Monday, March 19, 2012

Chloraseptic® Dreams

... Or:  When Memories Punch Back


While surfing around looking for local band information from the 'good old days', I stumbled across a funky slice of nostalgia. 

I liken it to gazing into a mirror, then getting punched in the teeth by your own reflection...




In the late 80s a couple of buddies and I formed a Parma hardcore band - Public Execution.  As locals bands like LEK, R.F.I., and Domestic Crisis were so much cooler than us on the Social Idiot Index, we figured we would give it a whirl.  We stuck it out for about a year, wrote some nifty tunes, finally got a decent sound down (thanks to second drummer Jim Konya), then broke it up for reasons best left unsaid.


Fast forward close to ten years later.  Konya (now of Schnauzer) has the brilliant idea to get back together in order to get something down on record.  A couple of the guys loved the idea (those that had stayed with music).  A couple of us thought it absurd.

After some internal hemming and hawing, I went along with it.  I had just started to complete my drop out from whatever scenes I had been party to; one last hurrah couldn't hurt.  Plus - to be perfectly honest, I had hoped it might have even reversed my eventual course.

But it didn't.

I never sung.  I screamed.  I raged.  I tried to murder my family and the bugbears they had unleashed on me with overdoses of Chloraseptic® and public self-mutilation.  So many people turn neurotic because their old man ignored them - or their mother 'just didn't understand'.  Let me tell you, 75% of those egotists haven't a damned clue.

I murdered my voice to develop something half-way decent at the time the band broke up - a cross between Henry Rollins and Bill Crooks from Cryptic Slaughter.  While the rest of the jerks swilled beer and used practices as hand out spots, I guzzled throat spray and St. John's Aspirin to combat the ravages of my exorcisms.  Had we kept at it, I would have come upon my own voice.  But at the time, what the hell; I was 19 and wanted to distress to impress.

However many years later, I stood no chance whatsoever.

The guys (Jim Morgan, Nathan Barnett, and Konya) sounded fine.  Under rehearsed, rushed, recorded a bit tinny, but fine enough for a nostalgia bit.  I, on the other hand, blew my voice out the first of too few rehearsals and never recovered it.  The rage was still there, but that character had been lost to the mists.

Consider yourself lucky that this No Surf in Cleveland blog failed to provide our side of things.


I can not believe I still owe Konya money for this steaming pile of personal failure.

Who did the art work?  Where was the vinyl pressed?  Did anybody on the face of the planet like it?  Don't ask me.  I got hit where the lover hangs out and turned bigfoot.

7 comments:

  1. I just listened and I liked it!

    I can relate to this post because I was in a thrash metal band in high school. We couldn't play worth a crap but it was definitely a blast. I wrote the largest majority of the lyrics and always seemed to take them down a dark path. I wanted to piss people off and cause concern from the older people. It would've been great to make an impact on the local scene but we were not in it for the right reasons and we were very unfocused.

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    1. Local music scenes were brutal twenty years ago. I can not imagine how ruthless it must be for kids these days.

      After all, being in a band should be a rite of passage for every teenager - as we can attest.

      What was the name of your trash band, Charlie?

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    2. True words!

      The name of my thrash band was BLACK MASS. We were all big time Slayer fans so you can imagine the rest of the song titles, cover mockups, and assorted details we came up with. I wish I still had the logo I designed because it was pretty cool. It was a bat with open wings with the word "black" on one wing and "mass" on the other with a big pentagram between them. Oh, the shock value and the horror! lol

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  2. Awww! You mean we don't get to hear Conform School, Dudeman Gustapo or The Very Last Moments? Man I feel ripped off! And I didn't even pay!! :D

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    1. Oh, man ... I'll never live that crap down, I tells ya.

      Great to hear from you, Mr. Perry. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, as your D*I*Y ethic has been an inspiration for as long as I have known you.

      Speaking of, I'm still waiting for an update to your WWF booking game from - what was it, the mid 90s? Had you kept at it, you'd be the one making comic book games for nitwit audiences.

      Hah!

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    2. My pleasure Mr. Baker, my pleasure. It wasn't a booking game from all that time ago though, you played as a wrestler in my sim and ..

      Oh! I see what you did there! We, the public, demand to hear those tracks .. okay, we politely request them .. pretty please?

      In truth though my friend, my best - and most enjoyable - work came when we worked in tandem; Keyfabe, the Retro Wrestling Excel workbook, my minor assistance with D.O.T.T. in your latter versions .. fun times.

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  3. I just found that two of these singles are selling on ebay. Green vinyl. I've never seen it.

    Dudeman Gustapo... They could have at least spelled it properly! What a bunch of hillbillies.

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