J CHURCH - "Four Track Demos" - Tape - 2011

    Years ago, I posted a link on the blog to this tape on another site, but now it's not available, so I'm reposting it here. This is a collection of Lance Hahn's (r.i.p.) four track demos for J CHURCH songs that he was making before he passed away. J CHURCH was probably one of the most prolific pop-punk bands of all time, Just a cursory glance at their Discogs page tells me that they might have released 18 albums and over 50 ep's. I can't even begin to explain the impact that Lance and J CHURCH made on the world of DIY punk that will last until the end of time. I only hung out with the guy a few times and I still think about him when I walk the streets of my neighborhood, where he lived in the 90's. Every single time it rains and I'm on Mission Street, I get "November" stuck in my head...for days. That is an impact.
    This tape has some fully formed songs, some sketches of ideas, some instrumentals and some misfires. I read somewhere that Lance treated his four track like a notebook; a place to write down his ideas as they came to him and that's how I approach this tape. It's perfect in its imperfection. If you've never heard J CHURCH, maybe you should start somewhere else, but this is also a warm, inviting place to be.

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More information about this tape here

You can still order a physical copy of the tape here. .

THE DEGENERATES - Tape - 1982

   I'm late to the game on these Texan miscreants, even though I've known one of them for almost 20 years. Where did this tape come from? Why can't I find any information on it? THE DEGENERATES were a Houston punk band who released a 7" in 1981 that you'd be lucky to find for under $100. None of the songs from this tape are on that record.
   They have songs about race, war, feeling trapped by your own feelings of rage and more. This shit is good. Imagine having these songs running through your head while you're running down a 1981 alley and being chased by huge Texan rednecks who want to beat your ass for just wearing some chains on your leather jacket. Perfect and classic.

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I don't know what the other guys ended up doing (sorry), but their drummer Wade went on to play in 50 MILLION, CORDUROY, J CHURCH, HICKOIDS, THE REACTION and many more. He currently plays in the SF band, APOGEE SOUND CLUB. 

TACHYCARDIA - CD - 2004

(I just want to start by saying this band is not from Alabama. Just bear with me)

   Often, when I tell people (who live outside of the south) that I grew up in Alabama, there are a few different reactions that folks like to cycle through. One reaction is embarrassing (for them not me): people seem to like to repeat the state name back to me in a faux southern accent as if to accentuate the fact that I come from a backwards, fucked up place and a southern accent can represent absolutely nothing besides ignorance and stupidity. Another reaction is a sense of shock followed by the usual reply of "That must have been weird." Yeah, of course it's weird, because all of youth is weird because you don't yet know what the fuck you're doing in life and you bumble around in an awkward haze. Plus, is it any less weird to grow up in a flat in Brooklyn, a bus in Bolinas or a tiny house in eastern Iceland? Still another reaction is a story of the one time that person drove through Alabama, got out at a gas station and heard someone say something fucked up. I'm not gonna deny that Alabama has some really fucked up, racist qualities, but so does Portland, NYC, the central valley of California and pretty much everywhere else in the entire world.
   A lesser-known quality about the state is that it has a long history of avant artists and musicians...many are well known and others fly far under the radar. When i was really young, I knew there had to be something out there besides top 40 radio and bad sitcoms on TV. I didn't know how to find it. I didn't know where to look, but I knew it was out there somewhere. I could feel it lurking in the shadows just out of sight. By the time I was in 4th grade, I had found THE CURE and VIOLENT FEMMES (thanks to a sister who knew what was up) but even that seemed distant...like I didn't know those people. It was cool to listen to their tapes, but I needed something to pull me into a different world altogether. When I was 11 or 12, I found myself in a dusty, wooden storefront in Montevallo with my sister at a performance art....thing.... Some people read bad poetry and others just kind of yelled at us. Then, LaDonna Smith and Davey Williams sat in front of the room and blew my little pre-teen mind, playing trombones and guitars like I had never seen before. That was it. I was fucked. It was over. I started finding more stuff (I still am). I discovered SUN RA, who many people believe is from Saturn but is actually from Birmingham, AL. Listening to his music helped me to open my mind up to all the possibilities of what's out there in the world and the rest of space. These people left deep, lasting impressions on me that have influenced my outlook on music ever since.
   That's why it was important for me to see SUN RA'S ARKESTRA a couple of weeks ago when they played in SF. Led by the 89 (!!) year old Marshall Allen, the Arkestra was transcendent and amazing. When they hit their first note, I felt at home. To see a band that was that trained and professional, but still able to improvise and go out on a limb was just a beautiful experience. (I'm getting to the point here in a second). I started thinking about the ways that they influenced my thoughts on free jazz and improv throughout the years.....the ways that I'm quick to dismiss whole swaths of the genre, even though the world of improv is so vast. To me, there's a huge difference between improv and "just kinda dicking around", but I know that not everyone thinks that way. I love the way that each performer can swirl around in their own world for a while but has an idea of when to join the others and work together.
   At some point during that performance, I started thinking of TACHYCARDIA, who I hadn't thought of in years. I got home and dug out this CD, which is just one 54 minute improv track of three accomplished artists in a studio in Austin. There's no riff or loop that they ever come back to but I think this recording has it's own character, personality and drive for the entirety of the recording. I can't really be the one to tell you how you should feel about this because I think everyone has their own approach to improv. For some that approach could be a full sprint in the opposite direction, but because of the weirdos I encountered during my early days in Alabama, I welcome this stuff with wide open arms.
  On this recording, TACHYCARDIA is Carl Smith on tenor sax, Walter Daniels on harmonica, clarinet, piper's chanter, nose flute and Wade Driver (from 50 MILLION, APOGEE SOUND CLUB and LIBERTAS) on drums, bugle and whistle. The amazing art (included in download) is done by Marcel Herms from Holland.

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Thanks to Wade Driver for allowing this online.

X - Live at Klub Foot - Tape - 1982

   There was a time in my life when X didn't mean that much to me. I remember first hearing them as a teenager and thinking that they sounded kinda dated and classic rock-y. It wasn't until I started living their songs that they became relevant to me. My whole fucking life was a wreck. Last night everything broke. I felt desperate. X was there and told me to get used to it. When I visited LA for the first time, I could feel a tinge of where they were coming from. Like almost everyone else ever in punk, X became my daily soundtrack. Not just Los Angeles and Wild Gift, but everything else too (I even have a cassette of "Hey Zeus" and think "Country At War" is pretty great).
   I was sure that I missed my chance to ever see the band live, but then they re-formed and I was ecstatic. They came to Indianapolis when I lived 45 short miles away and I jumped at the chance to go see them. I am just as skeptical of reunion shows as any other DIY punk, but I also needed to see X. Days before the event, a friend called from an X show in Atlanta so we could hear them. I put in on speakerphone and danced with my roommates in the living room. It was great! Anyhow, we went to the show and it was awesome. Of course, they played all the hits and I left a happy person. Then, they just never broke up again! They play all the time!! They're kinda always around. Billy Zoom is a creep and hit on my friend. John Doe puts my friends on guest lists for shows. I got to tell DJ Bonebrake that his drumming blows my mind. My girlfriend took Exene some painkillers for her Multiple Sclerosis. Exene opened a show for my band in a bowling alley, wants to make a documentary about my friend Ivy and shopped for tchotchkes at Jimmy Shotwell's street sale. They're cool people (well, besides Zoom) and I sorta just wish they were my friends. I don't need to see X ever again though.
    Oh yeah, there's a tape. It says this was recorded at "Klub Foot" in Houston in 1982, but I can't find any record of a place called that in Houston. There was one in SF and my friend still lives in the building. Who knows? I was 6 years old. Since it was '82, you get to hear them play a lot of really great songs and don't have to be subjected to "Love Shack" or "True Love Pt 2". Also, they play for over an hour! Jeez! There's 2 encores! (some weird sound shit happened on the 2nd encore of "Real Child of Hell" and it's almost inaudible, so I hope that's not your favorite song or anything) The last six songs are from a live broadcast on KBFH NY in 1984. It's all really good...except maybe "Nausea". Bonebrake must've been tired or something, but I'll give him a break. It's hard to play slow songs on drums.

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MIND SPIDERS - "Meltdown" - LP - 2012

   I could tell you all about some long lost demo tape or some new demo tape by some fucking awesome band, but really, this is all I've been listening to lately. Fuck it.

50 MILLION - "This One's Pretty Cool, But I Like the Old Stuff Better" - CD - 1995

   I've already explained who 50 MILLION is and I've told you how much I love them, so I'll tell you about the first time I saw them, which is when I bought this CD.
   To be honest, I wasn't going to go to their show in Huntsville, AL back in 1997. I didn't know who they were and they were playing with some pretty crappy bands, but the flyer proclaimed "50  MILLION from San Francisco, featuring ex-members of J CHURCH". I loved J CHURCH, so I went to the show just to see 50 MILLION. (tangential side note: Wade from 50M played drums in J CHURCH for less than a year or so and recorded with them on "The Procession Of Simulacra - The Map Preceeds the Territory" 10", which coincidentally is the first record I ever heard by them.) I was more than a block away from the show and heard this loud, low booming voice of a guy talking somewhere. As I got closer, I realized that the voice was coming from this long-haired guy in front of the venue and he was talking a million miles per hour to one of my friends and telling her she had beautiful eyes. He turned to me as I walked up, saw the HICKEY patch on my jacket and introduced himself as "Shellhead". I found out that he was good friends with the guys from HICKEY (who had rolled through town a few months earlier) and they had told him to look for me and some of my friends. It was sweet. I met his brother Wade (the drummer on this tour) and their friend, Bloomie (the bass player). Shell continued to hit on my friend (very sweetly and not at all creepy, I might add. My friend was enjoying it and talking to him all night). It turns out that she was the ex of "J", this bruiser/greaser who had a reputation of starting fights with touring bands, young punks that were smaller than him and anyone who said anything slightly negative to him. He was a fucking jerk. I was afraid of him because I was young and scrawny. He had fought HICKEY, the SPAWN SACS and even tried to beat up my friend Ivy when she had a broken foot and was hobbling around on crutches. World class jerk here.

     Anyway, "J" was lurking around in the shadows, glaring at Shell talking to his ex while getting drunker and surlier. It didn't help matters that when 50 MILLION took the stage, they played a HICKEY song and dedicated their sweetest, sappiest songs to the woman. 

   As far as their live show went, I was sold. They played everything from awesome pop-punk to metallish dirges to feedback-laden experimental noise. They were pretty fucking amazing that night. Also, they set up all of their equipment in front of the band's stuff that played before them, thereby trapping it back there so that the douchey, crappy pop-punk band that played before them had to wait until they were done so that they could load out. I remember watching the members of that band stare helplessly and hopelessly as 50 MILLION played a 10 minute version of "She Is a Monster", making it drag slower and slower until Shell was laying on the floor, making his guitar feedback and Wade was playing something like 5 beats per minute. It felt like vindication for having to watch that crappy band's piss-poor excuse for pop-punk for 30 minutes.

   Anyway, at some point during the set, Shell tackled me in a faux wrestling match and we rolled around on the floor in a fake fight. "J" took that as his cue to attack and ran up to kick Shell in the head a couple of times, which he defended as protecting me (totally ridiculous, since that dude threatened me numerous times). After the show was over and 50 MILLION had packed up, Shell was talking to the woman and "J" made his move. He started pushing Shell around and threatened to kick his ass for trying to steal his girlfriend. Wade ran up, jumped between them and threatened to kill the guy, telling him that he would cut his head off. (a little background: Wade had parts of his head shaved off. He's an old Texas bad-ass covered in homemade tattoos and has a nasty disposition, but a heart of gold. On this tour, he looked like a completely deranged, sadistic, escaped mental patient.) "J", for the first time ever, looked genuinely scared of someone. I left with 50 MILLION in their van and found out that Wade had a machete tucked into his pants the whole time. He had fully intended to cut off "J"'s head if he didn't back off. As Wade was driving to my house, he calmly said "I'm glad I didn't have to blow his head off with the shotgun". I turned around and the shotgun was right behind me.

   I bought this CD from them at the show, even though Shell told me that it sounded nothing like their live show. I thought it was weird that a band would put out something that was wholly unrepresentative of their sound but I bought it anyway and it bummed me out when I listened to it for the first time. Over time, it quickly grew to be my most favorite thing that the band has ever put out. It's a collection of home recordings by the two brothers that dates back as far as the mid-70's, but mostly sticks to the early-to-mid-90's. A lot of the songs were started by one brother who recorded his part and then sent the master tape through the mail to the other brother to finish. It includes now-classic songs like "Baltimore", "Burn Away", "Egg in the Face", "Evergreen" (which Matty Luv of HICKEY once called "the saddest song ever written") and 22 more. 50 MILLION were (and are) a brilliant band that encompassed the hopes, dreams and ultimate failures of being broke and hopeless, but found solace and comfort in that and learned to be proud of and celebrate their lives, no matter what. They were also drug-addled, drunk and unapologetic, but who wasn't? I'm so very happy that they made it out of the 90's Mission punk scene alive.

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   ...and here is the reason I didn't use "J"'s real name in the story. You may wonder, "Why would you use an alias for some jerk who beat up all of your friends?" Well, a few years after leaving Huntsville, I went back to visit for a few days. Some friends and I went out to the river to hang out and drink a few beers. On the way, they said they were gonna pick up "J" to go with us. I said "uhhh...what the fuck dudes? I don't wanna hang out with this macho fuckwad" (or something like that). They just said it was cool and picked him up. After a couple of drinks, I said "I need to talk to you" and pulled him aside. After all of these years, I had gained some self-confidence and decided to tell him how I felt. I tore into him about how demeaning it was that he beat the shit out of young punks, how fucked up it was that he threatened women with violence and what my friends across the country thought of him. I told him how angry I was at him for all of those years and how much I wanted someone to just beat the living shit out of him. Then, I braced myself for the beating he was about to give me. He didn't. He stood there and listened to everything that I had to say and then he told me that I was right and that he was sorry. I couldn't believe it. This guy had never shown any remorse in the moment or admitted any signs of weakness or apology. He explained that he grew up fighting as a means of survival and as a way of life. As he got older, he didn't see any other way of living and fighting became his only method of solving problems or disputes. He told me that he wasn't happy during that time and worked a lot on changing his behavior to become a better person. He didn't expect me or anyone else to forgive him for all of the harm he had caused so many people, but he wanted me to tell those people that he's really sorry and he wishes that he could make up for it somehow. So, if you ever lived in Huntsville or came through there in a punk band in the 90's, it's highly possible that you know who I'm talking about...and if he fought you for some stupid reason, he's sorry. The rest of that night hanging out with him was great and memorable. I even hugged that motherfucker at the end of the night. Life is strange.

If you want to order stuff by 50 MILLION and many other great bands, please visit STARCLEANER.

IRON LUNG // HATRED SURGE - Collaboration - 7" - 2008

   If you pay even a cursory glance to the music that I share on here, this record will seem out of place next to the region rock, pop-punk and scrappy gems that usually populate this page. You may think, "Hmm, ...Is this a manic power-violence band that has songs about medical equipment and surgical procedures?" Yes, it is. I love the shit out of IRON LUNG and I listen to a lot of their records on a pretty regular basis. They have been churning out completely brilliant, precise, insane hardcore/power-violence for over 10 years with no end in sight, which must be difficult since one of these dudes lives in Washington and the other lives 3 blocks away from me here in California.

    On this record, IRON LUNG teamed up with HATRED SURGE (who, at this time, was a one man grind project) and wrote eight crushing songs together rather than doing a split 7". The result is phenomenal. HATRED SURGE adds a crazy fucked bass sound to IRON LUNG'S already stellar, distorted onslaught and the result is some over-the-top, next-level shitz. Songs like "Eraser" and "Cold Ward" make me feel like riding my bike downtown and cutting the heads off of cops with a sword. 

   About the cover: It's crazy. It's 3 layers of covers and the outlying ones are made of a thinner paper so that you can see the layer underneath. The top layer is a clear-ish paper that looks like vellum. I asked my partner, Anandi if she thought it was vellum. She replied "Are you asking me if I think IRON LUNG used the skin of a baby lamb to produce a record cover? No, I don't think they did." The second layer is a slightly thicker layer and all of them work together to make some beautiful art. Get into it.

Download IRON LUNG // HATRED SURGE Collaboration

POTENTIAL JOHNS - "The 90's" - CDR

    I have already discussed my long term obsession with this band, so I will spare you the gory details. As I mentioned before, Mike Wiebe made me a 90 minute tape of songs by the POTENTIAL JOHNS back in 2000 and I took the tape on every road trip or tour I went on until I lost it somewhere in Phoenix, AZ in 2006. I will go as far as to say that I felt like I had lost a piece of myself. I probably sent Jeff (the sole songwriter and person playing every instrument on these recordings) some long, rambling email whining about losing this tape and how much it meant to me. When I got home two weeks later, there was a package waiting for me containing this CD, other CD's full of home recordings and all of the MARKED MEN albums. Needless to say, I was beside myself with happiness and my roommates had to suffer through hearing this man's voice through my walls for the next year.
   This CD is 33 (one of them is repeated) untitled songs recorded on 4 track during the 90's in Texas. Some of them were re-recorded later and appeared on records. Many of them were only passed around on mix tapes and through the internet. All of them are pure pop genius.
                          Download POTENTIAL JOHNS

re-uploaded 2013

50 MILLION - "3/14/05" - CDR - 2005

   I know I say this a lot about different bands, but 50 MILLION really is one of my all time top favorite bands. I'm still baffled by how they made it out of the 1990's Mission punk scene alive with most of their major organs still intact.
   50 MILLION is a core group of two brothers named Wade and Shell who have been playing music together for...uh..a really long fucking time. Wade used to play in a band called CORDUROY back in the 90's and he asked Shell to play 2nd guitar in the band. Before it could ever happen, the band broke up and the two brothers set out to continue writing songs together. A lot of the early recordings are beautifully fucked up, heartbroken pop songs recorded on 4 track. Sometimes they sent each other unfinished songs through the mail between San Francisco and San Marcos, Texas...and the other brother would finish it. They ranged from the aforementioned pop to experimental noise to soundscapes to audio dramas to loud metallish dirges. Along the way, they picked up friends to round out their sound and put out a handful of 7"'s and a couple of albums. They even formed a one-off band with HICKEY and recorded each other's songs (found here) They went on tour with a shotgun, drugs and machetes, but still somehow managed to come home in one piece even though they had a habit of getting into fights everywhere they went.In the early '00's, they recorded a double LP tentatively titled "The Song Remains Insane", which is still unreleased. A record label (which shall remain unnamed) said they would put it out if the band would shave off the "noisier" parts and just leave the pop songs. The band refused and the recordings are probably still lingering around somewhere in the Mission District. I've heard a lot of it. It's really good. Someone should put it out.
   This CDR is 4 quick songs recorded on a 4 track in 2005 and it includes the completely unfuckwithable pop song "Sunday to Monday". On this release, they stick mostly to the pop side of things. Even though the two brothers live about as far apart from each other as two people can while still living in the same country, they are still, somehow, a band in some form. Apparently, they just recorded some new material with their dad (Wade Driver), who is a professional square dance caller. I can't wait to hear it.

                                     50 MILLION!!

Updated September 2014

J CHURCH/LANCE HAHN - Lost Demos

   Tones From The Underground posted a great story and a link to some of Lance Hahn's lost four track demos on their blog. Lance Hahn was a pop genius who was taken from this world way too soon and is missed by thousands of people from all over the world. There will never be another person like him. His music will live on for eternity.

POTENTIAL JOHNS - tape - 1996

      That tape above is all I have of this compilation of bands from Denton, Texas. No insert. Not even a tape case. The tape is actually full of bands, but I honestly only got past these first 10 songs once or twice. When I first got this tape from Jayson Grumpy, I didn't even know the name of this band, but I was completely obsessed with them. I just rewound the tape over and over and listened to these songs every day. Later, I found out that the band was called the POTENTIAL JOHNS. I was obsessed with finding out any info about them and when a band from Denton called KID CHAOS came to my town, I asked them 1 million questions about the band. I found out that POTENTIAL JOHNS was just one guy named Jeff Burke playing all the instruments into his 4 track. One of the guys from KID CHAOS later sent me a 90 minute tape full of more songs by him and I was hooked for life. I carried that tape around on every tour I went on until I lost it in Arizona in 2006. By that time, I  had more clues, had tracked down this mysterious musical genius and Jeff sent me all the songs again on CDR.
   Over the years, POTENTIAL JOHNS has gotten more streamlined and more perfect, producing so many completely flawless pop songs that it is mind-boggling. These ten songs are the early, ragged punk years that are still flawless and beautiful in their own way. If you like this stuff, I urge you to track down any recordings that you can by any of Jeff's bands, but you've probably already heard it if you have any remote interest in punk. He's still playing in THE POTENTIAL JOHNS, MARKED MEN, and THE NOVICE



    Download POTENTIAL JOHNS tape here
    EDIT 12/12/11: There is a higher quality recording of alot of these songs here. It's not all the same versions though.