TRY - Demo (2008)

TRY was everything that 2000's Redding Hardcore was about! Songs with messages made for sing alongs, circle pits, and having as much fun at the show as possible! In the wake of Set It Straight breaking up, Harry still had some fury left in him for fronting a hardcore band and got the musical backing of Dylan O'Brien, Joey Munoz, and Brad Jones to form TRY. Joey left the band shorty after recording the demo and was replaced by Curt Baer and later Curtis Ide on drums. TRY played almost every local show from 2008-2009 along side with The Separation, Scared to Death, and A Public Infection at The Thunderdome, The MLK Center, and Caldwell Rec Center. They ripped live and were really fun! This demo was sadly never officially released for some reason. Only a handful of the songs were up on their MySpace page back in the day. Until really recently, I'd never even heard the full thing or had a copy of the mp3's. Thanks to Thomas Vanderpol for hooking me up with a copy! 

TRY 

Harry Petty - Vocals 

Brad Jones - Guitar 

Dylan O'Brien - Bass 

Joey Munoz - Drums  

Recorded by Curt Baer at his house in Redding

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The Making of the Suburban American Tract Home Project Vol. 1

Words and Photos by Daniel Taylor

The irony is not lost on me that I’m writing this in 2024 from the comfort of my very own Suburban Tract Home. But back in the spring of 2000, I was 19 years old and much less comfortably playing drums in a punk band called Inverted Nines (as in sixes, like 3 sixes in a row… edgy, I know). A caravan of Chico punk and punk-adjacent bands including ours had made the trip down to Burnt Ramen Studios in Richmond to record three songs for the first volume of a series of compilations featuring Chico bands called the Suburban American Tract Home Project. As was customary in those days, I had procured from a gas station along the way a disposable 35mm film camera to document the ordeal in blurry, finger-obscured detail. 

Inverted Nines had come together the year before, writing enough songs to play a few shows and release a CD-R EP that had been reviewed in the local alt-weekly by Shawn Pawn from local punk stalwarts P.A.W.N.S. Shawn was the driving force behind the Suburban American Tract Home Project, and when he subsequently asked us if we wanted to come down and record some songs in Richmond for the compilation we of course said yes.

The set up for this compilation was somewhat unique: the bands featured on the comp were going to record their songs live at Burnt Ramen, all in a single day. Seven bands playing 21 songs, committed to posterity with as few takes as possible, for better or worse (most likely worse, in my case, I thought). Besides Inverted Nines and P.A.W.N.S., there was Union of the Dead, Callous Neglect, Face Down, Smeat, and Nogoodnix (Hit by a Semi were also included on the compilation, but they recorded their songs separately). 

You could have not Westworld-ed a more appropriate setting for a punk rock studio than the slice of Richmond in which Burnt Ramen Studios was located. Surrounded by post-industrial blight and forlorn patchwork of houses, businesses, and vacant lots, Burnt Ramen occupied a sign-less building at the end of a cursed block directly abutting both the train tracks and the elevated BART tracks running overhead. According to the internet, the building was once a brewery, then later become a grocery store before eventually becoming Burnt Ramen (before getting shut down by the city many years later in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland). The Burnt Ramen complex included a stage for shows, a skate ramp, and most importantly for our purposes, a recording studio located inside the grocery store’s old industrial-sized freezer.

To the best of my recollection, the session was engineered by studio namesake Mykee Ramen with the help of some of the more technically astute members of the Chico delegation, and without much bullshit the bands began blasting through the tracking, with drums, guitars and bass all being tracked together live with minimal overdubs using mostly shared gear to cut down on changeover time. The studio itself was nothing spectacular but it being the case that, up until that point of time, my studio experience had been limited to such well-known studios as Some Guy’s House in Ripon and the legendary Some Other Guy’s House in Chico, recording at Burnt Ramen felt like being at Abbey Road. Thankfully Inverted Nines weren’t the first band on the list to record and in the meantime the beer flowed like wine and the beautiful Richmond sky accommodated some solid outdoor football tossing and general hanging about. When it finally was our turn, nerves were suitably calmed, and our three songs were tracked without incident.   

24 years later, most everything about that day is a little bit foggy memory-wise. However, one particular moment I can remember like it was yesterday: standing outside the studio as a car full of dudes drove by and yelled angrily “Go back to Berkeley!” Unfortunately for them, you couldn’t have possibly paid me a higher compliment at that point in my life. In conjunction with the day’s activities, it struck me that maybe I wasn’t a poser after all (Spoiler: I was still a poser.) 

Overall, being part of the comp was a rad proof of concept to my young brain that doing cool shit that was hard logistically was possible. They went on to make another couple of volumes of this compilation after this one, but by that time I had retired from punk rock and moved on to trying to become an indie rocker (whoops). Shout out to Shawn Pawn for making it all happen and to the Eastman Kodak Company for their fine disposable cameras. 

Me tracking drums with an assist from Fred Hell from Union of the Dead

Shawn Pawn (center) with members of Inverted Nines, Union of the Dead, P.A.W.N.S. and Nogoodnix

Chris from Inverted Nines

(From Left) Ian from Face Down and Shelby from P.A.W.N.S.

Dudes playing football

(From Left) Steve, Daniel U. and Chris from Inverted Nines with Adam from Callous Neglect

Gerardo and Fred Hell from Union of the Dead track live

(From Left) Dan and Steve from Smeat, Steve from Inverted Nines

(From Left) Shelby from P.A.W.N.S. and Gerardo from Union of the Dead wait for their turn to rock

(Foreground) Fred Hell from Union of the Dead (left) and Chris from Inverted Nines (right) (Background) Members of Nogoodnix and Inverted Nines

(From Left) Daniel U. and Chris of Inverted Nines track vocals

Steve from Inverted Nines tracks bass 

Inverted Nines track gang vocals

Video Skate Zine - Chico 1984

Dog Killer - Live 1988

 

Dog Killer - Live 1986

 

Dog Killer - Last Act of a Desperate Band (1986)

Dog Killer was a hardcore punk band in Chico during the mid 1980's. They are the earliest example of hardcore in Chico that I'm aware of. They ripped pretty good for the time period too. Not all the songs I can say have aged well, but if you're looking for snotty 80's punk, this is it! These guys were definitely paying attention to LA bands and owned some TSOL and Vandals records. I would love to know more on this era of the northstate punk scene. If you're an old head with stories and records, please hit me up!

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CULL - Demo (2024)

Born out of the ashes of Outside Looking In comes CULL. This is my newest band and one I feel really proud of. Making it all with my close friends means everything. The songs we've got together on this demo are a mix of stompy hardcore with a dash of street punk. Lyrically the songs are socially driven by working class issues and a cloud of hurt I've always felt in this world and seen through my loved ones. I will always fight to believe there is light in this darkness and these songs help ease the weight on my heart I feel. 

CULL

Miles - Vox

Bryan - Guitar

JxRad - Bass

Tommy - Drums

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Photo by seana 

WHAT’S LEFT

Working class life

Working class death

No savings no retirement

Buried in debt

What’s left 

For us?

Bought and sold

Off by the rich

Our broken bodies

Dying in the ditch

DEAD END

Dead end 

Living in the dead end

No future

It’s all caving in

Depression, recession, addiction 

There’s no light in this place

Trapped inside
With no escape

COGS 

We submit our bodies to the machine

Locked down we’re not free

Our souls have been stripped

Running empty on discontent 

Our hands are cramping

Our backs are breaking

Our knees are failing

Our lives are fading

It’s all for what?

It’s all for what?

NOWHERE 

In this place we’re looking for hope

Searching for ways to cope

Poverty and abuse all around

Gripping in and holding us down 

Go nowhere

Going nowhere

An impoverished system holds us behind

Lack of opportunity pushes us outside

Defeated we lack self-worth

Dredging and toiling in the dirt

Gotta get out 

Gotta be free

Gotta escape

Before the walls burry you and me

Broadcasting to the Masses!

 I've decided to create a Youtube extension of the blog. It occurred to me that not everyone wants to or can download the zip folders I've always used to upload the music. I thought people might enjoy being able to stream the content instead. All future post will be posted with both a download link and a Youtube link. That way you can have the files for your collection or just causally check them out. I'm going through now and uploading a number of old post onto Youtube and creating new ones too. Stay tuned for the broadcast!

THE NORTHSTATE ARCHIVE YOUTUBE

Gruk - Self Titled (2001)

Gruk’s self titled album stands the test of time in my book. This album made a huge impact on the Chico and Redding punk scene. Everyone of my friends in Redding had a burned copy of this cd and when they would come up from Chico to Redding to play, we’d would loose it! Some of my favorite show memories as a teenager are from seeing them play live in the mid 2000’s. The songs on this release have everything that makes for classic punk. They are catchy, pissed, smart, messy, from the heart, and to the point. It will forever be a classic to me.

GRUK:

Vocals - Rachel Riot

Guitar - Ryan Emotion

Bass - Brad 

Drums - Jens

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