HR066 - Viktimized Karcass - It's Only Cock In Hole But I Like It— C90 — 1988
Side A:
Jumping The Gun Carousel Ride Allergic To Sun Got To Be Back On The Trail |
Side B:
Steady Eddie Karcass Medley: Let The Good Times Roll My Best Friend's Girl Whipping Post La Grange Gimme 3 Steps Whole Lotta Love The Ocean |
REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
Recorded March 9, 1988, love with no overdubs, It’s Only Cock In Hole But I Like It is about the craziest Viktimized Karcass set I’ve heard yet. For this get together the band were the quintet of Chris Phinney, Robert Henson, Richard Martin, Roger Moneymaker, and Pete Mclean.
‘Jumping The Gun’ spends some time warming up. But after a minute the bass takes charge and leads the way, making for a rocking blend of punk and party rock, with electronic effects adding a nice freaky factor to the proceedings. I hear keys and guitar too but they’re a bit faint, with the bass lead being front and center. ‘Carousel Ride’ is a chunky funky grungy rocker that also needs a little searching before finding a groove. It’s a raw freeform slab of punky stoned jamming space rock, with cool contrasting New Wavey keys. ‘Allergic To Sun’ features down ‘n’ dirty guitar and bass driven lo-fi punk-metal, but again with contrasting synth-pop keys and freaked out UFO electronics. ‘Got To Be’ has the same catchy grungy punk-pop riff and soloing guitar that we had on the HR064 Strangled tape, but this one is all instrumental. Another Viktimized Karcass tune that was recorded several times is ‘Back On The Trail’, and is yet another one with a catchy riff and melody that sticks to your brain like glue. Raw and nasty punk-pop and more crazy contrasting blends of dirty rocking punk and spaced out keyboard melody.
And that’s the end of Side A according to the tape credits. BUT… there’s a nearly 10-minute mystery track that consists of raucously exploratory blues rock plus freeform jamming that includes ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ sounding riffage and killer guitar. Side B kicks off still raw and dirty with ‘Steady Eddie’. There’s both swaggering swing and corrosive trippy elements to the jam. But over its nearly 12 minutes it changes direction a lot, from free-wheeling blues-psych, to more of that ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ for garage punkers riffage, and we’re treated to killer eerie serpentine and rip rocking guitar soloing plus whirring electronics. So far this is the best playing from the band of the set.
Next up is the ‘Karcass Medley’ and we’re having some fun now! The Medley kicks off with awesomely filthy/nasty drunken space-punk covers of the Cars hits ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ and ‘My Best Friend's Girl’. The former is an instrumental and ‘My Best Friends Girl’ sounds like it might have goofy vocals but I learned from Chris during the interview that it’s a synth. Karcass do a good demolition while capturing the playfulness of the original. Ditto for the Allman Brothers’ ‘Whipping Post’, which Karcass simultaneously pay tribute to and decimate. Good guitar and I love the silly pennywhistle keys that rise and fall throughout.
Next we’ve got a mangled yet true to form cover of ZZ Top’s ‘La Grange’. The guitar gets nicely into the spirit of the original. Same for Skynyard’s ‘Gimme 3 Steps’, which is true to the original in a garage rocking way, and once again adding fun zany keys. Wrapping up the Medley is a couple of Led Zeppelin covers, with Karcass cranking out an admirably and freakily space rocking ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘The Ocean’. And once again the heavy rocking sounds pretty cool alongside the electronics and keys.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): This is among the most lo-fi, down ‘n’ dirty, freeform jamming, punk meets hard rock in space Viktimized Karcass set I’ve heard yet.
Chris Phinney (CP): It probably never should have been released (laughs). We were drunk as hell during that session. The way everything was microphoned, I was like what the hell happened to the drums? You hear them in bits and pieces in places. I don’t know what the hell happened. And the recording is not the best in the world.
JK: But it’s a fun tape! Like ‘Allergic To Sun’. You’ve got all these crazy contrasts going on. It’s like lo-fi punk-metal, but you’ve also got synth-pop keys and freaked out electronics too. I like it.
CP: Yeah, we thought what the hell, we’ll put it out. And it was still better than a lot of shit that was out there. Plus we didn’t want to waste any material.
JK: ‘Got To Be’, which has appeared on other tapes…. I recognized that catchy grungy punk-pop riff right away.
CP: ‘Got To Be’ and ‘Back On The Trail’.
JK: But there’s no vocals on any of the songs? Was it just because you were all wasted?
CP: (laughs) You’ll have to ask Richard that, I don’t know.
JK: He just decided not to sing so it was all instrumental, simple as that?
CP: He just decided not to sing. We just played the damn thing.
JK: Was the mystery track at the end of Side A deliberate?
CP: I don’t remember! I forgot all about the mystery track until I recently digitized that tape. I hadn’t heard that tape in a long time. I’m listening and thinking that it’s better than any track on that whole side of the tape. And it didn’t even have a name.
JK: I like it. It’s got Blues rock and all kinds of freeform jamming. And it’s got this riff, which I also heard on ‘Steady Eddie’, that sounds a lot like the Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. Was that intentional or just the way it struck me.
CP: Nope, that’s just the way you heard it. That tape did not do too well. But that’s the way it goes. We’re not going to sell a million of every one of them.
JK: Well I’ll tell you… the covers Medley is a riot. You really ‘Karcassized’ those song. The two Cars’ songs are a hoot.
CP: That’s me doing the vocals on all those Medley songs with the Moog Rogue. That’s how fucked up we were that night (laughs).
JK: I’ll bet you were one of the only bands to ever follow two Cars covers with ‘Whipping Post’.
CP: ‘Whipping Post’!! Any vocals on that Medley was done with the synthesizer. ‘Gimme 3 Steps’… the vocals were all done with the Moog Rogue. But we didn’t do any vocals on the Zeppelin tunes. And we didn’t go off and do some 10-minute thing like Jimmy Page did.
JK: Roger’s guitar really gets into the spirit of the original on ‘La Grange’.
CP: Oh, hell yeah. Roger’s a damn good guitarist. He can play all that shit.
JK: The Medley has a great variety of songs and I loved the way you covered them. But it would have been really cool if you did have vocals on them.
CP: I like the synthesizer vocals on them better than real vocals. And everybody else did too. Nobody really wanted to sing them.
JK: What is that cover photo? Looks like some native guy with a sword through his head.
CP: It’s a guy from East India with a machete supposedly stuck through his head. The picture came from Weekly World News or something like that. It’s got to be a falsified fake image. But I wanted to use it. I’ve done covers with photos from those newspapers before.
JK: It’s a fun tape. It was certainly in the spirit of the times that you would release a tape of a big drunk recording session.
CP: It was a fun session I’ll say that about it. And the Medley is one of the main reasons it got released. It was so fucking hilarious.
JK: I can tell by listening you guys were having a blast.
Recorded March 9, 1988, love with no overdubs, It’s Only Cock In Hole But I Like It is about the craziest Viktimized Karcass set I’ve heard yet. For this get together the band were the quintet of Chris Phinney, Robert Henson, Richard Martin, Roger Moneymaker, and Pete Mclean.
‘Jumping The Gun’ spends some time warming up. But after a minute the bass takes charge and leads the way, making for a rocking blend of punk and party rock, with electronic effects adding a nice freaky factor to the proceedings. I hear keys and guitar too but they’re a bit faint, with the bass lead being front and center. ‘Carousel Ride’ is a chunky funky grungy rocker that also needs a little searching before finding a groove. It’s a raw freeform slab of punky stoned jamming space rock, with cool contrasting New Wavey keys. ‘Allergic To Sun’ features down ‘n’ dirty guitar and bass driven lo-fi punk-metal, but again with contrasting synth-pop keys and freaked out UFO electronics. ‘Got To Be’ has the same catchy grungy punk-pop riff and soloing guitar that we had on the HR064 Strangled tape, but this one is all instrumental. Another Viktimized Karcass tune that was recorded several times is ‘Back On The Trail’, and is yet another one with a catchy riff and melody that sticks to your brain like glue. Raw and nasty punk-pop and more crazy contrasting blends of dirty rocking punk and spaced out keyboard melody.
And that’s the end of Side A according to the tape credits. BUT… there’s a nearly 10-minute mystery track that consists of raucously exploratory blues rock plus freeform jamming that includes ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ sounding riffage and killer guitar. Side B kicks off still raw and dirty with ‘Steady Eddie’. There’s both swaggering swing and corrosive trippy elements to the jam. But over its nearly 12 minutes it changes direction a lot, from free-wheeling blues-psych, to more of that ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ for garage punkers riffage, and we’re treated to killer eerie serpentine and rip rocking guitar soloing plus whirring electronics. So far this is the best playing from the band of the set.
Next up is the ‘Karcass Medley’ and we’re having some fun now! The Medley kicks off with awesomely filthy/nasty drunken space-punk covers of the Cars hits ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ and ‘My Best Friend's Girl’. The former is an instrumental and ‘My Best Friends Girl’ sounds like it might have goofy vocals but I learned from Chris during the interview that it’s a synth. Karcass do a good demolition while capturing the playfulness of the original. Ditto for the Allman Brothers’ ‘Whipping Post’, which Karcass simultaneously pay tribute to and decimate. Good guitar and I love the silly pennywhistle keys that rise and fall throughout.
Next we’ve got a mangled yet true to form cover of ZZ Top’s ‘La Grange’. The guitar gets nicely into the spirit of the original. Same for Skynyard’s ‘Gimme 3 Steps’, which is true to the original in a garage rocking way, and once again adding fun zany keys. Wrapping up the Medley is a couple of Led Zeppelin covers, with Karcass cranking out an admirably and freakily space rocking ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘The Ocean’. And once again the heavy rocking sounds pretty cool alongside the electronics and keys.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): This is among the most lo-fi, down ‘n’ dirty, freeform jamming, punk meets hard rock in space Viktimized Karcass set I’ve heard yet.
Chris Phinney (CP): It probably never should have been released (laughs). We were drunk as hell during that session. The way everything was microphoned, I was like what the hell happened to the drums? You hear them in bits and pieces in places. I don’t know what the hell happened. And the recording is not the best in the world.
JK: But it’s a fun tape! Like ‘Allergic To Sun’. You’ve got all these crazy contrasts going on. It’s like lo-fi punk-metal, but you’ve also got synth-pop keys and freaked out electronics too. I like it.
CP: Yeah, we thought what the hell, we’ll put it out. And it was still better than a lot of shit that was out there. Plus we didn’t want to waste any material.
JK: ‘Got To Be’, which has appeared on other tapes…. I recognized that catchy grungy punk-pop riff right away.
CP: ‘Got To Be’ and ‘Back On The Trail’.
JK: But there’s no vocals on any of the songs? Was it just because you were all wasted?
CP: (laughs) You’ll have to ask Richard that, I don’t know.
JK: He just decided not to sing so it was all instrumental, simple as that?
CP: He just decided not to sing. We just played the damn thing.
JK: Was the mystery track at the end of Side A deliberate?
CP: I don’t remember! I forgot all about the mystery track until I recently digitized that tape. I hadn’t heard that tape in a long time. I’m listening and thinking that it’s better than any track on that whole side of the tape. And it didn’t even have a name.
JK: I like it. It’s got Blues rock and all kinds of freeform jamming. And it’s got this riff, which I also heard on ‘Steady Eddie’, that sounds a lot like the Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. Was that intentional or just the way it struck me.
CP: Nope, that’s just the way you heard it. That tape did not do too well. But that’s the way it goes. We’re not going to sell a million of every one of them.
JK: Well I’ll tell you… the covers Medley is a riot. You really ‘Karcassized’ those song. The two Cars’ songs are a hoot.
CP: That’s me doing the vocals on all those Medley songs with the Moog Rogue. That’s how fucked up we were that night (laughs).
JK: I’ll bet you were one of the only bands to ever follow two Cars covers with ‘Whipping Post’.
CP: ‘Whipping Post’!! Any vocals on that Medley was done with the synthesizer. ‘Gimme 3 Steps’… the vocals were all done with the Moog Rogue. But we didn’t do any vocals on the Zeppelin tunes. And we didn’t go off and do some 10-minute thing like Jimmy Page did.
JK: Roger’s guitar really gets into the spirit of the original on ‘La Grange’.
CP: Oh, hell yeah. Roger’s a damn good guitarist. He can play all that shit.
JK: The Medley has a great variety of songs and I loved the way you covered them. But it would have been really cool if you did have vocals on them.
CP: I like the synthesizer vocals on them better than real vocals. And everybody else did too. Nobody really wanted to sing them.
JK: What is that cover photo? Looks like some native guy with a sword through his head.
CP: It’s a guy from East India with a machete supposedly stuck through his head. The picture came from Weekly World News or something like that. It’s got to be a falsified fake image. But I wanted to use it. I’ve done covers with photos from those newspapers before.
JK: It’s a fun tape. It was certainly in the spirit of the times that you would release a tape of a big drunk recording session.
CP: It was a fun session I’ll say that about it. And the Medley is one of the main reasons it got released. It was so fucking hilarious.
JK: I can tell by listening you guys were having a blast.