MUSIC FOR GREEBOES

The first ARTIMUS PYLE tour was a short jaunt up the West Coast in 1998 with a band called MUCKSPREADER from England. They were notable (on flyers, anyway) because the drummer was Spider from AMEBIX, but I admit that the main draw for us was that they were all awesome to hang out with. Just a few shows, including an insane weekend festival outside of Tenino, Washington that featured ATROCIOUS MADNESS and who fucking knows who else. There were a lot of drugs. There was a dude cruising around with a backpack stuffed with mushrooms and a criminally long blade with "Hippie Killer" engraved in the side (the irony was not lost on us). We dubbed the fest "Wasted In The Woods" and by the end people were just randomly screaming "WAAAAASSSTEEDDDD!!!" to the gods and it definitely seemed like nothing good could come from staying any longer. We slept in tents (note: I didn't say we camped. Camping implies some kind of preparation) and it was cold as shit. I was sharing a tent with their guitarist Lee Provins (more recently a member of BLACK ROCK HIGH), who stumbled and/or crawled in one night several hours after I had turned in. He was fumbling around, trying to situate himself to pass out but mostly just making a mess and waking me up, he spilled a full beer in our 2 person tent and tried to clean it up with a roll of toilet paper (hint: that doesn't work). He mumbled something as he was trying to get the beer soaked toilet paper mush off his hands and clothes and I looked up, admittedly annoyed. Lee was on all fours, pants partially down, facing away from me with his ass next to my face. He looked sheepishly at me over his shoulder and with shocking lucidity said, "Wanna have sex?"

MUSIC FOR GREEBOES

Lee made me this tape several years later. A sinister collection of thrash metal on one side (CRANIUM, POSSESSED, WARHHAMMER, SODOM) and snippets from John Peel's BBC Radio program on the flip. He put the Peel stuff together for me so I could hear my bands being played on the show (the kid in me still gets a wee bit giddy every time I hear his distinguished voice say "from the ....Fucked From Birth LP"), and then the end of that side is another mix - more all over the place and really nicely curated. Consider this a prized possession I suppose - or at least a really nice gesture and a ripping tape? Anyway, we never did have sex.