Don't Worry What People Think, They Don't Do It Very Often

I've been living in New Hampshire for about a year now, and one of the things that's starting to sink in is how much I took it for granted back in Connecticut when I was living about 6 miles away from The Whitney House, with maybe another 40 minute drive to get to "bigger shows" (in New Haven and etc). If there’s a similar venue around here in New Hampshire then I haven't found it yet (but there’s gotta be, right?), and while it's great to have access to Boston and all the amazing stuff that goes on there, the hefty hour/hour-and-20-minute drive into the city forces me to pick my spots more carefully and be a lot choosier about the bands that I go to see. It completely removes the WGAF-ness of going to a local basement show really quick and not even caring if any of the bands were good or not because, hey, it’s only gonna take me about 6 minutes to get back home and go to bed anyway.

Last week I got to break away from that pattern for a bit, and headed up to Modern Gypsy, a 'vintage' clothing store (i.e. "we take the best stuff from Savers and put it aside for you") in Manchester, about 20 miles away. Notches was supposed to play and while I really love Notches, I missed them by showing up too late. They said they sucked anyway, but that's what bands always say. Since I wasn't all that invested in what was going on -- yet another perk of low-key local show-hopping -- I stuck around just for the heck of it to watch the last two bands, one of which was Big Eater, who were sorta like a yacht-rock version of Low crossed with Procedure Club*. Some of their stuff kinda blew, but they had a second guitar player who sat down the whole time, making all kinds of distorted spaceship noises and punching up tape loops and so forth, and that part was pretty great. Then there was Infinity Girl – who maybe don’t even know that there was already a band called Velocity Girl, just like how Parenthetical Girls probably don’t care that there was already a band called Theoretical Girls, but whatever – who are like an emo/shoegaze revivalist band, and guess what: they’re on Topshelf Records (no, seriously. I’m not making this up). Everyone else dug it, for me it was no big deal either way. The main point was, I was able to see some bands as a spur-of-the-moment thing and still got home at a decent hour, which is something that I’ve been missing out on lately. Support your local DIY venue. (*ha ha, I just dropped a Procedure Club reference for no reason, hopefully someone catches it)

The Only Reason I'm Talking To You Is Because I Thought You Were Somebody

This is the third time that I'm posting something from White, meaning that they're tied with Gas Huffer and one ahead of Billy Squier as far as number of appearances on this blog (there may be an award available for this, I'll have to find out). There was a list that appeared about a year ago on Pitchfork or one of those places about "The Best Noise Rock of 2014" or some such, but the guy who wrote the list was going on about stuff on Slumberland and etc; I'm guessing if you held him down and forced him to listen to this track, he'd be in danger of having a seizure. RIYL: White Suns, Landlords, pieces of Black Flag riffs ("Life of Pain") played backwards. The b-side is said to be a single silent groove but I'm not really motivated enough to listen to it.

White -

"Untitled"

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"

I Might Not Have Any Pants But I Have A Few Other Things

A couple of Estrogen Highs tapes came out recently, "Unfortunate Chronology vols. 1 and 2", which include a bunch of live tracks, outtakes, demos, and assorted eroded matter from the last few years of the band's existence (Estrogen Highs is no more, apparently). I bought these along with Stefan's new solo tape, and while I've only had time to listen to "vol. 1" and the first side of the solo tape so far, I can say that everything I've heard so far is amazing and excellent... you can pretty much shelve the first two or three E.Highs LPs and listen to these tapes exclusively, and still be doing alright. (I won't, but you could.) Covers of Ego Summit and Marshall Tucker Band, too. I've posted a poor-quality tape rip of one of the Stefan tracks on my Tumblr, over here. Also, nobody really asked me for them, but here are scans of the ten-page Estrogen Highs interview from the first issue of Incremental Decrepitude, back in 2010. Clicking on them will help you read them, which isn't to say that's not a ridiculous idea.

I Lost My Mood Ring And I'm Not Sure How I Feel About It

One of the first indie records I ever bought was the Lyres "On Fyre" -- I heard "I Want To Help You Ann" somewhere, and the riff was so great that I went out and tracked the album down, although they'd shortened the name to just "Help You Ann" on the LP; something to do with the label thinking it was more accessible that way or something. Anyway, it turned out that the two tracks that I liked best on "On Fyre" ("Don't Give It Up Now" and "Help You Ann") both skipped on the crummy bought-from-Two-Guys record player that I had at the time (ca. '84), which sorta sunk the whole record for me because those were about the only tracks on the album that I really liked, the Pete Best and (two) Kinks covers notwithstanding.

This single, which I bought afterwards, carries a much better slugging percentage though -- "Someone Who'll Treat You Right Now" and "She Pays The Rent" are two genuine rock 'n roll hits ("She Pays The Rent" is an extra track here, and isn't on the 7" version), which definitely puts the Lyres on the 'plus' side of Bands That Use Keyboards As a Lead Instrument (positive: ? and The Mysterians, Suicide, Vanilla Fudge; negative: Emerson Lake and Palmer, Matt & Kim, The Doors).


Lyres -

"Someone Who'll Treat You Right Now"

"She Pays The Rent"

Pulling Out Scrabble Letters At Random Just To See If Anything Comes Of It

I can't say too much about Beat Happening, since this is the only record I own by them (what, am I missing something?), although I did just buy the Spit-Take/Sweet Talk split tape which has two Beat Happening covers on it, plus I did read that asshole's book, Our Band Could Be What-The-Fuck-Ever. I didn't lose the sleeve to this single, by the way, it didn't come with one (oh, noes!). Yeah, Sub Pop was a shitty label like that, you can tell why they never went anywhere. I kinda like this song a lot, it reminds me of Panther Burns.

Beat Happening -

"Nancy Sin"

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 Electric Toothbrush Is Broken So Now I Use My Acoustic One

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I've Been Meaning To Try Harder For At Least A Decade

Carbon 14 was one of those ubiquitous glossy-covered typeset 'fanzines' from back in the '90s that sucked pretty wildly, which I know is my standard reaction to most '90s zines: "it sucked", only this time instead of just relying on my memory I've got a Carbon 14 zine review from an old issue of Brushback to back me up ("used to be when a zine sucked it was a xerox job that only cost 50 cents, now they're all full-blown mags that cost 5 bucks and it's starting to get on my nerves"). One issue of Carbon 14 came with a Chrome Cranks 7" that was so awful that it swore me off everything else by Chrome Cranks from there on out -- I dunno, did I miss anything? I ended up buying one more issue of Carbon 14 after that, which was terrible as well, but the EP that came with it was actually pretty solid, as far as the b-side goes at least. The Ultra Bide track is borderline heavy/insane, and the Cosmic Psychos track -- which I'm sure is the reason why I relented and bought the thing -- is a 'very metal' version of "Back In Town", or "very meht-tahl" as Dee Snider used to say it.

Ultra Bide -

"Kill Me Tender"

Cosmic Psychos -

"B.I.T. (Very Metal)"

We're Pink Floyd, Bitch

My record-buying patterns tend to have peaks and valleys, sometimes leaving me with crates of records that I bought 5 or 6 years earlier without ever listening to them all that much or even paying attention to how big the pile was getting (like, I somehow managed to end up with three or four Purling Hiss LPs, what the fuck). Psychedelic Horseshit are one of those bands with multiple records in the crate, almost never to be taken out unless it's to post a picture on Tumblr or something (inside joke, ignore it). I mean, their shit's sorta cool in theory -- "Poor Fidelity Mixed With In-Jokes" was always my go-to bin at Record Town, and putting "New Wave Hippies" on an album being released by Siltbreeze is about as funny as it gets -- but in a lot of ways their shit's kinda flimsy, too. Maybe I kept buying their records because I was hoping one of 'em would stick, I dunno. I did that with Pavement back in the '90s, and look what happened: they suck now. (Actually, that's not true, I've never bought a Pavement record.) Maybe I'm holding onto them because I'm hoping for a massive lo-fi revival soon, and I'm gonna be on the ground floor of that thing, you bet, or as soon as the Youth Crew revival is over, at least. Maybe Box Elders will become cool again. Or maybe there's no point to this I'm just rambling to fill space. Hey, go read Paste or that jerk who writes reviews for Tiny Mix Tapes, why don't you? Stop bugging me. The fuck.

Psychedelic Horseshit -

"We're Pink Floyd, Bitch"

"Dreadlock Paranoia"

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"

Maybe My Life Isn't Perfect But My Hair Is

This is a mix that I posted the other day on Tumblr, which is where I hang out all day now instead of doing something useful. It took me a while before I remembered that I also have a music blog -- although that's a bit of a stretch, as it means you have to count a readership of .001 per day as "having a music blog" -- and so I decided to post it over here as well. This isn't a mix of mostly new tracks, more like just a batch of songs that I've been listening to in the car lately that I thought fit well together, so I made a mix out of them just for ha-ha's. There's even a hidden message involved, although it's probably not that important and besides I totally just forgot what it was anyway.

1. Judas Priest - Delivering The Goods
2. Nasal Boys - Hot Love
3. Bloody Knives - Broken
4. Triage - Triage Theme
5. Chlorine - Power
6. BÄDDAT FÖR TRUBBEL - Inte Varit Sü Tuff
7. Randy Newman - Gone Dead Train
8. Daddy Maxfield - Rave ‘n Rock
9. Thank You Mr. Keating - Gentle Jesus and Drugs
10. Dead at 24 - When Delirium Comes
11. Boulders - Her Taste

Din Wanna Take Out Mix.zip

I Have A Different Definition Of Funny Than Most People

When I heard that there was going to be a new Speaking Canaries LP out on Chunklet, I almost pissed my pants. Not literally, of course (it's not writing* if you're not lying just a little bit), but I was still pretty damn excited. Robert Griffin had mentioned years ago in the liner notes to 97 that there was an unfinished Speaking Canaries LP just laying around somewhere, "scrapped due to lack of funds, and Damon is somewhat ambivalent about completing it", but I'm pretty sure that's not what this is. What this is, in fact, is the first-ever Speaking Canaries recordings from 1990, meaning prior to "The Joy of Wine", even. Now, I love all the Speaking Canaries records as if they were my own children (there's that 'lying' part again), but "Joy of Wine" doesn't represent the best level of rocking out of all of them -- hey, you can't have all five of them be your favorite -- but fear not, "Platter Base Must Be Constructed of Moon Rock" is easily on the level of "Terrestrially Challenged", "Life-Like Homes", and "Get Out Alive" as far as quality-of-rockin' goes. I don't remember hearing any vocals on any of the tracks, which is why they're labeled as demos I guess, but this is definitely not basement-level sonics here. I haven't heard the vinyl yet, which I'm sure sounds amazing, but I was listening to the files in the car and when "Winning Son" came on it just exploded out of the speakers. You may recognize a couple of the song titles from other Speaking Canaries releases ("Toblewee Uslywus", the aforementioned "Winning Son"), but the tracks that I've never heard before or possibly didn't end up as other songs are total fucking hurricanes. "Mitchum Dope", "Hall of Force", etc etc, will all blow your head off like the rotten melon that it is, especially if you dig ROKKK, which I kinda fucking do. *ha ha, I called this writing