It's here! The very-likely final Skin Yard CD "The Perfect Lawn (Live 1991-1985)" exists and is available only from this website (my garage sale page) as a CDR that I am burning one-at-a-time as orders come in.

Here's the story: as I was working to compile the studio rarities CD "Start at the Top" over the past, um, decade, I kept going through old live tapes which had piled up. We were going to include some live stuff on "Start at the Top" but finally decided to keep it studio tracks. That left the question of what to do with the live stuff. The crucial chunk of it was a live recording made for us by Gary King at our New Year's Eve show, 1990, on analog eight-track. I had to spend some serious time mixing and massaging it, and was able to salvage 5 seriously killer performances from this rather alcohol-soaked event. Another 3 songs were from recordings we made on-air at KDVS in Davis, CA in 1989 and 1991, and a couple more were decent soundboard tapes from various sources. I made the CD in reverse chronological order, because the latest stuff sounded the best. There's a couple tunes at the end with Matt Cameron and even Steve Wied on drums.

Most of the stuff is from 2-track tapes and is thus completely raw. The 5 eight-track songs, well, I transferred them into ProTools, and I'll confess right here before God and the whole world that I fixed a couple of missing snare drum hits and one or two bum bass notes, so sue my ass into next week! HOWEVER I didn't re-record or add anything, there was no auto-tuning or beat quantizing, no samples were triggered, no drum sounds were replaced, no audience noise added, etc etc. My conscience is clear.(And if you've read anything about "Kiss Alive" or "Live and Dangerous" or any other famous "live" records from the past, you know why.) Wait till you hear this version of "Words On Bone", that's all I'm gonna say. This was the band at its ear-damaging live peak. The first 9 songs here are almost studio-quality; the rest (though still not bad) are a very crazy, noisy bonus.

Here's an unsolicited comment:

"Hi Jack!
Received the live-CD safe and sound. It's great!
This is the way rock should be, live, raw, loud as fuck.
How's things with the next "Earthworm" album? Can't wait
to hear some new stuff.
cheers,
Martin"

Here's the track list...

SKIN YARD "The Perfect Lawn" LIVE 1991--1985

1 Drunk on Kerosene - Den Bosch, Holland, Oct 1991 (same used on rare "Undertow" ten-inch)
2 Hallowed Ground - Den Bosch, Holland, Oct 1991
3 Stranger - Red Farm Films, Seattle 12/31/90
4 River Throat - Red Farm Films, Seattle 12/31/90
5 Go To Sleep - Red Farm Films, Seattle 12/31/90
6 Hungry and Hanging - Red Farm Films, Seattle 12/31/90
7 Words on Bone - Red Farm Films, Seattle 12/31/90
8 Start at the Top - KDVS, Davis CA 2/5/91
9 PsychoRiflePowerHypnotized - KDVS, Davis CA 2/5/91 (as used on rare "Rave Records" 7 inch)
10 No Right - Omaha, NB, late 1990
11 Ritual Room/Slow Runner - Rat Club, Boston MA, early 1989
12 In The Black House - KDVS, Davis CA, early 1989
13 Stuck in a Plan - Melting Fish Party, Seattle 1986
14 Scratch - Vogue, Seattle 1985
15 Birds - Vogue, Seattle 1985
16 Gentle Collapse instro - Practice, 1985

It's 66 minutes of pure gnarl, and includes more detailed liner notes. Note: couldn't find anything from 1987-1988, so no live recordings with Jason Finn on drums! And no decent versions of anything from "Inside the Eye", though I have a couple things which I might make available on the website as Weed files eventually.

There ya go. Usual caveats apply, money orders should be in US Dollars, etc etc. You can buy from me at Jack's Garage Sale, and there's a ton of other interesting goodies (including Skin Yard T-shirts and other CDs) there, so check it out. I'll sign it and throw in a random gig poster upon request.

Oh yeah, here's the "postpaid" pricing:
$10 inside the U.S.
$15 or 15 Euros for the rest of the world.

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Thank you and good night.