924 GILMAN STREET PROJECT

 

The fact that this recording listens more like background noise than anything approaching punk history is notable. While I was still in high school in Oklahoma, a group of determined punks in the Bay Area were doing whatever it took to make sure that 924 Gilman survived after Tim Yohannan stepped away from the project less than two years after it started. This was recorded two months after what could have been the last Gilman show....maybe it was a STIKKY gig? Regardless, I'm glad it wasn't the end, because that venue has been a source of sustenance for thousands of Bay Area kids for almost 40 years. This was recorded by Pat (click the link, please), and serves as (mostly) background noise starting with JOY DIVISION and basketball (if you know, then you know) until the meeting starts almost an hour in. Listening can sometimes be a struggle, but remember the time and place here....this is important shit. This shit and these kids shaped a generation. I don't even know who's talking here....but I am grateful.

924 GILMAN MEETING: 17 DECEMBER 1988

PITBUL

Six minutes of uncompromising hardcore fury to start your week.....you aren't going to find very many bands in this millennia that hit like PITBUL. The whole thing is perfect, but then you listen to "Mental Prison" and start over because you know you missed something. This is everything you need today. Trust me. I wouldn't lie to you. 

DEMO 2020

ELLEN RIPLEY

 

This one is really tough to describe, but it scratches all of the right itches. You're going to to hear heavy KrautRock sounds and elements of anarchist post/art punk mingling with early '80s Czech punk innovators (think FPB and MICHAEL'S UNCLE) and proto-goth punk. To really listen to "SGR A*" is to hear early PINK FLOYD reincarnated as sonic Scandinavian activists in a reality far removed from any tangible comfort zone. The beauty of ELLEN RIPLEY is that they own everything they touch - it only takes a few bars to forget what you might have thought they were emulating. If this were a just world, then ELLEN RIPLEY would be music for the masses. This is not a just world, so ELLEN RIPLEY is music for oyu. 

BODY PACT

CARDINAL

 

Saw CARDINAL in San Diego a few months back and was blown away. On a night full of theatrical black metal with capes and candles and props galore, this subdued trio from San Francisco calmly set up their gear, clean guitar with no effects, corpse paint so casual that it made you wonder if they wore it every day.....and they blew the fukkn doors off. Mesmerizing, haunting, imperfect, sinister, raw....true. Luckily Demonstration 2025 captures their essence, but you must see CARDINAL live to experience their power. 

DEMONSTRATION 2025

PEACE VAULTS

 

It's a cool thing when a homie hands you a few tapes in a taqueria on Mission Street...it's especially cool when every. single. one. of those tapes is a straight killer. Prisoners Of Time is one of those straight killers. UK anarcho, modern DIY goth and '90s dorm experimentation (they gloriously clash with raw bleak metal by way of screamo) vocals and vibes that take me back to "discovering" alternative goth/alt bands in 1980s Oklahoma. PEACE VAULTS hit that way, and if you know what I mean when I talk about them....I hope you know what I actually mean. "The Young Kite" deserves a very (very) special place in your rotation.   

PRISONERS OF TIME

CASING

 

Raw, bombastic, devastating, grinding industrial sludge madness from London. 

Damn this shit is good. 

PATTERNS OF DETERIORATION

ASSAULT

 

The third ASSAULT tape that got rescued from that antique mall in SLO last year, 1900's self-titled swan song shows Orcutt's finest still ripping through SoCal hardcore-at-the-beach burners....but they are just a little more "mature," you know? There are a few meandering melodic bits and a couple of times when I (almost) think I hear rockabilly vibes. Vocals are the weird point here (especially the back-ups) until you realize that it's their ever so slight off-ness that really helps the band stick the landing. ASSAULT weren't perfect, even though listening to "No Morals" and "In Between" will make you wonder why they still remain (relatively) undiscovered.  

ASSAULT