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

MERKED

 

You know those days when you only have, sayyyyyyy seven minutes or so but you feel like getting brutalized by at least eleven churning gut punches? An urge to grind but short on time? Thankfully, in moments like these there is MERKED. Sometimes I only have a scant minute to spare and I blast "Last Breath" so I'll have a nice twenty-two seconds leftover, but on luxurious days (like today) when I am in a bit of a rush but I'm able to set aside a full seven minutes for grind time....I listen to Good Night start to finish.

GOOD NIGHT

DOTTLÄND

 

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. Sometimes it's better to keep things simple, because sometimes things work for a reason. So don't think you're going to hear something you've never heard when you blast DOTTLÄND. But what you are going to get is a furious dose of churning Scandi-Beat from the All Day Hell school. And it's fukkn perfect.

MARTYR'S DEATH

POKOKE

 

Kinda sounds like some kids in Bandung were cranking some '77 UK punk boots back around the turn of the century. They probably listened to that shit daily until one of them said....'wait, this shit is easy - we can make these sounds ourselves' and then maybe POKOKE was born. Major chords, raw and tinny, bluesy riffs, snotty as fuck all with songs like "Fake Life," "Poor Boys" and "Let's Have Punk." And now you get to live those moments with the sounds surrounded by a very new reality...

REVOLUTION

LUNCH BUNCH

 

I remember when FUCKFACE and HICKEY rolled up to our show in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1996 and immediately noted the kid with the hand painted GRIMPLE logo on his crisp leather jacket. It just seemed out of place - awesome, but out of place. Later, my buddy Ross would tell me that the OKC/Edmond scene in the '90s was pretty fixated on Bay Area punk and hardcore (and that's before we start talking about Tulsa's relationship with HICKEY), and has since pelted me with more than a few unsung examples of that fascination. Enter: LUNCH BUNCH. High energy, kinda snotty pop punk trio that would have done just fukkn fine playing an afternoon show in El Sobrante back in 1992...perhaps this is just the kind of nostalgia you need as the world crumbles.

LUNCH BUNCH