Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 20:18:37 EDT CHOKE, INC. NEWSLETTER VOL. 1 #9 CHOKE, INC. 1376 W. GRAND AVE. CHICAGO, IL. 60622 choke@spagmumps.com A lot of shit in this issue is a little dated - we've been a little busy on the road and trying to keep jobs to pay rent. whatever. enjoy. send money. are you tired of being overweight? the opra winfree diet plan just isn't working for you. are you going broke spending money on expensive fly by night diet programs? worry no longer! now there's a guarenteed solution that's fun too. THE JOHNNY G COFFEE DIET: drink a butt-load of coffee and shake those pounds away. how else do you think i aquired my streemlined, spritely figure? far less addictive than those nasty diet pills and yummy too! in addition you get the added bonus of hanging out in sleek nouveau artsy coffee houses, thus becomming cool and thin AT THE SAME TIME! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ERIC'S FUGITIVE Back in march, the great schitso-psycho rock band Eric's Mother broke up. Craw had the honor of playing with them at their last performance. June come along and bass player Mike Deane decides he doesn't like this guy at his house in the wee hours of the morning and brains him with, I believe, a pipe. So he's dead. Completely. And Mike disappears. He just turned himself in the first week of august. I think he had a shot at making it, but the biggest obstacle he had to overcome, in my opinion of course, was the great big word INSANE that was tattooed on the back of his neck. So much for convincing the judge that he didn't mean it. See ya. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Oct. 25 is the street date for the next craw release and the Hairy Patt band release. oh its now Oct. 26 and I still haven't sent this out. well at least the cds are out now. buy them. We will be playing a show on oct. 4 in cleveland with neurosis and our friends the dazzling killmen. money back if you don't leave this show with stains in your undies. thats a little meaningless now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The chokefest in detroit was fairly ill attended, but fun nonetheless. jon from milkmine played the whole show sitting. morsel's new material sounds cool as shit. Their new guitar player, Jeff, is quite excellent. he adds something to the bands live show that was never there with shawn - movement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- STUDIO-A-RAMA WRUW'S annual free summer fest for the second year in a row was really good. Things kicked off at around 2:30 with Cleveland's Red Giant. Although they 'rocked,' they come off too much as a kyuss/monster magnet rip. hopefully they'll get by that as they have many interesting ideas. Next up was Cleveland's Coltrane Wreck. This band is really out there. music gets both harsh and melodic in same songs. Violin, guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Each member seems to have their own agenda of where the band should go. singer's voice is way chaotic and I like it most of the time. Cleveo punk warhorses the Vivians played next. Musically I really like some of their new material - tense, odd times, screaching guitars - I just never liked diane's voice. way out of place. Boulder from aurora, ohio came up next. This is a band that you simply have to see to understand. Growing up a metalhead in the 70's and 80's wouldn't hurt either. They are the heaviest and funniest band in the region, hands down. The two guitars are in C and rythmically these dudes could pair off with crowbar and give them a run for their money. Jamie, the bass/vocalist's sense of humor is awesome. He rode on stage decked in leather on a moped and threw it into the crowd. they then preceded to begin their set with judas priest's hell bent for leather. Those of you not understanding how fucking funny this was, don't worry. you simply had to have been there. MIlkmine played next. Plagued by technical problems Jon made up all new vocals. Most of which were directed at mctighe from craw who was up front heckling. Those who have milkmine's braille album will note that the song ode to joe descendings is indeed a song about joe mctighe from craw. morsel was next and they played the best set i have witnessed by them so far. they totally impressed many people. NRG ensemble from chicago played next and totally blew shit away. they are a semi- free jazz group with sax's, drums and bass. insane stuff that puts craw's and dazzling killmen's time changes to shame. Mule played last and rocked as usual. their drummer jake quit a week before and this was the new drummer's first show. he was excellent. name's jason from buffalo and used to play in squid and spavid, two local buffalo bands. --------------------------------------------------------------------- MISSISSIPPI RIVER MUSIC FESTIVAL We drove 10 hrs. to play one show in St. Louis and had a great time. Good crowd, etc. my mom's entire side of the family was there including grandparents, uncles, cousins and aunts. lots of fun. nick from the killmen recorded the show with his new toy, a DAT-man. then we went to another show where Mount Shasta was playing. Then 10 hrs. back to clevo. A woman from MCA who is interested in us said to a friend that she didn't like the way I looked so psychotic on stage and that I probably beat women. Only women from major labels. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHNNY G - MUSIC CRITIC EXTRORDINAIRE My pal from Athens sends us this. the last few weeks have been fairly active in terms of live music so i thought i'd fill you in. HARVEY MILK: a local band. the only one i'll go out of my way to see. these guys kick it. slow heavy poundin' drivin' slamin' jammin'. but seriously, they do have that slow heavy tight "math rock" sound. as george described them, a cross between craw and helmet, though i see a little more melvins in the mix. CORN, BIOHAZARD, HOUSE OF PAIN: corn sucked! boring! tool wannabes! 'nuff said! biohazard had that 24-7 spyz/living coulor/fish bone/follow for now sort of sound. between every song they would start preaching about racial harmonny in such a way that you couldn't take them seriously at all (he said "man" every other word. i think i even heard "dude" once). house of pain was phunky fresh. i've never seen rap/hip hop sort of stuff live because i've always heard that it's just plain boring. not so! of course there were so many people there jumping up and down at the same time that i thought the floor would give. MARTIANS GIRLS AGAINST BOYS JESUS LIZARD: martians are the only other athens band worth checking out. i missed most of their set because i was in the bar next door playing KISS pinball. girls against boys didn't impress me that much, maybe it's just that i've heard so much good stuff about them that i was sort of let down. spent most of the time trying to figure out who the vocals sounded like. some choices thrown out were psycadellic furs, the fall, and early swans. (that combo just doesn't seem to go). jesus lizard put on a good show as usuall. i think the last two times i've seen them they were better. they seem to be mellowing. the girl i was with described david yow as the most disgusting grotesque little man she had ever seen, but was quick to add that she was glad he was like that. the biggest problem with this show was that dazzaling killmen played atlanta the same night. if i'd known more than a day in advance i would have blown off the lizzard and seen the killmen. i really like those guys. but plans had been made blah blah blah..... SLUG UNSANE NEUROSIS: missed slug due to work teaching obligations. didn't like unsane at first but then really warmed up to them. i'd like to see them again. neurosis was absolutely nuts. wow! i won't write much here because there is no way i could do justice to their show. the only problem was at the end of the show when they had eight people up on the stage pounding away on the drums. everyone was beating those nice low toms except for the guy from slug who was playing a snare and was occasionally way off beat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TOUR DATES CRAW our tour with Brutal Truth for october and november got blown apart at the seams cause they got a better offer. so we ain't touring til january. As for the rest of the choke, inc. bands, someone named phil at the label isn't sending me any tour info, so don't blame me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BOOKERS SUCK Our ex-pal and booker from West Virginia, Brian Barlow, is no longer with us. He fucked alot of shit up and pissed off a few people in the process, including us of course, so he's gone. Our hometown friend Chris Anderson, who also books the Euclid Tavern, has taken over booking duties, cause I hate doing it. His number is 216 229 6848 for more info. He is getting the shit for january/february together now so if you know a place for us to play near you give him a call. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 500 vinyl records we made of the new craw recording only have 9 of the 10 songs on it due to space restraints. They do, however, include different art by Derek Hess and a lyric sheet (whoa). Also, I'll probably put the lyrics up at the WWW site at the below address one of these days. and maybe even the lyrics from the first record if I can get joe over to type em out. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We did a bunch of dates in Canada a few weeks ago. I forgot how much I like that country. And eating all those donuts, eh? Regardless, there has been some talk of actually moving there. I doubt it will happen, but we'll see. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- January 6 in Cleveland will be the opening of a an art extravaganza featuring the work of Derek Hess and Karen Novak. Hess, as we all know has done much work for the craw releases as well as poster art from around the country and was featured in newsweek in early summer. The show will coincide with a performance at the Euclid Tavern later that night featuring craw and tar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Again, feel free to send the choke inc guys demo tapes, etc. and none of you losers are sending me anything to put in this. get with it. then maybe I could out it out a little more than recently. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Back Issues at FTP 141.214.4.135 under the directory /docs/choke. WWW stuff located at "http://kzsu.stanford.edu/uwi.html" ... Thanks Jon.