Attack of the Huntsville Comps pt. II: Fuck the East Bay

Various Artists - Fuck The East Bay, This is ¡NOK! CD [¡Nation of Kids! 1997]

The Huntsville compilation series continues now with the only other one I own (there were several other cassette-only releases I'm still trying to find). Curated by Joey Tampon, this CD release was originally intended as a split betwixt The Toxic Shocks and North Carolina's Pink Collar Jobs. But Joey was never one to waste perfectly good space on any medium, so he filled the rest of the disc as best he could with odds, ends, knick-knacks and previously released material from a whole bunch of other bands as well.

Most everyone was still doing cassettes and vinyl at the time, so that this was on CD was kind of novel. However, given the questionable choice by Joey to dedicate only one track to each band -- streaming each song continuously, back-to-back -- negates most of the convenience of this format. But it may make for a more interesting iPod experience when the Toxic Shocks' 11 song selection comes up in shuffle mode at your next party.

Some of the bands represented here have already been discussed at length, so if you want more info on The Jawas or The Slackers, look at my older entries.

The 565 Burnouts were a short-lived outfit featuring Neil Delbaccio (The Burning Radios, Toxic Shocks), Jason Burke (Shitboy from Outerspace, Xpia), and Neil's wife Penny. They seemed to be modeled after East Bay faves Blatz, released a demo cassette I never picked up, and played out through the Summer of 1995 before breaking up.

Random Conflict I think it's safe to say Random Conflict have been at it for at least 20 years, save for a short hiatus in the '90s. Coming punk the thrashy skate punk scene of the late '80s, even today, these dudes haven't been changed by the times whatsoever.

The Peeps No scene was complete in the mid-90's without a ska band. While both punk and ska remain enjoyable to me to this day, I've grown to loathe the punk/ska hybrid more than Bill O'Reilly, child abuse, and the Holocaust combined. That being said, I can't help but maintain a special place in my heart of hearts for The Peeps. Subject of a recent, somewhat interesting documentary, this 4 to 8 man ensemble contained members from half the bands in town.

Shitboy from Outerspace This is actually Shitboy 2.0. The first version of the band included J. Tampon, and this short-lived, ressurected edition saw him replaced with Jimmy from Property and The Peeps, Scott Cox from Jabberjaw, and probably someone else I'm forgetting. Also, Elijah Horgan of The Peeps and 5 Star Generals played drums. The band was fronted by Jason Burke, later of The Pins, Paperbox, and now Xpia.

Anyhow. This concludes the Huntsville comp series for now. Hope you've enjoyed,.

Attack of the Huntsville Comps pt. I: Incest is Best

Various Artists - Incest is Best [¡Nation of Kids! 1995]

When in the business of excavating the remains of an extinct punk scene, some of your best nuggets come in the form of the old compilation disc. Typically, these are the work of several bands pooling their hard-earned cash together to put out a singular record, or perhaps a label with more groups on its roster than funds in its account. I'm guessing ¡Nation of Kids¡' Incest is Best comp was a little of both.

¡Nation of Kids¡ was a record label, zine, and music collective run by no one in particular in the early to late '90s. In fact, from what I can tell, Huntsville's The Crypt Kickers were still using the imprint in the early 2000's. What we have here is a healthy sampling that represents mid-90's Huntsville fairly well. The tracklisting is as follows:

Shitboy from Outerspace - "Dead World"
The Jawas - "Pointless"
Themack - "Fight Song"
Property - "Zone"
Puddle - "Astro Chicken"
The Peeps - "Punk Rock God"

The title, Incest is Best references, I assume, either or both the fact we all lived in Alabama and/or the fact that almost all these bands share at least one member. Contrary to popular belief, incest isn't as widespread in the South as one is taught to believe. However, incest among bands in a tightly knit music community is still pretty commonplace.

Bands like Shitboy (old school influenced punk fronted by Jason "Shithead" Burke -- later of The Pins, Paperbox, and now Xpia) and Puddle (another Joey Tampon surf ensemble), had more or less stopped playing by the time this comp made it out. The Peeps* -- HSV's compulsory ska/punk band -- were by far the most popular epresented here with Themack by far the least popular. As misfits within a larger circle of alleged misfits, Themack's glorious lack of conventional cool made the Fonzie hipsters recoil in horror (I mean, really, who the fuck had a computer in 1995, anyway? ) Property may have been Huntsville's longest running outfit (with the exception of Random Conflict) counteracting with pluck and spirit what they lacked in the way of technical proficiency.

So here you have it. Those of you who were there will surely experience at least a small flood of nostalgia. Those who weren't may at least enjoy the long lost spirit of DIY and find a good jam in the process.

* The Peeps track cuts off a little early. As the last track on the B-Side, it runs a little longer than any amount of 7" vinyl will allow.

The Slackers

The Slackers:
Where Were You in '92? (Fay-Get Records, 1994)
Circle A Your Day - (Nation of Kids, 1995)
Split with Fun Girls from Mt. Pilot (House O'Pain, 1996)
+ 1 Bonus track

I don't have the greatest explanation as to why, but it seems no band truly epitomizes Huntsville's concept of punk rock like The Slackers. Maybe it's because most of their members were crucial components of so many other important bands, or that their style and attitude mapped out the template we'd see in most other bands after them for several years to come.

Either way, at the time, you could not have convinced me there were any cooler four guys on Earth aside from these chaps. On the front lines you had the prematurely balding, righteously outspoken, homemade tattoo gallery and bassist/singer Joey Tampon (15E, Shitboy from Outerspace) whose comically nasal outbursts were glued together with the barnacle encrusted, gravel filled, razor blade gargling vocal chords of Heiko Schrepel whose snarling growl was tailor made for this band. On guitar, you had a very young Robert Daniel (The Peeps) who occasionally chimed in on vocals, and like Schrepel and Tampon, seems to have shared a good bit of writing duties. Of course, holding it all down on drums was Matt Seward, brother to Andrew Seward of Against Me!.

Lyrically, The Slackers covered all the hot button issues of the day. Every tune was an unrelenting attack on figures of authority, the pompous bourgeoisie, conformity, society on the whole (but most especially in the South), poseur punks, and of course, those fucking audacious, fancy pants, limousine-riding, money making rockstars (which is semi-ironic considering Heiko went on grace the Vans WARP Tour and Hot Topic stores across the country as the bassist for One Man Army). Semi-irony aside, these dudes sing it with a burning, urgent conviction and enough "fuck you!'s" to make for a pretty entertaining drinking game.

As it usually works in punk rock, the game is all about instant gratification - or at least "ASAP" gratification. You start a band because you want to play shows and put out records. So as soon as you know 4 or 5 songs, it's time to get on stage and into the studio - which explains why so many of the first E.P.'s by these bands are really sloppy. That's probably the case with "Where We You in '92?" which I would guess was definitely not recorded to a click track. But with "Circle A Your Day", they're starting to get the hang of it, and by the time their last recordings came out, they were a pretty tight band - not to mention economical. The Slackers wasted not an inch of vinyl, cramming never less than 4 songs on a side. For the most part, this is their whole discography aside from a few other compilation tracks and 9 or so unreleased songs that NOK! was later selling as part of a box set. All together, they equal up to about half an hour of music.

The bonus track here is (again) from Recess Records' "Play at Your Own Risk, Vol. 2". Rumors around this time were that The Slackers were in talks with San Francisco punk staple Lookout! Records about putting out a record, but the band's demise came when they ventured out to San Fran - a one show tour - to play that coveted mecca of all things punk in the 90's - Gilman Street. Legend has it that they were kicked out and banned as a result of Robert repeating an offensive lesbian joke throughout their set. I'm not entirely clear on the details or exact cause of this next incident, but according to a story Joey told me while we were on tour together as The 3D's, there was an altercation and they ended up leaving a scared and teary-eyed Heiko behind in Oakland, California, and traveled all the way back to Alabama without him. The band played their last show at The Tip Top Cafe shortly after, having members of the audience come on stage and sing in place of Schrepel (I used to have this on video tape but loaned it to Joey and never got it back).

Matt Seward moved away to go to school at Montevallo. Robert Daniel was playing with in the Peeps at the same time as The Slackers and continued doing so afterward. He started a short-lived rock n roll band called The Deadlines, replaced me as the guitarist of The 3D's, and now plays with The Counter Clockwise. Joey "Tampon" Tacon started many more bands, including The 3D's, The Radioactives, and Joey Tampon and the Toxic Shocks before finding Jesus and becoming a Baptist minister. Heiko came back to Huntsville briefly to get some clothes, sell off the remainder of his possessions, and moved back to California for good. As mentioned before, several years later he was on the WARP Tour as the bassist for One Man Army. According to his Wikipedia page, he's now playing with U.S. Bombs.