OLIVER with guests....

 

Thanks to Pat's tapes for continuing to insert mystery into my ears. As near as I can tell, MILO HERNĆ was a Croatian pop singer and who the fukk knows what NARODNE MUZIKE was all about. Apparently both collaborated with someone named OLIVER and apparently someone Pat knew copied these recordings onto a cassette that I digitized last week. Pat wrote "demos" on the label he put on the case. And now we have reached then end of my knowledge and the beginning of my questions. Notably: Who is Oliver? So enter a different realm of sound and please enjoy yourself. See you tomorrow.

MILO HERNĆ + OLIVER // OLIVER + NARODNE MUZIKE

BOMB HOARDER

 

They never made it too far outside of the Bay Area (and their legacy barely made it out of the early '00s), but BLOWN TO BITS were a constant in the Mission Records era. The singer's name was Punk Rock Jim, one of the dudes had been in OPPRESSED LOGIC and it seemed like if there was a good show then BLOWN TO BITS were probably playing. A very specific reference perhaps (and one that will likely escape most readers), but I'm willing to bet that band existed in your scene too.....and in the narrative I create in my own dusty mind,  BOMB HOARDER were Corpus Christie's BLOWN TO BITS. Fist banging, studded jacket wearing, midpaced drunken DBeat-adjacent hardcore punk. This tape from 2013 is all about the guitar break in "Body Bags" and memories. 

BOMB HOARDER

TOTAL DESTROY

 

Six bursts of guttural grind/crust and an eight minute 'live' session from Bulungan Stage (I have no idea what or where that is). The whole damn thing is over in twelve minutes, so I encourage you to listen to "Sistem Bobrok" twice. At least twice. Then "Berontak." Fuck, just listen to the entire fukkn tape, okay?

BIAR MAMPUS

DICK HICK

 

I feel like summer energy is starting. I'm seeing way more flyers for shows that I will probably miss, the weather has been freakishly gorgeous and people are exuding weird and unreasonably positive energy as the fabric of our society tatters before our eyes. Anyway, DICK HICK are from Houston and project ATOM + HIS PACKAGE by-way-of CONEHEADS vibes and it's easy for me to imagine blasting this shit at some backyard BBQ hosted by those mutants in their early 20s who do gigs in their basement and can drink you under the table. You rarely find about their shows until you see a flyer at the coffee shop the day after that band you like played though....because you're old. You probably wouldn't have gone anyway (because you were tired or something), but it still would have been nice to know. That's what summer is all about. 

HARDCORE SHMARDCORE

EATING

 

I've waxed on about Max Nordile in these pages many times, and I rambled about my low-key fascination with his creative compulsions on an episode of What Are You Listening To? a couple of weeks ago...and here I am again, doing the same. This collaboration goes by EATING, and it manifests as 94 minutes of bizarro improvisation and sonic mania. There's just something different here (and by "here" I mean "there"), something that makes me always need to stop and listen. And a thing that can make me stop and shut out the noise so I can pay attention to other and specific noise? That's a special thing.

ABSOLUTE PLEASURE

PURBALINGGA

 

A(nother) ripping collection of in your face, primal hardcore from Indonesia; been cranking through a heap of these lately and I'm not getting even remotely tired of the new (to me) sounds. Full throttle floppy 'hawk shit punk from SPATU BOOT, BLACK FROG, NDASZE and PROSOPIA (all seemingly recorded in the same studio on the same gear, assembly line style) with some raw grind crust from JACK BOAT. Each band contributes two tracks, and you'll feel more punk when you finish than you did when you started. Shit, you'll be more punk when you finish that you were when you started. 

PURBALINGGA: SCREAMING & LAUGHTER

ARMAGEDDON EXPERIMENTAL BAND

 

Tempted to just leave this one here and see if y'all know to do the right thing.

So I'm going to just leave this one here.....you know what to do. 

CRIES FROM PLANET EARTH

FREAK VIBE

 

Perhaps a more aptly named band has existed, but I dare say they have not crossed my path in my years on this Earth. Massive BAD SEEDS/JESUS LIZARD/GUN CLUB vibes crammed into a tiny package from the Pacific Northwest, and still they sound lkike they belong in a moldy basement. They were a sight live, and the recordings are essential - it's not a matter of whether or not the recordings "hold up" or if they are "as good" as seeing their glistening sweat, it's that each experience is, in fact, it's own experience. There are four songs here, I wish there were eight.

FREAK VIBE

CRUDE SHIT

 

This is one of the laziest posts I've ever made, but the tape (as presented) is pretty damn lazy too so I have prematurely vindicated myself. CRUDE SS and SKITSLICKERS shouldn't need an introduction here but back in the golden age of the 1990s maybe they did, and someone (I think it was Felix?) was determined to introduce some motherfukkrs. So they jammed some records and recorded them onto some tapes and they duplicated those tapes and then distributed those tapes. Because that's punk. First ten minutes or so sound like shit, but you're supposed to be drunk at a party and/or gig when you're listening to this shit. I didn't bother editing tracks since there are no tracks or information on the boot, so here's 40 minutes of seminal SwedeCrust. You're welcome.

CRUDE SS // SHITLICKERS

RELATED:
ARTIMUS PYLE and SUNDAY MORNING EINSTEINS played in Jyväskylä in 2003 and Peter tried to get us to do an impromptu "Warsystem" cover and I had never (consciously) heard the song and I couldn't grasp the three chords and it was kinda embarassing. Same thing happened when E-150 gave me the mic while they were playing "Young 'Til I Die" and I didn't not know what the fukk was happening. Poseur status achieved.

BRAIN KILLER

 

Damn, this band is severely under appreciated. Maybe there were just too many bands doing *this* at the time, but really I think it swas because there were a heap of other  bands who were doing this a few years earlier and punk attention spans are criminally short. But hindsight is a motherfukkr, and the BRAIN KILLER material doesn''t just hold up - the shit shines. Raw, powerful, noisy, manic hardcore punk from Boston - live shit, some covers, punk, no song titles, no compromise, off the rails. And also punk. 

BRAIN KILLER

FOIL

 

I ripped these thirteen minutes of wild style mutant hardcore when I got home from a frustrating fourteen hour day and it was exactly what I needed. First few tracks are muddy and phased out (because DIY punk, punk) but the shit clears up just about the same time as the after-shifter starts working and I'm feeling the fukk out of FOIL because hi-NRG punk rules always, you dig? The Wonder Destroying Machine tells me that there is even more and I make a mental note to include more FOIL in my future but before I delve any deeper I hear the murk starts to clear and oh snap these fools are gloriously ferocious treble rebels and I swear I am paying full attention because bands like this don't swing through very frequently and FOIL is sounding like something I need more of. A lot more of. Sometime around "Drawing Blood" it becomes apparent that FOIL are one of those essential bands and then.....then "Tale Of A Rat Race" starts and I feel like the Universe is speaking to me. 

"...,when do we get to relax / every day feels back to back / working at your stupid job...."

So I'm just gonna go to sleep now and this will post in a few hours around the time I get up to go to work again. Actually, I'm going to set this to post at the same time I'm setting my alarm, which is something less than five hours from now. Foiled indeed, right? The entire fukkn thing is a scam and it's all a lie except for the part that's real and super duper important. But no one is gonna tell you what that part really is, you dig? That's what sucks. You know what doesn't suck? Foiled by FOIL.

FOILED BY FOIL

BACKYARD

 

More Doomryderz worship from...Austria?
Yes it is.
Yes it is amazing.
There's something about BACKYARD that I can't put my finger on (much less describe) and I think it's about a level of brutality. Like...a marker on the brutal-o-meter or something, because the shit is just brutal. BACKYARD are the definition of primal inn the best possible way - take a deep breath and steel yourself before you grind......because you're gonna grind.You like grinding because grinding is so fukkn good and downtuned DIY hardcore is even better. 

RODENT'S BURROW

SAY GOODBYE

 

Meaty. turn of the century Boston hardcore - reared on the classics with a forward focus that's even more keen in retrospect. The foundation here ;ands somewhere between early '80s Boston and late '80s NYHC, but in 2002 the USDIY world was filled with barely retro-posi and Y2K fastcore energy...all of that shit is here. Then consider that the nuclear of SAY GOODBYE would later be connected to MIND ERASER, WASTE MANAGEMENT, THINK I CARE, RIVAL MOB and a host of others? Well, you see where I'm going here. SAY GOODBYE's 2002 demo was the launch point for a lot of this shit, for a lot of these dudes, and the vision is absolutely clear on these four tracks. "Don't Lean" to start your day, punk.

SAY GOODBYE

THE SABOTAGE // DICKHEAD

 

Gloriously raw first wave Indonesian hardcore from two of the scene's fiercest. Both bands hail(ed) from metro Jakarta, both bands deliver uncompromising DIY punk....and really that's the end of my in depth analysis. DICKHEAD evolved into something that was more strictly DBeat, but listening to this 2000 recording makes me wonder if that's what they were trying to do from the beginning. THE SABOTAGE tracks are more street punk tinged, like a primitive group of UK82 miscreants stumbling through the slums kicking nazis in the face. I know I said my genius analysis was over, but this shit is absolutely punk as fukk. 

THERE IS NO GOOD SIDE OF WAR

THE VALLEY RECALLS

 

I snagged this at Savers in San Jose last week; honestly I mostly grabbed it because there were a shitheap of cassettes but nothing at called to me, not even faintly. There had to be something. So I combed through the mail order cassettevangelists and Grandma's schmaltz again determined to find a reason to spend 74¢ even it was spent on crap. Suffice to say that it wasn't crap. Maybe I just needed to look again, so the universe could help me find a reason to stop looking. When you first put it on, The Valley Recalls kinda disappears; but then you stop - and so many other things appear in the sounds.  So comb again if you need to.....that's the lesson.

RAGA BHOOPALI

NTSP PAL

 

Full on freak synth. 

I literally don't know what else I could ask for tonight, since there's no way this world can be real. 
There are bonus tracks.

FULL OF SPOTS

DOGMATICS

 Some shit from Boston's DOGMATICS played on the radio sometime around 1984 (or so). You know those bands you don't know you need until you know you never had them? DOGMATICS fit that bill - probably flipped by the reissues dozens of times....but that won't happen again. A bunch live(?) acoustic songs here that may or may not be related, but they were on the same tape and you know how I tend to operate. So enjoy.

DOGMATICS

IN REACH

 

Where the fukk was this in 1998 and why wasn't I there with it?! Index finger stabbing the air on every chorus, fastcore meets posi-crew....absolute OUTLAST energy (with a touch more 'core) from the first Vermont band I've ever posted on The Escape. Pretty sure that leaves Alaska as the only state still unrepresented on these pages, so naturally I welcome Alaskan cassette submissions. This tape though, you're going to have to dig deep to find a band who did it better. If Dan reads this, Dan's gonna love this. 

DEMO '98

LAMICTAL

 

Total CONEHEADS and/or CCTV style hyper-energetic freak punk but kinda faster and more sinister feeling. Saw 'em last week with INNUENDO (same gig I bought that Robert Lester Folsom tape at) and they kinda floored me, guitarist also had style and moves that will make you ask yourself why you don't have moves. The shit is stellar, y'all. Trust me. 

HARD PILL TO SWALLOW

ROBERT LESTER FOLSOM

 

I had this sweet mid-90s Maximum Rocknroll Radio tape I was gonna post but my track listing didn't match the audio and I'm having a really gnarly week so I didn't feel like sorting out the edits and shit so....so I'm not posting it but it started with a BLINK 182 song that's pretty good (in context) and it just feels weird to type out those words but I listened again and it's true so I am determined to post that MRR show soon. In other news......

I went to see INNUENDO and NECRON 9 last week and they both ripped. Milwaukee punk rules period. The locals were fine, but the opener was a SoCal outfit called LAMICTAL and they also ripped. Singer runs a label called Popular Affliction and I stocked up on my way out of the gig (live shows are still the best place to buy records and tapes, straight up). Truth be told, I didn't pay too much attention and just traded $40 for a bunch of tapes I didn't know shit about because the band was good and the dude seemed chill and stoked. got a few hardcore and synth punk tapes.....but then I checked this motherfukkr out. I don't know the history and I don't really care because FUCK ME this shit is beyond beautiful and there's a dude in Southern California releasing hardcore slammers and melancholy '70s freak folk and where has this reality been all my life, you know? Check this shit:

"See You Later, I'm Gone"

"Heaven On The Beach With You"

"Nobody Wants Me"

"I'm Still In Love With You"

"Sunshine Only Sometimes"

"Slowly Sinking Ship"

"Lonely Lovers"

"She"

....yeah punk, this shit is real as fuuuuukk. I don't know what else to say and/or what other context to offer. I went to a punk show and dropped $5 on a previously unknown and currently essential collection of sounds from a different world.....the sounds are not punk, and I made the right choice. Will you make the right choice?

ODE TO A RAINY DAY
SUNSHINE ONLY SOMETIMES
ARCHIVES 1972-1975

BLACK T-SHIRT

 

You're going to want to ignore the cover here, because this tape looks like it's gonna sound stupid as fukk. It doesn't sound stupid though, far from it. BLACK T-SHIRT is a super killer hi-nrg street punk slammer, and if you can't get down with tracks like "Janji Janji Tai Anjing" then I'm not even sure what you're doing here. Because there are a lot of things here and they are all important things....but damn, a good punk song is such a beautiful thing and there are a lot of really good punk songs on this tape. 

KUMPULAN TEMBANG KELUH KESAH PELIPUR LARA

BOTTLED UP

 

Someone wanna tell me how I missed this? It's entirely possible that I am simply not cool, but this ultra cool and utterly devastating thing apparently happened under my nose in the late 2010s. That think was called BOTTLED UP. Shit sounds like PARLAMENTARISK SODOMI and NO DICE playing a bar in Menlo Park in 1998 and I am so fukkn here for it. Just wondering why I wasn't there for it, you know?

FARALLON

NEONATES

 

Categorization rendered impossible, and I am grateful to Los Angeles' NEONATES for the challenge. My reference points include SISTER FUCKER, girlSperm, THE SLITS, some shit like BLURT that was on Rough Trade 40 years ago...but these are just reference points, you know? NEONATES doesn't sound like any of the above, but their plodding meanders and the shrill yelps take me to the same place. Or to a similar place. I like it there. It's not my place and it's not a place for me....but I'm happy to be able to visit from a distance because it seems really cool there. They were done a decade ago, so whatever (or wherever) that place is, it's in the past like a lot of other cool stuff. 

NEONATES

TONAL SHIFT

 

Remember twenty five years ago when TOTAL FURY kicked North America in the ass by reinterpreting '80 DCHC and making it sound impossibly familiar and completely original at the same time? The hardcore they were drawing from was twenty years old when they were doing their shit (or by the time that shit made it to us), and they were doing it without the benefit of immediate digital access to all punk. Vienna's TONAL SHIFT are doing the same thing, but they're pulling the meat off of a forty-five year old bone and fuuuukkkk does it sound juicy. I haven't heard a band use this formula this well since 13 Songs, and they use the distance and perspective to their extreme advantage. "Act The Big" is quintessential early Dischord leaning into Rev Summer sounds, "Mentally Checked Out" has the adolescent strain that made (makes) the pure pre-internet hardcore feel....different. Even if this is a band who stepped into the world and looked at all of their options and decided, "we're going to do that" instead of making something 'new,' what they've done is take the 'that' in question and make it new. They've made it theirs. And now it's ours. 

THE E.P.

RIBBON

 

Look - the tape sounds like shit, but you know I'm  gonna give it the way that I get it and I'm not sorry about that. But really you should get the sounds from RIBBON direct because the replication here is as bad....but the tracks are fukkn bad ass. Then again, listing to this shit as presented kinda makes me feel like I'm having auditory hallucinations and it's a completely different listening experience. But the tracks....the sounds...RIBBON. Let's talk about this shit? Yes, let's. High end hyper energetic punk with drums way up front and an enviable early '80s manifestation that feels and sound unmistakably now. And that's the shit, y'all. If there were justice in the world, then "Unchained" would be my summer anthem because it's a perfect damn hardcore punk song. But because my brain is weird (and there is not justice in the world) I'll probably spent the hot months with this stuck in my head like it has been for the past three weeks (which is fine, shit slaps). RIBBON goes so damn hard, punks, and they're doing it right....do this. 

RIBBON - DEMO

TERVEET KADET

 

If you described to me all of the things that make quintessentially Finnish hardcore so distinctly Finnish, you'd probably be describing many of the qualities I seek and enjoy in a hardcore band. So it doesn't make sense that when I first started hearing the Finnish classics....I wasn't moved. It seems unaccessible in a way that's difficult to articulate, but it was also a long ass time ago (and honestly I think that fans of Finnish hardcore might even be pleased to hear that someone heard 'their' music for the first time/s and thought "nah...this isn't for me"). The spell was broken in 2003 when Markku suggested that I guy a copy of The Horse and that record didn't just make TERVEET KADET click, it made the whole damn thing make sense. Anyway, I got this bootleg that says it has tracks from 1983 + 1984 demos plus a 1983 gig in Syke and the tape fukkn rips start to fin(n)ish. So song titles, but your listening device must have a volume control toggle or knob or button so use that instead and think of the years I lost by not "getting it."

DEOMOS (83, 84)

GUNS FOR AFGHAN REBELS

 

I know what you're thinking - you're thinking "It's Friday so there's probably (hopefully) going to be a mix tape" and "There's been so much crucial Indonesian shit on The Escape lately, I would love a collection of bands I've never heard of from the world's fourth most populous country." Good news, punk: I have got you covered. THE STUPID are harsh, relentless and out of tune. MEINKAMPF (in addition to having a really unfortunate name) are also out of tune and have the weirdest duel vocal trade offs. DISPARATY are uncompromising ramshackle hardcore street punk (and also pretty much out of tune).  THE PLAGIATOR play catchy gruff punk anthems - kinda like WHITE TRASH SUPERMAN with super harsh vocals but from the world's fourth most populous country and definitely drunker (and also they are also pretty much out of tune most of the time). It sounds like the bands just lined up outside the studio and walked in one after another and banged their tunes out on the same equipment while the engineer slugged homemade swill and didn't move a single fader. Look, I would be lying if I told you that any single song on this tape was going to improve your life, but we listen to punk to hear punk - not to improve our lives. Sometimes we get both, but we're here for the punk.  So it's Friday, and I've got some intriguing Indonesian tapes burning a hole in my shelf...so you're welcome. 

GUNS FOR AFGHAN' REBELS: DOUBLE SPLIT EP

MASTER BEDROOM

 

I don't want to fill these pages with reflections on un-lived past lives, but....a 1992 Wizard hearing these two tracks in Oklahoma would have lost his shit. The 2025 Wizard hearing these tracks in California is also losing his shit, but it's different somehow. I'm not exactly sure how.......not exactly, but it's different.  Whatever you are and/or wherever you are now, you need these sounds. This is SUICIDE for the new real(ity), this is Reality for the new Now. "Toxic Megacolon" to the future freaks....

CASSINGLE No.1