Beyond Failure

Ostinato: Post-Now Unreleased Album

2011-07-19T04:03:00.003-04:00

Here is the download: Ostinato Album

After Scout dissolved in early 1996, I remember the guitarist Erv Lockett (Scout, Motherfucking Tourettes, Crusher Destroyer, Karate Bear Fighter, Volcanism, etc.) started doing solo guitar shows, and eventually added his previous bandmate Scott Wishart on drums and calling themselves Ostinato Grove. Sometime after this, they added a bassplayer named Dave Knox and then they shortened the name to Ostinato. I don't think they had any official releases, but they did have this CDR floating around in the early 2000s, which is quite impressive. I always had a soft spot for Scout, but this album really swings for the fences. Kind of like taking Scout and developing their sound to another level, more focused and a tighter unit. I would really like a second guitar in there, but also it keeps things a little more coherent since Erv is such a busy player.

Scott always bounced around the Clemson/Atlanta/Charlotte area, but eventually he settled in Charlotte and opened Lunchbox Records, so you can go bug him at work whenever you are in the area. I will see Erv every once in awhile in the Atlanta area, but I don't know what David is doing these days. There was talk that they might reform as Scout but in the Ostinato lineup, so we'll see what happens with that. I would probably drive up to Charlotte to witness that one in action.

Moreland Audio

2011-07-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

Here is the download: Moreland Audio - Turbogold Album

Since the Purkinje Shift has been up and at 'em as of late, playing regular shows and writing new music with the addition of master drummer Lee Corum (Chapterhall, TSDOSD, Mock Heroic, Some Soviet Station, Copa Vance, Home of the Wildcats, Lay Down Mains, Gold Standard, etc.), so I thought the time was ripe to upload the Turbogold album by Moreland Audio. You can check out my previous Purkinje Shift post here, as they have been creating quite a legacy for themselves, soon to be assuming their status as the "Drivin' n' Cryin' of math-rock".

Gary Flom and Ben Davis love to play music together. I'm not sure exactly how they became musical BFF's, but starting with The Purkinje Shift, moving into Moreland Audio, then Home of the Wildcats, then a gap while Gary played in The Forever War, but then together again with Ben Lukens in Lumens, and now reunited as PKS. But back in the year 2000, things were not so certain. I'm not sure of the exact chain of events, but Scott Robbins moved on in his life/career/geographic location and left the Gary/Ben team without a drummer. Enter Adam Overton, a guy from Ben Davis' real musicians' network (and not one of us punkers), bringing a more subtled feel compared to the stark metronomic beats provided by Scott. Additionally, Ben and Gary mixed it up by adding some baritone and lapsteel guitar work, respectively, and really stretched it out on this record. Overall, it is a more abstract and discordant band, but also more rocking and visceral. Of course they were still a fully-instrumental endeavor, as it was meant to be from ever since. They did it for 2-3 years, and then wrapped it up in2003, releasing only this album and a song on the String Theory compilation.

Here is the rest of the artwork:

Coup de Grâce

2011-06-29T16:17:00.005-04:00

Photo from Goatshoes.

Here is the download: Coup de Grâce tape

If you remember back before Radio Bomb became the official punk/hardcore/DIY/whatever show on WREK, there was Coup de Grâce, and before that was the Punk Rock Anarchy Hour, although unfortunately I don't have any recordings from that time period. Anyhow, a guy named Brad emailed me two sides of a tape he recorded off the air way back then, and I decided to post it here for nostalgic purposes. I believe this was 1993? Did Radio Bomb start officially in 1994? When did the Punk Rock Anarchy Hour end? How long did it take you to figure out what Coup de Grace meant back before the internet?

More stuff coming soon, just trying to get caught up here.

Early Modern Witch Trials

2011-05-04T03:17:00.003-04:00

Here is the download: Early Modern Witch Trials

Before there was Judi Chicago, there was Early Modern Witch Trials. Ben Coleman and Travis Thatcher, the two main creative forces behind JC, channelled their love of sixties psych, seventies prog and krautrock, and some Monks thrown in for good measure and formed EMWT. What is interesting about EMWT is the choice of instruments for the members: Travis exclusively played sax (he is known far and wide as a synth guru), Ben played bass (once again, known for electronics and guitar in Judi Chicago). They also recruited Mick Winters to play Farfisa organ (previously a bassplayer in Black Cougar Shock Unit out of Gainesville/Atlanta), and Blake Helton on drums (his usual instrument, but normally he is a very jazz-style drummer and this is definitely a more caveman/visceral plane of existence for him). According to Travis, Ben and Mick formed the band together, then got Blake involved through a Craigslist posting or some similar resource, and then added Travis to make sax and noise only after they had been together for six to eight months. It's amazing that they found someone as like-minded and musically gifted as Blake Helton through Craigslist, quite a diamond in the rough.

I am not sure where the name came from, but it always reminded me of the first album by the Fall "Live at the Witch Trials". It does have a kind of psych-tinge to it, but also something that might be played on the Stonehenge radio show. My old band Sonn Av Krusher was supposed to play with them, but they imploded before we had a chance and instead played with Travis and Blake's other musical outlet, Recompas. So Travis and Ben went on to focus on Judi Chicago (recruiting me to play drums with them whenever possible) and now Ben doing his solo work as Kid Pyramid, Blake continued on in Recompas with Travis as well as playing in many other projects, and Mick is now playing in an MC5-style rock band called Charges. At least EMWT recorded a full-length CD/demo, which I am including here for everyone to enjoy. Furthermore, Travis sent me a link to a live show here.

Here is a picture of them playing at the 11:11 Teahouse (now Sauced).

And a bio from their old Myspace page:
Early Modern Witch Trials formed in the Fall of 2006, in Atlanta, GA, to explore the sonic territory blazed by the likes of The Monks, Suicide and the bands of the American Garage Rock / Psych scene..... A more improvisational direction, drawing upon elements of the English Progressive and Space Rock Movements (Van Der Graaf Generator, Hawkwind), the Canterbury scene (Soft Machine, Gong, Caravan) and the Avant-Rock of Early 70's Europe (Faust, Amon Duul, Can, Ash Ra Tempel), emerged from extensive rehearsal sessions and the addition of new members. .... By January of 2007, the band's core sound was complete, featuring winds, strings, keys & percussion, without a six string guitar in earshot. .... The quartet made its live debut in February 2007, will continue to perform live throughout the Spring and Summer and is currently recording for releases later in the season. .. .

And the back cover of the demo CD:

Macho Donkey Wrestler

2011-04-26T10:00:00.006-04:00

Here is the download: Macho Donkey Wrestler

Okay, it has been a long time, and I apologize for the absence. I have been in the middle of family business as well as job-finding business, but things have equilibrated for the moment and I can bring the old blog back and catch up on some of these posts. Next out of the gate is the (mostly) unreleased discography of Macho Donkey Wrestler, an early-aughts Atlanta band with strong ties to the Moodswing crowd. In fact, the first two songs were released by Moodswing as a split 7" with the great Remuxers in 2002. The band consisted of Allan Chastain on guitar/vocals (formerly of Copa Vance), David Lane on drums and Jason Revell on guitar/vocals. All of the members would continue on with Rick Moore and Greg Murder in The Wayne Williams, David in Lay Down Mains, and now in Rick's new band, Skinjobs. There are a bunch of other connections to report, but I am an outsider to this family tree, so it will have to come from Jason or someone else. Musically, they put out some mathy, aggressive, discordant postpunk, much like the other bands mentioned here, but refined over time as a kind of subgenre of Atlanta rock. In my opinion Lay Down Mains has done it best thus far, but I need to see Skinjobs in action to get the latest from the Rick Moore camp. With this crew, it's always loud, it's always unrelenting, and it always makes you a little uncomfortable, mostly in a good way.

Thanks again to Jason Revell (dictated, but not read), for helping me with the post and being patient while I sorted my life out. Enjoy the sounds from the early part of this century.

BOB - The Discography

2011-02-01T13:32:00.005-05:00

Here are their four albums:

Complex Organism Blues (Half Baked Records, 1994)

Rounded At The Free End (Half Baked Records, 1995)

Sonic Hedges (Bullshi’vic, 1997)

Pendulum (Bullshi’vic, 1998?)

Here is their original demo:

Parle Bri Wah Cassette (1992)

Here is some live stuff:

Live at WREK 1993-01-12

Live at WREK 1993-11-23

Live at WREK 1995-02-28

Live at Tongue Bath 1995-02-29

And lastly, here are some singles and comp tracks:

BOB - Singles and Comp Tracks

And their origins:
1-4: from the Peel Session 7"
5-7: from the Atomic Cafe 7"
8-10: from the Refuel Compilation
11-12: from the Compatibility of Dissonance Compilation
13: from the Quadruple Felony 7"

Update: Brad sent me the Bob tracks from their split 7" with Gas*o*lene, so I have uploaded them to the Singles and Comp Tracks file. You can now download 15 bonus BOB studio tracks!

BOB, the art-rock/postpunk/whatever band from Atlanta in the 1990's was one of the great underrated gems of our time, check out my previous BOB posts here and here. It was great that they were so prolific and provided us with so much material to digest, I'm glad that it can be available here for everyone to enjoy. I also did an email interview with their guitarist/singer Rich Hudson, and have included it here:

Rich Hudson Interview (BF = me, RH = Rich Hudson)

RH: First, James, I enjoyed listening to your interview on the program "Following Your Passions". It's great what you've done with Beyond Failure, archiving a lot of obscure, if forgotten, Atlanta music in the 80s and 90s. It was exciting to be a part of the Atlanta scene in those pre-Internet days. There was camaraderie as well as friendly competition amongst the bands. We supported and inspired each other.

BF: Bob to me was the best of the strictly “local” band from the 1990’s, in the sense that you were like a local secret that nobody outside Atlanta knew about, but should have. I believe all of your albums and singles were on local Atlanta labels, including Amy Potter’s Half Baked Records, etc. Was there ever any label interest outside of Atlanta, or out of town interest in Bob’s music in general? What kind of touring did you do as a band? Can you remember some of the more interesting bands and venues you encountered on the road? Friends made? Friends lost?

RH: Thank you for the complement! It really means a lot. I can say on behalf of all Bob band mates over the years, we're grateful for any interest in our music. It was a passion, at times an obsession. Any money earned, as you can imagine it wasn't much, went back into the band for recording, t-shirts, stickers.

There was some label interest. One Atlanta label had offered us a yearly allowance to go out on the road. Although the money may've sounded good, it wouldn't have covered our obligations at home much less the tour van we were expected to buy with it. That was in 1994 after Complex Organism Blues came out. In 97 an indie label based in NYC took a liking to us after a gig in Providence, RI, but we never worked out a deal. Last 2 albums were on our own non-label "Bullshi'vic Rekkids". Amy Potter was great about not interfering in her bands' artistic freedom. I remember when she first saw us at the Third Street Pub (through the tunnel from Georgia Tech). She was the general manager at WREK and she liked us! That was a big deal to me. WREK was my favorite station. She was a big part of the local Atlanta scene in the 90s aside from being a genuinely warm hearted lady.

We did at least 6 week-long tours up the east coast to Boston. We didn't have enough vacation time from our day jobs to go on a longer tour. It was more practical for us to play in the same cities several times to try to establish contacts and a following than to go on an extensive national tour. Eric bought a Ford Econoline van. I heard you say one of your bands drove the same thing. Fortunately, we didn't have too many break downs. It was before cell phones, so somebody had to walk to a phone booth.

Early Bob was Eric Ingram (drums), me (guit/voc) and Ted Grauch (bass). We had a gig in Wilmington, NC, way the hell out there on the coast; a long drive from Atlanta. We opened for "The Leaving Trains". They were a 4 piece from California. This was around 1993. They had been touring through the bible belt and not having a good go of it; the singer was in drag. Cross-dressing wasn't as widely accepted in the south at that time! By the time they got to Wilmington they were down to a 2 piece. The bass player and 2nd guitarist quit somewhere around Birmingham. I remember when we pulled up to the club. There was the singer, a masculine dude, probably 6 foot +, standing at a phone booth in a black evening dress telling their record company that 1/2 the band quit. What really became a big inspiration for me when Ted quit Bob, was that the 2 piece Leaving Trains played their asses off. I mean, they could've easily said to hell with it and ended their tour right there. But they didn't. They persevered. When Ted quit, Eric and I played as a 2 piece for about 9 months. We even made a bass player silhouette out of cardboard that joined us on stage at the Masquerade. It was an important experience.

Venues: CBGB's. One time we (Ray on bass) went on after Unsane and The Cows. Wow, we thought, this is a big crowd. Before we could set up almost everyone left! Not good to go on after well-known bands in NY. People in NY always have some place to be. If you're not on their radar, they have no time for ya. We played CBGB's another time and a Van Halen-like band went on after us. The singer even had a wireless mic so he could annoy the 15 or so people in the audience. It might've been that night that Ray wreaked havoc on a urinal when the club reneged on the $50 guarantee. One of my favorite Bob moments was when we opened for Ben Folds Five in Raleigh, NC. A big crowd of college kids were all up by the stage waiting for our first song, probably assuming that we sounded similar, or at least, complimentary to Ben Folds. Obviously, we didn't. We opened with "Who is Sharon Tate?". "Killing makes me cum....Living makes me sick"....[Eric hits the toms] I release a bloody scream. The audience backs off a respectful 15, 20 feet! Surprisingly, several endured our set before the more conventional stylings of Ben Folds. We were friends with "Bright" from Boston. I've often listened to their albums. They were classified as kraut-rock. Layers of effected guitar and melodies, simple percussion. Great blokes! They put us up several times. "Plug Spark Sanjay" out of Hoboken, NJ, also great people. "Sau" from Richmond, VA. They were metal with a minimal brass section. The singer/bassist was a whiney Mick Jagger. Good band if you can get a copy of their first disc.

BF: Your sound went through many twists and turns from your very first singles (e.g. The Peel Sessions and Atomic Café) to your last album Pendulum. What were your influences during all these periods in your band’s history? How would you characterize your progression from the beginning to the end? Did you have any coherent vision for your band as the years went on?

RH: Early on, SST Records, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth. Fugazi was also influential, but not so much for me. We liked pop music, art school Velvet Underground, Jesus Lizard. Later, we attended "Table of the Elements" festival during Freaknick in Atlanta. That was amazing. It directly influenced the song "Fist Embodied Duck" and probably most of "Rounded at the Free End". It was in an art gallery off Peachtree Rd in Buckhead. Keiji Haino did a solo performance. The audience was silent and respectful when Haino took the stage. Haino was dressed in black, had sun glasses and a rock star attitude. He poses before the microphone, silent. Anticipation builds. Then he unleashes a series of unintelligible spastic screams. It was funny, especially because no one in the artsy crowd dared laugh. He then proceeds to play the guitar which sounds like a jet engine for about 30 minutes. AMM, Faust and Tony Conrad all performed as well as 3/4 of Sonic Youth. I never thought about song writing the same way after Table of the Elements, thus, the guitar chord drone for most of "Fist Embodied Duck" inspired by Tony Conrad's extensive drone pieces.

We progressed from a minimalist pseudo punk band to an arena-rock-dance-collective that never performed in an arena! I mean, on Pendulum, we had 3 guest stars, one of whom was Sicily Simpson (great back up singer). In terms of sound, the songs were meant to be as big as the E Street Band. However, Bob music would always have a gamey underground smell that wreaked of artistic freedom! Bruce Springsteen was a tenderloin, Bob was a north american diving duck. Eric and I once had a short lived band called North American Diving Duck (NADD) before the Bob days.

There was no coherent vision. The Bob sound changed with the personality of each bass player. We were more punk with Ted, still developing as song writers. With Ray, it was a mixture of free-form improv, aggression and melody. Katt was about grooves, dance and entertainment, sometimes a circus. Eric and I were open to seeing how the sound could develop. Mostly, we were all great friends. Creating music together was our God experience. Other people turn to religion, some people end up in prison. We were in a band. It was the controlled release of energy.

BF: Your albums seem to have a lot of experimental interludes, unnamed tracks, random bits and pieces to make the album an entire listening experience, and not just a collection of hit singles. Was this a conscious effort on your part, or is there a motive behind how you assembled and sequenced your albums? Are there any bands you drew inspiration from in putting together these records?

RH: We did take time to consider all tracks and song order. For example, there is 33 seconds of silence between "Who is Sharon Tate?" and the untitled 17th track on Complex Organism Blues (known as "Atomic Cafe"). The 33 seconds was Ray's idea to honor local band King Kill 33. We divided the 20 minute song Animal Speak into 7 different tracks. The purpose was to disorient the listener when they put the disc on random play. I remember tuning to WREK a few years after the release and hearing one segment of "Animal Speak". It was an odd experience because I thought: I like that, sounds familiar, who is it? Then the DJ identified it as Bob. It surprised me in a good way. I can't say that we drew inspiration from anyone when putting these records together. I'm sure subconsciously we did, but it was more about intuition: if it sounded good we went with it.

BF: You are also one of the only bands that I can remember that has been able to successfully use vocal effects, bullhorns, etc. in your music. In my experience, vocal effects can be used as a trick to mask any shortcomings of the singer, however you were able to add it as a textural element in the songs and not use it as a “crutch”. Can you tell us more about your strategies for vocals?

RH: I always, always wanted the vocal to be compelling. I was also self conscious about my voice. I wished I could sing like Bono or Ozzy! Back in 1987 Eric and I worked on a song called "Ingrid Receives a Hickey". We recorded it on Eric's 4 track tape machine. On playback I didn't like the vocal, but I liked the tune. Trying another take I cupped my hands over my mouth which resulted in a canned mid range sound. The affected voice was more fun to listen to. Every song had different demands. Vocal effects were trial and error. "You can't shine shit" as Jeff Bakos (Bakos Amp Works) would say. If the song is lousy no amount of effects will make it good. To this day I could still go back and remix some Bob songs because I was unhappy with a vocal level or delivery.

BF: What made you decide to ultimately end the band in 2000?

RH: Eric's departure. When Eric left, Bob was essentially kaput. Eric and I had played together in various bands since 1986. We worked really well together. He understandably had enough of using his vacation time to go on the road. Our momentum had slowed. There wasn't much local interest in Bob anymore plus the song writing process became agonizing. "Pendulum" was a strong Bob effort, but we never got around to promoting it. Katt and I tried to continue Bob with our friend Mike Koenig (Lesbian Afternoon). We did a set at Dottie's dressed up like pirates. We were midget pirates so we played on our knees. Bob was over!

BF: Lilburn is usually associated in my generation with the hardcore scene that developed there during the same time you were an active band (e.g. Act of Faith, Crisis Under Control, etc.). Did you go to high school or were otherwise friends with the other bands in town?

RH: We lived in Lilburn. None of us went to school there or knew the music scene. We were a part of the Atlanta/Athens scenes. We never gigged in Lilburn. I do remember seeing Black Flag written in chalk on the street. I thought there must be some cool hardcore element about.

BF: What was your songwriting process? Did you jam out songs as a writing mechanism or was there a true composer in the group?

RH: We collaborated on every song, so it involved a lot of jamming. A lot of times I would bring in an idea on guitar with a vocal melody to start the process. We'd try it out at practice and if it stuck it might turn into a Bob song. "Pope is" was a guitar riff that I was addicted to. Eric and Ted came up with beautiful drum and bass parts for it. Ted did a guitar overdub with feedback during the middle section on the Peel Sessions EP: gave me goosebumps. "Pope is" was unlike any of our previous songs in that it was based on an ascending riff rather than a more conventional chord progression. It was liberating: for early Bob it was a leap away from punk. "Foam" was one of my favorites. Again, it started with a guitar riff. I wasn't getting anywhere with it. Ray took it over, wrote the words, vocal melody, bass line. Eric banged on a pizza tray for the tinny sound in the quiet parts while I played with the volume pot and a delay pedal to make the guitar sound more like a keyboard. Ray's vocal was passionate. Eric had an uptempo percussion part that would turn into "Leather King". He was in a car accident once, wrote a poem that would become the words for "Raise Electric". "Pizza Christ" was part of a spontaneous jam that Eric captured on his 4 track. "Animal Speak" was structured for the first few minutes then devolved into free form improvisation with our friend Keith Lee making use of an old electric fan. You can hear the grinding metallic sound he got in the last 3 minutes over Ray's looping bass pulse. We had plenty of jams with Katt playing bass or sax, working out rhythms. Katt brought in the bass line and vocal melody for "Sexy". The process went faster if someone brought in an idea and allowed us to jam it out. Free improv was hit or miss. There's a story behind every song.

BF: How many bass players did you ultimately have? Why do some bands cycle through one instrument over others? Did you ever assemble a quartet or something larger? The Bob orchestra?

RH: Bob had 3 bassists: Ted Grauch, Ray Surinck and Katt Gass. As for instrument choice, Ted played bass with us, but guitar with The Go Figures (from Athens), the band he ultimately left us for. Ray played bass; wasn't interested in guitar. Katt played bass, saxophone and liked to sing. Eric loved the drums and sometimes played trumpet. I liked both guitar and keyboard. I imagine bands cycle through instruments to try something new. For me, I played guitar for so many years that I was glad to try keyboard.

For our last album "Pendulum" Bob was basically a quartet/orchestra. Sicily Simpson sang back up on most of the tunes. We had a guy named Harold who played percussion with Eric on "Meteors in Twilight". Diana Obscura played cello on "Disco Murder". For some live shows, Katt invited her brother Ward and her friend Gigi to be "the Bob dancers". It's zany to think about how un-punk we became. Our first gig with Katt was at the Masquerade with Heinous Bienfang and several other local bands for a Kiss cover night. We dressed up as clowns and played "I Was Made For Loving You", Kiss's disco hit. With Katt, Bob was a twisted dance pop band with subversive song lyrics and strange compositions. It was fun, though, more popular in Boston, Mass or Charleston, WV than Atlanta/Athens.

BF: Venue-wise, it seems that you guys were open to playing more places than the other bands of your scene, and that is how I got to see you at places like The Somber Reptile and Homage Cafe, etc. Did you consciously decide to stick your neck out there in Atlanta and take some risks with the shows and lineups that you played?

RH: I don't remember any limitations on where we'd play if we could get a gig. We didn't feel like we had anything to lose, so I wouldn't say there was any risk involved. I liked The Somber Reptile. Qui Que (however you spell his name) was good to us. Somber Reptile was where Eric and I played as a duo during a 1993 WREK benefit. I have good memories of those times. That was the first time that we performed the song "Nasty". It was very minimal without the bass or Ray's back up vocal.

BF: What is everyone in the band doing now? Are you going to start an art-rock band in Switzerland anytime soon?

RH: Ted is married, has a young daughter, lives somewhere near Philadelphia. He occasionally gigs with Heinous Bienfang if they have a reunion. Ray Surinck lives with his wife in New Orleans. He's been playing in local New Orleans bands for years. He had a punk band called Poop du Jour, plays in War Amps nowadays. He mostly plays bass, but sometimes drums, from what I understand.

Katt Gass is married, has a daughter, lives in East Atlanta. She played in a couple of Atlanta bands after Bob's demise. One was called Casionova. Her husband, Billy, plays guitar and I know they had a band together. She still screams like an infidel getting tortured by a radical muslim. I was tuned into Live at WREK a few years ago. This hard rock band was playing. The singer was screaming. I know that scream. Sure as hell it was Katt!

Eric Ingram is married, has a son, also lives in East Atlanta. I know he's interested in electronic music these days. I think he sometimes jams with people on drums. He hasn't been in a band since Bob. He's very busy with work and his family. Eric and I played together for close to 14 years. We had a great run!

After Bob I played with Brian Cook, one of Pineal Ventana's first bassists. We were an Athens duo. We put out 2 full length CDs "Geographic Tongue" and "Apocalypse Wow!". We called the duo "Black Love". I did a solo album called "Hey Ri'h" around 2006. I'm a married artist living in Switzerland. I have my keyboard over here, learn R&B and standards from piano books. I've heard some pretty good musik over hier. Not into starting a band right now, too time consuming. Too busy trying to see if I have a career as a visual artist.

Here is a sketch Rich did of Ray Surinck, Bob's 2nd bassplayer.

I would like to thank Rich Hudson so much for his patience as I put together (and put off) this post so many times, and Michael Koenig (late era member of Bob and playing in Lesbian Afternoon) for all of the more obscure recordings posted. Here is his Youtube channel, where you can see some Bob clips as well as tons of other stuff.

Outer Loop Productions - Christmas '97 Compilation

2010-12-21T05:09:00.001-05:00

Here is the download: Outer Loop Productions 1997 Christmas Compilation

Here is the track listing:
1. Merry Christmas Dammit '97 - Saint Nick's Evil Moronic Twin
2. Silent Silent Night - Routerwelm
3. Angel From The Realm Of Glory - Pineal Ventana
4. Big Fat White Snowman - Peppermint Synapse
5. Santa's In The Alley - Liars Club
6. Trailer Trashed (excerpt) - Liars Club
7. Kris-Mass Murderer - Saint Nick's Evil Moronic Twin
8. Frozen Tundra - Broken Symmetry
9. Santa's Lap Dance - Sequence 3
10. I Heard The Bells - Happy Billionaires
11. Christmas Sun - Starblood

Welcome to the final installment of the Perimeter Records/Outer Loop Productions Christmas tapes, this one from 1997. All the old favorites are back, including more weird and goofy novelty songs by St. Nick's Evil Moronic Twin, a few noise/ambient numbers by Routerwelm, Sequence 3 and Broken Symmetry, krautrock by Starblood, and some "rockers" by Pineal Ventana and Liars Club. Overall it's more on the cynical/downbeat compilation compared to the Flagpole tape compilations coming out of Athens around the same time. I guess it was time to put the series to rest, maybe as mixtapes became less popular and it was more expensive to produce an actual CD compilation, but now the CDR/Blog Posting/Mixtape culture is back, so hopefully there will be more of a push for this kind of project in the future. As always, you can download all the compilations here.

Here is the insert (click to enlarge):

Outer Loop Productions - Christmas '96 Compilation

2010-12-20T05:07:00.001-05:00

Here is the download: Outer Loop Productions Christmas 1996 Compilation

Here is the track listing:
1. Not Another Xmas - Hughes/Thompson/Swartz
2. Like White - Seely
3. Aurora - Broken Symmetry
4. Holiday Lament (Winter's Grim) - Tilde Course
5. Where's My Present? - Tilde Course
6. 5:00 AM Christmas Morning - Hughes/Swartz
7. Psychoactive Snow - James' Magic Dragon
8. Snowbound - Hughes/Swartz
9. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Doug Hughes
10. For Christmas I Want A Way Out - Pineal Ventana
11. Christmas At Grabowski's (Delarosa Mix) - Accustat
12. Traditional - Routerwhelm
13. I Saw Mama Licking Santa's Balls - Overdoor Head Traction Ensemble
14. Rubber Room - Peppermint Synapse
15: Holiday Bar Talk - Casper Fandango
16: Return of the Rat King - James' Magic Dragon
17: Snowflakes are Falling - Chris Swartz
18: Merryed with Christmas - Sequence 3

Welcome back to the Perimeter/Outer Loop Christmas Compilation posts! I posted a series of them around this time last year, but unfortunately Christmas came up pretty fast and I couldn't get all of them up. So here they are! This time we have the first of the Outer Loop Christmas tapes, which started in 1996 after Perimeter Records was officially retired. The usual team of Doug Hughes and Chris Swartz are behind the collection, with contributions by Atlanta greats Seely and Pineal Ventana as well as the more regular contributors to these tapes in the form of Peppermint Synapse, Sequence 3 and Routerwhelm.

Always interesting, always weird, these compilations really embody the experimental side of Atlanta during the 90's for me. I wonder in this current world of cheap recording and sharing of music we can't bring these kind of novelty experimental projects back. Maybe I'll talk Doug Hughes into doing one for 2011. This is great music for having a drink in front of the fire by your tree, or maybe lighting the tree on fire in your backyard after Christmas. You can download the entire discography here.

Here is the complete artwork (click to enlarge):

Patches, stickers and shit aka Brad Post #9

2010-12-07T13:04:00.128-05:00

So I have been mighty busy and too spread out to get any new posts done. To get something up here I have scanned all the postcards, business cards, patches, stickers (and pencils!) that I could find. I'm sure I have more stickers already stuck on things that I forgot about. I wish I had the Crisis Under Control "badge" design sticker to scan. Anybody? Thanks to Chuck P. Moodswing for lending me some of his stuff for inclusion as well.

Yes, you are seeing this image correctly; Spiney Norman pencils!

Hardcore goes crusty; Act of Faith patches.

Broken patch celebrating the rehabilitated Lunsford brothers.

Standfast Records patch.

Mission To Murder patches.

Act of Faith stickers.
A Quart Low sticker.

Chocolate Kiss sticker.

Crash and Burn sticker.

Crisis Under Control sticker designed by Josh Massey (RIP).

DDT sticker.

Dead Elvis sticker.

Estrada stickers.

Ex Members Of… sticker.

Fiddlehead sticker.

Fiend Without A Face sticker.

Galanas Cerdd stickers.

Levelhead sticker.

Little Five Points Halloween Festival stickers.

Midget Farmers sticker.

Moonstomp sticker.

Murray 66 sticker. This is the band I was in after I quit Ex Members Of… It had Chuck P. Moodswing, Rondal Millhorn (Knievel/Moonwater) and Greg Stubbs (Spiney Norman) in it.

Neon Christ sticker.

One Way sticker. What a tough brooding lookin' bunch!

Pagan Holiday sticker.

Quadiliacha sticker.

Reactionary Records bedazzled sticker.

The Rent Boys sticker.

Spiney Norman sticker.

Standfast Records sticker.

Quadiliacha post card.

Echo Lounge postcard.

Some Soviet Station postcard.

The Close postcard.

Acriminy business card. Acriminy featured Corbin King (Vainglory) and Jimmy Davis (Monster).

The Copkillers business card. The Copkillers featured Crazy Johnny (notorious booker from Augusta).

Crazy Johnny (infamous Augusta booker) business card.

The original Criminal Records business card.

Elixir Recording business card. When I quit Ex Members Of… I joined Exploder. Exploder recorded at Elixir in Athens.

Fleshpool business card. Fleshpool featured Matt Miller's older brother Kevin.

In the Groove business card. In the Groove was a short lived record store in Lilburn where A.O.F., C.U.C., One Way and Undone played a free show at.

Issa Diao business card. Issa's second studio in town where all the magic took place at!

Jenkins' Ear business card. Jenkin's Ear was the band that brought both Brian Kincheloe and Chuck P. Moodswing to the world!

Josh Massey (RIP) business card. Josh took the cover photo for A.O.F.'s "Test of Strength" CD. He later overdosed on heroin.

Moodswing Records business card #1. Personalized for me by Chuck P. himself.

Moodswing Records business card #2.

National Socialist Political Action League business card. Whew, that is a mouthful to say and type! Duluth Nazi skinheads got united! Given to me by a "member" at the Gwinnett Place Mall.

Pumpkin Productions business card. Pumpkin was run by Andy Cauble (Monster and short lived C.U.C. 2nd guitarist).

Reactionary Records business card. Reactionary's first attempt at a store.

Reactionary Printing business card. Paul's short lived screen printing biz.

Spiney Norman business card. Gina was Spam's sister.

Stickfigure business card.

Tree Studios business card. Ex Member's Of… recorded our side of the Wardance Orange split 7" there.

Wreck Room business card.

Pink Panties - Live on WUOG Athens - June 10, 1997

2010-11-19T04:06:00.001-05:00

Here is the download: Pink Panties - Live on WUOG

The following transcription was recently unearthed from the historical archive of Sgt. Gary Flowers (Ret.):

Toast Of The Turkey, or My Day As Animal Handler Of The Pink Panties
Dateline: June 1997

It was difficult enough to get the Pink Panties past United States Customs Agents (what with fresh moon shining convictions on their records), but couple that with their collective agoraphobia and puzzling, yet crippling, fear of all things magnetic, and it was a near impossibility to finally wrangle them into the hallowed halls of college radio bastion WUOG 90.5 fm in Athens, Georgia. Not to mention the band's irrational belief that they were somehow the second biggest band in the free world (behind only [again, in their minds] The Mentors), and commanded far more respect than what was generally afforded them by the half dozen or so musical masochists who could legitimately be called "fans" in any real capacity. The egos were job to contain in and of themselves.

Once there in the studio, it was quickly determined that the band's knowledge of music, nay, musical instruments was that of a young child. And not a precocious young whippersnapper either, I mean a real dullard. The kind of retard born of inhalants and the East St. Louis School System, a true idiot. It became a true exaltation of will merely getting the drum kit set up, and the amplifiers plugged in. Beyond the archaic power requirements and unruly equipment they crafted their "songs" on, the band could not be bothered to help in erecting their novelty stage props or (beyond offensive, not to mention somehow xenophobic) banners, even when alerted to the fact that this performance was merely for radio broadcast and would not be seen by any person alive or dead, at any time in the history of the universe. All of these tribulations whilst baby-sitting four clinically diagnosed half-wits with the combined attention span of a gnat will test even the most dedicated recording professionals. But (and yes, that sentence began with "but"), 27 hours, eighteen engineers, six gaffers, a dozen catering companies, and one visit from the Arch Diocese of Georgia later, the Panties rose triumphant above the wastelands around their feet.

What your are listening to is the word from on high, the tempered tones of Truth if you will. All killer, no filler. Say what you will about their methods, their hygiene, their treatment of animals, or their disrespect for the mathematical arts, but the Pink Panties do what they say, and say what they please. Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law, or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a fucking philosopher or anything, I just saw that written down somewhere and thought it would be appropriate, or somehow impressive to quote it here. Doesn't matter because the Pink Panties would have no idea what I was trying to say anyway, hell, they will never even read this transcript, they're probably halfway across the globe drinking Mai Thais out of the hairless buttholes of Laotian teenage boys. That's just how they do, or did, or will do.

You see, Pink Panties, while technically a band, where more of an apparition, a fever dream of colliding light and shadows never to be contained or replicated. As such, we, the public, are lucky to have even this poorly recorded (and performed I might add) document of their existence playing music, or what might pass for music at the Helen Keller Center For The Criminally Insane (located catty corner from the Elsinore Brewery). The laser focus of the band's sounds could shatter glass and minds alike, not something easily contained on any known commercial format. Like a thief in the night, Pink Panties came, saw, wet on your rug, and were gone before you knew what that smell could even be. I may hem and haw occasionally about their demands, or their inability to grasp even the simplest tenets of language, but ultimately, at the end of the day, when they released the torrent of transcendent energy that was their blitzkrieg setlist...well...what else could I do but acknowledge that I had just borne witness to the greatest porno-grind band to ever emerge from Eastern French Canada.

Personnel (at the time of recording):

Loudy LeReoux - Drums
Farty LeReoux - Bass
Bossy LeReoux -Guitar
Curly LeReoux - Vocals

Personnel (previous):

Biggy LeReoux - Backing Vocals
Stinky LeReoux - Bass
Lanky LeReoux - Security
Nudity LeReoux -Security
Ray Butt LeReoux - Passing Through

Songlist (approximation, as the songs were more suggestions and less structure, constantly shifting to please the band's mercurial moods):
Sloppy Shit Butthole Stinky
Chainsaw Massacre Head Off With Decapitated Bodies Shitting On The Street (Smell this) aka Stone Mountain Laser Show Riot
Gremlins Go Surfing At Camp Crystal Lake
E.T. Died On The Cross...Bitch
March Of The Mammals
Poppycock, Balderdash, and Flim Flam
Young Til I Die (later covered and made popular by Reno, NV hardcore band 7 Seconds)

For The Glory Of The Crown,
Sgt. Gary Flowers (ret.)

The following images are from a performance in Athens from 1996 in full battle regalia:

Venosity - Full of Veins

2010-10-21T13:17:00.015-04:00

Here is the download: Venosity - Studio and Live

First off, I would like to thank Venosity's original singer Craig DeOreo for these recordings. I never got to see Venosity myself back in the day, but only knew of them through the fact that it was the first band my friend Matt Mauldin (Bloodspoon, Car vs. Driver, Chocolate Kiss, Sonn Av Krusher) played in, and all the great flyers for shows they played. From what I understand of their history, they were high school kids pounding out thrash metal of various sorts in Atlanta during the 1991-ish time period, playing shows with Ghost Story, Nihilist, OCB, FUCT, etc. at venues like Visions and Ozone outside the city. The only other member of this band I have gotten to know over the years is Cade Lewis, the current bassplayer of Jackson County Line and a guy that I also played with in Chocolate Kiss with Matt. Cade is one of the coolest guys I have ever known, with a really natural playing style that can work in any musical setting, so it blows my mind to imagine him playing bass on these recordings. Of course certain aspects the music did not age so well, but the musicianship is impressive for such young players, and you can see where they were headed as a band. I don't know the circumstances of their demise, but soon afterwards Matt Mauldin started Bloodspoon with some of his Milton High School classmates, and went onwards to Wreck Room superstardom. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the band members, but I'm sure Craig, Cade and Matt can fill us in.

Aslund Constant - The End of an Era in 1997

2010-10-12T09:59:00.009-04:00

Here is the download: Aslund Constant - 1997 Demo

Since I don't have any pictures of Aslund Constant to include here, I am using another picture of Bryan Fielden on the drumset in its place. Aslund Constant was the combination of Bryan Fielden and Craig Dempsey from The Forty-Two on drums and guitar, Lewis Lovely from Scout on bass, and our favorite Somber Reptile soundman John Archer on guitar. They existed around 1997, around the time the 1994-1996 bands started breaking up (Scout, The Forty-Two, Wheeljack, etc.) and starting new bands with different combinations of members (Aslund Constant, Chapman Park, The Mascara Aesthetic, etc.). Most of these "second wave" bands were pretty short-lived, but then went into a "third wave" which had a much longer shelf-life and went in noticeably different directions from the original mold. For example, after Aslund Constant Bryan went on to play drums in San Agustin, Craig Dempsey started At the Price of the Union, Lewis Lovely started Red Lab recording studio (now The Living Room under Ed Rawls), John Archer doing sound stuff, and on and on. So I look at Aslund Constant as being one of these last bands of the initial era of Atlanta mid-90's house show postpunk, before it fragmented beyond recognition.

In my opinion, the music holds up to anything from that time period, although the only song that was ever officially released by them was on the Food Not Bombs compilation posted here previously. I was really surprised at how good of a drummer Bryan was, as I only previously knew of him as a guitarist. Now I can't even think of him playing guitar after so many years behind the kit. It is also the only recording that I have with John Archer on guitar, since to me he has always been the guy putting mics on my drums and making smartass comments. Soon Lewis would be pretty much exclusively behind the board as well, becoming the touring soundman for pretty much every band out there as well as a resident soundman at MJQ/Drunken Unicorn. 1997 was a transition year for these guys, but definitely worth a listen. Thanks to Kelsey Wilson (All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, The Weight, Thoroughbred) for the tape.

Tweezer and Spider Virus - The Split CD

2010-10-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

Here is the Tweezer download: Tweezer "Autoerotic Squirrel Pants"

Here is the Spider Virus download: Spider Virus side

I have been sitting on quite a bit of Tweezer material for awhile now, but since they are playing this Sunday October 3rd at Ria's Bluebird with The Rent Boys and Rizzudo (music starts at 4PM), I thought it might be a good enough time to start posting some of it up. Here is a split CD from 1994 with fellow noise rockers Spider Virus, who I remember as a band name from that era but never saw them myself. They take the first "side" of the CD, with some great heaviness and some weirdness thrown in, at least on this release. I guess they seemed to have quite a history after this, which you can find out about online, but the real focus of this post is Tweezer.

Tweezer was Atlanta's preeminent noise rockers during the mid-nineties. Not as arty or damaged as BOB or Pineal Ventana, but the more aggressive member of the family. Kind of like the pissed-off son of the Quadruple Felony group. They were a great band, and I hope to get more posted on them and about them as time goes on. Otherwise, I hope to see you at Ria's, and enjoy some classic material from all these bands.

Here's the track listing and some indecipherable artwork. Does anyone remember Alien Records and what other releases were on the label?

Before there was Act of Faith aka Brad Post #8

2010-09-16T16:06:00.075-04:00

Information by Jonathan Dixon.

I was in a band called The Crooks when I was at Duluth High School in the late 1980’s. It was a really cool band but, as usual, it fizzled quickly. The band consisted of me on guitar, Derek Frost on vocals, Matt Majoili on bass and Rick Puig on drums. Derek drew all of our fliers.

We were taking Matt's vert ramp down in Norcross in the Summer of 1988. I knew three chords on a guitar and Rick had a drum set at his house down the street. I also had a bass and Matt started messing around with that. We would take the ramp down during the day (we were being careful so that we could rebuild it elsewhere) and we would play music in the evenings. We did that for about a month and then kind of forgot about it.

Derek was at some kind of out of state camp for the Governors Honors Art Program. When he got back I was telling him about the band. He was the one that got us playing again with him singing. Emmet Howle started coming around and began acting as our manager. He actually was pretty good at it. He started getting us shows at Visions and The Pit. We played with several local bands and even opened up for SNFU once. We probably played about 20-30 shows.

The Crooks two night stand at Visions; Friday, February 17th, 1989 and Saturday, February 18th, 1989. Yep, you counted right; four hand drawn fliers for the same show.

The Crooks with Belyle at Visions; Friday, March 10th, 1989.

On Thursday, March 23, 1989 we drove to Athens and recorded six songs at Underground Sound.

Check out the Crooks demo.

Derek called it quits the following spring in ‘89. We briefly had Chris Jennings singing for us (a metal dude from Norcross) but it didn’t work out. Rick later moved away and I went on to start Act of Faith. Derek drew early fliers for AOF, as well as the covers for our two tapes and the "Soul of One" 7".

The Crooks opening for SNFU at The Pit; Spring of '89. Animosity was also on the bill.

No More Heroes aka Brad Post #7

2010-09-13T12:44:00.036-04:00

June 16, 1996—a date that will live in infamy—the band known to us as Act of Faith played their final show. After playing together in one form or another for eight years straight they decided to call it quits and play their final gig on a Sunday afternoon at The Point (just as God would have wanted it).

Luckily, Chuck Petrakopoulos recorded it to DAT off the soundboard. There also is video of the show, which I hope to one day soon put on Youtube and post here.

The unique thing about hardcore bands is that if you just listen to their live recordings you might think they sucked (what without seeing the stage antics and audience participation etc.). When you're jumping into the crowd you're sure to miss a note or two.

For the time being to illustrate my point, this is an earlier clip of the band playing their staple singalong, "Stepping Away", at The Wreck Room. The audience never could quite get the vocals down on that one…

The last show audio can be found here. Along with the usual song suspects you came to love from AOF, they also played "Candle In the Corner" (a Difference cover) and a new unreleased song called, "All Too Real". The final lineup featured on this recording is Rob Fuller on vocals, Ken Saluzzi and Carter Davis on guitar, Josh Terrell on bass and Jonathan Dixon on drums.

Also playing the show that day was Crisis Under Control and I'm sure at least one other band but can't remember who. If you played it, please let us here at Beyond Failure know and I'll add you.

All photos were taken by Elizabeth Brown/Beard. Elizabeth, with her trusty camera always in hand, was an integral part of the documentation of our scene. She recently has been taking all of her negatives to Walgreens and having them scanned to disk. She has been so kind to send these to me (which I cannot thank her enough for). Hopefully soon I will have a post dedicated entirely to the images that she captured of our bands. Just to warn you members out there from other bands, AOF was her favorite. They got more lens time with her but there still is a nice smattering of all parties involved.

Classic Footage From Our Faves

2010-09-08T13:51:00.002-04:00

Henry Owings has been posting some great things up on his YouTube channel, including some of the Atlanta bands I have written about on this blog. Please check out everything he has, as it is quite the treasure trove. Also, something nice about these clips is that they include multiple songs and give you a more realistic impression of the show - breaking guitar strings, people walking in front of the camera, awkward pauses between songs, everything. If anybody knows, I would love to find out what other bands played on these shows, or more information on the shows themselves.

The Martians at the Point - March 26, 1994

Jerry Fuchs-era, what more can you say?

Fiddlehead at Somber Reptile - May 14, 1994

The Deaf Waiter material in prime form - the Somber Reptile almost looks spooky.

Dirt at The Point

Not sure of the date on this one, but great to see nonetheless. I love Greg Webb's multiple camera angles and video effects.

Slumberjack at Dottie's - May 24, 1994

Great to see classic Dottie's in video form again, and great to see Slumberjack totally going for it.

No Marching Parades aka Brad Post #6

2010-08-24T19:16:00.072-04:00

Ah, to be a young idealistic folky again. So before he was shouting about the ills of the world with Act of Faith, 18 year old Robert W. Fuller was singing about happier times in a little outfit from Duluth called No Marching Parades. With his trusty notebook in hand, he sang with sensitivity and belted ‘em out straight from the heart; his 17 year old pal Robert M. Frey by his side strumming away all the hate in the world.

Managed by a young and ambitious Angelos Petrakopoulos, No Marching Parades released one demo cassette, “9:00 am - 3:00 pm”, featuring ten original songs. It all was recorded in only a couple hours by Alan Vining on August 16, 1990 at Dwarf Studios in Chamblee.

They played out often at open-mic nights at the Freight Room in Decatur as well as a handful of times at Limerick Junction in the Virginia Highlands. The boys were not of drinking age and in order to perform at the Limerick Junction they had to promise management that they would not try to order any alcohol, nor could they let their ages be known. They also opened once for Fun Mud at the Avondale Towne Cinema.

Though I never heard the tape until just recently, I knew of it and always had heard jokes about Rob Fuller’s infamous red cowboy boots. If I had heard their demo back then I would’ve made fun of it (as well as Mr. Fuller) and chalked it off as wimpy shit. Now that I ain’t so mega punk anymore I can really appreciate this with its great song structures and musicianship. I’ve listened to it at least five times since transferring it to the computer. That fucker Mr. Fuller has one helluva voice with tons of range.

Rob and Rob were always around the Petrakopoulos residence and young Chuck was a huge fan of them. I give him major props for being open minded enough even back then to recognize this as a local masterpiece. To this day he can (and happily will) start to sing any song from the tape.

So the below images are all the records that Angelos kept as band manager. EVERYTHING was documented from the costs of recording to printing to tape duplication. My personal fave being the sheet where they made a list of "People who will buy tapes". Of course mom is on there!

So after a year or so the boys hung it up and AOF came knocking on Rob's door. Or vice versa as you will soon find out in my AOF post. A big thanks to Chuck for letting me dig in the files that his brother Angelos kept meticulously organized for all these years. And I thought I saved everything...

Habeas Corpses - "A1 Good Copy" 5 Song Demo

2010-08-13T14:51:00.004-04:00

Here is the download: Habeas Corpses Demo

This is a 5 song recording done by the late great Habeas Corpses, featuring Ben Davis (Purkinje Shift, Moreland Audio, Home of the Wildcats, Lumens, Noot d' Noot, and several others) as well as two other guys I didn't know celebrating their love of The Germs, Misfits, and other late 70s, early 80's punk/hardcore. This is from an era before everything went literally to your head - it is genuine rough and ready stuff. Whenever I listen to this, I automatically think of the Lazy Lizard Lounge, which was the basement mini-club under the Somber Reptile during the 1993-1995 era, and would host plenty of performances by bands such as Habeas Corpses. In fact, I'm sure a band like this was playing to five people in every punk bar across the country at this time, maybe cutting themselves with glass bottles (as HC sometimes did), engaging in horrible stage banter (as HC and every other band at that time did), and eventually imploding after a certain threshold of soul crushing had been reached. See for yourself here and here.

Habeas Corpses played a few bigger shows with Car vs. Driver, but even then we were in very different musical worlds. They were on the border between playing more hardcore all-ages venues like the Somber Reptile and the Wreck Room, but also bars like Dottie's, and not really fitting in at any of them. I didn't personally know Ben Davis until after he took the math rock plunge and started The Purkinje Shift, and rolling our daily Tortillas burritos, but I have since gotten to know him very well and consider him a great friend and one of the most respected musicians I know. Who would have thought?

King-Kill 33' - "Sex You Will" and "We Never Went To The Moon" Singles

2010-08-06T14:02:00.001-04:00

Here is the Download: King-Kill 33' Singles

First off, I would highly recommend visiting the King-Kill 33' Myspace page, as they have done a great job of posting all the important information that you need to know about the band, including videos, interviews, pictures, etc. So I will just share some of my own personal tidbits about them and you can get the facts on your own time.

I knew King-Kill 33' through their "We Never Went To The Moon" single, which was a classic around my stereo in the early 90's, and one of my favorite songs of that time in Atlanta. Even though I never personally saw them play, their presence in the Atlanta experimental rock scene was definitely felt, and of course in later bands Pineal Ventana and Tenth To The Moon, both of which included King-Kill 33' members. As mentioned on their page, they came from the scene that included Dirt, Go-Devils, Magic Bone, Snatch and Bad Egg Salad, although musically and visually (especially through their multi-media performances), to me they stood apart from the others and brought a Chrome or a Von LMO type atmosphere to their sound and presentation. It was great that we had a band like King-Kill 33' in Atlanta at that time, keeping things weird yet unpretentious, and inspiring us to push boundaries ourselves.

Something I never noticed before on the 2nd single was that it was put out by Vinyl Communications, the Chula Vista label responsible for the launching of seminal bands such as Heroin, Tit Wrench, Cringer, etc. It is a great match for a band such as this, and really makes you think of what might have been for these guys. Thanks to Squidchip for the 1st 7" and thanks to King-Kill 33' for leading the way.

Here is the artwork for both singles:

Travis Thatcher's Escape To New York

2010-07-16T09:48:00.006-04:00

Travis Thatcher (Judi Chicago, Recompas, Go Back To Europe) will be saying goodbye to Atlanta in a big electro love-in at Eyedrum on Sunday, July 18. It is very sad to see him go, but New York is really the place to be for a guy so amazingly talented. On the bill is his band Recompas, which is basically a free-for-all for everyone in attendance, Retconned, Social Studies, Border Country (Roman Photos dudes), Lyonnais, Sand Castles, and Sawforest. There will also be cook-outs, customized vehicles and electronics, beer, soldering, and everything else Travis holds dear. I want to wish him all the best of luck and success in the big city, and I will be here, listening from my window for The Voice of Saturn beacon.

Paper Lions / I Am The World Trade Center Split 12"

2010-07-13T10:05:00.004-04:00

Here is the Paper Lions side: Paper Lions split with IATWTC

Here is the IATWTC side: I Am The World Trade Center split with Paper Lions

Also, you can always find the first Paper Lions album here: Paper Lions - The Symptom And The Sick

It's a rare but amazing thing when you are into a band that broke up a long time ago, and somehow years later you find a release by the artist you previously never knew existed. I can be a little out of the loop sometimes, but when I was in CD Alley in Chapel Hill last month, I found this Paper Lions split 12" with Athens' I Am The World Trade Center on Doubling Cube Records in their used bin. I never knew Paper Lions released anything other than their first album, and some of their best songs as well! They were definitely a band on an exponential curve, it was a shame they had to implode so early. This 12" has them refining their sound into a proper postpunk dance/disco outfit, much like "Solid Gold" era Gang of Four or Magazine but completely modern and ripe for a breakthrough. Instead they broke up and went their separate ways - Jesse Smith into Carbonas/Gentleman Jesse, etc., everyone else going into various projects and duties including Teenage Meth Lab, Chris playing bass for Maserati, and Josh playing drums with Elf Power. I have always liked the bands associated with this crew, whether it be The Kossabone Red, Some Soviet Station, At the Price of the Union, or any of their current bands, they have always put out great music.

I Am The World Trade Center has plenty of history to go around, and I was always an outsider to that scene in Athens so I am not going to expound on them too much. I always liked their version of Human League's "Don't You Want Me", which was always a party starter at their shows, so I'm glad they recorded it for this split. You can find Dan Geller from IATWTC playing in Ruby Isle and running the re-launched Kindercore Records, one of the great local labels of the past 20 years.

Here is what Doubling Cube had to say about the release:

I am the World Trade Center (IATWTC) and the Paper Lions team up for an exclusive vinyl split 12" EP released jointly by Echelon Productions and Doubling Cube Records. IATWTC kicks off the A side with "No Expectations", a track pulled from their fulll length, The Cover Up, and which signals to their maturing as a band, though still rooted in the beat-and-hook pop electronica of their previous efforts.

Following are a pair of covers; a sublime Minority Report remix of the IATWTC’s rendition of the Stone Roses’ "Shoot You Down", and an interpretation of Human League’s "Don’t You Want Me", which has long been a favorite at their shows and now finally appears on record.

Over the last few years, IATWTC has traveled the globe, spreading their message of dance music for smart people — a concept scarce in these days of progressive house and hand-me-down rave culture. They’ve found themselves in the company of other smart, young bands making this emotionally based electronica like The Postal Service and Her Space Holiday. IATWTC’s concept has also always included a healthy dose of romance as well, which goes straight back to their heroes in bands like Berlin and Blondie, where the onstage (and on-tape) chemistry of alternately warring and loving couples was frequently half the attraction.

On the flip side, with production by Josh McKay of the critically acclaimed band Macha, the Paper Lions burst out with their set of tunes, the explosive "Mission Statement", "Line-Up", and "Every Time", which features IATWTC’s Amy Dykes on lead vocals and hearkens back to the days of early Blondie.

When Paper Lions sat down to begin writing new material in the Fall of 2003, they found that their earlier inspirations of 90’s era post-rock had been shaken off - instead they opted for a continuation of the ideas laid down by early post-punk bands like Wire, Killing Joke, and Public Image Ltd... Paper Lions incorporated these influences into their already diverse songwriting abilities. The results of the recordings with Josh McKay were astonishing and a huge step forward for the band. These songs envelop the listener with urgency and tension, much like the first time you placed a Rough Trade Records release on your turntable.

The Purkinje Shift

2010-07-02T14:09:00.006-04:00

Here is the download: Purkinje Shift Discography

Here is the track breakdown:
1-2 from the "Nine Twelve Seven" single
3-8 from "Nickel Waves and Carbon Stars" album
9-14 from "Five for the Road and One for the Ditch" album

Also, here is their set from the Thomas Peake Memorial show: Purkinje Shift at Eyedrum 2009-12-20

The Purkinje Shift: Benjamin Davis, Gary T. Flom and Scott H. Robbins - show them some respect. They existed between 1996 and 2000, they had two guitars and no bass (although I always thought of Ben being the rhythm/bass element and Gary being the lead guitarist of the band), they toured with Man or Astroman?, they played in suits, they didn't stop between their songs, and they were one of the tightest live bands I have ever seen. The band was instrumental, both in terms of having no singer as well as ushering in (along with Galanas Cerdd) the new wave of instrumental postpunk to exist in Atlanta through the late 90's (i.e. Ocelot, Plastic Plan, Mock Heroic, Moreland Audio, etc.).

Here is a quick interview with them before their show last year at Eyedrum. I probably should have done it later in the day when there would have been fewer interruptions, but whatever:

JJ: 2000 was when you guys played last, correct?

BD: Correct, the Moreland Avenue Tavern was our last show.

JJ: And it was the last show for the tavern, right?

GF: Probably, it’s a used car lot now.

JJ: And your first show was at the Moreland Avenue Tavern.

BD: Correct, we actually have a video of that.

GF: We actually played with San Agustin at our first show.

JJ: Who played your last show?

GF: Just us, we played an hour of material.

JJ: Full retrospective.

GF: Full hour.

Lee Corum: Sweet – can I have one (motioning to the beers)?

BD: Dude, this is a Purkinje Shift interview here.

JJ: Scott, you moved away at that point, right?

SR: Yeah, I moved to Providence, Rhode Island.

JJ: When did you move to France?

SR: Fall of 2004.

JJ: You haven’t played in any bands since?

SR: Not since 2000 – I’m not some whore like these guys.

JJ: But you were in Rebar and Barrel before, so it’s not like Purkinje Shift was your only band.

SR: No it wasn’t – just the last one.

BD: And John Brown too.

JJ: So why did you guys decide to play today?

GF: Primarily because the three of us knew Thomas Peake, and he wrote an article on Purkinje Shift in Creative Loafing. I think it really helped us a lot with that, and when we heard the show was going to happen, Ben and I wanted to get on the bill with our new band (Lumens). I told Scott about Thomas, and he was going to be in town that week, so why don’t we try to do it? We can learn a few songs and practice, and if it doesn’t work we just won’t play. It went well, so we are going to play a tribute.

JJ: San Agustin is playing as well, so it’s a nice lineup. So from the post punk scene, you guys and Galanas Cerdd were the first fully instrumental bands from Atlanta at that time, but kind of ushered in all the instrumental bands that came after, like Ocelot, Mock Heroic, etc. through the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

BD: Originally I was going to sing, but when I started singing on one of our songs, it sounded like Seely, so we were just like “none of it”.

At this point, Eric from Hell Mach Four comes in and completely crashes the interview.

JJ: It wasn’t intentional to make an instrumental band?

BD: It started out with three guitarists, Sadek Bazarra was the other guitarist, and when that fell by the wayside we were like “well, we have to have vocals”, and it just didn’t work. I wanted to sing punk rock style at that time, because I had just been in Habeas Corpses.

JJ: But there was a gap, it had been a year and a half or so between Habeas Corpses and Purkinje Shift? So you had enough time to decompress?

BD: Yeah. I was playing in Charlie Parker at that point.

JJ: From the Purkinje Shift starting at that time, it seemed like such a break, as Barrel was coming from a post punk style, and then Purkinje Shift came in and most of the punk element was out, and it was almost like a jazz band in a way, but maybe because it was instrumental, maybe it was because you started wearing suits, maybe it was because of the artwork of the releases, it came across that “this isn’t your house show band”.

BD: Definitely, it was loud but it was straight up.

Now Rick Moore interrupts and inadvertently shuts down the interview. No problem, Lumens goes on and plays a great set, and then Purkinje Shift showed everyone exactly how it’s supposed to be done. Definitely one of the best bands of their genre, anytime anywhere.

Please check out Ben Davis' blog for plenty of live recordings by Purkinje Shift and his related bands. Thanks Ben, Gary and Scott for everything.

Here is the artwork for all the Purkinje Shift releases:

Regicide - The Most Unholy of Alliances

2010-06-25T14:00:00.006-04:00

Here is the download: Regicide "You're Such a Disappointment" Demo

From the desk of Gray Kiser (Regicide, Line Drive, Hands of an Angry God, Black Venus, Sonn Av Krusher):

When I first heard the name "Regicide" it was within the context of "Sandy Springs", and at the time, that translated to another Greg and Clay project band. Between those dudes they had well over 5732 riffs, all birthed within that razor thin margin of grindcore on this end, to thrash on this other end, and Japanese hardcore over here (I suppose that make it a razor thin...triangle?). They seemed to have a million of these weird bands that never played shows, but somehow had stickers and "fans". Sandy Springs is an odd burg. This fact would later be validated when the smoking hull of Gheisch was raised from the belly of the Fifth Green, but alas, that is a another story for a later day indeed.

So you can excuse me for not catching the first few Regicide performances, as I took my hardcore seriously, and could not be bothered with anything daring to besmirch her valor. Ask anybody, they'll tell you that I take my hardcore very seriously, it's a real point of pride, I even have a full chest piece that reads "Serious As Fuck" with some eagles and hammers and shit around it. It's really cool. In a serious way.

Eventually, I did cross paths with Regicide, in the basement of the Driver Dome actually. Who knows who else was on the bill, because Regicide stole the show. They did not seem intent on taking the piss out of hardcore as I had originally assumed, but instead they yielded a mighty sword of ripping fastcore, accented by a mallet of oddly constructed mosh(?) parts. To this day, I can't say with any certainty who was even in that lineup, that's how potent the rocking was, it blurred their identities! I feel confident that Meir was singing, Mat Hunter was playing guitar, Greg King was on drums, and Stuart King was on bass, but don't hold me to that...I may have been stoned.

As if that portion of the story weren't vague enough, we then enter the period of time between when I first saw the band and when I was contacted on the auspices of becoming a member of the troupe. I have no clue how long that time period was, or even what year it was really, but I do remember how they asked:

I was watching them play a late night set, and realizing that I had to get back Athens, Georgia for morning class, I requested they play "Penetration", because that song best exemplified my collegiate ambitions. The band obliged, and offered me the mic, allowing me to helm Regicide for one song, for one night. What a rush! The next day, back in Athens working my afternoon shift at Haagan Daz, I got a phone call from Mat Hunter asking me if I wanted to come back up to Atlanta and audition for the band. He said the guys liked my vocals, and that Meir was moving to second guitar (or first vocals...in another band...or something...I wasn't really listening, as it was a hot afternoon and the ice cream shop was going off). Well, that night, I took the train (Honda) up to Atlanta to a practice space (Greg's parent's basement) that the band had rented, and ran through a few Regicide classics with the full power of the group at my back. After a few numbers, the band left me alone for a bit as they mulled it over, and eventually Mat asked me if I wanted to be in the band. I immediately called Ian Mackaye back home to weigh the decision with him, and he told me, "go on man, you'll be great", and that was that. All the encouragement I would need. I went back to Athens, but in my notice at work, packed my shit, and was on the road with Regicide, embarking on a journey who's end I could have never foreseen.

Generally speaking, that's how it went. I think.

My first show with the band was on New Years Eve at the I Defy house playing with a bunch of other bands who I don't remember, but Inkwell headlined, and there seemed to be lots of folks from Florida there, so maybe Reversal Of Man played or something. Didn't matter. That show marked a decided shift for the band, as we would now file the music down to a dull, blunt instrument of assault. The fast parts were to be more intense, the heavy parts more suffocating, the noise factor more piercing, and the lyrics more combative.

Regicide at the I-Defy House - December 31, 1995

Everything was to be administered at the highest volume available, and with maximum prejudice. If the music wasn't going to be enough, we would literally hit you in the face with a dead animal. Literally. That show had it all, fire, blood, interpretive dance, flying squirrels...everything.

Nutty J. Squirrel (above and below)

From then on, we tried to make every show something special, whether that meant donning corpse paint, employing homemade pyrotechnics (not advised actually), matching turtlenecks, or just utilizing disorienting darkness. We had to do something to get people to unfold their fucking arms and feel something. Get sweaty, get pissed, get happy, whatever your reaction, we wanted it. In the stodgy confines of mid-Nineties d.i.y. punk, that was a tall order, as the mandate had been passed down to stand at strict attention when a band is playing, do not move lest you may impose on the enjoyment of someone else in attendance. And god forbid you obstruct the view of any ladies in attendance, oh boy, that was a cardinal sin.

And that was the mission of Regicide; do something that elicits a reaction, and all the better if that comes at the expense of the audience.

A few months into the campaign, Stuart King decided he was no longer up to the task of bludgeoning at all costs, and he dipped. Oddly enough, it was "his" band, but Regicide had to keep moving, the songs were getting better and better, and with some new energy they would become bigger, stronger, faster still. I'm not sure (more ambiguity...great) how James Joyce was tapped as the replacement, but at the time it made perfect sense to us, let's get a seemingly clean cut, well respected member of the Atlanta scene to sully his reputation and alienate his horn-rimmed fanbase. Could he play bass? Don't know, but how hard could it be?

Turns out he was a better musician than most, and more musically perverted than we had given him credit for. He showed up with the bones of some of our best songs, things that would reshape the band as less traditional hardcore and more noise rock. Things got longer (that's what she said), more complex (that's what she also said), and generally more unhinged (she had no comment). In my humble estimations, Regicide was morphing into the greatest band ever, and it would be any day now that people would realize this and come flocking to our shows, anointing us with perfumes and mulled spice wine.

Regicide opening for the Pink Panties at the Dead Body House in Athens - October 30, 1996

We needed to document this shit...post haste! And what's the first name you think of when I say, "recording in Athens"? No, think again. No, not even close, try again. Jesus, are you retarted, I meant John Dohenny of course! Dohenny and his magical four track of doom would be the perfect vehicle to spread our message of hate. I mean, why would you ever need more than four tracks right? So, the band (minus James who was doing something far more important than playing on the greatest audio testimony ever committed to tape no doubt) convened in the John's cinder block box of a house and proceeded to lurch through the songs we had time to. At the time it seemed odd to have Mat record the bass tracks, and play two guitar tracks all in one day, but alas, this was punk (patent pending), and that's just what you did. Not surprisingly though, that plan did backfire, and the recording was rushed and sloppy, not to mention one of those guitar tracks lost to the ether leaving noticeable holes in the songs. The whole thing was a mess, and prompted the moniker "You Are Such A Disappointment" in response. But, again, being punk (patent pending), we made copies and gave/sold them to those willing to go for the ride. Who knows how many were ever produced, but it couldn't have been that much.

Cover for the unreleased "Penetration" single - design by Kenn Two Four

At some point scene luminary Gavin Fredrick offered to release a Regicide album with the caveat that we "stay together for at least a year". Turns out, that was easier said than done. We went out with nary a fizzle at a barely attended show, fittingly, in the basement of the Driver Dome where Regicide had gotten my attention a couple years before, playing with a band from Florida (Florida bands were like fucking herpes back then) called Panthro United 13, who were total dildos. It was an undignified end to a barely credible band, but a heartbreaker nonetheless.

From R to L, Greg King, Inverted Crawford, Claytheist

One final anecdote, and probably a fitting epitaph for the band; we were playing in Gainesville (again with the fucking Florida, what's with that place?) on the partially aborted Regicide/Hal al Shedad tour, when the stocky guy from Hot Water Music, who's name I forget (further proof my memory is terrible), but who was a really nice guy, and our host for the evening to boot, started doing what we as a band wanted people to do at our shows, and that is get loose and go off. He may or may not have been pretty hammered, but that didn't matter, what did matter was that his good time began infringing on good time of someone else there, and the two decided exchange words whilst slam-dancing around to a Regicide soundtrack. At some point in the exchange, the Hot Water Music guy figured his point had not been adequately made, so he felt the need to reinforce it by pounding it into the other dude's face over and over. It really was a good beating, poetic in it's efficiency, but never sparing on the brutality of it's message. So as this is happening, the other audience member s begin the ritual of pretending they are going to break it up, gathering in a loose circle around the action and more or less hooting and hollering. The band played on. One audience member actually tried to grab the microphone from me mid song which was met with a swift push back and the band played on. As an artiste, I could not allow this one person to ruin the enjoyment of the show for others in attendance (regardless if they were currently on the loosing end of a savage ass kicking). This person then approaches a second time, and screams in my ear, "you have to stop this!" implying that the band was responsible for policing the activities of this establishments (presumably) paying clientele. I grabbed his shirt, got as close as possible, and yelled back into his ear, "don't you get it, this is what we want!", and the band played on.

Pax Romana,
Gray Kiser (Regicide)

From the desk of Mathis Hunter (Regicide, Quadiliacha, Good Friday Experiment, Noot d' Noot, Seventy Spacebird, The Selmanaires, Soft Opening):

Regicide, a flash in the Atlanta Hardcore pan. Or as some might say, the greatest band to incorporate home pyrotechnics and dead animals with palm muted feedback, double bass blast beats and bloodcurdling primal screams you've never heard of. Let us hearken back to the King basement circa 94'-95: If you had a guitar and some riffs, someone would pick up the Peavey, plug it into the Hartke, and someone would get on the skins. Out of thin air, a new band was born. I showed up around the time Justin was splintering off from Quadiliacha to start Thenceforward. After a few months of practicing triplets at breakneck speeds on bass, I filled the empty role. In the interim, the crew would entertain my riffs; the more melodic falling under the 'Phoopher' moniker and the crustier-corroded and rotten riffs went to 'Regicide'. Regicide was actually the name of a band Stuart was in with some of his classmates, but we went ahead jacked that shit.

So there was an early version that I think featured me on guitar, Stuart on drums, Meir on guitar? Clay singing? maybe Greg on bass. I don't really remember. I think we played the Driver Dome and Godless Red with this line up in the Spring of '95, but who knows. We were at shows 3 or 4 times a week and playing a lot of them, so I can't recall.

But at some point late 95, Greg was into it and wanted to play drums. Thats when a Sandy Springs band went from side project to an official band, when Goatravisher got on the skins. With Greg on the drums, we figured we'd try and get Gray Kiser as the front man. Gray had sang in Line Drive and was up in Athens at the time. He was inspired by the best: Rollins, Danzig, Sam McPheeters, and was the type of shit-starter we needed. A guy that would come up with classics like Eating Shit and Loving It, Supermarket To The World, and You Are Not a Threat. Though I don't think he ever made a practice, we gave him boom box tapes and he wrote to that. We put it all together at the 1st Mach 3 show, which was New Year's Eve at the I Defy: 12/31/95.

I suppose the only common thread you might find between Noot d’ Noot and the ‘Cide would be the over the top stage show. Theatrical visuals to help you transcend the mundaneness of your average show and truly open your soul to the music. Enter: Inverted Crawford and Nutty Jay Squirrel.

‘96 would have been Stuart’s senior year. He was tragically torn between the world of his brother, and his somewhat regular North Springs existence (despite rolling deep with a dude known only as “bomb kid”). Senioritis got the best of Stu Maloo, and by March we were looking for a new bass player.

I was already playing music with James at this time in what would eventually become Joyce: a precursor to Chocolate Kiss and Beale Street Green, respectively. As most readers of Beyond Failure know, James loves a musical challenge regardless of musical styles. He even added some disturbing tunes to the roster that were in an abrasive vein we had not even struck on yet. A little more west coast Gravity Records/Antioch Arrow steez. James played his first show with us in April at the Godless Red Athens.

This was an interesting day in Athens because it started early in the afternoon at John Dohini’s house where the basic tracks for the failed Regicide demo were put to 4 track. James couldn't come up early enough to work on it, so I had to play the guitar and bass. I think we spent a total of an hour and a half laying down the drums, bass, and guitar and for some reason, I had left my cabinet at home so I was playing thru some shite blown 4 x 10. Somehow, my "lead" guitar, or at least the one I tracked w/Greg got recorded over, so only the guitar that hits all the cymbal grabs is left.

I thought we shit canned the whole recording, but for some reason Gray put vocals on it and printed up some tape covers. He aptly titled it “Your Such A Disappointment.” Despite all the amputation, I think it provides hard evidence that Greg King is a malevolent mother fucker on the skins. One of the best thrash drummers ever to come out of Atlanta.

Godless Red House - September 21, 1996

James' debut featured Regicide's greatest stage prop of all: The Hellfire Chicken Tower. Hopefully, James has some pictures or video footage. There was no return on the security deposit after that gig. Later, I remember sitting out front of the house and having a long talk with Will and us deciding I was leaving Quadiliacha. We picked a gig in June at BLT’s that would serve as my last show. It wasn’t really leaving to pursue Regicide. At that time I was being exposed to all kinds of different music and my interest in Hardcore was taking a serious nose dive.

James headed out west for the summer of ’96, and I imagine Greg was on tour with Quadiliacha, and not sure about Graybeez. We did a handful of shows in the fall, and even a Florida tour in early ’97.

"Lift the Ban" benefit in Winston-Salem - November 23, 1996

The last classic tune we wrote was “Battle for the Hair Capes” which took some of Greg’s black metal riffs and combined them with Gray’s imagery of a battle between Odin and Satan for the souls of heshers. The end of the tune had Gray manically switching personalities between Odin and Lucifer, enchanting the listener to “Come to the Hammer or Come to the Cloven Hoof.”

I know the last show was at the Driver Dome in March of ‘97, but I’m not sure who with. It was ill attended and I remember us having a boom box that was just kind of making this winds of hell sound between the songs. As we were playing the last song, someone cut the lights off and it was blacker than a pitch. When we finished, the winds of hell were still a blowin’. It seemed like synergy.

Mathis Hunter on his Tesco Del Rey guitar

Okay, now for my side of the story:

I was in Ft. Smith, Arkansas on New Year's Eve 1995 with The hal al Shedad when Regicide unveiled their "Mark III" form, with Gray Kiser on vocals, Mathis Hunter on guitar and the King brothers Greg and Stuart on the rhythm section. I had heard that it was a powerhouse of a band, but just a few short months later Stuart was out they were already looking for a new bassplayer. It seems that Stuart was not so much a fan of the Regicide lifestyle, much like Frank Tonche in the Minutemen, so Mathis approaches me one afternoon at the movie theater and asks if I could play bass for an upcoming show in Athens, I believe one week later. Never one to back down from any musical challenge, and usually getting in way over my head, I agreed to the request. Keep in mind that I didn't have a bass, never played bass before in a band, and had only a few days to learn the set. Nevertheless, May 4, 1996 marked "Mark IV" of Regicide with Cavity at the Godless Red Athens Chapter. I borrowed Kim Lemond's BC Rich Warlock bass for the occasion, and my friend Josh Bohannon (previously of the similarly veined San Diego HC band Punishment) built the Hellfire Chicken Tower, which was a rotating air vent stolen from the top of our theater wrapped in cannon fuse with several exploding flowers and two hen-laying eggs on the top. When the fuse was lit, the flowers provided the propulsion to spin the vent to a high RPM, and then the hen-laying eggs shot several fireballs in random directions around the living room of the Godless Red Athens Chapter, ruining the room and any hope of security deposit. This was lit during the mosh part of "You Are Not a Threat" and a fireball shot right past Gray's head as we kicked back into the verse. The room filled with smoke, and most people promptly evacuated to watch the show from the porch window.

We took the Summer of '96 off to pursue other musical projects and attend various Olympic functions, but then resumed on September 21 for a show at the Godless Red Atlanta Chapter with Abyss. This time we went for the full corpse paint look that you see in the photos attached, and did a pretty good cover of "My War". A show at the Dead Body House in Athens with the Pink Panties and Strychnine on October 30 and a trip to Winston Salem to open for a Line Drive reunion on November 23 followed, as well as an I-Defy appearance with Charles Dumar and Sarin on January 11. We now hit every hardcore epicenter of the greater Atlanta/Athens area, and then embarked on a weekend trip to Tampa and Gainesville to play with Combat Wounded Veteran, Asshole Parade, and Palatka, as well as the obligatory trip to Aces Record Store, keeping Manowar's "Fighting the World" on Greg King's tape deck the entire way. One last show at the Driverdome with Clairmel finished us off, breaking my E string on our last song "Penetration" and Mathis turning off the red "Regilamp" to signify the end of the band, plunging the entire basement into complete darkness. This was about as good a time as any to end the band, so why not.

It is important to note while Gray, Mathis and myself did our respective music and personal adventures post-Regicide, Greg King went on to front (or at least drum for) some of the best rock this town has seen in the past decade, including The Carbonas, GG King, The Frantic, and many others I'm forgetting right now. I'll get working on that band genome again, promise.

James Joyce, bass guitar

This is the official show list, starting with the Mach III version:
1. December 31, 1995 at the I-Defy house with In/Humanity, Palatka, Inkwell, etc.
2. January 1996 at the I-Defy house with Code 13
3. February 1996 at the I-Defy house with Damad

Mach IV version:
4. May 4, 1996 at the Godless Red Athens Chapter with Cavity
5. September 21, 1996 at the Godless Red Atlanta Chapter with Abyss
6. October 30, 1996 at the Dead Body House in Athens with Strychnine and Pink Panties
7. November 23, 1996 in Winston-Salem with Line Drive
8. January 11, 1997 at the I-Defy house with Sarin and Charles Dumar
9. Janary 18, 1997 in Tampa, FLA with Combat Wounded Veteran
10. January 19, 1997 in Gainesville, FLA with Asshole Parade and Palatka
11. March 1997 at the Driverdome with Clairmel

Here is the artwork and lyrics from the oft maligned demo - click any image to enlarge and sing along:

In the I-Defy Kitchen, 1995 (from L to R) - Mathis Hunter, Greg King, Stuart King, Gray Kiser

Chapterhall - Roswell's Finest Circa 1998

2010-06-16T15:21:00.000-04:00

Here is the download - Chapterhall Demo

Thanks to Jack Saturn, former Huntsvillian/Atlantan/Thee Autobots guitarist/www.atlantashows.org designer/cool guy, for sending me this demo of Chapterhall, the band from the same part of Atlanta that I grew up in, and the first band where I first saw Lee Corum play drums. The band I was in at the time, Chocolate Kiss, played twice with Chapterhall, once at Under the Couch and once at Sprockets (see flyer above). I always remembered them as an instrumental band, which was the trend at the time, however Jack Saturn was recruited for a show or two as a lead vocalist. I guess things didn't work out, as they never invited him to any more practices or shows, which is always a classic way to kick someone out of a band. I love hearing all of the stories about how someone is kicked out or leaves a band. Matt Mauldin quit Bloodspoon by writing a letter to the guitarist Danny Grady. I think he also tried to quit Car vs. Driver through an answering machine message, but I could be remembering that incorrectly. Please tell me all your quit/kicked out of band experiences, they make great reading.

Chapterhall was around in the 1997-1998 era, and part of the mid-90s Roswell scene that I have covered in a previous post (e.g. The Strange Death of Silas Deane, Pax-13, Kossabone Red). If I remember Lee Corum drumming lineage correctly, he went into Mock Heroic after this, then Some Soviet Station, then Copa Vance, then Home of the Wildcats, then Lay Down Mains, then Gold Standard, which he currently melts faces in on a regular basis. I'm sure I have left out several bands in the meantime, as I am generating this list as I write this post. This demo was recorded at Under the Couch, and never released in any format, so it's great that we can enjoy it in the modern era. I think this might have been the best recording Under the Couch has ever produced, it sounds pretty damn good. But then again, they were good musicians who knew what they were doing, which is amazing given the fact that the musicians were in their late teens at the time.

One other topic I wanted to mention in this post is the existence of Sprockets as a place to have shows in suburban Roswell, and in my opinion how critical it was to the development of the Roswell hardcore/postpunk scene of the mid to late 90's. The older I get, the more I appreciate the fact that places like Sprockets existed, as a safe all-ages venue in the neighborhood where younger bands could play for their friends, and get exposed to some incredible national bands that would inspire them to make records, go out on tour and play music well into adulthood. How else would some of these kids have seen Ink and Dagger literally play down the street from their house?

The Fans - Cars and Explosions/Dangerous Goodbyes 7" (1979)

2010-05-21T11:03:00.000-04:00

Here is the download: The Fans 7"

Since Kevin Dunn from The Fans will be playing Wax N' Facts in a couple of hours and at Decatur CD at 4PM on Sunday, I thought it might be nice to post one of their singles here. Thanks to Dr. Kinje for the music, by the way. Chad Radford did a great piece on Kevin in Creative Loafing this week, so check it out for most everything you need to know about him and this band.

Here's the back cover of the single:

Grand Moff Tarkin - Cease and Desist (aka Imperial Metal)!

2010-05-11T09:55:00.011-04:00

Here is the download: Grand Moff Tarkin - Cease and Desist

Atlanta owes a world of debt to Jim Stacy for making our town interesting. From all the bands he has played in (Greasepaint, Big Top, Yule Log, The LaBrea Stompers, I'm missing about thirty others), his previous ownership of the Star Bar, his patronage and involvement in many local cultural events (several at the Starlight Six Drive-In), and his more recent management of the Starlight Six and TV appearances, the guy has milked this town for all its worth. I'm always perplexed by people that dump on Atlanta as a bottom-tier town with nothing happening, and then you get guys like Jim Stacy working his ass off to create something interesting and entertain everyone along for the ride.

I am not the guy that could do a comprehensive post on Jim Stacy justice, but I will share one of his musical projects from the late 90's, Grand Moff Tarkin. If you are going to be a heavy bar-rock Star Wars themed band, you need to go all out. They did just that, with Jim Stacy on lead vocals as Darth Vader (which worked perfectly due to his stature/frame/body type), Royal Imperial Guardsmen and Stormtroopers on the strings, Boba Fett on the keys, and a Death Star Gunner on drums, of course with all other supporting characters participating in various roles throughout their live sets. Just check out some of the live photos taken by Frederick from degeneratepress.com:

They were kings of the Dragon Con/novelty rock circuit, but got out before the joke wore off. I never got to see them live, as I was lurking down towards the East Atlanta side of things around this time, but the show reviews from Degeneratepress sound like it was a blast. Jim Stacy has been involved in many other bands and musical projects since then, and I would highly recommend attending one of his performances whenever the opportunity presents itself.

By they way, I borrowed this CD from the Album 88 Georgia Music Show archives, so I want to thank Adam Bomb once again for allowing me to raid the stash.

The Suzybeat

2010-04-26T14:37:00.004-04:00

Here is the download: The Suzybeat

Track Listing:
1-2 from first 7"
3-5 from second 7"
6 from the "Invasion of the Indie Snatchers" Allied Records Compilation
7 from the Quadruple Felony 7"
8-15 from Harvey (aka The Biz)

Update: Harvey (aka The Biz) from The Suzybeat sent me eight unreleased tracks to add to the list, so now when you download the zip file, it will contain 15 songs - a more respectable compilation of material.

Harvey also sent some comments on the new songs:

Here's 8 more songs we recorded and never released (though I still think Casino Magic was released on a compilation cd somewhere by someone...I cant find anything about it online...sigh..it was a long time ago).

Tangy Frank is from our first recording session (The Half baked compilation 7 inch). I'm playing a 30$ pawn shop guitar and our drummer at the time (Jim Williams) was playing a 3/4 size kids drum set. Andy Baker felt sorry for us and offered to let me play a guitar he had in the studio but I was quite proud of my crappy guitar at the time. I broke a string there at the end but we went with it anyway. Cant beat the punk rock teenage years.

Shiner was recorded with our next drummer (Robert Stiles) in what we affectionately call the falling down stairs phase (as all our songs had the rhythm of someone falling down stairs).

GearJammers and Irving the Explainer were recorded during one of the sessions for our two 7"'s. By this time we had joined up with a drummer who's main instrument was the drums (Bryan Beisel) and I had purchased a real guitar.

Another Polish Wedding, Life On Cassanova, Casino Magic and Adam Egonum were recorded in our last session (Andy Baker as always) with Erich Orenshaw joining us on guitar#2 and vocals (Casino Magic). And then we were done.

Now we have 15 songs, but still a cryptic band to say the least. Their two singles were basic screened covers, with photocopied inserts barely giving the song titles and a recommended playing speed, but this was the time in which these records existed (DIY, esoteric, intentionally obscure). They play early 90's style noise rock of the Chicago variety, not like Shellac but more like a Big'n or Dazzling Killmen. This is great stuff, and I'm very disappointed that I never got to see them live. Once again, they were part of the older Dottie's scene, and didn't cross paths with my hardcore bretheren. I'll bet they weren't straightedge either.

Here is the artwork for the 2nd single, their inserts, and their page from the Allied Recordings compilation.

The Story of 81

2010-04-12T13:13:00.000-04:00

My old friend Matt Edwards (aka 81) maintains a photo blog called Goatshoes, which I highly recommend checking out. All of his pictures are collected during his various internet travels, and posted with no context or other reference. It is kind of a zen-like experience to go through them, and inspiring. Reminds you just how amazing and insane this world really is.

Closure

2010-04-09T13:19:00.009-04:00

Here are the downloads:

The hal al Shedad - 2010-03-27 at Drunken Unicorn

Some Soviet Station - 2010-03-27 at Drunken Unicorn

Rizzudo - 2010-03-27 at Drunken Unicorn

I would like to thank everyone for coming out in support of Gavin Frederick and everything he has done for this town. We raised over $2000 to pay towards his medical bills, which he told me will take care of his medical payments for a year, and allow him to put out new Stickfigure releases sooner. It was a very exhausting weekend, but I am glad we did it as The hal al Shedad never played a final show, Some Soviet Station only gets better with age, and Rizzudo hardly ever play in town, so all of their performances are special events. It was even better with a special appearance by Jason Dove playing some Plexorjet classics with his old bandmates. I told Ben Lukens that if we ever did another one of these shows, I would probably have to be hospitalized afterwards. He told me that our kids could do the next one instead.

I have video of all three bands taken by Kip Thomas and Jeff Clark, which I will try to figure out and upload to the site, but for now you have the audio recordings to enjoy, and some great pictures by Greg Jednaszewski and Krista Koch, thank you so much.

Gil Durant doing some handclapping.

Donald playing the Moog that does something very bad to my inner ear.

Seth holding it down. It was nice seeing Gil play drums again as well.

Some Soviet Station were the most photogenic of the bunch. Check out Jesse's fury.

Justin keeping cool. I hope he got his telecaster back after the show.

Chris grabbing the mic is what Some Soviet Station was all about. Best photo ops anywhere.

Lee said he changed his drumming for the show to be more straight ahead arena rock. It sounded great, as always.

Here is Ben giving Gavin a little roast before we start.

And having a great weekend.

The setlist with Ben's water. He didn't drink any alcohol until the show was over, as all our mental capacity was needed for the task at hand.

Ben playing the old Music Man Stingray bass. He blew up his Ampeg V-9 at practice, so we used Donald's amp for our set.

I played my new drums, which sounded far superior to my old Tama set, but I still have the old set just in case.

Ed Rawls still has the yellow Les Paul, and all those hot postpunk licks. That guy can play like nobody's business.

So thanks everyone for everything, all the old Driverdome crew, our friends and family for being patient with us, especially Chris McFarland for coming down and doing some roadie work, and all the others that came in from everywhere for the show. We had an amazing time, and finally were able to give the band the send-off we always wanted.

Ten Two Four- Georgia Cracker Punk Rock! aka Brad Post #5

2010-04-01T19:22:00.208-04:00

Sometime early 1991, my friend Jason Harp told me his sister Carrie was starting a band with this dude named Kenn Hayes and that they needed a drummer. I believe she met Kenn at AA. He let her borrow this red short-scale bass that kinda looked like an Gibson SG and had nylon strings (which I had never seen before). Kenn “jammed” with her a bit I think before I came along. He was playing a Fender Stratocaster through a Peavey VTM 60 watt amp at the time. Jason and I had been in Decayed Jesus together (which was over at that point) and I was eager to try again at the band thing. I can’t recall how Kenn and I first met. He was working in the Gwinett Place Mall at L&N Seafood so I probably met him there. Yes, I was a mall punk with a chicken hawk, so what? Kenn had quite a few years on me, drove a beat up 1969 VW bug and had long hair at the time. His bug became known as the “Bug of Doom” as spray painted on the hood (or trunk since it was a bug?). It had no brake pedal so he used a yard stick shoved in the hole to stop it. Eventually the brakes went bad and he would just use the emergency brake, but in most cases he would just blow stoplights and stop signs. In place of a passenger seat he had a plastic milk crate turned upside down to sit on. The bug eventually got a dented rear fender/hood (trunk on a bug?) on account of me flicking off the little kids in his neighborhood who would yell at him as he drove home EVERY single day. As my luck would have it one of the kids’ redneck father was outside and witnessed me do it which prompted him to jump into his truck and chase us all the way to the mall and eventually ram us. It was some scary shit but Kenn had a pistol in the glovebox and luckily the dude was happy enough ramming us and gave up chase. I felt like shit but Kenn didn’t get too mad at me. Kenn was big into Christian Death, Skinny Puppy, Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers but I decided to give it a try anyway. As it turned out, Jason’s sister was a flake so I didn’t even practice once with her and Kenn. I think Kenn and I got together and played for awhile with just the two of us. The set I had used in Decayed Jesus was a total piece of shit so I temporarily borrowed Jann Genson’s drumset (Degeneration/Atrocity Exhibition). Soon after I bought a white Percussion Plus set from Rob Knight (Grave Shift/Juno's/Brickwall United/the Accidents) and then eventually upgraded to a white Ludwig Rocker set. From working at the mall, Kenn met Paul Hightower, who was working at the McDonalds also at the mall. Paul had not too long before been booted out of Crisis Under Control. Basically they thought he stole the band fund so they kicked him out (in typical Alan Dixon fashion; a “fight” that quickly ended with Paul being pushed into some bushes). It later turned out that Paul hadn’t stolen the money after all but that Alan’s dad had found it and put it in a “safe place”. Kenn recruited Paul on bass and we soon started practicing in my folks’ unfinished laundry room. We started off with a song that Kenn had from playing with Carrie which was about Kenn’s ex-roommate Kevin. Later Kenn had second thoughts about the song since it was so seething so we changed it to “Partisan Politics” and wrote new lyrics to it. A few months down the road Paul brought Steve Bolton into the mix. Steve had been booted out of Act of Faith for stage fright or something along those lines. Steve would show up to practice but would never be prepared. His MG was in the shop constantly and he would claim that his microphone was in the glovebox. Or that he’d forgot his lyrics at home. This went on for a couple months so eventually we stopped calling him. After him we tried out Roger Perry, David Perry, Kris Harvey (who was Kenn’s roommate at the time), Mark Chapman, a friend of Mark’s whose name escapes me, one of Kenn’s friends named Dave King and this old ass short scrawny dude. I can’t remember his name but he answered a classified we had in Creative Loafing. This guy was a Waffle House cook (showed up to practice wearing his uniform!) and looked like he belonged in a dirty 70’s porno. He constantly chewed spearmint gum, had a monster thick ‘stache and had sort of a mullet pulled back in a pony tail. He claimed he used to be in a Detroit area punk band back in the day called Spike and that they used to play with Negative Approach, the Fix and the Necros. He sang like he belonged in a death metal band and we thought he was kinda sleazy so we never called him back. A few years later I got a copy of The Best of Touch & Go magazine and low and behold saw a show review with a band called Spike playing with all the early Michigan greats.

We carried on sans singer and had a good bit of original material that we were getting tight with. We even came up with interesting ways to occupy our time after practice. Sometimes we would carve or write things on the Bug of Doom. Other times we played this game we called “kick the bottle” which was as one might guess; us kicking an empty 2 liter plastic Coke® bottle around. It was a punk version of hacky sack. Most of the time it was played in my parent’s small kitchen area, but occasionally it spilled out into our carport.We struggled with band names as much as we struggled with finding singers. My parents had a Murray “66” lawn mower and the logo looked real cool so we kicked that around a bit. Eventually Kenn came up with Ten Two Four which was his sobriety date; October 24. It had a good ring and was something no one would know what it stood for so it stuck. Also we could use it as Ten Two Four, Ten 2 Four, Ten Two 4, X II IV or 10-2-4 just to confuse people.

Listen to an early practice tape!

At some point early on we befriended Initiative, who consisted of Chris “Sarge” Thompson, Darren “Opie” Kendrick, Pat Hogan and Marc Womack. They were great as memory serves and had a Soulside/Samiam kinda feel. We would watch them practice at Pat’s house then run through our set on their equipment and they would do the same at my house. Because of our affiliation with Steve and Paul (and our locale being Lilburn), Ten Two Four were blacklisted in a sense from “the scene”. The Duluth Hardcore Scene to be exact. I guess that was another reason we were so tight with Initiative since they were considered to be the outsider “druggie” band. Clayton Brown, who was friends with Roger (who at the time was filling our “singer” position), had told Roger about seeing some home video that Crisis Under Control and Act of Faith members had made making fun of us. Shortly after, I was at an Act of Faith show at the Wreck Room and saw Alan Dixon in the front of the stage slam dancing and such. I was trying to be extra rough when he’d come slamming my way and take little pot shots at him. Luckily for me he didn’t realize it as my dumb ass didn’t know at the time that Alan isn’t someone you wanted to fight; period. I saw Steve Overbaugh, C.U.C.’s guitarist, at the Bad Religion/All show at the Masquerade July 25, 1992 and asked him about the video. Steve denied it and until I became the singer of Crisis I thought it was something Clayton had just made up to start some shit. They didn’t know who Kenn or I were so I think my character’s name was “Stu”. I forgot what name they made up for Kenn. It’s pretty funny actually and I wish I could convert it and post it here. Maybe one day...

Ten Two Four first show with Initiative and Jack the Lad, Saturday, July 4, 1992 at the Wreck Room. Crucified punk drawing by David Courtney, flier composition done by me.

In August 1992, Paul got himself in a little trouble with the law and ended up having to quit the band. Some time before this we had asked Sarge to fill in on vocals for us until we could find someone else. It seemed easier to get someone to come in and sing if all the leg work had been done. A sidenote about Sarge...he was always hungry (even though I think he worked at Arby’s at the time) so he’d raid our pantry after every practice. We usually didn’t have much in the house but for some reason we always seemed to have canned sardines so Sarge would break into those and put ‘em on Saltines (which we also always seemed to have). At this point the band started picking up some serious steam. Within no time at all our songs had lyrics and I started singing backup vocals, we were tighter and even played a show. Our first (and only one with Paul in the band) being at the Wreck Room, July 4th, 1992 with Jack the Lad and Initiative (Sarge pulling double duty). Along with our originals we also played "I Don't Care About You" by Fear.

With Paul’s exit, Sarge took on bass as well which set us back a little until he could figure out the songs. I think Initiative had broken up at this point so he was full time Ten Two Four. Through Maximum Rock-N-Roll’s Book Your Own Fucking Life magazine, J.L. Hall from Act of Faith got in touch with us about opening some shows for them. At some point, someone I knew in the drama club at Parkview High School talked to me about having us play in the school theatre and recording us through the soundboard. I remember it being a disaster as they couldn’t get the equipment working and no one showed up except a handful of friends. Another school band played as well called Acriminy. They were a fairly talented metal band whose rhythm guitarist, Jimmy Davis, later joined Monster. Their lead guitarist/singer was this guy Corbin King who is pretty hot shit these days in the metal scene in Vainglory and as a solo artist.

A friend of mine in Augusta wanted to start a fanzine and he sent questions through the mail and had us take some band pics. Our poses were über punk and I’m sure our answers were equally as pogo-riffic. I don’t know what happened to my copy of the ‘zine but I do know that one of Kenn’s answers was something about the Accüsed being the true grunge band from Seattle or something along those lines. On occasion we would warm up with the Accüsed’s version of “I’d Love To Change the World” at practice.

Sarge, Kenn and Roger Perry.

We scraped some money together and had my mom take us and our equipment to Sleepless Nights Studio ran by Issa Diao. The studio was in Candler Park on McClendon along the strip where Flying Biscuit is. It was small but quaint. We recorded and mixed three songs in one day. The songs were “Partisan Politics”, “High Horse” and “Dying”.

Li sten to the demo!

And then right as shit got rolling it happened... Sarge had started playing in another band on the side with Kip Thomas from Fiddlehead and Marcus from Initiative. They were calling themselves Freemasonry. Sarge then started getting really flaky on us. I’d have to pick him up to get him to practice (which meant convincing my girlfriend to do it since I didn’t have a car). Half the time I’d show up at his apartment and have to wake his ass up. I loved M.D.C. and they were playing an already filled bill at the Wreck Room. I called Alan Dixon, who was booking the show, about getting us on. He finally agreed after much pleading but then we ended up having to cancel because supposedly Sarge had pulled his groin the week of the show. Denied to this day by Kip but confirmed at the time by Sarge’s girlfriend, Kip gave Sarge an ultimatum to either quit us or quit them. He chose them. I was very bitter at the time towards Sarge and even more so towards Kip. So bitter in fact that I never saw Freemasonry play live which is a mistake that I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

Ten Two Four with Spiney Norman, Jenkin's Ear and the Difference, Friday, March 12, 1993 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by me.

Ten Two Four with Act of Faith and Stale Fish, Friday, May 28, 1993 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by me.

Ten Two Four with Crisis Under Control, Spiney Norman and Scout, Wednesday, July 28, 1993 at the Somber Reptile. I think Scout may have canceled hence the red over their name. Drawing by Steven Cummings (Go Steadys), flier composition done by me.

Ten Two Four with Gerardes and Distraught, Saturday, August 14, 1993 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by me.

Ten Two Four with the Difference, Bob and the Go Steadies (sic; sorry James!), Saturday, August 21, 1993 at the Somber Reptile. Flier done by me.

Ten Two Four with M.D.C., Spiney Norman, Crisis Under Control and the Difference, Friday, September 10, 1993 at the Wreck Room. We had to cancel the show because of Sarge's groin.

So there we were, once again, the band that could never be whole. I ended up getting my friend Brandon Espinosa, who had been in Atrocity Exhibition, to play bass and the singer search started again. Around that time was the Dan & Dave Punk Fest at the Somber Reptile. I thought if we could get Sarge to do one last show for us we could announce there that we needed a singer in front of a larger audience. Kenn was very adamant about not playing the show without a singer so I convinced Sarge to do us that one last favor. Day of the show I hadn’t heard from him. Getting close to the time we go on, haven’t heard from him. We end up switching time slots to go on later but still saw no sign of him. Begrudgingly Kenn got onstage with Brandon and I and we proceeded to play our songs with different people coming up to fill in and make up their own words. It was horrible. Chuck Petrakopoulous (ex-Jenkin’s Ear) got up at one point and he knew some of the words since he had been trying out with us.

Dan & Dave Punk Fest with Ten Two Four, Act of Faith, Knuckle, Brickwall United, Habeus Corpsus, Antique Future, Crisis Under Control, Spiney Norman, 5x9, the Difference, Quadiliacha, Midge Farmers, Monster Box and Monkey Boy, Friday, October 23, 1993 at the Somber Reptile. Flier done by me.

Rob Fuller from Act of Faith had suggested Chuck to us since he knew he had been in chorus at Duluth High School. We ended up going with Chuck and carried on. We recorded all our songs on Kenn’s four-track and I went back and sang the vocals so Chuck could learn the songs. I have no clue where those tapes went which is probably a good thing. We came up with two new songs and started playing more shows.

Ten Two Four with Broken, the Difference and Quadiliacha, Friday, February 4, 1994 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by Chuck.

Saturday, February 5, 1994 we took a road trip with Act of Faith to Augusta to play at this place called The Ranch which had a halfpipe outside. Act of Faith brought a few of their friends from Duluth and we brought along two friends so we had a whole caravan going up there and had a great time. The stage was tiny and the crowd kept getting onstage with us and stage diving and slamming like mad, leaving us almost no room to play. It was a total blast. The most memorable part of the trip though was having some Southern ass lady telling Rob Fuller to clean his mouth since the Stuckey’s/Dairy Queen we were in was a “family restaurant” and Rob proceeding to sarcastically quip back at her.

Augusta set list. Never saw a flier for this show.

Ten Two Four with Crisis Under Control, Line Drive and Lifeline, Saturday, February 12, 1994 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by Chuck.

Jimmy Davis (Monster), me, Kenn and Jason Harp (Decayed Jesus).

Me, Brandon, Chuck, Carter Davis (the Difference) and Chris Lunsford (Broken).

Kenn had been hanging out more with the Duluth straightedge crew at the time and started to have issues with Brandon being a pot smoker. At what ended up being one of our last shows, Kenn and I talked outside the Wreck Room about the future of the band and about us being more positive. He said we needed to kick out Brandon and if we were to continue with Chuck we’d have to have a heart to heart and really work with him on his singing. I thought “fuck this” and said we should just break up the band. Kenn and I had great musical chemistry and he was a very talented guitarist, I loved our songs and thought we had an original sound but I just couldn’t take any further member changes. Not to mention that both those guys were my friends and I didn’t want to kick either of them out. Starting over was too tiring so that was the end for me. After that I joined Crisis Under Control on vocals and later played bass in Ex Members Of..., Kenn joined Broken which changed to Downpour then later morphed into The Power & the Glory, Brandon joined Benchtop (with Pat from Initiative) and Chuck went on to Batch of Gimps and started Moodswing Records.

Ten Two Four's last show with Act of Faith, Broken and Second-7's, Saturday, February 19, 1994 at the Wreck Room. Flier done by me.

It's always good to have releases in time for release shows

2010-03-30T15:54:00.008-04:00

Judi Chicago will be playing a release show for our second full length at the New New Dottie's on Friday, for your information and weekend planning purposes. Doing these release shows can be stressful, as I have been involved with several where the album was not delivered in time from the pressing plant, or some other SNAFU happens such that we stand around like idiots with no records to sell. Thankfully, we have become more organized in our golden years and can actually have our releases ready as planned. So come on out if you are in the mood, and get a free copy of the album if you are one of the first one hundred customers of the evening. Thanks to Esparanza for the flyer, and check out The Chief Acid Officer, Kid Stuff and Machines Are People Too while you are at it.

Lastly, we did a radio interview yesterday with Adam Bomb DeVore for the Georgia Music Show on WRAS Album 88, which will air on Wednesday at 6PM, and another interview for WMLB AM 1690 which will air on Wednesday and Thursday this week, so be aware.

The hal al Shedad Singles Collection

2010-03-22T15:10:00.000-04:00

Here is the download: The hal al Shedad Singles Collection

This download attached is the "Singles and Unreleased Recordings" CD put out by Buddy System in the early part of this century, and compiles all of our recorded music that does not appear on the Self-Titled album or the Textures of Tomorrow album. The first seven songs of the CD were essentially our live set for the first six months of the band's existence, and included our first three singles as well as one song that was unreleased (Good Intentions). Here is the artwork from these singles:

The Sound of Swords Clashing (At A Loss Records, 1995)

Josh White from Auburn was a big fan of ours in the beginning, and he decided to use some settlement money he got from a car wreck and start At A Loss Records, with our first single as his first release. We put a lot of care into the packaging, using a professional printer for the artwork and even using extra-thick 7" sleeves to make it look extra classy. There was also a poem included behind the lyrics, but I can't remember now where it came from. We were very proud of this single, and were pretty bummed when Josh released At A Loss number 2, which I can't remember what band it was for, but included a photocopied black and white photo of dead deer carcassas as the cover. Josh has since moved on to release great metal albums on his label, so I'm sure the Hal 7" was a little different from his overall vision of the label, but it was a good single nonetheless.

Split with Inkwell (Lunchbox Records 1995)

Here is single number two - the split with Inkwell put out by Steve Wishart from Car vs. Driver on Lunchbox. We used another poem on the back, because we were pseudo artists. If you also remember during this period, there was a trend in record artwork to make something look like it came out in the sixties, but in the end looked like something put out in 1995. This single fell into this trap.

The Symbol of Sound Progress (Auto Stop Records, 1995)

This single was put out by James, Patrick and Turtle from Auto Stop Records in Knoxville, TN. The only other release I can remember of theirs was a Jeff Humphrey single, which was my favorite of his. I got the name of the single from a Rolling Stones record sleeve. Benjamin and Phil were working the night shift at Kinko's on Windy Hill Road at this time, so all of these covers were printed for free at their shop. There were three different color combinations for this single, grey with blue lettering, black with red lettering, and maroon with black lettering. For some reason I can only find the grey one in my collection at the moment.

Running and Falling (Troubleman Unlimited/Buddy System, 1997)

This was the single recorded in between the self-titled album and the Textures of Tomorrow album, and shows how our sound progressed/transitioned in 1997. The photos were taken at the Peachtree Center Marta station, and designed by Phil Dwyer, of course.

The Dichotomy of Yesterday (Simba, 1997)

This was our European Tour single on Simba Records out of the UK, so almost nobody in the US has it. I think we got 10 copies or so and the rest remained in Europe. The design is by Phil Dwyer, of course, and the guitar cable was Ed's guitar cable he used during the entire length of the band, which was borrowed indefinitely from Rich Morris (aka The Spirit of Nashville aka Dream Sanitation from Noot d' Noot and Good Friday Experiment). I think this cable still works and is laying around the Living Room Studio somewhere. The song Yesterday's Bullets was recorded with David Barbe in the same session as Human Again and Eloquent Loser from the Running and Falling 7", but the B-side 11.16.95 was recorded by Alap Momin during the same session as the Self-Titled Album. This song appears on the CD version of the Self-Titled Album and was not included in the Singles compilation CD due to time constraints.

Split with Rainer Maria (Tree Records, 1998)

It was great we were able to do one of these Post-Marked Series singles, and appear on a record with our BFFs Rainer Maria. The song Solitaire was part of our next generation of songs in the evolution of the band, that also kind of caused the implosion of the band in 1999, but such is life. The mastering of this single is so bad, it is unlistenable, but at least the CD came out and you can listen to it in its intended state.

Here is the artwork for the compilation CD (click on the photos to enlarge):

The artwork includes several photos from our tours as well as two entries from my European tour diary. I don't think I will post it on this website anytime soon, as it's pretty bad. The CD includes several unreleased tracks, such as Good Intentions (mentioned above), On Building A Timebomb (recorded at the time of the first album, but was intended for a Troubleman comp that never came out, an early incarnation of the Troubleman Mixtape I guess), Separation Anxiety and Question Statement Answer (songs that were supposed to be on the third album) as well as several live version of songs for the third album that was never recorded. I'm glad everything was released in some format or another, and this blog exists to fill in any gaps as I think it's a shame when music is never released or otherwise made available for the public to listen. I also have a photo collection to post sooner or later, but this might be all the Hal-related posts on the blog for now. Thanks for all the good times.

Some Soviet Station

2010-03-17T15:06:00.004-04:00

Here is the download: Some Soviet Station album

When I first saw Some Soviet Station play, there was a definite “I’m fucking in, you’re fucking out” feeling, with SSS being the ones that were fucking in, and myself being the one that was fucking out. Even though they had been around in bands like The Kossabone Red and Chapterhall, this was the band that took what had been done previously in Atlanta and did it better than almost everything that had come before. The torch had been officially passed to the next generation, and they were it. This was my favorite of the Lee Corum/Jesse Smith/Chris McNeal/Justin Snyder bands, they basically owned the Echo Lounge 10 years ago, as much as bands like Act of Faith and Car vs. Driver owned the Somber Reptile 15 years ago. It was a shame they were so short lived, only releasing a split 7” with At the Price of the Union on Buddy System and this full length on Moodswing Records, as they made some rough attempts at touring and imploded somewhere along the line. Funny enough, the band basically came back together soon after with Josh Lott from At the Price of the Union replacing Lee Corum in Paper Lions, while Lee moved on to the supergroup that was Copa Vance, then Home of the Wildcats, then Lay Down Mains, and finally Gold Standard, but I’m sure there are several others I’m missing.

Of course they will be playing before The hal al Shedad next Saturday at the Drunken Unicorn for the Gavin benefit, and I am not looking forward to them making everyone (including us) look like complete amateurs – see my previous post on character builders to see what I mean.

Here is the rest of the artwork for the CD (click to enlarge). There was supposed to be an LP version, which would have been beautiful with this packaging, but that is a story I have heard many times before.

The hal al Shedad Flyer Collection

2010-03-09T13:59:00.000-05:00

March 11, 1995: HAS with Moonraker and Tired From Now On from Gainesville, Florida. This was the first Hal show, before I was in the band. After a second show at the Godless Red house, I told Ben and Ed that I would be interested in playing drums for them, and they took about 2 minutes to say yes. Then we went to Tortillas.

May 12, 1995: HAS with Inkwell in Auburn, Alabama. I remember using the Car vs. Driver van to drive down to Auburn, and we broke down right outside I-285. Some guy stopped on the road and offered to drive Ed to a Pep Boys and get a new water pump, which the guy replaced on the side of the road and we still got to the show in time.

May 19, 1995: HAS with Year Zero, Quadiliacha and Fragment at the Driver Dome. I think this might have been the only show we played with Quadiliacha in our four years as a band. We also started using the complete name "hal al shedad" in our flyers, instead of just "hal", although it lingered on in subsequent flyers for several months.

May 27, 1995: HAS with Eurich, In-Humanity and Ezra Pound in Charleston, South Carolina. Our first time meeting Kyle and Bill from Rainer Maria, in their earlier band Ezra Pound. Of course In-Humanity stole the show.

May 28, 1995: HAS with Ezra Pound and Scout at the Driver Dome. I remember one of the guys in Ezra Pound losing his drivers license in the morning after the show and having some kind of mental breakdown in our family room. It wasn't Kyle or Bill, those guys could keep it together.

June 2, 1995: HAS with Palatka, Order of Importance and Dredge in Gainesville, Florida. Our first time playing with the Palatka guys, who we connected with and played shows for years afterwards.

June 6, 1995: HAS with Delta 72, and Plow at the Driverdome. I remember Delta 72 being awesome at this show. They had just released their first 7", and had Kim Thompson from Cupid Car Club playing bass, so we were completely starstruck.

June 8, 1995: HAS with Plow and The New Action Four in Knoxville, Tennessee. This was the start of our first tour, and the show never happened. I also would like to mention that we left the Driver Dome basement door wide open when we left for tour, sorry Steve. The New Action Four was a side project band of the guys in Thumbnail, and when we showed up at their house they said the show was off but we could sleep on their floor. We played with their dog for a little while and started driving to Bloomington, Indiana instead.

June 9, 1995: HAS with Sewing Circle and Ascension in Bloomington, Indiana. This was put on by Icki from Sty Zine in his basement. I remember the show being pretty sparse, but Icki got a promo copy of Fugazi's Red Medicine in the mail that day, so we were able to listen to it for the rest of the tour.

June 11, 1995: HAS with Anasarca, Feverpitch, Milkwede and Dog Tag in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I believe Anasarca didn't play this show, but Feverpitch had the guy who put out the "Use This Coupon" compilation with Car vs. Driver, so we got to hang out with him. I also remember the guy who put the show on lived with his parents, and we stayed in one of their guest rooms (on beds!), while his mom, the gourmet chef, made an amazing breakfast for us. We didn't want to leave.

June 13, 1995: HAS with Chokehold, Natividad and Eleventh Hour in Newark, Delaware. Eric Wareheim from Elements of Need came down from Philly for this show, so we hung out with him for a while and then stayed at Gavin Frederick's parents house for the night.

June 15, 1995: HAS with Cap'n Salty, Mothman and Stella Brass at the Henry House, in New Jersey I believe? I don't have any memory of this show, but I think we made the second flyer ourselves and gave it out at some other show that was happening that night.

July 29, 1995: HAS with Action Patrol in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Thumbnail guys make it up to us for flaking out on the other show, by giving us a great show with Action Patrol. I remember meeting James, Patrick and Turtle from Auto Stop Records at this show, who later put out our third 7".

August 3, 1995: HAS with In-Humanity in Auburn, Alabama. Auburn was like our second home back then, and we always had a great time there. I believe this might have been where we talked with Josh White from At A Loss Records about putting out our first 7".

August 4, 1995: HAS with Franklin and Fracture at the Driverdome. Our first show of many with Franklin, probably the most underrated band of the 90's, and Fracture, who had the best tour van I have ever seen. It was a black and yellow super van from the seventies, and was the envy of every band they played with.

August 19, 1995: HAS with Inkwell, Pagan Holiday and Wheeljack at the Driver Dome. The infamous Rock Against Rape benefit, complete with spoken word by Blondie of Clairemont Lounge fame, and several others who bummed out the Driver Dome crowd immensely.

September 12, 1995: HAS with Boys Life and Giants Chair at the Driver Dome. Boys Life was one of my favorite bands of this period. After seeing them in Detroit and then here, they really brought it. Those guys toured so much, they had a system for not paying for gas when they filled up that actually worked most of the time.

October 1, 1995: HAS with Thee Autobots in Huntsville, Alabama. The first and only time we ever played Huntsville. Jack Saturn put this show on, and I love the guy but the show was a clunker. Scout cancelled, so we we came in their place, but also Lunkhead, Seade and Helicopter cancelled as well. Maybe it was just not meant to be.

November 4, 1995: HAS with Griver, The Forty-Two and The Merrils at the Driver Dome. Ben and Ed were high school friend of Charlie from Griver, so we played several shows with them over the years. At the Driver Dome, we used to just charge 1$ per each out of town band, and the local bands didn't get paid. Therefore this show was just 1$ to get in. Gas was pretty cheap back then.

October 16, 1995: HAS with The Make-Up at the Driver Dome. One of the best shows ever at the Driver Dome. We went to the Sonic Youth/Make-Up show at the Roxy the night before, and James Canty was hanging outside the venue. They had a night off the following day, so we convinced them to play our basement. With one day's notice, and no cell phones, email, etc. we packed the place out and had an amazing show.

February 2, 1996: HAS with Wheeljack and Year Zero at BLT's. Classic show from the mid-nineties.

March 14, 1996: HAS with Braid and Castor at the Driver Dome. I don't remember the show as much as I remember the flyer. Ben and Phil were working at Kinko's by this time, so we were able to print these great 11X17 color flyers for free. This was a classic.

March 29, 1996: HAS with Thumbnail and Year Zero in Knoxville, Tennessee. I don't have any memories of this show either, but the Auto Stop guys did a great job with the flyer.

May 20, 1996: HAS with Dahlia Seed and Barrel at the Driverdome. I believe this was when we had just finished recording the first album in New Jersey, and drove with Mike Simonetti down to Atlanta and meet up with Dahlia Seed for their tour. If this was that show, then it was also when my trombone was stolen out of our van in the Driver Dome driveway.

October 12, 1996: HAS with Dart 360 and 400 Years in Durham, North Carolina. Mark Owens from Buddy System always put on great shows at the Duke Coffeehouse, we played there quite a few times, with 400 Years, The Make-Up, Rainer Maria, etc.

December 19, 1996: HAS with Franklin, 12 Tone System and Cascade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the show where we met Vique Martin from Simba Records, who offered to book a European tour for us, which was an amazing opportunity. Sometimes it's worth driving up to Philly in December for a show at a church with Franklin. Great times.

March 10, 1997: HAS with Long Hind Legs and The Thrones at 485 Robinson. This was a great show, for the fact that we got to hang out with Vern Rumsey and Joe Preston at a house in Grant Park for a few hours. I remember Vern playing Tim Green's guitar from Nation of Ulysses, and we were trying to figure out how to buy it off him.

March 26, 1997: HAS with Serotonin in Nashville, Tennessee. This was the start of our US tour, at Lucy's Record Shop which was always either the start or end of our tours back then. What ever happened to Lucy and her shop?

March 1997: HAS with Rainer Maria in the Midwest. We played several shows with Rainer Maria on this tour, so Polyvinyl made some nice posters for us. Included on these dates were Peoria, Illinois with Braid, Chicago with Joan of Arc, Madison, Wisconsin and Minneapolis, Minnesota. They also played the show after in Sioux Falls, South Dakota I believe.

April 6, 1997: HAS with Sunset on Tokyo, T Tauri, John Brown's Body and Gamelan Auxilliary Unguent in Portlant, Oregon. This was a great show, Sunset on Tokyo was Jon Rothman's band in Misoula after leaving Car vs. Driver, we did several west coast shows with T Tauri, and they were amazing, and we loved the city and venue quite a bit. I remember trying to find the Burnside banks at the time, but I guess they were under the bridge. I didn't bring my skateboard anyhow.

April 8, 1997: HAS with Blackjackaction, The Angel Assassins, Makara, T Tauri and Edaline in Petaluma, California. Another great show, T Tauri and Makara were awesome, and I don't remember The Angel Assassins specifically, but they included BJ Rubin from Pukekos fame. We stayed at a house with Blackjackaction and Patricia in that band kept us up all night playing bad cover songs on an acoustic guitar. Interesting piece of trivia is that Patricia played in a band with Bob Medina when they were living in Boulder, Colorado before Bob moved to Atlanta and we started Chocolate Kiss together. Part of that whole band family tree thing.

May 16, 1997: HAS with The VSS, More Fire for Burning People and The Purkinje Shift at the 14th St. U-Haul Warehouses. What a show! VSS annihilated, of course. So much that someone in the warehouses called the police and we didn't even get to play. I also remember our van going over this bump too fast while we were driving in and Ben's Ampeg V-9 head bouncing off the seat and smashing on the floor of the van. Don't ask why Ben's head was sitting on the seat of the van.

August 29, 1997: HAS with Capstan and The Glenn Bowen Big Band in Nottingham, UK. The Hal European tour begins. In the UK and Ireland we played mainly pubs, which was not really our scene, but in mainland Europe we played a lot of youth centers, and they loved us. It's funny to see the other shows that were happening around the same time. We were criss-crossing tours with Rye Coalition and Bluetip, but never played on any of the same bills.

August 30, 1997: HAS with IMBISS in Leeds, UK. This was the tour flyer Vique made for our UK shows, using some of the artwork from the tour 7". Not bad. We were pretty spoiled in Atlanta by having Phil Dwyer, Scott Wishart, Scott MC, etc. design these great flyers, and we go over to Europe and it's copy machine punkerville on many of these. At this show, we put a ghetto blaster in the back of the room to record our show as a "live at Leeds" set, ala The Who. It sounded terrible, of course.

August 31, 1997: HAS with Bender and Western Union in London, UK. This was the same day that Princess Diana was killed in Paris. People didn’t feel much like going out to a show that night. I remember driving by Buckingham Palace and seeing all the flowers laid out, it was not a happy day in this town. One of the bands cancelled, and the other band played a cover of “Swan Street” by Three, which was great. Later on that night, we slept at a record store and the owner gave me a copy of the Yummy Fur’s “Stereo Girls” 7”, which I was very excited about.

September 3, 1997: HAS by ourselves in Aalborg, Denmark. I have a DAT recording of this show, which I will post whenever I can borrow the machine from Henry. This was a sparsely attended show, on a Wednesday in Denmark, but we had a good time. This was helped by the club giving us a deck of cards, and each card was a drink ticket for the band. I remember Ben, Jon Lukens, and our driver Rob Hallowes getting pretty sauced. Jon vomited out the van window the next morning on the way to Sweden.

September 4, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride and Reconsider in some small Swedish village. Daniel from Refused booked our Sweden shows, and added some local faves from his home town of Umea called Plastic Pride as a support act. They were still in high school (gymnasium to those guys), but were pretty tight and had a good hardcore sound. Nice kids, and they toured in an RV, which made us extremely jealous. I seem to remember us playing very bad at this show, because I remember our next show in Stockholm being very good.

September 5, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride and Last Match in Stockholm, Sweden. There was a joke going around that when the US bands toured Europe, the following year all the European bands sounded and looked like them. I remember the Locust touring through a little while before with Jenny Piccolo I believe, and a definite San Diego vibe was creeping into Scandinavia. This was a good show, and we got to sleep on the floor of the club so we didn’t have to worry about loading out our equipment after we played.

September 6, 1997: HAS with Purusam, Cobolt and D.S.-13 in Umea, Sweden. This was the epicenter of the Refused/Swedish hardcore scene, and the Umea kids represented. This town is way up North almost at the Arctic Circle, but they love to have bands play at their youth center. I think every kid came out to the show, and bought a t-shirt, 7” and album. We had a great show as well, possibly our best of the tour.

September 7, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride, Endflow, and Ione Band in Sundsvall, Sweden. The guy who did this show liked to draw maps, and I have attached a map he drew here that I’m not sure what it was for, but it was a very artistic rendering of his hometown of Sundsvall. We went to the video store after the show, and they wanted me to pick out the movie we should watch. It was between Crash (the one with James Spader) and Swingers. I chose Swingers as I thought Crash might be a little too awkward for them. They didn’t really understand all the slang in Swingers, and asked if that was how Americans really acted. Then I got lost in the woods trying to find Plastic Pride’s RV. I think they started letting us sleep in it, because it was so damn fancy.

September 8, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride and Krig 83 in Soderkoping, Sweden. I don’t remember much about this show, but it was another one with our BFFs Plastic Pride. As they were a straightforward HC band, I’m sure they got pretty tired with our 12 minute prog epics. Not a bad flyer.

September 9, 1997: HAS with Fictives, Plastic Pride and Bobbit in Oskarshamn, Sweden. Speaking of great flyers, could you have at least not used notebook paper to advertise our show?

September 10, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride, End In Sight and No Dismay in Gislaved, Sweden. These shows are all running together, as you can imagine we are ready to move on to other territories by this time.

September 11, 1997: HAS with Plastic Pride and Ponyboy in Copenhagen, Denmark. We played this horrible squat where the soundman was wanting me to put tape all over my drums, and Ed got some of the worst heartburn in his life from some falafel (our main diet on tour). Afterwards we stayed at some girl’s punker apartment that had a sink that went into a bucket, and I voted to sleep in the van. Someone had to sleep in the van every night to ensure that nothing was stolen, and I always took it when we were staying in places like this.

September 12, 1997: HAS with A.M. Thawn in Magdeburg, Germany. This was a long drive from Copenhagen, but we ended up staying at a nice house where the show was held that served great falafel. I do remember Ben yelling at the crowd to shut up during our quiet songs, however. It was a party town, complete with a disco next door that kept us up all night. We also picked up this girl named Chantal at this show, and she rode with us for several days through Belgium to get somewhere. She drove us crazy by the end of that journey.

September 14, 1997: HAS with Reiziger and Hitch in Kortrijk, Belgium. I remember the guys in Reiziger being super cool, and a great band as well. I bought several of their albums in the years after this tour. This was another great show, at a pub and not a youth center, but in front of people who seemed to understand what we were doing musically.

September 18, 1997: HAS with Kito and Number One Son in Manchester, UK. We made our way back to the fatherland, and played a show with our driver’s band Kito, who were pretty metal but good. I think we only played four songs at this show, as the bass amp blew up during our set. We played the song “Machine Gun” as a guitar/drums/vocals combo just so we could play something for the crowd. It’s important to note that in Europe (at least at this time), all the bands shared the same equipment, so if an amplifier blew up during a band’s set, there was no back-up for the remaining bands to use. As we were usually the headliner on this tour, we were the ones that suffered because of this. Ben brought Charlie from Griver’s Gallien Kruger bass head over to play through with a power converter, but it was such a high wattage amp it kept blowing the fuses on the converter box. We should have just borrowed someone’s bass amp in Europe for the tour. Lesson learned.

September 19, 1997: HAS with Castles and Car Wrecks and Zero Tolerance in Belfast, North Ireland. This was a scary show. We played to Belfast punkers at a squat, and there were several fights during the first band. Some guy called me the bastard son of Andy Warhol and mooned me. Castles and Car Wrecks were on tour with us for all the Ireland shows, and they were acoustic, loungy-type stuff, and they went on before us. The bass player actually played sitting on a chair off-stage, due to the awkwardness. They got through their set, and we had to play a set of total rockers, and the punkers loved it. It was probably the first time we had circle pits at a hal show.

September 20, 1997: HAS with Castles and Car Wrecks, Hylton Weir and Devoid in Dundalk, Ireland. This was a fun show, it was at a pub, but with a really young crowd as the drinking age is so low. So it was at a “kids pub”. I can remember seeing a really young Irish kid drunk out of his mind vomiting on the street, and how strange that looked as an American. Later that night we stayed at this elegant country mansion, and Rob the driver watched speedway on TV without the sound on while we slept. I remember waking up and seeing Rob silently yelling at the screen when his team was doing well (or something).

September 21, 1997: HAS with Castles and Car Wrecks and Bambi in Dublin, Ireland. This was another great show, Bambi was a young, garage-punk type band with an organ. I remember all of them coming to the show in a taxi with their organ in the trunk. Castles and Car Wrecks were amazing, as usual. I used to have a soundboard recording of their set from this show, but can’t find it anymore. If anyone has any recordings of Castles and Car Wrecks, I would be very much interested. I only have a split 7” myself, with Rob the guitarist (previously in Baby Harp Seal) singing solo acoustic. I would like to get a recording of them with the Kito rhythm section that they had on this tour.

September 24, 1997: HAS with two other bands (I can’t remember) in Leicester, UK. This was the last show of the tour, and we were ready to get home. We had a great time, but we were young (I was 21, Ed and Ben were 19), and it was really an overwhelming experience. I remember leaving my jacket at the house in Birmingham the night before, and I had to wait for several months while the guys in Palatka and In-Humanity played there, picked it up, and brought it back to the US for me. After this show, Rob drove us to Heathrow airport where we sat in McDonalds all night listening to Jamiroqai’s “Cosmic Girl” on the sound system waiting for our flight to take off in the morning. When we arrived at Hartsfield airport, my wife (then girlfriend) Sue met us at the gate with Tortillas burritos.

Here is the entire European tour schedule below:

November 21, 1997: HAS with Rainer Maria in Durham, North Carolina. Back at Duke Coffeehouse with Mark Owens and Rainer Maria. The BFF relationship with Rainer Maria is in full swing by this point, we are inseparable.

December 9, 1997: HAS with Rainer Maria in Madison, Wisconsin. Don’t ask us why were were playing in Madison in December, but we had a great time anyhow. I remember Rich Morris (aka The Spirit of Nashville) coming with us as our roadie and showing us a good time, and having a brat.

January 28, 1998: HAS with Sunshine, Short Wave Channel and The Kossabone Red at Under the Couch. I believe this was our first show with the next generation of kids in Atlanta, The Kossabone Red. I made this flyer from some sci-fi book I was reading, obviously I didn’t get a computer until later.

February 21, 1998: HAS with Versailles and Pohgoh in Tampa, Florida. Confusing flyer, but a great show. Our major tours were behind us now, and we were only doing short jaunts up and down the coast for long weekends over the next year.

May 17, 1998: HAS with The Purkinje Shift and Plexorjet at MJQ. While Ben was a part owner of MJQ, we started playing shows there (in the main room, years before the Drunken Unicorn existed). In this late period we also played many shows with Plexorjet, which later became Rizzudo when Jason Dove moved to Baltimore.

August 17, 1998: HAS with The Sorts and The Boom at Under the Couch. After Rain Like the Sound of Trains and Hoover came The Sorts and The Boom, respectively. It was a fun show, The Sorts were always amazing.

March 27, 2010: HAS with Some Soviet Station and Rizzudo at The Drunken Unicorn. I felt that I should just include this in the overall flyer post. I hope everyone can come out, and I can tell you that while our set may be a little short with Ben moving away to Austin, we will play our best and hopefully bring back some good memories

Here is my handwritten list of our shows that I kept (sorry it’s so incomplete), and a funny interview we did for a zine in Austria. Thanks.

Mathis Hunter's Music Television

2010-03-01T10:49:00.015-05:00

Our old friend Mathis Hunter (aka Matt New Age, aka Bimbi Smoofus Thomas, aka Bimbi Garraux, aka The Freezer Pleaser), after being the sidemouse in bands such as Quadiliacha, Regicide, Seventy Spacebird, The Good Friday Experiment, The Selmanaires, and the excellent Band Director for Noot d' Noot, has finally assembled a creation entirely his own - the Soft Opening, available now at the finer music retailers of Atlanta. His new band will be unveiled in the live format on Friday at the EARL, along with sets by The Selmanaires and Noot d' Noot, so everyone come down and get your good vibes on.

The hal al Shedad - Textures of Tomorrow

2010-02-26T09:18:00.014-05:00

Here is the download: The hal al Shedad - Textures of Tomorrow

So we have confirmation from Benjamin Lukens that he can play the "We're glad Gavin didn't die benefit" at the Drunken Unicorn on March 27. The full lineup will be Rizzudo (thanks brothers Durant!), Some Soviet Station (thanks Jesse, Lee, gang), and The hal al Shedad, playing songs written 15 years ago. It was uncertain if this show would occur, as Benjamin and his family were suddenly moved by the company he works for to Austin, and he wasn't sure if he could take the time to get back to Atlanta for the show. Thankfully he can, but practice is going to be a challenge. Expect the set to be heavy on the early singles and not so much later material, as these songs were very difficult and we don't have the time to work them out.

This was our second album, which was titled after a line I heard in an old Twilight Zone episode, something about reconciling the realities of today with the textures of tomorrow. At the time, we were very determined to make new music that was a break from what was going on around us, but at the same time listening to a lot of Bowie records and some Black Sabbath, so we just wanted to make a grand statement, something epic. It also helped that we wrote most of the album in the Brannon Square movie theater where I worked after closing time, usually between midnight and 5AM when the cleaning crew would come in. The acoustics in that theater was amazing, and we would make these long, dramatic songs with huge dynamic changes just because they sounded so great. We would also play with the lights off, using only the projected movie on the screen with the sound turned off as our background light. I specifically remember writing songs to the first Scream movie as well as Twister, just to give you an idea of the time period when this was happening.

We decided to record the album with David Barbe, who we worked with previously on the "Running and Falling" and Simba European Tour singles. We liked his working style and got along really well with him in the studio. Now he had a new studio called Chase Park Transduction in Athens, and we were excited about recording our new album with a pro engineer at a top of the line studio. Not to say recording the first album in Alap Momin's garage was bad, but it was inspiring to be making a completely new album in such a top notch environment. I believe we were only the second band to record at Chase Park, the first being Jucifer, who I believe just finished recording the "Calling All Cars on the Vegas Strip" album there, and right after us was the great Harvey Milk, who recorded "The Pleaser" at that time. I remember the guys from Harvey Milk coming in while we were recording with copies of the new "Courtesy" album, and talking to David Barbe about how they were about to make the best rock n' roll album of all time the following week, and they pretty much did just that.

Anyhow, we recorded the album over a week in June 1997, with a few additional days for vocals and final mixing. We used some Bowie recording tricks, like placing multiple vocal mics at different distances from Benjamin while he was recording vocals with gates on the mics so when he was singing very softly, the vocals would be very close, and when he was screaming it would open up to the echo of the entire room. Clever. Some synths were used in the end of Sailor Song and Somnopolis, and some different guitars and amps were used in various places, but otherwise it was a pretty simple recording. I originally sang the song Machine Gun with different lyrics, but it clashed so much with the rest of the album, we had Benjamin just write and sing a completely different version. One other piece of trivia about the song Machine Gun - we played it live only once, and that was in Manchester, UK when Ben's bass amp died and we played it as guitar and drum duo only with Ben on lead vocals.

The album was our baby, and something we put a great deal of time and effort to create, and the public's response was underwhelmed to say the least. Many fans of the singles and the first album hated it, as it was too slow and quiet for their tastes. I also remember other bands being pretty bummed as well on our sound, Harriet the Spy once described our set as "floating on a raft in the middle of a lake, with no sight of land in any direction" or something to that affect. We thought it was funny, and they also had gossiped about Benjamin being on his cell phone and combing his hair a lot at our shows, so when we played their house in Kent, Ohio, we made sure Benjamin combed his hair as much as possible in between songs and he also took a cell phone call from Bill Kuehn (Rainer Maria) during the set. They were nice guys, though, and we had some fun over the whole thing.

I think Karl from the blog Tinafts summarized the album best:

The Hal al-Shedad's second album, Textures of Tomorrow, was released jointly by Buddy System and Troubleman Unlimited Records in 1998. I am reasonably certain that my opinion of it was shared by everyone else who cared: It sucked. In comparison to the debut self-titled LP and scattering of 7" releases the band put out, the songs were weak and the production wasn't all that great, either.

Much like the Cardigans' Long Gone Before Daylight, this is an album that, every once in a while, the sheer quality of the band's other releases makes you pull it out and put it on just to see if somehow it magically stopped sucking. Unlike the last Cardigans album (and I imagine time will tell on that one; I imagine it will tell the Cardigans to stop hanging out with Sparklehorse; I also imagine it will tell me that using two extremely similar corruptions of this common phrase in two adjacent posts is a bad idea) however, Textures of Tomorrow has.

In seven years, it seems that this second hal al-Shedad album has aged better than the first; it is probable that its not sounding dated is a function of my not having played the fuck out of it since it came out like the other one, so it has not been as irrevocably associated with a time period, despite the h.S's sound having been essentially one of the main victims of stylistic rip-off of that period. At this point I will refrain from mentioning the suspicious Georgia accent to be found all over a certain Madison band's albums (no offense intended, by the way).

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Textures is necessarily better than the first album; but at this distance in time from their release it's easier to see the quality of the material on the second LP. Despite the name of the album and what I seem to have been suggesting, Textures of Tomorrow isn't the product of a band ahead of its time; it definitely remains firmly within the vein of melodic post-hardcore the group are remembered for working. The gestures toward Black Sabbath were prefigured on the Running And Falling EP, and the occasional distortion-free numbers are fully in line with the era.

Textures of Tomorrow is currently my favorite album of 2005, just ahead of Seam's The Pace Is Glacial, another great album this year that had the misfortune to be released in 1998. And what makes Textures of Tomorrow so great? The hallmarks of any decent hal al-Shedad release: Guitars that jangle for a bit before modulating into a weird drone; whispers that tremble for a bit (way up in the mix) before modulating into an angry yowl; protomathematic basslines; lyrics about fucken boats.

In history, there have been very few bands able to write about seafaring in any capacity without sucking royally. No song illustrates my point better than Christopher Cross's 1980 shitbomb, "Sailing". Essentially only three recording artists have been able to avoid the sailing-song jinx: Sleater-Kinney, Gordon Lightfoot, and Iron Maiden. The hal al-Shedad demonstrate their superiority in this field with the sheer volume of nautically-themed work which they have released: Their first album sports not only "The Art of Map Making, Pt. 1", but "Pt. 2" besides, and Textures of Tomorrow continues the trend with "Sailor's Song". Probably the only other band with such a high ratio of songs-about-unpowered-watercraft-to-albums is the early Beach Boys, and even you Pet Sounds/Smile/Brian-Wilson-Is-God geeks can agree, that stuff sucks.

So yeah, Benjamin had a thing on this album for nautical themes, much as he did in the early days about angels, but I think it was effective for the music being played. We never officially toured under this album, only long weekends and hell rides up to Phildelphia, Detroit, Austin, etc. and head right back to Atlanta. Around this time, Benjamin was deeply involved in the reopening of MJQ in its "new" location, Ed was starting his career as a recording engineer, and I was just trying to graduate college. We eventually wrote an entirely new set of music, which you can find here, and unofficially disbanded in 1999. So that is about everything I can remember concerning the second album, I want to thank Mike Simonetti from Troubleman as well as Mark and Matt Owens from Buddy System for putting this record out, and of course Phil Dwyer for doing the design. Hope to see everyone on the 27th.

Here is the lyric sheet and artwork from the album (click to enlarge):

The Inkwell Discography

2010-02-18T13:50:00.026-05:00

Marty Rioux - New Bedford, MA - March 22, 1996

Here is the download: Inkwell Discography

Track Listing:
1-3: from the "By Design" 7"
4-5: from the split 7" with The hal al Shedad
6-7: from the "Shine So Bright" 7"
8: from the Placebo compilation 7"
9-10: previously unreleased

Actually, this is not a complete discography, as the original demo is not included, however I will respect the wishes of the band and not drag any more skeletons out of closets than is absolutely necessary. I really want to thank Joe Myers (Inkwell, Re/Model, Black Venus) for making me a CD of these songs included here - they come from the original cassettes and are as clean as you can get without having an official discography released. The only songs that do not come from this format are the the "Shine So Bright" single songs, which sounded a little strange on Joe's CD, so I transferred those directly from the vinyl.

By the way - there is a lot of Inkwell footage on YouTube - check it out.

Phil Dwyer - Driverdome - April 27, 1996

I just have to say for the record that Inkwell was one incredibly intense band. If the mood was right, and they were into it, their shows could be truly transcendent. Easily one of the best shows you have ever seen. But I also want to emphasize how funny and nice guys they were, and what a good time you could have with them on the road or at a show. Despite what you may think from listening to the music and watching the videos, their shows were actually a lot of fun. Some of my greatest memories of those years were at Inkwell shows.

In fact, when you look at their history, the golden period of their existence was only one year - Spring 1995 to Spring 1996, a perfect amount of time for a band such as this. They came in, blew everyone away, and then were gone before any of the charm wore off or got stale. We were truly fortunate to have them in our town.

Here is a history of the band, written by Nordic Joe himself:
We started out as an idea between Joe and Phil one night in early 1994 while at work. Phil found a drummer named Josh and Joe asked Marty if he wanted to play bass. With a little bit of reluctance, Inkwell was formed. Our initial practices in Josh's bedroom were awkward at best, but songs were beginning to seep out. Then a month or two later we played our first show with Jara and Atlanta's own Quadiliacha. It was described by Mike D (now known as Mike Phyte) as "piss poor." We improved with every show and every practice as we started to take it more seriously. We recorded a demo at Sleepless Nights studios with Issa (who is now in Good Clean Fun - Haha). Then around the end of the year we went on a small "tour" of the east coast. We played a show set up by Scott Beiben that was in a small two car garage in the middle of nowhere. We played that show to mostly the other bands, with mostly our friends being the other attendees. Gavin was there with his pink haired crust friend. Though the show was a bust, that night the Moss Icon - Lyburnum LP was finally released. Something positive came out of it, as we all bought copies and Gavin got some for his distro. Later that night we found out that we could have played a show in Philly at Sean McCabe's house with a much bigger audience. Oh well. We ended our mini-tour with a show in Virginia Beach with Channel and a few other bands. We didn't think the crowd would like us because it was a bit of a chugga chugga town, but it turned out that it was the best response we had ever gotten. That was a nice way to end it. Then we came back to Atlanta to play a Car vs. Driver album release show. Then Josh moved to California the next day. For a few months Inkwell was stagnant without a drummer. Our friend, Theo, who was playing in a band called Scout at the time, had a friend from Arkansas who had recently moved to town. We weren't really sure what to think of Mark, as he could recite Coolio lyrics on demand and had a little bit of the gangster style to him. But once we played with him we knew it would work out. Mark was a great drummer. After just a couple months we were back in step. Our sound was faster and a lot less sloppy with the inclusion of Mark. We started playing shows again. It also happened that Mark worked as a sound engineer at Purple Dragon studios where he did things like assist on TLC and Outkast songs. So we recorded there and released our first 7". Phil did the the master design work, and also seemed to find the most expensive materials to release it with. With Gavin trading 7" worldwide, we started getting letters from all over the world and were gaining quite a following. We also helped to start a thriving hardcore scene in Atlanta that didn't exist before. We went on to have a split 7" with the Hal al Shedad released. Then our second 7", "Shine So Bright", got released. We did a little mini tour again, this time a few more shows and this time there were a lot more people at the shows. Then we came back home. We played one last show at the Driver Dome with all of the bands on the Placebo comp 7" that had just come out. It was the largest attendence in the history of the Driver Dome (Steve Wishart's basement), and it was on a hot Georgia night, so it felt like an oven. But we played all of our songs except one and then it was over. Like the flyer said, "the end of an era."

Marcus Lowe - Godless Red House - May 21, 1995

This is the artwork for the "By Design" 7". Unbelievable packaging for the time - full booklet, pictures, essays, design. It was more than just another single by a local band.

This is the artwork from the split 7" with The hal al Shedad, including the repress with that great photo of the band. In fact, I like the repress artwork better than the original.

This is the artwork for the "Shine So Bright" single, with and without the transparency so you can read the insert, and the $1.50 alternate artwork version. Clever packaging guys.

This is the Inkwell page from the Concurrent "Placebo" compilation (a Scott MC joint):

Here is a list of all Inkwell shows played, and here are some flyers:

1994
June 30 @ Andy Stivers' house w/ Jara (Ca.) and Quadiliacha (ATL)
July 12 @ The Somber Reptile w/ Spirit Assembly (Pa.) and Car vs. Driver
August 5 @ the MikeD house w/ Bleed (Pa.?)
September ? @ Ladson Homemakers Club (Ladson, S.C.) (Benefit for a women's shelter) w/ Iodine (aka LineXDrive) (Winston-Salem, N.C.), Lifeline (Columbia, S.C.), Fragment(Columbia, S.C.), Stretch Armstrong and others
October 16 @ the MikeD house w/ Scout (ATL) (Walleye cancelled)
October 22 @ The Somber Reptile w/ The Smoking Popes, Scout and others
October 23 @ Theo's house w/ Silence Equals... (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Thumbnail(Knoxville, Tn.), Scout
November 5 @ Ladson Homemakers Club (Benefit for CISPES) w/ In/Humanity, Stretch Armstrong and others
December 2 @ the Driver Dome w/ Car vs. Driver and Scout (Assfactor 4 cancelled)
November 12 @ the Driver Dome w/ Deus X (N.C.) and Deterrent (N.C.)
December 9 @ the MikeD house w/ Daysleeper
December 27 @ some one car garage (middle of nowhere, N.J.) w/ Plunger, Iodine (LineXDrive), Lifeline
December 28 @ V.A. Hall (D.C.) (Beehive Collective) w/ Frail (Philly), Spirit Assembly, True High Fidelity, Anasarca
December 29 @ King's Head Pub (Va. Beach, Va.) w/ Introspect (Pa.), Channel (Va.) and others
December 30 @ The Somber Reptile (Car vs. Driver - Deja Grateful LP release show) w/ Car vs. Driver, Scout, Lowboy (ATL) Goodbye, Josh.

1995
March 31 @ The Somber Reptile (Scout/Freemasonry split 12" release) w/ Scout and Freemasonry
April, ? @ some club in Pensacola, Fl. w/ The hal al Shedad
April 17 @ The Driver Dome w/ Bloodlet and The hal al Shedad (Thenceforward cancelled)
?,? @ Ladson Homemakers Club (benefit?) w/ Prevail, Premonition, The hal al Shedad, and others
May 12 @ some house in Auburn, Al. w/ The hal al Shedad
May 13 @ Village Apartments Clubhouse (Athens, Ga.) (Food Not Bombs benefit) w/ Year Zero and The hal al Shedad

May 21 @ The Godless Red House (formerly the Mike D house) w/ Prevail and Outbreak
May 24 @ Senseless Beauty Cafe (Columbia, S.C.) w/ Converge, Channel, Assfactor 4, and Fragment
June 2 @ The Driver Dome w/ Gus, Selfish, Gheish, Regicide, and Thenceforward
June 17 @ The Sea Galley Lounge (Charleston, S.C.) (benefit for My Sister's House battered women's shelter) w/ Chokehold and ? (most of the bands we knew cancelled)
June 21 @ Under the Couch w/ Chokehold, Boy Sets Fire, and Act of Faith
July 6 @ The Driver Dome w/ Daredevil and Benchmark
July 15 @ The Somber Reptile (ATL Fest) w/ Assuck, Hot Water Music, Channel, Introspect, Bleed, Assfactor 4, Gheish, Quadiliacha, etc.
July 21 @ The Somber Reptile (Car vs. Driver's last show) w/ Car vs. Driver and Braid
August 19 @ The Driver Dome (Rock Against Rape benefit?) w/ The hal al Shedad, Wheeljack, Pagan Holiday, Blondie, etc.
August 20 @ Colton's Garage? (Pensacola, Fl.) w/ Blank? and ?
August 23 @ the Shaft record store (Gainesville, Fl.) w/ The Cleavers and Vanbuilderass
August 25 @ The Wreck Room (Act of Faith CD release) w/ Act of Faith and Crisis Under Control
November 18 @ The Driver Dome (Empty the Shelters benefit) w/ Hal al Shedad, Scout (1st last show), Act of Faith, and Broken
December ? @ The Driver Dome (Farm Animal Reform benefit) w/ Falling Down and Thenceforward
December 29 @ The Wreck Room w/ Avail and Squatweiler (Crown.Hate.Ruin cancelled)
December 31 @ The I Defy w/ In/Humanity, Autumn, Broken, End of the Century Party, Palatka, etc.

1996
February 2 @ BLT's w/ Chokehold, Thenceforward, and Scout (7" release last last show)
March 14 @ some place on State Street (Little Rock, Ak.) w/ Class of 84, Shakeray Turbine, Red 40
*March 16 @ somewhere in Virginia Beach (the only show we ever cancelled) w/ Hose.Got.Cable and Channel? (they actually played, we couldn't make it)
March 17 @ The Happy Hardcore House (Washington, D.C.) w/ Marble, Astoria, and Mid Carson July
March 20 @ the 314 house (Philly) w/ Ink and Dagger, I Hate You, and Tricycle
March 22 @ some community center (Buffalo, N.Y.) w/ Chokehold, Abnegation, Hourglass, and Chalkline
March 25 @ the YWCA (New Bedford, Ma.) (New Bedford Fest) w/ Chokehold (last show), Damnation A.D., Autumn, Stillsuit, Lifetime, Promise Ring, Texas is the Reason, Switched On, Reversal of Man, Dahlia Seed, Cable, etc.
April 27 @ The Driver Dome (Last Show) (Placebo comp 7" release) w/ Order of Importance and Reversal of Man (Prevail cancelled)

Thanks Inkwell.

BLT's - February 2, 1996

Inkwell Flyers and Memorabilia

2010-02-10T14:23:00.018-05:00

The last of Joe Myers' scrapbooks (see previous posts here and here) contains various flyers and memorabilia from the seminal Atlanta band Inkwell, which he played guitar in along with Marty Rioux (Re/Model, Black Venus) on bass, Phil Dwyer on vocals, Marcus Lowe (Seventy Spacebird, Good Friday Experiment) on drums (March 31, 1995 to April 27, 1996), and Josh Allen on drums (June 30, 1994 to December 30, 1994). I am also working on a post of their discography, which should be coming in the next few days. Above is a patch from Joe's collection of the Inkwell "hand-tree" design.

Here is the lyric sheet from the early show period - I really miss these. It was kind of a nice thing to collect from the bands, something unique from the specific show you attended.

Here is the same lyric sheet under an earlier band name incarnation Crestfallen. Some Inkwell trivia for you.

This is the complete log of shows played by Inkwell - click on the images to enlarge. I first saw them on July 12, 1994 when Car vs. Driver played with them and Spirit Assembly at the Somber Reptile, but it wasn't until I saw them play with Thumbnail and Scout at Theo Witsell's house on October 23, 1994 that they really clicked for me.

June 30, 1994: Inkwell plays with Jara and Quadiliacha at Andy Stivers' house. Their first show, I remember Jara was a bit of a letdown to those in attendance.

October 23, 1994: Inkwell with Silence Equals, Thumbnail and Scout at Theo Witsell's house in Home Park. Theo's house was diagonal to the Godless Red House, if I remember correctly. I don't remember any other shows happening at this house. I also remember that this was around the first day we moved into the Driverdome, as I had just finished unpacking and Steve Wishart and I took a field trip to this show.

November 5, 1994: Inkwell with In/Humanity, Stretch Armstrong, Unscarred, Gullah and Voice in Charleston, SC

November 12, 1994: Inkwell with Deterrent and Deus Ex at the Driverdome. This was the second show ever at the Driverdome (first was Car vs. Driver with Weston). Both Deterrent and Deus Ex had drum machines, and they were bad.

December 28, 1994: Inkwell with Spirit Assembly, Frail, True High Fidelity and Anasarca at the Beehive Collective in Washington DC. Awesome lineup. I remember Phil came back from that tour with his voice completely destroyed, and it seemed like he never really sang the same again, but maybe that's just my imagination.

March 31, 1995: Inkwell with Scout, Freemasonry and Levelhead at the Somber Reptile for the Scout/Freemasonry split LP release show. Marcus' first show with Inkwell, turning them into the powerhouse you know and love.

April 17, 1995: Inkwell with Bloodlet and The hal al Shedad at the Driverdome. Thenceforward cancelled, and I believe this was my first Atlanta show with hal. If you didn't know already, the Inkwell guys were huge Natalie Portman fans.

May 13, 1995: Inkwell with Year Zero and The hal al Shedad at the Village Apartment complex clubhouse in Athens. This show was put on by Gray Kiser (Line Drive, Regicide, Hands of an Angry God, Sonn Av Krusher), and I remember it being very sparsely attended.

May 21, 1995: Inkwell with Prevail, Outbreak and Refuse to Go at the Godless Red house in Home Park.

This is one of the funniest reviews I have ever seen - FUCK THIS RECORD TO HELL!

May 24, 1995: Inkwell with Converge, Channel, Assfactor 4 and Fragment at Senseless Beauty Cafe in Columbia. That was a great place to see/play a show back then. I miss that Columbia Assfactor 4, In/Humanity scene quite a bit.

June 17, 1995: Inkwell with Chokehold, Ashes, Despair, Contagen, Endeavor, Eleventh Hour, Stretch Armstrong, Outcome, Blindside, Prevail, Falling Down, Soulstice and Voice in Charleston, SC. Show starts at 2PM - can you even imagine being at one of these today?

June 21, 1995: Inkwell with Chokehold, Act of Faith, Regicide and Boy Sets Fire at Under the Couch. This was an early incarnation of Regicide, perhaps with Mathis Hunter on vocals? Great show, I remember the Boy Sets Fire guys coming back to the Driverdome and making us all dinner, great guests.

July 6, 1995: Inkwell with Daredevil and Benchmark at the Driverdome. Benchmark was from Ft. Smith, Arkansas and were great. Daredevil had the two brothers from Indian Summer along with the guitarist from Ordination of Aaron, and they were not great. Nothing against those guys, just not so hot based on previous efforts.

July 14, 1995: Day One of the WillJawkBilly fest at the Somber Reptile, with Hickey, One Nature, Line Drive, Copout and Grade.

July 25, 1995: Inkwell with Los Crudos, Quadiliacha, Bare Hope Essentials and Palatka at Under the Couch. Just another Summer 1995 show in Atlanta.

August 23, 1995: Inkwell with The Cleavers and Vanbuiderass at Shaft Records in Gainesville, Florida. That was a good record store, I remember it well.

December 29, 1995: Inkwell with Avail and Hose Got Cable at the Wreck Room. Another great show, this must have been one of the last Wreck Room shows for this type of music.

December 31, 1995: Inkwell with Anderson, Autumn, Broken, End of the Century Party, In/Humanity, Palatka, Prema and Regicide at the I-Defy house. This was a great show that I missed - hal was playing in Ft. Smith Arkansas with the Benchmark guys, where else would you want to be on NYE? This show was also the unveiling of the prime Regicide lineup, pictured here.

February 24, 1996: I believe Inkwell played this show with Damad, Grinch, Spliff and Regicide at the I-Defy house.

February 28, 1996: I also believe Inkwell played this show with Chokehold, Scout and Thenceforward at BLT's.

March 24, 1996: Inkwell with Damnation, Dahlia Seed, Stillsuit, Walleye, 454 Big Block, Cable, Cast Iron Hike, New Day Rising, Roswell and Madison at the New Bedford, MA YWCA. One of Inkwell's last shows.

Here are the patches from Joe's collection. I had the baby fabric one on my jacket, which was just awesome. You can't beat the 90's homemade fabric patches.

Lastly, here is the artwork from the original Inkwell demo, before Marcus took over drum duties. I remember the guys being a little disappointed with it, but I would like to include it in the discography post. Hey, I posted 6 hours of unlistenable Midget Farmers demos on this site - there's no need to feel embarrased about something recorded 15 years ago!

Joe Myers' Scrapbook - Part Two

2010-02-02T15:06:00.016-05:00

Here is Part Two of Joe's Scrapbook, getting off to a great start with Danzig, Ghost Story and Nihilist at Center Stage in 1988, I believe (?). Usually you can determine the year if the day of the week is listed, but not in this case. This would have been on a Wednesday, if anyone remembers. FYI, Joe Myers is the guitarist behind such bands as Inkwell, Black Venus and Re/Model, and I did a previous post a few weeks ago of some other shows in his scrapbook here.

Righteous metal at the Masquerade, circa August 1990. Including F.U.C.T., O.C.B., Venosity, Nihilist, and plenty of others. I think I remember hearing a story once about Metalmorphosis, but now I forget it.

Dayton, Ohio Music Fest - June 17-18, 1994: This was a pivotal point of the decade for DIY music in the nineties. Almost every band that played this fest has achieved legendary status, at least in some circles and it seems that anyone who attended these festivals had some part in similar festivals and DIY shows across the US for years to come. The 1994 Dayton Fest hosted such greats as Policy of Three, Kurbjaw, Greyhouse, Dartswinger, Iceburn, Avail, Universal Order of Armageddon, Delta 72, Brainiac, Hoover, Ashes, Iconoclast, Current (and the unveilling of Ottawa at the end of their set), Outspoken, Campfire, Ordination of Aaron, Transcend, Split Lip. I think Hoover actually broke up before playing this show, and I'm not sure what other bands played, maybe Shotmaker? I wasn't there myself, but I remember Steve Wishart and others coming back telling me about all the amazing bands that played. Policy of Three, Current/Ottawa and Ordination of Aaron especially.

Dayton, Ohio Music Fest - June 16-17, 1995: Second year of the Dayton Fest, this time including Kepone, Pitchblende, Blue Meanies, Split Lip, Hose Got Cable, Kinghorse, Rye Coalition, Ruby Falls, Metroshifter, Smears, Paul K and the Weathermen, Ten O'Clock Scholar, Frank Booth Band, Ska Humbug, Miss May '66, Rottweilers. Some great bands on this year's lineup, and some more obscure ones as well. I'm not sure about bands like Frank Booth Band and Miss May '66, but most of the others did fairly well for themselves in the following years. You can also see the third wave ska creeping into the mix, as the midwest was quite a haven for this during this time.

Columbus Fest - July 5-7, 1996: The Dayton Fest moves to Columbus, Ohio in 1996 with probably the best lineup yet, maybe even ever, including Franklin, The Great Unravelling, One Eyed God Prophecy, Braid, Endive, Fieldtree, Anasarca, Harriet The Spy, Boy Sets Fire, Church of the Bomb, Wallside, Inquisition, The Promise Ring, Spirit Assembly, Joan of Arc, Across Five Aprils, Broken Hearts Are Blue, Resin, Avail, Young Pioneers, Jenny Piccolo, Constantine Sankathi, Compound Red, Khai, Julia, The Locust, Side Show, Three Studies For A Crucifixion, Armstrong Secret Nine, and Remington. For this type of music, you can't get any better. I believe The hal al Shedad played the festival in 1997 with The Promise Ring, Braid, Harriet the Spy, and many others, but unfortunately I don't have a flyer for that year.

August 17, 1996: Deadguy, Ink & Dagger, NineIronSpitfire and One Way at the I-Defy house.

August 1996 I-Defy Show List, including 10 Yard Fight, Acrid and Broken (maybe) on August 5, Reversal of Man with Life Among Ruin on August 8, Hot Water Music with Walleye, Swank and Quadiliacha on August 11, Bleed with Halfman and Thenceforward on August 12, Hourglass with New Day Rising on August 16, Ink & Dagger on August 17, and Converge with Jesuit and Thenceforward on August 24 as well as Seein' Red, Torches To Rome, and Palatka at the Driverdome on August 10. It's amazing to think about how the house show scene in Atlanta was so developed by this time that you could have a great show every night with national touring bands that wouldn't get shut down or otherwise fall through.

September 8, 1995: Amber Inn with Scout and The Forty-Two at the Driverdome. A classic show of the time period, with the Wishart brothers in the bathtub.

Another I-Defy show list from 1996, including Asshole Parade/Eurich/Black Marinos/Necrolust on April 20, Order of Importance/Reversal of Man on April 27, Cavity on May 2, Damad/In-Humanity on May 17, Franklin/Algebra I on May 27, Morning Again/Outbreak on May 31, Anasarca/XXY on June 3, Fat Day/End of the Century Party/In-Humanity on June 7 (at Driverdome), Assuck/Man is the Bastard on June 17 (actually at BLT's), Prevail/Reversal of Man/Piebald on July 9 and Seein' Red/Torches To Rome at The Driverdome on August 10.

April 7, 1995: Assuck with Phoopher at the Driverdome. This one is dedicated to Will Greene - Phoopher officially makes the blog.

April 22, 1995 (I believe): Wheeljack at the Somber Reptile with 3 Canadian bands. I can't remember which bands, but a cool flyer nonetheless.

Driverdome Flyer circa August 1995: Whirlybird/Quadiliacha on August 27, Breakwater/Scout on August 30, Amber Inn/Scout/Forty-Two on September 8, Boys Life/Giants Chair/Hal al Shedad on September 12. That Boys Life show was amazing, I always loved that band.

June 8, 1996 (I believe): Blood Runs Black and Outbreak at the Godless Red House. Had to get a Godless Red flyer in there.

February 23, 1996: Fragment with Outbreak, Narcolepsy and Broken at the I-Defy House. Benefit for the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, and Outbreak's fina show ever.

June 18, 1995: The Promise Ring with Scout and Outbreak at the Driverdome. This was The Promise Ring's first Atlanta show, before they became scene superstars.

This is an alternate flyer for the same show as above. I guess Wheeljack played as well, which makes sense as Driverdome shows were usually 4 bands.

August 29, 1996: The Promise Ring with Kinkaid and Levelhead at the Somber Reptile. This was a late period Somber Reptile show, as most of the shows by this time had moved to houses, and then to Under the Couch.

Driverdome shows circa 1996, including Car vs. Driver/Ice-9/Glitch on April 27, Don's Ex-Girlfriend/Clairmel/Product on May 6, Shade/Hot Water Music on May 25 (Hot Water Music's first Atlanta show, if I remember correctly), Selfish on June 1, Plow/Delta 72 on June 6. That Delta 72 show was amazing, probably the first big DC band to play our house, to be followed soon after by the Make-Up show, one of the best house shows I have ever seen. More on that show later.

CLD is back!

2010-02-01T13:48:00.006-05:00

The Signallers, Craig Lee Dempsey's new band (Lowboy, The Forty-Two, Aslund Constant, At the Price of the Union, The Weight, Thoroughbred, The Good Friday Experiment) is playing a show this Friday at the 529 Club in East Atlanta, along with The Weight and West End Motel. I believe it is their first, so I'm making an official announcement here as we can't hang up a flyer in Tortillas anymore to promote these things. The master of technique Kelsey Wilson (The Weight, Thoroughbred, All Night Drug Prowling Wolves) also plays in the band, so I thought it would be good to post two live Thoroughbred shows for parties interested. They are unbelievable, thanks Kelsey!

Thoroughbred - Live at The Star Bar 2003-12-20

Thoroughbred - Live at The EARL 2004-05-07 (their final show)