Sound of My Own Voice

Where's Tommy (1990)

Led by guitarist Tom Mitchell, Sound of My Own Voice (SOMOV) formed in 1988 and released three hard-to-find cassettes and a single before breaking up sometime around 1990. The single, "Where's Tommy," occasionally turns up around New York and is a fine example of the sort of Feelies/REM inspired college rock of the day.  However, the band's repertoire was far deeper than that as evidenced from cassettes such as Greatest Hits, March, and Lunch with Duncan.

Jim Gibson, who runs the aptly named Noiseville Records, discovered the band when vocalist Jamie Trecker sent him a tape and released 1,000 copies of their sole single. The tapes had sold fairly well in Syracause, and Gibson had plans to release a full-length album, but the band broke up and the album never materialized.

According to Trecker, the band broke up for "lots of reasons. The thing is, I think we felt like not many people really got SOMOV, and we were kind of sick of playing to small crowds and slaving away in our rooms and attic on stuff. Syracuse was really into hair metal then, and it was tough to find bills to play on because of that. We didn't do covers, and you know, we were kinda weird. The irony was when we disbanded, all of sudden, people were into us."

SOMOV recently played a sold-out reunion show in Syracuse and are playing another show on October 14th in Chicago. They are also finally releasing that lost lp on Noiseville. Check SOMOV's Facebook page here for much more info...

Honda

Bruce Jenner (1993)
Incense and Peppermints (1993)

Ask any music lover from Pensacola, Florida, about early ‘90s bands, and Honda will inevitably come up. Singer and songwriter Rusty Dungan was older than most of the other kids in bands, and many looked up to him as a father figure—a drunken, occasionally brilliant father figure who often brought entire pitchers of beer on stage.

Along with band mates Ryan Nalley, Mike Kirkpatrick, and Jay Thomas, Dungan aimed to create a sound somewhere between Mudhoney and Syd Barrett.  Honda frequenly played shows at local dives like Sluggo's, the Handlebar, and occasionally the Niteowl, the local heavy metal club. During their short career, Honda self-released two cassettes.  The six song Honda came out in 1992, and Throw Like a Girl appeared in 1993.  They also managed a short East Coast tour in Mike’s mother’s station wagon and saved money by sleeping in the pop-up camper.

Dungan’s residences included a garage and a supposedly haunted basement, but friends mostly remember the time when he lived in a tent.  According to friend Ryan Gensemer, who played with Dungan in Inca Kola, “We would walk out on a bluff and yell, and he’d come crawling out of the woods for practice.”

"Bruce Jenner" is a highlight of Throw Like a Girl, which was recorded with Tommy Hamilton at Georgia Street Studios. (It also appears on my CD series Tiny Idols Vol. 3, which just came out in July.) Another highlight of the album is drummer Jay Thomas' insane, over-the-top cover of "Incense and Peppermints."