Kurt Bloch: An Awesome Guy Who Awesome People Like
Rocking with the Fastbacks and recording all your favorite bands since 1979
Fastbacks, 1988; Kurt Bloch far left, Gumby t-shirt
āThere truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic!ā - Kurt Bloch
--------------------------------------
Iāve been thinking a lot about joy of late. Like pure, eyes-to-the-sky, skipping down the street joy. There is a paucity of it around right now.
We could follow a zillion trails to and from how we got here, but this is ostensibly a music blog, so Iām going to make a quick stab at the roots of this unenviably joyless position weāre sitting in, rock-wise.
The Fastbacks were joyful. Starting out in 1979 in the dawning days of Seattleās punk scene, they became a local fave on the basis of action-packed shows stuffed with careening pop hooks, irked energy, and a friendly, guffaw around onstage demeanor that didnāt exactly scream āpre-hardcore era.ā
Fastbacks retreated for a few years, circa 1988, and when kicked back into gear a couple years later, found themselves being a preferred opener for a load of grumpy grunge bands who Iām guessing hoped to absorb some of the Fastbacks positive energy to counteract their mope ā which the Fastbacks were more than ready to supply.
A mĆ©lange of metal volume, fleeting bouts of prog whimsy, Ramones tempos, and BubbleYum stickiness, the Fastbacks created aĀ singular sound. Like most great bands, they never fit into any particular zeitgeist ā too raggedy for the pop punk contingent, too peppy for the grunge trend, they nonetheless retained a respected status among bands who appreciated their consistently grabby tunes and fun live show.
Despite any remaining expectations of what āsuccessā was supposed to be, by the turn of the millennium the Fastbacks became that precious thing ā one of those awesome bands that awesome bands like.
It should be noted that, while grunge soon gained a definition as a downer genre (that has taken root since), Bloch and company palled around with that Seattle scene from the get-go, and knew many of them as fun rocker kids just trying their best to get through seven months of rain by rocking.Ā
The Fastbacks kept careening forward right through the āAlternative Rockā era that ignored all the fun underground garage punk and instead painted rock as increasingly dreary and grievance-based. The early 2000s came, and the Fastbacks took their leave.
Theyāve recently gotten back together for occasional reunion shows. Always holding them together throughout their stop/start whirlwind of a career was ace guitarist/producer and philosophical center of the band, Kurt Bloch.
Bloch, who began his career as a recording studio whizz with Fastbacks, never stopped twiddling the knobs for lots of your favorite bands and/or underrated acts. We checked in with him on his ongoing mission to bring fun to the fringes despite the mainstream consistently choosing incorrectly. Ā Ā
-------------------------------
Kurt Bloch, rockin', 1990 (Fuck the NRA. I will assume Kurt's t-shirt here was de rigueur '90s irony.)
-------------------------------------
What was the first album you loved; and what was the first album you loved because of its production?
Good question, hard to answer.Ā I think it was 45s and AM radio that got me going on recording qualities, how loud some of the great hits of the early-ā70s sounded. How some records sounded like they were a band playing inside your head. I think I was aware of EQ and compression sounds early on, how the drum fills would sort of obliterate everything behind it on some songs. How the guitar would be so loud in the breaks. How, if the record didnāt have enough treble, it would be unexciting; if there was too much then itād sound wimpy.
Then getting into albums, and FM radio, youād listen to Larksā Tongues In Aspic or Dark Side Of The Moon, and they had this spacious quality that was rad; the Scorpionsā Fly To The Rainbow was right in your face, really up-front and close. Then, going to see bands live, weād see the coliseum style shows ā that was so cool, but then getting to see bands in smaller spaces where you could hear the amps on stage, and feel the sound pressure in the room ānow that was a mind-opener. You could feel the Marshalls and the actual sound coming off of the stage.
Then when punk bands started playing, thatās when it started getting interesting. You know, like I just saw this killer band that sounded so great at the show, and their record sounds like a bowlful of shit. Why?! That leads to one-track, two-track, four-track tape recorders, and each time you record something, you have a whole book of revelations of what to do and what not to do. So many great recordings from that early punk era without a bunch of reverb. It was another revelation. A lot of those early digital reverbs that everyone had,Ā I just hated that fake trebly, scritchy sound. Rather just not use any reverb than that icky sound.
How did the Fastbacks form?
Kim and Lulu were high school friends of ours, The Cheaters was our neighborhood band; only lasted a couple years but they were good ones! When that band disintegrated on-stage, there was still band gear in my parentsā basement. Kim (Warnick, bass/vocals) had been in a band, The Radios, and Lulu (Gargiulo) wanted to play guitar and sing. Somehow my parents didnāt put a stop to it all, so we started playing a couple times a week. Not saying we got good, but we got better.
How long before you felt you had locked into the Fastbacksā sound?
I reckon whatever āsoundā we had was pretty well established early on; it was just whatever we wanted to do. Of course we loved the punk bands of the era first and foremost, but also the ā60s and ā70s pop music we grew up with; and the hard rock bands of the ā70s too! And I always was a fan of the wonderful arrangements and sound of the ā70s prog bands, once I started writing most of the songs, these things would creep in.
I have this romantic vision of Kim Warnick as a long-haired rocker teen crashing parties and such. Is that correct?
Ha ha ha!! We were all pretty good (bad?) at crashing parties, some of the shit we did makes me wince thinking of it all. But it was 1977, ā78; things were different back then, a different kind of boredom ran rampant through kidsā minds back then. There was a real disdain for society, maybe not to the degree of the UK bands at the time, but still there nonetheless. Often there was nothing to do other than the proverbial letās go fuck shit up. And the music was such a part of all that.
So you got a story about something back then that would make you wince now?
Back when we were teenagers in The Cheaters, we would go to pretty desperate lengths to create excitement. The Cheaters singer, Scott Dittman, was maybe the funniest person Iāve ever known, and often in our search for something to do, he would drive a car full of us down to the frats at the University Of Washington. Weād go crash frat parties, rarely did we fit in unnoticed. Youād grab some keg cups and try to hang out, usually immediately, āWould you please leave.ā And that didnāt often sit well with Scott. If we were going to āplease leaveā then we would not leave without exacting some sort of a toll. I guess we could run pretty fast, or we wouldāve got our asses kicked pretty well back then. Somehow a few weeks later weād go back to the same frat house that had a bookcase upended or a row of bikes knocked over, and lo and behold, the same thing would happen again. Of course we were never hired to play any frat parties.
Scott also loved to fight. He took boxing lessons and was always trying to teach us how to fight too. You knew when the gloves came out it was time to find something else to do. āCome on, you just gotta keep your guard up.ā (smash smash smash) āYou said you werenāt gonna hit us in the face.ā Yeah right.
The Cheaters and The Accident (another erstwhile punk outfit) set up a show at a non-punk bar, somewhere down by Olympia. This wouldāve been 1979 maybe. There were no roadmaps for like-minded or āfriendlyā places to play, outside of the major cities. But we were trying to do something, anything, and our double bill got the booking. This bar had a dance floor that also was used for bar fighting. There must have been some sort of organization to the fights, but it was sanctioned bar fighting. No-one was on the dance floor or anywhere near it when we started, so Scott tried to solicit a fight or two during our set. This was unfriendly territory, we were all, āStop this nonsense!ā But once you told Scott not to do something, well he was going to double down of course. Fortunately no one took him up on his offers, and we got out unscathed, but the bar owner took me into his office at the end of the night and gave me a rundown on what we needed to do to become successful in the music business, and the first thing was to get rid of that singer.
First Fastbacks show, February, 1980 ā any memories of it?
Oh, totally! The first Fastbacks show, it was at a rec center in a quiet neighborhood, it was three bands: The Vains, Psychopop, and The Fastbacks. We were all friends, and it was all three bandsā first shows. Very ramshackle, but we cobbled together a sound system, someone had a few lights, everyone brought what they had, and the show went on. A little rough around the edges, but the power didnāt go out, no cops were called, nothing was ruined ā an early triumph for sure.
Was the power pop zeitgeist of that time a thing for Fastbacks? Did you feel a part of it?
No! For sure the New Wave was hitting strong at that point, but we were certainly not embraced by the new wavers at all. I suppose for that first year, we were pretty terrible, but we had some friends and people who wanted to give us a chance. Getting Duff (McKagan ā yes, that one from Guns āN Roses) to play drums was the first step into making the band more listenable, but we were still a long ways off of what the general public would consider valuable music. We got kicked off of a show after our first set (of two). āThatās okay, you guys donāt have to play another set.ā And I was all, āWhat do you mean we donāt have to?!ā Oh, I get it.
Then when the hardcore bands cropped up, we were pals with some of them, but we werenāt furious enough for them really. I recall some sort of fury at a DOA/The Fartz/Fastbacks show. It required some foresight, which many didnāt possess, to support any kind of music that wasnāt 100% punk. Conversely, the proper power pop bands, well, we were a little too power and not enough pop, I reckon. We wanted to be that, but itād take a bit still to hone those chops.
Had Duff McKagen played in any band before that?
Duff was the bass player in The Vains, who played that Laurelhurst Rec Center show. That was his first show. He mustāve been 15, barely 16?
Did he exhibit behaviors that would later align with Guns āN Rosesā infamous lifestyle?
We were still pretty reeled-in at that point, no one really even got plastered, no one started doing drugs yet. Mightāve been some Budweisers around, but nothing stronger yet.
Guns 'N Roses 2nd show, 1985
Got any Vains stories, recollections of a show, or the general scene from whence they came/played? Was there a good raw, original punk scene in Seattle in late '70s? I'm aware of Soldier and some other bands, but I wanna get it from the horseās mouth.
The Vains only played three, maybe four shows total. In the late ā70s into early ā80s it was pretty hard to keep something going if you were any sort of impatient. Most bands never got the chance to play enough to iron out any difficulties, or taste any sort of real success. Lots of arguing over what direction to take, stick to your punk rock guns, and play to a rental hall of your friends; or try to get ājobsā in the bars, which would mean being stricken with the ācover bandā tag, which was NOT punk.
The Enemy worked the hardest, yet still couldnāt crack the code in 1979. The Telepaths, The Blackouts, The Lewd ā everyone broke up, or moved away and then broke up. The Fartz made a pretty good go of it, but even they sorta morphed into Ten Minute Warning, and then morphed into an art band⦠The Silly Killers stayed pretty punk. The Living ripped it up for their short lifespan. But they were all in that 1982 dilemma, you can almost see a line in the sand, drawn in the summer of 1982. Not a lot of bands made it across that line that summer.
If I remember it was some sort of divine intervention that The Fastbacks reconvened in 1983 to fire it up again, it was nearly the end of the line. But it was also clearly a new beginning, a new lease on life, a new crop of kids started bands in those Metropolis years; the Metropolis was a new all-ages venue that I would consider the petri dish of the next bundle of bands.
As the ā80s took hold and punk rock hall shows were sort of the only stage for many of our bands, after a couple years of not getting to any sort of next level, it was clear that there needed to be a re-grouping of some sort. Weād see our friendsā bands get actual paying gigs in bars ā if they were non-punk sounding. Of course many of the punk bands went to the dark side of ā80s metal. Everyone was looking to do something that could āgo somewhere.ā
Somewhere right in that 1982 corridor, drugs started flourishing, stupidity set in. Duff came with us Fastbacks as a āroadieā in 1984 down to L.A., and when we came back I reckon he moved to L.A. to escape that whole rigamarole. No one was getting anywhere here anyway. A bold move at that time, at the advanced age of 20!
Word is Fastbacks have had between 12 and 20 drummers. Short of naming every single drummer, are there a few youād like to point to as having had a particularly interesting stint; or who went on to other bands?
Gosh, all the Fastbacks drummers had something great about them. There were a few who only did one show. I publicly apologize to those who didnāt last. Those were strange times. I donāt think there are any unsolved mysteries in the Fastbacks drummer world, Dan Peters, who recorded a couple songs with us but no shows, Tad Hutchison, and Tom Hendrikson, who each did one showā¦. Some convoluted moments for sure, and all killer drummers!
Do you think if you would have remained drummer for Fastbacks that you would have still gotten into production?
Yeah, I think the fascination with recording was parallel to the live playing side of things, it was always there in my constitution. Wanting to learn, wanting to figure out how to make records that captured how killer bands sounded. It was such a tall order back then. Seemed like the old guard [engineers] didnāt āget it,ā or were prohibitively expensive; and so many of the others didnāt sound kickass like we wanted. Of course this comes from the actual band, first and foremost; that is learned the hard way! But if the band blazes at their show, it seemed that their records should sound blazing too, but that wasnāt often the case.
From what I remember, the Fastbacks rep was that of the favorite local band of all the Seattle bands, and hence got on as openers for bands who would soon get huge during that whole grunge thingā¦
Pretty hard to say from the inside view. We had the unfortunate hurdle of being broken up from late-1988 till mid-1990. A lot of opportunity probably squandered during those times. But, unlike anyone else I can think of, we did get a second chance via Sub Pop, and another decade of rock. I know we were quite lucky in that department. We never did gigs large or small with Nirvana, Soundgarden, sort of the class of ā89. We did share a slightly miserable practice space with Green River and later Mother Love Bone. Always pals with those cats, so we did do opening stints with Pearl Jam in 1996, all around the world.
What was miserableness about it?
Oh man, that place⦠It was in a basement in Pioneer Square, the old, original downtown Seattle. The Great Seattle Fire devastated downtown in like 1889, and they rebuilt the city on top of the old city, one floor higher. So our basement was on the level with the old, original city; some rooting around could be done. There was no bathroom or running water down there, so you had to go to the bar a block away to use the facilities, but often you just couldnāt be bothered. In the space next to ours, it was a smashed up, decrepit old room that we moved all the garbage from our side into. No lighting of any sort, so it was all flashlights if you had them, and filling up bottles of pee and putting them where ever we could find room.
But of course we raged supreme down there, some epic parties, bands playing, and whatnot; of course no water or facilities, but grand times in the ā80s. Somehow, I ended up being in charge of paying rent, not the best job for me to take on. It meant tracking down Andrew Wood once a month and trying to get him to pay his share of their rent. First it was Malfunkshun, and Green River was there too. We mightāve blown up before Mother Love Bone started? I think I remember Green River blowing up too, after their California trek; it wouldāve been not too long after that that The Fastbacks unceremoniously imploded. But for a while it was definitely a rager.
-------------------------------------
Nifty, random link I stumbled on with some cool early Fastbacks fliers, stories, and live stuff.
-------------------------------------
While you didn't play with the "biggies" of the scene as much as I thought, got any early Nirvana or Soundgarden tale of any sort you'd like to share?
Our fabled practice basement was just a couple blocks from The Central, a venue that was sort of home base for a lot of stuff. The Vogue as well, it was on the north end of downtown, we were on the south end. Many people had keys to the place, so it was not surprising to duck in between sets at The Central, to have cheap beers or whatnot. I first saw Soundgarden at The Central, and they were certainly mind-blowing. Wouldāve been ā87? Quickly became a favorite Seattle band, and when their first 7ā came out, my roommates hated me. I had a tendency to play those 45ās over and over and over again. But they played The Central a lot, and just got better and better, heavier and heavier. I remember the first time they played āBeyond The Wheelā, it was at the Vogue. I was standing next to Mark Arm and we looked at each other and just said FUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHā¦
The first Nirvana show I saw was also at the Vogue, it was maybe not the greatest Nirvana show, but man I thought that singer was amazing. Shortly after, Jon Poneman (Sub Pop co-founder) was at the bar there and said, āIf you buy me a coffee now, Iāll give you a 45 tomorrow that will change your life.ā An easy proposition. Sub Pop HQ was half a block away, he gave me a āLove Buzzā 45, and once again, the roommates had a reason to hate. I mustāve played that record 100 times in a row. Mightāve taken them a bit to find their pummeling style, but man they sure did. Then after Bleach had been out a while, all the rumors of major label this and major label that⦠So exciting and weird.
Who is a favorite Seattle āgrunge eraā band you really dug and maybe didnāt get the recognition you think it deserved? Mine are the Derelicts and Zipgun.
Of course! Pure Joy, Flop, H-Hour, the Meices ā wait they were actually from SF⦠Huge Spacebird, Once For Kicksā¦. Have you got an hour or so?!
I know you are no doubt tired of this question, but do you have a late ā80s/early ā90s story or show that happened where you thought, āDamn, this Seattle scene thing is getting some real attention? This is fucking weird.ā
After the Fastbacks blew up in 1988, I started playing with the Young Fresh Fellows, and we were off and running pretty hard right away. Certainly a parallel path from the Seattle Grunge Explosion, but a decent path it was! I was pals with Jon and Bruce (Pavitt) at Sub Pop when they started, so Iād go hang out at their early HQ/distributor place downtown. It was amazing to see some of these bands blow up when they did.
Young Fresh Fellows, 1989; Kurt Bloch far right
I suppose the thing that sealed it for me was listening to the advance cassette of Nevermind on a Young Fresh Fellows trip. Scott McCaughey had been assigned to review it for local music rag, The Rocket, and I nabbed it from him on a trip out East. It totally blew my doors wide open. Already having been a superfan since that āLove Buzzā 45, and seeing a couple of the shows they did here before going out to record that album, then hearing it for the first time on headphones; then as our tour progressed, seeing the record just going ballistic at every record store, it was just crazy. It never stopped getting bigger and bigger. This is so fucking weird!
Strange feeling of seeing a local band you saw shlubbing around town or peeing next to them at a dive, to hearing them play in a grocery store in Nevada, or whatever....
Soundgarden was the first one I remember blowing up. They went from Sub Pop to SST to A&M ā they sorta seemed to have their shit together pretty well. Alice In Chains were kinda off our radar, they were only on the Rock radio stations; it wasnāt until their second album that I noticed that they actually were killer. But Nirvana, they were crazy cool from the get-go, not in the FM Rock station sort of way, but the punk underground sort of way. Plus I didnāt really know them at the beginning, so there was way more mystery about them. A couple legendary Seattle club shows before they went off to start Nevermind; the OK Hotel first playing of āSmells Like Teen Spirit,ā we were just transfixed ā What the fuck is this?! Then the Off Ramp show, they went on really late, and got cut off right before 2am. Somehow the club picked up the empties and let the band play on into the night, and what a show it was. Then⦠nothing.
Didnāt really hear anything from Nirvana ātil the advance cassette of Nevermind went out, and of course thinking, if I like this so much, itās probably never gonna go anywhere. Wrong. It was like a slow ball of fire, radio then record stores, like every record store playing it, every magazine⦠It wouldāve made you hate a lesser band, but it really was great so there was a sense of pride attached to it all. Finally something we loved is big. But then how big? There seemed to be no end to it. It was everywhere. And so weird to think that kids dug something that was blazing and amazing.
Were you defacto producer of Fastbacks from the get-go of recording?
Oh for sure. Not by strong-arming anyone, but just because there was no money, and no one else could be bothered! Our first 45 was with Neil Hubbard and Jack Weaver, as we were doing a song for a Seattle comp LP, and as per the usual, just recorded some extra songs in our allotted time. The first EP was Peter Barnes, drummer for The Enemy, killer Seattle band and very much an inspiration to all the bands in the late-ā70s in Seattle. Then after that, it was trial by fire.
Can you tell me more about The Enemy, and their local import?
The Enemy pretty much initiated the punk āsceneā in Seattle. There were a few bands, but they started a club, it was all ages, March, 1978. Otherwise it wouldāve been hall shows, but The Bird brought everyone together. Originally only open for a few months, but there were shows there every Friday and Saturday, it really did give us something to do.
My first band, The Cheaters, might not have actually played anywhere if not for them. We could have languished in my parentsā basement forever if not for being stopped by The Enemy members at a Ramones show: āHey! Are you guys in a band? Would you want to play at our club weāre opening up in a few months?ā Of course we said yes, we didnāt tell them that we were just barely a band, weād never actually played a show, nor would we maybe ever had if not for their offer. We were just teenagers, my brother Al was still in High School. But they took us in and let us play shows. The drummer, Peter Barnes, filled in for a night our real drummer couldnāt play.
Everyone knew each other, when it was time to record what was to be The Fastbacksā first EP, Peter volunteered to be our producer. He figured out how to get cool, kickass sounds and make things happen. No one had any money or experience so it had to be on a budget, but he made it happen. The record turned out great. āIn Americaā was on the commercial new wave station, we thought we had it made!
I thought I knew what to do, to various degrees of success. Conrad Uno at Egg Studio did much of our first album. He was wise beyond words and also a great teacher. After that LP was finished he was all, āYou can do all this, I think, Iāll be back at the end of the night to close up!ā Then it seemed like the right avenue. So many producers seemed like they just wanted to add stuff in order to have their presence be felt. I always felt, like ā what is the least amount of stuff we can have on here to make it happen? Less stuff, but louder. Certainly not against adding things, but also happy to leave things out as much as possible. Always loved the one-guitar bands that didnāt double everything all the time. Makes you think a little harder about what youāre doing.
Okay, I will name a band, and you give me the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your production gigs with them:
Weād do several takes of any given song, as the band was learning them, Chris (Ballew, singer) would play his two-string bass flawlessly every take, and sing a scratch vocal that couldāve been used as the keeper. Never a mistake, never less than killer every time.
Also just an amazing music machine. Put him in an iso booth with a mic for vocal and one for acoustic guitar. Heād show the band a new song and go into the booth, sometimes it would just be one take and theyād nail it, with the lead vocal included. Never a lyric sheet in sight. A brain that truly works overtime. Peter Buck playing his 12-string on a song that he had just heard, and plays flawlessly the first time. Great Peter quote: āI like to get things right.ā Indeed!
Ha!! Some of the recording weāve done astounds me to this day. Itās like any idea we had, weād just do it. I swear, no one ever said, āAre you sure this is a good idea?ā Listening back to the early ā90s recordings, there truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic! Some of that music is pretty weird, even some songs that I wrote, I canāt imagine where they came from. I know we did them and all, but what was the impetus, where did they come from?!
Another tale of just trying not to ruin a band that sounded killer. Amazing to think that they all fit in the tiny live room at Egg for that first album. The sheer volume of air pressure in there was unbelievable. A perfect example of what weād set out to do, just try to not let the recording process get in the way of the recording. And nominated for a Grammy! I went with them to the Awards show ā limo, booze, and afterparties. We were scheming all the horrible things that weād say when we won the award, who we were gonna thank, who we were gonna blame. Of course thereās no way weād win, they barely could say the name of the band when reading off the nominees! But what an experience. So many laughs.
Five Dollar Bobās Mock Cooter Stew (Reprise, 1993) doesnāt get enough props. I think itās a great record. I really tried to make each song sound different and killer in its own way. Dan Peters (drummer) is always dishing out the quality.
Itās easy to work quickly with a band youāre in. You kind of already know whatās going to happen, you know how to set up since youāve already seen what works and what doesnāt over the last decade or two. We had intended to record maybe four or five songs for Tiempo De Lujo. Somehow weād crammed all four of us in the basement here; after the two days weād recorded twelve band tracks ā so an album it was! Toxic Youth as well. Weād gone over to Jim Sangsterās living room to learn a few songs before starting recording the next day, and once we got going, they just kept coming and coming. When inspiration strikes, keep the tape rolling!
Can you describe Conrad Uno's Egg Studios; the kind of size or situation you were dealing with? Was there like a famous recording board there you worked with?
Egg Studio, where I and others honed their chops, was a welcome alternative to the ānormalā studios of the time. It was truly a basement studio, the performance room was smaller than an ordinary living room. Many bandsā rehearsal spaces were larger than this. But it really did have a relaxed feel to it, and loud bands could all set up in the room and play live and get a good sound. Mudhoney, Nashville Pussy, Supersnazz, Devil Dogs, Supersuckers, Zeke ā it was home base for so many great albums.
Conrad Uno moved into the house in maybe 1987, I reckon we finished Fastbacks ā¦And His Orchestra there; and by early 1988, we began Very Very Powerful Motor, then the Sub Pop 7ā and Zücker sessions. It began as an 8-track studio. Conrad brought in the Spectrasonics console that was formerly at Stax/Volt studio ā rumored to once be owned by Paul McCartney, under whose purview a varispeed knob was installed. The knob remains, itās Paulās Knob. The console is now at Crackle And Pop studio here in Seattle, and is working better than ever.
Before Mudhoney began their third album, Piece of Cake, their second at Egg, they bought a 16-track machine for the studio, and that was the classic setup for so many records there in the ā90s.
I personally would love to hear about making the classic Devil Dogs album, Saturday Night Fever (Crypt/Sympathy for the Record Industry, 1994). Whose idea was it to make it kind of like a party, with friends and fans whopping it up in the studio between songs?
It was their idea from the beginning to make it a party album, āYou have been invited⦠to a party!ā Another band that didnāt need any fancy fussing about, they already sounded like a house on fire. Just tried to record them and not get in the way, make sure that the playback sounded like it did in the room with them.
Definitely the last night of the session, they invited all their Seattle friends over for a party, and we played the songs from the album through twice, if I remember, and just had a mic in the room while they were going. All the bottles clinking and all the blabbering was totally what happened. There was so little time to get everything done while we were there. They had booked two gigs on recording days ā one out of town in Bellingham! Basically it was like wrangling the Three Stooges to record and mix a full album and an EP in like five days. Letās just say that the morning hours were not particularly productive. But fortunately, when they were on, they were unstoppable. And so fuckinā funny! What a fucking great record!
Oh yeah, definitely the most hilarious band to tour with too! We did a month with them once in Europe, traveling in the same packed little van. And even the bad hungover mornings in the van drives would lead to so much cracking up. Singer Andy G. sometimes stood up and imitated Tom Jones live. Anyway, can you recall who all was in the ācrowdā on that record?
Honestly, I donāt! The studio was in a neighborhood, so all sessions had to be finished by 10pm. I loved the idea of recording a loud listening party and then mixing that in with the album, but it was so precarious to cram a bunch of drunks in the tiny studio and try to not let any gear get ruined, while still egging on loud misbehavior. Then getting all the cats out of there by 10 and not annoying Conrad or his neighbors in the process.
You must have some fun Andy G. stories too.
All three of those guys had their moments! Andy, Steve, Mighty Joe. Someone shouldāve given them their own TV series. It might not have lasted very long, but what a show it wouldāve been. Iāve never seen a group rile each other up the way they did. Shouldāve had a room mic going constantly while they tried to make a group decision. There was way more work than we had time for. Somehow we got it all done, but just barely.
-------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
And hereās where I decided to check in with Devil Dogs drummer, Mighty Joe Vincent, to get some more details on their Bloch party:
"So, in the friends crowd [on the Saturday Night Fever album] was Eddie and Dan Bolton from the Supersuckers, James Burdyshaw and the rest of the Sinister Six, and a bunch of really cool women whose names have escaped my memory banks.
We def recorded on the Stax board. I remember because we had hopes that there was some soul residue left in the cables that might coat our tracks.
We totally loved Kurt. Whatās not to love? I do remember that it was a Crypt budget recording so we had to make every minute count, so we were mixing until we were all so tired we were delirious. Iām pretty sure we went ātil 2a.m. or something like that, but that was mixing. We did that in the middle of a tour, so we did about two weeks of gigs from NYC across this great nation of ours as well as that other great nation to our north, then out to Seattle. While we were doing it , we had a gig up in Bellingham, so we took a day off to drive up there.
I remember Scott Mccaughy was working there at Egg. I was talking to him one day and he told me his days of playing out on the road were over as his wife just had a kid and he had to be a good dad and provide a steady paycheck. I really felt bad for him. And then of course, a short time after that, Pete Buck asked him to come on the road with R.E.M. and said he would pay him a million dollars. Like an actual million dollars. That always made me happy to hear."
-------------------------------------------
And now, back to Kurt Bloch!
Who were bands you liked to tour with? And/or, a classic Fastbacks tour story?
We had some great west coast tours with DOA in the early-to-mid ā80s, they were definitely an early inspiration to go head-on and charge through best you can. They certainly blazed a trail for the rest of us to follow, doing everything themselves, like Black Flag did from Southern California. The ā80s were a rocky road for the Fastbacks. We played a lot of shows in Vancouver, BC, as well as Seattle, but it was a lot of problems and fighting, ha, and it wasnāt until the ā90s that we actually went out for any length of time ā certainly getting into occasional serious trouble with The Meices, Motocaster, Gaunt, and even the New Bomb Turks!
Pearl Jam asked you to do some stadium shows in 1995, arguably the peak grunge year. How did you relate to the whole fame/stadium situation surrounding those shows?
It was January ā95, Pearl Jam asked us to play a radio show from their rehearsal space. I kinda didnāt know what they were talking about, and maybe sort of blew it off. I was trying to finish a Sicko record that night, couldnāt be bothered. I did like their Vitalogy record, āNot For You,ā āSpin The Black Circle.ā The rest of the Fastbacks were all, āCāmon, weāre doing this!ā And I grudgingly told Sicko I was going to have to leave early. I didnāt even bring a guitar, I knew that Stone had a cool ā50s Gold Top, maybe I could use that.
Then of course we get there and itās really fun, just a big party scene, tons of buddies and band cats. We played three songs on the Pearl Jam gear setup, maybe Kim talked on the radio, drank some beers, great time! That was cool enough, but then they asked us to open a few shows at the end of the year, Salt Lake City and San Jose I think, and weāre all like, āHell yeah!ā And everything went well, then, āWould you want to go do a U.S. tour, oh and maybe a Europe tour following thatā¦?ā And we were all, āHellz yeah!ā And that all went great, clearly we would be the next big thing, the world is gonna love us, nothing holding us back now! We had a great record out, New Mansions In Sound (Sub Pop, 1996). Man, that was it ā lots and lots of fun, great shows. We invented an auxiliary opening band for some of the shows, The What. We played Who tunes with Eddie Vedder incognito with a wrestling mask. We drag Mike McCready out for jams, Stone Gossard to sing one of his PJ songs, Eddie did āLeaving Hereā with us a couple times, just great rock times in the giant venues. Somehow it didnāt lead to us being the Next Big Thing, but it was fun to pretend for a few months.
Any good backstage shenanigans stories?
There werenāt a whole lot of super shenanigans. They had an espresso machine onstage every night, so weād all slug down coffees, blast through our tunes, and then get drunk and watch Pearl Jam. Sometimes we would annoy their wonderful crew by being loud and boisterous aside of the stage, spilling bottles of wine or whatnot, but not much more than that. Everyone got along really well, and it was well-protected against after show bullies or negativity. Weād just keep on our course, often ātil the huge sports arena closed down and theyād kick us out after everything had been loaded out ā and weād still be back there cranking tunes and running around.
It was totally like an arena-sized version of a living room party most every night. Their crew moved all the gear, we barely had to do anything except play every night.
I know you knew some of their members from earlier in the scene, but did you know Eddie Vedder before he got asked to join Pearl Jam?
I might not have met Eddie until the live radio show we did? He came up from San Diego. Didnāt know him before then at all, but we were fast friends. We would spend hours talking about the Who and riding around on the catering carts and smashing into the walls of the arenas. Come to think of it, we were probably very annoying. But no one, like, smashed up their hotel rooms or anything. It was probably comparatively tame.
Might sound weird, but while playing in the Seattle scene -- which is generally described as kind of serious, or dark, or junkies, or you know, āgrungyā ā did you and the Fastbacks feel kind of out-of-place; or are those kind of definitions of grunge and that town/time not correct?
The Seattle āthingā certainly was a dark, serious sound. That isnāt to say that every musician was dark and serious, but that darkness prevailed. To say The Fastbacks felt a little out of place at that point would be correct; but I always thought we were here first. Itās not like we didnāt dig lots of the bands, but it also wasnāt like we would try to take them on at their own game. It just wouldnātāve happened. We did do a version of āSwallow My Prideā ā Green Riverās, not The Ramones ā on Sub Pop 200 [compilation], after a Soundgarden version too; but it ended up being menacing only in a Blue Ćyster Cult sort of way, rather than ala either previous version. Slow and heavy just wasnāt in our DNA.
Columbus, OH, 1993 (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
I remember when Fastbacks stayed with New Bomb Turks while on tour in 1993, you guys, well I think specifically Lulu, made an amazing Thai meal for us. Did you always cook for bands you crashed with, or just for us ācuz weāre so awesome and nice?
Ha. I think the wonderful cooking was a bit of a rarity. We werenāt much of a crash on peopleās floor kind of band by the ā90s, but sometimes it was great to have a day off and some good ideas! Remember that Metallica VHS box set had just come out, and we watched it ātil the end because Lulu and I both worked on the film crew for the shows they filmed in Seattle, and we wanted to see if we, several years after the actual shows, got any credits at the end⦠and sure enough we did. Reason to celebrate!
Columbus seemed to love you. What were some other fave towns you played?
Always a great time in Columbus. Not necessarily Cleveland though. We werenāt the hard-touring road warriors that a lot of the other (more successful) bands were. It was whatever city we had friends in that were the best. Vancouver BC, San Francisco, L.A., NYC, maybe Albany, Columbus, Istanbulā¦
Contract and ticket for 1993 Columbus, OH show. (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
Highly technical and professional stage diagram implorations, Columbus, OH, 1993 show (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)
I could be wrong, but you didnāt go over to Europe a lot, did you? Were you able to procure any production work from Euro bands you met whilst on tour there?
Oddly, not a lot of Euro tours⦠Seems like we shouldāve done more, but there was always something. Young Fresh Fellows did some great trips, especially in Spain. Fastbacks Spanish tour was a bit of a dogās breakfast. Not because of the people in Spain, no sir. We certainly lit it up in Japan once, though!
I did a couple albums for Les Thugs, the French band. One of them in Seattle and one in Angers. May have been bookended with some music travel. Itās amazing to look back at the old calendars and see that between tours with the Fastbacks and Young Fresh Fellows, recording with those two bands and recording other bands. Man, there were times when there was nary a day off, those ā90s months were packed! Gotta consider myself pretty lucky. And so many killer records I got to be part of.
As a producer, do you feel you are mainly bringing an āearā to finding the sounds the band wants, or do you try to gently impose a certain style and sensibility over the whole production?
Always try to keep the kickass factor high. I would never try to impose anything other than to try to keep everyone happy so they could do their best work, and not do the same bit over and over and over. Work hard and play hard, but not to overanalyze every little thing. Not under-analyze either, but if itās killer, it doesnāt matter if everything ālines upā perfectly, or if the choruses speed up a little bit. Try to capture what is great about a band live in concert, and not dilute that if you can help it. Donāt add a bunch of crap just to put your mark on a project.
It's interesting how you professed a love for prog, but you had an innate sense of not always overdubbing too much ā note your comment about loving bands that only had one guitar, etc.
The true exciting prog bands started coming out around 1968 and ā69, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator; Pink Floyd and Moody Blues had already been around but maybe werenāt quite included. Recording technique at the time was still fairly straightforward for the most part, there was of course room for overdubbing on an eight-track machine, but most of the first-wave prog bandsā recordings were not overloaded with overdubs. The magic was what they did with their four or five musicians, the arrangements you hear on the record were the same instrumentation as they played live. Some of the songs would have been concocted in a studio, but it wasnāt until later that walls of overdubs became commonplace.
Thatās where the greatness of the original bands lies ā cool vocal arranging and melding several songsā worth of ideas into one track. Not a lot of room for squirminess either, it wasnāt so easy punching in on a giant eight-track tape machine in 1968. You made one mistake on that verse? You do the whole thing again!
Okay, gotta ask, with as much exposition as youād like ā what was your favorite recording session(s); and worst recording session(s)?
Pretty much always subverted the disasters. A time or two I told a band, after seeing a live show, that they werenāt quite ready to record yet; play a few more shows and practice a lot, record your practices and actually listen to them constructively. Studio time is expensive, practice time is (or at least was) cheap. You donāt have to have every bit of every song nailed down exactly, but do have most everything pretty well figured out, and be ready for criticism during the recording. If the rhythm isnāt working, be prepared to fine-tune your part so it is; if your harmony vocal is a half-step off, go ahead and adjust!
Some of the great sessions are those where I feel that I learned things, a new piece of gear, a new way of looking at things. Overwhelming Colorfast, Supersuckers, Les Thugs in France, The Meices in Florida⦠Or the records that just slammed out of nowhere. Devil Dogs, Flop, Supersnazz, Nashville Pussy. So many first albums by bands where they have been playing the songs at shows for a year or two, the tempos are up, the blood is pumping, get rid of the headphones and make it like youāre playing a gig. Play the song three times without stopping. Play three different songs in a row without stopping.
1999 (Courtesy of your's truly)
Youāre still actively producing. What have you worked on recently youād like to highlight? And whatās coming up?
Thereās always some great Seattle band records going on ā Bürien, 38 Coffin, Once For Kicks, Insect Man, The Drolls, Zack Static. These days, some records take a while to finish, I suppose itās the nature of the business now. Trying now to clean the slate and get these out the door before starting new ones!
And thereās maybe a new Fastbacks coming, no?
There was no plan of any sort. We were having lunch as we sometimes do, and started talking about a couple songs it would be fun to learn and maybe record. Our pal Joe āMeiceā Reineke had recently finished an ambitious and fantastic recording building in his back yard; wouldnāt it be fun to check that outā¦.? Well letās call him and see what his schedule is. Oh! heās got a day open, whaddayasay, letās take it. Well thereās a few other songs we could learn, letās make it two days⦠I guess weād better practice⦠What if we did enough songs for an album? Maybe we did! Got some band tracks, everyone played their butts off! Now we gotta make more magic. No target completion date nor avenue to release, but everyone is excited to finish it!
------------------------------------
Post Script: This article sprung from an editor at a national mag asking if I wanted to do a story on Kurt Bloch, which of course I said yes to cuz Kurt's a great guy and I've been a Fastbacks fan for a goodly spell. But some months passed and plans changed, and so here it is! Also, I would've put more videos in this piece because the Fastbacks have a ton of great songs, but I guess I just learned there is a 10-video limit for a tumblr post. Who knew?
All images courtesy of Kurt Bloch, except where noted.