Minimum Tillage Farming

Beano (Secret) Demo

2012-02-09T15:31:00.004-05:00

here's th only thing beano actually 'released' in our "career" - and even then only in an edition of like eight at a neil house show. i think we charged a dollar. each one was in a different color/flavor, with th covers hand-traced (by me) from art thom did. most of th stuff on this probably appears on th beano cd i made to pass out at trevor's wedding, but i thought it was worth it to post this anyhow since i think most all of th takes are different. ALSO, this features two tracks (live at bernie's) with their original drummer!

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Thom Lessner

2012-02-09T14:58:00.003-05:00

i met thom OVER 1,000 YEARS AGO when i got asked to try playing drums for a fellow i had just met's recently-drummerless band. that was beano, we played for awhile. it was great. certain things led to us not playing anymore but that's a whole other thing. sometimes we still do. anyhow, nowadays of course thom has thee excellent SWEATHEART in philly and numerous art gigs like MAKING ALL TH POSTERS FOR TH SCHOOL OF ROCK or MAKING VIDEOS FOR THE DARKNESS but before that he spent a buncha years (starting in high school) four-tracking his way to obscurity. here are all th tapes i have documenting that endeavor:

GUY SMILEY

THE ASHBY STASH

3-D THOMMY

EVERYBODY SING ALONG

notes: th 'guy smiley' tape was done, if i remember correctly, as a project for one of thom's classes at fort hayes. it marks th only time thom used a name other than his own for his solo stuff. th copy he gave me had a whole bunch of stuff on th b-side as well, so i've included it. 'the ashby stash' was in some ways a retrospective at th same time it was a collection of then-current recordings, so it shares some tracks with th 'guy smiley' tape. i didn't edit any tunes from either; i'm sure you won't mind. there are tons of guest stars on these songs, including rjd2, all of beano, peggy honeywell, sonya fix, & maika carter (she's married now, i know). i may have titled some of th unlisted tues incorrectly, but that's how it goes, eh?

Peggy Honeywell "Bower Bird"

2012-02-09T13:26:00.002-05:00

awhile back a buncha dudes got together to throw a raging kegger and watch peggy honeywell sing th same song a lot. forgot aboot it/couldn't find it/&c for years, but now here it is. shot in col's, you may recognize a buncha th buncha dudes.

FOOTAGE

2012-01-18T02:04:00.003-05:00

posted (over at our blogbrother t75) an m4v of th' g&s vid from 1990 where a buncha stuff is shot in and around columbus with a coupla cats from in and around columbus innit (among many others). dig. also th' first place any of us heard "the wagon" by dinosaur since we weren't in th' subpop singles club. boss.

Jim Shepard + Multiball

2012-01-10T17:25:00.014-05:00

September 12, 1998. Walt's Lounge. Summit Street. Columbus, Ohio, USA. Drinking the cheapest beer in the house. Billy big brother who sells used cars bought me a round. Crazy fucking Jenny bought me one too, as she continued to berate me, shoot me her middle finger, and babble on in her whacked-out Jack Daniel's haze. I've seen her sit by herself and just laugh her head off. She holds a job, has a boyfriend, but she is A-1 nutso. It's mid-afternoon, OSU is winning 49 to zip (like I care), and besides talkin' to Carol the bartender's boyfriend Mick, the highlight of the day is slippin' 4 quarters into the DRACULA pinball machine for a 2 player game and winning 2 free games. You top 110,000 points and you win. It's better than Vegas. I've been THERE, dropped 2 rolls of quarters in the slots, and split. The '96 tour, 7,000 miles. 21 days. Me and Squid, the 'merch-man', had a rental car. Rest of band w/girlies had a van. Left 'em in Venice Beach. They knew the way home…

I've never been known to play the kind of SPORTS that make ya sweat. I play pinball. At Walt's Lounge, I seem to be one of the only people to play the DRACULA machine. When I was 10 and enjoying my boyhood life in Vermont, my family hijacked me to a sad slow-moving town in central FLAWRIDA. I hated it. When I got out of high school I moved to Ohio w/2 friends and we started the band Vertical Slit.

The only thing in that hot swamp-land town that made life tolerable was the Hi-Lan Lanes Bowling Alley 2 blocks from the house. I was an addict. It was the machines. In the early '70s, I was a young teenager. I was also a pinball wizard and a pool hustler. Grown men would weep as me and the V. Slit drummer Dave Mikula would call the 8 ball four rails in the corner and make it. Back in those pre-video days pinball was a whole different animal. The scoring numbers rolled around on cylinders and to get the ball to pop up so you could shoot it you had to push in a lever. Big machines back then were 'STUDENT PRINCE', 'METEOR', and 'HOT ROD'. It seemed we spent half of our lives at the bowling alley. The fuel to feed out addiction was quarters. Any way we could get 'em, we'd get 'em. Steal change from the parents, go door to door "collecting money for the junior high basketball team" (which wasn't actually collecting money for any 'cause'), and…well, all the quarters would go into the machines at the bowling alley. Eventually it would go for other things like cigarettes, dope, and liquor. I scored a dishwashing job in the restaurant at the bowling alley. This would provide chump-change for the machines.

Pinball is pure magic. It's not like playing pool, bowling, contact sports, or playing cards. It's one on one. You against the machine. You can't touch the ball (or the 'multi-balls'). All you can do is pull back the plunger, let the ball go, and work the flippers. I used to push on the machine, shake it around, but I don't bother w/that much anymore. It's a game of skill, and when you can win 2 games on a one-dollar investment…friend, you are a damn good player.

I create music. I drink. I play pinball. Right now, those 3 things seem to be the focus of my earthly existence, but that's fine. I never wanted to be a prize-fighter, and I won't work with the suits. Every night when I get off my 2nd-shift job I head to the bar. Walt's Lounge. I play pinball. Sometimes, me and a girl friend each play a flipper, but her reflexes are kinda slow and she'll make the ball drain. Hang out w/the middle- to old-age working class drinkers. I feel safe there and lemme tell ya, when I kick the machine's ass I feel a sense of satisfaction unlike any other.

Pinball is one of the most worthwhile things on the planet, it's been a huge part of my life…and when you're a master player, hey, it makes the evening quite alright…

-Jim Shepard of V-3 9.14.98

Lydia Loveless @ Lost Weekend (yesterday)

2011-10-01T14:02:00.003-04:00

so lydia's new record is out and it's a burner; naturally she's on th' road preachin' th' good word most of th' time but last nite she was at rumba here in town and since i had to work i stopped into kyle's shop late in th' afternoon to catch a few songs from her and her bass-beau blammo. lucky for you i had my trusty (?) sony TCM-400DV cassette-corder and an NOS HF60 to capture all of th' wonderful hiss for aboot th' last half of her set. enjoy!

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Tellers "In Loving Memory Of Rock'n'Roll"

2011-09-23T13:45:00.011-04:00

tellers were an INCREDIBLE cle band that ~~no-one seems to know much about~~.

"great CLE band that I saw many times. Lead singer & creative force Samantha 'Starborn' Schartman & incredible lead guitarist Derek Deprator were just out of high school when they recorded this lp. MANY line up changes over the years with Sam being the only constant." [jay brown, via fb]

years after this record came out they played at highfive but i missed out - tho' word was it wasn't all that good; this record, on th' other hand, is FUCKING GOLD th' whole way thru, power-pop-punk better than th' three good songs on 'the dwarves are young and good looking'/garage ripoffs about 60x more enthralling than anything other than maybe the fall-outs/riot-grrrl-isms that don't get overly total-bullshitty OR ANYTHING. if you like nasty facts or busy signals you need to hear this, tho' it's way more all-over-th'-place (and yeah that's a compliment) than those bands' records. one of these is usually sitting at used kids for between $1 and $4 or you can buy a copy off th' interwebs for $40, yr choice.

and oh yeah, there's no track listing on th' sleeve or record or insert or anything. SO THERE.

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clepunk listing

photo credit: jay brown

Moviola - Frantic 10"

2011-09-22T18:23:00.008-04:00

ran into sam who useta be in this band (tho' he left even before this record) and also codename: stingray at lost weekend th' other day and had a nice chat and then ran across this at halfprice so i picked it up and here ya go. not th' cleanest copy ever and spirit of orr did some reissue but whatever. if you like this might i suggest you also download th' econothugs thing and listen to "wrecking ball" allday.

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Scrawl's first two lps at Amor Louco blog

2011-09-13T14:54:00.005-04:00

"References: American Band Ohio. Indie-rock, post-punk. Female band initially formed in 1985 by Marcy Mays, Sue Harsh and Carolyn O'Leary (later gave rise to the male member of the band, Dana Marshall). The raw sound, straight, recalls moments of Throwing Muses, but nothing to remove the original sound. So much so that ended up on Rough Trade Records. Post here the first two albums, but they have four albums and some singles. Good times."

go to it!

PORK CITY U.S.A.

2011-07-15T16:13:00.004-04:00

as i was running in all th' hairy patt stuff i figured i wouldn't stop with just their track from this comp since th' others are so good. released on blank generation outta williamsburg, oh in 1996. also features the beel jak, lee harvey keitel band, & slur (whose track is one of my favorite, favorite lost fuzz-pop tunes of th' '90s - if ANYONE can tell me more about them or send some more songs over, i'd be deeply indebted to you).

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HAIRY PATT BAND

2011-07-15T16:06:00.003-04:00

here's all the vinyl i have from these guys. missing th' split w/whiteouts, i have no idea where that went. my copy of th' 'belly fu oh happy whale presents' rec is pretty jacked but i mean you can listen to it. anybody wantsta send over th' two cds i'll post 'em. yup. tons more stuff from jason and hpb over at red hour (i've warned you before).

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HORNY RECORDS

2011-07-14T12:05:00.002-04:00

anyone who enjoys this website right here might wanna think about skipping over to th' horny records site, as well as all th' sites linked at th' bottom of their page. records downloadable over there include (as of today):

GRAFTON:Jumpstart Wire
BUSH LEAGUE ALL STARS: Cedar Knees
VESPIN: Model Citizen
OWL: Lifted
BRADLEAH CAULKINS: Dumb Angel
SPIVEYS: By Caeserian
BOB CITY: Bob City

which means i don't hafta run in th' spiveys record. joy!

horny records website

Magician Killer 'Hoodoo Dub'

2011-07-12T21:33:00.003-04:00

a rarity here at mtf: someone else's photo, someone else's link. but if i can get just one more person to turn their mind's eye towards this, whatever means necessary will have been worth it.

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please buy it

myspace

A Planet For Texas

2011-07-08T21:47:00.005-04:00

got-damme do i l-u-v th' way this record sounds! such a perfect destruction of th' prolly purty nice 'n' shiny rec. w-shop master by way of another shitty musicol pressing, this thing fucking SHREDS. "snatching kisses…" damn! anyhow, if ya dunno, APFT were one of th' things that was goin' ahn in th' late-'90s - a time when some people would have ya believe there was nothing goin' ahn. they is wrong. ike from dogrocket joined up with reasonable steve (now in sick thrills, when they feel like existing) and th' gunn brothers and came up with some kinda blitz-speed concept that involved aliens and th' southwest, i dunno, but it was GREAT. they made another 7" - a split w/bobcity - and a coupla full-length (i still chuckle everytime i write that) discs and traded one joel for another before they snuffed out of existence sometime before little brothers did. i don't have th' other records anymore but i'll post 'em if anybody wantsta send 'em over.

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Lost Bob City, 1998

2011-07-08T16:06:00.008-04:00

in july of '98 donovan asked me to record his band at bernie's. i took my reel to reel down there only to find that the desk wasn't gonna accomodate both a recording and live sound, so i ended up only running th' handheld tape recorder i'd brought to cover any problems with the reel. the resulting tape has four unreleased songs on it as well as a cover of motörhead's "jailbait" (which, along with "am i evil?" was a staple of their earlier shows).

a month later (august 28, 1998) bob city came over to the garage behind my house and recorded a few songs they had been working on. lyrics were still being riddled out inbetween takes and little pieces of new tunes (some of which are preserved here) were constantly fooled around with. this tape (also known as 'little ball') never saw anything but a rough mix to cassette (eventually lost, o'course) until a coupla months ago, but is the first "studio" recording the band did; a short while later they made a few trips down to the recording workshop and knocked out the stuff that became the burnt herd 45 and the 'softball'/'hardball' discs.

after awhile bob city got themselves a new singer and morphed into a more traditional '70s-styled metal band, another foghat update for punks growing back into their redneck roots, but when they started (and especially right around the time these tapes were made, when they were writing their second batch of songs) they were their own twisted vision: a lurching, heavy, and downright scary (jeremy is, to this day, the absolute loudest singer i've ever recorded - taking off the headphones in the middle of a take was frankly borderline terrifying) - both in terms of how just plain good they were as well as how sinister their riffs and lyrics could be. of course they weren't without humor - in many ways they're the rock take on whatever nine pound hammer is the punk take on - but they weren't a schtick. and it's probably about time you drained off that last mason of 'shine and opened up th' windows so th' neighbors can get in on this shit.

download:
little ball
bernie's, july 31, 1998

Pillowbiters 'I Don't Even Know You And I Hate Your Guts' EP

2011-07-07T18:23:00.006-04:00

p-biters' second and final recording, this time a five-song ep of MONUMENTAL proportions. or just a pile of sparkling mud-punk from some dudes pretending to be more talented and smarter than they were and fooling no-one.

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Bigfoot 'Dark Old Days'

2011-07-07T17:42:00.007-04:00

with rick allen's article about th' recent long-overdue release of the bygones' second lp right here at mtf also heralding th' reissue of ugly stick's first two cassettes, we have ourselves what's commonly referred to as a perfect time to discuss a record that might be seen as th' link betwixt those aforementioned recordings. somewhat similar to but a touch closer to my heart than the jayhawks' incredible 'tomorrow the green grass', 'dark old days' is too much good to be absorbed in one sitting; it's the polar opposite of those hip-hop double cds with roughly 3-4 mins of quality juice that were so common back when this record was released, a 45-minute long work of such depth that it seems to take up yr entire afternoon. likewise, it ain't a good background record - you'll just keep skipping back to th' beginning of th' last song over and over. hell, you'll do that anyway. and if "hey nadine" - spiritual cousin to the dexateens' "cardboard hearts" and glossary's "only time will tell" in th' heavenly family of album openers - doesn't climb right under yr brain blankets and live with you for th' rest of yr life in holy blissimony, you might not actually be living. a daily affirmation of a record.

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Scrawl 'Nature Film'

2011-07-07T17:36:00.007-04:00

combo that's less 'best band in town' and more 'too fucking awesome to belong to one locale' gets new drummer and major label deal, re-records some shoulda-been-hits, lays 'em down alongside some new ditties and a CHOICE cover and makes th' best record of their career.

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Washington Beach Mayor Sergio Pantalone 2008 Re-Election Benefit Comp

2011-07-07T17:11:00.006-04:00

three years ago we ran a campaign for the re-election of an official (under an assumed name) who had never served before to an office that didn't exist in an imaginary borough. the scoot-a-que then gave away a benefit compilation disc. a sadly lost (not anymore) document of a moment and corner in the great time-space continuum that is col's rock band schmistory.

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The Revelers 'Hard Times, Sunday Spirits'

2011-07-06T17:47:00.008-04:00

here's that last revelers record i've been promising for-effing-ever (not their last, just the last of theirs that i hadn't posted…the rest are here & here). 'hard times' is the best recording they ever did, and unfortunately i don't have the weird japanese pressing with them doing "pressure drop" (!) on it. seek it. lemme know how it turns out.

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Lydia Loveless

2011-06-30T15:46:00.014-04:00

here's sperry's tape of lydia's set at comfest, with the volume jacked up and the tunes titled and tagged. assuming he was situated more back towards th' soundboard as there's quite a bit more ambience than we heard being about 10 or 12 feet back directly in front of the stage right stacks. no matter, her set was fucking magical, and you can hear it (most) all here (caveat: it's missing a coupla encore tunes 'cause evidently someone dicked with sperry's deck - don't fret, just a bonus for those who were actually there): pretty much all of her new record minus a couple tracks which she throws a few off the first lp in place of and a KILLER ke$ha cover. no lie.

i've gotta admit i've only caught lydia about once a year since she started playing this type of stuff cuz tho' i dug it when she first started i wasn't i guess you could say blown away. WELL NOW CONSIDER ME BLOWN. she's better than neko at her own game at this point; that's a decent reference point for starters, but she's way more of a belter a la miranda lambert (and that ain't faint praise, neko and miranda being th' only two girls who've bothered to sing country music in recent memory, 'cept mebbe if yr countin' donna hughes), and her ridiculous gift for twisting melodies and lyrics so goddam effortlessly thru th' shouldn't-it-sound-way-less-revolutionary-than-it-does? relatively/seemingly-trad bed her impeccable cohorts are layin' down (alongside her own guitar, of course) is somethin' neko can't claim (tho' hell she sure can pick them covers good - excepting that ugly nick cave thing that was shat behind th' true blood season debut last wk). lydia's gonna be our own paul westerburg real soon (hell she probably already is…paul was all of 21 when 'sorry ma' came out) - and here ya thought she was gonna be our tommy (hey don't count it out she might up an' join g'n'f'n'r) - and i damned sure ain't gonna miss any of her shows around here anymore if i can help it.

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photo credit: paula masters travis

SPERRY FESTIVAL

2011-06-29T10:50:00.003-04:00

i hope you guys know that mike sperry has been documenting th' col's live "scene" in a very big way over th' past few years. very early in this blog's career we posted an el jesus show he recorded a while back. many more of his recordings are here:

mediafire folder

it is very suggested you grab some and enjoy what you've been missing due to inebriation &c.

THE BYGONES 'In Threes'

2011-06-19T20:40:00.011-04:00

here's a comfest special for ya - and probably the most important (insofar as posting records on the internet can be considered important) thing we'll ever do here at th' mtf blog. 'in threes' is the bygones' belabored, gorgeous, & as-yet-unreleased second lp. who knows why nobody's had the sense(¢) to make this a plastic reality but it's been done since spring 2007 and it's high time everybody heard it. HIGH TIME.

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photo credit: c a s s e r o l e

PAGANS: Pirate's Cove 9/24/79

2011-06-19T20:20:00.001-04:00

been awhile since we delved into any cle rock lore (dammit yes that last revelers lp i need to post is in th' queue!) so here's th' REAL pagans live LP you NEED. sorta-boot, sorta-legit release from sometime in th' '90s on thermionic… young fast drummer era… definitive take on "heart of stone"… fuck, if i hafta SAY SOMETHING to convince you to grab this you can't be helped in th' first place.

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Cheater Slicks 'Bats In The Dead Trees' LIVE

2011-06-19T20:06:00.005-04:00

here's th' disc that came free with th' second pressing of th' slicks' improv LP - live tape from th' release show i think where they extrapolated on some of th' ideas they used on th' recording. i figure you can probably track down lots of their other stuff some way or another but this might be one you've overlooked. don't keep makin' that mistake.

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and yes i realize there's some hey this cd is fucked up clicking going on for two or three minutes of th' second track & then it stops like 5 minutes before th' end but th' rest of th' bits are good ok! i guess th' burn's bad cuz it ain't scratched or nothin'. anybody's got one that works real good plz send it over.

Tolford & Co.: 'Extraordinary Love'

2011-06-19T19:50:00.001-04:00

as i've said elsewhere it ain't rilly my style to go posting shiz you RILLY SHOULD BE PAYING FOR, but this WAY deserves to be heard by everybody, so please - if ya like it go buy it on wax or get one of th' funny little cd copies or go to a buncha shows or buy some t-shirts or tank tops or just hand nick or mike o. or lara or eveybuddy blank checks when ya see 'em on them streets ok?

anyhow if ya didn't see 'em at comfest last year and no-one has told you, there isn't anyone of any persuasion who doesn't fucking fall in in deep lust with this band right whenever they hear 'em - nick being like th' ferris bueller of redhot soul except he ain't lip synchin' an' it ain't the god-damn beatles it's sam cooke - so why they aren't like all over them late nite shows and euroweenie festivals i dunno but DAMN are they REAL REAL GOOD at being REAL REAL GOOD.

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Ohio Penitentiary 511 Jazz Ensemble

2011-06-19T19:44:00.002-04:00

name of this record is 'hard luck soul' (don't doubt it) - my housemate procured a rip from an acquaintance of his and suggested it go on here. already posted elsewhere on th' webs but mebbe this is better quality, i dunno, sounds REAL NICE. all killer no filler souljazz, lotsa good reverb. never heard th' full story about this project or record specifically or i'd tell ya more.

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THE BLUE VOTZ

2011-06-19T19:36:00.001-04:00

i had an idea that this guy mitch i knew from softball should sing in a band tho' i had no evidence that this was in any way a good idea an' lazor i guess wanted to play guitar but her finger was fucked up with this splint on it so we tuned it to drop d and i hadn't played drums in a long time but whatever, we never played out just in a coupla garages next to mitch's fucked-up dodge (soundboard was in the trunk when this was recorded). we had a buncha songs but all i can find is these two which were done on a tape machine with such dirty heads that you can still hear vocal tracks we redid and actually it sounds pretty great i think.

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The Stapler 'Very Clean'

2011-06-19T19:07:00.001-04:00

i dunno what you do when bands are punkish and poppy - pop-punk is th' worst thing to call anyone ever and power pop is way too specifick - & ya actually wanna describe them rather than just say they're good. the stapler's got these great clanging hihats an' a lot more hüsker dü than there was in say 84 nash, & lotsa lou barlow bass under th' guitar scrape that ya wouldn't expect from like the cusacks or somebody - an' while this doesn't have a bonafide H-I-T onnit "gin and phonics" will make you wanna get wherever yr driving at least three times faster than you are getting there presently so go ahead, get more shit done.

(also in like top three reunion type shows i've ever seen: w/carter on drums that one time w/dolby fuckers at bobo.)

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El Jesus de Magico s/t

2011-06-19T19:01:00.001-04:00

word is the new el jesus record is some seriously next-level shiz but i don't have it yet and this is th' one thing you can't totally steal from th' free music archive so hey here it is.

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Sleepers Awake demo

2011-06-19T14:21:00.002-04:00

modern progmetal for people who like a little more QFM in their tool. very pro-fesh but i kinda wish th' drumming was weirder/more inventive/whatever.

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THE LINDSAY 'Dragged Out'

2011-06-19T14:07:00.003-04:00

the lindsay had a big show last nite celebrating th' release of their second LP so it's HIGH TIME we got the first one up here. top ten col's elpees of alltimes, folks, an' that's no lie.

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HELP IS ON DA WAY

2011-06-19T14:01:00.001-04:00

evidently everyone's favorite rhyming panhandler has recorded two discs but this is the only one he's ever sold. i salute you if you can even make it thru th' intro. here's to wishing this had been made 15 years earlier, at least.

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BEAR #50

2011-06-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

i found this little canvas (maybe 4"x4") months ago against a building on high street, somewhere south of the udf at first. little slip of paper says 'you found me! you can post comments to foundbear.blogspot.com' but of course you can't, whoever made it didn't even make one post, so there's nowhere to comment. but still, i like this bear.

obviouslies

2011-05-31T21:25:00.001-04:00

obviouslies bandcamp = pay what you want (nothing is a viable payment) for recordings in whatever digital format you like…any donations go towards pressing vinyl. and/or buying pizzas.

hit it!

also, the 'brokedance' cassettes exist. should be at lost wknd &c by tuesday. still "wish for you" 45s left too. ask kyle or go to a show or something.

The Rackets

2011-05-26T15:54:00.001-04:00

so today i finally came to the conclusion that i'm never gonna mix or 'release' th' record the rackets made; i mean i did a rough mix of one song for costa the other day and that was painless enough but i still don't have any real interest in revisiting that stuff. we weren't a happy band; we weren't happy people…well, ok, we weren't like miserable all the time - we had some pretty great times, come to think of it - but that don't change the fact that most of it was about things that went wrong or were going wrong, and sadly lacking in any possible solutions except the ever-present get-the-fuck-out. more than that, anyhow, it was about drinking and scattering our presents and our futures (nothing doing with the past - it's always gonna be there) to the cosmos with overamplification and large-caliber gunshot drums (i like to think that sometimes we succeeded) - and what does a record have to do with any of that? in any case sperry taped us playing at comfest, summer of '07 - what would, though we didn't know it then, be pretty much our last show - and while there are the requisite amounts of flubbed notes, offkey vocals, inside jokes with friends in the audience, guitars falling steadily outta tune and wonky monitor levels (as one should expect at an outdoor festival run by semi-inebriated - yet by no means apathetic or anything less than highly skilled - volunteers with seventeen time constraints at a time hovering all around their heads), it's a pretty good document of us in general. if yr into that sorta thing.

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Lestat 'Grave Desires'

2011-05-25T15:25:00.002-04:00

back in the early '90s this tape would always be sitting in the bin at mag's; i dunno why i always noticed it but for some reason every damn time i went i'd be thinking, "there's that damned lestat tape, still." anyhow i don't remember who actually BOUGHT the thing or why i ever heard it but i did, once or twice…my memory fouled it up a bit so when i got it from halfprice awhile back and threw it on it wasn't quite as "good" as i thought. of course by '91 th' conventions of what we useta call "industrial" music (tho' what this has in common with einsturzende other than maybe that beating-on-a-girder sample they stole from nitzer ebb is anybody's guess - but heck, "EBM" ain't all that much better) were well in place and this band was way into followin' 'em wherever they may've lead (i.e. right onto that 'goth box' and nowheres else). it ain't a bad listen if'n yr into this kinda thing and lard-knows there weren't all THAT many greater combos eminatin' their moody soundscapes from PARMA HTS. at the time but gimme that 'within the realm of a dying sun' tape instead, myself, anyday.

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New Bomb Turks

2011-05-25T13:57:00.001-04:00

if you like rapidshare and i don't but if you do there's a place where you can get pretty much all th' turks stuff:

part 1
part 2
part 3

so instead of posting any of that here's mp3s off a tape labeled 'austin city limits 5/94' that i found somewhere.

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photo credit: jay brown, duh

VILE GASH

2011-05-25T12:05:00.001-04:00

i think this is not the tape everyone wants to pay for. so here, don't pay for it.

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Married Life Quarterly, Autumn 2010 Bonus CD

2011-05-17T13:49:00.001-04:00

Washington Beach Basement Blues put to tape by an unknown band and found in an alley by me about 5 years ago when I was making a "living" recycling scrap metal. Out of the 400 cassettes of early '80s radio talk shows I found behind some North Campus apartments, there were about 5 that I accidentally discovered had jams on them.

Really awesome prychedelic crud here. Great old man vocals. Check. Crappy drum machine rehearsal tapes. Check. Ugliest solos ever. Yeah. An entire zonked live set in front of an audience of like 5 friends. That's here too.

-van fleet

download
married life quarterly online

Bob Starker

2011-01-26T14:29:00.001-05:00

one day i was perusing the alive or the guardian or something and i saw a businesscard-sized ad that said call bob about starting a band which was illustrated just like the cover o' this here rec, so havin' fallen in deep lust with the skronk eminatin' from them grooves awhile prior (friend in va. befriended andy from swirlies and hipped me to them soon after/swirlies lumped into+onto their friend morgan's label+genre CHIMP/bob put record out on chimp/i ordered it) i thot lo' it can't be cannit? 'course it was i found out - bob having then-recently relocated to here from there (MA) - after ringin' him up and tho' we neverstarted a band or anything we chatted for an hour or three and have remained well-acquainted ever since. you should be aware of bob's musical exploits since he's been 'round these parts (short story: sovines/whoa nellie!/wildrock goto saxman EXTRAORDINAIRE) but HEY! if'n ya don't have this rec' yer missin' th' sweetest spot. perfection like this comes along oh only ten or twelve times in any idiot's wax stax. i can't bother explaining what these seven titles soun'like so jus' download it sorry ever'body else IT'S THE BEST RECORD THAT WILL EVER BE ON THIS BLARG.

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Dogrocket

2011-01-23T20:57:00.001-05:00

well i've been putting this one off for awhile b/c
1) it's all on cassette and running casstettes into th' computer is something i hafta be inna fairly specific mood for, like say totally sick and laying around reading the (7th)last samurai again and
2) i had it in my head that i NEEDED to scan all the dogrocket newsletters in and post them as pdfs concurrently with th' music
but when i realized i could just do that later and i realized that i was totally sick just laying around reading the (7th)last samurai again i thought hey it's probably high time i did that dogrocket post.
so.
one day i was sorta skating with my friend sonny and sorta having one of those hearttoheart conversations one tended to have with sonny when he mentioned that hey that evening he'd promised some friends he'd go see their new band at stache's and would i wanna come along. well it was getting along past one of those wonderful late summer sunsets and the parking lot we were in outside the mall where windbreakers useta be wasn't getting to be any better of a skate spot so i said sure let's go to that show what the hey. tho' it's interesting to no one, the fact is that this was the first time i had gone to stache's to see a local band. i don't know if i really believed in local bands. i had tried to have a couple and we played at houses or nowhere and i had heard rc mob and pica huss and seen basement underground too many times in garages and earwig in storefronts and everything but still it was awhile (well ok not a long while) before i saw greenhorn and it all came together for me. so we went to the thing and his friends were in broadcaster the band eric had before tiara that had brett who runs spoonful in it and matt duckworth maybe the best guitar player this town has ever seen and brian freshour who is in the top 3 just plain nicest guys i have ever met who also can-not seem to have a bass sound anything but way rad. [inhale] so they went on and man did they have it together and i thought HOLY SHIT there are other dudes who are trying to make the same musick i am listening to and trying to make as well which at the time was like a whole bunch of my bloody valentine and a smattering of the wackjob original pavement drummer's drumming and a lot of my own naïveté and retardation of course so that was an eye-opener and here i am still reeling from that and the perfect late-summer evening that feeling that is just teetering on the edge between two EQUALLY GREAT things but somehow it maintains and then dogrocket go on and i'm just blown away again.

i should stop to explain something here:
i had some friends in highschool who did not believe in anything but bob mould. and although i did not share their perspective (i like him fine), well what with hanging around with them and especially knowing that there were OLDER BROTHERS who were even more cultishly convinced made it into some arcane construct that i could not fuck with tho' i was not - as mentioned - chosen. it was a background hard truth to me that there was something about bob mould which i was never going to understand but which i should probably in some way feel a little less whole for not understanding.

anyhow - dogrocket being possibly the greatest of all the mid90s hüsker dü worshippers (overwhelming colorfast, arcwelder, &c. - who the aforementioned cult oddly not only accepted but pretty much universally revered, kindred souls i guess) my first thought was hey i hafta report back about this! but then i just fell into loving them all by my own self. this may seem runofthemill when you consider the degree to which their love of cheap trick parallels their love of bob/grant/greg and therefore warps their mpls angst blasts into something entirely more muscular and CHUNKED FULL of unabashed pop wizardry (not to mention childhoods obsvly sat in front of th' AM receiver sapping up th' sappy sounds and fostering an infatuation with th' sentimental side of th' radio dial), but there are a couple things here that roll against that assumption: dogrocket were not that easy to love. for starters there were a whole lotta shorts onstage. and tanktops. whoo. turquoise and white, even. no matter the time of year. and injokes. man were they all about the injokes. but hey, so was my band, so what could i really say against that (except that it was hard to feel like you were part of something that kept making it abundantly clear that you were not). but hey a band's gotta entertain themselves, first and foremost - and if we have anything to be thankful for in this town it's a take-me-as-i-am attitude from our entertainers when they climb onstage and dogrocket spent so little time up there NOT KICKING ASS that you didn't have any time to worry about it anyways. but i digress.

dogrocket remains one of my very favorite col's bands even tho' some day in 1997 or so they got a different bass player and when they lost their office temp jobs they stopped making that newsletter (which i really will scan soon ok). later they went on to be in other bands, SOME OF WHOM ARE/WILL BE *FEATURED* ON THIS HERE BLARG!

this file has three of their cassette eps and the rest of the tracks they did at thornapple while recording the third tape, 'blown' (which has absolutely no hidden tracks on it if you can believe that). the michelle era, if you will.

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myspace

2011-01-23T19:59:00.001-05:00

there is an ishkabibble one.
that is all.

go to it

Thunderbird

2011-01-23T15:58:00.003-05:00

jason from preston furman/grafton/bygones/&c came over one day with his wonderful wife joyce and this tape and we spoke of books and made a cd of the tape and they left. that tape and this here download are of course jason's solo project, recorded sometime prior to a coupla years ago.

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Swivelarm Battlegrip tapes

2011-01-23T15:20:00.001-05:00

onetime when we useta get th' vinyl ink catalog they had written that kill sybil sounded like mbv (or at least, enough) and n.c. ordered th' record which is ok but i got another of their seveninchers awhile back and it hasn't stood too well which is beside the point cuz even if it had they don't hold one candle up to th' swivelarms here. my memory isn't what it once was (i don't even remember what it once was as shirt-tail has said) but one thing i do remember having seen these dudes/dudelady more than way too many times in those mid90s is bill just minding his own business rocking the absolute snot out of the bass there and then BAM! flying across the stage and landing in that "hey guys take a knee" stance and ruling it, ear dead inside th' monitor for the rest of whatever song - i mean it could happen ANYTIME, not when you'd expect it fer shirley BAM! loved it. what i did not remember was how gosh-damned SATURATED eric's guitar is, it's fucking MASSIVE, futbol fans, and val's enuff of her own singer that she don't get too bogged down inna riot grrl thing and therefore hers isn't as dated a wail as some o'those ladies' in teh retrospect. one doesn't hafta ask around too much to git at th' fact that i've long been known to admire benco's drumming idears so rilly i kinda been havin' a blast lissenin' to these tapes today and well i say you should too.

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Soups & Sauces

2011-01-23T14:14:00.001-05:00

gigantic thankyou to colin for being the first (of many, hopefully) guest blather contributor:

Summer camp is among those liminal experiences that are fundamentally about being in some moment or other but are often of greater consequence to broader life trajectories than anyone involved could anticipate. Me, I met a Gahanna-Lincoln high schooler named Justin Coons, we talked politics on the phone FOR HOURS and went on a hot date to the Ross Perot campaign stop at the Nationwide Hilton. Justin introduced me to his schoolmate/bandmate friend Jim Graham, c/o 1992 (now a professor of psychology at WWU). Their band, Soul Kitchen (only zine review I ever read of their demo tape suggested that 'Devoid of Soul' was a more fitting name), was one of the Gahanna+Westerville high school bands I'd go see at metro park gazebos and VFW halls, with the occasional Apollo's show. I think their singer died of autoerotic asphyxiation, plus we were listening to lots of ska and made pilgrimages to Chicago for the JumpUp! fests. We spent a lot of time in cars and 24-hr restaurants and were among the cohorts of 90s high schoolers who annoyed the hell out of older Stache's patrons and staff, worshipping Ishkabibble and The Repairmen and standing outside shivering when less sympathetic sentries worked the door. 1991-92.

Jim met Lizard (then Tod) McGee at a wedding and when we weren't breaking into the remains of Cinema East or the Ohio Penitentiary the younger among us spent out time being fans of Earwig and getting better acquainted with bands like Greenhorn, Ugly Stick, Girly Machine (in retrospect those having less to do with each other than the schema we developed would suggest) -- having a guide a few years older was invaluable. Lizard had Lizard Family Music and a garage studio in his Whitehall home rivaling anything we'd heretothen experienced on a personal visit. To us, separate mixer & tape machine + control room glass = pro.

Through frequent-enough exposure to Stache's plus Shave the Baby and the Eardrop comps, we figured out some other stuff to listen to, and the idea of a Columbus V/A wasn't out of the question. All HS: Preston Furman at CAHS, Parsnip at Fort Hayes + UA, Mindchild at Westerville, Liquid Circus at Gahanna, and Enlargements/Boners admittedly from a less coherent background.

Right. So, Jim got some money (he was the one with a job) and Why Not Make a Comp w/ Aforementioned Money? Lizard McGee recorded Parsnip and the Boners, Preston Furman gave us a tape, Mindchild recorded at Thornapple, and the Enlargements borrowed a 4-track we didn't really know how to use. I think Lizard plugged tracks together and gave us a DAT that we took to Rome Recording, A Christian Recording Studio, in Obetz. Apparently some poor guy had to ride faders through that entire tape to get the noise reduction right -- I still feel a little guilty about that. J-cards at Kinko's, I think, maybe using the copycards that replaced $US as currency for awhile. It came with a zine with features on lockpicking and teenage-quality (at best) rants: cf veganism and what the fuck's up with society?. I think maybe Jim went to college before this was out, so we worked on it when we were both in town. I think we made 300, and we never bothered to see whether we were making our money back.

Without much in common musically and not much reason for social cohesion, there wasn't much thrust on any band's part to promote it or make anyone do it again. College helped the organic sorting into scenes without high school as the fundamental geographic delimiter, and group identity became more a consequece of where one chose to spend time than where one was required to spend it. Even humble events can reveal broad themes.

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Parsnip

2011-01-23T13:58:00.001-05:00

well as with lots and lotsa bands from the blast from the past you've probably heard of/from one or some of the dudes/dudeladies since and of course with parsnip here that is no exception it's a wellknown FACT that one ramble john krohn played the guitar in this here combo and if you don't know who that is you better ask somebody ok. parsnip were a BLISTERINGLY GREAT live band i mean good lord mindblowing fer serious but this single isn't all that good (at least i think that every time i listen to it and it ain't all that much) and the soups & sauces (v.soon!) tracks are meh inna diff way but you can argue that amongst yerselves now that i've gone and put this on th' innernet. my copy is cracked which will be apparent tho' it plays thru fine but still if you wanna buy it lemme know.

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Lost My Uncle Wayne, 1998

2011-01-22T15:37:00.001-05:00

it occurs to me we have something* akin to cryogenics like as far as (shit) musicks are concerned 'cause i think a lot of the problem there is getitoutgetitoutgetitout whether it's because you wanna move on or you wanna sell it or what it doesn't matter but really i think so many of us can agree that we'd like or at least we'd have liked things to happen sooner not later even where our creativity is concerned and like even if we have one or two or five day job(s) but hey it's probably not gonna happen anyway (amirite?) (?) so let's maybe stop with that there. this *=the ability we have to make something and just let it sit there and i don't mean finish it and sit on it not release it i mean just make it, write it down very notatedly or even better put it on a multitrack something or other and wait, oh eight or twelve years and then see what kinds of toys you can rustle up or maybe even just have sitting in your room by the later date when you've totally forgotten about what it sounds like or why and how you did it and just make it a real thing again, let it live and breathe and amaze you and it's easy esp. if it's all on tape already to not be too precious about it 'cause really the amazing thing is that it's there at all and then of course it's taken on this whole life of its own - revealing things you did and choices you made all those years ago so that without any extra effort those things are going to be there no matter what you do (in the case of a multitrack tape here we're saying it doesn't matter all that much what fiddly effects you mess with or how high the levels are or are not) which is always true but it's just that here with this kind of deal you FUCKING REALIZE THAT where with something yer like in the midst of all caught up in you worry that your great concept might not get across and you mix 37 times and you worry that your statement will be lost and your genius will be unsung and you will die in obscurity but with this old crappe obviously you are still here and there's such a sweetness to the whole endeavor.

anyhow i think i had a point and if so that point was that it would probably befit us to wait until there's a cure for the sickness sometimes. maybe all the time. i mean we've been trying to release the music of the future for so long (even if it's based in musics of the past) it might be nice to do it the wrong way 'round.

there were two rough mixdown cassettes of this my uncle wayne stuff from 1998 or so and i lost mine and davey lost his and i thought the reel was lost but it turns out when someone spilled coffee all over some tapes once i put it in a diff box and didn't label it and didn't find that to be true until last year. i mixed it again this morning and even though there is a lot of snot in my head i think it sounds real good and i am very happy to put it here for you. photo above is of the one and only real uncle wayne.

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badoobadarber

2011-01-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

well i got a cease and desist for the gaunt post. at least i think i did. no info is available anywhere the blogger ppl are telling me to look. feel free to guess whether it's hazelmayer, bettina, or those warner doods who couldn't sell all those cutout vinyl copies of bricks & blackouts who's being bitter aboot it. y'know whoever it was coulda just made a fucking comment. GROSS.

EDIT: reposted

Ass Ponys - Mr. Superlove

2011-01-04T19:07:00.001-05:00

dunno what needs to be said about these guys/this rec (TAPE) - as nec. as scrawl, prolly, as far as oh musicks go, and just as unavoidably original as those gals (and later guys) in of course their own bizarro way. takes probably everything you'd wanta know about "americana" (proto-, right?) (i mean, like, divine horsemen or something) in teh '80s and ridiculizes (everyother take)/legitimizes (their version) (natch) it in the most DEAD-SERIOUS way imaginable - where later (watch these skies) they trafficked in something akin to novelty numbers on their catchiest material here even the most silly stuff (opener "hey swifty") can be pretty fucking harrowing er scary depending on what hole yer looking up out of/down into at the time. fun and lean and important, all at the same time - the modern-day (yes the late '80s are the modern day) equivalent of the carter family as far as entertainment goes - and had the mass marketability of the cult of entertainment in america not gone FUCKING CRAZY between those two's respective eras i'm POSITIVE they'd be heralded as such.

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Burney Allen - "Joyce" 12"

2011-01-04T18:16:00.001-05:00

ron house tells me th' 7" of this deal is a cashcow but i gots th' bigger one - mebbe not as coveted but ears-wise ALL THAT + CHIPS, rilly ya couldn't (YOU WOULDN'T) ask fer more from "modern soul" or whatevs th' eurodope collector doofs call drum masheens and lispy earnest fellas takin' a cue from that game of 'horse' they just got home from missin' their BABY all th' way thru. i wish this burned up th' dance floor a little hotter but rather it's prettymuch living in novelty territory; STILL it would take AT LEAST one them $50 bills (non-counterfeit plz) to pry it outta my cold dead rec collection, HINT.

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HOT PURSUIT

2011-01-04T18:06:00.001-05:00

DOUBLEFUCK this record. i can't even BELIEVE what i do for you people.

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Snapshot

2011-01-04T17:52:00.001-05:00

kinda excellent rick springfield-era (1984) radio pop with enuff power innit to align it favorably if not quite with "goodbye to you" then at least with that great holly penfield rec. songs are short blasts with diff fleeting & transparent reference points under the hooks - beat street hiphop, footloose-style antheming, those huey lewis-esque new wavers that weird al ripped off for his originals circa 1983… man do they lay on the FEATURING JULIE IVORY schtick heavy tho', i mean the "write to " addy is th' JULIE IVORY FANCLUB, whatever, shoulda scanned th' back sleeve so you could see them betwixt-th'-waist-an'-knees (front et rear) shots of julie's red jeans too. evidently she was some kinda local celebrity with some kinda boobtube mag on channel ten, whatever - if you know more and feel like commenting aboot it i'll read it and not feel bad. interestingly (or not) she's still here and sangin' up a storm in TWO copybands. you look 'em up.

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Great Plains - Cornflakes

2011-01-02T17:42:00.001-05:00

udds & suds companion piece to th' career-spanning double-disc length of growth set, chockfull o' charmers incl. rockband version of ron house staple "five o'clock" that i didn't know existed till one them wyatt's shoved a copy of this disc down my pants. nowhere is a bad place to start as far as great plains are concerned so if you haven't started yet do it here and if you have well go ahead and start over, it's never too late.

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The Bassholes Make A Record For Matador

2011-01-02T17:39:00.001-05:00

TRUE.

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Anna Ranger

2011-01-02T17:30:00.002-05:00

nowadays people are prolly lazy and underinformed (mildly) enuff to just say nathan is like perhaps a stephen merritt fan but every time i see him play it just sounds to my ears like he's fucking channelled pretty much my exact experience of being alive in 1988: it's a morrissey/new order fest fer surely but it's so much more than that; ripping shit off is one thang and it fer shirley can be fine but got-damn if it isn't something else entirely to conjure a coupla groops yet be completely ON THEIR LEVEL and conjure an era without being the least bit anything but right-fucking-now. this tape's new but who cares, it's effin' timeless.

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MONSTERTRUCKFIVE

2011-01-02T17:04:00.001-05:00

about the same time i was putting together the gaunt…but not forgotten comp and amassing greenhorn cassettes some dude was doing these cdrs called please don't sue me or something - real nice and all but i don't mind kicking his ass with more and better shit so here's the mt5 version, fuck that guy (j/k, luv ya!).

gimme five 10"
columbus, ohio
dry leaves hot wire
singles and comp tracks
breaker

Human Sufferage

2011-01-02T16:49:00.001-05:00

so two new year's days ago i was living with bumbico and we met up with gary and whoever down at the dube and then it seemed like a good idea to buy a bunch of whip-its and head back home…eventually there was a nice little party goin' with entertainment consisting basically of those whip-its and leftover champagne or fresh beers and someone spilling something on the floor every twenty minutes to a rousing chorus of "sham-wow! sham-wow!" since we had gotten a box of them for xmas and also me playing some records, these two included - mainly for lutzko. sometimes you just gotta lay a history trip on a motherfucker. so in tribute to the anniversary of that heartwarming soirée and ALSO to lutzko's brand-spankin'-new wwf-style feud with certain members of the washington beach bums (is he th' ted dibiase of col's??), here's a lesson in how to make fucking punk rock in oh, circa 1983-4.

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Replacements, Stache's, 10.4.84

2010-12-31T20:43:00.001-05:00

so, remember how we was talkin' aboot that thing i was gonna do where i post shows that happened in col's but not necessarily by bands that are fROMOHIO™? well hey here let's start it off with a muddy bang since its mr. w'burg's b-day to-day. this is AT LEAST a third generation tape and yeah i sorta know how i could get a better copy but whatever, this is like good too ok an' i never seen it anywheres else (yet).

download

photo credit: stephanie chernikowski (©1985)

Gaunt

2010-12-31T17:11:00.001-05:00

little bit of a hoopla happening tomorrow in col's:
link to some blog that will tell you of it

would be remiss if i didn't get to this here long-planned post before that so like here 'tis: all the gaunt stuff i have that isn't on that …but not forgotten deal. notes: yeah, me too and bricks & blackouts are from the cds; the version of "turn to ash" is remixed in a fashion similar to that of the danny spurgeon tune posted awhile back - like, cleaned up some, not riddled with dance beats; and the dopeguns track and the casbah show are the only things to feature the fourth(?) lineup. and remember folks, kryptonite is the #1 col's elpee of all times, it's o-fish!

*
"turn to ash" (potential ashtray version) remix
*
"kiss destroyer" (dopeguns)
casbah, san diego, 4.22.95
yeah, me too
*
cheater's heaven 45
bricks and blackouts + "97th tear" cd5
little brother's, 8.1.98
louisville, 10.24.98

*sob story, i can see your mom from here, & kryptonite were removed because i'm guessing th' cease & desist i got originates at thrill jockey, tho' no one is giving me any straight answers.

Unholy 2 release show blogged

2010-11-27T15:37:00.003-05:00

yeah i'm not gonna po$t the album for whatever rea$on ($$BUY$$IT$$) but hey go download live $$hit:::::::::

banalization

jfotoman

2010-10-16T17:56:00.000-04:00

the small, charmed group of you who poke around here on a semi-regular basis are either familiar with jay brown's photography or need to be. every "scene" deserves a guy like jay - and every guy like jay deserves a scene. (you can try to make somethin' outta nothin', but i'll leave you to do the math on that one.) jay tirelessly documented the somehow both glittering and dingy rock'n'roll world around him - for the most part, here in col's - fer a healthy span in the '80s and '90s (and now again!), and to see one of his photos is to glean the largest portion of the essence of the experience that ya can without havin' been there. to get to the point, here's a note i got from him today:

Hey Nick,

Jay Brown here. I'm trying to raise some funds to put together a full blown traveling gallery show of my concert photos. I have some galleries interested, but I need to come up with the framed photos, and I simply don't have the funds. To do so, I've started a a project on the fund-raising site Kickstarter. It's kind of like pledging to a public radio station or something similar. Here's the link to it.

i can think of few endeavors more deserving. SO GET GOING PEOPLE!!!!

here's that link again!

Army Of Larry

2010-09-14T21:59:00.000-04:00

one day i'm a-gonna git my hands onna acid black tape, yessiree. till then plz go bug th' shiz outta larry aboot it:

well, it ain't the kiss army

also let's all hope there's some limb trial tapes laying around over there too.

Alive comps

2010-09-14T15:52:00.002-04:00

the columbus alive newspaper thingy has had its hand in quite a few comps over the past, um, period of years, sorta filling a gap where/when th' cringe.compilations trailed off. here are two of them. no token vol. 3 is notable for, among other things, the inclusion of the fantastic orchestraville song that super desserts have been known to perform as of late; amplified happens to include one of the only you're so bossy songs anyone can seem to get their hands on.

download amplified
download no token 3

Guided By Voices

2010-09-09T20:51:00.002-04:00

you were kinda thinkin' this might happen, yeah? even tho' they're from a buncha minutes over thattaway from col's, bobco™ spent many an afternoon/evening more closer to here and even has a wayward member (<---i retain the rights to all unintentional possible new band names accidentally suggested by this post) or three living like in and/or around here. so were i to be a little less bored with running cassettes into th' computer right now i'd start both a short glob of stuff from them as well as the rumored bands-what-aren't-from-here-playing-here-taped-with-my-shit-handheld-tapemachine *NEW SEGMENT* i've been meaning to get to with th' tape of weird inbetweener ric ocasek lp lineup playin' at bernie's but we all know that ain't gonna happen 'least till later so how about this: instead i give ya what are in my not-so-humble-opinion the best two gbv elpees to never quite see th' light of day? ok? ok. little setup: gbv made lotsa songs and therefore lotsa recs but once someone else was payin' that someone (pre-fading cpt. sycophant b.s.) would sometimes say hey you can't put out a rec every month and a half which ended up unfortunate cuz then a lotta th' time ol' bobareeno would keep foolin' with his finished product until it was completely diff sequence-wise or even totally made up of like other newer tunes. in th' case of bee thousand (you can see th' wreck that was on that oddball idea director's cut thingy) and alien lanes (which iz appr. 400% more swell than earlier version 'scalping the guru') well that all ended up swingin' but as far as th' next two albs go th' versions as originally intended are just megagreat and very sadly lost to th' presses and th' masses. under the bushes was called under the bushes when i got this here copy but fer delineational porpoises (again here reminding you aboot that band name ownership deal) i've just gotta use the way-excellent working title 'the flying party is here' for it. a more apt followup to alien lanes, 'party' bears little resemblance to its actually-released cousin, and is probably th' only time a big mishmash of everything from 1- to 24(more?)-track recordings reallyreally gelled for th' dudes. ok, enuff. th' other one iz th' slap from th' gbverde version of th' groop an' prior to release as 'mag earwhig' it was a differently-sequenced, different-feeling piece known as (really!) 'do the collapse,' and since i ain't got anything else to call it (edit: n.c. reminds me that th' version directly after this one - eggzackly thee same 'cept with th' then-freshly-wrote 'sad if i lost it' tacked uncomfortably onto th' start - was indeed titled 'panic on landlord street,' so goes ahead an' retitle it thus if yer itunez brainz iz all con-fuzzed…), 'do the collapse (1997)' it is. caveat: collapse is duped straight off th' tape bob gave me and party is from a tape of th' tape bob gave me (orig was lost by somebody i loaned it to, i am an idiot, yes), so these aren't like museum quality but i mean fuck, it's gbv, and they sounds fuckin' quite quite allreet still.

the flying party is here
do the collapse (1997)

Everyday Heroes

2010-09-09T20:40:00.002-04:00

zac szymusiak, now of washington beach bums, el ron house y los brujarenas, and highschool substitute teacher programs all over th' mid-ohio area gettin' serious a couple/few years back now with his first (i think) combo after leavin' supergroup-in-retrospect the ex-boyfriends. supposedly one of the songs is about me although i didn't meet him till like more recently than that an' i still think they got me confused with some other douche but hey i'm into it whatever it's got a good beat an' i can dance to it. should i choose to dance (and i should).

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Nick Tolford

2010-09-09T20:34:00.002-04:00

before sir tolford became th' soul-stirring soul-stirrer we all now know and luv, he played bass in slide machine, sure, we're all familiar. but. did. you. know. he. was. totally. emo? yep, here's some (not entirely unsoulful!) relatively unassuming piano/acoustic & drums tunes from a few years back. mebbe not th' boy you've got yer panties all bunchy an' wet over, but all great another way.

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Favors, yep.

2010-09-09T20:23:00.003-04:00

ok. i'm not gonna profess to likin' EVERYOLDTHING on this blog - that wouldn't be all true an' it wouldn't be all's fair fer me to only post shiz i do like anyhow, but, um, i can't say anything aboot this band that hasn't already been said i don't think so hey here's someone else's words…

JD Dallas figures out what's next

The Favors may or may not be anymore, having definitely played their last gig with their current lineup at Skully's at the end of June. Will one of the best powerchording guitarists in town, JD Dallas, carry on with his glam rock?

"Well. first of all, we always considered ourselves cock rock," said Dallas with perhaps as much pride as a man can have while still keeping his jeans on. "I mean, it was Shannon me and Steve as what we thought would be an irresistible force of nature, with the right guys backing us up."

But now bassist Steve Patrick is leaving, thanks to marriage, owning his own business and a bad case of tinnitus.

"Shannon and I are thinking of carrying on, maybe as the Dirty Favors, we're not sure," said Dallas. Singer Shannon Malone, surely this town's finest example of half-man/half-lizard front man, is still in it for the long haul.

"At least at our last gig we went out on top," said Dallas. "Skully's smelled like a bait shop."

Like Picasso, Norman Mailer and Miles Davis, he may have a touch of the sexist pig in him, but trust me, JD Dallas is a mother on the powerchord.

(from johnny go's column in th' other paper like three yrs. ago)

*this file incl. two eps and a full-length. haha. full-length. OHNO, favors vibe has gotten to me…

(ps. shannon was in throat and jd was in dogrocket and mediawhores, among other deals.)

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True Moves - Wild Weekend

2010-09-09T20:12:00.002-04:00

eric wrong of do-right(s) fame(?) with very-rockANDroll-positive combo feat. #1 supporter of col's musicks bob starker (he's in every band!) and a coupla magic city alumni and john from gut piston(lookout behind you!)/diverters(lookout ahead!) wiggle their way thru their first single (hey it's got three tracks who's counting) on d-panik and man. awhile back it occurred to me that it's not outside-the-realms-of-possibility that no humyns rilly (RILLY) ever liked rockANDroll musicks. so anyhow, it should come as no surprise that they still don't. i suppose i am some weird flower then, cuz this shiz is top. they gota another single out an' an el-pee in th' can an' we'll get to 'em okok…

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New World Vultures

2010-09-09T20:08:00.002-04:00

jesse (pizzaslayer or whatever the hell they're called's basser) was in this band so he brought over recordings dave pizzaslayer (or whatever the hell they're called) had made and we made them into a cd. this is it. band=broke.

dead link, sorry

Flu Faker

2010-09-09T20:02:00.002-04:00

JP's (he were in th' 84 nash) newish family-centric popcombo gearing up fer their first live outing an' givin' out th' proof on solid cdr. ok they ain't all that pop. actually kinda scary. (evidently nobody thinks that but me.)

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Bumped By Karaoke

2010-09-09T19:53:00.002-04:00

afore that weird and worthless get hip seedee showed up this here "volume 2" was out and about pissing on yer daughters and fucking yer lawns. THEE document of col's circa:199_ (i.e. it made it look way cooler than it actually was, and it was PRETTY DAMNED COOL), you can blame regala and half th' rockcombos on this piece of digital retardo fer all that smeg' in yer head sayin' you live somewhere that's like cool fer musick er somethin' (given that you live here --- HEY! you aren't pee-roozin' this in SOME OTHER CITY, are ya? whooo, now i's seen EV'RYthing…) - just cuz you don' know it don' mean it ain't true, compadre…

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For Your Ears Only

2010-09-09T19:46:00.002-04:00

eardrop prods.=craig "big daddy" dunson of magnetic planet/vibralux/pica huss/tjsa/codename: stingray (non-)fame. they/he put out some other stuff too (ishkabibble tape maybe? oh and somebody send me that plz…) but this is their/his hour of power - perhaps even more indicative a snapshot of teh sceeene at that pt. than 'bumped' (keep yer hat on, it's next). oh just go on and click th' damned thing, it's OUT OF PRINT…

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Michael Joseph

2010-09-09T19:40:00.002-04:00

aka skip from speed of fright and throat on his native-americano-influenced acoustickal/magickal tipp. very worth-yer-proverbial-while and he's got a mess more of this stuff up his sleeves so go see him some afternoon out at that coffeeshop in powell or something and give him a pointer, say hey! ni…(oops! almost gave it away!!) over there on the interwebs told me to tell you keep up th' good werk, make scads more el-pees and keep on truckin'!! (some of you may see what i did there.)

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Floorian

2010-09-09T19:33:00.002-04:00

i met john from floorian back in 19__ when i was werkin' at th' video store there on bethel…him and also tim g. from unfortunately-named local copyband x-ray specs (they kicked him out) useta be the only hanger-arounders who'd keep me sane/drive me nuts with worthwhile conversationinfo over th' longlonglonglong 12- er 18-hr niteshifts. who knew he had a kickass trancerock combo brewin' th' whole time? even greg shaw & th' brian jonestown weirdos agree you should listen to this ooze at least ten-hundred times so get to it.

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FUCKING DOWNLOAD THAT MAD MIKE CD! I CAN'T SAY IT MORE TIMES!! OK I CAN!!!

2010-09-09T19:30:00.000-04:00

S R S L Y !!

two years from now when it's been on th' 'fmu blog and everybody's tired of hearing aboot it fer th' eleventy-umpth time you can say, "hey. i actually had a good time listening to that once a long time ago."

MAD MIKE

2010-09-09T19:25:00.002-04:00

our boy mad mike is not from col's he's from cinci but so's spittin' image and that don't shut c. nini up any aboot 'em, does it? m.m. made the excellent, excellent decision to give th' Hi-V a copy of this wondrous little plasticky disc and now, o friends and foes, you may all feast yer earmitts on it. sorry to sleaze, i think he thinks it's rightfully his - and hey he can have it back fer mebbe $3 from used kids after i sell th' fucker asap.

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1.3

2010-09-09T19:13:00.002-04:00

if we're gonna talk aboot th' cherubs well let's talk aboot th' unsane too ok - HEY! - i have this theory (shouldn' even bother t' be so nice as to call it just a theory cuz hey i ain't boastin' i'm truthin', amirite) 'bout how at a certain point in time all towns had to have one band that was like th' we're-the-band-in-town-that's-really-into-unsane-band and like the method was fer dayton hey well we gots onepointthree. which is sellin' 'em hella short as it is with every band that takes that particular honor we was just talkin' aboot, but that don' make it any less of true. they made a coupla recs and here's one of 'em. also scott art/bass is in lopan and they got signed or something. also mike is probably the funniest person on the interwebs.

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Big Meat

2010-09-09T19:11:00.001-04:00

little bit of a joke here as over on fb there was just a discussion re: how many people have boxes of these takin' up space in their closets, but hey - just cuz nobody bought one don't mean YOU can find it on yer local shelves and it SURE don't mean it ain't worth way more than free. history: when my uncle wayne quit being existing ('nother jokel there) davey went on his own merry (ok maybe not) way which eventually = altered states of the united snakes and them other dudes (drummers don't count but hey bim moved to clevo and made them this moments, ok we'll talk aboot it later) started this here band which eventually morphed into one called sons of solomon and chris was in pillowbiters, whatever, but let's be sure to not talk aboot drummers, ok. people who like the cherubs like this, how's that fer some kinda modern-internet-styled bullshit what's true, erm.

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Sinkane 'Color Voice'

2010-09-09T18:49:00.002-04:00

ahmed wears tight shorts and has amazing ideas which he actually bothers to follow to fruition. where he finds th' time to do even half of th' stuff he does i have no idea. oh yeah and he's on th' interwebs: http://sinkane.wordpress.com/

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The Go Figure

2010-09-09T18:45:00.002-04:00

four-song ep from th' aforementioned mr. matt wagner, late of earwig, the bygones (post=soon), & th' unkillable preston furman (or 'presto furmo' in bim-speak). all tunes rough mixes from as-yet-unreleased (unrecorded) full-length.

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maybe look over here

2010-09-09T18:36:00.000-04:00

no idea how used up th' links are over there, but decrepit tapes has a buncha col's-related posts crappening. dig.

Earwig 'Center Of The Earth'

2010-09-09T15:06:00.002-04:00

news! longtime earwigger matt wagner recently stood up from his bass throne long enough for most-of-the-time-earwig-drummer george's brother costa to sit down in it. word has it costa's first 'show' will be one of those live-videotaping deals out at electraplay or whatever it's called. in th' meantimer, here's a classick in th' earwig canon, featuring their biggest hit since "dinosaur song" - a little local number sorta concerning a little local record shoppe. (plead: if anyone has the very first version of "used kids" which th' band recorded with mssr. steve evans, plz send it over!)

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so this might just turn into a gossip column yet

2010-09-09T14:51:00.000-04:00

just saw ex-used kids annex employee bill walking down high street in front of mcdonald's, so, if you were wondering - as i was - if he was like still alive, he is.

more gossip next post!!!

Brown Notes

2010-09-08T18:24:00.002-04:00

well if we're gonna talk aboot th' sun and we're gonna talk aboot th' hexonwheels an' we're gonna (eventually) talk aboot th' crazy ray well we gotta talk aboot th' brown notes. another col's institution that, alas, is no more, them brown notes did love their ween…but also - LUCKILY FOR US - was too retarted to rip 'em off too bad - and heck, let's face it, had frankly been writing (together and seperately, depending on which year ya caught 'em) their own goofy/not goofy tunes since way afore mssrs. gener & deaner was kidnapped by aliens and forced to write a zlillion songs er whatever th' original party line was there. so yeah, 57,000 afterhours parties later they called it quits (QUITS! QUITS!), but this disc - th' lone offish recorded document from these doods - should set y'all to petitioning fer their imminent reformation and national tourage toot sweet.

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The Bogtrodders

2010-09-08T18:15:00.002-04:00

irish musick in ohio??? but of course! i mean, "we" even have our own fun-filled (*cough*) irish fucking festival just down th' street in dandy old DUBLIN… but srsly, them bogtrodders was purty damned great at that thing they were into doing, and for a time boasted a lineup with not just one (as on this release) but two (!) out of three (orig. - for yes, at one time there were indeed four) members of local prog-metal pioneer heroes acid black!! now that's ultra-genrefied ethnicky spizz i kin get behind!

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Jason Quicksall

2010-09-08T18:06:00.002-04:00

sometime soundguy, sometime open mic host, j.q.'s following fairly closely in th' footsteps of onetime col's great white hope tim easton without - to jason's credit - sounding all that much like him - tho' th' template is certainly similar.

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Hex On Wheels 'Bloodlust'

2010-09-08T17:57:00.002-04:00

casella, current photo editor extraordinaire at 614 mag and later-period rackets guitarer #2 started this here heavy rockin' thing with bass player/sanger carrie and all-around drum guy joey sturma. by the time of this recording chris (of crazy ray/brown notes) was guitarer #2 and fill-in man among fill-in men larz raymond (call 4 lessonzzz) was on drums. recorded in some weird shed in pataskala or something, sounds insane. also they like fu manchu, or at least like their song titles. har. one of those bands it was always fun/funny to see at treebar. you just can't be tuff there. anyhoo, i like this band and th' cd's on the pretty good side too.

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SHIZ

2010-09-07T18:03:00.000-04:00

well um i've (srsly) got 35 new posts all lined up so of course mediafire is down (some servers out due to a storm so maintenace is nec., i hear - hopefully no lasting damage and everyone's files including all the ones here emerge unscathed…). ack, ugh. this is going to lead to my mirroring everything here - an endeavor i've long been putting off…but an idea whose time has come™.

gaunt on dustdevils blog

2010-09-07T16:39:00.001-04:00

yer mom

euro sleeve even!!

(i highly encourage you to stick around there and download not only all the excellent, excellent dustdevils recordings, but to dig thru all the posts - shoo, the amazing first dEUS rec' iz on there if'n ya need somewheres to start…)

The Sun

2010-08-10T17:46:00.004-04:00

chris burney used to climb all over his bass whilst playing in a combo by the name of ashtray. a little touring on their part led to him playing alongside tim easton and, long story short, ending up bored in LA. this in turn led to him writing some songs, natch. i guess the '1999' collection of tunes is pretty much these demos, cut in chicago with some wilco dudes. this then led to labels almost giving a shit, so chris called some friends back in columbus (incl. sam brown of feversmile etc etc and eventually brad caulkins of monster zero etc etc) who flew out to LA to actually start the band (other possible names: "zeppelin," "the stones," and "the dead"). they got signed to warners and put out an ep called "love + death" (which i'll dig up soon). years passed and another ep called "did your mother tell you?" showed up. tracks from that ended up on the bizarrely marketed but pretty much completely whupass "blame it on the youth" lp (and dvd) (not cd tho') and world domination was imminent. or not. shows were played, dudes moved back to columbus, dudes moved away from columbus, dudes started other bands, &c. more years passed. down to a trio, the sun played a small handful of (incredible, i must add) shows and recorded a more concise and almost as whupass followup lp, "don't let your baby have all the fun," and without any fanfare pretty much ceased to exist. chris currently fronts dead indians (or adult fiction) (or whatver they're called today) with the rhythm section of greenlawn abbey and sam fronts you're so bossy with phil and jovan from haynes boys; caulkins is in a band called fool's gold out in LA.

don't let your baby have all the fun.
blame it on the youth
did your mother tell you?
defeated unicorn
digital palm trees
teenage commie
1999
ohio tigers

Triceratops

2010-07-14T15:49:00.001-04:00

FAT (fun all the time) crew honchos recorded a demo (cassette release on tapes that jam) and then had three goes at their record. third time was the charm but still it never got released and that had a big hand in doing 'em in. i'm partial to their second attempt and here it is: snaky, sinister guitar lines that fuse with blitzkrieg three-chord stun-runs, lyrics runnin' from the intensely personal to the entirely ridiculous, gang and guest vox, and a joie de vivre so sorely lacking in hardcore until these guys and groups like bones brigade started reminding everyone what it was all about in the first place.

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photo credit: katie dance

so i was sorta in the alive

2010-07-01T17:55:00.000-04:00

man, i shoulda known. the last time the alive asked me fer a sunmission they edited it until not only did it sound stupid but it didn't even make any sense. and well, they got me again. anyhow, here's what i actually wrote, in case any of you care. it'll make me feel better putting it here so please indulge me and don't see this as completely solipsistic. thx.

kedamono no arashi, unicorn (sony japan, 1990)
akin to spending an hour trying to dial in the best freeform radio
station on the planet, maybe skipping between two more unknown yet almost equally fantastic stations in the pursuit. a playful hawaiian number gives way to a soaring ballad with jet planes for a solo; a song with dogs barking the snare hits is one-upped by fifty seconds of thrash that disintegrate into a man quietly counting down from ten under a mournful string section. supposedly the lyrics are great too!

deceit, this heat (rough trade uk, 1981)
the sounds come from everywhere. sometimes they rise to a glorious din of polyrhythm and sometimes they ease disquietingly by, tense static tones that raise butterflies as they hint at some oncoming unknown explosion. the politics are never overt; the dub leanings never obvious or genrefied. performance tapes merge seamlessly with controlled environments. if you try to pick a song to put on a mixtape you'll just end up taping the whole thing.

dinner music for people who aren't very hungry, spike jones (verve, 1956)
along with delirium in high-fi (elsa popping aka andre popp, columbia,1957), the pinnacle of mono possiblility. in conjuring a dubious concept album of sounds and songs to test the limits and reveal the wonders of yer stereo set, spike jumped from single sides to a cohesive album filled to over-bursting with his and the city slickers' myriad talents and brain-blooms. i am constantly amazed at the thin, thin line they walked being complete badasses, completely serious, and completely absurd. a major coup.

ft. lake, his name is alive (4AD, 1998)
on their prior lp, stars on e.s.p. (4AD, 1996), hnia revisited one of the songs (a reworked gospel tune that goes back at least to the carter family) three times, eventually enlisting a full church choir for the transcendent, armhair-raising end piece. it was in this pursuit that a member of that choir found her way into the groop and onto this lp, broadening their already quite-a-bit-farther-than-the-eye-can-see horizons even more. their glorious schizophrenia isn't so much reigned-in as focused, and the songs themselves are an aural fourth-of-july slowed-down and drawn out
to sparkle and linger in yer ears long after they've faded.

today's empires, tomorrow's ashes/potemkin city limits/supporting caste, propagandhi (g7 welcoming committee, 2001/2005/2009)
in the thirteen years since the bass slot in propagandhi was permanently filled by todd "the rod" kowalski, the band has made three albums that, for me, have meshed voltron-style into one giant document of their ridiculously wicked existence. sonically and politically each one has been built near the last's foundation, but reveals differences that serve to broaden the scope set by its antecendent - maybe even change the way you understand earlier stuff you might've heard a thousand times. and as was sorta written about a book i recently finished, you will emerge from the experience of listening to these a more clever person.

yes i used the word glorious twice. oops.

We Never Learn

2010-06-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

so i spent the better part of the day downing poptarts, jellybeans, and mixed nuts (less than 50% peanuts!) and plowing thru davidson's book on "gunk punk"…oddly i don't find myself energized in any way (tho' to be fair it is about 175˚ in here) - and i flat-out LOVE pretty much all of the groops he's talkin' aboot. the book doesn't really drum ya up into a frenzy of how great this supposed genre is/was supposed to be, and shit, the last third is ENTIRELY about how fucked/fucked over some of the bands were (still dunno if that's what the point is and oddly he brings some as-yet-unmentioned songsters into here that sorta dilute the focus). mebbe the significance is meant to be understood - what with there bein' this tome there an' all - but i thot that was mayhap what the point of havin' all the words was, not to show how tuff it was fer all everybody involved after awhile (to their credit lots of 'em talk aboot what a blast it was and how well they's now gots the memories even thru their grimaces) but rilly here i just wanna say one thing an' that's how fucking little i care about how much anything sucked for a band or how the industry didn't care or absolutely any mention of any of that. rock'n'roll - and ESPECIALLY the bang-zoom screech and spuzz we're talkin' about here - is interesting in two ways outside the pure exhilaration of lissenin' to it an' that's 1) hearin' all the background anecdotes and hows and whys and whos and wheres when yer a geek like me and 2) hearin' about shit i ain't never heard that i just gotta-gotta-gotta cuz damn you got me all amped up and into it! but this, fer all intents, is a slow read (tho' not a long one), and doesn't much conjure anything more than hazy resignation and an odd dull sadness. don't worry if you don't get on this real quick (tho' you'll read it in time, i'm sure) - just let the action rock itself be yer action rock fer now an' always, true believers.

dot com

requests

2010-06-15T00:21:00.001-04:00

comment them to here. k.

The Mice

2010-06-14T19:22:00.001-04:00

yeah i know they weren't from columbus. we've been over this. but, should you need some convincing, the mice were a GIANT influence on a handful of bands here, most notably gaunt and moody jackson, who both covered tunes of theirs ("second best" and "pharoah", respectively). so, in honor of frontman bill fox's excellent, double-length performance at lost weekend here in town the other day (highlights: "over and away she goes", "lonesome pine", & "and now again"), here's all the at-one-time-commercially-available mice recordings, plus the track that sat on the scat records site for download at one time, "public television". this is NOT the scat release "for almost ever scooter", which you can still buy, and should (and while yer there pick up some other gems like the new first-ever vinyl issue of bill's debut alb' shelter from the smoke); these are direct rips from the US vinyl of their three records - and therefore it includes the debut 45 missing from the scat release and shares no sources with that kickass disc. in other words, you guys don't be afraid of some surface noise and griffin plz don't get on my case aboot it.

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V-3 - The Other Side Of Darkness

2010-06-14T16:51:00.001-04:00

roxanne-era stuff that nudge released, i think. sorry no cover, i got it from the library. you probably can too.

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V-3 Radio on the Beyondo Mondo Record Party

2010-06-14T16:45:00.001-04:00

got this from the dude who useta run v-3web in trade fer a burn of the evil twin. in which charles cicirella shows up at 91.3 the summit (akron/canton) to push the upcoming shep trib rec and they just play jim-related stuff and throw stories around fer the better part of an hour.

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Bill Shuster interview with Jim Shepard for Moo Magazine, spring 1996

2010-06-14T16:42:00.001-04:00

exactly what it says. there are some glitches in the file - repetition, channel drop-outs - but i don't doubt that you folks who've made shep the most popular cat on this blog (and elsewhere) will dig it.

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RC Mob 'Spin The World'

2010-06-14T16:31:00.001-04:00

as mentioned in the pica huss post, this is the first "local" tape i got, courtesy of the columbia house record & tape club (note: this file is ripped from that very same tape). the mob were perhaps even more legendary than pica huss amongst my small circle of friends prior to me visiting campus on any sort of a regular basis - they even played the newport and (supposedly) packed the joint! unfortunately, not much stuck for anyone outside 270 - they never got into heavy rotation on 120 minutes, and the toll probably did better on tour, which is a damned great shame 'cause they were that all-too-rare combo of silliness and professionalism, and they could play AND write a stinkin' tune or two. oh well. their bass player is like still famous sorta and, um, yeah. if you saw the devillain article on columbus recs, this one (along with the 'skulls & balls' coup!) got in there due to yours truly; in my not-so-humble opinion it's the only truly great record the mob made, tho' the earlier ones are certainly more along the lines of their live show and the next one after this poised 'em more fer alterna-nation superstardom.

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