Chisel - 'It's Alright, You're OK/The Guns of Merdian Hill' (Gern Blandsten)

Ten months without a post!  Sorry about this corner of our little alphabetical world - somehow 7"s get overlooked and I tend to do them in batches.  We left off with Chisel last year and pick it up with a 7" that might actually belong chronologically before 'The O.T.S.'.  Post-8 AM All Day Chisel never did much for me, apart from a few songs here and there. 'It's Alright, You're OK' feels like a tune with a bit more pop chart potential than anything before. Leo's voice has always been high in the mix, and there's a lot less guitar scrapings, instead being driven by a bouncing bassline and an organ-swirl chorus. That said it's a lot less 'heavy' and the traces of 'punk' are removed in favour of a more feel-good, soulful mod pop. I like this song a lot, but you have no idea how many times I listened to it in high school. The b-side is a song that for some reason I always thought was a cover, but it's actually not. It's a bit more driving, with some good strumming, maybe a return to form of their old Nothing New-era sound.  It's lacking the one spark of greatness to catapult it out of B-side territory, but at this point, I'll take it over the flip.

Baby 63 - 'Quiver' b/w 'Shark Watch Maker' (S-S)

The treasure trove of early 80s obscurities, reissues from some punk tidal wave, is a gift that keeps on giving. Here, Soriano of S-S records brings two songs from the Baby 63 tape to vinyl. 'Quiver' sounds like a Ralph Records outtakes with weird, warbled grinding and tape flutter (probably just an artifact from the original source, though it sounds great) buried deep in each channel. The song changes gears a few times and resonates in air also occupied by fans of Tuxedomoon, though with a darker, more amateurish Very Good records vibe. Yet there's something Beefheartian about the singing, or maybe post-Beefheartian (the antecedent to Stump, perhaps?). 'Shark Watch Maker' is a very repetitive dark grind that has it's moaning industralism cut by some strained vocals, which pull against the guitars. I like when songs are layered with heavy minimal guitars and synths, yet the drum track is someone hitting an empty Tupperware container (or something similar household and 'small'). The liner notes explain the story of Baby 63, which was almost entirely one woman named Karen Fletcher. It took 21 years for these two songs to see vinyl and I can only wonder about the rest of her output.