HEX20YR RETROSPECTIVE- HXR003: THE NATIONAL ACROBAT, "It's Nothing Personal" 7"

After putting out a couple of releases I became a little more confident about releasing records, and seeking out bands that I wanted to work with.  It certainly helped that I had a pretty successful zine going where I was constantly being exposed to new music, and booking shows, where I made contacts with numerous bands.  There was a lot out there and pretty quickly I decided that I didn’t want to exclusively focus on local bands (even though many of them would play a role in the label’s history as time went on).

                       The National Acrobat at Hellfest 2000, Syracuse, NY

One such group that really made an impression upon me was Time In Malta. They were a Bay Area band that combined the intensity, skill, and cathartic release of groups like Threadbare, but with a little bit more of a driving groove.  It was pretty certain that they were going to be doing a full length with Initial Records, at the time a pretty big name around hardcore circles.  I wanted to jump on something with them before they did that and I talked to my man Ryan Patterson, who was working there at the time.  I got to know Ryan through press contact stuff with Initial, and he was helping book some tours for bands and I set up shows for a couple of the tours he arranged.  So we got to talking about me doing a Time In Malta single prior to whatever they did with Initial and Ryan suggested maybe doing it as a split with his brother Evan’s band, The National Acrobat.  Ryan had just joined up with Acrobat on second guitar and were looking to release some new stuff.  I thought it was an OK idea and went along with it.

Well, Time In Malta ended up doing their record with Equal Vision Records and sort of left Initial out to dry, which sort of ended my hope of doing something with them.  The Patterson brothers still had the Acrobat stuff ready to go if I just wanted to do a solo 7” for them and I agreed, but I wasn’t all that excited about it at first honestly.  And then they sent me the masters for the record and I was blown away by how crazy it was- the wild time changes, the crushing heaviness, and the wacked out vocals and lyrics of ultra-eccentric frontman Casper Adams.  It was so damn good.  I kicked myself for not having more faith in them earlier on.  Ryan sent over a really cool layout that was all silver ink on the cover and we got to work.  “It’s Nothing Personal” was released in 2000 and went on to be one of my favorite records I ever did.  The four songs on that little slab of wax define The National Acrobat to a ‘T’ and remain their best stuff (out of their short but fruitful tenure), in my humble opinion.  But most of all, it was the real start of my friendship with Ryan and Evan Patterson, which continues strong to this day.  I have booked numerous shows for, and occasionally toured with, all their bands that followed- Coliseum, Black Cross, Young Widows, and Breather Resist most notably.  I think they are continuously creative and engaging people who constantly challenge themselves as musicians and consistently come out with excellent material (just check out Evan’s current project Jaye Jayle and Ryan’s band Fotocrime for proof).  And they are genuinely good and caring people and I love them both to death.  Finally, I’m probably one of an amount of people you could count on one hand (who were not in the band) who has a National Acrobat tattoo.  So to discuss the Acrobat record they did for me all those years ago I thought it best to speak to both of them.

So Acrobat started out as Evan’s band and went through quite a few lineup changes before the “It’s Nothing Personal” lineup was established?

E:  Yeah, I was the main song writer.  I was 15 and the drummer and I were in hardcore and metal bands in Kentucky.  I was in E-town and they were in Louisville and they would come around and pick me up because I couldn’t drive yet and I’d spend almost every weekend in our drummers basement.  He was an incredible drummer for his age.  We would just play music for hours and hours and hours and try to make these wild, fucked up songs.  The first lineup of the band, before Ryan joined the band- he was actually going to move to California and he said to me, in a big brother sort of way, that if I let him play guitar in Acrobat he wouldn’t move to California.  I kept him in Louisville.  I think on our first tour, the second show we ever played outside of town (Louisville) was in Syracuse that you booked.  I was 17 at the time.  That was before Ryan was in the band, but he booked the tour and came along with us.  There were a lot of different people who came and went and we started to tour more, playing CBGBs when I was 18, playing lots of shows with Cave-In and Converge.  We were really active for around a year and a half, even before I got out of high school.  I think we broke up before I finished high school.

R: The National Acrobat was definitely driven by Evan's creative, abstract guitar playing, Phil Stosberg's inventive and powerful drumming, and Casper Adams' absurdist, petulant lyrics and vocal delivery. I was mostly just the guitar player, although I contributed to some of the songwriting. The band started with Evan, Phil, and Casper, along with Ty Kreft on bass and Robby Scott on guitar. With that lineup they were my favorite Louisville band. Ty and Robby were out of the band sometime after recording the second EP, “The National Acrobat For All Practical Purposes Is Dead”, then I joined just before nearly moving to California to work at Revelation Records. I remember Evan calling me and asking me to be in the band and I always kind of wondered if it was to keep me in town. Stephen George became the permanent and final bass player after a brief tenure by Tod Depp, the cousin of Johnny Depp who didn't let you forget it.

Where did you all find Casper Adams and what was his story?

E: Casper was in a band called The Moths.  He was just this guy who was obsessed with all the Gravity Records releases like Heroin, Clikitat Ikatowi, Universal Order Of Armageddon.  He was obsessed with all the same music that I was.  I was hanging out at a local record store and the guy working there was like, ‘you should get this maniac to sing in your band’, and he was friends with all the other guys in that band.  Rob Pennington was actually going to be in the band originally and he actually came up with the band name.

R: Casper was an invention from deep in the infamous East End of Louisville. He'd previously (maybe concurrently) been in a band called The Moths. I think I recorded a demo for them. I think he drove an old Volvo. He was a brat in the best way, most of the time. Sometimes you wanted someone to be a normal human being, but the insanity made for better music and a better show. The kid was a great frontman and when we were great, we were pretty fucking great.

                                               Flyer from a local Louisville show, 2000

I have my side of how the 7” came together, but on your end, how did that come about and what was Acrobat up to during this time, to the best of your recollection?

E:  I think at that point we had only released the first EP, which was pre-Ryan and we were touring more.  We played several shows with Isis.  We were rehearsing more and writing more.  And I guess before Hellfest we had the conversation about it.  The single was the first release after splitting up with the other guys who left the band.  It was sort of an immature stab at them because when we kicked them out we said, ‘it’s nothing personal’.  That’s where the title came from.

R: These were the first songs Stephen and I wrote and recorded in the Acrobat and I think the general consensus among everyone in the band is still that the “It's Nothing Personal” 7" was our best stuff. We recorded it with Kevin Ratterman in a brutally hot sweatbox of a "studio" on Clay Street in Louisville on to a couple of synced up Roland hard disk recorders. The skipping record at the beginning was from a Victrola 78rpm record that our parents owned and I still have now. We were young and excited, touring a bit and playing with tons of great bands of the time, very excited that they all seemed to like us and help us out.
I know that you booked the first date of the first tour for The National Acrobat, when I was the roadie for the band, and you and I had been friends before that, I think. Maybe through Initial Records? I can't recall but I certainly feel that you've always been a part of my touring life from some of its earliest days. I don't remember if you asked to do a record for us or if I asked you, but it was a very natural and easy thing. Is this the only record we did together? I suppose it is and that's pretty crazy, it seems like we've always been connected and doing things together.

  

Acrobat kind of took an adversarial approach to the Louisville scene in general, even going so far as to say you were Louisville’s most hated band.  What was that all about?

E:  Casper was a bit of an antagonistic wild card.  He would start shit up with people, and it was sort of harmless because he’s a harmless person.  But I think a lot of people in the DIY community kind of looked at a lot of the other guys in the band as being more fortunate, or having wealthier parents.  Maybe they were a little spoiled.  And I think there were some more interpersonal things that didn’t have anything to do with me, or my brother, and more to do with Casper.  That was kind of weird.

R: Most of that took place before I was in the band. Some of those guys were still in high school, or just out, and there were little beefs that arose. It was silly, petty kids' stuff and not something I had any involvement with, that I recall. After that I think we felt that we were ignored in town, or under-appreciated, or something along those lines. For me, growing up an insecure, sensitive punk kid in a small town, even smaller than Louisville, I have always felt like an underdog. Those feelings were stronger when I was younger and that somewhat persisted through many of my bands. These days there's a combination of getting more than enough respect from my town/peers and not giving a fuck. The National Acrobat was actually pretty well-loved in town, in hindsight, and we accomplished quite a bit in a short amount of time. 

             Intro/excerpt from National Acrobat interview in Hanging Like a Hex #14

I think the whole approach of Acrobat was really unique for the time- there were definitely elements of Hydrahead type bands like Botch and Drowningman present, but also a really weird sort of inside joke element going on too, and no one was doing vocals like Casper, who had sort of a David Yow/Jesus Lizard thing going.  In certain context it wouldn’t be too weird, but you all were primarily playing for hardcore kids who probably didn’t know what to make of it.

E:  It was kind of odd that the guys in Converge and Isis and that whole Hydrahead scene kind of latched on to us.  Dillinger Escape Plan took us on tour for like a week.  I think they liked just how obscene the band was.  I think they liked this stylistic clash we had going on, this whole sort of ‘fuck the world of music’ attitude we had.  How many riffs can we squeeze into a three minute song?  It was kind of a perfect strange marriage of all of the late 90’s noise rock and punk.  It was like Swing Kids, mixed with Botch, or UOA, or Drive Like Jehu crunched into a couple of minutes.

R: It's hard to remember exactly what our influences were back then, Evan might be able to pinpoint it better than me. I would think Deadguy, Ink And Dagger, Drive Like Jehu, DC stuff in general. I saw Kevin's approach as being almost Johnny Rotten-esque, with threads of The Nation Of Ulysses and some of the GSL/Gravity bands that followed in that vibe. Strangely, The Jesus Lizard was something we were getting into a lot as The National Acrobat was happening, I was very aware of them but didn't really delve into their records until we kept getting compared to them. It seems odd in hindsight, but I was such a DC head that a few of the Touch & Go bands slipped by me as they were active.

Before you all split there was supposed to be a full length happening with Escape Artist Records.  Was there music ever composed for it that never saw the light of day, or unreleased stuff that ended up being used for other bands?

E:  Yeah, I had songs written that turned into Breather Resist songs that I had sitting around for years.  It was about two years or so between Acrobat and Breather Resist.  I joined in with Black Cross, playing bass in the mean time.  The songwriting for that band was a little more collaborative and I was just sitting on all these wild parts that I was waiting to use.

R: A full length on Escape Artist was more of a dream of ours than a potential reality. It was a great label and we'd become friends with so many of the bands they released; that really felt like our scene and family. Escape Artist co-owner Gordon Conrad was a big supporter of the Acrobat and remains a very good friend to Evan and me, he signed Coliseum to Relapse and has been our home base in Philly for nearly twenty years now. After The National Acrobat broke up, the Deathwish guys also expressed that they would've liked to release an album from us, which led to them working with Evan's next band, Breather Resist. There were a few instrumental demos that weren't completed, I'm not sure if they became Breather songs or not.

What led to National Acrobat splitting up?

E:  Phil, the drummer, moved away to go to college.  While he was in college the intensity of the band picked up and we were making all these future plans and I think it was overwhelming for him to do that and focus on his college education.

R: Phil quit, I don't recall why or if we knew, and that was that. The show that ended up being our last was with Cave In and Christiansen in Louisville in February 2001.

What’s your favorite thing you remember from being in Acrobat?  What’s the least favorite?

E:  The “It’s Nothing Personal” 7” is my favorite release of ours, without a doubt.  There’s something about us working so hard and touring a lot at the time.  The quality of the recording of that 7” is my favorite as well.  There was just a drive on that record where our connection with Steven, who was playing bass, and Ryan adding his flavor to the songs, and Kevin (Casper) going full tilt maniac that was a pinnacle moment of that band.  All the influences and spirits were in the right places.  My favorite thing about that band was the absurdity of throwing together so many ideas into one pot and making songs out of it.  Also, the live show was crazy- Kevin (Casper) would be throwing glitter, using air horns in songs.  He was always coming up with wild ideas on the performance aspect of the band.  There was never a dull moment playing shows with The National Acrobat.  It was always wild.  The worst part was also probably also Kevin (Casper).  He would listen to horrible pop music a lot.  At one point he was obsessed with Brittany Spears.  It was funny.  There really weren’t any bad memories with that band.

R: As with most of my experience with music and touring, it's the long-lasting friendships I made and the dreamy, hazy memories of the tours and travels. I remember Phil driving the van down a steep mountain highway in Colorado in the middle of the night with six foot high snow banks on the side of road and the smell of our brakes from being strained by the weight of the trailer and Phil trying to keep us from careening out of control. Of course playing music with my brother was always special and I'm appreciative of those times as well. I can't say I have a favorite or least favorite memory, I'm just happy to have had them and still be on my journey with music.

The National Acrobat set from Hellfest 2000 in Syracuse:

For the next week you can now get The National Acrobat, "It's Nothing Personal" via the bandcamp page for only $2.  Do that HERE.  One lucky person who purchases the digital record will win a test press of the physical record!

And for those who want an actual physical copy of the 7"...  well, there is exactly one left.  First come, first serve over HERE.

Enjoy!

HEX RECORDS TO RELEASE THE FUNERAL, "Discography 2001-2004" 2xLP THIS SPRING!

As the first announcement for a new release this year we got a whopper of a surprise for you all!  On March 15th, 2019 Hex Records will release a 2xLP discography for defunct Syracuse hardcore band The Funeral!  It has been a long time in the works, but it's finally coming to light!

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            The Funeral were a hardcore band from Syracuse, NY that existed between 2001 and 2004.  In that time they played throughout the Northeast and released two full lengths, as well as three different demos.  The band released all their material themselves (with the exception of the “Ruled By None” full length, which was released via Endwell Records) and booked most of their own hometown shows, in the spirit of doing things for themselves.

            The band started originally as a side project for members of other local bands Darker Day Tomorrow and Spark Lights the Friction to play dark and heavy hardcore in the vein of groups like From Ashes Rise and Tragedy, but also with the monstrous heft of groups such as Hope Conspiracy or Carry On.

            When both Darker Day Tomorrow and Spark Lights the Friction decided to split up The Funeral became more of a priority for the group.  Comprised of members Travis Hance, Andrew Williams, and Tony Tornabene- all from DDT, as well as Grant Johnson – from SLTF, and rounded out by local show promoter/zine scribe/record label person Ryan Canavan the band played frequently and recorded regularly.  The band decided to split up in 2004 when guitarist Grant Johnson moved to California.  The band reconvened for a single Halloween show in 2006 as well.

            Until now the material on this discography was scattered about.  Two demos that were self-released were on CDR format.  A third demo was two songs on cassette where no more than 20 copies exist.  The “Ruled By None” full length was only available on CD as well.  The band’s second full length, simply titled “Final Recording”, was released at their last show on CD and only as a short-run pressing.  An unreleased track, a cover of the Infest song “Judge Me” (from the “Ruled By None” sessions), was released via Hex Records in 2009 as part of a 10-year anniversary compilation from the label on CD.

            The band always wanted to release material on vinyl but it had never happened.  Now, all the material from the band’s entire existence has been remastered (by Jason Randall of Moresound Studio, who originally recorded the majority of the band’s output) and released as a double LP discography.  This includes the demos, unreleased track, and the two full lengths.  30 tracks in total on a gatefold package with an accompanying booklet full of tons of photos, flyers, history, and an oral history of the band compiled by long time friend and Black Sheep Squadron vocalist Chuck Hickey.

            For those interested in the history of Syracuse hardcore this is a small, but important, piece of it.

            Members of The Funeral currently play in The Flashing Astonishers, Difficult, and Dialysis.

You can check out a couple of tracks from the band on the bandcamp right now over HERE

You can pre-order the double LP through the webstore now.  First 100 on violet , and the rest on black vinyl.

The discography will officially be out on 3/15/2019.  Yes, that is very Syracuse of me to do.

HEX20YR RETROSPECTIVE- HXR002: SPARK LIGHTS THE FRICTION, "Cocaine Honeymoon" CDEP

By the time I had finished college and made my way back to Syracuse, I was curious as to what was going to come next for the label end of the zine I was doing.  I had released one record, and wasn’t sure if I would do more.  I suppose the right thing had to come along.

And as I soon discovered, some friends back in town had just started playing together in a new group.  A local punk/hardcore band called Set In Motion had been playing around for a little while now, but were wrapping up at this point.  Our friend Jon had done a stint, strangely enough, as the singer for One King Down and also returned to Syracuse.  A couple guys from Set In Motion, Jon, and Emmett Menke from another local punk group started jamming with Jon and chose the name Spark Lights the Friction (after a Shotmaker song, and foregoing other unfortunate monikers such as Bourne From Steam and Family In a Corner).

By the early Fall of ’99 the band was ready to play out and I ended up booking their first show for them.  No too much longer afterwards I approached them about doing a CD (because I still didn’t have much idea of how to press vinyl), and eventually the “Cocaine Honeymoon” CDEP was born at some point in 2000.  In another turn as a studio tag-along I ventured with the guys out to Albany for the weekend where the recording was to take place at a makeshift studio operated by engineer Brett Portzer, of the band Falkirk.  I distinctly recall that they were supposed to pick me up at a certain time and when that time had passed I thought they had just forgotten about me and took off.  Cell phones were pretty uncommon still and Emmett was the only guy in the band with one and I began calling him over and over in a panic, thinking they were somewhere on the I-90.  It turns out they were just getting lunch at the local diner before heading over and they were running late. I don’t know why I panicked as much as I did.  It was unusual.  And once the recording began things got even weirder.   

Grant had intended on doing about half the vocals, but when he heard his voice on tape he was very unsatisfied with it.  So he and Jon hashed it out to establish how the vocals would go, as Jon would be handling most of them instead.  Furthermore, their second guitarist, Jim Heffernan was doing a semester in France for school and he also did vocals in the band.  He gave his blessing for the band to play shows and record without him while he was away, but that left Jon to not only handle most of Grant’s vocals, but also Jims (as well as the lyrics he wrote).  It was kind of a wild process, but I personally thought it helped the band develop a personality and further solidify what they ended up becoming.  And a few months later Jim came back and began playing and recording as a four-piece once again.  But as far as the process of getting there, and whatever came afterwards, had it’s fun, as well as it’s challenges.  

                   Grant Johnson, at one of many shows played in Rochester

Spark Lights the Friction made a considerable impact upon Syracuse during the time they were around.  It was one of those situations where a large group of friends came together around a band and cheered them on, and that friendship spread to many others across the region.  During their tenure they ended up touring the US a couple of times with locals Darker Day Tomorrow, The August Prophecy, as well as Poison the Well and Thursday on different tours.  Their recorded output includes a pretty much unreleased demo, the CDEP I released, a split EP with Ruined In a Day, a compilation appearance, and a full length for Trustkill Records. 
I reached out to my old pal Jon Peters, who was the bassist/vocalist/raccoon for the band to wax sentimental about the whole thing:

             Jim Heffernan (left), Jon Peters (foreground), myself (sans glasses and with hair) watching on

R:  I’d like to start with some of the formation of the band.  You had just left One King Down and came back to Syracuse.  How did the other guys fit into the equation? 

J: At, or around the time I left OKD I resumed going to college and S.U. because I had previously taken a semester off.  I was already friends with Jim and Grant from school because we all lived in the same dorm for a while, and when I was back I fell back into hanging out with them.

There was a bunch of stuff that we had to figure out that I’m fuzzy on. For example, how we got connected with Emmett.  I think that connection was made because Jim and Grant knew him from high school.  

                                                 Emmett Menke

I remember there being all sorts of other shenanigans too that helped us all come together and figure out if and how we were going to start a band – jamming with other Syracuse musicians, talking to drummers, figuring out where we could be loud for a few hours.  There’s a ton there to recall, but I’d need help from the other fellas to fill in the blanks and help connect the dots.  

R: The music was decidedly quite a bit different from anything else you had done in the past, as well as different from most other bands that emerged from Syracuse at that time.  Was there an idea coming into the band to gear your sound a particular way? 

J: I don’t think (at least to my recollecting) that we said at the outset that we wanted to be a certain type of band or have a type of sound.  We just wrote and jammed on stuff that we found interesting and fun to play.  Part of that was everyone contributed ideas – riffs, parts, lyrics, etc. 

R:  Let’s talk about the recording of the EP.  It was pretty difficult from beginning to end, starting with me being super annoying, Jim being away in France, and concluding with you handling way more of the vocal duties than you had expected to do.

 

J: When I think back on it I don’t remember it as being difficult. It was kind of a crazy time and there were things that were probably a pain in the ass at the time, but I don’t really think back on it that way.
There is actually a lot that I laugh about whenever I think about it, or if it comes up in conversation with the dudes. For example, Brett, the guy who recorded us, did vocals at his apartment. He didn’t have a studio really in his place, so we needed to improvise a sound proof vocal room out of stuff Brett had at his place. So the “vocal booth” was a MacGyver’ed fort, where we took the egg foam off of a fold out couch-bed, curled it up and put the mic stand inside and put a pillow on top. I recorded vocals in a semi squat position so that I could fit totally within the booth-foam-fort-thing. It was ridiculous!
That was probably a pain in the ass thing, but now I just laugh at how goofy that whole experience was. But we dumped it to DAT so it paid off.

R: How about touring from this point. You all began to get out on the road more and had some very interesting meet-up’s on the road.

J: Yeah, we had some wild times. Strange characters, van problems. What band at the level we were at didn’t have those problems?

R:  People who remember the band always seem to associate your shows with the humor you and Jim had going, even though the music was very serious and well-crafted, the between-song banter was quite memorable.

J: That’s just how we are together. Something that I value from those days is how we all could laugh with one another. That’s just how my friendship Jim and Grant is. We crack each other up and it doesn’t really matter if it’s on stage, in the van, in private…we just get each other going and laugh.

I guess what you’re talking about is how that all happened on stage too. I think that was just a product of us having fun together and we acted like the audience was in on the joke…even though many of our jokes were inside jokes.

R: How often did Shirts As Pants (an acapella joke band between Jon and Jim) play out?
 
J: There were a ton of Shirts As Pants adhoc performances – in the van, waiting for shows to start, just hanging out. But there were very few times we actually did Shirts As Pants on stage. I think maybe only once or twice. I think.

                           the band's first show, before they officially had a name (1999)

R: Discuss a bit about moving on to Trustkill and what happened with that?

J: I remember Josh being sort of interested, but I think he wanted to make sure we were going to tour and work before offering to sign us. So he expressed some interest but let us go out on the road first.

It was funny to us because we played him a practice tape that we made at one point and he, no joke, told us we sounded like Phish!

The thing that I think made Josh want to sign us, not sure if this is true or not, was when we played a Quicksand cover at the Westcott and got kids to mosh. I feel like that was when he started to take us serious enough to want to get us on Trustkill. But I don’t know if I ever talked about it with him.

                               the lighter logo the band used for a bit

R: The band eventually dissolved, with Grant doing The Funeral full-time and Emmett moving into being a touring drummer-for-hire for awhile. Why did the band split up?
 
J: I think the wheels feel off due to a bunch of things going on in each of our lives. Emmett wanted to try out for a bunch of different, more known bands. I was mad and salty about that. It seems so trivial now, but I was upset. I was also having relationship trouble with my girlfriend at the time. I don’t know specifically what was motivating Jim and Grant.

Looking back, I think things had just run their course.

R: What’s your overall opinion on the EP and what that meant to you?
 
J: I’m proud of what we did. It has some moments that I really like and it has some moments that make me cringe. But whatever we were making music and having adventures so who cares if some of it or all of it is/was cringe worthy. All told, my time in SLTF, especially those early days on Hex, was an adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything. So many crazy stories came out of our time in that band! So I look at that EP, and all of our recordings really, as sort of trail markers on a nutty adventure path I took with a bunch of my friends.

After splitting up Jon and Jim eventually formed Bad Cops, who occasionally still play every now and again. Grant went on to play in The Funeral with me, and then did Night Owls (who released a record with Hex), and now Difficult. Emmett went on to be a touring drummer for a bunch of bands including Glasseater and Polar Bear Club for quite a few years before settling down.


And for the next week, their EP on Hex, "Cocaine Honeymoon" can be purchased digitally through the bandcamp for $3! Physical copies of this release are long gone, but the music remains.

                                              original CD layout masters

HEX20YR RETROSPECTIVE- HXR001: THE HEX RECORDS COMPILATION 7"

Since this year marks the 20^th anniversary of this label I thought it would be cool to go back and indulge in some history of the releases that have come out over all those years.  I don’t have the biggest back catalog (especially for a label that has been running as long as mine), but they all hold a special place to me and there’s some interesting stories to go along with those releases.  This year I plan on highlighting a different record almost every week, doing a little history on it, and maybe talking to people involved in it’s creation.  So, like any (hopefully) good story, let’s start at the beginning.  But stay until the end for some extra goodies.

In 1999 I was on the cusp of graduating from college.  I was living in Buffalo and was planning on making some big moves with the zine I was doing at the time- Hanging Like a Hex- by moving it into a much larger page count, and adding a full color, glossy cover.  For a couple years I’d also had an interest in starting a record label, but I just didn’t quite know how to go about it.  However, a friend in Syracuse who was in the band Hermon DeKalb informed me that the label they were on- Temperance- were looking to do some sort of sampler record as a bonus with a zine to showcase bands on their label.  They had released records from (or were in the process of releasing records from) the aforementioned Hermon DeKalb, Nora from NJ, The Passenger Train Proposal from Philly, and Purpose, also from NJ.  All these bands were going to be on the record.  Hermon DeKalb recorded two new songs in preparation for it at Buffalo’s legendary Watchmen Studios that I had the pleasure of sitting in on (and receiving a speeding ticket driving home from after the session).  

                                                   Hermon DeKalb

                                                   Carl Severson from Nora

                                                                Nora at Syracuse Fest '98
 

And then the bottom fell out.  Temperance completely flaked and were not to be heard from ever again.  A couple of the bands also seemed to just disappear as well.  Just zero communication.  But things were already in motion so I reached out to bands I knew of and decided to try and keep it a little more local.  Syracuse’s Eternal Youth stated they had music to provide and I got a track from them.  And some little band out of Buffalo who had just started making some noise called Every Time I Die stated they had just recorded two new songs (after their standout demo).  One was set aside for a compilation on Goodfellow Records and they didn’t know what to do with the other one.  I offered to add it to my comp and that was that.

                                         ad for the comp. before things changed around a bit

I then had the issue of where to actually press this.  I spoke with Carl from Nora (who also ran Ferret Records, now Good Fight, and were also on the comp) about where he went to press records.  He put me in touch with Musicol Records out of Columbus, OH.  They were basically a father and son operation and were easy enough to deal with.  I put the order in for 1000 records and I came up with a cover, designed and printed it down at Kinkos, added somewhere in the order of 300 copies to the initial batch of zines for retail spots (I was bumping up the pressing of my zine to 2000 copies at the time), and sold the rest separately, or gave to the bands to sell.

All in all it worked out well.  It was rather hodgepodge, but in the end Eternal Youth, Hermon DeKalb, Nora, and Every Time I Die comprised the first Hex Records release.  Two of those songs (from Hermon Dekalb and Every Time I Die) to date have never been released elsewhere.

                   Eternal Youth (note Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy in the background with the sideburns)

                                            Eternal Youth




 To go with the release I did short interviews/write-ups on each band for issue #12 of Hanging Like a Hex, of which the record was released to coincide with.  Eternal Youth were a local Syracuse band started by my good friend Tom Ranger.  It was the first band he had ever been in.  Tom was one of the first people I really got to know well within the Syracuse hardcore scene, as he had an extremely pleasant and polite demeanor towards nearly everyone he met.  It’s a rare trait, but one he is an expert in.  I think if it weren’t for his welcoming nature I probably would never have met most of the people in town that I ended up being friends with afterwards.  The other guys from Eternal Youth were Tony Merola, who I ended up being roommates with a few years later; Andy Williams, who later played bass in my first band The Funeral; Brad Dingman, a local Rochester guy who was known more for singing in the militant vegan straight edge band Contempt (and later on, Break Of Dawn) rather than drumming for a punk band.  Guitarist Dan Hunter started out with the band, but later on Grant Johnson (also of The Funeral, Spark Lights the Friction, Night Owls, and Difficult) took his place as second guitarist.  Below is a bit I did with them in Hanging Like a Hex #12 to promote the record.

Obviously, the band that ended up gaining the most notoriety was Every Time I Die.  To date, the song they contributed was never re-recorded, or re-released, on any other record.  It remains a lone anomaly in their deep catalog, but one which I think is still a pretty righteous song.  It definitely caters to their earlier style, which long time fans will be familiar with.  I had the good fortune of living in Buffalo right as they got started, even in the suburb that two of their members grew up in- North Tonawanda.  I had known Andy Williams (the other Andy Williams on this record) and Mike Novak (AKA Ratboy) from their previous band- the grind/powerviolence-influenced Sirhan from booking them a couple times in the Syracuse area.  They were a great pair, and when they teamed up with the Buckley brothers the band took off immediately.  Right from the get-go their shows were crazy.  Always tons of energy, wild antics, and lots of fun shenanigans.  Not long after this comp came out they began touring more, releasing full lengths, and making the band their life.  20 years later and they’re at the top of their game still.  Coincidentally, both them and this label are celebrating 20 year anniversaries, which is pretty cool.  Somewhere in-between that demo/7”-era and their first full length I interviewed vocalist Keith Buckley for Hanging Like a Hex zine #14 (around 2000-2001) and here’s some excerpts from that:

R:  You know, every band that has played this place hates playing here.  Is it because of the sound?

K:  It’s the sound.  It’s not very personal.  I don’t like stages I guess.  I need to have people really intimate because I’m constantly glaring out into the lights and I’m just sweating profusely, and I don’t see people’s facial expressions.  I just see this huge myriad of hair and eyes, and it’s very impersonal.  I like to hear people’s voices when they try and sing along.  It just makes the whole atmosphere a little more enjoyable I suppose.  It’s harder to get a response on a stage.

                                         ETID at Westcott Community Center around 2000

R:  But the thing is that you guys are going to have to deal with that more now with getting on bigger shows and so forth.

K:  Right.  And there’s no better place to get warmed up to that than your hometown when your friends come out and support you.  But I also don’t want anyone to do anything that they feel is obligatory.  I don’t want people to show up just because we’re their friends.  But it’s good to know that you’re comfortable in front of people when on a stage where there are situations when you’re very separate from, and very intimidated by them mixed with everyone else.

R:  But what about having to give up a little of that crowd intimacy by playing on bigger stages?

                       ETID Buffalo maybe?  One of their first shows around early 1999

K:  I don’t know.  I guess it’s just part of the game, and you have to suck it up.  I’m not going to complain about it.  I’m not going to get on stage and have a shitfit about it because I can’t have people around me.  I mean, if people came out to see us then we’re going to give them what they came for.

R:  I guess so.  So what do you think about being a pretty young band, where all of the members have little background band experience, and all of a sudden receiving a lot of attention?

K:  It’s kind of funny.  It’s always sort of funny to me because I’m naive about it.  I wasn’t ever really in a band before.  I know Andy and Rat were, Aaron (former bassist- ed.) was, Jordan was in a local band.  But it’s funny because when we’d be practicing in the basement it was just sort of fun.  I didn’t even really know Andy or Ratboy until we decided to get together, and now to come out and play, while being so naïve as to how the schematics of a band works, how the politics of how a band works, still gets me off guard.  Also, paradoxically, I think our age holds us back because none of us are really aggressive as far as getting what the band needs.  Like, I’m not really much of a people person when it comes to setting up shows.  My schedule is so busy with school that I’m really afraid to start booing shows because I feel like if I tell somebody we can play, and we have an obligation to them, then I have to go back and make sure everyone else can do it.  

                                            ETID, Buffalo, NY at Sikora Post 1999

R:  What are you graduating (school) with?

K:  I’m graduating next Spring with my degree in English.

R:  What are you going to do with it?

K:  I want to write books.

R:  Somehow I knew you were going to say that.

K:  I know it sounds like such a pipe dream, like, ‘Oh, I want to be an actor!’  But I really want to write books, and I think you really can’t do that on hope alone, and I want to be a professor, but in the meantime write here and there.  I guess it’s sort of preliminary though because I feel that with all the work I put into school to glorify this I can handle the band and teaching.

                                                                       A more accurate ad for the comp.

*And while this comp is long out of print you can get the digital version of it through the Hex Records bandcamp for just $2 this week only (Jan. 3rd-8th).  As an added bonus, if you purchase this comp keep an eye on your e-mail because someone will win a test pressing of the 7"!  So go and do that now.

                                                           Hermon DeKalb at Westcott Community Center

HEX RECORDS IS 20 YEARS OLD!

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Happy anniversary to us!  It’s been 20 years since this label was founded, which is really wild to think about.  In that time Hex Records hasn’t been the most prolific label around, but there has been a pretty wide variety of music released and projects completed under that banner.

To celebrate this anniversary we’re releasing a bunch of new records in 2019 from the likes of Seattle’s Post/Boredom, San Antonio’s PINKO, as well as Coming Down out of Rochester, USA Nails from London, and a few more surprises that you will learn about in the weeks and months ahead!

Carrying over from 2018 and headed to your mailbox within the next couple of weeks is the split 12” from Great Falls and The Great Sabatini, so add that to the list.  You can order that now and hear some material from the record HERE.

And while we’re unleashing new stuff upon the world we’re also going to be celebrating our past with almost weekly features on our blog about each record to come out through Hex over the years- ‘making of’ pieces that have interviews with members of those bands, flyers, pictures, etc for those that enjoy nerdy shit of that nature.  To go along with each feature there will be a week long sale on that particular record, and maybe even some test pressing giveaway/sales.  To start off, check out the feature on Hex Records #1- the compilation 7” that started things off way back in 1999 coming tomorrow (1/3/19).  Make sure to follow it until the end to find out about a deal going on associated with it.  It’s like a really easy scavenger hunt.

So while the past is fun to celebrate and explore, there will always be an eye towards the now and future which we hope to balance out nicely throughout 2019.

Thanks for the support.  We can’t wait to share everything that we have in store for our 20^th anniversary!  Let’s make it an awesome year!