11 February 2025

MYSTIC INANE

 



There was a hot (long) minute around the turn of a couple of decades ago where I was no-at-all low key obsessed with New Orleans punk. It was really NECRO HIPPIES in a bedroom in Oakland that did it, but I kept running into these little strands that connected people I encountered to bands I like and every discovery seemed to lead to another discovery and every new discovery was a new band I needed to devour. MYSTIC INANE appeared on my radar in the early '10s and everything kinda clicked - this was a similar brand of disjointed and awkward punk, this band was also playing by their own rules...but MYSTIC INANE were fukkn dangerous. MYSTIC INANE were dirty American DIY punk weening themselves off of FU82 and Mad Dog 20/20. They're from the South and you can feel that energy before they even play a note....the shit is (was) just different. And I guess that not-at-all low key obsession is still in full effect.

10 February 2025

HATEFILLED KIDS

 



It doesn't get much more primitive than HATEFILLED KIDS.
It doesn't need to be fancy, it just needs to be real. 

09 February 2025

HELICON

 


This little mystery came tacked onto the back side of a tape with a couple of seminal Mexican punk releases and....I'm having a hard time justifying how much I'm enjoying it. Late '80s goth/alt energy, a brilliant mellow track called "The Stairs" and no information beyond titles and a pencil scrawled band name presented as a multigenerational photocopy. And this is why we dig through those boxes of trash, and this is why we check what's on the other side....just in case. 


08 February 2025

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

 



Someone wanna tell me why I'm hesitant to type out the name of the band? I mean, surely if some bot were going to determine this blog unfit for human consumption then that day would have come a long (long) time ago - but there's still something inside me that wonders if CHILD PORNOGRAPHY might be the Death Of The Escape. At least we went out with a a wild one though, right kids? Responsible for a slew of releases throughout the '00s, this California duo cranked out a respectable collection of damage during their run, culminating with this recording from Chez Shif in Oakland from 2009. Prepare to feel weird, "You Are Only A Victim Of Life" after all. 

07 February 2025

BESTIARY

 



After a week of rain dampening my recovery, I treated myself a cup of coffee and a collection of outsider music and damaged Americana from the new (to me) folks at Hairy Spider Legs. VILLAGE OF SPACES, ORA COGAN, ARRINGTON de DIONYSO'S MALAIKAT DAN SINGA, LAUGHING EYE WEEPING EYE and a host of other truly special sound dealers make appearances....I just want to sink into this release and feel the cold disappear. Even though it's still cold inside.


06 February 2025

FOLLETO

 



Feels like you're walking past the entrance to an alley that's just a little too dark for comfort, and you hear something pulsing at the end of the block coming out of the shadows. It sounds dangerous, and you want more....but you aren't comfortable enough in your own skin to investigate so you keep walking, head down, punks walking the other direction side eyeing you as you pretend you didn't see or hear anything. Steal a glance over your shoulder and you see those punks lumbering down the alley towards a different kind of night and you're gonna think about this decision for the rest of your life. 


05 February 2025

LIQUID ASSETS

 



Wipe the snot from your upper lip (use your sleeve, dummy) and feast your earholes on LIQUID ASSETS. Not sure if they're referring to their sweat or your blood, but this marble mouthed garage hardcore is as precious as fluid commodities come these days. Or those days. "You ready to rock, everybody?" someone in the studio asks before they launch into "Europhile" and it's like "I'm Guilty"-era CURRENT and Floyd's Texas DICKS are sucking each other off in front of me while I'm drinking my morning coffee and the liquid assets are just...everywhere. I feel rich. And wet. 


04 February 2025

DRIED UP CORPSE

 



Monotonous distorted crackles from BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER offshoot DRIED UP CORPSE. Perhaps this is what it sounds like when you simply can't make a complete connection anywhere, no matter how hard you try. Fourteen minutes of frustration that just dissolves into nothingness. 


03 February 2025

TOTAL KEPEP

 



The only complaint here (if you could dare to be bold enough to complain) is that Medan's TOTAL KEPEP are not as noisy as the title of their sole release might suggest. But these sounds are rough and direct form the same streets where I met a pre-teen with "FUCK COPS" tattooed on his neck just a few years after Make Noise Not Music dropped. Enough said, I hope.



02 February 2025

COOL MUTANTS

 



I've been laid up sick for the better part of a week and still feel like a pile of moldy socks stuffed in a skin suit - headed to the Billion Dollar "Healthcare" Corporation this afternoon to get a chest x-ray to see if I have pneumonia, feeling pretty damn privileged that I can just get that shit looked into instead of stressing about the money or access or whatever. Who knows what the world of health care in this lost country looks like in a few years, but we're already the worst of all of the so-called "first world" nations (and most of the second and third) and I don't really feel any institutional motivation to move the collective US (get it?) in a positive direction, so I'm gonna really savor this x-ray, just in case. Normally when I'm feeling under the weather, I plow through cassettes - ripping and uploading and scanning and pontificating and whatnot, assuming someone will eventually read my missives, but sleeping bathed in sweat for 16hrs a day doesn't really lend itself to many extracurriculars...I did manage to handle this COOL MUTANTS slab for 2012 and honestly it's putting a smile on my face this afternoon. Think REATARDS, M.O.T.O., SONICS SPITS and you aren't going to be surprised, but there's a lot to be said for some hi energy comfort food for your earholes when you feel like shit. 

01 February 2025

SWANS

 



I have a complicated relationship with SWANS. I get it - I truly get it. Pushing envelopes and provoking thought in realms of sound and humanity is itself an art form, and few artists were doing either with as much verve as SWANS in the 1980s. The sounds....? There was Glenn Branca and of course SONIC YOUTH so the casual deep diver would be intrigued but not shocked. Challenging traditional concepts of music is one thing, but sitting down with "Time Is Money (Bastard)" when I was in high school was something entirely different. Hearing Gira mumble "You should be violated. You should be raped. Don't fight back: I need you." as a fourteen year old will stick with you, you know? I truly wonder if you can push boundaries artistically without pushing them in in reality, and later encounters with people in and around Gira's circle would give credence to what was once simply a wonder. Does it negate the art....? I don't think so. But it makes my relationship with the art more complicated. The whole point was to make the consumer uncomfortable, so....success?

31 January 2025

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL

 



I fully recognize that virtually every descriptor one could possibly apply to most of the artists featured on the six hundred seventy-eighth episode of Maximum Rocknroll Radio would dissuade most Escape visitors from listening. But believe me when I tell you that while I was shuffling around the apartment today, sick as hell and full of phlegm and trying to celebrate the second birthday of Murder The Cat (who really just wanted to sleep under the bed like she does literally every other day of her life)....this radio show hit me just fukkn right. TILT, HORACE PINKER, BLANKS 77, CHINA DRUM, MEGA CITY 4, SMUGGLERS and more, as broadcast in the Bay Area and participating radio stations worldwide almost 29 years ago...before we got our music from the internet.


30 January 2025

CRUX OF VIPERS

 



Punk deserved more from CRUX OF VIPERS. Punk deserved CRUX OF VIPERS to exist as more than a project. But we're used to not getting what we deserve and appreciating what we have. This tape is so fucking good. 







29 January 2025

SPAD

 



What if MARKED MEN had been a hardcore band from Yogyakarta? Check "Expand Your Field" and then let us discuss. Consider the impact TOTAL FURY had when the Western World heard 13 Songs a lifetime ago, play this SPAD ripper from 2023 and then let us discuss. We are going to have some serious discussing to do.


28 January 2025

DISREJECT

 


I remember in the '00s when the word 'extreme' took over. It was applied to everything from sodas to pizza to bicycles...it was so overused and meaningless that SCHOLASTIC DETH wrote a song about it (I feel like it was really the pizza that pushed them over the edge. Well, if I may be bold enough to step into the mistakes of the past.....DISREJECT are extreme grind/crust. An ultra brutal and extremely raw multi-vocal assault on all senses that will take your breath away for a solid quarter hour. And then you can have your life back. 


27 January 2025

SCARECROW

 



North Carolina's SCARECROW are one of my favorite current US hardcore bands. When I see them live, I'm gonna lose my fukkn shit. Three searing tracks backed with three essential covers - their version of "Kill The Police" is so far beyond essential. Are there hordes of current US hardcore bands I have yet to hear? Certainly. When I listen to SCARECROW, I simply do not care about the bands I haven't heard yet. 

26 January 2025

MALARIE

 



Yesterday morning on my bike ride in to work I listened to the most recent episode of MaximumRocknroll Radio, which is available wherever podcasts and streaming things are available (this blog is a dinosaur, offering only links and .zip file mp3 downloads and words). I listened to Zu and Michael fawn over and play tracks from their favorite releases from 2024 and.....and I was struck. I was struck by how much so. many. songs. they. played. reminded me of something I had listened to in a time that existed (possibly?) before Zu and/or Michael had been borned. I didn't hear the songs of think these thoughts in any kind of way...it just felt real and honest and I was into virtually every song I heard on the show - NINE:FORTY:PM and BRANDY SENKI were particularly striking and naturally S.H.I.T. and CHAT PILE were instantly striking. But the point is that I felt like I had heard it before but I also (and more importantly) felt like the sounds were new and real and important....and now enter MALARIE. It's not really the same because it's different (I know, I have a way with words and you're welcome), but their sound just lands in a place that I know....the first time I heard these songs they were familiar, and listening to their more recent offerings is really just a confirmation. MALARIE are dreamy goth tinged (so-called) post punk that hit like FOR AGAINST setting their sights on a support slot for some unnamed '80s alt/gaze/goth group....you know this sound. And Friends Of The Escape will know that they love this sound. You have these sounds in your mind and your heart....now get them into your earholes. 




25 January 2025

NO MAN'S LAND

 



You've probably noticed the swarm of Indonesian punk tapes occupying these posts over the last few months and if you're anything like me you start sweating when you see (even more) DIY punk shits that you suddenly need in your life. NO MAN'S LAND started in 1994 when Indonesian punk was in its infancy, and sometimes things just hit different when you can feel how real they are. Ultra basic tupa-tupa political street punk will make you feel alive, young (at heart) punk. And if you need a hearty dose of earnest ramshackle Oi! with serious @PATIA NO energy...start sweating. 

24 January 2025

ELECTRON PANIC

 



When most people come across a tape like this, they just keep walking. I don't. When I come across a tape like this, I wonder.....because you just never know. It probably won't change my life, it might not even enrich my life, but curiosity is a powerful beast, you know? So I dust it off, squint to read the faded labels and then pop it in the deck hoping it plays - and if it does play then I listen to something that logically no one should have ever heard again. And sometimes? Sometimes it's instantly apparent that I have made the right decision. The first side is titled Electron Flagration, a collection of ambient and electronic experimental sounds that instantly validate my curiosity. Primitive electro-prog periodically invaded by soundtrack scores and the previous inhabitants of the cassette....an indescribably brilliant listen. Panic In Detroit on the flip is a Detroit-themed proto-punk mix masterfully curated and packed with hits, I almost presented it as one untitled track so you could listen the way I did (probably should have, actually). It probably didn't change my life, but do I feel enriched? Yes....yes I do. 

23 January 2025

VIVID SEKT

 



Maybe it's odd to wax nostalgic about a 'current' era, but then I realize that 2009 was two or three punk generations ago - shit, Jan's Room was not even a decade old when I learned about hardcore so I'm really talking about the before times when I blab about bands that were playing fifteen years ago. And fifteen years ago it felt like a damn rebirth. There were the Silenzio Statico ponx in LA, SF and Oakland felt like the same scene (even though SF really only had Thrillhouse to compete with the energy of East Bay warehouse gigs) and you could get wild at HOTDR in San Jose or roll up to Sac....and there was Portland. Not like that place wasn't already on the map, but the punks were doing something different there MORAL HEX, ARCTIC FLOWERS, BOG PEOPLE...and VIVID SEKT. I posted this demo when The Escape was only a couple of months old and when I came across a double copy a few weeks back I felt like I was catching up with an old friend. This particular brand of forceful, straight forward punk tempered with UK anarcho sounded like nothing else at the time, and when you listen to day it's almost as if VIVID SEKT are (still) standing determinedly mid stream just letting decades of sonic trends flow past them. They're awkward in the most juvenile way, a presentation that requires concentration results in tracks like "Horde" that are absolutely timeless. 

22 January 2025

PECAH KEPALA

 



PECAH KEPALA are a low, muffled rumble coming at you like an mudslide of sound. Churning, squirming, suffocating Jakarta hardcore - would have been worth the 12hr flight just to see them tear up the floor for fifteen minutes. Can you imagine Jonestown Aloha! mixed with Everything Falls Apart? PECAH KEPALA can.....hell, PECAH KEPALA did. 

21 January 2025

MYSTIQUE

 



Maybe 2020 did 'em in like it did a lot of other bands, but I never heard shit from MYSTIQUE after this 2019 burner. I mean, maybe it's just as well since this shit is flawless and you'd hate to see (hear) them follow it up with a stinker, as unlikely as that sounds after blasting "Pressure Of Steel Hands" and realizing that you are in fact strong enough to conquer the day before you. That's what MYSTIQUE does - they sound like they're physically pushing and pulling you at the same time, just to make sure you get the fukkn message one way or another. Forceful femme vocals and that UK82-by-way-of-power-crust swinging stomp that permeates sooooo much modern USDIY punk (this is not a complaint - merely an observation); there are only four songs here and maybe these four songs are all we're ever gonna get but....if you're gonna go fast, then at least go hard, right?

20 January 2025

CHRONIC DISEASE

 



I don't mind being able to (correctly) just a book by its cover sometimes, and this tape from CHRONIC DISEASE delivers precisely what you expect when you look at it. Seventeen blasts of off the rails sample laden hardcore featuring tracks like "Full Of Nothing" and "Raise The Old Pain." Shit is rough, forceful and honest. A little sloppy sometimes (a lot sloppy other times) and that's exactly what you want. Even when it's not what you want...you might just find it's what you need. 

19 January 2025

THE RESIDENTS

 



I had a RESIDENTS record when I was in high school - bought it because the eyeballs looked cool and never truly understood what I owned even though I rarely listened to it (probably because I didn't understand it). Now I wonder how that record (and a few others I copped when I was a pimply small town adolescent) made it into a shop in Ponca City, Oklahoma but....that's a discussion best filed alongside all of the other unsolvable mysteries in my life like "Why can't the richest nation-state in history feed and house its citizens?" and "Was my father actually murdered?" As the title suggests, this recording from 1986 celebrates the thirteenth year of THE RESIDENTS, which means they were well established outsiders long before they creeped onto my paltry record shelf a few years later....and it also means that THE RESIDENTS were next level freaks, making music that wasn't supposed to make sense to a kid like me in that place and time. I wasn't supposed to understand it - I was supposed to be confused and.....curious. Thankfully, I still am. Both.


18 January 2025

ZIPPER

 


Deranged USHC of the most primal variety. "Labels" into "Sheep" might be the best example - VOID level unhinged. This ZIPPER shit just sounds ugly and a little ugly is exactly what I need to make it through the day. 


17 January 2025

SHOUTING OUT LOUD

 



A whole lot has changed in my life, but a whole lot is the same. I am....the same. A middle aged guy with a stupid job who fukkn loves listening to punk. Sometimes I'm compelled to talk and/or type about it (punk), but sometimes I just sit and listen to it (punk). Maybe I crack open a cold one while the punk plays or maybe I chill with the cat while the punk music plays, but when the punk music plays...something feels right. Even if I don't feel right, something in me does. Punk rules, okay? And so I listened to Shouting Out Loud tonight while the cat just looked at me disapprovingly - four bands from another world and a cat from this one. FULLMOON was kinda whatever melodic punk. DEATHCONTROL kinda reminded me of BLOWN TO BITS (which will only mean shit all to readers who were in the Bay Area during a very specific time in the '00s). SNACK OI! were.....I mean, they're called SNACK OI! for fukk's sake and they do a killer OXYMORON cover. But it was really about RAUCOUS; their three bursts are urgent punk at its finest and I'm making a mental note to find out more about this band tomorrow (which will be today before you read). Punk rules, okay?


16 January 2025

CELESTIAL SEWER

 



Whether it's improvisation or calculated damage, the Max Nordile Family Of Music take my breath away with each unsolicited and appreciated package. I was about to describe CELESTIAL SEWER as the "latest" offering but then caught myself because there are probably another half dozen pieces of sonic irreverence waiting in the wings and Down In The Sink is merely the latest offering to reach my grubby (and greedy) little mitts. Teaming up this time with M. Magic (GIRLsERM, LOS PUNK ROCKERS, MOZART, STILLSUIT) and M. Furlong (NASTI), M. Nordile lurches through six pieces of improvisation and/or calculated damage with bass bleating like a lost trombone and Magic's guitar making excruciating sounds that simply defy identification....much less compartmentalization. The constant compulsion to create is a quality that I both share and envy, and barging forward even (especially) when you don't know where you're going helps to blend journey and destination into a froth that seems to go perfectly atop any morning beverage. So drink up (again), my friends.