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Exit House - decompositions (1986) [Sonic Enemy, cassette]

Exit House! If any other Exit House tapes have survived, I haven't seen them. This copy comes to us courtesy of a friend of the scene, who I cannot thank enough. Chronologically by order of release, this was the very first Exit House tape, and its survival (and the quality of the sound, the condition of the tape itself, I could go on) is a real miracle. 

Tracklist: 

A1. Icon Heidi
A2. Peter's Gun
A3. Echinodermata / I Hate You
A4. Nerd's Lament
A5. Ode to '73
A6. Sweeping Up The Stalagmites Of My Mind
A7. Biology Grind

B1. Icon Julie
B2. Cement Mixer
B3. Tsunami 
B4. Degenerate Testament
B5. Firebird Man
B6. Exit Blues
B7. Bootless Passage

Described in the Sonic Enemy catalog as follows:

decompositions
primitive power, idiot savant-rock, it just doesn't get much more damaged than this. Released 9/86, listenability rating: difficult

From what I can tell from listening, the process for this recording was as follows:

1) choose a long blank tape
2) have tape ready while everyone's got their instruments
3) get something going; when ready, hit record
4) mostly stick to a plan. improvise from there
5) when possible, remember to hit stop

Here's where the "listenability rating: difficult" comes in: for the most part these listed tracks aren't really distinct songs with lyrics, like you might expect if you got here from something like Diskothi-Q or Party of One. Sonic Enemy fans: you can't ask 'decompositions' to be any of those things. Now, if you've dug up the mp3 of "Firebird Man" that gets around, you've heard the general idea. The full 90 minutes of recording presented here also feature a fair bit of laughing and joking around due to keeping the tape rolling. At times during the songs, you can hear the guys making requests ("play softer") or demands ("keep going!") or offering group consensus ("no" "no" "no"). Lyrics make frequent use of what I can only assume is a Marty Davis original, "infermeral", a neologism that in context seems to incorporate "infernal", "ephemeral", "infirm" etc., often as an adjective describing pain. 

To be clear: all of the above is great. Taken for what it is, this tape is an absolute blast. 

In lieu of providing clips (for now) I've got a play-by-play here. Due to this being a tape, all track lengths, play times, etc cited here are arbitrary, using a rip of the copy I have on hand as a point of reference, but they give general waypoints. Voices/banter are not attributed to anyone because I wouldn't begin to know how to tell any of their voices apart. Lyrics, mostly ad-libbed, are not transcribed here in any way at the moment, and would be quite a project.

Particularly interesting notes and highlights, A-side:

• The tape starts with the boys testing the recording/Casio beat by reciting, with great joy, what sounds like the entirety of a promo rap for KSPC show Big Beat Showcase by the The Dust Brothers. The jingle refers to Gizmo and E.Z. Mike, KSPC's frequency 88.7, and the show's timeslot.
• "Icon Heidi" kicks off with them immediately riffing on Joy Division's "A Means To An End", quoting the "I put my trust in you" line and repeating the bassline.
  • Marty tries to remember more of the song, and elsewhere you can hear: "I can write down the lyrics for you..."
  • For the duration of the 14 minutes, the "A Means To An End" bassline continues, and they return to the "I put my trust in you" refrain a few times, as well as "now wait, now wait, now wait, now wait!" in a cadence that allows for backing vocals, which returns several times as well.
  • The improvised lyrics, like so many of the greats, mostly center on romantic rejection. 
• "Peter's Gun" is just shy of 3 and a half minutes.
  • There's some cowbell-type percussion and electric guitar, and no lyrics except some early yelling.
• "Echinodermata" kicks off with a yell of "fans of feedback, unite!" and goes into some buzzier guitar and rambling about biology class dissection.
  • The recording of the "Echinodermata" part stops with some complaints about the heat of the amp.
  • Cries of "feedback!!!" herald the start of the "I Hate You" portion, which is a minute and a half long yelled song about being stopped by a cop on the street. The cop threatens to kill the narrator, who responds "I hate you!" and is then pepper sprayed.
  • We don't hear much more of the story, because at this point, the Davis boys' mom interrupts recording to tell them the guitar feedback noise is going through all the air conditioning in the house, "it's awful!". Coming closer to the tape recorder on the way over to shut it off, we get a disgruntled: "that's just the way of society, ain't it... cops can pull out your eyeballs and shoot ya, and mothers can stop your music... y'know what I mean..." 
• "Nerd's Lament" opens with some nicer chords.
  • About a minute in, after some attempted lyric improv and as the chords continue, you can hear (laughing): "C'mon, stop laughing, you're fucking me up. (beat) Get outta here, you asshole..." After which the lyric ad-lib starts back up.
  • Two minutes in, the song explodes out of the repeated riff and into some more typical loud guitar, drums, and yelling.
  • At 5 minutes and change, the same nice chords come back in. As they trail off, you can hear: "...Nah, fuck the intro, man." This recording then cuts off immediately.
•  "Ode to '73" is interesting:
  • in its 3 and a half minutes, the guitar riff is the same as the one you can hear in the two tracks labeled "Ode to '73 (Excerpt)" on Growing Up With You, but those particular clips aren't in this "Ode to '73", and appear to be from a different recording.
  • Unsure if another Exit House tape contains a second full recording of "Ode to '73" that those are excerpted from.
• "Sweeping Up The Stalagmites Of My Mind" runs for a little over 3 minutes.
  • Musically similar to "Peter's Gun" moreso than other things on the tape. 
• "Biology Grind" is a little over 10 minutes.
  • It kicks off with some back and forth: "There's no way they'll hear me..." "Keep goin', just play!" "Well, you gotta start!" "Just keep goin', don't worry about it."
  • There's some riffing on "House of The Rising Sun" as the band tries to get into a groove. "Play a little softer, turn it down a little bit..."
  • The ad-lib that follows uses the "House of the Rising Sun" to tell a nonsensical story about "Peter X", Brian Latta, metaphysics, and heaven. Biology finally gets mentioned in minute 3.
  • Around minute four there's an exasperated "I'm taping, okay, so any time you're ready..." And then some more time to re-align after that. "Well, you missed it." "Keep going!" More ad lib about Peter, Brian, and biology rolls on. At about 6 minutes the boys pause again. "Keep going! God damn!"
  • They manage more ad-lib more chords and lyrics to "House of the Rising Sun" until about the 10-minute mark.
  • Things shift a little there, until: "...He's playing weird music now, and I don't know what the hell to sing, it's a very big problem, my friends. It's a very big problem." 

Particularly interesting notes and highlights, B-side:

• "Icon Julie" clocks in at just over 10 minutes, like "Biology Grind".
  • It brings back the Casio beat, and the bass line from Joy Division's "A Means To An End", like in "Icon Heidi" before.
  • Faintly, you can hear some debate about what to sing about ("every Heidi you've ever known!" "that would be too painful, that would be 3 sides.") There's a request for a starting line, which results in: "days like this... make me wanna kiss... ...the sky."
  • There's talk about whether to replace "now wait, now wait, now wait" for this round.
  • Goofing off continues, until a sudden yell of the replacement refrain "kill your icons!" about 1:45 in.
  • Lyrics take on the classic themes from the A-side: "I saw her come down from the sky... down from heaven on high.... me and Brian and Peter and even Jon were all moved to tears!"
  • As they pass the 3:45 mark "kill your icons!" starts getting into regular usage.
  • There's a spectacular unhinged yell at 4:25, and then a refrain of "L.A. woman! L.A. woman!" that can only bring mid-80's Wckr Spgt to mind for me.
  • As Marty goes on ad-libbing, there's more chatter from the back ("do that again!" at 6:30; a delighful "waaa-hoo!" at 6:39).
  • Around minute 8 there's some debate: "there's nothing more to sing... it sucks, as it is." "I liked it!" Marty disappears from lead vocals for the remainder of "Icon Julie", as far as I can tell.
  • They speed the BPM up ("turn up that keyboard!!") and crank up the guitars from there ("all the way up!") and return to "L.A. woman!" on the backing vocals, which are now on ad-libs,, half-intelligible full-on voice-grinding yelling, have I mentioned how Spgt this all is? Everything deteriorates into noise at the end with one more loud buzz to finish it out. Fantastic. 
• "Cement Mixer" is a nearly 7 minute instrumental. More guitar churn than stuff like "Peter's Gun" or "Sweeping Up The Stalagmites Of My Mind", more feedback. 
• "Tsunami" is a little over 4 minutes, with a lot more buzz, and more effects on the guitars. 
• "Degenerate Testament" immediately starts with what sounds like classic I Am Making Fun Of You voice going "it's on!" and laughing.
  • There's some more laughing and back and forth over sparse drum kit noise, then the guitar riff starts up.
  • Vocals hit around the 1-minute mark and the ad-libbing holds up for the duration. Vocals start out harsher on this one and return to form near the end.
  • They're pretty in-sync on this one. You can't hear any "play softer" or "faster" from the band, no one interrupts the lyrics, and changes in tempo come and go unremarked-upon, with everyone on board.
• "Firebird Man" is one of the only Exit House tracks to get any legs on it in the modern era, uploaded long after any other servers holding Exit House mp3s went under.
  • It's in the about on Peter's Tumblr account, named for the song, where you can also find links to his work in automotive journalism and Zazzle store and... anyway, back to the tape.
• "Exit Blues" is provided here in full.
  • This song also makes an appearance on Growing Up With You, excerpted, where you can hear it being queued up to play by Bill Chen during his At Random promo.
  • This is 4 and a half minutes of Casio beat and some dueling synth/guitar bits, plus a fair bit of laughter.
  • "Blues", nothing. They're having a great time.
•  After "Exit Blues" and before what I assume is "Bootless Passage", there's some short audio of the boys cheering, "Bravo!" some laughter, amp buzz.
  • "Is it going?"
  • And then a loud hiss, and some chaos.
  • "Ow---"
  • "Yeah, it's going, man."
  • "---I got shocked! Oh. I got shocked, man---"
  • "Is it going, Marty?"
  • "---Ow!---" 
  • "Yeah, let's go!" 
  • "---Fuck!---"
  • "Alright, get it on, ready..."
  • The recording cuts out there, some filler noise can be heard very briefly on my copy as if the record button had been pressed very quickly and then stopped again, and then another segment starts with:
• "Bootless Passage" is 4 and a half minutes, acoustic chords from the jump.
  • "Okay, go. Start playing your song, the one you were just playing." "Start singin'!" "I don't wanna wreck it..."
  • The electric guitar comes in lightly over the acoustic part, and they go for a bit until faintly, 45 seconds in: "You guys want me to sing?"
  • The lyrics here are more abstract, going on about boats, ships, dreams, even managing some nice vocal harmony for a few seconds. "From the skyyy...."
  • At about a minute 50, we get "how about we change it up a little bit, man, like, go..." and a more dissonant chord, to which every other voice in range of the mic flatly says "no", one first and the other two simultaneously, all identical. It's great. "You don't wanna change it?" "Keep it mellow." "Keep goin'!" "(mocking) Keep goin'! God daaaamn!"
  • The acoustic chords get going again, and things stay stable from there: ad-lib about oceans and dreams, pleasant chords.
  • Things trail off naturally, and then around 4:25: "(sheepishly) Thank you. Goodnight." Followed by goofing around: "That sounded good! Wait, stop it, rewind it, god!" "We were recording, man, it sounded good, like--" Here it cuts off. 
• That ends the collaborative and talking parts of the tape. There's another 2 minutes and 30 seconds after this of more abstract noise, effects, and electric guitar, which fill out the rest of the play time.  

Thus concludes the first Exit House tape. decompositions is 90 minutes of history, documenting how a couple teenagers in Chino went about playing music together in 1986. That same year, other tape recorders sat documenting Dennis & Allen Callaci's pre-Refrigerator band The Bux, who cite 1986 as a turning point of sorts in their output (quote: "the first two years [1984-1985] were like pimples.") Refrigerator's soon-to-be drummer Joel Connell was busy in Pillsbury Hardcore, also the pre-Shoeface domain of Bob Durkee. Wckr Spgt were in the full swing of their early years, exploring any number of side projects like the Bloody Hawaiians and short-lived project of necessity The Livin' B'Jesus. There's a real sense of potential energy, looking at this point in time. The same kind of process captured on this tape was happening all over, foundation still setting, ahead of the Shrimper ecosystem really cohering. Could any of these people have imagined 10 years into the future, what the map of their collaborative work would look like? 

On the subject of the "future" viewed from 1986, one can only wonder: what did those later Exit House tapes sound like? Their live performance of "Ny-Quil" on A Munchies Kinda Christmas in 1992 suggests that they were ultimately pretty on top of their game, as a unit. The catalog listing for 1989 Exit House tape 'When You Get Lemons, You Make Lemonade' says "listenability rating: no sweat." How polished did these guys eventually get? (And if you're me, you see the catalog listing for 'Bye Bye Bug' (1987) that says "listenability rating: extremely difficult" and you think to yourself... y'know, "I'd give my left arm for that" is the kind of phrase people throw around, and they don't mean it, but me... well, I really don't use my left arm all that much, do I? I could get by without it...) 

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