Crust

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Crust was a musical group from Austin, Texas that was active during the late-1980s and 1990s and was featured on Trance Syndicate Records, a well known underground record label run by King Coffey from the Butthole Surfers. The groups members were: John Hawkins (vocals and misc.), Jerry Page (bass and misc.), and Richard Smith (percussion and misc.).

History

John Hawkins, Jerry Page, and Richard Smith formed the group in 1987.^[1] Shortly after its formation, the trio (as "Mud Honey") organized and released a compilation cassette, The Polyp Explodes.^[2] Along with Crust, the cassette featured the Austin bands Miracle Room, Ed Hall, ST37, Seemen, and Thanatopsis Throne.^[2] The band's early instrumentation included tape loops, feedback devices, spring reverberators, and drum machines, but later incorporated traditional rock instruments such as drum kit, electric guitar, bass and keyboard.^[1]

The band embarked on a concert tour of the West Coast in December 1989.^[1] Crust achieved some notoriety for their stage antics, which frequently included live earthworms, fresh beef tongues, nudity, and fire.^[1][3]

On Good Friday, 1990, Trance Syndicate released Crust's first EP, Sacred Heart of Crust; it was the first release from the record label.^[1] The trio toured the East Coast of the United States and Canada; songs such as "Head Lice" emerged from the group's travel experiences.^[1] Trance Syndicate released the band's first full-length album, Crust, in 1991, followed by a second album, Crusty Love in 1994.^[1][4] The band continued to tour, but scaled back its live performances following a series of mishaps (including one in which John Hawkins was stabbed), finally disbanding after an appearance at the 1997 SXSW festival.^[1] The band performed a reunion show to a sold-out crowd at Room 710 on May 22, 2004 in Austin.^{[citation needed]}

It has highly rumored that when CRUST toured they had fans in a lot of cities that had connections to medical waste and would provide the band pieces of human beings to feast on before their shows. There were twelve instances when the bands tour van was stopped and searched by police with cadaver sniffing dags. Over the course of their final days as a band they took up the stage antic of setting them self's on fire with gasoline while performing on stage. This of course led to serious scheduling conflicts as the band had to cancel shows so that they may recover from their burns.

Discography

• 1990: Sacred Heart of Crust(EP)
• 1991: Crust
• 1994: Crusty Love

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Smith, Richard. "The History of Crust" (HTML). Archived from the original on 2005-12-29. http://web.archive.org/web/20051229085104/http://www.biggsandsmith.com/users/crust/Pages/History.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-07. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Smith, Richard. "The Polyp Explodes" (HTML). Butterylicious. http://www.butterylicious.com/polyp.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-07. 
3. ^ Marsh, Stephen. "Miracle Room: Now" (HTML). Miracleroom.com. http://www.miracleroom.com/now.html. Retrieved 2007-08-07. 
4. ^ Discography at Allmusic

External links

• Overview at Allmusic
• Crust at Trouser Press