Twitch Party - Live at The Raven Playhouse 5/10/97

(Flyer by Aidan Flax-Clark)

Great show by my first band. When I think of Twitch Party, this is what comes to mind. As far as I'm concerned, this was our peak. We were still getting along (for the most part) and our creativity was really flourishing. Sure, the recording quality here isn't perfect, but for a tape that was recorded from a Hi-8 video, I think it sounds damn good. I'm very proud of this band and what we accomplished. It's hard to believe this happened over 12 years ago!

Aidan Flax-Clark on guitar and backing vocals, Travis Erwin on bass, J.C. Ehle drumming and me as lead vocalist. We were good.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Intro - 30 seconds of setting up, tuning, etc.

02. Crack - A powerful version of the song that rages beyond the Whiskey recording.

03. Sore - Fuck yeah! Sme slight dropouts - somebody must have walked into my camera...

04. At Peace - This may have been the first time we performed this song live. (At most, it was the second.) You can tell it's not fully formed yet, but it has an energatic immediacy to it. Check out the improvised guitar solo by Aidan!

05. Grey Walls - I wrote this song. Very influenced by Karp and Hammerhead. Unfortunately, this was where I was headed, which was diametrically opposed to where everyone else wanted to go. If not for my ego...

06. Binding Glory - Balls!

07. Beautifully Deformed - A particularly tortured performance of this song.

08. Stench - Sure, it's an L7 rip-off, but it was one of my favorites and we did a great job with it here.

09. Urinal - Boom-cha-boom!

10. Song - Hell yeah!

11. Grassed - Good shit!

12. The Taxidermy of Love - I really like this performance. You can hear some drunks come in at the end of the tuning sequence after the song. They were pretty entertaining.

13. Fit - And the tensions start. We actually played the song pretty well until it fell apart in the end. Then, like an asshole, I had to insist that "I didn't screw up." I did. Sorry Aidan.

14. Halved - Oh yeah!

15. Stretched - Excellent performance of our signature closing track with some beautiful feedback at the beginning. I like to think that THIS was what we were all about.

(Flyer by Aidan Flax-Clark)

Twitch Party
Live at The Raven Playhouse 5/10/09 CS
(n/a)
1997

Download Live at The Raven Playhouse 5/10/09 as a .zip file!

More Twitch Party!

The Two Felipes - Rock the Boat

I know I said that the Pyroclastix live tape would be the final entry of the live series for the week, but I have this ready and I feel like giving you a bonus. Think of it as the unwanted sequel to your favorite horror flicks, only way, way cooler.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure if I have the title of the tape right. Ack burned it for me from stuff that vocalist Dan Vebber gave him, and Ack labeled it as Live as the Dickens! In the jumble of Two Felipes scans he sent me, though, there was this tape cover that didn't seem to fit anything else Felipe-related, so I'm using it here. If I'm wrong, sorry - perhaps Dan can correct me.

In any case, this is a vintage live Felipes recording made between Eat Your Fill and Beaker Full of Death, so it's probably from around 1987 (as the tape insert indicates). I think the club was called The Unicorn, which was most likely in Milwaukee, WI. It must have been a soundboard recording because it's pretty clear.

The setlist mostly contains songs from Eat Your Fill, though "Door to Door Shoeshines from Beaker Full of Death is here, as well as covers of "Iron Man" and "La Cucaracha." No, I'm not kidding - download the tape!

The images and music were uploaded with Dan Vebber's full consent. Thank you, Dan!

***UPDATE 6/18/09***UPDATE 6/18/09***

According to Dan Vebber:

"Yeah, "Rock the Boat" was our proposed "next" album that never materialized. (We generally worked backwards, album concept/artwork first, music second, hence the tape cover.) And I think we had actually decided to call it "Hot Glue Gun" by then, so the artwork I did wouldn't have worked.
That Unicorn show was pretty awful. I think there were like, two people in the audience."

So that solves the mystery of the tape cover.

As for the show, there may not be many people in the audience, but it's a damn good document of The Two Felipes during their existence, regardless. Leave a comment and tell us what you think, Felipe Fanatics!

***

The Two Felipes
Rock the Boat CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1987

Download Rock the Boat as a .zip file!

Or try out some sample tracks first:

Explosive Enemas

Iron Man

Headache

Evil Robyn

Download more Two Felipes!

Pyroclastix - Live Destruction: Halloween, 1997, Syracuse, New York

And now for the final installment in my trilogy of live posts this week.

Pyroclastix were a whole other animal live than on the "studio" recordings. It's just as intense, but a lot creepier with a lot of screaming and an eerie, empty feel to the overall sound. This is the last Pyroclastix release I have and it's definitely a high note in noise-master Brian Magar's catalog.

It's only one track that's just over 26 minutes.

The images and music were uploaded with Brian Magar's full consent. Thank you, Brian!

Pyroclastix
Live Destruction: Halloween, 1997, Syracuse, New York CS
(Imbalance)
1997

01. Route 13

More Pyroclastix!

deng - Live at The Raven Playhouse 10/97

deng didn't last long, but we were around long enough to put out one tape (that got good reviews in Flipside) and we played one noise show at The Raven Playhouse with Eckankore, Musicide and possibly Flammable Child(?).

This is that show, as recorded on my 4-track as we performed. It's pretty chaotic, but it's a lot of fun and it's only nine and a half minutes.

deng
Live at The Raven Playhouse 10/97 CS
(n/a)
1997

01. Live at Ravens

Download the deng tape, Spasmodic Goat!

Twitch Party - Live at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go 4/13/97

(Twitch Party's listing in the LA Weekly)

And now for the first in a trilogy of live recordings that I'll be posting this week.

This was Twitch Party's third or fourth show and you can hear a lot of diversity in the songs. We were in the process of assimilating our many different influences whole, which we eventually fully realized on our demo, but listening back on this recording, I'm pleased with the diversity. At least we were original.

This show is marked by my constantly cracking voice, JC's ever-troubling hit-hat and our general shyness when it came to dealing with the audience. Actually, Aidan does the best job trying to keep people entertained. I hid behind sunglasses and a dog collar and had a hard time talking to the crowd. I was 18 and thus not of legal drinking age, so I was probably pretty sober, maybe a little stoned.

Travis sat in a chair while he played - he thought it was funny.

There's a video of this show, too.


About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Intro - Us getting our bearings.

02. Crack - As far as I'm concerned, this was the first Twitch Party song. I wrote the lyrics in my college Intro to Philosophy class and gave then to Aidan. He called me with a riff. When he played it for me over the phone, it sounded good. While practicing at JC's house, I beat on the cow bell while screaming the "I stepped on a crack to break your back" and it stuck. The lyrics were very influenced by San Francisco's Bomb.

03. Sore - This was really Aidan's song and I don't know much about what was behind it. I remember getting really sick of this song after a while, but now it's one of my favorites.

04. Urinal - On my way back to LA from NY, I went into the bathroom and peed next to a guy who was beating off into his urinal while giving me a creepy grin. I wrote lyrics about it and Aidan came up with the music.

05. Stench - This was a silly song. I wrote lyrics about a brutal murder scene and the band came up with something that sounds like L7 on testosterone. I still like it, though.

06. Beautifully Deformed - The music for this one came from one of Aidan's 4-track recordings. It was originally called "The Poop Song" and the lyrics were of the "I want to poop on you, I want to poop on everyone" variety. Aidan asked me to write something else, so I came up with the Bomb-infused sex lyrics.

07. Binding Glory - I wrote this one. I borrowed an atonal chord from Six Finger Satellite and arranged it around S&M lyrics. It came out well, especially after Aidan, Travis and JC added their flourishes.

08. Football Jock - Another song that came from Aidan's 4-track recordings. JC and Travis did an excellent job of recreating the metronomic, robotic beat.

09. Song - One of my songs that we played until we broke up. It was properly recorded for the demo.

10. The Taxidermy of Love - If I remember correctly, the music came from one of Aidan's 4-track recordings and I provided a poem I wrote as lyrics.

11. Grassed - I took the title from the Naked Lunch glossary and wrote a song around it. Aidan came up with the music. I particularly like the Sword of Vermillion-like guitar riff.

12. Halved - Another case of Aidan setting my lyrics to music. Travis insisted that he couldn't play that fast, so he played the note slowly and it ended up sounding really cool. The song kinda reminds me of "Rope" by The Jesus Lizard.

13. Stretched - One of our first songs and one that remained in our set until we broke up. I love this song.

Twitch Party
Live at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go 4/13/97 CS
(n/a)
1997

Download Live at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go 4/13/97 as a .zip file!