SICK LLAMA

 

I was listening to this and wondering: "What if I were writing a proper 'review' and not just an accompanying blurb?" So I redirected my brain energy and came up with this...
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SICK LLAMA - Over Sleep (Fag Tapes, 2010)

"An extremely trying hour."

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OVER SLEEP

A MIX OF TAPES

 I try to post compilations on Fridays just because routine can be healthy sometimes. Gonna pump things up a bit because it's Thursday and post a few tapes that were kicking around with no covers...

SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The Arkansas SHUT THE FUCK UP! The bass/drums/vocals SHUT THE FUCK UP! I posted their (other?) demo a few years ago and the link is still live. This one is just on a commercial blank with a hand written label, but the sound is unmistakable. Thirteen songs here...might be a tape of the EP, might also not be a tape of the EP. Too many tapes too early in the morning to bust it out and check and besides, that band was amazing so there's nothing wrong with having the songs twice, you know?

GREG INGRAHAM
One of the coolest artifacts from Pat's immense collection, four instrumentals recorded by AVENGERS guitarist Greg Ingraham in 1984/85. Serious WIPERS vibes on the opening cut, then veering into laid back rock with a(n almost) Fahey bent before the gorgeous closer "Moon All Alone." Someone should re/issue this. 

20•4 AUGUST
No idea where this came from - just a loose cassette with a handwritten label that reads 20•4 August. Some metal, some prog, some punk, some outsider sounds - an excellent hour of sound with no track listing to guide you. And it's a mix tape...so I'm staying within my self imposed parameters. 

SOUP
More legendary (early) East Bay punk. Karoline told me that the kids in Milwaukee and Madison were all obsessed with this tape, and freaked out when the bass player rolled through their scene on a road trip. I get it, but it doesn't really to anything special for me - I like it as an place in time more than as a sonic experience (the tape is an original and well partied - I wouldn't mind if someone could scan me a copy of the cover, just saying). You can absolutely hear the (later) East Bay sound formulating here though, and that bass player drew the cover for Dookie. 

THE SKINFLUTES
Low key legendary Bay Area band, probably most famous as Sarah Kirsch's first outfit. Later became SAWHORSE (an equally weird but objectively better moniker) and had a killer EP on Ebullition. I posted some of (more of?) these tracks a few years ago too, but you might have missed it...and this is a different tape. 

CORRUPT YOUTH
There's an OP IVY cover, but most of this demo has a harder, sloppier edge. I feel like I'm inside Mission Records on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in 2001 and I'm watching some band from Missouri playing like their life depends on it. 

LASSIE
Not to be confused with the German LASSIE, the New Orleans LASSIE are a demented, soulful and angular punk experience - like TELEVISION reborn in the midst of the NWI punk scene of the early 2010s. My tape has a classy and stylish handwritten label but no song titles or anything....if this post demonstrates anything, it demonstrates that a little mystery keeps things interesting. 

WILD CHILD

Someone's gonna know what this shit is (and I hope they tell the rest of us?). Don't know how it ended up on my shelf, don't know what the band is (there's a W and a C so I'm going with that until further information becomes available), don't know what the song titles are (or if there are song titles). That doesn't leave very much space for things that I do know, so let me tell you this: New Century punks injecting '70 D. Crash fire and '80s D. Yow danger freak energy into hard and fast modern hardcore is a really good idea. Guitar on the dreary third track. The drugged out vocals on the fifth. Hell, the drums on the fifth too. The B side collage that hits like MILK CULT minus the beats. This tape is a total killer, and all I've really got to offer you is a W and a C....

W C

UPDATE: The band is called WILD CHILD. They were from Minneapolis. 

ROTARY CLUB

 

Based on analytical analysis, most of you have missed out on the recent vinyl slab from Reno, Nevada's ROTARY CLUB (all hail digital technology - the folks at Iron Lung HQ have a digital version for your ear holes). Two doses of precision punk that learn from the lessons of the masters without plagiarizing, it's a truly perfect punk single and I cannot recommend it enough....but this blog is (still) about tapes, and ROTARY CLUB crammed some of their magic into a little red plastic shell last year and I just can not get enough of this shit. You're going to hear folks throw around the KBD tag a lot and I'm certainly not going to disagree even though it doesn't tell the whole story. This shit is thick and sassy and it swings like nothing I've heard in forever, but it also hits hard and the songs are a master class in punk song craft. Like....what if KARP did a record on DANGERHOUSE in 1979? Think for a minute about how that might feel, because ROTARY CLUB do it like that. Then consider that all of the lyrics are land line telephone themed and you have something (a band? a project? ...a movement?) that's only scratching the surface of something great. 

HUNG UP ON RITUAL

HAGGUS / ALBATROS / DISEMBOWELER / MEATUS

 

I suppose you have to be in the right mental state - or perhaps in a permanently wrong mental state - for these sounds to make sense, but some people live and breathe this shit every day. ALBATROS has a song titled "RawMinceGrind Forever." DISEMBOWELER uses Simpsons samples and has a tracked called "Itchy And Scratchy." HAGGUS open the tape with "Mincecoe Warfare." And what about MEATUS...? They spend four minutes churning through tracks like "Preparation Of Digestive Fluids" and "Odour Characteristic Of Fats." But if your head is in the right place...then there's no place you'd rather be.

RAW MINCE GRIND FOREVER

INVECTIVA

 

If you can't get behind the first song then you likely don't need to listen to the rest. But if you can get with the heavy rap/hardcore that opens INVECTIVA's only (?) release from 1999, then a half hour of political DIY hardcore with tinny guitars and gruff yo-core vocals awaits you. They branch out eventually but never stray too far from their mission - casual Word As Law vibes on "To Somebody Fucked Up The States" drag you right back into "Enema" which is probably the groove heaviest track on the tape. This shit is a product of the time...I was there for it and I'm honestly surprised that I'm here for it now (and I most definitely am).

SOLUCIÓN IS A SHOT GUN

EARTH JERKS

 

I find the sound/s of EARTH JERKS positive. Like movement after moment of that scene where the sun crests over the earth's horizon as the subject floats into nothingness to their certain end. The sounds are dark, expansive, patient...hopeful - as if that aforementioned end is the beginning of a new/er world. 

THE WEST IS A MESS