Archive for July, 2005

Last nite, youngdave and I made the trek out to DeKalb, IL to see Curl Up and Die play. It was a band we had been waiting two years to see again. Young came out from the city and we met up and my place and hit the road for a long drive out to the middle of nowhere, but not before stopping at Potbellys for a fine meal (thanks Dave for the meal!).

Upon arriving at our destination, and walking by a gang of hippies hanging out in front of some storefront, we found the club, simply titled “The House”. It really isn’t a club, it is more like a really big coffee shop that happened to have a stage in the back corner. It has to stand as one of the more unique places I’ve seen a show at. I imagine the very hippies I walked past a block away probably do poetry readings on that same low stage on the other nights, and perhaps were hanging out where they were because they were shunned by the punk rock show. All I do know is if they were “real hippies” then I wouldn’t have seen two of them leave later that evening in a mini-van when we were outside getting some air between bands. Poseurs!

Friendly Fire

The first band was called Friendly Fire. To put is simply, they were some pretty generic emoish stuff that didn’t appeal to either one of us at all, but a handful of kids there seemed to be digging them. We decided two songs into the set to go outside where it was much cooler. Speaking of emo kids, this place seemed to be packed with them. There was more guys wearing ladies jeans with white belts than I could keep track of, and a good chunk of them also were wearing bandannas. Either in their pockets, or mostly around their necks. Can someone please explain to me what that is all about?! It has to be one of the most retarded “fashion statements” I’ve ever seen, ranking right up there with the huge pants that cover the shoes and drag on the ground. I thought it was because I was without question the oldest person there, and am old enough to have fathered half the crowd, but what’s more is youngdave was likely the second oldest one there, and he too didn’t understand it.

Bear vs. Shark

Next up was Bear vs. Shark, another band I had never heard of before. Apparently the crowd there was very familiar with them because they went nuts during their set. I will say I found them to be very entertaining and I happily stayed in the hot club to view their whole set. They were very energetic and were kind of like Hot Water Music with a lot more tempo changes and at times were much faster. Good stuff and had I any money, I’d have likely picked up their album.

Curl Up And Die

Curl Up And Die

Finally Curl Up and Die took the stage and two years of waiting were finally put to rest. They blasted right into their first song and didn’t look back. They played a few songs of their amazing upcoming album, a couple songs off each EP and something from the first album. The new tracks sounded great live and the familiar tracks were as great as always. I’ll say they played every song I wanted them to with the exception of “You’d Be Cuter If I Shot You in the Face”, which is on the first album. Songs like “Instrumental”, “Damn Girl, That Shit is Deep Like the Ocean” “Nuclear Waste, Bring that Shit On” and “I Hate Almost Every Person I Come in Contact With” sounded amazing and the sound in that weird beatnik club sounded really good. Sadly, only a small percentage of the crowd seemed to be really into it, the rest of them looked like they didn’t know what to make of this powerful force blasting angry yet heart wrenching songs in their faces. If these scarf toting kooks would take the time to read the bands lyrics, they’d find all the emotion they need, delivered in a much more manly and real way. Singer Mike Minnick was all over the place and full of energy and unlike last time we saw them, actually talked a lot between songs. They were well worth the trip and it turns out in two weeks they are playing that same place again! We spoke to Mike for a few minutes after their set to get the skinny on why they’ve been gone for so long and he also told me they’d play my requested song when they come back as long as I remind him before hand. Needless to say, I’m going, and holding him to that!

Curl Up And Die

Curl Up And Die

We didn’t bother to stick around for the last band, Fear Before the March of Flames. One of Dave’s friend’s description of them didn’t leave me thinking it would be anything I’d care much about, not to mention it was far better to leave on such a high note having seen one of the best bands around today.

Curl Up And Die

Many thanks to Bob Shedd from Revelation Records for the guest list action as well as to youngdave for the Potbellys. It was a really (and much needed) fun evening out and I very much look forward to seeing them play again in two weeks! If they come through your town, I highly recommend checking them out, as well as their new album when its released late next month (look for a review of that next week).

Lisa Fancher, owner of Frontier Records, sent me a little care package in the mail. In it was the latest 3 colored vinyl reissues of some of the classic punk albums on the label. Not only do they come on sweet colors, but they all contain inserts, which many later pressings had omitted throughout the years.

Circle Jerks - Group Sex LP on yellow

Adolescents - LP on orange

Red Kross - Born Innocent LP on purple vinyl (and the cover is different than the early Frontier pressings)

Thanks a lot Lisa for the generous donation to the vault! If you want some for yourself, you can order online from the Frontier Records website.

Grant and the Geezers - Monster Stomp 7″
(1982 self-released)

Grant and the Geezers was a band I came across almost by accident. A few years ago, a fellow I know from Phoenix sent me a video of an old show from Mad Garden. The show was TSOL, JFA (the reason he sent it to me), and Grant and the Geezers. I had never heard of the band before, but I found their set to be an interesting one. A little searching around the net clued me in on the fact that they had released a 7″back then, and thus led me to placing it on my want list in hopes of someone having one to trade or sell to me.

One day, I got an email from someone asking me if I was still looking for that 7″. The fellow’s name just so happened to be Grant Cleaver. Not knowing the full name of Grant, from the band, I found it to be an awfully big coincidence that someone named Grant was asking if I needed that 7″ so I asked him if he was the Grant from the band and sure enough it was. He ended up sending me one of those records and I sent him a DVD that I burned of that old video of his band playing as he didn’t have a copy of it.

Grant also happened to be employed at the ticket broker that Tony Victor of Placebo Records owns, and was the one who put me in touch with Tony so I could do that little interview about Placebo Records for my Spontaneous Combustion site. Tony was someone I’ve wanted to find for many years because I wanted to know more about the history of his label, and his booking shows at Mad Garden.

I asked Grant, who it turns out is one hell of a nice guy, if he’d share a little history of his band with me for this feature and he was kind enough to send along the following.

Hey Mike,here is a little info on The Geezers: 1981-1983, Phoenix AZ .
Grant (vocal)
Chuck(bass)
Mark(drum)
Kevin(guitar)

We thought we wanted to be a rockabilly band. But after an incident in the woods where some of the band members were buttfucked by a wild bear we became what we refereed to as buttfuck-abilly.(nice huh). Released the 45, “Monster Stomp”/”Space Cruise”, and became regulars at Tony Victor’s Mad Gardens club, playing shows with Misfits, Black Flag, Social Distortion, etc. Played a lot of shows around this time in L.A. at the Cathy de Grande and other punk clubs of that time. Geezers went on a self financed tour of England in 1982 and while there recorded some tracks for Big Beat Records of which their version of “Folsom Prison” ended up on the Rockabilly Psychosis LP. Geezers also appeared on the TV cable show New Wave Theatre.

So there you have it. Grant still lives in Phoenix and works with Tony Victor. I do not know what became of the other members, perhaps Grant will chime in with a comment if he still keeps in touch with them. The Geezers total output consisted of this 7″ and the compilation he mentions above (which now that I know of its existence, I’ll have to track down a copy). Their music is a style that seems to be much more appreciated these days than it might have been 23 years ago when this thing was released and was certainly outside the norm in an era where hardcore was king, but therein lies its charm.

Thanks for the info Grant!

Listen to “Monster Stomp” from the record

Note: the URL now for The Punk Vault is simply http://www.punkvinyl.com . Please update your bookmarks and links if you’d be so kind.

Under the suggestion by my good friend Thor, I made the switch from Movable Type to Wordpress. It was largely due to his telling me how taxing the MT blogs are on his servers and my not wanting to be the cause of any troubles for him, I decided to give this a try. I spent the better part of the last two days fumbling through the CSS to alter a template to my liking, after once having to start over from scratch after completely breaking it beyond repair. The installation of the Wordpress system couldn’t have been easier, and if I knew thing one about CSS, this would have been a lot simpler. I am going to have to take some classes in html/css/flash so I can get better at it, and maybe even get a job doing that since nothing else is working out for me.

In other news, this year continues its shit slide. Lady Combustion is planning on leaving me and I’m none too happy about the prospect of losing her and the dog. I also tanked in pinball league finals tonite. I jobbed all 4 matches and was out in no time. It wasn’t the least bit fun. My car also has troubles and will likely end up costing me some money I don’t have to spend.

My one salvation of late has been late nite bike rides around 11:30pm. I put on the Ipod and hit the road and go where ever I’m inspired to ride in the streets. Its pretty peaceful at that time and the weather is nice too since its so damn humid all day. I keep hoping I’m gonna have some epiphany while riding and I’ll “figure it all out” as to what I’m gonna do for work and with my life in general, but nothing seems to come to me. All I end up doing is thinking of things and people in the past and reflect on how much I hate change, and I hate that so many people leave your life throughout the years and you lose touch with them.

On a completely unrelated topic, Revelation Records sent over the new Curl Up and Die album, something I was really looking forward to. Upon the first 3 listens all the way through, I can safely say that it lived up to my expectations. It really is a good record and I’m gonna play it a bunch in the next couple days to really let it soak in and there will be a review of it posted here then. Early indications are that its something I’d recommend highly.

Wow, this week isn’t a very good one. First we lose Scotty, and now Lord Alfred Hayes!

Koga just IM’d me to let me know and pointed me to this link. I never got to see Lord Alfred wrestle as far as I can remember. I remember him as an announcer on the old WWF programs where I was always entertained as a teenager. The articles give a good history of his career in the business. R.I.P. Lord Alfred, you’ll be missed.

Actor James Doohan, most famous for his role as Scotty on Star Trek, passed away. I used to watch the show when I was a little kid and saw all the movies. More recently, while still gainfully employed, I picked up the DVD sets of the original series and the first three movies and watched them all and they are still really enjoyable to this day.

Last year Doohan got his star on the Hollywood walk of fame, which was nice to see happen finally, and while he was still alive.