http://randomoldrecords.blogspot.com/2009/10/cynicsthe-customsthe-long-gones.html

The Cynics/The Customs/The Long Gones @Southgate House 10/09/2009

at 8:22 PM

Enjoy some recent live covers. And one from the crypt.

Just uploaded 10 unmixed songs straight from the reels of the Prepare To Burn recording from 1998, including an alternate take of the title track. Check out how it sounded live on the 3rd floor of Long Gone Manor on Vestry.

Check it...

http://theneussubjex.com/issue71.htmTHE%20LONG%20GONES

SEMEN LICE INTERVIEW & LP REVIEW

SL: Semen Lice
B: Bryan
D: Drew
T: Tom
A: Adam
S: Stace

SL: How come you decided to name yourself after a Customs song?
Brian: We couldn’t think of a name and Jeff Hansel from the Problematics who’s named many a band suggested that because we were covering that song at the time.

SL: Why didn’t you name the band after an Ass Ponys song or an Afghan Whigs song or something?
B: I’m not familiar with their songs.
Tom: None of their songs stick out.  I’ve never really heard anything by them.
B: The Afghan Whigs had a song called "Retard" and we seriously thought about that one.

SL: How about the "Long Dongs"?  We like that better.
B: You’ll find out later.

SL: OK, here’s the controversial question. How come you kicked Tom out of the band and then invited him back in?
T: Actually, I quit.
     (Laughter)
B: It was pretty mutual really.
T: Yeah. I ran out. I was...

SL: Were you crying?
T: Yeah.

SL: Was it like "Growing Pains" where you yell "fine!" and jump up and run down the stairs yelling "I’m 22 years old!" ?
T: Yeah. Then I went and huffed glue with Boner and it was alright after that.
B: Then he came back because we were sick of messing with idiots and Tom got his shit together.

SL: So Tom’s not an idiot anymore?
T: No.

SL: But you were an idiot for a time?
T: To them, yeah. (Laughs)

SL: OK, so how does this new guy fit in?
Stacy: Uh...

SL: How did you get involved in this mess?
S: They drug me in after they kicked Tom out. They said...

SL: They drugged you?
S: Yeah. They dosed me.
Drew: We found him on the street in San Francisco tripping and with long hair and brought him back here and convinced him that he was a rock n’ roller.

SL: And waited 20 years until he lost some of his hair...
S: Actually it only took a couple weeks.

SL: How come you decided to have two guitar players?
D: It’s louder.
B: We wanted to for a long time, we just couldn’t find anyone else to play that we liked and played the shit that we like.

SL: Is it just going to sound like noise now?
B: Yeah. It’s art.

SL: OK, so what do you guys write songs about?
D: The basics- cars, girls...

SL: You write about cars and girls?  So you basically just take gangsta rap lyrics and put them to rock music?
B: Yeah.

SL: Well we brought some lyrics with us.  We have Easy-E- "Cruisin down the street in my ’64, jockin’ the bitches, slappin’ the hos."  Then we have the Long Gones- "Ditch that Bitch and let’s go racing tonight".
B: You’re going to get us sued.

SL: Do you see the connection here?
D: I think you need to stop talking right now.

B: Yeah, we’re going to have a lawyer representing Death Row knocking on our door.
T: Ice Cube’s gonna produce our album actually.  We’re gonna be called Ice Cube’s Long Gones now.

SL: You need to start singing songs about 40s.
T: Yeah.

SL: So how many of you actually have drivers licenses?
B: (sighs) I drive but I don’t have a license.  I have an Indiana license, but that’s the only state I can drive in.

SL: Tom?
T: If I came up with a thousand bucks, I could get my license back.

SL: Adam?
A: Somehow I’m still legal.

SL: Drew?
D: Still going.

SL: Stacy?
S: Yep. Kentucky license.

SL: Does that count?
S: I think so.
T: I’ve considered trying to get one but...

SL: OK, this one is about Adam for the rest of the band.  How come Adam looks like a gay cop stripper on the cover of the 7"?
     (Laughter)
A: You’ll find out later.
B: He’s been moonlighting as one.

SL: Is that part of the appeal?  Are you trying to get into that scene to get different people to buy the records?
T: Yeah, we’re going for that Village People scene.

SL: That’s why we like The Long Dongs better.
T: It’ s kind of silly....and it’s mean!

SL: Why? The people want to know this stuff.  And how come Tom is the only one who smiles?
A: Tom’s the only one who ever smiles.
B: Tom was the only one with a buzz.
T: Pretty much, yeah. I can’t help it. It’s my natural inner beauty shining through.

SL: I can see that.  I see Adam’s beauty too. The cop thing wasn’t a knock, just an observation. Brian, I’m having a little trouble here finding your beauty.
B: Shit. We’ll work on that for the next record.

SL: So Drew, I saw your new shoes yesterday that have flames on them. Do those help you play faster?
D: I don’t play in those shoes, but they help me walk a hell of a lot faster.

SL: I was gonna say, because maybe these guys could get wrist bands with flames on them so they can play faster too. And maybe Brian could get some braces with flames on them so he can sing faster.
B: I’m working on that.
T: He needs flame tattoos around his mouth.

SL: Yeah, or maybe get a flame tattoo on your tongue.
B: I tried, but my insurance wouldn’t pay for it.

SL: So what’s going on with this new record thing? The 7" sold out right?
B: Yeah, 500 of them sold out in about 6 weeks. I’m not sure how with no advertisement and no shows. Darren Blase is a marketing genious really.

SL: Is he the manager or just the...
B: He just runs the record label.

SL: He’s the official Long Gone genious.
B: Yeah, the guy had dinner with James Brown.

SL: Is he the spiritual advisor?
B: Pretty much.

SL: The MC5 had a spiritual advisor.
B: Darren Blase, that would be the guy. Actually, James Brown is our spiritual advisor but he talks to us through Darren.
D: We get Darren to talk to him and then he interperets to us.

SL: So he’s putting out a 12", is that the deal?
T: Yeah, and a CD.

SL: Is that the Long Gones complete anthology CD?
B: 5 CD box set.

SL: When’s the double live album come out?
S: We want to record it in Tokyo.

SL: There you go, "Live In Japan". You would be in the same league as GBH and The Exploited.
B: Yeah, that’s the sound we’re going for.
B: We did get fan mail from Hawaii. If we could do Hawaii via satellitte...

SL: On Pay-Per-View?  You could have a triple cast, no matter what Pay-Per-View channel you turned on it wouldn’t matter baecause you’d be playing on all of them. It could be .. Wrestlemania. "Long Gones: Live From Hawaii".
B: That sounds good. People could go to arenas and watch it on big screens.

SL: How does this sound: "The Hawaiian Freedom Concert Featuring The Long Gones". I’ve noticed the political overtones in your guy’s lyrics. "Time on my Hands"...to smash the government.
B: Yeah, we’re fucking the system that fucks us.

SL: Is that what "Ditch That Bitch" is about? You’re sick of fucking the system so you’re going to ditch that bitch and move on to fucking the state?
B: It’s about Margaret Thatcher. Wattie didn’t like her.

SL: Yeah, and the song "Heads Or Tails".  It’s like "heads, we overthrow Congress, "tails" we overthrow the President.
B: It’s fuck money, fuck coins and money.

SL: Heads or tails, either way you don’t like it. Is that it?
T: Yeah.

SL: OK, how many of you were in Snotboy 77?
T: Not me, I was, I don’t...no.  Well, okay, maybe I was for a little while.  But I wasn’t in it as long as Adam was.
A: We were both in the Twerps too.
T: Yeah, that’s true.

SL: Well the Twerps are non-functioning I guess. But if they decide to function again are you still in the Twerps?
A: If I get a trip to California out of it I am.

SL: OK, here’s the big question.  Since you guys are Greasers do you hate the Socials?
D: Huh?

SL: Are you gonna rumble with the Socials? I’m making an Outsiders refference here. Drew doesn’t seem to get it.
T: Oh, we get it now.  We thought you were talking about the local band.

SL: Well we are. So what’s your answer?  You guys are the greaser crew, and they’re the Socials.
B: Well they are pretty preppy.

SL: Yeah, and you guys are supposed to rumble.
B: Shawn’s a jock.
A: They make gorilla cookies out of their faces.

SL: You could probably take them.  There’s only three of them.
T: And two of them are girls.

SL: Yeah, but so are you.
T: OK, I guess.
A: Are we gonna tell them the name of the album?

SL: What’s the name of the album?
A: "Prepare to Burn".

SL: You’re recording this yourself right?
B: We’re gonna try. I hope it works.

SL: So what are some new songs we haven’t heard yet?
B: We pretty much dropped most of our old songs. We get sick of our songs really quick.

SL: You guys like to do that don’t you?
B: Yeah, uh, there’s a song called "Rather Be Alone", "Prepare to Burn"...

SL: Is that your metal song?
T: "Nowhere to Go But Down"

SL: There’a another one. All of your songs are about Hell aren’t they? "Prepare To Burn", "Nowhere to Go But Down"...
A: She’s got nowhere to go but down.

SL: She’s got nowhere to go but down because she dumped me and now she’s gonna burn?
T: Yeah.

SL: That should be the album name. "She’s Got Nowhere to Go But Down Because She Dumped Me and Now She’s Gonna Burn".
T: Have like a weird  picture of Satan going like (Tom makes scary arm gestures).

SL: How come you’re not recording this album with Andy Slob again?
B:We want to try to do it ourselves. We borrowed some analog equiptment and we’re gonna see how it turns out.

SL: You guys are scared of Andy, aren’t you?
B: I’m intimidated by him.

SL: I told him that and he wanted to know why.
T: I’m not.

SL: What about you Adam? Are you intimidated by Andy?
A: Yes, whatever you say. I’m not listening to you.

SL: You were in Andy’s most hated band for a while.
A: Who’s that?

SL: The Twerps. Were you there for any of the recordings?
A: Oh yeah.

SL: Is it as bad as...
A: Oh yeah! They were a nightmare.
D: I took the Twerps in my van to the East Coast for ten days. I was different after that.  Bob wouldn’t leave the van and we ended up sleeping, all of us , outside the fucking Mason Temple in DC, and then Mark split...
B: I gave them $60 out of my pocket just so they could make it home.
D: The whole tour was Mark walking, talking, fifteen in front of me and Bill kinda just hanging out, with Bob fifteen feet behind us muttering to himself.

SL: Is that the one where you went in someplace and came back out and found some guy in the van or something?
D: Oh yeah, some guy was like "I’m just gonna sleep here!", and we poked our heads in the van and he saw like blue and green hair and all this weird shit and he freaked out. He was like "Ah, I gotta go!" and jumped up and ran out of the van. He just got scared of us and took off running. He thought we were gonna beat him up or something.

SL: Twerps stories.  Tom was in the Twerps. Did you get kicked out or did you quit.
T: Uh, we just stopped talking to each other.

SL: Is that how you leave bands Tom?
T: Yeah, pretty much. I kept trying to learn their songs and like it was never right for Mark...
B: They never play them straight forward like a normal human being would.
T: Practice always wound up Mark getting drunk and yelling at Don anyway.

SL: So when does this album come out?
B: We’re supposed to send off the DAT within three weeks. But I’m not gonna say because our 7", after it was recorded with the whole UPS bullshit took three months to get done.

SL: Is Darren wanting to do it really soon?
B: Yeah because he’s going to China on his honeymoon for three weeks. Put that in there, Darren’s getting married, so all the other girls won’t have a little playboy anymore.

SL: Oh, is he a stud?
B: No.
T: He should be.
B: Yeah, he’s a classy motherfucker. But anyway, he’s leaving in three weeks to go to China and he wants to have it sent off by then so it’ll be here when he gets back.

SL: What’s he doing in China?
B: Plotting with the Communists.
T: It’s a marketing scam. He’s trying to get us big in China.

SL: Oh yeah, there’s that killer punk scene in China. He just wants you to go over there and play and get shot and get run over by tanks.
B: Yeah, we’ll play some college square...

SL: Yeah and you guys will play your protest songs and say "We don’t care if you run us over, we’re not gonna stop playing."  The sheer energy of you music will hold back the tanks.
D: That’s what we’re looking for, music that will hold back tanks.

SL: That should be the name of your next album, "Music That Will Hold Back Tanks". That’s good.
D: Hopefully this one won’t get lost by UPS.
B: Yeah, our 7" was on that truck that crashed.

SL: "Music That Will Crash Trucks", that should have been what the 7" was called.
B: I think it was part of our curse. That’s the whole reason that truck crashed, because our record was on it.
T: It was probably a Satanic curse by the Hookers.

SL: They realized you guys were going in the wrong direction. So how did you get hooked up with Darren (Shake It Recs.)
B: He just heard of us and wanted to hear us.

SL: Did he like it because you named you band after the Customs song?
B: That’s why he wanted to hear us in the first place but that’s not why he put out the record.

SL: Is it because you guys look good?
T: He was hoping Adam would strip for him.
A: Probably.
B: That’s why we get an LP.

SL: Did the rest of the band have to strip for that?
B: No, you wouldn’t want to see us naked.

SL: So what’s with the CD? Is that for real?
B: He’s gonna put out a thousand of the LPs first and then when those start to sell real well he’ll put out some CDs and another pressing of the album.

SL: Will the CD have the same songs?
B: Well the first 7" will be on the CD because it sold out so fast and we didn’t want to repress it. There’s 500 more wrecked in some truck somewhere. I wish they’d find them.

SL: They probably found them and threw them out just so you wouldn’t get them.
B: Darren’s pretty sure that they were on that truck that crashed. They were shipped out the same day that truck left Nashville for Atlanta and that’s where our records were going and they never got to Atlanta and we know they left Nashville, so...

SL: So are you guys going to be on Killed By Death 812?
B: Yeah, 813 they say.

SL: Or Bloodstains across the Midwest 18? "Raw Rare Punk From 1993-1994"
B: It’s funny, but I could actually see that shit happening.
D: Ten years from now.

SL: I don’t have any more questions. Do you have anything you want to say?
D: Go away.

THE LONG GONES- Prepare To Burn LP- Something mysterious has happened to the Long Gones.  Tom the guitarist, the smiley guy on the cover of their 7", is now making scary faces, and a short balding man in a cowboy hat has suddenly appeared.  Who is this mysterious fifth Long Gone?  While the interview in this issue sheds some light on the mystery, I, as well as many others who make up the legions of Long Gones fans, am perturbed.  Oh well, on to the music.  What we have here is fast hard garage punk with a slight Motorhead feel to it, especially the guitar.  Compared to their 7", the songs are much better and more diverse, making it a pleasurable listen.  The only problem is that it doesn’t sound as good as the 7".  The 7" was raw in a loud noisy way, where this is raw in a kind of muddy way.  No matter how loud I turn up my stereo, I still can’t feel it trembling my insides, a sensation I sorely desire.  Otherwise, they break free of the curse of playing the same song 17 times with slightly different words that most garage bands fall into and have enough originality to make this a good record.  They also restrained themselves and only put two pictures of cars on the whole album (three is my automatic suckiness limit).(M)     (Shake It Records, 4136 Florida Avenue, Cincinnati, Oh 45223)