1994! Interview @ the Sugar Tank. Thursday, March 25th, 2010.

My questions are in bold. (C) Chris, (M) Mike, (B) Bernie.

Where the hell are we and what the hell are you guys doing here this week?
M: We're in the Keppel Building. It's in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where we're from... and we're recording.
C: We're working on a new record that should come out this summer. It's called Fuck Your Head, uhh-
For real?
C: Yeah. (Laughs) Umm, yeah. That's pretty much what we're doing.
M: And we're talking to you 'cause you're starting a zine.
Right on.
M: And Bernie's filming us.
Bernie is filming us. How is Fuck Your Head going to compare to Thank You Arms And Fingers?
C: It's a little more concise I think.
M: It's our Evil Dead 2.

(Chris lets out a hearty chuckle)

C: The songs are tighter...
M: Shorter...
C: Shorter, faster.
Yeah! I noticed that when I saw you guys the songs seemed more to the point, and maybe... perhaps more aggressive.
C: Yeah, a little bit. It's like... I think it's just everything's kind of fine-tuned a little more, which I guess is a natural process.
Cool. So you guys recorded your last full-length here, right?
M: Mhm, we recorded everything here. Everything we've done so far.
The Spires split too...
M: The split and the full-length we did in that room.
Yeah, I like the Spires split a lot. I play that a lot actually.
M: Cool.
I always crave more after I listen to it.

(Laughs)

The Spires half is really awesome too.
M: Yeah.
How did you guys get hooked up with Spires?
M: We're on the same little label, Inkblot. They put their full-length out right after they put ours out, and then we we're talking about touring and then we just kind of- I don't even remember how we-
C: I think we just like-
M: We just started talking to them, and then-
C: We just started trying to book west coast shows and we weren't even really sure how we were gonna get there or what we were gonna do, 'cause we don't have a van and we didn't have time to drive across the country because of work constraints, so we just weren't sure what we were gonna do and we started posting bulletins about it I think.
M: I don't remember.
C: Something like that. But we got in touch with them and had never even met them and then flew out there and rode with them for two weeks.
M: It was really weird because we had just talked on the phone for like, four or five months before we left and then we didn't know if it was actually gonna happen. It was just kind of relying on someone we didn't know. But they're like our best friends now. And we're touring with their other band, Big Kids, this summer.
Oh, that's right. I saw that on the myspace.
M: Yeah.
C: I remember like, having a panic attack almost, like the night before we were about to get on the plane, 'cause I was like "Wait, we've never met these dudes, what if they totally suck?"
(Laughs)
C: "What if they're so fuckin' lame, and we have to sit in a van with them for two and a half weeks?" And... and we lucked out, 'cause they're fuckin'... our brothers. (Laughs)
So is the vinyl for the new one coming out on Inkblot?
C: Yep!
M: Mhm. Yeah.
You guys are doing a tape of Thank You Arms And Fingers?
M: Yeah! It's uhh...
C: (Laughs)
M: It's happening! There's two kids that are doing it. They're called Black With Sap Records and they just asked us if we wanted to do something and we said "You guys can do the tape if you want." And they have all the artwork and they bought the rights from Inkblot to do it, so I think they're gonna start doing it real soon. We had some issues with that though, because they hired-
C: They like outsourced the dubbing.
M: They hired some other kid to dub it who's in some band- I won't say who he is- but apparently he's pretty well known, and he does this little tape company thing, and he didn't wanna do our tape because he thought that we were a sexist band because of our song titles.
Oh wow!
M: Yeah! So I had this really long back-and-forth e-mail battle with him trying to defend ourselves, but he ended up thinking ultimately that the song titles were too offensive and he thought we were sexist. Specifically one. Get Off Our Weed You Pussies.
(Laughs) Oh!
C: He thought it was derogatory towards women. It's absolutely not, of course, but in his defense he was really polite about it and he did... didn't he offer up another company to do it? And he was like "Here's people that will help you". So... I mean it's not like he just shit the bed on us, but I mean, it's still kind of like... we didn't do anything wrong! (Laughs)
M: Sorry dude, we're just fucking bitches! (Laughs) That's... no. A joke. Again, a joke.
How did you guys meet Bernie and why the fuck does he do your videos?

(Laughs)

C: Uh, you know, I don't know! (Laughs) No, Bernie and I went to high school together and actually, didn't I think- I thought you were like, talkin' shit on me for a while and I was like "That motherfucker. I hate Bernie!" and then all the sudden, like at a show or something, we were like "Yo I don't hate you. I don't hate you either!"
B: I was never talking shit on you.
C: Yeah you never were, and it was somebody else. And it was on the internet! That's why the internet is bad, 'cause Bernie wasn't talking shit on me.
M: I met Bernie at a couple shows, and then the first night I really met Chris and really met Bernie I was on acid at Lemonhouse. And that's how I met Bernie.
C: And we dumped Cognac into someones asshole. That's how that night went.
M: I don't know. Ask Bernie. Ask Bernie why he does our videos.
B: ... I'm not a part of this.

(Laughs)

B: I'm not trying to be the Michael Moore of low-budget rock documentaries.
M: I dunno, he's a bro, and I think he likes his work.
C: Yeah, he's good at what he does and he likes hangin' out so...
M: Sometimes we're funny, and sometimes...
He did the video for Termineighbor and Stutter Like You Mean It
C: Mhm. Yeah.
M: Well, I don't really think they're really videos, they're just kind of like samples-
B: (Whispers "montages".)
M: They're montages. They're samples of this thing that Bernie's filming for right now, just trying to film as much shit as we can and see what happens and maybe make something out of it in a couple years or so.
C: Yeah, just compile a documentary kind of thing.
I was wondering what kind of feeling you guys were trying to convey, particularly in the video for Stutter Like You Mean It?
M: I don't think... there's not even a video for that!
You guys are like, flying kites...
B: Oh yeah yeah yeah.
M: Oh that's not even our song!
B: That's uh, Claude Debussy. He's a french pianist. So I just downloaded the song and put it-
I haven't watched it in a while, so my bad.
M: That has absolutely nothing to do with our music or anything.
I could have sworn your song was in that.
B: It was just kind of supposed to be like... nostalgiac.
C: Yeah! It was supposed to be kind of like a-
M: Silly!
C: Almost like a teaser or something. We had originally decided that we had wanted this thing to be out by a certain point and now it's more like, let's just take a while and compile what we, you know, 'cause if we just would rush it, it's gonna feel forced or unnatural.
Yeah.
M: So we don't think we have any- yeah we don't have any music videos. I wanna do one that's just like, peoples heads exploding.

(Laughs)

Like Scanners.
M: Yeah, exactly. Our album cover's gonna be like that. You know Kyle? Big Kyle we were talking about? We just made a plaster cast of his head and painted it and we're gonna fill it with guts and blow it up and take pictures of it.
That's gonna be awesome.

(Laughs)

M: What was the question?

(Laughs)

It was about the music videos that apparently aren't music videos.

(Laughs)

B: Just me fucking around.
Yeah.

So you guys did pretty well with Thank You Arms And Fingers. Everytime I go into Mr. Suit someone's buyin' it.
M: Cool!
C: Good. That's awesome. (Laughs)
M: Yeah, we have the last of the copies now. It's done, it's out of print.
Completely?
C: Yeah, after we sell out of what we have, 'cause we actually, they thought it was out of print for a while and then I guess something happened, like he found more copies or-
M: I think they got returned.
C: Yeah they were probably just distro returns.
M: Which is awesome 'cause now we have them for our tour that we're doing in April, so we'll get rid of 'em all. Hopefully.
C: Yeah.
M: And that'll be that, and then maybe he'll wanna redo it and Inkblot will wanna redo it or... it's coming out on tape as we talked about earlier... but I'm happy. Something like that, I dunno.
C: (Laughs) Yeah, it's a good feeling though, to have something be complete I guess. I dunno.

(Kids playing and yelling outside on the pavement below)

M: SHUT UP!

(Laughs)

Ruining our fucking interview, Jesus!
M: Children!
C: Fuckin' assholes!

(Laughs)

C: Maybe we are bad people.
M: Maybe we are sexist.

(Laughs)

Let's look inward.
M: Sexist towards children.

(Laughs)

C: Not to be confused with sexy towards children.
Ew.
M: (Laughs) "Ew!"

(Laughs)

So what is your favorite place to play in Lancaster?
C: Probably the Sugar Tank, downstairs where we're recording.
M: Yeah.
C: They used to do shows here and...
M: Yeah, that was our favorite place. That's why we like recording there so much. It's the best room probably ever.
C: It's magic down there. I don't know what it is.
M: Could I get a piece of that? (Asking for gum) ...Thank you. Um, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah that place is probably our favorite.
C: Mhm. I like playing at the burrito shop (Senorita Burrita) too, it's fun.
Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
C: Yeah, it's a nice small room. Nobody really gets in the way or anything.
The sound doesn't completely suck.
M: Yeah. It actually sounds pretty good in there... with the window bouncing around.
C: Our basement (the Stomping Grounds, no longer doing shows) was pretty fun to play too, but we just did it so often, it was like...
M: Boyfriends did it too much.
That's about all I got, but-
M: That's all you got?
Pretty much! But I wanted you guys to tell me about Boyfriends, your other band.
M: We just... I don't know. We just started... actually Boyfriends started in the Sugar Tank also.
C: Yeah, we were kind of just dickin' around one summer and him [Mike] and our drummer Bean were messing around and Mike was playing guitar and playing drums, and I met them here for some reason and I was just hangin' out. Just sittin' in a chair, just singing along. And actually for the first several months of that band we never had a PA system, so I just never practiced with one and wrote all the songs without ever hearing them and then- it's been several incarnations of that band.
M: Yeah we always write like five songs that sound like they could be together, and then we don't play them anymore, so then we write five songs that sound like they could be together. We're like on our third or fourth set of five songs.

(Laughs)

C: And we just scrap all the other ones. So now it's... 'cause it was just me, Mike and Bean, and then we recorded five songs and then we did five other ones that sounded completely different, and still I was just doing vocals. Mike was playing guitar and Bean was playing drums and then I started playing bass and we wrote songs like that, and then actually another guitar player, our friend Matt who used to play bass for Circus Circus and he plays guitar in Consumer and now we're a four-piece. It was a really odd transition. We went from being a three-piece: drums, guitar and vocals, to like, a full- a real band. (Laughs)
And just for people who don't know, how does Boyfriends differ from 1994! aside from member differences?
M: Um, yeah. There's more... there's more people in it.
C: (Laughs)
M: And I don't play drums, I play guitar. And it's, I dunno, it's just less chaotic. It's more pop structure.
C: Yeah, it's stylistically-
M: It's boring!
C: (Laughs)
It's upbeat! I saw you one time at the Strawberry House. (No longer doing shows)
C: Yeah, it's a little more, it's definitely more straight-forward, without, I mean I think it's still... I hope it's interesting. (Laughs)
For sure. It definitely is.
C: But like, I dunno. It's just a little, it's a completely different outlet for all of us I think, so you get a little bit of a difference.
you can still hear how the two bands might be connected, you know?
Yeah.
C: It's definitely not the same.
That's all I got! You guys wanna say anything else?
C: Okay!
M: Nope, I don't think so. Thanks.
C: Thanks for interviewing us.

Blacklisted - No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me

A swing and a miss. Okay, maybe more like a foul ball. I'm not sure, I don't really watch baseball so maybe I'm not qualified to make such a metaphor. Shit. Anyway, where was I?

Philadelphia's Blacklisted released arguably one of the best heavy albums of 2008, Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God, which contained nearly 20 minutes worth of vitriolic and deeply personal metallic hardcore. The album was intense and beautiful, showing off enough progressiveness and experimentation to make them a stand-out band in the hardcore genre. In the latter half of '09, the band announced they would release their next full-length No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me in November. Well, November rolled around, and there was still no further information. Then, without any warning, it dropped on the first of December, vinyl- only with no pre-order. Rarely before have I formed a fully realised opinion so soon after listening to a record. The band tries numerous new things here, most notably instrumentally, sporadically adding violins, trumpets, and even rainsticks into the mix. But where bands like Refused succeeded at these type of experimental risks 10 years ago, Blacklisted seems to come up short. In a time where every other hardcore band seems to be placing ambient, artsy interludes between their songs, Blacklisted falls victim to the trend and it just comes off as self-indulgent and forced. Another issue I have is with George Hirsch's vocals this time around. I feel this record could have benefited and been more effective if his screams were harsher and more dissonant. Instead, Hirsch tries to sing and add melody, and it's just not as hard-hitting as on their previous record. At times it's almost downright embarrassing, particularly on the track "The P.I.G. (The Problem Is G.)". The last real track, "I Am Extraordinary" is a bizarre fuzz-pop ballad, which once again suffers from George's vocals being too subdued. This leads into the final interlude, comprised of various ambient clinkings and ringing - totally frustrating and pointless. All criticisms aside, No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me is a bold fucking record, from the limited release to the album's experimentation, and I can definitely appreciate that. You can't go anywhere if you don't try, after all. Unfortunately, in the end it just wasn't as relentless and frantic as I hoped it would be. Still, this is not a band to be missed in a live setting (hope you like pile-ons!) and I'm excited for what the future holds for Blacklisted.

Be sure to pick up the No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me 12" LP from the Deathwish e-store, here.

Bad Brains - "Rock For Light" (Caroline, 1983)

If there's one beef I have with the Bad Brains it's the religious zeal. I wish I could take a time machine back to 1982 and tell them "Look, you guys are from D.C. and you're playing to predominantly white crowds, no one cares about Jah." Of course, this would likely be followed by me getting beat up. Perhaps I could find a young Henry Rollins and tell him to give them my message for me. I'm sure he could take a few punches. That said, these songs RULE!!! Even the Rasta-heavy songs like "Coptic Times" and, well, all the reggae songs are played with such conviction that it almost makes me want to grow dreadlocks and convert. Almost. Like I said, this is powerful stuff, and Ric Ocasek's incredible production job makes it easier to digest than their first record. Make no mistake, this isn't your typical early bone-headed hardcore. The Bad Brains were sharp and precise with absolutely menacing guitar solos. Listen to the aggressive assault of "Banned in D.C." or "Riot Squad" and tell me it doesn't make you want to slam dance! Singer "H.R." could spit some real venom. His singing was pure pandemonium, and yet he had a truely impressive control over his voice, from a bark to a wail to a yelp. If you are a fan of hardcore-punk or just important rock 'n' roll in in general, (They would go on to influence countless bands. Do the Beastie Boys or the Red Hot Chili Peppers ring a bell?) this record is essential listening. So put it on and destroy shit! And when the reggae songs come on, light up a joint and just relaaaax maaaan. Or, if you're into that other early D.C. hardcore band - don't. You know which one!