ATRET

 

I first heard ATRET on Max's Barbaric Thrash Demolition comp more than twenty years ago - that was only three songs though, so I was psyched to pull this discography cassette from a box of tapes form Indonesia recently. Forty tracks of blistering fastcore/grind from Yogyakarta, I'm not sure what else you could ask for...you can ask for something different if you like, but I don't think you're going to find it here.

DISCOGRAPHY

••••

KALX CHRISTMAS

 Remember those appliance stores that would have Christmas In July!! sales to try get your parents to buy shit they didn't need or couldn't afford? Well this is like that, except it's October and I'm not selling anything - I'm offering. On the 25th of December in 1984, a gentle man named Pat Wright put this broadcast over the Bay Area airwaves via radio station KALX in Berkeley, and for this we are (all) grateful.

KALX - 25 December 1984

S.O.P.S.

 

Barebones and beautiful, 2015's Singing And Pogo from S.O.P.S. is littered with should-have-been anthems like "Fuck Police Fuckin Crew," "Living On The Street," "Fuck Seniority" and "Government Slaves." Steady 4/4 drums and blistering buzzsaw guitars challenge conventional concepts of what is 'good' by cranking out one burner after another, shamelessly addictive high energy Indonesian street punk of the highest order. Please don't look for anything revolutionary here...unless you are trying to be a part of the S.O.P.S. revolution, of course. 

SINGING AND POGO

WEAKLING

 

I don't know how black metal entered your world in the '90s, but it was this weird organic anomaly that just appeared in mine. Punks and punk adjacent metalheads started chattering about these bands from Scandinavia, of course there were the churches and shit that gave the whole thing an element of 'hmmmm, this is interesting' even beyond the music. On tour in 1995, FUCKFACE came across an interview with BLACK FUNERAL and we clowned that dude relentlessly in the van (later found out he worked at a Pizza Hut in Indiana and lived with his mom) before we used a quote from the interview as the center label for the Don't Hate Us 'Cause We're... EP and still...black metal was just curiosity. Meanwhile, black metal was consuming the scene in San Francisco - Lucifer's Hammer started hosting shows on Tuesdays and were responsible for MAYHEM, MORTIIS, EMPEROR, IMPALED NAZARENE and countless others playing a dive bar on Folsom street...on a Tuesday. And while this was happening....people were starting bands, and these bands made it very fucking clear to casual consumers that this new 'thing' was much more than a curiosity; this shit was for real. There was UNHOLY CADAVER - a recording project that came out of THUNDERCHIMP and evolved into HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE. There was LUDICRA, who featured the guitarist from HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE, the guitarist from MISSILE COMMAND, and the drummer from HICKEY along with Jessika from a drunk band called KETAMINE.

And then....there was WEAKLING...WEAKLING were different, and 1999's Dead As Dreams is as much a genre defining record as anything I can conjure. The drummer from SANGRE AMADO, the guitarist from FUCKING CHAMPS and the dude from VOMITORIUM made something that changed everything.  And then in 2023 this dude I know wanted to sell a bunch of tapes and I offered to help him more the units.....couldn't put a price tag on the WEAKLING tape so after some friendly discussions it lives with me now. This shit is so important (to me) that I don't give two shits how important the band was (is) in general - no one in North America did this better. Period. And this is seventy five minutes of proof.These tapes were dubbed off sporadically - I never saw this for sale anywhere....you got a copy of this if you were there, you dig? So I am honored to give this copy a (new) home. If you don't know....listen. 

DEAD AS DREAMS

HOT MESS MONSTER

 

For the days when you need to listen to punk that makes you feel free. For the days when you need punk to make you feel free. No constraints, slightly awkward and stilted, honesty and uncomfortability holding the same space...the feeling you get as a person from a pretentious place walking into a place where no one cares about anything about you - they just care about you. Though this was recorded in the mountains of North Carolina a decade ago, HOT MESS MONSTER are making me (helping me) feel those feelings this morning and I'm going ton listen to "The Rigors Of Self-Improvement" several times before I face the day.

ALL FIVE OF US

APPARATUS

 

Hard to believe that APPARATUS has been delivering damage for (almost?) two decades, but here we are in 2024 and I'm getting my brain melted by the same Malaysian juggernaut that slapped my face with Total Mangel Product back in 2006. Absürd 19 is a master class in Scandi-worship, eleven doses of relentless mania including a D.N.A. cover with Nils on vocals in case you needed to know where they were coming from. APPARATUS are dedicated to their craft, and seem determined to keep perfecting it....and I'm going to keep listening.

ABSÜRD 19

SHIT FETISH

 

A few months ago I got a message from a stranger asking if I wanted some tapes. Listen closely, punks: YES. Like - even if I don't want them, I need to have them  so I can determine whether or not I want them, you understand? So I responded to this stranger in the affirmative, and kinda forgot about it because.....well, punks is flakes, you know? Then my lady (of the night) friend sent me a message and said she had received a package from Australia with my name on it...so I asked her to open it. Punks, try explaining SHIT FETISH to your girlfriend. Never mind me trying to explain SHIT FETISH to you (dear reader) because that would take more words than I can muster at the moment, but think about explaining SHIT FETISH to someone who doesn't fuck with noise punk at all. So yeah, that was an entertaining conversation. There was another SHIT FETISH tape in that package.....so I guess I'll talk about the band when I post that one (until then, crank "Undergarmet" and "Food Fight" because this is perfect punk)....maybe we can also talk about how scrawling your song titles on the inside of the j-card with a magic fukkn marker so it bleeds through and wrecks the cover art. No? Fine...I'll talk about that somewhere else. 

SHIT FETISH - DEMO TAPE

•••

Last show of the (short) SUBHUMANS tour is tonight in San Pedro. They're playing with NOFX, supposedly the last NOFX show ever. I'm writing these words in September as I'm preparing to head out and I am realizing that I have never seen NOFX - which I am totally fine with. The question is: will I watch them when I have the chance? I guess we will find out. 

BONE AWL

 

The world of raw black metal was not the same with BONE AWL in it, straight up. The approach was so deadly simple and the execution was meticulously careless. I've never been an expert on the genre and its assorted offshoots and subs, but I know what I like and when I hear something that I like...? I keep listening. This is the reissue version that Klaxon dropped when they gave 2007's Almost Dead Man the vinyl treatment a few years ago...and it sounds like my life: Disgusting. 

ALMOST DEAD MAN

MARI BUNG BANGKIT KEMBALI!

 

Absolute fucking scorcher from 2002 with 29 Indonesian hardcore bands, many of whom don't appear to pop up anywhere else. Impossible to go through band by band without getting lost in the filthy glory of underground DIY hardcore/punk, but some highlights: DIRTY CHAOS, GARPUTALA, BORGOL, PAPER SKIN, SPUTNIK, COP IS DEAD and BHH - it's hard to find a clunker in the mix. Raw, harsh, low fidelity, intense, honest and powerful hardcore punk? Sold.

MARI BUNGBANGKIT KAMBALI! - KOMPILASI NUSANTARA HC PUNK

THE RESIDENTS

 

If you're like me (and for your sake I truly hope that you are not) then you've seen this record (or tape) a thousand times and wondered just what exactly The Third Reich 'n Roll might sound like. And listening to THE RESIDENTS as I write these words, listening to a bunch of absolute freaks from the past make music that defies description, I still don't know what The Third Reich 'n Roll sounds like. This recording was (self) released in 1979 by THE RESIDENTS, and it's no easier to wrap a mind around now than it was then..equal parts psychedelic freakout and irreverent pisstake this collection of montages of radio hits doesn't make any sense....at all. And what really doesn't make sense is how much  I (still) like it. Draw a line between MOTHERS OF INVENTION and NEGATIVLAND and you're gonna run into THE RESIDENTS, but there's nothing like THE RESIDENTS.  Mushrooms advised. 

THE RESIDENTS PRESENT: THE THIRD REICH 'N ROLL

•••

First: This is (still) one of the coolest looking record covers ever.

Second: The members of THE RESIDENTS were (and are) ever r/evolving and remain eternally mysterious. It's my understanding that I work with one of them.....but I legit have no idea who/m, and I love this.

DETH CRUX

 

A few years before the full length on Sentient Ruin came this untouchable (albeit brief) death rock opus from DETH CRUX. There's something about Los Angeles goth punks that hits different - just as punks often play goth better than goths play goth, Los Angeles goths play goth punk like only Los Angeles punks can play goth punk. The CHRISTIAN DEATH to CIRIL pipeline birthed these dreary souls and in this world for which so many have so little for which to be grateful....? Listen to "Swallowed" and then listen to it again. DETH CRUX was just different.

PEARS OF ANGUISH

BUNGA HITAM

 

Threw this one on when I was digging through the 'to be listened to' box and ended up sticking with it for a couple of rounds. Some folks gonna listen to COCKSPARRER or some other kind of infectious street punk with hopelessly addictive choruses....but me? I'm gonna hum along to this shit I can't understand and crank "Menghancurkan Dan Membangun" for the third time in a row.

UNTUKNU KOMUNITAS

••••
SUBHUMANS hit Templeton, California with HUMAN tonight.

Always pysched to see them in a smaller town, but particularly and specifically excited to sneak away to Paso Robles with Kelsey and hit The Vreamery.