I was on the bus Sunday evening after a pretty miserable day, mindlessly scrolling social media. The Grammys had just ended and the mainstream internet was all abuzz; the surrounding hubbub was a pleasant but temporary distraction from reality, so I scrolled. There were a lot of artists I don't care about and a lot of artists I've never heard of using their moment in front of the microphone to actually speak out and call out some of the bullshit that has consumed so much of the insanity that has clouded the minds of people who give a shit over the last year (or so). It was refreshing and honestly a little surprising. Some highlights....
BILLY EILISH said "No one is illegal on stolen land. Fuck ICE."
SHABOOZY said: "Immigrants built this country. Literally."
ISRAEL HOUGHTON won the award for best Contemporary Christian Album and said: "To those who are hiding in the shadows in America, those who are scared, we are citizens of a kingdom that cannot be shaken and that will not end."
KEHLANI said: "I hope everybody is inspired to join together as a community of artists and speak out against what's going on. Fuck ICE."
BAD BUNNY said: "Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say ICE out. We’re not savages, we're not animals, we're not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans."
And then there was TURNSTILE. Apparently the people in this band come from the DIY hardcore/punk scene, but they sound a heavy/alt outfit with a few (admittedly sick) generic 'core riffs and some 311 groove parts...shit lands like a weak ass SNAPCASE rehash to me, but a lot of people I know love them and swear their live shows are good. They are an important band, those people say. They are innovative and they are bringing the spirit if DIY punk and hardcore to mainstream kids and that's a powerful thing, they say. Well, TURNSTILE won the Best Rock Album Grammy and I bet they used that platform to say some shit about the state of things in this country (and this world).....
TURNSTILE said: "The community we found through punk and hardcore music has given us a safe place to swing in the dark and land somewhere beautiful. So to our family, our friends, our partners, our peers and to Baltimore: Thank you. We love you."

Damn, that band is a fukkn waste. If you want to hear what TURNSTILE would sound like if they were good, listen to THIS and lose me with any nonsense about how TURNSTILE are relevant to punk in any way. They are a commercial rock band. Period. Nothing wrong with that, I like plenty of commercial rock bands....just call it what it is and please don't reference punk and hardcore when you talk about them.

Anyway, there's a group of actual die hards from Durango, Colorado called THE BAR D WRANGLERS and they play a mix of classic country and western swing and fuck me if this version of "San Antonio Rose" ain't a straight banger. Throw in the JERRY REED influenced "Parkin' Worries" and standards like "Cool Water" and "Ghost Riders In The Sky" and you've got yourself a bona fide winner. They are Durango's Favorite Family Entertainment Since 1969 for a reason, y'all.

WAY OUT THERE

AYPEROS

 

I often write about things that remind me of other things - about listening to things that make me thing about other times when I listened to other things. That's Nihspra in a nutshell, and I am fucking frothing while I introduce myself to AYPEROS because these sounds are emblematic of one of the best times in (my) punk history. This is mid-'00s stadium crust; PDX SweDe-Beat infused with black metal and CELEST(E) blasts and then just.......fukk man, just listen to the title track here. Please. PLEASE. 

NIHSPRA

XAMPLES

 

What is this.....? This is early '10s LA raw ponx unrealized. This is MANIA and DRAPETOMANIA. This is ADOLESCENTS and SADICOS and also UK82 and Group Sex and all of that shit, because what is this shit really....? It's punk. Shit is fukkn punk. PERIOD. Like seriously, what else do you need. Seems like XAMPLES were ever so slightly on the back end of the SoCal wave that stopped all of the (us) old(er) punks dead in their (our) tracks....but that's just context. Today is really just seems like this tape fukkn rules and the title track will blow your mind.

END OF THE LIE

JULIO IGLESIAS

 

You know him as the guy who did the duet with WILLIE NELSON, but Julio's career started more than a decade before he moved from Spain to Miami. Dude had hits in German, Portuguese, German and Italian in addition to crooning in English and his native Spanish. 1980's Hey! might be his pinnacle of swinging Spnish pop - there are some syrupy sweet crooners and some tracks that should have been on Love Boat or Fantasy Island montage segments. This tape is appropriate damaged (read: 'well loved') and some of the cuts present as extra weird or slightly tweaked, but I feel like this is a come-up when you're turning songs like "Morrinas" into cavernous burners. Look, there's a reason why Iglesias is a household name, and Hey! is a good reminder that it's not just about the radio hits. 

HEY!

ASSAULT

 

More under the radar Central (California) Coast hardcore from the late '80s. The OG hardcores had moved on (read: 'matured') and there were droves of teenagers who had grown up on the shit and were trying to emulate the sounds that lit a fire under their asses when they were in their early teens. Meanwhile those OGs were making How We Rock or exploring funkmetalpunk or some shit. '90s DIY experimentation hadn't grown roots yet, and there was this sweet spot where you had punk smoking ripping '80s hardcore records in a time when the general trend setters had stopped caring about ripping '80s hardcore. Listen to "Never Ending Greed" and "Animal Rights" here - shit is like Hear Nothing.... and NOTA in a blender and I can't believe it hasn't been unearthed and repackaged for modern consumption and reverence. As far as I can tell, there's only one vinyl offering from ASSAULT, but the three tapes currently in my possession (on loan) are fucking burners....this one might be the best. 

ASSAULT

HARSH R

 

Channel late '80s dance club angst in the modern era and you're going to get... HARSH R. God/s this recording is simply beautiful - I could dissect this shit (with a lot of words), but it would really just be me using a lot of words to say the obvious. Physical World is the embodiment of the obvious, and sinister primitive industrial sounds that are (obviously) critical to our....well, these sounds are critical. That should be all that you need. 

PHYSICAL WORLD

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL

 

It's really cool (for me) to revisit 'old' things - to revisit things that were created in a different time and consume them with the perspective that only time can provide. And with that perspective, this episode of MRR Radio that was broadcast thirty years ago today resonates with such incredible force that it makes me pause for a moment......

I was living in San Francisco and active in the San Francisco DIY punk scene starting around 1995. I always felt 'outside' in some way (if nothing else, I was new and poking around the perimeter of a scene that was well established long before I was even remotely aware), but by the end of the decade I certainly felt like I had my place. When I pulled this MRR tape out of the box though....I realized how completely outside of everything I was (then and now), and I knew before I popped this tape in the deck that this was likely going to be more about a person than an institution. The 717th episode of Maximum Rocknroll Radio was DJed and curated by Ken Prank, a Bay Area transplant from originally from Alabama who was quietly in the process of changing the face of USDIY hardcore when he put this show together, and just a quick look at the playlist will tell you that he knew exactly what the fuck was up years before anyone else did. URANUS, STATE OF FEAR, SPAZZ, POISON COLA, FRIGÖRIA, LIP CREAM, POWER OF IDEA, NEKHEI NAATZA, THE GAIA, OUT OF TOUCH, SUPPRESSION, DISKONTO, SLIGHT SLAPPERS, INSANE YOUTH, VIOLENT HEADACHE, INTEGRITY....you know most these bands, several are are more or less household names now, and some were the standard bearers for late-decade hardcore, but a collection like this at the start of 1996? Dude. Ken put this shit into the world while he was booking studio time for HIS HERO IS GONE to record the EP that completely changed the game....he knew what the fukk was up before the rest of us and has remained steadfast in his commitment to the real shit for the three decades since. Drop a MAKERS track and some unknown Latvian hardcore  (you ever heard of VOMNOSONOLOPPUS, punk?) in between SUPPRESSION and SPAZZ is really just casually letting everyone know you're a genius. 

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #717

Of course this post is all about the importance and the reach of MRR as an institution, but it was the people that made the shit important. 

Still is. Thanks.