Drainolith Presents: Moskos Reads The Zonal Poets Vol.1
12.1.15 by Mike Haley

I have never written about a tape and thought about the words being read out loud, or at all for that matter, but definitely not out loud. So for the first time, as I’m typing all this down, readying these words for the cloud or wherever they go, I’m picturing someone saying them in an empty room. Maybe even recording them onto tape. It’s a strange feeling, like clicking through channels and finding someone’s baby monitor is being televised. Hats off to Drainolith for that.

Released as a ‘bonus tape’, with 75 copies riding sidecar to the “Hysteria” LP on NNA Tapes, “Drainolith Presents: Moskos Reads The Zonal Poets Vol.1” is a spoken word cassette by Drainolith’s Alex Moskos (also known for Dan’l Boone, AIDS Wolf, etc). For this sucker curation was key. Moskos went strong into his crew to cull the richest wackadoo. An excerpt of deep-fried cultural criticism by Zac Davis for example. I remember hearing stories in the early 2000’s about a spring chicken’d Zac Davis masturbating into condoms in the back of tour vans, then eating them, and that wasn’t even the deep end for his mug. But it’s all probably only 80% true or so. That same truth percentage could be allotted to the opening track on this tape, 3 Phases In Saliva, a story from John Olson of Wolf Eyes. 3 Phases is a tale about a syndicate of Eureka rejects trying not to kill themselves (spoiler alert: they failed) while performing a high-voltage universe leap. Straight up outlandish shit, shunned by traditional standards, but this is the architect of Trip Metal we’re talking about here, so reality should be forgiving.

Peak zonal poetry is detectable on the B side with a Yelp review penned by John Elliott (formerly of Emeralds) for Katherine’s Family Restaurant in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Moskos reads this transcendent paean to the greasy spoon matter-of-factly, Elliott regaling about scorched vets and nuclear pancake topping.

There is a seriousness provided to all of the material here that it simply doesn’t deserve, and that’s  exactly what makes this tape genuinely warped and totally necessary to all underground hu-mans. The false starts, rustling of papers, electronic interludes… This tape goes to the places that fiddling with knobs or cranking squeals aren’t granted access. It’s all so beautiful.

Like I said, you have to be an early bird on the Drainolith LP to snag this one, and that album came out over the summer. So is the “Drainolith Presents: Moskos Reads The Zonal Poets Vol.1” tape still available? I have no clue. Hit up NNA Tapes to find out. You could possibly own the only NNA cassette that ditches the circle-style artwork. And does so much more obviously.