April 22, 1991
Spot
Go, Or I'll Kill You! cassette
[SDK-22] photocopied inserts, dot matrix labels

In the sense that not-so-serious groups like 7 More Seconds, Slambang Vanilla, and Kill The Man With The Ball were growing to become cartoon-esque in their parodies of hardcore and of themselves; the long-since-acquitted Spot, a genuine and original late ’80’s hardcore band, was also making gains in their mythological value. Go, Or I’ll Kill You! is most closely related to the 7 More Seconds cassette. The covers are intentionally poor Xerox copies, they’re hand numbered, limited editions of comically small quantities, and they both generally disregard the notion that some unsuspecting someone might not realize it’s a joke. More clearly, as Slamdek releases, they were both projects of small groups of friends who essentially put the tapes out because they thought it would be funny to see them in a store. Of course, those involved would all like to own a copy of the finished product, and that in itself was traditionally always reason enough to create anything under the Slamdek flag. No matter how much work it involved, nor if anyone might be interested in buying it. To settle the latter concern, Go, Or I’ll Kill You! sold in stores for 98¢. And even after the work was finished, only about 50 copies were run off, and only 34 were sold. Gee whiz.
The tape is split into two sides (duh). The first side is an August 1987 Howie Gano recording of ten of the fifteen songs from their Proud cassette.

The second side is a compilation of super lo-fi jam box recordings of Spot from practices, parties, and shows. All of the songs are dated in the liner notes, and some also include explanations. It begins with “First Practice Intro” recorded January 10, 1986. This track is about ten seconds long and amounts to Joey yelling the name of the band and some other things which are not as easy to understand. The second song, as well as four others on the tape, are from a May 1987 party at Wendy Hawkins’ parents’ house in Plainview off Hurstbourne Lane. The liner notes say of it, “The show was called Spot Rocks Seven Blocks because neighbors seven or eight blocks away were complaining about the noise.”

“Live and Let Live” is third. It was recorded December 1986 in Jon Cook’s mother’s basement at the first show put on by Positive Youth For Unity (PYFU). It’s highlighted by the repeated shouting of “one two three!” in the short breaks. This was a Spot performance audience participation tradition, though it was not actually part of the song. “Spot Song” follows (from Wendy’s party) as a ditty about the formation of the band. “This is our mellow jammin’ song,” Joey introduces, “This is one you all can relax dance to.” The chorus goes, “We need a name for our band, we need it now. How ’bout Spot? We have a name for our band. Now we rule!” The next song is “Cat Penis Song,” a really bad improvised blues number from the first practice, of the kind only fifteen year old boys are capable.

The remaining three songs are from Wendy’s party. “Wally” is accentuated by the crowd encouraging Jon Cook to do “the Wally” dance, and Joey’s inharmonious harmonica playing. A special show version of “I Hate Cars” follows as “I Hate Bob,” named after Bob Kerfoot, the penny-pinching owner of Pro Quality Skates. The final song is “Colorblind,” not a 7 Seconds cover, but in fact another Spot original that didn’t
make it on Proud.

LINER NOTES:

Howie side:
Paving Your Way
Think Ahead
Open Your Eyes
Take Off Your Mask
Dressed In Black
Enough
Live and Let Live
I Hate Cars
P.Y.F.U.
Proud

Spot side:
First Practice Intro
P.Y.F.U.
Live and Let Live
Spot Song
Cat Penis Song
Wally
I Hate Bob
Colorblind

Mark Ernst, drums (’87-’88)
Brett Hosclaw, drums (’86)
Joey Mudd, vocals
Breck Pipes, guitar
Chris Scott, bass

Thanks: Duncan, Todd Cook, PYFU, Jon, SLAMDEK Fuckin’ Scramdown, and Wendy H.