Timeghoul - Tumultuous Travelings

My friend Tanner Anderson recently reminded me of these guys, one of my favorite demo bands from the early '90s. Timeghoul was the piece that just would not fit. They were ahead of their time, oddballs and rejects that didn't have a home or an easily classifiable sound to help them get noticed. They released two demos, the last of these being released in 1994, and shortly thereafter split up.

Here we have their first demo "Tumultuous Travelings," released in 1992. John Haughm and I were both friends with Jeff Hayden, Timeghoul mastermind, and spoke with him frequently around this time. If I remember correctly, Jeff was a high school teacher, and was very odd. At one point he sent John a piece of bacon in the mail.

More info HERE and download HERE

Paraxism - Promo 1997

As promised a while back, here is another installment of the wonderful Paraxism. Perhaps the most under-rated and unrecognized metal band ever, or at least to me and my circle of friends. My collection of Paraxism material differs from the info found at Metal Archives HERE so I will just go by what my tape traded tapes say about these demos and limited releases, like this one, that were not properly released and distributed.

So, as far as I am aware this was just called Promo '97, and as far as I know, was never really released or sent to labels at all. I have never seen a cover for it, and no little about it save what the band told me when it was released.

Enjoy one of the finest bands to EVER emerge from Finland. HERE

Susurrus Inanis - The Shadowless Shining Demo 1997

This is another old demo of mine. The band was formed by myself and Daniel Breyer in 1997. This was right before and somewhat concurrent with the formation of Agalloch as well. We released this one demo in 1997, limited to 200 copies if I remember correctly, and then got signed to Cold Spring Records out of England. It was my first record contract and we were all very excited.

After that, Daniel's life in academics took precedence over music, and Sculptured, Nothing and Agalloch took precedence over Susurrus Inanis for me, and the project collapsed with only the one demo to our name.

Many Agalloch fans fell in love with Breyer's work on "Pale Folklore" and "Of Stone Wind, and Pillor" and have wanted to hear this demo. Few mp3s have surfaced, and no downloads of the entire demo have surfaced as far as I am aware. For those who loved Breyer's work in Agalloch, this demo will be a welcome treat as it further continues and refines that style. Yes, I am on the demo too, but my portions are amateur at best. A lack of ability and equipment at the time made my contributions more of a hindrance than anything.

Enjoy this rare look into the past of Agalloch.

Download HERE

Gnome - Under The Black Moon

Gnome is the creation of Masanori a.k.a. "Wood." Masanori is a Japanese fellow who runs Cosmic Garden Productions aside from maintaining this one-man black metal wonder. Gnome's roots obviously lay with the Norwegian hordes of Darkthrone and Burzum, but Gnome offer some new spices to the recipe as well.

"Under The Black Moon" is Gnome's second demo and it was released in 1996. In 1999 Gnome released a split LP with Nyarlathotep also from Japan, and since then has disappeared, rumor has it, the one-man project dissolved.

Download HERE and more info HERE

V.B.G. - Compilation

V.B.G. stood for Victimized By Gypsies, and it was my first proper band. We were teenagers in Bozeman, Montana and played shows around the Bozeman area for a few years. We were a grindcore/death metal band that worshiped at the feet of Napalm Death, Obituary, Carcass and Pungent Stench.

We released two demos "Staff Infection" and "Auntie Christ" both in 1992. At the time, and in our area especially, death metal was totally unknown, local kids thought we had invented it. Adam Jelinksi and I shared song writing duties, and we each sang on the songs we had written, later, Joe Ulvi joined us on second guitar, and he then started writing as well.

The line up was:
Jason Walton - Bass/vocals
Adam Jelinski - Guitar/Vocals
Ladd Rutherford - Drums
Joe Ulvi - Guitar

Most of our songs had a bit of humor in them, and many didn't have lyrics at all, just rhythmic growls. Here we have both of our demos, and some live tracks. The photo here is all of us except Joe in an art class. Me, with an Entombed "Clandestine" shirt, Adam with a Ramones shirt, and Ladd with an Entombed "Crawl" shirt.

Download HERE.

Designed 2 Fade - "Cheze" Demo 1994

I recently found this in my box of old demos. I had completely forgotten about this cassette. In 1994 I was out of High School for about a year, and living in Bozeman, MT after having lived in Minneapolis, MN since graduating. I stopped by my old friend's apartment in downtown Bozeman, he lived above Miss Kitty's Adult Store, and he was recording this demo in his apartment.

It was mainly my friend Chris Lekan's project, he wrote most of the music, played most the instruments, and had a pretty impressive project studio in his modest apartment, so he recorded everything as well. He ended up asking me to play bass for the recording, and we worked out the lines right there on the spot, and recorded them in a couple hours.

Then we walked down the street and ran into local punk Mark King. Mark was best known for having the first septum piercing in Bozeman, at least that we knew of. He never seemed to have a place to stay, or work, he perpetually couch surfed and wandered the streets. We asked him to sing, and he sang most of the songs without ever hearing them beforehand, and made up the lyrics as he went, save for a few corrections here and there.

I think only a few copies of these existed in the first place, and I don't have a scanner, so I just took a picture of the cassette. Musically, its kind of a nod to the first Mr. Bungle album. Enjoy.

Download HERE.

Wendess - Demo 2009

Wendess are a real quality atmospheric black metal band from Quebec, Canada. Nothing super original here, but really well done. I would say this demo promises that this band will grow to be even greater.

This demo was recently released by Baleful Benediciton on cassette and was limited to 61 hand numbered copies. Truly this demo deserves a proper widely distributed release. I don't know much more than this about this band, and I cant find much information on them on the internet, so just download and judge for yourself.

Download HERE.

Peeping Tom - Demos

Here are some rough demos for one of my favorite albums of the last few years, Peeping Tom's self titled debut. Legend has it that on these demos Mike Patton recorded and played all instrumentation himself. It is interesting to hear the difference between these recordings and the finished album.

Perhaps even more interesting are the couple tracks that do not appear on the full length such as "Desperate Situation" that although it doesn't appear on the album, they do play it live. Anyway, this is just a nice glimpse into the process of this amazing album, and perhaps a glimpse into the future of the project as well.

Download HERE.

Remember - Promo '96

In 1995 I was living in Minneapolis, MN and didn't know many people.  I wandered into a record store on Nicollet Mall and heard a long haired kid ask for the new Mortiis album.  I approached him and we started talking.  This long hair was Cordell Klier.  Now Cordell is fairly well known as a dark electronics/glitch/experimental artist, as well as performing spoken word, graphic design and running DoctSect Media for years.  

We became good friends and reveled in Kvist, Brighter Death Now, SPK, Ved Buens Ende, and countless noise and black metal bands.  We recorded this promo in 1996 together with one keyboard, one microphone and a 4-track.  It is a strange mix of ambient, black metal, trip hop, and electronica, and to this day I am still proud of this cassette.

In a separate folder you will find an unreleased, untitled and UNFINISHED track that we recorded at famed Gark Studios in Minneapolis, with Dave Pinsky who recorded and produced The Beastie Boys for years.  The G Spot that the Beastie Boys refer to is Gark Studios.  We recorded this in a day to 2" tape, and never finished it due to financial issues.

I don't have a scan of the cover, so here is a generic photo for you to enjoy.

Download HERE.  

Mr. Bungle - OU818

Mr. Bungle's last and best demo was called "OU818", the title being a send-up of Van Halen's "OU812" album.  The demo was recorded in June of 1989 and was released on cassette.  A year after this demo was released, they inked their deal with Warner Brothers and re-recorded four of these songs for their debut album.

Years later, the demo was re-released on a bootleg CD called "Excrement" which doesn't differ in content, but for some reason the track order has changed.  What I am presenting here is actually the "Excrement" Bootleg version because the sound quality is so much better.  

It is really interesting to hear these songs in demo form, but the real gem here is the only studio version of "Mr.  Nice Guy," a track that was never officially released, but the band used to play frequently.   The other gem is the Milli Vanilli reference that has become somewhat of a legend amongst Bungle freaks.  See if you can recognize it.

More info on the orginal cassette demo HERE and more info on the bootleg HERE and you can download the bootleg HERE.