Dr. Know: "Plug-In Jesus" Mini-LP

Mystic Records, 1984

Dr. Know were of the Mystic Records crop and violated the sacrosanct aesthetic of hardcore punk by littering their tunes with (horrors!) guitar solos and bass and drums breaks. This was one of the reasons I liked them at least until they full totally dived into metal core in subsequent years. They're since back to their HC punk w/metal accented roots pretty much if their Myspace samples are any indication.

The songs themselves cover all the wellworn HC punk 'n' angst topics - lashing out at religion, society and themselves. This is also one of those odd mini-LPs that Mystic liked to release - somewherez between an EP and an LP - about 10-15 minutes on each side versus the normal 18-20 minutes for LPs and 8-10 minutes for EPs.

First singer was Brandon Cruz and current singer is Brandon Cruz but in-between they had Kyle Toucher both belting out vocals and wailing on "lead guitar"... Interesting thing though is that Fred Mataquin is also listed as "lead guitar" and that pretty much sums up their approach: two blasting lead guitars with a smoking bass and drummer.

Random coolness factoring point was that bassist Ismael Hernandez was kid bro to the Hernandez Brothers and Jamie designed their, um, identity thingie and I may have bought this just as much for asshole comic collector rententionitis completistness than merely just for the band itself given that there were plenty of others plowing similar fields. Here's the Xamie Hernandez logo thingie for waaaat! it's dearth:


Links & shit: Two songs here to sample but Dressed for the Bomb also has cuts up from this record and the songs are mostly found on the "Best of Dr. Know".. in recent years, the band seemed to be on-again off-again but their Dr. Know Myspace, um, space indicates that they are still playing gigs (Cruz and Hernandez are the longtime members) and have a label. There's a comprehensive history both at Myspace and on Wikipedia.

Band:
Kyle Toucher - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Ismael Hernandez - Bass Guitar
Fred Mataquin - Lead Guitar
Rik Heller - Drums



Sample Songs (only up for 14 Days):
"The Intruder" (also called "Fear the Intruder") - nice guitar solo about a minute in
"Circle of Fear" - features an extended drums and bass break and then some nice ensemble work near the end of the song

Saved Round(s): The front page of the Washington Post has an article quoting Bob Mould in the lede and its about how indie bands are making their livings liscensing their songs to commercials and TV shows. I would like to just announce here and now that if anyone would like to license Vinyl Mine to a TV show, I'm more than happy to have your people meet my people. My ideal scenario would be to have the mousy chick and the fat guy in "24" ignoring a terroristic attack because they are downloading No Trend tracks for their iPods.

Also, I want to publicly thank American Analog Set for playing in DC on Tuesday night given that they so graciously publicly thanked me (well, the audience) at the end of the show. Catherine Lewis writes:

The crowd dwindled as the final droning chord of the band's last song, "We're Computerizing and We Just Don't Need You Anymore," morphed into a murmured "Continuous Hit Music" performed by Kenny solo. He then spoke about how much he and his band love playing music. "It really is our pleasure to play for you," he stated generously, unfazed by the thinning and inattentive crowd.

Really, it was an awesome show and AAS adhere to the hardcore punk aesthetic of "no solos" by the way.