STAND UP

 

Got a killer box of heat from Indonesia a couple of weeks ago, and though I've only my journey it's clear I made the right choice by just saying "uhhhh, I guess I'll take all of them." The LAST DRIVE tape that went up last week is a solid DIY street punk slammer, but this shit....? STAND UP gonna melt your damn face off. As tempted as I am to dissect the pieces of other subgenres that make up The Blunt Reality Of Conformity, this is really just a ripping and relentless hardcore punk tape and I'm not really sure what more you need to hear. 

THE BLUNT REALITY OF CONFORMITY

ELVIS PRESLEY

 

Of course Elvis is easy to criticize. The schlock movies, the extravagance, the less than glorious swan song (which was actually extremely fucking glorious - you're not crying, I'm crying), the simple fact that he's the single biggest American pop star of the 20th century makes him an obvious target. By 1968, Elvis had seemingly run his course - the new rock 'n roll was taking over and he had a string of forgettable movie soundtracks in his wake and....he just wasn't cool. Or didn't feel cool. Or whatever. His first rebirth was this NBC special - campy, powerful, led by a voice that is pure fucking gold. The whole thing is worth watching, from the acoustic "sitting around the campfire in a leather bodysuit" segments to the over the top choreographed routines it's all quintessential Elvis and demonstrated that he was The King before anyone called him The King. Just twenty-one years from the release of "That's All Right" in 1956 to his death on this date in 1977 - to think that he needed to remind people who he was halfway through that run kinda boggles my mind. So yeah….Elvis is an easy target for cheap shots, if you’re trying to seem cheap. 

ELVIS

Also - the tape is pretty warbled and wrecked in a few spots but you should really be looking up the special and watching with your eyes anyway. There's a reason he's on a pedestal, y'all.

SHAKA

 

Fierce and frantic Oklahoma hardcore punk duplicated onto garbage tapes and laden with samples that somehow mark the band as outsiders. Well..the fukkn music marks them as outsiders (check "Mean Mug" as a perfect example) but this shit is clearly by and for misfits and the samples just give it that little chef's kiss. Maybe that doesn't make sense.....maybe you haven't listened yet. When you do? You'll understand. 

'S' IS FOR SHAKA

ZIG ZAG

 

Hopelessly brilliant late '10s North American hardcore punk firmly rooted in early '80s North American hardcore punk. To listen to "I Can't Die" is to wish that you could die....so listen. 

ZIG ZAG

HOT LOAD

When Trejo first told me about HOT LOAD, I wondered to myself how the crew of punks he was describing were going to be able to pull off being in a hard rock 'n roll band, how they were going to rein it in enough to make it work. These brutes are hardwired for chaos punk, so much so that MOTÖRHEAD is subdued and casual by comparison, so how on earth were they going to make this work. Answer? They don't emulate the art form - that annihilate the art form. Hyper charged motörpunk played punk by punks for punks, captured live in Sendai, Japan last year.To hear Trejo Trejo announce "this song's called 'Hot Load' by HOT LOAD" is to know that you're about to get your ass blown off. 

TO LIVE & DIE IN SENDAI 

LAST DRIVE

 

Just like the title suggests - two and a half decades of clenched fist hook-laden punk from Indonesia's LAST DRIVE. A dash of Oi!, a healthy dose of RAMONES, a liberal smattering of hard edged determined street punk (read: punk from the actual streets) and you have yourself twenty blasts from a crew of actual legends.

25 YEARS OF SINGALONG AND SHOUTING

PUTRID BOYS

 

Spent a couple of weeks on the East Coast for work last month and caught a hot fukkn gig in a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC. My pal Mike and I rolled up, we knew no one and we were a solid decade older than anyone else in attendance...so basically a perfect gig. Crushed a beer or three, watched the kids practice their dance floor moves on the sidewalk, found a nice air conditioned balcony and got our faces melted by SCRAMBLE, NECRON 9 and these local mutants called PUTRID BOYS. Then we hopped on some bikes and rolled back to the hotel and went to sleep. It was cool. 

TAPE #1