Anomic Suicide

The First Four Years CD 2003-2007

I think Anomic Suicide played as “The Skags” when they first started, but I only saw a couple of their last shows when they were firmly established as Anomic Suicide. They had a good four year run, which in Flagstaff band years is more like twenty years. One of the main songwriters was Travis Coutts who came on my radar when the Cuntifiers played with his old band, the incredible KGB, in Flag once. Travis and the rest of these guys have been a major influence on the Flag scene through their many bands (Emo Wars, Custody Battle, Lipniki Kids, Wedding Band, Landlord, KGB etc.) and by throwing a ton of local parties/shows for many great touring bands. Anomic Suicides’ sound sometimes comes off like raw early 80s hardcore punk, as the Black Flag style art work and title suggests. Other times it feels like they were listening to a lot of Jawbreaker or Replacements, but most of the time it feels like they were eating a lot of acid and listening to Flipper and Sonic Youth or early Amphetamine Reptile bands. Some songs are thirty seconds long and some songs are nine minutes long. Drummer, Pickle, has a sledgehammer style of playing that works with all their styles. Whole thing is rough from conception, to playing, to recording and probably could have been trimmed to a best of rather than complete discography, but there is a rough beauty that comes through in enough of these songs to make it worth checking out.

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Gary Bear

Gary Bear as Kelvin 296 & the Beat Hip demo cass. 1997

The first time I remember seeing Gary Bear was at the DPC when it had just opened (’90 or ’91?) and a great band from England, Thatcher On Acid, played. They were like a better, poppy version of the earlier English anarco-punk bands (Crass, Conflict et al.) and I listen to their records regularly to this day. In the middle of one of their songs they did this break down thing where the music got quiet and they invited anybody from the audience to come up and take the mic for a while. The stage was on the east side of the venue and for a short time had steps directly in front of it so there was easy access. The crowd was thin, but five or six people got up there and did their thing. Some sang along (with real passion, and the band reacted accordingly) others just said stupid shit. Then Gary Bear gets up and recites a poem that I don’t remember verbatim, but the basic idea behind it was that if you drink and you become an asshole when you drink, then you have no right to use alcohol in public. That simple wisdom, put so elegantly in poem form, with the great Thatcher On Acid backing him up, stuck with me over the years and occasionally pops into my head when I see drunk assholes in public. This made his face stick with me and I would recognize him performing as a solo act from then until now. Every time I’ve seen him perform live I’ve found it very annoying. It seemed like he got lost on the way to the Renaissance fair and somehow landed a spot in between two good bands I really wanted to see. This three song demo reflects that kind of freak-folk-pop stuff he does live, but here it’s not annoying. The songs are actually good. They’re still weird as fuck and very Renaissance-y as if he was scoring a very weird Willy Wonka directed by Jodorowosky set in Italy in 1525, but with love song lyrics. Listening to this makes me think about Gary Bear as that type of artist that works best in the recorded medium.

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John Polle

4 songs solo live at the Red Room 2011

The work of Idaho to Tucson transplant John Polle, reminds me of his fellow Idahoan, Doug Martsch. He’s the guy that actually replaced Martsch when he left the Treepeople before their last and worst, but not as bad as some people make it out to be album, Actual Reenactment. Since then, like Martsch with Built to Spill and Halo Benders, Polle has been refining his own unique brand of American indie-pop/rock with his bands the Solace Bros., Lenguas Largas and Discos. I think he might have played in the post-Treepeople band Stuntman too. Also like Martsch he does the occasional acoustic solo set. His guitar picking skills are really evident here and the songwriting is great. On these songs he sounds less like Martsch and more like The Tallest Man On Earth playing stoned. These four songs are taken from the “Live at the Red Room” CD series vol.2 (available at the bar). I think he has a two song 7” of him playing solo like this too. New records by Lenguas Largas and Discos have also just come out. John’s a busy man. Sorry no song titles, but the first song is a version of Discos’ “Up in the Air.”

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the Resonars

Lunar Kit LP 2002

On Matt Rendon’s releases as The Resonars he goes to the trouble to present the Resonars as a band with four real members who share the instrumentation and four part vocal harmonies, but everything is performed by Matt. It wasn’t always that way. They functioned as a real band that played live shows in the early years, but Matt, like all great musicians, probably came to the conclusion that he could get more done quicker by doing it himself. Plus it’s probably impossible to find good players that have as deep an understanding and love of 60s psych rock and pop music as he does. Sure you can find guys that wanna cover Hendrix and the Beatles at any shitty bar in any town, but Matt’s dipping into a much deeper well of 60s rock for inspiration. He can reproduce it so original and authentic sounding that when Dirty Steve, who also has a great knowledge of 60s music, first heard this album he thought it was some obscure gem from the 60s that flew under his radar. He has recorded a lot of my bands and the man can work studio magic with 60s technology. Title track refers to Keith Moon’s drum kit, the same model and set up that was used to record this record. He’s recorded at least two other full lengths since this record, all worth hunting down.

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Swing Ding Amigos

First demo circa 1999

The Swing Ding Amigos were originally from Nogales, but spent most of their existence in Tucson after brothers, Isaac and Levi Reyes, along with El Jimmy moved up here. This early recording finds them still a little wet behind the ears and still really pumped on Scared of Chaka, their most obvious influence at this point. They would eventually evolve a sound of their own that was faster and tighter than Scared of Chaka and just as catchy. I think the most interesting song here is the last one “About Today” which was a hidden track and doesn’t sound like any of the other songs on here. Some people might know this as the Ramen demo, because other versions have a Top Ramen cover, but I think I got one from a batch of one-of-a kind hand made CD-Rs probably thrown together for some out of town shows. Or I could be wrong and that might be a whole different demo. I got to spend a lot of time on the road with these guys when they would travel with the Blacks. They are extremely fun guys to hang out with. Currently Isaac is kicking ass with Lenguas Largas who Levi was also playing with until about a month ago when he moved to Phoenix. Brandon Ugstad and I are supposed to make a record with El Jimmy, doing a bunch of songs he wrote, and we were hoping to do that this summer, but we’ve been so busy with other projects we haven’t had a chance to even meet up yet. This is the first of many great recordings by this band that I will eventually post.

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La Merma

Ciudad Fronteriza cass. 1997

At this point (15-16 years) La Merma has got to be S. Arizona’s longest continuous running punk band. Maybe even the longest continuous running punk band in the whole state (or would that be Blackfire or some PHX band I don't know about?) . The funny thing about that is that they’re not completely from Arizona or the U.S. They have the rare distinction of existing between the third world poverty of Nogales, Mexico and the scary militarized zone Nogales, Az. has become. Their sound reflects a similar dualism combining American Southern California melodic punk, like early Bad Religion with a heavy Spanish punk influence, especially from Eskorbuto, who they sound a lot alike and they praise here in their song “Eskorbuto.” The riff in La Merma’s “Mi Ciudad” is a pretty blatant rip off of Eskorbuto’s “Cuidado!” but they add their own twist to the song so it comes off as less a rip off and more of a folk-tradition tribute to one of their beloved influences. "A Bailar" is my favorite song here and worthy of many a mix-tape. This is their first release and despite many line up changes over the years they are more active than ever recently touring on the East Coast and in Europe and are currently recording their newest record in Tucson.

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Hell Day

Raw Flesh Mind cass. circa '94/'95, Ugly Like My Butt cass. 1993

Here’s one by request, but coincidentally was on my short short list of posts. Hell Day was from Tombstone and is the third in the holy trinity of Cochise County Hardcore.There were many other bands, but there was a sonic kinship between Malignus Youth, Head Space and Hell Day. Hell Day would put their own spin on the sound. The vocals are the focal point and where the MY/HS influence is most evident, but they opt out of blast beat speed and drawn out jams for more of a straight punk sound. The vocals and melodic guitar and bass work make it sound like more than just simple punk though. Slight pop and jazz influences show up too. There seems to be a naïve originality to it, like being isolated in Tombstone limited their exposure to music so they took every type of music they heard and mixed it into a pot and came up with something unique. This is only one of two punk bands I ever heard of coming out of Tombstone. You would think that a town that celebrates violence, death and murder would be a punk mecca, but then again less than 2,000 people live there so Hell Day and My Gun Named Trina are actually real rarities. I think Hell Day relocated to Tucson eventually and were actually practicing in the room next to us on Pennington St. They were around a long time but only played sporadically and I never met them. Apparently a third demo exists. If anybody has it I want a copy.  

Raw Flesh Mind download here

Ugly Like My Butt download here

Earthmen and Strangers

LP 2009

I thought that Ryan Rousseau could do no wrong, but sometime in this last year I saw the current incarnation of Destruction Unit and I did not like them. They dove into a moody, dark, gothic post-punk sound that reminded me of the fist time I saw Digital Leather with just Sean and Arrow playing keyboards and singing, which I thought sucked. Nevertheless Rousseau’s songwriting skills are better than ever, but it’s more evident in Earthmen and Strangers, my favorite project of his so far. Everything is more thought out and controlled compared to his noisier punk bands, but it still has enough punch to keep the head bobbing. There is some mood and reverb, but it’s not dark and overdone. “Bartender” is just about a perfect song. “Photo Lie,” which also shows up on a Digital Leather release is done here. I don’t know if Sean or Ryan wrote it, but both versions are great. There is also a quitter, tamer version “Desert Snow” than the one that appears on Tokyo Electron’s AZ 238 LP. He’s taken his familiar song structures and let them open up and expand into poppy new wave indie rock songs rather than just shoving the music down your throat like some of his past and current work. It’s mature, but in all the right ways.

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My Feral Kin

The Blackened Flat Tax Cd 2008

This band played at my house when I lived in Flagstaff, but I missed the show because I had to work. My roommate, Dirty Steve, who is always looking out for my record collection, picked me up a copy of their CD. When I got home that night the house was trashed, our wood burning stove was demolished, the walls were covered in beer, beer cans everywhere, a few stragglers were passed out or still partying and hard drugs were consumed. After hearing this CD I thought that surly all this chaos couldn’t have been caused by this band, and it wasn’t. Those honors go to Sante Fe’s High Octane Hell Ride, who know how to party. I’m sure seeing the quirky indie-pop of My Feral Kin was a bizarre contrast to High Octane’s hardcore-thrash, but those are often the most fun shows. I’ve listened to this at least once a month since I got it. I lost the actual CD along the way and the above art work (which I found online) is not the same as I remember. Anyway I don’t know anything about these guys, but the music here is great. Wandering, dueling guitars make up most of the foundation while catchy high pitched vocals cover a huge array of instruments with catchy nursery rhyme patterns, except with words that are not nursery rhyme material. The structure is sometimes short and poppy, but some of the songs drift into extensive jams without beating the wandering to death. I can’t believe this band isn’t huge with the people that read Pitchfork and buy current Sub Pop releases. My half-assed internet search makes it seem like they’re not active, which is a shame because I would have loved to see how they’d followed this up.

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the Vinegar Sting

Coronado Historic District Sampler CD circa 2002

Dick told me that Lenguas Largas have been playing some pretty good shows in Phoenix recently. The only time I ever had a good string of shows there was with the Blacks around 2000 when we would play parties at a house in Tempe occupied by members of the Vinegar Sting and Jack Doyle from Underground Railroad to Candyland. We played with the Vinegar sting a lot. They reminded me of some of the earlier Phoenix bands because there’s an anything goes aesthetic and the Sun City Girls were an obvious influence. Sometimes they did sets of all Sun City Girls songs. They were also informed by the Minutemen and some of the more artsy emo stuff from the 90s, like Harriet the Spy or some of the noisy rhythmic San Diego bands or even the Make Up on a song like “ACU.” It sounds dark but they are fun people. It sounds like they take drugs and that’s because they do. They’ve had to go on hiatus because their love of drugs has landed some members in trouble with the law, but they’ve been playing as recently as last year with new material. Years ago at a show at Cannery Row their drummer Andy did a crazy drummer freak out thing and his snare drum fell off the stage, which was on the second floor, directly onto the head of a girl, who was on the first floor and who was trying her best to ignore the band. Huge gash, blood everywhere and I doubt it’s related but the bar didn’t stay open much longer after that.

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the Pork Torta

 

Sparky Welding cass. circa 1994

I was offended when the Okmoniks were playing around Tucson and calling themselves “Tucson’s best party band” or something like that. Everybody knows that the best party band in Tucson was, is and always shall be the Pork Torta. Sure the Okmoniks might make you wanna shake your head and throw some beer at the band, but the Pork Torta make you feel like you walked onto the set of a David Lynch film set in a dark bar in the middle of the desert with some wild, emotionally dissident yet highly rhythmic band pounding away as people grind on each other while strobe lights almost make you blackout and the rhythm makes you go crazy. There is nothing normal about this release. It’s their first and it finds the madness unrefined with more of an anything goes attitude than they've had on more recent releases. Different versions of some of these songs appear on later CDs, but here they’re laced with bad acid and lo-fi charm. Guest appearances by Bob Log and Johnny Balls, who is now their bass player. Everything they produce should promptly be purchased by you, now, here

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Hobart

1995 demo cass.

After Slag split up, Marty and Nathan called me up and asked me if I would play in their new project, Hobart, and I jumped at the chance. They were still hyped on the aggressive ugly nature of Slag, but we started to incorporate influences from bands like Unwound, Drive Like Jehu and the Treepeople. At least those were the bands we were listening to the time. This doesn’t really sound like any of them, but I think they’re apt reference points. Playing with Marty and Nathan was a rude awakening to how terrible a musician I was. They were years ahead of me and I had to get good and/or fake it real quick like just to keep up. Not too long after we recorded this Nathan would move to the Bay Area and we would nab Absinthe drummer Brandon Ugstad and continue the project for a total of eight years, the longest running band I’ve been in. Each cassette had a unique cover made of random photos brought home by my then roommate, Dan (photographer, above) who worked in a 24 hr. photo place. We made only about 20 of these and gave them away to friends. I took the name for this blog from a line in the song No Man’s Land.

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Cancer Brides

like fairy tales of modern times CD 2007

Almost 20 years after the unreleased FUCT demo, John and Obie would release this beast. Cancer Brides had Obie playing drums, rather than just singing, and I was told that he wrote most of the music. John stayed on guitar and other Tucson music vets Psychic Mike (Opinion Zero, Schism), Abel (Cosmic Jackhammer), Joey (ZTTF) and Jeff Ghoul (Backstab Gospel) filled out the line up. The music is progressive like FUCT was in their later years, but in a different way. Instead of bar rock jams they go for a more metal sound. Epic metal like Iron Maiden, but with nods to Feel the Darkness era Poison Idea. And yet a song like The Wrong Kill could be a straight up pop song if it wasn’t for Abel’s manic singing style. Other songs like 5X8 are sludgy, heavy and noisy. The guitars on this are huge and add a lot of melody that is juxtaposed nicely with the crazy vocals. I don’t think any of these guys have current active projects, which is a shame. Great artwork by Obie’s wife Paula.

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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.

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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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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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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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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