various artists - Chico, CA

A few years before they put out the early works of the Decemberists, and long before working with the likes of Jon Brion, Team Dresch, or John Cameron Mitchell, Jealous Butcher Records was just a Portland label I knew for making limited edition records with really great handcrafted covers. I learned about them the first time I saw Kind Of Like Spitting, who were on tour with Braid, and they had this comp with a folded cardboard wrap cover tied with a twist-tie in the upper right corner. I snagged this and a copy of "You Secretly Want Me Dead" that night, meeting Ben for the first time.

The uninitiated probably won't know a blessed soul here, apart from the aforementioned KoLS. Beltline, Rally Boy, and Captain vs. Crew all made singles and full-lengths for Jealous Butcher in the years around 2000, Jeff London is probably the most prolific artist here, having cut records for J.B.R. and fellow Rose City travelers HUSH over the years. Jeff did a pretty great digital-only album in 2020 that's right in that indie folk niche that I (and other NPR-contributors) love.

If I hadn't heard Poison Idea before, I would have assumed everything from Portland sounded like this until I moved out west, thanks to recordings like this.

Discogs

Click here to download.

PS: There's a good chance that I screwed up the artist naming on the download. Check the Discogs listing for the correct listing.

The Third Sex - Card Carryin'

Here's another one of those records I had in the 90s, sold off or lost or gave away, then recently turned up locally for a couple of bucks. I heard about the Third Sex via a pretty great 7" (their first) they released with Kill Rock Stars in 1995. When I heard they'd made a full-length for Chainsaw, the home of Team Dresch and Sleater-Kinney, I dutifully sent off my $8-$12 in carefully-hidden cash, and six weeks later, I was the proud owner of "Card Carryin'".

Portland lesbians were a mysterious breed, making a better racket and fiercer sounds than any guys I knew at the time in the state of Maryland, so, yeah, I dove headfirst into that scene, despite being a straight, cis, white dude fresh out of high school with a shaved head. "Why are you into those dyke bands?" otherwise progressive buds would ask me. I don't know; like so much other art, I'm drawn to the things on the outside. I mean, yeah, I probably would have fit in better at an Earth Crisis show, but this just made more sense, had greater appeal.

Even 25 years after the fact, I maintain a big soft spot for romantic, political music, of which this has in spades. There's a strong surf sound here, with the requisite energy that comes around with that sort of influence. And the vocal interplay between Trish & Peyton definitely reminds me of Sleater-Kinney from the same period, although there's a lot more weird, silly play going on here, which of course I dig. It's a good old spin, from a time where it was really daring to be queer and play even DIY spaces without getting fucked with. The Third Sex kept it fun, sounded like there was a bright future ahead, and it still sounds great.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Post #300: Kind Of Like Spitting - 2004 4-track demos

I try to bring some real quality for every post, but when I hit a landmark like a post that ends in "00", I feel like it's time to really dig deep for something most folks haven't heard. So let me give you something from my old friend Ben.

I met Ben Barnett for the first time when he was opening for Braid and Cross My Heart at the old Ottobar in 1999. Braid was on what was then billed as their final tour, soon to partition into Hey Mercedes and the Firebird Band. I know XMH was playing songs from "The Reason I Failed History", arguably their finest record. But it was Kind Of Like Spitting that blew me away, with a folky emo sound that I hadn't really experienced before. Plaintive songs, cracking vocals, violin accompaniment? Yes, yes, and hell yes! I bought the "Birds Of A Feather" 7" that night, and damn near wore through the vinyl over the next year between listening at home and playing it on my radio show.

When Ben came back to Baltimore the following year, he was playing solo, backed with an Insound tour EP and more plainly showing his influences (Joni Mitchell! Jimmie Rodgers! Leonard Cohen!). I ended up chatting with him for almost an hour after his set in the parking lot next to the Sidebar, just rapping about music and touring and how to deal with depression with art. We exchanged numbers, and I told him to give me a shout if he was coming back through town and needed a place to crash. Within a few years, I'd end up booking him a number of shows, both as Kind Of Like Spitting and with the first Thermals tour. The stays would range from a few hours to a few days, and it was great to chop it up with hot goss about what was happening in Seattle and Portland, giggling about his buddies who were ending up in Spin Magazine.

Sometime in the summer of 2004, Ben came to stay with the girlfriend and I in our garden apartment on Calvert St. for a night or two, and ended up crashing for a couple weeks. It'd been a couple of years since he'd put out "Bridges Worth Burning" with Barsuk, and was pivoting towards a more folky sound. After all, mainstream emo only had room for one sensitive singer-songwriter in Chris Carraba, so why not lean into a love of Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger? Before he split for Philadelphia, Ben laid a CD-R on me of songs he was demoing for a new record. And that's what we have here.

The material from these 17 songs would make up parts of the next two Kind Of Like Spitting full-lengths: 2005s "In The Red" and 2006s "The Thrill Of The Hunt". The arrangements are simple and spare. "Worker Bee" here is just acoustic guitar, double tracked vocals and metronome, which gives this early version a real ghostly feel. "Grapes" from "In The Red" is titled "Line And Sinker" in these demos, and has this wonderful hissy quality that reminds me of Ben's earliest tapes. It's the songs that don't appear in studio versions elsewhere that are worth diving into. There are covers of Neil Young's "Losing End", Bad Religion's "You", and Mojave 3's "In Love With A View", the first of which only appears here. "Cheap Drinks" is a great song that really deserved a fleshed-out version. But the capper here is the beautiful rendition of "This Little Light Of Mine", the lullaby turned protest song. It's really outstanding.

I'll argue that Ben Barnett is one of the most underappreciated singer/songwriters of the past 25 years. There's an integrity and honesty present that few artists possess, and fewer still manage to not to lord over people. He's just a fella, as willing to talk and sing about the folk scene in the late 60s as he is about smoking dank buds. There's more than a bit of Ben Barnett in the character Llewyn Davis, although I doubt the Coens ever listened to "$100 Room". That authenticity, even when there's appeal to turning it all down, can't be manufactured; it just is. And it's present in these songs, whether an original composition or in a cover choice.

If you like what you've heard here, and you've not familiar with the Kind Of Like Spitting catalog, swing by the Bandcamp page, where's there's just a monster amount of music to dive into. As I noted a few months ago, the newest Kind Of Like Spitting release is a tribute to the late Karl Hendricks, benefitting his family. Anything you purchase on the page goes to the Hendricks clan, a worthy spend if ever there was one.

Thanks for your continued visits, friends. Enjoy.

Click here to download.

Calamity Jane - Martha Jane Cannary

Here's some early 90s PNW punk rock for yr brain on a Tuesday. I knew about Calamity Jane from "Stars Kill Rock" and Tim/Kerr's Wipers tribute comp, so when I saw this stashed on a low shelf in a junk shop not far from me, I said, "hell, yeah", even though I couldn't recall at the time what they actually sounded like. As far as I'm concerned, it was a pretty good get. It's grimy, heavy, noisy...hailing from the same sonic places as their contemporaries in Mudhoney, Scrawl, and the Fluid. The more I listen to it, the more I hear them go to the same territory as a band like War on Women, who I just simply adore.

I'm vexed as to why this, their only full-length, ended up on a short-lived UK label, instead of one of the numerous West Coast labels releasing this kind of rock in 1992. Calamity Jane released a 7" with Sympathy for the Record Industry in 1991, and had a couple of appearances on Tim/Kerr. But it seems like a terrible experience with fans while opening for Nirvana in Argentina took the wind out of CJ's sails. It sucks; it seems like, just months later, they might have taken the same sort of leap as L7 or 7 Year Bitch.

TLDR: I thoroughly enjoy this record.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Post #200: Tragedy - No End In Sight

Tragedy at Thee Parkside, SF, CA, 2008 (photo by Brian Dooley)

When I restarted Primitive Offerings a few months back, it was, in part, because the 20th anniversary occasions had really started piling up for me. 2000 was a really good year, no? It was the first year I ever really lived on my own; the Baltimore Chop and I lived in a cruddy two-bedroom apartment out in Baltimore County after I got kicked out of college. We went to shows all the time, especially since they didn't drink at the time, so I could have a few and not stress driving drunk. There were countless great records that came out that year. And the movies...oh, the movies from 2000! "O Brother...", "Pitch Black", "Almost Famous", "Ghost Dog", "High Fidelity": when I wasn't at a show, at work, or back at school, I was probably in the theatre, turning a single feature in a double. So, yeah, for me, other than going all year without a date, it was a really good year.

2000 was the year the first Tragedy LP came out. I didn't know much about them. I knew this was the new His Hero Is Gone/Deathreat band, the fourth member was the guy who ran the Great American Steak Religion label, and they were out of Portland instead of Memphis. I had really mixed feelings about crust at the time. I loved the music and the politics; I hated the scene, so I figured, much like HHIG, I'd never see these guys, because I didn't want to be the only person there looking like a skinhead. What can I say; I was super-insecure about myself in 2000.

Flash forward a couple years to 2002. The Art Space and the Bloodshed open within months of each other, each one offering slightly different yet complimentary takes on DIY punk and hardcore. It was easier navigating city shows; I lived a block from Reptilian, worked at the record store when I wasn't at school, helped remodel and run CCAS. Tragedy's second LP, "Vengeance", comes out, and it carpet bombs everything. I couldn't help but pay attention. They go on tour, and I get to see them! The gang in Kerum had this verbal meme at the time, based on a review they received from a German zine. When something was awesome, they'd yell "HAMMER!" I spent most of Tragedy's set at the Bloodshed yelling "HAMMER!" and head banging.

Time goes on. Tragedy does a split with Sweden's Totalitär in 2003, tours Europe and releases a pair of re-recorded "Vengeance" tracks, then releases "Nerve Damage" in 2006. I was in a different headspace by then; I still loved the music, but I stopped going to shows, a newlywed trying to live a straight life for my spouse. Tragedy played the Ottobar behind "Nerve Damage". I didn't attend. I still rocked the CD I'd picked up from Reptilian's new store.

Five years pass. My wife and I split up. I move back to Baltimore. Tragedy plays the first day of Maryland Deathfest, on a bill with Cathedral, Buzzov•en, Lack of Interest, and Noisear. A buddy offers to sneak me into the show, but I bail to hang out with my girlfriend, who proceeds to berate me for not going to the show. But what can I say? I had work in the morning, and standing around during a bunch of bands I didn't love for one that I did didn't seem appealing. The next year, Tragedy releases "Darker Days Ahead", their fourth (and to date final) LP. It's much closer to the metal side of crust than the punk; I'm not in love with it. For me, the best part of the record is David D'Andrea's cover art.

Time keeps on ticking by. It's 2018. I live north of Seattle, having gone from Baltimore to Atlanta to the Pacific Northwest in the course of three years. I've been laid off from my job for close to a year. I've had a breakdown which led to hospitalization. I'm living off the kindness of family, food banks, and selling off records. Things are not great. I guess at some point I'd added myself to Ebullition's e-mail list, which announces a new Tragedy 12". I debate spending the little money I have on a record, then go with downloading the EP from Tragedy's new Bandcamp page. As indifferent as I was to "Darker Days Ahead", I am that thrilled by "Fury". It was a return to the form I expected.

So it's been almost two years to the day that "Fury" was released, and 20 years since the self-titled LP came out. To celebrate, I've put together the below comp for your listening pleasure. You get my three favorite songs from each 12", along with one song each from their three single releases. Everything is ordered chronologically, past to present. This is not at all complete; I invite you to track down all of their releases. Tragedy remains a powerful force in DIY music. I hope this helps explain why.

Click here to download.

Kind Of Like Spitting - Learn 2: The Songs of the Karl Hendricks Trio

Every town should be so lucky to have a band like the Karl Hendricks Trio.

I learned about them through two people. Henry from Chunklet always rooted hard for this group from Pittsburgh he'd grown up seeing. They'd put out a few records on Merge, so I knew I'd probably dig what they had put out. But it took hearing Ben Barnett cover some KH3 songs for me to go pick up a record. He'd covered the title track from 1993's "Some Girls Like Cigarettes" 10" for MySpace; he burnt it to a CD-R and left it at my house after one of his numerous stop-overs through the years. It was such a great teaser that I had to go check out the original; I picked up the first two Karl Hendricks CDs within a week. They played this noisy indie rock that fit in well with the Dutch East India Trading-era Grass Records lineup. The songs were short, tuneful, had great titles. I always thought of them as the perfect first support band; not flashy, but always entertaining and really...fucking...good. They'd never let you down.

Karl Hendricks died in 2017 from cancer, and, not long afterwards, Ben began posting online that'd he'd be wrapping up his 20+ year career as the leader of Kind of Like Spitting by paying tribute to the bandleader with a second release in his "Learn" series. "Learn 2: The Songs of the Karl Hendricks Trio" comes out today. The first track, "The Scoffer's Reply" (from 1995's "A Gesture of Kindness"), is available as a preview below. All proceeds of the release would be donated to Karl's family in his memory. Seeing how this releases on a Bandcamp Friday, I'd like to suggest you pick it up. It's a great release, from a wonderful person, for a good cause. Y'all know I won't steer you wrong.

Click here to purchase.

Chromatics - Rat Life Vol. 2

I wrote about "Rat Life Vol. 1" last week, so I felt like it was fair to go ahead and post up "Vol. 2". I really prefer these tracks. They're so stripped down and cold, especially compared to the versions of "Surrogate" and "Three Hearts" that would show up later in the year on "Plaster Hounds". The standout here is the live performance of "Witness". It remains one of my favorite songs by Chromatics. This version predates the "Healer b/w Witness" 12", and has a much icier feel.

Anyway, it's Friday, in case you haven't been looking at a calendar. Play this after dark, fool around with a switchblade, wear fingerless gloves. Stay off the medium drugs. Go check out Vinegar Syndrome's "Halfway to Black Friday" sale, maybe buy yourself a skin flick or some grindhouse. That's the Ape's advice for yr weekend plans.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Chromatics - Rat Life Vol. 1

203 E. Davis St. is Baltimore's version of 315 the Bowery. A decrepit three story house, surrounds by city court buildings and other concrete edifices, it housed three of Charm City's famed performance spaces. In the 80s and early 90s, it was home to Chambers. In 1997, the Ottobar opened, and quickly became the go-to indie/punk space in the city. The Ottobar moved uptown in 2001, and in 2003, the Talking Head moved across town from Mount Vernon to takeover the space. Our story begins there.

I'd started booking shows at the Talking Head (in addition to Charm City Art Space) after it moved in. I was starting to get some bands that played better in a bar than they did in a basement, and I loved the room, so it was a good fit. 20 patrons looked like a good crowd, 50 seemed packed. I saw that Glass Candy was coming through on one of my nights off; I was a fan of their first 7" "Love on a Plate", and they'd played CCAS the year before. I made plans to roll up, have a few drinks, and check out their show. The remaining lineup is lost to memory, but Chromatics were the opener. Their first LP, "Chrome Rats Vs. Basement Ruts", had come out on GSL a few months before, and the split with Die Monitor Bats from the previous year was straight fire. Chromatics did not disappoint. They ripped it for 30 minutes with a mix of the expected noisy punk and a newer dancy sound that would begin appearing on the following year's "Plaster Hounds" release. I remember their merch was non-existent; just a pair of CD-Rs. So I bought them both.

That's how I laid hands on "Rat Life Vol. 1". Collecting demos recorded by Johnny Jewel and Adam Miller ahead of that tour, this, along with "Rat Life Vol. 2", was a harbinger of the icy Italo-disco that Chromatics would echo in the coming years. Some of these tracks sound like they were recorded on a boom box; they pulse like the soundtrack to an uncertain doom. Most of the songs on "Rat Life Vol. 1" would appear in better fidelity on their first two LPs, as well as a few 7"s. I couldn't begin to tell you why half the songs on this CD-R aren't listed (this would be changed on the following "As Ratz In The Basement" CD-R). The unreleased gem here is a cover of Syd Barrett's "Love You", which never got re-recorded. It's more than a curiosity; "Rat Life Vol. 1" sets the foundation for musicians who'd revive a scene and score some amazing films in the coming years.

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Thermals - live

Ben Barnett played a series of shows in 2002 in Philly, Baltimore & DC. It was during these that he told me he'd started a new band with Hutch & Kathy. All I knew of those two were that they were a pair of Portland hipsters who'd released a pretty decent record that year on Jealous Butcher. Before Ben left the Galaxy Hut, he tossed me a CD-R of his new band. "I think Sub Pop wants to put out the record," he mentioned. And that's how I was introduced to the Thermals.

I don't have a lot of details about this recording, except that it was cut in the summer of 2002, and you can find the studio recordings on the Thermals' first 2 records for Sub Pop. The Thermals have a new record coming out on Kill Rock Stars in March; I haven't heard anything yet, but I'm sure it'll be loud and garagey as fuck.

P.S. Demo cuts from the new record are up at The Thermals' Myspace page...how considerate. And they're pretty damned good, too!










The Thermals - live 2002
(click the record to DL)

RIYL: lo-fi, guitars & garages, LIVE!