Violent Fit is Dan, bassist/vocalist of Ultrabastard!, doing a solo hardcore thing in the Garage Band program. Don't let the "guy on a computer" aspect turn you off, though. This is some seriously noisy, pummeling shit, kind of a cross between Rupture and The Cows, or maybe Melt Banana and Poison Idea. I dig it, and you should, too.
Violent Fit Descent of the Monarch MP3EP (MPAE) 2010
Here's a band John, from ULTRABASTARD!, was in over 10 years ago. From what I remember, the band had another name and a proper singer until John was looking at their website one day and he saw something saying that the singer, Pete, had quit to start another band. Apparently, Pete forgot to tell his bandmates. John was playing bass, so out of necessity, he became the vocalist and they changed their name to Pete-less.
Sonically, I think the band is more "grunge" than anything - not like Pearl Jam mind you - but that style of metalized punk that really doesn't have any other name. Between Barbara's heavy guitar chops, Joe's powerful drumming and John's shouted vocals, it has a very late '80s/early '90s Northwestern US sound.
Some words from John:
"It's 33 minutes, 11 songs and aside from the shitty vocals, it still rocks after all these years!! We shoulda been contenders! 'When Illumination Comes' was a 10 minute jam with a lot of good riffs that I whittled down to 2 minutes. Half the songs were about Joe's breakup with his girlfriend including '3 West' which was named after the psych wing he was in because of depression. 'Tired' was a fuck you to everyone who said we were this or that." The images and music were uploaded with John Ulmer's full consent. Thank you, John!
(Live at Big Al Doogie's birthday party August 2006)
My band, i.e., the functioning one that practices every week and plays out once in a while.
John and I met in Maggot, a Lower East Side scummy punk band that I joined after seeing them play once. Unfortunately, main man Greg Maggot and I butted heads and I was out of the band a few months later. Shortly afterward, I started playing with a douchebag who called himself Atom, where I met Dan, but that's another story.
Basically, John called me out of the blue one day after the Maggot debacle, right when I was realizing things weren't working out with Atom, and he asked me if I wanted to play music with him. Of course I did - he's a great guy, really easy to work with and he played bass. So we started writing and practicing songs with a drum machine in his garage. John wanted to name the band "Hypocrite," and I liked "Jackhammer," so we became Jackhammer Hypocrite. We actually played a show with the drum machine to about five people in a sandlot.
The thing was, we really wanted a singer and a drummer. Eventually, we found the latter in Dan Brown, a guy from my neck of the woods, the North Fork of Long Island. None of the singers we "auditioned" worked out, so John and I took over vocal duties. This line-up played several great shows, most notably at The King's Club in Centereach and Saints'N'Sinners in Smithtown. We also changed our name to JAKKHAMR HYPOCRYT for some reason.
Eventually, Dan Brown, who's a helluva musician by the way, began flaking on band practice, leaving John and I to sit there pissed off and frustrated. Finally, we just never called him back for practice and we returned to square one. We put a classified ad in a local music mag and talked to a few people, but nothing worked out. In the meantime, I played with Optimus Prime. Then one day, John called and said, "I've got a dumb idea - why don't I switch to drums and get Dan from Optimus Prime to play bass?" So that's what we did, and it's stayed that way for better or worse ever since, although now we practice in Dan's basement and we're called ULTRABASTARD!
There's been a lot of fun and a lot of turmoil. We did a mini-tour of Florida with Libyan Hit Squad. We played Cleveland and met Nightmare Mode. We've had incredible, ass-kicking shows and really horrible, embarrassing ones. We've hated each other and loved each other. We all love it, though, and we always come back for more. In fact, we're recording again (finally).
These songs were recorded in late 2005, right after John switched to drums and Dan joined.
(Live at Joe's going away party October 2009)
About the songs: (note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)
01. Turning Fat Into Muscle - This instrumental evolved out of a riff I pulled out of my ass one night when John was playing bass and Dan Brown was still drumming. It became our staple opener for quite a while.
02. Numb - John wrote this one, though I came up with the chords for the solo part. It's a heavy, solid song about frustration - a subject that appears often in our lyrics. This was one of the original seven songs John and I assembled with the drum machine.
03. Don't Need You - I wrote this trying to write the "Sonic Reducer" of break-up songs. I actually originally recorded it on my 4-track for the second FPOS album that never materialized (because I had a real band for a change). It remains a crowd favorite.
04. Alive - John write this, but his original lyrics were some "pretty girl, dream come true" drivel that had no place in our repertoire, so I wrote lyrics about the asshole my mom married. Another of the original seven songs.
05. Kiss Me - One of mine, written shortly before "Don't Need You." One of the original seven.
06. Citiots - Dan came up with the music for this killer song and we all worked together to arrange it into what it is here. I wrote the lyrics about summers on the North Fork with some inspiration from The Candy Snatchers.
07. Piss & Hatred - John wrote this about a rough patch in his marriage. Also one of the original seven.
08. Big Fat Dumb - I was on a Motorhead kick when I wrote this song about an asshole I had to work with. We don't play it anymore, mostly because Dan can't remember the bass line and I'm too lazy to re-teach him.
09. Myrtle (Something Good) - Dan wrote and sang this garage-y stomper. He titled it "Something Good," but John said it should be called "Myrtle." Still one of my favorites.
10. Blues Type Thing - One of the original seven I wrote that was inadvertently ripped from Iggy Pop's "Rock And Roll Party" from Party. And yes, that's a Robert Plant reference in the lyrics.
11. Fight Song - I wrote this song about my experience moving across the country after being annoyed by Rush on the radio at work. Funny how that worked out. John said he could see the crowd fighting to it, so the name stuck. I think I wanted to call it "Wanderlust," but that didn't last long. One of the original seven, and, just for the hell of it, I'm gonna post that original seven song, four-track demo up here at some point. Also, be sure to listen to the hidden track, which appears 30 seconds after "Fight Song" ends.
Halloween's right around the corner, so here's the first release by my favorite horror-influenced band ever!
Mike Desert and I are practically family - his mom and my dad have been really good friends since the late '60s. When he heard that I was into punk rock, he found me on AOL (this was around 1996 or so, when I was just getting out of high school) and we've been music buddies on and off ever since. He got me into bands like Karp and The Candy Snatchers, both of which remain favorites of mine to his day. I believe I first heard about Hawkwind from him, too. We also shared a hatred of the NOFX brand of shit punk.
Around this time he was putting together his new band, the Jack Saints after the demise of his previous band, Solarfeast. I heard stories about shows in emails and finally, the band uprooted from their home in Palm Desert and moved to San Francisco, where they gained some attention.
I finally got to hear them when this CD came out and I found it used in Green Hell on Ventura Blvd. I was instantly a fan. It was dirty, scummy bar punk fueled by B-grade horror movies and booze. I've been a huge fan ever since.
I saw the band play three times, I think. Twice at Mr T's Bowl in Highland Park and once at Headline Records on Melrose with The Onyas, who I later saw at The Garage on Santa Monica Blvd. Great shows.
Years later, I interviewed them for what would be the final Horror Garage print issue.
When I hear The Jack Saints, I wanna get drunk and have fun. They make me very happy.
The music and images were uploaded with Mike Desert's full consent. Thank you, Mike! (I don't know The Idiots, so I didn't upload their portion of the split CD.)
The Jack Saints Sweating Like a Whore in Church CD (Man's Ruin) 1998
A quick one to get back on track. 
Violent Fit
Here's a band John, from ULTRABASTARD!, was in over 10 years ago. From what I remember, the band had another name and a proper singer until John was looking at their website one day and he saw something saying that the singer, Pete, had quit to start another band. Apparently, Pete forgot to tell his bandmates. John was playing bass, so out of necessity, he became the vocalist and they changed their name to Pete-less.
Sonically, I think the band is more "grunge" than anything - not like Pearl Jam mind you - but that style of metalized punk that really doesn't have any other name. Between Barbara's heavy guitar chops, Joe's powerful drumming and John's shouted vocals, it has a very late '80s/early '90s Northwestern US sound.
Some words from John:
Pete-less
(Live at Big Al Doogie's birthday party August 2006)
(Live at Joe's going away party October 2009)
ULTRABASTARD!
Halloween's right around the corner, so here's the first release by my favorite horror-influenced band ever!
I finally got to hear them when this CD came out and I found it used in Green Hell on Ventura Blvd. I was instantly a fan. It was dirty, scummy bar punk fueled by B-grade horror movies and booze. I've been a huge fan ever since.
The Jack Saints
