Archive for September, 2008

Saturday night The Bollweevils returned to action over at Reggie’s. I hadn’t seen the band play since last year’s Riot Fest which was already a year ago, so I was pretty excited that the band was doing another show. After a quick trip upstairs to do a little record shopping, I walked in the club to find the first band was setting up their gear and getting ready to play.

Government For Hire

Government For Hire

Government For Hire

That band was called Government For Hire and not only were they from around here, but one of the members used to be in Weedeater, a local band from way back who had a single released on Shakefork Records. G4H played some standard fare hardcore songs along with a couple slower punk numbers. They were pretty entertaining, but nothing about them really stood out from the countless other bands doing the same thing. Their bass player apparently joined the band only a couple days prior to this show and did such a good job you’d never have known that he just learned those songs for the show.

Secret Agent Bill

Secret Agent Bill

Secret Agent Bill

Secret Agent Bill quickly followed. I’ve seen these guys before so I knew what I was in store for. Actually I thought I did. I think the singer was a bit tipsy. He kept going on and on about how their set was dedicated to some Bill Brovlovsky guy (who he is I have no idea) and in between every song he was making up stories and getting other people to do the same. It was fairly amusing, and probably would have been a lot more amusing if I knew just who this fellow was he was paying homage to. I liked their more hardcore sounding songs and liked their light hearted, sometimes humorous approach more than their other songs that had almost a bit of ska influence in a couple numbers. I think their set felt a bit too long, but overall they were pretty entertaining.

Four Star Alarm

Four Star Alarm

Four Star Alarm

Four Star Alarm were third and I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing them. When I saw them the first time it didn’t do much for me but each time I’ve seen them play since, they have gotten better and better. This time was no exception. They are really gelling well as a band and their post-punk sound sort of reminds me of that peroid of time where Husker Du started straying from hardcore and writing actual “songs” that had the punk rock vibe with better muscianship. These guys are in a comfortable spot somewhere between punk and indie rock and the new songs they played sounded really good. I look forward to them releasing some new material in the future.

The Bollweevils

The Bollweevils

The Bollweevils

The Bollweevils

The crowd seemed to suddenly increase in size as The Bollweevils took the stage. Each member of the band had a t-shirt on stating their role in the band (Brains, Looks, Muscle, Wild Card) which I found to be hilarious. They wasted no time tearing into their first song and it sounded as good as it did when I saw them play those songs over a decade ago on a regular basis. Mixed in their set of the “hits” were three new songs that sounded easily as good as anything else in the set. If you told me those songs were on previous records I’d believe you as they still have that distinct Bollweevils sound and it made me look forward to a future with new Bollweevils records arriving in my mailbox again. After a few songs the crowd really started getting into it and a small pit formed mainly with kids who might not have been around during the bands active years. After getting beer dumped on me I opted to move off to the side to finish watching the band’s clinic in melodic Chicago hardcore and as they ended their set, I wasn’t the only one smiling, the entire rest of the audience was as well. The band hit one out of the park with their performance, and it made me very happy that they’ve decided to play shows again and once again be an active band.

The Bollweevils

Additional photos from this show will be posted later tonight on MXV’s Flickr Stream.

No Wave – Book
by Marc Masters
Black Dog Publishing

I will admit that as much as I enjoy the No Wave bands that I’ve heard, I know little about them and only own a very small amount of the records that came out of that scene. It was Teenage Jesus and the Jerks that turned me onto the No Wave scene and I only found out about them about ten years after the fact when the Lydia Lunch – Hysterie collection got sent to me to review for my fanzine. There wasn’t much information about these bands available on the internet and the punk books that have been released so far barely made mention to this small but influential little scene that existed in New York City in the late 1970s.  That finally has changed thanks to the release of this book.

This book tells the story of No Wave from it’s very infancy up though the bitter end. It goes into great detail how all the bands formed, how the people met, the recording sessions, the records, and of course the compilation, No New York, which (sort of) documented the scene and perhaps even killed it.

The book tells the story of the scene in both a chronological order and broken out by band or bands. A chapter will tell the story of either a single band, or a couple of bands if they had strong ties to each other, shared members, or one evolved into the other one. I really liked the way the things were broken out into a natural evolution from start to finish in each chapter. I learned more about these bands, their history and even where many of them ended up now than I’d have thought possible before the release of this book.

As a record collector, I really appreciated the selected discography at the end, and I also liked how nearly each chapter delved into the recording and releasing of each of these band’s records. My want list has now grown thanks to this book, and I’ll go even more broke trying to track down some of these old records I’m sure. The author really did his homework as far as researching this book goes and he got a lot of people in these bands involved to get their stories and for the ones he couldn’t get, there were plenty of past interviews referenced in the book.

This book weighs in at 205 pages. On top of the great history there are tons of great photos of all the bands covered inside along with scans of the record covers, old flyers, etc.. It is an attractive package from cover to cover. If I had one complaint is that much like the No Wave itself, it seemed to end very quickly but that’s only because the only time I put it down was when I was forced to and I read through the book faster than any I can think of in a very long time.

Related links:

Order the book from amazon

Black Dog Publishing

Mouth of the Architect – Quietly CD
Translation Loss

I think it was about a year and a half ago that i saw Mouth of the Architect play a show. I had never heard of them before and they were opening up for the band that brought me to there. I was pretty blown away by how heavy and powerful the band was and after they finished playing I went over and bought their last album which got played repeatedly in the months that followed that show.

It felt like ages has passed waiting for them to release a new record and now that day has finally arrived. Quietly, the band’s third album is anything but quiet. The band took the ingredients of what made their last album so good, and turned up the spice a couple of extra notches that has resulted in their best work to date.

Mouth of the Architect craft long complex songs that are sort of on the slow side, and extremely heavy. They are able to purvey a sort of sense of despair and aggression at the same time though their intricate guitar work mixed with heavy and sometimes repetitive riffs. The album flows near seamlessly from start to finish making it feel like a complete soundtrack to some post apocalyptic future rather than just a collection of songs much in the way that Neurosis epic Through Silver in Blood did a decade or so earlier. Comparisons to both Neurosis and Isis can’t be avoided as Mouth of the Architect are obviously influenced by at least the former, however they certainly don’t come across as a clone.

It seems the past year or two has seen Mouth of the Architect really hit their groove and mature as a tight unit capable of writing extremely heavy but intricate and emotion inspiring songs without compromise. If this is the future of the band, it is a rosy one indeed as they really stuck gold with this album. Now the vinyl just needs to come out (it is listed as “coming soon” on the label’s website)!

Translation Loss

Mouth of the Architect myspace page

In honor of their new DVD being released, The Meatmen were kind enough to give me a couple prize packages to give away to two lucky readers of The Punk Vault. All you have to do is fill out the form below. The winners will be randomly chosen. First prize is one Meatmen DVD plus one each of the Meatmen reissue CDs (as shown in the picture below). The runner up will receive a copy of the Meatmen DVD.

Rules:

1. Only 1 entry per person*
2. *You may earn 1 additional entry if you add Tesco Vee to your friends list on myspace and provide your myspace url in your entry as proof.
3. Contest ends WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 8, 2008 at 11:59pm CST
4. Winners will be chosen randomly from the entries on October 10th
5. Winners will be notified by email upon which they will submit their mailing address to be sent their prize.

To enter simply fill out this form

Good luck everyone and thanks to The Meatmen for making this happen!

It’s hard to believe that the first Suicidal Tendencies LP is now a quarter-century old. It is also equally hard to believe that I bought this album for myself 24 years ago, and that my punk rock youth was so long ago. I have no idea where the time went, but sometimes it feels like just yesterday that I went to a local record shop (one of the few to carry punk records, and in the import section no less) and picked this album up and sometimes it really does feel like a lifetime ago. Regardless, the fact is that this year marks the 25th Anniversary of Suicidal Tendencies and Frontier Records releasing this punk rock classic.

Suicidal Tendencies is one of those bands that had exactly one great album in them before either drasitcially changing their sound, sucking, or both. In Suicidal’s case, they pretty much went metal after this album and never came anywhere close to recapturing the magic contained on this record. Numerous lineup changes probably contributed to the fact but they did have a pretty lengthy career and found a niche based on metalheads liking them coupled with the reputation of this album and the band’s image.

To celebrate this landmark event, Frontier Records has released a limited edition 25th anniversary edition of their classic LP.

Suicidal Tendencies – 25th Anniversary Edition LP

This album was remastered and it comes on half gray/half red with white splatter vinyl. The record also comes inside a printed inner sleeve with flyer scans on one side and the lyrics on the other. I really like how the vinyl color matches with the artwork colors of the cover. Of all the colored vinyl editions thus far, this is absolutely the one you want to own. This is also available on a CD that has also been remastered and has a deluxe booklet for those of you who are fans of that format instead.

As always you can pick this handsome piece of plastic up directly from the Frontier Records website. If you happen to stop by, be sure and tell them that MXV sent you. Many thanks to teh fine ladies at Frontier Records for sending this over.

This particular feature has been a long time coming. When I was a freshman in high school I heard a Peace Corpse song on Kathy and Shrub’s radio show on our high school radio station. The song was called “Jocko Macho” and I was an instant fan. I used to record their shows because my lack of income and lack of means to find and buy punk records at the time left me no choice. You see back then there was no internet where you can find anything with a couple of clicks and punk rock was still so new and so unacceptable to mainstream society that it took a special kind of record store to stock such things so when you are 13 years old, discovering punk rock bands and getting their records wasn’t an easy task.

Eventually my friend Spanky brought in a Toxic Shock records catalog that he swiped from his brother and it was like discovering the Holy Grail for me. There were pages and pages of punk records for sale including the 7″ EP from Peace Corpse that I so desperately wanted for my very own. Until then I was eventually able to score a cassette recording of the EP from my friend Mick Calhoun, who at the time had more punk records than just about anyone. I talked my mom into writing me a check and buying me some records and a few weeks later the precious little gem was in my hands and I played it every day. It is now 25 years later and I still play that record on a regular basis. I loved everything from the music down to the Pushead illustrated sleeve, it was one of those perfect hardcore punk EPs in my eyes.

It turned out that the founder and singer of Peace Corpse was none other than Bill Sassenberger, who also ran Toxic Shock records (the store and the label). The man has supported the punk rock since its birth and still does today at his Toxic Ranch Records store in Tuscon, AZ. His label put out a lot of great punk records over the years and his store put records in my home on quite a few occasions during my teenage years. I’ve been pestering Bill for a couple years now to share his story about Peace Corpse (and to a lesser degree Toxic Shock) and he finally delivered the goods. Go grab a snack and sit down because this is a pretty long one.

Toxic Shock Records was born sometime in the summer of 1980 on a fairly nondescript street in suburban Pomona, CA and in a tiny corner shop wedged between a hair salon and a car repair shop, across from a Der Weinersnitzel hot dog stand. Pomona was mostly known for the annual L.A. County fair and because of that for decades it was the butt of jokes from the likes of William Holden and Jack Benny. It was this “hick” town that was the honeymoon destination choice for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who knows why. Maybe they ran out of gas on the way to Palm Springs? I knew I couldn’t compete with the bigger, trendier record stores in glitzy Hollywood out here in drab Pomona, with its ugly suburban sprawl and a decaying historic district, but I was hoping by refusing to carry major labels, and being forced to stay within the limits of my tiny start-up budget I could find a niche catering to the local malcontents. Instead of carrying the obvious punk superstars, the Clash and Sex Pistols,  I tried to offer a meager selection of lesser known, local Southern California independent labels like Dangerhouse, SST, Upsetter, Slash, Frontier, Posh Boy, plus some other west coast labels like Subterranean, distributor Systematic from San Francisco and Friends Records from Vancouver B.C., plus a few things from New York. I also stocked a few UK imports on Industrial Records, Rough Trade, 4AD, Malicious Damage, Crass,and Stiff, all on vinyl, naturally. I rounded it out with a smattering of punk/new wave related punk merchandise.

The lowly shop with the melting red and black Toxic Shock sign painted on the glass exterior would attract people mainly by word of mouth, and the curiosity seekers would root around the record bins, read magazines on the couch, and help me fill up the ashtray with cigarette butts. Since I lived in the back of the store, the business hours were never set in stone and the door would be open until late at night. People would just hang out and listen to whatever was on my turntable at the time, which could be the Fall, Blurt, D.O.A., Bauhaus, Flipper, Magazine, Minimal Man, Cabaret Voltaire, the Residents, Throbbing Gristle, the Plasmatics or Saccharine Trust, depending on my mood. At the time, none of it was radio friendly and the suburbs had a small, but steadily increasing amount of people who were hungry for more than what was currently being offered at the big chain record mega stores. One of these people would be my future wife, Julianna, who would bring her sister over with a bottle of wine, so they could escape the stifling confines of their mother’s authority for awhile.

Pomona was a bit isolated from the whole Hollywood scene, being a good 60 minute ride on the freeway from Los Angeles itself and another 45 minutes north of Orange County, where droves of teen suburbanite punks were now growing in numbers, creating lots of violence and destruction not only in hip Hollywood venues like the Whisky and the Starwood, but also beach haunts like the Cuckoos Nest and the Fleetwood. Out in the eastern outskirts of L.A. County, Pomona, we had a few bands start up in the area, such as the Dull, and Modern Industry from just over the hill in Covina to our west, Kent State and the Stepmothers hailed from Ontario to our immediate east and Manson Youth who came from the real boonies, Chino, to our north. They had cows grazing, out there in Chino. Pomona itself, had only a metal/punk band called Bondage, who were a bunch of macho coke-heads, Although we had nothing like the beach gang violence that followed bands like T.S.O.L. and Black Flag, there was some petty rivalry between the towns, like fistfights at backyard parties.

The closest thing we had to a live music venue in Pomona was Arts Building, run by a mild-mannered arts enthusiast named appropiately enough, Art. Just about any artist in the area could get an art showing there and a band could get a gig there just by giving Art a phone call. The space was so tiny that a crowd of a dozen music fans could be considered a sell out show. This led me to thinking some bigger shows could be brought to Pomona, if only there was a cheap to rent building somewhere. In early 1981 that somewhere turned out to be the P.A.L. Boxing Gym, a huge dilapidated old building where the boxing platform would be disassembled and converted to a space for a stage. After renting a PA system and selling tickets at Toxic Shock, soon bands like China White, Adolescents, Middle Class and Social Distortion would come up from O.C. and other bands like the Cheifs, Rik L Rik, Bad Religion and and even true out-of-towners like the Red Rockers from New Orleans and the Subhumans from Canada would also headline shows there. I remember when all the members of Black Flag came to see their friends the Subhumans, from Vancouver before sharing a bill with them later that week at a rented hall in L.A. After four well-attended shows organized at the boxing gym, we finally got ourselves banned from the gym due to some overly rambunctious “music fans” tearing all the plumbing from the bathroom walls.

After that venture, I tried to concentrate more on the shop, and placed a couple classified ads in rock magazines Trouser Press and Rolling Stone for a mail-order catalog and I got flooded with requests, which kept me busier at the shop, once some catalogs finally got mailed off. George Belanger, Jay and James McGearty would also be among the hangers on at the shop and they would tell me of this new band they were starting with Roger, (who had by now changed his name to Rozz Williams. Despite his claims that it originated from a gravestone, I figured years later he most likely stole his new moniker from Ricky Williams of the Sleepers, a great little obscure San Francisco band) and it was going to be called Christian Death. One of George and James catch phrases went something like “that’s Spa, dude!” , a reference to anything they considered gay or stupid, so I was a little surprised to hear of their association with Rozz, who was known to sometimes frequent the restrooms at a public park along with Ron Athey as male prostitutes for drug money. I know they used to get their kicks stealing flowers from the local cemetery and supposedly they stole some gravestones as well, which is hard to believe considering how physically frail Rozz was. Maybe George was talked into being the actual culprit, as he was a strong drummer and a fairly big guy. George was a cool kid though, finding out he was a fan of Keith Moon, we got along just fine. James and Jay were a bit more secretive, aloof and coy. They all seemed to have high hopes that their new band was going to go places, at the very least get them out of Pomona on weekends.

At some point, Ron Athey made the shop’s couch a regular pit stop where he could listen to the latest Throbbing Gristle 12″ , between his rounds of hustling Holt Ave for dope money. Again, being the naive anarchist at heart, with no particular homophobic hang ups and finding out both of us were TG fans, I saw no harm in him hanging around. I would joke with him when I thought certain bands were too dramatic or cheesy, and tag them as having too much “Bowie damage”. A highlight for me that year was seeing Throbbing Gristle live in Culver City, the day before their last performance in San Francisco. Chuck Dukowski (of Black Flag) opened the show with his concept troupe, SWA and Vox Pop also played that night.

Sometime in the summer of 1981, I noticed a “for rent” sign at a much bigger building just 2 stores down from us, that used to be an appliance store that came complete with an air conditioning showroom, separate back rooms with a kitchen area and real bathroom with a shower. It was, naturally more rent,but I took a gamble with business seemingly improving. Small labels were putting out records that were selling like crazy. For awhile, we were selling a box of 50 Circle Jerks albums a week , with Adolescents debut LP, Black Flags “Jealous Again” 12 ” EP, Angry Samoans “Inside My Brain” 12″ and Rodney on the Roq compilations were hot on their heels flying out the door. As punk rock was getting more and more accessible to the masses thanks in part to more radio exposure, the release of Decline of Western Civilization in the theatres and fanzines like Flipside. There was no Internet, it was word of mouth and flyers picked up at shows and record shops like ours, Zed’s in Long Beach, and Poobah in Pasadena. Ron Athey helped persuade me that the move was a good idea when he said he would pitch in by renting out one of the rooms with the help of Rozz, as well as help take care of customers. So we walked our stuff over in boxes down the sidewalk and into our new digs.

I recall when Rozz and Ron invited all their creepy little friends from Hollywood over for a party at the store and how alienated I felt by their presense as the night dragged on. The building filled with strange faces and amplifying chatter and cackels of laughter. I spent most of the night on the roof waiting for daylight to arrive. It probably didn’t help matters that I was high on LSD at the time. Other drugs and decadence would regularly occupy Ron and Rozz’ room, as they often had their personal plaything, a kid from Ontario, hanging from a rope while they took turns whipping him between heating their spoons with candles. The smell of melting wax was omnipresent. I myself, had a pretty low opinion of heroin, as I considered it, along with speed, a death drug. One day at our kitchen table, while he was working on the artwork for “Theatre of Pain”, Rozz was admiring an album cover (T.S.O.L.’s “Dance with Me”) he had gotten from Frontier. He told me he liked the artwork better than the music. For me, it was the exact opposite.

Living with the two R’s got weirder still, when Ron found a dead cat hit by a car and stored it in our freezer, because he wanted to use it for an upcoming “performance art” thing he was planning with Rozz at Arts Building. I had seen Christian Death’s debut show in Ontario the previous December, where the big “sensation” was Rozz appearing onstage in a white wedding dress. Other than George’s powerhouse drumming, the band seemed lackluster. They hadn’t yet developed their sound which Rick Agnew would flesh out later on. I was underwhelmed at best on that night, and skipped their show supporting 45 Grave at Art’s Bldg in January, but I was a little curious as to what would transpire at this other “Premature Ejaculation” event. Can’t say I was glad I went, because by the time they pulled the defrosted cat out of the bag and Ron proceeded to tear the carcass apart with his hands and teeth, the smell in the room was disgusting, and I for one failed to see what the artistic statement was in this exhibition of depravity. I also remembered how gleefully Ron relayed a story to me when he bragged that he got the local coke dealer (the singer in the band Bondage) so high, that he was able to flip him over and rape him in the ass without him being aware of what was going on. I was beginning to realize I really didn’t want these two as roomates any longer. Especially as a few months had gone by and the promised help with rent had failed to materialize. I also started noticing our store inventory was shrinking and money wasnt being accounted for the sales made whenever I wasn’t behind the counter.

By this time, Julianna had also moved in and was trying to help me keep our mail-order business organized and afloat as our walk-in traffic was dwindling, In spite of our efforts, we were falling behind on rent payments and utility bills. My generosity was quickly turning to animosity, fueled by finding a huge chunk of my personal record collection in Rozz and Ron’s room, when they were out scoring drugs. We decided something had to be done and quickly, so after being left empty handed once again when we asked for help on our delinquent rent, the next time the pair went out galavanting, we took all their belongings out of their room and put them outside the rear entrance and locked the door. A few days went by peacefully enough, until a loud, crashing sound awoke us one late morning. Our neighbors were able to I.D. both Rozz and gal pal Mary jumping out of their car and smashing our storefront windows before they jumped back in and dashed away. We had no money to repair the glass, so we boarded it up and went back to trying to regain our customers that we lost over the previous months and doing our best to keep our utilities from being shut off. With a few phone calls, we organized a benefit show Oct 22 1981 at a club out in Riverside. Eddie and the Subtitles, the Abandoned, Social Distortion, Manson Youth and Red Brigade played to help raise money to keep Toxic Shock from closing down. We had also started a band, with myself on vocals, Julianna on guitar, our friend Scott on bass and we borrowed the drummer of Manson Youth. We had worked out a short set of songs that included a couple Flesheaters cover songs and some original material, including “Horror Snores” and came up with a band name, Moslem Birth. With white pancake make-up, black wigs, eyeliner, plastic jack-o-lanterns and a couple styrofoam tombstones, we were soon ready to play our debut show at Art’s Building! The few people who showed up were treated to a messy set of seethingly sarcastic “goth/punk”. It would be our one and only live performance. A couple years later, “Horror Snores” would be resurrected on vinyl.
Before too long, with our phone disconnected, our electricity shut off and no inventory left to attract any customers, we were finally forced to close down Toxic Shock. We spent the next year running the mail-order business out of a spare bedroom and working at the local smoke shop. The owners decided they wanted to sell off their shop and since we easily could make weekly payments until it was paid off, we were soon owners of a truly profitable business. There were some legal hassles though, with undercover cops always trying to bust us for selling drug paraphenalia. They finally succeded, but not before we were able to set aside enough money to re-open Toxic Shock Records in a new location, in the “Antique Mall” in downtown Pomona. Thanks to the money made serving the needs of thousands of potheads and coke fiends, this time our inventory at the record store was much expanded. Inspired by the work ethic and tenacity of the people behind SST and Subterreanean, this time I knew it was going to work. My dealings with all the indie labels of the time had grown immensely and not only was our international mail-order business booming, but we also became a full fledged wholesale distributor ourselves, selling to other record shops around the country! One of the few records we refused to stock was “Only Theatre of Pain”. We simply ignored Christian Death and had no interest in promoting any Rozz related project.

We were itching however to start our own record label, which we also called Toxic Shock and for our first release we put together a 7″ EP, titled Noise from Nowhere, a compilation featuring 4 area bands, Kent State, Modern Industry, Manson Youth and Moslem Birth. I always liked the 4 bands on one 7″ record concept that Subterranean had done with the SF Underground series. Although Moslem Birth wasn’t an active band, it did quickly morph into Peace Corpse, but not before documenting “Horror Snores” in the studio. This time Julianna played guitar, I “sang” and Tracy Garcia (of East L.A. pre-Goth band Thee Undertakers played the drums, his girlfriend Angie on bass. Noise from Nowhere was graced by the infamous “exploding penis” artwork provided by my penpal from Boise, Brian “Pushead” Schroeder, who would later also design the sleeve for our Peace Corpse Quincy 7″ EP.

Looking back, I wouldn’t say I was all that impressed with the early L.A. goth scene. Outside of 45 Grave, who were far more entertaining because they at least were campy and had a sense of humor, most of these bands seem contrived outside of a Halloween night costume party. Far more interesting bands with a goth edge would service later in Arizona with Mighty Sphincter and in San Francisco with the Toiling Midjits, not to overlook Scratch Acid in Austin. But, just like the “bat-cave” movement in the U.K., goth/punk in LA came off as just plain silly. Some people like Rozz and Patrick Mata of Kommunity Fk couldn’t turn their Bowie damaged art into a pot o’ gold where the likes of a Perry Ferrell of Psi-Com/Janes’s Addiction and Valor Kand of Christian Death (phase two) certainly could. Seeing the tiny insular “Goth” scene evolve over the decades to become this huge fashion and music industry never fails to amaze me, as evidenced by the glut of goth drek as cranked out by the likes of Projekt.

When I think of all the legal troubles and frustration Rozz had to contend with over the years regarding the rights to the name of Christian Death and to see other people making money off his creation, I could only think to myself, “couldn’t happen to a nicer guy”. What can I say about my own band PEACE CORPSE? We had fun poking fun at the absurdities of the time including the media’s stereotypes of punk culture, with shows such as “C.H.I.P.S.” and “Quincy” that exaggerated the dangers of punk rock as a lifestyle.

Peace Corpse – Quincy EP rejected/unreleased test pressing

After a bad experience recording at this hippie dude’s studio, we even got some test pressings made before scraping the project, we started over, recorded 7 songs at Casbah Studio in Fullerton by Chas Ramirez at who also recorded Social Distortion and Adolescents early stuff. “Breach Birth Generation” ended up on the Barricaded Suspects compilation LP and the rest documented our 6 song Quincy 7″EP. We managed to play several shows in L.A.’s suburbs,(we opened for both the F.U.’s and Die Kreuzen!) driving up to San Francisco to play with Social Unrest at the On Broadway and Toxic Reasons at the Tool’n'Die on Valencia, as part of the “Noise from Nowhere” package with Kent State and Modern Industry.

Peace Corpse – Quincy EP (1984 Toxic Shock Records)

We can also claim to have opened up for Black Flag, at the July 4th Legalize Marijuana rally held in front of the Federal Building 1984?, although Ginn/Rollins didn’t actually speak to us, or even look at us, it looked good on our punk rock resume! We even ventured up to Las Vegas for a well received show with Decry, who we also toured with later on (after Tracy and Angie had left the band), with gigs strung together in Phoenix (with Mighty Sphincter, our heroes!), Santa Fe New Mexico (Hunting Lodge was supposed to play, but didn’t) , Denver (with Utah’s Massacre Guys), St Louis (with Blind Idiot God), Bloomington, Indiana (I dont remember who else played, but the kids were doing the “worm” between the stoves and refrigerators as we played in an abandoned appliance store) and finally Cleveland (opened for the Pink Holes in a former strip club) where our tour would ended abruptly, as we had to head back to California due to lack of funds. We never made it to Chicago, where we were scheduled to play the Metro or Virginia Beach VA, where we had received a decent amount of fan mail.

Peace Corpse – Terror of History 12″ EP (1985 Toxic Shock Records)

The later Peace Corpse years are somewhat embarassing when we began to take ourselves too seriously due to a line-up change (please steer clear of our Terror of History 12″!), but the Neil Young cover from the ill-fated Budget Ranch box set (delayed for at least a year with only 350 made of the intended 1000) is worth looking for. The band dissolved after our final tour, as we found it just wasn’t much fun anymore. Our bass player went on to join Pillsbury Hardcore (who covered “Horror Snores” on the Budget Ranch Box) and later formed Man is the Bastard. Julianna and I formed a fun project with Mark Erskine (of Savage Republic) called Zimbo Chimps. We recorded a 7″ and played one show, then broke up! Julianna would release 3 solo albums in the early ’90’s under the name Skinnerbox, not to be confused with the NYC ska band.

I think Bill is a little too hard on the Terror of History EP. I was a little bummed when it came out that it sounded so different but I ended up liking exactly half of it, and still listen to those songs that I do like from it fairly often even now, two decades later. It was the tracks from the Budget Ranch Box that I really didn’t care for (which is why I didn’t bother to include any here). I remember ordering that box set and waiting nearly a year for it to arrive!

I’d like to thank Bill for sending over the history and for his substantial contribution to the world of punk rock not just with his store and mailorder, but for his band that meant a whole lot to me when I was growing up.

Listen to “Jocko Macho” from the Quincy EP

Listen to “Mental Malady” from Terror of History

Listen to “Small Talk Death” from the unreleased/rejected test pressing

Toxic Ranch website