Display - Album, Demos, Rarities, and Live

The way I see it, everything I've posted here has been leading up to this moment. This is my second favorite album of all time (first is Pet Sounds), and over the 9 years since its release, I've come to accept that one of the main reasons I've been put on this earth is to be a Display evangelist. Now, I realize that hyping something makes it more difficult for a new listener to enjoy it, so if all my fawning is sounding like a too good to be true situation, then stop reading and just download the album.

Display were an arty dance-punk (or is it dancey art-punk?) trio out of Everett, formed by bassist Jim Paschall and guitarist Jeremy Cooper of The Past, and Danny Moore on drums. They wrote short, taut songs in Sonic Youth-inspired alternate tunings, anchored by Danny's fast and crisp beats. In contrast to the largely instrumental, slow moodiness of The Past, Display was more poppy and accessible, with Jim and Jeremy trading lead vocal duties, but no less artful and forward-thinking. Display was unlike anything else in town at the time.

Despite frequent positive write-ups in the local music press, a commanding set at the Capitol Hill Block Party, and many shows with other forward thinking bands like Shoplifting and The Gossip, Display never reached the heights they should have. The sad story of why you may not already know this band is that they refused label offers to release their music, opting to self-record and self-release, but doing it all themselves delayed the process, and by the time they finally got it out (packaged beautifully in a thick hinged mirror case they designed and assembled), sudden health problems forced the band to break up within about a week of the album's release. It was only available on consignment in a few shops, at one show, or direct from the band. Only a few dozen copies were made, as far as I know.

Download their sole album, 2003's Display, here.

Download their demo, a couple full shows, and recordings of some songs in their early stages, including a couple that were never released, here.

I've also just uploaded 11 old videos to Youtube, in this playlist:
Be advised that the video resolution isn't great, but I originally got them in this resolution and don't have the originals.

For more videos, check out scumstachewizard's Youtube channel.

Merry Christmas from Fishboy and Carleen Jean Death Machine

Alright, so this one qualifies on something of a technicality, and I'm ruling in its favor because I always look forward to listening to it around the holidays. A home-recorded 12-song Christmas CD-R from I believe 2003, given out to family and friends of the duo, Eric "Fishboy" Michener, a prolific Texan musician, and Carleen DeCamp (now Micheneer), an Everett native who moved to Texas after playing in several Everett-based bands. So, this was recorded in Texas, but there's enough Everett in it to totally qualify. Between the upbeat rock of "That's What You're Getting for Christmas" and "It's Tomorrow!", the not super serious but still poignant melancholy of "xHappyx xHardcorex xXmasx", "Lonely Santa", and "Werewolves on Christmas", and the brief but instantly memorable "Cowbell Christmas", this one is a winner all around (a winter winner, if you will). Guitar, drums, piano, synth, jingle bells, glockenspiel, whistling, what's not to love?

Download the 12-song album with felt sleeve and insert scans here.

EXCLUSIVE: Akimbo - 3 Early Unreleased Songs

Here are 3 songs recorded in the early Akimbo days, late 2000 or early 2001. The first two were intended for a split 7" that never happened, though "Sense of Smell" was eventually re-recorded  for their debut LP, Harshing Your Mellow. The final song is an unfinished demo thrown together to make use of some extra studio time. As far as I know, these have never been available until now. Enjoy.

Download the 3-song EP here.

Shitlist - A Cold Slap of Reality 7"

Continuing on the track started with yesterday's post, here's another blast of brutal local crust punk.

Shitlist were a band that existed during the late 90's and into early 2000's. Their only releases that I know of were this 7" and a split LP with Calloused. They were fronted by former Flight 800 vocalist Ryan and if you checked out yesterday's link, you pretty much know what to expect: noisy, hardcore crust punk. Other than the fact that members of the group went on to play in Deathraid and Consume, I don't much else about these guys so feel free to fill in the blanks if you've got any info.

A Cold Slap of Reality (with lyric and sleeve scans)

Flight 800 / Noisome Faugh - Patriotism In Action split 7"

Every October I seem to follow a similar music-listening pattern. At the beginning of the month, as my anticipation for Halloween starts to build, I embark on the journey by listening to some of the earlier Misfits material (Static Age, 13 hits From Hell, etc.), by mid-month as the climate and, with it, my mood darkens I start spinning The Doors s/t debut on repeat and, finally, as we round the bend heading towards the last week or so leading up to the holiday I find myself revisiting the Misfits again, this time though it's their later, more aggressive and fast-paced material - which in turn leads to an all out, several day long binge on hardcore, grindy, crusty punk rock - the dirtier-sounding, the better. Why do I bother telling you all of this, you may ask? Because, in their own ways, these two bands meet all of those criteria perfectly.

Flight 800 were a band you'd usually find sandwiched somewhere on a bill featuring mid-90's local punk bands like Bristle, The Degenerats and The Bloodclots, but their music was always a bit different than those guys and also a bit different from the crust bands they had more in common with. One of their vocalists (the screamer) looked the part, appearing unwashed and greasy with a hard-to-decipher-the-lettering-of band shirt, the other guy (the yeller) however had close cropped hair, thick-rimmed glasses (this is before they were cool, mind you) wore bright colored hawaiian shirts (pictured here). I don't know if their image was conceived intentionally, but the whole thing, especially when combined with the dark and grinding crustiness of the music coming out of the instruments, created something truly unique. I'm sure these guys went on to play in a million other bands but the ones I'm aware of are Shitlist, Deathraid and Consume.

Noisome Faugh are a band I never saw and whose presence on the scene I'm aware of solely thanks to their songs that appear on the flipside off this disc. Somewhat akin to Flight 800, Noisome Faugh were a female-fronted, hardcore/crust group whose members later went on to play with Cephlotripe and the Feederz.

Patriotism In Action

The Past - Cassette EP [2000]

I wanted to include this with my previous post for The Past's full-length, but several sets of equipment refused to comply. Not to be deterred, I eventually got this 5-song cassette transferred to my computer. I've been listening to it a lot, and remembering the first time I heard it. I'm not from Everett, but had recently befriended an Everett dude who'd moved down to Bothell, where I went to school. He'd just gotten a copy of this tape, and during theater class he put it on the stage's sound system and turned it up loud. We heard about 20 seconds before the teacher yelled something like, "WHAT is THAT?!". Confused, and seeking to prevent whatever illness could be caused by the relentless repetition of oddly tuned guitar riffs and noise, he literally ran over to the console and turned it off, hastily pulling the tape out of the machine, so that it could not infect any further. Now, I'd known this teacher my entire life. My parents were best friends with he and his wife. I knew him better than any non-family adult in my life. To a high school kid, seeing music cause such a negative gut reaction from a parent-like figure can only mean that you're on to something great. And we were. 

All the copies of this tape were recorded over existing tapes. Mine was taped over a lecture from a motivational speaker. I've included a minute of so of his speech, as I feel it contributes to the experience of listening to this tape. 

Worth noting is that I feel this tape has the definitive version of "Psychosis" (called "Seen and Not Seen" here, though), especially in how it ends with an  Echoplex loop. 

Download the 5-song tape with artwork here.

Jeff and Keeg - "The Gold Tape" [1999]

A longtime favorite for the kids of the late 90s Everett scene, Jeff and Keeg was the short-lived duo of Keegan Douglas and Jeff Scott, formed after Keeg's band Luner Lander broke up. I believe this was their only release, a 4-song tape, spray-painted gold (I hear there were some silver ones, too). Straightforward guitar-based pop songs about girls, with Brian Wilson-inspired falsetto vocals and the occasional Phil Spector drum beat. I went to the Old Fire House one night with a friend, and Keeg, who I didn't know but who knew my friend, was walking around with a grocery bag of the the new tape, handing them out. I saw he and Jeff play a few times, the set consisting of these four songs played by just the two of them, Keeg on guitar and Jeff on bass, both with matching blue Fenders, holding them in shifting coordinated positions with the song, as if the garage was American Bandstand in 1964. A cassette in a boombox filled out the band with keyboard and drums.

A short while later, Jeff and Keeg recruited a couple other guys, and were Jeff and Keeg and John and Jim, then simply The New Avenues. See here for my post on them, which features a redone version of the tape's classic closer, "No November", a song which I've heard multiple girls swear is about them. Whatever the truth may be, it's a great little pop song, and I'm very happy to share this tape with you. Enjoy.

Download the 4-song tape with artwork scans here.