IG-88

I don't think these tracks were ever distributed under the IG-88 moniker, but some may have appeared as EX-IGNOTA tracks at some point. You remember EX-IGNOTA right? That California emo band with the one 7" that had an 8" square cover so that it wouldn't fit with any of the rest of your EPs and the cover inevitably got totally fukkd up? Yeah, that one...is the same as this one. These tracks are a time and place (although the "place" in this context is "the scene" rather then a geographically specific location). If you toured in the '90s then you played with this band, or another like them, and maybe you made fun of the sound and what you dismissed as  manufactured inner turmoil or maybe you writhed with them....and maybe it just depended on the night and how you were feeling or how you were feeling them. I confess that we were more likely to be dismissive when we crossed paths with the emo bands, I can't describe the perceived barrier that was in place, but it just seemed that they weren't like "us." Sometimes it was clearly jealousy - because they had access to a thing, to a "scene," and they seemingly had a built-in community of people who liked their "sound." You know who didn't have a built in community? Four dudes who did not look or dress in any acceptable uniform and were in desperate need of a shower and got way up in people's faces playing songs like "Bury Me In Beer" and flew the Don't Give A Fuck flag at full mast at all times no matter how much it hurt. In other words: "Us." So maybe that was the difference. But I digress somewhat and I'm getting away from the five tracks on this almost unmarked cassette...and the tracks hold up quite nicely on their own merit with no context whatsoever. All of the mid-'90s clichés are there and the "where were you?" backing vocals in the second cut kinda drive me nuts, but when they really put their collective foot in it on last song (which is unfortunately cut off during the good part) I reflect back on the demo I just heard and...well, the writhing is intense and so is the inner turmoil. The EX-IGNOTA records are easy dollar bin fodder thanks to standard '90s DIY pressing runs, and after I banged this one a few times through I went back and revisited that EP with the tattered edges on the cover...on the one hand, it took me back to those living rooms (which are, in my memory, bizarrely combined into one actual show in Houston with BRAID in 1996 - nearly every memory of a show with an emo band manifests itself in my mind as that one awkward night). One the other hand, I liked being back there....even if, or perhaps because, I didn't fit. 

IG-88