Here we have another nice tape from the American cassette-culture network of the 80's by Ice Cream Blisters. A band that came from Kent, Ohio that was founded by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta and friends, they also did the home-taping label GGE in Kent. Ice Cream Blisters made a couple more tapes and were for example also featured on the Exart compilation Music From The White House: U.S.A.. Their music is quite an eclectic mix-up of many different musical genres and styles like most of the weird American bands from that time.
When Nature Fails, Art Steps In definitely fits a no future mentality having a nice punk style and attitude combined with some deranged new wave sounds and pure sound experiments. It reminds me of other American bands like The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Blacklight Braille or Strange Fruit Abiku, ofcourse Pere Ubu that also hails from Ohio and probably also many other US bands I am overlooking now one can find in the Mutant Sounds archive. Nevertheless, Ice Cream Blisters has a signature of its own and the lengthy tape has many different musical highlights. From the demented violin infused Vivaldi to the nice lo-fi pop track Drive It Down.
I guess that the punk attitude of Ice Cream Blisters makes sense in the light of US (art-)punk in the North-Eastern and Mid-West states of the US that already had their own special punk-history since the 60's (think The Stooges and the Detroit scene etc). By the way, you can hear that a lot of effort was put in this release. Strange how they have remained so unknown, even after all the music that the blogs have been reviving for the last decade. Maybe some more of their music will surface with the time. It's really good! And not on Discogs.
"Don't be a cardboard celebrity that people pose next to. Don't live in fear of something you don't know really exists, think your own thoughts, they are worth more."
This tape was kindly donated by the Y Create archive
Get it HERE
Download link appears to be dead, can you provide an alternative download source for this album? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi! The link is fine. But I heard that Zippyshare is blocked in a couple of countries unfortunately. There are some ways to bypass it with browser-extensions hiding your IP adress or VPN. Any suggestions for a new file hosting website are very welcome! Until then I will keep using Zippyshare. Good luck!
DeleteYay, I wrote that last quote! When we performed our one & only live show (as a 3 piece with Russ Simcheck on drums) at JB's down in Kent, opening for The Diffi-Cult, when I got to that line, Russ noticed there was a lifesize Cosby Show-era cutout of Bill Cosby at the side of the stage, so he grabbed it & held it up! We had a few well known tape artists do guest releases on GGE, in particular Hal McGee/Dog As Master, plus we did a guest cassette on Harsh Reality, I believe it was called "Hot Greasy Food". Our last tape was done around 1988 or so, called "This Is Not A Scene" (there's a scan of the cover out there, me & Mike in front of the back of a Kent club). My cassette deck is on da fritz so I haven't heard our stuff in quite a long time, but it may well be time to get it repaired & dive back in, cassette culture was a hell of a thing back in the 80s. Thanks for remembering!
ReplyDeleteOops - that last comment didn't carry the ID...Chris from ICB here :-)
ReplyDeleteChris! How great to hear from you, madness! Your music is absolutely amazing. The great combination of every home-taping approach possible. If you still have some tapes you would like to share from your collection to the blog feel free to contact me! The cassettes from the States or not easy to find here in Europe. I can already tell you that I will upload your tape "+/or" this year as well! Thank you for the wonderful music. I even consider to publish and release some of your old music, so get in touch in general: archaicinventions@gmail.com
DeleteThanks! Bence
Hi Bence, could you please re-upload this tape ? (File has expired and does not exist anymore on this server.) Thank you in advance.
ReplyDelete&
Great to read comments from authors that stop by. It brings a value to all of this. *
Thanks!
I wouldn't mind a re-up of this too. If possible on mediafire or something more accessable than zippyshare. It works with VPN, but is a drag really...
ReplyDeleteTHANKS!!!
ReplyDelete