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This section is to post sketches, recordings, writings or other odds and ends. It functions as both a sketchpad and a personal archive. I'm uploading old posters, handbills and other things I've collected here, for lack of any better place to put it.

The Better Automatic, Faraquat, Shale

posted over 12 years ago; from 18 October 1998

This has the distinction of being the first show I ever organised, though to be completely honest my flatmate at the time, Dan, actually organised and executed this.  But we were setting up the show 'together' - I think I worked the door - and it showed me how easy it actually is to make things happen.  I felt like things had changed after this; for the next 2 years I was pretty actively involved in setting up shows while at the same time playing music myself in 1-2 bands and somehow getting through Uni intact.
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Run On, Five Ball, The Low Numbers

posted over 12 years ago; from 17 September 1997

I seem to have saved a large concentration of posters from 1997 and 1999 especially right after I started University which was September '97.  I think at the time I was affixing these to the wall of my bedroom to make a tapestry of musical memories.
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Tainted Candy, Halloween 1997

posted over 12 years ago; from 31 October 1997

I don't know why I'm gravitating so much towards the CMU-based posters (or why I have so many of them), but certainly the CMU shows were something special and central to my young music-devouring appetite.  'Tainted Candy' was slightly overhyped amongst my friends - a festival on Halloween to be held in the studio union gymnasium, this was a can't-miss event on my calendar, even though I didn't know that many of the bands. 
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Storm & Stress, Meisha, Shale

posted over 12 years ago; from 16 August 1997

Some experiences really stay with you.  This show happened almost fifteen years ago but I remember a lot about it; it's got a pretty high place in the "formative shows" list for me.  This was officially the local record release party for the Storm and Stress album on Touch and Go.  i never heard Storm & Stress before - I just knew they were the new band by one of the Don Caballero guys and it was more experimental than my 17-year old self was ready for.  Meisha, I knew; we had played together with my first band and I knew Mike a little bit - i think maybe we had hung out socially once or twice by this point.  They were advertised on the flyer as Che recording artists but I don't think their record ever came out on Che; this was the CD release for the self-titled first Meisha CD on Mike's own GingKoba records.
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A Minor Forest, Melt-Banana, Harriet the Spy, The 1985

posted over 12 years ago; from 11 October 1998

Another Connan Room show, this time featuring my then-local-faves The 1985 at the peak of their powers, Harriet the Spy (who are still remembered fondly by fans of that particular time and place), and Melt-Banana, whose performance I actually missed in 1996 at a show that has a very seminal place in my adolescence.  A Minor Forest headlined; at the time, I had their CD Flemish Altruism, which I never could figure out if I liked.
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Ian Nagoski, Meisha, Plea Circuits, Neptune

posted over 12 years ago; from 06 January 2001

This was a show that I set up, which I apparently titled in a series called 'The New Breed'.  I think I grabbed that from an Impulse records compilation LP I found (a pretty good one with Archie Shepp and Grachan Moncur III on it), attempting to brand shows i promoted.  It's funny cause in Pittsburgh in the late 90s, no one did that, whereas my experiences in Europe are quite the opposite - it's always " Club", more prominent than the artists playing, which has always irritated me because it suggests that the audiences go because of who is promoting it more than because of the music itself. How ironic that I myself was trying this.
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Superchunk, Neutral Milk Hotel

posted over 12 years ago; from 27 February 1998

This was a night to remember, forever.  A year and a half after I saw Neutral Milk Hotel play the Beehive, they came back to Pittsburgh, only this time they were my favourite band.  Ever.  I mean, they aren't my favourite band ever now, but I think it's safe to say that my passion for this music at this time was greater than I've ever felt about a recording artist - of course, refracted and magnified through that volatile teenage lens.  In the intervening year and a half since the 1996 Pittsburgh show, I had not only become their biggest fan, but I had started an unofficial website for the whole Elephant 6 thing, which thanks to my timing in the nascent Internet fanscape, brought me into contact and correspondance with them.  I saw them play in Cleveland in April '97 and emailed with them, Eric from the Olivias, and others.   Some of them I considered to be "friends" and although I was just a plucky 17-year old with wide eyes, I think they genuinely liked me too and appreciated my enthusiasm.
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Sue Garner, Les Batteries, The Johnsons

posted over 12 years ago; from 15 September 2000

I don't remember a whole lot about this one either, another CMU show.  Run On had broken up at this point but Sue and RIck were touring together, not doing a Fish & Roses reunion but playing separately.  Les Batteries I believe was originally a project that featured Charles Hayward instead of Rick Brown, though I didn't know this at the time.  All I remember about it were the two drumsets, some electronics, and parts where both drummers were just kicking beats.  The Johnsons at this point were still I think the slow, downwave psychedelia with Korel Tunador on heavily FX-driven guitars.  In the Connan Room, the same room where I saw A Minor Forest, the best Arab on Radar show I've ever seen, My Dad is Dead and a few others; a small room with awkward sound that suffered from the lack of any sort of stage so visibility was limited.
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The Pittsburgh Sound, Choke City, Boom Box

posted over 12 years ago; from 07 February 2002

The Pittsburgh Sound was a project organised by John Roman of Microwaves/The 1985 fame, which was modeled after a thing in Chicago called The Chicago Sound, which I think Weasel Walter started and looked to franchise.  The Pittsburgh Sound was about 10 people who would play along to a mix CD of carefullly curated classic rock songs, which was played back through the monitors for us to play along to.  No one was allowed to tune or rehearse, and the audience would hear a clattering mess, with the original CD faintly audible through the stage monitors. 
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