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.

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!