Space Amazon

Liner Note Author: Doug Sheppard.
Recording information: Cleveland, OH (1974).
Erik Lindgren's Arf! Arf! Records is known for gathering the most obscure unreleased vintage tapes for historical purposes. (They're also known to have a giggle now and again; a couple of the label's supposedly vintage unreleased tapes are at least suspected to be by modern-day groups recording in note perfect re-creations of period styles.) Though most of the label's vintage tapes are from '60s era New England bands, given Lindgren's proximity and tastes, the 1997 release Space Amazon is actually a bunch of circa 1974 recordings by Pandora, a Cleveland, OH, band. The tapes were produced by Joe Battaglia, drummer for Cleveland metallurgists Granicus, and only the first two, the thumping "Space Amazon" and "Daze of Madness," were ever released, and even then only on a flexi-disc given away by a local magazine. The glammy songs have a heavy, proto-punk edge, as if the group were heavily into the Stooges and the first New York Dolls album, and the theatrical vocals and self-consciously "decadent" lyrics suggest a strong Bowie/T. Rex fixation as well. Fun stuff, no matter when it was recorded. ~ Stewart Mason