If The World Didn't Suck We'd All Fall Off

Issue #5 of Incremental Decrepitude out now

Mountain Movers interview (from 2016), the usual photos and reviews,
and a "Favorite Bands" feature on Breaking Circus


18 pages, 8-1/2" x 11", corner-stapled

PayPal your address and $1.68 (as "family") to rock_in_my_shoe @ yahoo.com
or, if you're not a peckerwood, you can ask for a free copy
in person if you see me at a show or something sold out

I've also posted some for sale on the Cheat Prick Tapes store (cheatprick.storenvy.com),
along with some back-issue copies of Inc Dec #3 from 2014, although Storenvy will
add another fee to your order which is kinda sucky.

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 Used To Work At The Laundromat But Then It Folded

Some Christian rock, for the holidays.

Wormdoom -

"Blessed Assurance Part One"

If You Don't Like My Standards Then I Have Others

"I've owned albums with cover art way worse than this", I sometimes tell myself in an effort to provide myself some comfort whenever I pull this one out of the milk crate, but it doesn't really help.

Still one of the best compilations ever -- not "Flex Your Head" level, or "Boston Not L.A." level, but maybe only a step or two below. This flows remarkably well, considering for the most part it's a bunch of aggressive/weird NYC bands thrown next to each other. Perhaps due to marketability issues, the label folded not long after this was released.

"The Dustdevils discography is very long and confusing so why don't you just go to Sounds and look in the 'D' bin instead" -- from the liner notes, which presumably someone was fired over.


Dustdevils -

"Throw The Bottle Full"

Cop Shoot Cop -

"Dive"

Circle X -

"Crash (St. Sebastian of The Hood)"

OWT -

"Alive With Pleasure"

Unsane -

"Boost"

Without Geometry, Life Is Pointless

I'm always running into guys talking about bands they think have been unfairly ignored / overlooked, although most of the time it's some idiot talking about The Strokes (srsly I've seen this) or Flaming Lips or Tame Impala or something. If there's a band out there that I think genuinely fits that bill, though, it's Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones (you can go ahead and disagree with me, that's what reading other blogs is for). I've never seen them live -- they're from Wisconsin or something, which is a part of Canada or up by Alaska I think, wouldn't know, don't have any friends there -- but I have three of their albums, none of which I paid any more than three dollars for. I think S-S Records will give you a whole box of their second LP just for asking. Dunno why this is, though, because there stuff is endlessly rocking, like Death of Samantha / Cle-era Prisonshake with shittier production values (and less '70s hard rock moves, but whatever). You could even listen to three of their songs right now if you want, including the one that I fucked up but left the way it is because I don't give a shit, or not. Watch out when you listen to "Cynical Courtship etc etc" though, it's got a kinda screwy keyboard part that'll make you think yr smoke alarm is going off.

Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones -

"Notoriety"

"Auto Erotic Uh Fixation"

"Cynical Courtship Of The Seraphim Sister"

Most Of The Time I'm Not Much Fun, The Rest Of The Time I'm Not Any Fun At All

The first Flying Nun record that I ever bought new was the Jean Paul Sartre Experience "I Like Rain" 7", which I dug a whole lot, even though it was a bit more delicate than what I was usually listening to at the time. Besides, it had a cool silkscreened cover - I think mine was orange. Eventually I got rid of it (probably to make room for another dumb Sebadoh 7"), although at some point further along I picked up the first JPSE 12", which actually came out before the "I Like Rain" 7-inch, so I kinda bought them backwards I guess (plus, I was kidding, I didn't actually collect Sebadoh 7-inchers). This one's been most helpfully broken up into a "rock music" side and a "quiet" side, no doubt aimed towards assisting "rock" dummies like me in figuring out which side to play first, although the quiet side is neat as well and songs like "Own Two Feet" and "Walking Wild" are obvious precursors to the likes of Dick Diver, Salad Boys, Lower Plenty, Bitch Prefect, Twerps, etc. Okay, maybe it's not so obvious.


Jean Paul Sartre Experience -

"Flex"

"Fish In The Sea"

"Loving Grapevine"

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"

A Genius Is The One Most Like Himself

I had a thought of doing a "best live sets of 2015" recap earlier in the year, but like most things that idea quickly fell out of my head and I never picked it back up again. Definitely the best live band I saw last year was Uranium Club, back in November; I drove all the way to Providence just to see them (although Neutral Fixation II were on the bill, too, which made the trip worth it) and they were completely killer and their set was way tight, as any good band that's been on tour for a while tends to get. I mean, their songs are full of starts and stops and so forth and they didn't even bother really looking at each other or counting things off all that much, just starting each song or shifting through changes on-the-dot like it was the most natural thing in the world for anyone to do. Afterwards I asked them if it was actually The Minneapolis Uranium Club Band or just Uranium Club and they said "it can be whatever you want it to be", so that's cool. I think I'll start calling them Toto. Wait, that joke isn't even halfway funny. They also had some buttons and pencils for sale, and a weird hand-out about radiation poisoning, which I'm not sure where I put it so I think I lost mine. Anyway, their album (heavy Midwest legacy rock / Dow Jones & The Industrials damage) was originally self-released on a cassette and then Fashionable Idiots pressed it up as an LP and it sold out in like five months; I think it's be re-released overseas since, though. When I first bought the record last year I was so excited over it that I ripped it to my computer - which takes a couple of hours - because it didn't come with a download code, which was before I found out that you could get the whole thing as a free download on the Fashionable Idiots bandcamp. Duh. Also, the center labels on the record are faked, like a bootleg, and they dropped a card inside the jacket explaining that it was the pressing plant's fault but I'm pretty sure they just made that part up.

The Minneapolis Uranium Club Band -

"Rafter Man"

"Vanishing Point"


Also, someone at the show videotaped their set and you can watch the whole thing here, it's pretty great:

Eternal Nothingness Is Fine If You Happen To Be Dressed For It

My 99-cent tour through the Siltbreeze catalog rolls along with this Ashtabula 12", which from the outside looks like it could be an abstract noise record, but on the inside is actually loud, catchy indie rock à la Sebadoh, or Helikopter (Balt-o band that I posted about once), or even Siltbreeze alums Monkey 101 in a handful of ways. Side Two meanders a bit, otherwise I wouldn't dig this as much -- if it were more straightforward it would be disappointing -- although there's still some part of me that wonders why this rec is such an easy pick-up on Discogs, especially considering its prime Bardo Pond / Strapping Fieldhands pedigree. But, it worked out in my favor this time (unlike the Sam Esh + Hard Black Thing record, which I'll probably never listen to again), so far be it for me to complain.


Ashtabula -

"Nineteenpointsix"

"Way Too Fast"

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"

If Love Is Blind Then I Wish You Were Out Of Sight

This is something that I picked up on one of my first record-shopping trips into Boston after moving into the area last year - at a store on Mass. Ave that sold mostly old jazz sides, so I was somewhat psyched when I saw this peeking out at me from one of the bins, and not just because it's a great single but also because it was just a buck. Dynamic Truths were wunna Bob Schick's post-Honor Role bands (Honor Role = legendary), and this 7" was the only thing that they released, at least up until a retrospective CD that came out on Little Black Cloud about a half-decade ago (which I've actually never seen, tho I managed to swipe a couple mp3's from some blog way back when). Musically this sorta sounds like Honor Role re-imagining songs from the first Christian Death LP, and if that sounds lame to you then it's not, it's fuggin' top notch. I just pull these descriptions out of my ass, you realize that by now, right?

Dynamic Truths -

"You Take It All"

"Profit From Loss"

People Say Nothing Is Impossible But I Do Nothing Every Day

I've been on this thing lately where I try to buy every Siltbreeze LP that shows up on Discogs for $2.99 or less. I figure that it's worth the risk, and so far I've been almost close to 100% right. It took me a while to get around to listening to this Sapat album -- when you pay less than three bucks for something, it tends to sit in the back of the milk crate while you prioritize other more important things, like listening to that $25 Dick Diver record that you bought from Midheaven -- but now that I've listened to it a few times, I've pretty much fallen in love with it. Sounds kinda like if Can were an Xpressway band. Or, maybe now that I think about it, like a Siltbreeze band. Gee, I hope that Tom Lax doesn't see this because then he'll probably want to sue me.

Sapat -

"Lovely and Free"

Watch Who You're Calling Space Garbage, Meteor Mouth

I didn't know "Lolita Nation" was being re-issued, like, next week, which shows me for not paying attention to "Black Friday"/"Record Store Day" re-issue labels and their ilk, I guess. Hence, my incentive to pull this out now and give it a listen. Stuff like this was way too college rock for me back when it first came out, but like John Brannon says, "Maybe I was too hardcore at the time to like some shit, but I can appreciate that shit retroactively." Definitely a weird pop album from one of the weirdest "pop" bands -- a bit too precious and indulgent at times, at other times like Alex Chilton singing "Sgt. Pepper's" after Doug Gillard and Matthew Sweet re-wrote all the songs. If that sounds like a good idea to you, then no doubt you should pick up the re-issue (just google "Black Friday Record Store Day Labels", I'm sure the list won't be too long).

Game Theory -

"Kenneth -- What's The Frequency?"/"Not Because You Can"

"Go Ahead, You're Dying To"/"Dripping With Looks"

"Chardonnay"

"Last Day That We're Young"

"The Waist and The Knees"