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. 

CRITICAL RESPONSE TEAM - CD-R - 2008

   I could tell you all about southern punk scenes that you never knew you cared about. I could tell you about the entire history of a single punk house in the Midwest. You know what I can't tell you about? The hardcore scene in Indianapolis, Indiana. I lived 45 miles south of there on and off for years, but I never went to one punk show in Indy (unless you count X, but that's different). I went to a pretty killer art show and I once scoured the city for any traces of black and white photobooths with my friend Amy (no luck), but punk and I never met within the city limits. I once heard about a punk fest happening there called Dude Fest and I was like "Fuck that."
   Still, like anywhere, punk and hardcore screams out of basements, living rooms, dive bars, galleries, taquerias, alleys and bedrooms all over the world. Indianapolis, I'm sure, has a thriving punk scene and CRITICAL RESPONSE TEAM was once ruling the basements of that city. They play aggressive hardcore, skate-thrash with a singer that sounds like one big swollen throat (I mean that in a good way). They blast out 11 songs in about 12 minutes or so. Choice song titles include "To Eat a Pizza" and "Fuck Space Travel".

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The only thing I know about this band is that their guitarist went on to be in LANDLORD and FAT SHADOW. 

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! - "The Loneliness of a Part-Time Dishwasher" - Tape - 2003

  ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!! thrashed around Richmond for the first few years of the 00's, playing manic hardcore that was informed by shitty kitchen jobs, falling down in shit and the fucking pigs. What more do you want to know? Two of the people in this band are some of the cooler people I have met in my life. You can read about one of them here. You can go hang out at the Bamboo Cafe in Richmond to meet the other one. Put it on your headphones and run down the street screaming the chorus to "Are You Fucking Serious?!!".

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SUNSET BEACH - "Long Walks, Short Piers" + Cassingle - Tape - 2002

Think of this as "Part 2" of  the post about Matty Luv and Sarah T.

   Matty Luv was gone and the next day we still went ahead with the already-planned 5 year anniversary of Mission Records, even though it seemed like the hardest thing in the world to do. To date, it is still the saddest show I have ever been to in my life. Even though the show was set to start at 5 pm, people were already hanging out in the store, lighting candles, crying in corners and telling stories over beers when I woke up that morning. It felt natural for people to come there to grieve and be with friends. I'm glad that the space was there for them.

   When the bands started up, it just felt awful and counterintuitive. We were trying to celebrate this place and time, even though an integral piece of its entire day-to-day operation was missing forever. I felt crazy depressed and I'm sure everyone else did too...possibly more so. I barely remember anything about the show besides three things: 1.When my band, ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT played, we were out of tune since Matty always tuned Iggy's guitar. 2. We gave Aesop (one of Matty's oldest friends and bandmate in HICKEY) a mic for the whole show so that he could loudly heckle every band. 3. When THIS IS MY FIST was playing, I was crying my eyes out. I looked around and everyone else was too, including the band.

    The next week was filled with a lot of sadness, some group hangouts, countless homemade tattoos and much more. When the funeral happened the next week, I didn't want to go (who really wants to go to a funeral?), but I borrowed a black button-down and did it anyway. After paying my respects, I was headed out the door to unlock my bike and saw a kid sitting in the funeral home who looked like the spitting image of a young Matty, which threw me for a loop. There were friends and family hanging out on the street, but I needed to get back to Mission Records to help out with the last punk show that Matty set up.
    In the days of HICKEY, it seemed like no town appreciated the band better than Tulsa, Oklahoma. From the stories I heard, it seemed like every time they came through town, they were met by an army of cult devotees who's fervor was unmatched by the rest of the country. I remember going there one time and stumbling upon a crew of drunk dudes in a parking lot, blasting MANOWAR. They happened to be listening to the only song I knew by them at the time, which led me to join them, singing loudly. They spotted the HICKEY patch on my jacket, which sent them into drunken hysterics, numerous accolades, and praises of that fine band. I swear that by the time I walked away from them, they would have loaned me rent money and  killed any of my enemies...and that was just for being a fan of the band. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that some of these fervent followers would start a band, but I was never aware of how good that band would be.
    So, here I was back at the record store with a bunch of sad, post-funeral punks awaiting the start of the show. It turns out that the guy who looked like Matty played in the touring band from Tulsa (his name is Aaron and he no longer looks anything like Matty) alongside Jon Paul, who is still one of the best punk drummers I've ever seen. When SUNSET BEACH took to the rickety, sagging stage, they thanked Matty for setting up the show and raged through a relentless set. Some of the songs seemed like total HICKEY-worship while others felt mired in insane metal riffs. By the end of the set, they were pulling out alcohol and a torch. I remember exchanging worried glances with some other denizens of the store as the fire was lit and then trying to scramble up to the stage as visions of the dust-trap of a store going up in flames danced through my head. It was too late. Aaron started breathing fire as they played their last song and I helplessly watched 10 foot flames flow across people's heads and lick the cracks in the ceiling. When I saw that we were not gonna die in the next 5 minutes, I finally exhaled and smiled for the first time all day. It was a great show.
   I ended up getting both of their tapes out of the free box at the store a few weeks later. For a long time, I thought that some fool had thrown them in there, but now I think Jon Paul put them there as a way to distribute them. The first side of "Long Walks, Short Piers" is total HICKEY-worship, but in the best way possible. I remember when I first heard it, I thought "Damn, do you guys only listen to one band?" and being a little annoyed, but over time, it's really grown on me and has become indispensable to my life. In the intervening years, I grew to appreciate them in their own right. If a band is gonna be influenced by someone, I'd rather that it be HICKEY instead of THE QUEERS, GHOST MICE or CREED. Side two starts off with "Napkin" and the first time I heard it, I seriously thought the band had accidentally dubbed a different band onto their tapes. It starts off with a  straight up metal riff and dives into fucking awesome thrash. The entirety of side two stays in that vein and it totally rules. The closer, "In The Name of Justice" delves into some dual guitar riffage that sounds like what might have happened if IRON MAIDEN had grown up on DIY punk and bathtub crank. This tape is pretty ambitious for a demo at a time when not many people cared about tapes at all. I started off casually listening to this band, but this tape soon became fused with the boombox at my shitty kitchen job and provided the soundtrack to many fucked up nights. I love it.
   Also included in the download is their two song cassette single where they sound like another entirely different band..maybe one that is influenced by early 80's radio, THIN LIZZY and good, good indie-pop. Still so good. 

  Enjoy that shit and go start a band that is at least half as good as this.

Download SUNSET BEACH - Updated Sept 2018

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.

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Live photos taken in Cincinnati by Jon Douds.

THRASH - "Total Anarchy" - Tape - 1990

   Since the beginning of this blog, I've been dusting off many tapes from my shelves and digitizing piles upon piles of forgotten music from over the years. I love many of the things I've posted on here, but I understand that some of this stuff might be embarrassing for some of the people who played the music on those tapes. I can almost hear them thinking, "Thanks for digitizing that band that I was in for 5 seconds who put out that one awful tape that sounds like shit. Big contribution to the world of punk there. Where's your stupid, embarrassing bullshit tape?" Well, here I am to level the playing field.

    I grew up in a town called Pleasant Grove, which is only notable for being completely wiped out by a tornado last year (to be clear, I'm not meaning to be flippant about it. If you can offer any help or support, that would be great, As Hurricane Katrina and this tornado has proven, the US does not care too much about poor southern people). My parents and I split the cost of a drumset ($100) when I was 12 and we bought it from my cousin, who played in a DEF LEPPARD lip sync band...meaning that they were not a cover band, but were a band who dressed up like DEF LEPPARD and acted like they were playing their songs while dancing to pre-recorded music....like karaoke with too much planning. Anyhow, I got the drums and just hit them haphazardly in my basement for months on end. I did not understand how to make a beat at all. My favorite bands at the time were THE CURE, METALLICA, VIOLENT FEMMES and DREAD ZEPPELIN but I didn't know how to make a drum set sound like any of those things.
   I tried to start a band called WASTED YOUTH (I know...name was already taken) with my friends in 6th grade, but it never got further than coming up with that badass name. Later, we started D.O.P.E., which stood for DEATH OF PREPS EVERYWHERE, but I'm not sure if we ever recorded anything or learned how to play a real chord. Then, at the ripe age of 13, my friends and I decided to start a "thrash band" called THRASH. It was gonna be the raddest band ever. We were going to play at our school and fucking kill people. We were gonna have the coolest songs with lightning fast tempos...if we could only figure out what you had to do to actually write a song. It seemed really hard and confusing.
   Ward played bass and sang. Mike played guitar and also sang. I played the drums. Those two guys were a few of the only people in my school who even came close to resembling punks. We set up my boombox in the basement of my parents house and unleashed song after fucking song of unbridled teenage brutality. We were completely untouchable and at the top of our game. I pressed "play" on the boombox to listen to what we had done and....what the fuck? What was this dumb shit that we burdened the world with? Mozart was 5 years old when he composed his own music and performed it in front of European royalty. One of the guys from OLD SKULL was 9 when they put out an LP on Restless Records. We were teenagers and we couldn't even write a legible song with a chorus or even any noticeable "parts". Basically, we sucked....bad. I was embarrassed of our band before the tape was even finished.
   Opening up with the now-classic (to someone somewhere...maybe just me) "Suck My Dick You Fucking Prick" (gimme a break. we were 13), it sets the tone for the rest of the tape. It's amazing how fucked up some of this sounds. It reminds me of shit that noise artists are striving for. One perfect example of that is "Bad Taste". It's no wonder that I quit within a couple of months and started a noise band that only played on the streets. I dare you to download this and listen to it all the way through. Lucky for you, I cut out over half of the tape because I still have some shreds of self-respect buried somewhere deep within me.
   After this tape came out, I quit THRASH. They soldiered on without me. Mike moved to drums.  They got our friend, Andy to sing and found some hot-shit stoner guitarist named Josh to round out the lineup. The four of them delved into the devil's weed and actually tried (unsuccessfully) to write real songs (sell-outs). I appeared briefly on their second tape, aptly titled "Weed", but my days with the band were done. They were trying to be serious and I wanted no part of that
   Lo and behold, THRASH did play at our high school, but did not end up killing anyone...or even giving a wedgie to the principal. I think they got in trouble for saying "fuck" a lot. I'm not sure. My joke band, THE SMEGMAGICIANS opened up for them and we were too busy changing out of our bathrobes, boots and fencing masks to notice....but that's a story for another day.

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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.

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"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.

SHAFFERS - Live on WNYU - Tape - 1995

SHAFFERS playing in a backyard somewhere in the 90's. Photo by Josie.

   This is part two of yesterday's post.

   If you want to get truly technical about it, this should be part one, since the SHAFFERS actually played first on the radio broadcast that day, back in 1995. Much has been said, ballyhooed, and shouted from the mountaintops about the STUN GUN's performance, which left the SHAFFERS standing a little bit outside of the spotlight. As mentioned previously, the SHAFFERS were on tour with the STUN GUNS for about 3 months, which tightened up their performance to the finest it ever was in their existence. On this live radio broadcast, they are playing lightning fast and this ended up being one of the best recordings they ever had.

   The SHAFFERS were originally from Dalton, GA and moved to Chattanooga, TN in the mid-90's. I remember asking Eric Nelson (their guitarist) once why they moved there. Were there other punk bands in the town? A good record store? Anything? Eric just said it was simply the biggest city that was really close to them that wasn't Atlanta. It was that simple. They wanted to get out of Dalton, and Chattanooga was both close by and cheap. Since then, a ton of punks have passed through that town. Some have stuck around and dug in their heels to make that city a destination for traveling punks and touring bands. Many have made their own mark there with record labels, a record/arts store, a recording studio (run by SHAFFERS bassist, Mike Pack) and a punk-run vegan restaurant/show space. I'm not gonna get into it here, but I can definitively trace the origins of all of these things back to the SHAFFERS moving to Chattanooga. It's impressive and awe-inspiring, to say the least. If you would like to know and hear even more about the SHAFFERS, then you can look right here. For now, enjoy their ruling set on WNYU back in 1995.

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Updated 2013

 If you're ever in Chattanooga...or even if you're not....check out these punk-run, locally owned places.

Leo Handmade Gallery - Records, zines, handmade clothes, crafts and much more.

Sluggo's North Vegetarian Cafe - Completely punk staff, great vegan food, good coffee, and punk shows in the basement...oh yeah, also lots of beer on tap and super cheap drink specials.

Do Ya Hear We - Local record label that has not put out a bad record. They also put on a yearly 4 day music festival that is one of the best events that I have ever been to.

Mauled By Tigers - Another great record label that put out the flawless HIDDEN SPOTS LP as well as the ADD/C LP and newest SHELLSHAG record.

TINY BUZZ - (no internet presence) Mike Pack's studio, which is responsible for records by SHELLSHAG, LANDLORD, BLACK RAINBOW, ADD/C and many, many more....

  There's probably more stuff I could tell you about, but my mind is fuzzy because I'm typing this in the library since the internet is out at my house....over and out.

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.

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Re-uploaded Oct 2014

VOMIT SPOTS - "Nina Haagen Dazs" - EP - 1987

   A few nights ago, I was at a punk show in Oakland and I got into an annoying conversation with yet another person who grew up in California that can not possibly fucking fathom that there are punk bands in other US states...especially southern ones. It's fucking 2011! LADY GAGA is wearing a fucking GISM patch in one of her videos! Of course some fucking people in Alabama learned how to play D-Beat by now and have produced ruling punk bands as well as set up DIY all-ages venues and written countless zines. Of course I didn't say all this because I am a nice guy. I calmly explained that, yes, there are literally hundreds of punk bands throughout the southeastern US and many of them are the best shit I have ever heard in my life. She just couldn't believe it and thought it was so novel. This wasn't my grandmother. This was a living, breathing punk rocker in 2011. I get in these conversations frequently and it blows my mind.
   THE VOMIT SPOTS are one of those many bands who were an early inspiration to me and proved that punk was alive and well in Alabama. They put out this debut 7" in 1987, which was a time when Alabama didn't have any places for punk bands to play. So, the bands would play in the middle of a field, miles away from anything. People would travel in buggies down dirt roads (Alabama didn't have paved roads yet...or cars) to watch the bands. Punks would charge their mohawks with cow shit since hair products hadn't made their way from the big cities yet. Then, large crews of racist skinhead KKK members would come and kill everyone at the show. Shit was really dangerous then.

I'm kidding.

   THE VOMIT SPOTS played in big, crumbling brick warehouses to crazed mutants wearing smeared black eyeliner with fucked up hair. They charged their 'hawks with super glue and sometimes wore spandex bike shorts. It was a time that felt really crazy and free...like you could do anything you wanted in this crazy fucked up state that you happened to be born in. And then, large crews of racist skinhead KKK members would come and try to kill everyone at the show. I'm not gonna lie. I've been shot at by skinheads with shotguns. It was somehow threatening to be non-racist and punk. Shit was really dangerous then.

   This 7" was not my first introduction to this band (see link above for that), but it still holds a special place in my heart. It's more punk and urgent than their tape. In my perfect punk world, "Stupid Punk Rocker" would be on every mixtape and this single would be classified as "KBD OOP". Instead, they are just some dumb band from Mobile,AL that no one cares about besides me and 20 other people. Fuck you.

Download VOMIT SPOTS

SMUT - CDR - 2003

   SMUT consists of two friends who met and started playing music together years ago in middle school when living right outside of Flint,MI. Their live set was lightning fast. Like, if they said "Hey, we're playing at 7 pm", you better get there at 7 instead of 7:10, because it would be over by then. They eventually moved to Indiana and blast-beated the fuck out of some basements, parks, all ages spaces and hallways with their hyper-fast, insanely brief, super-low budget, manic, noisy thrash. I miss being able to see this band, because if I had other things to do, I could be in and out of a punk show in 10 minutes.

SMUT in Indiana. 2006. Photo by either Kelsi or Michael

Download SMUT! 10 songs in 3 1/2 minutes.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME - "Deathfuckers" - Tape - 2002

   The only time I ever saw STOCKHOLM SYNDROME was when they thrashed through an insanely fast, no breaks (or brakes) 10 minute set at Mission Records in SF.The 15 people in attendance nodded at them enthusiastically afterwards and filed out to the corners of the building to drink more cheap beer or do more drugs. It's a shame. They were on fire and deserved more of an insane reaction, like those kids in Mexico City in the opening scenes of Beyond The Screams.

    STOCKHOLM SYNDROME was around for a short time in the Bay Area and left behind this tape and a7" of their style of No-Slow-All-Go hardcore thrash. They featured members of YOUNG OFFENDERS, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, KILL THE MAN WHO QUESTIONS, SPAZZ and many, many others....so, you know it's great. This tape is a non-stop 10 minute raging blast of insanity, just like that live show. Enjoy tearing apart your room and running down the street screaming.

                       Download STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

   Thanks to Anandi for loaning this tape for digitization..

CHEESE-ASS CHRIST - Tape - 1990

    I'm trying to think of what I could possibly tell you about CHEESE-ASS CHRIST from St Mary's GA (don't even act like you know where that is). They were a pissed off punk band that sang about stupid skinheads, stupid lowriders, stupid war and...uh...neutron soup, whatever that is. They had that crazy treble-y 80's production that only sounded good when it was done by bands that are over 20 years old. They had an anti-senior citizen song that had the inexplicable line "Soon, we'll all be chicken people!" I later found out that their singer Joey, referred to old folks as "chicken people" for some reason. Speaking of Joey, he sang in this nasally whine that wasn't affected at all. He really talked like that all the time and it soon became his signature in his later bands THE SLACKERS and JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS (half of CHEESE ASS CHRIST was in J.T.A.T.T.S). I asked my good friend Harry to tell me a little about the band. He played bass for them when he was 13 years old and here is what he had to say:
  "Recorded summer of 1990 in Welaka, FL. just South of Palatka.  We had to drive twenty minutes out of town to get a pizza. The studio was at this wild, stoner-rock, hesher-esque dude's house, who did not participate at all in the recording process. He showed us how to set the levels and deserted us to return to his house with his stoner buddy to get, uh, stoned (i reckon). He did have really great comparisons for things... The second night we ate microwave pizzas from the IGA that he said tasted like the bottom of a shoe with dog poo on it. (that, of course, is not the best one, but is the only one I remember because Dave, the drummer, kept repeating it.) There was a machine gun guitar that we really wanted to use, but it didn't work (I once had a photo of me playing it). 

So, Neil (the guitarist) pretty much figured all the technical shit out, you know, levels, stupid phaser effect on "Underground Babylon," etc. I remember a lot of that weekend cause it was a new experience and I was 14 and straight edge, of course, so... Not drunk, unfortunately. Dave, our drummer, was the biggest Rush Limbaugh fan, it was really annoying. I rode to the spot with him from Saint Marys, and, when he wasn't listening to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh and telling me how intelligent he is. Actually, I really don't understand why Dave was in the band; he's a total republican and he had a low rider truck with a booming bass system. Anyway, our only show ever was a total catastrophe. We drove all day to Melbourne, FL. To play to a bunch of thrash kids. Chokehold is the only band name I remember, other than ours, obviously. At one point we thought Joey was going to be pummeled for wearing a "fight racism" shirt. But it turned out that the skinheads there were SHARP's (which, to me, just meant that they weren't openly racist, just openly classist). Highlights of the trip were Joey punching a sandcastle version of the Sphinx in a local mall and it crumbling. We played very bad because Dave kept stopping because his hands hurt from driving, is what he said."

   There you go...the legacy of CHEESE-ASS CHRIST. Members of this band went on to play in the aforementioned bands as well as ADD/C, RICE HARVESTER, 565 BURNOUTS   and a whole pile of others. In a surprise 180, Joey later found the Lord and now preaches the gospel in Alabama.  

  Really.

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Updated 2014

VOMIT SPOTS - "I Want To Bowl" - Tape - 1989

    One of the first punk bands that I ever saw was THE CRAMPS, but one of the first totally DIY punk bands that I saw was THE VOMIT SPOTS. They started around 1986 in Mobile,AL and were sorta skate/thrash, sorta crossover punk. They kinda remind me of a more tame DRI or COC.  They put out a 5 song 7" in 1987 (coming to this blog one day soon) and then put out this tape in 1989. I played this tape numerous times throughout my middle school and junior high school years. It's totally the kind of thing that would appeal to a teenager growing up in Alabama in the late 80's/early 90's.: dumb lyrics, partying in Hell, thrashy shit, guitar solos and more. The best song, obviously, is "I Want to Bowl" which is catchy, fun and has a crazy drumbeat carrying the song that still confounds me to this day. THE VOMIT SPOTS brand of humorous, infantile punk is such a product of the 80's dumb thrash scene...so what I really find the most confounding about this whole thing is that they are still playing shows 2-3 times a year!! No shit! Take a trip down to Pensacola, Florida or south Alabama if you want to hear these songs live and in person by the actual human beings who wrote them.

   In the early '90's, Birmingham had a huge contingent of racist skinheads who generally sat around in the forest shooting guns, recruiting impressionable kids and talking to each other about their stupid racist bullshit. They didn't really go to punk shows too much. For some reason, in 1993 HBO took notice of their leader Bill Riccio and decided to make a documentary about him and his followers called "Skinhead USA: Soldiers of the Race War". Throughout the documentary, some of the kids mentioned punk or listened to it, so HBO decided that they should film these bald wastes of flesh at a punk show. At the same time, I decided that I should go see THE VOMIT SPOTS at the all ages space, Frankie's Down Under on the south side of Birmingham. Guess who was there?! Lots of skinheads! HBO film crews! I think HBO paid THE VOMIT SPOTS for appearing in the documentary with a huge bag of french fries (side note: my 14 year old self took one of the fries and said "I'll cherish this moment forever" a'la Riff Randall from Rock N Roll High School, but no one really got it and no one gave me that classic look that Dee Dee gives her in the movie. I had that french fry until 3 years ago.) Now, THE VOMIT SPOTS are many things: childish, sort of sexist, and insensitive, but they are neither racists nor nazi sympathizers. They protested the filming at their show and insisted that they be filmed denouncing the beliefs of the white power boneheads in attendance. HBO agreed but the band's tyrade was left on the cutting room floor. The SPOTS reputation was tarnished and they were kicked off of shows and labeled as racist sympathizers for years to come. It's not an easy thing to shake off when you're born and raised in Alabama, since people outside of the south already assume that you're a racist just because you grew up there. I should know. Whenever I tell people that I grew up there, it's usually followed by the other person saying "Oh....weird...." and then they either change the subject or ask me if it was really racist (and in extreme circumstances, they ask if we had paved roads there...seriously.).

(Go to 4:50 to see the clip from the show. I'm somewhere in there getting bashed around by some huge fuckhead with an SS tattoo.)

   Unfortunately, that documentary wasn't the VOMIT SPOTS only stumble. Not long after the movie, they released a cd that showed them going in a more (gasp) funk-rock direction, but listening to "Plain White Wrapper" on this tape let you know that this was in the future for them anyway. Just listen to this tape and act like the 90's never happened.

THE VOMIT SPOTS during happier times on cable access television, when they had an extra percussionist.

                          DOWNLOAD REMOVED BY MEDIAFIRE DUE TO COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

(inflammatory statement about wishing harm upon the life of someone who calls for the death of other races removed by Blogspot)

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

RESURRECTUM - CDR - 2002

   RESURRECTUM was around for a little while in the early '00's, growling their metallic, bullet-belted asses off about topics such as consent, fucked up wars and , you know, Satan. I think I remember them referring to themselves as a metal band, but they weren't afraid to jump headlong into fast-as-shit-double-bass thrash every once in a while. They drew their influences from IRON MAIDEN and possibly TEM EYOS KI. I'm not the kind of person who would normally play air guitar to a band, but I have been known to dabble a little with RESURRECTUM if that tells you anything. I always liked their live show more than this CD, but can i bring back their maniac sneers and glares? Can I bring back the piercing, live dual guitar solos? Can I bring back the warehouses full of drunk, dread-mulletted crusties waving around 40's while pumping their fists and headbanging? No, I can't...but I can share this Cd with you and you can get the idea.
                  download RESURRECTUM

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