I also think I organised this, or maybe Chris Strunk did, or maybe we did together as he was longtime friends with An Oxygen Auction, a very weird free noise post-hardcore group that seems to be forgotten by history. They were great - dirgy, and pounding, and inventive, with some sort of electric fencing turned into an instrument. I don't remember Bad Blood at all, but the Control Group played who were another fantastic Pittsburgh post-punk group that were probably at the peak of their powers.

I organised this show for Pelt, a fairly unusual type of artist for the Mr. Roboto Project. At the time I was fanatic about the Pelt CDs on VHF (and still am) so having them play in Pittsburgh, with my own band and my friends opening up, was a thrill. A designer friend named Steve Cypher contributed this beautiful design, which was printed on a mustard-coloured paper. Can't remember much about our sets. We vaguely planned to go visit my father the next day to listen to 78s with him (Jack Rose was very interested) but I guess they ran out of time. I stayed in touch with them and later played with Spiral Joy Band at two shows, and recorded a collaborative CD.

This was the first 'real' show I ever played, in the Blazing Bulkheads, with Weird Paul. Our first actual show was in Rochester, PA at a place called the Outlet, maybe a few weeks earlier. I was at a show in the summer at Luciano's, and I told Manny (who didn't really know me then, except by face) that I was in a band with Weird Paul, and soon we had this offer. Meisha played before us and I loved it. I talked to Mike Tamburo for the first time that night. Later we became close friends who have since drifted, but I miss him and should get back in touch. I don't remember Pineal Ventana and I don't think anyone else does. The Renderers I became more of a fan of later - I barely remember their set, but I remember the guitar player watching us from a chair right in front of the stage, and he mouthed along the words when we covered the Modern Lovers' 'I'm Straight'. Later in life I became a massive New Zealand music fan and also got more into country and folk sounds, of which the Renderers had a slight influence. I don't think we were very good, but this was an important rite of passage for me.

I was digging through cassette tapes tonight and found some real gems, which I will digitise as I get around to them. This is a cover of Devo's 'Smart Patrol' that I recorded for a Devo tribute compilation that Scott Beibin was supposedly releasing. I'm not sure if it ever actually was released or if this appeared on it, but I did it in one night on Jesse Trbovich's 4-track. I'm pretty sure this is 1998 and I remember it being an autumn night, but I also think Jesse had moved to Philly by '98 so maybe this was actually done in '97.

Recorded evening of 8 Aug 2012 at Ptarmigan, Tallinn.

Recorded evening of 8 August 2012 at Ptarmigan.

Alternate poster design, which I think came sooner, because I remember the Positive Ensemble were supposed to play. This was a group of kids that called us up from Goleta, CA and explained that they were putting 11 people in a van and driving around American all summer to spread positivity. They didn't play any music, but they would jump around and try to make people happy and they had t-shirts. The whole thing sounded amazingly stupid but kinda funny, especially if you lived in a world where HeartAttack and Punk Planet were your major sources of media. Anyway, they had to cancel their tour -- how positive is that ? -- so we made the other poster, which was actually much less readable than this one.

i feel like such an amateur historian doing this - documenting a slice of the Pittsburgh independent music scene from 13 years ago - and the one thing that is "complete" about this poster archive would be for the shows at the Stevenson Theatre, a short-lived venue in East Liberty that I had a hand in running. I have every poster from every Stevenson Theatre event that Doug Mousrak and myself organised, which were the majority of the shows there. Besides us, I remember Manny booking Overhang Party and Primordial Undermind there once (which was AMAZING -- a weird Luke-less lineup of Land opened up and Overhang Party were totally amazing; all stayed at my parents' house); I remember Shawn Brackbill organising Texas is the Reason there. And I also saw Ida and solo Warn Defever, when I asked Warn if he would record the Land album. That's about it though, but perhaps I am forgetting some.

Another Elephant 6 related concert - I'm going to get all of these out of the way. This tour came through before either band had really hit; I think Elf Power just had a 7" out, and Of Montreal were something I had only heard of. Both would later go on to modest success, particularly Of Montreal who managed to separate themselves from the E6-identification and probably still put out records today (I don't follow them).