…Hazel – Blank Florida b/w Motor Sport Daredevils (1994)
I recently found this along with 2 other Hazel 7″s that I had never seen before, and now I think I have everything they released. Hazel is one of my favorite Portland bands of all time. They were a lot more melodic and spunky than most of the Seattle based label-mates on Sub Pop. This 7″ looks like it was basically self-released, I doubt there were more than 1000 of them. Oh, and these tracks were recorded by Donna Dresch, enjoy!
I was very lucky to find this gem from the Last Splash era. The title track is my favorite, sounding a lot punchier and punk influenced than is typical for the band. Shocker in Gloomtown is a Guided By Voices cover for which they made an awesome video. I featured it a while back on Music Video Monday… check it out.
All these songs are short and sweet. This is the Breeders at their funnest, and definately one of my favorite things they’ve released. Hope you enjoy!
Before boarding the big gay cruise ship we hung out for a day in Los Angeles, West Hollywood to be exact. We did a lot of fantasy shopping at fancy boutiques where we can’t afford anything, and finally ended up buying a ton of shit at Amoeba records in Hollywood. This seven inch was one of the things we picked up, for only $1.99!
The Spirit is Willing
Dusty
And here’s a bonus Ruby Falls track from the Welcome to the Villa Villa Kula Compilation (which Jon bought when he was 16), it’s about being gay…
I remember listening to the title track of this 7″ in High School and being all vicariously angsty. Mombies is about growing up queer and having shitty parents, but I actually had two really awesome ones. I would listen and sing along and be all like “Yeah! This is totally how I imagine I would feel if I lived in the movie All Over Me and/or the suburbs!“
In reality though, I lived in rural NJ where my mom would invite my boyfriends for dinner and my dad would become president of the local PFlag chapter….Geez.
So before I really start, I have to confess that I am cheating a little bit here. These songs are not actually from a 7″, but are taken from the 1984 full length, Moving by The Raincoats. However, there are special circumstances that lead me to breaking the official format of Seven Inch Saturday. But before we get to that, a little back story…
As you have most likely gathered from previous entries in this series, when I was a teenager I pretty much exclusively listen to riot girl, punk, and rock music. It wasn’t that I was purposefully cutting myself off from other artistic ideas, but more so that I was just a dumb teenager who hadn’t yet fully realized how to appreciate music ( which is not to invalidate the music I did like at that age). Lucky for me though, I was a teen in the mid to late 90′s, and eventually had access to the internet. Where previous generations might have poured over Rolling Stone, I was fortunate to have queer punk message boards to read.
Eventually someone turned me on to 70′s/80′s group The Raincoats. I started where most people do by listening to their self-titled (and their only traditionally punk) album. I LOVED it, and immediately bought all their other album. But since I was a dumb teen, I hated them all. They weren’t punk, so I closed myself off to them. Stupid.
Luckily I gave them another shot when I was 20, and realized how amazing they were. Moving quickly won the titled of Best Album Ever in the book of Jon.
Skip ahead a few more years. I only owned Moving on CD, but one day found an unopened mint condition vinyl copy on Ebay. I was so excited. Once I got it, I considered listening to it, but ruled out the idea for fear of marring my treasure. What was the point. I already had the songs on CD right?
Now skip ahead another few years. Paul and I get a new record player. We are going through all of our old records for fun and I decide, “What the fuck? Let’s just play my special Raincoats record already!”. We put it on, and after we are one song in something incredible happens:
This is not the same track listing as the fucking CD!
Some how I had never noticed, but the long out of print LP has two extra tracks! TWO!
They weren’t included in the 90′s CD reissue for some stupid reason. For me it was like someone had just given me long lost recording of my favorite band. I was blown away!
So, since they are not on the CD and will most likely never be reissued, I thought it would be fair to post them here.
This is almost the first thing that Helium ever released back in ’93. That was back before the guy from Polvo joined the band. Hole in the Ground is probably my favorite song they ever recorded. Some of you might remember it from the movie All Over Me. Anyway, I got a good deal on this on ebay. I think it’s actually the UK version. Hope you enjoy!
I know I posted another 7″ from the Kill Rock Stars Mailorder Freaks Club just a few weeks ago, but there are so many good ones to choose from that I just couldn’t help myself.
I first got into Quasi my sophomore year of High School (11 years ago! ahh!), which was a little odd because at the time I was pretty much only listening to Riot Girl, punk and queercore music. Quasi however is pure pop (or was at the time anyway), but I gave them an initial chance because Janet Weiss (of Sleater Kinney, who I LOVED when I was 16) was the drummer. I bought a CD of their album Featuring Birds and was hooked.
That same year I missed the boat by not buying a copy of this 7″, and regretted it for years. A few months ago though, I was surprised top find one used. It’s always wierd to hear songs by a band for the first time years after they were released.
(Side Story: I was listening to the side B song “Kiss the Snowman” the other day while Paul was at work and I got really lonely and sent him a crazy text message about how I missed him.)
The Star Death were an amazing three piece feminist punk/noise band from St. Louis. In 2000, back when I lived in Massachusetts, my old band played a show with them at a music/art collective called The Flywheel. I remember first meeting them and noticing that the singer had a giant Righteous Babe Records (Ani DiFranco) tattoo. Being 19 years old, and therefore a totally smug and judgemental ass, I immediately decided they were lame. Before they started playing I went outside to smoke and planned on not watching them at all.
Luckily there wasn’t a 10-foot-from-the-door smoking law in place yet, so I was standing close enough to the door to hear a snippet of the music leak through. All I could really hear was the bass, but I could tell instantly that something special was going on inside. I put out my cigarette and pushed to the front of the crowd.
What I ended up witnessing was one of the most heartfelt, vivacious, and rocking bands I have ever had the honor of playing with.
After they finished playing, I attacked them with praise and bought all their records, including the following 7″, Feministica.
Hazel was the quintessential 90′s Portland band. They formed in the height of the grunge era but their music is a definately poppier than most of the Seattle bands. Listening to them makes me wish I could travel back in time 15 years to catch one of their shows. They even had a member of the band who just danced (with a crazy ass beard, often wearing a dress).
The group included Jody Bleyle (Team Dresch, Infinite X’s) who plays drums and sometimes sings. She’s one of my favorite rock vocalists. While she doesn’t contribute any vocals on either of these tracks her drumming is kick-ass. There’s a whole mess of stuff on youtube. For those who live in Portland you can spot various Portland landmarks (like the east end of the Fremont bridge) in their music videos or find live shows at venues that are long gone (Club Scream). Hope you enjoy!
In 1998 and 1999 Kill Rock Stars (my absolute favorite label at the time) undertook a really awesome project called The Mailorder Freaks Club. The idea was simple but ingenious: Every month they would put out a limited edition (2000 copies) 7″ which would then be sent to every member of the club. You couldn’t buy them separately. You had to be a member. Essentially, they were getting a whole bunch of investors to pony up $50 at the beginning of the year in order to cover the production cost of making the future records. Brilliant! At the time I was 15 years old and $50 seemed like a lot of money to me. So, though I regret it to this day, I never actually joined.
The up side though was that I grew up near one of the best used record stores in the country. Members of the Mailorder Freaks club were always selling the 7″s they got but didn’t like. I would check in at the store at the end of every month, and frequently would get lucky. That’s how I ended up discovering British rock band Comet Gain.
At the time, I was mostly only listening to queercore, riot girl, and punk music (and *embarrassed sigh* ani difranco). When I heard the guitar part and vocal melodies of the first track (If I Had a Soul) from this 7″, the British retro style sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. I immediately mail ordered everything I could find from them. Though I realize now that they are fairly referential song writers, even their oldest recordings still feel refreshingly modern.
Bangs appeared at the tail end of the post riot girl music movement of the mid 90′s. Releasing the majority of their recordings (this 7″ being the only exception) on Olympia power label Kill Rock Stars, they quickly became a national mainstay on the indie music circuit. Interestingly, they built their sound around a niche that was largely unseen in the feminist minded 90′s indie rock scene: butt rock twinged power-pop. When looking for the evolutionary origin for Bangs, you won’t find it in people like Patti Smith,The Raincoats, or Heaven’s to Betsy. Instead, they seem to be taking there cues from party rock mainstays such as Cheap Trick or (dare I say it) Kiss.
The Maggie the Cat 7″ was the first recording they ever did, and is the only to feature vocals from original drummer Jesse Fox (on Lights Out,one of my favorites from their catalog of songs). I don’t know how long ago this went out of print, but I remember feeling incredibly lucky to have found it in a store when I did, and that was way back in 1999.
Paul and I recently bought a new record player, our first in quite some time. This has encouraged a swelling of nostalgia in us. We’ve been listening to all our old records, a lot of which are queer punk/ riot girl/ 90′s indie 7″s. Some are as amazing as remembered, others have fallen a bit flat over time. All of them are worthy of praise though because each was responsible in part for us developing us into the adults which we are today.
Sadly though, for each awesome record we have their are 5 more out of print ones we only remember hearing at teenage friends houses and on long lost mix tapes. Amazingly, most of these appear to be completely un-findable anywhere on the internet. This is potentially a great loss of creative intellectual value. This music must not be lost to time!
We here at Gaycondo have decided to take our part in digitizing and documenting these recordings. The plan is to post one 7″ every Saturday from here on out!
The first 7″ to be featured will be “The New Team Dresch V 6.0″ by Team Dresch
Released in 1998 on Outpunk records, the two songs featured on this record would be two of the last original songs to be recorded by (arguably the most important queercore band of all time) Team Dresch. Recently however, the band has reformed and murmurs of a new album have been traveling feverishly through the queer music community. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long. In the meantime, enjoy these two (almost lost forever) Team Dresch tracks.
