FUGITIVE KIND

FUGITIVE KIND's members are the nucleus of Thrillhouse Records, the store and label and loose collective that are, intentionally or otherwise, shaping my neighborhood's punk scene, much the same way that Mission Records did in the early '00s. They play dirty and loose, the way the neighborhood flows, but this demo gives their songs a clarity that sometimes gets lost in their live shows (playing on a toxic beach in the wind while battling the rumble of a generator will do that to your songs).  Zoe's vocals have an off kilter intensity that mirrors the often deeply personal lyrics, and Fred's drums have gotten infinitely more intense over the years since I first saw FUGITIVE KIND (basically, he hits harder...a LOT harder). Mid tempo and slightly melodic dirges that sometimes groove, but usually they flow like a sketched out over the hill macho punk doing that creepy crawl through the pit that he is about to start against the will of everyone around him...slow motion anger building and lurching, just waiting for the right time to explode. That guy is what this demo sounds like but the demo never explodes, it just seizes that moment of anticipation and builds a mood around it.  Great songs buried under a wash of distortion and emotion...exactly where they belong.

FUGITIVE KIND

BAD ENTRAILS 3

A few years back in Milwaukee we hosted a monthly mix tape exchange, and virtually every brand of mix passed through our little club, some were executed brilliantly and others were just a chore to listen to, either due to the songs selected or the complete lack of flow...but digging into the tapes was a pleasure every month regardless. I post mix tapes and/or compilations every Friday, surely you all know this by now, and surely you also realise that there is an art to constructing the perfect mix tape. If making a tape for a prospective love interest, there must be special attention paid to the lyrical content of the songs - you want just the right amount of your emotions conveyed through the words of others, without overwhelming the receiver with gushing love songs. If you are making a tape for a friend passing through on tour, you might want to lean heavily towards road worthy jams from bands like ZZ TOP, MOTORHEAD, or perhaps the more modern PHARAOH OVERLORD. Maybe you are making a tape to introduce a friend to a certain genre you are fond of, and if so you would be smart to include starter bands like SUBHUMANS, THE DAMNED or CHAOS UK to invite your friend into the wonderful world of UK punk rock, but if your friend had already crossed that threshold and wanted to delve deeper, then filling a tape with NAKED, REBEL ARMY and KRONSTADT UPRISING would help expose him/her to lesser known bands from the same genre. But sometimes mix tapes (or, in this case, a compilation) manage to do it all, and those mix tapes are special. Bad Entrails 3 is special. During the ensuing 90 minutes, you will surely hear songs that you are well familiar with, total hits that most punks already know and love, but you will also no doubt be exposed to new bands. There are bands here that I've heard of for years, seen the names on fliers, or maybe heard a song here and there, but these are the second tier bands that fly under the radar even though they cranked out great material...material that is included on this tape. Bad Entrails 3 is as close to a perfectly crafted mix tape as I've ever rocked, it moves from fast ragers to darker slower songs effortlessly; the flow of the tape is constant and maintains your attention from start to finish. Songs range from 16 seconds to over 6 minutes, but I'm not bored for even a moment, and I never feel like I'm getting jerked around by poor transitions. I wish I had access to Bad Entrails 1 and 2, but alas, volume 3 is sadly where my entrails start and finish, so relish in this: the perfect hardcore mix tape.

BAD ENTRAILS 3 Side A

BAD ENTRAILS 3 Side B

Also, this is where I am today, and what I'm doing: RW24. Can't ride unfortunately, due to the surgery earlier this year, but I will be at the start and the finish, and plan to man a checkpoint for the entire 24 hours.  I have a feeling that this mix will play no small role in getting me through.

SIGNALS

This three piece has done their homework, and have managed to take psychedelic Krautrock and combine it with late '80s Wax Trax acts like CLOCK DVA to make a seven song cassette as thoroughly engaging as anything I've heard in quite some time. "Return To Zero" starts the tape with jerky club rhythms and space ship guitars that take me back to The Wreck Room circa 1989, and then "Passage" serves as a...well, passage into the abrasive and aptly titled "Anyuerism" which sounds like a lost MINISTRY offering with about 2/3 of the overdubs missing. Side A closes with an eight minute odyssey, featuring samples from one of my favorite documentaries of the last 10 years, upping the creep factor exponentially. Side B is more of the same - equal parts HAWKWIND and THROBBING GRISTLE, and closing with a 64 second burner called "Damage Report" that leaves you yearning for more. Fukkn great release from Linear B Tapes. 

MALEFICIA

RAT DAMAGE

It's been rather fashionable in the last few years for fast and furious hardcore bands to sneak on slow and heavy dirge onto their records. DEAD NATION did so a while ago, and it was the best song on their last EP, and more recently VACANT STATE released a pretty sweet EP with one jam on the flip side that makes listening to the "fast" side seem rather unnecessary. Well, Sacramento's RAT DAMAGE have skipped all the bullshit and are concentrating on those slow and mid tempo hardcore songs that nail you right in the fukkn gut. "Warmonger" is doused with a generous helping of Sunset Strip sleaze, but there isn't a hint of cheese, due at least in part to the venomous vocal delivery. Half of these songs have a hint of goth, but all of them drive at that motorpunk pace and command serious attention, if not a generous headbang. This four song tape is a precursor (hence the title) to a record titled Cursed, which I await anxiously.

PRECURSED

SECTION 46 - While Injustice Continues

This is the other demo from Victoria, BC's SECTION 46. More backing vocals throughout on this one, and I confess that they too often venture into "whoa-whoa" territory, but the pure punk power of these songs is indisputable. Still no song titles for this, or The Downtrodden demo, hopefully some old head from Canada can help the rest of us out with that. 16 songs in 35 minutes. 

WHILE INJUSTICE CONTINUES

VIOLENT PARTY: SLANG // STAGNATION

Courtesy of Bastard Rock Records comes Violent Party vol. 1, the first in (hopefully) a series of live Japanese split tapes. Sapporo's SLANG finally made it stateside this past summer, and punks from Texas up to the east coast finally got to see for themselves what I have known to be true since 2000 - that a SLANG live show is something other worldly. A friend who toured with them said that their live prowess became almost something of a joke...they were simply so fukkn good every night that you could only laugh in amazement.  Their music hit our shores a few years back when Schizophrenic (ok, Canadian shores, but they are connected to ours, so in this instance I'm going to stick with "our" shores) repressed the Skilled Rhythm Kills LP, but as great as that record is, live is the way to experience SLANG, and these three songs (recorded in July 2009) demonstrate that to the fullest, albeit through a rather hollow recording. There's a new split out and a new LP due in the coming months, both on Prank. STAGNATION took my ears by storm with a four track assault on Whispers In Darkness in '08, but even that could not prepare me for these three live numbers recorded this past January - total and complete mindfuck noisecore that is hopelessly addictive, perhaps chiefly because I can hear the songs that are buried under the white wash, and they are fukkn great. I missed them by days the last time I was in Japan, and this teaser puts them high on my 'must see' list for the future. "Elementum Dance Party" is my soundtrack for the day, what's yours? Cheers to Bastard Rock (no contact information or I would gladly share it with you) for this ear bleeding cassette.

VIOLENT PARTY vol. 1

SLEEPING BODY

I first heard SLEEPING BODY from Karoline, and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Maybe it was a live thing, I thought, but that EP just sounded boring and atonal to me...fast forward 15 years and I devour every song on that single. Not sure whether my horizons expanded or my mind opened, but now this Ft. Worth, Texas band seems so bare and exposed, that I find it impossible to not be drawn in. SLEEPING BODY were a part of the chaotic early '90s community vaguely associated with (by sound, if not by necessarily by community) BORN AGAINST, MOSS ICON and early Gravity Records output, and with the exception of BORN AGAINST, most of that world skipped me completely. Jerky rhythms and excessively harsh vocals typify SLEEPING BODY, and this WFMU recording leads me to believe that their live shows were even more abrasive than the record. 36 minutes on the radio in 1992 that will not appeal to fans of straightforward punk/hardcore, but rather exemplify a new direction that was taken by bands struggling to break free from the confines (both musically and ideologically) and constraints placed on them by their adopted community. DIY, raw as hell, bare and exposed. 

SLEEPING BODY on WFMU 21/12/92