DESCRIPTION:
Two bands, both from Portland, each band playing their own quirky brand of DIY thrash that ranges from the Yngwie-meets-Power-Violence shred thrash of Slam Dunk (With Authority!) to the burly instrumental thrash of Order Of The Gash.
Slam Dunk (With Authority!) are much heavier and raging than you might think, given their goofball band name and dumb song titles (like "Butt Blaster", for instance). Nah, their side is actually pretty fucking great, four songs of quirky, crusty hardcore thrash loaded with intricate fretboard tapping that actually made me a little dizzy on the aforementioned "Butt Blaster" (I want to throttle these guys every time I type that...), burly thrash riffage and chaotic blastbeat tempos, high pitched shrieking vocals, the band bouncing back and forth between brutal midpaced riffage and the superfast shred/blast stuff, woven into complex arrangements with the speeds constantly shifting. Imagine Yngwie Malmsteen stoned out of his mind and roped into playing with a West Coast powerviolence band, that's the vision that keeps popping into my head while listening to the crazy finger-tapping and shredding mixed in with the brutal blasting hardcore and punky thrash metal. Awesome.
I've heard that the coed trio Order Of The Gash are a fun band to see live whenever they play in Portland. Apparently, the band soaks themselves in fake blood before they hit the stage, and then proceed to batter the crowd with their compact sets of instrumental speed math metal. Sounds great! The vocal-free approach for the six songs on their side of the LP damn well rips, and there is a subtle proggy undercurrent to Order Of The Gash's superfast thrash jams, as the songs go from fast-paced serpentine speedmetal to calmer sections of atmospheric math-rock riffing with the guitars shifting between clean chiming tones and crushing metallic distortion, often layering the guitars into intricate arrangements and haunting melodic parts. These cats sound like how I imagine the early Champs stuff might have turned out if they had been worshipping Haunting The Chapel and early Norwegian black metal instead of Puppets-era Metallica when they first started out; recommended to any of you guys that are fans of fierce thrashy instrumental metal like Champs, Suzukiton, Hematovore, and Le Force !
Packaged in a silkscreened black sleeve printed with gold ink, and comes with a double sided insert sheet and a CD version of the split in its own black and white cardstock wallet, limited to 300 copies.

Review in UK's No Front Teeth Webzine

SLAM DUNK (WITH AUTHORITY!) / ORDER OF THE GASH - SPLIT 12"
Portland metal split - ORDER OF THE GASH play instrumental thrash / metal that switches from full-on, chugging chaos to intricate and subtly layered melodic parts and it's all played really fuckin well too and the vocal-free-ness of it all works really well for me, the greatness of this could so easily be fucked up with the wrong vocals (for me, anyway) so I'm glad they just rip instrumentally. Killer song titles too: 'Quivering Cunt Muscle', 'Rigor Mortis On The Rocks', 'Obsessive Repulsive' etc…
SLAM DUNK (WITH AUTHORITY!) do have vocals but I dig them! They have a wilder edge than ORDER OF THE GASH…a really DIY metal edge that I really like. It's really heavy and mangled and as one of their song titles states' Nonstop Brutality'…I think they actually steal the split for me…and I was convinced it would be ORDER OF THE GASH because that's the side I listened to first and was won over straight away…so thumbs up all round for sure on this. Killer looking limited sliver sceened cover and there's a CD version in here too for any lamos without a turntable…although having said that I did use the CD in my car – but only because there's no record player in there!
Eolian Records
www. eolianrecords. com

Check out No Front Teeth: http://www.nofrontteeth.co.uk/

so the unnamed tour (actually, i'll go ahead and call it the "party 'til you're pete!" tour) with order of the gash has come to an end. we have one more show to play tonite in seattle, but OOTG isn't coming along, so tour officially ended last night in eugene. so...where to start...oh yeah, the first day. we left late and about 99 miles north of sacramento, the van (dee dee) starting losing power. we pulled over and waited a while to access the situation. we decided that it needed transmission fluid but at the last minute chose to not add any. it's good that we didn't. more on that later. so we missed our first show in sacramento. apparently, times of desperation was the only band to play that night. sorry dudes. we still had a blast hanging out with jen, marilyn, jason, john and others. thanks guys! also, thank you sal for telling us we didn't need tranny fluid and for hooking up the coolant and oil! the next day we went to petaluma and played the bowling alley with chromium 6, wendol & psychosamatic. all of the bands fucking ruled! thanks to the little bartender lady that gave me (and only me, apparently. weird.) a couple free beers. aris, paul & i bowled a few games and then hit the air hockey tables. we also battled it out on the pool table. it was a fun day for sure. thanks to franz and sarah jane for putting us up at their awesome house in larkspur. you guys are amazing! then we went to oakland where jason and the kind folks at the hazmat put us up for a few days. we played at the hilarity house and at some bar (john patrick's?) with self inflicted. thanks for hooking that shit up rob! let's crash more rockabilly shows in the future, my friend. in oakland we drank at the merchant, played pool, ate awesome veggie cuisine and watched crackheads and the kids at the warehouse get into a turf war. we spent a good amount of time in san francisco as well. jacqui went off and hung out with her friend annie (i'm sure jacqui will write her own blog about the trip, so strap in) so the rest of us went to amoeba and met up with my friends sean and lily. they took us around and got us drunk as shit. once again, more action on the pool tables ensued. thanks sean & lily! the next day we played at thrillhouse records with same sex dictator, el cerdo, acts of sedition & short changed. in my opinion, this was our best show. so thanks to all of the kids at the record shop and ben from short changed for hooking that shit up! we left the bay the next day and drove slowly to LA. it took about 10 hours. total bullshit, but we didn't have a show, so whatever. we stayed at paul's sister's house. thanks rachel! i went out and got drunk with andy, trev & jesse, so my LA experience was different than everyone elses. so, we leave at 5am the next day and get to fontana, ca where we meet the fine folks at lowell's automotive. they give us a new fuel pump and sent us on our way to roger's exhaust shop where they installed a new catalytic converter and then sent us back to lowell's to get new spark plug wires. 5 hours and $500 dollars later, dee dee was running better than ever. thanks to dave, von & roger for getting us back on the road swiftly!!! we actually made our show in flagstaff that night because of you guys. in flagstaff we showed up just in time to play with samothrace at the 321 house. thanks to the creosote kids and all others at the house for having us! this was the point of the tour where my energy was depleting, and our performances got less exciting, more automatic and far less passionate. well, at least on my end. and the fetching dog! holy shit! non stop fetch action if you want it at the 321 house. cutest thing ever. we then made the mistake of eating at HOG's. pete got at least 3 full meals that morning, cause EVERYTHING had meat in it. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU! then we went to boulder city, NV and hung out at paul's parents house. all i can say is, holy moly! dinner and beverages prepared upon arrival and a fucking pool. 'nuff fucking said. it was heaven. we then went on to play the cheyenne saloon in vegas. i got to play a game of pool with my uncle dennis and aris and i gambled away a few bucks on video poker. some vegas gambling experience, eh? the sound/lighting guy was the best. holy shit, it was a laser show up there. it was really funny. we left right after we played and hit the road. melissa drove from 12 until 4am and then aris took over and drove until 10:30am when we reached sacto and hung out with mar and john for an hour or so. mar gave aris his denim vest that she had painted the cover of HOLY DIVER on the back of. needless to say, aris had a bitchin' wizard hat all day. then, we hit the road for another 8 hours and made our show in eugene. it was fucking epic, i tell you. we hung out with el cerdo once again and i took a shot of vodka (i believe) that came out of a bottle with a dead snake in it. interesting. after our sets and one more game of pool (i'll get the best of you yet, paul!) we hit the road and made it back to portland at about 3am tired and ready for some loving. thanks to everyone who helped book the shows and to everyone we encountered along the way. if i forgot to mention anyone or if i left out a funny story, it's because i'm an idiot. let's do it again!!!!!

jason

hey. our last tour was tons of fun. sorry it took so long to say so. we met plenty of interesting & unforgettable people. i can't speak for both of us, but i can say nice things about plenty of folks. VOETSEK, thanks for having us at the hazmat. shit, to all of the kids that live at the hazmat, you're doing an amazing thing. also, thanks to our friend jacqui who set it all up from pdx. FUNERAL SHOCK...shit. too good. selah. ELAINE, thanks for helping us out in fresno. you made this tour a tour. CHRIS (AGD/BASTARDASS) and all of the kids we met at the LINDEN HAUS (CHRIS/weekend warrior,especially) in long beach, fuck yeah. best show ever. on that note, thanks to all of the kids from washington state (sidetracked, rocket attack! & fever) for existing. ooooooooh, thanks to cedes, jordan, alayna, trev and all of those old film school people that made us feel so normal in hollywood. JANE SEYMOUR POR VIDA, i guess. shit, TIMES OF DESPERATION/WEREWOLF helped us out in san jose when we simply showed up to watch them. thanks again, gents! finally, thanks to marilyn, jason, sophia & vanilla for putting us up in sactown after the whole show fell through. so many travels, so many thoughts. you're all incredible. let's do it again. seriously.

jason

hey.  the LOOK WHO'S NOT TALKING TO ME NOW (formerly the GROW A DICK) tour was rad.  that's all.