Nuclear War from Nuclear War by Joe Diddley

It's quite unfortunate that a record like this still has any meaning. This is a recording of live and loud electric and acoustic pained guitar droning and noise over a an edited soundscape of nuclear war-themed samples from 1950's Civil Defense movies, United Nations hearings, interviews with Edward Tellar, and nuclear tests. It's the kind of thing that frightened me a young child and is now, unfortunately, frightening me again. I first recorded this almost 20 years ago. Now that we're in another arms race I've updated it a bit and you can have it for free.

"It’s starting to feel like the day before "The Day After" again. Fortunately, Joe Diddley has been doing the worrying for us for many years now. While we were happily skipping through the Obama administration, getting more piercings and armband tattoos while polishing our fashionably nihilist rhetoric, Joe still realized that death by radiation poisoning will suck just as much now as it would have in 1984 (book or anno). The guitar attack is a series of smeary stabbing motions, often two or three at once. Although some fancy pedals are utilized, this is no Henry Kaiser digital wank-a-thon. No way, it’s the blues! Not "Blues Club" blues, but can’t-get-out-of-bed blues. To quote a recent Jandek song title, it’s blues turned black." -C.M. Seinko

Twanging a single string for truth, justice, and the downtrodden, Joe Diddley reconstituted the dormant Strategic Air Command of the U.S. Air Force and began broadcasting strange blues recordings along the defunct Distant Early Warning radar installations near the arctic circle in 1958.