Ham & The Psychodelics.

I shouldn't post 4 of these in one night.  My fingers are slurring.  Your comments should fill out the story.

When I ran into the Psychodelics, it was with Suburban Sluts at Tiamat Records.  They were still in high school.  It was fun listening to this after over 15 years.  My memories were crashed into my experience.  They were really into it and a lot of fun.  Unrealized at the time, I now realize that what I liked about them is that I related to them.  A most unrefined but dead on witty charisma that made them fun to watch.  Where Ritalin went to die.

Someone needs to have photos and post them here.  I want to see them.

I'll supply the audio...

DOWNLOAD THE PSYCHODELICS at Tiamat.


The other side of this cassette, from the same show, is HAM.

Ham eventually became "The Kill-o-Watts", then shortly after that, "The Amazing Kill-o-Watts."  This story is long, and eventually, as I find more tapes, these folks will return.

Apparently, this show was a "ska" show.  The headliner was The Skamedians, but neither Psychodelics nor Ham are ska bands.  Plenty of ska jabs, though.  Some cities are so big that a show would simply be "ska bands," or "whatever bands," but something I love about my fly-over spots is that each show offers a blind grab of music.  Most of it shitty, yeah, but properly intended.

I miss the community of that.  Ham was a staple of that.  They had a reputation for being "kids."  They kind of sold that image, but Marsha was probably 14 when I met her.  14?  Tom and Tyson didn't look very old.  The folks in Bloomington/Normal that had seen them, but were unfamiliar usually made some mention of them being kids.  At that same time, most people I knew in B/N thought I was 17, though I was 21.  What a tremendous difference, 4 years at that time in life.  7 is.  Marsha was a baby.  I bought a shot for her once at The Gallery... she was older... 15.  Justin Bitner was bartending and thought it was strange that I was buying a shot of some kind of pucker... not because it's a weird shot for a man, but because I didn't drink at all at the time and had never purchased an alcoholic beverage there, despite hanging out there on a daily basis.  For many years I justified it that she was operating beyond her years, but now I'm old and I say when telling this story... "I'm not proud of this, but I bought some kind of pucker for a 15 year old girl in a band..."

I worked in clubs stopping that kind of stuff.

So any way...  Tyson's tape come-to-life, Ham, is here.  It was also fun to listen to, as this must have been right around the time I met them, but now I've known them so long, it weird to roll back the clock and listen to them so young.

I don't really know who is going to read this, so the voice and direction are hard to choose.  This is compounded by being in poor mental capacity at the hour and number of drinks.  It is certain that Ham is an important band in my life.

DOWNLOAD THE HAM.