VERNAL PIKE

DIY as fuck, and I don't just mean the photocopied hand folded insert and weird shaped pocket outer sleeve just begging to get lost. I mean the DIY shit where you can see the heart busting out off the sleeve (double meaning there - you get it?!). VERNAL PIKE were a weird ass Indiana outfit kicking around the turn of the (last) decade. Singer played french horn, SUBMISSION HOLD by way of region rock vibes, the uncompromising and idealistic fire you read in the lyrics is clearly driving the whole band, recorded in Nathalie's basement in 2011...and it sounds like it. There are only 50 of these...and I bet less than fifteen still have that stupid oversized "cover."

VERNAL PIKE

LAS RATAPUNKS

 

Came across LAS RATAPUNKS somewhat by chance, and now I can't fukkn stop listening to Ishguin. Instantly hits like Colombia's DEAD HERO with a penchant for bouncy aggressive punk...and addictive, also addictive. Yk's lead vocals are piercing and insistent, punctuated by powerful femme choruses and driven by a swarm of guitar that saws through riffs instead of simply delivering them. It's rare to find a band that sounds this....real - LAS RATAPUNKS embody the fierce determination that can only come with optimism - they fucking mean it and you can fucking feel it when you listen. 

ISHGUIN

SCYTHEWARDEN

Sometimes I feel that the evolution of black metal has brought us to a place where the sounds are too often too accessible, too often too acceptable, too often too....pretty. Of course there's a place for it, and it must be tough to be cold and brutal all the time, but SCYTHEWARDEN gave me just what I wanted today. Fast, dissonant, frigid, blistering, intense black metal from the misty forests of Connecticut. The bridge riff in "Wrath Is Humanity" makes me queasy, the stomp that makes up the middle of "Dire Winds Of Revenge" makes me want to rip holes in the earth and that leads 70 seconds of pummeling monotony reminiscent of classic USG(rey)M. Centuries Of Vengeance, the artist's entire catalog, is a sub-twenty minute offering that sounds precisely like the title suggests; a refreshing dose of depression and rage.

CENTURIES OF VENGEANCE

 

PRIMAL BRAIN

 

This little blaster slid into my mailbox last week and....what a fukkn smash. Gnarly modern USHC stomps amped up real fucking high so you can feel the room explode when they launch into mandatory killers like "Eat The Street" and "Smiles In The Service Industry" (lyrics kids....read the lyrics). Tape is kinda wrecked (because punk) so it sounds like you're listening to a crucial mix your cousin from Georgia made you back in 1987. Freak City hardcore rules, OK?

IT'S STILL A GAME

Physical copies and direct to digital sounds from the source: HERE. 

BRENT LEWIS

After several listens, I'm still not sure where Earth Tribe Rhythms lands. More accurately, I think I know where it lands but I can't honestly decide how I feel about it. Self released in 1990, something between Arthur Lyman and Marin County New Age...later Takoma meeting early Windham Hill for a microdose on a remote South Pacific island. There's way more to the artist, who's been active for dozens of years, but evaluating and cataloging the recording on its merits alone might help the listener to have a more honest encounter with the sounds. Pat taped the record for himself at some point, so there are a few errant crackles and poor edits that keep Brent Lewis grounded....in a good way. 

EARTH TRIBE RHYTHMS: A DIFFERENT DRUM EXPERIENCE

TENTACLES OF DESTRUCTION

 

TENTACLES OF DESTRUCTION deliver a wild (and awesome) collision of whirlwind '80s USHC and jerky early Japanese punk, fronted by a gravel voiced motherfukkr who sounds like he's itching to go skate. Check "All Grown Up" in particular - a straight up whirlwind should-have-been skate hardcore essential. That slammer is just 59 seconds long, but you've got nine minutes left before you have to (get to) flip the tape and do it again. After that there still a bit more, but TENTACLES OF DESTRUCTION left us with just a few sessions to session to (see what I did there?). Fans of DIRECT CONTROL, Haunted Town and THE STALIN take note.

TENTACLES OF DESTRUCTION

27 OCTOBER 1984

 

Of all of the broadcast tapes I've ripped from Pat's collection (so far), this is one of the best listens. The music is all over the place and all top notch - from DEVO to ESMERELDA to a sixteen minute FELA KUTI performance to FLIPPER. A laid back '60s stunner from THE EASYBEATS, random PSAs, calm 4am rambling from Pat Wright (who was covering a graveyard shift)...Pat wasn't necessarily on fire in the wee hours that morning, but he was absolutely in the pocket. A brilliant dose of radio. 

KALX - 27 OCTOBER 1984

WASTEOID // PLACK BLAGUE

 

What a fukkn beast this thing is. An unexpected surprise in the recent package from Lalo, feast your ears on a collision of primal grind and sexual noise. WASTEOID need no introduction to attentive visitors, raw Great Plains GrindCore captured live in early 2003 (just a few months after I saw them for the first time). As relentless as that side is, the flip is the real treat. The first known (to me) recordings from Lincoln, Nebraska's PLACK BLAGUE, the industrial noise side project from WASTEOID drummer Ross. PLACK BLAGUE's more recent releases have raised (more than a few) eyebrows, and rightly so - it's a filthy combination of techno house and perverted industrial dance captured here in its most primal infancy. There is not one pretty sound on either side of this cassette...because life is fukkn ugly. So let's all sweat and fukk and get weird until we die. 

PLACK BLAGUE // WASTEOID

I know both sides are live, but I feel like y'all don't pay enough attention to Escape Is Terminal and I would hate for tracks like "Better Hate For Living" and "Hammer Sized Dents All Over Your Face" to go unheard. 

NINA SIMONE

 

It's not as if NINA SIMONE is an unknown entity, but if there were justice in the world then her greatness would be an absolute given in the annals of music history. The booming confidence is simply unreal, and soars above virtually every legend of country and soul. You can feel it with every note. Listen to "The Laziest Gal In Town," or "Nobody." The tinkling keys on many of these renditions. And this is just a series of observations on the voice on these recordings. Of course the later work is more celebrated, and with good reason...but spend some time today with this tape that sounds like it was lost in an AM radio vortex (or on someone's dashboard) back in 1982. Listen to this tape, and feel the life breathe into you. 

GREATEST HITS OF... 

POBLACIÓN SUPERFLUA

 

People of a certain age and with a certain background, when they hear "Spanish activist punk " and "1990s" they think of SIN DIOS. And that's fine. But if your thoughts stop there, then you're leaving a lot of fucking bands on the table...bands like POBLACIÓN SUPERFLUA. You can skip this shit if you want, but if you fuck with earnest, honest, real, DIY hardcore punk then whey the fuck aren't you fucking with this? 

DEMOS 95-97

ULTRA VIOLENT NOIZE STORM

 

No surprises here. Total fukk noise in the WANKYS, STUPID LIFE tradition. Pogo beats and a solid wall of white noise filling the sonic space where you might normally hear a guitar. Three songs, three and a half minutes of your life that you are gone forever. 

ULTRA VIOLENT NOIZE STORM

AURA LEVEL FOUNTAIN

 

It's hard to write words about the release with out mentioning the label. Dub Ditch Picnic has been an under the radar favorite at TEHQ for several years, the kind of label that makes you feel comfortable parting with your dollars in exchange for new sounds because the imprint on the shell was a symbol of quality. Of confidence. The engine behind the label was Chris Jaques, who passed away at the tender age of 50 back in April....the catalog is still available digitally, the catalog is recommended, Jaques' efforts are (still) appreciated, and I'm still going to scoop up Dub Ditch Picnic releases whenever I come across them. As for AURA LEVEL FOUNTAIN....it's the sound of a fitting sendoff, honestly. Light and gentle sonic breath with a distant but determined ominous undertone. Three tracks that span nearly one hour. Sounds that you want to settle into and get comfortable....but sounds that will keep you on edge. Paying attention. Because even the beautiful sounds are warnings. 

TULAN TUALN AXCANPA

CALVERA

 

Fukkn wild Los Angeles punkabilly circa mid'1990s. I have no problem admitting that this is not my subgenre of choice (far from it), but this tape absolutely slams from start to finish. The bass slaps for sure, but there is never a doubt that these punks are playing punk and I am absolutely here for it. "Burning" is worth the whole tape on its own - a brooding goth punk slog that deserves a place on a short list of under appreciated should-be classics - but to hear the band launch into "Mundo Enferno" after it finishes is to hear the sound of a fire being ignited under your ass. But you have to make it past "Dead Love" before you even get to think about any of that shit, a top quality burner that will wear your sorry ass out. Every time I pop this little munchkin in the deck I get surprised all over again.

CALAVERA

SOLIDARIDAD CON VOZ Y RUIDO

 

I want more compilations. Region specific. Ideologically focused. Benefits comps. Killer bands on the same comp just because they are killer bands. Compilations curated by someone who wants other people to hear the bands that the curator likes. Compilations designed to give a voice to bands and/or issues that get overlooked. All of them. Solidaridad Con Voz y Ruido is some of many of the above - released in Puerto Rico around the turn of the century and reissued on cassette in Mexico shortly after, there are twenty three doses of femme focused hardcore punk from all over Europe and Central/South America. Melodic hardcore/punk, abrasive hardcore, raw punk, clenched fist protest punk, throw your arm around your comrade's shoulder and sing every word out loud punk...and it all means something. I want more compilations. 

SOLIDARIDAD CON VOZ Y RUIDO

ELEVEN STRAP

I can't justify ELEVEN STRAP,  I can't validate this chunky groove n the realm of DIY hardcore. But when you grow up on HELMET, CLUTCH and RAGE and then you learn about HATEBREED....well, things happen. I feel like these sounds are hard to justify to folks who aren't at least familiar with a time and a place, though it's easier when the sounds are executed this well. So dip your toes into the shallow waters of late '90s South Dakota metalcore but please be careful while you do, because if you wade your ass to the deep end you might get baptized. 

ELEVEN STRAP

First post from South Dakota. Weird. 

JAILED

 

Some true West Bay Koaltion: The Next Generation shit. What happens to kids raised on a steady diet of EXCRUCIATING TERROR, KALMEX, crime, DEADBODIESEVERYWHERE and malt liquor....JAILED happens. A six song discography that spans less than five minutes happens. Utterly irreverent and deadly serious filth that can only come from the West Bay. Specifically the Peninsula, because fools in The City are too busy trying to fancy to be this ugly. If any of this makes sense, then you are welcome. 

DISCOGRAPHY 2017-2019

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER

 

Listening to a harsh noise wall from BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER is different. The sounds are dark and disorienting, presented like a brutal dose of doom. CORRUPTED deconstructed to its absolute lowest denominator. It's just fukkd. The B side of this 20008 release is even worse - as if the tracks themselves are being meticulously shredded while you listen....helpless. Noise is, in almost every proper application, ominous and oppressive, but there's something about this outfit. Tread with caution. 

PROSSNECK, GERMANY 1929

VÖLKERDÄMMERUNG

 

You need to listen to Voices Of Recrimination Against CIA with uncorrupted ears, background information will only cloud your experience. VÖLKERDÄMMERUNG create the fiercest, strangest sonic mindfuckery, presented in the form of churning, demented blackened crust. Everything here is a trip, deep listening required, volume recommended. 

VOICES OF RECRIMINATION AGAINST CIA

THINK TWICE

 

Listen to THINK TWICE and it feels like you're listening to a relic. This dose of tinny, thin, raw, determined straight edge hardcore is not so far removed at all from the chaotic hardcore that made Italy famous just a few years earlier but equally influenced by YOUTH OF TODAY and CHAIN OF STRENGTH. And what happens when you came up on a steady diet of NEGAZIONE and EU'S ARSE but then you start digging on a third generation recording of that first SOIA slab and you're defiantly straight edge in a country that serves wine like Texans serve salsa? Maybe, just maybe you get THINK TWICE. Their 1990 debut It's The Time lands like the first time I heard OUTLAST, but rougher, more out of tune, more....innocent somehow. The theme song is great, the breakdown in "Be Aware From Me" is great, Sergio (Of Today)'s lead vocals are painfully strained and gruff while backups drop like claps of thunder echoing in the distance. These thrashers from Venezia were somehow new to me, but I'm all in on this shit.

IT'S THE TIME

SA LANSANGAN

 

This could pass as an unearthed relic. Five minutes of primitive and timeless (and timelessly relevant) dark and ramshackle garage punk from NYC's SA LANSANGAN, a side project from NAMATAY SA INGAY folks. I know I've said it before, buy y'all need to pay attention to Aklasan Records. 

SA LANSANGAN

NIGHT KILLS YOU

 

Just one look at the cover should have you scrambling for the highlighted download link at the bottom of the post (it's the text that says "NIGHT KILLS YOU" just above the picture that says "NIGHT KILLS YOU," in case you're new).  Recordings from East 7th at the height of raw ponx domination of California's sonic landscape. There was a new band every time you blinked, and you wanted to hear every one of them. MANIA's "Radiation Nights" is a would be classic and it's amped way the fukk up here. RAYOS X were veterans by the time this was recorded in 2013, and TOZCOS were just babies. I love these sounds and I loved these shows.

NIGHT KILLS YOU

UNKNOWN ARTIST

 

At 3:25pm on 09 June 2009, I posted a four song cassette by THE DECEASED. 

Since that post there have been:

More than 4,460 cassettes shared here.

Roughly 500 live recordings shared on Escape Is Terminal.

There have been more than 4,500,000 visits from humans and bots to this site. 
There have been many pleasant conversations with strangers and friends related to history, the sounds, and the content of these pages. 
There have been a few jerks too. 

I have discovered so many things that I may have never heard and interacted with countless people I may have never met if I hadn't started doing this.

So I guess I'll keep doing it. 

UNKNOWN ARTIST
22 minutes in length.

Creepy. Sparse. Noise.

Possibly recorded in 1998.

(ALEX) BODY

 

Great Plains psych pop mania comes in like a damn alien craft to land on your Tuesday...and you didn't even know you had visitors. Side one is presented in mono because the tape was pretty wrecked, but I kinda feel like the artist wouldn't mind. Like Beefheart and that guy from SPACEMEN 3 and SPIRITUALIZED drinking in a remote shack and taking turns manipulating lost AM tent revival recordings, Chief Of Time And Frequency is an actual sonic trip. Not like it takes you somewhere (those aliens are gonna stay with you, they aren't taking you away), these are sounds that will distort your present and your very presence. Subtle brilliance from BODY...not THE BODY....just Alex. 

CHIEF OF TIME AND FREQUENCY

THE DOOMED

 

There were so many damn bands in the 2010s. Seriously. I know that every era, every decade, every scene is going to have the bands who stand out and make a mark and the ones who fly under the radar. Inevitably, folks will turn new eyes and ears towards some of those bands and "discover" them after the fact and that's normal, but I swear I'm going to be playing catch-up with that damned decade until I'm sixty. And then I'll have the 2020s to revisit. And then I'll be seventy. And then I'll flail trying to pay attention to the 2030s while I struggle to change my own diapers and then at some point I'll be dead. And when that happens, there will still be hundreds, nay thousands, of bands I will have never heard of that I would have liked if I had ever heard them. And so be it. 

THE DOOMED

"I gave up on god when I was a young man" 

JÄVLA

 

Back on the Monday shit with two hundred ten seconds of blown out DC kång from JÄVLA. What more do you need or, more appropriately, what more do you need me to say? This one sounds fukkn destroyed, halfway through "Creature Comforts" you lose the song altogether only to get your knees knocked out by the breakdown that closes the tape. And yes, there are only two songs here but ask yourself: "How many more could I even handle?" Exactly. Deep breath. You're welcome. 

JÄVLA

INOROUT

Fierce idealism holds up well...perhaps we should think about that, and our own collective legacy, more often than we do. Are songs like "Fur Queue" and "South Africa" dated.....? Are they? Sonically, West Midlands' INOROUT take a Bristol buzzsaw to classic UK anarcho and it sounds so brilliantly relevant 35 some odd years after inception....but it's the full package that matters. How you sound is one thing, what you mean (and meaning anything at all), is something entirely different. That said, hearing the backing choruses in "Shocked Into Sanity" and "Fascists Fight Fascist" back to back on this tape is one of those little moments in punk that you just can't describe. You just have to hear it.

LIE...F
(I shared this one back in 2009, but I didn't really say anything special.)

ALTAR OF GORE

 

Truly one of the more putrid contributions you'll see to these pages. Churning, ignorant, guttural death metal from the demonic depths of New Jersey. Vocalist and lyricist (read: sole member) Acolyte Of The Foul Ones takes you on a filth ridden journey on tracks like "Foul Dwellers In The Sacrificial Pits" and "Descent Into The Charnel Depths" and closes with a very appropriate IMPETIGO cover. Basically - you should know exactly what you're getting into here, and ALTAR OF GORE is one worth getting dirty for. Brain cells grow back. 

ALTAR OF GORE

DESTROY ALL MASTERS

What a fukkn great way to fill up a C90, the kids from Fucksafe Tapes outdid themselves on 1987's Destroy All Masters. Mostly under the nostalgia's radar, this comp is a glorious relic from the tape trading days - BHOPAL STIFFS, CRUCIAL YOUTH and SCREECHING WEASEL are the most notable contributors, then throw in STRAIGHT ARM, HARD STANCE, FLUORESCENT CONDOMS, CURIOUS GEORGE, TREBLE KING, N.H.C. and WARLOCK PINCHERS and you've got yourself an example of why people fetishize the pen pals and mix tapes era of DIY punk and hardcore...because fukk a playlist. Not band for some kids from Iola, Kansas. 

DESTROY ALL MASTERS

THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE

 

Three doses of independent rocking country from THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE led by Pat Johnson. who is perhaps most notable (to punks and general alts) as the guitarist for BIRDBOYS, who backed a post-AVENGERSS Penelope Houston in the '80s. Picture an amped up Sweetheart Of The Rodeo-era BYRDS, with a stomping barroom country swing. Recorded in 1991...for true 'heads only, perhaps. 

THE WELLSPRINGS OF HOPE

MUKILTEO FAIRIES

 

MUKILTEO FAIRIES were so fukkn far ahead of their time. In your face hardcore from Olympia, when Olympia was basically known for NIRVANA, riot grrl and K Records (not necessarily in that order, depending on who you were at the time) that simply smashes most of their contemporaries. The sound is akin to CRUDOS at the tail end of a meth bender, when the mind is on the verge of chaos but the body can still kinda hold shit together, but the vocals...ugh. This band was pissed, they were queer, and they gave not one single fuck. I remember hearing the singles at the time and just listening over and over - it was related to what I knew but I don't know that I'd heard anything this uncompromisingly fierce before. It wasn't "classic USHC" or anything, but it was just as fast. It was't dark and moody crust, but it was just as ominous. It was fucking intense. They left us by the middle of the decade with this cassette, two EPs and a split in their wake before three of them formed BEHEAD THE PROPHET NLSL. The records are around and they're usually, mystifyingly, cheap...just saying. 

I AM UPON YOU