Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Joseph McRedmond Interview + TCR Unreleased Demos w/ Alex Dunham



'An Open Bottle'


First of all, here's a set of unreleased demo tracks from the Crownhate Ruin with Alex Dunham that were temporarily lost from the internet - Joe McRedmond still has them on tape - but which have resurfaced recently. This is what the man himself said about them on his Facebook page, apparently:

"Some unreleased not very good, poorly recorded The Crownhate Ruin songs with Alex joining us, and David Titus Batista on drums. I’ll be surprised if you enjoy it."

True, they're not great sound quality, but they're still a fascinating - and enjoyable - listen if you want to hear the sound of the Crownhate Ruin paired with some of the extra guitar/vocal pyrotechnics of Regulator Watts. Essentially an album's worth of new songs - tracklisting at the bottom of the post - plus a great version of 'Blood Relative' from Until the Eagle Grins:

Download (thanks to Nick at dischord dot org)


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Secondly, here's an interview I did in the last couple of days with Joe McRedmond - the guitarist for Hoover and the Crownhate Ruin, as well as many other Hoover-related projects (see below).

If you want to hear what he's doing now - and I definitely recommend this - check out Saggiatore.


Tell us about yourself:

My name is Joseph P. McRedmond, I am a half Irish half Sicilian male born and I am considered tall.

Of the various bands you played with after Crownhate, i.e. The Boom, The Sorts, Sea Tiger, etc., which albums/singles did you record on?

I remember recording on a couple of songs with Sea Tiger, The Sorts last record "Six Plus", touring with the Boom, recording on the Him record "New Features", playing bass on two Michael Nace LP's, recording demos with The Perfect Souvenir with Vin, and many practice tapes and live recordings of Rancho Notorious, and unheard demos playing bass with Gun, and a couple of singles with Admiral before all of this. [Edit - and my short lived project with James Brady from Trusty called "The Velvet Kid"; there is 1 limited edition single out there somewhere. I think Tanzania.]

Of those groups, were there any experiences that were especially memorable, or groups that you enjoyed playing with the most?

I remember them being all memorable at the time it was happening.

Within Hoover - e.g. 'Electrolux', and 'Relectrolux/Electrodub' - and in later groups like the Sorts, and in Regulator Watts as well, there's a lot of dub influence: I know that's common with a lot of Dischord and related bands, but was there anything or anyone specific it came from in Hoover? Or was everybody into it equally?

Everybody turned each other on to different musics, we would all bring mix tapes and would request things when necessary...and Jamaican music is the best music, as you can see in its influence on the world...there'd be no hip hop without Jamaica...it's deep late night party music with your friends usually with a message.

Until the Eagle Grins is usually the first record people get into after The Lurid Traversal. When you started up The Crownhate Ruin with Fred Erskine, what was the musical idea behind it? Where did you want to go from Hoover?

To keep playing and touring and recording and find a good drummer. and that's just what we did. And then we would jam forever and take our time putting music together and mostly just play as much as possible. We did a lot of quick out of town trips those two years.

What was the origin of the name Crownhate Ruin?

On the way home from rehearsal one night we passed a Crown Gas Station and Fred said "What do you think of the name The Crown Ruins? and I said what about the Crownhate Ruin? and then it was the name.

Kerosene 454 are listed in the thanks for Until the Eagle Grins, and I heard that you jammed with the Wall brothers for a while. Apart from the label (Slowdime Records), what was the connection with that band?

I originally met Alex in the summer of 1989 in Pittsburgh when Admiral played a show with Wind of Change which also featured Jim and John Wall. When Alex moved to DC he moved in with me, and I was already playing with Fred and Chris after Chris and my band with Geoff Farina of Karate, (our band was called Victor Deluxe) broke up after two shows as Geoff decided to move back to Boston. Alex started playing with us of course. On our first tour we played some shows with Kerosene, and then they moved from LA to DC. Hung out together at parties and more and more people move out here. In the middle of The Crownhate Ruin times, Fred and I moved into a house directly behind Kerosene's house, so we put two ladders up and climbed the chain link fence. After Crownhate and Kerosene broke up we had a little band called Vita Bruno with Jim, John, Vin, and myself. Rehearsed for a year and never got anywhere. Then Fred asked me to join The Boom, with a little prodding by myself, to go on a tour of Europe. John Wall was in the band at the time. We would practice in the Kerosene house. While we were gone, Vin replaced us with Mike Markarian who I lived with and Brandon Butler. They played as Vita Bruno til Brandon replace everybody and started an earlier version of Canyon.

The unreleased Crownhate demos with Alex Dunham are pretty much all new songs, apart from 'Blood Relative'. How likely was a second Crownhate Ruin album?

It was very likely, but we just couldn't play together anymore... Fred was busier with June of 44, Alex with Regulator and Vin with school. So David and I continued playing together off and on.

What do you think about the term 'emo' (or its sister codeword, '90s post-hardcore')?

I don't think about shit like that.

Anything in current punk or hardcore, or post-hardcore that you still listen to or enjoy?

The Eternals. The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, the more funky stuff.

Favourite record (new or old, I guess) of 2008?

Kutiman's "Kutiman" or the Jackson Conti record.

Favourite record in the Hoover family tree (that you didn't play on?)

The Him record "Universe Peoples" or "Many in High Places Are Not Well" or The 2nd Boom record "Any Day of The Night", or The Sorts "Contemporary Music" or most of the Sea Tiger LP.

Favourite record in the Hoover family tree (that you did play on?)

The 3rd Boom LP that never got released, but I have on soulseek.

Thanks

No sweat.


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Demo tracklisting:

10. An Open Bottle

11. The Two Fuckers

12. Trapped Like A Mime

13. As Your Hatred Grows

14. Baby Blue and Black

15. Blood Relative

16. Dismantling Hell

17. Success


(6- An alternate version of 'Open Bottle', from this four-song, 8-track recorded first demo by the band, from 1995 - thanks to Matt)


31 comments:

Allsnop said...

Amazing. I'm jealous that you got to chat with Joe. I'm also now going to hunt down that 3rd Boom LP.
And as for these demos, I have them, for some reason, and they're dated. October 26th, 1996. I have another 4-song demo from 1995 featuring that alternate version of An Open Bottle you have plus Baby Blue and Black, Tired of Feeling Fool's Gold and No Claim Enemy. I will gladly share it with you, I just need to upload it first.

Also, I took that WFMU Hoover radio session that you linked a while back and cut it up into tracks, tagged it all, and got rid of non-hoover radio broadcast going on at the end. Would you like that too? I wasn't sure if you had done it already or not.

lex dexter said...

oh my god, Matt, please avail all us nerds of those audio tracks to which you just referred.

gabba - congrats. you have raised the bar yet again.

gabbagabbahey said...

matt - yes, do that... I have the tracklisting for the WFMU show, but it wasn't my recording or upload. that makes sense about the demos, too.

lex - *gracious bow*

the Hoover Genealogy Project just got a mention on an excellent new 90s hardcore blog by Scott of Pretty Goes With Pretty, itself a well-established great 00s indie blog. check it out:

http://doyoucompute.tumblr.com/

lex dexter said...

by the way, that saggiatore stuff is righteous. i can't believe how all of mcredmond's favorite Hoover-related albums are the ones i know the least about. so exciting!

Allsnop said...

Okay, sorry for the wait- I was on a couple of slow connections and had to travel across Maine so it took me a little longer than usual to upload this stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tunqmidimdl

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ooiqn55kzgm

Those two links above are the Hoover WFMU Show, split into two archives because together it was too large for mediafire.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2jznni2n33n

This link just above is the 4-Song demo I mentioned (Confusing because it was done on an 8-track, while the 8-song demo Gabba posted was done on a 4-track).

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zi2y2ngtnvm

And this is the Crownhate Ruin WFMU show. Both this TCR show and the Hoover WFMU show have been cut up into separate tracks by song and then labeled. I obtained these through links in Gabba's post here:http://hardcorefornerds.blogspot.com/2008/09/live-on-wfmu-hoover-lincoln-and.html .

Also, I haven't yet split up the Lincoln WFMU show, and I'm not sure if I will right away.

Anonymous said...

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gabbagabbahey said...

lex - most of them are available on Insound, too. I checked!

matt - many thanks for doing that. although I have to say I did like listening to the radio shows all in one track... it's probably more useful this way.

keseyoke - thanks

proven hollow said...

heck yeah, somebody get that 3rd boom album!

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

Hello fellas....I could upload or otherwise make that The Boom stuff available...now that I think of it, though it's in my soulseek (UN: saggiatore) i may not have labeled it correctly and it may be in a folder called "unknown" which I have many of. I can figure that all out if nobody else can find it. Besides the saggiatore stuff on myspace, I have a previously recorded instrumental thing as well that I can also make available, all of which is on last.fm as well if you subscribe there....otherwise, all you all be good to yourselves.

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

oh, and I think I made some typos in the interview...I meant to say "born in Brooklyn and moved to Pennsylvania when I was six" not "half sicilian male born..".
Also, I have been talking to Mike Harbin and Tom Pearson about releasing a Sacred Hate/Fuse/The Homecoming/Admiral recording and you can know more about that in upcoming weeks.

dogbeardbirdbeer said...

Thanks for these tracks and the interview!
great blog.
Thanks Joseph! I'll be looking for you on ssx.

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

I posted the Homecoming demo, a band that was after Sacred Hate, but before Fuse, Admiral, Hoover, etc. from around 1987 -88. you can find it temporarily at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KWOA0T1V

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

and here also is two demos I did on 4 track back in 1993 for your listening enjoyment http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8X2Q3SBJ

Allsnop said...

Thank you very much for these, Joe. I'm anxious to listen. Thank you.

JNH said...

Wow. I seriously thought I'd never get to hear these (I've been waiting since 1997!). They sound great, too!
I had always wondered if TCR were as prolific as I thought and between this and the WFMU live set, it definitely confirms that I had heard a lot of songs live that were never released. If only Al had sang on a few of these...

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping McRedmond checks back here...

I'd like to talk about Admiral. I've heard that there was an LP recorded but never released. True? I have a copy of that live set with Fugazi at Sacred Heart Church and it is absolutely amazing. Are there other live or otherwise versions of those songs - Lucy, Try to Forget, Shelves on Shelves, etc?
If you have any of that stuff and could post it, that would be amazing!

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

No, Admiral never recorded anything for an LP...I think what's his face, from Ebullition, can't remember his name right now..he was planning on doing a full length with the singles and maybe the live stuff. I know I have a tape somewhere with other live stuff, just have to find it and convert it, and I also have at least two VHS tapes that I have been meaning to convert to digital, and when I do, I'll put stuff up on youtube.

gabbagabbahey said...

kent -

"There is also a chance that Ebullition will do an Admiral discography CD, though this will probably be a very limited release. Very little details on this release are available at this time, and hell, it might not happen... hard to tell at this point. If I was going to bet on this one I would place my bets on never going to happen. (Personally, I am starting to doubt this will happen)"

(http://www.ebullition.com/news.html#3)

doesn't sound too promising!

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

Yeah, Kent McClard...I kept on thinking Ken, but it just didn't seem right...and wasn't.
That quote from him from his sight is a few years old too, so I am sure he is not going to do it, but a friend of ours, Tom Pearson, from The Moshed Potatoes, was talking to me and Mike Harbin recently about wanting to put out a Sacred Hate, Homecoming, Fuse, & Admiral sampler or something, but then I saturated the web with these free downloads of everything I can find and have converted so far. Have I made available The Perfect Souvenir, live at DCAC yet? I also have to convert an entire Rancho Notorious live set. Keeping me off the streets.

Allsnop said...

Thanks for everything so far, Joe. Getting a hold of these old recordings has really been an exciting experience.

I don't think you've made available The Perfect Souvenir.

Also, does the 3rd Boom lp have a title? And why has it not been released?

Thanks again for everything.

gabbagabbahey said...

matt - 'A Death of A Star', apparently, and it's complicated. well, basically Slowdime folded, but there's a complicated story behind that...

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

let's consider this a pre-release and y'all can send me your different ideas/proposals for artwork.

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

Think to download The Perfect Souvenir at DCAC is http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JK429ERU

Anonymous said...

PLEASE be sure to upload those Admiral live tapes and videos... I saw a live video of Admiral and it was absolutely amazing - closed with "Shelves on Shelves." Wow. Linwood was an amazing vocalist.

gabbagabbahey said...

Admiral live at Sacred Heart, 1990: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I9W2L8JV

Saggiatore recordings : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q89UDPGG
&
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0UNY0ZMT

gabbagabbahey said...

http://www.myspace.com/saggiatore (it's in the post already)

and just got this today:
http://www.myspace.com/freddietandthepeople

nicepooperzine said...

Hey Joe, Andyp from Hummelstown here. Thanks a billion for posting that Homecoming demo! OMG as they say... hope all is well with you. take care... andyp

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

Some Rancho Notorious for you...another short lived band with me, and Brian Gibson & Mike Markarian from The Perfect Souvenir http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RZ4W51RI

Happy valentine's day.

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

here is a recording of Rancho Notorious Live at the Black Cat 5-30-04, also the night I met my fiance http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JBGGO6ZY

Anonymous said...

hello guys and hello to Joseph!

I have to say that CD-R that Fred gave us with third The Boom album said "LIFE OF A STAR", so probably that's the right title.

By the way,Joseph, do you know what the fuck is going on with the PLAYED TOMORROW album? I can't wait anymore....

I hope I have the time one day or another to put on a DVD The Boom show in Barcelona (featuring John Wall, I think) and send you a copy. that's was the surprise I promised you like 4 years ago. Sorry! :)

Oh! Once again, the HOOVER show in the Sant Feliu Festival made my day!

Take care!

Joseph P. McRedmond said...

yeah, yeah, Life of a Star sounds familiar...
Played Tomorrow (Josh & Chris from the Sorts & some other folks) finished recording and mastering and those versions are on their myspace. Don't know when it'll come out...seems like all the labels are closing down over here in the USA. No more Gypsy Eyes, no new releases from T&G.
It was good to see you at the festival.
I would still love to see that video, there's no youtube in Spain?
Hope to see you soon.