This justThis just in to the Steel Cage Headquarters: we are excited to announce the arrival of two new additions to the bubbling cauldron of rock and roll that is the SCR catalog. They are (in alphabetical order) the remastered, restored, expanded and - dare we say - improved version of HELLSTOMPER's The Real Hillbilly Motherfucker (the Man's Ruin CD was just called Hillbilly Motherfucker - "The Real" part was added on with the re-issue) and the sassiest, sleaziest dose of aural pleasure to ever come from Indianapolis - HOT DAMN!'s, The Girl Can't Help It. More info on each release can be found by clicking on the respective titles, or visiting the catalog.

In other, much less pleasant news, we are not at all excited to announce that the Steel Cage Army was made one man shorter last week due to the sudden, unexpected passing of The Earaches' Alan Wright. I really never know what to say in these situations - and hopefully I won't be faced with another situation like this for a very long time - but while I have this public forum at my disposal I'll use it to say that Alan was an important cog in our label's wheel, as well as a fantastic writer and a lifetime lover of rock and roll. It's a loss felt far and wide, to those that knew him well and those who just crossed his path in some fashion. He will definitely be missed. There will be a memorial party in lieu of a funeral, July 19th at the Lobo Saloon in Seattle. Please visit the shows page or the band's website for further details.

until next update,
xo
leslie

(06/07/04 update) For those of you in the Philly area (or anyone who's not in the area, but is in the mood for a road trip) this Saturday night, June 12th, no less than four Steel Cage related bands - specifically The Jabbers, The Bad Vibes, Jukebox Zeros and The Tunnel Rats (CD out next month; debut CD out now, next CD out late in '04; CDs out in '05 respectively) - will be bringing the heat and delivering the rock to the sweaty, Yuengling-ed up masses at the last bastion of R&R on 2nd Street, the Khyber. (Hopefully the air conditioner will be working, then the masses shouldn't be that sweaty.) As is the case with any event booked by the Kommandant, it is sure to be quite the par-tay. To paraphrase the JZ's ever quotable Peter Santa Maria: "If you miss this show, there is something horribly wrong with you." We concur.

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(05/04/04 update)

For those of you who have never had the fortune of seeing Thee Minks live and in person, you can check them out live and on the radio tomorrow night at 8:00 pm ET on Jon Solomon's show, Keeping Score At Home, on WPRB. (The set will also be archived on Jon's website the following day.) That's 103.3 on your radio dial for those of you in the Philly / New Jersey area of course but from what I understand, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, people all over the world (or at least the ones with computer access and a good connection) can enjoy the hot rock action by visiting the WPRB website and figuring out how to listen to the radio on your computer if you don't already know how to do so. (I'd offer further help with that but I've never done it myself; we're close enough in proximity to pick up the station in our living room or car.) Enjoy!

(04/02/04 update)

I know I've been a little slack in updating while we were in c14 production mode but now that #24 is safely off to the printer, I will do my best to keep things up to date around here - especially on the shows page since we're fast coming upon the busy summer touring/show playing season.

While I'm on the topic of live music, we had a great time at Thee Minks' record release show last month; the traditional and expected but nonetheless most sincere thanks go out to everyone who came out; Lisa @ the Balcony; and of course NYC's Little Killers, Boston's Downbeat 5 and our local pals the Jukebox Zeros and Blessed Muthas for lending their musical & promotional hands to the evening's festivities. Thanks also to Sara Sherr of the Daily News - once again the ONLY local writer to give us any press for one of our shows. (Although in all fairness, Patrick Rapa of the City Paper did write up thee Minks' show at the Khyber that took place a few weeks prior to this show, and it's not like the powers that be would have allowed him to acknowledge one of their - or pretty much any other local rock band's - shows twice in the same calendar year.) What can I tell you - Philly just isn't a town that supports it's own. Anyway, let me step down from that soapbox and we'll move on.

In other SCR news, the release schedule info I posted in the last update is now officially wrong. (See, this is why I should never post these things.) The ANTiSEEN re-issue of One Live Son Of A Bitch, which was due to be in our next batch of releases, is getting pushed back to the fall. To make a long story slightly less long, the project started off as a pretty typical CD-re-issue-with-some-bonus-tracks type deal until Jeff Clayton unearthed from thee vaults another, previously unreleased, live recording from around the same time - at which point the project morphed into a double CD. A few weeks ago, yet another phonecall from Mr. Clayton revealed the existence of a tape containing a three camera recording of a live performance from that same era and thus the project morphed once more into what I hope to be it's final form - a combo CD/DVD release which will feature the re-issue of the original live CD, the aforementioned separate CD of previously unreleased live material and the newly added DVD - all housed in some kinda fancy shmancy package that will be designed, with love, by yours truly.

As for the rest of the the release schedule posted in the last update, the Leaving Trains CD is still in the pre-production phase while James tries to get some stuff that will serve as bonus tracks transferred to CD from an old cassette tape. (As if the first ever live CD by the Leaving Trains in itself isn't enough to satisfy their fans - but who am I to stop the inclusion of bonus tracks.) The Hellstomper CD is in the production phase; the Kommandant has worked his magic on the mastering end so Alan King & I will be brainstorming over the booklet art in the next couple weeks and that should be seeing a May release. We've got all sorts of other releases scheduled for the upcoming months but I think I'm gonna sit on posting them here for right now, lest I jinx anything that appears to be moving smoothly towards completion.

On a non-scr related note, as many of you know, I do all the design & other art-ly type stuff for our label, mag, websites, etc.; but did you know I am also a design slut for hire (so to speak)? It's true. And - believe it or not - sometimes bands that aren't on our label, or other people we know, actually do hire me to design shit for them. And of course, I love them for it! Therefore, I've decided to abuse my role as webmistress here to give these people some internet type sugar when the situation arises - which seems so much easier than starting to work on a website that just features things I've designed. With that in mind, here's a link to a poster I did for Virginia Beach's kings and queen of high voltage rock and roll, Ironhead (formerly known as the Runarounds); they're not on Steel Cage and in all honesty, I haven't actually heard any of their music yet (apres the name and a drummer change the band zipped right into the studio w/ Sal from Electric Frankenstein at the board to work on new stuff) but Sleazegrinder said they rock, and you know the King of Sleazy Rock Journalism could never tell a lie. I can say that they're definitely easy on the eyes, especially the lovely Miss Angela Foxx, which made my job that much more pleasant. So there you go; check them out when they bring their rock & roll party to your town and should anyone reading this be interested in my services, you know where to find me.

I think that's about it for now - until next update,
xo
leslie

(01/25/04 update) Despite freezing temperatures and looming snow forecasts, last night's book release show went off without a hitch and, much like the book itself, turned out even better than I ever imagined it would. It was great to see such a packed house on an unpleasantly chilly evening; I saw lots of familliar faces from all over the place, met in person a bunch people I've only ever spoken to on the phone, got to watch people's reactions when they saw the book for the first time and was treated to four great sets by four great bands. What more could you ask for on a Saturday night? Since I have this public forum at my disposal, I'll use it to thank all the bands (the Dead Kings, the Bad Vibes, the Jabbers & ANTiSEEN) and special guests (Greg Clayton, Tom O'Keefe, Marlon Cherry & Merle Allin) for making the long trek to our fair city to help us unveil and celebrate the book in proper fashion. (OK, the Bad Vibes trek wasn't very long but Pat did have to drive to Center City from Northeast Philly and that can take a while if 95 is backed up.) We'd also like to thank Thee Cosmic Commander, Stacie at the Khyber, Sara Sherr, and the Rock Tits guys for their respective help / support with the evening's festivities. And now, without further ado, I hereby proclaim DESTRUCTO MAXIMUS to be officially for sale on this site. (I know we named the 26th, AKA tomorrow, as the release date but I have c14 work to do all day tomorrow so I decided to update the site today instead. You'll all forgive me, right?) ANTiSEEN also has copies for sale and thanks to Last Gasp, the official distributor of Destructo Maximus, it should be available in stores within a few weeks. In other SCR news, we finally have a rescheduled date for Thee Minks Record Release Party - it's March 12th, at the Balcony, and will feature the original line-up of thee Minks (of course) with special guests the Blessed Muthas, Jukebox Zeros and Downbeat 5 plus newly added additional special guests, the Little Killers. (Psst, wanna see a poster I did for the show? Well, it's directly to the right of this paragraph. Click on it to see a larger version.) That too is going to be a really great show & we hope to see you there. I think that's pretty much all the news I have for today. We're getting in gear for our next batch of releases (see below), so I'll be back with details on those as they are detailed to me. until next update, xo leslie

(01/19/04 update) Welcome one and all to the first SCR update of the new year. I am very happy to be able to report that before we collectively bid adieu to 2003, all parties involved were able to breathe a hearty sigh of joy and relief when we finally laid eyes on finished copies of the ANTiSEEN "coffee table" book (you know, the one we've been talking about/working on for the past year or so; we had a box of advance copies shipped here air mail so we knew we'd definitely have them on hand for the show, the rest are still on the boat and due to be delivered any day now) and saw that it was good. Damn good! But you won't take my word for it for very much longer; the official release date is one week from today (aka January 26th) and we'll be celebrating this momentus occasion this Saturday night, at the appropriately titled DESTRUCTO MAXIMUS Book Release Show, at Khyber here in Philly. Anyone who wants to take a gander at the book 48 hours or so ahead of it's release date can do so there and, as is the case at any Steel Cage related event, there's gonna be a bunch of kick ass bands playing - the Dead Kings, the Bad Vibes, the Jabbers and, of course, ANTiSEEN (with some special guests of their own) - plus Philly's own svelte sultan of sarcasm, Thee Cosmic Commander Of Wrestling, will be hosting the festivities.So even if you can't read, there are plenty of reasons to brave the frigid Hostile City temperatures to join us. (If Mrs. Steel Cage, who prefers to go through life clad in sleeveless tops, can do it - so can you!) I hope to see you there. As usual, I made a poster for the show - because that's what I do around here. If you click on the wee little poster to the left of this paragraph, you can see a larger version of said poster in another window. I'll be back next Monday to post ordering info & all that jazz for the book and hopefully by then I'll have a date for thee Minks Record Release party, which was postponed/rescheduled due to snow. 'til then, xo leslie