Saturday, February 16, 2008

Excuse Me While I Bang My Fucking Head Against This Wall

click for enlarged view

Hardcore can still be a blast when done right, and for that I refer you to Clusterfuck. Reminiscent of "Group Sex"-era Circle Jerks or "In Got We Trust"-era DK's, the Clusterfuck tracks on this split are insane-- performed with all-out abandon, recorded super loud and trebly as fuck. Songs crash to a halt with a sudden, exhorted "Yeah!!", or end in a squall of feedback, just as good hardcore should. They even go so far as to drop in a riff from "Iron Man" during "Shit Eating Grin", and how funny is that?

No doubt Clusterfuck are able to pull this off owing to the fact that they're mostly made up of Connecticut punk veterans, including Donn, the singer, who also sang for Seizure and Fudge Daddy-O's and played drums for the incredible Kitty Badass, and drummer Jeff "Spaz" Coleman, who was in Seizure, Fudge Daddy-O's, and the way-overlooked Injections (if you're into pop punk, when I eventually post the Injections demo here it'll kick your ass). Donn was like the third or fourth singer for Seizure; I saw him sing for them only once, at a reunion show back in '97, but he ran around the stage like a total maniac and it was pretty friggin' hilarious.

Clusterfuck's lyrics are hilarious, also, although this split comes with the world's tiniest typewritten lyric sheet, which even after it's blown up to full size is still nearly impossible to read:


Rat Byte also shred it old school, reminding me of '80s NY/CT HC bands like Cause For Alarm, Rest In Pieces, and Violent Children. They've since broken up, but a couple of members have resurfaced in the aforementioned Guilty Faces.

Clusterfuck -

"NATO Needs Shock Treatment"

"Idle and Immoral"

"Flagfucker"

"God Told Me To Buy Stocks"

"Shit Eating Grin"

Rat Byte -

"Break Yourself" / "Get Lost"

(all of these files are now listen-only)


click for enlarged view

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

WHY???? Haven't you told me about Clusterfuck before??? Here I am watching some incoming links to my blog and ended up here. I wasn't expecting much prejudice and old as I am. Though I try hard to listen to every new band I come across I don't find that much interesting stuff. But my Clusterfuck is what I've been waiting for. Yeah you can hear a little bit Jello in the singers voice but they got a sound total of their own. AWESOME!!!

gsdgsd13 said...

"NATO Needs Shock Treatment" is my favorite song title of the ... day? Week? Year?

Great stuff. And glad to see you finally back!

Brushback said...

"I don't find that much interesting stuff"

Ouch!

Hey, Pete-- I can grab a copy of the Clusterfuck/Rat Byte 7" for you the next time I'm at Brass City Records, if you don't think you'd be able to track down a copy on your own.

Greg: It's funny, because I know a guy named Nato, so when I first saw the title uncapitalized on the record sleeve, I thought the song might be about him...

Anonymous said...

Would love to get a copy of the split. I must add that I don't find that much NEW interesting stuff.

I sent Clusterfuck an email yesterday and hold and behold they're gonna send me their whole catalog. I don't know if the split is included but in case it isn't I'll let you know and I'll pay to get it to Sweden.

Brushback said...

I'm sure they'll get the split to you-- they seem to be nice guys, plus I don't think they have all that much else to do. :P

Hopefully they'll include their LP, of which I think there's something like only 300 copies of on vinyl...

Anonymous said...

Hey brushback!
Can you please send me an email to remind me to link you? info@kbdrecords.com

Got the LP and their 7" but not the split. Awesome stuff and thanks to you for making me discover them. The split would be cool. Can you get one and send to Sweden? I'll Paypal you the money.

Brushback said...

Pete, I'll have to check the next time I'm at that record store (they had an extra copy the last time I looked, but that was a couple of months ago). If they have it, no big deal, I'll just send it to you.

Anonymous said...

Dood

Its Donn II...the scourge of all that is CT/AZ punk...like a roach that just wont stop pooping on your silerware

I sent you an exclusive demo track from our unfinished six song EP..due out...well...soonish.

I'm psyched you did a WUSSIES blog. I started that band with Jack and barreled thru two Eps and many shows before BAD DREAMHOUSE stole me away. I miss Jack all the time. That dumbass...life die young nonsense. He would have made a GREAT crabby old man.

anyways...I need a back-up copy of that CF/RatByte EP...whos gonna hook a midlife pantload up?

D


p.s.- I have a venuse now...about 60 shows thus far and no issues. WAY smaller then the original Anthrax. You'd love it....for about 5 minutes. See link beelow

Brushback said...

Donn,

Boy do I feel like a big shot now! Thanks for the demo track-- gee, a Clusterfuck song with handclaps, you're starting to sound like Fudge Daddy-O's now.. :)

I've got two copies of the Clusterfuck/Rat Byte split, but one's already promised out to Pete from KBD, unless I send you my original copy.... don't see much of that record around anymore (tho if I do see another one at Brass City Records, I'll snap it up for you).

Anonymous said...

Pop?! hahahahahahahahaha what?

If I have pulled off a 44 second long pop song then I do indeed earn a cookie!

You know I do whatever wherever musically...20 second long Poison Idea thingie next to 44 second long speedpop handclap thingie.

Thats what I loved most about CT and the scene back then...lots of scene rules that were just dyin to be broken and an AZ transplant in a dress dyin to do it.

Brushback said...

Who said pop?!?

Brushback said...

Hey, Pops-- the mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files. I've moved them all to my Vox account (which is accesible through any of the listen-only links), and added another Rat Byte song ("Wait") that wasn't included in the original blog post. For those of you who missed the boat, I will do my best to respond to any e-mailed requests for the original files.

tqrater said...

ANYONE WHO CAN READ THIS:

I AM ATTEMPTING A BIG PROJECT OF
A WRITTEN HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
PUNK ROCK!! IT WILL BE A ZINE AND HOPEFULLY A BOOK...

If anyone wants to be a part of it, write something, tell a story, share some photos, flyers etc. Please get in touch with me.

-dave
tacolove at gmail.com

I used to be in The Severed from 96-98 or so.