Maybe It's Alright That I've Got Nothing To Say

Obviously timing is no longer one of my strong points, if it ever was, since the other week I went to a show at Whitney House and ended up standing around for 45 minutes waiting for the show to start (and the last band, M-13, ended up not even playing), and then this past week I went to Whitney House again and I pretty much missed Groomers, getting there just as they were finishing their last song. Which kinda sucks, because I was really looking forward to seeing Groomers again, now that I'd finally heard the songs from their tape. All of the Groomers tapes have been dubbed-over onto leftover cassettes, and so mine happens to be on a copy of the Elvis Costello stinker, "Imperial Bedroom"; when the last Groomers song ends, "The Last Honeymoon" starts up. Someone needs to pay for my suffering.

Potty Mouth (from Massachusetts) went on after Groomers and started out a bit shaky, almost like chimp-rock for the first couple of songs, but then things fell into place and their set kept getting better and better as it went along. It was one of those things where you see a band for the first time, and you're like, "well, these guys aren't so great, maybe I should leave and go get a coffee or something. but hey, this song here is alright. wait, I like this song too. oh, wow, this song is really great. hey, this is starting to sound pretty good now." Then the last song they played, "Hazardville", was their best song of the night, reminding me a lot of Dis-, one of my favorite bands ever. Dis- are from the '90s, they were from Milwaukee, you should look them up sometime. Or else maybe I should post one of their records. I might be going up to The Flywheel to see Potty Mouth again tonight, actually.

Mutant Genes is another one of the 8 or 9 bands that Tommy Perkins is in, if you saw Little Seizures (pizza pizza) at Daggett Street a few weeks ago. Mutant Genes are a bit more hardcore than Little Seizures, and a lot of their songs have some type of Motörhead riff in them, plus they did an Iron Maiden cover I think (it was only about 2 minutes long so it was hard to tell). The first song that Mutant Genes played was awesome, like a total sped-up NWOBHM/punk hybrid; I wish I knew what song it was, but I don't think it was one of the songs on their Bandcamp. I thought the Mutant Genes set ripped, even though the mic was screwed up so Tommy's vocals just sounded like a bunch of squawking noises the whole night. I don't know what it is about the sound at The Whitney House lately, but the last 3 or 4 times I've been there, it hasn't been good. Mutant Genes were supposed to have a 7" ready for this tour but they actually didn't get the records until the next night, when they played in New Haven, but I didn't go. I'm sure it's a pretty bad-ass little record, though.


Mutant Genes, "Straight To Hell"



Potty Mouth, "Hazardville"



Groomers -

"Don't Know What to Say"

We Can Only See What We've Already Seen From Here

The Field Recordings, "The Sad Catalogers"



GraveRobbers, "Buried in Burgundy"
















Condemned To Death -

"Lost Tweekend"

"Love Monster"

"Blood River"

I'd Rather Not Hear You Breathing

I used to get a fair number of promos in the mail back when I was still doing Brushback 'zine, although because it was the late '90s what I got were mostly Too Much Joy CDs and crap. Out of the small handful of freebie 7"-ers that I did get, the Plus Tax 7" grew to be one of my favorites. Plus Tax was a solo effort from Shirk Circus frontman Josh Silverman (who passed away last year, unfortunately), and while Shirk Circus were more like straight-up power pop, the a-side here, "Hey Sunshine", is a shambling, noisy wreck. It doesn't sound like much of a song at first listen-- the singing seems to be in some random key and the drumming is barely functional, for instance-- but once I gave this a few spins, I started to pick up on the odd "Powderfinger"-like quality that was seeping out of it, or something that was like the first Dinosaur 7" even. Not to mention that the casually-placed "la la la's" are a total riot, also. I never got around to printing the review that I wrote back then, but I'm posting this for you to listen to now, so maybe that'll make up for it.




+Plus Tax+ -

"Hey Sunshine"

I'm Just Letting You Know That You're Wrong

Ferocious Fucking Teeth's LP release show was at Cafe Nine the other month, only I was too burnt out lazy to write about it at the time. You should definitely check out this record, though, because not only is it a great, heavy record-- one of the top 5 records that'll come out of CT this year, without a doubt-- but once again Safety Meeting did a really good job with the printing and packaging for the whole thing. (The LP also comes with a CD, so don't worry about it if you don't own a turntable.) Lately I've been seeing the words "stoner sludge" associated with this band, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, who knows, but to me their riffs lean a lot more towards bands like Gore (only with a crazy guy singing) and Brainbombs, to give a couple of examples. Two drummers, too, which is nuts. This is a band that had their shit down from the very beginning, so now here's your proof.




Ferocious Fucking Teeth -

"Fuck on a Weeknight"

We Got Ripped Off

Here's a scan of the Iron Hand interview that ran in the last issue (#347) of MRR -- the photos are mine, which is the extent of my involvement. You can click on the images to get a bigger version. Kinda wish the layout of the first page wasn't so lazy, but whatever, it's not my place to complain about it. Win some, lose some.



Iron Hand played at Wesleyan last night, actually; the bill was supposed to be Iron Hand - Hoax - Crazy Spirit, only Crazy Spirit never showed because they broke up two years ago. Iron Hand were down one guitar player because Ryan had to fill in bass, which diluted their sound somewhat, but they were still good. A possible split with Stone Titan is in the works (read the interview). By the way, Hoax friggin' killed again; their slow parts are just way too good, like street punk and metal mixed together. When they gear it down and lock it in, it's as if Cockney Rejects or Cock Sparrer had Megadeth riffs. I'm also starting to figure out that Hoax's drummer is one of the most effortlessly loud drummers I've ever heard. Jesse popped off on a couple of annoying dickweeds who'd been acting like douchebags the whole night, which was pretty great.

Iron Hand, "Usurper Divine"



This was meant to be an Iron Hand post, but I'm also gonna throw in
this track that I ripped from the new Hoax EP on Youth Attack,
just because I think it's cool.

Hoax -

"Skills or Death"

It's Rough When You Have To Seem Smart

New Haven's roster of DIY spaces is in a bit of a transition right now, meaning new unfamiliar neighborhoods for me every time I go down to New Haven to see a show, which is kinda neat because it also means new parking challenges. I get way too involved about where I park my car, I guess; like how some people like to collect stupid movie shit, I like to find a good parking spot. Anyway, the venue at Daggett Street is in a pretty interesting place, partly because it's at the end of a long brick-walled alleyway behind an old factory building (long ago converted to 'artists spaces'), making it sorta like walking around the old Colt building in Hartford. Oh wait, I just noticed that I spelled Daggett wrong in the photo caption up there. Oh, well, who gives a fuck.

It's been a couple of years since I saw Night Birds at The Whitney House, and in the meantime they've switched guitar players, which doesn't mean that they still can't blow the doors off a place whenever they want to. Mike Hunchback was an awesome player and it was fun to watch him rolling around and stuff, but the 'new' guy is pretty good, too, and he still double-picks the riffs so that they sound like a Man or Astro-Man LP on 78. A bunch of little squirts were running around crashing into people while Night Birds were tearing it up, but one of the things I've noticed about New Haven which is kinda cool is that there's always someone around who steps in and straightens things out.

Temps were still a bit elevated afterwards, though, and maybe that's why Estrogen Highs (playing last) came out and did one of the more aggressive sets that I've seen them play lately-- although their new LP was out, too, so maybe they just wanted to throw down. The new record has some great tracks on it, like the opener "Tell It To Them"-- which, when they were playing it live over the past few shows, practically sounded like the Ramones compared to the rest of their set-- and "Seventh Sunday", which has a Blue Öyster Cult type riff or sounds like something off "Malcolm X Park" or "Series of Sneaks", or whatever. "Irrelevant Future", out now on Trouble In Mind, on mixed vinyl so yours might look different from mine.

One of Tommy Perkins' three or four new bands, Little Seizures, were one of the openers, and I was surprised as hell to see that Bill Florio was their bass player, since I used to read "Greedy Bastard" all the time. I've never met Bill in person before, so I went up to him and told him how much I used to dig his zine, but he didn't seem to want to hear it and sorta blew me off like "yeah, right, whatever". Little Seizures were definitely rock and roll on this night, and finished their set with a cover of "Civilization's Dying" (Zero Boys), which had everyone going nuts. Tommy's got another band, Mutant Genes, who are a bit more hardcore and are playing at Whitney House later this month; their demo's on Bandcamp, you should look it up. Supposedly both Little Seizures and Mutant Genes have 7"-ers coming out later this year, but I wouldn't know, nobody tells me anything.


Estrogen Highs -

"The Seventh Sunday of The Ordinary Times"

Night Birds -

"Midnight Movies"

Little Seizures -