So Friday night the wife and I went downtown (sans baby) to meet up with my sister, her boyfriend, and a few old friends. We ended up drinking the likes of Bell’s Amber, Three Floyd’s Pride & Joy, and even some Fat Tire at a pretty chill little spot called the Hungry Brain (near Belmont & Western).
Anyhow, one of those old friends (Andy) is currently playing drums for a band called Rager (that I have yet to hear but have heard great things about). He also used to be the drummer for the legendary xHIKEx.
xHIKEx was a genre-defying mess of a band that called themselves “Innovators of free-form progressive hardcore” and said that they were “whisky-drinking meat-eating vegan straightedge.” During their too-brief existence (roughly 1999-2001), they opened for bands who were fixtures on MTV and played in in front of a packed room while the headliners would play for 12 people and walk off stage utterly frustrated. xHIKEx is legendary. They were abusive and obnoxious but people loved them. Musically speaking, xHIKEx didn’t really have any songs, but rather concocted 35 second long improvised blasts of noise and screaming that was oftentimes closer to preformance-art than anything musical. They were destructive and chaotic and could (maybe) be compared to the likes of Assuck, Spazz, or maybe a garbage disposal. My brother played guitar for xHIKEx as well.
The songs below are from their one and only recording, Big Ups To Straight Edge which was a cassette-only release of which only 50-100 copies were ever made. They recorded approximately 20 songs while under the influence of one-and-a-half gallons of Old Crow Whiskey and too many Old Styles to count and. The end result can only be described as brilliant. Only two songs, “…Pinkeye” and “C. Everett Koop” were intentionally written (by the band) and performed more than once. I personally highly recommend their cover of Journey’s “Anyway You Want It.” If you can get past the 1st chorus you’ll be handsomely rewarded.
MP3 | xHIKEx – Bad Metal
MP3 | xHIKEx – Olympia Beer & Turkey Sammiches
MP3 | xHIKEx – Breakfast
MP3 | xHIKEx – Breakin’ Hearts & Breakin’ Necks
MP3 | xHIKEx – C. Everett Koop
MP3 | xHIKEx – Anyway You Want It
MP3 | xHIKEx – Forcefield
MP3 | xHIKEx – We Should Play Something Hardcore
MP3 | xHIKEx – I See Dead Peeps
MP3 | xHIKEx – The House Of The Rising Son
MP3 | xHIKEx – Hope I Don’t Get Kurt’s Pinkeye
MP3 | xHIKEx – Clown Jam
MP3 | xHIKEx – So Happy Together
MP3 | xHIKEx – Hut Hut xHIKEx
MP3 | xHIKEx – I Just Learned How To Tie A Tie And I’m 22
MP3 | xHIKEx – Adrian
MP3 | xHIKEx – A Messy Attempt At Making Sense Of Hippies
MP3 | xHIKEx – Jackalackin
MP3 | xHIKEx – Choose Your Future
MP3 | xHIKEx – Elian
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how fun! I can’t wait for a time when Jim and I do that too. The only “city” we get to go to is spokane though…if only Seattle were a little closer…
Greatest band of all time. Hands down.
This post will be comforting to those who were around for xhikex, as they can re-live the memories of the most phenomenal of bands. This post will also cause much grief to all those who never experienced xhikex, and of course now wish they had.
woo hoo! it’s about damn time. how long have i been asking you to do this.
long live xhikex
i totally remember that journey cover. you played that for me ages ago.
oh and thanks alot for making the ‘old’ link to me. are you trying to give me a complex?
Amazing. That was awesome.