BG

I have been posting Oklahoma tapes for several Sundays now, but I'm going to cheat a little bit today and rock a demo from my former neighbor to the east, Arkansas.  Fort Smith was where I played my first ever show outside of Oklahoma, and I believe that most of the folks from BG were there (and helped set up the show), so it was good to roll through town nearly a decade later in 2001 and see that the dudes are still killing it.  This band would have been hugely popular had they been from somewhere "cool," but then they also might not have been nearly as good. This demo was the precursor to a couple of crushing EPs and a split with IRON LUNG, and came from RASH OF BEATINGS and BURNED UP BLED DRY personnel (anyone got those demos? drop me a line). The band's namesake and cover model is the guitarist's brother (his name is BG)...I guess it's a little easier to become a legend in Arkansas.

BG DEMO 2001

AXEMAN

I picked this up last week from the Raw Ponx from LA when they were up in The Bay last week (great fukkn show from TB, POLISCHITZO, RAYOS X and that band from San Jose who rules but I could never remember the name of), and it pretty well floored me.  Epic and dismal raw black metal from Southern California that deals as heavily in tape hiss as it does guitar fuzz, AXEMAN create an utterly painful vibe in these three songs.

If this suits your fancy, then please check out this weeks Black Twilight post over at Cosmic Hearse, and if it doesn't, then rest assured that poorly played shitty punk will be returning soon.  "poorly played" and "shitty" are both terms of endearment, and meant as positive comments, in case you were offended.  I like poorly played shitty punk...anyway, get your evil on:

ARRIVE

RIPPLING FLESH

Fridays are for compilations, here at TEHQ, and this one is a fukkn scorcher, if I do say so myself.  An entry over at KFTH was the only way I was able to identify half of this shit, and even with that limited guide, it's kinda tough picking out the CAPITLE (sic) tracks from the PSYCHO tunes, and MOTTEK and RAZZIA sound a bit alike as well on this release, so a fair bit of the editing here might be a little suspect (the few song titles I've included are pure guesses...I figure it's a safe bet that when the singer for the brilliantly named band PUNKS shouts "KKK" over and over throughout the song, the song is called "KKK," but you know what they say about assuming...).  Ripping shit throughout, the first half from the USA (PUNKS, killer live shit from Alabama's THE KNOCKABOUTS, CAPITLE, PSYCHO, NO IDENTITY, THE ART THIEVES, my favorite songs on the tape from JERK WARD and TOEJAM) and the other half from West Germany (R.A.F. GIER, RANOLA, RAZZIA, MOTTEK, EA80, BLUTTAT, and a band I cannot identify).  A few songs from each of these bands, and everything here is top notch, enjoy.

RIPPING FLESH

WOGENDES FLEISCH

for folks in the greater Los Angeles area, please come say hello tonight: OPT OUT, 

NO STATIK, ANIMALITOS, LA VOZ, COBWEBBS at The Eastside Manor on Olympic in LA.  

SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS

Here's the third tape from early 80s New York City bizarro thrash outfit SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS.  It would be pretty easy to dismiss this band upon first listen; the vocals are completely all over the place and teeter right on the brink of being really irritating for most of the tape, and the guitar attack kinda comes off as DEAD KENNEDYS worship gone the way of VICTIM'S FAMILY, but around the middle of "Down On All Fours" something just clicks, and this shit becomes indispensable.  How a song seemingly about eating frozen dinners could end up being a rather profound and thought provoking tune addressing the dangers of complacency is a testament to SATANS CHEERLEADERS being more than the grating nerd hardcore that they seem to be.  Don't get me wrong, getting over the shrieks coming from frontman Jon Sanborne might take more than a little bit of effort, but I think you will find the reward quite worth your while. Mix early MDC with DKs, REAGAN YOUTH and MINUTEMEN...now play it too fast and slop everything up a lot.  I don't believe that they did anything after this tape (except maybe get their drivers licenses?), but check out this 15 minute, 12 song manic attack.

BARK TWICE FOR FREEDOM

it kinda sounds like this looks:

KILL YOUR BRAIN

Look at this shit! This is exactly how KILL YOUR BRAIN sounds; a complete surrounding of your underutilized cerebrum by a small army of comic book knives.  If you've never heard that, then please allow me to assure you that it sounds really good.  Ultra noisy punk rock with liberal doses of psychedelic rock n' roll for good measure, but mostly this shit just fucking jams, and people who don't like things that jam are people I don't really want to be friends with.  Like tonight, when I played DEEP PURPLE's "Speed King" and this dude was like "eh, this is ok, but it's nothing special." That is exactly the kind of dude I don't need in my life.  Can you imagine blasting SOCIAL ABUSE or VIRUS for someone and hearing them say "this is ok"?  Yeah, I can't either, and while KILL YOUR BRAIN doesn't sound shit-all like DEEP PURPLE or SOCIAL ABUSE, VIRUS, and most other 80s UK punk (...actually, they kinda sound like the best parts of MUDHONEY, but on a shitload of acid), what I'm trying to imply is that they are really good.  Also, they are from Virginia.

KILL YOUR BRAIN

DISTEMPER

Blazing four song demo from Scotland's DISTEMPER that someone asked for last week.  Were it not for the white hot guitar sound I might consider this Oi! but the guitar is so gloriously blown to hell it practically places these tunes in a genre all their own. This 1984 tape and one track on a Scotland compilation EP the following year are all that DISTEMPER graced us with, but if you're going to leave a legacy, it might as well be punk as fuck.

UP AGAINST A WALL

ACID REIGN

Maybe in 1989 I thought ACID REIGN were just the poor man's ANTHRAX, but in the year 2010, I think that they are at least as good as the middle class man's ANTHRAX.  Here's the killer 6 song debut EP from these UK thrashers, complete with Psycho samples and mandatory acoustic outros. This band must have existed 1,000 times over in every corner of the world, but listening to "Respect The Dead" will make you think that ACID REIGN were the only ones that mattered.  Once again: Enjoy your Monday.

MOSHKINSTEIN

and if nothing else, who couldn't love faces like this?

CHRISTIANISTAN

Ultra raw political crust-o-rama for this Sunday's Oklahoma post.  CHRISTIANISTAN were from Norman, and we played with them at a warehouse in Oklahoma City in the summer of 2002.  I honestly can't remember a thing from the show because my mother drove down to visit and I spent most of the night sitting in the corner of a warehouse (it was called the Oatmeal Collective, or so Ross tells me) awkwardly visiting with her, surrounded by wasted fukk-ups and copious amounts of booze and weed.  Too bad I missed their set but the demo I left the show with (hope I traded you something good, dudes!) has lasted through many purges, and now here are 12 songs in 13 1/2 minutes for you to listen to while you melt your face huffing gasoline and entertain blurry thoughts of life somewhere other than where you are today.  Proper demo quality recording, but what might be lacking in terms of studio prowess is more than compensated for by a killer bass tone and an all out assault of crust/dbeat/fastcore madness.  I don't miss living in the state for even one minute, but being a punk in Oklahoma is a fucking commitment, and that intensity shows in bands like this.

CHRISTIANISTAN

"For The Cover Of Our Next Record All We're Going To Have Is Our Name And A Picture Of Someone Oppressing Someone Else"

generic sensibilities / exposes the banality / and total insanity / of the punk rock scenery

is it just me, or is it getting boring to keep pointing out the things we're ignoring?

DEPTH CHARGE

When I listen to bands like this, I wonder what people thought of them at the time.  I hear charging UK punk with influences ranging from GBH to DISORDER to HERESY, with liberal doses of pub life and beer to season the mix.  "Sirens" is a heavy plodding crust number that will easily please the black clad masses, while "What A Combination" sounds like a lost gem from a bygone UK punk era.  But in 1989 when this demo came out, did all the punks who had moved on to thrash or pop punk or metal (or perhaps just moved from the stage in the back of the bar to the seat at the bar itself) just shake their heads and wonder why DEPTH CHARGE were stuck in the past?  Not sure about some of the lyrics, but even cider swilling punks can't be "all genius all the time" I suppose.

JUST FOR A DOSS

BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

The title pretty much says it all, doesn't it? I picked this up at Phantom City in Olympia a couple of months ago, and it was a most excellent purchase.  There was a massive series to choose from, all with similarly descriptive titles and, based on the quality of this mix tape, I probably should have picked up things like German Funk and Booty House 1972-74 cause I bet the shit rules.  Apparently a certain K Records maestro is the master behind these eclectic mixes, and all I can say to my first installment is: nice work. From the opening of GENERAL's "I'm So Lazy" and it's distinct RUSH influence, we are taken on a journey of hard rock, psych, surf and boogie that lasts just under an hour.  There is a pretty heavy BEATLES undertone to a lot of these tunes, which is not surprising considering what Eastern music folks might have had access to (very little).  Highlights for me include THE OLYMPICS ("Black Mass For The Nuclear God?" Yes please!), PUHDYS, ZODIC, CERWONE GITARY and TEAM 4.

SOVIET-ERA ROCK AND POP

SIDE 1

1. GENERAL (Hungary)

2. ILLES (East Germany)

3. NIEMEN (Poland)

4. THE OLYMPICS (Czechoslovakia)

5. GRUPPE ABC (East Germany)

6. ----

7. LOCOMOTIVE G.T. (Hungary)

8. ENSEMBLE SINCRON (Romania)
9. PUHDYS (Soviet Union)

10. M. TARNOWSKI/U. PADZIAK (Poland)

SIDE 2

1. ZODIC (Latvia)

2. THE OLYMPICS (Czechoslovakia)

3. INDEXI (Yugoslavia)

4. BAYON (East Germany)

5. CZERWONE GITARY (Poland)

6. THE MATADORS (Czechoslovakia)

7. CENTRIC (East Germany)

8. NIEBIESKD-CZARNI (Poland)

8. TEAM 4 (East Germany)

HATE THAT SMILE

Some killer mid-80s UK punk from HATE THAT SMILE.  The vocalist sounds like a Join The Army era Mike Muir on the first track, and after that he just kinda sounds weird, but by the end of this tape I find myself drawn to his voice.  Ultra clean and jangling lead guitar that suits the mid tempo songs brilliantly. There are hints of several different bands, but it's really just passing glimpses, which keep you one your listening toes.  I hear AHEADS, UPRIGHT CITIZENS, Flip Your Wig-era HUSKER DU, SUBHUMANS, PSYCHEDELIC FURS (yeah I know, FURS? weird, but it's in the songwriting and I can't escape the reference) and others that you will probably find as well.  I am pretty sure that these dudes were involved in the early thrash/crossover scene, though their music really doesn't reflect that at all, just sounds like melodic UK punk to this guy...fortunately this guy likes melodic UK punk. 11 songs, "Out Of Nowhere" is the ripper: get into it.

HATE THAT SMILE

SEALINGS

Here's some pretentious arty shit that some of you will hate.  Of course, some of you will also love it.  The first track, "My Boyfriend's Dead," is a dark synth-drenched dirge that reminds me of early SUICIDE with a modern COLD CAVE-esque touch, it's by far the best track on the tape.  "Atomised" is more of a straight rock number, and serves primarily as a segueway into the second side which is more along the lines of the first track, but trade the COLD CAVE reference for early JESUS AND MARY CHAIN.  Yeah, I know...I'm not punk at all.  Oops.

SEALINGS

VACCUUM

Noisy distorted raw punk four piece from the Bay Area.  Folks from this band were in REPERCUSSIONS, YELLOW EYES, MORPHEME, ARTIMUS PYLE, PEDESTRIANS and many others, and I'm the one "singing."

VACCUUM

more SMILES

I posted a SMILES demo a few weeks back and, as promised, here is another one.  These three songs come from November 1985 and are more advanced (read: moderately successful attempt at "polished") than the tape posted earlier.  The version of "Blind Alley" here is fucking great...completely stellar UK punk from Bristol.  Enjoy your Monday.

SMILES November 1985

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Matt, the guitar player for my first band, was the singer for MULTIPLE CHOICE... I heard the 4 track recordings that Matt and John (guitar) made with a drum machine and I was instantly jealous (they were far better than the band Matt and I were in), but sadly they had already recruited a bass player.  Patience has its plusses, and I joined the band in early 1993.  Our first show was opening for THE FLAMING LIPS and Matt spit beer on Wayne Coyne's mom, which I suppose made us punk? We recorded this tape in 1993 with Steve on drums, wrote the songs in Steve's dining room with cymbals hung from the ceiling by chains (seriously), and then sold them all for $1ppd in the pages of MRR. To date I have met exactly one person who ordered a copy, I hope everyone else liked it.  Three of us morphed into FUCKFACE a couple of years later and with a cadre of five drummers were on tour for a total of 44 weeks from 1994-97, playing nightly whether the "audience" wanted us to or not.  Matt's vocals are perhaps more manic and frustrated here than I've ever heard them in any of his bands since (that can probably be chalked up to living in Oklahoma); John's guitar shreds like it always has (though it took ten years to get him to play solos again after this first batch of MULTIPLE CHOICE songs); and I am hopelessly out of tune (no surprise there).  We didn't know what we were doing, and it was awesome.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

OPERA FOR INFANTRY

This duo started releasing music in 1983, but I am guessing that they started hating years earlier.  These two tracks, totaling just over one hour, take the art and psychosis drenched industrial mayhem of THROBBING GRISTLE but trade the oddness of TG for complete hate, and add the vocal attack of UK punk. Truly nihilistic, frustrated and angry sounds recorded live in 1984.  I can't really be sure what scene they existed in (my guess: none whatsoever), but presently these characters perform and record as GREY WOLVES, whose sounds will more than satisfy fans of harsh noise and aural manifestations of rage.  The two pieces here, titled "Scumworld" and "Hate Machine," tend to make me think that they were on this path a long time ago.

OPERA FOR INFANTRY perform SCUMWORLD AND HATE MACHINE

IT CAN WORK...

This is a perfect example of the wonderful nature of the 80s tape making and trading culture, as I'm willing to wager that some enterprising young chap just dubbed him or herself "Flower Press" in 198whatever and made him or herself a mix tape of his or her favorite jams, made a punk looking cover for that now crucial C60, complete with excessive misspellings, then slapped a "Pay No More Than 90p" on the front and VIOLA!! a compilation tape is born! Absolutely great mix tape of early 80s UK punk from the likes of CHUMBAWUMBA, THE INSTIGATORS, THE XPOZEZ, THE INFECTED, THE APOSTLES, HATE WEEK and more.  The surprise on this one was PASSION KILLERS, whose impossibly catchy "The Fighting Carries On" starts out the tape...perfect tuneful UK punk with a singer that should have been famous.  There are two apparently live tracks from XOSET U.K. that are way more hardcore that I was expecting from the other personnel on the tape, and I imagine these gents with a studio treatment would be a fukking force to reckon with.  Super killer stuff, so my hat goes off to the lad and/or lass who put this together for the rest of us...and he/she will be happy to know that 20+ years later, I still paid less that 90p for the tape.  Up The Punks!

IT CAN WORK Side A

...BUT IF WE ONLY LET IT Side B

Also...all the poorly spelled words in the files for these tunes?  They are copied directly from the tape so don't come talking to me about how I can't spell "AUTONIMY." I know that spelling ain't punk and stuff, but some of these are pretty bad, so I would like to absolve myself, just in case ridicule is warranted.

RAZA DOLLS

THE RAZA DOLLS came from Bournemouth, and brought us this four song opus in 1988.  Goth drenched post punk that nods as heavily to THE MISSION as to HOUSE OF LOVE and other more commercial versions of the vaguely shoegazing music made by lots of former punks in the late 80s.  Quite often, that shit sounds about as good as a monkey playing a banjo through a reverb pedal, but on this rare occasion, THE RAZA DOLLS came up with a lotto jackpot.  Obviously it worked out well for them, because you remember them being plastered all over MTV and hearing their songs play while the credits to your favorite romantic comedies scrolled up the screen and they all made heaps of money being in this band that made commercially viable but yet artistically poignant and important music...right?  Oh wait, I forgot, there is no justice in the world, and things aren't fair, and Jay Reatard died and he was 29 years old.

THE RAZA DOLLS

THIEVES

THIEVES are a current, and currently burly, hardcore band from North Carolina.  When I say "North Carolina hardcore" I think CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, and when i think "CORROSION OF CONFORMITY" I think the 1980s hardcore, and when i think "1980s hardcore" I think MINOR THREAT, and now that I put that all together: THIEVES kinda sound like COC playing MINOR THREAT songs.  This is really fkkn great, no bullshit hardcore with everything played full out and/or to the max, whichever form of praise you prefer.  There is a B-side, it's all live shit from later in 2009 and it kills, but seeing as how you can easily buy this shit for cheap from these folks right here and support the band, it seems pretty silly for me to just give it away.  Cheers.

THIEVES

SOCIAL ABUSE

SOCIAL ABUSE came from Falkirk, which is somewhere northish of Edinburgh, and they are punk as fucking shit.  They rely almost exclusively on the plodding floor tom heavy mid tempo UK punk beat, which is completely fine by me, but it's the vocals that make this six song demo totally indispensable... strained and insistent in the way that only a teenager can really be.  The songs are rudimentary and rather monotonous (this is a good thing) but well played, and fueled by the vocals there are some incredibly catchy bits on this tape.  "Society's Prisoner" gets my vote for punkest tune of the lot, with it's long winded howl "Did you have a nice day at the office deeeaaaarr?" while the band lumbers through the two notes that make up the entire song.  Yeah, it's brilliant.  This is from 82 or 83 (I think), and I don't believe they released anything other than this tape, so dig in.

FIRST OFFENCE

ABOLISH AUTHORITY

I'm not even sure where this shit is from, much less when ABOLISH AUTHORITY made this magic, but these four songs are fucking stellar crusty metalpunk, and I love it!  The word "areti" (second song: "Operation Areti") is Greek for "virtue," the blank tape that this demo came recorded on has banal instructions in English and Greek, and if I listen to these tracks alongside ANTI and CHAOS GENERATION I can hear similarities...so I guess they are Greek? If someone knows anything about this band, please let me know.  These songs have been on heavy rotation at Terminal Escape for several weeks, and I think you will enjoy them...if you don't, then I'm not sure what the problem is.

ABOLISH AYTHORITY

CHAINSAW KITTENS

I've posted Oklahoma bands for the last few Sundays, and I'm keeping the run going today with the first two CHAINSAW KITTENS demos, released on one tape back in 1990. In the wake of grunge, there was a flurry of mostly fictional major label buzz infesting the music scenes of most college towns, and I was certainly not the only person in Norman who thought that CHAINSAW KITTENS might be "the one" that would break out.  They toured all the time, had a charismatic and flamboyant frontman (Tyson Meade, who previously fronted DEFENESTRATION), they wrote killer pop songs and they delivered them live with an energy that was equal parts NEW YORK DOLLS, MARC BOLAN and MC5 (or at least that's how it seemed to me at the time).  They signed to an indie label and released an album that I still pull out regularly, Violent Religion, and then it happened.  They got a new rhythm section, and then CHAINSAW KITTENS signed to fucking Atlantic...I knew they were gonna be huge.  Flipped Out In Singapore was heavier, perhaps the influence of a post NIRVANA Butch Vig at the control board had an impact on the band's saccharine sweet songs.  I watched the first video (for "Connie, I've Found The Door," a stellar pop song more than worthy of heavy rotation on "alternative" radio) on MTV and then, just like that...they flopped.  Maybe they got too normal and strayed away from their more glamorous roots, but I guess the recipe was just not quite right.  Don't bother downloading this if you're after raging hardcore (just scroll down for the Stockholm Hardcore tape), and come back tomorrow if you want anarchist minded glue sniffing UK rockers. But if you are a fan of well crafted power pop mixed with 70s glam, and don't mind the occasional love song thrown in the mix (seriously, "I'm Waiting" is one of the best punk love songs I've ever heard, and it made its way onto more than a few fruitless mix tapes created by yours truly during young adulthood), then click below, and then start scouring the dollar bins for copies of their first two records. And when you come across a vinyl copy of Flipped Out In Singapore, please drop me a line, I have wanted one for so long that I'm starting to think they only bothered making CD and cassette versions of the fucking thing.

CHAINSAW KITTENS

The first four tracks are from the 1989 demo, including a way ill-advised, overproduced and too heavily stringed version of "She's Gone Mad" which appears on Violent Religion in much better form, and was given the treatment a few years back by THE FLAMING LIPS.  The 1990 tracks are rawer, and far slower than the versions that were on Violent Religion. There are a handful of live tracks as well, but they are just messier and perhaps drunker incarnations of the songs that are already on the two demos, so I exercised a little editorial control and left them on the cassette, where they belong. 

URGE

Feel Our Intense Urge indeed.  Four tracks of raw abrasive hardcore from Japan.  Place emphasis on "raw" and "abrasive," because this shit is not pleasant and certainly was not not recorded in anything close to what we might call a "studio." This is (most likely) the best 7 1/2 minutes of your Saturday, so get into it.

FEEL OUR INTENSE URGE

STOCKHOLM HARDCORE 1983-1986

If this doesn't get your blood pumping then perhaps you should have your heart checked: a blistering six band whirlwind of 80s Swedish hardcore rammed onto one cassette. Sweden's finest are represented, legendary bands like MOB 47 and PROTES BENGT contribute jaw dropping tracks, but the tracks from AGONI and CRUDITY are nothing short of perfection (the latter is so fucking underknown and/or underrated, their shit blows my mind every time I hear it...so fucking fast, and the riffs are as close to perfect as one could hope for, flawless Swedecore).  Raw D-Beat chaos from DISCARD, the best fist waving madness this side of ANTI-CIMEX, and then the tape wraps up with three burners from R OJERS that are the roughest of the whole lot. I shouldn't really need to explain this shit or write anything about these bands, Sweden's contribution to hardcore has long been well documented by better wordsmiths than myself, and the genre has been analyzed to death for two decades and counting.  I know that (most) of these tracks come from vinyl releases, but there are a few that I've not come across, so download away and perhaps you'll get lucky.

MOB 47 - AGONI

CRUDITY - PROTES BENGT

DISCARD - ROJERS

I've split this up into three downloads, and hopefully that will not result in folks just burning the MOB 47 tracks...but if that's the case, then I suppose it's your loss, and me and my CRUDITY backpatch will just smile and drink beer.

DECEIVER

A complete grinding noise assault.  Just guitar and drums, and it honestly doesn't sound like they have known each other all that long, but for some reason I am drawn to demo....it's like noise and powerviolence and grind and hardcore all deconstructed until there is nothing but the most raw energy and frustration left, and that power is being channelled by monkeys; perhaps primal is the word I'm looking for.  There are 11 "songs" here, in a total of just over 6 minutes...mind you, I am not claiming that this is good, in any traditional sense of the word, but Baltimore's DECEIVER are pushing the boundaries of music, and I fully endorse their efforts.

IWASLIED2

MAXIMUM SECURITY

Early 80s hardcore punk from Glasgow, Scotland.  Extremely basic and rudimentary in their approach, MAXIMUM SECURITY took about three songs to warm up to me, but by the time "UK Utopia" entered my aural canals for the the first time, I was completely hooked, and the fact that the guitarist can barely make notes through the generous twisting of the distortion know became an asset, not a drawback.  The bassist seems like the musician of the band, with walking and meandering bass lines in most of these seven tracks, and perhaps that's what gives this demo it's real charm and sets it apart from heaps of 80s releases by bands yearning to be the next Riot City act.  Political, as you can see here:

and forceful punk that might have been hardcore had it been born a few years later.  Seven songs, seventeen minutes, gruff awkward vocals, blown out pencil thin guitar and frustrated drum beats...what more could you possibly want from your punk?

FROM INNOCENCE TO IGNORANCE

PEPPERMINT SUBWAY

Musically, there are parts of this that would easily fall in line with late 80s UK punk shits, you know after the mohawks have fallen and the leather jackets have become slightly passe.  But then comes "M.O.S." and "Land Of The La La's" and PEPPERMINT SUBWAY dive straight into college rock that likely appealed to fans of early R.E.M, CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, or THE ALARM. If you aren't double clicking your closed minded ass away from Terminal Escape by now, and if you can sort through  the weedpatch to find a few flowers, then you are in for a quality demo.  "Destination X" is a Motor City  worshipping burner, "Psycho Surf" is a little silly, but it was Cincinnati for fuck's sake, and it was 1988, so I'm guessing that most folks didn't know any better, and a song about zombies is usually a good time.  Nine tunes here, and to be fair, four of them are probably worth keeping, but that's not for me to decide...listen for yourself.

SUBTERRAINIAN JUNGLE

(and yeah, they spelled it wrong twice)

FUCKBOYZ

The nice gentleman who runs Cosmic Hearse slipped this to me in San Jose a couple of months back in hopes that I would share it here, and I hate to let a good man down (though my friends might argue that contention).  FUCKBOYZ were Florida's finest export to the west coast, and in between taking drugs and breaking hearts, they managed to record a few amazing songs and get themselves threatened by the mob (something about a girl...someone's daughter or some shit).  Raucous and brilliant punk rock from the folks who would later bring us HICKEY and YOGURT (they brought us other shit as well, but bringing OFF DA PIGS and AGALLOCH into this discussion might only serve to confuse things). These songs are great, and I really wish I had been around to see FUCKBOYZ (though had I been here for that, then I would have missed ILLEGITIMATE SONS OF JACKIE O and innumerable GLUE shows back where I came from, so I guess it's kindof a wash), but I consider myself lucky to call half of the band my friends, and even the "Melt With You" cover is pretty awesome. Enjoy your week.

 

SMOOTH TASTE LOW TAR

BIG SKIN HEARTS

This one man band from Chikasha, Oklahoma started a pretty brilliant self promotion blitzkrieg back in 1992, by placing these demo tapes all over the University Of Oklahoma campus. There weren't really that many rockers around, and we kinda thought we all knew each other (or at least knew who everyone was), and then here comes this vaguely punk, very noisy, grunge tinged self recoded demo tape...and it's from Chikasha!?!! And even from a place like Norman, we were impressed and intrigued. The closest comparison I can namedrop is GOD'S ACRE, who sounded a hell of a lot like NIRVANA's Nevermind a year or so before that relatively famous record was released (but GOD'S ACRE were way dirtier, and therefore, better). These ten songs are hopelessly catchy and melodic, but filthy and distorted at the same time, the guitar tone is something to be strived for, even if one doesn't care for the tunes.  No song titles, just "Five Songs" on side 1, and "Five More Songs" on the flip (that kinda added to their mystery), but check out the last tune on side 2 and think SCRATCH ACID, then listen to the finale to the first side and think MUDHONEY, and then think of one dude making this magic all by himself.  In Chikasha, Oklahoma.

BUGGERNAUT

STREET WITHOUT JOY

Methods Of Power is two mesmerizing ambient drones from Johnathon Davis, aka STREET WITHOUT JOY.  First comes "Revision no. 1" with its swarm of cicadas in the form of a lone organ and/or noise maker, and then "Analog" on the flip side is a stark and minimal track reminiscent of something SUICIDE might have created in one of their darker moments.  Not for everyone, perhaps, but I find myself coming back to these two songs over and over, enjoy.

METHODS OF POWER

FISH OUT OF WATER

Since today is the start of a new decade and all, I thought maybe I should post something super special and/or poignant. But then, I really don't give too much of a shit about any of the other holidays, so why should this one be any different?  So instead, I'll celebrate this otherwise average Friday with a compilation cassette put together by Ruptured Ambition Tapes back in 1989.  Lots of unknown and killer crap on here, most notably the two tracks by CRUST, whose vocalist is a dead ringer for SIOUXSIE, and even though by '89 Ms. Banshee was plastered all over MTV and had little to do with anything remotely underground, these songs are stellar.  GROOVY TRASH's "Permafrost" is sadly not a MAGAZINE cover, but it's close stylistically, with heaps of keyboards hovering over the whole tune. ZYGOTE delivers a predictably good track, as do CULTURE SHOCK, OI POLLOI and CONFLICT, but even these bands are overshadowed by COWBOY KILLERS blazing UK punk.  It's not all glorious, the TATTOOED LOVE BOYS song is possibly as awful as the name of the band, THE RETREAT are boring as piss, and while C.D.S. is pretty ripping, and probably the heaviest band on the tape, I just can't get over a song called "Bomb Pizzaland," perhaps I'm closed minded. But three clunkers  in 90 minutes?  Them's pretty good odds, and plus, you get two NICK TOCZEK songs, so there's nothing to complain about.

FISH OUT OF WATER Side A

FISH OUT OF WATER Side B

 

And, only vaguely on topic, today will be my first January 1st in half a decade that I will not be foolishly running into a frozen (or nearly frozen) Lake Michigan at 12:00 CST. I will make a half hearted attempt to soak myself in solidarity by plunging into the pathetically warm Pacific Ocean, and for those few shivering moments, my heart will be in Milwaukee.  A Fish Out Of Water indeed.