Tear You Down Build Me Up

Ocelot
The Quiet Storm
2002

Ocelot might've been a year or two too early. The kicked a shit-ton of ass around Atlanta in the early aughts, but broke up before they really made a splash on a national level. I saw them in 2002 headline a show with Maserati and Explosions in the Sky as the openers. That's balls, right?

But anyway, this is a great instrumental rock record. These guys knew what they were doing. Drummer Alex Lambert has been in a handful of Atlanta bands, though imo none as good as Ocelot. I don't really know what the rest of the guys have done. Like 7 years ago I used to see bassist Brian Harris working at a pizza joint in Atlanta. Guiarist Kenyon Tavares was (maybe still is) the bartender at The Local, one of the better bars in Atlanta. Also there was a stretch where I saw him at literally every single show I went to, even the first Pitchfork Festival, way the fuck up in Chicago. Speaking of which, if you google "ocelot the quiet storm" the first result is a fairly badly written review I wrote of this record way back for Pitchfork. I can't really write for shit now, but back then I really couldn't write for shit.

At any rate, this is a little different than the usual crap I post, but it comes highly recommended.

The Quiet Storm

Storybook

Levelhead
Spooky?
1994 (?)
Vinyl rip

No cover for this one, so that boss flyer will have to stand in. Levelhead was a great pop punk band out of Marietta, Georgia, one of the northside Atl suburbs. My old band Round Ear Spock played with them a few times, and I always loved them. This 7" in particular got worn out on my record player. If I'm not mistaken, we played with them, Total Chaos, and the Voodoo Glow Skulls once, but one of the Voodoo Glow Skulls got super sick and they canceled, so Total Chaos did too, leaving us two local bands to hold down the fort. The Somber Reptile let everyone in for free, and we tore it up. I didn't really like those other bands anyway.

So if you like this record, head over to Beyond Failure and search for their unreleased full-length. Also, bassist Matt Monroe is in a band called Callsign who aren't too far off from Levelhead, though not as poppy. You can hear them here.

Spooky?

Science and Trucking

Textbook
A Garden to Tear Apart
unreleased

Shameless self promotion alert!

Textbook started back in 2003 or so, with an original lineup featuring three former members of Flux Capacitor (Jeremy Spake, Shane Secor, and Brian Crow) and some other dude on drums. Eventually that other dude was replaced by Gregory Case. Around this time, Brian was playing with me in a band called Atlantic (with another former member of Flux Capacitor, incidentally). He jumped ship to focus on Textbook exclusively, and eventually Atlantic folded. Fast-forward a year or so and Shane and Textbook decided to part ways amicably, and lo and behold, I get called up as his replacement.

I was in Textbook for roughly 1 year before we went on hiatus due to a great career opportunity for Jeremy. That 8-month hiatus turned into a year-long hiatus, then a year-and-a-half, and long story short, we never reformed. So here is our never-released full-length debut. Being in the band for only a short time, I'm in a bit of a unique position. I play on 2 of these 9 songs; the rest were recorded with Shane before I joined. So I'm really coming to you as a fan of this record, not just a dude promoting his own shit. If you like heavy post-punk, somewhere between Jawbox and Deadguy, then I think you'll dig this record. I do, anyway.

Oh, and btw, Shane Secor is in a pretty good newer style punk band called 40 Hells, which initially featured both Brian Crow and Gregory Case in its ranks. And yes, I'm aware of the humor in my band going on hiatus and two of the guys making a new band with an old-member and not me. It's really funny. Ha ha.

A Garden to Tear Apart

Snot Nose Brat

Tone Deaf Pig-Dogs/No Class
Saved By The Bail
1996

I still haven't bothered to learn how to use my scanner, so that live shot of The Tone Deaf Pig-Dogs up there will have to stand in for the actual cover of this split disc. TDPG were another of the local Atlanta bands tearing shit up in the mid-90s (see this post). They were like a sponge, constantly absorbing members of other bands (members of A Quart Low [who morphed into The Oswalds], Smedley and the Space Cadets, and Round Ear Spock all played in this band at one point or another), but their sound wasn't as new-school or pop-punk as any of the bands they borrowed members from. Fairly straight-forward punk with a nod towards 50s rock and greaser attitude is what you get here. Singer Mike Nickerson's snotty snarl always puts a smile on my face.

Two of the members of this band, Nickerson and bassist Dom Totino, currently play together in a really good jangly rock band called The Letmedowns, but more importantly they've resurrected the Pig-Dogs name for a reunion show this Thursday, September 10th, at Lenny's in Atlanta. Rounding out the lineup for this reunion are Elliot Goff, who I think played in 12 Ounces at one point, and Keefe Justice, who played with The Close, played with The Oswalds for at least one of their reunion shows back in the late 90s, and has been in a slew of other bands, including Minced Oath and Das Assjugend, both with me. So if you're in the Atlanta area, for pete's sake come out and check this one out. It'll be a fun old-school time.

Oh, and of course this is a split disc with No Class, who I believe were from Alabama. I'm not going to lie; I don't think I've ever listened to their half of the disc. That's not a slight on them or anything. I've just never gotten around to it. Let me know if it's any good.

Saved By The Bail

Mouse in my Beer

The Oswalds
Don't Panic
1995
Vinyl Rip

First and foremost, let me point out that the above image is not actually the cover of this 7", though that image is on the cover. There's a scanner sitting 2 feet from me, but I've yet to install it/figure out how to use it, so I don't have the cover for this one at the ready. My bad.

The Oswalds were a big part of the 90s punk scene in Atlanta, and along with bands such as The Tone-Deaf Pig Dogs, Smedley and the Space Cadets, Stopper, Suspect Device, Victim 9, Obnoxious Kids, and my own band Round Ear Spock spent several years playing shows around town, most notably at a hole-in-the-wall called The Somber Reptile. These were good times. In my personal opinion, The Oswalds were the best band in this little scene. They mixed the speed and humor of NoFX and the pop-punk of The Queers with a twist of hardcore and metal, especially in the later days. There were some talented dudes in this band, such as drummer Mike Green, who is now in Light Pupil Dilate, and Mike Brennan, now in the mighty Javelina. Those two bands don't really give any indication as to what The Oswalds sound like, though, so keep that in mind. This is basic 90s new-school punk, but it's fun and exciting, if a little juvenile, and they put on a hell of a good show. They had a whole album's worth of material that never got released, and though I had a crappy ripped-from-a-cassette version of that stuff on cd once, I have no idea what happened to it. If I ever track the rest of their stuff down, I'll let you know. Oh, and they had a cassette-only release prior to this 7" called Aim Low, but I don't have it any more either.

The "Little Bit O' Soul" cover was a bad choice, I'll give you that, but "Mouse In My Beer" and "sXe Sucks" are unstoppable, and "(Every Kitchen Needs A) Riot Grrrl" is cute too. It's also funny, given that last track, to note that after The Oswalds disbanded, several members reformed in the much crustier, heavier 12 Ounces (who I'll post another day) who had a much more political and socially conscious lyrical bent.

Don't Panic

Killing Kranium

Necropolis
Contemplating Slaughter
1988

When I was in middle school, Necropolis were big shit in the Atlanta metal scene. At least, that was my impression from hearing them on the local metal show and hearing older metal dudes talking about them. I was a little young to ever catch them live. Actually, I think they carried on into the early/mid 90s, but by that time I was too punk to pay attention, so I may've just missed them when I had the chance. At any rate, this is classic third-tier thrash, influenced by Exodus and maybe some early Megadeth. Sloppier and more poorly produced than the big guys, but no less fun. I was listening to this in the car the other day and thinking about the huge divide between the "big four" and the rest of the thrash world in the late 80s. If someone didn't know what thrash was, and you played them Master of Puppets or Reign in Blood or whatever, you'd really be giving them a false impression of the genre. This right here is what most thrash sounded like.

I have no idea how popular this band was nationally, but I suspect not very. But they were played every Friday night on WREKage, the metal show that still airs on Georgia Tech's college station (WREK 91.1).

Contemplating Slaughter