DISCLONE

 

First Question: How can there only be one band named DISCLONE? It's so damn obvious that I think I need to start a second one just to demonstrate the point.

Second Question: How the fuck can hearing "yet another dis-clone band" for the first time hit so damn hard and sound so damn good?

•••••

So there I was sitting in El Buen Sabor with Spencer a few weeks back, poring over the bounty he hauled back from his most recent trip to Europe and marveling at the simple genius of a dis-band called DISCLONE. It was the first tape I popped in when I got home that night, and even with maximum expectations I wasn't prepared. Harsh Raw Affront collects four separate releases with disparate recordings that keep the ears on edge and the heart pounding. DBeat mania distorted to absolute oblivion, which is exactly what I want out of this life: to be distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. Success.

HARSH RAW AFFRONT

•••••

A short tour with SUBHUMANS continues today with a stop in Fresno, California. 

Interested parties are encouraged to attend - guest list spots in exchange for cassettes. 
I'm the old guy slinging shirts. 

COEUR Á L'INDEX

 

I know La Vida Es Un Mus released the LP earlier this year so Belgium's CŒUR À L’INDEX aren't exactly flying under the radar, but this No Fuss reissue of last year's demo was welcome nonetheless. Influences on their collective sleeve, hear CHIN CHIN, SHIVVERS, DOLLY MIXTURE, Girls In The Garage and GIRLS AT OUR BEST ooze out of these four brilliant minimal power pop masterpieces...and then go snag that full length. 

DEMO I

APATRIDE

 

APATRIDE is fukkn perfect. I keep thinking of descriptors and keep coming back to "raw" and "forceful" even though neither really touches the intensity of 2000's Stop Racism Stop Facism. Bali's APATRIDE harness the energy of early Italian and Brasilian hardcore brilliantly - perhaps it's the inherent limits of recording high energy punk with limited resources crashing full speed into punks determined to document their fury, which sums up the foundation of so fucking much great music. Blast "Anti Nazi," "Case The Police" and "Going To Riot" and tell me you aren't ready to fucking smash shit. This tape is absolutely unhinged, and if anyone knows where I can find more APATRIDE please drop me a line...or send me a tape. 

STOP RACISM STOP FACISM

PUERTO RICO

Another killer from Pat's seemingly endless collection of recordings. This one has Puerto Rico scrawled across the shell and features just over ninety minutes of music, almost all of which was new to me. There's some Tito Puento, John el Bravo, Mon Rivera, at least one José Mangual track....but basically you just put it on and let the shit spin, you know? Pat's affinity for Odilio González is well documented in these pages, so consider this mix an extension of that love. He liked it real, and that sums up Puerto Rico (the tape and the territory) in one word. 

PUERTO RICO

KREMLIN

Those tapes I got from Indonesia are turning into a seemingly endless stream of heat - a treasure trove from the first few waves of SE Asian DIY punk and hardcore. I have never heard of most of the shit in those packages (and there's another one on the way), and this burner from KREMLIN is one more reminder that you're simply never going ton hear all of the punk. Keep listening, keep digging, keep searching - I fukkn beg you - and you'll never hear all of the punk. As a reminder, I present twelve maximum energy commie street punk blasts from the streets of Jakarta recorded more than twenty years ago. This fuckin' system is still like a dictator, punk is still important...and punk fukkn rules. 

THIS FUCKIN' SYSTEM IS STILL LIKE A DICTATOR

ANXIOUS LIVING

 

Hard to imagine that a group of people can get together and create something this perfect and then....nothing else. History will likely file ANXIOUS LIVING alongside other late-aughts dark punks, but the careful listener will notice the difference/s immediately. The sound is rooted in '70s punk - as much early Slash and Dangerhouse as SOVIETTES and WAX IDOLS and they drive their machine hard even when trading vocal harmonies in "Graveyard Orbit," inviting inevitable Doe/Cervenka comparisons. There are only five songs here (including a gorgeous WIPERS cover) but, as I've said countless times in these pages: if your legacy is short then make your legacy great. 

ANXIOUS LIVING

••••

CONCUSSION

 

How am I not supposed to follow CONCUSSION (NY) with CONCUSSION (NC)? The decision makes itself. First impression/s are a mishmash of DAMNED and the My America, which doesn't make sense but it's an impression more than a description, you know? Once you let it settle though, CONCUSSION are clearly rooted in '90s USDIY punk and they seem determined to breathe new life into an approach that's tried and true. Wild how many blips I hear that inspire comparisons - I swear I hear CRIMINAL DAMAGE, AVAIL and THE SIPTS in "Silence" (not coincidentally, it's the best song on the tape). The guitar sit on top of a gloriously raw recording with crash cymbals piercing the mix, cementing the Great Decade vibes.  Maybe though.....maybe it is okay (or would have been okay) for me to just say that I really like this tape, and I wonder if I can dig up another CONCUSSION for tomorrow (suggestions/submissions welcome).

CONCUSSION

CONCUSSION

 

I'm not sure where this came from, but it's here now and I am grateful. Crust tinged thrash metal insanity in four fierce movements and I don't know what more I could possibly ask for. Enjoy your week, mutants. 

AGE OF INTOLERANCE

ZEROS

 What is there to say? I don't really fuck with ZEROS too hard but this three song session from 1979 makes me seriously question that decision - punk is super cool, and I look forward to continuing to discover the new things and the things that I missed until I fucking die. 

ZEROS 1979

TYPHOON FAMILY

 

This tape thing...it's a weird world. I 'get' things and I buy things and I acquire things and sometimes things just kinda come to me and I'm not sure where they came from and I get to listen to them, to (sometimes) learn about them, to (sometimes) enjoy them and then I use this antiquated digital platform to get them to you. Often by the time they reach my ears I don't have any idea how they made it into my hands, and that's the case with this tape from an artist who may or may not be called something like TYPHOON FAMILY (google image translators are a motherfucker). I don't know where it came from, and honestly I don't even know how to describe it. This shit hits like '90s college radio and Japanese indie and '00s heavy alt all trying to figure out who's gonna buy the next round and.....I'm still not sure if and/or why I like it, but I keep listening so I suggest you keep listening. And now? Now you're curious...so you're going to listen more and/or again. And that means I have done my job. 

STEREO SOUND 23FRO15D

UNDERGROUND PILIPINAS

You ever want to listen to a compilation with a bunch of bands you've never heard of? That happens to me often, and last week I reached for Underground Pilipinas when I got the itch. Sixteen bands (I've never heard of) from Philippines - street punk, hardcore punk, catchy punk, shit punk.....all of the punks are represented in various forms, and the success rate is extremely high. Choice cuts from BERZERK, STOUT, BANANA IS THE BASTARD, VAMPIRE STATE, ARMED and DISARMED. There are others, but it would just be me listing more bands I had never heard of....until now. Enjoy yourself. 

UNDERGROUND PILIPINAS

 

LOS CRUDOS

 

I'm going to assume that LOS CRUDOS need no introduction in this community (and that's what we are...right?), and I'm also going to assume that this assumption is correct. This Polish release from Plague tapes collects the '91 Libertad demo, "500 Años" from the In The Spirit Of Total Resistance comp and a radio show recorded very early in the band's run.....basically? Essential shit. So here you go - maybe you didn't need an introduction...maybe you just needed a reminder. 

1492-1992: 500 AÑOS DE VIOLACIÓN Y ASESINATOS

KALX

Another one? Yes....another one. Ninety-five minutes as broadcast on Berkeley's KALX almost forty years ago, starting with Iggy's blood curling scream and wrapping with KRAUT. There's a lot in between, of course....enjoy. 

KALX - NOVEMBER 1984

ABYSSAL

 

Another release, another song, another forty plus minutes of sonic destruction from ABYSSAL It's easy to say that doom is just about the feeling, but listen to ABYSSAL and you'll hear what happens when a band can capture that feeling and write a song and not just a collection of riffs and tones. I fukkn love this band. 

MISANTHROPE

VILE FAITH

 

Hardcore is supposed to be ugly, and VILE FAITH is fucking ugly. This is what hardcore punk is supposed to sounds like.....this is what hardcore punk is supposed to sound like. 

LOW BRED

LOOSEY

 

This is absolutely the best alt/grunge rehash I have ever heard. Simple Machines and SUPERCHUNK and an irresistible guitar crunch and....this just sounds like I'm listening to my past. I'm guessing LOOSEY get pegged as a Pacific Northwest band even more because they're actually from there, but their sound encapsulates an era more than an area, and for that I am grateful.

SUN SPOTS

FAGGOT

 

Look...FAGGOT were legends. I never even saw them play, but I celebrated the band and their mission openly. I met Jason in '94 when MULTIPLE CHOICE and his band RESIN opened for TOTAL CHAOS in Mankato and I met the Profane Punks for the first time. I met Saira in '98 when ARTIMUS PYLE played with DETESTATION at the Wasted In The Woods festival in Tenino, Washington. And then sometime in the mid '00s they were in Minneapolis....and there was FAGGOT.  You can dismiss them as a schtick if you want, and you'd be forgiven because the name and the song titles bend the needle towards gimmick....but listen. The subject matter is real, the compositions are advanced and FAGGOT just don't hit like. a regular band - or any band for that matter. You take this demo a few steps in another direction and you're on a whole other trip - it jams, it grooves, it's just......different. I don't think FAGGOT would give half a shit about my opinion though (then or now), but I do think that FAGGOT would be happy to know that someone is (still) listening, you know? Check the LP on Profane Existence to be sure, but check this tape and know that FAGGOT were revolutionary punks. 

FAGGOT

YOUNG GUV

 

I don't even know with this tape. You've got some wild SPITS-TARDS damage, you've got killer cuts by a band called MARVELOUS DARLINGS, you've got a live cut from THE BITTERS....and you've got weird interludes and acoustic and 'other' things by GUV. Full disclosure: I don't know who the fukk GUV is. But damn this is a cool sounding (and feeling) tape...I like things that sound (and feel) cool.

GUV LUV MIXTAPE VOLUME 1

HUSTLER

 

Remember that pile of heat from Indonesia that dropped in my lap a few weeks ago? Well get ready for more of this hot shit hardcore punk action in your future, because I have yet to blast a dud. Turn of the century fastcore/crust from HUSTLER that's recorded every bit as raw as the band sounds and of course the recording only adds to the intensity and power. Brutal class consciousness immortalized with tracks like "Red Punx," "Failure Of Socialist Front '98" and "Class War." Unapologetic ferocity in word and deed....from a time and a place where the importance of both cannot be understated. Play this shit loud so you can feel it in your bones. 

WE'RE THE CLASS THEY COULDN'T TEACH 'CAUSE WE KNEW BETTER!

FREAK VIBE

 

A bit of a nonsequiter if you'll allow me....last weekend I listened to AFGHAN WIGS' Gentlemen from start to finish for the first time in a few years, and fukk me what a beautifully painted bleak picture that record paints. I remember the lines that grabbed me in the early '90s, grim and poetic and so seemingly far away before exposure to the actual darkness of the human condition. Why do I bring this up on a random Wednesday in 2024? I don't know man....FREAK VIBNE kinda hits me the same way sometimes. It just sounds so totally on the bring of falling through holes in the floor - the holes that only some can see, that everyone can succumb to. I like a lot of FREAK VIBE jams, but this one it suiting me just fukkn right. 

CUSS

UNHOLY SATIVA

 

You might think you're ready, and Budapest's UNHOLY SATIVA are about to prove you wrong. Absolutely off the rails hardcore somehow rooted in boogie rock and heavy metal....it just doesn't make any damn sense. The same was ANNIHILATION TIME flipped the script twenty years ago, these maniacs channel FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND, DUST, MOLLY HATCHET and early DARK THRONE and they make it sound normal. They make it sound like they're in a hardcore band - because UNHOLY SATIVA are a hardcore band. One of the truest (and hardest) sonic accomplishments is to create something that doesn't sound like anything else....and that's what this is. I don't know what is happening to me. I want to ask them to lay off the drugs but also (and mostly) I don't want this to ever end. 

VULKÁN

WARTHREAT

 

This is Monday. This is the most isolated place on earth (well...kinda, but also totally yes). This is Perth. This is birth (day) madness. This is raw, pummeling brutality. This is buzzsaw guitars. This is sonic pain. This is excruciating....this is also perfect. This is exactly what I need. This is WARTHREAT. This is complete. I am complete. 

WARTHREAT

REZILLOS

No bloviating or blustering today. Instead, a REZILLOS Peel Session recorded in 1978....you know what it is and you know it's good. You might even be able to here it somewhere else, but I don't know why you would. That rhymes.

REZILLOS - PEEL SESSION 1978

HAUNTINGS

 

Another post in the spirit of "you hear what I hear even if it's fukkd up." This one came out in 200i9 and the years have warped the tape into a completely different beast - "haunting" is a good descriptor though, and the sonic damage translates to the fukkd analog medium perfectly. You can find the sounds the way they were intended on the internet (if you want to), but I'm going to keep listening to HAUNTINGS the way they were presented to me: Super damaged.

BLACK MASS GRAVES

COMP AGAINST CENSORSHIT

 

My copy came without the booklet, so I'm offering you the same listening experience that I had...two hours of brutal crust, grind and mania with no song titles, no artists, no tracks. Just brutality. I'm sure the information is on the internet somewhere, but I started ripping while I was folding laundry the other day and I just kinda kept it going. I suggest doing the same - don't think too much, just blast. 

COMP. AGAINST CENSORSHIT

MOZART

 

When I shared The Tick with the world in 2016, someone commented "Wow - tupa-tupa-tupa-tupa and fuck it all" but I'm going to guess that the anonymous commenter had not heard Wormeater when they wrote those words because few punk things sound as "fuck it all" as Wormeater. This tape contains something - I'm not sure what it is or how to describe it, but it is definitely. simultaneously meticulous, hesitant and completely carefree, MOZART does an about face and turns their back on punk...solidifying their status as true punks in doing so. Strap yourself in because you aren't ready, the worm is gonna find you. 

WORMSEARCHER

FIRST BLOOD // A SISTEM RIJEK

 

Listen to "Destroy." FIRST BLOOD's opening salvo on this split reminds me of everything from the DBeat drenched 2000s, and the rest of their side continues the theme. Howling, rampaging fist banging hardcore....can't really imagine you need much more of endorsement than that. Obligatory SHITLICKERS cover and a song called "War" tomtop it off. As if that weren't enough, this tape has a backside and it starts with "Absolute Country Of Violence." A SISTEM RIJEK are the blown out and completely fukkn destroyed version of '00s DBeat worship. Everything absolutely pegged, drums awash in pulsing distortion - brainfuck hardcore that makes you tired just listening to it. The riffs are there, turning into weird proto-dubstep mutations on tracks like "Fucked Up Justice Fucked Up System" - I love not knowing if a band tried to push the sonic envelope with the recording or if they were just going real (really) hard and thought this sounded good. Well, punks...? It sounds great.

A ROARING INFERNO

NO BUSINESS

 

The Bay Area isn't big, but there are micro scenes that rival the micro climates, even (especially) in the punk realm. I knew Jonny was in NO BUSINESS after DIE HARD and they ran concurrent with FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, but I don't remember seeing them live. I wish I had. The Bay Area in the mid-teens was teeming with killer hardcore, and I suspect that NO BUSINESS might have seemed a bit more....rock?....at the time, but I also suspect that Nicole's vocals would have blown people the fukk away in a live setting. Parts remind me of SMUT (the Minneapolis SMUT), but ultimately it's just a really damn good recording of some really fukkn good songs. Better late than never - and a decade after the fact I'm all in.

NO BUSINESS

PULSE DETONATIONS // DEATH CULT RITUAL

 

Twenty minutes of sonic mind fuckery courtesy of Death Bed Tapes. While the people of the country take a day to celebrate the end of summer (under the government imposed guise of celebrating Labor) by cooking food outside and drinking cheap beer, the true believers will hunker down in the dark and listen to the harsh reality of the world we live in. The world we have created. It'll still be here when I'm gone (this world), and likely long after....but the damage we have done to the social and infrastructural fabrics of this Earth is immeasurable. This Earth will be fine - better after we're gone. But our demise is not just impending, but it is inevitable. Harsh sounds for harsh realities, folks. Enjoy your cookout.

SOUNDTRACK FOR EARTH'S IMPENDING DEMISE

IGNORANTES COMEDIANTES

 

You know the times you can't explain why you do...... you just acknowledge that you do? This is one of those times. I didn't see IGNORADOS COMEDIANTES when they were in Oakland a few years back, and their style definitely falls into the "not typically my thing" category....but as I listen on a Friday afternoon before rolling to Fresno for the weekend? It hits kinda perfect. Fast, unapologetic melodic hardcore with just enough teeth ("Destruyendo el Planeta" as an example) to keep them from slipping between the cracks. So I'm just here to acknowledge that I do. 

PARALIZADOS