This is a brief history given to me by D. Black the guitarist in the late legendary Salt Lake Hardcore act "Lifeless". These downloads will include the two demo tracks spoken of as the songs "Stomp" and "Opened Up" they were poorly recorded onto cd from a tape a long while back but still very cool to hear, also will include the s/t 7" tracks but i will put the two in separate downloads for those who already have the 7" tracks and just want the "demo" tracks. Enjoy.
Lifeless had been together for a few months and with a few shows, a handful of songs and an offer from Dan @ Life Sentence we decided it was time to record. None of us had a lot of studio experience so we pretty much went with the first place we heard about that we could afford. It ended up being a little studio in some kids house over by Cottonwood Mall. It seemed ok to us at the time but, like I said, non of us knew any better. So with my amp in the laundry room and Taylors amp in a closet or some shit for isolation, we belted out our only official release as a band. The songs were No Time, Darkness and Zero. All lyrics were Al's. I wrote No Time and Taylor wrote Darkness. We both wrote Zero although the original idea was Tays. We went back to the same studio a few months later to record 2 more songs for a comp that someone was putting out. The first was an instrumental which we called "Stomp a Mudhole in Your Ass" It later was referred to as 'Stomp' for obvious reasons. The second song was called "Opened Up" The comp we recorded these songs for never saw the light of day for reasons that escape me... We were so excited just to be putting something out we though it sounded great and people seemed to like it. It didn't take much time and experience to realize that it was a rather crappy recording by many standards. I personally spent years loathing the music and the recording only to rediscover it after 7 or 8 years of never hearing it and realizing the rawness of the recording and the writing of the simple songs were the elements that made it appealing to a lot of people well after we had split as a band. I have since developed a highly refined appreciation for sub standard recordings after realizing that this can give you better understanding about how good the band really is... It is often much more rich and powerful to experience a band that has not been produced to death in a controlled studio environment. Its like seeing them live. The end of Lifeless was fairly sudden and totally unexpected. In February of 1997 we played a show at the Davis Co fair grounds with VOD, Climb and Clear. Seems like there may have been more but i can't recall who. It was a great show other than some gnarly fights broke out and Sean from Clear ended up getting sued because he was considered the promoter. About 2 weeks later Alex went to Denver to see his favorite NHL team, the Avalanche, play and on his way back to SLC with his girlfriend who was driving, he crashed on an ice covered road in Wyoming and crushed 3 vertebrae in his neck and back. That was pretty much that. I had started playing some of our old songs with Rob Hill and Nick Hardy in 1999. I was trying to get something going again with Alexs blessing but it was never able to maintain cohesion and Alex took his own life later that same year. I have current plans to get the old unreleased stuff out so people can hear it. Unfortunately our best stuff was never recorded. Recently I have started playing some of these songs with Rob again and I would like to record them at some point but Im not sure how I will do this. It seems the issue of Alexs voice is source of contention with many old fans but what ever. There will be no reunion of any sorts but I thought it was a shame to never do anything with our good old songs...
Lifeless had been together for a few months and with a few shows, a handful of songs and an offer from Dan @ Life Sentence we decided it was time to record. None of us had a lot of studio experience so we pretty much went with the first place we heard about that we could afford. It ended up being a little studio in some kids house over by Cottonwood Mall. It seemed ok to us at the time but, like I said, non of us knew any better. So with my amp in the laundry room and Taylors amp in a closet or some shit for isolation, we belted out our only official release as a band. The songs were No Time, Darkness and Zero. All lyrics were Al's. I wrote No Time and Taylor wrote Darkness. We both wrote Zero although the original idea was Tays. We went back to the same studio a few months later to record 2 more songs for a comp that someone was putting out. The first was an instrumental which we called "Stomp a Mudhole in Your Ass" It later was referred to as 'Stomp' for obvious reasons. The second song was called "Opened Up" The comp we recorded these songs for never saw the light of day for reasons that escape me... We were so excited just to be putting something out we though it sounded great and people seemed to like it. It didn't take much time and experience to realize that it was a rather crappy recording by many standards. I personally spent years loathing the music and the recording only to rediscover it after 7 or 8 years of never hearing it and realizing the rawness of the recording and the writing of the simple songs were the elements that made it appealing to a lot of people well after we had split as a band. I have since developed a highly refined appreciation for sub standard recordings after realizing that this can give you better understanding about how good the band really is... It is often much more rich and powerful to experience a band that has not been produced to death in a controlled studio environment. Its like seeing them live. The end of Lifeless was fairly sudden and totally unexpected. In February of 1997 we played a show at the Davis Co fair grounds with VOD, Climb and Clear. Seems like there may have been more but i can't recall who. It was a great show other than some gnarly fights broke out and Sean from Clear ended up getting sued because he was considered the promoter. About 2 weeks later Alex went to Denver to see his favorite NHL team, the Avalanche, play and on his way back to SLC with his girlfriend who was driving, he crashed on an ice covered road in Wyoming and crushed 3 vertebrae in his neck and back. That was pretty much that. I had started playing some of our old songs with Rob Hill and Nick Hardy in 1999. I was trying to get something going again with Alexs blessing but it was never able to maintain cohesion and Alex took his own life later that same year. I have current plans to get the old unreleased stuff out so people can hear it. Unfortunately our best stuff was never recorded. Recently I have started playing some of these songs with Rob again and I would like to record them at some point but Im not sure how I will do this. It seems the issue of Alexs voice is source of contention with many old fans but what ever. There will be no reunion of any sorts but I thought it was a shame to never do anything with our good old songs...
I'm pretty siked to finally hear these demo tracks.
ReplyDeletei love you?
ReplyDeletedid i do something wrong? or is the demo only 2 songs!? :o(
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