Thursday, June 15, 2017

Music History Part 36 - New Beginnings ~ Dirty Hand Dance/Violent Green ~

Disclaimer: Memory is a funny thing, and an elusive one. Meaning; I might have some of this wrong, as 1. My memory is not always accurate, like anyone and 2. It is from my perspective only. Any friends  who were there, feel free to correct me or add things I have missed. It helps! Also, no gossip on anyone here, it ain't about that. Personal details are on a surface level, and friends, girlfriends and others are re-named to respect their privacy. People in bands generally put their names out there on albums and in interviews anyway, and are not in the habit of staying anonymous, and therefore are named here. That said, anyone who is in the blog that wishes me not to use their name has only to ask. 

Seattle Years DisclaimerAs I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.

This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!


Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.


A kind of disclaimer on Violent Green entries...In writing about the band Violent Green, at this time I am not in contact with Jenny O'lay, so I am not directly getting input from her, and, one member is no longer alive. In the case of the former, out of respect to O'lay, I am compelled to keep personal details at a high level, and in terms of Drew Quinlan (RIP, Brother), I am not in touch with any of his family to get approval of what I write about concerning him, as I did with my previously passed bandmate, Pat Schmaljohn (and thus felt better in writing about Pat) but I do not have the same access to family in Drew's case, so for that reason, out of respect for Drew and his family, I will also keep details at a high level. I won't make it cold and unpersonal, don't misunderstand me. Our dynamic as people was a huge part of the band. I guess what I am getting at is there are details that will remain private, to meet with high standards I strive to meet on this blog, even more so in light of this lack of input from the former bandmates of which I write. I hope I have achieved these standards. This  also brings up the point I always make, but it is important to reiterate; this is all from my perspective only, and of anyone whom I get input from.

Our odd relationships and their tensions were one with the music, and I think, actually I know, that was a good thing, a necessary ingredient of this band, a band that forever reshaped how I thought about music, both listening to it and making it. I owe that to Drew and Jenny's brilliance and imperfectness, which made me feel okay about my own imperfections, (only to a degree, as my inner, self-critical voice was still in full effect) and it helped me realize that even I held brilliance, in my own way, when I played with them, warts and all. One thing I can confidently say is; we gave a fuck about the music. And that was because this was a highly musical band (most of the people who got what we were doing were musicians themselves) and thus I will focus much of my energy in terms of the VG entries talking about that; the music, it's influences and forms, and how the three of us and what we brought to the band from previous projects and the music we each loved, created, eventually, a rich tapestry. It is worth digging into this world O'lay spun with this bizarre, dark, poppy, goth, folksy punk music from Mars ~ * 

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My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry


From my Facebook post on the Violent Green entries, dated May 10th, 2017

"...Not everybody jibed with what we laid down, but I realized those who did, made up, consistently, about a third of anyone seeing us live or hearing records...

...And we were in our own musical cocoon in the midst of the music scene Nirvana's success had wrought in Seattle in the early to mid '90s. Still, we managed to find musical kin and hearths scattered within that scene and on the road, and just...do our thing, sort of like a jazz band..."


Back to Bass-ics

When I started jamming with Drew Quinlan and Jenny O'lay, I hadn't played bass in a band since the State of Confusion years, though I had dinked around on one at home and played bass on home recordings over the years while I was focused on drums. I felt far more confident on bass than on drums, and to this day I feel I am a far better bass player than a drummer, though I have gotten to be a pretty decent drummer as well. So I was getting back into the groove of bass playing and happy about it, as I had missed it. Jenny O'lay's songwriting was a bass-player's dream in that there was a lot of space in the songs for innovative playing, and a lot of open chords so I could play a part a number of different ways.

For a bass, I asked friends if they knew anyone selling one (my bass from the SOC days was out of commission). Steve Fisk's friend PS Oneil (a notable musician out of the Olympia/Evergreen scene) was selling a unique bass, a Kramer (which he got from the bass player of Meat Purveyor, Tony Cascioppo)

Kramers were no longer made. Kramer also made guitars. Their signature design was that the necks of the basses and guitars were mostly metal, ending in a two-pronged fork at the end. The bass I bought had a little bit of wood inlay in the metal neck. It has a trippy high-end sound to it, similar to how a Rickenbacker sounds (though not quite as deep or distorted). 

Since I didn't have a bass amp anymore, I was also shopping for a bass rig (amp+speaker(s)). My downstairs neighbors were kind of goofy musicians who had a band they had been doing for a bit called Atom & Evil. The bass-player was selling a cabinet he had and I bought it, an SWR with one dynamic 18 inch speaker. At a music store in Pioneer Square devoted exclusively to bass-players, I found a great solid state/tube split Musicman HD 150 amp head to complete the combo. It is my bass rig to this day, and, it has a history of being on more records than I have while I have owned it, for instance, it is the bass rig used on the third Built to Spill LP, 'Perfect From Now On'

I came across the Kramer bass when Fisk asked me to add some bass parts to a song on a second lp for a project that he was one half of, a groove-based funk/soul group called Pigeonhed, the other half of which was renowned Seattle singer/songwriter Shawn Smith (the record would be called 'The Full Sentence'). Pigeonhed had already released an excellent, self-titled debut LP (which proved to be a big influence on later Violent Green songs, and on me as a musician). Fisk just needed me to add some heavy chords with the Kramer on a sort of, driving, stalling, instrumental chorus of a song that was pretty interesting in terms of its origin. The main tracks were from a rejected song recorded by Soundgarden (I haven't confirmed, but I think they did release it later) and later Helios Creed (an innovative and widely respected godfather of what became known as industrial music, purveyed in his band Chrome) added feedback noises using only guitar pedals looped into each other, which he manipulated with the settings and nobs on the pedals. You can hear the Pigeonhed song, 'Phunpurephun', here: Phunpurphun

And here is a mention of Phunpurephun from the Boston weekly The Phoenix, by Brendan Joel Kelley, on indie rockers playing electronic music: "...Meanwhile, Fisk lays down thumps with Parliament-flavored synths, then overlays them with instrumental tracks by some of the duo's friends (Helios Creed from Chrome, Wayne Flower of the Treepeople). Smith's shimmering soul and Fisk's funk aptitude redefine what R&B has evolved into; Pigeonhed demonstrates just how diverse two white boys raised on punk rock can be..."
See entire article here: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/indie-rockers-do-it-better-6422890 


Pigeonhed's first LP, very                                      The Full Sentence 
influential on later 
Violent Green songs


Over the years using this Kramer bass in a couple of bands, I learned the ups and downs of its design. The ups are that because of the metal neck, the sustain (the length of time a note or notes will vibrate) is insanely long, and, when you put it through pedals or any kind of distortion, it sounds like a weird, thick electric guitar. This bass has also been on more records that I have not been on (during the time I have owned it) notably, Brett Netson later used it for a kind of lead guitar track on the Caustic Resin tune on the incredible double-LP 'Fly Me To The Moon' called 'Station Wagon'. You can hear 'Station Wagon' here: Station Wagon 


My Kramer bass, nicknamed 'The Kingpin' for its metal neck and crown-like ivory inlays bewteen the frets on the neck. Poor thing is missing a pick-up (the other is the original Kramer pick-up). It is a cool, weirdass bass, and became part of my 'signature' sound in early Violent Green and Halo Benders. I will own it until I die, as it is very unique sounding. Also, it has been on more records than I have during the time I have owned it.

Below is a link to a song from a Halo Benders show in 1995 where you get a glimpse of the bass head I describe, and can hear the unique sound of the bass itself in the song Blank Equation (from the album 'Don't Tell Me Now.')

The Halo Benders playing Blank Equation

As for the cons/downsides of the beast/bass, it went out of tune very easily, and was very sensitive in this regard when more and more people filed into a show as you were playing, thus warming the room with their body heat. Let's just say that I got very good at tuning while playing! At any rate, the sound of this bass became kind of a signature sound for me for a time (including on some of the early Halo Benders tunes and live shows) and I had chosen my amp specifically to counter the trebley sound it had (additionally, I used flat-wound strings for the same reason). As an unintended result, the amp combo I chose had a pretty killer sound all around, for any kind of bass. It still does! Ok, enough bass nerd stuff...
 
Dirty Hand Dance 




Jenny O'lay had attended film school for a number of years in Eugene prior to living in Seattle and her love of film strongly influenced her songwriting, at least to my mind, especially in the imagery that her lyrics evoked. I will discuss this more in detail over the next  few entries. She played for a short time in the legendary Olympia band, Some Velvet Sidewalk (one of the most original bands ever) but on a tour she quit the band and stayed in New York City for a time, dropping from the tour while the band continued it without her. I don't know how long she lived in NYC, having adventures (some of which she recounted to me) but it wasn't very long.

The first name of our band Jenny came up with embodied the 'film-as-song' approach, in that it was about gunfighting, but ultimately didn't work, as the image in her head and what came across were very different. The name was, as eluded to by the title of this section, Dirty Hand Dance. I wasn't a fan of the name at the time for two reasons, one of which relates to the above; 1. To me, and many people I told the name to, it sounded like some sort of euphemism for masturbation, and 2. I didn't like the linked 'D's' of the words 'Hand' and 'Dance', as they kind of ran together; 'Handdance'. However, we had the name Dirty Hand Dance for about 6 months (best guess) before changing to Violent Green. More on the origin of the VG name later.

I may have mentioned this earlier in the blog, but the process of coming up with a name is grueling. You become obsessed with it, thinking of it all day, all day, trying to come up with a name. Drew and Jenny were stoked about a name they came up with; Heroine Kiss, and, as you can see by viewing the name, 'heroine' isn't 'heroin', but when you hear it, it is a whole different story. They thought it clever, I disagreed, and had just lost some friends to heroin, so, it was scrapped. I can see why they thought it was kind of cool, but at the time I was concerned that too many people would think we were glorifying heroin, and that wasn't what they meant by it at all. I came up with a long list of shitty names, as I remember it, which is unusual for me (my record, to this day, is pretty good on that front otherwise). I jumped ahead a bit here, and, I digress...

My impression of Jenny when I first got to know her was that she was; tiny, funny, magnetic, hyper-intelligent and kind of dark, I can't explain it better. I suppose, knowing her music intimately bespeaks the darkness part, so my view was through that lens. She came from a childhood that made her scrappy and tough, and her father Lionel O'lay was a writer (journalism and hard-boiled fiction) and close friends with Hunter S. Thompson, whom he wrote with as a colleague during his days at 'Stars and Stripes'. Thompson wrote O'lay's obituary when he died, and that ended up in Thompson's book 'The Great Shark Hunt'. I can't help but think that her father's life as an artist has a bit to do with who Jenny was/is as an intellectual. She herself never bragged about the Thompson connection, or wore it as any kind of social status, it was a mere fact of her life. It most surely means more to others, including myself, than to her.  

Jenny's knowledge of film is encyclopedic. She introduced me to some of my favorite film makers like Tarkovsky, Fassbinder, Bergman and Herzog. The early songs were more influenced by western films, it seemed, possibly she was watching a lot of them at the time, and the music was rooted in folk and country, for the better part of each song, anyway, but then would drop into some sort of funky punk stuff (foreshadowing of what was to come) and the lyrics were like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel (an author she admired and also introduced me to, and, the source of the Violent Green band name, more later). Songs kind of had choruses, but...not really. They progressed more how a conversation does than a song, sort of like, well, scenes and dialogue in a film. That is the best metaphor I can think of for her songs' structure. This trait remained throughout the time I was in the band, and, the short time after. There are, of course, exceptions to this, little pop gems, which she could whip out at will, but she did so very selectively.




 

Fliers from our 'Dirty Hand Dance' era, including our first show with legendary Portland, Oregon band Dead Moon. 
~Artwork in background of top flier by Bill Sienkeiwicz from his unfinished comic series, Big Numbers

School

The last band I had played bass in was a hardcore band, and the last band Drew played in, and was in fact still playing in, was a hardcore band as well, the amazing band Whipped, so he and I wrote pretty busy parts when we started playing with Jenny. You can hear it on our earliest home recordings (I will post some of those in later entries). Jenny coached us to back off and play simpler, more rhythmic parts. We both eventually settled into that, and that is when we hit a groove and fell into a sound and style all our own. For me, this was a revelation. I had, of course, paid attention to all the bands I loved, and to how simplicity and space is important, I employed that reduction in my drumming in Treepeople as well, so it wasn't as if it were and entirely new concept, but, I mean revelation in the context of it being a key to understanding how to write/play to her particular songwriting style, and Drew, who already pretty much played jazz style drums super fast in his hardcore band, (which made sense as he was listening to a lot of Elvin Jones' drumming on Coltrane records, who became a huge influence on him), seamlessly shaped that into his sound in VG, that is, a sort of jazz, funk, folk, punk flavor, and I followed his lead, bringing in my influences from one of my favorite bands, the funk/punk/jazz band Minutemen, whose bass player Mike Watt was/is a major influence on my playing (and there were actually comparison's of VG to Minutemen, I believe that is mainly due to my bass playing style, as the songs in general sound nothing like them) and later Jenny would introduce Drew and I to incredible jazz, including one of my bass heroes from then on; Charles Mingus, and I was inspired to play with my fingers only for the first time (meaning I did not use a pick). I am jumping ahead again here, but it is sort of a primer for where we are going, a map, if you will.

Rehearsals

As laid out above, there was some learning and getting to know each other musically that had to happen, let alone getting to know each other personally, at the beginning of the band, which brings up the point that this was the first band I had started in with people I didn't know well. I of course knew Drew, he being the only reason I was there, really, but I didn't know him well yet. We would quickly become good friends. With Jenny and I it was all business, for the most part, while she and Drew got along very well. All this was wrapped up in those first rehearsals. So it was slow going at first, but the first stage of songwriting, as mentioned above, was folksy and slightly dark and funky and weird, swaying between various moods and styles within the same song. We first practiced in Drew's house in the Central District, which he shared with a mutual good friend and her boyfriend, both of them being seminal figures in the Seattle hardcore punk scene; Paula Sen, bass player/co-singer/co-songwriter in Drew's band Whipped, and Glen Esary, singer in the band Christ on a Crutch (see earlier Seattle entries for more on both bands). 

Drew set up a cube of carpeting over mattresses lining the walls in the basement room next to his room in which we wrote and practiced. Picture me, slightly stooped with hair in my face, a cross between Lurch and Cousin It, and Jenny, tiny and belting out a powerful voice, and Drew, built like a welterweight fighter, playing somehow powerfully yet delicately (a signature of his style, as mentioned above, kind of like a punk Elvin Jones). He had a 4 track tape machine on which we recorded our songs, the beginnings of a weird, chaotic but productive way of tracking what we were doing, a process that was later forced into being more organized with the introduction of sampling into the songwriting process. At this point, we had some good songs, a handful at least. Two of them made it on to our first 7 inch ('Waiting For June and 'You Make Me Wish I Had A Gun') put out by Chris Takino as the first release on his label Up! Records, after we had officially changed our name to Violent Green and after playing our first show in Olympia, Washington as Dirty Hand Dance with the legendary Portland, Oregon band Dead Moon. That is for next time.

Love to Folks and Critters,

Wayne ~*    

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Music History Part 35 - Life After Treepeople

Disclaimer: Memory is a funny thing, and an elusive one. Meaning; I might have some of this wrong, as 1. My memory is not always accurate, like anyone and 2. It is from my perspective only. Any friends  who were there, feel free to correct me or add things I have missed. It helps! Also, no gossip on anyone here, it ain't about that. Personal details are on a surface level, and friends, girlfriends and others are re-named to respect their privacy. People in bands generally put their names out there on albums and in interviews anyway, and are not in the habit of staying anonymous, and therefore are named here. That said, anyone who is in the blog that wishes me not to use their name has only to ask.

Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.

This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!


Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.


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My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry


Smells Like 'What the Fuck?'

In an earlier post, I talked about how I was a dishwasher at a restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle in '91, a really cool place called 'The Ritz', which was a meat and potatoes kind of joint frequented by mostly older, white, gay men, who, in terms of their tastes, were very much like most older, white straight men; they liked their prime rib and steak, booze, good wine, cigars, mahogany wood trim and red leather seats in the booths. I bonded with the Samoan, lesbian chef who ran the kitchen. I was treated well, she even made me an 'honorary lesbian', half-jokingly (I was honored). I got the job because Scott Schmaljohn had cleaned the restaurant after hours for extra cash for a while, heard they were hiring and told me about it.



Current business occupying the space where The Ritz Cafe' was in the '90s, now (if it is still there) called 'Coastal Kitchen'. Next door was a cool, old school book store you can still see the sign for in this photo. It's probably a Starbucks now ; )
Image retrieved from:
 
One night in 1992, I was in the kitchen doing food prep to help the cooks out and we were listening to the local commercial pop radio station called 'The Kube' when the Nirvana song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' from their album 'Nevermind' came on. I was shocked. "Is this...is this Nirvana?" I asked my boss. She shrugged. "This is crazy," I remarked. And at the time, it really was. That barrier had never been breached by alternative bands. The unwritten rule was; 'Alternative bands = college radio play'. 'Commercial pop bands = commercial radio play'. But of course Nirvana had just been signed to the major label Geffen, who worked hard to push them into the mainstream with muscle they could leverage on radio stations. Also, my previous band had just played with Nirvana, (as covered last entry) and everyone bought all their merchandise in a flash and scurried to put on their Nirvana shirts right there at the show, so it wasn't a total surprise. But it was certainly unexpected.



 Screenshot from Billboard archive at:

For musicians playing in the Seattle scene this caused quite a stir. This was an era where New Kids on the Block and Michael Bolton were still a force on pop radio, to give context. I won't bother going into the whole history of Nirvana's rise to fame, it is well documented everywhere (even in previous entries in this blog). 

Whether members of the Seattle scene liked Nirvana or not, most musicians I knew felt a bit possessive of the band, and especially of Kurt Cobain. Since the days when Tad Doyle and his band TAD took Nirvana under his wing for Nirvana's first European tour in the late '80s, they (Nirvana) had become more and more popular, and we were proud of that, and of the fact that Kurt wasn't abandoning his punk rock roots (as I have mentioned a few times on this blog) and was a thorn in the side of the mainstream music industry, or maybe a rock in their shoe is a more appropriate metaphor. We considered him one of our own.

Kurt and Tad having some fun

Many of my friends were friends with Kurt (one of whom told me "None of us really knew Kurt", referring to the intentional shroud of bullshit that Kurt surrounded himself with, most of the legends you hear of came from this tale-spinning) so it felt personal to me, watching this all unfold, hearing unfiltered stories of how Kurt and the band were handling the shift. But no one foresaw how big they would become. We suddenly had to share Nirvana and Kurt with the world. It was kind of like we had this special brother who could tap into raw human emotion and release it through that incredible voice, and we were protective of him, even if some among us didn't know him, or even like his music. Nirvana's rise seemed to happen over night, it took us by surprise, and then, the sleepy little bubble of the Seattle music scene was about to burst, and many of us were not very happy about it, while at the same time being proud of the recognition, which was conflicting and confusing. This attitude, at least for me and most of my friends, was a hold-over from the punk rock ethos, and having the impossible expectation of being able to pick and choose who was worthy to listen to our music, or music that we found important. It seems to me that Kurt felt that way also.

'We were no slouches, but we had friends in the right places...'

Compared to a lot of bands (especially Seattle bands), Treepeople led a fairly charmed existence in some ways, I will admit, and realization of this came only after years and distance from those times. We just happened to be, by twists in fate, connected to some key people in the Seattle scene, especially Tad Doyle, Paula Sen and Chris Takino, who helped us out quite a bit. This is not in any way to discount our hard work or talent also being a major part of it, but I had some friends back in those days point this out and I kind of scoffed at them, I believe. I can understand their perspective more now. 

That said, as I stated, it was just happenstance, in many ways, that the Seattle scene would blow up right after we moved there and that it had strong Boise roots to it, and that we got on a killer Dinosaur Jr./Nirvana show that just happened to be 6 months prior to Nirvana rocketing upward. Nobody could have predicted or arranged all that. It just happened.  


We got that killer show in Portland because of Chris Takino, but also because we had generated some buzz and a reputation, and had been plugging away self-promoting and gigging for 5 years in 3 bands before we relocated to Seattle, and we continued that work ethic in the new band there. I guess one could say; we were no slouches, but we had friends in the right places. And that is just how this stuff works, sometimes. I would also add that Chris Takino was a man of good taste, and one who had a solid reputation among very respected people in the indie music industry, so he got us on that show because he thought we were good, and he wouldn't have risked his reputation putting a band forward had he not believed in them/us. Hell, we met him because he wanted to write an article on us, because he liked what we were doing. I will leave it at that.







Life After Treepeople


Artwork by Scott Schmaljohn from the Treepeople 7 inch record, 'Makin' the D' (Slightly altered by the author)

It was quite an adjustment for me to get used to not being in Treepeople, or in a band at all (for a short time, anyway, with no knowledge of what the future held). And Scott, Pat and Doug wasted no time in getting a replacement drummer, Tony Dallas Reed, a local Seattle musician who played in a band called Twelve Thirty Dreamtime. I believe he played guitar and sang in that band (currently he has a cool band called Mos Generator, check them out) but he was/is a very talented multi-instrumentalist and easily fit the drummer role in Treepeople. I will be publishing Tony Reed's perspective on joining the band next entry.

I have written in this blog about how being in a band is a lot like being in a relationship/marriage, and this fact became real when I realized that hearing Treepeople already had a replacement drummer for me about a month after I quit felt very much like how it felt when I had broken up with a woman and found out they were already seeing someone else. 

I agreed to let the band use my PA system and my drum kit for a while. I think Pat was using my Peavey bass amp held over from when I played bass in State of Confusion as well, but now that I think about it, I am pretty sure he bought it from me outright when we started Treepeople. I have a vague memory that they bought my PA, and offered to buy my drums, but I declined; they were my babies (I still have them today). So I owned nearly half of the equipment they were using, which I felt a little weird about, but I didn't see the harm in them using it for a while (they used my drum kit on the first tour they did in '92). They needed it because they hit the ground running, but at the end of 1992, I wanted my drum kit back, and I had my brother come with me to Georgetown to pick it up as a safeguard, in case Pat and I got into it, or there was resistance. It was indeed awkward, but a 'peaceful transition', so to speak.

Part of 'hitting the ground running' was Treepeople recording a new ep with their new drummer and combining it with a remixed version of the 'Time Whore' ep we released in '90 (as covered in a previous entry, Fisk had to mix the 'Time Whore' ep again, as the pressing plant lost the master tape of the mix that had been produced by Jack Endino). The two eps were released together as a double, Steve FIsk produced ep/lp called 'Something Vicious For Tomorrow', which CZ Records released. I obtained a pre-release cassette copy of it from Doug, and I remember being very impressed with it, especially the songs 'It's Allright Now Ma' (one of the most punk Treepeople songs I had heard, at least since 'Transitional Devices' on the 'GRE' lp), in which the guitar playing, especially Scott's hammering metalish leads, floored me, and 'Funnelhead', which brought back memories of how we used to half-joke and ask the songwriter, "Is this song about me, Bro?" (covered in a previous entry) in that I assumed some of the lines were about me. I don't know if they are, I never asked, and most likely, they are not. The shift in lyrical content, to my ears, was toward more personal politics, and overall, the themes covered seemed more bitter in tone than the trademark melancholy of the work we had done up to that point, when I was in the band (even the title of the new ep was more bitter). I could only think, at the time, with everything that had just happened being so fresh, that this tension had something to do with our recent, tense parting. But my view of this is, of course, incredibly biased. 


 Mike Scheer's awesome and disturbing artwork for the double ep by Treepeople called 'Something Vicious For Tomorrow' which included a previously released ep, 'Time Whore' ~

Also included on the ep was the cover of The Smiths song 'Big Mouth Strikes Again' that we had been playing toward the end of my time in the band. As mentioned before, The Smiths were a big influence on Treepeople and especially on Doug, who helped me, Scott and Pat to understand how good their music was. We had really nailed this cover and made it our own while still being faithful to the original, as we had done with pretty much any of the limited covers we did, and the version on the new ep sounded great, too, I thought. Joseph Neff put it this way in his review of the record on The Vynil District: "...But most interestingly of all there’s the cover of The Smith’s “Big Mouth Strikes Again”, which succeeds with flying colors and against strong odds since in my estimation nearly all loud/heavy adaptations of Smith’s material trample the essence of the source material. Instead, the qualities of “Big Mouth…” points to Martsch’s later proclivity for indulging in wide ranging and unexpected cover material..." I would add that this was actually a Treepeople proclivity first!
See entire review here (better written than most reviews):


When your ex's new partner isn't the asshole you'd pictured...

I put aside any bitterness or weirdness about my recently leaving Treepeople and committed to sitting down during a time when I had the apartment to myself, and listened to 'Something Vicious For Tomorrow'. I of course was very focused on the drums at first. And I was, as I mentioned, impressed. T Dallas Reed (as he was known then) had a style that synced with Scott, Pat and Doug very well, and he kept true to my quirky way of drumming to the guitars. The music was fierce, but also embodied the trademark, aforementioned melancholy, as in the song 'Liquid Boy'. The title song, 'Something Viscous For Tomorrow,' is probably my least favorite song of Scott's, to be honest, but I can't deny that the timing of the record, the name of the song, how I felt when I first heard it, made me incredibly biased. That said, it has some pretty good, metalish hooks, and I should add that I held this song up, perhaps unfairly, next to Scott's excellent songwriting on 'GRE'. The truth is, no songwriter continually cranks out excellent songs. Scott had many great TP songs to come, and his current songwriting in his band The Hand is outstanding.

So this part was, to continue the earlier, 'band as romantic relationship' metaphor, the part after the breakup where you run into your ex with his/her new partner, and you really want to hate the new person, but you can't because they are in actuality pretty cool. And this is confusing and frustrating at first. But you get over it. And I did, mainly because I never regretted my decision, also like how when you break up with someone whom you actually loved, so the separation is painful, but also right, because you weren't happy in the relationship, and also you truly wish the best for your ex. 

A New Job, a New Band

I nursed my wounds for a year or less, got a job working at a bagel joint with a great reputation, called Spot Bagel, (originally started in the Wallingford neighborhood) after my job at The Ritz fizzled when the new owner tried to make the menu healthy and banned smoking (this was well before the sweeping change when states/cities began outlawing smoking in certain areas) and effectively killed the business (if he would have waited a decade, he would have done well!). Spot Bagel was a beloved Seattle business, low key and hippy dippy, an ultra left style business, as many small businesses were in the Pacific Northwest then. But they were under new executive management, which would prove to be a bad thing in a very short time, but I had no way of knowing that. I was glad to not be a dishwasher, which was the only type of job (outside of my failed stint in construction) I had been able to get in Seattle up to that point. I was hired for the new location that was about to open, located inside a mini mall area in a new condo (the Newmark Building, still there) built right next-door to the famous Pike Place Market, where I had worked only a few years prior at the Soundview Cafe'. As with most of my jobs in Seattle at the time, it too would end in utter chaos. More on that later.

Right around this time, Drew Quinlan, the drummer of the hardcore band Whipped, (see previous entries) said that he had been jamming with a local songwriter, a woman named Jenny O'lay, who had played for a brief time in the legendary, unique Olympia band, Some Velvet Sidewalk, and he wondered if I wanted to try playing bass with them and see how it went, and maybe we could form a band. I am sure I said "Yes!" before he even finished asking. Thus began my time playing with the band that would eventually be named Violent Green.

I have no memory of our first rehearsals specifically, but I remember instantly liking Jenny's unique songwriting and guitar playing styles, which were kind of folksy at the time, and her incredible, emotional voice, easily on par with Kurt Cobain's in terms of intensity and rawness when she screamed, but she could also sing in a straightforward, folk style. We began rehearsing regularly, right away. My post Treepeople journey had begun, and my life as a musician would never be the same.