Mahjongg "Hot Lava"

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Mahjongg
RaYDONcoNG 2005
CD
(Cold Crush Records, 2005)

Mahjongg opened for Pretty Girls Make Graves and the Constantines here several years ago. Despite only catching their final two songs, I was impressed enough to pick up their debut EP, Machinegong, that night. I saw 'em again (a full set, too) when their first album, RaYDONcoNG 2005, came out and they were even better. This track is from the album, and was one of the two that I really dug at that first show.

Since then, they've released a couple more excellent albums, Kontpab and The Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger, but their MySpace hasn't been updated in two years, so I'm not sure what their status is.

They switched it up on instruments, so I'm not sure which members are which, but the guy who played bass on this song (I think) was wearing a t-shirt with two, intersecting, pink triangles the first time I saw them. When I bought Machinegong at their merch table that night, I asked him if he was gay, based on the shirt, and he said he was.

The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower "For Marcus"

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The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower
Dissertation, Honey
CD
(Happy Couples Never Last Records, 2003)

The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower opened for a popular underground band at a show here a number of years ago. I went on the advice of a friend, and because I'd been hearing for years about how great the headlining band were. I thought they were OK, but that's the nicest thing I can say. On the other hand, TPtBUtET, whom I'd never even heard of before, kicked my ass quite nicely. Sadly, a few years later they called it a day. I saw them here again on their farewell tour and got kissed (on the cheek! I am a common-law-married man!) by their handsome singer. Were I single, I'd've swooned.

The titular focus of today's jukebox track was a real boy: Marcus Wayman. From the CD booklet:

Marcus Wayman, 18, was in a parked car with a 17-year-old male when police questioned the two, found condoms while searching the car, and arrested them for under-age drinking. At the police station, officers lectured the two teens on about the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality and threatened to tell Wayman's grandfather that he was gay. After Wayman, a highschool football player, was released from custody, he committed suicide in his home.

Was Marcus gay? Does it even matter? The simple presumption of homosexuality is enough for bullies to attack other kids, whether or not said victims are LGBT. Clearly, the police were bullies in this case. Marcus's family pressed civil charges against the officers and the town. Despicably, the attorney for the police tried to argue that sexual orientation is not a private matter!

The family setup a website in 2002 during the trial. I'll let them take over from here, from the What's New page:

Marcus' Story

Minersville, PA, USA: Marcus Wayman and another friend were in an abandoned parking lot where they were turning around their vehicle, coming from a high school party. The teens were immediately followed into the lot by local police. Officers at once stopped and separated the teens.

After frisking the teens, police found that one of them were carrying condoms. Officer Scott Willinsky within minutes concluded the boys were obviously queers (police quote) and stopping to engage in sex. After questioning the teens about the condoms, Willinksy had his mind made up, regardless of their answers.

The small town police threatened to tell the teens' families, friends and community that they were homosexuals and quoted biblical passages while placing them under arrest for underage drinking.

Marcus, a high school football player, distraught and despaired, scared that he would be labeled and outed as gay by the police to the small community, his family and friends … six hours later … committed suicide.

He was 18 years old.

In a time of rampant HIV, STD infections and teenage pregnancy, we teach and preach to our youth to practice safe sex. Yet in Minersville, carrying condoms is translated from responsible teenage behavior to being queer faggots (police quote).

In 1998, Madonna Sterling, Marcus' mother, filed civil charges against Minersville police officers and the town; specifically, Police Chief Joseph Willinsky and son Scott Willinsky (who is still an officer in Minersville), claiming that the officers clearly violated Marcus' privacy rights.

Due to the vague nature of sexual orientation being covered under privacy laws, the attorney for the police argued that sexual orientation was not considered private and therefore, not protected under the Constitutional Amendments. As a result, the defense moved for a dismissal from all charges against the very same police who are sworn to protect and serve all citizens.

During pretrial arguments in November 2000, the 3rd U S Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that a person's constitutional right to privacy not only includes one's sexual orientation but stated it is difficult to imagine a more private matter than ones sexuality and a less likely probability that the government would have a legitimate interest in its disclosure. Further, by threatening to disclose ones homosexuality would be tantamount to doing so, because the security of ones privacy has been compromised by the threat.

The defense for the police further justified the actions of the police by saying that in small towns like Minersville, the police are obligated to take on parental roles as well act as spiritual advisors to members of their community .Chief Willinsky offers that, as a small town police officer, his role has parental overtones, thus, reducing the citizens' expectation of privacy. We mention this only to note our disagreement with the concept that the breadth of ones constitutional rights can somehow be diminished by demographics, US Circuit Judge Carlos Los Mansmann wrote in the ground-breaking, landmark opinion.

This high court ruling allowed the case to move forward and the civil trial was held in Allentown, Pennsylvania on November two-thousand and one. After three days of testimony, a jury acquitted the police from any wrongdoing.

And no one is held accountable???

On June 17th, 2002, the honorable and respectable, Judge Arnold C. Rapoport granted a new trial for this case, tossing out the previous acquittal. Judge Rapoport saying that the evidence presented at trial was clearly not heard or understood by the jury, calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice.

The defense immediately appealed for a reconsideration of Rapaport's decision to overturn the verdict and further plead to allow the Appellate Court hear whether it was within Judge Rapaport's authority to toss the verdict.

In a terse statement issued on October 18, 2002, Judge Rapaport issued a decision that boldly and flatly denied the defense's plea on both counts … clearing the way for the police to face new charges of misconduct, again, in front of a new jury for the invasion of privacy that prompted Marcus' suicide.

Let us not forget that Marcus' death and this case has afforded all gay, lesbian and bisexual people the right to privacy under the 14th Amendent to our Constitution. Never before has this been argued in a High Court. However, as such a political and controversial issue, this story has yet to be truly exposed. Under our Constitutional right to privacy, this case hangs in balance of what the government deems private and not. A truly unprecedented case that has wide spread implications on all American rights.

Furthermore, how many more youth must perish, thinking that suicide is preferable that being labeled as gay?

Please also note that it is not our intention, in any way, to claim that all police are bad officers. Those who have a sworn oath and duty to protect and serve, we truly thank and honor. However, in this case, we are speaking of cops who obviously forgot about that very same sworn oath.

Hans Werner Henze „La Miracle de la Rose“ Imaginäres Theater II: Musik für einen Klarinettisten und 13 Spieler

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Hans Werner Henze
„La Miracle de la Rose“
„An eine Äolsharfe“
CD
(Ars Musici, 1991)

Hans Werner Henze has been featured on the jukebox before, but it's LGBT History Month, he's one of my favorite composers, and he's openly gay. This time 'round I'm gonna let the liner notes for this piece do the talking for me. I will say, though, that in addition to Henze, Jean Genet, the author of the book Miracle de la Rose, which Henze has here transformed into music, was also openly gay. Henze himself conducted this recording, which features Ensemble Modern joined by Hans Deinzer on clarinet.

Language becomes music – music becomes language

Hans Werner Henze has written two pieces with the subtitle ”Imaginary theatre“: ”El Rey de Harlem“ in 1979, after a text by Federico Garcia Lorca, and two years later ”Le Miracle de la Rose“, a musical evocation of the autobiography of the same name written by the French poet and playwright Jean Genet in prison in 1943. Both works take outsiders in society as their subject, characters who are both victims and wrongdoers at one and the same time. While the Lorca piece uses a voice to convey the content of the text, the piece entitled ”Imaginary theatre II“ (”Miracle“) goes one step further: the poetic content is transposed entirely into instrumental terms, with the solo clarinet being identified with the principal character, the sixteen-year-old twofold murderer Harcomone, who awaits execution. ”It is hardly surprising that the most wretched human life is described with especially beautiful words“ – this hypothesis of Genet's is adopted by Henze too, as he immerses himself in a private world precariously ruled by violence and the addiction to beauty. Henze is not interested in making philanthropic gestures of sympathy from the outside, nor in artistic indulgence in a macabre, surrealistic and almost exotic scenery of homosexuality and crime; what he aims to achieve is the deeper sympathy that goes hand-in-hand with the utmost humiliation and perversion. Beauty in a damaged life is a transcendental moment, a glimmer of hope and utopia – a sign of salvation from the hopelessly functionalistic world of normal people and conformists. It was in this sense that Jean-Paul Sartre regarded Genet – both the poet and the man – as a „saint“.

Henze's composition is divided into seven movements. It blends the model of the Baroque suite with the character of a virtuoso clarinet concerto. Many of the other thirteen instruments represent figures from the Genet book – the judge expresses himself through the trumpet, the priest is represented by the horn, the trombone stands for the lawyer, the poet himself is identified by the bass clarinet, while the heckelphone stands for the executioner. The introductory ”Entrée“ evokes a menacing mood which is dispelled time after time by the energy of Harcomone's daydreams (especially in the flights of fancy in the ”Air“). At the end of the Mediterranean hues of the ”Chansons provençales“, the screeching of the E flat clarinet depicts Harcomone's execution in dramatic colours. Like any programme music of true quality, ”Le Miracle de la Rose“ can also be listened to as absolute music. But the listener who also bears the close associations with Genet's book in mind will of course learn a great deal more about the composer Hans Werner Henze.

Pictures or language have often served as the inspiration for the compositions of Hans Werner Henze. Musical settings of texts account for a significant part of his work, but no less important are those works whose connection with the verse does not actually feature the sung presentation of the text. In these compositions, Henze is not content to merely reproduce the substance of a text atmospherically in terms of musical notes, nor does he simply illustrate it in 'programme music' fashion. Henze prefers to create structural musical convergences and equivalents. He follows the course of the words mimetically in note form, reconstructing the rhythm of the verse set and its structural subdivisions in the forms of his music. Henze, who takes a great interest in semiotics and wishes his music to possess symbolic value and precise linguistic character, refers deliberately to ”research“, when he is making a detailed study of poetry that he plans to transform into music. He first made this manner of working his own in 1953, when he composed his ”Ode to the West Wind“, the instrumental 'imagination' of a poem by Shelley, set for cello and orchestra. As a man of the theatre, he is also concerned to give his literary (or pictorial) subject something along the lines of a dramatic form by making a musical 'stage production' of it. In this way, apparently concertate works take on a dramatic aspect, too.

Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich
(translation: Clive Williams)

NOTA BENE: I know the punctuation and quotation marks above look odd. I have recreated it exactly as it appears in the booklet.

:-P

The Zulus "Back"

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The Zulus
Down on the Floor
CD
(Slash Records, 1989)

Human Sexual Response were fronted by openly gay lead vocalist & lyricist Larry Bangor, but I already featured them a couple of years ago.

After HSR split, Bangor, along with guitarist Rich Gilbert and drummer Malcolm Travis, went on to start The Zulus. I've not heard their first 12" EP, but I have their (lone?) album, Down on the Floor, and it rocks. Their sound was more hard rock than the new wave/post punk of Human Sexual Response, but bein' a rocker, I'm not complaining. I suppose one could call them proto-grunge, as the rise of grunge (I hate that genre name) came around 1990. They're still perhaps a bit too arty to be grunge, though.

Oh, whatever!

The future-openly-gay Bob Mould, past-openly-of Hüsker Dü, produced Down on the Floor, and Malcolm Travis went on to pound the skins in Mould's next ensemble de rock, Sugar.

I was just doing some research for this post, and discovered that Human Sexual Response are playing a reunion show at The House of Blues in their home of Boston on November 10! Man, I wish I could go. If you're in the area, or feel like travelling, tickets can be purchased on-line here.

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Appropo of nothing, here's a picture of my foot at a Hüsker Dü show in 1983.

Fight "Psycho Suicide"

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Fight
A Small Deadly Space
CD
(Epic, 1995)

Fight started out as a side-project for not-yet-openly-gay Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford. Unfortunately, confusion over his intentions led to internal strife in the Priest camp, and not long after he was officially no longer part of the band he helped rise to superstardom.

The first Fight album, War of Words, has never really appealed to me, and I've given it more than one chance. Their second album, however, A Small Deadly Space, is a raging monster of a release, and I've loved it since the first time I heard it. There was a hidden song following two minutes of silence after what the cover claims is the final song, and that stealth track is today's jukebox selection.

After this album, Epic dropped Fight, and they subsequently split up. Halford started a new not-metal band, Two (featured here a couple of years ago), and came out of closet. The former was met with much derision (not from me; I liked them) whereas the latter surprised few in the small-but-not-nonexistent gay metalhead community and angered his more brain dead and bigoted fans. Two were followed by his return to metal with his eponymous band Halford, and a few years after that, Rob was back in the Priest for a killer new album, Angel of Retribution. We shall pretend its followup, Nostradamus, never existed. Yes?

The Gossip "I Want It (To Write)"

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The Gossip
Flying Side Kick
Home Alive Compilation II
compilation CD
(Broken Rekids, 2001)

You know how niteclubs typically play music over the PA between sets by the bands performing that night? Well, I was at The Echo Lounge (R.I.P.) one night a number of years ago, and the soundguy had something playing that blew my mind. It was definitely punk rock, but 'twas very stripped down and had obvious blues and gospel influences. Plus, the singer could belt it out like nobody's business. I asked what it was, and was told it was the album Movement by a band I'd never heard of before, Gossip (video below for the song that snagged my ear the hardest).

Gossip originally hailed from Arkansas, but I imagine that's not the ideal place for a trio of queer punx to live and play, so they'd moved to the Pacific Northwest. They also originally had a The at the front of their name. I actually prefer it that way, but it's not my band so I don't get a say.

These days, Gossip are practically a disco band. I still enjoy their music, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the older stuff. Today's song is from those early, raw, punk-as-a-bad-word days. It appeared on the Flying Side Kick compilation CD, which was released to raise money for Home Alive, a non-profit anti-violence organization that teaches self-defense to women and girls for free.

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Floor "Twink"

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Floor
Floor
CD
(No Idea, 2002)

Floor are another band I missed out on the first time 'round. Luckily, after splitting in 1996, they reconvened in 2001 with a new drummer and a new take on their brand of extremely heavy sludge: vocalist/guitarist/leader Steve Brooks decided to experiment with singing melodically, rather than barking out the lyrics as on their earlier recordings. This annoyed some long-time fans, who took to message boards and the like to express their ire about the new, gay vocal style. The joke was on them, though, as Steve came out as gay around the same time.

Hah!

Tragically, Steve's boyfriend was killed in a horrible car accident while Floor were on tour on the other side of the country. The loss threw him into a tailspin, naturally, and the band never recovered. Steve eventually bounced back, though, with his new combo Torche, who are every bit as kick ass.

Floor got together for a short series of reunion shows a couple of years ago, and I was lucky enough to attend the second one. Since the band had gone through a few different line-ups, they played three different sets, with three different assemblages playing material contemporary to each. It was incredible. The two shows in Atlanta were filmed and recorded for a double-DVD set, Sight & Seen, released by Chunklet. If you watch closely during the version of today's song from the second night, you can see my right fist pumping away furiously in the air.

Today's jukebox selection, Twink, is my favorite from their eponymous, second-to-be-recorded-but-first-to-be-released album. For those not in the know, a twink is a young (18 to 25) gay man with smooth skin and minimal body hair.

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NOTA BENE: In conjunction with the above-mentioned reunion shows, Robotic Empire released a massive box set, Below & Beyond, containing everything Floor ever recorded. Consider it highly recommended!

Cream Abdul Babar "Temple of Doom"

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Cream Abdul Babar
The Backwater of Masculine Ethics
CD
(Albert Ayler's Jukebox Records/What's Wrong with Your Eye? Records, 1997)

Southern Voice was the main LGBT paper in the Atlanta area when I moved here. Music coverage was usually relegated to the latest from Madonna, or dance music, or lesbians with acoustic guitars. Nothing against any of those things, but none of them are all that interesting to me, for the most part. I happened to read an article right around the turn of the century, however, about a band from Florida with an openly gay member, noisician Tradd Sanderson, called Cream Abdul Babar. They were playing at The Echo Lounge that week (hence the article), so I decided to give them a shot, music as-yet unheard. As it turned out, they were a juggernaut of pretty monstrous proportions: heavy, noisy, metallic, and punk as <expletive deleted>. They were not, however, a ska punk band. I say this because I have seen them referred to as such on at least one occasion. See, there's a guy who plays trombone, and they have a silly pun for a name, so they must be ska punk, right?

Gahhhhhh . . .

Today's song is from their first full-length album, The Backwater of Masculine Ethics. It's been out of print for many years, but was reissued (less one track) as the first disc of the collection Excavation: 1993-1998, released by Public Guilt in 2004. The missing track was a cover of John Cage's 4:33, minus about 15 seconds and renamed 22:07.

Sadly, they split up several years ago. The last time I saw them was just shy of five years ago, when they played at The Masquerade with one of my favorite local combos, now also sadly disbanded, Light Pupil Dilate.

The Trees Community "I Will Not Leave You Comfortless"

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The Trees Community
The Christ Tree
CD boxset
(Dark Holler • Hand/Eye, 2007)

When I read the booklet that came with the quadruple disc, deluxe reissue of the 1975 album The Christ Tree by The Trees Community, something jumped out at me immediately. The last paragraph of the mini-bio of group founder and leader William Shipen Lebzelter states

. . . he contracted an incurable disease. He was gone so quickly that no one knew quite what had happened. He was just 44 years old when the Lord took him from us.

The time frame for his death would've been the 1980s, and incurable disease sounded suspiciously to me like a euphemism for AIDS. Hmmm . . .

Late one night a few months ago, I finally decided to Google Shipen to see if my suspicions were well founded. I found group member Katherine Shishonee Krupa's blog, Seven Story Bus: The Story of the Trees Community, which covers the history of the group. Though she wrote nothing about his death, Shishonee did write a fair amount about Shipen and fellow founding member Philip Ariel Dross's homosexuality and some of the challenges it presented both to the group and to outsiders.

As I read random blog entries that night, I started crying. The homosexuality of some group members was so clearly important in their history, yet the booklet completely straightwashed them. About Ariel's leaving the group and falling in love with the man with whom he spent the rest of his life (to the best of my knowledge), the booklet simply says, After four years with the group, he moved back to his home state of Florida where he found the love of his life.

All that aside, the album is absolutely wonderful, no matter one's religious affiliation or lack thereof. The Trees Community's approach to music making was a unique take on folk music with what we would today call world music instrumentation. There are gorgeous vocals, mellifluous melodies, and striking dashes of avant garde experimentalism. Today's song is from their 1973 cassette album A Portrait of Jesus Christ in Music, which takes up most of disc two of the box set. The piece was re-recorded for The Christ Tree, but in a radically different version.

Limp Wrist "I Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore"

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Limp Wrist
Thee Official Limp Wrist Discography
CD
(Arashikage Records/Cheap Art Records/Golden Shower Records/Lengua Armada, 2005)

Biki asked for some punk the other day, so here some is.

^_^

I was late to the party on Limp Wrist. I didn't hear about them 'til they'd already been split up for a few years, though they're apparently now back together. I'd seen them mentioned a few times as a slammin' queercore band when I happened across their CD Thee Official Limp Wrist Discography in a bargain bin. Naturally, I snapped it up for home listening.

Now, I'd heard a few queercore bands and most of what I'd heard was on the pop-punk side, like Pansy Division, whom I featured during last year's LGBT History Month. Limp Wrist, on the other hand, sounded like they came raging straight right outta the early 80s: raw, angry, fast as hell, and loud as a very, very bad word.

Listening to this CD makes me all the more bummed I missed out on them back then. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll hit the road to my town one day. Fingers crossed!

Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot "When we were kids we built a treehouse from our neighbors' windows and if you get far enough away it looks like a giant eyeball"

Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot
Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot
CD
(Aisle 2 Records, 2000)

There used to be a small CD store named musiCDrome near my old office that I hit on my lunch break on a regular basis. They had a dollar bin that afforded me many prizes over the few years they were around, and I missed them when they moved to a new location many, many miles away.

One of my favorite dollar bin finds at musiCDrome was the eponymous, and only, album by Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot. As soon as I saw the ridiculously long band name and super-stark cover art, I knew I had to at least give it a try. Luckily, they had a couple of CD players, so one could sample potential purchases before making a decision. I listened to a few seconds of the opening track and walked out with it moments later, $1.06 gone from my wallet.

Sadly, they split sometime after this album was released, but not before contributing the otherwise-unavailable track Tied Up Overhead to the Doubleplusgood Records Pop for Charity: Sound Progression compilation CD.

Alchemist "Hermaphroditis"

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Alchemist
Spiritech
CD
(Thrust, 1997)

Someone on the message boards on Rob Halford's website used to talk these guys up all the time, years ago. One day, I was going through the bargain bin at my favorite local store and spied their latest album, Organasm. I decided to gamble $5 on it, and it paid off. As I soon discovered, Alchemist marry what might seem to be the rather disparate genres of death metal and psychedelia. I like to think of them as the Pink Floyd of death metal, but you may not agree. In which case, you are obviously a false and a poser (sic)!

:-P

Seriously, though, Alchemist are heavy as a swear word for copulation whilst mighty trippy and freaky, at the same time. I debated what song to pick, and decided to go with this one from their out-of-print third album, Spiritech. A few years back, Relapse Records released a nifty double-CD, Embryonics (left) compiling most of the tracks from the album along with material from their first and second albums, 1993's Jar of Kingdom and 1995's Lunasphere, their Eve of the War EP, and some demo tracks and live recordings. This song, however, was one of the few left off.

Lest anyone think the lyrics might be transphobic, I've decided to include them for your perusal. They're certainly not run-of-the-mill death metal verbiage.

Hermaphroditis

Union of opposites become union
of ones self.
The universe above mirrors
the universe within.

You search for identity,
schizophrenic multi being.
Your two have become one,
your libran scales often sway.

Focus your thoughts on balance
meditate on harmony.
Elevate your mind and all that is
shall return.

Your active male, fuels your fire for
Furious dominating.

Your passive female, maternal soul.
Psychic subconcious.

Under the scepter of Zeus,
Your two become one.

Let your will penetrate
Deeply from within.
Your libran scales sway
With eternal unrest.

Two as one.
Unisex, you are she and she is him.

Teen Wheat "Le Monte de Christo"

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Teen Wheat
Teen Wheat vs. Old Wheat
CD
(Dead Medium Records, 2004)

Not much I can tell you about Teen Wheat, sadly. Well, I can tell you one of the members worked at the local club The E.A.R.L. back then (and still does today, as he was working the door at the Jucifer show I attended recently). I saw them a couple of times last decade, and they were a relentless bulldozer of punk rock goodness.

Teen Wheat vs. Old Wheat was their only release.

I love it.

'Nuff said.

Brass Castle "And the City"

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Brass Castle
Get on Fire
CD
(Drazzig Records, 2003)

Please forgive the long delay since my last post; I've just started a new job, and my time for the blog has been a bit compromised, as a result.

So . . .

There have been a lot of great bands from the Atlanta area over the decades both that I've lived here and the time before. Some have gained international stardom, like The Black Crowes, some have been regarded with undeserved scorn, such as the Hampton Grease Band*, but scads more have flown under the radar.

For this Local to Me Theme Week, I've been primarily, OK almost entirely, covering that last category; Brass Castle, sadly, fits there.

I first saw them when they played with Axehandle at The Star Bar. I knew nothing about them other than they were recent-ish transplants from Florida, and I'd been told they rocked. I forget who it was that told me, but he was right.

Now, admittedly, I have a thing for two-piece bands, or duos, to use the vernacular. I also have a thing for loud guitars, as regular listeners may have noticed. Chaos is also almost always a plus. Brass Castle's setup is basic: a guitar, an amp, a drum kit, two guys, three legs. Chris (Strawn) owns two thirds of that last item, while Christian (Gordy) has one third of them plus the prosthetic to the right. Lest you think I'm being limbist for mentioning it, the picture is from the booklet for their eponymous album on Velocette Records.

Where does the chaos enter? Well, their song structures are anything but conventional, and things often veer off in completely unexpected directions. Added to that are vocals that are often shouted, yelped, and incomprehensible. Then there's the performance. Chris is the rock'n'roll showman: windmilling his guitar, jumping and landing in splits while soloing, skidding across the stage on his knees, etc. Christian, on the other hand, is the loose cannon: drunk, screaming, nearly falling over constantly. Amazingly, I can think of only one show I ever saw where he keeled over while trying to kick one of his stomp boxes with his good leg while balancing precariously on the prosthetic.

A couple of things really stuck out at that first show mentioned above. Other than the fact that they rocked like an Oedipus Complex, of course. At some point, Chris sat at the drums and started to kick the bass drum (I think it was the bass drum) slowly, while encouraging the audience to clap along. When I say slowly, I mean so slowly as to make it impossible for the average listener to catch the beat well enough to accompany it. Along with that, at some point a couple of young women entered the bar and headed for the back, a feat which requires pretty much passing in full view of the stage when the crowd is sparse. Christian was tuning his guitar when he saw them, stopped and addressed them from the stage: Hello, ladies! He was rather sweaty and drunk at this point, it being partway through their set, and the poor women looked as though they were certain Christian's mere gaze could infect them with all manner of horrific ailments. Why is this even funny to me? Come on! They were in a dive bar with loud, sweaty rock 'n' roll bands playing, not at the gosh darn cotillion!

Today's song is from Brass Castle's formal debut album, Get on Fire. In addition to it, there are three other full-length albums, or four, if you count the other one, which I will explain in due course.

Their first release was actually a 7" EP, John Derek, which they recorded as a trio.

Their first duo release was their demo CDR Doing the Best They Can. It's actually longer than all of their other releases, and features a number of songs that never got redone for their later albums.

Following the release of Get on Fire, Brass Castle got signed by Velocette Records, the new label started by Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden, when Capricorn got killed in the dreaded Major Label Wars of the early 21st Century. Their first, and last, album for the label, which was sadly short-lived, was the aforementioned eponymous one.

Their final album, Cancer Daze, was recorded way back in 2007, but sat in the can until they finally released it themselves as a digital download in late 2010. I believe it was due to be released by Hoss Records, as there was mention on their old website of a forthcoming Brass Castle release.

So what's that other one, you ask?

Remember back in 2003 when fellow duodenal ATLiens OutKast released their dbl-CD Speakerboxxx/The Love Below? You know, the one where each guy got one disc all to hisself? In 2005, Chris and Christian did the same thing with the release of their dbl-CDR Chris Castle/Brass Gordy. There's a couple of differences, of course. For one, the latter was fairly limited; my copy is hand-numbered #7. The more important difference, however, is Chris Castle/Brass Gordy is a solid release from start to finish, as opposed to a bloated release with a handful of killer singles fleshed out with inane skits and copious amounts of filler. Four of Chris's songs were re-released on his 2008 debut solo album I Left My Hat in Hades, an amazing album that was one of my Top Ten favorites of that year.

NOTA BENE: Drazzig Records is an odd name for a label, huh? Well, turn it around and it spells Gizzard, the name of Chris's former band down in FLA. At that same time, Christian was a member of Dampading, whom I've also featured here.

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*The lone album by the Hampton Grease Band, Music to Eat, was long claimed to be the second worst selling album in Columbia Records history. I cannot comment on the veracity of this claim, but I can tell you the album rules, and it was eventually given the swell-deserved deluxe reissue treatment. After the death of guitarist Harold Kelling, whom I featured in the early days of this blog, they did a reunion concert here in town. It was hands down the best show I attended that year.