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Kev’s Cassette Club #007: Music For Hangovers

Hardship Post - Hack EP B/W Miles Davis The Columbia Years

Media - Maxell XL II

Circa 1993

Readers be forewarned - this latest entry will deal very little with the music on this cassette. Plus I am severely hungover today so I will make it short ‘n’ sweet. For more detailed reminiscing please move on to past weeks…

First up - Miles. I can guarantee you this tape got played once, maybe twice. I know nothing about it and have nothing to add. Except that I’m pretty sure the only reason I had it was to have some sort of ‘mood music’ in case I somehow magically won the lottery and a girl appeared in my apartment. Which never happened, and thus I know nothing about this tape.

OK, let’s get to the meat of this meal. 

Hardship Post were frigin’ amazing. They were probably the best live band Halifax had in 1993 and I used to get super psyched for every show they would play. They had wicked tunes, the bass player seemed slightly insane and because Sebastian the singerdude was cute you knew there would be lots of indie rock girls at the show. I remember I dubbed this EP from my buddy Andrew who obviously had way better taste in music than I did. We would crank this all the time while we drove around in my two door, blue Tercel (pronounced Ter-sill, accent on the ‘Ter’). Our destination always seemed to be The Bar, The videostore where he worked or a buddy’s house. No matter which of the destinations were chosen, there was always a pile of weed involved. But since I didn’t smoke I would watch him and his friends (but mostly him) get super high. The only people that I knew who smoked on a regular basis seemed like they were borderline retarded so, recognizing that I was also borderline retarded, I stayed away. I figured I couldn’t afford to sacrifice any of the few brain cells than I had left. Heck, Maiden might be coming back to town and I need to ‘be all there’ dude!

What I remember about seeing Hardship Post live was that they kicked serious ass. I remember one show at the Double Deuce in Halifax where the bass player smashed the headstock of his bass over his amp. Apparently things weren’t going his way and he just let ‘er rip. I remember going to several shows after that hoping he would do the same thing but he never did. Bummer. They had an EP out (the fabulous ‘Hack’) so I figured they must be making SOME dough. Boy would I later find out how wrong I was on that one. [author’s note - My band in Halifax the Grace Babies would release a cassette early the next year. I would regularly call the campus radio station to request it so that it would move on up the charts. That worked until the DJs began recognizing my voice and told me ‘Stop calling - your tape is number one already. Jeez!’ Mission accomplished!]

The Hack EP was a pretty damn great release and they would go on to make a few more recordings but ultimately disband. NOT in a blaze of glory. The drummer quit the band on the eve of their Major Label debut (as much as Sub Pop was distributed on a major label) ‘Somebody Spoke’. The timing couldn’t have been much worse. Horrible decision making quickly became the hallmark of the band: the two remaining members thought that it would be a good idea to replace their wicked-ass ROCK drummer with the singer’s girlfriend.

Wow.

What a shitty decision that was. I know this is going to sound racist but she wasn’t even ‘girl good’. So now you had someone who was mediocre at best trying to play some serious drums. Ugh. It was painful to watch. I was furious! Inevitably the awesome rock tunes had gotten all of the ‘rock’ siphoned off. Oh well, I guess their fate was sealed by the fact that in late 1994 the rock world now already had one nerdy/cute guy that looked like Buddy Holly (Rivers Cuomo). Two would be one two many I guess. 

Rock ‘n’ roll is a vicious game.

I’m not including Miles in any of the following ratings for reasons of pure ignorance on my part.

• Awesomeness then: 9/10.
• Awesomeness now: 7/10. Grunge rarely travels through time well.
• Crankability: 7/10.
• Prog level: 5/10. Must have been somewhat complicated ‘cuz their new drummer couldn’t cut the mustard.
• Ovary factor: 8/10. Ladies love a good nerd once in a while.

Homework:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxDsvgpUUd4
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnDRnOGbVOM (I remember being on the set of this video doing some camerawork for MuchMusic and pooping my pants ‘cuz these guys were gunna be HUGE!)
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrZBa7xuqf8 (love the tuxes!)

Forwardable link: www.KevsCassetteClub.tumblr.com

Yup!

KH