Holiday down time

Yeah, I'm in Atlanta, land of good BBQ, reasonable climates and unreasonable politics. I've been here almost a week and weather permitting, I'll be back in a couple of days. I'll upload some more stuff soon after that. I got a request for William Martyr 17, so that will likely top the list.

In the meantime, I came across this article that ties in with my earlier near-rant about analog. I'm not a total analog loyalist. Do I prefer it? Yes, but crappy analog and great digital recordings exist. This article was interesting in that it more or less reinforces all the things that Steve Albini used to rail about what with digital's main pitfall being that it is is so fragile. The earliest digital recording have begun degrading, but unlike analog tapes (that can be "baked") when 1's tun to 0's... well, the music is unrecoverable. I touched on some of digital's shortfalls in an earlier post.

The article is here: File Not Found

The irony of posting it on an MP3 blog isn't lost on me. Seeing as these MP3s are of crappy quality, the only way to truly keep the music safe and have it for yourself is to take the files and cut your own vinyl records from them. Despite the $14k price tag, you can't afford not to.

Tune In Tokyo - Heat Resistant 7"

1. Names Are For Tombstones

2. Jericho Fever

3. Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck

4. Heaven's A Drag

Highwater Records, mid to late 90s

11:30, 21MB 256K MP3

I actually don't know much about this band. Apparently there are a couple of Tune In Tokyos out there, but this is the hardcore-ish one from Austin. I will say this; the layout is nothing special, but I dig the use of overlaying spot colors. I always appreciated it when sleeve designers would play off the medium's strength as opposed to trying to reproduce a blurry photograph or painting which would invariably end up looking washed out with weird coloration.

This 7" spits 4 songs of the Mike Kirsch (Torches to Rome, Navio Forge) school of rock at you in all their tinny glory. It's definitely a fun, energetic listen. Like most of the records that came out of this period, there's no bottom whatsoever to this record. I have no idea what these guys played through, but I can imagine them setting up Marshall JCM 800s and playing late 70's SGs through them (for the non-gear dorks out there: they'd have nice equipment that would otherwise sound awesome) but getting such a crappy recording done with a couple of duct-taped mics and a cassette 4-track. I swear that every band from this era did that. Granted, if you contrast that with the brick walled, pro-tooled within an inch of its life crap recording that most bands do now, I'll take the tinny. At least it's honest.

My favorite track was always Track 3. That's probably because they lifted "Love Will Tear Us Apart" note for note and sped it up.

DL

Rocket From the Crypt / Bloodthirsty Butchers - split 2x7"

Rocket From the Crypt

1. Cut It Loose

2. Living & Dying

3. Pressure's On

Bloodthirsty Butchers

1. Water

2. Alligator

3. Raven

Pusmort, 1994

18 Minutes, 32.8MB 256k MP3

Here's a record I lucked into years ago and haven't seen since. I can't even find them on eBay or Popsike to at least get an idea of its worth; not that I'd ever sell it. This is a gatefold, 2x7" split EP (each band gets a 7") between our heroes, RFTC and Japan's Bloodthirsty Butchers. I have no idea how many exist, but seeing as it's on Pushead's label, and how he didn't really think it was ever necessary to ever press any more than say... 300 of any given record, I'm sure there aren't many of these floating around. Am I gloating? Just a bit. I think I paid $13 for this many moons ago.

Of the 3 RFTC tracks, Pressure's On made another appearance on All Systems Go! Vol. 1. The other 2 songs are typically fun RFTC fare, well-done and all, but they definitely cherry-picked the best track for All Systems Go!

Truth be told, I never listened to the Bloodthirsty Butchers side that much. They play up tempo rock that compliments RFTC. Supposedly they're also still around. Japanese bands are nothing if not disciplined.

Seeing as it's years after the fact, I can safely come clean and say that I ripped off the image of the owl (granted, I altered it considerably) on the inside of this gatefold 7" for a design on one of my old band's shirts. We sold upwards of a dozen of them and I never paid Pushead a dime. I REGRET NOTHING.

DL

Rocket From the Crypt - I Flame You 7"

1. I Flame You

(B-side is the etching shown above)

Perfect Sound Records 1995

2:46, 5MB, 256k MP3

I am an unabashed John Reis/Speedo fanboy. I'll get that out of the way right now. If the man is in any way involved with a record, I will buy it. Nearly 20 years ago, I wore out a dubbed cassette of RFTC's Circa: Now! while delivering pizzas. I would pull up to houses and wait until the best parts of the songs would play through before exiting my car and dropping off the pies, such was the man's hold on me. I mean, look at this list: Rocket From the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Pitchfork, Sultans, Hot Snakes, Night Marchers, Back Off Cupids, Staccato Reeds... Okay, Staccato Reeds was pretty weak, but seriously? The dude's discography is a monster. His ruling to stinker ratio is off the scale, and half of his projects are seminal cornerstones in their respective genres.

I got to meet him once. The Get Up Kids recorded 4 Minute Mile in Chicago and stayed at my place while doing so. I got to hang out at CRC and accidentally drink all of Bob Weston's orange juice (sorry, Bob) and while I loved that band, I had no idea how huge they'd blow up after that. Fast forward a few months and The Get Up Kids were playing a sold out show with RFTC at the Metro. My fool ass had failed to get a ticket, and went to talk to the GUK crew at the merch table. While a menacing security guard looked on, I told them what happened and they said that they'd already filled all of their guest spots and that I was unfortunately out of luck. As soon as the security guard turned away, 2 of them stopped talking mid-sentence, yelled, "NOW", grabbed my shirt and forcibly pulled me over the merch table into the backstage area, told me to hurry back there and hide. T'was bad ass. I thanked them and wandered around backstage with a shit-eating-grin on my face, stoked that I was able to see the show. I ducked into one of the rooms and there was Speedo more or less holding court with other guys from the Get Up Kids telling him that he enjoyed their music and giving little pointers about being in a band. He offered me a beer, I took it, said hello and drank it all while my inner dialogue kept screaming, "HOLY SHIT" over and over. I was too terrified to speak because I probably would have come off as the starstruck dipshit kid that I was. Despite the fact that RFTC was touring on their weakest record, "RFTC" they tore ass later that night.

Anyhow, as for the record I posted, a shortage of material was never a problem for RFTC. Despite having more records than I could ever conceivably collect (not that I haven't tried) to this day, they still have a slew of songs that were never collected or re-released on any of their 3 collections. As far as I know, this was the only place to get this song.

I Flame You was a 1-sided, etched 7" that was a fan club release only. I walked into Reckless in Wicker Park (when they were still on North Ave), saw this on the wall and plunked down the $15 for it, which for a 7" was a lot of money for me.

Enjoy

DL