Donnerstag, 17. Februar 2011

Honeywell

Honeywell from Corona, California, US was one of the best 90's Emo/Hardcore bands ever!
Their Discography is just fucking Awesome!
Bio: For those who know, I'm not a member of Honeywell, nor Volume Eleven, but I know some of the members of the band... I did this because, although they pre-date many of their contemporaries, they're no fan pages or a discography, but a ton of stuff on the collcector's market...So let's hope at least one thing changes in that respect. With all of the above out on the table, let's give some background on the band... the first Honeywell lineup started in the late 80's with Boby Sell (vox/bass), Ryan Elliot(drums), Ryan Hilderbrand (Guitar) and Jimmy Lewis (Guitar)... Check out the blog "Words from Jimmy Lewis", it's a more detailed and less dizzying read (It's a few paragraphs long and it's really well written so check it out.) As far as availability,their first demo didn't get out much further than the audiences at the house party shows they played and their friends.Some of these shows happened at the house of one of the former members of Chain Of Strength. Not sure when it happened but I would guess in 1991 is when Josh Lewis took over vocal duties, and with the changes in the lineup came a new sound... The first show for the new lineup was at the Centennial High School talent show, the friday before the start of Christmas break of 1991. Bands like Unbroken,Struggle, Angel Hair and Heroin were just barely 1-2 years old, and Honeywell was listening and began to move in a different direction. They'd already been turned onto bands like the Stooges, The MC5 and Captain Beefheart, and the bands recording for Gravity and Ebulition gave them inspiration to further explore new musical ideas...And they went from "straight edge/hardcore" to something that allowed them to incorporate a larger scope of sounds...Their new sound was frenetic and harmonically complex, and the finishing touch started as someone ribbing Josh a little bit. During a rehearsal, someone jokingly suggested "Hey Josh, why not try screaming like a girl?" Josh gave it a shot and the band told Josh to stick with it...Hence, the start of "Screamo", whatever that's supposed to mean. The first release with Josh on vocals came out in 1992. A 7 inch on Sell Out records out of San Diego. The sound was dingy and crazy and Josh's politically charged lyrics came out like someone being shredded alive...The second set of recordings from this era didn't see the light of day till almost 2 years later on a split with northern California's Reach Out. Honeywell made their first on radio appearence on K-SPC, there was supposedly a tape release, and it had songs from both releases. In 1993, work began on "Industry", aruguably a record that went on to inspire a lot of bands. It's influence can be heard in the music of Orchid, The Locust and Reversal Of Man. "Industry" was a step forward from their previous efforts, the band sounds like it's trying to break the music as they play it. Raw and loose, the songs teeter at the brink of nearly falling apart under the onslaught of Josh's vocals and Ryan Elliot's drumming, with Bobby and Ryan holding it down to be beaten over and over with slinky screching guitar and thundering bass lines. No one ever screamed like that before or even after to such great effect. You can hear anger and terror in Josh's voice as if he can't bare the words coming out of his mouth, like he's trying to come to terms with thoughts he can't get out of his head. Gil from V.11 said "I never thought much of their first seven inch, but when the 12 inch came out, I couldn't believe how far they'd come." They were about halfway through their senior year in high school when they wrapped the album up in San Dimas, and to think,most of the members of Antioch Arrow were probably one year away from being the legal drinking age when they finished "In Love With Jets"... If you contrast both albums, Antioch Arrow's attack was more blurred, but just as spell binding. When "Industry" hit the streets, it ended up being the weekend after Kurt Cobain's suicide in april 1994, and it felt like a turning point. Mainstream tastes were moving more and more towards lighter takes on Nirvana and Pearl Jam, while underground bands flourished and reveled in more abrasive music that continued to germinate for almost a decade before bands like AFI,As I Lay Dying, and a whole new crop of bands barely scratched the surface of a sound that's been pathetically labeled "Screamo" and "Power-violence"...To Honeywell and a lot of their contemporaries, they never regarded their music as such and have always said "It's just heavy/crazy music to us." No less than a year later, due to constant problems with Ryan Elliot, Honeywell decided to call it quits. Their final show was at Cell 63 playing with Nuzzle (One of their first shows) and Mohinder. (One of their first Southern California appearances.) The spite in the band was unleashed in their delivery of the songs as well as the aggression Bobby let out at Ryan Elliot during the second song of their 6 song set. Bobby stomped over towards Ryan and abruptly kicked the floor tom over and rack tom off the top of his drum set causing the song to come to a halt...The set resumed with new songs that wouldn't be recorded till 2 years later for Honeywell's swan song, "Electrik Kool-aid" which was released on Bobby's label, Monotone Supersounds. The recording of "Electrik Kool-aid" went on without Ryan Elliot on drums, the whole time Bobby kept saying "Don't tell Ryan" to anyone who knew about the project... As if he wouldn't know they did it. In fact, Ryan Elliot still swears he played drums on the final recordings, but if you look at the personnel lists, Ryan Elliot's name comes up under the heading "Honeywell was..." and not under "Honeywell on this recording are..." Jeremy Szuder also contributed backing vocals to "Genius" on side one. After Honeywell disnintegrated, Ryan Elliot was offered the drummer's seat in either one of the last, or the final line up of Loomis Slovak in 1995. The relationship didn't last long, according to Keith, one of their two guitar players, he explained "after we finished that final tour, we decided never again and called it quits for good."
Enjoy it! Totally fucking Awesomeness right here!
Part 1
Part 2

















































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