Severed Heads were an Australian electronic music group founded in 1979 as Mr and Mrs No Smoking Sign. The original members were Richard Fielding and Andrew Wright, who were soon joined by Tom Ellard. Fielding and Wright had both left the band by mid-1981 with Ellard remaining the sole consistent member for the rest of the band's existence. Throughout the next decade, several musicians joined Severed Heads' ranks, including Garry Bradbury, Simon Knuckey, Stephen Jones and Paul Deering.
Thomas Temple Ellard is an Australian electronic musician best known as the founding member of the electronic and industrial music group Severed Heads.
A double album is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists often think of double albums as being a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions, such as John Lennon's Some Time in New York City and OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below . Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. One innovation was the inclusion of a DVD of related material with a compact disc, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings. Some such discs were also released on a two-sided format called DualDisc.
Initium is the 1984 debut album by American deathrock band Samhain, released on lead singer Glenn Danzig's independent record label Plan 9. In various interviews, Danzig stated that the album's title, which translates from Latin to English as "beginning", represents his new start after disbanding his prior band, Misfits, in 1983. Most of the final track, "Archangel", was actually recorded in March 1981 with Jerry Only, and was originally meant to either be a Misfits song featuring Dave Vanian or a track for the band the Damned. The track "Horror Biz" likewise dates to Danzig's Misfits era, as it is a new version of "Horror Business" with different musical arrangements. The album was recorded at Reel Platinum studio in Lodi, New Jersey, excluding the introduction which was recorded at Eerie Von's home on a four track cassette.
Final is a project of English musician Justin Broadrick, creator of the band Godflesh, which he started when he was 13 years old. Unlike Godflesh, Final is primarily electronic in nature, taking on a space-like, dark ambient sound.
Sonic Youth is the debut EP by American rock band Sonic Youth. It was recorded between December 1981 and January 1982 and released in March 1982 by Glenn Branca's Neutral label. It is the only recording featuring the early Sonic Youth lineup with Richard Edson on drums. Sonic Youth differs stylistically from the band's later work in its greater incorporation of clean guitars, standard tuning, crisp production and a post-punk style.
Eric Gaffney is an American songwriter and recording artist, and has been home recording on cassette since 1981. An active participant in the Western Mass hardcore scene, in 1983 he founded, wrote songs for, and drummed with Grey Matter, opening hall shows with Jerry's Kids, F.U.s, The Freeze, Big Boys, Raw Power, Adrenalin O.D., Siege, 7 Seconds, Outpatients, Pajama Slave Dancers, Da Stupids, and others.
Weed Forestin is an album by the American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was originally self-released by Barlow on cassette in 1987, under the Sentridoh name, the solo home-recording project of American rock musician and Sebadoh member Lou Barlow, and sold at record stores in his native Massachusetts in an approximate run of 100.
Garry Bradbury was a British-born Australian electronic musician active in Sydney's experimental music scene from 1979 to 2022.
Since the Accident is the fourth studio album released by Australian electronic dance music group Severed Heads, first released in 1983. Released through Ink Records, it was the first major label release by the group. The album's lead single "Dead Eyes Opened" received critical and commercial success, peaking at #16 on the ARIA Charts. Throughout the years following the album's initial release in 1983, the recording has been reissued many times on multiple different formats through a variety of record labels.
Blubberknife is the third studio album released by the Australian experimental group Severed Heads, originally as a C90 cassette tape. The first approximately 200 copies were packaged inside cassette cases that were spray-painted silver, stuffed with loose cassette tape and had parts from the insides of television sets glued to the front of the case. Five copies were specially packaged inside fully operational calculators. It's the first album by the group to feature contributions by Stephen Jones, and it is also the first recording by the group to catch the attention of UK label Ink Records, who helped release Since the Accident a year later and reissued Blubberknife in a standard cassette case with new artwork in 1984. As with most of their discography, Blubberknife has been reissued several times.
Brad Laner is an American musician and record producer best known for his work with the shoegaze band Medicine, which he founded and led.
Dead Fucking Last is an American punk rock band that was founded in 1991 in Los Angeles, California by Tom Davis, Monty Messex, Adam (Ad-Rock) Horovitz and Tony Converse.
Come Visit the Big Bigot is the sixth full length studio album by Australian experimental group Severed Heads, released in 1986. The tracks "Twenty Deadly Diseases" and "Propellor" were both released as singles to help promote the album. The title is a reference to the Big Merino statue in New South Wales; the 1998 Sevcom CD-R release has a photo of it on the cover.
Bad Mood Guy is the seventh studio album by the Australian experimental group Severed Heads, first released in 1987. Upon its initial release, the album met positive reviews with critics, one in particular referring to it as "punishing pop with crunching rhythms". The album's lead single "Hot With Fleas" did well on independent radio stations, peaking at #4 on Rockpool's dance charts during the week of 31 December 1987. In 2002, after an attempt at making a version 2 of the album which was aborted due to the master DAT tape being irreparably damaged, Tom Ellard made a new version available on CD-R on his SevCom label, which substituted demo and live versions of some tracks and added extra material. This version is what Tom made available on the official Severed Heads Bandcamp page. In 2023, the UK label Futurismo, Inc. released a remastered version of the album on two different pressings of 2LP set containing a 12-page "Bad Mood Booklet" styled after the zines Ellard would publish and sell via mail order in the mid-late 80s to augment the albums. They also released it on CD in a standard Digipak with a foldout insert reproducing parts of the booklet. All these versions had artwork redone by Ellard.
Cuisine (With Piscatorial) is the ninth studio album released by Australian electronic music group Severed Heads, issued in 1991. The album's lead single, "Twister", was released a year later.
Gigapus is the tenth studio album by the Australian electronic music group Severed Heads. Recorded between 1992 and 1994, the album was first released in 1994 with a bonus CD-ROM disc titled Metapus that had additional multi-media content on it. Because of this, it is the first album released in Australia to include a CD-ROM disc. Due to the extra disc, the album was initially priced at $40 when it first came out. As with most of the Severed Heads discography, the album has been reissued multiple times.
Clean is the second full-length studio album by the experimental Australian group Severed Heads, released in 1981 through Dogfood Productions and Terse Tapes, two labels that the band themselves operated. Originally released on vinyl and cassette formats, both of which contained unique artwork and were released in small quantities, the vinyl in particular only being released as an edition of 400. Ellard reissued it on CD-R in 2005 on his own Sevcom label, with the order shuffled, the song "Food City" removed, and bonus tracks. In 2020, the album was reissued on LP by Dark Entries in its original form, with a second LP featuring 14 bonus songs, five of which had never been released before, culled from live performances, the Side 3 cassette and a Clean demo tape that only resurfaced in 2019. It was also made available digitally on Bandcamp.
"Dead Eyes Opened" is a song by the experimental Australian group Severed Heads, originally released on their 1983 album Since the Accident. Upon its initial release as a 12-inch record single in 1984, the track received critical success. A remixed version released in October 1994 achieved commercial success in Australia, peaking at #16 on the ARIA Charts.
80's Cheesecake is a solo album produced and written by Tom Ellard of Severed Heads. It was released in 1982 as a C60 cassette tape through his own Terse Tapes label. According to Ellard, the album, along with his previous one, Snappy Carrion (1982), were recorded out of interest in making pop music. It is a precursor of Severed Heads' shift in sound, from their early industrialised sound to the more accessible electronic styles of their later recordings. Tracks from this cassette appeared on the Severed Heads' compilation album Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live in the Past (1985).
