Garden Variety - Right Track Inn, Freeport, NY - 6/3/93

I'm fairly certain I have at least a few Garden Variety shows in my collection....but since this is the first - this is the one that gets the story.

Garden Variety is a big band for me.  Although my ground-zero year for discovering punk/hardcore/underground music was 1986, I did not start going to shows until late-1991.  Garden Variety were the first band from the local scene that I really gravitated towards and was able to watch grow from playing clubs on Long Island in front of five people late on a Thursday night (like this show I have for you today) to gaining much deserved national attention a few short years later.

My introduction to Garden Variety involves some personal history...so it's a nice excuse to share.  Aaron Pagdon and I met our freshman year of college - Hofstra University on Long Island in the fall of 1991.  Aaron was from Pittsburgh and I was from Merrick - about ten minutes south of Hofstra.  I met him during freshman orientation - he was wearing a Black Flag "Police Story" shirt (you know the one) and I couldn't resist introducing myself.  We became friendly - saying hello to each other here & there when we would bump into each other on campus.  After getting kicked out of "The Freshman Center", a failed Hofstra experiment (for reasons that should be obvious), and after not being too happy being paired up with a frat-football-jock, he took an opportunity to be my roommate after some difficulties I had with my first roommate ended with him moving out.  It also didn't hurt that I lived a few floors above his girlfriend at the time.

As we became closer friends and began discussing and listening to music more, and as we were both musicians (he had played in hardcore bands in high school such as Upper Hand, Direct Action and Ten Feet Tall....I had only played in cover bands through high school - such as Elektra, A Touch of Class, Infinity and V.O.I.D. (Visions of Infinite Delirium)), we decided to start a band.

Aaron and I have been in bands together ever since....it won't be too long before this relationship - one of both friendship and musicianship - will be 30 years old.  We are primarily known as a rhythm section (I'm the bassist, he's the drummer), having rooted more obscure bands such as Humstinger and Quarters, and somewhat better known bands such as The Judas Iscariot and Hudson Falcons (for one album/tour cycle and occasional gigs to this day), although in Two Man Advantage, our best known band, I play guitar and he plays drums.

But in the beginning, he wanted to play guitar and I wanted to play drums.  He knew a guy named Ron who went to Hofstra who played bass, and now we just needed a singer.

One night we were flipping through our local, free, weekly music paper, The Island Ear, and came across a classified ad - something like - "singer looking for band, into Bad Religion, Government Issue and Circle Jerks" - or something like that.  I insisted we call....Aaron was resistant at first, thinking whoever it was had probably "been around the block a few times" and wouldn't want anything to do with us.  But I said we had nothing to lose and there was no downside to calling him....so we did.

We both spoke to him that night....on the other end was Vinny Segarra from Howard Beach - owner of the most baritone of voices.  We all hit it off pretty well over the phone.  He told us that his band, Situated Chaos, had just broken up and he was looking for a new one.  He just wanted to play straight-ahead three-chord hardcore....which at that moment, is also what we wanted to do - so it sounded like a possible match.  He also mentioned that he ran a record label - Mint Tone - who had put out a few records to that point (Situated Chaos, Functional Idiots, Disemboweled Corpse, and The Thing).  His next record was going to be the first 7" by this band Garden Variety, based out of Valley Stream, and why don't we meet up with him at their next show the following week, at The Spiral opening up for Bad Trip.  We said "sure" - but how would we know who he was?  He simply said, "don't worry - you'll know".

The next week, we headed to The Spiral which I remember being pretty packed, and we instantly figured out who Vinny was....he was the biggest dude in the room....by far!  I would be lying if I said I remember all that much about Garden Variety or Bad Trip that night - because I was just too excited about having just met the singer in my new band and my punk rock circle of friends widening - something that was severely lacking in my high school days where most of my punk rock discoveries were made in solitude, or with the one friend I had who was open to the punk rock journey - Lloyd Zare (another super close friend to this day) who, unfortunately, lived several towns away and I could only see on weekends.

Vinny joined the band - and that was the first of three versions of my first, "real", original band - Humstinger.  Although Humstinger may not have gone onto fame and fortune - Vinny remains a very close friend to this day.

After that, I would become a loyal Garden Variety fan.  I was at the show when Vinny opened up the boxes of the 'Hedge' 7" (recorded at Inner Ear with Don Zientara!) - it was at a little bar in Island Park I think (or was it Oceanside?...Long Beach?) - and man - I brought that home and listened to it for days.  It was just three incredibly catchy songs in the Jawbreaker/Superchunk/Squirrel Bait mold - one could say post-hardcore or the harder-edged version of emo that was emerging at that time...but with a definite original spin and superior musicianship by all three members:  vocalist/bassist Anthony Roman, guitarist Anthony Rizzo, and drummer Joe Gorelick.

For quite a time, they were Long Island's secret - they played a ton and I saw them almost every time, even befriending them to a certain extent.  It was through Garden Variety that, after some Humstinger line-up changes, we met Kevin McManus who would be our guitarist through the second and third versions of that band (Kevin would slowly drift away from Humstinger to focus on Farckus Affair before turning up in the final line-up of Dahlia Seed).  Anthony Roman also offered up some advice after hearing our initial try at a demo, that convinced us we should go back and give it a second try (he was right - and we did).

Eventually, after much hard work and endless playing, and continuing their evolution as songwriters, the band, as it inevitably had to, breached the barriers of Long Island.  They released their first, self-titled record in 1993 on Gern Blandsten, and their second, and final, full-length on Headhunter in 1995 titled 'Knocking The Skill Level', along with split 7"'s with Dahlia Seed (Mint Tone - '94), Chune (Headhunger/Cargo - '94), Hell No (Reservoir - '95), and Jejune (Montalban Hotel - '97), not to mention contributing to a variety of comps.  In 2019, Arctic Rodeo Recordings put out the long overdue 'Complete Discography 1991-1996' boxset (although I don't think it's actually "complete" as it's missing the demo and I think a few of the split/comp tracks (I have to double-check that one), and certainly not any of the live recordings in my collection that I plan to share with y'all).

But as all good things do - Garden Variety ended.  By that point, they had long outgrown the small, Long Island clubs and were regularly either headlining shows or securing main-support slots on big shows and touring the country to national recognition.  I think the last time I saw them was at CBGB opening for Jawbox - probably around '95 or '96.  But man - I saw them a zillion times in their earlier days - circa '92-'94 - and have a few of those shows on tape.

Garden Variety was certainly a huge influence on the Long Island scene as it emerged in the late-'90s and early-'00s, and, even though the band has never played a reunion show, all three members have continued to play music to the present day, Anthony Roman most notably in Radio 4, Anthony Rizzo with Vic Thrill (and many others - including bands well outside the indie rock orbit), and Joe Gorelick in Big Collapse, The Fifty Two X, Retisonic, Red Hare, Bluetip and Marah.

This show was from the Right Track Inn in Freeport.  Tons of stories could be told about that place.  RTI opened in 1973 and closed it's doors about 25 years later.  I almost played my first show there when I was in high school, but I was too young (but I did end up playing there a couple of times a few years later - including with Humstinger with Aaron and Vinny....and, a bit later, my band Jody Crutch opened for Garden Variety there).  The RTI had regular hardcore shows there through the '80s - Crumbsuckers, Leeway, and Ludichrist were all regulars over there.  Even some bigger names - like Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and Dream Theater (in their super early days) graced that stage.

This show is from Thursday, June 3, 1993.  Anthony Roman's opening banter reveals that My Favorite and Down Patrick opened this one up (and that they would also be playing RTI only one week later - which demonstrates just how much GV gigged the local scene at that time).  The setlist features one demo track ("Puzzled" - the stand-out track on that demo), two tracks from the 'Hedge' 7", and the rest filled out with songs that would be released later that year on the self-titled Gern Blandsten LP (some of the songs didn't even have titles at the time).  When that album did come out, I already knew every song on it.  That album, for me, wasn't so much the presentation of new material, but rather a compilation of material that I had been seeing them play live for a year.

Another personal tidbit is that the "Justin" in the song "Rode (For Justin)" was Justin Nortillo.  Justin was the singer/bassist in a New Jersey-based band called State Speed.  I first met those guys at a house show that Garden Variety played out in Montclair, NJ (I think maybe some of the Leo brothers lived there - not sure).  Their drummer fucked up one too many times for their guitarist (Chris Infante, an original member of Chisel), who stormed off the stage mid-set.  I ended up becoming State Speed's drummer for the rest of their existence - about another year or so.  It was a good band, and after a pretty good show at Brownie's (opening up for Garden Variety) - I never heard from those guys again....which was weird...but - whatever...

More Garden Variety shows to come in the future, I'm sure.  It'll be less talk, more rock going forward as my story has now been told.

There is some tape noise that rears its ugly head here & there....apologies for that....but - you know - this tape is now over 27 years old - so gimme a break!

SETLIST:

Hat Head (0:00)
Fall In (5:09)
Binder (9:41)
Puzzled (14:23)
Hedge (18:00)
Turnout (20:40)
Rode (For Justin) (24:10)
Closet (29:40)
Pretty Mouth (35:40)

Jeff Kaplan 1 · Garden Variety - Right Track Inn, Freeport, NY (6/3/93)

Jawbreaker - ABC No Rio, New York City - 5/31/93

DISCLAIMER: I am slowly beginning to convert my old cassettes from my tape-trading days into digital form. These are live shows, demos, rehearsal tapes, etc. that I either taped personally or received through tape-trading. Nothing here is commercially available, I am not looking to make even one cent off of any of this. This is simply for sharing some of my collection with fans who may have never heard them. While I don't believe there are any legal issues with this - no different than videotaping a show and putting it on YouTube - out of respect for the bands, if any bandmembers do not want this content to be made available, please contact me at captain2man at yahoo dot com - or leave a comment - and I will be happy to oblige. As far as sound quality - hey - these were recorded a minimum of 20 years ago, and probably longer, on a handheld two-track recorder.  It is what it is.  If you're looking for pristine soundboard recordings, this isn't the place.


Over the course of a few short years, essentially between 1989 and 1996, Jawbreaker skyrocketed from underground DIY darlings to a band who found a new audience via the 'Dear You' record, released on Geffen in 1995.  While 'Dear You' has gone down in history as this groundbreaking and highly influential album, I can tell you that at the time, many of the band's fans who had been with them since their earlier days were deeply disappointed and let down and, in many ways, felt betrayed.  This, especially in light of the band's very aggressive anti-major label stance, documented on songs such as "Indictment" (short for the original title: "Scathing Indictment of the Pop Industry"): "So crazy it just might work / Then we'll quit our jobs / We could be the next group that you rob." 

Although the whole major label debate has cooled down over time, especially in light of the way the record industry itself has had to change and adjust with growing technology, it was a very big deal at the time.  A new debate would spark to life every time a band who had been on an independent label did something we all felt they shouldn't have.  With Jawbreaker, it felt especially egregious because of their outspoken stance in favor of independent labels.  On one hand, bands have the right to dictate their future and conduct their band business as they see fit.  On the other hand, the indie bands that signed to majors, with a few notable exceptions, probably didn't get the experiences that they had hoped for.  I'm assuming Jawbreaker's experience wasn't that much different from all the other bands who were the big fish in the small pond, only to then find themselves very small fish in a huge ocean. The fact that Jawbreaker broke up less than a year after 'Dear You' came out probably speaks for itself.  I have yet to see the 2017 Jawbreaker documentary 'Don't Break Down', but I have to assume the issue is addressed.

I first discovered Jawbreaker in the fall of 1991 during my freshman year of college. I had acquired their two 1989 7"'s: 'Whack & Blite' (Blackball Records) and 'Busy' (Shredder), and 1990's debut LP, 'Unfun' (Shredder).

To be honest, it took a little while for that first album to sink in - but once it grabbed hold, I was a fan for life - and as much as I do love the later records (and yes, grudgingly, I even kind of like 'Dear You' after all these years), 'Unfun' has always remained my favorite.

Each song has hooks for miles, is emotionally potent, but are musically interesting in an original way. Chris Bauermeister's bass playing was such a huge part of their sound in those earlier days and, unfortunately, as time went on, his basslines became a little simpler and less distinctive. Blake's voice was gravelly, as if he entered the recording studio after smoking a few cigarettes in a row, but still with such a great sense of melody. Adam's drumming drove the songs and was often inventive.

The first time I saw them was at ABC No Rio on August 31, 1992, with Hell No and 1.6 Band. It was an early ABC show for me (although not quite the first) and the first time seeing any of those bands, and I became a fan of all of them. The show was packed and sweaty, and even moreso because of the late-August heat in a space that had virtually no ventilation. After the show, I sat in the back of their van with my friends Frank and Aaron who did a zine called 'Kill the Messenger'. I sat quietly while they conducted the interview, but I remember being there and really feeling like I was in the presence of greatness and something that, as big as it was then, was about to get even bigger. I remember them asking about the major label issue, and one of them basically saying they would occasionally "do the lunch" - even at this stage they were getting that attention - but ultimately, their anti-major label stance was made pretty clear. I know that at least at one time, I had a tape of that show and if I ever do come across it, I'll post it.

As a huge fan of that album, it was always a little bit of a disappointment seeing them because even as early as 1992, they had stopped playing almost every song on it (only exceptions being "Fine Day" and "Want", albeit in an altered form).  The song "Pack It Up" on the 1992 'Chesterfield King' 12" makes it clear you wouldn't be hearing those songs anymore:  "Don't play Busy, Imaginary, Incomplete and Seethruskin / Drone and Gutless / Wound and Mean Guy / Equalized is overrated".

The show being presented here was from exactly nine months later - May 31, 1993 (Memorial Day) - with Hell No, Affirmative Action, Sleeper & Half Man opening up (I may have some of those sets as well - stay tuned). Jawbreaker had played CBGB two days before and the tour was titled the 'When It Pains It Roars' tour.  You can tell from the setlist that, in the grand tradition of bands like Husker Du, their sets were about what they were doing right NOW, which meant, you might not hear a whole lot of songs you were familiar with.  More than half of this set came from '24 Hour Revenge Therapy' - an album that would not be released until the following February.

SETLIST:

Do You Still Hate Me?
Jinx Removing
Donatello
Boxcar
Indictment
Chesterfield King
The Boat Dreams From The Hill
Outpatient
Fine Day
Sleep
Parabola

Jeff Kaplan 1 · Jawbreaker - ABC No Rio, NYC - 5-31-93

Unsane - the 3 Cynical interview (1995)

The first of four interviews we did for 3 Cynical in the mid-'90s.

I have been a fan of Unsane since around the time the 'Singles 89-92' collection came out.  I never got to see them with their original line-up as original drummer Charlie Ondras had just recently passed away.  I did get to see them with original bassist Pete Shore a few times - at the original Knitting Factory on Houston St. & CBGB.  The first impression is just how crushingly loud they were.

Soon after, bassist Dave Curran replaced Shore - and the line-up of guitarist/vocalist Chris Spencer, bassist Dave Curran & drummer Vinnie Signorelli have remained a constant right through what appears to the band's final album - 2017's 'Sterlize'.

This interview was conducted after the release of the band's third full-length, 'Scattered, Smothered & Covered' - which is generally considered to be the band's finest album and made Decibel magazine's "Hall of Fame" in 2012.....and which I'm listening to right now, over & over, as I'm re-typing this whole thing out for a little inspiration.

Here we go......exactly as printed in the one & only issue of 3 Cynical.....including those photos - photocopied using a Xerox.  How times have changed.

***************************************************************************

Driving along the pitted and decayed wasteland of the BQE towards the Williamsburg Bridge, I looked out the window to the West where the poison orange sun sunk over the skyline of Manhattan.  With its jagged and jaded razor sharp landscape, the city is the total embodiment of the modern age.  Grays and blacks mold together to form a monolith of ruin, a bleak trophy of industrialization.  And then a sound.  A bellowing, a wail, a guttural scream not human, but elemental.  The sound of metal on metal, a raging furnace of noise.  And then I realized.  Unsane is New York City. -- Aaron Pagdon

Unsane were interviewed by Jeff and Aaron at CBGB in New York City on November 4, 1995.  Unsane are Chris Spencer (guitar, voice), Dave Curran (bass, voice) and Vincent Signorelli (drums).

The interview started in the back of CBGB.  Vincent had a black eye from being sucker-punched by some guy at a bar in New Orleans.  This was the topic of conversation.  Some band started sound-checking, and the interview got moved next door to the Pizza Boutique.  Vincent had to go...this is where we join the interview, already in progress.

3C:  3 Cynical
CS:  Chris Spencer
DC:  Dave Curran

3C:  So finish up telling us what happened.

CS:  We went out, we had a night off.  We went to a party and all these bands were playing and they wanted us to play.  Vinnie took a pill, which shall remain nameless, so he was feeling good, walking around, talking to people.  We didn't play and we went to this other bar afterward.  Vinnie bumps into some jock motherfucker so the guy clocks him in the face totally out of the blue.  Then, I'm ordering a drink.  I'm hanging out with some friends of mine out front.  I hadn't been drinking or doing anything all night.  I had one drink - took a sip - I hear all this shit.  I put it down.  I run inside and there's Vinnie with a pile of four guys on him.  So I run over and pull these guys off, and Dave's behind me helping out.  I pulled three guys off, and there's this one huge guy who has Vinnie in a headlock, he had already been punched in the face.  I'm like, 'let him go'.  He saw that since he had him in a headlock that either I was going to punch him in the face or Vinnie was going to attack him.  He looks at me and says 'look let me get out of here'.  I could tell that he hadn't been a part of the fight, he just wanted to stop it.  So I said, 'OK, go ahead, just get out of here and I'll calm him down.'  So the guy lets go of Vinnie, I grab Vinnie so he won't hit him.  The guy runs out, Vinnie grabs a chair and tries to go at him, we made him put it down.  Then I ran outside...it was total chaos...I ran outside, the guy that's working there is an ex-cop,  he's yelling shit.  Vinnie comes outside with his eyes all fucked up.  He picks up a stool, we made him put it down.  They were dicks, the big college macho-jock types.  Everyone calmed down after awhile.  Vinnie wanted to talk to the guy, but the guy just wanted to kill him.  I told Vinnie not to even bother.  Everything calmed down after that.  I left, these guys went out and had a totally crazy night.  Vinnie ended up talking to the guy eventually, and shaking his hand.  Vinnie actually hit the guy after he had hit him.  These guys went out to another club and Vinnie almost got in another fight.

DC:  I had a friend down there who was showing us around.  He takes us to this bar, a nicer bar, a little fancier, he gets us in without cover.  We're in there for about three minutes and Vinnie goes to the bathroom...apparently what had happened, he was kinda wobbly and fucked up, he bumped into some guy, the guy touches him on the shoulder.  Vinnie says, 'Oh, sorry', and the guy goes, 'Don't touch me, motherfucker.'  Vinnie goes, 'Look, I'm sorry, just calm down.'  The guy's freaking out on him.  'Don't tell me to calm down!'  Vinnie comes back and goes, 'Give me a bottle.'  We're like, 'Vinnie, what the fuck are you talking about? Give me a bottle?  You're not going to get into trouble again.'  As soon as I said that, the guy shows up and is all in Vinnie's face, yelling at him.  Vinnie goes, 'Look, I just want to know what's the problem.'  The guy goes, 'You've got a pretty big motherfuckin' problem.'  There's a bunch of huge looking guys all standing around him, there's one guy completely staring Vinnie down.  He was just ready to pounce and kill him.  The bouncer came by and sneaked us out.

3C:  Does this stuff happen to you often on tour?

CS:  No, I used to get in a lot of fights...

DC:  You've calmed down...

CS:  ...one time I got mugged in Dallas, but that was my own fault.  I was in a project and I was just up to no good.  Let's leave it at that.

3C:  He's looking all guilty.

CS:  I know, I know.  I missed the show the next day.

DC:  We had to cancel the show.  He got clocked and woke up in the bushes the next day.

CS:  It took me three hours to get out of the neighborhood because no cabs would go there.  I had no money....it was just hell.  I couldn't page anyone because you couldn't page back on the public phones.

DC:  The rest of the tour was OK, though.

3C:  You guys have had a good time on this tour?

CS:  Yeah, we're with Guzzard.  They're fucking great guys.  Every night I watch them.  They're good.

3C:  What's after the tour?

CS:  We're going to Europe next Tuesday.  We did a single and a video on this tour.  We had one day off to go in and record all night in San Francisco.  We did a single for [Frank] Kozic's label, Man's Ruin [edit - this would be the "Sick"/"No Soul" single].  We did a video in Chicago all day before and after soundcheck and they shot the show.

3C:  What song?

CS:  "Alleged", it's on the new record.  The one with the harmonica.

3C:  Where did the harmonica come from?

CS:  I've been playing harmonica for three or four years.

DC:  It came from his ass.

CS:  With our kind of music, you can't play that up too much.  I can play harmonica a lot better than I do on the record, but you gotta play it down so it doesn't sound bluesy too much.  It does sound Unsane.  It can cross over from sounding bluesy to sounding like cheese.

3C:  It would almost change the style of the band.

CS:  Exactly.

3C:  Despite the line-up changes, whether you put on the first 7" or the newest album, it's Unsane all the way.

DC:  It's weird, it's 50/50.  Some people think it's really different, some people think it sounds kinda the same.

3C:  You can always tell it's you guys, though.

CS:  The production's got a lot better.  If we could have made the record we made now back then, with the sound we got out of the new record, we would have in two seconds.  Everything used to sound so compressed and muddy.

3C:  Don't you think that works for the band, though?

CS:  Yeah, it does.  I like the old records.  The only record I have a problem with is 'Total Destruction'.  It was the whole time period for this band.  We took too much time for it, it wasn't written spontaneously like everything else we had done.  This new record took two weeks.  It's the only thing I'm not happy with.  The singles collection is cool, the first record I like, that came out fine.

3C:  The stuff you're writing now, the newest stuff, you're sticking to the same style?

CS:  We write music they way we write it.

3C:  Do you ever find it limiting?  You have such a distinctive sound, no other band sounds like you...

CS:  We just rip off other bands riffs.  [laughs]

3C:  ...do you ever feel like you want to write songs outside of this style, or you'll run out of ideas?

CS:  No, as long as I'm alive I'll keep 'em coming.  I'm going to write music like this, this is what I like to do.  It's what I've always like to do.  It's just personal preference.  Dave is into the big heavy, smelly bass riffs.  It's cool - it complements the whole thing.

Charlie Ondras (1965-1992)

3C:  You lost your drummer, Charlie [Ondras] awhile ago.  I was wondering how that affected the band.

CS:  It changed the band more than the loss of Pete [Shore, ex-bassist] did.  It changed the band's sound a lot.  Originally, I'd start out by showing Pete how to play songs, how to play in a band, taught him some bass.  I would say I taught him, but he didn't do shit on his own.  That was really getting stagnant, the input was something I would do anyway.  His own style was like...he would do stuff on a 4-track and it was joke kind of stuff, he wanted to start playing stand-up bass.  Towards the end he was just doing it because he didn't want to drive a cab.  He liked being in the band, but musically, this is what I was saying about 'Total Destruction'....I'd come in and be like, 'Here's a couple of riffs I got.  What can you do with it?'  Vinnie would start working off of it.  We'd ask Pete, 'Do you have anything?'  Week after week after week he'd be like, 'No, uh-uh'.  It was stagnating.  I realized that it wasn't my fault.  I'm just as productive now, if not more so, than I ever was.  I don't wanna say that it was him that was making me lazy, but...

3C:  How did you find Vinnie?

CS:  We played in a band called Anal Nitrate, with Unsane playing, two drummers - Vinnie and Charlie, and Jim Thirwell singing. We did one 15-minute song called "The Building" or "26th Street" or something like that...it was one long noise epic, Jim was like, "AAAAIHG:IPHEGP:IEH!!!"  All this crazy shit, he never even practiced with us.  He heard the tape that we had done in the practice space, he walked in and said, "Hey, I can do vocals for this."  He did them, we got paid like $1800 for 15 minutes.  That was purely our motivation.  We played and got along with Vinnie.  So, when Charlie died, we still had a European tour left to do.  We tried out one guy from Boston who sucked, he emulated Charlie's style perfectly, but the guy's personality was crap.

Vinnie Signorelli (photo by Marc Broussely (2011))

3C:  Charlie had a very interesting style, for example, he would use the floor tom in place of the ride cymbal.  Did Vinnie have to adjust his style to replace Charlie, or has he played like that all along?  Because he plays just like Charlie probably would have on 'Total Destruction'.

CS:  Yeah, exactly, exactly.  WE wanted him to do exactly what he would want to do, it didn't matter to us if it changed the sound of the band because that's how it is - Charlie's dead.  But then Vinnie, himself felt he had to fill big shoes in terms of the crazy tom stuff, so he started doing more of that.  That's not really his natural style, he can do it, though.  On the new record there's more hi-hat, kick, snare....heavier beats.

3C:  Where did you get Dave?

CS:  Dave was our soundguy, we were friends.  All this shit went down with Pete, he moved to L.A....

3C:  Did he get kicked out?

CS:  Well, that's debatable.  It could go either way.  He told Vinnie he didn't want to tour.  We went on tour with Biohazard for three days.  Pete flies out to L.A. to be with my ex-girlfriend.  He was like, 'I'm moving to L.A.  I'm getting married, fuck Chris, fuck this tour, I don't want to go, we're not doing it.'  After months of this, plus the musical thing I was talking about before, me and Vinnie knew that this was the end.  We said fuck it, let's try and find a bass player.  Dave came out to do sound for us on the tour, so we got this guy from Seattle, he was lazy as fuck.  We did four shows with him, he fucked everyone up.  So me and Dave would sit around.  We had played a little bit in hotel rooms and stuff.  Meanwhile, this guy's fucking up shows and I keep saying to him, 'Look, I've gone over this song a million times with you, just play it right, that's all I'm asking.'  He would go, 'Oh, shut up - you've acted like I've never played in a band before.'  I was like, whoa, this is a big ego thing, the guy had to play the songs right.  So Dave and I are jamming, this other guy is a total pathetic piece of shit.  So Vinnie can't take him anymore, he was sharing a room with him, and he booted him.  He was like, 'I don't care what happens - you're out of here.'  So we sent him back to Seattle.  Now we had between Las Vegas and L.A.  Dave and me had been jamming, we knew he could do it, we taught him seven songs in the back of the van while we're driving to L.A. and we'll play the set tonight, and then we'll work it.  He knew the songs, all it took was a little bit of practice.  Seven songs later, we did the show in L.A. better than the other guy played any of the shows.  We get along really well, and we write really well together, too.  The single we just did, we wrote a song in like 5-10 minutes.  To me, it's amazing.

3C:  Did you, Dave, help with the writing on the new album, or were the songs already written?

DC:  We wrote the riffs for the album together, except for three songs which were already written, "Get Off My Back", "Blew", and [illegible].

3C:  I want to ask about the Jabberjaw comp (which "Blew" is also on).  How involved were you with Jabberjaw [a club in L.A.]?

CS:  L.A. has always been a hard place for out-of-town bands to play, especially new bands.  When we first started out, Jabberjaw was the only place we could play.  We'd play there and the place would be packed.  It's a little cafe in a bad neighborhood in L.A.  The guy really helped us out, he gave us a lot of early exposure out there.  We appreciated it, so when they asked us to be on that benefit compilation, we said sure, of course.

DC:  He lost a lot of money...

CS:  Well, he never lost money on us before.  It's now when they unannounced shows and no one even knows we're playing.  It was secretive this last time.  We played the Whisky and then Jabberjaw the next night, and no one knew we were playing there. There was only like 40 people there.

3C:  How was the whole major label experience?

CS:  It's over!!  Thank God!

3C:  Was it the kind of thing where you said, "Why not?  Let's try it, and if it doesn't work, OK?"

CS:  No, what happened was that Matador Records became a subsidiary of Atlantic, and Gerard [Cosloy] said to us...well, this is how it was told to me....that all the bands on Matador were going to Atlantic.  We were supposed to be the first rung to deal with that.  We were duped into thinking that everyone was going, so we did it.  We wouldn't have done it had we known we didn't have to.  Pete had done a lot of the Matador crap.  I realized that had I been doing it, a lot of things would have happened differently.  There are some really cool people at Atlantic, but, in general, all major labels are out for is money.  They don't think about the music.  Like, Amphetamine Reptile, Tom Hazelmyer signs bands he likes.

3C:  You've known him for awhile, right?

CS:  Yeah, I've known him since us, the Cows and Babes in Toyland were on Treehouse.

3C:  I wanted to ask you about Treehouse.  I interviewed another band who also started out on Treehouse, and they basically said that the guy wasn't really on the level.

CS:  He's a piece of shit.  We got dicked by labels right and left for the first few singles.  Sub Pop tried to dick us, but they ended up paying us a year later.  This sums a lot of this up:  'Total Destruction' took over a year to come out because we had to deal with lawyers and contracts and all that shit.  We had to play the same songs on tours over and over.  This new record we recorded in two weeks in the studio at the label and it comes three and a half months later.

3C:  It seems like a long time in coming....it seems you should have been on AmRep from the begining.

CS:  You would think so.  It was a three paragraph contract...

DC: ....and Shannon from the Cows burnt it.  None of those bands have contracts, it's all verbal.

3C:  So how did you get off of Atlantic?

CS:  That was the whole thing with Pete dealing with Matador.  They wouldn't put out the record, they're still asking for royalties on certain songs like "Blew" and "Alleged".  We're on AmRep.  They're SCUM!!!!  They're being SCUM!!!!!  They did let us off, and it was the best thing that ever happened to this band.

3C:  We were talking about this as we were driving into the city and listening to the new record....[see prelude to interview]....and it just seems that Unsane could have only come from New York City.

CS:  A lot of the songs are about experiences from here.  There's a lot of rage and frustration.

3C:  Who has all the ideas for the infamous album covers?

CS:  Some I did, like the new one, some are police photos, like the first album.

3C:  Any last words?

CS:  Kill your parents.