SAVAGE DEATH

The Crucified In Hell demo seemed to go over rather well, so wrap your ass around SAVAGE DEATH's debut release: Mass Genocide. The shrieks in "Evil Dead" sound more like SLAYER than SLAYER themselves, and the no frills speed primitive speed metal does constant battle with tape hiss and guitar distortion that would make DISCLOSE proud. What were you doing in 1985?

MASS GENOCIDE

HICKEY

This is HICKEY in 1995, a pre-LP greatest hits juggernaut recorded live on WFMU in East Orange, New Jersey pleading for shows, places to sleep and attention. "Greatest Hits" might be a bit of a misnomer, since they played virtually these same songs nearly every time I saw them during this period, and these may well have been the only songs they knew (though "El Farolito" is conspicuously absent from this set - perhaps HICKEY thought them Jersey folks wouldn't really grasp the importance of a good burrito at 4am). The (in)famous and as-yet-still-unreleased Live In Mobile Home Alabama was recorded shortly after this radio show, and when they made it home a few weeks later, they ruled the neighborhood - by accident or by design is up for debate. Karoline was with them on this tour, her second adventure with HICKEY in less than a year (she married me, clearly she has a penchant for smelly boys and questionable life choices), she said that after their on-air pleas for accommodations were unsuccessful, they pulled the van into the WFMU parking lot and slept the sweaty night away. The next morning while Aesop was puttering around the lot, campus security shooed him away saying "You can't sell your fruit here, you have to leave!" I still miss Matty's uncanny ability to make you feel like things matter, even when you knew full well that they don't....

HICKEY on WFMU

ABRAHAM CROSS

I got a package last week from Black Konflik in Malaysia, and it presented me with a genuine conundrum: do I celebrate another Noise Punk Monday with some of the distorted sounds contained in the box, or do I celebrate 13 years of marriage with a rip of a tape that symbolizes some sort of connection that my wife and I share? Suffice to say, Karoline ain't the biggest ABRAHAM CROSS fan, so Noise Punk wins! Tokyo's ABRAHAM CROSS combine classic Japanese crasher crust with distortion laden wall of noise and long atmospheric (but still chaotic) build ups, and though these songs are fukkn brilliant, they cannot hold a candle to the live assault. "Message From Forever" could pass as a '90s shoegaze anthem, and it's followed by two of the most ragingest minutes I've heard put to tape - just pure manic insanity. The track listing is slightly confusing, but the A side of the tape consists of tracks from Dan-Doh's Terro-Rhythm comp, the brilliant Tokyo Sound System comp, and the Skate All Day Drink all Night comp (all from 2005), as well as their side from the S.F.P. split EP, though the tape seems to be missing "Plastic Sun" from Tokyo Sound System, even though it's listed. The B side is even more confusing, so I've tracked it as one onslaught - 28 minutes of otherwise unavailable live material recorded at Earthdom (June 2007) and Shinjuku Loft (April 2005) - that barely touches what it is like to feel this band live, but does show them at their psychedelic pinnacle of chaos (especially about 14 minutes in). The first time I saw ABRAHAM CROSS, they had a hi-hat player...one dude out of his fukkn mind with a microphone on a hi-hat cymbal sitting in the middle of the stage wailing away on it like he was Eddie Van Hi-Hat for the entire set, and the next time I saw them I could hardly hear anything after being brutally pummeled by maximum volume techno through the house system for a full 20 minutes while the band set up their four guitar rigs (the guitarist for STRUGGLE FOR PRIDE was a relatively new member at that point, and it seemed he might have had something to prove...he proved it). Total and complete live destruction, offered to you via cassette.

END OF TIME

It should be noted that I married Karoline 13 years ago today, which means that my streak as "The Luckiest Man On Earth" has continued for what would seem to be an exceptionally long time. Here's to that run continuing long after Noise Punk Mondays are forgotten...

R.I.P. Mark Sheehan

OUT COLD have been criminally under appreciated since their inception more than 20 years ago. Through a gauntlet of guitarists and bass players, Mark and John have managed to create some of the purest hardcore I've heard - Goodbye Cruel World is an absolute masterpiece. I met Mark only once, when I was on tour with friends of his from Finland; soft spoken, nice and reserved, zero attitude whatsoever. He was 41 years old, way too young, and he will be missed.

IDENTITY

Sweden's IDENTITY existed during that perceived hardcore void from late '80s to early '90s, a time that the closed minded claim produced no bands worth listening to. The closed minded are wrong, and IDENTITY is a prime example - this is the standard to which modern "melodic hardcore" should be held. Brilliant tuneful guitar leads throughout and hooks that border on melancholy, while the music blasts onward with few breaks in tempo ("Can I Really Trust Your Words?" is about as mid tempo as they get, and the kids could still pit to that one pretty easily). I picked up an EP in a bargain bin years ago on the recommendation of a fastcore obsessed buddy who said this was one of the only melodic bands he liked, and after I got over the surprise at Mr. Blastbeat suggesting what is basically a pop punk record I fell in love with the jams. This 1990 demo is rawer and rougher than the records (all of which are worth buying, and can usually be had for cheap, because no one cares), none of the charm is lost. If I were to try to make a bridge between mid-era HÜSKER DÜ and PROPAGANDHI's Less Talk, More Rock, I would make it out of these songs. It might be hard to get people to dance across it with me, but those who joined me on that bridge would have a really good time.

IDENTITY

DESKONOCIDOS

Their European tour started yesterday, but I couldn't justify blatant promotion of a killer band over posting a mix tape every Friday. Austin's DESKONOCIDOS play the absolute best combination of '80s Spanish punk, dark post punk, and some infectious brand of melodic proto hardcore. Basically, you will pound your fist into the air and dance your ass off and scream along at the top of your lungs singing some total gibberish because your ass probably doesn't speak Spanish. These songs are culled from their EPs on Todo Destruido and Lengua Armada, the split with SACRED SHOCK and two unreleased bangers that close out the tape. Songs like "Desaparecer" and "Juventud Perida" are instant classics, while there are moments ("Pesadillas" specifically) that remind me of more mainstream pseudo post punk bands, but delivered with a raw fury that the radio hitmakers could never replicate. 

DESKONOCIDOS

SAVE THE DEAD

From the opening riffs delivered by Oklahoma's BLEEDING NUNS, and the lyrical assaults that make up "Fuck Fashion" and "Neo Nazis," you know you are in for a killer fukkn mix tape. What follows is the best hour of under appreciated US hardcore punk...Mississippi's WORKIN' MUTHAS, Idaho's STATE OF CONFUSION, Michigan's BORN WITHOUT A FACE, Wisconsin's US DISTRESS (from the original K-Town), S.N.O.T. from Texas, STEVIE STILETTO, BLEMISH ON SOCIETY, HEADLESS MARINES and MAGGOT SANDWICH from Florida, Virginia's PSYCHODRAMA (their song "No Homo Zone" was clearly recorded well before the emergence of politically correct punk politics), Alabama's DISPERSION, and then there's GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS (weirdest song on the tape) from Chicago and bands from parts unknown like BONG and POISON. Musical styles all sit in between the world of '80s American punk and '80s American hardcore, and the quality is way higher than one might expect from a tape comp of unheralded bands - though STEVIE STILETTO is marginally appreciated by punk historians and MAGGOT SANDWICH are generally recognized as a solid second tier (and therefore relatively affordable) hardcore act - plus, I dig their mustaches. I asked Aesop about this shit, since a healthy percentage of these bands are from Florida, but he just told me that BLEMISH ON SOCIETY were terrible (though I kinda dig their shitty songs here, if only because they are so shitty) and MAGGOT SANDWICH ruled (which I already knew). I was kinda hoping for a story about 15 year old Aesop fucking the drummer for DISPERSION's girlfriend in the back of their van while they played a show in Florida, just because that would have been funny...not such luck. No stories, just great jams.

SAVE THE DEAD