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Messthetics

DRY RIB - Whose Last Trickle

D.I.Y. with a guitar-genius/nonsense poet only begins to explain Dry Rib and the projects that followed, but they were one of a tiny handful of D.I.Y./post-punk-era groups whod probably have sounded the same whether Punk had happened or not. And things only got cooler, odder, and more idiosyncratic as Rob Vaseys audio insurgency progressed. Ed Ball of O Level (and later the Times and Teenage Film Stars) saw Dry Rib first in late 1978 and promptly signed them to his new Clockwork label. He writes, Dry Rib were a late 70s three piece group of some indefinable power - not Powerful in the obvious sense, as in everyone slugging out the same riff... More the power of musical and lyrical imagination ... Rob Vaseys guitar style of blurred chord stylings coupled with continuous tremolo arm preempted My Bloody Valentine (or anyone else) by the best part of a decade. [He] wasnt like Eric Clapton or Paul Weller in way/shape/form ... Which could only be a good thing because, he superseded these fellows for sheer guitar innovation and songscapes that neither could even conceive of. Rob was ably supported by two equally intelligent musicians ? Andrew Goodwin (one of the best two drummers Ive ever played with - and that includes the so-called shit-hot session guys) and Mike Mullholland (who could make a Fender Precision sound like Entwistle, Matlock or a distressed horsefly!) Dry Ribs EP received heavy airplay from John Peel, who featured all three tracks: Quail Seed, Cruelty of the Victim and their epic Alaska (the latter and a demo of Quail Seed appear on Messthetics #102) and briskly sold through a thousand-odd copies at the beginning of D.I.Y.s golden age. They made several further trips to the studio, with no loss of intensity or inventiveness. Robs career next took a more fluid and improvisational turn in a series of collaborations with various members of the Times extended family, mostly under the flag of as, hem syrup (the name taken from a nonsense prose piece of Robs) and the lyrics grew even more fanciful. As with Dry Rib, theres no mistaking any of the material for anyone elses. Theres much more of Ed Balls account in his liner notes (including diary entries from the time) along with every surviving Dry Rib photo, lyrics, the usual daunting ephemera, and 20 songs and 75 minutes of music on the CD. - Messthetics

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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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