The Retconned cover band featured Josh Fauver (Diet Cola, Deerhunter, S.I.D.S.) on guitar, James Joyce (Sonn Av Krusher, Noot d’ Noot) on drums, Benjamin Lukens (The Forever War) on bass. They were kind enough to learn 5 songs from Unhappenings as well as Savior, an Inkwell cover (Joe Myers, Marty Rioux, Mark Lowe, Phillip Dwyer ca. 1995 — That’s Joe Myers from Inkwell stealing the mic at the end of Savior), and play them live with me. Fur Elise and Treecreature played as well. This was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a show.
There is some more information on the show, as well as a photo of me at a bowling alley that I have no recollection of on James Joyce’s website.
Ret Con Pas = Retconned and Re Com Pas. Live sets from our 2004 tour of New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida. Yes, really; We went on tour of New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida. We are booking gurus.
We had some stenciled sleeves for our first demo, but I can’t find one. This is the cover of a DVD that Ray somehow got a version of Fronterland featured in. It accompanies someone skateboarding.
Recorded at our practice space in Brooklyn by the guy who lived downstairs from Ben and Kat. Remixed by J. Ellis.
NYC 2001 – 2004: Ray Sullivan (Walt Lariat, The Swift and Terrible Race, Racine, Lower 48) played drums. Sean Greathead (wheeljack, The Mascara Aesthetic, Nights) played guitar. Benjamin Lukens (Ultivac, hal al Shedad, Forever War) played bass and sang. I played (some software synthesizers before switching to a Roland JP8000 and finally settling on) an Alesis A6 and sang.
Track one, “2X2,” was recorded by Alex LaRoche at Under The Couch (GA Tech, Atlanta). It was supposed to be included on a compilation to benefit Human Rights Watch that was going to be put out by some hardcore label (burning something?) in New Orleans (No Toxin III, though) but was never released. Call me crazy but I think Human Rights Watch would benefit more if you just gave them all of the money it takes to print a thousand CDs than the profits from the 300 CDs that actually sold. I like comps though.
Tracks 2 – 17 recorded live to minidisc 1999 and 2000. I prefer this version of Unloaded to the album version.
Ultivac was James Joyce (Sonn Av Krusher, Noot d’ Noot) on drums, Benjamin Lukens (The Forever War) on bass, and me – vocals and electronics. We were together from 1999 until about 2001. I was living in NYC and James and Ben were in ATL, so band practice, etc. was difficult. We played two shows: one at the old Eyedrum and one at MJQ.
Tracks 1 through 6 recorded by Ed Burdell at Furies Studios. Tracks 7 though 10 recorded live at WREK. Tracks 11 through 17 recorded by Issa Diao at Sleepless Nights.
Year Zero was around from 1994 until 1996. James Dunn played the guitar. Brandon McDearis played the drums. Heather McIntosh played the bass on tracks 1 through 10. Matt Ciccarelli played the bass on 11 through 17. I “sang.”
We attempted to tour once and half of our shows fell through. We ended up playing at: A club in Richmond (I forget which, but the guy who set up the show was nice); Eric Wareheim’s (Elements of Need, I Am Heaven, etc.) apt. in Philly (Some guy kept talking on his cel phone while we were playing); Georgetown U with Make-Up and Meltdown; Knoxville at Landspeed Records (We played our first song to about ten teenage kids that I deliberately mislead by telling them we sounded like Pantera. They walked out after the first song and we played the rest of our set to the other band).
Live July 16, 1996.
Some footage of our last show. Courtesy of D. Ahuja.
This show was at a place called BLT’s which closed up a few months later. I had negotiated a certain cut of the door for the touring bands, The Warmers, and Make-Up, with someone who claimed to represent the place. That night, some douchebag who looked like a coked up Kenny Rogers showed up. Allegedly, he was the owner. He took almost all the money. His employees and the bands were arguing with him.
I remember a serene combination of anger and poise on Steve Gamboa’s face while he argued with the guy. It was like even when dealing with a total fuck he accepted the transaction as part of some larger chess game that anyone could play. I just felt weak and embarrassed that this guy was ripping the bands off. I didn’t really know what to do. I swore never to book another band’s show after that. I still haven’t. I don’t want to feel like a powerless intermediary with no recourse.
The Warmers were amazing.
More videos, including videos by other Atlanta bands, are available here.
Recorded by Issa Diao at Sleepless Nights, Atlanta.
The poorly named Astrosmash was together from 1994 until–uh–1994. Benjamin Lukens played bass. Zach Hollbach played the drums. I sang. Jennifer Kraft played guitar and wrote a song better than most of these that we neglected to record. As far as I can recall, we played five or six shows. Ben went on to the hal al Shedad. Zach went on to Catfight.
I avoided posting this before because the guitar is entirely too low in the mix.
Recorded By Ed Burdell at Furies Studios in Atlanta
Cough Syrup was together from appox. 1992 until sometime in 1994. These four songs constitute our last recording session. At that time I think that we had about 10 songs (excluding songs we had retired). The final line-up was Jon Lukens, Benjamin Lukens (The Forever War) on bass, Matt Ciccarelli on guitar and Zach Hollbach on drums. Patrick Borezo played bass before Ben Joined. Jonathan Kenny was our original drummer, and played on two prior recording sessions before moving out of town. We had a drummer named Daryl for one gig between losing Jonathan and finding Zach.
I’m not especially fond of my Bob Schick wannabe vocals here, but I think the songs are worth making available. Our other studio material is too shitty to post.
Live July 2nd, 1994
Everything below was taken from a VHS tape of the last Cough Syrup show: July 2nd, 94. The show was at the Somber Reptile Lizard Lounge, which was a second, smaller show space beneath a club called the Somber Reptile in Atlanta. We were supposed to play with Las Mordidas (Chris Thomson and ex-Fidelity Jones folks), but they never showed up.
Aside from the recording above, this is the best example available of what we sounded like starting around the Fall of 93. I put a tiny bit of compression on these and EQed them a little bit. I also edited out string-breaking between song banter. There wasn’t too much I could do with the video. There just wasn’t enough light.
More videos, including videos by other Atlanta bands, are available here.
Cough Syrup is perhaps the worst band name ever after .wheeljack., Battlecat, Astrosmash, The Fun Boy Three and Fast Pink Dracula. I wanted to name the band Plastique.
Ben Lukens, Zach Hollbach and I went on to start a band called Astrosmash with Jennifer Kraft from Bite.
