Disarm-Demo Tape

Disarm was a drunken, sloppy, and very entertaining band that played out around Springfield for about a year in the mid-1990’s. Comprised of two former members of Force Fed Patriots along with drummer Rob and vocalist Liz, they pounded out simplistic and rough mid-tempo punk songs with surprisingly astute lyrics. Rob and Liz were still high school students at the time, and under the dubious tutelage of the older members Dave and Klint, the band played a lot of house shows along with the occasional appearance at an authentic rock venue. This five-song demo was recorded in 1994, and was originally released on the “A Boy and His 4-Track” compilation tape.

1. Fake
2. Power
3. Joe Blow
4. Lonley
5. I Can't Think

Enjoy

Ozark Babylon-VHS Tape

This is a little-seen, full-length (112 min.) documentary on the Ozark punk scene released in 1998. It contains live footage and interviews with General Zod, Initial Detonation, The Rowskabouts, Satan’s Ice Cream Truck, Brine, U$MC, Vanilla Christ, and Grout. It also has interviews with some of the regular scene people around at the time, as well as random silliness. It’s a great portrait of the Ozark punk subculture of the 1990’s, showing both its high and low points. The interviewees talk about a lot of the issues that plagued the scene then, like backbiting, the lack of local support for the bands, and the Nazi skinhead problem (the infamous Born Against Nazi incident is mentioned at one point). Considering the amount of work that went into the video’s production, little was done to promote it, and only about 30 copies were produced. It’s gratifying to be able to post it here to a worldwide audience.

Update: When Megaupload ceased to exist a few months ago, it took this video file with it. Rather than post it in chunks on Mediafire, I decided to just upload the whole thing to Youtube. You can see the movie here. 

The Giant Penguins-s/t CD-R

The Giant Penguins were a Springfield act that included members of both Fugue and the Fremen. They were around for about a year, playing Ramones-inspired rock mostly at basement shows and the local punk venue of the time, The Looney Bin. They released this (deliberately?) low-fi CD-R on Wee Rock Records, a Springfield label, in 1999. It includes sixteen studio cuts and five live tracks.

1. This Girl Sucks
2. Juvenile Living Dead
3. Commercial Street Kids
4. Denton Affair
5. Surfin’ Samurai
6. Pit Bull
7. If Lee Ving Was My Dad
8. I Want To Believe
9. Black Widow
10. Melissa
11. Garbage Man
12. Spud Boy
13. La Magra
14. Plastic World
15. Speed
16. It’s the End
17. I Want To Believe (live)
18. Black Widow (live)
19. Denton Affair (live)
20. Garbage Man (live)
21. You Hate Me and I Hate You (live)

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Grout-Do You Have 12:38 To Waste? Cassette

First, there was Pisser. Pisser was comprised of a bunch of drunken metalheads from Springfield who put together a six-piece joke punk band. Pisser was either really funny or incredibly boring, depending on how intoxicated both you and the band were. After a while, four of the members of Pisser decided to start a slightly more serious punk band called Grout. Early on, their singer Froggy wore a bald knobbers mask on stage and would throw around a painful-looking chunk of wood, referring to it as his “Grout Stick”. They released a demo tape called “Self-Made Morons” that was not particularly good. After another year or two, the band went through a lineup change, got a kick-ass drummer, dropped the Grout Stick silliness, and settled into a redneck-tinged variety of punk music along the lines of Antiseen or Cocknoose (although I would rate them as better than either of those two bands). They released a professionally recorded tape entitled “Do You Have 12:38 To Waste?” in 1996. It’s included here, along with a bonus track recorded the next year.

1. Fender Bender
2. Government Cheese
3. Idiot’s Life
4. A-Ward
5. No Means Maybe
6. High Class Loser
7. Picture of Health

Bonus Track:
8. Missing Dick


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Update:

Grout got back together recently with a different lineup, and is playing shows occasionally in Springfield. Check out their MySpace page here.