Pincushion

www.guninmouth.com
www.myspace.com/werenopunks

Do you remember the last time you read a kick-ass band bio and just wanted to keep re-reading it? No, we didn't think so. We are Pincushion. Serving Cincinnati our punk induced brand of rock 'n' roll proudly since 1993. Let's get right to the point. Pincushion was formed because some college boys thought that being in a band would mean chicks left and right. That ended up being the farthest thing from the truth. Oh by the way, "we" refers to Chuck, who sings and has guitars; Heyob, who plays the fat strings; and Tim, who pounds the drums and occasionally sings. Mark was the original man with the guitar until early in '95. Chuck just sang at that time. And in the very beginning, a man referred to only by his initial E also played the six string. E lasted for one show; a keg party which we'll talk about in a minute.

The first thing that needed to be decided was who was going to play what instrument. Mark and E already had guitars. Heyob always wanted to play guitar, but had to opt for the bass. Chuck had no money so he bought a Radio Shack microphone and became the lead singer. He sang through an ancient bass amp that had cool knobs. Tim bought half a drum set at the old Paris Flea Market on Ferguson Rd. It came with a hi-hat, floor tom, snare, and one tom. When it came time for the first jam session, Tim used a chair for a snare stand and the tom was resting on a mic stand with a t-shirt wrapped on top for padding. A lounge chair was used as a throne. The first set of songs to be attempted were covers of the Ramones, Misfits, Black Flag, and even Creedence. We were terrible. But after three practices, we felt that the world was ready to see us play live. Chuck threw a kegger and we were the band for the night. Heyob at the time still had combable hair and in the middle of Gloria smashed his head on the ceiling trying to do a rock 'n' roll jump. About half a song was all it took to drive the first Pincushion fans away. "You guys might be good if you stay in time and finish a song" was the post-gig advice heard most often. It was a glorious night.

"Liquid amusement. Distorted dreams." These are the first lines of our first original tune called Mainstream. After tooling around attempting to cover other bands' songs, we realized that messing up our own songs would be much more satisfying. Mark began to learn different styles of basic guitar from his guitar teacher. During practice we would just follow his lead because he was the only one who knew the notes and could play his instrument. Okay we're stretching it there. We still sucked at this time. We just thought we were good because we had an original song. (Ladies, start lining up.) We began to play anything that was written by us. A warm-up riff before practice instantly became a song when Chuck would start singing. We didn't care if the verse was written in a different key than the chorus. This was bastardized punk rock. Classic songs were written early on: Pimps From Hell, Beer Harmony ("You are my 12 ounce lover..."), Heyob Song of Love, Burgermeister Blues, and Great Northwest Hair Ride to name a few.

Eventually we became familiar enough with our instruments and we started to sound like a band (seriously). We added guitar leads, bass fills, and even drum rolls to our new songs. Pretty soon we realized that the old songs were not that good, so we dumped them slowly from our set list. Naturally the next step in our rock 'n' roll pilgrimage was to record our music and become rich. So we bought a four-track and began learning the recording process. It was apparent early on that nobody in the band would ever enjoy recording. But it was definitely cool to have the finished product in your hand and to play the tape over and over until you hated the songs. The first song that we ever recorded was titled Decay. It was sometime in 1993 (our memories are a little cloudy, so cut us some slack already). Ma and Pa Anneken were kind enough to let us practice in their basement, so that's where we set up the four track. When Chuck had to record the vocals, the gut wrenching belly laughter from Heyob, Tim, and Mark was uncontrollable. We ended up biting down on teddy bears to stop laughing. There's Chuck - neck veins popping, spittle aplenty - screaming into his chewed pretzel-encrusted mic and not realizing that he was making loud guttural noises and giggling in between lines. All the while a nice, quiet family is upstairs trying to eat their dinner. We recorded about fifteen songs over a couple months. Among those gems were Gin & Juice, Plan 9, Silent Spring, PISS, and a cover of You Were on My Mind by some band in the '60's.

The next rung on the Pincushion ladder was the live show. We had played some parties and even opened for a friend's band at a dive in Delhi called the Teal Ritz. However we never played in front of people who gave a shit about what we were playing. (We once played a college party where g