Sunday, July 17, 2011

Gus - Hetero Bash Was Flipper



Label: Slow To Burn
Year: 1994

Prior to the Internet and the ability to have heard of every single band known to man, there was a magical experience being shared all over the basements of 1994 America, and that friends, was having some unknown Canadian punk bad roll into town and completely blow you the fuck away. You were going to every show anyway, so just because you had never heard the name "Gus" before didn't mean anything, you hadn't heard of most of the bands that were stringing together 2 week tours based on info they had cobbled together out of the back of MaximumRocknRoll. Again, in the pre-internet days, that was part of the fun, figuring out what you actually liked based on the sound of the music, and not on the opinion of some retard with a blog (who, me?).
So, this band Gus roll into the basement of the DriverDome (holla atcha boy Double J!), and I think they might have been opening for a band I was in, maybe, or something like that. But, I remember them not being particularly nice, or pleasant, but that could have easily been the result of uncomfortable, hot, sick, broke days driving around to play for half interested "crowds" of 20-50 people a night, or from being the only Canadians in a group of self righteous Atlanta punkers. Either way. Doesn't matter, what does matter is this: they set up, plugged in, and proceeded to annihilate that room with a searing blast of Born Against worship. It was sensational. Enough so that it didn't matter how surly they might have been, I was going to brave the merch table (nee, box in the corner) to snag this exact 7". I would have regretted it for the rest of my life otherwise, because this thing smokes so hard, even to this day.
Someone requested more Vermiform stuff, and while this isn't on Vermiform, it very well could have been so you will most likely approve. Hopefully.

DL

5 comments:

James Joyce said...

We played with them first at the Lazy Lizard, maybe the show Unwound was supposed to play, but decided not to show up after someone at their show in Birmingham the night before told them it was going to suck. Got to see Gus at least, and not the inferior Florida version.

shaun citrus said...

The singer/guitar player of Gus, Steve McBean, is the singer of Black Mountain who get alot of hype from the Pitchfork scene. Gus were an amazing band, and the title of this 7" is based on a band that some of us attemped to do here in Vancouver in the early 90's.

Anonymous said...

Gus, please stop being the ribs that flips over Fred Feuerstein's car.

Anonymous said...

Gus, don't be an eccentric antelope.

Survivalist said...

these guys used to network like crazy, i remember trading letters and records with them in the mid 90s

 
Designed by mln3 designs & etc.