It's the Shimmy Disc releases poll

if the only thing you have heard is soul discharge you should consider holding off on voting until you've heard a few others

Voted Ruins "Burning Stone", but I could be convinced that Naked City or "Stonehenge" is the correct answer. I CANNOT be convinced that anything else is.

Not even The Tinklers?

Well maybe "Soul Discharge" which I haven't heard in 12 years, but I doubt it.

Whoa there was a second Carney-Hild-Kramer record! Is it good?

Matt #2 I guarantee you're not the only Fred Lane fan here ... and the correct answer is Car Radio Jerome

Power of Pussy vs. More Sad Hits vs. Bozo for me, and that's a tough one to call. Each one probably the best album by a favorite artist of mine. Will have to spend a few days to sort this out.

NAKED CITY

omg there are so many great albums here

boredoms ball daniel johnson uncle wiggly ruins bongwater kramer naked city ween

gah how 2 decide!

pretty rough choice - all the Bongwater stuff is classic obvy, and there's a lot of underrated gems on here (John S. Hall & Kramer Real Men is really funny and I usually hate "comedy rock")

so hard to choose. I think I've listened to Shockabilly "Heaven" more than anything else on here, but then with Soul Discharge AND Double Bummer in the running we have some serious stone-cold classics. Man I used to have such a softspot for depressing shit like Dogbowl's "Growing Up In A Wheelchair".

The Pod

more sad hits, although my favourite song released on SD is 'one meatball' by the tinklers (on saplings)

EARTH VS. SHOCKABILLY.

I gotta say, I feel like this label released a whole lot of crap. Maybe you just had to "be there."

i still have goya and more sad hits and the return of red emma and a couple bongwaters. i loved bongwater. especially too much sleep. especially the title track of too much sleep.

i remember when my brother brought home torture garden and soul discharge one day and we listened to them and it was fun. it was, like, wow, man!

i liked that jad fair/kramer album! the song about going to california, that was a great song.

i never got into a lot of kramer and his pals records. b.a.l.l. and stuff like that. and i was there, ian!

i liked the two girls my brother used to bring home who worked at shimmy disc. they were nice. they gave me a glow in the dark galaxie 500 t-shirt once.

my fave uncle wiggly album is the one d.wolk put out. but i probably need more uncle wiggly albums!

THE POD

I feel weird about that U. Wiggly record as it was supposed to be on my imprint I briefly had with Shimmy, See Eye, until I realized that Kramer was a crook and never going to pay anyone and shut the thing down after only a couple releases. Years later, the Sun City Girls, with whom I had a fabulous release planned (for 1992), said "Man you shoulda done it anyway -- we never expected to get paid!" which was fucking funny and sad and says something about a lot of small labels, unfortunately. (I hear that Magnet article about Kramer/ Shimmy and his/ the label's problems from a year or so ago was well done, but in order to read it I would have had to have read an issue of Magnet so I haven't read it.)

I agree that there really are a LOT of amazing albums on this list. I think any LP with a Macioce cover is worth owning, that Fred Lane rules, that the Carney Hild Kramer records remain fucking awesome, and also that a third of these records suck donkeys but as averages go that's not so bad. it's funny 'cause I just bought the first and best Lida Husik LP for $5 -- unplayed copy, beautiful -- at Kim's last night and it struck me as weird that such a great out of print album could be so cheap. I'm not complaining of course...

B.A.L.L. was so fucking amazing, esp. live -- best use of double drummers I've ever seen, holy fuck.

nobody else likes it but i love "Potted Meat Spread" by Spongehead.

I think I need to get into Bongwater. I see copies of Burning Stone floating around NYC all the time (didn't feel so bad about giving mine to my Ruins-fanatic ex; got a new copy for like $5) so out of towners need to grab that.

Has anyone heard "The Pod Outtakes"?

krazy kramer's gonna be in australia in a little while recording some local band.. would be interesting to meet the dude..

Power Of Pussy for me. I bought everything on this label up to like Dogbowl's Tit or something. But that album towers over most of it.

I have not heard King Missile in years. There is some funny stuff on Mystical Shit.

I still own 013 Fred Lane And His Hittite Hot Shots Car Radio Jerome. French toast man!

I never liked the Grenadine album despite being a fan of Unrest, Tsnumi and Eggs.

How is the Kramer and Daevid Allen record?

How is the Kramer and Daevid Allen record?

The first one is lovely.

I voted for the Rutles comp because that has tracks that I still listen to the most and is a genius concept through to execution.

The record I would like to recommend is Dogbowl's Flan record.

It has some of the most beautiful melodies/arrangements and if you can get past the post-nuclear holocaust (married to novel of same name/content) stuff which probably indeed mars the material down to about an AMG 3.5 or so, it is lush.

Honorable mentions to the Pod and Uncle Wiggly There Was An Elk, neither of which were "produced" by Kramer, as it happens.

Oh and that Velvet Monkeys album is primo early pre-kitsch Don Fleming material, defo well worth a visit for anyone who ever decided somewhere along the line that they didn't like him. "Evelyn Marble" is one of my favorite songs.

Oh well, RIP.

Only know a few releases. Voted "They".

REAL MEN. Despite loving a few others on this list, very very easy decision for me. (I believe zappi upthread introduced me to this record, actually...)

THE MILKSHAKE OF DESPAIR SHAKES HANDS WITH SECRET AGENT 666

Oh good, I'm not the only Pod voter.

if the only thing you have heard is soul discharge you should consider holding off on voting until you've heard a few others

Actually, I think I have heard a few more of these that I overlooked on my first scan through the list. I have The Pod, which is, IMO, one of the two worthwhile Ween albums (the other being GodWeenSatan). I think that most of Torture Garden is also included on Grand Guignol, which I have. I've heard bits and pieces of other things, and/or other works by many of the artists listed here. So I do feel some justification in voting for Soul Discharge.

Second that Velvet Monkeys album - I'd previously only heard Rake, which is shit.

I'm quite surprised by how little I know off this label - I've got quite a few releases (Bongwater, Rutles Highway Revisited, Ween, Daniel Johnston etc) but a lot of the rest is A MYSTERY.

These are a mystery to me, anyone know them? I'm guessing it's not that Ladytron.

072 Tin Ear The Gospel of Tin Ear
074 Bulkhead Gas Giants
078 The Semibeings Sickness & Health
079 Blueberrie Spy Sing-Sing
082 Tin Ear Ballad of a Tin Band
084 The Captain Howdy Tattoo of Blood
086 E-Trance E-Trance
089 Drazy Hoops Straight to Black
092 Glen or Glenda Reasons In The Sun
093 The Blue Whale Congregation
094 Milksop Holly Milkweeds
096 Brainville The Children's Crusade
097 Adult Rodeo Kissyface
098 Milksop Holly Time to Come In
099 Adult Rodeo Texxxas
100 The Ladytron The Ladytron
101 The Blue Whale Wind Runs Through It
103 The Du-Tels No Knowledge of Music Required

CAR RADIO JEROME

Soul Discharge is my favorite album on Shimmy Disc, but it's not really a "Shimmy Disc" album. Kramer got the rights to release it, and he fucked it up and put it all as one track. The guy ripped off so many artists that weren't in his close circle and fucked up their albums.

I voted the self titled Mabuses record. At least, that's a Shimmy Disc record in spirit. Shimmy Disc were great, don't get me wrong, but the Boredoms being on there was, in retrospect, an unfortunate anomaly.

Also, the mastering of the Shimmy Disc Soul Discharge is just terrible.

Though I at one time owned nearly everything on this list up through release #40 (excluding King Missile and lots of the one-shots), I don't now - and, god help me, didn't then - care for much of it. The last Shimmy-Disc release I think I heard was Ruins' Burning Stone. Didn't like it. Most of the stuff after #60 I've never even heard of.

I dug (and still like) the first couple Bongwater records, Rev. Fred Lane, The Pod, the GWAR debut and Soul Discharge, but most of the rest seemed more interesting than memorable or useful. Jellyfish Kiss and Walkingseeds were okay, for grunge-era acid rock. Main problem is that though all all my favorite Shimmy stuff fits this description, I basically hate Zorn-style wacky anxiety music.

Anybody else ever spend an inordinate amount of time trying to boil The Guilt Trip down to one decent record's worth?

Agree w/ Makro that Soul Discharge ain't really a S-D record, else I mighta picked it over CAR RADIO JEROME.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dogbowl, "Cyclops Nuclear Submarine Captain". Lovely album.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

You know what I love? The Bongwater version of "Splash 1"

Can't believe no-one voted Bozo.

power of pussy > double bummer.
should have won

'Dude' and 'In One Mouth & Out the Other' are both fantastic - the latter being one of the freakiest folkiest records ever

B.A.L.L. reunion show!

https://www.facebook.com/events/166467203516191/

picking up on what i said four years ago...

Stan the Man, I mark the meat
I grab the fish and dump the sheet
Pull the cards, so keep your seats
Watch the carny feed the geek

Bite if off and scarf it down
Makes me sick if I stick around
How'd you like to be that meek
Pleadin' for pennies in the dirt on your knees

Car Radio Jerome
Car Radio Jerome
Pick up the phone, you're always alone
Keep ringin', keep singin', there's nobody home

Ten nickel shots fulla cockroach rye
Grub up some filth and I think I'm alive
Pick a card from the deck and pretend to believe
They swim in the jar and be just like me

This life sucks twice
Looks real good but it stinks on ice
Real ripe escargot
Under the table where it doesn't show
Down in the basement where the kids won't go
I know the mark, you know the smell
With a world like this who needs a hell

Do not try to be discreet
Drop the pamphlets in the street
Scream like a banshee, laugh like a loon
Run down the alley, spit at the moon

Quarter from behind me can't make me drop
I quit this jump and I'm a flat dead frog
Touch me, dad, I'll stick you, cop
Kill my dog, I'll waste you, pop

Car Radio Jerome
Car Radio Jerome
Pick up a phone, light up a bone
There's a wingtip above us, we ain't alone

Look past the page and I hate what I see
Maggot in the mirror just drools back at me
Carny says "temporary, stick around for a week
Suck on this, pal, til we get us a geek"

Do not try to be discreet
Got my eyes on the carny's feet
Kick down the stall, spit on the wall
The head off a pullet, jump over the wall

[frontier gibberish]

...dead pigeon...this goddam stinking slaughterhouse of a world, some guy to tear the wings off flies. What use is there in living... nuthouse, and the biggest loonies are at the top. ...this rotten, stinking, useless life. We get jerked into it and jerked out. It's nothing but a... We come like a breath of wind over the fields of morning, we go like a lamp flame caught by a blast in the darkened window. In between the journey from table to table, bottle to bottle, suck, swallow...just like an amoeba. Somebody lets us loose like a toad out of a matchbox, and the guy's all like behind us, and when he gets tired he stomps us to death, and our guts squirt out on each side of his boot, and oh merciful providence, you son of a bitch. LOOK AT THE MARKS.

[the carny speaks]

Where did he come from? God only knows. He was found on an uninhabited island 500 miles off the coast of Florida. My friends, in this enclosure you will see one of the unexplained mysteries of the universe. Is he man or is he beast? You will see him living in his natural habitat, among the most venomous REPTILES that the world provides. Why, he fondles those serpents as a mother would fondle her babes. He neither eats nor drinks but lives entirely on the atmosphere. And we're going to feed him one more time. There will be a slight additional fee for this attraction, but it's not a dollar, it's not a quarter, it's a cold thin dime. Ten pennies, two nickels, the tenth part of a dollar. Hurray, hurray, hur- [screams]

Uncle wiggly is the best here