Monday, December 15, 2008

Attaining The Supreme (Whirled Records Compilation 1995)


Here is the download: Attaining The Supreme

Track Listing:
1: Man Or Astroman - Joker's Wild
2: Whirlybird - Foogatavie
3: M Blanket - Some Other Day
4: Swank - Latin American Negro
5: Teeth - Enzyme
6: Squatweiler - 73 Degrees
7: Shade - In The Battle
8: Quadiliacha - It Happens
9: Hot Water Music - Incisions
10: Waffle Stomper - Berol Giant
11: Maximillian Colby - New Jello
12: Tanner Boyle - Phase To Retired
13: Second Hand - Rose And A Thicket Of Thorns
14: Horace Pinker - Extra Step
15: Water Monitor - User Friendly
16: Less Than Jake - This Is Going Nowhere
17: The Pee Tanks - Santa Gada Da Vida
18: Car Vs. Driver - I Was Bitter
19: The Odd Numbers - So Many Girls (Live)
20: Bug Hummer - Burning Atlanta

This was a compilation put out by Whirled Records out of Richmond, Virginia in 1995, which included a few Atlanta bands (Quadiliacha, Car Vs. Driver) and several regional bands (Bug Hummer from Savannah, Hot Water Music and Less Than Jake from Gainesville Florida, Man Or Astroman from Auburn Alabama). The Car Vs. Driver song "I Was Bitter" was one of our earliest songs and a crowd favorite, although I'm not sure if they really thought it was a great song, or they just liked yelling "Bitter!" through our sets.

Whirled Records was run by the guys in Whirlybird (obviously), and put out some great releases from Richmond bands during this time. This was a high period for Richmond music in the mid-nineties: Hose Got Cable, Maximillion Colby/Sleepytime Trio, Action Patrol, Avail, Hell Mach Four, and Whirled Records was one of the local labels that supported quality releases by many of these.

Listening back on the compilation today, my favorite bands have to be Maximillian Colby and Bug Hummer who were both amazing bands of the time. The Man or Astroman song is classic, of course, being a live song by possibly the best live band of the mid-nineties. I like most of the other songs for what they were, but the Second Hand is so strangely brilliant and hilarious, it has become my new favorite - they really hated god, that much is clear. The song by Shade was one favorite back in that time in the Christie Front Drive vein, but it's lustre has faded a bit over the past 13 years, and my tastes have changed.
Here is the artwork for the release:

19 comments:

  1. did shade release anything else? this is the first time i've heard this song, and i haven't grown up yet, so am still a sucker for this kind of thing!

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  2. Hey Andy - It's great to hear from you again! No, I don't believe Shade ever released anything else, but they were not from Atlanta, so I am not so sure. They were from Palmetto, Florida so it would make sense if they had a release on No Idea, or some other Florida label. However, I do not know of any release by them.

    I can appreciate it for what it is, and enjoy it for a certain nostalgic quality, but I can tell you that I don't really rock out to Julia so much anymore.

    If you have any requests, especially for Atlanta music, just let me know!

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  3. Ah, thanks James. I've enjoyed reading your posts on here, good work!

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  4. I think they later changed their name to Seade and played at the Driverdome once, but I might be crazy.

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  5. "I was a bitter" was a great car vs. driver song in my opinion. I always loved playing it. And Matt's lyrics were brilliant. I still find myself saying occasionaly "asked why I was bitter, I replied just look around".

    Also, if I remember correctly "I was bitter" was one of the musical gems that James wrote.

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  6. I did write the music to Bitter, but of course not the lyrics. I thought it was one of our best early songs, but I'm always more critical of my own stuff than with songs other people in the band wrote. With CVD, I wrote the music to Bitter, Dragonfly, Summer Pick-Up, Final Offering and Peroxide. Any others?

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  7. thanks steve, BTW the last two lines were left off the lyric sheet on this release.

    "try to forget it all for once
    and go through some rebirth"

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  8. This is my favorite comp I ever bought off a kid in the streets outside a show randomly in the streets of Florida '95 while on a road trip. Still listen to it weekly. Great stuff... and the first time I heard some of my now favorite bands evar. Nostalgia.

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  9. Seade was not from FL, they were out of B'more.

    I just found my attaining disc today flipping through an old stack of CD's and lost the case and TL. Glad to find it all here!

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  10. Oh, and Shade does not = Seade

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  11. Stumbled across this thread searching for info on Shade. Any clue if these guys went on to play in any other bands?

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  12. Hey Noattack - there seems to be some confusion regarding the band Shade in the comments. They are not the band Seade from Baltimore, and there is no other information on them in the comp except for a phone number and address that I'm sure no longer exist. Maybe something will turn up on them someday - good luck with the search!

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  13. Although no one above has made mention of it, Toybox Records (a.k.a. Sean Bonner, the poor man's Will Wheaton) was also involved with this release. Among his many never-realized releases were a Shade seven-inch and a compilation called "Something Old, Something New" which was slated to have Shade, Hot Water Music, and a bunch of other mid-90s southeast bands.

    At the very least, there was a cassette Toybox sampler that had a Shade song called "Rod Of Correction".

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  14. Hey Heart of Portland - I'm not sure if I understand the Will Wheaton analogy, but I do remember Toybox Records. It's a shame many of these releases never happened, but maybe someone will post some of this on the interweb somewhere. Perhaps a Florida version of this blog. Thanks for the info on the band.

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  15. FYI, 'Rod of Correction' showed up on the Blindspot mailorder CD that served as a sampler for No Idea / Toybox bands. Also an excellent song.

    Shade has eluded me for years. A friend of mine thought that they might have some connection to Hot Water Music...a side project for one of the members perhaps. Can't dig up any info to verify that tidbit though.

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  16. I was in Shade. We were from Bradenton FL. Chris Wollard was in Shade then left for Thread that turned into HWM. Shade recorded a demo in gainesville with 5 or 6 songs, I'll attempt to track down the cassette HAHA!

    Shade was Brian Dault vocals & guitar, Ed Stork drums, Chris Cantwell guitar & Milton Chapman on Bass.

    Brian Dault last I heard was doing a christian hardcore band called holdfast or something close to that (sorry brian) out of clearwater FL.

    Ed Stork is in Orlando & teaches movie editing / soundtrack production

    Chris C (me) went on to play with The Chase Theory , IHB (I Hate Ben) New Crash Position & Hate the Game. Now just jamming locally.

    Milton Chapman went on to Brandon FL & did some amazing music with Hankshaw (probably other bands too but I'm not sure of the names)

    Thanks for all the kind words, this comp was very cool as being our first comp & I was blown away by maxamillion colby & swank & of course HWM but will be listening again & see what stands out now. Thanks for posting this, very stoked on finding this.

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  17. ED played in The Chase Theory too

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  18. James - It's funny that as I was Googling that Teeth song today, I came across this write-up. Looks like I need to dig through your archives here and see what else I might be searching for in the next few years. ;) Kinch and I have talked about covering all the songs on this CD, maybe releasing it as "Duplicating the Supreme". Sounds like I'm not the only guy who still loves this comp. And, I know what you mean about the song by Second Hand. At first, I would skip it to hear the more rocking stuff, but then I got to a point where singing along to that one in my car was a highlight of my nights delivering pizza for who else?...Pizza Hut!!

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  19. I recall buying this comp at a show at in a trailer (The Little House) in Biloxi, Ms in 1995. That summer was fucking awesome, Swank, Whirlybird, Water Monitor. That fall, I moved to California and still bought tapes via mail from bands. I copied this comp to tape for so many West Coast friends.

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