Besides Asides

J Church might not have been the best band in the world but they were the most important to me. Lance Hahn wrote songs that told stories of that spanned the gamut of human experience, with vivid characters. While the songs weren't always overt or straightforward in their politics they lived and breathed a beautiful anti-oppression narrative. Whether they were hardcore or pop punk or something in between, they are songs that helped us remember to enjoy life.

Of all the various side projects and associated acts to come from Hot Water Music, Rumbleseat still remains my favourite. Chances is are if you you are a HWM fan but you've never actually picked up a Rumbleseat record you've heard them before as Chuck Ragan covers their song "California Burritos" both live and on his first album. If you haven't heard them at all before what can you expect? Well essentially they sound like stripped down Hot Water Music songs with leanings towards traditional folk, blues and country music. They recorded a bunch of songs from summer '98 to sometime in '99 with Rob McGregor and proceeded to release a handful of singles as well as appearing various compilations. The band's lineup was Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard on acoustic guitars and vocals and Samantha Jones (of Bitchin') on acoustic bass and vocals with Rob McGregor helping out on the harmonica. Before long they called it quits but not before they tried their hand at going electric, augmenting the existing lineup with Bill Clower of Radon on drums.

Rumbleseat didn't have that lengthy a recording history so No Idea announced they would be releasing a collection entitled Discography And Then Some in 2004. Well 2004 came and went and there was still no sign of the album when finally in 2005 it was released with an altered tracklist and the title changed to Is Dead. So I've gone and collected all the band's odds n ends that were left off of Is Dead, including 8 studio tracks only one of which saw commercial release, 6 electric band demos and 8 rough live recordings. For me the most interesting aspect of these songs is that on two of the studio recordings Samantha Jones takes lead vocal duties - something she didn't do on any of the commercially available songs. As a nice little bonus I've even included the artwork that was originally intended for Discography And Then Some as the cover for this collection:

I'm not too sure what to say about Lawrence Kansas' Kill Creek other than they are one of my favourite bands. Although they are from the other Kansas, you likely wouldn't have had bands like The Casket Lottery or The Get Up Kids without them. They have that muscular and melodic sound that the 90's seemed to produce in spades with bands like Jawbreaker and Seaweed but softer country/folk and pop moments that recall the Weakerthans or Jets To Brazil. Anyways, this is the only live material I was able to find of theirs and it is quite good quality, the first half of it is taken from a live in studio acoustic session and the second half is taken from a full band awards show performance.

The radio show set is rather cute with with renditions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" one including guest vocals by guitarist/vocalist Scott Born's son Alex. There is one really sad part to the set where Scott dedicates the final song to his daughter who passed away as she was being born just a few days prior and you can hear his voice crack up. Here you go:

With the recent announcement that Hot Water Music is going to be heading into the studio to record their first reunion LP, I thought it would be great to have some HWM related posts. This "Besides" installment focuses on Chuck Ragan's 7" and compilation appearances not including his single series/Blueprint Sessions stuff. This marks the first post on Besides Asides where Pants did almost all of the collecting and sequencing of the contents of the mix as well as the cover. Hope you enjoy it:

The story goes that Dan and Brian from Screeching Weasel formed Sludgeworth as a side project to SW in 1989, and then decided to make Sludgeworth their full-time gig only to break up in 1992. They recorded a single LP entitled What's This? for Johann's Face Records as well as a few 7" releases before splitting. If you are expecting Sludgeworth to sound like Screeching Weasel or The Riverdales or The Ramones guess again. Sludgeworth sounds a lot more mature, with more accurate points of reference being Pegboy, Jawbreaker and Face to Face.

In 1995 Lookout! released Losers Of The Year, which was a number of songs from their LP and other random songs they recorded over their three year existence. For some reason much like Operation Ivy's Discography, Losers Of The Year is frustratingly incomplete as it is missing about 5 songs from What's This?. Due to Lookout!'s inactivity, both Losers Of The Year and What's This? are out of print. So I uploaded Losers of The Year for you tacked on 5 extra songs that were left of the original for some insane reason. Enjoy!:




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