TEENAGE WAISTBAND - "I Saw What I Wanted To See" - Tape - 2007

   TEENAGE WAISTBAND is hard to describe to someone who has never heard them. Art damaged punk with an 11 year old boy for a singer? Minimalist noisy skronky shit? What happens when people in Providence decide "We're just gonna start a normal punk band"? I don't really know. I do know that I like them a lot and that their singer is neither 11 years old nor male. Maybe you should just listen to this for yourself and make your own weird descriptions...or fuck the descriptions altogether and just blast this out of your speakers. Features ex-members of BLOOD TRUCK, COUGHS, REACTIONARY 3, and THE FOREHEADS.

TEENAGE WAISTBAND in Brooklyn. Photo by Daniel Arnold.
  

                        Download Teenage Waistband here

TWAT SAUCE - "Clash Of The Tight Ones" - Tape - 2010

    TWAT SAUCE, hailing from Chattanooga, TN, is a force to be reckoned with. They're a group of rowdy, sleazy punk girls (and dude) who will drink you under the table and then draw on your fuckin' face when you pass out. Then, they'll sit on your passed out, lifeless body and keep drinking 'til 7 in the morning when they pass out. Then, they'll get up for work 2 hours later and spend the day flipping hot dogs for 6 bucks an hour. After that, they'll get off of work and write these songs that will make you want to dance and do beer bongs out of a human skull (okay, it's a rubber skull, but so what?). Leah (their former bass player) called me when they were recording this tape and said "..hey..whasssup?". I said "Nothin, what are you doing?"
  "oh nuthin...jusss drinkin' ssome Four Loko and we're about ta du vocalsss for thisss Twat Sauce ssheeit."
  After some more drunken banter, we got off the phone and I realized it was 5 am in Chattanooga. True party people.
  Besides the fact that they like to get drunk, they are also adept at making totally solid punk music. I wish more bands were as fun as Twat Sauce.

   If you want to get in touch for your own tape, the only way I know of contacting them is right here
                   

Download TWAT SAUCE

Link updated Dec 2017

COUNTY Z - Tape- 2000(?)

   County Z remains one of my top 5 favorite bands of all time. In a time when punk was making me groan (minus the genius music that was/ still is consistently coming out of the deep southern US), County Z was banging out some noise that was inspired by living in homemade shacks by the river, hopping trains, cheap whiskey, big old rotting midwestern houses, hot dish, rusting clunky bikes, homemade amps, DIY for real, broken shit, and homemade tattoos. Seeing them live was always exciting because it was always different than the previous time. I never saw them play a bad show. This tape shows COUNTY Z in their early, formative stages, but is no less serious or intense as their LP that came out a year or so later. The songs "Priest" and "84 Hours" still make the hairs on my neck tingle. "Rotten Living" and "Liquor Store" have been mixtape staples since the dawn on this century.
  This band was (and still sorta is) so anti-technology and anti-digital, that I asked them if it was okay if I put their songs online. Well, I asked the most anti-computer one of all of them. He said "yeah, I just used Craigslist for the first time...it was weird. Computers are fucked, but 'I guess I want people to hear my band." Perfect for listening to on a cold day by the river.

                             Download tape here

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..

DOWNLOAD

Link updated Feb 2017

More Delays

So, Tour is over, but the computer is busted. It might be a while before I have some new music up. If you want to donate or sell a good, working laptop, please get in touch. Thanks!

ON TOUR

 No new posts for the next week because I am going to the northwest to play shows and record with my band. If you are in Portland, Seattle or Olympia, come hang out with us. You can find the dates and places at NEON PISS. Thanks!

PETER STUBB - Powdered Doughnuts - 1994?

  To some, PETER STUBB is a legend. To others, he  is some crazy guy with a guitar. To many people, he is both. He's been writing his own songs and putting out cassettes (an average of 2 a year) since the late 80's/early 90's. My favorite tape, "Blueberry Masturbator", has some heartbreaking songs about mental health problems followed by jams that are sort-of indescribable (the song "Ba-doing-schwing" comes to mind). Other tapes have featured Peter and his friend just making race car noises and singing. Still others have been full of drum machine death metal, odes to Christmas, songs about whiskey, and stories of sticking drumsticks up his ass. You really never know what you're gonna get with one of his tapes, but it's always memorable.
    This epic love song to powdered doughnuts was recorded live by someone somewhere in the early to mid 90's and stands as one of my favorite Stubb songs of all time. I believe it catches him at his best: both playful and brutally heartfelt at the same time with the audience hanging on every word for the full eight and a half minutes of this song.
  My friend, Mitchell Powers made a short documentary about Peter that you can find a clip from HERE. You can find a really old interview with Peter Stubb here and find some live videos of him here, here and even here

  (the recording cuts out for 5 seconds around the 7 minute mark. Every recording of this that I've ever heard does that.)

     UPDATE 2020
   This link has been reactivated because this song is great. Added to the download is "Sad Way to Go", which he played right after "Powdered Donuts", further exemplifying how Stubb can change gears in a matter of seconds from playing funny songs into a song about suicide. He fucks it up and stops quickly, but i've always loved this version. Enjoy. "Powdered Donuts" is long but the payoff stays with you for a lifetime.

DOWNLOAD

Updated 3/2020

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.

JACK PALANCE BAND - 1st Tape - 1995? 1996?

  Jack Palance Band were (still are) the soundtrack to the lives of a lot of the people that I know and love. The songs on this tape are the formative stages of the greatness that this band evolved into. It sounds similar to the kind of people they were at the time: sort-of politically correct, sort of pop-punk kids who grew up on a steady diet of DRI, COC and any other tapes they could order from Thrasher Magazine in the 80's. If there was ever a book written on Region Rock and Chattanooga (and there should be), these guys would be in the first chapter and almost every single band mentioned in the book would name them as an influence. Eric Nelson (guitar/vocals) and Mike Pack (bass) should be given lifetime achievement awards for consistently playing completely badass punk for twenty years straight. (Buddha --their second guitarist but not on this tape--should also be given this award with a backup MVP award).Jeremy Edds (drums) was constantly pushing the envelope, playing faster and more intricate beats than most other people in the region at that time. Eric, Mike and Buddha are all still playing music together in HIDDEN SPOTS.
   This tape was, most likely, recorded on 4 track in Dalton, GA while a little drunk and high on ditch weed. This tape is warbly (although it was also like that when it was given to me by Eric in 96) and has been played in excess of 1000 times in the factory stereo of a Ford Festiva. In addition, it has been in my bag on countless tours, hitchhiking trips and played on numerous shitty tape decks all across this god-forsaken land.

Jack Palance Band at Heart Of Huntsville Mall 1996. Photo by Butch

         UPDATE 2020: I re-ripped this demo because the files were missing and now they're available again. Listening to this 25 years after it was recorded is eerie because songs like "Wrong" and "Testosterone" are still sadly relevant. JPB still rules. Racists can still eat shit. 

DOWNLOAD (Link fixed 2020) 

CLEANSING WAVE - Demo 2011

  So far, I've been posting music that is ten years old or older, but I don't want this thing to be a complete nostalgia trip. I still go to punk shows and I still think there are vital, exciting bands playing great punk music all over this world in 2011. CLEANSING WAVE is one of those bands.
    My band, NEON PISS, toured the east coast earlier this year and when we played in Worcester, CLEANSING WAVE  blew us away. They filled the punk-lined basement with green lights and fog and proceeded to drive the audience into a wild frenzy. The music is noisy, fast, chaotic, and trebley.with vocals run though an echo pedal. Punk as fuck, in the "bullet belt, sleeveless D-Clone shirt, huge tattoos, smash a beer can on your head and shotgun it" kind of way. I'm not usually so into this style, but I really like this band a whole lot. If you can track them down, get this tape! They are putting out a split flexi with GASH (Boston) in the near future.

                                    CLEANSING WAVE

File updated 2013