VACATION MIX TAPES

The Escape is going on vacation and then going on tour and then going on vacation again. Please find me with RAKTA starting next weekend, then both STERILE MIND and NO STATIK will be playing Everything Is Not OK III the weekend after that....and I believe it will be the first time I have played in Oklahoma since 2002. Then it's off to Mexico for a week, just to make a general nuisance of myself before I trek back to SF through the desert. To tide you over, here are the second and third mix tapes in a series that I made for some dear friends. As I mentioned in the post of the first tape (which was Volume 2 when sequenced alphabetically) a couple of weeks ago, there are common themes through the tapes, several shared artists, and all three start with the same track, and I will likely listen to each of the several times on my drive to Austin which will start in a few hours. 

R4Rv.1//17•C

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R4Rv.3//17•P

Friendship is to be valued and treasured, and should be treated with the respect that it deserves. 

ESKIZO

Seven bursts of ramshackle drum/bass DBeat violence. 

ESKIZO

ATARAXIA

Perfectly executed bombastic Japanese DBeat hardcore punk. Loud, fast, massive guitars, howling vocals, just the tiniest hint of melody in the riffs...check the "ooopphh!!" after the drums start "Shinjutsu" and if you are raging then you aren't listening. This 2014 demo is exactly what it's supposed to be, and it's exactly what you need. 

I FEAR WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

SPACE IS HAUNTED

Lurching slogs, lumbering forward with unmistakable and endearing determination. 

Analogies abound.

SPACE IS HAUNTED

LATENT IMAGE

The unearthed gems from the would-have-been commercial success stories that never were...the stories are mysteries, and the cassette bins at your local charity shop are likely hiding a few of the gems. Late 1980s suburban Bay Area glam/punk/schlock, LATENT IMAGE harness elements of THE CULT, (then) contemporary IGGY POP, Sunset Strip leads, and Eldridge pomp. Some of the songs are too long (especially the 6+ minute opener "You're Still The One"), but there's something that just clicks about this one....maybe it's because they are clearly so deadly serious. The solo in "Working Girls" is brat pack montage gold, and there's not a hint of irony. I picture some dudes in a garage with flowing locks, who would have their dreams crushed just a few years later when the dirty and underproduced sounds of Seattle took over the airwaves...struggling to add the grit they had spent a would-have-been career sweeping off. Keep digging, my friends.

THROUGH THE KEYHOLE

MAGGOT MINDED

Hard to comprehend that the seeds of the current (and now, I suppose, recently past?) crop of mutant hardcore in and around Olympia, Washington were planted more than a decade ago. But alas, it was 2006 when we shared a mobile home with WHITE BOSS at a show that ended with a massive trash fire out back and chants of "MEGA! MEGA! MEGA!" as freeks threw compressed combustibles into the blaze. Low fidelity reality from the radical libertarian void, circa 2007: SEX VID, SISTER, FUNEROT, HIV, HORRIBLE, and LOOSE CHANGE. Pull up your trousers.

MAGGOT MINDED

SHAKING HEADS

It's cool if I don't always have the right words, isn't it? Because the things that SHAKING HEADS remind me of sound so dreadfully typical so I'm going to keep me references to myself and wait for yours. I'll just say that it's good. And that's it's perfect for those punk occasions when hardcore isn't actually king. I mean, hardcore is obviously king, but we don't always want to be in the king's court all the time, right? 

SHAKING HEADS