Nerd Brigade - Not So Fresh Grapes: The Far From Close Session (2000)

[MF]

I've been debating about posting this for a while; and since this blog has garnered some small amount of notoriety, I guess if I'm going to do it, now is as good of a time as any. Nerd Brigade was a band that I was the bassist in for a few years after graduating high school. We played a ton of shows, virtually every weekend for two or three years, and had a shit load of fun doing it. People seemed to like us, but we were behind the times. We played skate punk/hardcore, and by the late nineties and early two thousands tough guy metal (or jock-core, as I sometimes call it) had already taken a distinct hold on "the scene". Still, our uniqueness enamored us, to some.

This disc constitutes our one trip to a recording studio. We were young, and immature, and worst of all poor. What you'll find here reflects that. It was never properly mixed (or, to be more accurate, it was never really mixed whatsoever), and we got all tangled up in throwing samples from movies in as intros for every song. That's right...every song. That said, if you turn it up loud enough, I think it's certainly as good - or dare I say maybe even a little better - than a lot of cult bands that I've stumbled on and given a listen to over the years since. It's fun, at least, anyway. Give it a shot. If you like it, great. If not, that's fine, too.

A year ago I found the master copy lying around and decided to do a run of CDs, for old time's sake, and in an attempt to start a small independent reissue label. If you do happen to dig it, and want to score a copy, I've still got a big stack of them. Eight bucks, postage paid. Paypal is preferable (to mskinnerjr@gmail.com), but if you want to go snail mail, just send me an email and we'll see what we can do. All proceeds go to pressing another run of discs, hopefully by a band that someone's actually heard of.

Note: This will be the last Bearded Menace post until Wednesday of next week. I will be out of town. If you do happen to order one of these, it won't ship until my return. See  you in September!