MUSCLEGOOSE

 

You know how sometimes you have more questions when you're finished than you did when you started? Enter: MUSCLEGOOSE. First off, they're called MUSCLEGOOSE. Secondly, they're from Arkansas. Now for the rest.....they exude genre-less '90s USDIY punk sometimes, but sometimes sound like some new century Northwest Indiana shit. Shades of squirmy shit punk and I swear a couplke of times I wondered if they were gonna remind me of SHELLAC (they never did...but it was close). There's a song called "Stand By Your Mandwich" that gave me UOA energy but those punks would have never written a song about a sandwich. Also there's a song called "Sgt. Pepperoni's Provoloney Hearts Club Sandwich" and obviously that's gonna raise an eyebrow (and yes I'm serious about the song title). It doesn't sound like anything I know and I'm still asking questions after three consecutive listens and still I feel like these sounds are already in me....in different forms. But what do you expect from a band whose follow-up release was titled Yah Mo B There, God? It's Me, Michael McDonald?

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD BUFFET

DOG PRISON

 

I have a much harder time describing what I like about this tape and/or why than I have just saying that...I really like this tape. Dark and cavernous, kinda noisy and wholly unpretentious with a steady grunge and/or noise rock with a distant delivery and obvious shades of mid '10s goth punk obsession. DOG PRISON are all of those things...kinda. Which means that they are really none of those things, and a band that lands their sound as their sound? That's a band who should have released more than one fukkn tape. But we take what we can get in life, ya dig?

DOG PRISON

EMPIRE OF SHIT

 

Why not spend another day in the unheralded 1990s? This time to Arkansas, for a blown out disastrous burst of demented punk from EMPIRE OF SHIT, recorded before they relocated to Austin, Texas. The sound of college-town-in-a-conservative-state misanthropes; tortured and generally fukkd but with advanced construction, and fronted by an absolute freak named Joe Fun. Bands like FITZ OF DEPRESSION, LAUGHING HYENAS come to mind - equal parts filthy rock 'n roll, hard driving punk and raw sonic damage. This one'll put you on edge, which is precisely how most of us would prefer to be living...most of the time, anyway. 

EMPIRE OF SHIT

ST. PETER GHIDORA

 

When a notable segment of the DIY hardcore world was shifting their gaze towards sonic tonnage and epic hardcore and/or barebones fastcore (or....both), these kids from Arkansas were sifting through the archives of the previous decade and holding onto the gold. Manic hardcore, MOHINDER guitars and midwest basement DIY roots. Folks from BG and BURNED UP BLED DRY made up this trio, and this release from 2000 was their beginning and their end. I loved it the instant I heard it...which was two decades after it was recorded.

ST. PETER GHIDORA

NOTE: Please pay attention to the drums in "I Hope You Get Stuck In An Elevator With A Rhino," particularly around the 0:36 second mark. Just....damn. 

TERMINAL NATION

 

Really, this demo is all about that riff in the intro. The rest of the tape is good, like really good, but that is just the most deadly mosh and that need to be recognized. Arkansas' TERMINAL NATION have made enough of a splash over the last half decade that I don't imagine they need much of an introduction, so I'll leave their 2014 demo here and ask you to be careful out there. 

TERMINAL NATION

BENCHMARK

For the thousandth time: 1990s DIY hardcore rules. Bands took their influences and used them instead of aping them, and sounds spread as slowly as the letters mail so those influences had time to develop. And in places like Arkansas (or, in my case, Oklahoma), those influences were more spread out, more varied, and they were simply harder to come by...so bands had to make it happen. And often what the made was a whole far removed from any of its parts (or even from the people who made them). BENCHMARK were all of those things, and the result was fierce, emotional and personal hardcore - hoarse screaming about animal rights and sexual assault and they left everything in the room when they played. The chugs are formidable and the vocals are deadly (check "Tickle" in particular), and it all just feels fucking honest. For folks concerned about such things, three dudes in this band would later form BURNED UP BLED DRY, and one was in FROM ASHES RISE for the first two full lengths....yeah, the '90s weren't half bad.

 THANK YOU

NEGATIVE STEP // LAST CHANCE

I remember NEGATIVE STEP as August's new band. He gave me a tape of some tracks (maybe it was the then-unreleased 10") and I played the shit out of that thing. A flash in the pan, really, but a searing blast of hardcore freak punk, and the shit holds up. I remember NEGATIVE STEP as Garvey's new band. He told me stories about how their goal was essentially to tour Mexico as much as possible. He said one one tour,  several local punks piled into their old van to go to the next show but that with the extra weight, the van couldn't make it up a mountain road. So they turned around and unloaded all of the gear so the van would be able to make the climb and the punks could still join them. I'm still not sure if I remember that story correctly, but in my brain it's still one of the coolest and punkest stories ever. 

MUSICA ANTIFASCISTA - RESISTENCIA ANARCHOPUNK 

NOT ON YOUR LIFE

Consider this an antonym to yesterday's chill session. Punk is loud, NOT ON YOUR LIFE are loud. Punk is pissed, NOT ON YOUR LIFE are pissed. This Arkansas outfit are all of the things - urgent, honest, they mask the fear we all fear with determination and use it to blow a hole through the fukkn wall. Not going to dwell on the pedigree, but members of NOT ON YOUR LIFE have been responsible for records that have been in my collection for well over twenty years. I guess when it's in you, you don't just stop because you get old. 

NOT ON YOUR LIFE

There's more where this came from. Not a lot more....but still more. 

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

A couple of things about SHUT THE FUCK UP!.....

*I'm pretty sure I only saw them once, and it was in Richmond, Virginia at a poorly attended but exceptionally fun warehouse show on the ARTIMUS PYLE tour in 2002, but that might have been BUCK BUCK. Actually, I think it was BUCK BUCK (also from Arkansas, and also criminally under appreciated), and maybe I never saw SHUT THE FUCK UP! play live....which is a shame.

*Loading out from a show at the Covered Wagon in SF, this wasted dude came up to me and told me (definitely didn't ask me) that I should drive his band on tour because they were punk as fukk and they were going to put out a record and they had a contact in New Orleans and all they needed to do was book a few shows there and a few shows back and that was it and it was going to be really good and I should drive them. I told him I wasn't interested (because ..I mean, would you be?), but obliged him as he slurred about how great his band was. Eventually I asked what his band was called and he said "SHUT THE FUCK UP" and without even taking a breath I was like "dude - change your fucking name, there's a band from Arkansas called SHUT THE FUCK UP! and they are very good. Save yourself the trouble and confusion and change your name before you put out that record. Trust me." Of course they didn't change their name and I imagine more people know about San Francisco's STFU today. 

*I think there is only this demo and one EP for you to dig into, but one listen to the quirky driving basement pv/noise/crust that is SHUT THE FUCK UP! and I think you will feel the same way I do, and you will be happy to have whatever you have. Because this shit is great. 

*Was Dave Dean in this band? Or am I confusing them with BUCK BUCK (again). Man...that Dave Dean dude is nice as shit, and has a wonderful way of making you feel like you totally matter, in a way that is difficult to describe. 

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

CHINO HORDE

I've extolled the virtues of this era of US DIY punk and hardcore countless times in these pages. Hardcore was "done," and nothing had really fallen in to take its place. The midwest emo scene hadn't yet fully taken hold, grunge was right around the corner (but the punks still listened to MUDHONEY) and FUGAZI was still mostly an underground thing unless you were a cool kid. And there were no rules. This CHINO HORDE tape from 1990 features versions of several songs that would make it onto records in the ensuing years, and it's hard to explain why and/or how these sounds are so refreshing. It's real, I guess, just some kids from Arkansas doing their thing. Two of the dudes formed THUMBNAIL, and one of the dudes (the one who ran File 13 Records, which is crucial to the documentation of '90s Arkansas DIY punk - a weird niche, but an important one) moved to California and would later play in PINHEAD GUNPOWDER, GREEN DAY and...CALIFORNIA. 

CHINO HORDE

BAD BOYFRIENDS

Bare bones, no nonsense garage punk from Arkansas. Vocals perfectly tweaked and then reverbed just a little bit extra (for good measure), while the band plows through Goner jams galore. Raw, basic and a sound that is perfectly and intentionally dated. Sometimes you shouldn't have to think too much - sometimes simple is better....but I swear that "Little Girl" could be a crushing hardcore banger.

SONGS YER MOM TAUGHT US

BG

I have been posting Oklahoma tapes for several Sundays now, but I'm going to cheat a little bit today and rock a demo from my former neighbor to the east, Arkansas.  Fort Smith was where I played my first ever show outside of Oklahoma, and I believe that most of the folks from BG were there (and helped set up the show), so it was good to roll through town nearly a decade later in 2001 and see that the dudes are still killing it.  This band would have been hugely popular had they been from somewhere "cool," but then they also might not have been nearly as good. This demo was the precursor to a couple of crushing EPs and a split with IRON LUNG, and came from RASH OF BEATINGS and BURNED UP BLED DRY personnel (anyone got those demos? drop me a line). The band's namesake and cover model is the guitarist's brother (his name is BG)...I guess it's a little easier to become a legend in Arkansas.

BG DEMO 2001