Siltbreeze #8

In 1989 my pal Bob, whom I was visiting and staying with in Seattle, took me for the first time to the house of his friend “Jimmy The Bud Man” across the water in West Seattle, so that we might drink some adult beverages and partake communally in what is often euphemistically called “the good times”. This was before I’d come to know Jimmy The Bud Man as Jimmy Stapleton, and before the world would come to know him as the proprietor of Bag of Hammers records, a label that put out some pretty exceptional garage punk 45s across the breadth of the 1990s.

Jimmy was a pin-on-the-chest, wave-the-flag, head-held-high record collector. I even saw him, later, introduce himself to someone at a party as, “Hi, my name’s Jimmy, and I collect records”.  To that end, partying at his house was, for me, also a great night of plowing through his vinyl and through his stacks of fanzines. He was one of those guys who’d rip the needle off a record thirty seconds in to immediately play you something else, or jog to the back of the house to pull out some weird print gem from his fanzine collection. One he really wanted me to check out was Siltbreeze, a small digest-sized mag from Philadelphia festooned with an array of absurd 1970s pornographic pictures. I was first intrigued just by the sheer ridiculousness of the thing – super-dumb and ultra-cheap xeroxed porn photos bracketing various record reviews and short features – but then, as I started reading it, I got the sense that the folks behind it knew a ton about the deep crevices of the underground, self-created, pressing-of-200 rock music world that I was personally fascinated with then, as now. 

Within a year I’d come to understand that Siltbreeze was primarily driven by Tom Lax out of Philadelphia, and he and I would become correspondents or telephone pals or whatever it was we did before electronic mail. This fanzine would quickly turn into a world-champion record label, about which I will assume you know a bit about – and if not, here’s a great primer. Let it be established: fantastic record label, one of the golden greats etc. etc. Yet Siltbreeze was a fanzine first, and I’m going to assume its outré design choices and decidedly politically incorrect general orientation is why more folks don’t know about it…..and yeah, its exceptionally limited print run is likely another reason. 

The final issue was Siltbreeze #8, the one we’re looking at today. At this point, which I believe was early 1991, Lax & co. were off and running putting out Dead C, Gibson Bros and Monkey 101 records, among others. But even if he’d never done that, his fanzine’d still be one of the best I’ve ever come across. Once I got my hands on a bushel of his back issues, I came to realize that not only did this fella know about every wacko sub-underground record coming out on every continent, he wrote about them with panache and style, in truly comedic and reference-packed paragraphs that made you want to drop four dollars and an SASE in the mail for whatever 45 he happened to be hyping. 

I mean, the guy’s brain makes connections that others don’t, can’t or won’t. I remember when I sent him the Monoshock 45 I put out back in 1994, and he told me, “they sound like the bastard sons of Kriminella Gittarer”. Told the guys in the band that, and they were like, “Ha ha, sure, OK. Kriminella Gittarer. We totally love them”. But they fucking did sound like that. In Siltbreeze #8, Lax – if it is Lax writing here (everything’s uncredited) – he’s fired up about Liimanarina (who were great!), Chris Heazlewood, Dustdevils, Vermonster, Terminals, Rancid Vat, Cheater Slicks and much more besides. There’s a “Silt Picks” top records list near the back that lists a few current favorites; when he listed “Television – Live Portland ‘78 LP” among them, I just knew, given the credibility the man had already built in previous pages, that was a bootleg I’d have to go out and find, and eventually I did. And lo, it was excellent. 

Siltbreeze #8 rounds out the reviews and the general transgression with an Alcoholics Unanimous tour diary. Wow, anyone else remember Brilliancy Prize Records, Thee Whiskey Rebel, the Drinking is Great 45…? That’s a whole Portland, OR sub-subculture someone oughta do a feature film on. Right after they make the Jimmy The Bud Man movie and after Feral House compiles all the Siltbreeze mags into book form.