A Book? Who’d Read It?

Lately, I’ve been sifting through my archives looking through all the drivel I put down with the goal of assembling a book. My own Best of Joe Ehrbar anthology, The Joe Ehrbar Musical Companion, Select Writings from 1996-2003. Funny, I know. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to sell it to the wider public or foist it on any reluctant family members. It’s simply a self-serving vanity project, an older-school version of this blog, but printed on actual paper and packed between two cardboard covers. I’ll have a few copies bound and that’ll be it. That way, if I need to refer to something I wrote back in the day, it’ll be smiling at me from the bookshelf. No longer will I have to rummage through hundreds of newspapers and tabloids—I can simply pack up all the papers and send them off to their final reward: the recycling plant, where they can be spooled as toilet paper. I’m not sure when said book will be published, but I’m happy to know that you’re not actually waiting for it. There are many pieces to review—oh, and I’m not merely reprinting them verbatim; I'm editing them, making my problem children a little less problematic. And in some cases, I’m actually rewriting stories, or at least adding to them.

Which brings me to the little orphan below. I doubt I'll include it in the book. Lucky for you, you can read it here. I wrote it for the defunct Seattle rock magazine Backfire, which was published by Dawn Anderson. I don’t quite remember when the piece ran, probably in 2002. It was a revival of a column I did in The Rocket called Demo Joe, in which I’d ask bands to send me their demos and in return I would constructively eviscerate them, usually from a third-person point of view. I’d like to think that since none of these bands exists today or did anything of merit following their appearance in my inane little column that they took my advice and did something more meaningful with their time, like TV-watching or alcoholism. (I should talk.) Here's the copy:

Hey vocal guy of Pistol for a Paycheck, Demo Joe suggests you use it—point it at the feet of your sloth-ly band members and squeeze the trigger. Wake them up; put them on notice; whip them into shape; do whatever it takes to get their drooping asses moving. PFAP’s vocalist really wants to wage blitzkrieg bop, but the rest of his band isn’t so sure they want to get off the couch and join him, and as a result their demo suffers from mid-tempo malaise. Remember, loud and fast rules, boys…Blue Star Creeper have some promise and they’re trying to find their own voice in this great sea of mediocrity. But there’s no spark or spontaneity to be heard on their submission, and they sound bored. Come on, people, it’s supposed to be fun…Monkey and the Butt Puppet probably think their pretty hilarious, Demo Joe surmises, by mouthing such drivel as, “I didn’t mean to butt fuck you,” or, “I want to fuck your mom until the break of dawn.” Classy, guys. Demo Joe is just pleased as poop you molested a perfectly good acoustic guitar and masturbated all over an unsuspecting 4-track to render this musical abortion. But if you want to keep fisting your assholes with such stupidity, do yourself a favor and buy a Frogs record—maybe then you’ll learn how to truly shock your audience with lewd juvenilia that’s exponentially more clever…Horrible’s bio says it all; here’s an excerpt: "Khjkreraklelhnlirj; ekbfhklhb; lkj; kljwkljljw; ljeb; l; rlejb; ebrljbr!lj." Well put. Unfortunately, Horrible aren’t as bad as they’d like you to think. We’ve heard this power-trio-produced power-pop punk plenty, but the band actually cares about the music, and as a result cast songs that, while fishing conventional waters, are at least baited with serrated hooks…Daddies Little Girl are in need of a lyricist. As it stands, their songs are fairly stupid to be heard so prominently in the mix. Listen, guys, if you’ve got lame lyrics, at least sing them in French. At least then you’ll sound like Les Thugs, all be it like their retarded nephews, but anything’s better than this…As for Psychonaut, Demo Joe has this advice: Buy yourself a Throbbing Gristle album, tighten your lyrics, and ease up on the distortion. The electronic barrage is effective, but subtlety is a virtue. Also, if you’re gonna complain about the world sucking eggs, show some insight. Or maybe you are; it’s just that it’s hard to hear through all that distortion-saturated alfalfa obscuring the meat….

Mining the Motherload Railroad

History of Trench Records Part 1 (1991-1993)

In 1991, I started volunteering at my campus radio station. My intention was to host a weekly reggae music program, sending a little-heard genre of music most foreign to station’s Spokane, Washington, listenership over the airwaves. Back then, the worldwide web hadn’t yet come of age, so even though reggae is ubiquitous, mainstream and can be heard on demand virtually anywhere, anytime, outside the tiny 100-watt radio station from whence I spun records, if you wanted to hear reggae in Spokane, you had to pin your hopes on the local college hippy band to incorporating a reggae riddim into their sociology 101-informed songs of injustice or on dog-eared copies of UB40’s Labour of Love or Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Legend washing up at one of the two music outlets that still sold vinyl.

But before I get too off-track, I should say that this article isn’t about reggae.

Although I was passionate to share my knowledge and my record collection with the one or two listeners who tuned into my “Reggae Revolution” show on Sunday nights (thank you, Ed and Dan!), my enthusiasm for the genre was on the wane. The reason? Suddenly, as a newly christened DJ at KAGU, I now had access to the station’s entire catalog, a fairly large collection of music that dwarfed mine. What’s more, hardly any of it was reggae. It was rock ’n’ roll, or what people once called “college rock”—very little of which had I ever heard, all kinds of records with all kinds of crazy covers containing all kinds of crazy sounds stamped on all kinds of crazy colors of vinyl. So while I was proselytizing the merits of dub to the Spokane public, I was immersing myself in this new world of independent and underground music—especially the pop, punk, garage and grunge sounds coming out of the Pacific Northwest—mind-blowing music for someone who listened mostly to roots reggae and ska. I was familiar with Soundgarden and Nirvana—and months later, Nevermind would be released and change the world. But I hadn’t heard of the Mono Men, Mudhoney, Tad, Beat Happening, Gas Huffer, Seaweed, the Young Fresh Fellows, Coffin Break or Cat Butt. Or record labels like Frontier, Estrus, Empty or K. Everywhere I looked were unfamiliar singers and songwriters and bands. What was hard to believe was the fact that most of the music was on vinyl—something that was supposedly obsolete.

Even more astonishing was that a few of the records were local releases. I was unaware that Spokane had itself a music scene. With all the attention that Seattle was getting, an impressive punk rock movement was bubbling up from the Spokane underground. There were 7-inch singles by the Young Brians, the Fumes, TFL, Waterstreet and a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, band called Black Happy and a host of demos by bands like Nice World, Big Feeling, Huck and Waterman’s Hollow. The station’s most popular local release (and a high-charting record overall), was a funky pop-punk EP by a local band called Motherload. Songs titled “Liquor Store” and “My Sister” garnered several spins daily and constant requests. In terms of popularity, the songs were to KAGU what “Smells Like Teen Spirit” would soon become to MTV. Of course, that would come to haunt the band locally as they couldn’t seem to play a show without humoring their audience with a rendition of “Liquor Store” (and its catchy chorus: “Hope it’s not too late / To make another run to the liquor store/ We’re running out of time / So pick yourself up off the floor”). The record was good, but it undersold Motherload’s genius. Seeing the trio of guitarist/vocalist Scott Kellogg, bassist/vocalist Geof Templeton and drummer Brian Parnell from the stage of Henry’s Pub for the first time confirmed this. They were a monster—a prowling, growling beast of beer-fueled bliss characterized by herky-jerky syncopated rhythms, muscular melodies, uber-catchy choruses—a band influenced by the Minutemen and NoMeansNo but informed by a stronger pop sensibility typical of what was emerging from Northern California at the time. I was hooked—and I never missed a show. And when they took up practicing in the basement of the house next door to mine, I thought I’d gone to heaven (though I remember thinking that if there was a heaven, it sure wouldn't look like Spokane, Washington). Occasionally, the band invited me to watch them practice—an exclusive concert for one. Sometimes I’d even witness a new song take shape—and marvel how it would be completed and rendered perfect just one or two practices later. Other nights, I was happy just sit on my back steps, smoke cigarettes, sip cheap beer, and absorb to the sounds flooding from the non-insulated basement next door.

Indeed, Motherload captured my imagination, kindled a love for punk rock, and inspired me to be an evangelist for their cause. Meanwhile, we continued to spin Motherload’s one and only record at KAGU. The band eventually grew tired of hearing it, so Geof dropped off an eight-song tape of songs that would soon form part of their first album—which was due for release by the band’s Seattle label Empty Records. Naturally, we played the entire tape as soon as we got it—and it was amazing, containing songs already staples of the band’s live set. And all eight songs were superlative to their debut EP. This was spring 1992. By summer, the new record wasn’t out, and Motherload had left town on a three-month U.S. tour (evidently they hit the road before sending Empty the tapes). By the time they returned home, they endured a humbling marathon of payless nights, mechanical problems, couch surfing while racking up some serious debt. In late ’92, Motherload got word that Empty was no longer interested in releasing the batch of songs they’d recorded—it would hold out for new songs.

By then, my friend, radio station boss and fellow Motherload booster, Dan Cossette, and I toyed with starting a record label to give the recently orphaned songs a home on CD. Hell, all around us at the radio station were records on fledgling DIY labels—if they could do it, why couldn’t we? So in early 1993 we launched Trench Records (not sure how or why we settled on that name…). We had no money, no real plan, no idea how to make or distribute an album. But we knew we couldn’t move forward without first getting the band to agree to give us some songs for a CD. They were into it—they just wanted to get some new music out there even though they knew that an unknown label wouldn’t likely give them any more exposure. And since we couldn’t pay them any money, we offered the band 20 percent of the CDs we pressed, a little over 200 CDs, which they could sell at their shows.

So we cobbled up what little savings we had, asked a few friends for “investments” and I sold my stereo (which I wouldn’t be able to replace for five years—which made working as a rock critic a tad challenging). As soon as we had the money, Motherload gave us a DAT containing 11 songs—some familiar, some not. Brian created the artwork for the cover and CD, as well as our original logo. And we contacted some nice Canadians in Quebec to master the recordings, print the art and press it all onto CDs we could sell. In May of 1993, one thousand and fifty CDs were delivered to the door of the house Dan and I were renting, marking the arrival of Motherload’s longtime-coming Buck Toothed Dream on CD.

In the proceeding weeks, Buck Toothed Dream drew some favorable reviews in publications like The Rocket (the magazine I would later edit) and Maximumrocknroll. Positive press, however, didn’t quite translate into sales. To make the CDs available, Dan and I had to physically walk them into records stores and consign them—he drove to Portland; I drove to Seattle. Some places would take five copies, most as little as one. We had two distributors, the largest being K Records in Olympia (the label now known for its Beck, Modest Mouse, Karp, Microphones and Halo Benders releases), which bought a whopping 40 CDs. Gradually the CDs sold, and even though we didn’t quite sell out of the entire run, we viewed it as a success. We didn’t make any money, but we were able to pay back our investors and we got about 900 CDs out there within two years. By then Motherload had ceased being a full-time interest for its members—Geof went fishing in Alaska for a couple years, Scotty hitched a ride to Portland and stayed there and Brian moved to Seattle. And because the CD had pretty much run its course, we wouldn’t issue a second pressing of the album. (I still have five copies; highest bidders can have them.)

As for what I now think of Buck Toothed Dream’s music, well, I’m biased. I always liked this Motherload, so I can’t be objective. And while the album they gave us didn’t quite capture their live personality, their unhinged tenacity, it’s a decent facsimile. Among the standouts are “Run for Your Life,” “Fur Coat, “Too Weird” and “Chicken Froth”—ah, hell, they’re all pretty good. Even the ones I remember the band not being fond of, “Will You Wait,” “My Selves” and “Perfection” hold up well.

Incidentally, in 1994, Motherload recorded another record for Empty Records, this time with the now famous producer Phil Ek (Modest Mouse, Built to Spill), but the label declined to release that album, too. The recordings were eventually issued posthumously in 1997 along with other songs from the Buck Toothed Dream sessions (a couple of which, “Who Gives a Shit” and “M.L.R.R. (Mother Load Railroad),” I really wanted for the Trench release) on a CD anthology titled From Hillyard—an inside joke referring to a miserable, blighted neighborhood in Spokane.

I’ll revisit Motherload in a future post. In the meantime, you can download Buck Toothed Dream here. I’m also including the aforementioned “Who Gives a Shit” and “M.L.R.R.” as bonuses.

Special thanks to Motherload, David Hayes and Dan Cossette.

Next post: History of Trench Records Part 2: Boycott!

Meet Your Makers II

This Makers cover shot comes from the defunct Seattle music magazine I edited, The Rocket. Design by Rocket art director Stewart A. Williams, the photo of Mike and Don snapped by Robin Laananen. This particular article, written by Seattle writer Kevan Roberts, appeared in the spring of 2000, a few months before The Rocket went defunct. At the time, the Makers had just released their Sub Pop debut Rock Star God, their most ambitious recording to date and a concept album, no less. Despite drawing a four-star review from Rolling Stone's David Fricke, the album failed to excite the indie landscape and further alienated the band's original garage rock fanbase. Their loss.... But what a cover!