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Allen! Just off the top, thank you. You were one of the first people I told when I first got it in my head that I should make a Diskothi-Q fansite. And now there's a Refrigerator section, too, with your blessing! So having you on board for the '21 interview series is very cool, just a joy, thank you man. So before Diskothi-Q had the long-name '93 tape on Shrimper, there was still a lot of activity. The earliest years I understand were a little different - Peter also had Exit House as I understand, and Diskothi-Q had an additional guitarist (hi, Rob!) early on. I know it's been a minute, but just generally, what do you remember of the first few times you saw Diskothi-Q play? Is there something you remember really grabbing you? It's time like these I wish I had the rock n roll memory of Bob Durkee. I think it is fair to say that the first time I caught Diskothi-Q was at Munchies in Pomona. For those not in the know Munchies was the CBGBs of the Shrimper scene. I felt an instant kinship with them and parts of my own reflection. There was humor, pathos in their work and a catalog of songs that reflected the desolation, desperation, sad, dry humor of the Inland Empire. DQ and Fridge shared the distinction of being the two Shrimper bands that featured brothers. An immediate connection was formed. Looking back now it seems like DQ, Fridge along with the entire Shrimper scene had been predestined to cross paths on the smelly, beer stained tiles of Munchies. Much like 'Fridge, Diskothi-Q ended up on a bunch of 7"s that have uncompiled one-off stuff on them. "Finisher Jam", "Dwell on This", "Rob", "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", "Massapoag", "Lane Discipline". I have it in my head that Peter should do a Best-of, and I would definitely put some of that stuff on it. What would you want on a Diskothi-Q best-of, off the top of your head? Side A of playlist: Diskothi-Q Theme - …because starting off a DQ mix with anything other than this would be an absolute dereliction of duty. Going to Pomona – A terrific ode with a nod to both to the Mountain Goats and heartfelt shout out to the bruised knee of a city that birthed the Shrimper scene. Dwell on This – Using the Baltimore Colts leaving Baltimore to relocate to Indianapolis in the middle of the night is an ingenious metaphor for being abandoned in a relationship. It also contains one of my all-time favorite DQ lyrics: Porkchop – This song is a Southern fried simmering example of DQ's sly humor. I can't but smile as I picture a raging Morrissey looking down on me with utter contempt whenever I spin this one. Argentine Drinking Song – The ability to write a lyric about an actual news event is something that I've never been able to pull off and admire any song that pulls it off as eloquently as this one. Side B Leap Cat Leap – Such an underrated DQ song. One of those songs/lyrics that contains that exists in that magical spot where it speaks to both the specific and the general at the same time. Hit the North 2 (I Take It All Back) – Just majestic. Listening to it never fails to bring me back to the mid-90s and driving up the 5 several times of year to escape the smog infested/ingested confines of the Inland Empire to play the West Coast in a rented station wagon loaded up to the ceiling with gear as Fleetwood Mac Rumours played and a couple cans of Pringles continuously rolled into one another beneath the passenger's seat. Massapoag – Perhaps the most joyous tune in the DQ arsenal. Ocean so Lonesome - This is definitely at the very top rung on my DQ list. It's a beaut. I fell in love with it from the first time I heard it and to this day it remains one of my favorite songs in the entire Shrimper catalog. I've relayed my admiration of this song some 2,000 plus times to Peter over the years. Sometimes when I play it late at night I like to close my eyes and imagine Hank Williams Sr. singing it across a barren landscape. Back to historical preservation: 1992 was the year of the great Sonic Enemy tapes. We'll set aside Munchies Xmas for a second, because that's a rich vein. But 'Hot August Night'! "Kristi's house in Upland, July 7 1992", says the writing on the sleeve. 12 minutes of Midland Pipe yelling over a non-stop jam. Then you can hear you and the other member of Vomit Boys goofing off during the Diskothi-Q set, "I love Diskothi-Q! We wish we were in Diskothi-Q!" it's very sweet. Then a Carne-A set, that's a group I don't know so much about. AND a Massengil set. Then you, singing for Feedbag, "it's all over now..." Do you remember much about that night? Or were there a lot of nights like that, that just coincidentally didn't make it to tape, that kind of run together? I will answer this as best I can while simultaneously preserving my lifelong vow to preserve the mystery and integrity of The Vomit Boys. I can say this much: legend has it that the Vomit Boys iconic look was created that night when they came across pairs of cheap day-glo sunglasses they picked up in the party supply aisle at the local Vons while making a beer run for the party that night. As far as the rest of the night goes I remember Kristi Engle's folks being out of town one weekend and Kristi deciding to take advantage of their being gone and throwing a rock n roll shindig – because that's just what you do when you're in your 20s and those opportunities are afforded you. It was a great communal night with amps and a drum kit set-up and everyone rotating turns playing short sets. Carne-A . . . Oh Man, were they something! I don't think I have any other words to describe them other than those. They had to be seen to be believed and featured Jeremy Goff who also produced the first Refrigerator single Rocking Horse Loser. Feedbag! Oh man you're taking me back. It may have taken 7 days to create the universe but it only took one drunken, magical, musical evening to create Feedbag. If memory serves I think Feedbag came on at the end of the evening as an improve rock n roll freefall made up of whoever was there and wanted to jump in. I will be forever grateful to have been a part of that once in a lifetime line-up. Onto Munchies Xmas. Vomit Boys is a real treasure. And then 'Fridge pops in near the end, for "Does She". The way you guys go off the rails, Dennis wailing "we're the last Pomonian band, to get played on K-R-O-Q!". The back and forth on that recording cracks me up every time. "Musician Magaziiiine......." "My ass!" Word on the street is, Refrigerator shows followed that pattern a lot - play, play, then just see where it goes. Do you and Dennis keep tapes of live 'Fridge stuff around, or is that mostly in the hands of other people? Have you guys talked about archiving, preservation? To this day Fridge shows still pretty much follow that template of song, song/rant/song…but each show is different and we honestly don't know where is each show is going to go. Some shows are rant heavy and some are relatively light depending on the circumstances. They're always off the cuff and improved. One of my favorite ones was when we played a fundraiser for radio station KXLU at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go in LA years ago and Dennis started ranting about "Firestarter being in da house" It didn't hit me until Drew Barrymore glared at me after the set of what had transpired. She had starred in the old Stephen King movie Firestarter about a young girl who could start fires with her mind which was what Dennis was referencing. I honestly thought it was just a random rant until I came across Drew Barrymore glaring at me. We have quite a bit of Fridge live recordings in the vault and some that others have captured. I was shocked to see that Jeff Feuerzeig (the director of the acclaimed 2005 Daniel Johnston documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston") had captured our mid-90s instore appearance at Other Music which turned up in last year's Other Music documentary which I wholeheartedly recommend catching. Some Fridge live stuff has been put out there over the years such as "Live Like a Linda McCartney" on Car-in-Car which captures a show we played at a local sports bar opening for the mighty Wckr Spgt – you can probably imagine how that all went over and another live release of the first show we played after my heart transplant at the Foreign Legion Hall was also released on Shrimper (a show that still gives me chills). We've toyed for years with putting out more live stuff at the top of that list would be the entire performance Bob Durkee recorded for us at Munchies back in the day (a few of songs from that night are on the Music For Hi-Fi Bugs 7 inch) and we'd also love to put out the performance we did on KCRW years and years ago featuring Franklin Bruno. Dennis and I have even half-jokingly talked about putting out a live tape of nothing but the rants…just because… On the subject of Munchies, from my notes it sounds like that was the active space from 1990 to July 1993? People talk about it with a real sense of shared mythology. Obviously people kept making music and playing shows, but how do you remember things changing after Munchies closed? Was there a rhythm people had to find again, was there some drift? Or was it like, liquid conforms to the shape of its container, everyone just settled into it, everything pretty much stayed the same? There will never be a venue as connected to all of us as Munchies. We dated other venues but Munchies was our soulmate. With that said we have always been fortunate to have a home base to play. There were some warm local venues to embrace us and Shrimper acts post-Munchies such as coffeehouses such as Cup of J and The Haven. The venue that is right next to Munchies in my heart is the dA gallery. My God they've been there for us since our pre-fridge band The Bux. The Bux staged a comic, fairly disastrous fiasco rock opera entitled Shout at Diablo featuring guitar maestro Buckethead and ended with chicken bones flying across the gallery. The dA is still there and to this day retains the spirit of not only the Shrimper scene but the entire Inland Empire arts scene. The dA gallery was where all the cassette cover art featured in Dennis' 100 Cassettes book was first displayed. . . . so as profoundly magical as those Munchies days were that magic can still be found floating here in the Pomona air. On 'Fridge, here's a fun one. You guys ended up putting out Long 33 & 1/3 Play on 18 Wheeler, run by Tom Scharpling. He gets a shout out on the Shrimper comp Fantasy Band, too. Can you talk about some of that connection, Shrimper and 18 Wheeler, how that kicked off? Was it label-to-label stuff, interpersonal? Do you remember who made first contact, and how it ended up with Tom spray-painting a whole backyard of LP sleeves? Tom and Dennis had bonded over their respective labels. Although I think maybe James McNew from Yo La Tengo might have had something to do with introducing them. From what Dennis says Tom was someone who you just instantly connected with and realized you were on the same wavelength. Both Dennis and I have never forgotten what he said just before releasing "Long Play" on 18 Wheeler which was "you guys are never going to sell thousands and thousands of records. I see you becoming a small underground cult band that will be there hanging around forever." Obviously, he knew something we didn't. Ending on the purest possible Refrigerator question. Bands change, lineups move around, people come and go. Even families end up apart, depending on how things are in a family. You and your brother have been making music, together, for longer than I've been alive. "Heart of Bone" is the song I always come back to on this: you two trade off a lot, vocally, and it's clear who's who, but when you sing together, same word, same pitch---it's like, oh, shit, brothers. Right. The sound of it hits you like, oh, this is one animal, y'know? I get goosebumps. Hard to even put the right question to it. Talk about any aspect of it that the spirit moves you on. You and Dennis, man. What's that like? Heart of Bone is the perfect note on which to end this on. The song is an unabashed love letter to KSPC. KSPC is a eclectic musical beacon of light to not just Refrigerator but to so many fellow musicians and artists out here in the 909. The rock n roll dream Dennis and I initially carried that started with our first band The Bux was not to one day open for The Rolling Stones at the LA Coliseum but get played one day on KSPC. We'd constantly be dropping off Bux tapes at the station in hopes Bob Durkee would one day play them on his local music show. We'd even call him on his radio show in phony voices requesting he play The Bux (Bob never gave in to our obnoxious, desperate and repeated demands – we were to have better luck with fellow KSPC DJ Bill Chen). When we were broke and could not afford any studio time anywhere it was KSPC who opened their studio doors what would become the first full length Refrigerator release "Lonesome Surprise." "Heart of Bone was our way of giving thanks. I was just watching a Bee Gees doc a few weeks ago and one of the things it covered was the vocal harmonies of the brothers Gibb. Various talking heads and Barry Gibb himself talked about the unique harmony created by siblings. I think that sense of shared history creates an unspoken language that cannot be replicated. The range of this history bleeds from seminal childhood events all the way down to Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force record or an old SCTV Count Floyd bit. We are each other's editors/supporters and confidants. We've basically been creating our whole little universe our entire lives crafted out of music, handmade comic books, inside jokes and everything in-between. And we've been nothing but fortunate to have been able to have shared a part of that universe and to have been surrounded by so many others who shared their secret universes with us.
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