APPARITION - Demo - Tape - 2017

   There's a floppy haired maniac who lives in Athens, GA and I've known him since our bands crossed paths in 1995. Every time any of his bands puts out a new thing, he gets in touch so he can send it to me and every time, it's exactly what I need in my life at that moment. APPARITION is no different. Full throttle, no fucking around, insane, throw-everything-down-the-stairs-over-and-over-and-watch-it-break style hardcore!! Shit is dark. The perfect soundtrack for consuming the everlasting horror that is our daily lives.

Every breath that I take 

Of this planet's stupid air

Makes me nauseous.

DOWNLOAD IT FROM THEM, TURKEYS.

I don't update this site often now because I think writing about music so much has kept me from actually feeling the music. You know what I mean? 

SHITTY DARKNESS - Demo - CD-R - 2011

    These stupid little CD-R's are not built to last and I found this one rolling around in the bottom of a filing cabinet, all scratched up but still playing perfectly. SHITTY DARKNESS barely caused a blip during a brief tenure in their hometown of Athens, GA, serving as a pit stop between the bands CARRIE NATIONS and WADE BOGGS. Ian wrote these songs after (and during) the demise of CARRIE NATIONS and brought them to his new band PILLOWFORT, which maybe kinda morphed into SHITTY DARKNESS. They recorded this demo and then (I think) Ian broke the band up, only to have all (or most) of these songs reappear as WADE BOGGS songs a short time later.
   But if we get past hazy facts and just get into emotion, these songs are sooo catchy in their raw pop presentation. It reminds me of why I (and you) was up front at CARRIE NATIONS shows, screaming the words on the verge of tears. Put these songs on your stupid digital device, walk to the top of the tallest hill in your town while listening and see if you're not walking faster and feeling like a wet hundred dollar bill once "Senior Citizen" hits your ears. (If you don't have hills in your town, just walk downtown and glare at people until someone tells you to go away. If you don't have a downtown, walk into the field and scream these songs until your voice goes hoarse, even if you don't know the words). After all that, walk yourself over to Athens, GA and ask Ian what songs he's writing now. If he comes up empty handed, tell him the world needs his music now and always. (it's true, Ian.)

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If you need more music by this guy (you do), he was also one of the responsible parties for WELCOME HOME, NEMO.

AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER - Live - Tape - 2007

   I'm sure I've said it before, but I've known Jason Griffin for 17-18 years and he's played drums in nothing but top quality hardcore bands the whole time. AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER is no exception. This tape finds the band at a live show on 7/27/07 at the Woodser in Brooklyn, NY. Typically, they are blazing and nothing short of awesome. Something I've also said before is that their singer James is one of my top favorite hardcore singers of all time. Once at a show in Gainesville, he was so "in the zone" that he whipped his shoes off and threw them full force over the audience to the back of the room. When they hit the last note of the set, he screamed "Where are my fuckin' shoes?", threw the mic down and flew off the stage. It was a perfect show. This tape sounds like it was just as much fun.

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Download is just one 16 minute track. No song titles were included, but you can bet that there are some titles like "Earth Turkey", "Resurrect the Vampire", "If Your Face Was Georgia, My Fist Would Be Home By Now" and "The Kid From the Space Center"

This tape was released by Vinyl Rites

AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER - Demo - CD-R - 2006

   Ever since I met Jason (wild haired drummer guy in this band) back in 1995 (96?), he has been playing his style of no-slow-all-go hardcore relentlessly in bands like TRES KIDS and NINE SHOCKS TERROR. When one of his bands breaks up, he seems to already be working on the first demo for the next one. If we're thinking chronologically, I believe AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER was born not too long after the demise of NO and finds the band fronted by James, one of my favorite hardcore singers of all time...who you may remember from DIVORCE, GOAT SHANTY and HALFULA. Those two teamed up with Jon, formerly of CARRIE NATIONS and Steve from ...uh...I'm sure he played in some good band but I don't know what it was. Anyway, they all got together and churned out this fucking 6 song, raging demo that kicked off their 5 (?) years as a band, pulling influences from C.O.C., Japanese thrash and a bunch of other crazy shit. Go for it, freezer eagle.

Download AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER

Live photos taken in Cincinnati by Jon Douds.

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 SHANTY, DIVORCE 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.

Download it

"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.

CARRIE NATIONS - Demo - 2002(?)

   CARRIE NATIONS was born in the little town of Athens, GA; a town that is known for its vibrant music scene that has produced countless amazing (and horrendously shitty) bands over the years. It's a place where the rent is cheap and the booze flows endlessly til the wee hours. Anyone who has ever given the town of Chattanooga a bunch of shit for its alcohol consumption should try hanging out in Athens for a week or two. You'll be wishing you were back on Cole's porch drinking tea in Tennessee in no time.
   We were talking about this band though, right? CARRIE NATIONS, I believe, didn't actually have a bass player when this demo was recorded (If I'm wrong, sorry Jon) and the other guys in the band recorded the bass parts themselves. They recorded it at Tight Pockets, the now-defunct all-ages show space in Athens, which has many countless stories of its own. Five of these six songs were re-recorded for their 2003 LP, "Be Still", but this demo shows the songs in an earlier, rougher form. I've been on tour with CARRIE NATIONS all over the East Coast, Midwest and the South, but I don't think I've ever heard them play the last song, "Dumpsters As Providers Of". Maybe it was just out of their repertoire by then? I don't know. Actually, I don't know much about this demo at all, except that it is good and you should listen to it. If you want to hear them play all of these songs a million times faster, then click here. Thanks to Chad for sending this recording to me.

Download CARRIE NATIONS Demo

CARRIE NATIONS accepting the Flagpole award for Best Punk Band in Athens. The funny part is that none of these people are in the band.

THIS NEXT PART HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CARRIE NATIONS.

   By now, you may have heard that over the last weekend in my neighboring town of Oakland, there was a huge political march that intended to take over an abandoned building in hopes of establishing a "command center" for the local Occupy movement. Everyone has their issues with tactics and intent (including me), but I want it to be known that I support these actions wholeheartedly. My band was supposed to play either inside the building or outside of it on a bus, but that never happened because the cops exercised their power as brutish thugs by attacking innocent adults and children with gas and rubber bullets. If you only read mainstream media sources, they make it easy to point a finger at the protesters and see where they may be at fault. From their reports, it's easy to imagine a sea of black-clad people heaving boulders with makeshift catapults at innocent little cops just trying to do their job. What is actually happening is that the cops are completely out of control and attacking people for no reason. Here is a picture of the crowd marching on Saturday:

   There were families, young people, old people and little kids. I watched livestream footage of a cop knocking a middle-aged woman (who was doing absolutely nothing) backwards over her bike and then she was swarmed by 10 cops with batons drawn as she was arrested. Cops trapped people in a park, ordered them to disperse, then wouldn't let them disperse, and attacked them with tear gas in a residential area. City officials try to make protesters look bad by stating that they committed property damage by breaking down a fence. The reason they broke down the fence is because the cops trapped them, tear gassed them and then penned them in to make a mass arrest. People broke down the fence to escape (successfully) from the cops. (as a side note, the fence in question here was erected by the city around a city park at a very high cost to keep protesters out. Neighboring schools had previously used this park daily for physical education.)

   One last thing. The SF daily paper had this quote: "Among the most violent incidents that occurred Saturday night was in front of the YMCA at 23rd Street and Broadway. Police corralled protesters in front of the building and several dozen protesters stormed into the Y, apparently to escape from the police, city officials and protesters said. Protesters damaged a door and a few fixtures and frightened those inside the gym working out, said Robert Wilkins, president of the YMCA of the East Bay."

 For one thing, THAT is the "most violent incident"? That is not violence. That is some smart people escaping cops who are trying to pin them in and arrest them for a "crime" of walking around in the streets exercising their right to free speech. I found a quote elsewhere (I wish I could find it now, but I lost it) from a woman who said she was working out when a lot of protesters started running through the building. She said it kinda freaked her out, but she didn't actually feel in danger until she saw cops chasing them with their weapons drawn.

   The Oakland Police Department has really fucked up and history is going to look back on them in the same way that it has looked upon the cops in Alabama during the Civil Rights movements of the 1960's. I urge you to read articles written by independent sources who don't have corporate interests kicking money to them. If you would like some more stories about this, please check these out. Thanks

Aid and Abet

National Lawyer's Guild

Huffington Post

AlterNet - which includes a great picture of the cops teargassing themselves.

Also, keep in mind, that less than two short years ago, OPD said they didn't have enough money or resources to keep responding to certain crimes, including burglary, grand theft and failing to register as a sex offender. Article here.

GOAT SHANTY - "Encroachment" and "Clearly Prespin" - CD's - 1999-2002

   I have been fully on board with the bands of one Mr Jason Griffin since I first met him way back when he drummed in TRES KIDS. He has stayed true to his love of thrash, hardcore and DIY and has been unrelenting in consistently throwing down quality bands for the past 18 (or so) years. GOAT SHANTY was one of those many bands that blew my mind when I first saw them.
     Their first CD "Encroachment" is a noisy hardcore assault on the ears brought to you by Jason and Tosh. It is overflowing with metal-tinged guitar riffs and constant tempo-changing blast beats, all with a constant soundtrack of noisy static just below the surface. On their second CD, "Clearly Prespin", they added James as a vocalist, which made their live show 10,000 times better (James also joined Jason in the later bands, DIVORCE and AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER...and I think he is one of the best hardcore front-persons of the past 15 years). This CD has some of my favorite lyrics of theirs on the song "15" (all of their songs titles are numbers). Just download it. The lyrics are there....anyhow, "Clearly Prespin" is no less damaged, chaotic and noisy.

  I went and saw GOAT SHANTY play in a big room in Bloomington, IN once and absolutely no one else was there besides the other band that played and our mutual friend, Mary. The guy who set up the show did absolutely nothing to promote the show and it sucked. After the first band played, the drummer told Jason that they could set up when he was finished breaking down his drums. Jason took one look at the guy's huge set with triggers and extra hardware and laughed. GOAT SHANTY unloaded their car, set up, played their full set, loaded the car back up and LEFT THE BUILDING before that dude could take apart his drumset. The next day, GOAT SHANTY agreed to let me ride with them to Cincinnati even though they had absolutely no room in their car and I rode on Jason's lap all the way there. That basement show was packed, the kids were appreciative and the band was the best I ever saw them. Completely on fire and on top of their game. That night, we stayed at some racist dumbshit's house and I drunkenly intercepted a bottle that someone tried to break over Jason's head. It was a rough night. In the morning, I got out of my sleeping bag (which was covered in glass after someone had broken bottles on the wall next to me during the night), left the band without saying goodbye (they were still asleep) and hitchhiked in the goddamn rain for two days to get to Tennessee. The band went on their merry way north to play a hardcore fest or something. Soon after, they broke up.

Download GOAT SHANTY
Re-uploaded Oct 2014

WADE BOGGS - LP - 2011

  Photo by Patrick Houdek

   So, this is different. Instead of trotting out a long forgotten tape or singing the praises of yet another Region Rock classic, I bring you the brand new album by Athens, GA's own WADE BOGGS! It just came out this week and I am excited to be bringing it to your ears. The band decided to do an experiment and not fuck around with record labels, pressings, even artwork....so I bring you just the music.

    After the demise of CARRIE NATIONS, Ian (one singer/guitarist) forged ahead with the band PILLOWFORT, which morphed into SHITTY DARKNESS, which sort-of morphed into WADE BOGGS....or something like that..I can't keep up. What I'm trying to say is that Ian's got a bunch of music oozing out of his pores and he has been trying to find ways to give it all to the world in the forms mentioned above, as well as with HOT NEW MEXICANS and WELCOME HOME NEMO.

   (Sidenote: I hate it when people write about bands and only discuss the people in the band who have visibly made the most obvious musical accomplishments. That being said, I don't really know the other guys in WADE BOGGS and I don't know what bands they have been in. I can say that I have seen this band and they rock the fuck out in a way that lets me know that they each put their hearts into what they do, which is way more important than the resume one has built up over the years.)

    These fifteen songs are excellent and filled with pop hooks. I'm still letting it settle and I'm still forming my thoughts about it, but I can tell you that songs like "The New Catch" and "Sailor's Lament" instantly made me want to listen to this album all day. Stop reading this and just download it right now! Produced by lil' Patrick Jennings.

Download WADE BOGGS!

Thanks to WADE BOGGS for letting me put this on here.

CARRIE NATIONS - Live - 2004

    I remember playing a show with CARRIE NATIONS at a house in Athens, GA some years back and thinking "yeah, they're pretty okay". Then, by the next time I saw them, it seemed like they had turned their Badass Meter up to 10. They were playing the songs from their LP "Be Still" 100 times faster and tighter than they had recorded it and they had a handful of new songs that were even better. I had the pleasure of going on tour with these fine young gentlemen a couple of times and I watched them every single night of tour, up front, singing along and sharing the mic. The one night I tried to NOT watch them was when they played Plan-It-X Fest to 600 people in an old theater in downtown Bloomington. Everyone else running the show wanted to see them so I agreed to work the door since I would see them every other night. During a lull in activity, I walked into the theater to see how they were doing and the entire fucking theater was singing along with my favorite line of theirs..."I KNOW I CAN NEVER DIE!!". 600 people! I backed out of the theater doors with tears welling in my eyes. I can't really explain it, but it was just too much for me to take. At that moment, they were the best band in the world...completely untouchable. The next day, I watched them play to 20 people in a living room in Ann Arbor and they still played as if there were 600 people there. The day after the tour ended, I sat in my room missing them and listening to their record over and over.
   CARRIE NATIONS were super serious about the music they were creating but had this way of making you think that they were joking around the whole time. They weren't. Sure, they would tell inside jokes between songs and confuse kids at the show but afterwards they would let people in on their jokes, share their beers and make sure everyone was happy.
    A short time later, I lived in a house with most of the band and they were on the verge of breaking up for various reasons. I told them they really needed to record their new songs, but it was obvious that it just wasn't happening. I think a few things got recorded, but nothing ever got finished. It was a sad time and it was hard to watch the band break up.. All that is left over (that I know of) is this live set from late 2004. They played a show at the 40 Watt in downtown Athens, GA and rolled out a bunch of their new songs. Luckily, someone was recording it off the board and now we have this decent live recording to remember them by.

   

DOWNLOAD IT!! Updated 2013

EDIT 11/21/11: This file is now an mp3 file as opposed to an .ogg file. Thanks to Rurnt for the tip and the help!
   Enjoy this one 30 minute track with no editing, no song titles and plenty of dead air and banter. Great sound quality!

     Top picture by ??? at Matt Tobey's graduation party in Michigan. This pic by Kristen at the Hoover Dam.

NO - Demo - 2005

   Fast, manic hardcore from Athens, GA. I didn't pay a lot of attention to this band when they were around, even though I lived in the same town as them, but I've been finding myself listening to this tape and their LP (which has some of the worst cover art ever. "Not my fault" says drummer, Jason) a whole lot in the last week. It's loud, it's fast. There are eight songs on here with no song titles and it's all over in less than 10 minutes. The first song has my favorite recorded "dive bomb" within the first 10 seconds.
                       Just go ahead and download it

                     NO at Tight Pockets in 2005

DIVORCE- demo 2002

Divorce was a band that was not to be fucked with...or a band to fuck with relentlessly. Take your pick. They had 2 singers , both large and small, that flew around the room and could sometimes be found screaming their obtuse lyrics at the back of the basement to the least interested person there. They made me like hardcore again at a time when hardcore was boring the shit out of me (think about the end of the bandana thrash era), but to just pigeon-hole them as a simple hardcore band is selling them short. They were tight, inventive, funny without being stupid and manic as shit. This tape got played daily in my attic room in Chattanooga as soon as I got out of bed in the morning. Blast it and bash your head through the window..

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Link updated Feb 2017

TRES KIDS Live in Huntsville, AL 1996

Tres Kids were a punk band from Athens, GA. They were some of the first punks I ever met from that town and I am still friends with their drummer (Jason) to this day. This show was actually inside of a fucking MALL after hours. I know the flier says it was "Cousin Vinnie's", but the show actually took place outside of the pizza joint in the mall. Tres Kids showed up late and played to an enthusiastically under-appreciative crowd who tried their best to ignore the hyper-fast punk that they were playing. They also tried to ignore the band sticking drumsticks up their asses. After they played, they offered their 7"s for sale and no one wanted them. Jason said "If someone buys a 7", I'll drink my own piss." All of a sudden, people were ready to buy their records. Being a man of his word, Jason drank his own piss.

  I'll warn you: the recording quality on this is pretty terrible. It was recorded on a really old handheld tape recorder by either Ramesh or Butch. Jason is still playing in bands like DIVORCE, NO!, AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER and currently SHAVED CHRIST. I don't know what happened to Benji and Doheny.

TRES KIDS LIVE 1996

 
 You can download the first TRES KIDS 7" HERE

                                          photos by Butch

     Photographic evidence of crowd brutally ignoring a great band

 the whole flier wouldn't fit on the scanner