Midget Farmer Motherload

Okay, so just as a disclaimer, all of the recordings on this post predate the first Midget Farmer 7" that was recorded in 1992 when we were in 11th grade. So this stuff is going to be pretty rough and extremely goofy. If you want the actual Midget Farmers discography, please go here: Midget Farmer Discography.

Here are the recordings:

Sexual Chocolate Demo: Sexual Chocolate

Live and Insane Demo: Live and Insane

665 1/2 - Not Quite Evil Demo: 665 1/2 - Not Quite Evil

We are in the Red Demo: We Are In The Red

Live in James' Basement Demo: Live in James' Basement

Live at the Wreck Room: Live at the Wreck Room

Chad Wiener was in town recently getting his doctorate in Ancient Philosophy, and I asked him to root around his parents' basement for any old Midget Farmer treasures, and he found it all. The picture above is everything he gave me, including the master reels for the Happy As A Bastard On Father's Day 7" and the America's Place To Waste Your Life Tape, as well as the DAT tapes for all recordings and many cassettes of early practices and demos (hereby included in this post). If you click on the picture, you can see the original track sheet for the Happy 7" as well as the bill for the entire recording, a grand total of $77! He also gave me a copy of the "Full Time Suckers" tape, which was a combination of the Weblo 7" and some additional songs recorded at the same time, all of which are on the complete discography posted earlier on this blog.

The Sexual Chocolate recording was recorded before I was actually in the band, I believe sometime in 1990. I work the tape recorder, and Chad Wiener does all of the vokills. Jason Albert is on bass and Mike Eckert is on drums. At the end, I sing some rough versions of Knowledge by Operation Ivy and King Of The Hill by Captain 9's and the Kinckerbocker Trio, which we were big fans of in the early days. Live and Insane is also I believe from 1990 or 1991, and we are playing all the classic MF songs in Mike Eckert's basement. There are some good interludes where Mike fights with his little brother, and other random hilarity, but it is mostly embarrasing for me because of my horrible singing. 665 1/2 - Not Quite Evil was recorded a little after Live and Insane with I believe Brian Lysne taking over for Jason on bass duties. We are in the Red is a recording with Eric Fickes on 2nd guitar, and was recorded sometime in late 1991 or early 1992. I called it this because Eric starts every song with "we are in the red - let's rock" or some version of that statement to let us know the recording light was on. The Live In James' Basement demo was also from early 1992, and is the last recording with Mike Eckert on drums. I took over soon after as we recorded the Happy as a Bastard 7". I believe this is our best version of the early MF sound, and is the most "professional". If you are going to download just one of these recordings, I would go with this one. Lastly, I included part of a live show from the Wreck Room and somewhere else (possibly Milo's), which gives you a picture of what our live sets were like. The last recordings are really rough, as Chad just put a tape recorded in the corner of the room, but the in-between noise is great. At the end of the last track, you hear Chad say something like "at least we got this awesome recording of the show" and the tape cuts.

I have also included many Midget Farmer flyers in my collection, shown below. Thanks for checking this out, and I apologize in advance for the rough, amateur, and silliness in the recordings, but that was our high school experience.


This was supposed to be our first official non-houseparty show, but when we showed up all the other bands had worked their way onto the slots before us, and we were pushed back to the end of the bill. DeFunkt took about 1 hour to set up, as the drummer had this massive cage and we listened to their bass player slap and pluck for the entire time, and eventually just left without playing. Funny thing about DeFunkt, I believe their guitarist was Ken later in Act of Faith. We played with a lot of funk metal bands back then.

This was a late-era show with Whirlybird from Richmond, who we loved very much. I will probably post some stuff on them sometime in the future. This was also on my birthday, I believe in 1994.

Chattahoochee Battle of the Bands - December 4, 1992. Chad had an autographed picture of Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard, so we had to use it. I remember Danny Grady from Bloodspoon playing with us on stage at that show.


Here is another Milo's flyer with the Sin Eaters, who were very boring to watch.


Playing with Spiney Norman and Bloodspoon at the Wreck Room (and probably 12 other bands as well including Funmud). What a lineup.



Live at PJ's Nest, which was the smaller club down the street from the Wreck Room owned by the same people. There was literally no one at this show and I remember Eric going outside during the set to play bass on Marietta St.


Another late-era show - March 15, 1995. I have some pictures from this show, and here they are:

View of the crowd from my drumset. How many people can you name?

Chris Curran, Steven Pelizer and Ryan Borque rocking out.

At Milo's in 19991 with Bloodspoon, Scarred Existence and Degeneration. I believe this was one of Bloodspoon's first shows.

With Finletter at the Wreck Room in 1992 I believe. This was the first time we saw the Finletter guys, and they blew our socks off.

With Car Vs. Driver, Sticks and Stones, Random Jed, etc. at the Somber Reptile in 1993. This was a very early Car Vs. Driver show.

With Boba Fett at the Wreck Room. Boba Fett was also called Barefoot Jamboree, and featured Dewey Tucker on vocals, an old skater friend of ours as well as J.T. Yost, who played accordion and whose parents owned the Dunkin Donuts on Holcomb Bridge Rd. The drummer was Craig Evans, I believe, who played later in Substandard with me and Jon Rothman (pre Car Vs. Driver).

Another show at Milo's, this time with Boba Fett as Barefoot Jamboree and Finletter. This is Feb 1, 1993 I believe. I contributed the girl on the motorcycle picture for this flyer, although I can't remember where it was from.

Another Chattahoochee 1992 battle of the bands flyer. This one with the master Ian Maisel drawings.

Ahh, the infamous Anarchy Convention show at the Art Exchange building in Grant Park. We played Anarchy in the UK, and the crowd was bummed. I remember Bloodspoon being a lot of fun at this show.

More Milo's flyers from 1991 - this time with Toast and Nobody's Heroes, who I do not remember at all. Soren and his mother from Milo's had a habit of calling you the day of a show to see if you wanted to play that night, and I believe we actually took them up on it a few times.

No idea about this one. Just another show at the Wreck Room.

This was a good show at Andy Stivers' house with Quadiliacha and Swank on July 4, 1994. Fun times.

MF with Ian Maisel as MC White Chocolate and the Go-Steadys at Somber Reptile. I believe we were supposed to play I'm Your Pusher by Ice-T, but Ian forgot the lyrics.

Milos with Orgo Ftmpsh. I have no idea what they sounded like, but with a name like that it was probably awesome.

Horrible homemade flyers. This was 1992 I believe.

The last horrible homemade flyer for a show at the Wreck Room, in 1992.

This officially concludes the Midget Farmer flyer exhibition.

Freemasonry – Sparrin’ With The Varmit and Others

Tightly packed bowls go out to the dude who sent the link to all the gaps in my Freemasonry collection (Kip?), now I can post pretty much everything you can find on this band here. Included is the Sparrin’ With The Varmit LP/CD/Tape on Sky Records from 1995, the complete 1993 Demo, the Pool Hall Demo and the complete Live at WREK from May of 1994 (the split LP with Scout is in an earlier post - and also on the right side of this page).

Here they are:

Freemasonry Sparrin' With The Varmit Album

Freemasonry Live at WREK May 5, 1994

Freemasonry Fall 1993 Demo

Freemasonry Pool Hall Demo


So let’s talk about Sparrin’ With The Varmit, because it is a landmark album for DIY bands from Atlanta in the 1990’s, for several reasons. For one, this was the “breakthrough” album for our scene. They were the only ones of our circle of bands that got a true record deal, recorded at a real studio, and released and album on multiple formats. That being said, the album itself had some major flaws that I’m sure the band acknowledges, but probably hindered its success at the time of release. One is that the album title is possibly the worst title in the history of Atlanta bands (although “Out of a Silent Sky” is a close second). Second, the album art is really cool, but the “Sparrin’ With The Varmit” printing on the jar looks ridiculous. I remember Kip saying the same thing to me once, agreeing with this statement. The recording is very professional, however seemed to be mixed poorly. Sarge’s vocals are really weak compared with other Freemasonry recordings. I wonder if he was having voice problems at the time, or if the engineer/producer didn't know how to place his voice in the mix. Also, Sarge’s guitar is more buried in the mix while Bruce’s is more dominant. I think this was a mistake, as Bruce is really a master of texture and complementing Sarge’s riffs, but Sarge is really the guy who leads the melodic element of the band, so his guitar should have been more prominent. Another criticism is that the recording is actually too clean for Freemasonry. They need some grit and dirtiness in the mix to give it the crunch it needs, especially in songs like “Everyday” when Sarge and Bruce start chugging together. It sounds amazing on the Live At Wrek session, but almost muted on the Varmit LP. Marcus and Kip are in top form, however, so no complaints there. I think Kip (I believe it was him) captured the feeling of the album and band very well here:

“thnx for posting these. the label went bankrupt and destroyed all remaining copies of sparrin with the varmint. members went on to Haricot Vert, Chocolate Kiss, Copa Vance (all on Moodswing Records) and presently The Forever War. three fourths of Freemasonry experienced serious bouts with drug use: one is dead, one is unaccounted for and the last fled to isolation far from atlanta.

most would be surprised to know that those songs were born of it consistently heavy drug cocktails at practice and during shows.

and sparrin with the varmint is a pretty poor representation of the band vs other unreleased recordings. it presents a pretty sterile and inconsistent album. you are your worst critic.”

My last criticism is something that I had at the time of its release, but now am glad they did it this way. The album is over 50 minutes long, which is way too much Freemasonry to take in one sitting. It’s like listening to a Rocket From the Crypt album that is 50 minutes long – it just is not a good idea. These types of bands need to come in, blow your head off, and leave before you even know what is going on. Sparrin’ with the Varmit is epic, and like it or not is a milestone in Atlanta post punk, and I am glad now that they released such a long album. There is more Freemasonry out there to listen to due to this album, and it plays as kind of a greatest hits collection for the band, along with some new jams thrown in. I really like “Kitty Come Home”, which was my favorite of their post-Lunchbox songs. It was great that they included older songs like “Everyday”, “Einahpets” and “Mrs. Ecoli” from the Fall 1993 demo, but I wasn’t too into the new vocals by Sarge on “Everyday”. It kind of took away the power of those 3 lines in the middle of the song “Every little thing, you’ve given, every little thing you’ve taken, take a little look inside and see what’s changing”. That was just so amazing when they would play that song, which was essentially an instrumental, and then hit you with those lines in the middle – it was one of the most powerful moments in music that I have ever experienced, no joke. I also wish they had included “Freemissionary Style” as that was probably one of their best songs, and definitely the best song that was not included on the album, but you can’t have everything.

All criticism of their last release aside, the band was amazing and I am very happy to have this music around to listen to every once in awhile. So many monumental bands never even go into a studio, and I’m glad that Freemasonry didn’t take that route. Now if I could just get some video footage.

(back cover from the cd version)

(Insert and Lyric Sheet from the LP version - of course I own both LP and CD versions)

Days of Wine and Roses at the Masquerade

When people talk about the good old days, and there is some dude that says that those days sucked, and we are now living in the best time for music, I would like to defer to this flyer as Exhibit A. I saved this because it was the first big Go-Steadys show (with the Special Beat on October 21, 1992), but looking at it now, I am amazed at the other shows that were happening during the same 4 week period at the same venue in the Fall of 1992:

Screaming Trees with Luna and Seaweed on October 24 - $5.00 show no less.

Sugar on October 30

Shudder to Think opening for Daisy Chainsaw on November 2 - $5.00 show

Jesus and Mary Chain with Curve and Spiritualized on November 10 - Could you imagine how unbelievable this show was? I think I know someone who was at that show and said Spritualized was a real letdown live. I never talked to him again after that.

Dead Milkmen with TFUL #282 and Sun City Girls on November 14 - I was actually at that show, the only other one on this list that I attended. I am an idiot by the way.

Flipper(!) opening for Gwar on November 15

One other item of note is Shrimp Boat opening for Poster Children on October 19, which was Sam Prekop's band before The Sea and Cake. That would have been another interesting one to see at the time.

Tha hal al Shedad - Jamesless in '95

This was the earliest picture that I could find of Ben and Ed, but it was actually taken in Auburn after I had joined the band (around June 1995).

Here is the recording: The hal al Shedad - Jamesless in '95

For your information, I was not the original drummer of the hal al Shedad - there was another before me. I don't remember very much about him, except he had a white drumset and played right-handed, but with his left hand playing the hi-hat and ride - like Frank from the 42. Ben and Ed did not know him before he joined the band, I believe they found him through an ad in the Creative Loafing. These songs were recorded in their practice space at Black Box, some of which would be dropped once I joined the band, but there are a couple that survived. "That One" became the de-facto hit single for the band, which never had a proper name. "Atrophic Revolutions" was also an early hit - and the most Circus Lupus'ey of our stuff, like "Right Turn Clyde" from Solid Brass. "Good Intentions" was an early song we recorded at the same time as our first batch of singles but never released until the singles collection came out a few years ago.

So they played two shows with this drummer - one at the Driverdome with Tired From Now On and Moonraker from Gainesville, and one at the Godless Red house in Home Park with Inkwell. I thought their musicianship was amazing, and they still in high school! I was two years older, but was so excited about their music, I wanted to be a part of the action. By this time, Car Vs. Driver was breaking up, and I had pretty much stopped playing in the Go-Steadys and The Midget Farmers were winding down. I wanted a new band to play in, and these guys were it. We went to Tortillas and had lunch one day, and when we got back to the Driverdome, I let them know if they ever wanted to have a different drummer, I would be really interested in playing with them. They went out to their car, and literally about two minutes later they told me that I was in. I think we practiced later that day, and played our first show in Pensacola the next week with Inkwell.

So here is the band I heard back in the spring of 1995 that was so fresh and exciting to me. Hope you enjoy it as well.

Infinite Potential - Freemasonry

(Insert cover for the Freemasonry/Scout Split LP)

Download the stuff here: Split LP with Scout

Freemasonry in my opinion was the best band that ever existed in Atlanta. I will just put it on the table right there. They took the power of a John Reis band (e.g. Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu), and combined it with the melodic elements of post-punk bands like Jawbox to make such an amazing mix of power and melody. This was a combination you got sometimes in bands like Naked Raygun, for example, but in this case sounded completely different. Sarge, the singer/guitarist had a great voice that was powerful, melodic and completely original. The dude was also one of the funniest guys I have ever met. I remember going to see them play a show in Andy Stivers’ basement, and he told me that "anything was okay in moderation" – yeah thanks for the tip Sarge. Bruce, the second guitarist, had a guitar sound that was unbelievable – especially when matched with Sarge’s guitar. Kip’s drumming might not be the most versatile out there, but it was solid and 100% Freemasonry, and was perfect for the music they played. Even later, when I played with him in Chocolate Kiss, I would hear Freemasonry whenever he played the drums. Not Fiddlehead, or Galanas Cerdd, but always Freemasonry. Also, all of the printing on the Freemasonry records were in his handwriting, so I always had him make our Chocolate Kiss set lists just to remind me of them. Lastly, Marcus was a great bassman, adding all these extra little flourishes and melodies into the guitar layers, and one of the nicest guys I ever met. I have included in this posting the songs from the split 12” with Scout, which was their 3rd and half of their 2nd demo tapes. Also included is the non-LP instrumental “Acacia”, and the last half of their Live at WREK show. If anyone has a good copy of the entire Live at WREK show (Kip?), please get in touch.


(Lyric Sheet for the Freemasonry/Scout Split LP)

The first time I saw Freemasonry was when Car Vs. Driver played with them in the fall of 1993 at the Liquid Bean. They were only a 3-piece at that time (Bruce hadn’t joined the band), but already they were amazing. Chad Wiener and I thought it was awesome that the drummer was named Kip. We kept on asking if his name was Kip Winger, and I think he got really pissed at us. Sorry Kip, we were in high school. We played with them a few more times, but things really kicked in when they added Bruce Bohannon from Fiddlehead on second guitar. That guy can play guitar like nobody’s business, and somehow had the best sound in Atlanta. I have played his guitar since then and could not get anything near his sound, it is true that so much of what makes a musician sound the way he does is not so much his or her equipment but how they play the instrument, and that dude could play. This addition improved the band’s sonic depth and composition exponentially. They were now able to add more power to the songs as well as an additional melodic element that was missing in the 3-piece lineup. For example, when they used to play “Freemissionary Style” as a 3-piece, Sarge would play harmonics on the guitar while singing the chorus, and it was very difficult to tell what was going on in that part. However, once Bruce joined he added a thick guitar melody which perfectly complemented Sarge’s vocal on the part. I don’t know why they didn’t put that song on their Sky LP, it was one of my favorites, how can you beat that opening line: SO YOU DON’T WANT ME ANYMORE - YEAH SO WHAT! They released the Pool Hall demo tape (Kip – I need a copy), and the Sensible demo tape as a 3-piece. Both “Everyday” and “Easy” are from the Sensible demo, so although they were great in that lineup, you can see what Bruce contributes to the sound. Once the 3rd demo was released, with Bruce on guitar, we knew something on a level much higher than any of us was taking place. When Car Vs. Driver was approached by Sky records to do an album, we played for them the 3rd Freemasonry demo tape and told them that this is the band they should sign, and they promptly went ahead and did it. I will post the Sky record soon, but I wanted to post all of my non-Sparrin’ with the Varmit tracks on this post as the golden years of Freemasonry.

I can’t explain in words how much I loved this band. The music is hard for me to listen to these days, because in my mind they could have been one of the biggest post-punk bands of the 90’s, easily on par with any of the Touch and Go, etc. bands of the time. And they were gone so fast, with such tragic consequences, which makes me miss them even more. As for Marcus, I don’t know if I believe in any kind of afterlife, but I hope he is at peace and wish more than anything that he was still here playing bass for us. I would love to hear “Everyday” or “Sensible”, or any of their songs played again.



(Acacia 7" cover - notice Kip's handwriting in all Freemasonry texts)

Jeru in Montana – Sunset On Tokyo 1997 Demo

(Jon Rothman and Sunset on Tokyo rocking his basement in Missoula - April 1997)

Check it out: Sunset On Tokyo - 1997 Demo

Car Vs. Driver ended on July 21, 1995. One of the main reasons was that Jon Rothman was supposed to go to school in Montana to study forestry (actually in 1993), but he delayed his trip by two years because he was having so much fun playing in CVD. So in the fall of 1995, he finally left for Missoula to follow his dream of becoming a park ranger. However, when he got there he ended up starting this completely amazing band called Sunset on Tokyo. The hal al Shedad played with them in Missoula and Portland during our Spring 1997 tour, and both times they were unbelievable. They had a great live sound, and Jon’s guitar playing grew exponentially from Car Vs. Driver days. I look at this demo as a glimpse into songs that might have been the basis of CVD songs, had we stayed around another year or two. Jon really got along with the other guitarist in the band, and I believe formed several other bands over the years with that guy (although I don’t have any recordings), and eventually joined up with the Long Winters out of Seattle. Go check him out next time they come through your town.

The Spacebird Takes Flight - Seventy Spacebird Unreleased Album from 1999

(Marcus Lowe giving us the 'Lakemonster' at the Living Room in 1999)

Here is the unreleased “album” by Seventy Spacebird that we recorded at the Living Room in 1999:

Seventy Spacebird Unreleased Album from 1999

The lineup for the session includes myself on drums and guitar, Marcus Lowe on drums, percussion and I believe some keyboards, Justin McNeight on guitar and bass, Mathis Hunter on drums, guitar and percussion, Rich Morris on keyboards and Ed Rawls on bass. There are no overdubs for this music – it was all created and improvised live in the studio as it happened, with all the noise, rough edges, etc. as part of the package. Here is some background information on Seventy Spacebird to read while you listen to the music:

(Mathis Hunter and the Seventy Spacebird setup during the 1999 recording session - notice the equipment spreads across two rooms with keyboards, drums, and amps everywhere)

Seventy Spacebird was the first band that I played in which relied almost entirely on improvisation. My introduction to playing music in an improvised manner came from the late nights playing music in the movie theater where I worked in the 1990s. My friend Josh Bohannon was great improviser on the guitar and especially keyboard, and we would set up in the theater after closing time (around 1:00 or so), and play whatever we felt and came out of us until dawn. I have no recordings from these sessions, but I remember them being extremely long freak-outs or spacey, droney pieces, in which we would run movies on the screen above us, providing our only source of light for the room, and jam on essentially one piece the entire length of the movie. Many times Mathis Hunter would also join us, and every once in awhile we would have Justin McNeight and Rich Morris (who are both amazingly creative musicians) playing along. After Josh moved back to San Diego in 1997, Rich, Mathis and I started playing at the Good Friday Experiment practice space on Armour Drive, once again from around 1 to 5 or 6 in the morning. As I am usually asleep at that time, playing whatever comes out of you that early in the morning can be a surreal experience, and one in which very interesting and unique things can happen. These jams were so primal and rudimentary, but would have moments of something that for me truly approached transcendence. You forget what time it is, where you are, what you are doing, and just let your body take over playing without any connection to your mind. It was like playing music as a religious experience.

(Outside the Living Room in 1999)

Over time we started honing our skills and making things happen musically on the fly, this eventually led to what I would consider a musical collective that ran from the late 90’s until the mid 00’s under the name Seventy Spacebird. I believe it was Marcus Lowe that came up with the name, as it seemed to describe our music in literal terms, and was also intentionally hilarious. The first incarnation of Seventy Spacebird was myself, Rich Morris, Justin McNeight, Marcus Lowe, Mathis Hunter and Ed Rawls. I would trade off on drums and guitar or percussion with Mathis and Marcus (but always 2 drumsets going), Justin would normally play guitar or bass, Ed on bass or guitar, and Rich on keyboards. This was more or less the improvisational arm of The Good Friday Experiment, and we even played some GFE shows when the situation necessitated it.

Seventy Spacebird played probably less than 10 shows in its lifetime, but they were always an event. Just setting up the equipment took longer than the show itself. We played our first show at the Yin Yang Café in Midtown in 1999 I believe, where we brought so much equipment that we had problems fitting the audience in the room. My favorite memory of that show is Marcus playing a hand drum and dancing around the room like something out of the jungle, completely tweaking the crowd. We played a party at the U-Haul warehouses in the West End with the Flakes (another Atlanta improvisational band), and the bass cabinet died right at the beginning of our set, reducing the entire performance to drums, guitars and keyboards. However, my memory of that show was us playing this amazing drone/dub jam that went on well into the morning. People were literally sleeping on couches in the audience while we played – for us that was the best compliment. We played Album 88 on the air once, which I will include in a later post, as well as a Live at WREK session which I do not have in my recordings, but have heard played on WREK since then. That show is interesting, because I remember driving in my car years afterwards and listening to WREK, and thinking that the drummer in the song was playing just like me, and then realized that it actually was me playing on the radio as a re-broadcast of that session! Also, for that Live at WREK show we used Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies in the performance of our “songs”. Basically, Brian Eno created these small phrases to help inspire his musicians during recording sessions, and we transcribed each of these phrases on separate pieces of paper and put them into a hat, and at the beginning of the songs each of us would pull a new Oblique Strategy out of the hat and let these statements guide our playing for the song. I believe I pulled one like “play everything backwards”, which helped me step outside of my normal habits during the session and really loosen up even though we were playing live on the air. I highly recommend techniques such as this when playing this kind of music. We played the main floor of Eyedrum when it was on Trinity Street (not in the basement), as well as the Caledonia lounge in Athens, and at the Engine Room in Athens during Athfest. For that show, we supplemented the band with Aaron from Ocelot and Craig Dempsey from At the Price of the Union, etc. both on guitar and called it Seventy Spacebird Psychedelic Orchestra. So for that show we had two drumsets, keyboards, bass, and 3 guitars. I have pictures from that show where Aaron, Craig and Justin are all soloing above the 12th frets of their guitars at the same time, which must have sounded awesome.

Eventually, the desire for us to create improvised music channeled its way into Noot d’ Noot, which brings a great deal of magic into that band (some would call it goofer dust), and helps to stretch the music further and create new and interesting songs and sounds to experiment with. Seventy Spacebird was like my music school. I probably learned more about playing music in that band than any other in my life, and had a great time doing it.

The Band Genome Continues...

I have made several updates to the band genome - here is the latest version (see attached). Thanks to Ben Davis for the link to John Coltrane, and Gray Kiser for the path to Youth of Today, and to all of you for commenting and tweaking it over the past few months. Insert your comments here so I can further refine it with regards to accuracy and completeness, and I will keep updating!

The hal al Shedad - Live at WREK May 6, 1997

So these pictures are not from our Live at WREK show, but at a live performance at a radio station in Los Angeles (I believe it was KXLU, but I'm not positive). As you can see, this was on April 14, 1997, during our Spring 1997 US tour, and our Live at WREK was May 6, 1997 right after we returned, so this is in the same general time period. We only did one Live at WREK session, and it was between the first and second albums. Two songs were from the first LP (Unification and The Art of Mapmaking), one song from our first 7" (Local Seeing), two songs from the 7"s between the two albums (Yesterday's Bullets, Human Again), and two songs from the yet to be recorded second album (1/1/97 and Ivan's Devil). I hope you enjoy, there will be plenty more hal al Shedad to come.

Here is the link: The hal al Shedad - Live at WREK May 6, 1997


As a piece of trivia, Ben still plays that Ampeg V9 bass head and cabinet on the right side of the picture in his current band - The Forever War (as well as the same Music Man bass!). I gave away that silver spray painted drumset years ago, and heard that the drummer from Deerhunter was using it for a time, but I know he got a real drumset later on. Also, Ed's 'Going to Grandma's' case for carrying his volume pedal and cables is in the foreground - classic hal setup.

1994: The Year of Car Vs. Driver - Live At WREK Shows 1/4/94 and 9/13/94

From L to R: James Joyce, Ashley Moore, Steve Wishart, Matt Mauldin, Jon Rothman at the Somber Reptile after our final show on July 21, 1995 with Braid and Inkwell.

I have transferred our two Live at WREK shows - here are the links:

9/13/94: Car Vs. Driver - Live at WREK September 13, 1994

1/4/94: Car Vs. Driver - Live at WREK January 4, 1994

Here is a summary I wrote for the Car Vs. Driver Discography, put out by Gavin at Stickfigure Records:

Car vs. Driver began when I was 17 years old. By the time we played our final show, I was 19. This band was the music of my life during a period when people usually experience the greatest amount of freedom, which is what I think of whenever I listen to this music now. There were so many new experiences: living on our own, meeting new people, getting a new perspective on life. Our lifestyle in turn gave us a new perspective on expressing music, and we poured all of our energy and emotion into it. Music that now seems a world away – music from a different life. It’s hard to remember that everything about being in a band at that time was simply making a 7”, buying the cheapest van you could find, and touring the country for the summer. There was no infrastructure to build your music around, which also removed its barriers. Instead of running our band like a corporation, we played peoples living rooms and basements, engaged in kickball tournaments, made record covers out of manila envelopes, slept on top of our van, cooked pasta, and played with some of the most amazing bands in the process. Bands that epitomized the time – like Spirit Assembly, Policy of 3, Friction, Current, The Yah Mos, Assfactor 4, Frail, Hoover, Freemasonry, Scout, and Inkwell. The experience we had is something that could never be recreated, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been a part of that moment in time. Thank you Matt, Steve, and Jonathan for bringing this to me.

James Joyce
August 2004

This compilation is dedicated to our faithful roadies Ashley Lawrence Moore and William Anthony Nation.

We froze, sweat, bled, argued, and laughed.

WREK is the college radio station for Georgia Tech, and by far my favorite station in Atlanta. One great thing they have done for so many years is the Live At WREK show, which plays at 10PM on Tuesday nights. Everyone has played it from Minutemen and Sun Ra to any local Atlanta band you can imagine. It has become somewhat like the Peel Sessions for Atlanta bands, and an easy way to get a decent recording of your music (especially back before the days of quality home recording). When Car Vs. Driver played Live At WREK, we tried to play as many songs as possible so we would have demo versions of our new stuff, as well as some old songs we never properly recorded. People tell us that these recordings better represent Car Vs. Driver as a band than the records we put out. You can decide for yourself. Also, WREK has a great website where you can listen to all the content from the past week online, as well as the Live at WREK comilation CD they put out a few years ago and other gems.

I do not plan to post the Car Vs. Driver discography here, as you can still get the great 2XCD package that Stickfigure released in 2005, here is the link: http://stickfiguredistro.com/stickfigurerecords/#stickdisc001cd .
Gavin was cool enough to keep our recordings in print by putting out this compilation, and he deserves all the business he can get. I will post our reunion show in 1997 soon, as well as flyers and pictures, but you should have enough to get started for now.

Keep in touch, and leave a comment so I don't feel like this stuff is going into a void.

King Tunes - More Go-Steadys Live on Album 88 and Unreleased Songs

So Ex-Teenage Rockstar (aka Steven Cummings) came through and gave me a tape of “Reflections”, which was a song we recorded at a studio in Atlanta by some railroad tracks, as well as a sassy live in the studio recording from March 1995 of the Go Steadys on Album 88, in preparation for our 7” release show at the Somber Reptile later that month. Now we have everything that I ever played on with the Go Steadys, however I am not sure if they recorded anything further after I left the group. One interesting note is that Kyle Richards plays the Album 88 show, which I completely do not remember him even playing with us after high school. Anyhow, it was fun hearing everyone talk again, especially Eric telling the announcer that he was from Compton, and Jesse working at the California Pizza Kitchen. The most infamous line, however, was Mike telling the DJ that he played the skinflute, which I completely missed me when I was in the studio, but afterwards was unbelievable that he actually got that over the air. I now have more practice in transferring tapes to computer, so I re-recorded all the Go Steadys songs and uploaded them to MediaFire, so you can download the best discography yet here:

Go-Steadys Complete Discography

Rob Fitzgerald - Our second drummer and youngest member of the band.

Here are some classic Go Steadys flyers:


October 21, 1992 - This was our first big show, and we were pretty wet behind the ears. But we got through it, and played many other great shows afterwards, so I guess we did something right.



May 31, 1994 at the Atomic Music Hall in Athens. Flyer designed by Robert McAdams when he was living in Athens and wearing suits every Friday.


March 19, 1993 at the Hoyt Street Station in Athens. This was our first show in Athens (while we were still in High School). I believe we played with the Woggles at that show.


June 14, 1993 - This was a show at the Somber Reptile that was back when they served smart drinks and had disco night after 11:00 or so. It was so early in the Somber Reptile's existence that we didn't even know the right name and called it the Summer Reptile. Plenty of beer.



April 24, 1993 - Back at the Hoyt Street Station in Athens. Crystal was in a band called 7/10 split, which was made up of Roswell High School students. Check out Jason Griset endorsing Philly Titans.


February 26, 1994 - At the Somber Reptile with The Skats, Brumski and Skaffle House. By this time there were enough ska bands in Atlanta to actually fill up the bill. These were some fun shows. As far as the live recording, I never got a copy. Scooter parking available - hilarious.


May 29, 1993 at the Somber Reptile - This was our last show as the original high school lineup of 7. At the beginning of National Front (our first song), Jesse does a backflip off the stage and takes out the whole front of the audience. He had never successfully done a backflip before, but why not right there and then!

Set list from the May 29 show above - as you can see, we played about 50% covers (about right for a ska band). Check out the footprints.



Finally, November 13, 1993 at Hoyt Street North in Athens (again). I loved the image from "Man Bites Dog" to use in the flyer. We also started figuring out how to use computers at that time. No members of the Go Steadys became graphic designers (that I know of), but we were creative in other ways.

Brighter Days: The Go-Steadys (1991-1996)

From L to R: Laura Richards, Jesse Lauricella, Eric Fickes, Mike, Robbie Fitzgerald, Dan Gminksi, Brian Lysne, James Joyce, circa 1995.

Here is the download:
Go-Steadys Complete Discography


So I learned about ska music through my friend Miles Peterken, who also introduced me to punk and jazz, so you can say he was a pretty influential person in my early musical development. This was maybe 1989 or so, and in his bedroom he would pin record covers on the walls instead of posters. He is really the only person I have ever known to do this in this exact way. He liked to hang up all sorts of LP covers, and I distinctly remember seeing the first albums of both the Specials and Madness on the wall of his room, and possibly the first Selecter album as well.







If you remember what these covers look like, it completely blew my mind as a 15 year-old just getting into decent music. Both of these covers featured photos of the bands, which had a mixture of black and white members (for the Specials), and the trademark Madness group leaning-stance, or whatever it’s called, for their album. Both pictures showed members who were definitely not American in any way, and looking insanely cool. The Specials looked like some crazy gang, and Suggs from Madness probably looked to be about the coolest person I had ever seen. I didn’t hear these bands until at least a year or two later, when Brian Lysne bought the Specials Singles Collection on tape, I believe from Camelot Music, and we both listened to “A Message to You Rudy” for the first time on his boom box after returning from the mall. I can honestly say that I was initially totally bewildered by this song. It sounded like a bastardized reggae (definitely not Jamaican), with some kind of doo-wop vocals and really different recording sound. It sounded like some kind of working-class skinhead music, which I guess it was, and maybe not something we were going to understand, much less love to death. However, once “Do the Dog”, “Concrete Jungle”, and some others from the first album came on, we knew this music was awesome and totally unique in comparison with the music that was around at the time. Immediately we started looking for ska music in various tape and record stores, but the local Turtles and Camelot Music only had the ska bands that really had crossover success with mainstream music. We got English Beat (although Special Beat Service was the most common release you could find at that time), Specials and Madness. All three of these bands had amazing first albums, but highly questionable and confusing later albums. Finally I got a tape of Bim Skala Bim’s “Hows’ it Goin”, and started to break into the true ska music scene. When we started heading down to Little 5 Points and buying records at Wax N’ Facts, I got more records such as The Toaster’s “Pool Shark”, the Deltones’ “Nana Choc Choc in Paris”, as well as a few other great records of the genre.

Coincidentally around this time, two major events occurred to solidify our involvement with ska music. The first was WREK starting the “Afriskamatic” radio show, which was amazing, but also interesting in that at first they didn’t even have enough ska music and had to play African music to fill out the entire 2 hour show. We would record it on tape and listen to it all week in the car. It was funny to find the albums that they were playing on the show years later when ska distribution became better and recognize the songs that I heard first on that radio show, like Symaryp for example. Another great example is a song by the Terrorists, which was an NYC ska-punk band who did a song with Lee Perry called “Guerilla Priest“. When I bought their discography many years later, I completely forgot about the song, and then when it came on I had this immense wave of nostalgia and insane laughter when I heard it. The song is truly a Lee Perry classic. The second big event in our ska development was Jesse Lauricella moving to Atlanta around 1991. Since my last name is Joyce, he was naturally put into my homeroom class as it was organized in alphabetical order. I believe he was behind me, and Brian Lysne was behind him. He came from New Jersey, and was very knowledgeable about the NYC ska scene, mainly revolving around the Moon SKA record label. He had seen many of these bands live, including the Toasters, Scofflaws, Let’s Go Bowling, and many others from that era. He also brought a selection of tapes for us to dub and enjoy. One of these was the “Skankin’ Around The World” Volume 1 tape, which I believe is the best ska compilation ever created, and I still listen to it on a regular basis. After hanging out with him for a few weeks, we decided that we needed to form a ska band and show everyone what was up. Jesse would naturally be the singer, and Brian would be the bassman. We got Eric Fickes to play guitar, as he was always game for musical projects back then, and I would play drums. We were pretty rough at the beginning, and had a few members come in and out for about 6 months or so. Michelle Ward played keyboards for a practice, Jesse’s friends Paul and Dave played sax and trombone, but they were not technically horn players and did not last. It was too bad because Paul was possibly the scariest guy I had ever seen in person. He was about 10 years older than us, and had full sleeves of tattoos, had the physique of a marine out of Paris Island and always wore a wife-beater. When Jason Griset joined the band on sax, he was actually too scared to tell Paul how to play any of the parts because the dude was so menacing. We also had this African-American skinhead singer named Françoise for a show, who looked really cool, but not very talented in the singer/frontman department. Eventually, we ditched all of these secondary members and acquired the three real talents for the band and completed our first full group of seven members. This was comprised of the four of us (Jesse, Brian, Eric and myself), along with Jason Griset on Tenor Sax, Kyle Richards on Trumpet, and Shawn Simpson on Drums. I met these guys in my band class (the main place to find horn players for your ska band in those days), and in the case of Jason and Shawn, happened to be some of the most talented musicians I have ever played with (then or since). Sometimes when we would be playing a show at the Hoyt Street Station in Athens, for example, they would set up in the parking lot before the show and have a sax-drums duo playing jazz music, and it was amazing. Since they were so unbelievable on their instruments, I naturally switched to rhythm guitar while Shawn took over full drumming responsibilities. We started doing ska versions of “Freddie the Freeloader” and “Miles Mode”, and these guys truly legitimized the Go Steadys for us.

As for the actual band name, we kind of ripped it from “The Steadys” out of NYC, but nobody in Atlanta had ever heard of The Steadys, so we became The Go Steadys. In the spring of 1993, I recorded a 4-song demo of us as the original seven piece band in my basement, and I have included it in the attached file:

1. What You Are
2. Anthem
3. Brighter Days
4. By My Side

“What You Are” is lyrically probably the most misogynistic song I have ever played. Jesse was particularly angry about a break-up with a girl in our class, and really wanted to get his vengeance. High School can be a difficult time for all of us. We used to play this song first at all of our shows, and it always got the crowd moving. “Anthem” was written after we played with the Special Beat, and Jesse had the urge to write a nice xenophobic ska song about Americans playing ska, including the chorus “bust out that American ska and a piece of apple pie, if those tea-sipping jerks got something to say we’ll put a fist right in their eye” – classic Jesse Lauricella. “Brighter Days” was one of my favorite songs by the band, especially played with this lineup. “By My Side” was so new that Jason hadn’t learned the horn part, so Kyle played trumpet on it alone, and I actually like this version better anyhow than the one with the full horn section recorded later. Also, I have to say about the original lineup that I really liked Shawn Simpson’s drumming on this demo, which was much different compared to other ska drummers. He added a real swing to the group, but also kept the intensity of the music high. He would play my crappy drumset with only one rack tom (no floor tom), one cymbal, a snare, high-hat and bass drum, and still completely kill it every time.


From L to R: Jesse Lauricella, Brian Lysne, Jason Griset, Eric Fickes (on floor), Kyle Richards, Shawn Simpson, James Joyce - Spring 1993.


We played some of our best shows at this time, even playing in Athens for college crowds while we were still in high school, which is pretty rare. We played with the Woggles and the Earthworms in Athens, as well as the Special Beat, Toasters, etc. that came through Atlanta at that time. We also started playing with a new breed of Atlanta ska bands, including the Skats (which featured Brian and Rob Kincheloe as well as a very young Mike Griffith on drums), and Brumski (featuring the soon to be legendary Tom Cheshire). Unfortunately, we lost Shawn, Jason and Kyle at the end of our Senior year as Shawn and Jason went to music school in Denton, TX and Kyle went to Boston to study medicine. Kyle started playing bass in Boston bands, and I would get demos from them occasionally. Jason returned to the Go Steadys later on when he transferred to Valdosta, but I never saw Shawn Simpson again. At the end of this time, I switched from guitar to trombone, and we went about finding new members for the group. Kyle recruited his sister, Laura Richards, to join the band on trombone (now we had two trombone players). She was super nice, but a little young, so she became kind of the little sister of the group. I was dating a girl named Crystal Bradley at the time, and she was in another ska band called 7/10 split, and I believe she was the one who found our next drummer, Robbie Fitzgerald, and our trumpet player, Chad Paulin. Jesse’s friend Mike moved down from New Jersey and took over secondary vocals, and we got a friend of Jesse’s named Dan Gminski (I'm not sure of the spelling) to play bass clarinet. Crystal also joined us on keyboards and Jason Griset returned to start helping us on sax duties, so that brought the total band membership up to 11 (Jesse, James, Brian, Eric, Crystal, Robbie, Laura, Chad, Dan, Mike, and Jason). This was insanity from a band logistics perspective. It was hard to even get everyone to the show on time. I remember once playing with Skankin’ Pickle at the Chameleon Club in Buckhead, and the band went on without me on trombone because I was over at Tower Records wandering around being oblivious. Also, keep in mind that this was before the advent of cell phones, so there was a lot of legwork involved with these shows and practices. We recorded a few more songs under this lineup at Dwarf studios in Ellijay, the place where Car Vs. Driver recorded their first 7”.

5. Goin’ Away
6. Fallen
7. Brighter Days
8. By My Side
9. King Tone Corporate Anthem
10. No. 5

“Goin’ Away” was not really our best song, and extremely difficult for Mike and Jesse to harmonize on, but it had an end-of-show kind of feeling to it, so it was always part of our set. “Fallen” was probably my least favorite song we did, but had a great rockabilly-style riff from Eric that he could really belt out, and the crowd always loved it. “Brighter Days” was played with more horns this time. “King Tone Corporate Anthem” was an instrumental with a name borrowed from the “Devo Corporate Anthem”, and had the big “S-K-A” intro that was fun to play. I think we did a few mambo lines through the audience with that one. “No. 5” was also another almost-instrumental, and had some pretty good trombone playing on my part if I do say so myself. Crystal adds some good keyboards as well. As you can see, Robbie Fitzgerald couldn’t really keep up with the virtuoso drumming of Shawn Simpson, but he transformed the band into a more modern, driving ska band of the new third wave era. Two of these songs (Goin’ Away and Fallen) were pressed as a 7”, but not for sale at shows. We only used them for sending to clubs and promotion. Also something strange about the 7” was that it had an 8” cover, so it didn’t fit in any 7” boxes. Mine is currently filed in the 10” section of my collection.


The Go Steadys 7" in an 8" sleeve.

Only 100 Pressed. I got #31.

Unauthorized Reproduction Punishable by DEATH.


Live at the Somber Reptile in 1994/5: Dan, James and Brian.

We were playing several times per month and having a great time, and also playing in Huntsville, Athens and Auburn, but I was also in Car Vs. Driver and The Midget Farmers as well as pursuing a degree in Physics and Astronomy full time. By about spring of 1995, I was getting seriously burnt out on the strain of being in a band of 10+ members, and wanted to get out. As what usually happens in the Go Steadys, if you leave the band, it is almost expected of you to recruit a new person to join, and I got Steven Cummings brought in on tenor sax. He was in my Astronomy class, and once I found out he could play sax, I ensnared him as soon as possible for practice. They continued on for a few years without me, and recorded a few more songs (if anyone has these, please send them and I will post them to this blog entry), but after another year or so Steven left, along with Robbie, Brian and Eric to form other bands. The first three started The Del Rays in Athens, while Eric moved to North Carolina and joined the Stingy Brims, another ska band from the region. Jesse kept adding and replacing members, until he fell in love with a girl down in Mexico and moved down there to be with her, and the band officially dissolved. When he returned a year or two later, he started a Latin-influenced ska band called Mandorico, and they have been working very hard as a band for years and years, although I have yet to see them. Chad joined the Robustos in Atlanta, and had much more success as a third wave ska band than the Go Steadys ever had. Crystal Bradley moved about 10 more times before settling in DC for a few years and starting a band with the singer from Bratmobile called Partyline. They were hugely popular and came to Europe several times while I was in Amsterdam, but I was always out of town and never got to see them play. I do not know what happened to Dan, Laura or Mike, but that’s the way it goes sometimes in these situations at that time in your life. Supposedly Dan works as a tatoo artist in Germany, but I have not confirmed this. Brian moved to Japan for several years, and then became an accountant and moved to Minnesota (I believe). Eric became a computer programmer and moved recently to Denver where he and his wife are raising their first child – Fletcher Fickes. Steven Cummings draws comic books for a living and is almost impossible to hang out with due to his hectic work schedule. I haven’t seen Jesse in almost ten years, but maybe I’ll catch Mandorico one of these years and say hello. I see they moved to LA and seem to be doing fine.

Overall, I can honestly say that this was the most fun that I ever had on stage with a band, and that is truly saying a lot. It really gave me so much joy during my late high school years to play in this band and experience everything we experienced – jumping around, wearing crazy clothes, Jesse doing back flips off the stage, mambo trains through the crowd, bringing everyone up on stage for our version of “Monkey Man”, playing “Don’t Worry Be Happy” with the Skats, crashing the front porch of a house in Athens from dancing so hard, playing a party at a loft on Memorial Drive where the crowd literally knocked down the wall to the adjoining loft and started looting the place while we played – dancing around with all the neighbor’s stuff in their arms (!!!), Shawn Simpson driving 100+ mph up to Athens for shows, looking everywhere for a good pork-pie hat, smoking cigars, acting like complete assholes, and generally having the time of our lives.

An Experiment in January - The Retconned Cover Band Live at the Drunken Unicorn - January 25, 2008

So this picture is 4 years old, but I don't have any live photos of the actual show on this post. This was something that started out as a kind of experiment - taking Retconned songs and transpose them to a Bass/Guitar/Drums rock format, with Josh Fauver on Guitar, Benjamin Lukens on Bass, and myself on the Drumset. So we practiced about 5 times and learned 6 songs, one being "Savior" by Inkwell, which was one of our favorite songs of theirs and had to be covered sooner or later. Everything came out really well, and we had a great time on this project. It makes me think that this might be an interesting way to write music (i.e. create the songs electronically using keyboards/sequencers/etc. and transfer them to rock band format for interesting results). The songs would never have been written or blocked out as the four of us starting on our live instruments, so it was great to have this experience. I hope we can do it again sometime.

Here is the set as a WinRAR file and as separate MP3 files for download: Retconned Cover Band - Live at the Drunken Unicorn January 25, 2008

It would also be interesting for you to listen to the original Retconned songs (available for download free at Retconned "Unhappenings" Album) and then listen to our live versions to see how we freely interpreted them.

As always, enjoy.

31 January 2008 Update - Thanks for Fuckyouninja for taking some photos of the gig and posting them on Flickr.

Righteous.


Josh Fauver on the recently working Strat - and my head.


Benjamin keeping his cool while trying to remember the next part.
(just kidding - he actually held it down like a pro).


Jon in brown sweater glory.


Jon caught in full croon - the Bryan Ferry of Atlanta rock.

Sonn Av Krusher - Live at the E.A.R.L. December 26, 2007

The Krusher played its 3rd show the other night at the EARL in Atlanta, and luckily for us (unlucky for you), the show was captured by soundman Kurt. This guy Tim in the audience told me that the set made him forget about the Civil War. Here is our set, broken into 2 tracks:

Sonn Av Krusher - Live at the EARL December 26, 2007

The first track is "Krusher Medley", which is actually a string of Snake Mountain Death Ride/High Holy Days/Long Arm of the Lamb/Angel Dust 500/The Widower, all together in one salvo. The second track is our cover of Evil by almost any artist out there, but we lean toward the version performed by Cactus in the early 70's. Enjoy.

Matt Mauldin on the Vokills.

Gray Kiser on the electic fiddle.

Matt Mauldin on the vampire.

Start the Atlanta Band Genome

Here is the Atlanta band genome in all its third draft glory, fully exploded in every direction to illustrate how all these bands are interconnected through their members, as we are well aware that no musician can be in just one band. The bands highlighted in yellow were ones that yours truly played in.

Please let me know what additions and corrections you might have, and I'll do my best to update the document. The only requirement for inclusion is that the band in question must have played at least one live show.

January 20 Update - Dr. Kinje has officially linked Noot d' Noot to John Coltrane in 5 steps, so I'm not sure how more absurd it can get. Of course I had to update the document to add that bit. The list keeps growing, so keep adding comments.

Cheers.