TORCHE:
Stoner pop? Beach Boys-like doom? Whatever

COBALT:
I don't really consider us black metal in any sense of what black metal is.

DODSFERD:
Motivated by desolation,
despair, hate, irony, death,
loss, betrayal, etc

PYGMYLUSH:
Between the delicacy of
gorgeous acoustics & the
ugliness of noise rock.

TRACTOR SEX FATALITY:
The most active defunct garage band in Seattle answers our questions.

MERCILESS DEATH:
Thrash metal revivalists  
speak out against false metal

JONAH JENKINS:
The man behind the voice of some of the most underrated underground American bands. 

THE PAX CECILIA:
Giving their music away for free. And it's damn good too.  

WORLD COLLAPSE:
Hardcore has always been about self-expression and
that's exactly what we do. 

U.S. CHRISTMAS:
North Carolina psychedelic hard-rockers acquire
'band to watch' status..

INTRONAUT:
The best self-indulgent odd metered prog metal band around.   

GENTLE VEINCUT:
German angular punk rock/post-hardcore for lack of a better term. 

THE INTELLECTUALS:
Italian garage rock you must know. 

NACHTMYSTIUM:
Spearheading a new wave of  extreme American music.  

BARONESS:
Men of a few words. 

MOTHER TONGUE:
On their beginnings, their first record and their first demise. 

FLATTBUSH:
Extreme world music via San  Francisco.

TOTIMOSHI:
Six drummers & four records later the band unleashes its finest.

HOLY HEART FAILURE:
Shitty emo puss-pop bands & a short tale of Wild Turkey.

THE JONBENET:
Bar recordings and a meaningless moniker.

NOVEMBER COMING FIRE:
Cheese sandwiches and 
progression in hardcore.

SINCE BY MAN:
"We are happy fun-loving dudes."

THE MASS:
"Money, time and blood go straight down the drain."

Say hello to the most active defunct band on the planet. Seattle’s Sex Tractor Fatality have their latest recording whipped out through the always inspiring Dead Beat Records. It’s titled Peel and Eat and is truly bound to fuck up some ear drums, some auditory ossicles, some oval windows, some cochleas, some semi circular canals, some eight nerves and finally, some eustachian tubes. Certainly, here at Deaf Sparrow we feel obliged to contact anyone who can cause that much damage. Vocalist Rob answered our questions. Read on and spread the word!

- Tractor Sex Fatality has been together for four years. I don’t know anyone who likes the same styles of music I do. And certainly I don’t know anyone else that digs music as abrasive as what you guys are doing. How did you find each other?

Not many people care for us around here either! Ha. People show for the spectacle but not as much for the sound. Most of my bandmates I knew from running a now defunct Video Store in Seattle. They all rented from me and we hit it off on quite a few levels. I’ve known John (gtr.) and Ward (drums) since 1996-ish.   I met Dave (bass/gtr.) through The Blow UP breaking up. Karlis, the old bass player and Dave both came from that band, and it was the best band in town thru the 90’s. As for a bond existing, we all wanted to be as loud and abrasive as possible, I assume. Confrontational. A lot of bands in WA just left me cold. Fashion rock. Nothing that was upfront and ugly. That’s what we aimed for originally. We played and practice for about a year and got better at it…then a year or so later we wrote songs!

- Peel and Eat is obsessed with volume. The distortion is quite extreme, how much distortion or volume is too much distortion or volume?

I think we were compensating for the loss of members that time out. We scaled down to a four piece from a six or seven piece line-up. John is always too damn loud anyways. Room-clearing kind of guy. Why would a studio be any different for him? Peel and Eat was recorded live with overhead room mics and such. You can probably hear some of the distortion just like a practice space tape because of it. I’m really into distortion. Blown out tapes and handheld recordings. There’s interesting things that go on in high distortion levels…sounds that weren’t there, not played by you. You start to hear horns and chimes and shit. Incidental instruments. Plus, It helps cover up mistakes.

As for too much distortion or volume…It depends on the artist involved. Would you want to hear The Brainbombs or Unsane clear and quiet? Don’t think so. Stuff like Sightings and The Horrors (old Iowa band on In the Red) knew how to utilize volume distortion to maximum effect. Just depends on what the artist is trying to convey. We change it up record to record as well.

- At times some of your songs seem like they are falling apart, how do you keep them from totaling deconstructing?

We just seem to have a feel for when to come together and wrap it up. We’ve always got this underlying improv aspect to the songs. We know how it starts and ends, but we tend to let it breathe in the middle. Live, well…it tends to get a little hairy and stray.

- In a live setting, how important is it to you to replicate the recorded material? How important is it to keep it spontaneous?

Live is a totally different monster. Room sound, equipment failure, extra drummers, etc. It’s nice to have the songs underlying in the filth, but we tend to cake on what ever we can to take it up a notch. Plus the drinking can get a little, uh…yeah. It’s hard to replicate a guitar solo perfectly hanging upside down from the rafters or walking thru the crowd with a snare drum.

- The recording process of Peel and Eat. Tell us something about it?

That recording was done pretty quickly. We had plans to do a 6 song 12” E.P. initially. Tom (Dead Beat) contacted us about doing something, but wanted a full-length that could be pressed and out by our tour (with the Blowtops down the west coast). The whole process from recording to pressing was like 2 months. We had the 6 songs in the can, and had a few others that were old and never recorded for the first album, plus a Scratch Acid cover. Then we made up some stuff on the fly.  The whole thing was done like a live show one-take kind of thing. Like “live on the radio” kind of feel. All the tracks were recorded in 2 hours. I did some vocals about an hour later and there was a couple of feedback overdubs…some noises, etc. But the bulk of it was recorded straight through. We were fighting a lot that day and the frustration and anger is really there in the tunes! Should have kept the in-between banter on the tapes…pretty brutal.  The guy (Lee) who recorded us did it for dirt because he had just built this studio and was trying to get a grasp on things. MRX Studios. They’ve done a lot of big things there now days… His wife (Sally of the Honeymoon Killers fame) was in the band early on and hooked us up. We damn near caused him a melt down putting it together. The record was kind of tainted by the negative vibe we had in the recording, but nowadays I like it a lot. Granted there are a couple of tunes I would have liked to leave off or fix because I sound like ass…gah.

- How did the moniker come about?

It’s a form of autoerotic death. I’ve only found a couple of cases pertaining to it. Check it out. Google away kids.

- The album is out on Dead Beat Records. I don’t think I’ve heard a halfway decent record from that label. All their stuff is fantastic. How did you land there?

Over the last few years DeadBeat has become a real hit factory to my ears. When I was asked about doing the record, He had just released the AluminumKnotEye and The Feelers records, which were both top ten-ers that year for me. Since then he’s put out Functional Blackouts stuff, LiveFastDie, Haunted George, Dead Hookers, DC Snipers, Daily Void, etc. Buy them all! Then harass him into pressing vinyl of our album.

- Seattle, very rich area as far as music is concerned. In your opinion, which are the best bands to come out of your area?

Bests ever? The Sonics (from Tacoma). The U-Men and Mudhoney. The Nights & Days/Night Kings/The Vasquez family tree. Steel Wool. Double Fudge and The Blow Up. More recently, The Coconut Coolouts, Sex Vid, Walls, Iron Lung, Kount Fistula. I could think of more if I still lived in Washington.

- Are there any other great unsung bands in your area?

I’d go back to The Blow Up and Double Fudge for that one…sadly missed. Live is where ya’ need to be. Double Fudge has morphed into Unnatural Helpers and has ties to the A-frames/Intelligence folks. Better than any of that in my opinion. Blow Up was fucking rowdy…someone’s got the last show on tape somewhere. Blow Up good. Yes sir.

- First garage record that stroke your fancy?

Probably Cramps’ Bad Music For Bad People compilation. That’s the one that made me dig deeper for the roots. On a far noisier level: Pussy Galore Groovy Hate Fuck LP. That’s where the damage comes from. Those would be garage rock in my book.

- Last garage rock record that stroke your fancy?

For straight-up garage, I’d say The Hue Blanc Joyless Ones and The Dead Hookers LPs. Really dig on CPC Gangbangs singles and The Monsters re-issues right now. Noisy. Stuff of the weird punk™ variety: Terrible Twos, RedRedRed, Human Eye, and the new Detroit stuff is amazing. Seriously. There’s also this band from down south called Touched who put out a 7” this year that’s fantastic proto-punk Clevo-style. I want more! Hollywood from Maryland (methinks) is one to look for in the future as well.

- I am always seeking for great albums I’ve never heard. Please list albums you like a lot or consider influential.

Influences for me that are pretty obvious: Scratch Acid (duh) & The Birthday Party, Germs and Void. Lynyrd Skynyrd (seriously.) Hammerhead, Lubricated Goat, Lollipop and the whole AmRep vibe. Honeymoon Killers. Laughing Hyenas quite a bit in the later years. The Piranhas (Detroit punk-not the ska band!). The Monoshock singles comp. Early Alice Cooper is taking its toll on me. The first Tangerine Dream and Red Krayola records. Electric Eels. Rat At Rat R (early records from a somewhat forgotten NY scumrock band. Good shit!) and White Zombie from 1983-1987. Everything up thru Soul Crusher is great. Trust me. Damaged.

- Is there a goal to the band? Something that could cause you to split because it would mean that you’ve accomplished everything you set out to do with it.

Originally the goal was to clear rooms....haha. Then we just wanted to be interesting to watch and maybe spew a negative hate-vibe on the perky “fun” Seattle scene. Be ugly and entertaining. As for causing a split…all of us moving to separate states would/can do it! I live in California now, Ward’s in AZ., and Dave’s in TX. John’s still in Seattle though…still working on that. I want to do more with him. Somehow we managed to pull this Tractor Sex Fatality thing out of retirement and play a re-union show in Buffalo for the Big Neck records fest. We seemed better than ever on 2 hours of practice this year.

- Next plans.

There’s still a L.P. (long E.P. 12”?) coming out soon on Big Neck. Just waiting on the artwork to get finished. There’s another compilation of outtakes/practice tapes/live recordings we’re working on…the first one out sells the real records. There’s a split 7” with the Loaded Hoods coming out in France soon, with the Arse’Plot Fanzine. Couple of older demos. There’s a split 7” with Fear of Dolls coming out this spring. We cover each other. That’s not bad for a pretty defunct band, eh? Then we’ll get together for weddings and funerals from this point out.

Read Deaf Sparrow's review of Peel and Eat here.
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