COUNTY Z//SHEP AND ME - Split - Tape - 2003?

   If you're familiar with this blog, you're probably familiar with COUNTY Z, because I've given you plenty of opportunities to check them out. SHEP AND ME is also no stranger to this page. As I've said before, COUNTY Z is one of my top 5 all-time favorite bands in the history of music and these two songs don't appear on other things they released. I don't know anything about it, but it's so good to my ears.
  SHEP AND ME is Matthew Himes playing outsider sounds and otherworldly folk that comes out of a world that is his own creation. Everything I've ever heard by him has been nothing short of brilliant. I'm not exactly sure if SHEP AND ME is still an active project, but Matt has been tirelessly releasing analog (and some digital) documents of the outsider world through his label, Lighten Up Sounds. Pick up anything he has available and you're guaranteed to be intrigued.
   This tape was released by Snob House, but I don't have a cover for it. Apparently, there was a surly dog drawn on it, so you can just imagine that for yourself. COUNTY Z broke up and then 2/3's of the band started playing with Matt as ROTTEN LIVING. Then, they broke up and MOTHER OF FIRE started. Then they broke up and the world is a black hole of despair.

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C SECTION 8 / ELECTRIC NIGHTS - Split - Tape - 2005(?)

   Sometimes, I put on tapes like this, thinking "I'm not sure if I'm really into this" and then find later that I just listened to it six times in a row. I mean, that's exactly what happened. It's a great tape. What do I know about it? Almost nothing. I think I saw C SECTION 8 perform once in a crumbling house on Rampart Street in a pre-Katrina New Orleans, but I could be wrong. It also could have been HARRY FROM HAWAII...or DOGERELLA DECIDED UPON...or HUMAN HAIR HAT. No one ever really talked about the names of the bands when I went to those shows, but it was always weirdly fucking mind-blowing. Like the time that a member of one of those bands was playing a table full of pedals and was dressed up in a homemade metal mask. The mask was attached to contact mics and he was hitting it with drumsticks while manipulating the sound into a cacophonous nightmare. He was also making small yelps, which I thought was part of the performance, but I found out later that he hadn't shaved down the metal inside so every time he hit the mask, it was cutting into his face and making him bleed! But was that C SECTION 8?? I don't know!! I don't think so.
   As far as ELECTRIC NIGHTS, I have even less information, meaning I have NO information. I did some searching, both online and off, and came up empty handed/headed. There's no trace of this release on the label's old paper order forms/catalogs and nothing online that I can find. Oh well. It's not important.
   The important part is that both sides of this is filled with (I'm assuming) blips and drones from busted ass analog and barely digital machines. Tape manipulations and wonky beats will lull you into a different head space. I don't know. I just like it. I've always liked this shit. Don't worry. I'll post more punk tapes soon, but you'll come back to this later and love it because all the hardcore kids will be playing noise by the end of 2016 anyway. Mark my words. 

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JOSE BOVE - Demo - Tape - 2008

   JOSE BOVE came to the small Midwestern college town that I found myself in and aurally destroyed an art gallery...or so I thought. They might have come there. I was convinced that I attended that show, but the more I search my brain, the more I can't remember being there. It probably happened, but I wasn't there. I know...cool story, dawg.
   JOSE BOVE was (is?) a sonic fuck-pile of a band. They consisted of two drummers facing each other and other people playing noise/generally fucking up the vibe. They're the sound inside your head when you're on a train jetting through a tube underwater after 5 cups of coffee and you want to kill all the screen starers in your immediate vicinity.
   Information on the band is hard to come by. This tape exists and I know they also released a 7" with hand screened covers. Beyond that, I can't help you. You're on your own now.

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   The band is named after a French farmer / activist, who (among many other things) helped to dismantle  a McDonalds in Millau in 1999. I call attention to this act because of the recent near-fetishization of fast food among punks. Some people cry "but I'm broke." Whatever. It's possible to be actually broke (like your pocket hasn't seen money in months) and still not eat that shit. Give me a fucking break. 

SBSM - Joy / Rage - Tape - 2015

I put this tape out for my friends in Oakland. 

I have very strong feelings about it

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

Listen / Download Here

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

ORDER A TAPE HERE

WORK//DEATH - Interstitial - Tape - 2012

   WORK/DEATH is an entity that has been sitting on the back burner of Remote Outposts for quite some time now...not because it's any less important or sonically pleasing than other tapes on this blog, but because I just don't know how to talk about it. I don't really know how to tell you why this might be relevant to your life or even life-changing, but I really, truly think it is.
   I remember one night, Pars and I were trying to explain the importance of WORK/DEATH to a friend, which is always an exercise in futility, because if people don't like something, they just don't like it...and that's fine. If you were to combine both of our explanations into one big glob, it would go something like this: WORK/DEATH is noise, but it's more than noise. It's calculated. It's intentional. It's no fucking joke and there is no fucking around. Also, to some extent, it's the modern day equivalent of classical music for our era.
   I didn't really "get" WORK/DEATH until I saw it live. Scott, the core member of W/D, stepped up to his mess of pedals, keyboards, homemade gear and wires to start his set without fanfare. Watching him compose for the next 25 minutes, creating a wall of noise that completely enveloped every inch of the room, floored me. Many times when I see people create noise music live,  I'm bored to goddamn tears and I can't wait for the idiot with the fucking pedals to stop wasting my time. That feeling doesn't even begin to surface with WORK/DEATH.
   This tape may not be the best start for your journey with WORK/DEATH, if this is your first time hearing them, but this is what I'm giving you. I got this one delivered to me in a stack of tapes from Providence, RI. When I opened up this tape for the first time, a toenail fell out. It seemed fitting, somehow.

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As of now, this is the extent of the WORK/DEATH internet presence. 

Scott told me in an email that he believes that part of the process of listening to music is engaging and interacting with the physical object. I agree. His tapes are sometimes difficult to track down, but maybe you can send some money to Three Songs Of Lenin at P.O. Box 29680, Providence, RI 02909 and see what you get. 

You can also order one of his LP's right here

I'm still upset that I didn't get to see him play in a 19th century mill or completely annihilate a piano in a Rhode Island alleyway. .

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

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

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

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They're recording a new tape soon. 

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.

THE BLUES - "Vol I" - Tape - 2014

  I pulled up in front of the punk house last night and I could hear that THE BLUES was already playing in the garage. I locked up my bike and wandered in, but the room was so packed that I couldn't even stand in there, so I stood out back and shot the shit while THE BLUES wailed away. I overheard some bro-dawg say "Yeah, I don't know what's going on in there. It's like, just noise or something, but there's all these people, like, staring at them and just looking around like they're thinking really hard about it. I had to leave."
   When their set was over, I told their guitarist, Marissa that I couldn't get in the room and she said "Yeah, I looked up from my guitar and was surprised that we hadn't cleared the room yet." Max, the saxophone player added "Yeah. That's what happens usually."

   THE BLUES play something between noise and no wave and free jazz and skronky weird vibes, incorporating only the sounds of guitar and sax. I described it once as "like the financial district of San Francisco at rush hour" and "If you played this on a boombox in a crowded subway, someone might beat you up." I stand by that and I mean it as a compliment. The band has already put out a second release, which is an art zine (you can download it from them or maybe they'll give you a physical copy if you see them) and they have interesting future releases planned, which I will not give away.

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Keep up with THE BLUES on their website, which I described as "janky" and my friend Caitlin made fun of me. "How can a website be janky? You just click on things and it works right? That's not janky"

Members of THE BLUES also play in WET DRAG, STILLSUIT, UZI RASH, LAND ACTION and moreeeeeee.

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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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

MARISSA MAGIC - "The Fall" - Tape - 2014

    A little over a month ago, I was stepping onto a plane in Alabama, a little tipsy and on pills, not really sure if I'd ever see my dad alive again. About a week later, I realized that I was right. As I was trying to get comfortable inside of that soon-to-be-airborne metal tube full of normal humans, I scanned my mp3 player for anything that might make me feel sane...or sound at least as fucked up as I felt at that moment. When I reached the "M's", I already knew where I would be stopping. I put on "Infinity Bums" by MARISSA MAGIC and felt like I was listening to something that was made for that exact moment in time. Maybe the drugs kicked in. Maybe the tape helped sooth my frazzled mind. Whatever happened, I kept that release going through my brain on repeat for most of the plane trip back to San Francisco. 

   A few short weeks later, I was sitting on a couch at an Oakland punk house when Marissa plopped down next to me and handed me her new tape. At first glance, I thought she was handing me a homemade tape of THE FALL, but soon realized that I was wrong. This tape, to me, is nothing like the last one and I'm totally okay with that. When I first put it on and heard one of my favorite songs, I thought that she gave me a bunk tape, but then heard that it was really her. I'm not even gonna try to explain this one too much because I'm not sure if I can. Marissa doesn't use any traditional instruments (as far as I can tell) on this tape and mostly sticks to tape loops and layers upon layers of her voice. The deterioration and static lends to a deconstruction (or destruction?) of the typical noise tape. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she was just listening to the radio and shit got fucked. Either way, it leads me into a world that I know little about but am constantly intrigued by. I find it to be uncomfortable, challenging, entrancing and soothing. 

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I don't know how to get this tape other than having Marissa pull it out of her pocket at a show and handing it to you. 

Marissa plays guitar in STILLSUIT, who put out an awesome LP in 2013. It quickly grew on me and I think it's one of the more interesting and intriguing LP's that have come out in the past year. 

NO STATIK - "Earhammer Soundsystem" - Tape - 2013

   I decided to take a break from the barrage of top ten lists today and just share a completely badass tape with you. If you're even a casual reader of this blog, my thoughts on NO STATIK are probably no secret to you. In short, I think they are one of the best contemporary hardcore bands that you could possibly have the pleasure of experiencing. I'm aware than many readers don't visit this corner of the internet to get their hardcore fix, but please do yourself a favor today and push the download button at the bottom.
    This tape is the band's 2012 LP "Everywhere You Aren't Looking" remixed and completely fucked with by the band and their engineer, Greg Wilkinson. It starts off innocently enough with the band ripping through their song "Regrettably" , but you quickly know something is different as the guitars start to change tone or just drop out of the mix altogether. From there on out, it just gets weirder and more fucked up to the point where some of the songs don't even resemble their former selves. They incorporate elements of techno, noise and loop effects to tear their songs apart and put them back together anew. I'm still on the fence, but this might be my favorite NO STATIK release to date.
    The download doesn't split up the songs at all because, as you'll see, it's pointless to try. Track one is side A. Side B of the tape is 20 minutes of mostly blank space with a hidden track placed ten minutes in. I was confused if I should leave it as is or edit it down. Luckily for you, I decided to crop it down so that track 2 is just the nutso song featuring mouth drums on side B...no blank space.

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Is this tape still available? Fuck if I know. Iron Lung Records had some for about 5-6 seconds, but they're gone now. Go ahead and write to the band. If you ask nicely and send them some cash, they might be able to help you out. 

nostatikhc@gmail.com

DAS BEACH BOYS - "New Das Beach Boys Experience" - Tape- 2007

   Sometimes, you're sitting around the kitchen drinking whiskey, listening to tapes late at night and your friend puts on some harsh noise and it hits you in just the right way. This tape hit me in the right way and I'm actually not sure if it's harsh noise because I don't really know what that shit is. Nonetheless, I like this.
  This was volume 3 in a "Singles Going Steady" series. Volume one was a Worcester party covers band. Volume 2 was a huge punk band covering frat rock , like "Louie Louie" and "Wooly Bully"...with 4 guitars and 6 singers and Mike Leslie stomping on a piano and Crusty Tim throwing up a raw egg. In this volume, the band DAS BEACH BOYS assaults your eardrums with layers upon layers of the sounds of things on fire....phone books, record players, hair, light bulbs, AM radios, fireworks, leaves,etc,etc..., Members of the band might have been Dan Wars, Crusty Tim, Sela, EZ Bake, Marky Metal, Mike Leslie, Nixie and a woman who sang on some AGAINST ME songs. The tape originally came with a booklet and a book of matches. Turn this up and burn some shit.

DOWNLOAD OR DON'T

Thanks to Caitlin for the tape.
Thanks to Dan Wars for info.

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.

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

NO STATIK - Tape - 2013

   I've said it before and I'll say it again: NO STATIK is my favorite current live band in the Bay Area. There is a palpable energy in the air every time I've seen them that is rarely matched by other bands. Every time I've seen NO STATIK, it's been better than the last time I saw them. Their singer, Ruby is usually stalking the stage before the drums are set up. When the band starts, they don't just ease into it; they explode. They're usually feeling it harder than anyone else in the room and going more nuts than their past experiences should allow (meaning the members have played shows with broken ribs, a broken foot and post-knee surgeries.) I'm not the only person who has stood at the side of the stage, cringing and waiting for the moment one of us has to call the paramedics....again.

   Besides their live sets, I am also a huge fan of everything the band has recorded so far. Not only are they quite possibly a perfect hardcore band, but I love that they consistently take pains to offer something more than a recreation of their live songs and energy throughout their recorded output. Most of their records have included ambient soundscapes, noisy remixes and fucked up experimentation, which I have listened to just as much as their "normal" songs. On this tape, two of their songs, "Unclarified" and "We All Die in the End" are remixed by IVENS and DJ EONS ONE respectively. The results are both entirely different from one another and also exciting additions to the NO STATIK collection. I've probably listened to this 10 times today already. It almost made living in this fucked up world more bearable.

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Tape is sold out. It will be out on vinyl soon.

Fuck the cops.

Fuck the courts.

NEON PISS - "Rarities 1979 - 1987" - CD-R - 2013

   This past Sunday, our band NEON PISS played our last show at 924 Gilman Street as part of "This Is Not A Step - 20 years of More Than Music." In its earliest incarnation (well, as far as this year's fest goes), the fest was supposed to be a benefit for Sarah Kirsch before she passed away from complications with fanconi anemia (I didn't capitalize that because I don't think we should give that kind of dignity to the things that kill us). We agreed to play the fest on the same day that Sarah lost her life.
   The fest ended up being a benefit for Sarah's family, the SF Trans March and The Pacific Center for Human Growth (with the money being allocated specifically for transgender clients). Initially, I had my doubts with how the whole thing was being organized: the fest was dominated by bands populated by cisgender people. I wondered what it must be like as a transgender punk to come to a fest that supposedly has your lifestyle in mind but does not actually include bands with members who are trans. At one point, I told the organizers that our band would happily drop off of the fest if our spot would be given to any band that included trans members. Obviously, that didn't happen. I also talked to people who took issue with the fest being on the same weekend as Pride and people who thought that the workshops were weak. About a month before the fest though, I decided to stop complaining and just go for it. It takes a ton of hard work to set up an event of that size and scope. No matter what you do, you are going to have detractors. I believe that the organizers have their hearts in the right place and did a lot of good work. While I was truly a little embarrassed (no, really) to be on stage when our slot could have been given to voices who aren't straight white guys, I still believe that we all need to be allies to each other if we actually want to be any sort of real fucking change in this floating shit heap that we somehow magically inhabit. Every day, I see the absolute worst examples of human garbage walking this planet that just make me want to die, but this past weekend at the fest, I felt like everything was kind of okay for just a little while. Bands raged. There was an open mic on stage for anyone to utilize to say anything that was on their mind. The mic was mostly utilized by queer and trans people who said some really real shit that straight ears needed to hear. Being open and vulnerable in front of a crowd like that is an incredibly hard thing to do and I wish I had half the strength that some of the people on that stage did.
   I felt the need to say something when our band played, even though the thought of speaking in front of large groups makes me wanna puke. I said something along the lines of...

 "No one in out band was ever a friend of Sarah Kirsch but her life touched all of us immensely. I never even met her. We are in awe of her strength and determination. I admired her full commitment to the power and importance of DIY...to her commitment to punk and hardcore. I feel saddened that she never got the chance to live her life in the identity that she showed to us near the end of her life. I think that one tiny thing that we can learn from her is that we need to treat others with the respect they deserve because we don't really know how much time we have on this earth. I think it's really easy for people like me, straight cis men, to treat transgender people with respect....or to treat anyone who doesn't come from a place of privilege with the respect they deserve....and if I can do that, so can you" blah, blah, we are a band, this is our last show....

   If you picture a nervous guy staring at the ground and insert about 45 "uhhh"'s, you'll get the picture. Anyhow, It was a fun show and I feel very, very lucky to have shared space with such amazing people in such a long-running institution as Gilman. Speaking of lucky, I am also incredibly lucky to have been able to play music and travel with my bandmates Kyle, Barker and Bryan. I'm still amazed that we got to make music that we enjoyed making and people actually took the time to pay attention to us. I know that's probably not a big deal to many of you, but it means a lot to me. 

  We decided to put out this CD-R a day before our last show and only have it available at the show for the cost of 25 cents. There's no insert or even a cover. We thought it would be funny....maybe just to us. Here's what's on it:

 1. The one and only song by The MUNI MEN, our fake Oi band. We wrote and recorded this song in about 5 minutes at our practice space and it shows. Kyle played drums. Barker played guitar, Bryan played bass and I played that hot guitar lick.

 2.  Practice weirdness. Sometimes, people buy weird pedals.

 3. A NEWTOWN NEUROTICS cover that we played (badly) at a squat show in Hamburg, Germany just because our friend Laura came all the way from Berlin to see us and she likes that band a lot. "No man is a cow"

 4. A very early version of "Close The Door" 

 5. Us losing our minds on a 27 hour drive across the top of the country. Sounds best on headphones.

 6. "Burn" on the Grand Manor piano in Chicago.

 7. "Burn" recorded by Kyle at our practice space with different lyrics from the version on our 7".

 8. We had some extra time at the studio when we recorded our 7" so we told Stan to just roll the tape and we shit out this weird song that just sounds like the theme from Roseanne. Stan couldn't believe that we used our time to do this. To be fair, neither could we.

 9. A song that was never fully realized. No lyrics. Recorded at our practice space. 

 10. We were losing our minds (again) as we drove into NYC while listening to Harold Camping. Shit happens. 

 11. Another song that never made it out of the practice space. No lyrics. 

 12. Another stab at the Roseanne theme, but now with a bullhorn. 

 13. "Paranoid" as interpreted by freaks. Just be glad we didn't include our 10 minute version of "Born to Be Wild"

 14. A 28 minute remix of our song "Close The Door" that Kyle and I collaborated on. Best listened to on headphones...in the dark.

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  Thanks to people who humored us and bought a CD-R for 25 cents. Thanks to everyone who helped us out in our time as a band. You can download all of our releases on our Bandcamp page for free or by donation. You can buy our records from Vinyl Rites, Cut The Cord That... and Deranged. Stuff can be bought from us on Bigcartel (not much is left). 

  Other bands we are in: Barker plays in WET SPOTS and HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE (their new album is great). Bryan also plays in THE NEW FLESH, who just released an awesome LP and are getting ready to tour both US coasts. Kyle is working on stuff with COLD BEAT and is constantly twisting knobs in his room. I started a hardcore band that doesn't have a name and has only practiced four times, so who knows? 

PIG HEART TRANSPLANT - "Land Of Marred Normalcy" - Tape - 2007

   I JUST DRANK WAY TOO MUCH COFFEE AND I'M FREAKING OUT!! Anyway, This is perfect for the anxiety-inducing part of a major coffee buzz, but maybe not in the way you might expect. PIG HEART TRANSPLANT is/was the project of my neighbor, Jon Kortland, who is one half of the rumbling mind-fuck that is known as IRON LUNG. Just about everything those guys touch is unstoppable and this tape is no exception. Noise, digital static, tape manipulation, fucked up guitars, industrial landscapes and howling cacophonies all combine to provide a deeply challenging but satisfying listen. I was listening to this on headphones once while trying to go to sleep in a pitch black boxcar and got so freaked out that I had to turn it off. Music can move one in many ways and that is one of those ways that I truly enjoy.

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   Sorry for the lack of consistent updates lately. Real life has been really real and extremely busy with non-digital happenings as of late. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to update this more regularly and I'm even going to pay more attention to improving the writing. With this entry, the blog has been viewed over 200,000 times, which means that someone somewhere might be paying attention. Thanks to longtime readers, supporters and people who just stumbled upon this and enjoyed it. Thanks also to naysayers, critics and shit-talkers. It takes all kinds to make the world go round. See you soon. 

MARISSA MAGIC - "Infinity Bums" - Tape - 2012

   Last night, I went to see DavEnd's amazing musical, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes and it was outstanding. It took me away from my mostly straight, mostly hetero, somewhat confined punk world and set me adrift in the genderqueer, trans, performance art fabulousness of DavEnd's mind for a couple of short hours. It was smart, funny, thoughtful and poignant. I would go see it again right now if someone handed me a ticket.
   It made me feel really good, but I was soon back out on the streets of SF, among the Saturday night crowds of affluent white people, party dudes and drunk assholes. I rode my bike back to my neighborhood, thinking about how everyday it looks more and more like a place that doesn't make me happy, which is a sharp contrast from how I used to feel. There's more people who look like me around: white, kind of vaguely punk the way most young people do now, riding a nice bike, drinking fancy drinks. It makes people that look like me feel safe. Like they're in a safe place. It makes me feel completely and utterly insane. I don't have enough middle fingers for the hate that flows through me on a daily basis. I don't feel this hate just for the damage that tech people are doing to this community. I feel it for a myriad of reasons, like for the continuation of full time war, the shitty writing in the SF Chronicle, men who protest at abortion clinics, people who hate others for being LGBTQ and organized religion. I wish that I could wrap all of these things into one big bundle, stuff it into a large pinata and destroy it with a bat.
   Anyway, I was thinking about all of this stuff as I biked back to my neighborhood and continued to drive myself into an unreasonable frenzy. An old friend had invited me to the queer goth show at a bar, but I soon found myself alone, hiding in the back of a taqueria, listening to cumbia and reading a book about Mormonism. I politely declined the invitation and just went home. In my room ,I wanted to listen to something that was as fucked up as I felt. I looked through the hardcore tapes, the snarling punk anthems and the noisy dirges, but when my fingers floated to this tape, I knew my search was over.
   Marissa Magic and I don't know each other too well, but I feel like we might share some of the same thoughts about the state of the world. This tape is cathartic, uncomfortable and noisy as fuck. I could name some comparisons but this isn't really my world of punk. In different ways, it makes me think about RUSSIAN TSARLAG and the Sonic Death tape, but only vaguely. There are some wild stabs at drums, a soothing blanket of feedback and layered screams that started to pull me from this awful mood. I dreamed of walking into the karaoke bar where 20-somethings had been post-ironically singing Kenny Loggins songs and just blasting this through their PA. In the right kind of setting, someone would want to beat you up for listening to this kind of music and in my mind, that is how I still want punk/noise to be. I don't want punk to sell cars. I don't want punk to reunite to play shitty fests. I want punk to always come out of weird, dirty places and remain challenging, like this.

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Find more by Marissa here

That's all pretty rambly, but you know what I'm saying, right?

Mormonism is some weird shit.

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.