There Is Nothing New Under The Sun But There Are A Lot Of Old Things We Don't Know

This started out with a bunch of songs that I was listening to on my mp3 player in the car the other week, and the songs all seemed to fit together pretty well so I decided to make a podcast out of it. The voice-overs kinda blow, but I'm workin' on it.

We're Not So Smart podcast (episode 1), 10/20/17

Golden Boys - Cincinnati (12XU)
Diat - Pick a Line (Iron Lung)
Pill - Empathizer (Dull Tools)
The County Liners - Love Letter (Wharf Cat)
Alan Vega Alex Chilton Ben Vaughn - Lover of Love (Light in The Attic)
-- (initial verbal interruption) --
Spray Paint and Ben Mackie - Friendly Moving Man (12XU)
Blau Blau - Star Come Out (self-released)
Good Morning - Step Aside (Solitaire Recordings)
Cobra Verde - World Can't Have Her (Scat)
Nosebleed - My Rules (Grave Mistake)
Rash - Parlour Games (Slugsalt)
Rob Noyes - Paydirt (Poon Village)
-- (secondary verbal interruption) --
Salad Boys - No Taste Bomber (Melted Ice Cream)

Fake Best Of 2016

Burnt Offerings -

"Torn by The Whip of Flame"

Isotope Soap -

"Frontal Disorder Post Mental Border"

Uranium Club -

"Small Fry"

Meter Feeder -

"Who Feeds The Meter Feeder"

Burnt Envelope -

"I'm On Tour"

I've Never Been An Intellectual But I Have This Look

If you happen to see a copy of the new(-ish) Urochromes/Wizzard Sleeve split then grab it, because the Urochromes side shreds, plus it doesn't seem to be on the Free Music Archive like I thought all the WFMU live in-studio sessions were, so this is probably your only way of hearing it. (The Wizzard Sleeve side is okay too, just, y'know, not Urochromes.) I've blown a couple of chances at seeing Urochromes live because I'm kinda not good at sniffing things out that way, I guess; they actually played at the tail end of the Tenement / Big Zit show that I went to last year, but I split before their set because it was late and I had a two-hour drive home and if I stuck around any longer all the coffee in the world wasn't gonna keep me out of the trees. Should've stuck around to see them and buy their demo tape, though, I would've been SO AHEAD OF THE CURVE if I did. That's important to like two people, who all post on Termbo or the Jerkbooth so fuck 'em.

Urochromes -

"My Disposition"

"2 Men"

I Ain't Never Heard A Horse Sing A Song

I picked this tape up at a show that I was at the other day -- one of the bands at the show had it in their distro box -- and it's pretty rulin' noisy hardcore stuff, very Cult Maternal-ish, although the track that I'm going to post here is a dead-ringer for Hoax, ha ha. I can't say that there's anything here that breaks a whole lot of new ground, but I found myself listening to this tape (which came out last year on Perennial, home of lots of other neat stuff, like Vexx, Broken Water, etc) about ten times since I bought it and also the lyrics are pretty clever (read them), so I figured I'd share. There's a forthcoming Nasti LP on Iron Lung that's being mixed right now, according to the Iron Lung blogspot, although what type of idiot would have a blogspot in 2016, anyway.

Nasti -

"Nasti"

Strictly Speaking I Believe I’ve Never Been Anywhere

Alternate "show edition" 7" for two shows that didn't happen.

Framtid -

"Visions of Onkalo"

I Ain't In A Slump, I Just Ain't Hitting

Of all the Boston Crew-type HC bands that went metal back in the '80s (which was pretty much all of 'em), I think that Jerry's Kids ended up making the best "post-XClaim!-era" record with "Kill Kill Kill", which in some ways has a sound that isn't all that separated from "Is This My World?" --- sure, some of the lyrics are dumber, and there's a bigger "metal" sound to the drums and guitars, but the songwriting in general tends to fall back onto straight hardcore thrash and a few of the songs on "Kill Kill Kill" wouldn't have sounded at all out of place if they'd been recorded back when "Is This My World"?" was being made. The F.U.'s, on the other hand, not only changed their name (to Straw Dogs) but changed their sound entirely, and "We Are Not Amused" is pretty much a straight-up commercial metal/hard rock record with barely a trace of punk to be found at all, other than Sox' vocals of course. It's not a great record all the way through -- the quality level really drops off after the top four or five songs -- but the guitars pack way more of a punch than any of the rock slough released by SSD or DYS (for instance), and it also has some of the best drumming I've ever heard on a hard rock record. I say that there's not much punk involved, but I suppose it takes a punk to take pot shots at all the phony "sign of the devil" Mötley Crüe crap and hit the target as dead-on as "Carnival In Hell" does. I'm not exactly sure what the slags against John Sex Bomb and the Anthrax Club on the thank you list/lyric sheet are all about, but I'm guessing it probably has something to do with a show that the F.U.'s tried to play at the old Stamford Anthrax years ago. At least, I think I read about it in a book somewhere.

Straw Dogs -

"Carnival In Hell"

"The Hunger"

"In Deep"

"Trigger Finger"

Fake Best Of 2015

Flemmings -

"Get Away From Me Right Now"

TV Ugly -

"QC"

Surveillance -

"Horrible Morning"

Estrogen Highs -

"Lover Lover Lover"
(Leonard Cohen cover)

Disipline -

"Sanctuary of Pain"

Time Flies Like An Arrow, Fruit Flies Like A Banana

"When it came out we couldn't give the things away, but now it sells for five hundred dollars
The only records that you buy are on eBay - this box of records oughta send my kids through college
Don't put your records out 'cuz no one's gonna care, when a record's only good because it's rare"

-- "Killed By Death", Head
If you dig the awesome, super-poppy a-side -- which is a Fatal Charm cover that Kurt from the Fastbacks plays on -- you should check out a Boston band called Conmen (they've got a new single out).

Head -

"Spend The Night Alone"

"Killed By Death"

The Thing I Hate Most About Writing Is The Paperwork

Out now - Incremental Decrepitude #4

32 quarter-sized pages of blatherings, featuring a discussion with Bonus McGinty on
some heavy matters related to all-time personal faves Dredd Foole and The Din / Volcano
Suns. Edition of ten (10) copies printed; if I thought you might be interested and
I had your current address, a copy is already in the mail on its way to you. No
further copies are available.

I Don't Need No Oceans When I Got Industry

Here's something of mild interest that I picked up for cheap today at RRR Records in Lowell, instead of chasing around bogus "Black Friday Record Store Day" crap. Apparently at one point Devo had set off a major bidding war, inducing wetness in the usual scene-hopping trendies (Bowie, Eno, etc.) and causing people to squint an eye in the direction of Akron Ohio and wonder "hey, what else is going on there?"... hence this sampler. Despite some disparaging stuff that'd been written about this compilation before ("only one or two tracks of interest, nothing special" -- Dave Fricke or some asshole), once I got it home and plopped it down on the turntable, I found it to contain some fairly neat things, especially on the a-side. The Bizarros track is a total Stooges cop, Tin Huey is sort of Beefheart-ian which makes me wish now that I hadn't skipped over all their dollar records at Brass City back when I was 20, and even The Waitresses contribute a tuff-sounding track ("The Comb", which recently got the remix/reissue treatment and sounds even better now). Supposedly the scratch n sniff cover smells like burning rubber tires -- I dunno, old record jackets all kinda smell like mold to me -- and there's even a backwards "Hotel California" soundbite at the beginning of the first side, which made me chortle a bit and think back to when everybody hated The Eagles. Do people still hate The Eagles?


The Bizarros -

"Nova"

The Waitresses -

"The Comb"

Tin Huey -

"Chinese Circus"

Rubber City Rebels -

"Rubber City Rebels"

I Hate Reality, But It's Still The Only Place Where I Can Get A Decent Steak

I waited a month for Not Normally Hippies to send me this tape, only to wait another month and a half to finally listen to it. I've only made it through side one so far but only a couple of songs have really hit me; maybe the second side is better. The problem with most compilation tapes is, if you leave the room to go do something else for a few minutes, when you come back you have no idea what song is playing. I kinda like this The Floor Above track, though -- the guitar sound on it is pretty spectacular and they rip off the mosh part from Youth Korps. Maybe in another month and a half I'll listen to the other side, I don't know. I've already bought a bunch of newer records since then and some of them are pretty sweet.

History Is Just One Damn Thing After Another

A band that I saw. A record that I bought.

(Stunning post you got here, dipshit. -- editors)

Cuntz -

Factory Floor

When You Have Nothing, Nothing Can Hurt You

Here's a rip of the Ausmuteants / Lumpy & The Dumpers split flexi that comes with the first ish of No Friends 'zine out of Chicago. The Lumpy tracks are on Bandcamp, but I don't think I've seen either of the Ausmuteants tracks anywhere, so as a public service I figured I'd post 'em here. I'm not gonna bother to review the zine because I'm sure they don't need me telling people that their zine looks nice but is kind of shitty. If you don't have the eight or ten bucks that it takes to pony up for a copy of the zine, the interviews are avail. for download at nofriendszine.com.


Ausmuteants -

"Dump The Dumpers"

"Drop Some Goo"

Lumpy and The Dumpers -

"Flush Em"

"Noxious"

My Foot Is Actually A Size 41807040 If You Count The Planet That I'm Standing On

Figured I'd take a second to throw some people in the direction of this compilation, since '90s punk singles were a small part of what I used to do around here, so I'm guessing that a few of you who read this blog might be interested in this swank little LP for your hi-fi sets. Not that I'm claiming that my blog has anything more than a circumstantial connection to any of the bands that are "Destroy All Art"; I maybe own records from two of the bands that are on here, at most, so this comp digs way underneath what was in your average Mutant Pop or Vital Music mail-order catalogs. No doubt the original 7"-ers that are compiled here instantly tripled in value on Discogs once the track listing of this compilation started spreading around. Speaking of prices, some doof who did a write-up of this comp on Noisey or Vicey or one of those things dropped this brilliant observation, in an attempt to sound knowledgeable: "Typically released in small quantities with little to no promo budget, most ended up in the $3 bins of independent record stores." Dude doesn't know that three bucks was the typical price for a new 7"-er back in the '90s, apparently. (Shoulda put "50 cent bin", which is where most of the singles on VML ended up.) What do chumps on Noisey listen to, anyway? Shit like Thee Oh Sees and Trash Talk and Ceremony, I'll bet. Meanwhile, I'll be over here clutching my LSOK and Stiffs records while the chump on Noisey gets 10000x the readers that my blog gets. Good job, chump.

Pretty Girls -

"The Kids Are All Fucked"

Bend Sinister -

"Firesaw"

My Grave Makes All The Other Graves Look Like Shit

To my ears, CIA's "God, Guts, Guns" is easily the best '80s hardcore 7-inch to ever come out of Connecticut, especially if you don't count the Youth Korps demo, which I sorta don't because the Youth Korps EP was only released as a bootleg after-the-fact (the list kinda goes 1. CIA 7", 2. Violent Children 7", 3. Can't Close My Eyes or Hit Squad for God or No Milk on Tuesday or something, 4. Reflex From Pain. I dunno, it's kind of a rough draft, maybe I'll keep working on it). I think makes the CIA 7" such a classic record is that the sound is fairly hefty -- you almost can't beat the mix between all the elements, guitar drums vocals bass, it's practically perfect -- plus all of the songs totally rip and are way catchy as far as hardcore songs go. Bones has always been a very underrated vocalist, or underrated by me at least since I was never the biggest fan of 76% Uncertain (FYI: CIA and Reflex From Pain eventually morphed into 76%), but Bones could carry a melody and his voice had a lot of grit to it, which overall made "God, Guts, Guns" sound relatively tough and on the level of some of the best Boston and NY records from back then. The lyrics are some clever horseshit, too.

"God, Guts, Guns" was re-issued a few years ago as a 12" with some bonus tracks, which is what I'm posting here; if you want to hear the original EP, or the Youth Korps EP while you're at it, then it's pretty easily found on the internet (Erich Keller's "Good Bad Music" blog is usually good for that). Admittedly, the bonus tracks aren't all that great, especially the covers and live tracks on the flip, but the Audio West demo tracks and the outtakes from the 7" are pretty useful. "Violence" was originally released on the Fartblossom Enterprises "Empty Skulls" compilation, I'm pretty sure, so you might've heard that one before. Todd and Kenny from 76% have a new band now called Watchlist that just released an album that's surprisingly very solid, comparable to Off! and stuff like that, and you can peep that stuff over here --> https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/watchlist


C.I.A. -

"Violence"

"Gangland War"

"Waste Product"

I Am Extremely Big And I Fail Constantly

I got picked for MRR's Monday Photo Blog the other week, which was kinda cool. It's actually the second time I've been picked, so I'm practically my own category on the MRR website now (this isn't true, I'm just making it up to be a jerk). You can scope 'em out by clicking on the links here:


Monday Photo Blog: Dave Brushback (2)

(Zipperhead, Ausmuteants, Protomartyr, Downtown Boys, Waste Management, Boston Strangler)

Monday Photo Blog: Dave Brushback (1)

(Fuckheads, Salvation, Rational Animals, Warning//Warning, Lushlife)


You guys like The Speedies, right? You'd fucking better.

The Speedies -

"Let Me Take Your Photo"

All My Crimes Are Catching Up To Me

Peeple Watchin' interview in MRR #368, with four of my photos in it (plus one from Ali, hers is the one that's better than mine)

Fake Best Of 2014

Stranger -

"Biodegradation"

Cousins -

"Other Ocean"

Lenguas Largas -

"Ese Culito"

Phantom Rides -

"Destroy to Contain"

Tape/Off -

"Another Year"

What I Am Really Hungry For Doesn't Exist

I was out at a food place last night, the one that normally gives you a chocolate chip cookie w/ their $5 meal, only they left out the cookie and when I asked about it they told me, "we ran out, there'll be some more in like five minutes". So I figured fuckit, I'll wait, I'll get it afterwards when I'm done eating, because I kinda like fresh chocolate chip cookies. Plus, you know, they owe me a cookie, motherfucker. When I went back to the counter a few minutes later, the guy says "well, they just came out. They're kinda soft, you probably won't want one yet because it'll bend." I said, "that's fine, I don't care." Then the guy says "well, it's kinda hot, you don't want to burn yourself." Fucker was trying to talk his way out of giving me the cookie! I mean, come on, for a 2" chocolate chip cookie to burn you, that's gotta be the hottest cookie in the universe. Guy's acting like he's about to hand me molten lava or hot moon rocks or something. Go in the back, put the metal suit on with the Homer Simpson tongs, and hand me my cookie.

Anyway, here's some pictures from a show that I went to.


The Boston Strangler -

"Take Control"

Waste Management -

"Get Your Mind Right"

The Peacebreakers -

"You Exploit You"