http://www.bloodyfist.com.au/content/archive/other/fist22.html
FIST22 OFFICIAL RELEASE
Following is the story of possibly the most difficult record in the six and a half year history of Bloody Fist. Be patient, these pics may take a little while to load...
* If there has ever been a single 12" record that has caused an insurmountable level of grief, anger, stress, insipid hatred, strange body rashes, looming violence, and near suicide at Bloody Fist HQ, the winner would have to be FIST 22 by Disassembler.
FIST 22 TIMELINE:
APRIL 2000 - We decide that FIST 22 will be a 12" release by Disassembler (David Melo of Nasenbluten). We set aside a weekend to record it. We cannot quite decide which tracks to use and if the record will be a 4 or a 6 track release. We finally record 6 tracks for the record. The recorded DAT sits on the desk at Bloody Fist for 2-3 weeks collecting dust.
MAY 2000 - After all this, it is decided that 2 tracks recorded for the 12" sound unfinished, and these 2 tracks will be omitted from the final 12" cut, thus making the record a 4 tracker. The record is then sent for mastering in Germany.
JUNE 2000 - the mastering is finally completed, and the lacquers are slowly sent to the Czech Republic for plating and test-pressings.
JULY 2000 - The first lot of test pressings eventually arrive at the distributors in Germany. They are warped so much that they are unplayable. The pressing plant are told to hurry up and fucking do them again.
AUGUST 2000 - The second lot of test pressings arrive from the pressing plant to the distributors. The test pressings then sit at the distributors for what seems like an eternity, while the whole of Europe shuts down for the summer, and our distributor goes on holidays to Spain.
SEPTEMBER 2000 - There are finally enough new European releases to warrant shipping 4 boxes of stuff out to Australia, including the now ancient FIST 22 test-pressings. The freight arrives in Australia and clears customs right at the end of the month.
OCTOBER 2000 - The 4 boxes of freight are no longer at the freight company in Sydney. They are also strangely absent from the Bloody Fist office. A swift call to the freight company reveals that the boxes are nowhere to be found. They were picked up in Sydney, and meant to be delivered into Newcastle the next morning. Quite simple really. But NO... the fact that the FIST 22 test pressings are somewhere in these 4 boxes dictates that the boxes must be lost somewhere in the 160 km between Sydney and Newcastle. We contemplate driving to Sydney, and nailing signs to telegraph poles every 100 metres which read "FIST 22 TEST PRESSINGS - THIS WAY PLEASE". Another weekend passes. Monday rolls around, and 2 boxes out of the four are now in the Bloody Fist office. They are eagerly unpacked, but the FIST 22 test pressings have still managed to elude the light of day. Two more days pass with heads hung low, and then all of a sudden, the courier rocks up with - wait for it ........ wait for it ....... yes that's right ........... ANOTHER BOX!!!!! OH MY GOD!!! There are now 3 boxes out of a possible four present and opened. THERE THEY WERE!!! FIST 22 tests are seen nestling between the new ROTTERDAM record, and the new TRAXTORM record. It's here !! It's HERE!!!! Police were called, champagne was opened, all bets were off. Nervously the 12" was placed on the already rotating turntable. The needle was dropped on the run-in groove of the record....... and...... there it was!! The 1st track of side A blaring out of the office speakers, and ladies and gentlemen it was fucking glorious!! The track rushed by at a thousand miles an hour - hearts were beating so fast that no one noticed the second track had already started. Another pearler! YES! Finally after all this waiting, fucking around and delays - here it was - in all it's newborn glory - FIST 22 test pressings!!!! WOW!! Side A had finished, the record was whipped over, and the needle dropped on the run in of side B - Side B track 1 - OH MY GOD!! - this was the sort of moment that was never meant to end... This was going to be a great release - scenes of people rushing out of various record stores around the globe with their hands covering their ears flashed through the minds of everyone present... Scenes of people calling up their friends and gossiping about how crap FIST 22 was and how Bloody Fist aren't as good as they used to be played over and over again in our heads... The sheer thought of the volume of e-mail that would make its way to our inboxes over the following months, claiming that Bloody Fist had gone downhill and wasn't as good as it used to be, caused erections from one end of the office to the other... - this was what running a fiercely independent industrial hardcore record label was all about! - OH YES! - this was the fucking be-all and end-all of the music industry regardless of what those fuckwitted 50-something rock pigs thought about us - fuck that wrinkled old journalist from the Australian newspaper who baulked at the offer of a 'cup of tea'......... all of that shit didn't matter because -
THIS WAS OUR DEFINING MOMENT OF INVINCIBILITY!!!!!!!......................
and then without warning ............. it happened.
YOU BASTARDS. You bastards. Side B Track 2.......
What?
Maybe the needle is skipping forward on the record intermittently?
NO.
Maybe the needle is posessed and jumping up and down on the record for a millisecond at a time?
NO.
Maybe this particular copy of the test pressing got fucked in transit?
NO.
Maybe thats the way you originally recorded it without noticing?
NO!!
Maybe no one will notice?
NO.
Maybe it's your needle?
NO!
Well??
It's fucked. There's been a problem with the DAT machine in the cutting room. It obviously didn't read our DAT properly, and has inserted milli-second drop-outs all the way through the last track.
FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.
DAMNED IF WE DO, DAMNED IF WE DON'T
So far, we have the following things to show for all the money we have spent trying to get FIST22 released:
1) A hole in the bank account
2) Some shitty content for our web site
3) Headaches
Should we have pressed on and released FIST22? The answer is probably a great big steaming 'yes'. And we did. On October 22nd 2000, David Melo (Disassembler) met up with Mark Newlands (Bloody Fist) in the centre of Newcastle with a couple of other friends. Our mission? To publicly release this record and be done with it. Spending more money on faulty test pressings, covers and production copies seemed pointless. We threw the idea into the 'too hard basket', and decided that the fucked test pressings would now be the publicly released version of FIST22. The catch was that these records would not be for public sale, but they would certainly be available to the public if the public so wanted. At the same time, it was unanimously agreed that if the records were to be available to the public, they must be as far away as possible from us, due to the continual and varied problems they have caused over the preceding period of 6-7 months. We decided that Newcastle harbour was an ideal spot to release the records. The reason for this is that the harbour opens out into the Tasman sea. Our theory is that the copies of FIST22 which we threw into the harbour will eventually wash out into the Tasman, and be as far away from us and as irretrievable as possible.
FIST22 will remain forever as a limited edition of 7 copies, and by far the largest blemish to date on the Bloody Fist back catalogue.
In the forthcoming months, there will be an A4 sheet of paper inserted into 1000 Bloody Fist 12" records at random. This A4 sheet of papaer will pertain to FIST22, and the events surrounding it's manufacturing and 'public release'. It will probably contain some events which are not detailed on this website, or it may not. It has not yet been written.
Mark Newlands 7/12/00 7:18PM
David Melo writes:
THINGS YOU CAN DO TO BRING A LITTLE BIT OF FIST 22 INTO YOUR HOME TODAY
Option a: The American option - throw cash at it till something happens.
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-contact Brent Bailey salvaging (ph ??????????). Pay him US$200.
-wait for the record or for confirmation of a bloke being taken by a shark in Newcastle harbour. Note to foreigners - Australia is currently being attacked by sharks, so if you're thinking of visiting, fuck right off. See? We ARE xenophobic.
Option b: Go for the general feel.
--------
-Have everything fuck up, subtly yet inevitably.
-Become fucking paranoid that some cunt is out to get you.
-Give up.
Option c: Purse your lips and whine.
--------
-Subscribe to some sort of professional whingers, diddlesquats and cunts-who-know-it-all mailing list *** devoted to bemoaning how everything is more 'less good' than it used to be and to exchanging photocopies of each other's genitals whilst being on crack and generally more excellent than just about everything else in the world. Except crack.
-Whine, moan and stamp your little feet with great aplomb letting everyone have the full impact of your excellence.
-In between don't be shy to incohenrently send 'how about it luv?' messages to someone's pet tortoise who is female and happened to accidentally walk over the keyboard while the owner wasn't looking and posted up on the list.
Option d: Create the magic yourself, in the comfort of your own home.
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-run around your house screaming and smashing shit and record it.
-Grab a few 100 $$$ and insert them with the recording into a blender.
-Eat razor blades
-Defecate in said blender, razorblades should ensure there is lots of scarlet with the brown.
-Turn on and leave on for a few months (for most accurate results do not replace the lid on blender before activating).
-Spend 3 weeks tring to listen to the recording, sifting through remnants of ordure, cash etc, whilst holding head in hands, tut-tutting, pacing and generally not enjoying it. You may use drugs in order to achieve a sufficiently abnormal and dangerous heart-rate and blood pressure levels.
-Decide it's all fucked.
-Quit whilst behind, knowing deep down that it was a pretty bodgy record anyway and thank christ for that, imagine the embarrassment etc. Particularly since the game is most obviously up, and the shrewd folk at the 'extreme electronics' mailing list (as per option c) have found you out.
-Fire last few lame, petulant parting gestures at the whole process, become a house DJ
David 'Disassembler' Melo 21/11/00 4:03 PM
*** How to join the list: there are many lists which fit the aforementioned descripion. Far too many to choose from, however, here is a small selection for your perusal: (keep in mind that after you subscribe to any of these lists, they will inevitably become 'not-as-good-as-they-used-to-be').
E-mail:
socalantiraves-subscribe@egroups.com
E-mail:
hardheadz-subscribe@egroups.com
E-mail:
gabber-digest-subscribe@hyperreal.org
E-mail:
hardlinerekz-subscribe@egroups.com
E-mail:
bloodyfist-subscribe@egroups.com - unofficial fan-run list
E-mail:
industrialstrength-subscribe@egroups.com
Thanks to RO for the pics and Chris White for the scans.
