MYSTIQUE

 

Maybe 2020 did 'em in like it did a lot of other bands, but I never heard shit from MYSTIQUE after this 2019 burner. I mean, maybe it's just as well since this shit is flawless and you'd hate to see (hear) them follow it up with a stinker, as unlikely as that sounds after blasting "Pressure Of Steel Hands" and realizing that you are in fact strong enough to conquer the day before you. That's what MYSTIQUE does - they sound like they're physically pushing and pulling you at the same time, just to make sure you get the fukkn message one way or another. Forceful femme vocals and that UK82-by-way-of-power-crust swinging stomp that permeates sooooo much modern USDIY punk (this is not a complaint - merely an observation); there are only four songs here and maybe these four songs are all we're ever gonna get but....if you're gonna go fast, then at least go hard, right?

DEMO 2019

CHRONIC DISEASE

 

I don't mind being able to (correctly) just a book by its cover sometimes, and this tape from CHRONIC DISEASE delivers precisely what you expect when you look at it. Seventeen blasts of off the rails sample laden hardcore featuring tracks like "Full Of Nothing" and "Raise The Old Pain." Shit is rough, forceful and honest. A little sloppy sometimes (a lot sloppy other times) and that's exactly what you want. Even when it's not what you want...you might just find it's what you need. 

 HARD-RAW RAMGAGE: DIS-COGRAPHY 2004-2011

THE RESIDENTS

 

I had a RESIDENTS record when I was in high school - bought it because the eyeballs looked cool and never truly understood what I owned even though I rarely listened to it (probably because I didn't understand it). Now I wonder how that record (and a few others I copped when I was a pimply small town adolescent) made it into a shop in Ponca City, Oklahoma but....that's a discussion best filed alongside all of the other unsolvable mysteries in my life like "Why can't the richest nation-state in history feed and house its citizens?" and "Was my father actually murdered?" As the title suggests, this recording from 1986 celebrates the thirteenth year of THE RESIDENTS, which means they were well established outsiders long before they creeped onto my paltry record shelf a few years later....and it also means that THE RESIDENTS were next level freaks, making music that wasn't supposed to make sense to a kid like me in that place and time. I wasn't supposed to understand it - I was supposed to be confused and.....curious. Thankfully, I still am. Both.

13th ANNIVERSARY SHOW

ZIPPER

 

Deranged USHC of the most primal variety. "Labels" into "Sheep" might be the best example - VOID level unhinged. This ZIPPER shit just sounds ugly and a little ugly is exactly what I need to make it through the day. 

TOUR TAPE XXIII

SHOUTING OUT LOUD

 

A whole lot has changed in my life, but a whole lot is the same. I am....the same. A middle aged guy with a stupid job who fukkn loves listening to punk. Sometimes I'm compelled to talk and/or type about it (punk), but sometimes I just sit and listen to it (punk). Maybe I crack open a cold one while the punk plays or maybe I chill with the cat while the punk music plays, but when the punk music plays...something feels right. Even if I don't feel right, something in me does. Punk rules, okay? And so I listened to Shouting Out Loud tonight while the cat just looked at me disapprovingly - four bands from another world and a cat from this one. FULLMOON was kinda whatever melodic punk. DEATHCONTROL kinda reminded me of BLOWN TO BITS (which will only mean shit all to readers who were in the Bay Area during a very specific time in the '00s). SNACK OI! were.....I mean, they're called SNACK OI! for fukk's sake and they do a killer OXYMORON cover. But it was really about RAUCOUS; their three bursts are urgent punk at its finest and I'm making a mental note to find out more about this band tomorrow (which will be today before you read). Punk rules, okay?

SHOUTING OUT LOUD #1

CELESTIAL SEWER

 

Whether it's improvisation or calculated damage, the Max Nordile Family Of Music take my breath away with each unsolicited and appreciated package. I was about to describe CELESTIAL SEWER as the "latest" offering but then caught myself because there are probably another half dozen pieces of sonic irreverence waiting in the wings and Down In The Sink is merely the latest offering to reach my grubby (and greedy) little mitts. Teaming up this time with M. Magic (GIRLsERM, LOS PUNK ROCKERS, MOZART, STILLSUIT) and M. Furlong (NASTI), M. Nordile lurches through six pieces of improvisation and/or calculated damage with bass bleating like a lost trombone and Magic's guitar making excruciating sounds that simply defy identification....much less compartmentalization. The constant compulsion to create is a quality that I both share and envy, and barging forward even (especially) when you don't know where you're going helps to blend journey and destination into a froth that seems to go perfectly atop any morning beverage. So drink up (again), my friends.

 DOWN IN THE SINK

POLTERGEIST

 

It's been a minute since I've had something stick to me this quickly and stick with me this completely. Came home yesterday after a pretty decent day and popped Stupid Songs in the deck before I took off my coat - and it's not even that it's that over the top, it's that it feels that right when I listen to it. Just real good, real catchy, real earnest melodic punk. Sometimes you don't need anything fancy, you know?

STUPID SONGS