UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 12/22/2013. Enjoy, NØ.
The Detonators were formed in 1979 by Bruce Hartnell & Juan Camacho in Redondo Beach, CA., to participate in the emerging hardcore punk rock scene that was exploding in southern California at the time. Just out of high school, the two life-long friends played various parties & gigs with numerous drummers. Korky Ollerton joined on drums in 1981, & with Hartnell on bass, Camacho on guitar, the band put an advertisement in a L.A. weekly paper,The Recycler, for a vocalist. Mike Mooney was signed on as vocalist & the band began working on material that was to become their first LP,
Emergency Broadcast Systems. Released in 1983, the LP allowed the Detonators to gain better gigs, opening for The Dead Kennedys, Discharge, Minor Threat, The Misfits, MDC, The Dicks, 45 Grave, among others in the hardcore scene.
Touring came next, as the band was selling their records on their own label & needed broader exposure. They found that they were addicted to life on the road, which they found much more rewarding than staying in L.A. & waiting for the next decent gig to come along. On their first tour, the band was able to open for the great Portland band The Wipers, on New Year’s Eve 1983 at the 13th Precinct.
Mike Mooney did not make this trip, as he found the intensity of performing too much for his liking. Hartnell took over on the vocals; since he was the songwriter in the band, he was the only one who knew all the lyrics. It was soon decided to keep Hartnell on vocals & as second guitar, & just find a new bass player. Pat Fargher was brought in to play bass, & the band recorded a single, "Yer Child’s War" b/w "Emergency Broadcast Systems", again on their own label, Emergency Broadcast Systems Unlimited. The Detonators decided that they needed a bigger label to put out the next record, as the band had no money of their own to take on such an expenditure; several mechanical breakdowns while touring had depleted their finances.
Hoping to gain backing for touring, recording & to build on their fan base, they settled on National Trust Records in Orange County, & released
Just Another Reason in 1985.
It was decided to try to go to Europe, with the intent being to tour with an established English hardcore band. A deal was set up with the Instigators, from Huddersfield, in the English midlands, & the two bands toured the continent & Britain in 1986, along with rant poet Nick Toczek. A U.S. tour followed in the spring of 1987.
At the completion of that tour, Hartnell & Camacho decided that living in Los Angeles wasn’t all that great, & they moved to Eugene, Oregon.
Darren Baker on bass & Carl Fowler on drums were soon recruited & the band continued gigging & recorded
Balls to You.
The move to Eugene was beneficial to the band as a decent studio didn’t cost a small fortune per hour like it had in L.A. This allowed the band to put extra effort into ensuring that a decent sounding record would be released.
It was decided to try to do another European tour. The label, Double A Records in Wuppertal, Germany, picked up
Balls to You, & a tour was put together with a Canadian band who also had a Double A release, The Problem Children, from Hamilton, Ontario. That tour took place in April-May 1989.
Upon returning, The Detonators released the “Billion Dollar Nazis” 45, & again took off on the road. After another mechanical failure, (this time in –40 degree temperatures) the band decided to stop touring as much. Only two more trips would be made, the last one in 1992, with Seattle’s DC Beggars.
Several more recordings were done, including an unreleased LP,
1,000 Points of Punk. Hartnell decided to open a rock club, John Henry’s, & settled in to handle booking chores. Camacho opened several versions of his restaurant, Sandino’s, a Mexican/punk eatery. Time & money constraints meant the end of touring for The Detonators. The band played sporadic gigs up until 1996 throughout the Pacific Northwest. They recently reformed for a reunion show in Eugene.
The Detonators side - Day to Day/Crime & Punishment/Angry Young Man
Bruce Hartnell - vocals, guitar
Juan Camacho - guitar
Darren Baker - bass
Carl Fowler - drums
recorded at John Eastman's Power Station, engineered by Carl Mueller, produced by The Detonators
The Detonators side - Day to Day/Crime & Punishment/Angry Young Man
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Econochrist was an influential & highly revered early 90s hardcore band.
Ben, Markley, & Jon formed a band in Little Rock, Arkansas while they were still in junior high, calling themselves Father Asshole. The band was short-lived & only played a few shows, including the Arkansas College anti-apartheid rally. Then, in 1986 the three started a new band called Criminal Mischief. Around this time a scene began to develop in Little Rock. A guy named Robo started putting on hardcore shows at a venue called The Annex. Many of the classic hardcore bands of the era came through & Criminal Mischief, being one of the town's few hardcore bands, got to open most of the shows. Eventually the band's bass player, a wealthy kid named Jason, started to grate on the others so they kicked him out. He was replaced with Andy Christ (real name Andy Branton) & Econochrist was born.
The four clicked immediately, forging a strong & unique sound that would later be copied by countless bands. It was essentially the sound of aggressive, powerful hardcore punk, backed with a nimble, punchy bass line. Andy's western cow punk bass playing merged perfectly with the rest of the band's straight-up hardcore attack. The scene in Little Rock had grown & it centered around Econochrist, who lived in a squat in western Little Rock that was constantly filled with punkers (& complete with a homemade skate ramp).
They played many shows around the Arkansas area as well as in Memphis. They released a demo tape & a 7" EP titled
It Runs Deep on Memphis-based Truant Records. In about 1988 the Little Rock scene was waning, so the band decided to pack up & move to the East Bay city of Oakland,CA. The Annex closed down & Little Rock's other premier hardcore band, Trusty, moved as well, to hardcore historical landmark Washington, D.C.
However, in the East Bay scene Econochrist flourished. About this time, Econochrist replaced bass player Andy Christ & they re-recorded their first album with new bass player Jon & changed the cover to feature Jon instead of Andy. This didn't bring Andy down. He subsequently went on to play with bands like Hell's Kitchen & Samiam. Econochrist joined the ranks of the Gilman Street punk scene & became a staple in the area's punk movement. They continued to release records, play shows, & tour the country until 1993, when they decided to split up.
The members of the band have all moved on to other things now: Ben Sizemore is now an elementary school teacher, after spending time counciling street kids at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic; Jon is now apparently "married to his dog" & working on new musical projects; & Markley drums for Strychnine, which also features members of fellow East Bay hardcore band Filth.
It has been said of Econochrist, "The thing about these guys was that they lived & breathed hard core punk rock. They lived in shitholes, toured on a shoestring, but most importantly they played kick-ass music." They will be remembered forever by the fans & the many bands they influenced - their signature sweaty, hard-driving punk backed with clear, punchy melodic bass lines developed into the sound of East Bay punk, as played by such luminaries as Jawbreaker, Green Day, & Rancid (whom Econochrist played $2.00 house parties with when they were still a trio with no record).
Mike - bass
Markley - drums
Jon - guitar
Ben - vocals
backup vocals by Econochrist, Fraggle, & Noah
recorded at Sergay's in Berkeley,CA
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The following 7" was purchased directly from the band at a Gilman Street show in 1993 shortly before they broke up.
recorded & mixed 30 - 31 May 1993, engineered by Noah Tensionspan, cover art by Neil Grimmer,
typesetting & layout by Markley.
Side A -
Withdrawal
Words Alone
Side B -
Bled Dry
Passed On
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Enigmatic noise rock trio SteelPole BathTub crafted a grungy, droning, offbeat sound from a palette of fuzzed-out bass riffs, blasts of guitar feedback, & tape loops, plus a raft of alternately kitschy & disturbing dialogue samples from vintage TV shows & movies. Additionally, the band had a penchant for deconstructive covers of rock classics, some of which appeared only on 7" singles (like the one featured here). Critics were split on the effectiveness of their often repetitive compositions, with some praising their originality & others bemoaning a lack of consistent songwriting polish. A highly unlikely bet for commercial success, SteelPole BathTub nonetheless managed to score a major-label contract (albeit briefly) during the alternative rock feeding frenzy of the mid-'90s.
SteelPole BathTub was founded in Bozeman, MT, in 1986 by guitarist/vocalist Mike Morasky & bassist/vocalist Dale Flattum. After moving to Seattle, they joined up with drummer Darren Mor-X (born Darren Morey), a veteran of the local early-'80s hardcore band Mr. Epp (which featured future members of Green River & Mudhoney). The trio next relocated once again, this time to San Francisco. SteelPole BathTub landed a deal with the Bay Area indie label Boner, which was also home to the Melvins in their pre-Atlantic days. The band's debut album,
Butterfly Love, appeared in 1989, & was followed in 1990 by the
Lurch EP (both were later combined on a CD issue). These early releases established the band's fascination with pop-culture references & TV dialogue snippets, & led to several Bay Area side projects: Morasky teamed with Boner label head Tom Flynn in Duh (aka Death's Ugly Head); & the whole group worked with Jello Biafra under the name Tumor Circus. Fans & critics tended to agree that SteelPole BathTub really began to hit their stride on 1991's
Tulip & its follow-up, 1993's
The Miracle of Sound in Motion.
During the same period, Morasky & Flattum teamed up (under the aliases C.C. Nova & Bumblebee) in an electronics-oriented side project called Milk Cult, which gave their interest in sampling a whole new outlet. 1994 brought a new SteelPole BathTub 10",
Some Cocktail Suggestions, which would prove to be their final work for Boner.
Slash Records---at the time a subsidiary of Warner, though they would shortly switch affiliations to London---offered the band a major-label contract, perhaps swayed by similar jumps from SteelPole influenced the Butthole Surfers & labelmates the Melvins. SteelPole BathTub's major-label debut,
Scars From Falling Down, was released in 1995. Due to copyright concerns, their trademark dialogue samples had to be held in check, which placed more focus on the band's music itself. In 1996, they set about recording a follow-up, initially hoping to cover the Cars' debut album in its entirety. Slash, unimpressed with the postmodern prank & the demos of new material that accompanied three Cars covers, promptly dropped the band from its roster.
Caught in limbo, SteelPole BathTub gradually drifted into oblivion. The band members remained active, though---in 1997, Milk Cult received a grant from the French government to join an artists' collective in Marseilles, where they recorded an album that would be released in 2000 as
Project M-13. Morasky subsequently went to New Zealand as a special effects technician on Peter Jackson's
Lord of the Rings trilogy, while Flattum retired to North Carolina to pursue the visual arts while working for a software company. Flattum (now calling himself Agent Nova) & Mor-X reunited as Novex in 2002, pursuing a style similar to Milk Cult on their debut,
Kleptophonica. Meanwhile, SteelPole BathTub finally recovered the rights to their lost major-label follow-up, & issued the material in 2002 on the
0 to 1 label as
Unlistenable (the title being a quote from Slash executives' response to the tapes). The group briefly reunited that year to perform at the Beyond the Pale festival.
European Son
Venus in Furs
Enjoy,
NØ
