I will be at Virginia Highland Books this Thursday, September 28 at 7 p.m. I’ll be talking about my book, Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History, as well as a few other related topics. I might even talk a bit about my next book! But I mostly just want to talk with y’all! I would be honored by your presence. We might even get a beer across the street afterward.
Free. 7 p.m. 1034 North Highland Ave. NE. Click here to RSVP!
It’s misleading to call MSSV an experimental rock trio, as these three elder statesmen of the underground know exactly what they’re doing. Still, bass player Mike Watt, guitarist Mike Baggetta, and drummer Stephen Hodges craft a fluid, mostly-instrumental body of work that flows beyond the confines of their impressive collective resumes. Hodges has performed with the likes Tom Waits, David Lynch, Wanda Jackson, and Mavis Staples for years. Baggetta has collaborated with everyone from Bob Stagner of Chattanooga’s Shaking Ray Levis on the Triage album to legendary session drummer Jim Keltner. And, of course, Watt raised the bar high for American punk and indie rock playing bass and singing with the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, and via scores of solo releases and offshoot ensembles. Together, MSSV hones in on a rhythm, a groove, or a subtle shift in sound to explore and expand upon with each new number. Their approach is part composition, part improvisation, and part file-under-some-other form of silent musical telepathy that is as sophisticated as it is undeniably catchy.
MSSV is on the road playing songs from their second studio album Human Reaction, due out Sept. 1 on Big Ego Records.
Atlanta’s noisey post-punk newcomers Blood Circuits (featuring former members of Free Masonry, Gaijin, Remuxers, Hal Al Shedad, and Car Vs. Driver) and the city’s quintessentially baroque chamber-punk balladeers W8ING4UFOS set the night in motion.
$15 (adv). $20 (door). 7 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 26. Boggs Social & Supply.
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CANCELED: This live appearance has been canceled, but you can hear Thurston Moore’s interview with Chad Radford on 90.1 FM/WABE’s “City Lights” on Monday, October 30 at 11 a.m. and again at 8 p.m.
From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author’s life and art—from his teen years as a music obsessive in small-town Connecticut, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to 30 years of creation, experimentation, and wonder.
A Cappella Books welcomes Thurston Moore to The Plaza Theatre to discuss his new book, Sonic Life: A Memoir, on Monday, October 30, at 7 p.m. Moore will speak with your truly, Chad Radford, music journalist and author of Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History. Moore will also perform a short musical set.
Following the conversation, The Plaza will host a screening of director Stuart Swezey’s documentary, Desolation Center, featuring performances by Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Swans, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, and more. Moore will introduce the film.
A note on the THREE types of tickets available for this event:
Book Talk Ticket:
Includes a pre-signed copy of Sonic Life + admission for the 7 p.m. book talk. ($35+tax).
Book Talk and Movie Ticket:
Includes a pre-signed copy of Sonic Life + admission for the 7 p.m. book talk, and the 8:30 p.m. screening of Desolation Center. ($45+tax).
Movie Ticket:
Admission to the 8:30 p.m. screening of Desolation Center. ($20 + tax)
About the Book
Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire.
His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore co-founded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.
In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.
About the Author
Thurston Moore is a founding member of Sonic Youth, a band born in New York in 1981 that spent 30 years at the vanguard of alternative rock, influencing and inspiring such acts as Nirvana, Pavement, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, My Bloody Valentine, and Beck. The band’s album Daydream Nation was chosen by the Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Moore is involved in publishing and poetry and teaches at the Summer Writing Workshop at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He divides his time between the USA and England.
About the Film
Desolation Center is the previously untold story of a series of early ’80s guerrilla music and art performance happenings in Southern California that are recognized to have inspired Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella, collective experiences that have become key elements of popular culture in the 21st century. The feature documentary splices interviews and rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Swans, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Savage Republic and more, documenting a time when pushing the boundaries of music, art, and performance felt almost like an unspoken obligation.
Directed by Stuart Swezey, the creator and principal organizer of these unique events, Desolation Center demonstrates how the risky, and at times even reckless, actions of a few outsiders can unintentionally lead to seismic cultural shifts. Combining Swezey’s exclusive access to never-before-seen archival video, live audio recordings, and stills woven together with new cinematically shot interviews, verité footage and animated sequences, Desolation Center captures the spirit of the turbulent times from which these events emerged.
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Nearly 27 years after the tragic death of Brainiac frontman Tim Taylor brought an end to the group’s meteoric rise, the beloved Dayton, OH post-punk freak out ensemble is returning to stages once again. The group’s Surviving members—guitarist and vocalist John Schmersal, drummer Tyler Trent, and bass player Juan Monasterio—are paying homage to Brainiac’s fallen leader with the addition of guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist Tim Krug of Dayton-based indie rockers Oh Condor as well as the electronic projects Hexadiode and Halicon.
From 1992–1997, Brainiac twisted the boundaries of indie rock, industrial music clatter and collage, and noise rock to the tune of a mangled Moog synthesizer. The group’s sound was truly revolutionary, as evidenced by their three steller full-lengths 1993’s Smack Bunny Baby, 1994’s Bonsai Superstar, and 1996’s Hissing Prigs in Static Couture.
The group’s final offering, 1997’s Jim O’Rourke-produced Electro-Shock for President EP offered just a hint at the bold and engaging new sounds the group had in store. But Taylor’s death in a single car accident that same year marked the end for Brainiac.
Cincinnati’s drums and cello two-piece Lung opens the show with a set of blackened and apocalyptic post-grunge, post-goth dirges.
Brainiac and Lung play The Earl’s 25th anniversary celebration. Monday, February 5, 2024. $22 (adv). $25 (doors).
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On June 19, 2003, bass player David Lane, drummer Greg Stevens, and singer and guitar player Jason Hatcher of Hex Error went into Zero Return Studios with Rob del Bueno, aka Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard of Man? Or Astro-Man?.
The plan was to cut the instrumental tracks for six new songs the group had been working on since releasing their self-titled debut CD in 2001. Vocals were to be recorded during another session later on down the line. The rising noise rock three-piece was slashing its way through the local scene, playing shows at venues such as Lenny’s and the Earl, and landing spots at the day-long Corndogorama indie rock festival.
Alas, this fatal afternoon at Zero Return, now dubbed Maze Studios, was Hex Error’s last studio session. Hatcher, Stevens, and Lane broke up before vocals were recorded and the three never looked back.
Since then, Lane has long served as singer and guitar player with the band Skin Jobs, who released their debut album Def Bods in 2021. Stevens has spent time playing with various bands, and currently plays in the groups Uneven Lanes with Benjamin, as well as Total Peace Band. Lane and Stevens also currently play in the post-punk outfit Scratch Offs.
Hatcher died on February 20, 2022.
While doing some housekeeping during the pandemic, del Bueno discovered a 2-inch reel of the sessions and passed it along to Stevens.
The recordings offering a stark and compelling glimpse at what was a quickly evolving musical outfit. The crushing grooves that drive the opening number, “Death From Above,” and the dissonant energy of “Greed” capture a mastery of songwriting dynamics. “Social Leprosy” and the wide-eyed “Time” show off instincts that move far beyond the nascent, teeth-gnashing dirges of their self-titled 2001 debut. The instrumental recordings as they are rendered here capture Hex Error in gloriously muscular and sophisticated form.
Stevens took a few minutes to talk more about the recording.
Chad Radford: Where have these tapes been for the last 20 years?
Greg Stevens: The tapes had been in storage at Zero Return until the pandemic. During that time, Rob del Bueno let me know he had come across this 2-inch reel of tape from our final recording session. Jason passed away a year or so ago, so we figured it would be a fitting memorial to him to release this EP 20 years after the initial recording.
Did you alter the recordings in any way?
The initial recording wasn’t altered in any way. We had completed all of the basic tracking at the session on 6/29/03. That said, we broke up before we could complete the vocals, so these are instrumental tracks only. Given that Jason had passed, there wasn’t an opportunity to add vocals to anything. So we ended up putting the finishing touches on it, as is. We worked with David Barbe for the mixing of the 2-inch tape out at Chase Park in Athens and Carl Saff for the mastering.
Have you had any realizations about these songs or the band in general now that you have released this final recording?
David Lane and I have been playing music together off and on for the past 20 years. It has been interesting releasing these tracks from 20 years ago while at the same time we are putting the finishing touches on the upcoming Scratch Offs record. So from that perspective it’s interesting to see how much we have both grown as musicians over the past couple of decades. We’re really proud of how far we took the Hex Error sound all those years ago, and we’re excited about exploring different sonic territories with Scratch Offs.
What’s your favorite song from this session?
The opening track, “Death from Above,” really highlights what we could have accomplished had we not called it a day. We had started working within longer song structures and more intricate polyrhythms. That one was a crowd favorite, whether we were playing in Atlanta or out on the road.
Where there lyrics written and performed with these songs that are now just lost to the sands of time?
All of these songs had lyrics. We performed all of them live back in the day. So, yes, lost to the sands of time.
Any plans for a physical release with this one?
Not at this time. We decided to self-release this digitally mainly for archival purposes. But if a label was so inclined, we’d definitely be into it.
Do you have a release date in mind for the Scratch Offs LP? Does it have a title yet?
We just got the final master back from Carl Saff a couple of days ago. We’re aiming for a digital release in the next couple months, before we do our next batch of shows. We’re playing with Bass Drum of Death and Small at the Earl on September 7, and then headed to Florida for some dates shortly after that. So it would be good for people to have a frame of reference aside from the live experience. Right now, the consensus is to call the record Tidal Wave.
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Cow Punk. It’s more than just a genre of redneck rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a lifestyle, and it’s the title of Dash Rip Rock’s latest album. Since the 1987 arrival of the New Orleans trio’s self-titled debut on 688 Records, singer and guitarist Bill Davis has crafted a blend of Athens, GA-style college rock, fueled by Austin, TX-style country, punk, and rockabilly. The group’s latest release features a spread of revved up new recordings of older numbers from throughout Dash Rip Rock’s catalog. Check out a couple of Status Quo and Gram Parsons covers as well. It’s the definitive cowpunk statement—or at least it’s Dash Rip Rock’s vision of all that cowpunk can be.
Dash Rip Rock and Kraken’s Release play Smith’s Olde Bar on Fri., July 14. $15. 8 p.m. (doors).
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The reviews are in, “Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History” is a bonafide hit! Check out a list of interviews, reviews, and more. … And click below to get a signed copy of the book delivered to your door.
“‘Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History,’ is a collection of first-person accounts exploring how vinyl has survived new technology from 8 tracks to CDs to streaming and why the industry continues to thrive.” — “New book ‘Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History’ explores how vinyl has survived over decades” by Kim Drobes for WABE/NPR’s City Lights
“The new book ‘Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History’ shares stories of the influence these stores have had over the past half-century.”— “Record stores offer ‘singular take’ on a city’s history” by Peter Biello for Georgia Public Broadcasting/NPR’s All Things Considered
“While Atlanta often operates on the premise that anything not mega-famous must be outdated and worth mercy-killing for profit, Radford’s book is a reminder that—to paraphrase Faulkner—the past isn’t even past. The city’s counterculture is a DIY torch passed to each generation.” — “A new history of Atlanta and Athens record stores meets the subcultural moment” by John Ruch for Saporta Report
“Chad Radford joins Rhythm and Resistance to discuss his new book, Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History” — An interview with Christopher Hollis
“Rather than a straight narrative, Radford let the owners, employees past and present, musicians, and shoppers tell the stories of the record stores in a series of oral histories. It’s a breezy, funny, nostalgic read.” — “New book chronicles the history of Atlanta’s record stores” with Collin Kelly for Rough Draft
Press play on a fun and candid conversation about the book with Tom Cheshire and Renée Yaworsky for Cosmos Creative TV’s “Burn It Down!”
More reviews are coming soon!
Click below to purchase a signed copy of Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History. $25 (postage paid).
Send payment via Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click below to pay via Paypal.
Why write a book about Atlanta record stores? The truth is that you get a singularly unique perspective on a city’s history, its culture, and its personality when viewed through the lens of a record store’s front window. I have often said that if you want to understand a society or a culture, just take a look at its pop culture, and music has always remained right there on the frontlines.
Atlanta is world-renowned as a hip-hop mecca, but a rich underground rock scene has been thriving here for decades. The hub of that world is the city’s record stores. Featuring decades-old institutions to shops that existed just long enough to leave an impact, Atlanta Record Stores is a rock-centric take on a hip-hop town, unfurling the secret history of music underdogs—outliers living among outliers—telling their stories in their native tongue. From Jarboe of SWANS to William DuVall of Alice in Chains and Neon Christ to Kelly Hogan, Gentleman Jesse Smith, Atlanta Braves organist Matthew Kaminski, and those surly characters behind the counter at Wuxtry, Wax ‘n’ Facts, Criminal, Ella Guru, Fantasyland, and more, all were drawn by the irresistible lure of vinyl records—all found their communities and their own identities, leaving an indelible mark on the culture of Atlanta.
Click below to purchase a signed copy of Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History. $25 (postage paid).
– Send payment via Venmo to @Chad-Radford-6 or click below to pay via Paypal.
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs are making their way across the country, playing songs from their brand new album, Lovesick Crawl, out now via Augusta, GA’s Missing Fink Records. Before hitting the road, the Portland, OR-based group’s founding members Jenny Connors and Kelly Halliburton took some time out of their day to talk about the Cramps, Dead Moon, Wipers, and the songs that make up Lovesick Crawl.
Catch Jenny Don’t and the Spurs when they play the Earl on Feb. 23, and Fink Fest in Savannah on Feb. 24.
Let’s talk about what you had in mind when you settled on the song and album title, Lovesick Crawl. It’s the word “crawl” that really grabs my attention.
Jenny Connors: We were listening to a lot of music by the Cramps. The cover art for the album is by Stephen Blickenstaff, who did the cover art for the Cramps’ Bad Music For Bad People, which is a really cool coincidence. We’d talked about doing something in the style of the Cramps, but nothing turned out sounding like the Cramps as it evolved. It’s essentially about being in love with someone—being infatuated—and you can imagine yourself crawling across the floor just to get their attention.
The song originally had an intro that was similar to the Cramps’ “Human Fly,” but we nixed that along the way. Then Johnny from Missing Fink Records approached us about releasing the record.
Kelly Halliburton: Stephen does a lot of the artwork for Missing Fink. Johnny contacted us less than six months before the record came out. We did the recording sessions in February 2022, and finished songwriting six months before that. The idea to channel the Cramps came to us before we knew that Johnny was working with Stephen so much. It added yet another layer to the strange coincidences surrounding this record.
How did the two of you meet and start making music together?
Jenny: I started stalking Kelly around 2008, until I finally whittled him down to date me. I was up front for a Pierced Arrows show and thought it was great. The drummer was super hot and I wanted to hang out with him, so I wrote to him on Myspace. That puts a date on it!
Kelly: Our relationship as a couple pre-dates the Spurs by about three-four years. It took a while because I was touring a lot with Pierced Arrows. The singer and guitar player Fred Cole started getting sick around 2012 or ‘13 so the band slowed down and eventually ground to a halt. Jenny and I had talked about doing something together. It wasn’t until Pierced Arrows wasn’t really a thing anymore that we had time to make it happen. Eventually all of our other bands broke up and this was the last one standing.
Jenny: Kelly and I have a pretty big age gap between us. I was just about to turn 22 when we met. He’s 16 years older than me and said, “I don’t want to date a 22 year-old.” But I said “Come on, I’m serious!” And here we are. We got married last year.
When we were talking about doing stuff together, Sam Henry and I started gigging around town playing a bunch of songs that I already had, which I used on the first album. Sam became the drummer for the Spurs.
Kelly: At first it was me and Jenny. I had an acoustic bass and she had an acoustic guitar. We wanted to keep it really stripped down, and not rely on anyone so that we could do this at any time, whether it’s on a street corner, in our backyard, wherever. It was purely acoustic and we sounded terrible. Something was missing. We didn’t have a ton of experience playing acoustically. All of our previous bands played amplified punk and garage rock. We wanted to keep it stripped down, but we asked Sam to play a snare with some brushes to keep time. Eventually there was a bass drum, then a high hat, and before we knew it, it was this loud, amplified thing with a full drum kit and electric instruments.
Jenny: Then we thought, “You know what’s really missing are guitar solos.”
Sam Henry was the original drummer for the classic Portland punk band Wipers.
Kelly: He played on the first three Wipers singles and the first album, Is This Real? They started in ‘77-‘78. He quit the Wipers in ‘80-‘81. I love everything [Wipers singer/guitarist] Greg Sage has done, but not everyone does. For most people, all you need are the first three LPs: Is This Real, Youth of America, and Over the Edge.
Sam quit the Wipers and joined Napalm Beach, which is kind of funny. Sam doesn’t play on the Wipers album Land of the Lost, but their singer and guitar player Chris Newman drew the dinosaur artwork, which is the weirdest cover, but they were all weirdos [laughs].
Jenny: When we were on tour, a lot of people would come up and say, “No way, Sam Henry from Napalm Death!” [laughs].
I was hanging around a record shop with a few older guys when the Wipers ‘96 album The Herd came out. They said, “Uh, this is gonna suck!” But I took the promo CD home, and even though it wasn’t cool to like The Herd, I loved it. The guitar playing is cosmic.
Kelly: Greg never deviated from his formula, so it’s not like anything on that record is all that different. He slowed it down, but it’s still dreamy, twangy, reverb-drenched guitar. He got more into the whole alien abduction thing. That album art has a fence around the world. That stuff follows Greg’s obsession with alien abduction. From what I understand, he firmly believes that he’s been abducted by aliens. If you look closely, that’s sort of a theme that runs throughout a lot of his stuff.
I’ll never hear “Alien Boy” the same way again.
[Laughs].
Sam died in February 2022, but he plays on Lovesick Crawl.
Jenny: Yes, Lovesick Crawl features the last recordings that he made. At the end of our January 2022 tour, he wasn’t feeling well. We were heading to Seattle to record. His doctor said, “You need some rest,” so Sam told us he couldn’t make it. A lot went into scheduling, though, so we planned to wing it and go anyway. He heard that we didn’t cancel so he changed his mind and came with us.
We finished the recordings and were supposed to have a show in Everett, but he was in really poor shape. We canceled the show and took him to the hospital, which was the beginning of the end for him, unfortunately.
Kelly: He was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I want to say the day after the recording session ended. They gave him three months to live but he didn’t make it three weeks.
Jenny: Obviously, no one saw what was coming. We were at the end of a tour. He was older and everyone feels like shit after a tour. The doctor said, “Maybe you drank too much on tour,” which he hadn’t. But he did great during those recording sessions. He didn’t complain. He felt uncomfortable, and every day it was getting a little worse. Something was seriously wrong. In the end, it makes these recordings extra special for us.
Is there a song on the record where his performance stands out?
Jenny: The session as a whole stands out for me. But “Lost Myself” stands out because I think about when we were writing the song. He would say, “How about we try this,” or “I’m going to hit the drum like this.” I have a lot of memories associated with that song.
Kelly: It’s hard not to think about how difficult it must’ve been for him to get through those sessions. There are a couple of songs from earlier sessions: His drums are great on “Right From the Start.” We recorded that song not too long after we wrote it. Later, we did the session where the album version came from. There’s the single version and the version on Lovesick Crawl. The later version was recorded after we’d played it for a while.
Jenny: “Black Cadillac” is a good example of his ability to go all out, or scale it back. He’s mainly playing snare and the rim and clicking the drum sticks together, and adds dynamics throughout that.
Not a lot of players can entertain without playing the whole kit. They get bored. There’s a video of Sam playing that, and there’s never a dull moment.
It’s kind of a beautiful thing that he did what he loved doing till the end.
Kelly: If we’d gone to Seattle without Sam we wouldn’t be able to listen to these songs. The fact that he rallied and did it is a testimony to his dedication. He was 64 and he had a ball every time we played. He was an amazing person to be in a band with. There will never be another Sam Henry.
Jenny: After he passed away, Kelly, our guitar player Christopher, and I asked, “What does this mean for us as a band?” Collectively, we acknowledged that Sam dedicated the last 10 years of his life to this band, and wouldn’t want us to end at this point. We were all on the same page, and having that camaraderie helped with the grieving process.
Kelly: Sam was such a gregarious personality, and such an outgoing, loving person. He was a good counterpoint to someone like me who’s kind of a crab and wants to be alone most of the time [laughs]. He made friends with people all over the world. Everywhere we went there were people who knew and loved Sam. So everywhere we take this stuff when we’re out on the road it’s cathartic for people who loved and cared about him. We see a lot of teary eyes out front. There are a lot of people who are connected with Sam through this music.
A lot of what we’re doing now is for Sam. Why stop now? What’s the point in creating something that he cared so much about and letting it fizzle out.
It has to be rough for your new drummer fitting in as you move forward.
Kelly: Sam’s shoes are impossible to fill. It would be unfair for us to have those expectations for anyone. Also, the band is more than a working relationship. We knew Sam before the band existed. It worked better than any other band that we’ve been in. For someone else to jump in, that has to be hard and we respect that.
Jenny: For a new player, the songs have to fall into the structure they’ve been written in. But obviously if they bring other inspiration to it, it’s the band’s responsibility to respect everyone’s talents individually. Even though it’s called Jenny Don’t and the Spurs, we’re all equals.
Kelly: The band that came before Pierced Arrows was Dead Moon, which had an almost cult-like status. I stepped into an environment that was probably a lot like what anyone who’s playing with us is stepping into. The guy that I replaced with Fred and Toody was Andrew Loomis, who is universally loved. Everywhere we went for the first few years everyone was looking at me saying, “You’re not Andrew.”
Fred and Toody went out of their way to reassure me that I didn’t have to try to be like Andrew. I didn’t have to try to make my drumming style like his. Obviously I wasn’t going to do that anyway, but it felt good to be reassured. I want to extend that kind of welcoming courtesy to anyone who’s stepping into this band.
I joined Dead Moon in about 2007. They were on tour in the fall of 2006. They did a really long European tour and that was pretty much the end. They were all getting sick of each other. Initially Fred and Toody wanted to take a break, but Fred was always so restless. It didn’t take them long to form a new band. They called me out of the blue in March of 2007—maybe three months after Dead Moon played their last show.
I didn’t even play drums. I’m barely a bass player, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. With so many expectations, it was terrifying at first. Not only am I not a good drummer, I’m also stepping into this kind of high profile situation where I’m in front of all of these Andrew Loomis-Dead Moon fans.
People were brutal about it. I was at a bar in Portland shortly after Pierced Arrows got going. There were fliers wheat-pasted on the bathroom wall. There was a Pierced Arrows flier with a photo of us and someone had drawn an arrow pointing at my head and wrote, “Worst drummer in Portland” [laughs].
Honestly, I couldn’t argue, but that was the level of hostility that I faced in that band. People warmed up after a while. It was also funny, because people invented a feud between Andrew and I—like Andrew was pissed because I took his spot. But Andrew and I would get together and laugh about it. He was as sick of Fred and Toody as they were of him.
Jenny: Another layer to all of these weird coincidences that lined up to where we are now: When I moved to Portland in 2008, I randomly moved into a house where Andrew hung out a lot. He introduced me to Sam, and then we started playing together. Small world! I didn’t know anything about Dead Moon and Wipers before I moved to the big city of Portland from Acme, Washington.
Kelly: In a bizarre, round-about sort of way, the existence of this band owes something to Andrew Loomis, which is awesome.
You have a new drummer now?
Jenny: His name is Buddy Weeks and we’re enjoying his presence in the band. Hopefully, if he still likes all of us after this tour, we’ll have a long relationship together.
Kelly: Playing together is one thing, but we love being on tour. Luckily he’s had a lot of touring experience. That’s almost as important as being able to play, because it ain’t easy. Putting four people in a tin can and carting them around the country for six months out of the year … There are only so many masochistic personalities that can endure that.
Jenny: You’ve gotta be able to play well and you have to be a good hang. You have to be funny. You have to be able to connect on some things outside of music a little bit, so you enjoy each other’s time together. There’s one hour of playing and 23 hours of being around each other.
Kelly: Christopher March has been playing guitar with us for almost six years. We’ve got him wearing a lot of hats. He’ll have the lap steel set up on stage, then he’ll play a baritone guitar for a couple of songs. We don’t have him literally juggling on stage yet, but we’ll incorporate that at some point, just to make his life that much more difficult [laughs].
There are moments throughout Lovesick Crawl that remind me of Hank Williams Senior’s recordings. It’s also rooted in punk rock mingling with country music—stripped down and rough-and-tumble. You roll with the mistakes.
Jenny: We enjoy it more when it’s stripped down and not super polished. We like music that’s a little rough around the edges.
Kelly: That’s certainly the music that I’m drawn to. I still own every piece of music that Discharge ever pressed to vinyl. A lot of people say that punk and country music are coming from these disparate places, but I’m not so sure their worlds are all that different.
Jenny: If the crowd is really entertaining and you mess up while you’re jumping around on stage … Entertaining is a lot more fun than worrying about perfection.
Kelly: Dead Moon was genius in their own way. No one in the band was a virtuoso musician. It was a lot more emotive than technically flawless. That resonated with people a lot more than these bands that really try to be total shredders. There’s a place for that, but there’s also a place for raw, emotive expression that comes from a different place than musical virtuosity.
That’s what attracted me to music in the first place. When I heard Black Flag for the first time I thought, this is it!
Kelly: Exactly, it doesn’t get more raw than “Nervous Breakdown.” It’s just a few minutes of raw aggression and teenage frustration. That set the template for a lot of things that are still important to me now, and I’m in my 50s!
Some of my earliest studio experiences, going back to when I was 19 years old, the drummer for Poison Idea, Steve Hanford, “The Slayer Hippy,” was a renowned producer. He did a bunch of studio work with some of my old punk bands. I learned a lot about recording while working with him. One of the things he would put into practice was if you can’t do it in a couple of takes, just ditch it and move on. Maybe come back to it in a couple of takes, maybe not. He always felt that the energy would dissipate if you ran it into the ground. I don’t know if it’s true that Poison Idea did that, but he always maintained that Poison Ideas stuff was done in one or two takes. That’s kind of our approach.
Jenny: The magic will go away if you do a solo 50 times. When I do a vocal I’ll do it three times. One warmup and two runs through it. It’s how I sound and it’s not gonna sound better if I keep doing it. On any recording you can listen and think about how you should have done something differently. When you’re in the studio you can do something over and over, but you learn to be ok with imperfections. This isn’t for us. It’s for the listeners, and they’ll make it their own.”
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Ladrones are heading into the new year with plans to unleash the Máquina Caótica 7-inch EP via Die Slaughterhaus Records.
In the meantime, a video for the EP’s title track teases out the group’s feral garage-punk charge, as co-founders vocalist Valeria Sanchez and guitar player José Rivera are joined by bass player Paul Hernandez, and drummer Sam Adams.
Check out the scene for a backyard blowout at local punk, hardcore, and headbanger hangout, The Catacombs.
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