Bikermutt
Self-title C90
C&O Records, 1994

Bikermutt was formed in the mid-80s among a buncha bored Maryland-Baltimore song-writers, two in particular, who had previously gotten together to play other peoples' songs but were inspired by the DIY/punk thang enough that they wanted to do it themselves. They only played two gigs not counting their own house parties (one with toilet-folker bi-goddess Esmirelda and the other with the Forrest Gumps of the Baltimore music scene, the Almighty Senators). Mostly formed around Jim H, yr humble moderator, and Bernie Einstein, other friends and neighbors and schoolpals were brought in to provide found audio, guitars, bass, keyboards, occasional belligerence, etc. This tape summarized our basement and living room dramas but there was also an LP, a 7" and a contribution to one or two compilations out there as well. I also put together some solo stuff as did (does?) Bernie. While the tape came out in 1994, it was posthumous and most of the songs were recorded in the late'80s.

These days, none of us talk to each other for reasons I still can't fathom. Sad 'ennit?

So, for you aspiring ethicists, these are "legal" by many of the definitions since I own, or should own, the copyrights although officially they belong to C&O Records, which was formed by Bernie (he's put out some solo stuff but I can't find any traces of it on the web). Most of my songs were written (and played here) on a magical fuzzy guitar that was borrowed from Bernie for a few years. My songwriting days were over when we lost the guitar (it was reclaimed by the person he borrowed it from).

"Action Line" - I got the lyrics from a National Lampoon article that listed some of the most stupid calls received at one of those newspaper phone centers. In the spirit of the minutemen, I just sung the words over a free-form chord structure. I liked this one the best out my "guitar songs" even if the recording could have been better.

"Biker Angels" - This closes out the tape (and hence all of our output) and was an improv that Bernie found from some of our marathon basement/living room sessions. Katchmar, one of Bernie's friends, was on guitar and Stewart was on bass. I'm playing drums and Bernie is making the wierd sounds. Well, actually it doesn't sound like we're playing anything except for voices in the background.

"Ninja Bitch" - A song about the Frank Miller comic, Electra Assassin (soon to be a major motion picture and prequeled in the awful Daredevil). The song is written in the person of one of the characters in the comic book. I'm not sure I would have put the tape recording you hear in the beginning but Bernie thought it was funny (it came off my phone machine) I guess and fit because it mentions one of the words in the title.

"New World Order" - This was representative of Bernie's experimental stuff - tape loops with spacey type sounds overlaid. I think, like McCarthey (heh), this was recorded entirely on his own. He writes rather good folky songs in his solo work - I'll post some of it in the future.

"All God's Children (Get Crucified)" - This was kind of based on that evil old guy character in one of the Poltergiest sequels - some dude lurking around terrorizing us with fire and brimstone interpretations of religion. That's Mr. Stewart plucking away on bass, an instrument he had only picked up a few months before.