This was Atlanta.

will it ever happen again?
The current boner don't count.


check it.

Neon Christ 1985

Oh yeah: Oh No part II.

This is from the last Habeas Corpses show ever. Not much of a crowd, not much response, but if you watch through to the last line...well I'm kind of biased towards my own humor. I have at least matured about five years in the fifteen that have elapsed since this performance.

Again, many thanks to Somber Steve for being there then and now.

Singers, songwriters, bulldykers...

Scratch that last word...injoke central. A few good friends of mine fit into the singer/songwriter "genre," so I figured I'd post a few tracks of theirs to get the blog ball rolling again. The first batch is from a guy who will not allow me to post these songs under his real name. He goes by the name "Atlas Mason," and though he will probably punch me for saying it, he write from the Tom Waits bag (but with an expanded harmonic sense.) I played with Atlas on some of the other files available for download here...can you guess who it is? Go for it>>>>> Atlas Mason sampler

...and then there is Daniel Clay: former high school mate of Bimbi "Smoofus" Garreaux, theologian, boat builder, furniture designer, incredible guitarist etc. I am usually not a fan of the singer/songwriter thing but Daniel's stuff really draws me in and also...the lyrics are married to the music. Nothing's forced. You'll love it. Here are a few tacks from his new cd "The Protestant." Look for it at the usual places.

D Clay here

I keep saying it, but I have much more to post and I broke the 2000 download milestone a long time ago so some surprises are in the works. beedeebeedeebeedee.

Oh No.

Oh yes. Habeas Corpses was the only band I was ever in before Purkinje Shift if you can believe it. This was recorded at the Beer Olympics in NYC about fifteen years ago (back before Richard could grow a beard) by our good friend Somber Steve. Steve says he has more coming so we'll see.
Band Members:
Ben Corpse: Guitar/Sing
Mike Murder: Hit
Richard B. Xanax: Bass (the "b" stood for blue)

Witty Lay Down Mains Reference Here.

Remember when Rick Moore and Lee Corum from Lay Down Mains were fresh faced young men with a gleam in their collective eye and the world by the tail? Yeah, I don't either. But I do remember when they were just a two piece band instead of the three piece face rocker offer that they are today (since Dave Down Lains joined.) I just read a blog that Rick posted about the delay of their CD release so I figured now would be a good time to post a sampling from their two fisted days. They went to Nashville and recorded with David Axelrod who was in the great Atlanta band Mock Heroic (who has those cds by the way?.) No not the David Axelrod who is Barack Obama's close consultant...the other one. Anyway, they got into the studio, put their rock and roll pee-pees together and this demo was born. I have forgotten what they call most of their songs so some had to be made up by yours truly. Let me know the titles guys.
Okay...
here 'tis.
check out their current line up >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>here

...and then there was their four piece day.

porn orchard track sixx

fixxed. it's the most punk rock of all of them too. okay, don't leave comments, we're cool. no, i get it...it's like a tough "man" thing. hey iknow ladies have that shit cued up too... oh yeah. what?

Credit Crunch

As Henry Owings pointed out in a comment below, I neglected to give him credit for recording all of those Moreland Audio shows. He probably got all of the shows for us too. He was also paid in full with burly man-love for his services. Give the man props, he's been instrumental in A LOT of good things in two Georgia cities and is now gettin er done around the world.

Go to the constantly entertaining>>>>>
www.chunklet.com

Be sure to check out the Raleigh hardcore video and Danzig ad.

Porn...

motherfucking Orchard. Think about Athens, GA in 1986. "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine." Some people did not feel fine. Porn Orchard, Barbeque Killers and Jack-o-Nuts come to mind. It just did not sound like the rest of the college radio me-too stuff that was coming out at the time. Yes about twenty people in GA listened to Black Flag then and it's evident in the music.

Around that time my sister was going to UGA and got into the Athens rock scene. She picked up the first Porn Orchard demo cassette, "Hit The Right People Hard," and gave it to me as a birthday present (I think.) It was a life changing event for me and about five other people that grew up in Toccoa, GA. I was in seventh grade at the time. I remember thinking that if some college dudes an hour away from me could come up with this kind of music that "it is fucking possible." It hasn't happened yet in the twenty odd ensuing years, but I still think that it is fucking possible.

Though I enjoyed the prog trio that they became, their first cassette will always be one of the biggest influences on my life...

RIP Ted Hafer...singer and former owner of The Grit
Curtis Pernice now plays guitar with Vic Chestnutt.
Sam Mixon (drums) performs solo music in addition to his professional career.
Ron Hargrove (bass) at last report owned a gas station in North Carolina.

download below...you won't be sorry.

Hit The Right People Hard

one more mach and people would be clamoring for a ride...

It's been a month since my boredom induced blogging fury subsided. All I have left that is not in need of digital conversion (of my own stuff) is le free jazz and whilst I know it's not for everyone, I'm going to end up posting it soon anyway. In the mean time, Erik Herndon from Hell Mach 4 is the only person so far who has responded to my call for music. Come on boys and girls, people actually download this stuff...more than three people...I promise.

Anyway>>>Hell Mach4. Erik teaches guitar at the same music store that I teach out of now and it was a nice surprise to see somebody from back when walk in the door. I say that, but to be honest I never really new much about them. I played a show with them and saw them play several times, but they definitely slipped under my radar at the time (a very easy thing to do.) They also had some longevity, as I heard them practicing as recently as about 2 years ago. Oh yeah, I shared a practice space with them too. Hey Warren, I was the jerkhole who played your amp without asking...sorry. That's what I do. Be a jerkhole...I mean. What was put in my hand was a live recording from le Star Bar (feeling French today (wouldn't that be a great band name...feeling French?)) and I'm assuming it's later rather than earlier in their lifespan. Thanks for the recording Erik.

keep going this way>>>>>>>>>because the recording is here

now come on everyone else...current or old....recordings.....jheesh!!!

Updates. Calls.

Look to your right. Down a little. Under the poll (be sure to vote!.) I updated the links omnibus. There are 31 entries linking to 132 glorious music files.

More music is in the hopper but I need more stuff!! If you have any live/unreleased/out of print music you'd like for me to possibly post then contact me (bendavismusic@comcast.net.) I tend to post older things from Atlanta but if it's a current project, or from another city, that's fine too.

(Full) Frontal Blogotomy.

While you're checking out other blogs, you may as well check out James Joyce's amazing and ever expanding Atlanta Band Genome post. All of the bands mentioned on my blog are on there plus a billion more linked on one big dysfunctional family tree. Noot D'Noot is only five steps away from John Coltrane (figured out by yours truly) so it's getting pretty interesting and ridiculous. Hit James up with any adds that you have:

http://beyondfailure.blogspot.com/2007/12/start-atlanta-band-genome.html

Math and Noise

The comment in the post below by Louis Howe reminds me of something I meant to do last month, and that is direct you to his blog. Opinions/downloads etc. with (obviously) math and noise rock leanings. His opinions are pretty spot on in my book. Hell, homeboy's even down with Knot Feeder. Are you???? (2 hour later update: yes, it is a challenge!)

go here:

http://mathandnoise.blogspot.com

Omnibus Edition One.

Or: More damn Moreland Audio than you ever could have (would have) asked for. Some of this stuff has been posted before and some has not. One thing is for sure though, playing almost exclusively at the EARL every month and a half is why we became such roc-starz. The Star Bar show was opening for Copa Vance. Maybe a recording of their set is floating around. Hmmm. One of the EARL shows (I think 9/6/02) was a chunklet release party, and another was opening for Ocelot. I would have to listen to every single track one more time to be more specific and Hebrew Elvis is tellin' me "no way, man."

MA 1/17/02 @ the EARL (previously posted)

MA ?/?/02 @ the EARL (incorrectly dated 1/18/01...I have no idea)

MA 8/29/02 live @ the EARL

MA 9/6/02 live@ the EARL

MA first show/MJQ 9/6/01 (previously posted)

MA live @ the Star Bar 7/12/02

MA last show EARL 7/19/03 (previously posted)

Word 'em up. Happy 1/24/08. Don't forget, Noot D'Noot opens for Anna Kramer and Selmanaires at the EARL on 1/26/08.

bbbbbyyyeeessss.

Notes From The Chop Shop.

So there is only one Purkinje Shift live recording that I know of that wasn't chopped into separate tracks. It still baffles me. Many times the cuts were in the wrong place and totally interrupt the flow. Like I said before, this is for documentation only but these shows still may be enjoyable to listen to.

5/23/98 at under the couch (probably opening for Regulator Watts) is...

....here

and 5/99 at Criminal Records (with Super x-13 (I think) and Lust) is....

....heeeerrrreee.

Have a great 1/18/2008, and don't forget about 1/19/2008: Noot D'Noot @ Lenny's with Judi Chicago. Byes.

More from the Ark

Kenyon just sent another Ocelot tune. It's called "what do you expect he drinks whiskey and plays guitar."
Whoever it refers to sounds like he must be a very happy man. This one features Gary Flom//buoyant on lap steel. More may be coming if Kpax can get the tapes from West Side Red.

This one also has the "Red Judas" tag on it which I am assuming is the album title.

Here 'tis...

Lost Arc-a-lot

Well it seems that the lost Ocelot album is slowly trickling in. Kenyon just sent me one track from it called "red judas scarlet waves of you." Along with Kpax, A-roc and Rum Tum Tugger, a (then) fresh faced young boy named Alex Lambert was pounding the skins. I'm also featured on this track on saxophone and alto flute (my only recording on that instrument before I had to sell it.) Jaheem from Kenyon's original band Vertical Smile/Sibil (?) appears at the end on vocals.

If this song is a description of your life then, my friend, you started out life as a young street tough, committed a heinous crime, fled to a commune in the desert and ended up on a permanent acid trip. I hope that was grammatically correct. Now I'm worried.

I think another track from this will be coming from Gary soon, as he was also a guest on the record. I'm not sure how much was actually mixed down though so we'll see.

Loss Ocelot here...

Another breed of cat.

AAiight...keepin' it real here. Two for the price of one (free.) The night was apparently 9/6/01 and the location was MJQ (remember when they had shows there?.) Moreland Audio was playing our first show opening up for Ocelot. This would have been about two minutes before interest in this kind of music took a complete nosedive. MANY people have said to me since " yeah, people got tired of that shit because they want to hear some ROCK!" The only problem is that the things people have gotten into since then just do not rock, but are in fact rather weak. I hate to quote Billy Joel here, but the man once said "competence is now interpreted as genius." He was actually referring to his own orchestral music there. I guess that means you have to be competent first, though. Uh oh, I'm rambling and bitter now.

What can I say about Ocelot? Four disparate characters who kept it together for several years. They even had their own slanguage, kind of like a mini-gang. Some good ones were "Das dat ol' gay shit"..."bitches leave!!!"...and "tsovertwont." That last one still has me scratching my head. I have no idea what the song titles were so if any of the Ocelot crew wants to leave a list in the comments section then feel free.

The Moreland Audio track that I labeled OG Moistener is the original nine minute version of our tune "The Moistener" that has some parts in it that I had completely forgotten about. There is actually a part in it that we eventually cut out but then used in another song a couple of years later. Only four tracks for this show. I guess we were just getting our feet wet.

Ocelot.........now

Moreland Audio

Project Runway...

is starting to become a good reason for me to leave the living room and post stuff on this blog. It also inspires me to think of new fashion ideas, like a men's line that is only made up of white t-shirts. I think that means it's time to post a poor quality John Brown live recording (while my wife is watching project runway at the moment...the whole fashion line thing is a bad attempt at humor...I guess you either have to have seen John Brown play or listen to the first few seconds of this recording very closely (after the guy talks about getting fucked (I guess three nested parentheses = too much of an explanation.)))
So...John Brown was Rick Moore//Bruce Bohannon//Scott Robbins//Mike Haggerty====Guitvox//guitvox//drums//bass. I believe this band was happening concurrently with Purkinje Shift...Scott was moonlighting. Hmmm, what else? Oh yeah they are the second loudest band I've ever seen (next to Helmet.)
Their first show was at one of the porchnik parties on Glen Iris. They didn't have a band name at the time so whoever designed the fliers for the party named them "Thunder Rump." I kind of wish they would have run with that. Anyway, this recording is not from that show. In fact, I have absolutely no idea where it was recorded. One long file with no track marks... Have fun.

John Brown shot the fuck down............here.

truth and beauty.

Crawling from the muds.

This is just for the curious. It is from a cassette recording of the band that eventually turned into Purkinje Shift. It was originally a four piece group that had the bassless lineup of Gary, Scott and me but with the third guitar of Sadek Bazarra (now of Bear in Heaven) added. It's kind of funny because it actually sounds more like Helmet than anything else (to me anyway.) We were toying around with band names and at the time Sadek was WAY into the word "android." I mean like as an adverb or adjective. He would walk around saying things like "man, that shit is so fucking android." I could never figure out exactly what he meant because it seemed to apply to just about everything that he was into. Anyway, he wanted to name the band "The Android Symptom" and even had a circuit board cut into a pick guard for his SG. I'm so happy to say that the name didn't stick (sorry Sadek.) Well, I guess it's obvious that it didn't stick. Eventually we became a three piece band and...Bob's your uncle. Even after two separate fiddlins with the sound quality falls into the sludge-o-phonic category, but it's still interesting. This was recorded sometime in 1996 on Gare Bear's cassette recorder. You may need some Stanbacks afterwards...0nly one song, by the way...

sink into the Prekinjial Ooze right here...

One Long...

continuous set. That is how a Purkinje Shift live show is meant to be heard. Gary and I dug up a bunch of PS and MA live stuff yesterday and so far this is the only set that someone didn't try to add track marks to. I believe Henry Owings recorded this one as well. There is one abrupt edit in the track as far as I know, and it seems like a minidisc recorder losing power or skipping to my ears. All it says on the cd is 10/9/99 so I have absolutely no idea where this was recorded. We tended to play at the EARL very often so that's what I would guess. I will post the other chopped up stuff soon for documentation's sake, but there are a few other things in line first. I can't figure out why people had the need to figure out where the songs began or ended. It seems like the mystery would make it more exciting. Oh well...

33 minutes of math...

No Escape.

What we have here, child, is a live recording of Home of the Wildcats. While it's not the best quality as far as live recordings go, the performance is pretty good. As an added bonus there are two songs that were never recorded for the album, so this pretty much represents our entire repertoire.

This show was recorded at the Star Bar by Leebone C//rum. We were opening up for Fiend Without a Face. We didn't end up opening though. What happened? Well, we set up and then did sound check, and then I proceeded down the way to El Myr by myself. What I didn't know was that Brent Hinds (Fiend//Mastodon) showed up after I left and made the other guys tear everything down so Fiend Without a Face could play first and then go hang out with their friends. That is exactly what followed. Fiend played and then they and all their peeps (and everyone who wanted to rub against Brent) went to the bar downstairs while we played. We had our standbys Mack, 30, and Jason in the "crowd" and well, that's about it. I love it when millionaires support the little guys, it warms the cockles of my heart. Hey, it says at the top of the page that I'm bitter. Let's see, what happened to Fiend Without a Face?

Caged angry animals here...

...is hard to find.

Way down in the post about the string theory compilation, I talked about the band that I was in called A Good Horse. By the time that was recorded the group had been whittled down to a quintet. Originally there were at least a septet's worth of people in the group and I have dug up a live recording of that incarnation. It was recorded at eyedrum and as far as I can remember the band members were Daniel Clay//Nat Slaughter//Robbie Handley//Ben Davis//Gordon Vernick//Jamie Sheppard//Bryan Fielden========guitar//bass//bass//tenor sax//trumpet//drums//drums. Daniel wrote all of the music and did most of the arranging, but sometimes the arrangements were worked out collectively (especially at the end.) It is a mix of jazz and rock, but I can't call it jazz-rock.

This was back when Daniel, Jamie, Bryan, and Robbie all lived together in East Atlanta and I seem to remember there being some tension on this night because of that. If it comes through in the music at all, then it only helped.

These are relatively long songs so if you download them, sit down and listen. Be productive later. I guarantee you that this attitude is the reason I'm such a financial big shot today.

I did see Daniel recently when Adam O. was in town and he told me that sometimes he does think about playing that kind of music again, but that he's not sure he's ever going to play the electric guitar again. Hey Daniel: bring your acoustic, we'll play quieter.

A Good Horse this way...

also check out...

Daniel's solo Myspace page...