Firehose -

[Jim Hofmann <hofmann@nrl-css.arpa>]

Someone asked about Firehose which includes two ex-Minutemen.  I have
a tape of a July radio show where they played in studio.  They introduced
their new guitarist (and apparent frontman), Ed Crawford formerly from
Columbus, Ohio and pictured on the front of the current Flipside (available
at nicer record stores the world 'round or 1.50 to pob 363, whittier, ca -
you will have to hack up the zip code).  Their new materiel that they played
in studio sounds more in the jazzy vein that the Minutemen were heading in
the 83-84 time frame yet Watt's songs are still experimenting with a spoken
word type milieu.  Crawford comes from a totally different musical background
than the other Minutemen who were inspired to play after motoring up from
San Peublo to L.A. to witness the first generation of punk (see "Decline
of Western Civilization).  Crawford lists Elvis Costello, the Who and 
other mainstream rock acts as his influences.  They went into the studio
reportedly in September and are remixing/mastering/etc and should have
vinyl out this winter.  Also, the new (and possibly last) Minutemen album
will be out REAL soon (supposedly next week) and it's called "the Contest
Winners", I think or something like that.  In the last album, you may remember
that they were going to release a three record half live/half new studio
thingie but I hear it's only going to be a one record thing with about
10 songs... these last two sentences are all rumors.  If you wanna get a 
copy of the tape, write to me and propose a trade - I'm looking for other
not commercially available tapes particularily in the indie/punk land.

jim