Demo and Other Useless Shit You Need in Your Life

Yup, we have a CD demo available for purchase. It has 8 songs recorded by the wonderful, yet suspiciously all-too-sober, Ben Libay in his studio down in Maple Valley, WA. After a brief argument about where Maple Valley actually is (Dan mistook it for the Seattle north-end neighborhood, Maple Leaf), the band puttered into the studio. A total of three hours was spent recording the 16 minutes worth of music. It would have been one hour if Dan knew how to play guitar and didn't have to come back and re-track half of the demo. Ben mixed it in the Colonix practice space and mastered it partially. The rest of the mastering was left to Joe Rizzy. We neglected to add any of this information in the demo itself to save Ben and Joe the embarrassment of being linked at all with Colonix.

Ben pulled out all the stops for this demo, employing techniques Steve Albini himself would give thumbs up to. He took a minimalist approach to recording us, using as few microphones as he could. He also insisted the power outage that occurred, resulting in us having to re-record a few of the songs, was probably for the best. "Computer editing software isn't that good," he lamented.

Reviews of the demo thus far have been mixed. Cely is pretty sure that "farting into a microphone" would produce better results. Our straight edge constituency, Coleen Holloway and Bobby Cata think it's about time a band returned to punk ethics found in the early 80s when people didn't know how to play their instruments. "It's painfully obvious that is the case with this CD, Dan... Way to go!" Coleen said. We have yet to hear from either of Dan's housemates who refuse to even claim ownership of the demo citing, "it's bad enough I have to hear you guys practice once a week through the floor."

Included is a lyric sheet detailing an explanation why only a few of the lyrics were written down (something about Jr. threatening to shoot Dan). The chicken scratch Dan calls "writing" is difficult to read. So, its a pretty irrelevant piece of paper. And Pete is pretty proud of making the actual CD look like a ransom note written on a bathroom floor. Anyway, if you want one, send us a message: 77colonix77@gamil.com. Or, you can come to our next show if you live in the Seattle area.

We also have buttons and some limited edition cassette demos* for sale.

*Note: see the blog titled "Your Colonic" to obtain a consumer report/warning about this product.

Worry not Vandana Shiva, all is not lost.

Ladies, gentlemen and transgender folks, I bring you the Grolar Bear. It is a subject Colonix fans should familiarize themselves with as certain members of the band are obsessed with this new species of bear. Yes, it really exists. We found conclusive evidence of the Grolar Bear in 2006, when a fucking hunter shot and killed one, thinking it was a Polar Bear (as if hunting a known species of animal on the endangered species list is any better).

The hybridization of a Polar Bear and Grizzly Bear occurred not in a lab, zoo, circus or some other sociopath born institution of captivity. No, my friends, this bear hybrid happened in nature.The question looms: how, or, why would this happen? And there are theories. Well, there is one popular theory that is nothing more than a long-winded, pompous "I don't know". And then there is my theory, which is much more exciting, dramatic and anthropomorphic and fits into the theme of Earth Day... even though I'm a day late.

It's quite simple, really. Both bears are marginalized apex predators. The Grizzlies were pushed out of much of their habitat early on in European occupation of North America. One can only assume they are still angry about losing California to the likes of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Spanish Missionaries. And Polar Bears are in a struggle with human colonialism in the age of globalization. Their fight with melting ice floes is much more difficult than with that of a "sports" hunter.

So, somewhere along the lines they read Che Guevara's "Guerrilla Warfare" (no doubt discovered him seeing environmental studies interns donning the stencil t-shirts of his face) and decided that inter-species breeding of the largest land predators in the world would result in a super bear: just the weapon they'd need in their war against civilization. Unfortunately, they were wrong. The Grolar Bear tends to be smaller than both and it seems that infighting and an inability to consistently find common grounds (quite literally, Grizzlies hate the ice and Polar Bears hate getting dirt in their paws) among the species has created nothing but setbacks. Nevertheless, this author is of the opinion that the bears are on the right track. That the coalescing of these two species will give the civilized a run for their money.

On a more serious note, we should give Bolivia and Ecuador a hi-five for being the first among many countries to pass a law that gives nature equal rights to humans. Here's an interview with Vandana Shiva and Maude Barlow, two environmentalists who put this idea into perspective better than I ever could:

Audible dot com.

These lovely beasts are named June and Loki. They hang out with Colonix now and then, but not because they like our take-no-prisoner approach to hardcore, or because we are three of the most talented musicians this world has to offer. As a matter of fact, when it comes to auditory pleasure, both of these dogs prefer the sounds of their own names being called (they are pretty vain animals) to the banshee screeches of Dan's vocals, or the whiskey-drenched wales of Jr.'s bass lines. They certainly care nothing for the primordial pounds that Pete calls "drumming". No, June and Loki hate punk and hard-core music. Contrary to popular oogle myth, it can be safely said that the majority of dogs hate loud music in general. I know, this seems like common sense. The fact of the matter is, this is a continual problem in the punk rock scene: fucking assholes think it's okay to bring their dogs inside of show spaces.
Colonix tries to stay out of politics*, mainly because the three of us have anger problems and usually end up in jail or psychiatric wards when we involve ourselves (hardly beneficial to the revolution). But this is a campaign we will crusade for until the bitter end. Please refrain from bringing your dog into show spaces. Colonix would rather you miss us than contribute to your dog's hearing loss. Thank you.


*Note: This is a flagrant lie. Pete Swanson is the President of the Belltown chapter of the Tea Party. Jr., along with being a lifelong member of the NRA can also be found at union halls across the pacific northwest urging union members to disband this "socialist conspiracy" that "continually inflates wages by artificial means" and allow for the market to work out economic ailments. Danny rigorously campaigns with the Libertarian party, has endorsed renowned holocaust denier, Pat Buchanan for president the three times he has run and is currently interning at the American Enterprise Institute as research lackey.

Your Colonic

Fuck. Pete reported to me the other day he sent a master out to be pressed onto a 7". Jr made buttons. That leaves me. I made a cassette demo that has no actual music on it. If you bought one, well, what did you expect? It was only 50 cents and I am not to be trusted in the world of commerce or art. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel I come up a bit short in the productivity realm. What's worse is I'm typing all of this into the blogosphere while listening to Built to Spill... ???

Pete and Jr. would be ashamed. I suppose I have consistency going for me: continually being a let down.

With that said, welcome to the Colonix Blog. Become a follower. I'm certain Jr. will chime in from time to time with photos and other shit. I'm technologically challenged. So, don't expect much more than updates on random shit you don't really care about.