Symphon-E-My_Cousin_E.zip (76 Mb)
No Consensus may have been the “flagship” band of Ragman but it was not the original, and in fact, I’d already started jamming with many of the same people some time before No Consensus got formed. The original main band of the scene that would become Ragman, with Joe Riehle on lead vocal, was around before I knew any of them, though once or twice I’d seen these kids around College Hill, and they kept changing their name, usually to something with the word “Bloody” in it. They continued alongside No Consensus throughout the years, and wrote many of the scene’s classic songs. Unlike their band name, Symphon-E’s beautifully simple musical approach didn’t waver much over the years, and while it took a long time for them to get around to making My Cousin E, it was worth it. The lineup here contains two sets of brothers: Steve and Mike Wilson, and Jeremy “Elfboy” McAdams and his brother Aaron, who now head up the band Jolex out in L.A.
Minus_123-The_Ordeal.zip (65.8 Mb)
Joe’s duo-collaboration with Angry Cops guitarist Ben Echeverria filled several 4-track tapes with meandering sorta-nowhere jams on acoustic guitar and cardboard box percussion. Doubtless there were some good songs in there, but as for me personally, I couldn’t sit through most of it, so I had no idea what to expect once they actually assembled an album out of it. It ended up being miles from what I’d expected: one single long track, assembled through computer-aided editing and overdubs, themed around, and glued together with footage recorded during, a camping trip that Joe and Ben took together. The vibe is about as loose and back-porch as it gets; listening to this piece feels like a really laid-back time hanging out with comfortable old friends, who also happen to be a little bit nuts. Oh, and you’re all on shrooms.
Jump_Up_And_Jam-The_Mortal_I.zip (100.8 Mb)
Hard_Boiled_Hell-Jump_Up_And_Jam-Its_All_About_You.zip (103.4 Mb)
Joe Riehle simultaneously unleashed these two 60-minute cassette albums as companion pieces, themed around the duality of the self and the other, compiled from songs recorded over a couple years between his other many bands and recording projects. Joe has a gift with words and a unique brand of lo-fi noise-pop all his own, and these two hours are packed with great stuff. Unfortunately for the original release, wear and tear on Joe’s tape deck had resulted in considerably more degradation of sound quality during mixdown and copying than usual, and that’s saying something. Thus these albums benefited perhaps more than any other from my digital mixdown/restoration project, and what is revealed is that this is some really good stuff.
Hard_Boiled_Hell-Are_You_There_God_Its_Me_Michael.zip (105.9 Mb)
It’s a bit of a shame that No Consensus didn’t take more advantage of Mike Hays’s burgeoning songwriting skills. The upside though, is that his muse came out here, in what is quite possibly some of the best music to come out of the Ragman scene outside of No Consensus. Joe turns in some great material here as well, but Mike is definitely the star of this album, wherein we really seem to witness him finding his voice. If you think I gush too much, check back with me after the one-two punch of “Leslie (Signs Pointe Weste [I Wish I Could Hate You Now])” and “They Laugh.”
Hard_Boiled_Hell-The_Pain_and_the_Great_One.zip (110 Mb)
One of Joe’s many two-person recording projects he started early on, Hard Boiled Hell featured the intense Angry Cops vocalist and No Consensus drummer Mike Hays (found these days in the Seattle area under the name Pythias Braswell). This, their first cassette album, shows raw, humble beginnings — rudimentary guitars, longwinded silly improv-folk, droning existential noise jams, generally outsidery musicianship. Some of the more challenging listening in the Ragman sphere, outside of Bwang!, but perfectly enjoyable to those of us who are into those kinds of things. Still, a striking contrast to the deep songwriting brought by this same duo only a short couple years later on Are You There, God? It’s Me, Michael.
One thing I did a few times when I started digitizing Ragman stuff was to build new “last albums” from stuff that different projects had recorded but not put together into albums yet. We’ve already seen at least one example, TBag “The Blues Album.” Here are the remaining instances of this occurrence:
Bludy_Noz-Think_Yourself_Stupid.zip (96.7 Mb)
Hard_Boiled_Hell.zip (107.5 Mb)
What_If_The_Man.zip (115.9 Mb)
Switchstance.zip (18.5 Mb)
This teenage punk-rock band made up of guitarist vocalist Eric “Psycho E” Sterrett, future Page 5 Girl bassist David “Caruso” wise, and Tyler Crew on drums was mostly famous for their song “Shopping Cart,” a Ragman staple, a favorite of Joe Riehle in particular. This footage is from a boombox rehearsal tape.
Master_Cylinder-The_Good_the_Bad_and_the_Worse.zip (57.0 Mb)
A TapeSNotRecords joint, Master Cylinder (a.k.a. Silk Cut) consisted of myself an old pre-Ragman high school buddy, Tim Bennett. Tim was a couple years ahead of me and was the hotshot trumpet player in the East High band when I first started there, and I ended up sort of following in his footsteps in that regard. We hung out quite a bit the couple years we went to school together, got into “alternative” music together (mainly by way of Tom Halverson), came up with dumb song parodies and radio play type things, overall much the same kinds of things I did with my other main high school buddy Seth Thomson.
These recordings are from well after high school; most of it was recorded in one night of drunken goofballery. The “album” proper manages to hit on some semi-coherent ideas and songs early on, but overall ends up being pretty much the sound of two guys with some instruments getting progressively, embarrassingly drunker.
The last few tracks were recorded much earlier, somewhere around 4 AM some random night on a karaoke machine in Tim’s apartment, and originally released on a cassette compilation called “The Lost Sessions” that I put together. These include the original version of “You Gave Me Your Dog,” which was later picked up by Bludy Noz, and then No Consensus. That same session also brought about the Flight Attendants piece “Cell Damage,” much of which I recorded after Tim fell asleep, adding further overdubs on 4-track at a later date.
