Compilation nr. 1

For “The Thing from Another World”  IDBM quotes the following movie plot: Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost
The following has nothing to do with it.
Here is “The Thing from Another World Vol 1.” and not the 1958 cult movie.

The Thing from Another World Vol 1

Here we have a CD compilation, that was  coming free with the Greek fanzine The Thing back in 1995.
The CD cover also quotes: “A BRAINS-OUT COMPILATION OF 18 GREEK BANDS”.
This is what is all about.
There was plenty of rock’n’roll activity during the 90s.
Gigs everywhere, thousands of album and single releases, lots of fanzines from several Greek cities and even a free bimonthly fanzine from Salonica called “In Rock” dedicated only to the Greek rock scene.
One could attend to at least 2 different Greek rock gigs every night.
All r’n’r genres were covered.
Metal, punk, garage punk, psychedelic rock, electronica, gothic…everything.
As the fanzines were covering a wide spread part of music, the mainstream music press, the biggies (and especially the top music mag in Greece, “Pop & Rock”) were loosing their readers by thousands.
The fanzines had on the other hand, had also to fight each other (I will write a special article about them) so they started releasing vinyl or CD compilations to attract more readers.
That worked out fine for the bands as lots of them were not signed ofcourse but also gave the opportunity to even more people to give’em a listen.
Today, the compilation “The Thing from Another World Vol 1.” gives us a clear picture of what was going on in the Greek underground during the mid 90s.
Its not my place to judge here whats good and what is not as music is a matter of taste but I am sure that you’ll find stuff that will pleasantly surprise you.

Here is the tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Make Believe – Stepping Out
3. Rockin’ Bones – Jimmy Bomber
4. Scarecrow Dreaming – Miss you touch my real
5. Cosmic Teds – Come Get Me
6. Headquake – (For the) Sake of the psycho
7. Surface – A.Γ.
8. Ache In Silence – Fake Friend
9. Oh! My Garden – Somebody’s Groovin’
10. Groove Machine – Virus Inside
11. Black Static – Mould
12. Last Drive – May This Bullet
13. Deus X Machina – Fear
14. Nonmandol – Texanu
15. Dirty Thoughts – Dive In Me
16. Screamin’ Fly – Still Alive
17. Crackpot – Durham
18. Horror Vacui – Τα χρωματα της Ιριδας
19. Flowers Of Romance – Love
20. Outro

Two of the most famous Greek bands of the era are featured here: the garage band Last Drive and the gothic band The Flowers Of Romance, both well known abroad thanks to their releases through German, American and English labels. (extensive history of these two bands will follow in the future)
Make Believe released 3 albums “Playground” 1995, “Blue One” 1996, “Wide” 1999 and were very successful mostly thanks to the voice of  their singer, Flora Ioannidi.
The most famous greek h/c punk band is also here, Deus X Machina, released 2 albums: “Words Apart” 1993 and “Signs” plus 4 singles. Thankfully they are still around having gigs.

The Thing from Another World Vol 1 (back)

Cosmic Teds were an ala New York Dolls punk rock band playing very frequently back then. Later on, their leader Johnny Ted formed the Mighty Shakers, released “The Deasert’s Bleeding” ep in 2005 and opened for the Damned during 2008 in Athens.
The funksters Oh! My Garden, released an ep in1996 titled ep “Regrooveable”
Ache In Silence were formed by the former bass player of Panx Romana, Julio.(who also played the bass for the band Surface)
Horror Vacui were a very interesting  experimental band (I am almost sure they released an album) singing in Greek while Groove Machine were a dark, groovy electronic band.
Nonmandol were consisted only by girls. One of their guitar players was Ada Lambara, former member of the band Villa 21.
Unfortunately, little I know about the rest of the bands.

More sound about the Rockin’ Bones here