A. DiFRANCO (Skullflower, Ax, etc.)
Bassist Anthony DiFranco appears, to some degree or another, on nearly all the Skullflower albums up through OBSIDIAN SHAKING CODEX, at which point he left to concentrate on his solo project Ax. (He's credited as JFK on most of the early stuff, and didn't become an official part of the permanent lineup until IIIRD GATEKEEPER.) Before joining (and during, and after) he was known for power-electronics under the guises of Ethnic Acid, JFK, and Ax. He is currently one-half of Novatron.
ETHNIC ACID
Ethnic Acid is one of the first of DiFranco's noise projects. Some of the material recorded by this offshoot (and captured on two incredibly obscure, hard-to-find cassettes, one made in Italy of all places) later turned up in reworked form on the first Ax album. Other portions of this material showed up on the JFK single "Sexodus/Temple of Set."
CASSETTES:
BURNED BLACK (1987) [JFK]
BLOW JOB (1987) [V14]
SEXODUS (1988) [Birthbiter]
THE OCEAN (1988) [Discipline (Italy)]
LPs / CDs:
none
SINGLES:
none
COMPILATIONS:
none
JFK
JFK, as far as i can tell, is what Ethnic Acid mutated into. Releases have been few and far between, and this side-project became largely inactive when he started concentrating on the subsonic bass hell known as Ax.
Some additional comments from Paul Wild: "JFK was another Anthony 'Frank' Difranco solo outing. I've no idea as to the release shedule. I have one 7" . I know Neil Campbell and Stewart Walden (both members of the notorious A Band and one half of the Richard, Simon, Neil and Stewart LP Durian, Durian (Forced Exposure)) made a cassette with Frank many years ago under the JFK guise. I think Frank was about 14 at the time!"
From AdF himself: "I recorded a lot of stuff under this name as a teenager. Essentially, I bought a 4-track and experimented a lot. Matthew joined JFK after [my first] Skullflower session. He was very enthusiastic about it.... "Feel the Weight" appeared on a compilation and another track called 'Fuckfire' turned up on RUINS as 'Eat the Stars.' The "Temple of Set" single was recorded entirely by myself. The last copies of [that] are now available through Cold Spring mailorder."
* - with Matthew Bower on guitar
CASSETTES:
INNA ANNA AMEN C60 (???) [Sound of Pig]
WOELF (???) [Broken Flag]
LPs / CDs:
none
SINGLES:
"Sexodus/Temple of Set" (1992) [Fourth Dimension] [numbered, limited to 400]
COMPILATIONS:
TEARING DOWN THE BARRIERS (???) [Fourth Dimension] ("Feel the Weight") *
MELT (1992) [Work in Progress] ("Lodestar")
UNDER THE SKIN (7" compilation) (1994) [Instinctive Records] ("Retreat")
DISSOLVE -- A WORK IN PROGRESS COMPILATION (1996) [Fused Coil] **
** - Reissue of MELT
PUTREFIER (with Mark Durgan):
CASSETTES:
BEYOND SCATHING (???) [Birthbiter]
LPs / CDs:
TRACE ELEMENT SYNTAX (???) [Pure]
SINGLES:
"Pray For Fire" (1992) [Birthbiter Records]
"Prevail Against" (???) [Birthbiter/JFK] (split; also re-released by Mindscan.)
COMPILATIONS:
AIN DUB 1 (???) [JFK12] Audio]
NOTES: Mark Durgan would like to note the following about his band Putrefier, which is listed here because A. DiFranco appears on some of their early material: "... the Putrefier project is just me. Frank and I did record the 'Pray for Fire' single together and collaborated on a cassette." I hope this clears up any confusion... although there is the matter of the rumored existence of another band with the same (or similar) name....
AX
This is the infrequent side project of sometime Skullflower bassist Anthony DiFranco. The records are, uh, tremendously subsonic.... The tracks "Metal Forest" and "Xtol," ; both from the first Ax album, originally appeared (in somewhat different form, I think) as Ethnic Acid tracks on the 1988 cassette SEXODUS [Birthbither]. Ax has since been replaced by Novatron.
CASSETTES:
none
LPs / CDs:
SINGLES:
none
COMPILATIONS:
none
NOVATRON
Novatron is an outgrowth of Ax, which it replaces. The lineup is Anthony diFranco and Kevin Laska, about whom I know nothing.
CASSETTES:
none
LPs / CDs:
NEW RISING SUN (1999) [Cold Spring]
SINGLES:
none
COMPILATIONS:
none
