CLINIC

 

Three song buzzsaw skull stomps from The HUMAN Family of punks. While you're listening to this shit, I'm gonna be at the Power Glove Dub pop up in Tower copping some new slop to sling at your earholes when I'm back next week.....so you're welcome. Also, "Fugitive Suffer Damage" is a flawless dark alley street punk number and I can't tell if I wish there were a 'better' recording or if this level of (read: lack of) fidelity is perfect.

WAYSIDE INSTITUTE

COMP OF NARF !!!

 

More madness from folks at Fag Tapes, this time in the form of a nine track tape compiling nine artists who were (and still are) complete mysteries to me. Improvisational minimal psychedelia from K-9 SNIFFLES and THE BIBS, the latter dropping a weird French film vibe in my lap that I can't seem to shake. A no fidelity live track from WEYES BLOOD flows in to some kind of distant acoustic ramble by MOUNTAINS AND RAINBOWS before ANDREW COLTRANE delivers a damaged layer guitar raga. A deranged grunge dirge from LIVE NOT ON EVIL and then BODY HEAD drops a two chord depression missive. QUILT BOY are the most energetic act on the tape, and their primal garage rock stomp features a guitar that plays chords with such ferocity that it feels like the whole damn thing is a solo....and then THE INTENDED bring your journey to a (merciful?) end with a two minute wash of throbbing harsh noise. It's not an easy listen, but then..."easy" is not exactly what Fag Tapes are known for.

COMP OF NARF III 

EVICTION PARTY // LEPER

 

More from EVICTION PARTY - gruff and clean with a the sound of freight trains rolling in the distance. Previously stated, but this 'style' isn't my thing...until it hits just right and it becomes my thing. I admit that I like the self titled tape a little better, but also the determined ramshackle nature of this recording is hard to knock. The flip here is what gets me cooking this morning - ferocious crust tinged hardcore until...well, I'm guessing they cranked a few CHOKING VICTIM records in their time, but they were growing out of it in 2007 when this split dropped. There are a few parts that remind me of my time in HIGH ON CRIME, so there's a touch of nostalgia at work, but really I'm just digging listening to two very different bands while I slam coffee before a ride to work. 

EVICTION PARTY // LEPER

VEHEMENCIA

 

True freak shit from Budapest. My dude travels there a couple of times a year and always comes back with a few tasty sonic morsels, but this time he really melted my earholes. You know when bands seem more concerned with creating an energy than writing songs? It typically hits with heavier acts obsessed with tonnage, but it's just about how a band feels, you know? Well, VEHEMENCIA do that, but in the context of mutant outsider punk and I am so totally here for it. You can hear the fukkn bong water in "Bérenc." The bass in the beginning of "Nosztaglia" sounds like a 1976 Lada on a journey to it's final resting place in the Urals. Listen ti "Ez Van" and I think you can hear someone repairing a vintage acrcade Missile Command machine in the background. The foundation is chaotic hardcore, but the structure VEHEMENCIA has built on top of this foundation is....truly mysterious.

VEHEMENCIA

PERFECT PUSSY

 

NO STATIK played New York City at The Acheron on the winter 2013/14 tour, and PERFECT PUSSY was added to the show last minute. I don't remember the details, but I feel like they were booked on a different show and there was some drama related to the other band so they righteously bailed. There had been a New York Times thing written about PERFECT PUSSY that week or something, shit is fuzzy but I feel like it was definitely a "thing" that they dropped off of the show. The singer had been in SHOPPERS and I had really dug on that tape...and really that's about all of the nuggets related to that night and this tape that I remember. It was a killer show, and PERFECT PUSSY ripped - the damaged melody was a nice break from the all out fury from the rest of the bands (NOMAD, CREEPING DOSE and GRUDGES, all of whom were straight fire) - and the whole show was really damn good. I feel like I might have passed out in a car outside St. Vitus that night I also might be remembering a different night. I'm an old man, after all. Last weekend B gave me a box of tapes at practice - he said, "most of these are from the time when NO STATIK was playing and touring, so you might have a lot of them." I had a few but I didn't have this one, so I heard recorded PERFECT PUSSY for the first time yesterday and you know....? Shit is excellent. They are so damn catchy, damaged in furious in a way that completely transforms them - just complete urgency in presentation with hooks ripped (discretely) from late '80s college alt. Obviously this tape connected me to a fountain of memories and for that I am grateful, but as a simple collection of four songs? This tape is perfect.

I HAVVE LOST ALL DESIRE FOR FEELING

PARÖTID

 

Years ago I tried to focus different days on different themes. It started with noise punk on Mondays because....if you're gonna have a shit week then why not kick it off with some shit, right? I'm not dogmatic about it, but when my ears start to cringe from a distortion laden sonic assault I often think "This would be good for a Monday," and that's exactly what happened with PARÖTID. No guitar in sight, this Malaysian duo create a layer of midrange with the wash of cymbals so you can focus on the menacing rumble - it fukkn works. Obligatory reverbed vocals and in depth songs that move far beyond dis-formulaic hardcore or simple blown out crust, ending with the 5+ minute earnest dirge "Tamat" (a particularly bold move). Everything here just....works. Now go have a shit week.

SUMMONING OF DESTRUCTION

DAMNED + WAYNE KRAMER + MAGIC MICHAEL + STORMCROWS

Cast your mind back to a few short days ago when I plopped a hodge-podge of VIBRATORS cuts from various mix tapes in your lap and just kinda left it steaming. Well, it wasn't just VIBRATORS on those tapes, and without a clear vision for the rest of the shit on those tapes I'm just gonna do the same thing again. Because I want to, and because the tracks are killers...
    • Two song Dodgy Demo from THE DAMNED, primal '78 versions of "Love Song" and "Burglar" that will remind you what perfection sounds like. 
    • Two more from a 1987 STORMCROWS session. I know nothing about the band, but these hit like dirty almost goth punk with notes of CRAMPS and GALLON DRUNK. The recording is completely off putting, which is absolutely part of the appeal.
    • I've told you the story about Wayne Kramer's drummer passing out in our kitchen in 1996, right? Dude was also the session drummer on Toni Basil's international pop hit and kept complaining about how he was only paid $150 to play on the song....but I digress. I wonder what Kramer's position was in the eyes of the early 1980s - legend for sure, or at least legendary. But whether or not people cared about his music is a different question, and cuts like "Talking Something" really puts that question into context. This seven song session from 1983/84 hits like a recording from someone who would have been opening for Don Henley or Corey Hart or some shit, a far cry from kicking out jams and preaching. 
    • And finally the A side of MAGIC MICHAEL's only single from 1980. A hopelessly essential slammer from 1980 that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as JILTED JOHN and ALBERTO Y LOS TRIOS PARANOIAS. Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies are the nucleus of the backing band here so the quality isn't a surprise, but even bearing that in mind, this song is indescribably good.

DODGY DEMO

EYES AND FLIES

 

More of that good shit from Buffalo, New York. In a different life I think I would (have) live(d) in Buffalo - hell, in a different life I would be from Buffalo - but I live in this life. In this life I say I'm from Oklahoma even though I didn't move there until I was twelve and I always wished I was from Texas while I lived there (but really I wished I lived anywhere but there while I lived there) and I've probably been to Buffalo less than ten times but....I still feel like I would live there, you know? Tapes like this aren't the reason for those feelings, but they surely don't hurt. This is the shit that (only?) happens in a vacuum - college alt through a modern basement DIY filter, presented in a way that focuses on neither but showcases both. This is what happens when you live in a place where you might have rules (there are rules everywhere) but the guardrails are off and you can still do what you need to do with the people you love. And this....this is why I sometimes feel like I want to grow old and die in Buffalo. Not because of EYES AND FLIES, but also a little bit because of EYES AND FLIES, you know?

 MANIC AM

TAPE FOR '_____' (#1)

 

Do I need to start from scratch and talk about the importance of mix tapes? The brilliance of a well crafted mix tape? This on was made for a specific person by another specific person, which is to say that it's not just a collection of good songs - it's a collection of specific songs by specific artists that a person wanted '_____' to hear in a certain way. Meticulous liner notes with background information where needed....everything is here. A '90s DIY/emo focused and Maryland focused tape that has THE HATED, SPASTIC RATS and (then unreleased tracks from) MOSS ICON sharing space with DON CHERRY, CAN and TALKING HEADS. Also making appearances: tracks from the elusive WFMU set from SLEEPING BODY, ODIE HAWKINS, FUNERAL ORATION, ROBERT FRIPP, RUIN and others. This is why we keep coming back. This is the magic shit. I wonder if there was ever a Number Two....

TAPE FOR '_____' (#1)

MFP

 

Sometimes you just want the good shit with no frills...sometimes you just need MFP. Three meaty hardcore stomps from a Boston crew with a pedigree longer than your list of grievances. From the up-tempo "Death Delights" to the flawless DEAD BOYS cover that you didn't know you needed to hear until you hear it and you don't want to hear anything else. So you go back to the beginning.

MFP

VIBRATORS

File VIBRATORS along with the scores of starter bands that I never really dug into - and I wonder if the proliferation of access to literally everything means that new/er generations of punk listeners are more (or less) likely to completely skip over the starters. If you can click-click-stream-click your way to CAMERA SILENS and DEEF and COLERA and DEVIATED INSTINCT then maybe you end up skipping over the classics the same way that punk listeners in the '80s may have eschewed LOVERBOY and NIGHT RANGER. Also, maybe that's a shitty analogy, but the point is that VIBRATORS were one of the first, they’ve been consistently cranking out records for 45 years…I don't think I could name you a single song aside from “Automatic Lover.” So when several sessions started popping up on live tapes I've been ripping the past few days I figured maybe it was a sign and I paid attention...not surprisingly, the shit is good. I collected a few of those sessions here:

Peel Session • January 1977 (choice cut: "Pogo Dancing")
1976 Demos (choice cut: "Young Lust")

1977 Demos (choice cut: "Public Enemy #1" - this session has been given a proper release and is widely available)

Like a lot of first wave UK punk the direct connection to bluesy rock 'n roll is front and center, but there's a real nice dark almost psychedelic bent to a few tracks here...but punk listeners already know this. Gonna go click-click-stream-click and crank Pure Mania on my way to work today...and appreciate the fact that I will be listening to punk music for the first time until my last breath.

VIBRATORS

NURSE WITH WOUND

 

It would be impossible to encapsulate or contextualize NURSE WITH WOUND in this (or any) blog post. Founder Stapleton has been immersed in experimental, industrial, genre bending sound since the beginning, and 1987's Merzbild Schwet is but one of an astounding list of creations. Two psychotropic Dada-esque movements spanning nearly an hour....if this is your entry point, then consider yourself warned.

MERZBILD SCHWET

HYSTERIC POLEMIX

 

Remember back in 2012 when MORAL HEX and FUNERAL PARADE dropped those demos that completely took over my personal airwaves? You probably don't remember that because...well, they were my personal airwaves and maybe you were listening to something else then? Anyway, those demos appeared and every time I put one on I felt like I couldn't listen to anything else until I had wore that tape the fuck out - B and I jammed the MORAL HEX on repeat during an early morning drive from SF to Portland once while he crushed six stouts in the copilot's chair, clutching the boom box and reveling in how much better it sounded after each beer I don't remember anything else about the drive, I don't remember the show we played when we got there - I remember listening to that tape driving through the fog. This is how HYSTERIC POLEMIX hit me when I first heard it. That's also how this HYSTERIC POLEMIX tape has hit me every damn time I've listened to it - almost like I have to flip the case backwards on the shelf because as soon as I see the spine I'm gonna reach for it and not even think about another tape for the rest of the day. And today...? Maybe it's as much about how the sound makes you feel as it is about the sound itself, right?

HYSTERIC POLEMIX

TERMINATORS OF ENDEARMENT

 

Here you go - both tracks from the not-at-all-sought-after Stranger In The Manger 45 with a few other doses of campy acoustic country rock from late '80s San Francisco. There's a BIRDBOYS connection here and you've got Kevin Army production to help confirm my suspicion that these are sounds from aged-out SF punks. I suppose I probably should have dropped this on (or closer to) the referenced holiday, but it's not a thing that I historically celebrate so I'm gonna jam the ukelele driven "Christmastime In California" and "Merry Christmas, Manic Depressives" in mid-August. Can't think of a reason for to not do the same.

JESUS CHRIST I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S CHRISTMAS ALREADY 

STAND UP

 

Got a killer box of heat from Indonesia a couple of weeks ago, and though I've only my journey it's clear I made the right choice by just saying "uhhhh, I guess I'll take all of them." The LAST DRIVE tape that went up last week is a solid DIY street punk slammer, but this shit....? STAND UP gonna melt your damn face off. As tempted as I am to dissect the pieces of other subgenres that make up The Blunt Reality Of Conformity, this is really just a ripping and relentless hardcore punk tape and I'm not really sure what more you need to hear. 

THE BLUNT REALITY OF CONFORMITY

ELVIS PRESLEY

 

Of course Elvis is easy to criticize. The schlock movies, the extravagance, the less than glorious swan song (which was actually extremely fucking glorious - you're not crying, I'm crying), the simple fact that he's the single biggest American pop star of the 20th century makes him an obvious target. By 1968, Elvis had seemingly run his course - the new rock 'n roll was taking over and he had a string of forgettable movie soundtracks in his wake and....he just wasn't cool. Or didn't feel cool. Or whatever. His first rebirth was this NBC special - campy, powerful, led by a voice that is pure fucking gold. The whole thing is worth watching, from the acoustic "sitting around the campfire in a leather bodysuit" segments to the over the top choreographed routines it's all quintessential Elvis and demonstrated that he was The King before anyone called him The King. Just twenty-one years from the release of "That's All Right" in 1956 to his death on this date in 1977 - to think that he needed to remind people who he was halfway through that run kinda boggles my mind. So yeah….Elvis is an easy target for cheap shots, if you’re trying to seem cheap. 

ELVIS

Also - the tape is pretty warbled and wrecked in a few spots but you should really be looking up the special and watching with your eyes anyway. There's a reason he's on a pedestal, y'all.

SHAKA

 

Fierce and frantic Oklahoma hardcore punk duplicated onto garbage tapes and laden with samples that somehow mark the band as outsiders. Well..the fukkn music marks them as outsiders (check "Mean Mug" as a perfect example) but this shit is clearly by and for misfits and the samples just give it that little chef's kiss. Maybe that doesn't make sense.....maybe you haven't listened yet. When you do? You'll understand. 

'S' IS FOR SHAKA

ZIG ZAG

 

Hopelessly brilliant late '10s North American hardcore punk firmly rooted in early '80s North American hardcore punk. To listen to "I Can't Die" is to wish that you could die....so listen. 

ZIG ZAG

HOT LOAD

When Trejo first told me about HOT LOAD, I wondered to myself how the crew of punks he was describing were going to be able to pull off being in a hard rock 'n roll band, how they were going to rein it in enough to make it work. These brutes are hardwired for chaos punk, so much so that MOTÖRHEAD is subdued and casual by comparison, so how on earth were they going to make this work. Answer? They don't emulate the art form - that annihilate the art form. Hyper charged motörpunk played punk by punks for punks, captured live in Sendai, Japan last year.To hear Trejo Trejo announce "this song's called 'Hot Load' by HOT LOAD" is to know that you're about to get your ass blown off. 

TO LIVE & DIE IN SENDAI 

LAST DRIVE

 

Just like the title suggests - two and a half decades of clenched fist hook-laden punk from Indonesia's LAST DRIVE. A dash of Oi!, a healthy dose of RAMONES, a liberal smattering of hard edged determined street punk (read: punk from the actual streets) and you have yourself twenty blasts from a crew of actual legends.

25 YEARS OF SINGALONG AND SHOUTING

PUTRID BOYS

 

Spent a couple of weeks on the East Coast for work last month and caught a hot fukkn gig in a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC. My pal Mike and I rolled up, we knew no one and we were a solid decade older than anyone else in attendance...so basically a perfect gig. Crushed a beer or three, watched the kids practice their dance floor moves on the sidewalk, found a nice air conditioned balcony and got our faces melted by SCRAMBLE, NECRON 9 and these local mutants called PUTRID BOYS. Then we hopped on some bikes and rolled back to the hotel and went to sleep. It was cool. 

TAPE #1

KILLRATIÖ

 

Remember last week when I said I got a coupla tasty morsels from Zepol and I was excited to pump the new KILLRATIÖ tape? Well...I may have been excited, but I definitely was not prepared. Salmo Katorse is an absolutely flawless example of the pounding desperate crust tinged hardcore that dominated the 2000s, but KILLRATIÖ seem to have marinated in the desperation and the result is devastating. Listen to the last thirty seconds of "B.N.P." and know that these punks have figured it out...this is how you fukkn do it. I would love to see this band again. 

SALMO KATORSE

SICK LLAMA

 

It's been a while since SICK LLAMA stopped by an blew out our ear holes, so please enjoy Shadow's Tower at maximum volume on this lovely August Saturday, and know that if you are reading these words then there are approximately five billion humans on earth who are probably worse off than you are. Maybe not - I'm just playing the odds here. 

SHADOW'S TOWER

CANTOS OSCUROS

 

A stunning collection of obscure tracks put together by the folks at Little Axe in Portland, Cantos Oscuros is an hour long journey into a series of other worlds that left me reeling. MARTHA JEAN-CLAUDE, THOMAS MAPFUMO, ARLETA, FALLING STONES, HILDA MURILLO, NORA HERMOSA.....and a few artists the even the creators couldn't identify. Choice cuts for me are the devastatingly mournful cut from OH JHANG-SAN and a subdued screamer from Tacoma, Washington rock 'n rollers THE WAILERS. Sprinkling a few North American rockers (KEN DAVIS, THE JENSEN SISTERS, CARLA OLSON, THE WAILERS) into a mix filled with artists from Indonesia, Suriname, Cambodia, Jamaica, Greece, Japan, Sweden and Zimbabwe helps to contextualize all of the included music instead of presenting any of the songs as exotic anomalies. But really....? It's a fucking beautiful collection of sound, and that's what I'm here for. 

CANTOS OSCUROS

SHOTWELL

 

What can you say about SHOTWELL? Jimmy is as ubiquitous to San Francisco's Mission scene as the scene is to San Francisco - starting with X-TAL and STRAWMAN before starting SHOTWELL with Bay Area royalty in 1994. With a cast of former members longer than anyone (save Jimmy) can accurately count, SHOTWELL have popped in and out in various incarnations for longer than I've lived here. I've seen them perform accidentally brilliant sets and I've seen them perform so poorly that I couldn't believe they could even look at each other (much less the audience), but they (read: Jimmy) always do it with complete honestly. These twenty-one songs are perhaps the best collection of material I have ever heard from SHOTWELL. A lifetime on the fringes living life through stumbles, tyrades and genius seems to have manifested with the arguably perfect self titled Shotwell, released nearly three decades after the band was born.

SHOTWELL

FURIA FATAL

 

Repeated listens and I'm still not quite sure what to say about Shonen Punk. A relic from the last decade snagged from the Power Glove Dub punks a few weeks ago, this Fresno, California outfit lay waste to your idea of synth punk (and punk in general) with five hopelessly danceable doses of the real freak shit. Driving primitive lo-fi beats and dated synths fronted by a vicious hardcore snarl, FURIA FATAL sound like...nothing. Which means I want more. 

SHONEN PUNK

SINGH KAUR • KIM ROBERTSON

 

Endless energies have been wasted turning up noses at the things I classified (rightly or wrongly) as "new age," but I am doing my best to right those wrongs in old(er) age. It's a weight lifted to explore a field of sound not based on scenes and/or reputation, but simply by consuming what crosses your path when (or if) you so desire...which is how Mool Mantra landed moved from a second hand shop in the American Southwest to a shelf in my temporary apartment. And when I listened? It wasn't my nose that was upturned...it was my ears.

MOOL MANTRA

GIBRALTAR

 

Got a little care package from Philippines last week and....woof. I'm pumped as hell to blast the new KILLRATIO (of course), but holy shit this slab stopped be dead in my tracks. GIBRALTAR are an absolute powerhouse, the kind of doom tinged crust that North American DIY seems to have steered away from over the last decade or so. Talking ZEROID, KILARA caliber tonnage retooled for a new world filled with the same fukkn shit...this is a fucking monster, kids. Strap yourself in. 

GIBRALTAR

SOCKEYE

 

Ahhhhh SOCKEYE. Early (1989) live recording from Ohio's finest purveyors of whatever it is that SOCKEYE purvey. There's a radio interview too, because someone thought it was a good idea to put SOCKEYE on the radio. There's simply nothing like it. 

A BUNCH OF STRAIGHTEDGE FUCKS TRIED TO RUIN OUR FUN - BUT FAILED

HAROLD TURGIS

 

I waxed on about HAROLD TURGIS a few months ago, and here's the second of three tapes I received in a very timely package from England. These sounds arrived when I was in need of some grounding, some unscheduled quietude, and The Sentinels and Satellite both provide exactly that while also offering (temporary) (safe) escapes through sound. Turgis creates sound in an apparent vacuum, paying attention to the sounds themselves more than the environments that conjure them...and as much as I was hesitant to listen to Satellite because my experience with The Sentinels was so perfect, this experience was (also) exactly what I needed. You're worth it. 

SATELLITE: 1997-2021

MIXED COMBAT

 

I hadn't pulled this tape out in fucking years before I ripped it earlier this week and....well, this is the part of the blog where I feel compelled to tell stories. To reminisce and remember by click clacking away at a solitary keyboard with the tinny sounds of forgotten years reduced to digital files screaming at me from a pair of desktop speakers. These are the tapes that transport me - it's not that the sounds are good (they are), it's the place in time that these particular sounds represent. It's the space they hold. It's knowing that in today's punk there is another scene holding a similar space for a different punk. And if I'm just click clacking away just hear my own memories come out of my fingers....then so be it. Because they are really good memories. 

MIXED COMBAT VOL.1