Thanks, Garth….

Album out in 3 months. You’ll grow tired of it the same week. Still funny (for now).

The Hackamore Brick did the right thing. They made one-single-solitary album in 1970 (One Kiss Leads To Another ) then vanished off the face of the earth. The guys will always carry the tag as “Velvet Underground Light” and for good reason. But even a “light version” of the VU is better than 88.6% of indie bands out there today.

the thumb of rock!

Hackamore Brick deserve a proper CD reissue given how incredibly hip their name has become to drop & well, how darn good the record is. I believe some U.K. label put out a disc at one point – but of course a US label couldn’t be bothered. Any-hoo, I thought a nice sampling of my LP would be good to share.
(even included a cover of the Coasters’ tune “Searchin” – from a 45).

back covers of LP’s are hard to find

Oh, Those Sweet Bananas

Someone You Know

Zip Gun Woman

Searchin’
”http://chunklet.com/wp-content/uploads/original-site/audio/11.mp3″]

So I went to Austin this past weekend to see one band. Yes, one band. However, that one band wasn’t Complete who performed at the Scoot on Thursday. My excuse? I was seeding my yard in Atlanta and was scheduled to leave early the next morning.

If you went? Your excuse couldn’t possibly be as legit. For shame, SXSW. FOR SHAME!

My full report is forthcoming.

(Thanks to Gerard for making me aware of what I missed.)

For a while in the 90’s, Jim O’Rourke was around Georgia a lot. He did a number of live performances and more than a couple radio sessions in Athens. One in particular I remember is when he mic’d up a refrigerator up at the WUOG station and that was his "performance" for an hour.

It wasn’t until I met Jim at a chance encounter at Albini’s house in ’94 that I realized what a joker he was. We were talking about pranks that we’ve pulled (by that time, I was knee deep in my prankster phase) and he told me of how to kill a fax machine’s toner by sending a taped up loop of black paper to somebody. Ah, the good ol’ days.

Honk.

A couple years later, 1997 to be exact, I found myself at the first Terrastock in Providence. It was a great weekend. A ton of friends from all over the world. My Athens buddies in Neutral Milk and the Olivias were finally being fawned over and playing out to a huge group of fans. I got to see the first Major Stars performance (!!!!) and the final Magic Hour one as well. I put out a recording (called "Providence" fittingly enough) which was a one-time drone out with the Gibbons brothers from Bardo Pond, the two Jasons from The Azusa Plane, Carl Hultgren from Windy & Carl and Dave Pearce from Flying Saucer Attack.

Dave Pearce @ Terrastock ’97

Speaking of Flying Saucer Attack, Terrastock was the only time I ever got to see him/them perform. And who was playing guitar along with Dave? The joker, Jim O’Rourke.

Any time I ever bring up this "routine" that Jim did that weekend, I’m surprised more people don’t know about it which is why I’m posting it here 12 years later. I apologize for the fidelity, but Jim was speaking into a mic that wasn’t particularly loud in the mix. However, it does improve. Just bear with it for a while.

Jim O’Rourke – Fuck You Clown

Chunklet is putting on an art show at Bearded Lady in Austin through April!

Yours truly, Mr. Chris Bilheimer and Aye Jay! will be part of a gallery show!

Ad in this week’s Onion!

Thanks to Josh & JD.

And hey, who knows? Maybe next year I’ll do a show!

If I were to assemble my dream team this year? It’d be super easy. The reunited Six Finger Satellite, Major Stars, Los Llamarada, Gentleman Jesse & His Men and Mayyors. I mean, duh!

Eventually, that is. I mean, he’s being released from prison after killing in cold blood.

If he’s not picked up within minutes by Vice, I’d guess he’d either kill within the year or be killed by a mega-fan/stalker type.

Mommy, may I sleep with murder?

If you’ve not read about Count Grishnackh and Burzum in the book Lords of Chaos, I strongly recommend it. The first 40 pages and last 20 pages are absolutely essential. The rest trudges along, but overall, it’s a great read.

1991 was a very good year. I’d just graduated (and moved away) from the University of Pittsburgh with my MBA, I was obsessive about music from the confines of my mom’s house in York, Pennsylvania (months before I left for Georgia) and I became friends with the guys in Gumball.

York was as jerkwater as cities in central PA came, but there were a few enclaves of people with their heads screwed on straight. One guy, Rick, ran a local record label called Bona Fide. Released some killer releases by The Left, Antiseen and a Pagans side-project band, The High Rollers. Another perfect release he did was by a band from DC called The Velvet Monkeys.

Through Rick, I met semi-gonzo, yet lovable Jay Spiegel (known to everybody as "Rummager" or just "Rummy," "Rum Man" etc. etc.) who was the drummer for the Monkeys, later of BALL and then of Gumball. Rummy was living in Harrisburg at the time and touring like a bastard all around the world. When he’d be home, I remember going to play golf with him, trading tapes and hearing stories from him about doing pre-production work for Teenage Fanclub’s high point, "Bandwagonesque" in Glasgow. Not only was Jay a funny guy to be around, but he was a fantastic drummer. Jay was kind enough to allow me to make copies of countless VM, Ball and Gumball live/demo tapes which, sadly, have mostly disappeared through my various moves. Pity.

Gumball, Atlanta ’93. (l-r) Don, Jay and Malcolm.

Gumball’s first record, "Special Kiss", had been released and was, in many ways, as close to an extension of early Velvet Monkeys as you’d ever get. Don Fleming’s fuzzed out guitar, Eric Vermillion (formerly of The Steel Miners) equally fuzzed out bass and Jay’s sloppy, yet powerful, shuffle on the skins.

I got to see the three-piece line up perform at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster on a Sunday with about 60 other people. Jay opened the show with a 3 minute drum solo as the other two came out on stage. It was super noisy and fucking fantastic.

Shortly thereafter, I moved to Georgia and soon to be a writer for the Flagpole. In the meantime, Gumball took on a fourth member (Malcolm Riviera, also of the Velvet Monkeys) signed to Sony and had a spectacular cover EP called "Wisconsin Hayride" come out and a subsequent full length called "Super Tasty." Other than the god-awful cover art, the records still hold up remarkably well. And hey, at the time, every half decent indie band was signing to the majors and Gumball was no exception.

Early on, I asked the Flagpole editors if I could go and travel with Gumball who were opening for Dinosaur Jr. with then-unknowns Mercury Rev in the first-of-three slot. With little more than a tenuous agreement that they’d pay for some black and white film, I hopped in the car with fellow Flagpole (and future Oakenthrone publisher) John Mincemoyer as we followed the band from Norfolk, down to Chapel Hill and then to Atlanta.

Every Gumball show on that tour started the same way. Don would come on stage and point to somebody in the crowd asking "Is she really going out with him?" and then kicking right into "New Rose" by The Damned. I could never quite ascertain what the crowd thought of Gumball as I spent most of their sets on the side of the stage and, I mean really, who wasn’t completely obsessed with headliners Dinosaur Jr. in 1993?

Jay “The Rummager” Spiegel

Getting to know the band was really a treat. Except for Eric who was roughly my age, the Gumball guys were about ten years older than me and were a bit more wise to the ways of the road and how to have a good time. Although I recall this with fondness, I remember being sort of shocked backstage when I saw a shoebox of weed pulled out and joints rolled with a speed and aplomb that I’d never really seen. Remember, I wasn’t really a weed guy at the time. But with that said, of course I was a bit curious.

The final show in Atlanta was a bit of a clusterfuck. J Mascis went MIA and Don Fleming proceeded to go find him somewhere up on North Avenue. I guess the only reason I remember that is because SO MANY PEOPLE seem to remind me that Dino didn’t go on for something like an hour after Gumball left the stage.

I never saw Gumball perform again after that due in large part to the band’s schedule keeping them in Europe and Japan. The band’s next album wasn’t something I particularly liked. Overproduced, songs seemed not nearly as well written, but the band came back full circle with a live "fanclub" release called "Tokyo Encore" which was more of what I learned to love about Gumball. Sloppy. Covers. Trashy. Hazy. Awesome.

My contact with the band has all but disappeared, but I still really enjoy listening to the first two records (and that covers EP) and feel that the dollar bins have done a great disservice to those releases. Their latter stuff? Well, let’s keep this on the up and up, shall we? Since the early 90’s, keyboard/guitarist Malcolm Riviera has written often for Chunklet, helms "8 Track Heaven" and is holed up at some higher education facility in North Carolina. Don still lives in New York, Eric lives back in Pittsburgh (I think?) and Rummager is back at his mom’s old house in Harrisburg.

In the spirit of exposing fans and new listeners to something they’ve probably not heard before, I’m including Gumball’s two Peel sessions from 1990 and 1991. Funny enough, Ringo Starr’s "Back Off Boogaloo" was a song that was played non-stop one summer at the Olivia Tremor Control house back in ’95. Any time I hear that song, it makes me think of Will and Bill and that hot summer. Additionally, the song "39 Lashes" (from "Jesus Christ Superstar") that Gumball cover in their ’91 session was a song that Pegboy would also cover on their "Fore" EP in the mid-90’s but fail to credit. I wonder why?

Anyway, enjoy and I apologize for the Peel session’s fidelity. I attribute that largely to the fact that I played these tapes repeatedly and just wore the tape down.

Oh well, enjoy!

Gumball, Atlanta ’93. (l-r) Don and Eric.

Gumball – This Town (Peel Session 1990)

Gumball – All The Time (Peel Session 1990)

Gumball – I Want You (Peel Session 1990)

Gumball – Vietnam (Peel Session 1990)

Gumball – 39 Lashes (Peel Session 1991)

Gumball – Back Off Boogaloo (Peel Session 1991)

Gumball – High or Low (Peel Session 1991)

Gumball – Light Shines Through (Peel Session 1991)

Gumball – Marilyn (Peel Session 1991)

Gumball – John Peel talking (Peel Session 1991)

This is how bad it is in 2009.

The radio in my hometown of Atlanta is so horrible, my wife bought me Sirius radio last year for Christmas. Gone are the hours of listening to horrible DJs who play equally horrible music. The choked-with-shit NPR station in town is a thing of the past. Of course, I’m sure part of the reason my wife bought me Sirius is so I’d stop complaining, and for the most part, I have.

But with that said, almost 20 years after first hearing them, WFMU is still the only radio station I listen to religiously. And unlike then, I listen on their streaming audio channel instead of when I’m in the area. The station has served as an invaluable link to what’s going on up in the New York area, and more importantly, it has a more accurate reflection of what’s going on in the underground.

WFMU is entirely listener supported, and that’s become more important for me to understand the older I get. I put my money where my mouth is and I give freely to those things that I love. And WFMU is one of those things.

Chunklet has many, many good friends that staff the radio station, but Tom Scharpling’s in particular has got a pledge drive incentive that’s nothing short of jaw-dropping. Read about the whole thing here.

Along with a special Scharpling & Wurster CD recorded just for the pledge drive, and a Dogmo tote bag, there’s a slew of FOTs (including Death Cab for Cutie, Teddy Leo, Danielson and more, more, more!) that have recorded a tribute album to Paul McCartney’s album "Ram".

I really don’t like telling you to donate your time or your money to anybody or anything, but WFMU is an unbelievably important resource to (what I’m guessing is) 99.9% of the Chunklet readership.

Chunklet hearts WFMU and so should you. Show it by donating money all this week and especially on Tom’s show on Tuesday night. It’s absolutely worth it. Seriously.

(And as a special treat, I’m including Paul McCartney’s radio spots he recorded to promote "RAM")

Paul McCartney – Ram radio spots

Paul McCartney – Hi Hi HI radio spots

Bumpin’ around the internets looking for something or another I came across this fantastic footage of Frantix rehearsing in a basement. They peel off 3 songs in under 4 minutes (minus their KBD classic "My Dad’s A Fucking Alcohlic"). Frantix would manage a couple of 7"s and demo tape in their time. Then some key members would show up later in another great Denver band…yep, The Fluid. Anyway, I thought it was rad. And no, I wasn’t there in any way, shape or form.

(Duane Davis, of camera owership, was of WAX TRAX RECS. & KFML in Denver. Good of him to hit the ‘record’ button, wasn’t it? )

Flyer from their 1st show ever. 198?