Matt Mauldin, the guy without long hair in this picture, has been playing in bands for 20 years, including Venosity, Bloodspoon (this is their band photo), Car vs. Driver, Chocolate Kiss, and most recently Sonn Av Krusher. The other day he gave me his flyer collection, and I have included the best in this post. I have also started a flyer archive on Mediafire, so please check it out here. I will be updating it with new flyer collections as they become available.
November 3, 1989: Animosity with Poor Excuses and Self Existence at Visions. Self Existence was the temporary name of Such As, who went back to their original name soon after. Such As was Steve and Scott Wishart, later in Car vs. Driver, Scout, Ostinato, etc.
November 26, 1989: Corrosion of Conformity with Dirt and Dark Overlord at the Masquerade. What a lineup! That must have been quite a show. Back then, you had such a wide variety of music on the same bill, as you will see more of below.
April 27, 1990: Ghost Story with Cymon Bar Sinister (I think?) at Visions. Matt always touted Ghost Story as being an amazing Atlanta band of this time, but I never heard them myself. This is a carbon copy, not even printed on a standard photocopy machine, just to give you an idea of how long ago this was.
June 1, 1990: Venosity with Such As, Something To Prove and Spiney Norman at Visions. This is the first flyer of Matt's with one of his bands on the bill, but I don't think this was their first show. Something To Prove was a side band of the Wishart brothers from Such As, if I remember correctly.
June 1, 1990: Same show as above. Sweet face artwork.
June 15, 1990: O.C.B. with Venosity and Form Follows Function at Visions. As you can see, Venosity had a font for their bandname right from the very start, which is the hallmark of any metal band worth its salt.
June 16, 1990: Damnage with Venosity and Heckler at Ozone in Gwinnett. This was thrash nite, as the flyer states. Also, notice the appearance of X's on the flyer.
June 22, 1990: Act of Faith with Spiney Norman at Visions. Classic flyer, I remember it from back in the day, but I wasn't at this show myself.
July 3, 1990: Flotsam and Jetsam with Prong and Ghost Story at Center Stage. Home of WCW wrestling, it's called Center Stage again now, right?
July 13, 1990: O.C.B. with Venosity at Visions. Matt Mauldin's thick marker font makes its first appearance.
July 14, 1990: Venosity with Decimation and Mad-Hatter at Ozone. Venosity did some weekend tours of Visions and Ozone during this period. Notice the Venosity font change to better resemble O.C.B.
August 18, 1990: Ghost Story with Venosity at Ozone. Flyer design is making improvements by leaps and bounds. Pushead graphics always help.
September 8, 1990: Venosity with Metalmorphosis and Jester at Ozone. How many bands from this time were out there calling themselves Metalmorphosis?
September 21, 1990: Venosity with Malignancy and Osiris at Shades. Just to give you an idea of the venues we were playing back then, check out the directions. Shades was in the Winn Dixie parking lot across from the K-Mart.
October 5, 1990: Venosity with Distemper at New Visions. Font change for Venosity, location change for Visions. Last Venosity flyer, but was it their last show?
December 13, 1991: Bloodspoon at the Wreck Room. The emergence of Bloodspoon on the scene, Atlanta's only Blah band, whatever that was supposed to mean. I remember when Matt was forming the band, and Bloodspoon was supposed to be a little less serious than Venosity, which we were excited about in the Midget Farmers, but when I saw them live, they seemed pretty serious to me.
January 18, 1992: Bloodspoon with Nihilist and Distemper at the Wreck Room. I'm sure 10 other bands played that night, but there was no need to mention Funmud.
June 26, 1990: Neurosis with Buzzoven and Bloodspoon at the Masquerade (Purgatory). Some damn fine shows happened in Purgatory around this time. Funny that Neurosis is playing the same venue later this month.
July 26, 1992: Nuisance with 8 Ball, Tonka and Unherd at the Milestone in Charlotte. This is not an Atlanta flyer, but I included it anyway as it was at the Milestone, a legendary club in the Southeast, and Tonka/Unherd were both on the bill. Both these bands would combine soon after to form the amazing Assfactor 4.
December 2, 1992: Down By Law with Bloodspoon and Crisis Under Control at the Masquerade. Another classic show. Matt's thick black marker is working hard on this one.
December 5, 1992: Bloodspoon with Exterminator 36 and Midget Farmers at the Wreck Room. Finally one of my bands makes the flyer! This may have been one of the shows where we played outside on the beach.
December 29, 1992: Phleg Camp with Fiddlehead and Scout at the Somber Reptile. Flyer by Scott Wishart, if you can't tell. Amazing to think of the early computer design work in 1992.
February 2, 1993: Born Against with Buzzoven and Bloodspoon at the Somber Reptile. Man, what a show.
March 27, 1993: Screeching Weasel with Pink Lincolns, Spiney Norman and Midget Farmers at the Somber Reptile. I have a video of this show. It was totally packed, and everyone completely hated us (Midget Farmers). Spiney Norman got a somewhat better response, but everyone was there for Screeching Weasel. By the way, here is their rider/contract from that show, which is pretty amusing.
I like the part about needing access to a faucet to fill up their water jugs.
April 30, 1993: Nuisance with Fiddlehead and Scout at the Liquid Bean. Who remembers shows at the Liquid Bean? It was my favorite venue of this period, really where I got to see Scout and Freemasonry for the first time, and Car vs. Driver started getting it together. This was on the corner of Ponce and Charles Allen, right next to where Beep Beep Gallery currently resides. I can remember parking in that Church parking lot as a teenager for shows at the Liquid Bean, and now parking in the same place for shows at Beep Beep. Surreal.
July 15, 1993: Gauge with Scout and Car vs. Driver at the Somber Reptile. This was Car vs. Driver's first show, although I never have seen this flyer until now. Thanks to Scott for the design.
July 17, 1994: 108 with Broken, Quadiliacha and Regicide at the Somber Reptile. Important to note the appearance of Regicide on the bill, although I'm not sure which incarnation of Regicide this was. Oh, and don't forget Earth Crisis on July 19.
for the record, the born against show was moved to house in ormewood park and buzzov-en didn't play... born against covered the theme from the jeffersons. the venosity show with such as and spiney norman was our first show... i was relieved when i could get others to do flyers for show that i was working on... i.e. nuisance and fiddlehead show- btw, nuisance fucking killed it that night... totally underrated band, and great guys. they broke up on that tour.
ReplyDeleteMatt, that Jeffersons theme cover is on the Born Against/Screeching Weasel split, fyi. Each band wrote lyrics for the other band to write music to, which gave us Born Against's incredible "Janelle". They tacked on the Jeffersons cover on the cd version.
ReplyDeleteAnd man, I would've loved to see that Flotsam and Jetsam/Prong/Ghost Story show. Funny to note that by the following year, Prong had stolen F&J's bassist.
i have a prong "beg to differ" promo poster with two of the dudes signatures on it from that night. funny, i guess f&j had a hard time holding on to their bassists... prong played well that night, i was really into them at the time.
ReplyDeletei never got that born against/screeching weasel split...
I was big into Prong around that time too. I went to see them, the revamped COC, and Bullet Lavolta in 92 or so, but due to my curfew had to leave before Prong played. I did meet Troy Gregory though (the former F&J bassist I referred to earlier) and got his autograph. That shit was wild back when I was 15 or whatever.
ReplyDeletethat must have been "blind" era COC. that magical time when they were neither a tour-de-force crossover hardcore band nor a weird southern hard rock band still using the name.
ReplyDeletedid you ever listen to bullet lavolta? they were part of that whole new alternative metal movement before grunge hit... i remember tim from wrekage talking them up along with soundgarden back in 1989 and 1990. i never listened to them, but was curious about them at the time. speaking of soundgarden, i saw them open up for voivod... what a line-up!
actually, i think that i did make that nuisance flyer. that must have been my post-marker flyer making period. it was obviously influenced by scott wishart though.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was the Blind era COC. We didn't know that until we were in the car on the way, and one of the dudes in the car explained that this was a "new" COC. Bummed, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bullet Lavolta blew me away that night. I became a fan after that. They're a really odd mix of punk, metal, grunge, and rock. Kind of hard to classify, and not really enough in any of those scenes to pull in all that many fans. Swandive is a cool record.
that neurosis bloodspoon show was nothing short of amazing. i seem to remember a similarly awesome show in purgatory with seaweed. seems like it was probably within the same week. anyway, for neurosis i totally started feelng sick. they had like two reel to reel projectors showing different colored movies on top of eachother. it like gave me vertigo or some shit. i'm bummed i missed those nuisance shows! durn it.
ReplyDeleteMy sister married and had a child with the drummer of Hallows Eve. He later started a band with the guitarist from Metalmorphosis called Love Me Avenue. The guitarist was named Mel and he came to my sister's wedding wearing an old/trashed 7-Seconds t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans that had a rip near his ass cheek and he was going commando that day. Classy!
ReplyDeleteawesome! i live in the same neighborhood and often see and talk to stacey andersen- hallow's eve and metalmorphosis... i guess we need to start a six degrees of hallows eve thread!
ReplyDeletewow, I don't think I still have any of those flyers. I completely forgot about Such As changing our name for a couple shows too.
ReplyDeleteoh, and those crappy "early computer flyers" were actually made with film in Etowah H.S. graphics class.
Those are some nice flyers - more impressive knowing that they weren't done using a computer. Great shows from the time period.
ReplyDeleteWhoa! That C.O.C show was my first "concert" ever. Excluding the Monkees and Weird Al show i attended with my parents at Chastain Park. Get jealous.
ReplyDeleteI was in the band Decimation and remember playing with so many of these bands. I remember Venosity just coming out of nowhere and blowing us off stage! These were some of the most fun days of my life. How cool to find this collection of flyers to so many show that I attended!
ReplyDeleteThe Bean! I could start a whole nostalgic blog about that place with all the crap I saved. I went in to the antique store that's replaced it recently and like, walked around thinking about people electrocuting each other in the back and the prostitutes who'd come in and hang out.
ReplyDeleteI have been wasting so much time on this blog today...my kid is dirty and hasn't had her bath yet because of this.
That's hilarious - every time I get on the computer my daughter has to come over and start banging on the keys. Now I have to wait for her nap to do any typing whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteMatt replaced me in Venosity. Good times. I remember Ghost Story showing up to jam with us. I sang a few songs Matt sang a few songs. The weird thing is after I left that band I mat a guy named John Silk and joined his band called Zombu which just happened to be Matt's old band. Talk about flip flop. Anywho i'm Craig DeOreo im still rocking out, way better then I was back ten and still growing musically. Matt thanks for saving those flyers. I have a copy of the Venosity demo if anyone needs a copy I made MP3's out of it. Just let me know. cdeoreo@comcast.net
ReplyDeletePeace,
Craig D
wow, great collection. I used to live in cumming and went to Visions every weekend.I have always been good friends with O.C.B. and 713. There was a great scene in the early 90,s. Wish I had kept my flyers. Kelly Hester
ReplyDeleteI have a bunch of these and quite a few more boxed up since I played in animosity / form follows function and sat in with a few other bands back then. Great collection, man! Thanks for sharing. Cheers
ReplyDelete