FORCED VENGEANCE - 7" and Comp Track - 2001

    Before FORCED VENGEANCE, there was THE TUBE TOPS and before that, there was Cinque and I sitting on a porch at a punk house in the Highland Park neighborhood of Chattanooga, TN in the fall of 1998. It was 9 am and we had already tried and failed to get a day's work at Labor Finder's (For those of you lucky enough to not know what Labor Finder's is, it is a soul-sucking institution that requires you to get up at the ass-crack of dawn and beg for a job doing manual labor all day for a bunch of assholes while getting minimum wage. If you don't have a bank account, you can only cash your check at a liquor store that takes a cut so that you only get about $36, if you're lucky.). We felt like we had failed at life and we scrounged up our change to buy 40's and drink them on the porch. After getting sufficiently buzzed, we got the idea to drag the bass and drums out onto the street in front of our house and play BLACK FLAG covers as well as playing along to the tune of the ice cream truck when it stopped in front of our house to sell treats to the kids that had gathered around to watch us. In the midst of that, we started writing songs and decided at that moment to start a band. We recruited our friends, Eric, Amy and Caroline to round out the group. Thus, THE TUBE TOPS were born.
   After a couple of shows, complete with 4 part harmonies and (accidentally) kicking members of the audience in the face, Caroline was summoned south by the sweet, soft hand of academia and she settled in Gainesville, FL. We decided to change the band name since the TUBE TOPS moniker had been Caroline's brain child. While sitting in a Burger King on E 23rd street (for the life of me, I don't know why I remember that), we decided to call the band FORCED VENGEANCE, which is the name of a Chuck Norris movie that Eric was obsessed with. Then, at some point we all decided that we had to get tattoos of "FV" somewhere on our bodies to confirm our commitment to this band. Not too long after the ink got under his skin, Cinque also made the decision to travel south to that sun-bleached land of beard rock and frat boys....thus, we needed a new bass player.
   We decided to bring in our friend, Chrissie into our weird world. Although Cinque is not the kind of man who can be replaced, Chrissie brought her own energy to the band in the form of fancy fret-work, ridiculous puns and an optimism that had been lacking in our lives. Soon after, we welcomed Harry into the fold because he is one of the best guitarists we know and we hung out with him every day. Plus, he balanced out Chrissie's optimism with a healthy dose of pessimism and paranoia.Both of them dutifully got sloppy "FV" tattoos and were happy to practice whenever anyone felt like it.
   All of these songs were recorded in 2001 by Sam at his house in North Chattanooga. Eight of them appeared on our 7" that we released that year. The 9th one was supposed to be on a compilation of Chattanooga bands that never materialized. It ended up being on a compilation called "0 to 60", which was comprised of 59 bands playing songs that clocked in at one minute or less.
  The band broke up by the end of 2001 for various reasons. Eric and Amy just celebrated their 10th year of marriage and play in the band DARK RIDES. Chrissie moved to Richmond,VA and plays in THE FLESH MOUNTAIN BOYS. Harry has 2 children, still lives in Chattanooga and plays 2nd guitar in ADD/C. I just went on tour with Cinque last month and he plays in the band STREET LEGAL. Caroline lives in Brooklyn, plays bass in a very popular band and does some pretty mind-bending art. Me? I'm not sure what it is that I do, but I am a social worker and I still play drums in punk bands. I feel very fortunate to have played music with all of these people and this band has really shaped the way I play music to this day. I hope you enjoy it.

FORCED VENGEANCE in a barn in Burnsville, NC. 2000.

Download FV (updated 2013)

If you want the lyric booklet that we gave out at shows sometimes (different from the one included in the download), send $2-3 to me at p.o. box 40786, SF, CA 94140. I still have a small pile of them.