We're Done Waiting For You

I've said this many many times, but this is most likely my favorite rock record of the past half-decade or so (King Tuff "Was Dead" is probably second-- I'd have to check my notes). If the triumvirate of "Sorry Ma", "Stink", and "Hootenanny" is your holy grail, then you'd practically be nuts not to be knocked out by this. I know a couple of people who'll disagree with me, but I like this LP way better than anything by Ringers or Bent Outta Shape, that's for sure. (The Chinese Telephones singles collection, "Democracy", is also pretty top notch.)

Not to gloss over the a-side, because this thing's chock fulla hits-- besides, "I Can't Be Right" and "Back To You Again" are two of my favorite songs on this record-- but it's the b-side (where they slow things down a little bit) that really drives the greatness of this record home. I'm posting four songs from the b-side here, but don't forget that you can still pick up the whole thing on CD from It's Alive, plus the vinyl version is pretty easy to find also even though they only pressed 200 each of the colored vinyl ones. It's also worth noting that lead guitarist Daniel James is now fronting the sorely underappreciated Daniel James Gang.




Chinese Telephones -

"I Think I Can Breathe Now"

"This Time Next Year"

"Crying In the Chapel"

"It's Starting Again"

This Plan Is Going Nowhere

I'm not sure what's up with Attentat these days-- all I know is that I've got these crappy photos that I've been sitting on for almost a year, waiting for when their 7" came out (I could've sworn there was going to be a split 7" with Oiltanker, but now there's no mention of it anywhere). I've also been out of the loop on Whitney House lately, since there's no place to look up shows anymore with myspace being dead, although I found out that I missed a bunch of shows (Oiltanker, Iron Hand, Attentat) in December because someone posted some pretty good photos on Flickr from them... way better photos than any of the ones I've ever taken at Whitney House, that's for sure. So anyway, now that my cruddy photography skills have been beaten into the ground, here's some of the photos I'd been sitting on, plus a track from Attentat's "Supposed To Rot" demo. I think there's an even newer tape out now on Coagulate Tapes, but I haven't seen it yet. Jeez, it's like I can't do anything right.




Attentat -

"Forsaken"

I Wasted Time Hanging Out With My Friends

"If you've got the 'Everybody's Scene' book, then you've seen this photo; I'm in the back, standing behind Gavin's right shoulder. To my recollection, this is the first visual documentation of the whole 'Youth Crew' concept, which was an idea that Ray Cappo had because he was really into the whole Boston Crew image-- you know, the photos of Al Barile and 20 other guys in their letter jackets, walking through Kenmore Square. Both Ray and Porcell used to really be into the DYS and SSD record covers, for instance, and wanted to have the YOT records look the same as the XClaim! records, with a Bruce Rhodes photo taken at The Rat and so forth... they were really into duplicating those same visual images. So, this photo was our attempt at staging a Boston Crew sort of thing." --Dave Run It, from Double Cross web zine

If you wanna bump on over to Double Cross right now, you'll see the latest "where are they now" segment, featuring my dopey mug... big thanks to Chris Daly for putting the series together and including me as part of it... the photo at the top of the page was taken outside the Anthrax Club in March 1986 by Chris Schneider, the weekend that Albany Style, Youth of Today, and Crippled Youth played a show together-- that's why you can see some of the guys from all those bands in the photo, plus a few other people like Gavin Van Vlack, and of course myself behind Gavin's shoulder... as an incredible freaking coincidence, I got an envelope in the mail today from Rich Stremme (The Deacons/M-13), whom I've known since 1985 when we had the only two HC zines in the Waterbury area (Rich was from Southbury, though)-- Rich sent me his own personal copy of one of my old zines from May '86, one that I haven't seen in ages, and which happens to have an interview with Albany Style in it, from the same month that the above photo was taken... so, what the heck, to go along with the post on Double Cross and the old Anthrax photo: from that old zine of mine (which should've been called Run It #4, but instead I called it Boris #1 for some reason-- hey, N0rb stole my idea!), here's an interview I did with Dave Stein of Albany Style (also of Combined Effort Records) back in March of 1986... since we're both named Dave, he's "Dave" in the interview and I'm "D" (click on the pages to get an enlarged view of each one)... the photos alongside the interview are mine, taken at the old Stamford Anthrax, and also the Albany VFW where Dave used to put on shows... that's Gavin carrying Drew from Albany Style on his shoulders... "old school straightedge, muthafuggas!"

I Figured I'd Shoot Myself In The Foot

I'm not sure if the "Della Street" 10-inch counts as the odd duck among the Prisonshake catalog ("If you want rocked out stuff, you might want to wait til the next record... we know not everyone digs ballads and 8-minute moody workouts" --Scat label blurb), but even if it does, it's a pretty good songwriting exhibition on their part. It may not be their best record-- the "Deanna" 45 is the one I'd grab if I had to run out of the house all of a sudden, if not one of the compilations-- but it's possibly their best batch of songs... at least, as far as the three "real" songs go. I kinda wanted to post vinyl rips of all three of them here, except that you can still pick up the CD version from Scat for four bucks (I have the CD, also-- the sleeve is exactly like the vinyl version), so I'll only go with two: "Carnival Game", which is sorta rocked but not entirely, and "Molly London", the so-called ballad which has a deep, deep hook for the chorus. I really love how "From Down Here" sorta lopes along, too, thanks in part to Scott Pickering's always rock-solid drumming, but like I said, the CD can be had from Scat for cheap if you wanna hear the whole thing.




Prisonshake -

"Carnival Game"

"Molly London"

I've Been Here For Hours But Nothing's Happened Yet

Forgive me for thinking that "Say Yeah" sounds anything like "Can't Tell No One"-- it might just be the barking "1-2-3-4" to kick things off, but there's more to it than that. Just know that it's a real scorcher... Got a couple more Tyvek tapes ("Poppers" and "Live Demos Rehearsals and Screwed") after their tour stop a couple of months back, and so far after a handful of listens, "Say Yeah" is the definite standout. There's a live version of the same on the reverse of "LDRS", plus another live version on "Poppers", but it's the version on the frontside (I'm guessing it's a rehearsal demo) that kicks the most ass. I don't think this song's been released anywhere else yet, though there's been a video of "Say Yeah" up on YouTube for almost a year now, from a pretty good live set-- pro look, pro sound-- that has surprisingly less than 100 views for some of the clips... The tapes were dubbed onto a Study Skills by Terry H. Wesner cassette and then spray-painted over, by the way (hooray!!). If you're wondering what the "Screwed" means: some of the songs have been replayed slowed down and/or backwards, sorta like if someone was pressing their thumb on the tape (hence the backwards song titles-- "Mary Claims Ellen" and so forth). Not really anything worth getting excited about... this, though-- this is pretty good.


Tyvek -

"Say Yeah"

You Just Wish Someone Cared

I picked this up from Iron Lung a couple of years ago, mostly because I was already ordering the Brain Handle 7" ("Smiling"/"Smiling Again", if you've never heard it you should check it out, it's totally great). The first time I heard Eddy Current Suppression Ring, via "Primary Colours", I was knocked out right away-- a band that sounds like a cross between the first Cosmic Psychos 12" and X "Aspirations" with the directness of Feedtime, what's not to like about that-- but when I started poking around for more stuff and saw that they had this single with two 6-minute songs on it, well, there's a lot of things that can go wrong. I should've known better; as anyone else could've figured out by now, there's nothing hippie/jam-like about this at all, unless you wanna count the riff to "Demon's Demands" being taken straight from the intro to "Whipping Post".


Eddy Current Suppression Ring -

"Demon's Demands"

"I'm Guilty"

I Can Tell That You Want Me To Grow Up

I was listening to the new White Wires album for the first time yesterday-- it's on 45rpm, by the way-- and midway through the first side were two songs that practically jumped right out at me: "Did You Forget My Name" and "I Can Tell", possibly the two best songs they've ever done, both totally great songs and catchy as hell. I don't know if it's because I've got M.O.T.O. on the brain right now or what, but both songs remind me of M.O.T.O. a bit ("Magic Words", "I Can't Stop It", "The Chicks Can Tell", "It Tastes Just Like a Milkshake", stuff like that), especially in the basslines and the guitar sound. Definitely one of the finest back-to-back one-two punches I've heard on an album lately, so I figured I'd put them up here. If you're hedging on whether or not to buy this record (it just came out about a month and a half ago), check these out. The LP comes with a download card but these are my own vinyl rips, because otherwise what's the point?




White Wires -

"Did You Forget My Name"

"I Can Tell"

Even If You Lock The Door Something Gets In

Now I'm Having Trouble Keeping Track

Cheater Slicks are always one of the first bands I think about whenever I see some doofus suggesting that a band without a bass player is something new (like when that turd wrote his Medication review for the Advocate) or, even worse, something that the White Stripes invented. It's as if any indie rock that existed prior to one's own personal experience might as well be from the 1930's, for chrissakes. Not that my Cheater Slicks collection couldn't use some work-- actually, all I've got is this single and "Yer Last Record", and I didn't even really like this single ("just" an instrumental, plus a cover) when I first bought it, though it's grown on me since. The flip covers The Beckett Quintet, and the original is actually pretty interesting... you can check it out over at Garage Hangover, if you want. There's a few extra pops here, especially on the a-side, which I didn't even try to get rid of. Suck it up, it's more authentic that way.




Cheater Slicks -

"84 Ford 79"

"No Correspondence"

Misinterpret Most Of What I Said And Disregard The Rest

I first heard Hot Cops years ago through their MySpace; it might've been Jim Testa who tipped me off about them. The songs were awesome, but it was a while later before I went over to the label web site and ordered the record, oblivious to the fact that the band had long since broken up and the label web site hadn't been updated in over a year. Someone at the other end claimed my PayPal money, but obviously I never got the record. Eventually I was able to find it for two bucks from some distro that was having a clearance back about a year ago-- Traffic Street or somebody, I forget. Good thing too, cuz it's great 7". Side A is the single best thing you've ever heard from Wayne NJ, and side B is a cement mixer. If you remember how everyone thought that Squirrel Bait sounded like Hüsker Dü and The Replacements smooshed together, well, this doesn't sound like that at all.

Supposedly the guy in the band who wrote all the songs or the guitar player or someone is in a new band now, but I won't give a shit until I get my five bucks back.




Hot Cops -

"Right On Cue"

"Tragic By Design"

"Thermal Turmoil"