NERVESKADE

 

Do you remember when this happened? The noisy, chaotic shit was already a thing and other bands had started pushing the envelope to be sure but NERVESKADE was different. And after NERVESKADE...? Everything was different. 

NERVESKADE

NERVESKADE

Noise chaos punx from PDX. NERVESKADE worship at the altars of DISORDER and Japanese noise, and manage to recreate the sound and the anxious vibe almost perfectly. The bassline in "Screams" makes it the highlight track for me, but "System Hell" and "Alcoholic Overfed" will make any noise punk grin from ear to ear. They are touring the west coast in October with D-CLONE, and they have a new EP. You should go see them, and you should buy it. Get out your glue.

Pacifist Anarko Infested Noize

MIXED COMBAT

One killer hour of bands recorded live on Portland's Life During Wartime radio show. A smattering of Europeans (LA URSS, GORILLA ANGREB, NO HOPE FOR THE KIDS), a couple of Canadians (BRUTAL KNIGHTS and FUCKED UP from when they still played punk), two token Texans (DESKONOCIDOS and SACRED SHOCK), but most of this shit highlights the current crop of punk from Portland Punk City: VIVID SEKT, HELLSHOCK, LORDS OF LIGHT, CRIMINAL DAMAGE, NERVESKADE, THE DISKORDS, DEAD SECTION and loads more bands ranging from balls out crust warriors to melodic dance inducing punk rock. One song from each band, just a great mix tape culled from the archives of LDW - top quality live-in-the-studio recordings that can only be heard on the show - or on this volume of Mixed Combat. This is Volume 1, I can only hope that more are to follow.

MIXED COMBAT Volume 1

VIVID SEKT/BOG PEOPLE

Portland's VIVID SEKT passed through the Bay Area again last week, and they were stellar once again.  Dark and dreary early 80s UK punk worship with a frontman who almost gets the pitch right - but it's the 'almost' that makes this shit so good. "Captive" will be stuck in your head for days.  Not ones to travel alone, VS brought their pals BOG PEOPLE along for the ride, and after drilling their demo into my brain repeatedly I knew it was going to be good. BOG PEOPLE share one member with VIVID SEKT, and share a drummer with the mighty NERVESKADE (yeah, Portland has a few good bands), but their attack is something entirely different from either. Noisy and chaotic UK82 styled shits to be sure, but there is something off kilter about BOG PEOPLE that make them stand out, and the guitar sounds like they rescued the tracks from a dumpster (that's a good thing).  Two songs from each, I recommend getting amongst this shit.

2010 Tour Tape

ZATSUON

Just like the title suggests, seven ear piercing tracks of distortion drenched chaotic noise crust. The sounds that create the base of this recording are painful, and then ZATSUON heap piles of insanity on top with a vocal assault that makes me wince. Worshipping at the altars of GAI, GLOOM and D-CLONE, ZATSUON have a clear mission, and they are well on their way. Personnel from various NYC noise purveyors and the frontman from NERVESKADE. Yeah, it's good.

VIOLENT NOIZE CRUSTER

FUCKHEADS

 

Holy fuck is it a face blast to crank this tape after it sat on a shelf for a decade!!! FUCKHEADS took the over the top noisepunk guitar manipulation that NERVESKADE dropped on the DIY world in the late '00s and injected it into a blistering embodiment of intense rapid fire East Coast hardcore. The foundation is hardcore punk - period - and that's what makes their treatments so perfect. Absolute face melting supremacy with erratic ADHD guitar treatments that make FUCKHEADS simultaneously difficult and fascinating to listen to, and check "Traitor" to learn about appropriate BPM implementation in hardcore punk. I feel like future punk is creeping in from the past to tap me on the shoulder and remind me that it's not quite time to die...yet. July 25th 2024 and listening to FUCKHEADS makes me feel alive. 

2011 SUMMER TOUR TAPE

PERDITION

Someone mentioned this New York band in a comment on the NERVESKADE post, and I was reminded that I hadn't listened to this bad boy in quite a while.  So I listened to it.  It's still noisy as shit. 6 tracks of rehearsal room recorded raw punk chaos from PERDITION...enough said.

There's Only Freedom In Death

BI MARKS

I find it hard to reconcile this demo with onslaught of killer brutal hardcore/noise/crust that has oozed out of Portland's pores recently, but BI-MARKS break the PDX Punk mold and just play hi energy punk.  The thing is: they play it better than most of the bands I've heard...just blast "Fuck My Generation" and if you aren't in love then we might not be friends. Every song is catchy as hell, tons of great hooks throughout the demo, but while I'm reminded of the good shit that came out of the early 90s I still can't call this pop punk (full disclosure here: the first band I thought of when I heard this was Mississippi's WHITE TRASH SUPERMAN, truly one of the greatest unsung bands of the 90s, and the first record I put on after I heard this demo was Don't Turn Away from FACE TO FACE which is one of the guiltiest pleasures in my collection - this tape sounds like neither, but it achieves the same melodic hook laden brilliance of both while still staying in your face and punk as shit). The recording is lo-fi as hell - part of which is a poor reproduction on my cassette - and it helps the songs sound even more punk, especially the warbling guitar on "No Comment" and "Throw Away The World." Fast as hell and playing with purpose, BI-MARKS are breakneck melodic hardcore that combine elements of loads of bands that rule while sounding like none of them - shit rules. One of the three guitarists is in NERVESKADE, but don't let that be your reference point...instead think early 80s LA meets mid 80s Midwest with a totally charismatic singer (not a vocalist - a singer) and all sped up a little too fast. Jakke tells me it's the best live show in Portland, and after several listens I can't really say that surprises me.  Do yourself a favor.

YOUNG OPTIMISTS CLUB

oh yeah..."High Time" is a ZERO BOYS cover, and in the interest of full disclosure I didn't recognize it on first listen it.  I knew the song but I couldn't identify the original, so I called John and sung him the chorus, then I called Uncle Fun in Milwaukee who knows all things rock & roll (apparently not quite) and then I wrote Mike, who most of you should visit more often - just click on his name to find out why - and even he couldn't figure out what song I was talking about.  Finally I wrote Jakke and he told me it was ZERO BOYS and I felt like a total dummy and then Jakke told me about how CRAZY SPIRIT covered a RAMONES song and tried to get him to sing and he didn't recognize it and I didn't feel so bad anymore. Also, the title track to the YOUNG OPTIMISTS CLUB demo is so good that it maybe should be illegal.

MORPHEME

If you live anywhere near The Bay Area (that's the San Francisco one, which is the one where I live), then the 2008 arrival of MORPHEME must not have gone unnoticed to you either.  At their show at Thrillhouse with LIMP WRIST and LEBENDEN TOTEN, everyone I knew was leaving the room with wide eyes mumbling "what just happened?" and we spent the next year seeing MORPHEME assault us with their wall of noise nearly every week.  Total Japanese crasher crust, executed flawlessly.  They seemed to play every show that I attended or played from spring '09 until singer Moto returned to Tokyo a few months ago, and I consider myself lucky.  MORPHEME kicked the scene here in the ass like no band I can remember, their energy and attitude was a serious wake up call to lots of us who had been sitting on our hands for way too long.  There's a completely devastating EP due soon on Prank Records, and obviously I recommend it.  These demo tracks were recorded by guitarist Daike, and are raw as fuck, get into it.

SOUON KONTON DEMO

**if you live anywhere near The Bay Area (the same one I mentioned before), the you should come out tomorrow to Sub-Mission (18th & Mission, SF) to see Japan's mighty D-CLONE, Portland's noisy NERVESKADE, DOPECHARGE from the lower Haight, furious FUNERAL SHOCK from the North Bay, and new band VACCUUM (featuring MORPHEME guitarist, PEDESTRIANS bassist, YELLOW EYES bassist, and SUICIDE BOMB bassist...the last three not all playing bass, by the way**

VERRÄTERISCH

NERVESKADE hit the Bay Area again in May (they ruled again, in case you were wondering), and this time they brought friends from Sacramento. When I hear "bass/drums/female vocals playing UK style punk" my interest is not piqued...so when I tell you that is what VERRÄTERISCH sound like, please trust me when I tell you that they fukkn RULE. This band blew away everyone at the Lipo Lounge that night; three weirdos from 90 miles away showed that basement full (ok, 1/3 full) of jaded Big City Shitbags exactly how to make a room explode. Every song was instantly catchy, I didn't miss the guitar even once, and the repetitive doo-da-doo-da beat that drove every song was perfect for the singer's neon clad one woman dance party...we were all invited to the party, though she was determined to bounce off all the walls whether we wanted to join her or not. The backing vocals are almost comical, just a periodic barrage of "AARRRRRGGHGH" and/or "YYYYEEEEAAARRRGH" that makes is impossible to not sing along with every chorus. The whole thing is sung in German (their name means 'TREACHEROUS'), and don't be alarmed at the chorus of "Hellhunde" which at first listen sounds substantially more nefarious than it actually is. This demo manages to be fierce and angry while still having fun, which is a great accomplishment...hopefully they make their way back down here again sooner rather than later or I might have to go to Sacramento.

VERRÄTERISCH

CONCRETE ASYLUM

Keeping track of the bands popping up from Nova Scotia in the late '00s was like the most frustrating game of Whack-A-Mole, a game that seemed impossible to win. If you looked closely, it seemed like one or two dudes were at the nucleus of everything (I think Cody Cross is in five of the six bands featured on the NS side of this regional comp), but it was the shockingly consistent level of quality that was truly stunning - there weren't just a lot of bands, there were a lot of great bands. CONCRETE ASYLUM's particular approach to chaos holds up up especially well (I mean, it's only six years old at this point, but you get my drift) - brutally fast and manically constructed hardcore with stop/starts and nonsensical guitar leads and effects that take the wall of white noise to endless and dizzying realms. Quirky lightning speed pogomincecore (I made that up) tracks underneath the insanity, but I need to be clear that the insanity itself is the focus here. Like NERVESKADE maybe,  but just.....more. More speed, more drugs, more noise, more chaos. Just one EP and two demos from these kids (the first demo is here, in both presented and intended forms), but that's kinda how Nova Scotia seemed to roll. 

11 SONG EP

Can we talk about that cover art? No? OK, maybe a different time, because......wow.