THE BABIES

 

As the cover might suggest, the SEX PISTOLS energy is blatant on THE BABIES' 1999 release. These Malang City Punk Rockers are so much more than that, but even if you reduce them to a '77 punk rehash they are still brilliant. Eight studio cuts including "Street Punkers," "State Of Mind" and "Malang City Punk Rockers" and then you get a dose of what it must have been like for those lucky enough to experience THE BABIES in the flesh in real time. It's brilliant punk lowest common denominator punk and I can't get enough. 

MALANG CITY PUNK ROCKERS

FIRSTBL

 

Look at the cover.......look closely. You know exactly what you're getting here, and you're getting exactly what you want. FIRSTBLÖÖD are a precise brand of ScanDiBeat with howling Japanese HC undertones plus the obligatory SHITLICKERS cover. Like I said, you're getting exactly what you want. 

2009-2011
PUNKS NOT DEAD

INTERNAL AUTONOMY

Hard to understand why this band continues to fly under the radar, but here I am with their fifth demo from 1991 and I'm still pinching myself hearing these sounds for (not the) first time. Authentic dark wave steeped in UK anarcho with BLACK SOLSTICE connections, INTERNAL AUTONOMY are a truly unique (sounding) collection of souls - and to go from the chaotic CONFLICT-esque bombast of "The Time Has Come" and the mania of "Doesn't Anyone Believe Me?" to the PINK DOTS vibes in "An Anthem For Humanity" and the pure proto-goth of "Just Another Day" and "Foresight + Hindthought" is a magnificent feat. Every IA release hits different, and the experimental phase/s at the end of their run are often the most compelling for me - I hear new sounds literally every time I listen. My copy is a dub labeled '5th DEMO - MASTER TAPE' so any souls holding a copy with the artwork....? You know how to find me.  

PURPLE AVANT GARDE NOIZE EXPERIMENT

HISSY FIT

 

The '00s were a wild sonic decade. You might have seen HISSY FIT on a bill in a lethargic Pennsylvania basement with DISFEAR a few days after Hot August Nights wrapped up and the Eastern Seaboard was recovering from a four day cocaine bender. I say that now and it simply makes no sense, but then....? Well, it was just DIY punk, my friends. It was depressed and frustrated and hopeful - and   twenty years later we're struggling to determine which of those emotions have faded away and which ones we're stuck with. 

HISSY FIT

•••••

There are two bizarro electro punk numbers on this tape that may be leftovers from repurposed source/s, but they might also be re/imagination/s of HISSY FIT's Region Rock adjacent approach to addictive anthemic punk. I'm down either way, but detectives are welcome to contribute thoughts. 

SENANDUNG CANDALA

 

Hard skinhead stomps with blatant UK77 influences on this 2014 Indonesian comp. D'ORMAS, PRAHARA, MURDERAT, BRETEL, THE GANGS were all new to me, as was AGGROTHREAT who ironically offer the two softest cuts on the tape. Bonus instrumental ska number from THE BOSSES to close the second side and...well, what's not to like? Exactly. And when there are new sounds to discover and a lot to like, that's when we keep listening.

KOMPILASI SENANDING CANDALA

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL

 

A hopeless number of Maximum Rocknroll radio shows are available to stream on their website, going back almost fifteen years. Yeah the shows still drop weekly, and yeah they are still awesome snapshots of what some punk you may or may not know is digging at the moment. But if you're wondering what a pre-Prank Ken was digging on this date thirty one years ago, then I suggest you blast Maximum Rocknroll Radio #603. You have to remember that this is the dude responsible for bringing ASSFOT, GAIA and GAUZE to the West Coast in the 90s....the dude who gave HHIG the platform to turn USDIY hardcore on it's collective ear. So it should come as no surprise that this 1991 broadcast is an absolute motherfucker; DEFORMED CONSCIENCE, SLAVE STATE, INSANE YOUTH, UOA, IDORA, RIP OFFS, DISCLOSE, BANANAS (yeah, that BANANAS), CITIZEN FISH, CHOKEHOLD and...well, there's more. I can't really image how much these radio shows changed people's lives - I remember looking at the list of stations where the shows were broadcast and thinking "Louisiana? Fukk dude....I was so close" but I was actually a world away. Also, COP OUT's "Over There" is such a beast. 

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #603

WORLD NASTY ANARCHY

 

Enough nonsense, how about a headfirst dive into late '90s raw hardcore from East Java's WORLD NASTY ANARCHY?  "Hate," "Proud To Be A Punk," "Fuck The State" and "Kill" are a few of the morsels waiting for you when you blast this 1999 cassette...what is waiting for you after that is entirely in your hands.

TRIBAL WAR

LAMAR // RON GRIFFIN

 

I've taken a pre-internet relic and popped it onto cassette (where it belongs) and now I'm putting it back on the internet (where, if I'm being honest, it truly belongs). RON GRIFFIN popped up sometime in the 1990s, John had it on a cassette of oddities that he got from (somewhere) and it just....well, it stuck. It's an incredibly catchy hook, and I still get the opening bars stuck in my hand with shocking frequency - should have come as no surprise to discover as I was doing research for this important project that someone else has already immortalized the track but I was surprised nonetheless. The flip side came into our field of (sonic) vision in 2006 when HIGH ON CRIME was recording in Nashville. Our engineer's main source of income was recording sessions for local rappers and this piece of genius struck him so much that he kept a copy for himself....I thank him today (and every day) for making that decision, and you will thank him soon. The artist may or not be named LAMAR, but I've been saying it was LAMAR for fifteen plus years now so....LAMAR it is. The weird thing is that this tape exists in physical form. I made thirty of them, just like I made thirty copies of the ANCIENT CHINESE PENIS Live On KATT session from 1993 that I expected exactly zero people to be interested in.....but people are buying that one too. Y'all are weird, and I'm grateful for that. 

I'M GONNA GET MY DICK SUCKED // YOUR LOVE IS REAL

DOMESTIC PRISON

 

I keep getting my ass handed to me as I dig through the treasure trove of Indonesian hardcore, Oi! and crust I got from Melvin a couple of months back (and there's still another box on the way!!). And as much as I want to sing the praises of each release equally, there are a few that truly stand out - HUSTLER for example, and this absolute crusher from Bandung's DOMESTIC PRISON. No nuance, just a blistering and uncompromising dual vocal crust assault of the highest caliber. Twenty minutes of fucking annihilation with tracks like "Prepare" and "Get Fight To Fuck" leading the way. Place this one somewhere between DETESTATION and DROPDEAD on the comparison spectrum and them throw your preconceptions out the fucking window and reach for the volume. DOMESTIC PRISON are simply incredible. 

DOMESTIC PRISON

BUZZOV•EN

 

Story time - it'll be a little disjointed perhaps but the shit is all super (?) important... 

    I heard about BUZZOV•EN when ANCIENT CHINESE PENIS were in North Carolina in 1993. I was eager for anything new at that point in my punk life - I grabbed Hate Box and Wound based on someone's recommendation, and my mind was blown. The next year when MULTIPLE CHOICE were on tour, we listened to a promo cassette copy of Sore until the reels fell the fuck off. The singles I snagged on that ACP trip were good, but Sore was (still is) something else entirely, and when we saw them in Providence on that '94 jaunt? Fuck. Top ten sets ever - period. My first real experience being scared of and/or by punk...shit was actually dangerous and you were experiencing a band on the very brink of collapse just by being in the same room. That set had (has) staying power.

Fast Forward Four Years.....

    MULTIPLE CHOICE morphed into FUCKFACE and then crashed into a brick wall in 1998 leaving shards that birthed ARTIMUS PYLE. The three of us recorded with Billy Anderson in April. There were a lot of drugs. There was a whirlwind couple of weeks that included WORD SALAD covering "Angel Of Death" with Dino on vocals and DAMAD was in town too and we woke up a dude from HIGH ON FIRE at three something in the morning because we felt like we needed to hear what our recording sounded like on a stereo that wasn't John's Honda's tape deck and we played our first show. I'm not sure what exactly happened in what order, but a lot happened (and there were a lot of drugs). Shortly after Billy finished our single, he rolled into Toast Studios in SF with BUZZOV•EN...who showed up with no riffs. No songs. They just showed up with several days booked at an expensive recording studio on some label's dime. Billy called me a few days in, said that Dixie was recording conversations with crackheads on Mission Street while Kirk was scouring porn VHS tapes for potential samples (because it was the '90s and you couldn't have a sludge/crust record without samples) - he asked if I had anything they could use. I brought a few things down to the studio, including an educational record filled with first person testimonials aimed at keeping kids away from the horrible world of drugs. I offered that whole record, but noted one bit that FUCKFACE had used on their then-recent LP (guess which bit BUZZOV•EN used....? Cant think...can't think can't think can't think). After they finished the recording, BUZZOV•EN played a matinee show at Gilman. I walked in with Kirk and Billy and stared slack jawed as Kirk snarled at the teenage volunteer working the door "I'm gonna burn this place to the fucking ground" while getting his hand stamped. Their set that day was....something. There was fire. 

Fast Forward Some More Years....

    I was in a record store in Echo Park shooting the shit and drinking some beers when BUZZOV•EN came up in conversation. Turns out I was shooting the shit with the person whose label's dime funded that 1998 recording session - a session that had (at that time) still not produced a physical release. Small world, right? 

••••

    This is my copy of the 1998 San Francisco session that Billy gave me before the mix and master was complete - the tracks that eventually became Revelation: Sick Again that finally saw a proper release on Hydra Head in 2011 or so. There were a few forgettable recordings that came out after Sore (most notably that awful Gospel According...II on Allied) and there are some more recent releases that I admittedly haven't spent time with, but this....? This is BUZZOV•EN. If you listen with a discerning ear you can probably tell that some of the songwriting is phoned in, but you can also tell that these dudes were absolutely in the pocket on that tour - I think it was the first with Dixie on bass and he seemed to kick Kirk in the ass in a really good way. There's aren't many bands like this in the world - not now and not ever. Welcome to violence.

SONGS 1, 2, 3 FROM CASSETTE.

SONGS 4, 5, 6 FROM D.A.T.

ON THE BLOCK

 

Remember that shit I said about Oi! the other day? Well...Welcome to Asheville, punks. Three songs from ON THE BLOCK, who's moniker had better some kind of pisstake about the streets. Most notable to left coasters is Jerome (APEFACE, SNUGGLE) on guitar, but these tracks don't need no stinking pedigree at all. "Blocked" is a dark street punk anthem for the ages and the other two are straight slammers. Sass's vocals land somewhere between gruff UK82 and Carl McCoy and the tracks are addictive as fuck and I am so totally here for it. 

RIDE OR DIE

SVENSKA SPELMANSLAG

 

Look....this shit doesn't sound that great. Some punk probably nicked the tracks from youtube and dubbed them in a garage in the Central Valley on a tape deck they stole from St. Vinnie's. But here's the thing: It's not supposed to sound great. If you aren't sold on the irrelevance of fidelity by the time AVSKUM's "Livande Begravd" starts then I don't really know what I can possibly do for you. For the other TE readers in their right mind who aren't familar with the comp, I offer you this: MODERAT LIKVIDATION, SNOBB SLAKT, BRISTLES and PUKE mingling with lesser knowns like FRENETIK AGONI, SVEA SKANDAL, ORIGINAL SIN, KURI I KUVÖS and two absolute killer from SUBWAY ARMY. I missed a few I'm sure, but when you're dealing with primal SvenskPunk of this caliber...well, you get a little flustered. Essential blasting.

SVENSKA SPELMANSLAG 1