Various Artists - Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking in the Streets Volumes 8-11 (1997)

  Amphetamine Reptile Records ■ 9 25194-1

Released April 22, 1997

Technical Credits Unknown, Likely Varied

Side One (Vol. 8 & 9):	Side Two (Vol 10 & 11):
Superchunk - "Basement Life" Guzzard - "Bites" Jawbox - "Low Strung" godheadSilo - "Lotion Pocket" Bordeoms - "Pukuri" Supernova - "Sugar Coated Stucco" Chokebore - "Brittle & Depressing" Love 666 - "You Sold Me Out #2"	Bailter Space - "Glimmer Dot" Steelpolebathtub - "A Washed Out Monkey Star Halo" Chrome Cranks - "Dead Man's Suit" Brainiac - "Cookie Doesn't Sing" Today Is the Day - "Execution Style" Rocket from the Crypt - "Tiger Mask" Calvin Krime - "Fight Song" Gaunt - "Kiss Destroyer" Servotron - "Matrix of Perfection"

I'm often wary, wandering into any record store for the first time. There's no real guarantee of what anyone has or will carry, and in a used store it becomes even more complicated, as they can only carry what records they've acquired to sell. And that, then, depends on the locals. The first time I walked into Dead Wax Records, I wasn't sure what to think. Between the place I now live and the places I work, there's not a lot of music to be found. Even the oft-ignored (for financially justifiable reasons) FYE and similar "TWEC" (TransWorld Entertainment Company, who owns FYE, Coconuts, etc) stores make no appearances. There's a Best Buy, a Wal-Mart, a Target--certainly nowhere you'd find vinyl (beyond the semi-kitschy '7" with a t-shirt' thing Target is doing--but I owned most of the ones that looked interesting to me, or saw no reason to get the 7"), and nowhere you'd find a good chunk of my music collection, vinyl or otherwise.

I found a small used record and used/new CD store about fifteen miles away and had a very strange experience there, locating both upstate New York's Immolation's third album and some Split Enz albums I was looking for on CD. I found some Throbbing Gristle material, too, which is only appropriate for this particular entry--well, parts of it. I couldn't really make heads or tails of the place, though I've intended to go back a few times (never managing). When I started my current job just a bit further out, though, someone there mentioned a local record store, which piqued my interest immediately. I swung by after work that day, only to find it was closed on Mondays, deciding to come back the next. That next day, I wandered in and found it comfortably cozy and close, as you'd expect from a fledgling (only a few months old!) record store. However, its walls were papered with posters and fliers for bands I knew well--but knew well from my forays into music in the last few odd years more than anything else. Snapcase. Gluecifer. The Murder City Devils. The Supersuckers. Turbonegro. Mudhoney. All the sorts of things I'd tried (sometimes successfully) to push on a very picky person I know.

Doomtree - No Kings (2011)

Doomtree Records ■ DTR033

Released November 22, 2011

Produced by Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S., Paper Tiger, Sims
Engineered by Joe Mabbott
Mastered by Bruce Templeton
Beats by Cecil Otter (A1-B1, B3, C1, D1-D3), Lazerbeak (A1-A3, B2, C2-D3), P.O.S. (A1, A2, D1, D3), Paper Tiger (D3)

Side One:	Side Two:
No Way Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S. Bolt Cutter P.O.S., Sims, Dessa, Mike Mictlan Bangarang P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Sims	Beacon Dessa, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Sims Punch-Out Mike Mictlan, Sims Little Mercy Cecil Otter, Dessa

Side Three:	Side Four:
The Grand Experiment Dessa, Sims, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan String Theory Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter Team the Best Team P.O.S., Sims, Cecil Otter, Dessa, Mike Mictlan	Gimme the Go Cecil Otter, Sims Own Yours P.O.S., Sims, Mike Mictlan, Cecil Otter Fresh New Trash Sims, Cecil Otter, P.O.S., Dessa, Mike Mictlan

Maybe it's just the Dessa show I was at two weeks ago, but I feel like I've relayed the story of how I found Doomtree enough times already--I was asked at that show by just about everyone, including associates and one of the opening acts. There's no stranger experience for me than going to those shows. I don't know why it is, exactly, but I end up with people asking me how long I've known them, or when I left Minneapolis, or how on earth, if neither of those is true (there's nothing true in either--I've never even been to Minnesota in general, and the friends I have there have only lived there since I discovered Doomtree, basically). I'd chalk it all up to the general positivity they all exude in person, the down-to-earth appreciation and gratitude they express openly and consistently to seemingly everyone, but then you would think everyone would get asked those questions, or no one would ask them at all.