This one goes out to the 'Shellac inspired' bands. Albini, Weston and Trainer didn't create the whole scrappy guitar over repetitive bass and drums played really hard with an overdose of testosterone or sexual frustation or not enough weed or ever but they seem to be the common touchstone for everyone when describing this kind of 'math rock' stuff. "You know, they sound kinda like Shellac". A disease melbourne suffered from for far too long. Or you could say they sound like Fugazi but that never takes into account that band's trademarks - the weird dynamics, pseudo funk/post punk shit, or the fact that they're fucking Fugazi, dude - and always leaves me disappointed when I go to old bar or something and see some bad that's loud and, uh, 'propulsive' or something but definitely does not sound anything like Fugazi. Actually personallyI relate this stuff back to Shotmaker a hell of a lot more because I think they really did that whole spazzy, mid-pace three piece thing best out of anyone but yeah...say "Shellac" and people are at least going to have some idea where you're coming from.
STAYNLESS
I have absolutely no information on this band. A while ago when 'zines' started calling themselves 'magazines' and getting coloured cardstock covers but well before the death before dishonours and what have yous of today there was a phase of moving up from the split 7"s you'd get with stuff like I Stand Alone or the occasional Ebullition 12" to the much easier format of compilation CDs of a whole shit-tonne of bands on different labels. Kinda like a promo CD but there'd be a bunch of stuff from a heap of different labels, together with self released things and whatever. Paying six bucks for a copy of Status or Nothing Left and getting a CD with 20 or 30 bands to listen to on it was a fucking awesome deal. I used to tape the CDs and listen to them on the way to school and back in my walkman for weeks, marking down in the tracklisting pages of the zines with a biro which ones I thought were really cool, making mixtapes of those songs and then trying to track down those records. I got introduced to a lot of that cool indie rock shit Status put out in the last few years of the 90s like early Waxwing and The Casket Lottery this way.
On one of those Status comps there was this crazy fucking song called relax and colour by this band Staynless. To me it just seemed so completely out of control. I was 16 and hadn't heard much like this, these guys sounded like they weren't even bothering to play chords on their instruments half the time, and I imagined it was because they were all going way too crazy to play, thrashing around and hitting all the open strings on their guitars because they were just losing their shit and hey when you're getting yr spazz on it's not like you can pay attention to that minor 7th inversion or whatever. But then it gets to the breakdown (the starting riff which I definitely tried to steal for an early terror firma song), the other guitar comes in with those clean arpeggios and the drums haven't lost any momentum, but now it sounds so much more refined. If I was some writer douche I'd say it was 'controlled chaos' or something, I don't know. All I knew is that it fucking blew my mind, this was heavy but not tough, out of control but not inept.
So I tried to track the record down, which for me at that time consisted of going to missing link a few times and eventually remembering that was what I was looking for and never finding it. And just forgot about it I guess. I lost that comp CD a long time ago although I could still probably hum/sing you that whole song from memory considering how many times I listened to it on my shitty walkman coming home from school, thinking that places where this kind of music happened, that was where I was going to be when I was done with all this highschool crap. (Angsty).
Couple months ago someone posted a complete discography of Staynless' stuff on VLV and I of course was like 'holy fuck! I remember them!' and downloaded it all. Have listened to it at least once a week since and even now still haven't absorbed how amazing this band was. There was a time where relax and colour by this band was track one on side two of every mixtape I made. The band actually cover a pretty huge dynamic range and that one song isn't really indicative of everything they were doing. Maybe it was because there were so many people doing something simillar at the time or maybe it's because their one full length LP, Transistor Theory and Circuits Made Simple, on Undecided Records had cover art (see above) that looks like something Alison Wolfe would've been a member of and so they missed a whole bunch of people who would've otherwise dug it but didn't like Riot Grrrl or something (suckers). I don't know. Either way this record is incredible and something I feel almost evangelical about. So many people who're into this spazzy, grinding shit that you can use dumb words like 'angular' or 'mathy' to describe would love this record.
HUGE EDIT: Thanks to Yellow Ghost Forum user 'clarky' I now have tracklisting info:
'1. Old Salt (Side A) (4:0 2. Old Salt (Side B) (3:29) 3. The Camera Shop (4:13) 4. Red Giant (4:54) 5. Haunting the Haunted House (4:11) 6. Pay What You Get For (5:42) 7. The Dead Bell (4:46) 8. Relax and Colour (2:0 9. First Law of Motion (4:24) 10. Activator (3:05) 11. Staint Christofer (5:02) 12. Rail Roads Follow Rivers (4:47)
tracks 1 and 2 are from the Old Salt 7", it was one song over 2 sides of the record tracks 3 and 4 are from the Snowfields and Sand Dunes" 7 (i think?) tracks 5-12 are the album "Transistor Theory and Circuits Made Simple" '
THE GREAT UNRAVELING - KRS LP
Tonie Joy and A.S. Malat's band after Universal Order of Armageddon. Another band that Pete Hyde got me into actually. The LP came in second hand and he was like 'hey you'd dig this', and mentioned Tonie Joy, who at that time I just knew of as 'the dude from Moss Icon and Born Against' but in the last few years has become one of my absolute favourite guitarists (even though he plays a strat...gross) so yeah. He was right.
Again on the Shellac tip, or whatever you want to call it. Actually I was listening to this once in my car and a dude who used to do that 'I pretend to know this music because it will make me cooler' for some dumb reason (seriously, who cares how esoteric yr knowledge is?) was like 'man I love this Shellac record'. Lulz. I'm sure if they were playing now in melbourne there'd be a certain amount of people willing to call them a 'My Disco ripoff', because people are silly like that. Playing from 95 to 97 they sort of took the slower, darker moments of U.O.A, and the energy, but none of the speed and short songs. They have that thing that I like to think of as the three piece effect that makes bands like Shotmaker and Frodus (and Former Republics) so fucking great: everyone's playing an instrument and often the vocals can take a back seat to that. There's no one with a microphone feeling like they need to fill in that space and so consequently the music can breath and stretch out. Which is exactly what the Great Unraveling did. I don't know how much weed was smoked in the course of this band but it definitely jams out a lot, makes a hell of a lot of use of reptition and the amelodic possibilities of Joy's noise guitars. This must've been so much fun to play.
Reading in the wikipedia article about them there's something about their last music being written in an old house in the maryland woods Joy bought, where apparently ghosts or witches would appear and sing along with a certain bassline. Again...maybe the weed. But there's definitely a creepy element to this music. Not as creepy as say Slint's last record but definitely creepy in terms of lots of space and just an overal general feel of dark rooms, grey skies and solitary afternoons in this music. So naturally I love it.
The Great Unraveling - s/t LP, Kill Rock Stars.
I can't be fucked writing up the tracklisting and catalog number because usually I'm doing this at work and don't have my LPs handy to check. Also I ripped this one off a CD that might be a little scratched, sorry. Tracklist for this will be in the file. Has a song, 'head for the hills', that's not on the LP as I recall. I think I gave my LP copy to fellow Tonie Joy enthusiast Alex or something so I can't remember.
