ESC + JOHN AFRO BAND

Unfathomably unlistenable unconscionably awful nonsense. The fact that resources are utilized to reproduce (even in laughably small quantities) useless nonsense barfed up in a garage somewhere in the suburbs makes me sad to be a human. You're Down With West Side? Well...I just don't know what to say. If you want inept rendidtions of MINOR THREAT, BLACK SABBATH and NIRVANA tracks interspersed with utter nonsense like the "Mommy, wow! I'm a big kid now!" commercial (full disclosure: your very own The Wizard might have covered this nugget on stage in the early '90s....maybe definitely this happened) and nonsensical bedroom 4-track streams of consciousness that should have remained subconscious. It's worthless, and it's not even funny. So obviously you need it.

BUT THERE'S MORE!!!!! In case ESC isn't enough to make you cast all faith in humanity aside, get into JOHN AFRO BAND on the flip. But before you do, believe this: Even though these mutants are debatably more punk than those ESC mutants...you do not need any of these sounds in your life. Unless you like SOCKEYE. I like SOCKEYE...so there you go.

ESC + JOHN AFRO BAND

Seriously though: that "Post Office" track is pretty sick.

OUTLOOK

It's always possible that my historical recollections are a little off, but I place OUTLOOK at the crest of the wave of Olympia punk that has crashed down on the rest of us for the last several years. Urgent hardcore, notable both for Adriana's vocals and guitars brutalize riffs and leap up for quick licks when appropriate. Check the backing vox on "Not In My Name" and realize that these kids always seemed to roll with a crew, so that even when they were in your town, half the sea of mutants up front would know every tempo change and every word...then listen to "Dead Peasants" and realize that OUTLOOK were lightyears beyond basic. The vinyl releases are also recommended...

VISION

SBSM

Not that this information will help anyone who doesn't live in the Bay Area, but Maximum Rocknroll put together a series of really good shows this weekend (I hesitate to call it a "fest," both because that's a dirty word with some folks and because it really just feels like a bunch of great gigs crammed into four consecutive days). You can see what you missed here, and start making plans for next year, or you can just take my word that this weekend has been a much needed shot in the arm for me. Great band after great band, and lots of faces I haven't seen in far too long...punk stuff can be very good, my friends. I got a few records (including the NO FORM 12" - holy balls I hope this band makes it to our shores), a few tapes that you'll be hearing soon enough, and today the weekend closes with a 924 Gilman show with Bay Area freaks SBSM (and a bunch of other bands). This four songer was released last year by FOTE Remote Outposts, and I was pretty floored to hear that their live mania was able to be harnessed onto magnetic tape. Soaring electronics, layers of vocals, hypnotic drums pounding out appropriately monotonous rhythms...good shit.

JOY/RAGE

INSTITUTE

These Austin kids nail it, and they did so right out of the gate on this 2013 demo. Simultaneously dreary and peppy, they sneak darkness into pogo friendly first wave punk numbers - part of it is the guitar leads, but the drab vocals are obviously a key factor. Perhaps it's all totally calculated, and I quietly suspect that it is, but when I hear anarcho punk and WARSAW-era art school jams co-mingling like this? I'm just saying I start to care a little less about the motivation when the end result is really good. Several vinyl releases have followed for those who haven't already taken the plunge...

INSTITUTE

NOTHING BAND

It doesn't always have to be clean, my friends. Sometimes it's simply excruciating...and every now and then it's worth the pain. Angular and awkward, NOTHING BAND slog through a half hour of tortured guitars, a generous collection of found sounds and disjointed, almost nonsensical, percussions. The vocals make rare appearances, and sound like a tantrum from a tormented adolescent when they do. But these are timeless sounds...it's clearly not music...but that's part of why I find it so engaging. Because it's presented as music, and it's interpreted as something like music, but these are just sounds and actions as sounds. All musical convention is absent, making tracks like the fifth one here even more challenging simply because they are more musical. Listen hard and let go.

3: ALONER

WORN LEATHER

I like punk with a weirdo bent, and I'll take tuneful jams for days if they sound just a little off. Combining early Aussie punk vibes with casual, messy pop punk sensibilities and KBD smarts sounds like a good idea, but you won't know how good until you bang on this WORN LEATHER demo from 2014. There's a second tape from the same year (also great), but I'm still sticking with the debut - seven hook filled tracks of mid paced, off kilter weirdo punk? Sold.

WORN LEATHER

HIVE

I played in a band called MALACHI towards the end of my stint in Milwaukee - fun band with a stellar bunch of folks...played a dozen shows in our hometown, hit Europe for three weeks in 2009 and then called it a day as the members gradually relocated (not all of us - Russell still lives in The Promised Land).  One of the two guitarists was a cat named Dathan (ex-SKULLTIME, ARCHITECTS OF THE AFTERMATH), who lived in Panama for a year(ish?) and then split for Minneapolis, where he started a band called HIVE (with some other people from bands with a way higher profile than our little outfit ever mustered). Quintessential epic crust...riffs for days, a constant low end heavy chug, and a singer with a rasp well worthy of the Northwest elite. If nothing else, HIVE stands out for the intensity and speed they bring to the game - even the slower, more melodic bits ("Reversal Of Fortune") will have you clenched tight...the knife edge that this band straddles creates a legitimate tension with even a casual listen. Comparisons aren't really necessary, but if you monkeys like the sound of a black clad apocalypse with full stacks, then here you go. Thanks for the envelope, Dathan...the rest of you should thank him too.

 HIVE

(herbert)

True mutant jammers, these SoCal freakazoids simply don't make any actual sense. On the one hand, it's like that one out-of-left-field art/alt band with the video that played on 120 Minutes just that one time, but it's also bizarro college rock and Shimmy Disc and some future genius jerking around in his bedroom with a 4-track...it's all of these things. And it's yours. The whispering vocals, the meandering bass leading the sparse and simple clean guitar, the general weirdness and the TV samples and the occasional XTC-meets-BUTTHOLE SURFERS vibe. It's yours.

(herbert)

SIEGE STOMPERS

Sometimes you want to listen to really catchy punk, and sometimes you want to listen to Blood Sweat and No Tears...and sometimes you don't want to have to choose. For those times, I offer Italy's SIEGE STOMPERS for your consideration and inevitable enjoyment.

SIEGE STOMPERS

THE PADILLA BROTHERS

It might be good to occasionally venture off of your path, to sink your teeth into tastes that challenge your palette. Maybe you find something you like and start on a new musical journey, or maybe you just solidify your affinity for whatever brand of hardcore and/or punk and/or minimal electronic noise that happens to float your boat. Enter Albuquerque's THE PADILLA BROTHERS, a schmaltzy trio who belt out syrupy sweet easy listening '70s country with an apparent obsession with a dude from Bethlehem. But religious affiliations aside, when they pick up the pace on "Buenos Dias, Señor Jesus" it kinda swings like The Nashville Sound but without the strings. These three dudes don't just bring killer hair to the table, their vocal harmonies are stellar and though the guitar licks are subtle, they are extremely effective. Perhaps not an accident that the Spanish language tracks are the most successful, as these are the songs that lay it back and just kinda roll, but the questionably titled closer "His Hand Is Touching Me" crushes at such a slow and deliberate pace that it's the song I keep coming back to. So step off the trail, young punk...even if your journey only leads you back to where you starts, you'll at least know you're headed the right way.

A MAN CALLED LOVE

HINGE

Karoline and I just had a discussion about the HICKEY/FUCKFACE show she booked in Milwaukee in '96...I have always thought that HINGE was one of the locals on that show, she thinks that they had probably split up by then, but we both agree that we spent most of the show making out in the front seat of a double parked brown Ford on Oakland Avenue, so the memories are good ones either way. I have had a different HUNGE recording floating around since that era, but I snagged this one from Daniel when he was purging a couple of summers ago, and it's way better than the one I've been listening to. Four tracks of impassioned basement DIY with a heavy DC influence and killer swarms of guitars. I've said it countless times in these pages, but I miss bands having the freedom to write like this without instant access to every subgenre at their fingertips...I miss songs like "How The West Was Won" popping onto tapes and steering your listening in an entirely different direction. So whether I saw HINGE or not, I'm glad to have the sounds. And if, in fact, didn't see them? Well, it was a really good make out session, so no regrets.

HINGE

CRAZY BULL

Shameless modern heavy metal from Philadelphia...there's nothing wrong with a killer blues based guitar lick, and if your vocalist can pull, off that gravelly swagger then by all means: let that flag fly, my man. I was struck immediately by this tape...I was supposed to be analyzing the latest international punk offerings and I was rocketed back to adolescence the moment I pressed play. It's like KYUSS without MELVINS, or PENTAGRAM without SABBATH...it's timeless heavy metal music, loud and dirty.

CRAZY BULL

NO PEACE

Sometimes you like to get bashed in the face. Repeatedly. And for moments like those, I suggest listening to the NO PEACE demo. Repeatedly. The guitars alone will likely be enough to start you pounding your face into the nearest wall with maximum force. Repeatedly. But the whole package here is some UK82 punx snorting baby arm sized rails of phencyclidine. Repeatedly. NO PEACE sound so brilliantly fukkd, so horrifically pissed...and "Rat Maze" is pure filth snorting crank thats been stepped on so hard that you blow a line, immediately take a shit and then sit around wondering if you're high or not. Since you aren't sure, you do another line. And repeat. But I digress.

VOLUME 1

ASESINATO DEL PODER

As simple as it is ferocious, this 2013 banger from northern Spain drops eight solid punk jams right in your lap. "Atrapado" and the four note "Celdas" slow the pace to a creepy crawl, but the rest of this tape is some kind of DBeat/pogo hybrid - fast, pure, raw, and very punk. You like the way it looks? You'll like the way it sounds.

ASESINATO DEL PODER

RHYTHM OF CRUELTY

Once again - I'm getting tired of the hoards of kids dishing out regurgitations of the new wave and goth that a sunk into as a teen. And once again - I hear bands like RHYTHM OF CRUELTY and all I want is more. The brutal simplicity of the opening track, with the caterwauling vocals sharing reverberating frequencies with the over treated guitars and a two track monotony that continues for three and one half minutes...that simplicity can also be described as perfection. The next two are slightly more up tempo, vocals lost swimming in those guitars while the phasered (of course) bass drives the train (actually, the drum tracks might be the most interesting aspect of this whole recording, but they are sadly buried in the mix...if only they had an effects pedal for drums - oh wait: it's a drums machine, so they've got that covered too). By the time "Still Life" settles into a 4/4 to close things out, you might be as addicted as I was. Lucky you, because this tape is from 2012, and this Canadian duo has been rather busy since then.

STILL LIFE