GULAG

 

Got this little piece of magic from Matt a few years back and was extremely pleased to pull it out earlier this week for a late evening rip 'n blast. As I confessed a few years back, I'm far from a Greek punk aficionado, so I file this shit in the extremely pleasant "listen and enjoy" category....although this shit piques my interest at a dangerous level. GULAG hit the same verve that DAVOVA PSYCHOZA did when I first heard them in the back room at MRR decades ago - it's addictive and melodic punk and it sounds like it's not just coming from the other side of this world...more like another world entirely. Simultaneously gorgeous and intense, these tracks are culled from the Big Talk EP, In The Showyard LP and the debut Είσοδος Κινδύνου 0°C 12" from 1987 and literally every song feels essential. So enjoy Γκούλαγκ like I did...and because Matt is a real one, there are a few SAD LOVERS AND GIANTS tacked onto the end of the mix. 

GULAG

DEMON SYSTEM 13

 

I remember the first time I dropped the needle on Aborted Teen Generation - it was one of "those" punk moments that you just keep with you. It was instantly familiar but it was also new...and it was more. I ordered a copy from Ebullition based on a MRR interview (my copy still has the ghost image of the Goleta address that pressed through the polysleeve), and I was not remotely disappointed. We hosted then in Oakland, and arranged summer travel plans to see them in Reno and Chico because...things were different and we were younger and that's just what you did then. So imagine my excitement in the new reality when I laid eyes on this tape while BAD WAITRESS was playing in LA last weekend....because I love the shit out of DS13 but I didn't have this tape. Well, now I do and my new reality self is giving a hearty nod to old (young) me for knowing what the fukk was up, because motherFUKKR this is (still) the shit that I need. The Studio Shit demo is more raw and in your face than that first EP, and the live set from Nyköping (aka Fukktown, apparently) is straight fukkn fire, even though and/or especially because Tom talks a lot. Fukk dude...I love punk and/or hardcore. 

THE COMPILATION SESSIONS + LIVE IN FUKKTOWN

SOCIAL DRESS

 

Overt and in your face street punk a la WANKYS, TOM & BOOT BOYS or any other modern punk with gruff, snotty vocals and a healthy UK80 obsession. The real genius was keeping the demo at four songs (including a SPECIAL DUTIES cover), not because the songs aren't great (they are) but because even greatness has limits. As presented, however? This is damn near perfection.

SOCIAL DRESS

SILENT ORDER

 

Here it is, the shit Mondays were made for. The shit that used to fill the void left by the evaporation of freedom and the return to reality for weekend warriors turned office zombies. When I started posting so-called 'noise punk' tapes on Mondays, it was a different time. When I started posting so-called 'noise punk' tapes on Mondays, I was still in VACCUUM and the world of extra-damaged and over-manipulated hardcore was a world where rocks were still being uncovered. VACCUUM hasn't existed in well over a decade now, and so many rocks have been  uncovered by over-manipulated and extra-damaged hardcore freaks that they started playing generic street punk as some weird kind of revolt.....but the gems are still there. There are still sonic reminders from the past reminding you that on this day - the start of your week of futile toil - you are making the wrong decision. Because what you should be doing is searching desperately for more noise. There are bands who tortured their instruments for you....and you haven't heard them yet. Ottawa's SILENT ORDER did it in 2014 and they did it for you. To remind you: It's Monday. You fucked up. It's all noise. 

SILENT ORDER

DARK DAYS

DARK DAYS happened just as I moved back to San Francisco - not even just if I barely missed them or if I wasn't even close, since the onset micro-scenes means that if you aren't completely in a loop then you're completely outside of it. Regardless of the why, I've spent a fair bit of time with 2009's How Have We Done This in the years since and I am (still) impressed by the band's ferocity. The shit is just....ugly. GEHENNA and COP OUT vibes. Some bands have raspy, desolate sounding vocals; with DARK DAYS it's the whole fukkn band. It's only six minutes, of course....sometimes that's all you need to get your point across. Sometimes that's all you need to communicate desperation. 

SURVIVAL: MONEY IS THE KEY

ATRET

 

I first heard ATRET on Max's Barbaric Thrash Demolition comp more than twenty years ago - that was only three songs though, so I was psyched to pull this discography cassette from a box of tapes form Indonesia recently. Forty tracks of blistering fastcore/grind from Yogyakarta, I'm not sure what else you could ask for...you can ask for something different if you like, but I don't think you're going to find it here.

DISCOGRAPHY

••••

KALX CHRISTMAS

 Remember those appliance stores that would have Christmas In July!! sales to try get your parents to buy shit they didn't need or couldn't afford? Well this is like that, except it's October and I'm not selling anything - I'm offering. On the 25th of December in 1984, a gentle man named Pat Wright put this broadcast over the Bay Area airwaves via radio station KALX in Berkeley, and for this we are (all) grateful.

KALX - 25 December 1984