SOCIAL CLIMBERS – s/t LP (1981)
This is a post I’ve poached directly from the excellent Zamboni Soundtracks, who’s got an embarassment of riches pouring out from in-between his lines of CSS code. I’ve been listening to an awful lot of stuff from his site recently, like the discog of former Temptations vocalist David Ruffin — and this one also hit me up the head sideways. Solid post-punk junk! Zamboni sez:
Considering this band was a cross-section of Hoboken, NJ, New Orleans and Bloomington, it is right up my alley! Featuring members of MX-80 Sound, this is actually 3 7″s compiled by Gulcher, although originally released by a Gulcher-friendly Hoboken label. -Ian!
Mark Bingham flirted with a number of projects prior to compiling the works of Social Climbers, including production work for MX-80 Sound and collaborations with New York’s Glenn Branca. A. Leroy also worked with Charles Moulton, a choreographer, creating the music for his “Precision Ball Passing†pieces in the early 80s. Social Climbers’ only album was indeed a compilation of three excellent, but poorly pressed 7†flexis put out by the band. Armed with just a couple of guitars, a rhythm box and an organ, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this album may not offer anything special, or that Social Climbers would simply mirror the b-movie aspirations of their New York peers, Comateens (which they do here there, particularly on ‘Western World’). however, Bingham & Co. conjure up a highly original mix of quietly neurotic post-punk restraint. both the organ and rhythm boxes are used highly effectively, thanks to subtle production trickery and clever programming, neatly offset by the geeky garage-band vocals. tracks like ‘Chicken 80’, ‘Chris & Debbie’ and ‘That’s Why’ are shining examples of the very best of post-punk DIY, thanks to both memorable tunes and a cool, if insular, atmosphere of moderate despair. as the album wanders comfortably over the stylistic map, each track in some way hits the spot, and most hit more than one. Every lo-fi collector should get to hear this. and what a tragedy that it was never followed up.
-erik, lostinthegrooves.blogspot.com
Oh wow, I used to have this LP. I still ahve the cassette I made of my LP, but it is on a crappy Sony or Scotch cassette, a Type II, but still phased all to hell as I recall.
Thanks for anutter rare ass recording.
Thank you for posting this! I’ve been obsessed with “Hello Texas” after hearing it one of the earliest volumes of the Messthetics series (on one of the Homework volumes, I think). I had no idea they had recorded so much else.
Killer! I was just wondering if you read my blog dealie and you do! Mutual admiration!
This is a great album. I’ve heard it thrice since yesterday.
Zamboni guy needs to post .zips!
king of england needs to install any of the dozens of rar programs!
I have some video of the Social Climbers, never knew they made a record.
You can watch it at youtube.com/spookynorman — look for the LIVE SHOW segments. They appear in the first several.