It’s nostalgia time again and as anyone who reads this knows I’m always a little wary of collaborations but when it is done by the undisputed Queen of collaboration there is little to fear. Harry Crews were one off supergroup that formed in 1988 of Lydia Lunch, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and a former pro-wrestler Sadie Mae on drums. They never made it into a studio to record these tracks instead its essentially an amalgam of two live shows they did during their one and only tour of Europe in September 1988. It’s a strange concept album based on the writings of underground writer Harry Crews. Mr Crews is a master of southern gothic and was doing twisted Palahnuik-style tales before Palahniuk was even born. Each of the songs is based around one of his books and each sounds like a no-wave interpretation of the Gun Club. Filthy hardcore swamp rock with the blues stripped out if you know what I mean. Lydia is at her howling banshee best and Ms Gordon rams her bass right through the middle of it’s heart. It’s grubby unclean punk of the finest quality.
As an aside this is yet another fine example of a great record that’s now sadly out of print. There’s a couple of copies on Amazon on the moment and I reckon besides ebay that’s the only way you’re going to track this down.
Ducks Battle Satan 