JAN GARBAREK GROUP

 

You aren't going to get me to attempt to speak with any intelligence on Jan Garbarek or his grouo....because I have none. Intelligence, that is. Apparently he's Norwegian and is famous for playing the saxophone. I shelled out a few bucks for this tape because it was on ECM and late '70s ECM had some weird shit - I like to gamble. This isn't that weird though, just some smooth and mellow proggish jazz that sounds like a record that was named after the description of a photograph. I found it to be a pleasant listen. 

PHOTO WITH BLUE SKY, WHITE CLOUD, WINDOWS AND A RED ROOF  

ED HALL

 

ED HALL's 1988 debut defies any real descriptors, because nothing sounded like them then and nothing has sounded like them since. They played Norman with some frequency when I lived there, and the live shows were a spectacle that incorporated film and light in a way that most of us had never experienced. They seemed like the third point on a triangle anchored by LIPS and SURFERS but even that assessment may have been based more on geography than any kind of sonic reality. fIREHOSE meets Frizzle Fry at a SCRATCH ACID show and they all roll up on an after party at a fraternity's haunted house - that's what this shit sounds like. But man, watching their drunk ass film guy loop tape into three projectors so each member's head looked like it was on fire? It's the little things that stick with you. 

ALBERT

IT'S ALL ABOUT FUCKIN' RAGE

 

I hope you're sitting down, because this thing is going to knock you on yr fukkn ass. A perfect assemblage of early '00s DIY hardcore and crust focused on USA (A.O.S., DISSYSTEMA) and Sweden (CROSSING CHAOS, AVSKUM, DISKONTO, PROJECT HOPELESS) with SICK TERROR (Brasil), DISBEER (Austria) and RECHARGE (Germany) filling in the gaps. A strong tip of the hat to Indonesia's Hardcore Curse Records for not only putting this compilation together, but for including a couple of shit-fi tracks from countrymen DICKHEAD so all of the punks know wheat belongs where....and DICKHEAD absolutely belong sandwiched between AVSKUM and DISKONTO even if (especially if?) their tracks sound like absolute shit.

IT'S ALL ABOUT FUCKIN' RAGE: A Compilation Of International D.I.Y. HC/Punk Bands

THE ERECTIONS

 

There's a special place for this brand of punk. TOM & BOOT BOYS were my introduction, I snagged the Punk s Are Alright EP on my first trip to Japan and couldn't tell if I was listening to some proto/retro spikey punk attack or the sound of the future. The answer, of course, is that I was listening to both at the same time. Japanese punks have flown this flag proudly for so long that a cottage industry of supporters and worshippers have taken punk clichés to heights that even those 1996 boot boys couldn't have imagined. This is pogo punk as life - not as a lifestyle, mind you....as life. Stand Up Fuckin' Punks started it for THE ERECTIONS - their first vinyl release after a couple of CDr demos. That was fifteen years ago, and here in 2026 we are talking about "Noise For The Boys" and feeling grateful for punk. 

STAND UP FUCKIN' PUNKS

GOODIES

 

Sometimes simple is best - there are formulas and clichés and there are "the way things are done" and sometimes the things are done a way for a reason.....because it works. You ever been playing with a heavy and/or crusty band and you jcome up with a riff that hits just right and you realize that it's a(nother) version of 0-3-5 and you chuckle and you play that shit even harder because you know you (once again) worked your way into perfection? GOODIES are like that, but in a power pop, indie/garage kind of way. I'm launched backwards two decades to BAYONETTES and DANGER LOVES and then another batch of years to FASTBACKS and VASELINES but with tinges of '80s college/alt and/or twee....and it's just fukkn right. Tomorrow I'll blast some crust or something, but today I'm gonna hang out with "Never About You" because it is perfect.

SO BITTER!

TRAILER HITCH

 

I don't know where this one came from, but my evening stopped dead when I popped this TRAILER HITCH tape into the deck a few nights ago. I first confused this with THE HITCH from northern California (ex-SAKÉ, THE GODS) and I'm not entirely sure that I was wrong...but good gracious this is some gloriously damaged mountain crust. You're gonna hear KILARA, VICTIMS FAMILY, KEPONE, MOLLY HATCHET, KARMA TO BURN, ANIMAL FARM....you're gonna hear tracks that some fools would dismiss as stoner rock but you know better. I don't even know what's happening in my ear holes most of the time but the instrumental track labeled as "07" is as close to perfect as you're gonna get today. 

TRAILER HITCH

THROBBING GRISTLE

 

A group that should need no introduction. THROBBING GRISTLE changed the game completely, no just just with their sounds but with their approach to creating and presenting those sounds. Don't take my word for it....take theirs.

BEYOND JAZZ FUNK: TG PSYCHIC RALLY IN HEAVEN
23rd December 1980 London

HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS

 

My sister passed away in 2008, just one year before I started posting here (there's a connection, but it's a long story). It's taken my mother until this year to start sorting through my sister's things, discarding some memories, cherishing others before discarding them, choosing to sit with artifacts and pieces of my sister and let her breathe through physical objects. The next time I met my mother, she handed me a plastic shopping bag with a few cassettes from Carrie's room....the ALABAMA tape that was my first ever purchase, when I was still an only child. a TOM T. HALL tape that for whatever reason reminds me of a photo of my mother with HOYT AXTON taken at Austin City Limits a lifetime ago, CHARLIE RICH's Behind Closed Doors that is going to make me cry buckets when I listen to "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" for the first time in a (new) lifetime and a destroyed Neil Diamond cassette.  There was an Alan Jackson tape that Carrie must have bought herself....but then there was the karaoke tape of her practicing "Achy-Breaky Heart" for some church talent show or some shit. Another tape with her name, written in her hand.....I can't listen to those yet. I will. But until then, here's a rip of the copy of a HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS Greatest Hits tape that I listened to with my parents when I was a child....not sure how this ended up in my sister's things, but who the fuck knows why anything happens anyway?

HERB ALPERT & THE TIJUANA BRASS: GREATEST HITS

1-800-REMIXES

 

A better summer party mix has perhaps never existed, and can someone tell me if MC HAMMER was directly (or indirectly?) associated with the 1-800-REMIXES series? It just seems too perfect. Anyway, The No.1 Selling Tape Is Back so go get yourself some summertime. 

1-800-REMIXES VOL.3

REALISTIC

 

This is a band I'm in called REALISTIC. Alex, B and I started doing this (very slowly) after the Conquest Fro Death LP came out and the band was finally done. Adult schedules and toilet life made progress and productivity virtually impossible, but we recorded a sub-seven minute demo at House Of Faith in 2023....then came nothing. That's until Lory (RAD, FALSE FLOWERS, SICK BURN) stepped in and gave us life. So we're a band now, and we have a demo. 

REALISTIC: DEMO 2025

===================================
Speaking of bands, I'm also in a band called VEXXYL who are releasing our first demo tonight.
You can get one in person.

In Pacifica, California.

VACATION

 

Five doses of blasting power violence stomps from Medan, Sumatra. And your ass is kicked in just over four minutes. That's it. That's all it takes. Not sure why you would want anything more...until the mosh drops in "Armageddon" and you realize you didn't actually know what perfection sounded like. Until you did. 

TRADITION

BODY OF LIGHT

 

For any even casual visitor, I should be able to say that Arizona's BODY OF LIGHT moved from Ascetic House to Chondritic Sound in the 2010s and that should be enough. Gloriously dark synth....there aren't even words (right now) to capture how good this is. There's more....but for now there's this. 

VOLANTA DI AMORE

EXHUMED CORPSE // DOUR

 

Dark and filthy sonic murk from two sides of the same damaged coin. I keep wanting EXHUMED CORPSE to go somewhere, to do something.....and then DOUR takes out the garbage. The conscious deliberation required to create a release like this is enviable. 

BLOOD FILTER

HOLEHOG // B-SIDE

 

B-SIDE is an indescribably off-kilter side project from one of the A GLOBAL THREAT dudes. Aggressive introvert hardcore with elements of '90s basement DIY and (bizarrely) industrial-tinged alt. I'm not hear to make sense, just listen to "It's Complicated" because it is. On the flip side from B-SIDE, which some refer to as the A-Side, you'll find Sacramento's toughest recent street punk export HOLEHOG, born from the ashes of MONSTER SQUAD before those very ashes resurrected themselves. Snotty, clenched fist pogo punk of the highest fucking order. "Wasting Away" all day every day. 
You want to know a secret.....? I fukkn love punk.

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

ASTRAL BUTCHER

 

ASTRAL BUTCHER were but a blip on the landscape, but listening to this hideous and demonic recording from 2020 makes me feel like I'm involved in something very dangerous. VENOM, MASTURBATION, MIDNIGHT, ZOUO....ASTRAL BUTCHER. 

ASTRAL //BUTCHER

MAX NORDILE

 

One of the earliest releases from our favorite sonic mutant's HAIR CLINIC imprint shows Nordile plowing through improvisational no wave stomps creating a mind numbing cacophony with layers of guitar damage and manipulated found sound - you want to hear five minutes of an instrument being dragged across the floor doing battle with a barrage of car horns? This shit is like a TG outtake from Second Annual Report reinterpreted for No New York - damage should not sound this good. 

HAIR CLINIC

LOWRIDER

 

The third volume in Thump Records' Lowrider Soundtrack series is a master class in funk and freestyle anchored by DEBBIE DEB's "When I Hear Music," an indispensable track worth the price of admission and then some all on its own. Follow that up with "I Need A Freak" from SEXUAL HARASSMENT and TONY-O's "Drop Them Drawers" and you know this a different kind of party. There are still solid lowrider jams here (HISPANIC MCs, DAZZA, SAPADILLA) but overall this collection is way freakier and more hi-NRG mix than the first two collections. So get down to TOGETHER BROTHERS, CRAZY CLOCK MC, FREESTYLE, BABY G & TRUE FUNK POSSE and HOLLYWOOD HAMILTON and you're talking about an actual fucking party....you're also talking about a brilliant mix tape. 

LOWRIDER SOUNDTRACK VOLUME 3

FATAL

 

Hyper speed DBeat punk. The energy defies description and the pure desperation is palpable. I'm not gonna give you the members-of routine here, I'm just going to give you six minutes of pure hardcore. 

SIX SONGS

LUCY ENIGMA

 

Tonight my Union held a vote to elect rank and file officers and I went to cast my ballot after work (because that's what you fucking do - you wanna abstain from civil participation as a protest I totally get it, but it doesn't get more local than your workplace). I ran into a now-retired sister who I hadn't seen in over a decade and she exclaimed "You used to be a child!!" and proceeded to talk about shared (work) experiences from two (plus) decades ago....when we were both younger. It made me feel old....but it made me happy to have been young(er). LUCY ENIGMA makes me feel younger - Indonesian alt-gaze genius that sounds like Todd and me sitting in the living room in Norman in 1992. I was sober and he was maybe stoned as were were just riffing on records and bands while his dog chased its own tail uncontrollably. These feels are enhanced and/or exasperated when "The Man Who Sold The World" starts because THE 'LIPS did that shit too but this version is even better. Weirder. Cue "Yellow Is The Color" and I want to know why this band has not been with me forever because they are FANTASY and WAX IDOLS and THE SUNDAYS and COCTEAU TWINS and all of the pleasantly airy and magical things that my punk-listening self is constantly lacking. It's been a long time since something jerked me back in time like this tape did...I'm grateful.

GARU, 16 OKTOBER 2019

====================================

THE MAJESTIC

 

This one asks more questions than it answers, but once the solo in "All Rise" hits you won't even remember what you wanted to ask because you will be consumed with rock 'n roll. THE MAJESTIC hit so many nerves that I hesitate to communicate all of the vibes; garage punk, GLUE (OK), Jay Reatard, Tom Petty, skinhead ska, GEORGIA SATELLITES, Japanese pop punk, X-RAY SPEX.....hopefully you understand the challenge I'm confronted with here. Multiple vocals, keys and saxophone only when appropriate, wildly addictive soulful punk. THE MAJESTIC came out of nowhere and I'm all flustered - 101/10 would recommend. 

HOME

CINDERBLOCK

 

Remember ten years ago when CINDERBLOCK fukkn exploded in front of our eyes with one demo, one LP and one EP and then just vanished? It was exactly what we needed - hard edged high energy street punk ripped from the grooves of the Punk Lives - Let's Slam comps. It was DEFIANCE for the generation who never got to see Consensus Reality-era DEFIANCE, it was punx 'n skins, it was CRIMINAL DAMAGE and everything we hoped the CASUALTIES would be....and oh my stars was it good. Fortunately for you, young punk rocker, this shit hits just as hard as it did in the last decade. If "Disco Killers" doesn't get stuck in your head then you're either square or you're dead, and "Voiceless" still makes me lose my voice. 

CINDERBLOCK

===================================