When I opened the most recent package of gold from Indonesia I remember just kinda staring and poring carefully over the contents. Almost 100 tapes spanning two-and-one-half decades of DIY punk from the fourth most populous country in the world. A capital city with as many people as the state of California (throw in both Dakotas, Hawaii and Maine for good measure). A DIY punk scene that ignited a full generation after most of the "first" world, an ignition and growth inspired and encouraged by the public pressure that led to the downfall of a military dictator. Indonesian punk and hardcore exists in a world all its own because they don't need "us" to validate their existence or their worth - they take notes and they take note, but what they're doing often has little to do with the rest of the world even when they're paying homage (like ZABĂGART covering URBAN WASTE and CHARLES BRONSON last week). I stared at that box of tapes and I scoured the titles....dozens of bands I had never heard of. Hardcore, crust, emo, punk, Oi!, grind.....tape after tape from DIY punk bands creating and inspiring and existing on an entirely different plane. RSG was the first tape I pulled out of the box and I popped it in immediately - it sounded like I needed it to sound in that moment; raw, insistent, intense DIY crust/grind that could honestly have been from anywhere. But it wasn't. I'm looking forward to the next box before I've even made a dent in this one, because the more you learn, the more you know how much you have to learn.
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