Too Many Kids Are Screwed Up

The "Everybody's Scene" book release party on Friday night at Cafe Nine was packed, so much so that when I showed up I was told that the club was already at capacity and that I couldn't get in-- and I got there at 9:00, which is about an hour earlier than I normally show up for a Cafe Nine event. I eventually found my way into the club through the back side door, thanks to a girl who recognized me from the Everbody's Scene video trailer and said, "Aren't you the guy who goes to shows at Whitney House, too? Because before we saw you in that trailer, we thought you were just some old guy from the neighborhood who wandered into shows by accident," as she ran interference while I hustled into the side door, right on her heels. Yeah, okay, pretty funny, ha ha.



Four bands played, including Crippled Youth, who went on second and played the "Join The Fight" EP from 1986 as their whole set. Amazingly, they sounded really really good. I'm not one for reunions-- to borrow a thought from Jim Testa, there's a line between creation and re-creation that needs to stay where it is -- but Crippled Youth blew right past that line, and made songs that they'd written when they were 15 years old sound relevant again. I think my hang-up about reunions is that a band's music can be re-invented, but the words stay frozen in that time and place when you were first hearing them. That's not a problem I had while watching Crippled Youth's set, which is probably a credit to the way Matt was singing.

Two more bands, Lost Generation and C.I.A., played after Crippled Youth, but I was getting tired of having nowhere to stand so I left. I did get to talk to Matt Warnke outside for about 20 minutes, which is probably the longest he and I have ever talked, so that was cool. I saw a bunch of other cool people there, too, like Bruce Wingate, Angela (from the band Atlas, I posted an old interview with them back in September), Joe Snow, Pete Morcey, Al Ouimet, Darryl Ohrt (No Milk on Tuesday), John Sex Bomb (who did the introductions in-between bands), even Stefan and Mark from Estrogen Highs. There was a free vegan buffet, but it had already been decimated before I got through the door-- don't any of you punks have cupboards at home??




As for the book itself (which you can order at anthraxclubbook.com), it's really fantastic; I give tons of credit to Chris Daily, who took on what must've turned out to be an incredible amount of work with this project, and got the book finished long before I would've guessed it was going to be all done. I went to shows at the Anthrax for 4-1/2 years, from '85 through '89, and I never knew about at least half of the stuff that gets brought up in the book (like, I never knew that there was more than one original Stamford location). The photos and stories are all great, but the gig list, for being one of the smallest sections (12 pages), is one of the more useful parts of the book. I can remember most of the bands I saw at the Stamford Anthrax-- Youth of Today and Crippled Youth multiple times, Albany Style, Contraband, Seizure, Ed Gein's Car, Fit for Abuse, Bobby Steele and The Undead, True Blue (pre-Underdog), Psycho, Cancerous Growth-- but the gig list finally helps fill in all the gaps in my memory, like the '87 Urge Overkill show at the Norwalk Anthrax which I thought was with the Didjits, but was actually with Pussy Galore... plus, apparently I saw Verbal Assault and Pleased Youth at the Stamford Anthrax, but I don't remember it. A lot of the pictures are amazing, especially the older ones-- there's a picture of Moby in a band called Caleigh Soul which is so new-wave it's painful. If you were around at all back then, this book is an unbelievable thing to read.

Oh, and in the last three minutes before I squeezed my way back out the door, I took some pictures...

Got Shit When I Wanted Much

It's been a while since I've listened to "Grande Rock" or "High Visibility", but if you've been waiting to check out any of the mid-period Hellacopters stuff-- when they basically morphed into a Sonic's Rendezvous Band knockoff-- and're wondering if the "Disappointment Blues" EP kicks ass over either of the albums that were recorded after it, the answer is kinda yes, pretty much. A hodge-podge of mostly covers, singles, compilation tracks, and the like, this thing's pretty ripping from start to finish, even with the noticeable differences in sound quality from track to track (owing to the nature of how it was put together-- it's not a big deal, though). All in all, I would say that this is a pretty tight way to get your rock on.




The Hellacopters -

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"Disappointment Blues"

"Heaven"

I'll Just Have To Accept That You'll Never Fucking Get It

Bombs Away get credit for one of the better Ct. demos I've heard this year as well as one of the worst live sets I've seen all year, which earns them some kind of an award I guess. I still haven't fully made up my mind about them yet (I'll have to see a live show that doesn't completely suck), which doesn't change the fact the first track on their new demo still sounds pretty good to my ears-- sorta like a screamier Empire State Games, or something. You can listen to the first track right here, or you can download the entire demo (recorded at Will Killingsworth's Dead Air Studios) for free over here.


Bombs Away -

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"In Your Parents Basement"

If I Had Only Six Minutes To Live I'd Type A Lot Faster

Here's is a press release that someone actually wrote for this ^ band:

The result is an album that crawls from the primordial ooze of anti-parent culture sound to stand on newly formed legs, moving forward with carefully considered steps. Here, sibling harmonies are offered to The Wickerman death-dub, tom-toms locked in hypnotic BPM. Guitars alternate between glistening pop tones, ethereal bliss-out and raw rhythmic ruin. Throughout, each song delves deep into the blank gaze, the experience of everyday living as viewed through the tired eyes of uncertainty and doubt. It's all kinda "vibey".

Ho-lee fucking shit, dude, you're killing me. I'm literally crying my eyes out from laughing over here...

This Doesn't Shine But It Protects Me

If there's such a thing as October Days Lite, then Valley of Kings could be it. The same brooding melodies, the same murky half-whispered vocals, the same surfy guitar parts and stinging basslines... Valley of Kings has 'em, only theirs are not nearly as dazzling or as interesting, of course. Still, had I known this, I might've given "Victory Garden" a few extra spins back in the day, but Valley of Kings weren't at all what I wanted to listen to in 1985 when this LP first came out, as I was neck deep into hardcore at the time. I did run an ad for "Victory Garden" in my zine that year, though that was only because Incas was also involved with putting out some C.I.A., 76%, and Lost Generation records (in fact, I think I traded the ad space for a copy of the second Lost Generation LP).

Not all of "Victory Garden" moves with any sort of October Days-style punk tempos, though; a good amount of this has the pall of early R.E.M. jangle hanging over it, as did most college rock back in those days, and it seems that Valley of Kings themselves weren't fully invested in the "rock" songs on this record, as they buried most of them on the b-side. In any case, this is still a fairly interesting document if you're at all interested in the '80s New Haven-area indie rock scene (you know-- The Grotto, Miracle Legion, Dumptruck, Bleached Black, "Some New Ruins", stuff like that), which may or may not be all two or three of you, who knows. Plus you get to check out the wonderfully arid production which passed for a good recording back then.




Valley of Kings -

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"The Distance"

"Where Have You Gone?"

"The Plunge"

"Today You're Laughing"


For anyone who wants a bigger chunk of this record, here are
all 9 (of the 12) tracks that I ripped in one file:

Valley of Kings - Victory Garden LP (Incas, 1985).zip

You're The Kids That Don't Understand

Despite the low-key packaging (plain black center-hole sleeve with no other info or inserts), Starvation Army's self-released "Ticket to Oblivion" 12-inch is a pretty good dose of solid late-'80s Cleveland rock, even if some of the quirky touches that made their two earlier 7"-ers on St. Valentine so great are missing. The few attempts at curveballs here end up wide of the mark-- the jazzy "Wildly Mispent", for instance-- but the rest is straight-ahead punk rock. Plus, one of Starvation Army's strong points was always Fraser Sims' vocal style, and here it's as hard to pin down as ever; try figuring out who he's trying to sound like, or if there's anyone else who sounds like him, and you'll just be left scratching your head. One of my favorite overlooked bands from the '80s, if you haven't already noticed.




Starvation Army -

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"I'm a Saint"

"Tarantula"

"Gunfighter"

"Disconnected Boy"

I Will Leave Some Spare Time To Breathe

As the Died Pretty proved on some of their later releases, there's a fine line between really good rawk stuff and shitty college rock; a step or two in either direction, and before you know it you're Toad the Wet Sprocket or the Mighty Lemon Drops. What kept the Died Pretty out of the ditch, more often than not, was the sheer heft of Brett Myers' guitar playing.

I'd already thoroughly digested Died Pretty's less-languid "Mirror Blues" 7-inch (which I still have) by the time I heard "Free Dirt", so when I first dropped a needle on this it didn't grab my attention right away. I can still remember how I was standing off to the side of my room, barely listening, when the first of one of Brett Myers' impeccable, wailing guitar solos came pouring out of the speakers. I immediately stopped whatever else I was doing and stood in awe for a few seconds.

The guitar solo on "Just Skin" (a fairly crappy song otherwise) is literally like nothing I'd ever heard before or since.




Died Pretty -

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"Life to Go (Landsakes)"

"Just Skin"

I Got My Ass Kicked All Over Again

While the Liquor Giants' definitive high point remains their two near-flawless CDs on Matador in the mid-to-late 90's, this early single nets a near-perfect score in its own right. In fact, if I was putting together a list of the best pop-rock songs ever-- starting with "September Gurls", "Another Girl, Another Planet", "God Only Knows", "Girl of My Dreams", and moving on from there-- "Just Might Cry" is making the list, also. Sounding somewhat like the Stones' "Monkey Man" if Big Star had recorded it, Ward Dotson's vivid tale of a guy getting kicked out by his girlfriend ("I'm out sleeping in my car, she's keeping my guitar... you know, I shoulda grabbed my shoes") wouldn't be nearly as great if the lyrics weren't so perfectly droll and spot-on. Much like "September Gurls", when you listen to "Just Might Cry" you can feel the hurt, even if at the same time it's doing you a favor by making you feel slightly better about yourself.




Liquor Giants -

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"Just Might Cry"

It May Not Look Too Bright

Crent was a side project of Kent Steedman of the Celibate Rifles, and the a-side to this single is a primo chunk of drawn-out bliss/psych pop, with some wicked guitar stun suspended in mid-air over a great locked-in bassline. The b-side, which I'm including just for ha-ha's, is mostly inept but in a good sort of way, like one of those early KBD tracks that has one foot barely in punk rock with the other foot stuck in bad '70's hair-wag. There's an honest-to-god thrash part for the verse, and then a really sludgey bridge with some back-masking ("it's a fuckin stupid world" backwards) right before eight or nine seconds of dead silence. The whole thing's so friggin' goofy that it's gotta be intentional.

You'll notice some extra crispity crackly goodness, only because this record was missing its white paper inner sleeve and bouncing around at the bottom of a 7" bin for a while before I bought it. Normally when I have a record that's a bit scuffed I try to replace it with a better copy before I post it, but in this case I just said "screw it" and went with what I had. Punk rock!




Crent -

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"9.K.?"

"F.S.W."