Guest 7-Inch Corner! Woo-hoo! For this column, our friend Matt Farro of Bright Light Fever talks about D-beat legends His Hero Is Gone and their “The Dead Of Night In Eight Movements” 7-inch, released by Prank Records in 1996. Onward my friends.

Band: His Hero Is Gone
Title: The Dead of Night in Eight Movements
By Matt Farro

There used to be a record store in Sacramento, CA called Hindenburg Records and that’s where I first got this 7-inch. It was like walking into someone’s house, and they had everything a sweet (angry/evil) young boy like me could want. It felt like it was run by total elitists, and it probably was. I don’t remember anyone saying anything to me any of the times I went there. I never saw it packed with people, but I think they used to do shows there too.

I went to see His Hero Is Gone at Gilman Street before I bought this record, and for that point in time, they were the perfect band for me. It felt like they were my secret, and I had to run out and buy whatever I could find of theirs.

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Let’s face it, who doesn’t love at least one Elvis Costello record? True, the man may be judged for his latter day sins at this point, but the man created some perfect pop records early on in his career. The Gay Blades guitarist/vocalist Clark Westfield examines Costello’s Armed Forces in his Record (Re)Collection. Check it out below. Be sure to check out The Gay Blades latest full-length Ghosts, out now from Triple Crown/4Never Records.

“Alison” is a song that lives in the ether of music history. It’s a song that everyone knows, but when you are a kid, you never bother to know who the artist is. It isn’t The Beatles or The Stones. It isn’t Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. It isn’t even David Bowie, not that you know any of his songs besides “Captain Tom” anyway. “Alison” sounds like something in which Steely Dan (who you know cause your dad loves “Reeling In The Years”) might have had a hand in, and it really is good enough to live on the fringe of the great song lists. It’s pleasant and interesting enough to remember the words, but as a budding adolescent barraged with terrible pap and no cool older siblings, it’s never intriguing enough to really turn you on.

But a bunch of years later, when the old man plays My Aim Is True in its entirety, however, I finally discover the context in which “Alison” exists. On a record of bashed out concise pop songs, so brittle and urgent, so refreshing and yet so ancient sounding, the very plain and jazz tinged ballad is luckily the red herring. It’s an important discovery, because even though I love the collection of songs, I feel myself loving the artist even more. True, My Aim Is True is as brilliant a debut as one could hope for and This Year’s Model is a nearly perfect pop effort, but Elvis Costello’s third full length, Armed Forces, is just fucking aces, and in this humble, barely literate fan’s opinion, it is Costello’s best work.

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For this edition of the 7-Inch Corner gone Fest style, we’ve got Billy Morrisette from the almighty Dillinger Four. “After many drinks,” Billy wrote about Jesus Chrysler’s “Turn Or Burn” 7-inch. D4 just released their long-awaited Civil War full-length today. You can expect a review of that soon but, for now, read Billy’s column below.

Band: Jesus Chrysler
Title: Turn Or Burn
By Billy Morrisette

I gotta go with the Jesus Chrysler “Turn Or Burn” 7-inch. As a young dude getting into the scene in the late 80’s, my introduction was The Ramones, The Descendents, Angry Samoans and the like. While thinking about this list, I had a lot of contenders like The A.G.’s “Bryans Song” 7-inch, The Beltones “My Old Man” 7-inch and newer stuff like The Hidden Spots (Mike Pack has the best voice in punk.)

However, Jesus Chrysler had all the fun,catchy vibe as the A.G.’s plus [a] political slant that wasn’t as heavy handed as the Dead Kennedys. In the time frame of that record release, it wasn’t all that common to hear a jam that stuck in your head yet had some lyrical weight. A quick listen to “I Wanna Be,” however, seems to solidify the worlds of a catchy jam and a band ranting about a better future. Kickass! While their followup LP didn’t really have the power of the 7-inch, the “Turn Or Burn” record still kicks ass.

For the last two years, Horsebites (aka Richard Minino) has created the official logo for The Fest. Along with running his own design company, Minino has provided album covers for bands like Dead To Me, Strike Anywhere, and New Mexican Disaster Squad. Below, he gives us the dirt on how he hooked up with Tony Weinbender and The Fest crew. Enjoy.

I was lucky enough to do the art for the Fest 6 last year and it was a really great learning experience on how to brand a music festival. I thought I did a pretty decent job last year and I wanted to top it for this year’s Fest. Tony Weinbender told me since it was Fest 7 and it started on Halloween that he wanted the art to have something dealing with gambling (i.e. lucky #7) [along with] a Halloween feeling.

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For this installment of the Record (Re)Collection-Fest 7 Edition, Chris Vandeviver of Sakes Alive!! writes about Crime In Stereo’s 2006 full-length The Troubled Stateside. We highly recommend that you check out SA!!’s brand new 7-inch Act I and that you go see them at The Fest 7. They will definitely be one of the highlights. Read on. 

Crime In Stereo - The Troubled Stateside
By Chris Vandeviver

I know it seems like an older record would make sense for a Record Re-Collection. And honestly, D4’s Midwestern Songs and Circle Takes the Square’s As the Roots Undo immediately jumped at me. However, these monumental albums are obvious tomes. Crime In Stereo’s Nitro effort, though, doesn’t strike me as obvious as the aforementioned. My life, however, was brought back full circle due to this brilliant album.

Imagine the image of this modern (young) man: forty hours a week at shitty, near minimum wage hell; walking half an hour each morning at 5:30 a.m. to work, and 2:30 p.m. home to being tired as hell; no direction, and musical efforts imploding to ego-maniacal twenty year olds; your roommate fucks up and sends your rent money to his school loan collector, and by the time you find out you are being served an eviction notice, thus forcing you to return to the parents that you try so hard to avoid. Did I mention life sucked? Cause it did.

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