PEDRO SAYS HI - "The Creep Over" - Tape - 2011

Once I was terrorized by everything

But now I don't fear anything

   The last time I wrote about PEDRO SAYS HI, this tape had been recorded but didn't exist. I wasn't sure if it ever would exist, but now it's been out for a few years. I basically said everything I could say about the band in that previous post, besides that I feel a weird eternal bond with this band and the people associated with it through trauma and just plain weird-ass living. 

    We still don't talk about the hard parts of this band or the all of the terrible shit that happened (in print anyway) because what we do is actually secret and well, it's still fucking hard. You can never tell the whole story because sometimes, it's not your story to tell. I can say that I will always feel privileged to have spent any amount of time playing music with this stellar group of fine human beings. 

I saw Hell

And it was beautiful

So just breathe in the fumes

And suck on the doom

And learn to enjoy 

This eternal pain

    Leah (our guitarist) recorded this tape in 2011 in Chattanooga, 4 years after the demise of the band and 7 hours away from where we originally lived. Crab Jackson (vocals / guitar) couldn't put vocals on it until much later and it didn't get mixed and released until 2014. Let's Pretend  was bold enough to release a tape by a band who had broken up 7 years prior and had no plans of ever reforming (follow that link to buy a tape). Thanks to the 40-75 people who ever saw us and the 15-20 people who cared about it. We're gonna come back and murder you all. 

Open your mind and let the pain crawl in

Open your mouth and watch the fun dissipate

Open your eyes you'll see your friends walking away

Open your heart and let the pain crawl in

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Members of GIANT BAGS OF WEED, JON BENET SASQUATCH, PUPPY VS DYSLEXIA, GOURMET SCUM, TWAT SAUCE, NEON PISS, SPASM LAKE, SILENT ERA and many more. 

BIG ZIT - "International Player's Club #1 - Tape - 2013

   "Sounds like BAD BRAINS"
  "Internet hype band"
  "I don't listen to hype bands"
   A copy of their tape sold for $75 dollars on Discogs. $75. A demo tape. This stupid demo tape. What fan of BIG ZIT has that kind of money to throw around on a little piece of plastic that is bound to break?
    Whatever. This tape is great. I spent almost nothing on it. It has a homemade cover by the band that is too difficult to scan. If you like completely frenetic, lo fi hardcore, you should already be downloading this...or already have it. I don't care about hype. I just like good music.

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BIG ZIT / OOZE double pack cover art added for the benefit of anon commenter tumblr blogger pack 2015-2017

LIQUIDS - "Mat's Demo" - Tape - 2015

   Basically, everything I wanted to write here could be a re-hash of all of the things I wrote in the previous entry, so I'll spare you. The only real difference is that the people I was going to talk about are (in my eyes) still relevant players in the DIY and art community....still active in the scenes they claim to be a part of...still creating and trying to move forward in a world that probably wishes they would just play the hits and let us all have fun.
   The short version: I walked over to the LIGHTNING BOLT show in my neighborhood, which has been sold out for two months. I tried to get in anyway, but it was solidly sold-the-fuck-out. The venue and area around it is....boring. It caters to money and power. It's an old, stale tale and I'm sure you already know it front to back. I would gladly give my money to LIGHTNING BOLT to entertain me for a spell but not that venue. (I hate being vague. It's called The Chapel.)
   Out front, I clicked on the LIQUIDS tape and started walking...and kept walking and walking away from the crowds, the douche bros, the bars, the cars and the Friday night crowds until I realized that I'd probably listened to the fucking tape nine times in a row and now I was on the top of Potrero Hill overlooking all of the city of San Francisco. It got me in a zone. The tape is hyperactive, hook-laden straightforward punk...the kind of shit that you can't explain or make it sound good in print, but once you hear it, you realize it's everything you've been missing. It's the kind of thing I would expect from members of CONEHEADS and OOZE. You can download it for yourself and decide if that description is correct for your worldview or not.
   I'm not a person who looks at messageboards (actually, do people still use these?) or tries to pay attention to the arguments that people have about the current state of punk because my eyes just glaze over. (trust me, I can see the hypocrisy of that statement.) BUT, I've seen the term "hype bands" being thrown around when referring to some current bands and their sudden popularity, such as CONEHEADS, G.L.O.S.S., BIG ZIT, etc.... The thing is, these bands are hyped for a reason...because they're fucking good. Sadie from G.L.O.S.S. told me that when her band was getting ready to press tapes, they had no idea how many to make and they all thought that 600 was a stupid, insane amount of tapes to make., so they made 300 and it sold out immediately. Plus, we're fucking punks and we don't have the money to be throwing around to make a shit ton of stupid tapes that could potentially just sit in a band member's room for years to come. Is this even making sense? I'm just saying that bands just do their thing. Sometimes people latch on to it and sometimes people don't. It's a big world and we have the capacity to enjoy lots of different shit..from CONEHEADS to every single thing ever played on KPOO to TENDER TANTRUM to old scratchy jazz records to harsh noise. Hyped or not. Don't deny yourself great music just because other people like it. And don't lose your shit because you can't track down the original tape because some band doesn't have the money or resources to cater to your every need. I'm done. Enjoy this tape.

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Fun fact: Speaking of hype, THE BODY listens to Taylor Swift on tour. 

Next entry will have much less words, I promise. 

THE CONEHEADS - "Total Conetrol" - Tape - 2014

   Yesterday, I decided to take a trip over to Oakland to check out a record swap before meeting up with some old friends who I haven't seen in a while. Five seconds after I walked in to the backyard of the fucking fancy pizza place that was hosting the swap, I wanted to be anywhere else in the world. A lot of Oakland residents love to talk shit on San Francisco and all I could think was "Is this what you want, Oakland?" There was a sea of gelled-ass hair and cologne-soaked shits shopping at natural wood boutiques full of organic soaps or some fucking shit. There was also the usual people I see at the swaps doing their thing, but I couldn't block out the bullshit around me long enough to look at overpriced hardcore LP's. I walked outside and just laid down on the sidewalk. I had what can only be described as "a moment". As the Saturday shoppers walked around me, I just laid on a side street of Telegraph and listened to the whole CONEHEADS tape. When it ended, I got up, slammed some coffee and got the fuck out of that part of town...went up in the Berkeley hills into some nature with my friends...In the moments when I wasn't hanging out with people (on the train, walking between houses, on the train again, going to the store), this tape was blasting into my ears. It's possible that I listened to it 10-12 times yesterday.
   THE CONEHEADS are from Indiana. When I lived in Indiana, I didn't know of any good current bands in the entire state besides the ones who lived in the same town as me. Granted, the people in this band (and all of their friend's bands) were probably 8 years old when I lived there. I'm glad that there's great, exciting punk coming from those places now. They sound like DOW JONES AND THE INDUSTRIALS on speed or a more manic DEVO. I was so happy to hear a RESIDENTS cover, because they're one of my favorites, but I always wish punks would cover their songs rather than say, PRIMUS. There's a buncha fuckin nerds who know way more about the Northwestern Indiana punk scene than I do, but I'm pretty sure these guys come from the same amorphous gene pool that spawned bands like BIG ZIT and OOZE. I like those bands just fine, but this tape is entirely infectious and habit forming.

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It's very, very rare that I ever post a tape if I don't own a physical copy of it, but I made an exception for this one because it's so good. I swiped these tracks and pic from Suds Denim, one of the few music blogs I pay attention to. If you know where I can get a copy of this tape (preferrably from the band), please get in touch and I'll send my hard earned cash to them. 

GOURMET SCUM // LANDLORD - "Scum Lord" - Split Tape - 2008

   LANDLORD starts off this tape with their ragged style of classic rock as viewed through a punk lens. Maybe you'll view it differently, but I really think they sound like a classic rock band and I'm into it. I don't really have any good stories about LANDLORD, but I can tell you that I've watched them play many, many flawless shows (and a few bad, stoned ones) and they once gave me a ride from Tennessee to Indiana wherein we dumpstered a pretty good pizza. All of the songs on their side of the tape are instant classics. You can find more stuff by them on Houseplant Records, Dead Broke and a label I won't mention because they continue to further the careers of irrelevant, misogynist, money-grubbing fuckheads.

   On the flip side, GOURMET SCUM tells your brain to fuck right the fuck off. Seriously, I don't know what they're doing on this recording because it sounds so fucked up. They play their noisy ass sludge, blown out through tape hiss and an impenetrable cloud of weed smoke. They're possibly the only band in the world who plays stoner sludge through the cheapest amps possible while singing almost exclusively about Degrassi Junior High. You can find more about them and more fucked up recordings right here.

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This tape is long out of print and was released on Magnetic South, a fine record label and recording studio out of Bloomington, IN. They specialize in some really great analog music and wild freak out jams by such amazing groups as PUPPY VS DYSLEXIA, APACHE DROPOUT, THEE TSUNAMIS and (my personal favorite) PSYCHIC BAOS.

PEDRO SAYS HI - "Live At Sweet Hickory" - Video - 2007

   PEDRO SAY HI was the solo "pop" project of my good friend, Zak who usually concentrated on noise projects and the long running juggernaut known as PUPPY VS DYSLEXIA. He decided that he wanted to flesh out his simple pop songs into a full band, while making it noisier and a little more chaotic. He recruited his PUPPY-bandmate, Leah to play 2nd guitar (who is the only person I've ever seen play in a punk band using finger picks exclusively), Benny on bass (who played in GOURMET SCUM and later had the most wonderful child named....Pedro) and he got me to play drums. We were pretty short-lived due to other commitments, self-destruction and things that I just can't talk about. I wish that the band had recorded, but Zak didn't want to for his own reasons, which is fine. 

   These videos were filmed by Dave Walter back in 2007 at a very, very sweaty and humid show at Sweet Hickory (an art gallery/record store) in Bloomington, IN, where we lived. The performance is loose, to say the least. We even threw out an ELO cover, which I had never heard in my life and Zak asked me to never listen to it...so I still haven't. 

   Time marched on. Some truly unspeakable events happened. We got back together to play a show in Chattanooga in 2011, as well as record a demo tape. We got the basic tracks down for all of the songs, but Zak was never fully satisfied with how his voice sounded, so the tape has slipped into hiding and I haven't heard a note of it since recording it. 

   That's how things go and that's fine. Enjoy these shoddy live videos of songs about cannibalism, secret societies, feral humans, licking blood off the floors and mental breakdowns. I hope to be in the same room with these fine humans again one day soon, because I love the shit out of them.
  Features members of PUPPY VS DYSELXIA, GOURMET SCUM, TWAT SAUCE, JON BENET SASQUATCH, NEON PISS and many, many more. 

SCRAPEGROPE - Demo - Tape - 2007

   Today's entry is brought to you by my good friend, E Conner, who will tell you all about her old band, SCRAPEGROPE.....

  I met Jail in the Indianapolis bus station when Erin and I picked up her and Vanessa to drive down to Ida for Idapalooza... oh shit.... like 8 years ago. Fuck that's a long time ago. The trip was weird and mostly remembered for overhearing a lot of sex, people not being that nice, and Jail and I dicking around a tent drinking whiskey during a tornado. A few months later she moved into my house in Bloomington (The Well Well Well) and we started this band. I played drums and she played a circuit bent Casio. We practiced in the weird basement hole in the ground and sometimes in the living room of The Well Well Well. This tape was recorded in the living room of The Well Well Well by Brad on his computer. It was originally put out by Upper Dave and was released as a split with EVIL WIKKID WARRIOR, which was (is?) John Benson's band that he started with his daughter. We only played a couple of shows, mostly in the living room of The Well Well Well and mostly no one went. We played one show in Chicago and it was a very weird trip...marked by digging change out of a fountain in a mall so that we could buy a beer before getting on the Megabus and playing with David Diarrhea and Lee Revas' (of RIND) old opera fern project. Jail and I also collaborated on a short play called "You Too Sylvia" which was also performed in the living room of The Well Well Well. (there's a theme here) Bennie, Chloe, and Claire (off stage vocals) were also in the play. Jail does a solo glitchy jabber operatic noise dance project called FORCED INTO FEMININITY. Once she did drunken book reviews for an old issue of my fanzine and she is one of the smartest coolest people I've ever known and I love her.

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UKE OF PHILLIPS & ERIN TOBEY - "Live On The Phone" - Tape - 2005

     Ever since I was a kid, I've always loved the sound of AM radio, lo-fi recordings and the way that music sounds over the phone through those tinny speakers. Put me in a tour van driving through the middle of the US at 2 am and I will guarantee that the radio will be tuned in to Coast To Coast AM. If that's not available, I'll be scanning the AM radio stations anyway. I also love it when any band has a sample of music being played over an answering machine. Once, an old friend called my house when she was at an X show and held the phone by her side for most of the show. My friends and I put it on speaker-phone and danced in my bedroom. It sounded amazing. So, imagine my delight when I stumbled across the radio show, "Phoning It In", which is comprised entirely of musicians calling in to the radio show and playing their songs over the phone!  

   The radio show ran from 2005-2011 and featured artists ranging from DANIEL JOHNSTON to DANIEL HIGGS to BILLY CHILDISH to SARAH DOUGHER to JULIE DOIRON to USAISAMONSTER to everything in between. Their archive is insane and impressive (and can be found here)(and here's another link)

   This tape compiles two separate 2005 performances by ERIN TOBEY and UKE OF PHILLIPS. Erin plays her otherworldly, nimble-fingered songs over a land line from the back room of a now-defunct punk warehouse called The Ark in Gainesville, FL (Fun Fact: A fitness club has now opened up in that warehouse that once hosted so many punk shows and debaucherous parties. That club is called...wait for it...The Ark). The tinny sound of the phone gives her songs a beautiful, faraway feel that is warm and enveloping. You can find more music by Erin here and a lot of her fantastic art here. 

   UKE OF PHILLIPS phone in from tour during a stop at MARS in Missoula, MT. They alternate between their gutter country/folky songs and just being totally "out there". On this recording, the group consists of Dan Beckman, Matt Beckman and A.M.O.S. Shit gets really weird at some points. It's cool. You can find way more stuff by UKE right here and you can find newer stuff here. Keep up with their rare appearances on their blog.

    Not so fun fact: When I went to digitize this tape, I accidentally put it in the wrong deck and the stereo immediately chewed up the analog tape and mangled it beyond all repair. I just looked at it helplessly and then just nailed the damn thing to my wall. Erin Tobey was nice enough to email over the tracks of both artists for you to enjoy in the digital realm. So, thanks Erin!

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GOURMET SCUM - 3x Cassingle - Tape - 2008

    In Indiana, I worked in a screenprinting shop with my friend Benny. In addition to spending 40 hours a week making each other crack up over ridiculous shit, we also rounded out the rhythm section of our band, PEDRO SAYS HI with our friends, Zak and Leah. Sometimes, I would get a ride home from work in Benny's car and we would blast THE BODY out of his shitty factory speakers while sitting with the windows down in traffic. During one of these drives, he told me that he had started a new band that was more inspired by THE BODY, skating, Dinosaurs Attack cards and just being fucking loud and noisy. It was called GOURMET SCUM, named after his favorite fictitious band.
  I went to see them in a basement soon after that. They started off their set by taking big hits off of a joint and then passing it into the audience.I noticed that they had also placed a huge bottle of whiskey on the floor in front of them, free for anyone to take drinks from. For the next 20-30 minutes, they destroyed the eardrums of the audience with downtuned sludge and space-guitar weirdness. While most of the band held the songs down, their second guitarist, Ryan, would just be in his own world, creating noise and going off on a tangent. It didn't always work, but it was more interesting than any other band that played that night. By the end of the show, I was sold. I didn't only like this band, I wanted to be IN the band. I brought it up to Benny and by the next week, I was their 3rd guitarist.
    For the next few months, we hauled our fucked up, old amps to basements and skateparks to play to unenthusiastic punks. I didn't even care if people liked us because the band was so much fun to hang out with. Just as quickly as I joined them, I also quickly left them to move out west because the Midwest was killing me slowly. They moved on and even went on tour a couple of times. A few months after moving, I was walking out of a PIERCED ARROWS show in SF and Ryan was standing there with a hug and this small handful of tapes. I woke up a few days ago and this is all I wanted to listen to, so I thought maybe someone else would like to hear it as well.
 

   I'm pretty sure the line-up on this tape is as follows: Benny on vocals and guitar. Brent on bass. Ryan on guitar. JRD on drums. The covers were screened onto taped up beer boxes. It was probably recorded by JRD in his basement. The band also put out a split tape with LANDLORD on Magnetic South, which is way out of print.

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The three guitar line-up played (horribly) on radio station WFHB's local live radio show,where we were required to play one original and a cover. The cover we chose was "Hashslinger" by 90's Bloomington sound-geniuses JACKWACKER. You can hear those songs here, along with the live songs by QUADRILLION BABES.

LEG - Self Titled EP - 2002

   LEG, according to their record insert, started as a joke because their friend needed an extra band to play a show. Then, they just kept existing. Listening to their songs, I can tell that they're definitely no joke. Over the course of the few shows I saw them play (always in cramped Indiana basements), I could tell that they didn't take themselves too seriously, but still invested serious time into developing finely crafted pop hooks. Jim, the guitarist, had a bit of a lazy handed approach to playing and sometimes sloppily strummed his guitar, but then he would pull off some wizardly genius hook that let you know that he knew exactly what he was doing. After seeing them, their songs would be stuck in my head for days. I was in a band with their drummer, Matte (GIANT BAGS OF WEED), which is initially why I paid attention to LEG in the first place. When I would hear them practice or see them play shows, I soon felt like Matte and I were the ones in the joke band.

   On this recording, LEG is a four piece band with their original singer, Nick. I only saw them play with him once and he had some of the weirdest dance moves I had seen at that point in my life. Kind of like a failed marionette puppet being controlled by a blacked out senior citizen. After recording this EP, LEG became a three piece with Jim taking over on vocals. The songs are punctuated by Jim's clean guitar tones and insistent down-stroking.  I think Jim and Chris were into a lot of indie rock and took some influences from that, but I couldn't tell you what those influences were. A poor man's BUILT TO SPILL? SWIRLIES? I don't fuckin' know. I do know that I really like this band and these five songs are firmly lodged into my brain for life. If you're late to the game, now is a good time to let LEG into your life.

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I don't really know what any of these people are up to now. Matte played in NANA GRIZOL, LANDLORD, GNARX and a lot more bands. Jim put out a lot of solo stuff under the name BAD KNEES and his own given birth name. You can find his music here and here (his cover of the song "A Slippery Subject" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard....I mean that positively). Chris played in Bloomington goth act TURN PALE and a pretty good JAWBREAKER cover band. I'm sure he did more too, but I don't know what it is. I like to imagine Nick dancing like a maniac...where ever he is.

This record came out on Half-Day Records in 2002. I think the band also had a tape, but I kinda think it was the same songs. I've never owned or seen the tape. 

REMOTE OUTPOSTS WEIRDO MIX VOL 1 - Tape - 2013

   So, I've been trying to figure out where to fit in these different recordings ever since I started this thing a few years ago. I decided to just throw out a few things at once and I may continue this trend in the future with the weird shit sitting around on my shelves. So, here's the first installment of the Remote Outposts Weirdo Mix which, honestly, isn't that weird.
   You may remember from a few posts back when I mentioned listening to the North Georgia AM Christian radio broadcasts when I lived on the Georgia state line. I was a little obsessed with it because the quality and presentation was so alien to me that I liked to believe that it came from outer space. I grew up in Alabama going to Baptist churches, so these radio broadcasts aren't too far off the map for me, but my life is so far removed from this reality now that it just sounds other-worldly. In the first 11 minutes of this download, there is some singing, preaching and talk of anointing doors. There is a man who says "Praise God" every 4th word or so. I don't mean to make fun of people because everyone  has to do what they have to do to get through the day...but also I don't believe in God and I'm not trying to steer you in that direction.
  Secondly, I lived on a houseboat on the Tennessee River for close to a year back in the early 00's. It was a really simple time in my life where I mostly just ate a lot of potatoes, wrote a bunch of letters and listened to the radio while waiting for people to visit. Occasionally, I would canoe to land and ride my bike to a friend's house, but most of the time, I read a bunch of books on the boat. Something that was a constant on the boat was the weather radio. There was something soothing about the robotic voice being broadcast (presumably) from a tin shack somewhere in Moorestown, TN. I liked the way he sounded so forlorn when he pronounced that the weather was "partly cloudy." I spent a lot of time huddled up in my sleeping bag listening to this guy and waiting for the temperatures to rise (listen to the temperatures and remember that I was on an unheated, uninsulated houseboat in the middle of a river). I remember the uproar (from myself and at least 3 other friends) when they changed the robot's voice to make it more "human". Is the second track just a robotic weather report? Yeah, you bet it is!

   The last 2 tracks in the download are from this tape (above) I found on the ground in an alley in Bloomington, IN in 2007. I carried it around with me all day while I ran errands and just wondered what the hell "EASTERS" could mean. I still don't know what it means and the music on the tape was not what I expected. Nevertheless, this tape became a staple of many backyard hangouts at my house and started to get requested by folks who came over to drink beers in the yard. Download it for yourself to find out if it'll be your new backyard jam.

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ADD/C / GIANT BAGS OF WEED - Split 7" - 2002

   This little slab of vinyl came out on Half Day Records 11 years ago and featured two bands very near and dear to my heart. I will start off with GIANT BAGS OF WEED.
   GBOW was already a fully functioning band with a revolving cast of members. The anchor to this band was Billy Joe on guitar/vocals and Matte on drums. The lineup on this release also featured Chris Delaware on bass and myself on 2nd guitar/vocals. I had previously played bass in the band, but when I left Bloomington for a bit, they dutifully replaced me with Chris. When I returned and still wanted to be in the band, they stuck me on 2nd guitar, which was great. I always enjoyed this band as a spectator, but when I was in the band, I wasn't sure if people actually liked us. I spent most of my tenure in the band jumping around drunk. Chris wore the shortest of shorts and probably spent more time in the water than out of it. Matte had secret dredlocks stuffed into a hat and seemed to survive on a diet of Skittles and soda. Billy Joe constantly trekked between Chattanooga and Bloomington to work on this band. Notable things that happened during this time period: Matte and I took our equipment to a show one time by bike because no one in the band drove or even had a license. We played the last show at a Straight Edge house because I begged to be on it. The sXe dudes said we could play on the condition that we weren't drunk and didn't bring alcohol into their house. We agreed but still drank beer out of soda cups and were visibly drunk. Later that night, they kicked one of my queer friends out of the house in a very homophobic way. It sucked. Now, those guys all hang out in bars trying to cover up their huge sXe tattoos and that queer friend is a successful dancer and inspirational force to gay (and straight and otherwise) people all over the world, so whatever. On this record, we played songs and Joe Stone recorded them on a 4 track. You can actually hear the recording deteriorating as each song progresses and the 4 track actually broke on the last song. We couldn't do any more takes because it became inoperable. Maybe you'll like this. I honestly haven't listened to these GBOW songs in 10 years.
   On the other hand, these ADD/C songs have been haunting my eardrums since they were recorded. At the time, I thought that this was the band's apex...they would never get better than this, but then they put out their second LP. (Get ready, I'm about to over-analyze the shit outta this). In the first song, "Bubbling Cauldron of Spirits", Daniel sings about how people spend so much time focusing on inane topics of conversation without really ever saying what they really feel, which has only really accelerated in the intervening years of our technological "development". Was he intuiting that we would keep moving in this direction towards a future that gives anyone a platform to share the most mundane of topics? Probably not, but I like to think so. Also, in our new age of communication, I still love the line "Everyday I see a cell phone, everyday I wanna knock over a tower.", because 11 years later, I still feel that way.
  On the next song, "What's Up Brother?", I thought, "Did ADD/C really write a song about Billy Joe and put it out on a split 7" with Billy's band?!" Well, yes. It's a fucking sweet song though. My favorite thing about this song is that sometimes when they played it live, Billy would just walk around yelling "Fuck these guys! Quit dancing to a song about me!" The line "I wish I was sure of something, I wish I was sure of everything." is brilliant. I feel like I could write a book (a short one) just based on this song.
   "State of the Union", on the other hand, is a full length book just waiting to be written (with a very limited audience). It's starts off with a personal attack on one's self for wasting too much time on the excesses of life. It goes on to explain the anxiety and stress that comes with the onset of mild forms of agoraphobia, due to the existence of cops and the era of George Bush's presidency. Perhaps this is too heavy-handed for a simple punk song, but when confronted with the fact that Chattanooga was ranked #1 for police brutality rates for cities with populations under 200,000, it makes sense. Some of us (okay, me and ADD/C's bass player, Grady) went to Black Panther meetings led by Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin (please follow that link and read it) and participated in marches against the police. With our white skin, it gave us a privilege not experienced by almost everyone else at the meetings, but it still didn't stop groups of cops from throwing us on the ground and going through our belongings just for walking down the street at night. . At the end of the song, the band turns the attack outward to reflect a scene's preoccupation with alcohol consumption and self-destruction. It's always been hard to tell if the conclusion was an attack or a celebration, especially when confronted with it's context (Chattanooga, TN). As anyone who has ever written a song knows, once the song gets out of your hands, it is open to interpretation and the punks of Chattanooga took it as a mantra. Self-critical or celebratory? Maybe that's not the important part. Maybe (probably), I am over-analyzing. 
  On that note, let's let "Cemeteries" stand on it's own. It's also a great song.

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I don't usually upload vinyl, so hopefully it sounds okay. 

If you want ADD/C's first demo tape, it is available once again here.

Fun Facts:

1. The final line "Meet me at the laundromat" in "State of the Union" does not mean that ADD/C is going to wash their clothes. There's a 24 hour laundromat on Cherokee Blvd in Chattanooga where you could sometimes find punks hanging out (many times, that was me). Hidden in the drop ceiling, you could find a coffee maker, a hot plate and (for a short time) a record player with built in speakers. That means, if you needed a warm place to go and drink coffee at 4am, you could go there. Once, we had a dance party there. The laundromat is still there and it's still 24 hours. Someone should check to see if the coffee maker is still in the drop ceiling in the back. 

 2. Here's the significance of everything on the cover: The smokestack on the far left is in Bloomington and Matte claims that he once climbed to the top of it and went to sleep. The house on the left is where Matte lived and GBOW practiced. It's also the last place that I ever set up a show for AGAINST ME. I didn't realize that they had gotten mega popular but I soon figured it out when a couple hundred people showed up for the basement show. The sign is from the Chattanooga farmer's market. Someone in GBOW altered it and it stayed that way for a month. To the right of the sign is a houseboat that I lived on for a year in Chattanooga. To the right of that is the old Chattanooga knitting factory that Matte, Billy and I tried to squat. We woke up there with our lungs coated in asbestos and there were some dudes working on the place that we had to hide from. It's now the antique mall next to the Whole Foods. The Indiana sign is out front of the Indiana Theater in downtown Bloomington. The handsome cover star is Scott Youth, who now plays drums in TREPANNING.

  3. "Raise Ass" is not the name of the record. It is a call to action.

  4. Bill  now plays in FUTURE VIRGINS. Matte plays drums in LANDLORD. Chris Delaware actually moved (back) to Delaware and plays in ELDER THINGS. I run this blog and play drums in NEON PISS. ADD/C is still a band in some form. Daniel lives in Chicago and is expecting a child this year (believe it). Cole also plays in FUTURE VIRGINS. Grady lives about 55 steps from Cole and is one of the calmest and smartest people I know. 

  5. I can't imagine that you'd want to ever know anything more about this record.

CRITICAL RESPONSE TEAM - CD-R - 2008

   I could tell you all about southern punk scenes that you never knew you cared about. I could tell you about the entire history of a single punk house in the Midwest. You know what I can't tell you about? The hardcore scene in Indianapolis, Indiana. I lived 45 miles south of there on and off for years, but I never went to one punk show in Indy (unless you count X, but that's different). I went to a pretty killer art show and I once scoured the city for any traces of black and white photobooths with my friend Amy (no luck), but punk and I never met within the city limits. I once heard about a punk fest happening there called Dude Fest and I was like "Fuck that."
   Still, like anywhere, punk and hardcore screams out of basements, living rooms, dive bars, galleries, taquerias, alleys and bedrooms all over the world. Indianapolis, I'm sure, has a thriving punk scene and CRITICAL RESPONSE TEAM was once ruling the basements of that city. They play aggressive hardcore, skate-thrash with a singer that sounds like one big swollen throat (I mean that in a good way). They blast out 11 songs in about 12 minutes or so. Choice song titles include "To Eat a Pizza" and "Fuck Space Travel".

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The only thing I know about this band is that their guitarist went on to be in LANDLORD and FAT SHADOW. 

RYMODEE - "Live in Bloomington" - Tape - 2003

    If you just scroll down a couple of entries, you'll see this man's year end top ten list. You'll also see that I'm quite fond of the guy. So, yeah, it's RYMODEE from THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB playing solo in Bloomington, IN at what I believe is a house show. If you can ever track down this man's solo LP, do not hesitate to pick it up, because it is excellent. While you're at it, you should also track down the recent LP by his last band ZIPPERS TO NOWHERE.
    I don't really know what else I can say about this recording.... besides that someone starts doing that annoying thing that folk punk kids do when an acoustic performer plays...which is to clap along loudly and out of time. BUT Rymo quashes it fairly quickly within the first song with his constant time changes. Also, I don't know many of the song titles, so you don't get them in this download. I asked Rymodee his thoughts on this tape and he said "It's kind of embarrassing."

Download RYMODEE

Re-upped Feb 2013

This tape was released years ago by the still relevant and always-interesting Friends and Relatives Records.

EDIT: The show was at Rhino's, an all ages club in Bloomington and the audio was recorded from a camcorder. Thanks to Justin at Friends and Relatives for the info.

FULL SUN - "Bare Floor" - Tape - 2012

   Well, the end of the year is approaching quickly, and traditionally it's a time when people start thinking about their favorite musical releases of the past 365 days. Every year, folks always complain about how there wasn't anything good that came out. Then, if you were to fast forward their lives two years, they will complain about how nothing is as good as it was two years ago. My point is, people are releasing great music all the time, even if it's not on your radar. There is someone, somewhere, holed up in a tiny basement writing the new anthems for your life. Now you just have to find them and get a copy of it. That's the part that can be the hardest sometimes.
   This is where FULL SUN comes in. They put out an excellent tape last year that was easily one of my favorite releases of 2011 (you can find it here and here). The newer tape, "Bare Floor" is just as great, if not better, and will top the list for this year. As mentioned in the write up of the other tape, FULL SUN is the recording project of Jeff Grant (from FAT SHADOW and formerly PINK RAZORS) and he writes solid, catchy basement punk songs that offer hook after hook that will have you listening for days (weeks, years). Some comparisons could be drawn to POTENTIAL JOHNS, PLOW UNITED, PINK RAZORS and early SUPERCHUNK, but Jeff definitely has his own thing going here. Like the last tape, there are some awesome dub interludes that come from a love and respect of the genre, so it doesn't make you feel like some white clown in a rasta/dread hat is giving you the wink-nod while he slaughters your eardrums (say, like JAHBREAKER).
   Once again, there's only 100 copies of this tape in existence, so get yours now. I warned you about the last one and now it's sold out. Don't miss this one. You can order it from Jeff's label, Houseplant Records.

Download FULL SUN

Or download it from their Bandcamp

Jeff and I briefly discussed having my band, NEON PISS travel out to the Midwest and act as his backing band for a FULL SUN tour, but it sounds like a logistical nightmare. If any rich benefactors want to pay for 4 people to fly out to Indiana and make this happen, get in touch. Ha!

THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB - Comedy Tape - 2004

   My thoughts on the music of TBIAPB have already been documented before, but if you missed it, I'm not a big fan. That said, I am a big fan of the actual people in this band. I believe that their hearts are made of gold (not literally) and their ideals are unfuckwithable. A friend of mine referred to them as "one of the worst bands of all time", which I will respectfully disagree with. Sure, they helped pave the way for one of the worst musical genres of all time (folk-punk), but they didn't mean to do that and they felt burdened by the path that they were on. When I would go on tour with them, we would drink whiskey drinks in the van and complain about the caliber of opening bands at their shows. We would discuss how it's important to try and support young musicians as they are starting out, but we just wished there would just be a fucking punk band on the show...and not a timid kid playing a uke while staring at the ground. I remember getting to a show in Tucson and seeing a burly looking hardcore band set up. I got excited. When they played their cover of GORILLA BISCUITS' "New Direction"  Rymodee and I were right up front singing along.
    What does this have to do with this tape? Well, nothing really, but I don't think TBIAPB is the worst band of all time. Far from it. Have you heard....well, nevermind....There's a lot worse bands out there.

   This tape was recorded without their knowledge when they played very drunkenly at the first Plan-It-X Fest back in 2004. I was working "security" for the fest and I was in charge of making sure that all of the bands from the south didn't get too drunk to play....and to make sure they weren't drinking openly in the venue. What that translated to is that I would go backstage and drink with the bands for a while and then say "Oh yeah, don't get caught doing this." The band was given one hour to play and as evidenced by this tape, they talked for a full 30 minutes of that. All the music was cut out and you're just left with their often funny stage banter. I still believe that VENOM and IRON LUNG provides better laughs, but I still find some parts of this to be really funny. Regardless of how I feel about most of their music, you can bet that I will be front and center (or just drinking their drinks when they are onstage) when TBIAPB embarks on their upcoming West Coast tour in a couple of weeks.

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Tape originally released by I Win Tapes.

Something important to remember is that they were playing in front of 600-700 people.

GIANT BAGS OF WEED - First Demo - Tape - 2001

    GIANT BAGS OF WEED started in Bloomington, IN back in 2001 when Billy (probably) hitchhiked there to hang out for a few weeks with friends. Matte, who appeared to exist on a strict diet of stale bread, Dr Pepper and Skittles, was always around and always ready to play drums (the latter is still true to this day). They got their friend, Chris to play bass but his car broke down 45 miles away and he couldn't make it to their first show. So, they got Matte's roommate Jim to fill in, which started a long tradition of the revolving door of bass players in this band. Other people who passed through that door were Chris (a different one), Jrd, Zack, Daniel and me.

   This tape sounds pretty rough and unrehearsed, but still contains my favorite GBOW song to date, which is the first one...aptly titled "One". The band was really prolific and threw songs away left and right. When I joined the band a year after this tape was made, I asked if we could play that first song. Matte and Billy had no recollection of it and didn't remember how to play it. During my time in the band, we would sometimes write a song and drop it a week later.
   These days, Billy plays in the excellent band, FUTURE VIRGINS and Matte can be found behind the drums with LANDLORD (the guitarist, Chris is the very first bass player of GBOW) or at a huge fest with NANA GRIZOL. Both are still winners in my book.

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FUN FACTS

   1, We planned to go tour one time, but no one had a driver's license or a van. We made a plan to get a new band member who could drive. I left town for a while and re-joined the band when I came back playing second guitar. Our new bass player, Chris also didn't have a license. Total fail.

   2. I watched GIANT BAGS OF WEED play a show once in a kitchen where the floor later caved in.

   3. GBOW begged their way onto the final show at a sXe house in Bloomington, even though the residents of the house were very afraid that the band would try to sneak in alcohol. When the band DID sneak in drinks, they almost kicked them out...but didn't. Later the straight-edgers kicked out one of my friends in a very homophobic way. Later still, I watched each one of those guys break edge as they sat in bars trying to cover up their large sXe tattoos. 

   4. When the band was named, no one in the band smoked weed...and Billy was straight edge...and vegan.

   5. After quitting the band, I dumpstered a trash bag completely full of weed plants behind a bike shop in Knoxville, TN.

JAMES F. BECK - "Forbidden Fruit" - Year??

   You might remember when I posted Jim Beck's cover album of "A Slippery Subject" a couple of weeks ago. Well, Jim got in touch and said he was happy that more people got to hear it. He also included a link to his lesser-known tribute to THE BANANAS debut album "Forbidden Fruit", which I've never heard until now. Like the other release, it accentuates the paranoia and malaise behind their lyrics while managing to stand on its own. Take a listen for yourself.

Link to James F Beck's Bandcamp.

CHEAP VENTILATORS - Demo - Tape - 2009

   You know how when you live with a band and they practice in the basement, you always have all of their songs stuck in your head all the time whether you like it or not? That's how my life was living in Bloomington with Bobb, the guitarist of CHEAP VENTILATORS and drummer/vocalist of JERK ALERT. In this case, I lived with his old band, JERK ALERT. They would practice once or twice a week in our cramped, cold, moldy basement while me and my other roommates would be upstairs cooking dinner and mouthing the words to "Don't Stand Next To My Ride" seemingly against our will. When they set up their first show, they made a mistake with the dates and booked it at the same time that their bass player would be out of the country. No problem. I knew the songs so well by that point that I stepped in to play bass for them at that show after one practice.
    Depending on which side of the fence you stand on (and this fence is usually imagined by people who have never lived there), Bloomington, Indiana is either a utopian paradise populated by free-thinking acoustic punkers singing about their feelings on every street corner or some rotten shitpile where you can't go to a simple fucking punk show without being bombarded by the most banal goddamn folk punk you've ever imagined. In my reality of living there, I went to fun punk shows in basements that rarely, if ever, featured teenage boys strumming acoustic guitars while sheepishly staring at the ground. My roommate Bobb had been there long before me setting up fun rock n roll and punk shows and he's still there today playing music and running a record label. When he wasn't playing his M.O.T.O. and REIGNING SOUND LP's at top volume, he was in the basement writing new songs or cooking the most delicious food ever (he is also a chef).
   I was happy to get this tape from him in the mail and unlike the JERK ALERT LP, I didn't already know every song on it. In fact, I didn't know any songs on it. Bobb moved from the drums to guitar and took on the vocals in this band, delivering song after song of rock n roll bliss. They take cues from M.O.T.O., THE OBLIVIANS and just plain good garage rock...the kind you imagine being played in smoky bars, cramped basements and dirty living rooms swamped with beer cans. Arkansas transplant, Donovan bangs the shit out of the drums with a huge smile on his face. You might remember him from the early live version of FULL SUN...but only if you lived in Bloomington, probably. The trio is rounded out by Alex, who sometimes hung out at our house in B Town, but he is a quiet guy and I don't have any embarrassing stories about him...good work, Alex.
   I don;t think this tape is available anymore, but you should check out Bobb's record label, Eradicator Records and order some great Midwestern (and beyond) punk.

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JAMES F BECK - "A Slippery Subject" - CD-R - 2004

    James F Beck is a singer/songwriter from the middle of Indiana who is tall and lanky. I lived in his basement for a short time and he spent most of his days in his room writing and recording heartbroken songs on his beat-up guitar. He also played in an under-appreciated local indie-rock band called LEG, who were nothing short of amazing every time I saw them. Jim always seemed to be putting out self-released CD-R's, which he sold for almost nothing at the local record store or gave away to anyone who asked. If nothing else, he was prolific and focused.
   At some point, he released this cover album of the BANANAS LP, "A Slippery Subject". I was kind of skeptical at first, but after listening to it a few times, I realized the genius behind it. Sure, it's 12 cover songs, but Jim made each song his own by lending a melancholic vibe to the whole thing that really accentuates exactly how depressing and doomed this album really is! Listen to "Disappear" or "Slippery Subject" for proof.  I barely even think of this as a cover album anymore.  It transcends all of that and manages to stand on it's own.
   I've been carrying this one around for years and putting it on during the low points in life and some of the high ones too. It still holds up after all these years, but the CD-R is getting a little worn, so I thought I would put it here for eternity.
  In the intervening years, Jim moved out to Vermont and started a family. I'm having a hard time finding any other info about his music, but you can find one of his other albums here and a little bit of info here. Expect to see the long out of print LEG 7" here in the near future.

Download A Slippery Subject