JACOB THE TERRIBLE - Demo - CD-R - 2010

   Okay, I admit, it's been a while since I updated this but that's not because I've been burned out or lazy. On the contrary...I worked 14 days in a row at my job while simultaneously practicing with my band, helping to put out a tape, booking a US tour, getting together t-shirt designs, trying half-assedly to find a subletter, buying a bike and celebrating another year of being alive on this weird rock we call Earth. I also spent a week in Worcester, MA, visiting some good friends and getting some much needed time to relax, read and drink coffee.
    While out east, I was lucky enough to roadie for one of my favorite bands, THE TERRIBLES and got to see a punk show in a state where I had never seen such a thing....New Hampshire. It was weird. It was in a martini bar. I also ate the worst taco I've ever eaten in my life. When the band got to their show in Providence, they morphed into one of their few alter egos, JACOB THE TERRIBLE. You see, the band has a long time friend named Jacob Berendes, who has been performing solo for years (You can order one of his CDs here) and also publishes the monthly newspaper, Mother's News. In addition to this, he runs a distro called Chipsylvania and formerly manned the massively missed mission, Fujichia. Anyhow, Jacob wrote many songs that should be (and still could be) classics, but haven't had much of a life to speak of outside of the greater New England area. At some point, he (or perhaps they) decided to turn his formerly quiet songs into full-on rock songs, using THE TERRIBLES as his backing band. Thus, JACOB THE TERRIBLE was born. This shoddy and hastily recorded demo is not quite the representation that the band had in mind when they went down to the basement with the four track, but this is what they got when they emerged a few short hours later. I think the true strength of this band lies in their live performance because Jacob is a front person to end all front people and the TERRIBLES are just a great fucking band.
   Take the Providence show for example...They were slated to play second, just after the smooth indie-garage rock stylings of some hacks with half of JTT's energy or charisma. Instead of discussing the lineup with JTT and talking about how they didn't want to play first, the boring indie rockers just did that thing where they simply disappear and make everyone's lives a little more difficult by not being available (emotionally or otherwise) when it is time for them to play. Berendes and THE TERRIBLES are no strangers to chaos and are well aware that the show must go on. They set up and started the proceedings with no temper tantrums or complaints (the rockers not-so-mysteriously re-appeared just as the band was gearing up for their first song). By the time Jacob yelled "The world can be so fucked!! But there's only so much shit you can shit....ON A FACE!!!", the audience was sold. The next half-hour was filled with wildly flailing, dancing bodies and impassioned sing-a-longs. Simply, they killed it. I briefly peeked in later when the indie rockers were playing their coveted time slot and the crowd was barely managing to stay awake (I know that this isn't a competition but when a band can't manage to do the simple thing they are expected to do on tour [i.e. play the show when asked, interact with the other people involved, not be unavailable], I have little-to-no sympathy for them).

   Since recording this, JACOB THE TERRIBLE has re-recorded some of these songs at Machines With Magnets and the new versions sound a billion times better. They are currently looking for someone to release it (like, say, Corleone Records) and I, for one, would greatly appreciate it's existence in this world.
   When not being in this band, drummer Matt Carroll takes amazing photographs, greatly analyzes seemingly pedestrian endeavors and performs dramatic readings of Victorian-era erotica while dressed in period clothing. Guitarist Jamie Buckmaster enjoys a charmingly bizarre sleep schedule (others might call it insomnia), works on beautiful art and almost effortlessly plays any instrument at an expert level. Mike Leslie, the bass player, skates better than you, works tirelessly on meticulous art and is one of the better people that I am lucky to know in this world. After downloading this, be sure to also listen to THE TERRIBLES and then smack yourself for not having them in your lives for the past 15 years.

Download JACOB THE TERRIBLE
Updated Jan 2013

Taken from a comic by John Isaacson