No Laughing Matter
It Bites K-Mart Shoppers
1986 (no label)
Mesa, Arizona, USA
Stripe (Ted Worthless) – Songwriting, vocals, guitar, drill, bass, keys & more
Echo (Dave Baker) – Drums, vocals on “Living Lies”, misc.
Rick Hall – Keyboards
Mike Hustead – Vocals on “Eastern Theatre,” some bass
Side 1:
- King in a Stetson
- Romans 5
- Don’t Patronize Me
- Don’t Put Me in a Box
- Two Preachers
- Eastern Theatre
- Blue
- My Dead Lunch
- Living Lies
Side 2:
- With This Card and $1, You Can Get Away With 11 Murders
- Lonely Dog
- Eastern Theatre
- I Cor. 12:6-11
- Life is Like a Handful of Dirt
- Religion Sucks
- Disclaimer
- Colourwheel
- Ceiling Fan
Wow – didn’t expect to see this. The debut album by No Laughing Matter is pretty hard to find – it was for sale online for a little while, but I blinked and missed it. But here it appears in a stack of tapes to digitize. If it ever becomes available for sale again, and you like dark, weird experimental alternative – get it! This first tape finds an interesting mix of Ted Worthless’ experimental side and the band’s alt/goth rock leanings. Seems that in the future, Ted kept his trippy side to solo recordings and saved the dark rock for NLM. The only thing that Scott Roman is credited for on this album is songwriting for “Don’t Put Me in a Box.” Several songs on here are instrumental, and many songs have an improvised feel (probably because the liner notes say they were).
Christian Tape Underground 