I Hate You When You're Pregnant

greatest hits from demos 1-6, 2003(?)-2009

When I was living in Flagstaff I had the opportunity to work, study history and party with Phil Buckman. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and he’s so nice that other people that had recently met him would ask me “is this guy for real!?” He was sooo nice that he came off as condescending to anybody with a decent amount of skepticism. Phil is genuine, which makes his one-man-band project, I Hate You When You’re Pregnant, even more confusing. I had seen all 6ft 5in of him perform in nothing but a pair of panties before actually meeting him, so it didn’t seem so strange to me, but a lot of the squares we worked with couldn’t fathom how this nice, mellow guy could have created such visual and sonic mayhem. For a guy who was a wee lad in the 80s he has a deep understanding of 80s pop music, which I find disturbing. He could have produced any of the early MTV hits, but IHYWYP is injected with a weird surrealism that makes the whole thing creepy. And he sings like he’s fronting an 80s hardcore band. Still, it’s catchy as hell. I would probably consider the lyrics to be genius if they made any sense, but the imagery each line invokes is enough to make you think “What The Fuck!?” These songs are my personal favorites that I culled from his CD demos 1-6 that he gave away at live shows and can be downloaded in their entirety (minus demo 6) here. “They’ve Got My Picture in an Issue of Thrasher” is my personal favorite because they once had my picture in an issue of Thrasher too. Phil was supposed to join my band, Taser Breath, to sing on a cover of Burt Bacharach’s “My Little Red Book” (done Love-style, of course) but it never panned out. If you heard either of those bands you realize how weird that sounds. Last time I saw him he was doing research for a book on the history of ranch dressing. I’m not even shitting you.

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P.S. One of the funniest things I ever saw was Phil performing at Centro Digna. In the middle of his set he did that rock-star thing where the lead singer does the run-jump-slide-on the-knees that you’d expect to see at an AC/DC concert. Only problem was that Centro Digna had tile floors and Phil had no pants on, so as he slid  the sound of the tiles peeling the skin off his knees created a high pitched screech that was so loud it cut through the music. EVERYBODY in the place doubled over in that surrogate pain reaction that guys do when they see another guy get kicked in the balls, but Phil got up and kept performing like nothing happened, bleeding knees and all.

Scathe

7" 1998

Speaking of awesome bands Ryan Doten was in, here is the Scathe 7”. I don’t think Ryan was their original drummer and the guys in the band probably considered this Jeremy Tally’s (Bury Me Standing, the Bled) project, but Ryan’s the only guy I really knew from this band, so I mostly associate it with him. I consider them one of the first wave of Skrappys bands and the link between the older dudes playing heavy hardcore (Groundwork, Absinthe) and the younger dudes playing heavy hardcore (Bury Me Standing, the Bled) in Tucson. I got this from Ryan and he told me it was his only copy when he gave it to me. At the time Ryan was into drugs, and that might have factored into him giving this to me. Oddly enough they might have identified themselves as a straight edge band at the time. Even odder Ryan’s probably the only one of these guys that is straight today. Again I don’t really know the rest of these guys, so I may be wrong, but I do know that one of their singers “lost his edge” in a big way. This was the second release for Ronnie’s Code of Ethics Records who was always reliable for good hardcore and screamo records with great packaging.

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Jason's Cat Died

7" circa 1994

This is probably my favorite record put out by any Tucson band ever. The sound is hard to describe. It mixes punk, indie, emo, rock and even a little ska, but the amount of feeling they dumped into this is what has made it stick with me over the years. Like Spill Blanket, I had seen a lot of their earlier shows but missed them in their later years when they got real good. I heard this long after they broke up and almost couldn’t believe that this was the same band I had seen so many times at the DPC. The masterminds behind this band, Chris Vlassic and Ryan Doten, would go on to refine their skills together in Yellow Brick Roadkill and separately in too many bands to mention. Actually they both played together in the Zero Tolerance Task Force at one point, but that probably did more to refine their survival skills than their musical skills. These are the two musicians that I have always wanted to play with, but they have somehow eluded me over the years. Chris is currently living in the Bay Area and Ryan is playing in the revamped and totally awesome Vanish Twin.

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Let The World Die

the end of living and the beginning of survival CD 2010

After being in Flagstaff for about three years I began to be discouraged because I thought that Blackfire was the only representation of Navajo punk rock. Blackfire has a unique sound that blends melodic Bad Religion influenced punk with traditional Navajo chants and sometimes even dance, but I never really got into what they do. Then people started saying good things about Let the World Die. Problem was they would be praised, and then described as a crusty-ska band. Crust and ska are two horrible genres and the idea of blending them sounds as appealing as eating piss covered shit, so I didn’t exactly go out of my way to see them live. Then I did see them and was floored. They don’t really incorporate the ska up-stroke that much and I would describe the “crust” elements as just raging hardcore. They also didn’t strike me as the apathetic wastoid types that I associate with the whole crusty thing and members are involved with the Taala Hooghan infoshop/show space/DIY community space that puts on shows in East Flagstaff. Too bad I let my own prejudices get in the way of discovering this band earlier cause when I left town these guys (and Custody Battle) were the best shit going on up there.

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Iscariot

Demo cass. circa 1995

Before there was Red Fang, the Juanita Family or the Last of the Juanitas there was Iscariot. Actually before that I believe there was Fat Pig, but I never saw them. This was the collaboration of Lana Rebel and Bryan Giles prior to moving to San Diego and forming the Last of the Juanitas and if I didn’t know the history you could have told me this was a Last of the Juanitias demo or their 1^st album and I wouldn’t have questioned it. The drummer, Mark, had a more metal style, but was equally as dynamic as the Last of the Juanitas drummer. This was one of the earliest bands I saw that played hard, heavy music that threw typical song structure and timing on its head. A term like jazz-metal makes them sound absolutely horrible, but great bands like Don Caballero and Iceburn worked similar territory in the mid-90s, if that helps. This approach to song structure has been applied to just about every genre of music today, but when I first saw them do it, it was jaw dropping. And this demo has aged well. When I tell people one of my bands played with them and Kyuss at the DPC (to about 12 people) they get all excited about Kyuss, but Iscariot was infinitely more interesting and memorable. Lana recently moved back to Tucson and has been playing around town solo-acoustic. I haven’t seen her play yet, but she is always a pleasure to run into. Brian is probably on tour with Red Fang. Not to be confused with about half a dozen other bands that were called Iscariot or Judas Iscariot in the mid-90s.

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the Cuntifiers

Never Coming Out CD 2006

After the Weird Lovemakers there was the Cuntifiers. Petix was the only consistent member, but this wasn’t really a solo project. When I played with um (gtr or drums at different times) I wrote about 30% of the songs and Rubbles and Roy wrote about 30% of the songs. Petix wrote the rest but he was the only singer, so it all sounds like his stuff. He also wrote all the lyrics, which are brilliant. Songs 14-20 are a mini punk-opera about unsung fictional comic book heroes in the American West. He has the distinction of being the best songwriter and the worst guitar player I’ve ever worked with. The process of recording this album was grueling for all involved and I think the guys that recorded it (Matt Rendon and Jaime Peters) seriously reconsidered whether or not they wanted to be recording engineers after this project. I recorded my guitar tracks and moved to Flagstaff the next day, then he brought in members of the Jons, Swing Ding Amigos and the Okmonics to put all the bells and whistles on it. When I finally heard the finished product I was pretty impressed. Unlike the much loved Weird Lovemakers, nobody liked the Cuntifiers which I can only attribute to the stupidest band name of all time. The songs are as good as the stuff Petix did with the WLM, but we couldn’t even get arrested in Tucson, much less play the cool clubs. Because we were so hated we called the project Never Coming Out which we expected to be the fate of the recording until our friend Larry asked us if he could release it as a freebie with his great, long lived zine Genetic Disorder. Last I heard this band is actually still together in Portland with a new line-up, where I assume they are even more hated than in Tucson. Me and Gustav, who replaced me in this band, are currently playing together in Honey Badger, where we try to channel the spirit of Petix, usually quite poorly.

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Irving

demo cass. 1994

Before there was the Weird Lovemakers there was Irving. It was Petix and Gerard with Bob Fanning (the Fells, Bob Fanning Trio) on bass and another guitarist. A lot of these songs would end up being early Weird Lovemakers songs, but here they’re recorded in a more primitive minimal fashion. Most of the rest of these songs are early Petix gems that I hadn’t heard until I recently found this demo on Jason Willis’s “Demo Ape” blog site. The first time I saw Petix he was playing in a band called the Blink Dogs at a party in a one room house behind the Circle K at Speedway and 6^th. He had a full beard and mustache and a big Jew-fro, but half of his head and face was shaved vertically, including his eyebrow so he looked like some kind of super villain from a comic book, which is probably the highest complement you could give him.

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the Weird Lovemakers

the weird lovemakers are dead-unreleased LP circa 2002(?)

Despite what the artwork on the cover says this was not released as Recess Record # 97. This release has a long history behind who was going to put it out, when it was coming out and what it was going to be called, but nobody has released it to date. It’s their last recording and some of their best stuff. It’s rare that four real music geeks end up in the same band together, but when it happens the result is usually your new favorite band. That lightning would strike twice for Jason (gtr) and Gerard (drms) when they hooked up with Travis Spillers and Matt Rendon in the Knockout Pills after the Weird Lovemakers split up. WLM shows were always fun and they were that one punk band that could play the “cooler” venues regularly and the squares and hipsters liked them. That’s because this shit is catchy as hell.

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the Screenz

demo CD circa 2004

The Screenz was the proto-type of what would become Digital Leather. I think the project was called Dickless Torso before this, but they’re all the brainchild of Sean Foree. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with his music over the years. I find some of his new wave tendencies to be annoying, but when he’s channeling the Screamers, like he did with the Screeenz I love his shit. He’s always been progressive and forward moving with his music, but there is enough continuity to it that bares his signature. I believe “random bitch” on bass here is Ryan Rousseau (Earthmen and Strangers, the Reatards) who has worked with Foree in various capacities over the years and is hell of a songwriter himself. I totally missed Foree’s live band when he had greats like Isaac Reyes (Lenguas Largas, Shark Pants) and Sean Ruse (Foolscap Fire, Hobart and over 30 other bands) playing with him and he moved out of Tucson about the time I moved back. Last I heard he was living in France or Germany or one of those places American artists go to create their worse stuff. The hidden track is a horrible cover of Prince’s “Kiss.”

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Limbless Torso

Shut Your Stupid Fucking Mouth-3" CD 2009

Anything anybody might have told you about 13 year old Gabriel Perez being a fucking incredible drummer was probably an understatement. I have heard one or two people add that “yeah good for a 13 year old” but rest assured Gabriel has more talent and a better understanding of the music he plays than most drummers I have played with, and I’ve played with a lot of drummers. I attribute this understanding directly to his father, Alex, whose talent often gets overshadowed by the novelty of such a young drummer playing so good. Before I ever picked up a guitar I had seen Alex play with the American Deathtrip and his extremely fast and precise guitar playing made a huge impression on me. Alex seems to have dumped all his years of knowledge into Gabriel and with Limbless Torso they play a brutal mix of grind-thrash-power–violence-metal-hardcore and punk in a very tight and calculated manner. Nick Genitals on vocals takes the Monster X style low end growl approach, similar to their first singer Rich, but the vocals don’t quite match the dynamics going on between Gabriel and Alex. Nick is genuinely hate-filled so it still works. They recently put out a 12” record which you can buy here.

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Al Perry and the Cattle

Al Perry and the Cattle-good n' bitter 7" 1989

I started a new job in the kitchen of a right proper dive bar last night. As I’m running food out to the half inebriated patrons I look up on stage to see none other than Al Perry himself. At first it seemed a little strange that Al would be jammin in this dank joint, known mostly for the blues, but really Al would seem as comfortable there as he would at the Rialto, Congress or playing in the 4^th Ave. tunnel. The man loves to play music and he’s been doing it longer and better than you and your crappy band. Last night he was getting in touch with his healthy love of George Jones with some blues styling thrown in, but this older 7”, from his extensive back catalog, is a little harder to classify. The first side sounds like later 80s style college rock, but with a heat-fried-tremolo-drenched-drug-fueled strangeness. The second side hints at his love of country but with a rockin’ back beat. The last song is an instrumental cow-punk tune. The cow-punk thing probably started in Austin or something, but I’ve always associated it with Tucson, the late 80s and Al Perry for some reason. Al’s probably spent more time in the Hotel Congress than any other person (plus some of the ghosts) and if he’s not playing somewhere he’s probably behind the front desk, being friendly as hell.

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Quarterhorse

CD 2005

After the break up of Invisible City Adan and Steve didn’t waste any time putting together Quarterhorse. They decided to not replace Bobby on bass and just went with guitar/drums for the base. They did find a singer that was as good, if not better than Hesper. She had a real strong voice like the singers of Sleater-Kinney or The Long Blondes and knew how to use it. Only problem was that she lived in San Francisco, which makes a Tucson/Flagstaff band seem easy. Naturally they didn’t play a lot around Tucson, but they did tour and put out this great, albeit short CD. The sound isn’t too far off of Invisible City’s, but it’s less noisy, more in control and more melody for better or worse.

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Invisible City

Demo CD circa 2004
Bobby Carlson always seems to have a couple bands going at any given moment and is probably in the process of starting a new one. Invisible City is probably my favorite band of his to date, which isn’t to demean his other efforts (Babies, the Ponies, Feel Free etc.), it just seemed like Invisible City brought together a group of really good musicians that created an original sound. Bobby once told me that Steve was the best guitar player he has played with and it’s easy to see why. He has a really creative approach to guitar that incorporated a lot of noise while working within the song structure. I remember him using a drum stick to play the guitar in weird ways. Drummer Adan is a great drummer and singer Hesper comes off like a 90s riot grrrl singing in Crass! They were a Tucson band for a while, then I think they functioned as a Tucson/Flagstaff band after Bobby and Hesper moved back up there. The sound is kinda rooted in the 90s Olympia punk sound but crossed with the current heavier noisier Olympia sounds of Milk Music, White Boss or maybe Gun Outfit. Steve is currently playing in Monster Pussy. Adan was living in Phoenix last time I saw him. Besides Red Dress Press I don’t know if Hesper has played with anybody else and like I mentioned Bobby is always busy with something. He’s also the music editor of the N. Az weekly (that comes out monthly) The Noise. Sorry no song titles.

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KWFM compilation

On The Air compilation LP '80

The Pedestrians might have been Tucson’s first proper punk band (whatever that means), but they weren’t the only band working with the 70s punk/new wave sounds around this time. This comp., which I found on a recent job cleaning out a ranch near Sonoita, has a couple bands that probably sounded pretty fresh in a dusty town like Tucson in the late 70s. The Serfers, who would later become Green on Red, play the song Green on Red which sounds like Greg Sage playing with Human Hands. The Pills offer up a punchy power pop tune. The Street Pajama (great name!) song starts off like a good Blondie tune that slips into a really bad smooth jazz tune. Chuck Wagon and the Wheels do a cool boogie woogie cowpunk tune about getting busted for drugs in Mexico. Freestyle, featuring legendary Tucson guitar amp doctor Markovich, delivers a cool glam-metal tune. Most of the rest work in pretty bad 70’s pop rock or yacht rock territory that sounds like typical 70s crap. All this was recorded for KWFM radio. You can find out about the station and a lot of these bands as well find full live sets by The Pills, The Serfers, and others here. It’s an interesting site and makes the place seem like it was WKRP In Cincinnati over at KWFM.

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The Pedestrians

An Evening At "Pearl's" Hurricane" '79

I was doing an exit interview with librarian Sandy White after working with the Tucson-Pima Public Library for fourteen years. The subject turned to music and she asked what kind of music I played. This is a tough question for any musician, but to insure that the next question isn’t “when are you playing next?” I usually answer with something like “noisy punk rock.” To this Sandy replies “oh my husband played in Tucson’s first punk band.” I had read in the liner notes to this CD that the Pedestrians made this claim but I didn’t mention this to Sandy, I just asked her the bands name to which she replied “the Pedestrians.” For some reason I thought she was from the East Coast the whole time we worked together. This is a not-to-bad live recording of their first show at a bar that used to be downtown on Broadway. Most of their set consisted of songs that were already punk standards by ’79, a few 60’s covers and a few originals. The originals (Elevator, Windy City and Tropicana) aren’t too bad and I wish there were more of those on here. Pictures of the band and the crowd in the booklet look just like the musicians and freaks that hang around downtown today. Put out by Tucson record label staple San Jacinto in 2000.

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Ultra Maroon

Live on 602 Radio, Phoenix 2009

Everybody always gives Ultra Maroon shit because they’ve been together for seven or eight years and haven’t put out a record. They actually put out a small run CD on Star Time records, but because I consider them friends I won’t post it. It was a horrible representation of how they sound. This live in the studio recording for 602radio.com does a way better job at capturing their weird swampy-jungle-rhythm-blues-punk. This band is only Dick and Mike, but their sound is full because Mike does the bass lines with his thumb while doing the leads with his other fingers like a true bluesman, but it’s rare to see the method applied to music this aggressive and actually work. Plus he has a wall of amps and a mad drummer like Dick backing him up. Sorry no song titles. Their set list in the practice space we share with them has little pictures of eyeballs and suns and things that I think are supposed to phonetically represent words but they’re too complicated for me to figure out. 602 Radio has been doing a good job of recording live performances by a lot of Phoenix and other regional bands.

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Foolscap Fire

2005 CD-R

Here’s a release that went criminally under-rated/unheard. I listened to this more than any other Tucson release in the years I was living in Flagstaff. Their sound reminds me of current Brooklyn hipster bands like Vivian Girls or Grass Widow mixed with a haunting Sonic Youth vibe. The Roger sisters played in a number of bands before this, but always seemed to chew up members and spit um out. Then Matt Rendon (the Resonars, Knockout Pills, Marshmallow Overcoat etc.) came into the picture and they came into their own. I don’t think it was due to Matt’s musical influence as much as his patience and ability to work with Cherish and Katie cause this isn’t like any of his projects before this. His talent is apparent though. They spent a lot of time recording this at Matt’s own Coma Cave studio and it sounds great, but then they went with generic rushed art work and did a limited CD-R release on Scott Moody’s Star Time Records. Moody’s releases are always reliable but he never dumped a lot of money into packaging, advertising, distribution and all that stuff. From what I understand Foolscap Fire quit because of Cherish’s problems with carpal tunnel and Katie’s busy schedule as a lawyer. Matt is probably recording a new record as you read this.

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Umbilical Noose

unreleased 3 song ep '99

I ran into Brandon Zuckarelli over the weekend and he told me about the infectious disease he got that ate its way into his nervous system and rendered his arms and the upper half of his body useless. For most people it’s a rather benign disease but it gets into the nervous system of something like every 1 out of 100,000 people that get it. He’s on the mend and was actually working at Vaudeville when I saw him, but it leaves the status of his current badass band Inoculara in limbo. Back in ‘99 Brandon and current Inoculara singer, Adam played in Umbilical Noose with Brad, Chris Vlasic and my brother Jason. Just before they formed Jason and Brad (along with me and Mike Misovich) were in a band called Pimp Skills that worked the fast-core powerviolence sounds, but with Umbilical Noose they went into full metal overdrive incorporating sludgy doom and black metal influences. The skill and complexity of the music was way beyond anything we did in Pimp Skills. I don’t think a lot of people saw the few live shows they played, which is a shame, and in proper Tucson fashion they recorded this killer three song e.p. and then promptly broke up.

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The Blacks

Hate You Like Gold LP '99
Unlike Blood Spasm I’m fully qualified to write a proper biography of the Blacks. I saw their first show (and about 90% of the shows that followed), recorded them, photographed them for this release, was eventually asked to play bass for them and was later kicked out. But I’m not gonna write a proper biography here because it’s a long story and one too dear to my heart to compress to music blog briefness. Some of the craziest times of my life were spent with them. Most everybody in Tucson hated them while they were around and Chad and Dick ate that hatred up and spit it back out as some of the loudest ugliest early-80s-hardcore-meets-90s-Crypt-style-garage-rock I’ve heard. Chad died under some bizarre circumstances while on tour in ’01, about a week after he kicked me out of the band in Seattle. We had an album and a half of the best songs he ever wrote ready to record as soon as we got back from that tour. We discussed recording them before we left, but thought we’d be tighter after the tour. This is the sole LP they released. There are also about five 7”s which I’ll post eventually. Their incredible drummer, Dick, can currently be found playing in Shark Pants, BooBoo Kiss, Lenguas Largas and Ultra Maroon, whose guitarist, Mike, played bass in the Blacks before I joined. Look for a reissue on Recess Records in the not so near future and Dick compiled a complete discography with tons of songs that were never released which should also be available in the not so near future.

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Blood Spasm

Unreleased Album '87
First post and I chose this unreleased LP because it embodies all that I hope this blog to be. 1) it’s a great example of music from Arizona. 2) it was unreleased or had a small release, mostly locally and 3) the band was influential and/or some of the members are still active with local music. Blood Spasm (along with FUCT, Opinion Zero and Civil Order) pretty much ruled the Tucson punk/hardcore scene for the later part of the 80s. They were breaking up at the time I started going to shows and I only caught the old lineup once opening for (and blowing away) D.R.I. at Mudbugs, which is now called the Rock. My sister used to hang around them back in the day, so their reputation preceded them, but I’m not qualified to write a proper biography. In the early 00s they began a series of reunion shows which as far as I know are still happening with new members. I did catch the first reunion and they sounded like they hadn’t played in years, which was the case. At least one of these guys is dead but singer Bob Spasm (despite serious health problems) is still alive and can probably be found in a downtown bar right now, not drinking. He is currently singing with Bob Spasm and the Gods of Rock. This unreleased LP, recorded in ‘87 by Bret Gurewitz of Bad Religion fame, actually has been released in demo and CD forms at different times over the years, but never saw the proper vinyl release it deserves. With 80s hardcore reissue fever at an all time high I’m surprised there hasn't been more interest in them. The song “We Got Cactus” has become Tucson’s de facto punk anthem and I almost named this blog that, but since I stole the line “if the drugs don’t kill you the boredom will” from another Blood Spasm song for a comp. I helped put out in ’97 I thought better of it.

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