I still regret not buying the first copy of this one I ever saw, because it had the most deranged-looking artwork you’ve ever seen in your life. The obviously DIY homemade sleeve was co-opted from another record, which included a shoddily glued “slick” on the front and no real information anywhere else about what the album was. Inside the shrink wrap, there was dust and human hair and a rusty nail and fingernail clippings and all kinds of gross shit that made deciphering the album’s artist/title difficult. Once I could make out the word Caroliner (technically on this album they’re Caroliner Rainbow Steweed Angel Skins, but we’ll stick with Caroliner for short) I could figure out the titled based on web searches for similar-looking artwork. I think the store that had it (still sealed) was asking $40 for it? I don’t know if it’s even worth that, but I haven’t seen another copy since that one so it might well be. Someday I’ll find another…
The packaging includes hand made paper covers pasted on a painted outer sleeve. The doors on the pasted paper cover open to reveal a surprise picture.
A sheet with information and lyrics is included in which the listener is instructed to listen to the introductory locked grooves first. Each locked groove is to be played for one week at a time separately before listening to the rest of the record.
Here are descriptions of the locked grooves in order: The 1st sound you will hear is an explosion of the campfire coming alive with 1800’s train and prarie lightning. 2nd has the sound of the whistle you hear for breakdown animal like smile after kissing shit in meantown. 3rd has the sound of the crumble horse and the unicorn man wearing the knife in his brow and his brag yell. 4th is the pipe and organ that made the Levitt kids sane when the snow began to melt.
1,010 pressed.
From Trouser Press:
“Claiming the solitary influence of “Caroliner — the Famous Singing Bull of the 1800’s,” San Francisco’s Caroliner is one of America’s most original and difficult musical entities. Vaguely indicated by the tag “industrial bluegrass,” the vehemently indescribable band consists of futuristic Luddites in the moral center of an avant-garde for erratic minds, covering turf wider than all alternative rock combined. The wealth of material ranges from shrill musique concrète to believable theater tunes, all pointing back to cowboy songs heard on dusty Victrolas.
“Behind an ever-shifting facade of pseudonyms stands the dictatorial “singer from Caroliner”; the band’s only predictable element is that each hand-packaged record will be credited to “Caroliner Rainbow something of the something something,” and will include a double-sided photocopied lyric sheet meant to be read along with the music.
The band’s mindset is better elucidated on I’m Armed With Quarts of Blood; the album has a Grand Guignol pop-up and bits of hair, dirt and cockroaches glued to the cover. It begins with four hysterical locked grooves, which the liner notes recommend be listened to for a solid week each before pressing forth. Catchy ditties like “Corn Red Moon” and “Barrel Horses & Window Crackers” describe extreme remedies for problems of mind and farm as errant fiddles squeal and lopsided voices caterwaul. A violent and twisted euphoria of the imagination.”
Caroliner
I’m Armed With Quarts Of Blood
(Subterranean, 1990)
MediaFire DL Link
01. Locked Groove 1
02. Locked Groove 2
03. Locked Groove 3
04. Locked Groove 4
05. Corn Red Moon
06. Barrel Horses & Window Crackers
07. The Kin Quilt
08. Good Luck Shining Tongue
09. 20′ Tall Stacked Skeleton Crawling Flat Broke
10. Wheat Delusion [MP3]
11. Dusk
12. For Bread And Axe
13. Paper Maid
14. Spitting Storm Nogallloxa
15. I’m Armed With Quarts Of Blood
16. Copper Baw Ribs
17. Berbucks In The Rafters
