Philo Beddow - S/T EP

I mentioned this band a while back in the Jaks post and I'm finally getting around to posting it. Like I said in that post, I think they played that same Grand Rapids show as Jaks if I remember right. Regardless, Philo Beddow was yet another great and "unknown outside of MI" band. I remember seeing them another time at an in-store performance during one of Ann Arbor's notorious Hash Bash weekends. They had Craw stickers all over there stuff which made perfect sense. I believe they played together quite a bit. Philo Beddow definitely rock in a very similar way. Imagine Craw mixed with Quicksand maybe? Weird, right? I know but it worked well. I think they had more hooks and were overall more accessible than Craw.

Pop-Craw?!

Anyway, finding info on this band anymore is not easy. No Myspace and as you can see I had to take a picture of the cover just to present it here. I believe they had a 7" out before this that I don't have and it appears they put an album out a bunch of years later that really sounds nothing like this.

Here ya go "Knucklehead"!

My next couple of posts are gonna shed some light on some MI bands that I feel have been long over looked. I'm not sure what it is but it seems that there are so many great bands there that, for some reason, go virtually unnoticed outside that region. Lack of touring? Maybe. Lack of giving a shit? More likely. Lack of quality? No. I don't think so anyway...

KENmode - Extending Common Courtesy Throughout The Evening

This band rules! The album ("Mennonite") this song is from was one of my favorite releases last year! It's more than post-worthy but I'm pretty sure the band self-released it so you should buy it from them here.

Non Compos - The Rats Know Him & Smile When You Hate

Recently, a friend of mine emailed me asking about a band he was sure he heard from me and that he hadn't heard in a long time. Great...this ought to be fun. Let the guessing game begin! He then said the only thing he could remember was a line that repeated over and over... "I see the stars in your eyes...I see the stars in your eyes".

Easy! Non Compos!

I knew nothing of this band when I bought "The Rats Know Him" except it was on Tortuga Records and was some how affiliated with Hydra Head. At the time that was a stamp of approval in my realm and I was left with my jaw dropped. Shit...left with my jaw ripped straight off my face lying on the floor! Ahhh...the satisfying sound of hate. Noisy, heavy, sick and unforgiving...in-fucking-tense. Kind of like the most demented aspects of Today is the Day; the honed, chaotic perfection of Deadguy; and the filthy, sludgy goodness of Cattlepress all rolled into one. This makes "broootal" hardcore metal bands these days look like uninspired pansy assed chumps. (I know, I know, that's not saying all that much anymore.)

It's hard to find much info about this band via the ol' inter-web. They were from Burlington, Vermont and I guess they used to wear orange prison jumpsuits and black masks when they played live. (Easy up, this is before those d-bag Slip-Not turds!) After taking in the greatness of "The Rats..." I discovered their earlier album "Smile When You Hate" on Wonderdrug (when they still had the "Mentis" attached to their name) which is also great, though not the classic I feel that "The Rats..." is. I talked to some of the Tortuga guys at a Krazyfest a long time ago about them and they said they we're trying to talk them into doing another album. More recently I heard rumors of a reunion and new album via their Myspace. Yet, even that was a while ago now and seems unlikely to happen.

"Thank you and die slowly."

Here's a video for the song "58", the opening track from "The Rats Know Him".

Torche - "Across The Shields" video

This makes me giggle.

Across The Shields

Jaks - Here Lies the Body of Jaks

I first found out about Jaks the good "ol' fashioned" way... live. I saw them on (I believe) a New Years Eve show (95/96-ish?) at the Reptile House in Grand Rapids, MI opening for my local favorites at the time 9-Volt Tongue. (As a quick side note I'd like to say that I have a 9VT 7" that'll make it's way on here eventually but unfortunately I lost their killer demo tape along the way. If you some how stumble upon here and have a copy of said 9-Volt Tongue demo tape please, please, PLEASE contact me!) I remember thinking Jaks were really weird. Different from anything else, locally anyway, and also thinking they were just plain "weird". 

In retrospect, Jaks pretty much spews forth the Jesus Lizard/The Birthday Party flame just to turn around and piss it out with vinegar. No surprise that two of their recorded efforts were indeed "recorded" by the one and only Steve Albini. Live they were complexly bombastic yet sloppy and, well...creepy. I remember the drummer being really good and singer Katrina Ford doing one of the best Dave Yow vocal impersonations. Not in a "girly" way either...just period. Shit, she sounds like a dude for the most part. Only in recently discovering The Birthday Party have I noticed how much they borrowed from their sound as well. Especially in Jaks "eerier" moments. The vampire themed lyrics don't hurt those eerie aspects either. There's something strangely vaudevillian going on here...huh. 

Huh?

Anyway, these guys (and girls...sorry); alongside Morsel, Mule, Wig, and Philo Beddow (who I believe also played that same said show and will also be covered here soon); made up a pretty cool Ann Arbor, MI scene at the time. I think two (the Albini ones) of the three releases covered on this Three.One.G collection were on the tiny, short lived, Chicago noise rock label Choke Inc. Records (home to the likes of Craw and Milkmine) which makes perfect sense.

Oh yeah, I also threw in a couple of tracks I found on random compilations. One I found on itunes from a comp I couldn't find out much about. It does sound live though. The other is apparently a cover of a Sesame Street song. 

"Here" lies the body...

*Link removed*

Lamont - Muscle, Guts and Luck & Thunder Boogie

 

Happy "4/20" everyone! I haven't partook in "the act" in a long while now but I still have a fondness for the celebration... as unconventional as my method may be anymore.

That said, nothing screams "Drunk on whiskey and beer, grillin' and rockin' the fuck out on a nice night in the hills of TN" to me more than the jams of Lamont! Well, OK, in all fairness I haven't been here all that long so I'm sure some would beg to differ but from what I've experienced this evening, they fit like a camouflage, thrift store trucker hat! (Too cliche?)

Lamont is a three piece from Massachusetts that no longer exists and as far as I'm concerned, didn't get the proper due they deserved when they did. That is unless you consider getting a song on a Tony Hawk video game "making it". Straight up, no frills, AC/DC worship with some boogie woogie shred to stand out. Infact, the title of their full length "Thunder Boogie" sums it up perfectly. Hard "rawk" with a heavy enough dose of blues, honky tonk, rockabilly and cowpunk to satisfy without the corniness and pretension that usually follows suit. Actually, the rockabilly/cowpunk aspect supplies a lot of the interesting tempo shifts. Oh, and did I mention the grooves?! It seems like these guys are friends with Scissorfight which doesn't surprise me much either. Their singer strangely reminds me of Mark Arm. I dunno, whatever?! 

Yeah yeah, they didn't reinvent the "R-n-R" wheel but fuck it! It's Rock-n-Roll man! Throw this on and start partying already! Shit, if you want reinvention, go force yourself to listen to some of the garbage people are calling "indie" today... 

Just sayin'.

Not to be confused with the newer, fruity shit-fest Swedish band of the same name. Who let that happen? Talk about your "garbage indie"!

For fucks sake people, "RAWK!!!"

The singer looked exactly how I thought he would. Not sure why I thought as much but...

Melvins - The Maggot

Sorry for the lengthy delay. Solid internet is finally up and running. In true bitter irony however, the day the net went up my external HD went DOWN! As in, "To the floor" down. Needless to say, a lot of music went bye-bye!

Any who...

Do you love this album like I do? When it came out in '99 did you jams this til you puked! (Oh wait, that was my early 20's partying!) Did it make you bang your head so hard you strangely resembled King Buzzo on a less than humid day? Me too my friend! This is easily one of the top Melvins releases in my book as it's pretty fucking solid throughout. Every track owns right down to the Fleetwood Mac cover of "Green Manalichi (with the Two Pronged Crown)". The only bad thing that could've ever been said about this album is the way the Melvins; with all their "wit, humor, wisdom and glory"; broke each song into two (count 'em...2) individual tracks.

Why was this a problem you ask? Well, at the time I suppose it wasn't. Put the CD on, listen through it...no problem. But you see, in the "Dark Ages" of the late 90's, before the time of Ipods and the like, I had a 400 disc CD player and liked shuffle. Here in lied the problem. You'd be rockin' along to "AMAZON" and then somewhere in the middle *POOF* next song! LAME! Now with Ipods and my persistent inability to choose only one Melvins album to listen to at a time (Come on, it's like your own personal jukebox!) it seemes like even more of a bummer no one has fixed this.

That is, until now!

Thanks to Garageband and my lack of anything better to do, Melvins fans (and fans of the act of shuffling) can now rejoice! I present to you "The (fixed) Maggot"!