// YOUR BAND IS MY LIFE //

This was the first 7″ I bought that literally changed my entire outlook on life. Before I heard this most of what I was familiar with was your typical AMREP band or old school punk bands. I had never heard anything like this before. From that point on I truly became a hardcore kid. I still have the button up shirt I bought at the Antiquarium in Omaha. Everything about this record is amazing. I never did see them. But did get to see The VSS a couple of times. Sonny was also nice enough to put out a record for a band I played in. So anyway…here’s a life changer.

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So funny story. These guys played a show in Sioux CIty at the Cattle Club with Guzzard. So, ends up Guzzard and Dick ended up staying at my parents place for the night. I guess they were out of town or something. So about a case of beer later I had to go to work at Godfathers Pizza and everyone was still passed out. So I left for work and they finally left and came to my work for some pizza before they went back to Minneapolis. By the time I had gotten off of work my parents had already gotten home and found the trash bag full of beer cans and liquor. Needless to say I had to talk my way out of that one. My dad was a high school teacher and very much not into underage anything…that didn’t involve running or basketball. So I narrowly escaped trouble. But it was a great night. Guzzard was fantastic. What a great band.

Dick Delicous on the other hand is not a great band but pretty funny. Listen to the words. Unreal. Enjoy…you’ll get a laugh for sure.

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I bought this record again in Lawrence Kansas. I saw there name on a flyer as well. Thought the name deserved a listen. Its funny…this 7″ reminded me of the girl I met at debate camp. I think it may have been my first true love. Her name was Susy. Funny. She lived in the Houston area. Her parents both worked at NASA. Really smart and cool people. I went and visited one summer. I decided to drive there on a whim. So I packed up my Mazda 323 with very little and drove straight from Omaha to Houston. It was really a great trip. I remember getting to Texas and being pretty delirious and seeing some huge statue of Paul Bunyan. It may have been my imagination I’m not sure. But I ended up getting to her house at like 4 in the morning so I just slept in my car parked in the driveway. I’m not sure why I’m telling this story other than maybe just for my own sake or remembering it.

So here is Zoom. Ends up the song is pretty boring. Oh and another funny note. Is I played for a short while in this band from Sioux CIty called Trike Press. Pretty good band. But anyway we covered this song. So here it is. PLANET PINBALL.

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When I was a sophmore in High School. Things started changing for me. I was completely put off by most of the kids at my school. I dyed my hair yellow, wore size 50 jeans even though i was barely 140 pounds. Brett, Chris and I were the best of friends. Brett and I drove old grandma cars. He had a Coronet and I had a Fairlane 500. We drove around constantly listening to music when we weren’t being stalked by our girlfriends at the time.

The Kurtz brothers and the Kestner brothers and I decided to start a band. It started shortly after the Kestners band Strychnine broke up. We started practicing in the attic of the Kestner’s house. I was 16 and it was a dream come true. We asked Chris to play bass. I think he was maybe just 14 at the time. He was singing in a band called Naked Lawnmower. Brett and John played guitar and Dave played the drums. We wrote maybe 20 songs over the course of a couple of years. We played alot of shows. Some of the most memorable of my life. The best being a show we played at the theatre in LeMars. We basically had the entire movie theatre to ourselves. It was a crazy night. I think I made out with some girl on a pool table.

But one of the most memorable moments of my childhood was going to record at Jim Boogensburgers studio in Omaha. John was living there at the time and we all stayed in his apartment. We recorded four songs. None of them were my favorites but what do you do. Its still one of my favorite 7″s. Here are a couple of tracks. I would tell you the lyrics but its better if you try to figure them out for yourself.

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I saw Kidd Death a couple of times in Sioux City. Once at the Kings Court and the other was opening for FEAR at I think the Sioux City Convention Center. Kidd Death opened and then this band called the Skatenigs played. They were awful. The singer had a fake penis filled with some sort goo that he proceeded to squirt all over the crowd. Then FEAR played. I just remember thinking that they weren’t anything like what they were on the Decline of the Western Civilization video. But they were old.

This 7″ is amazing. Seeing Kidd Death was always memorable. Pete always had his sidekick on stage with him. I don’t remember his name but they would always do some sort of butt dance together. Pete since has left Sioux City and moved to Seattle. He plays in a band called Sioux City Pete and the Beggars. Same kind of stuff you expect from Pete. Great rock and roll. Sioux City won’t be the same, maybe a little cleaner.

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I saw Clayface when I was a junior in high school. I was confused, my pants were way to big and I had a total bitch for a girlfriend. But the night I saw them open for Fischer I decided I would do a little stint in Omaha before heading to recording engineering school in Orlando Florida. Everyone thinks Omaha is defined by the Saddle Creek Record kids…but its the bands that they grew up watching like Mousetrap, Fischer and Clayface just to name a few that has shaped the Omaha music scene. I moved to Omaha when I was eighteen years old. It was the best time of my life. But I’ll tell you all about that later. I’m still only a junior. Enjoy Breakneck. This song melted my face off live.

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Oh and I put this flyer from the show. Pretty sweet.

I met Russell (who is the bass player in Fischer) at a show I think we were opening for Fischer or I was friends with his then girlfriend Tammy. Anyway we hung out in the basement of the Cattle Club what seemed like for hours. I was talking a mile a minute like all the kids in Sioux City did. I just couldn’t believe I was hanging out with him. To a small town kid from LeMars he was the closest I had ever been to a rock star. He had played in a band called 10 Second Fuse whom I saw a couple of times. One being the battle of the bands at the Kings Court and then again at this crazy festival in Vermillion South Dakota. I remember talking to Russell later and him saying what was wrong with you. But over the years we got closer and we’ve been through alot together to say the least.

But Fischer started it all. Its the reason I wanted to play music, and I’ll never forget the first show at the Cattle Club they played. Everyone was starved for a show since it had been a while since Kings Court shut down. The ceiling was falling down and they played one of the best shows I’ve ever seen that night. Plus this record cover is amazing and the title was very fitting. Each member of Fischer has gone on to make great music and Russell has been one of the biggest inspirations in my life. Anyway…enjoy Timmy Wears a Helmet.

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I saw Iowa Beef Experience in Sioux City Iowa at a club called Kings Court. For those of you who were lucky enough to experience a show there it was truly amazing. I remember driving up to the show with my friend John Kestner. He was in a local band at the time called Strychnine. I was totally stoked as we drove the 23 miles to Kings Court in his Dodge Sprinter with no heat blasting The Misfits.

This was one of my first shows there. I showed up at the club in awe of the venue. It was an old run down school. I walked in and paid the $5 cover to a guy who looked like he should be in a mental institution. His name was Pete Phillips. He commented on my coat which was a woman’s fur coat just barely big enough for me. I walked in from the foyer and looking into what was probably the concession stand upstairs from the gym where the stage was located. It was full of typical Sioux City kids, dirty and confused. From there I walked into the bathroom which consisted of a hole in the floor. Not sure where my piss went but didn’t care at the time. So I walked down the stairs to the gym and the place was packed. On the stage was Iowa Beef Experience. All I remember from their show was the swarm of kids slam dancing. The next band on the stage was Three Mile Pilot. To this day my ears still ring from that show. They were the loudest band I’ve ever seen. They all had hand made metal guitars and amps up to the ceiling and off to the left side of the stage was Pete peering over the crowd of people from top of the PA speaker. That show changed my life. Every weekend from then on I went to shows in Sioux City and to this day have never seen anything like it.

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I bought this record on the same trip to the “Love Garden”. I was infatuated with Babyland after my friend Brett played me the Babyland You Suck Crap record. When I got this record home all I could do was listen to Cop-out. The “Chips” sample put me in a trance. I think I’ve listened to this record close to 1000 times and it still doesn’t get old. I was fortunate enough to see them live years later in Omaha NE at the Cogfactory. It amazed me that most of the sounds you hear are actually broken garbage cans and this contraption they built. Plus the record is a screenprinted cat head. Rad!

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This is the first record I ever bought. I was in Lawrence, Kansas at debate camp in 1993. On the weekends, we were allowed to leave the campus for a few hours, so I went down to the local record store called “The Love Garden”. It was actually the first time I ever saw a girl with dreadlocks and armpit hair, I was mesmerized at the sight. You see, I’m from a small town in Iowa and as much as I tried to be cultured, it was next to impossible. The entire store smelled like incense and cat piss. The walls were draped with posters of Jimi Hendrix, Sonic Youth, and Black Flag. I was in heaven even though I really didn’t know who any of those bands were. Coincidentally, on my way to “The Love Garden”, I remember ripping a DRI poster off a telephone pole and right next to it, was a poster for Zipgun and Panel Donor show  at the Replay Lounge.  When I walked into the store, this was the first record I saw. So I picked it up, acting as if I knew what I was buying. Even today,  after not having listened to it for about 10 years,  I don’t regret buying it. Both these bands are great.

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