Barely Human Max Easton

In October of 2021, an email arrived in the Barely Human inbox titled 'Error Filled Podcast.' Normally we might have looked past it, mistakes being mistakes, except that it came from Clarke Blacker of Stick Men With Ray Guns: the band profiled as the Butthole Surfers' significantly more underground parallel in BH008. Clarke outlined a number of mistakes we had made, from incorrectly naming band members, to errors in dates and the approach of the episode... so after emailing back and forth for a few weeks, we decided to record an interview that goes back over the Stick Men With Ray Guns story properly.

The introduction features producer Jason L'Ecuyer and writer/host Max Easton discussing how the errors came to be and reflecting on the series (which wrapped in April of 2020 as the first wave of COVID-19 descended.)

The interview with Clarke begins at 00:15:30 and covers ground ranging from how Clarke arrived in the world of Texas punk, the formation of Stick Men With Ray Guns; the band's troubles with recording; the life of Bobby Soxx and its controversies; the band's philosophy, approach and legacy; and Clarke's more recent music projects. 

Listen to Clarke Blacker's 'Hear Us Through the Hole in Thin Air' at https://clarkeblacker.bandcamp.com/album/hear-us-through-the-hole-in-thin-air or on Clarke's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_nLgtn8u8vB3GCmRjWdz1w. The more recent collaborative project between Clarke and Simon Waldrum called 'The Dream at the End of the World' can be found here: https://attheendoftheworld.bandcamp.com/album/distraction-at-the-lookout-car

For the original Barely Human episode that prompted Clarke's email:
BH008: Life Makes Me Nervous; I Like Butthole Surfers (...and Stick Men With Ray Guns)
https://anchor.fm/barelyhuman/episodes/BH008-Life-Makes-Me-Nervous-I-Like-Butthole-Surfers----and-Stick-Men-With-Ray-Guns-eq8cp5

Follow Barely Human on Instagram and Twitter @barelyhuman__, or explore more information on the website www.barelyhuman.info

The final episode of Barely Human brings us into the present day with two punk bands who briefly caught the eye of the broader culture...for better or worse. First we find Low Life in Sydney, Australia: a satirical punk band who released an LP in 2014 that somehow got swept up in the #pizzagate scandal (kinda). Then we go back to New York City to find hardcore band Haram who played a fierce brand of hardcore that drew the attention of the FBI and NYPD's Joint Terrorism Taskforce in 2017. 

Barely Human was written and hosted by Max Easton and produced by Jason L'Ecuyer and Marty Peralta of Output Media. Visit the website for show notes featuring extra discussion, sources, further reading and detailed credits here: https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/04/ep-12-im-in-strife-i-like-low-life-and.html. 

The accompanying playlist called '21st C Obscurity' can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ezYuT4x1PjHfe2SRqPpRC Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter --> @barelyhuman__

In Episode 11 of Barely Human, we arrive in the contemporary to look at a thriving subcultural community from Melbourne, Australia. With Dick Diver we find a band who related to the contemporary condition by singing about items littered on the kitchen table...before unwittingly creating a non-genre that was cruelly nicknamed 'dolewave.' Then we cross to the post-punk mania of Total Control, who turned to paranoid visions and the sounds of dystopia to become one of the most influential bands of the 2010s. 

Barely Human was written and hosted by Max Easton and produced by Jason L'Ecuyer and Marty Peralta of Output Media. 

Visit the website for show notes featuring extra discussion, sources, further reading and detailed credits here: https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/03/ep-11-lend-me-fiver-i-like-dick-diver.html. 

The accompanying playlist called 'Melbourne Scenius' can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1DWrsze7gJPLjIplnOYMav Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter --> @barelyhuman__

The tenth episode of Barely Human looks at boundary pushing obscenity through the lens of two vastly disconnected artists. In English garage satirists Country Teasers, we look at the slippery slope of satire and 21st Century obscenity: to find the endpoint of a long history of free speech arguments. From that "evil country outfit," we then find a blues singer from Alabama named Lucille Bogan, who was writing songs about f*****g, bootlegging and sex work as far back as the 1920s. 

Barely Human was written and hosted by Max Easton and produced by Jason L'Ecuyer and Marty Peralta of Output Media. 

Theme song by Sydney punk band Tim & The Boys. 

Visit the website for show notes featuring extra discussion, sources, further reading and detailed credits here: https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/03/ep-10-nothing-pleases-i-like-country.html 

The accompanying playlist called 'The Obscenity Revival' can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4I4AeVVvkQrruzdNOrrKSr Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter --> @barelyhuman__

After stepping into the '90s last episode, Episode 9 highlights the backward looking glance of that decade: via its garage punk revival, and notions of 'discovery.' We look at R.L. Burnside, a unique Hill Country blues player who performed for decades in small-town Mississippi, becoming a household name after collaborating with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion 50 years after his first gig. Then we turn to the most resilient underdogs of the '90s garage revival: a band from Boston called Cheater Slicks, who didn't languish in obscurity...but reveled in it. 

Barely Human was written and hosted by Max Easton and produced by Jason L'Ecuyer and Marty Peralta of Output Media. 

Theme song by Sydney punk band Tim & The Boys. 

Visit the website for show notes featuring extra discussion, sources, further reading and detailed credits at: https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/03/ep-9-dead-inside-i-like-rl-burnside-and.html. 

The accompanying playlist called 'The Hill Country Revival' can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tkltr0SbVOdEPmZssueOb Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter --> @barelyhuman__

From the English post-punk response discussed last episode we move to Texas in Episode 8, to find two anti-punk agitators of the 1980s. In Butthole Surfers, we find an unhinged band who took the absurdism and hallucinogens of the '60s counter-culture, and painted the punk and hardcore underground with it. When they then hit the '90s, signed to a major label, scored a hit with 'Pepper,' and sued the DIY label who made them...they ended up as DIY anti-christs. Later in the episode, we look at their close friends Stick Men With Ray Guns: a mirror image of the Surfers who never left Texas, never released a record in their time, and were left to fade into obscurity alongside their troubled frontperson Bobby Soxx.

Barely Human was written and hosted by Max Easton and produced by Jason L'Ecuyer and Marty Peralta of Output Media. 

Theme song by Sydney punk band Tim & The Boys. 

Visit the website for show notes featuring extra discussion, sources, further reading and detailed credits here: https://www.barelyhuman.info/2020/03/ep-8-life-makes-me-nervous-i-like.html 

The accompanying playlist called 'The Anti-Punks' can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5BRSdRokzqycZ4mqj67s5a Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, all @barelyhumanpod