Thursday, October 29, 2009

Retconned

Jon Lukens is a misunderstood genius. I have been a fan of Retconned since the first time I saw him play in 2001. His performances are astounding, strange, and alienating in all the best ways. He told me once that I was somehow involved with just about every show he ever played in New York City. I asked him to put his work in context for you, and this is what happened:

"My punk band broke up.

When I started writing songs as Retconned in 1997, I'd had no real musical sustenance since the breakup of Year Zero, a punk band I had fronted from 1994-1996. So, I was getting antsy. Talking to Long Hind Legs and Thrones when they played at 485 Robinson, Valery Lovely’s house in Atlanta, encouraged me to go ahead with what I'd been considering: I bought a sampler.

I started out playing guitar and using the sampler as a rhythm section. I'd very little musical experience outside of 'singing' for a few punk bands, and was excited to take on songwriting. There were a few other factors at work, though. I was born with a chip on my shoulder, but that was compounded by an unspoken and one-sided competition: I was motivated by my desire to make up for the fact that my brother's band, the hal al Shedad, was (very deservedly) quite popular, while my previous band, the aforementioned Year Zero, seemed to work hard but go nowhere. Of course, The hal al Shedad were by far the better band, but I was younger then, and it was a lot more difficult for me to accept that there were factors (like talent, luck, catchiness, and social network) outside of my control. It seems that my general attitude at the time was that all problems could be solved by a humorless soul-crushing dedication to poorly defined objectives.

So, while many people pick up a bass or guitar sometime around middle school, and then get a few years of practice in before starting their first 'real' bands, I was trying to do it all myself in a manner of months. A poorly designed Ensoniq sampler and my cluelessness were my only assets. I started playing out relatively frequently, and soon cut a seven inch, RET-1, which I released myself. I followed that up with the CD Simulant Skin Included, my first full-length for Gavin Fredrick's Stickfigure Records. Both were recorded with the Ed Rawls.

RET-1 and Simulant Skin Included were (and remain) huge pieces of shit. They drew quite a few comparisons to 'industrial' bands I had never heard of, and the idea that dudes in kilts with shave-arounds might be into Retconned was just another blow to my already low musical self-opinion. At the same time, my live shows were becoming increasingly depressing: I'd come up in a scene where people like Scott MC, Craig Dempsey, Frank Jensen and Rebecca Merchant would be up front at house shows dancing and visibly enjoying themselves. By '98, a lot of that seemed to have faded, and, in spite of my intentions, my music just seemed to freak people out. The more uncomfortable the audience got, the more alienated I felt; and the more alienated I felt, the more uncomfortable the audience got. So it went. I tried incorporating props and slide shows into my live set to counteract the weirdness, but people began to expect those things, and soon they felt like gimmicks. I felt like I was caught between being considered a joke or a novelty and being considered some sort of bad avant-bullshit.

I remember one gig in Knoxville being particularly heinous. After being accosted by some fat fuck in sweatbands with an unplugged electric bass and a fanclub of wailing sorority bitches, I cut my set off early and started to pack out. Someone who worked at the show space tried to cheer me up.

'I think you'd go over really well at this place up the street,' he said.

'What is it?' I asked.

'It's a bondage and fetish club.'

'Is it all ages?' I asked.

I don't think he realized that I was joking, but I think that that dialogue really highlights the disparity between where I came from and where I found myself.

I moved to Brooklyn. At first, the change was good for me. I gave up on trying to sound like a punk band, and started listening to Pole, Panasonic and Scientist. Subpoena the Past's This Year's Eclipse was one of the few records that made me feel like things weren't hopeless. I wrote a record of minimal instrumental material called Triangle, but never released it. I was also working with my brother and James Joyce on a project called Ultivac. I learned a lot from that, but In the interests of brevity I need to refrain from discussing non-Retconned projects. There were a lot of them.

I played shows infrequently in NY. Reception was mixed, but generally poor. I don't think I had any idea about the way that what I was doing went over, but I did it anyway. Watching a guy play a show with a sampler or a laptop has more in common with watching grass grow than with watching a band like The Ex or Fugazi. Soon, I was spending most of my free time playing with Amverts, a short-lived NYC band made up of other ATL xpats.

In 2002, Stickfigure and volumeone jointly released my second full-length record, Game Sounds. I recorded it myself.

Through my old friend Rob Hallowes I arranged to tour Europe with Bilge Pump, a great band from Leeds that few people over here seem to have heard of. I had a good time with with those guys, though my shows were generally poorly received - just more of me freaking people out in spite of my intentions to the contrary. I guess there were not a lot of solo acts playing electro-punk off laptops in Swiss squats back then. I remember playing in the deep-end of a drained, graffitti-covered indoor swimming pool in Kranj, SI. The next night I played at an outdoor fest in Zelezniki. I went on second, following a pretty heavy band. After I played, their guitarist approached me.

'You are the freaker.' He said.

'But you are the rocker.' I replied.

'But YOU are the freaker.' He said.

'But you, YOU are the rocker. I said.

After a pause, he said 'Yes, but I come from many places.'

After a few more years of NYC, I moved back to Atlanta, hoping to start a band with my friend Joshua Fauver. I replaced all of my equipment, wrote a record called "Just Keep Shooting" that I never released, self-released a CD called IN ALL CAPS, and went on a strange tour of New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida (Yes, you read that correctly) with a an act called Recompas. The similarity of our names was confusing. Soon after, Army of Bad Luck and Stickfigure released Unhappenings, my first record that I actually liked. Last year, Stickfigure released Has Been, another full-length CD. My infrequent shows in Atlanta have generally been ok. It even seems like I have a few fans. If you do something for ten years you get better at it.

I have a single coming out on Army of Bad Luck this spring, which will be followed up by a full-length titled The Former Miss USA."

I asked Josh Fauver to speak about Retconned, and this was his response:

"My favorite Retconned show of all time was this show he did at c-12 warehouse (at the time, Stickfigure HQ) and he had brought with him all these wind-up walking toy cows that he had let loose into the audience. Sounds harmless enough, but he had torn some of the plush covering off of some of them so that they were these terrifying little fleshy robots poised to invade the audience.  Sometimes he would pick them up and turn them the other way if they got to close to an attendee's foot. What I learned: 1) Technology is both furry and terrifying.  2) Retconned will do what he can to protect us from harm, but you're on your own where the nightmares are concerned. 3) Not only is Retconned a step ahead of us all, so are his toys."

James Joyce (formerly of the Hal al Shedad, Ultivac, etc.) had this to say:

"Jon Lukens is one of the most artistic and creative persons I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He is not a musician in a traditional sense – he is an artist making music. Ever since 1997, I have watched him develop his craft and get more and more effective at realizing his intended expression, with every album becoming better than the last. Sometimes I have been able to help him with some live drums, or as a person to bounce ideas off, but he really is a singular visionary of our era. I always look forward to hearing his new songs and the sounds he is able to create through those gadgets of his, and hearing about his ideas and approaches to songwriting. I think my favorite Retconned show was the Retconned Cover Band show I helped him with back in January 2008. Josh Fauver was able to take several Retconned songs and transcribe them to guitar, which we played in a live guitar/bass/drums setting with Jon as the lead vocalist and his brother Benjamin on bass. It showed how unique and interesting his music really is when you present it in such a stripped down, classic format. Jon and his music are truly originals."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Retconned.



RET-1 (Stickfigure)
1. Nowhere
2. Unhigher Ground






















Simulant Skin Included (Stickfigure)
1. The Lice On The Lion
2. Beat The Crowd
3. Fight Scene
4. Light And Filth
5. Syntheskinned
6. Multiply, Multiply
7. Childbirth On Video
8. Seed Me
9. Hang On Over
10. It Has Its Moments
11. Processorized













Game Sounds Demos 2001 (Pukekos)
1. Human Pyramid
2. Recount
3. Capacity
4. Pyramid
5. Tshirt



















Game Sounds (Stickfigure)
1. Capacity
2. Grid
3. Live At The Driverdome
4. Endless Summer
5. At The Border
6. Ask God For Money
7. Tomorrowville
8. Coptography
9. Tshirt
10. Pyramid
11. Untitled
12. Impotential
13. Lead Into Wine
14. Postcard










Scooter Depot (Scooter Depot)
1. Self Cleaning
2. Synonymous With Quality






















IN ALL CAPS (Stickfigure)
1. A Cool Million
2. The Interview
3. Penetration 3
4. Repeat It
5. Volunteers
6. Heaven
7. Expert Witness
8. Snowflake
9. The Color No
10. Bring The Jubilee
11. Flags
12. Home Before The Sky Falls
13. Blue Air
14. Boxcar










Nophi Presents: Compilation Three (Nophi)
1. Shark Hearts























Unhappenings (Army of Bad Luck/Stickfigure)
1. Opposed Thumb
2. The Interview
3. Survival System Same
4. The Crusades
5. Obvious
6. In The Lines
7. The Cars That Go Boom
8. Bring The Jubilee
9. Public Address
10. Public Image
11. Boxcar
12. Flags












Has Been (Stickfigure)
1. Tiger Mountain
2. Has Been
3. History Lesson
4. Babys On Fire
5. High Speed Dubbing
6. All My Children
7. Home
8. October 20
9. Santo and Johnny
10. Fist Full of Dollars
11. Saucer
12. Here Comes Goodbye
13. White Horse











In Assembly b/w Passenger List (Pukekos)
1. In Assembly
2. Passenger List






















We No Fun (We No Fun)
1. Nein Ten























Live in Dublin 7/18/02 (Pukekos)
1. Ask God For Money
2. Beat The Crowd
3. Coptography
4. Postcard
5. Pyramid
6. Recount
7. Tshirt
8. Untitled









Live at Lenny's 12/27/03 (Pukekos)
1. Postcard
2. Endless Summer
3. At The Border
4. Untitled
5. Grid
6. Impotential
7. Coptography
8. Capacity
9. Pyramid
10. Untitled


Monday, October 26, 2009

Bad Thoughts

"Bad Thoughts' first rehearsal was the day after Nikki Sudden died, in Warn Defever's well-appointed basement (still my favorite rehearsal space that I've ever used). The group's primary motivation has been a social one; we mostly just enjoy each others' company, and if we get around to writing songs and arranging them, then great. I was tired of being in groups with people I didn't know particularly well, and to that end, asked three of my closest comrades to join. Copped our name from my favorite Funkadelic song, and set out to play very repetitive music. I remember being in a deep Malcolm Mooney appreciation at the time, and was also really enthusiastic about Mancunian sounds and Steve Marriott and Ana Da Silva's guitar styles. Oh also, there's this incredible song by Flowers that Sam and I were obsessed with. Played our first concert a few weeks after forming; Bohemian National Home in Detroit with Shoplifting and Slumber Party. Everyone's gear was massacred by the end of the set. People seemed indifferent, but that's not uncharacteristic of a show here.

Waited about a year before we recorded properly, again at the Bohemian with Warn, Dion Fischer, and Hitoko Sakai engineering and telling us to do it again or not. Recorded a lot of songs that afternoon, like nine in a two hour session? We always recorded live (vox too) so that helped expedite things considerably. Anyway, four of those songs were up to snuff and we used them as an excuse to start M'lady's Records and issue our first two singles. Played many insane shows, my favorites to date were my birthday party in 2007 (which was also Finally Punk's Detroit debut), and the opening of the UFO Factory (was that 2008? no it musta been late 2007). UFO was sort of our Mercer Arts Center, but instead of the Oscar Wilde Room, there was just the one room, and considerably less people in attendance, and um also we were not a party band.

First single came out in August 2007, second in January 2008. Wade and Sam designed the first sleeve (rather menacing), and Veronica Ortuño (M'lady's co-chief) designed the second (Malevitch homage / new suprematism). M'lady's really has its foundations in those two singles.

We waited yet another year, and recorded two more songs that we were very excited about. Morgan wrote 'Oh Jena' as a response to the insanity that was national news for a minute coming out of Louisiana, lots of talk about nooses and trees and things that didn't make any sense. 'Keep It Easy' was written by our hero Mark Perry. We borrowed the arrangement from the Folk In Hell cassette, not the Reflections' version, for those keeping score at home. This comprised our third (and my favorite so far) single, with a beautiful sleeve designed by Morgan (in tribute to the Jena Six and Henri-Georges Clouzot - put that in yr pipe and smoke it!)

Bad Thoughts hasn't performed in about 18 months; Sam moved to New York to attend NYU, and now he's in Queens. I miss him. Right after we stopped performing, I ran away to join Chain And The Gang, Morgan's deeply in school getting her doctorate, and Wade is the saxophonist in Druid Perfume. We promised one another that we'll meet up again soon, especially if its to back Vivien Goldman on a nationwide tour. Or the Anxious Rats; they were excellent."

-- Brett Lyman

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Bad Thoughts.



Make Yrself Necessary b/w G.E.D. Defiance (M'lady's)
1. Make Yrself Necessary
2. G.E.D. Defiance





















Non Violence b/w Night Time Is Waiting (M'lady's)
1. Non Violence
2. Night Time Is Waiting






















Oh Jena b/w Keep It Easy (M'lady's)
1. Oh Jena
2. Keep It Easy















Monday, October 19, 2009

Pyrodydacts

"Pyrodydacts was Doug Russell on guitar, Tristana Fiscella on vocals, Josh Blair on drums, and me, Sara Jaffe, on guitar and keyboard (namely, a little Casio with an output jack that we amplified through boombox speakers so it would sound blown out). We were a band in Middletown, CT from approximately October 1998-June 1999. Most of us were students at Wesleyan University. Doug and I met on one of our first days of college, and had been talking about playing music together, but it didn’t happen until our senior year, when Doug started playing with Josh and Tristana and invited me to join in. The two records I heard during my college years that probably affected me the most were the No New York and Wanna Buy a Bridge compilations—I was really interested in making music that had some kind of hooks or pop elements, but that was also open to fracture, implosion, noise. Without, I think, ever talking about this as our goal, that is what Pyrodydacts ended up being. Josh’s amazing sense of control on the drums, his impeccable sense of when to fill in space and when to back off, Doug’s perfect equation of riffage and feedback, Tristana’s sometimes spoken, sometimes quasi-operatically-sung lyrics, childhood-memories-meets-pissed-at-the-world—I loved being in this band! We practiced in my basement at 42 Miles Avenue. In some songs I would have to make really quick switches between guitar and keyboard, so I devised this system where I put a hole through my guitar pick and tied it to a string around my wrist, so I could let it go for the keyboard parts and scoop it back up for the guitar. We played probably only like 8 or 10 shows, most of them at Wesleyan, and then I think one at Sarah Lawrence College, one in New Haven, and one in Brooklyn at the Happy Birthday Hideout. At the HBH show, this kid did an amazing Sharpie drawing of us playing, I need to remember what I did with that, and Michael Azzerad came up to me after and gave me his card. I didn’t know who he was.

We made this recording on Josh’s 8-track at 42 Miles. Doug went on to play in the noise-guitar duo Open City, Tristana in Caution Curves, and Josh in Orthrelm, El Guapo/SuperSystem, and a zillion other projects. I played guitar in Erase Errata, which, incidentally, was rejected as a band name before we came up with Pyrodydacts."

Sara first played Pyrodydacts for me one wild weekend in 1999. I asked my old roommate Ben Nugent to tell that wild tale:

"It was my first fall in New York. In the summer of 1999 I had moved to South 4th between Driggs and Roebling, and BJ was my second roommate in an apartment where we shook roaches out of our shoes in the morning. Dirt, humidity, some danger.  South 2nd was rough back then, but South 4th was friendly in a hood way. The Rapture and Black Dice played an amazing show at The Cooler, I went with BJ and Jonathan Stuart and Alex Klein. I eventually started The Cloud Room with Jonathan. But that year I wasn't thinking about my own music or writing. I was panicked. I had just turned 22, and I worked for the city, out in Brownsville, trying to persuade aging welfare recipients to pound the pavement harder looking for service industry jobs. They were people falling through the cracks in the workfare system, forced to spear trash in parks to keep their welfare check coming, just about unemployable. My purpose was to help somebody strike them off the ledger, get them some kind of job somewhere, no matter how bad, to erase errata. It was my first job. My title was Employment Expert.

I was learning how to lie. The notion that I could be helpful to these desperate single mothers by reciting received wisdom to them and calling Au Bon Pain managers on their behalf was of course itself a lie. I lied to my supervisors and spent a lot of my time finding myself a magazine job instead of trying to get the 'clients' jobs. The glorious beginning of my literary career.

One weekend BJ and I and Mel Flashman, my girlfriend at the time, went up to Wesleyan, because Mel had gone there and had friends who were still there. Calvin Johnson and Mirah were playing at a coed frat, Eclectic. BJ and I decided I would tell everyone I was Ted Nugent's nephew. I didn't know if I was actually going to go through with it. I couldn't decide if it was the kind of lark people would talk about in my biography once I got famous, or if I was never going to get famous and it was therefore pointless. Youth.

We stood outside Eclectic smoking with Sara Jaffe, who was still just starting to get Erase Errata up and running at that point, I think. BJ was like, did you know this guy is Ted Nugent's nephew? People started asking me all kinds of questions. I found myself pulling answers out of the ether that felt correct. He and my father hadn't spoken much in a while, my father was the good boy who went to college and became a liberal, we used to love to go to Ted's place in Dearborn, etc. BJ kept a straight face and nodded. It felt like writing a character, like making something. Everyone nodded, interested, and we talked about the history of conservatism in rock. Then we went inside and saw Calvin Johnson pretend, listened to him sing like a child in his man's voice. It was beautiful. I thought: better--more moral, more fun-- to play pretend with your friends, than to pretend for an employer, according to plan. Far better to tell a childish lie than a smug, adult lie. Or at least I hope I thought that.

I saw Erase Errata years later at DUMBA and they were great, as good as that early Rapture show, and different."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Pyrodydacts.

 

Pyrodydacts (Pukekos)
1. Cruisin
2. Fencelamb
3. Cocky Fuck
4. 65 Pounds
5. Seawall
6. Democracy of Pirates
7. Seem Ejaculate

Friday, October 16, 2009

College Music Journal

Through a strange turn of events I have found myself producing an official CMJ party this year (on October 20th of all nights, at Cakeshop of all places), with the kind help of some friends at Subbacultcha! and Viva Radio. I can hardly believe it myself, it will be a real New Amsterdam meets Olde Amsterdam sort of time.

I thought long and hard (truly) about who I might like to invite to play this, my first corporate event. It occurred to me that (ostensibly) people read the magazine (if people still read magazines) in order to find out about new music. It only made sense that I would ask three bands who not only didn't have albums out, but hadn't played New York City before. Thus I found myself asking Best Coast, Surf City, and Male Bonding to perform, and surprisingly they all said yes.

Subbacultcha! probably had an easier time deciding on their acts, as they are bringing The Moi Non Plus, zZz, and Hospital Bombers over from The Netherlands.

If I were the sort of comedian who told jokes I would say that I will be telling jokes on Tuesday evening; but since I'm not, I won't. My olde friend Dan Selzer will be manning the wheels of steel (whatever that means) in between bands, and then again until the break of dawn, etc.

Yow, yow.

TIMESCHEDULE
07.30 - 08.05 Blondes (USA)
08.25 - 09.00 Hospital Bombers (NL)
09.20 - 09.55 Best Coast (USA)
10.15 - 10.50 The Moi Non Plus (NL)
11.10 - 11.45 Surf City (NZ)
12.05 - 12.40 zZz (NL)
01.00 - 01.35 Male Bonding (UK)
01.35 - 03.00 DJ Dan Selzer

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Slag

From the desk of the inimitable Henry Owings

"As time goes on in the cyber-verse, I'm constantly amazed that both coasts, the midwest, the south and everywhere in between seem to have their fair share of 'deep cuts' that are uncovered over the years. But Pennsylvania? Forget it. Most of this stuff has been ignored and/or relegated to the dollar bin. Such a fucking crime. That brings me to Slag. I think I've known Slag guitarist Mike Banfield (later a founding member of Don Caballero) for the better part of 20 years and it wasn't until he contacted me to promote a show for his new band Knot Feeder that it piqued my interest in knowing more about Slag who put out a total of one single on Mike's Broken Giraffe label (whose only other release was the 2nd Don Cab single) and a song on a compilation called Magic Ribbons. Formed in State College, Slag were a precursor for Don Caballero and sound, fittingly, of that pre-1991 hardcore/postpunk aesthetic. Get ready to have all your questions answered."

So Slag, when did the band form? How did you all meet? Who was in the band?

Slag formed sometime between 1987 and 1988. I’m a little hazy on the exact history. When I moved to State College to go to college in 1987, I eventually fell in with the various punk rocker types. As you can imagine, during the 80s, that group of people was somewhat small. Two of those people were George Draguns and Len Jarabeck. George and Len played in a band called Heart of Darkness. When they left the band, I was somehow recruited to play guitar. I think I was on the verge of giving up the guitar before they asked me to play. George was a State College local and he knew another local guy who played drums: Neal Witmer. And, that was the original lineup:

Mike Banfield – Guitar and Vocals
George Draguns – Bass
Len Jarabeck – Guitar
Neal Witmer – Drums

Neal left the band for some reason I can’t remember. We recruited a great young drummer from Pittsburgh named Darren Zentek. We had played some shows with his band in and around Pittsburgh and recognized how good he was. For some crazy reason, he moved to State College to work at Burger King and play in our band. Darren would go on to play in bands such as Donora, T4, Kerosene 454, and Channels. That lineup lasted a while before Darren quit the band. We then asked Neal to come back. Around this time we had been talking to our friend from Pittsburgh, Jon Good, about joining the band to take over vocal duties. We had met Jon at some shows and he had done the artwork for our 7”. As we were talking about the vocals, George left the band.

Conveniently, Jon was a bassist and had been playing with Punching Contest. He too moved to State College to work at a restaurant and play in our band. Hmmm….seems to be a theme here. That lineup played a few shows. Sadly, though, things kind of fizzled out.

How many shows did Slag play? Mostly in State College? Touring? Any notable shows worth mentioning?

We played sporadically both locally and regionally. The two shows that stand out in my mind thought were playing with Government Issue in Morgantown, WV and with Scream in Harrisburg, PA. The Government Issue show was notable both for the size of the crowd and the fact that both J. Robbins and John Stabb bought our demo tape. We also played the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh. I don’t think Manny (Theiner, Pittsburgh promoter/figurehead/massively annoying Jew) or Norm Veenstra (another Pgh promoter who soon went to succeed at the 9:30 Club in DC) would ever give us a show in Pittsburgh. I specifically remember Manny saying to me, “Why should I give your band a show?”

It took me an eternity to find the Slag single which leads me to wonder that there probably weren’t many pressed. Am I correct? Do you have boxes of them at your house?

Where did you find it? [I found it on eBay for quite a bit of change - h2o] We probably only pressed 100. Maybe 200. No boxes left at the house.

How much did the band record? Is there anything else lurking around other than these three tracks?

That was it from that session. The original line-up recorded 9 songs in December of 1988 that were released on a cassette titled I Want Some Life. I haven’t listened to this in well over a decade and I’m not sure that I want to. Lots of screaming vocals from what I remember. I also stole a lot of the song titles from Flannery O’Conner short stories. Ha.

When did you move to Pittsburgh and what was your motivation? Were you from there initially and just went to Penn State?

I grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and lived there for the first 18 years of my life. I moved to State College to attend Penn State. I ended up working there every summer. So, you could say I moved there permanently for 4 years. After graduation in 1991, I moved to San Francisco with the idea of starting a band with my friend Jon Good who had moved there after Slag threw in the towel for good. After working as a bike messenger for the summer, it didn’t seem as though anything was going to happen in the music department. I heard that Darren was moving back to State College to play with Len and George. I immediately called to get the scoop. It turned out they had already found someone for guitar and vocals. That was Travis Etling. That band became T4. I was kind of bummed out and I finally decided to move back to Pittsburgh. Talking to his friend Damon on the phone one day, Jon mentioned that I was moving back to the ‘burgh. Damon told him that I should call when I get back to get together and play. That of course led to Don Caballero.

Officially, I think I moved back to Pittsburgh to get my MLS at Pitt.

Seeing as how the 90’s were wide open by the time Slag broke up, what did everybody in Slag go on to do? Do you keep in touch with them?

As mentioned before, Darren has played in a bunch of bands and I’ve seen him frequently over the years. Darren has lived in the DC area for some time now. Len and George both played bass in Don Caballero. Len went on to play with Karl Hendricks. Len lives in Pittsburgh.

George played bass in Don Cab for a good bit including the tour with Wool and Laughing Hyenas. This was during the formative stages of the Don Cab 2 era. He quit the band and later was the first Storm & Stress bass player. George now lives in Philadelphia. I have no idea what happened to Neal Witmer.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Slag.



I Want Some Life (Self)

1. Intro
2. Burned
3. Five Minutes To Eternity
4. Life Is To Live
5. No Windows No Doors
6. Watch It Burn
7. Burned Clean
8. Only Way Out
9. Close Your Eyes
10. Low Visibility
11. Outro



Everything is Nothing b/w Don't Like (Broken Giraffe)

1. Everything is Nothing
2. Don't Like



















Metal Ribbons (Meat)

1. Alive



















Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Moon Duo

"Pretend it's a one-sided moving picture disc."

-- Ripley



Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Moon Duo.



Bopper's Hat Jam (Live) (Pukekos)

1. Bopper's Hat Jam (Live)




















Yeti #7 (Yeti)
1. Love on the Sea (Radio Edit)