators about his work. Pause-buttoned in 1996, and uploaded in 2021, by a guy who was in Sevs in between those dates.

(mp3 on dropbox)

We're making a spreadsheet of every Severed Heads live show. 250+ shows - but with gaps & errors. e.g. Brighton 1985 where? Melbourne Music Expo in 1987? Wollongong in 2007?
If you have any documentation all replies welcome. https://t.co/ugFXBGaXi0

— Tom Ellard (@t0m3llArd) April 30, 2021

There's a vinyl reissue of Rotund for Success coming out this year on Medical Records, fwiw

it might be an acquired taste but the ButchCrutch releases on nilamox* where ellard is just doing the vocals are pretty good

Tom:

After ~30 years in service, some SH albums on Bandcamp have minimal audience. I'm planning a compilation that will condense these 'zombie titles': Cuisine, Gigapus, Haul Ass, Under Gail Succubus.
If you own any of these please download your files SOON.

Cuisine With Piscatorial was the last Sev Heads album I bought during the height of my fandom and I still love it, I'd say nearly as good as Rotund for Success.

The compilation above now exists, and people who already owned Gigapus on Bandcamp now own "Focus (A mid-life crisis compilation)" instead. (Otherwise it's five bucks, and includes a 45-page pdf - healthy notes from Tom on the purchase page too.)

this means that Gigapus has existed as:
a 14-track CD plus Metapus CD-Rom
a European CD with thirteen of the fourteen tracks mastered by the co-founder of Yello instead of Ellard
a 2xCD with the Dead Eyes Opened Remix 1994 EP included
an American single CD with no bonuses or differences
a CD plus Vidipus VHS
a 17-track Gigaplus CD-R reissue with one track swapped out for a remix, plus three bonus tracks / mixes
a 2xCD-R issue with the 14-track/one-track-swapped album remastered, and a bonus disc of demos, mixes and versions (also the Bandcamp version)
and a U2/iphone style 'surprise, you have a different record now'

In more rationalising, all the tracks from the Twister / Retread club mix compilation are now bonus tracks on "Dead Eyes Opened 94 ++", which is 100 minutes long and free for a limited time.

The 2019 live-versions-at-home farewell CD is set to be reissued, and will come off bandcamp once it's a physical item again. And the 1982 Blubberknife live-plus-8-tracks album is back up in its 2002 expanded form, for $5.

Why is this guy always tinkering.

a GB RIP thread from TE:

1960 - 2022

— Tom Ellard (@t0m3llArd) January 8, 2022

oh no!

Always kicking myself for missing the show in Baltimore in Feb 2020, but I think he was not in the lineup? Came to this group too late love Petrol so much.

don't think Bradbury has been in a lineup in a longtime. Was interesting discovering some of his solo stuff, gave a good sense of what his contribution might have been.

(he was p much only involved in 1982-83 and 1985, but had solo and other-band releases on Terse Tapes beforehand and on Sevcom much later)

saw GB play live solo maybe 10 years ago, was an extremely good show - and as suggested upthread he definitely possessed a good amount of whatever made Sevs weird and great when they were weird and great

Just heard this, how fucking sad

Upcoming livestream on Bandcamp

https://severedheads.bandcamp.com/merch/seance

We announce a Seance to be held with the departed spirits of Severed Heads for Halloween 2022. Based upon the freshly restored backing tapes and instruments used by the band in performances in the year 1982, before any hint of acclaim or recognition. You will enjoy an hour of sight and sound from beyond the grave (and probably a bit of in-studio malarkey if the OUIJA board is a bit dodgy. Please join us Saturday 8th October @ 7pm PDT. - The Severed Seance System

Excellent!

ooh

starting soon

Yesterday my shuffling iPod threw up "We Have Come to Bless the House" and I was transported with ecstacy

*ecstasy

*pingers

how was it, with pingers, or not?

Great show!

It's up for 48 hours replay, so latecomers might still be able to buy a ticket in that window? Worth it just to hear Tom doing a Beatles cover.