Spits Spits Spits!

I used to say Seattle punk band The Spits never can surprise me because I expect the unexpected with them. Crazy costumes and crazy live shows are the norm. But this month look what they've done, The Spits have totally surprised me! First, Fat Wreck Chords announced they would be releasing a split single with The Spits and NOFX on November 23rd. A split with NOFX, really? And then this bizarre comic book story called "Haunted Fang Castle" and accompanying soundtrack, which was released by Scion featuring The Spits. It sounds like the synthesized voices of the Wood brothers telling the tale of a band of misfits on an adventure to save a princess, with interludes of weird psychedelic music and songs. It almost reminds me of that scene in "Dogs in Space" where Michael Hutchinson shoots heroin with his girlfriend and he tells her the story of the dragon that gets a stomach ache every time he eats people. The music isn't what you would expect from The Spits and the art is funny. The unicorn is a donkey with a horn, the wizard looks like Santa Claus with glasses, the robot is really an '80s arcade game, and most of the characters are wearing jeans vests. Check it out!

MC5 Mondays!

I love this video of the MC5 from 1970 doing "American Ruse". It's political, jammin' proto punk and they're rockin' the 'fro:



They told you in school about freedom
But when you try to be free they never let ya
They said "it's easy , nothing to it"
And now the army's out to get ya
Sixty nine America in terminal stasis
The air's so thick it's like drowning in molasses
I'm sick and tired of paying these dues
And i'm finally getting hip to the American ruse

I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation

Sixty nine America in terminal stasis
The air's so thick it's like drowning in molasses
I'm sick and tired of paying these dues
And i'm sick to my guts of the American ruse
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Phony stars, oh no! crummy cars, oh no!
Cheap guitars, oh no! Joe's primitive bar... nah!

Rock'em back, Sonic !
The way they pull you over it's suspicious
Yeah, for something that just ain't your fault
If you complain they're gonna get vicious
Kick in the teeth and charge you with assault
Yeah, but i can see the chickens coming home to roost
Young people everywhere are gonna cook their goose
Lots of kids are working to get rid of these blues
cause everybody's sick of the American ruse

Well well well , take a look around !
Well well well , take a look around !
Well well well , take a look around !
Well well well , take a look around !
Well well well , take a look around !

Athiarchist crashing Mayhem Fest!

Athiarchist is a two-piece hardcore thrash metal band from Eugene, Oregon. The band had a brilliant idea to build a mobile stage and sound set up in a truck and tour the country playing impromptu, free, and mobile shows. Brilliant! This video is of them crashing the Mayhem Festival down in Auburn (Washington) a few weeks ago:



Follow the band's adventures via their blog and videos as the take the DIY route crashing the Mayhem Fest tour across America: http://mobilestage.wordpress.com

The Final Days of the Lusty Lady

Seattle's legendary strip/peak-a-boo booth club the Lusty Lady recently closed it's doors. I know quite a few people that have worked there over the years and quite a few more that patronized it... and all of Seattle laughed at their funny sign captions. The Swedish Legal System fantastically filmed a cover of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" inside the Lusty Lady during its final week, featuring some of the Lusty's dancers. Awesome and totally goofy!

Eric Davidson and his Garage Punk Book

I was a total New Bomb Turks fan back in the day. When "Destroy Oh-Boy!" came out I fucking LOVED that album. I played it probably every day for two years. So much energy, so much fun. You know how certain bands just do it for you? They hit on all levels? That was, and still is, the New Bomb Turks for me. The perfect mix of punk rock energy, garage rock rawness, speed, and catchy songwriting.

When NBT came to Seattle on their first tour to support "Destroy Oh-Boy!" they played the Off Ramp. I lined up an interview with the band through their booking agent (or maybe even by writing the band directly) and we did a fun hour long interview in a van outside the club that belonged to that dude Reverend Rot'n'Hell that used to do Gee-Zus zine in Vancouver BC (who seems to have dropped off the face of the punk rock earth!). I saw the band a number of times live, including an awesome show in Vegas at the Las Vegas Shakedown. To cap off a wonderful Vegas Shakedown weekend, when Amy and I went to catch a cab to the airport, both hungover and thrilled after an awesome Vegas weekend, the line was totally huge. Crap, would we even make our plane?

Eric, lead singer of the New Bomb Turks, was just getting in a cab and waived us over to ride with him to the airport. Super nice guy! He supported my old punk rock fanzine 10 Things from the get go, he sent me letters of support and I always sent him copies and reviewed everything his band put out. It's those connections in the DIY underground punk scene that can make or break a band, but I always had the feeling Eric didn't give a shit about networking and all that stuff, he was just a cool cat that supported what he liked. And for that, I and a lot of other zinesters always supported the band. It was a great era when zines were at their peak, there was a strong punk rock scene, and bands could almost make a living on big indie labels if they toured a lot and put out new records fairly often.

When I heard Eric was writing a book on garage punk, I really should have gotten my shit together and sent in photos and info on Seattle bands. After all, I've got literally a couple totes filled with photos and have dedicated years of my life to writing about and documenting this stuff. But I had so much going on in the past year I just never did. Luckily Tim Hayes, ex-owner of Fallout Records, gave him a bunch of stories and info on Seattle. And Tim Hayes is the motherfucking man, he has excellent stories!

Last week Eric came to town to do a book reading and sell signed copies of "We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001." Apparently he did a record store gig earlier in the day at Easy Street. At night it was pizza/drink joint Snoose Junction 2 up off of Greenwood Ave at Holman. It's a weird location, but a cool place, I've gone for drinks there a few times and seen Tom Price's Desert Road Classic or whatever they are called band there before. Alot of the usual suspects were there from the garage punk scene, but surprisingly not a huge turn out, maybe 30 people. Eric was very cool. Somehow with all the people he's met over the years he either faked it really well or totally remembered me. Actually, when I introduced myself he immediately said he name checked 10 Things in the book as one of the regional zines covering garage punk during that time, which was awesome. Later we rapped about the first interview I did with the band in the van outside the OffRamp... so long ago at the beginning of his band's career, long before getting signed to Epitaph and headlining big tours. Very cool and fun reading, he's still a stand up guy.

I've just cracked open the book, I'll give a review in a few weeks when I've had a chance to read and digest it all.

Cathy (ex-Fizz zine), Jenny Hayes, and Meghan (ex-Empty Records) and I debated whether this cover photo was actually taken in the time frame of the book, it seems likely it was after 2001. Still a killer shot of The Spits though:


Half the time Eric told side stories and tidbits of info that wasn't in the book instead of actually reading from it, which made going totally worth it:


My signed copy of the book:


He also read some stories that didn't make it in the book, apparently the publisher made him cut the content in half. He read them off printouts... possibly a part two at some point?:

The Librarian

Recently I entered the world of Extreme Pencil Fighting after winning as an audience member at their show at the Rendezvous. My character, The Librarian, came together pretty well for the first Extreme Pencil Fighting show at The Funhouse (although the mini pencils started falling off my pencil bullet belt).

I even got an awesome naughty librarian posse to back me up!


The announcers, comedian Owen Straw and Rat City Rollergirls/Bloodhag singer Jake Stratton:


Bill from Bat Country vs. the Ultimate Warrior

Cover night at the GRN STRP house!

The GRN STRP House has hosted some great shows in Seattle and it sounds like soon will be coming to an end. This weekend will be a doozy of show with a bunch of bands playing as cover bands:

The November Group returns!

Catheters Renion Show

For the Sunset Tavern's 10 Anniversary party last Friday, The Catheters did a one off reunion show. It was sold out and totally awesome!

The Gits!

This is some great old live footage of The Gits. I loved this band so much and saw them a ton live. To this day Mia's lyrics and voice put a tingle down my spine. But her murder was so tragic I also almost tear up when watching footage like this and listening to old Gits records...

The Barfeeders!

San Francisco punk band The Barfeeders played Seattle a few weeks ago. I saw these guys a couple times quite a while ago, I think both shows were at Gibson's downtown. They have a great blend of snotty and pop punk, are fairly goofy and a lot of fun live.

Stiff Little Fingers

Stiff Little Fingers weren't just one of the best punk bands of the '70s, they were one of the best bands to ever play punk rock. Their first two albums still rank among my top 25 records of all time.

2010 Northwest Pinball & Gameroom Show

This is a must go to event if you live in Washington or Oregon. 300 pinball and arcade games on free play with admission, along with speakers, prizes (a Ms. Pacman and two pinball machines), seminars and more:



Go to nwpinballshow.com for more info and to buy discounted tickets!

Aspirin Feast video!

In 1987 I started dating this girl I met at the UW who had gone to highschool in the Tri-Cities. Through her I ended up meeting dudes that went to her school that were in punk bands, namely Christ on a Crutch and later Aspirin Feast, fronted by Mike Pitz. Mike and most of the guys from COAC had gone to Hanford Highschool. Aspirin Feast had about a 2-3 year lifespan and I'll give them a proper right up later when I rip some of their vinyl into MP3s. They played blistering hardcore punk and often had fairly crazy live shows. Tim from Aspirin Feast (who was later in Chicken) just sent me this link to some old video footage just added to YouTube. More should follow. This is Aspirin Feast live from 1989 at the Kennewick VFW Hall,Tri Cities, Washington:

Captured by Robots!

I can't believe I'd never seen Captured by Robots before live until a few weeks ago. Needless to say, it's one hell of a live show!

Bloodhag's last show!

Stovokor

Klingon death metal warriors Stovokor oddly hail from the very human sounding town of Portland, Oregon. But for the glory of Qo'nos, their sound is mighty!

The Glad Girls

The Glad Girls are a Seattle band that travel down the gravel road between the land of country and the land of indie rock. One might call them Alt-Country, but that term leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, so I won't. It's the kinda mellow catchy music I love to listen to on a Sunday afternoon. The band features folks who done time in bands like The Young Sportsmen, The Riffbrokers, and Muzzle.

Band members: Heather on guitars and vocals, Wesley on bass and vocals and Ryan on drums.

You can catch a few of their songs and find out about upcoming shows here. The photos are from a show a few weeks ago at the Shanty Tavern.

Soundgarden

I know some of my friends think I'm crazy, but I had the password and info on buying tickets to Soundgarden's "secret show" at the Showbox on Friday and didn't buy tickets. Don't get me wrong, there was a time when I liked Soundgarden. Their first 7", Screaming Life ep, and about half of their Ultramega OK album on SST are pretty good. But the transition from original sounding underground rock band to updated '70s arena rock was already well underway by the time they signed to a major label. And those 5+ minutes songs with Chris Cornell howling, especially live, didn't quite do it for me. Here's my deal, if the songs are over 4 minutes long and have a guy screaming like a chick, it better be metal. It works for bands like 3 Inches of Blood, but not so much for Soundgarden, who to me became more like Led Zeppelin... watered down, drawn out, hair farmin' arena rock. So I passed on buying tickets, especially at $35 each and then with all the Ticketmaster fees tacked on (probably ended up being over $45 each). Friends that went said it was awesome, but today, listening to the recording, I'm thinking it was more an awesome experience, than awesome musically. Chris Cornell's voice still seems kinda shot and not so good. He's always sounded way better in the studio than live, but the disparity between the two has become more vast over the years. It will be interesting to see how his voice holds up through the full Lolapalooza tour. Oh, if you want to hear Friday's show, a live recording is here.

Android Hero pix from last week!

I've written about Android Hero before here, I just saw them again on Thursday. Excellent band worthy of checking out of you like heavy rock crossed with punk. They definitely have some of the heavy crunchiness of old Am Rep bands (I've been listening a lot of Helmet recently):