Y Pants- Little Music

99 Records

1980

No Wave from the golden age on the venerable 99 Records.  Y Pants are often associated with Glenn Branca with whom Barbara Ess had a long standing personal and musical relationship- the two played together in both Theoretical Girls and The Static and Branca produced this single and released a full length on his Neutral label.  If No Wave sought to reduce "Rock" music to it basest elements, Y Pants took it one step further by jettisoning the usual rock instrumentation in favor of a battery of little instruments such as toy piano, ukulele, and toy drums.  The effect is a sort of naif primitivism that sits well with many of the other early 99 releases (Liquid Idiot, Bush Tetras) and at the same time hints at the more outright funky direction the label (and scene in general) would begin to move in with groups like ESG and Liquid Liquid.  Kicks off with a cover of the Stones' 'Off The Hook'.

Little Music

Urinals- First EP

Happy Squid

1979

First release from the seminal LA band released on their own Happy Squid label in '79.  I first heard about these guys via the Minutemen's version of Ack, Ack, Ack, and a great track on the Homestead Human Music comp, but it was years before I was able to track down any of their albums proper.  Started in a dorm room in 1978, these guys took punk primitivism  to an extreme.  Their songs usually clocked in at under two minutes and rarely consisted of more than a single chord or two.  They were barley competent on their instruments and their setup was so stripped down that initially the bass and guitar were run through the same amplifier while the drummer banged away incoherently on a toy drum set.  But damn did it sound good.  Eventually they learned to play their instruments and adopted a sound that was something like a lighter Mission of Burma or Wire c.Pink Flag and changed their name to 100 Flowers (which was still great, btw).  But man, there's just a real charm to these early Urinals records.  This stuff sits very comfortably with a lot of the stuff on those messthetics comps which is, of course, a compliment of the hightest order.  

Urinals First EP