Gunshots at 9:50 – Gunshots at 9:50

Gunshots at 9:50
Gunshots at 9:50
1990 (no label)
Central Hollywood, California, USA

Scottie Joel Cooper – Vocals
John Williamson – Instruments

Side 1: Scottie Joel Cooper and John Williamson

1. Purgatory is Hell
2. Just South of Wilshire
3. The Southland
4. Harlot Lover and Jew-Boy
5. Working Class: Act IX
6. A Thrash Song

Side 2: John Williamson solo

1. [hello Scottie]
2. Let Go
3. Stew Dents
4. Passing Property
5. [reading a letter]
6. Stalemates [spoken word]
7. This Dirt Hurts
8. [did you ever get my letter?]
9. [bass jam]
10. [randomness]
11. Victoria Williams – Holy Spirit

This was another unreleased rarity from Scottie Joel Cooper. In June 1990, John Williamson of The Grape Vine ‘zine got together to hang out and record some jams together. This tape was the result of that. It’s pretty random and spontaneous. Side one is mostly Scottie singing and talking over John’s acoustic guitar. Side two is a tape that John recorded to send back to Scottie – it is even more random. It has some songs, some spoken word, a letter being read, John’s reaction to the latter, some bass guitar solo meandering, and then a Victoria Williams song at the end. There are probably a lot of these tapes out there – back in the 80s and 90s, people with even an ounce of musical desire would take “mix-tapes” to the next level by recording their own song ideas and ramblings on them to send to a friend or even different band members. Sometimes they did it to get attention for their talents, other times it was just to do something different other than write a letter. As a note, Scottie goes by “Harlot Lover” on this recording, and John was originally being called “Jew-Boy” on side 1. But on side 2, John says he won’t be using that name because he didn’t want people to think he was anti-Semitic. It was really a spontaneous idea that he decided to change after thinking about it. The “Gunshots at 9:50” name came from a real life situation – just before John arrived at Scottie’s apartment, there were gunshots in front of Scottie’s apartment. Then, just as he was about to leave (at 9:50 PM), there were more gunshots. They saw some blood on the sidewalk after that, and the stain was still there two months later when Cooper left California.