BIG

 

A while back, someone casually mentioned that they thought BIG were the hottest new hardcore band in the Bay Area. I noted this observation, and remembered the drummer for my old band telling me about his new band called....BIG. Eric beat the shit out of the buskets in STERILE MIND and he was constantly involved in the construction and evolution of our songs. I imagined that translating that energy and focus to guitar would probably lead to something I needed, but it was months (years?) before I saw BIG in the flesh when REALISTIC played with them in a San Francisco batting cage (it's a thing) earlier this year. I was right - that casual mentioner was right. BIG are advanced hardcore. Maximum intensity delivering every micro-hook you never knew you needed. Metallic breakdowns, pop punk sensibilities and occasional indie vibes (I swear a BLOC PARTY in "Fear & Hunger") driving hi-NRG squirm punk and it all sounds like the hardcore that you didn't know you were missing until you realize you (finally) have it. Anyway.....shit is good. 

DANCE MUSIC

CELENG THE ABSTRACT

 

Total fucking noisecore nonsense. Ten songs, four minutes. You might not know that you need this, and you might not need this at all. But you won't know that you don't need this until you have it. And actually, you need this.

DEMO 2025

EATING

 

As stated countless times: the compulsion is the draw, the results are the prize. 75 minutes of improvisational and/or experimental noise and/or sounds from Ange and Max. This is truly Music For People, and intentional listening is recommended. The compulsion and the drive is the thing, the sounds are the result....endless respect. 

NONSITE / SITE

BROKEN BONES

 

When I posted a tape-trader version of this tape a dozen years ago, it was the first time I had consciously listened to BROKEN BONES. The name and logo are ubiquitous and sometimes it seems like everyone already knows all of the "important" things before you do (or at least it seems that way to me sometimes), but there's truly nothing as exciting as discovering a classic for the first time. You know it's monumental even if you don't know everything about it....yet. Hearing "Civil War" for the first time, I felt like a 13yo kid in his bedroom fiddling with the dial to try to record "Smoke On The Water" off the radio because I knew it was special. There you go - I just compared Bones to Ritchie Blackmore. And there were only twelve years between those two tracks, when is wild when you think what twelve years ago in the realms of modern hardcore. Anyway, this recording fukkn rules; quintessential UK metalpunk. 

DEM BONES

RICHARD SCARY

 

Absolutely fucking demented hollow tupa-mania from Southern California. Alien squirms and dark alley beatings punctuated by bursts of savage raw hardcore punk insanity. "Rot" is the closer, and I was so fukkn bummed when I realized that when it was over...it was over. Good shit. 

HELL IS A PLACE ON EARTH 

MASSES

 

I've said it a thousand times, but goth punk is better when it's punk. Enter MASSES. Melbourne (AU) maximum energy dark punk.....emphasis on punk. Jam "Intolerance" and tell me you need anything in this godforsaken world....I'll tell you that you're wrong. 

2017 SE ASIAN TOUR

SHAKEY BONES

 

I ripped this one in the spring - a tape from Pat's collection that I had every intention of sharing 20 years after it was recorded. But I forgot, and that milestone was back in June. It would have felt weird to post it and say "this recording was twenty years old a few days ago" so it just kinda sat in the to be posted folder languishing. Until today...when this recording is twenty years and three months and one day old. 
I don't care about folk punk or train hopping americana.....until I hear it done right. And then I start thinking about a guy I met in the '90s called Montana Bill who had the outline of the state Montana tattooed on his face. He wasn't from Montana. But you can hear the freedom represented by that anecdote in this live performance broadcast on KZSU on June 1st, 2006 who released three CDrs and then vanished. Listen to "Goin' Down This Road Feelin' Bad" and know you aren't alone when you feel bad. 

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