X TREME-UNCTION, Venial Sins (cassette, 1990)

First things first: Mite, I have a couple things I want to ask you about the stuff you uploaded, but I don't know your e-mail. If you would e-mail me, I'd appreciate it.

That said, today's download, fittingly posted during the witching hour while the wind howls outside my door, is from X TREME-UNCTION. Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!

This was an Erik Purtle project. The cassette insert lists only initials for the band members, so I'm not sure who else was involved.

X TREME-UNCTION was:

E.P. (Erik Purtle)

D.H. (?)

J.McW. (?)

M.N. (?)

I'm terrible at puzzles, so if you know who any of these initials belong to, let me know.

Grog and Jen Simerlink are in the "thanx" list (as "Jen & Greg"), so maybe they know something. Jen was working with Erik at Reynolds & Reynolds at about this time.

X TREME-UNCTION didn't last very long, and I'm not even sure they ever played live. But this is good stuff: industrial, goth, punk, experimental noise rawk -- with creepy lyrics and lots of speech samples mixed in with the music. The perfect soundtrack for your next Halloween party, dungeon warming, or dark ritual involving group sex and human sacrifice.

Erik, I believe, had done a little time in DEMENTIA PRECOX before this, and it shows here. I don't think Venial Sins is a concept record (if it is, the concept escapes me), but it's got that flavor. Ambitious in scope and length (1 hr., 4 minutes running time) but mostly successful in that. This is the kind of thing I would've thought was cool in college, hated in my twenties (when I was entirely about math rock and emo), but have now come to a point where I can appreciate it again.

There is no live drummer. The insert lists equipment used as "Roland TR707 / Roland S-10 / Charvel, Kramer, Fender & Yamaha Guitars / Amplification by Ampeg, Peavy & Earth."

Ah yes... the finely honed, isometric throbbing of a brashly wielded TR-707! Unless you're a drummer, what's not to like?

I think the tape has held up remarkably well over the past 18 years -- still bright with little hiss (as usual, I removed whatever hiss there was in the post-processing). The cassette in the box is a TDK D90 with handwritten labels, so it's possible this was a higher fidelity advance copy. If there were actual production copies with professional typesetting and such, I've never seen one.

I love the artwork on this. The insert credits "layout" to "Sister I'm Poopin' Graphics," but no artist is mentioned. The skeleton picture looks to me like something that might have been cribbed from a book of woodcuts from the middle ages (or maybe the Romantic period). But there were any number of people doing graphics like this in Dayton in 1990, so it could be homegrown too.

"Extreme unction" is a pre-Vatican II term for the Roman Catholic sacrament of annointing the sick. It seems to be one of the few pre-Vatican II terms that is still widely understood and used among Catholics (who say they use it out of traditionalism, but I suspect more because it just sounds cool -- and it does sound cool, doesn't it? -- certainly makes for a great band name, and you won't be surprised to find that a Google search on "band extreme unction" yields at least four different groups using it before and since 1990 -- and that's just on the first page of results). It is popularly thought to be synonymous with the "last rites." However, extreme unction is only one of three sacraments that make up the last rites. The other two are penance (or confession) and Holy Viaticum (sort of like a "last communion"). These rites are supposed to be administered only to someone in probable and immediate danger of death (so you wouldn't administer the last rites to a cancer patient who still has a week or even a couple of days to live). Of the three, the most important seems to be the Viaticum. For dying soldiers on a battlefield, chaplains will sometimes skip everything else if they can get that one in.

A venial sin is any sin that is not a mortal sin. A mortal sin is a sin of such severity as to condemn the sinner to Hell should that sinner die without having confessed the sin (and been genuinely repentant for it) during the sacrament of penance. There are no specific criteria for what constitutes a mortal sin, but the basic elements are (1) that it is of great severity (e.g. murder, although some seemingly innocuous violations of church law such as eating less than two hours before taking communion are usually thought to be of the mortal variety), (2) that the sinner is aware of its severity (so if you eat before mass but you don't know that eating before mass is a severe sin, then you haven't committed a mortal sin), and (3) that the acts constituting the sin itself must be completed (so you haven't committed a mortal sin if you just plan a murder but never go through with it -- even if you didn't go through with it only because you were prevented by the police or something). If one is in danger of death and receives the Holy Viaticum without receiving penance, a mortal sin on one's soul is thought to be expunged, but in any case, the sinner must be truly repentant. Excommunication carries the same consequences as the commission of a mortal sin except that the excommunicant cannot avoid Hell through penance.

Don't look at me like that. I'm not the one who came up with this stuff.

Venial sins, as opposed to mortal sins, are lesser sins which, although they don't condemn the sinner to Hell, may require atonement in purgatory for some period of real time before the sinner ascends to Heaven. Examples of venial sins might include theft, various brands of coveting thy neighbor's whatever, or even a sin of omission--like purposely failing to feed the hungry or clothe the naked or visit the imprisoned or-- hey, wait a minute, how long do you think the current administration will have to spend in purgatory under that standard?

Track List:

1. Red
2. (Turn Me On) Deadman
3. In the Dark
4. 9th Doll Bummer 2
5. Daddy's Little Girl
6. Here's Your Drink Honey
7. Uncaged Girls
8. Beyond the House of Innocents
9. Sites
10. Visualization
11. Chances Are (I Hate You)
12. Questionable
13. Dollhouse
14. Theft

Download It! (92 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)


This was released under the imprint Rape Factory Records with a catalog number of RFR001 on the spine. I don't know of any other Rape Factory releases.

X TREME-UNCTION's Venial Sins crosses the veil of time and obscurity by the tender stewardship of the man called Grog.

take care

---Jones()

AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER, s-t (cassette, 1990)

Although this band usually went by the acronym A-M-P, I always refused to refer to them that way. Why go to the trouble of coming up with a name with an obscure pop culture reference only to bury it in the initial letters of each word?

AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER was:

Richard Caesar Leonardi - vocals
Michael Dombroski - percussion
Dave Roberts - guitar
Scott Dvorak - guitar
Eric Humpert - bass

I saw these guys play at Canal Street Tavern a few times. I believe at least one of those times was in a band playoff round, and I'm sure I voted for them (somebody remind me to do an entry on band playoffs and what an utterly surreal experience that could be sometimes). For some reason, I think of AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER as a UD band, but I don't know for sure.

Actress Agnes Moorehead appeared in over a hundred films over the course of her career, most notably as Charles Foster Kane's mother in Citizen Kane. But you are most likely to remember her as Endora, the mortal-hating mother of witch Samantha Stevens on the '60s sitcom Bewitched.

But for this town, there's a little more to it than that (isn't there always with Dayton?). She was (still is) buried here in Memorial Park (after succumbing to uterine cancer in 1974 -- which itself is the subject of some controversy, many of her friends and Moorehead herself blaming the cancer on possible radiation exposure at a former nuclear testing site where she spent a few weeks on the set of The Conqueror 18 years earlier -- quoth Agnes on her deathbed, "I wish I'd never done that damn movie!"). But for the life of me (uhhh...) I can't figure out why she's here. She was born and raised in Massachusetts but lived and worked in Wisconsin, California, and any number of other places. Although she attended Muskingum College in New Concord and held property in Rix Mills (which had been in her family for five generations before being willed to Bob Jones University at her death), I haven't found any reason why she would be buried here in this town instead of those places. Not that her corpse shouldn't rest wherever it bloody well likes, mind you -- it's just odd to me. Ah well, another Dayton mystery to which, perhaps, the comments will provide the answer?

The music on the cassette is pretty solid alternative rock, comparable to similar stuff of the time: a little dancey, a little prog, a little rawkin' -- generally like a less self-absorbed and a little more loud version of THE CURE. Nothing earth-shattering (very little on this blog is), but good stuff, worth hearing again (or for the first time).

Track List:

1. Rudyard Kipling
2. Premium Paid
3. Agnes Moorehead Platter
4. Old Again
5. 1846

Download It! (28 MB) (link re-upped on 2-2-2013)

Produced by Phil Mehaffy at Cyberteknics in Dayton. Phil owned Cyberteknics and has done a lot of recording with Dayton bands over the years.

That's all I can say about AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER. Once again, feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments section.

take care

---Jones

ps. As usual, I got the stuff on Agnes Moorehead from her Wikipedia entry. Great source for pop culture entertainment information -- shit for most else.

pps. At the beginning of this post, I said that AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER went by the "acronym" A-M-P. Thinking about it now, I realize that was slightly misleading. An acronym is a pronounced word formed from the initial letters of a phrase, but AGNES MOOREHEAD PLATTER wasn't called "amp." To be accurate, I should've said "abbreviation" (which is merely a shortened form of a word or phrase, but one that is not actually pronounced) since they were referred to as "A-M-P."

BIG BROWN HOUSE, Scrappy James (cassette, 1987)

Before we begin, I just wanted to mention that Hillary Clinton is having a rally over at Kim Deal's old high school today. Doors open at 10 a.m. Bring your bass. (Bill already called sax.)

BIG BROWN HOUSE was an Antioch College band in the late '80s. I think OXYMORONS did a show with them once, but I don't remember.

And that's the full extent of my first hand BIG BROWN HOUSE knowledge.

However, Gail always liked these guys and was friends with at least one. She tells me that they often traded members back and forth with THE GITS, another Antioch band at the time that you might have heard of. Apparently, just about every member of BIG BROWN HOUSE played in THE GITS and vice-versa at one time or another -- except for Mia Zapata.

For the uninitiated, Antioch College is located in Yellow Springs, about ten miles outside of Dayton. In THE HIGHWAYMEN post, I'll be writing more about Yellow Springs and why Yellow Springs is considered part of the Dayton music scene (at least by everyone who does not live in Yellow Springs). But today I'll just talk about BIG BROWN HOUSE.

At the time Scrappy James was recorded (1987), BIG BROWN HOUSE was:

Benjamin London - guitars, vocals
Steve Moriarty - drums, vocals
Adrian Garver - bass
Roger Garufi - vocals

The music here is great just as music, but it's also interesting in sort of a historical sense. It's definitely post-punk, and with a hint of goth in the vocals -- very much late-'80s Miami Valley. But there's also the definite flavor of something we'd all start calling "emo" a few years later. This is music in transition. Considering that and THE GITS connection, this stuff deserves some kind of limited run CD rerelease (then again, I think you could say the same thing about TOOBA BLOOZE, THE HIGHWAYMEN, and a number of others on this blog).

This tape was recorded at Studio 716 in Ann Arbor, Michigan but subsequently remastered at SoundSpace in Yellow Springs. Chris Hertzler, who engineered the remastering, also engineered THE GITS cassette Private Lubs in 1988 (re-released in 1996 as Kings & Queens) and has since worked with DRY BRANCH FIRE SQUAD, THE CHRISTMAS JUG BAND, CRAZY JOE & THE MAD RIVER OUTLAWS, and THE CINCINNATI WOMEN'S CHORUS.

Years after this was recorded (1996, I think) when I was living in Yellow Springs and Larry Kampf was working at SoundSpace (which I'm pretty sure still exists today), my band HEIKE recorded a couple of songs out there. I must say that Larry somehow got the most powerful guitar sound I've ever heard out of that studio. Unfortunately, I've no idea what became of those tapes. Maybe Larry's still got 'em somewhere.

I know a lot of other local bands recorded things at SoundSpace but for the life of me I can't name a single one right now (except THE GITS, of course). It's a nice studio: a nice big room with separate booths attached -- good separation. SoundSpace used to do cassette duplication too, and they had a massive set-up for that. Before I saw it, I had never really thought about how cassettes were mass produced. You can't stamp them out like vinyl records or CDs. You have to basically record them all individually. At SoundSpace there was a big room with something like fifty individual cassette decks all linked to one master deck. You put in the master, and then I guess you loaded all the other machines with blanks and then you hit "play." I don't know why, but there was something eerie about that room. Grog liked it though. He saw all those decks lined up and couldn't help comparing it to the process he normally used to make all those OXYMORONS cassettes, which was exactly the process you'd think it was: he did them all one-by-one on his home stereo. I don't know about you, but that would've driven me batshit right around tape number thirty-four (and Grog made hundreds -- no wonder he's super-batshit).

I wonder what happened to all those cassette decks at SoundSpace. Probably sitting in a storage room somewhere -- or perhaps unloaded for cheap and written off their taxes as a business loss at some point (doubtful, though, since the tax code would've already allowed them to deduct the basis at a standard rate over the statutory life of the asset which was probably used up long before final disposition of the equipment -- then again, maybe section 2433 would have allowed them to... fuck! see what tax class does to you? don't ever go to law school...).

In 1989 BIG BROWN HOUSE and THE GITS moved to Seattle. I'll let BIG BROWN HOUSE guitar player/vocalist Ben London take it from here:

Ben: That's when I was in college . I went to Antioch College and I was in that band with a couple of guys who are in the Gits . We all went to school together and moved out to Seattle together in '89, when we graduated.

SY: Why Seattle?

Ben: We moved out with a large group of people and it was before the big music thing had really exploded. The only band I had ever heard of from Seattle was Soundgarden, and that was just because I was a college DJ at the time and got "Ultramega OK ." We'd done a lot of traveling and we were talking about wanting to be in a big city, after having gone to college in a tiny little town . New York was too expensive, San Francisco's so expensive, Chicago's so cold . Seattle, it seemed like it was really cheap to live out there and it had a nice climate and we had a couple of friends out there . It just happened that we got out there just about the time this whole thing was gearing up . When we first got out there, Mudhoney and a lot of the early Sub Pop bands were just starting . I missed out on the U-Men and Green River.

SY. : How long did Big Brown House stay together when you moved to Seattle?

Ben : About a year. We'd been playing the whole time when I was in college and when you're in college I guess you experiment with a lot of different styles. Once I got out there, I wasn't enjoying what we were doing . I was just playing guitar in that band and Steve and Matt were concentrating more on the Gits and I decided to get my own thing going, so I quit. I was working with Tommy, our bass player, at the time and kind of put the thing together from there.

---Suburban Voice #35 (1993)

You can read the rest of the interview here if you'd like. It's in PDF form, so you'll have to have Adobe Acrobat installed.

If he was a college DJ at Antioch, he was most likely on WYSO, Yellow Springs' public radio station. That station still exists, but I understand they stopped letting Antioch students be DJs some time in the mid-'90s.

After leaving BIG BROWN HOUSE, London formed ALCOHOL FUNNYCAR with then-BIG BROWN HOUSE bass player, Tommy Bonehead.

BIG BROWN HOUSE and THE GITS appeared in the 1987 documentary film, The Antioch Adventure, Part 2. The first Antioch Adventure followed certain Antioch students in 1967. The second did the same thing with then-current Antioch students twenty years later. You can read a little more about these films here. I read somewhere that one could once order both films through The Antioch Bookstore, but I checked their site and that no longer seems to be the case. However, if you go looking for the movies, it's probably a good place to start.

Track list:

1. Morning's Light
2. Face Down
3. Eight Dead Grandmothers
4. Snacked on by the Bugs from Hell
5. 76 on 70
6. No Ball Games
7. Sawblades
8. Menudo on the Edge (of Town)
9. Wet Metro Stop
10. Vertical Hold
11. Immaterial

Download it! (60 MB) (re-upped on 2-2-2013)

The cassette insert contains the lyrics for "Vertical Hold" but none of the other tracks.

The copy I ripped has the labels on the wrong sides. I don't know why I consider that significant enough to mention.

This recording comes to us from the deepest recesses of the Gail Dafler Collection.

UPDATE (2-2-2013): The downloadable file contains only the MP3s.  There are no scans of the cover, cassette, or insert.  Unfortunately, I can't find those files right now.  But so many people have been asking for this one, I thought re-upping without the scans would be okay for now.  When I find those scans, I'll add them to the zip-file and re-up this again.  But until then, you'll have to be content with just the recordings.

Other than this cassette, BIG BROWN HOUSE had one other release that I know of: a sort of compilation cassette of outtakes, live stuff, and oddities released in 1989, shortly before the band left for Seattle. I will, of course, be sharing that one.

The only other extant recordings by this band are a pair of songs on Bobbing for Pavement, The Rathouse Compilation CD released in 1994 (long after BIG BROWN HOUSE broke up). The two songs are "The Raft" and "Another Drunken Winter," which is also on the other BIG BROWN HOUSE cassette. I haven't heard Bobbing for Pavement, so I don't know if the version on the comp is the same as the one on the cassette. The compilation also features two songs from THE GITS, two songs from HAMMERBOX, and various others. It's out of print, but you can get it dirt cheap ($3.33!) from some Amazon Sellers.

And that's it for now. Enjoy!

take care

---Jones()

ps. If you're unfamiliar with the tragic tale of Mia Zapata, check her Wikipedia entry. Check the links at the bottom too. Apparently, there's a GITS movie in the works.

pps. In case anyone's wondering, I have nothing to share from THE GITS, and unless someone has a taped live show or practice or something to that effect, I won't be sharing anything by them here. I haven't checked thoroughly, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that everything they recorded is still in print and easily available via the web. In fact, the 1996 GITS demos collection Kings & Queens is a re-release of a 1988 cassette Private Lubs, most of which was recorded at SoundSpace, with one track ("Graveyard Blues") recorded at Canal Street Tavern. You can get the CD from CD Universe. You can download the MP3s from e-music.

ppps. Believe it or not, this post really is about BIG BROWN HOUSE.

THE PLEASURES PALE, s/t (12" vinyl LP, 1987)

My turntable is shit -- total shit.  [UPDATE 2-12-2013 -- I have a better one.  Ignore this and the next couple of paragraphs.] It's part of a GPX combo purchased at Best Buy for $40 in 1995 (my mom actually bought it for me -- no shit). While the cassette deck on that combo delivers decent sound, the signal from the turntable sounds like it's coming through Alan Sherman's "Japanese transistor radio" and finally received by The Professor on Gilligan's Island with the little white ear-piece stuck in his ear -- but only as Mary Ann would hear it standing on tip-toes (to push her breasts out) next to him.

I did a lot of processing to boost the overall presence, and I think I made some headway. But for now, vinyl rips on this blog will be notably weaker than cassette rips. When I get a better turntable (summer maybe?), I promise I'll re-rip and re-post all the vinyl.


Anyway, there's little I can tell you first-hand about THE PLEASURES PALE. I never saw them live, but they were quite popular in Dayton around 1986-87 -- I'd venture more popular than GUIDED BY VOICES at the time. The bass player, Luis Lerma, was (with his brother Tere) later in the THE TASTIES in the mid-'90s. At least one of the Lermas was in FRANKENSTEIN'S KIND in 1988. Both have been around Dayton forever, playing music, making movies, and doing god knows what else--occasionally assisted by older brother Larry (who I actually know a little better than his younger brothers) and others. But I can't tell you what bands either of them is currently in (if any). Perhaps you can tell me.

I used to play this LP a lot when I was at WWSU. My favorites were always the two that mentioned Dayton: "it could be heaven just as well" and "my town has no cafes." The latter would, I think, make a fine anthem for the Gem City. Check out some of the more appropriate lines:

in a place i'll call 'nowhere'...

my town has no cafes
no place for us to say,
'we're tired, so tired, of the same dead things'

down in my familiar gutter
with nothing left to utter
it's late, it's late, late, late Dayton

It's not exactly T.S. Eliot (okay, it's not even Elliott Smith), and the average Daytonian may find it difficult to sing at Dragons games. But if poetic aptitude and vocal accessibility were prerequisites for an anthem, do you really think people would've put up with "The Star Spangled Banner" for two centuries?

(then again, maybe TOXIC REASONS' "Ghost Town" would make a better Dayton anthem? no money... no fun... Yeah, that's what I'd pick. Ah, but who am I kidding? If Dayton ever adopts an anthem, it'll probably be something by GUIDED BY VOICES -- or ALAN THICKE...)

The music here is fairly straight-up mid-'80s new wave: heavily flanged guitars, cavernous reverb, esoteric lyrics--reminiscient of THE CURE, NEW ORDER, and THE SMITHS (though with a few nods toward rock-a-billy and mod rock, which sets them apart from most of their cookie-cutter contemporaries). Call it shoegazer, call it goth-pop, call it alternative. Whatever... you'll get a definite time-capsule vibe off this.

This LP was released on Cincinnati-based Heresy Records, which makes it an oddity among Dayton releases of that era. This is the only release I know of from Heresy. Most Dayton bands in the late '80s were releasing either on IWanna Records (TOOBA BLOOZE, THE OBVIOUS, THE HIGHWAYMEN) or under their own imprimatur (MOM, POETIC JUSTICE, BIG BROWN HOUSE).

THE PLEASURES PALE were:

Jeffrey Bright - singer
Mitchell Swann - guitarist
Luis Lerma - bass guitarist
Jeff Keating - drummer

The only other thing I can tell you about THE PLEASURES PALE is that "Lovely! Lovely!" appeared on the WWSU 4-Play record in 1987 and that Mitchell Swan apparently played in GUIDED BY VOICES in 1983 (or so I gather from this article from the Boston Phoenix). Even the GUIDED BY VOICES Wikipedia page missed that one.

The Boston Phoenix article also refers to THE PLEASURES PALE as "SMITHS-clones." I think that's a little too dismissive. Okay, they didn't break any new ground here, but Morrisey's overwrought sense of maudlin is (thankfully) absent. If nothing else, I can appreciate that.

Although popular here and elsewhere, THE PLEASURES PALE weren't everyone's cup of tea. Witness...

"Weak-kneed pop of all styles--from Byrdsy twang to Smiths-like laments to wimpy country to fey rockabilly. No bite, nothing to move me, except to move the needle. They even ask, on one song, 'so what is a sissy?' Look in the mirror, pal!"
---Suburban Voice #24 (1987)

About the rip, the end of track 9 has an a capella vocal by a woman who's not credited anywhere on the album. Right at the end of that portion, the vinyl has a bad repeater scratch that I couldn't work through. So I let it repeat three or four times and just faded the track out. It's not what the band intended, but I thought it sounded kind of cool. I liked it so much that I added a track at the end reprising the skip a few times with some additional flange and ambience. It fades up and then down in about 20 seconds.  [UPDATE 2-12-2013: On the re-rip this same skip made it impossible for me to get a good recording of the song immediately following it.  That song is "Lovely, Lovely," which also appeared on the WWSU 4-Play record.  To me, the two recordings sound identical, so I swapped out the crappy rip of "Lovely, Lovely" from this 12" and replaced it with the version from the WWSU record.]

My scanner is only 8.5" x 11", which is obviously too small to do this 12" sleeve--even in two passes. So there's no scans included in the download package. The best I could come up with is a photo of the sleeve, insert, and poster that I ripped off this ebay ad. To pay the seller back, here's a link to the ad where you can buy this record for $24.77 plus $4.50 for shipping and handling (Jesus Christ! $29.27 for this?!?!?! -- Gail got hers for a buck... I guess if you can work in a GUIDED BY VOICES connection (check the ad), you can jack up the price on anything!).

[UPDATE 2-12-2013: The lovely Teresa Winner was kind enough to take some photos of the cover, insert, and poster on her iPad.  Those pictures are included in this download.  The photos, however, are not high enough resolution to make the lyrics legible, so for those who want to read the lyrics, I made higher resolution scans of them.  Those are also included in this download.]

This record comes to us courtesy of the Gail Dafler collection. Gail wants to know if the kid in the poster is one of the Lerma boys. Anybody know?

Track List:

1. no, joy
2. my town has no cafes
3. in my dandelion field
4. monday mourn
5. love bites back sorely
6. uneasy's disease
7. all about men
8. a heavy coat of jokes
9. but she didn't
10. lovely! lovely!11. be
12. it could be heaven just as well
13. [uncredited female vocal (reprise)]

Download it! (63 MB) (line re-upped 2-12-2013)

UPDATE 2-12-2013: This is a new rip on better equipment -- worth getting even if you already downloaded the previous one.

Okay then, let's recap: the vinyl rip is shitty [UPDATE 2-12-2013: not anymore], The Boston Globe called them "Smiths clones," Suburban Voice called them sissies, and I compared their lyrics unfavorably to Elliott Smith's (and I don't even like Elliott Smith -- now there's a sissy for ya...). Is there any more abuse that my blog could possibly assist this cruel world in heaping on this utterly inoffensive (and not half-bad) pop combo from twenty years ago?

Oh yeah... I just noticed: that ebay ad I mentioned? It refers to them as "The Pleasures Principle." son of a bitch...

If anyone can tell me anything more about THE PLEASURES PRINCI-- uh... I mean, THE PLEASURES PALE, post a comment. I'm all ears.

take care

---Jones

ps. I got the flyer scan from gigposters.com. Don't you love it: "Dayton Invasion!"? (I came this close to renaming the blog...). And can you believe $2 to see GUIDED BY VOICES and RHINO 39? Those were the days... That show took place on January 11, 1986. RHINO 39 was incredibly popular 'round these parts as I remember, though they hailed from Los Angeles. They played a fairly original melding of punk and new wave. For more info, you can check their MySpace page. You can download RHINO 39's 1979 seven-inch record "Prolixin Stomp" over at the mind-poppingly expansive music blog Killed by Death Records. But be warned, KBD is more addictive than crack (and only slightly less addictive than nicotine). You'll download one record, then another, and another... soon you're out on the street trying to score LEATHER NUN MP3s... and before you know it, you're strung out on '77, pal!

pps. Don't confuse the punk (i.e. good) RHINO 39 formed in the '70s in L.A. with the heavy metal (i.e. heavy metal?) RHINO 39 formed in the '90s in Chicago.

[CORRECTION]: Okay, I noticed the flyer said "THREE area bands!" So I did a little digging and found out that the RHINO 39 that played that show was NOT the L.A. RHINO 39 (who, in fact, are really from Long Beach). No, there was a Dayton band called RHINO 39, which was actually my first impression, but when I found the California RHINO 39, I just assumed I was mistaken. Okay, so we've established that there was a Dayton RHINO 39. Now all I need do is locate some music by them. By the way, here's a link to a Dayton Voice article and an entry on someone else's blog, both of which mention the Dayton RHINO 39.

ppps. My next band is going to be called THE PLEASURES PRINCIPLE! (wasn't there a Star Trek episode called "The Pleasure Principle"?)

pppps. Goddammit? How long does it take to upload something to Rapidshare? The little progress bar reached 100% forty-five minutes ago, and it's just been sitting there like a dumb shit ever since! I gotta find a new host... Okay, there it goes.

BEN SCHELKER, Gimme Schelker! (unofficial, cassette, 1991)

I actually didn't write this originally for this blog. I'm not sure what I wrote it for. But it also seems applicable here, especially since it helps me solve a little problem that's been nagging me about this blog.

Last September, Gail dropped off a number of records and tapes with me for the blog. Among them was a tape of a solo show that Ben Schelker had done long ago (1991 is my best guess) at Canal Street Tavern's Tuesday night Musician's Co-op. I had planned on posting that show on the ten-year anniversary of his death last November, but my law school commitments were simply out of control at that time. So I put it off. Since then, I've been meaning to post it, but it didn't feel right posting it without some kind of write-up about what Ben meant to me and us and all of us. But then every time I tried to write something on that, nothing would come out -- or at least nothing that didn't terribly underestimate the impact Ben had on our lives or overstate the whole drama of the thing.

But then I wrote this which, as I said, is not entirely congruent with what this post is supposed to be about. Truth be told, it's not entirely about Ben. I've tried to make alterations to bring this more in line, but that didn't work. Still, it's closer to the heart of the matter than anything else I've written and deleted so far. Anyway, here it is:

In the fall of 1991 (I think -- might've been '92 -- this old man's memory does fail him sometimes) my old band the Oxymorons went on tour. We did two dates in Minneapolis: one at the THD Punkhouse on a Friday and another at the 7th Street Entry the next night.

The night before we were to go to Minneapolis, we were somewhere in Wisconsin and pulled off at a truck stop around midnight. I don't remember why, but that night we couldn't go any farther. Maybe we were out of gas, or maybe the van needed some part, or maybe we were all just too tired to drive any more -- don't remember. But the place we parked wasn't just a truck stop, it was a mega-truck-and-travellers' stop with a parking lot the size of three football fields (and isn't it interesting how we often define the size of flat places where people don't gather in terms of football fields?) and a big facility with a full service restaurant, bathrooms, showers, video arcade -- and a convenience store with all the necessities: auto parts, clothing, air fresheners, junk food, pirated video tapes, yeah... Funny thing, though: the place was practically deserted. Ours was one of maybe ten vehicles in that massive parking lot. The facility itself was open, but the store, the restaurant, even the arcade were all dark. Except for a couple of security guards and maintenance people, nothing moved.

For some reason, I was feeling just awful about the band that night. We had just gotten off a two or three day layover in Madison -- two shows had been cancelled, and we were hundreds of miles from home with no money to do anything, so we lay around this generous kid's house playing his Nintendo, eating his macaroni, and drinking his beer (though for some reason, we had gallons of vodka of our own). I was sick of Grog, sick of Nick, sick of Ben, sick of Jen (Grog's girlfriend, who was roadying for us at the time), sick of playing to empty rooms, sick of scraping by, sick of making crappy records, sick of the bands we played with -- sick, even, of the seemingly endless columns of empty faces watching us as we played (which seems to contradict what I said about playing to empty rooms -- and it does, but like anyone, when I'm down on something, I can't help but embrace even the contradictions if they depress me more).

Everybody slept in the van except me. I tried, but it was fucking cold. Except for one night we spent in the van in the middle of a snowstorm outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, I've never been that cold in my life, even though it was only fall. And I was too wound up to sleep anyway. I spent most of the night wandering around that dark, empty place -- smoking cigarettes, drawing occasional stares from the few employees. My hair was fucked up. I must've had bags under my eyes. Hadn't eaten in at least a day. And I was wearing a dark blue jacket upon the back of which I had hastily scrawled in yellow paint, "I NEED SOUL!" (fitting caption to a white boy from Dayton at the time -- probably even more true today than it was then) I don't really know what they were thinking, but I imagined all sorts of terrible things. For those few hours, I really felt disconnected from everything, and I would say that I just wanted to go home, except that I felt I was already there -- home in this gigantic, empty waystation for others who were all on their way to better places. I hated every goddamn one of them.

Anyway, probably around 5 a.m., the restaurant opened up. I sat down and spent my last 80 cents on a bottomless cup of coffee and sat there smoking for a while. Eventually, Nick came through the door and sat down across from me, then Ben, then Grog and Jen. We sat there, pretty much in silence, for a little while, and then we went back to the van. Grog started it up. Perhaps he'd got the part we needed or maybe we got gas or whatever it was to get us going again, but we were off. Honestly, at that moment, I don't know why I got in. I felt like a zombie, just shuffling off to wherever.

But after a while, we came over this rise, and there were the Twin Cities: Minneapolis-St. Paul -- just laid out before us. I don't know if we'd been riding in silence or if I just hadn't noticed the tape, but suddenly I heard The Replacements -- a band we'd all worshipped for years, a band that was based in the Twin Cities. I thought of Husker Du and Soul Asylum, two other bands we all loved that had also come from this place we were driving into now. I thought of Mary Tyler Moore and the Mississippi river. I saw the sun rising behind those cities, and it seemed that this place that we'd all heard so much about in the music we loved had invited us to come there.

That night, we played one badass set at the THD House. It was in a basement, and I swear it was packed wall-to-wall. People were crowding on the stairs. It was hot, and there was one lightbulb on a chain swinging over Ben's head (I think he clocked himself on it once or twice). And we were loud as fuck.

After it was over, we packed up while Grog went to see about money. People were coming in and out of that house and the next band was blaring away. Unlike other nights, we didn't have to pack up right after the set because we were staying on THD's floor. Ben and I grabbed some beers and just started walking down the block. At first there were some people in tow, but as we kept walking, they got fewer and fewer. Eventually, it was just us. We stopped when we saw this metal bridge over the river to our left (I'm not sure if it was the Mississippi -- maybe a smaller tributary).

We went out on that bridge and dropped the empty beers into the water (littering motherfuckers...). We had been talking a mile a minute about the band, about music, about Minneapolis, about everything -- but after a minute or two on that bridge, we just stopped. I looked at the sky and the stars and the water. I looked at the black street, strangely empty of cars or people now. I thought of Minneapolis and the bands we loved -- all of whom were probably the main reasons we were there at that place in that moment. I heard factories, and I thought of how at this hour, they must be running largely automatically -- machines dutifully building things, with only a couple of human beings there to watch over them. I thought of John Berryman, who was a poet who killed himself by jumping off a bridge in Minneapolis. I don't know why I thought of him, but I said nothing about it. And I said nothing about how I felt so connected right then and there to the city and all cities and all the machinery and people and the white noise they all make together. Had I put my ear to the ground, I believe I could've heard things happening on the other side of the world. There was water, and there were voices.

Six years later, Ben was dead, and I told this story as part of his eulogy while his body lay in a coffin about six or seven feet from the lectern at which I stood. Then the priest (it was a Catholic funeral) closed the mass, and we carried Ben's coffin down the aisle and out to the hearse. It was heavy, and I took ibuprofen later because I thought I pulled a muscle in my right arm. I've sometimes wondered if I will sleep and awaken on that bridge.

There's an Aristotlean term, in media res, which he used to describe a literary device for how epic poems usually open. It means "in the middle of things." For example, The Odyssey begins at a point halfway through the overall plot, and then it backtracks to the beginning and goes from there until it eventually arrives at where it started about halfway through the length of the poem. Then it tells the rest of the story. We, among us, live in media res. We go forward and back and arrive at the middle, which looks like the beginning, but it's only half. Each of us is the sum he has not counted: subtract us back through nakedness and night and you will see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas. There's a good life, in the meantime.

I've been typing very fast and haven't eaten anything all day.

Grog gave me a tape with the THD House show on it, and I've ripped it. But as I said, that's not what I'm posting today. Today's download is Ben's Musician's Co-op show that Gail taped long ago. I haven't chopped it into song-by-song tracks because I figure, if anyone listens to the music on this blog, they're probably listening on a computer, iPod, or other MP3 player -- none of which seem capable of playing tracks without a two-second pause in between. For this show, that simply won't do.

Of course, this was never released, but I decided to give it a name of it's own. And I have chosen Gimme Schelker because Ben used to joke about how if he ever did a solo album, that's what he would call it. I want to make it clear that he was joking because all of us generally considered the idea of solo albums in general as a bit silly. I mean, maybe Paul Westerberg can get away with it (and even then I'm not sure -- Gail is his biggest fan and even she seems to be on the edge of laughing whenever she mentions him in his capacity as a solo), but nobody else -- not Bob Mould, not Ryan Adams, not Jeff Buckley. I mean, come on guys: get a band! Even dead Ben Schelker can't really get away with it, but death is probably the ultimate defense to ridicule, and even if it's not, Ben drank ridicule like he drank Wild Irish Rose -- his unique gift being that both seemed to have the same effect on him. So be it.

Song List:

Wasting My Time
Pleasant Distraction
Day of Reckoning
unknown
Diner Song
Survival Kit for the Lonely
unknown
Wreckage
Tried
Eledra
Taoist Lumberjack

Download It! (34 MB)

Recorded by Gail Dafler on a handheld cassette recorder in 1991 (I think).

As you can see, there's one song on here I don't remember the title of. In fact, I have no recollection of this song whatsoever. I know it never became an OXYMORONS song. If you happen to know the title, post something in the comments section.

It's not the best show he ever played, but it is full of false starts, errant tuning, and mumbled lyrics where Ben couldn't think of anything better. It's Ben. Gimme...

As I said before, this is a Musician's Co-op show. Until recently, Musician's Co-op was a long standing tradition at Canal Street Tavern during which every Tuesday night, anyone who wanted to could take the stage and play pretty much whatever and however they wanted for 30 minutes. I understand Musician's Co-op was discontinued last March (although Mick has hinted that this may not be a permanent thing -- let's hope so), but in the years before that, Canal Street hosted any number of unpaid solo performers ranging from seasoned local musicians just playing for fun to all sorts of wonderful oddballs and talentless jerk-offs. I've got one or two more Musician's Co-op shows on tape, and I'll post them and more information about that whole deal at some point in the future.

More music coming up on Saturday or Sunday. Until then...

take care

---Jones

GREGG SPENCE, 3 songs (cassette, unofficial, 1989)

There's little I can say about Gregg that I didn't already say in THE UNDERDOGS post, or that you can't read in these articles at the Big Beef Records site. So I'll just give you some background on the three songs here.

The songs were recorded some time in 1989 at Cro-Magnon studios, engineered by Joe Buben. Gregg did these for submission to Bob Moore's Breathe on the Living LP project. This was a double-LP (with an extra LP of outtakes that contributors received) of music, spoken word, poetry, noise, etc. that Bob compiled and released as the Spring Quarter '89 issue of Wright State University's literary magazine Nexus. Also representing Dayton on that record were THE OXYMORONS, CHRIS POSPISIL, and LAURA AND LARRY ALBRECHT. When I get a better turntable, I'll rip all three discs I have and post it.

Gregg is playing his trusty blue Rickenbacker semi-hollow, which is the only guitar I ever saw him play except for one time at PJ's underground when he played my guitar for an impromptu performance of "Righteous Tune" with Ian and Ben at an OXYMORONS show. That's where the photos came from (I don't have any photos of Gregg playing his Rickenbacker). In the one at the top, that's Gregg in the foreground and Ian Uppstrom in the background (Ian's playing Grog's bass); Ben must be behind the drums. In the other one, Gregg is on the left while Ben (foreground) and Grog (background) are on the right. OXYMORONS used to cover "One of the Boys" by Mott the Hoople, which was a favorite of Gregg's, so I'm guessing that's what we're playing in that photo. These photos were most likely taken in the fall of 1989 (NOTE: I scanned these at 300 dpi, so they'll get a lot bigger if you click on them).

"Dribble Glass" is the one Bob chose for the LP. The lyrics to this song had been published as a poem in the Fall 1988 issue of Nexus.

"Rich Kid Avenue" later appeared on a CD comp called Hydroponic Mascara, vol. 2. I once asked Gregg what he meant by "my tires are painting the pavement blue." He said he had no idea.

"Nineteen" was an UNDERDOGS' song. As far as I know, this version was never released anywhere. This has always been my favorite Gregg Spence song. About a year before Gregg's death, Andy Valeri organized a benefit show for him at the downtown 1470. My old band HEIKE played a set and closed with this song. I believe there's a video tape of that show floating around somewhere.

Speaking of which, I know that Andy, Grog, and especially Tom Carter have tons of video relevant to this period in Dayton music history. Hey guys, ever heard of YouTube? What the fuck?

When Gregg gave Bob the tape of these songs to listen to, I made a copy for myself down at WSU's secondary studio. So I believe this would be second generation from the original reels. I put them on the same cassette that had my master copy of the first OXYMORONS tape, and they've been sitting there ever since.

Track List:

1. Dribble Glass
2. Rich Kid Avenue
3. Nineteen

Download It! (10 MB) (link re-upped 2-1-2013)

Gregg, of course, had dozens (if not hundreds) of other songs he did when he played solo shows around town. Of the few covers he used to do at those shows, I specifically recollect "A New England" by Billy Bragg and "Watching the Detectives" by Elvis Costello (and I'm sure there was some Richard Thompson in there too). No doubt somebody somewhere has at least one of those shows on tape. If it's you, please come forward. I'd love to post it.

You can find an in-progress Gregg Spence discography here.

You can read about the various Gregg Spence benefit shows that took place over the course of 1999 here.

You can view video of Gregg performing "Nineteen" and "Head Above Water" here (RealPlayer required).

You can buy your own Rickenbacker guitar here. No doubt they still carry them in blue...

In 1990, when Chris Rue and I were editing Nexus, we published another Gregg Spence poem entitled "Beat Poetry for Beginners," which is less a poem than an excuse to poke fun at Allen Ginsberg wannabes. Jen Cook (of COLAVISION) and some other characters later took the title of this poem as the name of their band (which never recorded anything and played, as far as I know, only one show -- but I was there, and Gail still has their sticker in her diary). I still have Gregg's typed and signed manuscript of this poem -- will post some time.

take care

---Jones

THE WIZBANGS, demos (cassette, 1991)

THE WIZBANGS were Denny Wilson's band after TOOBA BLOOZE broke up. I already wrote some of what I remember about them in the Viper's Drag post, but here's a bit more:

The WIZBANGS were:

Denny Wilson - guitar, voice
Tim Taylor - guitar, voice
Juan Monasterio - bass
Captain Karl Streuber - pans, harp, voice
J.J. Yates - "soul and groove" (that must mean drums in WIZBANG-talk)

They played groove-style '70s-ish rock -- well evidenced by the music for download today. They recorded these as demos and apparently sent them out to some radio stations (likely clubs and promoters too), but to my recollection, they never released this for general sale.

Will Dalgard told me they recorded these all pretty much in one take on a Saturday afternoon in the same order they appear on the cassette. They did it all live to 8-track at J.J.'s place. I think it was some time around March or April 1991. I don't think there are any overdubs. I'm pretty sure Will was there for at least part of the recording (he used to hang out with Denny and Tim, and he was probably this band's biggest fan -- so much so that he dedicated PLANET ED's first cassette to them, even though by then they had broken up). If I've got any of this wrong, someone correct me.

Will and Tim struck up a bit of a friendship, and I know Tim used to give Will guitar pointers all the time. Will would incorporate these into PLANET ED songs -- usually, but not always, with good results.

I saw these guys probably three or four times, always at Canal Street Tavern. In keeping with the tone of the music, they wore bell bottoms and Robert Plant style frilly shirts. They were quite the sight to see, but I must say, the girls ate it up. One reason I went to all those shows was that the place was always crawling with hot girls.

The WIZBANGS lasted a little less than a year. After they broke up, Tim and Juan, of course, went on to form BRAINIAC. Denny moved to New York. I don't know what happened to Karl or J.J.

Track List:

1. Selfish Son
2. Red Man
3. Don't Cry Mama
4. Disturbing the Peace
5. Funky & Superbad
6. Not What I See

Download It! (27 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)

My favorite tune here has always been "Red Man" (which Tim sings), followed closely by "Disturbing the Peace" (which features Karl prominently), but they're all pretty good if you don't mind this genre of music. But if you are at all put off by retro-groove, you should pass this one up.

The download pack includes scans of the insert and cassette. Those I got from Grog, but I ripped the music from a different cassette I had. Will had a first generation copy right from the original reels, and I dubbed that from him. I thought that might sound a little better than the production copy.

take care

---Jones

COLAVISION, Joan of Arcwelding (7" vinyl, 1993)

Ever see the movie Fright Night? Roddy McDowell plays a has-been actor named Peter Vincent with an inflated view of the importance of his own career (as a b-grade vampire killer in Hammer-esque horror films). He hosts a local late night horror movie show, and every time he shows one of his own shitty movies, he heaps praise upon it. Every time I post something on this blog that I played on, I feel just like Peter Vincent. That being said, here we go again.

I can't even feign ambivalence on this one. I fuckin' love this record--and as it happens, so did Ben Weasel. Here's his review:

"Quirky, snotty punk that really hits the spot - this is the best debut record I've heard in a year. Good production, nice hand painted-on-tin-foil covers... One of the few total low-budget D.I.Y. releases that doesn't fit that category just 'cause it sucks. It ain't perfect but it is pretty original; references to other bands are pointless. The headline is: Bored Dayton Brains Crank Out Great Midwest Punk. This is fucking rad. Go ahead and spend a few bucks on it."

---Ben Weasel, (Panic Button #8, 1994)

I got into COLAVISION at about the same time that OXYMORONS was breaking up (late 1993). I had played with drummer Dave Graeter (of LIQUID DRAINO) in PLANET ED. Daphne (a.k.a. Jen Cook, then Jen Simmerlink -- Grog's girlfriend at the time, later his wife, now his ex-) had never played bass in any band -- or, for that matter, ever played bass at all. We got together in Dave's basement and wrote some tunes. Dave wrote some lyrics, and I wrote some lyrics, usually only finishing them the night before we went into the studio. We played around Dayton (including the first gig for Kattie's band REAL LULU, which was then called BOY WONDER) and once or twice out of town. Then we just drifted apart. I think it was all over by the end of 1994. Joan of Arcwelding is the only thing we ever released (though I've got some cringeworthy demos of stuff we recorded later).

A few years after this was released, Phil Seilly told me that around 1996 or so, Renaissance Records was selling what they said was the "last available copy" for $50!

In addition to the music, I also love the fact that we took the time (at Dave's prompting) to hand paint each and every record cover on tinfoil. On the first one I painted, I wrote "This is not a Fugazi t-shirt." Dave frowned and told me, "Now everyone's going to think it's a Fugazi bootleg! That one's yours!"

Unfortunately, we pressed this on a particularly lousy grade of vinyl (which we jokingly called "cola-colored" because if you held it up to the light, you could see through its brown translucence--just like a glass of cola!), so the vinyl record sounds like absolute shit. And since the master tapes seemed to have disappeared long ago, I was afraid I was going to have to post that. But last fall, Dave told me that, lo and behold, the original DAT had reappeared in his house. He went to some studio and had them transferred to CD (apparently, the studio guy who did the transfer just sort of shook his head when he heard the music -- like "I can't believe you're paying to put this shit on CD"). So here's the record straight from the original digital master. Rawk...

Dave wrote the lyrics for "Problem #11" after staying up all night studying for an economics test (that's his textbook that Daphne and I are reading from).

"Ford" is my absolute favorite Colavision song ever. I've foisted it on dozens of people through mix-tapes and CDs over the years.

Phil had been under the impression that "Johnny" had been inspired by the Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers. Not true--it was inspired by Oakley Hall's novel Warlock. I liked that book so much, I named my son Oakley.

"No Damn Cat, No Damn Cradle" was, of course, inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s novel Cat's Cradle.

We called the record "Joan of Arcwelding" after a poem written by Gail's (and my) good friend Laura Albrecht. I just liked the title.

I could go on, but even I'm sick of my gushing by now. I'm guessing you bowed out right after "I feel just like Peter Vincent."

Track List:

1. Problem #11
2. Ford
3. Johnny Walks on the Right
4. No Damn Cat, No Damn Cradle

Download it! (24 MB) (link re-upped 2-2-2013)

There's also an outtake from these sessions on the CD that Dave gave me, but I'll post that some other time.

In addition to the songs, the download package contains scans of the cover (my copy), insert, and the vinyl record itself.

By the way, as I mentioned above, each record cover is different. Gail lent me a copy of hers for scanning a couple of months ago. If anyone else has a copy, I'd love to borrow it for scanning some time.

take care

---Jones

BOB BRAUN, "The Spirit of Christmas" b/w "Welcome Home" (7" vinyl, 1973)

I watched a lot of Star Trek as a kid (no surprise there, I'm sure). One episode in particular I remember is the one where Spock goes into that Vulcan mating psychosis and has to fight Kirk to the death over his wife. At the end, after Spock thinks he's killed Kirk and his wife tells him she's hot for some other dude, Spock just shrugs, lets her go, and tells the other man that, "You may find that having is not so pleasurable a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is true."

And that's why Christmas Eve is the greatest day of the year -- better than your birthday, better than Halloween (though it's admittedly a close call), better even than The Day itself. Even when I was a kid, it didn't take too many Christmases for me to realize that no matter how great my presents would turn out to be, nothing was so good as the anticipation. Waking up on the morning of Christmas Eve and knowing that Christmas was almost here but not quite here was better than waking up Christmas morning and finding what Santa left (though I have to say that was pretty good too).

Of course, the older you get, the less the gifts matter. But for me at least, that just makes Christmas Eve better. If the 24th falls on a weekday, what Scrooge termed "the even handed dealing of the world" still continues. You can go out, or you can go to work if you have to, but for that day at least it seems people take everything a little less seriously because most everything will come to a halt the next day. Got to file that report? Got to write that paper? Fuck no! It can wait 'til the 26th! Even the most obnoxious Type-A's among us have to goof off a little. And compared to the way we are the rest of the year, it makes work almost a pleasure.

So if you are at work right now and reading this blog, good for you! Goof the fuck off as much as you want. That's what Christmas Eve is all about. Today's download is an absolute pile of dung! Download it and force everyone at your workplace to listen!

Today's download comes to us from the collection of Ms. Gail Dafler, who found this little treasure while thrifting some time in the mid-'90s. Okay, not only is it neither punk nor indie rock nor anything approaching that, but it's also technically not from Dayton. So it really has no place on this blog.

Then again, maybe it does. Anybody who had grown up in Dayton and was making music fifteen years ago doubtless grew up with Bob Braun, the ubiquitous TV personality from Cincinnati whose eponymous talk show aired weekday mornings in both the Cincinnati and Dayton markets (and undoubtedly many other places in the tri-state area). No doubt every city had (still has) someone like Bob. He was cheese personified. His non-threatening voice and commanding good looks tended to grace anything that could be dubbed "community related." He opened supermarkets and city centers, had recurring guest opinion spots on radio and television, judged baking, livestock, and sewing contests. I distinctly remember he sliced up the pie that went for $2000 at the 1979 Ohio State Fair (I was there). Bob was the happy mask behind which hid the grime, decay, and desperation of urban life in Dayton of the 1970s. He was the face of denial in a grasping, scratching, wheezing, post-Vietnam, pre-tech boom Miami Valley.

We hated him, but in a fucked up way, we loved him. I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare that my generation was the first to openly acknowledge and even promote the legitimacy of irony as an art form. And even the most primitive sense of irony had to respect the perverseness lurking behind the ridiculous veneer of civility that Bob Braun stood for. He is a treasured cultural icon 'round these parts precisely because he could not possibly be confused with anything that should have serious artistic value. Even better, just like Big K Cola and the venerable Voss Hoss, he was all ours -- whether we liked it or not.

Of course, as Bob's Wikipedia entry notes, he would not be ours forever. In 1984 he left southwest Ohio to pursue a career in Hollywood. Although he landed jobs in commercials (even if you don't live around here, you may know him as the former spokesman for Craftmatic Adjustable Beds), local talk shows, and a few feature films (he had a bit part in Die Hard 2), by 1994 he was back in Cincinnati hosting a radio show with his nephew "Bucks" Braun (himself a noteworthy radio personality in Dayton at the time). He retired in 1997 and died of Parkinson's Disease in 2001.

Now lest anyone think I speak ill of the departed, I'll also add that although I question the value of Bob Braun's contribution to culture, no one can question the good he did in his lifetime as a staunch supporter of the Ruth Lyons Children's Fund (to which you can make contributions at the preceding link). And at no time did Bob do more for the fund than he did at Christmas...

...which, of course, leads us (finally...) to the record itself, a 7" vinyl record recorded by Bob Braun with The Cliff Lash Orchestra (I dunno...) and something called "The Fun Bunch" (and if you're expecting me to make some parenthetical joke about that, you'd be right except that I can't think of anything that's really funnier than just typing "The Fun Bunch"). "The Spirit of Christmas" appears to be a Cliff Lash original. It's seasonal schlock from the '70s at its schlockiest and '70s-est. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The label places this in 1973, which would be six years into Bob's seventeen-year stint as host of The Bob Braun Show on WLWT-TV in Cincinnati (check out this customer review of a Ruth Lyons Christmas album at Amazon.com for more information on the show and its peculiar Christmas traditions).

Download It! (15 MB) (link re-upped on 3-29-2010)

Okay then, that's about it. I'm posting this just after midnight, Christmas Eve. If you read this early in the day, do yourself a favor: drop whatever you're doing right now and go have a Christmas adventure. No shit. If you can at all manage it, do at least a little something you hadn't planned to do today. Doesn't matter what it is. If you're cynical about holiday commercialism, go downtown right now and give somebody fifty bucks (doesn't matter if you think they'll spend it on booze, doesn't matter if there are billions of others still starving -- give somebody fifty bucks). If you can't get out of work, give it to the person sitting next to you. If you're the kind of person who regularly does unto others, go buy something for yourself. If you can't do any of that stuff, do something else. Do something you didn't know you would do when you got up today. And if you can, make somebody happy -- doesn't matter who.

Merry Christmas,

---Jones

Music View, Holiday Show (12" & 7" vinyl, 1990)

If you know me, then you probably know that I go absolutely ape for pretty much anything related to the holidays. It's a shortcoming, I know, but it's one which, like my smoking, I feel no compulsion to correct. When it comes to Christmas (and Hannukah and Solstice and even Kwanzaa to a degree -- NOTE: I don't include Ramadan among the holidays NOT because I have any problem with Islam but because, as the black muslims at London Correctional taught me, Ramadan is not a "holiday" as we ordinarily think of one (though Eid ul-Fitr sort of is) and it often comes well before December (this year it ended on October 12)), I pretty much go for the whole package: decorations, wrapping paper, holiday-themed television, books, movies, music. I buy as many presents as I can afford. I stuff myself with food and candy. I take my son to see Santa Claus. For fuck's sake, I saw Surviving Christmas (with that delightful Ben Affleck) in the theater -- and liked it! (though I draw the line at Deck the Halls (Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito), which was just too inane even for me)

More than anything else, though, I dig the music. Every year, in lieu of Christmas cards, I distribute a Christmas-themed CD of indie rock and audio miscellany to everyone I know -- a disc I spend pretty much all year compiling (yes, you'll often find me listening to Christmas music in July). In addition to just being fun, I find that sampling a wide variety of Christmas music keeps me in touch with heights of beauty and solemnity, as well as the depths of absurdity, to which every strata of the media can transmogrify the holiday spirit in song. In the old days, my grandfather used to play stand up bass and violin in various bands around Chicago, and it was a favorite saying of his that any musician who can't get a job on New Years Eve is no musician at all. Being a musician and general music lover myself, I would add to my grandfather's observation that any musician who doesn't do something related to the holidays at some point in his career has no idea what he's doing. Everybody does a Christmas song -- I mean, everybody.

Of course, with that in mind, I must now admit that even among the voluminous collection of music extant from Dayton's indie rock history in the collections of Grog, Gail, and me, there is not a single Christmas song to be found. And for the life of me, I can't remember anyone from the era I ordinarily cover on this blog actually recording one. Sure, THE OXYMORONS did "Silver Bells" live once or twice, and THE OBVIOUS used to crank out a great cover of "White Christmas." I have a vivid memory of one Christmas show we did together (i.e. OXYMORONS and THE OBVIOUS) that ended with Greg Johnson taking a drunken backward tumble off the stage and into Canal Street Tavern's Christmas tree -- there was tinsel and beer everywhere. For Christmas 2003, my band THE VECTORS did a mini-holiday party at Canal Street Tavern at which we gave our CD away for free and performed a second set consisting entirely of Christmas songs (I even have a video tape of that show somewhere, but ripping and sharing of that will have to wait until next year). And I've no doubt any number of other Dayton bands recorded some kind of Christmas tuneage, but I currently have access to none of it.

Yeah, that's Dayton. For decades this town has provided nothing appropriate to this season or any other. I can think of no better metaphor for living here than being a ten year old kid ripping open a package on Christmas morning, expecting an Atari 2600, and getting a box full of dress socks or something.

And that's why, in lieu of any holiday audio specifically related to Dayton, I am today offering, for your holiday listening pleasure, a lame substitute:

Music View was a canned weekly music news program distributed to college radio stations on 12" vinyl in the late '80s and early '90s. At WWSU, we usually ran it on Friday nights at about 7:30 p.m. (and maybe once or twice more over the weekend). The show featured interviews and music with various luminaries and up-and-comers in the universe of what was then called "alternative" or "modern" rock. Or, at least, that's what it was supposed to do. You see, even at the time, I was a little suspicious of this program because although the production company (Joseph Fox Communications, Inc. -- which I believe was gobbled up by Time Warner at some point in the '90s) was technically independent, the whole thing was underwritten by that evil soul-sucking demonic cabal of the consumer recording industry: The Columbia Record and Tape Club!

Remember the Columbia Record and Tape Club? Remember how they lured you in with the irresistible promise of "12 records for a penny!"? Remember how, after you got those records, you then found yourself snared in a dizzying miasma of contractual obligations to buy so many records over a 12-month period for the rest of your natural life? Remember how often you forgot to send back the little notice attached to each monthly catalog to tell the company that you did NOT want whatever their featured piece of crap was that month? Remember how that resulted in you actually having to pay for some shitty record from the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT? Remember having to explain to your friends why you owned some shitty record from the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT? If none of this rings a bell, count yourself lucky. I was but one of many who, like any drug addict, got sucked in by the promise of a cheap score, only later to find out that nothing in life costs a penny -- and for the next seven years, me and my credit report suffered.

Yeah, that's where the money behind Music View came from, and so even back then I used to wonder exactly how the featured artists on each show were chosen. But even so, in a world lacking the magic power of the web, Music View remained one of the few places to hear information and music from artists outside the top forty mainstream. And although host John Fox spent a good amount of time covering concocted industry experiments who were supposed to be "the next big thing" (TRANSVISION VAMP anyone?), he also hit on a lot of good music from real artists in there.

The 1990 holiday show (officially, episode #98), presented for download here, is a pretty good example of the good and bad that Music View had to offer. Listen and you'll hear Christmas cuts from THE RAMONES, THE GONADS, THE REDUCERS, ED GEIN'S CAR, DAVID CASSIDY (no shit!), and BABY TAPEWORM. Interview segments feature artists like LIVING COLOUR, BLUE HEARTS, INSPIRAL CARPETS, DAVID CASSIDY (the only artist with both interview and music presented), and CIRCLE JERKS. The whole thing is hosted by the aforementioned John Fox (who must've finished in the top of the class at The Casey Kasem School of Broadcasting, 'cos he sounds just like him), with a brief segment on punk rock called "Rabid Food" hosted by Jack Rabid. "Rabid Food" was a regular feature on Music View and always my favorite part of the show.

Download It! (54 MB)

Like all Music View episodes, this one is presented in three segments (on the vinyl, each segment was separated by a locked groove allowing the DJ on whatever station was playing the show to pop in and perhaps give things a more local feel). Tracks 2-4 in the download package are those segments. Each show also came with a 7" record full of daily promo spots for what was coming up on the show that week. Those promo spots are track 1. The whole show is 28 minutes, the dailies about 7. The package also includes scans of the promo sheet and show schedule that came with the record.

Although the dailies inexplicably promise music and talk from PRIMAL SCREAM, that band appears nowhere in the show itself.

Yeah, it's not Dayton-related -- but hey, it's Christmas...

...and it only gets worse: return to this blog on CHRISTMAS EVE for another audio offering that will simply curl your ear-hairs. Until then...

feliz navi-nada, baby...

---Jones

FLESHBATS, Pure Flesh for Stomach & Mind (cassette, 1988)

Frantic, earnest hardcore made by honest to god excellent musicians. Everything about it kicks ass, but I especially love Mike Smith's amazing guitar playing, which makes me think of Black Sabbath and DOA.

Jason gave me a copy of this tape not long after it was recorded. I listened to it all summer. Later that year I joined FLESHBATS as second guitar player. I'll say more about that when I post their second cassette Petty Criminals Hang Like Monkeys, but for now, I'll keep it brief.

FLESHBATS were:

Jayson Himes - vocals
Lino Bovenzi - drums
Mike Smith - guitar
Dave Robick - bass

Lino was born and raised in Italy, which has a long tradition of excellent hardcore (cf. NEGAZIONE, INFEZIONE). In Dayton, he drove a cab.

After FLESHBATS broke up, Dave, Mike, and Lino played together in a number of bands through the '90s, including GONGKICKER (with Chris Pospisil on vocals) and THE IGNITERS.

Jayson's current band is THE AMERICAN STATIC, an incredibly popular act around town right now which also includes Todd Weidner (SHRUG) and, until recently, Steven Gullet (SNAKE OIL, LOVE LIES BLEEDING, et al.).

Track List:

1. Revolution Time
2. Racheal's Mess
3. Homemade LSD
4. Sand and Blood
5. Urban Hatred
6. Fast One, Slow One
7. I'm on Junk

Recorded at Cro-Magnon studios, January 1988.

All tracks are great, but the best one is "Revolution Time," an anthemic fuck-you to consumer society.

Download it! (17 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)

take care

---Jones

SOURBELLY, Fat 4 (cassette, 1993)

I'm actually laughing as I type now because Hogarth is gonna kill me for sharing this one (so let's nobody tell him, okay?). I'll explain why in a minute, but first, a few words about Brian himself and how this band came to be.

Brian was one of Will's friends who used to come out to all sorts of shows. He was also one of the people who'd come by every so often to watch bad '80s horror movies until all hours with me and Will. I remember giving Brian a couple of guitar lessons at some point. Okay, Brian is a big guy (used to play college football) with big fingers, and although he had a Telecaster (which has a wide neck), he still had a lot of trouble getting those barre chords to ring out at first. But that didn't stop him from putting this band together.

Their first show was at the Wright State Rathskellar in 1992. Honestly, it was excruciating. They got lost a lot, and it seemed Brian was always squinting down at his guitar, which meant he wasn't singing directly into the microphone, so it was hard to hear the vocals, which were probably the strongest part of the group. But you could tell there was some talent there. You could legitimately figure they'd improve.

My impression is that Brian has always regarded this cassette as total shit. If you see him around, try mentioning Fat 4 and you might see the "Fat-4 Face," which is a look of disgust so abject, so pure that most of us could only manage it if we were actually served a plate full of real shit in a fancy restaurant.

To be sure, this cassette is not a display of finely crafted musical talent. The band really does sound like they've been playing for only a couple of months. The arrangements sometimes lack direction. There's one part where I'd swear that the guitar and bass are playing two different songs. That being said, there's still much to enjoy here. Brian always had the edgiest voice in Dayton--raw, powerful. Positive comparisons to NIRVANA and THE RAMONES aren't out of the question. It's rough, but it's good. And of course, SOURBELLY would get a whole lot better. Download Plasma Boy if you don't believe me. And watch this blog for SOURBELLY's self-titled second cassette (with Gregg Spence on drums).

Track notes:

• "Johnny" was later re-recorded (with a different drummer and bass player) for SOURBELLY's second cassette and also appeared on the Cro-Magnon compilation 1101 E. Second Street.
  
• "Ed" was written about one of SOURBELLY's first practices.
  
• I've always wondered who "Card Shop Cate" was about, but I never asked.

Track list:

1. Johnny
2. Ed, Ed Chicken Head
3. Card Shop Cate
4. Pet the Rabbit

Download it! (13 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)

take care

---Jones

Thanksgiving with MOM... (s/t (mysterious cassette, 1987))

Happy Thanksgiving, all. We were supposed to go to the folks house today, but my son got sick, so here I am watching Green Bay at Detroit and playing Mario on the DS. Earlier, I watched the infamous WKRP "Turkeys Away!" episode (culturally imperative Turkey Day viewing for all Southwest Ohio folk--as is just about every episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, especially the absolutely surreal episode where they go to Dayton ("be careful, Andy... Dayton can be nasty after dark!")). Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity to post a little something. Here we go:

The Mystery of MOM...

So I'm down in my basement, and I'm psyched. I'm totally psyched because today I'm ripping the MOM cassette that Gail brought over. In 1987 I'd heard a lot about MOM but never saw them live or heard any recordings. For twenty years, all I'd ever had to go on were descriptions from others, a flyer I had, and strange imagery brought up by the names of some of the band members: Roger Revlon, Bad Elvis. Really, how could they not be fucking cool?

So I pop in the tape, press play, and click record in CoolEdit. The cassette insert lists nine songs in total--get that, nine forgotten gems of experimental indie rock from Dayton's past. The first two songs are great. Odd lyrics and growly guitar over a monolithic drum-machine beat. Shades of LE TIGRE and other drum-machine sporting rock bands of the late '90s--but with a pure '80s punk bent. I'm diggin', I'm diggin', I'm diggin' and then...

...that's it: naught but silence for five minutes after the second track. In desperation, I fast forward, hear the click as the reels freeze in place when the tape reaches its limit, flip it over, and with trembling figures press the play button on side 2.

Imagine my disappointment as side 2 starts with what sounds like the same song at the start of side 1. Then the second song plays and after that, nothing again.

Just to be sure, I let both sides run completely as I putter around the basement. But all I get is twenty-five minutes of tape hiss on both! Tape hiss that takes on the suggestion of laughter in the dark--mocking laughter from twenty years ago, aimed through some demonic manipulation of time and space straight at me in the year 2007!

As I scan the cover insert again, a dreadful thought occurs to me: I've no guarantee that I'm even listening to the fabled MOM of Gem City legend! I mean, the cassette is labeled "MOM," and it came wrapped in a MOM cassette insert on paper that's the same shade of blue as the cassette label. But the lyrics to the songs on the tape don't suggest any of the titles. And I hear no saxaphone, even though the insert says that MOM had a sax player.

Without more information, I'm left to make only the vaguest of inferences. These songs probably are by MOM. The insert lists no drummer, and these songs use a drum machine. There couldn't have been too many non-dance-pop bands at that time that used a drum machine. But my guess is that these songs were recorded after the cassette that goes with the insert--likely demos or outtakes that Dennis gave Gail for some reason, or perhaps test recordings. I say that because close listening reveals that the two songs on both sides are not exactly the same recordings. They have slightly different beginnings and endings and perhaps different vocal tracks. But otherwise, they are virtually identical.

As I said, I know little about MOM. But according to the band roster, they were:

Dennis Schlichter - vocals & guitar
Roger Revlon - vocals & sax & noise
Bad Elvis - guitar
Chris Green - bass guitar

Dennis has been a friend of Gail for as long as I can remember (perhaps she might ask him to clear up this mystery?). I remember hearing Roger's name in the old days, but I know nothing about him (maybe Kris Pliess knew him?). Bad Elvis was likely in another fabled Dayton band of this era, BAD ELVIS IMPERSONATORS, and something tells me that he'll turn out to be someone I know. But I can't be sure. I believe I've met Chris Green a few times over the years, but I don't know him very well. Val tells me he's a lawyer now.

Finally, MOM was gigging around Dayton in 1987 and perhaps into '88, but it seems to me they were broken up by summer of '88 at the latest.

Track List:

1. [It Takes A Man (to Make A Man), version A]
2. [unknown, version A]
3. [It Takes A Man (to Make A Man), version B]
4. [unknown, version B]

Download It! (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)

The titles are bracketed because I made them up. Just going by the title list on the insert, I don't believe either of these were on that cassette.

take care

---Jones

PLANET ED, Listen and Understand, Earthlings! (7", 1990)

Of any band I've ever been in, PLANET ED was the most emotionally draining, mostly due to the nearly polar opposite personalities of Will and Dave. Those two guys had completely adverse approaches to music, which made for a lot of tension in this band. But all that tension also made for some great shows, great recordings, and great fun overall (at least from my perspective). Looking back on it now, I wouldn't change one thing.

Will had sort of a musical split personality. On the one hand, he liked punk rock. As I said in the DOBIE WILLIS post, he was (still is) an unabashed admirer of JELLO BIAFRA, THE DEAD KENNEDYS, DOA, and THE RAMONES. This is all true. But Will never quite got past his teenage obsession with LED ZEPPELIN, TED NUGENT, and other '70s cock rockers. To be fair, I had a similar obsession in my teenage years, and I never quite got past it either (just last summer I dug up a bunch of BLACK SABBATH tunes and obsessed on them for about a week -- and just in time for Satan Day 2006 (that's 6-6-06 in case you don't get it; and if I'm still alive in June of 2066 I'll be celebrating Satan Month with demonic fervor)).

But Will especially loved '70s-style groove jams: you know, like the 10-minute guitar solo in "Stranglehold" by TED NUGENT and shit like that. Most of the songs he wrote for PLANET ED featured a very long instrumental break, usually filled by Will going off on some Biafra-esque tirade (if you listened to Stand Your Ground you already know what I'm talking about). Will also loved to play incredibly long sets and talk to people while on stage. It didn't bother him too much if we spent a minute or two (or three or four or ten) between songs yelling at people in the crowd or making bad jokes -- like, imagine the FEAR sequence in Decline of Western Civilization (don't make me say Part 1), except less confrontational and less funny.

Dave, on the other hand, loved short fast songs with goofy, down-to-earth lyrics. His idols were SCREECHING WEASEL, CRIMPSHRINE, MR. T EXPERIENCE, GREEN DAY, THE QUEERS, CRINGER, 7 SECONDS, and hundreds (literally hundreds--Dave's record collection was of Bodleian proportions) of other bands that Will used to refer to as "low-grade punk rock" (of course, this was three years before Dookie! would come out and suddenly turn Dave's "low-grade punk rock" into big, BIG business). He couldn't stand long instrumental grooves, and he wanted a very short set and as little time as possible between songs. In Dave Graeter's happy place, the bands all play fifteen songs in ten minutes.

I guess I sort of fell somewhere in the middle--maybe. I mean, I definitely liked short songs, but I also wanted a little more substance in the music than Dave seemed content with. I was also totally obsessed with BOB MOULD and HUSKER DU, so I wanted more emo-type content in there too. So basically, each of us was going in a different direction. We argued. We argued a lot.

One way or another, things always seemed to go wrong for PLANET ED. The majority of horror stories I have about playing shows are from PLANET ED shows. At our "big show" with ROYAL CRESCENT MOB at Canal Street Tavern, the Mob turned out to be total assholes who wanted us off stage in like thirty minutes (so we played for an hour--and even Dave was okay with that). We played Oxford when the snow was 8 inches deep and I had a terrible head cold and we had to wait until 3 a.m. to collect our money (which turned out to be $15). Our planned five-day tour of the midwest fell apart completely at the last minute. I mean, every booking fell through the day we were supposed to leave--after we'd rented the van!

But we kept playing. We kept practicing. We kept making records. Somehow, for the two years we were together, it worked. We argued, but we compromised. We had some lousy shows, but we turned them into great stories. For all the tension, it was fun. And I think we made some good music.

PLANET ED's first release was a cassette entitled Bubblegum for the Masses, a live thing we recorded at Canal Street Tavern. That cassette is sort of a story in itself and best belongs with a post about Canal Street Tavern. Today, I'm sharing our first 7" record, Listen and Understand, Earthlings!

I like this one because I think it shows how each of us kind of set aside our usual preferences and learned something from the others. Although I wrote "Hollywood Erotic," it's really a joke song -- no emo-content whatsoever. "Feelings Turn Colors" is Will's offering, but it's a fairly straight arrangement with only a brief guitar solo and no political ranting. Dave's song "Tension Kid" (which is at least partly about Will) is actually the longest one, and it's even got a groovy instrumental break in the middle.

Track list:

1. Hollywood Erotic
2. Feelings Turn Colors
3. Tension Kid

Download it! (18 MB) (link re-upped on 2-4-2013)

UPDATE 2-4-2013: The download package here is a completely new rip.  The old one was done on a terrible combo-stereo system.  This one is from a much better stereo.

As usual, the download package includes hi-resolution scans of the record and the insert. I think this one came out particularly well. I love Dave's layout on the inner part of the sleeve (the pictures in this entry are details of it), and I think the label on the "Planet Side" of the vinyl is so nice, I'd put it on a t-shirt.

The sample at the beginning of "Feelings Turn Colors" is from Dead Poets' Society. The one in the middle of "Tension Kid" is from Repo Man (which I should really get on DVD some time).

Nick Kizirnis and Nick Atkinson helped with the back-up vocals on "Tension Kid."

Recorded at Cro-Magnon studios. Engineered by Joe Buben.

For the bands I played in, my ultimate wish for this blog has always been to some day dig up all the masters and post better quality recordings. Unfortunately, in PLANET ED's case, this plan will always remain a dream. For some inexplicable reason, Dave and I appointed Will the official keeper of the PLANET ED masters. In typical Dalgard fashion, he lost them years ago (probably traded them for some magic beans). Today's post is from the vinyl. However, Dave tells me he's got a cassette of this stuff that came right from the studio master tapes. When I get that tape from him, I'll post it here.

take care

---Jones