Kill Creek and Killing Baseball...

It's the month of May and I am ready to go. At least for now.

A bit off topic here for a bit however. I know, nobody probably wants to hear me rant about something. What's even worse is that it's about sports and a certain sports commentator who I absolutely cannot listen to. The name is Joe Morgan. Yes, the Emmy winning broadcaster for major sports network ESPN. Baseball games are entirely ruined by this man, and last night I was glad to find out that I am not alone in this sentiment when I stumbled across a blog entirely dedicated to the idea of him being fired, which can be found here. We all know it would probably never ever happen, but being able to take solace in the fact that I am not the only one out there that finds his antics and commentary on baseball completely infuriating is a pretty nice feeling. Actually anymore the entire ESPN baseball sportscasting crew is fairly intolerable. It's almost painful to watch Baseball Tonight. Give me Steve Stone over any of these ass hats. Anyway, moving on...

I found this to be a pleasant surprise when I stumbled across it a few months ago while sifting through used CD's. Apparently released in 2004, The Will to Strike is a retrospect of Kill Creek's work through 1989 to basically somewhere around 1999 or so and can be found on Second Nature. Even better it happens to contain Kill Creek's first two albums St. Valentine's Garage and Proving Winter Cruel, which before I had only heard through very poorly ripped MP3's, so I was pretty enlightened to find this. For those that aren't aware already, Kill Creek is a rock band that hails from Lawrence Kansas, which is not to far from where I reside. Anyway, the band was formed way back in 1986, however meandered along recording various demos and tracks of their pop influenced brand of post-punk for random compilations. All this led up until their eventual release of their EP Stretch, which would soon be followed by St. Valentine's Garage. The band through that time and to the present has basically remained the same in key members Scott Born, Patrick Grassy, and Ron Hayes. The band has gone through a number of drummers however. Continuing forth, Kill Creek would release Proving Winter Cruel in 1996, which sort of strayed away from the original power pop approach they had on their debut in favor of a more straight rock record with that classic Midwestern feel. Another album was apparently recorded sometime later, however was terminated and never released, although some of the songs would show up as reworked versions for 2001's Colors of Home on Second Nature Records.

This two disc compilation serves as a very good introduction to the band and a good purchase for already Kill Creek fans as each disc includes one of the full length albums and a number of selected rare tracks and other hard to find material from various years. Take a listen to the tracks below and if you like, go out and find this compilation or some of the out of print records by this incredibly overlooked rock band. Either that you can pick up The Will to Strike over at Blue Collar Distro.

Kill Creek - Unsteady [MP3]
Kill Creek - The Flood V.1 [MP3]
Kill Creek - Todd Newman [MP3]
Kill Creek - Gett On [MP3]
Kill Creek - 39 Fingers [MP3]

Also, drop by the Kill Creek website for more.