#presidents of the united states of america
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I think there needs to be a genuine discussion about our horrible education system (well weâve had the discussion a lot but yk). Like we joke n stuff about how it sucks here in America but it really does. Like I see other ppl in other countries dumbfounded at our stupidity and that made me realize how much they donât understand how bad it is here. A lot of us are genuinely struggling intellectually bc of how we grew up. Itâs the system we have. And donât get me wrong, this isnât an excuse for bigots to act like women canât lead or act like America is the only place on earth, but itâs literally what we are taught. It sucks how much we have to unlearn.
#donald trump#election 2024#kamala harris#politics#news#us elections#current events#world events#2024 presidential race#president#us politics#america#united states#education
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Why has the CIA been Hiding the JFK Files for 62 Years?
24 November 2024 by Larry C. Johnson 64 Comments
Now that all of the principals who were alive when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 are dead, there are only two reasons â neither mutually exclusive â to explain why the complete files have not been released â 1) The CIA is implicated in the assassination and/or 2) A country with influence in the United States is implicated.
While many have speculated that the CIA is hiding evidence that Cuba was involved, the CIA has no reason, in my judgment, to withhold evidence of Cubaâs guilt. I have shied away from pursuing the various JFK assassination theories, but I recently came across a video by Ryan Dawson that suggests a credible reason for keeping the files from the public â Israel is implicated.
What!!!??? That was my first reaction. But then I listened and examined the evidence proffered by Ryan. There is certainly some smoke that points to Israel and members of Jewish organized crime. Why would Israel be involved? Let me summarize Ryanâs argument â the Kennedyâs represented an existential threat to Israel:
1 Prior to the assassination, the Kennedys wanted Israel inspected for nuclear weapons. The CIA had collected evidence from Dimona indicating that the Uranium Israel was processing had been illegally removed from the US Nautilus project via NUMEC (i.e., Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation). 2 John and Robert Kennedy supported Palestinians right of Return. 3 President Kennedy directed Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in October 1963, to require the Zionist Organization of America to to register as foreign agents. 4 JFK along with Franceâs Charles de Gaulle, who also survived an assassination attempt, supported Algeria independence. 5 Robert F Kennedy was prosecuting aggressively Italian and Jewish mobsters. Many of the Jewish mobsters played a direct role in providing Israel with weapons prior to and after Israelâs establishment as a country in 1948. Jack Ruby, aka Jacob Rubenstein, was involved with the Italian mafia.
This does not prove that Israel or some of its agents helped kill Kennedy, but there is circumstantial evidence warranting further investigation. This would not be the first time that Israel attacked the United States. Just ask the survivors of the USS Liberty. However, this provides one reasonable explanation for why the CIA wants to keep the files locked away.
Keeping the files secret no longer makes sense. President Trump is now on the record, vowing to release the files. Letâs see if he keeps his promise.
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The Guardian:
Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all products coming in to the United States from Mexico and Canada, and additional tariffs on China.
âOn January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,â Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trump said the tariffs would remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants crossing the border illegally. In a follow-up post, Trump announced that the US âwill be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of Americaâ. He said that the reason for the additional tariff was Chinaâs failure to curb the number of drugs entering the US. China is a major producer of precursor chemicals that are acquired by drug cartels, including in Mexico, to manufacture fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid. âI have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States â But to no avail ⊠Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.â In response, China warned that âno one will win a trade warâ.
Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said China had taken steps to combat drug trafficking after an agreement was reached last year between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. âThe Chinese side has notified the US side of the progress made in US-related law enforcement operations against narcotics,â he said in a statement. âAll these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.â Canadaâs deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, released a statement on Monday evening saying that the country places the highest priority on border security and the integrity of its shared border with the US. Trump and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke on Monday night about trade and border security, Reuters reported, citing a Canadian source directly familiar with the situation. Freelandâs statement did not mention the tariffs directly. It also said that the Canada Border Services Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and US Customs and Border protection âwork together every single day to to disrupt the scourge of fentanyl coming from China and other countries.â
[...] A tariff is a tax placed on goods when they cross national borders. Import tariffs such as those proposed by Trump can have the effect of protecting domestic industries from foreign competition while also generating tax revenue for the government. But economists widely consider them an inefficient tool that typically leaves consumers and taxpayers bearing the brunt of higher costs.
Donald Trump vows to enact economy-crushing 25% tariffs on fellow USMCA members Mexico and Canada, and much steeper tariffs on China.
See Also:
HuffPost: Trump Says U.S. Will Impose Massive Tariffs On Mexico, Canada And China From Day 1
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What bizzaro alternate American timeline are we on? When did the United States start ignoring the Constitution? When did the good, honest, ethical citizens of this nation relinquish control over it? I must have missed that meeting because I donât recall that sh*t
The timeline I grew up on, (although I had yet to be born) a sitting president was forced to resign over a cover up of illegal wire tapping among other things not nearly as corrupt. The timeline I grew up in a guy lost an election because he spelled potato wrong. The timeline in a guy almost got impeached because he had relations with a lady and said he didnât. The timeline I grew up in America was the good guys. What happened!?
When did we urge the Supreme Court to allow corporations and the wealthy to purchase our elections?! When did we allow senators from Kentucky to block Supreme Court picks with no reasoning behind it?! When did we tell John Roberts racism had ended and we could remove voting protections from the Constitution!? When did we decide that a person can make fake electors to circumvent democracy, knowing lie about a stolen election to later stage a coup, then violate the Constitution again by allowing him to run for ANY federal office again? When, in any timeline can you steal classified documents, refuse to return them, then when the FBI raids where they are, there are more than 50 empty folders that once held top secret information, and youâre not locked the f*ck up!? When did we become an oligarchy?
I just donât recall when this was acceptable. I simply canât recall how this happened.
#traitor trump#politics#election 2024#the left#donald trump#trump is a threat to democracy#news#republicans#crime#vote democrat#trump is a traitor#trust#truth#american people#american history#america#hope#why#fuck trump#scotus#democrats#democracy#fraud#free speech#1st amendment#love#the constitution#declaration of independence#trump is guilty af#vote blue
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Battle of Queenston Heights
The Battle of Queenston Heights (13 October 1812) was a major battle in the War of 1812. A US army, under General Stephen Van Rensselaer, crossed the Niagara River in an attempted invasion of Canada but was repulsed by a British, Canadian, and Mohawk force. The British victory came at the cost of General Isaac Brock, killed in the fighting.
Death of General Brock at Queenston Heights
John David Kelly (Public Domain)
Background: Fall of Detroit
In late June 1812, shortly after the United States had issued its declaration of war against the United Kingdom, the US began preparing for an invasion of British-controlled Canada. Ostensibly, the purpose of the invasion was to deprive Britain of a staging ground from where they could launch their own attack into US territory. But many of the 'War Hawks' â as the prowar faction in Congress was called â envisaged a more permanent outcome, believing that the invasion would result in Canada finally joining the Union. The annexation of Canada would greatly increase the United States' dominion over North America and would, in the words of one war-hungry congressman, "drive the British from our continent" (Berton, 98).
The invasion was to be four-pronged. Brigadier General William Hull, sitting with his 2,500-man army at Fort Detroit, would lead the first thrust, crossing over the Detroit River into Upper Canada (modern-day Southern Ontario). He would be followed by Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer, who would cross the Niagara River to capture Queenston, and by Major General Henry Dearborn, who would sail up Lake Champlain to capture Montreal, while a fourth US army crossed the St. Lawrence River to wreak havoc in Ontario. Most Americans believed it would be an easy campaign, that the Canadians, oppressed by the tyranny of British rule, would welcome their southern brethren with open arms. As former President Thomas Jefferson predicted, the invasion was expected to be nothing more than "a mere matter of marching" (Wood, 677).
But of course, it would not be so easy. General Hull began his invasion on 12 July, crossing over the Detroit River and establishing a base of operations at the small town of Sandwich, where he issued a proclamation calling on all Canadians to either join him or remain neutral. But Hull soon lost his nerve; deathly afraid of Native Americans, he was disturbed by reports of more Indigenous nations joining the British side and, moreover, feared that the arrival of enemy reinforcements could cut him off from US territory. On 8 August, after nearly a month of dithering on Canadian soil, he retreated to Detroit, where he was soon besieged by an Anglo-Indian force under Major General Isaac Brock and the great Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh. Brock and Tecumseh utilized psychological warfare to convince Hull that their army was larger than it really was, leading the American general to surrender both his army and Detroit without a fight on 16 August. The Siege of Detroit not only thwarted the first part of the US invasion but also left the British in control of the entire Michigan Territory.
Hull was widely castigated for his defeat â indeed, he would later be court-martialed and sentenced to death, before the sentence was commuted to dismissal from the army. But he had at least set foot on Canadian territory, which was more than can be said about his counterparts. General Van Rensselaer had tried, but he did not have the necessary supplies or reinforcements to mount a successful crossing; what militia forces he did have refused to cross the Niagara, arguing that they were merely a defensive force and were not obliged to fight outside the United States. General Dearborn, likewise, was stuck at Albany, New York, unable to fill the enlistment quotas needed for an attack. "We have as yet a shadow of a regular force," his second-in-command would write, "inferior, even in numbers, to half of what the enemy already has in the field" (Taylor, 182). Dearborn was therefore relieved when, on 9 August, a British major arrived at his camp to offer an armistice. Dearborn readily accepted before passing along news of the armistice to President James Madison for his approval and instructing Van Rensselaer, his subordinate, to do nothing that might provoke the British. The invasion had, therefore, completely failed, leaving the US in a worse position as the armistice settled over the Niagara frontier.
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God, I really wish they were the next president of the united states of america...
chimney swifts are so weirddd theyre like if birds decided to be bats.
thats bats. those are bats. to me
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The mercs as Presidents of the United states of America
Yes
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Kurt Bloch: An Awesome Guy Who Awesome People Like
Rocking with the Fastbacks and recording all your favorite bands since 1979
Fastbacks, 1988; Kurt Bloch far left, Gumby t-shirt
âThere truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic!â - Kurt Bloch
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By: Eric Davidson
Iâve been thinking a lot about joy of late. Like pure, eyes-to-the-sky, skipping down the street joy. There is a paucity of it around right now.
We could follow a zillion trails to and from how we got here, but this is ostensibly a music blog, so Iâm going to make a quick stab at the roots of this unenviably joyless position weâre sitting in, rock-wise.
The Fastbacks were joyful. Starting out in 1979 in the dawning days of Seattleâs punk scene, they became a local fave on the basis of action-packed shows stuffed with careening pop hooks, irked energy, and a friendly, guffaw around onstage demeanor that didnât exactly scream âpre-hardcore era.â
Fastbacks retreated for a few years, circa 1988, and when kicked back into gear a couple years later, found themselves being a preferred opener for a load of grumpy grunge bands who Iâm guessing hoped to absorb some of the Fastbacks positive energy to counteract their mope â which the Fastbacks were more than ready to supply.
A mĂ©lange of metal volume, fleeting bouts of prog whimsy, Ramones tempos, and BubbleYum stickiness, the Fastbacks created a singular sound. Like most great bands, they never fit into any particular zeitgeist â too raggedy for the pop punk contingent, too peppy for the grunge trend, they nonetheless retained a respected status among bands who appreciated their consistently grabby tunes and fun live show.
Despite any remaining expectations of what âsuccessâ was supposed to be, by the turn of the millennium the Fastbacks became that precious thing â one of those awesome bands that awesome bands like.
It should be noted that, while grunge soon gained a definition as a downer genre (that has taken root since), Bloch and company palled around with that Seattle scene from the get-go, and knew many of them as fun rocker kids just trying their best to get through seven months of rain by rocking.Â
The Fastbacks kept careening forward right through the âAlternative Rockâ era that ignored all the fun underground garage punk and instead painted rock as increasingly dreary and grievance-based. The early 2000s came, and the Fastbacks took their leave.
Theyâve recently gotten back together for occasional reunion shows. Always holding them together throughout their stop/start whirlwind of a career was ace guitarist/producer and philosophical center of the band, Kurt Bloch.
Bloch, who began his career as a recording studio whizz with Fastbacks, never stopped twiddling the knobs for lots of your favorite bands and/or underrated acts. We checked in with him on his ongoing mission to bring fun to the fringes despite the mainstream consistently choosing incorrectly. Â Â
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Kurt Bloch, rockin', 1990 (Fuck the NRA. I will assume Kurt's t-shirt here was de rigueur '90s irony.)
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What was the first album you loved; and what was the first album you loved because of its production?
Good question, hard to answer. I think it was 45s and AM radio that got me going on recording qualities, how loud some of the great hits of the early-â70s sounded. How some records sounded like they were a band playing inside your head. I think I was aware of EQ and compression sounds early on, how the drum fills would sort of obliterate everything behind it on some songs. How the guitar would be so loud in the breaks. How, if the record didnât have enough treble, it would be unexciting; if there was too much then itâd sound wimpy.
Then getting into albums, and FM radio, youâd listen to Larksâ Tongues In Aspic or Dark Side Of The Moon, and they had this spacious quality that was rad; the Scorpionsâ Fly To The Rainbow was right in your face, really up-front and close. Then, going to see bands live, weâd see the coliseum style shows â that was so cool, but then getting to see bands in smaller spaces where you could hear the amps on stage, and feel the sound pressure in the room ânow that was a mind-opener. You could feel the Marshalls and the actual sound coming off of the stage.
Then when punk bands started playing, thatâs when it started getting interesting. You know, like I just saw this killer band that sounded so great at the show, and their record sounds like a bowlful of shit. Why?! That leads to one-track, two-track, four-track tape recorders, and each time you record something, you have a whole book of revelations of what to do and what not to do. So many great recordings from that early punk era without a bunch of reverb. It was another revelation. A lot of those early digital reverbs that everyone had, I just hated that fake trebly, scritchy sound. Rather just not use any reverb than that icky sound.
How did the Fastbacks form?
Kim and Lulu were high school friends of ours, The Cheaters was our neighborhood band; only lasted a couple years but they were good ones! When that band disintegrated on-stage, there was still band gear in my parentsâ basement. Kim (Warnick, bass/vocals) had been in a band, The Radios, and Lulu (Gargiulo) wanted to play guitar and sing. Somehow my parents didnât put a stop to it all, so we started playing a couple times a week. Not saying we got good, but we got better.
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How long before you felt you had locked into the Fastbacksâ sound?
I reckon whatever âsoundâ we had was pretty well established early on; it was just whatever we wanted to do. Of course we loved the punk bands of the era first and foremost, but also the â60s and â70s pop music we grew up with; and the hard rock bands of the â70s too! And I always was a fan of the wonderful arrangements and sound of the â70s prog bands, once I started writing most of the songs, these things would creep in.
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Live, 1986
I have this romantic vision of Kim Warnick as a long-haired rocker teen crashing parties and such. Is that correct?
Ha ha ha!! We were all pretty good (bad?) at crashing parties, some of the shit we did makes me wince thinking of it all. But it was 1977, â78; things were different back then, a different kind of boredom ran rampant through kidsâ minds back then. There was a real disdain for society, maybe not to the degree of the UK bands at the time, but still there nonetheless. Often there was nothing to do other than the proverbial letâs go fuck shit up. And the music was such a part of all that.
So you got a story about something back then that would make you wince now?
Back when we were teenagers in The Cheaters, we would go to pretty desperate lengths to create excitement. The Cheaters singer, Scott Dittman, was maybe the funniest person Iâve ever known, and often in our search for something to do, he would drive a car full of us down to the frats at the University Of Washington. Weâd go crash frat parties, rarely did we fit in unnoticed. Youâd grab some keg cups and try to hang out, usually immediately, âWould you please leave.â And that didnât often sit well with Scott. If we were going to âplease leaveâ then we would not leave without exacting some sort of a toll. I guess we could run pretty fast, or we wouldâve got our asses kicked pretty well back then. Somehow a few weeks later weâd go back to the same frat house that had a bookcase upended or a row of bikes knocked over, and lo and behold, the same thing would happen again. Of course we were never hired to play any frat parties.
Scott also loved to fight. He took boxing lessons and was always trying to teach us how to fight too. You knew when the gloves came out it was time to find something else to do. âCome on, you just gotta keep your guard up.â (smash smash smash) âYou said you werenât gonna hit us in the face.â Yeah right.
The Cheaters and The Accident (another erstwhile punk outfit) set up a show at a non-punk bar, somewhere down by Olympia. This wouldâve been 1979 maybe. There were no roadmaps for like-minded or âfriendlyâ places to play, outside of the major cities. But we were trying to do something, anything, and our double bill got the booking. This bar had a dance floor that also was used for bar fighting. There must have been some sort of organization to the fights, but it was sanctioned bar fighting. No-one was on the dance floor or anywhere near it when we started, so Scott tried to solicit a fight or two during our set. This was unfriendly territory, we were all, âStop this nonsense!â But once you told Scott not to do something, well he was going to double down of course. Fortunately no one took him up on his offers, and we got out unscathed, but the bar owner took me into his office at the end of the night and gave me a rundown on what we needed to do to become successful in the music business, and the first thing was to get rid of that singer.
1978
First Fastbacks show, February, 1980 â any memories of it?
Oh, totally! The first Fastbacks show, it was at a rec center in a quiet neighborhood, it was three bands: The Vains, Psychopop, and The Fastbacks. We were all friends, and it was all three bandsâ first shows. Very ramshackle, but we cobbled together a sound system, someone had a few lights, everyone brought what they had, and the show went on. A little rough around the edges, but the power didnât go out, no cops were called, nothing was ruined â an early triumph for sure.
Was the power pop zeitgeist of that time a thing for Fastbacks? Did you feel a part of it?
No! For sure the New Wave was hitting strong at that point, but we were certainly not embraced by the new wavers at all. I suppose for that first year, we were pretty terrible, but we had some friends and people who wanted to give us a chance. Getting Duff (McKagan â yes, that one from Guns âN Roses) to play drums was the first step into making the band more listenable, but we were still a long ways off of what the general public would consider valuable music. We got kicked off of a show after our first set (of two). âThatâs okay, you guys donât have to play another set.â And I was all, âWhat do you mean we donât have to?!â Oh, I get it.
Then when the hardcore bands cropped up, we were pals with some of them, but we werenât furious enough for them really. I recall some sort of fury at a DOA/The Fartz/Fastbacks show. It required some foresight, which many didnât possess, to support any kind of music that wasnât 100% punk. Conversely, the proper power pop bands, well, we were a little too power and not enough pop, I reckon. We wanted to be that, but itâd take a bit still to hone those chops.
Had Duff McKagen played in any band before that?
Duff was the bass player in The Vains, who played that Laurelhurst Rec Center show. That was his first show. He mustâve been 15, barely 16?
Did he exhibit behaviors that would later align with Guns âN Rosesâ infamous lifestyle?
We were still pretty reeled-in at that point, no one really even got plastered, no one started doing drugs yet. Mightâve been some Budweisers around, but nothing stronger yet.
Guns 'N Roses 2nd show, 1985
Got any Vains stories, recollections of a show, or the general scene from whence they came/played? Was there a good raw, original punk scene in Seattle in late '70s? I'm aware of Soldier and some other bands, but I wanna get it from the horseâs mouth.
The Vains only played three, maybe four shows total. In the late â70s into early â80s it was pretty hard to keep something going if you were any sort of impatient. Most bands never got the chance to play enough to iron out any difficulties, or taste any sort of real success. Lots of arguing over what direction to take, stick to your punk rock guns, and play to a rental hall of your friends; or try to get âjobsâ in the bars, which would mean being stricken with the âcover bandâ tag, which was NOT punk.
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1978
The Enemy worked the hardest, yet still couldnât crack the code in 1979. The Telepaths, The Blackouts, The Lewd â everyone broke up, or moved away and then broke up. The Fartz made a pretty good go of it, but even they sorta morphed into Ten Minute Warning, and then morphed into an art band⊠The Silly Killers stayed pretty punk. The Living ripped it up for their short lifespan. But they were all in that 1982 dilemma, you can almost see a line in the sand, drawn in the summer of 1982. Not a lot of bands made it across that line that summer.
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The Enemy live, 1980
If I remember it was some sort of divine intervention that The Fastbacks reconvened in 1983 to fire it up again, it was nearly the end of the line. But it was also clearly a new beginning, a new lease on life, a new crop of kids started bands in those Metropolis years; the Metropolis was a new all-ages venue that I would consider the petri dish of the next bundle of bands.
As the â80s took hold and punk rock hall shows were sort of the only stage for many of our bands, after a couple years of not getting to any sort of next level, it was clear that there needed to be a re-grouping of some sort. Weâd see our friendsâ bands get actual paying gigs in bars â if they were non-punk sounding. Of course many of the punk bands went to the dark side of â80s metal. Everyone was looking to do something that could âgo somewhere.â
Somewhere right in that 1982 corridor, drugs started flourishing, stupidity set in. Duff came with us Fastbacks as a âroadieâ in 1984 down to L.A., and when we came back I reckon he moved to L.A. to escape that whole rigamarole. No one was getting anywhere here anyway. A bold move at that time, at the advanced age of 20!
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1987
Word is Fastbacks have had between 12 and 20 drummers. Short of naming every single drummer, are there a few youâd like to point to as having had a particularly interesting stint; or who went on to other bands?
Gosh, all the Fastbacks drummers had something great about them. There were a few who only did one show. I publicly apologize to those who didnât last. Those were strange times. I donât think there are any unsolved mysteries in the Fastbacks drummer world, Dan Peters, who recorded a couple songs with us but no shows, Tad Hutchison, and Tom Hendrikson, who each did one showâŠ. Some convoluted moments for sure, and all killer drummers!
Do you think if you would have remained drummer for Fastbacks that you would have still gotten into production?
Yeah, I think the fascination with recording was parallel to the live playing side of things, it was always there in my constitution. Wanting to learn, wanting to figure out how to make records that captured how killer bands sounded. It was such a tall order back then. Seemed like the old guard [engineers] didnât âget it,â or were prohibitively expensive; and so many of the others didnât sound kickass like we wanted. Of course this comes from the actual band, first and foremost; that is learned the hard way! But if the band blazes at their show, it seemed that their records should sound blazing too, but that wasnât often the case.
1988
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1989
From what I remember, the Fastbacks rep was that of the favorite local band of all the Seattle bands, and hence got on as openers for bands who would soon get huge during that whole grunge thingâŠ
Pretty hard to say from the inside view. We had the unfortunate hurdle of being broken up from late-1988 till mid-1990. A lot of opportunity probably squandered during those times. But, unlike anyone else I can think of, we did get a second chance via Sub Pop, and another decade of rock. I know we were quite lucky in that department. We never did gigs large or small with Nirvana, Soundgarden, sort of the class of â89. We did share a slightly miserable practice space with Green River and later Mother Love Bone. Always pals with those cats, so we did do opening stints with Pearl Jam in 1996, all around the world.
What was miserableness about it?
Oh man, that place⊠It was in a basement in Pioneer Square, the old, original downtown Seattle. The Great Seattle Fire devastated downtown in like 1889, and they rebuilt the city on top of the old city, one floor higher. So our basement was on the level with the old, original city; some rooting around could be done. There was no bathroom or running water down there, so you had to go to the bar a block away to use the facilities, but often you just couldnât be bothered. In the space next to ours, it was a smashed up, decrepit old room that we moved all the garbage from our side into. No lighting of any sort, so it was all flashlights if you had them, and filling up bottles of pee and putting them where ever we could find room.
But of course we raged supreme down there, some epic parties, bands playing, and whatnot; of course no water or facilities, but grand times in the â80s. Somehow, I ended up being in charge of paying rent, not the best job for me to take on. It meant tracking down Andrew Wood once a month and trying to get him to pay his share of their rent. First it was Malfunkshun, and Green River was there too. We mightâve blown up before Mother Love Bone started? I think I remember Green River blowing up too, after their California trek; it wouldâve been not too long after that that The Fastbacks unceremoniously imploded. But for a while it was definitely a rager.
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Nifty, random link I stumbled on with some cool early Fastbacks fliers, stories, and live stuff.
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1992
While you didn't play with the "biggies" of the scene as much as I thought, got any early Nirvana or Soundgarden tale of any sort you'd like to share?
Our fabled practice basement was just a couple blocks from The Central, a venue that was sort of home base for a lot of stuff. The Vogue as well, it was on the north end of downtown, we were on the south end. Many people had keys to the place, so it was not surprising to duck in between sets at The Central, to have cheap beers or whatnot. I first saw Soundgarden at The Central, and they were certainly mind-blowing. Wouldâve been â87? Quickly became a favorite Seattle band, and when their first 7â came out, my roommates hated me. I had a tendency to play those 45âs over and over and over again. But they played The Central a lot, and just got better and better, heavier and heavier. I remember the first time they played âBeyond The Wheelâ, it was at the Vogue. I was standing next to Mark Arm and we looked at each other and just said FUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHâŠ
The first Nirvana show I saw was also at the Vogue, it was maybe not the greatest Nirvana show, but man I thought that singer was amazing. Shortly after, Jon Poneman (Sub Pop co-founder) was at the bar there and said, âIf you buy me a coffee now, Iâll give you a 45 tomorrow that will change your life.â An easy proposition. Sub Pop HQ was half a block away, he gave me a âLove Buzzâ 45, and once again, the roommates had a reason to hate. I mustâve played that record 100 times in a row. Mightâve taken them a bit to find their pummeling style, but man they sure did. Then after Bleach had been out a while, all the rumors of major label this and major label that⊠So exciting and weird.
Who is a favorite Seattle âgrunge eraâ band you really dug and maybe didnât get the recognition you think it deserved? Mine are the Derelicts and Zipgun.
Of course! Pure Joy, Flop, H-Hour, the Meices â wait they were actually from SF⊠Huge Spacebird, Once For KicksâŠ. Have you got an hour or so?!
I know you are no doubt tired of this question, but do you have a late â80s/early â90s story or show that happened where you thought, âDamn, this Seattle scene thing is getting some real attention? This is fucking weird.â
After the Fastbacks blew up in 1988, I started playing with the Young Fresh Fellows, and we were off and running pretty hard right away. Certainly a parallel path from the Seattle Grunge Explosion, but a decent path it was! I was pals with Jon and Bruce (Pavitt) at Sub Pop when they started, so Iâd go hang out at their early HQ/distributor place downtown. It was amazing to see some of these bands blow up when they did.
Young Fresh Fellows, 1989; Kurt Bloch far right
I suppose the thing that sealed it for me was listening to the advance cassette of Nevermind on a Young Fresh Fellows trip. Scott McCaughey had been assigned to review it for local music rag, The Rocket, and I nabbed it from him on a trip out East. It totally blew my doors wide open. Already having been a superfan since that âLove Buzzâ 45, and seeing a couple of the shows they did here before going out to record that album, then hearing it for the first time on headphones; then as our tour progressed, seeing the record just going ballistic at every record store, it was just crazy. It never stopped getting bigger and bigger. This is so fucking weird!
Strange feeling of seeing a local band you saw shlubbing around town or peeing next to them at a dive, to hearing them play in a grocery store in Nevada, or whatever....
Soundgarden was the first one I remember blowing up. They went from Sub Pop to SST to A&M â they sorta seemed to have their shit together pretty well. Alice In Chains were kinda off our radar, they were only on the Rock radio stations; it wasnât until their second album that I noticed that they actually were killer. But Nirvana, they were crazy cool from the get-go, not in the FM Rock station sort of way, but the punk underground sort of way. Plus I didnât really know them at the beginning, so there was way more mystery about them. A couple legendary Seattle club shows before they went off to start Nevermind; the OK Hotel first playing of âSmells Like Teen Spirit,â we were just transfixed â What the fuck is this?! Then the Off Ramp show, they went on really late, and got cut off right before 2am. Somehow the club picked up the empties and let the band play on into the night, and what a show it was. Then⊠nothing.
Didnât really hear anything from Nirvana âtil the advance cassette of Nevermind went out, and of course thinking, if I like this so much, itâs probably never gonna go anywhere. Wrong. It was like a slow ball of fire, radio then record stores, like every record store playing it, every magazine⊠It wouldâve made you hate a lesser band, but it really was great so there was a sense of pride attached to it all. Finally something we loved is big. But then how big? There seemed to be no end to it. It was everywhere. And so weird to think that kids dug something that was blazing and amazing.
Were you defacto producer of Fastbacks from the get-go of recording?
Oh for sure. Not by strong-arming anyone, but just because there was no money, and no one else could be bothered! Our first 45 was with Neil Hubbard and Jack Weaver, as we were doing a song for a Seattle comp LP, and as per the usual, just recorded some extra songs in our allotted time. The first EP was Peter Barnes, drummer for The Enemy, killer Seattle band and very much an inspiration to all the bands in the late-â70s in Seattle. Then after that, it was trial by fire.
Can you tell me more about The Enemy, and their local import?
The Enemy pretty much initiated the punk âsceneâ in Seattle. There were a few bands, but they started a club, it was all ages, March, 1978. Otherwise it wouldâve been hall shows, but The Bird brought everyone together. Originally only open for a few months, but there were shows there every Friday and Saturday, it really did give us something to do.
My first band, The Cheaters, might not have actually played anywhere if not for them. We could have languished in my parentsâ basement forever if not for being stopped by The Enemy members at a Ramones show: âHey! Are you guys in a band? Would you want to play at our club weâre opening up in a few months?â Of course we said yes, we didnât tell them that we were just barely a band, weâd never actually played a show, nor would we maybe ever had if not for their offer. We were just teenagers, my brother Al was still in High School. But they took us in and let us play shows. The drummer, Peter Barnes, filled in for a night our real drummer couldnât play.
Everyone knew each other, when it was time to record what was to be The Fastbacksâ first EP, Peter volunteered to be our producer. He figured out how to get cool, kickass sounds and make things happen. No one had any money or experience so it had to be on a budget, but he made it happen. The record turned out great. âIn Americaâ was on the commercial new wave station, we thought we had it made!
I thought I knew what to do, to various degrees of success. Conrad Uno at Egg Studio did much of our first album. He was wise beyond words and also a great teacher. After that LP was finished he was all, âYou can do all this, I think, Iâll be back at the end of the night to close up!â Then it seemed like the right avenue. So many producers seemed like they just wanted to add stuff in order to have their presence be felt. I always felt, like â what is the least amount of stuff we can have on here to make it happen? Less stuff, but louder. Certainly not against adding things, but also happy to leave things out as much as possible. Always loved the one-guitar bands that didnât double everything all the time. Makes you think a little harder about what youâre doing.
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1994
Okay, I will name a band, and you give me the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your production gigs with them:
Presidents of the U.S.A.
Weâd do several takes of any given song, as the band was learning them, Chris (Ballew, singer) would play his two-string bass flawlessly every take, and sing a scratch vocal that couldâve been used as the keeper. Never a mistake, never less than killer every time.
Robyn Hitchcock
Also just an amazing music machine. Put him in an iso booth with a mic for vocal and one for acoustic guitar. Heâd show the band a new song and go into the booth, sometimes it would just be one take and theyâd nail it, with the lead vocal included. Never a lyric sheet in sight. A brain that truly works overtime. Peter Buck playing his 12-string on a song that he had just heard, and plays flawlessly the first time. Great Peter quote: âI like to get things right.â Indeed!
Fastbacks
Ha!! Some of the recording weâve done astounds me to this day. Itâs like any idea we had, weâd just do it. I swear, no one ever said, âAre you sure this is a good idea?â Listening back to the early â90s recordings, there truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic! Some of that music is pretty weird, even some songs that I wrote, I canât imagine where they came from. I know we did them and all, but what was the impetus, where did they come from?!
Nashville Pussy
Another tale of just trying not to ruin a band that sounded killer. Amazing to think that they all fit in the tiny live room at Egg for that first album. The sheer volume of air pressure in there was unbelievable. A perfect example of what weâd set out to do, just try to not let the recording process get in the way of the recording. And nominated for a Grammy! I went with them to the Awards show â limo, booze, and afterparties. We were scheming all the horrible things that weâd say when we won the award, who we were gonna thank, who we were gonna blame. Of course thereâs no way weâd win, they barely could say the name of the band when reading off the nominees! But what an experience. So many laughs.
Mudhoney
Five Dollar Bobâs Mock Cooter Stew (Reprise, 1993) doesnât get enough props. I think itâs a great record. I really tried to make each song sound different and killer in its own way. Dan Peters (drummer) is always dishing out the quality.
Young Fresh Fellows
Itâs easy to work quickly with a band youâre in. You kind of already know whatâs going to happen, you know how to set up since youâve already seen what works and what doesnât over the last decade or two. We had intended to record maybe four or five songs for Tiempo De Lujo. Somehow weâd crammed all four of us in the basement here; after the two days weâd recorded twelve band tracks â so an album it was! Toxic Youth as well. Weâd gone over to Jim Sangsterâs living room to learn a few songs before starting recording the next day, and once we got going, they just kept coming and coming. When inspiration strikes, keep the tape rolling!
Can you describe Conrad Uno's Egg Studios; the kind of size or situation you were dealing with? Was there like a famous recording board there you worked with?
Egg Studio, where I and others honed their chops, was a welcome alternative to the ânormalâ studios of the time. It was truly a basement studio, the performance room was smaller than an ordinary living room. Many bandsâ rehearsal spaces were larger than this. But it really did have a relaxed feel to it, and loud bands could all set up in the room and play live and get a good sound. Mudhoney, Nashville Pussy, Supersnazz, Devil Dogs, Supersuckers, Zeke â it was home base for so many great albums.
Conrad Uno moved into the house in maybe 1987, I reckon we finished Fastbacks âŠAnd His Orchestra there; and by early 1988, we began Very Very Powerful Motor, then the Sub Pop 7â and ZĂŒcker sessions. It began as an 8-track studio. Conrad brought in the Spectrasonics console that was formerly at Stax/Volt studio â rumored to once be owned by Paul McCartney, under whose purview a varispeed knob was installed. The knob remains, itâs Paulâs Knob. The console is now at Crackle And Pop studio here in Seattle, and is working better than ever.
Before Mudhoney began their third album, Piece of Cake, their second at Egg, they bought a 16-track machine for the studio, and that was the classic setup for so many records there in the â90s.
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1996
I personally would love to hear about making the classic Devil Dogs album, Saturday Night Fever (Crypt/Sympathy for the Record Industry, 1994). Whose idea was it to make it kind of like a party, with friends and fans whopping it up in the studio between songs?
It was their idea from the beginning to make it a party album, âYou have been invited⊠to a party!â Another band that didnât need any fancy fussing about, they already sounded like a house on fire. Just tried to record them and not get in the way, make sure that the playback sounded like it did in the room with them.
Definitely the last night of the session, they invited all their Seattle friends over for a party, and we played the songs from the album through twice, if I remember, and just had a mic in the room while they were going. All the bottles clinking and all the blabbering was totally what happened. There was so little time to get everything done while we were there. They had booked two gigs on recording days â one out of town in Bellingham! Basically it was like wrangling the Three Stooges to record and mix a full album and an EP in like five days. Letâs just say that the morning hours were not particularly productive. But fortunately, when they were on, they were unstoppable. And so fuckinâ funny! What a fucking great record!
Oh yeah, definitely the most hilarious band to tour with too! We did a month with them once in Europe, traveling in the same packed little van. And even the bad hungover mornings in the van drives would lead to so much cracking up. Singer Andy G. sometimes stood up and imitated Tom Jones live. Anyway, can you recall who all was in the âcrowdâ on that record?
Honestly, I donât! The studio was in a neighborhood, so all sessions had to be finished by 10pm. I loved the idea of recording a loud listening party and then mixing that in with the album, but it was so precarious to cram a bunch of drunks in the tiny studio and try to not let any gear get ruined, while still egging on loud misbehavior. Then getting all the cats out of there by 10 and not annoying Conrad or his neighbors in the process.
You must have some fun Andy G. stories too.
All three of those guys had their moments! Andy, Steve, Mighty Joe. Someone shouldâve given them their own TV series. It might not have lasted very long, but what a show it wouldâve been. Iâve never seen a group rile each other up the way they did. Shouldâve had a room mic going constantly while they tried to make a group decision. There was way more work than we had time for. Somehow we got it all done, but just barely.
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Crypt Records, 1993
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And hereâs where I decided to check in with Devil Dogs drummer, Mighty Joe Vincent, to get some more details on their Bloch party: "So, in the friends crowd [on the Saturday Night Fever album] was Eddie and Dan Bolton from the Supersuckers, James Burdyshaw and the rest of the Sinister Six, and a bunch of really cool women whose names have escaped my memory banks.
We def recorded on the Stax board. I remember because we had hopes that there was some soul residue left in the cables that might coat our tracks.
We totally loved Kurt. Whatâs not to love? I do remember that it was a Crypt budget recording so we had to make every minute count, so we were mixing until we were all so tired we were delirious. Iâm pretty sure we went âtil 2a.m. or something like that, but that was mixing. We did that in the middle of a tour, so we did about two weeks of gigs from NYC across this great nation of ours as well as that other great nation to our north, then out to Seattle. While we were doing it , we had a gig up in Bellingham, so we took a day off to drive up there.
I remember Scott Mccaughy was working there at Egg. I was talking to him one day and he told me his days of playing out on the road were over as his wife just had a kid and he had to be a good dad and provide a steady paycheck. I really felt bad for him. And then of course, a short time after that, Pete Buck asked him to come on the road with R.E.M. and said he would pay him a million dollars. Like an actual million dollars. That always made me happy to hear."
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And now, back to Kurt Bloch!
Who were bands you liked to tour with? And/or, a classic Fastbacks tour story?
We had some great west coast tours with DOA in the early-to-mid â80s, they were definitely an early inspiration to go head-on and charge through best you can. They certainly blazed a trail for the rest of us to follow, doing everything themselves, like Black Flag did from Southern California. The â80s were a rocky road for the Fastbacks. We played a lot of shows in Vancouver, BC, as well as Seattle, but it was a lot of problems and fighting, ha, and it wasnât until the â90s that we actually went out for any length of time â certainly getting into occasional serious trouble with The Meices, Motocaster, Gaunt, and even the New Bomb Turks!
Pearl Jam asked you to do some stadium shows in 1995, arguably the peak grunge year. How did you relate to the whole fame/stadium situation surrounding those shows?
It was January â95, Pearl Jam asked us to play a radio show from their rehearsal space. I kinda didnât know what they were talking about, and maybe sort of blew it off. I was trying to finish a Sicko record that night, couldnât be bothered. I did like their Vitalogy record, âNot For You,â âSpin The Black Circle.â The rest of the Fastbacks were all, âCâmon, weâre doing this!â And I grudgingly told Sicko I was going to have to leave early. I didnât even bring a guitar, I knew that Stone had a cool â50s Gold Top, maybe I could use that.
Then of course we get there and itâs really fun, just a big party scene, tons of buddies and band cats. We played three songs on the Pearl Jam gear setup, maybe Kim talked on the radio, drank some beers, great time! That was cool enough, but then they asked us to open a few shows at the end of the year, Salt Lake City and San Jose I think, and weâre all like, âHell yeah!â And everything went well, then, âWould you want to go do a U.S. tour, oh and maybe a Europe tour following thatâŠ?â And we were all, âHellz yeah!â And that all went great, clearly we would be the next big thing, the world is gonna love us, nothing holding us back now! We had a great record out, New Mansions In Sound (Sub Pop, 1996). Man, that was it â lots and lots of fun, great shows. We invented an auxiliary opening band for some of the shows, The What. We played Who tunes with Eddie Vedder incognito with a wrestling mask. We drag Mike McCready out for jams, Stone Gossard to sing one of his PJ songs, Eddie did âLeaving Hereâ with us a couple times, just great rock times in the giant venues. Somehow it didnât lead to us being the Next Big Thing, but it was fun to pretend for a few months.
1994
Any good backstage shenanigans stories?
There werenât a whole lot of super shenanigans. They had an espresso machine onstage every night, so weâd all slug down coffees, blast through our tunes, and then get drunk and watch Pearl Jam. Sometimes we would annoy their wonderful crew by being loud and boisterous aside of the stage, spilling bottles of wine or whatnot, but not much more than that. Everyone got along really well, and it was well-protected against after show bullies or negativity. Weâd just keep on our course, often âtil the huge sports arena closed down and theyâd kick us out after everything had been loaded out â and weâd still be back there cranking tunes and running around.
It was totally like an arena-sized version of a living room party most every night. Their crew moved all the gear, we barely had to do anything except play every night.
I know you knew some of their members from earlier in the scene, but did you know Eddie Vedder before he got asked to join Pearl Jam?
I might not have met Eddie until the live radio show we did? He came up from San Diego. Didnât know him before then at all, but we were fast friends. We would spend hours talking about the Who and riding around on the catering carts and smashing into the walls of the arenas. Come to think of it, we were probably very annoying. But no one, like, smashed up their hotel rooms or anything. It was probably comparatively tame.
Might sound weird, but while playing in the Seattle scene -- which is generally described as kind of serious, or dark, or junkies, or you know, âgrungyâ â did you and the Fastbacks feel kind of out-of-place; or are those kind of definitions of grunge and that town/time not correct?
The Seattle âthingâ certainly was a dark, serious sound. That isnât to say that every musician was dark and serious, but that darkness prevailed. To say The Fastbacks felt a little out of place at that point would be correct; but I always thought we were here first. Itâs not like we didnât dig lots of the bands, but it also wasnât like we would try to take them on at their own game. It just wouldnâtâve happened. We did do a version of âSwallow My Prideâ â Green Riverâs, not The Ramones â on Sub Pop 200 [compilation], after a Soundgarden version too; but it ended up being menacing only in a Blue Ăyster Cult sort of way, rather than ala either previous version. Slow and heavy just wasnât in our DNA.
Columbus, OH, 1993 (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
I remember when Fastbacks stayed with New Bomb Turks while on tour in 1993, you guys, well I think specifically Lulu, made an amazing Thai meal for us. Did you always cook for bands you crashed with, or just for us âcuz weâre so awesome and nice?
Ha. I think the wonderful cooking was a bit of a rarity. We werenât much of a crash on peopleâs floor kind of band by the â90s, but sometimes it was great to have a day off and some good ideas! Remember that Metallica VHS box set had just come out, and we watched it âtil the end because Lulu and I both worked on the film crew for the shows they filmed in Seattle, and we wanted to see if we, several years after the actual shows, got any credits at the end⊠and sure enough we did. Reason to celebrate!
Columbus seemed to love you. What were some other fave towns you played?
Always a great time in Columbus. Not necessarily Cleveland though. We werenât the hard-touring road warriors that a lot of the other (more successful) bands were. It was whatever city we had friends in that were the best. Vancouver BC, San Francisco, L.A., NYC, maybe Albany, Columbus, IstanbulâŠ
Contract and ticket for 1993 Columbus, OH show. (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
Highly technical and professional stage diagram implorations, Columbus, OH, 1993 show (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
I could be wrong, but you didnât go over to Europe a lot, did you? Were you able to procure any production work from Euro bands you met whilst on tour there?
Oddly, not a lot of Euro tours⊠Seems like we shouldâve done more, but there was always something. Young Fresh Fellows did some great trips, especially in Spain. Fastbacks Spanish tour was a bit of a dogâs breakfast. Not because of the people in Spain, no sir. We certainly lit it up in Japan once, though!
I did a couple albums for Les Thugs, the French band. One of them in Seattle and one in Angers. May have been bookended with some music travel. Itâs amazing to look back at the old calendars and see that between tours with the Fastbacks and Young Fresh Fellows, recording with those two bands and recording other bands. Man, there were times when there was nary a day off, those â90s months were packed! Gotta consider myself pretty lucky. And so many killer records I got to be part of.
As a producer, do you feel you are mainly bringing an âearâ to finding the sounds the band wants, or do you try to gently impose a certain style and sensibility over the whole production?
Always try to keep the kickass factor high. I would never try to impose anything other than to try to keep everyone happy so they could do their best work, and not do the same bit over and over and over. Work hard and play hard, but not to overanalyze every little thing. Not under-analyze either, but if itâs killer, it doesnât matter if everything âlines upâ perfectly, or if the choruses speed up a little bit. Try to capture what is great about a band live in concert, and not dilute that if you can help it. Donât add a bunch of crap just to put your mark on a project.
It's interesting how you professed a love for prog, but you had an innate sense of not always overdubbing too much â note your comment about loving bands that only had one guitar, etc.
The true exciting prog bands started coming out around 1968 and â69, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator; Pink Floyd and Moody Blues had already been around but maybe werenât quite included. Recording technique at the time was still fairly straightforward for the most part, there was of course room for overdubbing on an eight-track machine, but most of the first-wave prog bandsâ recordings were not overloaded with overdubs. The magic was what they did with their four or five musicians, the arrangements you hear on the record were the same instrumentation as they played live. Some of the songs would have been concocted in a studio, but it wasnât until later that walls of overdubs became commonplace.
Thatâs where the greatness of the original bands lies â cool vocal arranging and melding several songsâ worth of ideas into one track. Not a lot of room for squirminess either, it wasnât so easy punching in on a giant eight-track tape machine in 1968. You made one mistake on that verse? You do the whole thing again!
Okay, gotta ask, with as much exposition as youâd like â what was your favorite recording session(s); and worst recording session(s)?
Pretty much always subverted the disasters. A time or two I told a band, after seeing a live show, that they werenât quite ready to record yet; play a few more shows and practice a lot, record your practices and actually listen to them constructively. Studio time is expensive, practice time is (or at least was) cheap. You donât have to have every bit of every song nailed down exactly, but do have most everything pretty well figured out, and be ready for criticism during the recording. If the rhythm isnât working, be prepared to fine-tune your part so it is; if your harmony vocal is a half-step off, go ahead and adjust!
Some of the great sessions are those where I feel that I learned things, a new piece of gear, a new way of looking at things. Overwhelming Colorfast, Supersuckers, Les Thugs in France, The Meices in Florida⊠Or the records that just slammed out of nowhere. Devil Dogs, Flop, Supersnazz, Nashville Pussy. So many first albums by bands where they have been playing the songs at shows for a year or two, the tempos are up, the blood is pumping, get rid of the headphones and make it like youâre playing a gig. Play the song three times without stopping. Play three different songs in a row without stopping.
1999 (Courtesy of your's truly)
Youâre still actively producing. What have you worked on recently youâd like to highlight? And whatâs coming up?
Thereâs always some great Seattle band records going on â BĂŒrien, 38 Coffin, Once For Kicks, Insect Man, The Drolls, Zack Static. These days, some records take a while to finish, I suppose itâs the nature of the business now. Trying now to clean the slate and get these out the door before starting new ones!
And thereâs maybe a new Fastbacks coming, no?
There was no plan of any sort. We were having lunch as we sometimes do, and started talking about a couple songs it would be fun to learn and maybe record. Our pal Joe âMeiceâ Reineke had recently finished an ambitious and fantastic recording building in his back yard; wouldnât it be fun to check that outâŠ.? Well letâs call him and see what his schedule is. Oh! heâs got a day open, whaddayasay, letâs take it. Well thereâs a few other songs we could learn, letâs make it two days⊠I guess weâd better practice⊠What if we did enough songs for an album? Maybe we did! Got some band tracks, everyone played their butts off! Now we gotta make more magic. No target completion date nor avenue to release, but everyone is excited to finish it!
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Post Script: This article sprung from an editor at a national mag asking if I wanted to do a story on Kurt Bloch, which of course I said yes to cuz Kurt's a great guy and I've been a Fastbacks fan for a goodly spell. But some months passed and plans changed, and so here it is! Also, I would've put more videos in this piece because the Fastbacks have a ton of great songs, but I guess I just learned there is a 10-video limit for a tumblr post. Who knew?
All images courtesy of Kurt Bloch, except where noted.
#punk#fastbacks#Seattle rock#seattle scene#grunge#1990s punk#1990s rock#1990s#sub pop#nirvana#soundgarden#Kurt Bloch#garage punk#devil dogs#Mighty Joe Vincent#crypt records#Seattle punk#Conrad Uno#Egg Studio#mudhoney#nashville pussy#Presidents of the United States of America#robyn hitchcock#guns n roses#new bomb turks#gaunt#columbus ohio#Youtube
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okay fuckin' seriously here
the United States was not some exceptional stronghold of Nazi-Loving that suddenly switched teams over Pearl Harbour or whatever
The American Nazi movement was not large. It was a fringe movement of mostly recent German immigrants that got thoroughly embarrassed by antifascists. American racism (which, to be clear, was and is an enormous and mainstream political force) was largely ideologically incompatible with the Nazis; many dyed in the wool racists in the United States thought Hitler was nuts (in no small part because most of them were Anglo-Saxon supremacists still on the fence about German people being white).
Nazi Germany was not a well-liked state by pretty much anyone except, like, Austria. Not even the Italians really liked them, and they were allies. American media from the 1930s pretty consistently portrays the actual feelings most people had about Hitler and the Nazis; that they were warmongering maniacs and thank God there's an Atlantic in the way.
It always astonishes me that people lose their mind when they find out the Hindenberg had a big swastika on it and assume this means that Nazi Germany and the United States were super close allies right up until 1941. Like, the Soviets and United States weren't exactly friends during the Cold War, but Aerofloat planes with a big hammer and sickle on the side were landing every other day in JFK for decades flying the direct route from Moscow to New York.
President FDR's government fucking hated the Nazis; he was making preparations for war well before the actual declaration, and was material supporting Britain and the Soviets before the US joined formally. The Nazis were largely portrayed in American media as tyrants and bullies who exploited economic discontent to get people to sign away their rights and democracy, and while America could hardly be said to be friendly to Jewish people in the 1930s, what was happening in Germany was still not seen in a good light.
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Another thing you need to understand is that the United States was not a monolith on racism inside the United States. Jim Crow was not a beloved institution for people who weren't white Southerners. Putting aside, you know, the minority populations of the US themselves, and the genuine anti-racist activists, it still wasn't exactly something people were proud of outside its strongholds. The 1920s and 1930s are pretty much the absolute height of mainstream popularity of scientific racism and the Confederate Lost Cause in the United States across the political spectrum... and the American laws that Nazi Germany tried to model theirs on were still seen by many Americans as a shameful and backward institution whose brutality was unbecoming of "civilized people".
You know that thing about the past being a foreign country? It's not a joke; when we look at the past, we have the same knee-jerk out-group response to reduce and compress the breath of experience and opinion into a singular narrative. This post is a prime example.
The reality is that the United States in 1936 had four and a half million Jewish people in it who weren't exactly fans of the Nazis. 2,800 Americans volunteered to fight against the fascists in Spain in the XV International Brigade. When war was declared, millions of Americans volunteered.
The main reluctance in the US to join the war wasn't that they loved the Nazis and wanted them to win, it was that the US was highly isolationist after joining the First World War, and the popular perception that they had only done so as a cash grab for the arms industry (the 1934 book Merchants of Death was quite influential and lead to the 1936 Nye Committee in Congress which resulted in a series of Neutrality acts). They didn't want to get involved in a war that they didn't see as affecting them. Which is why the US did join the war once it did affect them, what with Pearl Harbour getting attacked.
Now putting all that aside, Indiana Jones has a lot of reasons to fucking hate Nazis, even before we point out he's directed by Steven Spielberg; he's an academic and archaeologist, he's probably already lost acquaintances to the Nazis when they purged German academia of leftists and Jews, and he's watched German archaeology become mired in conspiracy theories about ice planets and ancient aryans. He's got plenty of reasons.
BUT EVEN BEYOND THAT, Indiana Jones is a throwback movie. George Lucas wanted to make a blockbuster version of a 1940s Republic movie serial, the episodic pulp adventure stories that would play chapter-by-chapter in theatres and were basically the Marvel movies of the day. Republic made action-packed stories, among which was one of the foundational touchstones for Indiana Jones' globetrotting, nazi-punching adventures.... SPY SMASHER!
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>Watch trailer for Indiana Jones game >Think about how Indiana Jones really really hates nazis >Think about how Indiana Jones takes place in 1936 >Think about how America didn't join world war 2 until 1941 >Think about how nazi Germany got its ideas of racial hierarchy from the segregation in Jim Crow America >Think about how an upperclass white man in 1936 would actually be more likely to agree with nazi ideas, so there must be a specific reason why Indiana Jones hates nazis so much >Think about how Indiana Jones is a movie from 1981 >Think about how this was right after the Vietnam war, a war America lost real bad >Indiana Jones' anachronistic hatred of nazis is a form of WW2 nostalgia because Americans needed something to feel good about after losing real bad in Vietnam, and that was the only conflict in living history where Americans were the "good guys" >Think about how in current year, Indiana Jones hating nazis is positioned as "woke pandering"
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Jason Wilson at The Guardian:
Pete Hegseth, Trumpâs nominee for secretary of defense, has attacked several key US alliances such as Nato, allied countries such as Turkey and international institutions such as the United Nations in two recent books, as well as saying US troops should not be bound by the Geneva conventions. At the same time, the man who would head Americaâs gigantic military has tied US foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: âIf you love America, you should love Israel.â Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the US military should ignore the Geneva conventions and any international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead âunleash themâ to become a âruthlessâ, âuncompromisingâ and âoverwhelmingly lethalâ force geared to âwinning our wars according to our own rulesâ. Hegsethâs policy preferences may raise concerns about the future of Nato, the escalation of tensions with Israelâs arch-foe Iran, and impunity for US war criminals, such as those who Hegseth persuaded Trump to pardon in his first term. [...]
âEurope has already allowed itself to be invadedâ
While in the more distant past Hegseth was a foreign policy hawk aligned with neoconservatism, since what he has called his âTrump conversionâ, he has written scathingly of multilateral institutions. In American Crusade (AC), published in 2020, Hegseth asks bluntly: âWhy do we fund the anti-American UN? Why is Islamist Turkey a member of Nato?â Elsewhere in that book, Hegseth disparages the International Security Assistance Force, the UN security councilâs peacekeeping force sent to Afghanistan in 2006, with claims based on his own service in Afghanistan: âOn my camouflage uniform, I wore an American flag on one shoulder and an Isaf patch on the other,â he writes, adding: âThe running joke of US troops in Afghanistan was that the Isaf patch actually stood for âI Saw Americans Fightingâ.â Like Trump, Hegseth characterizes Nato allies as not paying their way: âNato is not an alliance; itâs a defense arrangement for Europe, paid for and underwritten by the United States.â
He also embeds criticisms of Nato in apocalyptic, âGreat Replacementâ-style narratives of European immigration. Hegseth writes at one point in AC: âEurope has already allowed itself to be invaded. It chose not to rebuild its militaries, happily suckling off the teat of Americaâs willingness to actually fight and win wars.â Hegseth is particularly incensed by the inclusion of Turkey in Nato. He argues that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan, âopenly dreams of restoring the Ottoman empireâ and is âan Islamist with Islamist visions for the Middle Eastâ.
âThe defense of Europe is not our problem; been there, done that, twice,â Hegseth writes, adding: âNato is a relic and should be scrapped and remade in order for freedom to be truly defended. âThis is what Trump is fighting for,â he concludes. The UN, meanwhile, he calls âa fully globalist organization that aggressively advances an anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-freedom agenda. Hereâs one set of rules for the United States and Israel, another for everyone else.â On Hegsethâs characterization of Turkey as Islamist â the same descriptor he uses for militant non-state actors such as Isis â Hill said: âItâs extremist rhetoric thatâs trying to paint literal treaty allies as illegitimate actors.â
âIf you love America, you should love Israelâ
Hegsethâs belief in the UNâs bias against Israel mirrors his deepest apparent commitments: that any vision of international cooperation is rooted in his support of Israel, which at times he couches in religious terms. In a striking passage in AC he presents his support for Israel against as a renewal of medieval crusades. âOur present moment is much like the 11th century,â he writes in AC, adding: âWe donât want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians a thousand years ago, we must. We need an American crusade.â He adds: âWe Christians â alongside our Jewish friends and their remarkable army in Israel â need to pick up the sword of unapologetic Americanism and defend ourselves.â Hegseth continues: âFor us as American crusaders, Israel embodies the soul of our American crusade â the âwhyâ to our âwhatâ.â Hegseth concludes: âFaith, family, freedom, and free enterprise; if you love those, learn to love the state of Israel. And then find an arena in which to fight for her.â
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âWe will rip your arms off and feed them to hogsâ
In 2024âs The War on Warriors, Hegseth argues at length that US forces should ignore the Geneva conventions and other elements of international law governing the conduct of war. In the book, Hegseth asks: âThe key question of our generation â of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan â is way more complicated: what do you do if your enemy does not honor the Geneva conventions? âWe never got an answer. Only more war. More casualties. And no victory.â Hegsethâs answer is that the conventions should be ignored. âWhat if we treated the enemy the way they treated us?â he asks. âWould that not be an incentive for the other side to reconsider their barbarism? Hey, Al Qaeda: if you surrender, we might spare your life. If you do not, we will rip your arms off and feed them to hogs.â He then writes: âWe are just fighting with one hand behind our back â and the enemy knows it ⊠If our warriors are forced to follow rules arbitrarily and asked to sacrifice more lives so that international tribunals feel better about themselves, arenât we just better off winning our wars according to our own rules?!â
He continues: âWho cares what other countries think?â Hill said Hegsethâs rhetoric blamed âliberal ideasâ for military defeat in a way that resembled the narratives far-right movements have historically used to scapegoat their political opponents for military defeats.
The Guardian reports on potential Trump Misadministration II Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth wrote in two different books that the US should ignore the Geneva Conventions, launches childish criticisms against NATO, and unapologetically defends Israelâs Apartheid by whining about âanti-Israelâ bias against the UN.
#Trump Administration II#Pete Hegseth#Geneva Convention#US Miltary#US Department of Defense#Department of Defense#Israel#United Nations#NATO#American Crusade#Great Replacement Theory#Islamophobia#The War On Warriors
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Welcome, Stranger
This is the Presidents' Blog. The purpose is to find out which president -based on looks alone- would be the most frightening to meet in a dark alley. (You are unsure of his intentions.)
Here is the bracket showing the polls' progress, which we will update.
Note: Before we get started, neither the bracket base nor the art of the presidents belongs to us.
#Presidents' Day#President#Presidents#Poll#Dark Alley#USA#Presidents of The United States of America#Poll bracket
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doing a ClanGen run themed around the Presidents of the United States of America's first album and this is officially the best cat in any ClanGen run ever
#the lyric his name comes from is âpussy purring and looking so satisfiedâ from kitty btw#and yes it refers to An Actual Cat but STILL#clangen#presidents of the united states of america#i also did a run based on the buggles' first album but i ran out of good names in <100 moons </3
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peaches in your heart
#my music#mashup#phil collins#tarzan#presidents of the united states of america#peaches#song#music#in the air tonight#comedy music
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