The Deaf 2002

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Jan 312012
 


The Deaf was a band I was in briefly before I moved to Austin. The Deaf was the brainchild of fellow art-student Wil Boston who recruited me to play bass and drummer extraordinaire Clay Stinnett to play percussion. We essentially played noise with the concept in mind to play as if we could not hear what we were doing. Like deaf people might. Wil sat at a table with his lap-top producing random digital noise while Clay and I banged away paying no mind to what the other was doing. This was actually kind of difficult for Clay and I who were not use to being in noise-based bands and had a tendency to begin “following” each other periodically during a performance. We sensed an undercurrent of Doom Metal, and despite Wil’s insistence that there be nothing musical happening when we performed, we were only barely able to contain our musical sensibilities.
This particular show at Rubber Gloves in Denton went very well, in my opinion. The club was packed and Clay decided to haul in a huge strip of sheet metal, roughly half the size of the stage, from behind the club so as to use it as a percussive instrument. Toward the end of the set Clay and I unfurled the sheet metal, he on one side of the stage, I on the other and we waved it over the front of the stage creating an incredibly loud racket of smashing metal. The sheet metal waved insanely close to the audience in front who had no place to escape decapitation or a serious slashing. Even though nobody was hurt, after the fact, it seemed a ludicrously dangerous stunt. It had made a nice spectacle though. And it made a very nice sound. Unfortunately there are no recordings of The Deaf that I know of. If anyone has any I would be pleased to hear them.
I don’t remember who made this flyer but it’s a favorite from my entire collection.

Mable Peabody’s 2001

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Jan 232012
 


Toward the end of my residency in Denton, Mabel Peabody’s Beauty Parlor and Chainsaw Repair, a gay bar on the north side of town by TWU, began hosting rock shows. I played a few shows at Mable’s but the sound was awful due to the walls being covered in mirrors as opposed to curtains behind the “stage”, which was not a stage but an area on the floor in the corner of the room. This particular show went fine. The “plus more” I remember distinctly being Wes Coleman. Soon after I moved to Austin I heard a rumor that Mable’s had burned down and that it was ruled arson and that this was not the first time. I don’t know if that’s true but it was a good story.
This is another example, possibly the pinnacle of terrible flyers that I made for my shows. It looks like it wasn’t even printed out properly.

Liquid Lounge 2000

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Jan 112012
 


For most of the year 2000 corn Mo hosted a “solo” night every Thursday at a club in Dallas called The Liquid Lounge. He invited his friends to play but few people wanted to drive from Denton to Dallas on a Wednesday night to play for free to an average crowd of 6 people, most of whom were there just to drink. Cavedweller played solo frequently, as did Fishboy, Asphalt The Recorder and any of John Freeman’s bands and any random “quieter” bands that were available. Corn Mo always played last, always threw in some good magjic and usually had the most attentive crowd. After five or six months it became a bit depressing so I stopped playing there. The Liquid Lounge seemed like the lamest kind of Dallas club at the time. They mostly catered to the blandest of alternative-radio-friendly “Dallas-style” bands. I will not go into the details of what I consider to be a “Dallas-style” band.
I don’t know who made this flier or who wrote on it or why everybody wrote on flier’s back then but this is yet another example of the laziness involved with “fliering” at the time. I think bands were making fliers for shows before they actually had the show booked and then had to go back and mark it all out and re-write the new information. I probably made this flier.

Favorite Albums of 2011

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Jan 032012
 

2011 was a very good year for new music. It was difficult for me to narrow it down so I didn’t narrow it down. This list is the new stuff I listened to the most this year which excludes reissues and anything not released in 2011. The list is alphabetical but there are a few that stood out which I listened to substantially more often (most likely because they came out earlier in the year) and those albums have asterisks beside them. There was a handful of things I never got around to listening to that I had heard were great but alas, only so many hours in the year. As well, like most years, this list is Texas-heavy, psychedelic-heavy and garage-heavy. A few electronic and a couple experimental and one “classical” (TW Bond’s- compositions). Thanks to all the rock blogs that allowed us to sample so much good stuff. Most of these albums were released on vinyl and I recommend purchasing any and/or all of them.

1. Acid Baby Jesus- LP
2. Allah La’s- Demo
3. Apache Dropout- S/T LP + Radiation 7”+ Shot Down 7”*
4. Bad Indians- Sounds From The Big Room
5. Bad Sports- Kings Of The Weekend
6. Bass Drum Of Death- GB City
7. Blasted Canyons- S/T
8. Christian Bland and The Revelators- The Lost Album
9. Cowabunga Babes- Going Nowhere
10. Crystal Stilts- In Love With Oblivion LP + Radiant Door EP*
11. Crystal Swells- Goethe Head Soup
12. the dictaphone- past.future.void
13. Dirty Beaches- Badlands
14. Ducktails- III: Arcade Dynamics
15. The Feeling Of Love- Dissolve Me
16. Fishboy- Classic Creeps
17. High Wolf- A Guide To Healing
18. Jacuzzi Boys- Glazin’
19. John Maus- We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves*
20. Ketamines- Line By Line EP
21. Liquid Skulls- Dead In Your Eyes
22. Mountain Cult- first demo 3/12 + EP
23. Natural Child- 1971
24. Night Beats- S/T
25. OBN III’s- S/T 7” + S/T EP
26. Peaking Lights- 936
27. The People’s Temple- Sons Of Stone*
28. Pure X- Pleasure*
29. Purling Hiss- Lounge Lizards
30. Real Estate- Days
31. Shapes Have Fangs- Dinner In The Dark (vinyl)*
32. Sic Alps- Napa Asylum *
33. Sleep oo Over- Forever
34. The Strange Boys- Live Music*
35. Thee Cormans- Halloween Record W/Sound Effects
36. The UFO Club/Night Beats- Split 10”*
37. TW Bond- Compositions
38. White Denim- D