Customer Reviews

These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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What started as a 1989 radio collage of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and obscenity-laced outtakes from Casey Kasem's "American Top-40," took on greater proportions with its 1991 commercial release. The cover art, featuring a prominent "U2" graphic at a time when the Irish band's new LP was due in stores, prompted a lawsuit from Island Records, and drew additional fire from both Casey Kasem and Negativland's own label, SST. The resulting conflagration quickly became Negativland's raison d'être, providing grist for the subsequent CD/book "The Letter U and the Numeral 2," and its expanded reissue "Fair Use."

Over the last decade, the original pair of tracks, yanked from distribution shortly after their release, have been available only through the collector's market and underground trading. This maybe-it's-a-bootleg-maybe-it's-not release augments the original studio work with four live versions, including two 1993 post-lawsuit editions taped at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Four additional tracks from the band's post-apocalypse "Music For Lawyers Tour" examine the original controversy with a blenderization of the original participants. The disc wraps with a sound-effect bleeped-for-radio-play edit of the original, unairably profane, "Special Edit Radio Mix."

Available in surprisingly wide distribution, collectors who missed out on the original are advised to grab a copy while it's still beyond the industry's radar.

The ultimate underdogs of this plastic culture have done it again! Negativland naturally draws out lawyers like s--- draws flies, so if you are a fan, you better get this album before it once again rains lawsuits! Not only do they re-release the two legendary "banned" tracks that started the whole sordid legal hassle, they also include many "live" versions, complete with all the "Weatherman's" wheezings, obscure phraises about his cat, formula 409, doorbell transformers, and his very nasal lampooning of the band U2's juvenile lyrics!

Warning: Do not listen to on headphones and fall asleep while doing so, you will be rudely awaken after the end song. Nine minutes after that "sanitized" song "ends," the silence is broken by a collage of Casey Kasem's potty mouth spewing a plethora of foul words!

Resurrected at last, this release contains the infamous Negativland co-opting of U2 and Casey Casem's expletive filled rantings about the Irish band and a dead dog. Absolute entertainment, and better yet, this rerelease contains live versions, as well as some history of the U2 plane and copyright infringement law. May not be to everyone's cup of tea, but it is very very funny to hear the voice of America's Top 40 totally lose it.

I've been a fan of this 'stupid' band since 1990, after taping "Helter Stupid" off some 'stupid' college radio station. Since then I have collected everything these guys have put out. "These Guys Are From England..." is their best release to date! Everything imaginable is on this album. Besides being funny, this is also one of their more clever audio manipulations (aside from the classic Escape From Noise, and Helter Stupid albums).

I have owned a top-quality CD bootleg of the original "U2" single since 1995, cover artwork included. For me, the 'uniqueness' factor for this banned record just went down a few notches... I no longer have anything to brag about, but at least Negativland fans everywhere can enjoy it now. My only wish is that the group continues to put out albums similar to this one. Say goodnight, Casey... "Good Golly, Miss Molly!"

I'm glad this is available again. This stuff has been legendary since Island records forced them to take it off the market in the early 90's. As you already know from reading other reviews, this is the infamous Negativland collage of the U2 song "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with a tape of radio celebrity Casey Kasem letting out a littany of four-letter words during the taping of "American Top 40". This CD contains various versions of the basic theme, including a "radio friendly" version which has the expletives bleeped out by sound effects like car horns, etc., which is still quite funny.

Even listening to it all these years later it's still very effective. One reason is that the subjects open themselves to ridicule as much as they do. To quote a reviewer on another website (don't remember who, sorry!), making fun of U2 never goes out of style. Casey Kasem's voice is so instantly recognizable, and his style so candyassed, that it's totally hysterical to listen to his profanity-ridden tirades. Kasem's comments actually help mock U2's preposterousness. Introducing their song he rattles off their names, and when he gets to "The Edge" he breaks off and says "this is B.S.! Nobody cares!", and then states the title of this CD. I think that echoes a lot of people's reaction to the guitarist's stupid monicker.

This is being promoted as "semi-legitimate" or "bootleg", with Negativland's label's name modified to "Sealard". I'm not buying it. Keep in mind these are the same guys who circulated the fake news story about a kid killing himself after listening to "Christianity is Stupid". These guys are savvy media pranksters. Nevertheless, given the previous hullabaloo over this recording, you'll want to pick this up before it ends up on someone else's Bonfire of the Vanities.

Yep. Mea culpa, I'm somewhat to blame for this thing. To protect my innocence, I will remain quiet as to my crimes here. I plead the 5th. After all, this is OBVIOUSLY some sort of bootleg on some weird 'Seelard' label...certainly not an OFFICIAL Negativland product...right?

But putting that bit of diversion aside, this is a little bombshell that's been about five years in the cooking. I've had the tracks for it around my dive/studio since early 1996, and have been laughing myself silly over this assemblage of aural trainwreckery ever since! It's good to see that, apparently, all of the hurdles to the eventual reissue/release got cleared. On here, you get the FULL ARC of the 'U2' fiasco, starting with the first hack-n-slash of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" on Negativland's "Over the Edge" KPFA show in '89, then a live bash at another surprise U2 fave before heading into The Tracks That Started It All from the banned 'U2' release from the early 90s. Following this, you then get LIVE Negativland from various dates circa 1993-ish, all dealing with the copyright law flapdoodle started by the 'U2' record, and winding up with a cartoon-SFX-savaged 'edit' (as if Negativland's stuff isn't an 'edit' already!) of the original Casey Kasem rant known as the 'Radio Mix'. It's an astounding offering, and one not only of considerable musical worth for those who like their music served up in a challenging way, but historical in that the 'U2' tracks ripped open a HUGE debate on the nature of sampling and fair use in pop music, as well as offering up an illustration about the nature of the relationship between the Majors and the little guys out in the indie music scene.

I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes a good aural challenge. Plus, it shows some of the wide musical latitude that Negativland's capable of in their various guises...and that latitude can range from total Cageian goofery to some heavy electronic assaults to strange ambient-tinged unsettlement. They're still some of the best in experimental music and media barrage trickery, and this CD is a showcase of what puts Negativland up amongst the best out there. C. Elliot Friday can still be proud of these floptops!

Tracks 3 and 4 of this release contain the very same music that caused so much controversy about a decade ago with a certain Irish megaband and one popular radio DJ (not to mention SST, Island records, and Polygram). Negativland's label, Seeland, claims to be issuing a bootleg here (the package actually identifies this as a "Seelard" release) and I don't see how they're going to get away with it. But in the meantime, we benefit. Buy it now!

The rest of "TGAFEAWGAS" is a mind-blowingly obsessive journey through related issues (i.e. the band U2, the U2 spyplane, Casey Kasem, and copyright law) strung throughout years of live perfomances and radio shows. It wears a little thin after awhile but is, nonetheless, best taken in one sitting, especially when accompanied by the "Fair Use" book which chronicles Negativland's legal struggles. The video "Craig Baldwin's Sonic Outlaws" is also an impressive artwork, one that takes the viewer on an abstract journey through video collage and the works of artists such as Negativland, John Oswald and the Tape-beatles.

You may not share Negativland's ideology, but "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Special Edit Radio Mix)" is endlessly hilarious and needs to be heard. They've even included an "Edited Special Edit Radio Mix" which could actually be played on the radio. Those interested in this kind of stuff should check out Jon Nelson's syndicated radio program "Some Assembly Required" which features fascinating interviews and music of this ilk.