Showing off my Halloween(r): I Call It "Norman"

So, unbeknowst to our reading audience, the diabolic zwolf challenged the rest of our crew to post a horror short story this month, to commemorate Halloween. And, of course, I failed miserably. Years of not really writing - aside from this kinda bullshit, which requires little to none of the creativity necessary for writing good fiction - has left me rusty + rough, like that old nail you steppt on when you were a kid...

Anyway, not to be completely left out, here's a Halloween song I wrote, recorded + posted for ya.

Norman

The intent was to honor the classic horror of the 60s, so the music's sorta early rock-influenct, intended to evoke The Cramps. Except the theremin-esk synth line, which is s'posta sound like every scary UFO from those films. And, of course, all of the words you'll hear are by Robert Bloch + Alfred Hitchcock, voiced by Tony Perkins.

Check it out + lemme know what you think. It'll play straight offa the browser + runs under 2minits.

Happy Halloween!

Glad to Be Unhappy (1997) Go! Dog! Go!

Dateline: 1997...

Never mind that the fuckin' album didn't even come out til we'd been back a month from our 7 week tour to support its release...

Our record label was actually nice enough to make sure that we had some copies to take out on the road with us, along with a box of our t-shirts...

Never mind that the fuckin' van broke down so many times that we started (half-)jokingly calling it the PepBoys tour...

We actually got to learn quite a bit about the inner workings of a piece-of-shit van. Rather useful, that...





 

Never mind that the fuckin' booking agent lied repeatedly about 'confirmed' shows that we were later told by him were cancelled (only to find out in at least one case that he'd never even contacted the club til that week)...

We had some excellent shows to help make up for that sorry piece of shit not doing his fuckin' job... + even bookt some while on the road - in a pre-cellphone, pre-internet world...

Never mind alla that shit, cuz we didn't know any of that was gonna happen a year earlier when we recorded this album, Glad to Be Unhappy by Go! Dog! Go!

In January 1996, we were fortunate enough to spend two weeks recording with now well-noted producer (and Drive Like Jehu drummer) Mark Trombino (Mark's on the right, trying to get out of the picture, I'd imagine...) at Big Fish Studios in Encinitas, CA.

We met with Mark in LA a couple of times, once notably in the bowels of the Capitol Records building, where he was using some of their classic studio space to work on some mixes for the then-soon-to-be-released self-titled Jimmy Eat World record (their first on Capitol, I think). And he was a decidedly nice guy, very easy to work with even though he'd just quit smoking prior to our fortnight of recording.

And below's the result, for yr downloading pleasure, recorded + mixt by Mark Trombino at Big Fish, produced by Mark Trombino + G!D!G! (except Bloated Worm, recorded + produced July 1995 by Andre Champagne + G!D!G!)


(<--That's Tim B. + me in Andre's bad-ass gingerbread home studio)

 ____________________________________________

Go! Dog! Go! Glad to Be Unhappy

track listing:

1. Intro (It Could Happen)
2. Socket
3. Engine
4. Drive, Turn Left
5. Rolled into One
6. Intent to Change
7. Soft Spot
8. Bacon Shrinks (All My Blue)
9. Lobby Song
10. Ceiling
11. Borrowed
12. Pillow Soft
13. Spinch
14. Platter
15. Spacegirl (Live)
16. Bloated Worm

1997, Risk Records.
Eric Beetner. guitars/vocals
Tim Boyd. alto+soprano sax
Tim Christopher. drums
Craig Smith. bass/backing vocals (lead on Borrowed)
(Eric, Tim C., Craig, Mark Trombino. trumpets on Spinch)
(Oh, and the cover photo credit: Marie's dad)

download it here for free with my blessings!

Go! Dog! Go! - Glad to Be Unhappy (Reviews, Pt.3)

Here's the final batch of amazingly mixed reviews for my mid-90's post-hardcore quartet Go! Dog! Go!'s lone CD: Glad to Be Unhappy. Enjoy! I'll be posting the full CD (+ maybe some bonus tracks) soon... (special thanks to Eric Beetner for posting these online for me to snag!)

Go! Dog! Go! - Glad to Be Unhappy (Reviews, Pt.2)

Here's another batch of amazingly mixed reviews for my snappy mid-90's post-hardcore (+saxomophone) outfit Go! Dog! Go!'s lone CD: Glad to Be Unhappy. Enjoy!

Go! Dog! Go! - Glad to Be Unhappy (Reviews, Pt.1)

Back in the '90's, when Go! Dog! Go! was actually still godoggoing, our full-length CD - Glad to Be Unhappy - was released after a pair of snappy 7" singles, to decidedly mixed reviews... Have a nostalgic laugh with me...

Mr. Craig's Wild Ride! (+ iPodatry #2)

So, Skeleton Crew had a show bookt for 15 January at Dave's Darkhorse Tavern in Starkville, MS... we had a great show (playing together pretty well despite missing practice since, like, September) with a healthy crowd of enthusiastic + drunken collegefolk. The band's favorite crowd members turned out to be a pair of lovely brunette coeds who shared their love of both dancing + fondling each other, making for a fabulous floorshow for the rest of the crowd + the band... Sorry, no crowd pictures! Thanks to everyone who came out to support the band + bar!

...well, everyone except for Richard. Richard was at the bar when I showed up early Thursday evening to drop off my gear. Richard was at the bar for the entirety of the show. Richard was still at the bar when the staff cleared everyone out so they could close up. Richard was decidedly older - and smellier - than the college kids who peopled the bar all night. Richard was drunk. And Richard needed a ride home... Somehow, the honor of playing chauffeur to an old smelly drunk fell upon me. Yep. Me, the only person there who does not live in Starkville has to drive its streets in the early, early morning, taking directions from a passenger whose command of the English language had been nearly lost - and was certainly tentative even before he started drinking. Our first stop was an abandoned house in the middle of town... not a good start. Then we headed all of the way out into the boondocks to a trailer in the middle of the woods. Luckily, he had found the right place + went inside to sleep it off... I headed back toward civilization (well, suchas can be found in Miss'ip'...), picking up a screw in my tire that popped out as I tried to leave town, leaving me on the side of the highway at 3am... It all workt out from there, but I guess the nugget of truth to take from this is the old saw: No good deed goes unpunished...

Even with all of the drama, I heard some good music while driving all over the Deep South. Here's some of what my iPod threw my way during the roadtrip:

Nile - Die Rache Krieg Lied Der Assyriche
Wow... say what you will about metal; this whole album consistently blows my mind and this track is one of the best, creating a mood that's eerie + unique...

Soda Can - Au Gratin
Funky + spastic, these guys are Minutemen-esque in the best of ways... I put 'em in the same musical category as those guys, the Rhythm Pigs, Victims Family, Phantom Tollbooth... y'know, that killer three-piece punk-funk that tends to be manic + groovy at the same time.

Mongo Santamaria - Onyae
From Mongo's classic Afro-Roots, a crucial Cuban jazz collection of Mongo's first two releases as a bandleader on Fantasy... The sessions featured many of the stars of the late 50s Cuban jazz scene + get extra-nasty...

Stars of the Lid - Sun Drugs + The Artificial Pine Arch Song
Both pieces are from The Ballasted Orchestra, a masterful album of ambient musicscapes, texturally reminiscent of Eno's Music for Airports. Cool stuff, though I don't always find ambient music terribly conducive to driving long distances... Aarktica popped up as well + create a similar drone + thrum vibe.

Valis - Universe 2
Wow. Druggy + heavy + named after a Philip K. Dick novel/character/theosophic discussion point... how could I pass that up? How can you? Check 'em out!

The 2009 iPod Worship Begins... iPodatry #1

So... the Mighty Blowhole will be posting the huge archives of movie reviews from the website starting this week. I'll try to get some done before leaving for the Skeleton Crew gig in Starkville (Thursday, 1.15 at Dave's Darkhorse Tavern, if you're gonna be in town c'mon by...).

Also in posting news, zwolf has promised to start some sort of regular posting once his current computer issues are resolved... hopefully, that'll be fairly regular - maybe even weekly... His twisto humor is worth tuning in for. Also weekly, there'll be a post of some random thoughts on the results of my iPod's shuffle songs setting while at work. Like this one...

The South's Gonna Do It Again - Charlie Daniels Band: this was the first record I ever bought with my own money, circa waaaay back in the 1970s. Name-dropping his way through the then-current southern rock scene + beatin' his fiddle like it was a red-headed stepchild, Charlie Daniels is the wrong cracka to fuck with!

Maiden's Milk - The Meat Puppets: the tune that introduced me to the three-man peyote-punk of the Meat Puppets (along with the rest of Up on the Sun + Meat Puppets I + II) back in 1987-88, courtesy of Matt Schultz, whose LP collection hepped me to a ton of killer indie-rock that year at MSU. This song always reminds me of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts music, all Snoopy dancin' +Woodstock leavin' dotted lines in the air...

Bridges Burn - Clockhammer: I've already posted (in the F.U.C.T. review) about the rockin' scenes that peppered the Southeast back in the day; Clockhammer was one of the best of the Nashville bands, with some strangely soft-spoken + lyrical vocals over great heavy + jazzy-spastic music. They were a three-piece when I saw 'em... gotta love the power-trio!

Hit It and Pass It - Rasputin's Stash: ...wow... I had already heard one deep cut - The Devil Made Me Do It - from this band's only (?) album on the recommended 2-CD collection Superfly Soul, so when I found the LP, I jumped on it. Very funky. This is a very silly, very funky song, about what I can't be too sure...

Throw Away the Trash - The Kids of Widney High: again, wow... I remember finding out about these guys when their first CD Special Music from Special Kids came out on Rounder, mainly because Mike Patton was a fan. Widney High is a special-needs school with a very forward-thinking music department. The kids write + sing these songs; studio personnel +/or teachers handle the rest, which somehow leaves the music in the same dust-filled corner as music used in montage scenes in movies like Mannequin. The songs are unintentionally hilarious... and yes, I know... I'm going to Hell...