dangermare
At 12,000 feet above sea level, Rogers Pass is the dizzying apex of the Canadian Rockies. So what the hell were Pegboy and Kepone doing there in the middle of a major winter storm in late 1994, anyway? Both bands were supposed to be touring as support for The Jesus Lizard. Exercising better judgement The 'Liz had gracefully bowed out of the Canadian portion of their tour and were no doubt back in Chicago, snug in their beds, safe and sound. Meanwhile, back on the mountain...Kepone's van, "Quiet Dignity", was struggling through the blinding snow as logging trucks whizzed by at insane speeds. Suddenly, through the blizzard, they began to make out the sight of Pegboy walking along the side of the road! It seems that the hapless plumbers, had hit a patch of black ice that had sent them plummeting off the road. Had their van not collided with a tree they would have gone the whole way to sea level in a matter of seconds. The van was totalled but, Pegboy were alive. Kepone pulled over and rescued their friends and limped to the nearest town where the bands took refuge in the only available establishment, waiting for the storm to pass. The wonderfully named Golden Rim Motor Lodge was otherwise unoccupied and the bands made full use of the heated pool and water slide! In the sauna room, the idea for this split 7" was born. After all the label mates had been through it seemed the right thing to do. After a period of incubation (read:procrastination), the project finally got underway. Pegboy recorded Dangermare in Steve Albini's basement. The song is a kick ass example of their "air in front of guitar cabinet shifting" punk rock. Kepone recorded their spook anthem "The Ghost" at Montana Studios in the warehouse district of their home town, Richmond, Virginia. The cover, drawn by Kepone's Tim Harriss, reflects the avid and inexplicable clown fetish that the bands share. The idea comes from the dashboard clown mojos that each group have in their vans in an attempt to ward off vehicular catastrophe. In a strange twist of events during a tour of eastern Canada in January of last year Kepone lost control of their van on an ice covered road and wiped out. Seemingly, the dashboard mojos have no effect beyond the borders of the U.S.