The Butterfly Effect - Now Everybody

In the summer of 1997, Ron G. mentioned he wanted to start a band with me when he got back to South Bend in late August. Later I found out that his idea was something where I was playing drums and he was on bass, but by the end of the summer I had a pile of new songs written on guitar (some left over from the end of The Cuba Five) that I was eager to play, and so The Butterfly Effect was formed. Vinny C. was living in Chicago at that point, but was convinced to come to South Bend on occasion as a temporary drummer. Not long after our first practices, Vinny moved back to South Bend and is still living there. About a year later, we recorded Now Everybody-- at Plinko Studios, our friend Garth's basement studio over Thanksgiving weekend. Four days before recording, I completely lost my voice. Timing is everything, as they say.

The tape included the following liner notes from Chris O.:

Though catchy in a grandmotherly fashion, the "From the mouths of babes" argument is hardly compelling. First, it seems to slight the unsightly. What right-minded grandmother would stoop to such a lowbrow dis? Perhaps if said grandmother had an envelope-pushing band of her own competing for market shares in the highly competitive South Bend, Indiana market and not simply biannual envelopes garnishing pop-up greetings and five dollar bills, one could start to see the seedlings of an intergenerational "scene conflict." And what sort of credence should be given to grandmothers making claims of "hipness" to current styles of punkrocity? Certainly their modes of thinking concerning current modes of coolness are outmoded. What kind of person is comfortable hearing their grandmother refer to a person as a "babe"? At the very least, it seems more grandfatherly! In the use of the word "babes," which seems most problematic, one might say that these aging laggard women mean "bab[i]es." The classic definition of the entire phrase then meaning "Interesting and insightful witticisms come out of babies' mouths." A few quick consultations with fellow consorts immersed in the "indie-rock subculture" revealed a short but thorough list of things that "hipsters" have witnessed coming out of the mouths of "bab[i]es": "a silvery stream of spittle," a "gaseous flow of small iridescent bubbles," and a "nickel." "The Butterfly Effect," then, seems to have very little to do with infant intellectualism.

At this point it should be noted that "The Butterfly Effect," the rock troupe, should not be confused with "The Butterfly Affect," a theory proposed in 1949 by Gerald Gootes and Florence Shingles of the University of Notre Dame concerning the higher IQ scores of Irish-American, Columbian-Italian, and African-American male toddlers subjected to the intensive spinning of Butterfly mobiles above their cribs as infants. (See "The Butterfly Affect," Nervous Parent Magazine August, 1949) The Butterfly Effect, with an "E," in fact rejects intellectualism in both grandmothers and infants. The Butterfly Effect rejects both the objectification of themselves as "babes" and the preposterous notion that they would resort to drooling or sucking on loose change to feign intellectualism. In fact, contrary to the opinions of the so-called "intelligentsia," The Butterfly Effect seek not to move your pituitary glands or bowels, but your sing-along mouth, heart and butt, respectively. The music seeks to kick and the lyrics seek to move. In the end, one must hope that if an emergency caucus was held, and all the infants, psychologists, grandmothers and vicariously emotional hipsters showed up, the Butterfly Effect would give them one heck of a sweaty show.

I should know.

The title comes from the final line of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. The lyrics to "Little Ode on St. Anne's Day" are a poem by Jim Carroll. I gave him a copy of this tape following his reading at Notre Dame and he briefly joked about me hearing from his lawyers before telling a story about being in the studio with Rancid. The sample in "Fat Man and Little Boy" comes from the beginning of Patton. The effect at the end of "The Idiots Dance" is a deliberate rip-off/homage of Pink Floyd. "The Idiots Dance", "The New Gods of the Underground", and "Twenty-Three on Twenty-Four" were re-recorded for the second Butterfly Effect album a year and a half later.

listen/download:

see also:
The Butterfly Effect on MySpace

Streganona - 4:4

Ahh chilluns... here's a special treat for you. We're kicking off a new feature of the SBP90s blog today -- Friends of The Bend! Periodically we'll be taking a break from the SB 90s local scene to highlight some of the fine out-of-town acts that came through our little burg to show us a good time.

And talk about a good time -- who could forget the handsome lads of Streganona! Hailing from the Hyde Park area of Chicago, they ascended on The Bend (maybe twice?) thanks to a connection with our good pal Dave M., if I'm not mistaken. They rocked our bodies and stole our hearts, sparking much debate as to which band member was the sauciest (the drummer, of course!). Smooth and sexy basslines, driving and frenetic guitarwork, dual singing and screaming vocals, and oh those beautiful beats... what's not to love!

The four songs on this cassette were recorded on the bass player's 4-track in February of 1995, which is probably shortly before the time they came to play for us. I've got two copies, and they both have different covers. Maybe yours is different, too... I'm not sure how many variations exist. A note on the sleeve says "For optimum sound quality, Streganona suggests a decreased midrange and a maximized volume." I recommend you comply!

listen/download:


Got a suggestion for a future "Friends of The Bend" feature? Who was it you remember that came to town and rocked the house (or basement, for that matter)? Leave a comment and let us know! Thanks!

emiLy - engineering means i Like you

"It's Mike's turn to be in the zone! Mike, welcome to the zone... "

So, my first entry on South Bend Power Nineties. I am in the zone.

Imagine a time when you could load up the beat-up old Chevy Suburban, drive west all the way across the state of Illinois to a place called Galesburg, unload guitars, amps and drums, carry everything up a long flight of stairs into a small studio serving as a radio station at Knox College, set up and play a live set that was simultaneously being aired over the radio and recorded for posterity, then break everything down again, carry it back down to the truck, go eat dinner, then do it all over again that night, 'cept this time instead of a radio station it was a show at the campus coffeehouse with a crazy fast hardcore punk band called Haymarket (one of many). I get tired just thinking about it, but we're old now.

Well, we did it, thanks to two guys at Knox College, Trent and Cyrus, who heard our Finer Time 7" (see previous SBPN blog entry below), liked it, enough to invite us to their school to do the radio broadcast and live show. They were also nice enough to let us crash at their place before driving all the way back to South Bend the next day, and feed us excellent vegetarian cuisine. Oh, and allow moi a superfreakout nostalia session of Atari 2600 geekness: Yar's Revenge. If you're out there and reading this, thanks you guys.

"All right! ... I'm in a much better mood now... "

I think this recording accurately captures the intensity and range of emiLy at the time, the 1993-1994 version of emiLy. Joe had reached the zenith of his screaming-lyrics ways, the songs were getting longer and more complex, and we were still screwing up just enough to keep it punk.

According to Doug, regarding this recording, here's "other pertinent info gleaned from the insert: recorded in two hours on april 9, 1994 (FOURTEEN YEARS AGO?!?? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!?!?) in the WVKC studio at knox college in galesburg, il." That about sums it up.

Thanks.

listen/download:

see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Brian, Colin and Vince - Just Trying to Help

"Like Crosby, Stills and Nash but a lot funnier."

Brian, Colin and Vince were three young men that played quirky and fun acoustic music. Songs ranged from sweet and sappy to completely goofy and ridiculous. Either way, the trio was always entertaining. You'd be hard pressed to see these guys perform and not have a good time. The live track included with this collection, "She Never Had a Chance," does a pretty good job of capturing the jovial feeling that was the BCV on-stage phenomenon.

Colin once offered this description of the band:

3-part harmonies, a million songs, Brian was the leader and star – such a great songwriter and guitar player, Vince sang great harmonies and played bongos... Trees hugs and rock and roll was a motto one day. We were not hippies, but I think hippies thought we were fun... Some ex-ND kids think this is the best band I’ve ever been in.

Looking back, I remember long stretches of time where the song "Hypothetical Situation" would make a weekly appearance on my college radio show. It seemed to be the perfect tune to encapsulate how broken my heart felt at the time (awwww...). Ahem, continuing on... "Spectacles" would eventually end up being covered by Chisel, and released on a split 7" where BCV and Chisel swapped songs (more on that in a future post). But the original version offered here is an outstanding take in it's own right.

These 30 songs were put to tape in a Morrissey Hall dorm room in April of 1992, and self-released on cassette. There's a little bit of banter in between tracks, which adds to the overall charm of the recordings. The cassette was actually re-issued a year or so later on Colin's Sudden Shame label as SS007.



see also:
Brian, Colin, and Vince on MySpace

The Cuba Five - am i your world?

The Cuba Five began as another emiLy side project, though the band really came into its own following the breakup of emiLy. I had a bunch of songs written which I never got to do with Spoonfed, so I started a new band. Chris C. (who also played in The Whiteout, Regular Size Monsters, and Ely Parker & the CIAs) played drums, and Brian G. (from decaf) was the original bassist. The band started in spring of 1996, and played a handful of shows in this format. Brian graduated that May, and Mike L. (from emiLy, The Mad Dogs, and a lot of other bands) took over on bass. The Cuba Five was around until March of 1997, when Chris moved across the country in mid March. He announced this on a weekend, we practiced on that Monday, recorded Tuesday and Wednesday, and played a final show on Thursday.

The album was recorded at Clifford the Big Red House by Ron G., at the beginning of a spring which featured at least four bands recording in the same basement (Obstruction, The Mad Dogs, and Cod in Salsa being three of the others).

The band name (occasionally misheard as "the cube of five") comes from the following historical bit: In 1872, seven Irish political prisoners were freed from jail on the condition that they leave Ireland and never return. Five of them sailed to New York on the steamship Cuba, where they were warmly welcomed by the Irish immigrant community and nicknamed 'The Cuba Five'. One of them, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, earned the nickname "Dynamite Ro

ssa" (hence the song name) for his advocation of using bombing as a tactic to promote the cause of Irish independence. His granddaughter, Rosemary, is pictured on the cover of the tape at age 2. Rosemary is my grandmother.

As far as the music goes, I remember it being reviewed by a friend of ours in the ND campus newspaper. He said how you could hear Billy Bragg, Jawbreaker, and (most of all, in my opinion) Unwound. I can't argue with this. I think the strengths of the album are the instrumental tracks. "Beta Decay" once had lyrics, but they were tossed and we kept only the title. The song has a sample from the movie Swimming With Sharks, while "Dynamite Rossa" samples Walking & Talking, and "At Long Last Arriving" has a couple samples from rumblefish which get largely drowned out by guitar. Our sampling technique was quite primitive: hold a hand-held tape recorder in front of the television while the desired bit is playing. The title of "Saroyan" refers to the author William Saroyan, whose short story "Am I Your World?" provides both lyrics for part of the song and the title for the album. It's not an easy story to find, but it's worth reading if you get the chance. "Homesick" is worth skipping. Seriously. "Nation of Uselessness" was sited as the single bright point of the album in the HeartattaCk review, which was pretty vicious otherwise. People said "Does This Answer Your Question?" shamelessly riffed on Billy Bragg, but I always thought it was much more of a Chisel ripoff.

The second best complement I got about this album was having a friend of mine tell me that he and another friend were playing video games one day and the other guy started humming something. When he asked what he was humming, the guy started singing "Young American Skateboard Disaster".

The best complement I got about this tape was unexpectedly hearing it playing on the stereo in a friend's car. Because while it's cool to hear people say "Hey, I like your band", nothing beats knowing they're actively listening to it.

listen/download:

see also:
The Cuba Five on MySpace

The Mad Dogs - Sometimes I Go Nuts

What could be more appropriate for "the blog that no one demanded" than the band that no one ever wished would play. The liner notes for this release (penned by Chris O.) do an exceptional job at laying it all out there:

Ah, the Mad Dogs. While the "Mad Dogs Proper" period lasted roughly from October 1996 through June 1997, the band itself was somewhat of an amalgamation of sorts of Chikkenhead (comprised of Mike Larmoyeux, Ted Hennessy, and Doug McEachern) and the Catatonics (comprised of Chris Owen, one Jeanine Gaubert, Dave "Night" Stoker, Mike, and Andy Yang of Obstruction fame). When it became obvious that the Catatonics could no longer function (read: get together for practice or even remotely interesting conversation) and that Chikkenhead would never eclipse the limp yet existent Recess Records band of the same name (or sing and play their instruments at the same time), it was decided to unite the two awfully hard sucking bands into one monstrous vehicle of audience antagonism. Chris became the singer for the Chikkenhead, which began a period of zero songwriting, zero practicing, intermittent performances, and haughty quibbling over what the band should finally be called. During this period, which actually encompasses the entire life of the band, they were called, at various points, "Thunderhead," "the Grasshoppers," and finally, to no one's complete satisfaction, "the Mad Dogs." Audiences, oddly enough, always called them "shit."

Drawing from completely incongruous interests and a muted sense of responsibility to entertain, the Mad Dogs experience was often, at the very least, difficult to perceive as worthwhile for both the band and the audiences they somehow managed to gather. While Mike (seminally the man in 10 bands at the same time) was willing to play essentially anything, a willingness on no one's part to actually write new songs left the band in an odd state. Doug's quixotic interest in britpop and the like led to a personal emphasis on The Cuba Five, a brilliant and entertaining combo that frankly whomped ass. Ted's love of Propagandhi and political pop punk presented a puzzling predicament as he was the transcriber of Chris' nonsensical attitude towards writing music (Chris: "it goes like this--BLAM BLAM BOOM BA BOOM BLAM BLAM DU DU DU DUH DU DA DA BOOM!" Ted: (plays an E chord) "OK, say that again"). An unhealthy love on Chris' part for Iggy Pop, GG Allin, Stiv Bators, the Dwarves, and, er, Morrissey, was the final blow in proving incompatibility. That and, of course, conflicting work schedules. At this point, alcohol begins to become important. It became obvious at some time that drinking at least one "Orange Jubilee" Mad Dog before and during a performance led to an increased level of interesting behavior for the Mad Dogs.

OK, sure, they never played to anyone outside Doug and Mike's basement (well, Dalloway's, but that was the first show, and the Bowling Green hardcore fest with Chris singing with Obstruction for a couple songs), but fuck man, the Mad Dogs kicked ass. This cassette doesn't precisely document the silliness that those shows were characterized by, but it gives a pretty good idea. Just imagine 20 or so friends, an unimpressed out of town band or two, a pony keg, shoes, beer, and friendly insults flying, and the Mad Dogs bleeding, cursing, fucking up, ripping clothes off each other, acting out deviant sexual nonsense, and never ever getting all the way through the set without breaking something. And the music. That wonderful music loved by no one but me.

Col. Ricardo Cabeza
July, 1997

This cassette (a split effort with hardcore heroes Obstruction, who'll get their own post here soon enough) was recorded quickly in two short sessions in the spring of 1997 (by Hardcore Ron), just before everyone promptly went their separate ways for the summer. It was every song the band knew, minus a couple they never really learned how to play. The highlight of these recordings for me will always be the last chorus in "Dream Lover," when you can actually hear a somewhat intoxicated Chris throwing up into his mouth while still trying to sing through to the end of the song. If that doesn't say it all...

listen/download:



see also:
The Mad Dogs on MySpace

Spoonfed

Spoonfed was essentially an emiLy side project. Here is the "Brief History of Spoonfed" that came in the booklet which accompanied the self-titled tape:

Spoonfed began as an excuse for me to play the songs I had written on guitar instead of trying to teach the guitar parts to Joe C. and using them as emiLy songs. For about two weeks of practice and one show, Spoonfed was a 2 piece, with Joe on drums and me playing guitar. We figured out pretty quickly that Joe wasn't meant to be a drummer, and we recruited Ted K., who was drumming for an amazing band called July at the time. Spoonfed played on and off for a year or so, and became a full time band when Mike from emiLy went to London for a semester and July was no longer a band. Spoonfed ended in May of '95 when Ted graduated and moved out of South Bend. This tape is a collection of all the songs we knew, without the songs that weren't worth remembering.

Three of the songs ("(structural)", "Bulletproof", and "Big Boy") had been recorded in early 1994 at Miami Street Studios with the intention of releasing them as part of a split 7-inch with July. The record never happened, so the songs eventually found a home on this tape. One song ("Theme From a Spoon") was recorded in James K.'s dorm room in November of 1993, during a spontaneous session captured on a hand held tape recorder. James provided background noises using a typewriter, record player, and whatever else happened to be available. The three other songs recorded that night were another version of "Bulletproof", "Moment", and "Fourth", the latter two falling into the category of Not Worth Remembering.

The remainder of the tracks were recorded in April of 1995 at the Green House on Justin M.'s (also of July) four track. The cover art is a picture of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge taken during a harbor cruise. The tape came with a 16 page, quarter size booklet featuring lyrics, recording info, pictures, and background stories for some of the songs. It was the 11th release for Rent To Own Records, the label under which the members of emiLy and their friends put out all of our music (hence the RTO 11 on the cover).

A few notes on the songs: "(structural)" is in parentheses because it's supposed to be an untitled song, but we needed something to call it for sake of reference. It was written for someone who was a double major in Architecture and Structural Engineering. "Takeback" was actually written in high school. "New Town" is a song about hometowns. "Last Words" is so titled because it was the last song by Spoonfed.

listen/download:

see also:
Spoonfed on MySpace

emiLy - Finer Time 7"

emiLy once self-described as:

"We play music. It sounds kind of like what might result if you threw Jawbreaker, DC stuff, Rites of Spring, American Music Club, and an inept love of jazz in a blender and pureed the mixture into a fine mush. We are three fine young men who own and operate musical instruments and occasionally stir fry. Joe plays guitar and sings, Mike plays bass, and Doug plays drums. Buster plays his face, but he doesn't actually have anything to do with the band, seeing as he is a cartoon."

A fairly apt assessment, or at least as close as one could probably hope to get. Complete with an Animaniacs reference and everything!

Finer Time is the little piece of wax that propelled emiLy into international superstardom, or something like that. It was reviewed quite favorably at the time by HeartattaCk (UPDATE: review included below) and others, which is probably why you'll occasionally find rips of it floating around punkrock message boards.

"Great musicianship and a tight production make this an awe-inspiring record. Like Hoover they took the Fugazi sound and created something new. But unlike Hoover they sound fresh and raw and stir something in me that I can't quite describe. Listening to these 3 songs is better than dancing the one-handed mambo, it's better than garlic-pepper-tofu flavored edible underwear. -MH" from HeartattaCk #2

And now some thoughts from Doug:

"Better than tofu flavored edible underwear" -- that's the phrase that always stuck with me. I have no idea what the hell it has to do with the music, but we got a lot of mail as a result. For a year or so, Joe and I amassed a large pile of records through trades alone. It also led to us being interviewed in a Slovenian zine called Pssst and eventually getting a CD put out in France by a new label called SanJam.

Domestically, the record helped us get shows in Chicago, Galesburg, IL, Columbus, OH, and Tampa, FL. The Galesburg show led to the recording of our second tape, Engineering Means I Like You.

Finer Time was recorded at Miami Street Studio in South Bend. The cover art is by Lael Tyler, who was working as a designer out in Portland, OR last I heard from him. The drawing is of what was his front porch at the time, at 226 St. Peter Street, a house most famous for being the place where Unwound and Crain played. The "e" in the light bulb was also used for the labels on the record itself, and became a logo of sorts for emiLy. The covers were printed by Punks With Presses.

Side 1 has "Cartoon Sex" and "Finer Time", while side 2 features "Frialator." The latter was named after a deep-frying machine which was actually spelled Fry-O-Lator, and for some reason the song later became known as "5(frialator)." I'm pretty sure we also recorded a song called "Fortune 13" in the same session, but it only turned up on a demo that we sent to places in hopes of getting shows.

My parents have a copy of this (and Tinkertoy, our second 7-inch) hanging on the wall in their house, along with family pictures and diplomas.

listen/download:



see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

Chisel - Swamp Fox/Spike 7"

What better way to start things off than to go all the way back to 1991... The first official release by the young boys of Chisel sounded, well, not so much anything like the later sound that would garner them more acclaim than pretty much any other band to come out of the Bend at the time. The A-side certainly hinted at things to come, but B-side "Listen" has a darker, more aggressive vibe that would soon fade away in favor of Chisel's trademark mod-pop melodies. Ted Leo once described this song as "solid thrash."


Here's a little background on the early days of Chisel from their Wikipedia page:

Chisel began in 1990 on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, when classmates Ted Leo (guitar/vocals), Chris Infante (bass), and John Dugan (drums) began practicing in the basement of a campus dormitory. Leo had played punk shows with bands such as Animal Crackers in New York's all-ages scene and Dugan had drummed with the Washington, D.C. area punk act Indian Summer from the age of fifteen. The band quickly went from playing a covers set (Wire, Misfits, Buzzcocks, Mission of Burma) to playing original songs written by Leo. Chisel began to perform at various college venues in the Midwest and Northeast, visiting clubs such as D.C. Space in Washington and ABC No Rio in New York City.

In 1991, the band released its first single, Swamp Fox/Spike b/w Listen, on Assembly Records, and followed it up with appearances on compilations released by college radio stations WVFI in Notre Dame, Indiana and WPRB in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1992, Infante graduated from college and was replaced on bass by Chris Norborg, who also provided the backing vocal harmonies that soon became integral to Chisel's sound. It was during this period that the band began to change its style from traditional emo-influenced pop punk that was inspired by contemporaries in Washington, D.C., to more of a mod-influenced band in the vein of the Small Faces and The Jam.

After only having a cassette dub for the longest time, I eventually found this 7" at a used record store in TX for a buck. Enjoy.


download:
Chisel - Swamp Fox/Spike b/w Listen