Vol 6 - LSOKing

When I was a teenager most of my bands had one of three lead singers.  The first was myself, I have a good memory for lyrics but have never been the greatest singer.  Second, and best, was RJ who sang on all the LSOK records, he was a great songwriter and had great taste in music, but in 1996 his parents moved to Florida, and 17 year old RJ moved with them.  That brings us to number 3, Jamie King.

Jamie was a troublemaker, an unapologetic petty criminal from the time he was born.  Jamie could not read or write and often disappeared for months at a time, but when I returned from Florida after an abortive attempt at keeping the band together, he was the obvious choice for lead singer.

It was early 1997 and Last Sons had two records out and bass player Roy planned to kick off his brand new Kryptonite label with some new songs by us.  Original bassist Ann stayed in Florida, and Roy took over, as mentioned in our article in MaximumRocknRoll magazine.

Jamie had a great attitude, lots of arrogance and would often declare himself a better singer than stiv bators and dave vanian put together.  unfortunately his songwriting and phrasing were pedestrian, and while he might have been technically a better singer than RJ, overall his delivery was less than outstanding.

These recordings were the first demos we made with Jamie as lead singer in LSOK, and 4 track stuff from one of our practices.  Eventually we did get stuff hammered out for a record, but at the last minute RJ came back from Florida for a week and we recorded "Teenage Trash".  Roy had to call united record pressing and have them delay the record and he sent in the new tapes, and the rest is history...

Jamie King - Vocals
Brad X - Guitar
Trent - Drums
Brent - Guitar
Roy - Bass

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?12hyr2qlelxd2tc

01 - Teenage Zombie
02 - I Want Your Ass
03 - Mongoloid
04 - Baby Gimme Head
05 - Insomnia
06 - Teenage Kicks
07 - All This and More
08 - Belsen Was a Gas

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?12hyr2qlelxd2tc

Last Sons of Krypton - BULGE EP 7"

I sent local punk rock legend Rev. Norb a cassette of my band back in early 1996.  At the time I was not quite 18 and still lived with my mother and attended high school.  One day when I got home there was a message on the answering machine.  Norb wanted to put out our record!  I was real excited and he offered to pay for us to go to the studio and hammer out some polished up recordings. 

We were not used to the recording process, and the studio being in the dude's basement didn't make us feel any more comfortable.  Early in the day, it was snowing outside, our singer had a cold and was a chainsmoker so every time he needed a smoke he had to go out and it made his voice that much worse.  Producer's wife and screaming baby had to be encountered whenever someone had to use the toilet.  Not a great way to set a bunch of punks at ease. 

We were the type of band that normally hung a shitty radio shack mic over the drums and figured it was good enough.  Apparently our snare drum sound was not good enough for the producer, and he spent several hours tuning the drum, placing mics and never being satisfied.  Eventually we went and rented a snare drum, and after all that bullshit he spent about 5 minutes setting all the levels for the rest of the drums.

I put some effort into and am proud of my guitar sound and the overdubs we did, but the bass was sporadic and the vocals were weak.  I did my best to make up for it in the mixing process, but again the producer was really not getting it.  Again and again he would mix, and the guitars were lacking high end and volume, the drums overpowering everything and vocals way too loud.  It was like he was accenting everything bad about us and neutering everything good.

Finally after 3 days in the studio I was allowed to set the EQ's myself on the guitars and we got out of there with 5 or 6 songs.  I thought they sucked and tried for a month to call Norb and tell him to put out the 4 track versions instead, but he was out of town or something and when the pink vinyl arrived it was the studio versions on the record.  Our drummer and rhythm guitar player were listed on the sleeve as "Black Girl" and "Banana Ass" a detail they were not aware of until the records arrived. 

http://www.mediafire.com/?8vaqke8enr1g5tq

Mark B

A couple years back my old friend Mark B asked me about making a record.  He didn't want a million copies, just enough for himself and a couple friends, and he offered me the flip side.  We got the singles lathe cut in New Zealand soon after, and the BradX vs. MarkB single was the result.  Here is the Mark B side of that single:


http://blip.tv/file/get/Bradx-markb685.mp3

The Evolutions Yakisikana Single

Again I find myself with time to kill and nothing much to do.  So let's take a trip back in time, all the way to the year 2006...

My friends The Reacharounds had broken up a couple years before,  we offered to bring Roy down to pick his shit up from Wendy but he considered it all gone and after a couple years Wendy offered to give me a bunch of the records and tapes.  That is how I acquired many of the Kryptonite Records master tapes, they were essentially abandoned property. 

This episode of Raping the Tape Vault is The Evolutions single on yakisikana, as mixed by myself in 2006 from the master tape.  I had nothing to do with the  making of this tape nor do I play on it.  This is Roy and Jamie, produced by Roy from early 2000. 

http://blip.tv/file/get/Bradx-theEvolutions189.mp3

order the record here:

http://www.dionysusrecords.com/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=1222

Vol 2 - LSOK LP

I suppose I should get this out of the way.  When my parents got divorced, my mom's lawyer said their sons should meet because we sounded alot alike.  A year or two later I met RJ and we started playing music together.  We tried every mix, and on Thanksgiving 1995 he picked up the microphone and history was made.

Over the next 4 years RJ and myself appeared with ever changing lineups as the almighty Last Sons of Krypton, playing all over the area and releasing a handful of vinyl records.  I recorded most of what I did in those days, and once the band wrapped up in 1999 we had over 50 hours of unreleased material.

Through the next several years a couple people seemed interested in releasing a best of collection of our unreleased songs, and finally Trick Knee records agreed to put out a CD, and remastered the old recordings and got some cover art done.

Eventually RJ was busted for some dateline type bullshit and Trick Knee backed out of the record deal.  At that point I stepped in and raised money to release it myself through $18 preorders on internet message boards.

Several years later those limited lathe cut records were shipped.  Here is a digital rip of one:

side A
http://blip.tv/file/get/Bradx-lastSonsOfKrypton142.mp3
and side b
http://blip.tv/file/get/Bradx-lastSonsOfKryptonB535.mp3

Vol 1 - Reacharounds / Evolutions

Here in Manitowoc every summer we have an  airshow.  Stunt pilots fly around all weekend and it brings people to the area from all over.  In the summer of 2001, I lived in a small upper apartment with my lovely wife Amber.  During Airshow weekend we had some friends over and did some recordings.

My friends Roy and Jamie started The Evolutions in 1999 with myself and my ex, Liz.  Liz and I moved to Florida and recorded The Smuts side of our split single with The Evolutions, which were a 2 piece with Roy and Jamie at that point.

 Roy

 Jamie

Early in 2000 Roy played me some of The Evolutions newest recordings, but as excited as I was about them, I made the choice to move with my buddy Steve down to Florida, where we recorded The Smuts "She Got Me Hot" single.

Upon returning a few months later, I rejoined The Evolutions and played several gigs with Roy and Jamie before Roy moved to Milwaukee to be with his new girl Wendy.  I knew who Wendy was from her decent surf/garage/punk band The Lookers who put out one great single and showed up on the scene just about the time we were fading, but that's another story for another time.

By the time airport days were here in 2001 Roy had a new project with Wendy called The Reacharounds.  I had never heard them, and he had not heard my new project with Jamie, which was pretty much a continuation of his writing style in The Evolutions.  Both bands recorded two songs and nobody was really happy with any of it.

Roy and Wendy were way out of sync with each other, and Jamie didn't even bother learning the words to one of the songs we did.  Its probably worthwhile to set the stage...

Back in those days step one would have been to find a bag of weed.  Nobody knew anyone reliable at that point, but Steve, who I had just returned from Florida with and happened to be hanging out that day, thought he might know someone.  I was driving this shitty old red pontiac from the early 80s with no exhaust system, roaring across town from place to place, no luck.  Finally we ended up in some shitty house with a bunch of Mexicans who were having a birthday party for their 12 year old daughter.  They sent us down the street a couple houses.

So here we were, walking up the stairs into this house neither of us had been to before, and we walked into the room and it was a guy who used to sing in the band with us!  Tiny little half black dude with one ear, who has since OD'ed and died.  I remember when he was a kid in school and I would destroy this little fuck at football, but I always thought we were cool until that day.  All he would say is "No" and like, get the fuck out.

Steve and myself walked back to the Mexicans and asked if they knew anyone else, they didn't but one lady offered to help out.  She walked down the street to the exact house we had just come from and brought us a bag back for a $5 fee.  Well, big Mr. dealer down the road caught wind of what was up and he was none too happy.

Before we had a chance to get out of the place, in walked The Enforcer.  No idea who this guy was, but he was pissed off that we had the Mexican chick score the sack, not sure what he was trying to do, but before he had a chance to say much Steve layed him out on a table in front of a group full of 12 year old mexican kids and beat the guy bloody.  I remember lots of colorful decorations, banners, cake, and the mouths hanging wide open of a group of scared children watching someone getting smashed through their party table and beaten down right in front of them.

So yeah, we made it back home and it was a sweaty little 12x12 room in an upper apartment, 7 or 8 punks playing some shitty music and recording with radio shack mics onto a hundred dollar 4 track cassette.  Noise made to pass the time by morons the world mostly didn't care about, for nobody to hear, and it probably should have been lost to the sands of time but here it is:

http://blip.tv/file/get/Bradx-AirportDay376.mp3

Sure, the sound is shitty.  I probably recorded over the original tape the next week.  This is some lousy mix I made a decade ago onto some crappy tape that was probably recorded over a million times.  It's the only mix and it's as good as it gets, so enjoy it for what it is or fuck off.

RTTV intro

Hi there!!!  Welcome to my new blog, Raping the Tape Vault.  I am Brad X and I spent the majority of my teens and twenties playing in shitty punk rock bands.  I also spent much of that time recording my bands and anyone around me I was interested in when I had the opportunity.  Many of my tapes ended up on record.  However, much has remained unreleased and unheard by anyone outside the group of people who played on them.  I decided out of drunken boredom to start this non profit blog for the purpose of transferring some of these old recordings to digital and uploading them to the internet to share with the world!  Most of the tapes have a story that goes with them, I will do my best to remember and tell the stories without incriminating anyone involved to the best of my ability.  We were some punk ass kids and we got into some trouble, the cops even had us labeled as a gang.  I tried reasoning with them that we were a band, but they said "You are a group of people who are involved in criminal activity together on a regular basis - you are a gang."  Well here is some of the noise our gang made, the best of what has not dissolved into dust through the sands of time and homelessness in my youth, here is Raping the Tape Vault!!!  Enjoy!!!