As if life wanted to send me a message it knew I would ignore, I’m sad to report that my recording equipment has blown up.

My 16-track set up bit the dust during the Friday night of Budget Rock 10, so not only am I temporarily unable to use it, the last bands I attempted to record with it were Personal & the Pizzas, the re-united Statics, and the almighty Rip Offs, who played one of the most amazing sets I’ve ever witnessed. Yet none of what I captured will ever see the light of day because it all sounds like complete shit, and not the good kind (AKA “lo-fi”), but digital garbage.

It looks my equipment is repairable but it’s going to take awhile and require money I don’t have, now that I have a baby on the way as well as two new releases out Lemon Session (Von Zippers and Zulus). So, if you’ve been holding out on buying records from me but come to this site for the free downloads, please consider buying some records. You won’t be sorry if you do since they’re all rad.

Now onto what this post was supposed to be about: my recent recordings (pre-blow up) of Raw Nite.

Raw Nite is the newest project to feature the vocal-stylings of Rob Vertigo, the Bay Area’s favorite record store employee. Providing the musical platform for him are two dudes from Vertigo’s other bands: John Laux from Tractor Sex Fatality on guitar and Kyle Runyon from Butcher Cover on drums. As you can tell from the tracks, the band takes the aesthetic of Butcher Cover’s simplified, lo-fi hardcore and applies to ’90s’ noise rock a la Pussy Galore and Soul Crusher-era White Zombie. Yes, it’s that good.

Provided for your enjoyment is a mix of studio and live tracks. The live tracks were from their second show ever, which was at the Stork, and consists of a board recording melded with what was captured on my shitty handheld recorder. The studio tracks come from a recent recording I produced in my garage before it was gutted, where I used a Tascam 388 for the basic tracks and a 6-track cassette recorder for mixdown and overdubs.

Get ready to have your face melted off.

It’s stupid how long it’s taken me to finally post this. A month ago I was so busy that I had to wait until I took a vacation to get back to this blog. But then after I mixed the tracks and wrote the majority of the post, I basically forgot to publish it for two weeks. It was dumb – I’d remember it early in my day, usually when I was nowhere near a computer; and then by the time I could’ve finished the post, I’d drink a bunch of beers and watch several episodes of “Storage Wars” instead.

Though work has sucked up the majority of my time and energy, label stuff has also been a part of why I’ve been so busy – mixing recordings for possible releases, getting everything squared away with the next two singles and even buying more equipment for live recording. So expect more content, both free and for purchase.

But I could be just wasting time and money as my wife is pregnant and according to every father I know, I won’t have a life after the baby arrives. Well, I guess it’s just trading one dream for another… But if you’re in the Bay Area and want to see how the record business works for little money, email me.

Let’s get to what you actually care about: free music.

Little Queenie is an Bay Area all-star punk band featuring members of the Gris Gris, Spencey Dude and the Doodles, Battleship, and many others that I don’t have the energy to type out. Their names should be familiar to those who like good music — bassist Oscar Michel, bassist Gene “Bean” Bae, drummer Joe Haener, and singer Mark “Icki” Murrmann, the photographer/label head/ex-MRR co-editor who doesn’t have as many releases under his belt as teammates but isn’t a new comer to mic rockin’ (check out his work as frontman for Short Eyes (with Bean on guitar), who have an CDR on Raw Deluxe records.)

The most notable part of this band is that the role usually reserved for a 6-string guitar is filled by a second bass, be it a distorted, rock-guitar-like bass (played by Michel.) The switch results in a new take on the neo-proto punk 4-piece and nothing like Cop Shoot Cop.

*Quick note — These songs were mixed in a Portland hotel room while my wife slept and a Storage Wars marathon played on the TV.

If you haven’t noticed (and you probably haven’t), it’s been a long time since the last post; almost two months. But there have been good reasons for this, as I have not only been SUPER busy with the label, but I’ve actually been planning out upcoming posts.

The next two Lemon Session releases — Von Zippers and Zulus (ex-Battleship, Teenage Nightwar) — are on their way to the presses, so expect them to be available for purchase in about a month. Not only are the tracks on both records KILLER, but they will feature color sleeves that will be way too expensive for me. Of course, starting a record label is a bad financial decision, so there’s no reason for me to become thrifty all of a sudden.

This week’s post is the first in a series consisting of my recordings from the SS Records 10th Anniversary shows. Thanks to my good friend, recording genius Russ Arteaga, we have every set recorded…WELL. And what better way to show off our collaborative recording skills than with a excerpt from Liquorball’s ripping set.

For those of you not in the know, Liquorball is the recently reformed psych band featuring Monoshock’s lead shredder, Grady Runyon. The band, which existed in tandem with Monoshock, was the latter’s crazier, attention-deficient cousin that shared the same roots (motherfuckin’ Hawkwind!) but stayed away from actual song structure. In the words of Julian Cope, the mastermind behind the ’80s hit “World Shut Your Mouth”- “This band was one hoity-toity beast,” whose albums were “psychically dangerous to own.”

Indecipherable descriptions aside, the band shreds just as much as they did almost 20 years ago. This set consisted of two songs… I think? All I know for sure is that the best place to stand was in front of Grady, the drummer was a machine, and the bass was the loudest instrument I’ve ever recorded.

Below is an excerpt from their set.

PS — Yes, I know that the slideshow to the right of this sentence includes pics of bands other than Liquorball. I just made a slideshow for the entire night. And yes, I have great recordings of all these bands and they’ll all be posted soon.




Right click on the player and choose “Download Document” to download this song.

The days of Percocets and popsicles are over. After two weeks of sitting around my house in sweatpants, pulling inch-long chunks of dried blood from my nose, I am back to sitting on my computer all day, pretending I’m a recording “professional.” Hopefully all the pain and sacrifice will mean better sleep, as the procedures I underwent were solutions to my horrible sleep apnea (now you don’t have to ask “what did you get done?”)

I’ll be at the SS Records 10th Anniversary shows this weekend if you wanna say “hi” or make arrangements to buy some records and not have to pay for shipping. I’ll be the bald guy with a spotty blonde beard doing nerdy crap like taking pictures or annoying the guys from the A-Frames.

This week’s recording is from a young band of punk rockers from Memphis known as Cheap Time. If you haven’t picked up their albums on In The Red, get the hell off this site right now.

I was pretty excited about this set: though I’m not a Cheap Time superfan/completist or whatever, songwriter Jeffrey Novak impresses the hell out of me. He’s not only a prolific songwriter who rarely pens a “miss,” he tries out different genres and influences, and nails that sound he’s so obviously going for, every time.

I’m sad to say I was unable to catch the band’s encore that night at the Hemlock back in March. As you can hear, the band was smoking that night and sadly my hard drive was maxed out by the time they took the stage again.

Still, enjoy, and keep coming back. Also, buy a record for fuck’s sake!

Hey, great seeing you again! Thanks so much for coming by and grabbing some free stuff. This post is a real treat for those who love lo-fi live recordings of crazy punk bands — if it were the 90s, you’d be trading this shit on cassette.

But before you go running off to download the free songs posted below, make sure you take a second and check out the releases page. We got records in the can, ready to go and the only thing that’s stopping us is the money part. All that I ask is that if you like what you see and hear here, buy some records.

Anyway, I’m hours away from having huge chunks of my throat cut out, and adopting a diet of ice cream and
Percocet. This week’s recording is from the Homostupids, the best spastic punk band out there right now.

Unlike my most recent posts, this isn’t from a show recorded months or years ago. It’s from March, so I am definitely patting myself on the back for this post.

Sadly, though the show was full of energy and chaos, it wasn’t the band’s tightest set, as exemplified by their opening number, Beneath The Blackman (my fave song), which practically fell apart (and I didn’t post below.) The bass player was asking for weed earlier in the night and I think he had found some right before they took the stage…

Still, this was a fucking great set that also included hits like “Apeshit” and “Fishboys” as well as shack shakers from their newest LP, “Strawberry, Orange, Peach, Bananna.” One of which, Starman, was thrown in their twice, probably for inside joke purposes.

Sadly, I could not include the sweet shit talking, such as when the band announced they would play the song Starman and some dude exclaimed that he had the movie on LaserDisc. The singer/guitarist then replied, “We’ll play that shit for you and your fucking laser disc, which you probably didn’t pay for, fucktard!”

*Audio nerds, take note: I didn’t use the full setup, just a Zoom h4 and a Rode NT4.

Jesus christ where the hell does the time go?! And WHERE THE HELL ARE MY PRIORITIES?!!! When I should’ve been posting sweet live recordings *cough* and news about all the amazing shit going on at my label, I wasted my time looking at eBay for crap and listening to podcasts. (Disclaimer: listening to the Best Show On WFMU is not a waste of time. Exhibit A Click and hear.*)

To be honest, I’ve actually been working hard on future posts, in the hope of cranking out at least one a week for at least a few upcoming weeks, but we’ll see — being that I have no attention span whatsoever, any kind of regularity to this is something worth celebrating.

This week: a 2010 recording of SF’s oldest teenagers, Hank IV.

This recording has been in the vaults since last year, but with good reason — there were a few technical errors during the show, all of which were my fault. Basically I did the entire session by myself after going months without doing any recording; was rushed to get everything set up and going (didn’t move fast enough); and I forgot to check my equipment before leaving.

So, three things ring loud and clear in these recordings: 1. The general absence of bass guitar, a result of me forgetting to plug in the mic that was placed in front of the bass amp. 2. The lack of introductions to a few of the songs, which I was unable capture after I had stopped recording a few times (when trying to figure out why I wasn’t hearing any bass guitar) because my computer took too long to start up again. And 3. A clearly horrible technical issue with one of the guitars, which was all the fault of a shitty mic cord.

I was aware of the issues soon after the set ended and I felt really bad, especially after telling Hank IV guitarist and Hemlock promoter Tony Bedard of the issues. Tony’s a great guy who I can actually talk to, and who always books my bands and let’s me record other bands. When I told him about the technical issues during the recording, I could see the disappointment on his face. But that lasted only a second or two, and then he replied, “Well, I bet it’s still better than that live recording of the Electric Eels!”

By the way, I’ve already signed up to record Hank IV again during the SS Records 10th Anniversary shows, along with a bunch of other bands, so look forward to that. Also, go to the releases page and buy some damn records!

*The clip of Tom Scharpling is from the second part of the Best Show On WFMU’s 2011 Marathon, which aired on March 3, 2011. It should be noted that Tom said that after he had been informed that I had made a “generous” contribution to the station during the marathon.

Well, I missed the weekly deadline I gave myself, but at least I made the second week! Yep, I’m staying alive and moving along, lining up a bunch more recordings to give away for free. Just last week I captured both Little Queenie and the almighty HOMOSTUPIDS, which I should be getting up sooner rather than later. (Sadly, my recording device corrupted the amazing 1/2-hour set from Butcher Cover and its proving to be impossible to salvage.)

By the way, thanks to everybody who started buying up singles from the Lemon Session Singles Club 2010 once they were made available for individual purchase. Note to all interested — the Aluminum Knot Eye records are being bought up a few at a time, so make sure to buy one before they’re gone.

This week’s free download? A live Sex Church recording from October 2010.

This was recorded when the band went on a tour through the west coast to who-knows-where (I know I forgot.) I rushed over to the First Church Of The Buzzard, in a crappy part of west Oakland, and could only bring my 2-track recorder.

Though I had to search for a sweet spot during Butcher Cover’s set (thereby only getting half of it…. uggh) it was perfect for Sex Church’s modern psych set. After Butcher Cover’s blast of blown-out insanity and the amount of dope smoking going on in the venue (if only the church’s congregation knew!), the crowd was primed for goth-tinged space jams that Sex Church brought.

Afterward, Sex Church came back to my place and became the first rock band to stay at my new house. Sadly, the jacuzzi wasn’t up and running yet, so our rock star partying was limited to beers and episodes of “Louie” on my DVR.

Though I have plenty of reasons to feel “blessed,” being a music fan that lived in Seattle around the turn of the 21st century is right up there at the top.

I will be the first to admit that the music from Seattle in the early ’00s wasn’t earth-shattering — I can count the number of really great bands to come from that time on one hand. But those bands were the first steps to expanding my musical taste and teaching me that your favorite bands are typically not the flavor of the day.

Looking back, I bet I wasn’t alone. I swear within two years, the Seattle scene went from pretty much ALL New Bomb Turks and Heartbreakers rip-offs to every other type of band. Phrases like “Killed By Death” and “No Wave” seemed to have become common vernacular within a year.

Though bands like the Spits, Blow Up and the Cripples helped bridge this gap by playing shows with generic rock ‘n roll bands, people like me had to specifically find an A-Frames show to attend. After hearing constant buzz from friends, I finally caught a set of theirs at the Sunset in Ballard. Couldn’t tell you who the other bands were, but I remember their set like it was yesterday.

I couldn’t fully appreciate their sound at the time, which my friend Cody would always imitate by going *BRap BRap BRap,* but in the middle of the set, singer/guitarist Erin asked the audience, “Do you want to hear a slow one?”

To this day, “Surveillance” is one of my favorite songs, and from that moment on I was a dedicated A-Frames fan. (And I’m not alone in my conversion by “Surveillance.”)

Seeing them at the Hemlock brought me back to those days when every song they played was a hit, especially the ones that appeared on a cassette they released back then: “Crutches,” “Complications” and “Membrane.” It was so good, I made sure to go to the Stork show 2 weeks later, where they not only played those songs again, they busted out “Surveillance” too. (Sadly, I didn’t record it, but the band probably got a recording of the set from the Stork’s board…)

All those early recordings, including a bunch of demo tracks, have been compiled on 3-Lp set called “3″ released on SS Records. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

If you aren’t friends with Steve Lucas of X on Facebook, you probably don’t know the drama behind the band’s first tour of the U.S. in 33 years. Apparently Lucas has a herniated disk in his spine, causing him great pain when he sits for long periods of time, like when flying cross country or riding for hours in a van.

By touring, Lucas is ignoring doctor’s orders, which usually isn’t the best idea. On May 28, he wrote:

“I have been advised to end the tour. I was advised not to take it on. I am now being told I am in need of surgery as the real option. I would have to come home… defeated. The longer I stay seated (as in a bus for hours upon end) I increase the level of damage.”

But yet the tour continues.

I was lucky to catch the band and record it on a day that appeared to be kind to Lucas — they only had to drive from Sacramento to San Francisco, about a two-hour drive.

There were a few missed notes and a few forgotten changes, but for a majority of the set X brought the same energy captured on their early recordings. By the time they reached their 16th song, “Mother” (which they’ve taken off their set for the remaining shows), the band and the crowd was spent — you can hear it in the recording. But up until that point, they had the crowd dancing and singing along.

Sadly, a few friends talked to me the day after the show and when asking me about X’s set, they always added the caveat, “I heard they suck.” In this music scene, word-of-mouth is everything and bullshit-criticism like that spreads like a virus. Hopefully that crap hasn’t been affecting their shows.

Heed my advice: listen to the recordings below and then, if you live in the Bay Area, go to the shows on June 5 & 6, because you’ll probably never get a chance to see such an amazing, influential band again.

*First two songs don’t have the best guitar sound; make sure to listen to #3 and on as I fixed the mic by then.

I wish I could’ve gotten to the show earlier to set up. My dragging ass not only missed an opportunity to record the Bare Wires, I didn’t set up in time to get So Cow’s entire set. Combined with some weird guitar-mic issues, I properly recorded only about six songs of their face-melting set.

Listening to So Cow’s self-titled album is a bit like time travel to me. When I throw it on, it takes me back to my salad days, when I had a lot of time, little responsibility and a few punk cassettes — Descendents, Ramones, etc.

Back then my musical tastes demanded lots of energy and melody. I had been through a metal phase and found punk to be so much more powerful. It was the first music I heard that made me jump around and sing along. (Mind you, this was right before NOFX’s Punk In Drublic and Green Day’s Dookie became the mainstream definition of punk rock; I had yet to become jaded with the formula.)

If I had a cassette of So Cow’s album when I was 12, I probably would’ve worn it out while trying to ollie over bricks in a church parking lot. Brian Kelly’s songs have the pop-hooks and speed of the Descendents combined with the chord mastery of the Beatles. Or to put it simply, So Cow is a fast Beatles.

Which is why I was so surprised by the band’s comments during and after the set that the songs were played too fast. The band doesn’t sound like they’re rushing through the songs — it sounded like it had energy. Yet, before starting “Ain’t No Fun,” my mics picked up the bass player saying, “It needs to slow way the fuck down.”

But what-the-fuck-ever, decide for yourself:

One final note: though the So Cow set was great, the highlight of the night was during the Bare Wires’ last song, “Young Love.” At the climax of the song, Melton and the bassist (don’t know his name) had obviously planned to jump into the crowd. But when Matt jumped in, he unplugged his guitar, so the song went from loud and rockin’ to quiet and confused.

Maybe I’m the only one who finds that funny because I’m a critical asshole. Whatever… Subscribe to the singles club!