Vincent Presley

Infobox Musical artist
Name = Vincent Presley


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Genre = Indie punk
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Vincent Presley is a musician from Wisconsin that has been in many bands since 1995. Although the music of these bands is all very different, it all falls into the DIY punk indie scene. He is most known for his work in Those Poor Bastards, a "gothic country" band whose song "Pills I Took" was redone by Hank Williams III on his 2006 album Straight To Hell [popmatters.com music review] , as well as claims to be an illegitimate son of Elvis Presley. This has never been proved nor disproved since there is very little information on his childhood and adolescent life before 1995.

Housecat-Sized Fennec

The first known band that Vincent Presley was part of is the Milwaukee punk band Housecat-Sized Fennec, A kind of Minor Threat / Dead Kennedys band with some obvious Minutemen influence. In this band he played the drums but also did lead vocals on a few songs. The band's main focus seems to be typical teenage oddball problems such as jocks, girls, parents, as well as an attempt at leftist anarchist politics. On guitar was Nathan Lilley who would later start the band Akarso, and currently, Call Me Lightning. On bass was Jeff Loomis who would later start the band Blasphematics and is now a skilled jazz guitarist.

Their first release was a cassette titled "I Fight For Satan". A much cleaner recording then would be expected from teenagers playing this kind of music. it was released in 1996 and was sold at shows for only $1.00. Sometimes they would even "sweeten the deal" with the addition of a coupon for a free treat or sometimes a rice krispy square. All the tapes were self made and about 300 were sold over the next year and a half.

The second release was a split 7" with another Milwaukee band, Junior High. Housecat's side included 3 thunderous punk songs that Maximum RocknRoll compared to the Dead Kennedys. Junior High's side was a single pop punk song that did not really go that well with the flip side. 500 records were pressed in 1996 and are long out of print.

The Final release, "Drugs Satan Rock N Roll" was planned to be a 7" EP but the decision to break up the group caused them to release it as a cassette only available at the last concert, performed at The Globe on North ave in Milwaukee in Nov 1997. Only about 100 copies exist although in 1999 Vincent started making and selling "Anthology" cds that included all 3 albums as well as loads of "bonus tracks". VHS copies of the last HCSF show used to be seen around Milwaukee shops as well and it is listed in some early catalogs of VP material.

Gerald Hologram

After the break up of Housecat, Vincent continued to use one of the names he often used in the album's liner notes for some new "solo material". This project started as a secret side project while still playing with HCSF. He would experiment with a 4-track, drums, guitar, bass, old synthesizers, and many misc instruments.

His First GH release was a cassette called "Space Dance" which he sold at other band's shows including his ex-band mates new band Blasphematics. The Tape's insert was a long fold out double sided full color sleeve that included pictures of equipment and the lyrics to the songs. Because of this tape sleeve he sold the tapes for $3.00 even though the sound quality of the music was terrible. The response was not good because of both the sound quality and the material. Many old HCSF fans that bought the tape were very disappointed in his departure from punk to play weird experimental and new wave music. The tape also included two very fast thrash songs with satanic lyrics that tended to scare away the teens that enjoyed Blasphematics and Housecat.

Another cassettes worth of songs were already finished and a second album titled "Gerald Hologram VS The World" was planned. The tape was never released once VP started hearing the feedback from the first album. There were also no shows to sell the tapes at since he was not playing live and by 1998 the trend in Milwaukee bands had switched to Emo, an even less inviting scene for this analog lo-fi music.

In 1998 Vincent and Jeff worked out their differences and began spending time playing new material for each other while taking drugs. Jeff's positive response encouraged Vincent to release another Gerald Hologram album and the GH material encouraged Jeff to add some of VP's synths to the Blasphemtaics tape that he was working on. This was to be the first release by VP to be on cd. It was titled "The Musical Stylings Of Gerald Hologram" and included many re-recorded songs from the first two tapes on a new far superior 4-track. At this time DIY cd duplication was very poor and expensive. He paid a small business to make 50 copies of the cd while he made the four page booklet. The cds were a problem. They rarely worked in anyone's players and after many complaints Vincent threw the rest in the trash and decided he was done. Recently this music has gotten much more popular and so all the Gerald Hologram albums have been re-mastered and re-released on 3 cds including one with all the never before heard recordings from 1999 and 2000.

Blasphematics

In 1998 Vincent and Jeff took a drive to Austin, Texas to hang out and jam with Jerm Pollet from Gals Panic and Missile Command. Nothing came of this session but it did inspire Jeff to ask Vincent to join Blasphematics, a kind of acoustic punk band often compared to Dead Milkmen, and they began practicing and playing shows as soon as they returned to Wisconsin. The new lineup only lasted another year before Jeff moved to MN but the band did get back together for a reunion show in 2002. Mike Blanchard who played bass for Blasphematics is now in The Response.

Logan 5

After the Gerald Hologram project was ended VP started another, more serious project for his synthesizers. This band had more of an industrial dance sound then the new wave sound of GH and was a three piece live band, originally with Amanda D and Jeremy H, an old friend who's name he also sometimes used.

The first release again was a cassette. Titled "Germ Warfare", it was the first political subject mater since HCSF. Recorded on 8-track with an arsenal of analog synthesizers, vocoded vocals, and strange complex beats, it was not widely accepted in the goth / industrial scene.

The self titled full length LP was released in 2001. 1000 copies were originally pressed with misprinted liner notes on the jackets. More of the thick layers of analog synths and everything from the Germ Warfare tape but more polished and perfected. This album included a cover of the Renaldo And The Loaf song "Dying Inside" from long time inspiration Ralph Records and also got Vincent in contact with the RATL guys. Only a handful of shows had been performed and after the record was released time was spent sending copies of the record around the world to radio stations and it received some decent air play in Germany. Not very many copies were sold before the warehouse where all Vincent's merch was kept burned down. A couple boxes of LPs remained and were sold over the next couple years. This album was just re-released in 2008 in a limited edition of 365 hand numbered copies.

The next release was a cd ep called "Only To Reptiles", a much more standard industrial dance sound that lacked the creative experimentation heard in the other Logan 5 releases yet it was more widely excepted. After this release Jeremy's lifelong mental problems were out of control. Soon after he disappeared. VP has claimed that JH "drove off a bridge" but it is all very unclear.

After a couple year hiatus, Logan 5 returned to playing shows but this time in Vincent's new hometown, Madison. At this time the band was only VP with Electronic Dean replacing Amanda and Jeremy. These shows were much heavier and paved the way for their last release "As We Become The Smunn", a cd ep of electronic thrash music with screaming vocoded vocals. This album contained the last lyrics Jeremy wrote. Hopeless, depressed words of a man at his end. With the release of this album the group changed their name to The Smunn. The band played until 2005 when VP began getting serious with touring with other bands.

The Smunn has returned to being called Logan 5 and has been talking about playing live shows for the newly re-released self titled LP. The lineup is now VP, Electronic Dean, and Lacey Smith

The Family Renault

The most extreme and experimental out of all of the VP bands. The story is that during the start of Gerald Hologram he became distant from the other members of HCSF and other friends. He began driving himself to more secluded WI towns and claims to have met Colonial Jeris and other members of Family Renault during these trips. They began recording improvised pieces under the direction of Colonial with any and everything they could find that made sound. The other members, whose names also seem to change from cd to cd as well as from website to website, had no musical training and knew very little of any underground music past or present. This is where VP says he "learned how to record and produce" which makes sense since shortly after this the Gerald Hologram recordings became much better.

The first release was a cd in 2000 titled "I Am The Arm" which was a collection of the handful of pieces that they had gotten together and recorded during the four years. Everything from violins and pianos to pots and pans to analog synths and an atari 2600. Every track was a different experiment.

The Family Renault seemed to have totally severed communication until 2002 when Colonial told Presley he had four days to record a new FR album. Three days were spent on the bulk of the tracks which contained a lot of sampled sounds and keyboards this time around, the last 15 hour day was spent working on Colonial's latest idea, The Record Composition. The Family went through VP's record collection picking out mainly 80's records to use as "instruments". There was no sampling or looping allowed. Just multi track tape, the records, and an old crappy turntable. Everything was done snip by snip and the result is an out of sync kind of bad trip or nightmare running six and a half minutes long.

Again The Family Renault seemed to have stopped for good until a myspace page was formed in 2007 with an announcement that "The Colonial has let me know that an album we recorded in 2003 can now be released, now that it has been sitting unheard for four years". This "Lost CD" had more guitar and violin then any of the previous albums but the real experimenting came out in their second "record composition", This time with the aid of one of the first commercially available sampler keyboards, a vintage Ensoniq. This added more of a flow to the track and things were working together making new songs and sounds. The music on this composition ranges from old soundtracks to modern punk albums and runs fifteen minutes long.

Samizdat

In 2001 and 2002 Vincent and Jeff Loomis reunited once again. This time the music was a drug induced improv jam style space jazz music. Jeff had perfected his new finger picking style of acoustic guitar playing while VP stacked various synths and the occasional bass guitar or drum beat. They only performed in front of an audience two times, once at UW Milwaukee for some kind of conference that neither of them remember much more about, and the second at "some kind of warehouse art punk practice space or something". They recorded all of their studio improv sessions and eventually Presley released a cd of it.

Window Smashers

In 2005 Vincent returned to punk drumming and singing with his chaotic spazz-noise punk band The Window Smashers. Often compared to Scratch Acid, who VP claims he has never heard, the band is a wall of noise with insane drumming, analog synths squelching, chunky bass, crazy delay guitar and vocals switching between 3 different members. The band toured the midwest and east coast and released a double disk cd in 2006. In 2007 VP, Jacob Rust, and Lacey Smith decided to part ways with guitarist Lee Chato and become Zebras.

Forsake Ya To The Snakes

In Nov 2006 Vincent toured the UK as the bass player for the indie dance rock band Forsake Ya To The Snakes with English band Free Diamonds. He does not seem to have any earlier connection to the band although his name is credited on the CD "Midnight Rainbow". FYTS has only done a handful of shows since their return to the USA but Presley has not been involved.

Zebras

In the new band, Zebras, Presley plays lead guitar and lead vocals, Jacob remains on bass from WS, Lacey remains on synths from WS and the new drummer is known simply as Mister Shawn. The band is a much more structured, at times mathy, punk rock band then Window Smashers. They just recorded and after only 1 week of having their new songs posted online, are talking to indie record labels about a vinyl release.

Those Poor Bastards

Vincent Presley is also part of the goth country band Those Poor Bastards who sometimes tour with Hank Williams III. Presley was recruited by lead Bastard Lonesome Wyatt after Those Poor Bastards' instrumentalist, known as The Minister, stopped touring with the duo.

Discography

Housecat-Sized Fennec: I Fight For Satan 1996 "captain midnight records #0" (VP-drums & vocals) Housecat-Sized Fennec / Junior High split 7" 1996 "captain midnight records #2" (vp-drums & vocals) Housecat-Sized Fennec: Drugs Satan Rock N Roll 1997 "captain midnight records #?" (vp-drums & vocals) Housecat-Sized Fennec: The Final Nightmare live 1997 "bel007" (vp-drums & vocals) Housecat-Sized Fennec: The Basement Years (vp-drums, vocals & bass) Housecat-Sized Fennec: Anthology "secret records 006" (vp-drums & vocals) Gerald Hologram: Space Dance 1997 "bel001" (vp-drums, synths, guitars, bass, violin, vocals) Gerald Hologram: The Musical Stylings Of 1998 "secret records 008" (vp-drums, synths, guitars, bass, violin, vocals) Family Renault: I Am The Arm 2000 "secret records 011" (vp-unsure which parts) Gerald Hologram: 2000 Man 2000 "secret records 009" (vp-synths, guitars, vocals, drum machines) Logan 5: Germ Warfare 2001 "bel014" (vp-synths, vocals, guitars, drum machines) Logan 5: Self Titled LP 2001 "secret records 001" (vp-synths, guitars, vocals, drum machines) Samizdat: Complete Recordings 2002 "secret records 010" (vp-synths, drums, bass) Logan 5: Only To Reptiles 2002 "secret records 003" (vp synths, guitars, vocals, drum machines) The Family Renault: El Experimentero Concerto 2002 "secret records 012" (vp-unsure which parts) The Family Renault: The Lost Album 2003 "secret records 013" (vp-unsure which parts) Logan 5: As We Become The Smunn 2004 (vp-guitars, electronics, vocals) The Window Smashers: self titled 2006 "secret records 002" (vp-drums & vocals) Zebras: Parasitic Clones Under The Strong Arm Of The Robotic Machine 2008 (vp-guitar & vocals)

References

* [http://www.myspace.com/vincentpresley Vincent Presley on MySpace]
* [http://www.myspace.com/thosepoorbastards Those Poor Bastards on MySpace]
* [http://www.myspace.com/slazebras Zebras on MySpace]