M/D - "Accordion / Static / Lost / Space Jam" - Tape - 2000

   I don't really know the story behind this tape, but I have some strong assumptions about who is involved in playing the instruments. I'll keep those thoughts to myself. Basically, this is just a long improv jam session recorded on a tape player without too much thought put into it. It seems like maybe the players decided to throw this tape away, but put it in their free box instead.
   Long story short: If you ever want to get rid of a tape for good, cut the tape up into shreds. Don't put it in the free box at your collective warehouse on a dead end street in New Orleans. That crusty traveling kid who just hopped a train into town and is now sleeping on your floor might just pull it out of the box and decide to share it on a music blog 14 years later.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - "Field Recordings From The Edge Of Existence. Vol 2" - Tape - 2013

   When I'm at my job, I rarely let down my guard to reveal details of my personal life to my co-workers because I feel like there's too many facets of it that are confusing or difficult to explain (I want to say that I also work with a lot of wonderful people who "get" me 100%. I have a lot of co-workers). For example, a nurse told me that she routinely spots me all over the city, riding my bike at all hours of the day. She explained, "I feel like I've seen you over 50 times in every corner of San Francisco, but you've never noticed that I'm in the vicinity." As I was coming to the end of a 12 hour overnight shift, I barely looked up from my paperwork and casually said, "I have to put on psychic blinders in this world to block out the constant barrage of bullshit so that I can continue to fool myself into believing that this city can be a beautiful and magical place." As those last words fell from my lips, I started to catch myself and glanced up to see the nurse looking both horrified and confused. I stammered "I'm...I'm sorry I didn't see you. Sometimes my best friends have to grab me to get my attention as I pass them on the sidewalk." It was too late. I revealed a little too much and that nurse gave me a look that simply said "Let's just not talk while I'm here, okay?"
   Sometimes, the blinders are on too much and I even miss the things that I should be looking out for. My friend Vanessa gave me a copy of her zine Asswipe (issue 5), which consisted mostly of interviews with Oakland bands that I had never heard of, even though I go to punk shows in Oakland regularly. I read through the interviews and felt all kinds of emotions. I was intrigued, annoyed, confused, enthralled and enlightened. Never bored. For the first time since living in the Bay Area, I felt completely and utterly out of touch with what was going on in a facet of the Bay Area punk scene. It was awesome. I think some people would take that as a sign to drop out or move on, but I found it to be exciting...like, there's still interesting and productive scenes thriving on the fringes. When I feel like I should take the blinders off, I think that maybe I should keep them on and venture further underground.
   I was handed this tape by Yacob in the backyard of an Oakland punk house and it showcases some of the bands talked about in Asswipe (p.s., one of the better Bay Area zines), as well as some non-local heavy-hitters. Almost everything on the tape was recorded live on a handheld tape recorder by Yacob in the Bay Area, so the sound quality is lo-fi (as hell) but still engaging in a totally fucked way. PATH OF RUIN start off the tape with a wild, noisy, violent stab of no wave and their recording trainwrecks into a live set by the BILL ORCUTT and JACOB HEALE DUO. Orcutt should be no stranger to any fan of noise and outsider sounds. The tape continues on with more harsh, (possibly) challenging recordings by KAREN, EXIT BAG, ETTRICK and more.
   Side 2 begins with a live recording of last year's phenomenal SF performance of SUN RA'S ARKESTRA led by Marshall Allen (I feel embarrassed now that I didn't include this on my year end top ten because it was one of the best, most transcendent musical performances I saw last year, by far) at the Victoria Theater in the Mission District. It's followed up by a free jazz performance by SF SOUND GROUP, who also played the ARKESTRA show. I liked the recording of them on this tape, but, honestly, I was unimpressed by their live presentation and spent their set drinking cheap beer on the corner of 16th and Mission while people-watching. I wish that this tape included the opening performance by HANS GRUSEL'S KRANKENKABINET, but this world is not perfect. The tape closes with the no-wavey improv (?) blanket of BAT MAGICK. Overall, this tape is challenging, interesting and does a phenomenal job of documenting the underside of the Bay Area's noise scene. Blinders on. Head down.

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Tape is not split into tracks...just side A and B, since everything runs together.

File is large. 203 mb.

I think this tape was released in an edition of 25, so it's probably gone. 

If you want to hear more from people involved in these projects, check out Albacore Records

BLOODWALL - "Guitar Tape" - 2011

   I had a pretty light-hearted, fun tape lined up for today, but then I thought "fuck it". Fuck your stupid holiday. You see, I haven't celebrated this weird holiday in earnest since I was a teenager and even then I was only in it purely for the gifts. I mean, I just don't understand it. I don't believe in God (or Satan even). Santa is a really weird person that was made up so that you can learn to lose faith in your parents and believe that they're just gonna lie to you about everything for the rest of your life. And how many people got trampled in a Wal-Mart this season? Whatever. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because this time of year always puts me in a bad mood and my dad is 3000 miles away and currently hooked up to a ventilator as he slowly fades away from this mortal coil. So, I'm gonna be spending the holiday drinking iced coffee (because I live in a godless city that doesn't completely shut down) and hanging out with incredibly depressed senior citizens,because that's what I get paid to do. Hooray.
   I will also be listening to BLOODWALL, which is just my friend Graham playing layers of guitar on this hour long tape. The first side is all acoustic and reminds me a little bit of John Fahey at times if he lived in a cold house in south Minneapolis with a dirt yard. The second side is electric and is both plaintive and meditative. You'll like it or you won't. I truly don't care if you do, but I love it. Live, BLOODWALL sometimes plays behind a wall of amps to the accompaniment of noise, radios tuned between stations and other odds and ends. The results can be truly hypnotic.

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Graham also plays in VISITOR and can put any noise you want on a mono lathe-cut record over at 2208 Records.

If you truly enjoy the holidays or think that making your kid believe in Santa is worthwhile, don't let me ruin your parade. It takes all kinds to make this world interesting.

YOGURT - Collected Songs - Tape - 1993 - 2002?

  I want to start this off by saying that I'm not sure if I can tell you much more about YOGURT that hasn't already been said more eloquently here or here.
   For the uninitiated, YOGURT is the home recorded output and brainchild of HICKEY guitarist/vocalist, Matty Luv. Also thrown into the mix was his longtime collaborator/best friend Aesop Dekker, various housemates, random bandmates, answering machines, found tapes and whoever happened to walk by when he was recording. YOGURT was often unfairly held up to the same standards of HICKEY, who's recorded output was completely unfuckwithable, but YOGURT was a different beast altogether. It's fairly standard practice for the general public to hold an artist up to their past accomplishments and scrutinize their current projects in this fashion. I was told by a few different people that YOGURT was "kind of like HICKEY without teeth", but I think this is wrong. YOGURT, while made by the same people, was experimenting into different realms and allowing themselves to be silly when they felt like it. As awesome as HICKEY was, it seemed like the band became a job to those involved where they had to take on a role as some sort of gutter-punk superhero at all times. I imagine that it must have been free-ing to let their guard down and branch out with a lot of this home recorded material. I dubbed a bunch of these songs off of my friend Sarah T when I stayed in her room in Georgia for a week. Over the years, many of these songs have become indispensable to me. From the noisy, sample laden experimentation to the beautiful guitar layered instrumentals to the short pop songs
  For a short time, YOGURT was a live band, featuring the original HICKEY lineup of Matty, Aesop and Chubby. I was visiting San Francisco in the late 90's and I found out that they were playing a bike messenger bar in the SOMA neighborhood. No less than three people tried to talk me out of going, explaining that YOGURT was boring and nothing like their former glory. I didn't care. I was some young southern punk visiting from Alabama and I wanted to see these guys that I looked up to. After dodging a fist fight in the alley, I made my way inside and, no, they were nothing like HICKEY because they weren't trying to be like that. It was still rad and I'm glad I didn't follow the advice of any of my friends. I feel lucky that I got to see them at all.
    This download is taken from the (now dead) link from the Cosmic Hearse blog and contains a ton of songs from different tapes. There's even more YOGURT songs out there. I once sifted through a small cardboard box full of random tapes from Matty's room, all of them teeming with home recorded songs and hazy band practices. The sheer amount of music that he recorded is dizzying to think about. Please enjoy this small bit of some of the best stuff he put out there.

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TACHYCARDIA - CD - 2004

(I just want to start by saying this band is not from Alabama. Just bear with me)

   Often, when I tell people (who live outside of the south) that I grew up in Alabama, there are a few different reactions that folks like to cycle through. One reaction is embarrassing (for them not me): people seem to like to repeat the state name back to me in a faux southern accent as if to accentuate the fact that I come from a backwards, fucked up place and a southern accent can represent absolutely nothing besides ignorance and stupidity. Another reaction is a sense of shock followed by the usual reply of "That must have been weird." Yeah, of course it's weird, because all of youth is weird because you don't yet know what the fuck you're doing in life and you bumble around in an awkward haze. Plus, is it any less weird to grow up in a flat in Brooklyn, a bus in Bolinas or a tiny house in eastern Iceland? Still another reaction is a story of the one time that person drove through Alabama, got out at a gas station and heard someone say something fucked up. I'm not gonna deny that Alabama has some really fucked up, racist qualities, but so does Portland, NYC, the central valley of California and pretty much everywhere else in the entire world.
   A lesser-known quality about the state is that it has a long history of avant artists and musicians...many are well known and others fly far under the radar. When i was really young, I knew there had to be something out there besides top 40 radio and bad sitcoms on TV. I didn't know how to find it. I didn't know where to look, but I knew it was out there somewhere. I could feel it lurking in the shadows just out of sight. By the time I was in 4th grade, I had found THE CURE and VIOLENT FEMMES (thanks to a sister who knew what was up) but even that seemed distant...like I didn't know those people. It was cool to listen to their tapes, but I needed something to pull me into a different world altogether. When I was 11 or 12, I found myself in a dusty, wooden storefront in Montevallo with my sister at a performance art....thing.... Some people read bad poetry and others just kind of yelled at us. Then, LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams sat in front of the room and blew my little pre-teen mind, playing trombones and guitars like I had never seen before. That was it. I was fucked. It was over. I started finding more stuff (I still am). I discovered SUN RA, who many people believe is from Saturn but is actually from Birmingham, AL. Listening to his music helped me to open my mind up to all the possibilities of what's out there in the world and the rest of space. These people left deep, lasting impressions on me that have influenced my outlook on music ever since.
   That's why it was important for me to see SUN RA'S ARKESTRA a couple of weeks ago when they played in SF. Led by the 89 (!!) year old Marshall Allen, the Arkestra was transcendent and amazing. When they hit their first note, I felt at home. To see a band that was that trained and professional, but still able to improvise and go out on a limb was just a beautiful experience. (I'm getting to the point here in a second). I started thinking about the ways that they influenced my thoughts on free jazz and improv throughout the years.....the ways that I'm quick to dismiss whole swaths of the genre, even though the world of improv is so vast. To me, there's a huge difference between improv and "just kinda dicking around", but I know that not everyone thinks that way. I love the way that each performer can swirl around in their own world for a while but has an idea of when to join the others and work together.
   At some point during that performance, I started thinking of TACHYCARDIA, who I hadn't thought of in years. I got home and dug out this CD, which is just one 54 minute improv track of three accomplished artists in a studio in Austin. There's no riff or loop that they ever come back to but I think this recording has it's own character, personality and drive for the entirety of the recording. I can't really be the one to tell you how you should feel about this because I think everyone has their own approach to improv. For some that approach could be a full sprint in the opposite direction, but because of the weirdos I encountered during my early days in Alabama, I welcome this stuff with wide open arms.
  On this recording, TACHYCARDIA is Carl Smith on tenor sax, Walter Daniels on harmonica, clarinet, piper's chanter, nose flute and Wade Driver (from 50 MILLION, APOGEE SOUND CLUB and LIBERTAS) on drums, bugle and whistle. The amazing art (included in download) is done by Marcel Herms from Holland.

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Thanks to Wade Driver for allowing this online.

HUMAN HAIR HAT - "3H Fair Dairy Champion" - Tape - 2002

   Sometimes, thinking about the amount of weird shit that Trd Wrd Records has put out is just mind-boggling. When I was traveling to (or living in) New Orleans in the early 00's, it seemed like they had a new tape, record or project appearing every month. Many of their early releases appeared in very limited numbers, with analog equipment and super-DIY layouts being the norm (once I discovered the members of IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT screen-printing their record covers with some house paint that was sitting around because they couldn't find a place to buy the proper ink). Some releases were almost unlistenable to my ears, but I always seemed to "get it" about a year later. No matter what I thought of it, their releases were (still are) always interesting and helped me to open my mind up to the more experimental and noise-minded side of independent music.
    HUMAN HAIR HAT really went "out there." Members of IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT, GROUP B, HARRY FROM HAWAII and (maybe) COUNTY Z all got together and put out this noisy brain-fuck of analog knob turning and fucked up beats. Every song on here is called "Weed Milk" and I'm sure there's a good reason for that. If you don't know what weed milk is, I salute you and hope that you'll keep on that path in life. If you're familiar with weed milk, download this tape and meet your new best friends.

DOWNLOAD SOME WEED MILK

IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT - "Thanks" - Tape - 2006

   As I'm sure I've said before, IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT is one of my favorite bands. Years back, they were getting ready to go on a tour and their drummer, Don broke his leg. Rather than call the whole thing off, Don learned how to use a combination of percussion and electronics, which ultimately sent the band to a new plateau of weirdness. That trajectory took them into a later tour where they would play sprawling hour long sets, employing the use of hand made horns, staticky radios, tape loops, half-broken amps and miscellaneous debris. The results could be hypnotic, challenging, abrasive and cleansing.
   I got a ride down to a show of theirs in Kentucky during this time and was dropped off at the bar hours before they even arrived. At the time of the show (8 hours later), they were the only musical act scheduled to play. They took their time setting up and the clientele of the bar eyed them warily. As they hit their first notes of the night, a huge Midwestern storm started brewing in the neighborhood. The doors to the bar were wide open and sheets of rain started pouring in. I looked at the middle-aged, burly, biker-style bartenders standing there...arms crossed, not batting an eye or making a move to close the doors. About five minutes into IPCP's set, every paying customer in the bar got up and left, deciding to brave the potentially tornado-inducing storm rather than listen to this band. I looked around. I was left alone with the band, the guy who set up the show, my friend Christina (who lived there and actually came to see the band), Stella (IPCP's roadie, who was laughing at the predicament) and the still-stoic and immobile bartenders. The band did not bat an eye and played their full set. It was great and the insane storm added an extra element of dreaminess to the whole thing.
   At the conclusion of their set, there was an awkward silence after our smattering of applause died down. We were then left with these burly dudes at the bar after driving out their entire clientele. I looked over after a heavy silence and one of 'em said "So, do ya'll like SUN RA and BEEFHEART or something?" Tension broken. The guys loved it and were happy to talk to some other weirdos. Drinks were on the house. The other act was the promoter, Kris, doing a "DJ set", which meant that he would put a record on and let the entire thing play. Then, he would flip it and listen to the other side. (I just now realized that I have told this entire story before in an earlier post. Oops. I am now senile).
   On that tour, IPCP had a mailing list and they said that if you signed it, they would send you free stuff. A lot of bands used to say that, but I never got any free stuff from them. At the conclusion of their tour, the band actually did send this tape out to people who signed the list or set up shows for them. It's called "Thanks" and it compiles live sets, field recordings, jams, talks about botox and random sounds. Listening to this reminds of that night and makes me miss their challenging sounds. I think the thing I love most about the band is that they were somehow always a year ahead of me. What that means is that every time a new LP came out (and they have a lot), I would listen to it and think it was pretty good. I wouldn't quite get it and it wouldn't really hit me, but something let me know that I had to hang onto it. Within a year, that record would become indispensable to me. The same thing happened with this tape. It's pretty out there and it's also really, really good.

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There's also a 12" out there called "Thanks II" that is more stuff like this, more field recordings and  moreeeeee weeeirdddddd. 

OLNEYVILLE KARAOKE VOL 2 - CD-R - 2005

   In 2006, I found myself in a junk shop called Happy Birthday Mike Leslie in Worcester, MA, which was run by my friend, Jacob. As I perused the racks of army men, bad cassettes, broken stuff, homemade stuffed animals, Chuck Norris comics and re-purposed M.U.S.C.L.E. men, I came across this CD. Upon seeing me looking at this, Jacob yelled "Oh, you have to buy that!! It will change your life!" and then I think he gave it to me. Did it change my life? Well, yes, but just about everything in the world changes your life in little ways.

  From the description inside the CD, this is....well, just read below. I don't think I can explain it any better than Mike Taylor did here:

   After I left the junk shop, I was thrust back into the reality of the total summer bummer, 3 month  punk tour that I was on. We were headed to play a lackluster, last minute show at a VFW hall in Hartford, CT while all of my Worcester friends were driving an hour south to go see LIMP WRIST. I put on this CD as soon as I got in the van and it lasted three whole songs before my band mate ejected it, dismissing it as some "weird Providence crap that feels like a joke at my expense." This is weird as fuck and maybe not meant to be listened to all in one sitting, but here it is....

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   Features members of THE TERRIBLES, COUGHS, TEENAGE WAISTBAND, YONI GORDON AND THE GOODS, PASSIVE AGGRESSOR, REACTIONARY 3 and more.

 I thought things were getting a little normal around here, so here ya go. My favorite song topics are "My Favorite Colonel", "????", "Things I Do Not Like To Eat" and "The Next Level"

Oh yeah, there's no real track listing because as the insert states "Just relax and don't get hung up on following it, okay?"

HICKEY - "The Ultra Heliocentric Underworld Of The Most Evil Terrifying and Naked Cult Of Hickey. Rare and Unreleased, Unstoppable Rock!!" - 1998 - Tape

   If you're at all familiar with this blog and many of the artists that I've shared on it, I don't need to tell you why HICKEY is important. I discovered punk through THE MINUTEMEN and THE RAMONES. It was because of HICKEY (along with BLACK FORK, BIKINI KILL and 50 MILLION) that I became fiercely attracted to the DIY aspect of punk that keeps me going today and their influence still informs just about every musical decision I make. It's kinda ridiculous.
   I copied this tape off of my friend Ivy way back in the late 90's. Initially, I was not that into it and preferred the band's piles of 7" EP's and their unfuckwithable LP. As time marched on, the songs on here kept creeping into my life and many of them became some of my favorites by the band. HICKEY was known for having a remarkable live show. Sometimes, they played all of the "hits" back to back. One time, I saw them and they just kinda jammed for a long time. It wasn't bad. The 3 members became an intuitive, unstoppable unit that was not afraid of experimentation and going out on a limb...even when it failed. I think some of that comes across on this tape.

  The tape starts off with a couple of unreleased (?) songs and then delves into the band's epic cover of MANOWAR's "Kingdom Come". That song originally appeared on the Probe Records compilation "Death To False Metal", but this is the original six-and-a-half minute version with an extended jam (p.s. it rules). Next up is a weird version of "Last Nite on the Planet" with Shell (I think..it sounds like him. Edit: It's Aesop) making pro-wrestler comments throughout. The next few songs are by HICKEY MILLION, who you can read about if you follow that link (and yes, you can download the file on that page when you get to it). The rest of the side is filled with jams, cover songs (SQUEEZE, DAVID BOWIE, GUNS N ROSES, STOOGES), alternate takes and interviews with teenagers at a live HICKEY show. Side 2 (or for you, song #21) kicks off with a radio promo and goes straight into a live set on KDVS in Davis, CA. There's more jams, a really cool duet with Matty and Allison Wonderslam, more cover songs (AVENGERS and SABBATH) and that damned trumpet they stole from VOODOO GLOW SKULLS all those years ago.
  I'm still constantly impressed by the amount of stuff that this little band recorded in their brief lifetime...and how much of it is really great! I mean, there's still more, although the further you dig, the sadder it gets. Drug addiction is not pretty, folks, so let's just stop here and enjoy this great band and all the years of inspiration they have injected into our lives.

Download HICKEY Oddities

(Just to warn you, this is a large file. 230mb)

Thanks to Ivy Jeanne for the source tape (mine is thrashed).

Thanks to Aesop for giving the green light and drumming on these recordings.
Thanks to MRR for digitization help.

Thanks to Chubby, Rizzler, Wade and Shell for making it out alive.

Thanks to Matty Luv for everything. R.I.P.

...and since Valentine's Day is right around the corner, why not check out this live HICKEY set from V-Day 1997?

CASSINGLE AND LOVIN' IT - Compilation - CD-R - Mid-to-late-90's and beyond

   Before we get into the music part, I just wanted to update you all on the Mediafire business (see here for reference). The account is still locked and my emails to customer service were fruitless. My final email mirrored the frustration I was feeling from dealing with them and I simply asked "Can you prove that you work for Mediafire? Can you prove that your names are real? Can you prove that the Earth is indeed round?" Whatever. Oddly, they never wrote back. While it is a bummer that a majority of the links on this site are dead, I am moving forward because That Is What I Do. I am re-upping some old ones and will continue to do so from time to time. Feel free to tell me what you want re-uploaded. For now, feel free to continue downloading CLEANSING WAVE, RYMODEE, HICKEY, FLEABAG, This Alabama punk comp, REMAIN INDOORS, FROZEN TEENS, TOMMY LASORDA and RICE HARVESTER. As I stated way back in the beginning, none of this stuff is copyrighted and if you don't feel comfortable having your music shared on this site, just let me know and I will take it down, no questions asked. There is no need to involve outside sources. We can exist without the Man. Onto the music....

   You may know Scott from his manic drumming in THE BANANAS or, more recently, his smooth guitar stylings in THE BRIGHT IDEAS. During the 90's, he ran a great record label called Secret Center, who put out the first BANANAS singles as well as all manner of nerdy, under-appreciated jangly punk bands from the Sacramento area. In the 90's and early 00's, he did an offshoot of the label that specifically specialized in one-off cassingles (for those of you who did not grow up in the 90's, that's a really short cassette with only 2 songs on it) comprised of bands that were usually around long enough to record their 2 songs. The cassettes could be bought through the mail for a buck or two. This download is a collection of all the songs as well as a few unreleased "gems". All bands are from Sacramento except for (US SOUTHERNERS TAKE NOTE) "Gary League". Gary is actually none other than Peter Stubb, the North Georgia wildman who has been self-releasing his own tapes consistently since the late 80's (I think the League recordings remain unreleased by this Sac label, but remained close to their hearts). Here is Scott to tell you everything you never wanted to know about this label and these bands....

   I generally consider the cassingle label to be the best idea I've ever had. The inspiration hit me some time in 1996 a few days before the BANANAS headed to Cupertino to play a show. After the show, I mentioned it to Gavin and Hutch - two Cupertino guys I'd become friends with through playing shows and doing Secret Center Records. Hutch was in a rad band called BUNCHA LOSERS, whose tape I distro-ed (now he's in THE THERMALS) and Gavin was in THE NARDS, who were one of my favorite bands to play with. He was also just one of the nicest guys ever. He played in a great band called THE FEVERS later on and is currently in an AWESOME band called THE RANTOULS, who play way too infrequently. Anyway, I told them about the label idea  at the show and they were like "we like have the perfect thing for you!", which ended up being THE CARNIES cassingle (which sadly other than one song, is lost at the moment.) A few days later, THE CARNIES master tape and artwork showed up in my mailbox, so I figured "Cassingle and Lovin' It!" had been officially born. I couldn't even believe how perfect THE CARNIES stuff was - they had just done it one bored weekend but it was the ideal cassingle music. To me, it seemed like a sign that I had to do the label. 

    The first one we did was at U Street (aka The Gentlemen's Club and basically cassingle headquarters) was THE ICE BUCKET HEADS, which is me, Tristan, Davey and Jay. We all lived there and were sitting around talking about doing a cassingle & there was this styrofoam ice bucket that had been lying around in the front room & we were sort of discussing how rad it was that a cassingle could just be any stupid idea that you could possibly think of. I think originally we were going to make a band called THE QUESADILLA MAKERS (I believe Jay was making a quesadilla at the time) & then somebody put the ice bucket on their head, so we did that instead. It's amazing how freeing it is to write songs for a fake band. I sat down and wrote "Everybody Loves The IBH" the next morning in like 10 minutes and Davey wrote "Stay Cool" which came out pretty bad because he's the worst at articulating how he thinks something should sound. But it was a great start.

   "Dude With The Shirt With The Dude On It"  was an inside joke from BANANAS / FOUR EYES  tour where some guy walked in to the house we were staying at in Chattanooga at like 3am looking for someone (the guy was wasted) and he just kept saying "I'm...looking for the dude...with the shirt....with the dude on it!!" So, we sort of wrote that one in the van & recorded it when we got back home. (Ed. note: this song blows my mind)  That was the funnest one because we had a party to provide the backing vocals & party sounds. This one is Jay, Joel, Mike and me. 

    SACTO APES is these two Japanese kids  - Kei and Naomi - that were visiting California. They had mail-ordered stuff from me a few times. My friend, Dave Smith, who lived in San Francisco, met them. When he was visiting Sac that weekend, he said "I met these two Japanese kids who knew what Secret Center was. They seemed bored in SF." So, we decided to go kidnap them and bring them to Sac. Banana Mike was moving out of his house that day so he had an empty house that we could throw a show in for those kids. LIL BUNNIES, BANANAS and ICE BUCKET HEADS played (the only cassingle band to play a show. We did the cassingle and a cover of "Never Understand") & these kids were completely sold on Sac. They stayed for a few days at U Street. One day, I came home and they had written a cassingle about liking Sacramento. Their lyrics are the sweetest. They're printed on the cassingle cover (Ed. note: included in download). Tristan plays drums and several drunk people provide the chorus singing. 

   THE ROMS was the most grueling tape ever. After it was done, I realized that it took 18 hours to finish. We found a drum machine that my friend, Jason had left over at U Street. It had a bunch of dancehall beats on it. He had gotten super into Dancehall a few years earlier (he actually started a dancehall label called "Ruff Chicken" that put out dancehall LP's and tapes). So, he had all these beats he'd programmed into it and we built the cassingle around those. There was a Rom comic lying around that provided the inspiration. We had a Moog that only worked some of the time and it kind of broke in the middle of recording. Somehow, we salvaged it. Everyone was playing something they weren't good at on equipment they were totally unfamiliar with & to this day, I can't believe it sounds as good as it does. It could never be duplicated in a million years! This one is Joel, Jay, Lisa, Davey and me. 
   FANCY LADS was written by Tristan in the middle of our house-wide obsession with the TELEVISION PERSONALITIES. No B-side was ever written, so this one is "unreleased", but it's always been one of my favorites. I rememeber being in my room when he and Jay started working on it and being totally jealous that I wasn't involved. 

   VERUCA SALT FAN CLUB is pretty self-explanatory. Based on my celeb crush on Louise Post.

   "Forever Nursing Brew" is another unreleased one thanks to no B-side. I've always loved this song and it's absurd stance that someone was trying to "stop us from drinking our brew". It's like the "legalize it" of beer! This one always reminds me of Eric Copeland because we used to quote it to each other whenever we were drinking brews on BLACK DICE tour, which was most of the time. 

   SIMILAR GUYS is Gavin and Mike, who do sort of look alike. Gavin was coming to visit and do a cassingle, so Mike wrote "We're Similar Guys" the day before, but we still needed a B-side. (Ed. note: I listened to this song exactly once and it was stuck in my head for a week straight) Before Gavin got to town, I was going to a beer fest down the street and I wrote "We're Similar" in my head on the walk there. I spent the whole fest constantly repeating it over in my head so I wouldn't forget it. That one was super fun. I was proud of the line "We've got a lot in common, just like soup and ramen."

   The HONEY I SHRUNK THE BAND cassingle was the last of the golden era of cassingles and it's one of my favorites for sure. Mike wrote "Hip To Be Small" and we sang it with the 4 track on slow speed so it would sound like munchkins. I wrote the theme song based on that annoying riff, which is something I used to play whenever I picked up a guitar for a while. I was dating the girl who talks on it and she used to live in Berkeley, so we only hung out on weekends. She already didn't like Sac that much but this particular weekend I was in a fit of cassingle fever so I was totally distracted with working on HISTB. She was super annoyed, hanging out in my room, when I was like "hey, will you do this talking part?" She immediately got all psyched and into it - the magic of the cassingle. 

    We started the label back up again for a bit in 2000 or so with the YAWNING MUSHROOM, which was the "psychedelic cassingle". My friend Marie and I were working on BRIGHT IDEAS stuff and she had some mushrooms...so, we took them and decided to write a cassingle instead. One of the weird side effects of the mushrooms was that we couldn't stop yawning, hence the name. She had this little contact mic that she put inside an acoustic and it sounded so incredible high in headphones! I had written those songs a few weeks earlier and they seemed to fit together. 

   JUNIOR QUENCH is one of my best friends, Josh, who lives in NYC. He used to live in Sac and is Sac through and through. So, when Marie called him at his apartment in NYC and said "hey, Dillon and I wrote a reggae jam. Do you want to sing over it?", he, of course, said "yes". He's way into dancehall as well and I guess there's a little-known dancehall DJ called Quench Aid who Josh loves. He was already making these funny tapes of him imitating Quench Aid over instrumental reggae tracks and calling it "JUNIOR QUENCH", so he grabbed some lyrics he had written, went outside his apartment and sang over the phone into the 4 track while they cranked the track so he could hear it. One take! 

   There are a lot more...some that even I've forgotten. Some were recorded on long lost tapes. Some were just REALLY bad. There are some good ones not on here, but these are the ones that have the classic spirit of what was going on for that glorious, heady year or so. 

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P.S. I am still figuring out the kinks of the new file-sharing service. Let me know if you have problems. 

VISITOR - "III" - Tape - 2012

   LOOK, IT'S MUSIC!! I know I have been pummeling you all with top ten lists, but as I stated before, I like lists a lot and there's still a few more to come (if people get them to me in time). For now, let's get back to the music. Longtime readers may remember that I posted an earlier VISITOR tape way back in 2011 that had little-to-no info. Other readers may think "I already knew about that band and didn't need your paltry download, fool." Either way, here is another mysterious tape by this down-tuned Minneapolis doom outfit, which was released by Lighten Up Sounds in late 2012. Two drummers and one guitarist play two 15 minute songs that build up from ambient sounds into massive, swelling riffs. No vocals. Perfect for working on stuff in your room, staring into the abyss from a cliff, getting sucked into a vortex, dying a slow death or, uh, getting stoned, I guess.
   Graham plays the guitar, also plays in BLOODWALL and he will cut a mono lathe of your band (or four LP drone project) over at 2208 Records. Jefferson plays the drums and also does stuff with 3 MOONS and THE SPACECHRISTS. Andie plays the other drums. He also spends time in MOTHER OF FIRE, which is a band that I like a whole lot. I would go so far to say that I am obsessed with them at the moment. Enjoy this one.

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   If you would like to get the actual source recordings rather than my beautiful tape-hissy download, you can head over to Lighten Up's Bandcamp page. The tape quickly went out of print so don't try to order it.

  Also, just to let you know, Mediafire is a slowly sinking ship. I would say that if you ever thought about downloading anything on this site, now is the time to do it before all of the links disappear. I moved over to Zippyshare, which is currently confusing and frustrating. I might change to a different file sharing service again. Or maybe I'll just stop doing this altogether.

"Help Me, I'm Trapped in a Ford Festiva" - Compilation - Tape - 1997

    I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of Alabama and discovered punk when I was in 6th grade through a tape of the MINUTEMEN's "Double Nickels on the Dime." Over the years, I tried to start bands with people who either really didn't want to be in a punk band or just had drastically different ideas of what a punk band was. The day after I graduated high school, I moved 108 miles away to a different small town called Huntsville. I lived in my car for those first couple of months and came to discover a whole new world of punk where people were actually playing the loud, fucked up, vibrant music that I wanted to be playing at that time in my life. It was perfect for me. I met people who put out their own records and set up their own shows in houses, parking lots and thrift stores. It was inspiring, to say the least. Within just a few months, I was playing in my own band and going on tour all over the southeast, making friends that I still have to this day. At the time, I wanted to make a compilation tape to show what was going on in my town (and where it had come from) so that other people would know how awesome it was, but honestly, I don't know if this tape ever reached people outside of Alabama.
   The comp starts off with RICE HARVESTER and THE CACA WOMEN FROM URANUS. I've already written about them, so you can click those links above if you're curious. Next up is THE REFILLS, who were a short lived band from the area that consisted of Neil (from JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS and 565 BURNOUTS), Ben (from RICE HARVESTER, SUCKERPUNCH and now in PINE HILL HAINTS) and Bill Conflict (who did and still plays in RANDOM CONFLICT). They played fucking tough, straight ahead punk that was informed by THE FREEZE and D.O.A. I loved them when they were around and their song "Bleed" on this tape still holds up today.

RICE HARVESTER on the 4th of July, 1998. San Pedro, CA.

   Next on the tape is AOA, which was originally a home recording project by my friends Blair and Ramesh. They would get together and record hours of MEN'S RECOVERY PROJECT (and FAT DAY) inspired noise and weirdness at their houses. After a while, they would come over and kind of force me to play anything in their band, like a drum on a bed or some cans. They had tapes and tapes of this stuff (one of which got stuck in my car stereo for months so that it was the only thing I could ever listen to. When I finally removed it, it destroyed the tape and the stereo...a week or so later, the brakes failed at 3 am and I almost totaled a cop car, but that's a different story altogether.) On this recording, we sorta became a kinda normal punk band for a second. I think I played drums, but I also think I played guitar sometimes. Ramesh played bass and sang. Blair sang and played the keyboard maybe. I think a guy named Pube switched up instruments with me. It was a weird time, but I still like "Black Flag is Boring" and the theme song.

AOA in my room. 1996.

   SHITHEAD JONES is a fukkin punk band and you can read all about their saga here. After that is THE GRUMPIES, who weren't technically an Alabama band, but they played there so often that  one might think that they lived there. All of their songs on here (minus one) were later re-recorded for their LP on Recess Records. These early versions are pretty great and it also includes a ripping cover of "Kiss Me Deadly" by Lita Ford.  You can find their demo and other stuff here.

THE GRUMPIES playing in a storefront in Florence, AL.

  GARY COLEMAN BAND were just Blair and Ramesh from AOA playing really minimal stuff. This song was recorded in a porn shop in N Huntsville and is honestly one of my favorite things ever put on tape. The side ends with THE SMEGMAGICIANS, which is my high school punk band that I restarted just to finish out this side of the tape. It sucks. The first song is an AOA cover. I played guitar and sang while my friend Harry played drums. I wouldn't let him hear the song or practice it before recording. The second song is just me playing guitar and drums...and actually it's not too bad.
  Side 2 kicks off with a live set from SHITBOY FROM OUTERSPACE, a band I have already covered here (it's the same set too). They are followed up by the always great 565 BURNOUTS, who have their own entry right here.

A later incarnation of 565 BURNOUTS playing at American Beat Records in Birmingham, AL.

   JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS are up next, playing three songs that I'm pretty sure never appeared on other recordings. Well, two of the songs were definitely on a record, but not these recordings. The first song was never released on anything and it's not that good (but I'm biased...I was in the band). I have no clue where or why we recorded these songs. It could have been recorded in my bedroom or in a "real" studio. No idea. You can find more by the band here.

JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS playing an 8 year old's birthday party in St Mary's, GA. Note that Neil is smoking.

   Joey and Neil from the TOXIC SHOCKS were also in CHEESE ASS CHRIST. They weren't from Alabama. They were from Georgia. You can find possibly everything you ever wanted to know about them here. 

   One of Alabama's first hardcore bands (possibly the very first) was THE KNOCKABOUTS, who come up next on this tape. Their songs on here come from their demo tape-turned -EP from 1982. (well, the demo is from '82. The EP is from '95). You can find more info about them here. The only thing I want to add is that I talked to Ken (owner of Prank Records who released their EP) about them and he said that he might release an LP collection in the future. I guess there's a lot more songs laying around. He's obviously not in a big hurry, but I would be excited if that project ever saw the light of day, Fun fact: The title of this comp ("Help Me, I'm Trapped in a Ford Festiva") comes from THE KNOCKABOUTS. My band (JT and the TOXIC SHOCKS) used to go on tour in my Ford Festiva (with all of our equipment, yes), which is one of the tiniest cars you could possibly own in the 90's. We listened to THE KNOCKABOUTS a lot. When we would listen to their song "Fast Pulse" (included here), we would sing that line instead of the KNOCKABOUTS-penned line of "Help me, I'm trapped in a human body!!"

   MENACE (not really sure if they ever realized there was a classic punk band called MENACE) was a band of teenage punk kids from the burbs who could barely hold it together, but held it together just enough to belt out this rough recording on a boom box. I think I only saw them once and that was only because I drove out to one of their mom's houses in south Huntsville for a band practice. I could be wrong though because I think I have a flyer for them somewhere. One weird thing about this band is that my friend Ramesh sang for them and did not play an instrument, which is ridiculous because he was already becoming a good bass player at that point. Still, you can listen to their song "AUO994" and realize why they got him to sing. 

   THE MACK was somewhat the black sheep of the Huntsville punk family. I believe 50% of that was self-imposed and the other 50 was just punk kids not wanting to admit that they liked pop-punk at some point in their lives. Either way, THE MACK played undeniably tuneful and upbeat pop-punk that was not very popular among the local scene, but I'll bet that they would have been a hit if they had ever managed to go on a tour or two in the mid-90's. Now, you can download this and relive your secret (or not-so-secret) pop-punk past. I will admit now that these songs are good. (Fun facts: THE MACK was the only local band of this era to have an online presence at the time. They are also the only band I've ever "auditioned" for as a drummer...for which I was denied for not being good enough.)

  I'm not talking about the next band. Fuck it. They were from Florida. I was the only one who knew who they were. The first song made me want to learn to play drums. The second song sucks ass.
   15E was an insane sounding punk band that worked as a precursor to THE SLACKERS, SHITBOY FROM OUTERSPACE and most of the crop of 90's punk from Huntsville. The members were Jason (SHITBOY and later XPIA), Joey (JOEY TAMPON, THE SLACKERS, RADIOACTIVES, 3D's, many more and later a born again Baptist preacher), and Mike (SEWER PUNKS and others that flew off my radar). They named the band after the apartment number of the place they shared. This recording comes from a live set at the Tip Top in north Huntsville where the band constantly harangues the audience for being shitty people. Punk. This is all I know about them. They were before my time in that town. If anyone has their demo tape, I will gladly take it.
   The tape ends with local greats THE SLACKERS and THE JAWAS. Everything you might ever want to know about both of those bands can be found here and here. The closing sample is possibly one of the best samples ever committed to tape, in my opinion.

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Re-uploaded 2013

P.S. There's 65 tracks total in this download.
This one's for Ramesh, who was always a fan and supporter of Alabama punk bands.

Now, here's some flyers from that era.

I think this is one of the first punk flyers I ever made, with help from Jason Shitboy. We used to have illegal shows at the Jaycee's Fairgrounds, which was just a gazebo in a parking lot. Sometimes, we paid $100 to use the space. Other times, we just went in and had the show without permission. I think this was one of the illegal times. THE DUMBSHITZ was my old band from Birmingham that I had quit by this point. They didn't show up for this show. Here's a video of them playing in Birmingham after I quit.

This was my birthday show, also at the fairgrounds. PROPERTY was a mainstay of the Huntsville punk scene and I'm confused as to why they're not on the tape. THEE AUTOBOTS was a later band spearheaded by Jack THE MACK that incorporated sax into the pop-punk world.

Great show for $3. Gorin's was an ice cream shop downtown that was dumb enough to let us have punk shows. 

All local bands at Gorin's Flyer by Blair Menace. BLOODY HOLLY was mostly improv-violence. Blair, Jay Kaos and I wore bloody dress shirts and glasses while assaulting people, sonically. I can't even begin to explain the CATATONICS to you. If I can ever dig up their tape (doubtful), it will have its own thing on here.

Another local show at Gorin's. THE SHIZNICS never recorded and I don't remember much about them. THE PANIC BUTTONS should have been on the comp but never got any music to me. They will be featured on the blog one day. Those guys went on to play in THOMAS FUNCTION.

RICE HARVESTER's 1st show. One of the TOXIC SHOCKS' last. PINK COLLAR JOBS were one of the best bands from the southeast in the 90's.

Local times, minus THE GRUMPIES, who might as well have been local. Art by Marsh. Flyer by me.

HICKEY - Live at the Kommotion - Valentine's Day 1997

   Steve-o posted this little gem yesterday on a little social networking site that I sometimes frequent and I could not resist sharing with all of you. This is a very good quality recording of my favorite Mission punk band, HICKEY playing at Klub Kommotion (now the location of Amnesia, I believe...someone correct me if I'm wrong...EDIT: I'm wrong) in SF and it sounds great. They play a lot of "the hits", including "Hey Cutie Pie", "The Prettiest Junkie in Town" (the superior slow version) and "California Redemption", in addition to a lot of cringe-worthy stage banter (lots of talk about Valentine's Day and fucking) and a ruling space jam at the end. What better way to celebrate this weird holiday that was made up by greeting card companies to play up to your insecurities and fears about being alone for the rest of your life? Fuck 'em.

   This show happened in 1997, which is not the first year that I saw HICKEY, but it is the year that they changed my life. Later on in the year (October 13th, to be exact), HICKEY came to Florence, AL and my band, RICE HARVESTER played with them. They fuckin' ruled it that night and I was a convert to the Naked Cult for life. They even cracked my arch-enemy in the teeth with a microphone and later, their roadie pepper-sprayed the shit out of his eyes (for more on this guy and his ultimate apology for being a supreme dick, please click here). I liked them so much that I impulsively decided to make the trek to Murfreesboro, TN the next night to see them for my 21st birthday. That night was very different. The band played their show in a full-on fuckin' sports bar with multiple TV's showing bullshit and a crowd of punks and sports fans. It was weird. The bartender overheard me talking about my birthday and gave me a free pitcher of beer. I didn't even drink alcohol then, so I turned around and gave it to Matty Luv, HICKEY's singer/guitarist. He said "Thanks! We should share this." Now, I realize that I should've just gotten drunk with Matty, but I stuck to my self-imposed sober lifestyle and watched the band get hammered.

    Just before the band was about to hit their first note of the night, the cops inexplicably walked through the door and struck up a conversation with the bartender. Aesop, HICKEY's drummer, said "Oh hey, the cops are here." Without another word, the entire band and their roadie, Matt (who was across the room selling records) stripped every last bit of their clothes off. The band started playing a long, drawn out, improv jam and the cops left without even glancing at the naked dudes playing music a mere 15 feet away from them. It was some weird wizard shit. The band continued to play wild space jams, interspersed with their original songs for a full hour. Sometimes, their roadie Matt danced naked on the merch table as squares and normies filed out the door, averting their eyes. It was a great night. I remember being sorta thrown off and disappointed at the way the band made fun of the small audience that had actually paid for and been excited about seeing them. I felt better afterwards when I hung out with them at the house they stayed at and they had bought a ton of food on food stamps. They made a huge feast for everyone, hung out and were genuinely nice and appreciative of the people who set up the show for them. Later that night, I made the three hour drive back to Alabama, knowing that I would remember those last couple of days for the rest of my life.

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Files updated Feb 2014

Original tape supplied by Matty's brother, Scott. Digitized by Steve-o.

POOP TROOP - Compilation - Tape - 2001

   This tape was compiled by Dan B (of IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT and VILLAGE OF SPACES) to showcase some of his and friends' bands who play noise, outsider sounds, lo-fi dance music, drone, punk and more. The physical tape starts off with MARGARET MOTHER OF THIEVES, but I didn't add them on this download since it's just the same songs from their demo, which you can find by clicking on that link above. So, your download starts with COUNTY Z, who are still one of my favorite bands of all time. Their one and only song on this comp sounds like it was a rehearsal improv jam and it is a definite "work on some stuff in your room and let this drift out of the speakers" kind of song. They are followed by HARRY FROM HAWAII, who drone out some fucked up, blown out "dance music" for total fuckin freaks. The one time I saw them (I think it was them), they featured Drew on noise. He was wearing a full-body foam outfit with a huge helmet made out of sheet metal with contact mics all over him. The mics were running through an overflowing table full of pedals and Drew was banging on the helmet with drumsticks. I found out later that the  jagged edges of metal were cutting into his head the whole time and that his jumps and hops were not for effect, but were produced out of sheer pain!
   Next up is IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT (another all time favorite) who also jam it out for a bit in that improv, droney way that they do. Dan B told me that they have hours of this stuff on tape somewhere. They are followed by UKE OF PHILLIPS (who has evolved into VILLAGE OF SPACES) and their brand of gutter-country/acoustic-noise. New Orleans' THE FOREHEADS play 3 songs that are the closest you will get to a standard punk band on this tape, even though nothing about them is standard. Occasional IPCP member, Stella plays guitar and yelps some vocals here and there. Merrydeth plays drums and does a fair share of the singing. Icky rounds out the rhythm section on tuba. They did a tour or two (I would've loved to have been their roadie) and put out a split 7" with THE NAZIS FROM MARS on Raw Sugar Records before breaking up.
  HUL (not to be confused with the Danish band HUL) is just Don Godwin (of IPCP, Vector Set and much more) playing sleepy, lo-fi electronic music. Two of these songs were recorded in a Motel 6 in Lubbock, Texas. C/O NOAH CANNON closes out the tape with a mess of drone, noise, soundscapes, tape manipulation and more. I have a 90 minute tape of theirs and like the stuff on this comp, it can be meditative and wash over you.
   Most of this tape will not sit well with many of the people who like the bulk of the stuff I put up on this blog, but that's okay. This is my trip. Get into it. Plus, I'm still getting over being sick and sometimes you don't feel like excitedly writing about punks getting wasted and penning the best song ever about killing Marines.

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This is from the collection of Erick Lyle.

JACKWACKER - "Things From Inside Your Body" - LP - 2006

   In 2005 or 2006, I hitched a ride to Louisville, KY to go see IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT play at a little neighborhood bar. They were the only band on the bill and they played a great, sprawling hour-long set that literally cleared the room of every paying patron in the building. They had opened up the doors to the bar and the torrential downpour outside was blowing into the building. We thought that the burly biker-looking bartenders and door-guy were gonna be pissed off that the band had driven away their customers and left them with a weirdo band, their friend (me, who wasn't buying anything), the guy who set it up (Kris) and the one other spectator (hi Christina!). After playing the last note of the set, the dudes at the bar, who had been staring sternly the whole time with their arms crossed, asked "So, are you guys into SUN RA and BEEFHEART?" It turns out that the guys at the bar were stoked to hear improvisational noise and skronky sounds. They didn't give a fuck that we ran everyone off and they gave us a lot of free drinks. We went back to Kris' house afterwards to see his insanely huge record collection and talk nerdy about FRED LANE and DAVEY WILLIAMS until the wee hours. He said that he helped with a collective called Black Velvet Fuckre that had just put out a triple LP by his group VALLEY OF ASHES that had already sold out before it even got pressed. I knew that this guy must be up to something good if he can manage that.
    After getting back home to Bloomington, I found this LP by a band called JACKWACKER and bought it for these two reasons: They were a local band from the early 90's and Black Velvet Fuckre had put it out. When I got home, I was not prepared for the weird, mega-distorted, totally fucked onslaught that greeted my ears. At first, I couldn't really tell what the hell was going on, but I knew that I liked it. The band consisted of only two guys, but it sounded like three or four. The guitarist was playing a guitar that had 3 bass strings and 3 guitar strings on it. The drummer was playing...well, a drum set. There was some intermittent howls and yelps, but most of the vocals were minimal. Some hacks in the music journalism field keep comparing them to LIGHTNING BOLT, but I don't really think it's an apt description. For one, they predated LIGHTNING BOLT by years and they were far more minimal, more jazzy and way more drone-y at times. A lot less freak-out and a lot more straight-up improv.
  I had a really hard time finding out any info about them when I got this record. From what I could tell, they lived in Bloomington, Indiana in the early 90's and recorded a lot of these songs live in basements around town. Then, they moved to Madison, WI and recorded the rest before breaking up. I asked people around town if they knew anything about the band and no one really did. I asked old-timers and lifelong residents, but no one I asked had ever even heard of them.
   I played 3rd guitar (!!) in a doomy sludge band called GOURMET SCUM and we were invited to play with a lot of other folks on a local radio show where each band was asked to do one original song and one cover by a local of any era. We chose to "interpret" a JACKWACKER song ("Hashslinger") live and in front of an audience at a downtown auditorium. After our ramshackle barrage of drop-D sludge, a guy walked up to me, said he appreciated the JACKWACKER cover and he didn't think anyone remembered them. I asked if he ever saw them and it turned out that he was the drummer, Rob. He said that they played a lot around Bloomington, but no one ever seemed to "get" them or appreciate what they were doing. After moving to Madison, they broke up after a year or so and life led Rob back to Bloomington, where he stopped playing punk/noise and got more into free-form jazz and improv. I didn't ask him much more about it because he seemed wholly uninterested...and there was a noise nerd around town who kept completely fucking hounding him for info...so I backed off (also, after this show, the noise nerd assumed we were a JACKWACKER cover band and was trying to get us to play shows as JACKWACKER, which we never did or acknowledged...because we were our own band.)
   This record came from out of nowhere for me and I am really glad to see that this kind of noise was going on in the Midwest in the early 90's. It's destructive, cathartic, and insane. I love it.

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50 MILLION - "This One's Pretty Cool, But I Like the Old Stuff Better" - CD - 1995

   I've already explained who 50 MILLION is and I've told you how much I love them, so I'll tell you about the first time I saw them, which is when I bought this CD.
   To be honest, I wasn't going to go to their show in Huntsville, AL back in 1997. I didn't know who they were and they were playing with some pretty crappy bands, but the flyer proclaimed "50  MILLION from San Francisco, featuring ex-members of J CHURCH". I loved J CHURCH, so I went to the show just to see 50 MILLION. (tangential side note: Wade from 50M played drums in J CHURCH for less than a year or so and recorded with them on "The Procession Of Simulacra - The Map Preceeds the Territory" 10", which coincidentally is the first record I ever heard by them.) I was more than a block away from the show and heard this loud, low booming voice of a guy talking somewhere. As I got closer, I realized that the voice was coming from this long-haired guy in front of the venue and he was talking a million miles per hour to one of my friends and telling her she had beautiful eyes. He turned to me as I walked up, saw the HICKEY patch on my jacket and introduced himself as "Shellhead". I found out that he was good friends with the guys from HICKEY (who had rolled through town a few months earlier) and they had told him to look for me and some of my friends. It was sweet. I met his brother Wade (the drummer on this tour) and their friend, Bloomie (the bass player). Shell continued to hit on my friend (very sweetly and not at all creepy, I might add. My friend was enjoying it and talking to him all night). It turns out that she was the ex of "J", this bruiser/greaser who had a reputation of starting fights with touring bands, young punks that were smaller than him and anyone who said anything slightly negative to him. He was a fucking jerk. I was afraid of him because I was young and scrawny. He had fought HICKEY, the SPAWN SACS and even tried to beat up my friend Ivy when she had a broken foot and was hobbling around on crutches. World class jerk here.

     Anyway, "J" was lurking around in the shadows, glaring at Shell talking to his ex while getting drunker and surlier. It didn't help matters that when 50 MILLION took the stage, they played a HICKEY song and dedicated their sweetest, sappiest songs to the woman. 

   As far as their live show went, I was sold. They played everything from awesome pop-punk to metallish dirges to feedback-laden experimental noise. They were pretty fucking amazing that night. Also, they set up all of their equipment in front of the band's stuff that played before them, thereby trapping it back there so that the douchey, crappy pop-punk band that played before them had to wait until they were done so that they could load out. I remember watching the members of that band stare helplessly and hopelessly as 50 MILLION played a 10 minute version of "She Is a Monster", making it drag slower and slower until Shell was laying on the floor, making his guitar feedback and Wade was playing something like 5 beats per minute. It felt like vindication for having to watch that crappy band's piss-poor excuse for pop-punk for 30 minutes.

   Anyway, at some point during the set, Shell tackled me in a faux wrestling match and we rolled around on the floor in a fake fight. "J" took that as his cue to attack and ran up to kick Shell in the head a couple of times, which he defended as protecting me (totally ridiculous, since that dude threatened me numerous times). After the show was over and 50 MILLION had packed up, Shell was talking to the woman and "J" made his move. He started pushing Shell around and threatened to kick his ass for trying to steal his girlfriend. Wade ran up, jumped between them and threatened to kill the guy, telling him that he would cut his head off. (a little background: Wade had parts of his head shaved off. He's an old Texas bad-ass covered in homemade tattoos and has a nasty disposition, but a heart of gold. On this tour, he looked like a completely deranged, sadistic, escaped mental patient.) "J", for the first time ever, looked genuinely scared of someone. I left with 50 MILLION in their van and found out that Wade had a machete tucked into his pants the whole time. He had fully intended to cut off "J"'s head if he didn't back off. As Wade was driving to my house, he calmly said "I'm glad I didn't have to blow his head off with the shotgun". I turned around and the shotgun was right behind me.

   I bought this CD from them at the show, even though Shell told me that it sounded nothing like their live show. I thought it was weird that a band would put out something that was wholly unrepresentative of their sound but I bought it anyway and it bummed me out when I listened to it for the first time. Over time, it quickly grew to be my most favorite thing that the band has ever put out. It's a collection of home recordings by the two brothers that dates back as far as the mid-70's, but mostly sticks to the early-to-mid-90's. A lot of the songs were started by one brother who recorded his part and then sent the master tape through the mail to the other brother to finish. It includes now-classic songs like "Baltimore", "Burn Away", "Egg in the Face", "Evergreen" (which Matty Luv of HICKEY once called "the saddest song ever written") and 22 more. 50 MILLION were (and are) a brilliant band that encompassed the hopes, dreams and ultimate failures of being broke and hopeless, but found solace and comfort in that and learned to be proud of and celebrate their lives, no matter what. They were also drug-addled, drunk and unapologetic, but who wasn't? I'm so very happy that they made it out of the 90's Mission punk scene alive.

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   ...and here is the reason I didn't use "J"'s real name in the story. You may wonder, "Why would you use an alias for some jerk who beat up all of your friends?" Well, a few years after leaving Huntsville, I went back to visit for a few days. Some friends and I went out to the river to hang out and drink a few beers. On the way, they said they were gonna pick up "J" to go with us. I said "uhhh...what the fuck dudes? I don't wanna hang out with this macho fuckwad" (or something like that). They just said it was cool and picked him up. After a couple of drinks, I said "I need to talk to you" and pulled him aside. After all of these years, I had gained some self-confidence and decided to tell him how I felt. I tore into him about how demeaning it was that he beat the shit out of young punks, how fucked up it was that he threatened women with violence and what my friends across the country thought of him. I told him how angry I was at him for all of those years and how much I wanted someone to just beat the living shit out of him. Then, I braced myself for the beating he was about to give me. He didn't. He stood there and listened to everything that I had to say and then he told me that I was right and that he was sorry. I couldn't believe it. This guy had never shown any remorse in the moment or admitted any signs of weakness or apology. He explained that he grew up fighting as a means of survival and as a way of life. As he got older, he didn't see any other way of living and fighting became his only method of solving problems or disputes. He told me that he wasn't happy during that time and worked a lot on changing his behavior to become a better person. He didn't expect me or anyone else to forgive him for all of the harm he had caused so many people, but he wanted me to tell those people that he's really sorry and he wishes that he could make up for it somehow. So, if you ever lived in Huntsville or came through there in a punk band in the 90's, it's highly possible that you know who I'm talking about...and if he fought you for some stupid reason, he's sorry. The rest of that night hanging out with him was great and memorable. I even hugged that motherfucker at the end of the night. Life is strange.

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