the PELL MELL/Steve Fisk/Greg Freeman/etc. thread

And I forgot that Greg Freeman had recorded Royal Trux....

To correct one sentence up there myself:

"And while they may not have had a huge fanbase, those few bands likely formed many well known bands later themselves. (sorry to use that VU cliché, but it is somewhat true.)"

"bands" meant to be "fans"... sorry.

...

I also do want to touch on Pigeonhed a bit more, and why I think they were about 5-10 years ahead of their time... but later. I have to get to work soon. (Also, I think Pigeonhed were clearly the first electronic band to get a Sub Pop release, now that I think about it.)

His former studio (Lowdown) was located right smack dab in the middle of centerfield in what is now known as SBC Park (formerly Pac Bell Park), home of the San Francisco Giants.

To this day, some friends of mine in Portland and I scream, to break any quiet point in a conversation:

"ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF, CANADAAAAAAAAAAAAA???!!!"

Actually, college radio slept on Pigeonhed bigtime. Then again, the timing couldn't have been worse. It was 1992/1993. Who had just come along and "changed everything"? Right, them Stockton CA boys. So, anything that was attempting success in the college radio realm that had a white guy singing, in any way/shape/form, more "soulfully" than then-gritty Greg Dulli was seen as The Plague, Michael McDonald, or Eddie Vedder (in the middle of the biggest peak of Pearl Jam backlash at the time).. choose the more potent poison. College radio DJs generally poo-pooed any male rock vocalist that didn't sound like a) Steve Malkmus or b) Page Hamilton.

That said, I admit sleeping on Pigeonhed (for completely different reasons.. there was only so much I could afford to explore, and they just happened to be something "I'll get to later" and never did) as well, so THIS is where you, the Pigeonhed fan, come in and give mass praise to the goodness of Steve Fisk and/or Shawn Smith, and convince me to get their entire catalog (well, their three albums/EPs)

(Ned?)

However, the albums that bookend it, Flow and Star City, respectively, are absolutely amazing.. Each of the main three albums are different, but are all great to absolute fucking classic.

So if anyone can't find a copy for ninety-nine cents, I'd be happy to work out a trade!

personally i don't care all that much for fisk's sampley projects like the SJB record or pigeonhead. they are too loopy but i guess that figures, seeing when they were made, and probably on an ensoniq or some such.

i feel kind of bad saying it but i still consider shawn smith's best work to be the first satchel record

Haha, I go to that Fred Meyer twice a week. To know that many albums I adore are made there is really giving me a head rush right now.

I don't have much to add except to echo the Pell Mell love - I've played "Interstate", "Flow" and "Star City" hundreds of times. And to tell you that I heard a track from "Interstate" used as incidential music on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" episode. It's the one entitled "George K." with the buff personal trainer with the body of Hercules, and the face of a Golden Retriever. (Not the best combo...) I think he's chopping up rosemary or something while the music plays.

WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY SAY ANYTHING GOD FUCKING DAMMIT????

I also may be one of 17 people who have any love for Fisk's 999 Levels of Undo,

So I heard Love Tractor for the first time playing as in-between music at the Sub Pop festival this past weekend. Very Pell Mell/Shadowy Men, but perhaps predating both?

Anyway, listening to early Pell Mell, and every time I do, I feel they were the best band ever.

Goddamn do I uberbullshit above. Sorry guys.

How dare you talk about things.

i never realized greg freeman had been in the Call, and further, never realized that BRMC is fronted by Michael Been's son, and that Michael Been is their sound engineer.

I was obsessed with these truckers just before I discovered IDM. Eeeek.

In those heady days trading recordings like they did was fucking revolutionary

Did they have something to do with Volcano Suns, or am i dreaming again?

there's likely a Mission Of Burma friendship/connection that connects the two groups somehow. Also Beerman, Owen, and Spalding had lived in New England, if not currently.

Pell Mell and Volcano Suns both put out an album called Bumper Crop in 1987!

i pulled out an old mix tape yesterday... the pell mell track shines. yaya. colliding universes.

We opened for Pell Mell in... well, a LONG time ago, around the time of Rhyming Guitars. Fucking tore the roof off (them, not us). Anyway, that's how Steve met Bill & Bob, although the initial contact came either through Pavitt's networking for Sub Pop mag, or me and Steve doing ad sales for OP. At that point there was a bustling scene in P-land with The Rats (Fred Cole et al), the awesome Neo-Boys (who put out records on Greg Sage's Trap Records), and of course The Wipers. We played @ a collectively run hall, who's name escapes me.

Other trivia: Ray Farrell was Pell Mell's manager before, or during, the time he was @ DGC, which is how they came to have records released on a major. Steve emailed me last night that he and Bob are working on new Cut-Out material.

BTW Bob Beerman was one of my pantheon of underrated rock drummers with Tim Mooney (Toiling Midgets et al), Bill Rieflin (Blackouts, Ministry), and Mac McNeilly (who, yeah, is not underrated on this forum).

wau! Which band were you in, factcheckr, if you wish to give it away?

I forgot to mention that Fisk still does cool one-off performances around Seattle and the PacNW. Late in 2008, he helped debut an electronic music based clubhouse where he improvised electronic music to a silent film called The Hands Of Orlac. Fisk was using modular synths and regular synths all making this deeply early-Throbbing-Gristle growl and buzz. Like there was doubt, but the man can still dish out eery, bowel-churning music like no one's bizniz.

I only know the Interstate album but man, do I like that one.

"Thank God for those people back in the 1980s."

(blush) Tiny Holes (Fisk, Steve Peters, Paul Tyson, Bruce Pavitt) & John Foster's Pop Philosophers (same minus Pavitt, plus Foster), and a bunch of lesser lights. Also Gary Wilson's NW touring band (2 gigs only) w/Peters and Fisk and maybe Tyson. I think the gig in Portland with Pell Mell was a Pop Philosophers set. Tiny Holes has a track on the LAFMS Lightbulb Emergency cassette.

John was the editor/publisher of OP magazine for those who remember and did some tracks w/Fisk on the Life Elsewhere EP that has Fisk's immortal version of "Woodstock". Anyone who was at the Fugazi gig @ the IPU fest in Oly got treated to a rare (and probably most recent) performance of the man.

I still do some stuff with Fisk. Search for "WOW!".

loved rhyming guitars and the K cassettes back in the day. subsequent pell mells on SST & DGC (WTF) less so, but they're still pretty good. 448 deathless days has some excellent, memorable stuff, especially the ultra-creepy bits and this vacuum (w/ the screaming trees). it's been ages, but i also remember digging diamond club, johnny smoke, break on thru (the hit) and chakiri bushi. then again, it was never a favorite record - a bit too much experimental filler.

he was kinda the go2 guy for ambitious NW production in the early grunge days. he recorded soundgarden's 2nd EP, fopp, and did a total overhaul of the title track for its "dub mix". also did a version of the batman theme with girl trouble that resulted in a b-side "alfred house mix" that remains one of my favorite novelty rock songs of evar.

PLUS three-mile pilot's another desert another sea, which is mind-blowingly great in the production department. year of no light? hell yes.

lost interest after the 80s, cuz my tastes had turned against dryly cerebral experimental electronics and towards caterwauling gutter garbage. dug a few pigeonhed tracks, but didn't like the heather duby record he did a while back.

I only know the Interstate album but man, do I like that one.

^^^this

I think the only reason I heard it was because I was a Matador stan in the mid-90s; had no idea about their history until seeing this thread.

I don't underrate Bill Rieflin! Although I hear what yer sayin'. SWANS, dammit!

My name is spelled Jon-Lars Sorenson.

I did indeed move to the Bay area with the band, and played & recorded for about a year. We all lived in a house in El Cerrito.

The highlight for me was playing at the Anti Club in Hollywood, with the Minutemen, et al. That was the night that the flood hit Hollywood, and we walked through knee-high water to get to the club. Didn't matter to the crowd, it was a packed house.

The recordings made in SF ended up on "the bumper crop" album, along with songs recorded after I left.

Cheers,
Jon-Lars SorensOn

Heya sir, glad you could swing by.

been jamming The Bumper Crop lately, so good. This band needs a box set! Or something!

^ tell me about it. or a deluxe Flow.

yesss! paging dan selzer.

the big huge problem is that the rights to the pre-Interstate lps remain w/ a certain 'legendary' record label.

...and the fact that i don't think there'd be much interest.

sst, yeah? such a bummer that so much of that music seems to be in a black hole. did people like dino jr or sonic youth have to sue to get their stuff back so that other labels could reissue them? i think that's what bob mould implies whenever the idea of reissuing husker du comes up.

great interview w/ all the members here: http://www.furious.com/perfect/pellmell.html
and hey! https://pellmell.bandcamp.com/

I have vague favorable memories of the group from the early 80s. Just read a sometime Pitchfork contributor on Facebook calling them one of the greatest groups. Maybe I should listen again

Surprised the article didn’t mention Love Tractor, they seem relevant in discussing instrumental college rock of the 80s.

extremely happening Pell Mell live show from 1995 over yonder: https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/183267593887/pell-mell-great-american-music-hall-san