Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Liliput

This record is amazing. Listening to it makes me feel happy to be alive. There are Swiss women whistling and playing horns and it is joyous.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, a single by Liliput.

Split b/w Die Matrosen (Rough Trade)
1. Split
2. Die Matrosen

Monday, March 30, 2009

Scars

I picked up the first Scars single some years ago at Amoeba because it was on Fast. Seriously, that label released zero bad records. It never even really went out of business, in fact Bob Last stopped running the label because it was becoming TOO successful.

These records are all fantastic. I used to listen to the first single constantly.

So many cool bands came out of Scotland during that era -- Josef K, Flowers, Orange Juice, Fire Engines, etc.

I also have a gold flexi that I still hope someday to get to play properly. Flexis have to be one of the worst formats ever invented, they are impossible to take good care of.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Scars.

Adult/ery b/w Horrorshow (Fast Product)
1. Adult/ery
2. Horrorshow




















They Came And Took Her b/w Romance By Mail (Pre)
1. They Came And Took Her
2. Romance By Mail




















Love Song b/w Psychomodo (Pre)
1. Love Song
2. Psychomodo




















All About You b/w Author! Author! (Pre)
1. All About You
2. Author! Author!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Nitwits

I never really knew much about this band other than the fact that they had a split record with Mohinder. I picked up the other single for the sake of completeness, and now you can hear them all.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Nitwits.

Nitwits/Mohinder (Stinky Feet/Unleaded)
1. Captain America
2. Walgreens Girl
3. Strawgly



















Great Day! (Monitor)
1. Catalyst
2. Ankrumb
3. Mad Ratts
4. Killjoy
5. Only Fools Rush In

















Farmhouse Compilation 94 (Farmhouse)
1. Secret

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Erik And The Offbeats

I was recently at Austin for SXSW, and I was able to squeeze in a trip to one record store, Waterloo. I was happy to flip through their used singles, as I found several local Texas private press items, one of them being this record. If a record is self-released (or obviously a small press), at all cool looking, and is cheap I will almost always buy it -- although I do consider how cool looking it is versus how much it costs. An $8 rccord has to look pretty cool for me to buy it if I've never heard of it, but I do very much like to experiment.

This record is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. How do you like them apples?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Erik And The Offbeats.

I Miss The Train b/w Broken Spoke Song (Renaissance)
1. I Miss The Train
2. Broken Spoke Song

Friday, March 27, 2009

Nadia Kapiche

There is a boob on the cover of this record, which said to me that I should buy it and digitize it for the world to hear.

As you have probably noticed, that is exactly what I did.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, a single by Nadia Kapiche.

Africa b/w Bitches And Bastards (M.A.O.)
1. Africa
2. Bitches And Bastards

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Murder City Devils

I was fortunate enough to see The Murder City Devils on a number of occasions. The most memorable would have to be at Punks with Presses (although it went by the secret name Circa Here at the time I believe), when Derek doused his organ with lighter fluid and then set it on fire without missing a note. He had his back turned to the crowd and it was probably one of the coolest things I had ever seen as a 19 year old.

I am glad that I can look up the exact date for that show. It was on September 26th, 1997 and also featured The Audience and The Pants (who later changed their name to Drunk Horse, although I still think The Pants suited them better).

Whilst I was still a resident of Oakland my friend Erin McDermott once excitedly telephoned me long distance from Canada to tell me all about her recent meeting and subsequent going on tour with The Murder City Devils. I asked her if she would share her tale, and she said that she would:

"Picture it. Southern Ontario, 1999. There were few options in the "things to do" department in my circle of friends. There was go to school, go to your crappy band practice, go to the bar, and everyone's fave; wait for a decent American rock n roll band to come through town and entertain us while we party, dig the tunes and have fun.

That year was the year after I was introduced to The Murder City Devils, and their album Empty Bottles Broken Hearts. It was one of those albums that had creeped into the main 6-CD disc changer at most rock clubs... it was catchy, good and new sounding.

I had been going to school in London Ontario, and "summering" in Toronto. That summer, the Devils hit Toronto and played with our local pals Teen Crud Combo. The show was at the Elmocambo and it was great. For fun, my tight Toronto pal Katie & I decided to take the Greyhound down to London Ontario to catch their next night's gig there.

Because I had their latest album I had seen what they all looked like from checking out their liner notes. It was tattoo regalia to the fullest degree. There was a big dude that looked like the toughest fucked up biker you didn't wanna mess with - pretty cool!

Anyways, at the London show I realized that this tough dude was actually the band's main roadie, and an honorary band member - Gabe. I got the idea to go up and talk with him and tell him what a hell of a job I thought he was doing. (I should add at this time that my goal in life back then was to roadie for Metallica).

We hit it off and the way I remember it was he said "Hey, if you wanna learn to roadie like me come along and we'll see what you got!" - of course I said yes. Katie went home on the Greyhound alone the next day and I went off to Quebec with this group of guys (plus one other chick). I called in sick for work - it was the only time in my life I have lied about having to leave for an indefinite amount of time because a family member had "fallen ill". I had to make this phone call in their motel's bathroom as the guilt was high for me and it was embarassing.

At that time they were touring with Vancouver's Black Halos. There was a show in some small town about 9 hours outside Toronto, possibly Sherbourne Quebec?... I can't remember. It was at a punk house and was quickly blown off to hang at a hotel room and party. I remember Gabe making a beerbong out of a 2 liter plastic coke bottle and some duct tape - they really knew how to make their own fun, MacGyver style.

We stayed in the same motel complex as the Halos and the partying was extreme. During the partying the bass player of the Halos had passed out, duct taped to a chair that had fallen over on it's back.

At one point I taught some of the guys in the band how to do the 'humpy puppy'... it is essentially where one person sniffs another person's neck repeatedly like an over excited puppy dog. Something happened that night where Spencer, the singer, and Gabe the roadie got into an argument about something trivial.

Because of the extreme party nature of the night, things were taken the wrong way and got blown out of proportion.

I jumped in and decided the best way to get things cool between these dudes again was for them to each give the dog sniff gesture to one another, and the sheer comedy of that act would eliminate any bad feelings and bring back the fun vibe. What ended up happening is Spencer gave Gabe the humpy puppy, but Gabe wouldn't go for it and did not return the gesture.

By the next day things were cool again, and we were off to Quebec City. That was the last night I spent with those dudes, the day after they were off to Rhode Island and I was back on a Greyhound to Toronto. Twas a fun time!.. Sniff."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Murder City Devils.

Dancehall Music (Empty)
1. Dancehall Music
2. Johnny Thunders
3. Take The Train



















Three Natural Sixes (Hopscotch)
1. Murder City Riot
2. Broken Glass
3. Officer
4. Halfman


















Dancing Shoes (Die Young Stay Pretty)
1. Dancing Shoes
2. Tokyo Gold




















Christmas Bonus Single (Jeff & Amy's Paper Bag Series)
1. 364 Days
2. Dead By Christmas




















The Murder City Devils/Botch (Excursion)
1. Idle Hands





















The Murder City Devils/Gluecifer (Sub Pop)
1. In This Town
2. Can't Seem To Make You Mine




















Technology (Skyscraper)
1. Dance Hall Music

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

KIT

George Chen and I lived in Oakland together in 1998. Alex Klein and Courtney Kaplan rounded out our little quartet for the summer, when Courtney moved out and Travis moved in. We called our house the Appomattox and we put on shows there for The Blackheart Procession, Dub Narcotic, The Lapse, Nuzzle, The Court & Spark, etc. I am including scans of the all the flyers, which were all designed and executed by Gabe Mindel. Yes, that is actual film around the Nuzzle flier (I believe from Moog), although you have to look very closely at it to see the names of the bands as he hand inked it on the back.

That show with The Blackheart Procession and Dub Narcotic was nuts, there were well over 200 people in my 3 bedroom home that night to watch bands play in my dining room. It didn't help that my evening started with a call from Calvin Johnson, informing me that he was lost in Oakland. I spent the next hour driving around some pretty seedy parts of town with my friend Barbara Garber, until we finally found him sitting at a random gas station sipping on some apple juice as if nothing were wrong at all. This was before the age of cell phones so we had to check in at the house a few times to see if he had called with an update. What a night!

But I digress. I asked George if he had anything in particular to say about his band KIT, and he said that he did:

"The first two 7"s we put out were a different line up of this band with the same personnel. I played drums in KIT for the first two years. We started as a goof the Summer of 2002 after watching Friends Forever and it really took Steve calling me on my bluff of "we should start a band", which is pretty much what I tell everyone. No one in California ever follows through though, so it took the Alabama Brothers to corral Kristy and myself out of our ADD. First practice was a bit of a mystery, but that is how I ended up on drums.

The split with Wives was the first thing we did and it made sense in my head, I'd seen them play a show at Mission Records with Jonny X and the Groadies and Dean was super sick and I barely got to talk to him, I think he was puking, but I said that we needed to do a record together. One of the few early shows where Matt Grothman was playing sampler with them. The five songs here went unnamed. This was maybe a holdover from XBXRX, where the brothers insisted on not naming anything. To this day, the names we call the songs amongst ourselves do not match up with the titles we assign them on record, and it gets really confusing when someone subsequently asks me about a particular song and we both go "you mean the one that goes 'nah nah nah' or the part that goes 'weee-oo'." I asked Kim West to design the cover cause I love her artwork. Steve and I screened most of the covers at Eric Bauer (also of Crack: We Are Rock and Big Techno Werewolves)  and it is the first and last time I personally screen a record cover. My forearms were in a world of pain. This actually got repressed for a 500 pressing and Jennifer from Mika Miko photocopied the covers and spray painted them, that's the yellow cover.

The split with Deerhoof was supposed to come out on a CD one day with all the other Narnack splits, but that seems unlikely to happen and this thing is long out of print, so it's fair game. I bought a cymbal from Guitar Center to play on this recording and then promptly returned it, but I don't think it sounds that great. We recorded this on a 4 track in the empty room at my old house, Club Short, right before it became Vice's room for about four years. One song shows up on both our album as "Flat Earth" and on the 7" with Mike Watt, so it's the most repeat offense KIT song, other than maybe "Forest". The last song on here was supposed to be about New York, we never really got around to playing it live.

We had a year of not doing anything as a band. We actually ended up going to group therapy, just like Metallica. But cheap. At one point three of us lived under the same roof and there is a set of brothers and a couple all in the same unit, which can create a lot of issues. Once we re-formed the band, Vice moved to drums and I moved to guitar. Steve switches between bass and guitar. For a band that has been together for, god, seven (!) years, it only feels like we've been doing it for a little while. This is because everyone in the band is in like four other bands and we only have little windows of time in which to work. So by all rights, we should have burnt out, but we haven't yet."

If you find yourself enjoying KIT and would like to hear more, please feel free to order more of their records from my good friends at Upset The Rhythm. They put on some of the coolest shows in London and are some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, KIT.

KIT/Wives (Zum/Post Present Medium)
1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5

















KIT/Deerhoof (Narnack)
1. 1
2. 2
3. 3



















KIT/Bodahab (Hug Life)
1. Song For Voices
2. Forest
3. (Percussive) Happiness
4. (Acoustic) Happiness


















KIT/Mirror/Dash (NFJM)
1. Sign Stars
2. 101 On Semlow
3. Seychelles

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Heavenly

When I was in college I had a brief affair with indie pop, so I decided that I was going to start collecting everything on the Sarah label. I had a cohort at Amoeba in Berkeley who used to pull out records for me if he thought I might be interested in them. He turned me on to a bunch of cool stuff (not just indie pop either) and would hold singles for me, which is how I got the majority of these. It is always nice to have a man on the inside. The others I either got in England or off eBay just like everyone else.

You probably have noticed by now that I am fascinated with the single. They are fun and often contain a band's best material, unbeknownst to all (until now) without record players. I hope I am getting you excited about the format as well.

Heavenly were definitely a singles band, and now you can hear all of them. They are fantastic, as if you needed me to tell you.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, the singles of Heavenly.

I Fell In Love Last Night b/w Over And Over (Sarah)
1. I Fell In Love Last Night
2. Over And Over




















Our Love Is Heavenly b/w Wrap My Arms Around Him (Sarah)
1. Our Love Is Heavenly
2. Wrap My Arms Around Him




















So Little Deserve b/w I'm Not Scared Of You (Sarah)
1. So Little Deserve
2. I'm Not Scared Of You




















She Says b/w Escort Crash On Marston Street (K)
1. She Says
2. Escort Crash On Marston Street




















P.U.N.K. Girl b/w Hearts And Crosses (Sarah)
1. P.U.N.K. Girl
2. Hearts And Crosses




















Atta Girl (Sarah)
1. Atta Girl
2. Dig Your Own Grave
3. So?



















Heavenly/Bis (K)
1. Trophy Girlfriend





















Space Manatee (K)
1. Space Manatee
2. You Tore Me Down
3. Art School

Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Cronics

I bought this one because it has a pyramid on the front, and so I could try to figure out why they left the "H" out of The Cronics.

So far I haven't been able to sort that one out, but I'll keep you posted.

I do have to admit that I admire any band that starts a record label named after their band to release their own records. That is exactly at the heart of DIY.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, a single by The Cronics.

Prisom Bars (Cronic)
1. Bird Of Prey
2. High On You
3. Crazylove
4. Mad About My Baby

Friday, March 20, 2009

Phil 'N' The Blanks

This record is pretty fun. I have been quite enjoying listening to all these small press records from long ago.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, a single by Phil 'N' The Blanks.

I Want Some More b/w I'm Losing Interest (Pink)
1. I Want Some More
2. I'm Losing Interest

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Mitt & The Modules

This was another little number that I picked up because it looked somewhat interesting.

Bring back the swing indeed.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Mitt & The Modules.

Doom Sale Church b/w Ha Money Ka (Danceville)
1. Doom Sale Church
2. Ha Money Ka

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Shop Assistants

If you haven't heard this stuff it is fantastic. There were a lot of great singles coming out of England around this time.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Shop Assistants.

Shopping Parade (Subway Organization)
1. All Day Long
2. Switzerland
3. All That Ever Mattered
4. It's Up To You


















Safety Net (53rd & 3rd)
1. Safety Net
2. Almost Made It
3. Somewhere In China



















I Don't Wanna Be Friends With You (Chrysalis/Blue Guitar)
1. I Don't Wanna Be Friends With You
2. Looking Back




















Here It Comes (Avalanche)
1. Here It Comes
2. I'd Rather Be With You
3. You Trip Me Up
4. The Other One (Lausanne 1987)


















Big E Power (Avalanche)
1. Big E Power
2. One More Time

Monday, March 16, 2009

Flowers Of Discipline

If I see a record I don't have on Teenbeat, I buy it.

Which is how I come to have this record by Phil Krauth's old band. I was happy to see what was probably Mark Robinson's home phone number in the mid 80s listed as the booking contact on one of the inserts (all of which have been scanned and included in the download).

After I originally posted this I received an email from Michael Cluff, the guitar player. I asked him if he would tell the story of Flowers Of Discipline, and he said that he would:

"To be honest, there's not much to tell! Much of the story can be found here (which came from an email I sent someone, who put what I wrote in third person and posted it).  That story pretty much captures how alienated we were: Reagan era punk fans two and a half hours' drive from DC playing in a country town in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley.  Phil had already played in Unrest and Clarence in high school, and met Dave Park and me when he started at James Madison U. 

We played for two years in the small campus scene (with great bands like The Rational Herdsmen, DT and the Shakes, and Narcoleptic Lenny).  Just after I graduated in '87 and before I headed off to graduate school, we played our last show at DC Space opening for Dischord's Happy Go Licky (a re-tooled Rites of Spring, just before Fugazi was formed).  Phil and Dave (bass, songwriting) continued with Unrest, a line-up that recorded the amazing albums "Malcolm X Park," and "Kustom Karnal Blaxploitation" (both of which made me feel like the Pete Best of indie-pop -- an average musician who was lucky to play with some truly talented guys).   

If you're a Phil Krauth fan, you should know he plays bass on the untitled song.  We had a few more minutes of studio time, so just for fun Dave and Phil swapped places, and we improvised straight to tape.

Perhaps our only claim to fame was that one side of the EP was 33 1/3 rpm and other was 45 rpm.  (Some claimed the 45 rpm side sounded better at 33!) 

I was never happy with the sound of this EP; we recorded it in a gospel studio in a very rural town, and I think the engineers weren't familiar with distorted guitars.  (To me, the guitar sounds like a rotisserie grill.)

Again, thanks for posting the record.  Having been so close to the music, it's impossible for me to assess whether or not this stuff was any good.  So it's nice to see others enjoying it years later..."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Flowers Of Discipline.

Flowers Of Discipline EP (Teenbeat)
1. Song One
2. Sight
3. Chances
4. Looking Back
5. Untitled

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The White Stripes

The first time I saw The White Stripes was right after De Stijl came out, at Mercury Lounge. The show eventually sold out, but I was able to walk up and pay cash to get in. I unfortunately missed the opening band, as it was The Yeah Yeah Yeah's first show, if I remember correctly.

The White Stripes were unbelievable that night. It was not hard to tell that they were going to be stars. It is a show that I will probably remember for the rest of my life.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The White Stripes.

Let's Shake Hands b/w Look Me Over Closely (Italy)
1. Let's Shake Hands
2. Look Me Over Closely




















Lafayette Blues b/w Sugar Never Tasted So Good (Italy)
1. Lafayette Blues
2. Sugar Never Tasted So Good




















The Big Three Killed My Baby (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1. The Big Three Killed My Baby
2. Red Bowling Ball Ruth




















Hello Operator (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1. Hello Operator
2. Jolene




















Lord Send Me An Angel b/w You're Pretty Good Looking (Trendy American Remix) (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
1. Lord Send Me An Angel
2. You're Pretty Good Looking (Trendy American Remix)



















Party Of Special Things To Do (Sub Pop)
1. Party Of Special Things To Do
2. China Pig
3. Ashtray Heart

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Social Register

When I hear records like this, I wonder to myself -- what sort of people were in this band? What other bands did they play shows with? Not that it is particularly weird, but there were all these bands from past decades that have one little artifact to show for their existence and no real context for it. This is another record that the internet is not really too familiar with, so I don't have anything to go on unfortunately.

That doesn't make it sound any less cool, however.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Social Register.

You're So Blonde b/w Electric Cars (Logan)
1. You're So Blonde
2. Electric Cars

Friday, March 13, 2009

Time Twins

I have met many twins over the years, but never any who could actually travel through time. To be fair though, I will purchase anything that involves time travel, whether it is movie tickets, a science fiction novel, or a record.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Time Twins.

Bitch Silk b/w Wabooba (Royal Family)
1. Bitch Silk
2. Wabooba

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Hot Knives

One Moby Grape cover and one original from this band that I had never heard of before. The original doesn't veer to greatly from the sound of the cover, so if you enjoy that sort of thing you will probably enjoy this even though it came out in 1977.

Is the band name a somewhat veiled reference to doing spots?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Hot Knives.

Hey Grandma b/w I Hear The Wind Blow (K.O.)
1. Hey Grandma
2. I hear The Wind Blow

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Stumpy

I've always wanted a copy of this record, and I finally found one recently at Academy. It took me a second to realize exactly why I wanted it, but then I realized that this was the first release on Unleaded, and featured future members of Mohinder. I love finding these lost gems in the rough.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, a single by Stumpy.

Stumpy EP (Unleaded)
1. Martyr
2. Fools Gold
3. Vivisection
4. American Slaves
5. Nothing

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The VSS

The VSS are a pretty important band to me. They were one of the first bands that I made an effort to go see every time they played, and as an 18 year old they just seemed like the coolest band ever.

Sonny Kay was a fixture of the DIY community in those days. He was at just about every Gilman show with crates of records from his Bottlenekk distro, selling singles and LPs by bands that you would probably never find unless you combed the ads in HeartattaCk (or went across the bay to Epicenter, but if you weren't a volunteer you would often find the record you were looking for was sold out). I still remember the first item I purchased from him -- The Make-Up's Destination: Love - Live! At Cold Rice -- which he was nice enough to sell me despite the fact that I was a dollar short. It was 1996 and although I had been going to shows for a little while, I hadn't really met or talked to anyone in the bands before. It excited me to actually meet and talk to someone whose music I admired, and consequently I have adopted the habit of approaching people whose work inspires me.

Through the course of doing research for this post, I found myself exchanging a few emails with Mr. Kay. I asked him if he had a story to tell about The VSS, and he said that he did:

"Anytime anyone asks for something anecdotal about The VSS, I usually wind up telling this story. I still think it says a lot about the spirit of the band.

We recorded our only album, Nervous Circuits, towards the end of 1996. Although it wasn't coming out till mid-'97, we booked a tour of Europe for January and February based on the advice that touring in the dead of winter would be to our advantage because we could coordinate with university schedules since, largely, people that age were our "target market". So a couple of days after New Years 1997, we loaded up our newly-acquired (though by no means new) van and headed out of the Bay Area. We were joined by our old friend from our days in Colorado, Paul Drake, a veteran tour manager and driver to this day. We had plane tickets to fly from JFK in New York to Glasgow, Scotland - an unlikely first stop on any European tour, but our European booking agent/roadie lived there and it made as much sense as starting anywhere else. We'd booked a string of shows across the U.S. in order to get from coast to coast within about 4 days.

Anyway, we headed east, had a good first show in Salt Lake City, and another the next night in Denver. We stayed at my mom's place afterwards, and headed out very early the following morning en route to Omaha, Nebraska. As we crossed the barren plains of eastern Colorado, things got more and more frigid, the winds started whipping up and the snow flurries increased. Each stop we made came replete with an update on the blizzard conditions we were driving into. About 2/3 of the way to Omaha (approximately 10 hours from Denver in clear weather) we were freezing our asses off - the van seemed to be generating no heat, and we were all zipped into our sleeping bags attempting to keep warm. Out of desperation we decided to improvise and flattened a cardboard box which we shoved in the van's grill, in front of the radiator. This proved to be disastrous as within 30 minutes or so we were billowing white smoke from our tailpipe and losing power, not just heat. We'd blown the head gasket on the van, although we wouldn't know that until the following afternoon. We eventually limped into to Omaha at probably 11:00 pm (15 hours after we started), having stopped every 15 or 20 miles to top up the water which we could hear boiling inside the radiator as we drove. Miraculously, despite the absolute whiteout conditions in Omaha, the Cog Factory was full of kids apparently awaiting our arrival. That was incredible. We had a great show that night, then went and stayed with a friend of Paul's.

The following morning we woke up to not one but FOUR flat tires on the van - the record cold temperatures had literally sucked the air from our tires. We called AAA and promptly waited 4 hours for the truck to arrive. It seemed half of Omaha had been incapacitated by the blizzard. Finally, the tires were inflated and the van towed across town to a garage where we then waited 2 hours or so for "the verdict": the blown gasket meant that the engine would need to be rebuilt, and that would take about 2 weeks. Josh had literally bought the van for this trip, and abandoning it was simply not an option. So it was decided that Paul (who wasn't going to Europe with us) would hang out in Omaha for 2 weeks and wait for the van while the rest of us soldiered on. We purchased a late-70's Oldsmobile '98 sedan from the garage for $600, loaded our bags, guitars and keyboards into the trunk, and set off. Although this tour was off to a nightmarish start, I remember feeling a real camaraderie amongst all of us, and we made the most of the situation, like stopping at Dairy Queen in Missouri somewhere for Blizzards - one of those random, meaningless tour events that somehow stands out from all the others twelve years after the fact. I think we were all so pumped about going to Europe, we probably would have been glad to walk. Despite having to cancel one or two shows, we made it to the east coast in time to play our show at the Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. After the show we drove to Josh's parents' house in rural PA where the Olds died, once and for all, as we pulled into the driveway. It was later towed off to be used as bumper fodder in the local demolition derby. We made it to JFK as scheduled, and flew to Glasgow. There we spent 2 days eating white bread in a dreary little flat, preparing the Euro-version of our "light show" for our 6-week tour of Europe in a tiny cargo van with no seats (we sat on the amps) and back doors duct-taped in place. Those were the days.

Paul Drake has been thanked for his role in this debacle more than once, and deserves acknowledgement here as well. The VSS is forever in his debt."

Gilman Street is famous for a number of reasons, but you may not have known that they let you bring in a cassette and record the show off the soundboard. I used to bring in tapes occasionally, and as a result I have a few pretty listenable soundboard recordings. Among others, I have 3 tapes featuring performances by The VSS (although you will miss the light show, they sound fantastic). There is one song on the first tape that I was unable to place, and Dave Clifford had this to say about it:

"That first song was an early incarnation of two songs from Nervous Circuits, actually. I remember we'd just finished writing that song when Josh quit, and then when he came back it was the first thing we did, splitting that song up into two different songs... I can't recall what each ended up being though after all the changes, but it sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it?"

So there you have it. All the singles the band released, 3 soundboard recordings, and a number of flyers from the private collection of Sonny Kay.

I would especially like to thank Sonny for his involvement in this, as well as Dave for explaining the origins of that mysterious song. I'd also like to thank Andrew and Josh simply for being in such a great band.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The VSS.



The VSS (Strict)
1. The Flesh Inside
2. Indians Sick
3. Evolution
4. Silt, etc.


















The VSS/T Tauri (Titanic)
1. Muscle
2. The Fist And The Fingers




















The VSS EP (Gravity)
1. "Response"
2. I Cut My Teeth
3. Cosmic Retribution
4. Crawling In Place


















The VSS/Rye Coalition (Super 8)
1. In Miniature (Remix)
2. No Hands




















Live At Gilman 5/11/96 (Pukekos)
1. Untitled
2. I Cut My Teeth
3. Evolution












Live At Gilman 11/8/96 (Pukekos)
1. Death Scene
2. Lunar Weight
3. -
4. Chemical In Chemistry
5. In Miniature
6. I Cut My Teeth
7. The Flesh Inside
8. What Kind Of Ticks?
9. Nervous Circuits






Live At Gilman 3/22/97 (Pukekos)
1. -
2. Sibling Ascending
3. Death Scene
4. Swift Kicks
5. What Kind Of Ticks?
6. -
7. I Cut My Teeth
8. Lunar Weight
9. Solid Gold Follower