Sometime in the late '90s there was SPAZZ show at 924 Gilman with CURTAIN RAIL, only the Japanese band never showed up. Word came in as bands were loading out at the end of the night that they had broken down and were stranded with the dude from Conspiracy Evolve at a hotel in Kettleman City. Not wanting to miss seeing these ragers in the flesh, and knowing how much it must suck to think about spending half of your tour stranded in the Central Valley, I drove south instead of driving home, and found myself knocking on a hotel room door around 4am. Four excited dudes opened the door and asked with a mix of curiosity and excitement, "Gilman Street?" The language barrier was severe, but eventually they understood that they had, in fact, completely missed playing at Gilman with SPAZZ (which, in the year 199whatever, was pretty much the holy grail for a fastcore band from Japan) and so we took a short nap before heading back to San Francisco for an afternoon show at Mission Records. That 20 minutes was well worth the late night run, as CURTAIN RAIL were a dervish of stops and starts and manic blasts with warp speed death metal riffs sneaking into their brand of Japanese Hardcore, just a complete and total assault in every way. And then I drove back to LA to send those dudes home....
One of the guys would go on to play in COFFINS (which perhaps help explain the metal tinge to those riffs), but the CURTAIN RAIL are just as deadly 20 years later. The To Be With You 12" is one of the most overlooked gems of the era, and I still come across it for a pittance. These recordings were sent to me after that batch of California shows...
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