NANDAS

 

This scene did for New York in the mid-'10s what the Silenzio Statico ponx had done for LA a few years earlier. I don't mean NANDAS specifically (or even Toxic State in particular), but for a while you could just tell something was happening and you knew that it was something you wanted to hear. Even if everything didn't grab you (me), you (I) still picked it up and checked it out because there was a thing happening and that's what happened when I copped the Exo EP and I fukkn loved it. Murky, cold, monotonous pogo squirms fronted by uncompromising demented snarls? Yeah, that's the shit I was looking for at the time, and NANDAS delivered. I missed the demo but I caught up eventually (obviously, because here it is) and a decade later I'm still mentally moshing....

DEMO SPRING #)14

BLUE CHEER MIX TAPE

I ripped two ripping BLUE CHEER sets from 1968 last week, and there was some other shit on the tape that I liked even better. Honestly, one of the BC sets kinds sounded like shit but it's still BLUE CHEER from 1968 so it's worth it, you know? But it was still the other shit that got me all charged up, so here you go: EJERCICIOS ESPIRITUALES (probably '80s, probably Spanish, definitely rocking fuzzed lout garage punk with keyboards and wildly distinct vocals). MINT TATTOO was a BLUE CHEER offshoot I had never heard of but I'm not actively seeking their sole LP from 1969. Then there are four sweet ass '60s lite-psych numbers from a band I can't identify. Mix tapes rule, even and especially when they are accidents. 

BLUE CHEER MIX TAPE

CONTROL GROUP

 

Eight years after I posted five minutes of fury from a Grand Rapids outfit called CONTROL GROUP, I'm posting another five minutes of fury from a Grand Rapids outfit called CONTROL GROUP. Anchored by the searing "Parachute," their second offering hits much like the first....which is to say that it hits fukkn hard. Everything is mixed on top of everything else to create a wall of raw sound fronted by vocals pushed to the absolute brink with desperation and rage. The delivery is off the rails and teeming with indescribable intensity until the aforementioned "Parachute" threatens to implode. The end of the tape is almost merciful, and even almost hopeful if you listen without the benefit (or curse) of time. "Pissed Away" could be a youth anthem for the elderly - "where did my youth go? / where did my life go? / where did my time go? / where did my mind go?" sliding the life affirming refrain that closes the tape: "I'm in my 20s / I'm in my prime / now is my time / I won't piss it away."

CONTROL GROUP - II

TEENGENERATE

In the '90s SF world in which I existed, there was a general consensus that the Maximum Rocknroll folks were old and elitist and their institutional affinity for "traditional" rock 'n roll was outdated and irrelevant. That wasn't the case, and I wonder (now) if the adherence to some strict garage/punk sound was actually a revolt against the metal and indie and grunge sounds that permeated so-called punk sounds at the time but...I was an outsider so who fukkn knows. But what about this TEENGENERATE demo? So...in in something like 1996 TEENGENERATE played Kilowatt in SF and it was a "thing" at the time because they were popular in the MRR world that loved garge punk and I went to the show and they were really good. After the show.....

TEENGENERATE 1993

Look....there are stories I could tell related to the night of the Kilowatt show and the band in general, but I will spare you the uncomfortable reading and I will share you a killer eleven song garage punk banger from 1993. You're welcome (twice), but it was a really funny story. 

CRIMINAL CODE

 

You remember CRIMINAL CODE, right? The '10s are starting to sound like they're going to age really (really) well as I reach back and pull out things that I either never gave the time they deserved or never listened to at all in the time that I had. CRIMINAL CODE falls into neight of those categories however, I spent hours with their driving, brooding punk with guitars ripped from the pleading clutches of '80s college shoegaze and injected with uncompromising ferocity from a rhythm section who urge this band constantly forward. They were eventually from Tacoma but I first saw them in a Reno basement circa 2010 or so - I was floored that first time and CRIMINAL CODE only got better as I got worse while we each cruised through a decade filled with glorious sounds, inseparable bonds and incomprehensible conflict. Yeah, the '10s were where it was at, and this band was fukkn great.

THREE SONG TAPE

CRIMINAL ASSHOLE

 

There has been a deluge of Indonesian punk and hardcore in these pages over the last couple of months. I know that many of the tapes have been really good - like really good - but I fucking implore you to get down to this CRIMINAL ASSHOLE tape that was released 25 years ago. Holy fukkn shit. 

CRIMINAL ARMY

A.D. SKINNER

 

Somehow the picture of the monkey smoking the comically oversized cigarette kinda sums up the sound here - just some Aussie mutants bashing out six minutes of not giving a fuck and going hard. The title track is the closer and that guitar intro is like what one of those chef's kiss emojis would sound like if it could talk, but by the time you hear that you'll already be head bopping and bedroom moshing. "Stink" is like "Rise Above" if RADIOACTIVITY had written it (and honestly "Dogabone" seems to lift another part of "Ride Above" and if this was intentional then A.D. SKINNER are even bigger geniuses than I thought). "Beggar's Pride" is a perfectly filthy stomp...every song here makes an individual statement when you isolate them, but it's the whole damn thing that sounds like the monkey puffing on that cancer stick. Aussie punk are brilliant. 

DICKSWEAT