Human Switchboard - I Gotta Know / No!

Here's an aggressive garage-punk single by Human Switchboard on Clone Records from 1978.

The first cut "I Gotta Know" is a hip take on 60's garage rock with farfisa screeching all over, twinkling xylophone and cooing female backup vocals "lalala-ing" in the background as Bob Pfeifer does his best Van Morrison era Them/Mick Jagger swagger on the microphone.

The second cut "No!" is where its at: threatening tempo, biting-sneering vocals, grinding guitar, hand claps and one hell of a negative attitude. Has a whole different tone to it if you know what Mr. Pfiefer was arrested for... but otherwise one of my personal favorites from Ohio. A real burner. It's a shame "No!" isn't included on their anthology released on Bar-None last year (if you bought the cd you could get the download of it?). So you see this 7-incher snatch it up! Highly recommended, and fantastic to play to people just to see them do the "this is from Ohio?" stink face.

The Waitresses In "Short Stack"

       I purchased this glorious Clone Records single not knowing what to expect. It's highly unusual for me to purchase something without hearing it SOMEWHERE on the Internet first, but when I was told this doesn't sound like what you have already heard by The Waitresses I put on the skeptic face, and took the plunge anyway knowing the value of a MINT clone records single.
      So what do we got here? The A side "Slide" is a funky little garage feet shuffler. Crunchy percussion compliment swirling slide guitar, that builds up and up only to glide back down into some explosive harmonica playing as vocals confidently strut over whole toe-tapping affair.
      The B side "Clones" drops into The Forbidden Zone. Someone fusses over a radio switching between channels until a degenerate vocal kicks in going "mumumumumum" than a phasered somber cry "Cloooooones" and off we go into bizarre percussion clicks and clonks under monotonous voices stopping abruptly to chant "mum-mum-mum-mum" then "WOOOOP -WEEEEP" synthesiser freak out! Honestly, if I had heard this without knowing who it was I'd guess early Devo.  That level of weirdness and a far cry from my previous impression of The Waitresses!

(These video/tracks are culled from The Akron Compilation which in my opinion has a varying consistency but may see some coverage on this blog in the future)