Tuesday, February 28, 2012

HALFULA - Demo - Tape - 2001

   I'm back from tour! Oh, the stories I could tell you about wild drunken punks in Vancouver, playing shows at 3 AM, our bass player Bryan getting border patrol cops to laugh about setting bibles on fire, our guitarist Barker almost getting some jerk to drink his piss, how we came close to snapping the wheel off of the van or all the wonderful people that we met in the beautiful northwest. I'm not gonna tell you those stories though, because this is not about NEON PISS...this is about HALFULA.
   I only saw HALFULA play once at a show that was so poorly attended that it was unreal. The event happened way out at a house in Harrison, TN and most of the punks that I knew in Chattanooga at that time didn't own cars. Public transit to Harrison? Forget about it. The band showed up and their drummer, Jason had a cast on his right leg...the same one he uses to play the bass drum. I asked him how the hell he was gonna play the drums with a broken leg. He said it was no problem and he had learned how to play the bass drum with his left foot. I was skeptical, but when they played, they destroyed the minds of the 5 people in attendance. Their guitarist, Clem stood on his tip-toes and played manically and furiously. Their singer, James spent more time in the air than on the ground. When he sang, he looked as if his head was going to explode into 50 pieces. All the while, Jason was blast-beating his set into the ground in a way that made you believe that he had always played with his right foot in a cast. Ten hazy minutes later, the set was over and we were sorely reminded that we were all still in Harrison.
   I didn't pick up their tape that day and I don't remember why. It flowed into my hands just a few days ago via the Portland underground punk scene (no really, I literally bought it underground in a Portland show space). Eleven songs whiz by in less than five fucking minutes. Side two is just a bunch of clips from horror movies. I feel like the only way I can really explain their sound (besides manic fucking hardcore) is by saying that they were masterminded by Jason Griffin and James, who were both in GOAT SHANTYDIVORCE and AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER. I've said it before, but I still believe that James is one of the best hardcore singers of the past 10 years and if you don't agree with me, I will totally shit in your cheerios. Their guitarist, Clem went missing in action for a while but oddly resurfaced playing in a reggae band. Nowadays, he is back to destroying minds, playing guitar and singing in SAVAGIST. Download this and let it take up five minutes of your time.
"Live how the fuck you want"
The song titles aren't really attributed to the right songs...I couldn't figure out anything about that aspect of it. That shouldn't detract from your enjoyment of this tape.

3 comments:

Dumpster Jeff said...

FUCK YES!

Dk said...

Welcome back. Canada sounds like a nice place to visit, but I would want to live there, eh.

Papst Benedikt XVI said...

my old band ERADICATE toured with GOAT SHANTY & HALFULA in europe.