Simple Machines Records | Tool Cassette Series

The Tool Cassette Series

We started the Tool Cassette Series back around 1991 as an experiment and as a way we could keep some great music "in print" on an as-needed basis without having to spend a lot of money pressing records or CDs, since we dubbed the cassettes as the orders came in. For a long time, this was a manageable and fun project - with 5 cassette decks in the basement and a lot of volunteer help, we kept up with the orders. But everything changed when, first, Nirvana got big enough that the Late tape got some notice, and even more when Dave Grohl released the Foo Fighters record in 1996. Suddenly he was mentioning this post-Scream/pre-Nirvana cassette of his great solo songs in a lot of interviews, and we were flooded with orders, like 100 a month. With very little help and deteriorating master cassettes, we got in touch with Dave about getting the master tapes back together and trying to release the cassette as a CD, not as a quick profit maker, but more to keep up with the demand. Dave was more interested in keeping it as a cassette, so we have honored his wishes.

We tried to keep up, with a caveat that it might take a while to get the cassettes since we had so many orders. But when our two master cassettes for Late came to the end of their useful lives, and with some of the other eight cassette masters in the same condition, we decided to remove the whole tool cassette series from our mailorder. It was good while it lasted.

The tool cassettes were:

Tool 1: Hammer Band: Geek	Geek was one of Jenny Toomey's first bands. Although Geek songs appeared on a couple of Machines 7"s and the Fortune Cookie Prize LP, the band never released an album of their own. With a limited audience and only one tour under their belt before the band split up in 1990, it wasn't worth taking a risk. Instead, it became Tool Cassette 1 - Hammer.
Tool 2: Bates Stamper Band: Slack	Another Toomey project, this one with Dan Littleton from Ida/Liquorice. Slack was essentially a side project for Jenny and Dan, who were often busy with other bands and only had a limited amount of Slack time. They recorded together but only played a couple of shows before Slack got put on the back burner. With no fan base at all, a full release was a bit ambitious. Instead, Slack's songs ended up as Tool 2, Bates Stamper. Slack eventually transformed into Liquorice.
Tool 3: Awl Band: The Hated	The Hated was an incredible band from Annapolis, MD from the mid 80s until about 1990. They released a few records on Vermin Scum which were coveted by The Hated's almost cult-like following, but there were also reels and reels of unreleased Hated gems. Instead of letting them sit idle, Dan Littleton provided us with a 90-minute compilation of Hated material for Tool 3. For those who are avid Hated fans, you'll be glad to know that there will be a retrospective Hated release on the Troubleman label in 2000.
Tool 4: Pocketwatch Band: Late!	Back in 1990 Dave Grohl was in between bands. Scream was breaking up, and he wasn't sure about his next move. While plotting his future, Dave went into WGNS Studios and recorded about 10 songs, playing all the instruments himself. Dave ended up giving a tape to Jenny, which immediately became a candidate for the Tool series. Dave eventually moved to Seattle and became the drummer for, oh, Nevermind... and then started his own band. Some of the Late songs eventually appeared on subsequent records, which made this tool cassette one hot item on the Simple Machines catalog. We loved the Late cassette, as did others, and its overwhelming popularity, in fact, resulted in its demise.
Tool 5: Rotochipper Band: Saturnine	Saturnine was another short-lived band - a temporary project that brought together Richard Balayut from Flower and Fontaine Toups for the first time. This cassette marks a point when our entire outlook on what music could be changed. Soon after Saturnine, Richard and Fontaine formed Versus.
Tool 6: Supersaw Band: My New Boyfriend	Another Jenny Toomey project. In the fall of 1990 Jenny moved to Olympia, WA for about a month. While she was there she formed a band with an unlikely pair of people - Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill and Aaron Stauffer from Seaweed. Within a month they'd not only written songs, but had recorded them as well. The results ended up on Supersaw.
Tool 7: Swiss Army Knife Band: The Mommyheads	The Mommyheads were a brilliant, quirky pop band from New York City that, at the time, had one record out on a small label. Enchanted by their songwriting, we became friends with them and bugged them about giving us stuff for a Tool cassette, since we knew that singer Adam Cohen was a four-track enthusiast and had composed hundreds of clever pop songs in his room. They finally relented, and Swiss Army Knife was born.
Tool 8: Skuff Tool Band: Tuff Skool	Tuff Skool was a later addition to the series, but one we welcomed since it involved our first and beloved intern, Matt Shawkey. Matt was a huge Geek fan and, as an enthusiast, he offered to help us with Simple Machines stuff after school. Matt was incredible. Not only was he our sole intern, but he also wrote a side-splitting fanzine called "Knuckle Sandwich" that tackled topics like hair metal bands, and the fact that Nation of Ulysses was actually Sha Na Na. Matt went away to college, but kept us posted about his bands and projects. One of them was Tuff Skool, which was part Superchunk, part Ween. A tool cassette ensued.