100 Flowers – 100 Years Of Pulchritude (1990) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

In 1978, friends John Talley-Jones, Kjehl Johansen and Kevin Barrett decided to form a punk band, like so many other kids in Los Angeles who didn't know how to play anything at all. In order to make fun of the very scene in which they were inserted, they adopted the name Urinals and started to 'put on shows' parodying other punk groups, until they learned the basics of the instruments they wielded and things started to get serious.

In 1980, after two 7-inch albums, they changed the trio's name to 100 Flowers. The music of the once satirical band evolved drastically, incorporating the funky cadence and experimentation of the Leeds crowd, the more psychedelic trips of fellow contemporaries Dunedin's, Flying Nun and much of the Fall.

In 1983 they released their first and only full album, the following year their only EP (Drawing fire), and then they vanished into the ether. Johansen and Jones would resurface some time later with Trotsky Icepick until in 96 they would return to Urinals (where they continue to this day), but what really matters – at least around here – are the two
records such as 100 Flowers, which in 1990 were compiled by Rhino as the compilation 100 Years of pulchritudewhich brings together the album, the EP and unreleased tracks.

Even though it never reached the indie/alternative/whatever masses, the guys' music is amazing and deserves to be (re)discovered and passed on; precisely because I firmly believe in this statement, here are the two versions of the compilation: the official one, in a YouTube player, and the 'separate' one, straight from 100 Flowers' bandcamp.

Listen to the stalk!