YOUR HEART BREAKS - Tour EP - 2003 - CD-R

   This is not the first appearance of YOUR HEART BREAKS on the blog. For more info, you could look here or here or even here (kind of). This was my first introduction to the band though and I would blast it through my headphones while walking around in the cold of the small Midwestern college town where I used to live in 2004. I didn't know Clyde (the main songwriter and core member) that well then, but I agreed to quit my job and roadie for his other band for a month anyway. Sometimes I look back on that trip as a mistake, but most of the time I know that it wasn't because it solidified our friendship in many ways that might not have happened otherwise.
   On the tour, I would sit behind the merch table while oogles talked to me about their dog or people handed me a beer or a college student would hand me a check for a few hundred dollars. I would sell their band's music and sometimes people would pick up this YHB CD. I'd sit there and try to sell them on it while they looked at me skeptically. "Yeah, it's this broken hearted queer pop music...no, it's not folk-punk...no, it's not on Plan-It-X records....yeah, I know that Rymodee from THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB is listed as a member but he only plays the harmonica on one song for about 45 seconds...but, anyway, YOUR HEART BREAKS is this really cool...huh? Yeah, I know Rymodee and his band..yeah, they're really nice....no...I, I don't want a CD-r of your folk punk bedroom project...yeah, I've toured with them.....so, anyway, this CD is like this cool pop band and....oh, yeah, there's a beer store right down the street. No, I don't have any extra beer for you but a tall can is only like $1.50 over there...okay, thanks, bye."
    Most of the time, kids would buy this YHB CD after seeing that Rymodee played harmonica on it and after I explained that he only played for a minimal amount of time. I would sit there and hope that they would get past that. I liked to imagine that we were coming into some of these small towns like Goldsboro, NC (where the band was asked to not use "curse words" at their show)  and passing along this nugget of queerness into a deeply religious military town. Like, maybe they listened to the words and discovered some new shit about themselves and didn't feel so alone. Maybe they started their own queer pop band and helped marines come out to each other while realizing that it's not really a bad thing to be gay around a bunch of really fit men. Maybe it helped them realize that they needed to get the fuck out of that town and never look back. Or maybe they just filed it away in a pile and never listened to it again.
   I like these songs a lot. I'm pretty sure it's the only time anyone has sang anything about the band NEW BAD THINGS.

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YOUR HEART BREAKS is still a very active band and only gets better. 

Clyde made an amazing movie called Torrey Pines and he'll be touring the US with it this fall and winter. 

IT GETS WEIRDER - Tape - Compilation - 2015

   Olympia, Washington. Love it or hate it. For whatever reason, it's a small town that brings up a lot of different emotions for people, but I've rarely met anyone who feels indifferent about the place. I myself have been on both sides of the wall at different points in my life. Once, I went there for a week just to lay on a couch while it rained.
    It's gotten a lot of attention in the past because of K Records or BIKINI KILL or whatever-the-fuck and now they're maybe getting a lot of attention because of G.L.O.S.S. or K Records or whatever the fuck. I've come around to liking the place again (and I have for years now) but I'm not about to pack my bags and move on up. I think it gets a bad rap, but imagine fighting to live your life in new and interesting ways while being somewhere small enough to see real, actual results. I'm not saying it's easy by any stretch of the imagination. I'm mostly telling you this convoluted shit to bring light to the fact of all of the hard work that my friend Meg and a lot of other hard workers do in Olympia. They helped to open the Interfaith Works Overnight Emergency Shelter, which is a shelter for people living on the streets of Olympia. I can't get into the details of the whole thing because I don't really know them. What I can tell you is that I went to a party at the shelter while a hardcore fest was happening 2 blocks away and all of the interactions I had there were so genuine, real and positive that I had to walk around the corner at least 5 times and just fucking cry. I know it's not like that all the time and I know it's a lot of hard work and I just wanted to point that out. Going back over to the fest felt like a step down, even though I would literally kill someone to relive that CCTV/BIG ZIT/VEXX show again.
   Also, I like eating tater tots at the Reef...a diner downtown that has burned down like 2 or 3 times.

   Oh yeah, there's music here. This tape was compiled by Sadie (G.L.O.S.S./DYKE DRAMA) and Joey (a true genius/madman who is responsible for most of the sick recordings you like from Oly) to showcase the myriad of punk shit coming out of the basements and dives of this small town. I love that this tape is truly all over the map of punk...it's not just hardcore or pop-punk, but those things are there too. I think my favorite discovery from this tape is DEFACEMAN, who I'd never heard before...just true fucked, chaotic, messy, brilliant beauty. I want to hear everything by them now. Other heavy hitters featured here are VEXX, GAG, G.L.O.S.S., BROKEN WATER, CC DUST and NASTI. The entire tape is worth your time though and provides a perfect glimpse at all the new shit going on there...or at least what was happening in 2015. Some of these bands have broken up already. Get into it.

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I don't think this tape is available anymore. 

I took a long break from the blog for many reasons and one of them was archiving makes me feel weird now. That's all I'm gonna say about it, but I'll keep doing it for the time being.
If anyone in the Bay Area wants to give or sell me a functional cassette console, please get in touch. I had 4 break in one week.
Thanks to Alex Turner for digitizing this one. 

YOUR HEART BREAKS / STEBMO / KARL BLAU / TEAM GINA / LAKE - "Sensual Seduction / The Right Stuff" - Cassingle - 2008

 To start off this entry, I would like to point out that this is the 420th post on the blog and that ties into the reasoning for posting this today. I don't care about weed, but a lot of people do, so this is for them...I guess. Are potheads into this kind of shit? I don't give a fuck.
  What we have here is a two song cassingle of some totally ridiculous shit, which is the perfect kind of music to put on such a format. In what could possibly be one of the more bizarre DIY collaborations in recent years, members of YOUR HEART BREAKS, TEAM GINA, SUNN O))), EARTH, LAKE and KARL BLAU team up to bring you their own special versions of SNOOP DOGG's "Sensual Seduction" and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK's "The Right Stuff".  I mean, what more can I tell you? Happy 420th post!

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What's possibly even more ridiculous is that this tape was pressed onto a 7" record with spray painted (??) covers. I have one. If you want your own, click over to Off Tempo to order one.

AYE NAKO - Demo - Tape - 2010

   When I put this tape in the stereo for the first time, I didn't know that I was dooming myself to having these songs hopelessly stuck in my head for the next year. I've known Mars (guitar/vox) and Joe (bass) for a long time now. I was (and still am) a big fan of their old band, FLEABAG back when they lived in the Bay Area, but this band is a step above, somehow. All the rough edges of FLEABAG are honed and sharpened. The guitars are thicker and more frenetic. It has the triumphant feel of being comfortable and confident with the music that you're creating.

AYE NAKO in Worcester, MA. Photo by Chris Clavin.

  AYE NAKO started in Bloomington, IN back in 2008 and broke up when Mars and Joe moved to the Bay Area. A couple of years later, the two of them ended up in Brooklyn and started playing with Angie on drums, once again as AYE NAKO with all new songs and a bigger sound. Mars sent me a early version of "Molasses" before the tape came out and I must have listened to it 5 times in a row as soon as I got it. I wanted more. I still want more. "Good Grief"'s screamy hardcore approach sounded out of place when I first heard it (also, kind of alarming after meeting Mars as a meek, almost mute acoustic performer 5 years ago), but now it fits in, in a weird way  The cacophonous guitar outro on "Slump" brings a mile-wide smile to my face. This is definitely one of my favorite tapes of the past year and as I said before, I still want more.

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In Richmond, VA. Photo by ???
p.s. one of the best tape covers ever, in my opinion.

QUADRILLION BABES - "Breast Friends" - Tape - 2008

   I was living in Bloomington, IN for a few years and found myself in a bit of a depression, not knowing what to do with myself in the last year before I finally moved away. I kept seeing this teenage girl at parties who wore her hair in two braids that went past her waist. She was always standing in the corner, looking eager to join in at dance parties, but seeming too shy to do so. I started talking to her whenever I saw her (I was usually drunk), whether or not she talked back to me. Our conversations were brief and noncommittal. Like, once I found out her name was Marilyn. I know it sounds creepy, but I honestly just wanted to be her friend. She was painfully shy and I was horrendously overbearing, but we slowly became something more than acquaintances, but not quite friends yet.
   There was a "Band in a Hat" drawing (where people put their names in a hat and someone draws out names in groups of four and...voila, you have a band) and fate put Marilyn and I in a band together with a friend named "Myke with a Y" (our 4th guy showed up once with no equipment, watched us silently and left....we never heard from him again). Marilyn had only played solo before and this was her first band. She brought a few songs to practice that were simple and catchy. Myke wanted to play the state anthem of Indiana for some reason. I came up with a hundred or so band names by thumbing through the dictionary and grouping two random words together without looking at them first...like "Stopped Venue", "Burning Month" or "Nothing Clubs". I read the list aloud to Marilyn and "Quadrillion Babes" made her laugh the hardest, so we agreed that it should be the name of the band. After the Band in a Hat show, Myke left the country, my friendship with Marilyn solidified and we decided to keep playing music together.

QUADRILLION BABES at Guilty Pleasures "Band in a Hat" show. Photo by Ginger Alford.

   Our friend, Leah played bass with us for the equivalent of about 5 and a half minutes. We decided to ask our friend, Chiara to play bass, even though she had two children, school and artistic commitments. She was stoked to do it and we continued on until I moved away to San Francisco.

      JRD recorded this tape in his basement on a four-track and I feel like we did the whole thing in 2-3 hours...maybe less. Chiara and I kept foolishly convincing Marilyn to leave in any screw-ups because it would make it more interesting. JRD laughed at us..or with us....take your pick. (by the way, you can also record with him in Bloomington at Vegas Hotel.). It sounds a little rushed and flubbed, but that's our fault. We were having a lot of fun and that's the important part.

QUADRILLION BABES at Sweet Hickory in Bloomington. Photo by Joe McCann

   Like I said, I moved away to SF and I'm still there. I do this writing and I play in NEON PISS. I'm also a social worker, but this is about music, I think. Chiara ended up in Chicago, working on her art and great writing about disabilities, sickness and life.. She also wants to play music, so if you're looking to start an awesome band in Chicago and you need a bass player, get in touch with her. She's a lot of fun to play music with.  Marilyn started a band called AYE NAKO while she was still in Bloomington and they were much better than QUADRILLION BABES. Then, she moved out to Oakland and played in FLEABAG (with Joe from AYE NAKO) and DIRTY MARQUEE (with me, again). Not content to stay in one place, she moved again to Brooklyn (and now goes by Mars) and started a new version of AYE NAKO (with Joe again!) that rules harder than everything she's done musically thus far. I'm proud and honored to have played in this short-lived band with these two great people. 

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More live photos by Joe. Thanks!

Chiara with a very large cat. Bad kitty.

YOUR HEART BREAKS - Live in Bloomington - 2/26/08

Photo taken by me at the show, behind the drumset.

   I've already told you about YOUR HEART BREAKS before and how their sweet pop jams have provided the backdrop for many lonely nights walking down the tracks in the freezing cold. Now, I will tell you about the time, Clyde, the principal songwriter came to visit me in Bloomington for a few days after he went on a European tour and we formed a rock band to play his songs. Well, that's pretty much the whole story. I played drums (and a typewriter, air horn, tiny electronic drums and sound effects) and requested some songs. We taught Marilyn the songs on bass and she also did some back-up vocals. Matt Tobey is a busy guy and could barely make it to our 2 practices, so we just gave him free reign to sweetly solo over every song (and sometimes play a slide whistle), since he is an enlightened guitar wizard. We were able to set up a last minute show at Sweet Hickory (record store and art gallery) in a tiny little room where I also happened to have an art show up at the time. Anyway, we played. Most of it worked after practicing for only 3 or 4 hours total, some of it didn't. I like how it came out. Maybe you will too.

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It was discovered that this download didn't have the first song on it, due to some weird error somewhere. Sorry about that.
Here is the first song of that show.

HARK HOW THE BELLS - CDR - 2011

   There's barely any information with this release. No song titles. No lyric sheet. No fanfare. Just a quick 4 song demo from a hastily assembled band that may or may not still exist. I'm not even sure if they've played a show. The four songs are solid and exhibit a confidence that comes from playing in accomplished bands for years. That's all. Just listen to it. It's great.
                         HARK HOW THE BELLS
  Features members of RVIVR and SONGS FOR MOMS.

YOUR HEART BREAKS - "Tales From the Gimli Hospital" - Tape - 2003?

   Clyde Peterson is the principal songwriter behind the moniker of YOUR HEART BREAKS and he has been consistently writing solid broken hearted pop songs for the better part of 10 years (maybe more). He has roped various people into his fold over the years to provide the backing music to his songs, including Kimya Dawson, Karl Blau, members of EARTH, Mirah and even yours truly. On this early tape, Clyde plays multiple stringed instruments, mostly unaccompanied by nothing more than his voice. It's one of my favorite recordings he has put out, even though it is hard to pick a favorite. All of his music is great.
  Even though San Francisco (where I live) doesn't really have the season of Fall, this still feels like the perfect time to be listening to this. Picture this scenario, if you will: You've just been dumped. After getting wasted, blasting all the hardcore records you have, breaking some bottles against walls, feeling like a waste of flesh and losing every last bit of faith in humanity, put this tape on your headphones, put on a big coat and walk down some railroad tracks in the freshly fallen snow. If you don't have railroad tracks in your town, just walk down every alley. If you don't have either of those things, move to a new town and listen to this tape when you get there.
  You can also picture this scenario: It's the day after Halloween and you just partied all night and played in a cover band. Then, you have to wake up at 7:30 am and go to work, still drunk, for 8 hours. When you get home, this is the only thing you want to listen to.
  Another scenario is that you just like pop music made by queer people. Simple.

        Clyde and his doom cloak on the Puget Sound.

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