This record is proof of the viability of the DIY ethic. CREATE + Be Nice To Strangers = Lasting Legacy.

It helps when the songs are really, really good.

About The Top Shelf
Dave Drobach and Matt Sweeting can talk about records. They have experience that can only come from combined decades of touring in numerous bands and working at a record label. No Idea’s finest bring in the creators of great albums we have all come to love, to sit down, reflect and reminisce on these recordings.

There are three pieces to a Top Shelf interview. The interview team of Dave and Matt, a band member and the vinyl record itself. The record is played in its entirety, stopped in between songs to discuss the writing, recording and touring that happened around the record. Top Shelf session interviews are recorded live in the Grow Radio studios during the weekly show they run called “2nd Avenue Shuffle.”

These are your favorite albums, with commentary found nowhere else. Archived monthly at Lead Us Down.

JEFF HANNEMAN 1964-2013

Dear Jeff,

Not sure why I’m writing you. Your death is a shock. I knew you were too sick to shred up to the high standards you set for Slayer. A rotten spider got a hold of your arm a couple years ago. That could happen to me, or anyone else that can hold a musical instrument. You didn’t perform the last time I saw Slayer. There was a fill-in to cover up for you while you healed. I was stoked to hear your band play, your songs sounded great. I was excited to see this novelty of “Slayer without Jeff .” Turns out the novelty became reality earlier today. Slayer without Jeff. Planet Earth without Jeff. Damn.

Fun Fact: When I heard Jeff Hanneman passed away, Slayer was playing on my iTunes. Last night, I was listening to a Rymodee song. It finished, and iTunes began to play the next file alphabetically, “Hallowed Point” from Slayer’s Decade Of Aggression 2xCD I bought off Uri when he has in town with Bad Tat. (Uri has my 2nd favorite Slayer tattoo). The only way I can connect Jeff Hanneman to Gainesville music: George Rebelo was in the crowd during the recording of Decade of Aggression.

I always think of dead rockers as if they have a problem I could avoid. Heroin, Pussy, Booze, Glamour, whatever. Jeff Hanneman never portrayed any of those. In Slayer, he was the guy who wrote the songs about war and crippling governments, Kerry wrote about religion.

Jeff must have a songbook full of ideas from the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay to the rising awareness of American workers wanting safety in Bangladesh factories. Even an easy song about the 10 year anniversary of the U.S. Navy stopping tests in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

I giggle now thinking about him wearing those knee pads. That LA King’s Jersey and weird knee pads. Hats off to you sir. I’ll maintain an area in our practice space for you to haunt/inspire. We like sports as well.

- Dave Drobach

(Pics courtesy of Dave Drobach)

From Boca’s Facebook event page:

“Duh, we’ve done this before. You come to the bar, put your name in a hat, and we pull names out and put you in a band together. With your new band you write two original songs and pick one cover, and then we all play a show together. It’s fun and very low pressure, but we do pick a winner. Drawing is at Midnight, so come early to put your name in and stay to meet your new band mates.”

Tickets available at Hear Again Music, High Dive or purchase online.

Tickets available at the door, or buy them online.

About The Top Shelf
Dave Drobach and Matt Sweeting can talk about records. They have experience that can only come from combined decades of touring in numerous bands and working at a record label. No Idea’s finest bring in the creators of great albums we have all come to love, to sit down, reflect and reminisce on these recordings.

There are three pieces to a Top Shelf interview. The interview team of Dave and Matt, a band member and the vinyl record itself. The record is played in its entirety, stopped in between songs to discuss the writing, recording and touring that happened around the record. Top Shelf session interviews are recorded live in the Grow Radio studios during the weekly show they run called “2nd Avenue Shuffle.”

These are your favorite albums, with commentary found nowhere else. Archived monthly at Lead Us Down.

I like to think reading these poems are kind of like going out in Gainesville without leaving the house. And added bonus – no hangover.

Below is “Phantom Beers,” the first poem in the collection and one of my favorites.

Phantom Beers

We come here for
the wreck
of it all

those years so close
to catching up
clawing at our ankles,
steadily chasing
through darkened rooms
& alleys paved
in the old downtown brick
where there’s no more love

just restless banter over
the soft trickle
of a piano

playing somewhere
far away

two ceramic faces hardening
fissured & cracked &
smoothed over with drink

hunched over phantom drinks
like old sagging palms, our
withered fronds shaking,
reaching

for something that’s never
there

Doors at 9. Openers are local comedian AJ Gil and Major Entertainer Mike H.

When I was kid my mom would always harp on me to be careful crossing the road, always ending with “remember, look both ways.” It’s pretty solid advice and applicable to most situations. Thankfully the guys in The Swarm did not grow up with my mom…their reckless/relentless approach to creating music allowed no room for safety. It was head-down fast, shotgun wild and sledgehammer powerful. And talking to Chris Colohan, the band’s frontman, they had no clue how good what they were doing was; the very nature of the band and the premeditated notion that they would only have about a 20 month lifespan. Lucky for us they left behind a few documents and glimpses into what was going on in Toronto in the late ‘90s. The Top Shelf proudly presents a look at Parasitic Skies, The Swarm’s (aka Knee Deep in the Deep’s) debut album. Too bad the subject of Chris’ record-ending spoken word track didn’t grow up in the Sweeting household…she might have fared a bit better.

About The Top Shelf
Dave Drobach and Matt Sweeting can talk about records. They have experience that can only come from combined decades of touring in numerous bands and working at a record label. No Idea’s finest bring in the creators of great albums we have all come to love, to sit down, reflect and reminisce on these recordings.

There are three pieces to a Top Shelf interview. The interview team of Dave and Matt, a band member and the vinyl record itself. The record is played in its entirety, stopped in between songs to discuss the writing, recording and touring that happened around the record. Top Shelf session interviews are recorded live in the Grow Radio studios during the weekly show they run called “2nd Avenue Shuffle.”

These are your favorite albums, with commentary found nowhere else. Archived monthly at Lead Us Down.

The party begins at 7 p.m. with a reading and signing by Travis around 8 p.m.

We’ll be running an interview with Travis about the book in the near future as well.

Here’s the info from the back of the book:

Radon was a ‘90s punk band whose legend stretched from Tallahassee to Boca Raton. They avoided the problems of fame by willful obfuscation and a premature break-up. What little influence they had is like a curse or a plague, passed on to the works of their handful of fans. The initial pressing of their debut LP remains largely unsold, gathering dust two decades later on a warehouse shelf. Despite or because of that, it is a true masterpiece, and a quintessential example of the failures and successes of the DIY scene.

How often has a band so uncannily predicted their own futility, while reveling in their inability to transcend both their suffering and the time and place in which it was formed? Fristoe and Cometbus delve into the den of Radon’s lyrics with microscopes and emerge bearing telescopes.

The Sequential Artists Workshop is located at 18 SE 5^th Ave. in Gainesville.

And in case you need a reminder about the awesomeness of Radon…