HELTA SKELTA

 

Don't know why this band only popped onto my radar last week, but I am always happy for a new flash obsession. Classic Aussie garage punk in the THOUGHT CRIMINALS >>> EDDY CURRENT lineage with a notable dose of BUZZCOCKS snark. Brilliantly crafted tunes (only three of them) and a sharp, smart delivery that commands your attention even on the sultry stripped down opener "Nightclubbin'." Only three tracks, self released down under and packaged for the world by Deranged (I suspect this was released during the absolute bombardment of Deranged releases in the '10s, a steady assault that was impossible to keep up with even though the quality was consistent...and that's why I missed this one in real time). This Perth act dropped two full lengths and a slew of singles (and, thankfully, tapes) during their run, so you know how I'll be spending my day. Because three songs aren't enough.

NIGHTCLUBBIN'

LOWRIDER

Another deadly collection of old school street jams from Lowrider Magazine. Heavier on the hip-hop this time, the early '90s explosion that combined street soul, classic rap and the adoption of the sound/s by different subcultures creating divergent subgenres under the same umbrella. HASHIM, QUE SA, JEAN KNIGHT (the inclusion of "Mr. Big Stuff" is an anchor point for the rest of the mix), KID FROST, HISPANIC MC's and a timeless slow jam from THE FUZZ that belongs on every Barrio Music, East Side Story and Lowrider compilation - just so every listener is reminded where the roots are. 

LOWRIDER SOUNDTRACK VOLUME 4

ANOTHER FUCKING PROBLEM

 

Gloriously manic early '00s political crust from 2025 New Zealand. Listen to "Never Knew Their Names" and talk to me about punk - because punk rules, ok? There are two more after this one and they are both great....but this was this first one.

SUNBURNT EARTH

UNKOWN ARTIST

 

Who does this? Seven minutes of blues adjacent guitar improvisation with sporadic contributions from a person on the drums. Duplicated on a green cassette with a white cover. No words, no markings, no indicators that might suggest what this is. I don't know who made this or what they were thinking; I don't even know if I like it. I just know that I'm glad it exists.

  GUITAR + DRUM IMPROVISATION

NEW WAVE THEATRE

New Wave Theatre was a television variety show broadcast in (or "from") Los Angeles in the '80s. Eventually the show (or a version of the show) made its way onto USA Network's Night Flight - a program that was a lifeline for small town freaks like me who were limited by cable networks that didn't include MTV. I remember sitting in front of the TV with my boom box aimed at the speaker, ready to record anything that felt interesting...and it all felt interesting. I would love to go back in time and experience those moments again with adult perspective so I could know what I was learning about, but that's not what innocence is. Innocence is not knowing.
No idea if this is a single episode or a collection of segments......because this is from a tape recorded and archived by someone who was doing the same thing I was doing. A stranger from a completely different place living a completely different place, making a recording that I heard for the first time last week. 

NEW WAVE THEATRE

BANKKU RIOT

 

More mania from Indonesia - this time in the form of some way under the radar raw Indonesian street crust. Fast, brutal.....this shit is unhinged and intense from start to finish and I really want to know more about the band. But there's nothing. Nothing but System Fuck Off. So listen and wonder, punk.

SYSTEM FUCK OFF

THE STUPID

 

Full throttle Indonesian street crust - consistent and brutal. 
Choice cut: "Fuck Politicians."

WILD HUNTING

KIROT

 

I worked on it a bit, but the replication is shit and the first 6min are real murky but stick with KIROT and you'll be rewarded. Chaotic dual vocal Euro crust that reminds me of OPERATION or SCUMBRIGADE but with a decidedly Finnish flare (which makes sense....they're from Finland). When they hit that halfway point and the quality cleans up? Look out motherfucker because KIROT are coming for you like a freight train....they don't really make 'em like this anymore. Except that they do. 

KAASE POHJAAN

It sounds great on their bandcamp (link above) - treble pegged and full of power. But I still think the cassette experience is important - you hear it like I hear it. 

ATOMSKI RAT

 

I avoid streaming music services for all of the obvious reasons, but I got free access to one of the recently and I've spent a bit of time diving into things I wouldn't otherwise spend time with (and also listening to a lot of SUICIDAL TENDENCIES). Wednesday I received an unsolicited notification that there was a new PET SHOP BOYS album about to be released and I remembered how much I liked that band so I started poking around....I had stopped paying close attention after Very was released in the early '90s, but these legends have been cranking out material consistently since then and I figured I should have a listen. I started with 2024's Nonetheless and I was floored...then I stared making my way backwards. The opener from 2020's Hotspot ("Will-O-The-Wisp") is a straight up classic, and Super from 2016 was worth three listens back to back (to back). Stunning how consistently great their output is almost 45 years after they started; evolving and meandering into different house/techno subgenres while always sounding exactly like synth pop royalty. It's been a great journey so far, and I plan to start tomorrow with 2013's Electric then keep making my way back to the '80s. 

NEKRO SAN
Anyway, here's a tape from a killer Serbian DBeat heavy hardcore band with eurocrust tendencies and a few ripping grind parts. Choice cut is the bleak midpaced closer "Senke," which makes you want to go back to the beginning and see what you may have missed. Total banger start to finish.  

PISUAR

 

I don't have words here, even though and especially because I'm hopelessly drawn to this shit. The first five minutes are a murky, squirmy stomp proto goth punk slog replicated in a sewer - and then the final  track (which really just the demo from 2024) comes and it's brighter and just....more (even though it's likely and/or primarily a replication issue). This is smart punk.....punk. 

YOUR LIFE COMPILATION

=======

NØ STAGES

 

This is the shit, y'all. This is the kind of punk that makes you wonder why you were listening for the the first time the first time you hear it. It's perfect - perfectly crafted, perfectly composed, perfectly records.....this is what you want (today). Think RED DONS and AIRFIX KITS and GENERACION SUICIDA making the same demo.....because it's that fukkkn good. The title track will change you.

MITOS

 

THE GROSS // THE END

 

Rewind two decades from yesterday's CRIME 84 post and you'll find turn of the century Indonesian street punks blazing their own trails. This was still the relatively early days for punk after dictatorship, and the scenes were all exploding - so much so that I don't think I will ever reach the bottom of the well as long as I keep searching. THE GROSS and THE END are both strongly influenced by early UK punk and Oi!, but you'll hear similarities to late '80s Eastern Bloc punk in tracks like "Nonton Bola" from THE END, THE GROSS lean more towards gruff melodic Oi! - every song is a hook and every hook is an earworm and in a different world a song like "Life Style Skinhead" would have made it on the Ringi-Ranga mix tape. 

DEDICATED

CRIME 84

 

Sharp and earnest UK82 influenced chaos punk from Indonesia - there's something about CRIME 84 that keeps grabbing me even though they check all of the boxes just a little too well if you know what I mean. "State Power" is the repeat jammer, but the whole demo is a keeper (and then some).

KIDNAPPED

BAD HIPPY

 

You ever listen to something and feel like it's probably best if you never meet the humans responsible for it? That's BAD HIPPY. Because in the trailer park you might have that one kid who fucks with HATEBREED and that other kid who drinks too much and wants to sound like EYEHATEGOD and those are the only people the dude with the DYSTOPIA back patch can find to make music...well there's the guy who just hangs out on his porch doing whippets all day - no one really knows what kind of music that dude listens to but he has a drum kit so fuck it. Combine that energy and you have....well, you certainly have something. This shit is terrifying, raw DIY punk with all kinds of outsider energy culminating with the exhausting 10+ minute "Die Dogfucker," a wholly unrealized epic that could have changed the world. If this were a different world. 

ENTHRONED

GRAVENITES / CIPOLLINA BAND

 

I picked this up on a whim because......well just look at the shit. You're curious, right? I made the right choice. Hard swinging Bay Area blues rock from ex-HOLDING COMPANY dudes and if you know where I'm coming from here then you're going to be well pleased. Recorded live in 1985, fifteen years after Janis Joplin died - fifteen years that seemed like a lifetime when I was less old. But damn, these dudes had played on legendary records that I read about in Rolling Stone and were already back to shredding the Chi Chi Club in SF in those fifteen years and it probably seemed like just a blip on their radar. The closer "Party" is the jam here, but every song is a literal party. For everyone? Nah. For me? Definitely. And that is the point. 

THUNDER & LIGHTNING

HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE

 

Gloriously dark instrumental broodsCome for the cat on the cover, stay for the gloriously dark driving instrumental broods. Monotony and repetition with indie hooks - like SPECTRUM reinterpreting INTERPOL and a touch of RAKTA energy. There are only four songs here...but it will make a lasting impression. 

SLEEP JOURNALS

MARTYRDÖD

 

It was a Pointless Fest, and honestly it might have been my first one. Maybe. Ken had mentioned MARTYRDÖD; he said they were like Swedish DBeat with tinges of black metal - this was when a "tinge of black metal" was a thing rarely mentioned in conversations about punk and hardcore bands.  I bought their first record at that Pointless Fest and I was fukkn floored when I got home and dropped the needle. It was pieces of things that I knew but it was something completely different. Soon there was In Extremis on Havoc and then after Ken helped with Sekt and NO STATIK toured the west coast with them in 2011 they started working with Southern Lord and it seemed like they were being presented to a world who didn't quite understand them. Maybe the world understands them now....but I cannot imagine that world appreciates MARTYRDÖD. This is all of the things that should be in all subgenres - listen to "Tentakler" and tell me different. Elddop was released in 2014 - there are (at least) two more after this one, and they are also perfect. Thursday is MARTYRDÖD appreciation day. 

ELDDOP

The fact that this tape is kinda fukkd makes Elddop spound even more sinister. 

LIMITED OPTIONS

 

A few weeks ago I was eating a burrito in the Mission and this nice dude casually slid a few tapes across the tabla as we chatted between scoops of salsa verde. He had a little tale to tell about each of them, but honestly I don't remember what he said about LIMITED OPTIONS. And once I jammed this think I didn't need to hear what anyone else said about the band because I was obsessing on what I was feeling while listening to themfor the first time. Fortunately, subsequent listens only increased my connection to the sounds so much that I don't even think about burritos when I listen.....and I think about burritos a lot. This is perfectly executed Y2K fast/thrash/hardcore that sounds not at all like a rehash of anything. The 1-2 punch of "Still Fighting" into "Tired" is one of the most powerful things I've blasted in 2026, this tape is a master clinic.

LIMITED OPTIONS

BIG

 

A while back, someone casually mentioned that they thought BIG were the hottest new hardcore band in the Bay Area. I noted this observation, and remembered the drummer for my old band telling me about his new band called....BIG. Eric beat the shit out of the buskets in STERILE MIND and he was constantly involved in the construction and evolution of our songs. I imagined that translating that energy and focus to guitar would probably lead to something I needed, but it was months (years?) before I saw BIG in the flesh when REALISTIC played with them in a San Francisco batting cage (it's a thing) earlier this year. I was right - that casual mentioner was right. BIG are advanced hardcore. Maximum intensity delivering every micro-hook you never knew you needed. Metallic breakdowns, pop punk sensibilities and occasional indie vibes (I swear a BLOC PARTY energy in "Fear & Hunger") plus driving hi-NRG squirm punk and it all sounds like the hardcore that you didn't know you were missing until you realize you (finally) have it. Anyway.....shit is good. 

DANCE MUSIC

CELENG THE ABSTRACT

 

Total fucking noisecore nonsense. Ten songs, four minutes. You might not know that you need this, and you might not need this at all. But you won't know that you don't need this until you have it. And actually, you need this.

DEMO 2025

EATING

 

As stated countless times: the compulsion is the draw, the results are the prize. 75 minutes of improvisational and/or experimental noise and/or sounds from Ange and Max. This is truly Music For People, and intentional listening is recommended. The compulsion and the drive is the thing, the sounds are the result....endless respect. 

NONSITE / SITE

BROKEN BONES

 

When I posted a tape-trader version of this tape a dozen years ago, it was the first time I had consciously listened to BROKEN BONES. The name and logo are ubiquitous and sometimes it seems like everyone already knows all of the "important" things before you do (or at least it seems that way to me sometimes), but there's truly nothing as exciting as discovering a classic for the first time. You know it's monumental even if you don't know everything about it....yet. Hearing "Civil War" for the first time, I felt like a 13yo kid in his bedroom fiddling with the dial to try to record "Smoke On The Water" off the radio because I knew it was special. There you go - I just compared Bones to Ritchie Blackmore. And there were only twelve years between those two tracks, when is wild when you think what twelve years ago in the realms of modern hardcore. Anyway, this recording fukkn rules; quintessential UK metalpunk. 

DEM BONES

RICHARD SCARY

 

Absolutely fucking demented hollow tupa-mania from Southern California. Alien squirms and dark alley beatings punctuated by bursts of savage raw hardcore punk insanity. "Rot" is the closer, and I was so fukkn bummed when I realized that when it was over...it was over. Good shit. 

HELL IS A PLACE ON EARTH 

MASSES

 

I've said it a thousand times, but goth punk is better when it's punk. Enter MASSES. Melbourne (AU) maximum energy dark punk.....emphasis on punk. Jam "Intolerance" and tell me you need anything in this godforsaken world....I'll tell you that you're wrong. 

2017 SE ASIAN TOUR

SHAKEY BONES

 

I ripped this one in the spring - a tape from Pat's collection that I had every intention of sharing 20 years after it was recorded. But I forgot, and that milestone was back in June. It would have felt weird to post it and say "this recording was twenty years old a few days ago" so it just kinda sat in the to be posted folder languishing. Until today...when this recording is twenty years and three months and one day old. 
I don't care about folk punk or train hopping americana.....until I hear it done right. And then I start thinking about a guy I met in the '90s called Montana Bill who had the outline of the state Montana tattooed on his face. He wasn't from Montana. But you can hear the freedom represented by that anecdote in this live performance broadcast on KZSU on June 1st, 2006 who released three CDrs and then vanished. Listen to "Goin' Down This Road Feelin' Bad" and know you aren't alone when you feel bad. 

LIVE ON PIRATE RADIO