Janitor Joe (band) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Janitor Joe, a Minneapolis noise-rock

Noise rock

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...

band, formed in 1992. Founding members were guitarist/vocalist Joachim Breuer (formerly of Minneapolis rockers the Bastards), bassist/vocalist Kristen Pfaff

Kristen Pfaff

Kristen Marie Pfaff was an American bass guitarist, best known for her work with Hole.-Early life and career:Pfaff was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, attending Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart. She spent a short time in Europe and briefly attended Boston College before ultimately...

and drummer Matt Entsminger, though bass duties were later assumed by Wayne Davis following Pfaff's departure in 1993 to join Courtney Love

Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Love is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs...

's band, Hole

Hole (band)

Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...

Career

The band's first single, Hmong, was released on the nascent OXO records imprint in 1992,
and popular local label Amphetamine Reptile picked up the band later that year, releasing the Bullethead single on picture disc, and following up in 1993 with the Boyfriend 7-inch and the debut album Big Metal Birds. One Janitor Joe track, Under the knife, can also be found on an OXO records 4-track EP, released in 1993.

Janitor Joe became a staple of the Minneapolis sound, characterised by vicious, riff-driven, thickly layered blasts of noise, influenced by the Pacific Northwest's early grunge

Grunge

Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...

sound and by the sharper, faster DC Post-hardcore

Post-hardcore

Post-hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk, itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement. Like post-punk, post-hardcore is a term for a broad constellation of groups...

scene, as well as the stop-start distortion of the Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers is an American alternative rock band formed by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been consistent since 1983. Teresa Nervosa served as second...

, Shellac

Shellac

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...

and others on the Touch and Go

Touch and Go Records

Touch and Go Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.After its genesis as a hand-made fanzine in 1979, it grew into one of the key record labels in the American 1980s alternative and underground rock scenes, Touch & Go carved out a reputation for releasing adventurous...

label. Pfaff and Breuer both contributed songs to Big Metal Birds: "Both operate within easy reach of the line separating punishment and reward: Pfaff's contributions (the surly "Boys in Blue") tend to be slightly more spacious, while Breuer's ("One Eye," for instance) stipulate that drummer Matt Entsminger maintain perpetual motion", wrote David Sprague of TrouserPress magazine.

The growing Minneapolis scene was beginning to attract music press attention in 1993. Amphetamine Reptile released a tour single, Stinker, and Janitor Joe began to tour nationally. While playing in California, Pfaff was scouted by Eric Erlandson

Eric Erlandson

Eric Erlandson is an American musician known as the co-founder, former songwriter and lead guitarist of alternative rock band Hole.-Early life and career:...

and Courtney Love

Courtney Love

of Hole

Hole (band)

, then looking for a bassist. Though she initially declined to join, Pfaff later reconsidered and moved to Seattle to work on Live Through This
Live Through This
Live Through This is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. It was released by Geffen Records on April 12, 1994, just four days after frontwoman Courtney Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in their home....

, Hole's second album.

Janitor Joe recruited Wayne Davis to replace Pfaff, and continued to write and tour. Amphetamine Reptile released Lucky, the band's second album, in 1994. Pfaff was tiring of Seattle by this time, and took a sabbatical from Hole to rejoin Janitor Joe for a spring tour. Her plans to return to Minneapolis and rejoin Janitor Joe permanently were curtailed when, in June 1994, she was found dead of a heroin overdose in her bathtub. She had planned to drive to Minneapolis the next day; her U-Haul stood, packed, in her garage.

Janitor Joe split in 1994, in the wake of Pfaff's death. Breuer and Entsminger went on to form Gnomes of Zurich with Scott Hull, and the band released an album, again on Amphetamine Reptile, entitled 33rd Degree Burns, as well as singles on Reptilian Records and Sister Records.

Singles

Hmong 7" (OXO Records, 1992, OXO 002)
1. Hmong today, Hung tomorrow
2. Prone
3. Big Nose
Bullethead 7" (Amphetamine Reptile, 1992, scale 51) picture disc, research and development series
1. Bullethead
2. KCL
Stinker 7" (Amphetamine Reptile, 1993, scale 62) tour only
1. Stinker
2. Pest
Boyfriends 7"/CDS (Amphetamine Reptile, 1993, scale 90-2 /ARR 37/245)
1. Boyfriend
2. Yellow Car

Albums

Big Metal Birds LP/CD (Amphetamine Reptile, 1993, ARR 39/247/amrep 014)
1. Early Retirement
2. Voucher
3. Boyfriend
4. Limited Edition
5. One Eye
6. Big Metal Birds
7. Boys In Blue
8. Slur
9. Steel Plate
10. Goal Oriented
11. Sunshine
12. Head
13. African Necklace
Lucky LP/CD (Amphetamine Reptile, 1994, ARR 52/326/amrep 027)
1. Fragile X
2. Pest
3. That Crazy Guy
4. Motormouth
5. Piss Corner
6. Flyblown
7. Low Impact Conflict
8. No Smokes For Wave
9. Naked Ape
10. Karl
11. Mutton

Compilations

Amphetamine Records Sampler 1993 CD (Amphetamine Reptile Europe, 1993, ARRCD 42/279)

Track: Boys In Blue

1993 Sampler CD (Amphetamine Reptile USA, 1993, amrep 099)

Track: Boys In Blue

AmRep Motors 1995 Models, sampler CD (Amphetamine Reptile Europe, 1995, ARRCD 62/005)

Track: Fragile X

Oxo 5 7" (OXO Records, year ?, OXO 005)

Track: Under The Knife

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