***Spacecase Records is pleased to release Sac Tap Nut Jam—the first new AXEMEN full length in twenty-one years. Originally from Christchurch, New Zealand, The Axemen formed in 1983. Initial Axemen releases came out on member STEVE MCCABE’s cassette label, Sleek Bott. The Axemen signed to Flying Nun in the mid '80s, releasing the label's first double album, Three Virgins (1986). Like The Swell Maps, The Axemen sound is hard to define—Three Virgins runs the gamut, from country to punk to avant-garde. The Axemen released their second Flying Nun record Derry Legend in 1987. The band put out further cassettes on Sleek Bott, notably Scary (Part III) and Three Rooms (An Elton John Tribute Album), before going on hiatus in the early '90s. In 2009, The Axemen caught their second wind thanks to Tom Lax at Siltbreeze who reissued the band's cassette-only releases Big Cheap Motel and Scary (Part III). The Axemen toured the United States with Times New Viking the same year. In 2011 The Axemen visited Australia and put out a tour 7"— a label split between McCabe's Sleek Bott and the late Brendon Annesley's Negative Guest List Records. Siltbreeze came through again that year, reissuing Three Virgins on vinyl (original pressings were going for well over fifty dollars). Sac Tap Nut Jam finds Steve McCabe and STU KAWOWSKI reuniting with DRAGAN STOJANOVIC (who played on 1987's Derry Legend); rounding out the lineup is WILLIAM DAYMOND. Recorded in early 2013 in Wellington and Taita, Lower Hutt, Sac Tap Nut...
LP $14.75
07/30/2013
MP3 $7.92
07/28/2013
FLAC $9.90
07/28/2013
***This December Australia has the AXEMEN live experience to look forward to. To celebrate, NGL has partnered with Axeman "LITTLE” STEVE MCCABE’s Sleek Bott imprint to release this Oz tour 7". You get a live at WMFU track on the a-side entitled "Nutsack" that stammers with a stoned ‘70s hard rock feel, and a B-side called "Nutshack (Redemption Song)" that sounds like it's from another planet. Well, I 'spose Christchurch kinda is! 300 copies. Australian import.
7" $11.25
12/27/2011
Originally released on the inestimable Flying Nun label, Three Virgins came and went in the blink of an eye in the mid-’80s. After dormancy a mere quarter century in duration, this beguiling masterwork sees the light of day once again courtesy of Siltbreeze. Setting up shop in Christchurch’s State Trinity Centre over Easter holidays 1985, Axemen went to work recording every sound and second they could capture during the legendary lost weekend. Fueled by enhanced adrenalin (Tiger Blood) and superhuman zeal (Adonis DNA), they chewed up dozens of reels of tape, assaulting all those who entered the erstwhile ecclesiastical chamber with a barrage of splendiferous blabber ’n’ croak. The resultant 88 minutes sound like a mutant hybrid of Trout Mask Replica, Exile on Main Street and Tago Mago. Add to the pot one of the most eye-popping post-psychedelic full-color gatefold jackets ever designed in the brief history of time and you’ve got a dazzling, exultant combination that could only be described as winning!
2XLP $17.50
06/07/2011
MP3 $9.90
06/07/2011
The second entry in Siltbreeze's Axemen reissue series, Scary! Part III originally saw light as a cassette-only release in 1989. Most bands and fans active in the Christchurch and Dunedin scenes at this time could tell you, sans embellishment, how the prolific Axemen blazed through the '80s (new cassettes seeming to come into existence on an almost daily basis), and, in classic Rashomon style, a different story would be told by all willing to reminisce, though it's safe to say everyone would agree that Scary!'s beguiling je ne sais quoi is some of the band's most intriguing blat to date. Unlike the hyper-punk-charged pastiche of Big Cheap Motel, Scary! operates from a gestalt concept and sensibility. While on the surface the contents might sound fragmented, ruminative, or obfuscatory, dig deeper (or listen better) and you'll see (and hear) the mystifying ooze lactating out of the four sides of Scary! not as individual, insurmountable constructs of bizarreness, but as a coherent pattern of brilliant phenomena that is--in a word--scary! Novice ears that have made it though this Bunyanesque giant find themselves making comparisons to a mixture of S.Y.P.H., Royal Trux, and Ptose. All one can say, really, to such hodgepodge is "congratulations." After 20 years and counting, this release refuses to be aptly pigeonholed. Hell, even a seasoned horror chomper such as Shirley Jackson (were she still croaking) would advise giving these guys a wide berth. They mean business and their business is mean. Or as the poet (and bartender) Bing...
2XLP $17.50
07/28/2009
MP3 $9.90
07/28/2009
Siltbreeze joins Sleek Bott Industries for a series of vinyl-only releases from New Zealand's legendary Axemen. (Little) Stevie McCabe, Bob Brannigan and Stu Kawowski have recorded decade's worth of priceless tuneage, some of which, it only seems fair, should finally see the light on a format suited to their chutzpah. The first one out of the gate is the trio's 1983 Big Cheap Motel, their difficult third album, their protest album (following the blistering, insane, and completely live debut Equinox and the studio / live tribute to punk-dub-beer-noise-cubism, Mick's Dancefloor (Mix)). Rarely heard outside the Southern Hemisphere, this montage of rough-and-ready live performances and Peterboro Studio recordings teeters on the precipice of chaotic genius alongside such stalwarts as Alternative TV / Hear & Now's What You See Is What You Are and 1/2 Japanese's Loud. Says McCabe, "Bob and myself went down to check out the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, the scene of the summertime concert-in-the-park series of free outdoor events sponsored by the local council and Big M milk drinks, only to find the park plastered with billboard-sized posters of scantily clad young ladies advertising the sponsor's wares. We immediately scrapped our set list--which extolled the joy of festivals and praised the council and Big M milk drinks as worthy town governors and milk-based food products, respectively--and replaced them with a set of 'protest' songs about the travesty, which were performed at the event, to the mild annoyance of the council and the sponsors. Following this brutal coming...
LP $13.00
02/17/2009