In Indiana, I worked in a screenprinting shop with my friend Benny. In addition to spending 40 hours a week making each other crack up over ridiculous shit, we also rounded out the rhythm section of our band, PEDRO SAYS HI with our friends, Zak and Leah. Sometimes, I would get a ride home from work in Benny's car and we would blast THE BODY out of his shitty factory speakers while sitting with the windows down in traffic. During one of these drives, he told me that he had started a new band that was more inspired by THE BODY, skating, Dinosaurs Attack cards and just being fucking loud and noisy. It was called GOURMET SCUM, named after his favorite fictitious band.
I went to see them in a basement soon after that. They started off their set by taking big hits off of a joint and then passing it into the audience.I noticed that they had also placed a huge bottle of whiskey on the floor in front of them, free for anyone to take drinks from. For the next 20-30 minutes, they destroyed the eardrums of the audience with downtuned sludge and space-guitar weirdness. While most of the band held the songs down, their second guitarist, Ryan, would just be in his own world, creating noise and going off on a tangent. It didn't always work, but it was more interesting than any other band that played that night. By the end of the show, I was sold. I didn't only like this band, I wanted to be IN the band. I brought it up to Benny and by the next week, I was their 3rd guitarist.
For the next few months, we hauled our fucked up, old amps to basements and skateparks to play to unenthusiastic punks. I didn't even care if people liked us because the band was so much fun to hang out with. Just as quickly as I joined them, I also quickly left them to move out west because the Midwest was killing me slowly. They moved on and even went on tour a couple of times. A few months after moving, I was walking out of a PIERCED ARROWS show in SF and Ryan was standing there with a hug and this small handful of tapes. I woke up a few days ago and this is all I wanted to listen to, so I thought maybe someone else would like to hear it as well.
I'm pretty sure the line-up on this tape is as follows: Benny on vocals and guitar. Brent on bass. Ryan on guitar. JRD on drums. The covers were screened onto taped up beer boxes. It was probably recorded by JRD in his basement. The band also put out a split tape with LANDLORD on Magnetic South, which is way out of print.
The three guitar line-up played (horribly) on radio station WFHB's local live radio show,where we were required to play one original and a cover. The cover we chose was "Hashslinger" by 90's Bloomington sound-geniuses JACKWACKER. You can hear those songs here, along with the live songs by QUADRILLION BABES.
