7/12/99
What
the hell happened?? Everything's in arial font now.. ahhh, yes.
Good
old fashioned, conservative arial font. Tried and true.
In
case you didn't know, my latest interview with Marlon Magas is accessible
by clicking here.
Well,
here's some news that is probably best reserved for next month, but it's
just so goddamned exciting, I have to put it up RIGHT now.
Missourians,
take note:
Melt-Banana, August 14th at the Rocket Bar, St. Louis, MO.
Yes. Let's hear it for the Japanese! Fuckin' King Brothers, Melt-Banana, Guitar Wolf, DESTROY 2!!!, not to mention a million other great Japan-based garage bands that Mr. Velocity Hopkins can name off the top of his head.. y'know, some people might think "stodgy," or "inhibited" when they think of Japan, but when you see, and hear bands like these; those are the LAST words that should come to mind. These young rocksters do not give fuck one! No sir!
And speaking of pure, unadulturated, self-sacrificing ROCK, and that's big "R" rock with a BIG fucking "R," man! Yeah.. Arab on Radar. It's been some time back since these guys came to town, but it's definitely worth mentioning, and that I haven't until now is an offense surely punishable by international law.
Every
time I think about these Providence, Rhode Island rock-ass genius mothafuckas,
I just piss my britches. I could say "it was the best show ever," but really..
why allow for such mediocrity.
I
daren't sully the good name of Arab on Radar with such a tired description
of their otherworldly rocking prowess. Let's just say that it was a good
night for socially destructive, hipster-decimating, "critic"-confounding,
give-your-buddy-a-DDT fucking BALLS NAILED TO MY GODDAMNED BEDROOM WALL
ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL.
And
could even ONE TENTH of the jean-jacket-clad, backpack-toting, cat-glasses-wearing,
Starbucks-drinking, Tolstoy-reading, fucking pretentious goddamned collective
motherfuck of an "audience" appreciate Arab on Radar?? NO!! Did I expect
otherwise?
No,
not really. They were all probably there to see Phut anyway.
(and I must give credit where it is due. Phut's a good band, sonically. I doubt that they're terribly exciting live, but I can't really say for sure, as I've never seen them play.)
So,
after all that shit, remember this! Melt-Banana! August 14th, Rocket Bar!
St. Louis!
If
you like rock, and you live in Missouri, then by God you'd better be there.
Look
for Thee Parlimentarian and yours truly, for we will be the ones at the
very front, beating the hell out of each other and re-enacting elaborate
pantomimes from 19th century absurdist plays. Yes, really.
6/30/99
Here's
the To Live And Shave In Laura Ashley tour dates. Confirmed dates are in
CAPS.
Click
here
for more details.
October
19 Philadelphia, PA at KHYBER PASS
October
20 Cleveland, OH (Speak in Tongues?)
October
21 Green Bay, WI at Concert Cafe, but not
positively confirmed
October
22 Chicago, IL
October
23 Detroit (Gold Bar?)
October
24 Rochester, NY at BUG JAR
October
25 Boston (Mass. College of Art, but still
to be confirmed)
October
26 Providence, RI at FORT THUNDER
October
27 New York, NY at Menlo Park Fest
You
heard it here first, kids. To Live And Do WHAT?? WHO??!
If
you don't know, you better ask
somebody.
Also,
a new release from John Wiese's Helicopter label. Wiese is perhaps best
known 'round these St. Louis parts as a contributor to Andy Ortman's Nihilist
Records.
From
Helicopter comes. . .
MoonLanding Vol.2 featuring:
MSBR
John
Wiese
Bastard
Noise
Thurston
Moore (oh my . .)
one-sided
7", 33rpm, ltd,200
$3ppd/
$5ppd world
Send all orders to
Helicopter
John
Wiese 24846 Walnut St. #205 Newhall CA 91321 USA
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnwiese
6/27/99
Avant-hardcore??
Or just some REALLY shitty scans? You be the judge.
6/25/99
BIG big news from our pal and ex-COUCH/Lake of Dracula mastermind MARLON MAGAS:
The big MM is officially HITCHED! Sorry, ladies. .
Marlon
was wed to his long-time girlfriend Bridgette Wilson sometime last week.
We
received a letter from Marlon regarding this joyous occasion:
"Howdy!
Just got back from
our honeymoon. After getting married on the lush
Presque Isle, in
Marquette, Michigan, we headed to Canada. We spent time
driving through
the beautiful wilderness, saw a bear, and ended up in
Toronto. We
stayed there for a couple days and enjoyed it immensely. We
chucked the idea
of going to Niagara Falls and came back through Michigan,
spending a day at
the lovely Dilloway Farm. Perfect."
That
IS perfect. All of us here at Pie wish Marlon and Bridgette the very best.
Our
sincerest congratulations, and here's to your continued success and happiness.
HERE'S a picture of the happy newlyweds. I am not often compelled to say this, but this is a CUTE picture.
Again, best of luck to Mr. and Mrs. Magas.
And,
to Marlon's prolific musical career, which continues to this day in his
brand new band
PLASTIC
SCORPION!! In addition to having contributed a cover of "E Tanta Paura"
(or "Too Much Fear") to a compilation, Plastic Scorpion will be coming
out with a brand new debut release soon.
Who
KNOWS what terrors this man has cooked up??
And
what on earth is he going to do with a ROLAND GROOVEBOX??! I'm scared
already. .
6/17/99
War
Crimes Tribunal is laboring hard, day and night, to ensure the demise
of the French.
That's
right, the Tribunal's latest release is a great big FUCK-A YOU to the simple
simon song stylings of lusterless wonders like Daft Punk, Air and Casius.
An audio reaming that leaves you, the listener and fan, with dysentary
of the ears and a craving for more punishment.
Also
in the works: a War Crimes pot fuck album! J. "Shirts" Sublette vs. J.
"Skins" Fisher in a Texas Hellsnatch Match! Holy shit! 3 songs from each
man, fight to the fucking FINISH!
If
you thought Marlon Magas vs. Mr. Velocity Hopkins was the mother of all
battles, these 2 will make even the roughest, toughinest brawl between
now wave heroes seem like sissy boxin'! Armageddon!!!!!!
6/16/99
To
Live and Shave In LA is getting ready to tour. Here's the low-down from
Tom Smith,
SANS
dates. Check back with us in a few days for those.
"The line-up of the
band has been fluid as ever (our auxiliary members are free to come and
go as they
wish, rather like
a prison work-release program, no?), but yesterday it was finalized (at
least for the nine forthcoming tour dates).
It could be pretty goddamned amazing (if we manage to coalesce):
Francis Falestra
(aka Mr. Rat Bastard) will, as always, be performing
on bass guitar. Rat has
another, infinitely
more annoying group called The Laundry Room Squelchers, and, when not,
er,
'improvising' with
very attractive Latin women for 14 hours at a stretch (as is the LRS' usual
modus op),
also happens to
be a kick-ass engineer and producer. His work on last October's Liquor
Drink CD by
Frosty was fucking
excellent (he recorded the tracks 'Mattress Pad' and 'Gorilla'). South
Beach Studio,
the joint he runs
on (guess...) Miami Beach's Washington Avenue, is an absurdly professional
facility. And
Rat's Esynch label
brought Planet Earth the first two Harry Pussy singles, so, y'know, case
closed. Whilst
on stage, Rat has
no patience for anything save total destruction. (This ain't hyperbole,
trust me.)
Mr.
Nandor Nevai will again be heading TLASILA's still-embryonic
percussion division. Nandor is a
great goddamn drummer,
period. Plus he sings, plays any instrument, scores and arranges, and tends
to
wake in a variety
of impossibly disagreeable moods. Steer clear of Mr. Nevai between 9 a.m.
and 1
p.m. He first toured
with To Live and Shave on our 1995 Midwestern swing, and his way stellar
drum 'n' vox
exertions grace
the forthcoming God and Country Rally! album (now - dare I say? - set for
an August
release on SF's
Vulgar Tango). NN will again man the tubs, and supply vocals whenever the
mood strikes.
His tastes are immaculate,
and his new Flemish Masters imprint will reflect that gilded malignancy.
A
hefty (Hungarian
language) tome would have to be commissioned just to begin to properly
document the
man's output. Without
knowledge of its date of publication, these words will have to suffice:
the
MMYouSick? label,
Aborted Christ Childe, The Restaurants, Twilights of the Cannibalisms,
and Mila's Clammy
Hand.
Youthful Mark
Morgan is a Michigan-bred avant-punk with absolutely spot-on
appetites (he and I
shared a half-hour
gab on the inimitable John Morton just the other eve) and a distressingly
trebly
guitar sound. He
is TLASILA's neue lead axeman (he also performs the role with his NYC power-fuk
trio
Sightings), and
his audition (heard over a cordless phone with low battery power)
was too fucking good to
be believed. If
you should ever attend one of To Live and Shave's many Make-A-Wish Foundation
bowling
tournaments, Mr.
Morgan asks that you be kind and spot him a few frames.
Tom
Smith formerly performed with Kashif, Junior (yes, that is his
plaintive background tenor on
'Mama Used to Say'),
and was second lead guitarist with Boards of Canada (before they jumped
on the
Tower of Power revival
bandwagon). He won $1,000 in Post Cereals' 'Alpha-Bits Word Power '93'
competition for
creating the improbable anagram 'Alan Licht' out of the word 'pussy.'
Miss
Misty Martinez has a sweet, plump ass which whispers not "supremacy,"
but "sodomy." She
shook it previously
with David S. Ware's quartet and Gene October's Chelsea (the 1996
reformation), and
now she'll be shaking
it for To Live and Shave in Laura Ashley. Her peerless harmonium work was
cited at
some length in the
November 1986 issue of Forced Exposure (the Eerie Von cover, if you'll
recall). Under
hypnosis it was
revealed that in 1995 she approached Donald Miller mid-bleat during a Borbetomagus
concert; she bade
him lean forward, cupped his (reportedly) tin ear, and purred 'You fucking
SUCK, old
man!' (Because of
that incident, Miss Martinez lost a very important interview with popular
teen scene zine
Resonance.)
Weasel
Walter is American rock, is the (non-pouf) Chicago scene, is
a goddamn one-man
avalanche of indefatigable,
mindless/uber-mindful energy. Where to begin with this guy? The Flying
Luttenbachers, maybe,
or Lake of Dracula? Hatewave? Adam and the Antz? Vanilla? His Chicago No
Wave and Luttenbachers'
web pages? The never-ending stream of gigs, one-off collaborations, film
screenings, and
pissing contests? The Ug! Explode label and (sadly sundered) zine? From
stints with
Anthony Braxton
to his co-founding role in Miss High Heel and beyond, Mr. Walter has demonstrated
beyond any reasonable
doubt that he has a tremendous fucking amount of free time on his hands.
That he
so effortlessly
transmutes indolent matter into pure, solar wind-whipped entropy is testament
both to
his latent intelligence
and his refusal to maintain proper hygiene. Weasel first played with TLASILA
in
1995; he appears
(as does Mr. Nevai) on the soon-to-be-released Menlo Park double disk set
The
Wigmaker in Eighteenth
Century Williamsburg. For the tour, Mr. Walter will be performing on a
variety
of instruments (drums,
various guitars, sax, etc.).
So, there you have it.
TLASILA is Bastard, Nevai, Walter, Morgan, Martinez, and Smith."
For more Tom Smith action, see Menlo Park Recordings' website.
As
you can see, Tom has always been a hit with the ladies.
6/12/99
The website for Zeek Sheck's new "jam" band WOOFPIES can be found at:
http://members.xoom.com/woofpies.
$117
goes to the 1st person who successfully figures out what the FUCK is going
on around here. New stories, art, and varioius other inexplicable goings-on
from Ms. Sheck and friends.
You
need Shockwave Flash 3 to see it.
DOMT
TROCKK's new CD is nearly ready. . . are you?!
6/9/99
Here's
an interview with Weasel Walter.
5/31/99
Burt
Reynolds Band is looking for a name change. Send us your ideas!
pie_records@email.com
You
COULD win a prize even. Maybe.
This isn't news, per sé. . well, okay. Yeah it is. If it's in the news section, it is, by default, news. So there.
Anyway. Uncle Jeremy, the brand-LITERALLY-spanking new gutiarist for BRB, was the victim of a recent, vicious sneak attack/suprise birthday party. Cookie Soultrain, J. Sublette the ever-sexual Adrian Sexxxsymbol, and myself would represent Pie at said party. We introduced ourselves as various members of the upstanding now wave community, like Marlon Magas, Weasel Walter, Al Johnson, etc.
All of us, at some point or another, were confronted by shirtless, drunken rednecks. The whole fucking fiasco was made up of johnny rebs and lame stoners. Adrian mentioned something about the song "Chinese Mechanic" by Couch, and was immediately accosted by a thoroughly inebriated good ol' boy (who insisted that he was interrupting his "conversation" and "didn't wanna hear bout no fuckin Chinese.") Drunk fuck. As usual, Mr. Sexxxsymbol, who has been proven time and again by thorough, scientific studies to be tough as FUCKING NAILS, did NOT back down. No one came to blows over this "misunderstanding," though. More tension was added to the situation when J. Sublette said the singular word "TACO." This was interpreted as a racial slur.
Some
people truly deserve to be wiped out. People like the ones at this party.
Completely obliterated, and any trace of their existence eliminated. Let's
hear it for Orwellian thinking. .
5/13/99
Two of our senior representatives, Dale Hawkins and Kyle Riddle (both of TRJK and Eric Crowe Country Jamboree fame) raped and pillaged at a talent show in Cape Girardeau, Missouri a few days ago, winning over the crowd and blowing away the competition with an acoustic cover of Master P's "I Got The Hook Up." Way to go team.
The Burt Reynolds Band page will be remodeled (yet again), this time to include the 2 all new members, Dr. Thunder and Uncle Jeremy. Arms of Vishnu's page should get a facelift soon, as well.
Man.
. I need to get a page up for Eric Crowe Country Jamboree. Am I ever lazy.
5/11/99
The
rants/editorials/fuckups section has been discontinued, due to lack of
anything to write about. New
War Crimes Tribunal page. Burt Reynolds Band is starting to sound like
Led Zeppelin vs. Couch and Shellac in a 3 Corners Death Match. The change
is good.
5/9/99
New
Arms of Vishnu EP. 6 or 7 (who's counting, really. .) marathon-length songs
of robotic time travel and erotic annoyance.
Tape
only. Send $4.00 to:
Pie
Records
c/o
R. Jaspering
Rt.
1 Box 179
Jonesburg,
MO 63351
5/2/99
You
young, aspiring musician types: think rock and roll is easy?
Read
this.