"Bowl Of Flies"

The first Leatherface song I would ever hear was not performed by Leatherface. It was 1996. I was working as an illustrator for a South Florida punk zine called Rational Inquirer. We had put together a compilation CD to go featuring several tracks from a select group of record labels (Liquid Meat, Dr. Strange, Hopeless, Shredder, Grant Theft Audio, Stiff Pole). It was a banger, loaded with fantastic songs from bands who would later gain notoriety like Less Than Jake, Discount, The Bollweevils, 88 Fingers Louie, Digger, Nobodys, and Pink Lincolns. Amongst the 40-some tracks I found myself totally engaged by a song titled “Bowl Of Flies” by Tiltwheel. The poetry of the lyrics, the walls of guitars, the guttural urgency of the vocal delivery, and the thunderous pace of it. It was my kind of punk rock song and I sought after more tracks by this Tiltwheel band. When I brought this up my editor he told me it was a Leatherface cover. Not one to ever act like an expert, or poser who pretends to know, I just said, “Now I have two bands I want to seek out.” This would be my introduction to Leatherface. It came through Tiltwheel. Without that song a lot of my life would have turned out differently.

"Dead Industrial Atmosphere"

Back when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth we would dub music on cassette tapes and give them out to friends. This was a way to score cool points while turning people on to new interesting music. This is how I acquired a copy of Mush from a friend who wanted to be cool. Mush was a record that was out of print at the time. It was being held captive by Sony music. Fuck them anyway -- corporations need to be taken down -- but I digress. I wore that cassette out. It was soldered into my tape deck. Mush is a near perfect album, and I could literally celebrate it as a whole, but this is about specific tracks directly involved in my timeline, and 'Dead Industrial Atmosphere" was one of those songs that you don’t just listen to it. It takes you on a journey through dark, etherial landscapes entombed in fog and dust. The grittiness of it. The overall desperation that is as dark and ominous as the title. I don’t have that cassette anymore. Just the memory of it being the moment I fell in love with this band.

"Andy"

April of '99 would mark the first release of a new Leatherface recording in sometime: 6 tracks on a split with Hot Water Music. It would also be the first time I would ever get to see them play live as they had an upcoming US tour with Hot Water Music planned. I had my own fanzine at the time. The ones that were printed on paper. I would get promos from all, or most, of the labels in the genre. Shitty corporate stuff too. BYO Records sent me an advance copy of the split with Hot Water Music on CD. This would become the soundtrack for my vacation in the early summer of '99. I listened to it constantly on the way up from Florida to New Jersey, and back. "Andy" was track one. A reintroduction ensued and that kicked the whole thing off. It was like taking a ride with an old friend you’ve been missing way too long: a giant musical hug of dancing guitars engulfed in that trademark atmospheric sound that make Leatherface such a special band. The high of seeing them live for the first time. It makes me think of this song. That’s what makes "Andy" special for me. When I hear it I’m taken back to this era. The memories come flooding in right down to the way I felt at the time.

"Watching You Sleep"

Moving forward to y2k, we were coming off our first full-length release on A.D.D. Records: Tiltwheel - Hair Brained Scheme Addicts. Yes, that Tiltwheel. I had met Davey back in '97 when he was playing bass for Everready. My fanzine did an interview with the band. We ended up hanging out back by the van all night, drinking cases of Natural Ice beer. Yes, cases. It would follow in spring of '98 when the southern leg of the Everready tour fell through. The guys needed a place to crash. They stayed at my house for over a week. One of them just sat in my bedroom and watched Padres games. Some bogarted the N64 playing Goldeneye for hours on end. Davey hung out with us doing gravity bong hits, blasting records, scarfing down Taco Bell. We became friends over the whole debacle.

A few months passed and it was time for Davey to record the first full-length for Tiltwheel. He asked us if A.D.D. wanted to put out the vinyl version. It would be our first full-length release on the label. And now back to the year 2000: Davey calls me up to inform he would be managing Leatherface on their US tour for Horsebox. This would be my opportunity to hang out with a friend and meet a band whose music I’d been obsessing over. "Watching You Sleep" is my favorite track off the album. It’s a tongue twisting lyrical masterpiece. “He brought you flowers, and I bought you drink. You can’t drink flowers but flowers can drink.” Frankie just has a Chinaski way of flushing things out. Stripping them down to ugly while exposing the inner beauty. This song has a way of wrapping itself around you without strangling you. I met Frankie that night. He didn’t say much to me. I did interview Lainey for my zine. The band also let me use a track from the album on a compilation CD I put out titled Ritalin Riot 2.

"Diddly Squat"

Leatherface were headed back to the States in 2008 for Fest 7 in Gainesville, FL, followed by a tour of the southeast with Tiltwheel and Former Cell Mates. I was tasked with picking up Frankie from the airport in Tampa. He was set to arrive a few days early and I was to play host for him. To see that he makes it up to Gainesville in one piece. My bass player's girlfriend at the time offered to squire him about the town in her potato chip truck that ran on vegetable oil. We had a weekly punk rock softball game we used to play at the local park -- a beer can in one hand type of scene. Frankie wasn’t copacetic with our American version so he insisted we pitch him cricket style. Watching drunk punks skipping the ball across the dirt at Frankie was almost surreal. He made more contact with the ground than he did with the ball. There’s a treasure trove of stories from the time he arrived until the time the tour ended and we put him on a plane.

One of the songs on the tour's set list was "Diddly Squat "from the album Dog Disco. Every time I hear it I’m transported back to election night 2008. It was the Chattanooga show. After the show ended the election had as well. People were spilling out into the streets to celebrate Obama’s victory. Leatherface went off somewhere with Davey to meet up with local friends. Me and the rest of Tiltwheel went to Denny’s where we befriended some ladies who were campaigning for the Democratic Party. We asked if we could take all the decorations now that the election was over. They obliged. We stocked my SUV full of ribbons, flags, banners, Uncle Sam hats, total Americana bullshit. The next morning we parked in front of the building Leatherface was staying. It was a studio a friend of ours owned. We got in the Leatherface van. Started honking the horn until we could get someone to look out the window. After a good five minutes of obnoxiously laying on the horn. We looked up to see shocked faces, mouths dangling wide open, followed by choruses of laughter. We had spent the last hour decorating the van in red, white, and blue. They drove it all the way to Athens, liberty bells and all.