Tism Collected Versus: Complete Tism Singles CD

In it's twenty-year career, Australian band Tism became possibly the most notorious band in their country's history, mixing the satire of Frank Zappa, the art-project long-game of the Residents, the songwriting chops and wit of Sparks, and the culture-jamming panache of Negativland. Now, forty years after forming and eighteen years after their last gig, an unsuspecting America can finally enjoy the pop-dance-satire band from Oz they never knew they were missing, as experimental music label Seeland Records proudly presents the Tism singles collection Collected Versus in a 2CD set that brings their greatest "hits" to U.S. audiences for the first time. Tism albums such as Great Truckin' Songs Of The Renaissance, Hot Dogma, Machiavelli And The Four Seasons, and de Rigueurmortis became chart hits while the band wowed live audiences with a series of absurd performance art happenings that inspired equal parts head-banging and stage-diving, danger and glee, laughs and total confusion. Born of the early-1980s music scene of suburban Melbourne, the band was a hit onstage and on the pop charts, with the seven men of Tism remaining anonymous for decades. Performing in balaclavas and rocking stage names like Humphrey B. Flaubert, Jock Cheese, Eugene de la Hot Croix-Bun, and Ron Hitler-Barassi, their provocative live shows became the stuff of legend, as they blasted their fans with infectiously catchy guitar-laden electro-pop leavened with bottomless cynicism and dark laughs. Career highlights included appearing on a children's TV show to promote their song "Saturday Night Palsy" and gradually increasing the size of the band to twenty eight members over three minutes; playing an entire gig in front of platforms on which they staged a full wedding reception, complete with best man's speech, bridal party, and a separate wedding band; holding a press interview on a football field with the journalists fifty meters away at the end of a taut piece of string; releasing their debut single "Defecate on My Face" as a 7-inch record in a 12-inch sleeve with all four sides glued shut; playing a benefit gig in which two separate TISMs performed at opposite ends of the same hall; and bringing twenty guitarists on stage to play a single chord. Collected Versus includes a career-spanning survey of all of the band's singles on disc one, plus eighty minutes of fan favorites on disc two.

1. Defecate on My Face 2. 40 Years-Then Death 3. The Ballad of John Bonham's Coke Roadie 4. I'm Interested in Apathy 5. Saturday Night Palsy 6. Martin Scorsese Is Really Quite a Jovial Fellow 7. I Don't Want Tism, I Want a Girlfriend 8. I'll 'Ave Ya 9. The History of Western Civilisation 10. Let's Form a Company 11. Jung Talent Time 12. (He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River 13. Greg! the Stop Sign!! 14. Garbage 15. All Homeboys Are Dickheads 16. For Those About to Rock 17. Shut Up, the Footy's on the Radio 18. Yob 19. I Might Be a Cunt, But I'm Not a Fucking Cunt 20. Whatareya? 21. Thunderbirds Are Coming Out 22. If You're Not Famous at Fourteen, You're Finished 23. Honk If You Love Fred Durst 24. Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me 25. Mistah Eliot-He Wanker 26. The Back Upon Which Jezza Jumped 27. The Mystery of the Artist Explained 28. I Drive a Truck 29. Morrison Hostel 30. The Tism Boat Hire Offer 31. Existentialtism 32. Let's Club It to Death 33. Life Kills 34. Bishop = Handjob 35. !Uoy Sevol Natas 36. Give Up for Australia 37. The Last Australian Guitar Hero 38. (There's Gonna Be) Sex Tonite 39. Five Yards 40. Boot Party 41. Fourteen Years in Rowville 42. BFW 43. Defecate on My Face (MGF Mix) 44. Tism Are Shit