Grouch - Fuck The World As Soon As Possible

Hey you, hope you're doing well.  The first post for this new year is...my old pop punk(region rawk?) band.  Too bad for you!  We were called Grouch and we started a band even though we knew that two of us were about to move to the West Coast (I stayed here).  We were all about to explode from anxiety and life and whatnot and when I listen to these songs I feel like all that tension and panic is oozing out of the speakers.  That could easily just be me, though.  We hastily wrote and recorded this cassette tape, and it actually turned out well...but then some mysterious force got hold of the master tape and what we were left with is this warbly, trebley, scratchy and slightly sped up version of the band.  Oh well, it's what it is and somehow oddly appropriate.  I love these songs and I loved playing music with the other two people in the band.  One of them moved to the Bay and was in Neon Piss (Rest In Piss), the other you might know from his old band Shorebirds and he's in the Northwest somewhere, hopefully playing music still.  Enjoy maybe.

FTWASAP

been away / Ennui Demo

This thing isn't dead, I've just been busy with real things.  Tomorrow I'm going to Texas for 5 or 6 days and probably won't update this page during that time.  A thousand apologies, and I do appreciate those who actually look at this thing.  I'll be back in a week with new tunes for you.   Until then, check out the band I just joined on drums.  You can download the demo for free and you should, I think it's really good (I'm not on it).  Good tidings to all!

CHECK IT OUT HERE

Shovelfight aka Sink The Fucker

More throwback Asheville.  Shovelfight/Sink The Fucker was a band full of people I know, but I never got to see them, which is a shame because I really like this recording.  Folks in this band also played in other bands, like Kakistocracy, Ahleuchatistas, Pox Americana, Sunshine SS, Bracken, Teenage Heart and at least a billion more.  Sometimes it seems like everyone in this town always has at least two bands going and I like it.

Sink the Fucker

This is the only relevant picture I could find.  Was there really another band called Allergic to Bullshit?

 

Tent City Rollers

I'm prone to like bands from my hometown, especially when they're really good, like Tent City Rollers were.  Like so many Asheville bands, they put out just one recording, this one.  TCR had folks from Black Rainbow, Kreamy Lectric Santa, Kakistocracy, Flies Around It, Ennui, Endless Bummer, Princess Thunderstorm, Electric Damn and a bunch bunch more.  A flyer for one of their shows described Tent City Rollers as "melodic punk jams in a squeeze tube," and I think that's pretty accurate.  Thanks to Remote Outposts for the tape rip and scan.  I'm getting the hardware to rip my own stuff soon, so I'm not just bumming from others.

GET IT

Descolada

Some more ancient Asheville stuff for ya'll.  Descolada was the first local band I ever saw (I think) and they were a very powerful thing to witness, especially to my young, not-yet-totally-corrupted ears/brain.  Their music has been compared to a lot of disparate bands, like Godspeed, Neurosis, Swans and the ilk, but even though the members listen to those aforementioned bands, Descolada was more concise, and existed in a more urgent realm than most post-rock/noise/metal/whatever bands.  They could cover all types of dynamic range and sonic structures, but didn't take 10 minutes a song to do so!  They were a four piece, of drums, bass, guitar and violin, with minimal vocals punching through every now and again...and by minimal I mean there aren't many vocal parts, there was nothing minimal about the vocals themselves.  The drummer, Tony, would scream his damn lungs out without the aid of a microphone, and you could still easily hear them over the (very loud) amplifiers.  I wonder if he ever straight up passed out on the drum stool.  The people in this band (on this recording) all still live here and play in quality bands such as Soft Opening, Judas Horse, Skullthunder, US Christmas and more, but we all think it's about damn time Descolada just reformed and crushed our heads once again.  This is their one and only album.

Talk Perty

here's some videos...you can spot me in the first one, as well as the record shelf with the NOTHING sticker that now lives in my room.

...Because Sometimes You Just Want Other People To Hear Your Favorite Album Ever.

Alright...no joking around, and maybe it's just my proximity to this band's stomping grounds, but this is maybe my favorite record in the whole entire universe.  Dead Things were an Asheville band comprised of folks from such incredible bands as Astrid Oto and Pink Collar Jobs, and ...Because Sometimes You Just Want To Ride Your Bike To The Show was their full-length album.  It is a Southern punk rock masterpiece.  It is a desert island record for me.  It is every good rock band all in one, from the Ramones to Thin Lizzy to Bruce Springsteen to Judas Priest to Black Flag to Motorhead to Blatz and Filth all at once.  It is Asheville to me, the shitty winters, the amazing summers, the disappointment, the hope, the dirt, the grime....all of it.  From hangovers to hikes in the mountains, Dead Things have been there with me every step of the way.  Lynn, Mike, Mike and Jason...from the bottom of my heart, thank you for these songs...they mean more to me than you could know.

Dead Things

Raccoon Party

Speaking of!  This was my punk band with my friends in high school.  We were called Raccoon Party and we had a blast.  We were all obsessed with bands like Orchid, Saetia, Pg.99 and Welcome the Plague Year and I think it shows...except we weren't talented enough to pull off shit like those bands, but I think we created our own sound, anyways... At one point, we had 6 members, including 2 stand alone vocalists, and we recorded this six track demo.  It's still to this day one of the weirder sounding punk recordings I've ever heard....for some reason we the guitars were recorded clean, and then distortion was added afterwards, including on top of the vocals and drums?  I really don't understand why that happened.  We all recorded vocals, only a couple of us had any words written down, and one song we hadn't even written the music for...we basically just improvised and it ended up working out (it's the long jammy song).  Raccoon Party was my first foray into DIY punk, and somehow we got to play with a bunch of big metal bands like Baroness, Skeleton Witch and KyIesa. I really loved being in this band and I'm still proud of the music we made.

My Youth!

I couldn't find the artwork, but here's a video of us playing at the old Asheville showspace, El Nuevo. I'm the long haired fool playing guitar closest to the camera.