Friday, January 23, 2009

Good Times, Hard Times

Almost everyone has a particular band from their hometown that they loved and wanted to do real well and take over the world. Because you believed in what they were doing and their success would be the success of your tiny bullshit town, and in a way, you too. In 1996 Tina Age 13 was that band in San Francisco. Granted, SF isn't some tiny bullshit town, even if it is always tiny and often bullshit, but you know what I mean. Anyways, they were every bit as great as Pavement or Superchunk was and even better was the fact that I was their friend and (as the title suggests) they made this beautiful 7" for me (among others.) I appreciate it still, the song Elevator still makes me sad in that good way that lets you know that you are still a human. Tina Age 13 aren't a band anymore, something always fucks that up, but they are still my friends. Sean Casement still lives in San Francisco, our sons sometimes play together. Chris Johanson lives in Portland, Oregon, and is a respected painter whose art hangs in MOMAs all over the country. Sadly, Jake took his own life not long after this record came out. He was a good dude, but maybe he didn't think so. They were all good dudes. Good Times, Hard Times indeed. Thanks, friends.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi From England, RAD blog man, thanks,

A

Stiles said...

Funny was just here to say well said and i'll do this some justice tonight, and that guy above is one of my good friends! whats the chances? peace dude.

Aesop said...

Cosmic Hearse brings people together like Match.com but with considerably less awkwardness and cum.

Anonymous said...

tina rules. could you post the other stuff you've got too? i've been lookin for their stuff for quite a while now.

thanks aesop

Aesop said...

Sean has promised me more Tina soon and it will definitely go up. Personally I think this ep is their best.

Shelby Cobras said...

Hey Ace-
just wanted to say lookin' forward to meeting you at the show later, and as reciprocation for sporting that Cretaceous shirt at the Ladle Of Milk gig in Germany i'll totally make sure Mike wears his Ludicra shirt in front of 15 despondent metalheads when we play in Medford in April. Haha.

Anonymous said...

only one song was on the demo? I assumed there would have been at least two, one for each side of the record.

Aesop said...

What demo? If you mean this ep there is two tracks, one for each side. Side one is Elevator and Starla combined as they run into each other.

Anonymous said...

I meant to say EP, but whatever...

The point is, there was only track titled "Sunday morning" that has no audible break "(and only 3min long), making me believe it is only one track. Upon listening to it a few times, I can say this 99.9% accuracy that it is only 1 track.

So I don't know, you either uploaded the wrong material, there is only one song, or the band split the song up nonsensically.

Aesop said...

Okay. I just tried it. Two tracks and artwork. Don't know why you had this problem. Perhaps try again?

said...

Aesop,
Thanks so much for this. Chris was a good friend from the San JoHaze EAT POOP! daze & Tina played several shows we put on, some showcasing some of Chris' artwork, I think he was doing installations then. I have a horrendously bad live tape somewhere of one of there shows (I think at Cactus with Big Sissy Brigade & ScratchBongowax). Thanks for this & I'll be looking forward to further installments. Tina...one of my favorite bands

said...

a reply to anonymous about finding only one track...

when I tried to open the file with Winrar or winzip, there was only one track that was playable - Sunday Morning. I tried 7-zip & it unzipped two tracks. The latest .zip encryption algorithm AES256 is not unzippable with older apps. I recommend 7-zip (free various locations on the Web)

Aesop said...

Fuck. I apologize. I don't know why this particular rip is having this problem.

brandi said...

It's probably some weird PC thing... I used YemuZip to open it and got both tracks and the artwork. Great post, Aesop!

davslack said...

Always enjoyed seeing these guys play the Chameleon. The cover of Cortez the Killer on their CD is one of my favorite Neal Young covers, without a doubt.

Aesop said...

Davslack, I wholeheartedly agree.

Icky said...

These guys were fucking great.
Of course, right?
I used to run around and do bad shit late at night w/ Jake. Miss that dude.

Aesop said...

Indeed, late night heavy trips were de rigeur back then. Sleep was for the sleepers.

Organizing-in-progress said...

I took Tage, age 5 to see Tina (w/ steve on drums) play in Clarion Alley like 2 years ago and it was an epic moment I could not have predicted happening in a million years. He sat on my shoulders and loved it. Some kid fell off a roof. Broken glass and smoke everywhere, for just a second I thought, um, this little kid should not be here, but then, he totally had to be. Love your writing, you're a genius, blah blah blah, but I mean it A.

Anonymous said...

one of my all time favorite bands, listening to tina makes me bawl like a drunk baby...

kyle said...

when fifty million played an acoustic show at shell and jen's old house in the lower haight a bunch of kids showed up that had been turned on to them. they knew the songs and ang along. when they were done sean got up and played a couple of tunes sunday morning being one of them. what a ferocious performer. just a live fucking wire. none of the kids knew who he was. fuck those kids

kyle said...

i realized i am not done talking about these guys. watching tina live was such a mix of terrifying and hilarious and heart crushing that it still makes me tight in the chest to think about it. so fucking violent and beautiful at the same time. enough to split your head down the middle

Anonymous said...

Still one of my favorite rock bands of all time. I've got everything but the impossible to find Good Feelings. Their tour with Track Star in . . . 1997? blurry days, but Tina split my mind and heart open.