various artists - Down In Front

It's pretty comforting when I still have to seek out information on someone who interests me, instead of just stumbling across it in social media. The search is still valuable, I think. To go out, almost blind, into the world and to find something new by choice rather than have it broadcast at you is a delightful thing. Sure, Instagram will, thankfully, keep me fully appraised of what John Brannon and Coop and Baseball Card Vandals are all up to. But if I want to keep up with the likes of Aaron Cometbus, historian of the East Bay scene, zinester extraordinare, and drummer of a million bands, I still gotta pick up a copy of his eponymous zine (now on issue 59). 

Anyway...so Aaron Cometbus. The dude started a tape label and his zine when he was 14. The zine is nearly 40 years old, and I get something engrossing from it any time I read it. I'm not sure if he's still making music; he was a part of the short-lived Thorns Of Life, but after that, nothing that I recall. I suppose we all step back eventually.

No Idea put together this CD version of a simultaneously-released 7" box set of unreleased Aaron Cometbus songs. The CD has one unreleased song from each band, along with a previous vinyl-only release. Confused? You shouldn't be. Here's who's on the CD:

• Redmond Shooting Stars - a three-piece that existed in Eugene, OR in 1995 and 1996 and did a single 7" on Broken Rekids
• Astrid Oto - a female-fronted, Asheville, NC-based quartet with 7"s on No Idea, Broken, and Meconium. They'd get a discography on No Idea in 2002
• Pinhead Gunpowder - arguably the best known of Cometbus's post-Crimpshrine projects, this band featuring Billie Joe and Jason from Green Day and Sarah and Bill from Sawhorse put out four albums and a host of 7"s from 1994 to 2008
• Cosmetic Puffs - this punk band from Eureka, CA made their only recorded appearance on the "Down In Front" comps
• Sweet Baby - Cometbus replaced Sergie from Samiam on drums for this East Bay band's post-LP songs back in 1989
• Retard Beaters - this four-piece with the awful name put out a single 7" on No Idea in 1998. They do not appear in the 7" box set
• EFS - EFS self-released a single cassette containing 25 songs, six of which made it to vinyl via the 7" box set
• Shotwell - Shotwell is still a band (!), although Cometbus left this Bay Area institution after the release of their first LP
• The Blank Fight - pre-This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb folk punk from around the same period as Astrid Oto. Their two songs on the CD were their first releases
• Mundt - a one-off project made with Quitty from Behead the Prophet NLSL/Mukilteo Fairies. They did a single split cassette with Long Hind Legs on Punk In My Vitamins
• Cleveland Bound Death Sentence - best known as Paddy Costello's Dillinger 4 side-project, CBDS did a pair of 7"s for THD in 1997 & 1998, then reunited in 2005 for four more songs on No Idea

Discogs

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