The King Must Die Compilation - 1992

Here is the compilation: The King Must Die

I never owned this tape back in the day, but it was in the pile of stuff from Chad Wiener, so I transferred it to CD and had a listen. Many of the bands I had already known before. Midget Farmers played with Balrog at least once at the Wreck Room, and I met one of the guys later in Athens who was supercool. I saw the Labrea Stompers open for Gas Huffer at Hoyt Street Station in Athens, and seen several of the Jim Stacy bands since. Roosevelt was my favorite band that I never got to see, and was even scared to talk to Ballard the drummer for years afterwards just because of my awe over that band. Fiddlehead of course was awesome, and this tape has some good Kip-era songs included. Hayride was always interesting and had some crazy songs - I played in Finletter with the guitarist's brother Brian Sweeney when I was in high school. I had heard of the Fuzzy Sprouts, Thornyhold, and Flap from back in the day, but I believe this is the first time I actually heard their music. Overall, I think it is a good picture of what local bands were like back in 1992. A lot of chorus pedals, a lot of plucking/slapping on the bass, some bad overall songwriting, but in general a decent compilation.

What is my favorite on here? Of course Roosevelt, as "Scooter" is still one of my favorite local songs, and "FNA" by Balrog is pretty awesome, and "Andre" by Lagerhead is not too bad as a band/song I never heard before. "Hard Genny" by Fiddlehead is one of my faves of theirs, and Hayride's music always entertains. What do you think is my least favorite? You would maybe think the Fuzzy Sprouts song, but it's so far down that plucky/funky backroad that is so seldom travelled these days, it almost makes the song awesome in its time-capsule quality. You only need to hear 10 seconds of it to know it is from 1992. Lenny is pretty bad, but comparable to Red Emma from the State of the Union comp or many other female-fronted groups of the time. Really the absolute true clunker on this comp in Audiac. Their name is familiar, but does anyone know these guys now? I'm not one to talk, as I have been involved with some bad stuff over the years, but in terms of this compilation, it is the goat. At MJQ, Ed tells me that at closing time they used to like to turn on the house lights and blast "Reign in Blood" by Slayer, and that usually cleared the crowd out pretty quickly, but then everyone started getting used to it and kind of looking forward to it every night, so a new strategy had to be developed. I would recommend playing "Swish" by Audiac from this compilation, as I think that would effectively shut down any party anywhere. They really don't make 'em like that anymore.

The tape cover, one-sided


The insert that came with it (nice rant) - click to enlarge