WLMRT

 

YOu ever listen to a think and wonder....."What just happened?" and then you just want to listen to it again? Well, let me introduce you to Toronto's WLMRT. Equal parts synth prog freak punk and true visionaries, these cats would have fit perfectly with those mutants in Oklahoma City I was blabbing about the other day, but really WLMRT pretty much fits anywhere. Or nowhere, which is why I'm smitten with WLMRT Forever. They have another tape called Lube 2, in case you need more convincing.

WLMRT FOREVER

HANGAL

Six minutes of furious power viol;nce from Philippines - I only knew HANGAL from a CAPITALIST CASUALTIES tribute comp before this eight song bulldozer....but oh fukk were they worth the wait. If you're still reading, then I really don't know what you're waiting for, because sample laden first wave PV worship rarely sounds this spot on. |

HANGAL

 

EYE JAMMY

 

Those EINOK fests were truly something special. A gathering that I thought might take the place of a Chaos In Tejas instead served to usher in an entirely new....thing. The focus was never on the cool bands, the hyped bands or the 'big' bands - the focus was on friends and on (mostly regional) punk slammers. Freak City exploded with weirdos and I felt old, I felt out of touch, I felt fukkn alive watching these kids go absolutely mental. Small town mutants converging on a Bible Belt enclave and joining forces with other small town mutants and taking it the fuck over...there's nothing like it. This is where I first ran into the Hattiesburg punks, rolling 20 deep and serving as a self contained fun machine any time one of their bands played - and when EYE JAMMY played? Yeah, shit was real cool. EYE JAMMY was punk - like DEAD MILKMEN and BIG BOYS filtered through 2010s Midwest freak shit (think CONEHEADS, NECRO HIPPIES, LIQUIDS, et al), and shit was magical. Maybe you had to be there? I'm glad that I was.

LIVE AT THE BBQ

GNAWING TEETH

 

These are late at night someone is coming to get you sounds. GNAWING TEETH deserve far more than I am able to give them right now, but I think that they would appreciate blunt. So: GNAWING TEETH make me feel uncomfortable. 

TO OWN DEATH (PART 1)

LIFE DURING WARTIME

 

In a world before podcasts, there was radio. And the thing is...there still is radio, but The Generation doesn't care about that and even though it might make me (kinda) sad (sometimes), it's reality and that's okay. So here's an hour of radio: Life During Wartime. Here's a story about pigs and a dance party. Here's a story about The State from a time that seems like a(nother) lifetime ago. Here's some people, sharing stories.

LIFE DURING WARTIME #6: THE TROUBLES 

CARL WITH RECORDS

 

Are you ready?

I didn't think so.

CARL WITH RECORDS HITS REMAKE

UNION OF URANUS

 

We don't really need to talk about this...do we? I know that UOU and ONE EYED GOD PROPHECY get overlooked but....we don't need to talk about this here, do we? Because we know. Right? There are the bands that shaped DIY millennial hardcore and then there are the bands that people talk about...but we're smart than that here...aren't we? Good. Now...listen to Backhand - a tape so good that it resurfaced on the flipside of a split with a band that was (at the time) the most popular and/or groundbreaking punk band in North America. Think about that...because we don't need to talk about it. 

BACKHAND

HAVÁRIA

 

This is some nasty nasty shit, and I am here for it. Two short EPs crammed onto one cassette, and there's now more Hungarian black metal/core in my ears than I ever knew I wanted....and oh fuck me do I want it. 

DEGENERÁLT, FAJ // MMXX

8 19

 

I made this mix tape a few weeks ago and I think it's pretty good. The last song cuts off on the physical version, but damn it's a motherfucker. I've listened to it a few times since I sent it off....I liked listening to it every time. 

8 19

CYST

 

Denver is such a motherfucker, man. It's such a cool city, but it's so damn far from all of the other places, and I feel like the residents sometimes get a shit stick when the traveling sub/cultures skip them so often because....what, you gonna roll up to Cheyenne next? Eight hours to Salty Lake City? Come on. I get it, but it blows.....but hellloooo maybe this means the freaks in a place like Denver can grow into their own damn freak selves with fewer external influences. No? Look at CYST and think about geographical isolation in a different light...because this shit? This shit is ugly as fuck. 

INTRODUCING...CYST

\

COACHWHIPS

 

An outtake from the Hands On The Controls session and three demo cuts...something about this shit just sounds like sweaty sex and I want to rub it all over my face. You want more than that...? Well, that's gonna cost you.

DEVIL UPTOWN

VEHEMENCE

 

Hard to believe that VEHEMENCE dropped this fukkn bomb and then just vanished, but this demo from 1992 seems to be all that there is. Their sound draws blatantly from the classics, but this thrash is raw and demented with tracks like "s'Raw Rats" making it clear that they weren't trying to cook with anyone else's recipe. Just five songs, wrapping with the almost eight minute "Impositioned Propriety" that ends the tape with a face melting solo and a mosh stomp so perfect that....well, I just can't believe that there wasn't more after this. 

GOOD SHOT! GANG MEMBER DIES...

STREET MAGIC

 I really like this tape. 

STREET MAGIC

ALL IN DEEP SHIT

 

Western Australia breeds weird ones, y'all. Always has. Something about the isolation, perhaps? You can feel that isolation on 2001's HIV Positive Youth, manifested as riffs and raw, loose blurrcore riffs.  Fuck the scene? Nah...fuck everything. 

HIV POSITIVE YOUTH

JANUARY 2001

 

This one has been on the shelf for a long long time. Every time I pick it up, with its innocuous hand written label in unknown handwriting and no cover or track listing...I just put it back on the shelf. Who has the time to dig through a mystery? Who has the patience to find out if it's even worth a listen? And then it starts with a couple of BILLY BRAGG tracks (and I'm admittedly not the biggest BILLY BRAGG fan) so am I really interested....? But I kept listening just in case and it's hard to believe this has just been right in front of me for so long (years) but perhaps the point is that now is when I was meant to hear it. There's some songs that I wouldn't have liked in a different context, some songs by bands that everyone else loved but I was always whatever about or never even heard at all...and basically this is the antithesis of a tape I would have made in 2001. Twenty two years later, I'm very glad that someone else made it. I have no idea who/m, but I'm glad they did, and I'm glad it landed on my shelf. Make more mix tapes please. Share them. Give them to people. Give them to strangers. Leave them in coffee shops. Fuck dude, mix tapes are so fucking important. 

MIX TAPE (JANUARY 2001)

NASTY WORLD

 

This wild ass morsel arrived unannounced last week and I can't stop slurping the shit up. Synth drenched horror hardcore from the depths of Oakland...the shit is just...saucy, and I love it. 

NASTY WORLD

OLYMPIA CREATIVE MUSIC CONCERN

 

The need to create is fascinating....it's what separates an artist from an "other," simple creativity from compulsion. In both cases the folks responsible for OCMC appear to fall into the latter category, and this second offering is perhaps even more "other" than the first. Improvisation vs. Intention. 

WINTER '22/'23

THE FOG

 

The thing that makes THE FOG so (extra) sick is that the vocalist sounds like an absolute fucking demon. Their relentless hardcore stomps are something, but those desperate throaty missives are something else. Choice cut: "Out Of Touch" if only for the slow down at the 0:37 mark because that shit...that shit is special.

THE FOG

BOG BODIES

 

Absolute freak shit of the highest order from the Great Canadian Plains. Synth punk mania; destructo pseudo punk; noise; shit-fi; drum machine blast core; sex obsessed weirdos....BOG BODIES.

There's more, but this band fucking defies description so why should I even bother?

WHERE DO THE NETHER-VELVET SLASHINGS END & WHERE DOES ORGASM BEGIN?

NO TIME

 

Yet another band that I seem to have missed....and fukk how did I miss this shit? Boots on the fukkn street Pittsburgh punks NO TIME will get under your skin and into you head and make you (well....me) feel like there's no other punk that I need. 

NO TIME

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

 

I was born in West Monroe, Louisiana at 7:11am CST on September 9th, 1972. 

Today I am 51 years old. 

I will not have a party today. The last time I tried to have a birthday party it went very badly. 
I hope that no one wishes me a happy birthday today...not because I don't deserve one, but because I think that birthday wishes are far too often performative. If you hope that I have a happy day then tell me that shit tomorrow, you know? Or yesterday...that would have been even better.

But this recording is MOTÖRHEAD's 10th birthday party. 

They didn't make it to 51...so I guess I should consider myself lucky, no?

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

SOCCOCORE

 

If there was ever a tape that captured that that magic of the '90s Southern California freak scene....it might be this one. Power violence, sludge, screamo, noise, fastcore all coexisting (as they fukkn did) on (in) one plastic shell and fuck it's so damn good. FESTIVAL OF DEAD DEER to BASTARD NOISE to LACK OF INTEREST to 16 to GASP to HATED PRINCIPLES to CROM.....this tape is absolute magic, and embodies everything I want from a regional compilation. You can not enjoy it if you choose....but maybe it wasn't meant for you to enjoy. 

SOCCOCORE

 

RABID DELUSION

 

Raw ass ramshackle hardocre punk? Sure...you got it. That's what you want, right? A fukkn mess? Yeah, you got it. Bass a little too loud (wait, is there even a guitar? yes, there's a solo...carry on) and vocals more like shrieks and the whole fukkn band pierces your skull and ohhhhhhh do I wish I was watching this mania live instead of listening from an office chair but...I don't live in Ohio so I'll take what I can fukkn get. 

RABID DELUSION

GLENN BRANCA

 

You ever listen to something that just kinda makes you cry? GLENN BRANCA's Symphony No.3 will do that if you let it. Get on the internet if you want the history, but know that this was a person pushing boundaries that other people didn't even know existed. He was doing it in another lifetime - a lifetime when (where?) those boundaries were more mysterious. When you could take an concept from inception to realization without external pressure...a time where (when?) ideas were pure and unfettered. And fuck me is this a beautiful creation. It's perfect. 

SYMPHONY NO.3 (GLORIA)

NIGHT PROWLER

 

Absolute USHC of the highest order, NIGHT PROWLER start hard and never let up. Probably more in line with late '80s East Coast (okay....New York specifically) than anything else, the infectious metal tinge of tracks like "Messiah" and "Laughter In The Canyons" are undeniable but the band? Pure fucking in your face hardcore. Like, what else could you fucking want?

CRUCIBLE OF POWER

DICED

 

Fierce ass srart-your-week stomps from the Tulsa's DICED. "Cut Your Teeth" has enough mosh and riff to last you through the weekend on its own, and every track here is pack with GAG-esque 'core fronted by commanding femme vocals....get ready.  

DEMO?

COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT

 

Imagine you're on a walk (because you're young in this imagination, and you don't go on "hikes" yet) in the woods behind your house. Or a friend's house. Or your aunt's house. And you stumble on something that piques your interest. So you move some leaves. Or you dig a little. And maybe you're not alone and your friend (or your cousin) helps you and you're both curious. Not excited yet, but definitely curious. As you scrape and/or dig, you hear...something...and now you are excited so the scraping and/or digging becomes more fervent. Discovering things lost in the woods is a special thing when you're young. A coin, an old beer can, a rotting nudie mag, someone else's mail, a photograph - it all has a story and when you find it, you're the author. But today (or that day, in that imagination), as you scrape and/or dig, you've uncovered a moment. COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT are (in) that moment and you've arrived...uninvited and very welcome. You (and your friend or your cousin) stumbled upon a sound and an experience. And in that moment (this: moment), you cannot imagine ever walking out of the woods to your other home. Or your friend's house. Or you aunt's house. Because you are in this now. You are here. It's okay to be scared...you can have Some Fear, but you are here now. It's okay. Just listen. 

SOME FEAR

BASEMENT RAT

 

BASEMENT RAT are glorious. A lumbering, lurching angst filled collection of disjointed punk stomps delivered with pure honesty...and it's the honesty that becomes the real focus. While "Tristeza" is the standout track for me - an awkward slow start that gives way to a song written to be played just a little faster than the band can successfully muster - every song on Pura Mujer is intense and real.  It doesn't always have to be pretty...but it always has to be honest. How long has it been since you listened to a band that made you think about Surfer Rosa and SPITBOY? It's a shame this recording is all I can find.

PURA MUJER

MONAGUILLOS SIN FRONTERAS

 

When it hits right.....it doesn't matter. Zaragosa's MONAGUILLOS SIN FRONTERAS hit right. A description of their sound would turn me off - slightly-too-slick, SIN DIOS by way of FUN PEOPLE with distinct SoCal '90s melodic punk overtones. But this tape is anthem after anthem and it all hits just right. 

ENTRE EL CERDO Y EL MONO