Gilmore Guys output as of January 2011; more or less. Left click (once)to play in quicktime, right click to download {(save link as) *duh*}.

Learning
Hey Girl
By The Silver Shore
Baby Inside Me
Damien As A Teeny Bopper
Emotions
A Gift For A Man
Im So Sad
Available
Next
Your Man

The Gilmore Guys played our first show on the 26th. La Mere Vipere released their new CD, and Buck Gooter buck gootered. I don't know what we did. Here's our set pre-recorded, Ashley Simpson style...

Emotions
Available
Baby Inside Me
I'm So Sad
Damien As A Teeny-Bopper
Learning
Next

Jolly Mortals links now more or less fixed!

Ipecac and Black Emmanuelle Links fixed. If anybody has tapes or whatever of old Richmond stuff I'd love to hear them. Also photos, flyers etc. I'd really like to have an online museum of the 90's era Richmond music scene.

All the links are broken again cause fileden is a stupid piece of shit.

But I suppose I'll get around to fixing them again eventually...

I still love you all.

JS

The broken Ipecac links are now fixed courtesy of David DiDonato. Thanks David! The songs off the first demo have been added as well.

I reoriented the Bunny Rabbits myspace page to the newer, fresher Gilmore Guys. Our four songs, and some classic, Leah-era BR tunes, including two screwed in homage to playing 45's at 33 and smoking mad hash, yo.

Pre-Leah Bunny Rabbits links are fixed now... Enjoy!

The links to the Jolly Mortals' Paintscraper ep are now fixed thanks to Chris Wade's Audiosuede blog. Thanks to Leo for pointing this out to me... Here's the link to his post which has some added insight into the climate of the times.

As of today, most of the Jolly Mortals songs are back, as are the Black Emmanuelle and Kojak in their entirety. If anyone out there has any of the other tracks downloaded, hit me up, I'd like to bring this thing back to its former glory...

So after I left Richmond in Summer of 06 I tried to find a band through friends already living in Chicago. I didn't have much luck in finding a nice underground group, but instead found myself playing with some guys who wanted to be real rock stars. I was down, and we ended up recording some songs in the studio of a world class advertising agency. It was pretty awesome!

Rough
Don't Say I Didn't Warn You
Love To Hate You

They're still playing with a different bassist and drummer under the moniker, Destructive Playthings.

While I was playing with those guys, I recorded this track which is more along the lines of the music I like playing. I'm not sure why, but I just really love fake drums. I don't know if it's the control freak in me, or just annoyance of human drummers.

My Creation Myth Is Better Than Yours

After I got back I started playing with some of my old bandmates from the Bunny Rabbits, Mat and David, and we formed the Gilmore Guys. This project kind of fizzled apart after a while and I started doing a rap project with my roommate, Frank. Lou Dimey Music...

Six-Four
Fourth Meal
3rd Song
69th District
Daddy's Back

Lou Dimey was possible cause Frank's brother let us keep his Tascam at the house, and after a bit the Gilmore Guys was reconstituted as a studio project upon the demise of the Ten Commandments.


Available
Emotions
Next
Baby Inside Of Me
Learning

I'm trying to dust this old thing off. I'm slowly restoring the links, but no longer have the hard drive most of the files were on and most if not all of the source material (i.e. my record collection and tapes) is likewise gone. So if anyone out there that downloaded or hooked me up with stuff (I'm thinking Wade(s) and Branch)can help me that would rule. Kojak and Black Emmanuelle links work now, and more to come soon...

Trevor just posted this Breadwinner video on myspace so I thought I'd pass it along if anyone's still out there. I just realized it's been almost a year since I've posted anything. Oh well, this should do you for now...

Here's a nice conspiracy theory to tide you over until I get around to posting the goodies I've been saving up. Enjoy!

The Ritalin Conspiracy:

I don’t really know if taking acid at age 13 was the wisest move to make, but for whatever reason, I did, often, and now have the legacy of seeing a shadow world behind everything in the real world. I think this is what I find attractive about science fiction, conspiracy theory, mainstream history, and so-called “people’s” histories. There are always figures who are there making sure things get steered one way or the other. Now the religious may tell you it’s god’s will, but there is a sect of humans who take it upon themselves to be god and impose their quite human will in such a way that it seems to the peons that the power is godlike and immense, predestined, if you will (what was once called usury and what now goes by the name of finance comes to mind). So for me, in an attempt to prove my own genius and godlike ways, I seek to influence humans with communications. This may amuse some of my readers, especially those who happen to be acquainted with the bag of bones wherein the author resides; just yesterday I was admonished for my quite overbearing manner of handling communications while moving heavy equipment. But I digress. Conspiracy theory and rumors to me are closely linked. I take (what I consider) an enlightened approach to rumors. I explain it like this: hearken back to the days of childhood when you were at a birthday party or other such function. Sometimes we’d play a game called Telephone. You’d all get into a circle and someone would start with a phrase and had to whisper it into the ear of whoever’s next to her and so on around the circle. The joy of the game is that the message was invariably so garbled by the time it got back that it was really funny. What I always wondered was, how much of what people wanted to hear influence what they did hear? And how often did kids deliberately change it to be spiteful? Anyway, so I used to like to start rumors, nothing slanderous or libelous, mind you, more of the order of tall tales. This one time I misunderstood someone who was talking about Billy Corgan, singer for the Smashing Pumpkins. I got it into my head that the child actor who starred alongside the robot on the television program, Small Wonder, was in fact a young Billy Corgan. I promptly told this to whomever I could, and actually heard it back later, much to my glee. As an aspiring writer I figure that writing is really nothing more than story telling, with some homespun wisdom (or otherwise) thrown in for good measure. So I decided to practice my storytelling on captive audiences here and there at some of our town’s notorious sausage parties. Being particularly fond of the malt liquor Private Stock, I soon found ample fodder for my imagination right there on the bottle, “Haffenreffer’s Private Stock, the Malt Liquor with the imported taste.” Word. I actually can’t remember if the name is really Haffenreffer’s, but let’s assume for now that it is. Anyway, the titles have changed (long gone are the days of Baron von) and so did the investment strategy, but here’s the Private stock rumor, as I last told it, here and now:

The young man who would be Marquis of Haffenreffer was in graduate school for electrical engineering concentrating on radio design when he heard news of his inheritance; his father had passed on while quail hunting near the highlands of his estate. After a bit he took a wife, a chess master from the “beautiful part of Magyar,” as she would say, who was an avid amateur economist. This seemed like a match made in heaven, his wife was free and worthy to manage the estate which left him time to add on to the already sizable brewery his grandfather had established on the estate going on two centuries ago, when kegs were delivered on horse cart, and men were paid in bread, beer and a dry room. As well as pursue work on his speaker design (which was trying to mimic Bose as closely as possible without infringing on patent rights) and various other projects that occupy the frivolity of the super rich. These were the 80’s after all, a jubilant period of massive stock price inflation and a beautiful bubble of wealth to boast of it. Under ordinary circumstances the Marquis would have nothing to worry over such trifling ripples in that silly market as he held most of his holdings in real estate and quite considerable assets in the realm of personal property as well. The only problem is that with such considerable assets, the banks were only too eager to extend credit to the Marquise which she eagerly made use of to the tune of two mortgages per building on the estate as well as a considerable sum on personal recognizance with most of the Marquis’s precious metal holdings as collateral. She threw this into what would later be called “junk bonds.” The rest is history, as they say. When Black Thursday hit, it felt like someone had thrown the entire earth at the Marquis’s balls. With murder in his heart, but the good sense of a long and noble line, he sued for divorce. Bereft of his holdings, he seized possession of what baubles had escaped the Marquise’s clutches as well as his entire inventory of beer and headed to auction. The merchants at the sale were only too eager to get a hold of some of Haffenreffer’s famed ale, which had previously only been had by personal friends of the Marquis’s, and employees of the estate (a hold-over from olden times). And they showed their appreciation by the heights to which their bidding climbed. They all joked the Marquis that it was his Private Stock that had saved him, private from his wife, thank God, and the ephemeral “stock” he held, being a master brewer, and the real stock he held, the beer (being a master brewer). And so with the money he raised selling off his private stock, Haffenreffer bought up a small brewery nearby that the bank had apparently foreclosed on. Got a great price on it too.

In some versions a conglomerate comes in and makes it into a “micro brewery,” allegedly a local creation, but really part of an international syndicate to corner the market on “gourmet” brewing supplies and squeeze out “mom and pop” operations. But that’s only if I’ve been drinking heavily and some kid seems to be buying some of what I’m saying.

The Ritalin Conspiracy:

I know that last chapter should not have been called the Ritalin Conspiracy, since it had nothing to do with Ritalin at all, and in fact didn’t even mention it, except in the title, but all that sets up the spirit in which I spin the yarn of why the US consumes 90% of the world’s Ritalin supply.

Like all good conspiracies the roots of the Ritalin conspiracy grow out of the myths of prehistory, out of lore that certain herbs and plants had magical powers of transportation and transformation, that one decoction would give you energy, that another would settle you down, calm the nerves as it were. Various herbs and the chemicals they create by their very nature, affect different parts of the brain. Magic mushrooms stimulate different areas of the brain than do say hemp, or opium. And coca stimulates an area of the brain wherein lies the very chemical means of paranoia and violence. School shootings, anyone?

You’re not tweaking if you’re on pot, you’re not tweaking if you’re on dope, but you are tweaking whether you’re on coke, crystal, or Ritalin. Adderal is just the brand name for amphetamine. Aside from a few hallucinogenic manifestations, eating a bunch of the old favorite gas station speed, ephedrine, will twist you up as thoroughly as will a few fat lines off the toilet at the bar.

So why, pray tell, would we as a society commence to drugging our children with the very analogues of the top street market drugs? I know, everyone will say “you’re not a doctor, what do you know?” I don’t. I come at it from the viewpoint of a market analyst. How have public policy decisions affected street availability, supply; and market share increase, demand? If one were to analyze the use of Ritalin and other such stimulant ADHD treatment meds versus the number of those kids as measured against the general population who tend to stimulant abuse as adults what would the results show? Dr. Peter Breggin holds that ADHD meds given to children are a gateway to stimulant and nicotine abuse by early adolescence. If analyzed in terms of socialized medicine one sees the public health liability of long-term generational “training-wheel” drugging of children. (Which may explain the rest of the “civilized” world’s reluctance to adopt massive drugging of their school children.)

So now who to blame it on? In order to garner a certain amount of credence with the conspiracy buffs, it is crucial to tie it in with the CIA, the mafia, the Illuminati, the Priory of Sion, and maybe even the (dormant?) reptilian part of our brains. I’m kinda out of the loop on which conspiracy is ahead (geez, I still like Behold a Pale Horse), so I’ll just take the easy way out--most likely a conjunction of the CIA and Mafia (with unspoken connections to several alien banking/wildcatting operations based out of a nearby wormhole allegedly controlled by interests tied to Sirius, of course). I won’t even mention the teachers’ unions cause that would make me a wacko (regardless of the “fact” that the “symptoms” of ADHD correspond to the behaviors that cause conflict and disturbances in classrooms—like individual personality for instance).

Here’s the scenario, the liberals who control the two houses of congress have maliciously and cruelly slashed the CIA’s budget. In order to cover the shortfall and raise money to provide top-notch service to the president (and a little empire-building on the side), the CIA arranged a deal with several large-scale organized crime networks. For a certain consideration, the mafia would move the mass quantities of raw product into the standard markets: poor and blighted areas of the city, and to the always bored always in need of something rural denizens outside the confines of the suburbs. The inner city would become the market place, with consumers mainly found nearby, the unemployed, uneducated leftovers from the flight of manufacturing jobs. In keeping with the free-market capitalist model, drug dealers would become the new employers in these blighted areas. Unfortunately for society, even as conservatives began to assume power in the houses and executive positions, and the CIA budgets grew accordingly, there was still increased demand for new markets for the drugs that were funding clandestine operations international policy wouldn’t allow “us” to fund outright.

This is where Ritalin as the training wheels of the Cocaine bicycle comes in. I’ve even seen a study showing how kids who took brand name ADHD meds gravitated to cocaine, while kids who took the generic analogues went for meth. (It’s Soothe vs. Pepto, it’s all about the precursors. If you are a name brand, you can afford to get good tasting natural sources and you will. If you’re a generic, it’s all chemistry stew. This is crucial, brand loyalty is critical to building up an oligarchopoly (similar to a monopoly, but with the cheese spread a little thinner, and more difficult to trace, like the world divided between Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, and kids thinking that cigarettes are reeeeealy good candy or somesuch).

The simple fact of the matter is, that whichever side of the consolidation good/consolidation bad debate you fall on, consolidation is happening at an ever more rapidly increasing pace. Contrast Altria with the all too human Phillip Morris. Only a surrealist would associate Boca Burgers with an ashtray, yet I encountered that daily when I purchased my Coca-Cola and Atomic-Fire Balls at the company store.

Money is power. See who “owns” our money and see the superpower shift in the next twenty-five years. Does the average American even know what a T-Bill is?

The next question is, could those who are in control be so shortsighted as to inflict a mass addiction on our population for no other reason than a fundraiser? (At least the Opium Wars were against another country/race) Probably not, but it is important to bear in mind that there is always lurking that deadly combination, Murphy’s Law, and the Law of Unintended Consequences. Not that all consequences are unintended. In fact, in light of crime statistics that show crime is on the downturn (contrary to the fear mongering news channels), a ready-made pool of addicts who by definition cannot live without the substances, make a ready-made slave labor pool when sentenced to so-called mandatory minimums. By taking the discretion away from judges, the management of slave labor pools becomes institutionalized. In ultra PC times, there is still little stigma about segregation based on powder vs. rock consumption even if skin color is no longer the fashion of the day. (Small matter if the demographics still reflect skin color as the most easily recognized difference between prisoners and the general public.)

I've been slacking off on posting new stuff, but no more. David Seaman air-mailed me two disks chocked full of goodies all the way from Osnabruck, Germany, so I'm going to let him do the heavy lifting on this post. When I first met him I thought his name was a punk rock pseudonym like Johnny Rotten or Lorna Doom or something. Of course it wasn't. It took me a while to catch on though.

When I was still living in Richmond and doing the radio show, my friend Kelly wanted me to play some Nudibranch one night. I did her one better, I played all I had. She was into it, so was I, and ideally a few truckers speeding up 95 hitting the seek button on their stereos got a little taste as well.

These first songs are off the Logic Studios sessions recorded by Joe Kusterbeck. Launch Of Saturn Rocket One and Ten Minute Role Model appeared on the Chutney/Nudibranch split cassingle on Tenderette, a classic Richmond label. If anyone out there has the Chutney stuff I'd love to have it passed my way (hint, hint). Hydrophobia is a cover of a Jolly Mortals tune. After we heard the Nudibranch version we changed the middle part to the way they played it.

Ten Minute Role Model
Gossip Queen
Hatchet Face
Launch Of Saturn Rocket One
Robot Girls
Hydrophobia

There was a four-track demo from about this same time period and most of the songs overlap, but there is one that doesn't. Both of these recordings feature the original line-up of Flossy on Vocals, Dangerous on Guitar, Nasty (though don't call him that to his face) on Bass, and the Commander Deveroe on Drums.

Gearhead

Soon after I started playing with these guys Greg Darden's birthday was approaching and some of his friends decided to make him a tape. We recorded a happy-birthday tune for him but wound up having pretty comical trouble with the tape recorder. Flossy on Vocals, the Reverend on Guitar, the Nurse on Bass and the Commander on Drums.

Five Minute Slow Model


The next batch of songs are from when Pete played bass in the band. It was recorded on his four-track. Pete tragically died of cancer before he even made it out of his twenties. He was one of the best bassists I've ever seen play and losing him was one of the worst things to happen to the music scene in general and to those of us who loved and respected him specifically. He also did some fine work with the seminal Sister Sound and the Venusians, a tape I listen to to this day. Rest in peace, Pete.

Three Laws of Robotics
Contessa
Treffpunkt Deutsch
Moon Bride



This next batch of tunes belongs to the Tony Brown era of Nudibranch's history. There is a painter living in Richmond named Richard Bland who did a series on bands. One of my favorites is with Tony playing bass in the red devil mask he used to wear on stage. This album is called Bio-Luminescence.

Three Laws Of Robotics
Bio-Luminescence
Levers And Meters
Numerals
Disfunctional
Head Trader
Plastic Head
In One Ear
Corpus Earthling
Pheremones

Tony was also the bassist when the following songs were recorded. This session is called Moral Affections.

Moral Affection
Eye Servant




This last tune has Chris Wade playing on it. Dave told me that the engineer fell asleep while recording it and that it comes through. In the spirit of completeness (more or less) I'll include it anyway. Ian (whose last name I can't remember, much like Pete's) played bass for a while as well.

Zylol

The following videos off Chrisuede's YouTube site.

Back in Richmond at Plan 9 records there are a few boxes of 7"s that no one in their right mind would want. Records so wack that not even the mere pittance of a dollar will make them disappear. This very box, however, has delivered up to your humble narrator some precious jewels, and I count it among the things I miss about Richmond. So to celebrate Richmond's brilliant music scene, without further ado, the dollar bin band search!

First up is More Fire For Burning People. It is a cruel twist of fate that this band ended up in the wack stack and with a mere fifty cent price tag to boot. The drums on Utah alone are worth the once standard rate of $2.25 at least and a whole lot more in terms of karma. These two songs are good, tight, but I miss the companion cassette. Those songs ruled. Hopefully Brian and Curtis will get back to business since their various meanderings have brought them both back to Richmond.

Utah
Naked



Next on the list is Mulch's classic Driven Down. Not only was this record only $.50 but someone had penciled in "sucks" on the front. I couldn't resist. The first time I saw Mulch, I had come up from Williamsburg to see the Dwarves play (who were supposed to be returning after their infamous Richmond show). They didn't show up, so I end up going to see Elvis Hitler and Mulch at Twisters instead.

Antiseptic Sting
My Constant Struggle With Reality
Hit Me Like A Smell



Gore DeVol. I never got the story on that name. I always associated it with the writer, Gore Vidal, who I'm a big fan of. Mulch and Gore DeVol share a drummer, Fred LaPierre, who also ties in to How To Pray which Chris Suede covers on his site. Metal played guitar in this band. He and I bonded over having ridiculous nicknames that exist in spite of ourselves. My nickname, Blade, happened because there is a Sabbath song on Never Say Die called Johnny Blade. My friends Mike Chapman and Tom Jeremiah thought it would be awesome to get everyone to start calling me that. It worked for a while. I'm not exactly sure how he got his nickname. The story as best I recall it is that he called up his future roommate over the summer before he moved to Richmond. The kid wasn't home, but Mike got to talking to his mother. She asked him what kind of music he was into and he said, "Metal!" Thus was Michael transformed into METAL. Or something.

Hooked
Ruglip


I was actually in Nudibranch around the time these songs were being written (though I never got to record with them). I played a few shows in Richmond and went on tour to New Orleans and back with them and Chutney. I've known all these guys for years and am infinitely inspired by all the music they come up with. How the fuck Nudibranch winds up in the dollar bin is like, why the country is run by slovenly pig-fuckers. There is just something wrong.

Synthetic Division
Countessa
Silver Lady
Sick Room


Orlock wins for best cover art. I love that image. Orlock simultaneously evolved out of Nudibranch on the one hand and serves as a prequel to all future Wade projects. This record evokes that weird paranoid time in the mid to late 90's where things were just getting more and more bizarre. We'd had a Democrat in office for four years with four more to go (who, like any Republican, found good reason to bomb the shit out of people all the time, both here and abroad). Aliens of the outerspace kind were ubiquitous, my entire household was living in an alternate reality caused by William Cooper's Behold A Pale Horse (who oddly enough was shot to death by cops a few days after 9/11). Average art students were undertaking intelligence agency-level activities under the rubric of investigation in the name of art. And plus, weed doesn't make you paranoid at all.

Ambulance
Spanking
Seizure


Unlike the rest of the bands so far I don't really have a point of reference for this band. I think I only saw them once at the Hole In The Wall. You can tell they've been playing their instruments for a long long time.

Good Times
O Tse Can You Tsee
Sucker
Mao Tse Theme


I know equally little about First 5 Thru. The main thing I remember about this band is that they were supposed to play a show with the Jesus Lizard at the Metro at one point. The show had a $7 cover (and mind you, this was the era of Fugazi and their no show over $5 policy), so FFT decided to boycott the show and play for free in someone's living room instead. I don't know if this helped or hindered the JL's guarantee, and either way, I didn't attend either show. I like the guitar and drums on this record, but the vocals get on my nerves a bit...

Summation
Stop
Embrace
Issac

The Guns and Dope Party is the only Political party that the St. John the Pabstist Show endorses wholeheartedly.

The Professor Chutney, now the International Gentleman, I think, and once Pap Smirnov even, turned me on to Hakim Bey. Bey's conception of the Temporary Autonomous Zone has informed many of my projects since, most notably the Cutthroats which is not a whole lot more than a dance party on bicycles. Anyway, I recently found these mp3s of a radio broadcast and a recording of some talks given at a TAZ happening in San Francisco a decade ago. Featured are Hakim Bey, Rob Brezny, Nick Herbert and Robert Anton Wilson. Nice.

TAZ 1
TAZ 2
TAZ 3
TAZ 4

I'd have to say that Glass Cobra/Steel Anaconda is one of the least commercial bands I've ever been involved with. Lyrics typically came from works of literature such as Dante, Baudelaire, books of masonic rituals, and even safety instructions. Music is all improvised on the spot. One take only. That being said, it does have its moments. Here are some highlights from some mid-nineties sessions. John Cardell, Tom Jeremiah, Joel Lindelof, Tony Brown, Mike Chapman, prolly some others too, but...

Baudelaire Poem
Weed
Gimmie Some Love
Masonic Ritual

Anyone who knows me, knows me as much more of a book nerd than a music nerd. I love to read, I have since I was a child. One of the writers I'm most interested in now is David Foster Wallace. I was first turned on to DFW by my friend Sumo who works at Borders. I was in there wasting time as is my wont when Eric approached and said "what's up, sucka muthafucka." After the initial greeting ritual, he started telling me about this story I had to read. So he grabs Wallace's Girl With Curious Hair, flips to the title story, and sits me down in a big comfy chair. Twenty minutes later I'm walking out the door with it.

I'm no expert on this guy and I haven't even read all his books, but he is my favorite right now. So I managed to find a round table discussion he had with some students on the internet. The sound quality is crappy, and most of the questions he's asked are inaudible, but he speaks pretty clearly so it's still pretty informative.

David Foster Wallace-Intro
DFW 1
DFW 2
DFW 3
DFW 4
DFW 5

Here's a reading by DFW this one at the Hammer Museum in conjunction with KCET.

DFW Podcast



I don't know what I'd reccomend for a new reader. I personally enjoyed Brief Interviews With Hideous Men it's another collection of short stories, but there is a recurring motif (as suggested by the title) where several "stories" are actually interviews with various men in dialectic form, though none of the questions are written, merely a Q: The answers are those given by various men whose "techniques," for lack of a better word, render them a touch hideous. These interviews pepper the book among (slightly) more conventional "stories." If you're the adventurous type, and maybe you've already read Gravity's Rainbow or War And Peace, or something, then you should definitely try Infinite Jest. This book makes use of footnotes as an art form of its own. If that makes any sense. Trust me, if you have a few years, go ahead and invest in this classic. It will never cease to amuse and awaken you.

My friend Neale Shafer put a Daisy Chainsaw song on a mix tape he made for me back when I was still in high school. It was "Pink Flower" off the 7" of the same name. I was hooked. I loved how poppy the songs were, but they were still grossly distorted and with this insane sounding chick singing.

Fast forward a few years. I'd just moved to Richmond and soon after found out that Daisy Chainsaw was playing at the 9:30 club on Halloween. Fuck yeah! So me, Neale, and Erik Sugg packed our bags and headed up there. They were giving away flexis (as pictured above) at the door and halloween masks so those of us without costumes wouldn't feel left out.

After the opening band played (Sugar Smack I think) the lights dimmed and the band started making noise. Katie Jane Garside was on stage with a baby doll and a drill. She kept saying "I hear you've been talking about me," in this maniacal voice. She was wearing a fairy looking dress and had long blue hair, and kept saying that over and over while occasionally drilling holes in the baby dolls head. The baby had band-aids on either side of its head. Eventually she ended up perched on a chair hanging over the audience as the music kept getting louder and louder. Then she jumps off the chair and slams down hard on the stage which cues the band to launch into "I Feel Insane." It turns out her hair was a wig and her head had band-aids in the same place as she was drilling the baby doll's head. Fucking nuts.

Love Your Money
Pink Flower
Sick Of Sex
All The Kids Agree
Room 11
Hope Your Dreams Come True
Propeller Punch
Queue For Transatlantic Alien

As I go through my boxes and boxes of tapes looking for obscure content for the blog, every once in a while I'll come across some 4-Track master tapes. Today I took a few minutes to mix down some songs.

The first one is off a tape labeled "Voyager Master." I'm not sure who exactly plays on it, but it is reminiscent of Piledriver, so I'm thinking Rydell Bixby on drums and Jared on keys/"vocals." I'm really not sure, though. This tune has kind of a Chrome feel to it.

Voyager

Next up is a David DiDonato song. I'm guessing this was recorded at our house on Hanover or maybe the one on Stuart. I have no idea how I ended up with this tape unless it's much older than I suspect, and it was recorded on my old 4-Track before I sold it to Mike Mehigan to pay back the money Mike Chapman loaned me to bail me out of jail. But that's a whole other can of worms.

Afterschool Special Girl

Finally we have two El Presidente songs with the original line-up of me, Mehigan, and Jarvis. I don't remember what we called the first one, but the main riff is from an old Satanic Muppet Show song called "Useless Worthless" so that's a good enough title. Other song is called what it is cause it was really hard to nail down.

Useless Worthless
Problem Child

After 10 years, the truth comes out. Typecast was most likely an Agency operation. Bob Elon has just posted the following videos on YouTube with the screen name AgencyRVA. You be the judge.


Long Distance Dedication/Educational Programming



The Only Good Tow Truck Driver (Is A Dead Tow Truck Driver)



Beatdown In Monroe



Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Typecast was always a mysterious group. I remember one time I saw them at the Biograph way back when Scott got it reopened and started doing shows again. Now it's Hyperlink. I remember they filled the air of the place with Patchouli oil out of those old-fashioned bug spray atomizers. There was as much patchouli "smoke" in the crowd as there was cigarette smoke. Another time they were playing with that band, Assuck, and John E. Blade vacuumed a turd out of Craig Fulstax ass. While they were all wearing gold hockey masks.Fucking bizarre.

Here's the first ep with the original line-up of John E. Blade and Creight Fulstax on vocals, Eugene X and Sri Boober on guitars, Hare Erc on bass, and His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Trivett on drums:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol
Beatdown In Monroe
Black Sheep Are Still Sheep
So Much Pussy
The Only Good Tow Truck Driver (Is A Dead Tow Truck Driver)
Long Distance Dedication/Educational Programming

For the second record, they pulled some shit and released So Much Pussy Again, the exact same version, but with a new backwards guitar solo, and Box Coffin on the B-side. Box Coffin just sounds like some scream track with no music. Whatever. No info on who was in the band. In fact I wouldn't know the names of the songs if they weren't inscribed on the vinyl. The cover had a meat grinder grinding out a bunch of "naughty Calvins" armed with baseball bats, wrenches and guns. You know like Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin's expression gets all evil when he's up to no good...I heard they played a show at this warehouse in Jackson Ward around the time of the release of this record where John E. Blade and His Divine Grace came out each with a flag on fire hanging from his asshole, one the stars and stripes, the other the stars and bars while Eugene X was playing the Star-Spangled Banner and The Very Hon. Bro. Rev. Jarvis Overlord, MD, PhD, DDS was playing Dixie. They supposedly stole both flags from Oregon Hill, back when they still had rebel flags there. I think they even covered Hair Of The Dog that night...

So Much Pussy '97
Box Coffin

The last record had a much pared down line-up after John E. Blade allegedly stabbed a band member at a show in Blacksburg, VA with XBandX. Not just any band member, a member of Typecast. John E. Blade and Eugene X on vocals, Eugene X on guitar, Hare Erc on Bass, and HDGACBVCST on drums. Another rip off as it has two of the same songs off the first record.

Livestock
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Only Good Tow Truck Driver (Is A Dead Tow Truck Driver)
Bloodbath In Shafer

This was the first time that Typecast had ever had to resort to the method of retroactive enchantment. Due to issues of a financial and moral nature, Typecast was not invited to participate in the Woodstock III festival. At the actual time of the festival it was not possible by occult means or even some of the old stand-by’s like bribery or blackmail to get Typecast on the bill or even inside with mass quantities of DMT and LSD. Oh well. So actually the riots at Woodstock didn’t “occur,” or perhaps had not “occurred” until four months after the fact when the ‘Cast arrived on the scene at the Gentlemen Callers/More Fire for Burning People show at Shafer Court. This may seem preposterous, but it is, I assure you, no lie. In order to grasp the concept, however, a brief diversion into the concept of orthogonal time is here indicated. First regard the following figure:The term “orthogonal time” refers to the concept that time has three dimensions in much the same way as space has. In physics as we are taught at the University today, space-time has four dimensions, three of space (modeled as three axes: length, width, and depth) and one of time. We posit a six dimensional space-time: the three of space that we’re used to, and the one of time conceived as merely one of three axes (albeit we seem to measure time only along this linear axis). So if we term the t axis “real time” we can label the other two “imaginary time,” this concept rings with the use of “imaginary” numbers to transpose wave forms-normally the wave form describes a pattern symmetrical about the x- or y- axis depending on what kind of wave it is, but in introducing imaginary numbers we create a new axis where the value of x- or y- does not equal 0. These dimensions of imaginary time represent the results of other variables being plugged in to the quantum equations that presumably “govern” our lives. So the premise now becomes that along side the stream of events that usually encompass “real time” there is an engulfing indeterminate cloud of alternative possibilities for every choice the perceiver is faced with. This is presumably random as in the fractal model, but as with fractals, if you alter the equations that generate the pattern, then another pattern will be generated. At this point the crux of the situation becomes: do I or do I not believe that I may deliberately control the outcome of any event I choose to focus my attention on? There are other matters than just willingness-you cant oil a wagon wheel with sulphuric acid.

So anyway, with normal enchantments we would be at t0 where we would cast the enchantment to act on the possible futures existing at t1 so that the desired result materializes at t2. With retroactive enchantment, however, we cast the spell from t0 causing it to act on events at t-1 causing not only a different “present” at t0 but a different present at t1 and (hopefully) a different “future” at t2. But enough of this math horseshit, let’s get to the fight scene:
Luckily the cast had access to a flat bed truck courtesy of Sri Boober’s monastery up in the hills of Highland County (it was a Ford 350 with the flatbed for hauling landscaping equipment around). The line-up of brutality consisted of two Eugene X clones, Creight Fulstax, Paul Bearer, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Trivett, Bob Elon, the Very Hon. Bro. Rev. Jarvis Overlord, M.D., Ph.D., D.D.S., Tony Bitch, Jah Rasta Far I Hate God, John E. Blade, Hare Erc, Sri Boober, and Yves A. Destruction. They drove the truck westbound on Broad St., made the left turn just after the Hardee’s onto Shafer St. Everything had been cleared out of the way already, and the lights had been timed; this in strict accordance with one of Bob Elon’s maxims-that Chaos and Order exist in similar principle to air masses in the Earth’s atmosphere. Chaos really comes into its own only when Order becomes so rigid and unwavering, constantly creating lower and lower pressure zones into which the chaos cannot help but to be sucked.

So anyway-the show’s semi-packed, the beer truck being more popular than the artists, the ‘Cast pulls up about fifteen feet away, walling in the crowd among the stage, the ‘Cast and the beer truck. Up comes the tarp, generators humming. A wall of Peavey 10 watt amps stands looming behind a tangle of shitty guitars. A caterwaul ensues as John E. Blade begins to feed a giant wood mulcher/chipper with the array of Squires, Harmonies, and Epiphones. Tony Bitch meanwhile sprays down the crowd with the wood chips and fret-shrapnel. Only then does the crowd realize that the whole pile of guitars has been doused with patchouli oil, which much to their chagrin, is flammable. His Divine Grace raises a bow with a flame tipped arrow aloft and fires a graceful, high-arcing parabola into the audience. As soon as the arrow touches off the blaze, the gang launches into “Bloodbath in Shafer,” as Yves A. Destruction runs around the crowd shoving a huge dildo into whatever he can. This arouses the suspicions of the Police which in no way fazes Bob Elon; decked out in his Brooks Brothers’ double-breasted black pin-stripe, collarless white shirt clenched tightly around his neck, long hair combed straight back, sporting the Alien sunglasses he raises a Korean made AK-47 and wastes each cop, and 3-4 bystanders in their respective vicinities to boot. This (and perhaps the sodium pentathol and DMT concoction the patchouli was spiked with) was enough to set off a riot with the remaining show-goers, and their work done, Typecast drives back toward the East.

I guess it's about time I post some Jolly Mortals stuff. I joined the Jolly Mortals when I was 16 years old. I didn't take it as seriously as maybe I should have, but nonetheless I took it much more seriously than a lot of kids my age would have.

Here's stuff off our second demo tape. Our first demo was crap and I wouldn't feel right posting it, though if you're a die hard fan I guess we could work something out...



This demo was recorded by Mark Morton (now associated with Lamb Of God) and mixed by John Parton (of RPG fame). That's the good thing about Richmond. There's nothing too big or too small. Everyone's in it together.

Los Chistes
Lubidup II
And That Is All

There was another song on here named Red but I don't have it for some reason. Next up is a live show recorded the first time we played in Roanoke at the Iroquois. That club had all these painted figures on the walls outside such as blues great Bo Diddley and Johnny Winters. Poser, an infamous Richmond punk band, played there the night before we did and drew a big dick on Bo. Those crazy guys.

Intro/Icon
Date With A Death Chick
Standing By A Heater
Red
Hangnail

After we played Roanoke we made friends with some bands from up there and wound up playing on a 4-way split 7" Pat Snavely put out on his Whirled Records. Judy was on the record and If I Can't Have You was an outtake from the same session. We also recorded another version of Los Chistes but I don't have it.


Judy
If I Can't Have You (No one Will)

For Whirled Records' second release we recorded five songs up at Neptune Studios with Max Heinkel (who did the Judy sessions and later most if not all of the Men's Recovery Project recordings). Max developed a distortion effect named Paintscraper so we named the ep after that. At the end of Bedsores we distorted every track with it and you can hear it in all its glory during the fade out talk.

I once read a survey on Friendster that Nathan Webb (of Ipecac and Fresh-o-matics fame) took where he considered Gladiator the worst song he had ever heard. Gladiator was named after a drink that our good friend Brian Campas invented, the recipe is as follows:

1 40 oz Crazy Horse
1 40 oz Beast (Milwaukee's Best)
1 40 oz Mickey's
1 40 oz Colt 45

Combine all ingredients in a lobster pot lined with hashish. Mix with a spoon. Let the gumes begoome.
225
Gladiator
Horselover
4-Ever
Bedsores

There's actually a much better version of Horselover recorded by Eve from an old solo album of David's. I should probably include that here as well.

Horselover

Our next big release was the 12" UB2B vs. the Earth. It featured two Earth bands, us and Cotterpin and two bands from the planet UB2B, Chutney and Nudibranch. Our sessions were recorded at Glass Hand Studios in scenic Shockoe Bottom by Mark Miley. Rabies was an outtake and you can actually hear the tape coming off the reel at the end. Dave Grant of Action Patrol fame said he hated recording with Mark because of his tendency to drink a lot during the recording process. I liked recording there for the very same reason. Society's Fool II is named after the Poser song. They had great song titles such as their ode to beer, Friend in a Can, and Firehose a song about the porn actor Peter North. Anyone familiar with North's work will understand the reference.

We even went to the photo booth at Willow lawn to imitate Hose.Got.Cable's insert for this one, though we didn't have the balls to release it. Tony Brown played second guitar on this one, and his work is most obvious on Frandiclone, Grudgematch, and Short/Long...

Society's Fool II
Diminished
Frandiclone
Grudgematch '94
Short/Long
Rabies

We went on tour for this release with Whirlybird, but Tony could only play the first show in Richmond since he was still in high-school. My Dad let us borrow his work truck (but in his typical capitalist fashion, made us put new tires on it). I'm the J in R&J Painting, even though at the time I hated the fact I was a painter by trade, as opposed to a musician.

This last session was recorded on my 4-Track after we broke up . We made it seem like a live set and claimed it was from our performance at the Becky Venning benefit show which was probably the biggest show we ever played. It was really recorded at Jolly House in Martin's bedroom (formerly David's). Tony Brown played at the real Becky Venning Benefit, though he didn't appear on this recording.

I Need More Space/On Golden Pond
The Drunker You Get The Better I Look
Hydrophobia
The Way That People Drive














And finally, here are a few extras.

Acoustic Judy
Acoustic Grudgematch '94
Cloud Song (Handicapped Version)
Cloud Song
White People Can't Dance
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Speaking of the band I was in imploding, here's a video Chris Wade made for "225." This song was called 225 cause we thought it sounded a bit like Hose Got Cable (for whom Chris sang and played guitar) and their first 7" cost $2.25 at Plan 9. Holy shit!

Two years after I moved to Richmond the band I was convinced was going to take me to the top of the music heap was over. We had never really gotten too far off the ground in the first place, though we did have a pretty fun tour of the South, and even made it onto a few college radio charts. We had all lived together in the same house and after the guitarist left the band he moved out of the house as well. Into his room another guitarist (Martin Deal) moved and the drummer, Sean Sutphin, and I started playing with him. This new band was much less poppy and in fact was pretty gross, brutal hardcore. Our other roommate, Michele Arthur, jammed with us on a home recording before our friend, Ben White started singing full time. Our first show was at the Citizen's Gallery, an unfortunately short-lived underground Richmond venue, with Universal Order of Armageddon and Jaks. So here are some songs for your listening pleasure:

Triskaidekaphilia:

Track 01
Wired Shut
Little Brother Is Watching (You)
Money Shot
Track 05
Champion Of Mediocrity
Rooftop Of The World And Another Song Whose Name I Forget
Track 08
Anthill
The Light That Shone Brighter Than Jesus
If You Dont Have Anything Nice To Say Don't Say Anything At All

Sorry that the following links are broken, but I no longer have the records...

Jaks:
Alamo
Ed's Steakhouse
Cavity
Bomb Pop

UOA:
Painfully Obvious
Close To Far Away
City
Fence Song

CNP Records has a new DVD coming out in the next month or so that features the most up to date sonic weirdness Richmond and environs has to offer. I personally love the DJ Renaldo jam, and the "Shit Tubes" video is priceless, but no video on it sucks, or even comes close. This will do for today's kids what the Sub Pop or Am Rep videos did for me back during my formative years. Fuck, where would I be without the Cows "Hitting The Wall" video, or the trailer for the Dwarves documentary?

This next post continues the tradition of me blatantly promoting my own bad self. Black Emmanuelle. Some of you know it as another in a long line of Skinemax late night flicks, others may have crowded into the Hole In The Wall and held your hands over your ears and wondered why the bassist needed 3 2x15 bass cabinets for a venue smaller than most folks' apartments. Well, sometimes you just need to hear the bass. This is the original line-up of DiDonato on guitar/vocals, me on bass, and drummer extraordinaire Trivett Wingo on the skins (Jeff Winterberg is in the photos but not on the 4-track...). While David and I languish in obscurity (and probably rightly so for me), Jeff published a photo book and Trivett has gone on to play with The Sword, who are getting some play on MTV even. It was bizarre looking on the MTV news site and seeing a picture of him with the famous MTV mike giving an interview for Headbangers Ball. Everything comes full circle, cause when I was a teenager I'd flip back and forth between Cinemax and Headbangers Ball every Friday night. If it was Dark Angel or Gothic Slam MTV stayed on, but when they would play that shitty ass Cinderella song with dukes playing piano by the lake it was time for some boobies.


Theme From Black Emmanuelle
Defibrillator Girl
Jaded Elephant
Livin' Fat
Swlabr
Dehydra
Standing By A Heater
The Cloud Song
Films
Seventeen
_______
Low Budget

When I first moved to Richmond two of the biggest bands around were Hgual and Groove. Well, they were playing their last show at the premiere venue of the time, the Metro, and a brand spanking new band was opening. I had heard good things and when they actually started making noise I stood in amazement. Ipecac was born.

These first three songs are off the first 7" and feature the original line-up of Nathan Webb on Bass, Tommy Anthony on Drums, Robert Kelshian on Guitar, and A. Thomas Crawley on Vocals.


Aversion To Maturity
Deemed A Genius
The Self-Detonating Nuclear Family

Here's the first Demo(n). Same line-up as the 7"

Bitter Citizen Part I
Miss Justice
Sugar and Lice
A Throne's View of Royalty

The next one is off their split 7" with Opposition. They added David DiDonato on Second Guitar for this one.



Hysterical

The last one was for an Ebullition Records comp, Amnesia. Same line up as Hysterical.

The Ditcher

The next group comes out of a time when bands tried to out heavy one another. Richmond bands wanted to be the next Melvins or Fudge Tunnel. Formed as something to do while their friends were playing Dungeons and Dragons in the dorms, Fifteen on the 15 were the tinniest band ever. I think at one point Pat even had a pedal named the Tinny Treble Booster. While usually a cover band, they did some original music as well including "Do The Stormtroopers Know It's Christmas?" for the Whirled Records Christmas tape which was a benefit for Food Not Bombs. Line up is JT Yost on Accordian, Pat Cavanaugh on Banjo, and David DiDonato on Ukelele.

Black Dog
Crazy Train
Do The Stormtroopers Know It's Christmas?
Glory Days
Sex Type Thing
Wonderwall
Tom Sawyer
The Final Countdown
One
I Would For You
Too Much Time On My Hands
The Rose
I Love Flamenco
Cult Of Personality
Mother
Reign In Blood
Living On A Prayer
Mosquito
She Used 2B Younger
Tough, But In A Gay Way
Cock-A-Doodle-Do-Me
Mosquito: The Answering Machine Message
Helter Skelter, Part I
Helter Skelter, Part II
Helter Skelter, Part III

As I mentioned in a previous post, side projects were a main part of the musical creativity my friends and I exhibited. The following three songs are dredged from the mists of time, easily 12 years old.

Eye Q was a stoner project if ever there were one, though the bassist, Clint Bagwell, never smoked. If my memory serves correctly it featured both Sean Sutphin and David Seman on drums and the erstwhile David DiDonato rapping. The lyrics were written by David when we were in high school, and like most rap lyrics, I fear, had little to do with reality. For instance I'd never seen David bustin' caps, nor droppin' beams. These songs were recorded at "Jolly House" named after David's, Sean's and my band, the Jolly Mortals, at 1528 Floyd Avenue in the historic Fan District of Richmond.

Eye Q 1
Eye Q 2
Eye Q 3

Before The Bunny Rabbits I played in Kojak who had a many and varied career in playing post-hardcore/post-emo/current-noise rock. I mainly played guitar (like on these songs) with Jason Hodges on Bass and Barry Cover on Drums.

The Apparatus
The Porpoise Of My Soul Is Going To Kill You
Trophy Bride
Kill Your Inner Leech
Pants Down And Defenseless
Gynecological Smorgasbord
America Is Gym Class
Drinking In Bed
A Fruitless Effort
Diary Of A Drug Find
Dead Eye Dick
Slimjim
Sleeping Navigator
Golden
The Star Spangled Shark Is Eating My Cock

On the following tracks I played bass which is more my forte, while Jason switched over to guitar. He did all the main vocals with Barry doing the back-ups and me screaming occasionally.

My DNA Has Turned Against Me
My Dick Has Two Cute Little Arms
Most Murderous
Driving My Car Into A Tornado
Hot Love

Jason also does CNP Records which puts out some of the finest noisy weirdo rock that this country has to offer.

So anyway here's the complete musical product of the Bunny Rabbits since that shit's not going anywhere now... This line-up is David Garland on vocals, Mat Bell on guitar, Leah Clancy on keyboards and me on bass.

No Songs Right Now...


Leah didn't play on these.

Don't Buffalo Me, Snowman
Plan A
Butterflies, Plants
Let's Have Fun
Let's Have Crabs
Manuelo's Sweet Sixteen
Pancakes
Stephanie's Hair
These Happy Golden Years
By The Silver Shore

Amazingly I find myself here in Chicago and now have a whole new world to explain Richmond to... Awesome. I find it odd to try and speak for anyone else, plus I'm new here and should maybe try and show where I'm coming from. So to get things started here's the most recent press anything I've done has gotten. Bear in mind this is the same Richmond Times-Dispatch as used to feature classifieds for slave-traders...

After I moved to Richmond I was still eager to keep my Williamsburg roots intact (being that Williamsburg is the home of rock and roll after all) so my friend Mike Mehigan and I put out a cassette on ish west records, which was a spin off of the record label another friend, Joel Lindelof, had started up way back when. The ish tradition was one of home recording, quickly written and recorded songs, and a certain je ne sais quoi. These songs carried on in that tradition as most of them were by side-projects, a dying art form, I'm afraid. So without further ado, the Richmond side of "We're Not Dead Yet."



The Nordberg Redemption-The Chicago 7
Mechanical Parrot-Codename: Pegasus
Cream And Satan-The Vatican
Dehydra-David DiDonato
Disilluminati-Ebonite
Launch Of Saturn Rocket I-Perrier And The Perrys
Sean's Interlude-Sean Sutphin

Back in Williamsburg where I originally hail from, there's a long tradition of being bored out of your skull and needing entertainment so badly that you'll do whatever to get it. While old people get a kick out of prepackaged pseudo history, the seething underbelly needs more. It is in this spirit that I offer the next batch of songs. They are three covers done by some friends of mine. They bring back that innocent age, the 80's, when we were in elementary school and puberty was still a few years off.

Abracadabra-Mike Chapman
Easy Lover-Mike Chapman
You Belong To The City-Tom Jeremiah

When I first moved to Richmond in 1992, I met a lot of interesting people. Being from the sticks and not so sophisticated I knew nothing about such social movements as the Riot Grrrl phenomenon. I lived in the dorms with a womyn whom we nicknamed Mary the Militant due to her outspoken detestation of the patriarchy. She's the type of girl who would put out a zine on home abortion techniques, or deconstructing why in those little welcome kits the university gives new students the girls get pink razors and the boys blue. Anyway she hooked me up with Heavens to Betsy's demo tape. It's real primitive and raw and definitely much "punker" than a lot of hardcore music I've heard. Some of you might recognize "My Secret" from the split 7" K records put out with Bratmobile on the flipside.

Never Going Back
Shame
Haunting
My Secret
Factory
Baby's Gone Away
???
???

There have been a lot of great bands to have come out of Richmond over the years and as a regular feature I'm going to profile some of them. For the premiere I'm going to share some songs from Chutney. This is their final recording circa 1995 featuring David LaDuke singing instead of Jay Seay. The rest of the line-up is as always, Rydell Bixby on Drums, the Professor on Guitar, and Clint Bagwell on Bass. I have no clue what any of the songs are called. Sorry.

Chutney 1
Chutney 2
Chutney 3
Chutney 4
Chutney 5