Fuck God in the Face, man I always have loved that band name since I saw them play at their house in
Eugene, Oregon in the summer of 2000. That summer was a blast and I experienced so much shit during that time, I could write a book . I had arrived in
Eugene originally to attend an action camp at the
Fall Creek tree sit campaign in the
Willamette National Forest outside of Lowell (which is 15 or 20 miles outside of Eugene). They were teaching people to climb and needed some warm bodies that were willing to spend some time up in the giant Douglas Firs. I was in
San Francisco at the annual
Anarchist Book Fair and had no real plans so when this dude named
Pan told me about
Red Cloud Thunder and what was going on up there, I said why the fuck not. So i hitched up the coast on the gorgeous
1 interstate and ended up in
Oregon. I'll get into the whole
Fall Creek story at a later date because right now I want to write about the weekend of June 16th-18th that year.
Eugene was in a weird state during those days. Just a year earlier, the infamous June 18th riots had gone on during a
"Reclaim the Streets" celebration and there were a bunch of arrests, the most well known arrestee being a man I really admire who goes by the name of
Rob Thaxton. The Police used this as an opportunity to harass every person they saw walking down the street in a fucking black hoody. Needless to say, with rumored FBI activity in the area, paranoia was definitely at an all time high in the
Whitaker neighborhood.
So, in the spirit of resistance and solidarity, some brave souls went about organizing a sort of guerrilla festival of music and direct action. There were great workshops and movies and lots of destruction and general mayhem going on but the real fun was going on down under the Interstate 5 on ramp in
Washington Jefferson park. Someone had scored a generator and with the show certainly not being permitted, the general consensus was that if the cops showed up, everyone was going to grab a piece of equipment and run for the van. Well, I can't remember how many bands showed up that first night but I can tell you the Eugene City Police Force showed up in their full riot gear ready to bust some heads. The one band I do remember was this three piece Grindcore band. They sounded wicked with the sound bouncing off the concrete of the overpass and a ton of Crusty Travelling Punks screaming and hollering during the whole thing. The cops were lined up along each side of the park with batons in hand just looking for any excuse they could find to charge down the hill and join in the ruckus. Funnily enough,for some reason, I don't remember any brutality, just a couple of them getting pissed when this kid
Johnny Cat started playing a set of acoustic
Rudimentary Peni songs. Apparently they didn't appreciate
Nick Blinko's dementia or something?
Either way, back to that
"Grindcore" band. For years I didn't know that bands name. I couldn't remember for the death of me whenever I told someone the long drawn out version of this story. Earlier this year I happened to get a copy of
Profane Existence in the mail that had an interview with the kick ass Eugene based band
Happy Bastards. The members of the band were talking about groups they had played with in the past. This kid Will just happened to spurt out the name
Ahisma. Now in a bit of a tangent, I had heard years ago in a
Tim Lewis movie
(more on him later), this great band that I hadn't heard before. so when I saw Tim at the Red Barn in Eugene one day, I asked him "hey Tim, who is that band in your movie" and he responded
Ahisma. So I made a mental note of it and that song has been burned in my brain to this day. It's called
"Sinners in the hands of an Angry God". Anyway, back to the present. I wrote to
Happy Bastards and asked them to put me in touch with this
Will kid. He wrote me back and turned out to be a pretty nice guy and offered to send me the songs when he got his computer in order. I wrote him back a couple months later and reminded him and he quickly sent me everything he had handy at the time which was their
split with Fuck God in the Face, their
"Grueling Terror" 7 inch and an
unreleased full length. All of this shit is awesome so I figured I would share it with you today. It turns out that that band in the park was in fact the mighty
Ahisma. One of life's' riddles finally solved.......
split with Fuck God in the FaceGrueling Terror 7 inchUnreleased Full Length LPWill is in the studio with
Wolves in the Throne Room right now but when he's finished I'm gonna ask him for some
Fuck God in the Face for you to hear. He was also in a band called
Human Certainty that I've heard good things about but I've never heard. Maybe he'll share that one too. I am talking to him about getting
Wolves in the Throne Room to come play in little 'ol Vermont next spring when they tour. That would be fucking amazing so keep your fingers crossed!!!!!
I mentioned something earlier about a guy named Tim Lewis. I have no idea what he's up to these days but back then he made a couple of really great movies,
"Pick Axe" and
"Breaking the Spell". I just so happened to find them both on google video so if anyone has any free time, you should definitely check these out.
"Breaking the Spell" is a documentary type movie of the
WTO protests in
Seattle. It has
interviews with a ton of the people that were there and is the best movie on the subject out there.
"Pick Axe" is a film about the
Warner Creek fight to stop needless logging in their area. it was co produced with Tim Ream.
Man, I've said enough.....enjoy this shit and leave a comment or something to tell me what you think of the music. Only three people downloaded
Syphilitic Vaginas. You are missing out if you don't hear this,seriously people, it only takes a second............................Troy
Sorry if you already downloaded the shit version.
Sorry if you already downloaded the shit version.
