King Slender - self-titled ep

Hey all. I just wanted to make a quick post here, and it's in regards to a new band I play drums and do vocals in. We're called King Slender, and we play a style of hardcore akin to loads of 90's emo hardcore bands you may already be familiar with.

Wisconsin's Parking Lot Records has just released a three song cassette for us, and we will be recording five new songs in April with Steve Roche (ex-Off Minor, Saetia, Books Lie, etc.) at his Permanent Hearing Damage studio here in Philadelphia. We're just starting out as a band, and we played our first show in December with more coming up in the very near future.

Here is a link to our bandcamp page (the three songs there are available for a free aka 'pay-what-you-want' download). We also have shirts available for any interested parties.

Finally, if you like what you hear and you're on f/b, feel free to toss our page a like.

Thanks, and I certainly hope everyone is doing well.

Alison Ranger - self titled cd

If you aren't familiar with the excellent Alison Ranger, I should refer you to their Last fm page for all of the JUICY DEETS, as what's written there is better than anything I could provide for you, my dear reader;

"Alison Ranger formed in August, 1999 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Despite claiming West Chester as a home town, Alison Ranger's members lived in such disparate states as Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. For the next five years, after many shows, two tours, some line-up switches, and a few collections of recorded material, the band broke up in August, 2004."


On this self-titled, self-released debut, Alison Ranger deliver up some inspired, busy, and emotive hardcore punk with tight drumming, vocals that alternated between high pitched screaming and the "yelled" variety, and (most notably) keyboards by someone who sure as shit knew how to play them. True, the keys aren't going to be for everyone, but if you're open minded enough to dig on some pretty original and energetic hc and, say, Bruce fuckin' Hornsby...well then I've got some shit you should hear.

My first and only encounter with these dudes occurred in January of 2001, when bass player Sandro Braidotti booked a show for one of my old bands at the completely awesome Wild Child Cafe in Wilmington, Delaware*. Not only was Sandro an all around nice guy, but his band rocked my balls off when we played with them that night. For me, that was one of the more memorable shows I ever played with that band, and I definitely consider myself lucky to have crossed paths with Alison Ranger. We had some serious van trouble on the way down to Wilmington and arrived stressed the fuck out (because that show was the first of three in a weekend road trip). However, once we got there, the friendliness of the folks in this band really helped me to settle down and quickly brought me back into a good mood.

These six jams were recorded at the prolific Clay Creek Studios with Nick Rotundo on August 8th and 9th, 2000. Peep it, 'cause it is indeed quite good. Alison Ranger to this day remain the only hardcore band from West Chester, Pennsylvania I've ever heard.

* A quick search through a box in my basement didn't turn up the flyer I still have for this show, but it's definitely down there somewhere.

Tracklist:
1) Wing Commander
2) Soap Factory
3) Who Has The Six-Top?
4) Pralines And Dick
5) Painter's Crossing In The Time Of Lope de Vega
6) Double-Blind

- choose where your shadow is cast -

Puritan / Reversal of Man split LP

Released in 1996 on Arizona's outstanding King Of the Monsters (run by Michael Gentz), this was an early split from two bands who played that frantic, spastic shit we all love; Pennsylvania's Puritan (who hailed from the Poconos), and Tampa's Reversal of Man. Really good stuff here, and if you're into the records that Witching Hour Records started doing just after this split was issued, you'd (probably) be doing yourself a favor to peep this. If you are familiar with the aforementioned cult-ish label, there's a 94 to 98 percent chance you know both of these bands already, and know at least one of them well. Recommended for fans of Inhumanity, Makara, and/or Volume 11.
,
Reversal of Man was a bit more prolific than Puritan, but both bands showcase a similar hectic style on this joint effort. Mostly fast, rippin' emo hardcore that comes recommended by this dude, especially the Puritan shit. There are lots of song explanations and personal writings included in the liner notes to keep you busy for a minute, and the bands have been awarded, by me, some extra big ups for referencing "The Dukes Of Hazzard" and aliens.

The Puritan songs (side A) were recorded ???, and the Reversal of Man songs (side B) were
recorded ???. This album was King Of The Monsters #5.

                                     

Tracklist:
---Puritan---
1) Never Meanin' No Harm
2) This Is Medicine
3) They Say 81
4) To Fall In Love...
5) From Inside A Carousel (Whispering)

---Reversal---
6) Pilot Gumby
7) Theory of Lamastra
8) Slingshot
9) Plaster of Paris
10) No Longer
11) Roswell

- please speak to me -

Five Stars For Failure - demo cassette

Let me begin today's addendum to Creation Of Minerals by first saying that I feel weird about doing a blog post on a band which I used to play in; there's just something a bit uncomfortable about the idea of doing so. Hopefully I can handle it...

I'm not going to go very deep into the history of Five Stars For Failure here, because that's what this website is for. Fundamentally, we were a three-piece emo/indie/hardcore band from suburban Philadelphia and we really liked Sleepytime Trio, Spirit Assembly and Four Hundred Years. This tape was the first thing we recorded, and it was comprised of the first four songs we wrote that -weirdly enough- appeared on the demo in chronological order. Our guitarist Jay recorded it (played live, of course) on a Tascam 4-track at our practice space, which also happened to be his bedroom in the house that his grandparents owned (we eventually got our shit together and migrated to the garage). It came out sounding very lo-fi and raw, which makes perfect sense. We were happy with it at the time I guess, but nowadays may be tough to make it through, as I just found out. I have no idea why we thought making 200 copies of this thing was a good idea, but that's exactly what we did. We brought a few demos for consignment to some local record shops in and around the city, sold / gave away a bunch at shows, and send a few off to some zines for reviews. A decent-enough review of this cassette (and then eventually our 7") in issue 24 of HeartattaCk gave us a little bit of exposure, which made us feel nice. Looking back on this band years later, we weren't great or anything, but at the same time I don't think we were that bad either. I'd say I'm happy with what we accomplished: this demo cassette, a four song 7", a few compilation appearances, and 31 shows in total. Not too shabby.

Anyways, we would re-record these four jams at an actual studio, and two of them went on the aforementioned seven inch. After we got tired of each other and broke up, we self-released a 13 song discography cd-r, but didn't include these original versions of the songs on it. If you are so inclined, you can also listen to and/or download the discography right over here. Realistically, the only reason I bothered to do this post is because I can't imagine that digital files of these songs exist in the possession of anyone who wasn't in the band.

I'm still very close to the bass player of FSFF, Justin aka The Reverend. He's getting married next month and has asked me to be his best man, which is honestly a total lie because he didn't ask. He essentially told me that I was his best man and didn't leave me with a say in the matter, which I'm obviously totally cool with. We've also put a new band together, King Slender, and will be recording some jams for a demo tape in a matter of weeks. Hopefully it turns out a bit better than this :)

200 copies were made, and this was recorded by Jay Donahue during June of 1999.

Tracklist:
1) Break, Eye
2) Were It Car Invisible
3) Caterstories
4) Stuffing

- wine coolers -

V/A - "Inspirit" benefit compilation 7"

This record has a lot to it. So much in fact, that I took a total of 207 pictures of it before selecting the 20 that you see below (props to Sean and his adorable dog Lulu for the help, yo!). I owned this record years ago, but either misplaced it in a move (this is highly doubtful, folks) or it was physically lifted by someone without my knowledge. Let's go with that, because I don't lose any members of my vinyl record family...a 10" isn't exactly something I'd ever forget what I did with. My entire record collection sat shotgun in the U-haul truck while covered in a blanket during both my move down to Georgia and then back again to The Keystone State six years later. I've noticed over the past couple of months or so that random cds and cassette tapes of mine, some of which I had owned for a very long time, just don't seem to be in my hands anymore. Anyway, as I was bummed due to the dispossession of this seven inch, my main homie Sean eventually learned of my sadness and was kind enough to trade me one of his copies for a Thou t-shirt*. What a fucking guy, I gotta say.

Released in 1995 as a split effort between State College, Pennsylvania's Ancestry (run by Sam from Spirit Assembly) and Static Records from the great little college burg that is Princeton, New Jersey. It evidenced four awesome bands in total: California's emo superstars Amber Inn, Boston's straight forward, nasally and epically harsh female-fronted troupe Coleman, another (Santa Cruz) Californian band The Fisticuffs Bluff, and finally southeastern Pa's very own Elements Of Need, who of course features one of the guys from the now-famous comedy duo known as Tim and Eric. The Elements Of Need song which appears on this comp (here called "Untitled") is actually the final song from the bands side of the most excellent split 7" with Jasmine, a classic jam previously released by NY's Kidney Room and entitled "I Bet You'd Look Great In Silicon". This was very clearly not the song originally intended to find its way on Inspirit, a gigantic mix-up on someones part. The band makes a pretty noble effort to remedy this for whoever purchased the record via their info page in the layout of the compilation.

There are contributions from people who've been negatively impacted by sexual assaults on women, whether those victims were friends and loved ones, or themselves, and is both an informative yet sometimes difficult read. The artwork incorporates a few drawings of a penis having the foreskin removed, so just in case you were wondering if that type of graphic detail was included (all in the name of education, of course)... the answer is yes, it sure fucking was.

The etchings in the vinyl runout grooves oddly features the name of the guy who ran the aforementioned Kidney Room Records: R.Spooner A and R.Spooner B on each of the two corresponding sides.This makes the think that Kidney Room lent a helping hand in releasing this, or was originally supposed to put it out to start with. All of the songs included are quite good, and each band has its own style which distinguishes them clearly from the others on the record. This reinforces the fact that the American hardcore punk scene circa 20+ years ago never had a singular definitive style, but was made up of many different varieties of bands that always seemed to find some sort of common ground to work together on. This sums up the Inspirit compilation good enough for me.

The Coleman song was recorded live in January 1995 by Susan Barnaby and Bill T. Miller.

As mentioned earlier, the E.o.N. song originally appeared on a previous release, and no recording information appears on either record. The Fisticuffs Bluff recorded their contribution during June 1994 in San Diego with Matt. Lastly, Amber Inn's song was recorded at Enharmonik Studio by Eric Stenman in November 1994.

Overall, this is a genuinely important and gratifying achievement from the mid-90's. No catalog number is given from either involved record label. They just don't make 'em like this anymore, kids.

* That's not how it went down, actually. This trade only occurred after months of me badgering the shit out of him, as I'd been trying to unload my Chokehold and Thou shirts on him forever because I'm not as skinny as I used to be and they just won't fit me anymore. But yeah, It's safe to say we both walked away happy from the deal, or whatever.

Tracklist:
1) Coleman - "Mother"
2) Elements Of Need - "Untitled" aka "I Bet You'd Look Great In Silicon"
3) The Fisticuffs Bluff - "The Logistics of Things"
4) Amber Inn - "With Regrets"

- the act is done, now why can't the memories go away? -