Strapping Young Lad - Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing Released April 4th, 1995
Tracklisting:
1. S.Y.L.
2. In the Rainy Season
3. Goat
4. Cod Metal King
5. Happy Camper (Carpe B.U.M.)
6. Critic
7. The Filler - Sweet City Jesus
8. Skin Me
9. Drizzlehell
10. Satan’s Ice Cream TruckBonus Tracks
11. Japan (2006 Remaster Bonus Track)
12. Monday (2006 Remaster Bonus Track)
13. Exciter (Judas Priest Cover) [2006 Remaster Bonus Track]
Personnel:
Devin Townsend (Credited as Nived) - Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards
Jed Simon - Guitar (Critic, Skin Me)
Mike Sudar - Guitar
Ashley Scribner - Bass
Adrian White - Drums
Additional Musicians:
Chris Byes - Drums (Critic, The Filler - Sweet City Jesus)
Smokin’ Lord Toot (Real name unknown) - Drums (Cod Metal King)
Chris Meyers - Keyboards (Goat, Skin Me)
Greg Price - Additional Drum Programming (Skin Me, Drizzlehell)
Stooly (Byron Stroud) and E. Val Yum (Chris Valagao) - Backing Vocals
Strapping Young lad was meant as an outlet for the aggression and frustration that Dev felt after his experience with the Vai band and being jerked around by record labels. He wanted to write something “apocalyptic”, and started listening to bands like Carcass, Fear Factory, Cop Shoot Cop, and Morbid Angel. The first SYL album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, was recorded in a week in December 1994 at Mushroom Studios in Vancouver. It features the original SYL lineup of Dev, Jed Simon, Mike Sudar, Ashley Scribner, and Adrian White. Some of the songs here were written for the Noisescapes Demos from ’92: Goat, Skin Me, and Filler. The chorus to the bonus track Japan would later reappear on the song The Death of Music from Ocean Machine: Biomech.
A music video was made for S.Y.L.
https://youtu.be/WwyuM0PODuYHeavy as a Really Heavy Thing was released on April 4th, 1995. It sold only 142 copies in it’s first month. The band did very little touring for this record. They played a live show broadcast from KZSU Radio Studio in Stanford, CA, seen partially in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM7DcSxXkcM&t=201sThree songs from that performance can be found on the Ancient cassette (Tracks 9-11)
S.Y.L. (Live)
Home Nucleonics (Live)
Bodies 13 (Live)
Home Nucleonics would end up on SYL’s second album, City, released in 1997.
Bodies 13 wouldn’t end up on any album, but aspects of the song would turn into future songs like Oh My Fucking God, Detox, Force Fed, and Color Your World.
SYL wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, and it wasn’t meant to be his main project. But that’s what it ended up becoming, at least for the first part of his career. In recent years, Dev has dismissed this album as “a couple of good songs and a bunch of demos.” Century Media invested very little money into SYL, and despite the album’s lack of success, they kept Dev signed on. Dev showed Century Media the demos he was working on for a project called Ocean Machine, but they weren’t interested in releasing it. Sony Japan contacted Dev and told him that if he started his own record label, they would distribute Ocean Machine. So he started HevyDevy Records, his own record label for his own music. With this, he recorded and finally released his first solo album…
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And now for something completely different…
Punky Brüster - Cooked on PhonicsReleased March 19, 1996
Tracklisting:
1. Recipe for Bait
2. Fake Punk
3. EZ$$
4. Metal Dilemma
5. Oats Peas Beans and Barley
6. Wallet Chain
7. Heinous Anus
8. Heavy Metal Mama
9. Crusty’s at the Ivanhoe
10. Picture of Myself
11. The Girls Next Door
12. Larry’s O
13. Metal Heads are Punk Rockers (Bonus Track) [Parody of the Ramones song “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”]Personnel:
Devin Townsend (Credited as Dr. Skinny/Lord Stenchlor) - Guitar/Vocals/Narration
John Harder (Credited as Squid Vicious/Jokor, King of the Orcs) - Bass/Vocals
Adrian White (Credited as Dances with Chickens/Underwator) - Drums and hysteria
Additional Personnel:
Bob Wagner - Additional drums
Chris Valagao - Vocals (Oats Peas Beans and Barley)
Jed Simon - Backup vocals
Byron Stroud - Backup vocals
Welcome to (technically) Dev’s first solo album. Not what you were expecting, right?
Cooked on Phonics was released under the name “Punky Brüster” in 1996. The album was recorded in 1995 at Red Stripe studios, and took “A week and a half to write, 6 days to record, and 12 hours to mix.” according to Dev. The record was written as a parody of the growing Pop-Punk scene at the time, specifically bands like Green Day and The Offspring. It features Ocean Machine bassist John Harder and former SYL drummer Adrian White.
Cooked on Phonics is a concept album. It tells the story of a fictitious death metal band called Cryptic Coroner, from South Central Poland, who decide to become a Punk band called Punky Brüster to make more money. Their story is narrated by Dev. Tracks 1-10 cover the main story. The Girls Next Door is a part of the story but for whatever reason comes along after the story has ended. Larry’s O doesn’t seem to be a part of the story. Same with the bonus track, Metalheads are Punk Rockers. As someone who loathes most Pop-Punk…I kinda like this record. The songs are fun and catchy even if the story is silly. Some standout tracks are: Fake Punk, Metal Dilemma, and Wallet Chain.
This is the full artwork for Cooked on Phonics. Only a section of it was used for the HevyDevy Records re-release.
The full artwork was condensed and used for the cover of the Japanese version of the album, seen below.
Punky Brüster simultaneously is and isn’t indicative of where Dev’s music would go. While Punk music isn’t something that would appear in his music again, the idea of a concept album with narration and goofy voices is something he would revisit years down the line…
Punky Brüster was released on March 19, 1996. At first it was only released in Japan, but eventually was made available for the rest of the world through Dev’s fan club. Upon release, it made no impact whatsoever. Punky Brüster never played any live shows, and the album really is nothing more than a novelty in Dev’s catalog. Made just for fun on the side while Dev worked on the first SYL album and Ocean Machine.
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Tree of the Sun / BlastulaRecorded in October 1995, Limited release. Extremely rare.
Tracklisting:
Side A - Tree of the Sun
1. Phoenix
2. Athena / Red
Side B - Blastula
1. Contain Us
2. SpaztechPersonnel:
Jason Newsted - Bass/Vocals
Devin Townsend - Guitar/Vocals
Scott Reeder - Bass/Vocals
Dale Crover - Drums/Vocals
Dev met up again with Jason Newsted again in October 1995 along with drummer Dale Crover from the band Melvins, and bassist Scott Reeder, formerly of Kyuss. They recorded songs under two different names: Tree of the Sun, and Blastula. Some sources call Blastula “Count Blastula and the Satanitones” but the tape just says Blastula.
Not a lot is known about this project, other than that it happened. The only info I can find about it now comes from a Melvins forum thread from 2004.
https://www.themelvins.net/forum/index.php?topic=1094.0The thread contains a (now dead) link to an MTV article from 2002. Thanks to the nifty Wayback Machine, we can still read the article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20031212175944/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1459315/12272002/metallica.jhtmlOther Chophouse projects slated to surface soon include the Black Sabbath-like Tree of the Sun, which features Townsend, the Melvins' Dale Crover and ex-Kyuss bassist Scott Reeder; the "full death metal" Blastula; and the Satanitones
Like IR8, this project was just done for fun, with no possibility of becoming a full time band. I've never listened to this demo. I've been trying to hunt it down for years now, but no luck. Some say that Jason would hand out tapes from these Chophouse projects like this and IR8 after shows. Jason made one song from the project available for download at some point, but it's no longer available anywhere. Surely Jason has the tapes somewhere, but it’s unlikely that this project will ever get any kind of wide release. I doubt this project is some long lost gem waiting to be uncovered, and the few reviews I’ve seen say that it sounds like shit, but regardless I do hope it surfaces someday.
In 2017 Scott Reeder posted a photo on Instagram of the four guys from these sessions, seen above.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZBsj1ghrT5/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=63ff80e4-2e33-4fb6-93bb-32863029c4c5——————————————————————————————————————————————
Thanks for the support, I'm glad you guys are enjoying this.
The next update will come this Monday, the 20th, covering the SYL album City. I've been typing for a week straight and I need a break to eat some carrots or something idk.