What's up with US Maple?

strangulated beatoffs - "satan's pool party"

^^band name & title almost like a high level parody of a "transgressive" underground band from a book

My favorite Skin Graft release - Dazzling Killmen's "In the Face of Collapse". Not as goofy/spazzy as some of the other stuff on the label - much angrier - but still really incredible. Darin Gray, the bass player, was in Yona Kit and (I think) You Fantastic and Brise Glace too. And I think the drummer went on to play with the Mars Volta for a while. And of course Nick Sakes did Collasamite afterward.

More Skin Graft - Melt Banana! Mt. Shasta! Such a weird and wonderful label. And Shorty did have a full length (asked above), also on Skin Graft. I remember the promo materials back then, claiming someone in the band was Kevin Costner's brother. Never did know if that was actually true or just some bizarre joke.

yep al 's there on the lake of drac a'hootin just like we needs him to.
only time i saw storm and stress williams did some superb joke-free stand-up comic act.
maybe he was referring to that. shea was awesome as always - the guy is a legend.
check starfuckers' "infrantumi" - similarly maplesque in disjointed unswung beats, but al's croon/howl replaced w/ whispered italian situationist psychosexual diatribes. neet-o. altho no-opry/blues angle
somehow some o pumice rubs my maple bone, but not always. tension release. god nose i luvs me some derrick baileys, but if onlys he#d fucked his own idea and wanted to rock for 10 secs a piece once in a while.
never really heard the captain in maple. love the captain, grew up with him, he is my "jungle book", still love it, but don't really get that.

nick is a friend, and actually did the great band Sicbay for years after colossamite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wA1U0clWNg

Love how two of the most active ilm threads are on Taylor Swift and US Maple.

I listened to Acre Thrills. My favorite song iirc was Open a Rose.

FWIW, I think "Open a Rose" is the most initially appealing because of that coherent drumbeat, but not *necessarily* the best, though again nothing wrong with it. Talker has a similar one: Apollo Don't You Crust if memory serves, but I might be wrong.

i liked the whole thing -- but that was the song where i looked to see what the title was. the rest of the time was trying to think of how i would describe it and all i could think of was "watery"

open a rose is the only track that clicked w/any [non-fans] i've played acre thrills for.. it's also the initial 'standout' track, and the one that wore thin the quickest for me. "total fruit warning" is a gem, w/those vocal-sounding, slide-y runs up the guitar neck during the releases/climax-moments.

talker was a revelation for me, because i'd been immersed in free-form guitar stuff, and then to hear those sorts of sounds arranged into "song" forms, i was sold. and "running from kabob" was easy, welcoming, with its regular rhythm.

haha i feel like a proper noob so the early 90s vibes are full and complete

i admit i rocked the shit out of 'open a rose' though, when i got the album. i was a shuttle driver, and it sounded great.

I have to say I feel like a US Maple lovefest happens every year and anything I could say right now, I'd have said it twice before. If anybody knows these guys please ask them to have an annual BBQ or something I would travel to see them play again and/or just sit around and listen to their records.

That is, a US Maple lovefest happens on ILM every year and that's totally OK

i would pay to sit around and drink beer w/al johnson

I'm sure he would accept your money.

strangulated beatoffs - "satan's pool party"

^^band name & title almost like a high level parody of a "transgressive" underground band from a book

― i dox in yellow gox dox socks (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, October 19, 2012 3:13 PM (1 hour ago)

that was stan seitrich's whole deal, after leaving drunks w/ guns he released a bunch of 7"s that were covers of drunks w/ guns songs with a 12 year old girl doing the vocals

feel like there are tons of bands that work the US maple angle, obv they were pretty important to the PVD noiserock scene

monorchid, get hustle, arab on radar were doing similar things at the time but maybe my memory's playing tricks on me

i don't really see the monorchid/u.s. maple connection at all

feel like all the monorchid axis stuff is kinda fucked garage rock at core tho

arab on radar are a lot more macho than maple

ha machoness is never something I associate w/ AOR

Arab On Radar was the only one of those bands who sounded even sorta like US Maple.

I like to imagine that Beefheart (and Pere Ubu) is somehow responsible for all of this. That thought brings me joy.

Would pledge loads via Kickstarter to see that documentary finished.

Also, has anyone ever seen Bob Odenkirk and Al Johnson in the same room?

Hey, Ian Williams was in High Fidelity too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppJAkN4m9bY

wow al johnson totally ripped off his acting

Being a midwestern dude, I saw bunches of those Skin Graft/Quarterstick/Thrill Jockey/Touch & Go bands over the 90s etc. but US Maple was a band I never could take a liking to at all. I saw them twice and both times wanted either crawl out of my skin or get an axe handle and flip out. It was just way too annoying, made The Cows seem like a good time, easy listening band. I saw Shorty even a couple times and kind of dug them, but US Maple I couldn't get at all.

I got the time I saw Royal Trux too which I also found to be incredibly out of whack annoying live, but eventually I did hear a record and realize "oh THAT's what they were trying to do."

Dazzling Killmen- unbelievable musicians, records not as good as live.
Cheer Accident- tunes & band that could turn on a dime...very cool.
Mt. Shasta- saw them at same gig with Shorty and Bloomington band Pencil (who were on Grass records w/ Brainiac before t&g)

nick of dazzling killmen/colossamite has a new band called Xaddax, good stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPqGpnfJZ0

I connected with an old acquaintance, Scott, for the first time in about 18 years. He recorded what was supposed to be the first Mercury Players album, Damn. I'm hoping I can convince one of the members to Bandcamp that sucker.

Mark Shippy plays in a number of projects, including a band called Miracle Condition along with original Maple (and Mercury Players) drummer Pat Samson. They've put out 68 Degrees mini album in 2009, and a self-titled full-length in 2010. Some great noise/psych/shoegaze. They're playing the Empty Bottle (w/ Grimble Grumble & Whales, $8) on November 15th!

http://miraclecondition.bandcamp.com/

Todd Rittmann has a band called Dead Rider (formerly D. Rider) who are exceptional. Scott said the latest album is one of his all-time favorites. I'm picking up a copy after work! I can't believe I slept on that. Steve Albini didn't -- they opened for Shellac in August, and they are playing at the Shellac-hosted All Tomorrow's Parties at Camber Sands Holiday Camp, UK, Nov 30-Dec 2!

Dead Rider - The Raw Dents (Tizona, 2011)
http://cockasnook.bandcamp.com/track/mothers-meat
http://deadrider.us

Oh, and Al Johnson is the only one not currently active in music. He is now living in my old hometown, Dubuque, IA, havin' a family.

Wonder what it will be like when the kids see videos of his old band.

man, what's there to do in dubuque i wonder

Not be in a band for one

i bet the dubuque not being in a band scene is pretty vibrant, yeah

My friend's parents live there, he could give me some ideas. I think it's mostly mischief, and avoiding East Dubuque.

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, Dubuque was an extremely depressed industrial town, with massive layoffs from the meat packing plant and John Deere. One passtime I had was throwing railroad spikes at rats down by the Corner Tavern ;) I liked to call it Satan's Taint. It's cleaned up a lot the past decade, given the gambling casinos, new convention center, a winery at the former location of the Star Brewery (where parts of Take This Job and Shove It were filmed, along with F.I.S.T. with Sly Stallone, in which my gramps was an extra). It's also sort of a Midwest tourist destination along with Galena and House On The Rock (which is featured in a great scene in Gaiman's American Gods) with riveting features like the bluffs overlooking Lock & Dam #11, 4th St. Elevator and Julien Dubuque's grave. There's actually a bar that hosts some good touring bands lately called Off Minor at 1689 Elm St.

For some reason, Dubuque is regularly referenced in books, movies and TV, as some sort of mythical Midwestern city that nobody on the coasts have ever been to. It was just mentioned in Elementary last week, the Sherlock Holmes show with Johnny Lee Miller & Lucy Liu.

Early Mercury Players tracks. Hope it works, I can't test it here.
http://chestfirst.blogspot.com/2010/01/mercury-players-5-songs.html

That makes me wistful for my industrial midwestern adolescence.

xpost. That Dead Rider album is pretty great, and thanks for the heads-up. Interesting because you can hear bits and pieces of US Maple, but it comes off very much as its own thing. The next-to-last track morphs into something that sounds very Bowie (Low/Lodger) that has me hitting repeat a lot.

Ok I have a new favorite -- Total Fruit Warning.

aw y'know that's my #1 mapes track too!
i'd recommend the arto lindsay trio's "aggregates 1- 26" to anyone who hasn't heard it & wants maple-wise ticklage. the dry cubist DNA thing gets a bit more fluid, but it's still scratchy / fractured & arto's growly singing voice is clowny no-wave blues-geek hilarity.

"whoopee invader" off of purple on time. is another fave. about their live performance, i was surprised at the frequency of rittman's secondary vocals, and how i mistook them for al johnson's vocals on their albums.

Man, "Whoopee Invader" is so good. Biggest plus of this thread revive is that I am relistening to Purple On Time for the first time in a long time and it is so cool. It's like their classic rock/glam record, if that makes sense.

Thanks, always interested in what the U.S. Maple folks are doing, though I didn't love Singer or D. Rider as much as I wanted to.

― grandavis, Thursday, October 18, 2012 12:18 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this Invisible Things record is amazing -- sadly only three tracks from it are up on bandcamp: http://invisiblethings.bandcamp.com/

Whoa, thanks crüt. More Mark Shippy! Can't listen right now but looking forward to it.

Arto Lindsay album (with Melvin Gibbs and Dougie Bowne?) is awesome.

All my posts today are basically "this is on Spotify" but anyway, Invisible Things is on Spotify...

Cool interview with Al Johnson here.

I’m fascinated with the degradation of language; I am also disgusted by it. Languishing linguistics, slurring, mispronunciations, street-slang, street-code, conversations one can and cannot make out. I love the mumbled death. This is where I pulled from. I continue to do so

La Lechera, is this your favorite band yet?

I can totally tell from their song titles that he's like that. I love the mumbled death.

<3

wow awesome interview....thanks!

I remember two things: chasing a cockroach while eating a Snickers bar outside the venue before the show and then tumbling off the stage in beautiful slow motion.

He has an impeccable ear for detail, that's for sure.