Thursday, September 11, 2008

RFTC ASGIII


RFTC were one of my favorite bands. Sick live show, tons of merch, and hard to get records. Like Kiss only for people with taste. Their "all systems go" comps compiled there singles and hard to find tracks. Volumes one and two were cool, since it saved me having to transfer all the vinyl to digital, but V3 really is a keeper.
The holy grail to any record nerd are lost tapes-whether it is unreleased tracks, false starts, alternate takes, etc-doesn't matter. 4CD boxsets have been built on false starts cause record nerds are nerds first. So this 20 tracks of practice space 8 track recordings including alternate takes, instros, and unreleased was something really special and if we are lucky will have endless follow up volumes(like Dylan and the Bands Basement Tapes only good....)

As I was listening to this driving home an odd thought hit me. I couldn't name a cover song that RFTC had played or recorded. Weird for a group of dudes totally obsessed with music. I wracked my brain from 128 to 24 to 495 to 6 and still couldn't come up with an answer. Google was my obvious destination since I was moving in the opposite direction of my record collection, but why use the anonymous google when you could use the anonymous "contact" feature on most websites? So around inning eleven of the Soxs vs Rays, I wandered over to the computer and sent Swami Records my question,and went to bed.
Around 2:30 I woke up in a cold record nerd sweat, mumbling"plays the music machine". Shit, they did that stupid fucking 5" covering the music machine. So much for my grandiose conspiracy theory of them not recording covers.
To add insult to injury as I was drinking my morning coffee, I had time to read the ASGIII liner notes, and "this way out" is a wall of voodoo cover. Another head shot to my theory. A 5" full of failure was tough to take, but then a wall of voodoo cover? Fuck. That is a low blow. So now instead of waiting anxiously for a reply email that is full of "you figured it out...". I am waiting for something along the lines of "try again retard". And the Sox lost in 12 innings. Perfect
And finally as I type this, I am remembering that they did do one double thumbs up cover. Red C "pressure's on". Nothing like some harDCore to make it all all right.
So yes RFTC recorded some covers, but more importantly ASGIII is killer, the demo versions of "dick on a dog" and "when in rome" are great and most of the unreleased stuff holds up real well. Best comp yet from the RIP RFTC.
My anger towards the 5" format is only growing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A-fucking-men. You are like the bizarro version of myself.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Anonymous said...

"Press Darlings" is an Adam & The Ants cover