Southpaw Nation

Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine

2007-09-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Vinyl Still Breathing...

2007-08-16T10:13:00.001-07:00

Chicago Tribune article

More Eroding Music Consumer Rights

2007-05-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

Maybe Garth Brooks will have the last laugh after all. Used CD Restrictions crop up in some states.

Cool flick

2007-05-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

a sequel of sorts to Henry Fool. But a pretty brilliant way to make a sequel. Same characters, but totally bizarre spin-offs.

Classic

2007-05-03T10:34:00.001-07:00

More Great News for the Music Industry

2007-05-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Best Buy Don't Need Your Little Round Plastic Music Discs

Music in the Globalization Age

Star Wars Robot Chicken

2007-05-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

So, I've never seen this show and don't really have a desire too, but this clip was amusing. I might check out this episode when it comes out. And apparently there are other clips from other Robot Chicken shows.

Mash it up, mash it up

2007-04-26T09:40:00.001-07:00

Watchdog Mash-Ups

King on Cho

2007-04-20T17:07:00.001-07:00

On Predicting Violence

Da Da Da Dah Dah Da

2007-04-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

I Hella Love Oakland

2007-04-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Oakland's Tight

NPR Spins the Black Circle

2007-04-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

NPR report on vinyl resurgence

Spinning Into Oblivion

2007-04-10T11:07:00.001-07:00

NY Times Editorial

Alanis does My Humps

2007-04-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Indie Rock to get Played

2007-03-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

Anti-payola settlement

2006 Roundup

2007-02-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

favorite 2006 releases (music)

drag the river (it's crazy)

drag the river (...away w/ women) 7"

drag the river (twi) 7"

strike anywhere (dead fm)

whiskey & co (leaving the nightlife)

against me (americans abroad live in london)

slayer (christ illusion)

william elliot whitmore (song for the blackbird)

bob dylan (modern times)

anti-flag (for blood & empire)

tom waits (orphans)

avail reissues

lenny & the piss poor boys

afi (december underground)

terror (always the hard way)

favorite 2006 releases (movies/dvd/tv)

the notorious bettie page

poseidon

an inconvenient truth

underworld: evolution

hank williams: honky tonk blues (dvd)

bad religion: live at the palladium (dvd)

enron: the smartest guys in the room (dvd)

dust to glory (dvd)

kid dynamite: four years in one gulp (dvd)

24 (dvd)

beavis & butthead: the mike judge collection (vol. 1-3)

deadwood (hbo/dvd)

rescue me (tv)

surface (tv/dvd?)

cathouse: the series (hbo)

big love (hbo)

entourage (hbo)

2006 reading list (best-of)

cell (stephen king)

company (max barry)

computer security for the home and small office (thomas green)

'salem's lot illustrated edition (stephen king)

rebels on the backlot (sharon waxman)

playback (mark coleman)

beginning css web development (simon collison)

php solutions: dynamic web design made easy (david powers)

Your Changing Body video

2006-12-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

Classic. Your Changing Body.

Should've put down the Employee not the Animal...

2006-12-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

Cougar mauling. People aren't so bright sometimes.

The report of the death of book may have been premature...

2006-12-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

Forbes Special Report on the state of the publishing industry.

How I Learned to Love the Bomb, or, well, at least how to make one...

2006-11-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Nuke Building 101 site shut down

Why Gas Prices are Coming Down...

2006-10-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

from Fortune: "Trust us. It wasn't OPEC or Republicans trying to influence midterm elections."

Grindhouse Footage

2006-10-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

frickin' sweet

Not Ready to Make Nice...

2006-10-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

I don't even like the Dixie Chicks, but after the Nashville country music establishment and so-called country music "fans" showed what complete ignorant a-holes they are in the backlash to an expression of the very freedoms their gunracks and US Flag pins and flagwaving should be representing, I wanted to go out and buy every record. Well, I didn't, but I'll see this Shut Up & Sing doc. Roseanne Cash had some words about the asinine backlash too.

More on the Death of the Indie Store

2006-10-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

Indie stores die, die, die my darling...

Strike Anywhere/Inquisition Acoustic

2006-10-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

Giant Bug Attacks Germany!

2006-09-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Bug Attack! (...and what it is)

Stylus Magazine Guide to Record Stores

2006-09-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Stylus Magazine's Favorite Record Stores, by region.

Small Talk

2006-09-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

Vinyl to outlive CDs?

2006-09-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

Seems likely to me. Vinyl has always been 'hipper' and 'cooler' than CDs and there is a thriving secondary market for it. 7" sales are blowing up in the UK anyway.

Read Banned Books!

2006-09-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

It's always been my personal policy to read pretty much any book They didn't want me to read. Now, Google has made it easy to celebrate your right to read (not that many people do anymore).

Be Tom Cruise (but not, you know, worship aliens)

2006-09-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

If the computer user interface in Minority Report really got you off, you might be able to get one soon. See the Atlas Gloves demo.

Monterey Bay Aquarium gets another Great White

2006-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

For only the second time, there's a white shark at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 5 feet 8 inches long and 104 pounds. Watch the webcam!

Canadian Bacon & Indie Sausuage

2006-08-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Future of the Major Record Label, Canadian-style

Future of the Indie Record Label, Lumberjack-style

Future of the Album, Beck-style

Jesus Crispies run the US GOVT

2006-08-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

Evolution not worth studying apparently

The Continuing War on Itunes & iPods at War

2006-08-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

iPods at War

Couple of interesting Wired News pieces on some iTunes competitors and iTunes holdouts.

Plight of Indie Record Stores

2006-08-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

Plight of Indie Record Stores. More evidence that the bank loan denial to get the $$$ to open High Fidelity Records might not have been so bad (our business plan was under review the week of 9/11/01).

UPDATE: Tower Records still going down in flames too

Do NOT Fuck w/ Russian Squirrels

2006-08-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

Russian squirell pack kills dog

Sick

2006-08-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Double Back-Flip

Cyclops Baby

2006-08-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

Warning: Kinda gruesome.

The Yeti Crab

2006-08-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

Furry 'lobster' found in Pacific

Less Than Bush

2006-08-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

Rest of My Life video from Less Than Jake.

Bush in 30 Seconds Ad from MoveOn.org

Joel Siegel vs. Kevin Smith

2006-07-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

Read, then Listen

Yep, yep, and...yep

2006-06-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

10 Reasons HD-DVD has Already Failed

AVAIL doc trailer

2006-06-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

Kid Falls from Ferris Wheel

2006-06-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Considering these things are put together in a few hours by a bunch of tweakers, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

Connie Chung is a nutter...

2006-06-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

To wrap up her canceled MSNBC show w/ hubby Maury "...and in the case of 3-yr old Latisha Jones, you ARE/ARENOT the father" Povich, Connie got all dressed up and did a grand piano number.

Ah, our elected officials...

2006-06-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

well, your elected official if you live in the 8th district of Georgia.

Colbert vs. Georgia Congressman Westmoreland

New ID Theft Wrinkle

2006-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

Paypal Security Hole

Get down, get down...

2006-06-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

This bit was featured in Ghost World, but here is the whole thing.

Tim Barry (AVAIL) LIVE

2006-05-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

Ain't Right Sure/Idle Idylist

Drag the River LIVE

2006-05-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

Me & Joe Went to California/Brookfield

Barroom Bliss

Leavin' in the Morning

Tomorrow Morning

Deer on the Rampage Again!

2006-05-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

A while back there was a rash of deer attacks and it looks like the crazy buggers are at it again.

Alienated Duck

2006-05-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently, you'll be able to bid on the original x-ray this Sunday on eBay. Even comes w/ a certificate of "authenticity." Happy bidding.

Now, This is a Dune Climb!

2006-05-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

Lady in the Water trailer

2006-05-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Miami Vice trailer

2006-05-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Saw a test screening of Miami Vice a couple weeks ago. It is indeed as bad as this trailer makes it look. Like they shoved some wannabe Michael Bay bombastic kind of movie into Michael Mann's slowburn style. Super bad one-liners. Embarassingly bad sex scenes. Good violent scenes those, even though we didn't see the final f/x. Colin Ferrell looks ridiculous in his get-up and he just sucks. I don't know how he keeps getting big parts. Jamie Foxx even looks lost here.

Have Laptop Will Travel

2006-05-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Gone in 20 Minutes

Another Sweeping Telecommunications Bill...

2006-05-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

...in the works

Stephen Colbert vs. Bush

2006-05-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Part 1
Part 2

Stephen Colbert at White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Gun Safety Gone Bad

2006-04-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

This video has been making the rounds for a while, but apparently the guy is now suing the DEA.

Do No Evil Management

2006-04-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

From the Wall Street Journal, an article on Google Management.

More biodiesel news

2006-04-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

Why this isn't huge, I don't know. Maybe this new tiny reactor will get things moving.

Baby Got Book

2006-04-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Pismo Oceano Dunes Trip 05/14/05

2006-04-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

Bo Diddley--Roadrunner (1960)

2006-04-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Against Me--Turn Those Clapping Hands into Angry Balled Fists

2006-04-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

Screeching Weasel--Live @ House Of Blues Chicago, 10/29/00

2006-04-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

Like We Need Another Reason to Hate Wal-Mart

2006-04-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, here's another one. An article describing Wal-Mart's influence in the video game industry.

None More Black--This is Satire

2006-04-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

If None More Black now sounds like a halfway different band than what debuted w/ File Under Black in 2003--an album that was on my constant rotation for months--perhaps it's because they are a halfway different band. Only original vocalist/guitarist Jason Shevchuck (of the legendary Kid Dynamite) and bassist Paul Delaney remain from that release. Although I think the primary songwriter remains, this band has been through so many line-up changes it's amazing they made it to a second full-length LP at all.

Produced by J. Robbins, This is Satire eschews the poppy but unabashed energy of FUB for largely mellower, mid-tempo stylings. There are even a few that have some alt-country flourishes, although some work better ("D is for Doorman") than others ("Majestic"). The other alt-countryish tune, "Who Crosses the Border Without a Shirt?", is actually one of the songs I liked best on the record. Some other highlights are "We Dance on the Ruins of the Stupid Stage" and "Under My Feet," which most closely capture the fun of the first album. I also liked a slower, "2nd single" kind of song, "10 Ton Jiggawatts," which has a hint of That Thing You Do flavor.

But there are also a couple of sure-fire misses. "I See London" is a dirgy downer right in the middle of the record (is this a J. Robbins trademark these days? see "Violence" on Against Me's Searching for a Former Clarity). And there is no excuse for a punk band (even one with a bunch of Metallica-loving metalheads as these guys) aping Poison's "Unskinny Bop" as NMB does on "Zing-Pong." Earlier this year, the riff of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" showed up on Propagandhi's Potemkin City Limits song "A Speculative Fiction," but that seemed somehow appropriately ironic. "Zing-Pong"'s glam/funk-metal breakdown just doesn't work for me.

So, I didn't loathe it and I didn't love it, and this record may grow on me. But, my first reactions, after a couple of listens, is that I won't really be listening to it all that much.

Unansnwered Questions--what really happened on 9/11?

2006-03-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

Unanswered Questions & Conspiracy Theories

9/11 Loose Change video

AVAIL reissues

2006-03-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

These are very nice and well put together reissues by Jade Tree of the best Avail albums. As it says in the liner notes, "this trio of discs really cemented the band's place in the legend and lore of the underground, artfully fusing hardcore, 80s punk, and classic rock, with a hint of old school country." Each has basically all new artwork and packaging because Lookout! lost the original art files.

As a hardcore Avail fan, I think the $38.50 I spent on the preorder to get all 3 CDs (plus a cool t-shirt and poster) was well worth the money. These 3 CDs actually "replace" 4 CDs, a 10"/CD, and 2 7"s (plus a couple compilation tracks). Each one has a small piece of 2 Avail logos, so if you get all 3 and line them up it creates the whole logo images on your CD shelf. Small, but nice little detail. All have identical liner notes by A.C. Thompson with some additional, very short comments by Tim or Beau Beau about the specific recording(s) on the CD. Expanded lyric booklets with new and/or additional photos are included in all, as well as new CD art (the same CD art is actually on all 3, but in different colors w/ a 94, 96, or 98 indicated in the disc to reflect the original release year). I like the "series" touch Jade Tree put on these 3 releases.

The remastering has improved the sound on all the releases somewhat, but I wasn't blown away by any vast improvements over the original releases. So, if you're basing your repurchase decision on only improved sound quality, I wouldn't say that alone is worth replacing your original CDs. But, if you've never picked these up before, I would whole-heartedly recommend buying the reissued versions over the originals.

Over the James

Not only my favorite Avail album, but one of my all-time favorite albums period. The mostly acoustic version of "Lombardy St." from the Fall of Richmond 7"/CDEP included here has also always been my favorite version of that song. The 3 covers--Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" (from the Return of the Red Menace AK Press comp), Billy Joel's "You May Be Right" (from the Fall of Richmond CDEP), and Embrace's "Said Gun" (Land of Greed World of Need comp) aren't essential, however. Even though the extras aren't overwhelming, Over the James would be my pick for the first album someone should check out if they're interested in Avail.

4 A.M. Friday

4 A.M. Friday is a great value not only because it is a great album, but because it also includes the Live at the Bottom of the Hill CD. Seeing Avail live is an amazing experience, and that disc captured it well. One of the highlights of the set was "Nameless," an anti-violence anthem where a fight breaks out at the show mid-song ("Uh, are you guys not listening to this song or what?"). Even though I still found no super-appreciable difference in sound quality, this is definitely the most worthwhile pickup if you never bought either release originally and could serve as a fine introduction to the band, as well. I'm sure there is some argument over whether 4 A.M. or Over the James is the best Avail record (hell, I've also heard some crusties say Dixie is their favorite).

Dixie

Including the Attempt to Regress 7" and the bootleg-quality Live at the Kings Head Inn, Dixie is another solid Avail release, albeit a slightly different sounding band than what they evolved into on 4 A.M. and Over the James. It was a huge step forward from Satiate, though (which wasn't reissued). The Live at the Kings Head 10"/CD was only recommendable to the most hardcore of Avail fans, so the extras on this disc aren't enough to recommend a re-purchase, and I would say pick up this album last (of the three) if you're just discovering Avail.

Zen & The Art of Music Collecting

2006-03-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

Soulseeking

And they say punk rock's not dangerous anymore...

2006-03-03T12:42:00.000-08:00

This bike is not a pipe bomb

This bike is a pipe bomb

Punk Rock Superheroes tracklisting

2006-03-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

Lint (OpIvy/Rancid/Transplants) vs. Alk3

2006-02-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

It's a reggae vs. goth battle! Hear the results.

"Touring" w/ Drag the River

2006-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

(from 2/17):
Day 1 of our planned 4-day DTR gorging was in San Jose @ the Blank Club. That joint was darkest bar I've ever been in. Seriously, I could barely see walking around there. Like some vampire club w/ just red lights.

Opener 1: The Mojo Apostles who also apparently drove down from Oakland like us. Doesn't mention him as an influence on their bio page, but the Apostles seemed like disciples of Mojo Nixon to me w/ maybe a little goofier Supersuckers and some Southern Culture on the Skids thrown in. I guess their highlight was the song about losing another good man to Christianity and his wife says they're sinners and for once that bitch is right. They were also the biggest draw of the night as it was supposed to be their CD release party and they were shooting a video.

Next up, also from the East Bay, was Dynamite 8. Um, the less I say about this band the better probably. I will say that this description "Some of the band's influences are The Descendents/All, Wretch Like Me, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Bronx, Hot Water Music, and Jawbreaker. JoAnn's powerful voice rarely gets reference to other female vocalists, but some of her trademark inflections coincidentally bare resemblance to James Hetfield of Metallica and Glenn Danzig of the Misfits" from their online bio is total BS. I could have done w/o having to sit through them. Plus, after their set, the singer went from mildly obnoxious to full-on "that guy" (er, gal) obnoxious drunk.

And, finally, around midnight, Drag the River! I've seen them 3 or 4 times and I think this might have been my favorite show yet. They played for a long time; I don't think we got out of there until around 1:30. They played just about every (newer) song we wanted to hear. I couldn't even think of any I wanted to request (I thought of "Caleb's Grave" and "Away w/ Women" later, which I didn't end up requesting at any of the shows).

My wife wanted to hear them do "Hybrid Moments" and they didn't do that, but that was about it. She did get her favorite, "So Long Hoss" though. And I got to hear some of the newer ones I wanted to: "Lost Angel Saloon" and "Amazing Grace & Chuck Fasano" Plus one of my all-time favorite DTR songs, "Me and Joe."

They also played "Portland" and from a comment Chad made, I think they probably played most, if not all, of the new record too. And a really cool version of "Beautiful and Damned." Some older songs included "Medicine," "Mars Motors," "Embrace the Sound," "Columbus Stockade," "Tomorrow Morning," "Deminer," "Kelly Country," and probably bunch more I can't remember right now.

I didn't bring the video camera, but someone was taping their show. Maybe that'll show up somewhere sometime.

Great show!

(from 2/21):
So last night marked our 4th straight night in a row of Drag the River.

That was a blast every night. I don't know how often I'd drive all over NorCal to see the same band 4 nights in a row, but I'm sure glad we did. Each show was a unique experience and a great time. I was so beat last night though. I don't know how bands do it, driving all over hell and playing every night. And I wasn't even drinking and partying all night after every show.

I'd say the Santa Cruz show was our favorite overall. We showed up just in time for I Can Lick Any SOB in the House. We had shown up for the last half of their set at Bottom of the Hill in SF and we liked them ok that night, But, we really enjoyed them at The Attic in Santa Cruz. The San Jose show/set was probably our favorite DTR set, but we had the most fun overall in Santa Cruz. The Attic was a really nice venue. Someone was taping this show too (audio). I hope that shows up somewhere soon.

BOTH probably had the most people and that SF show was fun too. The crowd really fed those guys the alcohol that night. I don't know how those guys do all those Jager bombs and shots and still manage to sound so good. Of course by the time they were really trashed it started to show, but it was still awesome. People didn't want to let Chad off the stage but he had to laugh and say he was too drunk to keep playing. He did give us all a bonus performance of "Modern Drunkard," which as appropriate and awesome.

I think I had some nostalgic recollections going about Old Ironsides in Sacramento. It is a fine dive bar, but seeing a band there is claustophobic to say the least (low ceilings freak me out I guess...). And the band didn't even all fit on the stage.

That was the most "star-studded" affair of the 4 shows I noticed, as local stalwarts Groovie Ghoulies (aka The Haints) were in attendance. That night seemed a lot mellower set overall and they might have seemed a little on the tired side (I know we kinda were from all the driving and we weren't even drinking and playing every night!). We did get some requests in that night ("Lost Angel Saloon" and "Down this Road"--I think that is the name of that Steve Earle song, I felt kinda unsure when they didn't recognize what the hell I was asking for at first). The new guys (Spacey Casey in particular) did a pretty rad job of playing that song they'd never played on the fly.

Since we saw all those shows, we didn't have too many requests cuz we heard pretty much every song we wanted to hear. I guess they're not playing "Hybrid Moments" anymore, though. Some people asked for that and got denied. I'd seen them do it a few times, but my wife wanted to hear that one since this was her first DTR experience. There seemed to be some running joke about "Southbound Train" too.

All-n-all, awesome 4 days of shows...

Screeching Weasel--Kill the Musicians (Remastered Reissue)

2006-02-22T08:07:00.000-08:00

The last of the Asian Man Screeching Weasel reissues (although 2 Riverdales reissues still to come this year). I have to say these last two reissues (Enemies & KTMM) have been pretty ...(ahem) lackluster...efforts.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any rarities/b-side compilations that are recommendable to anyone but the most hardcore fans, and this one isn't much different. Being one of those hardcore fans of Weasel, of course I own or have owned most of the original pressings and was pleased to get the CD when it was released in 1994. There are a few great tracks on here (I prefer the version of "Hey Suburbia" included here to the Boogadax3 version, for example, and "Radio Blast," "Around on You," and "Mary Was An Anarchist" are worth a listen, as are the live-from-Gilman tracks "Veronica Hates Me," "I Can See Clearly Now," "Supermarket Fantasy," and "Science of Myth".

If you have all the other pre-Emo albums and can't get enough of the band, I'd suggest picking this up next. Only the most hardcore of hardcore fans probably need the second collection, the 2xCD Thank You Very Little (the 2nd disc does feature a nice live set from 1993). The set isn't as cool as the There's a Screaming Otter in My Pants bootleg, though, which captured a great show of the band at their peak. And I wouldn't recommend Emo or Teen Punks in Heat to anyone.

The KTM reissue cover art and titles do look sharper and I do prefer the new CD "art." The arguably termed "brand new" artwork consists of a few new color photos along with some of the original photos now in color. The original CD artwork and a couple old photos included in Ben's original liner notes (one was of All Night Garage Sale, Ben and Jughead's pre-Weasel band) are no longer included.

As these tracks were already remastered in 1994, sound quality is not so much a concern when deciding whether to buy this version or track down the out-of-print Lookout! CD, which really shouldn't be too hard if you apply yourself.

Ben's in-depth History of Screeching Weasel essay has been replaced with a rather uninspiring lecture on how the bad old days aren't really worth commenting on. Short notes from Matt Skiba (Alkaline Trio) and Matt Smith (Strike Anywhere) are also included, as well as a lenghty, sentimental essay from Mass Giorgini who eulogizes his late, cancer-stricken father in the context of his working relationship with Screeching Weasel over the years. While this is a nice essay with some interesting tidbits (the story about Ben's original vocals for "Kathy's on the Roof" was amusing--think about it: "Kathy's on the roofagin"), it's not especially informative and not nearly as interesting as Ben's original liner notes, which Ben derides as "voluminous, rambling, and nonsensical." In fact, Mass's liner notes would have made much more sense had they been included in the barren Enemies reissue packaging.

Now I don't know about you, but I'd kinda like the guy putting out the records to know what he's talking about, so when Mike Park (Asian Man)'s liner notes talk about how much he loves rarities collections and how this collects a lot of great stuff, blah blah, and how it would be nice to "have the original CDs in your collection, but that's what eBay is for," it irks my fact-checker that none of the KTM tracks appeared on CD before the original release of KTM (as far as I know the tracks that were released were on various 7" releases and 10" or 12" vinyl compilations). Sure it's obvious he meant the original vinyl pressings, but, c'mon. Is a little attention to detail too much to ask?

Perhaps most unforgiving however, is the lack of a list of which tracks came from which releases. Originally that information could at least be gleaned from the liner notes (or, from the discography that was included in the original pressing of Enemies--also deleted from the reissue packaging). The recently relaunched www.screechingweasel.com has an incomplete discography at the moment.

Some armchair QB'ing suggestions on what might have made this a more intersting reissue package (I'm just spitballing here):

Maybe original cover art from all the EPs and compilations would have made some nice, "brand new artwork" for the packaging.

The 4 songs from the Weasel Ramones cover LP now seem superflous now that the whole LP has been released on CD, and it would have been ok w/ me if they had deleted those 4 tracks to make room to include some other songs (maybe even the Formula 27 bonus tracks off the Ramones CD, even though they're not from the era represented on this collection). Perhaps "My Friends Are Getting Famous" or "Disgusteen," or the 7" EP tracks left off originally because as Ben said in the original liner notes: "they blow."

"My Friends Are Getting Famous" is off 1994's Punk USA compilation, compiled by Ben, which featured exclusive-at-the-time tracks from Screeching Weasel, Jawbreaker, face to face, the Queers, the Vindictives, Rattail Grenaider (Mass Giorgini's pre-Squirtgun band; basically Squirtgun w/ a different singer), and more (an unlisted Garden Variety track is also on the CD--apparently, they drew the ire of Mr. Weasel by including the song on their album that came out shortly before the compilation's release; it was too late to cut them from the CD, but not too late to cut them from the packaging. Of the bigger names on the record, the Weasel, Queers, and face to face songs still seem to be exclusive. Hard to imagine that over 10 years later this comp still sells enough copies to justify keeping tracks on it exclusive, so why not add "My Friends Are Getting Famous" to KTM?

"Disgusteen" was the title song to a really bad, super low-budget gay-vampire flick Ben wrote and directed that I'm sure he would love to forget ever happened (not sure how he feels about his appearnce in Bruce LaBruce's gay porn film, Super 8 1/2). Ben recorded "Disgusteen" with Chicago's 8-Bark as his backing band. So, it's not Screeching Weasel, true, but from what I remember of the nth-generation VHS copy I used to have, the soundtrack wasn't terrible. Including the 7" version of "I Wanna Be a Homosexual" with Bruce LaBruce's intro would've been good, too.

Another possible inclusion of an out-of-print Weasel-related project was The Shotdowns, who released a 7" on Lookout Records. Ben did some A&R work for Lookout and "found" them an old school hardcore act from Maine. Lookout bit on it and put out the 7". Turned out later it was actually Ben, Jughead, and Jersey Beat's Jim Testa.

Wouldn't have been good for Weasel purists maybe, but would've been some nice added value.

Original Release: 8/10
Reissue: 5/10

2005 Year-in-Review

2006-02-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

(music)

against me (searching for a former clarity)

See review.

clutch (robot hive/exodus)

The follow-up to last year's Blast Tyrant, Robot Hive/Exodus picks up right where BT left off. Why don't more people jock these guys? I was thoroughly bummed I missed them play live (again). And this time we even had tickets but were sick.

sleater-kinney (the woods)

See brief reviewlette.

heavy trash

I do still enjoy the Blues Explosion's records, but last time I saw them live, their schtick seemed really tired and they didn't really seem all that into it. They've gone from being one of the best live shows I've ever seen to this day (saw them twice in 1993 on the Extra Width tour and a couple times after that to just being kinda boring. But, when I saw Heavy Trash live they were a blast and it looked like Jon was actually having fun again. So, I wouldn't mind if he retired JSBX and started this full-time (and maybe he has, as the JSBX website seems to be gone). This is a fun album and band that sounds basically like JSBX crossed w/ the more rockabilly-tinged Speedball Baby (Matt Verta-Ray's main outfit).

screeching weasel (reissues)

See all but one review here. KTM review here.

lillingtons (technically unsound boxset)

See review.

shook ones (sixteen)

See review.

propagandhi (potemkin city limits)

I still have a soft spot for the John K. Samson lineup's dynamic, with the harder edged punk riffs of Chris Hannah vs. the melodic stylings of John-John (now putting out shoegazer anthems with The Weakerthans. These days, you've got ex-I Spy bassist Todd Kowalski's hardcore thrash vs. Chris Hannah's thrash metal. Even so, I like this album way more than Today's Empires, Tomorrows Ashes and it's hard to argue that this isn't their best album musicianship-wise. They totally shred, bro, no matter how grumpy they are.

western addiction (cognicide)

Kind of an honorable mention since I know the singer/guitarist, but I actually do like their album. 80s-style hardcore. That lumberjack guy singin' and strummin' seems to a lot different than the J. Crew dude I went to college with though.

(live highlights of 2005)

against me / smoke or fire / soviettes live (slim's SF)

gossip live (bottom of the hill SF)

(movies/dvd/tv)

crash (2005)

batman begins

wedding crashers

walk the line

wal-mart: the high cost of low price

war of the worlds

bewitched

constantine

sin city

prozac nation

reading list (best-of)

harry potter & the half-blood prince

the road to the dark tower

dark tower concordance volume ii

the colorado kid

fast food nation

So no fact-checking of memoirs...

2006-01-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

Publishing Fiascos

Ben Weasel's History of Screeching Weasel

2006-01-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

Ben Weasel's original liner notes in the 1994 release of Kill the Musicians (as posted on my now-defunct semi-official Screeching Weasel website, Boogadaboogadaboogada--1994-1997, RIP...apologies for any typos introduced when I originally typed this up):

The Screeching Weasel Story

We formed in 1986 a few weeks after I saw the Ramones. Back then, we were known as All-Night Garage Sale and I was attempting to play bass. Jughead was the guitarist and a displaced Door County-ite appropriately named Steve Cheese was our drummer. Aside from a couple of songs from a practice tape that were played on WNUR's Fast and Loud show, we didn't record anything. Those practice tapes are long gone. By November, we'd added a real bass player who we christened Vinnie Bovine...Vinnie was a metalhead, but he got some of those letter stickers from the hardware store and spelled out FUCK YOU on his guitar, and that was good enought for me. We also changed our name to Screeching Weasel, a variation on the name suggested by a freind: "Screaming Otter," which he saw on a frat boy shirt that read "I'VE GOT A SCREAMING OTTER IN MY PANTS!" (In case you're wondering, All-Night Garage Sale was suggested by Mr. Cheese in honor of the wierd guy who lived by the Dairy Queen in Prospect Heights and sold his wares out of his carport at 1:00 A.M.)

I looked up recording studios in the phone book and finally found one that didn't laugh when I told him we were a punk band. The studio was Solid Sound in Hoffman Estats and the engineer was Phil Bonnet. For $200, he'd let us come in at midnight and record 27 songs on the 12 track machine. Midnight came on the fateful day and...Bonnet didn't show up. After angry phone calls and fulstered apologies, we set another date, this time for 4:00 A.M.the following week. Again we stood outside the locked studio shivering in the snow while Bonnet slumbered peacefully at home. More angy phone calls and repeated apologies ensued. We finally made it in at midnight the foloowing week. Bonnet, realizing the extent of his fucked-upedness, let us record on the 24 track board for the same price as the 12 track board.

We did 28 songs and put 27 of them on a demo tape which we sold through ads in the infamous Berkeley punkzine, Maximum RockNRoll (the song we didn't put on was a really lame cover of some Brady Bunch tune) (One of the songs, "In the Hospital," was rleased by the now-defunct California label, Flush, in 1991, as part of a 7" EP compilation entitled Blame and Burn. I believe a thousand were pressed...) (The aforementioned is the only record no listed in the complte discography which you'll find on the insert of the LP and CD versions of How to Make Enemies.... Those tapes are long gone, though I think Jughead might have a beat up copy of one somewhere. The rest of the songs were primarily moronic little ditties I'd conjred up during my two year sta at a Maine drug rehab from age 15-17 (the book detailing my life in said rehab, currently titled "This Ain't No Hippie Commune," will be finished someday) or else cheesy rip-offs of tunes by the popular bands of the day like the Circle Jerks, Angry Samoans, Black Flag and our favorite, Adrenalin O.D. We wanted to fucking BE Adrenalin O.D.; SUBURBANCORE, that was our motto. No kidding, when it came down to choosing band names, the two that wer left were Screeching Weasel and Suburban Vermin. In retrospect, they both sucked.

Our first show was in Matt Nelson's parents' basement (Matt went on the be THE MAN for booking punk gigs in Chicago, though he's really no longer THE MAN for booking punk gigs in Chicago. Sorry, just thought I'd eplain my reasons for naming him instead of referring to thim as "a friend." I'm certain that somewhere there exists a videotape of this so-called performance, but I'm fairly sure that whoever taped it forgot to turn the microphone on.

After that we played a few over-21 gigs at a hellhole called Batteries Not Included , which was in a creepy neighborhood (of course, now it's a slick, clean up yuppie neighborhood and I think I liked it better before), was owned by some paranoid freak who was a dead ringer for Eddie Murphy and was booked by Jim Ellison, who has gone on to minor fame with Material Issue and who never paid us more than six dollars. Those show were fun but the only people who showed up were the drunks who came in anyway (well, that's not totally true-our last two shows there, we had 20 or 30 actual punks show up). It was at Batteries that we met up with Russ Forster, president of Underdog Records. He signed us up to do a twenty-seven song album which we recorded with Phil at Solid Sound in June of 1987. A thousand copies were pressed and quickly sold, and though Russ licensed it to a British company called Shigaku Trading (who pressed and sold 2,000 copies), he would not re-press it. Pat Daly, who owned the Empire record stores in Chicago and Wilmette, told me it was because Russ was saving his money to do a full color album cover for his own band, Spongetunnel. For our trouble, Russ paid us $200 and gave us back the tapes and all the rights to the album. We tried to get another label to release it, but nobody was intersted.

We had begun to gain a minor local following; by the time the album was released, we were attracting seventy or eighty people above the handful of friends who came to all our shows. Some of those friends were in other local bands, like Warren from the Ozzfish Experience. We played a bunch of gigs with Ozzfish (there's a song about them on our first album, which, if I didn't tell you, was self-titled) and finally decided that we had to do a split EP with them. Hell, we'd gone from demo tape to album-we felt a little stupid for passing the critical EP stage anyway. Again we recorded at Solid Sound. The Ozzfish tunes took forvever because Warren absolutely HATED being in the studio and becamse rather surly and hard to deal with at points. We recorded four tunes, "I Hate Led Zeppelin," "American Suicide," "A Political Song For Screeching Weasel To Sing," (of COURSE it was a take-off on the Minutemen tune) and "Twinkie Warfare." Warren tried to hook us up with Depression Records in Battle Creek, Michigan, but we dediced against it when the label prez, Bill Board, said he'd only put it out if we listed him as Executive Producer on the sleeve. We decided to to put it out ourselves. We split the pressing cost and Warren mailed off the tapes and a check to the plant. We were stoked when we got back the two test pressings, but not too stoked when the pressing plant decided to file for bankruptcy and keep our money and tapes. It's kinuva neat EP, but unfortunately, only two copies exist (I think Warren has one and Jughead has the other) (and that's the other record not listed on my complete discography.)

The Ozzfish broke up around the same time that we kicked out Vinnie, whose personal problems had made the band a living hell. To this day, Vinnie expresses his hatred for me, even though his sacking was a group decidion (hey, he set a precedent; to this day, anytime anyone has a problem with Screeching Weasel, it's always my fault, even though we always came to personnel decidions as a group). Warren, a guitarist by trade, was recruited to be our new bassist. Warren was the first in a long line of Screeching Weasel bassits who didn't own his own gear; he used Jughead's red Yamaha bass and crappy Yamaha guitar amp.

With the "Fish" half of the Ozzfish team firmly entrenched in our rhythm section, we started playing more gigs and writing new songs. A local punk named Mike...sold me a little Roland guitar amp and a Hondo guitar for a hundred bucks (which replaced the "K" guitar and plastic amp I'd bought from my next door neighbor for $30). I started playing guitar and singing at the same time, which was quite a chore, but we were writing songs with those patented cheesy little melodic "leads" and we needed a second guitarist. The whole thing was made even more difficult by the fact that I knew only one three=stringed chord which I slid up and down the neck of the guitar like a psaz; my head was constantly at a 45 degree angle as I attempted to keep an eye on my fingers and sing into a mike out of the side of my mouth simultaneasly.

That summer was probably the beginning of the end for Steve Cheese. We were taking our first real road trip out to California to play the famed Gilman Street in Berkeley. The idea was pretty simple; we'd drive out in my '76 Checy Malifbu and borrow equipment from some of the band members who lived at the infamours Oakland punkhouse, the Ashtray. Work was no problem for three os us -John and Warren got time off and I simply quit my warehouse job. But Cheese had gotten married the previous psring and he had started to take his job seriously. He'd only be able to get the weekend off, which meant' he'd have to fly out. Then we discovered that Warren, because of college exams, would have to fly as well. Warren had the money for a plane ticket but Steve didn't, so my parents offered us a deal 'paint the outside of the house before they moved to Wisonsin and they'd buy a ticket for the cheesehead. For three days e, Jughead and Warren scaped and painted. Cheese showed up sometime after the job had been completed.

Me and Jughead drove out with two friends, experience no shortage of mechanical troubles along the way. We ended up staying the Maximum RockNRoll house for one night, and then with Matt and Lint from Operation Ivy, who shared a house in Albany with a guy named Joey.

We had two shows at Gilman. The Friday night show was going fairly smoothly. About 75 people showed up and seemed to be having a good time. We took the stage and had played about 5 songs when a bonehead from down the street named Screamer tossed a tear gas bomb inside the bluc. We made 75 buck and went back to Matt and Lint's a bit dejected.

The next night, we opned for Operation Ivy and things were quite different indeed. Over 450 people showed up, and at the end of the night OPIVY was kind enough to give us $400--that money covered our costs, (in retrospect, it was MORE than kind of them to give us the dough, seeing as how we borrowed their gear AND we sounded like shit because Cheese had gotten quite drunk on whiskey with Pete Chrimpshrine prior to the gig).

While in California, we made the acquantaince of the guys from Crimpshrine as well as the Lookout Records guys. At the time, things were still pretty exciting out there and we were heavily inspired by what we saw. Later in the summer, after I'd moved into Jughead's mother's house, Crimpshrine came through town and ended up staying with us for two weeks. We played them the four song demo tape we'd just recorded (yep, it's long gone) and their guitarist/singer, Jeff, taught me how to take my three stringed chord and move it up toe the second, third and fourth strings. No more sliding up and down the guitar neck! To this day, I still use the guitar starp Jeff gave me and I still haven't learned one single new thing about playing guitar (including the names of the second, third and fourth strings).

After searching desperately for another record label and coming up empty-handed, we decided to go ahead and record our second album without a label and release it on our own. Through a starnge set of circumstances, Juggy and I met up with a guy named Dave Best who was starting a record label and wanted Screeching Weasel on it AND wanted Juggy and I to run it. We recorded Boogadoboogadaboogada (the title refers to a phrase that was used by the guy whoe came up with our band name when he felt like vocally appreciateing good looking girls whilst passing by them in his car) for our own Roadkill Records (now defunct) in October 1988 and fully expected to have it in stores efore our first real tour, which was slated to happen in December.

We did the tour with Spongetunnel, travelling together in their van. Aside from having a new record that hadn't been released yet, we also had a new drummer, a sixteen year old kid who we christened Brian Vermin. Cheese had been asked to leave the band about a month before the tour due simply to the fact that he wasn't willing to tour.

The "NO SHOWERS 'TILL GAINESVILLE" tour was a minor disaster. The two bands fought constantly, and by our last show, there was plenty of tension in Screeching Weasel. We had a blow out argument on the way home and within two weeks of returning, Warren had simultaneously quit and been kicked out (it's not as bad as it sounds; we discovered that he and I were able to be friends once we weren't in a band together). For a replacement, we got Danny Vapid, a local punk who seemed to attend all our shows and had been the singer in quite a few local hardcore bands (including the Igor Skulls and Generation Waste). He wasn't the world's greatest bass player, but John handed him over the Yamaha and he fit right in. We called him Sewercap at first, but the name didn't stick. He was fainlly christened Vapid in 1991 and the name dogs him to this day.

Early that spring, we recorded the Punkhouse EP...in a professional downtown studio with Pike Potential. Mike had done a fanzine when he lived in Ohio and now that he was in Chicago, he wanted to start a record label. Punkhouse was his first release. Mike recorded us himself in the studio where he worked. As you can tell from the recording, he was a terrible engineer. We recorded the basic tarcks without Juggy, who had gotten stranded in downstate Illinois. I had been up all night delivering newsppaers and was not in the best fram of mind. When Juggy finally showed up, we had finisedh everything adn were getting impatient. Perhaps we should have cut him some slack, as his guitar is noticeably out of tune with the other guitars on the record...The reocrd had six tracks, "Punkhouse," "Fathead," "Good Morning," "I Need Therapy," a cover of Tommy James' "I Think We're Alone Now," and "Something Wrong." The terrible recording quality combined with the fact that I wrote most of the lyrics while I was drunk make it my least favorite SW record.

Not long after that, we recorded a four or five song demo at a studio run by fome flake in Berwyn. While we were mixing, Juggy asked if the bass could be turned up.

"Oh, you wanted that recorded?" he asked.

We did get the bass onto one tune, but the whole thing sounded terrible. We sent a copy of the tape to WNUR for their "unsigned bands" contest, where it was promptly ignored. The original tapes have been lost and nobody in the band even has a cassette copy of it (though after we gained some national popularity, WNUR dug out the tape and played it on the air rlelentlessly) (not too long after that, someone at WNUR proclaimed us lame due to the presence of a member of Green Day on our last album. Funny how things change so quickly...).

Shortly after the Berwyn fiasco, we started setting up our summer tour, which was to last six weeks and take us around the country. We got our label prez to lend us $750 for transportation. The van proptly shit the bed. We decided to go anyway, using the faithful '76 Malibu for the tour. We brought our clothes and sleeping bags, guitars, snare drum and bass drum pedal, figuring to borrow the rest of the equipment on the road.

While in Berkeley, we recorded three songs at Sergay's Recording Emporium: "I Wanna Be Homosexual" and "Kamala's Too Nice" (later re-recorded for "My Brain Hurts" with slightly different lyrics) for Very Small Records' What Are You Pointing At? 10" compilation and "Slogans" for an all-Chicago bands 7" compliation entitled There's A Fungus Amongus. "Homosexual" was written at the suggestion of Homocore pioneer/fanzine editor/filmmaker Bruce LaBruce who had heard about Sloppy Seconds' "I Don't Want to Be Homosexual" and thought we should respong (and for thre record-we never felt that the Sloppys' tune was homophobic, nor did we ever have any animosity toward the band-we just thought it would be funny). Bruce wrote a few lines and I made up the rest as I sang in the studio. "Kamala's Too Nice" was written at our friend Kamala's house in Emeryville, CA (where we were staying) about twenty minutes before we left for the studio. The records on which these songs appear are long out of print, and we've put our second version (which actually has lyrics instead of babbling) of "Homosexual" on this collection ("Slogans" was re-recorded for My Brain Hurts with different lyrics, as was "Kamala" and, from the Punkhouse sessions, "Fathead"). The first version of "Kamala" is included here.

The tour ended up being somewhat of a disaster and when we got back, we discovered that the band was falling apart. Vapid and Vermin had started their own band, Sludgeworth, and were showing decreasing interest in SW. We went over to Solid Sound and recorded two more songs, "Teenage Slumber Party" for the Achtung Chicago compilation LP on Underdog and "This Bud's for Me" for the They Don't Get Paid, They Don't Get Laid, But Boy, Do They Work Hard comp LP on MRR Records. "Slumber Party" is avaliable on the CD version of Wiggle and "This Bud" is included here. The song was supposed to be a bit of a paradoy which is why it's so goddamn fast; Tim at Maximum had encouraged us to "keep with the theme of the record." We figured that meant play loud and fast and stupid. Doug from the local band I.D. Under played second guitar on these songs and he did a few shows with us as well.

Shortly after the recording, Vermin quit and stated that Vapid wanted out too, only he was too scared to speak up. Juggy and I decided to end the band.

Soon enough, me and Jughead had another band going which included Glynnis Johnson on bass, Russ Forster on second guitar and Erik Elsewhere on drums. We were known variously as Glynnis Johnson and Disgusteeens (the name comes from a Teenage Head song. I also shot an awful movie that year (1990) called Disgusteen which was basically worthless but for a pretty cool tune I wrote and performed with 8-Bark called, dug, "Disgusten"), Los Gusanos Amardos and finally, the Gore Gore Girls. Glynnis left the band after our first abysmal gig and was temporarily replaced by Doug I.D. Under. At the end of 1990, we recorded five songs in an eight track studio in Crystal Lake. One of teh songs, "Nightbreed," went on a limited edition 7" compilation on Flush Records entitled Mouthful of Monkey Bile. None of the other tunes have been released (though they may see the light of day on Lookout this year). The Gore Gore Girls played one gig with Doug on bass, then, early in 1991, we found a new bass player, Dave Naked. He had been in the band for a week when we played our third and last gig (Screeching Weasel headlined this show as a "reunion" in order to pay back Russ Forster the money he had lent us to record Boogada. We did indeed pay him back, and he paid us back by writing articles for several local fanzines claiming we had done the show only for the money. He was right of course, but he didn't mention that all the money went to HIM!). After the show (at which the Gore Gore Girls embarressed ourselves with our awful playing), Vapid met up with Jughead in the bar and discussed getting Screeching Weasel back together. I was initially reluctant, but finally agreed only if we'd play more Ramones-based music and call ourselves anything BUT Screeching Weasel. Me and Juggy told Russ, Erik and Dave that we quit the Gore Gore Girls, but we asked Dave if he'd like to stay on with our new band. This meant that Vapid would have to move to second guitar, but he was up to the task. I contacted a suburban kid named Dan Panic who'd been calling me on and off ever since I'd helped produced a track for his old band, Ivy League. Now we had a drummer and, as a five piece, we started rehearsing to record an album.

(As a side note, I wrote a few tunes for the Gore Gore Girls that ended up being re-recorded with Screeching Weasel, like "Don't Turn out the Lights," "One Step Beyond" "Kathy's On the Rook" and "I Robot," [origanally titled "Lost in Space"]).

We decided that the only person we could contact about doing a record would be Lawrence Livermore at Lookout. By this time, we had been stolen and stabbed in the back so many times, we decreed that if Lookout wouldn't do it, we'd scrape up the money and rlease the album ourselves. Lawrence was interested in the band, but ONLY if we called ourselves Screeching Weasel. We agreed and made plans to embark on a short tour out to California, where we'd record the album with Lawrence producing. While reocrding My Brain Hurst, we did three extra tracks: a better version of "Homosexual" with real lyrics and an intro by Bruce LaBruce (who also appeared on the record cover), an anti-hippie song called "She's Giving me the Creeps," and a cover of Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces." Those three songs were released by Shred of Dignity Records as the Pervo-Devo EP and are included here.

Soon after we got home, Dave Naked was asked to leave the band. Our winter tour was downe with Gub (Formerly of Ivy League, currently of Gauge) as bassist/roadie. On the tour, we recorded some songs live on WFMU radio in New Jersey. Some of these songs were released by Selfless Records as the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and Happy, Horny, Gay and Sassy EPs. They are not included here due to the fact that they really blow.

When we got back from tour, we recruited Johnny Personality to play bass for us. Johnny had tried out for the Gore Gore Girls and was turned down only because he didn't have a practice space; he was and is an outstanding bass player. In February '92, we recorded a five song demo for Wiggle (which was one of the original band names for the Gore Gore Girls) with Steve Albini recording ad Eric Spicer of Naked Raygun producing. The only songs that didn't get re-recorded for Wiggle were "Going Home" (which I co-wrote with Aaron Cometbus-former drummer in Crimpshrine) and "Celena," which I hated. "Going Home" is on the Wiggle CD and "Celena" was eventually released on the It's A Punk Thing, You Wouldn't Understand 12" comp on Shakefork. The only song from that session which is on this collection is "Celena." To this day, I've only talked to one person who likes thie song-Aaron Cometbus, who claimed it was the best tune we'd ever done.

In the summer of '92, we recorded the Wiggle album at Sonic Iguana in Lafayette, Indiana. We also recorded "Radio Blast" and "Girl Next Door,"-two songs we thought were too weak for the album. Underdog later released them on a single AND we recorded a tune called "Achtung" by a band called the Authorities for an Authorities tribute comp that was supposed to be released by Paul Thomas' Insurrection Records (Paul's wearing a SW leather jacket in a photo somewhere in the booklet) but never saw the light of day. Juggy sez this is one of the best things we ever put on tape.

Soon after the album was done, Personality left the band to concentrate on his own projects. Meanwhile, I had become thoroughly sick of standing on stage and singing, looking like an idiot and figured that if I was standing on stage singing and PLAYING GUITAR, I'd at least have an eXCUSE for looking like an idiot. Vapid moved back to bass and I picked up the guitar again-only this time, I wasn't gonna play guitar only half the songs. I'd be a full time second guitarist (this meant that for three months, I spent three hours every day playing our songs on guitar without looking at the guitar neck. I SORT OF mastered the whole thing).

Todd from Selfless called during our party for the end of the Wiggle recording session and asked us if we'd like to cover our favorite Ramones album for his label. It was a completely stupid idea, so of course we did it. My favorite Ramones album is actually Leave Home, but we all agreed we could do a halfway decent job with their first album. We recorded it at Sonic Iguana in something silly like fifteen hours and mixed it to sound like the first Ramones album (bass outta one speaker, guitar outta the other). It was stupid, but a lot of fun and it makrs the only Screeching Weasel album on which Vapid sang lead on a song ("Let's Dance"). Lack of space prohibits us from putting more than four of those songs on here, but "Judy is a Punk," "Chainsaw," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,"and "Havana Affair," are pretty decent versions of the toughest band in the land to cover.

At the same session, we recorded two other songs, "sop Aopera," (which was released by Skullduggery as part of their 10" comp called Fallen Upon Deaf Ears), and "Stab Stab Stab," which, along with our Albini-recorded "Going Home" comprised our half of the SW/Pink Lincolns split EP released on VML in early '93. "Soap Opera" was intended to be a parody of NOFX's style of songwriting; I'd been hearing a lot of comparisions of my voice to Fat Mike's. Unforunately, we were not as musically skilled as NOFX, but I think the song comes off well (particularly the middle part with the snake charmer stuff-I'd written that part in 1988 and had been waiting for a chance to use it-it's the best you'll ever hear me play lead guitar). "Stab Stab Stab" is in my opinion one of the best songs I ever wrote, even though it sounds nothing like a typical SW tune. I've never been able to write another tune like it, which is too bad 'cause I'd love to do a band like that (dark, weird, vaguely sleazy) someday.

We recorded nothing else until we came home from our '93 tour with the Queers. We did eight songs at Flat Iron-four of them were released as the You Broke My Fucking Heart EP on Lookout, and are included here (they're the only songs on this CD that are still in print). Of the remaing four, two were relased on the SW/Born Against split on Lookout and the other two just sat there. One of the songs is "Six A.M.," a dumb tune I wrote while out East on tour, notable because it's the only tune I ever wrote while driving and kept it going in my head for seix hours until I got to a guitar, where I was able to play the while song from beginning to end, including the "solo." The other was a different version of "Hey Suburbia"' since 1989, we'd been playing it live with a diffferent ending-you'll hear that ending on this version.

Not too long after that, we reorded three more songs at Flat Iron. Two of them, "Every NIght" and "Totally," would edn up on the Anthem for a New Tomorrow album because they were so much better than the versions we recorded later. The other song was a cover of "Chicago," which was released on CD only as part of a Frank Sinatra tribute by Grass Records. It also appears on the CD version of the SW/Born Against split. Uh, none of those tunes are on this CD. Why did I even mention them?

The only other songs on this CD are four live tunes recorded by Marshall Stax at Gilman Street in Berkeley during our '93 tour. you can hear the vocals drop out during "Veronica Hates Me" at the precise moment when MRR's Tim Yohannan and his cronies threw cream pies at us, covering everyone in the band with tepid Cool Whip.

Screeching Weasel's last show was a lot like some of our first. Held on November 2nd, 1993, it was a fiasco from teh get go. It was in a suburban heavy metal club staffed by uptight mooks who stood in front of the band to make sure nobody danced while we played. The sound was terrible and we got paid a fraction of what we had gotten used to making locally (which was still a good amount of dough...).

After that gig, we decided we'd break up a year from that date. Trouble was, Vapid ended up quitting the band and we didn't feel like getting a bassist only to pull the rug out from under him just as he was settling in. We went ahead and recorded our last album, How to Make Enemies and Irritate People (with Mike from Green Day playing bass) as well as a two song single commemorating the marriage of MAximum RockNRoll's Suzanne Bartchy. Oh yea, we also re-recorded the Gore-Gore Girls tune, "Nightrbreed," and for some reason, it didn't make it onto the album. Maybe it'll be released someday...Anyway, I guess we officially broke up on whatever day we finished recording Enemies.

Me, Panic and Vapid are currently in a band together called The Riverdales, a golden oldies-type band with some Ramones touches which I think will disappoint most SW fans. Lookout will be releasing our first album in early summer '95. Jughead still deals with all SW business and spends much of his time writing and directing his own plays and actining in other people's productions. I've seen two of his plays and they were both disturbing. Juggy's always been a little odd.

As always, contact Lookout Records for a catalog if you're looking for SW t-shirts, records, buttons, whatever. And as alway, stop writing us. We broke up.

Ben Weasel

Eek...

2006-01-20T12:22:00.000-08:00

Cyclops, the One-Eyed Kittie

Apparently, it ain't no fake neither.

Satellite Imagery from my PC!

2006-01-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

Google Earth is very cool, and so is NASA's WorldWind.

Eh? What's that, Sonny?

2005-12-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

Songs for the Deaf

Cheerleaders Gone Wild!

2005-11-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Cheers, but they do deny it. Apparently, Penthouse and Howard Stern are already calling.

Forked Horned Devil

2005-10-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Horny Deer on Rampage

Dude kills deer w/ bare hands

Not all horses measured equally...

2005-10-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

Asians oversell horsepower

Weird Animal News of the Day

2005-10-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Python Swallows Alligator, Explodes

Biodiesel--Alternative Fuel of the Future?

2005-09-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Now that the US Military is getting behind it, will biodiesel become the first truly viable mass-consumer alternative fuel? Maybe not, but this biodiesel stuff sounds interesting. Especially the notion that all that leftover cooking oil from all the greasy spoons across America could have a better alternative for disposing of their cooking oil waste. Eat your fries and get a McFillup w/ the oil used to cook 'em.

Live Giant Squid Photographed

2005-09-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

Researchers in Japan finally get pics of a giant squid alive in the wild.

The Digital Dark Age

2005-09-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Downside of storing everything digitally

The Rise & Fall of Lookout Records

2005-09-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

Really well-done and interesting feature article from the East Bay Express on The Rise and Fall of the Lookout Records Empire.

Illustrated version

The next-gen Nintendo Revolution Controller

2005-09-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

Wired's Revolution Experience

1up.com's Controller Review

Not exactly getting me very excited. I'll leave Nintendo to the yewts, just like the GameCube.

PS3 still the front-runner for my next-gen dollars, a couple price breaks after launch anyway.

Xbox 360 will get a long, hard look-see too.

And more good news from the Arctic...

2005-09-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

Global Warming now unstoppable?

Oregon Mystery Bulge

2005-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Oregon on the Rise

Continuing Coverage on: New Orleans is F'd Up

2005-09-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

At least they're focusing on what's important, eh? "Refugee" banned

Hurricane Report

Survival of New Orleans Blog

NOLA Post-Katrina Intel Wiki

Anatomy of an unnatural disaster

This has got to go down in history as the most bungled response to a disaster ever. Listen to the mayor today.

Levee Breaks Shouldn't Have Been a Shocker

Rise Against--The Unraveling Reissue

2005-08-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

Featuring two former members of 88 Fingers Louie (who I never much cared for), Rise Against's debut, The Unraveling, was first released in 2001. At the time, I didn't think it was very good. Not as bad as some of the worst Honest Don's or Fat Wreck Chord releases, but I had it rated really low as far as something I wanted to listen to. In fact, it soured me so much I never gave 2003's Revolutions Per Minute, which was a huge leap forward in songwriting and sound quality, much of a chance. It wasn't until Siren Songs of the Counter-Culture was released in 2004 that I came back around to this band. So, yes, I'm a bandwagon-jumping major label poser, sue me. The conventional "punk rock" wisdom seems to be that RPM is the best album, but my favorite, as slick as it is, is SSCC. There goes all my street cred, but, after having gotten way into the latter Rise Against albums, I went back to The Unraveling to give it another shot.

What I discovered was that the production by Mass of Sonic Iguana ("specialized in recording punk rock") and Rise Against wasn't their best work. In my opinion, the drums and low-end are too high, the vocals too buried, it's somehwat muddy overall, and it doesn't do a lot of favors to the music or the band. (This seems to be more of a factor on car stereos and portable players when I've listened to it). Their self-produced Transistor Revolt demos sounded just as good or better ("Reception Fades" and "The Art of Losing" were re-recorded for The Unraveling). But, it turns out the songs, while certainly not as strong as their later work, weren't really bad at all, and actually, pretty good (I particularly like "Great Awakenings," "Six Ways Til Sunday," and the Henry Fool sample before "Reception Fades.") I still find the album on the long side, but, overall, very solid melodic hardcore. This is not pop-punk, folks. As bastardized and meaningless as that term has become (esp. for an early-90s pop-punk fanatic), this still ain't it.

The remixed and remastered re-release adds two bonus tracks, "Join The Ranks" (another song off the Transistor Revolt demo) from 2001's Fat Music Vol. 5: Live Fat, Die Young compilation and "Gethsamane" from 2003's OIL Chicago Punk Refined compilation. They do have a compilation track, "Obstructed View," off Your Scene Sucks (2002) that was not added. Even without the bonus tracks, though, this is the rare reissue that is worth rebuying and is absolutely the version you want to pick up if you haven't got it yet. Bill Stevenson (Blasting Room producer, drummer for the Descendents, ALL, Black Flag, and Only Crime) did an excellent job remixing and remastering this release. All the instruments are in the right place in the mix and the overall sound is now crisp and punchy.

The packaging has been improved, as well. The booklet layout is much more readable and there is a letter from Tim reflecting on how far they've come in the past five years. Overall, this release is one of the more worthwhile reissues to come down the pipeline lately and not simply a crass attempt to cash-in on Rise Against's current popularity.

Original album: 6/10
Remixed & remastered album: 8/10

For fans of: Gorilla Biscuits, Bad Religion, Good Riddance, Dag Nasty, Strike Anywhere, 88 Fingers Louie

"Against Integrity?" Only if you've got the mentality of a grade schooler...

2005-08-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

First off, it is official, Against Me has
"sold out". For the love of Johnny Rotten, the young punks might as well have signed to a major label instead of sticking it out with Fat (for now). Egads, they've hired a PR firm, are playing huge arena shows with Green Day and Jimmy Eat World, touring all 50 states, probably soon to be appearing in Rolling Stone & Spin, on the Conan O'Brien show, TRL, and sucking Clear Channel dick to get played on the radio, who knows?

But, more importantly, who should really care?

I haven't seen such an asinine backlash against a band since the days of the Gilman kids making "Billy Joe Must Die!" graffitti in the hallowed halls of that dive. "What is punk?", "Who is/isn't punk?", "Who has sold out?" Same pointless, boring rehash of discussion surrounding bands since I was like 12 years old arguing w/ buddies about which band was "speed metal" vs. "thrash metal" vs. "power metal" and who were just "poseur hair bands." I mean, ya-awn.

Anyone with any kind of clue should realize that the only important thing about music is whether you dig it or you don't. Regardless of personal politics, personalities, financial statements, or what logo is on the sleeve. Sometimes I've outgrown a band, sometimes maybe they've outgrown me. Sometimes they just start putting out music I don't find particularly interesting, and, yes, sometimes they just plain start to really suck.

That's how it goes. Bands that put out the same album over and over again are just as uninteresting as bands who try new or unexpected (and unsuccessful) musical directions. Sometimes it works, often it don't. You go along for the ride or you bail. Pretty simple, really.

Now, it's rare for a band to totally abandon their core sound and still be any good, sure. In those cases, I've always advocated giving up your name recognition and starting a new project rather than try to keep cashing in with the name while your guitar player is really putting out solo material.

However, what can be really exciting is when a band starts off as a relatively straight-forward simple act and gets more mature, learns to play their instruments, writes better songs, and challenges themselves to put out better and better music with each release. Again, sometimes learning to play their instruments is a real death knell (Less Than Jake comes to mind; they starting going downhill around the time Chris learned to play guitar in my opinion).

Any music scene has only a relatively small percentage of great bands and an even smaller percentage of bands that have the potential to transcend their own genre and become something truly special.

I believe Against Me is one of those truly special bands. Seeing them live, you just know they should be playing to sold-out audiences, getting Grammys, and everyone should just dig on this band. Sure, it will suck when your mom asks you to play the new Against Me record and all the jocks have pink lightning bolt t-shirts, but damnit, some bands deserve to be heard and make a living playing music.

With Searching for a Former Clarity AM may have jumped the gun a bit, making their "fuck you" album in response to growing popularity (their In Utero, Vitalogy, or Insomniac) before the soccer moms and jocks have jumped on their bandwagon. What remains to be seen is if it's their Dear You. Perhaps it will be their Pinkterton.

Insomniac always struck me as somewhat of a petulant album, with Green Day trying to prove they were really more "punk" than they ever were to begin with. Vitalogy was just a terrible-sounding album that I thought was meant to shed PJ of as many fans as possible (it kinda worked). Hard to say where Nirvana would have ended up after In Utero. They were on the road to disbanding before Cobain blew up. Pinkterton was a commercial flop and put Weezer on the brink...but it seemed to grow in popularity with the emo kids long after its release, as did Dear You. Weezer survived to see another day, but Jawbreaker imploded shortly after Dear You's release and subsequent backlash from the kids over their having "sold out" and making such a slick and different-sounding record.

Now, I've seen Against Me compared to the Clash a bit, and I can't put my finger on exactly why, but that comparison always comes to my mind as well. Trying to describe AM's sound to someone is difficult. Billy Bragg meets the Clash, but y'know, w/o the British accents, is about as close as I can do it. They have their own unique blend of punk, folk, country, and blues. I'm currently on the fence about whether I think Clarity is destined to be a critical sucess but commercial flop. As a general rule, I truly dislike bands writing songs about writing songs, being in a band, touring, fighting with fans, struggling with "selling out," etc, etc. To me it signals real trouble if that's all you have left to write about. In my opinion, it takes what can be a universal art form and reduces it to an elitist and narrow audience of who can relate to such songs.

However, I have to say it doesn't bother me so much with this record. I think it is a great album. One of my favorite songs, "Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners," is exactly the kind of lyrical subject matter I would usually disdain with extreme prejudice. The redone songs from the never-to-be-officially-released Stolen Demos are excellent, even if I do personally slightly prefer some of the demo versions. I feel those five tracks ("Miami," "How Low," "Joy," "Holy Shit!," and "Problems") are among the strongest on the record. The first single, "Don't Lose Touch," is a fitting first notice to fans with a death-grip on their 1st pressing Axl Rose LPs that there is something different going on here (lyrically and musically, as well as what they can do with their reactionary message board postings).

This is sure to be a divisive record even for their current fanbase (I'm pretty sure the old guard fans all shouted sell-out when they signed to Fat and have moved on to hoping This Bike is a Pipe Bomb never sells more than 100 records), and I'm not sure yet if it's the type of record that will immediately catapault them into superstardom. It will certainly be interesting to see the reaction this record gets and Against Me's response to it. Can they move past the, seemingly excessive at this point, Cobain-level angst over their growing popularity and the hater 16-year-old couch potatoes and armchair QBs so heart-broken that Tom isn't playing their local laundromat in front of 5 people?

I really hope they get to pow-wow with Green Day a bit during those arena shows. I can think of no people better suited to mentor AM than Billy Joe, Dirnt, and Tre.

If they can get past the haters and come to grips with their identity as artists, I think they can make some more amazing music down the road and continue to be one of the great bands of the decade. Even at their worst, they're still better than most.

Release Date: Sept. 6th
One Sheet
MP3: "Don't Lose Touch"
E-card
Tour

Wedding Reading Explained

2005-08-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

As noted on the program, the reading was titled "The Variorum Camper: Backend of Forever (Part VII)" by Dale Porter and Reni Krunks, ed.

There is no such poem by that title. "Variorum" means:
Main Entry: 1var·i·o·rum
Pronunciation: "ver-E-'Or-&m, "var-, -'or-
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin variorum of various persons (genitive plural masculine of varius), in the phrase cum notis variorum with the notes of various persons
1 : an edition or text with notes by different persons
2 : an edition containing variant readings of the text

I'm sure absolutely no one paid any attention to it, but the editors ("ed.,") were half-assed psuedo-anagrams of our names, as we put together the reading from the following sources:

In the very midst of wild, intoxicating passions, their hearts were sober and serious…
-a line from the short story "Patriotism" by Yukio Mishima

Love is not two people gazing at each other, but two people looking ahead together in the same direction...
-don't remember where this came from

True love helps you find things
you didn't know were missing
in your life. It helps you fill spaces
you didn't know were empty.
-Kobi Yamada

I love you not only
for what you are,
but for what I am
when I am with you.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

For it was not in my ear
you whispered, but into my heart.
It ws not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
-Judy Garland

Wedding Music

2005-08-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

Wedding Favor CD Tracklist

Track # Song Artist
1 Flower Moby
2 Where is My Mind? Pixies
3 Today Smashing Pumpkins
4 New Girl Suicide Machines
5 Million Bucks ALL
6 Bill Riley Red Hot
7 Boss Lady Detroit Cobras
8 Call it a Day The Masonics
9 Got the Bull by the Horns Johnny Horton
10 Gee Baby Gee The Sisters
11 We're Gonna Get Married Bo Diddley
12 Let's Elope Baby Buck Griffin
13 Charlie Brown Theme Vince Garibaldi
14 Swing Life Away (PGA ver.) Rise Against
15 Last Caress Nutley Brass (Misfits)
16 I Wanna Be Sedated Nutley Brass (Ramones)
17 Woo Hoo 5, 6, 7, 8s
18 Astro Zombies Nutley Brass (Misfits)
19 Battle w/o Honor or Humanity Tomoyasu Hotei
20 Pink Panther Hollywood Studio Orchestra
21 Sixteen Reasons Connie Stevens
22 Such A Night Elvis Presley
23 Crazy Love Van Morrison
24 Father and Daughter Paul Simon
25 Whispering Pines Johnny Horton
26 Que Sera Sera Doris Day
27 Groovy Kind of Love Mindbenders
28 Could I Have This Dance? Anne Murray
29 Last Date Floyd Cramer
30 I Believe in You Don Williams
31 T.S.R Against Me!

1-14 = preceremony/guests arrive
15 = groomsmen & groom w/ parents processional
16 = bridesmaids / flower girls / ring bearer processional
17 = bride processional
18 = recessional
19 = wedding party intro
20 = cake cutting
21-22 = from dinner music CD
23 = first dance
24 = father-daughter dance
25 = stepfather-daughter dance
26 = original mother-son dance song (changed at last minute to 'rainbow connection' by kermit the frog)
27-29 = generations dance (longest-married couple gets bouquet)
30 = last dance
31 = last song

Appetizer Music

Track # Song Artist
1 Peanut Vendor Jack Costanzo
2 Cancion del mariachi Los Lobos & Antonio Banderas
3 Volare Nelson Riddle
4 Amen Donald Byrd
5 De Camino a La Vereda Buena Vista Social Club
6 Peter Gunn Twist-Tequila With a Twist Ray Anthony
7 Prende Me Vela Abelardo Vasquez & Cumanana
8 Cha, Cha, Cha, D'Amour (Melodie Amour) Dean Martin
9 Some Kinda Hate The Nutley Brass
10 Hybrid Moments The Nutley Brass
11 Jitter Bug Angelo Badalamenti
12 One Mint Julep Earl Palmer
13 You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You Dean Martin
14 C'Est Si Bon Eartha Kitt
15 Funnel of Love Wanda Jackson
16 Bernie's Tune Curley Hamner
17 Aint That a Kick in the Head Dean Martin
18 Begin the Beguine Ann Margaret
19 That's Amore Dean Martin
20 Rock House Ernie Freeman Combo
21 Watermelon Man King Curtis
22 That Old Black Magic Keely Smith

Dinner Music

Track # Song Artist
1 Sentimental Journey Doris Day
2 Moon River Henry Mancini
3 Santa Lucia (traditional) Elvis Presley
4 Cielito Lindo Pedro Vargas y Mariachi Vargas
5 Fever Peggy Lee
6 Sixteen Reasons Connie Stevens
7 I Love You a Thousand Ways Lefty Frizzell
8 Such A Night Elvis Presley
9 More Bobby Darin
10 Ring of Fire Johnny Cash
11 Eat Steak Rev Horton Heat
12 Cattle Call Eddie Arnold
13 Behind Closed Doors Charlie Rich
14 Waylon (So Long Hoss) Drag the River
15 Wagon Wheel Old Crow Medicine Show
16 Rusty Cage Johnny Cash (Soundgarden cover)
17 Wave That Flag Brian Henneman
18 Nouns Schoolhouse Rock
19 Welcome to the Jungle Richard Cheese (G'n'R cover)
20 The Man Comes Around Johnny Cash
21 Number of the Beast Zwan (Iron Maiden cover)
22 Down Under (acoustic) Men at Work
23 Hybrid Moments (live) Drag the River (Misfits cover)
24 Skulls Lemonheads (Misfits cover)
25 Drown Smashing Pumpkins
26 Greatest American Hero (Believe It Or Not) TV Themes
27 Right After the Dance [Alternate Version] Buck Owens

DJ played one or two tracks off my provided dance music CD for the dance portion (maybe just Willie Nelson's 'Stay All Night, Stay a Little Longer,'); mostly his own choices and guest requests. Last song was 'Hit the Road Jack' by Ray Charles, which was the DJ going off the menu when he was supposed to play Against Me's 'T.S.R.' (found on the wedding soundtrack CD).

Otherwise, this should cover it if you were wondering 'what was that song?'

Report from the Islands--w/ pics!

2005-08-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wedding pics are up now on Steve's website.

8/5 - Rehearsal dinner. Mom outdid herself on the backyard. Great time.
8/6 - Wedding. Went 99% according to plan. DJ did as expected w/ the music. Screwed up a couple places, but one wasn't entirely his fault; not sure what happened to the winding down music.
8/7 - Back to Oakland.
8/8 - SFO to Honolulu, short layover, on to Kauai.

8/9 - First of 'take it easy' days, drove to South/West coasts, making many stops. Swing bridge, Glass Beach, Spouting Horn (blowhole), 17-mile beach (talked to a local family camping out there w/ a quad, would've been nice to carve some dunes out there). That beach out on the West Shore was a little hard to find. Turned into the Pacific Missile Range Facility entry and Mr. Army w/ the M-16 wasn't too stoked. Saw the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," went to various lookouts. Last one the road was closed so hiked a mile up to the last lookout to see an amazing view of the Na Poli Coastline. We might make it back up there to do part of one of the hiking trails.
8/10 - Second 'take it easy' day. Drove to North Shore. Most happening part of the island, including all the rich people hangouts. Hit the northern most beach. Water too cold for me w/ the mild weather (not 'cold' by California beach standards by any means, though). Erin loved it. Hit Queen's Bath lava pool on the way back.

Nice water, that was way fun. "Secret Beach" and "Secret Lava Pools" not exactly worth the hike in/out. Other lava pools we went near a seculded beach (by 4WD road) were awesome. Also went to a bird refuge and lighthouse. Only sight-seeing place we've had to pay to get into (3 bucks ea.) so far. Those 2 'take it easy' days weren't all that 'taking it easy' as you can see. Had a late dinner at Duke's. Really good fish (I had 7 spice ahi, which was pretty spicy and Erin had some white fish cooked 'firecracker' style that was also very spicy). Good stuff.
8/11 - My dirt bike adventure. This ride is as much fun as you can take. The better rider you are the more fun this will be and the better sights you will see. But, being on an unfamiliar bike on unfamiliar terrain sent my riding skills back to the dark ages. Even so, this dual-sport ride (we ended up riding on roughly 70% paved, 30% dirt) was a blast. The Yamaha WR450 seemed a little lighter than my Katoom (at least slimmer w/o the big gas tank) w/ a little more snap. Did rutted, slick fire roads (wet red clay, luckily not too much mud) w/ a few water crossings. Bit it going down a relatively minor downhill section to come to a little waterfall and took a dip into the river while riding a rocky trail out of that section. All told, rode 100 miles around the north shore and man was my ass sore. Only took 1 pic on the entire trip though. Had a GREAT filet mignon & lobster dinner at a Japanese restaurant (tapayama? whatever it is when they cook in front of you). I'm officially hooked on ahi sushi too.

8/12 - Helicoper ride: I did it, it was pretty amazing, I don't think I need to do it again. I told the pilot when we landed that the ground crew was going to need a crowbar to get me off that seat. My fingers were sore from holding on so tight too. Didn't help that there were no windows and I felt like I was hanging half out of the rig. But, no windows is really the way to go. Got some decent footage with the MiniDV camcorder shooting from the hip. Pretty damn good considering it's the first footage I've shot right out of the box.

8/13 - High-priced salon massages are not a good thing to do at 10am if you expect to do ANYTHING else that day. Laid about the pool and were totally worthless after that. Celebrated our 1-week anniversary.

8/14 - ATV Tour was pretty fun. They let you cut loose a little; I had it pitched sideways around every corner. Cool scenery, and went through a 1/4-mile long tunnel. Ended up at a waterfall. Water was on the chilly side. Erin jumped off the falls; I stayed dry. Got some cool pics.

ATV Tour also had a CD we bought w/ some other pics of us. I was the only guy the tour guide had seen in 5 years to show up in 'full' gear, and I was truly a huge dork, but, hell, I had it w/ me for the MotoHawaii ride, so I figured I might as well use my own stuff. Luckily, I didn't make too much of an ass out of myself (some other guy managed to almost flip his quad and fell off). Went to a local swimming hole w/ a rope swing, waterfall, and more jumping off rocks (for Erin).

Saw 2 other way cool waterfalls (Wailea and Opeekea).

Also drove out to BFE and did some off-roading w/ the jeep (had to be near where I was riding on the MotoHawaii tour--similar terrain and water crossings anyway).

8/15 - Shipped my riding gear back home (too heavy to take to Molokai w/ our other luggage), got breakfast, and Erin did some snorkeling. I wasn't a big fan. Ever since I almost drowned in Chico I'm not so into water that is any kind of active. Apparently there were a lot of sea turtle out past the breakers, but Erin didn't make it out that far either.
8/16 - Tried to kayak, but for the life of us, could not find the kayak rental joint near where we were going to try to attempt to get a ride in before we had to go back and pack and get to the airport. So we just drove around and had lunch at the harbor. Kauai has 3 or 4 kayak river trips we'd like to do sometime.

8/17 - Molokai. Mule Ride. Along the cliffs. 1,600+ ft. elevation change from top to bottom. Took ~90min down, faster on the way up. Got about 60 seconds of useable MiniDV footage from the colony. Mule ride way too bumpy and not a lot of spots to get clear shots over the cliff. I can't decide what was more nerve-wracking, the helicopter w/ no doors or riding the mules down that trail. Riding up wasn't so bad. Another amazing adventure that I've done, it was cool, but not sure I need to do that again anytime soon. We visited the east-end jungle and found a nice beach to hang out at for a while. Saw some great sites along the way, then tried to catch the sunset on the west side, but didn't make it. We did see the harbor on the west side, which was cool. Molokai was very mellow and a great place to go if you want to do nothing (because you won't have much choice to do anything else). Our hotel was on right on the beach, and the bar/restaurant was RIGHT on the beach (breakers didn't start for about 200 yards out, so it was like being next to a lake).

8/18 - Molokai to Honolulu. Honolulu to SFO. Worst seats ever, didn't recline and right up against the bathroom--got to hear every flush, yay!. Baggage either went on to Chicago or never made it from Honolulu. Apparently it has been found, though, and is allegedly en route to our house.

All in all, we had some awesome, amazing adventures was a total blast for both of us!