have you ever heard of a band called Less

No I haven’t but I look out for them. Middle eastern sounds promising since I love Arabian music.

Rik: I thought Ellroy wrote Blood on the Moon later than that? There’s a film–a Western, I think–with that title as well. Stars Jimmy Cagney as I recall.

Half Machine Lip Moves is definitely the key Chrome album. After that they tailed off and the later ones in the select list above are a fairly straight, science fiction-inflected rock music. Still good for all that, especially No Humans Allowed (half of which is the wacked-out tape experiments of Read Only Memory) and the 20 minutes of Wings Born In The Night on Chronicles 1.

Thanks for the tip-off – one worth pursuing. I was first aware of them from one of the Roger Dean Album Covers books, which featured the ‘Blood On The Moon’ cover (a title which I’d always assumed they’d “appropriated” from Ellroy’s novel, published at around the same time). Cope’s erudite overview was the clincher, and a brief trawl hauled in a few mp3’s, including ‘TV As Eyes’ which certainly lives up to Cope’s hyperbole and sounds like The Stooges emerging 10 years later and using the technology available. ‘Cyber-Punk’ is too easy a summary of a band that seemed to exist purely to explode conventions – at least from what I’ve heard so far.
Keep those recommendations coming.

R

As I am writing this, seeing as how bands are part of the discussion, have you ever heard of a band called ‘Less’? I heard about them recently on the website of the artist Dan Ouellette, and just got their album ‘cover, protective, individual’ for very cheap. I haven’t listened to their other stuff, but this album is very – somber middle-eastern meets older rock. Very recommended.

I’m looking forward to Grindhouse although mainly for the Tarantino half. Rodriguez has ended up boring me in the past, he lacks Tarantino’s wit. I think I may have to wait to see this on DVD then I can fast forward if necessary. ;) The poster art is cool, authentically tacky.

I definitely like your artwork for Cradle of Filth, but by the time of your correspondence with them my interest was shot. Around the release of their first video (the only one that really peaked my interest- PanDaemonAeon, I believe) I wasn’t sure what to make of them. That was about the time the line-up started changing just constantly. Yet, I always liked that video, and would always imagine odd, old bands reappearing like Univers Zero or the like, and making a similar video with a more entertaining soundtrack. Now I am getting that feeling about Chrome. The fact that I just saw that stupid movie ‘Grindhouse’ which I loved in spite of my remark, has gotten me stuck in that decades old pulpy, genre-bending, sleazy movie state of mind.

Don’t think I’ve heard any Sleep Chamber that I remember. I pretty much lost interest in that second/third wave of industrial stuff in the mid to late 80s. Not that there isn’t good there, just that my attention wandered. I lost interest in Chrome and Edge and Creed’s work post-Chrome as well, although Helios has done some good albums since.

Yes, Chrome were in the vanguard of that sound although with more of a rock feel. I think the rockier side put off the Cabaret Voltaire/Throbbing Gristle fans who otherwise might have liked them. There’s even some metallic percussion in places that predates groups like Einstürzende Neubauten and Test Department.