Saturday, March 3, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
TWO ONE ZERO AND DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS
The future is now, now is the future, it’s 2011 it’s 1968 it’s 1929 it’s 1991 it’s 1847 and it’s December 21 2012 forever and never. Welcome to the future, it looks a hell of a lot like the past. As the great punk-poet Steve Miller once intoned, “Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’…….” and we have all slid past home plate straight into the gaping maw of an uncertain future; even the great foundations of power being shaken, if ever so slightly, but all earthquakes must begin with the tiniest of cracks, an infinitesimal hairline preceding the thunderous BOOM! of sudden, violent change.
And then there’s the United States. Crying in our beer like someone just ran over the dog, but we know it’s our damn fault, so what are we gonna do to reverse it? I don’t know about you, chief, but I’m gonna kick off my boots, pop a squat on this ol’ rockin’ chair, maybe slowly swirl some whiskey around a fine-cut glass, feigning civility; and most certainly spark up a jazz cigarette, whilst whiling away the hours/days/months/years; no company but an armful of (mostly) rock n’ roll records. Now that sounds just fine, you say. Don’t worry, all of these records sound great with your head beneath the sand………
Unlike years past, it seems the full-length came correct these past twelve months. Besides the punk-as-fuck all-killer-no-filler Women In Prison EP (some kinda Consumers/Saints buzzbomb on Hozac), not a whole lot of contemporary singles blew my head off (def. really dug the Circle Pit 45 on Sweet Rot; like a lost Royal Trux Sub Pop Singles Club entry from ’92, and no I don’t feel “bad” for mentioning the Trux re: Circle Pit again; if the shoe fucking fits, but I digress…..), but there were a slew of good-to-great LPs, and that suits me just fine, cuz I’m lazy.
It wouldn’t be an erickelric/EEK/fuckface bit o’ “writing” if my favorite band of the last, what, eight?, years wasn’t mentioned. But once again, they’ve earned themselves all the accolades I could drench them with and more. Maintaining a fierce and freaky live show (w/ either B. “Buddy Rich” Hafer or T(immy’s) O(rganism) banger, Colin Simon on traps), Human Eye dropped what most consider their finest LP yet (I still pull for the debut; o nostalgia), They Came From the Sky, on Sacred Bones no less, rubbing shoulders with Pitchforkian champions. Really hope some teenage Ty Segall fans bought this album on their short tour together and went home and their mothers had to clean the brains off their bedroom wall the next day, tsk-tsk-ing away, son now a full-fledged mutant rock n’ roll wastoid. Sorry Ma, forgot to clean up the brain-trash…..
Holy crap, raise your hand if you got sick of hearing about goddamn Iceage every waking hour of every fucking day! Whoa, I think we just blotted out the sun. But hell if there ain’t something intriguing about the Danish foursome, too young to drink in this country, but somehow sounding old and resigned on their pretty f-in’ (why the fuck do people say that) great debut, New Brigade [Escho/Dais/What’s Your Rupture?]. Yeah, three different labels released this sucker, that’s how much people like it. The live show was a tad underwhelming, but the record rips, like Sort Sol tearing through a catalog of only the best of ‘90s artcore. Even an aging codger like me can feel the youthful energy glowing off this album. The songs stick, and that’s important.
Speaking of youth, punk, and good songs, if you haven’t been paying attention to a small crew of Texan punk rockers, you’re missing out on some of the best PR going these days. I coined this corny phrase (who me?) in my head: “Get your dent on,” for all the sick shit coming out of that town lately. My two favorites are the reformed Wax Museums, whose 2nd LP, Eye Times [Trouble in Mind] snuck up on me like a creeper in an alley that turns out to be a fine young lady with a sinister smile. Accordingly, my favorite songs on here, “Breakfast for Dinner, “Bruiser,” “Chase Your Shadow,” have lust on the brain, leveled out with a hint of violence. The straight-up Devo rip in “Nothing to Do (With the 60s)” gives me a warm fuzzy every time, and what more do you want from a short n’ sweet punk rock record? If that doesn’t do it for you, I’m sure you could find something to like on Video’s Leather, Leather LP. Featuring most of the dudes in Wax Museums/Wrists/Bad Sports/Wiccans etc, Video delivers a knockout punch with their debut. Possibly the first band I would unequivocally state are “Final Solutions-influenced,” Video bring that gnarly, catchy, vaguely sci-fi, totally KBD-damaged punk rock that has been one of the defining sounds of the last 10 years of underground rock (at least to those with a modicum of taste, I can’t speak for the Sufjan Stevens fans out there). They do it as well as anyone else, and certainly better than anyone going these days (minus HE o’ course). I really love the huge fuzzy bass that slices thru this record like a jeep-mounted machine gun, mowing down anything in its path. This band rules; come up North and rock some faces off, lads.
Who do you think would win in a sonic fight: Iceage or TV Ghost [In The Red]? My money would be on the Ghost, cuz even though they are still young guns, they’re actually vets of our murky underground punk planet by this point. Seems like whatever “hype” they had died down and now they are just doin’ their thang, not givin’ a fuck ‘bout nothin’ else. And it shows. Their In The Red debut (and 2nd alb proper) Mass Dream brings in a new rhythm section (keyboardist Brahne jumps to drums) and further refines their shadowy sound. Bits of Pere Ubu, Cramps, Birthday Party, Echo & The Bunnymen, Circle X and Bauhaus can be heard in their dark take on post-punk. There are some really fantastic melodies lurking under the weirdness, and the excellent recording by Greg Ashley frames everything perfectly. Strange to say, but I think these fellas are underrated now.
Speaking of underrated, my perennial favorites The Ex still don’t get the massive amounts of love they deserve, but that’s alright, the true believers know what’s up. I squeezed in with about a hundred of like-minded folks last spring in a sports bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn to witness yet another mind-fuckingly great show by these people, old enough to be your Mom n’ Dad, hell some of you your grandparents, and they display no fatigue, no jadedness, and without a doubt, no volume or intensity drop. They lost long-time mouthpiece G.W. Sok, but gained another ace guitarist in singer Arnold de Boer. His singing style isn’t so different from Sok’s, and neither are his insightful and sarcastic lyrics. The way the trio of guitarists played off of the polyrhythms so effortlessly brought by drummer Kat was truly awe-inspiring. Still one of the greatest live bands I have ever seen, and their self-released LP, Catch My Shoe [Ex], is another fantastic album filled with their unique and cutting art-punk. Hey Sonic Youth, break-up or step up your game.
Statement. Liquor Store made some kind of statement with their double-LP opus, Yeah Buddy [Almost Ready]. Yeah, it’s their debut. After only one 7”. The balls on these kids, like two boulders careening down a mountain. That doesn’t make much sense, and this record doesn’t either………til you chug-a-lug a case of Bud Light, smoke a QP thru an apple, and maybe punch yourself in the face half-a-dozen times. It’s seriously like a Use Your Illusion for all the fucked-up little greaser punk shit-bags with trash ‘staches and speech impediments roaming your shitty little town. It’s gonna take longer than 12 months to get your noodle around this puppy. Hope you have a good weed connect.
Pygmy Shrews. This band teetered on the brink last year, victim to drummer turmoil. But they persevered, recruited a new skinsman, and, as anyone who has seen live them recently can attest, are rocking harder than ever. Before he moved on, Jeremy Villalobos lent his heavy-hitting to the Shrews’ second LP, the charmingly-titled You People Can All Go Straight to Hell [Jack Shack]. Why mince words when you can level a crowd with vicious hardcore grunge like only the Shrews can? Serious power moves on this platter, everything recorded loud and clear by guitarist Ben Greenberg. Thick as a milkshake and just as smooth. Side A bludgeons you with short bangers that feature actual (gasp!) melodies amidst the riffs, and the dual vocals by Greenberg and bassist Tia Vincent-Clark provide an almost X-ish harmony, a rarity in music this heavy. These are people who grew up with the Nirvana in their DNA, so they don’t forsake the art of songwriting, or the value in a catchy chord progression. Greenberg is a virtuoso on guitar, but he doesn’t flaunt it; well, that is until you flip the record over and get face-pummeled by the title cut, twelve straight minutes of bad-ass shredding (by everyone, natch) that is what Black Flag was probably trying to accomplish with The Process of Weeding Out. Yeah, I “went there.” Kill yr idols, etc.
And now time to address the elephant in the room: Reissues. If you’re anything like me (ie. have superb taste and fairly respectable hygienic habits/drug problems), lately you have been spending the majority of your hard-earned (or ill-gained, I ain’t judgin’) dollar on this new cottage industry of legit, “exact repro” reissues. Now, buying bunches of reissues ain’t new per se; it’s always been a significant contributer to making us geeks broke, and the anticipation and will-they-or-won’t-they? expectations take up quite a bit of our external and internal record convos. It’s a talking sickness. But we enjoy it. Often you wait years and years before some damn thing, usually ruined via remastering/mixing, track order fucking-around-with, new atrocious cover art, expensive as all hell etc, materializes. Sure, the internet kinda made all that dry-mouth worrying go away; hey you can HEAR ANYTHING ANYTIME YOU WANT, MR. BROADBAND, but the true freaks n’ geeks still want that physical product, if only to accrue like a pharaoh ready for the tomb. They’re just fucking around, right? We can take it with us, right? So the “new” thing is to make them shits highly desirable via exact repro(ductions). Almost Ready Records honcho (and gin-soaked terror) Harry Howes took it to the next level last year with his KBD-klassik-reissuing label par excellance, Last Laugh. Can’t afford The Eat’s “Communist Radio?” No prob. Eight or so bucks will get you a perfect version of the original packaging, labels, and the music ain’t no slouch either. It’s a broke-ass normal human being’s dream come true. It’s a punk rock DJ’s wet dream cumming all over his own face. No need to lug all those dodgy-sounding Killed By Death comps with you (although they’re still good for smoke/piss/bump breaks); you can rock the 45s like a true gentleman. Howes stepped up his game even more this year, reissuing gems by the likes of Hammer Damage (“Laugh” at my Akron pride at your own peril!), Shitdogs, The Embarrassment, Puncture, Skunks, Ed Nasty & more. He also started another label called Mighty Mouth with intent to reissue obscure weirdness by artists like ‘70s glam-tran disco rock n’ roll queen Laurice (ie. Grudge) and he also dropped a little-known garage slow-burner called “Til the Stroke of Dawn” by The Psychopaths. On top of all that, he issued the never-happened debut LP by LL flagship band, The Normals. Which brings me to my next subject, but first I want to give a meaningful nod to a few other lovingly-executed (and legit) exact repros; namely Family Vineyard’s Dow Jones & The Industrials debut 7” (a complete discography is to follow in 2012) and Rerun Records’ Bob “That Thing You Do”/”Thomas Edison” 45. Both are classics of early US jerk-wave post-punkitude and the reissues are beauties of what should be textbook “reissuing.” A pleasure to hold and hear in the here and now. “Now on sale at” Permanent Records’ faithful reissue of the long out-of-print classic Chicago punk compilation, Busted at Oz, deserves a special mention, as it is a real piece of work, as in a piece of art. Tip-on jackets from OG art, printed inner sleeve, crisp sound, not to mention completely awesome and varied punk and hardcore by scene stalwarts Naked Raygun, Effigies, DA, Strike Under, and more. Bravo and thank you, the love is palpable.
As is the hate on Superior Viaduct’s reish of early ‘80s whatthefuckcore, Black Humor’s audio blister of an album, Love God, Love One Another. Gotta admit that I don’t own this. Why? Oh, cuz I got an original. (I don’t get to say that much, deal with it). You should get this at any cost; may be the best thing that came out this year. The future looks bright for Superior Viaduct. Don’t be fooled by its Clevo-centric title cuz this upstart imprint is intent on reissuing lost classics of early SF wave like Noh Mercy (!), Factrix, Tuxedomoon and more. Can’t hardly wait. Whew.
Also wanna mention 540 Records continuing an entirely commendable and well-done re-unearthing of late ‘70s Oz punk label Savage; two more classic singles by Just Urbain and Young Identities to throw on the pile. And we’ll also give a quick mention of the Really Red “Crowd Control”/”Corporate Settings” 45. Some kind soul booted it, and, as someone who considers them one of the United States’ greatest hardcore punk bands ever……well, gosh, shucks, thanks.
But then there’s this whole other off-shoot of the repro business that, in a way, is the most exciting of all. The NEVER-ISSUED. Old stuff made new again. Howes also weighed in with a collector-scum holy grail of sorts, early Cheater Slicks sessions with Alpo from the Real Kids on bass. Murder! [Our Food is Chaos; Almost Ready] Acute always does such a fantastic job with reissues, and now they’ve broken their vinyl cherry (finally! give us yr older shitz on wax too pleez!) with The Disco Zombies LP which features their 3 singles along with a bevy of unreleased tracks (and even more stuff via download that comes w/ the record). Maybe you know the infectious title cut Drums Over London, but are you familiar with the later, sublime track “Mary Millington?” If not, get crackin’. S-S Records is no stranger to digging up the finest in unheard spizz, and they really hit one outta the park with their Sperm Wails single. While 80s UK snarl-experts, Sperm Wails, had a few (great) records during their existence, S-S managed to procure YouTube sensation “Lady Chatterley” for its first appearance on a real playable vinyl record. Happy happy joy joy kill kill die. Jack Ruby. The name conjures one of the defining images of 20th century America; a stocky fellow in a fedora shoving a revolver into the gut of ultimate patsy Lee Harvey Oswald. But if you’ve ever been even slightly obsessed with New York City’s No Wave scene then you know of them as an early mythical iteration of the anti-everything post-Stooge/VU proto-punk underground, particularly as relates to one George Scott, intense bassist of both the Contortions and 8-Eyed Spy and tragic heroin OD. Some recordings surfaced this year via his old roommate and they are a revelation. We’re talkin’ prime-time proto-punk (’74-’77) rock noise up there with all-time greats like Debris’, MX-80, and all those bands from the crucible of post-industrial rock, Cleveland Ohio. An enterprising French label, Saturday Records, took it upon themselves to make sure some of these amazing tracks, only existing as a download on a blog at that point, made it to vinyl. And thus we have Jack Ruby’s debut single “Hit & Run”/”Bad Teeth.” Prefiguring all kinds of weirdos like Crime, Chrome, and MARS, this stuff is potent. A CD featuring more material was issued by no wave historian Weasel Walter’s ugEXPLODE label came out simultaneously. Word is that Feeding Tube Records will be committing that document to wax. More stuff like this and I might never buy a new record again.
Many of the following releases I enjoyed just as much, if not more, than some of the stuff I wrote about above: Rank/Xerox – s/t (Make a Mess); Cheveu 1000 (Born Bad); Obnox I’m Bleeding Now (Smog Veil); K Holes s/t (Hozac), Feeling of Love Dissolve Me (Kill Shaman); Degreaser Bottom Feeder (Negative Guest List); Sightings Future Accidents (Our Mouth); GG King Esoteric Lore (Scavenger of Death/Rob’s House); UV Race Homo (In The Red); Cakekitchen Kangaroos in My Top Paddock (Violet Times); Frustrations Negative Reflections (X!); Kitchen’s Floor Looking Forward to Nothing (Negative Guest List); Puffy Areolas “Gentlemen’s Grip” EP (Hozac); Pop. 1280 “Thirteen Steps”/”Dead Hand” (Blind Prophet); Crazy Spirit “I’m Dead” EP (Mata La Musica Discos); Timmy’s Organism “Scum Revolution”/”When The Bottles Break” (Hozac); Pink Reason Desperate Living EP (Almost Ready); Pampers “Eruptions” 7” (Jack Shack); Scarcity of Tanks 'Sensational Grade'; Thee Ohsees/Total Control split 12” (Castle Face); Hatefuck “Rock n’ Roll Letdown” EP (Negative Guest List)
Live shows? Sightings brings it every time; Harvey Milk basically blew my mind apart and put it back together, heavy as fuck and everything perfectly placed in the mix, really impressive; Guinea Worms are always a good time; Foster Care is probably my favorite punk band to watch/fall down with these days (look for their LP on Jack Shack sometime this year); Les Sexareenos reunion was a party and reminded me of what rock n’ roll is supposed to be; there used to be tons of bands like that (although not as good usually), where the hell are they these days? Step out of your fuckin’ bedrooms and slay the goddamn dragon!
HEAVY ADDENDUMDUMS: new - True Sons of Thunder LP (Jeth-Row) / The Unholy Two 'SSkum of the Earth' (CDR/NGL), old - Fungus Brains 'Ron Pisto's Real World' (Load) / Coitus Int. 'Dead Excitement' EP (Bunkerpop) / Jerusalem s/t (Lion/Rockadrome) / Dog Faced Hermans 'Those Deep Buds' (Alternative Tentacles) new/old - Kebab 12" (Soft Spot) / FM-BX Society Tape comp (S-S)
[originally appeared on www.terminal-boredom.com]
Unlike years past, it seems the full-length came correct these past twelve months. Besides the punk-as-fuck all-killer-no-filler Women In Prison EP (some kinda Consumers/Saints buzzbomb on Hozac), not a whole lot of contemporary singles blew my head off (def. really dug the Circle Pit 45 on Sweet Rot; like a lost Royal Trux Sub Pop Singles Club entry from ’92, and no I don’t feel “bad” for mentioning the Trux re: Circle Pit again; if the shoe fucking fits, but I digress…..), but there were a slew of good-to-great LPs, and that suits me just fine, cuz I’m lazy.
It wouldn’t be an erickelric/EEK/fuckface bit o’ “writing” if my favorite band of the last, what, eight?, years wasn’t mentioned. But once again, they’ve earned themselves all the accolades I could drench them with and more. Maintaining a fierce and freaky live show (w/ either B. “Buddy Rich” Hafer or T(immy’s) O(rganism) banger, Colin Simon on traps), Human Eye dropped what most consider their finest LP yet (I still pull for the debut; o nostalgia), They Came From the Sky, on Sacred Bones no less, rubbing shoulders with Pitchforkian champions. Really hope some teenage Ty Segall fans bought this album on their short tour together and went home and their mothers had to clean the brains off their bedroom wall the next day, tsk-tsk-ing away, son now a full-fledged mutant rock n’ roll wastoid. Sorry Ma, forgot to clean up the brain-trash…..
Holy crap, raise your hand if you got sick of hearing about goddamn Iceage every waking hour of every fucking day! Whoa, I think we just blotted out the sun. But hell if there ain’t something intriguing about the Danish foursome, too young to drink in this country, but somehow sounding old and resigned on their pretty f-in’ (why the fuck do people say that) great debut, New Brigade [Escho/Dais/What’s Your Rupture?]. Yeah, three different labels released this sucker, that’s how much people like it. The live show was a tad underwhelming, but the record rips, like Sort Sol tearing through a catalog of only the best of ‘90s artcore. Even an aging codger like me can feel the youthful energy glowing off this album. The songs stick, and that’s important.
Speaking of youth, punk, and good songs, if you haven’t been paying attention to a small crew of Texan punk rockers, you’re missing out on some of the best PR going these days. I coined this corny phrase (who me?) in my head: “Get your dent on,” for all the sick shit coming out of that town lately. My two favorites are the reformed Wax Museums, whose 2nd LP, Eye Times [Trouble in Mind] snuck up on me like a creeper in an alley that turns out to be a fine young lady with a sinister smile. Accordingly, my favorite songs on here, “Breakfast for Dinner, “Bruiser,” “Chase Your Shadow,” have lust on the brain, leveled out with a hint of violence. The straight-up Devo rip in “Nothing to Do (With the 60s)” gives me a warm fuzzy every time, and what more do you want from a short n’ sweet punk rock record? If that doesn’t do it for you, I’m sure you could find something to like on Video’s Leather, Leather LP. Featuring most of the dudes in Wax Museums/Wrists/Bad Sports/Wiccans etc, Video delivers a knockout punch with their debut. Possibly the first band I would unequivocally state are “Final Solutions-influenced,” Video bring that gnarly, catchy, vaguely sci-fi, totally KBD-damaged punk rock that has been one of the defining sounds of the last 10 years of underground rock (at least to those with a modicum of taste, I can’t speak for the Sufjan Stevens fans out there). They do it as well as anyone else, and certainly better than anyone going these days (minus HE o’ course). I really love the huge fuzzy bass that slices thru this record like a jeep-mounted machine gun, mowing down anything in its path. This band rules; come up North and rock some faces off, lads.
Who do you think would win in a sonic fight: Iceage or TV Ghost [In The Red]? My money would be on the Ghost, cuz even though they are still young guns, they’re actually vets of our murky underground punk planet by this point. Seems like whatever “hype” they had died down and now they are just doin’ their thang, not givin’ a fuck ‘bout nothin’ else. And it shows. Their In The Red debut (and 2nd alb proper) Mass Dream brings in a new rhythm section (keyboardist Brahne jumps to drums) and further refines their shadowy sound. Bits of Pere Ubu, Cramps, Birthday Party, Echo & The Bunnymen, Circle X and Bauhaus can be heard in their dark take on post-punk. There are some really fantastic melodies lurking under the weirdness, and the excellent recording by Greg Ashley frames everything perfectly. Strange to say, but I think these fellas are underrated now.
Speaking of underrated, my perennial favorites The Ex still don’t get the massive amounts of love they deserve, but that’s alright, the true believers know what’s up. I squeezed in with about a hundred of like-minded folks last spring in a sports bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn to witness yet another mind-fuckingly great show by these people, old enough to be your Mom n’ Dad, hell some of you your grandparents, and they display no fatigue, no jadedness, and without a doubt, no volume or intensity drop. They lost long-time mouthpiece G.W. Sok, but gained another ace guitarist in singer Arnold de Boer. His singing style isn’t so different from Sok’s, and neither are his insightful and sarcastic lyrics. The way the trio of guitarists played off of the polyrhythms so effortlessly brought by drummer Kat was truly awe-inspiring. Still one of the greatest live bands I have ever seen, and their self-released LP, Catch My Shoe [Ex], is another fantastic album filled with their unique and cutting art-punk. Hey Sonic Youth, break-up or step up your game.
Statement. Liquor Store made some kind of statement with their double-LP opus, Yeah Buddy [Almost Ready]. Yeah, it’s their debut. After only one 7”. The balls on these kids, like two boulders careening down a mountain. That doesn’t make much sense, and this record doesn’t either………til you chug-a-lug a case of Bud Light, smoke a QP thru an apple, and maybe punch yourself in the face half-a-dozen times. It’s seriously like a Use Your Illusion for all the fucked-up little greaser punk shit-bags with trash ‘staches and speech impediments roaming your shitty little town. It’s gonna take longer than 12 months to get your noodle around this puppy. Hope you have a good weed connect.
Pygmy Shrews. This band teetered on the brink last year, victim to drummer turmoil. But they persevered, recruited a new skinsman, and, as anyone who has seen live them recently can attest, are rocking harder than ever. Before he moved on, Jeremy Villalobos lent his heavy-hitting to the Shrews’ second LP, the charmingly-titled You People Can All Go Straight to Hell [Jack Shack]. Why mince words when you can level a crowd with vicious hardcore grunge like only the Shrews can? Serious power moves on this platter, everything recorded loud and clear by guitarist Ben Greenberg. Thick as a milkshake and just as smooth. Side A bludgeons you with short bangers that feature actual (gasp!) melodies amidst the riffs, and the dual vocals by Greenberg and bassist Tia Vincent-Clark provide an almost X-ish harmony, a rarity in music this heavy. These are people who grew up with the Nirvana in their DNA, so they don’t forsake the art of songwriting, or the value in a catchy chord progression. Greenberg is a virtuoso on guitar, but he doesn’t flaunt it; well, that is until you flip the record over and get face-pummeled by the title cut, twelve straight minutes of bad-ass shredding (by everyone, natch) that is what Black Flag was probably trying to accomplish with The Process of Weeding Out. Yeah, I “went there.” Kill yr idols, etc.
And now time to address the elephant in the room: Reissues. If you’re anything like me (ie. have superb taste and fairly respectable hygienic habits/drug problems), lately you have been spending the majority of your hard-earned (or ill-gained, I ain’t judgin’) dollar on this new cottage industry of legit, “exact repro” reissues. Now, buying bunches of reissues ain’t new per se; it’s always been a significant contributer to making us geeks broke, and the anticipation and will-they-or-won’t-they? expectations take up quite a bit of our external and internal record convos. It’s a talking sickness. But we enjoy it. Often you wait years and years before some damn thing, usually ruined via remastering/mixing, track order fucking-around-with, new atrocious cover art, expensive as all hell etc, materializes. Sure, the internet kinda made all that dry-mouth worrying go away; hey you can HEAR ANYTHING ANYTIME YOU WANT, MR. BROADBAND, but the true freaks n’ geeks still want that physical product, if only to accrue like a pharaoh ready for the tomb. They’re just fucking around, right? We can take it with us, right? So the “new” thing is to make them shits highly desirable via exact repro(ductions). Almost Ready Records honcho (and gin-soaked terror) Harry Howes took it to the next level last year with his KBD-klassik-reissuing label par excellance, Last Laugh. Can’t afford The Eat’s “Communist Radio?” No prob. Eight or so bucks will get you a perfect version of the original packaging, labels, and the music ain’t no slouch either. It’s a broke-ass normal human being’s dream come true. It’s a punk rock DJ’s wet dream cumming all over his own face. No need to lug all those dodgy-sounding Killed By Death comps with you (although they’re still good for smoke/piss/bump breaks); you can rock the 45s like a true gentleman. Howes stepped up his game even more this year, reissuing gems by the likes of Hammer Damage (“Laugh” at my Akron pride at your own peril!), Shitdogs, The Embarrassment, Puncture, Skunks, Ed Nasty & more. He also started another label called Mighty Mouth with intent to reissue obscure weirdness by artists like ‘70s glam-tran disco rock n’ roll queen Laurice (ie. Grudge) and he also dropped a little-known garage slow-burner called “Til the Stroke of Dawn” by The Psychopaths. On top of all that, he issued the never-happened debut LP by LL flagship band, The Normals. Which brings me to my next subject, but first I want to give a meaningful nod to a few other lovingly-executed (and legit) exact repros; namely Family Vineyard’s Dow Jones & The Industrials debut 7” (a complete discography is to follow in 2012) and Rerun Records’ Bob “That Thing You Do”/”Thomas Edison” 45. Both are classics of early US jerk-wave post-punkitude and the reissues are beauties of what should be textbook “reissuing.” A pleasure to hold and hear in the here and now. “Now on sale at” Permanent Records’ faithful reissue of the long out-of-print classic Chicago punk compilation, Busted at Oz, deserves a special mention, as it is a real piece of work, as in a piece of art. Tip-on jackets from OG art, printed inner sleeve, crisp sound, not to mention completely awesome and varied punk and hardcore by scene stalwarts Naked Raygun, Effigies, DA, Strike Under, and more. Bravo and thank you, the love is palpable.
As is the hate on Superior Viaduct’s reish of early ‘80s whatthefuckcore, Black Humor’s audio blister of an album, Love God, Love One Another. Gotta admit that I don’t own this. Why? Oh, cuz I got an original. (I don’t get to say that much, deal with it). You should get this at any cost; may be the best thing that came out this year. The future looks bright for Superior Viaduct. Don’t be fooled by its Clevo-centric title cuz this upstart imprint is intent on reissuing lost classics of early SF wave like Noh Mercy (!), Factrix, Tuxedomoon and more. Can’t hardly wait. Whew.
Also wanna mention 540 Records continuing an entirely commendable and well-done re-unearthing of late ‘70s Oz punk label Savage; two more classic singles by Just Urbain and Young Identities to throw on the pile. And we’ll also give a quick mention of the Really Red “Crowd Control”/”Corporate Settings” 45. Some kind soul booted it, and, as someone who considers them one of the United States’ greatest hardcore punk bands ever……well, gosh, shucks, thanks.
But then there’s this whole other off-shoot of the repro business that, in a way, is the most exciting of all. The NEVER-ISSUED. Old stuff made new again. Howes also weighed in with a collector-scum holy grail of sorts, early Cheater Slicks sessions with Alpo from the Real Kids on bass. Murder! [Our Food is Chaos; Almost Ready] Acute always does such a fantastic job with reissues, and now they’ve broken their vinyl cherry (finally! give us yr older shitz on wax too pleez!) with The Disco Zombies LP which features their 3 singles along with a bevy of unreleased tracks (and even more stuff via download that comes w/ the record). Maybe you know the infectious title cut Drums Over London, but are you familiar with the later, sublime track “Mary Millington?” If not, get crackin’. S-S Records is no stranger to digging up the finest in unheard spizz, and they really hit one outta the park with their Sperm Wails single. While 80s UK snarl-experts, Sperm Wails, had a few (great) records during their existence, S-S managed to procure YouTube sensation “Lady Chatterley” for its first appearance on a real playable vinyl record. Happy happy joy joy kill kill die. Jack Ruby. The name conjures one of the defining images of 20th century America; a stocky fellow in a fedora shoving a revolver into the gut of ultimate patsy Lee Harvey Oswald. But if you’ve ever been even slightly obsessed with New York City’s No Wave scene then you know of them as an early mythical iteration of the anti-everything post-Stooge/VU proto-punk underground, particularly as relates to one George Scott, intense bassist of both the Contortions and 8-Eyed Spy and tragic heroin OD. Some recordings surfaced this year via his old roommate and they are a revelation. We’re talkin’ prime-time proto-punk (’74-’77) rock noise up there with all-time greats like Debris’, MX-80, and all those bands from the crucible of post-industrial rock, Cleveland Ohio. An enterprising French label, Saturday Records, took it upon themselves to make sure some of these amazing tracks, only existing as a download on a blog at that point, made it to vinyl. And thus we have Jack Ruby’s debut single “Hit & Run”/”Bad Teeth.” Prefiguring all kinds of weirdos like Crime, Chrome, and MARS, this stuff is potent. A CD featuring more material was issued by no wave historian Weasel Walter’s ugEXPLODE label came out simultaneously. Word is that Feeding Tube Records will be committing that document to wax. More stuff like this and I might never buy a new record again.
Many of the following releases I enjoyed just as much, if not more, than some of the stuff I wrote about above: Rank/Xerox – s/t (Make a Mess); Cheveu 1000 (Born Bad); Obnox I’m Bleeding Now (Smog Veil); K Holes s/t (Hozac), Feeling of Love Dissolve Me (Kill Shaman); Degreaser Bottom Feeder (Negative Guest List); Sightings Future Accidents (Our Mouth); GG King Esoteric Lore (Scavenger of Death/Rob’s House); UV Race Homo (In The Red); Cakekitchen Kangaroos in My Top Paddock (Violet Times); Frustrations Negative Reflections (X!); Kitchen’s Floor Looking Forward to Nothing (Negative Guest List); Puffy Areolas “Gentlemen’s Grip” EP (Hozac); Pop. 1280 “Thirteen Steps”/”Dead Hand” (Blind Prophet); Crazy Spirit “I’m Dead” EP (Mata La Musica Discos); Timmy’s Organism “Scum Revolution”/”When The Bottles Break” (Hozac); Pink Reason Desperate Living EP (Almost Ready); Pampers “Eruptions” 7” (Jack Shack); Scarcity of Tanks 'Sensational Grade'; Thee Ohsees/Total Control split 12” (Castle Face); Hatefuck “Rock n’ Roll Letdown” EP (Negative Guest List)
Live shows? Sightings brings it every time; Harvey Milk basically blew my mind apart and put it back together, heavy as fuck and everything perfectly placed in the mix, really impressive; Guinea Worms are always a good time; Foster Care is probably my favorite punk band to watch/fall down with these days (look for their LP on Jack Shack sometime this year); Les Sexareenos reunion was a party and reminded me of what rock n’ roll is supposed to be; there used to be tons of bands like that (although not as good usually), where the hell are they these days? Step out of your fuckin’ bedrooms and slay the goddamn dragon!
HEAVY ADDENDUMDUMS: new - True Sons of Thunder LP (Jeth-Row) / The Unholy Two 'SSkum of the Earth' (CDR/NGL), old - Fungus Brains 'Ron Pisto's Real World' (Load) / Coitus Int. 'Dead Excitement' EP (Bunkerpop) / Jerusalem s/t (Lion/Rockadrome) / Dog Faced Hermans 'Those Deep Buds' (Alternative Tentacles) new/old - Kebab 12" (Soft Spot) / FM-BX Society Tape comp (S-S)
[originally appeared on www.terminal-boredom.com]
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
FOR BRENDON ANNESLEY
Get some rest, son
This life is a tired old whore
We run ourselves
Risk our souls
Drag our shells through
rotten alleys
It is never not to dwell
A hung head is a thing of
beauty In a world of
addictions Each a cough
and a choke
and a "How do you don't"
They will say slants
A roof a precipice
Balance just right an impossible
wish
"It will be better next time" they will say
But you will always know
That they are full of shit
This life is a tired old whore
We run ourselves
Risk our souls
Drag our shells through
rotten alleys
It is never not to dwell
A hung head is a thing of
beauty In a world of
addictions Each a cough
and a choke
and a "How do you don't"
They will say slants
A roof a precipice
Balance just right an impossible
wish
"It will be better next time" they will say
But you will always know
That they are full of shit
Thursday, January 19, 2012
TOKYO STORM WARNING - HIGH TIMES AT THE BLACK EYE
LISTEN: http://tokyostormwarning1.bandcamp.com/
ORDER:
OOP!
Monday, January 2, 2012
A SOGGY SAGA
These are the new white pages. I meant “Dark Ages.” I meant
“tone it done, Johnny.” I meant……"freedom really is the cage you think it is.”
WRITE, PUSSY on the wall; a command, a plea, a reminder, the
two things that cause most pain and delusion in this world. HAHA is the
invisible underline. The secret magical underwear tailored to fit each fat-ass
like a glorious sling.
“Sit, sit,” she….asked? told? Begged? What matters most
important? The meaning? The intention? The inflection? The subtext? The
language of bodies? Nothing?
I’m sure you know my answer, and thus therein “lies” the
rub. A scheming, petulant little shit intent on dismantling any pretense of giving a shit. Oh wow. Oh whoa. O Lord.
Years will flash by in a blink. No grand cinema played out
before your eyes. No This Is Your Life.
No maliciously grinning host, too-white teeth blinking at you conspiratorially.
Oh well now that’s too bad. We want someone to notice, don’t we? Even those who
spend hours/days indeterminable amounts resting in darkness, like an unsolved
equation, floating in a sea of its own blackness, the BLACKBOArd.
“Fuck if I
know,” he whispers in the parking lot, under his breath, even though there is
no one around. “Fuck if I know, man.”
A brief few months where the obsession of buying something permeates. A motorbike? A new
shower mat? A stick of deodarant? The Canary Islands? The soul of a deceased
infant? Oh come now.
Let’s get one thing straight: There is no other without you.
You are the dichotomy. Yes, it’s true, even your worthless existence measures
out to some degree. On what chart, who knows, who cares, really. Can’t you just
be happy that it’s “there?”
Impossible. You are an impossibility. Flip.
HE PARKED HIS CAR, CHECKED THE BLADE ON HIS KNIFE, AND JUST
WALKED OFF INTO THE DESERT.
Chastity Perkins keeps calling. The wind like lashes, snap.
Everything has a “mournful” sound to you. Ugh. Oh ugh.
“She was alone when her husband died.”
This breaks your heart. These women carrying death around
with them. She was pregnant with death, a shroud she treated as a security
blanket. The old childhood tropes. Coming home to roost.
Squawk squawk. Your words in her ear. “No, dear,” this last dripping with sarcasm,
modern venom, a most hideous development. You brought it down upon yourself, they
will try to convince you. What if, in fact our thoughts were where we are truly
judged, and the actions, the actual physical real corporeal actions, were
merely window-dressing? Did not matter. Oh wow. Oh murder.
Let us be clear about this: "Freedom really is the cage you
suspect it is.”
..,;,;.’
.’;,’;,.?;.
“My God, the faces she makes. You’d think I was stabbing her
through the heart. I thought this was supposed to be fun. Am I in the wrong epoch?”
A pact with the Devil. Normal. Boring. Codified.
A liaison with the Devil. This is new. I like this. Separate
but equal.
Winner! You one! I one! We all one!
P shawww. A constant state of being, no flux, no “I think I’m
gonna be sick.”
You are most definitely going to be sick, and you are most
definitely going to learn to love it.
Rise, rise, asshole!
-------------------------;;;;;
-------------------------;;;;;
He had never felt a warm wind. A scirocco, like the car,
they call it? Of course vice versa, names like zephyr. Little whirlwinds,
self-contained air kisses. A tornado
to tear you and your town apart.
Was in a tornado once. Essentially. Driving my shitty car
(pretty sure it was the GLC at this point) home from a party, stoned most
likely drunk, 18 years old, wait, so it was the Volkswagen then, probably. When
did I total that? I was 18. Listening to Sebadoh the day of a Sebadoh show.
They sucked. Talked to Lou Barlow for about a half hour after. He was wearing a
gODHEADSILO shirt. I didn’t tell him they sucked, but I did tell him I totaled
my first car earlier that day listening to a mix tape I had made and the song
playing at that moment was “Social Medicine” (a dead-pan funny B-side and
probably one of the last decent songs they wrote). The 70something couple’s Lincoln/Caddy/urban
tank was barely damaged. And they weren’t hurt and didn’t press charges. Brief
flashes of almost-death like that. Fucking Market Ave. That fucking light near
Our Lady of the Elms. Looked up, swerved instantly, narrowly missing some other
sonofabitch, jumped up onto the curb, luckily not flattening some earnest
citizen, jerked the wheel so hard back the other way I came right back onto the
street IN FRONT OF the car I nearly hit and wham bam thank you ma’am smash-o-la
fuck into the nice old people’s ass-end. Probably one of the nicest cops I’ve
ever met (it’s a select few) came to the scene. Probably should’ve been way
more painful. That was a good car. A fucking great car. A car is just a thing.
Where was I?
Ah. The tornado.
They put sugar in their buns. They put heroin in their
milkshakes. They put heroin in your gas tank. You park, you eat. They rollerskate
around, you are mesmerized. You eat so much visions dance in front of you,
time-jags. No notice. Flimsy accountability.
Cough cough. Engine won’t work. Tornado another time.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
BLISTER PACT
Inspiration glowing hot in a windowless room.
Spontaneous combustion exploding in a vacuum.
A springtime lullaby that wishes you ill.
Ladies and gentleman, for your pleasure -
"Escape Artist"
http://www.mediafire.com/?6z18996ehgbid17
Spontaneous combustion exploding in a vacuum.
A springtime lullaby that wishes you ill.
Ladies and gentleman, for your pleasure -
"Escape Artist"
http://www.mediafire.com/?6z18996ehgbid17
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