Rue Morgue was known for their entertaining and energetic live show, and they put on quite a few memorable ones. May of 2000 saw them opening for Hatebreed at Hairy Mary's, a punk rock bar in Des Moines, and for their entire set, televisions were playing scenes from DeadAlive on repeat. Specifically the gorey lawnmower scene. Over and over. Other standout shows included playing with pg. 99, Since By Man, and Kill the Slavemaster at the Botanical Center in Des Moines in July of 2000 and opening for Catharsis at the same place in November of 2000. The Catharsis show would turn out to be their final set.
In March of 2000 Rue Morgue recorded in Dameon's living room with the help of Andy Koettel of Captain Three Leg fame. What came of these recording sessions were eight tracks of screaming chaotic hardcore. CDrs were burned, packaging was made, and 100 copies of this self titled release were available at shows.
1. Red Rum
2. Sufficient Outfit for the Day
3. Why the Little Frenchman Wore his Arm in a Sling
4. Man, I Stuck My Arm in the Blender Again!!!
5. Elect Archie Brooks
6. Gary Busy's Teeth
7. Tending to the Link
8. This Side of the Road
Click to download.
Eight recorded songs down and eight months after forming in the spring, Rue Morgue was to be no more. November of 2000 was their last month in existence. Multiple factors cited the breakup of the band, including Scott moving to St. Louis, Joe moving to Sioux City after the breakup of Eclipse of Eden, and Spencer not wanting to do vocals anymore. Chris went on to play guitar in Nuclear Kicks. Dameon would go on to perform in In Loving Memory for a short bit and then form This Dialogue, Scott went on to perform in Love Lost But Not Forgotten, Joe's main focus was Swing By Seven in Sioux City, and Spencer continued to play in In Loving Memory.
Special thanks to Jon Burns for the pictures. Check out his art blog here for a ton more pictures of Iowa bands:The Art of Jon Burns.
Special thanks for Jason from Old Scratch for scanning the CD cover art.
Hey thank you for this dude, thanks for everything << neckshirt.
ReplyDeleteNo problem.
ReplyDeleteI will be keeping this updated with other writeups on Iowa bands, so keep checking back.
Locked somewhere in a crashed hard drive in my parents basement deep freeze is the salvaged technoise remix of the failed recordings I did in my parents attic circa the "heyday" of Rue Morgue. Time to thaw the vault.
ReplyDeleteI have been searching for this for roughly 10 years! It had it for 3 weeks until some one broke in to my car and stole all the cds in there. I used to play "Red Rum" on my KDPS show all the time. Thanks a lot for this.
ReplyDeletei managed to find a copy of this on cd and cassette! i was very surprised about finding the tape version of this. would you happen to know how many tapes were pressed?
ReplyDeleteSorry this took a second to get back to you. I live with the drummer of this band and he says "tapes weren't cool at the time" so it was originally on CDr, and as far as he knows, unless Damien dubbed tapes later, only CDrs were available from the band.
ReplyDeletethe cassette version i have was put out my x309x319x records out of il. ask him and see if he remembers that label putting it out later on or something!
ReplyDeleteWELL WELL WELL
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RUE-MORGUE-Demo-CS-OOP-RARE-Orchid-Jeromes-Dream-Saetia-/200634342955
Yeah, drummer had no clue that this even existed. He thinks that dudes in Organs in the Quad Cities probably put it out at one time or another. Cool.
Hi this is Tasha, tell Joe hello!! This was pretty amazing to come across!! Thank you for putting this together. Brings back alot of great memories. I miss you all!!!!!
ReplyDeleteJohnnie Cluney put out that tape with the help of Joe Slonecker. The label was called, x309x319x He wasn't in Organ. He was in Cine Mensura. Just heard the news that Dameon passed away. Saddened to hear this.
ReplyDeleteNolan from Off cloud nine released this on wax in 2014
ReplyDeleteLyrics?
ReplyDelete