As promised here´s NY Ground Zero second and what I presume last record? No super hit like Nothing here but as a whole a bit better then the debut me thinks. Unusual arrangements and a love for Roxy Music? At least that´s what immediately come to mind as they plow through the most accessible track Prima Donna. Televoid is my pick out of the four even though the intro is a bit of a drag but at the same time it sounds like it´s made just to piss people off and that get high points in my book. Got a meeting with the newly married swedish princes so I really have no time for this.
Country: USA
Year: 1980
Label: Self Released
Format: 7″
Songs:
Born To Be Bombed.mp3
Televoid.mp3
Prima Donna.mp3
Break Apart.mp3
Strange record… Artsy yet stomping!! To me the B side is slightly better, but “Televoid” is a cool mental ward number. Thumbs up!!! :-)
See? I don’t really really hate this!! ;-D
Mission failed :(
These guys were from Boston, not NY. There’s a Thayer St address on both singles.
Forgive Peter, he is clearly intoxicated by the mere thought of his rendezvous with “newly married swedish princes.” In the company of male royals, it’s natural to jumble one’s words.
If I were blindfolded, I would have guessed this record was from the last couple years of the 80s.
Sorry, Boston it is. Wonder how I got the idea they where from NY.
I’m reasonably sure that some kind of lp came out in the latter half of the 80′s (probably around the same time as the Girls “Reunion”) but I can’t tell you anything about what was on it.
There was a time when New York was a much more interesting place, but these days both NY and Boston are almost indistinguishably boring cities filled with parents more annoying than their stroller-sleeping brats. In the States, the action today is generally in decaying first-ring suburbs of small cities where rent is affordable and you can still score cheap drugs. In my mind it’s nice to see punk rock return to its original suburban roots.
I totally agree with you Levi Johnston, big cities suck now….all over the world. The rent is overpriced and it’s nothing but young parents and trust fund babies pretending to be rebels. The music that is being made in major cities around the world is nothing but generic plastic goofy junk made by rich kid spazz patrols. Spazz in not a good way either.
You are right, the wildest shit is happening now once again in suburban garages. In many cities, it’s now cheaper to live in the suburbs rather than in the city.
The music will return to it’s punk roots back in the garages. You have more room to play around in a suburban house, so the music experiments are more wilder than anything that happens now in some rich dork’s tiny NYC apartment (where he can not make a peep of noise) or in his/her $750 a month tiny shared NYC area practice space.
Why do think you see so many of these dorky NYC area bands playing nothing but these tiny Korg synths and tiny Vox amps…because that’s all you can fit in their expensive rented spaces and that’s about as loud as you can now play in those areas. Gone are the days where some original freaks like Johnny Ramone could play a 1968 Marshall amp in a NYC area space. There is noise control there in the big cities of the world because all these new yuppies have moved there.
But in the suburbs you can still pad up a garage and move a 1968 Marshall amp, crank up a broken Mosrite guitar and destroy a half broken 60s Vox organ. Creating new ideas free of any trends or toxic junk.
Oh yeah, and Levi…say hello to Bristol for me.
Cool! More American Stuff Please!
prima donna is a great great punk rock post killer track the rest is cool energy post punk or what ever thank you kbd.
this is fucking great! love the bass sound!!! killer!!
Cool. Like this single much better than the other Ground Zero single. I think it’s killer.
Once again, they made great art work for the sleeve.
Listening to that small guitar solo on “Break Apart”, it sounds like Ground Zero were a Boston area punk band that must have caught John Foxx’s Ultravox on their ’78 USA tour and it blew their mind so much that they flipped their own script. Good move.
Much cooler and more interesting sounding than most of the really boring “no wave” and power-pop junk that was happening in both Boston and in New York. Unlike the no wave bands, Ground Zero knew how to actually play their instruments and were not just getting by on gimmicks or putting an art label on it. And unlike the power pop bands, they were not into writing some queer song about a chick that gave them a broken heart.
Of course, they had to release this on their own label. The Boston area indie labels were too busy looking for the next Cars. And the New York area labels like Rior were too busy serving 14 year old males with hardcore, while across town the other labels were serving art students amateur no wave junk.
It’s better that they released on their own label. They got to use the art they wanted and they got to do it the way they wanted. It looks and sounds cooler than SO MUCH stuff from 1980, especially now 30 years after. 30 years after you can finally see who were the people doing cool shit and who were the ones just getting by one fads.
I shared a painting studio with one of the members – Mark Olin. This was during 77-78 at Mass College of Art in Boston. Mark and I were painting majors. He’s the one that did the cover art using early color Xerox copiers- pre-laser technology. Went to the launch party in a factory space for their first single. I lost my copy in divorce mess… Would love to find digital mp3 of these guys.
“Hollywood” I deleted your message by mistake. Please write again. About digital mp3s they’re right here. Can’t you download ‘em?
Note that the track labeled “Born To Be Bombed” is actually called “Cybernetic War.”