LEG - Self Titled EP - 2002

   LEG, according to their record insert, started as a joke because their friend needed an extra band to play a show. Then, they just kept existing. Listening to their songs, I can tell that they're definitely no joke. Over the course of the few shows I saw them play (always in cramped Indiana basements), I could tell that they didn't take themselves too seriously, but still invested serious time into developing finely crafted pop hooks. Jim, the guitarist, had a bit of a lazy handed approach to playing and sometimes sloppily strummed his guitar, but then he would pull off some wizardly genius hook that let you know that he knew exactly what he was doing. After seeing them, their songs would be stuck in my head for days. I was in a band with their drummer, Matte (GIANT BAGS OF WEED), which is initially why I paid attention to LEG in the first place. When I would hear them practice or see them play shows, I soon felt like Matte and I were the ones in the joke band.

   On this recording, LEG is a four piece band with their original singer, Nick. I only saw them play with him once and he had some of the weirdest dance moves I had seen at that point in my life. Kind of like a failed marionette puppet being controlled by a blacked out senior citizen. After recording this EP, LEG became a three piece with Jim taking over on vocals. The songs are punctuated by Jim's clean guitar tones and insistent down-stroking.  I think Jim and Chris were into a lot of indie rock and took some influences from that, but I couldn't tell you what those influences were. A poor man's BUILT TO SPILL? SWIRLIES? I don't fuckin' know. I do know that I really like this band and these five songs are firmly lodged into my brain for life. If you're late to the game, now is a good time to let LEG into your life.

DOWNLOAD

I don't really know what any of these people are up to now. Matte played in NANA GRIZOL, LANDLORD, GNARX and a lot more bands. Jim put out a lot of solo stuff under the name BAD KNEES and his own given birth name. You can find his music here and here (his cover of the song "A Slippery Subject" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard....I mean that positively). Chris played in Bloomington goth act TURN PALE and a pretty good JAWBREAKER cover band. I'm sure he did more too, but I don't know what it is. I like to imagine Nick dancing like a maniac...where ever he is.

This record came out on Half-Day Records in 2002. I think the band also had a tape, but I kinda think it was the same songs. I've never owned or seen the tape. 

SHORE BIRDS / SON SKULL / COMIN' UP ROSES - "Oly Punks Tour '07" - Tape - 2007

   I'm back from travels and it feels good (sort of) to be back home. I stared into dark oceans, looked into the fire, went on a 40 mile bike ride, hung out in the rain, lived life and all that. I have a lot of good stuff lined up for sharing online and I'm starting off with a contribution from my good friend, Alex Turner. Here he is to tell you about it....

   2007. Upwards of 15 people. 2 Vans. 3 Bands. 5 or 6 shows (Olympia, Portland, Oakland, Berkeley, Arcata, Eugene)? 10 days? I don't really know how it all came together, or didn't come together but in 2007 COMIN UP ROSES, SHOREBIRDS, and SON SKULL all went on a west coast tour together, and put out this tape for the occasion. I was there as a nanny for Lilly, Erica was there to help drive, Brother Ben is just really helpful, Kendra and Tinsel, we picked up in the bay, Lilly was almost 2 and Frida was in Mary's belly. Matti, Hendo, The B-Man, Swire, Mary, Nell and Hayes made up the bands. I hope I didn't forget anyone. Thinking back on it, it seems like we were on tour forever, but also I can't remember that many shows, and we went 'tour' camping at least a few times.
    It was one of those times in life where you and your friends felt invincible to the world. What we were doing was the most important and interesting thing, and that we would all be friends forever. This, of course, didn't turn out to be true. We had a lot of fun on that tour and the time leading up to it, and afterwards, as the house it was all centered around (rumbletowne) was evicted it all seemed to loose some steam. Anyways these three bands were great! I had a blast at (nearly) every show that all three of them ever played. I miss some of the friendships and that moment in time, but they are what they were. 
    Thanks to lilly, the track house, the yellow van, olympia, rumbletowne, the glass house, and milk egg.

DOWNLOAD

GO ENJOY OCTOBER

    I'm taking October off. There may be random entries written by other folks during the month, but don't count on it. I'll be back in the office in November. Thanks!

Enjoy this in the meantime

PHOTO POST

CLEANSING WAVE - Distant Castle - 2010 - Worcester, MA - Photo by Greg Harvester

JOEY TAMPON AND THE TOXIC SHOCKS - Location Unknown - 1996 - Huntsville, AL - Photo by Dama (??)

BRIS - A Garage - 2000 - Chattanooga, TN - Photo by Brontez Purnell

AOA - Clopton St - 1996 - Huntsville, AL - Photo by Ramesh (?)

THEE AUTOBOTS - The Gazebo - 1997 - Huntsville, AL - Photo by Blair Menace

FORCED VENGEANCE - Rear Entry - 2000 - Chattanooga, TN - Photo by Brontez Purnell

ONION FLAVORED RINGS - An Art Space - 2003 - Asheville, NC - Photo by Greg Harvester

DEAD MOON, Daun, Greg and Shannon - The Bluebird - 2006 - Bloomington, IN - Photo by the Coles' niece.

HARBINGER - "Eartraining For Corporates" - Tape - 1999

   Today, I'm gonna take the backseat again and let someone else drive this broken down jalopy. John No contacted me about putting up the long lost HARBINGER demo and of course I said yes. Here he is to tell you all about it. I'll chime in again at the end. 

   

   

   HARBINGER is an East Bay punk band that formed in 1998. Robert Eggplant had a bunch of great songs that he was playing solo with an electric guitar, and his comrades Aaron Cometbus and John No (the guy writing this) conspired with him over late night donuts in Oakland to make a band out of it. Eggplant had played guitar in BLATZ and THE HOPE BOMBS, Aaron had played drums with pretty much every band in existence at some point, and I hadn't played bass "for real" before at all (and didn't again until STREET EATERS).
    We recorded this tape live a few weeks later at 924 Gilman with infamous roadie/sound guy Clayton McBride. There were no overdubs, not even the vocals. When people heard it, they kept asking Eggplant who the lady singing backups was (that would be me). We went on our one U.S. tour pretty soon after releasing the tape (i.e. home dubbing 100 copies), during which I met about half of my current friends and played with what were to soon become many of my favorite bands. We played in Chattanooga with JACK PALANCE BAND and we accidentally split some poor kid's scalp open by throwing a giant talking Mother Goose doll in the audience. We played in Gainesville with RADON at a house party and I was so drunk I could barely play, so some dude kept yelling "y'all would be great if you had a bass player!" I didn't drink before shows after that.
    HARBINGER played at ABCNORIO in New York and Eggplant threw watercolor paint all over the white gallery walls so we had to stay after the show and clean it up. We played our tightest set in Pensacola, Florida, at the original Sluggo's for an audience consisting of Rymodee and Teddy Ted, who played for the three of us in a 2/3rds version of THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB (Terry was stuck downstairs tending bar). Right after that I walked down to the fabled Pensacola "beach" and it was super grey, broken shell-strewn and depressing; I liked it but didn't see what all the tourist fuss was about. Turns out what I thought was Pensacola beach was Pensacola Bay. I went to a pay phone and made a phone call to my friend Von and we decided to form FLESHIES.
    After HARBINGER made it home, we almost made Ben Ditch (from BEFORE THE FALL/FUTURE ADULTS) our singer, got into a couple of stupid arguments, played a couple more shows and "broke up". Then after a minute we decided we weren't broken up and would just play together when we were all in town. We wrote a few more songs, recorded a 12" with Kevin Army in 2001, and put it out on RIISK Records in 2004. I think there are a couple of them left, but you will have to call Eggplant at 510 BAD-SMUT and leave a message. We still play together sometimes, though these days we are more inclined to get donuts and walk around together all night when we are in the same place. The end.
 Thanks to the Region Rock and More for digitizing the tape and originally posting it in 2009.

   Okay, it's Greg again....Fun tidbits: I once heard that HARBINGER showed up early to a show at Gilman and claimed that they only play house shows, so they built a shack inside of Gilman to play in. I only saw HARBINGER once (don't know where I was when that Chattanooga show happened) at a Halloween show at 54th St in Oakland just a couple of years ago. There were a lot of mishaps. Aaron was sitting in a wooden chair while playing drums and the whole thing just fell apart mid-song. I think Eggplant broke a few strings and didn't have any extras. The PA barely worked. Usual house show mishaps. These things happen. It was fun.

DOWNLOAD

FUTURE ADULTS - Discography Kind Of, Sort Of - 2005

  I've been meaning to upload this one for a few years and I'm not sure what has stopped me. I think it was lack of information. FUTURE ADULTS existed largely after I moved away from San Francisco. I think I only saw them once in a backyard in the Mission during the short period when they had a bass player (Buzz). They were inspired. They were pissed. They were drunk. They had awesome, catchy, short, fast, poppy, punk songs. They have a song about listening to RANCID at Dead Rat Beach, which is an Oakland punk house that's still there. You can still go there and listen to RANCID if you want. I'm pretty sure I've done that. They have a theme song, which any self-respecting band should always have.
   Lo and behold, FUTURE ADULTS have their own Wiki page, so you don't even need my hazy, limited memories....here's what it says.....
  Future Adults was a San Francisco/Bay Area pop-punk band, most notable for the song "Oppenheimer", loosely based on the nuclear discoveries of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Their style can be categorized as bright pop-punk or melodic grindcore.
    Future Adults formed in June, 2003 during the 30th birthday party for Needles & Pens co-founder Andrew Scott at Dolores Park in San Francisco, California. Future Future Adults guitarist and singer Melissa Merin brought an acoustic guitar to the gathering, and, under the influence of friends, alcohol and euphoria, played the five chords she knew in different variations over and over throughout the afternoon (including several variations of "Dust In the Wind", which Breezy Culbertson's mother sang along to with fervor. Ben "Ditch" Taylor and Sarah "Double Ears" Sandberg were also in attendance, and gladly added to the increasingly non-sequitor songs screeching from the guitar.
    As the sun went down over Dolores Park, it was decided that the trio would head back to Melissa's house. Armed with a 12 pack of Busch beer (which they found heavily ironic, given the times), they sat in Melissa's room (in the infamous 225 house), drank all of the beer, smoked too many cigarettes (all three of them were smokers at the time), and made up ridiculous songs about punks, theory, boredom and beer.
    Only a month after Future Adults formed, Ben Ditch moved to Minneapolis, MN, with the promise that he would be back "soon". Double Ears and Melissa held onto that promise and for months the two sat in the same dingy room and wrote song after song, anticipating Ben's return. It can be said that the first ever Future Adults show was performed in the kitchen of 225. 4 songs sung, after meticulous practice to Kat Case and Arwen Curry, among others.
    In the summer of 2004 (?) Melissa took a road trip with Cinque Adams to join John Denver's Airplane and Rotten Living on a tour starting from Minneapolis. There she was reunited with Ben Ditch. One day later Double Ears surprised both of them by driving across the country with Clayton McBride and showing up at a Fleshies basement show. The following day, the three of them converged on Ditch's front lawn and proceeded to drink several beers (about 3 cases) with the help of a few friends. They borrowed a guitar, fashioned a drum kit out of buckets and cans and had the first of many epic band practices. Ben returned to the bay area a few months later and the three began to practice semi-frequently at Idaho Street in Oakland. Their first ever show on a flier was at Adobe Books in San Francisco.

DOWNLOAD at their Bandcamp page

GRAVEBOUND - "Stabbing Contest" - Tape - 2010

   Hardcore is a large corner of the punk world that I know very little about. I leave that up to my tape blogging friend with the long beard and the full back tattoo of Willie Nelson. I just know what I like and I like GRAVEBOUND. They probably take elements of bands that people like and do things with it it that are cool and different. Some people might use words like "sick" or "brutal" to describe their sound. The philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein once famously said, "If a lion could talk, we would not understand him." This is similar to how I feel when I'm stuck near a conversation between two or more men (and, yes, it is almost always men) discussing different aspects of the world of DIY hardcore punk. I don't get the references and don't know what the other bands sound like. DROPDEAD? I'm sure they're great. I saw 'em once, but walked out after two songs. INFEST? I went to see FUNERAL CONE instead. It's not really my world, but I dip my toes in from time to time with bands like IRON LUNG, REPLICA, NO STATIK and GRAVEBOUND.
   GRAVEBOUND is the kind of shit I listen to when I want to punch my fist all the way through a cop's head into the wall behind them. It sounds a city being destroyed, taking out the posers, the sycophants and psychic vampires. It sounds like success wrapped in utter failure. It probably sounds like noisy, downtuned hardcore bands I've never heard before.
   I was in Chattanooga for (what I thought was) their last show ever (I was wrong, but they're done now), near the front of the room, I half-expected to be taken out by a room of wildly flailing men (and yes, it was almost all men), but I was wrong. The room just kind of throbbed and sweatily oozed as the band destroyed their set. They sounded about as good as a band can when they play in a 100 degree concrete box in the middle of a heat wave, but they were also one of the bands I enjoyed the most on that day that was chock full of heavy hitters. Download and destroy.

DOWNLOAD

More by GRAVEBOUND

OLD SCHOOL BEER DRINKIN' ROBOTS - Demo - Tape - 2002

   Today's post is brought to you by Blair Menace because of a few simple facts: He was there, he had the tape and he is a werewolf. Werewolves are smart creatures and have a lot to offer us mortals. The rest is written by him....


   OLD SCHOOL BEER DRINKIN ROBOTS were a Chattanooga band who existed in 2002, and maybe a little bit before or after. They were Josh on guitar, Ramesh on bass, and Daniel on drums.
    In the summer of 2002, I was living on the porch of the Lilside house in Asheville when they spent a week or two in town, raising hell and annoying Jason Cronk. I'm not sure if they were on a tour that failed, or what, but they did manage to play shows a time or two here and dubbed this tape for me. To be honest, this was a pretty blurry summer and only a handful of moments of hanging out with them stuck with me: drinking a jug of stolen wine on top of the used book store and singing John Prine and Tom Waits, cringing as Daniel busted forty bottles on the wheelchair ramp of the church across the street, marveling at Ramesh's tendency to nap under his van, getting my only pair of pants (and wallet) stolen off the porch by a crackhead while all four of us slept on it.
    Regarding the tape itself: I'm not sure if it ever got “officially” released, at least in this form. I never had a cover or song titles, and it's dubbed over a promotional tape for something called “Tamanu Oil” which you can hear occasionally between songs. The vocals fluctuate wildly in volume on some of the songs, and the bass is sadly often inaudible, but it's still in pretty good shape. The only songs I remember are the self-explanatory theme song, the infamous “Sunrise” (“The only thing more beautiful than a sunrise is a dead cop”), the song about Ramesh's inability to cook potatoes or park accurately, and the obligatory Peter Stubb cover. One song even has some whistling! It's so short that I had to listen to it three times while writing this – twelve songs in thirteen minutes, even though the songs feel weirdly epic and complex. Josh's frantic, scale-defying guitar playing smashing up against Ramesh's Rancid-guy-in-a-tornado bass style is the real draw here, along with the “anything goes” mode of the songwriting.

The band in happier times. Chattanooga 2003.

DOWNLOAD

REMOTE OUTPOSTS WEIRDO MIX VOL 2 - Tape - 2013

   This is the second in a collection of songs and random bullshit that doesn't really fit elsewhere. I make no excuses or apologies for sound fidelity. You can find the first installment of this collection right here..
    The intro is the beginning of one of the worst songs of all time. Unfortunately, it got stuck in the heads of Cinque and I when we were working on a farm, picking basil for a few weeks. We would scream out the lyrics to each other across the field at 7 am. One day, I went into town and was looking at the 45 at the record store when the clerk said, "Oh God, please take that record! Just get it out of the store."
  The second is a lost RICE HARVESTER song that never made it onto any releases or into a recording studio. By this time, I had moved from Huntsville back to Birmingham, AL, but was still driving back to Huntsville (around a 3 hour drive, round trip) once a week to practice. I think we intended for this song to be on a compilation of Alabama bands that never got off the ground. It's about a homeless man in Huntsville named Gene who, rather than simply sleeping under overpasses, would build a little shack / house under the bridge in plain view of everyone. I immediately felt weird about writing this song because after talking to him a few times and being only 20 years old, I really had no grasp of the complexities of homelessness and mental illness. It's written from a place of privilege that just embarrasses me now. Luckily, the recording quality is abysmal.
   It's followed up by one of my favorite EFS songs. They were the house band at a punk house that was allegedly above the Black & White Liquors by Ashby BART in the East Bay way back in the dark ages. Following that is a band containing members who have won Grammys and shit. I'm not saying their name because I want to avoid the fiasco of being linked to slobbering fan site messageboards (again). If you listen to melodic punk, you will probably recognize this song, but maybe not this version. Sound quality is total trash. CBDS is after them with a different mix of one of their great songs. Sound quality has deteriorated so badly that you will wonder if there has been a turd stuffed into the cassette.
    Quality takes a step up for the intro to the long lost Alabama rock band, BUCKET FULL OF HERESY. The intro is the best part of their tape. The rest is an endurance test of having to listen to teenagers try to write a song while the tape is rolling. I know that this hasn't stopped me in the past, but I'll spare you the gory details this time. SMEGMAGICIANS are next. They've been a band since 1993, but only played one show in 1994. They're mysterious and choose to stay that way. This song was recorded in 1999.
   Next up is a recording from a FORCED VENGEANCE show that took place on my birthday back in 2000 (?). Details are hazy, but I do know that Harry (guitarist) and I played this show nearly blacked out drunk. This show was also when the proverbial line in the sand was drawn between the towns of Bloomington and Chattanooga because a bunch of Bloomington residents came down to this show and decided that we were some of the worst people to ever exist because my friend Piper (who lived in Bloomington most of the time, mind you) decided to construct a 3 foot long, paper mache cock to hang from the ceiling. I'm sure I'm missing some details here, but instead of talking to us and figuring out that we were not the worst people ever, a lot of folks just decided to go with that story....some of the debris of this show still lingers around to this day (obviously). ANYWAY, This recording comes from the beginning of the set when Harry needed to borrow an amp because his was crapping out. Rather than just wait around for this to happen, Eric (other guitar) and I (drums) started fucking around. Harry, who is usually fairly quiet and shy, took this opportunity to bust out a ridiculous, entirely ad-libbed 80's style rap. When Chrissie (bass) joins in, the whole thing gels together in this way that none of us expected, I'm pretty sure we were all laughing so hard that we cried. I know that I did when re-listening to it. I vaguely remember the audience laughing and dancing.
   Now, we do a 180 and switch gears entirely. DOOMSDAY CAULDRON is the best thing on here. I was never a huge follower of their music, but got a few things passed on to me through mix tapes that blew my mind in different ways. Coming from the background that I do, their songs initially sounded overbearing and unnecessarily serious to me, but as they grew on me, I knew that they meant every word with every fiber of their being. Their song "Song for Sera" is one of my favorites to listen to in the middle of the night on long drives in the middle of nowhere. Coupled with their song "Darkness Is Falling" and THE BODY's "Just Wretched", you can almost perfectly picture the world in the moments just before it explodes and destroys every last bit of life on this planet.
   To close out the tape, I switched gears again and went back to ridiculous. If you grew up in the 80's, you may remember those weird answering machine greeting tape commercials....They advertised tapes that you could buy for your answering machine that sang ultra corny greetings to the tune of Beethoven's Fifth and bad 50's rock. Here's a whole tape of them (2 and a half whole minutes) so that you can confuse people who call your cell now...if anyone ever calls you anymore.

DOWNLOAD

CAL AND THE CALORIES - Tape - 2013

    One of the greatest parts of doing demo reviews for MRR is that when shit comes in the mail with goofy ass and/or ridiculous band names like LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS, CUNT LICKER, BUTT PROBLEMS or LUST CATS OF THE GUTTERS, I am immediately drawn to it. I can't resist! Sometimes, I can just look at the cover and know that my life will not improve in any way by listening to it and other times, I know that I need it. When I saw the unmistakable style of Lumpy-penned art on this demo by CAL AND THE CALORIES, I already knew that the music waiting for me on the 1/4 inch analog tape would be noisy, slimy, dirty and indispensable.
   According to the vaguely threatening letter I received with this tape, CAL AND THE CALORIES was formed to play songs that were rejected by the band LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS for being "too poppy". Apparently, "too poppy" to them means playing slightly more melodic music that follows in the grand tradition of Midwestern punk along the lines of more fucked GIZMOS or THE PANICS after they've been thrown through a mud puddle. Or maybe I'm just wayyyy off base here and these are just some Midwestern punks who do their own thing in their basement. Anyway, it's really good. Listen or go on with your fucking boring life.

DOWNLOAD

"Don't tell me what I am. I know I'm ugly and I smell like Spam"

For your own tape, call Cal at 618-477-2745