Welcome to the latest spotlight on one of the 26 bands/artists that will appear on the POST/POP vs Cassette Culture Collaboration Compilation (PXP006) released on March 26th. I aim to have one of these interviews every single day so by the time we release the album at the end of March you will know each band initmately! Next up is DON’T FORGET YOUR DINOSAUR! The thing I love most about DFYD is that they have introduced me to Dinocore. Everyone’s favourite dinosaur based sub-genre. I’ve already told them this, but when I first got ‘Breakfast With The Astronauts’, their submission to the Choose Your Own Adventure album, I thought to myself “WHAT THE DUCK IS THIS” and then proceeded to listen to it on repeat, lost in their dizzy world of dino-friends and dino-fiends. I’m excited for you to here it too, but before that, let’s see how they got on with those pesky questions…

First of all, GREETINGS! DON’T FORGET YOUR DINOSAUR hails from the musty, pot smoked filled swamps of PREHISTORIA - a place one might only come across through vivid psychedelic exploration of the mind. Or you know, you can just take I-20 to the junction with I-49. The humanoids around here refer to this wasteland as Shreveport, Louisiana. As far as record stores go, ten years ago you’d be lucky to find a cummed on copy of Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” in your Uncle’s porn stash. Now we’ve got several places carrying new and used albums. My personal favorite place has something like 100,000 albums, they’re called Campus Collectables. It’s where I go in search of the few Ventures records that I don’t own. We did recently have a new record store open called “Day Old Blues Records”. They’re carrying more new stuff than anything. I still search the Goodwills for as many copies of KISS’s “Destroyer” as I can find. I have a secret plan.

“Pseudo-Psychedelic-Bubblegum-Surf-Punk”. Is that too long? Dinocore.

DINOSAURS, outer space, dinosaurs in outer space, substances. This local BBQ joint called Big D’s Barbecue atop anything. It’s an old gas station turned into the most amazing BBQ place ever. The owner, Big D, he’s like our grandfather, and we’re his “white grandchildren” (his words). He’s known us for YEARS, always has a badass story to tell, or an ear to listen. Big D has let us have shows at this place during our entire relationship with him, too, through cops shutting it down, and trying to shut his restaurant down because of these shows, he’s always had our backs. He’s told them he’ll go to jail but we’re going to play. He’s probably the only reason any of the bands that we play with in our area exist. If you’re ever in Shreveport..err..Prehistoria, go check it out - 101 Common Street, Shreveport, LA 71101. It’s legit, we promise. Atop that: comic books, Saturday Night N64 Pizza Pocket Parties, 90s skate videos. Oh, and definitely Dick Dale - just as a human being for sure. The dude is pushing eighty, still surfs and tours, has been straight edge his entire life (not our thing but we respect it immensely), and after he got out of his Capitol contract he made it a point to tell musicians about the bullshit that comes with something like that. Now he’s pretty much DIY or die - we’re just stupid punk kids who have been playing together for nearly ten years, booking all of our tours with each other and recording ourselves and putting the albums out by ourselves. When your role model musician confirms your own philosophy, you tend to cling to them more than ever.

Oh, and Easy Rider. Definitely Easy Rider.

I’ve been a lurker on /r/cassetteculture for quite a while. My first albums were on tapes in the 90s. I’ll always have a love for them. When we’ve gone out on tours, we always come across TAPES TAPES TAPES, and we only had a tape player in the van, so we started listening to the tapes we’d buy instead of waiting to get home, along with the cassette adapted iPod, UNTIL our van got broken into in Chicago last winter and they stole my iPod, none of our gear - which was really fortunate. So we really got into the tapes we brought along, stuff from Jeffery Drag Records who have always hooked us up, bands we were playing with, our good friends from Chicago MAGIC MILK, etc. I decided to submit the songs because I loved the “CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE” concept and figured I didn’t stand to lose anything by sending in some tracks. I didn’t really think anything would come of it, but you seem to dig some of it, so we’re elated.

You are in a dusty room. Time hangs heavy in the air. Before you is an ancient table, carved from a twisted tree that once stood proudly atop a lost mountain. Upon this great table is a gilded envelope. You open the envelope slowly, knowing that it will give you the answer that you have been waiting for ever since you started this journey. You have lost many friends and gained untold enemies along the way. All for this. This moment. You carefully remove the parchment, feeling the edges until it draws blood. You notice not, as your eyes flicker across the page. Your blind companion, so loyal, even though you traded his eyes for safe passage and a mixtape, brings his ear close to your lips and asks you the question. “What did the letter say?” and your answer is…

It’s in braille, you read it!

I do listen to tapes. Like I said earlier, it’s become something I actively search to collect more than vinyl now. It’s portable, it doesn’t scratch as easy. It’s cheaper. The cassette case gives just as much of an opportunity to create a visual aesthetic as a 12″ sleeve does. The coolest part is that you can do so much with a cassette, nearly as much as you can with a computer and some basic audio software. I remember twenty years ago playing with a microphone and a boombox in my room for hours and hours, learning how to slow down playback, record at half speed, etc. Hell, the first album my first band made was done so going straight to tape! Well, it was a microphone going into a tiny little cassette recorder, and it sounded like shit, but the energy was there and you could tell we meant something with it. The rawness of a cassette gets me going, the little crackles, having to flip the thing, rewinding it to hear a song again, rewinding too much, trying to fast forward and going to far. It’s a challenge, but when you get to that one track, you worked for it and it means so much more than clicking play on your iTunes. Kids today just don’t get what you had to go through even just ten years ago to come across music. And yeah, I do think tapes have a future. They’re already making a fundamental comeback in the DIY tour scene with trades and distros going on. You don’t have to invest $1200 to put your album out on vinyl for another band to take you seriously. Show them a tape (or a DIY CD for that matter, in a normal case and shit) and the ones worth knowing know you’ve put some work in and that you’re in for the long haul. Tapes mean something to the people that will buy them, and that’s what has and will keep it alive.

The rhythm section of Don’t Forget Your Dinosaur is the reason to listen to it. Afroraptor (Jesse - Drums) and Jesusopteryx (Connor - Bass) have worked their asses off over the years creating this connection and dynamic between the two of them that I have never seen anywhere else. You should definitely try to hone in on what those two are doing. Also, you should listen on headphones and smoke drugs whilst doing so.

That you listening to the track means more than just about anything else in the world to me. Put simply, one person acknowledging this one little thing we’ve done gives my life purpose. It’s given me drive to keep writing when I don’t have anything to write about, to keep playing when we’re exhausted, to keep driving when we’re falling asleep. It keeps thesedinosaurs from going extinct. Don’t you forget it.

- Dinosaurus (Jarod - Guitars and Mouth)

Thanks DFYD! Below are the bands I have interviewed who are also appearing on Choose Your Own Adventure (I keep almost writing Choose Your Own Dinosaur - maybe that will be my dinocore compilation album!) so have a read and get to know these future stars!

CHARLES STRICKLAND EXPRESS

MORMON GIRLS

REVUE

THIS COLD NIGHT

GIRLS ON THE BEACH & PASTY CLINE

OURSELVES THE ELVES

YOU CAN NOW PREORDER “CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE” BY CLICKING HERE.

Jed