AGONY COLUMN

 

If you know me even a little, then you know how much I love God, Guns & Guts. AGONY COLUMN's debut full length is a visceral redneck thrash juggernaut and tracks like "Fiendish Plots and Diabolical Minds" and "Dead By Dawn" are timeless classics. I acquired the CD in real time and it blew my mind; a formative recording that falls right alongside Dimensional Depth Perception and Scumdogs Of The Universe for me (the only GWAR record anyone needs, honestly). When Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles dropped I was ready - I wanted more. I was excited. 
Y'all, this shit was such a disappointment. Still is. There are a couple of highlights that could have been captured on a 12" EP. With room to spare. Devil Chicken's vocals are still absolute fire but the cheese overtakes the novelty and the songs just aren't strong enough to save it. Shit feels hokey - "Bayou Road" hits like some middle aged dads covering ZZ TOP at a strip mall brew pub on a Tuesday. I love that first record so much and I still want to like this so I try to seize on the good moments....so I guess "Hellbilly Blues" is about on par with some shit off the first ELVIS HITLER record and "Rain Comes Down" almost its like a FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM track from the upside down world. But that's all I got. That's it. Maybe not every Tuesday is about disappointment, but this Tuesday is. 

 

BRAVE WORDS & BLOODY KNUCKLES

HUGE PRICK

 

Sorry about yesterday, my friends. I was having a moment and I was happy that Tom T. Hall cared about me when I was twelve. So nostalgia today, no context and no emotions....just six minutes of high voltage sonic damage from HUGE PRICK. I never saw this band, but I hope they were a gloriously hot mess. Damn this shit is good - this is not giving a fuck hardcore. 

PSYCHO CHAIR

TOM T. HALL

 

This one is from the same batch I pulled the HERB ALPERT tape from, and I swear it seems like I heard all of these songs yesterday. I probably last held this cassette more than 35 years ago, but as soon as "Sneaky Snake" ended I knew "I Like Beer" was coming up next (and I remembered that even when I was a child I thought it was odd that my mother allowed a song celebrating alcohol consumption was allowed in the house) and almost all of the words to "Little Lady Preacher" just rolled off my tongue as Tom sang his stories. A near perfect representation of story telling country with borderline nursery rhyme vibes, culminating with "I Care" and Tom T. Hall singing off with a soft, raspy "I love you too much." That's pretty much all I need to keep me going today. 

GREATEST HITS VOLUME II

MAGICAL MIND

 

Remember when I was stumbling over myself on Thursday, trying to find words to describe and/or provide context to THE WALLFLOWERS? Well, none of that here. Just pure, unadulterated, disorienting noise. One hour and twenty-four minutes of noise. Some damaged beats come in on "Part 2" (around 55 minutes into the torture). They are absolutely terrifying. It's like one of those sleep sound machines, except it's hard wired to make you lose your fukkn marbles. Strap in.

WIATHI

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL

 

Honestly, when we were doing key bumps in the Chameleon bathroom in 1996 and talking shit about the MRR elites, this is why. I'm not saying we were right, and there are some straight killers on here....but we simply didn't want catchy punk that felt safe. We didn't need ZEKE and BLINK 182 and even though ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN was good - who the fuck cared when you could get high as shit and see RUDIMENTS in a basement on Alabama Street? SMUGGLERS sounded like some Purple Onion shit and that was for the retired set (who were, in retrospect, probably in their 30s). The best thing about SCARED OF CHAKA was that they were on a record with WORD SALAD. Look, in retrospect a lot of this shit is fukkn great - hearing KITTY BAD ASS and DISCOUNT played on the same show makes sense, the SODS track is still a complete annihilator and LUNCHBOX hits the damn spot right now. There are couple of Italian killers (GUASTAFESTE, FUORI CONTROLLO).....but still, we weren't wrong. We wanted danger. Two years later I was a shitworker, of course. 

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #724

THE WALLFOWERS

 

Damn near impossible to do any real detective work here since the other band called THE WALLFLOWERS were also the Southland and also started in the late '80s - it's just that the other band called THE WALLFOWERS had Bob Dylan's kid in the band and got kinda famous and shit. This band isn't that band. This band coulda shoulda been 1988 college alt famous but I guess they weren't. It was before grunge, and there are serious DRAMARAMA meets Homestead Records energies with a touch of the parts of Soulforce Revolution that you don't like. Could have shared the stage with THE NIXONS (but if you aren't from Oklahoma then you have no idea what I'm talking about). I listened to bands like this while I was listening to ERASURE and BGK and DEAD MILKMEN. I just knew it wasn't Taylor Dayne, you know? I'll never cast a shadow on letting me hear you body rock (if you know, you know), but I was fiending for anything that wasn't that. "Blue Sky's" should have been a hit....it perfectly captures a time that's tough to describe but easy to identify and I would have gobbled this shit up if I had heard in in real time. Forty years later? It still makes me smile - no mean feat in 2026.

THE WALLFLOWERS ©1987

SCRAPYARD

 

No bullshit, just hardcore street punk from the North American continent. 
This tape is from 2024, and there's a full length that came out like two weeks ago that is even better even though and/or because there are some butt-rock leads. Shit is like NYHC and THIN LIZZY. They released it on CD, which is pretty retro.

SCRAPYARD

JOHNNY BE GOOD

 

You're encouraged to ask all the questions you like....I will have no answers. Questions like....."why?!" will be met with an absent shrug, because I don't know why you're listening to this today, I just know that you are. This is like Harajuku Strangers plus SEX PISTOLS with some '90s USDIY energy that makes no sense at all until....it does. A track called "Anarchy" from an Indonesian band named after a Chuck Berry tune?  Yeah...strap in. 

PANDAAN CITY PUNK ROCKERS

CULVERT CORPSE

 

CULVERT CORPSE is everything that I want. Raw, yearning, chaotic, oppressive skate punk masquerading as primitive black metal and/or vice versa, recorded to present like a forced march to hell by way of a tornado. The recording takes the Everything Louder Than Everything Else ethos to dizzying heights (or depths) and drenches everything in a tsunami of vocal distortion, making this the six most exhausting minutes of your day...time to throw in the towel, kids. Life is over.

DEMO 3

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