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. 

LIVE ON PIRATE RADIO

TEMPLES

 

Is there a place for pained, deliberate solo improvisational electronics in your life?

If your answer is yes, then I offer you TEMPLES. 

BESTIAL

HÄNDE

 

Why not continue on a theme, right? Moving from Austria to Poland with a sound more reminiscent of INTERNAL AUTONOMY or UK DECAY filtered through stark Eastern Bloc punk. Decidedly dreary and danceable, with hints of RAKTA creeping into "Parafina" via synths and drums that remind me of watching Natha at the Whistle Stop Bar in San Diego a decade ago....but I digress. demo hände closes with "Koniec" - it's the hardest hitter on the tape; a would-be late '80s dark alt classic with guitar, vocals and synth sharing the spotlight. Sometimes you hear a thing for the first time and it's already in you before the tape stops rolling...that's what happened here. 

demo hände

DRUCK

 

Describing DRUCK makes me feel like an amateur sommelier talking about a bottle of cabernet. You're going to hear hints of MERCURY REV and SPACEMEN 3 floating around a base of Kraut Rock and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Notes of '90s Neil Young color the instrumental title track before you let the twelve minute B-side "Sonnenleiche" envelop you with waves of PHARAOH OVERLORD-esque dark synth driven repetition. This is truly a gorgeous release, and I offer it to you with the highest recommendation. 

AAA