DIGGING IN WATER

I mean - it's Friday, so why not just go with the compilation that was dubbed on the A Side of yesterday's MURDER BURGER tape? 1987's Digging In Water is as close to a "quintessential" compilation as it gets, a total snapshot of UK punk as the scene/s in general was/were shifting from the anarcho vs. '77 and/or '82 tug-of-war to the rages that defined the latter part of the '80s. As a result, you've got OI POLLOI and ENT, DISORDER and RIPCORD, CONCRETE SOX and CHAOS UK...plus C.C.M. and VICIOUS CIRCLE for good measure, to remind you that there was still an ear pointed towards the outside world. Curious and/or noteworthy - the tracks sound like the tracks on the wax, but this tape has everything in a different order and with a few (slightly) different edits (mostly as tracks come in and out). Considering the source, but I'm guessing that this collection predated the vinyl release. Regardless, this comp crushes and I'm extremely glad that Taf copied the tracks for Brett and that the tape landed in my hands 30 years later. 

DIGGING IN WATER

RIPCORD's "Single Ticket To Hell" is such a devastating burner - it basically defies description. 

MURDER BURGER

Someone want to help the rest of us out with this one? The home-copied tape has the seminal 1987 Digging In Water compilation, plus these six insanely crucial UK punk tracks attributed to MURDER BURGER. "Every Eight Seconds" was recorded by DISORDER (it took me a while to realize why it sounded so familiar), but everything else here was new to my ears....and it's all sick. The recording (and/or) reproduction is a little rough, but MURDER BURGER offer quintessential UK anarcho with gusto (check the raw churner "De-Liberation") and I'm fully addicted. I want to know more, and I want everything to remain a mystery. Anti-patriarchal, pro-animal rights, clenched fist pogo punk...

MURDER BURGER

NATURAL MAN & THE FLAMIN' HOT BAND

It's like if you could cram the greatest party ever onto 1/8" magnetic tape. That's what NATUAL MAN & THE FLAMIN' HOT BAND sounds like. High energy rock 'n roll drenched in saxophone and layered layers of back up vocals and soul-filled ass shakers - like BIG BOYS and DEVO and CCTV and DEAD MILKMEN and all that shit. I can only imagine what kind of energy these kids put off in the flesh, but I hope to someday turn imagination into reality. 

NATURE ROCKS

THESE BASTARDS

From a blip on the Bay Area radar to a looming behemoth on our current landscape. THESE BASTARDS have been not so quietly laying waste to every out of the way venue they can find for a couple of years now, but they released Old And Pissed last year and....fukk. Irreverent, erratic West Bay insanity with manic blasts and riffs that defy explanation. The demo was good, and while you always kinda hope that a band progresses after their first recording - THESE BASTARDS went straight steamroller on the tracks, and the recording is full and filthy. Relevant brutality from some serious OGs - members of MORBID LIFE SOCIETY, SLOBBER, VENKMAN, AGENTS OF SATAN....if you get it, then you get it. Choice cut: "Red Snake Whip."

 OLD AND PISSED

Released as a 12 minute EP, but a choice few copies got crammed in plastic cassette shells to pass out to folks in Japan while Stoney was on vacation.  

APRIORI

Short lived raucous San Francisco punks. One demo, that's it. 

Top Track: "Cosmic Psycho (Free Love Ministries)"

APRIORI

UNEXAMINE

I referred to UNEXAMINE as "violent" and "abrasive" and "exceptionally dark" when I shared 2014's Property in these pages. In the four years between that release and the unveiling of Lower Animal last year, I dare say that this monster has only grown more fierce. 40+ minutes of formidably harsh noise...this is what it sounds like to get your ass kicked in the middle of an unrelenting avalanche of steel. You will probably want to tear yourself away at some point, this is exhausting. 

LOWER ANIMAL

THE CHEIFS

Copped these bangers off of the same mix tape that gave us the Who Cares comp, continuing evidence that the more you learn the more you learn that you don't know....or know about. Los Angeles' THE CHEIFS (their spelling, not a typo) produced those Who Cares tracks and the now $400 Blues EP in 1980...and that was it - even the comprehensive discography reissue only managed a half dozen extra cuts (all bangers though). So here's Blues plus "The Lonelies," eight filthy raw smoking minutes of early California punk.

BLUES

All hail early tape traders, and Dr. Strange re-issued that discography most recently...you never know what you find when you start digging.