Finally, all the free records I’ve been sending out to radio stations, publications and other label owners have paid off (sort-of): Lemon Session has made quite a media splash.

A quick Google search show the label name popping up in radio playlists all over the nation, including KDVS (Davis, CA), WUSB (Stony Brook, NY) and KEXP (Seattle, WA). One DJ named Jared who has a show called “What We Do Is Secret” (Tuesdays from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. on KRCL in Salt Lake City, UT) even wrote a great article about the first four releases on the club.

You can read the article here: http://krclblog.org/krcl/?p=562.

A personal highlight for me was listening to The Best Show On WFMU on May 4 and hearing Rib Cages’ “Lock Horns” in the beginning of the show. Being a huge fan of Tom Scharpling, the fact that I got some props from him on my show made this whole spending-thousands-of-dollars-to release-records-no-one-buys thing worth it. (Go to WFMU’s archives and click on the May 4 pop-up player to hear the entire show.)

But one radio show went above and beyond all others: The World Is A Drag, an online show on Rainy Dawg Radio, actually recorded a live set from Rib Cages. And because Jeremy is so rad, he even let me post the recording on this here website for you to download!

So, here is a live set from Rib Cages, who now feature the bass player from Octagon Control and who will be touring the Midwest this summer.

If you didn’t notice, the band has a bunch of new songs, which will appear on their upcoming album that they are currently recording. Keep coming to here to learn more details.

In other great news: this Monday I will be recording the X/A Frames/Hank IV show at the Hemlock, S.F. IN ITS ENTIRETY! The mp3s will show up on this here website for free download soon afterward, so keep checking the website for updates!

So this post is a little late and a little rushed because I leave for the Dry-Shitties tomorrow. Still, I finally finished these goddamn demos and everybody should download them, distribute them, do whatever. They’re just demos, right?

But before I get to the songs, I have to show off/brag about my newly obtained Mark Mothersbaugh autograph. My wife’s aunt came over from Philadelphia to visit my in-laws for a few weeks and brought me a present — no, not the autograph, but a Men Without Hats “Safety Dance” 45.

Obviously it was a present she found while cleaning out her closet. (It had a note inside from her sister talking about how great a some record by the Police was.) Still, it was super nice of her, especially since I had probably only saw her 3-4 times before then.

My father-in-law has a record player hooked up in his dining room, so we put the record on. I think only my wife and I knew the Safety Dance before that moment, so of course I had to demonstrate it for them. By doing so I confirmed the fact that it was a stupid dance.

We flipped over the record to listen to the B-side, an upbeat synth rocker that could have only been written in the ’80s called “Living In China,” (which is also, by the way, is kinda racist.)

“This sounds like Devo.”

“Oh, you’ve actually heard of Devo?” asked Joan.

“Yeah. I’m such a big fan I actually bought a DVD of theirs.”

“You want a Devo autograph?”

Whadda ya mean do I want an autograph? Hell yeah, I want a Devo anything, especially an autograph. Watching “the Untold Story of Devo” turned into a two-week long Devo-listening jag where I craved listening to Devo records, especially songs like “The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise” and “Snowball.” Her offer came during the middle of those two weeks.

So there it is up above, a piece of cardboard signed “We’re All Devo, Mark” by Mark Mothersbaugh back around 1980 (“Freedom of Choice”(Hell yeah!)), in all its glory.

Now to the tracks:

A few quick notes:

1. I used a PreSonus Firepod with Logic on my 15″ Macbook to record this. I also miked the living hell out of the drums and recorded the guitars direct.

2. Pilot’s Handbook — I’m gonna change the lyrics some time soon. For this recording I half-assed sang some scribblings I made on an early BART train about a guy crashing his car. (I don’t know why I said “Joe” in the first bridge but I really regret not re-recording it during the 2-hour frame of time I had to record the vocals at my practice space.

3. Under A Mountain — This is the first song I wrote for the band and no, I wasn’t listening to Queens of the Stone Age at the time; I was listening to KARP (Self-titled of course.) I had those first two lines for a long time, but usually just made noises throughout the rest of the song. The rest of the song is now filled with obnoxious comments about a guy I hate. Really not going for a Pulitzer here. (Also notice the stupidest/most hilarious/most awesome Pussy Galore lyric squeezed in at the second verse.)

4. Criminals (look like this) — Gavin Toler’s post-Pud band name that I loved. Thinking about the title made me think about Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay, so I wrote a bunch of phrases that those guys might have said.

UPDATE: We’re now called Steeples and we have a new singer, a guy named Dustin who sang for the band Suicide Bomb.

This, right here, is one of the reasons I started this blog. When I first thought this thing up, I would tell myself, “…and I’ll get to post about Pud!” Really; it was one of those things I just daydreamed about.

When talking about Bainbridge Island punk rock bands, the locals would think it more prudent to talk about bands like the Rickets or March of Crimes. But seriously, fuck them; I want to talk about Pud.

About the end of 1994, I was told by some school friends of mine that the Rickets were breaking up and were planning a “last show.” in Seattle.

I was 14 at the time, about the age I first began considering myself a punk. (Yes, I let it be known that I endorsed the idea of wearing t-shirts and jeans everyday, and also appreciated loud, abrasive music.) The Rickets were one of the first bands to convince me that I too could play loud, fast music, and could start doing so as soon as my parents bought me an instrument. They were an ironically large influence on my life even after my dad tried to ban them from my house, which is why, when living in the Tri-Cities, I would have to turn down a seat in my friend’s car and miss out on my favorite band’s last show.

When I saw my friend at school the Monday following the show, he didn’t say much about it, just that “Pud was better than the Rickets.” Are you kidding me? It was the Rickets last show! And a band named Pud was better?

Soon afterward, I sent off a letter to the bassist of the Rickets (we were pen pals) asking for contact info for Pud and about six to eight weeks later I received in his response an address for “Lucky Eddie.” Sent this “Lucky Eddie” four bucks and an SASE, and soon after moving to a new house, I received the “Breakout” demo tape.

Imagine receiving a random demo tape with a convict holding a cop hostage on the cover, popping the tape into your Walkman and hearing this:

Yes, it did change my life.

Yesterday, after a run to Amoeba, I checked off another entry from my list of records I must own before I die. For a whole $2, I finally purchased the Cleavers’s “Livin For Leisure” 7″, a record I’ve been looking for since it was released in 1995. Oh happy day!

“Who are the Cleavers?” you ask. Well, does the name “Murder City Devils” ring a bell?

While the majority of what-would-become-the-Devils lived in Seattle and played feedback-drenched, double-screamer hardcore in the band Area 51; across the Puget Sound, in a little place called Bainbridge Island, Devils-to-be Nate Manny and Gabe Kerbrat* both played guitar and sang in a band called the Cleavers. (Other dudes that went by the name Joe and Oliver played bass and drums respectively.) Best described as “immature punk,” (though I bet they had a funnier/stupider name for it,) the band sang about the awesomeness of Abe Lincoln, failed attempts at escaping Alcatraz, and, most notably, what they would do if they were robots.

Missoula, Montana-based label Wantage co-released the Livin’ For Leisure 7″ with Left Over Productions. Only 500 pressed on clear vinyl and inscribed on every record was what could only be described as nonsense, but were probably inside jokes. Side A: “The moon is hallow! In a movie about hockey there is a million whip cut if not more because in Canada they don’t have T.V.” Side B: “Did you ever meet a free mason you liked? Did you ever see that movie called Warrioirs(sic) about the fucked up gangs in New York? Come out to play Warroirs!” (Maybe Warroirs is the French spelling? -Ed.) You have to wonder if they actually paid for it to say that or it was thrown in for free.

The record also comes with a full 24-page zine. Gabe, while in the Cleavers, also published a zine called “Hellbound,” a perfect example of the smaller, goofier fan zines that lonely punks in small towns all over the U.S. produced en mass. Issues of Hellbound were filled with band interviews, record reviews and a comic that featured “Abe Lincoln shooting steroids and fighting people,” according to Dan Halligan from 10 Things zine. Gabe, who now blogs about his life for [url=http://kerbrat.wordpress.com/]The Best Chapters,[/url] loved the Hellbound name so much he would later use it for a record label, his band-management company and even a house he lived in.

The zine accompanying the record is an inane diatribe against the evils of the Easter Island Heads, who the Cleavers blame for every horrible moment in history. The zine starts off: “What do the assassination of Abe Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic and the Apollo moon landings have in common? Need we bother asking.(sic) Often mistaken merely for giant stone heads, the Easter Island Heads are in reality much much more. It was the Easter Island Heads that brought the human race to this planet so many years ago aboard the moon, hollowed out to accommodate our freeze-dried ancestors…” Later: “Easter Island Heads, what in the hell are you talking about, is that what you’re saying? Well buddy, I think its about time you take the first train out of Idiotsville and open your eyes. All aboard the reality express, destination: you figuring out that the Easter Island heads control even the most mundane aspects of your existence.”

The zine goes on to say that the “Heads” control TV and every government in the world, while displaying pictures that show heads with historical figures such as Hitler, Mussolini and Lee Harvey Oswald. (When my scanner stops acting up, I’ll post the whole thing.)

Here are a sampling of tracks from “Livin For Leisure”

A quick sample of the lyrics to “Robot”:
If I was a robot I wouldn’t have to breath
and I’d go into outer space
and I’d play rock and roll on Mars.

and

If I was a robot I’d eat nuts and bolts
and I’d drink motor oil
and if you double park me I’ll eat your car.

Larry Jackson, of the Rickets and Jesus Fucking Christ, told me once that he used to drum for the Cleavers. “But I always made sure not to play as well as I could have, because I didn’t want them to be as good as the Rickets.” (One more fact proving that Larry rules.)

As Murder City Devils fans already know, the Cleavers begat the Unabombers, while across the sound, Area 51 begat the Death Wish Kids. And both the Unabombers and the Death Wish Kids begat the Murder City Devils, the demigods for an entire generation of kids in high school during the ’90s (including my wife.)

Coming soon: BI punk, pt.2 — Pud, creators of Ragna Rock ‘n Roll!

*Yes, I know Gabe was only the roadie, but many considered him to be the “7th devil.”