9-volt Tongue video megapost!!!

I'm gonna take it easy on myself for my first real post back and just make it all videos. Cop out? Yep! Whatthefuckever. As I've stated both here and here, this band was a staple of my youth. I never got to see them a shit load but their style shaped both my future tastes in music and style of playing. And the New Years Eve show I talk about here... the first couple of videos are from that... I think...maybe not... Anyway, I don't wanna toot my own horn but I like to think that I lit the fire under this bands ass just a little to start making some of this shit available.

ENJOY!

Kittens - Doberman (re-mastered....sorta)

Well, it goes like this... My iPod has died from "complications" after a long, troubled battle with Garbageitus (ie: iPod cancer). Needless to say, I'm back to burning cds for my listening pleasure for the time being. I've been on an Kittens kick again lately so it was time to get tah burnin'.

Now, this cd has been posted various times on the internet at higher traffic sites (namely here and here) but if you've "checked out" those versions you've noticed something. It was either a bad dub or the recording was pretty rough and slightly unmastered (at least by todays volume levels). Since the speakers in my car suck I decided to be proactive and do something to the copy I found on the net. More or less, I just took the individual tracks and "mastered" them (using the term loosely, of course) in Garageband, recompiled them and *voila* here ya go! A louder, sorta remastered version of "Doberman"!

If you don't know about Kittens first off, I'm sorry and secondly, you are missing the fuck out! Kittens were a three piece noise rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba that owned and were fairly unknown in the States up until what seems more recently. An amazing mix of the Melvins, Jesus Lizard, Unsane, and Fudge Tunnel that actually aged very well and virtually sounds better with time. They fit nicely in the confines of the style while carving their own sound and niche. Later they would come to incorporate some elements of country music that would further define their unique take on what AmRep was known for. Speaking of...how AmRep never released an album by these guys is weird to me. Strange given the fact that Winnipeg and Minneapolis are less than 8 hours apart.

Any way, some of these tracks show up via different versions on "Lo-fi Classics and Other Rarities" though I think I prefer these ones. Stand out track here is definitely "Jack Knife" though they all completely satisfy. I included two versions of "Hocus Pocus", one being the original I downloaded just so you could run a comparison if you were curious. There was talks of actual remastered, reissued cds and possibly a dvd release on Cursed singer Chris Colohan's label High Anxiety though now little info can be found on the matter. There is a Kittens Myspace page with a bunch of video that looks like it gets checked once in a while.

Here's a video for before mentioned "Jack Knife":

"Gotta face, gotta face, gotta face like a.... gotta face like a jack knife."

Enjoy!

9-Volt Tongue - It's Lonely at the Top

YYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck yes!!! I'm so stoked! If there was anything I could've hoped to gain from doing this blog it would've been one thing...and it's happened! Did you see the post I made a while ago? The 7" by a band called 9-Volt Tongue? The one in which I begged and pleaded for a copy of their demo tape I lost some 10 to 12 years earlier? Well, some how 9-Volts drummer (referring to himself as Navin) stumbled upon and left a comment on that post. A couple of emails back and forth later and *voila* here ya go!

"Satan Drives a T-Bird" starts with one of the best sound bites ever! It's also one of 9-Volt's catchiest and heaviest due to dynamics. A straight up heavy as hell, mid tempo rocker! Next, "Get Down and Choke on Me" brings a heavy dose of their down-tuned, swaggering punk RAWWK boogie! (as well as another classic song title!) "I Left My Jimmy Hat in Yo Butt" follows and damn it, this was the song that stuck with me the most from this for all these years. It was just so heavy and fucking raw! I remember this song always killed live! This song is pretty appropriately named I suppose... Rounding things out, "Breathing Heavy for the Wong Girls" is another perfect example of 9-Volt's signature four bar sludge punk which starts with a very Entombed "Wolverine Blues" sounding riff. Did I mention the killer fuck solo? So good!

Have you noticed how many times the word heavy was used in that last paragraph? Hmmm...

The sound quality is pretty lo-fi and the files are small but fuck it! I'll take what I can get! Besides, it punk rock at heart anyway. I'd like to thank Navin so much for checking out the blog but most of all for hooking me up with one of my favorite recordings ever! It brought back an ass load of memories and, right behind the two Jesus Lizard reunion shows I went to, made my year! Like I said before Navin, if you have any more 9-Volt Tongue recordings you'd like share we'll be here waiting...rather impatiently.

"That shit ain't mine... Don't know how it got there."

Deadclownpile - S/T

Do you like Unsane? Of course you do and so do these guys. Once again, another band that I don't know and can't find much information about. The members names aren't even listed in the credits for fucksake. Ahh well, what I have determined is that they were from Lansing, MI (maybe?) and were on the genre spanning Detroit label, Overture Records.

Like I said, Unsane-ish. Most cetainly in the way of carnival barker, bullhorn vocals and moments of plodding, cheese grater groove. Where they mainly stray is in the drum department. Where Unsane is more tribal, DCP is more straight forward and punk. I guess the same could be said for the guitars...less blues, more punk. These guys would've fit perfectly on a bill between aforementioned Unsane and maybe Drive Like Jehu.

Anyway, this cd rips and still holds up almost 15 years later. Stand out tracks are "Snap Crackle Pop", "By Design", "More", and the closer "Choke". Sure it's sort of a one trick pony but with half the songs being less than 2 minutes long, none seem to wear out their welcome really. I'm seriously amazed they didn't get more renown.

Enjoy!

Cromwell - 7" tracks

Here I go talking about shit I don't know about again. Well, in all fairness there is not much info on this band that I can find via thee ol' inter-web. I do know they came from Detroit, had only a hand full of releases (only 7" I believe) and that there are a boat load of bands that aren't them named Cromwell. I also know I saw them once amongst a swarm of old drunken polocks and really liked them. It could of been one of their last show for all I know because I don't remember getting another chance to see them again.

Cromwell started off , from what I gather, sometime in the mid-90's and kinda had a noise rock meets hardcore thing going on. Think maybe Deadguy-ish but less metal. There might be an affiliation to the Detroit band Bog Blast (maybe none more than by label). By the time I saw them with my own eyes they had a different singer/guitar player (Vince Williams of The Christpunchers and currently of Year Of The Pig). It was also this line up of the band that can be found on the split 7" with Detroit legend heavyweights Thoughts of Ionesco.

So what I present you is three 7" and, to the best of my knowledge, the extent of the bands released material. First off is their debut 7" on Anti-Music followed by their split w/ the Atlanta band Scout. Lastly is Cromwell's contribution to the above mentioned split with Thoughts of Ionesco. Overall a cool old band that, from what I can tell, never got much due beyond the confines of Detroit.

Enjoy!

Tad - Oppenheimer's Pretty Nightmare b/w Accident On the Way to Church

Inspired by the Brothers of the Sonic Cloth post over at Mindgrinder (which also included some Tad b-sides I didn't have) I'm finally get this up here. TAD...you should know him, you should love him. This ->HERE<- is their final release musically as TAD the band and a fine one at that. As I stated in my previous Tad post, there were talks of releasing a discs worth of some unreleased, post-"Infrared Riding Hood" jams (like maybe "Mummified Cop" from the Tad myspace?) but with BotSC in what seems to be full swing who knows how long that could take to see the light of day. Hopefully this is just a teaser of what that disc could have in store. This is a vinyl rip I did so it does have some scratches and pops but it's cool, right? We'll just call those "character noises".

Screw it! For the hell of it I'll throw in the two songs from "Live Alien Broadcast" that to the best of my knowledge have never been on a proper studio release as well.

9-Volt Tongue - I Eat Evil (Like A Shovel Full of Shit) b/w Foaming Anal Cleanser

Here's the 9-Volt Tongue 7" I talked about in the Jaks post. God I loved this fucking band! They were down tuned, heavy as hell, loud as fuck and, as you can tell from the titles of this 7", totally obnoxious. What every good rock band should be!

Growing up an hour and a half north of Grand Rapids didn't really make me a local so my knowledge about this band is limited. Attending shows there happened sporadically due to the long-enough drive and the memories are hazy at best due to the amount of pot smoked on the way. What I do remember (I think) is that they opened for the Jesus Lizard in Detroit once and did shows in some sketchy ass buildings and basements over by the Reptile House (as well as IN the Reptile House). Two of 9-Volts' members were from the GR punk band Wheelchair Motherfuckers as I learned here. I remember their singer, Hans, being some what small guy and best described as "wiley". I think I remember he had some weird patch of hair on his shoulder that he would expose and the bass player would lick and...umm I dunno... Must've been good pot!

Anyway, after this 7" they released an awesome 5 or 6 song cassette that I almost played til it broke and now can't find anywhere. I heard they record a full CD after that (maybe with a different singer) that went unreleased.

As always, info on this band via the internet is limited (non existent). Though a Myspace search did reveal some dumbfuck band from Battle Creek, MI that has compromised the moniker. Artist Direct had a little blurb but that was it. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment. As I stated before IF YOU CAN GET ME A COPY OF THEIR CASSETTE OR ANY OTHER RECORDED MATERIAL PLEASE CONTACT ME.

...damn I miss that tape.

Did I mention this 7" is on translucent brown vinyl with red streaks in it? If only they some how could've added corn...

...like a shovel full of shit.