JAW
BOX
Imagine a voice howling in an empty white alabaster
wilderness. The voice grows louder and louder. No one
answers. No one seems to hear. The voice keeps on
screaming...
"My perception is that people, in general, rarely ever
connect as much as they'd like to," says Jay Robbins,
the voice and guitar behind Washington DC's
Jawbox. "We live in a culture that is totally one-sided,
that perpetuates alienation. It's easier to watch TV than
to work something out with someone. That scares me."
Onstage, Jay Robbins is a twitching bundle of rage
and insecurities. Fiercely emotional, angry and vul
nerable, singing songs of our desperate need to con-
nect. His bandmates, bassist Kim Coletta, guitarist
Bill Barbot and Zachary Barocas play with the same
angst, the same harnessed alienation. "Basically, the
process of having a band has always been a way of
shouting that as an individual I am worth something
and my voice should be heard," Jay waxes. "The
American social climate is such that we sit and
receive and consume and are discouraged from believ-
ing that we have any worth. I feel like if I didn't have a
band, an outlet, I'd definitely go insane."
Jawbox have been venting showers of angst since
forming in mid '89 after the break-up of Robbin's last
band, DC hardcore icons Government Issue. Their first
album, 1991's Grippe, he sees as unfocused. Their lat-
est, Novelty, is a non-stop bludgeon of mood and
melody.
Says Jay. "We used to get really irked when people
said we were a melodic hardcore band from
Washington, DC. I don't really care about that any-
more. I want to make uncompromising no-bullshit
music, something with a really hard exterior and some-
thing really sweet underneath. A soul, I guess."
-Mike Gitter
Laughing
hyerias
S
Laughing Hyenas screamer John Brannon is battling the flu and looking like six feet of hell dressed
in black. His face is all hair and shadows, barely illuminated by the cadence of lights from oncom
ing cars as he sits in the driver's seat of the band's battered Dodge van and takes a sip of coffee,
trying to jolt his senses into shape. In an hour, the Hyenas are due onstage at the Bank, a tiny
club on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Brannon already looks mean
Anyone who saw Ann Arbor's hateful men (and one woman) of blues back on their 1990 tour
would figure them for dead by now. Back then, they looked like hell. The shows were like stand-
ing on the brink of an explosion. Hate was all around. "We weren't getting anything done."
Brannon half-sighs/half-growls. Then again, the whole band has always thrived on negative
energy. It has its pluses and minuses, I guess. It just got to a point where none of us could sit in a
room and create music together." It was an ugly scone. Brannon and guitarist Larissa Strickland
had broken up after going together for nine years, bassist Kevin Strickland and drummer Jim Kimball
were heading in another musical direction. There was a lot of talk about drugs. People in Ann Arbor
were referring to the Hyenas as evil.
Those "negative energies" are intrinsic to the Laughing Hyenas. "It might be negative, but we
turn it into a positive, says John, whose been shredding his tonsils since his days with Midwest
hardcore supremos Negative Approach. "We use it as a release. It's the only way I can really get
my frustrations out, just through jamming. It's like exorcising the demons. People look at me and
think. That guy's so angry. He hates everything. It makes me feel better.
"I get to beat the fuck out of our stuff, that's cool," laughs new skinsman Todd Swalla
Everyone's clean, everyone's really healthy now," John insists. The Hyenas got it back togeth
er in January 92, with ex-Necros drummer Swalla and bassist Ron Sakowski replacing Kevin and
Jim who went on to form Mule. "It just seemed more like a hobby for those guys." the singer
snarls. This is the only thing I've wanted to do for a long time." With a new four song plate of hate
and proto-metal noiseblues called Crawl out, the Laughing Hyenas are back, not as on over the
edge but still as terrifying as ever.
Terrifying. Brannon likes the ring of that. "If you don't put everything into it, there's no use in
doing things." he says, his image reflected in the coffee's blackness. "That's just the way we've
always been."
Mike Gitter
guest.
column:
all
ALL aboard. Tragically, attempting to describe ALL-in ALL its Cosmic
Grandeur is to generally come off sounding like somewhat of a dork.
Be stout of heart, however: it is this very dorkdom which marks the truly
ALLworthy from the masses, just as the shaved head marks the Krishna
and the funny hat marks the Amish.
To truly understand the band's neo-missionary zeal in questing ALLtimate
satisfaction, one must first comprehend certain cardinALL tenets of the
ALLular Way O' Life, not the least of which is food. No other means of ALL-
Questing is quite so forthright and direct as simply cramming everything
that is not you into your mouth, then mercilessly chomping it until what was
once a separate entity has been absorbed into thine own being, kinda
like Hitler and Poland. Repeat when necessary (early discoveries in this
most primal arena of ALLdom were documented on the Fat Ep, back when
we were still called the Descendents).
Secondly, the fart. Currently lodged in human shells just like any other
non-entities, ALL cannot, in good conscience, advocate unbridled eating
without suggesting that some type of excretionary activity is in order. We
feel that flatulence which, being mostly air, sacrifices only microscopic
quantities of ALLular materials yet yields copious volumes of personally.
identifiable end product (so to speak)-is, by far, the most bang for the
buck going in the Human Waste Sweepstakes today. Woe betide the
unlucky Quester whose gastrointestinal carburetor is running more than
a little rich, however.
Rounding out this holy trinity of universal languages is music. Our choir
features Stephen Egerton's spastically telepathic guitar work (which has
earned him both critical acclaim and death threats on ALL the Federation's
inhabited planets); the bassing of Karl Alvarez, oft-likened to the sound
generated by farting out eighth-note bubbles in a bathtub filled with mer-
cury; and the percussive savagery of Bill "I Just Want To Be A Bear
Stevenson, the sound of the world's largest ketchup packet rupturing
beneath Paul Bunyan's feet. A lifetime of wrestling and orthopedic footwear
prepared Scott Reynolds for the lead vocalist position, as well as helping
him maintain his mastery of dance steps so new they ain't even got names.
Following naturally is constant touring. Our calling is such that we would
be shockingly remiss in our duties if we did not scurry fitfully from city to
city in a giant, heaving construct of iron and rubber eight to ten months a
year. This is, of course, a logical extension of our need to be in ALL
places at once. Sometimes we actually succeed in this, and we pass our-
selves on the highway. We toot, wave and pelt ourselves with soggy
laundry as we rumble past.
Finally, pre-recorded musical entertainment. The new album is called
Percolator, and it is a convulsively sledgehammering ultrasonic tempo-
ral-spatial compression of fake ID's, Beefaroni, large Buford Lawmen, time,
air and food. The single and video is "Dot." Clamor loudly for its regular
appearance on MTV, and maybe then you'll understand what we've been
saying all along: "All, a wall, a wee-wowee! Walla walla!" I
CFO
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56 Timings