GRADIENT FADE

 

The first time I put this on I listened with intent for a few minutes and then more or less went about my afternoon with the early bars of the second track "Frost Heave" lingering in the background. I don't know when I realized that Sensory Drift was affecting my thoughts and movements, but somewhere in the middle of "Mount Analog" I had to adjust the volume (up, naturally), sit down and focus. I was focusing on the sounds to be sure, but really I was thinking about how the sounds made me feel....because the sounds made me feel. In brief moments, this recording sounds like an indie rock synth freak is trying to play funeral doom and there are other moments where it feels like a lost North Bay ambient new age relic. But in all of those moments (and all of the others), GRADIENT FADE sinks into you in a way that's hard to articulate - even the most calm and casual sounds are made with care and intent...the same way we should be treating ourselves. And maybe that's the thing, it feels like it's supposed to make you feel.

SENSORY DRIFT

GRAND INVINCIBLE

 

More low-key genius from the EONS / SICK collaboration GRAND INVINCIBLE. Every beat is an earworm, every verse sounds like it was organically grown in the grooves of the dank basement funk records - it's effortless. Contraband Altars presents as an outtakes collection (whether that's reality or not? I have no idea...) with a B-side focused on DJ EONS ONE instrumentals, but literally everything these two touch is worth your attention. Perfect sunny Saturday swilling sounds. 

CONTRABAND ALTARS

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

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

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

KALX - BALE BOND

 

I repeat: These KALX broadcasts are an absolute treasure. From free jazz to classic gospel and soul to proto-industrial to frustrated noise punk to an absolute banger from a ( new to me) post-DMZ band called LYRES. An embarrassing era-appropriate track from IGGY POP flows into ESG's "You Make No Sense" ...then you remember that 45 minutes earlier you were listening to DON CHERRY, JOHN TCHICAI and ALBERT AYLER wailing into "CHRYSTAL BELLE SCRODD's "I Death" and that shit doesn't happen on the radio anymore. These broadcasts opened eyes and changed lives, and this set from Bond is casually brilliant beyond words.

KALX - 03 NOVEMBER 1986

FUN CONTROL

 

I saw FUN CONTROL last weekend in a batting cage in San Francisco and they opened with the first song on this tape....here are the thoughts that I had watching this song live, which correspond perfectly to the thoughts I had listening to the tape for the first time:

HICKEY

CAPITALIST CASUALTIES
Y2K Thrash 

D-CLONE

UNA BESTIA INCONTROLABLE...and then I'm hearing '90s Merge Records shit start the second song before more erratic thrashcore wastes my sorry ass. More songs bring more brilliance and more confusion, because the current crop of San Francisco hardcore bands give no fukkn shits (and that's before we address the "Emptiness" issue - when you listen you'll understand). I haven't even scratched the surface.

TEST RUN

WORMHOLE // BLÜMGART

 

A truly unique and/or mystifying cassette.....that's what you're here for, right? One side is proto-electro/house jams, the other is electric piano improvisations. I really can't think of a better reason to visit The Escape on a Thursday, so you're welcome. Today's responsible party has been (at least partially) connected to for MOZART, QUEST FOR QUINTANA ROO, YI, CAGED ANIMAL, SHARP KNIFE and a ton of other shit....but this shit is unlike that other shit. This shit is for real. That other shit is also for real, but this shit is real.

COMMUNICATOR SERIES

12 APRIL 1986

 

Welcome to the first ninety minutes of forty years ago today as broadcast on KALX in Berkeley. 
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Proto-industrial heavy broadcast with some old 'MATS, some oldies, BIG BOYS, STURM GROUP and a shitload more sounds that you need. 

KALX - 12 APRIL 1986

DJ EONS // BAD SHANE

 

History is going to look at this shit and (rightly) determine that their importance far outweighs their real-time influence. Local heads know what these folks are and have been capable of, but the way they continue to push Bay Area hip hop to (and in) new and different directions with baffle historians for sonic generations to come. BAD SHANE's "Winning" is a sample-laden screwed collision. DJ EONS offers the gloriously repetitive "Gazebo Mission" that embodies '90s hip-hop and makes me feel like I'm an outsider watching low riders roll down 24th Street. No one does the shit like these dudes do the shit....even the novice knows greatness when he hears it. 

41st & EL CAMINO

ASTRAL BUTCHER

 

I played with them once. It was in Sacramento - it was probably with NO STATIK even though my brain keeps telling me it was SUICIDE BOMB) - and ASTRAL BUTCHER felt fucking dangerous. They were like the drug dealers who showed up to the high school dance and lurked in the shadows. They played with irreverence, they destroyed with abandon. They fukkn destroyed the joint. 

CEMETERY GOATS

FILE UNDER: Blistering high-end black psychedelic metalcrust power trio.

924 GILMAN STREET PROJECT

 

The fact that this recording listens more like background noise than anything approaching punk history is notable. While I was still in high school in Oklahoma, a group of determined punks in the Bay Area were doing whatever it took to make sure that 924 Gilman survived after Tim Yohannan stepped away from the project less than two years after it started. This was recorded two months after what could have been the last Gilman show....maybe it was a STIKKY gig? Regardless, I'm glad it wasn't the end, because that venue has been a source of sustenance for thousands of Bay Area kids for almost 40 years. This was recorded by Pat (click the link, please), and serves as (mostly) background noise starting with JOY DIVISION and basketball (if you know, then you know) until the meeting starts almost an hour in. Listening can sometimes be a struggle, but remember the time and place here....this is important shit. This shit and these kids shaped a generation. I don't even know who's talking here....but I am grateful.

924 GILMAN MEETING: 17 DECEMBER 1988

CARDINAL

 

Saw CARDINAL in San Diego a few months back and was blown away. On a night full of theatrical black metal with capes and candles and props galore, this subdued trio from San Francisco calmly set up their gear, clean guitar with no effects, corpse paint so casual that it made you wonder if they wore it every day.....and they blew the fukkn doors off. Mesmerizing, haunting, imperfect, sinister, raw....true. Luckily Demonstration 2025 captures their essence, but you must see CARDINAL live to experience their power. 

DEMONSTRATION 2025

EVALUATE WHAT YOU TOLERATE

 

At the risk of repeating myself, the early '10s in the Bay Area were truly special time (much like the early '00s if we're being honest). There are bands here who formed the foundation for some truly great gigs (ACRYLICS, MOZART, MASS ARREST), bands I had never heard of before listening to this comp (MARRAIGE + CANCER, REVOLUTION BUMMER, HIGH ANXIETY, WARP), bands I was familiar with but who were outside of my general orbit (SPACE TOILET, PREENING, BUTANNA). Throw in MONSTER SQUAD, STREET EATERS and NOPES, all of whom are still active a decade (plus) later and you have a magical time capsule that is very clearly about so much fucking more than a few killer songs. But speaking of killer songs, DID IS DEAD, FATTYCAKES & THE PUFF PASTRIES and MABS deliver three of the killerest cuts you're going to hear today. 

EVALUATE WHAT YOU TOLERATE VOLUME 2

KALX

Y'all know the drill with these tapes, but even so....this is a really good one.
Here's life as broadcast on KALX in Berkeley 39 years ago today. 

HERE

Worth noting that life as broadcast on KALX in Berkeley 38 years ago today was posted last year.... 

SUPERCHARGER

 

This one was just tacked onto the back end of some other tape that had nothing to do with SUPERCHARGER and/or '90s Bay Area garage punk. Some completely different thing clearly documented by someone who knew what was up, and three (plus) decades later it serves as a reminder to me (and you) how fukkn tuff early '90s garage punk was. For no logical reason whatsoever I associate the subgenre (and era) with Austin, Texas (actually, there is a very logical reason and it's the MOTARDS / FUCKEMOS split), but listen to "Lost Cause" and/or "Sooprize Package For Mr. Mineo" and know that the greater Bay Area knew what the fuck was up with this shit. Damn, it was probably SUPERCHARGER (and MUMMIES) that made Tim turn The Bible towards the garage shit and if that's the case....? Fuck man, fair enough. "San Bruno" is maybe the most gloriously bleak punk track I have ever heard, and Reatard acolytes would be well advised to take notes across the board. For whatever reason this encouraged me to listen to THE DONNAS...for that I am grateful. 

SUPERCHARGER

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL PRESENTS...

I remember seeing this one in shops when I moved to SF in '95, but for whatever reason I remember thinking it was too......too something. Maybe it was because MRR was The Institution and we felt like we were doing The Real Punk Shit (honestly, we were just two years removed from booking a tour using contacts pulled from microfiche at the college library so we kinda had a point), but really it was probably because I didn't know shit. Looking back though, what an incredible fukkn comp - DEAD SILENCE, CRINGER, NAUSEA, LIBIDO BOYZ, THE DETONATORS, SCREECHING WEASEL (when Ben was just a shit stirrer and had not yet turned into a complete shit), JAWBOX...you get the drill. Basically this was glimpse of the various '90s USDIY punk scenes n 1989, which is a polite way of saying that Tim Yo knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. And even though I never met the man face-to-face, I owe him more than I could possibly type. 

THEY DON'T GET PAID

THEY DON'T GET LAID

BUT BOY DO THEY WORK HARD!

========

In other news - REALISTIC in Oakland this evening with some cool bands I'll be seeing for the first time:

GARY LAMB

 

If you want to be real about it, if you want to be honest, then you'll acknowledge that there are some serious heavy hitters mingling amongst the schlock in the Bay Area's new age and early Windham Hill-adjacent realms. You had your forgettable pseudo new-age visionaries to be sure, but the hitters were....well, just spend some time with In Search Of The Turtle's Navel and get back to me if you still have any questions. This tape isn't on Windham Hill but there are time and place associations (these things matter) so I snagged Watching The Night Fall when I saw it tempting me with a 99¢ price tag. Life changing? Nope. Worth the price of admission? Absolutely. On the face it's "just" piano and....Marin County (it's not from Marin County - shit is complicated so please just stick with me here). This is the soundtrack of 1970s Bay Area idealism removed from reality, relocated to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge (or down CA-85) with the Deadheads and the suit & tie hippies to a world comparable to that of crust punks with DISCLOSE backpatches growing vegetables and creating community in the suburbs just beyond the reach of the inner cities they still champion/ed. It's not a slag - gardens are fucking chill and I look forward to having another one in another life/time. It's just that....GARY LAMB is the sound of that, even though he is neither (I said it's complicated). Lamb is a Bay Area (Santa Cruz ish) native who was probably born into the life that others invaded....and this, my friends, opens an entirely different and equally different line of conversation. 
You see....sometimes it's just better to listen to the sounds. 

WATCHING THE NIGHT FALL

PENELOPE HOUSTON AND THE BIRD BOYS

 

Another recording that (likely) came before the 1988 release of Birdboys. Like the session posted last year, this features songs that would appear on that game changing LP and is a brilliant early glimpse into a group led by one of the most iconic figures in early SF punk. It's a beautiful and grounding collection of songs...and remember that this was recorded less than a decade after AVENGERS played the final SEX PISTOLS gig. Also worth noting that the opener "Harry Dean" rips the lead from "Knife's Edge" off of AVENGERS guitarist Greg Ingraham's never-really-released solo demo from 1984. 

PENELOPE HOUSTON AND THE BIRD BOYS