To paraphrase my friend's description of the amount of quality alt-rock to peruse in the early/mid '90s, the pool was flooded. Utterly in fact. Beyond the ubiquity of what was assailing (and sometimes delighting) us from the Pacific Northwest, there were other excellent regional scenes in locales ranging from San Diego to Dallas and Boston more than worthy of our attention. Add to that tons of substantive American indie rock/pop from virtually every speck of the map. Indies like Amphetamine Reptile, Dischord, Teen Beat, Sub Pop, C/Z, Big Deal, and Caroline to name some of the more renown ones were all peaking during this epoch. Dream pop/shoegaze from both sides of the pond was a veritable banquet all to itself, and lets not get started on the pros/cons of Britpop. Lincoln, NE's Mercy Rule, were among hundreds of commendable 'fringe' acts jockeying for attention in the Clinton-era, that were passed over by well-intentioned listeners (myself included) who were utterly overwhelmed with all of the aforementioned and then some.
Mercy Rule were a female-fronted power trio who were ostensibly ingratiated into the post-hardcore/emo circuit, of which their one-time home label Caulfield Records were stalwart purveyors of. Thing is, Mercy Rule didn't necessarily fit in with that contingent, and sonically their recordings were plenty emblematic of that. Albeit plenty guitar-driven and angsty, they angled more in the vicinity of contemporaries Tsunami and the Poster Children - a pretty good place to be, unless you were making a break for the mainstream. Nonetheless, by 1994, Mercy Rule had escalated to the roster of Relativity Records for their second and most successful LP Providence. Three years later MCA had intentions of releasing the band's third full-length, eventually pulling the rug out from under them before it even made it to the pressing plant. What I'm sharing today is presumably the trio's first demo tape, in all it's rough hewn and borderline over-modulated glory. Several songs here made it to their first EP, 100 MPH, though I couldn't tell you if the versions are the same. A fairly concise roundup of the band's tenure can be read here, and two of the members folded into a subsequent combo Domestica.
01. Someone Else
02. How it Feels
03. I Have Enough
04. Stand on Fire
05. It's Sad
06. What a Life
5 comments:
I saw Mercy Rule a couple of times in different cities. Incredible live band. During their Memphis show, Jon was playing a really intense song and proceeded to bash the stage floor with the mic stand and broke through the floor.
I interviewed them for my zine at that show. I still have my Mercy Rule shirt I bought at one of the shows, and somewhere I have a Mercy Rule necklace that is a round medallion of the "Providence" CD cover.
Thanks for posting this. I'm looking forward to hearing this. ~ Michelle
I knew there would be a few people out there interested in hearing this. Am delighted to learn I reached my target audience. Cheers Michelle.
Wow! I live in Lincoln and know these dudes. Jon & Heidi are still married and playing as the band Domestica: https://domesticanebraska.bandcamp.com/
Thanks for posting this. I had this tape back in the day and lost track of it. These guys were, along with Sideshow, my fav early nineties Nebraska band. "God Protects Fools" is still in the current listening rotation. Saw them too many times to count. Went to HS with Jon's brother so they were always like family. Appreciate it, good to hear it again.
I talked to someone with the band on their FB page (not sure if it was Jon or Heidi, they didn't say) and they had no idea what this is. Going to go digging through their stuff and see if they have one. Might be the first EP on Pravda and a couple of outtakes.
If they come up with an answer I'll post it.
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