The classic CD compilation “In-Flight Program” from 1997! It kinda worked as a sampler for what Revelation had to offer at that point, and GOD they had really good stuff. A healthy mix of emo and hardcore, doesn’t get more 90s than this! <3
Every Record I Own - Day 383: Engine Kid Angel Wings
The first time I saw Engine Kid was March ‘94 at OK Hotel in Seattle opening for Undertow. I knew nothing about the band at the time and I was annoyed by their lethargic tempos and protracted quiet parts. I was at a hardcore show and I wanted to see hardcore bands. But my friends were smitten and I was repeatedly forced to listen to “Winter Time” off their Bear Catching Fish record until I eventually got the appeal of their ham-fisted, glacial paced riffs.
And then I couldn’t get enough of them. They were a local Seattle band, so my friends and I caught every all ages show of theirs that we could. I remember waiting what seemed like years for Revelation Records to put Angel Wings out (it was released later in ‘94, but time seems much longer when you’re a teenager), and I saw the band so much over that year that I was already familiar with songs like “Holes To Fight In,” “Fanbelt,” and “Lies Like Knives.” Botch even got a chance to play one or two shows with them in that time.
But by the end of 1995 it seemed like Engine Kid had disappeared. I caught their guitarist Greg Anderson, his hair now grown out, playing in an even slower and more tortured project called Thorr’s Hammer at one of the two now-legendary shows they played in Seattle before Anderson relocated to LA. Their other guitarist was the token long-hair metal dude at every hardcore show I went to in Seattle back in the early-to-mid-’90s---a guy by the name of Stephen O’Malley. A few years later, Anderson and O’Malley would start SunnO)).
Now Greg Anderson is known almost exclusively for slow tortured riffs, but back in ‘94 he’d had a much different trajectory. He’d started off in a Youth of Today-inspired hardcore band (Brotherhood), then moved on to a Revolution Summer-style band (Galleon’s Lap), and then landed in the Slint-with-Melvins-parts trio Engine Kid. And while I’ve been a fan of nearly everything he’s done since, Engine Kid is still my favorite project of his.
On December 16, Chris Vandebrooke, a respected and talented drummer in the rock groups Fairgrove and Engine Kid, was killed in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. As of this writing, the LAPD has released no further details on the investigation. Though neither band was ever hugely popular, both left a deep mark on Seattle music—Engine Kid in particular, perhaps the closest this city ever came to matching the emotional resonance of Slint, an angular, enigmatic,...
Please read Dave Segal’s piece I’ve linked above before continuing.
Three years back my good friend Mackro, who is now off social media even more than I, wrote a lovely piece which I reblogged at the time here: http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/99772321577/mackro-how-do-you-save-a-ghost-ive-been
I won't restate Mackro’s words but I urge you to read it; it's one of the finest things I've ever read on the subject of closeness, inspiration, and when connections fade. As he says in the piece, I was there when Chris came down to visit back in 2000, and my memories of him and his friend Jef were both very positive -- he was a happy and engaging sort, and while I didn't attend that year's version of the festival in question, I thought it was a fun visit all around.
When Mackro moved a few months later, I remember being very sad myself -- he was my closest friend all that decade since I arrived at UCI in 1992 -- but it rapidly was clear that, as he says in his piece, he had done the best thing possible for himself, and I could just as easily see and sense it too. Chris's role in that was incalculable. I am forever grateful for him for, however unconsciously, helping Mackro on that path, something that was key.
But as you can see, the story as Mackro told it ended on a note of uncertainty three years back. Now, sadly, we know more, though still not all. Due to my reblog still being available I was approached online soon after word began to circulate under the assumption I was the author; I was able to put Mackro in touch with a number of people who expressed their sorrow and had even closer connections to Chris, as well as passing on my own condolences for this horrible situation. There is a memorial page that was established by his family; Mackro’s own thoughts can be found there as well as many others, and they speak to the depth of feeling: http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/chris-vandebrooke/homepage.aspx
I feel unable to add more myself without sounding gauche or unnecessarily performative, since beyond that weekend visit I didn't know him, but the sorrow and the larger issues at play -- of health, of mental care, of homelessness and more, and how sometimes even lucky breaks or good intentions aren't enough -- say much of what I could add. I will leave it at that, and I hope he rests well.
