BURNT OFFERINGS

Sparse synthesizer driven sounds from this Michigan duo clearly worshipping at the wax covered altar of '80s Wax Trax Records fodder. Their debut is filled with eerie samples, minimal electronic beats and vocals that might be pretentious if not so successfully anonymous. A CHRISTIAN DEATH cover, lyrics lifted from ALIEN SEX FIEND and Al Jourgensen, surely you get the drill? Ghosts of early (pre-disco) MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT, CLOCK DVA join forces with solitude and adolescence on this tape, with great success. 77 Records, thank you.

SONGS ABOUT SEX

UNCONSCIOUSNESS

For about a year, John and I hosted a Mix Tape Exchange in Milwaukee. Interest began to wane after a few months, but on those first couple of exchanges people really pulled out some big guns and spent some serious time putting the tapes together. This is how mix tapes are supposed to be made. Dave was a transplant from Buffalo (he has since returned) and is one of the most seriously critical music listeners I have ever known, so it came as no surprise that his submissions were consistently excellent, but Unconsciousness might be his finest work. There are bursts of hardcore that break up the 90 minute journey (LORDS OF LIGHT, G.I.S.M., KRIGSHOT), but this tape is essentially a tortured evening in a dimly lit room full of confused inward stares and sweltering doubt. From beautifully innocent female songwriters to grizzled gravel voiced songwriters, from MAN IS THE BASTARD to THIS HEAT, from the only KISS song I ever really liked (but performed by MELVINS, so it's even better) to the equally crushing and far more musically intriguing TOADLIQUOR. Unconsciousness is bookended with two tracks acid drenched distorted psych jams with soaring (and endlessly soloing) guitars from PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT, a band that I first heard through Dave. He also introduced me to PHARAOH OVERLORD who have provided the soundtrack for countless late night drives since they came into my life, and THE GIGOLOS "This Generation," which has since become one of my choicest jams - an infectious KBD tune with an undeniable mod/powerpop energy. Fortunately for you, PHARAOH OVERLORD's "Test Flight/Blackout" from III closes the first side of this tape in brilliant fashion, and "This Generation" makes an appearance as well...so you win. There is an art to making a great mix tape....and Dave is an artist.

HOW DO YOU THINK MY FATHER FELT...RESORTING FINALLY TO THE BELT

In addition to making mix tapes, Dave does time in excellent bands. Seriously. They are all good, and if you have seen them then you know I am telling the truth. CAGES. RUNNING FOR COVER. GAS CHAMBER. DEAD LANGUAGE. THEY LIVE. There are more, but that should get you started. I guess today is Dave Day.

SK8NIKS

This demo will likely take longer to download than it will to listen to - SK8NIKS blast through two tunes and finish the program before you can even dust off your skateboard. Nerdy and irreverent Japanese hardcore in the vein of IDOL PUNCH or JELLY ROLL ROCKHEADS, except that this banger was dished out before either of those bands had achieved any notoriety. Consider SK8NIKS an under appreciated part of that same wave of early 00s Japanese hardcore: fast, thrashy madness. And seriously, who the fukk releases a two song demo tape? 

ESCAPE THE HUMAN LIMITS

VICOUS BRICKS

From the opening snarl, from the 45 seconds of unbridled disdain that starts "Decay," there can be no doubt that VICIOUS BRICKS are angry. The tracks that follow are measured but unhinged, crushing hardcore delivered with a HELLHAMMER ferocity. There's something in the water in Florida.

VICIOUS BRICKS

VIRUS

All of these songs save one ("Systematic Violence," arguably the best song on the tape) appear in different forms on the You Can't Ignore It Forever demo, also released in 1984, but Dorset's VIRUS are too fukkn good to let a tape slip by just because you have already heard the songs once before. Or twice. There's a MOB styled moodiness to their anarcho brilliance - the vocals have a mournful lilt even when shouting out the determined mantra of a 1980s UK peace punk band. Such a brutal shame that this band only managed to record a handful of songs before calling it a day, VIRUS were fukkn brilliant.

INFECTED?

The liner notes were typed on the back of the cover, not photocopied, and the cassette was done up by hand...both seemed worth including.

ZONE

Not a long lost demo from the superb Japanese ragers, but a new demo from a Connecticut trio aiming at the hearts of raw punk fans worldwide. Noisy as shit, disjointed and amateurish delivery, howling feedback competing with howling vocals...I'm guessing they are teenagers, and the fire in the lyrics only serves to reinforce this belief. They will prevail, indeed. 

RAW HELL

MR. BUNGLE

I worked at a local chain restaurant when I first moved to San Francisco, providing excellent customer service to business men and women downtown, giving everything that wasn't nailed down to any person who appeared to have a shred of humanity, and doing lines off the food prep counter at 4:30 in the morning just because I could. That job helped finance many of my early tours - band shirts were printed on the inside of restaurant shirts that I ordered from corporate, gasoline was paid for with money leftover from excessive manager voids, and a charming smile ensured that it would all be waiting for me when I came home a few weeks later. I crossed paths with a lot of interesting people during my stint behind the counter, and food was unofficially free to any bike messenger, punk or weirdo smart enough to work through the unspoken code of the illicit hookup. The tattooed electrician who came in for lunch with his crew turned out to be the guy who was distro-ing my band's then new EP, the straight looking dude in khakis who I had seen a few times at shows wound up married to my good friend and I toured four continents with him behind the drum kit. Bands would quietly stop by on their way out of town based on a rumor of a cheap meal, and people I met only because I gave them free food became friends that I still have today (nothing lasts like a relationship based on free shit). One morning, one of the regular recipients of my "fukk the man" disguised as generosity asked if I wanted to come see his band that night - he offered to put me on the guest list as a thanks for all the free sandwiches. He looked to be a pretty square dude, a rather noteworthy beard if memory serves, but I figured a random show was as good a place to take drugs as my bedroom, so I told him thanks and asked him where the show was. "The Fillmore," was his reply. This was about to get interesting (for the non-Bay readers, The Fillmore is one of the oldest venues in town and holds several thousand people, random squares typically don't play there - famous squares do), my free lunch guy had seemingly secured a gig opening for some rock stars, and I was going to waltz into one of the most storied rock clubs on the west coast. I didn't see the dude for most of the night, but the place was packed as shit and I got my first glimpse of MELT BANANA that night (they were the first band, and they blew my mind). MR. BUNGLE was the headliner, before Patton had gone off the deep end of overindulgent art/weirdness and scatological obsession, and they were actually pretty good. Though I was more interested in trying to figure out if the masked saxophone guy on stage left was in fact the same Zorn who had contributed to MR. BUNGLE's then new album (still not sure), they blasted through a legitimately ripping set and left the stage with a packed house screaming for whatever was their funk/metal quasi-hit at the time. They didn't play it, but instead returned to the stage to clear the room with a 30 minute improvisational noise encore - no structure whatsoever, just cacophony and a chorus of bewilderment from the quickly thinning audience. The free food guy? He was the drummer. I never talked to him about the show, but I kept on giving him free sandwiches whenever he stopped by.

THE RAGING WRATH OF THE EASTER BUNNY

This demo came from 1986, years before anything approaching notoriety, when MR. BUNGLE lived in Northern California and seemed as obsessed with EXODUS as with toilets and funk.