COUNTY Z//SHEP AND ME - Split - Tape - 2003?

   If you're familiar with this blog, you're probably familiar with COUNTY Z, because I've given you plenty of opportunities to check them out. SHEP AND ME is also no stranger to this page. As I've said before, COUNTY Z is one of my top 5 all-time favorite bands in the history of music and these two songs don't appear on other things they released. I don't know anything about it, but it's so good to my ears.
  SHEP AND ME is Matthew Himes playing outsider sounds and otherworldly folk that comes out of a world that is his own creation. Everything I've ever heard by him has been nothing short of brilliant. I'm not exactly sure if SHEP AND ME is still an active project, but Matt has been tirelessly releasing analog (and some digital) documents of the outsider world through his label, Lighten Up Sounds. Pick up anything he has available and you're guaranteed to be intrigued.
   This tape was released by Snob House, but I don't have a cover for it. Apparently, there was a surly dog drawn on it, so you can just imagine that for yourself. COUNTY Z broke up and then 2/3's of the band started playing with Matt as ROTTEN LIVING. Then, they broke up and MOTHER OF FIRE started. Then they broke up and the world is a black hole of despair.

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YOGURT BRAIN - "Vol 2" - Tape - 2014

   Sleep has been an elusive beast lately and out of the last 48 hours, I've only slept for 3 of them. During that time, my much loved (and kind of fancy) bike got stolen through no fault of my own. It's really bumming me out because I use it every single day and it has been a constant help in my everyday life. This is the third time that a bike of mine has been stolen when it's been secured in a place that I live and I'm sick of it. It also pushed me into a random decision to stop being a nice person. So, if you meet me in the future, be prepared for me to be a total asshole to you.
   I'm going to try to sleep and I put on this YOGURT BRAIN tape, which is the brainchild of my friend and practice space-mate, Steve-O. They've been an active band for a few years now and along with his bandmate/drummer, Stephen, they've been slugging it out in backyards, bars, warehouses, living rooms and street corners, playing folky/rocky/somber and energetic music. They play a lot of covers. On this tape, they stick to songs "written, co-written or popularized by GRAM PARSONS", a man who died in the desert from an overdose of morphine and alcohol and then had his dead body stolen by his friends in a borrowed hearse so that they could fulfill his dying wishes of having his body cremated at Joshua Tree. Dude....I'll just go ahead and put this out there...please don't let me have a funeral in a church and have people talk about God around me. You're welcome to steal my dead body and burn it in front of Cancun on Mission Street.
   Anyway, this is a beautiful tape and they do an excellent job of faithfully rendering some classic jams. They also have a Vol 1 tape out there, but I posted this one because the other one, while also great, contains a GRATEFUL DEAD song. I try my hardest in life to shed the internalized racism that I grew up with. I think homophobia and transphobia is about as fucked up as killing someone. I do my best to not be an ableist prick. I try to keep myself open to new ideas and new experiences and I want to accept people for who they really are, even when their ideals and ideas don't align with mine in any conceivable way (except cops)....but goddamn I hate the GRATEFUL DEAD and many of the people who love them. Just let me have that. Let me hold on to that hate and let it fester. That being said, YOGURT BRAIN's "Vol 1" tape is good too.

YOGURT BRAIN'S BANDCAMP

Members of UZI RASH, HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE, YOOTS and so many more that I can't even keep track. 

UKE OF PHILLIPS & ERIN TOBEY - "Live On The Phone" - Tape - 2005

     Ever since I was a kid, I've always loved the sound of AM radio, lo-fi recordings and the way that music sounds over the phone through those tinny speakers. Put me in a tour van driving through the middle of the US at 2 am and I will guarantee that the radio will be tuned in to Coast To Coast AM. If that's not available, I'll be scanning the AM radio stations anyway. I also love it when any band has a sample of music being played over an answering machine. Once, an old friend called my house when she was at an X show and held the phone by her side for most of the show. My friends and I put it on speaker-phone and danced in my bedroom. It sounded amazing. So, imagine my delight when I stumbled across the radio show, "Phoning It In", which is comprised entirely of musicians calling in to the radio show and playing their songs over the phone!  

   The radio show ran from 2005-2011 and featured artists ranging from DANIEL JOHNSTON to DANIEL HIGGS to BILLY CHILDISH to SARAH DOUGHER to JULIE DOIRON to USAISAMONSTER to everything in between. Their archive is insane and impressive (and can be found here)(and here's another link)

   This tape compiles two separate 2005 performances by ERIN TOBEY and UKE OF PHILLIPS. Erin plays her otherworldly, nimble-fingered songs over a land line from the back room of a now-defunct punk warehouse called The Ark in Gainesville, FL (Fun Fact: A fitness club has now opened up in that warehouse that once hosted so many punk shows and debaucherous parties. That club is called...wait for it...The Ark). The tinny sound of the phone gives her songs a beautiful, faraway feel that is warm and enveloping. You can find more music by Erin here and a lot of her fantastic art here. 

   UKE OF PHILLIPS phone in from tour during a stop at MARS in Missoula, MT. They alternate between their gutter country/folky songs and just being totally "out there". On this recording, the group consists of Dan Beckman, Matt Beckman and A.M.O.S. Shit gets really weird at some points. It's cool. You can find way more stuff by UKE right here and you can find newer stuff here. Keep up with their rare appearances on their blog.

    Not so fun fact: When I went to digitize this tape, I accidentally put it in the wrong deck and the stereo immediately chewed up the analog tape and mangled it beyond all repair. I just looked at it helplessly and then just nailed the damn thing to my wall. Erin Tobey was nice enough to email over the tracks of both artists for you to enjoy in the digital realm. So, thanks Erin!

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TUBE SMUGGLERS - Demo - Tape - 2002

For this tape, I decided that I wanted one of the members of the band to tell me all about 'em, because I know next to nothing. I asked my good friend, Rymodee to write up something and he obliged in the best way possible....through the US postal service...even though I could bike to his house in 15 minutes if I wanted to. So, here's Modee to tell you everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about the TUBE SMUGGLERS

(Click to enlarge...yeah, yeah, I typed it out too in case your eyesight kinda sucks like mine)

   I haven't heard or even seen the TUBE SMUGGLERS tape in several years, so when I saw it online recently, I was surprised that it had been labeled "Florida folk punk". Listening now, I understand, and I might even call it that myself but back then, well, it wasn't what we were going for. 

  This one day, Chris showed on on our front lawn. I think he was heartbroken, but I could be making that up. My partner at the time, Jen and I said he could stay and get all put back together again and things seemed swell. 

    Jen and I could get pretty lit and play Irish songs on a firewood piano til dawn, and we worked 100 hours a day, at least, but somehow, a few weeks later, we noticed we had also written a few songs. All of them about cooking or murder. Chris on guitar, me on mandolin and Jen on a fucked up, homemade stand-up bass (which terrified her). 

  We looked up one day and realized that all of a sudden we had 7 people living in our house and they were all in our band. . A spit jug player,washboards & castanets, guitar, mandolin, fucked up bass, spoons, saw, a hammered dulcimer with steel pipes instead of strings and a nose flute.

   I don't remember where the 8 track recorder came from, but what I do know is that none of us really figured it out. We ended up doing each track one at a time with headphones, and there are a few terrible spots on the tape that we should have done over, but it took a pretty long time, and one of us was on the verge of a mental explosion, due to cramped quarters. 

   Anyway, we recorded it , played two shows (one being a house band feud, which I have come to realize happens in Pensacola much more than anywhere else.)

    This tape is really great if you can bear to make it through to "Gold Rush", where Samantha's lovely baritone still makes me laugh and cry at the same time. 

Chris Clavin - Guitar

Rymodee - Mandolin

Hannah Jones - Washboard, Castanets

Jen Knight - Stand up bass

Samantha Jane - Spit Jug

Mikey Hotsauce - Lead Vox

Teddy Ted - Saw, Spoons, Hammered Dulcimer, Nose Flute

   We disbanded almost immediately afterwards. All of Chris' friends who traveled to our home in his time of need felt their job was complete. Mikey put out a handful of copies on those tiny CD's and I heard some crew of New Orleans punks were making bootleg tapes, which was fine by us. 

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GLUE WILL NOT BE SOLD TO CHILDREN - A San Pedro Compilation - Tape - 1998

                                             
    Most of the time, when punks think of San Pedro, CA, the first bands to come to mind are THE MINUTEMEN, FYP or maybe TOYS THAT KILL. Maybe even CAN OF BEANS or NIP DRIVERS (even though they were from Torrance). Did you know that there was a crazy, burgeoning scene laying just below your radar in the late 90's in Pedro? Well, of course you did, but you probably never heard them because most of those bands never played outside of town and never released anything besides the songs on this compilation. The scene revolved around an unnamed record store where the punks hung out and caused trouble. Once, they even built a pyramid out of empty 40 bottles in front of the shitty tattoo parlor next door to them. When the rockabilly dude who ran the place walked out to yell at them, the entire thing collapsed, causing shards of broken glass to slice the dude's vintage suit and eyebrows. This was the beginning of the end for this little local scene and the record store was soon defunct. Many of the bands broke up soon afterwards.

    So this tape is your only exposure to the small geniuses that leaked into the Pedro scene for a short little while. There's the sleaziness of THE MOISTMAKERS, hardcore punk by CARBONATED GENOCIDE, the creepy dudes in CREEP ALERT and the sketchy drug-dealers of Sunken City who played in THE VANS. SWEATS AND TIGHTS kept playing as their acoustic duo at open mic nights for a few years until they moved to Goleta. THE DRIVEBYS were one of the first of these bands to break up after their singer Matt "One Lung" was arrested for first degree murder (Too long of a story for this venue). NOBODY LOVES ME kicked around Pedro playing their brand of low-fi pop until the couple in the band broke up. BACKYARD PARTY played wild, teenage, fucked up skate thrash and refused to play any 21+ venues...until Dan turned 21 and became a barfly. Their best line is "Hop on my board, can't land a trick. Let's see how many times WE CAN FLIP IT!!" JON BENET AND THE COVERGIRLS were fucking awesome and spent most of their time trying to get old men to buy them beers at the liquor store. They had a line up change and became THE JAG OFFS. Their best line is "Don't try to impress us! I think you'd rather undress us!" HATE MY JOB was some sad sack who always came into the record store and played guitar in the corner, so they let him be on the comp. PRIEST SLAPPER was a group of Black Metal dudes who played satanic thrash. I remember seeing them around town when I visited and they seemed really out of place wearing all black and corpse paint among the palm trees and 95 degree weather. THE WAKE UP LATES played kinda shitty street punk. They were cool people though. FLAME RETARDED sucked. THE PINK MC'S were a gay rap group who hung out with the punks because no one else liked them (San Pedro is pretty fucked up).
   Most of the people in these bands became squares and dropped out of punk. Lots of them got jobs at the tattoo shop they used to make fun of. You can still find the guys from BACKYARD PARTY hanging out at Harold's Bar on any given night. HATE MY JOB still plays open mic nights on Tuesdays. PRIEST SLAPPER moved to LA and fizzled out due to drugs...
   I hope you enjoy this tape. It's a brief time capsule into a forgotten part of San Pedro punk history.

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    Wait....are you just gonna believe me? You are, aren't you?  Okay, here's the real story: Back in 1998, my old band THE GRUMPIES were on tour with FYP. At some point, we were driving from like, London, Ontario to Winnepeg, Manitoba...which is about 25 hours of absolutely nothing but beautiful vastness, moose, bears, tiny towns and two lane freeways. Sean (from FYP) and I got on one of our long rambling talks about music and we soon started discussing plans to construct an entire fake punk scene, complete with a record store, back story and compilation tape. I had found a Polaroid on the ground in NYC and wrote CREEP ALERT on it. Thus, that became the first band....

   Tour continued and we kept discussing the plan and constructing bands in our heads. When tour ended, Sean stayed in Pedro and I went home to Chattanooga. A few short months later, this tape and zine showed up in my P.O. Box. He had actually done it! I had forgotten about it, but he had gotten together punks in Pedro to carry out the plan....and a lot of the songs are really good! I even covered the JON BENET song in a band I played with...which begs the question, "Does that make them a real band?" Real or not, I think most of this compilation is great. 

Features members of FYP, TOYS THAT KILL, THE JAG OFFS, THE LEECHES and more..

DAN B'S MIX TAPE - 2005

   Back in 2005, a package showed up in my P.O. box from Dan B (from IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT / UKE OF SPACES / Trd Wrd Records) with this tape inside. There was no insert and no track listing. Just the instructions on the front and the tape. What I found on the tape was strange and entrancing: Tiki music, weird lounge, something that sounds like KORLA PANDIT on too many pills, EUGENE CHADBOURNE, MALVINA REYNOLDS, DREAMLAND FACES, radios between stations and phone calls. I still play it frequently in my room when I'm trying to keep busy and it helps. Maybe it will help you out too.

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Track listing left blank intentionally. 

RYMODEE - "Live in Bloomington" - Tape - 2003

    If you just scroll down a couple of entries, you'll see this man's year end top ten list. You'll also see that I'm quite fond of the guy. So, yeah, it's RYMODEE from THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB playing solo in Bloomington, IN at what I believe is a house show. If you can ever track down this man's solo LP, do not hesitate to pick it up, because it is excellent. While you're at it, you should also track down the recent LP by his last band ZIPPERS TO NOWHERE.
    I don't really know what else I can say about this recording.... besides that someone starts doing that annoying thing that folk punk kids do when an acoustic performer plays...which is to clap along loudly and out of time. BUT Rymo quashes it fairly quickly within the first song with his constant time changes. Also, I don't know many of the song titles, so you don't get them in this download. I asked Rymodee his thoughts on this tape and he said "It's kind of embarrassing."

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Re-upped Feb 2013

This tape was released years ago by the still relevant and always-interesting Friends and Relatives Records.

EDIT: The show was at Rhino's, an all ages club in Bloomington and the audio was recorded from a camcorder. Thanks to Justin at Friends and Relatives for the info.

SHEP AND ME - "Cloudy Chowder" - Tape - 2007

   Matt Himes is the man behind SHEP AND ME, which incorporates the sounds of experimental folk, outsider noise, tape loops, and acoustic balladry to create a sound that is wholly his own. He bumped his way onto a show that I set up in Bloomington a few years back. He set up simply with a small guitar and light accompaniment and captivated the room for the next 20-30 minutes. His sound, for me, evokes the images of punks living on homemade boats in the river, simple living, rotting Midwestern porches, and long, cold winter days that feel endless.
   This tape compiles a few years of analog recordings in New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Evanston, IL and Whitesburg, KY and is one of my favorite things that he has put out. It's the perfect thing to listen to on a cold day with nothing ahead of you besides hot tea and unfinished projects.

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This tape is also available as a beautifully packaged LP that was pressed in an edition of 500. If you like this, I highly suggest that you buy the record, because there aren't too many left. You can get it straight from Matt at Lighten Up Sounds
This tape was originally released on Friends and Relatives.

POOP TROOP - Compilation - Tape - 2001

   This tape was compiled by Dan B (of IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT and VILLAGE OF SPACES) to showcase some of his and friends' bands who play noise, outsider sounds, lo-fi dance music, drone, punk and more. The physical tape starts off with MARGARET MOTHER OF THIEVES, but I didn't add them on this download since it's just the same songs from their demo, which you can find by clicking on that link above. So, your download starts with COUNTY Z, who are still one of my favorite bands of all time. Their one and only song on this comp sounds like it was a rehearsal improv jam and it is a definite "work on some stuff in your room and let this drift out of the speakers" kind of song. They are followed by HARRY FROM HAWAII, who drone out some fucked up, blown out "dance music" for total fuckin freaks. The one time I saw them (I think it was them), they featured Drew on noise. He was wearing a full-body foam outfit with a huge helmet made out of sheet metal with contact mics all over him. The mics were running through an overflowing table full of pedals and Drew was banging on the helmet with drumsticks. I found out later that the  jagged edges of metal were cutting into his head the whole time and that his jumps and hops were not for effect, but were produced out of sheer pain!
   Next up is IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT (another all time favorite) who also jam it out for a bit in that improv, droney way that they do. Dan B told me that they have hours of this stuff on tape somewhere. They are followed by UKE OF PHILLIPS (who has evolved into VILLAGE OF SPACES) and their brand of gutter-country/acoustic-noise. New Orleans' THE FOREHEADS play 3 songs that are the closest you will get to a standard punk band on this tape, even though nothing about them is standard. Occasional IPCP member, Stella plays guitar and yelps some vocals here and there. Merrydeth plays drums and does a fair share of the singing. Icky rounds out the rhythm section on tuba. They did a tour or two (I would've loved to have been their roadie) and put out a split 7" with THE NAZIS FROM MARS on Raw Sugar Records before breaking up.
  HUL (not to be confused with the Danish band HUL) is just Don Godwin (of IPCP, Vector Set and much more) playing sleepy, lo-fi electronic music. Two of these songs were recorded in a Motel 6 in Lubbock, Texas. C/O NOAH CANNON closes out the tape with a mess of drone, noise, soundscapes, tape manipulation and more. I have a 90 minute tape of theirs and like the stuff on this comp, it can be meditative and wash over you.
   Most of this tape will not sit well with many of the people who like the bulk of the stuff I put up on this blog, but that's okay. This is my trip. Get into it. Plus, I'm still getting over being sick and sometimes you don't feel like excitedly writing about punks getting wasted and penning the best song ever about killing Marines.

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This is from the collection of Erick Lyle.

UKE OF PHILLIPS - "This Is Gutter Country" - Full Gallop #9 Audio Zine - Tape - 2002

       When this tape came out back in 2002, it was glued to the inside of any tape deck in my vicinity for a solid year (and is still on regular rotation). It's a collection of songs made by UKE OF PHILLIPS and friends that were recorded between the years of 1996 and 2002, showcasing everything from gutter country to folk songs to field recordings to stabs at punk songs to dirges to running around the room while singing to everything imaginable in between. These songs were recorded on a variety of analog devices in basements, bathrooms, bedrooms, warehouses, fields, hallways, walk-in closets etc, etc, etc.... The opening song "House a Home" has one of my most favorite unintentionally perfect recorded moments of all time, when a train rolls by in the background. The other performers on this recording are responsible for IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT, COUNTY Z, SHEP AND ME,  this blog and many many others. 90 minutes. 48 (or so) songs...my tape cuts off at the end of "50,000 Mile Stare" so that's what you get. This tape is beautifully ragged and addictive.

DOWNLOAD THE TAPE HERE AND DOWNLOAD THE ZINE BELOW

Updated Feb 2014

                                 

   The other cool part of this tape is that the original version came with Dan's (Uke) zine Full Gallop, where all of the lyrics were written out in india ink and he told you where the songs were recorded. It provided a glimpse into the inner workings of the people involved and made the project whole. It seems like a crime to not include it, so I am offering it as a separate PDF download. Enjoy

DOWNLOAD FULL GALLOP # 9

Updated Feb 2014

    Selections from this tape will soon be appearing on an LP, put out by German label Unwucht Records. The ever morphing entity of UKE OF PHILLIPS still survives today in the form of VILLAGE OF SPACES, who just put out a new LP and still includes one of my top favorite artists, Amy Moon!

THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB - "Songs of Our Soil" - Tape - 2000

    As I have said before, I am not really a big fan of THIS BIKE IS A PIPEBOMB, but I respect them as artists, musicians and as some of the best people that I have had the privilege of meeting in my life. In 2000, TBIAPB, set out on a tour of the southeastern U.S. playing solely folk and union songs. They didn't play any original songs. They had a fancy camera with which their friends Todd and Tate recorded a lot of their performances. It was rumored that they were supposed to be getting a grant to produce this material for a program about the new wave of folk and punk that was to be aired on PBS. Well, that last part never actually happened. What actually did happen is that TBIAPB sent out these recordings ahead of their tour (along with a songbook that told you the note and words to these songs [and more] and encouraged punks to learn the songs on different instruments and play at the show with their band. I set up a show for them under a bridge by the Tennessee River and it was pretty great, but no one joined them to play along.
   Some of these songs sound great in their transition to TBIAPB's take on punk, such as "John Henry". Others are cringe-worthy, like "Eat a Block Of Tofu" set to the tune of LEADBELLY'S "Pick a Bale of Cotton". Anyway, don't listen to my jaded ass talk about it. Listen for yourself.
                    Embrace the Tape Hiss
   Out of all the times I have accompanied TBIAPB in their tour van, I never asked them what happened to all of that live footage from this tour. I'll find out.