Keep Laughing!

Best of Beastiality

2012-02-08T21:17:00.001-08:00

Everyone identifies with animals on screen. It’s a part of movie going psychology. You can bludgeon maim and kill human beings but kick a dog and the audience gasps in horror. Maybe it’s because we know the humans are actors? They’re characters, they’re not real people but Fido can’t fake it. Or so we believe. You hurt an animal and you hurt every dog the audience has ever known. So don’t fuck with the dog.

You won’t identify with the animals in these films in the same way you did with Benji and maybe that analogy doesn’t really fit here. Or maybe it does? The ultimate taboo put on display in these films becomes a centerpiece for examining relationships better than any relationship movie I’ve ever known. Which says a lot about “relationship” movies in this day and age. The funniest part is the intelligent audiences who need to see these films pass them by thinking it beneath them to watch a blonde give a dog a blow job. And really who’s to blame em on the surface. But looks can be deceiving and the adventuresome film goers who take a chance on seeing these films will be rewarded beyond the simplistic description I’ve so far shared.

I’m still figuring out who this Nagisa Oshima mother fucker is and it’s blowing my mind that I’ve come so late to the party. I’d first heard of him described as a New Wave director which caught me off guard because the guy’s Japanese. There’s little question that the French New Wave was a spark that exploded on the international scene and inspired more likeminded films all over the world. In my enthusiasm for the French NW I failed to investigate the children it spawned internationally. Recently Oshima’s early works have been unearthed on DVD I’ve had an opportunity to see where he fits into that lexicon. I’m just opening my eyes to his work so I don’t feel comfortable trying to piece together a history for Oshima since he made dozens of films and went through many stages in his career but in the small handful of his flicks I’ve seen I’d put him in the same league as De Sica, Bunuel, Kurosawa and shit like that. Over the last few years I’ve been going apeshit watching his earlier films and they read like Godard in some ways. If Godard had balls the size of watermelons. I feel like in some ways he’s eclipsed Godard in my mind. Which is saying a lot.

He’s Film royalty no doubt. And it’s his place in film history that made this film Max Mon Amour come about. Oshima wrote the script in collaboration with Jean-Claude François Carrière who worked closely with Luis Bunuel for several films and in many ways this feels like a Bunuel film in terms of the surreal tone the film sets.

Suspicious that his wife might be having an affair a husband hires a private eye. It turns out she is cheating. With an ape. Being the liberal free thinker he is the husband decides they can all live together and work it out. It’s hard to imagine a more surreal investigation into the mechanics of a love triangle than throwing in this monkey wrench. The conventions of melodrama fly out the window as jealousy, confusion, and curiosity overtake the husband. Did I mention he’s having an affair as well. Um with a human woman I mean. There’s also the fine detail of the child from this marriage who may not understand the inner workings of this strange relationship and yet he finds himself to be a participant in the desperate struggle.

The DVD box describes the film as a harsh indictment of bourgeois morality and I think they stole that shit from the back cover of the Herman Hesse novel Steppenwolf. But it kinda hits the mark. It certainly goes a long way in forcing the audience to define morality in their own terms when confronted with such a quandary. But I hate to be so clinical in my analysis. The symbolism of who the “other woman” could be remains undeniable and yet it’s open ended enough to drag the audience in as they confront their own feelings about betrayal, morality, and the very nature of love.

What the monkey represents seems to vacillate between the absurd comedy of how we perceive others and how we handle reality ourselves. It’s made all the more gripping by the realistic treatment of the situation that couldn’t possibly happen. But who’s to say it can’t happen? The monkey as a lover can be substituted for just about anything now a days. By pulling back the covers on this insane relationship the film made me question how I would react given the same set of circumstances. Anyone who has ever loved someone who wasn’t what they appear to be should be able to relate, and yet it strikes even deeper than that. Why should she be considered fucked up? The performance of the wife seemed hollow to me on first viewing but I later found myself questioning why she should feel any shame at all? Certainly no more shame than the husband and how he tries to deal with this “problem” while juggling a mistress of his own.

Perhaps this is the ultimate genius of the film. I identified with the husband first, the wife second, then I found elements of the child to be a part of my psyche and lastly I became the monkey!

The film also goes a long way in challenging the assumptions we have about what marriage really means. In this day and age, and perhaps it’s been true of humanity forever, it’s nearly impossible for people to get all their emotional/physical/mental nourishment from just one person.

Years ago I was dating a woman who was very vocal about her bisexual proclivities. I knew what I was getting into when we started out and quite frankly it turned me on like fucking mad. We spoke at length about these desires and it made me sick with lust, curiosity about the possibilities, and explosive in my passive aggressive jealousy which I could never share with her openly. There were way worse problems which made the relationship impossible to continue but I find it synchronous that we broke up right before she was ready to share with me a videotape of her doing it to another woman. Something I begged to see the entire time we went out. I never did watch that video and we never spoke again. So… um yeah… I can fucking relate.

For years I’ve treasured Max Mon Amour for the unique way it examines adult relationships. It stands on it’s own as a masterpiece and I never thought I’d encounter another film which could be an equal mix of the ludicrous yet intensely personal. I couldn’t have been more shocked to learn that Bobcat Goldthwait made a film which is the perfect companion piece to this film. Maybe you’re familiar with his work on Police Academy 4 or Shakes the Clown?

The only reason I picked up Sleeping Dogs Lie was because it was directed by Bobcat Goldthwait and I fully expected a bullshit escapist throwaway which would help me lose an hour and a half of my life. As the credits rolled at the end I had to admit that maybe Bobcat was a filmmaker worth paying attention to and not just as a potential time waster.

Yeah both films use animal fucking as a springboard to look at love both conditional and unconditional, but the way they dovetail together so elegantly makes me wonder if Bobcat was at all familiar with Max Mon Amour. Not that there are many similarities between both films aside from female human lips wrapped around engorged animal cock. That’s a given. While Max Mon Amour tackles emotions surrounding betrayal and the fallout that ensues, Sleeping Dogs Lie is another animal. Instead Bobcat focuses on the concept of honesty and how it factors into relationships both romantic and familial. While it’s outlandish it’s got both feet firmly planted in reality and it’s an amazing counterpoint to the surreal nature of Max Mon Amour.

A young woman on the verge of marriage is prodded into sharing her deepest darkest secret with her soon to be husband. That’s all I’m gonna fucking say because along with Max Mon amour I think you need to see this movie in order to do it justice. The film has a fluidity and enough jarring honesty in it’s own right that it left me no choice but to see myself in the place of the protagonist. It’s a credit to the writing when a story can come from so far out of left field that the viewer can’t make heads or tails out of what’s gonna happen next. There’s enough twists and turns that the story jumps the track of the genre’s mold taking us far from our comfort zone of expecting the next step in the story to unfold. You can’t predict it because we’re in uncharted territory. And here is where Sleeping Dogs soars. Both of these films share that ideal making them hard to nail down in terms of genre. Yeah they’re black comedies but an equal measure of drama is a thread that runs throughout. Shit maybe it’s even wrong to call Max Mon Amour a comedy? Who’s to fucking say?

Max Mon Amour operates on a several thematic levels but the drive to forge a strong marriage no matter the costs is one I keep returning to. Sleeping Dogs Lie doesn’t involve a marriage at the onset and so I see it instead dissecting the bare essentials of what a relationship needs to survive. Without trust you can have no respect and without respect you cannot have love. But it also goes on to prove that what’s left unsaid is just as important as honesty in terms of keeping mutual respect alive. It's a complex movie but it's deceiving in it's simplicity.

Sleeping Dogs Lie is a comedy. No doubt. But it’s fucking thoughtful and decidedly contemporary. Shit there’s even crack smoking involved. I firmly believe it’s one of the best films to be made in the new millennium. And while I don’t know much about the business of Hollywood that I can stomach I do know it’s incredible that a ballsy intelligent movie like this could have been made. The fact that snively Mcdumbfuck (Bobcat) was the drive that made it happen makes it an incredible coup. To me it’s the perfect amalgam of everything I like in art. It’s intelligent and dirty. Sharp in it’s delivery and yet misleading on the surface. Again like a Bunuel film. Almost camouflaged. A smartly crafted trap to make you identify with the characters. It’s impossible not to. It’s multilayered yet it works for the lowest common denominator too. It’s the kind of art movie I’d hope to see from a marginalized figure and the only one less marginalized than Bobcat is the black guy from police academy who made the crazy noises with his mouth. Unless you count Steve Guttenberg.

So I’ll go on record to say that Bobcat Goldthwait has the potential to be cinematic royalty as well regardless of his past and maybe because of it. It’s exciting to think about and my hopes are with him. World’s Greatest Dad was the film he made after this one and it had similar moments of insanely dark comedy but it’s not nearly as good. It also had the finger prints of Hollywood meddling which makes me wonder if it’s the film he intended to make. I stumbled upon World’s Greatest Dad’s debut screening when it played in Portland initially. It was buried under a million different ads and if not for a fluke of catching him on a talk show I would have never been able to pay for a ticket to see it. It lasted only two days and then went away to DVD land presumably. I’m wondering how much pressure there is to bury Bobcat Goldthwait in Hollywood. Or maybe I’m just thinking about showbiz bullshit too much? Either way Sleeping Dogs Lie is a phenomenal film that is as good as my favorite Oshima film. Which says a fuckload.

Both these films blaze a trail that’s never been trod and both end up in different places a feat which makes them singular and exceptional. The fact that animal fucking is the centerpiece seems incidental. Unless you go for that sort of thing.

MIA Murder in a Foreign Place

2012-02-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

One of the first punk records I ever bought. Imagine my surprise when I found out they were a band from Vegas. I’m thinking they were the first punk band from sin city to release an LP but I don’t fuckin know.

In 1987 I recorded over all my heavy metal tapes and most of it was huge chunks of the Rock Avenue on KUNV. Somehow in between songs by Lords of the New Church and the HooDoo Gurus I taped a song about Las Vegas. I could never figure out who that band was but I rocked that fuckin song over and over on that goddamned tape thinking this was some outsiders version of what they thought Las Vegas was about.

It wasn’t until I saw MIA play with TSOL at Soundstage or That’s Entertainment or some shit that I finally figured it out. They started the opening chords of that Las Vegas song and I finally put two and two together. In my excitement I plowed into a crowd of people pressed against the stage and danced around the room like a maniac. Aside from slammin at a handful of FSP gigs I think that was the first time I was caught up in the energy of the music and was forced to “dance” in the presence of a large crowd of my peers. It was a great moment. The kind of moment you can lose sight of over time. Gotta hold on to shit like that. This album became a staple of my young punk rock diet before I became disillusioned and disgusted. It hasn’t lost any of it’s edge.

This is the only album by MIA that I ever got into. Later records became less hardcore and more pop oriented which pissed off my hardcore blood at the time, although it’s hard to miss the poppy moments that flow through this album. Listening to this in 2012 is a real treat although it doesn’t punch me in the nuts the same way it did in 1986. Yeah but you only lose your virginity once and hearing my past come at me like this is still worthy of a dance although I doubt I’ll ever be in a room full of hundreds of likeminded people again in my life. As it turned out I wasn’t in a room completely filled with likeminded folks back then so no love is lost.

They had a unique style that borrowed a little from that SoCal shit. I hear anthemic TSOL moments and a few songs harmonizing in a way that is reminiscent of Channel 3 but you gotta remember MIA were contemporaries of both bands so I’d never consider it stealing. In fact it’s a good variation on the style that makes MIA their own unique brand of degeneracy. But that’s missing the point a bit. They had something to say and they weren’t just a bunch of degenerate assholes. Sure the sentiment wasn’t all that different from what other punk bands were saying but it’s still a little more personable than the generic shit D.I. was saying. At least on this record. I have a demo tape of MIA’s early stuff borrowed from James Palmer. I haven’t ripped it yet because I can’t tell what songs are what and I don’t have names for songs and that kinda bugs me. I’ll try and give it a listen somewhere down the road and hopefully I’ll be able to share eventually.

Music and lyrics are pretty great on this LP. There’s a stab at putting down nazi fuckos in the form of Boredom Is Your Reason that sums up the nazi trend in a real obvious and truthful way long before Nazism became the trend that destroyed hardcore. They weren’t opposed to holding up a mirror to punk rock and asking their listeners to look at themselves as a few of these songs attest. In my book that puts them head and shoulders over the vast majority of “political” punk cry babies.

There’s a good ratio of kick ass songs included here but the fact that these songs rarely go over two minutes means the songs I don’t like as much pass by in a blur which makes the album as a whole a serious keeper. Small Man in a Big World rages but still keeps it super smooth. The intro/hook to All I Know still brings a chill. I included Who Will Survive in my compilation of nuclear war songs and it fits in snug with that paranoid nightmare. Reality Is Killing Me used to hype the shit out of me as I flailed about in my room by myself after school. It still makes me want to run away from the cops as I listen today.

Hearing this brings back a lot of angst and that tangible mixture of desperation, anxiety, and full on FUCKYOU attitude. It makes me want to spray paint a wall and try and make out with a punk chick who hates me right before I kill my fucking self.

I was gonna rip this record but it turns out there’s multiple blogs sharing this record for download. Kudos to the blog linked below for sharing music that should never be forgotten. He didn’t include the lyric sheet which I think is a huge oversight. It’s great that he’s sharing it but I don’t think he understands just how important it was back then to see someone scream words that I was thinking about saying myself. I guess that’s important today too right? I’ve included a scan of the lyric sheet from my vinyl copy.

Download Murder In A Foreign Place here

Three year anniversary

2011-12-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

In case you didn’t notice Keep Laughing has been on a bit of a hiatus as of late. I’m busy fixing up a house I bought in Portland, Oregon. Yep I’m a homeowner!

As a result my creative life has been playing second banana to a new series of projects at the homestead. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I expect to be back up to my old tricks sometime after the first of the year. I got a decent response to the post I made about the film series I helped put together 10 years ago so I'm thinking of doing a write-up of numerous collections of films I recommend in the near future. Also I’ve got three or four different films I’ve made personally in various states of being finished. Maybe one of them will get finished next year?

As mentioned I got no more old school Vegas demos. If you got demos and you want them included here get in touch. I’m still interested in hearing ‘em and making ‘em available. Better yet why don’t you rip them and post them? I’ll write about ‘em after you tell me where you’ve put ‘em online. Oh yeah, please make them downloadable too.

If you do got some shit worth sharing or you just want to send gifts or money my new address is:

Keep Laughing

5223 N. Montana Avenue

Portland, Oregon 97217

So for the three year anniversary post of Keep Laughing you get no goodies just explanations of my inactivity. Tough shit.

Oh wait I guess I do have something I can share. Here’s a short video I made of one of my favorite band of all time doing a sound check for me alone. Yeah that's my lap. I shot this over the Summer and never posted it. You should be able to name the band fairly easy. Bonus points if you can name the song. See ya in 2012.

~~Three years seems like a long time.~~

Very Small Kick

2011-11-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

Dave Hayes from Very Small Records is doing a kickstarter project until November 21. Click here to see. Give him $42 and you get a great hoodie and his entire discography on a DVD/R with 1,111+ tracks!

I’ve made several references to Dave Hayes throughout this blog. If you’re unfamiliar with Very Small Records then you been missing out. Go here and get acquainted. He lived for a short time in Las Vegas and put out a few records featuring Vegas bands. He went on tour with Dwarf Bitch and released both their 7” records.

I know what you’re thinking. Who gives a shit? Well he also put out records for: Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Jawbreaker, Green Day, Econochrist, Nuisance, Schlong, Elmer, the list is endless including some of the best compilation records ever made! All of it out of print. When I think back to the music of the 90’s the only stuff I remember fondly is the Very Small shit. The discography is solid. If you are at all interested in underground music you should know Very Small Records. Dave has been an inspirational figure in my life and I thank him very much for the work he’s done with this label.

Of course you could go over to his blog and download tons of this stuff for free. He’s been offering it up free for years. In fact he’s been talking about doing this DVD/R thing for years and I’m glad he’s finally running with it. I think if you download from there you should really help a brother out and give to his kickstarter project.

Plus you get an awesome hoodie with a universal message which will make an excellent x-mas gift this year. Act quick the deadline is Monday.

Lunch With the PMRC tape 2

2011-10-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

This is the second tape good buddy Nate Robards sent to me. Another broadcast of Lunch With the PMRC originally aired on 91.5 KUNV in like 1991? If you got a clue about the date please share. Not much in the way of local music on this one. I hear Checko Salgado in the background during the announcements. He shares a demo from a Denver band named Small Dog Frenzy. I think he was making a smart ass statement about the Vegas underground at that time since this was the Local’s Only segment. Still that Small Dog Frenzy song is a good one.

The one local band featured on this tape is a serious winner. This Tripple Ripple song is on fire! I’m familiar with the name Tripple Ripple but for some reason I always assumed they were college rock alternative stuff. That's not the case. This track has some hardcore bite but it’s a well structured song that doesn’t shy away from the guitar solos. I love this shit. Not punk, not metal, not alternative, but not shy about taking from those elements without having an allegiance to any of them. This was before everything got codified and genretized. I’m not even sure where you’d put this in the rigid labeling, compartmentalizing, minds of today’s music explainers. Crossover seems like a tame category. I like the song so who gives a shit?

My one complaint, because I gotta have at least one: the singer seems like an afterthought. Without the reverb on his vocals it would really blow. Although the effects do add a sinister Celtic Frost vibe to the mix which is cool. It’s a minor detail in this case. The music has enough going for it that it doesn’t need front man theatrics vying for your attention.

I’ve ripped the rest of the cassette but the real gem here is the Tripple Ripple track. If you got the demo out there post it fucker. The label on the tape indicates a Bad Attitudes demo. I don't know if that's what's on side two. It might be the girl band that starts off side two but the bleed fucks with the sound so much it's almost not worth checking out. You can especially hear it between songs but it goes away after a few minutes. The rest of the cassette is fairly tame 90’s fare. I don’t know… some of it’s good but most of it reminds me of why the 90’s mostly sucked for music. They do play the Fastbacks at the end which is cool! I’ve lumped side two together into one long mp3 files because there's so much bleed it's fucked up. I'm including it here for the curious.

Overall this tape is a novelty but make no mistake you should download that Tripple Ripple track.

Download below:
91.5 FM KUNV Lunch With the PMRC tape 2 from the collection of Nathan Robards

1. Tripple Ripple- Vermin
2. Jerry Burns chatter
3. Small Dog Frenzy- This Sail
4. KUNV chatter
5. Side one plays out
6. Side Two

Lunch w/ PMRC Locals Only circa 93

2011-10-03T23:00:00.001-07:00

A few years ago I bought a heavy metal magazine named, well the name isn’t important. I read a few articles and several reviews until half way through the magazine I realized there wasn’t one negative criticism in the whole fucking thing. It was blowing the horn of metal and it didn’t have one bad thing to say about the dozens or maybe hundreds of bands covered.

It was impossible for me to believe that all those bands were beyond reproach so I lost all respect for the integrity of the mag and I threw it and the CD it came with away. That’s what you’re dealing with here friends. I refuse to be a cheerleader for past Las Vegas music that I’m helping to unearth. If I think the band sucks I can’t bite my tongue and act like I give a shit. That’s one thing I’ve come to realize about this project. If I piss someone off, which I’m sure I already have then I must be doing something right.

It’s not that I give two shits about earning your respect or underscoring some idea of integrity in my writing. I have to react in the way the material makes me react since the act of digitizing the material makes me a part of the music in my own way. If I’m taking the time to archive all this shit then that means I’m listening to it at least two or three times which is enough time for me to solidify an opinion on the shit as it reaches my ears today.

Specific criticisms aside any “band” that gets together long enough to record something is worthy of respect. Especially in the stone ages of the 80’s and 90’s. My opinion comes solely from the recorded music and should not be seen as a reflection of how good the band was live or how important they were to helping the scene to move forward, or backward as the case may be.

My opinion is my opinion and I’ll be damned if I’m going to muffle my gripes in a forum I created. I’m prepared to accept criticism of my writing if readers feel that strongly.

On the horizon I can see a problem but I don’t know how to resolve it. It’s happened to me twice so far that I started the process of ripping a demo only to find that I think the band blows in every conceivable way. In both those cases I stopped digitizing because I couldn’t think of one good thing about the music contained on the demo and I didn’t want to waste my time listening to the dreck. I don’t want to hold back from getting the music out there but I have to be true to myself. I’m not going to do the work if it’s something I don’t care for or believe in. And I’m not gonna run the risk of looking like a champion for ANY piece of shit music that got created in that valley. There is a wide variety of people who come here from all over the world and I can’t unleash shit on them. They may stop coming by to discover the radical bands that existed alongside the shitty ones.

But… it’s also fun to talk shit about horrible music. In fact it’s more fun and usually more fun to read text filled with piss and vinegar. And yet, do I really want to piss off people for no good reason aside from the fact that I think they made shitty music? So I ask you reader: should I rip stuff that sucks and post it here with commentary that rips the sucky demo apart? Or, do I divorce myself from such negativity and refuse to share music that at least a few people will find remarkable. I don’t know. I want to be fair but I also want to be real.

Fuck fair. Here’s an interesting recording that I have mixed feelings about. It was sent to me by my good friend Nate Robards who was the guitar player in Boba Fett Youth (BFY), Part-Time Whore (PTW) and currently Elements of Now (EON). He sent a package with a few tapes and another package with a t-shirt form EON as well as their new demo CD. It’s fuckin RAD.

I ripped the cassette shown here. I’m guessing he dubbed this cassette before sending it to me as the tape in question looks pretty new and he wrote Nostalgia on it which I’m taking as a swipe at me for all the bullshit I’ve written on this blog. Very funny Nate.

So I’ve got mixed feelings on many levels. First I’m grateful to Nate and others who’ve sent me stuff they’ve ripped, or sent stuff for me to rip. It’s been fun and I think people are getting something out of it. On the other hand I’m a little scared of this exploding in my face and I’m suddenly getting cassettes mailed to me hand over fist. On the surface this seems like a great thing and I’m not opposed to lifting the floodgates and requesting all nature of cassettes be sent to me if people wanted. But how many of these cassettes would suck? Moreover I don’t want to see KL becoming a repository of mediocrity as well as shit I love. I’m doing this because I love the music first off and I want to hear it. I’m only releasing it to the public because I hope it will get out there so it can stay out there in the event that maybe if I lose all my shit someday in the future I’ll still have a Leap Frog Society or Fuck Shit Piss collection I can always find to download from someone online.

In any event I’ve heard from over a dozen people who have demos and shit they’d like to contribute and so far only 15% of those people have come forth to contribute so I guess I shouldn’t be to worried about being overwhelmed by people sending me their KUNV recordings. Most of which I don’t want to spend hours translating. But I’ll still offer up my assistance in ripping stuff if it seems like something I’d like. By now you should know what I like if you’ve been reading along so far. Mainly hardcore punk demos but I’ve got a soft spot for metal, pop, and other curiosities that Vegas produced along the way. It’s only fitting I stick to the Vegas themes as a requirement at this point.

So the broadcast. I can’t tell you what date this broadcast aired. It’s got to be like 91-93 which were pretty rocky years for the Vegas underground rock world. As mentioned previously there was a huge amount of in fighting in the underground. Nazi versus anti-nazi was at it’s peak around then and so music in my opinion suffered. I don’t recall a favorite band from this time. I somehow didn’t hear or see the band Lady until well after they broke up but they were kickin it by this point. Intentions of Hate was happening. Wholes, F.I., Heroines, god knows there were more but the local bands featured in this broadcast of the Lunch With the Parents Music Resource Center were Junkie Nuns, Foot Long, Bent Tool, and Zub Zub.

Lunch with the PMRC was a radio show aired on 91.5 KUNV in Las Vegas, Nevada during the early 1990’s through the mid 90’s. It took the place of the Hardcore show which happened in the 80’s and it featured Locals Only for the last hour of each broadcast. It was a great show and has proven to be a good resource for tracking down music from local bands at that time. Nate sent a second Locals Only tape which I’ll post sometime in the future.

This is where more mixed feelings come into the picture. I have been looking for the Foot Long demo for years now. My brother had the demo and we rocked out in my parents garage smoking the weed. I thought it was a great demo on par with Lady’s second demo. For a lack of cassette tapes he recorded a Leap Frog Society practice over the Foot Long demo and I never got to hear those song again. Until now. It was a nice surprise to hear parts of that demo on this tape.

I was never a fan of Junkie Nuns or Bent Tool. Listening to them again now still kinda sucks. Although I admit to understanding the direction Junkie Nuns was trying to go. It’s just that they never got there. The affects heavy shit was always almost cool but not cool enough to make it to the finish line for me. That’s the same reaction I had to many Vegas bands around that time. The scene was in flux as the 90’s started. Seemed like we had to relearn everything after the flood. And so the music was searching for new avenues as well. Maybe it was desperation that kept me hoping someone would take the reins like Fuck Shit Piss did? No one from this time period could fill that vacuum but not for a lack of trying.

I wanted to like Junkie Nuns even if they looked a little goth which annoyed the hell out of me. I think they were going for some disjointed industrial punk or something like that. I was really into shit like Skinny Puppy, Ministry all that shit around this time. After the release of Thrill Kill Cult's Sex On Wheels I was big into the "industrial music" backlash and I guess I never really got over it. Not to say Junkie Nuns sounds like any of that shit, I mean they didn't even have synths if I recall. So maybe they were on the Butthole Surfer end of that sound?

Anyway back then I was still taking psychedelic drugs so I was hoping to zone out on their effects heavy music but every time I saw them a fight broke out or I wasn't high enough. That’s how I felt about the Wholes. It was always really close to greatness but they seemed to be holding back. Tension. I’m sure both bands were on as many drugs as I was on at the time if not more and that couldn’t have helped things much overall. These recordings make me think twice about Junkie Nuns. But I doubt I'll think about them a third time. I'm probably not high enough.

Still they’re way better than Bent Tool. I always thought Bent Tool sucked. Generic hardcore that would later become influenced by grunge. Although I give them credit for being as close as we could get to being a low rent Vegas version of Rich Kids on LSD. Again I always wanted to like them but they could never deliver the goods for me. These recordings sound so dated they could only come from the year 1993. In fact you could probably pinpoint that date to the hour in 93. Al;though they still deserve mention in the Vegas underground story. It seemed like they were the only band around sometimes considering how many shows they seem to have played. Still I know I had some kind of connection to them. I forget who I knew in Bent Tool. I want to say Paul Morris was the lead singer. He seemed to be a hell of a nice guy. Funny too. But yeah these songs suck. No offense just what I’m hearing with these ears. I’m sure your ears are different.

But the real gem of this find as mentioned is the Foot Long demo that remained a mystery to me for so many years. It’s not the Holy Grail of Vegas demos. But I do give them credit for being so passionate and creative in a time of great indecision during those turbulent years. This broadcast only includes four of the seven songs from their demo Caffeine and Adrenaline But Mostly Adrenaline. But the songs hold up. It sounds like a more Metal version of Lady in some respects. I knew Todd Flannery the drummer from this band although he won’t return my Facebook prompts. I didn’t know any of the other guys in this band. I think. Although I remember seeing Scott Baxter and his twin brother around a lot back then. I never talked to them because they looked like the British Bulldogs wrestling duo. I was prejudice thinking anyone with a bunch of muscles can’t be that cool to hang out with. Maybe I’m wrong but I kinda doubt it.

These songs rule. Glad to score this one again but I’d still love to hear the rest of their demo. Share if you got it. I can't remember everyone's names. Please share that info if you got it as well.

Much respect to all these bands for even existing during a war torn changing of the guard for LVHC.

I got no pictures to add to this post. If you want to include some get in touch.

I’ve had a bitch of a time embedding a link on this blog which will allow you to download whole folders. Now Mediafire is charging me $7 a month to host these files and I’ve got so many files on their server that I can’t switch to something else. So I’m including a link which may work for downloading the whole folder. You tell me if it works. This rip has the entire broadcast in the sequence as it is found on the tape. I’m including links for each individual track if the folder DL doesn’t work for you. What a pain in the ass.

Try to download the whole folder here.

OR...Download individual tracks below:

1. Into- KUNV chatter- Lunch w/ PMRC

2. Agent Orange show promo KUNV

3. KUNV chatter

4. KUNV/Junkie Nuns Song #1

5. Junkie Nuns Song #2

6. Junkie Nuns chatter

7. Foot Long chatter

8. Foot Long Song #1

9. Foot Long Song #2

10. Foot Long Song #3

11. Foot Long Song #4

12. KUNV/ Bent Tool chatter

13. Bent Tool Song #1

14. Bent Tool giveaway #1

15. Bent Tool Song #2

16. Bent Tool Song #3

17. Bent Tool giveaway #2

18. Bent Tool Song #4

19. Bent Tool giveaway given away

20. Bent Tool Song #5

You may have noticed I don't have the titles for these songs. If you know the titles of any of these songs feel free to share in the comments section.

furthermore...

2011-09-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention another big reason for why I started ripping old demos for this blog. Sure I’m disgusted that history is repeatedly getting flushed down the shitter, and yes my brief obsession with music blogs prompted me to create a film deconstructing hardcore punk within the confines of a memorable LSD trip, but ultimately the thrust of the demo portion of this project has been fueled by this smoking audio recorder I bought four years ago.

I bought this Edirol R4 professional grade 4 channel hard drive audio recorder with the intention of using it to make more films. Instead I’ve increasingly been making animated films which doesn’t require real time audio recording. As a result the R4 sat on the shelf for a long while and I started feeling guilty that I spent a couple hundred bucks for this neat little toy and was barely using it. The Edirol is my key to making moldy shit encrusted demos sound barely listenable as new mp3 files.

The process is fairly simple and not as time consuming as you might imagine. I pop the cassettes into my cassette deck which I somehow never got rid of, I send the cassette’s signal through my dj mixer which has an XLR out, and the mix goes direct into the Edirol. The DJ mixer includes a rudimentary three band EQ which has been enough so far to allow me to make a few adjustments to the quality of the signal before it hits the Edirol’s memory. Considering the source material a three band EQ is all I really need. And believe me some of these tapes really needed to be cleaned up. From there I import the clips through USB into my Mac computer and I make the edits using Garageband. I add no effects and no manipulation in Garageband aside from cutting the music into smaller mp3 files. After Garageband the clips get imported into itunes where I then convert to mp3. I try to keep the running time the same as the running time on the cassette although I noticed recently that itunes puts a little two second delay at the end of each file which is bullshit. Anyone know how to get rid of that?

During this “mastering” process I’m able to listen to the material usually three or more times which gives me enough ammunition to write my own recollections and observations. Which is something I neglected to do with the Pinball post. I started writing long before I heard the demo but it still turned out funny anyway. So fuck it.

The reason I bring this up is to share my process so other people with a similar interest of ripping Vegas past will approach it with a level of care that the material needs. DON’T GET ME WRONG. This stuff ain’t Steely Dan. Most doesn’t need a fine tooth comb to be ripped. Case in point, I was recently approached by a Michael Larson. He let me know that he has a stock pile of old KUNV recordings and he’s started a ripping project of his own. He sent me a link to his first foray into this rediscovered territory and I’ve posted the link below.

It’s great he’s taken the time to help archive these lost recordings and I hope my “mastering” advice will go to him with a grain of salt. This first recording is a marvel of old timey KUNV archeology. It’s a Local’s Only broadcast from Lunch With the PMRC featuring Zub Zub. (Ironically the other day my good friend Nate Robards sent me a cassette of a different Lunch w/ the PMRC broadcast which I’ll be sharing in the near future.)

It’s good to hear and it’s my hope that people who come here may download give it a listen. My main criticism of the recording is the faint nature of the sound. The gain needs to be turned way up on this recording. I’m unaware of how he does these rips but he may be unable to bring this recording volume any higher without including a pre-amp in the process to boost the signal. The DJ mixer I use acts as a pre-amp for my set up but I mostly use it for the EQ since I think the Edirol has a built in pre-amp. A stereo receiver can be used as a pre-amp as well. I also feel a little tightening up with the editing could be in order with this mp3 file. There are a few “dead air” gaps within the clip that make it a little hard to keep your attention. Again, I don’t know what equipment he’s using and this is his first attempt. Let’s hope there’ll be more.

I'm nitpicking. I'm sure you'll agree it’s a wonderful thing that Michael is willing to put time into sharing these treasures. The mp3 in question is one file that runs about 25-30 minutes in length. The technical problems inherent in this clip are things that make the recording appear more as a curiosity as opposed to something I might want to listen to more than once. That’s what I mean when I talk about the level of care needed to maintain the integrity of the music.

For these KUNV recordings maybe it is all about nostalgia? So fuck integrity. I personally don't mind seeing these broadcasts lumped into one file. That's how you would hear it on cassette. It just get's a little dicey when you want to hear one song out of the mix and you're not able to do it without manipulating it yourself. I'm glad it's getting out there anyway.

Whatever the case I'm thankful to Michael and hope he continues bringing us some more hits or shits as the case may be.

Here's the link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vl5d28

The Old Days (kinda sucked)

2011-09-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

That last post sucked. It didn’t even have much to do with the band it highlighted and I was going on and on about what’s punk and what’s metal. It reads like a bad/good letter to Maximum Rock and Roll. Maybe it’s a good time to clarify for myself and others why I started this blog as I’ve mostly been flying by the seat of my pants following the inspiration where it takes me over the last two years. Also I expect to be really busy in the next few months and so the amount of time I’ll have to write here will be limited. Expect sporadic posts through the end of the year.

I’ve called myself a film maker in the past. While that may be somewhat true I’m a communicator and film is just one medium I’m trying to use and understand. Without rehashing my track record of completed films I’ll admit it’s not all fucking genius. Considering I’ve never spent a dime of my own money making these films I’ll consider myself at least above average among the obscure, overly critical, stubborn, film producers out there. I’d be hard pressed to say I’m satisfied with my output, some films have been better than others, but I’m happy with my place in the world of film. I made it my plan through luck and design to produce as an outsider. As you might deduce I’ve long since given up any hope of having a legitimate career in film production.

I don’t feel pressured to do anything I don’t want to do. But I’ve also resigned myself to continue making films with zero budget. It’s this laisse faire attitude that keeps me neck deep in new projects. I tend to start a project, let it get some air, put it on the shelf, then return to it months or years later to find myself newly inspired.

I started this film over two years ago. It began innocently enough as a collection of stop motion experiments. It was only after shooting and piecing it together that I started to see a bigger place for this piece to exist in my heart. The visuals came first and from there I was instantly transported to my childhood. The images were like shadowy snapshots from memories I’d long forgotten. Specifically a walk home from Sandy Perri’s house after swallowing a powerful dose of LSD. That walk, by myself from Charleston and Lamb to my house on Linn and Washington was exhilarating. liberating, and intoxicating. The best trips happen when you’re alone.

I began to see this short film as an attempt to make a memory real from the ground up. As the picture took focus it was a natural development for me to include the music of my youth as the soundtrack to this psychedelic vomit. As luck would have it I also discovered the phenomenon of the regional or at least genre specific music blog at that time. It was a real kick to have access to music I’d only dreamed of hearing in the past. Hardcore punk, metal, hiphop, oldies, soul, you name it. A cycle of music that was endless and a sizeable amount of bands I’d never even known about. The frenetic nature of the piece and the obvious background noise to this acid trip so long ago made it apparent that hardcore would be the atmosphere of this teenage mind melt.

Ever cognizant of the litigious nature of intellectual property I also began to see this obscure hardcore world as a goldmine of limitless sampling possibilities. There is a bottomless pit of unknown go nowhere hardcore bands that put out one 7” or demotape and were never heard from again. I could sample the shit out of this underworld without fear of being sued! It was a perfect fit.

When I first feel in love with hip hop and it’s sample based nature I’ve wanted to see someone dive in and sample hardcore punk music in a new and unusual way. It’s too distracting for hiphop to touch it but it seems like someone with skill could make it happen. It’s too angular and overbearing for electronic musicians to find it of any use, and quite honestly it’s too one dimensional to mix it together in any conventional sense. It was while purusing the music blogosphere that I came to discover the work of composer John Oswald.

Noise and avant garde music has always been a mixed bag to me. Most of it is a suck fest.. But the album Plexure by Oswald proved to be inspiring in many ways. Instead of trying to use music to bring a cohesive element into the film I decided to make the film spin out into even more explosive confusion. Akin to what hardcore at it’s best will do to you after a few hits of LSD.

I began doing more research to unearth more hardcore bands with which I could create this new world. And here’s where I hit a snag. Turns out my knowledge of hardcore punk isn’t nearly as diverse as I’d thought. I was familiar with the two or three dozen bands that everyone seems to know but that bottomless pit of obscure hardcore that I now had access to was more daunting than I’d envisioned. It might be no surprise to you but hardcore is pretty fucking boring if that’s all you listen to for a few weeks. After a frustrating couple of days I reached a breaking point and realized I was going about this all wrong. I was too focused on not being sued. Why? I’m out here in the middle of nowhere and will never have expectations of making money off of my films. Why should I be worried about someone going after me for anything I’m doing. They have to discover that I exist first.

I make my films for me. Even if I was kept from screening or posting any of my films I’ll still know they exist and I’ll still care about them and want them to exist. So FUCK intellectual property. I’ll use anything I want. Breaking down that final wall towards this experiment helped me to complete the film. And if you hear your band on here and you want to sue me than you know where to reach me. Also you’re invited to kiss my ass.

In the process of finishing this film grand ideas began to swirl around in my fish tank head. I’ve always wanted to create a video installation. This wasn’t just a short film this had the potential to become that video installation. I got it into my head to make a series of 6 or 7 short films with similar content. Some would be fleshed out stories others would tread the path already laid out here in terms of experimentation and the mining of memories come to life. More of these memories could be unearthed, more could be learned from the lessons and lesions of the past. Hardcore punk would again be a major component.

It was here that I got to thinking about that loud obnoxious part of my life. There was no denying that the hardcore scene, as far as I knew about it in contemporary terms was silenced. Now I know that’s a generalization. There will probably always be hardcore bands through the end of time. But as a collective push in today’s culture hardcore as a style has evolved into a myriad of genre specific scenes. Any shred of unity still seems to manifest itself in unusual ways. New bands crop up that tend to ape the style, old bands get back together again hopefully not to drag their name in the mud but you can never tell until you’ve already paid the cover charge. And the history or lack of a history seemed unsettling.

There have been half hearted attempts to set the record straight. It’s almost always a farce. A shitty 90 minute documenraty does nothing to instill the real passion of those moments. Some great oral history books have risen to the surface, and in some cases I started seeing some decent blogs that put a measure of perspective on the fleeting fury. But where was the elusive Vegas blog? Who was gonna be there to pick up those pieces? Many of which were probably already buried in the landfill.

Why was there no regional blog making music available from the hardcore scene I was privy to? Where could I find that shit? Did it still exist? There were many stories yet untold. Who’s gonna tell those stories? What the fuck.

Thunder struck and within a few months I began the blog you’re reading here. It got to be fun and I continued it. I’ve incorporated my creative impulses into the creation of this blog and it helps inform my continued creative impulses with film production, music production (if you want to call it that) and writing. I don’t look at it as a rehashing of memories and I don’t see it as nostalgia. I think I’m still making waves in my own development and maybe I’ll always be that teenage kid trippin balls ready to blow up the fucking world? That would suit me fine.

More to the point this blog in some ways was an outgrowth of the tiny measure of guilt I felt to the nameless, and the famous hardcore bands whose music I used for the soundtrack of this film. I will make more films and I will hopefully finish and present that video installation sometime in the future.

The original name for this film was “The Old Days (kinda sucked).” It was a reference to hardcore, punk, and underground cultural innuendo. As great as hardcore was back then it’s also constantly new and evolving, or it should be, so any triumphs that we experienced back then should always pale in comparison to what we’re gonna do today. And tomorrow. I changed the name to “Shit You Hear At Parties.” I wish I’d stayed with the original name. Whatever…

I make no pretentions about being an authority on LVHC (Las Vegas Hardcore) nor do I think I know everything about punk, metal, or all the demonic spawn of said genres. I just like spending time thinking about the shit. I’ve hoped others would follow suit and maybe more stories, blogs, zines, or the like would materialize. Maybe they’ll come later but I have yet to see them at this point.

Ultimately some of the reasoning for this blog and this film is that it’s a way for me to give back to the kicking and screaming underground that’s continued to inspire me. Even in silence.

pinball demo

2011-08-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

I’m fairly thin on what I know about the band Pinball. I saw them play the Rainbow Cave at least once, I’m sure I saw them a few more times but I’m not remembering the wheres and whens.

I liked em to the limited extent that I remember em. I think Drew Livingood had this demo because I remember hearing it and liking it all those years ago. They weren’t mind blowing but it was good to see the scene expanding to include different subsets of expression coming to the fore. They were on the poppy end of things and that made em stick out from the furious, or at the very least desperate hardcore bands that were filling in the ranks in 93-95. They looked super young and seemed to be learning as they went. So it was poppy but sloppy. Which had a charm.

Those years were a rejuvenation for the next generation of Vegas bands who took the steering wheel and sent us even deeper into the desert. Rainbow Cave as it was called (it was right off Rainbow Avenue) was the most popular desert spot for shows at that time.

I’ll explain again for the unfamiliar readers, y’see there were no all ages venues in Las Vegas back then. So we’d set up a generator at these spots in the desert and have shows out in the middle of nowhere. The sound was never super great but you couldn’t beat the atmosphere. In retrospect I’d say it took real musicianship to play out in the sticks with just a generator, a shitty PA, and a few small lamps designating the “stage area.” Today there are legions of bands who get monitor mixes, Guitar Center, drink tickets, and … well, walls surrounding them. It seems like it’s too easy to be in a band today. Maybe that’s part of why there’s so many shitty bands out there today.

Later on the Pabco and Lossee road spots would become popular again but the Caves had more drama and more shit to fuck with plus it was even more dangerous than the other spots which gave it character. It was on the West side which sucked but whatcha gonna do? The cave also destroyed a lot of vehicles from people trying to make their way up to the entrance of the cave by taking the shorter jagged path east of the cave as opposed to going around the long way west of the big hill. Never a smart move but every show someone would attempt it. Music aside I think watching people fuck up their cars was the real entertainment at the Rainbow Cave.

The main thing I’m remembering from seeing Pinball at the cave was the gangly dude wearing a dress who stood up and started dancing halfway through their set. He was obviously a part of their “gang” and was familiar with their music. Maybe that’s the other thing that I’m remembering about them and that time period. The disparate nature of the scene and really the uneven nature of all “punk scenes.”

I remember that “scene” of young bands from 94-97 being cozy and inviting especially compared to the horrible implosion of the hardcore scene years earlier due to nazi/anti-nazi violence that would make going to shows a gamble. (Will I get knifed at the show tonight?) I never saw any major fights during that window of Vegas history which was cool but the scene was far from united. Thinking anything as ill defined and cumbersome as punk rock could induce unity of any stripe is the dream world utopian flip side to the satanic fantasy that Metal perpetuates. As goofball as that metal mythology presents itself it to be it never strayed from it’s one dimensional roots and in fact perpetuated more unity among it’s audience than punk ever would.

I’m still working on my evaluation of punk and metal as social constructs so forgive me if I’m sounding goofy or smart aleclike. I’m breaking this shit down too seriously because I still love the music and I enjoy the redundancy. I’m also wondering if we can learn from our mistakes. I know I’m sounding really insipid with these observations. Making comparisons that are dated and maybe irrelevant today with the lines blurring and the true natures of both subjective genres coming in to question. I can’t help it because I enjoy thinking about it. I still like and respect the music and maybe you’ll agree they’re both maligned as true art forms. But maybe the fact that they’re not seen as art is what’s made the music so valuable and meaningful? Both types of these subterranean pop cultures never got caught up in artistic flights of fancy because most participants and fans never thought it was worth pondering. So why not look even deeper and take all the magic away?

As pop culture entities they are of the moment and now that moment is 20-30-40 years later. I think it’s worth investigating and I don’t give a shit what you think. I have to wonder if it’s still evolving. Plus it’s hilarious to know there will be serious cultural studies about these scum bag modes of expression when we’re long gone and hardcore/punk/metal/etc. will finally be seen as art. That’s if the society doesn’t collapse and we all revert to barbarians. Maybe it will take a collapse before it will finally be seen as art? That only makes sense.

My point and academic boner here is in regards to the character flaw endemic to the nebulous “punk scene.” And I guess it’s because as a more intellectual “movement” I tend to expect more from punk and therefore I’m more disappointed when it doesn’t pan out. Metal never makes those claims and yet the polished nature of the musicianship brings another level of irony in that it has more gloss and ultimately more nuance to make it appear more artistic.

The punk scene propels itself forward as a collection of cliques. Sometimes united sometimes fighting against itself. And admittedly, against it’s better nature, it tends to be a collection of clichés. It’s these cliques that are the strength and weakness of the genre. It’s unstable and the best of it should always be changing and pushing forward therefore as an experiment, and as a potential powder keg, it can never have the bucks and perhaps the balls behind it that Metal does to make it more understandable to a mass audience. Because of it’s low budget nature the underground is always something you find out about if you’re in the know. As a result it’s got an elitist vibe built in to it’s very nature that for good or bad infuses the character. Some of it is self conscious grand standing because the “punk band” can never be huge in the public eye. As a result only the cool kids know about the bands. It’s a self esteem device that makes punk seem a thousand times cooler than it really is/was. The audience is a part of the underground and that’s where it festers/ages the “little secret” that is so valuable to the scene. This elitism rears it’s head when the favorite “underground” band crosses the tipping point and is suddenly accepted outside the boundary of where the band first began. Then you can hear “sellout” on the lips of the betrayed fan who were there when it first started. Something you’d never hear from a Metal audience.

Metal has no sell out language in it’s vocabulary. Because it has no pretentions about seeing the performers as anything but rock stars. Whereas one of punk’s firmly held tenets, if such a thing really exists, is the concept of destroying the rock star by tearing down the wall of audience/performer. Maybe punk even tries it’s hand at destroying rock and roll itself? I can’t theorize too much on the agenda of punk rock. It’s too broad in it’s scope. And ultimately maybe it shouldn’t have too much of an agenda? The big agenda eventually lead to fascism in the LVHC scene in the late 80’s. Hardcore destroyed itself when it took itself too seriously. I can’t speak to other scenes but I’m convinced nazism was a national obsession that eventually creamed the hopes that hardcore could mean much of anything outside being a goofy albeit violent and passionate explosion of creativity that left a lot of casualties. Um. Yeah a trend.

And how is this relevant to us now? Hardcore is history. Metal somehow survives. And I don’t want to breakdown metal into it’s divisions (hair bands/death/black/crossover) and speak to them all. The fact remains the metal audience has always been united. For what? Who gives a shit? Beer. Drugs. Pussy. Satan. Basic stuff. It’s not intellectual. It’s not punk. And that’s part of where punk can never find it’s unity. It’s too wrapped up in details. And too wrapped up in being cool while acting like it’s not acting cool.

And it’s the clique. It’s the secret. It’s the start of the hipsterization of all culture. It started in punk. And it makes the whole world cool. And if I’m being honest with myself and my writing I have to share my own elitist feelings to deflate my ego a little and show just how punk I really am. It pisses me the fuck off. The self conscious tick of knowing that I was there. And now everyone’s there. It’s a part of the culture. And perhaps there is no counterculture anymore? It makes me wretch to say from my standpoint, being in my late 30’s watching the nobodies of the world get tattoos, wear their punk fuck t-shirts, piercing their fucking checks. When I stood up and did that as a teenager I was threatened with physical violence. The act of doing anything of that sort was a threat. It’s too easy to be different now. I was different before you were! Petty? Yep. Spiteful to the next generation? Check. Convinced I know the truth and everyone else is full of shit? Yeah Yeah. I’m sounding conservative. I’m sounding like I know it all. Nothing is more pathetic than an aging hipster. Believe it or not this analysis can get even more juvenile if I let myself go which is why I’m dropping it here. And I wonder why these things can’t be taken seriously as art. Not that I give two shits about art. Or punk for that matter. What’s worse than hating punk for not being able to change the world? Going to a Metal show and hearing that racist, sexist, fucktard of a community try to have an actual conversation between bands. Maybe it’s time to put all my hope back into hiphop? Again.

What does all this have to do with Pinball. Very little. And I don’t mean to paint them with the “stuck up punker” brush. I’m just using them as a springboard for another stagedive/nosedive into the abyss that is my ego. What could be more punk or metal than that? Plus it’s one of the only things I remember about them. Hearing some elitist douche from my specific scene tell me how stuck up they were for not trying to get closer to his clique. I can feel my PHD in Punk/Metal studies becoming a reality already. And I ain’t paying a god damn thing for it you higher education motherfuckers!

I’m not trying to single out Pinball by any stretch. I never talked to em so I don’t even know their story. They played a few shows with the other bands and then they sauntered off retaining their own identity when I think about it. Good for them. But maybe bad for the rest of us because we didn’t get to see em play very often.

I started writing this crap weeks before I finally got the demo in the mail. As mentioned they came across as sloppy/poppy. Later on they got to be tighter and they later changed the name to the Grrr Meyows. They weren’t as good as Pinball from my recollection. But maybe I just thought that because we didn’t hang out?

I saw Steely Dan play a few weeks ago and it got me to thinking a tiny bit about the audio fidelity of demos I’ve done so far. The sound quality is mostly awful but I maintain it’s mostly because the source tapes are shitty cassette dubs that might’ve been listened to exclusively in a sun baked car stereo back in the day. Sometimes those cars got wrecked. So it sounds like shit. But what kind of shit? I took the mids out a tiny bit and beefed up the highs and lows in the mix. It’s still lo-fi crap. Which makes it sound pretty great for what it is. The beginning of the tape has the first few songs starting out way overblown and then immediately compressed. It’s awful. Or awfully good. Depends on your aesthetics fucko.

What is it? Sugary sweet candy of a sleazy variety. Sleazy insomuch that they're sounding really bubblegum but talking about gettin some in almost every song which I totally respect. That backdrop of sleez is surrounded by innocence that's pretty hard to resist. The first song is about playing Pacman at the Chuck E Cheese and that's just adorable. It's not the standard pop punk crap that was vomited all over the late 90's "punk" style nor is it powerpop. I'll stick with my gut reaction and call it sleazy bubblegum pop for lack of more telling adjectives or more divisive genre classifications.

I love the simplicity of the whole thing though. Lot’s of naïve songs that come off simple, direct, and it might make you want to masterbate. There’s catchy pop moments and some influences might seem apparent. I hear the Misfits a tad but maybe that’s just me? It's inventive and rough. But yeah it doesn't stray far from what you've heard before. Maybe that makes it even more valuable? I’m pleased to see none of the songs goes much over the one minute mark. Which makes this a keeper. Not something I’ll listen to forever but you might go for it. Still I think I’ll be listening to Eric B and Rakim tonight after this.

Special thanks to the cute girl who sent this to me in the mail. She wishes to remain anonymous.

Download this pinball demo below

1. pacman

2. i wanna take out sally too

3. 9-volt

4. pinkeye

5. ask her friends

6. c'mon and dance the hootchie-coo

7. there goes that girl

8. i don't wanna be with you

9. teenage pornstar

NOTBAD Film Series

2011-06-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Nevadans Organized To Better Address Diversity (NOTBAD) was the ridiculous name we came up with for the nonprofit that was gonna be a big part of our getting a Low Power FM Radio license from the FCC in the mid 90’s. It was a goofy acronym that reflected some of our disillusionment and mistrust about how things were going with that process. After a year of meetings, debates, rallies, and benefit shows we made a lot of noise in the community and raised enough money to start the non-profit but the odds of Free Radio Las Vegas happening became slim over time with the lack of real money being the main issue as it always is in this country.

Eventually the idea of a radio station came to a grinding halt and Free Radio Las Vegas became NOTBAD. As corny as the name sounds it made us a legit cog in the system which gave us a little momentum to continue doing shit for the community, and for kicks. The name also came to represent our trickster subversive nature and the fundamental reasoning behind FRLV. It's hard to believe that for all the media outlets there are in Las Vegas there just aren't enough real community voices being heard. Particularly at that time since there was no cable/community access television in Las Vegas and KUNV had recently changed it’s format silencing a huge portion of the youth voice. We felt like we were being forced to be an audience to messages that never came close to representing our lives and in the interim we were never given access to the stage.

Through a stroke of luck NOTBAD was able to partner with the Las Vegas- Clark County Library District to host an ongoing film series. This became the main push for NOTBAD and it had some fire behind it with added financial support from the Nevada Arts Council.

In the beginning I was in charge of programming and so I made it a priority to include the most outlandish controversial films I could find. But I also wanted to expose Vegas to great works that Vegas residents didn't know about. This was a direct inspiration from the role KUNV had played in educating me about musical culture when KUNV was at it’s peak in diversity. I tried to pass that inspiration on in the form of programming good films which were deserving of attention.

This post spotlights the flyers I made for the series from 2000-2002 because I think we made a positive impact on the community we made some serious statements that I think are worth sharing. Plus the films are worth checking out.

I tried to keep the advertising informative and slightly informal as you can see. Looking back I think some of the writing is just awful on these flyers. Especially the one for the Kids Are All Right. It’s embarrassing how bad the text on that one came out.

Each month I struggled and juggled to find new themes and pair up films to produce a cohesive program. It wasn’t always spot on but it was good considering the limited amount of research materials I had and the limitations of our budget.
At the time the library district had a blanket licensing agreement which allowed us to show any movie we wanted so long as we didn't charge admission and the film was made available for check out through the library. This was an incredible rare opportunity. The library still has an ongoing film series but over time they've been forced to narrow the parameters of what can be screened to be within the legal guidelines of motion picture presentation and copyright law. We were lucky to take full advantage of this window to show some amazing films which are rarely screened anywhere in the world let alone the city of Las Vegas.

I always hoped that our series would push the library in the direction of acquiring more significant films for the collection. These "off the radar" films are still an important part of the collection but for a number of years the library made more of a priority of obtaining multiple copies of first run hollywood films which made the library almost seem like a glorified Blockbuster video. Now that the library has a new executive director let's hope they start stocking more intelligent fare.

I wasn’t always a fan of all these films but I respected the work that we presented. An example I give is the film Fando and Lis by Alehandro Jodorowsky. To this day I will admit that I don’t exactly like this film. It’s ugly and incredibly dark. But I respect the film. Fando and Lis was only the second film we showed at the very beginning of the series! We had over 100 people in attendance when we started the film and over half the audience walked out. I think it’s a true measure of how powerful the art is if it can induce that kind of a reaction. Even if it's a negative reaction.

The films shown above in the series "The Glory of War... The Horror of War" were perhaps our greatest achievement in blatant protest. These films were shown a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq. Come and See is an incredible film.

I've almost completely stopped watching movies all together. I find I just don’t have the time or I’m not willing to make time unless someone gives me a recommendation. Here’s a few films I’d recommend watching if you got the time.

Enough praise and thanks cannot be heaped onto Kristy Price, Suzanne Scott, the Las Vegas- Clark County Library District, and the Nevada Arts Council for supporting this program and understanding it's value to the Las Vegas community.

Doom Snake Cult

2011-05-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been too harsh on Doom Snake Cult in the past. They were a good band- wait you mean they’re back together? Wow. That’s fuckin rad. No sarcasm implied. I think those dudes deserve any recognition they get and it looks like a lot of people are taking notice.

I was never sure which genre these guys fall into. It’s Metal. It’s heavy. It’s got weird groovy breakdowns which are Sabbathesque in delivery. They’re striving for a heavy psychedelic vibe and it’s freaking me out. In all honesty it’s really not my thing but I did hang out with Ace a few times years after DSC were over and done. He was a lot of fun. Except when he drunkenly smashed the window to my shitty apartment.

They were at their peak during a transitional time in the Vegas underground. There weren't many other bands gigging around that time. Although I should probably mention that the Wholes were also somewhat active around that time. During those ramshackle years, roughly 90-92, the Vegas underground seemed rarely linked to the outside music world. I don’t recall too many touring bands who came through town during those years. The Elks Lodge seemed to still be a venue on occasion but I mostly remember house parties. I suppose the Huntridge was on the radar at that time but for some reason I didn’t go to many shows there. I guess I liked it better as a movie theatre.

The first time I saw Doom Snake Cult was also the first time I ever took what someone told me was Ecstacy. I don’t know what it was but I shouldn’t have got drunk before it kicked in. It seemed to fall flat on me. The drugs I mean. In any event I didn’t pay attention to Doom Snake Cult although onstage they had one of those trippy carnival wiggling lights you get for popping the balloons with darts on the midway like you’ll see in this video. I was fucked up at that show but not in a good way.

The second time I saw Doom Snake Cult is a complicated story. Again I got really stoned but had no money for beer. That night DSC had girls dancing onstage during their set. One of the girls was really eyeballing me. The song ended and the girl who’d been flirting with me asks out loud who has a beer while she’s staring straight at me. At that exact moment the guy next to me, who I didn’t know, puts his full beer down on the stage and goes to tie his shoe. I impulsively, and stupidly, grab the guy's beer and hand it to the girl at which point the drummer gets pissed off and starts yelling at me as he comes from behind the drum set screaming that this was his girlfriend and blah blah blah, meanwhile the guy who’s beer I stole gets up and finds himself in the altercation, also my brother and all my friends are behind me yelling and screaming as well! Heavy scene but it just fizzled out and I think Doom Snake Cult even started playing again after a few minutes time. I didn’t talk to the dancing girl after all that but I remember she kept the beer. Again, wasn’t paying attention to DSC.

Uh, let’s see, there had to have been a third time I saw them. I could swear I took mushrooms and saw them. Maybe not. Over beers Ace once told me that Doom Snake Cult played a show with White Zombie out at the West Charleston ditch well before White Zombie became WHITE ZOMBIE. Only a dozen or so people were in attendance from what he said. Apparently WZ and their roadies were freaking out by the dust being kicked up around their speakers. I don’t know any details. If you were there tell me what you saw. That W. Charleston spot was a weird one. But which of these desert spots was normal?

Doom Snake Cult were an interesting twist on the Doom Metal genre. Is that what they called it? I used to think of them as Stoner Rock but that might be a misnomer as well since Stoner rock would become a genre that would later explode for a few seconds in the late 90’s and then slowly fade into obscurity in the 2000’s. When I've heard those "stoner rock" bands none of it came across like this so maybe I'm way off base? They certainly were in the same league as bands like Cathedral and maybe even Grief although their weird hippie vibe made them stand out among the legions of Sabbath worshippers that came in their wake. I don’t know if they did it by accident or by design. It almost seems cooler if they stumbled onto it by accident so I’ll just assume that’s what happened. It’s not something they had to work real hard at nailing down so in that regard they were not posing. They were too mid paced for my tastes but it took balls to try and pry open a style like that in front of crowds who were used to hardcore or at the very least death metal. DSC were definitely not of that ilk. They almost seemed a little creepier than “punks” or traditional metal heads because of this weirdo hippie vibe. Kinda like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family putting together a metal band or the Manson family considering their affinity for psychedelics. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say I think Doom Snake Cult was a psychedelic metal band although I have to strain to hear that psyche influence. In truth this might just be tacked on to their classification because they had the song Acid Orgy and plus I don't know where else you'd place these guys on the hard rock spectrum.

I dig Metal. It doesn’t have a whole lot of pretentions about it. It’s a fully developed genre that doesn’t have much leeway in how you ape it. I respect the adolescent wet dream fantasy world which is a large part of the atmosphere. The subject matter is largely the same for each style of Metal (Speed Metal/Power Metal/Thrash/Death) and in point of fact I'd say if the lyrics deviate from those subjects too much it might not be considered metal anymore. There’s a clear delineation of subjects you’re allowed to broach in this realm. Drugs, woman, motorcycles, kickin ass, getting drunk, Satan, killing people, and other darker facades. Obviously Death Metal plays up the horrible shit but it’s all cut from the same cloth. It’s all fantasy. Which I can respect.

DSC played up that point in some regards. I think. I’m not sure what they're singing about and I don’t think it’s all that important in the grand scheme. The obvious Conan reference from their name speaks volumes to their Metal mythology or lack thereof. Again I think it's just that outsider status that makes them so unusual and somewhat scary like the Manson hippies. Living in the desert and appearing vaguely satanic was a potent mix since they don't appear to be clever enough to be faking it. Which seems to make them even more sinister and unpredictable.

Another aspect of Metal I find perplexing is the complete allegiance the fans have for Metal of any stripe. The fact that Doom Snake Cult's sole release, which I think was really just a demo, is being pressed on insanely expensive vinyl format in 2011 speaks to the reverence metal fans have for any music that resembles Metal. I'm a bit surprised there would be a market for this music here and now. I know that sounds like a slight but I only say this in comparison to the huge amount of underground punk records and demos which will never receive any repressing. The most these hardcore bands can expect is a write up on a second rate blog such as this. Meanwhile DSC and even Goatlord have super classy pressings which go for big bucks. Which I suppose is another factor in the divide between punk and metal. While the ebb and flow of the metal audience comes and goes the fact remains that audience however small throughout America will continue to shell out big money for anything Metal. It’s a part of the culture. T-shirts at a metal show generally start at $25 even if there’s only 2 dozen people in attendance. The punk band that sells a shirt for over $15 is laughed out of the hall. Even if the hall is packed. I’m not even gonna bring up the Metal audience outside America many of whom will be buying this DSC record.

   Meanwhile there’s still no real “punk” audience. There’s the occasional new pressing of upper tier hardcore bands and the irreverent Killed By Death series which has always been hit or miss but far too many hardcore bands have been lost in the shuffle.   Is this partly because that target audience might be making that same music themselves? Possibly but I suspect it will remain that way because it’s just not marketable in the same way Metal is. Metal will always be a juvenile dream that is dopey but ultimately timeless while hardcore places too much value on reality so it’s shelf life is built in. It’s always of the here and now and it rarely lives on past that. Add this to the fact that hardcore, while it seems rigid and codified, is somewhat more pliable than metal. It has gone on to change and take different forms while metal only seems to change slightly over time especially in regards to lyrical content. This is an especially unusual development because time was that hardcore was stubborn and unchanging while metal was more accepting of new developments ie. thrash, death, speed. All I know is Doom Snake Cult have a super nice repress that came out this year and they have a sizable internet presence in the form of multiple reviews through multiple blogs. No other underground Vegas band has anything which compares. Maybe the metalheads are more obsessed? Maybe the hardcore heads are always moving forward instead of running in place? Band's today borrow effusively from punk and metal so the lines are totally blurred. It sometimes seems like the worst elements of each are cropping up to taint it all but I know there's still good bands out there. You just have to be more selective in what you find I suppose.

   This is all conjecture and grist for the metal/punk PHD I'm trying to define for myself. Obviously I'm generalizing just to hear myself write. I find it interesting. If you don't why'd you read this far into this post?

   To be fair Doom Snake Cult was peddling this style long before it was fashionable and that is worthy of respect. It also shows an odd crossover of cultural iconography between the metal of yesterday and the punk ethos. Since they are still largely obscure it seems like only an elite metal collector would want to add this vinyl repress to his collection. An elitist attitude consistent with punk record collectors who were used to paying big bucks for original rarities on ebay at the turn of the century. Original pressings mean big punk points to some idiots out there. Or in this case big Metal points. Glad I unloaded some of my vinyl before these repressings and mp3 downloading destroyed the market! (I got $60 for a TSOL Dance With Me record back in 2004. Can you believe that? But I must admit I bought the metal band Destruction Infernal Overkill LP at a record sale a few weeks ago for $20 but hey that's not as bad as paying $50 for a Dr. Know LP right?)

I love spouting my inane philosophical platitudes about shit that only I and 3 or 4 other people would care to ponder in between my fond remembrances of drug induced fits I’ve had. I’m still considering writing a book about punk and metal. I think this blog might be training wheels for just such a project. I got too much time on my hands.

Ace is a cool guy. I always liked him and I think he's a great vocalist for this style. Lot's of rasp instead of just growl. I can understand most of what he's singing as well. Glen the guitar player always seemed nice enough but whenever he talked to me it seemed like he was forcing himself to concentrate on what I was saying. Meanwhile he seemed to understand other people just fine. Whatever. He was later a mainstay at the drum circle at Sunset park. No surprise there. Even later he started a hippie jam band called the Baccanaul.

I don’t think Jeff Schwab ever liked me that much either. I’m guessing it was because I dressed vaguely punk even at that point and he was an avowed Metalhead. It’s ridiculous how important those lines seemed back then. I scored some powerful acid off Jeff Schwab once. We dropped the doses right there in his apartment. Then I had to drive home as the shit kicked in. At one point on the trip back to the east side I felt weird waiting at a stoplight. Something about the people in their cars waiting behind me freaked me out. So I ran the stoplight.

I also remember a weirdo freakshow music festival out in Pahrump in the mid 90’s. I wanna say it was called Pahrumpstock. Seriously. I only bring this up because I remember partying with Schwab at this festival and later in the night he passed out underneath his car. Hilarious. I always thought he was cool even if he didn't like me so much.

I’m surprised to see they’re still kickin it. I hope it’s the same dudes or at least I hope it’s still Ace, Schwab, or Glenn. I wouldn’t care if they got a new drummer.

There are several blogs offering links to download this record as well as some spotty and spot on reviews. There's even one that offers the demo pictured above. Doom Snake Cult more popular now than ever before! ACID ORGY!! LSD!

Blog with the demo download found here

Blog with the original CD download found here

I have yet to see this new vinyl ripped and posted online but I'm sure it's coming.

Wheat Pastes 2000-2002

2011-05-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm letting the cat out of the bag. In the years 2000-2002 I did wheat pastes all over the city of Las Vegas. Mostly on the East Side because I lived on the East Side and fuck the West Side. These were designs I made myself as well as a few I stole outright. They’re not all clever but I think they’re all worth seeing again since none of them are around anymore.

If you lived in Vegas at the time and were wondering what all the fuss was about now I guess I can reveal my motivations and end the mystery. As if anyone gave a shit. I’m sure no more than a few people will remember these images anyway and it’s probably people who knew it was me all along.

Las Vegas is… ok let me put this diplomatically, Las Vegas is an easy target. There is plenty to complain about. One gripe I always had was the constant bombardment of commercial imagery. More than any other city I've ever seen, including Tokyo. Billboards shoved their tits in my face. Random signs clogged every conceivable nook and cranny along every street. The radio blared commercials which were usually twice as loud as the music in the broadcast.

Messages. Messages. Messages. None of them worth a shit. None of them meaningful. None of them strayed from the script of senseless spending and coaxing to spend and consuming and eating and shitting and drinking and smoking and chocking. It never ends.

I couldn’t take the drowning anymore. I had to plant little islands of humanity along the boulevards of bloated schemes covered up with minty fresh breath that was suffocating my soul. I'd done some spray painting as a kid. It would never stick for more than a few days before it was whitewashed. I wanted something more artistic for which I could have more control. Something with more teeth that might be easier to understand and appreciate with the potential to connect with others who might even let the images stand on their own. Much to my surprise a few of them did stand the test of time and they were not removed for months and sometimes years!

Part of this project was inspired in an off hand way by the wheat pastes I’d seen by Shepard Fairey. At sometime in 2000 he, or his minions, invaded Las Vegas and put up their Andre the Giant posters. Some of these showed up in my neighborhood. I can’t explain why but it offended me. Maybe it was the outside influence of these out of towners? Well fuck that shit this is for locals only! Within a few days I was plastering my own public art in my neighborhood and beyond.

I didn’t have a treatise about why I did it. I just fuckin did it. I wanted to have something created by my community displayed in my community without merit aside from connecting community. Easy stuff to understand I would think but that mentality has little space in a place like Vegas where you’re bought and sold every minute. Still I think some people appreciated why I did it. It was 100% positive and didn’t have an agenda other than reaching out to be understood. I wasn't trying to preach some bullshit hippie do gooder ethos with cute little messages. More like I was trying to steal back something intangible that had been stolen from me. Part of the appeal was that I was breaking the law and forcing others to look for a second at something real. And I didn't pay a dime to reach my "audience."

It's obvious to me now this was also an attempt to reclaim some of the public space that was being robbed from me by mountains of advertisers. For all the money changing hands in advertising revenue in that city I'm surprised no one from the public makes a stink about the rights we have as involuntary receptacles for these garbage messages. There's got to be some subconscious side effects. It's an indignity for the whole community to be plastered with messages about hemorrhoids, bad breath, or athletes foot and not give more than a fraction of space to public art. Or maybe we are just pigs waiting to pay money to enter the trough?

I wasn’t the first to do it in Vegas but I noticed a wave of wheat pastes followed in my wake. I won’t take credit for something for which I have no control but I’ll tell you there were very few naked telephone poles. Vegas being what it is I wasn't too surprised to see some rogue advertisers using this wheat paste tactic as well. I heard they got busted and fined. Only an idiot would wheat paste his phone number or website at a bus stop.

So with this post I reveal my intentions and officially add Street Art to the growing resume of my obscure, go nowhere, post no bills, pay no bills, IOU Art Career. When I’m dead they’ll all say how remarkable and unmarketable I’ve been. If my memory could be so lucky. More than likely I’ll just be chewed up and shit back into soul compost comprised of hundreds, thousands, millions of dudes who had something to say. Oh wait something new just came out…

I love bringing up my mortality. When I die please print these out and wheat paste some of them on the East Side in Las Vegas. Come to think of it why don’t you print some of these out and wheat paste them tonight when you walk to that Rebel station on Trop and Pecos to buy cigs?

Pabco Daytime Video

2011-05-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this clip yet. I think I decided not to post it on youtube because it shows certain individuals getting prepared to smoke "the weed." People can be real sensitive about airing shit like that in a public forum especially if they got kids or if they got a “straight” job. I don’t wanna get anyone busted so I’m guessing that’s why I’ve kept it off the shelf. It’s currently unlisted on youtube and the only way you can you see it is through the link posted below.

This vid is a real curiosity piece. This was the Spazz/Catapult/Dwarf Bitch/Lopez/Fatty Lumpkin show. But don’t let that fool you there isn’t much music in this clip. It’s mostly a document of the Pabco party spot right before the show. It was a wild night. Somehow a bunch of us got there during the day right before sunset. Since there's so many people hangin out in the daytime I have to assume it wasn’t full blown Summer just yet.

Every other “desert show” video I shot was at night. It's pretty fuckin cool to see the place all lit up. Before we got all lit up. It’s a great spot with a long strange history most of which I can only guess at. Pabco didn’t have the drama of the Rainbow Caves or the urban aesthetic of the Lossee road ditch (the Tubes) but it did have rugged charm. Who knows maybe there’s a show out there tonight? A freeway overpass was built over Losee road in North town so there'll never be another show at that spot again but I’ve heard rumors about recent shows at the Caves.

A tiny sliver of music is in this clip as well. Dwarf Bitch and Catapult rocks out for a few minutes but the camera mainly stays focused on the crowd and the environment making the music more of a soundtrack rather than the main event. If you want to see more clips from this night go to youtube and lookup Pabco, Spazz, Fatty Lumpkin, or y’know some shit like that. You’re a grown person you’ll figure it out.

Download Pabco Daytime video here.

Letter from Ryland

2011-05-16T22:53:00.001-07:00

I had a dream about Ryland Luss a few weeks ago. This morning I found this letter Ryland sent me in May 1998. It's the last correspondence I ever got from him. I was in a band at the time and I believe he offered me these lyrics for songs we were writing.

Ryland Luss was a close friend of mine. I became friends with him going to Eldorado High. The funny thing is I remember meeting him years before at Quanna McCall 6th Grad center in North town. I was sheltered growing up as an Air Force brat. My family lived in housing on base and my brother and I went to school on base.

Three blocks from Las Vegas Boulevard the 6th Sixth Grade Center was an attempt to "integrate" schools in the early 80's. That concept isn't in play anymore I guess integration isn't all that important anymore in Vegas, or anywhere in America for that matter. Quanna McCall is now just a regular elementary school. Growing up this school was definitely my first experience with real public education. I saw Ryland on the playground several times and he shocked me by being the first kid my age to openly cuss out loud. Repeatedly. Even around teachers. I wouldn't get the balls to cuss out loud myself until I made it to Dell H Robison Jr. High.

In High School Ryland became a close friend. He regularly smoked me out at lunch. He let me borrow his punk records. He pushed some guy off a Spree motor scooter and into the street when he tried to park on my parent's front lawn. He had the MDC Chicken Squak record. At one time he got his Dead Kennedys Kill the Poor record taken away from him at school because it was "questionable." He was a hell of a guy. He gave me lots of shit for free and never asked for more than friendship in return. Demo tapes, t-shirts, even records on occasion. We did our fair share of record trading and taping. I got super pissed one time when he borrowed my Geto Boys CD without asking and then returned it to me broken in half without explanation. He was funny. And not at all shy. He was the guy who most often told me about parties or shows that were happening. He was my lifeline to the "scene" because I guess I've always been anti-social. Fuck you.

Ryland was also a close friend to my brother. He once put chalk in his afro so he could go buy beer for Mark and his skate buddies. That's all it took to make him look old. Can't believe what a pain in the ass it was to get people to buy us beer when we were under age. Thank god I'm an old man now.

Really he was close to my whole family. He constantly hung out at our house on Linn Lane just about every day when we lived on the East Side. One time I came home and Ryland was the only person in the house sitting in my bedroom listening to that Big Rig 7" playing Sega. It didn't faze us. He was a member of the family.

He fancied himself as a lyricist. He was hugely inspired by the lyrics of Operation Ivy and Crimpshrine. I don't think he ever got to their level. I can't critique his stuff because I just don't care for poetry. I think a lot of his work was fragmented but he wrote some interesting shit. Things that are worth remembering because he was such a great person. Maybe a little lost, confused, and alone, but he was always true. It was never fake. I'm glad he worked as hard as he did on his writing. It's something I might have taken for granted back then but it's still something I relate to. Some of it was dead on. The fact that he did it so often was inspiring. I wanted to have his work ethic but I couldn't keep it together then. It's still be a struggle to stay motivated. I wonder how happy he was to have some of his lyrics finally set to music and recorded by Dwarf Bitch. (Specifically the song What Now?)

Things were way simpler. Not that things have changed so much but life has become more complicated. Me and my friends didn't do things much different from anyone else who lived in Vegas. We worked. We got wasted. We tried meeting girls. We mourned the music that died and celebrated whatever shit seemed real at the time. Ryland never strayed too far from that Bay Area punk shit. He loved hip hop and gave that style as much love as any of us did back then but he would always return to his "roots."

We pissed a lot of years away. When my family eventually moved I remember thinking how sad it was that I wouldn't be seeing Ryland every day like I had been. We didn't talk about it a lot at the time but I recall my mom thinking out loud "What's Ryland gonna do without us?"

We were all fucked up trying to deal with our own issues and it never occurred to us that Ryland might actually have real mental issues. The last time I saw him he got really drunk at a house party. I hadn't seen him in months and it was really bad. I heard people talking about the fact that he had to take medicine now, that he was diagnosed as a Schizophrenic. He never said that to me. I don't know who told me that.

I still don't know the truth about what happened to Ryland. His family moved to the West Side. It must have been like another country to him. The story is he went out into the desert and died from exposure. I also heard he died while sitting in a ditch. Waiting for something. Waiting for us to show up? Wow, that really hurt to write that. Every now and then I have a dream about him. In those dreams everyone's hanging out. We're partying. Listening to Crimpshrine. Or Fifteen. Smoking bunk ass weed. Smokin cigs. Waiting for something to happen.

T.P.U. demo and 7"

2011-04-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

I chanced upon this blog purported to highlight the Arizona hardcore punk scene. I recommend giving it a look see. I found the Plain Wrap record there which was a phenomenal score. Upon further inspection I found this T.P.U. 7" and the T.P.U. demo available to download which came as a real surprise. The closer I look the more I see this blog isn't isolated to just Arizona music. It's cool. Their heart's in the right place.

I have a vague recollection of T.P.U. and it mostly centers on the Hardcore show which aired on 91.5 KUNV in the late 80's. I recorded this record off the radio and I guess I listened to it more than I thought as these songs were instantly recognizable.

Even as a teenager I remember thinking the lyrics were retarded. Still it holds together at least as much the other dumb ass bands featured on this blog. They lose points for the Skrewdriver shirt and white headband the bass player's wearing but they make up for it by prominently featuring the water heater in the background of the cover photo.

I'm limited in what I can add here. I knew of Amoeba, the guy with the Skrewdriver shirt, from hanging around the drinkin/druggin punk scene back then. But I only knew him on the surface much like the rest of the scene I was hanging around. If I wasn't drunk, stoned, or wacked out on acid or pcp I was actively trying to score those drugs so I have a hard time remembering names. I don't know the other people in this band. Or maybe I do? The End.

Couldn't tell you what T.P.U. stands for and I don't think I ever saw them play live although I might've been trippin while they were playing right in front of me.

Lyrically I thought they were dopes but hindsight makes the delivery of most if not all these songs seem tongue in cheek. Although maybe they really are idiots? The music is infectious and it really puts me back to when I was stupider and eaily amused although not so easily lead astray. I first heard these songs at a time when I was desperate to hear punk music of any flavor. I was eagar to lap up anything that could be construed as punk at that time as it wasn't the easiest thing to find. Turns out I played the recording of this 7"over and over again even if it was ridiculously stupid. Sample lyric: "It's the best feeling you can ever get/ kickin peoples asses and gettin away with it/ ha ha ha ha! Anarchy!"

That's some retarded bullshit right there but you can dance to it which was enough for me, for a little while anyway. Back then I thought the song Desert Party was called Stag Party which made me think it was the dumbest macho song I'd ever heard in my life. It still comes across as Frat Rock but now that I know what the real title is I feel a little more connected to it. I hear a slight English punk influence here. Lot's of buzzsaw guitars ala GBH/Vice Squad/Varukers or any of that spikey punk and disorderly shit that came out of the UK in the early 80's. Yep I had punk hair. I dyed it black. I smoked.

The record has a lot of personality. I'm seriously diggin it. Obnoxious punk crap that was a precursor in some ways to the snotty sound FYP was throwing down in the mid 90's. Shit, I almost hear a little Celtic Frost or Hellhammer sound in there as well but it's probably just them buzzsaw guitars making me think that way because no one would mistake this for Metal. Reminds me a little bit of the band Filth who were gigging in the East Bay around the same time or even Grimple who would be coming down the pike a few years later. I'm not saying T.P.U. was as good as the above mentioned bands but if you're at all familiar with any of the names mentioned above then you'll probably like this record. The jokes about Reagan make this a must have for 80's Hardcore purists. If such a thing exists.

The record came out in 1988, and seriously? Only 100 copies pressed? That seems like a waste but maybe records were cheaper to press back then? I saw this record for sale at the Underground and didn't buy a copy because I knew I had it recorded on tape at home. I won that round! Released by Chapter III Records in Arizona in 1988. At that time I was a junior at Eldorado High School. I lived across the street from the entrance to EHS at 1114 Linn Lane. My front lawn was the smoking section. That was a lifetime ago.

I'm glad I stumbled onto this little hardcore side note. I didn't think I was as much of a fan as I am. Go figure. It's still dumber than dirt. But hey- all we had back then was dirt.

Learn more from the AZ blog, it's worth checking out, plus you can find out more about Plain Wrap who are keeping me in stitches these days now that I found their whole record. The T.P.U. demo is included in the download as well. The links below are to download direct from that blog. If it doesn't work for you let me know I'll try and upload the files I got.

Download T.P.U. Noise 7"
Download T.P.U Demo tape

From the horse's mouth T.P.U.'s myspace page.

Rock Avenue

2011-04-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve come damn close to starting a new project to make a KUNV Rock Avenue music mix but I've held back because it reminds me of the time I was tempted to write a book about the differences between Punk and Metal. It occurred to me that someone’s gonna write that book eventually so why not wait for them to do it so I can just enjoy reading it without the years of hard work that would go into making such a book.

Within two years of having that idea this punk/metal book did come out just like I figured and I had the pleasure of kickin back and reading it with a critical eye. I'm glad to know the future of academia will eventually be dumbed down to the point of where it's the kinda shit people have talked about in bars for years.

Maybe someday I’ll make that mix. I mean if I wait for someone else to do it they won’t do it to my satisfaction anyway. Right?

In case you’re out of the loop I should mention the Rock Avenue was a program on the college radio station broadcasting in Las Vegas, NV that ran from the mid 80’s through most of the 90’s. It happened from the late afternoon until about midnight when they would switch to specialty shows like the Hardcore, Metal, or Hip Hop. Pre-internet this was the only way Las Vegas could learn about the dynamic world of music happening outside the valley. I think the Rock Avenue is partially responsible for my obsession with hearing new music several times a week.

It’s astounding how important a lifeline the Rock Avenue was for those of us who needed that music fix. It was a huge world of art, culture, politics, ideas and emotion that played out like friends sharing secrets on the phone. If you were clued in enough to dial in you could discover lost continents of pop that no one else could ever believe. While the world around me droned on with their Night Ranger or Duran Duran I could stumble into the violent melody of Husker Du or the psychodelic mindfuck of Sonic Youth. I was a huge fan of Iron Maiden, still am, but this was around the time Seventh Son of A Seventh Son came out and that shit sucked. I was trying to figure out what the fuck punk was about in 1986 and it was being roasted every night alongside the alien sounds of Echo and the Bunnymen, Eric B and Rakim, Lords of the New Church, New Order, the Cult and many more I'll never be able to remember. It was unchartered territory and it couldn’t have been more welcome.

There weren’t a whole lot of outlets back then. We received music and culture like a hamster sipping at an upside down water bottle in a cage of mundane bullshit. It was a trickle and I absorbed it and worshipped any of it I could cram into my psyche. It was an antidote to mediocrity which seemed to get more and more prevalent and even poisonous as I got older. It was precious and rare because I had to work to find it. Not like it was all gold but when I’d capture it on tape I could spend hours pouring over it to find the sounds that really spoke to me.

Probably the best part was the complete lack of regard for genre that some DJ’s would have. It was cutting edge to hear hip hop tracks being played alongside guitar rock followed closely by synth pop. But the Rock Avenue was rarely limited to just those types of music. All sorts of strange hybrids of music seemed to swirl around the Rock Avenue playlist and you could never tell what was coming next. The eclectic nature of Rock Avenue was ballsy and sometimes challenging to me. No commercial radio station would dare to pull such stunts. Ironically enough the other bullshit radio stations in town would eventually follow KUNV's lead. There were tiny hints that the Rock Avenue would and could change the cultural landscape. As timid as it seems today it was a real coup to hear West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys on 98.5 KLUC after it was completely played out of KUNV for well over a year.

Today it’s at our fingertips at the press of an ibutton and I couldn’t be happier but there’s no denying we lose something without the human element. I have access to every obscurity ever conceived and I’ve got a steady stream of music that can go on into infinity so long as I've got the hard drive space. What was once a trickle is now a raging river of music in which I can drown. It’s a mixed blessing. Technology has democratized the music industry but it’s also cheapened that exhilarating moment of discovery now that it's everywhere all at once. What was once precious and rare has now been multiplied a million fold. It's not nearly as big a treasure as it was when it was just a kid staying up late with a tape deck and a radio signal.

Perhaps the most important aspect of KUNV was the fact that it was broadcast to the whole community. So everyone was plugged into the same signal. It gave a focus to the community and made me feel connected with the community. Even if I was mostly just listening for the announcement of upcoming shows. Now that there is a unending horizon of niche outlets for every musical taste there is no longer a central meeting place where the community can all meet up to hear the same message. It's remarkable how powerful that central meet up spot tends to be huh? Then again that's always been a problem with Vegas. A problem that may never be resolved?

I'll never bitch about having access to a huge gaping world of musical shit like I do now. I never want to go back to the tiny umbilical cord that KUNV represented but I’m glad I was able to live in a time when those cassette tapes recorded off the airwaves were the whole world to me. It was a special moment in my life that I will always treasure. I always loved Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, still do, but man does not live on bread alone.

I think my idea for a Rock Avenue mix would still be very guitar heavy. I can't believe how hooked I am on that shitty 80's production style! Reverb that goes on for days. Drums recorded in a pit three miles away from the rest of the band. It's good shit. I'm still discovering all the wacky 80's bands who were trying to amp up that 60's sound. I love bands from the 80's who ripped off the Byrds!

I still dig the hip hop from that time period as well. Hip hop was still finding out what it was as a genre. When it finally solidified it became a turd in many regards but that early experimental sound is still exciting to me now. Those experiments that keep me on edge. Shit that tries to be different with no regard for convention. I know it when I hear it. And I heard it first on the Avenue.

I tried reaching out to people on Facebook looking for old cassettes from that time period. It’s been a fruitless endeavor and I don’t see much promise on the horizon. I was looking mainly for station ID’s, the Rock Calendar, or other local announcements. I was thinking it would be a fun project to add those elements to the mix. I still think it'd be fun I'm just hoping someone else will do it. Or maybe I should just get Pandora?

Here's a present for those of you who might've appreciated and loved the Rock Avenue as much as I did.

You will be very glad you clicked here.

Best of Rebuilding Paradise

2011-03-22T00:35:00.000-07:00

Rebuilding Paradise was a zine I published (Xeroxed) from the early to mid 90’s. It was a rudimentary zine that was fairly typical for the time period. It consisted of a few observational essays, some bad poetry, some graphic manipulation, you know shit like that.

I made roughly 3 issues, the fourth issue was tiny and I numbered it 3.5. I always expected to put out more but I never got around to it. I was proud of what I made back then especially issue three but as I scanned these images I got to look more closely at the “product” and most of it just sucked.

It was similar to looking at old issues of Keep Laughing. In all honesty KL mostly sucked aside from the great cover art done by Greg Telles. It was a good zine because it had dozens of contributors each with their own style and thing to say. Just like the original Keep Laughing zine, Rebuilding Paradise had some moments of brilliance and a whole lot of filler. But it's still worth remembering.

There's some good shit in there but I've decided to only post a "best of" Rebuilding Paradise. Some of that shit is too corny to put out in public. The writing is naive, badly proofread, and rather juvenile. My writing has grown by leaps and bounds since then. I like to think. Still the graphics are somewhat entertaining and I was lucky to have contributors who were also good friends.

I wrote an extensive article about the death of the LVHC scene from my perspective focusing on the bullshit divide and conquer scenario of anti-nazis versus the nazis. I should have included that here but it's somewhat laughable in retrospect. I did a ridiculous write up about why "Industrial Music" sucks. As you can imagine it's really dated. I have included the interview I did with Catapult because it's bordering on funny and they were a bunch of nice guys.

Anyway. The scanner at the Independent Publishers Resource Center did no justice to the numerous photos included in this issue. Maybe I'll try and scan them again some other day?

Contributed by Shannon Hennesee

Contributed by Ryland Luss

Catapult interview #1

Catapult interview #2

Catapult interview #3

Contributed by Bobby Klepper

I'm still convinced that anything we produce that puts a spotlight on our own lives is extremely valuable. It's such a rare thing to read about the world we share together a world that almost no one else knows about. Be it obscure music we both experienced, the desert and it's expanse, even the trash, the drugs, and the awful horrible memories we thought we'd never forget. It's not something we can find anywhere but within yourself. How odd to think how fragile and transient memories can be. It is valuable. It is worth the effort to record these things we hold dearest to our heart and to find new things that are equally as valuable. Maybe people in the future will understand and learn by our example. Or maybe they will be baffled that we would give a shit about such mundane bullshit?

Almost 98% of the messages we see in our lifetime are useless commercial messages which do more to distract and divide us. Any expression created outside that framework is an important counter point to the bullshit we see perpetrated everyday. The fact that such expression exists at all is contrary to the stream of manipulation that bogs down our lives. It is important. Even if it's moronic. But let's be reasonable. If you are going to take the time to express yourself be thoughtful. Be intelligent. Most importantly be truthful. If you can't be any of those and you can only be moronic at least be funny. And TRUTHFUL.

The following drawings (comics?) I made as a contribution to a zine in 1998 that never got published. In fact I submitted these drawrings to three separate zines which never materialized. The flake factor in zineland is on par with the flake factor in any other art medium. Hovering at about 75%. Here are my moronic ramblings finally exposed to public scrutiny. Maybe it's a good thing they never got published?

Back cover of Issue 3

The scanner I was using wasn't so great so I didn't include the photographs from this issue which is a shame because there are some really good ones. If I can find the original master of this issue I'll try and scan those pics from desert shows, house parties, shit like that.

More Part-Time Whore Shit

2011-03-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

Surprise! More Part-Time Whore stuff. This post is mainly flyers and random shit that related to the band Part-Time Whore. OK. This might be the last of the stuff in my collection but if I end up posting more shit you won’t get pissed off at me will you?

The photos included here are the only photographs I’ve ever seen of PTW. The sepia toned photos were taken by Checko during a Halloween show. I was dressed as Harpo Marx and I can only speak for myself. I don’t remember who gave me the color photos included below. Thanks to whoever deserves it. Not sure why there are no color photos of Judd in this collection.

After we pressed the album we were convinced we would never be able to get rid of all 500. Last time I checked I noticed I’ve got about 10-15 left at my folks house. We did a lot of trades with other bands and labels and we later started a modest distro of our own filling it up with trades from other bands and labels. Here’s a letter from Jello Biafra of Alternative Tenacles. He traded a couple of his records for ours which was mighty white of him!

Dierdre Luzwick let us use some of her artwork on the inner sleeve of the record. Here is the letter she sent in response to receiving the record upon it's completion. Her art is amazing and she comes across as a real, soulful, person. She should be more well known than she is. Thankfully she has embraced the internet and you can view her work online for free. Go here and be amazed. Miss Luzwick and Mr. Biafra both sent hand typed letters using manual typewriters. That might be where their similarities end.

This was a fun benefit show we played for Food Not Bombs Las Vegas. Bunko Squad was awesome. I never heard from them again. They appeared to be a high school ska band replete with crazy looking skinheads dancing along to their set.

Once again thank you to the Independent Publishers Resource Center in PDX for the use of their scanner. There may be more Part-Time Whore stuff coming. I can never tell what's coming down the pike.

Oh yeah I found the original lyric sheet for the PTW demo.

Art Show Las Vegas 1997

2011-03-12T21:08:00.000-08:00

Here's another video from my archives. An art show featuring students from the UNLV Art Department. It's one of the first things I shot with my first videocamera. I've always been bad about labeling my tapes and it's come back to bite me in the ass more than once. As a result I'm not sure when this show happened. I'm guessing the end of the semester 1997.

It took a lot of balls to show up and start videotaping peoples artwork without asking. I feel like most artists are a little gun shy about people taking pics or videos of their work. Maybe they like it? I suppose it's good manners to ask first before you whip out a camera. If I remember correctly I just barged in and started shooting which in retrospect seems a little uncouth. I wish more people would capture these events on film since art exhibits come and go pretty quick and it's not like the photographer/videographer is stealing the images by getting them on film. This clip will never be as valuable as the artwork contained within. In fact it's of almost no value. It's just a reflection of what happened that night. More than anything I think it goes a long way to promoting the artist's work. An example of taking the memories with you. That's all we've got here is memories. Hopefully the artists in this video will agree with this assessment.

Speaking of which I don't know the artists featured in this video. If you are familiar with these artist or their work please leave a comment so we can give credit where credit is due. As often as I could I tried to video the placards on the wall featuring the artist names. If you know these artist please tell them this video is here!

I've always enjoyed the the different variations of artistic "scenes" that flowered, withered, and flowered again over the years when I lived in Vegas. You'll see a very pronounced Las Vegas inspiration in this show. Be it the 10 foot tall stir sticks based on real stir sticks from Las Vegas Golden Age or the numerous paintings based on gaudy carpet patterns found in casinos in Las Vegas at that time. Also included are some subtle and not so subtle installation pieces, sculpture, and paintings. Overall a great show that I would have forgotten about had I not found this video. If you go to a lot of art shows and you own a camera of any kind do us all a favor and ask the artist personally if they mind you taking some snap shots. It's something we'll all benefit from when we look back over the years. Especially since the internet allows us access.

I've heard rumors that UNLV will be making some drastic cuts to their art department which is a bad move in my opinion. These cuts could affect one of my best friends Checko Salgado who has been teaching a course on commercial photography for the last 7 years. Get in touch with UNLV and let them know how important the arts are to your community.

Vegas Flyers 1996-2000

2011-03-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

All flyers by me unless noted otherwise.

First show for Part-Time Whore, last show for Dwarf Bitch. Weird how that happens. Instead of Pabco this ended up taking place at GT's house. West side assholes stole Greg's dartboard! Bullshit.

Rob didn't want me to include a map to his house on this flyer.

flyer by Greg Higgins

flyer by Greg Telles

flyer by Nathan Robards

More Part-Time Whore Ephemera

2011-02-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

I went back to Vegas to visit the folks last week. Vegas never changes and yet it appears to change all the time. What's the deal with the fart smell everywhere you go?

I picked up a few records I left at my parents house and I came across an archive of old flyers, zines, stickers, and other shit. I don't want to overplay the importance of Part-Time Whore in the grand scheme of my life. It was super great but I'm not trying to make this blog a tribute to that band. All in all this collection of stickers and other shit will probably be the end of posts specific to the band Part-Time Whore.

Graphics were an important part of our band, as important as the lyrics. I put a lot of thought into the choice of graphics about what this name was supposed to symbolize. Since it's kind of an ignorant name I didn't want to add any elements which could be construed as degrading to women. But I didn't want to put any political metaphors into something that wasn't there. I don't think we were ever a "political" band. Mixing politics with music is like mixing oil and water. I don't think it's ever truly inspiring unless it happens by accident. Direct political diatribes can be preachy even fascist. That's why I think Dancin In the Street by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas is the most powerful political song ever recorded.

Maybe PTW was more of a philosophical band as opposed to being a political band. I think I was better at pointing out the obvious and trying to "search for truth" instead of telling punk rockers not to fuckin eat meat. I always hated dogmatic hardcore. More grist for the mill in my treatise on why straight edge was crap. Fuck Animal rights too.

Obviously a whore can be a man or a woman but not everyone has the same intelligence level to see that distinction and not everyone can see any semblance of humor in the name. I tried to make some connections with these stipulations in mind. As far as I can remember I'm thinking I made all these graphics on my own or I "stole" them from graphics books I found at the UNLV library. The above graphic made me wonder too much about who was supposed to be the whore in this picture. As a result we xeroxed very few of these stickers and never printed them again. I didn't want to come across as apologetic but I didn't want to come across as a bunch of sexist morons either. What can I say Part-Time Whore followed the Vegas tradition of stupid fuckin band names.

I liked the idea of hijacking these phony authority figures and painting them up to be whores. Saying they were part-time humanized them a little which was not my intention. Let's face it authority seems to think it's more than human and therefore above it all. Fuck these guys and anyone else who thinks they have all the answers. They do not have any answers and more than likely they'll pose a threat to you and yours if given half a chance. These photographs as well as the photo on the cover of the album were used with permission from the UNLV Special Collections Department at the UNLV Library. I think these guys were Military Police stationed at Nellis.

The above images were culled from random graphic art books I found and they show me reaching for a more esoteric definition of the PTW name. The yin/yang McDonalds piece was a favorite for many and was included as the label for side b on the record. I’m not sure what I was going for there. Maybe I'm saying that corporations are trying to co-opt other cultures to make their products more marketable? They are trying to weave their message of consumerism into the fabric of Taoism? I don’t know where I was going with this but it is eye catching. Keep it simple man!

I always dug the army of Santa Clauses drawn up in a Russian Constructivist style. The cross roads where consumerism meets fascism?

I won’t leave you wondering, the sticker with the hand signals spell out UNITY. Ain’t nothing wrong with another unity song. We sure needed unity for the tiny fragments of the “scene” back then. Nothing ever really changes. We need it today maybe more than ever. We all know unity is a good thing. Below is a collection of graphics I would often take to Kinkos to copy off stickers.

This sticker is the classic and was always a fave of mine. Again taken from some graphic design book from the 70's. I feel like this is what I'm looking at every time I watch TV. I wonder if that's how the broadcasters feel every time they send their bullshit messages over the air?

The two stickers posted below are among the rejects that never made it past the drawing board. I really dig the drunk man graphic. Great piece taken from an unnamed graphic design book from the 40's. If I didn’t want to be associated with sexist bullshit you can believe I also wasn’t interested in being associated with drunk punk bullshit. Nothing annoys me more than drunks. So yeah I hate straight edgers and drunks, no wonder I’m all alone.

The photo of the little person passing out cigars was also a slice of Las Vegas History taken from the UNLV library archives. It’s kinda funny but mostly just weird.

And in conclusion I wanted to share the original lyric sheet from the Part-Time Whore demo just in case anyone gives a shit. I found it along with a grip of flyers I made for PTW shows. I tried uploading it here for all to view but it kept getting rejected. I'll post later on down the line so look for the Part-Time Whore story to be concluded later on.

Feel free to drag these images to your desktop if you want em. Thanks to the Independent Publishers Resourse Center in Portland for the use of the scanner. Good night and good luck.

Schizoid vids @ Elks Lodge

2011-02-21T14:01:00.000-08:00

You'll find some random shit if you cruise youtube. It's become a democratic way of getting videos out there which is pretty fuckin cool.

I don't know the person who posted these videos. Or maybe I do? It strikes me as unusual that they would post a bunch of shit about UNLV and then include these cool vids of Schizoid playing the Elks Lodge in Henderson.

Schizoid played the first "real" punk show I ever attended. I was 14 years old and I saw Schizoid, Fuck Shit Piss, Band X, and Doggy Style play the North Las Vegas Eagles Hall near that Church's Chicken across the street from Broadacres. I bought a Beefy Burrito zine from Checko which was an amazing read and was truly inspiring to me back then. He keeps telling me he'll make copies of that zine for me again someday. Yeah I'm still waiting mofo.

It seems strange that I only saw Schizoid play one other time after that Doggy Style show. I didn't get to be friends with these guys until long after they'd broken up. Checko and Greg would go on to form the band Lady. Jason would later be in Dwarf Bitch.

I don't know if they ever put out a demo but they were prominently featured on a 10" record put out by Very Small Records. They had a tight original sound that made them stick out from the tons of other bands playing hardcore back then. That's probably why David Hayes put them on that record so long ago.

I only watched one of the several Schizoid videos featured on this guy's youtube page. I saw some faces I recognized. You probably will too. Just noticed there's a clip of them doing an RKL cover. Rad.

my latest short film: Dark Matter w/ sound

2011-02-19T23:47:00.000-08:00

I make short films. It's a passion and a disability. It's made it hard for me to enjoy watching movies. I respect the craft and I'm an enemy to mediocrity. I have always been offended by the mainstream. When it shapes the reality of a society that is home to me and the creator of dreams worldwide it's hard not to see it's a parasite that perpetuates delusional future catastrophy.

When I talk mainstream culture I'm talkin music, politics, journalism, art, radio, movies... all expression. It's a culture of misrepresentation. None of the shit I see above ground has ever represented me my whole fuckin life. And even underground there are only flashes of truth I see. But I'm most offended when the machine tries to speak for me. It's an affront to my dignity. Makes me wanna scream. You can't keep taking from me! You can't keep faking the scene and it ain't all about how much bacon you bring. Liberal media my fuckin ass. It's been skewed to the right for so long the viewers can no longer think fast.

If the shoe fits kick it. I ain't gonna support a culture that's wicked. Don't lie to me and act like you're doin me right. I'd laugh if it was funny but it's a horrible disguise. I will forever use every weapon in my arsenal to accentuate the positive and destroy the farcical. Some may see romantic foolishness in the words I say but I will never stop believing for I am the revolution every single day.

My films can be self absorbed, pretentious, sometimes misguided, they may run free with little regard for the audiences sensibilities but the audience is superfluous I make these worlds for me. Someone out there will hear me. And that would be fine. But the music I make the worlds I create are for my mind. I invite you to stay tuned... or go fuck yourself either way I'm satisfied.

Youth in Malaysia

2011-02-04T23:15:00.000-08:00

The fact is $8,000 fell into my lap and I wanted to leave Vegas for an extended period of time. I wasn’t ready to physically move from Vegas but I wanted to go somewhere outside the country for more than a few weeks. A few months prior I'd broken up with a woman who I 'd planned to marry. Since my domesticity had fallen through I was on shaky ground and this windfall of cash couldn't have come at a better time. Really there is no bad time for shit like that to happen but you get my drift. I wanted to test myself and see something I’d never seen before. Eat scorpions, get into a bar brawl, wake up in a foreign jail cell. Shit like that.

This was Summer 2002 and I was thoroughly disgusted with the post 9/11 rhetoric which had souped up the country and the world at that time. No one could listen to reason so it was time to bail to South East Asia for no fucking reason.

Every foreigner I’d meet on my trip, including Canadians, were quick to express sympathy over the United States' tragic loss. When I'd eventually find myself in these conversations I'd try my hardest not to let on that I thought the United States was full of shit and deserved worse in relation to the way we treat the rest of the world. I was on vacation and I wasn't trying to talk politics between drinks. The passing of time has given me some perspective on this period in history but it does nothing to change my hatred of United States imperialism. I won't go into such boring and predictable analysis. This post is once again about my favorite shit: music. More specifically the music I experienced in my travels in South East Asia.

I would advice everyone to take a trip to this part of the world. I enjoyed every second. I started in Japan, went to Thailand, took a side trip through Cambodia, snaked through Malaysia and lastly explored every inch of Bali before landing back in the desert South West.

I have a great story for every country I saw along the way. But this isn’t a travelogue. Every country was great but this post is focused on Malaysia. By the time I got to Kuala Lumpur I had been touring SE Asia for nearly two months and quite honestly I’d done a lot of the clichéd tourist shit you would expect. All of which was great but I was hoping to do something a little crazier than passing out on the streets of KL.

I gotta bring up a funny side story which involved a sack of weed I bought in Ko Pha Ngan Thailand. I stayed there a few days and took mushrooms at the full moon party on the beach which was internationally ridiculous. While sitting in my hut a few days later I rolled this whole bag into joints and threw them on my backpack. I'd been warned about Malaysia's zero tolerance policy towards drug smuggling so I tried to make sure I’d smoked all the joints before crossing the Thai/Malay border.

Of course on the day I made that hungover crossing it occurred to me that maybe one or more of those joints might have fallen into my backpack by mistake. There’s so many compartments in that goddamned thing. When the bus I was on crossed over and I saw the huge sign that read “Drug traffickers receive a mandatory death sentence” on the Malaysian side of the border I got a little nervous but didn't let it faze me. I smoked all those joints already right?

Turns out I had a right to be nervous as I found a joint in my backpack at the hostel later that night. What a fuckin moron. Still I’ll admit to being really stoked to smoke that joint on a bridge overlooking the state mosque that night. The state mosque is across the street from a Catholic church, down the road from a Hindu temple and well I’m pretty sure there are no Jewish temples in that neighborhood but you get the idea. It’s a fairly liberal Muslim country. Probably the most liberal in the world.

This trip was coming to a close in a few weeks and I was bored with the routine debaucheries. Not to mention the fact that after two days I wasn’t as enamored with Malaysian food as I'd been with the food on the coast of Thailand.

It was in a market in KL as I looked at bootleg DVD’s and random rock and roll t-shirts that I noticed an innocuous flyer posted to a bulletin board. Could it be true? Did I stumble on to the Malaysian punk scene? The flyer had a roster of bands I couldn’t possibly be acquainted with but it was unmistakably an underground show of some sort. The only graphic being, of all things, the dancing guy from the Specials.

My travels up to that point were following a pattern of confusion and elation which was fun and inventive but not all that original. I’d perfected a cycle of stumbling into a strange new place, finding a cheap bed, checking out the scene until I’d gotten comfortable and then moving on to discover the next strange neighborhood. I kept hoping I’d be able to immerse myself in some sense of intrigue that would challenge me and maybe push some adrenaline into my brain. And here it was on a community bulletin board. There was no way I was gonna miss this fuckin show.

Considering the amount of glowing praise I’ve heaped onto some of the bands featured in this blog it might surprise you to know that I’ve actually come to be disgusted by the music, aesthetic, and world of “punk rock” as it’s understood in 2011.

The shit I've done with this blog to solidify some semblance of written history within my secluded little scene (Vegas) is worth the effort I’ve dished out. And I don’t see it as nostalgia because even though it was a blast I’ll admit it was a brutal past life I had in hardcore punk. And yet when I think about the concepts of "punk" I'm confronted with the failings that make me sick. One of the things that makes me cringe, well two things really, are the cliché arguments that people have leveled since day one. Namely “Punk shouldn’t be a codified sound and style. Punk is anti-punk. It’s whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be 4/4 beats and Ramones style buzzsaw guitar.” People have been saying those tired lines for fuckin ever. Just bringing up that argument makes me feel like I'm following the rulebook even more. And yet the suck part is that it’s still a legitimate reason to say punk blows.
The other side to the coin is yet another cliché in it’s own right. When I was younger few things would annoy me more than an old fart hipster telling me how much better the world was in the past. “My music was better, my ideals were better, we stood for something back then. Etc. etc.” The truth is my generation didn’t do things much different than the last 10 generations. Each generation makes at least a little noise but then it gets quiet. Fuck that. I'm making noise forever motherfuckers.

And yet when I see musicians today aping a style as cliché and trite as “standard” punk it almost offends me. I just don’t see the relevance anymore. It’s not scary, shocking, or innovative and in truth it’s been dumbed down to the point of embarrassment where those who truly have nothing to say are given the mic front and center. And those who see themselves as more demented than GG Allin can be a carbon copy of mediocrity ad infinitum.

In this way I think the value of DIY ethics and aesthetics are proven to be an annoyance when you pick up where the previous generation left off without trying to push the music or the scene in any way. I just don’t see the point.

And maybe that is the point coming from me a 39 year old man in 2011. Punk style, punk music, punk whatever the fuck, it’s far from new to me. And while I’ve been there and done all that I can’t fault the kids for shaking their ass and their fists to something that’s brand spanking new to them. The reality is that punk is new every second of the day to some kid somewhere in the world. So maybe if it’s relevant to someone somewhere it can still means something?

Personally I just think it’s boring. But not this night September 2002 in Klang, Malaysia. I had to take two buses to get to Klang which seemed to be a semi industrial town near to the coast. I ripped the flyer of the wall of that market in KL so I had the directions.

I don’t think many white people visit Klang in general so I was real popular right off the bat. Just out of curiosity a few people followed me around for a few blocks after I got off the bus. This whole experience was again one of the many instances in my life where my inability to give a shit made the whole experience possible.

In truth I think it was largely my blind faith that people with their respective scenes are usually accepting of others who share their love for the music. Plus I had a camera and everyone wants to be captured and noticed for all posterity. That's why you get dressed up before a show right? Well that and the fact that you might meet a cute girl.

Klang ain’t much different from KL, and from what I saw it’s not that different from Bakersfield for that matter. That’s kinda harsh. It’s definitely nicer than Bakersfield. It’s more like a cross between Sacramento and the run down side of San Diego. There was a 7-11 and a big arcade on the first floor of the venue which was an old store front which at one time was probably a restaurant or possibly a hardware store. It was hard to tell. It was ramshackle and run down. The perfect place for all ages underground music no matter what country you live in.

A bunch of punks. Please note these guys are not into grunge. They were adamant about that point.

These guys will never know this photo ended up being out of focus.

These guys told me to take their picture. I wasn't about to say no.

These guys were obviously grunge. Notice the sullen dancer in front of the band.

The vibe was just as I expected. Not unlike the dozens of underground shows I’d been going to since I was 14. I was lucky enough to make friends immediately with a few of the kids at the show. The average age looked to be late teens early 20’s

These images speak for themselves. If you’ve been to an underground show you’ve seen these people all before. The thing I found curious was the range of music genres that the bands were performing that night. It surprised me to find that all the bands on this bill were comprised of three different styles: Punk, Grunge, and Oi! Although I do remember seeing a band who were vaguely metal and they were the least popular and not as technical as most metal I was used to seeing. I think there were at least a dozen bands.

If you haven't figured it out by now the vast majority of the kids at this show were SKINHEADS! Skinheads in love with Oi music. If you are not familiar with Oi I ain’t got time to explain it to you. I’ve never been much of a fan. Actually I mostly hate it. At one time I investigated it by buying a 4 Skins LP and I thought was a joke. Strangely a few days later I came home drunk and put it on to find I kinda liked it. No question you gotta have a few drinks to appreciate Oi. Maybe more than a few. That night in Klang I drank Carlsburg beer in the alley by the 7-11 just like I would at a show at home.

While I’m still not a fan of Oi music I'll admit that after watching a crowd of well over 200 kids dancing and singing to the band ACAB (All Coppers Are Bastards, a 4 Skins song no less) I've come to respect Oi music a little more. And in essence, looking back, I’ll have to say it was this experience that helps me to respect the legacy of punk at least to a small degree. As an institution, which is what it's become, punk has failed me personally, and it’s failed us all. But maybe I ask too much from something that's just music. I expect too much from those who can easily dye their hair green and get tattoos all over their fuckin neck. It meant the world to me and it changed me in some respects for the better. I think I would have been a radical anyway even if I'd not encountered punk but it sure helped to reinforce that impulse.

Taking the elements of youth culture to their logical conclusion you might be surprised to learn there were Nazi Skins and Anti-Nazi skins within this scene. A fight broke out at one point during a grunge bands set. The kid I was sitting with told me “Fuck those Nazi wankers!” I guess it’s only natural that such teen angst has to manifest itself as the good guys versus the bad guys much like it has with every other "punk" scene in the world. Another example of the failings of the scene. Well, there ain't nothing wrong with another unity song but who listens to the fuckin lyrics anyway?

I’ll admit I still get suckered into paying to see a reunion show from an old hardcore or punk band that comes through Portland every now and again. The odds are 50/50 that it'll suck or be great. When I saw them in 2003 Stiff Little Fingers were great. MDC is fucking embarrassing and they live in Portland so they drag us down routinely. I won't make mention of Poison Idea but I will tell you that Raw Power floored me last year. Social Unrest was crap last year.

You gotta believe in something huh? I believe punk is crap. But just in my book. And yet I haven't sold any of my Conflict records yet. Still got those Misfits records too. Here’s to hoping kids today will start writing their own books to prove us old farts wrong. If nothing else I’m hoping these images will convince my “punk” friends who come to this blog to re-connect with their roots and their history, that there is still hope and anger and energy and hopefully some unity in the young world who are still finding the soundtrack to their angst even if there isn’t a whole lot of originality happening there.

We have a lot in common with the kids on the other side of the world. Even the ones who never even heard of Slayer, Fuck Shit Piss, or Black Flag or even the Beatles for that matter. Their dreams are our dreams and their struggles are our struggles.

Other strange things happened on that trip. Within a few days I'd be in Bali, Indonesia. When I got home October 13, 2002 a friend anxiously called me up. “I so glad you’re home man! Turn on the TV!” said Todd Dombrowski at the other end of the line.

If I’d stayed one more night in Kuta beach on the island of Bali I would have been injured or possibly killed by the terrorist bombing of the nightclub Patties. Over 200 people were killed instantly where less than 24 hours before I’d been sitting having beers on the last day of my trip.

ACAB All Coppers Are Bastards!

The dude in the center in the green shirt was the coolest guy at this show. We hung out the whole time. I can't find my journal from the trip so I don't remember his name. Damn those Malaysian skinhead girls are hot!

I'm the white guy acting cool in the center.

These guys also insisted on being photographed. How could I refuse?

Knife In the Water live @ Sir Patrick Haus

2011-02-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

I’d never heard of em before but my housemate and close friend Checko was tuned in. I’m glad he was. I forgot how much fun I had at this show. I think this was the last show we had before the McCarren Airport bought the house and leveled it to make way for… well nothing. I should mention this show happened in the Spring of 2001.

Of course a drunken gutter punk sporting a mohawk had to show up to be the obnoxious idiot. There’s always some guy or girl without a clue at every house party or show with a semblance of underground veneer. I think it’s the law. You may notice him as the video rolls on. Luckily he sits down and nurses his beer for most of the show.

Don’t have much to add here. Although I will say this might be the last of the old time videos you’ll be seeing on this blog. My apartment got flooded and it drenched two big boxes of old videotapes. I don’t think there was a whole lot left in those boxes anyway besides tape after tape of claymation experiments and time lapse vids. Easy come easy go. But since my apartment and my life are a mess there’s always a chance I’ll find more old videos. Trouble is I’m planning on selling my camera soon so my ability to transfer stuff will be limited in the future.

If there is interest in old timey shit I guess I could always do a post of that awful horror movie me and the dudes made back in the early 90’s. Don’t tempt me.

Knife In the Water were (are?) a great band. Way better than the Roman Polanski film of the same name that's for sure. I don't know if they're still riding this horse or whether they put it out to pasture. Hopefully they are still going strong as this is some really solid countryish psychedelia pop stuff. This was years before I’d heard any mention of the tired sub genre known as Alt Country. I wouldn’t put these guys in that category. Maybe there is some Alt Country out there that’s worth a shit but I ain’t heard it yet. I’m guessing these new bands claiming country today are brooding so hard because they listen to too much indie rock and not enough Willie Nelson. I always gotta trail off with some smart assisms.

It looks like the band had a good time here. It seems like they get surprised by the audience hootin and hollerin at strange intervals but they never skip a beat. I love how Yaqui starts barking in time to that last song. It's hard to tell from the vid but it seems like the mohawk dude might be instigating it? I wouldn't be surprised. Would you?

I sure miss the people I’m seeing in these vids. Maybe they feel the same? Who knows?

Show @ Sir Patrick Haus vid

2011-01-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

We had a kick ass house on Sir Patrick Avenue back in the late 90’s early 2000's. At one time we were the best venue in Vegas not counting that shithole the Cooler Lounge. Which I guess was an “official” venue.

In all honesty I think we only had a handful of shows there. This was the only show I videotaped at that house. The main band that night was a group from Austin Texas named Knife In the Water.

I lived at the Sir Patrick house with Checko Salgado. He's always been plugged in to all kinds of underground bands and obscure scenes and so he set up this show being that he was a huge fan of Knife in the Water. The band featured here was on tour with them but somehow no one I’ve talked to can remember their name. If you know the name of this band let me know. I haven’t got a clue.

Again the tape was somewhat damaged and the footage here has a few defects. A few jumpy stop/starts. But the sound and image overall isn’t too bad. Just thought I’d get it out there to the few people out there who may find this interesting. From the video it looks like the average 8 to 10 people were in attendance. That was a good night for Vegas underground rock circa 2000.

The footage of Knife in The Water is in bad shape. I’ll try and transfer it again some time because my first effort was a shambles of jump cuts and fucked up audio synching issues. If I can salvage it I’ll post it here in the future. If I can’t salvage it then fuck it.

For now enjoy this cool band playing to some of my buddies in my old house which was bulldozed by the McCarren Airport.

If you really want to you can download this clip here.

Disgruntl 2nd 7"

2011-01-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

Corny is a sweetheart. I always liked that guy. Even when he was going through his crack phase I still thought he was cool and a damn fine bass player with a traditional hardcore but by all means brutal style. I saw him a few years ago when he and Larry Brough came through Portland to see Mastodon play at Roseland. They had an extra ticket and they hooked me up. He was off the drugs and thankfully no longer going out with that psycho blonde chick. She sucked.

I even thought Zack the drummer was a nice enough guy. Actually I always thought he was pretty cool because he’s one of the few people in the “scene” who came up to me and was immediately friendly when I first met him. Although I must add he was a bit of a crackhead too.

I still remember seeing Zack's picture on KLAS TV8 news when they reported how he was wanted for questioning in regards to allegations that he was masterminding a phone sales pyramid scheme. He didn't seem savy enough to pull such a d-bag maneuver but when we asked him about it he mentioned how the job seemed a bit shady but he just worked there. He couldn't understand how he was being made out to look like one of the bosses. Apparently the bosses were scamming everyone and then blaming the employees. I’m not sure what happened with that whole situation. Come to think of it I have not seen him in person since all that shit went down. Maybe he’s still underground trying to beat that phoney rap? Goes to show you having a job sucks.

Of all the shady characters in this band the winner and d-bag of the century award goes to Eric Z! Now it’s uncool to slag people in print or online. It makes me look like an asshole just as much as it makes the aforementioned look like the asshole. Maybe it makes me look even worse? The person in question can’t defend themselves and so I'm just a whiney cry baby right?

I have to make an exception in Eric Z’s case. He’s such a cockbag if he somehow found his way to this blog and managed to read any of it he’d more than likely laugh hysterically because he’s such a piece of shit. I know that sounds rough huh?

Story #1

Party at my parents house. Everyone is invited. We had a BBQ. We had a few cases of beer. It didn’t get out of hand. No more than a dozen people maybe more.

Nobody had any weed. What the fuck? How we gonna call this a party with no weed? Well Eric Z shows up and guess what? He has a bag on him. A bag for sale that is. I felt an obligation as the host to provide the party favors. Plus I just wanted to get high. I remember GT pulling me to the side telling me not to do it. Did I listen?

I was strapped for cash and asked EZ to front the bag to me. He graciously accepted. After smoking more than half the bag the party realized it tasted like weed, it smelled of weed. It wasn’t weed. Not the kind that gets you high anyway. I couldn’t believe the audacity of the guy to sit there and partake in a quarter ounce of weed even though he knew it wasn’t gonna get anyone off. We smoked the whole thing during the party and no kind of buzz could be detected from anyone present.

Party’s over. Two days go by. Guess who calls up to get the $40 I owe him for the phony weed. Never before had he called me and it turned out he never called me again as long as I knew him. What an asshole. Well business is business. Only dopes use dope so I’m the idiot in that story.

Story # 2

We had been looking forward to seeing Men’s Recovery Project play at the record store for months! No good bands ever come through Las Vegas! Part of that reason might be because of dumb asses like EZ?

I videotaped the show. It might be the best live footage of MRP ever put to tape. I even sent copies to Sam McPheeters. He was stoked to see it. I'm hoping he downloaded it from this blog.

One thing you won’t see in that footage is the fight Eric Z got into while watching the show. The show almost ended all because of fucking dick cheese. If you watch the vid you can even see the store owner take the microphone and try and reason with Eric Z to stop fucking slam dancing so everyone can appreciate the band. It’s Men’s Recovery Project for Christ sakes not DRI.

When the fighting started I pointed the camera away so as not to encourage the stupid mother fucker. Anyway there’s that story.

Story #3

My band Part-Time Whore played a show at a crappy practice space in the middle of town. I forget the name of the spot. We played with Word Salad, Damad, Disgruntl,and some other group whose name escapes me. Disgruntl played first. I told Eric Z that Part-Time Whore would play a short set and Disgruntl should do the same to ensure all that all the touring bands would get to play. It was out of respect to Word Salad who got bumped the last time they were in town. So Disgruntl went ahead and played for about 45 minutes. Which is a long time for a hardcore band to play mind you.

As was the norm for shows at that time there was almost nobody there, just the bands and a few diehards. Somehow these kids from Arizona found a flyer for the show. They showed up just as Disgruntl started. They were young and bouncing around but they weren’t tough guys. They danced to Disgruntl and kept asking “What’s up with Vegas?” “Don’t you guys dance?” “Let’s have a good time” Good natured stuff. They were just kids.

Disgruntl eventually begins to wind down their set when suddenly Eric Z has a problem with his guitar. He takes it off and throws it on the ground into the pit and flips it off. Because that’s the kind of theatrical guy he is. From where I was standing it looked like he fucked up the neck on his guitar pretty good by throwing it to the ground. It surprised me even more when one of the kids picked it up and started smashing it. It was already fucked up so what difference could this make. Well you can imagine.

Eric punched the top of the kids head and stormed off. The kids weren’t sure how to react and didn’t dance the rest of the night. That kinda sucked. But at least no one got hurt except that bullshit guitar.

Maybe I shouldn’t share these awful stories. It seemed like the underground was filled with these stories from back in the day. It’s gotta be the drugs that made so many assholes crawl through the Vegas scene. And it wasn’t just EZ’s fault. Although usually it was. Just gross. It makes me hate punk rock and it’s clichés all the more.

It’s also a testament to how much shit we put up with from our friends back then. Come to think of it I never considered him a friend he was just one of the few who hung out regularly back then. Everyone complained about what a dip shit he was but no one ever did anything about it. Really what could you do? Maybe the fact that there were so few of us who went to shows we were willing to turn a blind eye? But like I mentioned Eric Z wasn’t the only prick in the gang. I heard more than a few stories and went to more than a few West Side shows which ended up with people lying on their backs with knives in their stomachs. Or worse.

And there were scores of junkies back then who would shit on you the first opportunity you weren’t looking. I’ve romanticized my drug use plenty of times on this blog but the truth is drugs are a fucking cowards way to hide too much of the time. Maybe all the time? I include myself among those cringing numbers.

Of course these stories detract from the matter at hand. The second Disgruntl 7” record! I’ve wondered for the last year whether I should post these songs here. I think the record is good. It's worth hearing again. But you decide.

I might not be chomping at the bit to hear it too often but I think it’s a good record worthy of being heard in the digital age. If nothing else because Corny and Zack are cool guys. But Jesus Christ it’s way too fucking long. Kind of like the hour long sets they would play. What the fuck man it’s a 7” record and it clocks in at over 12 minutes.

The music. Super competent, brutish, blazing fast hardcore that would stand toe to toe with the Ebola (UK) 7” which was making the rounds at the time. In fact it’s a dead ringer for Ebola. If you are a fan of that late 90’s furious hardcore you will eat this with a spoon. It's a little too tough guy for my taste. I can imagine elbows swinging in the pit when this stuff is being played. It does the job though. I’m a big fan of Song #2 on the Greed Side. That will always be the signature Disgruntl song to me. I saw them play at least a half dozen times and that song was always my favorite part of their set.

The Achilles heel? Obviously it’s the lyrics. I got no lyric sheet with my record. I have to assume it’s because the lyrics are not a dissertation on… well much of anything. My record didn’t even come with a track listing showing the names for any of the 7 songs on here.

Brutal. Dark. Desperate. In need of a buzz. Any kind you got. Which is what they were going for anyway. This falls in the category of inebriated hardcore for the uneducated. Similar in tone to Dead 27 if not delivery. I suppose I give them points for the fact that they somehow got it together to record these songs and press them on a record considering the state of intoxication they lived in. But y'know it's not like they were drunk or anything. Come to think of it they were probably drunk too.

It’s a slippery slope. It’s this lowest common denominator shit that makes me retch when confronted with todays “punk aesthetic.” Still I think there’s value in this record and I like it although it ultimately leaves me thinking if you don't have anything to say why do you say it so loudly?

I really wish I had the demo from the next band Corny fronted named H P Lori. That band seemed to have more on the ball. I will say Disgruntl could be a solid live band. I just wish they would play a 20 minute set. I also need to mention that this was one of the first releases on Panic Inc. Records and a split release with Meat Slap records. If that means anything.

I knew it would be a challenge to try and write something positive for this post but look what I have to work with. I guess you could see this as the other side of the coin after the glowing post I gave to Catapult. I also need to mention that while I was in the midst of composing this I came across a post from Zack that caught me off guard.

I’m not too computer savvy but is Zack really trying to sell these songs that are not his? Maybe I’m wrong. Why did I even bother posting this? Oh forget it.

Download Disgruntl unnamed 7” (They didn’t even bother naming the record and there are no names for the songs)

Greed Side

1. Song 1

2. Song 2

3. Song 3
Lust Side

4. Song 4

5. Song 5

6. Song 6

7. Song 7

hi nternet.

2011-01-11T01:12:00.000-08:00

Keep Laughing has been hacked and while I changed my password it might only be a matter of time before someone comes in again and wrecks things.

If you try and share something positive and productive from your life its inevitable that someone will come along and piss all over it. I can't let it bother me since I was expecting something like this to happen eventually anyway. For all the benefits the internet brings it's still a faceless void of lonely people with time on their hands and sometimes bitterness in their hearts.

Just a warning. If Keep Laughing disappears all together then you might have an idea as to why.

Catapult- Just Another Band Outta Vegas... 7"

2011-01-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

Catapult was a true Vegas original. They were probably the most musical of the underground bands in the late 90’s. Musical meaning they were technically proficient and good writers to boot. Although this album shows their prowess as arrangers more than anything else.

They were on quite a few records back then. Let’s see there was the Leap Frog Society split 7”, they were on the Very Small Drinking Compilation, and they had some smokin’ tracks on the Bucky Records Blue Whale compilation which I remember liking quite a bit. Haven't heard those songs in years. They also put out at least two demo tapes if I remember correctly. That first demo is phenomenal! Haven't heard those songs in years either. Hopefully I'll get to hear em again in the future.

This record finds Catapult mining the same territory that a lot of underground bands were digging out come the mid 90’s. Namely re-recording classic rock tracks and putting a little pepper on em. The band Sick and Tired did a record of Kenny Rogers covers which was fucking amazing. One Eye Open did a bunch of TV theme songs. And the pinnacle, or maybe it was the album that started that trend, was the release of the Tumors record by the band Schlong which was their re-working of the Rumors album by Fleetwood Mac whittled down to about 6 minutes. In my opinion that was the best record to come out of the 90’s. I ain't fuckin kiddin.

This record came out on Schlong’s Bun Length Records. Maybe that’s why you never heard it? As incredible as Schlong were they weren’t the best at promoting and maintaining a record label. It took me 7 years before I even heard the Guano Starfighter record! Really how many musicians are good at releasing records? Very few. So yeah this record might have got lost in the shuffle to a lot of people. Now here’s your chance to let one rip!

This 7 inch has a lot of staples from Catapults live set at that time. I love Boston. I mean the band. Fuck the city. The material should be familiar if you live in America. Unless you live in a cave or a hippie commune or you're under 30 years old. If that's the case what are you doing here?

Catapult had the chops to chop this stuff up and make it something new. A cool record to kick off the new year. Born in the 70’s re-imagined in the 90’s re-gifted in the 10’s.

Download: Catapult- Just Another Band Outta Vegas below

1. Foreplay/More Than a Feeling

2. Rock n Roll Band

3. Smokin'

Part-Time Whore "Home" LP

2010-12-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

This post is for Nate the guitar player for Part-Time Whore. I posted the PTW demo a few months ago. Here are the recordings for what became known as PTW’s proper debut release. The album entitled Home was “commercially” released as a vinyl LP pressing only. No CD's were ever pressed. The mp3’s here are taken from the CD master we sent to the record pressing plant when it was originally released in 1999.

When I say it was “commercially” released I mean we put it out on our own label guaranteeing it would rarely if ever be heard or seen outside the Las Vegas valley. I think if we'd ever got around to touring on this record we might have caused an underground ripple but that wasn't to be. We only pressed 500 copies and I’ve still got like 5 or 10 copies sitting in my parents house. Which is a pretty good distribution for a DIY release. Sadly enough.

There are so many stories I could share about my experiences with this group. As far as live shows went we must have played only about 2 or 3 dozen shows in our entire 2 years together. Somehow all the big shows we played were disastrous. But when we played to a house full of 10 or 15 people we were like thunder! Although I do remember playing a big show with the Hellworms and their bass player remarked at how tight he thought we sounded. Which meant a lot coming from him as he was the bass player for Victim’s Family.

There was a riot at our first show. No joke. We played some shitty rehearsal hall run by the glam rock idiot from Bangkok Shock. But it wasn't through the power of our music. Instead that ugly glam bastard kept hitting on every girl in the place until finally someone punched him two songs into our set. I couldn't see much from the stage but I want to say he was assaulted by a few people in the audience. Anyway the Cock Bangin Bangkok Cock Mock Shock Jock guy rushes to the stage after getting punched and starts flicking his taser which basically cleared the room. I heard later that someone eye gouged the Bang Cocker I don't know if that's true. We hurriedly packed up our shit and got ready to leave. As we loaded the van someone threw a rock through a huge expensive window for the hall. It felt great hearing that sound after what that idiot did. And it was a great start to our “career.”

We played with a bunch of different touring bands including Damad, Word Salad, Hellworms, Quadiliacha, 12 Hour Turn, shit there were several more. Next time I visit my folks I’ll grab all the flyers I made for those shows and post them here if they haven't already thrown them out.

Part-Time Whore was made up of an odd mix of personalities who added up to a unique band. Everyone had their own musical tastes and agendas for being in the band and none of it seemed to overlap. When we finally got it together it was a clash of styles based on compromises staked out along lines of musical tastes, talent, or lack thereof, and passion.

It’s easy for me to toot the horn for PTW now but when we were together it was often a volatile mix. I would be hard pressed to say we were a close knit group. We were friendly but we were partners in crime more than friends. There was laughter but tension was just as much a part of the mix. As a result it was mostly business that kept us together and so our work ethic was really solid.

Nate had just come from uber LV punk combo Boba Fett Youth. Rob the drummer for PTW was also a fill in drummer for the last stint of BFY’s last tour. Judd the bass player was in other bands previous to PTW but I couldn’t say much about him as he never seemed to say much himself.

After Boba Fett Youth Nate and Rob were eager to go in a more commercial direction with this new project. They wanted a vocalist who would really sing. I dare say they looked with some interest to the mainstream music happening at the time. When I joined I more or less torpedoed their ambitions to be closer to the mainstream mostly through my vocal abilities. Or lack thereof. I wanted to be a real vocalist as well and I didn't want to be boxed in to a certain style. It was mainly a question of finding out how to sing. More than anything it was important to me that people understood what I had to say. That's one of the few things we as a band agreed on. It was my persistence showing up to each practice and making a serious effort and the fact that I kept those dudes entertained and laughing in the first few weeks of the band which turned the tide. Three weeks in I had officially joined up.

My vocals created an uneasy nervousness to the music the band was creating. I'd go so far as to say it barely fit the music at all! It was a strange combo which made the listener curious as to what the fuck was going on. We had our pop moments but we didn't have hooks in the traditional sense. As for my own ambitions I hoped to border on a commercial sound of some sort just like what the rest of the guys but I didn't want to follow the blueprint of "alternative" crap nor did I want to sound like the bullshit the underground was churning out at that time.

It was a crappy time for music back then. In 1998 Nu Metal was king on the radio. Death Metal had dug it's own grave full of cliches. Hardcore was still festering and splintering into even more nonsense genrefications. Nobody could explain what it was but Emo seemed to be sprouting from hardcores manure stench. We didn't fit into any of these camps. So we knew we were doing something right.

   I’ll never claim to be the best singer but just like Ozzy Osbourne I rose to the challenge of being a damned good front man. For live shows I made a point of composing and reading a new poem for each and every show. I made it a point to try and break the wall between audience and performer and I actively shook hands with anyone who was watching. I tried my best to make the shows memorable events. We were confrontational and totally in your face. And yet we were friendly about it. In the beginning I think the idea of hand shaking was a tactic to deal with my own nervousness about being in front of people. It was my intent to shift the focus from my self back to the audience. Later on I think this actually helped our audience identify more with us and maybe made them like us more.

   It's really fucking hard to get people to give a shit about your band. Over the next few months we slowly made some in roads. We recorded the demo. We practiced 3 times a week. We got better. We started getting noticed. But internally things got weird. We all got along on the surface but when we would talk about what the band's direction there were disagreements that kinda blindsided me.

   There were arguments about my poetry, about my shaking hands with the audience, about my abilities as a singer. There were veiled threats about finding a new singer. There was pressure to write lyrics for every song. Even if some songs worked better as instrumentals (Giant Slug). In short there was a line going up between those who made the music, namely Nate, and the one guy who stepped in to take the music somewhere else once the music had been written. Me.

At that point I felt like I became the whipping boy for the group. Internal politics became a part of each practice along with writing new songs. And I didn't have much to stand on. Because I really was just the singer. I thought it was obvious that my role was just as important as anyone else in the band. Instead I became the person who needed to try harder. Nate was the instigator and the other guys were quick to follow suit. At that point we were going in a great direction. I thought about quitting. But I wanted it so bad and we'd developed such momentum. I couldn't quit now.

I’m not trying to paint the picture of me as the victim and those guys as tormentors. I am not the easiest person to get along with. It was only after these initial heated moments that I think we all began to understand the dynamic tensions within the group was what made us so original. If not for that friction between me and the group we would never have made the incredible musical statement that we did. While it worked on many levels it was also dysfunctional and that would later prove to be our undoing.

It irked me even more when I did the lion’s share of the booking for every show. I made flyers that weren’t good enough. I wrote a grant to release the album through the Nevada Arts Council. Which strangely pissed them off. They were against the idea of putting out a record. They wanted to put out a CD. They hated the idea that the record was considered a work of “art.” They hated the idea that we could be considered an “art” band through the writing of the grant.

At the time I was really proud of the “art” moniker and I thought we were scoring one for the under appreciated world of rock music but I think they saw it as me getting more credit than I deserved. I hate to speculate that this was the case. It's also possible they were just disgusted by the pretentious world of art and didn't want to be associated with it. I thought it was sexy at the time especially a fucked up ensemble named Part-Time Whore kicking down doors. Maybe it was a bit of both that pissed them off?

As history unfolded it’s unavoidable to discuss this album without making mention of the A word. I can’t deny the appeal the concept of “art” always had for me up til that point. I did creative stuff and had romantic notions of being an "artist" even if I didn't know what that meant.

It was never that big of a leap for me to believe that putting out records by underground bands was an artistic pursuit. I had been inspired for years by the work of Very Small and Bucky Records. Their output was art to me. The music was creative and cutting edge. The artwork on the sleeves was inspired. The fact that they released only vinyl records was a statement unto itself.

Putting that grant together I found that if you can convince yourself what you are doing is art then you can convince anyone. With that in mind I wrote a received a grant from the Nevada Arts Council for $800 to release Home as an LP. We christened the label Battle Born Records since half the money came from Nevada.

Greg Telles and my brother Mark screen printed all 500 of the covers. I spent months creating the lyric sheet which was printed inside the record sleeve. The first 200 were printed with black ink. The last 300 had green ink. I asked several friends to submit artwork and the drummer Rob, Karl Jessen and Matt the Fuck Bowker made great drawings. I became pen pals with Dierdre Luzwick. Her work is amazing. She wrote back and granted us permission to use some of her charcoal drawings.

We played a great record release show at the Café Espresso Roma. We played the first Zinecon. We sold or gave away most of the records. The triumphs we achieved were genius and something I will never forget.

But the strain between me and the rest of the band couldn't last much longer. When I think about it now I can see it as a power struggle between Nate and I. Which I can understand to a certain degree. They, more like he, would write the music and I would have the last say as to what the songs would mean. That had to be an uneasy union for Nate to deal with. But he never came out and told me he didn't like my lyrics which were the cornerstone of what I was contributing. Since I was making a concerted effort to make the lyrics understandable it was important that they be intelligent lyrics so i didn't look like an asshole. Instead he took issue with my delivery and the theatrical trappings I was bringing to the live show. Things which seemed to be helping the band more than hurting. It got confusing.

Nate wrote all the music and the band was obviously his. No one else wrote the music although we all collaborated. The band would always see me as the new guy. Not just the new guy but perhaps the least important member of the band? That was certainly how I was treated. Even though outside of actually making the music I was responsible for many things including opening myself up to the world through my lyrics, booking every show, getting money from outside the band to press a record, handling the creation of the record... I'm looking like an asshole to beat this into the ground. As you can see things would eventually come to a head and since I was the vociferous one with a microphone it had to come from my big mouth.

We were scheduled to play a show at this comic book store on Flamingo. We had just released our record a few weeks before. We were riding high and I was full of myself. I had the worst attitude ever. I can see now the release of the record marked the beginning of the end. The record was done.

It all rose to the surface. I would always talk at length on stage. If it wasn't poetry it was describing the context of songs. I never censored myself. That night I had a grudge. I got on the microphone and bad mouthed another local band. Something we all agreed I’d never do. I did that intentionally to piss the guys off. Plus I just hated that other local group. I bad mouthed Star Wars. Which was directed with venom to Nate who considered Star Wars a religion. I talked an incredible amount of shit in front of dozens of people. I couldn't have been more foul, ignorant, or disrespectful.

This all happened while they guys were setting up. As we went into the first song I realized how stupid I sounded. How much the rock star I was acting. I really fucking blew it. It was already too late when I realized how wrong I had been. We got through the set. Nate freaked out and we got into a huge argument on stage. We basically broke up in front of the biggest audience we’d ever played to.

   It should have ended there. In front of a crowd of people with me and Nate choking each other to death. Ok I'm overly dramatic but I gotta say it came close to that for me.

   Somehow weeks later we got back together. I don't remember the exact words that were said but staying true to the disfunction I assumed all blame. How could I not? I shouldn't have exploded in front of a crowd. But my arguments were pointless against a group who could never validate my point of view. I was the outsider. And when I think about it now I say perhaps that was the only way for me to be heard within the group?

   With so much work invested we all felt it was wrong to throw it away. Just like I'd felt after the first round of arguments developed. But it was an uneasy truce that wouldn't continue for long.

We limped along. We played a few more shows. Judd took a trip to Europe. We got my friend Drew to fill in. This brought even more allusions to the balance of power that was ripping the band apart. And then it just ended. I never went back to see if they were practicing. They never called to ask if I was on my way over. Instead Part-Time Whore ended silently with a whimper instead of with guns blazing, drama, and fury that it should have been.

This project was over in my mind. Although we had a handful of great new songs which again broadened our style. I don't know if I would have come back if they'd asked me. Maybe I would have? I can't say for sure ten years later. The record was done and so was the artistic statement. I made moves to go onto the next project. Which became Free Radio Las Vegas, later N.O.T.B.A.D. I wonder to this day if my "artistic" pursuits since Part-Time Whore have been valid, meaningful, or even worthy of me dedicating so much of my life to them. Since I continue to do them I guess my answer is yes. At least that's how I feel about it today as I write this here.

It was a year later that Rob got in touch with me to inform me that the group actually did continue without me. It turns out my fears were not without foundation. They did see me as the least important person in the band. I was replaceable. I still wanted to show them I supported them so I offered to help them record their new band. While we were able to lay down a few tracks the tensions again proved to be too great and they never returned to mix the results down.

There were never any hard feelings afterward and I like to think I remained friends with Nate and Rob even if we rarely spoke. I was always closest with Rob and we're still in touch today. I'm still in touch with Nate as well. Judd was always a distant person. I'm not sure what happened to him over the years.

The Part-Time Whore story doesn’t end there. Sometime later the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno got in touch with me and asked if I’d like to submit a work of art for their Nevada Now Touring Exhibit Initiative. I said fuck yeah. In 2002-03 the record got the tour it truly deserved and finally the record did leave the Las Vegas valley. The Part-Time Whore record was framed and a CD of the music was played on display in museums all over Nevada including Winnemucca, Pioche, and Goldfield! As big time as you can get in Nevada.

It toured the state for two years. The citizens of Panaca and Ely must have thought that shit came from another planet. As a result I started a myspace page so people could hear the songs if they stumbled upon it at a museum. I forgot the password and the email to that myspace account so it'll probably go away sometime in the near future. At least this blog post will serve as an internet reminder of what that group did. And that group did a lot.

I’m sure I seem like a cry baby telling this story the way I have. But I don’t know how else to tell it. If we weren’t battling it out in that practice space in the way we did then there’s a good chance Part-Time Whore would have sounded like any number of shitty NoFX/Green Day/Engage clones or god knows what other kind of shit making the rounds in 1998. That’s not fair. Nate is an incredible song writer/composer. Anything he would have made without my input would have sounded unique. I’m just glad we were able to collaborate on something which doesn’t sound too dated to these 2010 ears. I learned a lot from him. I hope he is as proud of this record as I am. And it's my hope that he doesn't think I'm an asshole for sharing those experiences, warts and all, here.

Since this story is told entirely from my own point of view I think it might do somewhat of a disservice to the whole Part-Time Whore story. With ten years of hindsight this is the picture that comes to my mind. I think the other guys would agree with me at least up to a point. I can only share what I learned and once again mention that I am forever grateful to Nathan for letting me join his band.

Some notes on the sound. Keep in mind this is not a major label recording. The sound and representation of some songs leave a little to be desired. I posted the demo a few months ago because I thought we nailed some songs performancewise on the demo even though that demo was even more lo-fi than this record turned out. This was recorded on an 8-track cassette. So it's not gonna blow your speakers.

It's not a concept record but from an aesthetic point of view we tied the record together by adding sounds and audio collage which would give it a concept feel. I'm glad to say that everyone in the band thought this was a good idea at the time. The inclusion of these sounds was an unusual step for a band at that time. Sure there were a million bands mining movies or TV for samples on their records but none that I know of who did their own recording of sounds to produce a cinematic storytelling vibe. The record has more personality as a result and I think it makes it more of an experience rather than just being another collection of songs.

   I wrote all the lyrics. So I gotta say something about them. As mentioned in the demo post it was important that I bring something substantial to the table since I didn’t play an instrument. Plus I didn't want to look like a jack ass screaming about some shit I didn't actually feel strongly about. I'm obviously not on the level of Bob Dylan but I’m proud of what I wrote for this band. Looking back I still live by the words written in the song This Is It.

   I never tried to make politics a centerpiece to PTW although it's easy to see an agenda with a song like Outside of Town. But who in their right mind thinks a Nuclear Waster Repository at Yucca Mountain is a good idea? Only a politician I guess.

   Even though it's a bit heavy handed Communication Is a Weapon seems more philosphical to me rather than being overtly political. But what's the difference anyway? All these words stem from personal experience which I think make them more real.

I cringe when I think of the stupidity and naivete of Ultimately It's All About Fucking but I think it was worth it to try and do something completely different from what was happening in the underground at the time. In one of the few reviews written on this record this song was picked out as being different and somewhat daring. So yeah I think it was worth the embarrassment even all these years later.

Will I ever be in a band again? I’ll never say never. For all the grief and drama it meant the world to me to stand up against the world with those guys. I’ve missed that feeling of camaraderie ever since. No matter what our differences might have been off stage when we were on stage it was us against the world. I've never been able to duplicate that chemistry, and honestly I’ve tried to make it happen two times since Part-Time Whore broke up. Neither project held a candle to what we did and I quit shortly thereafter or was kicked out before anything could be recorded from either of those groups.

I’m am happy that Nate has taken up the mantle again with his new band Elements of Now. His talent deserves to shine again. I wish him only the best and I thank him for making Part-Time Whore such a memorable band.

Download Part-Time Whore "Home" LP

1. It Is To Laugh
2. This Is It! (The Song That Should Have Changed the World)
3. interlude
4. I Haven't Got the Courage To Care
5. If Only...
6. Communication Is A Weapon
7. You (Whoever That May Be)
8. Outside of Town
9. interlude #2
10. Kevin Kidd
11. Ultimately It's All About Fucking
12. Technocracy
13. Giant Slug

I am not the most computer savvy guy in the world. I am including two pdf files of the lyric sheet because I obviously feel the lyrics are an important part of what the band did. I have not gone into a lot of detail on what these lyrics meant to me here because I did enough of that shit with the PTW demo post and because I did enough of that shit on the lyric sheet which was printed at great cost on the inside sleeve of the record.

The jpeg of the lyrics posted above isn't the best quality. That's why I'm hoping you'll download the lyric sheet and give it a closer inspection. The files are rather big. If you know of a way to shrink these files which will still make them readable please let me know. I also have a Photoshop file of the lyrics if you have a way of reducing their size while maintaining readable quality. Thanks for reading.

PTW Home Lyric sleeve side ONE

PTW Home Lyric sleeve side TWO

I have no video or photographs of Part-Time Whore. If you have video of us playing please share it with me.

Keep Laughing One Year Anniversary

2010-12-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

Another year down the tubes. And I find myself here. I challenged myself to keep this boat floating for a whole year and I stuck to it somehow squeaking by with a post for every month in the last year. It’s not all genius in fact many would argue the opposite. I’ve even come clean admitting that I go back and edit posts well after publishing. I admit writing is my weakest link. But I can see I'm getting better and I know it's through my efforts with this blog.

It has become somewhat difficult these last few months. My enthusiasm waned. I questioned why I’m doing it. I beat myself up over it. I patted myself on the back. I ran through the whole gamut of emotions. I’m glad I made it a whole year.

What have I learned so far from this project? Did you learn anything? What does the future hold for KL? All fair questions.

I thought I’d be more engaged in writing through this blog but I have to admit it’s become more of a media outlet than anything else. Every single post has included a download or link to some relevant information which relates to the writing and I’m convinced that few if any are reading the words. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. Maybe this was the point of the whole endeavor anyway? To get these pieces of media out there for the world. From there the public will decide if they want to experience them. But it’s more than that. Especially when you consider the musical side of what this blog has tried to “archive.”

History is a strange thing. We are living it everyday. Some days I wish I’d kept a journal. There are so many memories I’ll never be able to trigger again. It makes me sad when I think about it. Like so many others I can’t be bothered. This blog has become a launching pad for me to try and retrieve those pieces of the past that are easily walked over as we move forward everyday.

While I’ve gone through some steps to try and carve out a “mission statement” I’ve by and large kept KL loose and flexible because honestly I’m figuring it out as I go. Looking back it’s easy to see two distinct motivations behind the blog. So in the interest of making things clear for myself I will declare:

KL is a vehicle to spur a dialogue to make available, archive, and preserve historic music that cannot be found online. The focus has mainly been recordings made by Las Vegas musicians from the 80’s and 90’s. But I’m also interested in any audio or video from Las Vegas, NV over the last 30 years.

Also KL is a medium for me to publish my own creative endeavors including films, animations, photographs, drawings, and writings.

I never wanted to be the authority figure on Las Vegas underground music. It just pissed me off that I couldn’t find the Fuck Shit Piss “Seven Song Demo” anywhere on the world wide fucking web. There’s a million and one blogs out there devoted to the crappiest crust bands ever created. You can find any jazz song recorded between 1930 and 1973. But if you want to hear Substance D you are shit out of luck because everyone who had that demo threw it away back in 1995?

It was my sincere hope that others might see what I’m doing and perhaps make some of those artifacts available for me, and the world, to hear again. Some people have stepped up. Are others close behind?

A few people have come forward telling me about the buckets of demos they have. Some have even mentioned sending me copies so I can make them available here. So far all those people have flaked. I won’t name names and bitch them out but I will let you know that my supply of local LV demos is dwindling. This part of Keep Laughing may well be falling off the map in the next few months. I still have a few records I’m considering making available here but we’ll see how it goes.

Once again I will post my wish list here in the hopes that someone out there still has these demos and can make them available to me as either mp3 files or as a hard cassette copy from which I will make mp3 files. If you have access to any of these audio treasures please get in touch.

Substance D -demo

Catapult- First demo

Foot Long -Demo

Hairball/Forehead -split demo

Disrupt- demo

Nice Sucks- demo

Blue Ruin- demo

Generics- LP? EP?

OI ALTO- demo

Lady- Vicki Campbell demo

Propeller- demo

Organic- 7” & CD

Area 51- demo

System Rejects- demo

Sampson’s Army- LP

Any recordings of KUNV’s Rock Avenue

Any recordings of Fuck Shit Piss on KUNV

Recordings of the Hardcore Show on KUNV

Recordings of Lunch w/ PMRC on KUNV

There are many many recordings I am forgetting I’m sure of it. This is just the ones coming to mind today. If you have access to these recordings please make them available before you die and your stuff gets thrown in a trashcan and hauled out to the LV dump.

Other things I’ve learned from KL in the last year? I admit it’s a bit unusual for me to try and combine these efforts to archive and preserve history as well as showcasing my own work in film, music, and other arty bullshit expression. No one has come out and said they think it’s wrong for me to be doing it this way although someone did stop following KL after I published the photos of the flag I burned on top of Lava Butte.

Fuck em. It all goes back to my main motivation. I want to be a better writer. I write and create where the inspiration leads me and I won’t stray from it to please anyone. My writing is shining a light on a corner of the world that is fading away. If anyone has taken offense to the criticism I’ve written about a band they were in that existed 20 years ago I can’t apologize. If you want to set the record straight please write your own blog.

I see no problem mixing my artwork and perspective with this mission of preserving history. I follow a long line of obscurity that will never be pushed over into the mainstream. Putting it all together in one lump on the internet only makes sense as I am more and more aware. My worldview, expression, and history only has meaning to a few dozen people. If that. But it’s important to those few people. They're told me how important it is. So KL will continue into 2011.

Just the fact that I’m making available music from such disparate scenes as 5150 and Civic Minded 5 is a strange brew unto itself. The only thread between those two besides Las Vegas locality is the fact that I saw them and understood why they’re both important.

This is all of the top of my head here December 14, 2010. It’s bullshit that I would go back and edit these posts I know. Eventually I’ll get to the point where I’ll have several articles being written concurrently so that my edits will be happening prior to posting them for the world to see. I’m learning. I hope you are too.

On a side note. I haven’t mentioned this but I am currently running for Vice President of the Union for which I am a member. This union being IATSE Local 28 the Stagehands Union based in Portland, Oregon. I mention this in closing for two reasons. I wrote a great deal of material in my campaign for which I am most proud. The year I've spent writing for this blog has helped me immensely in composing that campaign material. If you are curious check it out.

Secondly. I find out the outcome of that election today. I haven’t been nervous the whole time of this campaign. But today my nerves are wracked. Thankfully this blog and what I’ve written just now has calmed my nerves a bit. Wish me luck.

Thanks for supporting Keep Laughing in this the first year. Can another full year of laughter follow? Only time will tell.

I made the above stop motion video last night in honor of KL’s anniversary. I was hoping to add audio but once again I'll go back and edit it later.

Civic Minded 5 demo

2010-11-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

Civic Minded 5 were one of the best local bands in Vegas towards the end of the 90’s. They were contemporaries of Part-Time Whore and we played with them a handful of times. They were a good counterpoint to what we were doing. While PTW was all overblown trying to be intelligent and arty CM5 were just balls out party attack. Words and concepts weren't as important as the feeling. Perfect example is the song Chicken Gender. That song doesn't make a lick of sense and it fuckin rules.

Jason was the first guy I met from CM5. He described their sound as pop punk which by and large is true, but this ain’t no bubblegum shit. There are harmonies, but the vocals are gravelly and snotty pushing it into more punk rather than pop territory. Some of these songs even border on the Filth sound where feedback and growls abound. The first song on this demo is some searing hardcore. Blistering really. Still I'm willing to bet every song on this demo will stay in your head the rest of the week after one listen. It’s catchy but I hear equal amounts of aggression and goofiness. It strikes a good balance which I think is a hard thing to pull off in the cookie cutter world of pop punk.

I saw them at least a half dozen times. They were usually pretty solid live although they had a problem keeping drummers. I don’t know who the drummer was for this recording but the usual cast of characters are present. That being Billy Venom on bass, Lazer Lavin on guitar, and Jason on the other guitar. It seems like Jason should have had a flashy nickname but I don’t think he ever did.

The cover tells you little aside from the fact that it was recorded at A-Able Mini Storage by Shimono in August of 1998. I forget the significance of the Manatee. They eat a lot. I forget the significance of the name Civic Minded 5 as well especially considering they were always a four piece.

This is from their split demotape with Cobra Versus Mongoose. Civic Minded 5 later released a record on Recess Records. I think some of these songs re-surfaced on that record which was a solid release as I recall. I'm digging the versions heard here. Raw and lo-fi. Just like how they sounded live.

They were a fun band. I miss em. I’m out of the loop and don’t know if they’re still together or not. Here’s to Civic Minded 5. I'm sure they're probably drinking right now. I know I am.

Glad these songs are stuck in my head again. Maybe I’ll try and add more commentary later? This might be a good time to confess that I go back and edit all the text from these posts well after the fact. Forgive me. At least I’m becoming a better writer now right?

Download Civic Minded 5 demo below
1. Bugman
2. Daze
3. Chicken Gender
4. Wooly

East Side Ride

2010-11-09T22:55:00.000-08:00

   This video was shot in 2001. It's nothing to write home about just a short drive from the UNLV area to the Sunrise mountain area and back again. I think I went to Greg Telles' old house off Owens Ave. There aren't many people I know in that neighborhood anymore. Greg Stokey being the only one to come to mind. Best wishes to Stokey. Does Larry Jones live on Linn Lane now? That's a rumor I heard.

   Ten years ago they put a wall up on Hollywood Ave which completely blocks your view of the city as you're headed down Hollywood. Typical. This video shows a portion of the view we all enjoyed before the wall went up.

   It also shows a small bit of the Sir Patrick house I lived in near the airport. The airport bought the house we were renting and gave us $8,000 each to move away. Yeah. That was 2002. They tore down the whole neighborhood and didn't even have the decency to put up a parking lot. Not that I'm complaining. I wish a couple of grand would fall in my lap again. Come to think of it I'll probably play the lottery again this week.

Not much else to add here. This video is a mix of stop motion and live action. It's longer than it probably should be and the sound is awful but who gives a shit? Every picture tells a story. Here's a million stories coming from the Naked City.

Download East Side Ride here