Dust was formed in the late 1960s by Richie Wise, Kenny Aaronson and Marc Bell. Additionally, Kenny Kerner wrote the group’s lyrics, and acted as their producer and manager. Their debut album was released on Kama Sutra Records in 1971, and was followed by a sophomore release on the same label the following year. While the group only released these two albums, they later became of historical interest to collectors interested in early American heavy metal.

The group’s members are probably best known for their projects after Dust –
In the mid 1970s Bell worked with Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys and Richard Hell & The Voidoids. In 1978, he joined the Ramones, assuming the name Marky Ramone. Aaronson played with Stories and Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys in the 1970s and worked as a session musician into the 1980s. He also toured with Edgar Winter, Joan Jett and Billy Idol. Wise and Kerner went into production, producing the first two Kiss albums, among others.

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Never heard Dust? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Suicide
Ivory
Loose Goose

Videos

Albums

• Hard Attack

  

  Hard Attack – Dust

• Dust

  

  Dust – Dust

Red Fang is the formation of long time friends and collaborators Bryan Giles (Last of the Juanitas, Party Time), Aaron Beam (Dark Forces, Lachrymator), David Sullivan (Party Time, facedowninshit, Shiny Beast) and John Sherman (Party Time, Bad Wizard, Trumans Water, All Night). Unleashed on New Year’s Eve of 2006 in Portland, Oregon, Red Fang stormed out of the gates, introducing a sweaty, seething basement to a new kind of unforgettable fist-pumping, beer-chugging rock music. Since that night, the band has continued with the same intensity, energy, and intimacy to quickly become a touring juggernaut, playing shows all over the US with bands like The Melvins, Big Business, and The Sword, to name just a few.

Residing somewhere between Black Flag and Black Sabbath, Red Fang recall a time when rock was more urgent and horrifying. Synthesizing a variety of heavy music influences into their own distinct musical identity, the band easily shifts from barn-burning punk to mid-tempo, hyper-distorted bass destruction all while maintaining a cohesive sound. Red Fang create gigantic rock songs that are easy to listen to (not easy listening, mind you) and qualify the simultaneous usage of both the thinking and the banging head, which are usually mutually exclusive. Their instrumentation is fluid and effortless, and the vocals are delivered melodically and forcefully, with enough rasp and effect saturation to fit nicely within the music. Paired with elemental imagery, the lyrics are immense and satisfying without any pretense. – jambase

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Never heard Red Fang? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Prehistoric Dog
Wires
Humans Remain Human Remains

Videos

Albums

• Red Fang

  

  Red Fang – Red Fang

• Murder the Mountains

  

  Murder the Mountains (Deluxe Version) – Red Fang

NOMEANSNO define post-modernist hardcore. In a word (or several), they are intelligent, articulate, studied, thoughtful, violent, passionate, intense, and playful. Acclaimed by peers and adored by fans, this musically adept trio has consistently thrilled sweaty crowds around the world. The band is a punk rock success story, albeit on their own terms, well hidden beneath the radar of the music industry.

NOMEANSNO formed in the heady days of late 70′s punk. Rob Wright, then a dishwasher at a campus cafeteria, witnessed an early performance by DOA. With a burst of inspiration, he formed a duo with his brother, John. In the early 80¹s, after adding a guitar player, NOMEANSNO began to tour in earnest, captivating audiences with their live performances. – alternativetentacles.com

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Never heard NoMeansNo? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

The Tower
It’s Catching Up
Rag ‘n Bones

Videos

Albums

• Wrong

  

  Wrong – NoMeansNo

• 0 + 2 = 1

  

  0 + 2 = 1 – NoMeansNo

• All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt

  

  All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt – NoMeansNo

• The Day Everything Became
  Isolated and Destroyed

  

  The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed – NoMeansNo

• Mama

  

  Mama – NoMeansNo

• The People’s Choice

  

  The People’s Choice – NoMeansNo

Flour is the nickname of Minneapolis musician Pete Conway who wrote songs and played bass guitar in the bands Rifle Sport and Breaking Circus until the mid-1980s. He released four solo albums on Touch and Go Records from 1988 to 1994 on which he plays most of the instruments himself. Flour toured as a live band twice with a lineup that featured ex-Big Black guitarist Steve Albini on bass and former Breaking Circus percussionist Todd Trainer on drums before they went on to form the band Shellac. Flour’s solo recordings feature the drum machine sound characteristic of Big Black and toyed with by many other independent rock bands in the Midwest during that time period. Flour’s third solo album Machinery Hill was described by Allmusic’s Richard Foss as “an oddball masterpiece of grinding guitar, fluid bass, hammering drums, and very creative ideas”. – wikipedia

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Never heard Flour? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Rain Reign
Love Kills
1 x 1

Videos

Albums

• Luv 713

  

  Luv 713

• Flour

  

  Flour

• Fourth & Final

  

  Fourth and Final

Alongside their Detroit-area brethren the Stooges, MC5 essentially laid the foundations for the emergence of punk; deafeningly loud and uncompromisingly intense, the group’s politics were ultimately as crucial as their music, their revolutionary sloganeering and anti-establishment outrage crystallizing the counterculture movement at its most volatile and threatening. Under the guidance of svengali John Sinclair (the infamous founder of the radical White Panther Party), MC5 celebrated the holy trinity of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, their incendiary live sets offering a defiantly bacchanalian counterpoint to the peace-and-love reveries of their hippie contemporaries. Although corporate censorship, label interference, and legal hassles combined to cripple the band’s hopes of mainstream notoriety, both their sound and their sensibility remain seminal influences on successive generations of artists. – by Jason Ankeny

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Never heard MC5? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Kick Out the Jams
The American Ruse
Motor City Is Burning

Videos

Selected Albums

• Kick Out the Jams

  

  Kick Out the Jams – MC5

• Back In the USA

  

  Back In the USA – MC5

• High Time

  

  High Time – MC5

• Babes In Arms

  

  Babes In Arms – MC5

After the breakup of Floor in 2004, Torche vocalist/guitarist Steve Brooks decided to carry on the thundering tradition of his former band, recruiting guitarist Juan Montoya (also formerly of Floor), drummer Rick Smith, and bassist Jonathan Nuñez. This lineup evolved the sonic template Brooks had created with Floor into a lush and more fully realized sound. In 2005, the Miami, FL four-piece released their eponymous debut on Robotic Empire, introducing the world to a new brand of doom/stoner metal that replaces the bleakness and despair typical of the genre with a more triumphant and anthemic sound: the heavy metal equivalent of Chariots of Fire. Combining de-tuned, droning guitars reminiscent of doom luminaries Earth and Sunn 0))) with soaring, harmonic vocals, Torche created a new take on the genre that is best described as “doom pop.” After the album’s release, the band began extensive cross-country touring, sharing bills with the Sword, Mouth of the Architect, Jesu, Isis, and Mogwai. In March of 2007, Torche released a remastered version of their self-titled album featuring the bonus track “Make Me Alive.” In the summer of 2007, Torche released the beautifully packaged EP In Return on Robotic Empire, featuring a jacket designed by John Baizley of Baroness. Late in 2007, the band announced that they had finished recording their second album, Meanderthal, which was released in 2008. Later that year, guitarist Juan Montoya left the band due to creative differences. The remaining members carried on a a trio, touring with bands like Harvey Milk and Coheed and Cambria. In 2010, the band released the EP Songs For Singles on Hydrahead. – by Gregory Heaney

Start Here

Never heard Torche? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Mentor
Healer
Grenades

Videos

Albums

• Torche

  

  Torche – Torche

• Meanderthal

  

  Meanderthal – Torche

• In Return

  

  In Return – Torche

• Songs for Singles

  

  Songs for Singles – Torche

Led Zeppelin II is the second studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in October 1969 on Atlantic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at several locations in the United Kingdom and North America from January to August 1969. Production was entirely credited to lead guitarist and songwriter Jimmy Page, while it also served as Led Zeppelin’s first album to utilise the recording techniques of engineer Eddie Kramer.

Led Zeppelin II furthered the lyrical themes established on their debut album, creating a work that became more widely acclaimed and influential than its predecessor. With elements of blues and folk music, it also exhibits the band’s evolving musical style of blues-derived material and their guitar and riff-based sound. It is one of the band’s heaviest albums.

Upon release, Led Zeppelin II earned a considerable amount of sales and was Led Zeppelin’s first album to reach number one in the United Kingdom and United States. In 1970, art director David Juniper was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for Led Zeppelin II. On 15 November 1999, it was certified 12x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales in excess of 12 million copies. Following its initial reception, it has been recognised by writers and music critics as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums ever recorded.

To see The Rock Warrior archives click here.

Videos

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994), was an American musician, best known for his roles as lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.

Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with Krist Novoselic. Within two years, the band became a fixture of the burgeoning Seattle grunge scene. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song “anthem-of-a-generation” status, and with it, Cobain was labeled a “spokesman” for Generation X.

During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife, Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. In ensuing years, the circumstances of his death became a topic of fascination and debate.

Early life

Kurt Cobain was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain on February 20, 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington and spent his first six months living in the village of Hoquiam, Washington before the family moved to Aberdeen. He began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, “He was singing from the time he was two. He would sing Beatles songs like ‘Hey Jude’. He had a lot of charisma from a very young age.”

Cobain’s life changed at the age of seven when his parents divorced in 1975, an event which he later cited as having a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Cobain becoming more withdrawn. In a 1993 interview, Cobain said, “I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn’t face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that.” After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming and he found himself being shuffled between friends and family.

At school, Cobain took little interest in sports. At his father’s insistence, Cobain joined the junior high wrestling team. While he was good at it, he despised it. Later, his father signed him up for a local baseball league, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid having to play. Instead, Cobain focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with human anatomy. Cobain was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying at the hands of homophobic students. That friendship led some to believe that he himself was gay. In one of his personal journals, Cobain wrote, “I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes.” In a 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he used to spray paint “God is Gay” on pickup trucks around Aberdeen. Cobain also claimed he was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting “HOMO SEX RULES” on a bank. However, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase for which he was arrested was actually “Ain’t got no how watchamacallit”. As a teenager growing up in small-town Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Eventually, Cobain began frequenting the practice space of fellow Montesano musicians the Melvins.

In the middle of tenth grade, Cobain moved back to live with his mother in Aberdeen. Two weeks before his graduation, Cobain dropped out of high school after realizing that he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: either get a job or leave. After a week or so, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Forced out of his mother’s home, Cobain often stayed at friends’ houses and sneaked into his mother’s basement occasionally. Cobain later claimed that when he could not find anywhere else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, an experience that inspired the Nevermind track “Something in the Way”. However, Krist Novoselic claimed that Cobain never really lived there, saying, “He hung out there, but you couldn’t live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism.”

In late 1986, Cobain moved into the first house he lived in alone and paid his rent by working at a coastal resort twenty miles from Aberdeen. At the same time, Cobain was traveling more frequently to Olympia, Washington to check out rock shows. During his visits to Olympia, Cobain started a relationship with Tracy Marander.

Nirvana

For his 14th birthday, Cobain’s uncle gave him the option of a guitar or a bicycle as a gift; Cobain chose the guitar. He started learning a few covers, including AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl”, and soon began working on his own songs.

In high school, Cobain rarely found anyone to jam with. While hanging out at the Melvins practice space, he met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock. Novoselic’s mother owned a hair salon and Cobain and Novoselic would occasionally practice in the upstairs room. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain’s earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of asking, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.

During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain were hosts to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing’s style, leading the band to seek out a replacement, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.

Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the point of the band’s message. One incident particularly distressing to Cobain involved two men who raped a woman while singing the Nirvana song “Polly”. Cobain condemned the episode in the liner notes of the US release of the album Incesticide: “Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song ‘Polly’. I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that’s the way I feel.”

Marriage

Courtney Love first saw Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; the pair talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him. According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7/Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991. In the weeks that followed, after learning from Grohl that she and Cobain shared mutual crushes, Love began pursuing Cobain. After a few weeks of on-again, off-again courtship in the fall of 1991, the two found themselves together on a regular basis, often bonding through drug use.

Around the time of Nirvana’s 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, Love discovered that she was pregnant with Cobain’s child. A few days after the conclusion of Nirvana’s Pacific Rim tour, on Monday, February 24, 1992, Cobain married Love on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. “In the last couple months I’ve gotten engaged and my attitude has changed drastically,” Cobain said in an interview with Sassy magazine. “I can’t believe how much happier I am. At times I even forget that I’m in a band, I’m so blinded by love. I know that sounds embarrassing, but it’s true. I could give up the band right now. It doesn’t matter, but I’m under contract.” On August 18, the couple’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought she looked like a kidney bean on the first sonogram he saw of her. Her namesake is Frances McKee of British band The Vaselines and not Frances Farmer as is sometimes reported.

Love was somewhat unpopular with Nirvana fans; her harshest critics said she was merely using him as a vehicle to make herself famous. Critics who compared Cobain to John Lennon were also fond of comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist that Cobain wrote most of the songs on the breakthrough album Live Through This of Love’s band Hole, partially fueled by the 1996 appearance of a rough mix of “Asking for It” with Cobain singing backing vocals. However, there is no specific evidence to support the assertion.

At the same time, one song by Hole was discovered to be a song originally written by Nirvana. The song “Old Age” appeared as a B-side on the 1993 single for Beautiful Son, credited to Hole. Initially, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a Hole-penned song. However, in 1998, a boombox recording of the song performed by Nirvana (with significantly different lyrics) was surfaced by Seattle newspaper The Stranger. In the article that accompanied the clip, Novoselic confirmed that the recording was made in 1991 and that “Old Age” was a Nirvana song, leading to more speculation about Cobain’s involvement in Hole’s catalog. Nirvana had even attempted to record “Old Age” during the sessions for Nevermind, but it was left incomplete as Cobain had yet to finish the lyrics and the band had run out of studio time. (The incomplete recording appeared on the 2004 compilation With the Lights Out, credited to Cobain.) As for Hole’s version, guitarist Eric Erlandson noted that he believed Cobain wrote the music for the song, but that Love had written the lyrics for their version.

In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair, Love admitted to using heroin while (unknowingly) pregnant. Love claimed that Vanity Fair had misquoted her, but her admission created controversy for the couple. While Cobain and Love’s romance had always been something of a media attraction, the couple found themselves hounded by tabloid reporters after the article was published, many wanting to know if Frances was addicted to drugs at birth. The Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services took the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple’s drug usage made them unfit parents. Two-week-old Frances Bean Cobain was ordered by the judge to be taken from their custody and placed with Courtney’s sister Jamie for several weeks, after which the couple obtained custody, but had to submit to urine tests and a regular visit from a social worker. After months of legal wrangling, the couple were eventually granted full custody of their daughter.

Drug addiction

Throughout most of his life, Cobain battled chronic bronchitis and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition. This last condition was especially debilitating to his emotional welfare, and he spent years trying to find its source. However, none of the doctors he consulted were able to pinpoint the specific cause, guessing that it was either a result of Cobain’s childhood scoliosis or related to the stresses of performing.

His first drug experience was with marijuana in 1980 at age 14. Cobain’s first experience with heroin occurred sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer in Tacoma, Washington, who had previously been supplying him with Percodan. Cobain used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use had developed into a full-fledged addiction. Cobain claimed that he was “determined to get a habit” as a way to self-medicate his stomach condition. Related Cobain, “It started with three days in a row of doing heroin and I don’t have a stomach pain. That was such a relief.”

His heroin use eventually began affecting the band’s support of Nevermind, with Cobain passing out during photo shoots. One memorable example came the day of the band’s 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, where Nirvana had a shoot with photographer Michael Levine. Having shot up beforehand, Cobain nodded off several times during the shoot. Regarding the shoot, Cobain related to biographer Michael Azerrad, “I mean, what are they supposed to do? They’re not going to be able to tell me to stop. So I really didn’t care. Obviously to them it was like practicing witchcraft or something. They didn’t know anything about it so they thought that any second, I was going to die.” Cobain also overdosed on the same night, after performing on Saturday Night Live.

Cobain’s heroin addiction worsened as the years progressed. Cobain made his first attempt at rehab in early 1992, not long after he and Love discovered they were going to become parents. Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing pale and gaunt while suffering through withdrawals. Not long after returning home, Cobain’s heroin use resurfaced.

Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with illegally acquired Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Cobain proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.

Cobain’s final weeks and death

Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome). Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. Love later stated that the incident was Cobain’s first suicide attempt.

On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love admitted that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.

Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain’s drug use that took place on March 25. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain’s closest friends, Dylan Carlson. Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg described Cobain as being “extremely reluctant” and that he “denied that he was doing anything self-destructive.” However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California, on March 30. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. Over the course of April 2 and April 3, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. The next day, a person claiming to be Cobain’s mother filed a missing person report. The report stated that Cobain “may be suicidal” and had purchased a shotgun.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was discovered in the spare room above the garage at his Lake Washington home by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house that morning to install security lighting and saw him lying inside. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain’s ear, Smith reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found at Cobain’s side. Cobain’s death certificate concluded Cobain’s death was a result of a “self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.” The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.

On April 10, a public vigil was held for Cobain at a park at Seattle Center which drew approximately seven thousand mourners. Prerecorded messages by Krist Novoselic and Courtney Love were played at the memorial. Love read portions of Cobain’s suicide note to the crowd and broke down, crying and chastizing Cobain. Near the end of the vigil Love arrived at the park and distributed some of Cobain’s clothing to those who still remained. Cobain’s body was cremated.

As Cobain has no gravesite, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain’s former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory. In the years following his death, Cobain is now often remembered as one of the most iconic rock musicians in the history of alternative music. – http://kurtcobain.com/

To see archives of ‘I Got No Idols’ go here.

Selected Albums

• Bleach

  

  Bleach (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) – Nirvana

• Nevermind

  

  Nevermind – Nirvana

• Incesticide

  

  Incesticide – Nirvana

Videos

10. N.I.B – Black Sabbath

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9. Highway to Hell – AC/DC

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8. Say You Love Satan – Dead Girlfriend

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7. Shout at the Devil – Motley Crue

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• 

6. Vaya Con Satan – Turbonegro

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5. Runnin’ with the Devil – Van Halen

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• 

4. Devillock – The Misfits

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• 

3. Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones

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• 

2. King Contrary Man – The Cult

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1. Lucifer is Rising – The Flaming Lips

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]]> http://www.teenagewastelandonline.com/top-10-devilsatanhell-songs/feed/ 0 http://www.teenagewastelandonline.com/firehose/ http://www.teenagewastelandonline.com/firehose/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:46:59 +0000 admin http://www.teenagewastelandonline.com/?p=5530 Bio

In 1985, after D Boon’s tragic death at age 27 signalled the end of the Minutemen, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley threw in their lot with then-22-year-old former Ohio State University student, guitar player, and Minutemen fanatic Ed Crawford to form fIREHOSE. Taking their group name from a line in Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” fIREHOSE continued in the Minutemen tradition of breathtaking musicianship combined with caustic lyrical fusillades inspired by the writing of the Beat Generation and the erect-middle-finger indignation of the Blank Generation. However, with Crawford’s decidedly folkie bent insinuating itself into the mix, fIREHOSE’s songs began to expand into more traditional verse-chorus-verse songwriting symmetry. And although fIREHOSE never equaled the Minutemen’s output in terms of sheer audacity and emotional depth, Crawford, Watt, and Hurley recorded rock that was muscular, dense, and daring, along with being tremendously heartfelt. They never patronized audiences or comported themselves as “rock stars”; they were instead the quintessential post-punk “peoples’ band.” Although they achieved wider notoriety than did the Minutemen (eventually recording for a major label), fIREHOSE called it quits in early 1994 after a desultory, dispirited final LP (Mr. Machinery Operator). Still, nearly all of their recorded work stands as some of the best late-’80s/early-’90s indie rock. – by John Dougan

Start Here

Never heard fIREHOSE? Here’s our favorite 3 songs…

Brave Captain
For the Singer of R.E.M.
Sometimes

Videos

Albums

• Ragin’, Full-On

  

  Ragin’, Full-On – fIREHOSE

• If’n

  

  If’n – fIREHOSE

• “Flyin’ the Flannel”

  

  “Flyin’ the Flannel” – fIREHOSE

• Fromohio

  

  Fromohio – fIREHOSE

• Sometimes

  

  Sometimes – EP – fIREHOSE

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