the seeds converse is now available. the angry turkey gods of the intarwebs have hidden it somewhere on this website. good luck...

now here's a promo photo!




the hot number pictured above is a houseboat on saylorville lake in des moines, IA once owned by jeff wright of hairy mary's repute.

back in the summer of '95 i opted for total obscurity over just the relative variety when i turned down a promotional tour with Machines of Loving Grace just in time for BTHOOM to go on a decade-long hiatus.

so i missed out on my moment of tawdry rock glamour by not spending one-third of my fifteen minutes fake-fretting a six-stringed rock phallus and sporting desperate black threads for a video that, like all of them, probably aged about as well as a bag of Burger King.

somewhat less disappointing is the offical promo photo i (almost) missed out on.

thank yahweh for a little program called "photoshop."

The store page has a feature that lets you preview the mp3s available for purchase. Fortunately for adventurous listeners this feature allows you to start the preview for a new track while the previously selected one is still playing. Results? Free noise!

Infinite combinations appear possible.

I should also note that I reveal this discovery with not a little wistfulness realizing that the resulting noise may well be more compelling to some listeners than the underlying tracks I labored so long on.

It was for me anyway.

Videos posted of a circa '95 show at Boston's. Tracks include "Belly," "Told," and "Godbox."

Update: Now available on the video page.

R.I.P. Sun Club and Hammerheads

I'll be making some changes to the website, adding some cool photos I found from the Sun Club days as well as going into a bit more detail about some of the technical aspects of both recording and guitar strangling.

Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line and make suggestions about any other content you might like to see on the site.

In an interview with members of D.C. hardcore/punk outfit Government Issue, bass player J. Robbins (latecomer to G.I., later of Jawbox) speaks glowingly of his matriculation into underground rock bandism through G.I.: "Thanks to G.I., I have firsthand experience of riots and van accidents."

i've had a few people (well just one really) express interest in getting a hold of some of the chet material. over the next week or so, i plan on digging through the archives to see what's there and also if everyone involved is ok with making it available online.

in case you have no idea what i'm writing about, chet was a project with Mitch Steele from Jesus Chrysler Supercar, myself, Chris Bailey, Erik Rogan, and Aaron Stewart, from bthoom, Jim Woodling from Phunk Junkeez and Mike McGregor from Bionic Jive -- mind you, we weren't all on stage at the same time (kind of sad, that).

anyhoo, some of the recordings are quite sonic and pleasing to the ear. now where did i put those old cds...

i've been playing with bthoom since 1991 or thereabouts. we've put out four cds over the last 16 years (with nearly a decade between the third and our most recent. we've played hundreds of live shows and played clubs from Portland, Maine to San Diego. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that we still play well together as we did last night at Hollywood Alley in Mesa. shitty PA sound but i think we made the best of it. highlights for me were belly and buzz (if we had more tunes that started with the letter "b" i'm fairly confident they would have sounded good too). i hope to be able to post some live-to-two-track samples of the next show (3/31/07) so you don't think i would lie about such serious business.