NO SHIT SHERLOCK - 6 Song Demo - Tape - 2002

   A few years ago, I got into a...errr....heated discussion with an acquaintance of mine about touring. He was convinced that bands shouldn't go on tour until they've released records and have other merch to sell. He said that this proved that the band was more serious about what they were doing and would (somehow) not waste his time at a punk show. Citing a list of "serious" bands who have seriously wasted my time at punk shows over the years, I called bullshit on his idea. I told him that I think bands should go on tour with whatever they want...They could have 4 LP's or just a demo tape (or nothing at all). In my mind, touring can give you perspective on your band and also just take you to places you've never been. Plus, if a band is wasting your time, it's easy to just walk out and do something else. I've walked out on everyone from FORGETTERS to TRAGEDY to ROSA with no regrets. Plus, it's not really your business if a band chooses to go on tour with absolutely nothing to sell (or give away) and at the end of the day, you're going to sleep just the same, so who cares? Also, touring is just this huge privilege anyway...but that's a whooole other discussion....these are the kinds of tangents I get on when writing this at 5 in the morning.....
     This brings us to NO SHIT SHERLOCK, who I saw in a mid-blackout in New Orleans back in 2003. In my hazy memory, they were alternately falling apart and completely ruling at the same time. They were on tour with COUNTY Z and offered nothing more in the way of merch than their shoddily recorded live demo tape and possibly some spray-painted t-shirts. (Our friend, Rana was also on the tour selling haircuts at every show. I offered up three bucks and came out of the show with the sides of my head shaved into steps and a rattail.) The three women in the band played a manic blend of arty, no wave punk employing an accordion, a bass and a floor tom or two. Even though they were probably on stage for a total of 15 minutes and broke up not long after this tour, they've provided more (and better) memories for me than seeing many, many other bands in my life.

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Features members of DOGS and DEUCE BOLDLY. 

SCHRODINGER'S CRAP - Demo - Tape - 2013

    Last year, my friend, Rymodee moved to a town called Little River, CA in Mendocino County (a.k.a. "Mendo, baby!", a.k.a. Weed country) to be an apprentice and learn to build guitars (a luthier, if you want to get technical about it). I kept telling him that I would make the three hour trek north to visit and stay in his little barn, but time flies and shit gets busy, so when he told me he was moving to San Francisco in a week, I knew that now was the time to visit.
  Like many of us, Rymodee has been in a slew of bands (ZIPPERS TO NOWHERE, THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB, TRIGGERMORTIS, BRAINBOW, etc, etc) and that urge to play music doesn't go away just because you moved to a tiny little town on the coast that is almost completely devoid of punks. So, what do you do in this situation? Well, I don't know what you do, but Modee put an ad on Craigslist looking for people to start a punk band. He got a few replies from people looking to "jam" and others who obviously didn't read anything he wrote. After a few misfires, he met up with Martin who joined on 2nd guitar. They hooked up with a drummer who only wanted to play blasting double bass beats...so, that didn't really work out for what they were trying to do. Martin moved to drums and SCHRODINGER'S CRAP was born...Little River/Fort Bragg's only punk band. At one point, they had a former member of NAR playing bass for them, but he was too busy to commit to the band
    Since Modee was moving soon, the band wanted to play one official show in town (other than the open mic night) and secured a night at the lounge of the local Motel 6. Since there are no other punk bands there, they played before karaoke night. Most of the people who came to see the band drove from at least three hours away (that would be Anandi, Michelle, David Dondero and me). Add the couple of locals and the group of folks who happened to receive their nacho orders around the same time the band fired up and you've got the full house of 12 or so. The band blew through their 7 song set, broke up and we set sail to another bar to play pool for a couple of hours. The band made 10 tapes and played one real show. It was fun.

Set List

At the Motel 6 in Fort Bragg

Raging Friday night crowd in Mendo.

Download from their Bandcamp page

P.S. I like this whole tape, but "Backyard" is my personal jam / deep cut.

PHOTO POST

UNWOUND - American Beat Records - 1995 - Birmingham, AL - Photo by Angie Elliott.

FLESHIES - Ziggy's - 2002(?) - Chattanooga, TN - Photo by Greg Harvester

JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS - Generator Show in the Everglades - 1995 - Miami, FL - Photo by Kristiana Mallo

FYP - Guest Vocals by Kevin - I-Defy House - 1996 - Atlanta, Ga - Photo by Greg Harvester

THE WEDNESDAYS - Illegal Gazebo Show - 1996 - Huntsville, AL - Photo by Greg Harvester

DICK VAN DYKES - Stokes St Warehouse - 2000 - Huntsville, AL - Photo by Brontez Purnell

You may have noticed that I have started doing some photo posts. I'm intending to start doing these roughly once a week because I have loads of old photos sitting around and I realized that people might want to see them. Most, not all, will be band photos. I'm not concerned with professionalism, although some of the photos in the pile are by incredible photographers. I just thought that more people might be interested in these snapshots and they deserve a wider audience than the four walls of my filing cabinet. 

DIRTY MARQUEE - Tape - 2011

 
   DIRTY MARQUEE was a band that I played drums for from 2009-2011 in San Francisco. You can read about how we started here, but this is more about how we ended. We recorded the basic tracks for this tape in our practice space just before I moved to Chattanooga for three months. I feel like I might have recorded the drums for this just a day or two before I left town and did most of it in a couple of takes. When I returned, Tony and Gaybob were still toying around with layers of guitars and vocal harmonies at their house in the Mission. By this point, we had put out a 7" EP and were beginning to plan a US tour, even though Gaybob was soon moving to NYC and Jeanette couldn't afford to go on the tour. I decided to fly in my best friend, Cinque to play bass for the tour and he learned all the songs like a champ within a week.

   The tour ended up being kind of a shit show, but it had its fine moments...like camping in the Organ Mountains outside of Las Cruces, playing in Chattanooga, getting to see THIS IS MY FIST and meeting my good friend Legs for the first time even though I was terribly, terribly hung over. For the most part though, tensions were high and we all were not in the best places in our lives. The band broke up by the time we got back to the Bay Area. We actually played our last show in Portland.
   Still, I like how these songs turned out. I like how the tape seems like a tug of war between Tony's desire to write slicker pop oriented songs and Gaybob's desire to...uh, not do that. The tape culminates in my favorite song that we ever did, "Death To America", which I feel like is close to what we would have been doing if our band continued any longer. Enjoy or don't.

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Live in San Diego. Cinque on bass and our old bass player Jeanette on back up vocals.

Gaybob now plays in EXTRA FEELER. Tony plays in 17 REASONS (I don't think they're on the internet). Jeanette plays in NASTY CHRISTMAS. Cinque is in RATS REST. I don't play music.

HUNTING PARTY - Demo - Tape - 2011

    What can I say about HUNTING PARTY? I'm not the biggest fan of hardcore, but there's something about the strength, integrity and sincerity of the Bay Area bands that really pull me in. It doesn't hurt that beneath the screaming, the anguish and the full sleeve tattoos, most of the people involved are totally tender sweethearts. HUNTING PARTY is no exception. The first time I saw them, they were already a force that wasn't to be taken lightly. Their singer, Boo Boo was always in the crowd, never on the stage. Sometimes, he would be running towards people in the crowd and I would think "Whoa, he's about to destroy that dude!", but he never did (as far as I know). That was the thing I liked about HUNTING PARTY: They were full of volatile rage but they weren't afraid of vulnerability. They knew that they weren't indestructible. Plus, the riffs were fucking awesome. 

   Speaking of not being indestructible, the band self destructed on June 29th of this year, playing their last show at Gilman, as part of This Is Not A Step. I, for one, am sad to see them go and I wonder what will happen to their unreleased EP and LP. You can get their debut EP right here and mourn the loss in your very own room. 

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HUNTING PARTY BLOG

GLUE WILL NOT BE SOLD TO CHILDREN - A San Pedro Compilation - Tape - 1998

                                             
    Most of the time, when punks think of San Pedro, CA, the first bands to come to mind are THE MINUTEMEN, FYP or maybe TOYS THAT KILL. Maybe even CAN OF BEANS or NIP DRIVERS (even though they were from Torrance). Did you know that there was a crazy, burgeoning scene laying just below your radar in the late 90's in Pedro? Well, of course you did, but you probably never heard them because most of those bands never played outside of town and never released anything besides the songs on this compilation. The scene revolved around an unnamed record store where the punks hung out and caused trouble. Once, they even built a pyramid out of empty 40 bottles in front of the shitty tattoo parlor next door to them. When the rockabilly dude who ran the place walked out to yell at them, the entire thing collapsed, causing shards of broken glass to slice the dude's vintage suit and eyebrows. This was the beginning of the end for this little local scene and the record store was soon defunct. Many of the bands broke up soon afterwards.

    So this tape is your only exposure to the small geniuses that leaked into the Pedro scene for a short little while. There's the sleaziness of THE MOISTMAKERS, hardcore punk by CARBONATED GENOCIDE, the creepy dudes in CREEP ALERT and the sketchy drug-dealers of Sunken City who played in THE VANS. SWEATS AND TIGHTS kept playing as their acoustic duo at open mic nights for a few years until they moved to Goleta. THE DRIVEBYS were one of the first of these bands to break up after their singer Matt "One Lung" was arrested for first degree murder (Too long of a story for this venue). NOBODY LOVES ME kicked around Pedro playing their brand of low-fi pop until the couple in the band broke up. BACKYARD PARTY played wild, teenage, fucked up skate thrash and refused to play any 21+ venues...until Dan turned 21 and became a barfly. Their best line is "Hop on my board, can't land a trick. Let's see how many times WE CAN FLIP IT!!" JON BENET AND THE COVERGIRLS were fucking awesome and spent most of their time trying to get old men to buy them beers at the liquor store. They had a line up change and became THE JAG OFFS. Their best line is "Don't try to impress us! I think you'd rather undress us!" HATE MY JOB was some sad sack who always came into the record store and played guitar in the corner, so they let him be on the comp. PRIEST SLAPPER was a group of Black Metal dudes who played satanic thrash. I remember seeing them around town when I visited and they seemed really out of place wearing all black and corpse paint among the palm trees and 95 degree weather. THE WAKE UP LATES played kinda shitty street punk. They were cool people though. FLAME RETARDED sucked. THE PINK MC'S were a gay rap group who hung out with the punks because no one else liked them (San Pedro is pretty fucked up).
   Most of the people in these bands became squares and dropped out of punk. Lots of them got jobs at the tattoo shop they used to make fun of. You can still find the guys from BACKYARD PARTY hanging out at Harold's Bar on any given night. HATE MY JOB still plays open mic nights on Tuesdays. PRIEST SLAPPER moved to LA and fizzled out due to drugs...
   I hope you enjoy this tape. It's a brief time capsule into a forgotten part of San Pedro punk history.

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    Wait....are you just gonna believe me? You are, aren't you?  Okay, here's the real story: Back in 1998, my old band THE GRUMPIES were on tour with FYP. At some point, we were driving from like, London, Ontario to Winnepeg, Manitoba...which is about 25 hours of absolutely nothing but beautiful vastness, moose, bears, tiny towns and two lane freeways. Sean (from FYP) and I got on one of our long rambling talks about music and we soon started discussing plans to construct an entire fake punk scene, complete with a record store, back story and compilation tape. I had found a Polaroid on the ground in NYC and wrote CREEP ALERT on it. Thus, that became the first band....

   Tour continued and we kept discussing the plan and constructing bands in our heads. When tour ended, Sean stayed in Pedro and I went home to Chattanooga. A few short months later, this tape and zine showed up in my P.O. Box. He had actually done it! I had forgotten about it, but he had gotten together punks in Pedro to carry out the plan....and a lot of the songs are really good! I even covered the JON BENET song in a band I played with...which begs the question, "Does that make them a real band?" Real or not, I think most of this compilation is great. 

Features members of FYP, TOYS THAT KILL, THE JAG OFFS, THE LEECHES and more..

PHOTO POST

 The MORONS - Melita's basement - Dalton, GA - 1997 - Photo by Greg Harvester

ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT - Ben Ditch's house - Berkeley, CA - 2002 - Photo by Joshua Peach

ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT's last show - A backyard on Bryant St - SF, CA - 2005 - Photo by Janice Flux

DRILLER KILLERS - Melita's Basement - Dalton, GA - 1997 - Photo by Greg Harvester

Members of NEW BLOODS, HORNET LEG and ONE REASON - Bloomington, IN - 2008 - Photo by Osa Atoe

OLD SCHOOL BEER DRINKIN ROBOTS - Anarchtica - Chattanooga, TN - 2003 - Photo by Greg Harvester

BY ANY MEANS. BAY AREA 2013 - Tape - 2013

    I lived in the Bay Area off and on during 2002 and 2003. For the most part, I lived in San Francisco (and specifically, the Mission District), either in attics, makeshift rooms or a van. Back then, the city was recovering from the dot com crash of the early 00's and sometimes it felt like anything was possible. A lot of other times, it felt crushingly depressing. I played in some bands (ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT and SHOTWELL) and they were fun, but many times I felt like an outsider in the larger punk scene. I never really felt connected to much and it's one of the many reasons I left.
   Five years later, after getting shot,  playing in other bands and living in a tiny college town, I returned and still felt disconnected in many ways. One of the first punk shows I went to after getting back here was QUESTION in the basement of Thrillhouse Records. The dank basement with it's musty smell, moldy walls, makeshift screenprinting set-up, and stacks of weird shit that no one loves anymore instantly made me feel at home. Like any other place, it has its faults, but unlike many other places, Thrillhouse has never tried to hide them. I think it's important to have public spaces where people can just hang out, especially in a rapidly changing and increasingly unfriendly city like San Francisco. Maybe you don't wanna hang out in a dank ass record store. That's fine. I do..and when I go there, there's usually someone there worth talking to for a while.
   I'm getting off track. I'm not even sure if there's a point. I think what I was trying to get at is that the more time I spent here, the more that I felt like I was part of a supportive community. I still feel like an outsider most of the time, but that's my problem. In an area that is so vast and so full of creative individuals, I've rarely encountered people who are not supportive of the punks around them. I don't really know too many people who are driven by their ego....at least in the scenes I'm involved in. It's refreshing to see when this city is quickly transforming into a nightmare tech world.
   This tape comp was put out earlier in the year and provides an excellent cross section of great bands from the Bay Area. Some of the bands (NEON PISS, INDEX, HUNTING PARTY, HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE) have already called it quits (last show for TRUE MUTANTS this Saturday) but many are still going strong.
    Long story short: I still like the Bay Area. With all of its faults, I still don't know where else I would live in the world if given the chance. This compilation is excellent. I like most every song on here, but the HUFF STUFF song is the one that really gets me. You can still order physical copies of the tape from Thrillhouse, Fully Intercoastal or Remote Outposts Analog (although I had nothing to do with putting this out...besides writing some of the insert). Stay Punk Tapes also helped put this out, but they are sold out of their copies.

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NO STATIK - Tape - 2013

   I've said it before and I'll say it again: NO STATIK is my favorite current live band in the Bay Area. There is a palpable energy in the air every time I've seen them that is rarely matched by other bands. Every time I've seen NO STATIK, it's been better than the last time I saw them. Their singer, Ruby is usually stalking the stage before the drums are set up. When the band starts, they don't just ease into it; they explode. They're usually feeling it harder than anyone else in the room and going more nuts than their past experiences should allow (meaning the members have played shows with broken ribs, a broken foot and post-knee surgeries.) I'm not the only person who has stood at the side of the stage, cringing and waiting for the moment one of us has to call the paramedics....again.

   Besides their live sets, I am also a huge fan of everything the band has recorded so far. Not only are they quite possibly a perfect hardcore band, but I love that they consistently take pains to offer something more than a recreation of their live songs and energy throughout their recorded output. Most of their records have included ambient soundscapes, noisy remixes and fucked up experimentation, which I have listened to just as much as their "normal" songs. On this tape, two of their songs, "Unclarified" and "We All Die in the End" are remixed by IVENS and DJ EONS ONE respectively. The results are both entirely different from one another and also exciting additions to the NO STATIK collection. I've probably listened to this 10 times today already. It almost made living in this fucked up world more bearable.

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Tape is sold out. It will be out on vinyl soon.

Fuck the cops.

Fuck the courts.

REMOTE OUTPOSTS WEIRDO MIX VOL 1 - Tape - 2013

   So, I've been trying to figure out where to fit in these different recordings ever since I started this thing a few years ago. I decided to just throw out a few things at once and I may continue this trend in the future with the weird shit sitting around on my shelves. So, here's the first installment of the Remote Outposts Weirdo Mix which, honestly, isn't that weird.
   You may remember from a few posts back when I mentioned listening to the North Georgia AM Christian radio broadcasts when I lived on the Georgia state line. I was a little obsessed with it because the quality and presentation was so alien to me that I liked to believe that it came from outer space. I grew up in Alabama going to Baptist churches, so these radio broadcasts aren't too far off the map for me, but my life is so far removed from this reality now that it just sounds other-worldly. In the first 11 minutes of this download, there is some singing, preaching and talk of anointing doors. There is a man who says "Praise God" every 4th word or so. I don't mean to make fun of people because everyone  has to do what they have to do to get through the day...but also I don't believe in God and I'm not trying to steer you in that direction.
  Secondly, I lived on a houseboat on the Tennessee River for close to a year back in the early 00's. It was a really simple time in my life where I mostly just ate a lot of potatoes, wrote a bunch of letters and listened to the radio while waiting for people to visit. Occasionally, I would canoe to land and ride my bike to a friend's house, but most of the time, I read a bunch of books on the boat. Something that was a constant on the boat was the weather radio. There was something soothing about the robotic voice being broadcast (presumably) from a tin shack somewhere in Moorestown, TN. I liked the way he sounded so forlorn when he pronounced that the weather was "partly cloudy." I spent a lot of time huddled up in my sleeping bag listening to this guy and waiting for the temperatures to rise (listen to the temperatures and remember that I was on an unheated, uninsulated houseboat in the middle of a river). I remember the uproar (from myself and at least 3 other friends) when they changed the robot's voice to make it more "human". Is the second track just a robotic weather report? Yeah, you bet it is!

   The last 2 tracks in the download are from this tape (above) I found on the ground in an alley in Bloomington, IN in 2007. I carried it around with me all day while I ran errands and just wondered what the hell "EASTERS" could mean. I still don't know what it means and the music on the tape was not what I expected. Nevertheless, this tape became a staple of many backyard hangouts at my house and started to get requested by folks who came over to drink beers in the yard. Download it for yourself to find out if it'll be your new backyard jam.

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NEON PISS - "Rarities 1979 - 1987" - CD-R - 2013

   This past Sunday, our band NEON PISS played our last show at 924 Gilman Street as part of "This Is Not A Step - 20 years of More Than Music." In its earliest incarnation (well, as far as this year's fest goes), the fest was supposed to be a benefit for Sarah Kirsch before she passed away from complications with fanconi anemia (I didn't capitalize that because I don't think we should give that kind of dignity to the things that kill us). We agreed to play the fest on the same day that Sarah lost her life.
   The fest ended up being a benefit for Sarah's family, the SF Trans March and The Pacific Center for Human Growth (with the money being allocated specifically for transgender clients). Initially, I had my doubts with how the whole thing was being organized: the fest was dominated by bands populated by cisgender people. I wondered what it must be like as a transgender punk to come to a fest that supposedly has your lifestyle in mind but does not actually include bands with members who are trans. At one point, I told the organizers that our band would happily drop off of the fest if our spot would be given to any band that included trans members. Obviously, that didn't happen. I also talked to people who took issue with the fest being on the same weekend as Pride and people who thought that the workshops were weak. About a month before the fest though, I decided to stop complaining and just go for it. It takes a ton of hard work to set up an event of that size and scope. No matter what you do, you are going to have detractors. I believe that the organizers have their hearts in the right place and did a lot of good work. While I was truly a little embarrassed (no, really) to be on stage when our slot could have been given to voices who aren't straight white guys, I still believe that we all need to be allies to each other if we actually want to be any sort of real fucking change in this floating shit heap that we somehow magically inhabit. Every day, I see the absolute worst examples of human garbage walking this planet that just make me want to die, but this past weekend at the fest, I felt like everything was kind of okay for just a little while. Bands raged. There was an open mic on stage for anyone to utilize to say anything that was on their mind. The mic was mostly utilized by queer and trans people who said some really real shit that straight ears needed to hear. Being open and vulnerable in front of a crowd like that is an incredibly hard thing to do and I wish I had half the strength that some of the people on that stage did.
   I felt the need to say something when our band played, even though the thought of speaking in front of large groups makes me wanna puke. I said something along the lines of...

 "No one in out band was ever a friend of Sarah Kirsch but her life touched all of us immensely. I never even met her. We are in awe of her strength and determination. I admired her full commitment to the power and importance of DIY...to her commitment to punk and hardcore. I feel saddened that she never got the chance to live her life in the identity that she showed to us near the end of her life. I think that one tiny thing that we can learn from her is that we need to treat others with the respect they deserve because we don't really know how much time we have on this earth. I think it's really easy for people like me, straight cis men, to treat transgender people with respect....or to treat anyone who doesn't come from a place of privilege with the respect they deserve....and if I can do that, so can you" blah, blah, we are a band, this is our last show....

   If you picture a nervous guy staring at the ground and insert about 45 "uhhh"'s, you'll get the picture. Anyhow, It was a fun show and I feel very, very lucky to have shared space with such amazing people in such a long-running institution as Gilman. Speaking of lucky, I am also incredibly lucky to have been able to play music and travel with my bandmates Kyle, Barker and Bryan. I'm still amazed that we got to make music that we enjoyed making and people actually took the time to pay attention to us. I know that's probably not a big deal to many of you, but it means a lot to me. 

  We decided to put out this CD-R a day before our last show and only have it available at the show for the cost of 25 cents. There's no insert or even a cover. We thought it would be funny....maybe just to us. Here's what's on it:

 1. The one and only song by The MUNI MEN, our fake Oi band. We wrote and recorded this song in about 5 minutes at our practice space and it shows. Kyle played drums. Barker played guitar, Bryan played bass and I played that hot guitar lick.

 2.  Practice weirdness. Sometimes, people buy weird pedals.

 3. A NEWTOWN NEUROTICS cover that we played (badly) at a squat show in Hamburg, Germany just because our friend Laura came all the way from Berlin to see us and she likes that band a lot. "No man is a cow"

 4. A very early version of "Close The Door" 

 5. Us losing our minds on a 27 hour drive across the top of the country. Sounds best on headphones.

 6. "Burn" on the Grand Manor piano in Chicago.

 7. "Burn" recorded by Kyle at our practice space with different lyrics from the version on our 7".

 8. We had some extra time at the studio when we recorded our 7" so we told Stan to just roll the tape and we shit out this weird song that just sounds like the theme from Roseanne. Stan couldn't believe that we used our time to do this. To be fair, neither could we.

 9. A song that was never fully realized. No lyrics. Recorded at our practice space. 

 10. We were losing our minds (again) as we drove into NYC while listening to Harold Camping. Shit happens. 

 11. Another song that never made it out of the practice space. No lyrics. 

 12. Another stab at the Roseanne theme, but now with a bullhorn. 

 13. "Paranoid" as interpreted by freaks. Just be glad we didn't include our 10 minute version of "Born to Be Wild"

 14. A 28 minute remix of our song "Close The Door" that Kyle and I collaborated on. Best listened to on headphones...in the dark.

Download NEON PISS

  Thanks to people who humored us and bought a CD-R for 25 cents. Thanks to everyone who helped us out in our time as a band. You can download all of our releases on our Bandcamp page for free or by donation. You can buy our records from Vinyl Rites, Cut The Cord That... and Deranged. Stuff can be bought from us on Bigcartel (not much is left). 

  Other bands we are in: Barker plays in WET SPOTS and HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE (their new album is great). Bryan also plays in THE NEW FLESH, who just released an awesome LP and are getting ready to tour both US coasts. Kyle is working on stuff with COLD BEAT and is constantly twisting knobs in his room. I started a hardcore band that doesn't have a name and has only practiced four times, so who knows?