AGONY COLUMN

 

If you know me even a little, then you know how much I love God, Guns & Guts. AGONY COLUMN's debut full length is a visceral redneck thrash juggernaut and tracks like "Fiendish Plots and Diabolical Minds" and "Dead By Dawn" are timeless classics. I acquired the CD in real time and it blew my mind; a formative recording that falls right alongside Dimensional Depth Perception and Scumdogs Of The Universe for me (the only GWAR record anyone needs, honestly). When Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles dropped I was ready - I wanted more. I was excited. 
Y'all, this shit was such a disappointment. Still is. There are a couple of highlights that could have been captured on a 12" EP. With room to spare. Devil Chicken's vocals are still absolute fire but the cheese overtakes the novelty and the songs just aren't strong enough to save it. Shit feels hokey - "Bayou Road" hits like some middle aged dads covering ZZ TOP at a strip mall brew pub on a Tuesday. I love that first record so much and I still want to like this so I try to seize on the good moments....so I guess "Hellbilly Blues" is about on par with some shit off the first ELVIS HITLER record and "Rain Comes Down" almost its like a FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM track from the upside down world. But that's all I got. That's it. Maybe not every Tuesday is about disappointment, but this Tuesday is. 

 

BRAVE WORDS & BLOODY KNUCKLES

HUGE PRICK

 

Sorry about yesterday, my friends. I was having a moment and I was happy that Tom T. Hall cared about me when I was twelve. So nostalgia today, no context and no emotions....just six minutes of high voltage sonic damage from HUGE PRICK. I never saw this band, but I hope they were a gloriously hot mess. Damn this shit is good - this is not giving a fuck hardcore. 

PSYCHO CHAIR

TOM T. HALL

 

This one is from the same batch I pulled the HERB ALPERT tape from, and I swear it seems like I heard all of these songs yesterday. I probably last held this cassette more than 35 years ago, but as soon as "Sneaky Snake" ended I knew "I Like Beer" was coming up next (and I remembered that even when I was a child I thought it was odd that my mother allowed a song celebrating alcohol consumption was allowed in the house) and almost all of the words to "Little Lady Preacher" just rolled off my tongue as Tom sang his stories. A near perfect representation of story telling country with borderline nursery rhyme vibes, culminating with "I Care" and Tom T. Hall singing off with a soft, raspy "I love you too much." That's pretty much all I need to keep me going today. 

GREATEST HITS VOLUME II

MAGICAL MIND

 

Remember when I was stumbling over myself on Thursday, trying to find words to describe and/or provide context to THE WALLFLOWERS? Well, none of that here. Just pure, unadulterated, disorienting noise. One hour and twenty-four minutes of noise. Some damaged beats come in on "Part 2" (around 55 minutes into the torture). They are absolutely terrifying. It's like one of those sleep sound machines, except it's hard wired to make you lose your fukkn marbles. Strap in.

WIATHI

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL

 

Honestly, when we were doing key bumps in the Chameleon bathroom in 1996 and talking shit about the MRR elites, this is why. I'm not saying we were right, and there are some straight killers on here....but we simply didn't want catchy punk that felt safe. We didn't need ZEKE and BLINK 182 and even though ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN was good - who the fuck cared when you could get high as shit and see RUDIMENTS in a basement on Alabama Street? SMUGGLERS sounded like some Purple Onion shit and that was for the retired set (who were, in retrospect, probably in their 30s). The best thing about SCARED OF CHAKA was that they were on a record with WORD SALAD. Look, in retrospect a lot of this shit is fukkn great - hearing KITTY BAD ASS and DISCOUNT played on the same show makes sense, the SODS track is still a complete annihilator and LUNCHBOX hits the damn spot right now. There are couple of Italian killers (GUASTAFESTE, FUORI CONTROLLO).....but still, we weren't wrong. We wanted danger. Two years later I was a shitworker, of course. 

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #724

THE WALLFOWERS

 

Damn near impossible to do any real detective work here since the other band called THE WALLFLOWERS were also the Southland and also started in the late '80s - it's just that the other band called THE WALLFOWERS had Bob Dylan's kid in the band and got kinda famous and shit. This band isn't that band. This band coulda shoulda been 1988 college alt famous but I guess they weren't. It was before grunge, and there are serious DRAMARAMA meets Homestead Records energies with a touch of the parts of Soulforce Revolution that you don't like. Could have shared the stage with THE NIXONS (but if you aren't from Oklahoma then you have no idea what I'm talking about). I listened to bands like this while I was listening to ERASURE and BGK and DEAD MILKMEN. I just knew it wasn't Taylor Dayne, you know? I'll never cast a shadow on letting me hear you body rock (if you know, you know), but I was fiending for anything that wasn't that. "Blue Sky's" should have been a hit....it perfectly captures a time that's tough to describe but easy to identify and I would have gobbled this shit up if I had heard in in real time. Forty years later? It still makes me smile - no mean feat in 2026.

THE WALLFLOWERS ©1987

SCRAPYARD

 

No bullshit, just hardcore street punk from the North American continent. 
This tape is from 2024, and there's a full length that came out like two weeks ago that is even better even though and/or because there are some butt-rock leads. Shit is like NYHC and THIN LIZZY. They released it on CD, which is pretty retro.

SCRAPYARD