I've been slacking off on posting new stuff, but no more. David Seaman air-mailed me two disks chocked full of goodies all the way from Osnabruck, Germany, so I'm going to let him do the heavy lifting on this post. When I first met him I thought his name was a punk rock pseudonym like Johnny Rotten or Lorna Doom or something. Of course it wasn't. It took me a while to catch on though.
When I was still living in Richmond and doing the radio show, my friend Kelly wanted me to play some Nudibranch one night. I did her one better, I played all I had. She was into it, so was I, and ideally a few truckers speeding up 95 hitting the seek button on their stereos got a little taste as well.
These first songs are off the Logic Studios sessions recorded by Joe Kusterbeck. Launch Of Saturn Rocket One and Ten Minute Role Model appeared on the Chutney/Nudibranch split cassingle on Tenderette, a classic Richmond label. If anyone out there has the Chutney stuff I'd love to have it passed my way (hint, hint). Hydrophobia is a cover of a Jolly Mortals tune. After we heard the Nudibranch version we changed the middle part to the way they played it.
Ten Minute Role ModelGossip Queen
Hatchet Face
Launch Of Saturn Rocket One
Robot Girls
Hydrophobia
There was a four-track demo from about this same time period and most of the songs overlap, but there is one that doesn't. Both of these recordings feature the original line-up of Flossy on Vocals, Dangerous on Guitar, Nasty (though don't call him that to his face) on Bass, and the Commander Deveroe on Drums.
Gearhead
Soon after I started playing with these guys Greg Darden's birthday was approaching and some of his friends decided to make him a tape. We recorded a happy-birthday tune for him but wound up having pretty comical trouble with the tape recorder. Flossy on Vocals, the Reverend on Guitar, the Nurse on Bass and the Commander on Drums.
Five Minute Slow Model
The next batch of songs are from when Pete played bass in the band. It was recorded on his four-track. Pete tragically died of cancer before he even made it out of his twenties. He was one of the best bassists I've ever seen play and losing him was one of the worst things to happen to the music scene in general and to those of us who loved and respected him specifically. He also did some fine work with the seminal Sister Sound and the Venusians, a tape I listen to to this day. Rest in peace, Pete.
Three Laws of Robotics
Contessa
Treffpunkt Deutsch
Moon Bride
This next batch of tunes belongs to the Tony Brown era of Nudibranch's history. There is a painter living in Richmond named Richard Bland who did a series on bands. One of my favorites is with Tony playing bass in the red devil mask he used to wear on stage. This album is called Bio-Luminescence.Three Laws Of Robotics
Bio-Luminescence
Levers And Meters
Numerals
Disfunctional
Head Trader
Plastic Head
In One Ear
Corpus Earthling
Pheremones
Tony was also the bassist when the following songs were recorded. This session is called Moral Affections.Moral Affection
Eye Servant
This last tune has Chris Wade playing on it. Dave told me that the engineer fell asleep while recording it and that it comes through. In the spirit of completeness (more or less) I'll include it anyway. Ian (whose last name I can't remember, much like Pete's) played bass for a while as well.
Zylol
The following videos off Chrisuede's YouTube site.
posted by John Swart at 2:59 PM
6 Comments:
those guys were dicks. and it shows. fuck em.
Wow a guy from Osnabruck sends me the shit, then a guy from Hamburg disses it. I had no idea these guys were so huge in Germany.
we were totally dicks, it's all true, we never kissed anyones asses. man, what were we thinking? we shoulda totally sucked up to avail or some other awesome band in richmond at that time that was full of nice guys that let it show. since when was making music about being nice to people? i heard Chopin was a complete and utter asshole.
Thanks for posting these songs.
Nudibranch were one of the best Richmond bands back in the early 90's.
Glad to be able to hear their music again!
This is awesome - I've been trying to track down more shit by them for years. I bought the Automaton 7" on a whim when I think I was still in high school (note: not in RVA, or VA at all!) and it blew me away.
Hey, John, Eve here from Sistersound. I just found out about this, now about a year after you posted it. Nice retrospective of Nudibranch. It's so great to hear this again. If only you posted their portion of UB2B vs. The Earth. I crave hearing that, and my record went missing a long, long time ago in a Richmond far, far away. By the way, filling in some details, it's Peter Grothey, survived by his mom and sister Victoria, who lives nearby and I am still close with. That photo brings back memories. He still had his long hair, so it's pretty young. I remember when he shaved his hair short. That was around the time when we started doing some of our best music together. I remember when he wrote the bassline for Moon Bride. Somewhere in my collection, there's a 4-track demo that he recorded for me at my house, of those seminal few riffs. I remember how into it I was, and admittedly jealous that he was already showing it to Nudibranch. But they created a great prog-noise metal tune of it. Pete was like, "sorry man, I'll make you something just as good." to which I replied, "ohhh, but i reaally love this song". Being the big hearted guy, he responded, "well, I'll make you something even better" and he did write a new original song on bass, though we never had a chance to develop a whole song around it. That is also in my cassette collection somewhere. Getting back to Nudibranch, was it Ian Whalen from Damn Near Red that played with them? I seem to recall that photo, too, and it looks like his bass. Those drums always perplexed me, how loose those sticks sounded, behind the beat, but never losing time. I always thought he stood out from other heavy drummers at the time. Hearing Robot Girls again evokes the same response it did in the nineties. That song rules it.
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