I can imagine that a lot of people (including myself) waited for a release like this by Wheezing Maniac, an obscure band out of San Diego that was featured on the soundtrack for H-Street´s Hokus Pokus video with two songs (“Dollar on a platter” and “Don´t come close”). Sadly, this is NOT an LP or CD release, but just a bunch of audio files that can be downloaded via iTunes and probably some other sources. It´s just my guess that this is the complete discography of the band, and hopefully it´s authorized.
On this release titled “Shade through the night door” you get 17 tracks at all, including the two songs from Hokus Pokus. The band had three demo tapes and one split-7”, so I guess their complete output made it onto this “album”.
If you know the two songs from Hokus Pokus you might be a bit irritated by the other tunes on this album, because they aren´t that straight as the Hokus Pokus songs. And at least to me it looks like the band never really found their own style (maybe they never wanted to), because every song sounds different. Just compare the two H-Street songs with each other and you know what I mean. They could have been recorded by two completely different bands.
If I´d run a record store, I´d create a new box for Wheezing Maniac and call it “fucked-up-spoken-word-grunge with some punk, metal and rap influences”.
11 comments
docskaterock
R.I.P. Mike Byrd (
docskaterock
Mike of WHEEZING MANIAC says:
If you have any questions about Wheezing Maniac, contact Mike at;
mbyrd55 [at) Gmail (dot] com
Mario Carbrone
In 1988/1989 in Pacific Beach, CA the 2 main members had a small apartment wrapped in egg crates & other sound proofing…and whiskey. Many of these songs were recorded on an old Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. Excellent musicians with strange humorous perspectives – see the song Get In The Car. Wheezing Maniac has some kind of association with Dave from Tiltwheel.
Mike
Dave was in F.U.N. I was the drummer in that band and we did the Split 7″ with WM. Marvin and mike were so funny and total genius musicians IMO. RIP to Mike, what a legend. Dave is a legend still too. I was 12 years old when we put out that record lol! i still have OG demos of Dollar On A Platter that our singer Bob Thompson gave me.
docskaterock
Thanks Dave for your comment and also the info on F.U.N.!
docskaterock
Sorry! I mean Mike, not Dave.
docskaterock
Thanks Mario for some background info on that obscure band!
Sorry Butt
They sound a bit like if the Minutemen were in high school, and sucked.
docskaterock
That soundtrack was responsible for my SKATE ROCK enthusiasm …
pigcity
Hokus Pokus is my all time favourite vid so anything related is cool with me. Thanks for posting
david odk
I had the Hokus Pokus t-shirt, the only skate shirt I ever had as a kid