City of Siege: Olympia

Tiny Holes is the avant-new wave-dance super group you never heard of. These future legends of independent music skirted the fine line between obscurity and nothingness, producing a small, effective body of cheeky noise. 35+ years later, Seattle uber-producer Jack Endino, who mixed and mastered the album, says "The whole thing is impossibly brilliant". The story so far: In the late 70s electronic music pioneer Steve Fisk (future producer of Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Beat Happening, Soundgarden, Pigeonhed, and everyone else) and burgeoning sound artist Steve Peters started a quirky electro-pop project called Customer Service, that was launched on the back of Fisk's "Snake Attack", a 7" 45rpm (Mr. Brown Records) released under the name Anonymous. It included the faux supermarket P.A. announcement, "customer service aisle 9, customer service aisle 9". After moderate exposure in Olympia and Seattle (their first gig was opening for Gang of Four and local heroes The Beakers), this duo morphed into a trio with future fanzine publisher, cassette-zine visionary, and Sub/Pop record mogul Bruce Pavitt, called Professional Ethics. A few rehearsals, one recording session (resulting in a song released on a Mr. Brown compilation tape), and zero gigs later, the rhythm section of drummer Phillip Hertz and bass monster Paul Tison came on board, and Tiny Holes was born. For a year they annoyed the neighbors and laid waste to dance floors in Olympia, Portland, and Seattle with their slightly deranged exhortations. Before hanging up their skates they played one last gig, a benefit for beloved community radio station KAOS-FM at Popeye's in Olympia. Thanks to engineer Peter Randlette, that show was recorded on a mobile 8-track. It was given a cursory rough mix for posterity and went into the closet, never quite forgotten. 35 years later, the master tapes were unearthed, baked, and transferred to digital. Legendary underground producer Jack Endino agreed to handle the mix, and Seattle comix artist Peter Bagge was drafted to create cover art. Pell Mell drummer Robert Beerman, now a graphic designer, joined as the design guru, and K chieftain (and long-time Tiny Holes fan) Calvin Johnson agreed to make it a thing, and here we are.