POSTHUMOUS CD READY FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION!
After some extensive mastering by Jack and Barry Corliss, we've now got a CD available to the masses featuring three years of CK5 material! These 20 tunes were recorded by Jack at the now-defunct Reciprocal Recording in Seattle between the years 1988 and 1990.

The songs included on this CD are:
Boss Rad • Do You Do • Shoot to Kill • Mecca • Tacklebox • Exapno Mapcase • Life is a Fill of Toast • 4th Hole • Skaface (live) • Poquito Burrito (live) • Mark I (live) • Fungus (live) • Bedouin Stomp • Scarab • Grommet • Another October • Foreign Dreams • Scheherezade • Mecca 2001 Remix • Essay on the Fate of Western Civilization

You can purchase this CD from Anatomic Recordings now!

4TH HOLE / BEDOUIN STOMP 7"
In 1989, Chip, Jaime and Jack recorded Scheherezade, which was to be released as a full-length by C/Z. This single was all that materialized, though we hope to feature some of the unreleased material on the "new thang".

8-SONG DEMO / 8-SONG LIVE CASSETTE
All the hits! Mecca, Shoot to Kill, Fill of Toast, Do You Do, Ethel, Vaults of Mithering, Tackle Box, 4th Hole, Boss Rad, Exapno Mapcase, Poquito Burrito, Skaface, Long Haul, Mark I, and Fungus. Half studio, half live...It's what your friends are eating.

SECRETIONS
One could devote an entire site to this Seattle compilation from 1988. You might not recognize the band names, but several of the musicians on this comp are still playing locally today, many whose names you know and trust. The bands in question are Capping Day, Coffin Break, Color Anxiety, Couch of Sound, Fred, H-Hour, Pure Joy, Skin Yard, Vertigo Bus, Vexed, Weather Theatre, and us. Liner notes by Jack! And unfortunately, not much has changed in Seattle since he wrote about the impending threat of the Teen Dance Hall Ordinance... So until we have time to compose any sort of site pertaining to this release, ask us about it.

A FAR CRY
Released on C/Z in 1994, this compilation focuses on women in independent music, with such artists as Antietam, Babe the Blue Ox, Dirt Fishermen, God Is My Co-pilot, Jarboe and Ann Magnuson to name a few. Jaime's song "Shoot to Kill" is the CK5 track, also featured on Secretions.

We were written up in Seattle's music monthly The Rocket once. Cam Garrett took our picture (at the top of the page). It went something like this:

"There's a real Seattle sound," proclaim the members of Seattle's Crypt Kicker 5, "and we're not it." Perhaps that explains why, after playing around town for almost three year, opening for bands such as the U-Men, 45 Grave and the Blackouts, and even reigning for a while as the house band at the now-defunct Ditto Tavern, they remain virtually unknown in the Seattle music press.

Maybe it's also because the Crypt Kickers (Chip Doring, guitar, Rhonda Pelikan, vocals and guitar, Jaime Caffery, bass and vocals and Jack Endino, drums) are such a quirky foursome, with a wild, complex and uncompromising approach to music, which the first-time listener may find a tad challenging.

They find it amusing that they are being interviewed (via long distance telephone) by the Rocket's Vancouver, B.C. desk instead of by a reporter in Seattle. But it doesn't surprise them, or me. The Crypt Kicker 5 have packed houses on more than one occasion in Vancouver, their demo tape is receiving good airplay on Vancouver's biggest college radio station, CITR, and they've even been written up in the station's magazine, The Discorder. So how come they are more successful and better known north of the border than in their own hometown? "A lot of bands have to go away to make it," surmises Caffery. She's right; sometimes people don't see a good thing when it's right under their noses. The Crypt Kickers are a good thing. And they're right under your nose.

They describe their sound as "surf-punk-ska-country-fusion-rock-with a twist o'lime," and site musical influences from Stravinsky to the Ventures to Johnny Cash.

They have songs with funny titles like "Life Is A Fill Of Toast," "Exapno Mapcase" and one called "Tacklebox" because it's full of hooks. They play mostly instrumentals, Pelikan explaining that "It's just too hard to sing sometimes, and putting in vocals would just clutter the songs up." I think it's because they put on such wild and frenzied live performances that they're too busy being crazy to remember the lyrics.

Doring really gets the audience going when he runs onto the dance floor and plays amidst a throng of sweaty dancers, leaps on top of tables, then turns back and runs circles around Pelikan until her legs are wrapped up in yards of guitar cord. And when the diminutive Pelikan does get around to singing, she's got a voice that's at least five sizes too large. Caffery, who began her musical career as a classically trained cellist, turns musicians green with envy with her fretless bass style. And behind all this mayhem is drummer Endino (who also plays guitar in another Seattle band, Skin Yard) who drives the musical madness on, and keeps it all together.

Unfortunately, the band doesn't have any songs down on vinyl yet, although they may be appearing on a local compilation LP in the near future. Don't despair, or even wait though, because they are releasing a cassette of their music (ask for it at your fave record shop) and you can always catch them live. Better yet, do both.

-Lane D. Hartwell

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mercury 4 Chip's band, heavy on the surf

Mighty Shiny Rhonda's hard pop band.

Mr. Jack Endino See what the man's been up to.

C/Z Records Alas, there are no more CK5 releases available, but many of your favorite popular Seattle artists can be found here.

Anatomic Recordings Buy your copy of CK5's CD here, as well as Mighty Shiny and others