ONE BAD PIG

 

The fifth full length from Austin's premier (?) christian punk band is shockingly good - even though much of the enjoyment comes from the eyerolls while reading the lyrics. "You're A Pagan" is a legit thrash/punk ripper and there are several tracks here that transcend ideology. Serious party punk with occasional Dr. Feelgood vibes and more funk/punk undertones than anyone should be comfortable with. I sit with these tracks and read the lyrics and....well, there's a lot of confusion here. The 5+ minute hair metal anthem "Cut Your Hair," the would-be should-be SXE thrasher "Sober Up" that turns into a skamedy (that's ska+comedy) track, "Never Forget The Cross" in its entirety....there's just a lot here. I have a lot of questions - I'm a curious person. 

I SCREAM SUNDAY

The only tag this thing gets is TEXAS. 

FASLE TRUCE

 

There is perhaps no better example of Covid Creativity than Austin's FALSE TRUCE. From the isolated mind of Chris Pfeffer (STORM THE TOWER, SEVERED HEAD OF STATE, CRIATURAS, SIGNAL LOST, THE ALTARS, J CHURCH, MEADOWLARK, OBEDIENCE....need I continue?) came eight doses of urgent and force-filled BLITZ-influenced punk with subtly dark undertones. The aptly named MMXX sounds like we felt; full of joy and determination in the face of uncertainty and deceit. It had been a while since I visited these tracks....and of course they're just as powerful today as they were then. When it comes down to it, we're in the same world we were in then.

MMXX

FUSELAGE

 

Hard to figure out what to say here....total modern post/art punk and/or emo college/alt freak outs with a cast of guest artists who seem to shape the sounds - moving from "Trigger Warning" to "Needle" is a perfect example and it sets the stage for a captivating listen. You've got the herky-jerk of "I Chase Cars" and the driving power of "Backyard Wrestling In Pecos County" interrupted by "Condo Rock"  and 0:44 of free jazz. Yeah, you've got yourself a weird fukkn listen.  

FUSELAGE

THE JODIE MIKULA ORCHESTRA

 

You know I love this shit. The completely random artifacts rescued from the Forgotten Bins in second hand and charity shops across the country (and other countries). Sometimes I pick up a tape and examine it and think that if I don't listen to it at least once then perhaps no one will ever hear the sounds it contains. No one. Ever. And sometimes the sounds are....well, they're forgettable even if the are important, but sometimes the sounds bring my joy. If I can be honest for a moment here: I desperately need joy. So in that spirit, I present the pride of Ennis, Texas: THE JODIE MIKULA ORCHESTRA. Jodie founded the group in the late '60s to bring traditional Czech polkas to the masses (I say "masses" and obviously I jest because I am realistic) and the band carried his mission after his passing in 1989. This 1991 tribute was their first physical release without their band leader, and it captures the casual, comfortable, confident spirit that Jodie embodied - I know I do raw crust and harsh noise here, but "Dark Knight (Waltz)" kinda made me a little misty. And that's why we keep digging, young punks; you never know what you'll find. You might find a place to "forget your troubles for a while" - that's a good thing.  

A TRIBUTE TO JODIE

BOMB HOARDER

 

They never made it too far outside of the Bay Area (and their legacy barely made it out of the early '00s), but BLOWN TO BITS were a constant in the Mission Records era. The singer's name was Punk Rock Jim, one of the dudes had been in OPPRESSED LOGIC and it seemed like if there was a good show then BLOWN TO BITS were probably playing. A very specific reference perhaps (and one that will likely escape most readers), but I'm willing to bet that band existed in your scene too.....and in the narrative I create in my own dusty mind,  BOMB HOARDER were Corpus Christie's BLOWN TO BITS. Fist banging, studded jacket wearing, midpaced drunken DBeat-adjacent hardcore punk. This tape from 2013 is all about the guitar break in "Body Bags" and memories. 

BOMB HOARDER

DICK HICK

 

I feel like summer energy is starting. I'm seeing way more flyers for shows that I will probably miss, the weather has been freakishly gorgeous and people are exuding weird and unreasonably positive energy as the fabric of our society tatters before our eyes. Anyway, DICK HICK are from Houston and project ATOM + HIS PACKAGE by-way-of CONEHEADS vibes and it's easy for me to imagine blasting this shit at some backyard BBQ hosted by those mutants in their early 20s who do gigs in their basement and can drink you under the table. You rarely find about their shows until you see a flyer at the coffee shop the day after that band you like played though....because you're old. You probably wouldn't have gone anyway (because you were tired or something), but it still would have been nice to know. That's what summer is all about. 

HARDCORE SHMARDCORE

WHITE DOG

 

I have two options, and both are correct. I can either spend a lot of words trying to dissect sixteen minutes of guitar bursts and blurts and applying a deeper meaning to the sounds on 2009's Beer Guzzle. Or I can just say that WHITE DOG offer made ten minutes of droning, meandering guitar blurts and then played one of the sides backwards because I guess that's what you do when you're from Texas because drugs. You know how good it can be to put on a music and then forget that it's even there because it becomes a part of your environment? That is what Beer Guzzle does. I guess I had a third option, and I chose it. 

BEER GUZZLE

Members of: TOTAL ABUSE, THE SNOBS, MENTAL ABORTION, RAYON BEACH, MUTATING MELTDOWN, BREATHING PROBLEM, CAPTIVE, ARCHITECTS, FINALLY PUNK...but somehow it sounds like this tape was made by two-and-a-half stoners. 

JT WHITFIELD

 

The Chondritic Sound label was responsible for some of my favorite discoveries of the 2010s and while their releases have leaned more on the digital format/s for the last few years, I still keep a keen eye (and ear) on their output. If I didn't keep a keen eye (and ear), I might miss releases like like 2019's Complacent from Austin freak JT WHITFIELD. Dark and deliberate distortion tinged ambient/techno sounds for the future, sounds that sound as if they are a reminder from a distant (and tortured) past...just letting you know we'll (all) be back.

COMPLACENT

NARB

 

Fidelity be damned, this punk is fast, fierce and raw as fukk. Three songs that make up half of the band's recorded output - like stripped down skinhead shitpunk on pharmaceutical speed. I guess they just did shit different in the South Valley.  You want to hear adolescent angst captured on 1/4" magnetic tape and dumped into the digital aether? Welcome to NARB.

NARB

DESKONOCIDOS

 

You remember when DESKONOCIDOS dropped, right? The South Valley punks had converged on Austin and the Dallas punks had made the predictable generational migration and they all kicked the Austin punks in the ass and holy fuck did the rest of us get some really good bands out of the arrangement. The DESKONOCIDOS full length is a true modern classic to my ears, but it had been a (long) while since I had pumped the early recordings compiled on this 2010 cassette. Nothing sounded like it then, even while you can hear the bands they were listening to in their own sound/s. And does it hold up....? Fifteen years after these songs appeared, I'm sitting in a sun bathed third floor apartment and I am all in. Again. So yeah...it hold up, amd I'm grateful.

SINGLES COLLECTION

U.N.I.T.

 

Screaming, squirming, stomping hardcore from the mean streets of San Antonio, Texas. A quick peek at the song titles offers a clue: Violence. Control. Nothing. Fear. And to simply state that U.N.I.T. deliver on the promise those four words bring would be a criminal understatement. Woke up today to a (new) world of shit around me (if you're paying attention then you'll see that it's the same world that surrounds you) so I blasted these S.H.I.T. vibes and looked behind while looking inside. Even when you can't control the violence, it's nice to think that (even for a moment) you have nothing to fear. You do, of course. Shit is terrifying. But the next seven minutes are going to be glorious. 

THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO & THERE IS NOTHING TO DO

DEATH CULT

 

Four more short blasts, this time from San Antonio's DEATH CULT. Dark, in your face PENI obsessed mutant punk done exactly the right way. There are a few other tapes floating around and I recommend seeking this recording on wax....but really I'm here to applaud these folks for blatantly ripping the name from DEATH CULT. Respect. 

SPIRITUAL CONUNDRUM

IMPALERS

 

You know IMPALERS, right? Then you know what's up. Hold out your hands. Thanks, here's your ass. How does that feel? 

Sometimes it be like this.

It's a new week.

THE BEAT SESSIONS

DYE

 

This was the first one. There was another one that came after this one, but this one was the first one. Snarling, honest, urgent, in your face hardcore punk....that's what this one is. That's what the other one is too, but that's what this one was first. "Frustration" is the sound of kids burning shit in a parking lot. "I'm Important" is the sound of crying while smashing the face of the people who jumped you last week. DYE is the sound of mid-teens North American punk, and it sounds even better now than it did then. 

DYE

ACAUSTIX

 

People and pundits have used the word blistering to describe hardcore punk recordings for as long as there have been people and pundits and hardcore punk recordings. One listen to ACAUSTIX and you will realize that all of those people and all of those pundits were premature....this is blistering. Relentless clenched fist punishment with a touch of Swede influence and infectious swing that the Texans seem to know how to inject better than just about anyone else. Howling '90s crust vocals remind you that you're listening to something different, especially on "Die Here Now," the catchiest (and slowest) number on the tape. This thing is just......it's literally swoon-worthy punk. It's what I want. It's what I need. Motherfukkrs at RoachLeg did us all a favor.

ASYLUM TEST NO.1

HIGHLIFE

 

So you're shithoused on a Tuesday morning around 3am, stuck at some random house with a bunch of fools you don't really know, but they've got the drugs and you've got to work in a few hours so sleep is pointless anyway....fuck it, right? Someone pops in the 2008 HIGHLIFE Greatest Hits Demo 2008 tape and you're like "fukk yeah - I got this" and then the boom box fries the damn tape and it warbles to a stop. You rewind and fast forward to try to tease the machine into working again. Fail. Take the tape out and thwack it against your head a few times and still nothing. Shit. Maybe it's the tape, maybe the player....hell, maybe you're just wasted. So you go bum some drugs off some kids you don't know (you're already a decade older than they are so it's not like you're worried about coming off weird - that ship has sailed hours ago) and you try to get yourself psyched up for acting normal when you roll into work wearing yesterday's clothes. Damn tape still won't work and you're trying to fukkn rage for a minute before you bail though, so that sucks because you were digging HIGHLIGE while you were getting high. Casually you make your way towards the door, lift the tape on your way out (they won't even know) and hit the road (read: sidewalk). Work sucks, because of course it does. You don't even stick out though, because humanity is fukkn zombies anyway and your boss is doing lines and trying to cook the books to steal enough money for a nose job so he wouldn't care about your state even if he were paying attention. But at the end of your shift you still got that tape in your pocket, so you bum some drugs off nose job boss before you clock out and you head home to give it a blast. The deck at that party kinda wrecked the first couple of songs, but the blasts and that piercing guitar are all you need to remind you what really matters (hint: it's nothing), and by the time you get to "Brainfried" you couldn't give a fukk because you feel seen. You text a buddy and ask if he's trying to rage tonight. He says "sure, I'll be right over - some kid I skate with is having a party....they're probably barely old enough to drink but I know they'll have drugs." "Cool," you reply, "let's grab some beers on the way."

GREATEST HITS DEMO 2008

TRASH MAGZ

 

A killer dose of ripping Texas punk to wrap up your week. I remember when I first heard of THE MEATMEN and I thought they sounded so cool and "edgy" (I was a kid) - well...when I heard them I thought they were boring and sucky. If THE MEATMEN had sounded like fucking TRASH MAGZ then I would have been the most stoked teenager in all of Oklahoma...instead I'm a regular-level stoked middle aged dude in California who has to wake up at 5am tomorrow to go to work and is really digging on this shit. Not sure what's up with the fucking organ, and honestly I don't care. 

UNDER SIEGE

CANTO DE SIRENA

There used to be compilations every Friday, and while I'm not sorry for shirking my self assigned duties I am definitely chuffed when I remember to drop a killer comp on the last day of the traditional work week.  Canto De Sirena starts like a snapshot of Bay Area DIY goth punk with ÖTZI, ADRENOCHROME and DESEOS PRIMITIVOS in rapid succession...so you'd be forgiven for being a little surprised by the blackened melodic crust assault from TORTURE GARDEN that wraps the first side. The flip is all Texas and is just as varied sonically with lumbering dark freak sounds from TOXIC WATER, fiery punk from MUJERAS PODRIDAS, then SO UNLOVED and HELLFURY close out the tape with manic thrashcore and ripping thrash (respectively). It's almost a regional split (TORTURE GARDEN are from New Orleans) which is going to earn you bonus accolades from the folks (okay...the folk) at TEHQ, but this comp doesn't need any help. So...see you next Friday. 

CANTO DE SIRENA

SICK FATE

 

Even more under the radar mid-decade DIY punk from SICK FATE, a Texas one and done who left us with a vinyl worthy ten song slab before dissolving into the mist. You're going to hear elements of bands-in-common (thinking STORM THE TOWER and ALTARS very specifically) with a fierce vocal snarl at the forefront and a nice touch of boots in the mix. Sometimes...sometimes a solid punk recording lands just fukkn right, and that's what SICK FATE (still) does eight years later. 

MMXV

HISS

 

Maybe HISS came and went in a flash, or perhaps I just stared directly into the light for just a little too long...either way, this masterpiece of thunderous noise punk was (is) etched into my brain. Complete distorto-mania with cave creature drums and a creepy crawl vibe when they slow it down (rarely) that will give you absolute chills. Bands can sound intense, powerful or cacophonous....but it's uncommon to hear a band sound so fukkn tortured. So, enjoy?

HISS