FULL SUN - "High Ceiling" - Tape - 2011

   I totally "got" FULL SUN when I was sitting on top of Bernal Hill overlooking the city of SF and I was blasting this tape out of my boom box the day after my birthday while eating a burrito and drinking a tall can. Meanwhile, at that very moment on the other side of the country, Jeff Grant (the songwriter and instrumentalist behind these songs) was getting married to his longtime sweetheart in a barn (I think) in Indiana. I raised a toast to them and the city and flipped this tape over for the fifth time in a row.
  FULL SUN started out as a three piece band, but never recorded anything to my knowledge before they broke up. Jeff (their guitarist/singer and formerly of PINK RAZORS) kept the band name and pushed onward. He wrote and recorded these six songs at home, playing all the instruments himself and it came out amazingly. While it has an undeniable late-era POTENTIAL JOHNS feel to me, Jeff pulls out some tricks that make the sound all his own...like throwing in a dub song. He has a knack for ear-grabbing pop hooks and the recording has a thin, treble-y (but high quality and clear) sound that reminds me of AM radio, which I fuckin' love. It's flawless.

   Download FULL SUN

   If you would like to buy your own copy of this tape, act fast because he only pressed 100. You can get it from Houseplant Records. While you're there, go ahead and order the LP by FAT SHADOW; the band he plays drums for. Jeff is reportedly hard at work on new FULL SUN recordings and I can't wait to hear them.

CRUDE HILL - "On Stiltz" - Tape - 2007

   I saw CRUDE HILL play a cramped basement in Indiana back in 2007 and I remember thinking that they sorta sounded like "Noise Cumbia" or "Experimental World Music". Once I got this tape into the player, I realized that I was wrong and there was something else going on entirely. This 40-something minute tape (split into 6 sections) explores improvisation, noise landscapes, experimentation and droning bliss.

Download CRUDE HILL

Features members of  TEENAGE WAISTBAND, FORCE FIELD and URDOG.

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.

IGGY SCAM - "79th Street Radio" - Tape - 1998

    Iggy Scam has been self-publishing his zine, SCAM since 1991. It tends to focus on the underbelly of society: the underprivileged, the downtrodden, the folks sleeping in the doorways, the freaks and the punks...and it treats them with dignity and respect. It has consistently been one of my favorite zines since I first encountered SCAM #2, which was bigger than the telephone directory of the town where I grew up.
    Iggy appeared on NPR's "This American Life" on Lil' Bobby Hutton Day in 1998, reading his story "79th Street Radio". It chronicles the mystery and wonder of stumbling across a pirate radio station in North Miami and trying to figure out its origins; trying to find the story behind the story. It conjures up images of lonely boulevards at 3am, old rusting cars, and a time in Miami that may be nonexistent in the near future. It's good listening and helps me to remember why I love radio...not the pop stations, but the crackly AM country, the Coast To Coast weirdness, the things you stumble across in the middle of Wyoming and of course, pirate radio.

Download 79th Street Radio

   In the mid-00's, Iggy Scam changed his name back to Erick Lyle and continues to write SCAM. In addition to this, he has contributed articles to SF's Bay Guardian, written articles for many zines and authored the book On The Lower Frequencies, which chronicles years of activism and struggle in SF during the dot-com boom and the ensuing era of living in a world that does not want poor people to exist. He is currently working on a new book and a collaborative art show in SF that is sure to blow some minds.

SHITBOY FROM OUTERSPACE - Live At The Tip Top - Tape - 1994

    SHITBOY FROM OUTERSPACE was a 1-2-1-2 style hardcore band from Huntsville, AL that specialized in playing 10 minute shows that left behind broken shit and blood. At their first show ever (also at the Tip Top), their singer Joey broke a bottle over their guitarist's head to start off their first song and knocked him out. I think that was also the end of their set.
  They came along at a beautiful time in the northern Alabama punk scene, when it seemed like everyone was starting to do something musically exciting and invigorating. While some bands were playing post-punk, surf or pop-punk, SFO played a style of spit-in-your-face blasts of punk where the songs rarely lasted over 1 minute and usually didn't contain many more words than "Fuck you!" Enjoy this thrashed tape of their 7 minute set (includes 5 songs and lots of banter) at The Tip Top in Hunstville, AL, a place that deserves its own entry one day.
                     Download SHITBOY FROM OUTERSPACE
   "This song is called 'Iconoclast' and it's about being a fuckin' reject" yes!

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

SWORD OF THE ANCIENT - Tape - 2003

   When SWORD OF THE ANCIENT was a band, I could not describe their sound to anyone and the present day still finds me at a loss for words. It's more no-wave than no-wave. It's like the absence of waves. It sounds like a clanky bike with half-flat tires dragging empty tallcans  through the barren streets of mid-city New Orleans. At times, they almost sound like they're on the brink of falling apart, but still completely in charge of their trajectory. Insistent. Serious, but not taking it all too seriously. Three women serenely singing and screaming their fucking heads off to a discordant, yet alluring, cacophonous wail. One guitar. One cello. One drumset.Ten songs. For months, I used to wake up in my attic room and listen to "Lose A Few Problems" every day before I got out of bed in the morning. Maybe you will too.

          

Download..updated 2013

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..

DOOR-KEYS - "Oddities" - CDR - 2006

                                         Photo by Ben Rains
 In 2006, I was on tour with ONE REASON and HOT NEW MEXICANS. The DOOR KEYS had hit all of the same towns about a week ahead of us and they left notes and presents for us in a lot of the towns. One of the presents was this CDR. I think it was originally intended as a gift for HOT NEW MEXICANS, but at the end of the tour I found the CD under the seat of our van after HNM had already left town. Their loss, your gain. The first two songs were recorded for a split 7" with ADD/C that never materialized (unless I totally missed it somehow) and shows the band belting out their mid-tempo, Midwestern basement pop to the best of their abilities. As far a s I know, these songs never made it onto any releases. Tracks 3 and 4 are taken from the 2006 Boxcar Books Rock N Roll Prom, which is a show that happens every year in Bloomington, IN and benefits the bookstore as well as The Midwest Pages To Prisoners Project. It's a really fun event where local musicians form cover bands for the prom and get to play in from of 300-600 people. For this event, 3/4's of the DOOR KEYS joined forces with Leah (from PUPPY VS DYSLEXIA) and Alex (from ETIQUETTE) to blow some minds covering PATTY SMITH. On tracks 5 and 6, the same lineup got together and covered JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. The thing about the DOOR KEYS (and friends) is that they can really play their instruments well and their singer Daun is usually belting out some next level shit as it is, so when you hear them play "White Rabbit", you can tell they're not fucking around...but even if they are fucking around, it still rules...which brings us to the last 4 songs. The DOOR KEYS, for some strange reason, decided to play a local show covering FEAR, which is incredibly out of character for them. It would be like if LOS CRUDOS covered BARRY MANILOW or if EARTH covered songs by ANAL CUNT. Anyway, it sounds like they practiced these songs for about 10 minutes before the show and then blazed through their set by relying on pure attitude. Sample quote: "Did you say show me your balls?! I don't have any balls, I'm a fucking girl!"
                      Download DOOR KEYS

   Chris and Matte now play in LANDLORD and are on tour as I type this. Go see them! Chris also plays guitar in another band with Daun called FAT SHADOW. I'm not sure if their bass player Greg is playing in a band at this time, but he is one of the funniest people that I have ever met in my life. If you want to download every album by the DOOR KEYS, as well as the members past and present projects, then look no further.

LIFE DURING WARTIME #7 - "Punks Against War" - Tape - 2003

   George Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in early 2003 and activists in San Francisco organized a protest to shut down the city. I wasn't there, unfortunately, so it's hard for me to write about this and give an accurate description of what happened. Luckily, my good friend Erin Yanke was there and documented the protest as it happened. Her interviews take place in a squatted building near Market and Van Ness in downtown SF. The vacant former pot club was taken over during the protest to act as a place to organize, relax, eat free food, get away from cops and plot your next move in the shutdown of the city. They even had door people to watch the front so that when the cops inevitably raided the building, they could be stalled and most everyone got out the back door without harm or arrest.

                             photo courtesy of Anandi
   On side two, Paul Curran interviews people in the streets about their motivation behind getting involved with this protest and about how being punk has influenced their political ideologies. I think it's important to hear these stories of past struggles and learn from them to influence how we can do things better in the future. This protest brought out thousands of people and shut down the entire city for the day. It's really inspiring to me.

                 Photo taken from Basetree of protesters on Powell St.

                                 Handiwork by Lee Wonder

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Updated 2014

                       

   Erin Yanke still occasionally does zines (audio and written) and is sitll hard at work with her weekly radio show on KBOO in Portland, OR.