Spirex were one of the greatest bands you've never heard of. They called Tallahassee, Florida home and in the mid-'90s they blew as many fucking minds as they did speaker cones. Just two terminally high dudes, Glen and John, with a ridiculous amount of cabinets, pedals, amps, and a wealth of spindly, futuristic riffs. John and Glen made much of the electronics they used from scatch, they were more like sonic mad scientists than any kind of rock band I'd ever seen. Spirex never properly released anything and never really played outside the southern states, which is why they aren't a huge cult phenomenon today. This is so fucking brilliant and ahead of its time I demand you check it out.
31 comments:
thanks Aesop. do you know what year???
just got a bunch of LUDICRA shows fron DAN HASHTHRASH. good shit!!!!
Live 2007-10-02 San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
Live 2006-07-03 Oakland, CA @ Golden Bull
Live 2005-10-07 San Francisco, CA @ Elbo Room
Live 2000-03-22 San Francisco, CA
12 Galaxies in San Francisco, CA on February 3rd 2007
Live At gilman st. may 16th 2003
Dan rules. This Spirex stuff is approx. 94-97. Not an official release just a miscelleaneous comp of stuff made for me by the band because I am cool, like a Fonzie.
yeah Dan's awesome. i went over to his house yesterday with my external hard drive and we swapped tunes. heres what i got from him
Def Leppard
Artificium Sanguis
Confessor
Violent Coercion
Scurvy Dogs
Autopsy
Structure Of Lies
Stormcrow
Special Forces
Sigh
Severed Head of State
Medication Time
Ludicra
Lip Cream
Lesbian
Leech Milk
High on Fire
Ghoul
Conifer
Boston
Aldebaran
Lethargy
Corrupted
Desolation
Annihilation Time
Asunder
Antisect
bicho)))
Buzzov•en
Brainoil
All Shall Perish
Anubis Rising
Logical Nonsense
Failure Face
delta force
Talk Is Poison
Deadfall
Axiom
Scholastic Deth
Bastard
this shit is pretty fucking warped, reminds me a little of man is the bastard crossed with death metal and this local boston band from back when who's name escapes me right now [sam black church maybe? its definitely there in the weird fucking vocals...].
all this rambling is pointless sorry, good post thanks
-moose
this shit IS amazing. like Planets, Lightning Bolt or Godheadsilo on a steady diet of Man is the Bastard. i was hooked by the second tune. thanks a ton!
I know there's heaps of stuff you've been involved with available online, but how do you feel about those who are handing out stuff by Ludicra?
Just trying to gain a perspective regarding file sharing.
Doesn't bother me at all. I posted Ludicra's first album here some time ago.
Cool. Just did a search and there's something came up that was totally unexpected - Rock Jack. Any chance of getting that back up?
Yeah,check back. I'll re-up it later.
You've got to be fucking kidding me. I can't believe this was never a "hot shit" band. I've been following your blog for a long while, and unless you're interested in music from early 90's arcade games, there's not much I can do to give back to you, but I wish that I could offer you something in thanks for this wonderful music. Spirex is probably the coolest thing I've found via this blog.
Jace, your enthusiasm and comments are appreciated. Glad people are digging this band, they should be heard.
Holy shit, I actually lived in Tallahassee when these dudes were recording and was sort of acquainted with them... never heard them, though. So now I will.
THANKS.
hmm yep i likes it. how did you ever find this anyway if they never left the dirty? ugh i actually hate it when people call the south the dirty, sorry about that, but still interested to hear how you came by this squiggly gem.
Hickey (my old band) were friends with them. We played with them a few times and always stayed at John's (the drummer) house. We were in awe of their greatness AND their kindness.
Thanks for re-upping Rock Jack, it's a great concept - let's hope the American Idol creator doesn't base a new show on it and ruin it for everybody.
About 10 years ago, the morning after the last night of the Hard Back Cafe in Gainesville, I was wandering around in a hungover daze looking for some drugs I lost at the party the night before when the cops showed up and all the punks started going crazy. In the gutter among the broken bottles was a copy of a Spirex record, a split with a band called Phillis. Amazing weird shit-I'm listening to it now. I never found the drugs, but this record was definitley a fair trade. Always seemed appropiate that I found it in the trash. I'd love to share it with people but I have yet to figure out how to put my records on the internet...
I'm glad you do it.
This is a really true gem. Thank you!
I have been wanting to hear this for years! thanks Aesop
john/milwaukee
damn,this band was amazing!it's a shame they never really made it.nevertheless,thanks to you their music won't be completely lost.
because I'm a MASSIVE FUCKING NERD I feel compelled to point out that somebody from this (amazing) band was previously in a great, hugely overlooked death metal band called DARTH VADER'S CHURCH, whose two albums, if you can find them, are amazing.Cheers for posting this Aesop, great stuff
That must be Glen, I remember him telling us that. John came out to SF about a year ago to see Om play with the amps he built for them and we hung out a bit. Smoked some pot in Golden Gate Park.
This shit far surpassed my expectations.
They have moments where they sound like Zeni Geva in space, which is altogether a good thing. Thanks a million.
Zeni Geva in space is about as good a description for SPirex as I can imagine.
hoe-lee-crap! i am hoping this is their 60 minute cassette they gave us. i am from gainesville, and played bass in phylis. for several months we would trade gigs with them in tallahassee. lost touch with them after they imploded. lost my cherished copy. please let this be the one!! i'll send you our split 12" with spirex! !please please! this tape should have been released as a double 12"! it is/was godhead!!
I think this is just random stuff John compiled for me. I was in Hickey and we played many times with them too.
tracks 2,4,5,6, and 9 are from the first and bestest tape i ever held in my palm. thank you so much! our split has four spirex tracks- two from that session that are not on this comp and two from a later 16trk session with some fella i should remember but do not. they sent us the tapes for the vinyl. if you want i'll still gladly send it your way. i'm listening right now. goddamn its good! its been at least 15 years!
I have a Spirex T shirt from when (I think it was Glen) toured with Vanbuilderass this'll be my 1st physical listen of their music-Robert P
I played on the same bill with Spirex many times in Tallahassee. To us, they were god like, titans. And their sets almost always cleared a room. I really tried to push their stuff out of FL, but it never worked. Their whole catalog would be rad re issue material for someone. LOVE THIS SHIT. Thanks for posting this. Talahassee Trippers.
wow...thanks so much for this!
John McNeese (Spirex drummer) was in many amazing bands throughout the 90's up through present day. The first band he was in that blew people's minds was called KRM. I was the sound guy and co-owner of The Cow Haus in Tallahassee where all the cool bands played (now called the Beta Bar under different owners). I was fortunate enough to know everyone in the music scene there and managed to get a copy of the original DAT and dumped it to CD using an old Mac 7100/80 AV and SoundEdit 16. At the time, my cd-burner was the only one in town and it cost me $1300 for a 4x burner. Anyway I've still got the copies I made and I occasionally make more copies on request. These are the only known tracks KRM ever laid down in the studio. "Bruce Lee", "Giant Robot", "Measuring My Dick" and "Big Heroin Needles" are some great tracks off that DAT. "Big Herioin Needles" was actually a response to another local metal band, DVC's song "Big Bong Tokes". It was sort of an inside musical joke between the bands. Funny that John ended up playing drums in Spirex with a former member of DVC. It's also noteworthy that John is an even better Guitar player/songwriter than he is a drummer, but wrist probs made him stop playing guitar for the most part. His next band after KRM was a band called "Magic Juan" which is still legendary to those who were lucky enough to see them. They played in my living room in college and it was the absolute best live show I've ever seen. If you've never heard Magic Juan, go find a copy of their album in iTunes and it will be the only thing you listen to for about a year. They were so amazing they would have had their own cartoon series if their drummer (Will Ryan) hadn't died in the middle of the Jungle one summer while doing graduate work in biology or something like that. His death hit John and Pat Baruse (Magic Juan's bass player) pretty hard and they didn't do much music for a while. Eventually they ended up forming a new band called "The Giving Heads" which was also really awesome and featured John and Pat from Magic Juan and a couple of other local guys they knew from other bands (whose names escape me at the moment). That band didn't last very long because the drummer had hand problems and John was having wrist probs playing guitar...there may have been other reasons too, but I don't think they ever recorded anything before they broke up. Not sure if there were other bands in between, but eventually Spirex emerged on the scene with John now playing drums and Glen from DVC playing guitar, and sheer musical agression playing all the other parts. I'm getting ready to try to round up copies of everything Spirex committed to tape or vinyl, but if you like Spirex and want to hear some slightly less "deathmetalish" music from John, definitely get your hands on Magic Juan's only album "Willpower". It will change your musical life. I think it's much better than Spirex personally, but that's my taste.
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