SPECTOR PROTECTOR - Demo - Tape - 2002

 
    Imagine, if you will, a San Francisco between booms. The year is 2002. Friends are squatting buildings on Market Street. Punks Against War pulled a float down Mission Street to protest the war while SHOTWELL played on the flatbed trailer. Phil'z was still a corner store that sold beer and vegetables and was not a world renowned, one-cup-at-a-time coffee tastemaker. Right around the corner from Phil'z, near the corner of 24th and Shotwell, SPECTOR PROTECTOR was writing their first songs in the drafty backroom of a first floor flat. Our paths crossed a little bit, but they were part of the scene of synth, darkwave and goth that I only flirted with on the periphery. Sometimes, my band would play on the streets or in record stores with their contemporaries (THE VANISHING, VERONICA LIPGLOSS & EVIL EYES, PHANTOM LIMBS), but that's about as close as we got, besides sleeping on their couch and talking over coffee in the morning.

   On this first tape, SPECTOR PROTECTOR plays minimal bedroom synth, punctuated by light guitars and some singing. The effects are chill and throbbing. The same could not always be said for their live performances....they were more chaotic and decidedly unchill. Download and enjoy.

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J CHURCH - "Four Track Demos" - Tape - 2011

    Years ago, I posted a link on the blog to this tape on another site, but now it's not available, so I'm reposting it here. This is a collection of Lance Hahn's (r.i.p.) four track demos for J CHURCH songs that he was making before he passed away. J CHURCH was probably one of the most prolific pop-punk bands of all time, Just a cursory glance at their Discogs page tells me that they might have released 18 albums and over 50 ep's. I can't even begin to explain the impact that Lance and J CHURCH made on the world of DIY punk that will last until the end of time. I only hung out with the guy a few times and I still think about him when I walk the streets of my neighborhood, where he lived in the 90's. Every single time it rains and I'm on Mission Street, I get "November" stuck in my head...for days. That is an impact.
    This tape has some fully formed songs, some sketches of ideas, some instrumentals and some misfires. I read somewhere that Lance treated his four track like a notebook; a place to write down his ideas as they came to him and that's how I approach this tape. It's perfect in its imperfection. If you've never heard J CHURCH, maybe you should start somewhere else, but this is also a warm, inviting place to be.

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More information about this tape here

You can still order a physical copy of the tape here. .

THE TERRIBLES - "In Congrefs" - CD - 2008

   As a vague testament to how shitty 2016 has been, I've only posted three things in the past three months and they've all been about dead friends. This one is no different. (FYI: No one in THE TERRIBLES is dead).
    I'm sure you've already read the terrible news about the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. I don't know if I can offer anything that hasn't already been said, but the outpouring of support from people in our community has been incredible. Most of the media and local government continues to get it so, so wrong...incredibly, frustratingly wrong and insensitive. What We Do Is Secret, but that statement hasn't actually been true for at least 20 years now, but people still can't seem to understand what the fuck we're doing (and yes, a lot what we do still is secret, actually).
   If you'd like to read articles about what is happening here, I would suggest these following things, because they're all good and these people took more time than I did to collect their thoughts.

 From KQED
 From East Bay Express
 From Huffington Post
 From We Are Your Voice

   The article from KQED really hit home with me because this is a tragedy that could affect just about anyone who reads this blog. Let's do some quick math. There's been 550 posts on this blog. Let's say that's probably 500 different bands (estimate). Let's say that there's an estimated three to four people in each band and that equals roughly 2000 people. I'm willing to bet that nearly ALL of those 500 bands have played shows in venues (I use that term lightly) that are non-traditional and don't have the best exits or wiring. That's 2000 people who put themselves in danger just to have a good time or find their community or feel less alone in an increasingly harsh world. But also, many of these people put themselves in danger just by leaving the house every day. This danger exists because of expensive housing, shitty paychecks, no paychecks for seriously marginalized people, because some of us enjoy putting ourselves in danger and many other reasons.
   Ugh...I don't know what I'm trying to say. Fuck it. I hate it. I hate that this happened at all. I hate what the media is going to make it into and I hate what it's going to do to so many spaces across the globe that people hold so dear to their hearts. Our gathering spaces aren't equipped with fire exits, bouncers or good wiring. Our ideal spaces provide us with love, acceptance and open arms in a world that wishes that many of us would just go away.
   Take care of each other out there. It's not getting better right now.

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This TERRIBLES CD is really good. I've written about them many times and you can go find it somewhere else on the blog. 

There's a phone number embedded in the 4th song  and it's one of my favorite songs by them. 

WET SPOTS - Tape - 2013

This one is intended as a companion piece to this post

     Barker was starting to wind up WET SPOTS around the same time that our band together was winding down and it was maybe more his speed. While our band seemed to act more and more serious, WET SPOTS liked to joke the fuck around and write seriously catchy songs. Barker wrote the guitar riffs and sang while Oscar and Janelle rounded out the rhythm section on bass and drums respectively. The results are seven excellent songs that help you remember that Barker had an unfuckwithable ear for melody.
    I remember when they were going to record these songs, I ran into Barker and he was excited because Darin from SUPERCHARGER was turning the knobs for them. I was excited too and we privately geeked the fuck out about it for a minute because we were both garage rock nerds at different points in our lives. I didn't even know the guy was still around, but the tape sounds fuckin' great, so he still knows what he's doing.
   When WET SPOTS went to play a few shows in Hawaii, I got super jealous, because I've always wanted to play there. Upon their return, I asked Barker how it went and he played it a little too cool..."Ahhh, it was fine. We played a show or two. The people were pretty nice." I ran into Janelle later and she gushed about it. "It was fucking fun! We hung out in the ocean a ton. Barker jumped off of a cliff!" Then, she showed me a ton of photos and every one of them looked like the best time ever!
    Download this stuff and play it loud. Enjoy Janelle's pounding drums, Oscar's smooth ass bass lines and a voice that should sound raspier knowing the amount of whiskey that has passed by those vocal cords.

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Members of THE TOURETTES, PIZZASAURUS REX, ROCK N ROLL ADVENTURE KIDS, THE YOUNG MEN, HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE, PANTY RAID, THE MUNI MEN, LITTLE QUEENIE, THE GRIS GRIS, BABY JAIL, RINGERS and more and more and more.

Barker in Hawaii. Photo by Janelle. 

THE URGENTS - Demo - Tape - 2013

Today's post is brought to you by Chloe.

Breaking the Clocks, Burning the Bridges: A hagiography of that fucking Hesh Paul The Urgents, Demo Tape, Recorded December 23rd, 2013, at the OMC 4th Floor on Lean 

  Heartbreak rose with the sun on Friday. Paul Woods has died, but he left us with his music. Music was the thing Paul cared about most. He could have done almost anything with his life but chose music. Most people don’t know this about Paul because he was such a goof ball, but he was really smart. Paul had a degree in Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz. Sometimes when I was worried about something or other, I would go lay on his bed, tell him about it. He would pull a book off his shelf: Foucault lectures on Psychiatry, books about DMT effects on the brain. Those books helped me through more than a few hard times. In fact one time when I was very nervous about my second date with a super-hot Marxist, I asked Paul for a book to bring on the picnic that would make me look smart. He handed me Les Chants de Maldoror packaged with an encouraging speech. I walked away feeling confident. He could make you feel really good.

   The Urgents was Argeniz on bass (Maquina Muerte), Ryan Texas on drums (Death Drive, Trenches), and Paul and I on guitar. Paul wrote all the songs before compiling the group. He even typed up the lyric sheets on his little typewriter, so I could sing along. We practiced together for a few months, played one show in front of a “Dump Yer Landlord” banner, and recorded these songs. This album was not destined to come out great, but when you listen to it you will notice that it is great. First, because it was all Paul, and this was his passion. Every piece of equipment was his, all the sound engineering and mastering was his doing, the riffs were his and the solos were also his. The Urgents was his ode to punk; a community that let him be him. The other reason it is great is because it is true. At the time of this album, Paul and I were co-defendants in a graffiti case deriving from a FTP march and were squatting at the infamous RCA/Hot Mess. The songs are all about our lived experiences, the love and heartbreak of those years. Watch The Smoke is about that moment where you go for it, hard, don’t look back even though you may lose it all, you pause to revel in the simple beauty of the smoke. The Urgents is about the real estate lawyer who evicted us from the RCA. His name was Bruce Reeves and one time in court Paul very calmly referred to him as Ruce Breeves without laughing. That kid was wearing a bolo tie and a ten gallon hat. The judge asked them to exchange emails and Mr. Breeves looked up at Paul and asked, “liveXfast at riseup.net: is that right?” His grinned a big grin to bear that gap of his missing front tooth (lost to a bite of crusty pizza) and replied, “Yes, that is right Your Honor.” It was glorious. Ruce Breeves had a stroke and shut down his office after handling that case. No doubt a product of being casual taunted by a long haired hesher in a cowboy hat. I Had a Future is about how Paul was going to be a Marine Biologist after high school and did a year of school for it, but dropped out because he just wanted to play music and hang out. “I had a future//man it was so bleak//had to run away.” He was really proud of this song because it captured how having a future just meant fucking people over. “Traded in my future//for a chance to live again.” Blurry Visions is about feeling alone: in your head and in an crowd.

    Say what you will about Paul because he wasn’t a saint (“God never takes the angels early”). But he was a warm and loyal friend. I will miss his hugs, the way he held you really tight in his thick crusty vest was the ultimate comfort. Paul was unlike most people in one key respect: you would never hear him say he hated somebody. He avoided all out character denunciations and looked for the good bits in the messes of all of us. He laughed with you about himself and his flaws or you and your flaws, a big loud laugh. The last couple years have been really hard. A lot of people came together and then fell apart. Every time we lose a Basil, or a Barker, or a Paul or a Chris Chitty, or a Monique I hope we can use it as a moment to reflect on the ways we treat each other while still living. The living times go by really fast unless we have each other to break the clocks. The black flag will be flying at half mast for a while. Goodnight you fucking Hesher Paul.

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To contribute to his memorial fund, please click here.  

THE YOUNG MEN / HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE / NEON PISS

   This one has been a tough one to get around to writing and going into it right now, I'm not even exactly sure what I'm going to say. Our friend Barker Gee took his own life in Conway, Arkansas on June 21st this year and I'm still waiting for him to pop out of the bushes with that big dumb grin on his face and say "haw haw!! GOTCHA!"....and just walk off smoking a cigarette like nothing happened. To say that it's devastating to our community of friends is the understatement of the year. I hate it so much.
   I have too many stories to share about Barker. They're all darkness and light. Some of them are side splittingly funny. Others are so crushingly sad that if I think about them too much, I can't do anything but cry. He had a spark that is rare for the people you meet in this life. (I've now been sitting here staring at the screen for 20 minutes with my fingers on the keyboard thinking about everything....every interaction...and I just don't know what to say, still.)
   Once, our old band NEON PISS was driving up to Portland to play a show. I was driving and Barker was in the back seat asking if he could smoke in the car again (no). The mix tape I made was playing when "Tabletop Hop" by THE YOUNG MEN came on. Barker yelled "Whoa! You put this on your tape??!!? Hell yeah!" When the guitar solo - his guitar solo - came on, he yelled "Turn it all the way up!!" I did and he played air guitar to it. The whole thing was so ridiculous and endearing and we all just laughed like idiots.
   THE YOUNG MEN was Barker, Jamie, Ren and Skip. They started after BENT OUTTA SHAPE split up and (predictably) did not get the respect they deserved following the foot print that BENT left behind. Barker put this tape out years after the band split up and it's a bunch of stuff they never got around to releasing. The tape includes 10 songs from "The Chris Pierce Sessions", 3 songs I know very little about and their 4 song demo. "Alabam'" from the demo is easily my favorite song about my home state written by someone who never lived there.
   HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE was a short lived Oakland band featuring Barker on guitar and vocals, Stevo on bass and Brad on drums. One time, Barker called me and asked if I had ever listened to their demo tape. I said "Yeah....once." He said "Well, listen to it a few more times. We need you to play drums for us at Thrillhouse tonight." I did listen to it some more but  then I showed up too late and missed the entire show. I heard that they just grabbed someone from the audience to play. Regardless, through the repeated listening, I realized that the tape is excellent. You can still order their LP here. At a recent memorial for Barker, I noticed that almost every time I paid attention to what was on the stereo, it was the HUFF STUFF record.
    At some point while NP was still a band, Barker took off to New York to get clean. While he was there, he started playing some music with Aaron Cometbus and was supposed to get some dude from FUGAZI in the band too. I don't think that ever happened, but he sent me an email one day telling me about what he was up to on the East Coast. He sent me an mp3 of his new band and said "Don't ever let anyone hear this!!" Sorry Barker. Someone already put this song online anyway.
   I'm including the NEON PISS LP. 45. demo tape and weird "rarities" CD that we sold at our last show because I realized you can't download it for free on our Bandcamp page. I don't know how to log into that page anymore, so here's everything for free. Also included is the rough mix of "Siege Mentality" off of our LP. I threw this one in because Barker whispers "There is no God"during a break in the song towards the end. On the LP, it got mixed really far down, but on this mix, it's pretty prominent. It's one of my favorite things on the LP because it was an off the cuff thing that Barker decided to throw in without really talking to us about it. There's also a practice space recording of a later song that never got fully worked out that Barker wrote. (haha! I just remembered that this song is already included in the rarities CD. Ooops!)

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Why? by Huff Stuff Magazine from John No on Vimeo.

From John No's piece about this video in the memorial zine edited by Janelle Hessig: 

"Barker cracked an egg into the pan as the camera rolled and it had TWO YOLKS - Which is always freaky but of course it happens from time to time....then he cracked the second egg and it had two yolks AGAIN! This time, we were like "Holy shit!" and started laughing pretty hard so his cigarette fell into the pan. He left it in there, kept cooking the eggs and lit another cigarette and then put that one out into the pan. Barker ate most of it and promptly puked."

Barker at Kurt Cobain's house. Photo by me.

THANKS:
Alex Turner for finding the things I don't have.
Caitlin Kelly for repressing the YM tape for the memorial and being a perfect angel.
Barker Gee for being such a singular, weird, engaging and loving human freak in this world. 

MICHELLE HILL - Demo - CDR - 2006

   I used to live in a punk house in Chattanooga, TN where we had a house rule that the first person to wake up every day had to either play BLACK FLAG's "Nervous Breakdown" at top volume or EXCESSIVE DEFIANCE's classic EP "Yo Dicknose, Eat A Dick Straight Up, Yo" on the wrong speed. At the age of 23, this was (usually) kind of funny and not a bad way to start your day....whether it was 6 am or noon. Years later, I lived in a not-exactly-punk house in the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco and there was a period where my roommate Gaybob seemed like she had her own house rule of waking up every day and blasting this Michelle Hill CD in the kitchen while making coffee.  Sure, I liked these songs too, but by that time, I was 33 years old and really liked sleeping. I would get woken up by Michelle belting their voice into my head, usually accompanied by Bob's, and get SO annoyed. I have a hard time telling people how to live their lives, even when it impacts my own....so, I would lay there and just listen to it....and find that I really liked the songs a lot and the CD was pretty short....so I could usually just fall back to sleep. After a while, my other roommates were following suit and this was the usual soundtrack to our kitchen at any given time.
   Up until one week ago, that was the only times I had ever heard these songs, but I get to hear Michelle's voice pounded into my head all the fucking time now (albeit in a different context) because we're in a band together.
    Michelle recorded these songs at their house back in 2005 or 2006 and put it out on this CD-R in an edition of 30. Michelle apologizes for playing a banjo on one song. The songs are mostly led by an acoustic guitar and layers of their strong ass vocals. There are songs about loneliness and risque odes to inanimate objects. Two extra songs recorded in 2008 were sent over to be added to the download. "366 Days of Night" was written on a leap year and Michelle said that when they played it in a backyard in Olympia, WA, a dog howled along during the howling part. "Sexy Guitar Love Song" has to be heard to be believed and contains some of my favorite lines of all of these songs.

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Michelle currently sings for SILENT ERA and has also played in TULSA, HONKY HORN & BAD MOUTH, SLEEPWALK and THE SLITS (touring guitarist)...and is also one of my best friends.

MUGWORT - Demo - Tape - 2011

    Mugwort, the plant, is said to further one's psychic abilities, enhance your dreams and repel negative energies. If used in excess, it can prove to be toxic...so toxic that it has been used in herbal abortions. MUGWORT, the band, could probably also enhance your dreams and repel a lot of negative energy in your mind. I can't comment on their psychic energies or fetus-destroying abilities.
   I was at a basement show in Oakland last week where 2/3rd's of MUGWORT were playing in a new band (their name escaped me) that built off of the player's long histories in other bands like SHITSTORM and THE GOOD GOOD...bands that never seemed to fully get the recognition they deserved (whatever the fuck "recognition" means in your mind...they didn't get it), but succeeded in throwing out loads of incredible music and playing shows that will always stick with me.
   MUGWORT enjoyed a brief stint in the Bay Area queer punk scene, playing tons of shows in their SF house near 21st and Capp. I'm sure they played other places too, but I only ever saw them there. Wu banged out insistent lines on their bass while Sara worked around the melodies and just invented her own cool style. Peter drums in a way that is so inspiring to me...somehow effortlessly playing this wild style that is "missed" notes, propulsive cymbals and almost intentionally playing off the rhythms but still holding it all together. They all sing. It's an incredible tape. It's been by my stereo for years now.

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They also have a Bandcamp, but it's missing two songs from the tape. I don't know why.

You can also enjoy some of their songs set to video too. 

Maybe I'll remember the name of that new band so I can go see them more. 

SEXY - Demo - Tape - 2001

    Tapes like these are the reason I started the blog. Trying to track down these nearly ephemeral documents of a scream in dark warehouses and shitty basements is what this thing is about. I don't own this tape, but I thought that trying to get a copy of it would be a task that could be easily accomplished in a few days. Nope. The first post of this blog is dated June 23rd, 2011 and now it's nearly 5 years later. I asked the people who played the music, the people who loved the band, the people who hated the band, the punks who lived with them and I scoured Bay Area yard sales, free boxes and record stores (and their free boxes). Nothing.
    Baby Ian (we can just call him Ian now, right?) pulled a box of old stuff out of storage and came up with his copy of the demo...and here we are. I haven't heard this thing since 2001 or so and I forgot how goofy it is. If you're just hearing SEXY for the first time (and I'm sorry if you're just now hearing them) I would suggest starting with their first album (it's right here) because it's a completely perfect snapshot in time of an insane band at their absolute best. It contains all of the drunken abandon, the hooks and the trainwreck-style tempos. This first demo shows the band still trying to find their footing and swimming in drunken goofiness. A few of the songs that were later re-recorded for the LP are downright sllloooooowwww (check out "Purple Mini Van"). Half of the songs on here just got fucking dropped and were never heard from again. Maybe you'll enjoy it.

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Technical notes: I'm sure you've come to expect a fair amount of tape hiss on this blog and I will tell you that there is a FAIR AMOUNT of tape hiss on this download. Ian sent over the tracks and I tried to mess with them to lower the hiss and it just sounded worse...so here we are....warts and all. You can even hear some of the tape it was recorded over. History isn't pretty and that's why we all need to keep moving forward. 

Thanks Ian. 

Thanks SEXY.

RAW WAR - 2 Demos - Tape - 2010

    Sometimes a band exists in your region and you just never see them. Some people work too much. Some people just don't feel like going out to every show. Some people don't go to "those" shows. In my case, my best friend had cancer and I forgot how to interact with the world.
   Because of this, I know almost nothing about RAW WAR and these tapes came into my possession years after they broke up. I can enjoy them now and you can too. "Outfit" is carried almost entirely by one riff (until close to the end), but when the drum roll leads you to the bass line, you realize how sorely you've been missing that riff in your life (if you were, in fact, out of the loop like me). "Poster" has a call-and-response style vocal chant that always gets caught up in my head like an alternate universe "Steak Knife" (ANGRY SAMOANS). Everything about this band sounds so perfectly fucked...guitars on ten on a shitty amp...pounding dilapidated drum set....multiple singers who sound like they would kill you but kinda be bored while doing it. I don't know. Like I said, I was at home and didn't know how to live.
   This download contains both of their tapes. One has an alien on the cover and one does not. I'm not sure which one came first, but they mostly have the same songs on them...just different versions and recordings. It's all great.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - "We Will All Be Well" - Tape - 2006

   My friend Monica was attending all kinds of shows in the Bay Area (and beyond) ten years ago and she usually had some kind of recording device in tow. That recording device was often a thrifted (or lifted) handheld cassette player that might have been better off lounging away in a dumpster, but Monica dutifully dragged it around and captured some moments in backyards, dark basements, toxic beaches, bars, rock clubs, living rooms and the places in between.
   She made this compilation of some of the moments and mailed it out to friends in an edition of 15. It came in a screened cloth bag with typed out track listings and a feather. I've had this tape for ten years now and have been thinking about sharing it on here since the beginning of the blog, but most of the sound quality is abysmal. Sometimes, the tape hiss is just as loud, if not louder, than the songs themselves, but I think there are special moments on here that deserve to be shared. It's up to you to decide which moments are special, if any.
    If you listen to this on headphones, it would be a good idea to keep your hand near a volume control. Some of the songs are almost inaudible, mostly tape hiss and come out of one speaker. Some are clear, LOUD recordings. Some of the bands were never heard from again. The compilation is all over the map. Some (not all) of the bands included within are THE BOOKS, SEXUAL RITES, LIL RUNT,  MIRAH, NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL, ONE REASON, J.R.R. TALLCAN, DAVID DONDERO and about 20 more. Enjoy or don't.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - "2846 Chapman St" - Comp - Tape - 2002

   Today, I went to a yard sale in Oakland and ran into a tiny boatload of cassettes. Of course, I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame.  The pile was full of Burger Records stuff and since I've made a decision to try and keep this blog mostly positive, I'll just leave that statement there. There were a few gems hidden beneath and I mostly left them hidden beneath because I live in a tiny room now and I could already build a small house out of the tapes  that I currently own. I even found my old band's discography. Unlike many people I know, I love seeing my band's stuff in a yard sale or a dollar bin.
   I walked away from the sale with three tapes. One of them was the SEXY demo tape. I have been looking for this tape for fucking YEARS and I was so happy to have it in my hands. When I got it home and found that it had been dubbed over with super fucking shitty metal, I can't even find the words to convey my disappointment to you right now. Another tape was a home dubbed Japanese garage band who mostly covered SF garage bands from the 90's. The third tape was this one right here.
   I only visited the Chapman Street warehouse a couple of times because it was way out in Fruitvale.. Some people called it the S.P.A.M. warehouse. They put on a ton of shows back in the early 00's, had a beer vending machine and was inhabited by at least 30 people at all times. (That beer vending machine lives on in a current Oakland punk house). One of the only things I remember about visiting there was that I saw a great BANANAS show there. It was packed and the band was in that perfect form of being drunk enough to be really fun but not too wasted to play. I remember that a teenager kept jumping on the stage, grabbing the mic and screaming the words louder than anyone in the band. It sounded terrible and everyone kept dragging her off the stage. For their last song they played the (at that point) new and incredible song "Nautical Theme" and -Oh My God - it sounded so good. When the whole band was about to kick in at the end, we looked and the teenage girl was mounting the stage again to scream the last lyrics with the band. I'm a firm believer in a lack of divisions between band and audience, but there has to be a line drawn sometimes. Someone has to take action. That was the moment when my friend Janelle shouted "NOOOOOOO!!", downed the rest of her beer, threw the empty can as hard as she could, hit the girl in the head, knocked her offstage and the girl was gently crowd-surfed back into the throng. The band sounded great and the girl was wasted and unharmed. I've been hit in the head with empty cans many many times and that shit does not hurt.
   I've already written about almost half of these bands here, here, here, here, here AND here. That was TOMMY LASORDA, FLESHIES, LOS RABBIS, POSER POSSE and SEXY. The other bands (CIVIL DYSENTERY, BOZAKS, SCORPION DEATH ROCK, DISMEMBERS and WEAK LEADS) are part of a scene that I know almost nothing about. You can listen for yourself and make up your own stories.

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The sound quality ranges from pretty bad to "holy shit"

Still looking for that SEXY demo. 

SBSM - Joy / Rage - Tape - 2015

I put this tape out for my friends in Oakland. 

I have very strong feelings about it

I don't feel like I'm in the position to give you the run down. 

Listen / Download Here

Tapes are pro-dubbed and come with a ten page zine by the band.

ORDER A TAPE HERE

STERILE MIND - Demo - Tape - 2014

    Two friends named Andrew and Travis got together and wrote some 100% no-shit-sick-ass hardcore riffs. Then, they hauled all of their gear into the legendary Dub Master Avery's Atomic Spliff Bunker (okay, it's a windowless hut on Dore Alley in San Francisco...or space...I think) and the two of them played all the instruments to make this incredible demo. As soon as they put it into the world, punks were banging down their door (or more likely, politely texting them) to get the band to play some shows, but the only problem is that there was no band to speak of.
   Originally, they got Michelle to play bass. She's a woman who has never been in a hardcore band and once played on a record that got rejected from Maximum Rock N Roll for being "not punk", but she has more attitude and anger than most of the tourists who have clumsily tried to attach a stud to a leather jacket. They asked me to play drums, even though my history with hardcore is spotty at best. We both lasted one whole practice before they hastily replaced us with more suitable candidates. Robert is now their bass player. If you have even a passing interest in excellent DIY hardcore, there's a good chance he played on a number of records in your collection. Motherfucker has a really good idea about what he's doing. Ben is now their drummer and, unlike me, probably tunes his drums and can play a mosh breakdown beat that will ruin you. They sound fucking tight,
   I've liked this tape since the day I heard it, but yesterday I pointlessly drove to Oakland so that I could sit in traffic (long story. I'll spare you) and listen to this thing over and over again. I might have listened to it 20 times in a row and it was good every fucking time. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that STERILE MIND is breaking any kind of mold or going out on limbs, but I will tell you that they play compact, blazing, pissed-off, insanely memorable hardcore better than most.
 Also, this band has turned down more jaw-dropping shows than most bands have played in their existence.

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The tape is sold out from the band. They've got some new shit on the way "soon".

Totally unrelated: I put out a tape by one of my favorite Oakland bands, SBSM. I love them. I think what they're doing is magical and loud and confusing and weird and haunting and cacophonous and destructive. Sometimes, I have no clue what they're doing and that is part of their beauty. I feel lucky to have a part in putting their music out in the world. Please look for them on their upcoming US tour and you can buy a tape here.  

SEXY - "Por Vida" - LP - 2004

   One night, I walked over to a show in north Chattanooga at a house with a falling in kitchen (one night, that kitchen's floor fell in during a show, but not this one). I showed up because PANTY RAID was playing, but they were with these two total fuuuuucking goofballs who immediately decided that we were friends and, yes, we were all going to get wasted together. It was a dark period in my life when I lived on a weird, filthy houseboat (no shame. that boat saved my life) anchored in the stinky ass Tennessee River. I was ready to get drunk and die at the drop of a hat. So were these two guys, so we got along great. It wasn't until I saw them tuning up that I even realized that they were in a band playing that night. I thought, "These guys can barely stand. Will they be able to play?" This situation is not uncommon in Chattanooga, but is usually best executed by locals. The touring bands almost always fail and pull off one of the worst sets of their tour. SEXY did not fail. Joined by Baby Ian on bass, they played the best set of the night. The floors were so unstable that their mic stands were bouncing all over the place, but Ashley and Chris (my two new friends) just followed as best they could while wildly pounding out some of the catchiest songs I had heard in years. I didn't buy their demo tape and I still regret it.
    When I moved out to the Bay Area a year later, I hung out with these two fools when I could, at shows, on the street, getting booted out of breweries, on the waterfront, etc, I trekked up to Pacific Heights (aka Specific Whites) to see them play in a cool teen's parent's house (whassup Chloe Puke) and everything seemed wrong. They played two songs and looked at each other...."This sucks. Why do we sound so bad?" Chris pulled a huge jug of wine out of his bag and started chugging it. He passed it to Ashley, who followed suit. As they kept playing, they sounded better and better until they were (as usual) completely annihilating the show.On the bike ride home from the show, I watched Chris get sideswiped by a city bus. He sat on the ground for a second and said "Aw man..." before getting back on his bike and continuing on with us.
   I kept watching them everywhere I could: in shitty bars, in humid Florida warehouses, on the street and in the women's bathroom at Gilman. Once, I yelled "NOOOOOOOOO!!" at them for the entirety of their true-to-form cover of THE BAND'S "Up On Cripple Creek". They almost always seemed to harness that sweet spot of perfect abandon. almost-too-drunk and true freedom when it was all at it's breaking point.
   When I heard they recorded an LP, I wanted to hear it immediately, but I was skeptical. Could this band actually harness the sound of ridiculous, unhinged, drunken abandon? Yeah, they did. This record sounds exactly like SEXY live. Better, even...and to actually read the lyrics made you understand that this band was pretty funny...and fucking sad. Metaphors are few on this LP. They  talk about writing songs on the bus, smoking crack while watching the ships roll in, breaking down in Kettleman City (a shithole if there ever was one), shotgunning 50 beers in the shower to dull the pain, etc. This record also came into my life at a perfect time...when I felt terrible...when I felt okay about listening to songs about pain and heartbreak without thinking too terribly much about how my actions caused serious pain and repercussions to the people around me...when I didn't think too much about how you can write an unforgettable, classic song about someone, but that someone is actually someone, you know? They're a living, breathing human being that has to endure idiots like me blabbing on about this wonderful shit, while they're like "Great...that dude gets to be validated for the rest of his life for being a drunken guy who broke my heart and stole my SMOKING POPES record." That is a simple over-analyzation of a bigger thing, but you get where I'm coming from, right? I love this record. I always will, but I think too much.
 

There's Craig D's face. He wasn't in the band. 

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The song is called "Thank  You Dead and Gone" because the wood block and percussion used on that song was found in the trash outside of DEAD AND GONE's practice space. 

Yes, this is a record...not a tape. It was a request. 

The original press of this LP has a pressing flaw and it has skips in it. The band kept giving me copies of it when I kept telling them that my copy skipped a lot. At one point, I had 8 copies of this record. Thrillhouse Records repressed the LP and made new plates so it doesn't skip. You can still order it from them.

If I wasn't clear, this is one of the best records of the last 15 years. If you've never heard this record and like melodic punk on this blog, this is essential. 

SILENT ERA - Demo - Tape - 2014

   Last night, I went to see BORN  play at a record store in Oakland. Honestly, all I wanted to do was lay in bed all day sipping fizzy water, but if a great band can come all the way here from Iceland, I can drag my lazy ass out of bed and take the train over to see them. Plus, their drummer, Fannar hooked me up with a wonderful place to stay in his country when I went there. I wanted to shake his hand in person since I couldn't in Iceland, because he was in the hospital.
   We talked. We laughed. The band was wonderful. I was dumbfounded that the show was poorly attended, which was directly impacted by the fact that JESUS AND MARY CHAIN and GREEN DAY were playing the same night. Whatever. Fannar asked what band(s) I was playing in these days and I said I was just playing in SILENT ERA. He said he'd try to remember to look us up, but I should just put it on the blog because he reads it all the time. It's always nice to know that people read this thing, especially in other countries, so Fannar, this one is for you.
    I believe SILENT ERA was a band for a couple of years before ever playing a show. I'm not really sure because I wasn't there. Hardly any of us were, because by our 4th show, Matt (guitar) was the only original member. The band was originally Matt, Noelle (bass) and Mackey (drums). They were having a hard time finding a singer and I think a friend from Oakland named Fernando sang for a short time. After that didn't work out, our good friend Michelle came into the fold and the line up seemed pretty solid. The band (finally) played a show in a garage in Oakland and then Mackey quit the band, unceremoniously and without warning.
   At the time, Matt was my roommate. We were sitting in the kitchen one day and he asked me to play drums. I saw how much time and energy the members were putting into the band, which I respect and told him to give me some time to think about it because I didn't want to join if I wasn't going to match that energy. Long story short, I joined. Plus, I was already playing music with Michelle in three other bands, so why not? (All of those are inactive/defunct besides STERILE MIND...but to say that we were ever full members of that band is a misnomer. I just wanted to mention them because they rule.) We hastily got our shit together, played a couple of shows, recorded this demo and then Michelle and Matt went to Europe for six weeks with THE NEW FLESH. Noelle went to South America. I worked at my job. Everyone came back besides Noelle, who now lives in NYC. We wasted no time....okay, that's not true...we definitely wasted some time....we got our friend Julia Booz to play bass and now, finally, things seems solid.
    The band is working on a bunch of new stuff that we plan on recording in September and releasing in some form. This demo was recorded over a weekend in our practice space by Jonny Tsagakis on his large analog tape behemoth. We paid him in alcohol and snacks (and money). I like these songs a lot, but I think our new ones are even better. We have politics that are strong, but I don't feel like I need to explain them right now. I like these people. I like this band.

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Thanks to Jonny.

Buy a SILENT ERA tape here

Keep up with our shows and stuff here

Live photo by Martin Sorrondeguy

..Thanks to Robert for the much appreciated ride home.

There ya go, Fannar. 

MIX TAPE - 1995

  Besides my old friend, Heather, who I met when I was 5 years old, I only keep in touch with one other friend from the Nascar days of my youth (that reference is so vague that I'm not explaining it...just roll with it). That friend is Angie, who mailed this tape to me at my two room apartment in Huntsville, AL in 1995. No cover, no track listing...just this tape rolled up into a letter, recorded over a battered GEORGE MICHAEL cassingle. Short and to the point. I had no clue that I'd still love every song on this tape 20 years later (20 years!). I had no clue that the Floyd who is mentioned in the first line of the first song would be the same person who now assigns me CD's to review for Maximum Rock N Roll or that that house he made his phone call from (listen to the song) would catch on fire a short distance from where I live now. I didn't know that the third song would still resonate so much harder with me now than it did back then. The last band on the tape, EVERY ALICE ON EARTH, will not be a hit with many (or any) visitors to the blog, but they were a local(ish) band where I grew up and were one the first DIY (I mean this as actual "Do It Yourself", not as an empty slogan used by hardware stores and Pottery Barn) bands I ever saw in my pre-teen years, which made a big impact. In some very, very tiny circles, they are legendary.

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S.B.S.M. - "Bitter Ends" - Tape - 2014

   There's this thing that happens when you live in town long enough where everyone just assumes that you know everyone. This isn't true. I started hearing about S.B.S.M. around town. When I asked some friends about the band, they would just say "Oh, you know them...it's (these people) and they played that show at (venue I've never heard of) with (that one band everyone cares about but somehow I've never heard of them)" Well, it turns out that I work with a member of S.B.S.M. Oops.
   When I finally tracked down S.B.S.M., they were playing in a tiny basement in West Oakland. Their loud, cacophonous mess of sound was almost overwhelming in a way I haven't felt locally in a long time. The thing that really drew me to them, besides the fact that I was into their music, is that even though it's completely obvious that the three people in this band are very serious about what they do, they don't let that stop them from laughing it off when their broken equipment shorts out mid-song. One of them will use that as an opportunity to explain the song or tell you about an upcoming protest or talk about why they're playing that particular benefit show while the other members change out cables, tear apart wires and try to figure out what the fuck went wrong. And this is all so refreshing for me because I feel like we have entered a stage of punk (and this is just my perspective) where so many bands are trying to be perfect recreations of bygone eras or they're afraid to go out on limbs or they're trying to pose just right for that Instagram photo or whatever the fuck it is that people do. Many bands don't discuss their politics anymore or don't have any politics to speak of whatsoever, but when the whole fucking world is falling apart and there are rape apologists (and rapists) in your audience and cops are killing all the brown people they can possibly get away with and you feel like you're just gonna explode because you can't fucking take it anymore...just fucking talk about it!! Or just take your place in line (or the barstool) next to all the other soulless hardcore bands.

   The other reason I like them is that when they play the last part of ":Godzilla" live, it sounds like 30 bombs going off in a haunted castle nestled in a nightmare world.

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They're recording a new tape soon. 

RANCID - "Live at YoYo A Go Go" - Tape - 1994

   In the mid-90's, I went on tour with my band through Florida and the south. On the tour, we played a generator show in the Everglades next to a rotting cow carcass, we played a VFW hall and we played in some living rooms. One night, we were in Cocoa Beach, FL with a night off and heard that RANCID was playing an hour away in Orlando. At this point in time, none of the members of my band paid any attention to major media (or any media for that matter) and we had the idea of driving to the show to see if we could jump on to the bill. Our guitarist, Joey had slept on Tim Armstrong's couch in Berkeley and was pretty good friends with his neighbors in SCREW 32, so we thought it would be easy to play a short set before them. Little did we know that in the intervening years, Tim's roommates would come home to find RANCID shooting a video complete with a camera crew and deli trays in their living room. That video was played on MTV, the band found their way to magazine covers and were now touring in a completely different style than we were. I doubt they had to jump start their van every time they tried to move it or fixed the alternator belt with a shoestring or chewing gum.
   So, when we got to Orlando, the security guards fittingly laughed in our faces when we asked to talk to the band about playing a short set at the show. We dutifully paid our 10 bucks like everyone else and went in to watch the bands. The LUNACHICKS made some speech about how it took a lot of hard work to get to where they were on that big stage. I laughed my ass off at them. Thinking about it now, I can imagine that it was a lot more frustrating for them to get to that point than RANCID, being four women playing punk and metal in the late 80's and early 90's. I'm sure it was also frustrating to think about how Dino, GG Allin's drummer, thought that he had a psychic connection to them and regularly masturbated to pictures of them...but I digress.
   RANCID was good. I also laughed at them. A lot. "And Out Come The Wolves" had just been released so they played a lot of songs from that one.
    We drove back to Cocoa Beach. I took off all of my clothes and walked in to the ocean.

  This tape (that's not it pictured above) was sent over by Alex Turner. It's from the year before I saw them when they played at Yoyo a Go Go in Olympia, WA back in 1994. We're both pretty sure that it was recorded off the board. Alex believes that the details are this: Somebody recorded it, Tobi Vail owned the tape for years, gave it to someone else in Olympia and then it made its way to milk crate at Punkall. Alex brought it back to Oakland and digitized it for you to enjoy. The sound quality is not bad, but a little assy at points.

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INTERIOR 27 - Demo - Tape - 2014

   It's rumored that INTERIOR 27 practiced for a full year before they ever played their first show. They went through a bunch of changes before they ever hit the stage. Diane played drums. KTW played bass. Zoe played guitar. Diane moved to guitar. I played drums (for a day). KTB played drums. Diane sang. Laura played drums (?). Diane moved back to drums. Laura moved to vocals. Zoe and KTW did what they did and held it down through the chaos.
   When they finally played their first show, they already sounded confident and comfortable throughout their 12 minute set. That was at the beginning of this past summer. A couple of weeks ago, I watched them open up a show for RAKTA and MANE and it was the best I had ever seen them...which kind of sucked since the following day, they played their last show ever. (Sidenote: The RAKTA/MANE/INTERIOR 27 show consisted of all-female bands. The soundperson and door person were also women. I just wanted to point out how fucking nice it was to go to a show and not have some fucking dudes yelling at me for 3 hours). The best bands are usually the ones who don't stick around long enough, who only give you a few good songs to remember them by. Be sure to appreciate those bands while they are active and let them know that they made a difference in your life.

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I read some other stuff about the band online and they were compared to bands that were so off the mark that 'I wondered if I even shared the same planet with the author. So, I decided to refrain from telling you anything about what the band sounds like. They are good. I love them. 

Tapes are still available. Email address ^^
Members of FLESH WORLD, RED THREAD, MIDNITE BRAIN, APRIORI, DISPLEASURE, BRILLIANT COLORS and many more.