Friday, January 18, 2008

Motorsheep - The Passionless is Fearless

Years before the internet I was tape-trading as a way to hear new music. I often traded tapes with Kelvin from Levin who also put out the Brainless Child fanzine which interviewed many New Zealand punk bands including TAB and Salad Daze. I discovered a lot of new punk bands that I still listen to and love today such as Descendents, Leatherface, Snuff, Sloppy Seconds etc through trading tapes with Kelvin.


Kelvin was also in a band called Motorsheep. I suspect the band name was taken from Jello Biafra's Name for Bands rants on his spoken word album No More Cocoons. While Motorsheep were based in Levin they released a cassette called The Mot or She EP. Later in the piece the band moved to Palmerston North. Many members seemed to come and go but bass player, Jarrod and guitarist, Kelvin were always the main members of Motorsheep.
The band released two red and blue 7"s with a pressing of 500 each.

Pinochet/Moisture(blue vinyl) was a personal favourite. This 7" featured Scott on vocals and Kevin on drums. The song Pinochet received a of airplay on the local student radio station, Radio Massey and was extremely catchy. (If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in buying it) Later Ryskie played the drum and American import Justus took over on vocals. This line-up recorded the red vinyl, Incomplete Loser 4 song 7". Scott's vocals differed greatly to Justus despite both being somewhat melodic and for some reason or another I never saw the band live with Justus. The band got it together to record a full length CD which, in a city like Palmerston North in the 90s where many bands popped up and then disappeared almost straight away, is no small feat.

On their myspace page Motorsheep describe their sound as skapunkthrashjazznoisedubshit and a few of the bands songs can be heard there as well.

The band's CD The Passionless are Fearless can be downloaded here. I've used MP3 format instead of WMA since I've recently worked out how. Enjoy.

8 comments:

cultureshot66 said...

Hi Chris,
I thought i'd give these guys a go.... let you know what i think soon.
Is their anything your after that i can upload for you?
Cheers
Greg

Chris said...

Hey Greg

Actually I'm after A Hard Way To Learn!!! I had a taped version of it years ago.

I liked Motorsheep a lot better with Scott on vocals. Think he got to busy with uni studies to stay with the band so the Pinochet single is the only thing he's on.

cultureshot66 said...

OK well I have that! I can upload it... today actually as i'm not up to much. I'd rather you don't post it tho.
Feel free to review it of course!
The single is on the cd of Hard Way to Learn and I think's it's the best thing Casualty did...i'm not just saying that 'cos i wrote the lyrics to one of the songs - Where do we go, Hope and Greg's Song were the toughest recordings the band did:in my opinion.

The first Motorsheep song had a Subhumans (UK) guitar sound to it...apart from that they didn't really grab me. Still glad i got a chance to hear them.

cultureshot66 said...

OK done, I've uploaded it to Rapid Share. Can I send the link to you privately please.

It's about 48KB, encoded @ 192 thingies in MP3 format. If you ask nicely I can scan the cover and shit, but that will require me to pull out the cd from boxes in a cupboard and take it to work and scan it their. Still if you want i'll do it.

email me @ gjames@sl.nsw.gov.au

Ok, I'm happy to do this for more stuff your after and i will add my wants list:
The Chills-Brave words
Joy Division- both lp's
Jr Gone Wild- less art more pop
Killing Joke- 1st lp
Leatherface-Mush
No Tag-OiOiOi
No Means No-One
NMN-All roads lead to ausfarht
Omega Tribe-No Love lost
Poison Girls-Poisonous
Siouxie and the banshee-once upon a time
Snuff Demmanussabebonk
The (Youth) Brigade-Dividing Line
Upright Citizens-open eyes

OK, enjoy.
Greg.

Chris said...

I was going to suggest email being the best way for this. Totally understand you not wanting it put up. Anyway I can do three of your wants.

cultureshot66 said...

Super, what have you got?? (I've been after this stuff for a while)
And what are you after??

OK here from you later.
Cheers,
Greg

Chris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris said...

Greg,

I have the Leatherface, Snuff and Nomeansno (One). In case you don't get my email for some reason..I sent you one this afternoon...my email is christoother@hotmail.com

I'm after Leatherface - The Last
and stuff by a Japanese band called Thee Michelle Gun Elephant
The Meanies - The Meanie of Life

I guess more Snuff...I have Snuff Said, Numb Nuts and Demussabebonk

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