God Bullies-Mama Womb Womb (1989)

 

Artist: God Bullies

Title: Mama Womb Womb

Label:  Amphetamine Reptile

Format: LP

Cat: ARR 89157-1

Year of Release:1989

Country and Year of Edition: US 1989

Sell Price: $16.99 2/18/23 VG+/VG

Discogs Last Sold: 2/12/23 VG/VG $12.00

Low:$9.57

Median: $17.01

Average: $18.28

High: $28.00

Current low price: $17.02

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 7

Have/Want: 309/140

Where Sold: Chicago, IL

Time it took to sell:  8 years

Where and When Purchased: Boston Newbury Comics new when released

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade:  A-

Sad To See It Go: No

Who was Art Linkletter, the name repeated incessantly in the opening track of this album, “Act of Desire”?  He was a famous radio and tv host from the 40’s through 60’s whose daughter Diane committed suicide in 1969 at the age of 20.  Urban legend was she jumped out of a window trying to fly while high on LSD, but this was a false rumor. Art was still alive when this came out and passed in 2010 at the age of 97.

With the recent passing of guitarist David B. Livingstone at a much younger age, I’ve been a bit shocked about the lack of formal news articles about him.  I mean I didn’t expect the Times to put him on the front page, but I mean guitar for GOD BULLIES and major contributor to the crucial Your Flesh magazine should be reason enough for tributes and commentary to blow up beyond my stupid Facebook feed.

Mama Womb Womb sold a few days after this cataclysmic event in the noise rock world.  In keeping with what I said last month with Beck and Verlaine, death sells records no matter the genre.  I guess this one hits a little closer to me in terms of the degrees of separation. My father warned me in his 50’s about how things get strange when you start to see more and more people of your own generation passing. Now that decade of life is upon me and those words ring true. Passed? How could that be he was just on tour and sat on the same couch I sat on when I took the call that Charlie Ondras died.

I bought this excellent debut upon release after hearing them on the second volume of AmRep’s Dope Guns n Fucking in the Streets singles series.  I was to say I saw them first at a short lived venue the Populous Pudding in Willimantic CT in the summer of ‘89.  I know at some point in the early 90’s,  I put the God Bullies up after a Boston gig and my then roommate Kenny Jervis got a mini tour to Albany and NYC after that which I couldn’t join probably for something mundane like school.  Trying to recall particulars for me beyond this are a little pointless because they drifted into the sands of time. The “put up God Bullies in Boston” narrative in my head was a jumble of Mike Hard, a conversation about Your Flesh and Jervis going to the QE2 in Albany afterwards.  Make of that what you will.

Mama Womb Womb certainly has alot of classics.  Side 2 has my favorite, “Follow The Leader.”  The next album, Dog Show kicked it up a notch in terms of hits, but going back to the first, there are some fine moments here and I still remember most of the album.  I was a little surprised how much the Butthole Surfers peak era from a few years before  came to mind hearing this.  Early AmRep bands were the next wave with their own distinctive style, but clearly there was an established framework and tour circuit beyond hardcore, with lunatics like me to gladly throw them on the couch after a pit stop gig in my local town to a crowd of 30 or whatever it was.

On you huskies! It’s him!