LURKIN IN THE SHADOWZ, KICKIN THE FAT FLOWZ

I was the DJ/producer/engineer for the Shed Dwellaz. We existed from roughly 1995 to early 2000 in various forms with a myriad of members. In 99 I decided to quit my job at Stacey's Bookstore and move to Phoenix, AZ to attend audio engineering school. I was burnt on my job, the scene in Redwood was getting hectic and I felt like I was at a crossroads musically. Our friend the Zodiak Iller had recently passed away and continuing the Shed Dwellaz without him just wasn't an option for me. So I bailed to AZ. had my mind blown inside out and really built my audio skills up.

When I returned 6 months later, I went back to making beats with a vengeance but didn't really have any projects lined up. I reconnected with Stinkweed from the Dwellaz and we recorded a few demos. He already had the whole Shadow People concept so we threw together some artwork and burned a bunch of cdrs of the tracks we had so far. Around the time we were passing out this CD, we started recording some tracks with Tizoe and the Shadow People line up was solidified. We played a grip of shows, the most memorable being the shows with Third Sight and Sacred Hoop at Kimo's (people still talk about the debauchery that went down on this night) as well as another Kimo's show with Artimus Pyle and Lie (Japan). We got the Lie cats so high they were probably rethinking naming their 7" "Legalize It". Eventually shit started to breakdown between the three of us and and we stopped working together as Shadow People. Before the split we managed to record 3 songs
that are unreleased to this day.

Some technical info regarding "Lurkin in the Shadows": All the beats were made on an MPC2000 (with the exception of the last track which was produced by Tizoe and thrown on the disc at the last minute). The original Stinko demo tracks were recorded on a Roland digital 4 track and were later transferred to DA88 tape. The songs with Tizoe and Stinko were recorded on ADATs using a small analog board. Everything was mixed during one intense late night opium smoking session at a studio where the real customers have to pay upwards of $150/hr. Shout out to Cus (wherever you are) for hooking that shit up.

An acquaintance (and I use the term loosely) of ours offered to put it out as one of the first releases on his new "label", however he was more concerned with being in the biz rather than handling the biz and cheaply pressed them on the crappiest CDrs available. To this day I have people hitting me up saying they "wore their copy out". Tizoe gave his cousin a shrink wrapped copy only to have him open it and the CD was fucking missing! For these reasons I'm blessing y'all with a 320kbs rip of the Shadow People's "Lurkin' in the Shadowz".

- Dan Lactose AKA Eons One

Download it!

FOR MORE HEAD OVER TO http://stinkweed.bandcamp.com

VERLATEN - DEMO 2008

Verlaten are a current West Bay grind powerhouse featuring veteran Doomryderz from Plutocracy/No Le$$ (Kalmex-drums), Immortal Fate (Pat-guitar), and deadbodieseverywhere (Grip-bass). Kalmex had been riding the pine on the sidelines for awhile since the demise of Kalmex & the Riffmerchants. I remember him saying that he didn't want to be behind the kit in the next band he did, he wanted to go back to guitar. He got to talking with Grip about doing a grind band with Pat from I.F. and his buddy Jed on guitars. I went to one of their early rehearsals at Lennon Studios in SF so they could hear what their grind would sound like with some vocals. I was shocked to hear how gnarly they had gotten in such a short time period. It was rad to shred the PA with them and I wanted to join but was already consumed by Altamira. Anyway, they found a young buck through a Craigslist posting named Kona to take the helm, and he slays in his own menacing yet quirky way so he's a perfect fit. Verlaten has already played a slew of gigs in the Bay Area with Go Like This!, E.N.T., Skitzo, Maggot Colony, Godstomper, Progeria, Lack of Interest, etc. as well as their debut at a notorious Agents of Satan performance on 10/26/07 in San Jose. They did a short tour up the West Coast this past summer and played some pretty sick bills up in Portland and Seattle with the likes of Sissy Spacek (Bastard Noise members), Superbad, Kudzu, and Sean. Their debut album is already recorded and at the plant, and will soon be released on CD and Vinyl (fuck yeah!) by Buried in Hell records out of Sacto. "Verlaten grind" has elements of Immortal Fate's brand of Doom/Death/Grind, with it's 200mph cyclones slamming skull first into brick walls of putrid sewer sludge ala subsonic rumbles from DBE's Grip-master. There's also some psychotic bad PCP trippage mixed in to sauce it up and keep it fresh and interesting (not as nutty as No Le$$ but still damn creepy). You'll also detect some Pluto styled riff-age courtesy of Kalmex (he's having his cake and frosting it too this time). Don't EVER sleep on the DOOM'Z!! Just when you write us off we come back and let you know that we'll never die, just multiply. Can you dig it? ~ Lord Balsakk


Verlaten Demo 2008

976 - Tapes #1 & #2 comp. CD

Here's a CD that was released by Pig in a Blanket's 'Honest Abe Records' label. 976 was a killer hardcore band from the Mountain View Dankdaddies set made up of: Piggy (drums+vocals), Big Boy (bass, vocals), Scott (guitar+vocals), and Marshall (vocals). This CD compiles their first two releases. These tapes weren't "demos", they were full length albums released on cassette by the band. Tracks 1-11 are from their 1990 tape titled: '$2 per minute. $1 additional minute. Callers must be 18 years or older.' Tracks 12-22 are from their 1991 tape, the legendary (at least amongst us West Bay loko's) 'Will Fuck for Food' tape. Unfortunately, these tapes have had minimal reach outside the West Bay crews. Those of you that follow the Doomryderz closely will obviously know the name 976 most likely from their split 7" with Plutocracy, but also because we put 976 on our tour shirts in remembrance of the importance they had in bringing together two sets of like-minded suburban hooligans from Redwood City and Mountain View. The members of 976 would later play in No Le$$, E.T.O., the short lived Sirota project and the more recent hardcore band; Life Without. There are many influences at play on these tapes; from Dr. Know and Fang to early Neurosis and Final Conflict. This is some of the best hardcore punk that came out of the Bay Area in the early 90's. You just never knew about it because you were too busy being a 'peace punk' with all your Crass and Operation Ivy patches and crooning about how Green Day are the best band ever. But if it wasn't for hippies like you, bands like 976 wouldn't have been who they were: real fucking gnarly destructive thugs that cared more about laying waste and getting wasted than about appeasing the scene and looking like all the cookie cutter punk clones that began infesting the Bay Area from far off places like Iowa. At least we kept the West Bay free of poser garbage like that. ~ Lord Balsakk

976 CD
(Re-upped by request 6/27/14)

No Le$$ / E.T.O. split 7" EP (625 Productions)

OK, so I got my first request from Aesop. He wanted to see some No Le$$ up on here and I'm much obliged to do so. This split came out on Max Ward's (Spazz/Plutocracy etc.) 625 Productions Label back in 1993. This is 625 release numero uno even though there is no label info on the layout. Some of the No Le$$ tracks appeared on their 'Tape One aka Le$$on One' demo tape. (which I will post soon). So if you know the history of the Dankdaddies Crew from Redwood City, CA, you'd know that this band was a bit of a super group in that it had 2 members of Plutocracy (Stinkweed: guitar, Kalmex: drums), 2 members of Immortal Fate (Snowman: guitar, Pelon: vocals) and the legendary Big Boy from 976 infamy on the Rikenbacker. These dudes secured a seedy jam spot in the notorious ghetto of East Palo Alto (EPA) just south of Redwood City. It was in this shithole of a space that these psychos completely reinvented the wheel of hardcore/grind/fastcore or whatever the fuck category YOU think this music fits into. Eric Wood (Neanderthal, P.H.C., Bastard Noise, Man is the Bastard etc.) crowned No Le$$'s sound 'Electric Jungle Violence'. I call No Le$$'s experimentations in grind/hardcore pure fucking unmatched brilliance. No Le$$ would go onto to inspire and influence quite a few killer bands. I saw it first hand when Agents of Satan and No Le$$ played a gig with Cephalic Carnage in Denver back in 1997 and I shit you not, those Cephalic dudes were never the same after witnessing No Le$$ and spending an evening with the Doomryderz. Cephalic's 'Fortuitous Oddity' Demo that we got from them that night is pretty sick but not nearly as twisted as No Le$$'s Lesson One tape. Interesting that these two bands were on similar paths at the time. Too bad No Le$$ never had the fortune of reaching the heights that Cephalic reached. Oh well, such is the luck of the entire crew, but to me No Le$$ was the better band and if you compare each bands first demos, it is pretty fucking obvious who was smoking 'snappa' and who wasn't. E.T.O. balanced out this split with furious styles and damage of their own. Evolved to Obliteration was the band comprised of Jerry aka Pig in a Blanket (ex-976) on drums, Alex aka Len Dog on guitar, Alberto aka Berto on bass and some other guys that I never got too familiar with (Ferhan on 2nd guitar and Mateo on vocals). These Mountain View, CA maniacs didn't play live often and when they did it was usually at an out of control backyard suburban kegger. When ETO fired up their amps and detonated their distortion pedals, all hell would break loose, no shit. E.T.O. would later employ the mic services of Max Ward. Max took to the mic like a pitbull with its balls on fire....dude would scream so hard he lost his voice 3 songs into a live set once and just held the mic out for whoever wanted to grab it...I think Ness ended up with it that night. More posts for E.T.O. later as well. Spark up a dusted jay and grab the old gold and dent it! ~ Lord Ballsakk

No Le$$ / E.T.O Split 7"

Agents of Satan / May 19th, 2003 Berkeley, CA @ 924 Gilman St

Deadbodieseverwhere @ San Bernadino Metalfest 11/11/2000

Altamira - Point of Impact (2008)

Here's the 'Point of Impact' album by Redwood City, CA's 'Altamira'.

This album is the only recording so far from this clan.
This was recorded back in May of 2007 at House of Faith in Oakland by the grand po-bah; Bart Thurber. It was then mastered on the East Coast at Visceral Sound by Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer/Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
This band features Leper(Agents of Satan/Plutocracy/Bullshit Excuse/Kalmex and the Riffmerchants/elephantman/Go Like This!/Kompound...???...), Snowman(Immortal Fate/No Le$$), and Lord Ballsakk(Agents of Satan/Deadbodieseverywhere/Funeral Shock/Go Like This!).

We'd really like to see this thing get released on limited vinyl....if you can help, then please drop us a line.

Categorize it however you need, we just call it Doomryder metal. ~ Lord Ballsakk

Check out the band at www.myspace.com/rockthecave

Altamira - 'Point of Impact' CD