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Sub Pap Last September, PopSmear Records relocated to the Bay Area with their only act, SoCal's Deflator Mouse. The two-year-old label, which was founded by 29-year-old Scott Llamas and Todd Sievers (formerly of American Recordings; now of 3AM Management), wasted no time in signing 10 local acts (all of which appear on their upcoming sampler). The bands -- Fine to Drive, Slow Poisoners, Fitsners, Flexapleasers, Nukes, Blue Sky Roadster, Hot Jonny, Swirl Happy, and Scratch Ticket -- may all have the opportunity to work with PopSmear's producer Greg Hetsen, of Bad Religion, Circle Jerks, and Redd Kross fame. Hetsen will also be pulling double duty for PopSmear's A&R department. Young punks take note. PopSmear celebrates the release of their sampler, a remix of Flexapleasers' Beautiful Music for Beautiful People, and Deflator Mouse's If God Were a DJ on Wednesday, May 21 at the Transmission Theater. (S.T.)
What's Wrong With This Picture, Cont'd Reader John Lyons was kind enough to provide insight into the cover art from Boz Scaggs' latest, Come On Home, mentioned in this space last week. Lyons sent a photocopy of a 1966 "Dance-Concert" poster for the Otis Redding Show, apparently the source of the manipulated poster hawking Boz Scaggs at Slim's on the cover of the album. Lyons writes: "At least Scaggs didn't borrow the portion of the 1966 Redding poster about being the #1 R&B vocalist, but he borrowed the rest, down to the pose in the picture. What's next, Pat Boone does James Brown?" (M.B.)
Kuntry Kocks? The Kuntry Kunts just had a sex change. Bassist Ellen Yellowbird, guitarist Joe Airborne, and drummer Sue Trayling have decided to leave the all-female country band. The lineup change came after Airborne and Yellowbird opted for a slower-paced life and moved to Guerneville, Calif.; Trayling left soon after out of apathy. Said co-founding member J. Byrd Hosch: "We wanted to keep it an all-girl band, but no one responded to the ads, so we broadened our horizons." Hosch hit it off with guitarist Adam Hancock, which led to an audition where he brought along friends Noah Mackenzie and Jason Pienkowski, who happened to play bass and drums. Having a natural synergy with Hosch and Myra Martini's playing style, the boys are happy to call themselves Kunts. "We were going to change the name, but the new members are OK with it," said Hosch. "We're so much of a better band now, and it's definitely broadened our audience." (R.A.)
The Young and the X-less, Part 8 Riff Raff has received a copy of Ecstasy Club in hardcover format, due for release on June 4! Though our final two excerpts will lack the provocative metagrammatical qualities found in the uncorrected proof -- a sad compromise for the official release -- Douglas Rushkoff's "bleeding-edge" foray into the absurd, yet profound, world of ravers has lost little of its concept-dropping vim! Thrill to the story "destined to be a cult classic" as our protagonists rally for war, X-style! (M.B.)
We built a fire and cooked some turkey franks on the ends of sticks. It was almost quaint. After we ate, we stared into the fire and thought about the mission ahead. As if on cue from Duncan, Henry produced a plastic bag from his vest pocket. It contained a few hits of orange DMT powder.
"Let's focus together," Duncan said. Then he looked at me. "It will help unify the group."
I was feeling so worn out from all the coke and desperate for any high at all that I gladly took hold of the pipe and received my dose. It was smaller than the last time, but in a few seconds it came on.
I closed my eyes and flashed on my father. He was treasurer of our temple in Westport, Connecticut, when I was growing up. I remembered how I used to sit at his feet at the dining-room table as he added up the membership checks and holiday contributions. Once, after a Purim carnival, we went to the bank together to deposit the thousands of quarters they had collected from the carnival games. The bank had a big machine that counted the change, and the man behind the desk let me pour in the bags of quarters and watch them get stacked into neatly wrapped rolls stamped with the bank's insignia.
"It's fun, isn't it?" my father asked me. I wanted to say yes, but for some reason I couldn't.
That's when I saw them again. The lizard men in the white sedans. I was still six years old, playing with a toy spaceship. They just pulled up to the curb and watched me. I was too young for them to attack. They only needed to monitor me. Check on my progress.
I realized who they were. The past. The lizard brain. Evolutionary history. The backward pull -- almost equal and opposite to the great attractor at the end of time. The antagonists to progress. The keepers of the status quo. The enemy.
