Was swapping emails with an old buddy of mine, Bob (Lack Of Interest / Deep Six Records) found out another old buddy of ours, Ron Kuka (him and Bob were tight) had died of cancer last year. Kicking myself because I had been meaning to get in touch with him for a long while. Bob, Ron and I went to Luther Burbank Junior High School together back in the early 80's, but unfortunately those two went on to the other high school in Burbank. We managed to stay in touch pretty well though through our mutual love of extreme music. In high school I was more involved in drinking beer and really I was a pussy compared to those guys because they were going to shows every weekend. And they would go anywhere, sometimes real nasty parts of LA, to see bands. I think they even got mugged/jumped a couple of times but that didn't stop them. I have a few cassette of live shows they recorded. I don't think I ever went to a show with those two, but I do remember hitting up record stores with them all over SoCal. Fast forward to college, for me, from 87-93, and I'm still in touch with mostly Ron, not sure what Bob was doing, other than working at the same place he probably works today. I would come down from Humboldt to visit my Mom and would stop in to see Ron every so often, we both shared an affinity for the best Mother Nature could provide. I used to send him care packages from up North. When I used to visit we would kick it in his room, smoke a doob, listen to music and he would dub tapes for me. I'll never forget when he played this for me... Fear Of God - As Statues Fell. He was single-handedly responsible for enlightening me to Excel, Dead Horse, Tankard, Napalm Death, Neanderthal, Infest, Extreme Noise Terror, Chaos UK, Electro Hippies, Pungent Stench, No For An Answer, Attitude Adjustment, Spastic Blur, Wiermacht, Heresy, Stark Raving Mad, Hirax, F.C.D.N Tormentor...shit the list goes on and on, I was just reading the names off the cassette I still have. Really good times, you know the care free variety, where all that matters is what you're doing at that moment. Time gets away from you though, I got graduated, got married and moved to San Diego so we stopped having those visits, it's a shame because he was one hell of a guy. A tall glass of water and a wide cup of coffee to you Ron.
Other than Fear of God the one release that Ron turned me onto, that hit me the hardest, was the Assück / Old Lady Drivers split. Released in 1991, I'm positive that's when I first heard it. Old Lady Drivers is a REAL trip of a band, but unfortunately I never really followed up on listening to more of their stuff (I'm changing that now). Assuck, on the other hand, I ended up getting all of their records I could find and have even posted at least one here at MR. One of my favorite bands ever, combining incredible musicianship with "deep" lyrics, I'm sure that some of my hearing damage is a result of listening to them at ungodly volume levels. Both bands are worth looking into if you're into anything hard, I've labelled them as "post-hardcore", but in this case that really just means some whacked out form of grindcore. Don't let that dissuade you though, this is the real deal, not some washed out crap for the masses.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF2BAs-dIxw&w=560&h=315]
No comments:
Post a Comment