South Bend Power Nineties

emiLy - riverrun CD (plus bonus tracks)

2011-07-22T15:43:00.027-05:00

The Backstory:

Doug: Thanks to Finer Time being distributed by Ebullition, we ended up getting in touch with a bunch of people over in Europe. I corresponded regularly with a couple of them, including a French guy by the name of Yann Dubois, who did a zine called Sanjam. In late 1995, he told me that he was starting a record label and wanted emiLy to record a CDEP as the first release*. We went to Miami Street studios and recorded 11 songs over Presidents Day weekend.

We had to cut the CD down to eight songs to meet the time restriction for Yann. Now and then someone made some noise about trying to put the remaining songs (or at least "Trinity" and "Mulberry") out as a 7-inch. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, now everyone can hear these songs!

The original cover design was made by cutting and pasting a photocopy of the first and last pages of Finnegans Wake together in order to position the word "riverrun" about 2/3rds of the way down the page. All the text except that word would be faded out and the band name would be positioned above it. I forget why the cover got changed, but I'm sure it had something to do with my utter inability to do things like color separations.

The live photo is from a show at the Crawlspace in Chicago.

Joe: The photo on the back of the lightbulb is from my bedroom at the Miner St house. The Miner Street house doesn't exist anymore.

I walked around the lot a few years ago (I was interviewing for a one-year job at St. Mary's) seeing if I could find any of my Legos that the neighbor kids played with on our stoop (and ground into the ground and scattered around the block). I didn't find any.

D: Speaking of Miner Street, I think all the songs on the CD were written in the summer of 1995, when the three of us were all living at that house, along with my friend Kevin from PA.

When we played at Prufrock, Kevin made a flyer for the show using photos he took the afternoon that we let the neighborhood kids come in and play my drums. I remember that a bunch of the kids had a good idea of what they were doing, but there was one little kid who started flailing so wildly that half of the other kids ran as if afraid of injury.

Joe: I hate to admit it, boys, but I think that I may have been emo. As a lyricist, riverrun marks the completion of my shift from charmingly strident punk rock incompetence to full-blown early 20's pretentiousness. For my next significant era as a songwriter -- undersexed, painfully earnest graduate student -- please see my late 90's and early 2000's offerings, The Intelligibles and Check Engine.

Fortunately for me, the music on riverrun isn't bad at all, and I can claim just enough of the credit for that that it almost redeems the lyrical belly lint.

D: While poking about online, I found the Maximum Rock & Roll review of riverrun, which I remember reading for the first time in Orbit Records. It's pretty damn good:

Hey, this band really gets props for originality. Mining a vein symmetrical to bands like Mission of Burma, Rites of Spring or Sideshow, these guys manage to report their message to the world in a completely personal and unique voice. At turns, their sound is grinding and transcendent, their vocals poetic yet direct. I'd love to see these songs in a live context. Get this if you're tired of being jaded and tired of what's hip.

The Songs:

1) riverrun

D: I wrote the drum part at the laundromat next to Bai Ju's. I had been listening to a lot of Universal Order of Armageddon at the time. The tin whistle solo at the beginning is the Irish folk song "Finnegan's Wake."

J: Doug's drum part on "riverrun" still sounds amazingly studly.

M: I'm pretty sure the "drum noodling" going on during the tin whistle intro was a clip of Doug sound checking the drums from the Finer Time recording sessions.

2) Atoms Are a Boy's Best Friend

J: "Atoms" works well as a song; Mike's bassline and the sweet sweet aggression with which he plays it is so very nice, as is the kappakappakappa drums on the chorus. One of the very few emiLy songs that I remember how to play.

M: Loved this song title the first time I heard it. When we finished this one, I felt we'd evolved from post-punk quite a bit - this just feels like a great rock song.

D: A frequent show opener. Love the couplet "Drowning in the broth thought to be bread / Drowning in the bread thought to be alive."

3) ayin

J: "Ayin" is like an awesome song and a crappy one locked in a battle for supremacy, making for a song that in the end can best be described as "way too damn long". "Ayin" is the Hebrew letter "O" which means both "eye" and "lust". I thought that was, like, totally deep, so I spent four minutes committing crimes against Rabelais about it.

M: Wait, I thought were done with post-punk. Nevermind. Will never get it out of my system.

4) Little Bit

J: "Little Bit" is some good ol' self-pity pop-punk about aimlessness and a girl. Nice.

D: For reasons beyond my recall, this song was also known as "Sex Cat, " which had something to do with one of Mike's family's cats.

M: Yes. Every time Josh said "sex cat" to our cat, she meowed. I have no idea.

5) A Boy and His

D: The name for this came from a catalog for Wow Cool, then a zine and comic distributor from Berkeley, CA. While trying to come up with a song title, I started stabbing my finger down at random spots on the page and reading out whatever was printed above the spot. This phrase was the first one that sounded good. In fact, I thought it sounded so good that I ended up using it as a zine name and an email handle.

The song has another one of my favorite emiLy lines: "We become more familiar with what we would destroy."

J: The guitar part on "A Boy and His" is one of my favorites, and the lyrics are simple and short enough that I almost didn't embarrass myself. My comment about this song at the time was: "Watching TV like you're casing the joint."

M: This was absolutely one of the most difficult songs for me to play. I'm not sure I ever made it through this one cleanly. Love the song, but I can hear my mistakes too clearly on the recording.

6) Sap

J: Yeah! Pop punk instrumental with Jawbreaker-worship pauses. That little descending line of Mike's rules all over.

M: So much fun to play. I think I stole the line from Mike Watt.

D: This originally followed "Man Made Boy," almost as a second part to that song.

7) The Liar at Work

J: "The Liar at Work". If I ignore the self-important self pity of the lyrics, this song is a hell of a lot of fun. I like how my jingle jangle guitar suddenly goes "rar!" We played this at the NAZZ and the reviewer in the Observer went "tsk" at my cusswords, which impelled me to write a letter to the editor full of half-seriously intended French-philosophy nonsense about what the song lyrics really meant. I think I used the phrase "sous rature". For a while there, writing silly letters to the editor of the Observer was a bit of a hobby of mine. It's really not my fault; they kept printing them...

M: This and "Atoms" were two of our strongest songs of the time.

D: Hands down, my favorite emiLy song to play. One of my favorite drum parts to play period.

8) Talking God, Talking Girls

D: The bit at the end is a recording of James Joyce reading from "Finnegans Wake." A pen pal from Slovenia referred to it as a "sermon."

J: The little warbly thing that happens at 0:56 may be the favorite sound that I have ever been recorded getting a guitar to make. To this day I have no idea how I did it.

It's like this one time in fourth grade I tried to blow through my cupped hands and make a birdcall like I saw some other kids doing. There it was, clear as day, "whoo!"...Then I tried it again. No dice. Every so often I'll remember and try it again, and still can't make it work. Hold on a sec, I'm going to....Nope.

M: Joe's sound effect sounds like a sample from "Star Trek."

J: In conclusion, who's down for 2013?

SBP90s BONUS TRACKS (aka the rest of the Miami Street sesison):

9) Man Made Boy

D: As mentioned earlier, this was originally paired with "Sap," though we ended up playing "Sap" a whole lot more than this.

10) Trinity

D: This seems like it was a staple of emiLy sets for a long, long time. I'm surprised it took us so long to record it.

11) Mulberry

D: The last of the three emiLy songs that were built around drum parts (with "riverrun" and "Minuteman" being the other two).

* The CD is still listed on the SanJam site, though it's now out of print.

download:
emiLy - riverrun CD (plus bonus tracks)

see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Voice Of Man Who Took Wheelchair - Metallica Party Live, 1998

2011-07-19T10:12:00.000-05:00

Vinny: Napalm Hearts was easily the worst band I have ever played in... sure was fun, though!

Joe: Worst?! You crazy. I've been in much worse bands than Napalm Hearts. I think maybe all of my bands have been worse than Napalm Hearts. I still think that Voice of Man Who Took Wheelchair is a much better name, though. That's the name of the band I was playing in.

Chris: After the anticlimactic flameout of The Hick-Ups I wanted my next band (whatever it was) to be called "Napalm Hearts," from the Iggy and the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" : "I'm a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm... I'm the runaway son of a nuclear A-Bomb... I am the world's forgotten boy, the one who searches and destroys." Pretty exciting, thankfully I never got it tattooed on my forehead like they do these days- there have been at least two other lousy bands since then who took their names from those lines. Regardless, by the time we played this, our only show, we were definitely called VOICE OF MAN WHO TOOK WHEELCHAIR.

Joe: We were in the Canary House, watching TV with the sound down (because we're so fuckin' cool). Some sort of news interview show was on. On the screen pops up stock video of a tape recorder rolling and the caption, "Voice of Man who Took Wheelchair." We didn't bother to turn the sound up, because, again, we're so fuckin' cool. So I have no idea what the show was about. We decided to name the band after it. Then, later, someone decided -- incorrectly -- that Napalm Hearts was a better name. I have no further information.

Chris: Joe is right and describes the image on the screen perfectly. It was either on the consistently entertaining South Bend local evening news (I still have hours of VHS recordings) or CrimeStoppers (“It works!”), I cannot remember which.

But before TV gifted us I had told someone we were going to be called the Napalm Hearts. They made a flyer for a show with that name on it, not knowing that in the meantime we had come up with the best band name of all time. The inscrutability of this flyer is itself of note-- the party was called a "Metallica Fete" for no apparent reason, particularly since the photo used was of Joan Jett(?!?!). This was before text messaging or the telephone, so information travelled very slowly.

Ultimately it is really best if we only call it VOICE OF MAN WHO TOOK WHEELCHAIR. The Napalm Hearts existed only in the bent, unhipped mind of the person who made that flyer.

(...and thus ends discussion of the most interesting aspect of this band).

Joe: Well, listening to the recording the title of the blog post must be either "That's fuckin' right goddammit!" or "All right, ladies and fuckers!"

Chris: Yeah I am listening to this again. What a band! The power... the fury! As I make sure to say at the beginning, this was the first band in which I ever played guitar. I think I wrote a couple songs on the guitar, had Joe solo over the whole thing and told Vinny to play as fast as possible. Joe had some folky things he written already and I tried to find things to play over that. Sometimes when we were sitting around the house watching TV with the sound turned off Vinny and I used to play The Poorly Rendered Folk Blues, so it was very convenient, if cognitively inconsistent, to perform these things as one band.

OK... the songs:

"I Don't Wanna Fuckin Talk to You" - Too bad we started with the best song. We should have played this one again at the end. Oh my god, is that Allison Wolfe from Bratmobile on guest vocals?!? No, it is Kristi from The Go-Lightly's. Hey that sounds pretty good.... to poop on!!

The name of the second song is "Lo! This... is a Bullfight!" Another non-sequiter from television. Joe thought this was a hilarious name for a song and I had some music so you can send us each a Grammy thank you very much.

"Locket Rocket" - this is our attempt to play "Locket Love" by the Ramones, but we couldn’t do it, so we made up our own song with some of the parts. A few months later I really perfected this song by mixing it with a Prince tune in another band in San Francisco that never played live, so this is a real treat for you completists.

Joe: None of this explains why I played that lame fingerstyle thing in the middle of our god damn rock show! God damn! Why didn't someone talk me down? Or (I gasp at the implications) did someone put me up to it?!?

SBP90s: I was wondering about that, it seemed like an odd interlude given the context. Maybe the other guys just needed refills from the keg.

Chris: Indeed, after a Ramones ripoff, I can’t think of a better time to throw in a long instrumental called "Hegel's Aesthetic." Hey brother, that was your bag, who were we to bum your trip? You were just doing your thing, maaaaaaan.

Actually, it was a bit insensitive you didn't notice how miffed Vinny was he didn't get to show the contents of his bag (15 minute hand drum solo).

It reminds me of the movie A Mighty Wind. At the end when the Folksmen are filling air time while the producers try to find Eugene Levy's MIA character, they display their tendency to take themselves way too seriously by following the ridiculously corny and upbeat audience participation song "Barnyard Symphony" with a dirge "The Skeletons of Quinto." Harry Shearer's character indulges in a drawn out introduction contextualizing what they are about to play: "In the Late 1930s of the last century, Spain was wracked by civil war blah blah blah" and everyone in the audience is looking at him like "Play another one where we can make a MOOOO sound like a cow!!"

In any case the dialogue throughout this recording is funny. When we cut him off Joe kind of mumbles "That was the first third of Hegel's Aesthetic...”

Joe: Its full name is "Hegel's Aesthetic in G." Because it is in G. Which still doesn't explain who thought it was a good idea to play it.

Chris: We needed material!

"Wild Thing" - So I thought this was the end of college, big party, one-off band, we should play dance songs! Once this groove was established we thought it would be funny to get someone in the audience to sing “Wild Thing” by the Troggs, you know like the classic party anthem type thing. Except once we had someone up there we would play it like Trio or the Shaggs, just rip anything that could have been groovy right out of the song. The problem is no one volunteered. I mean, who doesn’t know the words to “Wild Thing??” (Answer: a room full of Notre Dame students). So someone volunteered John Huston (whose band The Transoms came up next) who was the perfect victim for this poorly executed prank.

John Huston: Dude, I still have nightmares about that. It was clearly a joke, but I for the life of me had no idea what that joke was. I was game to play along, but wouldn't have known how. I felt like I had water in my brain. And you wouldn't give me any clues. You just kept yelling at/about me into the microphone. Is that the song where you wrapped four of your guitar strings with a dollar bill? Then asked me to strum it? It's fucking David Lynchian.

Chris: Listening to it now... "John, you have to take your shirt off if you're going to do this."

"Our Satan is Better Than Your Satan" - Pretty sure Joe made up that name on the spot. I think this was supposed to be like a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion type of dance tune thing. At the end someone says "What was that?" and we say "It's fucking rock, girl!" Well alright.

"Hoedown" - An itty bitty titty ditty Joe wrote with me hitting the strings of my guitar with a metal coat hanger to make that irritating syncopated sound you hear. Incidentally, that guitar (a collectible 1976 Ibanez Hummingbird “Lawsuit” Les Paul copy) was purchased from a Mishawaka pawn shop with 100% credit from useless CD singles stolen from WVFI. Later I was pissed when I realized I had ruined the finish by hitting it with that coat hanger. It was later stolen from the back of a car in San Francisco's colorful Tenderloin district. I could go on?

Well, I wish we had more songs, it sounds like that was fun. People seemed into it. I do remember Vinny was totally embarrassed, he truly thought this was going to ruin his reputation as a musician. He closes this recording sadly, reluctantly, confusedly talking to no one in particular: "Thanks for being open minded and shit man, that's badass..."

Well put.

download:
Voice Of Man Who Took Wheelchair - Metallica Party Live, 1998

Brian, Colin and Vince - Live at Grace Coffee House 9/3/1992

2011-06-22T12:08:00.000-05:00

Well I had something else planned for this week, but felt compelled today to share this instead. This morning I felt a little in a funk, kinda tired, and admittedly a bit hung over. As I was browsing the ol' iTunes for something to perk me up, I came across this gem and was like, yeah... YEAH!

So spur of the moment, here it is for you as well. An amazing, super sweet, and thoroughly enjoyable live set from Brian, Colin and Vince that you can't help but love. Sure to turn your day around if you need it. A big thanks to Vince for sending me this tape awhile ago, and I don't know why we haven't posted it sooner. I'm going to leave it at that and let y'all get to it...

download:
Brian, Colin and Vince - Live at Grace Coffee House 9/3/1992

V/A - sfumato (1995)

2011-06-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

sfumato was the third and final ND campus band CD compilation of the 90s. The first half of this disc is a great encapsulation of the strength of the mid-decade Power 90s scene. Hot tracks from bands that need no introduction to readers of this blog. Everyone sounds great here, as production quality was sharp. The packaging is also pretty cool, with a massive full-color foldout collage of band photos.

"sfumato: the achievement of smoothing or softening of contours creating imperceptible transitions between colors and surfaces: additionally imparting atmospheric effects"

The second half shifts direction some with acoustic and piano balladry, more conventional rock numbers, and jam bands. Long-running latin ensemble Sabor Latino also spice it up a bit with a hot salsa, and Q.E.D. close the CD nicely with a wicked prog-metal jam.

Track listing:
1. "Trophies and Cash" - Krautmiser
2. "Disquiet" - Sweep the Leg Johnny
3. "Bunny" - July
4. "REV" - Las Peligrosas
5. "King Permission" - emiLy
6. "Keeping Up With The Jones'" - decaf.
7. "Identifying Spiders Web" - Tacklebox
8. "Popsicle Crush" - The Roadapples
9. "Con Sabor" - Sabor Latino
10. "Next Time" - Michael G. McGlinn
11. "Hey Joe" - Emily Lord
12. "Fine With Me" - The Amateurs
13. "Lucky Number" - Little Milton
14. "Mellow" - The Big Earl Band
15. "Oddity of a Stranger" - George and the Freaks
16. "Terminal Space" - Q.E.D.

download:
V/A - sfumato (1995)

see also:
V/A - The Jericho Sessions (1991)
V/A - Incubus 1993: ND Music Compilation

decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.3): Live at Dalloways - 2/24/1995

2011-04-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

This is the 3rd and final installment of the decaf. live EP series, "We're The Opening Band." This one takes us to Dalloway's Coffee House at St. Mary's and was recorded on 02.24.95. That night we played with an out of town band, Tiny. Playing at Dalloway's never reached the energy level of house parties or bar shows, but they were fun nonetheless. Here it is - the last in the series and the last recording you will ever receive from decaf. because we have officially exhausted all material.

--Brian

download:
decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.3): Live at Dalloways - 2/24/1995

see also:
decaf. on MySpace

decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.2): Live at The Box - 2/04/1995

2011-04-04T11:40:00.002-05:00

OK so here is the 2nd installment of the decaf. live EP series, "We're The Opening Band." This 3-song EP was recorded live at The Box on 02.04.95. It starts out with our friend and housemate, Kevin, trying to get a roudy house to "shut up" and listen to his public service announcement. That house brought out a great energy from any band that played there, and I remember us going downstairs to check the floor joists as we were afraid the floor would collapse during Sweep's set - ahhhh The Box.

That night we played with Sweep The Leg Johnny, Spoonfed, and a South Bend bend named Used that was supposed to have a questionable film showing behind them while they played - thank god their projector broke. Anyway, here it is - 2 down, 1 to go.

--Brian

download:
decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.2): Live at The Box - 2/04/1995

see also:
decaf. on MySpace

Transmontane - Live at SXSW 2011

2011-03-28T15:51:00.003-05:00

SXSW 2011 ended just over a week ago, and all reports indicate that it was notably chaotic and overblown this year... a gatecrashing near-riot at The Strokes, even more so at Death From Above 1979, the total mess that was Kanye West's show, Ben Weasel's belligerence and punching of two women, hipsters wearing capes (why?), general excessive drunkenness and stupidity... it's understandable why so many of us Austin residents breath a sigh of relief when the whole circus leaves town.

Fortunately, though, there was one show that was worth the trip out for us, being decidedly more relaxed and trouble-free. Former WVFI DJ and enthusiastic SBP90s music fan Ryan Duncan brought his one man band, Transmontane, down to Austin for a lazy Saturday lunchtime performance on a quiet patio on North Guadalupe, well enough away from the folks already waiting in line downtown to see Kanye go on at 2am.

In addition to it just being a real joy to see Ryan again after such a long time, his music was a pleasure to experience as well. Here's a synopsis of the new Transmontane album, Lo Specchio Circolare:

Lo Specchio Circolare translates to "the circular mirror" in Italian, which is quite appropriate as a title for this collection of 12 songs by Transmontane (AKA Ryan Duncan from Chicago), for the lyrics and the mood on this debut record tend to be reflective in nature. The mood here is introspective, but at the same time it points toward certain elements of the soul that are universal. There is definitely a tone of desperation present, but it does not arrive without an underlying vibration of hope as its constant companion. As profound as our desires may be, when salvation seems to be a million miles away, we must always remember, that at the root of our existence is an eternal wellspring of hope, a fundamental love that exists within us and can never be broken.

These simple, honest songs are simply one man’s attempt to reflect this light back out into the world at large. Look into them, and perhaps you might find your own voice.

The first video above is of one of my favorite cuts from the album, "R.W.S." The one just below here is of the non-album song "Genealogy," which Ryan premiered in live form during SXSW. The shaky video footage comes courtesy of the 2-yr-old troublemaker throwing Hot Wheels at my feet while I was recording.

I encourage everyone to check out the Transmontane album, it was the laid-back jam in my headphones all last week. You can stream or buy the songs via the Transmontane bandcamp site, or splurge for the limited edition vinyl LP, which is really packaged quite beautifully.

Transmontane - Lo Specchio Circolare

Transmontane bandcamp site
Transmontane on Facebook

90 Day Men - Live at the Canary House 12-13-1997

2011-03-03T18:23:00.007-06:00

90 Day Men drove down to South Bend from Chicago on a couple occasions. From what I remember, the first time was to play with Sweep the Leg Johnny and a ton of other bands, including the Mad Dogs, Bessie (Bessie's set from that night is here), Obstruction and a briefly reunited emiLy, at Clifford the Big Red House.

90 Day Men returned in December 1997 as part of a show at the Canary House with Braid (hear their set from that night here), Kind of Like Spitting, The Butterfly Effect, and Florida Evans.

The recording kicks off with some idle banging on the bell of the ride cymbal, snippets of conversation in the crowd, and the eventual confession from the singer of 90 Day Men, "Our keyboard's kind of broken. So fuck it." The band then launches into a tight 8 song set, a good portion of which consists of new songs with no words.

At one point, the band dedicates a song to fans of the band Rush, which got a big yell from certain members of the crowd. Someone called out a request for "2112 ... the whole thing!" As was the case with many SBP90s house shows, the crowd was quite enthusiastic and appreciative.

The sound quality on the tape is quite good, especially considering Ron Garcia recorded it with one room mic.

download:
90 Day Men - Live at the Canary House 12-13-1997

see also:
90 Day Men on Myspace
90 Day Men on Allmusic

decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.1): Live at Senior Bar - 12/08/1994

2011-02-28T17:41:00.000-06:00

This is the first of 3 live EP releases that we will be putting out over the next few weeks. We’re The Opening Band showcases decaf. in 3 locations around Notre Dame: Senior Bar, The Box (our house), and Dalloway’s Coffee House at St. Mary’s. Each show had its own shining moments, tomfoolery, and unapologetic covers of some of the most sacred cows of hardcore songs... but c’mon, this was Notre Dame. It's not like we were covering Minor Threat at the 9:30 Club, so get over it.

We’re The Opening Band (Pt.1): Live at Senior Bar - 12.08.94... that’s right, Senior Bar. There is a story behind this – my good friend, Molly, was bartending there and was put in charge of booking bands. She asked me if decaf. could play for 2 hours we would get... (are you ready?)... PAID. Unfortunately, all the songs we wrote or covered poorly clocked in at about 48 minutes, so we enlisted our friends Sweep The Leg Johnny to share the bill with us – we did this about 3 or 4 times over the course of the year. The entire show went pretty damn well for 2 bands that had never played in a place like Senior Bar and it was because of this very night that they started “Alternative Night” (*gasp*) - paving the way for our other friends bands to play there as well instead of just cover bands or jam bands.

This show was special because it captures the only time we ever played our homage to our friend, Marco, and his love for Hair Metal – “Marco’s Package”. Ted Hennessy called this medley “pure genius”... so here it is... the first of 3 short “live” releases to exhaust the decaf. vault forever. We hope you enjoy.

--Brian

download:
decaf. - We’re The Opening Band (Pt.1): Live at Senior Bar - 12/08/1994

see also:
decaf. on MySpace

Chisel - Live at 242 Main (Burlington, VT) 4/16/1994

2010-12-30T10:59:00.000-06:00

I don't know much about this except that these mp3s got posted by Bradley's Almanac about 6 years ago, recorded at something called Burlingtonitus Fest. It's Chisel, it's 1994, includes rarities "My First Resume" and "Chiefs." There's also a Jam cover... what more do you need to know?

Happy New Year!

download:
Chisel - Live at 242 Main 4/16/1994

Chisel - 8 a.m. All Day

2010-11-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

[Although this album was not recorded or produced in South Bend (the band was based out of DC at the time), I doubt anyone will mind too much that we are featuring it here.]

How does one articulate the impact and significance to the Notre Dame scene of a record such as Chisel's 8 a.m. All Day? A record that was the soundtrack for so many road trips, the impetus for spontaneous kitchen sing-alongs, whose songs we knew from live sets played in South Bend basements well before they were ever put to tape. This was our local boys making good with a hot album, the first breakout LP from the SBP90s era.

Even after a couple years of doing this blog, though, I'm still not sure I'd ever be able to write up 8 a.m. All Day and do it proper justice. Besides, the DCist did a fairly decent job of that not too long ago anyway. So instead of just awkwardly gushing on for awhile, I think we'll approach this one a little differently. The first thing we'd like to do is share a pretty fantastic article that Jeff Jotz (Oatmeal, Water) penned back in 1996, and was kind enough to send our way (thanks, Jeff!). The second thing we'll get to after the review, so please read on…

*****

Chisel - 8 a.m. All Day
Reviewed by Jeff Jotz
originally featured in the Dallas magazine The Met, 1996

I first saw Ted Leo and John Dugan play together in my dormitory basement at the University of Notre Dame in 1990. Fisher Hall’s basement boasted a dirt floor and extraordinarily thick concrete walls which killed sound at the basement doors. The dorm was built in the early 1950s, so perhaps the Holy Cross Brothers, fighting the good Cold War fight against the godless Red Menace, designed a bomb-proof shelter in the dorm’s basement to protect the Notre Dame students from the hydrogen bombs hanging over the country’s collective head.

The two wailed and raged down there, with Leo blistering away on guitar in this frantic, uptighty playing style, like he was stiffening up with rigid convulsions. Dugan lazily bounced around the drums, seemingly unaware at the ear-piercing noise resonating off the concrete walls around him. The two did some an energetic cover of Mission of Burma’s “Academy Fight Song” and interpreted their favorite Wire and Mudhoney songs. By the time the two graduated in 1993, they changed bassists and seemed all the rage at a college more known for its football players and wholesome Catholic youth than some music scene. Two years ago the band relocated from South Bend, Indiana to the more friendly frontier of Washington, D.C., where their audience grew beyond the occasional beer blast.

It’s odd writing an uplifting article on the three lads who make up Chisel after watching them evolve from two (later three) guys rooted in political punk, British pop, avant-garde noise rock and standard NYC and DC hardcore to their current and most productive period as innocent harbingers of the mod re-revolution after I watched hours of TV or stumbled around in drunken glory with them. Without a doubt, I knew that this was going to be more than my average music article.

Chisel, made up of Leo, Dugan and bassist/vocalist Chris Norborg (who is a former member of the Notre Dame Glee Club and was recruited by the band in 1992), has a new album out, 8 a.m. All Day (Gern Blandsten). In the past two years, Chisel has refined its sound to the point where many listeners pin the band with the “mod” label. I refrained from including some blatant Who/Jam parallels here, maybe throwing in some reviewer’s interpretation of The Who’s performance at a 1966 show as a creative twist normally found in the higher-brained and more witty music writers. To categorize Chisel strictly with a musical and fashion movement that was always over before it began limits the band’s influences and belittles the new paths it has been forging both on stage and in the studio. All I can say for sure was that I ran into Leo at the Who concert at Giants Stadium in 1989. We all have our guilty pleasures, so nobody can knock Chisel to be Johnny-come-latelies to the Who kick.

“Yeah, the Mod comparison is undeniable,” said Leo, who admits viewing the Jam video “A Town Called Malice” on MTV fifteen years ago has impacted on his musical tastes ever since. “I won’t deny that we enjoy the looks and the sound. However when you do look a certain way perhaps other aspects of the band get overlooked.” He credits his biggest songwriting and guitar influence not the obvious -- Pete Townshend of The Who and Paul Weller of The Jam -- but Steve Marriott, lead singer and guitarist for the Small Faces, a mid-60s British band who were contemporaries of The Who and who never moved beyond cult status in the States.

Leo said that coming of musical age among the anarchistic obstinance of New York’s varied hardcore scene in the mid-1980s emboldened him with what he calls “that punk energy and ethic,” adding “Hardcore in New York was always a bit crazier and insane than other scenes. It carries over to my performance, in contrast with all those indie rock shoegazers.” The 25-year-old native of Bloomfield, New Jersey comes across offstage as a latent Dick Vitale, quietly mellow with occasional outbursts of emotion. Onstage, he assumes the identity of a nerdy Mr. Hyde, his jerky energy and absorbing guitar resonating in nervous fits and starts.

“The mod shift wasn’t a calculated thing,” said Dugan, a D.C.-area native who was weaned on the sounds of local legends Fugazi and Rites of Spring. “We figured what we liked in our songwriting and channeled it. There was no ‘defining moment’ for our new direction. The Jam comparison has been so overstated. While it’s a flattering comparison, I don’t hear it so much in our music.”

The trio’s new album -- the band boasts four singles, four appearances on compilation records and a 1995 EP/CD -- takes the listener on a slam-bang rocket trip through many styles of music, from mid-60s British and American garage punk of the same era to the hyperactive indie punk of contemporaries Superchunk. Yeah, you can hear Who-type bass lines in one song and perhaps a self-conscious guitar nod to Paul Weller in another, but the line is drawn there. The three successfully weave a variety of their respective music experiences in a powerful yet never overwhelming album. Hyperactive at times to make you think you’ve had too many cups of coffee, Chisel does not drift through their songs aimlessly without direction. They make their point and make a bee line to deliver quickly, as if the three are trying to beat each other to the end of each song. It works marvelously.

Chisel recently wrapped up a Midwest tour with fellow Washingtonians Fugazi and Lungfish -- Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto is a big fan of the band -- and play quite often in our nation’s capital and in New York City.

My picks? Try the slowly-bouncing tale of Leo’s journeys in “Citizen of Venus,” the paced and singalong rhythms of “Breaking Up With Myself,” and the CD’s title track, which really highlights the cool vocal games of Leo and Norborg.

So save your parkas, bowling shoes and Vespa scooters for the reruns of The Young Ones. Chisel is one of the few bands which proudly flaunts its musical influences while being individual enough to stand out even more distinctly among the pack of bandwagon bands who trace their roots to the first time they heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” What’s certain is if the Who ever reunites again for some big rock concert, Leo, Dugan and Norborg will be there having a dilly of a time with ol’ Pete, Roger and John.

*****

For the second part of this we're going to put it on y'all a little. Faithful readers of the SBP90s blog, former ND rockers, casual visitors from across the internet… what did this beloved Chisel album mean to you? Contribute to the comments section and share your memories, stories, and enthusiasm for Chisel and 8 a.m. All Day.

Chisel - 8 a.m. All Day
buy it on iTunes, Amazon

[sorry, no free download. if you regularly read this blog and don't already own this --- shame on you. go buy it now!]

see also:
Chisel on MySpace
more Chisel on SBP90s

The Cole Estate - Live at the Hive 11/13/1998

2010-10-20T22:29:00.000-05:00

My memory is so hazy, I can't remember how I came to be in the band. Maybe Ron recommended me? Anyway, I was by far the youngest in the band. It was a little intimidating. Dean was a pretty fantastic guitar player. He could pull off crazy "licks," I believe they're called. My style was (and is) based on slop. So maybe that had a nice yin/yang thing? I believe it was my role to put some quirky "leads" over the songs Dean and Amy had written. We rehearsed a few times in the basement of the Hive, aka Ron's house. Did we only play one show together? Did we ever talk to each other again? Was it a love-rectangle that forced our demise? Or an argument over a meatball sandwich? (No, definitely not that. Maybe a seitan sandwich?)

Gosh almighty, I can hardly remember anything at all. What's wrong with me? I remember our cover of "Heart of Glass," because Amy's vocals really shined on it. And I remember her song about how she loved her dog. And I remember Dean suggesting we do a cover of the Pixies' "Bone Machine," and I was always kind of bummed that never happened.

- John

Like John, I really don’t remember how we all got together except that Ron was wanting to play the drums and I happened to live with a very good guitar player and I knew John was a cool kid. That’s it. Overall, I think it’s unfortunate that we only had maybe seven practices and two shows. I think we could have been alright if we had time to actually be a band. I’m not sure seven practices and two shows even qualifies as a side project. Again, I had no idea what I was doing, but I had fun. As with Bessie, I maintain the attitude that girls everywhere should pick up an instrument if they feel like it and see what happens. So what if it is less than amazing or downright sucks. By the way Chris, I was never ever trying to be Kim Deal. It would have been a lot simpler if I had been. If I was trying to rip anyone off it was the chic from Dahlia Seed. Much more difficult to do—especially while playing an instrument that you don’t really know how to play. I still couldn’t sing in minor keys, but continued to write songs that required such skill. Oh well--my kids love "Gertrude Is a Dog," so I guess that’s something!

Unfortunately, our time together was so brief, there is not a lot to say. I, too, regret that we never covered "Bone Machine." I remember feeling bad for John and Ron for having to listen to Dean and myself bicker about the songs…sorry about that. That last Cole Estate show also taught me never ever to drink Osco vodka. Sorry again about your car Ron. Thanks Tracy for the Febreze. Anyway—good times.

- Amy

Just like everyone else, I don't remember the exact details of our genesis as a band. I was living in the Hive with Andy, and really took to playing the drums. Amy rocked the house in Bessie and since we ran into each other all the time in the Cushing-Fitzpatrick engineering building, we were bound by fate to form a band. I think Dean was just wrapping up his time in another band (or not?), so we started playing together, practicing in my basement. Since I didn't really know how to play the drums yet I was mostly stealing ideas from the other drummers in the scene (particularly Vinny and Doug), but it was a lot of fun. Dean noted that my playing was rather unorthodox, but he seemed to enjoy it.

I had a lot of fun playing in Cole Estate. IIRC, I flaked out of the band at some point, but I have some memory of being replaced by a grateful dead-esque drummer? Sorry for being flakey.

I probably won't ever forget the Osco Vodka night. It was really funny (probably not for Amy though). Special thanks go to Tracy for fixing plumbing problems in our little beat up house (which was otherwise pretty great for throwing shows) and cleaning up my car.

- Ron

download:
The Cole Estate - Live at the Hive 11/13/1998

The HickUps - Live at the Canary House 11/22/1997

2010-09-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

At first I thought I remembered almost nothing about this band. Luckily for you some of it has come back!

It happened the first semester of my senior year, sometime in 1997, and was very short lived. I am shocked there was a recording made of this, that someone saved it and it wasn't subsequently taped over by Trusty or Juliana Hatfield or something.

This band was an effort on my part to play the kind of music I was into at the time. I did not know how to play guitar yet and no one I was friends with was really into the same stuff, so it came down to finding people who would put up with me and do their best under the circumstances. I had spent the prior summer as an intern at Crypt Records, which at the time was renting office space in LA from In the Red and Birdman Records. In a short period of time I had been turned on to a lot of music that totally changed my life and while no one at Notre Dame shared my enthusiasm for any of it, I was dying to play in a different kind of band.

This is who I liked and sought to emulate: Nine Pound Hammer, Oblivians, New Bomb Turks, Dwarves, New York Dolls, Dead Boys, Pussy Galore, and GG Allin. Also older stuff like Hank Williams and James Brown. Which as you can hear means absolutely nothing in relation to what this band turned out to be.

I was living with Doug at the Canary House (where this live show took place) and though he says otherwise I am positive I bugged the shit out of him 24 hours a day. We had played together in the Mad Dogs the prior year and he was way into his more serious bands by this time. Playing bass along to my awkward anti-PC blabbering was not his idea of how to open a Butterfly Effect show, I assure you. I do not know how I talked him into the HickUps but I know he hated it.

I was poorly trying to learn guitar around this time and I think at least one of these songs originated in the band eventually known as the Go-Lightlys, who kicked me out for guitaral ineptitude and romantic incompatibly. Andy Yang was in that band, and as the ex-drummer of the Catatonics and co-host of the Chris and Andy Boom Boom Dedication Show on WVFI, was in no position to refuse the HickUps drum stool. Though he did repeatedly and eventually permanently. Of all the people who simultaneously quit the HickUps after this our second show, I believe his abdication hurt the most because it was the last time we ever played together. Though I am making it up and it is possible we played together at least 3 times afterwards.

When starting the HickUps, the only thing I knew I wanted was a lot of searing, obnoxious rocknroll guitar solos. This was like the least cool thing imaginable in the South Bend Power 90s scene and to do so without an ironic smirk would have been even harder. I had to go outside the Mad Dogs gene pool, which I was reluctant to do. I do not know where we found John Huston and his Fender Jag-Stang, but I am glad we did. With the Catatonics' Dave "The Night" Stoker nowhere to be found, John appeared to be the only guitarist available who knew basic blues scales and was unafraid to solo using them for more than 3 seconds. We tried to talk as little as possible about the fact that he had major wet dreams about Nirvana as late as 1997.

Listening to this show, here are my thoughts:

1) I hate my voice on these songs. I hate hearing my stupid between song banter and I hate my inability to keep my mouth a safe distance from the mic. I hate how I am doing this lame HC screaming, not singing. The lyrics are awful yet I am enunciating them toooooo much for full effect (none).

2) Getting these guys to understand what I was trying to accomplish was impossible. I was not good enough to do it myself and to ask them to mimic the Dead Boys or the New York Dolls (when the prevailing influences were Braid and Jawbreaker) was too weird.

3) The songs that were not covers were written by me singing guitar parts and John trying to mimic the sounds on guitar. Every time we played them they were different and I remember this show was really like making it up as we went along.

4) "Knoxville Girl" is a cover of bluegrass warbler Hylo Brown's version of the old murder ballad. To this day his version is the most sadistic I have heard. I found it on a cheapo 60s country LP comp with a burning prison on the cover. Pretty up my alley back then.

5) "Gazebo" steals thematically from the Raymond Carver short story of the same name. Written for the Go-Lightlys I think. Awkwardness abounds.

6) I still think "Like a Rolling Head" is a great name for a song. Though to be honest, Weird Al is a major lifelong influence.

We played one show before this at Club 23 (where I spent the majority of my time 1997-98). I hope Ted has a copy of the flyer for that show, because it is so much better than the band ever was. Of course as you would expect, Moe cut the set short and told us to pack it up. I am sure I dulled the pain of embarrassment one way or another.

OK! Enjoy!  

--Chris

No matter what Chris says, he did not bug the shit out of me 24 hours a day. I learned a hell of a lot about music during the year we lived together, and Chris did an admirable job of trying to bust me out of the Jawbreaker/Braid/DisChord Records bubble I tended to live in. (Though I did know about the New Bomb Turks -- in fact, one of my personal high points in the history of emiLy was playing in Columbus, OH and having Eric from NBT come up to us and compliment us on our set afterwards. I also saw NBT and Gauge in Boston sometime in the 90s and it was fucking awesome.) That Chris was not more successful is more a reflection of my stubbornness winning out over his. Shocking, I know.

The HickUps played more than one show? Apparently my memory of '97-98 is hazier than I thought. Great fun, but the sort of fun that sometimes requires photographic evidence to remember.

--Doug

The funny thing is, I hardly remember playing in this band! I do remember a terrible showing at Club 23, and how I felt very inadequate as a drummer with Doug (master drummer) in the band wondering why I couldn't keep a simple beat. At least that's how I felt. Haha!

--Andy

I remember this show. When Chris called out the first song of the set, I instead played the last song of the set. Not because I was super punk and trying to fuck up his shit. No, it was because I was a total moron and totally didn't know the names of any of the songs.

The HickUps was Chris' thing, and we all knew it. We were all just fine with it, too. A number of weeks prior to this show, he and I got together in the very same Canary House basement to "write songs." Chris, of course, had already come up with a handful of songs. Since he couldn't play guitar, he grunted and hummed and waved his hands at me, trying to figure out how to get what he heard in his mind to come through my guitar. I did my best to decipher his vocal "melodies" and ascribe a chord progression to them.

And yeah, it was a Fender Jagstang. Let it go, dude.

But that brings me to my favorite memory of the HickUps show at the Canary House. I don't know that I've ever told Chris about this, given his obvious hatred for grunge and embarrassment by my guitar, but some dude came up to me at the end of the set and he was ecstatic. Like, overjoyed, if I dare use that word. He'd been banging around in the "audience" the entire set. He told me that he was from Seattle, and that he hadn't seen a live show like that since the early '90s. He thanked me for going nuts onstage and asked when we were going to play again.

So while the HickUps initially started as a band that would combine Punk, Soul, and Country (making what I liked to call "poultry"), it was clearly a grunge band. And that was my fault.

And Chris has never forgiven me.

--John

download:
The HickUps - Live at the Canary House 11/22/1997

Pinky - Live at the Hive 12/12/1998

2010-09-24T10:38:00.001-05:00

Attesting to the thorough nature of this blog, I would like to introduce, Pinky, possibly the only one-show-wonder, all-girl band in the history of ND Power 90s rock. Closely linked to the Florida Evans Showband and Revue, Pinky exploded out of fan-club/girlfriend status to take their place on the stage. Shamelessly using all Flo Evans equipment and practice space in the Bulla St. stone house basement, Pinky soon relished a sugary sweet sound, hailing from their icons Cub. Elfin Amy Bowman led the charge as singer/guitarist. Her shy, sweet stage presence set the tone for the band. She was supported with more enthusiasm than talent by co-habitants of the 716 Washington St estate, Courtney Blum on drums, Kristin D'Agostino on bass, and Emily Edwards on vocals and "keyboard that never managed to materialize."

While Pinky was hyped-up on the thrill of playing as a group, Matt Curreri had the foresight to make a Pinky recording (sans Edwards) of the two Cub covers before the first show. Pinky opened for Florida Evan and (to our surprise the ultra-hip and therefore extremely intimidating) Boston-based Lynx, on a cold night in the stone house basement (probably the late fall of 1998). Possibly because we stocked the audience with ready-made fans, the set was a huge hit. There were cameras and even a video, but no evidence could be relocated [ed. check that-- we found two photos!].

Still enjoying the "first show high," the band imploded with the sad truth that three Pinky members could not date two Florida Evans members and coexist.

It was great while it lasted, but love, love it tore us apart again.

- Kristin

download:
Pinky - Live at the Hive 12-12-1998

Las Peligrosas/Speed Queen

2010-09-16T09:19:00.004-05:00

So, it was the best of times... it was the worst of times. The heyday of riot girls had ended and emo and math rock indie bands were replacing the grunge and punk forefathers. A few bands seemed to hang on and try to differentiate their styles... but bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, L7, Kreviss, Huggy Bear, Courtney Love, Beat Happening, Red Aunts, and many more were already on the way out. In the midst of the Power 90s, the South Bend scene emerged and it was only natural that girl bands or bands with leading female vocalists would arise - it seemed a critical mass of musical creativity was being reached in the midwest and South Bend was oddly and strategically situated to be a part of it.

Most of my memories are of the early days when the idea first came up to even start a band. I think that Faye had been playing bass for a while, Annie was picking up guitar quickly, and Anne could already play drums. Think it was Faye and Annie's idea to start jamming and writing songs and they invited me to get involved. The only thing I really had to offer was a voice and we were all pretty good singers. Contributing to lyrics sticks in my mind - think we made it a collaborative effort to write "Rev" as the lyrics started out so clever and were projecting that strong, assured female voice that I think Las Peligrosas unintentionally was trying to get across. The Dalloway's concert [ed. performed under the band's original moniker, Speed Queen], the basement show at the Guerra-Concannon compound and the show in Columbia, OH (at a coffee house, I think??) made everything seem so real! I can't remember a thing about the "Rev" recording for some reason... but think I remember it being difficult to get our vocals to sound on key and good, so were were in there for a quite a few hours.

I remember that I was so inspired by Faye's punk rock ethic and bad(ass) attitude, and Annie's absent-minded innocence mixed with confidence! I had so much fun being in the band - it was nice to be a part of it all, dragged kicking and screaming into so much fun... and we were the only serious all-girl band at the time. Seemed so apropos without being predictable.

--Emily Davis

I bought my bass and practice amp with money that I had earned from waiting tables in Arlington, TX. That money was supposed to be used for books and other collegiate endeavors. But I blew it on a bass--that I have to this day. Mostly I was tired of seeing music and wanted to figure out a way to make it... along came the shining Ms. Emily Davis, the creative Annie Venesky, and the rhythmic Anne Evans. I can say that when we started this band I had no training, but Emily's vocals and Annie's basic guitar were a saving grace and --hell Anne and I weren't all that terrible holding up the rhythm section for this track, although I have no illusions. I think we had more band names than we did songs.

"Rev," if I recall, was created without lyrics. I remember that we looked through a fashion mag and wove together our lyrics. Interestingly, with as many smart women with a lot to say, we were at a loss for words for lyrics. We played several shows (why didn't anyone tell me that I should not wear ankle socks?) and I remember going to the St. Vincent DePaul and proudly scoring the black and white dresses shown in some of the photos. To be honest, none of our music was particularly good, but it was a good time.

We were originally passed up on the campus CD, sfumato, but were somehow reconsidered? If I recall it was because the CD needed more "diversity," but I also remember that we had a lot of friends encouraging us along the way. It's nice to have a musical memory of this time. It was apparent that when we got into the studio to record for the CD that we had not recorded before. We were able to record this song and now I kinda wish we had more recordings. I hope that "Rev" doesn't cause the listeners to regress into some sort of fetal position or bang your heads against the wall (but maybe that isn't so bad). It was literally a first attempt at music in a band, and one I remember fondly. Thank you Em, Anne, and Annie!

--Faye

I had the house with drums, and they had the vision. I don’t remember the conversation that began the band, only that I was always up for adventure and trying anything new. I was flattered that these ladies, creative and individualistic each one, invited me to join them on their endeavor to make music.

A few clear memories:

In practice Emily said, try this: which was a definite punk rhythm, not rhythm and blues (which was all I knew how to play at the time); I started hammering away and it made me feel free. Thanks, Em!
Faye turned around so I could see her and be in rhythm with her bass; Awesome! A connection of creating something immediate. Thanks Faye!
Annie Venesky: Laughing always, but led us (me, at least) with intuitive, kind, and sparky grace.
I was so nervous about the St. Mary’s coffee house show that I dropped my new hot pink drumsticks on the 1-2-3-4- Count, and a few other times. Sorry, ladies! (I think that was our debut)
Going to find outfits: loved the black dresses with white collars; wish I still had mine…
Struggling over that tricky transition in "Rev" in general and in the studio. Still sounds so awkward to me.
Overall, having a blast! So much fun! I loved being part of the group, and entering, even so shallowly (I think we had five total songs) into the larger ND music scene.

I must thank Jim Bukow, whose drums were in the basement of the unfortunately named “Swamp House,” where I lived with housemate Ryan Halford. Both Jim and Ryan played with Sweep The Leg Johnny, who practiced in our basement.

I must also thank Vinny Carrasco, who gave me the gift of hot pink drumsticks (labeled “Hotsticks”) which I still have today... Thank you, Vinny, wherever you are.

Thank you also Steve Sostak, who I believe was integral to getting us on the CD, and for all the folks in bands who encouraged us and friends who supported us.

--Anne Evans

MP3 download:
Las Peligrosas - "Rev"

Brian, Colin and Vince - Three Cheers for Skybuster Jones

2010-08-27T09:58:00.012-05:00

COLIN

I think this was the last BCV show before Brian transferred to school in Boston – so I remember at this time also trying to find a couple hours to record what would later be half of the Bucket o’ fun n’ stuff n’ yeah album. And that even though it was our last hurrah, we wanted to go out with a big fun show and we still were trying to play new songs as soon as hey were written – I believe we had just barely learned the “She’s turning into a werewolf” a cappella round that day. But I might be wrong about that. I didn’t even remember that song existed until I heard these recordings.

One thing I remember about this show was that we wanted to do whatever we wanted to do – and for me that included carrying my bed all the way from my dorm to Washington hall so I could have the fun of listening to the other bands while lying in my bed under my comforter with a pillow on stage – that was pretty awesome. And I think we invited anybody up on stage who wanted to be there. It was pretty loose.

There was something really moving about the crowd yelling things like “Brian, don’t go!” in the middle of "Hypothetical Situation." I think we all felt mixed emotions – sad to have something so wonderful be coming to an end, but also just a warm good feeling during the act of playing. I certainly was in a bit of denial about the ending of the band – and I was lucky to have a whole semester afterwards to work on the BCV cd, so I was still a bit busy with it anyhow.

I get confused about the timeline of how and when everything happened, but when we were doing the stuff, that was what mattered the most to me. I always just felt lucky to get to hear Brian and Vince sing every time we practiced. Plus Brian’s guitar playing was a treat to watch develop – he was fantastic at everything and so easy going that the band seemed almost effortless – songs came pouring out all the time and we just sat around and played them, then walked around playing them and then sometimes took a cab to go play them somewhere else. Trees, Hugs, and Rock n Roll, man.

To be honest, I am amazed at how cheesy I was back then – not that I’ve changed so much, but that younger Colin was a bit of a dork! Yow!

P.S. I cannot for the life of me remember where the Skybuster Jones concept came from, but I know the show was supposed to be a benefit for the food shelf and that some folks brought cans of food. And I believe James Kennedy later used the Skybuster Jones character in his rock musical – because I got to play him! Or was the musical before the show? I think I had it right the first time.

P.P.S. I still love the countermelodies on “Powder Blue” and “She.”

VINCE

I remember that we envisioned this show to be a "rock opera" without having a clear idea of what that was. That's why I brought my manequin on stage I think. In the end it was a fun creative outlet and goodbye to Brian. I still have no recollection of a werewolf song.

BRIAN

I think the name 'Skybuster Jones' can be attributed to John Kehoe.

My official thought on BCV is that I am thankful to have been friends with Colin and Vince. The years gone by certainly put it all in perspective. Second official thought... it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of great people around, and it's cool to see all the pictures.

Other than that... dear vast and mighty internet, indexer of all things, appearing on my phone, connecting the un-connected, friending the un-friended, index this! Yow!

[Note: There is also one song by Chisel included with this BCV set. Mostly because it was on the same tape, and also recorded at the Skybuster Jones show. It's a crackin' good medley of BCV songs: "Spectacles/Crunchy Lunch/Wizards." Need I to say anything more?]

download:
Brian, Colin and Vince - Three Cheers for Skybuster Jones

see also:
Brian, Colin and Vince on MySpace
V/A - Incubus 1993: ND Music Compilation
Chisel vs. Brian, Colin and Vince - Spectacles/One in Ten 7"
Brian, Colin and Vince - Just Trying To Help

The Florida Evans Showband and Revue - Made Simple

2010-08-20T12:19:00.014-05:00

DAN:

My first experience with the Notre Dame band scene came by way of tapes of my older brother James' WVFI radio show in 1989 - predating the power nineties by just a couple months. I was 12 years old. For the next 4 years James would relay music from the Notre Dame power 90's scene to our home in Suburban VA, particularly Chisel CD's, which were so exciting. I really liked their music and didn't hear much like it anywhere else on the radio etc. James used to drive back and forth to ND with the drummer John Dugan, also from NOVA.

Those tapes, that music, my older brother, were all pretty influential. The first show I saw of the ND band scene was a private emiLy show for an audience of three in somebody's off campus house in 1993. I was 15, a sophomore in high school. Joe, Doug, and Mike's music was at once, loud, hard to understand, terrifying, electric, exciting, soulful, passionate, artful, complex, vastly intriguing and i mentioned loud. It was about as real and vicious a punk rock experience I've ever felt. My brother was dating Mike's older sister Melissa, so the three of us sat in their living room during our older sibling's graduation weekend and were blown away. It was so cool. And I knew that I had to be cool like that.

I'm not sure if I ever really accomplished that goal. My musical impulses were always a little less sophisticated I guess, but my love of rock and roll and desire to be an artist in general and in a band at notre dame were kicked into high gear by that experience.

The Florida Evans Showband and Revue took its name from my older brother's radio show called "Florida Evans" which I thought was hilarious. I also thought the Showband and Revue part was hilarious. If we had any thing going for us it was highly developed sense of punk rock irony.

I saw lots of basement shows my freshman year at Notre Dame in 1995, and a couple at the coffee house at St. Mary's before they closed it. I started writing songs around that time in earnest and also listening to and hearing about Matt Curreri, another singer songwriter on campus... he had some very notorious hits at the Keenan Review and Acoustic Cafe. I played my first solo show at Lula's sophmore year, which Matt came to. Around that time my roommate Brian Monberg who was the head of Amnesty International on campus was organizing a concert at stonehenge and said I should put a band together for it. I had lunch with Matt at the North Quad Dining Hall, which was kinda random cause we didn't really know each other then, and suggested we put a band together for this show, playing some of his songs and some of my songs, I'd play bass on his songs, he'd play bass on mine and we'd find a drummer. He said he was maybe gonna try to put a band together with Aaron Dunn, another Acoustic Cafe all-star, so wasn't sure... but that didn't happen... and the Florida Evan's Showband and Revue was born!

We got Dean Busack, the drummer for Stomper Bob and a real stand up guy who lived in Carroll with me, to help us out for the gig. He was super cool, liked playing music with us and agreed to play some more with us even though he was graduating. We practiced in my dorm room at Carroll Hall for that gig - we had I think one of the largest rooms on campus. We made a tape of a few songs in that room on Matt's four track. But the band became a big part of our lives from then on - we gigged a lot around all of town for the next two years.

We sucked but we were also good. We got cut off and kicked out of Club 23, ignored at Corby's, told to turn down at a bonfire at the site of the old Corby Hall... We got in fights, we had groupies, we wrote more songs, we played more shows.

Junior year first semester, we had this freshman named Jim Bilek play drums with us. He was a super sweet guy, liked The Beatles and put up with us, but I think of the band as really coming into itself once Doug started playing drums with us our senior year. Quite simply, Doug knows how to rock. The punk energy that I had always wanted behind our music finally showed up and gave my more poppy songs the edge I had hoped for. Matt's songwriting was getting really awesome and we became what I like to think of as a pretty cool band. That summer before our senior year, I had acted in a "punk rock musical" in NYC at the Ohio Theater written by my friend Sander Hicks and that kindof widened my musical horizons too. Sammy B, the lead singer of the Mooney Suzuki, who I think now goes by Samuel James Jr., Parker Kindred, Jeff Buckley's drummer, and Nick Colt, NYC impersario, were the pit orchestra. Since I was the lead actor we were kinda like a band that I sang for... We even gigged once as a band called White Collar Crime in Portchester NY, with the Mooney Suzuki opening. We recorded our "original cast album" at Sonic Youth's studio one night from midnight til dawn with Lee Renaldo at the controls. All of this is to say that (1) I like to name drop and (2) I came back to campus and started demanding we all wear suits to our gigs like I had seen the Mooney Suzuki do. It sort of worked, but then there were definitely gig's where I was the only member of the band in a suit. Ah well.

We played a ton of gigs that year, mostly in the basement of Matt and Ron's shack. It was easily one of the coolest times of my life. We played one gig in Michigan I remember - I think it was a highschool prom - that a friend of ours had some connection too. That gig stands out in my mind as particularly awesome because those kids danced their tails off. I felt like a real band that night, not just some weird art project at ND. Another fun gig, might have been before Doug's time, was a partyin my dorm room at Carroll in honor of my little brother visiting. He was 16 and drinking in our room, and at one point our rector, Fr. Mike Sullivan, was out walking behind the dorm and someone threw a beer out the window and hit him in the head. I'll always be proud of the fact that I was able to talk my way out of that and save the party/show from getting shut down, with a promise to not let my brother drink and a pledge to play guitar at the dorm mass.

Finally, in spring of 1999 at the End of the Power 90's, we won the battle of the bands at Senior Bar. But I think only because of a technicality involving the fact that we played our own songs. Because the lame-o judges really liked this other band that played a note perfect rendition of "The devil went down to Georgia". That kind of encapsulates our experience at Notre Dame to me, obliged if not actually liked. (That and the fact that Umphree's McGee, our friends in an amazing jam band, skipped the battle of the bands to get paid a thousand bucks at a bar that we went to after... kinda lessened the mystique of winning the title.) But that what made us cool, I think... like Matt's song, Night Bus, said "I always loved him cause he never was the best" I think that's how I felt about Flo Evans.

Doug and Matt continue to be two of the most inspiring and artful people I know. We broke up after graduation but continued to see music, make music, and record music together in NYC and CA for years after. They were some of the best creative partners I could've hoped for.

*

Made Simple: made simple.

This album was one of those albums where we decided to document nearly every song we had written, which one might argue is not the best strategy for an album, BUT, I like to argue, so bring it.

"Allen Ginsburg" - This song was always so much fun to play for me. I loved singing on it. it always felt super fun and energetic too. And somehow it felt like a weird art rock song. I always liked starting with it because I thought it was an upbeat attention getter.

"Good Times" - people really liked... it was kindof a goofy song that I wrote while jogging at age nineteen, so it's kindof hard to discuss it like literature, but i walk past the punks on the corner and get so sad that they don't know my name, is still a feeling I get. I also can say I that I stopped watching television around this time for a good 10 years, only to return for PBS children's programming as of late- a killer gateway drug.

"My Shy Tongue" was a killer song to play especially when we added that tag at the end. When people talk to me about our band in college they always mention this one. It was a pretty powerful epic tune and always exhilirating to play

I also always loved singing "You Were Wrong," too. What a great song.

"Night Bus" - Matt wrote after we spent the spring of 98 in London, and discovered the "night bus" "I've had enough fun for my life.... .... I want my life like rows of trees, rows of houses, rows of me" still gives me pause for it's beauty and self understanding.

"Samantha's Anthem" - Never ever ever was this song played how I intended it until Doug McEachern joined the band, like The Boss said "and The Big Man joined the band." Doug played drums like he was taller than Clarence Clemons. My roommantes and I told the Papa John's delivery girl, samantha, if she would give us a free pizza we would write a song about her. Things worked out for all parties involved.

"Tired of Being Alone" was my Evan Dando rip off.

"Clever Kids" - I played the other night for my own kids, Ivie James, my one-year old son, who said, "too loud." The band Lynx who visited us at Bulla Street paid me a compliment on this one, that always stuck with me. The also called me the bill murray of south bend, this has also stuck with me.

"Better Left Unsaid" - indeed

"Litter" - This felt like one of our earlier songs that hung in there to make it onto the album. Basically because it was awesome, youthful, "and all we did was have some fun."

"Hot Rod" - was a really insane tune. I don't feel like we ever got this one quite right in it's orchestration actually. It was our surf rock venture and I think we were all a bit confused. But "we all took French, Rick learnt cars, we can talk in code" that's deep shit.

"She's Coming Around Again" - I wrote the first verse of in Cape Cod. I'm in Cape Cod now. Tom Waits said songs find you when looking for a local habitation and a name, and it's an honor to be the one they chose and you should always try to honor the song by writing it down or remembering it or whatever he said - this song happened to me that way.

"Goodbye Girls, Goodbye Boys" was a love letter from the band, Matt really, to the people who always came to our shows. Which in retrospect is a pretty amazing thing. People did like to hear music in South Bend, and other people really liked to make music. In my opinion that's a holy bond and we were all lucky to participate.

Thanks Mike and Ted for doing this jam, and hounding us to geterdone. It's pretty cool. Peace out, dob

***

MATT:

When I was 18 years old, two people mercifully entered my life and pulled me back from a deep depression that I was brewing; A lonely little nerd, roller skating through a sea of Catholic finance majors, football players, and priests, rescued from going clinically silly by a beautiful little elf-girl and this big goof named Dan O’Brien.

Dan and I started playing shows together. He dragged me all the way to London and all around Europe, train and hostel style. He found all of our drummers, I think, and he mostly put up with my shit while I brooded and played soccer. Once he didn’t even kill me when I drove an hour or two east to pick up Jim Bilek in Chicago, which most people find it easy to remember being west of South Bend.

But Dan is right in saying that we became a band when Doug joined. It was then that we wed into the music community of South Bend and had a connection with Ron Garcia, the Lula’s crew, and a real family of musicians and creative types.

Plus Doug rocked. He had a really cool DIY esthetic that I’d never really come in contact with before, he wrote serious and poetic “zines” in his tiny handwriting, and he had a beat up old Honda hatchback overflowing with punk rock tapes. Kick ass!

I have to include Ron in my Florida Evans experience. He was a killer bassist and a great home studio engineer. I have to admit that his dreadlocks shed, and they looked like pubes all over the floor, which I really battled with. But we shared a cute little shack just a block from campus where we had Florida Evans and Butterfly Effect band practices and shows. The first keggers that I actually enjoyed. And college was complete.

We spent the spring of 1999 recording at the house with Ron. We cut and folded all the album art ourselves. There was a color cover at first, but it was ugly and I got caught printing hundreds of them on the graphic design student printer, so we had to do the final in black and white. I love how it came out, though. One of my more forgiving design teachers helped me with the spacing and fonts. I think we had them for sale for like 3 days before graduation.

I was always bummed that Florida Evans ended in 1999, but what can you do? We all lived together in New York City a couple years later. Dan and I were in Chinatown and Doug was in Brooklyn. Doug and I worked together in the Bronx. Dan and I played together all the time in our apartment, and Doug joined me on stage a number of times during those years, but we never tried to relive Florida Evans.

I did just make a Facebook profile for the band and uploaded our main album tracks. Maybe I'll upload our earlier album, too, but I don't know where it is offhand. I redigitized this baby a couple years ago (actually just retransferred the DAT tape). I changed the order around on the Facebook page...I never really liked the Matt-Dan-Matt-Dan order we had.

Thanks for caring, Mike. I'd love for the FESBAR web presence to grow a bit. Always proud to be part of the South Bend scene.

***

DOUG:

Matt called me from London in the spring of 1998 to ask me if I wanted to play drums for FESBAR in the following school year. It sounded like a fun idea, so I said yes. I always had a good time playing in Florida Evans, largely due to the facts that
1 - The songs were fun, as was the general attitude of the band,
2 - There was little in the way of existing recordings of the band (at least as far as I knew), so I was pretty much free to play whatever I wanted to play on the songs,
3 - Matt and Dan are great people I am happy to count among my friends. It is not too much of a stretch to say that my time in Florida Evans is (more or less) directly responsible for my present job as a high school math teacher in NYC, which is a very good thing.

*

Somewhere I have a picture of us sitting on Ron's bed during the mixing process for Made Simple. At least one of us is drinking a 40.

Taking a quick look through the track listing I realize I can sing at least a part of every song, which is more than I can say for a lot of other SBP90s albums, including albums where I wrote the songs. My friend Rob rates this as one of his favorite albums ever, especially for driving. I remember him introducing himself to Matt and Dan by saying, "Hi, I'm Rob. I'm a fan."

I think the first three tracks (going by the original CD listing) make for a great opening salvo. One of my old cellphones had a feature where you could program ringtones note by note, so I made the opening guitar line to "You Were Wrong" my ringtone.

"My Shy Tongue" is an Acoustic Cafe classic. I've met a number of people who knew that song without knowing (or remembering) Florida Evans.

"She's Coming Around Again" may be my favorite Florida Evans song.
I once used 'gummets' in Butterfly Effect poster, in reference to a misheard line from "Litter".

For reasons I can't recall, I played guitar on "Nightbus" and Dan played drums.

I borrowed a tambourine from Mike Mirro of Umphrey's McGee for "Dopeless Hopefiends".

"Goodbye Girls, Goodbye Boys" is one of my all-time favorite album closers, period. I wanted to cover it with The Butterfly Effect at our last show, but we never had time to work it out.

***

download:
The Florida Evans Showband and Revue - Made Simple

see also:
Florida Evans on MySpace

Florida Evans on Facebook
Catch up with Matt's current musical work: Matt Curreri & The Ex-Friends

Bother - Boredom

2010-08-16T20:24:00.008-05:00

"Kids... don't take your action figures to school... "

Bother shows were a revelation. Tight, grinding, metal-infused punk rock backing a wild, jumping, flailing frontman screaming at the top of his lungs about Boba Fett and Sega Genesis. In this writer's opinion, easily one of the greatest, most unique offerings of the South Bend Power 90s scene - certainly one of the defining campus bands of the early 90s.

--------------

"Bother was the first band I was ever in. I believe Kelly originally wanted it to be an all-woman band -- if I remember correctly, Bother was supposed to be an acronym (B.O.The.R, for 'Bitches On The Rag') but as it happened, Kelly ended up with three dudes instead. At our first show, we covered Mudhoney's 'Touch Me I'm Sick' and Nothing Painted Blue's 'Swivel Chair.'

To tell the truth, I'm totally embarrassed at the way I scream these songs -- there's a good reason I've rarely sung in any other band I've been in. Kelly, Jason, and Jim deserved a better vocalist. They were great musicians! I'm grateful that they took me along for the ride.

I remember hearing 'Kill the Popular Kids' from the Incubus compilation blasting from an open window in Zahm and thinking, Wow, I've really arrived."

--James K.

--------------

James K. would go on to play in Comeuppance, Krautmiser, and Toot Hopkins; Jason L. and Kelly D. later formed Pinch Point; and Jim B. played drums in Sweep The Leg Johnny version 1.0. But they got their start here with Bother, pummling their fellow students into submission, dazzling the popular kids with style. "I know it's hard; I know, I've tried."

download:
Bother - Boredome

see also:
Bother on MySpace

Braid - Live at the Canary House - 13 December 1997

2010-08-11T11:04:00.013-05:00

This was the second visit to South Bend for the Chicago, Milwaukee and Champaign based Braid, following a show at Clifford the Big Red House a year earlier (show #175 for Braid, according to complete Braid show list -- the Canary House show was #309), when they played with Chisel Drill Hammer from Iowa, The Fold from Chicago, and The Cuba Five. In '97, Braid visited the Canary House (aka the little yellow house at 610 N. St. Peter) on the way to Washington, DC, where they would record their third album, Frame and Canvas at Inner Ear Studios. Not surprisingly, over half of the set is songs from that album (including "Never Will Come For Us", not shown on the setlist). Florida Evans and The Butterfly Effect opened, along with Chicago's 90 Day Men, who were also returning visitors to the Bend.

The basement at the Canary House was one large, unfinished room the size of the entire house, which made it an ideal show space. Use of the unenclosed toilet attached to one wall was optional. Colored light bulbs and strings of Christmas lights gave the place a bit of atmosphere. The PA setup was a bit dodgier, with the speakers propped up on boxes and shelves. It was not a singer-friendly setup.

Inspired by the excellent treatment emiLy received at Knox College, we liked to cook meals for visiting bands, which helped evenings get off to a friendly, relaxed start. Aside from bands with ND alumni, Braid drew the most out-of-towners to shows. Some were friends from Chicago who drove the hour and 45 minutes, others were South Bend natives who came back to town for the occasion. Ultimately I think that's a reflection of the sort of loyalty and dedication bands like Braid seemed to elicit from friends and fans. Heck, I saw them a dozen or so times in the space of two years in four different cities. It also explains the inside jokes and friendly heckling you can hear on the tape.

My favorite memory of the night was before any music got played. Ben Barnett, who was traveling with Braid, pointed at a drawing by my friend Ian (who turned out to be our mutual friend) on the refrigerator door and got very excited as he was planning to get a tattoo of the same drawing. We got to talking and he explained that he had a band called Kind of Like Spitting and asked if he could play a short solo set during the night, which he did. A few years later, I ran into Ben out in Portland. He said that he looked back on that night in South Bend as his break, as it led to Braid asking him to play again the next night and later taking the full-band version of K.O.L.S. on tour. (Listen for Bob's dedication "This is for Ben!" at the beginning of "What A Wonderful Puddle!")

From what I remember, this was recorded by Ron Garcia with a single room mic, as were the majority of the live shows soon to come via SBP90s.

download:
Braid - Live at the Canary House - 12/13/1997

see also:
Braid on Facebook
Unofficial MySpace
Twitter: @braidcentral
Studio recordings available from Polyvinyl Records

Victoria's Real Secret - Sample Tape (1992)

2010-08-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

As a follow up to a previous post which discussed VRS’s band history and Pasta album, this post explores some earlier songs which pre-dated Pasta. Actually, two of the songs, “Been Around The Block” and “Fish” are two of the songs that made it onto Pasta, but the remaining two were never released on anything more than demo tapes for prospective gigs. These songs give some good insight into the raw and highly unpolished sound that VRS possessed in its early days.

Track 1: This sample tape is introduced by a dedication from Marty (master of time) Menes to Papa John’s Pizza—the most common provider of midnight snacks to Notre Dame students in the nineties. Following the “shout out” to Papa John’s (and the guy across the street), CD begins strumming the main guitar pattern that appears throughout the first song, “Pickpocket”. I soon jump in plucking some complimentary bass notes, and the remaining band members follow in a high spirited, energetic, but fairly derivative romp through some comical lyrics about pickpocketing the world. The song is raw, as is the production (recorded on a four track in the basement of “The Swamp”), but it is a good representation of where we were as musicians and songwriters during the infancy of VRS. Everyone starts somewhere...

Track 2: “Been Around The Block” is the next track, and as written in the previous post, this song predated VRS and was penned by the members of Schwa (including Steve, CD, and Marty). It’s a great grooving song, and this version is a bit rawer in its production than the version on Pasta. I’ll re-post what was previously written about the song to save the reader the trouble of flipping back to a different blog post:

“Been Around the Block” has a straight forward song structure like “Backwards”; however it triggers a more effective emotional response. I’ve always been a fan of hypnotic grooves, and this song brings a Fugazi-like bass line that tries its best to get your head subtly bobbing. For this alone, I enjoy this song. Although I’m not crazy about the guitar’s flange effect on the recorded version, I think this helped the mood of the song when played live. Given this song was a remnant of Schwa (that’s a whole ‘nother review), VRS sure got a lot of mileage out of it.

Track 3: The third track is the same recording of “Fish” that made it onto Pasta. As I previously wrote in the past blog:

“Fish” is another one of the first songs written by VRS. Steve conceived the song’s lyrics to chronicle the cyclical romance of two of the band’s close friends. It contains poppy and lively guitar with some acoustics layered in. The rhythm section pushes the tempo, but generally allows the guitars and vocals to carry the song. Although a simple composition, this was just an up-tempo song we always had fun with. Ryan throws in an over-qualified guitar solo to complete the song, and thus, the album. I feel that ending the album with such an early song was an appropriate reflection of how the band started, and an acknowledgment of how far we had come.

One thing I failed to mention before is that “Fish” easily became a fan favorite for VRS followers. For better or worse, this became our “Freebird” at every local show we played. I’m sure this had something to do wish this single being featured on one of the ND campus music compilations (Incubus 1993), as well as the fact that “Fish” was one of the early songs that we continued to play for a couple of years.

Track 4: The Sample Tape ends with “Ryan’s Lonely”, a crude commentary about the self-pleasuring habits of VRS’s guitar soloist. In defense of poor Ryan, I will say that he had “mad skills” around women. He played the sensitive, troubled, creative genius role perfectly, and figured out early that playing a classical guitar in one’s bedroom is a phenomenal tool to have in one’s tool box. In other words, I’ll stick up for Ryan and say that the basic theme of this song is mis-guided. This song begins with some guitar “noise”, but soon kicks into an in your face tempo, a driving drum beat, catchy guitar rift, and rapid slides up and down the neck of Ryan’s guitar. A performance note: Ryan’s action of sliding up and down the neck intentionally ties into the overall theme of the song, and he tended to exaggerate these movements when performing live. Like many VRS songs, this one contains a consistently repeated guitar rift around which the other components of the song are built. We mix in some dynamic changes, but we basically play the same parts throughout the song. Nevertheless, it is a fun and lively way to end this collection of songs, and who can’t appreciate ending it on the lyrics “Better touch myself and smile!”

In conclusion, this sample tape is a good snapshot of the early stages of Victoria’s Real Secret. Although not as polished in both content and production as Pasta, it provides a good benchmark from which one can measure the progress of our band. As I previously posted:

More than anything else, I remember VRS as a band that was FUN to see live. We always had a great time stirring the audience into a frenzy and playing off each other.

This sample tape, if nothing else, reminds me of the fun and lively shows we put on. That’s a memory I will always treasure. Thanks for reading and listening! Questions or comments? Feel free to contact me at wil.freve@comcast.net.

--Wil Freve

download:
Victoria's Real Secret - Sample Tape

see also:
Victoria's Real Secret on MySpace
Victoria's Real Secret - Pasta

Severinsen - SNUBBED! by incubus 1993 + Bonus Live

2010-07-15T10:14:00.001-05:00

In 1993, Severinsen recorded a couple songs at Miami Street Studio, with the impression that one of them would be included on the incubus 1993 ND campus band compilation. Yet for some reason, the band was eventually excluded from the CD. This EP, affectionately dubbed "SNUBBED! by incubus 1993," represents those studio recordings, as well as a couple extra live tracks we dug up from the show we previously posted.

MIKE:

This was my first time recording with John Nuner at Miami Street. (I'd go on to record at least two other mega sessions with emiLy). Nervous as heck but I'm happy with the way I played and the way we sounded. Nuner was a nice guy and easy to work with.

I'm pretty sure we recorded the basics for 3 songs (another one in addition to "Limber/Sorry" and "My Greatest Fear") but only kept/overdubbed/finished those two.

Singing the backup vocals to "My Greatest Fear" with Colin and Eric was much fun.

"Limber/Sorry" was and still is my favorite Severinsen song to play and to listen to. I'm very happy we have a nice studio version of this.

Somebody (can't remember who) told me later that both of these songs were rejected from the incubus CD because Chris was already represented in Chisel and Colin was already represented in Brian, Colin, and Vince. Which to this day still seems incredibly unfair to Eric and myself, but so it goes. SNUBBED!, indeed.

I'm not sure how we started doing the PJ Harvey cover with Kate Babka, but it was always a blast. And the Kylie song always made me laugh. It is about Kylie Minogue, isn't it? When I would hear her techno stuff years later (1999-2001 or so), anytime I saw her on VH1 on directTV or something, the line "Kylie's got a crush on us" would pop into my head.

ERIC:

I remember Colin having to stand on top of his amp in the studio to prevent the horrible vibration it produced from being recorded. Then I remember actual vocal track takes being produced in the bathroom to produce that "natural reverb"effect. The last minute decision to provide backup vocals on "My Greatest Fear" was just hilarious. Good times.

Then of course there was the incubus snub. I was probably the most affected by it, because I didn't have another band on the compilation, and I was a senior, so there would be no second chance. I remember getting my copy and giving it a chance, listening through all the tracks to hear why our recordings were not included. I was a genuine fan of many of the bands that were included (as a sidebar, I was so impressed with Bother, I asked them to play at our house during Zep Fest. The lead singer, James Kennedy, almost got into a fight with some of the people at the party because the band wanted to play during the NCAA Final Four basketball game on the TV. We eventually had to hide James in the basement to prevent him from getting hurt. So punk!!) When I heard the last forgettable track on the CD - "Punch the Clown" by The Porkchoppers (so forgettable, I had to look it up) I fully realized what a snub it was. The last song was so horrible, it turned into another valuable life lesson that you only get in college - in the music business, it's who you know. As I recall, the Porkchoppers were friends with the producers of the CD.

Our luck seemed to follow us around as we were the only band at the battle of the bands in the top 10 that played on the "student run" stage. All the other bands in the top 10 played on the stage that was engineered by professionals. The student engineers didn't even notice I was singing the last song of the set until halfway through the song when Meghan King of The Sister Chain fame yelled at them to turn up my microphone. The fact that we still got 5th made me wonder how well we could have done on the other stage.

I remember taking a recording studio class the year after graduation and bringing a copy of these recordings we made in for show and tell. I was the only brave soul in the whole class. Everyone commented how they wished they could hear the vocals better and that they were lost in the mix. I lamented at the time that I sort of wished the same, but I also recall that was somewhat intentional.

CHRIS:

I seem to recall that the engineer, John Nuner, had some funny turns of phrase. "Put it in the can," maybe? Something like that? His studio had a strange, fly by night feel to it. I always assumed it was a front for some shady dealings. But Nuner was (and hopefully still is) a good guy.

As for the songs, I love Colin's and cringe at mine. L/S was the beginning of great things for Colin - he wrote in that vein for the next ten years or so, shoegazing with the best of them. The lyrics of MGF are inexplicable. I hope no one thinks they're autobiographical. Thank god for the backup vocals, which add the only levity to an otherwise super creepy song.

COLIN:

Did John Nuner have a palm tree for a logo? I was always confused by the Miami moniker.

I think we all generally had a positive experience during the sessions. I think we recorded 2 songs because we couldn't decide whether to use one of Chris' songs or one of mine - and we were not the primary songwriters in the other bands we were in. Our idea was to give the incubus folks both songs and let them pick which one they wanted to use. I don't think it occurred to us at the time that they might go with the third option - neither! Yikes! And yeah, I recall that we were led to believe that we were excluded because of Chris and I already being on there with Chisel and Brian, Colin and Vince - but I didn't have the same problem of not being able to separate the various acts in my mind.

I'm not particularly bitter about it now, but I remember feeling slighted - Severinsen was a really important band to me. I see now that we were still learning what we were even doing, but at the time we were feeling like ND music scene veterans - playing regular gigs on and off campus and such.

When I decided to make my own compilation cassette release, Shameless, on my label Sudden Shame I put BOTH of the Severinsen songs on there -- is that why so many bands got 2 songs each? Ahahaha!

As a studio newbie, I remember trying to make cool sounds and used a cassette case to do amateur slide work up and down the neck.

I'm definitely glad we made these recordings, even though they were snubbed. We knew they we good!

As far as the bonus live material goes, we were playing "Sheila na Gig" because Chris had become a massive PJ Harvey fan on his semester abroad - and he also came back to the states with a cassette that had "Kylie's Got a Crush on Us" as performed by Teenage Fanclub (but written by the BMX Bandits). So we just loved playing those songs. I remember going to see PJ play in Chicago with Chris and waiting outside afterwards to say hi! And last year I got to see both of those bands live at the same festival (Indietracks), but neither one played that song. If they had, it would likely have blown my mind!

Did we start having Kate sing on "Sheila" because we wanted to help her get into Club 23 (underage) or was it just because we thought it would be a fun thing to do? I can't remember. Maybe Chris started feeling weird about singing it (as a boy?) and wanted to get some estrogen injected back into it. I could make up theories all day long, but Kate might be the best person to ask for the real answer! A couple months ago I was playing a show in a bar in Montpelier, VT, and my friends band that we were playing with did a cover of that song, too! Boy did it bring back memories all over again.

"Belly up!" That's another blast from the past! So glad to be reminded that this song ever existed. The recording quality is waaay rough, but I'm just glad to hear enough of it to spark my memories.

download:
Severinsen - SNUBBED! by incubus 1993 + Bonus Live

see also:
Severinsen on MySpace
incubus 1993 compilation

Trendinista 5000

2010-05-13T10:01:00.000-05:00

While many assume that the Trendinista 5000 full-length cassette was recorded at the Record Plant by Bill Laswell or perhaps on a farm in Minnesota with Brian Paulson or Smart Studios with Butch Vig, the tape was actually made in a small cellar of a student house on St. Peter’s Street in downtown South Bend, IN.

The year was, I think, 1992 and we had just gotten back in town but not yet started classes at ND—so I’m guessing August—I’d have to check my old journal from that era. Chisel, a band that housemate Ted Leo and I had been doing off and on for a year or two, was off until we could find a new bassist, but we had a lot of creative energy built up from the summer. We set up our gear in a small, dark, musty space in the basement of our shared house and called up our pal Dennis McNicholas, whom I had done Teenage Dope Slaves with about a year previous.

We let the tape roll for either one day or two—making up songs on the spot, perhaps with one run-through before recording and ultra minimal overdubs. It was my idea of an “instant music” project, almost like automatic writing as a technique for producing a lot of material without filtering or critiquing what you were doing, just fueled by camaraderie and enthusiasm and strong coffee. I was taking the lead only because I had been the one with the guitar in hand when we started taping. There was a lot of switching around, Ted covers the drums (quite masterfully) when I’m playing guitar and singing and usually vice-versa, with Dennis singing and probably playing some guitar, too. I didn’t even own an electric guitar at this point, so I assume the axe was Ted’s old Fender Squire. The kid Mark was our housemate Mason’s girlfriend Mary’s little brother. I believe Dennis came up with the band name, or perhaps we did together—we had the name before we wrote the Trendinista girl tune, I think. 5000 was slang for see ya later—as in Audi 5000 if I recall.

As you can probably hear, all three of us were very familiar with Beat Happening and T5000 is, in some way, a kind of tribute to Calvin Johnson and that band. But you can also hear a bit of Codeine—with whom I was really taken for a year or two, perhaps Buffalo Tom and also some Teenbeat/Unrest vibes in there. The tape is kind of a time capsule of the era. Considering how quickly it was made, I think the songs are pretty phenomenal—still insanely catchy. Dennis and Ted were obviously talented young men—it was fun writing songs together.

Sometime that year, Colin Clary released the cassette on his Sudden Shame label out of Vermont. Dennis did original artwork for the cassette— a woodblock print—or maybe a soap block print, I'm not sure.

--John Dugan

download:
Trendinista 5000 - Self-Titled

see also:
Trendinista 5000 on MySpace
twitter: @johnedugan, @tedleo, @SBP90s

Obstruction - Live at Clifford

2010-04-27T15:48:00.001-05:00

Haha! I didn't even remember that someone had recorded that show! Wow, good times. I guess everyone was just too nice to tell me how bad I sucked on drums those days!

Actually, "Eyesore" was a pretty good rendition, we always played that one well and "Holy Martyr" rocked!

Man, my timing was horrible! I think I was playing in another time zone on "Underscore" at the end there. Haha.

Once again, our best song and crowd favorite "Gunshot" seemed to always stand out from the rest. I especially liked it when I hit my cymbal so hard it flew off the stand towards the end of the song! Now that was some serious hardcore! Who was that trying to put it back on, Doug? Pretty funny.

Those were the good ol' days boys!! When is the reunion show!?

--Andy Yang

-------------

We look so young and shiny, like we have our whole rock and roll futures ahead of us!

I didn't realize that I roll my eyes every time I mess up lyrics, that's hilarious.

Bah, who needs timing when you have hardcore? I love how the verses in "Underscore" feel like we're rushing because we're late for a hanging or something and then the chorus has this laid back almost ska feel to it.

On explaining the songs: I wasn't the most eloquent public speaker. Good thing my job was to bellow our lyrics.

The darkness and dinginess captures the feel of a basement show really nicely.

Yeah, that was Doug futzing with the cymbal. Andy you were rocking it hard! We should have set our instruments on fire (if only we could afford new ones)!

It was such a blast playing in that band with two of my best friends to this day!

--Hardcore Ron

-------------

I'd have to agree with what Chris O always says about too many bands making the mistake of talking too much between songs. But with a set that could be played straight through in only around 10 minutes, I think we were sorta trying to string things out a little. Ah well...

I love seeing Ron rage on the mic, and watching Andy beat the drums into submission. The guitar work here is, as usual, somewhat regrettable. But whatever-- punk rock! Obstruction GO!!!

So cool that this video exists!

--Ted Hennessy

see also:
Obstruction - One Step Closer
Obstruction on MySpace
follow @SBP90s on twitter

Comeuppance - Live at the Pre-Nuptial Bash

2010-04-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

Our first show was at Bronwyn and Ted’s engagement party at St. Peter Street. We dressed in our finest and nervously took our places on stage. Justin Mitchell graciously let me use his amp and set it up for me. We played four songs, which went by in a blur but for a moment in “Madeleine” when I had to hit the distortion pedal: the worry of finding the right pedal in the dark, stabbing at it with my toe and half-missing, then relief at hearing the piercing sound – and astonishment and thrill that I was actually playing guitar onstage in a band and not falling to utter pieces.

--Allison Rigo

download:
Comeuppance - Live at the Pre-Nuptial Bash

see also:
Comeuppance on MySpace
Comeuppance - Tally Ho!

Faye, Leslie, and Shelley - Live at Clifford

2010-03-10T16:19:00.000-06:00

I am so glad that we were able to participate in the scene and do so with our very own style and sound - without feeling that we had to emulate any of the other bands that were there. I am glad as well that people gave us a listen, and for the most part were respectful of the fact that we were just doing our own thing. How awesome for this suburban housewife to have some video of me hanging around where I am playing in a band at Clifford the Big Red House, with two smart as hell, outspoken, wonderful women - not to mention the times when Zoe played with us as well - another smart as hell wonderful lady.

Thank you to whoever recorded that moment in my life [ed. it was Roger] - and thank you Ted for putting it into the ether forever...

--Leslie

see also:
Faye, Leslie, and Shelley - Demo Recordings
Faye, Leslie, and Shelley on MySpace

twitter: @SBP90s

Ted Leo - "Innocents Abroad" (Chisel) live on WFMU 3/2/2010

2010-03-03T14:51:00.006-06:00

Last night, Ted Leo made his latest in a series of recurring appearances on The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Sharpling, during their annual fund drive. Aside from playing a few solo versions of songs from his forthcoming album, The Brutalist Bricks, and a couple goofy covers, Ted whipped out an old Chisel classic... "Innocents Abroad." As Ted explains, he actually had to download the lyrics from the internet, to refresh his memory after not having played the tune in about 13 years!

Well, it sounded as good as ever, and was certainly a special treat for all the old-school Chisel fans out there. We've procured an MP3 of the cut for you, so check it out!

Ted Leo (solo) - "Innocents Abroad"

Additionally, you can stream the entire show by clicking here.

UPDATE! Video footage of the performance has popped up on YouTube:

follow Ted: @tedleo
follow us! @SBP90s

Severinsen - Live at Dalloway's 4/24/1993

2010-02-28T13:58:00.000-06:00

Eric:
I can claim "Girl of Confusion" and "Call to Arms" as the two tracks I contributed to the group and sang. That's Mike yowling with me in the latter song.

Some highlights I can recall from my Severinsen career...

I remember the gigs at that coffeehouse on St. Mary's campus. Those were well attended, high energy shows. Back before they had energy drinks, I fueled those gigs with 2 liters of Dr. Pepper.

I remember playing a triple bill in my living room at the Zep Fest house on Portage Ave. with Brian, Colin and Vince, Severinsen and Chisel. I'm sure we were using the PA equipment owned by Palace Laundry. At least two of the musicians playing there that night went on to successful music careers (see Colin Clary and Ted Leo).

I remember practicing in the basement of that same house in my room next to the community showers in the house. My roommates used to tell me they liked attending concerts in the shower.

I remember how tight we were towards the end that we didn't even need practices... we would just show up for gigs.

I remember booking the biggest gig near the end of senior year playing outside at the big barbecue on St. Mary's campus during spirit week, only to have the gig cancelled completely because of the THREAT of rain (it never actually did rain that day). Naturally they had no back up plan for us to play indoors.

Chris:
I only vaguely recall why we went with the name Severinsen (not -son!). I think my friend Robert and I had a running joke about Doc Severinsen. I'm sure it was hilarious. This band was a carryover of sorts from Richard Scarry, a group Colin and I had in Vermont over the summer of '92. A lot of the songs made the trip back to school with us. We hooked up with Mike and Eric, two awesome musicians, much better than us, and played a few shows. Eric kicked in a couple songs. All was well. Improbably, we played Zep Fest. I'm virtually certain we didn't try any Page/Plant numbers, though nowadays I do enjoy rocking a rousing "Immigrant Song" with my kids.

Colin:
I remember we practiced in the downstairs of the house Eric lived in. And also that we almost had a keyboard player - for some reason at that time I had the notion that rock bands shouldn't have keyboards in them so we decided to not have the keyboard player join the band, but we let his amp be in the band because Mike used it for his bass! I kinda feel bad about it now, but what did we know then - it's also kind of funny...

I remember the bit Chris mentions about the Doc Severinsen comedic riffing with Robert -"he was cooking!" - it was at least funny enough that we thought it would make a cool band name.

I don't remember how the band came together, but I am so glad it did - Mike and Eric and Chris were awesome to play with - Chris and I were living together at that time and we each had other bands as well - with him in Chisel and me in Brian, Colin and Vince - for me it was just the beginning of having multiple musical outlets. I had been in the London program with Mike's sister. Maybe Eric remembers how we met - I used to play pool in the Gorch gameroom when he was working, but I'm fuzzy on how the band came together - It definitely started with Chris and I and our batch of songs held over from the summer previous.

At that time, the ND music scene was so much fun to be a part of - so many bands and friends playing all the time - I actually didn't have any recordings of some of these songs, so thanks to whomever taped this show and saved it! I never thought I'd get to hear "Daydream Nathan!"

Sometimes I felt like Severinsen was overlooked or under appreciated - speaking here about us not being included on the Incubus comp! I felt we should have been on there, but my impression was that we weren't because Chris and I were already on the disc in our two other bands. Fair enough, but I am sure I was ticked at the time. Severinsen was a solid contributor to the local scene on it's own. It wasn't the last time I felt like that, because I seem to have kept up since then with having multiple bands going at the same time. That said, the ND scene was extra awesome as a place where anyone who believed they could be in a band could start one and have one - lots of us dared to and made a whole scene out of whatever we wanted to do.

As far as those photos go, I can tell the tux shirt one was from the 40 ounce formal we held at our house! I really feel lucky to have gotten to play with folks who were willing to try each others' ideas - Chris and I and Eric each wrote different types of songs, but we all did our best to make them work.

Chris is one of my favorite people to sing with ever - I just liked the way our voices sounded together.

As far as the "Immigrant Song"... I'm pretty sure we covered that one in a medley with "The Joker" and another song when we were in Ice Nine a couple years before... Hope this helps with the blog post - I have been enjoying these trips down memory lane you keep preserving for us!

best,
colin
yow!

ps- I seem to remember playing a trainwreck version of "Hey Joe" at a party at Eric's - was that Zep fest? I know that we took a set break and the second half was more chaotic - I think we were lucky to have such a solid and talented rhythm section holding us together.

Mike:
I credit my sister for helping get this band together; she met Colin (and Chris?) the prior year on the London Program. They told her they needed a bassist for their new band, and she arranged for us to meet. At first, I thought she meant her friends from the band Chisel needed a new bassist. So, during the last few months of high school, I spent some time listening to The Jericho Sessions CD, memorizing the bass part to "Swamp Fox/Spike." Silly Mike.

I arrived on campus that August, and instead of going to any Freshman Orientation stuff, I spent my first weekend in South Bend practicing with Severinsen. I did not realize at the time how lucky I was. Turns out Chisel did need a new bassist, and that new bassist was Chris. Which was nice, because we got to open for Chisel more than a few times that year. I got to say "yeah, I'm in that band, Severinsen... you know... with that one guy from Chisel, and that other guy from Brian, Colin and Vince." Almost famous. The shows we played with BC&V and Chisel still rank among my personal favorites of all time.

I was amazed by these two guys (Chris and Colin) and their seemingly effortless hooks and harmonies, their ease at writing and blending songs together. I was still in full-on prog-rock mode, so it was quite a shock to play this kind of lush pop punk. Eric and I hit it right off, with similar music tastes and interests, and we worked diligently to create a locked-down rhythm section to back up the Glee Club power duo.

I really enjoyed this Introduction to Notre Dame Campus Bands 101, getting to jump right in the scene as a freshman, go to all these great shows and play with great bands, right off the bat. It ended too soon, as the other guys graduated that spring. I'm so happy that we have a record of these songs, especially "Limber/Sorry," a song that, even after all these years, I could still sing to myself, even though I had not heard it played in almost 15 years, until now. Thanks.

download:
Severinsen - Live at Dalloway's Coffeehouse 4/24/1993

see also:
Severinsen on MySpace

emiLy - RTO 1.5329

2010-02-18T15:31:00.012-06:00

In the fall of 1993, emiLy went to Miami Street Studios for our first professional recording experience. We recorded and mixed four songs in the space of two days or so, and the first three were released as a seven-inch EP called Finer Time. While waiting for the records to be pressed, we decided to make some quick copies of the recording session on cassette that we could send out to labels and venues we found in Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, the massive punk/DIY resource guide put out by Maximum Rock and Roll. (BYOFL started in 1992 and was a big bound newsprint magazine up until 2003 or 2004, when it turned into an online resource at www.byofl.org.) We sent the tape out with a simple insert that asked people to "Write us if you can help us find places to play, people to play to, vinyl(or tape(or CD)) to be on, or good Indian food in the MidWest." The tape did help us in the first two enterprises, but not so much in the latter.

The tape features the same four songs on both sides. The first three are the same tracks from Finer Time ("Cartoon Sex", "Finer Time", and "5(Frialator)"), and the fourth is a studio version of "Fortune 13", which appears in a different form on engineering means i Like you. Aside from the hundred or so people who got to hear this tape in person, this is the first opportunity for most people to hear "Fortune 13" in all its Miami Street glory. (I have no idea what the significance of the .5329 is, aside from indicating that it was not meant to be a regular RTO release.)

Not too long after this demo came out, we played a show at Dalloway's with Comeuppance. We called it our birthday show, as it was roughly a year to the date from the first emiLy show. The flyer advertised free cake in honor of the occasion, and we delivered on that promise. I bought a bunch of Little Debbie snack cakes and gave them to James K. to distribute at the beginning of our set. James jumped up and ran around the room, yelling "I'VE GOT CAKE! WHO WANTS CAKE?" and handing cakes to all who asked.

download:
emiLy - RTO 1.5329

see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Comeuppance - Tally Ho!

2010-02-02T14:08:00.000-06:00

James Kennedy, bass:
Comeuppance is the first band in which I ever played an instrument. I learned how to play the bass by practicing along with a Teenage Dope Slaves tape in my room at Sorin, and thus will always have a fondness for "Death Spa.” I was such an amateur I remember Chris had to literally push my fingers down on the fret board where they needed to go. Chris is from South Bend, so we practiced at his parents' house, in his boyhood bedroom. You can’t get much twee-er than that.

Chris Norborg, drums:
Comeuppance came about because Allison wrote beautiful poems and turned one into a song. Then I wrote a few quickies and cobbled together a drum kit. (The same kit featured in another obscure combo, Ely Parker & the CIAs, that I hope to get Ted to document someday on this site.) I knew Kate could sing from our hours driving around singing Morrissey songs together. James contributed his (criminally underrated) bass technique and "Freak Cathode Accident." A precious few shows, then Tim Schaffler (of the infamous Tennessee Schafflers) recorded essentially our entire repertoire - save a couple clunkers best forgotten - on his big ol' reel-to-reel four-track. And that was that.

Allison Rigo, guitar:
Comeuppance was the fun of being in a band compressed into four brief months: we practiced, we learned songs, we made flyers and T-shirts and stickers, we played a few shows, we recorded, we made a cassette tape – and then it was over. Its novelty and its compactness made it feel like a gift.

The songs were sweet and sometimes melancholy, and that was perfect for who we were – college kids finding their inner fourth-graders through Beverly Cleary motifs, Ludwig Bemelmans references, and the newspaper funnies.

Kate Connell, vocals:
How to succinctly sum up my days in Comeuppance you ask? Well, as my good pal Chuck Dickens once said, "It was the good times, it was the poo times" (I'm paraphrasing here, people). It was my sophomore year at St. Mary's College, a school I never actually chose to attend but was chosen for me. By the time I hit second year there, I was thoroughly depressed. However, there was this gleaming, fleeting light of hope. And that hope had a name... no, not Obama, but rather Comeuppance. Chris, Allison, and James were very much my saving grace(s) that year. Not only did we get to play music together, we also became a family. I know, corny but true. We would practice at Chris' parents' house which to me was the best part. Usually a delicious dinner was prepared and shared with fantastic company. In fact, the first time I ever saw someone have apple pie with a slice of cheese on top happened right there in their kitchen after practice. As for the shows, they're kind of a blur to me. But I still love the songs. Sometimes I find myself these days playing guitar alone in my room I strum and hum "Non Issue" or "Clock" or "Falter." Looking back on our short-lived career, I feel given just a little more time, we could've conquered the world!! Or, at the very least, played another show or two...

download:
Comeuppance - Tally Ho!

see also:
Comeuppance on MySpace

Hace Frio - The New Beat

2010-01-22T10:32:00.000-06:00

What I remember most about The New Beat was Jim scrambling to get back to South Bend mid-Hace Frio/emiLy tour to pick up the tapes. What struck me most about the recordings was that the first six songs or so were OK. I was very pleased with the addition of the violin, and Rose's playing in general because it gave some depth to some of the songs, and added layers to the band's sound. "Welcome to Semblance" and "Gray Shades" were always so much fun to perform. We had just started to mature as a band I think, when this tape came out, and unlike the sweat-drenched summer of unbearable heat inspired songs of our first recording, The New Beat was crisper, and the recording quality better. Most importantly, as Doug has pointed out repeatedly, we had fun.

We had played a few shows in Chicago and Michigan before we took off for the tour, and we had been lucky enough to open for some great acts, including several U. of Chicago bands such as Streganona and Toulouse, and the Chisel show at 702 W. Angela. We even did a Michigan spot with Streg that was memorable for all the faces in the basement who had never heard us, but were into it, and the prodigious booze quaffed by both bands.

Hawking that tape on tour also was fun, I remember in Ohio hitting up every person in the club to buy them, lord knows where they are now. We seemed to keep running into straightedge folk on the tour, who Doug and Mike L. horrified by setting records for chicken wing consumption, and who Jim and I horrified by staggering around with 40s mid-day. By the end of the Carolina leg of the tour, some of them liked us well enough to try and hitch a ride back to the Bend. Amazing what a tour can do.

Back to the tape, Jim deserves mucho credit for his technical skill in recording this and the development of his bass lines. In listening to it 13 years later, I can recall the tour and waning days in the Bend, and also all the idealism and fun we had that year.

--Dave McMahon

download:
Hace Frio - The New Beat

see also:
Hace Frio on MySpace
Hace Frio - The College Years (1995-1996)

The Mad Dogs - Live at Clifford

2010-01-13T11:23:00.000-06:00

Been waiting for some crappy, dark, South Bend basement show video? Well, here's some footage of the Mad Dogs from 1997, performing in the basement of Clifford the Big Red House (opening for Hey, Dummy).

Songs: Mexican Girls, Blue One-Stars, My Religious Girlfriend, Love South Quad Style, I Think I'm Alone Now.

Chris:
Let's see... I guess I am proud to have been the only person rocking a homemade New York Dolls t-shirt in South Bend in 1997. I am not as proud of the Chain of Strength-esque mic grip technique I employed. Compared to subsequent bands I have been in I am impressed by the amount of energy I put into writing the lyrics to these songs (and remembering the words to the too many verses). I am not impressed with the between song monologues ("banter" would suggest some back an forth). I am not embarrassed by the subject matter of songs like "I Got a Thing for Mexican Girls." I am embarrassed by the coda of the song; what in retrospect now sounds like a Judgment Night Soundtrack/rap/rock "breakdown." I am still jealous Doug got to sing "Blue One-Stars" himself (because I had not yet learned to play an instrument). But I am no longer jealous of his preference to showcase his other bands and sweep the Mad Dogs under the rug (he was correct to do so). I am apologetic to anyone who endured this set, since we had not learned the 4th rule of live music performance (you don't HAVE to play every song you know every time). I am not apologetic for breaking the first rule of showbiz (leave them wanting more- ha!), because the negative energy was essentially the point. I wish I was as thin as I appear to be in this video. I do not wish to ever eat another dining hall chicken sandwich or Papa Johns pizza ever again.

P.S. Andy Yang loves you!

Doug:
Our set in this video seems way more mellow than I remember any Mad Dogs show ever being. However, I have absolutely no memory of strobe lights in that basement, so I suppose there is other stuff I've forgotten as well. I do remember spending a lot of time on the floor during Mad Dogs shows. I don't remember some of these songs at all. I always thought these shows were fun, no matter what Chris says.

Mike:
I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad that you can't really tell if it's me in the video. I am happy that we have video evidence of this band's existence. The strobe light is a nice touch. Marvel at Doug's ability to continue playing bass whilst being attacked by Chris! Behold the steely gaze of Ted the destroyer! Never before has a drummer (yours truly) so artfully melted into the shadows! Witness the awesome power of amps breaking and bandmates flailing and audience members stunned into submission! Beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Or something.

Ted:
Watching these old Mad Dogs videos (yes, there's more) makes me realize that I probably should've spent more time learning to play our songs, and less time drinking before performances. But I guess that was our M.O., so screw it, it was a hella lotta fun. If we couldn't be musical, at least we were a spectacle. Anyway, I'm glad Roger or whoever recorded some of these basement shows, they've been, uh, interesting to look back at. It was also fun to see Andy singing with Chris on "Love South Quad Style," even though I butchered the middle of it. Oops!

Read more about the Mad Dogs here.
Download our cassette.
Visit our MySpace page.

The Shaggs - Wink (1967)

2010-01-06T09:47:00.004-06:00

(File this one under South Bend Power 60s!)

While legendary 60's music scenes in college towns like Austin (the 13th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn) and Ann Arbor (the Stooges, MC5) have been well documented over the years, the South Bend/Notre Dame music scene of the '60s is not something most people give a lot of thought on even a year-to-year-basis. Listening to Midwestern oldies radio (in the pre-internet era) gave me a start on this arcana and informed me that Junior Walker (of the All Stars) got his start in South Bend bars and Tommy James (of the Shondells) was from nearby Niles. However it was a decade ago with the help the internet that I stumbled upon hints of the Shaggs. Although the Shaggs' "beyond rare" long player Wink has been one of the most coveted private-press "garage" albums in underground '60s record collecting circles and bootlegged countless times, only speculation shrouded the group itself who were often misdescribed as "Prep Rockers from Notre Dame University." Thankfully, Geoff Gillette took some time away from his studio engineering to set the record straight and provide insight into the short saga of the Shaggs and the seminal Notre Dame music scene of the mid-to-late '60s.

(Geoff in turn put me in contact with two others Shaggs: Chuck Perrin and Frank Krakowski and also Gus Duffy of their progenitors, Webster's New Word. Their vital accounts, contributions and photos from Chuck's archives are included below. Special thanks to Dennis Lopez, bass player for Captain Electric, and Bob Ewan, First Friday vocalist, for generously furnishing recordings, context and their perspectives on that groundbreaking era.)

An Interview with Geoff Gillette, Frank Krakowski, and Chuck Perrin.

By Ted Liebler (interview originally appeared on 60sgaragebands.com in 2002)

The fabulous Shaggs from Notre Dame, with their orgy of sound... from the practice sessions three years ago in the Farley Hall basement to their current fame... as the outstanding band on the campus, and in the South Bend area. Finally unleashed... and running wild.

Ted Liebler (TL): How did you first get involved with music? I assume that you have a deep background in music with vocals, guitar and keyboard listed by your name on the back of Wink.

Geoff Gillette (GG): When I saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show, I told my parents I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, which showed up as my next birthday present, and I taught myself the guitar which was fairly easy with all the years of piano training I had previously had. Before long, I was teaching guitar to kids after school and formed a high school band called The Ends. That was the first of several bands I would be in.

TL: Did you come from an artistic/musical family?

GG: I did come from a musical family. My mom played the piano and had me in piano lessons from the age of seven. My dad was also an artist, a painter and set designer. My sister and I were raised in the theatre - The Chatham Community Players of Chatham, New Jersey - and performed in many musicals and plays as we were growing up.

TL: You mentioned that you were in a series of bands after The Ends. Do you care to elaborate further on your pre-Shaggs band experience?

GG: Every summer my family went to the Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore and another band called The Islanders ensued. We used to play surf music and the current Rolling Stones hits at various clubs and yacht club parties around the island. It was a great time... life-guarding, surfing, and playing in a band! What more could you want at the age of 16?

TL: When did The Shaggs first form and did you go through a series of monikers?

GG: Then I went off to college - The University of Notre Dame. Within three weeks, I joined another band called The Shaggs. Frank Krakowski was the leader and founder. The band had already been in existence for one year with a guitar player named John Hall, who left Notre Dame and went on to have a great career with a group called Orleans. (Prior to Orleans, John Hall was in Kangaroo with N.D. Smart post-Remains. They released one album on MGM in 1968]. He wrote a big hit song called Still The One, which years later became a promo theme for ABC-TV (The song was also employed for a Burger King commercial campaign). John can probably retire on the royalties from that. I love it when that happens!

Frank Krakowski (FK): The Shaggs was the first and only name of the group that existed from 1964 to 1968. The name was simply a reference to long hair and its expression then as a sign of rebellion.

TL: How did you come across the other musicians? Were they all Notre Dame students at the time?

GG: Chuck Perrin and I, both in our freshman year, found our way into The Shaggs and we had great success playing at all the Notre Dame parties and rallies. Chuck went to study in Europe for his sophomore year and consequently was not part of the record, Wink. He did, however tell me about another band from Notre Dame called Webster's New Word who had gotten a recording contract with Columbia Records and everyone had quit college and moved to New York to pursue a career in music. Chuck came back to New Jersey with me for Christmas vacation and we went to Greenwich Village to see Webster's perform at the Cafe Wah? That's when I met Gus Duffy, the guitar player in the group. This would be the beginning of a long relationship involved with music that continues to this very day.

Chuck Perrin (CP): When I graduated from high school in 1964, I returned home to Pekin, Illinois for a year to save up money to attend Notre Dame, but I used to go up to ND a couple of times a month on weekends to hang out. On one my first visits, a football Saturday in fall 1964, I walked into the Rathskeller below the student center to find The Shaggs - Frank Krakowski, Ray Wheatley, John Hall and another guy - set up and playing. They blew me away. I had been playing bass in a local central Illinois teen band, Eddie & The Excels, but I went back and started my own version of the Shags - with one "G". They became very popular in the Peoria/Pekin area that year, culminating with a top three finish in the Battle of the Bands at the Illinois State Fair the summer of '65. (NOTE: These Shags went on to record two picture sleeved 45s. Talk To A Sidewalk can be heard on the Every Groovy Day compilation from Misty Lane Records of Italy and all four of their songs can be heard on a reissue released by Craig Moore of Gonn on his CMP imprint). The next year, September of '65, I enrolled at ND and looked up Frank K. It turned out he was in the same hall as me, Farley, and needed a singer since John Hall had left ND (willingly or unwillingly). I was in the real Shaggs and the Sorin Hall porch was now "my domain" on football Saturdays!

TL: Wow! Tell me more about Webster's New Word? From Internet research, I noticed the group had singles on both Columbia and RCA Records. One of the Columbia singles was a cover of Richard Farina's Hard Lovin' Loser. [As previously mentioned, Geoff put me in touch with Gus Duffy who provides his account below.]

Gus Duffy (GD): The whole Webster's New Word thing sprung from The Four Winds - an integrated folk group comprised of some talented musicians that began at Notre Dame probably in 1960. The music was right out of the Chad Mitchell Trio, Bud and Travis, Clancy Brothers, all with jacket and tie. Bookings were good enough to quit school and go pro. We spent a year in San Francisco and worked clubs like Hungry i, Purple Onion, and Mr. Bimbo's 365 club. Bill Cosby and Mort Sahl were openers. I played 12-string guitar, 5-string banjo, and helped with the vocal arrangements.

Skip to NYC 1965: Webster's New Word had done a videotaped audition at the state fair in Indiana; the tape got sent to New York and Webster's New Word was invited to a showcase at Arthur--a discotheque named after Ringo's haircut and owned by Sybil Burton. Webster's New Word had just gone electric, and I had rejoined the band for just this one last gig (I had quit Webster's New Word to play drums with the Signe Anderson-era Jefferson Airplane and even taught Skip Spence how to drum). I got drafted and returned to Notre Dame. It was an amazing performance, and the next day we were signed to Columbia by John Hammond, on the spot, after we auditioned unplugged in his office at Black Rock. By this time we had added Jim Mason [who co-wrote "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music"-ed.] From 1965 thru 1967 we toured with the Mamas and the Papas and were produced by Felix Pappalardi. We got fired off the Mamas and Papas tour after a gig at Fordham University where we were at our absolute best and they weren't; Lou Adler canned us on the spot! Webster's also did a Gillette "Heads Up" hair goo commercial but I couldn't participate because my hair was too long. I just did the music track! We also did a commercial for Kohler Distributing - a great track.

TL: Getting back to The Shaggs, what kind(s) of music style(s) did the band first start with?

FK: We mainly looked to the top hits of the day and played cover songs people could dance to at the parties and mixers we were hired to play. We could play more originals when we played on the porch of Sorin Hall on football Saturdays.

TL: Who influenced you?

FK: Geoff brought in a surf influence and John Hall was really into The Beatles. I came from a rhythm and blues and an American rock 'n' roll background. The Kingsmen would be one example of that sound.

TL: How did you describe the music you played at the time?

FK: We were a consistently entertaining and exciting party band. Chuck - being a theater student - was quite the front-man and could turn on the tears when singing to the ladies on the slower numbers.

TL: Where did you typically practice?

GG: I seem to remember some rehearsals in the basement of Farley Hall, which is where Frank and Chuck resided. I was in Sorin Hall until I was thrown off campus. That is another whole story...

TL: Did the band have a manager?

CP: The Shaggs manager was really Frank. He had a knack for corralling the class and hall social directors and the manager of the student center into gigs.

FK: I was leader of the band and had the name, the P.A. and the hearse. We came close to a democracy after we finished fighting over direction of the band.

TL: Where did the band play live? Dorms? Dances? Campus Halls? South Bend bars? Chicago?

CP: The main other campus band from our freshman year (1965-66) were The Shamrocks. They were our competition for all the frat parties that were held almost every weekend at a place called the Laurel Club on the other side of town. It was far enough away from campus that the junior and senior class social organizations could rent it out, a floor for each class, and have bands, dancing and booze. It was a wild scene, great parties, girls dancing on the tables, guys doing the alligator on the floor. I had this 50-foot mic cord and I would wander the room and dance floor during certain songs. We had no cars at one point, so The Shaggs would take two cabs there and back. Frank had it all worked out so all the equipment would fit in one cab and the two trunks, including his drums and the PA, and we would all cram into the other cab.

GG: We mainly played campus parties, "mixers" with St. Mary's College, rallies and a few in-town club gigs. We didn't travel too far away as I recall, but I do remember that Frank had an old hearse that when we did venture out that's how we showed up equipment and all of us. It was pretty outrageous! I recall carting around a Hammond B3 organ with a Leslie tremolo and I think a Wurlitzer electric piano that I played. The Shaggs pretty much had the market cornered in the Michiana area during that year, 1966.

FK: We played a few bars and clubs in the South Bend area. I also remember playing a class event at the Indiana Dunes and even one time playing on a train. The train was full of students bound for West Lafayette, IN for the Notre Dame-Purdue football game.

TL: Do you recall what kind of instruments (make and model) that the other Shaggs played?

GG: I'm pretty sure there were some Fender amps and guitars involved. I know that Ray (Wheatley) played through a Fender Bassman amplifier. I was more of a Gibson guy when it came to guitars. I have that guitar in my possession today.

TL: What was the farthest gig from South Bend that The Shaggs played?

FK: I seem to recall some clubs and bars around the Chicago area.

TL: Tell us more about the Kingsmen show...

FK: They were only a few years older than us. They were so open and helpful with their tips. Their drummer showed me how to get a good punchy sound out of my drums.

TL: Did The Shaggs ever open up for any other "name" '60's groups?

The head security guard where I work, Dennis Miccolis, was the original keyboard player for The Buckinghams and can be heard on the worldwide smash/oldies staple Kind Of A Drag. He said he played South Bend in the '60s.

TL: Did any other bands come through the city? I have heard that Jr. Walker and the All-Stars got their start in South Bend and I know The Riverias (of California Sun fame) were from the Michiana area.

CP: When Stepan Center was built on campus, we became one of the main openers for concerts there. The Kingsmen (Frank's dream come true) were one and I remember we also opened for The Supremes there.

FK: We were not aware that Jr. Walker was from the area until years later. The Riverias were really before our time. We also opened for Bob Seger and the Last Heard, The Buckinghams, The Mob (from Chicago) and that band that had the one big hit, The American Breed.

TL: How did the Wink LP recording come about? Please tell us more about the MCM record label? Who is the "winker" on the front cover? I like the two originals and the upbeat cover of the Searchers' (or the Cryan' Shames') Sugar and Spice - plus the well chosen Beatles covers, If I Needed Someone and The Night Before.

FK: MCM was derived from the last name of Bryan McMahon. He was a major "Type-A personality" from the business college. He thought he was going to make a lot money from the project. We just went along for the ride knowing that he was taking all the risks. McMahon probably booked us at International Recording Studio in Chicago because it was cut-rate cheap. We really did record it all in 20 hours straight as the back of the album states. The most takes we did of any one song was around 20. Brian ended up trying to sell the album door-to-door on campus and lost a lot of money on the whole deal.

GG: We were mainly a cover band, even though we had the two originals on the record. We took the opportunity to squeeze a couple in, but mainly we chose songs of the day that we liked, generally tunes that had lots of background vocals (because we could), and of course the usual Beatles and Stones covers. By the way, the "winker" on the cover is me. I can't remember why!

TL: Was the title of the album inspired in any way by the grapefruit soda-pop from Canada Dry named Wink? I noticed from a vintage ad that the Wink soft-drink logo and the Wink font that appeared on the album are somewhat similar.

GG: There was no reference to the Canada Dry product called Wink. It was just an idea we had.

TL: What were your impressions after recently re-listening to the album?

GG: The Wink CD-R was interesting, yet somewhat painful, to hear after all these years. There were definitely some good moments and surprisingly good, thick background vocals.

FK: While I have not listened to record in over 30 years, as soon as I heard it I didn't think the sound was good at all. It sounded okay in the studio, but the record was very underdeveloped and didn't capture any of our live energy at all. The bass shows up as non-existent and I would have put the drums deeper into the mix. Who knows what it would have sounded like if we had more studio time?

TL: Were there any other recordings that never made it to the album?

CP: We recorded two songs in nearby Elkhart, IN. The songs were Farmer John (mp3), one of our big crowd pleasers, and Too Dark For Day (mp3), a song Geoff and I wrote. I have a copy of the acetate, which used to get quite a few plays on WSND [campus radio station] and the Huddle [a campus snack bar/hang-out] jukebox.

TL: When did The Shaggs break up and why?

FK: I really don't have clear answer on this. We used to put the band on hiatus each summer. Our bass player Ray Wheatley graduated in that spring of '68. In addition, the style of music we played had been fraying for the past couple of years. Fortunately, we were able to continue making some serious money with the live gigs before calling it a day. The administration was probably glad as they hated us for a variety of reasons. Looking back, it really was a fertile time with lots of talent coming through the band. We really had access and opportunities that are non-existent for a band today. I would hate to be 20 years old now and try to make it in the current atmosphere.

TL: What other bands did you play in after The Shaggs?

FK: I drummed in a Supremes-like group called Red Top and the Young Family that was based out of Northern Ohio and toured the "black & tan" clubs of the Midwest.

GG: Shortly after making Wink, I heard that things had not materialized for Webster's and that Gus was back at Notre Dame - after doing a brief stint playing drums with a group called Jefferson Airplane! I slipped a note to Gus at the architecture building asking him if he felt like playing some music. He called me back and said he was interested and that was the beginning of Captain Electric and the Flying Lapels. I had become close friends with Dennis Lopez, a bass player in another Notre Dame band called The Plague. He was interested in being part of a new band with Gus and I and signed on. We had seen a South Bend local guy play drums and Barney Shultz came aboard to round out the quartet. The first time we all got together and played, something magical happened and we knew the chemistry was something special. It was almost scary!

TL: Did Captain Electric record?

GG: In 1968, my junior year, Captain Electric decided to make a record of a rock opera we had put together based on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Ode to Joy movement. This was before anybody, The Who or Procol Harem, had done anything like this. We recorded it at a studio in the middle of a cornfield in Pekin, Illinois. The next summer, Dennis and I started shopping it around in New York and somehow got a meeting with a producer named Tom Wilson. When we walked into the Record Plant Studio, Tom was in the middle of a recording session but he immediately put our tape on and after listening to the first three minutes of The Symphony, he stopped it and said, "Boys, step into my office." On the spot, he signed us to ABC Dunhill where he had a deal to produce seven albums in a year, and wrote us a check of $10,000 to cover our costs of making the record with enough left over to go back and polish it up! Also, (he asked us to) get ready to go on the road to promote the record. Well, I went back to the Jersey Shore with the news and my parents had mixed feelings about me dropping out of college, but were happy for me as far as getting the recording contract. The rest of that summer was great; I was going to be a rock star!

CP: One interesting sidelight to all of this is Golden Voice Recording Studios, operated by my friend Jerry Milam. Everything recorded during this period on my Webster's Last Word Record label was done there - The early Chuck & Mary stuff, The Shags [Pekin] recorded their 45 there. Dan Fogelberg did some of his first demos there. And I brought a lot of groups from ND back home to record there, including Captain Electric's Symphony, and one other great ND rock group from '68-'69, First Friday. I produced their now much sought after LP and released it on Webster's Last Word.

TL: Would you be able to tell us more about The Delphic Oracle? Supposedly, it was the first psychedelic nightclub in the Midwest! I have heard bits and pieces about it over the years.

GG: This is a very interesting story... Right after Captain Electric formed, my roommate, Eddie Kurtz, had the bright idea of creating a club for our new band to play at. We all thought it was a good idea and we got 20 of our friends to take out $100.00 loans from the Notre Dame Credit Union, and with $2000.00 we took over a recently defunct Italian restaurant and proceeded to build a club. We did everything by the book, getting all the proper permits and doing everything necessary to meet the local codes. It was an incredible club once we got done with it, complete with an amazing light show and a "head shop" in the back. I think that was the thing that got us into trouble...

The first weekend the club was opened, it was a huge success - and packed. We were able to pay back all the original investors! The second weekend, the band went out and bought all new equipment from the proceeds. In the meantime, The Delphic Oracle had become the talk of the town. We were the subjects of every radio/TV show in South Bend. It was like fervor! They hated us! There were all these innuendos about it being a drug haven, which wasn't the case at all. We just wanted a place to play. We couldn't be responsible for what went on among the locals, but on the third weekend, it was pure profit - we were putting the money in our pockets! On the fourth weekend, however, we noticed that our rent-a-cops didn't show up and before long, a SWAT team showed up and shut the evening down taking a few of us to jail, specifically Eddie Kurtz and Dennis Lopez. There were some trumped-up charges about de-facing the American flag. There was a poster of the American flag with flowers on it on the wall, and some charge about cow manure in the streets that dated back to 1890. It was totally bogus. At any rate, that was the end of The Delphic Oracle. South Bend was not ready for us!

TL: After the record was tied up in record company politics (and never released) I have read that that Captain Electric moved out to California around 1970. I found it very interesting that you rented a band house in Laurel Canyon from landlord Fred MacMurray! However, it sounds like things never really got off the Western ground musically with the commerce-minded music industry looking for cookie-cutter groups at that time and Captain Electric being outside the pre-fab mold. What did you do musically in the wake of Captain Electric?

GG: Eventually, we decided to throw in the towel. Dennis went back to Notre Dame to finish his last semester, Gus started doing architecture, Barney moved to Florida where his Mom had moved to and I had a few more adventures as a musician. I auditioned for, and got the gig working for a guy named Mac Davis as a Hammond organ player. I think I lasted for two gigs when I quit, not only hating the music, but also not really clicking with Mac! I then joined one more band with an artist named Tim Rose. Do you remember him? He did a slow tempo version of Hey Joe that inspired Hendrix and wrote Morning Dew that The Grateful Dead recorded. The guitar player in this band was a guy named Andy Summers. A few years later I picked up the first Police record and there he was. Anyway, Tim Rose had had a serious drinking problem, and even though he was sober when I was with him,he unfortunately couldn't get arrested by any of the record companies because of his reputation. I guess he had been seen sloshed at the Troubadour too many nights in the past. Too bad, because he was really talented and we had a great thing going.

TL: From research on Google and allmusic.com, I know that you are a recording engineer and worked with legends like Lamont Dozier and Sergio Mendes. How did you make the transition from stage to behind the scenes?

GG: After that band fell apart, I sat around for a month trying to decide what to do. I almost went to the airport everyday to fly back East. Then, a light bulb went on and I got the idea of becoming a sound engineer. I knew I loved being involved with music, and I also knew I wasn't an exceptional musician or song-writer, so I called Peter Granite - the engineer who had done our record and asked him how would I go about becoming a sound engineer. He mentioned he had heard about a guy in Burbank that was just getting ready to build a new studio, and maybe I could get in on the ground floor. So I went over there and made a proposition that I would give him a good deal as a carpenter to help build the studio and when it was completed, they would train me to be an engineer. That's exactly what happened. I spent the next six months of my life building this studio and one day, I put the hammer down and the first client to come in to check this new studio out was Stevie Wonder. He put a tape on and liked the way it sounded in there and my apprenticeship was a year with Stevie Wonder. Go to the head of the class! The record was Songs In The Key Life. For the next five years, I worked at that studio, called Kendun Recorders, which became the hottest place in town. I got to work with everybody from Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Mick Jagger, Bad Company, Lamont Dozier, and Fleetwood Mac - just to name a few. It's also when I met Sergio Mendes who I went on to have a 23-year working relationship with. The rest is history. Now it's 30 years later and I'm still here and have been fortunate enough to parlay this into an ongoing career. I think this is what I want to do when I grow up!

download:
The Shaggs - Wink (1967)

Vomit Launch - Live at the Rokkhouse

2009-11-04T12:53:00.000-06:00

Being located conveniently off of the Indiana Toll Road between Chicago and points east helped South Bend live up to the state motto of the "Crossroads of America." This meant that bands on tour who were visiting Chicago could stop by South Bend on their way to or from the Windy City.

In the Spring of 1992 I received a call from Teenbeat Records, who had just agreed to release Vomit Launch's Dogeared LP. Vomit Launch was a Chico, CA-based band that spent the late '80s and early '90s bouncing around obscure record labels. According to the band's official history, "The music climate was changing - post-Nirvana the big labels seemed to be coming in and picking up any stupid band with loud guitars - but Vomit Launch didn't fit that mold. Plus they still had this dumb band name."

The newest member of Teenbeat Records was playing a gig at the now-defunct Lounge Ax in Chicago and had an open date on the band's calendar. We had a few Vomit Launch records in the stacks at WFVI and I owned a copy of Exiled Sandwich. The Student Union Board at Notre Dame wasn't very friendly towards indie rock, so for expediency's sake, I invited the band to play a live show in the basement of the Rokkhouse at 919 South Bend Avenue. I don't even recall promoting the show with flyers. In the pre-Internet era, we probably relied on word-of-mouth.

On April 11, Oatmeal opened up for Vomit Launch, and if I remember correctly, it was probably the only live performance by the lo-fi pop band that consisted of me and fellow 1992 ND graduate Jim Doppke. The headliners put on a spirited show that evening and our basement was packed with students and locals alike. They crashed somewhere in the Northeast Neighborhood and the next morning, after a hearty breakfast of omelettes, Vomit Launch headed east to Pittsburgh. I recall that my housemate admitted he had a bit of a crush on the lead singer, Patricia Rowland.

--Jeff Jotz

P.S. The "It's Coming!" banner behind the stage was a banner promoting the Hoosier Lottery, which began in October 1989. I refuse to reveal the source of said banner ;-)

It was cold! The party was in a cool old 2 story house, and we made spaghetti and then hung out pre-party; everyone was really nice, and they had rad lights strung up and a stage built in the basement. One (?) of the housemates had a conflicting gig with his band, the Bucket Kickers, so they (the Bucket Kickers) walked off to their show. He was super cute. He was an artist. Yummy. Can't remember his name. Wish I did. I wanted to see the Bucket Kickers! But it wasn't meant to be. South Bend seemed pretty cool and music friendly. Decent radio station, smart people, etc. The party crowd was extremely enthusiastic and we had a good time. Sold lots of stuff, rock stars oh yes. Then we drove a long ways away and spent the night in the apartment of a nice young man. Left the next morning, still really cold.

--Patricia Rowland, Vomit Launch

Visit vomitlaunch.com for a complete band history, free mp3 downloads, and much more.

Oatmeal - Rabbitcore Demo

2009-10-14T22:40:00.002-05:00

Oatmeal pays homage to the site of the Rokkhouse, SB, IN, 1994. One of us was thinking about doing a concept album about the history of jorts.

Oatmeal: I Do Not Know What “Rabbitcore” Means

Oatmeal was Jim Doppke and Jeff Jotz getting together at Jeff’s urging in late 1991 or early 1992. (The directors of Oatmeal Holdings LLC have knowledge of only one photograph of Oatmeal (above), taken after the demise of Oatmeal the Band, Inc. Therefore, the rest of the article will be illustrated with public domain images courtesy of NASA.)

Jeff had definite ideas about how we should sound, and I tried to do them justice: 1. Basic love-rock sound. 2. Cool-sounding minimalist instrumentals. 3. Tight, cut-off endings. 4. Cover “Do Ya.” I wasn’t really sure I was versed enough in playing actual rock music to do any of this, having previously invested some time in affecting a singer-songwriter persona. But Jeff was excited about it, and I was excited about playing with Jeff, so I gave it a go.

And by “gave it a go,” I mean: mooched incessantly off the good will of others. I was not well-equipped for this experience in any real sense. Think of the person you knew who had the weirdest gear. What’d they have? A mauve left-handed Strat with Hello Kitty stickers all over it, including the fretboard? A nameless amp that somehow had wood paneling on it? The infamous “Eat Me” bass? Well, I had ‘em all beat. I owned a white Gibson Explorer ~~knockoff~~ totally legitimate copy with built-in buttons that would supposedly produce chorus, overdrive, and other effects, but that, when pressed, made the guitar sound approximately like this: SQAAAAAAAPHHHTHPHT. This glorious racket was enhanced by the sheer power of my 6.5-watt amp. As we were fond of saying, permission to rock: denied.

So I asked many people for permission to rock, and they granted it. At various times, I borrowed guitars from the extremely cool brainiac Marshall Armintor, as well as goes-without-saying-how-extremely-cool-he-is Ted Leo. I also borrowed four-track usage from TL as well as extremely-cool-like-the-other-side-of-the-extreme-pillow Joe Cannon. We rocked at the Rokkhouse, a place at which I did not live and paid no rent (though Jeff did). I borrowed amps, microphones, patch cords, picks, orange Fanta, spare change, and pocket lint from God-knows-who. I had my own guitar tuner, though, thank you very little. Overall, if I had been any less materially invested in this thing, I would have had to pay a cover to see us.

I then set about trying to write songs that I thought Jeff would like. I drew on our shared influences: Unrest (“Caustic”), Bob Mould (“Met Myself”), the Feelies (“Honorablesque,” “Bridge” [Jeff’s words!]), etc. The process was: 1. Knock around on guitar in room. 2. Play song for Jeff. 3. Play song with Jeff. 4. Jeff goes “Alright! Rad!” 5. Song finished. I’m lucky Jeff was as enthusiastic about the whole thing as he was. I also learned some covers at Jeff’s suggestion, like the Wooden Soldiers’ “Commercial Avenue” and the aforementioned “Do Ya,” but note the attention to detail on that last one. I probably could’ve learned how to play the real bridge instead of just improvising my own, but I had to wash my mullet that week (the Seinfeld look was very big back then, don’t let anybody tell you any different).

Jim’s mullet is met with icy silence at Club 23.

I’m also lucky that Jeff took it upon himself to make sure that we recorded ourselves, and that we got some gigs. I apparently couldn’t be bothered, as I was too busy with record collecting, literary parsing, mullet adjustment, and so forth. Gigs first, all two of them, both from 1992 I think:

Club 23, possibly an open mic, possibly not. I remember playing our cover of Chisel’s “Swamp Fox/Spike” to some stirs of recognition in the crowd.
Opening for indie-rock legends and all-around nice people Vomit Launch at the Rokkhouse. I remember wearing a thrift-store tee that said “Heart Throbbing” on it. That’s right, a thrift store tee in 1992, yeah, I was born this cool. Read it and weep, trendinistas. Though the real story here is that I paid for the shirt with my own money.

I also remember playing our cover of “Who Painted Whistler’s Mother?” by the Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet (still a beloved favorite of mine, salaam to the Shadowy Men) at the VL show, and somebody from VL (Trish, the singer?) kindly praising our cover of The Feelies’ “Let’s Go.” Then, rather than brave the rigors of the Rokkhouse after the show, the VL folks stayed at my apartment. They were really funny and cool; they put up with my impetuous indie-rock self, and they made scrambled eggs for me the next morning. When I tell this story now, people seem surprised that I ate scrambled eggs prepared by people who called themselves “Vomit Launch,” but I didn’t blanch at it then and still don’t.

Recordings-wise, what you have here are songs (I think record industry people call them “tracks” or “slabs,” or, when drunk, “spuds”) we recorded at TL’s house in New Jersey in 1992. I made the trip out to NJ to visit Jeff after our graduation, and this is what we did on our holiday. And where on my diploma did it say that I had to grow up, get my own gear, and stop leeching like a medieval doctor? Nowhere!! Onward Moochapalooza!! (a very popular concept at the time which we were helping get off the ground, or at least that’s what we told 120 Minutes)

TL let me play his main Chisel guitar, and we used his drum kit as well. He recorded us on his 4-track, and he and his punk rock silver-spray-painted Stratocaster joined us on “Rokk-o-Medley.” (First one to name the song TL sings, and the original artist, wins a chance to enter a raffle in which the grand prize is a ticket for a drawing to win a cassette of Oatmeal’s other demo tape, the one recorded in the Rokkhouse basement on one microphone and featuring a cover of Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” [ed. note: winner will receive prize sometime within the next seventy-five years])

When we heard Ted play on the "Rokk-o-Medley" we said "my God... it's full of stars."

So yeah, TL was nails on guitar as usual, despite the silliness of the Medley, which I’ll claim as my idea. I had thought up perhaps an even less-advisable such medley when I was questing to be ~~ND’s~~ ~~the Sod Quad’s~~ Flanner Tower’s answer to ~~Elvis Costello~~ ~~Billy Bragg~~ John Wesley Harding. The old medley was in the key of A. When thinking of a similar concept for Oatmeal, I thought: since I’m in a band now, we should do songs in E. It had a certain logic to it at the time, which is more than I can say for the medley itself. But hearing it is still good for a larf, except that this version is marred by some snotty comments by me toward the end, which I have long since disavowed. Except that now they’re on the Internet and everything. Sorry, Jeff. You know I kid(ded) because I love.

Whenever I read this blog, I’m impressed with ND rockers’ dedication to their bands, even now. I wish I could say I showed that kind of dedication to Oatmeal, though I still do like our stuff a lot. Jeff’s game-for-anything drumming makes these songs for me, gives them the good nature and sense of fun that Jeff himself embodies. I also love to read, over and over, people’s expressions of thanks for the opportunity to have made music with their friends. I echo that sentiment wholeheartedly. As short-lived and small as Oatmeal was, it made a big impression on me, mostly because my good friend Jeff was having fun with it. And I was too, thanks to his infectious enthusiasm and sense of humor. I am forever glad that I got to experience them at close range, that he chose me to do this with him. And to cover “Do Ya.”

Thanks to everybody I mentioned, everybody I should’ve mentioned but didn’t, all our friends, all ND/SB rockers, the SBP90s guys for the time and care they put into this blog, and you for reading this.

--Jim Doppke

--------------------------

Oatmeal comes full circle.

All I'd like to add is that it was the early 1990s and minimalist low-fi bands like Beat Happening and Sebadoh were all the rage. So what better way to jump on the bandwagon then by creating a two-piece band comprised of electric guitar and 3/4 of a drum set? Actually, my old housemate John Dugan of Chisel fame was away for the second semester of his Junior year at the ND London program and he left us with an emasculated drum kit that lacked cymbals.

I've seen fellow Jerseyans The Feelies more times live than any other band, so naturally, a cover of "Let's Go" was appropriate for our live show. And "Commercial Avenue" was a cover by an obscure 1980s band from New Brunswick, NJ called the Wooden Soldiers. You can download the EP here. As for "Do Ya," it is still one of the most rockin' pop songs of all time, and I will never, ever get sick of hearing it. I celebrate Jeff Lynne's entire catalog.

Jim Doppke was a skilled songwriter due to being a Bruce Springsteen fan during his formative years, so I was always impressed with his song ideas. I don't really know what influence I had on him... perhaps I just made his tunesmithing more bizarre.

Our recording session in Ted Leo's Radium City in 1992 was held the same day as my grandfather's wake. Seventeen years later, I still feel guilty for rocking out in Ted's basement instead of standing solemnly at the funeral home that afternoon. My grandfather moonlighted as a lounge singer in Newark, NJ in the 1930s and 40s and perhaps he would have been proud that I was carrying on the Jotz musical genes.

--Jeff Jotz

download:
Oatmeal - Rabbitcore Demo

V/A - Incubus 1993: ND Music Compilation

2009-10-07T14:26:00.007-05:00

LISTEN UP!
A new campus band CD is on the way
by Pete Dedman

"Somebody said the music was not good enough to play"
--"Green, Red, and Blue" by Brian, Colin, and Vince

Well, apparently somebody was sorely mistaken. Not only is good, original music being produced here at Notre Dame, but the music scene has developed, especially over the last year, into a rich and diverse assortment of bands ranging from punk to folk to jazz. Two years after the WVFI Jericho Sessions were released, a new CD [Incubus 1993], sponsored by S.U.B., is in the works, documenting the present campus music scene through the work of 16 bands playing their own original material.

The bands are as diverse as they are talented and have all played a major role in creating a vibrant music scene at ND. The CD will feature popular and established groups such as Dissfunktion, Chisel, The Sister Chain, Brian, Colin and Vince, Palace Laundry and Victoria’s Real Secret, as well as younger bands fast on the rise, including Grope For Luna, Bother and Bovine Solution. Rounding out the playlist will be Mr. Head, 2-10, the Porkchoppers, Emily Lord, Access Denied, XYZ Affair and a jazz group, Thee Accent. The CD, as of yet without a name (though an accompanying booklet has been designed by Peter J. Pultorak), is due out soon after spring break, according to co-producer Steve Sostak.

"There’ll be a final mixdown of all the songs on March 10. Then we’ll take the masters down to the Sony plant in Terre Haute, and, if all goes as planned, we’ll have it out a couple of weeks after break," Sostak said. Sostak, who is also the lead singer for Victoria’s Real Secret, has found the work as producer to be easier than expected. He added, "Most of the real work was already done by the end of last semester, thanks to [co-producer] Ryan Hallford," who is on a leave of absence this semester.

Hallford was also instrumental in the success of Acoustic Cafe, which has been taking place regularly in the LaFortune basement each Thursday night for over a year. Acoustic Cafe features an open-mike setting, which allows for musicians to experiment and try out new songs before a live audience. "Especially with Acoustic Cafe, Ryan’s been very instrumental in trying to push original music," he said.

Joe Cannon, lead singer and guitarist for Mr. Head, credits the recent success of an original music scene on campus to certain artistic fountainheads. "A few very original, talented and active musicians have sparked a large interest in creating original bands/music, especially among the younger students," Cannon said.

Ted Koterwas, assistant producer for the CD, is more specific in giving credit where it is due. "I think the success of Brian, Colin and Vince really opened up the way for original music being accepted more readily." Koterwas, who plays drums for Grope for Luna, added, "Joe Cannon has been something of a powerful original musical force as well."

The rising acceptance of original bands on campus has also been spurred on by the success of St. Mary’s Dalloway’s Coffeehouse. Each Wednesday and Saturday night, the Coffeehouse, charging little or no admission, had presented full-length shows by acts featured on the CD such as Brian, Colin and Vince, Chisel, Mr. Head, the Sister Chain, Grope for Luna and Bother, as well as brilliant performances by other bands such as emiLy, and most recently, Severinsen.

As opposed to Acoustic Cafe, Dalloway's is a forum for bands who have already proven themselves to perform in a full show setting, when an optimum number of people can be expected to come. On Saturday nights, while the rest of campus is partying themselves senseless, the Coffeehouse draws 100 people on average. "I’ve been pleasantly surprised by its success," remarked John Dugan, drummer for Chisel, whose performance at the Coffeehouse in January drew 175 people.

With such live successes, stated Dugan, "there‘s obviously enough interest out there for original music." Dugan hopes that the success of the new CD will result in organizations getting more cooperation from the Student Activity Council, in terms of being able to get smaller bands to play at Notre Dame, "so that our campus bands can get a chance to play with them. This will give these bands more exposure to playing live, as well as a chance to get their name passed around the larger music circuit," he said. Last fall Victoria’s Real Secret opened for They Might Be Giants and Chisel will open for Velocity Girl on March 31 in the LaFortune Ballroom.

For many, though, just the CD itself is a huge accomplishment. Everyone involved expects this compilation to enjoy more success than 1991’s Jericho Sessions. As Cannon described, "Yeah, this should be better. The idea behind this is campus bands. As a result, almost all the bands are very well-known. Jericho Sessions, on the other hand, was originally meant to be a sampler of acoustic acts, and there ended up being more of a hodge-podge of musicians just recording for the sake of contributing to the CD. At the same time, (former WVFI station manager) Kevin Flaherty’s work with The Jericho Sessions was indeed seminal."

"The Jericho Sessions certainly paved the way for what's going on with the current CD," concurred John Dugan.

Dugan, Cannon and other musicians who appeared on The Jericho Sessions, have agreed that the recording studios for this effort are far better facilities than those used on the last sampler. Most of the bands have been recording over the past two months at Miami St. Studios in town. The recording process gave several of the musicians their first opportunity to put down their music in a studio environment. Miami St. engineer John Nuner was very helpful in making the process rewarding for the more experienced bands as well as the "rookies."

"For the most part he [Nuner] took direction from the bands, and allowed them to come up with their own sound, the sound they wanted on the CD," said Cannon, who was quite pleased with Mr. Head’s recording of "Weather," their offering to the CD. Cannon also attributed the ease of recording to the fact that "an analog recording was made first, instead of recording directly to digital, so it was a more natural recording process." Mr. Head bassist Dave Holsinger, for whom the recording process was a first-time experience, found himself quite pleased with the outcome as well. "We heard some bands took 9 or 10 hours, so relatively, I found the whole process to be somewhat easier than I'd expected," said Holsinger.

As Bother bassist and Dalloway’s Coffeehouse manager Kelly Daugerdas attested, "It was a lot more work than expected, at times even tiresome, but by the end, we really felt exhilarated." The band is also elated at the success of their recording for the CD, "Kill the Popular Kids,” even before the CD has been released. Their explosive song has garnered enough airplay on WVFI to crack into the station’s weekly Top 20, and thereby warrant mention in the nationally distributed College Music Journal.

For other, older bands, the CD is a chance to document what may be swan songs, as members graduate or leave. For Brian, Colin and Vince, whose co-founder, Brian Muller, transferred to Boston University at the end of last semester, the CD is just that. Featuring the a capella intro, "Yahtzee," the band has recorded "Green, Red, and Blue" for the CD, with astonishing success. "The recording fortunately occurred at a peak for us as a band,” said guitarist Colin Clary. "‘Green, Red, and Blue' is a bit more serious than our other songs but it's really almost beautiful, and I don't use that word a lot; well, I do, I guess, but it was really good," he eloquently added. Later this spring, Clary says he will finish a CD of Brian, Colin and Vince’s last semester together. To be titled Bucket o’ Fun n' Stuff n' Yeah, the CD will feature at least 15 songs from the band.

Whether half the campus knows it or not, the music scene is alive and well at Notre Dame. A large amount of ignorance is due to the fact that many bands play at private parties rather than overcrowded bars, and some people just aren’t open-minded enough to pass up those bars for a show at the Coffeehouse on a Saturday evening. Nevertheless, the campus CD is for all to enjoy, so, as your spring break tans begin to fade, keep your eyes open for great original music that’s been under your noses all along.

-- from the March 4, 1993 edition of Scholastic, Notre Dame's student magazine. The musicians pictured in the article are members of Grope for Luna.

---------------

It's funny to have this Scholastic article come back to light. I was a little haunted by it in hindsight - and by hindsight I don't mean sixteen years down the road, I mean a month after it was published. That is, I rued not having spent more space presenting the featured bands in an in-depth way. Although to my mind, Chisel, Brian Colin & Vince and so many other of the acts were by that time household names, that familiarity may have only been present for hundreds of devoted fans on campus. This article was an opportunity to really introduce the excitement of the 'SB Power 90s' scene to the uninitiated thousands. I missed that opportunity a bit, but hopefully the music took care of my understated oversight!

--Pete Dedman, October 2009

Track Listing:
1. "Fish" - Victoria's Real Secret
2. "Dream Bar" - Chisel
3. "Angelina" - Emily Lord
4. "Kill The Popular Kids" - Bother
5. "Yahtzee/Green, Red And Blue" - Brian, Colin and Vince
6. "Follow Me" - Access Denied
7. "In The Crowd" - Grope For Luna
8. "Take Me To The Funktion" - Dissfunktion
9. "Peter Pan Syndrome" - XYZ Affair
10. "My Name Is Sky" - The Sister Chain
11. "Weather" - Mr. Head
12. "Smitherman" - 2-10
13. "I Don't Look Back" - Thee Accent
14. "Never Had The Time" - Palace Laundry
15. "Pyramid" - The Bovine Solution
16. "Punch The Clown" - The Porkchoppers

download:
V/A - Incubus 1993: ND Music Compilation

The Potatomen - Live at Dalloway's

2009-09-30T10:58:00.004-05:00

The Potatomen: Friends of the Bend 
An Interview with Larry Livermore by Ted Liebler

It all started a couple of weeks before when I passed out flyers for WVFI’s upcoming Potatomen/cub band-a-rama at the Riverdales, Gaunt, Fastbacks show at the Lounge Ax in Chicago. Out of the blue and a few weeks later, Ben Weasel (of the Riverdales, Screeching Weasel) called WVFI requesting if they could play the show with their friends the Potatomen. I recall I had to go an early evening seminar at the Snite Museum on New Mexican pottery. Usually the Southwestern subject would have truly engaged me, but this night was hard to sit through as I was thinking about the possibilities of the 2nd Riverdales show ever! The day of the show finally arrived and I stopped by WVFI and Jim Jadwisiak and Ron Garcia were at the station. Jim said, “I have some good news and bad news for you Ted. The bad news is that Ben Weasel called and had to cancel because of problems with their van. The good news is that the station got the new Mr. T Experience EP today.” To a non-Buddhist trained mind, it was letdown city as I thought to myself there was simply no comparison and Ford Econoline Rent-A-Vans were surely easy to come by in Chicago. On a regular day, the arrival of a new MTX EP would have been exciting, but this would have been a major coup for WVFI to bring Ben Weasel to ND-or technically SMC. In those days before widespread internet use, word about the Riverdales’ cancellation traveled slower than the I-31 highway under construction.

That small and endearing coffee house known as Dalloway’s was packed by the time the Potatomen, all the way from Berkeley, went on that April 5th night. The Potatomen were so well received and reflected my current perspective that music can be complex thing that has the power to make the world simple again. Making their triumphant return to ND/SMC/South Bend/Michiana, the headliners cub played a joyful set that had almost the whole room dancing. The night hit its zenith when the Vancouver, BC band ripped out their Cars’ cover of "My Best Friend's Girl." At one point, I looked back beyond a room of smiles to the shadowy back corners and spotted a bunch of upset hardcore punks. The arrival of these hardcore punks (perhaps from the Chicago suburbs or maybe even Granger) to encounter two indie rock bands, the Potatomen and cub and no Ben Weasel made for quite the sideshow element. (However, if they were truly upset what were they doing hanging around for the entire show?) The night had it all: Harmony, Contrast, Balance, Unity, and Disorder as the Dalloway’s cash box was ripped off that night...

This edition of Friends of the Bend brings us the thoughts and reflections of Larry Livermore. Larry was the leader/lead singer of the Potatomen and co-founder of Lookout Records–the label which brought the world the sounds of Green Day, Screeching Weasel, the Mr. T Experience, the Queers and our own Ted Leo. The UC-Berkeley graduate is now living in Brooklyn, following his beloved Fulham Football club and writing his first novel.

TL: After the show, you made the very Hank Williams-esque statement that crisscrossing the country as a band was easy street or biscuits 'n' gravy or some such thing. At the time, I didn’t know if you were being facetious or serious or both.

LL: Ha! I don’t remember ever using either of those expressions in my life, but I very well might have said something like that, hopefully in a similar vernacular. I was probably being facetiously serious, in that up to that point, we hadn’t had any real problems on the tour, and it had indeed been as easy as dipping biscuits in gravy, or however the saying might go. But that’s easily explainable by the fact that the Notre Dame show was only the second one of the tour; it had been booked in an unfortunate format that required us to drive some 2,400 miles before playing our first show in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So although the three days it took us to make that drive were filled with some chagrin that we hadn’t had the foresight or aptitude to set up shows for ourselves along the way in, for example, Winnemucca or North Platte or even lovely Dubuque, we otherwise had a good old time listening to music, arguing among ourselves as to what was the best Smiths or Hank Williams song, and having a feet-up-on-the-dashboard look at this great country of ours. The trip back west was not quite so smooth, involving such things as blizzards, break-ins and fitful bursts of rancor and tears, but I’ll suppose you’ll ask more about that later on.

TL: Would you like to add any words here about life on the road as a band? I recall, from a Lookout ‘zine, you wrote about the trials of listening to a bandmate's New Order tape over and over again on one of the Potatomen's tours.

LL: And it looks as though I was right! I don’t, however, remember any specific incidents with a New Order tape, though that’s entirely possible. Ironically, New Order are now ranked high in the regular rotation on my iPod, being especially appropriate for gym workouts and running, but at the time, I would have found it a trial, and it’s quite possible that the bandmate in question might not have been with us for the long run. As noted above, the Smiths and Hank Williams maintained a stranglehold on the Potatomen van (known as Blimpo, by the way) stereo, along with occasional discursions into Morrissey solo records.

But yes, other trials: well, there was the time we had a raging argument that lasted from Berkeley to Portland, Oregon over the merits or lack thereof of facial hair, with the band being evenly divided on the subject. By the time we’d hit the far north of California, I (one of the antis) was being accused of wanting to put all bearded men into concentration camps, when in fact, all I’d said was that if you put a fence down the middle of the planet and put all the beardos on one side and all the clean-shavens on the other, a survey would demonstrate a better intellectual and moral climate on the clean-shaven side.

After we left Notre Dame on that particular trip, things went smoothly enough for a while, the roughest part being when we were required to attend a backyard barbecue in Minneapolis, where locals stood around in t-shirts and shorts despite the temperature hovering around 40 degrees (apparently this is what passes for summer in Minnesota). Two days later, we were stranded in a sudden blizzard near Bismarck, North Dakota (it was the first or second week of April, so I think we were entitled to a little indignation).

The worst episode of the tour, however (provided we’re not talking about the quality of some of our performances) came in Missoula, Montana, where someone broke out the front window of our van and ran off with all our clothes, my acoustic guitar, Patrick’s violin, and my brand new leather jacket, while we were on stage playing. Apparently it happens quite a bit in that deceptively small and innocent-looking town, but we were completely unprepared for it, and even more unprepared for having to make the rest of the trip with a sheet of plastic covering the window and the wind howling like a banshee at a volume that made arguments about the Smiths and Hank Williams not only impossible, but also more pointless than usual, because we could no longer hear the stereo either. 

TL: I was under the impression that the band arrived in the late afternoon on an overcast day and really didn’t have time to wander the verdant campus. Still, any impressions of South Bend? It’s OK if you compare it to Eureka, CA or Westland, MI... Any comments on the Notre Dame music scene at the time? (Again, I realize you only encountered 6-7 hours worth of certain aspects of it.)

LL: We did get there fairly late in the afternoon, and it was gray, and we didn’t really have time to see much more than we saw from the van as we found our way to where we’d been instructed to show up. I honestly don’t remember who set up the show for us, but now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it would have been cub’s booking agent, Margie, as she arranged the entire tour. Anyway, I don’t remember seeing much of South Bend apart from the campus, and not too much of that, which was kind of a disappointment for a Catholic boy who’d been filled with stories of Notre Dame for 12 years of elementary school and high school. Some of our teachers actually used to make us say a prayer for Notre Dame on Fridays during football season. It was as though they saw Notre Dame winning as a victory for all Catholics in much the same way JFK’s election was.

For what I saw of it, I was very impressed by the Notre Dame music scene. It was the kind of scene I occasionally encountered in smallish towns – Arcata, California was another one – that were located far enough from major population or cultural centers that people got together and made up their own entertainment rather than just wait for it to come to them, and the result tended to be more creative, quirky and eccentric than you’d typically encounter in one of the more conventional scenes. I’m thinking of both Krautmiser and Sweep The Leg Johnny in particular. Also, such scenes tend to be much more cooperative and supportive as opposed to the competitive and copycat tendencies one tends to encounter in the “big” towns.

TL: I remember that you told a group of us a story that a nun once told you, “One day, you’ll make it to Notre Dame” and how grateful you were to play at the University with the Potatomen.

LL: I highly doubt that any nun ever predicted that I would make it to Notre Dame; if anything it would have been the opposite: more along the lines of, “If you carry on the way you are, you’re not only never going to get to Notre Dame, you’ll be lucky to get anywhere apart from reform school.”

That being said, I was indeed very proud and grateful to finally make it to Notre Dame, even if it was under circumstances that I never would have imagined back in high school. If anything, I wished the nuns could have seen me, though I doubt they’d have been too impressed. One of them had also rejected me from the high school glee club because I “just didn’t have a voice made for singing.”

TL: You were generous enough to distribute your last major issue (#40) of Lookout that night. I remember friends and myself discussing your writing and perspectives for months. I know your life situation shifted in major ways at that time in your life, but did you foresee (#40) being that last major issue of Lookout?

LL: No, I had no idea at the time that #40 would be the last issue. On the contrary, I was quite pleased in that I felt I had broken new ground with that issue (first full color cover, much greater diversity of material, expanded size) and that I had passed the 10-year mark in publishing it. I was already writing articles for the next issue, including a tour journal that I was keeping, and to this day I have a computer file somewhere full of outlines and partially completed stories for what would have been Lookout #41. It’s just that things were getting a little crazy back in California with the rapid expansion of Lookout Records and the attendant complications brought on by that, and the work just kept getting put off and put off until one day I realized that it probably wasn’t ever going to happen. And once I left the record company, I lost the distribution network that had enabled me to get the magazine all over the country. It was a bit discouraging.

TL:  I remember that people wanted the Potatomen and cub to stay longer in South Bend, but the band had to get to (West) Lafayette to record at Mass Giorgini’s Sonic Iguana to record that same night (the split EP with cub). Was West Lafayette the ending point of this tour?

LL: No, on the contrary, Ann Arbor and South Bend were the first two shows of the tour. We had one day off in Lafayette (West Lafayette, the home of Purdue, was just a few minutes walk away, but the studio itself, as well as Mass’s home, was located in Lafayette. From there we went on to Minneapolis. cub had a show in Chicago which we were not asked to play, so that night, the two bands played separate shows, and then we met up again in Fargo ND/Moorhead MN the following night for the rest of the tour out to the West Coast.

TL: Did the successful ND/SMC experience/show influence those Sonic Iguana recording sessions which resulted in the first Mint Records/Lookout label split 7”/CD? (The Beautiful & Damned by the Potatomen and The Day I Said Goodbye by cub.)

LL: I think we were all buzzing from the excitement and enjoyment, and that that did in fact help us to breeze through the Sonic Iguana session (only one; we had to do it in a hurry). Normally, Potatomen recording sessions were drawn-out ordeals, owing in large part to my perfectionism and nervousness that caused me to make an inordinate number of mistakes. But those three songs (our two songs plus a Buddy Holly cover for the CD version) were done in two or three takes at the most. In fact, we chose the Buddy Holly cover and learned to play it on the spot when we realized we should probably record a bonus track for the CD. While I do think that recording on the heels of a great show helped the mood considerably, we also had the advantage of working with the very talented – both on his instrument and behind the board – Mass Giorgini. Just having him in the band and as our recording engineer made us feel about ten times more professional than we ever had before.

MP3 download:
The Potatomen - "The Beautiful & Damned"
(from the Potatomen/cub split EP, The Beautiful & Damned/The Day I Said Goodbye)

see also:
The Potatomen @ larrylivermore.com
The Potatomen on MySpace
The Potatomen on last.fm

Snowi Springs - Snowi Springs/Yam Soap

2009-09-24T09:49:00.004-05:00

"This is dedicated to anyone who's ever picked up instruments, played and/or recorded a few songs then thought up a name then called themselves a band." -- Snowi Springs

Chris:
The snowy spring of 1993 begat Snowi Springs. Colin Clary, Ted Leo, Chris Norborg. St. Peter Street. Drums, bass, guitar, one mic. Tape running, all improv.

Ted:
So, I'm downloading the Snowi Springs as I type, and though I remember these recordings fondly, I have a conceptual issue to bring up (and I ask this with all good humor) - is it right that everything that everyone has ever done be made eternally available for anyone with an internet connection? I mean, all of those different improv groups that happened - Snowi Springs, Sweet Mama of Guadeloupe, Oatmeal, Water, Ferry to Helsinki version of Chisel, etc. - like, I think that part of the reason they remain so special in my mind is because we were just doing it for us - no pressure, no goals or intent other than to have fun and create, and the amazing thing is that we came up with some amazing stuff, and probably, whether we knew it or not, grew as artists because of it. I've become really bummed out on the instant gratification world and the entitlement that the yung'ns seem to fee they have to that access to instant gratification for all things at all times lately - it's one thing I dislike about YouTube - a show can never be about living in and experiencing and APPRECIATING the moment anymore - there's always someone taking video for tomorrow or later that night or years down the road. I love Snowi Springs because I remember that weather and that house and that night, and I love that it happened. And I have no problem sharing it with people, but I'm driven to deny universal access, not because I need to cling, but because I feel like it cheapens it a little. Listen - I am MORE than willing to admit that I may be putting too much weight on these otherwise fun things, but does someone wanna try and talk me down from this ledge?

Listening to it right now... it's pretty great... I'm on "Foil Belt" now... shit - I'm about to go completely back on everything I said above and say we should do a fucking reunion...

O.K. Fuck that - this tape is AWESOME - "Alice & Roland??" "WASHY??!?" So good. The world should have universal access to this.

Chris:
I live on that ledge. Not that I want to go back to the days of nothing but oral histories and whatnot -- long live John Lomax -- but, to my mind, we should have stopped with the crackly old silent Super 8 home movies. The advent of home video was not-a-so-good, in my opinion. Virtually every second of my younger cousins' childhoods are committed to video tape. Now every sight and sound is digitized, cataloged, reminisced over, commented upon, and widely disseminated. No more warm and charmingly fuzzy memories.

But whatevs. We were our own poor man's Lomaxes. And let us not forgot the core principle of Sudden Shame - that is, sudden shame. Not that it's all shameful. But some of it sure is! And it definitely has a certain 1993 Time Capsule feel to it, what with "Joe's Apartment" (MTV used to be so good) and the Koresh-inspired "ATF" (which I love, btw).

Colin:
Listening to it now-- I was often somewhere between huge smile, big cringe, and rueful and amused laughter! I think that there is something totally awesome and also something a little embarrassing about the recordings, but I agree with the idea of staying true to what the thing was about– the whole semi-spontaneous aspect of getting on an instrument, having to say what the name of the song was gonna be and then going for it.

"Dextro" sounds awesome (except for my wack singing, which ranks up there with "Long D Silver" and "When I Can" as some of my least awesome!). I love "ATF," "Foil Belt," "You Must Know How Beautiful You Are." As a document of what it was, I love it 100%. "Bag of Gardetto's!" "Rebus!" Yow! The power of an upright, right in your hand!

I love living room bands, so much fun. Some of this cracks me up with its awesomeness. Sometimes I can tell I wanted the song to go on forever, other times I'm not sure what we were thinking. There were chance elements involved and we just went for it. Recording an album should feel this easy...

I never regret that we pressed the record button. I couldn't think of a better way to have spent those days.

download:
Snowi Springs - Snowi Springs/Yam Soap

see also:
Snowi Springs on MySpace

Krautmiser - Last Show 6/3/1995

2009-09-15T10:33:00.001-05:00

In the summer of 1995, Krautmiser went on tour through the Midwest. It culminated in a final show in Doug McEachern's basement in Pennsylvania, where all good things must come to an end. Amazingly, a video of the show survives, and even more amazingly, we're going to feature it here. Krautmiser aficionados may recognize the deep tracks "Daft Benefactor" and "Puck's Theme," previously thought lost forever.

On this tour, a Vietnam vet in Sandusky was close to starting a fight with us; in South Bend, we took all the couches, tables, chairs, indeed every stick of furniture, out of Jules and Jack's house and burned them in a midnight bonfire, causing the fire department to attempt to pay us a visit--a failed attempt, for Cripe Street was under construction; we enjoyed an enchanted evening with St. Louis' own Beatle Bob; and our roadie went AWOL from the Army.

Those are the true Krautmiser stories. Here is a fake Krautmiser story, which James wrote on tour and read aloud before Krautmiser's show at a coffeehouse in Kansas City.

Krautmiser didn't intend to go on tour in that humid summer of '95. The boys had decided to take time off from the music for a while and go prospecting for gold in the Ozarks. You may find it hard to imagine those dapper young men of leisure sweating in the afternoon sun as they toil with rock picks and chisels, but make no mistake: a gaggle of pale effete aesthetes Krautmiser is not. Although Krautmiser's streetfighting days were behind them, their pugilist's strength and endurance remained: indeed, the London Times, reported that not only was Krautmiser rumored to have participated incognito in shady prizefighting tournaments, but that drummer Jack Howard had actually killed a man in the ring—a revelation that scandalized a nation. Protective mothers forbade their daughters from attending Krautmiser shows, tut-tutting that "if those lads can't control themselves in the ring, how do you think they'll treat a young lady?"

In any case, as the rest of Krautmiser was panning for gold in the Arkansas River deep in the heart of the Ozarks, Jules Dingle, Krautmiser guitarist, struck the mother lode. "Gold! Gold! Gold, I tell you, boys, gold!" Jules bellowed from the side of the mountain as he rappelled down. Krautmiser's eyes opened wide at the sight of the vein Jules had uncovered in the side of the mountain. What a windfall! Finally, Krautmiser would have enough money to buy a moon rocket. This was a longtime dream of vocalist Dave McMahon's, and only reluctantly revealed after one too many white wine spritzers at a local saloon. "Daddy always said, son, you gotta be a moon man," Dave slurred as he swung his bottle around in a clumsy arc. "He always said I was his little moon man. Dad always said, son, you gotta go to the moon. Damnit!" Dave threw his bottle to the ground. "Who am I kidding? I'll never make it to the moon. I ain't nothin' but another chump in a suit. They don't let chumps on the moon, I hear! Oh, what's the use! I'll never be an astronaut! Pour me another drink there, Kennedy—I'm blubbering like a baby."

But now it looked like Dave's crying days were over. "Finally," muttered bassist James Kennedy as he swung his rock hammer into the mountain, "we won't have to listen to that sniveling buffoon weep into his pillow every night about his precious moon."

It took days for Krautmiser to mine the gold, but at the end of the week, all the ore was packed into Krautmiser's stagecoaches. It was only then that Krautmiser had their first fateful run-in with Old Man Grizzard—the self-proclaimed "Master of the Mountain" who headed his own obscure cult of renegade hillmen and unsavory ex-rangers.

"Varmints! Cotton-pickers! Carpetbaggin' scalawags!" spat the grizzled old prospector, waggling his rock pick accusingly in Krautmiser's direction. "That there's my gold you're totin', boys!"

As always, Jules Dingle was calm and cool and ready with his acid tongue. "By what rights, you locust-eating old coot? Out of our way, or we will be forced to strike you."

"Goddamned city boys—I'll keelhaul the lot of ya!" sputtered Old Man Grizzard. "I'll have you know that this is my land you're standing on—and I suggest you clear off in a hurry—sans that gold, of course!"

"Your land, huh?" Jack Howard asked skeptically. "Prove it."

"Why, I just happen to have the deed right here," said Old Man Grizzard. And out of the right breast pocket of his flannel shirt he produced a crumpled, yellowed legal document. "See here, boys, this mountain has belonged to me since eighteen-ought-four!"

James Kennedy scanned the document with a critical eye, bringing his encyclopaedic knowledge of nineteenth-century American colonial law to bear on it. "This is all well and good, Mr. Grizzard, but not only is this document improperly notarized, but it also has its basis in an archaic Missouri statute that was struck down by the Supreme Court's landmark 1837 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge decision, in which then-Chief Justice Roger B. Taney established the policy of 'eminent domain.' In other words, this land belongs to no one—and therefore, the gold we mined belongs to us."

"Flamin' hootenannys of sweet Jesus! I own this land de facto!" snarled the ornery mountain man. Burly, gamey-smelling figures stepped out of the shadows, fingering the triggers of their muskets. Old Man Grizzard chuckled to himself. "You drop that gold right now, fellers—or I'll fill your behinds so full of lead that you'll never have to worry about atomic radiation again for the rest of your lives."

"Your deadly uranium is our morning tea," riposted Jack Howard airily. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he turned to Krautmiser. "Boys! Shall we scrap a bit with these hillbillies for our hard-earned gold?"

Dave McMahon, tears brimming in his wide, innocent eyes, stepped forward. "I've never wanted anything in my life so much as a moon rocket," he said, voice cracking a little. He shook a tiny trembling fist. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I say we fight, guys."

"Then it's settled," smirked James Kennedy as he finished changing into his purple-and-yellow spandex fighting gear, complete with glitter and lace ruffles. "Let's throw down, you inbred honkies—and let me teach you a new meaning of 'squatter's rights.'"

And so the brawl began. "Man, those gymkata lessons sure are coming in handy," muttered Jules Dingle as he delivered a roundhouse kick to Old Man Grizzard's chin from off the pommel horse, ending in a triple reverse flip and flawless recovery that brought the judges' table to their feet. "Gottinhimmel!" shouted the notoriously difficult-to-please German judges in exultant joy. "A new Mary Lou Retton for a new unified Fatherland!"

"Sorry, boys," said Dingle as he wiped his brow. "But my heart and my incomparable gymkata skills belong to the good ol' U. S. of A. Good luck in '96, guys—you'll need it."

Soon Krautmiser had dispatched all of the mountain men. Only Old Man Grizzard was left standing.

"Hogtied! Hornswaggled!" howled Old Man Grizzard impotently, jumping up and down in rage. "You done put some kinda hex on my boys or somethin'—this ain't right! Tain't natural!"

"Nothing magical about it at all," replied James Kennedy as he wiped blood and spittle from his hands with a pre-moistened lemon-scented towelette. "Just the usual skills one picks up when one has to fight one's way out of an Iranian prison with nothing but one's own bare knuckles and a first edition of Brideshead Revisited."

And so Krautmiser boarded their stagecoaches and left the Ozarks for good. But even as they pulled away from the mountains, they could still hear Old Man Grizzard's mad ravings:

"This ain't the end! No, not by a sight!" hollered the crusty codger. "I'll pursue you gold-heistin' varmints up and down this great land of ours—I'll strap on my magic nose and smell the roads for your droppings—I'll pursue you in the dead of night from city to city, soiling my own undergarments in the sheer thrill of the chase. O! Young Krautmisers! You have stolen gold from the wrong man. For as you can see, I am more than a man—I am a man who is even now wetting himself."

And so began Krautmiser's 1995 summer tour. Pursued by gold prospector Grizzard, Krautmiser flitted from St. Louis—to Oklahoma City—to Kansas City—to Chicago—to Sandusky—to South Bend—to Pittsburgh—to Philadelphia—to Newtown, PA—and finally to the moon, where Krautmiser had their lunar showdown with Old Man Grizzard in the barren wastes of the Sea of Tranquility.

A new addition to the Krautmiser cast: our roadie, the indefatigable Puck

Naturally, none of it could've been done without the help of Krautmiser's resourceful roadie Puck. Three cheers to Puck, who was always on hand with the right quip, riff, or farming implement to help Krautmiser out of a tight situation. Puck’s unparalleled beekeeping skills have saved Krautmiser from Dr. Hexagon's "flesh hive" more than once. An accomplished linguist, Puck once compiled a definitive Etruscan-to-English dictionary—essentially, the elusive "holy grail" of classical liguistics—during his off-hours on one of Krautmiser’s international tours. However, as soon as Puck completed the massive scholarly opus, he just as deliberately and soberly burned it, if only to spite the hidebound academic establishment that had jealously expelled him from their ranks so many bitter years ago. And, of course, every schoolchild knows that Krautmiser would be in Davy Jones’ locker at the bottom of the Challenger Deep had not Puck single-handedly outwitted the merciless Emperor Gionko and his cadre of pinochle-playing robots at their own game. The beloved tale was produced by Universal Studios as a full-length motion picture, starring Emmanuel Lewis as Puck, the Facts of Life girls as Krautmiser, and the 1985 Chicago Bears as the scheming yet fickle Emperor whose lust for potpourri spray and brass knickknacks was—ironically enough—his own undoing.

see also:
Krautmiser on MySpace

Ida + Babe The Blue Ox @ Clifford The Big Red House (Oct. 21, 1996)

2009-08-31T16:01:00.004-05:00

So. A long time ago, a band called Ida released a 7" record with a song called "It's Not Alright" that I used to play over and over again on my radio show at WVFI. It was a simple song, repetitive, so unlike most of the math-rock and prog-rock I loved, but it stuck with me. So started a temporary love affair with that band's music, reaching its zenith with the song "Tellings" from I Know About You. I think I put that one on every mixtape (that's right, TAPE) I made in the mid-to-late 90s before CD burners became the norm.

Before that, I was introduced to this crazy little trio called Babe The Blue Ox. I'm pretty sure it was during a marathon here's-some-music-I-think-you'd-like session courtesy of Joe C. right at the end of freshman year. I was hooked from the opening minute of "Home" ("give me a house where/our home can live"). I played "Chicken Head Bone Sucker" on every single one of my radio shows for the next three years. Another song, "Waiting For Water To Boil," became (like Ida's "Tellings" above) a mixtape (yes, TAPE) regular.

Fast forward to the Fall of 1996. Jim M. is excited that he was able to convince Ida and Babe The Blue Ox to play at Notre Dame. For some reason, however, the usual venues for visiting bands (SMC's Dalloways Coffeehouse, the ballroom at LaFortune, let alone Stepan Center) were not available. What was available? Our basement. Max capacity? Oh probably around 50 audience members, plus the band, plus our washer and dryer. A perfect place for a band fresh off its major label (RCA) debut (Babe's People), don't you think?

There seemed to be an unusual amount of excitement leading up to the show. Recent grads who had settled back in Chicago or somewhere in Ohio were coming back into town to see these bands. It was to be this legendary house party event. Actually, it did not disappoint, and remains one of my favorite memories of my time in the South Bend Power Nineties music scene. Some highlights:

- an excellent potluck dinner the afternoon before the show
- talking with Hannah, the Babe drummer, about Notre Dame Football whilst she did her laundry in our basement
- Jim M. worried about Doug's probable reluctance to let us use his PA system for the show
- Doug graciously letting us use said PA, along with running the soundboard that evening
- the Ida singer trying to shush the crowd during a quiet segment of one of their songs

- Karla, the bassist for Beekeeper, playing with Ida
- the incredible Babe stompdown, especially the moment when the Ida drummer began dancing in front of Rose, the bassist
- Mike N., our housemate and grad student, coming home in the middle of the show and wondering what the heck was going on (it was our first show at the house, the first of many)
- talking to Tim, Babe guitarist, about their major label experience, in our kitchen after the show
- Finally, Jim M. paying the bands out of his own pocket, because we did not make enough money at the door, because most people gave lame excuses why they could not pay five bucks, but we're nice and let them in anyway. If you see Jim, and you attended this show, and you didn't pay - you owe him $5, plus, oh, 12 years worth of interest.

Thanks.

P.S. I am very happy to say that Ida is still around and Babe The Blue Ox recently reformed in NYC. Go see them.

Ida on MySpace
Ida on Last.fm
Babe The Blue Ox on MySpace
Babe The Blue Ox on Last.fm

emiLy Live at Prufrock's - March 1996

2009-08-20T20:06:00.002-05:00

Guess what, boys and girls? The South Bend Power 90s crew is now unleashing video on your unsuspecting eyes. Yes, the same technology that distilled mp3s from old audio cassettes is now pulling sound and images from dusty old VHS cartridges and stitching them into magical streams of 1s and 0s that let you relive the 90s right on your monitor.

Our very first offering is footage of emiLy playing at Prufrock's Coffeehouse in Lambertville, NJ. The show took place in March of 1996, at the beginning of our spring break tour which consisted of this night in Lambertville, a show in the back room of Blue Chair Records in Tampa, FL, and a house party in Gainesville, FL.

Part 1 of the video starts with a snippet of "Sap" and a quick glimpse of my parents' cat Cuddles, whose possible godhood we declared in the liner notes of engineering means i Like you. It then moves into "ayin" and "Tactical". Between the initial snippet and the two full songs, observant viewers will note that the suits we donned for the occasion disappeared. It was too hot to keep them on.

In part 2, Joe introduces a quieter set of songs, "Finer Time" and "Fearless". Prufrock was getting complaints about the noise, so much of the set was a struggle to keep dynamics in check, especially on drums. At times I put a t-shirt over the snare drum. At other times I played parts meant for the ride cymbal on the floor tom, as it didn't ring so much. The hi-hat does tend to drown out the rest of the band at times, flooding the microphone on the camcorder Ted was using to tape the show.

Part 3 begins with "Tear in My Eye", a song unrecorded at the time, before progressing through "Talking God, Talking Girls," "Atoms Are A Boy's Best Friend," and "Trinity". We recorded the latter three songs (as well as "ayin" and "Sap") a month earlier for what became the riverrun CD. Check out the microphone jury rigged to what is definitely not a microphone stand!

The rest of the tour was a bit more eventful. We played with Grade and a bunch of grindcore bands in Tampa. We also played a crazy house party in Gainesville. Anyone who remembers anything about that show remembers more than me, as I made one too many trips to the gas station for 32's of OE800. Ah, youth.

Keep an eye on the SBP90s channel on YouTube for more videos in the future!

see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Sweep The Leg Johnny/Streganona - Split 7” + Bonus Track

2009-08-11T11:46:00.004-05:00

It's a bass player face-off. It's a bass-off! Wil Freve (STLJ) and Mark Miyake (Streganona) go one-on-one to discuss this split 7", the camaraderie between the two bands, and of course, who's got the most game.

Wil: After leaving Notre Dame, Sweep The Leg Johnny quickly developed a friendship with an indie-rock band hailing from the University of Chicago: Streganona. In that first year in Chicago, Sweep and Streganona collaborated on a split 7” as well as played a vicious game of band vs. band pickup basketball (we kicked their ass).

Mark: The split 7” (The eSTaTe 003) was the first release from either band that was seriously intended for widespread distribution and was also the first release of the recording label wing of our Chicago and South Bend based music and art collective, The eSTaTe. Both bands were just starting to break into the North Side Chicago scene at this point, and this was intended as something of a calling card for both of us as we did so. Sweep spearheaded the project, asking us to record and release this with them and setting up our recording session in South Bend. We were greatly honored that they did so, as we had already developed a close friendship with them at this early point based on a great deal of love and respect for them as musicians and people. Sadly, however, Wil is right-- we did indeed remain extraordinarily intimidated by them on the basketball court.

TRACK 1: Sweep The Leg Johnny - “Similarities”
Wil: This song marks a bit of a departure for Steve’s saxophone playing, as it leaned towards the melodic element, and not just the rhythmic. I was disappointed with the stylistic pairing of the two songs on this 7” (by the way, if you haven’t listened to Streganona...please do—their music is much better than their basketball skills!). Although I’m a fan of both songs, they make for odd record-mates. I think Sweep should have paired a different song with Streganona’s “...Then I Had A Stroke”.

Mark: I love listening to this song, and it stands as a great record of both what Sweep was doing at the time and the musical direction in which they were heading. It’s also, I believe, their last recording with Wil and Jim, which is, of course, another reason that it represents a critical turning point for the band. When Matt and Scott replaced the rhythm section, the whole sound changed, as Matt played much darker and more straightforward bass lines (as well as adding another vocal element) and Scott played much busier and intense drum parts. These changes obviously marked a significant shift in the band’s sound, and even though Wil and Jim are playing on this track, you can hear the band already pulling a bit in that new direction. This song has a tight, clean, and heavy but intricate sound, and although Wil’s bass line is both representative of his style and a significant element of this song, this ultimately sounds more like the music the band would make after his departure than earlier songs of this era of the band’s songwriting.

TRACK 2: Streganona - “...Then I Had A Stroke”
Mark: We recorded this and two other songs on June 4th, 1995 with John Nuner at Miami Street Studios in South Bend. We intentionally recorded three very different sounding songs that day with the idea of then being able to choose what went best with the Sweep side of the 7”. But by the end of the session, we already knew that we’d be using this one because of the way it turned out in the studio, and because its darker, more sprawling nature (in comparison to the other two) seemed to be a better fit for STLJ’s emerging overall sound anyway. There’s a lot about this song that represents things we were trying out at the time as we were starting to close in on what would become our own more distinctive overall sound. Juxtaposing song parts with different feels, meters and tonal qualities, the two guitars pushing and pulling against and with each other over a steadier but still frequently shifting rhythm section presence, and the often surprisingly conventional overall song structure were all things consciously evident here that we kept refining and utilizing over the next few years. Personally, I was trying a lot of both old things (the style of the fingerstyle fills here sounds to me like something I might have done much earlier in my musical development) and new things (the big distorted bass chords that fill the verses and my attempts to control their expressiveness through their volume, sustain and coloring was pretty experimental for me at the time) in close proximity to each other in order to try to create something fresh and tasteful for me, the band, and the listeners. It took us all a while to figure out how to work things like this together into our cohesive band sound, but the basic building blocks are all here. This was also our last recording with Greg Heygood on drums, as he left us for an actual career (I guess some people consider building computer networks to be a more stable field of employment than punk rock...) just before we recorded How Do You Feel About Plastic? the following year. Greg had a very different style than our next drummer, Brett Norman, and although Brett’s drumming became a central feature of our sound in the following years, it’s always a real treat to listen to these older recordings and hear the original rhythm section as it sounded for so long through this initial phase of our existence. This didn’t end up being the best song we ever recorded, but it was definitely the best choice at the time and has, I think, stood up to the aging process fairly well and still sounds fun to listen to and to remember playing today.

Wil: What a cool friggin’ song “...Then I Had A Stroke” is. I always loved playing with Streganona (although this was tempered by a quiet anxiety that they might “out play” us). Not only was Streganona a great group of “U of C” guys, but they were very good at the style of music they played. I loved their signature, dueling guitars... sometimes sounding complimentary, and sometimes sounding hostile to one another. Streganona also used their dual vocals very effectively in their music. “...Then I Had A Stroke” is a great example of Aaron and Matt’s fine and expressive guitar work, as well as their ability to lay down the law and simply rock out. Matt screaming out, “My god... that wasn’t what I meant to do at all!” ranks up there with some of my favorite musical moments. Greg sets the stage with unapologetic drums, and Mark pushes all three of them with his driving bass lines. Please give this song a listen, as well as other Streganona songs (reviewed in previous blog posts)... you will not regret it!

BONUS TRACK: Streganona - "Angelico de Muerta"
Mark: This was one of the two “extra” songs we recorded at the Miami Street recording session, the other being “Encephalopod,” which ended up being released on How Do You Feel About Plastic? the following year. The reason that we never ended up releasing this song is pretty obvious- it’s a sort of fun, silly song that even we never took all that seriously. We intended it as a sort of change-of-pace B-side in case we ever needed anything like that or in case Sweep thought that it would be better to have a “fun” option for the 7”. This also includes some fine guest vocals by Steve Sostak-- Marlon Brando, eat your heart out…..

download:
Sweep The Leg Johnny/Streganona - Split 7” + Bonus Track
(the download contains the MP3s, scans of the Streganona postcard insert, 3 of the 4 STLJ basketball trading cards, a copy of the first eSTaTe newsletter, and more!)

The Cuba Five - Last Show 3/13/1997

2009-08-04T12:01:00.008-05:00

The Cuba Five played for about a year, from spring of 1996 to March 1997. Chris, the drummer, announced one weekend that he was moving back to Texas the following Friday. We rushed some practices, recorded an album, and played our final show at an impromptu party at the Green House. Obstruction made their debut as the opening band. Ron Garcia set up a four track and some microphones to record the whole affair, and we made a few copies of the recording to give out to friends. The cover photo featured Joe Cannon apparently passed out in a chair.

The performance itself gives you a good idea of an average set from a band back then -- a bit more frantic energy than the studio recordings, a smattering of applause at the end of each song, false starts, and the eternal struggle to keep guitars in tune. This being a Cuba Five show, there are questionable vocals and inane commentary between the songs, though the banter is mixed mercifully low, meaning you can gloss over it completely. Mike and Chris play a short improvised bit in the middle while the unruly guitar strings are brought back in line.

The final track, "At Long Last Arriving..." gets cut off as we hit the magic 46-minute mark and the tape simply ran out. This is unfortunate, as this song was generally the highlight of a Cuba Five show. So it goes. I suppose that means the small crowd that evening gets exclusive rights to that memory.

download:
The Cuba Five - Last Show 3/13/1997

see also:
The Cuba Five on MySpace

Water - Aliens Born to Human Parents

2009-07-29T13:41:00.003-05:00

Water was a Chisel side project that recorded a 7-song demo in the summer of 1992 or 1993. The band was Jeff Jotz on drums, with John Dugan and Ted Leo both on guitars and vocals.

Over the span of a weekend, we recorded these songs in the basement of Ted Leo's parents' house in Bloomfield, NJ. I recall that Ted called his underground lair "Radium City," probably for the watchmaking factory nearby. "Looking Down at the Great Wall of China" eventually made its way to Chisel's 8 a.m. All Day. The kid groaning during "Crazy Dudes in Action!" is Ted's cousin, who is probably in his 20s now and incredibly embarrassed.

We never had any pictures taken of the recording, but below is a funny shot of John and Ted at their off-campus house from September 1992 that I took (Ted may be wearing a SB White Sox shirt).

Unfortunately, there were no liner notes for this demo cassette. In fact, the MP3s that I made from our recording were from a 2nd generation cassette. We just shared it amongst ourselves and it sat in a box for years until I was contacted by a TL/Rx junkie a few years ago.

--Jeff Jotz

In my mind, part of what made this stuff so fun and amazing was the fact that for this flash of time, when we were all doing these one-off, one day, mostly improv "bands," we weren't thinking of posterity at ALL. We were just truly enjoying the moment, and probably taking some pleasure in the fact that we KNEW this was just "a moment." It was an absurd and heady and energizing thought to think that we could flick this stuff off the wrist and come out with some pretty embarrassing inside jokes, sure, but also some pretty damn great songs. But ultimately, it was just for the pleasure of things as potentially deep as feeling completely "present" and amazed at our own emerging abilities, or as simple as imitating Beat Happening (as in "Patio by the Pool," if my memory serves me).

--Ted Leo

Most of these songs were improvised on the spot or jammed on once before recording. It's somewhere between a brilliant afternoon of inspiration and the end of western culture as we know it.

--John Dugan

download:
Water - Aliens Born to Human Parents demo

see also:
Water on MySpace

SBP90s blog featured in Notre Dame Magazine

2009-07-23T14:23:00.004-05:00

In case you hadn't yet heard, the SBP90s blog has been featured in the Summer 2009 edition of Notre Dame Magazine, one of the nation's top university magazines. We are honored to have been included within it's pages, and welcome new readers who may have discovered our blog via this channel. It's a nice writeup... "rakish charm" indeed! If you've lapsed on your alumni donation and didn't get your copy in the mail, you can still head over to their website and read the online version of the article:

"Saving the music" - Notre Dame Magazine, Summer 2009

And speaking of press, the SBP90s blog also recently received a nice little plug over at the Musical Family Tree, the Indiana MP3 Archive and Online Community. They've got a pretty expansive archival endeavor going on, with some familiar SB faces already included. Check 'em out!

The Go-Lightly's - Demo Recordings

2009-07-16T10:43:00.003-05:00

We've already shared much of the story of The Go-Lightly's in a previous SBP90s blog post. However, there is an important piece of their musical history that was almost entirely forgotten about, that is until just a few months ago. We are thrilled to be able to share this missing chapter with you here today.

Back in 1998, Andy, Kristi, and Zoe–collectively known as The Go-Lightly's–went into the studio with local South Bend recording giant Hardcore Ron Garcia to put some songs to tape. They spent a day laying down tracks for their first and only demo recording, seven songs in all. At the end of the session, the band went home, the 8-track recorder was turned off, and the raw, unmixed tape was labeled and put in a cassette case... where it would sit untouched and sadly neglected for many, many years.

Fast forward to 2009. HC Ron has moved to Houston, and would, on occasion, make the couple hour jaunt to visit us at SBP90s Blog Central here in Austin. At some point, it came up in blog-related discussions that yes, he had in fact recorded The Go-Lightly's in the studio, still had the tape, but had no immediate recollection of how finished the songs were. Most importantly, he couldn't recall if they ever had a chance to record the vocal parts, which obviously would be crucial to salvaging a satisfying end-product.

For my part, I had no idea that these recordings even existed, as I wasn't in South Bend at the time, and none of the band members had ever brought it up. I think after all these years-- they had nearly forgotten about it themselves! So, I was very excited to hear about this, and anxious to see what state the songs were in.

When we finally got things set up for the mixdown session, and pressed "play," we were relieved to hear that there were indeed vocal tracks, from both Kristi and Zoe (actually, Ron had confirmed this in Houston beforehand, so as not to haul everything to Austin in vain). We were also pumped to hear how good it sounded! Andy's drums, Kristi's bass, Zoe's keys... it was all coming together. We spent the next few hours fine tuning each of the seven songs, and processing them straight into the computer for superior sound quality. We also included an eighth track -- an alternate and charmingly-botched take of "Time of the Season" that had all us cracking up with each listen.

So now, loyal reader, we are pleased to present you with a South Bend Power 90s world premier exclusive, 11 years in the making... the long-lost Go-Lightly's demo recordings!

download:
The Go-Lightly's - Demo Recordings

see also:
The Go-Lightly's on MySpace

decaf - P.R.A./Nervous Fingerfood EP

2009-07-09T13:46:00.004-05:00

There were 2 songs that never made it onto decaf's Self-Titled Cassette EP when we recorded at Miami Street Studios. I believe these songs did not make the cut because of the mistakes made in our "one take" guerrilla style of recording. Ironically, these were 2 of the most liked songs we played... just ask Alisha.

"P.R.A." - This was the very first song that Mike and I wrote while studying architecture in Rome. This is the song that started the "you whistle & I'll play guitar" style of writing that we endorsed while living there - mostly because we could not afford 2 guitars. For some reason I think I was heavily influenced by Screeching Weasel at this time. When we brought this song back to the states and played it for Rob, he immediately came up with the tongue-in-cheek title of "punk rock anthem." Mike and I traded guitar and bass duties for this one.

"Nervous Fingerfood" - This is one of the songs that Mike wrote while we were living in The Box. Mike asked Ricardo to name the song and he blurted out "Nervous Fingerfood" - don't even try to look for a reason... because there is none.

Thanks for listening again - we'll be posting some live decaf material soon. I actually stumbled upon another show we recorded at Dalloway's that I never knew I had - some good stuff coming up. Oh, and thanks to Julie for the cover photography again!

--Brian

download:
decaf - P.R.A./Nervous Fingerfood EP

see also:
decaf on MySpace

The Sister Chain

2009-06-24T20:05:00.004-05:00

The History of The Sister Chain*

It all began in 1971 - 1972, when we were born.

Then a bunch of stuff happened.

And eventually, The Sister Chain (TSC) emerged on the Saint Mary’s/Notre Dame music scene in the fall of 1991.

The group, an acoustic-based, all-female ensemble, was made up of the following: Kate (née Beck) Clark on vocals/guitar, Michelle Godwin on vocals/bongos, Erin Hardin on vocals/guitar, Erin (née Grefenstette) Henninger on vocals/percussion, Meghan (née King) Johnson on vocals/guitar, and Maureen (née Richerson) Parlier on vocals/keys (however, we all switched up instruments a bit depending on what we felt compelled to do). Mo Richerson left the group after the first year or so, so you will note that any later recordings don’t have any keys/synth in them.

TSC often invited other guest musicians to play with us from time to time, too—to mix things up/fill up the sound/have a good time, etc., e.g. Mike Dumbra on electric guitar and Kris “Bonch” Bonitatibus with the sticks (both of ND Earl’s Court fame), as well as a guy from ND named Dave, whose last name totally escapes me at the moment – sorry DAVE!!! (BTW: Dave was the one who helped me to splice in recordings of my then 4 year old niece singing some of her own original tunes on the debut The Sister Chain tape, which was recorded live at Dalloway’s on Sept. 9, 1992. Also BTW, we had 2 lovable co-managers, Mary “MB” (née Barger) Dirksen and Bridget McCourt, who faithfully dubbed and sold said cassette tapes for $5 piece. And a final point of interest: MB and Bridget also established a checking account in the name of The Sister Chain, which I—I must admit it—thought was pretty cool. Seeing our band name on checks made us feel totally legit. ;-)

Anywho: one of TSC’s proudest, most historical moments was when we served as the entertainment for the grand opening of the original Dalloway’s Coffeehouse on SMC’s campus. We have a recording somewhere from that venue (cassette, of course), where the Dalloway’s founder, the fabulous Margaret “Peggy” Abood introduces us as “Sister Chain.” And then you hear her being corrected by quiet-as-a-mouse Ms. Hardin (what would you expect from a woman from New Orleans?), gently insisting that it’s THE Sister Chain, not simply Sister Chain (so don’t you ever forget it! ;-)

We had the great joy and honor of playing with many great musicians (some of whom are mentioned above) during that heyday of the SMC/ND music scene, and took much pride in being the only SMC “band” at the time (maybe first ever?). Hey, we even got 3rd place at Battle of the Bands one year at ND (much to the chagrin of many, I’m sure. lol!) Another funny thing: we actually co-headlined with Chisel at Dalloway’s once, do you remember that guys? Below is the flyer to prove it (mocked up by yours truly).

So back to the she-story (hhh!): All of The Sister Chain gals attended SMC, and all of them spent the year of 1990–91 studying abroad in Ireland together, with the exception of Kate Beck Clark. While in Ireland, Michelle Godwin, Erin Hardin, Erin Grefenstette Henninger, and Meghan King Johnson spent countless hours hanging around at their homesteads singing and playing guitar, often joined by lots of locals (lots of traditional Irish songs, classic folk songs, Indigo Girls, and originals going on). We also provided the music at mass regularly at St. Patrick’s College (Maynooth), where we attended, along with Seanie from Co. Sligo. (Props Sean, wherever you are! ;-)

Upon returning from Ireland, during the summer of ’91, Meg & Kate (both from Pittsburgh) got together regularly and started cranking out some tunes, with the intent to perform at SMC/ND upon returning there in the fall. Kate had a history of being in bands since high school (The Happy Accidents) and also during our freshman year of college (Ed’s Painting Company). She and Meg also enjoyed time together during high school and college choir (geeks! ;-) Kate was (is) an accomplished pianist, and also had a regular gig as an accompanist at church on Sundays at SMC. (Hmmm... so it seems we owe a lot to The Church for keeping us in practice...). Anywho: Meghan started learning guitar in the sixth grade, and after leaving it alone for awhile, started dedicating herself more seriously to it the summer after her senior year of high school (kudos to Ben Means for giving me lessons, again, wherever you are ;-).

Upon returning to SMC’s campus in the fall of ’91, Kate & Meg found out that Michelle, Erin & Erin were intending to put a group together themselves. So, we said: “What the heck? Let’s all do it together.” (Yeah – that’s pretty much verbatim. Lol!) And alas, THE Sister Chain was born. (We invited Maureen to join in knowing that she was also an accomplished musician and singer.)

Oh the name, you ask? Yes, everyone wants to know where our name came from. ;-) Well, of course, we thought it would be cool to have something that represented the sisterhood of all of us being from Saint Mary’s. We were also a bit into the neo-hippie-Grateful Dead thing at the time; you know: the imagery of people running around with daisy chains, calling each other “sister” and “brother” and stuff like that. (Yeah: hokey to the core, I know.) Anyways: I was big on calling the group “Sister Betty,” in honor of the nun who organized the church music at SMC that Kate and I were doing at the time, though Kate was afraid Sr. B might take it the wrong way (though Sr. B later confessed that she would have been honored ;-). At any rate, we obviously compromised, threw it all together, and The Sister Chain was named. You know how compromise is: everybody gets a little bit of what they want, but no one really gets what they want – lol. At any rate, it worked well enough. That could probably be the theme of our entire history together, now that I think of it – somehow, despite, all of our differences, we made it all work.

OK, I am philosophizing now, but it really was special. Anyone who has ever been in a band or ensemble or group of some kind knows how special it is when a group somehow comes together and manages to hang together. It was tough after we all graduated, because life threw us apart, as is natural upon graduation. We knew it was likely that we wouldn’t all be playing much together again, if at all, after playing several shows and venues for two solid years. While at SMC, we had pretty regular gigs at Dalloway’s, and then on top of that, played anywhere and everywhere else that we could – every kind of benefit (MLK Day, Women’s Day, whatever), every house party invite, every special event (@ both SMC and ND alike, e.g. Hogstock, Battle of the Bands, the SU, etc.), and then of course came that magical moment when were able to move on to and to start playing pretty regularly at the infamous House of Moe (aka Club 23). Talk about good times, good music, and good friends. We pretty much adopted that place (in addition to Dalloway’s) as our home. So, if there was a theme to our closing, it could probably be summed up as “bittersweet,” which fittingly was a Big Head Todd and the Monsters cover song that we often did.

Speaking of songs, we did do a lot of originals, but also a lot of cover songs, too – all with our own personal stamp of course. We did both originals, and original versions of cover songs, largely because of our own musical limitations! Seriously: we never pretended to be musical virtuosos: we just liked to get together, and sing, and have a good time, and provide some enjoyment for other folks, too, while we were at it.

I’m pretty sure that our first official, original Sister Chain** song was “I’d Do Anything,” followed closely by “Night is Blue.” Michelle G wrote the lyrics to “I’d Do Anything” while we were in Ireland. I distinctly remember being in the basement of LeMans Hall at SMC one night, early in the fall of ’91, sitting around in a circle toying around with how we would put the words to music. I tried to roughly imitate what some musical friends of ours in Ireland had done with it one night while playing around (shout out to our Miss Judgment friends! ;-). Then we started throwing in harmonies on the chorus (our “unique” vocal arrangements was probably our forte). Then Mo Richerson threw in a cool synth intro at the beginning. Then, I’m pretty sure that the lights went out, but we kept singing anyways. When the lights came back on, another SMC-er, someone whom we didn’t know, walked in, totally flabbergasted, and said something to the effect of: “Is that you guys singing? Is that your song? You guys sound awesome.” It was a good source of encouragement. Do you girls remember that the way I do?

Incidentally: LeMans had some spaces with some good acoustics, which helped, I must admit. In addition to the LeMans basement, we also practiced frequently in the LeMans Chapel, which is somewhere up on the 3rd or 4th floor. I don’t know if this is the case now, but at the time, it wasn’t utilized very frequently for official functions, but the door was always open. And it was (still is?) a gorgeous, dark-wood, double-floor chapel – I think there might even be a full pipe organ in there? There’s definitely a balcony. So, like I said: good acoustics. It was in that very chapel that we auditioned to be included on the SMC/ND music compilation CD (remember that Ryan?). We were pretty excited to be included on that CD; our first (and now that I think of it, only!) CD recording, professional studio, publicity photos, etc. Funny thing: CDs were really just starting to come out at that time, so this was a big deal all around. ;-)

Some of the other mainstays in our “originals” repertoire (in addition to “Night is Blue,” like I already mentioned) included: “September Song,” “Seamus & Shoelaces,” “My Name Is Sky” (which is on the ND/SMC Incubus compilation CD), “Sunset,” “I Remember,” “The Green Grass Turned Blue,” and “Ceres.” There were lots more though. In fact, Mike Dumbra, whom I mentioned earlier, recently sent me mp3s of virtually all of our original songs. So if you want copies, hit me up.

Some of our other mainstay cover songs (in addition to “Bittersweet,” which I already mentioned) included: “Black Boys on Mopeds” (Sinead O’Connor), “Mother” (Pink Floyd), “This One Goes Out to the One” (REM), “Walk on the Ocean” (Toad the Wet Sprocket – whom we hung out with after they did a show at ND’s SU, which was very cool ;-), and John Denver’s “Jet Plane.” We also threw in some traditionals from time to time, like “Red Is the Rose” (Irish traditional) and “Scarborough Fair.” So yeah: it pretty much ran the gamut; we were interested in all kinds of music. If there was a song that struck our fancy for one reason or another, we figured out how we could play it and make it our own. Good times, for sure.

But alas, as I mentioned, graduation and our impending end was inevitable. Here’s how it all shook out—that is, if my memory serves me correctly (God, I’m getting old – please pardon me folks if I get any of this wrong – I know that I will be duly corrected ;-) :

After graduation, Meg & Kate went back to Pittsburgh, continuing to perform as a duo, and eventually, looking to expand their sound, joined up with some other folks, including Tom Emmerling, the drummer of ND’s Palace Laundry, who is also a Pittsburgh native. We christened ourselves “Dolorous” (naming your band after a female was popular in those days; see “emiLy”). After about a year or so, Meg left the group to get married and go to Japan to teach English, which is right about when “Dolorous” took off, after re-naming themselves “Bitter Delores” and adding some other members. Bitter Delores became pretty big on the Pittsburgh scene, and stayed that way for awhile. After several years, that group also met its end. Kate is now happily married, still in Pittsburgh, and I think, now has her master’s in music education. At any rate, I know that she is still doing music in one form or another. We (meaning myself, Meghan, & Kate), have even played out together a couple of times over the last couple of years – doing both old stuff & new – primarily in the Morgantown, WV area (WVU music scene). This is primarily because I, Meghan, have been living in West Virginia for about 10 years now.

Oh, what am I doing you ask? ;-) Well, whilst in Japan, I continued to play and write music, even gave a few lessons. Upon returning, I spent four years in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, continuing to hone my skills – even took some guitar lessons in Dinkytown (cultural area of the University of MN), where a young Robert Zimmerman happened to hang out awhile back. My husband and I moved to Mpls-St. Paul largely because of the great, grassroots arts scene (which we were both familiar with), and while there, I expanded my “performing” to include acting as well, which I have continued to do, along with my music. Suffice it to stay, I’m still playing out. I have a MySpace Music page as well as a Facebook music page if anyone’s interested in checking it out. In fact, in addition to some of my more recent, independent stuff, I think I’ve also posted a song or two from my Sister Chain days that I penned there as well.

Let’s see... the other girls... I know Erin Grefensette (now Henninger) went to Ann Arbor, MI for a little while after graduating, along with Kate Beck Clark and Bridget McCourt, at some point. I think part of what prompted that move was also the music scene that was there. (Probably they were following the lead of ND’s Sea of Words, with whom we used to hang out with/play music with quite a bit as well). I already told you about Kate BC’s present day happenings... so on to Erin GH: she is now in Denver, CO primarily involved with being a mother to her beautiful little girl, Marlo, and living the good life with her über successful husband (you know lots of globe-trotting... nice, eh? ;-) We’ve all lost track of Bridget McC, one of our trusty managers. (Bridget, if you’re out there reading this somewhere, look us up, girl!). Our other manager, MB, is back in her home state of OH, also very involved with being a parent.

Michelle G also ended up in Michigan, her home state, after graduation, though not in Ann Arbor. She’s out in Denver, CO now as well, raising her two fine sons, doing some counseling, and happily married.

Erin Hardin went back to her home town of New Orleans, spent some time in TX, and recently relocated back to NOLA. I think she’s done some teaching over the years, but I’m pretty sure her main focus at this point is her family, which includes her lovely hub, Bob, twin boys (Walker & Murphy), and adorable little Lola, whom they adopted about a year ago from China. I’m pretty sure a little boy named Bennet will be joining them from China soon, too.

Dang, I didn’t intend to make this so long – but, I guess it’s because The Sister Chain was definitely a big and extremely positive part of my time at Saint Mary’s. I hope that we helped to have a positive impact on others in the ND/SMC/SB scene at the time as well. I think we did, based on the various responses that we received.

In closing, thanks Ted, for the opportunity to reflect on those years and those good times, and for working to preserve those good times for the future—and I’m not just talking about The Sister Chain, of course—I’m referring to all of the great bands, the great people, that came together during those years to make that scene what it was.

If I missed anything (ha!), or if anyone wants to know anything more, feel free to look me up.

All the best!

And keep on rockin’ all!

Respectfully Submitted,
Meghan King Johnson, 6/24/2009

P.S. I have to give a shout-out to some of our fabulous friends who faithfully supported us during our Sister Chain years, people like: Christine Makarewizc, Joanne Gatti, Liz Quinlan, Lisa Philips, Lisa (Claussen) Kommers, Anne Delaney, Molly (McDonald) Peets, Missy (Arnett) Caudill, Melinda “Max” Tierney, Grant Johnson, and Mike Goodwin. And of course, all the musicians that I mentioned above, and some. I’m sure I’ve left some people out, which I’m sorry about, but dang! It’s late! And this thing needs to wrap! So, if I left out your name, I’m sorry—but please know that if you ever came to one of our shows, bought any of our tapes, or even took the time to read this long-winded memoir of sorts, we are grateful, and you are special. :-)

* intentional capital “T.” You’ll find out why when you read the article. ;-)
** it’s OK to leave out the “The” sometimes, just not on official documents, or when Erin Hardin’s around. ;-)

download:
The Sister Chain - Live at Dalloway's, Sept. 9, 1992 (select tracks)

see also:
The Sister Chain on MySpace

V/A - The Jericho Sessions

2009-06-17T22:43:00.001-05:00

The Jericho Sessions (1991) was the first of three campus band compilations put out by WVFI in the 1990s. Below are the original CD liner notes from the guys that brought it all together.

***

If I were on the University's 25-year plan, I could never begin to explain to you the rapid metamorphosis of this project. Perhaps Chris can. I called him around Thanksgiving and told him that I wanted to record a CD compilation featuring Notre Dame musicians. I actually heard optimism in his voice. I knew we were on to something.

Well, 5 months and 15 ulcers later, we have the final product. Our baby. The real irony here is that, at the moment, I'm failing "Physics of Music & Sound Reproduction." No matter. I've never thought that art and science had a healthy relationship anyway.

After a host of comedic - and largely sacrilegious - ideas for a name, we decided to call it "The Jericho Sessions." If you're unclear on the meaning, break out your Good Book. It's a great story.

So now the ball is in your court. Chris and I, in conjunction with WVFI 640 AM (Notre Dame's problem child), give you the very first collection of original tunes from your peers. This campus has more artistic greatness than you know, and exciting new music is alive and well. Catholic School was never so crazy.

Tony Graffeo is here. I've watched him play our dorm talent show for 3 years now, and his songwriting is extraordinary. I'm proud to admit that he was the original inspiration for this project.

I went to high school with Kevin Fleming. I can personally attest to his talent behind the skins. I introduced him to Ralph Falbo in the Fall of 1990, and I'd always assumed their skills would fit neatly together. Ralph is so dynamic at the keys, and he has an ear for music that I've always envied. He is the consummate professional.

I met Ted Leo when I did my first ever radio show as a freshman. I think my first phone call home began with the words "Ma, I met a skinhead." I think she cried. If only she knew him. Ted is the free-spirit who never ceases to entertain. I suppose the highest honor I can bestow upon him is to give him an avenue for his art.

There are many more fantastic musicians on this disc. I believe in every one of them. And I believe that you will hear more from them again someday. They'll be accepting awards, selling out stadiums... hell, some of them will probably still be in grad school here. Wherever they end up, there will be one thing that binds them together - their love for music. This I share with them. It is the most important thing in my life.

--Kevin Flaherty

Why did we undertake this project? I don't remember. If we knew then what we know now, the only Jericho Sessions would have been old Joshua's. I don't think Kevin knew what he was getting us into. Taco Bell at 9:00am, a smorgasbord of beer, a lot of late nights, and endless rounds of phone tag. What a blast.

The main reason for all this was for the bands. [and girls, power...] Seriously, there is so much talent to be heard on this campus. Someone just needed to make it happen. Somehow it turned out to be me and Stooge.

We were not without help. Thanks to Mark Bintinger, owner of the official project vehicle, and a really great boss. After I graduate I hope to work for someone like Mark again. Thanks to Nose who listened to me bitch about this project every night. And thanks to my mom for everything she's ever done for me. Apologies for all the things I've screwed up. Through it all she's believed in me.

As I sit here writing the tenth version of these notes Bon is hamming it up to some band's music track. Fried doesn't even come close. 15 bands in 7 days. Think about that. My phone will be off the hook for awhile. Even accounting for the sleep deprivation, I am thrilled to have been involved in this project. And I couldn't be prouder of what we accomplished.

It must be said, nothing that Kevin and I have done is all too amazing. It just needed to be done. Our sincerest hope is that the spirit of cooperation and action that we've begun lives on. [Thanks Anton...] When I come back here in my plaid pants (probably black plaid...), if it's a sunny day (and above 55 degrees) I want there to be a band jamming on Fieldhouse Mall.

Thanks to each and every act; those who made it and those who didn't. Thanks for trusting us with your music and allowing us to let other hear it. Personal thanks go to Chisel and Bone Forest. More than anyone you guys helped me remember what music is really all about... goin' balls out and havin' a blast. Never change!!

Thank you to Joel Fox who took my enjoyment of music to appreciation. Even if it's not your style, listen to a punk song, or a folk song. See past the format to the substance. The talent.

Thank you - thanks for taking a try on some bands you maybe never heard of. You just might find the band of the nineties. Or not. But it beats buying another T-shirt.

Remember, it's all about the music. That's what we all share, how we're all connected. So welcome to our family. We have a pretty good time.

--Christopher D. Walter

P.S. Thanks to anyone who gives me a job after seeing this on my resume.

Track Listing:
1. "God's Answering Machine" - Tony Graffeo
2. "Spacey Floater" - Brian Muller
3. "And She Rides On" - Dominic Campanella & Chris Norborg
4. "Little Lover" - Fresh Water For The Horses
5. "Walk In The Streets" - The Turquoise Sidewalk
6. "Better Off Dead" - Exit 77
7. "Moon Blues" - Little Geneva
8. "Swingin' In The Chapel" - Ralph Falbo Trio
9. "Hide Away" - Don McGahn
10. "World On Its Side" - The XYZ Affair
11. "Censorship Is A Lie" - Doghaus
12. "Swamp Fox/Spike" - Chisel
13. "Autistic For The Night" - Bone Forest
14. "Strange Addiction" - Chronic Desire
15. "Bee Slippers" - 5 O'Clock Shadows
16. "Love Lay Down" - Jester
17. "Another Mission" - Greg Jeffrey
18. "By My Side" - SyR
19. "Scream" - Sigi Loya

download:
WVFI am640 presents... The Jericho Sessions ...a Notre Dame sampler

emiLy - Walking Home on the Emergency Bed

2009-06-11T10:09:00.002-05:00

It was finals week, I think. We were camped in our usual spots in the basement of Lafortune Hall. Totally cool.

Some months prior, I'd clambered into a booth in that same basement next to Ted Leo, demanding that he tell me the first word that came to mind. I'd been walking around Lafortune doing this to everybody. You see I was trying to name a band.

That's not to say we didn't have a working band name. It was "Barge Mounted Winch." Don't ask; I have no answers, and the first guy to make a joke about BMW gets stabbed in the face.

In any case, I shook Ted down for a name while he was talking to Emily Davis. He looked at me with a combination of amusement and worry and said, "Emily!"

We liked it. So we became emiLy. I'm not entirely sure how the little e big L thing happened. Mike and Doug most likely have better memories about this than I do.

I do remember that Mike often claimed that the big L was for love, man.

But that's all beside the point. The thing is, Mike was really tired. He'd been studying hard, I think. He got up from the booth, staggered, and stammered blearily: "Oh man, I'm walking home on the emergency bed."

Jaws dropped, and an album was named.

When emiLy went on its final tour, I remember Mike putting this tape on while we were driving. I also remember cringing and writhing on the back seat and begging him to turn it off. I think that I may have been more sensitive, at age 24, to the spastic, googly, songwriting of my 20 year old self, than I am now at 37. (Fuck. I'm 37.)

Now I listen to it, and I'm surprised. It sounds like a young punk band. Just as good and just as bad as a young punk band. I'm not entirely sure what all my writhing and begging for it to stop in the Suburban was all about.

Sometime in the late nineties, Steve Sostak of Sweep the Leg Johnny approached me with a business proposition. Sweep would buy the name "Walking Home on the Emergency Bed" from emiLy for the price of one thirty-pack of Old Style.

We totally got the better end of that deal. If they paid up. I can't remember if they paid up. Damn. It is possible that I was drunk when that deal went down. Sorry guys. I owe you all some beers.

In conclusion, I'm happy that the best song on this tape is "Minuteman": "I pray to god/that I never learn to do this right." Some prayers do get answered.

--Joe Cannon

This cassette was recorded in April of 1993 at "Radium City" (WVFI), and was engineered by Ted Leo. Live tracks were taken from a March 20, 1993 show at Dalloway's Coffeehouse. This was split-label released as RTO1/SS003 (Rent To Own + Sudden Shame).

download:
emiLy - Walking Home on the Emergency Bed

see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Bessie - Live at Clifford, May 3, 1997

2009-06-02T13:02:00.023-05:00

--- MIKE ---

The Origin Story

I only vaguely recollect the beginnings of the band that would become Bessie. I know it had something to do with Grad Student Amy The Bassist (GSATB) recruiting me to play "something" (bass? guitar? drums?) in her new band. After I settled on playing the drums, with the caveat that I was still learning how to play, GSATB asked The Chris Owen to sing lead. Somehow we also convinced Jen C's then-boyfriend, Irish Terry Q. from Ireland, to round out the group on guitar. I know Amy and Chris wanted to call the band The Homeowners, and to this day I have no idea how we settled on the name Bessie.

The Outfit

What a completely wacky combination of musical styles and personalities. Amy was the ringleader, scheduling practices and writing most of the foundation material for the songs on her bass. I supplied the practice space (Clifford the Big Red House) and tried my best to imitate Hannah Fox on drums (because I was completely obsessed with her band Babe The Blue Ox at the time). Fortunately, Doug McE. let me borrow his drumset and Whiff gave me some drums lessons, otherwise this whole venture would have been even more horrible than it already was.

Practices were too few and far between, styles (Amy's quirky bass, Chris' shouting vocals, Terry's funk guitar, and my half-assed drumming) never quite meshed, and yet we still managed to play a bunch of shows (including going on a brief "tour" of Michigan) and frighten people. The best compliment I ever got for this band was from Joe C. who said something to the effect that "I thought this band was supposed to be a joke, but actually your songs are rather complicated and interesting" after he heard us play. Not too bad. And when it rocked, it was really, really fun. I love playing drums, even if I'm terrible.

The Conclusion

I was never truly happy with the band, mostly because I was so frustrated trying to play drum parts that I was simply not competent to perform. It's still painful for me to listen to these songs, for that reason alone. I think with more time (we were together for a grand total of about 4 months?) this band could have evolved into something really good. As it stands, it's a decent record of an experimental hybrid weird rock band that tried really hard to, well, I'm not really sure. The song "Gertrude Is A Dog" still makes me really happy. You broke if you don't dance to that.

Thanks.

--- CHRIS ---

Are there any bands that sound like this anymore? When I listen to this now a voice in my head says “Indie, Indie, Indie!" (like Jan saying "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"). What would one call this style of music? Maybe I just found a way to avoid it, but I don’t feel like you hear it anymore. It is like a 90s indie clusterfuck- Mike's Babe the Blue Ox influenced drums, the Rites of Spring-lite male vocals alternating B-52s-like with 90s grrrrrl vox, Britpop guitar... individually those elements provide the color, but overall I would say it was Amy's Kim Deal pose that defined this band (I don't know who young women emulate these days, but I don't miss the days when a tuneless young gal might pick up a bass, stitch together the first 4 unrelated melodies she comes up with and immediately get on stage. I am sure it still happens, I am just not there to watch and there is probably a different muse). Needless to say, we were not the Pixies.

Despite what Mike remembers, I believe I was the last member to enter this band. After a brief period of direction-free practice, they asked me to come in to help provide some pizazz. Like if George Bush had asked Mick Foley to come in and help provide some direction. In addition to jazzing things up with some unnecessary second lead vocals, the magic I sprinkled on top, as I remember, was lobbying to call the band "The Homowners" (purposely misspelled, I was 10 years ahead of Shitgaze/No-Fi) and suggesting we cover "What Goes On" by the Velvet Underground. For whatever reason, the Homowners name never stuck and our "What Goes On" provided an excruciating 7 minute set piece for audiences to contemplate unfinished homework, impending student loans, really anything to avoid paying attention to this awful never-ending rendition of what used to be a good song.

I listened to this once a few months ago when Ted sent it to me and it was even worse than I remember. Though it might not have needed to be; Amy was learning the bass as we went but she practiced a lot and “Gertrude” was a catchy song. Mike's drumming was perfectly fine, I thought, despite his self-flagellation about not mastering them immediately. Terry's borrowed 12 string electric (with 6 strings), though perpetually falling out of tune, was well played (and he struck an exotic U2-y figure onstage, contrasting depressingly with the basements we played in). However, this band suffered from a common ailment in the scene that really didn't work this time- different flavors that did not go well together. This band did not mix well. Listening to any of these songs it is obvious and the best example of this is the experiment in dual male/female lead vocalists. Though unique among our SBP90s brethren, it was unavoidably awkward and strained. The music is bad, but the vocals are worse.

I feel like I was constantly trying to quit this band and I wish I could say why you can hear my voice on these songs, but I have no excuse. It pains me to hear my earnest Guy Picciotto impersonation, lyrics ripped off from Doug's Raymond Carver rip off period (I think there is actually a song called "Gazebo" here) and I want to publicly apologize to anyone who had to watch us. If you sat through the Mad Dogs and Bessie in the same night, I formally request you stop reading now. You had enough of me that night to last the rest of your life. Interestingly, the Mad Dogs were a way for me to react to what I thought of as an occasionally pretentious scene, whereas my Bessie vocals were an attempt to conform to it... which makes them that much more embarrassing.

In fact, I am absolutely positive this was the worst band of the SBP90s scene 1994-1998 because I can prove it. A few years ago in a “ND Years” box I found a VHS tape labeled "The Cure- Staring at the Sea the Singles video collection." I put it in my VCR, hit rewind and genuinely looked forward to cranking it while I cleaned the house. Imagine the horror I felt when I heard my own voice loudly saying something typically stupid. Roger videotaped us live at Dalloway’s, somehow it found its way onto this tape and now it is a living document I can always refer to when I want to revisit the agony we put audiences through. The crowd is even shown, sleepwatching for the whole 45 minutes or so, wishing they could be anywhere but witnessing us define the opposite of “Chemistry” and listening to me talk endlessly between songs. Unfunny, unattractive, unappealing. (As an aside, here are two tips for young bands and bands young at heart: 1) Never play longer than 30 minutes 2) Unless your name is Bob Pollard or David Lee Roth, never speak, on any subject or at any length, between songs. Actually, James and Dave were very funny in Krautmiser, but in general it is a cardinal rule best learned early- less talk, more rock). This tape is atrocious. No nostalgia, whatsoever, out of this tape until the Cure take over an hour into it. Ted requested I send it to him and I say to you now what I said to him then: You'll take my Staring at the Sea VHS over my dead body! There is no way I would allow this to get on the internet. I have a child and want no visual evidence of this band available online to discredit what is left of my family name. Even my daytime personality doesn’t know where I have hidden the original. On the bright side, at least there is no video evidence of the show we played opening for Mustard Plug in Kalamazoo (though I haven’t checked that Hulmerist video in a while either).

Regarding the download available below, I cannot under any circumstances recommend you listen to it. I asked Ted not to make it available, but his will to document has grown stronger than his quality control impulse. He needs help. Please join me in making this the least downloaded SBP90s entry yet. Finally, I want to apologize to Jim McNamee for the rude comments I made to him at this show. Not cool, not funny, not clever - the opposite of Jim himself, whom I miss.

download (or not):
Bessie - Live at Clifford, May 3, 1997

see also:
Bessie on MySpace

Krautmiser - Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game

2009-05-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

In 1995, an album was released that changed a generation: Krautmiser's Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game.

Everyone remembers how Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game included the cliffhanger-ending story of how Krautmiser fearlessly challenged Mr. Miatsu in his own lair. But for years Krautmiser scholars have wondered: what actually happened to Julian Dingle, David McMahon, Jack Howard, and James Kennedy, once they entered Miatsu's notorious "Death Pagoda"?

Now, at long last--as an exclusive to South Bend Power 90s--the "lost ending" of Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game!

First, the original story, from the insert of the 1995 album Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game:

KRAUTMISER'S LAST HURRAH?
HAS KRAUTMISER MET THEIR MATCH?
WHITHER PRUDENCE, BELOVED BOYS OF KRAUTMISER?

So shouted the headlines of the Fleet Street weeklies when England's scandal-sheet favourites, Krautmiser, announced their intention to play Mr. Miatsu's deadly game.

"This time they've gone too far," sniffed Lady Agatha Croydon, the ex-betrothed of Krautmiser's notorious playboy drummer Jack Howard, when informed of the band's sensational announcement.

But what is the story behind the scandal? Some wags claim Krautmiser was unwittingly shanghaied into playing Mr. Miatsu's deadly game. But when has Krautmiser ever done anything "unwittingly"--Krautmiser, a band whose every smallest action, down to the flirtatious bat of an eyelash, is precalculated and phase-plotted by a Cray-2 supercomputer for maximum swank and joie de vivre?

Others bandy about allegations that Krautmiser was forced into participating in Mr. Miatsu's deadly game. But how could Krautmiser ever be "forced" to do anything--Krautmiser, the wealthiest and most powerful band in the world?

No, Krautmiser's decision to engage Mr. Miatsu in his deadly game can only be traced to one reason--the same reason for all their actions--that is, the boundless insouciance and devil-may-care sassiness that have made them beloved pop-culture icons the world over. "We thought it'd be a lark to play Miatsu's deadly game," said Julian Dingle, guitarist, at a recent press conference.

But who is Mr. Miatsu? That question is not easily answered. All that can be said for certain about the enigmatic Miatsu is that once every year, this inscrutable 850-year-old mandarin emerges from his inaccessible pagoda deep within the heart of China and issues his challenge: "Who shall play my exceedingly dangerous game?"

What kind of band would throw their lives to the fickle winds of Oriental fate? "We started out with nothing," growled bassist James Kennedy in his raspy Irish brogue, "so we find it much easier to gamble everything." To be sure, Krautmiser did have inauspicious beginnings: in the early years, Kennedy was nothing more than another streetfighting lad going nowhere fast in the pubs of Belfast.

How he fell in with Jack Howard, an Eton schoolboy still in shortpants at the time, and Julian Dingle, a well-heeled Oxford don and the unofficial "bad boy" of orthodox Scholasticism, is still a mystery.

It was not until 1964 the Krautmiser finally found a vocalist. It was August 4, "Rodeo Nite" at the Buckin' Silver Star Saloon in Junction City, Kansas. "We don't have a singer for this next song," Julian called out halfway through the set. "Does anyone here know how to sing?"

"Oh, ah do!" piped up a drunken farm girl from the cornfields of Kansas. It was her first night on the town, and this blue-dressed, blonde-tressed ingenue was none the better for the five gin and tonics that she had downed that night.

"What's your name, young lovely?" inquired a solicitous James Kennedy as he helped her stagger onto the stage.

"Dave McMahon," slurred the young girl. "But I let the nice boys call me Peaches," she added, giggling.

"How old are you, little miss?" asked Jack Howard skeptically.

"Eighteen," said Peaches McMahon defiantly. But she was only sixteen, and even now Ma McMahon was peeping out the window of her farmhouse hundreds of miles away, wondering when her little Peaches would return.

She never did. Even when falling-down drunk, Peaches McMahon managed to bring the house down for encore after encore. That very night she climbed into the Krautmiser tour bus, and never saw Kansas again.

But the lean years were not over for Krautmiser. Who knows what might have become of Krautmiser had Sir Evelyn Hottentot, the eccentric and fabulously wealthy aristocrat, not walked into London's "seedier-than-thou" Black Bombay Club the night of September 14, 1967? Sir Evelyn was immediately smitten by Krautmiser's youthful savoir faire--and yet his heart was broken by the abject poverty Krautmiser endured, their bony ribs sticking out of their lanky, emaciated frames. Sir Evelyn immediately took Krautmiser under his wing, offering the boys a place to stay and hot meals.

But Sir Evelyn turned out to be as dotty as he was generous. He was given to bouts of melancholia and he frequently went skeet shooting in the middle of Piccadilly Square. His weakness for the caresses of supple Malaysian houseboys left him with a nasty case of syphilis that nearly drove him mad. Krautmiser soon took over their daft benefactor's fortunes and, with cunning financial prowess, went on to establish themselves as the best-loved band in the world.

And so now Krautmiser stands at the entrance of Mr. Miatsu's "death pagoda." The door opens. Miatsu emerges.

"Who shall play my exceedingly dangerous game?" rasps the ancient monk.

"We shall," proclaims James Kennedy as Krautmiser steps forward. "We shall play your dangerous game with relish, Miatsu."

"But are your fists of quality much greatness?" questions Miatsu sagely.

Replies McMahon, "Our fists are motorized explosions."

"Your explosions are your own impotence," snaps Miatsu.

"Bold talk," returns Howard, "for a man whose very kimono is a flapping tent of viscera."

"I am that kimono," growls Miatsu, eyes blazing.

"That we shall defrock you of your own substance," muses Dingle. "Mr. Miatsu--or, should I say, my little Peking duck."

"I shall consume you as I consumed General Ch'ung Kiang before you!" booms Mr. Miatsu as storm clouds rumble. "Enter, young Krautmisers, into my 'Death Pagoda.' I have spoken."

Krautmiser enters. The door closes.

Oh, do be careful, reckless youth of Britain! Oh, do come home safe, beloved boys of Krautmiser!

And thus ends the story of Krautmiser as of 1995. But what happened to Krautmiser in Mr. Miatsu's "Death Pagoda"? Now, finally, the truth is revealed...

AT LONG LAST . . .
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER . . .
THE CONCLUSION TO MR. MIATSU'S DEADLY GAME!

"A springtime shower of illustrious blessings to you, Mr. Miatsu," said Jack Howard politely; "and to the she-goat who bore you from its rancid womb."

"Your feeble contumely holds no terror," said Miatsu from his alabaster throne, "for a man who suckled at the teat of Dag Na Goga, the silver dragon who even now slumbers beneath the soil."

"A cunning jade statuette, Miatsu," said Dave McMahon, plucking up a centuries-old idol. "It will look quaint on me mum's window-sill."

"Even now I curse that window-sill; wild boars shall befoul it."

James Kennedy shot back, "Be it so, but I shall violate every orifice you possess with those selfsame boars."

Miatsu whirled. "This from a man whose dishonorable underclothes have been the scorn of his generation!"

The curtains parted, and Julian Dingle alighted, borne by a rickshaw.

"So enters the prancing monkey of the Western world," observed Miatsu. "And now, who will play my exceedingly dangerous game?"

"The game has already been played... and won," said Julian coolly. "For, unbeknownst to you or your sad regiment of ill-fed monks, I have paid a visit to Beijing... and the Imperial Library."

"Thrice a bungler, thrice an oaf," gloated Miatsu. "What piffling words did you scrabble up, backwards scholar?"

"Only this: that you once loved a woman, Miatsu," said Julian boldly. "And, yea, unbeknownst even to her own sister, your betrothed, you dallied with her, and tasted delights in the shade of the cherry blossoms; iniquity in your heart, and shame on your lips, you fled to this miserable temple; and here you have moldered for 850 years, a man who is not a man, but a shell, who possesses not a heart, but a lump of dung; for you cannot love, Miatsu, and that is your deadly game."

But even as Julian spoke, Miatsu grew smaller and smaller; the gold and red robes that once enfolded him now hung loosely about his diminishing frame; the alabaster idols, the proud banners, the shining kanji on the crimson cards, the granite obelisk, the dice of bronze and ivory, the pods and chits and spangles and coins--indeed, all of the apparatus of the deadly game, crumbled to dust; and then, all at once, the boys of Krautmiser found themselves, not in the arid wastes of Red China, but in a leafy glade, alongside a babbling brook, under a spreading chestnut-tree; the delicate "twoot-twoot" of the thrush could be heard--

"England," cried David, clasping his tiny, pale, puffy hands together in infantile delight--capering spastically into the sunrise--"Oh, oh, oh my beloved England!"

--James Kennedy
www.jameskennedy.com

download:
Krautmiser - Mr. Miatsu's Deadly Game

see also:
Krautmiser on MySpace

Obstruction - One Step Closer

2009-05-17T22:14:00.002-05:00

A hardcore band at Notre Dame?!? You better believe it! Ron Garcia, Andy Yang, and Ted Hennessy tell the tale of Obstruction!

Ted: Obstruction began back in the fall of 1996. I remember having written a couple songs on guitar that were a little too hard and fast for the Mad Dogs. Somehow I was referred to Mr. Ron Garcia (affectionately nicknamed "Hardcore Ron") who, unbeknownst to me, played a mean heavy metal bass.

Ron: I'm guessing Rachel referred you to me, since I think she's the only person who had ever seen me play the bass (in my dorm room, yadayadayada).

Ted: Actually, when I learned of this, I became quite angry. Angry because HC Ron had been on campus for over 3 years and was never invited to play in a campus band. I mean, seriously, what the hell?? Ron and I quickly decided we needed a way to focus this anger, and the best way to do that was to start a hardcore band. Thus began Obstruction.

Ron: I did consider trying out for Pinch Point once, but I never answered the ad they put in the Observer.

Ted: I think it was also Rachel who came up with the band name.

Ron: It was one of you two. I remember you saying, "Ron, we need to start a hardcore band named Obstruction!"

Ted: Initially, we tried Bear out as our drummer, but it didn't quite gel. I think we scared him off by playing our songs so fast that we could barely keep up with them ourselves. That's when we enlisted a man with the guns to fill the bill: Andy Yang, a refugee from the recently defunct Catatonics.

Ron: Damn straight.

Andy: I don't think I ever really kept up with the hardcore tempo, but I had a damn good time trying. I pretty much improvised a fast tempo drum beat that seemed to have a mind of its own at times, not always in time and far from perfect. I remember having to screw some wooden blocks to the carpet that my shitty drum set was on to help stabilized the damn thing to keep it from running away.

Ted: And then there was Ron's singing... I think this surprised the shit out of everybody. Here was this sweet, super-soft spoken young gentle-man... who was suddenly transformed into a font of fiery onstage screaming rage. Wow. A pleasant surprise indeed, with very, very effective results.

Andy: That was the best part of Obstruction! Ron's piercing yell ruled!

Ron: Our first show I don't remember if the PA was working, so I'm not sure if anyone heard the vocals. The second South Bend show (at Clifford) got some stares. I didn't know I had it in me.

Ted: Yeah, the first show... it was on the same night as the last Cuba Five show (3/13/1997). We were booked for a Bowling Green, OH fest a week or so later, so we really needed to get some stage time under our belts. We played about 6 songs, in arguably one of the shortest sets in South Bend music history. Most of the songs were under 2 minutes long. It was the only time we ever played "Shenanigans," an ill-conceived instrumental "tribute" to the ND song and dance troupe of the same name.

Ron: Hahaha! Awesome. Many strings were broken at that first show (bass strings, guitar strings). Drum sticks? We tore shit up!

Andy: Good times! Yeah, I remember being pretty pumped up and racing away on the drums. We definitely upped the tempo even more at the shows.

Ted: BG fest was fun, even if we were a trifle nervous and screwed up a lot. It was a good sized crowd. Chris O sang a few extra songs with us there as some hacked off version of the Mad Dogs.

Andy: Yes, our first gig away from SB and it was our second show. We weren't really prepared, but it was fun, for sure. We were definitely feeling the jitters and screwed up good, but all in all, a good time.

Ron: I remember we didn't have a carpet so the drumset kept trying to run away.

Ted: We probably only played a handful of other shows from there on out, a few times at Clifford and maybe the Green House. Obstruction dissolved when I left South Bend for the greener pasture of Austin, TX in the summer of 1997. Several months later, I stopped back in town for a tape release/reunion show at the Canary House on Halloween, with the Mad Dogs and the Butterfly Effect.

Ron: That was an awesome reunion show.

Ted: Indeed. Probably the best we ever played.

"Obstruction... GO!!"
Track Commentary

1. Eyesore
Ted: Though often oversimplified, we tried to add "political" overtones to our music. "Eyesore" had something to do with television inadequately reflecting the diversity of real life.

Ron: Hardcore bands (and angsty youth in general) have traditionally oversimplified their politics. Who were we to shirk years of tradition?

2. "Stabbed in the Back"
Ron: Poking (pun intended) fun at the classic hardcore motif: "I thought you were my friend, but now you've stabbed me in the back." Plenty of bands singing about their bleeding hearts spend their weekdays dishing out the same medicine they complained about in verse on the weekend.

3. Holy Martyr
Ted: Written in reaction to attending too many HC fests overrun by macho, sexist, straightedge buffoons.

4. Vicarious
Ted: Don't ever try to tell Ron what to do with his life, unless you want the beatdown! Clocking in at only around 30 seconds, this song was often over before people knew what had hit them.

5. Badge
Ted: The lyrics to the verses of this song were taken from quotes on redneck bumper stickers I witnessed during my days as a pizza delivery guy in SB.

6. Gunshot
Ted: Our anti-joining-the-military anthem, or something like that. Always a crowd favorite due to the mid-song guitar breakdown and shouting of "Go! Fight! Win! Die!"

Ron: Let's not forget the absolutely crucial "Obstruction Go!" You can't be old school without throwing your band name in at least one of your songs!

Andy: My favorite song to play. I was able to just beat the shit out the drum set, broke a few sticks here and there.

Ted: This song was initially titled "Gun Shy," until it was brought to our attention that that was also the name of a 10,000 Maniacs song. Whew-- dodged a bullet on that one. (ba-dump bump!)

7. Underscore
Ted: "Underscore" and "Last Goodbye" were written towards the end of the band's brief existence, but showed promise of where our sound was heading, had we continued on.

Ron: Underscore was named because it was an untitled instrumental that we put on setlists as "_______". Apparently my sense of humor has little progressed.

8. Last Goodbye
Ron: This was the obstruction love/heartbreak song. Hey, hardcore bred emo, so we HAD to reveal our tender sides for the fans.

Ted: I'm glad we nailed this one in the studio, because we always struggled with it live. You can hear Andy exclaim at the end "that was the best ever!" cuz we finally got it right! For me it's the highlight of this tape.

Ted: This cassette, tongue-in-cheekily titled One Step Closer, was recorded in May of 1997 at Clifford the Big Red House, with Travis assisting under Ron's direction. Faye, Leslie, Doug, and Mike (aka the Obstruction Youth Crew) helped with the background shouts on a couple tracks. It was a split release with our good friends the Mad Dogs, who's contribution has already been chronicled in a previous blog post.

Ron: Here's a point of irony. I've lost my voice for the third time in my life this weekend (due to a cold). The last time I remember losing my voice was when we recorded the Obstruction tape. During the vocal recording session, Mike Larmoyeux was running the sound board and I was in the basement screaming my heart out. It was graduation weekend so his family came by Clifford while we were recording. As Mike told me, they seemed perplexed, so he explained that we were overdubbing tracks for a recording, and I think his mom, or aunt or some other said, "But why is someone yelling in your basement?!?"

download:
Obstruction - One Step Closer

see also:
Obstruction on MySpace

The Transoms - The Weather is Here... Wish You Were Beautiful

2009-05-06T13:12:00.004-05:00

I used to tell people I named my band “The Transoms” because “we’re like the Doors, but higher.”

I simply present that here for historical documentation purposes.

After a few lineup changes, where I was the sole remaining original Transom, we settled on Ron Garcia on drums and Sean Markey on bass. I played guitar and sang.

Ron, Sean and John. We rhymed. It was almost too perfect.

Except that Ron wanted very little to do with the band. After the first drummer, Jeremy, vanished from the face of the earth, Ron filled in for a few shows, making it quite obvious that he wasn’t interested in being my full-time drummer. With almost weekly cajoling, he played every show thereafter for two years.

Well... every show except for that one where I played drums and sang, while a superfan from my dorm, who happened to already know all our songs, played lead guitar. That show was terrible. Like, really bad. I’m no Phil Collins, and Phil Collins fucking sucks.

Our CD, The Weather is Here... Wish You Were Beautiful was recorded in summer 1999, over the course of one sweaty week in Ron’s house on Bulla Road. Sean couldn’t make it out from Springfield, Mass. for the session, so I played bass, in addition to guitar and vocals. Ron, still doing his damnedest to not actually be in the band, only played drums on a handful of tracks. I talked Doug McEachern into playing on the rest. I remember the idea piqued his interest, because he’d never been asked to be a “session drummer” before.

But anyway, 15 songs. All of them went on the CD. A friend suggested the album’s title, but it was only after the cover was printed that I learned it was a fucking Jimmy Buffett song. You got me.

The Transoms’ CD was reviewed twice, as far as I know. The student newspaper The Observer raved about it. Five out of five shamrocks. It began, “In the long tradition of incredibly talented Notre Dame campus bands, the Transoms have joined the ranks of the elite with their first album the weather is here... ...wish you were beautiful."

That’s right -- the elite. But read that review and one thing is for sure: The guy didn’t spend a whole lot of time composing it.

Case in point: “‘Cosmetic Surgery’ is one of the best tracks on the album, with its great musical transitions.”

Yeah, that’s right. Motherfuckin’ musical transitions. That’s going on my resume starting tomorrow.

Even better, the review’s headline, “Music of The Transoms is Awesome,” was a total mistake. Turns out, the page designer plugged in a dummy headline to determine the font size, but never returned to fix it.

The South Bend Tribune writer spent a little more time with the album, but it baffled me to no end that he compared our “rough-hewn sound” to “early Who and Joe Jackson.”

Joe who?

Yeah, that’s right. I had no idea who Joe Jackson was at the time. Oh, you mean that guy who wrote “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” That guy? Great.

My favorite line from that review was when the author said the CD was “seven to 10 minutes too long.”

Touché, my good man. Touché.

Track commentary:
1. When We Were Cool - The guitar solo was quite challenging, and I think I nearly ruined a friendship by practicing it for an hour straight while my roommate tried to nap.
2. Cosmetic Surgery - I wrote that in high school, but reinvented it with a guitar solo for the Transoms.
3. Anywhere to Be - Written in Alumni Hall. One of the proudest moments in my life was when The Butterfly Effect wove part of this into one of their songs at their last show ever.
4. Story in Past Tense - 3/4 time.
5. Poor Diction - About as punk as we got.
6. Maroon & Blue - This was about a girl I was trying to woo, if you can believe it. Not surprisingly, she was alternately puzzled and turned off by it.
7. How Little Feels - A guy in my dorm heard me fucking around with the main riff and announced that it captured “the way I feel.” His name: Scott Little. Therefore, this song is How Little Feels.
8. Make it Dance - Written as a reaction to one of Doug McEachern’s essays in his ‘zine, “A Boy & His.” Then he ended up playing drums on it.
9. Sharing Kisses - Totally not as emo as the title suggests. False start intro was a nod to the fact that it took like 12 takes to get it on tape.
10. The (New) New Nathan Detroits - An acoustic cover of my favorite Braid song, but significantly changed.
11. Butter Slippery - Another song about a girl. This one was also misunderstood. I abandoned songs about girls after this.
12. Throwing it All - There was a guitar-virtuoso guy on my floor who loved this song and used to play it on guitar all the time. That was the pinnacle of musical flattery for me.
13. A Horrible Joke - I played drums. I remember Vinny Carrasco sitting in the backseat of a car and saying, “I liked every song except for Number 13.” Thanks a lot, jerk!
14. Plastic June - Probably played live twice.
15. Generic Love Song - Written in about 15 minutes, this song was probably our most well-known. I should have learned a lesson there.

--John Huston
johnphuston.com

download:
The Transoms - The Weather is Here... Wish You Were Beautiful

Faye, Leslie, and Shelley

2009-04-28T17:40:00.007-05:00

Okay fuck it. Here goes, you scoundrel, Ted, you...

Mostly, from my jaded feminist perspective at that time, the real reason I'd go hang out in those basements had to do with the hot grrls who hung around those there parts, the girls I respected, made art with, and played music with. The guys makin noise on stage were exciting, yes - well maybe, but definitely secondary in my realm. (sorry, no offense fellas, you know I love ya) (truth hurts) (smile)

It was the nineties, oh yeah, baby. I played djembe, West African hand drum made from a tree trunk. I was all hippie dyke grrl, givin the big middle finger to Notre Dame town. And then there was Leslie Morelli on bass - one wicked strega girl, Faye on electric guitar - one bad ass Texas mutha fucka (don't mess with her) (or I'll mess with you), and Zoe Marin on the occasional keyboard, rockin it stylishly hard core, fighting off the idiots in the crowd like kali-ma. Quite the bunch. Smart, hot, full of feminist 'tude, and ready to dish it out. Or rather dig it out. Thanks to Faye, I was turned onto Sleater Kinney. Grrl math rock was instant love, especially due to the interesting link to the polyrhythmic music West African music I had been working with. Faye, Leslie, Zoe, and I were all friends and hung out. We started playing music together, seeing what would happen with the mixture between base/electric sound and djembe. Simple as that. We had a handful of songs - rhythmic, tight, and full of a deep, drenching spirit. Most songs were instrumental and raw, though some tackled conceptual issues such as racism and sexism, with few, yet acute lyrics.

If I could describe the music, it could be compared to a rolling train of feminist punk rock, smooth, yet charging, driving. Deep and raw. Mixing grrl rock and African percussion was an experiment, and a good one. The shows we had were in dingy basements, where all the punk boys would make noise and try to make a difference. Party atmosphere and a lot of fun. (Must now mention the memory of when I was on the trap set with y'all to "Oh Mickey You're So Fine") (that was fun and funny)

The bands at the parties were 'decent' musically, yet quite exciting. Mostly guys, though. Some of the feminist 'cool' guys were totally supportive of the girl band 'air-time' so that was good. I do remember, however, a few times men in the crowd jeering and uttering sexist, negative remarks while we played - specifically once when Zoe was tearin it up. Too bad for that and I wonder which one of us tore his head off. (Remember-- this was South Bend, Indiana - Notre Dame's catholic town, mid 90's. Fun times at dick-mount high) If anything could sum up my memories of what fueled the solidarity with these women and our music at that time, it would be that last sentence.

--Shelley

The five songs from this cassette were recorded at Clifford by Ron Garcia in the Spring of 1997. This is another set that never saw any official release, but rather a few copies just passed around here and there. Enjoy!

download:
Faye, Leslie, and Shelley - Demo Recordings

see also:
Faye, Leslie, and Shelley on MySpace

The Butterfly Effect - Those Lights We Call Stars

2009-04-21T20:28:00.011-05:00

This album stretches the boundaries of the Power 90s slightly, since it was recorded in March 2000 and actually came out a few months later. Ron masterminded the recording once again, and we enlisted the help of a number of friends to run the board while we made our joyful noise downstairs. The cover art was done by Chris Stackowicz, who raided the bookshelves of his roommate at the time, who was a physics major, in order to come up with the equations that model the birth and death of a star. The band photo was taken by John Huston the morning after the show we played with The Transoms in Champaign, IL. Ian Lynam printed the covers and tray cards. The title of the album comes from the poem "Tomorrow" by Raymond Carver.

A bit of track-by-track analysis:

1 - Do They Still Call It Rock and Roll?
Doug: I played this song on guitar for my housemate at the time, who was a physical therapist, and he said I was going to get repetitive stress injury in my wrists judging by the way I played.

2 - The New Gods of the Underground
Doug: The first of the songs rerecorded from Now Everybody.

3 - The Idiots Dance
Doug: The second of three songs rerecorded from Now Everybody. This version features Ron on vocals for the verses. The surprise is that our voices sound remarkably similar.

Ron: I remember that The Idiot's dance was about...well...the idiot's dance, that being moshing. I found it ironic (or maybe in retrospect I apply more smarts to my younger self) that the "grunge revolution" which led to people moshing for anything and everything, is partly to blame (at least in Joe Cannon's opinion way back when) for the rising interest in indy music that hit Notre Dame campus back in the 90s. Chisel was able to feed off of that zeitgeist, and a few young'uns looking for a place in ND college life found a community and a rather empowering voice.

4, 8, 11 - "..."
Doug: Tracks 4, 8, and 11 are instrumental bits culled from jam sessions during the recording. They were unlisted on the actual CD. I've always used "..." as a title for them, which is what David Foster Wallace used in his novel Infinite Jest to indicate a pause in conversation.

Vinny: I think its interesting that jam tracks are referenced to a "pause in conversation". To me, the jam tracks, which were improvised, represent the only true form of musical conversation. Performing and recording pre-written songs are more like recitations of beautiful poetry. Improv is conversation.

Doug: I tend to view improv as where you are working out your ideas that you want to refine into a finished form (for varying values of finished) before you present them to an audience. A pause in conversation is where you are thinking about what you want to say next and working out ideas (via an internal monologue) to refine them into words (in the external dialogue). I would say that improv is more of a conversation between the members of the band (an internal dialogue), whereas a performance is (or should be) part of a conversation between the band and listeners (an external dialogue).

Vinny: Improv is indeed a conversation between the members of the band. It can also be used within the framework of a finished product (Umphrey's and Ali Baba's did this well, I thought). I like the idea of the performance as a conversation between the band and listeners. There seem to be times however, when the audience doesn't really get it. Is there really external dialogue going on when people are just like, "Huh?" and not really listening?

Doug: If the audience doesn't get it, then the attempted dialogue is failing, just like when you try to talk to someone who either has no idea what you're talking about or simply isn't interested in having a discussion.

Vinny: And that's when Moe pulls the plug!!!

Ron: The jam tracks jump or fade into the middle of music that was already ongoing and then jump back out, I really like that, and the rawness of them makes it feel like a peep behind the scenes. While we didn't write songs by turning jams into compositions, we did refine Doug's song ideas into Butterfly Effect songs by playing them and playing with them until things fit together right.

Those particular jams were us playing with each other. We didn't jam in public as a band, but rather amongst ourselves, in an otherwise empty basement.

5 - Making Out at the Movies
Doug: The title is for Amy Bowman, who had never made out at the movies. Most of the lyrics stem from the fact we were playing an acoustic show at Lula's on Valentine's Day weekend and I wanted to finish the song for that show, so I figured it might as well be thematic.

6 - Cigarettes, a Phone Call, and Change
Doug: This may be my personal favorite Butterfly Effect song. The third verse references the lyrics to "Fireball" by Algebra One. I emailed the lyrics to Tyler, Algebra One's singer, and he said having his lyrics quoted in another song were about the best compliment he could receive as a songwriter.

Ron: I remember not really liking "Cigarettes..." as a song until I heard it recorded for the CD. Then it all fit together, lyrics and music, and gave me chills. Still one of my favorites now. It's funny what hearing your own music through heavy earplugs, stage fright, and reflections off of the back walls of sketchy venues does to your appreciation for your own art.

7 - Miniature Spacemen
Doug: This is about watching Josie Vodicka (still performing as Josephine Cameron) play at Lula's. The title comes from misremembering the wording of a photo on the flyer for the show.

9 - True Patriots Wear No Uniforms
Doug: On just about everything I've recorded, there is at least one song I want to skip on every listen. This song earns that dubious honor on this album. It was supposed to be a tribute to Phil Ochs, but I just don't think it works.

10 - A Laughing Matter
Doug: The only song for which I've written out guitar tab.

Ron: A Laughing Matter was probably our most folky and nostalgic song. I love it. It brings to mind the sweet reminiscent bits of Billy Bragg that heavily influenced Doug. I remember watching Doug play Billy Bragg songs at acoustic cafe my freshman year, before I really knew him.

12 - The Counterforce
Doug: The title references the final section of Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". God, I was obsessed with that book for a while. This song is actually responsible for what may be my favorite recording story ever. When it came time to do the guitar overdubs for this and "Do They Still Call It Rock and Roll?", I enlisted my friend Andrew to run the 8-track for me while I ran down to the basement to play my parts. In order to check levels, I had Andrew put the guitar on and told him to make noise while I went upstairs to adjust the appropriate knobs and sliders. I walked downstairs to find Andrew grinning madly and saying "Wow, this is fun. Now I know why you guys like doing this so much." He went upstairs, we ran through the necessary takes, and I went back up to tell him we were finished. He said, "You're done recording? Cool. I'm gonna go be a rockstar some more!" and proceeded downstairs to continue making noise with the guitar.

13 - Twenty-three on Twenty-four
Doug: Also rerecorded from "Now Everybody", but this time we played it right all the way through. One of the guys from Clark told me he put this song on mixtapes, which I took as a tremendous compliment.

Vinny: I do remember that many of the songs were recorded in just one take. We didn't just practice to sound good at shows, I LOVED practicing. We rarely practiced parts of songs, we mostly just played songs all the way through until we were all happy with what we were doing. So when it was time to record the songs, we pretty much just nailed them the first time. "Twenty-three on Twenty-four" was one marked exception. I recall that it took a lot of takes to get the one we were happy with. I think we even stopped at one point and went on to another song due to frustration with not getting it right. It was mostly my fault the first few takes, and then we all started screwing up. In my mind it was worth it because that is my favorite song on the album. I'm still as proud of that recording as any song on any album I've recorded before or since then.

Ron: Twenty-Three on Twenty-Four is one of those songs I loved to play. It has some great rhythmic idiosyncrasies that just work, and I always like rhythmic and tonal idiosyncrasies, and energy shifts throughout. Very dynamic. It's funny today to read a song title about the passing of time now that I'm Thirty-Three on Thirty-Four.

14 - The Long Way Home
Doug: We played this for the first time during our one show in Memphis. One of the guys from the local band complimented me on the song right after we finished. Mike Larmoyeux said he was impressed to hear the crowd singing along to this at the last Butterfly Effect show. Vinny sings back up on the last five lines.

Vinny: The Long Way Home was my favorite Butterfly Effect to play live. I do still remember the crowd singing the lyrics at the last show. I was also screaming out the chorus and almost started crying during the song. I forced myself not to because I knew I wouldn't be able to play and cry and sing at the same time. Certainly a defining moment in my life. I have since been able to sing back up vocals for many bands while drumming. That was my first time trying it.

15 - Killing This Town (unlisted track)
Doug: That is John Huston saying "Rolling" at the beginning. This song was originally unlisted on the CD because I intended to put out A Boy & His 8 at the same time as this album, and my entry in that issue was the lyrics to this song. That turned out to be one of many plans that didn't quite work out in the spring of 2000. So it goes. I remember writing the first line of this song as a specific reference to the first line of "Do They Still Call It Rock and Roll?", but I don't remember being conscious of having the first lines of the opening and closing tracks mirror each other.

16 - Do They Still Call It Rock and Roll? (Solo version - special SBP90s blog-only bonus track)
Ron: So how did this bonus track become part of this post? Well, I recently headed over to SouthBendPower90s central (i.e. Ted and Faye's home) to remix The Go Lightly's for posting to the site. In my box of 8-track tapes from back in the day I found one titled "Dougie-Pooh's 688 adventure" (the 688 being the 8-track). Of course I was intrigued, so I threw it in, cued it up, and found this wonderful re-(or pre-?) interpretation of the song. Ted and I agreed that this piece had to surface. I think it does a good job of capturing how Doug's songwriting for electric guitar is influenced by the acoustic. Doug once told me that when he was a kid his dad would walk around the house playing the Beatles on an acoustic guitar. Could this have had an influence on a young Dougie-Pooh? I think so.

Doug: I believe this is from 1998, when the song was first written. You can hear me trying to work out just how to fit the lyrics to the music. And yes, I was certainly influenced by having my dad play guitar around the house all the time when I was a kid. However, pretty much all of my songwriting (especially for this CD) was actually done on an acoustic guitar, since that is what I had with me in my apartment. My electric was always over in Ron's basement, where we practiced.

download:
The Butterfly Effect - Those Lights We Call Stars
(The zip file contains the songs plus a plain text version of the CD booklet, with lyrics, credits and what not.)

see also:
The Butterfly Effect on MySpace

SBP90s blog featured in today's Observer

2009-04-16T09:58:00.008-05:00

Hot on the heels of the recent re-post here of an Observer article from 9 years ago, the South Bend Power 90s blog is featured prominently in The Observer today! There's a full spread highlighting the blog and the 90s scene, as well as commentary on the decline of indie music on campus in the 2000s. Head on over and check it out!

The Observer (Scene section) - 4-16-2009

or download the spread in PDF:
"Golden Age of Music Under the Dome: Student Bands Then & Now"

Thanks to The Observer for giving us props!