In 1992 Music City USA, the mecca of Country Music, begot Stone Deep – one of the city's most memorable musical acts of the 90s. The group's performances and recordings were celebrated and lauded but never reached national or international ears, until now. ¶ Stone Deep was a spirited reincarnation of Nashville’s The Hard Corps, who’s meteoric rise to national prominence in 1990/91 culminated a debut release “Def Before Dishonor” on Interscope / EastWest Records produced by RUN DMC’s Jam Master Jay as well as a nation tour with Ice T and Body Count. But the group’s whirlwind moment stopped as quickly as it began when their label, booking agency, and management folded overnight leaving the group at the height of its power and popularity with no team behind them. ¶ In late 1992 the group’s core members bassist/founder Kelly Butler, vocalist Ronzo “The Beast” Cartwright, dj/vocalist Terry “DJ KUTT” Hayes and drummer Kenny Owens joined forces with guitarist / producer Glen Cummings who had been lead guitarist/songwriter/arranger of hardcore/speedcore group Ludichrist (Combat/Combat Core) and Scatterbrain (In Effect/Electra/Warner Bros.). Together with Cummings The ex-Hard Corps team began work on their debut recordings presented here as "Nashville". ¶ Through the winter of 1993 Stone Deep worked nightly in an industrial space on Nashville's ring road, developing and arranging the compositions that appear here. The songs were road-tested Thursday, Friday and Saturday at live performances across the Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky. Mostly at tiny clubs and bars that booked unsigned acts. ¶ Night after night Stone Deep slayed. The group tapped veteran Music Row producer/engineer Mike Griffiths to lead the recording and mixing sessions at 16th Ave Sound - which were completed over the course of three days. The five resulting tracks: Faces of Death, Finger to The 40, Running Man, Stop Squawkin’, and Whoville collectively map out the diverse, branching direction the group would follow throughout its lifespan. ¶ Cartwright and Hayes’ lyrics focus on their experiences growing up in gritty outer Nashville on the 1980s, but the urgency of their lyrics is always underpinned by the belief that music is a communal experience and that sharing pain is cathartic. Together with Kelly Butler’s iconic bass lines, Kenny Owen’s heavy loops and backbeats, Hayes’ DJ inventive interjections, and now Cummings’ bombastic guitar work – Stone Deep carves out an unmistakable sound of their own. ¶ These five songs presented here were reproduced as a one-sided cassette tapes and distributed to press outlets, venues, labels but primarily sold to fans at live performances in 1993.

Please check out the bonus Items included with this release which include: a pdf of the original cassette packaging from 1993 and a broadside/poster or release reviews. Also check out Stone Deep’s facebook page at www.facebook.com/stonedeep37206

Track notes: (1) Faces of Death considers existential angst, the looming inevitability of death, and the impulse to push so against death that you become death it=. The track begins with a sounding church bell, then Hayes and Cartwright alternate verses – each doubled (whispering and shouting). As always Kelly Butler's lean bass lines are low on note count and high on gravitas. The chorus and bridge feature electrical discharge sounds worthy of being on an Alan Lamb's field recording. (2) Finger to the Forty is the first of several songs lamenting on the impoverished music landscape of the 1990s when strategic marketing fully dictated what could and could not be played on the radio. Cartwright and Hayes invite listeners to “pump up the middle finger "to the mother of all market-driven formats, Top 40. The track's rhythm features drummer Kenny Owen’s swaying backbeat perched precariously atop Kelly Butler’s pop bass line. DJ KUTT’s skittering interjections ride on top – Fuh, Fuh, Fuh, Forty! The mix has the structure of a dub track, or is it a prog rock track? Guitarist Glen Cummings plays a nylon string Gibson Chet Atkins CEC through a Marshall 50 watt combo - sounding both jazzy and oddly rubbery. (3) Running Man begins with the lonely sound of a wolf howling and a voiceover setting the scene: “Night falls”. The snare drum, along with the majority of Kenny Owen’s drum kit is run through filters and delays, creating various squishing, swirling and repeating effects that grow and culminate in the swirling chorus. Lyrics paint one of the psychological landscapes that racial disparity creates - which feels like a physical imperative to run. But it's unclear if its an impulse to run towards or away from everything. Kelly Butler’s pulsing bass figure drives the tune and together with the processed drums, it loops back upon itself, and sonically closes in during the chorus. The songs ride-out features DJ Loko scratching Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” – his turntable plugged through a blaring Marshall stack. (4) Stop Squawkin is Stone Deep's heaviest early hardcore/metal track with its lumbering slow sections and machine-like fast sections. The lyrics, which chide the listener for endlessly complaining, take a free approach – vacillating from poetic impressionism, to plain-as-day directives “If you want to be pessimistic then...shut the f*ck-up!”. Cartwright and Hayes tag-team through the verses. Guitarist Glen Cummings alternates between a notched wha pedal and a talkbox creating menacing, gurgling guitar sounds sounding like Charlie Brown’s imaginary teacher drowning – "wha, wha, wha". Lightning 100 radio deejay E. Heather Lose performs a strident freeform diatribe against nothing in particular, during the hard-driving bridge section. (5) Whoville is a contemporary adaption of Dr. Seuss’ classic: "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", but here the Grinch is a pied piper of booze and self destruction, and Whoville is East Nashville. The track’s greasy groove is built with a MPC loop at the bottom, and live backbeat and slinky strat tracks on top. The DJ KUTT cuts that glide over the top are unforgettable. “Wh, Wh, Wh, Whoooooooo?”