The Long History
the racing pisshorses began in 1994 with jj and ryan, and geoff playing guitar. JJ spent all summer calling ryan and geoff's houses getting them to practice. They finally performed for people in jj's garage in october and december..after that geoff's enthusiasm expired so he was booted carrying his amplifier, blown out courtesy of jj and eric's trip. Then they played as a 2 piece with jj playing bass (occasionally guitar) and ryan playing drums, they would also play as jj playing drums and ryan playing guitar. They had many obnoxious shows at various coffee houses, gymnasiums, basements, and garage of jj's in which they were completely wrapped in music they played. Having fun was priority. They made a seven inch record in july 1995...the grandparents tape was made in january 1996...and bipolar freezerburn fest was oct. 1996...these are the defining recordings of eeffoc & maps. In december of 1996 they enlisted drew ziegler of the vermin spit as drummer. They recorded a lot of miscellaneous songs with drew at imsa itl/tvpl studio 2 months later..they played 2 shows with drew, but he didn't show up to the third one.....this 'third one..' in july '97, was a show with 'thank goodness for plotka' held at tiamat records in peoria, illinois. Plotka was a band with mike richards in it. now, mike had gotten ahold of the grandparents tape and the bipolar freezerburn fest. mike had written a letter to jj, expressing his enjoyment of the mindset of the pisshorses' music and his desire to collaborate. in june of '97, ryan and jj and mike and bandmate jeremy drove to a barn out in the country and each respective band played for one another.. ryan and jj dug mike's drumming right away. so, the pisshorses hooked up a show. since drew left the band, jj and ryan asked mike if he would drum at the following week's show. that show got cancelled, but jj, ryan and mike practiced a few hours in october and played their first show together on Halloween. it was the first in several shows that were very crazy and haphazard. they would improvise a song or five at every show. This halloween show erupted in cacophany of human collisions. JJ and ryan ended up rolling around on the floor and mike jumped up on the pool tables and ran around beating a hi hat cymbal. this show defined the psychotic bliss of this period. They later played in metamora with some big fancy peoria bands and enjoyed akward silences between songs...until jj would burp loooudly into the microphone and speak jibberish in german. A fun night for a superiorly snobby crowd.
Well, that was awhile ago.Ryan left the band after the summer of 1999. He did help record "Bartered Ether" from "The Salamander Slithers" in early 2000. He's off studying to become a music teacher.
After Ryan left, Randy S. from rebekah's tape joined the band, playing bass. He played a couple shows with us, in March and June of 2000 and January of 2001 (scary gutter bar). He left sometime after that. Then we recruited Cory to play a couple shows in summer 2001 in Spring Valley and Peru, and a couple shows in June 2002. We played at the PCW in Spring Valley in the summer of 2001, in their wrestling ring in 100 degree heat. A crazy but full blown performance. Everything's been sporadic for awhile, but the intent is still there.