WORK - Strictly Cruis'n

New WORK album from Joe Cannon and friends. Better than ever.

WORK.

The Smittens - City Rock Dove

The Smittens, featuring Colin Clary (Brian, Colin, and Vince, Severinsen, Snowi Springs, etc.), have a new album out. Get into it!

Muckie Mittens - Vision

More and more ND/SBP90s alums are out there still making great, original music today. Case in point: Bob Hoffman, former drummer of Pinch Point and Tweak, has joined up with Newburyport, Massachusetts' Muckie Mittens to play on their latest EP, Vision. Sit back, crack a beer, and let these smooth indie jams soundtrack your lazy summer days...

Evil Seagull - The Philosophy of Evil Seagull

Photo credit: Oceana Lawler-Larsen

The Philosophy of Evil Seagull is the amazing debut EP from Anne Healey's new musical project, Evil Seagull. Described as "angular, melodic indie-rock with a sharp, poetic lyrical style," these four tracks do not disappoint. Check it out!

WORK - "Emolument Monument"

This is a kickass track by WORK, featuring Joe Cannon. It's on the UNPRESIDENTED: DIY vs. Donald Trump benefit comp of Milwaukee bands, so check it and support if you can!

WORK - Doing The Lords

Photo credit: jsonline.com

Hey, hey... it's the sophomore album from Joe Cannon's current band, WORK. Check it out! Vinyl LPs available via the bandcamp page!

Stomatopod - Air By the Ton

It's another edition of Where Are They Now...

Chicago's Stomatopod, fronted by John Huston (The Transoms, The HickUps, The Cole Estate), has recently released their debut album, Air By the Ton. Check it out below!

The Pawners' Society - Pull The String

It's another edition of Where Are They Now, our attempt to chronicle the post-90s musical endeavors of SBP90s musicians. This entry comes from John Huston (The Transoms, The HickUps, The Cole Estate), sharing an EP from The Pawners' Society.

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

The Pawners' Society was my friend Stephanie Morris and me. We started performing together in 2007. We were both songwriters and wanted to explore softer music that highlighted our vocal harmonizing. We recorded this EP of songs that was mastered and awaiting cover art when she died on June 1, 2009.

This is the five-year anniversary since she's been gone and our songs have never been released. I still think about her every day and miss hearing her sing, but it’s become increasingly sad that our music has gone largely unheard. I decided to at least put the EP on Bandcamp for people to download, with an option to donate money. Any proceeds will go toward suicide prevention.

-- John Huston

WORK - The Long Con

This seemed like a good a time as any to kick off the "Where Are They Now" feature for the SBP90s blog, which will highlight former Power 90s musicians that are still rocking it today.

Photo credit: Joe Kirschling

Just released, the debut album from Milwaukee's WORK, entitled The Long Con. WORK is fronted by none other than one Joe Cannon (emiLy, Spoonfed, VOMWTW, The Intelligibles, etc.), and if you've enjoyed Joe's music over the years, then you will certainly enjoy this. Great stuff, give it a spin:



follow WORK on facebook

Streganona - Applications For Aluminum Siding

Did you know that towards the end of their existence, Streganona recorded a full-length studio album? When the band broke up prior to it's release, though, it was filed away and mostly forgotten about. Fortunately, we have it here for you to enjoy, and it's pretty great. A maturation of their earlier recorded material, this is a post-hardcore gem that gets more rewarding with each listen, and could easily stand up pound-for-pound with some of the great releases of their contemporaries. I can't recommend this one enough.

A few notes on the album from former bassist Mark Miyake:

Our only album not recorded on my old Tascam 4-track. We got some nice open-ended funding to record it, and it was slated for some pretty wide distribution (we were touring fairly far and wide and frequently at that point), but we broke up between the mastering and package design phases of the project, so it was never released. We recorded it in an all analog format over about a week at the Amphetamine Reptile Studios in Minneapolis, and mastered it at Acme Studios in Chicago. It sounds great and does a good job of capturing what we were doing over the last year or so after we recorded "Plastic." 

The title was intended as an audio medium joke-- the previous album title was about plastic and was released on cassette and this one was going to be on CD, so we were going to go with an aluminum reference.

listen/download:

Transmontane - Live at SXSW 2011

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 LP



Transmontane on Facebook

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

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

Braid - Live at the Canary House - 13 December 1997

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

Vomit Launch - Live at the Rokkhouse

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.

The Potatomen - Live at Dalloway's

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 a 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

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

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

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

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…..

listen/download:



(the Bandcamp downloads contain 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!)

Streganona - How Do You Feel About Plastic?

Streganona may be the number one reason I am thankful this blog popped into existence, which is a bit ironic considering they were not a South Bend band. They did grace us with their presence a number of times and rocked most mightily. Unfortunately, with the exception of a track on a split 7-inch with Sweep the Leg Johnny, Streganona's musical output is captured only on the less than sturdy medium of cassette tapes, which meant my time listening to them was cut drastically when my commuting experience changed from driving a car with a tape deck to riding a subway with my mp3 player.

How Do You Feel About Plastic?, Streganona's follow up to 4:4, was released on the eSTaTe label, which shared its name with the Chicago house where members of Streganona and Sweep the Leg Johnny lived. The tape opens with "Limit '96", a new version of a track from 4:4 that is every bit as likely to get stuck in your head in this version as it was in the original. "Eleven" encapsulates much of what I love about Streganona: intertwined guitars, furious drumming, simple grooving bass, abrupt switches from chaos to melodic parts, and shouted lines like "Don't let your mouth write checks that your ass can't cash!" or "To the right, to the right, I'm falling out of sight". "Field Trip to the Foundry" is another mini-epic, which shifts through seven parts in three movements in just over five minutes before going out in a mix of crackles and feedback. The closing track, "Esquivel", features a danceable main riff that calls to mind a bizarro version of the eponymous Mexican lounge musician.

The credits for the tape are included as follows:

RECIPE FOR PLASTIC
7 borrowed microphones (c/o S.S, J.d, eSTaTe)
1 borrowed 8-track mixer (c/o Pangaea)
1 4-track machine *2 guitars
1 bass 1 drum kit
1 patient Friend to sound engineer (J.G.S.)
1 streganona (B.N,M.M,M.S,A.H)
* mix plastic ingredients carefully in basement * cook plastic on high for 45 hours * let plastic sit for one day, then mix for 10 more hours * mold into five shapes * blend with aged imported plastic from Indiana: ("encephlapod" from Miami St. with G.H. on drums)
***store in a cool place.

While playing a show in Raleigh, NC in 2002, I was excited to spot a Streganona sticker on the opening band's keyboard. The opening band had played with Streganona several years earlier, and we talked for a bit about what a great yet little known band Streganona had been. So go ahead, click the link below and enjoy this rare relic from mid-90s Chicago.


listen/download:


Photos of Streganona at the Vampire Clubhouse by Jim Jadwisiak.

Tackleloco - The Night Tackleloco Saved Christmas

Welcome to a very special holiday edition of Friends of The Bend...

Drink a Cup of Whiskey-Beer, or The Night Tackleloco Saved Christmas

By Robert Dahl

We never planned to save Christmas. But sometimes things need savin’. That’s when real men have to step up, stiffen their spines, and boldly relive their childhoods.

In the summer of 1999 I’d been out of college for a couple of years, was living in New York NY, and was ready for a change. When I say “ready,” I of course mean “desperate, clamoring, and ready to jump a train to anywhere” for something other than the clotted streets and scintillating odors of our nation’s most famous city. Circumstances conspired to send me to Washington DC, where I had several good friends and the promise of a better life.

This new life in DC first became manifest in the form of a makeshift band we called Tackleloco (no, not “Taco Loco.” We were not a mariachi punk band. Tackleloco was a game one of us used to play growing up. From what I understand it involved little more than a group of kids running around tackling each other (not unlike Aussie rules football)). This band was originally formed by a good friend of mine from way back (among those mentioned above) named Mike Larmoyeux, and a friend of his from college named Jim McNamee. Jim and Mike had played in various bands at Notre Dame, and Mike and I had played in various bands in high school down in Jacksonville, Florida (actually, Mike and I had played in only one band, but we kept changing the name. So it really counted as like 8-10 different bands. I stand firmly by this). The instrumentation was odd, but we were confident that it would work: Mike and I played guitar, and Jim played clarinet.

No singing. No rules. That’s how we rolled. Word to your mother/nearest female kin.

Jim and Mike already had a few originals written by the time I came along, so I was happy to be included and did my best to augment what they’d already put together. Some of the songs included such hits as “Away to Me, Fly,” inspired by the sheepdoging movie Babe, and “Broderick,” a very somber number written by Mike in a fit of despair after seeing Godzilla and wondering what the hell had happened to Ferris Bueller’s career. I started adding some material of my own, writing the unforgettable “I’m Not the Spaz You Know Me As,” and collaborating on “Well, I Never Knew a Rufus.” We had an iron-clad songwriting process… Mike and I would come up with the oddest arrhythmic guitar harmonies we could, and Jim would hold it all together with the melody. We did one cover early on, which was Brittany Spears’s incomparable “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” With our instrumentation and the speed at which we played it, it sounded oddly similar to “Hava Nagila.” That is to say, it was exactly what we were shooting for. Let us rejoice.

We recorded a demo and played out here and there, and had a great time. But the first big project we wanted to undertake was, naturally, to record a Christmas album. Doesn’t every young band want as much? Good artists borrow, great artists steal, and immortal artists record Christmas albums. Just ask Lawrence Welk. Why not us? By the Autumn of 2000, it was on. We would record The Night Tackleloco Saved Christmas.

The first and most vital step to recording a great Christmas album is, as everyone knows, to contact one’s parents and request as many pictures as one can from early childhood Christmases for the cover art. We accomplished this task toute suite. Next, we started to think about the music. We had two criteria: first the songs had to be something that we could do with our instrumental setup. There’s not a lot of music out there arranged for two guitars and clarinet, and even when Mike decided to play bass on the album it was a bit of an issue. Second, the songs had to be awesome. I’m talking like Charlie Brown Christmas Special awesome. It sounds difficult, but that kind of thinking gave us a very good place to start: the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

We began figuring out “Skating” from said special, and away we went. “We Three Kings.” “Carol of the Bells.” “Ding Dong Merrily on High.” We tried to keep songs recognizable, but also to infuse each of them with that special “Tackleloco” something. Since we didn’t really know what that “something” was, we just mixed it up and tried keep it interesting. It was all exceptionally fun, and the best part was that we got to think back to what we loved about Christmas as children, find songs that captured that feeling, and then play them in musical ways that we’d learned and cultivated in early adulthood.

That all came to a head when we began figuring out how to end the album. How do we close this deal? With what song can we end such a project and have it bring everything home? We needed one more song. It had to be good, and it had to be fun (and don’t forget, also playable and awesome). Fortunately, we were able to benefit from the expertise of another Notre Dame musical alum, Doug MacEachern. He lived in DC at the time as well, and he came over one evening to help out with some of the recording. As many of our dear readers are aware, he is not only a good recording engineer, he is also a spectabulous percussionist. He came over, and the four of us sat down to figure something out. We decided to take the last song in an entirely different direction.

We decided to play Twisted Sister’s inspiration for “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” and returned the favor on their behalf. “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” heavy distortion, clarinet, and banging on whatever bits of percussion we could cobble together in our basement. In figuring it out, we realized that not only were the chord progressions of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “Faithful” very similar, they were both very much like “Auld Lang Syne.” So we turned it into a two-tune medley. And we decided to sing. But none of us knew the words. So we did what any self-respecting band would do… we hit “record” and started playing. Here’s how Auld Lang Syne came out, near as I can figure, Tackleloco style:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And we’ve done sing to mine?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
Just don’t forget about auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne,
Yeah, auld lang syne,
We’ll drink a cup of whiskey-beer,
For auld lang syne.

[Repeat]

Done. Hit “save.” Make copies. Wonder what “whiskey-beer” is and try to figure out where to find some.

In any case, we finished the album, gave it away to whoever would take it, and kept playing for as long as we could. We never broke up, and we later added a fourth member (my brother Taylor Dahl), but we haven’t done anything for a long while.

Tackleloco is not dead, Tackleloco merely sleeps. Like Arthur and his England, Tackleloco will rise again in Christmas’s time of great need, should such a time come.

Or something.



see also:
Tackeloco on MySpace

Hey, Dummy - Fall In Line 7"

Welcome to another edition of Friends of the Bend! This time we welcome Jason, former frontman of Hey, Dummy, to drop some knowledge on us about the history of the band and their powerful 7" EP, Fall In Line:

My friend Dennis recently posted a photo album on Facebook titled, "Bowling Green, 1995-96: If You Can Remember It, You Weren't There." And this, my friends, sums up why it's taken me several months of prodding from Theodore and my own self-flagellation for being a flake to actually sit down and write up what little I remember of the Hey, Dummy years. What follows is a loose recap of a period in Hey, Dummy's life -- as told by the only guy in the band who, unlike his former bandmates, isn't making any kind of contribution to music these days.

Hey, Dummy was me, Tony Cavallario (Aloha), Mike McNeeley (No Sanctuary), and Eric Koltnow (Aloha, Six Parts Seven). The band was born from the ashes Chunk Iron Chest in the early 1990s when Mike and I were fortunate enough to connect with Eric and Tony to start what we hoped would be some amazing amalgamation of the indie/punk/hardcore/jazz/experimental music that we were each into individually and collectively at time. Earlier in Hey, Dummy's career, we tended toward really basic (and fast-as-fuck) punk rock, but Fall In Line can more accurately be described as a more mature (read: schizophrenic) Hey, Dummy that had finally grown into ourselves as a hardcore band benefiting from the skills of a classically trained percussionist and a superbly talented guitarist. Add Mike's ferocious bass and my untrained vocals to the scene, and Hey, Dummy was a case-study in controlled chaos. During rehearsals, I would watch Tony, Mike, and Eric work together to write the songs while I worked on lyrics primarily inspired by my own personal reckoning with what it means to be a white political activist in rural NW Ohio. While early songs were sarcastic jabs at our punk rock activist subculture, later Hey, Dummy covered more theoretical issues about white privilege, personal accountability, and animal rights (we were all vegetarian/vegan at the time).



The Fall In Line 7" followed our cassette demo Products of the Industrial (R)Evolution, which was recorded in the early 1990s at an old town hall in Rudolph, Ohio -- about 10 miles from our home base of Bowling Green, Ohio and located across the street from a cemetery. The demo was recorded in 1 1/2 days, but could have been done in a day. On the first day, we practiced and recorded all the songs to our satisfaction. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we turned to the guy (whose name escapes me) to see how things sounded, and he told us that he accidentally forgot to hit the record button on the deck. He had been checking levels and monitoring our progress without ever actually recording anything. When our rage reached a peak, we looked at the guy, and he was asleep at his mixing board. He was purportedly narcoleptic and dozed off when things got a little stressful. We came back the next day and plowed through the songs and called it a day.

Learning our lesson, we recorded Fall In Line with our friend Mike Pennington at Eric and Tony's house, our practice space and future house-show mecca. The 7" received some favorable reviews in HeartattaCk, MRR, and other zines that put us in the Born Against or Submission Hold camp -- brilliant family with which we were all pleased to claim kinship, though never felt quite deserved. Incidentally, the sleeve and liner notes were designed by me and cruelly document my early career as a self-taught graphic designer. I loved collecting old encyclopedias and children's books -- lifting illustrations and photos with abandon for use flyers, zines, and myriad other projects.

Recording Hey, Dummy was a small part of our history, though. The joy we got from the band was playing live shows around the Midwest on a handful of small tours. A trip down the East Coast to play with Pink Collar Jobs, Griver (future Hellbender) and others took us all the way to Gainesville. Midwest tours took us to South Bend to play with our friends, and we even found ourselves in Kalamazoo and Chicago playing shows with Los Crudos and Charles Bronson. And here's where the "if you can remember it, you weren't there" comes in. So much of our short history was enveloped in brilliantly great parties with friends and extended punk-rock fam that it's all a nostalgic blur to me. It's hard for me to point to specific instances where Hey, Dummy changed my life, but the overall experience of learning from these guys and just sharing in the experience of playing music that made people happy (or challenged people in some instances) was an overwhelmingly formative experience for me. Bad recording quality and all, I still love to listen to this shit.

-- Jason

----------

I go back a long way with the guys from Hey, Dummy. Jason, Mike, and I all went to high school together, and I spent a lot of time traveling back and forth from The Bend to Bowling Green, OH throughout the mid-90s. I witnessed the earlier incarnations of the band (Chunk Iron Chest, The Schlitzed), and watched their sound mature and gain momentum as Hey, Dummy. Their shows were always so much goodness, and was lucky enough to see them play numerous times in various locations. For me, there's really something special about witnessing good friends create great music, which was part of the reason for starting this blog in the first place.

Hey, Dummy was kind enough to host Chikkenhead and Obstruction for various shows in BG, and we did what we could to return the favor. They played in South Bend twice; once at the Green House with Ground Round, and another time at Clifford the Big Red House with The Mad Dogs, Obstruction, and a couple others I can't recall at the moment. The first show was a lot of fun, as they let me stand in on second guitar for a few songs (which they probably regretted soon after). The second show was a tad bittersweet, because although their set was through the roof, Jason ending up losing his voice, putting "the big kabosh" on the Hardcore Ron Studios recording session planned for the following day. A real shame, as the band was near the top of their game and would've really shined under Ron's recording mastery.

Thus, we are left with this great EP, Fall In Line. Whatever is lacking in production is more than made up for with energy and emotion. I, too, still love to listen to this shit. It was self-released by the band in 1997 on Saturnalia Records.



And here's a link to the Hey, Dummy bandcamp page, where you can find the rest of their recorded works.