KREMLIN

 

I remember hearing this demo and loving it. Then later that same day Kat and J were at practice talking about how fukkn good the KREMLIN tape was and then it seemed like the next morning every punk I knew was talking about KREMLIN. And for good reason - this tape is (almost) eight minutes ripped from a would-be Version Sound catalog, suitable for legendary EP status had it been release 30 years earlier. KREMLIN doesn't sound like a throwback, they sound timeless. It was North American hardcore punk of the highest fucking order...and then all of a sudden everyone was talking about some other band, and even when KREMLIN finally released records (one small one, one big one) I feel like folks didn't care like they did when the first tapes started buzzing around. In the big picture, consider this a critique of our criminally short New Reality Attention Span and our seeming inability to let things fester, develop or (sometimes) flame out on their own. In the smaller and more personal picture, it means you can scoop those records up for not very many dollars. But really, the point of all of these words is that this KREMLIN tape is an absolute motherfukkr. "Zero," "Abuse Asylum" and "Unscrewed" on repeat all day. 

UNSCREWED

15 SEPTEMBER 1987

A slice from a random Wednesday in September, thirty five years ago. The airwaves of Berkeley's KALX were teaming with wit and jams - Australian VICTIMS, DILS, a contentious debate between the station's editor/program director and the news director, MEAT PUPPETS,  JOHNNY OTIS, an R.E.M. song that I hadn't heard in over two decades....not a lot of hardcore (or even punk) on the radio that afternoon, but this is one that you can pop in and use as a vehicle for transport. To another place, if you like, or just another corner of your mind. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I removed all present day stimuli for a time and just played tapes from Pat's collection chronologically. It would take months of constant listening...and what would I be when I was finished? Would I want to come back? Would anyone recognize me if I did?

KALX - 15 SEPTEMBER 1987
=======================

The fifth volume in the Copy Wright series has arrived - copies available soon from Iron Lung, General Speech and Sorry State. Limited quantities were available from my own little (emphasis on little) Bigcartel, but they sold out very quickly (thank you). The next three volumes are in the works and should be in hand by the end of the year. 

ESCAPE CASSETTES

=================

REALM OF TERROR

Raw crust ain't dead, but the stench is real. Six bursts of low end hyper speed mania, a complete blur fronted by desperate throaty vocals interrupted periodically by filthy churns. From the DISRUPT/DEFORMED CONSCIENCE school of brutality - with determination, without nuance. 

ACCELERATED EXTINCTION

BLUEROOM

 

I can easily imagine going all in on BLUEROOM had I found them when Love & Fear was released in 1989 and and they probably ventured up to Norman, Oklahoma (where I moved in 1990) with some frequency because that's where the cool college/alt bands played. And BLUEROOM play cool college/alt music. You picture them with candles and shit, maybe some tapestries, flowing shirts and effects pedals...that's their sound. That sound wasn't heavy or punk enough to be grunge and they lean on blues rock as much as (or more than) the brooding goth persona they portray so they were perhaps outdated before they started, but they were also from Pauls Valley in south central Oklahoma where time and/or trends may have been somewhat skewed - though that town with a scant 6,000 residents that also gave us CARNAGE and SUBSANITY, so there's that. There's a place for BLUEROOM (or there was a place for BLUEROOM in 1989) in a far away world of guitar based dark alternative rock, and Wayne Hussey aficionados will surely find some comfort in Love & Fear...which is so say that this writer found some comfort in Love & Fear...

LOVE & FEAR

ANARCHIJOS INVAZIJA

 

Thanks for Music Not Noize for this burner from Lithuania - I only knew one track from ANARCHIJOS INVAZIJA before this tape from 1995 came to me and....ooffffff now I need more! A ruthless buzzsaw guitar that lands somewhere between HELIOS CREED and STRESS leading a band cranking out stark cold metallic hardcore bursts that could form a bridge between summer '84 SIEKIERA and Legenda. It's always great to discover something new, but when it opens a door to a world full of new sounds...? Well, that's even better. 

PROTESTAS

CRUSADE

 

You ever wonder what the world would be like if middle America hardcore bands kneeled before VENOM and HATEBREED instead of CRO-MAGS? Sorry punks, Age Of Quarrel is over rated and unnecessarily revered. And Missouri wild men CRUSADE are cavernous brutality. Listen to "Karma." CRUSADE sound fucking terrifying. 

CRUSADE

PUBLIC EYE

 

This is the shit that I reach for when I need an addiction (unrelated, the opening verse of "My Michelle" has been stuck in my head for days), and PUBLIC EYE have been delivering nothing but the finest earworms for years. This tape came first - dark and addictive Portland punk born from of the remnants of AUTISTIC YOUTH and educated by WIPERS, COMPLICATIONS, OBLIVIANS and the like. I want it to go faster, I want them to go harder ("Soft Strain" in particular sounds like a lost STOOGES demo that's missing its teeth), but PUBLIC EYE are so good because they don't do what I want them to do. They're on a mission. 

PUBLIC EYE