Archive for November, 2004

Hates – No Talk in the Eighties 7″ (1979 Faceless Records)

Hates were one of the first punk bands to come out of Houston Texas. They put out 3 singles and a 12″ EP during their heyday. Later when they went out of print they’d sell them on cassettes that they made themselves. My first exposure of them was when their singer/guitar player Christian Arnheiter started writing to my fanzine and he sent me a tape of the band. They’d later give me a couple songs for the Immense Decay compilation.

Eventually the original lineup of the band woudl dissolve, and Christian would keep it alive with new members and new recordings. In fact they are still at it today, playing shows and occasionally recording new music. Admittedly I haven’t heard anything they’ve done since around 1990 though, but Christian has a huge mohawk and hasn’t given up on the punk rock. They even have a webpage, though it looks like it hasn’t been updated in about 6 months.

I’m actually in dire need of their 3rd 7″ titled “So What” if anyone has one for sale or trade please get in touch!

This particual record came in two pressings, each having a totally different sleeve. Pictured is the first pressing. The second pressing had a band photo sleeve (which i actually could use a copy of as well for completion sake).

Click here to hear “Last Hymn” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

So I had one of the original Motorola V710 cell phones that had the misaligned camera and crappy earphone volume. Last week I called Verizon and requested my replacement since the recalled them. I got it, only to have this new phone get all screwy just 3 days later. It kept resetting and freezing up on me. I called them again and they are sending me another replacement phone. This means I once again have to go over to a Verizon store and get them to copy my phone book from one phone to another. After they told me they’d send a new one, I shut off the thing since it was not working at all and left it off for about an hour. Just for kicks I turned it back on to see if it would work and now it does. I’m still going to take the new phone when it comes and send back this one, because who knows what caused it or what could be messed up inside.

What sucks is the Verizon store near me is in a strip mall with a Toys R Us and Best Buy, which makes for hellish traffic and parking at this time of year with all the xmas shoppers.

Stiff Legged Sheep – 7″ (1985 Smudged Records)

The year was, I believe, 1985 and I would ride my skateboard over to my friend Keith Lyons’ place for a punk show they put on at Keith Garage. It would be The Faction, The Drab, God (formerly Dead Fink) and some other band I’m forgettting at the moment, and there was a band who also played called Stiff Legged Sheep. I don’t remember much about them except they were from Iowa, which they announced before they played. I envisioned them living on a farm somewhere and being the only punks in the entire state. I don’t know what caused me to think that, but keep in mind I was like 15 years old. They were a really entertaining hardcore band and the crowd seemed really into them. Being the wide-eyed young punker that I was back then, I put their name in the memory banks as a band to seek out recordings by.

Not too long after that, on a trip to Wax Trax records I found a copy of their one and only release, this 7″ record, and I quickly snapped it up and showed all my friends that “hey, this is that band I saw at Keith Garage with The Faction”. Somehow none of them were really that impressed as a lot of my friends weren’t such marks for all things punk back then like I was.

After that record, the band vanished into thin air almost as if they never happened. I don’t recall reading anything about them before or since so what happened to them is a mystery and whether or not they recorded a demo before or after this record I don’t know either.

Upon doing a search on them, I came across the lineups for the band from the Iowa Underground Archives and they listed them as being:

1st line-up Members:
Ralph Johnson – Vocals
Matt Hall- bass
Dave Murray – Guitar
Paul Mc’Cue – Drums

2nd line-up Members:
Paul Neff
Matt Hall
Dave Murray – Guitar
Paul Mc’Cue – Drums

While a lot of old hardcore records sell for stupid cash on ebay, this one pretty much went unnoticed by the record hoarding masses and can be had for cheap.

As always, if you have any additional information, recordings of the band, or were in the band, please get in touch.

Click here to hear “Garden full of Secret Graves” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

I wish I was going to be in town for this one as not only would I love to see my pals JFA again, but I’d love to also see The Dickies again. If anyone goes, let me know how it went and take pictures!

Sacred Denial – North of the Order LP (1987 Forefront Records)

Sacred Denial were another one of the bands around for the heyday of NJ punk/hardcore. My first exposure to them was on the New Jersey’s Got It compilation on Buy Our Records. Those tracks were raw and powerful and I immediately made a point to buy everything I could find by the band.

In their time as a band, they put out 4 albums, and then a 5th one of early material would come out after they called it quits. All their records were on the Forefront Records label, which was either run by a band member, or the band’s manager/friend. I can’t recall which as it has been a long time. I do remember the guy who ran the label being a really nice guy and he’d distribute other labels and sent me lots of records to review in the pages of Spontaneous Combustion.

For some reason, Sacred Denial never got a whole lot of attention. Though the records have been out of print for years, they can be had cheap, which I think people should take advantage of because they are some good records. Over the course of time the band would evolve from straight up hardcore to include a bit of metal and melodic punk as well over the later releases, and they pulled it off quite well. In fact, I often find myself listening to this album over a lot of their other ones.

As to where they are now, I have no clue. I also don’t know what became of the Forefront Records guy as I lost touch with him more than 15 years ago. As always if you were in the band, or have any information you’d like to share, please get in touch.

Click here to hear “Where’s My Mom?” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

While looking thru the stats for this site, one of the search terms that led someone to this blog was:

buttholes from girls that i can see up close and even look inside and their in movies

What in the blue hell kind of weirdo types that as their search term?!