The Angel Assassins

Today marks the one year anniversary of this blog, its first birthday if you will. I was going to count the number of records posted over the last year but I decided that I had better uses of my time, such as preparing new records, for instance. I thought that before looking forward I should look back, to the first band I was ever in.

I almost wasn't in this band. Originally, Rob Pettersen (of Portraits Of Past fame) was asked to front The Angel Assassins but he declined as he also wanted to play guitar. He suggested that they ask me instead and the rest is history.

Well, there might be more to it than that. It was on the drive back to The Mission from my "audition" (we practiced at Steve's house way out in The Sunset) that Julian informed me that I had passed the muster, and the band was called The Angel Assassins. I did not argue.

I remember our first show vividly. I was nervous because I was 18 years old and had never performed music in front of people before. Thus, just about every single person I knew (whether they typically attended such events or not) was there. The flyer(s) for the show are included, and I dare you to try to guess which one we made and which one the promoter did. Steve played double-time for some reason (which caused him to smell of old men the next day as he applied Ben-Gay to his arms in the van on the way down to our show in Santa Cruz). We played some enormous theatre at USF and thus most of our sound got lost up in the rafters, causing much confusion. I believe someone might have been playing the wrong song at the wrong time, although I'm sure other mistakes were made as well and that can probably be blamed on nerves and high ceilings. The aforementioned show in Santa Cruz also went poorly (which wasn't helped by the fact that we showed up to an afternoon show almost two hours late), and if our third show hadn't gone much, much better (flyer for that included as well) we probably would have called it quits. But it did, so we didn't.

One show that started terribly but ended well was the one we played down in Isla Vista. To start they had a root beer keg, which I still think is pretty cool. We had a long drive down from San Francisco (in Michael's parent's baby blue 70s VW Vanagon that only he and I could drive because it had a manual transmission) and showed up pretty much in time to play. 3 minutes in Kent McClard announced "set your phasers to stun!" and left the room. A few minutes later Julian broke the headstock of his bass clean off -- over Kerri's (from Makara) head. The night was salvaged (ironically) when the cops showed up to shut the show down (the second show we played with Nuzzle that got shutdown prematurely), and some kid with a mohawk jumped in the police cruiser and drove off with it. Legendary.

We went on one tour -- 5 shows up the west coast and back. We went with our friend Fire Engine Grey and traveled in their van (which went by the name of Otto), and my car (which was a 1991 Hyundai Excel whose clutch went out in Vancouver, leaving the most horrible aroma). Since neither band had a record out (nor did either of us have so much as a demo tape to sell) we played 4 shows to virtually nobody and one show at an internet cafe (a relatively new phenomenon in 1997) to well over 100 people. Between the ten of us on the road there was plenty of bickering and infighting to go around, but somehow we managed not to all kill each other.

Which was essentially the story of the band. The four of us really did not get along very well. I was forcibly ejected a few weeks after the tour ended, and a few months after that the band was done. It was right about then that the single came out, of course.

Although being in this band was a difficult experience, I am glad that I did it. I went from having a passive role in music to an active one, something that remains true 12 years later and I assume will remain true for the rest of my life. I cannot imagine a day when I choose to be completely removed from bands, music, or records.

I am still occasionally surprised when I meet someone who remembers this band as we played exactly 8 shows outside of San Francisco (and only 20 shows total I believe). I suppose we benefited from the record being distributed by Bottlenekk, a distro run by Sonny Kay that was probably more of an influence than it is given credit for.

The two bands we played the most shows with were Shahrazad and Makara. We also got to play shows with The VSS, Nuzzle, Hal Al Shedad, T Tauri, The Starlite Desperation, Nexus 6, and probably some others I'm forgetting about.

In addition to the single, the cassette (of which there are reputedly 100), and some related ephemera (flyers, stickers, etc), I am including two mixes of our complete sessions, which were originally intended to be an LP (albeit one that is 15 minutes long). I believe that this is the first time that these will be made publicly available, and thus constitute the first exclusive Pukekos release. Yes that is my handwriting from 1997 on the cover, and yes you can expect to see more of this sort of thing in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Angel Assassins.



Cult Of Assassination (Hymnal Sound)

1. Artificial Limb
2. Assassination Attempt
3. Language Of Want
4. Gold In Arizona
5. Angel Dust

















The Angel Assassins CS (Mutiny)

1. Language Of Want
2. When The Tensions Flow, So Do I
3. Newer Testament
4. You Would Too If You Were Me
5. I Wish I Could Say I Was Drunk

















The Angel Assassins LP (Pukekos)

1. Artificial Limb
2. Newer Testament
3. You Would Too If You Were Me
4. I Wish I Could Say I Was Drunk
5. Assassination Attempt
6. Language Of Want
7. Gold In Arizona
8. When The Tensions Flow, So Do I
9. Angel Dust













The Angel Assassins LP (Alternate Mix) (Pukekos)

1. Artificial Limb
2. Newer Testament
3. You Would Too If You Were Me
4. I Wish I Could Say I Was Drunk
5. Assassination Attempt
6. Language Of Want
7. Gold In Arizona
8. When The Tensions Flow, So Do I
9. Angel Dust













Radio Revolution: A "Critical Nuisance" Live At KZSC (KZSC)

1. Newer Testament