Pirates of Darkwater

My internet at home is down, so this entry won't be that great!  Pirates of Darkwater were a 2-guitar 1 drummer band from Austin ca. 2004.  To me, they sounded like if the Champs retained a tad more of their independent rock stylings of their second cassette and kept evolving in that direction.  Bryan Richie played guitar, the other guitarist was named Ryan Figg, and the drummer was named Charlie Ciernia.  I'm not sure what other bands Charlie was in, but Bryan went on to be in the Sword and Ryan went on to be in Octopus Project.  They recently had a reunion show, so maybe they'll play more often.

A link to one of their demos that may or may not work
Notice how in this picture I'm holding nothing because this doesn't exist in a physical format!

Damn Near Red

Moving from Williamsburg VA to Richmond VA in the late summer of 1992 was a real culture shock.  Homeless people!  Gunshots!  Left-wing politics!  For me, the biggest difference was in the bands.  In Williamsburg, you'd get a couple of your friends together and play in your parents' garage.  In Richmond, you had to actually be GOOD.  Like, for example, Damn Near Red.
One of the first big shows at the Metro that fall was (I think) Shudder to Think, First 5 Thru, and Damn Near Red.  For some reason I feel like Askance was going to play, but they refused to play a show that cost more than $5.  Maybe it was First 5 Thru that refused.  This completely boggled my young mind.  Why would a band refuse to play a show because it was over $5?  Phrases like "veganism" and "privilege" and "feminism" were completely alien to me then.  Anyway, this guy Brian Moeller (sp) was a blonde art student that wore trenchcoats and went on about the band Damn Near Red.  They typified something called "the Richmond sound" - whatever that was.  I made sure to catch them the next time they played, and was blown away.
I was unaware that bands could have dynamics and contrast and... melodies.  The singer looked like she was born on stage and was singing Latin opera over shoegazery feedback swirls. They had a ridiculously tight yet jarring rhythm section that was just as important as the rest of the band - again, a new concept for me.  I saw them whenever I could and was amazed when I eventually became friends with the bassist and the singer, as I always figured they would be way too cool to consort with the likes of me.  One of my favorite live music experiences was watching them cover Pat Benetar's "Heartbreaker" in someone's basement in front of maybe 30 other people.  Great band.
Some time in the mid 1990's, they recorded with the legendary Mark Smoot:

01 Crusted with Angels
02 Bread of Heav'n or Cutting
03 The Ardent One
04 Full-Throttle Chelsea
05 River Blindness
06 Hey Fabulous
07 The New Onion Persona
08 Regilding the Dome is Brilliant
They also recorded a few songs with David Lowery, but for legal purposes I can not post them.

Placebo

It'd be hard to tell people with a straight face that in the 1990's, there was a music scene in Williamsburg.  Williamsburg, Virginia.  It consisted of maybe 20 people, passionate about writing, practicing, playing, performing, and recording music.  A strong argument for bands in small towns is that there is no agenda other than having a genuine love for what they're doing.  Consider: the Strokes are from New York City.
In 1993, four lads decided to start a band called Placebo.  This was a year or two before... another band happened upon the same name.  Unfortunately for the former Placebo, this was close to a decade before myspace.com existed, so they couldn't legally lay claim to the name. Neale Shaeffer played guitar and sang, Erik Sugg played guitar and sometimes sang, some guy I don't know played bass, and Ian Kruske played drums.
In a way, I'm kind of glad that Placebo didn't get a lot of exposure.  I'm sure that critics would have ripped them apart for sounding too much like Soundgarden or the Smashing Pumpkins.  Keep in mind though, this was before albums like Siamese Dream or Superunknown came out.  Unless you lived in Richmond, VA or (worse) Washington, DC, there was actually a time when it was actually okay to like these bands.  I always thought that their best material was that which strayed from their influences.  You could tell that there was potential there, and sometimes potential in its raw state can be just as rewarding as its kinetic counterpart.

400 Blows

Not long after moving to Austin, I became friends with the band Those Peabodys.  In their travels, they played with a band from Los Angeles called 400 Blows.  They were (are?) a power trio consisting of guitar, vocals, and drums.  That was kind of a 90's thing to not have a bassist in your band (Champs, Sleater Kinney, White Stripes, etc.).  400 Blows differed from the aforementioned bands (and most groups in general) in their complete and utter lack of anything resembling subtlety.  Have you ever seen what a wave form looks like?  The peaks and valleys.  Dynamics.  400 Blows has nothing to do with any of that.  While rendering these tracks, they looked exactly like what they sounded like - solid bricks of sound.
The first time I saw 400 Blows, it was right around when their first full-length came out.  The guitarist looked like he should have been in some kind of army.  The singer was some kind of weird bondagey cop with a half-mic stand and sunglasses.  The drummer was an Asian drum machine in human form.  Their demo remains my favorite output by them, I don't think they've yet to match the power in subsequent releases.  They very easily could though if they'd just turn everything back up to 10.

01 The Bards Must Drink and Junket
02 And the City Never Slept
03 The Bull that Killed the Matador
04 Premature Burial
05 Everything is Easy Now
06 Electric Wilderness
07 The World's Largest Miniature
08 The Flies

Black Squid

I don't really know a lot about Black Squid.  I'm not sure if anyone does.  Their myspace page doesn't seem to reveal much.  Supposedly they're from somewhere called Slobovia or something, but I don't even know if that country exists.  What's even more confusing is that in one of the songs, MC Griest says he's from Germany.  I was once fortunate enough to see them, and that certainly didn't clear things up - both members wore masks and sang along to pre-recorded music, but I got the impression that even the vocals had been recorded earlier.  After the show I tried to talk to them and they kind of shrugged and pretended that they didn't speak English.  What was weird was that later that night I saw them talking to some extremely hot girls, and there didn't appear to be a language barrier.  Maybe the girls spoke whatever language people speak in Slobovia.  They also were drinking out of these strange cans that I'd never seen before - later I found out it was called Gow, and apparently it's only available in rural parts of Lower Slobovia.
Some time around the turn of the century, I was able to get Black Squid a show at the Hole in the Wall in Richmond.  They charged me $15.99 for a burned CD with no cover, but I had a good job then so it was no big deal.  I assumed that the cost was so high because of foreign taxes or whatever, but I couldn't help but feeling like behind their masks, they were kind of laughing at me...

You're Gonna Die (When Black Squid Arrives)
The Death of Billy Sancho
10 Pack o' Gow
MC Griest in the Haus
It's So EZ to Pleez Me
Billy Sancho
Shortlongs and Dirtlips
Mock Yourself

The Sword

In the late 90's, there was a Richmond band that went by the name the Ultimate Dragons.  Initially the band consisted of JD Cronise on guitar/vocals, Ben White on bass, and Trivett Wingo on drums.  After a couple of shows, I was added as lead guitarist, and all was well.  A couple of East Coast tours, a high quality recording, big local shows, and the most important thing - momentum.
After Trivett missed a show that we were scheduled to play with Engine Down, I was given the fun task of kicking him out of the band.  We got our friend Brad to replace him, but it wasn't the same.  Ben moved to California, I moved to Chicago, and JD moved to Austin.  End of story.
Wait, there's more!  We all ended up moving back to Richmond (this happens {knock on wood [I'd really rather not get shot while getting my bike stolen]}) and reformed the band.  I forget whether Ben or JD moved to Austin next, but I ended up following suit.  While there, we started up the band again with Adam from Those Peabodys (now of Bangaar) and Alan from... ummm... I don't know, but he moved away.  This must have been around 2003, when JD gave me this disc of new songs to learn:

01 A Druid's Curse
02 Barael's Blade
03 The Horned Goddess
04 Hammer of Heaven
05 Toadstool Ring/World Below

Not long after this, JD played a solo set along to pre-recorded tracks not unlike what I was doing at the time in my own one-man band.  The first Sword show was just him at Beerland with my one-man band and maybe 15 crowd attendees.
I convinced Trivett to move to Austin to be in my band Funeralizer.  Not long after he did, I found out JD recruited Trivett and Ben to be in the Sword, but with Kyle Shutt instead of me.  This was all fine by me; as I had recently gotten married, had a daughter, was supporting this family by working 40 hours a week, was going to school, was in the band J-Church, and was recovering emotionally from the recent death of my only sister.  If Sammy Hagar himself came up to me, grabbed me by the shoulders and asked if I was ready to rock, I'd have had to say, "Well, in what capacity, the Red Rocker?  I mean, I can rock in a way..."  He'd then have focused his beady, tequila-soaked eyes on me before declaring that there is indeed only one way to rock.  It'd have been cool to have been asked to have been in the band in the same way that it'd have been cool to have been invited to a wedding that everyone knew you couldn't go to.  But I would have had to have said no.

Anyway, Ben was kicked out after their first show and replaced by Bryan Ritchie, and the rest is history.  I'm glad to say that my friendships with everyone have remained intact (except for Alan - what happened to that guy?), and isn't that what's important?  Wait, maybe playing in Eastern European castles opening up for Metallica and making out with Australian supermodels is more important.  No, friendship.  Friendship!

Teenage Dog

I was at a house party somewhere in Austin ca. 2003.  Or was it 2005?  No, 2004.  Some band called Teenage Dog was playing.  They were a pretty decent indie rock band.  It wasn't any kind of religious experience, but I felt compelled enough to watch them and got their CD (though I may have gotten it years later).

For legal reasons, I'm not posting every song.
01 AJ Hidell  This is probably the best song about Lee Harvey Oswald from the last decade.
04 Black President  Oddly prophetic as this song came out in 2004.
07 Hong Kong Chinese
After the show, the bassist came up to me and asked when my band - the Ultimate Dragons - were playing again.  I don't remember if I knew.

A few years later, said bassist started temping at my work.  We became friends out of mutual respect for each others' bands.  She said she had started a new band called Yellow Fever, so I went to see them at Carousel Lounge.  They were a little more minimalist than Teenage Dog and (in my opinion) a bit better.  The trio consisted of the bassist of Teenage Dog (Isabel) on guitar/vocals, a girl from that band I didn't like the Carrots (Jennifer) on other guitar/vocals, and I think the guitarist of Teenage Dog on drums.  Or drum rather, as I think he only really played the snare drum.  They had a great chemistry - especially in the vocal department.  Jennifer had the smooth mid-range, and Isabel had the sparkling highs.  It worked. 
All was well for the next couple of months.  Yellow Fever started getting more and better shows to bigger crowds.  Maybe 6 months into their public career, Isabel moved from Austin to New York.  The remaining members were faced with 3 choices: break up; replace Isabel; or re-form the band with a new member, a new name, and new songs.  They went behind door number 2, which was the trickiest choice.  Their entire sound was based around the vocal harmonies.  The first replacement was a guy named Cole, but he didn't pan out, so they went on as a two-piece.  Which is fine and all, but the songwriting slowed way down and fans (which were increasing with the distribution of their EP) were given a watered-down version when they saw them live.  They continued playing under the name Yellow Fever and writing songs at a fraction of the pace and (in my opinion) a fraction of the quality.  This didn't stop the bigger and bigger shows, and the better and better reviews.  This review came out over 2 years after Isabel left the band.  Pitchfork Media even gave it a surprisingly high 7.2 review.  Again, that review came out over 2 years after the fact.  These are two of many articles and reviews that came out years after Isabel left Yellow Fever and they soldiered on as if nothing had changed.  The band kept playing shows and selling their album for at least 3 years in their diluted form, and for all I know they still are.  Did anyone buy John Oates' solo album? 
That said, the remaining members of Yellow Fever aren't entirely to blame.  Isabel moved away by choice - she wasn't kicked out.  The ethical thing to do would have been to have started over, but early in my career I'd probably have made the same mistake.  And yes, it was a mistake.  Judge for yourself:
Before
After
So here's the thing.  There are people that create music because they HAVE to.  They hear songs in their heads that don't exist, and they can't rest until their angels are exorcised.  Sometimes, the chemistry between two artists creates a work that is more than the sum of their parts - and I'd give the benefit of the doubt to Yellow Fever that that's the case.  That may be unfairly generous to them, as Isabel has since started the band Moonmen on the Moon, Man and toured Europe as a solo artist since moving to New York.  Other people play music for less pure reasons, and history tends to judge them accordingly.