The Bulldaggers

The enigmatic band known as the Bulldaggers hail from Bugtown, an alternate reality located in New Jersey and have been assaulting the ether with their own form of sonic napalm since the mid 1970s. A rotating group of players with two core members, they run the gammut from Krautrock to Space Rock to Metal to Free Improv to Electronica, often within the same song. Often highly political (somewhere to the far left approaching anarchist), they frequently use lyrical and topical shock in additional to the instrumental onslaught.

The Bulldaggers first release was the 1975 double album BULLDAGGERS HAVE FUN. From the opening feedback of "Original Sin (Back-Seat Rhythm Methods)" to the closing text loop of "Princess Anesthesia" (Vivian Merchant saying "That's almost as big as my husband's"), these four sides pack the whollop of a 2 ton safe falling on your head.

After a few singles, eps and a live album, they returned from the studio with LET IT JUST DIE! (1976). This was the first album completely made at Narcosis Labs, their studio/rehearsal space located in an old munitions factory - they still record there today.

The Bulldaggers' live shows are legendary and they have consistantly documented them on eps and multidisc sets - often with new material that never gets a studio treatment. The most indispensable live document of the early years is 1977's IF IT HAS EYES, DON'T PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH!, a triple live album. It features two like-minded bands, The Green Brain and Screaming Metal, on an album side each on disc one. Disc two consists of the Bulldaggers split into smaller groups with guests including Robert Wyatt and Bobby Neuwave. The final disc is the Bulldaggers in full force and has a double grooved side with two different audio programs from the concert, essentially making this a seven sided album! The CD rerelease adds 12 (!) additional tracks making for roughly six hours of brain searing aural sex.

Their next full length studio album wasn't recorded until 1979 , NYC: THE NATURE OF YOUR CATASTROPHE, again a double album broken into the Animal Side, the Vegetable Side, the Mineral Side and the Theory Side. Guests include Tina Weymouth from the Talking Heads [ed- Bulldagger's guitarist Henri Savaj supposedly played the guitar part on the Heads "I Zimbra" but after hearing it Eno decided it was too frightening and it was redone by Bob Fripp.], jazzman Don Cherry and Lena Lovich. Although the album is broken into "themed" sides, there doesn't really seem to be an overriding concept other than to get 18 new songs down. Later that same year came their first real masterpiece, WHEN WE'RE IN THE MOOD (1979) which featured a more stripped down trio sound, more tapes, and some of their funniest songs ("Incredibly Cute Child Chewed To Bits By Pirhana In The Bath-Tub", "Social Climber Gets Pushed Out Of 89th Floor Window" and "All This (and a Masters Degree in Finance)" to name but three.) And if that weren't enough, a catch-all odds-n-sods collection QUICK NOTES came out in time for Christmas, bulging at three discs plus a bonus single.

There are literally dozens of singles, flexidiscs, compilation only tracks and limited edition eps making it literally impossible to prepare a complete discography, althought DATA CORE magazine did just that in 1982. Unfortunatly no one has updated this since then - one expects their full discography numbers into nearly 1000 individual releases over the last 30 years.

Other primary recordings are THE AMAZING CASE OF SAVING FACE (1980), CHOKING ON JIMI'S VOMIT (1984), BEATING AROUND THE BUSHES (BARBARA's PEARL NECKLACE) (1990), THALADOMIDE COCKTAIL FOR TWO (1995), THE BROWN NOTE (1998), and NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART (2001).