By Henry H. Owings & Brian Teasley

Inspiration
You know those incredulous fucking urban myths where some worm-burping high school kid runs off the road, breaks through the guardrail and flips his car over, only to be trapped by the smashed hood and inflated air bag with the cassingle for George Michael’s "I Want Your Sex" looping round and fucking round again? Same goddamn thing here, minus the Jaws of Life coming to save your ass. You’re on your own. Prepare to know what it feels like to have a dirty unicorn fuck you in one ear with his horn and your other ear with his nubby unicorn cock.

The Mission
Create for combat purposes a tape so wretched and foul that anyone who listens to it for 24 hours will never be able to think straight again. Some minor guidelines being that the material must be predominantly from your own record collection and should fit a standard 90-minute cassette tape. Some of you would consider that old school, but to us it just makes it more annoying.

Objective
Survive a full waking day (roughly 18 hours) of an opponent’s battle mix. Pure hate drives the competition. There are no true breaks from the sonic storm. The music must remain at least 70 decibels at all times. Cheaters only cheat themselves of surviving pure audio torture. This is not for the weak at ear. Hearing loss and bad taste are pluses in this endeavor. Prepare to have your earhole raped into a tethered pile of cartilage. — by Brian &Henry

OWINGS
I’m going to start this thing off honestly. I’m not proud of this, nor do I encourage other people to do this, but I cheated. Not once, but twice. Why? Oh, that’s easy to explain.
When Brian suggested this idea, I was enthusiastic, but a bit stumped by the rule that we could only collect material from our own record collection. Now, I know that a lot of my friends avidly purchase esoteric, outsider and/or irony-laden recordings from thrift stores, but I’ve just never had the tolerance for it. My point being, why would you have a record in your collection that intentionally sucks? If you only whip it out to shock or amuse once every two years, that’s called "dead wood" at my place. Even when I told Brian this, he insisted that I come up with a torture tape. After closely analyzing what I had at my disposal, I knew I was screwed. So I ended up doing what any fella would do in my position. I cheated.

With the torture tape’s h-hour but three days away, I went to Wuxtry Records and explained my quandary. Using some of their recommendations to guide me, I gathered and was allowed to borrow a box of 30 records and about 10 singles that I sifted through for the ultimate in sonic torture. For two hours I hovered over the turntable, and thought I made a respectable entry. However, once my girlfriend woke up and heard what I had in store for Brian, she smirked at how weak my entry was.
For fear of further embarrassment, here’s a sampling of the first six tracks on Torture Tape Mk. I: Mister Mister "Kyrie;" Dan Fogelberg "Longer Than; "Starship "We Built This City;" Captain and Tenille "Muskrat Love;" Richard Marx "Should’ve Known Better;" Billy Crystal "You Look Mahvelous."

I am guessing that I can only blame myself for the mediocrity. I just thought of songs that would drive me crazy while I was sifting thru crates of records. As was relayed to me by my girlfriend, Brian’s tape would morph me into either a stark raving mad lunatic or Prozac’s poster child. So, I went back to the drawing board, and cheated yet again.

Now, whereas I don’t claim to have any insight whatsoever to the more seedy realms of eccentric music, my good friend Garth does. So for Torture Tape Mk. II I decided to go whole hog and let Garth concoct what would become a more suitable entry. I knew even upon Brian’s inception of this idea that I was going to suck, but fortunately enough on twelve hours notice, I had a selection of errata presented to me that would make a grown man (or at least a partially-grown drummer) weep. And how long did it take Garth to come up with his masterstroke? About 20 minutes. God bless him.

So with that out of the way, on to Brian’s torture tape. In all candor, if I’d turned in Torture Tape Mk. I, I would’ve been destroyed. Side A starts off innocently enough with Devo’s weak-ass-weak "Theme to Doctor Detroit," but it ends with Brian’s own Metal Machine Music composition from that grunge band he played bongos for in the ‘90s. Their name escapes me. I want to say The Aquabats, but I know that’s wrong. Side B is no less punishing, as it begins with the incalculably maddening "New Number Order" by Shellac and is finished off by a horrid one-two punch; first, with the "Gingerbread Man," and then, the never-ending Robert Ashley "piece" that I learned to dread more than a root canal from a blind man. How many times did I endure this tape? No fewer than 14 times around. Did I lose my mind? Yes, probably around the fourth time. Did I ever regain my composure? Oh, most definitely. Probably around the ninth listen. Am I proud of the fact that I cheated? No. Am I proud that Garth’s sonic concoction drove Brian to the brink of insanity? Duh. That’s not exactly something you get to do every day, now is it?

TEASLEY
After a complete 17 insufferable listens of this barbaric, ass-melting retardo music, I’m beyond fucked up. Music is stupid. I can finally understand people who say they don’t listen to it. I have learned this: Outsider art is what it is—moronic horseshit made by people who couldn’t piss in their own pants properly. I’m ready to throw my own fucking ashes into the wind. My ghost will haunt The Kids of Widney High like the devil’s own embittered, gorged bladder of hatred. Please save your sorry, na95ve mole-brain and never try this. Don’t be next in line, you sad sack of poo. This pure waste of time nearly caused my suicide, or at least "death by misadventure" (like it read on Bon Scott’s death certificate). Imagine drinking Special Olympics port-a-john toilet water for 18 hours and you can approximate the memory I must now use all my remaining strength to block out for the rest of my pathetic life. Fuck you, Henry. Fuck you all.

Brian’s tape for Henry (in order):
"Theme From Doctor Detroit" Devo; "Hyperventilation" Helios Creed; "Macho Duck"Donald Duck; "Don’t Worry Baby"Keith Moon; "(Tear Their) Syphilitic Vaginas to Pieces"G.I.S.M.; "Take You Back (Tough Gym)" Frank Stallone (Rocky III Soundtrack); "Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind" Flaming Lips; "PeppermintMan"Dick Dale; "Whisper A Prayer/The Story Of Daniel" Big Sounds For Little Ears; "Pecos Bill" Disney Soundtrack; "Multi-variational Stimuli of Sub-Turgid Foci Covering Crossevaluative Techniques For Cognitive Analysis of Hypersignificant Graph Peaks Following Those Intersubjective Modules Having Biodegradable Seepage"Man or Astro-Man?; "New Number Order"Shellac; "Hogtied"Cowslingers; "In TheFace of Coldness"Superstar Dan Theman; "School Days" Gentle Giant; "Rock Easy, No Bounce, Floor Stretch"Mary Lou Retton; "Love Balm" Cold Water Army; "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep"Lullaby and Goodnight; "Punk Side Story" Schlong; "Sonic Attack"Hawkwind; "Gingerbread Man"Candyland album; "Nova Musicha n.3" Robert Ashley

Henry’s tape for Brian (in order):
"Also Sprach Kazoostra" Temple City Kazoostra; "I Feel Fine" The Beatle Barkers; "Eating is Fun, Eating is Serious" Chris "Corky" Burke; "Neutron Dance" Del Rubio Triplets; "Shouts of Ol8E"Carmen; "Dur Dur D'Etre, Bebe" Jordy; "Beach Patrol" Hulk Hogan; "Volare" Jack Mudurian; "Insects" Kids of Widney High; "There's No Business Like Show Business (Disco Version)" Ethel Merman; "Any Friend of Jesus is a Friend of Mine" Rappin' Rabbit; "What is this Generation Coming To?" Robert Mitchum; "No Dope No Drugs" Mr. T; "Jesus Wants to Live in Your Heart" Lil' Markie; "Telstar" Joe Meek; "Anal Sadistic" Mike Kelley; "Blue Suede Shoes" Eilert Pilarm; "Downright" Price Waterhouse Cooper; "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" Jack Mudurian; "These Boots are Made for Walking" Crispin Hellion Glover; "Don't Judge Me" Girls With Attitude; "He's Such A Man" Princess Diana (The Musical); "You're Drivin' Me Mad" Alvin Dahn; "How Great Thou Art" Shooby Taylor; "Give Peace a Chance" Mitch Miller; "Yodelling Overture" Mary Schneider; "The Most Unwanted Song" Komar and Melamid
 

Willy Tyler Torture Tape - side A

Willy Tyler Torture Tape - side B