SHARKS KILL - Demo - Tape - 1996

   Portland, Oregon's SHARKS KILL may already be familiar to some readers of the blog because I have mentioned them in posts with ALL IS LOST and PUNKY ROCKIT...or maybe you lived in Portland in the mid-90's and saw them playing house shows during that time. If this is your first introduction to them, welcome.
   I haven't had this tape since the mid-90's, but it was mailed to me by a longtime Portland resident who shall go unnamed...because when I received it in the mail, the manilla envelope that the tape originally came in (pictured above) was still sealed, meaning that the previous owner had probably never listened to it. My friend Harry used to play this tape in our shared house in Alabama and he always liked it a lot more than I ever did. Still, it's funny to say that you don't really like a tape, but there are still certain lines from songs that stick in your head for decades, even though you truly haven't heard them since 1998. There's some kind of weird power in that. So, when I pulled this tape out of the envelope and played it in my room in 2018, I was immediately mouthing the lines "Welcome to Portland...it gets dark and dreary here..."
    SHARKS KILL walked that line between catchy indie-punk and emo. Since this is a place where I try to be brutally honest (in a way that has led to many, many awkward conversations with friends and dead friend's parents over the years), I will tell you that I am a fan of being in touch with your emotions, but I am an enemy of emo. SHARKS KILL crosses too far over the line for my tastes in a few circumstances, like "Forever 17", but I would be lying through my teeth if I didn't say that I have flown down dark hills alone on my bike late at night yelling the line "Rock and roll forever!!" "Crush Song" is the kind of song that you can only write in 1996 and even then, maybe not.. Still, it's lodged in my brain and I kinda love it. "Postcard" is such a time-and-place song and really catchy...I couldn't believe it wasn't on the band's 7" from a year later. Something about the otherworldly and tinny recording adds to the charm of this whole thing.
   On this tape, they're a two piece, but they added Tasha on bass for their later 7" record. They didn't last long after that. Members went on to be in HOPE & ANCHOR, VEGAS THUNDER, TOUGH LOVE, BOYS OF SUMMER, DARK SKIES, FUTURE WEST and more.

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FRED COLE MEMORIAL RADIO SHOW

"I'm still nervous,

I ain't been broken,

I'm still churnin' and burnin' inside

and I can't stop smokin'

I'm pissed off, pissed off, pissed off

It's just the way I am"

   I don't believe in heroes or idols, but if I did, Fred Cole would be the closest thing I would have. Of the few times I hung out with the guy, I can tell you that he is the real deal. He cut his own masters for his records at his house on a lathe machine that was used for the KINGSMEN'S "Louie Louie". Also, he built that house out of salvaged material. When the music industry failed him, he just became more independent and did his own thing until they came looking for him. I once drank pints of Jagermeister with him and then he got in a van at 2 am and drove to Ohio. He got a tattoo of his own band on his fucking face. Along with his wife Toody and his friend Andrew, he co-fronted the best band ever and played some of the most magical, cathartic shows I've ever seen in my life. As a rule that has not failed me at any point in my life....

I DO NOT TRUST PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE DEAD MOON

   It's simple, it's real and it works. The discography of Fred Cole acts as it's own story that I don't need to tell you. Seeing Fred Cole play live in any setting also told it's own story. As Fred and Toody got older, every show became more special and had so much nuance. At solo shows, Fred would slyly tap the mic stand to act as Andrew's missing snare hits and look up. He would sing a sweet line about Toody and quickly tap his boot against hers. After 50 years of marriage and at least 30 years of hearing these same lines in songs, you could still catch Toody trying to stifle a smile as it leaked out the side of her mouth. I don't know what I can say that you're not gonna read or hear anywhere else, but Fred was real and magic. I try not to be sad about it, because death is part of this deal with life and he lived a good one. He left behind a whole catalog of music that we can all enjoy for the rest of our days here. 

DEAD MOON with Daun, Shannon and me.

   I co-hosted this 2 part radio show on Maximum Rocknroll with my friend Alex, two days after Fred passed away. Part one is a scratching of the surface of his career...everything I could find besides DEAD MOON. If you keep digging deeper, you'll find so much to hang onto. Part 2 is nothing but DEAD MOON for over an hour....a lot of their "hits" and a lot of deep cuts. Please enjoy.

Fred Cole Radio Special Part One

Fred Cole Radio Special Part Two

It's like a broken smile

A step apart that gives you style

It doesn't need explaining 

You know it's fall when it starts raining

It's just the way it is.

VX GAS ATTACK - Tape - 2014

   For the last week or two, I've been combing through stacks of tapes to digitize for the blog and coming up with stuff that I'm not particularly excited about. What I've noticed though is that almost every time I've been looking, this tape has actually been the one playing on the tape deck. In fact, it hasn't been more than one foot away from my stereo since their singer August placed it in my hands on a 2 AM 24th street a few months ago.
    I previously saw August singing for WALLS a few years ago and I honestly thought he was singing about different kinds of knots. More recently, I saw him losing his shit as he co-fronted PIG HEART TRANSPLANT to a largely vacant room. VX GAS ATTACK is a different beast altogether. Throughout the ten songs on this tape, the band is unrelenting. No breakdowns. No "mosh parts". Plenty of nearly cheesy divebombs and guitar solos that cross the border of ridiculous (note: I'm 100% fully in support of this). August is completely unhinged in a way that actually sounds dangerous. You know how there's those people who say that if they didn't find music, they might've just killed people instead? That's what this sounds like to me. Plus, it sticks in my head.

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I picture this band using BC Rich guitars exclusively.

Members of  PHT, WALLS, PLEASURE CROSS, LORDS OF LIGHT and more. 

WOUNDS - "MMXIV" - Tape - 2014

   This is the 511th post on this blog, which is a large number but by no means a milestone. I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of the folks who find their way to the blog and either read all of this silly bullshit I have to say or simply download the music and get the fuck out. When I started this thing, I just wanted to share a lot of my friend's bands...bands who put out only a few copies of their tapes and just shared them locally. I really didn't think anyone would pay attention, but they did. I don't know why, but they did.
   The internet is a strange place full of sad men who like to fill their time asserting their dominance with useless knowledge of shit no one cares about. I'm not saying that I'm any different (besides the dominance part...I don't care about that), but I like that this small section of the internet has been largely devoid of brashness and outright hostility. I appreciate the fact that most of the people who comment on these posts and contact me in other ways have been largely positive experiences. So thank you. Thanks for taking your precious time to look at this or engage in any way. Thanks to bands (and not-bands) for sending me tapes, whether I like them or not. Thanks to 99% of the bands who have been okay with sharing their music for free throughout the world, including such faraway places as India, Russia, The Ukraine and....Canada.
    Also, I feel like I've been slacking on the politics lately. It's been more like "the personal is political", so just in case there's any confusion, here we go with some of my personal guidelines: This is not a review site. If I like a tape, I share it. I don't talk about tapes I don't care for. DIY all the way. I don't even write about bands who use Kickstarter. Fuck Vice. Fuck Pitchfork. Fuck the cops...including the one in your head and people who just film illicit acts on the street and turn it over to law enforcement. DEAD MOON is the best band.  I share a lot of bands comprised of men but I make an  effort to make room for more marginalized voices as well, including women, people of color, trans people, genderqueer people, total fucking outcasts of society, freaks and disabled punks. I do my best to not promote anyone who has sexual assaulters in their band. I've definitely slipped up on that one, but a goddamn sad fact is that it's hard to keep track and I'm sorry for that. Is that it? That might be it.
  Anyway, thanks for being here and thanks if you read this far. Thanks if you didn't too.

  "What's more society and normal than being a misogynist prick? That's totally mainstream culture, so why would you be a punk if you were interested in doing that?" - Erin Yanke.

   Onto the music....Speaking of people who get in touch, Elaan is a supporter of the blog and got in touch to tell me about WOUNDS. Lots of people tell me about bands, but truthfully, it's usually the band they play in. I don't fault people for that. It's cool to be stoked on your own band. Why bother otherwise? Elaan said they'd send me their own personal copy of the tape if I wanted to digitize it for the blog. I was hesitant because what if this person sends me their tape from across the country and I absolutely hate it and I'm like "Oh thanks.."....and then I'm just sitting here with this tape that I don't care about...taking up space with the 999 other tapes in my tiny room? Luckily for all parties involved, it was not a waste of time. WOUNDS was a (I think) short lived band from Portland, OR that featured members of heavy hitters like DEFECT DEFECT (r.i.p. DEEF) and RED DONS. It's dark and urgent and has hooks that sneak out of the mire to stay in your head all day. Their singer does this thing with his voice that reminds me of Nick Blinko on Cacophony...It threw me off at first but I think it's okay now. I'm also totally jealous of how fast their drummer plays sixteenth notes, but I can live with it.

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Thanks to Elaan. I'll mail your tape back to you. You should have it. 

Thanks to MRR for letting me use their stereo to rip this tape. Something was off with mine. 

Thanks to the punks worldwide for looking here.
You can buy your own WOUNDS tape here. 

PIERCED ARROWS - Live On KBOO - 2007

   When DEAD MOON broke up in 2006, I was so heartbroken. I honestly felt like I had been dumped by a partner or kicked in the stomach or both. I thought that I had a lifetime of DEAD MOON shows to look forward to. Like, as long as Fred, Toody and Andrew were alive, I could rest assured that they would be there for me when I felt like I was at my lowest. If I was heartbroken, I could put on "Nervous Sooner Changes" and feel like someone felt the same as I did. If I woke up "in the bottom of something being loaded in a dumptruck", I could pull out the "Trash and Burn" LP and feel good enough to start the day...and not only start the day, but hold my head up high and take whatever damage flung itself into my life. The records are still there of course, but it was a whole different feeling to see DEAD MOON live with Fred and Toody's toes touching the edge of the stage while they sang each song with the fiercest conviction I've ever seen.
    So, yeah...I was sad. I should've known that they couldn't stay dormant for long. Within a year, I heard that Fred and Toody were already back with a new band. I can make my guesses as to why they weren't playing with Andrew anymore, but that's the kind of talk left for late night drunken conversations or long van rides in the middle of nowhere. PIERCED ARROWS were already playing some shows in the northwest, but I lived in Indiana, so I had no clue when I'd actually see or hear them until this CD-R made it's way into my hands.
    The band played on KBOO in Portland and it was only their 8th show. Most of the songs on here ended up on their first LP, "Straight To The Heart". They also threw in a DEAD MOON song for good measure and it's not the one or two that you might think it is. The recording is a good live recording, but the performance is a little....uh...rough.
   It might go without saying that I've never felt the same for PIERCED ARROWS as I did for DEAD MOON. I don't know anyone who did. I'm not a fan of reunions or even nostalgia really (I know that this entire blog might make you think otherwise, but it's the truth), but when DEAD MOON announced that they were gonna play a reunion show last year, I didn't hesitate to buy a plane ticket to Portland. I even went this year when they did it again. Now, it just seems like they're a band again...and I'm fine with that. I wouldn't even mind if they put out a new LP. With Fred having heart surgery, Andrew quitting drinking (??) and Toody trying to hold it all together, I can imagine what kind of new desperate sounds they might create.

   But this is about PIERCED ARROWS...and about their show on KBOO when they were just starting out...and how incredibly happy I was to know that they hadn't given up just yet.

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BOG PEOPLE - "81 in 09 Radiation Years Demo & 5-12-09 Rehearsal" - Tape - 2009

   Melissa and I met years ago in Chattanooga, TN, during what some people refer to as a "fest", but I like to call a family reunion. Melissa had never lived in Chattanooga (or even visited) so she felt a little like an outsider, but we became fast friends, bonding over the things people bond over, like creep seats and daring someone to drink a bottle of kombucha as fast as they can.
  Even though I grew up in the south, I hate hot weather. I hate humidity and I can't stand getting sunburned, which is an easy task for me and my pasty white skin. Melissa has darker skin and had no aversions to being out in the sweltering heat. She caught Mike (our mutual friend) and I complaining about the heat and the threat of sunburn one day and muttered "bog people."
 I asked, "Did you just call us 'bog people'?"
 She said "Yeah. Bog people. You're both bog people. White, pasty humans who hide in the bogs, away from the sun. Afraid of withering away."
   After returning home to the foggy, cool, bog-like peninsula of San Francisco, I was introduced to the band BOG PEOPLE. Before even hearing them, I immediately told Melissa and Mike about them. We were stoked! Then, I still waited on hearing them...and waited...and waited. Truth be told, I put this tape on for the first time last night after getting home from a tepid party and I regret ignoring them when the band was actually around and playing shows. Just to prove that I'm not some kind of know-it-all just because I upload music onto the internet, I had to google "UK82" because I don't really know/care what it is. My hunches were correct. I figured out that it's just punk....from 1982....from the UK (please don't further explain how I'm somehow wrong in the comments...I still don't care).
   BOG PEOPLE are simple and punk and good. They did that crucial thing that many bands forget to do, which is to make your song fucking catchy and get a good drummer. They wear those shoestrings around their foreheads. Their bass player once closed up the coffee shop where she worked and walked around the corner to sing on my band's LP. I'm sure they know way more about UK82 and that one band's demo tape than I do. This tape compiles their original demo tape along with a rawer practice space recording and a "studio" track that was meant to come out on a record. I don't think that record ever happened. Too bad for you.

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"Your eyes are white and your skin is pale"

DEFECT DEFECT - Demo - Tape - 2006

   You know how some bands form and then it seems like everything they do is immediately all over the internet? Like, there are times when you couldn't look at some internet sites without seeing a pic of that dude from TENEMENT ringing those bells or all of GAG in their dirty white pants. Don't get me wrong. It's not their fault and those bands are pretty fantastic, but over-saturation is real. There are other bands who act as a slow burn; building up on solid releases and quietly doing everything that they do in just the right way. Bands who immediately come to mind are STILLSUIT, THE TERRIBLES and DEFECT DEFECT.
   They mailed me this tape when they wanted me to set up a show for them in southern Indiana on their first US tour. This was after they has already toured the northwest and played Alaska. Even though I thought parts of the tape were a little weak ("In My World"), I was sure that the band would be stellar live and they didn't prove me wrong. Besides that, they're sweethearts. Years have passed. Times have changed. We've slept in each other's houses many times. DEFECT DEFECT is still a band, still DIY as fuck and still putting out great, solid songs whenever they manage to record them.  Even though they're not 100% active all the time, they've managed to tour Japan, Europe, South America and Mexico...maybe more. I can't keep up with them.
  Check out this tape to see where it all started and if your band makes it up to Portland, always ask to play with them (or SOCIAL GRACES).

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A few years ago, I couldn't make a mix tape without putting "We've Already Lost" on it.
Also, this tape has grown on me over the years and I like it a lot more now.

COPY SCAMS - Demo - Tape - 2010

   I'll be honest...when I first got this cassette a couple of years ago, I didn't exactly rush to my stereo to throw this in the tape deck tout de suite. Not unlike the piles of photocopied zines on my wooden shelves, this tape sat undisturbed and gathered an unhealthy amount of dust. I remember putting it on once while I was finishing some projects in my room and it didn't make much of an impression, but something happened between then and now. Is it my favorite shit in the world? No, but I appreciate it's jokey qualities and I like to hear good pop-punk, because there's a real lack of quality pop-punk in the Bay Area, believe it or not.
   So, who are these jokers? I don't fuckin know 'em, so here's some shit I found about them on the internet....
  "The Copy Scams are the band equivalent to a 24 hour zine! Steve was visiting Portland from the UK and thought it might be fun to start a band while he was in the US. While he was in Portland he lived in a closet in the basement of the Spiral house and tricked housemates Alex, paul and Marc to form a band in three weeks before the 2010 Portland Zine Symposium. In those three weeks they wrote, practiced, and recorded 4 songs then played a show to end the Portland Zine Symposium weekend. What we recorded was 4 songs about stealing photocopies, excuses as the why the band/zine is late and a song about the 24 hour zine challenge. Up the analog zine punks!"

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ONE SHOE IN THE ROAD - "Struck Cyclists And Their Stories" - CD - 2005

   I ride a bike almost daily in the city of San Francisco and most of the time, it feels like I have to be on my guard as soon as I mount the bike. People zip around the streets here with (seemingly) little to no regard of anyone around them, even though they could kill someone with two tons of steel (or plastic) with one simple thrust of the gas pedal. On the other side of that coin, there are tons of bicyclists who cut off people in crosswalks, yell "I have the right of way" indignantly at cars when they don't and ride full speed down sidewalks crowded with people. Is there a way that we can just all live together and use the same streets without trying to kill each other? That is just a glimpse into what this recording is trying to shed some light on.
   In "One Shoe in the Road", the interviewers and editors (Don Godwin and Erin Yanke) talk with people who have been hit by cars while biking; people who are lucky enough to have made it through. The stories are graphic, difficult and traumatic (there is your trigger warning). They bring up questions and provide some answers about how we can all learn to share space in our growing cities and the things that we can do to minimize injuries (or death) to people who are just trying to get where they are going without supporting the capitalist oil industry. (p.s. I'm not actually trying to politicize every person who rides a bike. I just wanted to slip that in there.)

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And since we are punks, this includes interviews and work by people from IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT, CHASED AND SMASHED, SWORD OF THE ANCIENT, BEASTHEAD, ANCESTRAL DIET, LIGHT BRIGADE and more!

REMAIN INDOORS - Demo - Tape - 2012

   Sometime around the dawn of humankind in negative 84 BC, Joey Ramone decided to invent punk after knocking himself unconscious from running full speed into a brontosaurus. His friends dragged him into a cave and had a pizza party while he recovered. When he awoke, he decided that all he wanted to do was play fast, three chord songs and sing about cretins. Soon, a lot of other weirdos started showing up wearing leather jackets, sniffing glue and being generally obnoxious. Some of them even shaved their hair into weird creations and tied shoestrings around their heads. Joey decided that all of these outcasts needed a place to live, so he opened the first punk house and called it The Ranch. Somehow, the place survived earthquakes, floods, scabies, staph infections, the black plague, mold, folk punk shows and tornadoes. It still stands today as a proud testament to the lasting longevity of punk and they still have shows in their basement.
    Okay, obviously that's all a lie, but The Ranch is a real punk house in Portland, Oregon and it has been around for quite a long time now. They entered a hibernation period for a while, but they are doing great punk shows in their basement these days and it's easily my favorite place to play when I go to that fine city. The house is populated by punks (duh) and has a practice space/show space in the basement. Of course, people in the house use the space to practice with their band(s), but one day the entire house decided to all start a band together and they called that band REMAIN INDOORS (Some readers may remember that I mentioned in the GROUCH article that I needed a REMAIN INDOORS tape. Their drummer, Henderson was nice enough to send it to me. Thanks!) Their members have done time in bands like DRUNKEN BOAT, THE STOPS, THE CLOSET FAIRIES, SHOREBIRDS, UPSHIT CREEK and many, many more. So, you're already aware that these fools have a good idea of what they're doing. They play straightforward punk that has subtle tinges of that gloomy, almost-goth darkness that seems to permeate the northwestern punk scene. BUT, don't pull out your black nail polish and 48 eyelet stiletto boots just yet (actually, go ahead)...they keep it firmly in the punk camp but keep it gloomy enough to where you can put this on when you either feel like shit or wanna ride your bike in the sun all day. Unfortunately, this band only lasted for 7 short months before calling it quits. Is it awkward to live in a house with all of your bandmates after your band has broken up? I don't know. You can ponder that while you listen to this tape.

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Re-uploaded Feb 2013

If you'd like to order your own copy of this tape from the band (which I strongly urge), please write to themovieisalmostover@gmail.com

ALIEN BOY - "A Zine About the Life of James Chasse" - By Erin Yanke and Icky A. - 2006

   Two of my friends, Erin and Icky, put this zine out years ago but it somehow eluded me until very recently. Erin gave me her last copy and I promised her that I would archive it digitally, somehow. So, here it is.
   James Chasse was a staple of the early Portland, OR punk scene back in the late 70's / early 80's. By all accounts, he was at every show, he made zines, played in a band called THE COMBOS and always had a kind word for all of his friends. He suffered from schizophrenia for most of his life and his parents even shipped him off to a mental institution when he was still a teenager. James (or Jim-Jim as many of his friends knew him back then) was a big inspiration to Greg Sage and provided lyrical ideas for some of the songs on the LP "Is This Real?" In 2004, James (who had no criminal record and was not suspected of any crime) was beaten to death by Portland police officers in front of a dozen witnesses. They tasered him repeatedly and broke 17 of his ribs. The death was ruled to be "accidental" and the officers involved were cleared of criminal wrong-doing and placed back on active duty.
   If any good can come out of this, the court case ruled that officers are now required to undergo a 40 hour training that prepares them to work with mentally ill people in crisis. I work with mentally ill people every day at my job and I wish this training was mandatory for all officers. I've seen people get thrown on the street and hog-tied just because they yelled at a cop. I barged between a client and 5 cops once because the cops were about to attack him for simply muttering "fuck you guys." (miraculously, that worked...I think only because we were in a house where I worked and not on the street). Police shot and killed a mentally ill man at a BART station simply because he was waving a knife around...and people were on the platform waiting for trains. This kind of training definitely needs to happen more often because cops are acutely aware that they can kill people and get away with it, especially if the person is "crazed", "homeless" or "aggressive". (also, "gang member" or "illegal immigrant" works as well).
    This download contains a PDF document of the entire zine (Thanks for the help, Kyle) along with an audio interview by Erin Yanke and a radio show about James' life that appeared on Circle A Radio. The zine contains stories and quotes by Greg Sage (of The WIPERS), KT Kincaid (of the NEO-BOYS), Jason Renault (of the Mental Health Association of Portland) and many others. There's also snippets of James' old zines as well as amazing pictures from the early days of Portland's punk scene. Thanks to Erin Yanke for giving me permission to put this all online.

Download Alien Boy Zine

For a lot more info on this whole court case and the aftermath, please check out Jameschasse.blogspot.com

EDIT: 2/18/13: There is now a movie about the life and death of James Chasse which just premiered last weekend in Portland. You can find more info about it at AlienBoy.org

LIFE DURING WARTIME #9 - CD-R - 2010

   I'm a big fan of used record stores, street sales, yard sales and just plain looking through the trash for treasures. Some of the records I've found while digging though collections in the past have blown my mind, like the time I found the FRED LANE LP for $8. Or the time I came across the first MELVINS LP on Alchemy Records in a used bin for $2. I can't even begin to describe how happy I was when I stumbled upon a yard sale where every record was $1 and I walked away with first pressings by THE DEAD BOYS, THE 101er's, GANG OF FOUR and 27 others. It was mindblowing. I actually checked in with the guy selling the stuff to make sure he wasn't about to commit suicide. (He said he was moving and couldn't afford to ship it.)
    A guy named Warren Hill also likes to dig through record collections, but he found a real one of a kind. While searching through records at a yard sale, he found a lost acetate of the VELVET UNDERGROUND and bought it for 75 cents. It contained alternate versions of VU songs that possibly had never been heard by the public. What follows on this download is the story of finding that record and figuring out what to do with it. The interview is conducted by Erin Yanke in her long-running audiozine, Life During Wartime and the story is interspersed with audio from the acetate. I'm not gonna tell you anymore because it would just ruin the whole thing for you.

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If you would like to hear more episodes of Life During Wartime, be sure to click on the "Audio Zine" tag below.

LIFE DURING WARTIME #6 - "The Troubles" - Tape - 2003

    I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you read this blog because you are into punk music. I'm also going to assume that you have been to see punk bands in a house during your lifetime. Maybe you went to a dance party afterwards, full of boozy punks swaying along to shit they would never listen to while hanging out in their own rooms sober...like MILLI VANILLI. Now, what if you were hanging out on the porch at that party and suddenly you were surrounded by cops who were part of a terrorism task force that had been assembled to bust this suspicious Anarchist meeting that you all had organized? "But I'm just at a dance party!", you might exclaim. Exactly, but in this police state that we have come to live in, the cops can now find a myriad of reasons to get you convicted of a felony for simply drinking cheap beer and listening to crappy dance music (or even crappy [or good] punk music). Some readers may be acclimated to this kind of police harassment living in the post-9/11 world that we inhabit, but this story takes place 6 months before the World Trade Center attacks...and just because police repression is infinitely more prevalent than it was 11 years ago, that still doesn't make it acceptable.

   In this installment of LIFE DURING WARTIME audio zine (for the uninitiated, think of it as a book on tape), Erin Yanke and Moe Bowstern interview punks that were held on trumped up felony charges after simply being radicals at a party in Portland in 2001. They tell the stories of the paranoia and harassment on the part of the cops and how they (the cops) organized a joint terrorism task force that portrayed fun-loving, harmless punks as bomb-throwing, bloodthirsty anarchists. These incidents helped to organize and politicize the Portland punk scene while also increasing paranoia and distrust within the activist community. It is a great listen and the download also includes the written introduction included in the liner notes penned by Iggy Scam.

   I think this audio document is still important and relevant in light of the ongoing Occupy movements around the world. I also think it is important to remind ourselves of the perceived authority and power that police think they have over us and the ways that they fuck up our lives for no real reason. This could happen to any of us and it's helpful to try and be informed about our rights.

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THE CURSE - 1st Demo - Tape - 1998

   Remember a while back when I posted that CURSE tape? Well, here is their first tape from a year earlier when they were a four-piece band. Many of these songs appeared as different versions on their later tapes, but there are still some crucial unreleased things on here. Pretty much everything I know about this band was already said in that other post (which you can click on and read for yourself), but I think this tape is fuckin' great. See for yourself.

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CHAOS L.R. - "Vacation Urination" - Tape - 1998

   CHAOS L.R. started, fittingly, in Little Rock, AR in the mid-90's. Their singer was a very tall, mean-looking, drunken beast named Mitchell. At least, that was my first impression of him, but after getting to know him, I found out he was a very tender, well-read, Merle Haggard-loving gentleman who is diligent about calling his mom whenever he gets a chance. For the sake of this though, let's imagine that he is a wild-ass who can't get through a song without shitting his pants...he sure sounds like it.
   I believe this is the band's second demo; the first one being put out a couple of years earlier and you can hear a few of those songs on "Technical Difficulties From Day One." By the time of this demo, their guitarist, Matt Limo had moved across the country to Portland and their drummer, Iggy Scam was living in San Francisco, so they decided to hang out on the West Coast, record these songs and do a tour. Mitchell, I believe, was already on the west coast, but they didn't have a bass player at the time. They enlisted their friend, Alan Disaster to play bass. Unfortunately, he was in Little Rock. Undeterred, Alan picked up his bass off of his (presumably) piss-soaked mattress, walked out the door and hitch-hiked all the way to SF to meet up with the band for tour.

Photo by Anandi

   This tape was recorded by Jeff Jank (aka Capt Funkaho) at the M&A Laundromat at 54th and MLK in Oakland, when a few punks were actually living inside the laundromat. It starts off with "Orange Jumpsuit", one of my personal favorites, which didn't make it onto their later 7" EP. It's followed by the now-classic "Self-Respect is Priceless (But Schlitz is Cheap)", a punk ode to lost love and getting wasted. "We're Not Here To Buy, We're Here To Die" has one of my favorite song concepts ever: It's about some people going to test drive a car, so that they can commit suicide in it..."Checkin' out the classifieds, Lookin' for our final ride..Need a car that you can die in, lookin' for a car for a coffin! We're not here to buy, we're here to diiieeee!" All 8 songs on this tape are great. Mitchell's voice is total gravel-gargling, but in that good, punk way that makes you want to smash your face through a window while screaming along to the songs. Matt's guitar is rough and fucked. Iggy and Alan are holding it down the rhythm section. It's fuckin' good. Just download it.

DOWLOAD - Updated Sept 2018

   Iggy and Mitchell went on to form YE OLDE BUTTFUCK out of the ashes of this band, who are nothing short of amazing. If you ever see their records anywhere (two different EP's), don't hesitate to pick them up. Matt, I believe, became a pilot? Someone back me up on this one. Alan, much to everyone's surprise, became an actor and has appeared in some semi-major motion pictures, as well as continuing to play in bands in Little Rock...I can't remember which movie he was in, but I'm sure someone out there in the internet world can let us know. Erick Lyle gave me this info years ago. I would just look it up on IMDB, but I really don't think his acting name is "Alan Disaster".

This tape is from the mixed up files of Anandi Wonder. Thanks to her and Erick for info.There is more info about them in back issues of SCAM zine.

CHASED & SMASHED - Demo - Tape - 2002

   My friend and former CHASED AND SMASHED drummer, Erin Yanke is in San Francisco this weekend. When she braved my germ-filled house for a visit today, I pulled out this tape and asked if she remembered anything about it. She looked it, put it in the stereo, pushed play and mostly drew a blank. Then, she shouted, "This is pre-epiphany CHASED AND SMASHED! Our LP was post-epiphany." You're probably just as confused as I was by that information, so we went on a walk to the park up the street and she explained it further. Erin said that before CHASED & SMASHED, she had only played in bands with people who were playing music for the first time (like THE CURSE) and she used the crash cymbal hit to signify where the chord change would be (yes, I realize that this won't be of interest to many of you non-drummers). So, she would hit the cymbal on the 4 rather than the 1 and that's just how she had played for years. After recording this demo, she was listening to THE CLASH one day and had "the epiphany" that most drummers hit the crash on the 1 count. Thus, she realized that she had to relearn how to play all of the CHASED AND SMASHED songs before they recorded their LP 6 weeks later. I think she pulled it off. That LP rules...and that's all she really remembers about this tape.

Playing a graduation party? Photo by ??

   I only got to see CHASED AND SMASHED once at a packed basement show at the Fuckpit in Portland in 2002. Their tight, quick blasts of punk made the whole basement dance with wild abandon, but that's all I really remember...hazy times here.

  Erick Lyle, who loaned this tape out to the Outpost, had this to say: "From the ruins of GOD HATES COMPUTERS came this. Josh Baker is one of the all-time masters of the "Disappointed" / "Smashed Hopes" songs and "Expired Tags" here is one of his best. So, so good! I think Jess Hilliard of THE NE'ER DO WELLS (ed. note: and JUDY AND THE LOADIES!!) and later "outsider art" fame played bass on this."

Download CHASED AND SMASHED

   These days, Josh Baker lives in Maine (but I heard he is heading back to Portland) and I'm not really sure what he is up to, but I'm sure you can find out more right here. In addition to DJ-ing her weekly radio show Life During Wartime and being a general bad-ass, Erin also plays drums in two bands in Portland. After 5-6 years of existence, SOCIAL GRACES might actually put out a demo tape this year. Her other band, LIGHT BRIGADE has managed to put out two demo tapes and a 7" in the span of a year. Jess is currently making art somewhere in the US. CHASED AND SMASHED's other guitarist/singer, Doug is hard at work on the Portland music venue and bar, Slabtown, which he just bought. You can read more about that here. Congratulations, Doug!

IN THAR - CD-R - 2004

    I know what some of you are thinking.."I thought this was a tape blog. Why do you keep posting all of these CD's?" Well, my friend, this isn't a tape blog. I'd like to think it's not even a music blog...but it is. The reason that I keep putting up CD-R releases is because they are fragile. I have CD-R's that are a year or two old and won't play. I have tapes from 1985 that play perfectly. I don't want to discuss the fact that I have a whole other POTENTIAL JOHNS CD of demos from the 90's that won't play because it has one little scratch on it. It's heartbreaking. So, I am trying to save some of these fragile little worthless discs before one tiny little smudge from my clumsy punk living destroys a filing cabinet drawer full of memories....and that brings us to IN THAR.
    My friend, Chris handed this CD to me with a small little pile of tapes years ago and this band completely took me off guard. I was in the middle of a tour that featured many celebrated folk-punk acts and the first acoustic notes of this CD immediately made me clamor for the "stop" button. I had been hearing enough of this stupid bullshit for weeks and how DARE my friend, Chris fuck with me like this. Then, the drums kicked in...not bongos or a bucket or "like, whatever's around, man", but a real live drum set. It sounded fuckin' good! As soon as Osa's staccato violin riff laid itself over the rest of the instruments, I was hooked...and this was all within 20 seconds of the first song. It reminds me of what people can do with acoustic music, as punks and actually make it sound good. Just because you picked up an acoustic guitar, it does not mean that you have to A) sing about bikes and dumpsters, B) act like you are some weird stereotype from the south (I will kill you) or C) suck. You can still write good punk songs and still be tough as nails (if your intention is to not be tough as nails, that is fine too. Have you heard SPOONBOY or CASSETTE? In all honesty, they are also tough in a completely different vein.)
   Members of this band were also in DRUNKEN BOAT, NEW BLOODS and the solo act known as COOL BREEZE. Get into it.

Download

PUNKY ROCKIT - 2 7"s - 1994

   I think it was my friend, Angie who first stumbled across this 7" at American Beat Records in Birmingham, AL back in 1994. I probably listened to it in her room or she put it on a tape for me. The details are all fuzzy. What I do know is that we both became kinda obsessed with this Portland band and their record was on constant rotation either in her room or blasting out of the factory speakers of my Ford Festiva. She also ordered their 2nd 7" straight from the band and it showed up broken in half (it's okay, they sent another one). It was just as good as the first one and we learned that the band had already broken up. Our hopes of ever seeing them were dashed on the rocks.
    PUNKY ROCKIT (yes, I even thought the name was pretty bad when I was 17) were a punk band from Portland who were flagrant supporters of animal rights, feminism and DIY. Some of them lived in the Powerhouse, a punk house in the northeast part of town that did house shows. I'm pretty sure that the band barely ever played outside of the northwest US since they were only a band for the year of 1994. Their sound is kind-of hopelessly mired in the mid-90's to me. It just sounds like 1994. Songs like "Smoke", "Running Out" and "In the Chair" are super catchy and jump-around-the-room basement punk. That is really all the information I have about this band, since I didn't really know them.
    My old band, RICE HARVESTER used to cover "Running Out" at every show and no one besides a handful of our friends knew or cared what it was. We played it at a show with a member of PUNKY ROCKIT's new band (SHARKS KILL) and all of the Portland people on that tour were completely dumbfounded that some pop-punk band in Alabama had ever even heard that song. RICE HARVESTER reunited a few years ago to play one show and we threw that song in to the set unannounced. It seemed useless to even tell anyone what it was since no one ever knew it in the first place. After we played, our friend (Goddamnit) Pat said "Whoa, I can't believe you guys covered a PUNKY ROCKIT song." Finally, after all these years, one person that wasn't already close to the band knew that song.

   One last thing about the band. They were adamant about talking about their politics in their record inserts in a way that I found engaging and enlightening as a teenager. It seems like if you openly discuss your politics as a band (or even just a regular old human) these days, a lot of people are quick to jump back at you and tell you why you're fucked up for doing so. (This happened in the 90's too. It's just more prevalent now due to faceless messageboards and the security of not having to actually look someone in the eyes while saying completely horrendous bullshit.) I think it's important to tell people why you're a feminist, why you're an anarchist (even with all the negative connotations that the media dishes out about them) and to discuss the problems of homelessness. Folks are quick to put others down as being "P.C.", but really, what the fuck is wrong with actually giving a shit about other humans and animals? I don't understand why anyone finds it threatening to their way of life, but lots of people do. Don't be afraid to discuss your politics. Do it even if you don't think anyone is listening. There's a chance that there is a teenage boy in Alabama who is looking for something more out there, who is completely uncomfortable with the status quo of male privilege, who doesn't know if there are other people in the world who feel the same way that he does and there's a chance that he will find your record and realize that he's not alone.

PUNKY ROCKIT download
Link updated Sept 2018

My friend, Angie, who you may remember from the beginning of this post, started experimenting with lino-cuts around the same time as getting these records and this is one of the first ones that she did.

STAMPEDE! - Demo - Tape - 2003

   Dean (formerly in the mighty LOS RABBIS) and Morgan (from SHARP KNIFE) had previously played together in a band called FUCK YEA! AVOCADO. After the demise of that band, Morgan moved up to Portland from the Bay Area but kept in touch with SF homies. Their friend, Jon Paul was having a rough time in his hometown of Tulsa, so Morgan and Dean concocted a plan to get him out to the West Coast and start a band for a month in Portland. It was successful (??) and Dean and JP moved into Morgan';s house in PDX for a few weeks with the intention of writing a bunch of songs, maybe recording them and playing a few shows. Dean played guitar, Morgan played bass, Jon Paul played drums (which should be redundant...if you know of this maniac, of course he played drums because he is one of the best drummers in current punk history) and everyone sang. They threw together enough songs to hop on a house show with KUNG FU USA. They only played three other shows (after one of them, they lost control of their van and their brakes while careening down MLK and came to a stop only after running into a giant bush down the street from their house) and then Jon Paul recorded this demo in the basement of the house (called the Danger Zone). On the last song, they squeezed 20 maniacs into the basement to sing back-ups.
   After this, Dean left for Oberlin, OH to go to school and played in RTA. Later, he moved back to the Bay Area and played in the band DAVID COPPERFUCK. These days, he lives in NYC and runs the label True Panther Sounds, which put out the phenomenal BROKEN STRINGS LP and alot of other stuff that people may like if they're into...well, I will stop myself here...just click above....you're a human being and you can make your own decisions. Morgan and Jon Paul stuck around Portland for a little while and worked on songs that would soon become the first batch of stuff for their band TULSA. Then, they went back to Tulsa later and made that happen. These days, Morgan is living in the hills of North Carolina and playing drums in the ever-awesome DARK RIDES. He also plays in a band (with me!) called BLACK RAINBOW. Jon Paul is still a maniac on the drums (and otherwise), lives in either Brooklyn or Tulsa and plays in the experience known as HONKY HORN & BAD MOUTH.
   STAMPEDE tried to play one last time at a generator show out at Ocean Beach in SF for Morgan's 21st birthday, but the cops came before a note could even be played.

Download STAMPEDE
Updated 2013

    One last thing that has nothing to do with the music, really. They recorded this on a 4 track in the basement next to where Jon Paul slept every night. There was also a black widow's nest under the stairs. One night, a spider bit JP on his asshole and it swelled up to golf ball size. He had to go steal pants that were 3 sizes too big for him to wear while riding the bus home from Portland.

   Thanks to Morgan for all the info and for being a tight friend all these years.

This tape is from the collection of Erick Lyle.

HARUM SCARUM - Demo - Tape - 1999

   HARUM SCARUM were an anarcho-punk/hardcore band from Portland, OR who were tough as shit and super fuckin' punk. They recorded this demo in their basement in 1999 and many of these songs appeared a year later on their LP "Mental Health". These versions are rougher around the edges and a little less confident, but still brilliant and fierce. Not only was this band all female (keeping with this week's theme), but they were also openly queer, supporters of Aileen Wuornos, hardcore feminists and anti-capitalists. After putting out this tape, they went on to put out 3 LP's,  a couple of 7"s and a live tape (coming here one day soon) before breaking up and making this world a little harder to live in.

Download HAM-SCAM
Re-uploaded Jan 2016