Spite (punk band)

Last updated
Spite
Spite vocalist.JPG
Image of lead Vocalist
Background information
Origin Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.
Genres Hardcore punk
Labels CD Baby
Past members
  • Scott Boman
  • Dan Humiston
  • Tommy Fuller
  • Greg Fox
  • Bill "Willie" Axe
Website degeneratespite.com

Spite was an American hardcore punk band formed in Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S. and was a part of the Michigan hardcore scene. It was made up of members from other regional bands who participated in the hardcore music communities inside and outside the region. Vocalist Scott Boman became an area libertarian politician and media personality. [1] [2]

Contents

Band history

Spite formed in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the Fall of 1983. [3] These original members of the midwestern hardcore scene, played with other Kalamazoo groups such as Violent Apathy and FAQ. [4] [5] During their brief career they performed with some national acts such as Fang and Born Without a Face. [6] Perhaps their most notable show was with Naked Raygun, and Eleventh Hour at Western Michigan University on February 23, 1985. [7] [8]

Three of Spite's members went on to perform in other groups, while another made his mark in politics. They were: Scott Boman (vocals) former member of the Degenerates, Dan Humiston (bass) former member of Passive Aggression and later member Memories of Tomorrow, [9] Greg Fox (guitar & vocals) who is a former member of Passive Aggression, Bill (Willie) Axe (drums & vocals) who is a former member of Passive Aggression and later member of RollingHead and Memories of Tomorrow, [9] [10] and Tommy Fuller [11] (guitar leads) who was a former member of the Touch and Go Records artist, Violent Apathy [3] [6] [12] [13]

After Spite

From left: Richard Bowser of Violent Apathy, Scott Boman of the Degenerates & Spite, and John Brannon of Negative Approach. Bowser boman brannon.jpg
From left: Richard Bowser of Violent Apathy, Scott Boman of the Degenerates & Spite, and John Brannon of Negative Approach.

Tom Fuller

Guitarist, Tom "Tommy" Fuller [14] performed with Black Spring from 1989 to 1995. Black Spring released their album Girth in 1992. [15] In 2001 Fuller played guitar on the Aliens, Psychos & Wild Things, Vol. 2 CD, which was on the Arcania International label. In 2005, he released his solo album, Chasing an Illusion on Red Cap Records. [16] Fuller also appears on Makin' the Point by Frankie and the Knockouts. [17] Another 2005 appearance is with Twisted Sister on their Live at Wacken: The Reunion DVD. [18] This DVD was produced by Eagle Vision USA. Most recently (June 2007), Tom Fuller has rejoined Violent Apathy on their Twenty Five Year Reunion Tour. [11]

Greg Fox

Spite was also a springboard for the band's other guitarist, Greg Fox. [19] Fox also played guitar on a 2004 release by The '89 Cubs called, There Are Giants in the Earth , [20] which was recorded on the Slowdance Records [21] label. [22]

Scott Boman

The vocalist, Scott Boman, also wrote opinion columns in the Western Herald (Western Michigan University publication), was founder of Fellowship of the Purple Cube [7] and is a perennial Michigan Libertarian Party politician. [13] [23] Most recently, Boman has been involved in spoken word performances. This includes performances in 2009 and 2017 when he was featured in Detroit's Annual Erotic Poetry and Music Festival. This "eclectic celebration of the erotic arts" is a charitable event for Paws with a Cause. Paws with a Cause pairs shelter dogs with disabled human companions. [24] [25]

Bill Axe

After Spite was dissolved, drummer Bill "Willie" Axe performed with bassist Dan Humiston in Memories of Tomorrow. [9] Then, from 1991 to 1995, Axe played drums for Rollinghead. [10] Rollinghead released their CD Daddyhorse in 1991 on the Piranha Alley Records label, and in 1994 they released Vol.3 Live via the Grass Records and Roundflat Records labels. [26]

Dan Humiston

Bass player, Dan "Danno" Humiston went on to perform with the bands, Shroud of Secrecy [27] and Memories of Tomorrow [9] (1989). Memories of Tomorrow performed with Soundgarden at the state theater during its Louder than Love tour. Humiston also recorded and engineered the CD, Racecar 1991 by Overman, [28] the work was of such interest that it was later remastered as Racecar 2003. [29]

Discography

Though Spite performed in the 1980s, they did not release their work on CD until 2007, when they released, The Emotion Not The Point. Songs include: "Bored", "Our Backyard", "Andy's Gone", and "Bowser Rules". [3] [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Mills</span> American DJ, record producer, and composer

Jeff Mills, also known as "theWizard", is an American DJ, record producer, and composer. In the late 1980s Mills founded the techno collective Underground Resistance with fellow Detroit techno producers 'Mad' Mike Banks and Robert Hood but left the group to pursue a career as a solo artist in the early 90s. Mills founded the Chicago based Axis Records in 1992, which is responsible for the release of much of his solo work.

The music of Michigan is composed of many different genres. The city of Detroit has been one of the most musically influential and innovative cities for the past 50 years, whether in Michigan or anywhere else in the United States. Impressively, for 48 straight years (1959–2007) a greater Michigan-area artist has produced a chart-topping recording. Michigan is perhaps best known for three developments: early punk rock, Motown, and techno.

Horrorcore, also called horror hip hop, horror rap, death hip hop, death rap, or murder rap is a subgenre of hip hop music based on horror-themed and often darkly transgressive lyrical content and imagery. Its origins derived from certain hardcore hip hop and gangsta rap artists, such as the Geto Boys and Three 6 Mafia, which began to incorporate supernatural, occult, and psychological horror themes into their lyrics. Unlike most hardcore hip hop and gangsta rap artists, horrorcore artists often push the violent content and imagery in their lyrics beyond the realm of realistic urban violence, to the point where the violent lyrics become gruesome, ghoulish, unsettling, inspired by slasher films or splatter films. While exaggerated violence and the supernatural are common in horrorcore, the genre also frequently presents more realistic yet still disturbing portrayals of mental illness and drug abuse. Some horrorcore artists eschew supernatural themes or exaggerated violence in favor of more subtle and dark psychological horror imagery and lyrics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social Distortion</span> American punk rock band

Social Distortion is an American punk rock band formed in 1978 in Fullerton, California. The band currently consists of Mike Ness, Jonny Wickersham, Brent Harding, David Hidalgo Jr. (drums), and David Kalish (keyboards).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discharge (band)</span> English punk band

Discharge are an English hardcore punk band formed in 1977 in Stoke-on-Trent, England. The band is known for influencing several sub-genres of extreme music and their songs have been covered by some of the biggest names in heavy metal and other genres. The musical sub-genre of D-beat is named after Discharge and the band's distinctive drumbeat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Grushka</span> American musician and songwriter (born 1977)

Ian Ryan Grushka is an American musician and songwriter. He is a founding member and the bassist of Florida rock band New Found Glory. He was also the bassist in the band's now defunct side-project, the International Superheroes of Hardcore, where he performed under the pseudonym of "Sgt. Soy".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violent Apathy</span> American band

Violent Apathy is an American hardcore band that formed in March 1981 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States, and sparked the Kalamazoo hardcore scene. The original band was three high school friends from Jackson, Michigan along with Eliot Rachman, another WMU student who hailed from East Lansing. Rachman had worked on the 1980 United States Census in Lansing, MI with members of The Fix and the original publishers of Touch and Go magazine. He introduced the other members of the band to the then very new music of the Fix, the Necros, and Negative Approach, and all three bands provided a great deal of support and encouragement to VA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OuterSpace</span> American underground hip hop duo

OuterSpace is an underground hip hop duo from North Philadelphia. Originally a trio consisting of three Puerto Rican friends that then took the artist names Planetary, Jedeye and Crypt the Warchild. The founding member Mario Collazo (Planetary) was then attending 10th grade, while the other two, Richard Cruz (Jedeye) and Marcus Albaladejo, were in 8th grade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planetary (rapper)</span> American rapper

Mario Collazo, better known by his stage name Planetary, is an American underground rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is one half of the rap duo OuterSpace and a member of Army of the Pharaohs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beau Burchell</span> American musician and audio engineer

Beau Burchell is an American musician, record producer, and audio engineer from Orange County, California. As a performer, he is best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist in Saosin. He is one of Saosin's founders, and the band's only remaining member who has played with the band through its entire existence. He has previously been a member of Kosmos Express and Open Hand.

<i>Rusty Medals and Broken Badges</i> 2001 studio album by Over My Dead Body

Rusty Medals and Broken Badges is the debut full-length studio album from Californian hardcore punk band, Over My Dead Body. It was released in November, 2001 on Indecision Records. In addition to the CD format, it was also released on limited edition vinyl pressings of 103 red, 286 purple, and 603 black.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karate High School</span> American rock band

Karate High School was an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 2004 by frontman, multi-instrumentalist and producer Paul McGuire. On March 21, 2006, the band released their debut album, Arcade Rock. Karate High School's second album, The League Of Tomorrow, was released on September 4, 2007, which further honed the band's layered, keyboard-driven style of alternative rock. On November 11, 2008, Karate High School announced that they had signed to Eyeball Records, and would release a new record entitled Invaders on May 19, 2009. In early 2010 Paul McGuire announced that he was done producing music under the name Karate High School and has since chosen to go into other studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Degenerates</span> American punk rock band

Degenerates is a musical group which originated in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan in 1979, during the formative years of the Detroit hardcore scene. The group predated the Process of Elimination EP, which some reviewers view as the beginning of the Midwest hardcore scene. Members branched out to other bands, including Dualtone Records recording artist Mike Mangione & the Union, and the Kalamazoo-based band Spite. Degenerates vocalist Scott Boman became a much noted libertarian politician.

Cold as Life is an American hardcore band based out of Detroit, Michigan, formed in 1988. Lyrical themes consisted of brutal depictions of the horrors of growing up and living in a city plagued with corruption, murder, drugs, depression and poverty, along with the tragedy of losing friends, family and bandmates to murder and drug abuse. Their shows were frequently violent, involving vicious fights that often included stabbings and beatings with various weapons. However, Cold as Life has a large "family" based following. Stories of these shows would spread throughout the Midwest punk and hardcore communities, contributing to the band's notoriety. Cold as Life drew musical influence from such bands as Negative Approach, Sheer Terror, Discharge, 4 Skins, Cro-Mags, Black Sabbath, and Slayer.

Graf Orlock was an American hardcore punk band formed in 2003 in Los Angeles, California, United States. They were named after Count Orlok from the 1922 film Nosferatu. The band consists of members of the hardcore punk bands Greyskull, Arctic Choke, Dangers and Ghostlimb, and employs audio snippets and script dialogue from action films such as The Terminator, Aliens and RoboCop in all their songs, which has led to the band being jokingly described as "cinema-grind". The band formed after guitarist Jason Schmidt and drummer Alan Hunter along with bassist Sven Calhoun and vocalist Kalvin Kristoff begun releasing EPs and split albums. In 2006, they started the Destination Time trilogy based on a screenplay that Schmidt and Hunter had been working on in university; the second instalment was the 2007 EP Destination Time Tomorrow which was listed at number 16 in Decibel Magazine's top 40 releases of 2007. Their latest album Crimetraveler was released in 2016 through Vitriol Records, a label run by members of the band and also featuring Ghostlimb, Robotosaurus, Owen Hart, Teeth, Dangers, Birds in Row and Totalt Jävla Mörker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Detroit</span> Music traditions in Detroit, Michigan, US

Detroit, Michigan, is a major center in the United States for the creation and performance of music, and is best known for three developments: Motown, early punk rock, and techno.

<i>The Heart of a Woman</i> (album) 1974 studio album by Johnny Mathis

The Heart of a Woman is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on November 25, 1974 by Columbia Records. Produced by ex-Motowner Johnny Bristol, the LP is made up mostly of new material, in that only three of the 10 songs had already been recorded by other artists.

Larry Fuller is a jazz pianist based in New York City, performing in the style of mainstream jazz. Fuller is a Yamaha-endorsed Artist and leader of the Larry Fuller Trio. He was also the last pianist with legendary bassist Ray Brown's Trio, member of the Jeff Hamilton Trio, and member of the John Pizzarelli Quartet. He has also performed with artists including Stanley Turrentine, Phil Woods, Clark Terry, Herb Ellis, Ernestine Anderson, John Legend, and Nicholas Payton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">We're Not Makin' Love Anymore</span> 1989 single by Barbra Streisand

"We're Not Makin' Love Anymore" is a song recorded by American singer Barbra Streisand for her fourth greatest hits album, A Collection: Greatest Hits...and More (1989). It was released on September 14, 1989 by Columbia Records on 7-inch, 12-inch, cassette, and CD. It was written by Michael Bolton and Diane Warren and produced by Narada Michael Walden. Bolton's inspiration for the song was derived from his divorce; he and Warren debated what singer would be able to sing their work well and ultimately decided that Streisand would be the right fit. The song is a ballad that is similar in sound to Streisand's "Comin' In and Out of Your Life" (1981).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thoughts of Ionesco</span> 1990s post-hardcore band from Detroit

Thoughts of Ionesco was a Detroit-based post-hardcore band extant 1996–1999 known for detuned guitars, screamed vocals, complex arrangements, improvisational sections inspired by free jazz, and their destructive live performances.

References

  1. Isenstadt, Alex (April 8, 2012). "Ron Paul's baby boom". Politico.
  2. Ozbudak, Ceylan (October 12, 2012). "Building Bridges program with WTPN with their guest Scott Boman, Liberty Candidate for U.S. Senate, Michigan". A9 TV Istanbul Turkey.
  3. 1 2 3 Nelson, Jason. "Spite (Online Band Profile & Biography)". stereokiller.com (website).
  4. Dan. "OLD-FAST-AND-LOUD: VIOLENT APATHY - 1981-1982 (kalamazoo-MI)". Archived from the original on 2021-05-07. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  5. Till, Jeff. "FAQ (1986-1993?) Their Story". Leonstemple.com (website).
  6. 1 2 Born Without A Face Recording. "Born Without A Face". 7inchpunk.com (website).
    • Unborn Media Inc. "www.purevolume.com/spiteoriginal" "Spite (Original)". Purevolume.com (website).
  7. 1 2 Till, Jeff. "SPITE ('80's 8) Their Story". Leonstemple.com (website).
  8. Dementlieu (magazine/record label). "Archive: Flyers". dementlieu.com (website).
    • Images of Flyers. "Spite". djscottyboman.com (website).
  9. 1 2 3 4 Till, Jeff. "Memories of Tomorrow Their Story". Leonstemple.com (website).
  10. 1 2 Till, Jeff. "Rollinghead (1991-1995?) Their Story". Leonstemple.com (website).
  11. 1 2 Sauter, Cale (June 20, 2007). "Michigan hardcore pioneers Violent Apathy reunite for shows". City Pulse. Archived from the original on 2007-09-21.
  12. Touch and Go / Quarterstick Records "Album Info: Process of Elimination EP". touchandgorecords.com (website).
  13. 1 2 3 CD Baby Online Records "Spite: The Emotion Not the Point". CDBaby.com (website).
  14. Artist Direct Inc. "Tom Fuller: Featured Clips". Artistdirect.com (website).
  15. Till, Jeff. "Black Spring (1989-1985?) Their Story". Leonstemple.com (website).
  16. Mason, Dave. "Tom Fuller noted in Dave Mason FMQB Interview". redcaprecords.us (website).
  17. Franke And The Knockouts - Makin' The Point (1984). Franke And The Knockouts - Makin' The Point (1984). frankeandtheknockouts.com/ (website).
  18. Artist Direct Inc."Twisted Sister : Live at Wacken: The Reunion (DVD)". Artistdirect.com (website).
  19. Huntunes artistdirect.com
  20. Mason, Stewart."Pro Reviews: THE '89 CUBS: There Are Giants In The Earth". shopping.yahoo.com (website).
  21. Slowdance Records."RELEASES". slowdance.com (website). [02-Oh_The_Things.mp3 "MP3"
  22. Mason, Stewart."there are giants in the earth - album reviews". artistdirect.com (website).
  23. Boman, Scott (November 21, 1986). "Police disturb quiet gathering". Western Herald.
  24. MAY, RACHEL (1997-08-31). "From Circus Boy to the Hamtramck Blowout". Detroit Free Press. Archived from the original on February 26, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
  25. Doom, Jimmy (2017-02-22). "The Erotic Poetry and Music Festival is 30 years strong and throbbing (Keeping it up)". Metro Times. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  26. Clemens, Shirley (w/Exit Records). "DEAD RIVER DRAG (rose from the ashes of two great bands from Kalamazoo, Mich)". members.aol.com (website).
  27. Till, Jeff. "The TASM Lab Fellows: About the players and contributors:". Leonstemple.com (website).
  28. Till, Jeff. "Overman - Racecar! Redux 2003". Leonstemple.com (website).
  29. Till, Jeff."Kalamazoo's sexiest! OVERMAN! in: Racecar! Redux 2003". Leonstemple.com (website).