Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 13:38:34 -0400 (EDT) 0 00000 000 000 00000 0 0 000 0 0 00000 000 0 0 00000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 000 000 0 00000 00000 0 0 0 0 00000 000 000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00000 00000 000 000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 00000 =================== 68 militant lesbian recipients ========================= ========================== News Updates ==================================== Here's a copy of the LTJ interview in Gas Leak. I've had a horribly shitty day and trying to get this scanned and edited has pushed me over the edge. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Honey Brown This month, your favorite Rude Boy sat down with Less Than Jake (minus one horn player and one bass player) to "philosophize about bitches and God and shit" to quote Ice Cube. For those of you under a fucking rock for the past two years, Less Than Jake is to pez what Michael Jackson was to Pepsi minus the hair burning thing. Oh, and they have consistently been Gainesville's big draw for cross-over audiences. You'll find anything from skatepunks to Rude Boys to old school punks at their shows, but more importantly you'll find me there too. Their introductions at our "interview" were telling of the characters that inhabit this band. Buddy, the Ballsy trombonist, did a wonderful rendition of a Patrick Swayze croon but continued to change identities between a chair, Balzac, and Homer Simpson. Derron, the latest greatest baritone saxist, refrained from any such display of public self-deprication while smoothly chillin' against the wall. Chris, not-one-to-dwell-on-an-upstroke guitarist, openly admitted his admiration for Flash, Roscoe P. Coltrane's dog. Vinny, the pez-obsessed drummist, showed his Vinny Barbarino-doing-Marlon Brando routine but insisted it was Hulk Hogan. Sean, orginal member-roadie-overall-do-it-all guy, actually let Vinny do an impersonation of him from this summer's tour (under the influence of much caffeine and ephredrine) "Leave me alone; I'll get us there; I promise." Jessica, Missszz Saxist, and Roger, the Bonsa bassist, were wisely absent from this meeting, and I will state that the following in no way reflects the opinions of the entire Less Than Jake band. Nor will this be a transcription of our conversation with them. The first thing you want to know about LTJ is what are their favoright pez flavors. Then you find out nobody really likes pez except Chris who "found peppermint the other day. It takes like certs and gets rid of ass breath.", Sean who likes cherry and chocolate (I'll get to chocolate in a minute), and Vinny who says, "I'll have to say all of them but chocolate's good too from Europe." At this point Sean agrees while I'm in awe that pez actually exists in Europe much less distributed in exotic flavors. Somewhere Roger is actually disappointed that he didn't get his pez opinion in print. Sorry dude. This latest line-up is not the original LTJ; actually it's not even the original Gainesville LTJ. The original line-up was Chris, Vmny and Sean until Sean ran away with the circus or the carnival actually ( he supposedly was the bearded lady with the really big dick.) Chris explains, Chris: Then I moved to Gainesville and in a year Vinny moved and we got the band together with another bass player in the summer of '92. I won't mention any names. He's a great bass player and regardless of what happened between us he's great and we had a great time doing what we were doing but things didn't work out. We ended up getting Roger and Jessica by February '93 and our first show was in March. GL: So you guys started without horns. Because I've heard some of the stuff without horns and wondered if that was stuff you brought over or did you add horns to some old stuff or what? Vinny: There are still songs without horns. Chris: Pretty much we discovered a band called Snuff that rocked. That gave me a lot of inspiration because our stuff without horns pretty much sounds like anybody else and I'll be the first to admit that. So the horns add that little bit to be distinct from everyone else. There's a lot of shit where a lot of bands do the same shit. Buddy: Gives you a little more to listen to. Chris: Then he(Buddy) came in the summer of '93 (Many sexual references to Budddy coming in the summer of '93 and how nobody was there to prove it.) All: Derron's the latest greatest. He's the Purple Dick. Vinny: Yeah Derron got in by the Big Dick Clause. We looked for the horn player with the biggest dick we could possibly find With their recent success on tour and the attention they have garnered from major labels, you'd think they are a bunch of egomaniac assholes with attitudes to match. But they are actually a group of level-headed musicians who like to talk about big, purple dicks and like showing their scrotum (well, only one member really likes to show his scrotum). And besides their only claim to fame so far is that they met the Lucky Charms' Leprechaun at that very famous Irish landmark, the Alamo. They actually have been in demand as they ahve been in 14 comps including the bonus Skarmageddon from Moon Records that will be out the first week of October featuring 46 bands and have pressed three 7" with Toybox Records. The first CD they have just released called "Pezcore" is on the Skankin' Pickle label, Dill. On how they got Dill: Sean: We gave them the tape when they came into town. Vinny: Well, actually, they called us originally to be on the Misfits of Ska comp (out on Dill). I sent a tape of the new stuff. He (Mike Parks from Dill) called with the stuff playing in the background and said "I have to do something with you." So, when one of Dill's other bands decided to back out of a contract, LTJ got the chance to go. On why they went to Dill rather than one of the locals they had used before: Chris:There's only so much you can do on your own. We paid for studio time (at Tommy Hilton's in Tennesse), they pressed the CD (5000 copies so far) and they helped with the distribution. We got so many CDs to sell or giveaway or whatever. They've been doing their own thing for a while with mailing lists and mailorder through No Idea Records and on their own. Vinny: Everyone is starting to help out, It's starting to build right now because you have a certain amount of orders you have to fill every week or we look like dicks when its 6 months and we haven't done it yet. Buddy: Yeah its cool when you puill into a town and people know who you are. It's that mailorder thing Vinny: I wrote the Bosstones and I got a sticker, O.K. that's cool, whatever. I even got a Christmas card from Dicky Barrett. Buddy: We're going to try up until the point when we can't possibly answer everyone's letter. LTJ has received a lot of slack from the SKA community for fusing the harder edge of punk with the smooth SKA. This "Keep-your-punk-outta-my-SKA" attitude rages against bands like LTJ, the Bosstones, and other I traditional SKA bands that want to expand the sound of SKA without necesarrily needing to be tied down to a, formula. This is apparently something they've encountered a lot. Vinny: Whoever says it's got to be traditional SKA is full of shit. Everything is influencing ska. "Ska has to be pure" - Bullshit! You have some tradional rude boy who listens to the Skatalites or the Specials, and says "you guys aren't ska." Well, fuck that; we are SKA. (As the rest of them break into an uproar over being called SKA) O.K. I won't lay labels. But lets face it; we have an upstroke guitar. Buddy: That's why I don't want to want to be labeled ska. People are like that "ska has to be ska" and they shun everyone else. they don't like change, progression. You can't go back to be the Skatalites or Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin. Vinny: It's not as pure as everyone likes to think it is. That's my damn point about it. Vinny seems to be the real SKA goumet in the band and these are definitely not SKAnatics. But maybe that's what makes them so good. They have brough all of their individual influences and fused them into a unique sound. (granted it is rooted in some punk and even some other punk/ska sounds, but it is original to LTJ). This "popularity," "talent,", "good fortune", "fuck-it-if-they-don'tlike-us attitude" has brought much attention from major labels, namely Capitol Records. They have been in contact with an agent of Capitol's for several months and were followed somewhat by him on tour this summer. We pull into Winston-Salem, NC, go into a Wendy's, and there's the son of a bitch eating a sandwich. But their plan to sign with Capitol doesn't mean they're going to abandon what has got them where they're at. The trap that many bands fall into when signing with a major label is the attitude that they are somehow better now then when they were struggling to get their music out. This in turn leads many to fuck indie labels, promoters, friends, and others who have stuck by them. They explained that the label has no interest in the tour, the merchandising or the recording of the music as they can make their money off the band. So bands who turn around and refuse for earlier releases owned by small labels to be re-released are the ones fucking the independent not the major label. Vinny: Flipper fucked the guy from Subterrranean. It's the band not the label. Major label does not control the tour, merchandising, nothing but the record. Chris: No Idea and Dill have got us where we're at right now. We couldn't have done this. no such thling as DIY. There's only so much you can do by yourself. Var has doneour shit,; done our shit. Flipper turns around and fucked over people. We're not like that. But a few labels are like "you guys are sell outs." Well, fine, you don't want to sell our record anymore, give me my fucking DAT back and thank you. On the issue of their previous releases on No Idea and the effect of their signing on these: Vinny: We sign tomorrow it doesn't affect anything we've done in the past. They can buy it (meaning Capitol can buy the rights to any previous releases which makes money for the indie label.) Chris: Those songs are in the past. If he (Var at No Idea) wants to release them, he can. Vinny: By the end of the year, Var will have the right to repress everything we've done in the past. They also explain that a full-length CD of their previous stuff was supposed to be out already. Vinny: We'll take as many people who want to go with us. If some major label wants to buy our shit, everyone who has a stake in it will sit down and decide if we want to sell. Var gets money, Mike gets money, everyone! They maintain artistic control of their music. insist on maintaining all-ages shows, and the right to charge a price at their discretion. Chris: It's written into the contract. Trying to make us into something we're not (like so many bands in the '80s) would fuck us up. Total props go out from me to these fine men and woman. They're kickin' it like we'd all like to; One gets the idea that they've got things pretty much in perspective so far. When I asked them if the interview would have been different with Roger and Jessica present and got a resounding "NO!!!!" So they are all on the same vibe, and it seems to be straight-up, punk, SKA, and all that.