Jack Grisham

It’s time for another of my unpopular ‘punk rock personalities’ blogs – this time featuring Jack Grisham.

Jack Grisham is most famous as the singer of TSOL but has been the singer with various other groups – some punk, some not. He also stood for governor of California in 2003 and 2004.

TSOL are one of my personal favourites, at least in their original line up but as many of you will know they underwent various line up changes until by the late 80s/early 90s they were a pretty rubbish hard rock band with no original members.

Leaving TSOL in 1983 after the poor reception giving to the Beneath The Shadows album, Jack Grisham went on to be in the more keyboard-orientated groups Cathedral Of Tears and Tender Fury with TSOL drummer Todd Barnes, who had also left at the same time.

Later in the 90s he teamed up again with TSOL guitarist Ron Emory in The Joykiller, and went on to release three albums (four if you include the Best Of compilation).

Then in 2001 the original line-up of TSOL reformed – minus Todd Barnes who died in 1999 of drink and drug related problems – to release two albums in quick succession – Disappear and Divided We Stand – which were just as good as anything they released in the 80s.

Groups aren’t meant to do this, reunion albums, especially after an 18year gap, are supposed to be poor cash in attempts which fail to capture any of the original passion and inventiveness. I think the quality of these albums says a lot about TSOL.

Anyway, now the reformed line up have just released a third album, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Free Downloads’ which is free for download from here – http://www.hurley.com/tsol

Jack Grisham is also currently in Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dukes where he takes on much more of a crooner role.

Jack Grisham

TSOL – 1980 demo
01.You Don’t Have To Die 02.Wash Away 03.80 Times 04.Superficial Love 05. You Don’t Have To Die 06.Abolish Government/Silent Majority 07.Peace Thru Power 08.Love Story

Cathedral Of Tears
09. A Situation Of…

Tender Fury
10.The Apartment 11.Talk About Living 12.Big E’s Night Move 13.Look Back In Anger

The Joykiller
14.Love You More Dead 15.Show Me The System 16.I Wanna Drink Over You 17.Unconscious

Asexuals – 1984-1986

Here is another classic Canadian punk band, this time from Montreal, the Asexuals.

What I’m putting up here is the first single, Featuring… from 1984, and the first two albums, Be What You Want and Contemporary World, from 1984 and 1985 respectively.

These were recorded with the original line-up of John Kastner on vocals – who later left to form the Doughboys – TJ Collins, Sean Friesen and Paul Remington and they have a fast but melodic hardcore punk sound.

I have the later Asexuals album Dish, from 1988, which was recorded after John Kastner had left and had TJ Collins, the former bass player, on vocals and guitar.

It’s a good album but has moved away from the earlier punk stuff. It sounds a lot more like The Lemonheads of this time or even The Nils, another great Canadian punk group.

I haven’t heard later albums Exile From Floontown and Fitzjoy. As far as I’m aware they carried on in the same vein as Dish.

I heard somewhere that the Asexuals choose their name on account of the lack of sex they were getting. I sure know how that feels.

Asexuals Part 1

Asexuals Part 2

Featuring…
01.New World 02.B.F.D. 03.Where’s The Bus 04.Wake Up Stand Up

Be What You Want
05.Be What You Want 06.Contra Rebels 07.Trash Zone 08.Mind Contraction 09.3 Chord Speed 10.C.F.R. 11.We Seek No Glory 12.Too Slow 13.Asexual 14.Mr Useless 15.Ego Trip 16.Iraq, Iran 17.Mr Rat 18.Weekend Alky

Contemporary World
19.Where Were You 20.Take A Look Around You 21.Contemporary World 22.Circus 23.Up Close 24.Social Education 25.Stop The City 26.Death From Above 27.So Alone 28.The Times They Are A Changin’

Welcome to 2009 with Personality Crisis

Well, it’s being a while since my last post. I didn’t intend to take quite as long a break as I did over Christmas but I guess that’s what happens, sometimes it’s hard to get back into the routine.

So for my first post of the New Year, here’s something that was mentioned in a comment when I did the Canadian punk post with DOA, Subhumans, etc.

Personality Crisis was another classic Canadian punk group that was active from 1979-1984. They had a pretty distinctive sound with unique vocals and good musicianship.

They sometimes get linked with those other great Canadian punk bands SNFU and DOA but this is because drummer Jon Card went on to play in both those groups at one time or another.

As far as I know Personality Crisis only really released one album, Creatures For Awhile, in 1983 plus a few tracks on compilations.

What I’m putting up here is actually a 1990 UK reissue of that album which actually has alternate tracks from the original. Why they did this I don’t know. So while you gain some tracks you no longer have People In Glass, Scavengers, Wild Game and Name Dropper.

I also had a single released at the same time, which had the album track ‘Twilight’s Last Gleaming’ and a live B-side called ‘The Jam’ which as I recall sounded pretty much as the name implies. Unfortunately this single seems to have disappeared from my collection.

I have however added the two compilation tracks from Rat Music For Rat People Vol.2 and Something To Believe In.

So once again a ‘not quite’ discography of another classic band.

Personality Crisis

01.Vampire’s Dream 02.Mrs Palmer 03.Twilight’s Last Gleaming 04.The Advocate 05.Double Take 06.Losing Time 07.Creatures For Awhile 08.Wonder What They’re Thinking 09.The Look 10.Empty Sky 11.Waiting 12.Tyrants 13.Piss On You 14.Case History