Countermeasures by Light Coma

Countermeasures is the first release from Chicago’s Light Coma, recorded by Greg Norman at Studio Greg Studios II. The music is honest, beautiful, and full of buzzy goodness. Brian Orchard’s vocals soar above his fuzzy guitar singing heartfelt lyrics to a tight rhythm section comprised of Ryan Rezvani’s bass, and Jim MacGregor’s drums.

I believe I have seen them every time they have played live, and this album captures them perfectly, starting with it’s slow build on Another Year, through the uptempo rockers New Fi Nam, Remake, and Call The Doctor. This is Gonna Break Your Heart will. This is the Breakdown and Come On are awesome drudge-y rockers which leads us to the farewell, 20 Hours and 2, which, yes, is also going to break your heart.

This album is 8 songs of greatness. Since it’s release last week I have a hard time not listening to it on repeat. Countermeasures is available in digital download ($5) and a limited edition run of 200 hand printed compact disc packages printed at the Bird Machine and assembled by Rohner Press.

My First PRFBBQ

This summer rocked my old ass off.

Well, it started out that way. I had an unexpected amount of free time that became available just as Police Teeth rolled thru the Midwest. “Awesomer Than The Devil” blew my rock and roll paradigm to pieces, and is still holding steady at the top spot of the 2011 new elpee list I am constantly updating in my brain. I’d found out about Police Teeth thru D.j. Hostettler, the drummer for noise maniacs ifihadahifi. D.j. also was the guy who turned me on to the Electrical Audio board, and, consequently, the PRFBBQ.

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Jive Tofurky: A Document of PRF BBQ Meatless Grilling

Tree a-grillin' by Jodi Shapiro

Hey man, my name is Tree and I helped head up the grilling team for the 2009 PRF BBQ and its successor, the 2010 PRF BBQ.  The food at these BBQs was something to be proud of and very representative of the PRF’s lack of willingness to engage in the store-bought/prepackaged/cheap.  There were dozens of sausages from Chicago’s stellar Paulina Meat Market, even more sausages from the state of Wisconsin, homemade sausages, burgers hand-formed and seasoned with love and topped with a variety of cheeses, chicken parts, fish, and even pork shoulder.  “You Eat Well or You Go to Hell” was our motto*.

For both of these events, I made the decision to handle the vegetarian grilling duties.  I am not a vegetarian, far from it, though I tried it for about six months in 2003 until my wife became pregnant with our second child and was ravenous for meat.  Since it turned out the baby was mine, I figured I should start eating meat again as well.  I am a vegetarian sympathizer, and as an avid griller, it pains me to attend/host a cookout and see the meatless folks show up with frozen veggie patties, or even worse, tofu dogs.  There are actual vegetables to be consumed and many of them are delicious when grilled, so allow me to talk about the items that I made for these BBQs.

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