I Can Feel These Records In My Marrow, Part Two

     Here is the exciting conclusion to the list of records that can be found in my DNA.  Part one can be found here.

     I put all ten records in a playlist while trying to put the words into some sort of shape and doing things around the house.  It is a bruising seven hours and forty-four minutes that is definitely helping me get through the hours of solitude while in quarantine.  Spending more time with these records has brought back memories of the nights of my youth that I spent in my room listening to music, writing and reading while trying to forget the world outside.  I guess not much has changed after all these years.  These ten albums have been a salve to new wounds but also a reminder of those from the past.  Again, I might be putting too much thought into these things.

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Iggy & The Stooges—Raw Power

     I am referring to the late 90s mix of Raw Power that Iggy Pop worked on himself.  This is the version of the record where the engineers that worked on it with him had to point out that not all of the levels needed to be in the red.  This thing could turn speakers into flamethrowers it was mixed so hot.

     After decades of the tame and distracted mix that David Bowie initially gave Raw Power, Iggy thought it was time to revisit the tapes and uncage the full potential of this beast.  This was my first exposure to The Stooges and I was taken aback.

     This record first saw the light of day in 1973 and I was confused as to why the rest of rock music hadn't always sounded like Raw Power ever since then.  The album sounded like one of those history changing moments where everything going forward would need to try to live up to it.  I couldn't figure out why there weren't monuments and plaques on every street corner honoring this monster of a record.  “I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm,” should have been our national motto and printed on our money by the time I was born.

     Funhouse may be my favorite Stooges album but Raw Power was my introduction to the true King of Rock 'n' Roll, Mr. Iggy Pop.  Damn near every time I hear the man's voice I stand and salute.

Submachine—Sawed Off Shotglass

     After seeing the band name on fliers all over Oakland and the South Side while riding the 54C to and from school and then work I had finally started picking up every Submachine single I laid eyes on when I stopped into my friendly neighborhood record store, Brave New World.  The catch was the turntable that I had inherited from a relative was less than reliable and had already damaged a few records that I tried to play on it so I was wary of putting any other records on it.  So I ended up with this stack of singles and no way to listen to them.

     This is when Sawed Off Shotglass came to my rescue.  This CD collected all of the early Submachine singles, 10” That Hurt and Now That I Have Given Up Hope, I Feel Much Better. Thirty-six tracks that spanned an hour and six minutes.  By this time, I had plunked down the cash for a Discman and would be able to listen this CD all the way through from the time I would leave the sandwich shop, hopefully catch the bus, rot in crosstown traffic and then make the long walk home.

     To be able to listen an hour's worth of music from a punk band that came from my own town did wonders for me.  It showed me that molds could be broken and that things didn't have to turn out the way everyone around me said they had to.  For better or worse, there were a bunch of guys out there trying to do something out of the ordinary regardless of the outcome.

https://submachinepgh.bandcamp.com/

Fugazi—In On The Kill Taker

     This was the first Fugazi record that I ever purchased and is still my favorite.  By the time I got to “Great Cop,” I knew I would be a fan for life.  In On The Kill Taker has an ebb and flow to it from aggressive to quiet that caught my ear and the movement of the album still speaks to me after all these years.

     Much like with Black Flag, Minor Threat broke up in 1983 when I was all of five years old so I had no real attachment to that band.  Those Minor Threat records are great but because of time and place Fugazi was the band for me.

     I still remember the day I bought In On The Kill Taker.  I had a day off from slinging ham on rye so I went on a CD buying expedition.  In the days before the internet and everyone putting their unwanted music on eBay or Discogs, stores used to have a few hidden gems in their bins.  Instead of wandering into Brave New World as I usually did, I took the bus around town and hit stores that I wouldn't normally go to.  That day was one of the most lucrative trips that I had ever made.  I came home with the self-titled Body Count CD that still had the song “Cop Killer” on it, Electro Convulsive Therapy which was a Japanese import live album from the Rollins Band and an out of print Veruca Salt EP.  I picked up In On The Kill Taker at Randy's Alternative Music on Carson St. which later became Dave's Music Mine and the spot will probably become a douche bar in the near future since Dave's will be closing up shop, if they haven't already.

     There is a very interesting book on In On The Kill Taker in the 33 1/3 series.  There's a story about how Steve Albini practically ruined the initial recording and the band had to rerecord the whole thing. Which is not surprising to me and what's even less surprising is that Albini tried to trade on Fugazi's name when making his sales pitch to Nirvana to record In Utero with him.

Jets To Brazil—Orange Rhyming Dictionary

     There are those times when the chemicals in the brain just don't get to where they need to go for me to be a functional human being.  It's on those days that Orange Rhyming Dictionary comes in handy.  Every song on that record feels like it was written through the prism of my depression's worst days.  It's the musical equivalent of the oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants that go on when I know that today just won't work out so I'll try again tomorrow.

     I had somehow come in contact with Jets To Brazil before I learned of the juggernaut that is Jawbreaker.  Again, it was the pre-internet times so there was no real way to do research unless you knew a guy that knew a guy so my introduction to Blake Schwarzenbach was Jets To Brazil and not Jawbreaker, unlike everyone else on the planet.

     The name of the band and the album cover, with it's orange square and lyrics to the first song and a half going sideways across it, were enough to raise my curiosity.  There was something about the layout that looked off kilter and that was enough to convince me to take it home.

     Over the years, the song “I Typed For Miles” has changed meaning for me.  It used to be that Blake screaming, “You keep fucking up my life,” could be pointed outward in the general direction of someone else.  Nowadays, that line feels like a mirror that I can't look away from.  I'm the one that got me into the position that I'm in, no one else did.  So it might be time to take responsibility for that.

     Orange Rhyming Dictionary is the stylistic curveball amongst all of the other agro albums that ended up here.

Killer Of Sheep—Scorned

     A few years ago, I was heading down a bad road.  I was stuck in the work/eat/sleep/repeat cycle and could feel myself falling apart physically and mentally.  I had no creative outlet and no way to decompress from the endless stupidity of my day job.

     I had sworn off going to most shows because I couldn't deal with the crowds without having some sort of anxiety issue.  Things were getting dark.

     Instead of falling into some sort midlife crisis trap or starting to drink until I forgot where it all went wrong, I decided to get to work and start writing again.  In order to have something to write about, I forced myself off of the couch and out the door to more shows, humans be damned.

     It was shortly before all of this that Killer Of Sheep released Scorned.  I had been waiting for this record to come out ever since I first saw the band open for Flag a few years before and it did not disappoint.  For a record with that sound to come out of this town, I couldn't get over it.

     I made it a point to see Killer Of Sheep every chance I got because the songs that band was playing felt like they were grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me out of the funk that I was in. It felt like they were giving me back my will to live.

     Eventually, I picked up a camera so I could use pictures to help supplement the writing.  To justify the expense of the camera to myself, I figured that I needed to go to more shows and take more pictures.

     Soon I found myself lending a hand at both Killer Of Sheep and Submachine shows.  It was a definite change of pace from my usual spot near the closest exit to being down front and sticking a lens in someone's face and then helping to pack up after it was all over.

     I will forever be grateful to both Killer Of Sheep and Submachine for letting me into their circles. Working with those bands in any capacity makes me feel like I was given a new lease on life instead of sitting around and wondering how I ended up in a dead end life of stagnation that was killing me.

https://killerofsheep1.bandcamp.com/music

I Can Feel These Records In My Marrow, Part One

     What follows is not a list of favorite albums.  For me, that would be an ever changing and unidentifiable mass of records depending on mood, sleep cycle, time of year and any number of outside variables.

     These are the albums that form the bedrock foundation that helped to shape who I am and that I can feel coursing through me down to the genetic level.  These are the records that, to this day, I have to listen to at face melting volume every time I put them on.  Each of these albums can stake a claim to some percentage of my hearing loss from years of punching myself in the ears with them.

     There are three releases from Pittsburgh bands involved here which may seem like a cop out of some sort but I think it should serve as a reminder to not overlook what's going on in your own backyard.  One of those records from a Pittsburgh band is only three years old which should serve as a reminder to keep your ears open because you never know when a record is going to slap you in the brain and save your life.

     Since music is art and not a sport, I tried as best as I could to put this list together in biographical order and not ranked as one album being better than another.

     I broke the list in half since I went a bit long on words and don't want to take up too much of everyone's time.  Tune in next week for part two.

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Nirvana—Nevermind

     It's easy for a lot of people to push Nevermind aside due solely to the amount of times we have all heard the singles off of that album.  This record broke open a lot of minds.  Mine included and in ways that my adolescent brain could not put into words at the time.

     Coming from a sheltered youth that was peppered with a parenting style more fitting for the Eisenhower era, I didn't know that music could have an element of danger or anger to it.  My mother's record collection consisted mainly of greatest hits records from Barry Manilow and Kenny Rogers.

     With my father's attempts to bottle up any signs of rebellion in his children or anything that didn't fit his narrow view of normal, most car rides around town either took place in dead silence or with the radio tuned to an AM news station in great anticipation of a traffic report.  The car radio was only to be used as a tool while piloting a motor vehicle and never for entertainment.

     After hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I was thoroughly confused.  I had no idea that music could do that and wanted more of it.  That song was the bait.  “Breed,” “Territorial Pissings” and “Drain You” were the eyeopeners and the hidden track “Endless Nameless” was the box grater taken to my brain.  That song was several minutes of unintelligible screaming over savage music and that sealed the deal for me.

     Nevermind set me on the path to looking for more than what was immediately around me.  I didn't know where I was going but I knew I wanted to go.

Rollins Band—The End Of Silence

     I always wanted to write something longer about The End Of Silence but could never separate myself from it long enough to do so.  This record is too personal to me and I can't bring myself to share it with anyone out of fear of it losing its powers.  But I can tell you how I landed on it.

     As someone whose angsty teenage years took hold in the mid 1990s, Black Flag wasn't a thing for me so I had no idea who Henry Rollins was.  I was only eight years old when that band called it quits in 1986 so I kind of missed the whole Black Flag thing.

     Most people who were cognizant in the mid 90s remember a music video with a guy that was painted red and screaming that he was a liar.  I didn't have MTV as a kid so, much like everything else, I had no idea what the hell that was either.

     Then on August 17, 1994, at the ripe old age of fifteen, my sister took me to Metropol for my first real concert.  It was Rollins Band and Helmet and I have not been the same since.

     This was the first stretch of touring with Melvin Gibbs on bass so they only played songs off of the new album, Weight, so he wouldn't feel like he was in a cover band.  This meant that after the show, The End Of Silence was still a hidden treasure for me to discover.

     A few weeks later, the grind and bullshit of going to a Catholic high school kicked in and I started squirreling away my lunch money so I could start buying used CDs instead of food.  I picked up Weight first because that was what I knew.  A few trips to CD Trader later, there was a used copy of The End Of Silence in the bin and to this day it was the best purchase that I have ever made.  I suddenly had my own personal soundtrack to walk around with on my contraband walkman.  Every song felt like it was addressed to me personally even if I had no clue what the subject matter of those songs actually was.

Black Flag—Damaged

     Once I had a handle on the Rollins Band, it was time to play catchup with Black Flag.  I was not ready for the speed and ferocity with which the songs on Damaged were played.  I was accustomed to the bricks in a cement mixer sound of the Rollins Band and did not think that a similar message could be conveyed over fifteen songs in thirty-five minutes.  It was over so quickly that I had to listen to it again to make sure that I didn't miss anything.

     That record was a rabid badger attacking my teenage brain.  Songs about the cops, vandalism and not fitting in.  I was sold.  All of the MTV/trust fund punks at school were singing the praises of Dookie but Green Day's poppy bullshit couldn't keep up with Damaged in a million years.

     The mirror punching on the cover of Damaged said it all for me.  That was exactly how I felt in junior year of high school and, depending on how my day is going now, how I feel on a regular basis when I have to deal with my fellow humans.

Helmet—Meantime

     Even though I had picked up Meantime around the same time as the Rollins Band CDs that I was subsisting off of, it wasn't until senior year of high school that the album really clicked with me and it was a welcomed addition to the soundtrack in my head.  By the time the second song, “Ironhead,” ended all I wanted to do was punch the nearest human being for absolutely no reason.

     I was completely done with tolerating the rich kids, jocks and assholes that I had to contend with until graduation.  My patience was gone and I wanted to get on to the next thing and this album helped me blow off steam on the long walks to and from bus stops for busses that more often than not failed to show up.

     Meantime chugged along with an abrasiveness that just felt right.  Later on, I learned that the drummer, John Stanier, was the one primarily responsible for the way those early Helmet records were so pummeling.  I always felt that there was something missing from the newer Helmet albums and I think his playing was the key to their sound.

Crayon Death—Three Sixteen

     Most of the time when you have a coworker that's in a band that band is not very good but you do the polite thing and go see their band out of pity.  That was not the case with Crayon Death.  They actually sounded good to my eighteen year old ears.

     Post high school, I worked at a sandwich shop with the singer of the band, Dave Hummel, and I would never have known he was in a band unless one of our other coworkers hadn't told me.  It was a subject that he never brought up.

     Crayon Death was finally playing an all ages show at Luciano's on Forbes Ave., by Duquesne University, so I made sure to get myself there.  The place was a shoebox with a bad PA so I had no idea of knowing what I had just seen from the back corner of the club.  A few weeks later, I was handed a tape with six songs on it that would eventually end up on Three Sixteen.  I put the tape on when I got home and was blown away.

     Luckily for me, Dave's other job was being a bartender at the Attic/Club Laga and Crayon Death was more or less the house opening act every time there was a metal band playing.  By the time the band called it quits in 1999 I was lugging gear, taking pictures and recording the audio of their shows.  I would quickly fire off three rolls of film and then take a spot next to the speaker stack and scream along to every song.

     I loved that band and that record so much that back in 2014 I almost sunk several mortgage payments worth of cash into putting Three Sixteen out on vinyl.  The remastering was done and ready to go when events outside of my control made moving forward with the project unadvisable.  More information about that debacle can be found here.

     Someone did post some of the tracks from Three Sixteen to YouTube but they are the original mastering from 1997.  Below is a link for a free download of the 2014 remaster.

Crayon Death--Three Sixteen (2014 Remaster)

SST Is Damaged

     With all of this extra time that I have to sit around my house, I have been getting reacquainted with my record collection.  I recently took a long walk through the releases put out by the record label SST.

     At one time, SST, founded by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn, was one of the greatest independent record labels to ever put out music.  In addition to Black Flag, the SST roster included the Bad Brains, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Husker Du, the Minutemen, the Descendents, Saccharine Trust, Sound Garden and many others.  Of late, SST has fallen into neglect and disrepair.  It is well past time for tapes to be remastered and records to be reissued.

     One of the greatest records that SST ever put out was the self-titled album by a band called The Stains (SST 010.)  There were only one thousand copies pressed in the early '80s and the album was never given a second pressing due to a dispute over royalties between the band and the label.  Every so often a copy pops up on the internet at such an astronomical price that it always makes me laugh instead of making me want to sacrifice my credit rating in order to say that I have that record on my shelf.  There used to be not so legitimate downloads of the record readily available on the internet but I guess they have all been removed.  Some upstanding citizens have posted the album to YouTube for our enjoyment so it's not lost to the ages.

     Hours and hours of unreleased music by Black Flag is sitting on a shelf or in a shoebox somewhere going unheard.  When that band wasn't on the road, all they did was practice and record. All of that music could be mixed down and packaged with the corresponding album that was the result of those sessions.

     Instead of using his time to sue his former bandmates and pull videos off of YouTube, Greg Ginn could invest some time into his label and correct some of the production issues that are present on most SST releases due to the budget limitations at the time they were recorded.  If nothing else, the output volume could be increased because the original levels were so quiet.  And if there is so much fretting over copyright infringement, the better quality bootlegs and live recordings could be collected and released as well.

     This would be a massive undertaking that would hopefully keep Greg Ginn so occupied he'd be unable to tour with that abomination of a band that he still calls Black Flag.  One of the funniest Amazon reviews of any record I have ever read was aimed at the album that came out a few years ago.  It went something like, “If my dad hadn't died, listening to this record would be the worst thing that happened to me this year.”

     Reissuing all of these records could also help make right some of the sins of the past when it came to royalties and other payment problems with SST.  All of the members of the bands involved could get paid.  All of these musicians are around the age of sixty and could probably use the extra walking around money.  After all, there are no punk rock retirement and healthcare plans so get these folks paid.

     I am aware of all of the arguments against the reissuing of records and why it shouldn't be done. The excuses that range from a recording being a snapshot of a particular moment in time that should be preserved all the way to it being a crass cash grab.  Those are just attempts at holding up some false sense of integrity.

     If, at the very least, Damaged was given the half speed remastering treatment and recut at 45rpm over two 180g LPs, I know I'd buy at least one copy for myself and enough to give one to every high school student in the city.  Damaged changed so many lives the first time people heard it.  Now imagine everyone getting to hear that record again for the first time and at the same time sharing it with younger generations at full velocity.  Police stations and banks all over the country would be on fire by the end of the first week of that record being on the shelves.

     Damaged is a record that could cut a mother fucker and should sound like it will jump out of my speakers and do so.  I know it's probably never going to happen but dreaming about records and civil unrest are two of my favorite things.