Custody Battle

10” 2010

I think of Custody Battle as the refined version of Anomic Suicide. It contains Travis and Pickle from said band and adds Zombie Religion singer, Loren, on bass. The sound is similar to Anomic Suicide’s in that it sounds like all the good players from the early SST bands formed a band that somehow didn’t suck. The playing is tighter and the songwriting has gotten slimmer and more minimalist and more focused. This is also the best recording of any of Travis’ many bands that I’ve heard. Because I know these guys it’s hard to separate how mean this sounds from what nice mellow guys they are. The music makes them sound deranged and heat fried. Ain’t one trace of that hippie love folk shit that is popular in all the bars up in Flagstaff. This is the type of music you can only see in basements and house shows where underage kids are getting loaded and making out and rocking out. Easily one of the best bands in Az. right now.

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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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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.

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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