ZEITGEIST

Decidedly more swing than their 2011 demo or even the (excellent) full length platter from the following year, 2013's Listen Once And File demo (OK, it was really just a tour tape and maybe that wasn't the proper title) burns from start to finish. I feel like the vocals didn't really settle in until after the first full length (check last year's Z2 - Judgement Daze for complete realization of place and purpose), and then ZEITGEIST parted ways just when they had shit dialed. Hey man...finish on top, I guess? Gritty punk with overt rock 'n roll overtones throughout - glad I got to see them in the flesh. 

ZEITGEIST

WARSAW PAKT

More reposts. 2010. I'm pretty sure my initial post sums this one up nicely. 

WARSAW PACT

warsaw pact

SUBMISSION HOLD

I suppose that we never really should have been friends. In 2017, in the internet age, I seriously doubt that we ever would have been friends or even crossed paths at all. FUCKFACE were uncouth, snotty, drunk, sloppy and irreverent. SUBMISSION HOLD were concise, serious, witty but controlled, overtly political and exceptionally mature. And yet we stood outside the picture window at Koo's Cafe in Santa Ana, laughing together and watching the local band inside that converted living room and collectively wondering if any of the kids would bother to stay at the show to see either of our bands. They were having van trouble, our tour was almost over, we brainstormed ways to get them safely to their next show/s, we traded information and we promised to cross paths again. Then in the fall of 1996 we did cross paths in Vancouver (they were the relatively sane and conventional conclusion to one of the weirdest 36 hour periods of my life, in fact), John soaked the couch in their very well put together home before we headed east and I apologized the next time we saw each other....and we all laughed about it. Bands didn't sound like SUBMISSION HOLD then, and they surely don't today....and I dare say that it's even more special today, in the internet age, to cross paths with people as special and as real as those Canadians. 

VETERANS OF THE COLA WARS

9 IRON

I was talking to Clayton last week about '90s pop punk and '90s hardcore, and how that line was sometimes more than a little blurry, to the benefit of both genres. GRIMPLE's Up Your Ass LP is so perfect (an make no mistake, it IS perfect) because it is super pissed, lightning fast and catchy as hell. Before pop punk was universally revered as a bad word/s, bands like 9 IRON loved getting schwasted on shitty malt liquor and playing fast and loud...and they loved GREEN DAY too. And that was OK. In fact, it resulted in some really great recordings. Dated, but still great. This band popped up just when I left Oklahoma, and I don't honestly remember if I ever saw them or not (I want to think they played one of the two Mission PunkFest gigs at 17th & Capp, but I might be confusing them with BOB OF TRIBES, who were on tour with BROTHER INFERIOR at the time....), but I know I played the shit out of this rough and snotty demo for a few years before it found its way into a box. Fortunately, it also found its way back out.

9 IRON

SUBTERFUGE

UK punk from 1983...there's a reason why people worship and ape this shit 35 years later, because when "Soldiers Of Fortune" drops it feels like all is right with the world. I stand by my words in the initial post - start with the tracks from Woolshag's Last Round demo, as they are straight screamers and it makes you appreciate the band's humble ramshackle beginnings a little more (there are only four months between the two recordings, but still). I am enjoying revisiting these old posts....there's a lot to dig into.

1983: GOOD BEER GUIDE // WOOLSHAG'S LAST RIDE // Live @ Brannigan's

NOWHERE MEN

DC based two man recording project...snotty hardcore with a few detours that are easier to embrace when there's only one person writing the songs (I'm talking about the NINE POUND HAMMER-esque untitled second track...though that one could be a cover that I don't recognize because I'm not cool). One demo in 2014...and thanks to the internet it will live on forever in the ether...instead of in a show box in some kids closet waiting to be "discovered" like the '80s versions of projects like this one. 

NOWHERE MEN

TAPE #55

You should just be able to read the spine on this one and know what's up. The HOMO PICNIC and 7 SECONDS sets are from around 1985 (they play "Just One Day" from New Wind, but it definitely seems like a new addition to the set), and it's good to hear HOMO PICNIC taking some jabs at the headliners between songs...7 SECONDS are straight fire on this recording by the way, positive and earnest and very fukkn real. CRO-MAGS demo has made the rounds forever (I honestly only included it here in the interest of presenting the cassette in its entirety); the URGENT FURY tracks are from the 1985 demo, one of the most underappreciated NY bands that I know of (these five songs were the A-Side of the Demos 1984-86 10" that Broken Rekkids reissued in the early '90s - highly recommended and still readily available in bargain bins around the US); and the BORN WITHOUT A FACE tracks will save you a cool $50 unless you need to hold the OG wax in your hand (and I kinda do). A relic from the tape trading days of the 1980s, collections like this used to be how people found new bands...you got one of these bad boys in the mail and you listened front to back, soaking everything in a mentally categorizing what clicked and what didn't to help guide you deeper into the unknown. The Unknown is good - it's full of wonder and discovery. And its way better than brainlessly filling up your hard drive....

TAPE #55

CHRISTIE

I stopped repairing dead links a long time ago.  It's not that I don't care (because if I can be rightly accused of doing anything at all....it's caring), it's just that the effort to dig back through the archives to update a DL link that maybe two or three people are ever going to stumble across seems like it could be better spent in other ways. Like drinking a beer or eating a taco or ripping a new (or new/old) cassette for consumption. However, there are hundreds of worthwhile nuggets languishing in those dusty old internet pages, so I'm going to start re-posting from time to time...if nothing else I'm curious how I hear CHRISTIE (using today's example) in 2017 vs. whatever nonsense I wrote about them in 2010. And I'm sure the curiosity is absolutely killing you, dear reader....

So here are six tracks from 1988, sweet lilting vocals floating over an almost cacophonous collection of driving late anarcho and metallic guitar leads. As I mentioned in the original post, I have two different recordings of these six tracks (both included today), and I opted for the dirtier version initially. I think that I've come to enjoy the (slightly) more polished recording over time...though the differences are subtle at best. Just because you miss the magic once, doesn't mean it's gone forever.

CHRISTIE

initial post - from the coverless black cassette pictured above

CHRISTIE

from the flipside of the even more awesome CYANIDE SCENARIO cassette

REGIMEN

High energy Scandinavian punk crashing headlong into Y2K fastcore in a most glorious manner, Sweden's REGIMEN are a full speed time warp. Not Normal slapped their first three demos on to one handy dandy cassette for North American listeners, so what you get here is a 14 banger crash course (including the brilliant 6+ minute "Gick Du På Den Lätte?"). If you liked AMDI PETERSEN, if you liked SKATE KORPSE...if you like fukkn punk and you like to dance, then climb aboard. 

UPPREPNING ÄR OFRÅNKOMLIG

PISSE

Two killer demos one one killer tape. The third freakout weirdo release from Germany's PISSE, Kohlrübenwinter is such a gloriously chilled out approach to a particularly appealing brand of outsider punk, and it is predictably a favorite at TEHQ. The general vibe is ultra '80s new wave, but the approach is still punk, and it still has teeth. The stomper "Schwätzer" takes the caketape for this listener, but there are zero legitimate bummers contained on this cassette...you know you like this shit, so dig in. 

KOHLRÜBENWINTER

FALLAS

Have you ever said to yourself "Man, I want eleven bursts of blown out, late '90s Mexican punk!" I have...and if I don't reach for the ODIO tape (let's be honest, the ODIO is really for those grindier moments) then I'm probably gonna pull out this FALLAS banger. Eleven bursts of distorted mania from Guadalajara with jerky rhythms and multi vocal shouts...and an intensity that is very raw and extremely pure. You know what I want? I want the guitars that start "Anárquico es el Pensamiento" to be my sonic spirit guide....because fukk are they heavy. So yeah....get dirty. 

MUSICA PARA LA RESISTENCIA

MEMBRANE

Ramshackle, distorted dupa-dupa from Brooklyn circa a few years ago. To be honest, I think that history will be unkind to this particular brand of raw hardcore punk, but good bands are still good bands, and I am sure that future ears will wisely acknowledge those that deserve acknowledgement. So, almost four years removed from the release of this creamer I am asking you to blast "Noose" and ask yourself where MEMBRANE fall in the historical judgement-o-meter......or perhaps we just need to get shithoused and keep listening for a few more years before we can really decide. 

MEMBRANE

LA FRACTION

My introduction to LA FRACTION was in 2002. We played with AMDI PETERSENS ARMÉ and TRAGEDY at Gilman and Billy was wearing a bright fukkn red LA FRACTION shirt and it just stuck out, you know? It wasn't black, it didn't look "punk" in the generic sense of the descriptor, and it just stuck out. I knew all those dudes, it's not like we were tight or anything, so I didn't ask about the shirt and just kinda filed it away mentally....to be addressed later. And then five years later their third LP La Vie Rêvée dropped and I was driving that French band on their US/Canadian tour, a tour that included a boat in Texas and threats of violence in San Francisco and and drugs and botched border crossings at Niagra Falls and a crazy ass frontman in Pittsburgh and a show with WOLFBRIGADE and PISSCHRIST in Milwaukee (epic evening, seriously) and it was fukkn magic. Really, it was. I have toured with a lot of bands...good bands, and good people...and I have had a really good time with most of them. But the bands I have really connected with? I can count them on one hand. LA FRACTION lives on that hand. I could talk about the 450+ mile drive east from Missoula (no stops...my longest stretch to date) with Magali sitting shotgun. I could talk about Dédé showing up in Leipzig and making John and me snort soap (that happened). I could tell a lot of stories that are now a fucking decade old, but my point is that this band is special, and if you have yet to discover them...then today is going to be a very special day for you. Similar to the day I looked up at the Gilman stage and saw that bright red shirt and wondered what band would make a red shirt with an (even/already in 2002) outdated Photoshop 101 image plastered on the front. What band? LA FRACTION. They are from Paris.....and they are (still) fucking beautiful.  

LA FRACTION

This tape was released by Nikt Nic Nie Wie, and contains LA FRACTION's debut LP from 1998 and their EP from 1996. Twenty years cannot dull the power of these songs....

"MY LIFE"

Prepare to enter a mind filled with wonder and brilliance: The mind of August Alston. Almost two hours of improvisations, prose, ramblings, creations, noise, and constructs that will confuse most, annoy some and enthrall a few who appreciate the wavelength of The Other and the existence of The Different. Revolving (eventually) around the recurring track "Condo Woman," My Life aka Not A Lack Of Interest Cover is an actual journey to another place that lies dormant inside and rests just below the surface - a place that is more destiny than destination. Have a nice trip, and I'm not sorry if you never truly return. 

MY LIFE aka NOT A LACK OF INTEREST COVER

CONDO WOMAN: BAD NOISE 2016

NEGATIVE RAGE

It's rough around the edges like drunken garage punk. It's dark and brooding sometimes, but more like COMPLICATIONS than modern day pseudogoth. It's got catchy songs like early LA hardcore, but you don't notice them at first because it's kinda presented like some some kind if indescribably "00s Midwestern punk revival (I know what I mean so you don't have to). Also....it's really good. Let's call it NEGATIVE RAGE.

SENSITIVE CITY

My brain hurts....does yours?

LOADED WORDS

The first song is called "Telecaster To The Head." That should be enough. You shouldn't need any more convincing. Discombobulated, erratic, weird, chaotic, discordant, deep. Mostly though...just weird. 

LOADED WORDS

CIDERVISION

The contents here conjure up more questions than the included information could ever answer. And by "included information," I mean the cover you see pictured above. That's all I have, so assistance is appreciated. Over 90 minutes of ramshackle UK punk (I'm guessing late '80s?) await you - some live, some rehearsals, some demos, some pure noise....and almost all of it is compelling, especially for those with shit-fi tendencies. So dig in. And dig.

DEAD HIPPIES 

FERAL BRAIN

Here's your demo of the month, punks. Sweden's FERAL BRAIN drop eleven minutes of searing hardcore punk in your lap with the most mandatory vocal listening in recent memory. Don't get me wrong, the tracks are great (and there are TRACKS, you dig - not just a collection of riffs) and the high moments ("No Way" specifically - it's the rippingest fast hardcore song I have heard in fukkn years, and that might not even be hyperbole) are more than enough to make this demo mandatory listening. If you like hardcore and you like to get your face melted, and you don't care about what new thing is cool because you just want to go harder....then FERAL BRAIN is basically your new favorite band. 

FERAL BRAIN

...also - the breakdown on "Judgement Day" is really REALLY sick...

MISERÄBLE

Remember when this is what Mondays were all about? Fists in the air, DBeating like maniacs to give ourselves the mental and physical energy needed to face the horrible world we live in? Noise and mangel at maximum, waiting for the guitar to ring out so we can hear the steady tupa-tupa of the toms before the riff kicks back in? Well....those Mondays aren't gone, my friends. You're living one right now and Mexico's MISERÄBLE are flying the DBeat flag at full mast with no pretense and no shame. Let the wind brush the stench of life off of you, and let your fists fly. 

DBEAT MANIACS

PØVLACION

Blazing Japanese raw punk seemingly obsessed with Spanish language hardcore, specifically the band coming out of Southern California over the last decade or so. Five rippers sung in Spanish (of course) driven by a bass that walks over straight ahead riffs and allows the guitar to noodle at will - it's never overkill, but it's always right. Five tracks on this 4 Songs Demonstracion, which leads me to believe that I'm missing a cover somewhere in the mix? All of 'em are bangers, though, so who cares! Commence full body pogo in 3, 2, 1.....

4 SONGS DEMONSTRACION