COWS: A LOW-BROW DISCOGRAPHY
Minneapolis' Cows released nine insane noise/jazz/hicklebilly/unclassifiable albums between 1987 and 1998. They were the cream of the Amrep crop, but dismissed as udderly crazy. Let's rectify that.
I can say with some certainty that Shannon Selberg, frontman, lyricist and horn blower of Cows, had misheard the original lyrics of Shakin’ All Over, by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.
Cows’ version of the song opens Daddy Has A Tail!, their sophomore effort on AmRep, has Shannon earnestly squwarking:
“Yo Girl; I love it when you make my asshole bleed
That's when I get the shakes inside me
I'm shaking from your big bone
I'm shaking in my colon
I'm shaking in my back door
I'm shaking all over.”
Now I may be mistaken, but I don’t think all those innocent, smiling, bopping teens in 1960 were singing along to those words.
And so we begin; you’d best not bother if you’re easily offended.
By the time Daddy Has A Tail! came out, in 1989, Cows had been a band for three years, playing locally and releasing their debut LP, Taint Pluribus Taint Unum, on Treehouse in 1987.
They immediately had a reputation for non-conformity. Treehouse was a Minneapolis record shop. The owner, Mark Trehus (see what he did, there?), had heard so many kids come in, waxing lyrical (both positively and negatively) about this new band Cows, whose unhinged live shows were frightening them, impressing them and offending them in equal measure, that he jumped on the opportunity to sign the band and get them pressed on wax.
By this point, Shannon had taken over on vocals from Norm Rogers, who would come back as their drummer three years later, but the other core members, Thor Eisentrager and the mighty Kevin Rutmanis, were already playing together, alongside Kevin’s brother Sandris on drums. They frequently played parties in the care home for mentally handicapped kids, which is where they worked.
Or at least, as legend has it.
You have to understand that there is nothing PC about Cows. If ever there was a band less likely to impress Gen Z, it is them. Rutmanis would wear a head bandage and a hospital gown. Just look at the man’s tattoos. Shannon wore a shower cap on stage with clothes pegs clipped to his ears and shaving foam covering his prawn cocktail.
They genuinely looked abnormal. They behaved even more so.
I saw them once, at Camden Underworld, in London. I was down the front and too nervous to exchange eye contact with them, despite them being one of my favourite bands ever. They were genuinely shocking, unnerving and intimidating. Coming across as a Vaudevillian Cuckoo’s Nest was their thing, and with no-one standing by the side of the stage with their meds or restraints, there was a genuine sense that things could get out of control at any moment.
Cows released nine albums in their career. All bar their debut were on Amphetamine Reptile Records, local to them, and run by their friend Tom Hazelmyer, from post-hardcore-garage luminaries, Halo of Flies.
It’s hard to find information about the band. There’s not much online and there wasn’t a great deal of press at the time, so what little I found and remembered (probably inaccurately), I’ve archived here because bands like Cows must not be forgotten. They dared to do something entirely different and were an inspiration - beyond the music. They stood for something even more important than that - the right to do whatever the fuck you want, however the fuck you want to do it.
There’s still no one who sounds, behaves or looks like Cows. There never will be, now.
So drag these releases up from the dust and love them for what they are; artifacts from a, perhaps, more liberal past. In the sanitised world that we now live in, they are treasured relics reminding us what true artistic freedom is - how fearless it was, and how afraid it has become.
TAINT PLURIBUS TAINT UNUM
TREEHOUSE RECORDS, 1987
Taint Pluribus Taint Unum (which, as far as I can work out is pidgen latin for “All colours become one stain” - but I’m happy to be corrected - feels like a good way to sum up humanity though, if I’m right) was released, with basically no budget in 1987. And it sounds like it.
The recording is raw, the playing is abrasive and although it completely kicks ass, the album lacks the depth that future releases would demonstrate.
For a long time the album was a collector’s wet dream. Certainly in the UK, there was barely any evidence of its existence, beyond word of mouth and apocryphal legend.
AmRep repressed it with a lush silk-screened cover in 2017 (see above) which made it momentarily easier to come by, but it’s become a rarity once again since then.
Standout tracks are Side One’s Sieve and absolutely filthy Yellowbelly - they are good indicators of the band’s lurching future sound. Side Two’s instrumental Summertime Bone showcases the pronounced bugling of Shannon Selberg. The unsympathetic barnstormer, Tourist, is the album’s strongest track with its nagging hook:
“You've wanted to kill yourself because you were so sad
It was the best god damned idea that you've ever had…”
An amazing debut, but a drop in the ocean when you consider the joys to come.
DADDY HAS A TAIL!
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1989
Daddy Has A Tail! was my starting point for Cows. I was immediately enamoured with their mucky, swampy swing. At the time, Shannon’s horn-play was kind of by-the-by for me; it was his vocals and the playing of Kevin and Thor that captured me.
Chasin’ Darla is a key moment in their discography. It’s an accessible entry point that introduces all the key traits of the band in palatable amounts. It was certainly no more impenetrable than other bands on AmRep, Sub Pop or Touch and Go. It had a Butthole Surfers vibe, but a real tune that’s apparent on first listen - which often, those Buttholes lacked.
The immediacy was a cunning ploy. Because once you were hooked by the comparative accessibility of Darla, you were dropped into the murk of the rest of the LP - and it’s a wonderful world of unsettling incoherence; tracks like Bum In The Alley and By The Throat took you deeper into Shannon’s sinister world, but it’s Camouflage Monkey that, for me, is still a great punk rock tune, despite its sinfully un-PC lyrics.
The main sliding riff wouldn’t be out of place on Superfuzz Bigmuff, and Shannon’s heavily distorted vocals give the track a drive that still sounds great today. The discordant bridges are still compelling, as they snap back into tune for the verses.
Although they were trying really hard to be slack-jawed, it’s clear they knew what they’re doing with their compositions and playing. They don’t fool me.
This was the first of many releases on Amphetamine Reptile Records.
According to theQuietus, Tom Hazelmyer, label owner, once said of Cows: “Those guys reworked the book on guitar/ bass/ drums and got none of the credit they STILL deserve”.
And Tom is never wrong.
EFFETE AND IMPUDENT SNOBS
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1990
Effete And Impudent Snobs is the perfect follow up to Daddy Has A Tail!. It continues the gnarly, grinding waltzes and phenomenally distorted grooviness of those songs, but there’s more detail beginning to appear, especially in the pacing of the tracks and Rutmanis’s vile bass sounds.
Events kick off in fine form with Memorial and its addictive bass-led racket. Thor’s guitars squall over the top, adding texture, noise and energy. The grinding sinister blues of Dirty Leg follows, but it’s Big Mickey and Cartoon Corral that stand out.
In a parallel universe, Big Mickey is the entrance anthem to some jelly tentacled, fat-boy wrestler in an over-filled leotard. It’s a world I wish I lived in. I want to see Big Mickey drop his crack onto the face of a mouthy rival.
Cartoon Corral is another one that stands up to repeated listens. They even made a video for it. One minute thirty eight of remarkably straightforward (for Cows) punk rock with a spazzcore bridge.
Lovely.
PEACETIKA
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1991
Cows’ fourth album is often held up as a bit of a dud, but I especially like the production of it. It’s meaty and rubbery - and it kicks off with Hitting The Wall, FFS!
The luckless Mr Selberg documents his day from Hell.
Or, in other words, any given Tuesday:
“I woke up today, this morning
I'm bloody, I'm beaten
I find that I have been robbed
They took my shoes, my wallet
I'm still drunk, I say "fuck it"
I go to my job
Then my boss, he fires me for no good reason
No reason at all
He says, "if you come back I will call a policeman"
I'm hitting the wall”
It’s an early career highlight that epitomises their sound at this time and demonstrates the nagging, putrid pop that their choruses were capable of delivering.
Can’t Die is a cacophonic three-minute blast that also comes heartily recommended, if only for the vocal melody, that sounds like Shannon wanted to just annoy the rest of the band by singing something with such minimal harmonious movement, it’s capable of giving you a headache long before its three minute runtime has finished.
Even so, there’s something really compelling about the song; the absolute din coming from Thor’s guitar is truly a thing to behold.
Don’t believe the hype. Peacetika may not be as strong overall as other LPs in their catalogue, but its highlights really are high.
It’s far beyond stink.
CUNNING STUNTS
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1992.
Cows in Hit Record Shock!
Stop Press!
Selberg signs sponsorship deal with Chanel!
It never happened, but it shoulda.
For context, this is 1992; the major label sweep up of any band remotely associated with “grunge” was in full swing. All eyes were on the Pacific Northwest and, to a lesser extent, The Great White North of Minnesota. Helmet were snapped up by Interscope. Surgery and Melvins would soon be off to Atlantic. Boss Hog to Geffen.
But no one came calling for Cows.
No one could work out how to market them.
Thank fuck for that.
It would have made a great payday for the band, but there’s no way any major label would have released their music without significant compromise. I’d have hated to have heard that. Not that Cows would have accepted compromise.
It could never have worked.
Stunning Cunts sounds very different to previous releases. Whereas up to this point, the band had been committing their live sound to tape, focusing on the raw energy and plug-and-play performances that their recording budgets demanded, Iain Burgess, producer of this fifth LP, wanted to create a great record, with more nuance, clearer sound and space for creativity.
It paid off. Still considered their masterpiece, Cunning Stunts, and its genius Blue Note-inspired artwork, has become a classic of whatever genre you consider Cows to be pioneers of.
British born Iain Burgess had made a name for himself by documenting and recording the Chicago scene - influencing Albini with his recording style that incorporated enormous drums, prominent bass and the brittle guitars that became staples of the Chicago Sound in bands like Big Black, Naked Raygun, Didgits and Tar, amongst many more.
It’s exactly what the band needed at that time. Burgess’ production work elevated them up into the second half of their career.
Heave Ho, the iconic start to the album, with its once heard, never forgotten slap of a baby’s arse, and the accompanying thrum of guitar strings, has to be a cornerstone of Cows’ (m)oeuvre. This is where Shannon’s bugle really becomes more than just a novel trademark, with it incessant parping really adding to the composition.
It’s the first time the horn-blowing had been indispensable to the song. Its frantic rhythm bows and crashes into a sliding bluesy growl and back out again into the hyperactive squeals of that battered brass.
Heave Ho felt every bit as iconic, to me, as anything on Sub Pop (or latterly, Geffen). Of course, they would never be chart-bound in the same way as Nirvana, but any mix-tape I made at the time would have started with Heave Ho, not Teen Spirit.
Another tune of note on Cunning Stunts is the piss-soaked, rolling dirt of Mine, and it’s lyrical list of things Shannon won’t share:
“If you can lay eyes on it
It's mine, mine
If you can walk upon it
It's mine, mine
If you can come in here and put your hands on something, remember
If there's something here to swallow
It's mine, mine”
And then, the amusing un-PC summation:
“If you can eat or screw it
It's mine, mine
If you're some commie scum who wants to share it all
Remember, it's mine.”
Safe to say that Cows weren’t big into sensitive acceptance of all political persuasions.
The song also contains some of the best, skipping drums that the obscenely talented Norm Rogers (RIP) ever put to tape.
SEXY PEE STORY
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1993
For me, the band really come into their own with Sexy Pee Story. That’s not to dismiss their earlier work by any stretch - I love them all - but Sexy Pee Story has a coherence that the band hadn’t displayed before.
As with Cunning Stunts, that has a lot to do with Iain Burgess. He makes the band sound so powerful. All the core elements are still there, but the unhinged scatterbrain rants play second fiddle in the mix to the awesome grooves being laid out by the holy back-beating trinity of Kevin, Thor and Norm.
Alongside Shannon, Thor has been very slightly tamed in the mix, ensuring that tunes come first and crazy squalls second. It makes for a more consistent listen. The over-the-top insanity was still high when they played live - but that tiny tweak to the levels and intentions ups the ante on the record.
One Highlight, of many, is 39 Lashes - their hilarious cover of the Jesus Christ Superstar ‘classic’ that basically just counts up to 39 with a whip-crack for each yelped numeral. It’s a gloriously obvious choice for Cows but a song no-one else could or would ever consider covering.
39 lashes of a whip was the punishment that was meted out to blasphemers in biblical times. Apparently, Jesus took them before the crucifiction, his moment in the spotlight.
Cows version of the song is suitably noisy. A cacophony of wails to rival the wall.
It’s actually meditative. Kevin and Norm instigate the circular riff that you can lose yourself in, while Thor rails over the two of them with five and half minutes of bizarre soloing.
The bugle takes a real backseat on Sexy Pee Story, which I’ve only just really noticed. It comes back in force on the next track, the hugely energetic Uptown Suckers, but is generally more sporadic across the album, compared to previous releases.
*It’s worth noting that this LP, along with Stunning Cunts, has sound quality issues in its digital version, which makes both LPs really aggravating to listen to when they are downloaded or streamed.
For some god-unearthly reason, the files skip and jump like a scratched CD, so buy physical copies, kids.
The entire LP is a growling masterpiece, but final song, Sugar Torch, which was used as the promo track, is the highlight of the LP. I love that gentle beginning so much. Just a lullaby riff from Kevin and feedback from Thor and a gentle ride from Norm.
How sleepy.
Then the toms.
Then the pace picks up.
And then the fiercest and catchiest riff of the album and the hookiest stop/start chorus the band had created up to this point crashes like the Titanic into the iceberg of your brain.
What a song.
AmRep clearly weren’t releasing singles left and right in 1993, because Sugar Torch never found its way to seven inches.
It shoulda, woulda, coulda.
The lyrics seem to deal with a drunk-driving revenge kill and necrophilia, but who knows?
Shannon speaks of red lights, black stains and making the victim his again, but really - who fucking knows?
I doubt even Shannon does. A Sugar Torch is what you use to caramelise a creme brûlée - so maybe there’s even a bit of a burns victim in there too.
Who the fuck knows?
ORPHAN’S TRAGEDY
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1994
Following the swift flat-kick to the knackers of Sexy Pee Story, Orphan’s Tragedy offered up a knuckle sandwich, straight to the chops. For my money, one of the greatest one-twos in rock, the pairing of both albums is guaranteed to slap a shit-eating grin right the way across your face, from cauliflower ear to cauliflower ear.
The formula established on Sexy Pee Story was explored, expanded and exsanguinated on its follow up, which resulted in the most dense, consistent and masterful LP of the band’s catalogue.
The bleating exclamation that opens the album, followed by the misleading blues slides instantly instill a sense of anticipation, prepared for the crash of the super-chaotic and action-packed riffage of Cow Island.
What a calling card. It’s become a classic Cows single, justifiably. It attains the perfect balance of energy, noise, growl and groove.
It is Shannon’s paean to the glorious life that is under his command:
“I get up with the morning light
Grab the oyster, take a bite
And send it back if it ain't right
What's it all about
It's my island
This whole world is here to serve me
In actual fact it don't deserve me
I had some before, now I want it all”
Play it at my funeral.
But self-loathing has never been more perfectly summed up than on the fourth track of the album - and promo tool - Allergic To Myself.
It feels like Cows were all about evolving to this point. The song exemplifies the band’s ethos, musical abilities and credibility in three minutes of groaning, self-serving, myopic condescension, wrapped in the perfect vignette of a fucked up personality:
“He was my friend, but what the fuck?
I slapped him down cuz it was fun
I stole his girl, I knocked her up
I had my fun
I'm allergic to myself
So, she kept the kid, went on the dole
I took her checks, I spent it all
Went in my lungs and up my nose
She loves me so
I'm allergic to myself
Now the kid's a foul mouthed little brat
Just like his dad - a fucking rat
He hates his mom, he thinks I'm great
What can I say?”
All snuggled up in a sliding, addictive and incredible riff and octave-jumping vocal melody in the chorus.
10/10. Would recommend.
What can I say?
WHORN
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1996
The comical peep-peep that beckons Divorceé Moore never fails to amuse me.
The song itself is incendiary - mainly due to the mix. The band ditched Iain Burgess after Orphan’s Tragedy and went back to using Tim Mac, who had recorded both Effete and Impudent Snobs and Peacetika, previously. Norm Rogers also left the band at this time and was replaced by Freddy Votel on drums for this album and the next.
It’s a refreshing blast of live sound that reinvigorates the band and seems to kick their ass into a rage. It sounds thick, action-packed and we see a few more experimental elements return.
Especially that damn bugle.
What the album has in its kinetics though, it lacks in its songs. Whorn is in no way a stinker. It’s still head and shoulders above virtually anything else that was released in 1996; it’s a powerful, driving, record - but it lacks a signature tune or two to really hang its hat on.
The closest they come to classic is the dual centrepiece of Four Things and Tropic of Cancelled, the first of which has Shannon list… er… Four Things that instigate the domestic abuse he suffers at the hands of his partner. Even though its written with tongue firmly in cheek, it’s powerful stuff, and the abrasiveness of the guitars push it into memorable territory.
Tropic of Cancelled has Shannon doing that thing where his vocal lines are somehow entirely devoid of harmony but work all the better once they are bumped up against part of the song that does have melody. Cancelled is definitely a grower - it could never be a single, but it’s a key track of the album for me that I find myself returning to.
It’s definitely a fucking racket.
The album would go from a six to an eight if it just had one or two songs in the set that would rival some of the stronger songs from previous albums, but unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Shame. The artwork is probably my favourite from all their LPs though.
Very quiche.
Sic.
SORRY IN PIG MINOR
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS, 1998
Cows’ final album is their most progressive, again, principally because of the producer.
A heavenly marriage occurred when the band had Buzz Osborne from Melvins produce Sorry In Pig Minor. Suddenly their horizons were expanded to a Beefheartian degree. In retrospect, there was no way they could follow it.
They became their ultimate, discordant and unpredictable incarnation. There could be no sequel.
Buzz doubled down on the weird. The album kicks off with Cabin Man, FFS. It’s mainly a spoken word, white noise and monotonous bass beast that should only be allowed to be the final track on an album - not the first!
As a statement of intent, it up-ends all expectation perfectly.
Shannon waxes lyrical about considering suicide atop a bridge, until a cockroach changes his mind. Only he could have a roach save his life.
That epic tale dissolves into Finished Again. It’s a song that foreshadows Buzz’s work in Fantômas and Kevin’s in Tomahawk and , but also has a Pattonian Bungle ring to it, somehow, with its weird cadences and odd instrumentation. Buzz’s influence can be felt on all the tracks. The way he would develop Melvins’ sound in the early 2000s, beyond the sludge, feels like it had its inception in the work he did with Cows on this LP.
He definitely indulges his well-publicised passion for Miles Davis’ On The Corner in places, and Cows are a perfect and willing conduit for the experimentation.
The songs have a weird collision between harmony, noise and unexpected structural features. It’s the non-conformist’s non-conforming masterstroke.
They even explore Mariachi in the truly mental El Shiksa.
Mariachi.
Death In The Tall Weeds is a standout track; it’s a more conventional offering which appears to deal with either a Mafia style execution or a Shakespearean suicide pact.
You decide.
They made a video for the third track of the album, No, I’m Not Coming Out.
It does a good job of displaying The Weird.
AFTER THE SONGS
Once Sorry In Pig Minor had shot its load, Cows seemed to disappear rapidly without a trace. They all surfaced again in varying forms but I remember feeling a pronounced absence when they had gone.
Shannon moved to New York and formed the marvelous Heroine Sheiks with Swans’ insanely talented Norman Westberg, which will definitely appeal to fans of Cows.
Kevin went on to play with Melvins on a ton of releases in the early 2000s. Also the first two Tomahawk LPs, around that same time. Fans should definitely check out hepa-Titus, his ongoing noise band based out of LA. They released a few bits on AmRep. He’s constantly busy with guest appearances and now with Lord and Lady Kevin, the husband/wife noise combo he formed with the ace artist, Gina Skwoz.
Thor is now, amusingly, considering his historic disregard for sonic health and sanity, the Manager of Public Safety at a university in Minnesota. As far as I know, he never played in a band after Cows.
Norm sadly died in 2018 of cancer.
Freddy Votel briefly reformed his original post-punk band, T.V.B.C.
The band reformed as Cowz for AmRep’s annual Bash festival in 2015, with Hammerhead’s guitarist Paul Sanders filling in for Thor. It was a one-off show to celebrate the label and past glories.
LEGACY
I tried to rank Cows’ LPs for this article, but it’s impossible; it changes depending upon my mood, and when I wrote them all out, it felt somehow insincere; there’s not that much difference in quality between their best and worst efforts - they’re all good.
So for the sake of completionism, I’ve grouped all their albums into three tiers, based on how I feel today. It could easily be flipped tomorrow, but at least they are brought closer together in one place of perceived greatness.
Please note, though: You can’t go wrong with any of them.
TIER ONE (AMAZING): Orphan’s Tragedy, Sexy Pee Story, Cunning Stunts.
TIER TWO (ACE): Daddy Has A Tail!, Sorry In Pig Minor, Effete/Impudent Snobs.
TIER THREE (GREAT): Taint Pluribus Taint Unum, Peacetika, Whorn.
What they’ve left us with is an incredible catalogue of surreal noise that pioneered independence, annihilated boundaries and blew our tiny minds. I’d love them to reform and release one more album and do one more tour, but that time and opportunity has surely passed. It’s a shame.
The kids wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.
Again.
But for now, anyway, Cows are dead.
Long live Cows.
Great read! Also, 'I'm Allergic to Myself' is now my personal anthem. Time to binge-listen to more Cows!