2/29/2008: Exclusive Interview: Kepi Ghoulie! Photo credit: Sam Marie AnarchEoin (AKA Eoin Nobody) just got Kepi, formerly of the Groovie Ghoulies, to spill the beans on his latest musical projects, upcoming records, aliens, breakfast cereal, and all sorts of fun stuff! Click below for the Silver Sprocket exclusive Kepi interview. [READ ALL ABOUT IT] Kepi: Hello things, here we go! Eoin: Well, you said you were recording earlier today. Let's start with talking about that. K: I'm making two records that come out May 6th on Asian Man. A full rock record that's completely done, and a solo record with acoustic songs recorded all over town with Kevin Seconds, Anton Barboe, (and) David Houston. E: and when are they coming out? K: They both come out May 6th hopefully. (laughs) That's where I was all day today, finishing them up. E: "Kepi The Band" is probably your biggest project since the Groovie Ghoulies, how did you get such a super group together? (Danny of the Secretions, Jazz Brown of the Helper Monkeys, Dino, and Lys Mayo of Isonomy) K: Everybody came to me, they all said "if you need a drummer!" "if you need a bass player!" "if you need a guitar player!" We're all friends, Jazz and Danny had already toured with the Ghoulies before. Dino had been in bands with me, and I was in two projects with Lys, so I knew we were all good to go. So they all came to me and I'm really lucky. E: What about Kepi and friends featuring Freak, how did you come in contact with her? K: Freak came to me at the Boardwalk last summer and said "I wanna do a Ghoulies tribute band!" and I was like "Can I be in it?" and she got Lys and we did the tribute thing for Halloween, and they just started coming up for shows at Javalounge and it kinda turned into the latest band. E: It's so cool that you have a band with people who were such big fans of yours. K: Yea, I just wanted people with enthusiasm, you know, and I know that Danny has it, Jazz has it, Dino has it, Lys has it, I mean Lys is such a go getter! And Freak is doing her homework and now we're getting shows, its great! E: Tell us about Garagezilla. K: (laughs) Garagezilla is very good friend of mine and he's part of the I.C.E. There's a whole troop of crypto zoological entities on the way, there's a bat coming and stuff. He's doing very well, he does all Ghoulie covers for now but he hopes to have his own material soon. E: What's the I.C.E.? K: Incredible Crypto-zoological Entities, that's all his monster friends from outer space. They got chased off the planet by evil mushrooms on Halloween in case you didn't know. E: That's what I've herd K: "I've heard the rumors." - Well they're true! E: When you were growing up, what kind of bands made you want to get into music? K: Well, as far as punk, (bands) like The Ramones and The Misfits and stuff like that, and I liked the big bands like The Rolling Stones and Kiss and all that kind of stuff, but Ramones and Misfits changed my life as far as punk rock. E: In later years what music continued to inspire you even as your career was going, and who are you into at the moment? K: In recent years I (have been) inspired by the careers of Johnny Thunders and Neil Young, who can rock with a band and play great acoustic. I also really dig the D.I.Y. ethic of the Supersuckers, who do their own label, tour like mad. E: What was your first band like? K: In high school I just had cover bands and stuff, and then the Groovie Ghoulies. The Groovie Ghoulies went forever. E: So you didn't have a large lineage of bands before GG? K: No, a couple little spin-off things, but the Groovie Ghoulies were just going the whole time. E: what was it like opening for Chuck Berry? K: Awesome!!! Twice!!! Twaseome!!!! I am so lucky! E: What's your favorite songs to do live? K: Anything people want to hear! Lately Hey Kepi Let's Go, Supermodel, Love on Demand. New stuff. E: You've toured around the world, what was your favorite tour and what's your favorite place to go visit? K: Every single day is a great adventure. I have been so lucky to go to Europe a bunch, people there rule, but people here rule too. Monday nights at the Javalounge, I tour there on my bike! I got to go to Japan and Australia and they are as fun as the Javalounge. E: Who's B-Face? K: B-face was the bass player of The Queers from, like, Love Songs For The Retarded up till like Don't Back Down I think. He was in the Queers for like seven years and The Queers took us on our first tour when we were in the Ghoulies, and they broke up for like a year and B-Face started touring with the Ghoulies for like 2 years and played on some Ghoulie records like Fun In The Dark and Travels With My Amp and stuff. Then he left the Ghoulies to play with The Real Kids. He lives in Boston and he would have to fly out for tours and it was crazy, but he's a really great guy and a really great Musician. He's just a buddy of mine and he's on all the classic Queers records, you can still find him. And he's a Patriots fan. I'm sorry your team lost yesterday B-Face. E: If you could be one Disney character, who would you be and why? K: Jack Skellington because he's cool, simple, and emo. E: You Have One of the most distinctive voices around. Have you ever done any voice work? K: I totally want to! I read they are making the animated Lucha Libre Movie and I went down to LA to audition, but didn't get the part. They already had Lux in mind, from the Cramps, and he got it. But they encouraged me to try out anyway and I did and now I've done an official screen test. I would love to get into voiceovers and stuff but it's tough work, nobody wants to lose their job. E: Do you believe in Ghosts? K: Yes E: Ever had any paranormal encounters? K: Not with Ghosts. I've seen UFOs, but I know people who have seen (ghosts) and (I) trust them. E: So you believe in Aliens? K: One I saw was incredible, just shooting across the sky faster than any plane or anything could possibly travel, and it was daylight so it was not gas or whatever they say. E: Having the choice of being associated with one monster, mythical creature or paranormal being, which one would you pick and why? K: My favorite monsters are green for some reason: Frankenstein, Godzilla, Creature from the black lagoon, etc. I am already associated with Bigfoot I guess, we have a song and a video together. E: Yea, whatever became of Bigfoot? K: He's living outside of Portland now, but hopefully I’ll get out touring and see him again. I think he made a cameo in the Tenacious D movie. E: Favorite Cereal? K: Oh man, you can always go with Golden Grams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, those are some of my all time favorites. I really like Pooh's Honey Bees, I don't know if they are still making it. They make little limited edition cereals and things like that, I've had different Simpson ones but they change. But the classics would be Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Golden Grams. E: Its happened once or twice that some charlatans give you shit because they think you're "not punk" or whatever. What do you do when that happens and does it still happen? K: Music means something different to everyone and everyone has an opinion, so you let them have it, what can you do? I make music for me and hope others like it. E: How long have you been doing Kepi art? K: Since 3:00a.m. today. E: We were talking about making kepi action figures, what kind of actions would you want it to have once we develop the technology? K: Either have it fly, or a Kepi shaped I-pod. E: And finally, can we be expecting a Kepi The Band tour anytime soon? K: Hopefully in summer or fall. Solo Kepi will be on The Asian Man Tour with The Queers, Bomb the Music Industry, Lemuria, and AJJ. Kepi and Eoin! Photo by Krissi Visit Kepi on MySpace for more information and tour-dates! The few remaining Groovie Ghoulies albums from the Lookout! days are available in limited quantities from our web-store at SpringmanRecords.com Labels: Groovie Ghoulies [2 Comments]

2/27/2008: Super Epic Doom Doom! Hey guys, guess what!? Global warming may kill off species, destroy Florida and most of the UK, and make it hot as balls in Sacramento in the summer, but at least it has one totally awesome thing - it melts arctic islands to reveal awesome fossils! "A fossilised "sea monster" unearthed on an Arctic island" How badass is that? I'm gonna go unleash a couple cans of aquanet. Maybe we'll find a Kraken. [3 Comments]

2/21/2008: Concert Report: SUNDOWNER Sundowner's 2007 release, Four One Five Two, was one of my favorites for 2007. It is the solo project from Chris McCaughan of The Lawrence Arms, a band I've been going ape-shit over for the past nine years. This man used to drip huge beads of sweat off his chin at a rate of two drops a second for the entire duration of rock shows while performing at dingy Los Gatos teen centers back in the day, leaving gross unexplained carpet stains. Last night, I finally got to see him perform solo acoustic at Bottom of the Hill, after stellar sets from Kepi Ghoulie, Kevin Seconds, and Mike Park. Following is some video and a show review! [READ ALL ABOUT IT] Here is a video of Chris performing his very old Lawrence Arms song, 100 Resolutions: Living in Sacramento, it is sometimes hard to muster the motivation for the two-hour trek to San Francisco, even to a clearly epic rock-show like this one. $10 for a ticket, $8 in bridge tolls, and $20 in gas makes for a very expensive evening. But there was no fucking way I'd miss Sundowner's set, and thankfully, Vince Sprocket was down to come with! We arrived right at the start of Kevin Seconds set, missing Kepi. I've probably seen Kepi acoustic about nine thousand times, but I'd still have wanted to see him blow the socks off this new crowd, sorry about that Kepi and thanks for putting us on your guest-list anyway! In attendance were lots of Springman alumni, including Danny (used to do mail-order) and Ruben (from Warped Tour)! Max from Pteradon was there too, his band has a split 7" with The New Trust coming up on the S.S., but I'll tell you more about that later. Kevin's set was awesome, and somehow even more engaging up on the big stage than the smaller coffee-shop atmospheres I'm used to. I asked him later about if my top favorite songs would be on the upcoming acoustic album, but apparently they are going to be on an album three records from now instead of the new one. Dear Mike Park: I can't wait, please make it a three-disc set to satisfy whatever creative weirdness Kevin is talking about!!! Next up was Mike Park, of Skankin Pickle, Asian Man Records, and The Tuesday Club fame. Don't ask about The Tuesday Club. Over the past -- shit, ten years?-- of watching Mike Park play acoustic sets, one thing that frustrated me a bit was how chunks of the audience were way more excited about his really old silly songs than his newer more serious material. I'm not really sure how to phrase this -- I absolutely love his old silly songs and am very glad that people are still excited about them, and hearing them performed is always a treat, but I love his newer more serious songs too, and I guess I got annoyed at the impression that some folks might have found the new stuff boring or not as interesting. I don't know! Anyway, this show was awesome too in that everyone was completely 1000% into the entire first two-thirds of the set with all post-Pickle material, knew what was going on, respected it, was stoked. And THEN Mike played a bunch of old songs, and that was totally awesome too! My favorite part was when Mike climbed off the stage to join the crowd for some carefully staged "hardcore" photos with everyone yelling and throwing their fists in the air, followed by an Operation Ivy cover. Fuckyea! Then Chris/Sundonwer went on, and was fucking awesome of course. I couldn’t go to his show with American Steel a little while back because of a wedding, and hear that he blew everyone away with a backing band and stuff, but I still couldn’t imagine how he could have been better than the one-man show I got to see last night. He played mostly songs off his solo record, a few Lawrence Arms tracks, and a Leonard Cohen cover (that I hope someone can tell me the name of, he's an artist I've been meaning to check out a bit more). One hero was really drunk and shoved his way up to the front, singing along, spilling beer all over everyone. He wins the employee of the week award: He dropped his first beer on the monitor then someone got him a new one, so he drank the two thirds of that one that didn't get spilled on us, then drank a shot of whiskey that someone had bought for Chris, then went and puked everywhere in the hallways right in front of the bathrooms. Drunk hero: We salute you! And the girls who were standing in puke wearing flip flops -- Vince couldn't decide if the nice thing to do would be to say "hey you're standing in puke" or just not say anything. Then Justin from PunkNews.org said hello and took his shirt off for some reason. THE END! [0 Comments]

2/19/2008: Nothing Nice To Say book on Dark Horse Comics! We get to work with Dark Horse Comics!!! The official statement from Clem's LiveJournal: Ladies and gentlemen, as of today, you can now officially expect the long-awaited Nothing Nice to Say book to hit stores around September! The book will be published by none other than indie comic juggernauts Dark Horse Comics (a bit of info I have been keeping secret for so long now it's starting to hurt when I walk). To answer some anticipated questions: 1) Yes, I still own the comics and the characters and everything. NN2S is not owned by Dark Horse, they're just kind enough to put out the book. 2) If all goes according to plan (and I see no reason why it shouldn't), the book should be available in record stores as well as comic shops and, of course, online on Amazon and stuff. 3) The book will contain just about every NN2S strip from 2005-2006, as well as about fifty pages of bonus comics including my month-long stint writing and illustrating Joe and Monkey at the end of 2004, a good dozen or so guest strips, some original art, and more. 4) Yes, the comics from the book will still be available to read online for free always and forever. So hooray! Three cheers for Dark Horse for being badass and putting my book out! This is an exciting time for me, guys. This is the kind of thing you go out and celebrate at a fancy steak restaurant. Which I would totally do if I weren't still hopelessly poor. So frozen pizza's gonna have to do for now. Which, let's be fair, is just as good. Labels: Nothing Nice To Say [0 Comments]

2/18/2008: The Phenomenauts - New Album: For All Mankind, out April 8th! Inspired by new wave and 70's punk, this is the third full-length from the world's bravest space band. A call to arms to defenders of science and honor across the galaxy, For All Mankind deals with the serious implications of science fiction, science fact, and the future of Earth-life as we know it. The CD's packaging folds out to make a rocket-ship. Each one comes with a custom-shaped enamel pin that you can't get anywhere else. National headlining tour April 17 to May 24 all over the USA! Be prepared as The Phenomenauts help keep us focused and guide us through the turbulent waters of what the future might become. If we follow their lead, things might turn out alright. Read more: .: CMJ.com .: PunkNews.org .: AbsolutePunk.net Labels: The Phenomenauts [3 Comments]

2/14/2008: Fuck Valentines Day [Let Crystal Secretin be your internet girlfriend] Labels: Secretions, Wednesday [2 Comments]

2/12/2008: Concert Report: PINHEAD GUNPOWDER Photo Credit: Condition San Francisco We went to see one of my favorite bands ever, PINHEAD GUNPOWDER, playing a secret set this past Sunday night at 924 Gillman Street in Berkeley! [+/-] READ ALL ABOUT IT I absolutely love Green Day and was excited to see Billie Joe perform in such an intimate setting, but more than that, I have been a fan of Aaron Cometbus's work for some thirteen years. His bands and zine's have had such a profound impact on my personal politics and appreciate of punk rock, and this would be my first time actually seeing him play drums, to his own songs no less! Eoin, Vince, and I rolled up around 10am to find about six people in line. One hero, whose name I didn't ask for, was there since 7am, so we bought him some chocolate at Wallgreens. We busted out the sidewalk chalk and went to town, handing out sticks to all our new friends in line. Plenty more Sprockets showed up, including Matt Dgaf, Mickie Rat (of the SECRETIONS), and everyone from ASHTRAY! Some girls showed up to give people Red Bull. I was torn -- its Gilman and you aren't supposed to have corporate sponsors like that, but turning it down would go against the freegan lifestyle. The girls said we couldn't take our picture riding the giant can, so we waited for them to go inside. Then we liberated the truck full of Red Bull that they forgot to lock up. Not really stealing since they were giving it away for free anyway, but still hilarious when the entire line of punks waiting in line just mobbed the truck. ENOUGH ALREADY, HOW WAS THE SHOW? Fucking awesome. ZOMO played first, serving up some dirty, gritty, super fun and catchy pop punk, with female vocals even! I got scabies just listening. Their songs on myspace are recorded terribly, but they sound incredible live, someone put them in a decent studio please. We will be setting up some shows for them in Sacramento soon. Next was CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, fucking brutal and awesome! Mickie pointed out that there aren't anywhere near as many political riot grrl style bands now as there used to be, but the message is still just as relevant. Aside from their being great musicians it was rad to hear serious topics being candidly brought up like that. The final opener was LA PLEBE from San Francisco, who I've seen a few times and love. I don't know what their songs are about since I don't know Spanish, so I hope I'm not cheering along to how friggen awesome Ronald Regan was. Then all hell broke loose as everyone shoved around to get a good spot for PINHEAD GUNPOWDER. Here's them setting up: I don't even know what to say about their set. They played all my favorite songs, and the new ones were great too. There was so much energy in the room with everyone going nuts, singing along, getting drenched in other people's sweat and pruning up like we soaked in the bath way to long. They played these songs: Aaron Cometbus told me earlier that one of the new songs was a rip-off of a Secretions song, which caused me to telepathically blow a load across 19 million parallel dimensions. Though its just vicarious as the record-label guy, it means so much to me to hear that something I had a hand in could inspire one of my heroes like that. The show ended, we went outside, changed out of our drenched clothes, and went home. THE END. [0 Comments]

2/01/2008: Limited edition Bike Punx NN2S Shirts! Bike Punx ringers! UPS losing the box couldn't keep us down. We only made six in each size, these will go pretty quick. Sorry there's none in XS, American Apparel didn't have that size in stock. And, we got a new printer (see box on head). Labels: Nothing Nice To Say [1 Comments]

DON'T STOP! There's more!
Click below to read older posts from the archives
- Archives - July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]

- ARTIST WEBSITES - Amazing Transparent Man Ashtray Big D And The Kids Table Blatz Day At The Fair The Epoxies Filth The Groovie Ghoulies Jason Webley Mitch Clem The New Trust Pain The Phenomenauts Pteradon The River City Rebels The Rum Diary Secretions Shinobu Shower With Goats The Slackers Sorry About The Fire The Teenage Harlets Treephort The Wunder Years

- Archives - July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008

Silver Sprocket is a bicycle club, not a record label. We like punk rock, beer, sin, and robots.
For contact information, check out Springman Records. Copyright 1999-2008.