Off-site: DEMENTIA PRECOX, SCHP

It's nice to know that the more active blogospherians out there are willing to pick up my slack -- even if they don't realize they're doing it.

The amazing Wheat sent me this link to a rip of the 1982 DEMENTIA PRECOX EP, SCHP over at the Thing on the Doorstep blog. Yeah, that's five tracks of Daytonian proto-industrial/goth/punk/whatever straight from the '80s -- delivered to you here in Siglo XXI through the miracle of the internet!

Of course, sometimes I wonder if it really is such a miracle. I mean, yeah it is, but does that really make it a good thing? I think about those people back in 1982 who loved good music so much... who were so dissatisfied with what mainstream pop culture had to offer... who were so thirsty for something different that they might've spent a significant portion of their daily lives tracking down releases like this through obscure mail-order or the few decent record stores that might have carried them. And here we are in the future, where you can get it with a click.

"In here I'm 'the guy who can get it for you.' But out there, all you need is the Yellow Pages."

Morgan Freeman's character (Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding) says that in The Shawshank Redemption -- in a part of the film in which "Red" contemplates how needless his particular skills in acquiring objects would be if he were ever released. How many "Reds" have the internet (and blogs like this) made obsolete? Ah well...

take care

---Jones()

[Title of Show]

No more excuses for not updating. I'm just a lazy fucker, and who even knows when I'll do a real update? I totally suck.

But something drifted through my transom today that I thought I should post here. It's only vaguely related to Dayton, and it isn't even indie rock, but here we go anyway.

[Title of Show] is a show currently running on Broadway starring, among others, Susan Blackwell. Susan and I went to high school together at Bethel oh so many years ago. I remember the she and I and Kris Pleis used to spend a bit of time every day together during some math class or other. She was always a good egg, and quite talented. You might have seen her (as I have) in some episode of _The Sopranos_ or _Law & Order_ over the past fifteen years or so.

She and I both went to Wright State after high school, but I pretty much lost track of her there. She was in the Theatre Department doing theatrical stuff, and I was in the English department trying to pass myself off as a college student long enough to score as many free records as possible out of the radio station. I do remember I saw her in sort of minimalist version of _The Elephant Man_, in which she played the Elephant Man himself. But otherwise, I had little idea what was going on with her. Ironically, my ex-wife got to know her better than I did because she was in the theatre department too back then.

Anyway, as far as I know, Susan was never the big indie rocker while she was in Dayton. I don't remember seeing her at shows or anything. So yeah, this is a bit off-topic for this blog. But there's at least some Dayton connection.

Apparently, Susan stars in and co-wrote [Title of Show]. Check out the link for more info. And see it if you're in NYC any time soon.

take care

---Jones()

Off-site: FRANKENSTEIN'S KIND and OXYMORONS (sort of!) at YouTube!

Mite Mutant deserves all the credit for digging up these amazing videos.

First, we have this long lost example of mid-'80s creativity from FRANKENSTEIN'S KIND (a band that has, quite UNdeservedly, slipped into Dayton obscurity):



And now, just when you thought things couldn't get any more surreal, here's a video of a drummer playing along with Nick Atkinson's part in THE OXYMORONS' "Day of Reckoning":



If you've never played an instrument, then you might not be familiar with the (common) practice of base imitation to develop one's skill.

If you've ever been involved with any creative art other than music, then you might eschew the practice of imitation as a means to develop creativity. To put it in terms that TINY creative minds might understand, you might think that imitation is for suckers.

However, nothing can be further from the truth. Imitation has been a standard part of creative development for centuries (Benjamin Franklin, in fact, wrote an instructive essay in which he admits that he learned to write well by copying passages from his favorite writers many times over and changing them just a bit each time). The 20th Century witnessed a revolution in pretty much every form of art and invented several new ones. Yet the great disservice that 20th-century thinking did to artists lies in its over-emphasis on complete originality. Certainly, originality is an important element in any finished work of art, but the development of creativity must certainly include the practice of unabashed imitation of previous works of art by which one has been inspired. Seriously, could Jack Kerouac have developed the creativity to write On the Road without first directly imitating his hero Thomas Wolfe in Kerouac's first novel, The Town and the City? Could the ROLLING STONES have recorded Exile on Main Street without first covering the old blues standard "Come On, Come On!"?

And to develop my own (marginal) creative skill, I myself spent hours playing Joey Santiago solos and Bob Mould rhythms note-for-note on my guitar before I ever ventured to record anything I would call "original" (and whatever decency there was in any music I ever made owes a heavy debt to those hours of imitation). With that in mind, I salute both the (unfortunately anonymous) drummer playing in this video AND Nick Atkinson, whose original playing on this track inspired the imitation.

take care

---Jones()

Hi... I'm a dick...

...but I am working on getting new stuff up...

...if by "working," I mean "not doing anything."

That's not quite true, but it's close. Seriously though, I've got some great stuff from E.Y.E. ready to go soon. But I'm also working on getting the first issue of the Capital University Law Review ready for publication -- not that that's any excuse. I mean, come on: legal scholarship vs. forgotten indie rock from Dayton? Is there really any contest? But I am paying several thousand dollars for this legal education, so I have to give it some attention.

(gotta get my priorities straightened out)

take care

---Jones()

Happy Halloween...

Yeah, it's been a while since the last update. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon, but in the meantime, the new Halloween CD is done -- and it's even got a couple tracks from Dayton artists on it. If you'd like a copy, let me know. Or you can just download the music and the cover and burn one for yourself.

By the way, if you take the second option, make sure you set the burning method to "disc-at-once" or reduce the forced pause between each track to zero (0) seconds. As usual, I used a cross-fader to bleed the tracks into each other, which will sound really annoying if there is any forced pause between them.

Here are the track notes:

JONES HALLOWEEN CD 2008

Well, another spooky-ass year has come and gone. If you know me, then you already know why this one right-royally sucked complete and total ass! And if you don’t, just trust me that it did. But why should that stop me from compiling yet another goofy compilation of horror movie trailers and scary musical oddities from the past and (near) present?

Yes, once again it’s that time of year. Halloween: the favorite holiday of horror movie buffs, goth freaks, and others with undiagnosed personality disorders. Put on a costume, throw a party, and for god’s sake call Hollywood and ask them to stop making those ridiculous Saw movies!

1. "All Night Orgy of Sex and Violence..." - Okay, I was lazy on the intro here. This is yet another clip from "Nasty," the best-ever episode of the '80s British sitcom, The Young Ones (just like the one that opened last year's disc).
2. "Zombies," The Lillingtons - From the band's final release The Too Late Show (2006).
3. "I Put A Spell on You," Screamin' Jay Hawkins - According to Mr. Hawkins, when this song was recorded in 1957, the (uncredited) producer "brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version. I don't even remember making the record. Before, I was just a normal blues singer. I was just Jay Hawkins. It all sort of just fell in place. I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death."
4. "Run Away! (Nightbeast Theme)," The Nightbeast - Homegrown talent here. Dayton's own Nightbeast (a.k.a. Nick Testa) has been slowly building a career over the last few years as sort of an awkward suburban Ladies’ Man with a Casio keyboard. I caught his act a couple of years ago at the now defunct Elbo's down by the Greyhound Bus Station and laughed my ass off. If you like this, check out more of his stuff at http://www.myspace.com/thenightbeast before the joke gets too old.
5. Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde - Given the subsequent track here, I was tempted to go with one of the many Blacula radio spots I've got in my arsenal. But Oakley thought this one was just a scream! And of all the blaxploitation film spots I've heard, this is the one that always leaves me on the floor--your momma too...
6. "Soul Dracula," Hot Blood - In pop music, I think the difference between a musical fad and a musical genre is that a fad spawns a far greater number of one-off novelty tracks by mock-up artists that never really existed. And if I'm right, I think I'm also right that disco is the ultimate musical fad of all time. Seriously, name the subject: Halloween, Christmas, politics, Star Wars, the starting lineup of the 1978 Houston Oilers... I'll give you even money that disco has a joke song to fit the occasion. Although not widely known, "Soul Dracula" by Hot Blood is a divine treat for obscure, late-'70s pop culture dorks like me.
7. "Frankenstein," Gene Defcon - Picked this up on e-music. More low-budget camp here from former members of Bikini Kill, Tight Bros., From Way Back When, Bangs, Mocket, and the Primadonnas. "Frankenstein" can be found on this project's 2000 album Come Party With Me.
8. "Would You Be So Hot (If You Weren't Dead?)," The Damned - In their heyday, The Damned approached punk rock with a sense of serious humor that went far over the heads of even their biggest fans (check out Machine Gun Etiquette, their best album, if you don’t believe me) . This selection from their 2001 reunion album Grave Disorder doesn't quite measure up to the surreal, driving noise they produced in the old days, but it does feature Patricia Morrison (of The Gun Club) on bass, and although Dave Vanian and Capt. Sensible may have lost a step (or two) over the last twenty years, they're still doing pretty well.
9. Psycho 1965 re-release radio spot - Although this radio trailer is not from the original 1959 release, it follows the tradition of all original promotion for Psycho in that it features no media from the film but simply commentary by the director.
10. "Psycho Repairman," The Humpers - From the band's 2002 release Positively Sick on 4th St.
11. "Anything Can Happen on Halloween," Tim Curry - From the 1986 straight-to-cable video production of The Worst Witch. And yes, it really is that Tim Curry. Read more about it at http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/10/im_all_excited_.html.
12. "Spooky Swing," Parados - From their 2007 instrumental album Haunted.
13. "Keep Watching the Skies" - Clipped from the original, Howard Hawkes classic The Thing (from Another World) (1951), which is actually not as good as John Carpenter’s 1982 remake.
14. "Man from Mars," The Neanderthals - The overworked psychobilly genre becomes no more popular at any other time than it does at Halloween. And because it's so ubiquitous this time of year, I try to keep the psychobilly on these compilations to a minimum. But a couple tracks always seem to sneak in here. This one is from the Neanderthals' 2005 release Neanderthals in Space.
15. "Witches' Rave," Jeff Buckley - The first of three artists on this Halloween compilation reaching out to us from beyond the grave. Jeff Buckley's brief but notable rise from cover artist to modern rock icon was tragically cut short by his semi-mysterious death by drowning at age 30 in 1997.
16. Phantasm radio spot - Perhaps the most surreal horror film ever (except for Suspiria, I guess), Don Coscarelli's Phantasm still freaks me out today almost as much as it did in 1979. I think that's probably because its trademark funereal imagery has somehow gone without imitation in the last 30 years--so to me, at least, it still looks freshly creepy. If you've never seen the film and you're looking for something that'll freak you out until Christmas, this one is worth a rental this Halloween season.
17. "Haunted House," Hasil Adkins - As a child in 1940s West Virginia who didn’t know about a then-new invention called multi-tracking, Hasil Adkins grew up listening to Hank Williams records under the impression that Hank was playing all the instruments at the same time. Thus upon embarking on his own musical career, Adkins taught himself to be a one-man band. His first attempt at a musical career ended in the late '60s after issuing singles on a dozen minor record labels, each of which disappeared into obscurity. Almost literally disappearing himself, Adkins spent the next fifteen years living in his mother's home but still committing thousands of original recordings to ever-growing piles of reel-to-reel tape strewn about the living room. As the story goes, one of the founders of Rhino Records picked up a scratchy Hasil Adkins 7" at a garage sale in the early '80s and spent the next 18 months tracking down the artist. It took little convincing to get Adkins to release many of his home recordings on Rhino, record new material, and tour in support of it all. Although credited with less than 6 days of formal education, Adkins did speaking tours for college audiences on his unique approach to musical artistry and continued to play and record music until his bizarre death (10 days after being run over in his front yard by a complete stranger on an ATV) in 2005.
18. "I Want to Be Evil," Eartha Kitt - Near as I can figure out, the Greatest Catwoman of All Time recorded this signature tune some time before 1962. Thanks to Melissa for suggesting this one.
19. Horror of the Zombies radio spot - Since its first release in 1974, this Spanish film has drifted from drive-in screens to late-night cable to VHS and now to DVD under at least a dozen titles spanning six languages. I've never seen it, but the number of titles this one has had leads me to believe it's quite the snoozer. But the radio spot makes it sound cool, no?
20. "Zombie Prostitute," Voltaire - Though copping a French name, this solo artist has been releasing his peculiar blend of Tejano, roots, and indie rock music since 1998. "Zombie Prostitute" comes from his 2007 release, Ooky Spooky.
21. "Saturday Evening Ghost," Frankie Stein & His Ghouls - Like Hot Blood (see track 6), Mr. Stein & His Ghouls are largely fictional--although here the fiction comes from the kids music industry rather than disco. The name of Stein and his crew appears on a string of similar recordings through the late '60s on the Power Records label, an imprint of Peter Pan--and if you're above the age of thirty and you never had a Peter Pan record when you were a kid, you were quite deprived (though that's probably also the reason you're not a complete dork like me today--I had a million of 'em!).
22. "Halloween," Die Kreuzen - Not quite UN-sung, but perhaps only-a-little-sung, heroes of '80s hardcore punk, Die Kreuzen disbanded some time in the '90s. But all of their original recordings were recently re-released on CD by Quarterstick Records, including Century Days, from which this metallic cover of John Carpenter's movie theme is taken.
23. Willard radio spot - Yeah, the plot sounds dorky: wimpy young man who gets picked on by everyone befriends a horde of rats, who enthusiastically follow his orders to tear his enemies to pieces. But believe it or not, this one's pretty good as cheap horror films go. By the way, I'm sorry, but I just don't see how Bruce Davison's frantically understated performance as the title character in this 1971 classic can be improved upon--even by Crispin Glover (in the utterly superfluous 2003 remake). So do yourself a favor and rent the original.
24. "Demons Are A Ghoul's Best Friend," Ghouls' Night Out - From this all-girl group's 2006 album The Mourning After.
25. "Halloween," Dead Kennedys - Originally released as a single in 1982, you can now find this track on any number of DKs reissue comps. But please remember that the other money-grubbing shitballs in the band wrested control of many of Jello Biafra's (lead singer's) songs a few years ago, so if you go looking for DKs recordings to buy, make sure you get them straight from Alternative Tentacles (Jello’s label). As one commenter on e-music put it, "If you don't, the terrorists win!"
26. "Rubber Room Rock," The Spectres - Anybody remember when you used to be able to find a seemingly endless array of obscure (but good) indie rock on MP3.com, all available for free and legal download? Mmmmm... Well, those days are over now, but the legacy lives on. I picked up this little beauty (and another called "Did It for Elvis!" which I put on the 2002 Halloween disc) in 2001 and have been sitting on it all these years.
27. "Graveyard Blues," The Gits - I always try to close these things with something a little bit strange or maudlin... mournful sometimes? Recorded on a handheld cassette player at Dayton's Canal Street Tavern way back in 1986 (and later released on the Private Lubs cassette, which was reissued in 1996 as Kings & Queens), this track features the voice of the lovely Mia Zapata, whose band The Gits came up in this town and then moved to Seattle in 1988. Although poised on the edge of indie rock stardom, The Gits' career ended tragically in July 1993 when Ms. Zapata was abducted, raped, and murdered as she walked home from a late night at the recording studio. Although remaining at large for nearly ten years, her assailant was identified and sentenced in 2004. Zapata's death has been the basis of episodes of a half-dozen TV crime shows and inspired the foundation of Home Alive, a non-profit group that raises money for and holds classes on anger management and women's self defense (http://www.homealive.org/). Most recently, her life has been the basis of the independently released Gits Movie (http://thegitsmovie.com/).

And with that, here we are again! Halloween! A holiday in which we celebrate the things that scare the shit out of us. Hey, if we can celebrate that, maybe there’s hope for the human race after all (probably not though…).

Happy Halloween!

pjones2@law.capital.edu

take care

---Jones()

Comment Round-up!

Just wanted to draw everyone's attention to some of the informative comments that readers have left on the blog over the past few months that you might have missed:

Amy Kreitzer tells us a little about Denny and Irene Wilson's participation in Amy's She film project.

Mike Potential leaves a long and quite illuminating comment about the Limited Potential compilation, his life after leaving Dayton, and Dayton in general.

Amy Kreitzer talks a little bit about the early days of TOXIC REASONS and how slam dancing started in Dayton.

Several people fill in the blanks on the WWSU 4-Play single.

Skyp Krantz and others enlighten us on a few things about the HANG'N PRIDE cassette and Skyp's graphic work for TOOBA BLOOZE, TOXIC REASONS, and REAL LULU.

A few people offer corrections on the Mystery of the MOM cassette.

Brian Hogarth offers some much needed corrections to the SOURBELLY Fat 4 post.

Nick Atkinson enlightens us on some of the background of BEAT POETRY FOR BEGINNERS.

A number of people offer corrections and additional information about THE PLEASURES PALE.

Several readers identify the folks who appeared in the Dayton Punkhouse Documentary of 1987.

J.R. contributes a link to some GUIDED BY VOICES downloads to the GUIDED BY VOICES MP3s post.

Ben London gives his thumbs up to the posting of the Scrappy James cassette by BIG BROWN HOUSE. Adrian Garver tells us about a show at the Building Lounge that BIG BROWN HOUSE played with FLAMING LIPS.

Angelle Gullet and SalSa clear up much of the mystery surrounding THE CAPTAIN WOODYCRAFTER cassette and accompanying video.

Grog offers some corrections on the FOURTEEN cassette.

Karen Kuras clears up my sketchy memory on the date of the HANG'N PRIDE cassette. Nick Atkinson and others deliver some insight on WALAROO SOUTH and the old Gore Club film festivals.

Amy Kreitzer throws in some DEMENTIA PRECOX memories.

Grog corrects my recollection of the Penis Flyer Story.

Grog, Nick, and Mite add some memories about CANDYASS and the Punk Rock Wedding Show.

Mite points us toward his interview with DOCTOR CREEP in a comment on the SHOCK THEATRE post.

take care

---Jones()

SPITCURL,addendum...

Okay, so if you read the previous post on SPITCURL, here's some shit you should know. Apparently, I got it all WRONG. And I mean, COMPLETELY WRONG (as my Contracts Professor once wrote on my mid-term exam!). Steve Johnson, who was in SPITCURL, sent me the following gentle correction via e-mail:

Hi Pat! Steve Johnson here of that PLASTIC TREE band. I coincidentally ran accross your blog.... I saw your blog about SPITCURL and thought I'd clarify some stuff...... SPITCURL was a three piece that was me (drums), Brian Bagdonas (upright bass) and Mark Kramer (guitar). Mark sang mostly but we all had vocal parts. Mark Kramer was a tall guy with slicked back hair who was in a band called NEED and after SPITCURL he was in LET'S CRASH. It was a short lived thing, we played some Dayton shows and did a mini tour around Ohio and Indiana. We just made the one cassette EP
that we sold for a few bucks at shows. This was our attemt at a Dischord type band but it actually turned out pretty original sounding.
it was a lotta fun! Hope I could help. ----Steve

Okay, this message prompts a bit more information from me:

• Brian Bagdonas was in LIQUID DRAINO before SPITCURL.
• I know Mark Kramer to some limited degree, but I haven't seen him in years. My impression is that he had something to do with SKELETON KEY or ENON or some shit like that... maybe.
• NEED was a really great band with a cute girl singer, but unfortunately, I have not yet run across any recordings by them, so don't look for any NEED posts in the foreseeable future.
• I believe I have a 7" record or something by LET'S CRASH (courtesy of Gail Dafler).
• So it looks like the songs I put up in the previous post were on some kind of cassette release at some point. Thanks again to Chris Wright for delivering this stuff to me.

take care

---Jones()