You guys have been around for quite a while—when did the band start?
Lance Spit (drums): In the ‘90s—partly in Michigan and partly in Seattle. There’s still some people who actually fucking saw us perform on the streets back in Seattle. I just heard that story tonight. We all grew up in the same small town called Allegan, Michigan. Allegan is now the meth capital of Michigan. I know every place says that but that’s what they say. They have a sign as your coming into town that says that.
Ernie Q. Spit (keys): They have signs that say ‘Meth Patrol’—you know, like a neighborhood watch group. They have neighborhood meth groups. What is the official thing called?
Erin Spit (bass): Meth Watch—it’s a sign you see going into every township. I haven’t seen the actual Meth Patrol but…
LS: I think that’s what the black helicopters are for—I think the men in black that you hear about are actually the meth watch.
How difficult do you find it to play shows and write songs living in different cities?
Sean Spit (guitar): Very hard. But you know—we’re a family and we’ve been doing it for a long time, so in that way it’s not that hard. We’re a unit. We’re not a band—we’re more of a….
EQS: We’re not a band—we’re a gang. We’re actually more like brothers. We talk all the time. We constantly have conference calls. The thing I’m stoked about with playing at this moment is I’m playing with the three original Spits—Sean, Erin and Lance. They actually started off as a trio. It’s really cool seeing Lance part of the band again because he had quit in 2000 after the first album.
SS: He quit but now he’s back. My brother and I have seen a lot of people come and go. It’s not a style—it’s a way of life. If we put a new record out and we only sell five copies, it’s not gonna fucking end it. You know what I mean?
EQS: We’ve pretty much been the most productive we’ve ever been since Lance got back in because Sean and Erin needed someone they grew up with. Same mentality, same sense of humor. When I see them—all three together—I feel like I’m looking back in time. I’m seeing them like they were with the first album and now I see them writing this new album. This new album is—from what I’ve seen as one of the biggest Spits fans—going to be the best one so far.
And you’re recording it with John Reis from Swami, right?
SS: Some of it. It went great but there were too many complications with his label so now we just decided to put it out ourselves.
When you’ve put out records it’s always been different labels or something you put out yourself. Is that because you can’t find someone who sticks with you?
SS: We just go with whoever is the best at the moment. You know? Like our buddies Black Lips—they just went with Vice because it was a great deal. Vice really helps them out but you know—record label, record shmabel. They’re all business. They’ll only kick down while your succeeding and we also don’t have the option of being cute little fucking rock dudes. If you look at some of my favorite fucking bands—the bands I idolize like the Misfits and Black Flag—they started their own labels. SST, Plan 9—they did it themselves and they’re some of the best bands in history. They’ll go down as legends. Sometimes our friends are like, ‘Why don’t you put it out with this label?’ or ‘Why don’t you try to put it out on Vice?’ Well, you know—we’re not cute and we play punk rock. I know I’ll be around a lot longer then some of these dumb little punks. The thing about the Spits is we started playing music to play what we wanted to hear. We don’t give a fuck about anything else. It’s about what we want to do and what we want to play. People that enjoy us—right fucking on. You know? I don’t give a fuck if I sell one fucking album.
What’s up with Nickel and Dime Records? Can you talk about it or are there legalities that prevent you from saying anything?
ES: Please don’t buy that record or CD. We’ll see our day in court and we can finally put it behind us.
SS: That was out in 1995.
EQS: Dude, that was 2000 when that came out.
SS: No, it wasn’t.
EQS: Late ‘99.
SS: Late ‘99—whatever, fuck it. We’re a punk band, we play for the people.
Do you ever catch shit for that video you made—Chucky and the Spits? Where the Howdy Doody puppet is puking on other Seattle bands’ records? I saw that it’s up on the merch table again.
SS: Nah, they respect it. I mean—there’s been many brawls back in Seattle, man. Between me and my brother and a couple buddies of ours, we got all kinds of fights with crusty punks, garage rockers… Fuck, this one time at Gibson’s, me, my brother and my friend Eric took on two garage rock bands. We were the real deal and they weren’t. They came up and started shit and we called their bluff and fucking went to town. They kicked my fucking windshield out and I smeared this guys fucking face on the goddamn curb.
Every time I’ve seen you guys play, the fans are almost cult-like in their appreciation of you. They’re 100% behind you, no question.
EQS: There was a dude just tonight that hand-painted this badass poster. It was just amazing. It’s hard to describe—it’s so cool. He just made it to give to us. It was such a nice gesture. It’s of all us playing but all trippy. He had me with my spacesuit playing the keyboard with skateboard wheels on the bottom of it. It was a nice present. We get that all the time. I’m the same way. I’m still a fan.
SS: When we went on tour with the Black Lips, it was hard in a way.
People didn’t realize that those guys asked you to come on tour?
SS: Half the kids don’t know that. They don’t know our history. It made it kind of hard for us. The band—they’re killer, they rip it up, they know what they’re doing. But the fans—they don’t know, man. A lot of those kids, they’re into ‘what’s the new fad?’
Isn’t part of being a kid about being a little stupid?
SS: Yeah, I know. Shit, I used to listen to Twisted Sister. I used to listen to some bullshit but these kids… I don’t know what the fuck they want.
EQS: Probably once they drop out of school and become drug addicts then they’ll understand the music and become our fans.
SS: I think once they start drinking or taking fucking acid or something.
EQS: Wait wait wait—have Sean tell you an acid story. He’s got plenty of them. When you took a whole sheet of acid—no, more than that?
SS: I got plenty but whatever. I think what the kids need to do is to take a whole sheet of acid, do a half gram of meth, and then pack a SKS assault rifle… and lose your fucking mind, man. Then you will know rock ’n’ roll.
EQS: It’s true—he did this in Kalamazoo. His friends had to tackle Sean because he tried to shoot some people.
SS: Then you will know rock ‘n’ roll. Then you will know the extremes and what it can do and where it can go.
EQS: How else are you gonna come up with shit like ‘I H8 Pussies’ and other classic song titles?
I guess it’s just comes down to experience, right? The media’s passing off some pretty face as rock ‘n’ roll, as opposed to who really makes it and lives it. It all comes from the blues.
SS: Fucking right. We grew up listening to bluegrass, blues, country, old heavy metal—all of it and put it together. Man, you ask a lot of people today, ‘You like bluegrass?’ ‘Oh man, that’s gay.’ ‘Oh, you like country music? Oh, that’s gay! Ha ha ha ha! Hey man, you like Dio? Oh that’s gay.’ Take all that shit and combine it with, you know—fighting with a shovel with your dad. You know what I mean. Beating the shit out of your dad with a fucking shovel—that’s the Spits, baby.

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS THE SPITS WITH THE CLOROX GIRLS, BLEACHED, JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III AND RAYON BEACH ON FRI., JULY 29, AT PSYCHO BEACH PARTY AT THE BLUE STAR, 2200 E. 15TH ST., DOWNTOWN. 9 PM / $10 – $12 DAY OF/ 18+. WIN TICKETS HERE OR BUY TICKETS HERE! VISIT THE SPITS AT THESPITS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THESPITS.

This Thursday, L.A. will host another Soul Clap and Dance-Off with New York Night Train promoter Jonathan Toubin. He will also be bringing guest DJ Ian Svenonius, former frontman for Nation of Ulysses and the Make-up and current frontman for Chain and the Gang. If you think you have what it takes, show up and show off! This interview by John Henry.

What exactly goes down at a Soul Clap and Dance-Off?
Jonathan Toubin: It’s pretty simple. The Soul Clap is a dance party and the Dance-Off is the short contest in the middle. I throw killer soul 45s together to get people moving and somewhere in the middle of the party, numbers are pinned on audience members, five judges take the stage and I turn on exclusively deep James Brown jams while the audience—in groups of ten—duke it out for dancing supremacy. There is a dance-off between the winners of each group and a final dance-off between two contestants, which is of course the dramatic climax of the night. After that, everyone’s been waiting and watching for a half hour or so and are itchin’ to bust a move, so the records—which have been gradually escalating in speed and intensity for the entire night leading up to the contest—go up just one more notch and the party really gets going. At its best it can be like church, and at its worst, ‘The Gong Show.’ A lot of it depends on who turns up.
And this time you’re bringing Ian Svenonius along.
Jonathan Toubin: I’m bringing Ian along to host the competition and to DJ with me during the dance party. Ian of course is a great DJ and gonna make a killer MC plus the fact that he’s quite the dancer doesn’t hurt either.
How long have you two known each other?
Jonathan Toubin: We originally met in 1992 or so when Nation of Ulysses played at the Cavity in Austin. I told him that a mutual friend of ours—Larry from Victim’s Family—said to say hi and that he couldn’t make it to the show because he had to work all night at a bakery. So Ian said, ‘Where’s the bakery?’ And Tim Kerr and the entire band jumped in the van just to say hi to this guy stuck working alone until dawn. I initially thought it was such a noble act to go so far out of his way in the middle of the night to see his friend. But years later, as I’ve got to know him better, I’ve decided Ian may have also done it because he loves bakeries. As for as our collaboration, we got to know each other via an ex-girlfriend of mine and were next brought together by Kid Congo Powers for the release party I threw for his first solo record. Since then, we’ve been working on events every few months with varied frequency for well over three years now. We get along and make a nice fit behind the DJ booth both artistically and commercially. But Pop Montreal last month was the first time we went in together on the Soul Clap and Dance-Off.
What’s the prize?
Jonathan Toubin: The best dancer typically gets $100. The only exceptions these days are in more unusual places outside of the fifty states like Monterrey, Mexico, where the prize was a pair of sneakers. Or the District of Columbia, where it was a pair of tickets to see Devo.
What kind of dancers show up? Are they all amateurs or are there some real pros?
Jonathan Toubin: It takes all kinds. Some places it’s all goofballs. Sometimes it’s highly competitive types. But most nights, it’s a healthy mix and primarily a goodtime vibe. You never know who the judges will pick—it all depends on their aesthetics and what they value in a dancer. L.A. was actually the first and only place to select a b-boy, though they always enter …
I saw a lot of b-boy dancers last time I was in Brooklyn. Does it sync up well with the old R&B and soul sides you play?
Jonathan Toubin: The great thing about b-boys is that they are much more into their heritage and history than a lot of trendier subcultural groups. So they don’t only care about early hip-hop, but are very interested in the music that the early hip-hop djs were turning in the 1970s. So they flip out over any James Brown or Jimmy Castor. And when you jam other songs that were sampled up to the present, they lose their shit! The only problem is that they don’t care as much about the early to mid-‘60s wild ones that make up at least half of my set, but the better ones move to that too. And that’s a good thing because I by far prefer guys and girls dancing with one another to a guy dancing with himself in the middle of a circle.
Who are some of the guest judges you’ve had in the past?
Jonathan Toubin: The guest judges are always different. When I originally started creating these panels, the plan was to bring all kinds of kooky characters from our local community together—a magazine editor sitting next to a bartender sitting next to a Bad Seed sitting next to a neighbor of mine or whatever. But as we’ve been on the road, the judges have become more important. On this tour so far we’re having everybody from classic indie rockers like Mike Watt and John Reis to Karla LaVey, leader of the Satanic Church and Anton’s daughter and Matt Gonzales of the Green Party…
Do you select the judges?
Jonathan Toubin: Ha! That’s a good question. In New York I select most of the judges—sometimes the Glasslands or Laura, my hostess here in New York, picks a friend or two. But, on the road, I get a lot of help from my agent Michelle Cable, the bookers of venues, friends in various towns, and, this time, Ian Svenonius as well. It’s not easy to know enough people to pull this off…
What kind of drunken spills have you seen during the contest?
Jonathan Toubin: Eeek! Sometimes people get really sloppy. Particularly last time in L.A.! One time in New York the judges and the audience—most of whom knew each other in some capacity—started exchanging words and throwing stuff back and forth, and before you know it, one of the judges had jumped over the table! There was total mayhem and I was briefly escorted out of my own party by security while defending the honor of a woman who was only guilty of a retaliatory ice toss.
I’ve also witnessed some judge’s drunken antics—like last time you did Soul Clap at Nomad Gallery. What happened there?
Jonathan Toubin: I had a lot of fun last time in L.A. and a lot of my favorite people from all different places and parts of my life turned up. But there were a lot of things about the last L.A. party that I didn’t think were up to the Soul Clap standard. There was too much hanging out outside in the breezy courtyard far from the dancing in the hot room. One judge got a last-minute gig that night and another judge was there but never checked in and I was waiting for him so the contest was delayed forever and he left for that reason. But in all the confusion, Howie Pyro sold me some great records, Indian Jewelry stepped in to judge and DJ Short Shorts and Carlos went way out of their way to make it happen. But I definitely think this one is gonna be tighter all around.
Do you do a lot of record shopping while on the road?
Jonathan Toubin: My hosts sometimes get so annoyed with me. Recently I was in Istanbul for only twenty hours and spent half of the time record shopping. I got some amazing stuff which sadly you have to hear at my other gigs as it’s not soul. I also love to shop in Detroit where you turn on the faucet and amazing soul jams fall out into the sink and little kids are in the street playing frisbee with ‘em. I was recently thrilled to find Jimmy Mayes and the Mill Street Depot’s ‘Monkey Shine’ for a buck in Baltimore—a record I haven’t been able to find anywhere at any price for years. I played it at the WFMU Record Fair last weekend and the dealers started running up. One of them told me to name my price. I’ve been looking for that one forever and there’s been none traded anywhere. In the greater Los Angeles area I also have a few secrets and am a fan of the new Territory Store and BBQ restaurant.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a touring dance contest before—do you know of any others or are you forging a new fad?
Jonathan Toubin: I read in some kind of business website called Trend Central saying my party was more ‘rockers than mods’ and that I’m helping start a new hipster fad but it was just a big accident. The Soul Clap was initially just an excuse for me to play less punk and rock stuff and have a night where I just bust out my soul records for my friends. And the Dance-Off was added to the concept after I witnessed these two guys in a crazy dance competition around dawn at a loft party where I was spinning. I thought it would make a fun and interesting short addition to the night but I never dreamed this would become my most popular party or that I would become known as a soul DJ. And I never imagined taking it on the road until this year, when Canadian venues and festivals began requesting the Soul Clap—that was the first time either me or my agent imagined taking it outside of Glasslands. I wish I knew how to dream that big and crazy but I’m a bit of a pragmatist—a Barnum-esque pragmatist, but still a pragmatist…
So what is New York Night Train all about?
Jonathan Toubin: I wish I knew. It started out as a webzine and record label intent on helping spread the word about the music and history of Kid Congo Powers and other folks I knew who were productive veteran artists with great stories but not getting the proper recognition. Then it also became a production company of sorts because of the record release parties I threw for the label. And then, when I became a DJ, it gradually grew with me to be my own promotional organ. What kind of sucks is that, because I never expected to DJ beyond a few nights nights at the local rock bars—Motor City, Daddy’s, Eind’s, etc.—I never came up with a cool pseudonym. And as my career started developing, a lot of people knew New York Night Train better than they knew me. Now its pretty much about 50/50 so I have to be billed with the cumbersome ‘New York Night Train DJ Mr. Jonathan Toubin.’ And, while the original NYNT has by necessity been on a bit of a hiatus because I currently spin and promote over 300 DJ nights a year all around the world, the label has been semi-active and I hope to get the journal back online as soon as I can move beyond this super-intensive nightly schedule … Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, New York Night Train also puts on shows by folks like Thee Oh Sees, Quintron and Ms. Pussycat, King Khan and BBQ/the Shrines, and so forth either alone or incorporating them into my other specialty—the muti-media ‘Happening’ with go go dancers, visuals, performance, and, of course, dancing to my 45s…

THE NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN SOUL CLAP DANCE-OFF WITH DJs JONATHAN TOUBIN AND IAN SVENONIUS ON THUR., NOV. 12, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 9 PM / $5 / 21+. CLUBSPACELAND.COM. THE DANCE-OFF WILL BE JUDGED BY JENNA THORNHILL, MIKE WATT, JESSICA ESPELETA, WENDY YAP AND MICHAEL GERNER. VISIT NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN AT NEWYORKNIGHTTRAIN.COM.

I really love ‘The Commercial Song’ and the whole car theme—what kind of cars are you into?
Egos Personos: I love cars in general. I mainly love the asses of cars—I judge most cars by their ass probably because I’m an ass man. I look at the rear end of the car and that’s when I know I like the car. If it doesn’t have a badass, then it’s no deal. I like modern cars, old cars, foreign cars, American cars—I love cars. ‘The Commercial Song’ was in response to that dumb ass Pontiac commercial—‘Get on your Pontiac and drive drive Pontiac drive.’ I just thought it was so ridiculous. I think there should be more songs done specifically for cars and ‘drive your fucking Buick’ was the next best thing I figured to ‘get on your Pontiac and drive’.
Do you imagine the songs while driving your car?
I do have to imagine songs because there’s an ongoing thing since 1994 where every vehicle I’ve owned has not had a stereo. I lent my car to a friend to drive home from Washington state all the way to New Orleans and it got broken into and all my records from childhood and all my tools and all his shit… and ever since then every vehicle I’ve had for one reason or another has not had a stereo. The next vehicle after that was a ‘66 Chevy pick-up truck—of course no stereo. I had a motorcycle—no radio there—and my current car—a 1979 Honda Civic wagon first generation—has no radio. And I don’t plan on one because that’s where all the beautiful songs of Imagine The Band are written. Yeah, I love cars.
Do any of the Imagine The Band band members count as passengers when you’re in the carpool lane?
If they did I’d have fewer tickets when I drive through there. When I point to the rest of the band all squished in the Honda Civic, they don’t understand that. But they’re imaginary band members and they’re imaginary tickets so it doesn’t really matter. The rest of the band doesn’t really matter anyway. With a name like Egos Personos you know who’s really in control of this art project. No one—and all you kids out there should listen—no one should get involved in rock ‘n’ roll unless you’re an ego-fucking-maniac and ready to just shit and piss and kill to get to the top. That’s right. Make sure you’ve got a whole lot of insecurities and be packing a small pecker. Make sure you got picked on as a kid and never got laid and have mental disabilities you never dealt with and got beat by your parents—you know, basically harbor ill will towards your self. Then and only then will you achieve superstardom in any arena—not just rock ‘n’ roll. You’ve got to live in a closet for about 20 years and then and only then will you make it.

IMAGINE THE BAND WITH BEBE McPHERSON ON TUE., SEPT. 8, AT CLUB DING-A-LING AT THE HYPERION TAVERN, 1941 HYPERION AVE., SILVERLAKE. 9:30 PM / FREE / 21+. MYSPACE.COM/CLUBDINGALING. VISIT IMAGINE THE BAND AT MYSPACE.COM/EGOSPERSONOS.

Quintron invented the dream-machine-slash-drum-machine called the Drum Buddy and Miss Pussycat invented Pussycat Caverns for her puppets, and during slower moments at their Spellcaster Lodge in New Orleans Quintron compiles the Great Organ Moments thrift-store organ classics compilations. He talks now to John Henry about what organs he loves and what organs he respectfully fears.

Tell us about the organ music mix CDs you’ve been making.
Quintron: I’ve been buying these organ records for I don’t know how many years. I’ve always been an organ player my whole life so I used to buy every organ record that I ever saw in a thrift store—anything that had a picture of an organ on it or had anything to do with organ music, I would buy it. I have thousands of organ records but the thing about organ records is that most of them are terrible. Or they maybe have one or two good songs on them and I would always forget which records had the good songs. So I had the idea that I should spend a week or two going through all of these records and really plucking the great songs and create a compilation that was the best of the best of all the organ records that I own. I think maybe it’s a total of about 150 minutes of organ music. And it’s called Great Organ Moments which is a title that Miss Pussycat came up with.
Who’s your favorite organ player?
Just technique-wise—and this is based on the realm of thrift store organ finds, and when I say ‘thrift store organ finds’ that in no way demeans the musical prowess of musicians ending up in thrift store bins. But anyway, her name is Ethel Smith and I think she’s one of the greatest B-3 players ever to have lived. I love Jimmy Smith and I love Alfred Bolden who was a great gospel B-3 player, but for pop B-3 organ technique you can’t beat Ethel Smith. Her hit was ‘Tico Tico’and her hit album is called Kitten on the Keys
Do you collect pipe organ music as well as the electric organ?
I collect both. There are religious pipe organ music records which are very boring mostly. I love Messiaen but I don’t sit around listening to Messiaen. But there are a lot of pop pipe organ records and I do listen to those. My favorite old record label of all time is called Cook Records. It was started by this guy Emory Cook who was a partner with one of the guys who began Folkways Records. Emory Cook was an audiophile nutcase and he made straight-up stereo experimental records and he was obsessed with the pipe organ. He was obsessed with the acoustics of these different spaces pipe organs were in. He made a lot of pipe organ demonstration records or pop pipe organ records and some of those ended up on my two-volume compilation Great Organ Moments.
You ever play a pipe organ?
I was recently hired to play at a Catholic wedding. It was very traditional and very serious and I went to the church on Esplanade Avenue to check out the organ. I didn’t want to embarrass myself on some instrument I didn’t understand and all pipe organs are different. So I went to this church at the address that I thought that it was and I played on this pipe organ for hours and hours, jamming and jamming and playing my own music and then two hours later the priest comes up to me with a nun and says ‘You’re at the wrong location—you’re actually next door.’ I went next door which was actually the Catholic girls’ school annex where the wedding was taking place, and there was a Hammond B-3 which I’m very familiar with. I sat down and played on it after playing the pipe organ for two hours and I literally almost cried. It sounded so weak in comparison.
You ever play a calliope?
No, but I would really really love to. There’s a calliope on the Mississippi River that I hear every single day—the Natchez I believe is the steamship’s name and there’s an old woman that plays it. I don’t know what her name is but she is very wonderful. There is a peculiar thing about calliopes in that the power for the pipes that generate the sound for the calliope music is actually generated from the steam from the steam engine. The one in New Orleans is actually a real steam calliope. A lot of calliopes are fake. I would love to play it. It’s my dream actually. There’s supposedly—on a real old steam calliope—a release valve that you have to be careful to release enough steam so that the pressure in your organ tank doesn’t build up to such a point that there can be an explosion. The calliope is a dangerous instrument to play. You risk your life to become a calliope player—it’s true.

QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT WITH STATIC STATIC AND ALL LEATHER ON THU., AUG. 6, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$14 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT’S TOO THIRSTY 4 LOVE IS OUT NOW ON GONER. VISIT MR. QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT AT QUINTRONANDMISSPUSSYCAT.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/QUINTRONANDMISSPUSSYCAT.

Stream: Static Static “Psychic Eyes”

(from Psychic Eyes out now on Tic Tac Totally)

Static Static’s debut LP is a perfect example of a great heavily-distorted party record. Static Static play a new style of heavy-on-the-distortion new wave that has been coined by one of their Midwest buddies as “Glue Wave,” along with buddies like Chicago’s White Savage and France’s Volt. (All of which, including Static Static, have released records on Chicago based vinyl label Hozac, whose founder coined the term.) What this term specifically means, I have no clue, but the resemblance to a gooey style of new wave seems apt. The band, lead by the six-foot plus John Henry and backed by Miss Mass Destruction on keyboard and Lesley (ex-Red Aunts) on drums, create an intimidating yet dynamic new sound that is as danceable as it is heavy. Each track on this album is catchy and intense, and John Henry’s vocals are as sharp and vicious as ever. Some of the stand out tracks are the opener “Frantic,” which has John Henry making every syllable sound more explosive than the last, and “Psychic Eyes” which tell us to “Forget our heroes” and comes off like a demented attack on the Stranglers 1977 hit. I cannot emphasize how much distorted feedback and organ growling is on this album—there is no reason not to check this band out.

—Daniel Clodfelter

Stream: The Hunches “Static Disaster”

(from Yes No Shut It out now on In The Red)

The Hunches are doing their last tour—and last show ever—tonight in L.A. They just released their last record a few months back and decided to do a few shows before waving the flag of surrender. Guitarist Chris Gunn recalls the good times and the bad while doing duty in the bowels of a hospital’s basement in San Francisco. This interview by John Henry.

What’s up with the dungeon you said you were sitting in?
Chris Gunn (guitar): I’m stationed right now in a medical library and it’s way in the bottom of a building. Archives for medical journals. There are a couple of windows but I don’t see too much natural sunlight. Unfortunately.
What finally killed the band?
I think it just got to a point were it wasn’t fun anymore. I think any creative band or whatever gets to a certain point were they run out of ideas—at least this one did. We kind of hit a dead end. There are a lot of different factors. We aren’t a band that can really tour that well. No one wanted to really go for it and make it big or anything. Touring was always hard for lots of different reasons. As far as writing the songs and working together, it just started to unravel to where a lot of that original enthusiasm was gone. Definitely for me—I’m not trying to speak for anybody else, but it kind of seemed that way. I think if we kept going it would seem formulaic. I don’t know how much we could have expanded without starting to sound monotonous or repetitive. I think these are all good songs and I’m glad we put it out. I think if we would have kept going, we would have started to suck. And I moved to San Francisco—I guess that was a factor as well.
And you play in the Hospitals, right?
I’ve known Adam since the beginning of that band but the first In The Red album is him with a different guitar player. I started playing with them a couple of years ago. We did that new one—Hairdryer Peace. I play on that one. I’m recording with him now and it’s been nice to expand and be recording a different type of music or different approaches to songwriting and recording. I think if I stayed in the Hunches I would have probably quit music. There all really good people—I think we just hit a wall.
I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing to realize when a band needs to call it quits. There are a lot of bands that should have stopped a long time ago.
I kind of saw that. Some of our live shows were getting to that point where it was just running through repetitive motions. It just didn’t feel right anymore.
What kind of responses did you get from playing live? Some of the recordings are pretty blown out and it seems like that it would be hard to replicate live.
We try and approximate that live as best we can. Definitely each show is its own thing. A lot of people are disappointed when they see us live. I know that. Some like it a lot. Our singer definitely is a unique front person—that’s a good way to put it. Depending on what mood or how much he’s had to drink, he definitely performs differently. Sometimes I don’t know if better or worse applies. He can definitely be confrontational. Sometimes he doesn’t sing and people get annoyed by that, but if you’re going to come see us and you want to hear the record, you probably shouldn’t come because you’re going to be disappointed. We play our songs but it’s definitely not polished.
When I heard you guys were coming to town I was surprised because I thought you had broken up. What has the band been doing lately? I haven’t heard any records since Yes No Shut It.
Another album came out after that and all these were on In The Red. Another one came out called Hobo Sunrise and then we did a 7-inch, I believe, and now this is the last one—the one that just came out. Larry Hardy put out this last record knowing we were going to break up. It’s been out since February. It’s called Exit Dreams. Yeah, we’ve been together pretty much—ah, it’s weird.
Where did you record the new record? I know you’ve recorded in Costa Mesa with Mike McHugh at the Distillery in the past.
We recorded it with my friend who has a nice studio up there in Portland. It’s called Old Standard Sound. He’s just getting started but he’s got all really nice analog equipment and he’s really good at what he does. It was really cool to be able to work with him at his house—I lived up there while we recorded. We tried recording a lot of different things—a lot of backwards stuff. We recorded showers—popped fifty balloons at the end of one song—but there’s so much shit in there I’d have to take it at a song-by-song level. We did a lot with backing vocals this time too, which is different. I don’t think we had done that before. Recording this was a lot of fun. It was a drawn-out process but I think it worked well for the album. It sounds a little bit different than the Distillery—but recording with Mike is awesome also. I did it on the weekends and whenever we could. Then we had to practice and learn like six songs, so I think overall it took over a year—but if you consolidated it all it would be a couple of weeks.
But this show in L.A. is going to be the band’s last show ever?
Definitely. We haven’t been playing regularly for maybe five years or so. We would play the occasional show but we all pretty much agreed that we wanted to call it quits—but we also had a bunch of songs so we wanted to do this last album—which we did—and it took forever to do. So then after that we decided it would be worth it to maybe do a west coast tour just for the hell of it. It seems kind of ridiculous to just put out an album and not play any shows. We’re going to play four shows—one in Portland, one in Sacramento, one in San Francisco and then this last one in L.A. It’s in East L.A. I tried to get a show down there but most of those clubs wouldn’t get back to me so we weren’t even going to play there. These kids from some band down there that I had never heard of e-mailed us and I guess they’re affiliated with that band the Fuse? So they e-mailed us and said, ‘When are you coming down here? We’ll set up a show for you.’ So we just went with that. My little brother’s band is actually going to be touring with us and they’re really good. They live in Eugene and they don’t really get out. They’re definitely really good. It’s very heavily influenced by Captain Beefheart in a good way. As we extinguish or as we burn out, maybe someone will offer to put out a record for them.

THE HUNCHES WITH THE LAMPS, GOLDIGGERS, BLIMP AND DE HOMBRES ON SAT., JUNE 27, AT A HOUSE PARTY IN EAST L.A. 8 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. MORE INFORMATION AT MYSPACE.COM/THEHUNCHES OR MYSPACE.COM/DEHOMBRES. THE HUNCHES’ EXIT DREAMS IS OUT NOW ON IN THE RED. VISIT THE HUNCHES AT INTHEREDRECORDS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEHUNCHES.

Stream: Spider “Boozetown”

(from the self-titled EP out now on Thrift Store)

Spider’s first EP is a collection of all their recordings to date, including the songs previously released on their Hozac 7-inch. (The original is impossible to find unless some German nerd decides to sell it for a hundred bucks on Ebay.) This mysterious duo from west L.A. are OG’s of the American glue wave or bedroom wave style of music and have inspired strange bands across the globe with inspired shut-in weirdness. It’s a treat to have it all on one record. Half dumpster-score electronic beats and keyboards and half damaged-missing-strings punk guitar, this album utilizes the best strangled sounds I’ve heard in years. Song titles like “Boozetown,” “Witch Cookie,” “Scraping The Ruins” and a cover of Redd Kross’ “Charlie” pretty much sum up the deranged mindset. The fact that they have barely any information to identify themselves as human beings on or in the album makes you wonder what these two do when they are not making records. The EP reminds me of looking into someone’s window at night when walking down the street. Most of the time you see people sitting on the couch watching TV—but sometimes you catch something out of the corner of your eye that makes you look back. I’d imagine if I passed their window at night, I might see something very bizarre and if I looked back to make sure that what I saw was true, they would have drawn the curtains. They are the neighbors that make noise at all hours of the night and when the cops show up, there is nothing going on and the cops have to apologize. This is a party going on in another dimension peopled by beings with extra limbs and eyes where there shouldn’t be eyes. It’s H.P. Lovecraft getting ripping drunk and wearing a lampshade on his head while a vampire and a mummy are making out in the corner. Yes, you can dance your ass off to this music—just don’t get caught dragging the bodies out the back door.

—John Henry

Stream: Midnight “Black Rock ‘n’ Roll”

(from Farewell To Hell out now on Nuclear War Now)

Satan’s favorite party band is Midnight from Cleveland, who match the best parts of Venom and Motorhead with the sleazy visuals of the Mentors. They’re true members of the new black trash generation of bands—keeping the faith of rock ‘n’ roll metal and forsaking the trappings of over-technical playing and production. These guys serve up beer- and blood-soaked blasphemous anthems with the best of them and yes, your flesh shall burn as you enter the flaming pentagram. This interview by John Henry.

I was recently down in New Orleans with some friends of mine that do a metal DJ night called Hades Night and they played your new record. I was immediately sold on that Venom/Motorhead trash metal sound you guys do. Is there a scene of other bands in Cleveland doing this kind of music? Have you done other bands like this before?
Athenar (guitar/vocals): Maybe—I guess? NunSlaughter is from here. They’ve been around since the eighties. They’re more death metal-style. I was in a band called Boulder. Some people would call it like between Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath and Motorhead—I don’t know, hard rockin’ metal? We did like three albums. We started in the early ‘90s and went all the way to the beginning of the 2000s. 2002 was, I think, when the last album came out. I’ve always been a fan of heavy metal but in the case of most of my favorite bands anyway their musical tastes doesn’t necessarily reflect their fan base. You wouldn’t guess the stuff that I listen to by what I play. I don’t consider myself part of any metal scene or punker scene. I just like good music. I like songs. I’m not much of a free-form jazz type guy. I like some or whatever, but a good song is a good song whether it’s done by Love or Twisted Sister, you know? Distorted rock guitars and bass and drums­­—that’s all it is. The lyrics and the singing is maybe all that differentiates it.
The first thing I thought when I heard you guys is that you obviously get the joke. You’re not some guy living with his mom and using her credit card to buy spiked gauntlets and thinking he’s evil.
That would be even funnier, I think. Again it’s just whatever you like, I guess. You look back at Venom obviously—they’re just playing songs. They were fans of Kiss, you know, and so am I. Most music you want to have a good time with. You don’t want to just put it on and then pretend you’re depressed and wear razorblades on your wrists. That’s more humorous than anything else, I would think.
You fool with fascist imagery but you’re obviously not skinheads.
We’re bald but that’s not by choice. It’s just our age—but you know, it’s just imagery. It looks sort of Star Wars. If you look at Star Wars, what was Darth Vader and all the imperial guards? What were the Stormtroopers, you know? It’s the same kind of shit but who made it? George Lucas. It’s imagery. It looks cool.
So the reason you guys wear executioner hoods is not to hide your identities from the cops or that you’re really ugly?
Yeah, I would say the latter!
How did you get the band started?
Originally it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a band. I do all the crap on the records and stuff. That’s just all me doing everything like the drums and guitars, the bass. The guys I’m playing with just forced me to have a band. They called up and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a band.’ I said, ‘Nah, it was just meant to record the stuff.’ Then they came over and knew all the songs and forced me to have a band, which is cool because in the end it turned out all right.
A lot of black metal guys do that—record by themselves and get guys to play it later. It’s just one idiot with an idea and it works out from there.
That’s kind of what I was doing. I was saying, ‘Well, if Prince can do it and Quorthon can do it…’ Those were the only people at the time that I knew that did that kind of stuff, you know—recorded everything by themselves.
Do you do the band artwork as well?
That back patch was ripped off from an old Venom design—Cronos standing in the fire like that. People that know it would think it was funny and people that didn’t know would think it was generically cool. I have no idea how to do that kind of stuff. I have the idea and say, ‘Hey, do this or that’ and let people with tech skills do that part.
How did you hook up with Nuclear War Now Records?
My friend Omid. He does a label called Outlaw Records and I’ve been friends with him for years and I’m the worst at self-promotion which he’s always been good at. I just make it till it’s recorded and I’m done with it. He’s good at actually taking stuff and getting it to people who might be into it. So he gave it to Yosuke at Nuclear War Now and he liked it and he said he’d put out a reissue of everything that’s already been out. Like I said—the way the band started out is I just wanted to record like a mini LP and that was intended to be it, but then my other friend who had some bands booked at a studio and the band ditched said, ‘Hey, can you come to the studio tomorrow and record a few songs? Whatever you want to record.’ So I said, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll make up two more Midnight songs.’ I made up two more Midnight songs that night and then recorded them the next day and that was the 7-inch. Then I was like, ‘OK, that’s it—there’s no more.’ Then Yosuke at Nuclear War Now wanted to put out a compilation and he said, ‘Oh, will you do one song?’ and I said, ‘OK, I’ll just make up one more song.’ So I got all the bases covered—a 12-inch, a 7-inch and a comp track. Now there’s Farewell To Hell which is the newer one that just came out in September. We actually have two CDs worth of crap.
Which has ‘Black Rock ‘n’ Roll’? I fucking love that song.
It’s on Farewell To Hell. That was a tune that when I made it up I thought it was going to be too simple and retarded. I didn’t know if it was going to be too dumb.
What about the live shows? Is it violent or more of a party?
It just depends on the mood, you know. They’re not all the same. There have been full-scale bloodbaths and then there are parties. There’s been some snooze fests, too, you know—we were supposed to be billed before the puppet show.
At the end of your tour this May you end up at the Chaos in Tejas fest—how’d you hook up with that?
There were a couple of people from Cleveland that moved to Texas a few years ago and I guess they turned us on to some other people and that’s where that guys from. It just kind of started from there. We’ve already played Texas and it’ll be our third time playing there. I don’t know what any of these gigs are going to be like. I have zero idea. That’s the way I usually go into it. I’m like, ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’ That might be kind of bad but it’s less to worry about. Just worry about it when you get there. What’s that place like that we’re playing at in East L.A.? Gang members out here are only into rap and shit but you talk about the west coast and they’re into crazy metal—that’s pretty cool. We played Mexico once in Nuevo Laredo—I don’t know, I guess it’s a drug cartel border town? It was pretty shady. They were a lot of people saying, ‘All right, hurry up—go over and play and get back over to the states.’ When we were there some Mexican biker gang wanted us to play for a biker rally coming up in a couple months. I was like, ‘Uh, what?’ But I guess it would be cool as long as we played the right tunes.

MIDNIGHT WITH D.A.F. AND MORE ON MON., MAY 18, AT THE BLVD, 2631 WHITTIER BLVD., BOYLE HEIGHTS. 8 PM / $8 / 18+. THEBLVDCAFEANDBAR.COM. AND WITH SUMERIAN AXE, BASTARD, MUNDO MUERTO AND BROKEN PATTERN ON TUE., MAY 19, AT DIPIAZZA’S, 5205 E. PACIFIC COAST HWY., LONG BEACH. 9 PM / CONTACT VENUE FOR COVER / 21+. DIPIAZZAS.COM. VISIT MIDNIGHT AT NWNPROD.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/ATHENARSMIDNIGHT.

Territory BBQ and Records is the new restaurant-slash-record-store from Tony Presedo and Curtis Brown—formerly of Tee Pee Records and the band Bad Wizard, respectively. They will stock heavy music and serve heavy food prepared in part by heavy chef Dave Reeves. This interview by John Henry.

What are you cooking?
Curtis Brown: It’s basically Southern-style food: fried chicken, fried catfish, the normal sides, pulled pork, spare ribs, brisket, all dry-rub. And most of the recipes are recipes I grew up with that my grandma cooked.
The BBQ is cooked in a regional style, right?
CB: Yeah—North Carolina. That being the region. But there’s eastern and western. All styles of North Carolina food will be represented. I’m from the west—Asheville, North Carolina.
I took a road trip through the south and ate BBQ in every state. What makes North Carolina BBQ different from Texas or Tennessee style?
CB: Vinegar and red pepper. That’s east. But in the west they use mustard so we’re doing a combination—which is to say that I’m serving mustard sauce on the side. The kind of meat we use in North Carolina is pork butt and the spare rib on the pig and the brisket. The cheap cuts of meat that poor people are able to make delicious. They have been for hundreds and millions of years, you know.
Tell me about the sides.
CB: Coleslaw, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, collard greens, baked beans—but we’ll also do specials once in a while. If I go to the farmer’s market and they have a shitload of really nice okra, I’ll make fried okra until it runs out. Or if I get some summer squash, I’ll make a squash casserole. There will be specials on the weekend in particular.
Why did you decide to combine a record store with a restaurant?
Tony Presedo: I moved out here about a year and a half ago and I stopped doing TeePee Records in August. I started to think I wanted to do something different and I wanted to do a shop of some kind. The idea was bouncing around in my head for years and this guy moved out here three months ago and he just randomly called me. I hadn’t talked to him for a while so we got together and he mentioned the idea of opening a restaurant, and I mentioned the idea of opening a record store. So we just took the two ideas and made them into one.
CB: We were lucky enough to find this space. Honestly we were getting frustrated. We were looking everyday for about a month.
TP: We looked around all the usual haunts—Sunset, Rowena, Hyperion—all the general strips where there’s shops and restaurants. And we were getting frustrated because it was either too expensive or it wasn’t exactly what we needed. I had already scouted this area looking for a place to open up a shop a few blocks up. I said, ‘Curtis, let’s go over here.’ So we’re driving around and all of a sudden we see this building that has a very distinctive look—a lighthouse. Boom, that’s it—there was a FOR RENT sign on it. So we turned around, called the landlord and within days we were in here. I think some of the best things happen that way. Sometimes people make things difficult and overthink everything. You don’t necessarily need to do that to make a good business.
CB: I like the idea of a destination—a place where people can just dick around all day. Theoretically when we get our beer license in a few months, than we’ll really have people just chillin’.
TP: This idea is a really good thing for Los Angeles because you drive so much and you go to so many different neighborhoods that by the end of the day you’re exhausted and you’ve been in the car for about three or four hours. We thought, ‘Find something central and then make it multi-purpose.’ Food, beer, records. Nine out of ten people I know love those three things. That’s why this space is so great—and why I think the idea is so great is because it ties all that stuff together.
Have you meet your neighbors yet?
CB: We’ve met everybody. Everybody’s super fucking cool. It’s not elitist food and it’s going to be inexpensive, too, which is the number-one thing—even on my taco truck—to make food that’s cheap. So I think that’s going to be the appeal to folks that live around here.
I heard about your taco truck in New York—what’s up with that?
CB: Endless Summer Tacos—it’s a taco truck that opened about a year ago and is still there on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg. I basically got the idea from here and then brought it out there. Now I’ve got the idea for the BBQ place from North Carolina and I came to do it out here.
What kind of music are you going to carry?
TP: The big inspiration for me as far as the kind of store I wanted to open was basically two stores—Rocket Scientist in Manhattan and Thirsty Moon in San Diego. These are stores that kind of specialize in freakbeat-ish type stuff, psych, garage, cool r&b and soul and weirdo-type records. That’s kind of what I wanted to do because there’s plenty of stores you can go to buy the new whatever single—the new Fleet Foxes LP—and that’s great but that’s not the kind of store I wanted to have. I wanted it to be a little bit more specific to stand out. I didn’t want to open up a store selling stuff that I don’t particularly like. It kind of takes the fun out of it.
Are there label or band specifics that you’re going to carry?
TP: No, I think it’s really style specific and quality specific. What it will be is mostly used vinyl with a little bit of reissued new vinyl peppered in. That’s primarily what we’re going to do. At some point the record store will become a label as well. It could be something cool like Aquarius Records in San Francisco—where their website is almost like a database for people looking for stuff to find out what it is, what’s coming out and all that stuff. That’s kind of what I want to do with the store. Rocket Scientist, Thirsty Moon, Twisted Village—those are all stores I loved shopping at.
Are you guys going to do an event for the grand opening?
CB: Free booze—Colt 45.
TP: There’ll be some cool DJs. There’ll be some cool shit. I think that this is going to do really well and I’m happy to stand behind it. I think the problem in L.A. that we’re both trying to address is there’s such a huge discrepancy between really expensive high-end food and real cheap food. There’s very little in between. The whole twelve to fifteen dollar entrée isn’t really being addressed here or it’s being done really poorly. There’s such a huge discrepancy—sometimes you’re like, ‘Where the fuck am I going to eat?’ You get tired of all the same shit. We’re just trying to add one more. BBQ is just so comforting. You eat it outside in the sun with a beer and your friends. It’s such a social thing. That feeling I get when I go to a place like that is what I want to do here.

TERRITORY RECORDS’ OPENING PARTY WITH DJ TURQUOISE WISDOM ON THUR., MAY 14, AT TERRITORY RECORDS, 534 N. HOOVER ST., SILVERLAKE. 6 PM / FREE / $10 FOR FOOD / FREE COLT 45.