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Open Road: The Allied Years (1992​–​1997)

by J CHURCH

/
1.
Bomb 02:20
2.
Sacrifice 02:34
3.
Commodity 05:00
4.
5.
Bottom Rung 02:57
6.
7.
Blister 02:50
8.
9.
New Book 04:17
10.
In Vain 03:12
11.
Hate So Real 02:55
12.
Cilantro 03:44
13.
Open Road 02:57
14.
Disappear 03:19
15.
Limp 02:12
16.
Concede 03:08
17.
18.
19.
Travelers 02:24
20.
21.
No Surprise 02:09
22.
Lucidity 03:11
23.
24.
25.
Picture This 02:19
26.
Marge Schott 03:48
27.
28.
Chemicals 03:39
29.
30.
31.
Priest 04:30
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
Radical Chic 01:16
37.
38.
39.

about

J CHURCH
“Open Road – The Allied Years (1992 – 1997)”

I should listen to J Church the Allied Recordings era material to refresh my fading memory but those records have long since been sold for crack. The choice of a few rocks or my J Church collection was easy. The crack won every time. However I've managed to cut it down to just 5 rocks a day, so things are still a bit hazy, if you know what I mean?

These are a few things I do remember in no particular order.
1. Lance cannot sing. If he could I think J church would be as big as the Stink or Dogs on Ice.
2. We've all read a few anarchist and feminist books so stop stealing your lyrics from them
3. The relationship between John Yates and J Church was like two people having casual sex. It worked up to a certain point but really you know in your heart you shouldn't be doing it. J Church continued to tart themselves after Allied's mission was terminated with any label that would have them.
4. One of the drummers, Brendan was as fucked up on drugs as I was. Still his insanity led J Church to do a few gigs with Mockney drum lord Duncan from Snuff
5. I don't know how but I managed to scam J Church on Reading rock festival, if only on the 'Disabled' stage. I think this was the best time I ever saw them live in concert.
6. Gardner got deported from Japan twice. Is this a record for a musician?? If so surely the Guiness book of records should be contacted. We also have Gardner's US to UK transformer at our house and we rent it out to touring bands and take all the cash for ourselves. Profit for the punx
7. If you think J Church sound rubbish, you should listen to Cringer.
8. 'Yellow, Blue and Green' is Smithy from Wat Tyler's favourite J Church song. Don't let that cloud your judgment in anyway because on our 3-week tour of America with them, he purchased one album, and that was by Wishbone Ash.
9. If anyone listens to the whole of this double CD then please get in touch with Lance at Lance@fuckoffitwasajoke.com and he was personally refund the money paid for the CD.
10. How many members of J Church does it take to change a light bulb? If I was funny I'd have the punch-line or if I was being paid by No Idea then I'd actually put some effort into it, but hey in the immortal words of Gys de Wit "What the fuck"

Gotta go. Got a big bag of grass ready and waiting and it ain't gonna smoke itself

Sean Andrew Forbes
Gipsy Hill
May 2004

PS. Some, all or none of the above are lies


SOME NOTES…

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” – James Joyce

Ever since Allied went out of business, we’ve been talking about re-releasing this material. I’ve told people that I’ve been hesitant because this stuff is all so old and it’s mostly really boring. But in all honesty, my biggest fear is that this stuff still sounds great to me and will always be what I am measured against. I don’t mean by the dozen or so of you who like us. As the years go by, I’m more able to distance myself from the process of recording this music and can listen to it on it’s own right. I like listening to a lot of this stuff without feeling nostalgic. There are other eras of the band that I just can’t stand. Sometimes we made mistakes and I can live with that. But sometimes we were just trying to recreate the familiar territory of the earliest singles and that’s what I’m most embarrassed of. Anyway, consider that my Caveat Emptor.

Storytime. I met John Yates when I first moved to Frisco. He was part of that transitional group of OG Maximum Rock N Roll staff to the early ‘90s new jacks like me, Karin Gembus, Jim Allison, Devon Morf, Lali Donovan, Suzanne Bartchy, etc. I already new and respected his artwork especially with Punchline fanzine that I started to contribute to. I was just having fun. But at one point, I got invited to participate in an art show in France! That’s when I realized that John was the real deal and not just a friend who did cool art. He told me he was starting a label and wanted to do something with music. In fact, at one point, John, Donna Dresch and I started practicing to form a project band for him to release on this new label. Eventually, he started Allied and I was very happy that my old band, Cringer, was able to participate in an early compilation.

When J Church started playing and developing a following, there were really only two record labels we were interested in recording for: Allied and Broken Rekids. John and Mike Millett were two of our closest friends and we loved their labels. They seemed to be as keen to release our stuff. So they became home to our first two 7”s. I remember people being excited about those first recordings. We were in the studio with Billy Anderson, a great guy that most people know for his work with heavier groups like the Melvins or Ratos de Porao. But he really did a job and said it was the live-est guitar sound he had ever got. I sent a tape to Sean in England and he actually said it was good. He didn’t make fun of it or anything. That actually made me nervous. People in the Bay who previously had been way too cool to hang out with me or certainly Cringer were now calling and singing our praises. Journalists and A & R people were turning up at our shows. People were calling US for a change.

We didn’t really know what we were doing at that time. We didn’t know what we were trying to be like. We knew what we didn’t want to sound like. So, we were desperately looking for guidance everywhere and anywhere. “Bomb” was meant to sound like “Caravan” by Van Morrison. “Commodity” was meant to sound like “Camera” by REM. “Bottom Run” was supposed to sound like “You Keep Me Hanging On” by the Supremes. “Concede” sounds a little too much like Bitch Magnet. “Good Judge of Character” was meant to sound like “A Good Idea” by Sugar. We even placed it second on the album just like “Copper Blue”. We were shooting at all of these targets and missing. It all got churned up in our loud and distorted machine. Before “Quetzalcoatl” came out, we decided to release a CDEP with a couple of album tracks and three live ones because that’s what the Pixies would have done. We really didn’t know what the hell we were doing. In an effort to please a lot of people and stay within budget, for that first album we mixed 17 songs in eight hours. Billy is a real trooper.

I think we at least thought we were a bit better prepared for the recording of “Prophylaxis”. We went to a smaller studio, had more time, and spent the same amount of money. Good plan. There’s a reason why they call it the sophomore jinx and there’s a reason why it’s an illusion. First of all, between the first and second album we had toured the world. We were worldly and jaded and felt old and were basically acting really stupid. I was, anyway. Although in hindsight I’m sure I was wrong, at the time it seemed like bands were starting to pop up that sounded like our first record. On the one hand that made me feel superior to a lot of them. On the other hand, I felt pressured to do something substantial. The result was our most hated record. Some of our records, people are indifferent to. When this one came out, almost everyone I knew hated it. There are a couple of weird little four track tunes with piano and no drums. “Marge Schott” was slow and had zero distortion. “New Dreams Broken” sounded a little too much like the Pixies. One angry letter complained that we weren’t political anymore and were writing about girls. At the time they all seemed like very valid complaints and I felt like I was holding a copy of “Into The Unknown”. I was at a loss about what to do next, so I started playing guitar for Beck. But that’s another story.

I will say this about “Prophylaxis”: years later Allison from Discount said it was her favorite record of ours, which was a nice thing to say. Let’s face it. Discount basically took what we were doing and did it better.

We loosely alternated a lot of our releases between to two labels with Allied releasing our LPs and Broken releasing our singles collections. That was policy until we decided to release our third album, “Arbor Vitae”, on my label, Honey Bear Records. After that we still did a few things with John. But our relationship with him, aside from still being good friends, was he still did all of our artwork. In fact, he still did all of our artwork until I moved to Texas in 1999. John had at that point folded the label and these recordings have been off the shelves since then.

Anyway, here it all is. There’s something satisfying about having it all in one place. Maybe it’s the collector nerd in me. But I like having my songs organized. It’s got nothing to do with making music that will last forever or leaving any sort of mark on society. I’m happy that music isn’t meant to last. I’m happy that in 50 years nobody is going to remember J Church or any of the bands on our thanks list below. It’s not disposable. But it’s not immortal either. It’s just here right now and that seems like a Zen place to end this rant.

Lance Hahn
February 2005

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released September 15, 2007

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