LIQUIDS

Like the sharp edge of a knife, but when you're too drunk to be cooking. Smart, snappy punk burners from the same crew of midwest mutants responsible for CONEHEADS, CCTV and a bunch of other shit that the kids scooped up before you even knew you were supposed to like it. Pay attention, and you will be rewarded with tracks like "Piss On Me," which is without a doubt the coolest creamer you will hear all damn day. 

BRANDON'S IN JAIL

DAGGER

Frantic NWI bangers, reminding us why Rust Belt is king. Six bursts of classic maximum energy raw and nasty USHC in just six minutes, kicking rehash culture in the teeth with thrift store combat boots. Just enough twang to get the garage punkers off their asses (I'm talking "Worn Away" here, punks) to show the stuff up fashion mafiosos that being a punk means sometimes you gotta get a little wild and mess up your hair. And the riffs? Fukk, man, these mutants cram a double LP discography's worth into these brain melting bangers. This is all you want today.

JOHN SQUEEL SESSIONS

COLD SHÏTS

Dirty and sweaty garage punk. Sounds like it was recorded in a garage, sounds deranged. Sounds good. Only seven minutes long, so it's a pretty small investment with a very generous return. Get into it, then get on with your day. You're Welcome. 

2+2=4

CRUDE HUMOR

Ralph said this shit was good, so I gave him $5 and took the tape home with me. I just wanna say that I don't think Ralph is a liar. I don't know him all that well, but I find him to be a generally upstanding fellow. But this time.....? Come on, Ralph. This shit is not simply "good" - CRUDE HUMOR are from another fukkn planet. Irreverent, snappy and on fukkn point punk that owes as much to BAD BRAINS and ADOLESCENTS as to early NIRVANA ad MUDHONEY. Yeah...I went there. It's not my fault. Blame Ralph.

JERI'S GRILL

LIQUIDS

I'm just gonna say that watching this band rip through a set of bangers at 11am was one of the highlights of 2016...and that wasn't even two full months into the year. Sugar sweet garage/power pop all jacked on pharmaceuticals and delivered at maximum speed, there's a reason why people moisten when the conversation turns to the current crop of mutants from Northwest Indiana. 

"BLINDIN" FLASH

And all those weird stops and tape edits? Yeah...that's just how they roll, and you get what I get.

ZAP

Sweet PENTAGRAM drum intro, my dudes, but after that it's all hiNRG punk all the time. Spastic weirdo mutants with a penchant for classic rock grooves crammed into little freak show dioramas. But if you think about it: when SSD started, Led Zep III was only eleven years old and TOTAL CHAOS started playing seventeen years ago...so those Blackmore licks seem a little cooler now, don't they?

ZAP

NEGATIVE VIBES

It's like the energy of youth crashing headlong into the anger of adulthood. NEGATIVE VIBES are trying so hard, and the result is an absolutely glorious mess; chaotic, noisy, totally off the rails and pissed. You know how VOID kinda falls apart sometimes and that's one of the things that rules about them? Yeah....NEGATIVE VIBES, man.

....TALKS SHIT!

ONCE AGAIN

In case you haven't picked up on my feelings about '90s DIY punk from previous posts: '90s DIY punk was awesome. No rules, no pre-determined subgenres, no internet, no deciding exactly which obscure cult band you're going to sound like before you have your first practice...shit was honest. Even when it wasn't good, it was fukkn honest. It's hard to move my mind past BLATHERSKITE and ICE NINE when I think of '90s Indianapolis, but this ONCE AGAIN demo gives me more than enough reasons to revisit the hardcore legacy of The Crossroads Of America. Listen to the youth in the vocals that start "Day One," an innocence immediately countered by the chaotic pummeling that makes up most of the song...this is (almost) the shit that naysayers past and present dismissed as emotional hardcore (people would say the same about ONE EYED GOD PROPHECY, and we all know how stupid that dismissal would be, right?), but brutal determination cannot be faked, and twenty years later these kids sound hugely important. Even if they never warranted more than a ripple when they made their initial drop into the pool....

ONCE AGAIN

MAXIMUM HOOSIER

You want to know why I keep doing this? It's tapes like this one. Sent in by a Friend Of The Escape, Maximum Hoosier is two hours of screaming underground punk and hardcore from the state of Indiana. Shit heaps of bands you've never heard of like WEIRD KID, DAISY CUTTER, KAM KAMA, RATSTORM and CLOSET BURNER, a few classics like DOW JONES & THE INDUSTRIALS, JETSONS and GIZMOS, plus CHAOTIC NEUTRAL and ICE NINE - bands that should be familiar to the thinking punk who pays attention. Hardcore, punk, crust - this thing will melt your face and open your eyes at the same time. Fave tracks are from REPELLANTS, ICE NINE, SIDE FX, APACHE DROPOUT, KAKM KAMA, CASQUE and OVERPOWER, but there are 84 tracks in all and clunkers are surprisingly absent, something especially tough to pull off with a regional comp. Absolute top quality mix.

MAXIMUM HOOSIER

Editing was kinda tough starting around 2/3 of the way through the first side - I might have messed up a couple of tracks. Hey Chris: I definitely enjoyed. Thanks. 

KATA SARKA // BODDICKER

Ripping blackened crust from Indianapolis' KATA SARKA. Grinding blackened crust from Detroit's BODDICKER. Sometimes, this is exactly what I need, and tight now is one of those times.

KATA SARKA // BODDICKER

FSDC2

I don't know if this is promotional tool or a fantastic snapshot of a scene, but Glory Hole and Hermetic dropped one killer collection of trippy pop music with this second volume of FSDC (the first volume rules too, naturally). The DMA track is my personal favorite, like an indie pop track chopped and screwed, and the SUICIDE-esque sparseness of CREEPING PINK is more than a little compelling. Psychedelic acoustic guitar missives and fuzzed out garage punk oddities fill the voids with tracks from HANZ BRONZE, BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD, HOLIDAY GIRLS, DAVID JABLONSKI and a couple of others...just really good tunes. We all need really good tunes sometimes.

FSDC2

HEDLOK

Sometimes you don't want to know if a band is succeeding intentionally or if they are just some mutants who slipped on a banana peel and fell face first into brilliance instead of dogshit. But however it was concocted, HEDLOK's brand of primal thrash metal is unfuckwithable. Utterly sinister basement filth from Indiana (BLACK FUNERAL anyone?) that sounds exactly like the pure evil it purports to be. This four song banger is their second tape in as many years, a complete departure from the much more produced Behold The Deathsquad full length that came in between the two, a release that makes it clear that HEDLOK is no accident. 

HEDLOK

TRANSGRESSION

There must have been thousands of bands like this in the late '80s, dirty crossover hardcore/thrash that could just as easily come from the punk underground or from dudes who want to be SLAYER but don't quite have the chops....or both. TRANSGRESSION come off like a metallic midwestern D.R.I. with a few extra hooks, but comparisons be damned once you start thrashing, right? The file has their 1987 self titled demo and Better Days from from following year. You get two tapes because I like you.

TRANSGRESSION

SOLO SE OYE PUNK vol. 2

A fukkn perfect starter kit for the uninitiated, or simply mandatory listening for even seasoned vets. Silenzio Statico put together this mix tape as a follow up to their Latin American punk primer, and I dare say this one jams even harder. Do Punx Dance? They damn sure better when this is the soundtrack.

DO PUNX DANCE?

FOUL CRUX

Frenetic hardcore with absolute purpose. Everything goes red (that's an emotional response and a physical description of the input signal) when the mid tempo fierce mosh in the third track is interrupted by a shriek of "PITRIARCH - PITRIARCHY!!" and that unwavering but still tongue in cheek determination personifies all five of these songs. I gather that FOUL CRUX is a side project of sorts, but I hope I'm wrong in this assumption...

FOUL CRUX

SEXES

I don't know about you, but for me in the right room, with the right light and in the right mood, these sounds are nothing short of total perfection. 

CULTS//LACE//GODS

Like Young Records

SIDE FX

Three minutes of authentic USHC from Indianapolis. SIDE FX nail early '80s power - stripped down to the raw essentials (an irreverent wail for vocals, meat and potatoes  rhythm section and a menacing assault delivered from the guitar) and offered up with a forceful but nonchalant attitude. Only four songs here, just enough to get you excited. 

SIDE FX

PUKEOID

Raw and nasty Midwestern hardcore in the ugly tradition of that glorious and beleaguered region. Eight songs in less than six minutes. There's a record out now on Not Normal, the same people who released this cassette.

PUKEOID

"I don't want your fucking life // I don't want your fucking sickness // I don't want your disease // I don't want that shit for me."

BLATHERSKITE

This might be one of those "time and place" bands, but I dare say that if you lived anywhere near Indianapolis, Indiana in the '90s and knew about hardcore, then you liked BLATHERSKITE. I saw them once in 1993, and at the time had seen nothing like it...well ahead of their time, churning out brutally heavy hardcore with irreverent precision. Johan's vocal growls are low and sinister, and the overall effect of the band is akin to a wall of death administered by a team of earthmovers - get out of the way or submit. The rhythm section went on to form ICE NINE, one of the most criminally under recognized bands of the decade, and San Francisco passion metal pioneers TIME IN MALTA, but this demo is fukkn primal. From the opening "Yo Scoth, drop it, G" you know this isn't your average demo, BLATHERSKITE were something else.

ABSTRACT

THE HERE AND NOW

Sixteen different bands from all over the DIY spectrum, ranging from CÜLO, BUNNY SKULLS and POSITIVE NOISE to legendary one man noise punk VILENTLY ILL and recent Escape visitors BURNT OFFERINGS. The potential for hardcore monotony is high on a comp full of ragers, and The Here And Now avoids this with plenty of ambient noise, and acts like DEATH BUDDHA and AUDIBLE XXY clock in some of the finest moments on this comp. A slice of sound from the North Coast...

THE HERE AND NOW

**NO STATIK plays Portland tonight at The Know. It's Grant's birthday, and he will very likely be intoxicated.**