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Evolution Issue 02
+ evolution +
+ issue two +
December 12, 1996
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Love is being able to just shut the fuck up and enjoy the silence.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
So it's the big issue number two! Only a day and a half old,
and already +evolution+ has 29 subscribers. W00t!
In this issue:
+ The Iolanthe vs. Laja debate rages on!
+ Music Review : R.E.M., "New Adventures in Hi-Fi"
+ PLA #42
+ Duct Tape Boy Life Update
+ a phreaking conf
+ The Cape Cod music scene
+ the history of King of Birds
+ random song quotes
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Battles rage on a daily basis on TMoK NVChat between TMoK Queen
Iolanthe and Laja, the Goddess. It is never ending, an endless,
neverending battle. Did I mention that it just doesn't stop?
Now that I've gotten that point fully across, I'm going to try
to settle this once and for all. Not an easy task, I must admit,
but I feel it is my duty to save TMoK, RI telecom, and the entire
human race from the endless bickering that continues ad nauseum
every day.
Iolanthe: the reigning queen of TMoK, only because her brother
owns the damn thing. However, she is a "wicked haaattie". The
average teenage male TMoK user probably masturbates to the infamous
evilone2.jpg everyday. Speaking Japanese, she'll rip your heart
from your chest cavity, probably calling you a "kamahori" in the
process. Cruel. Unforgiving. The second person I ever asked to
marry me. :)
Laja: seemingly innocent. Don't be fooled. She scored
something like 56% on the 500 question purity test. The most
impure virgin I've ever heard of. Despite her apparent "skanky
h0-bag" exterior, Laja is really a sweetie. She always seems to
know the right thing to say. And that voice.. oh.
So, to settle this crap once and for all, a totally arbitrary
and worthless decision by me: Io, shut up. Laja, shit up.
And you thought I was going to write about how Laja is inferior
to you, huh? Didn't you, Io? HA! Shut the fuck up.
*I* rule TMoK with an IRON FIST. Sit down before you fall down.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
it was always special
it was like water down the drain
I'm intoxicated
every time I hear your name
I try to remember
but nothing is the same.
- New Order, "Special"
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Music review : R.E.M., "New Adventures in Hi-Fi"
Ok, this is going to be a really biased opinion. I love R.E.M.
They are probably my favorite band of all time. I mean, personal
music trends come and go, you get into certain bands for a while,
your general musical style may change a bit over time, but the one
band that I've always loved since I really got into music is R.E.M.
That said, NAIHF is probably one of the greatest albums of all
time. It has such a diverse range of style from song to song, and
over the entire album. From the glam rock flavor of "Wake Up Bomb"
to the industrial squeal of "Leave" to the stripped down "E-Bow the
Letter", this album takes you on a musical ride you won't soon
forget.
In comparison to other albums, NAIHF is a great amalgamation of
previous efforts and new influence. It's got the distored crunch
of Monster, the goofiness of Document. An amazingly well-rounded
album. Buy it now.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
I just got my copy of PLA 42 in my e-mail box. Pure genius.
In case you don't know about PLA, here's some info: PLA stands for
Phone Losers of America. PLA is a phreaking zine. Phreaking, for
the unaware, is hacking of the telephone systems. So anyway, not
only can you learn some basic phreaking stuff, you can also laugh
your ass off, because PLA is one of the funniest things I've ever
read. Issue 42 features a spoof on Geraldo. Get your funky butt
to http://www.peak.org/~bueno/pla.html now.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Duct Tape Boy Life Update:
It hasn't even been an entire day since I wrote +evolution+ #1
yet. Surprisingly enough, not a lot has happened. I went to work
today. I got annoyed at computers a lot. My boss and I moved some
cubicle walls. I talked to my sort of ex-girlfriend, sort of
girlfriend, whatever it is that she is now, I don't really know,
anyway, I talked to her on IRC for a bit. Then I came home (to my
dorm), ate crappy cafeteria food, and then jumped in the elevator
and have been in my dorm room ever since.
Really exciting, huh? Yeah, I know you care too.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
don't lose yr balance
counting stars that shine at night
they won't let me down
don't bring me down
put up a fight
even if you feel scared
the moon will guide you home
if no one's holding yr hand
that doesn't mean that y're alone.
- Kids Eat Free, "Flume"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
I like my job. I mean, I don't really condier it a job, really.
I've never been paid $10 an hour to do this little before. I've
worked at various supermarkets since I was a junior in high sko0l,
making AS MUCH AS $6.80 AN HOUR! and now I have this great job
where I can sit on my lazy ass all day and play around with
mind-bogglingly powerful computers. Hell, I get paid to IRC. I
get paid to open up a copy or two of Netrape and cruise about on
the World Wide Waste. I get paid to listen to my walkman, sit on
my cooshy leather high-backed chair, and vegetate for up to 20
hours a week. I even like most of my co-workers, or at least the
ones I deal with regularly. They're, for the most part, nice
friendly people. My boss is pretty cool too, which isn't something
I could readily say about any of my previous supervisors. I even
deleted our company's entire web site today, and he didn't get mad.
Not a bad gig, if I do say so my self. A lot better than stocking
dairy or baking bread 48 hours a week.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Right now, I'm taking part in a lovely teleconference. There's
a whole mess of #phreak types talking about a bunch of silly
phreaking junk. It's kind of dumb, really. The only redeeming
quality is that it's totally illegal. Someone, I don't know who in
this particular case, hacked some infoz and illegally registered
this conference. It's kind of amusing, I guess. It's better when
there's actually people I know on the line, but it's still kind of
interesting to listen in on this entire other underground culture.
Sort of enlightening to find out how silly life really is. :)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Cape Cod Punk : 1992-1996 R.I.P.
This past week I heard that Cheesewheel broke up. For those of
you who don't live on Cape Cod, which is a fair majority of
+evolution+'s readership, Cheesewheel is (er, was) an amazing punk
band. They have ruled the Cape Cod punk scene since I was a
sophomore in high sko0l, playing shows with everyone, everywhere.
I have fond memories of Cheesewheel shows. I remember being at
the Beachcomber, watching Rob sing, every word echoed from my mouth
as I sang along with "Glue" or "Outspoken". The Elks Lodge show,
the mighty Elks Lodge show, April 1995. Ben Rogers was at that
show, down from college. Rob had some guy come out of the crowd
come on stage and sing "Outspoken", and I believe it was the first
time they covered "Everybody Hurts".
Cheesewheel was more than just a band. They were sort of a
connecting point. So many people liked them, hardcore punk types
to the neo-hippie flower children of Nauset. They had a wide
appeal, an astute pop sensibility that most punk bands didn't have.
When Cheesewheel was on stage, the audience was a whole, a single
unit, and it didn't matter who else was there, if you hated the kid
on the floor next to you, because you suddenly had respect for
them, even if only for that hour that they were on stage.
Now that Cheesewheel is gone, I feel like the scene is dead,
that there's no one there who can keep the sinking boat from
falling into the ocean. I mean, No Siento is still there, a
mainstay of the scene for just about as loing as the Cheese, and
Patrick and his Fleece are still growing and becoming more
well-known, but I don't think either of them have the leadership,
the approachability of Cheesewheel. As Aidan once said,
"Cheesewheel was the first band I could get a ride home with after
the show".
I feel lucky that I got to play a show with Cheesewheel. That
particular show was kind of a pinnacle in my short musical life,
the only show my band, King of Birds, ever played. It kind of
makes me wonder what might have happened had we not broken up...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
I hit the hardwood floor and cracked my head in two
I hit the floor, I think I need some glue.
- Cheesewheel, "Glue"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Speaking of King of Birds, I might as well give you a brief
history of what we once were, and what the future holds.
King of Birds officially came into being at some point early in
1994, when we chose the name. However, we had been together, doing
stuff, playing random bits of garage-band cheeze since the
beginning of my sophomore year, i.e. the fall of 1992. We called
ourselves Reality Check for a good portion of that time.
So, back in 1992, it all started one day when Abe told myself
and Jamie Davenport, I think, to his house so we could just jam and
mess around. Jamie had an electric guitar which was a complete
piece of shit, but it made loud noises nonetheless, and I had
recently gotten possession of a rockin' Guild Les Paul copy from
the 60s, a really beautiful instrument that a kid of 14 never
should have been allowed to touch. I messed that thing up so
bad... put electrical tape all over it, chipped a lot of the finish
off, colored on it with markers. Anyway, over the next few months
or so, our friends Ben deRuyter and Bill Collyer started joining us
in Abe's basement, Abe on drums, myself, Jamie, Ben on guitars,
Bill on guitar or bass. It was totally insignificant, a bunch of
punk kids playing in the basement, like half of the kids in
America.
Jamie and Bill stopped coming around, so it was mainly Abe and
Ben and I for a while, still a group of no-talent kids trying to
think we were cool. One day, we asked this guy, Steve Felton, from
our hogh sko0l band and orchestra to come play with us. He played
guitar. He played guitar better than anyone I had ever seen play
guitar up to that point. Somewhere around this time, Ben stopped
really playing with us, and just kind of hung around a lot, mainly
because all he had was an acoustic guitar and he couldn't be heard
anymore. We finished out my sophomore year like this, Abe and
Steve and I, with Ben hanging around, playing stuff once in a
while, but it was apparent that he didn't fit into the grand scheme
anymore.
Then, my junior year, starting the fall of 1993, stuff
happened. Abe moved to a new house. I moved to a new house. And
this kid Ben moved to a new house. It was a big move for him,
going to Cape Cod from little Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He had been
there before, Cape Cod, since his parents had a summer house there.
They sold their old house in Pennsylvania and moved to the Cape.
One day, Steve and I were outside at sko0l, eating lunch, when
we looked into the auditorium lobby and saw this kid playing guitar.
His fingers moved with such grace, such fluid motion across the
fingerboard. Steve said his name was Ben Rogers, that he was in his
music theory class. We started talking to him, being friendly and
all. At some point in the next few days, Steve asked him if he
wanted to play with us.
So now, we had a third guitar player. A bit excessive, maybe,
but we didn't have bass, so it worked out well. Ben's first time
at Abe's house, we wrote a song, an instrumental, called "Brain
Juice", that would become a defining piece of this time period. It
was a masterpiece, three intertwining guitar parts, complex
arrangement. It took us an entire night to compose and arrange
that song. We wrote another, kind of similar song, but more
accessable, more of a traditional "song" format, called "Human
Parts", that Ben had written some lyrics for. Ben also wrote
lyrics to a song we had already written, called "Schoolbell", so
named because Abe played a little doorbell at the beginning of the
song.
Ben had this friend James, who played bass. James joined us a
few times in Abe's new basement. Also, at the same time, we
recruited our friend Andy Fyfe for vocals. He really couldn't
sing, but neither could anyone else, so we didn't care. Besides,
he had some lyrics already written, and we could just throw them on
pre-existing songs pretty easily, so it worked out well.
Andy and I had these great dreams of doing a lot of stuff.
We'd get together almost every weekend, I'd bring my guitar over to
his house, we'd mess around, come up with ideas. We had plans of
recording stuff, getting on WOMR, the local community radio
station, becoming an actual band doing actual stuff.
James had stopped coming around after only a few sessions in
the basement. Ben didn't really come around much anymore either,
once in a while. So it was basically Abe, Steve, Andy, and myself.
We realized we needed someone to play bass, and realized that there
was that kid who was in band. He looked weird, no one really
talked to him much, but we knew he played bass. Justin Reardon was
in the band.
Right before Justin joined, the four of us decided we needed a
name. Reality Check didn't cut it anymore. So, we came up with
this huge list of names, about 60 of them, and came up with this
neat voting system where we'd all pick a certain number of names,
with varying points given to them, and we'd add them all up and the
one with the most points would be our new name. The winner, with 8
points: King of Birds.
So now we were a band, with a name, and full instrumentation,
and some sort of goal: to play at the Nauset High Sko0l ALG
concert. The ALG concert is a tradition at Nauset, where every
year, bands from the sko0l play in the cafeteria on some dark
Friday night. The year before, Cheesewheel had played, but they
weren't big yet. So we had a goal.
Summer went by, we had our jobs. I didn't see much of Abe or
Steve or Andy that summer, and I barely knew Justin. I mostly hung
out with Ben Rogers in Orleans, at the Chocolate Sparrow, back when
it was the scene, and at Parish Park in the early days of Parish
Park culture.
That November, we decided we needed someone who could actually
sing, since we had hooked up the gig for the ALG concert in
December. Jamie, who used to play with us in Abe's old house, had
been in chorus, and we knew he could sing well, so we figured that
he'd be good for the job. Somehow, I got stuck with the job of
telling Andy, who I really didn't want to leave the band. I liked
Andy. He had an artistic vision, and while he couldn't sing, there
was something about him.
So the ALG concert came and went. It was a good show, in that
we played, but it wasn't a really high-quality performace. Jamie
didn't have much time to prepare, really, and he had been slacking
off, so he wasn't ready. The rest of us were prepared, and
instrumentally, the show went well. And it was a show. We had
played.
Jamie stopped coming around after the show ended. We needed a
singer. I volunteered, since I could sing better than Abe or Steve
or Justin. We wrote a whole bunch of songs in the month or so
after the ALG show, and we started talking about releasing a tape.
Ben deRuyter had just bought himself a four-track, in March of
1995 I believe it was. We picked out some songs and recorded them
in Abe's basement with Ben's new four-track. They were all songs
that were written in that winter boom of songwriting that began
after the ALG show and lasted until about mid-January. We ordered
a bunch of blank tapes, copied all day and all night, and sold the
tapes at sko0l and at Instant Karma, the local record shop.
About this time, Abe and I had some problems. Abe started
seeing this girl I liked, Camilla. We started being a bit hostile
and unpleasant to each other. I recall him throwing Steve's video
camera to the ground and damaging it up good one day. I didn't
really have any desire to be around Abe, which meant I didn't want
to do musical stuff, since our lives kind of revolved around that.
King of Birds broke up, without much publicity, in late August
of 1995. Abe and I both came to college, the same college I might
add, because we had been best friends for some 6 years at the time
college applications came around, and we both applied to UMass
Lowell, and both decided to come here in February when they started
asking for confirmations. We never talked much. I started to hate
him more. And to be honest, I don't feel like going on about this
anymore.
In the summer of 1996, my friend Aidan Smith and I played
around a couple times, nothing too much. the two of us played some
stuff at our friend Meghan's birthday party in August. We have
decided that he and I are the new incarnation of King of Birds. We
may play at the Truro Youth Center later this month, a couple of
days after Christmas. We don't know yet. If King of Birds has a
future, that's it.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
look into his eyes and you will see
that men are not alone on the diamond sea
sail into the heart of the lonely storm
and tell her that you love her tenderly.
- Sonic Youth, "The Diamond Sea"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Well, that's it for issue #2. I noticed that this is about
twice as long as +evolution+ #1. This is a good sign. It's good
to have creative energy again after not having it for so long.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+ evolution +
zaphod@sidehack.gweep.net
P.O. Box 1631
Orleans, MA 02653
(c) 1996 60Hz Productions, a division of Angst Communications.
Angst Communications is a registered trademark, used under license
from Mono Boy Records.
