Ten Latest Flame Records Releases You Should Hear

On Thursday Milwaukee Record ran my feature article on Latest Flame Records closing up shop after nearly 13 years of kickass releases. It was really difficult to write that piece without injecting lots of personal asides and, admittedly, sour grapes and snarky butthurt feelings about Dan's decision to close up shop, which is why i'm hopping over here to do that, naturally. Make no mistake--i fully support Dan's decision to stop setting his personal income on fire in order to allow his favorite bands to have something to sell at shows. But the day i got the email from Mr. Hanke breaking the news, i felt like a family member had died.

To me, Latest Flame Records and the bands that recorded for it during its noisy second act were family. Having become aware of punk rock and independent record labels beginning with a mind-expanding summer between my senior year of high school and the onset of college in the early 90s, i was immediately drawn to the romantic notion of record label as symbol of quality and community. If i bought a Touch & Go Records release in the 1990s, i had a pretty good idea of what it sounded like before breaking the shrinkwrap--it was going to be loud, it was going to be abrasive, and it wasn't going to sound exactly like anything else available. And i was probably going to love it. Just as importantly, i had a pretty good notion that each of those bands were likely to play shows together, tour together, hang out together. Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys recorded Brainiac's Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Blond Redhead opened for Shellac at the Congress Theatre. And so on. It quickly became a dream of mine to be a part of something like that. Dan shared that dream and made it happen with a stacked roster of aggressive and off-the-beaten-path-yet-completely-accessible-if-you-give-it-a-chance rock tunes from the likes of Police Teeth, Waxeater, Trophy Wives, Nervous Curtains, his Like Like The The The Death, and my own IfIHadAHiFi and Body Futures.

Music, like any art, is deeply personal and subjective, of course, and that the Latest Flame roster never exactly set the world on fire is by no means an indictment of its quality....of course. It's the same story that scores of labels that have come and gone have endured over the years. But when you're sinking the amount of money that it takes to release a record or a CD into something in which you believe, it's hard to not be frustrated when those efforts aren't validated by the outside world. We are only human beings, after all, and human beings are inherently social creatures seeking outside validation. But make no mistake: almost every time i get on stage with Body Futures or IfIHadAHiFi, and every time i throw on one of our records, i feel completely validated in that we've produced music that i would want to listen to and would be stoked about even if i wasn't in the band, and that's all anyone can realistically hope for. As my friend John Dykstra has often said to me, we should all be thankful for living in a time where we are able to make music and press records with our pals in the first place; should anyone else actually enjoy it, that's a bonus.

Still, being able to cover costs would have been a nice bonus.

In the spirit of celebrating the diverse Latest Flame catalog, here are ten Latest Flame releases that everyone should hear. Dan was kind enough to document it, so dammit, it should be heard. This stuff is all over the map, from new-wavy power-pop to wiry post-punk to brutal riffage, and it all deserves to be remembered. I hope you take some time to check them out if you don't know about them already. And thanks, Dan, for helping all of us live that dream of being part of a musical family with a sense of real community and belonging, just like those indie labels of lore. What a gift.

In more-or-less chronological order:

The Starving Artists of the 1%

I haven't done a ton of music-related writing in recent months. There've been lots of reasons for this--my day job saps my energy (the most consistent blogging i've ever done here took place while i was unemployed four years ago--go figure, eh?), all my available writing time has been taken up with WrestleMania liveblogging--but mostly, i've been in a rut of non-enthusiasm fed by a feeling that most people just aren't interested in reading about the bands i want to write about. I mean, who would want to hear about Motherfucker or Le Butcherettes or Hungry Man when stuff like this is out there in the world?



This sub-twee nonsense is a New York band called The Prettiots, and they live in a world that is almost completely removed from the musical universe populated by my peers and friends. I say "almost" because sometimes the two universes crossover like a Marvel vs. DC one-shot, although it's really more like Marvel vs. Achewood or DC vs. your local indie cartoonist who gets stocked at House of Heroes because It's Important to Support Local Art. One of those world collisions happened earlier this month, when The Prettiots traveled to South By Southwest in the hopes of getting "discovered" and "making it," a trek chronicled in part by a piece in the New York Times:

Weaving down from New York to Austin, Tex., in a minivan will cost the Prettiots about $1,000 in gas, plus $3,000 to rent the van with insurance. Hiring someone to manage the tour will be $1,500. Cheap hotels along the way: $500. And once the band members arrive at the music marathon on Tuesday, they will stay at an Airbnb accommodation, which will run them another $2,500 for four nights — the going rate, as the city is overrun by thousands of visitors.

All told, with incidentals and a $15 per diem for the musicians, the trip will cost the unsigned group nearly $10,000, said Asif Ahmed, the Prettiots’ manager, who is fronting some of the cost himself. “When you’re a band this young, it’s a necessary evil — spending money to eventually make it,” he said.

The article's point is valid on its surface--SXSW, as everyone knows, is crammed with "starving artists," in the Times' words,  playing for little to no money while hoping to catch someone's attention. But how starving can a band be when they have access to $10,000 to blow? In a spot-on response to this article, Deerhoof's Ed Rodriguez astutely observed, "The people they chose to speak with were so unlike any musician I’ve encountered in the past 20 years that I’m left wondering, where do they find the sources for these stories? Is this your realtor’s son’s band? Did the famous movie director you spoke with for your last interview have a daughter who recently recorded a demo?"

WWE Network World Tour: WrestleMania XII

For a guy who won five WWF World Heavyweight Titles, Bret "Hitman" Hart really got the shaft when it came to being the standard-bearer, the "face" of the company. His second title reign in 1994 saw Hart exclusively defending his title on the undercard of pay-per-views headlined by The Undertaker and others. And of course, everyone who follows wrestling knows how his final title run ended in 1997. After Hart ended long-running WWF Champ Diesel's 358-day reign at the 1995 Survivor Series, it quickly became apparent that the Hitman was simply keeping the belt warm for the guy whose popularity was quickly reaching a fever pitch among the WWF faithful--"The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels. After his defeat in the main event of WrestleMania XI, Michaels dropped off WWF TV for a short time, re-emerging as a babyface and beginning a year-long road to redemption for his past evil ways and a push that would, around the time of the Royal Rumble, start to focus on Shawn's "childhood dream" of winning the WWF World Championship.

At the same time, Michaels' backstage crew of wrestling buddies, the "Kliq" consisting of Michaels, Razor Ramon, Diesel, the 1-2-3 Kid, and recent arrival Hunter Hearst Helmsley, were beginning to exert influence in booking decisions and the WWF's creative direction, much to the consternation of pretty much anyone on the roster that wasn't those five guys. (At the In Your House: The Great White North PPV, Michaels forfeited the Intercontinental Title to Shane "Dean" Douglas after Shawn was legitimately beat up in a bar fight a few days before and unable to compete. Douglas then immediately lost the title to Razor Ramon in the same night. Standard WWF development, or Kliq-influenced booking?)

Still, no matter how large a part backstage politics played in the rise of Shawn Michaels, the bottom line is that during the 1990s Shawn developed into a premier in-ring performer, able to work matches with nearly anyone the WWF would throw at him (he's really the only reason the title match with Diesel at WrestleMania XI was at least watchable and not straight-up clunky, finish notwithstanding). The fans recognized this and it's to Vince McMahon's credit that he listened to his fanbase, moving away from the Diesel experiment and his knee-jerk instinct to push the largest dudes in the locker room and finally letting two "smaller" in-ring technicians headline his flagship event.

But with Michaels' star on the rise, the Hitman was quickly becoming an afterthought, and after Michaels won the 1996 Royal Rumble to earn the chance to achieve his boyhood dream, there wasn't a single WWF fan that watched the build to the event, the training vignettes, and didn't realize that Michaels' victory was being telegraphed for weeks.



Bret's not being pushed as a heel just yet, but look at the juxtaposition of these two fan favorites--the music gets darker and more dramatic when Bret begins to speak, and after a quick concession to Michaels' growing fan base, he proceeds to spend his time criticizing Shawn's personality and ring antics. "This isn't dancing, this is not a dance marathon--this 60-minute iron man match is going to be the biggest fight he's ever had." Sure, we purist Hitman fans will respond to that, but the majority of the WWF fanbase were sure to see that as sour grapes or jealousy, and it just rallied more fans to Michaels' side.

And how about that choice to give an entire hour of the biggest event of the year to two "smaller" guys? It's almost like Vince McMahon, indignant that the fans wanted to see two natural-looking technicians tear the roof off instead of the lumbering larger-than-life supermen Vince preferred, spat "they want wrestling? Fine, we'll give 'em more wrestling than they can stand! And they can't leave their closet until they've smoked every last cigarette in the carton!"

Well, hey, thanks for that, Vince. After last year's bullshit, a solid hour of one of the best main events in WrestleMania history is gonna be a long, deep breath of fresh air.

WWE Network World Tour: WrestleMania XI

The years immediately following Hulk Hogan's departure were a weird time for the WWF, who were trying to promote their "New Generation" of stars led by the Undertaker, Bret "Hitman" Hart and the "Kliq" of Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Diesel, and the 1-2-3 Kid. I wasn't following very closely at this point because, while the WWF made amends in 1994 by putting the title back on Bret Hart at WrestleMania X, the storylines and characters outside of Bret and Owen's adventures weren't very compelling (to say nothing of the WWF's positioning of their world champion as a mid-carder playing second fiddle to the Deadman--something to which i'm sure a certain CM Punk could relate). The WWF in general had doubled down on cartoonish, overly colorful characters in order to sell to kids, and the fanbase that had grown up with Hulkamania were hungry for something new and more grown up. While the WWF would finally capitalize on this desire with the Attitude Era (thanks in no small part to ECW's influence), there were some pretty thin years between the boom periods.

One of Vince McMahon's weaknesses, during thin times or fat, is an over-reliance on celebrities. McMahon has always seemed obsessed with wrestling's sports entertainment's legitimacy, and this obsession has often resulted in a questionable desire to insert famous actors, musicians, and athletes into his storylines during 'Mania season. When it's something as simple as Alice Cooper at ringside for Jake "The Snake" Roberts, it's fine--it's a fun glitzy addition to the business' premier annual showcase. But as soon as those celebrities get into the ring, it never ends well (when the closest example you can get to a legit crossover is Mr. T, you know it's slim pickings).

Considering the state of pro wrestling's mainstream popularity at the time, using recently-retired New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor in the ring in a heavily-promoted match against Bam Bam Bigelow stank of desperation (especially when you consider Taylor's substance abuse problems and the stain McMahon's steroid trial had left on the WWF). Everything about the match--its hype, its placement on the card, and the way it was booked--was meant to attract mainstream media attention, but ironically, it only served in every way to discredit the very art form it was meant to promote. On top of that, the WWF's champion at the time was its latest attempt to push a bigger-than-life superman on the fanbase, "Big Daddy Cool" Diesel (aka the future nWo's Kevin Nash), a 6'10", 300-plus-pound beef slab that got a rapid-fire monster push the year before that hadn't been seen since Hogan's immediate placement at the top of the card 10 years earlier. In the span of one calendar year, Diesel went from Shawn Michaels' non-wrestling bodyguard to tag team champ (with Michaels), Intercontinental champ, and finally the World Title, three days after Bret Hart shockingly dropped the belt to an aging Bob Backlund at the 1994 Survivor Series. After a 35-minute submission match that ended with Owen Hart convincing his mom, Helen (who was at ringside in the Hitman's corner) to throw in the towel and do Bret's submitting for him (shades of Arnold Skaaland throwing in the towel on Backlund's behalf when he lost the title to The Iron Sheik in 1983), Backlund immediately dropped the belt three days later to Diesel in an 8-second house show squash:



Lots to unpack in this sequence of events: in 1983, the WWF wanted Backlund to turn heel in order to drop the belt to Hulk Hogan; he refused, leading to the need to use the Iron Sheik as a transitional champ, losing to Hogan at Madison Square Garden. In 1994, Backlund, working as a heel, became the transitional champ between another smaller, technically gifted titleholder and the muscled superman the WWF preferred as their standard-bearer--losing the belt in Madison Square Garden. That the legendary manager-throwing-in-the-towel gimmick was incorporated shows that the similarities were not lost on WWF creative; what they had not yet grasped though, was that the WWF audience was getting tired of the same old same old, and were desperate for something new.

Well, they didn't get it at WrestleMania XI, even with Shawn Michaels in the title match against his "former" buddy. But hey, let's recap it anyway, since we're here.

On The Book-Burners' outstanding Christmas record, The Ghosts of Christmas Past

I work in customer service, so believe me when I say that for some of us, the Christmas season is a war of attrition. It's long hours, stress, and human beings who've forgotten to acknowledge humanity in others. Lots of “where's my stuff?” and “you ruined our holiday” and the like. But it's also camaraderie, cooperation, and the bonds forged in the pressure cooker of the Christmastime call center between co-workers and those customers willing to let themselves be helped, to work together to make this season the ideal everyone hopes for as the calendar is turned past Black Friday.

But mostly, the attrition thing.

As I write this on Christmas Eve, my newly-minted wife is chopping onions & garlic for rolling meatballs to slow-cook for the friends we'll watch Home Alone with tomorrow while noshing on dips and cookies and laughter and relaxation. She loves Christmas and does me a great service in reminding me that the day is separate from the season, and that it's worth all the trial to get to the food, the revelry, and hell, even the music. Not that I've ever been big on Christmas songs, especially with how vapid they've gotten in recent years. “Christmas Shoes?” What the hell, man.

But that's why The Book-Burners, a collective of friends surrounding our Great Lakes, convene every year to produce a new collection of original Christmas music that shies away from all that cloying faux-sentiment and gets to the real goods. Curated by Burners Bradley R. Weissenberger (late of rock band .22) and Isaac Turner (also of Kalamazoo's Minutes), The Ghosts of Christmas Past was released today as a free Bandcamp download, in true egalitarian, share-and-share-alike Book-Burners fashion. They're very much about the people, you see, and it comes through on Christmas Past, as Brad and Ike have recruited comrades from Minutes, Small Awesome, The Family Ghost, and the rutabega to join them (and regular Book-Burners Jon Terrones & Eliza Rohr) in a triumphantly ambitious collaborative effort. Files have been shared, tracks have been swapped, and the end result is 14 tunes (“but Bandcamp says 13!” Ghosts, y'all) of haunting, meditative, and joyous reflection on a holiday that is equal parts celebration, contemplation, and consternation—cheesy movies, slow-cooked meatballs, hot-tempered customers.

Songs like “The Book of Love” and “Brothers and Sisters” take stock in relationships lost while looking forward to the next year's possibilities, while “Kindness” is a collective cheer for a forever friend that went through life's pressure cooker and came out shining like a diamond on the other side. This one's a standout, by the way—just about everyone who plays on it sings, and the chorus is as close to church as you'll get on this collection. (That being said, the rutabega's Josh Hensley contributes three instrumental versions of traditional Christian seasonals that somehow manage to revitalize them while playing 'em relatively straight. Think you've heard enough versions of “Away in a Manger?” Think again.) Some of the tracks borrow from pre-existing material (“Book of Love” features lyrics from “American Pie” while the fuzzed-out “The Departure” re-appropriates from Kafka), driving home the universality of the subject matter while expanding the Christmas sourcebook with new, re-contextualized traditionals.

There's ambient noise all over these tracks, and I don't mean that in an incompetent lo-fi way, even though there's a distinct “home recording” vibe to the whole collection (“The Book Of Love” is an iPhone demo with vocals layered on top, after all). No, what I mean is that when you put on a pair of headphones and let the ghostly slow burn of “Brothers and Sisters” drape over you like a sheet, you can feel the room it was recorded in. You don't hear it so much as feel it, and it's organic and welcoming and warm, and—seriously, can we talk about this song for a minute? There aren't enough synonyms for “haunting” and “beautiful” to fully convey the exquisite aching of this track, so let me just say it's haunting and fucking gorgeous. If one of these songs deserves inclusion in the Great American Christmas Song Pantheon, it is this one—the tape loops and backing vocals from Faiz Razi push this over the edge into would-be-classic territory.

Like I said before, it's been a rough Christmas season, this December Twenty-One-Four. It's positively healing to hear a band of Midwestern snow-bound scruffs put together a collection that captures the sting of the December air while wrapping you in a blanket by the fire. It's Christmas Eve and I can hang up the phone, put away the grumps, and hang out with my lady while The Ghosts of Christmas Past dance in our heads. As gifts go, this one arrived just in time. Thanks, friends.

Ranking the top ten matches of the first ten WrestleManias

So, we're a third of the way through the history of WrestleMania at this point. I can guarantee you i won't make it to WMXXX before WMXXXI comes along, but i still see getting through the first 10 as some sort of accomplishment, albeit one that doesn't come with any validation other than my own sense of accomplishment. Not a lot of people are reading these and that's ok, because i'm having a great time doing this. But for those who are following along, WrestleMania X seems like a great time to take stock and look back at the matches we've seen so far. Here's a list of my top 10 matches from the first 10 WrestleManias. Huzzah. (You'll notice by some of the bottom entries that overall, we've dealt with more bad matches than good. I have a feeling the top 10 for WMXI thru WMXX will be stronger overall.)

WWE Network World Tour: WrestleMania X

Can we talk more about my unabashed Hart Family fanboy-ism? After the debacle that was WrestleMania IX, my wrestling viewing stuck almost exclusively to WCW when i happened to be in front of a television, only hearing occasional channel-surfing updates or news from the Apter mags about how Yokozuna took back the WWF Title from Hulk Hogan at the first King of the Ring PPV (because, it's been rumored in later years, that Hogan refused to drop the title back to Bret "Hitman" Hart at SummerSlam, claiming that Hart's size made a victory over him improbable to his precious fanbase). After Hogan left the WWF to retire to television, filming a cheesy crime-fighting beach show called Thunder in Paradise, the WWF attempted to turn "The Narcissist" Lex Luger into a patriotic babyface and, they hoped, the future face of the company. This led to a goofy "body slam challenge" on an aircraft carrier on Independence Day, where Yokozuna declared that no american athlete could bodyslam him...until Luger completed his face turn by standing up for his country's pride by bravely slamming the evil Samoan Japanese grappler. Meanwhile, my man Bret Hart was given the consolation prize of winning the titular King of the Ring tournament at the same PPV where Yoko regained the strap, setting off a bitter feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler that lasted the remainder of 1993 (how dare the Hitman declare himself "King of the Ring" when Lawler was the real king of wrestling? I mean, logically, wouldn't Lawler's beef be with the WWF promoters who named the tournament? Eh, that would have made sense, and this is wrestling we're talking about). In addition, a grudge was starting to develop between Bret and his brother Owen, who was becoming resentful of living in his older brother Bret's shadow.

So as WrestleMania season 1994 rolled around, the top two babyfaces in the company were the corporate-anointed face of the company--muscle-headed "patriot" Lex Luger; and the guy who, thanks to consistently putting on entertaining matches with anyone he was put in the ring with, refused to step aside as the fans' true favorite--Bret Hart. Which man would go to WrestleMania X to face the diabolical Yokozuna for the belt--the guy ostensibly standing up for his country, or the guy who got screwed out of the title last year and still had unfinished business with the sumo giant and his devious manager (who, if you'll recall, threw salt in Bret's eyes to cost him the title)?

Well, that's what the Royal Rumble match is for. The storyline angle of the Rumble winner earning a shot at the WWF World Title at WrestleMania was a hit with the fans in '93, and proved so compelling in subsequent years that every Rumble winner since has left the PPV with the title shot in their back pocket. In 1994, though, the Rumble ended in controversial fashion, when the last two men in the ring--Luger and Hart--fell out of the ring together, hitting the floor at the exact same time. Shades of Hogan-Orndorff in the steel cage on Saturday Night's Main Event!

 


These days, the WrestleMania main event would immediately be booked as a triple-threat match between all three wrestlers, but this was 1994, and the triple-threat had not yet entered the WWF consciousness. So it was decided that both men would receive separate title shots during the show, with a bonus match added to ensure that Luger and Hart each wrestled twice. A coin was flipped; if Hart won, he'd wrestle Yokozuna first, and the winner would then face Luger later in the night. Luger would, in turn, wrestle Crush earlier in the show. However, Luger won the coin toss and got the first title shot, meaning Hart would open the show against his brother Owen, who turned on Bret after their tag team title loss to the Quebecers at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.

So heading into WrestleMania X, the big question was: who would end the night as WWF Champ? No heel had yet emerged victorious from the final match of a WrestleMania (although Yoko came closest), so would it be the all-American, company-approved muscle man, or would it be the smaller technician--the better wrestler of the two? (If this storyline premise sounds awfully familiar to this year's main event storyline, it makes an interesting coincidence, doesn't it?) On with the show--we have a friggin' Bret/Owen match to get to, so we already know this show is gonna be worlds better than last year's! Also, there's something about a little ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon that should be at least watchable.