The Powers That Be have changed the rules so we aren’t allowed to expound on
the records we consumed and were consumed by in the traditional longwinded
MRR manner, so if you want to read my full 2015 musical rollercoaster ride (ten
LPs! Ten 45s! more than ten cassettes! Ten reissues!
you must wait a bit... Also I present to you the “Records that were released in the weird purgatory that is the
End of the Year and so missed full consideration for last year’s list AND this
year’s list” zone right here in this intro… 2014 slipped thru the cracks: THE
INTENDED “Huguenot/The Alchemist” 45, WITCHING WAVES –“Fear of Falling
Down” LP… both of which were amongst my most listened to discs of 2015.
Anyway here is a tiny slice of the records I was couldn’t stop flippin out to in
2015, perhaps one of the worst years in human memory?!
CCTV – Quiet EP
Favorite disc of 2015! Nervous furtive fraught invocations of the indignities of
modern life, anxiety and paranoia, everything sounds like it was recorded on a
boombox at the wrong speed adding to the strange feeling of otherworldliness,
like walking through a dead mall full of fake plants and broken ideas. It’s perfectly
retro, really sounds like a recently excavated secret basement from the 1979
New Wave/punk collision, but it’s from now, and is fresh yet eternal. SU TISSUE
dreamscape.
SACRED PAWS – Six Songs 12”
Perfect record! It’s so energizing and uplifting, total power with an untouchable
dreamy/introspective feeling that leaves me reeling. This is post-punk
insurrection, like what I imagined SLITS sounded like when I found out that
NENEH CHERRY was in a later incarnation of the group…Freedom! Everything
Rachel Aggs does is 100% and this is no exception. Her guitar style borrows
from the coolest early ’80s London post-punk adventure girls and the most
transcendent African Highlife and with the addition of her former GOLDEN
GRRLS bandmate Eilidh there’s an added extra layer of melancholic beauty to
these uplifting numbers. Listened to this an insane amount of times, truly a great
LP.
PATSY – Tuley Tude High/Paradise 45
I think PATSY features Nathan and Candice from MYSTIC INANE (who put out
two of the best 45s this year!) and this demonstrates that you should just buy
everything they do. Killer killer killer! If Dez Cadena was a girl and new
dimensions in modern rehashes of previous ideas of punk was a possibility.
AQUARIAN BLOOD – Savage Mind EP
Total destruction! Like ANGRY ANGLES discovered FATHER YOD and PCP
and combined all these things into an insane wall of destruction and woe! I think
this band is expansive and features many participants but the driving force being
former members of NOTS and a current member of EX-CULT should make your
blood pressure rise suitably if you have any sense.
LIME CRUSH – Graveyard EP
Singer sounds like she should be in KLEENEX, music is somewhere between the
more garagey HUGGY BEAR stuff and the PHANTOM PREGNANCIES and this
7” is a non stop killer lurching punk attack!
SNEAKS – Gymnastics LP
Further evidence the DC scene has experienced major / incendiary rejuvenation
in the past couple years… Incredible CHANDRA / 99 Records configuration that I
just can’t stop listening to.
VIAL – You’re Not Safe EP
Krista is an incredible and iconic front person, with a remarkable voice, like if
DINAH CANCER was a tough HC girl?! I’ve seen em cover LAST RITES’
“Chunks” but they’ve also get compared to FLIPPER and the BAGS! I think of
them as a hardcore band but have gotten in arguments with people about it,
perhaps because women are never truly “hardcore” according to the general
punk populace?! I have no idea how anyone could listen to this and not think that
it’s a hardcore record though. The guitar is burly in a classic Touch n Go manner,
the lyrics are smart and to the point, and interrogate gentrification and gender
constructs as well as total alienation/anxiety. I love this band, and this 45 is killer.
BLACK TIME – Aerial Gobs of Love LP
All hail BLACK TIME, architects of the brutal and arcane…Transporting the
listener to the collapsing concrete shopping centers of London, in which girls and
boys as informed as much by the Medway Sound as the Situationist ideal hack
out a new / old existence in the ashes of commerce. What other group could
summon thoughts of HUGGY BEAR, SWELL MAPS, early Michigan garage
sounds, Musique Concrète, girls in bootleg Mary Quant / Bridget Riley get ups
reading Sheila Delaney’s teenage works…BLACK TIME is the way and the truth.
The sound of irate bedroom masterworks—when Lemmy Caution shouts he’s got
no expectations you can feel that tool Jagger’s smug sprawl of expectations
slowly eating away at the earth… Janey Too-bad’s voice on the title track makes
me wanna grab a Silvertone and join the WHAT FOUR (or the MOD 4). Anyway
this is a piercing, shambling, devastating view into two years of bedroom
recordings by London’s only garage band
MIDNITE SNAXX – Don’t Wake Me Up/ Shades 45
Never really paid attention to these punkers, I remember their ealier records
being sort of more power pop/Bomp! girlsound, which is cool, but not always
what I want. Then this sick 45 appeared and I realized I needed to shape the fuck
up. Insane KBD/Girls in the Garage hybrid sounds for furious modernists! Kill or
be killed.
SHITFUCKS – Det Är Ditt Fel EP
I described this to a friend as “the Swedish ABORTED with an insane possessed
lady who could be in KLEENEX or RUTTO singing” and if that isn’t want you
want out of life then I can’t help you.
Runners up: MYSTIC INANE – both 45s, DRINKS – LP / PIERRE & BASTIEN
LP / NOTS – 45 /TERRY – EP/ ANGIE LP /LA MISMA LP / VEXX – EP /
/CONEHEADS LP / VIAL – EP / VIOLENCE CREEPS flexi+EP / BLACK ABBA –
45 / LA MISMA LP / SHOPPING – LP
CASSETTES/DEMOS:
BLACK ABBA, G.L.O.S.S., MOZART, THE WORLD, AQUARIAN BLOOD,
SUSAN, UROCHROMES, FREAK, VERTIGO, JJ DOLL, BIG BLEACH,
PENNYCRESS, GENDERDOG, NAIL CLUB, 100%, RAYS, SBSM, GAUCHE.
REISSUES
INDEX-45/BIKINI KILL-Revolution Girl Style Now-LP / PINK SECTION – LP /
INFLATABLE BOY CLAMS 2xEP / STICK MEN WITH RAY GUNS – LP /
PLASTIX – Ich Bin Modern! LP / TOŽIBABE – Dežuje EP / SCHUND – EP /
SOBERANÍA PERSONAL – Benditos Sean Muñecos Que Pegan LP / BROKEN
TALENT – Rules No One LP / BILLY SYNTH / DEPARTMENTSTORE SANTAS
– LP / MERCENÁRIAS – Demo 1983 EP / THE ELECTRONIC HOLE - The
Electronic Hole / COUNTRY TEASERS – Empire Strikes Back LP
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2016:
COURTNEYS LP, SPIDER AND THE WEBS LP, WITCHING WAVES LP, IN
SCHOOL EP, VEXX, MOZART 45, HYSTERICS discog LP, JJ DOLL triple LP,
PIECE WAR 12”, THE WORLD EP (former members of Pang and Penny
Machine! Plus Andy Human, coolest new local group!) also the punks demand
more Patsy, more Black Abba, more SBSM, more Nots, more ONJ and more
CCTV. Along with more Low Life and Constant Mongrel, more Total Control too.
As the wise sage Tomata Du Plenty once inferred: if I can’t have what I
want / I don’t want anything.
whatwewantisfree
Layla's columns from Maximum Rocknroll! On the internet! Intense.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Thursday, December 10, 2015
better late than never: this human's TOP TEN OF 2014 as published in MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL MARCH 2015 issue
I had a big crisis as to whether I should pick my ten most listened to records, or do the usual endless write up of ten EPs and LPs, then spent an epic amount of time freaking out about what to include / what to write about it, all totally fascinating contextual information I am sure. Punk rock is an endless vacation. Writing about music is turgid and wretched. I put a few things that woulda made my YETT last year if MRR had gotten them before 2013 ended, and in that spirit I am going to mention the GG KING LP and the WITCHING WAVES LP which are reviewed in this issue, both technically came out in December, thusly missing the mark for full 2014 consideration / total and complete jamage throughout 2014, and thus will be entered into consideration for 2015 assuming we are not post-nuclear sewage by this time next year. I am also a terrible replicant human that recycled some of my record reviews from the magazine into this list format rather than coming up with more fascinating insights into aural technologies in the face of my useless and incapacitating woes. Alright!
LONG PLAYERS:
NOTS – “We Are Nots” LP (Goner) After two perfect 45s of URINALS/KLEENEX insurrection a nation of rabid fans wondered how a full length was gonna transform our lives… Continuing onwards into the fluxus continuum with added nihilistic keyboards, it’s a new future for rule breakers and drool makers everywhere. I think when I reviewed this I said it was like watching Daisies with ELECTRIC EELS as the soundtrack. In short the recordings of my dreams. If I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything…
GOOD THROB – “Fuck Off!” LP Was there a better record summing up this shoddy mindless existence in our blissful neo-liberal end times? Aggressive and antagonistic, idealistic / nihilistic, pinning up the microaggressions of the modern female experience to the inside of yr eyelids like no other group. Like a musical version of Laura Oldfield Ford’s incredible Savage Messiah fanzine, walking through the brutalist wreckage of post-Thatcher Britain littered with plastic bags and casual violence and somehow transforming it into a cut up punk masterpiece… I’ve said it before but any group that can somehow bring to mind NO TREND if they were on Crass Records with a front person that has the charisma and power of fucking “Girl on the Run” meets JOHN BRANNON gets to be the kings of punk.
TOTAL CONTROL – “Typical System” LP (Iron Lung / Aaarght / La Vida Es Un Mus) I found this an impossible record to write about, I agonized over my pathetic five line review for this very rag and in the spirit of that feeling I am going to replicate a couple lines from said review here: “’The Sound of Fear in the Western World,’ Vintage Violence, Berlin ENO / motorik collisions with late era BLITZ. This is a fucking classic, like reading Phillip K Dick on a commuter train in end times capitalist reality, it feels nostalgic and current at the same time. Forever prescient, ironic, but also true enough that it stays with you through these tiresome times.For many reading this Typical System is not going to be "punk" enough, whatever that means, but I can't stop listening to it. It feels both personal and subversive, romantic and dispassionate.”
FLESH WORLD – 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) I think technically this came out in 2013, but its December release date meant we didn’t get it until 2014 so it gets included! Urgent declarations of post-punk abandon from my current favorite San Francisco liberation force. Propulsive dark excursions which have an early Factory Records appeal, and are lit up by Jess’ voice, which flits from a PYLON like yelp to a perfect C86 SHOP ASSISTANTS lullaby… This record is so incredible, atmospheric and danceable, doomed and eternal. Soundtrack to the devolution of San Francisco.
VEXX – LP (Grazer / M’Ladys) Best Oly band since WEIRD TV… Watching the singer perform is otherworldly, like some new Alice Bag / Isadora Duncan formation… Every aspect of VEXX is exactly right, like if the PATTI SMITH GROUP were on Dangerhouse, so tough and transcendent. That wild psyche/punk guitar sending shards of light direct from speakers into brains, and then there’s the fucking rhythm section! Most incredible current punk drummer!? Cannot wait for the next installation of action and light…
EAST LINK – LP (In the Red) The repetition and totality of sound employed by EASTLINK make all their records perfect for daily commutes, a 59 guitar orchestra with only one riff played eternally until the entire world mutates into a singular beat with dollar store CHROME guitar solos spurting out onto your fellow commuters when necessary for survival.
LOW LIFE – “Dogging” LP (RIP Society) Debased ruminations on decay, lust, inaction over alternately deflated / thuggish post-punk dereliction. The lyrics are almost like a cartoon, a Clockwork Orange / High Rise take on the lives behind the headlines, what the “we’re all going to the dogs” hand-wringing net-curtain twitchers think the maggot filled streets of modern life are teeming with… In musical form.
WATERY LOVE – “Decorative Feeding” LP (In the Red) Further explorations into the impossibilities of Skull Music. VENOM P STINGER and SPIKE IN VAIN if they listened to BREAKDOWN in the metaphorical blender of a literally very useless writer. Why do skulls fall in love.
RAKTA – LP (Dama Da Noite / Nada Nada Discos / 540) Another thing that technically came out in December 2013 that we didn’t review until 2014 so… in it goes! Almost everything anyone has written about RAKTA would make them seem to be something I would avoid; deathrock, tribal polyrhythms and yet… This record is so cool—it looks and sounds incredible, and watching this band destroy SF was one of the highlights of the year. In his MRR review of this record Ray Suburbia references Maya Deren, psychedelica and girl driven deathrock incantations and I wholeheartedly concur. Layers upon layers build up to create a totality of sound, where most post-punk advocates investigate the sparseness of the genre, RAKTA veers away from that, creating an airless space out of dissonance and a complete wash of sound, wild vocals over doomed and danceable auralscapes. So sick!
EX-CULT – “Midnight Passenger” LP (Goner) A stark attack, reflecting lean cruel times; a paranoid, skulking sound with a total speed-for-blood road movie feel; lyrics read like a dime store novel circa 1965, a noir-ish effect enhanced by their economical use of words, desolate landscapes and plummeting human experiences adding to the feel. The music is claustrophobic, with dense layers of guitars and rhythm creating a back to mono punk savagery. Relentless and swaggering, putting the punk back in the garage, this is a taut, high tension sound that mines from fifty different punk ideals.
RUNNERS UP: HUMAN ABFALL – “Tanztee Von Unten” LP (Sounds of Subterrania) / IVY – LP (self-released) / TERCER MUNDO – LP (Cintes Pepe) / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS – “Collection” LP (Erste Theke Tonträger) / BUCK BILOXI AND THE FUCKS – “Culture Demanufacturer” LP (Total Punk) / NUN – LP (Aarght) / JUANITA Y LOS FEOS –LP (La Vida Es Un Mus) / SHOPPING – “Consumer Complaints” LP (Milk) FARANG – 12” / TRASH KIT – “Confidence” LP (What’s Your Rupture) / PRIESTS – LP (Don Giovanni) EPs and 45s:
PANG – “Young Professionals” EP (Grazer) I heard a rumor this record wasn’t going to come out, as PANG broke up as all the good ones are wont to do… but the universe prevailed, the fans recoiled in horror and here it is, blowin’ apart society as we know it. Or rather my brains and internal organs were reordered. I have waxed eternal about the genius sounds created by this group enough in these pages, but it’s all true, their genius is eternal, and must be expounded upon! Picture MAGAZINE as all female group, ENO obsessed art school types crafting perfect nerve-y pop at the snap of a finger. Or maybe picture four maniac WIRE fans destroying all art and culture in one 45. This is better than GIRLS AT OUR BEST!
NOTS-Fix/Modern 45 (Goner) Further dada-punk destruction outta Memphis, NOTS will ruin you. More gassed in the garage than the first 45 but if you want total kicks, total action, a record that signifies that now is the time, or rather what now is next, then play this on repeat until it all falls into place! Fervent and furious.
SHEER MAG – “What You Want” EP (Wilsons RC) How to write about a record that is indefinably great, that sounds like good classic rock, but is also scrappy and real like a basement punk band?! It’s low down, mean and eternal, street smart, wild, desperate and assured… And what a voice! I keep thinking this is a power pop record, but not power pop in that vile Power Pearls wimpy milk shit manner, it’s tough city street stomp, “All I do is sit and cry / Living in the city and I don’t know why.” Capturing the dirty summer in the city feeling; couldn’t be anywhere but here, oh but I gotta leave right now or I’m gonna lose it. “Hard Loving” and “What You Want” are the scene stealers for me. Low fidelity end of the summer sounds for troublemakers and broken hearts everywhere. Gimme more.
MYSTIC INANE – “Deep Creep” EP This features at least one ex-NECRO HIPPIE going off in a fried hardcore SACCHARINE TRUST vs. SPIKE IN VAIN wormhole, total tripper maniac sound! Both songs on the A-Side will have you doin’ the creepy crawl round your room in an uncontrollable fashion, so classic and venomous and sick! Candice’s guitar sound brings to mind so many of the greats, eerie and nihilistic and true, formed in a cave somewhere beneath the CRUCIFUCKS and RUDIMENTARY PENI. The vocalist has a death sneer like JACK BREWER meets MARK E. SMITH and even KEITH MORRIS... The rhythm section is tireless and doomed, and fuck, this record is great! The B-side is like slowed down syrupy NEOS.
RAKTA – “Tudo Que É Sólido/Serpente” 45 (Dama da Noite / Nada Nada Discos / La Vida Es Um Mus / 540) Continuing their penchant for creative expansion, avoiding cliché and aiming for the hypnotic over the predictable path… Transcendental, almost MALARIA! like sickness!
GIORGIO MURDERER – “Primitive World” EP (Goner) Post-apocalyptic synth-infused basement punk anthems for dislocated garbage brains, this sounds like it was recorded in 1983 by a maniac-minded miscreant with only dollar store synthesizers and garage sale guitars. All of the songs are insanely catchy and malevolent, and last approximately a minute each. Perfect! What more could you want? Nihilistic Oscar the Grouch destruction sounds. There’s even a spoken word number for all you beatniks…
PIECE WAR – “Apathy” 10” (Epic Sweep) This is a frustrating one to write about because it came out in an edition of 30 lathe cut only, I mean thirty! C’mon! And guess who didn’t manage to get one. I have heard a US label is attempting a reissue so there is hope! Doomed New Zealand punk that I can’t stop listening to, reminds me of GUN OUTFIT and the WIPERS, powerful and sincere, stark and beautiful. So fucking great.
PIG DNA – “Control You Fucker” EP (Night Rider) Apart from being the Bay Area’s only living punk band, PIG DNA have taken it upon themselves to destroy the concepts of punk, noize, music, the internet, good art, bad art, insects, the patriarchy, the government and whatever else you got. Total incendiary sounds, formed in the furious underbelly of noize not music, but this grouping of humans has personality. They swiftly dispense of the problem many practicing this style of music suffer from, that of being a boring clone. The drumming is a manic cloud of fury and enchantment that the rest of the band build upon eloquently and destructively, feedback adding to the totality of experience rather than just being another weak signifier. The artwork and lyrics are further evidence that what is happening here should be studied, expounded upon and used to prevent boredom and settling for second best. The lyrics to the song “Fly” say it better than anything my puny mind could come up with “Oh / You like that shit / Don’t You? / Bad Taste / Shit liker.” I need a PIG DNA t-shirt, mouth guard, breast plate, bubble gum card set, flick knife etc etc Watching them play is the coolest, but if you are not able to do that right now, buy this record instead and shut yourself in a windowless room and play it over and over and over. Nothing is real. America’s only punk band, with the only record that came out in 2014.
PRIMETIME – “Tied Down” EP (La Vida Es Un Mus) If you feel unsure just listen to the title track over and over again and then it will all make sense. Sounds like they could have supported the SLITS but so much cooler and more hilarious than the DELTA 5 or AU PAIRS ever were.
DESTRUYE Y HUYE – “Oscura Sociedad” EP (Verdugo Discos) I was so psyched on this when I got it for review I immediately sent off for a copy of my own. Super sick rudimentary ULTIMO RESORTE style ragers from LA, the insert/lyric sheet poster looks like something that woulda come out with an LA punk band circa 1982, eternal and classic ruckus.
RUNNERS UP: PURA MANIA – both EPS (CVR)/ HYSTERICS – “Can I Live” EP (M’Ladys) / IN SCHOOL – “Praxis of Hate” EP (Kill Test) / BIG ZIT – “Electric Zit Vol. 1” EP (Not Normal) / OOZE – “Big Angry” EP (Not Normal) / LA MISMA– “Arete” EP (Toxic State) / DOWNTOWN BOYS – 45 (Sister Polygon) / LAS VENAS – EP / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS 45 / FRAU – “Punk Is My Boyfriend” EP (Static Shock) / UNA BÈSTIA INCONTROLABLE- “Nou Món” 45 (Iron Lung)
So many reissues punk is a nostalgic parade: ELECTRIC EELS – all items!/ OWEN MAERCKS “Teenage Sex Therapist” LP / BIKINI KILL – “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” LP / SLANT 6 – “Soda Pop*Rip Off” LP / SIN 34 – “Do You Feel Safe?” / BOBBY SOXX – 45 /MICHAEL PSYCHO – LP / C.O.M.A – LP/ AUTISTIC BEHAVIOR – LP / CODE BMUS-12″ / CURTIS SEALS / CHRISTIAN D’ORBIT-split 45 / CRIME – “Murder By Guitar” LP / THE SHIVVERS-LP / PLASTIX – “Konsumier Mich” EP / X_X – “Sticky Fingers” LP / DISHRAGS – LP / AMADOTS – LP/ SHOES THIS HIGH – LP / CRISIS 2xLP / REMAREMA – 45 / NEO PUNKZ 45x2 / HUMAN ERROR – LP
KILLER TAPES Coneheads / Penny Machine / Family Outing / Vial / Nandas / The Stops / Cool Bands comp esp CCTV trax / Hagface / Timmy Vulgar /Wet Drag / Slender
LONG PLAYERS:
NOTS – “We Are Nots” LP (Goner) After two perfect 45s of URINALS/KLEENEX insurrection a nation of rabid fans wondered how a full length was gonna transform our lives… Continuing onwards into the fluxus continuum with added nihilistic keyboards, it’s a new future for rule breakers and drool makers everywhere. I think when I reviewed this I said it was like watching Daisies with ELECTRIC EELS as the soundtrack. In short the recordings of my dreams. If I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything…
GOOD THROB – “Fuck Off!” LP Was there a better record summing up this shoddy mindless existence in our blissful neo-liberal end times? Aggressive and antagonistic, idealistic / nihilistic, pinning up the microaggressions of the modern female experience to the inside of yr eyelids like no other group. Like a musical version of Laura Oldfield Ford’s incredible Savage Messiah fanzine, walking through the brutalist wreckage of post-Thatcher Britain littered with plastic bags and casual violence and somehow transforming it into a cut up punk masterpiece… I’ve said it before but any group that can somehow bring to mind NO TREND if they were on Crass Records with a front person that has the charisma and power of fucking “Girl on the Run” meets JOHN BRANNON gets to be the kings of punk.
TOTAL CONTROL – “Typical System” LP (Iron Lung / Aaarght / La Vida Es Un Mus) I found this an impossible record to write about, I agonized over my pathetic five line review for this very rag and in the spirit of that feeling I am going to replicate a couple lines from said review here: “’The Sound of Fear in the Western World,’ Vintage Violence, Berlin ENO / motorik collisions with late era BLITZ. This is a fucking classic, like reading Phillip K Dick on a commuter train in end times capitalist reality, it feels nostalgic and current at the same time. Forever prescient, ironic, but also true enough that it stays with you through these tiresome times.For many reading this Typical System is not going to be "punk" enough, whatever that means, but I can't stop listening to it. It feels both personal and subversive, romantic and dispassionate.”
FLESH WORLD – 12” (La Vida Es Un Mus) I think technically this came out in 2013, but its December release date meant we didn’t get it until 2014 so it gets included! Urgent declarations of post-punk abandon from my current favorite San Francisco liberation force. Propulsive dark excursions which have an early Factory Records appeal, and are lit up by Jess’ voice, which flits from a PYLON like yelp to a perfect C86 SHOP ASSISTANTS lullaby… This record is so incredible, atmospheric and danceable, doomed and eternal. Soundtrack to the devolution of San Francisco.
VEXX – LP (Grazer / M’Ladys) Best Oly band since WEIRD TV… Watching the singer perform is otherworldly, like some new Alice Bag / Isadora Duncan formation… Every aspect of VEXX is exactly right, like if the PATTI SMITH GROUP were on Dangerhouse, so tough and transcendent. That wild psyche/punk guitar sending shards of light direct from speakers into brains, and then there’s the fucking rhythm section! Most incredible current punk drummer!? Cannot wait for the next installation of action and light…
EAST LINK – LP (In the Red) The repetition and totality of sound employed by EASTLINK make all their records perfect for daily commutes, a 59 guitar orchestra with only one riff played eternally until the entire world mutates into a singular beat with dollar store CHROME guitar solos spurting out onto your fellow commuters when necessary for survival.
LOW LIFE – “Dogging” LP (RIP Society) Debased ruminations on decay, lust, inaction over alternately deflated / thuggish post-punk dereliction. The lyrics are almost like a cartoon, a Clockwork Orange / High Rise take on the lives behind the headlines, what the “we’re all going to the dogs” hand-wringing net-curtain twitchers think the maggot filled streets of modern life are teeming with… In musical form.
WATERY LOVE – “Decorative Feeding” LP (In the Red) Further explorations into the impossibilities of Skull Music. VENOM P STINGER and SPIKE IN VAIN if they listened to BREAKDOWN in the metaphorical blender of a literally very useless writer. Why do skulls fall in love.
RAKTA – LP (Dama Da Noite / Nada Nada Discos / 540) Another thing that technically came out in December 2013 that we didn’t review until 2014 so… in it goes! Almost everything anyone has written about RAKTA would make them seem to be something I would avoid; deathrock, tribal polyrhythms and yet… This record is so cool—it looks and sounds incredible, and watching this band destroy SF was one of the highlights of the year. In his MRR review of this record Ray Suburbia references Maya Deren, psychedelica and girl driven deathrock incantations and I wholeheartedly concur. Layers upon layers build up to create a totality of sound, where most post-punk advocates investigate the sparseness of the genre, RAKTA veers away from that, creating an airless space out of dissonance and a complete wash of sound, wild vocals over doomed and danceable auralscapes. So sick!
EX-CULT – “Midnight Passenger” LP (Goner) A stark attack, reflecting lean cruel times; a paranoid, skulking sound with a total speed-for-blood road movie feel; lyrics read like a dime store novel circa 1965, a noir-ish effect enhanced by their economical use of words, desolate landscapes and plummeting human experiences adding to the feel. The music is claustrophobic, with dense layers of guitars and rhythm creating a back to mono punk savagery. Relentless and swaggering, putting the punk back in the garage, this is a taut, high tension sound that mines from fifty different punk ideals.
RUNNERS UP: HUMAN ABFALL – “Tanztee Von Unten” LP (Sounds of Subterrania) / IVY – LP (self-released) / TERCER MUNDO – LP (Cintes Pepe) / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS – “Collection” LP (Erste Theke Tonträger) / BUCK BILOXI AND THE FUCKS – “Culture Demanufacturer” LP (Total Punk) / NUN – LP (Aarght) / JUANITA Y LOS FEOS –LP (La Vida Es Un Mus) / SHOPPING – “Consumer Complaints” LP (Milk) FARANG – 12” / TRASH KIT – “Confidence” LP (What’s Your Rupture) / PRIESTS – LP (Don Giovanni) EPs and 45s:
PANG – “Young Professionals” EP (Grazer) I heard a rumor this record wasn’t going to come out, as PANG broke up as all the good ones are wont to do… but the universe prevailed, the fans recoiled in horror and here it is, blowin’ apart society as we know it. Or rather my brains and internal organs were reordered. I have waxed eternal about the genius sounds created by this group enough in these pages, but it’s all true, their genius is eternal, and must be expounded upon! Picture MAGAZINE as all female group, ENO obsessed art school types crafting perfect nerve-y pop at the snap of a finger. Or maybe picture four maniac WIRE fans destroying all art and culture in one 45. This is better than GIRLS AT OUR BEST!
NOTS-Fix/Modern 45 (Goner) Further dada-punk destruction outta Memphis, NOTS will ruin you. More gassed in the garage than the first 45 but if you want total kicks, total action, a record that signifies that now is the time, or rather what now is next, then play this on repeat until it all falls into place! Fervent and furious.
SHEER MAG – “What You Want” EP (Wilsons RC) How to write about a record that is indefinably great, that sounds like good classic rock, but is also scrappy and real like a basement punk band?! It’s low down, mean and eternal, street smart, wild, desperate and assured… And what a voice! I keep thinking this is a power pop record, but not power pop in that vile Power Pearls wimpy milk shit manner, it’s tough city street stomp, “All I do is sit and cry / Living in the city and I don’t know why.” Capturing the dirty summer in the city feeling; couldn’t be anywhere but here, oh but I gotta leave right now or I’m gonna lose it. “Hard Loving” and “What You Want” are the scene stealers for me. Low fidelity end of the summer sounds for troublemakers and broken hearts everywhere. Gimme more.
MYSTIC INANE – “Deep Creep” EP This features at least one ex-NECRO HIPPIE going off in a fried hardcore SACCHARINE TRUST vs. SPIKE IN VAIN wormhole, total tripper maniac sound! Both songs on the A-Side will have you doin’ the creepy crawl round your room in an uncontrollable fashion, so classic and venomous and sick! Candice’s guitar sound brings to mind so many of the greats, eerie and nihilistic and true, formed in a cave somewhere beneath the CRUCIFUCKS and RUDIMENTARY PENI. The vocalist has a death sneer like JACK BREWER meets MARK E. SMITH and even KEITH MORRIS... The rhythm section is tireless and doomed, and fuck, this record is great! The B-side is like slowed down syrupy NEOS.
RAKTA – “Tudo Que É Sólido/Serpente” 45 (Dama da Noite / Nada Nada Discos / La Vida Es Um Mus / 540) Continuing their penchant for creative expansion, avoiding cliché and aiming for the hypnotic over the predictable path… Transcendental, almost MALARIA! like sickness!
GIORGIO MURDERER – “Primitive World” EP (Goner) Post-apocalyptic synth-infused basement punk anthems for dislocated garbage brains, this sounds like it was recorded in 1983 by a maniac-minded miscreant with only dollar store synthesizers and garage sale guitars. All of the songs are insanely catchy and malevolent, and last approximately a minute each. Perfect! What more could you want? Nihilistic Oscar the Grouch destruction sounds. There’s even a spoken word number for all you beatniks…
PIECE WAR – “Apathy” 10” (Epic Sweep) This is a frustrating one to write about because it came out in an edition of 30 lathe cut only, I mean thirty! C’mon! And guess who didn’t manage to get one. I have heard a US label is attempting a reissue so there is hope! Doomed New Zealand punk that I can’t stop listening to, reminds me of GUN OUTFIT and the WIPERS, powerful and sincere, stark and beautiful. So fucking great.
PIG DNA – “Control You Fucker” EP (Night Rider) Apart from being the Bay Area’s only living punk band, PIG DNA have taken it upon themselves to destroy the concepts of punk, noize, music, the internet, good art, bad art, insects, the patriarchy, the government and whatever else you got. Total incendiary sounds, formed in the furious underbelly of noize not music, but this grouping of humans has personality. They swiftly dispense of the problem many practicing this style of music suffer from, that of being a boring clone. The drumming is a manic cloud of fury and enchantment that the rest of the band build upon eloquently and destructively, feedback adding to the totality of experience rather than just being another weak signifier. The artwork and lyrics are further evidence that what is happening here should be studied, expounded upon and used to prevent boredom and settling for second best. The lyrics to the song “Fly” say it better than anything my puny mind could come up with “Oh / You like that shit / Don’t You? / Bad Taste / Shit liker.” I need a PIG DNA t-shirt, mouth guard, breast plate, bubble gum card set, flick knife etc etc Watching them play is the coolest, but if you are not able to do that right now, buy this record instead and shut yourself in a windowless room and play it over and over and over. Nothing is real. America’s only punk band, with the only record that came out in 2014.
PRIMETIME – “Tied Down” EP (La Vida Es Un Mus) If you feel unsure just listen to the title track over and over again and then it will all make sense. Sounds like they could have supported the SLITS but so much cooler and more hilarious than the DELTA 5 or AU PAIRS ever were.
DESTRUYE Y HUYE – “Oscura Sociedad” EP (Verdugo Discos) I was so psyched on this when I got it for review I immediately sent off for a copy of my own. Super sick rudimentary ULTIMO RESORTE style ragers from LA, the insert/lyric sheet poster looks like something that woulda come out with an LA punk band circa 1982, eternal and classic ruckus.
RUNNERS UP: PURA MANIA – both EPS (CVR)/ HYSTERICS – “Can I Live” EP (M’Ladys) / IN SCHOOL – “Praxis of Hate” EP (Kill Test) / BIG ZIT – “Electric Zit Vol. 1” EP (Not Normal) / OOZE – “Big Angry” EP (Not Normal) / LA MISMA– “Arete” EP (Toxic State) / DOWNTOWN BOYS – 45 (Sister Polygon) / LAS VENAS – EP / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS 45 / FRAU – “Punk Is My Boyfriend” EP (Static Shock) / UNA BÈSTIA INCONTROLABLE- “Nou Món” 45 (Iron Lung)
So many reissues punk is a nostalgic parade: ELECTRIC EELS – all items!/ OWEN MAERCKS “Teenage Sex Therapist” LP / BIKINI KILL – “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” LP / SLANT 6 – “Soda Pop*Rip Off” LP / SIN 34 – “Do You Feel Safe?” / BOBBY SOXX – 45 /MICHAEL PSYCHO – LP / C.O.M.A – LP/ AUTISTIC BEHAVIOR – LP / CODE BMUS-12″ / CURTIS SEALS / CHRISTIAN D’ORBIT-split 45 / CRIME – “Murder By Guitar” LP / THE SHIVVERS-LP / PLASTIX – “Konsumier Mich” EP / X_X – “Sticky Fingers” LP / DISHRAGS – LP / AMADOTS – LP/ SHOES THIS HIGH – LP / CRISIS 2xLP / REMAREMA – 45 / NEO PUNKZ 45x2 / HUMAN ERROR – LP
KILLER TAPES Coneheads / Penny Machine / Family Outing / Vial / Nandas / The Stops / Cool Bands comp esp CCTV trax / Hagface / Timmy Vulgar /Wet Drag / Slender
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Mid Year Report
I have pretty much ceased writing for MRR in the columns dept, this is partially bc of a brutal case of writer's block I am currently afflicted with (tho I still review records every month so if you are totally desperate to read my sordid opinions you can read them in black and white newsprint...) I am thinking about turning some of the older columns into a zine/book, not sure if I will, but am actually working on a fanzine too... with interviews!
This is a list I made last month of my mid year JAM REPORT/most of the things you can click on and listen/I was gonna write reports on each release but I lost the will to live after embedding half of the stupid bandcamps etc I made this list in July, and am adding the following to it: new Life Stinks 45 on total punk,I forgot the other stuff I was going to add (see section on losing will to live).If you click on the band name most will lead to you a bandcamp/listening opportunity. other wise use your intuition
SHORT PLAY
pang-young professionals EP (perfect post eno post punk sounds, like magazine was all girls, dreamiest record of the year... great tragedy they broke up! all in new bands already tho...)
nots-fix/modern 45 (Kleenex meets the Urinals in Memphis? in short another perfect 45 followin on from the perfection of their last. Can't wait for the LP)
la misma-EP on toxic state (think this is sold out but distros probs still have it)
in school-Praxis-EP
hysterics-EP
multiple man-Body Double/Surface Roads 45
coolies-punk is bread-EP
southern comfort (tho I preferred their 45 from last year)
black lagoon-oxygen EP
video
red red krovvy
lumpy
courtneys-lost boys
wanuy
personnel
dark beach
oily boys
LONG PLAYERS
watery love
east link
vexx
low life
total control
farang
good throb
Nun
apathy-war peace
rakta (2013? but Timmy has reissued it)
flesh world (also dec 2013?)
MOB
ex cult
lowest form
brain f≠
Juanita y los feos
Priests
reissues
electric eels 45
x_x LP
dishrags LP
autistic behavior LP
amadots LP
shoes this high 45
c.o.m.a LP
stigmathe 45
simply saucer 45
shivvers LP
crisis 2xLP
remarema 45
neo punkz 45s
human error LP
mary monday 45
alerta roja LP
christian d'orbit/curtis seals 45
Xerox LP
bands i wanna hear more of:
VIAL (LA)
mansion (SF/OAK)
CCTV (Northern indiana scene is insane)
family outing (lond)
witching waves (london)
nandas (NY)
Big Zit (NI)
Sheer Mag
While (rumored new band with Christina Bilotte?!)
Spider and the Webs
This is a list I made last month of my mid year JAM REPORT/most of the things you can click on and listen/I was gonna write reports on each release but I lost the will to live after embedding half of the stupid bandcamps etc I made this list in July, and am adding the following to it: new Life Stinks 45 on total punk,I forgot the other stuff I was going to add (see section on losing will to live).If you click on the band name most will lead to you a bandcamp/listening opportunity. other wise use your intuition
SHORT PLAY
pang-young professionals EP (perfect post eno post punk sounds, like magazine was all girls, dreamiest record of the year... great tragedy they broke up! all in new bands already tho...)
nots-fix/modern 45 (Kleenex meets the Urinals in Memphis? in short another perfect 45 followin on from the perfection of their last. Can't wait for the LP)
la misma-EP on toxic state (think this is sold out but distros probs still have it)
in school-Praxis-EP
hysterics-EP
multiple man-Body Double/Surface Roads 45
coolies-punk is bread-EP
southern comfort (tho I preferred their 45 from last year)
black lagoon-oxygen EP
video
red red krovvy
lumpy
courtneys-lost boys
wanuy
personnel
dark beach
oily boys
LONG PLAYERS
watery love
east link
vexx
low life
total control
farang
good throb
Nun
apathy-war peace
rakta (2013? but Timmy has reissued it)
flesh world (also dec 2013?)
MOB
ex cult
lowest form
brain f≠
Juanita y los feos
Priests
reissues
electric eels 45
x_x LP
dishrags LP
autistic behavior LP
amadots LP
shoes this high 45
c.o.m.a LP
stigmathe 45
simply saucer 45
shivvers LP
crisis 2xLP
remarema 45
neo punkz 45s
human error LP
mary monday 45
alerta roja LP
christian d'orbit/curtis seals 45
Xerox LP
bands i wanna hear more of:
VIAL (LA)
mansion (SF/OAK)
CCTV (Northern indiana scene is insane)
family outing (lond)
witching waves (london)
nandas (NY)
Big Zit (NI)
Sheer Mag
While (rumored new band with Christina Bilotte?!)
Spider and the Webs
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
bazooka smooth
Skinned Teen in the Rough Trade Records basement |
some dude wrote about us for the onion (PS that is not the band on our LP cover, our proper cover got rejected by the record label so we took a photo of a bunch of our friends hanging out in a grave yard)
someone wrote a wikipedia about it all too for some reason? how many more inane things can I put here? hmmm I am sure some other dudes have written about skinned teen? oh wait here is a thing I wrote for the BK website about skinned teen forming directly as a result of huggy bear/Bikini kill
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
2013 rocknroll (sung to the tune of GG's 1980s rocknroll) YEAR END TOP TEN TYME
Layla Gibbon
As always there were things
I listened to relentlessly that didn’t make this list because of company policy
(ie no records that were released by an indie but distributed by a major label
conglomerate or you know, music that falls outside of the Maximum Rocknroll
realm for musical reasons etc) and as always it is really hard to sum up a year
of sound using words and…
LPS
From the insane cover art to the sounds on the vinyl this is
insidious genius; scrape your eyes out blood thirsty raw punk that hasn’t left
my listening pile since I got it. Fucking sick sounds and the definition of
punk, Violetta’s voice marking the end of time in musical format. If you dug
the song she sang on the last RATAS DEL VATICANOS LP grab this ASAP!
Goofy charming CLEAN tribute record by three women who write
the most ridiculous ("You're a big big dog on a small small blanket" BEST!) yet heartfelt lyrics over music that makes me feel the same
way I do after listening to LOOK BLUE GO PURPLE’s “Cactus Cat.” Sound of the
summer, and of skating with your friends, aimless and fearless.
Their demo tape was one of the best of the decade for me, I
was nervous about the LP, because you know, recording studios and vinyl can’t
help but make things more professional and tidy… But the LP rules, sick HC by
an all female group that brings to mind the song “Explode” by VOID, a rare and
noble feat. They rule and this record demonstrates that fact.
Oakland’s only band. Protection against being the only women
on the last train home. Will make you want to start a band with the meanest and
coolest girls in town. Like LYDIA LUNCH formed a hardcore band, but is this HC?
It is the most. You know that SLITS song “So Tough?” This is the answer to that
question.
Yet another soundtrack to the end of the world: creative
destruction, brutalist realism and a response to our endtimes capitalist
degradation in musical form; doesn’t feel like a lecture, feels like an
invitation to the apocalypse.
Songs about making fanzines and mixtapes, but also about
spitting on the pope, the disdainful vocals espousing ideas we can all get
behind. UKDIY style like the best post DESPERATE BICYCLES sounds, stuck in a
stormy English seaside town making dreary yet dreamy sounds reflecting our
dreams both crushed and hopeful… This was a tape but now it’s an LP. Get it or
regret it!
Somewhere between the dirge/Xpressway that seems to have
infected all Australian music of interest as of recent times and the UKDIY
spiel of the first LP. A good place to be stuck.
Sparse reflections on a certain reality, sort of somewhere
between YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS and the RAINCOATS with some added early
EMBARRASMENT maybe? It’s got the sound of radical feminist punk of the ’70s,
smart art school girls making nervous deconstructed punk music for other
nervous girls ready to deconstruct society / punk etc.
Droning monotone yowl that sounds ideal on good headphones
when it feels like there’s no solution; like a slow motion ROYAL TRUX playing
early CHROME, downers and doubt.
POTTY MOUTH – “Hell Bent”LP (Old Flame) / CRAZY BAND – “Live From Prison” LP (Teenage Teardrops)
POTTY MOUTH combine the melancholic BRATMOBILE songs with
the force of early DINOSAUR JR, Homestead Records rather than K Records ya
know? CRAZY BAND sound like suburban car park boredom, basement bands, underage
cheap beer, in short skate for fun or not at all. Somewhere between JFA and
XRAY SPEX. I couldn’t pick between these two acts.
GUN OUTFIT / HOAX / FLOOR ABOVE / AUSMUTEANTS / SHOPPING /
RUBY PINS / SCRAPER / HARD SKIN / LAS OTRAS / LIFE STINKS / BAD NOIDS / WIRE
EP
All the ingredients for my ideal 45; KLEENEX girls with a super
slight garage lean… Really tough without being a pose, really cool without
being a put on. A tough balance to catch, but the band I am most excited to hear
more 45s from on this list… Vicious / rambunctious: NOTS has the formula down. Cyclotron-core.
My most listened to record. Another close to perfect 45 for
2013. I am not a huge proponent of the post-punk tinged darkwave / deathrock
revival that the punk hordes are creating and consuming, but this record somewhat
exists in that context, but it’s miles away from the trite revivalists. Watching
PLEASURE LEFTISTS play was transformational. Sound of industrial landscapes in
ruin, with more post-Thatcher’s Britain dissolute aftermath of punk than
deathrock, like NEW ORDER’s first 45 not CHRISTIAN DEATH. Haley is an amazing
front person, sort of IAN CURTIS frantic style in terms of visuals and vocals…
Her voice is so cool, like the woman from PYLON meets the aforementioned JOY
DIVISION vocalist, hints of chanson too, so insane and rad. I could imagine
this band playing with MALARIA! or at the Hacienda. Cleveland.
The EASTLINK 45s that came out last year were from a 2012
tape… Great trebled out synth / guitar thug punk, like a JG Ballard book in 45
form. Metal machine music. Sense of humor / sense of style and further evidence
that Australians are making the best sounds; can’t fucking wait for the LP on
In the Red this year.
Like MEKONS meets CRISIS. The guitar line is like a bullet,
wired and insurgent, the vocalist intones of public transit crowds complaining
about a Trans person’s suicide fucking up their commute; the inconvenience and
brutality of every day life / griping humanity in a perfect under three minute
punk number. Made by ex-members of bands you might have records by, and more
demonstration that London is the place right now for punkers…
Intellectual lunks, reminiscent of ancient times Cleveland /
Detroit, but from current day San Francisco. San Francisco’s only? The sound of
too much drugs / fast food / nihilistic literature / TV; clumps along like a
Quaalude and makes for the ideal 45.
Watching this band play was revelatory / incendiary.
Liberation and fuck you all in one. Like JOHN BRANNON was a woman and NO TREND
was a hardcore band from London. So sick.
This singer of this band has a similar languid vocal tone to
Justine from ELASTICA, and the music makes me think of all the bands that
formed after hearing ROXY MUSIC, mixed with UV RACE / TOTAL CONTROL and some
sorta Messthetics radness. I got so
obsessed with this I made someone send me their unreleased tracks (they broke
up! Such a bummer), and now I hear those songs are coming out on a 45 and they
are playing one more show. Seriously, so cool. Like my birthday everyday.
Savage PUSSY GALORE deconstruction from Australia, girl is
out for blood and it’s as brutal as the first BABES IN TOYLAND record but with
no grunge, just fuck you punk in a more gassed in the garage rumble with
TEENAGE JESUS or something. Sick as hell.
The best FLATMATES / SHOP ASSISTANTS / BUBBLEGUM YELL update
from a band that’s usually operating under very different color schemes. The
singer’s voice is so cool, makes me wish this band always sounded like this…
Perfect punk/pop for mod rockers, somewhere between the
GOBETWEENS and SUBWAY SECT… Brighton alleyways and Crystal Palace leylines.
Also: KANTUTA / VIDEO / MANATEES / SECTOR ZERO / CAGED
ANIMAL / MANE / BRILLIANT COLORS FLEXI / CHEMICAL PEEL / VARIX / REPLICA / LUMPY
AND THE DUMPERS
TAPES
FRAU / LAS TIMIDAS / FAMILY OUTING / TOTAL TRASH / FAILED
MUTATION / IN SCHOOL / SHIRTLESS THUGS / PRIESTS / HAG FACE / KIERNAN PARADISE
/ LA LUZ
REISSUES
KAOS - Betonska Djeca LP
DIVISION FOUR-1983 Demo Cassette-12″
BONA DRAG-LP
PETER GUTTERIDGE 2xLP
THE GRABBIES-Live-EP
EGO SUMMIT-The Room Isn’t Big Enough-LP
FOTTUTISSIMA PELLICCERIA ELSA-LP
SATAN PANONSKI-Hard Blood Shock-LP
THE KICK-LP & 45
NEOBOYS-2xLP
VENOM P STINGER-all
CORPORATE ROCKERS NOT IN THE MAGAZINE VERSION: BODY//HEAD / HIS ELECTRO BLUE VOICE/ VERONICA FALLS
/ ICEAGE / LA LUZ / BLEACHED / GOLDEN GRRRLS
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
mental violence
Monday, October 21, 2013
is it all over my face
-->
The idea of writing sometimes is so repulsive. What is more
gruesome than rock journalism? Some choad emptying their bowels on an
unsuspecting audience, explaining the sound, outlining intentions, tellin’ it
like it is brothers and sisters. Is
there anything more grim than journaling or
personal confessional pieces, a supposed arduous journey on which you found
something of yourself and managed to put it on the page nice and neatly, an arc
like storyline tying everything together, containing the trials and troubles
experienced like packaging tape. I work at a San Francisco literary landmark,
and we frequently have readings at said literary landmark, sometimes it’s an occasion,
say a certain insurrectionary Hungarian writer, someone whose work shifts
landscapes and disturbs mindsets. But most of the time it’s a line up of local
luminaries opining and whining, the same vocal tones employed in word delivery,
the same shit eventually emerging, the over use of the word I, here it is, my
story, for you but mostly for me! Listening to these voices makes me want to
contain all my thoughts and ideas. To refrain from inflicting more bad art and feelings on an imagined audience. Just
the manner in which these people read their work makes me want to vomit, makes
me feel like a surly teenager who just can’t fucking stand it, the most corny
of stances, Holden Caulfield as a woman in her thirties. Grim! But spoken word!
Is there anything more wretched? The performance of nothing, the tropes and
routines employed by these dismal soul patches. Yet another personal narrative
diving into the depths of dissatisfaction and inanity, a kitchen sink drama, a
horrible childhood all rendered with the subtlety of a mime troupe. It fills me
with such horror that I am adding to the garbage pile. Not that I think of
myself as a fine writer by any stretch, but over the course of two years of
working at my job, listening to some of the most turgid self indulgent bile, it
makes you want to throw in the towel somewhat… Reading old columns I have
written for MRR is sometimes painful;
I can feel the stress and insanity behind the tired words, especially when I
was coordinating the magazine, at one point I wanted to make a zine of some of
my columns, but… rereading them is work enough! (If you want to you can digest
the entire series in one sitting at whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com and no I
don’t even own any Articles of Faith recordings! What a poser. I like the
phrase but prefer the music of Silver Abuse in terms of Chicago sounds of that
era).
Punk is DIY, making
your own culture, whether that’s making music, writing fanzines, all the other
aspects of culture you can
participate in as a punker, and I am not insinuating that because I am no Andre
Gide there is no point in me writing at all… Nor am I saying that I think I am
part of the wretched personal journey narrators that haunt my workplace. I am
sure there are people reading this that would align my words into that school.
There has been a push in recent years to move away from the dreaded “per-zine”
dredge and unfortunately for this reader (who mostly finds perzines as vile as
the aforementioned spoken word enunciators) this has mostly meant a million
boring zines full of boring people writing boring things about boring music.
There are a few who have stuck out (Brendon Annesley (RIP) and DX are the obvious ones, I
would add some of the writers I hired to write columns for this mag, Viktor,
Alex Ratcharge, Shiva, Sam, Bryony… a few Midwestern zine writers I am too lazy
to go over to my zine pile to dig through and get names…) Rock
criticism, music criticism ultimately has the same effect, anyone can do it,
and they will so watch your fucking back. Read say, Patti Smith writing in Creem, or Lester Bangs, or Ellen Willis
or Tobi Vail, Joe Carducci, read old Forced
Exposures, Charlotte Pressler’s writing about the early Cleveland punk
scene, and then go read some random music review website. A punk one; that “guy
that used to work in a record store but now holds down an office job and writes
about noiserock in his home office,” or a mainstream blog rocker one… All these
confident casual opinions streaming 24 hours a day relentlessly like air
conditioning in an Arizona mall; it feels like a never ending tape loop of the
most banal, and again who wants to contribute to the deluge?! People aim for
Lester Bangs or maybe more cerebral blogrocker types, Greil Marcus, but much
like the pummeling stream of woeful tiki bar attendees and sorority sisters
buying Bukowski all day at my work, dreams do not pan out and reality is a lot
more painful and difficult to get through.
A long and labored
diatribe about why I stopped; when I was writing my columns as coordinator for
the most part I was unhappy with their contents. Running the magazine is so exhausting, a relentless
treadmill of woe, and who wants to read about that?! I wrote about it a lot
however! Endlessly. If you browse the archive you will witness this fact. Trying
to figure out how to write for kicks was part of my vision for post-MRR life as a deadbeat with no future or
plans. So here is the personal journey part of my story arc I guess? Barf! I am
not sure if I will keep writing a regular column, but I am working on a fanzine
and you can email me Layla at maximumrocknroll.com and I will keep you updated
on that in the distant future when it’s more than a mess of late nights and
smeared eyes. Writing from a state of malaise, diffident alienation and so on,
in the face of fifty million wannabe Keroaucs who just have to do it or their soul will be all parched.
Sometimes it feel like
punk is stuck on a late night rerun binge, a relentless parade of images and
snatches of past events reconfigured in less and less interesting ways. Things
that seemed absolutely life altering a few months ago suddenly seem tired and
dull, losing their shape or meaning. Why is one group of lunkheaded brutalists
privileged over another, why does everyone look like extras from a pre-fame
Michael J Fox movie or a Sears catalogue man circa 1954?! A long list of boring
constructions, with a few bursts of excitement making the rest seem like it’s
worth sticking around for?! There’s always something there to remind me.
1) Lose 7” on Subterranean 2)
First two Pere Ubu 7”s 3) Lori and the Chameleons – “Touch” and Dorothy – “IConfess” 45s 4) Rosa Yemen – “Herpes Simplex” 5) Electric Eels – “Crummy Fags” 6)
anticipation of new releases this fall from Hysterics and Household 7) PleasureLeftists live and 45 on repeat 8) End Result cassettes finally getting
reissued!? 9) Magits 10) Flesh World 12” out soon on La Vida Es Un Mus! Oh andHoax live in a cave by my house?!
Thursday, October 17, 2013
this month's players bw check out my sick html layout
EDITH NYLON-EDITH NYLON
pleasure leftists! best THIS HEAT! peel sessions are their best roland kirk plays to the animals in the zoo and john cage rides a roundabout HOW TO GET RICH IN ROTTERDAM need this record if anyone wants to send me one this is the best felt record ELECTRIC EELS!!!!!!!!!! all u need to listen to for the rest of time
FLESH WORLD STURDY SWISS HIKER GET IT FROM LA VIDA ES UN MUS SOON!!!!
I don't know if you can listen to this band online but their tape RULES midwest HC is destrukkkkktive right now
http://www.notnormal.bigcartel.com/product/failed-mutation-demo-2013
pleasure leftists! best THIS HEAT! peel sessions are their best roland kirk plays to the animals in the zoo and john cage rides a roundabout HOW TO GET RICH IN ROTTERDAM need this record if anyone wants to send me one this is the best felt record ELECTRIC EELS!!!!!!!!!! all u need to listen to for the rest of time
FLESH WORLD STURDY SWISS HIKER GET IT FROM LA VIDA ES UN MUS SOON!!!!
I don't know if you can listen to this band online but their tape RULES midwest HC is destrukkkkktive right now
http://www.notnormal.bigcartel.com/product/failed-mutation-demo-2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
BOOKS NOT BOYS
reading material 2013 so far (only listing incendiary titles that were unputdownable)
ASTRAGAL-albertine sarrazin (if you like Genet and want to read a 1960s french/algerian criminal girl version this will be the one you need. like a steak needs a black eye!)
SAVAGE MESSIAH-laura oldfield ford-a former early 80s anarcho punk girl with a fetish for skinhead boys walks in high heels through the ruins of london brutalism, mapping out a path for dislocated youth. one of those things you can hardly believe exists as you are reading it as it is too perfect, chem trails of dissonance drugs and chaos, theory and destruction
ASTRAGAL-albertine sarrazin (if you like Genet and want to read a 1960s french/algerian criminal girl version this will be the one you need. like a steak needs a black eye!)
SAVAGE MESSIAH-laura oldfield ford-a former early 80s anarcho punk girl with a fetish for skinhead boys walks in high heels through the ruins of london brutalism, mapping out a path for dislocated youth. one of those things you can hardly believe exists as you are reading it as it is too perfect, chem trails of dissonance drugs and chaos, theory and destruction
MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA- Jan Potocki-I saw the movie first and it blew my mind, but one of my coworkers said the book was better and he was right. absolute insanity! not able to explain just read it.
FLAMETHROWERS-Rachel Kushner-That's Entertainment! One of those books you whip thru like a speed freak, easy to read but about young girls navigating conceptual art in the post warhol NY of the 70s, speed racing on the Nevada Salt Flats, Italian communist revolution, futurists... young girl protagonist inserted into arenas said girls never get to run around makes for kick fueled read. fast fascists
SPEEDBOAT-Renata Adler-a devastating incision into the cultured life, joan didion with more cruel humor. Gonna read pitch dark next
BLOW UP-Julio Cortazar-I picked this up when I worked at another bookstore and it sat on my shelf for years, wasted time. so so so good.
Opium-Cocteau-as with most books about drug use this is also about cultural production/capitalism/literature as lifeboat and death knell and I wish I could recommend it to all the choads who come into my work asking where our non existing self-help section is.
OUT OF THE VINYL DEEPS-ellen willis. feminist rock criticism that is exciting to read from the lester bangs era?! yeah. seriously. it exists.
books that I started that I had to put down BUT WILL FINISH BEFORE 2013 IS OVER/am currently reading-not listing books that were too wretched to finish of which there were two, both new releases.
Against the Day-Thomas Pynchon (fantastical but too heavy to carry to work every day)
Troia-Bonnie Bremser, one of the most brutal books I have read. hard to process. young woman puts herself on the line for her junkie beat husband. the sort of thing you have to come up for air from esp if reading as a female. what life is like for those that miss out on the mythic beat museum blurt and get trampled in the dirt
I feel like I didn;t read enough this year somehow!? head in the clouds lost my focus.
FLAMETHROWERS-Rachel Kushner-That's Entertainment! One of those books you whip thru like a speed freak, easy to read but about young girls navigating conceptual art in the post warhol NY of the 70s, speed racing on the Nevada Salt Flats, Italian communist revolution, futurists... young girl protagonist inserted into arenas said girls never get to run around makes for kick fueled read. fast fascists
SPEEDBOAT-Renata Adler-a devastating incision into the cultured life, joan didion with more cruel humor. Gonna read pitch dark next
BLOW UP-Julio Cortazar-I picked this up when I worked at another bookstore and it sat on my shelf for years, wasted time. so so so good.
Opium-Cocteau-as with most books about drug use this is also about cultural production/capitalism/literature as lifeboat and death knell and I wish I could recommend it to all the choads who come into my work asking where our non existing self-help section is.
OUT OF THE VINYL DEEPS-ellen willis. feminist rock criticism that is exciting to read from the lester bangs era?! yeah. seriously. it exists.
books that I started that I had to put down BUT WILL FINISH BEFORE 2013 IS OVER/am currently reading-not listing books that were too wretched to finish of which there were two, both new releases.
Against the Day-Thomas Pynchon (fantastical but too heavy to carry to work every day)
Troia-Bonnie Bremser, one of the most brutal books I have read. hard to process. young woman puts herself on the line for her junkie beat husband. the sort of thing you have to come up for air from esp if reading as a female. what life is like for those that miss out on the mythic beat museum blurt and get trampled in the dirt
I feel like I didn;t read enough this year somehow!? head in the clouds lost my focus.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
reborn as luxury homes
some music to listen to whilst decomposing
http://familyoutingpuke.bandcamp.com/
Ellie from Good Throb, Ben from Stab and a couple other people I don't know making some truly sick sounds. I think you can get the tape from Sorry State Maybe you'll wanna do that?!
really goodness can't stop listening to this tape SHIRTLESS THUGS
I can't figure out blogging formats, i hate blogggering to be honest, but here is a song from prists that got replicated twice on my blog formatting thing, it's a good one, reference to a b52s song got a creepy sick radness to it alright i vote YES.
1983 orstralian oi expeditions
Barcelona punk explosives
I saw this band play and it reminded me of Italian horror movie soundtracks meets a Christina Billotte band, ie genius sickness
http://familyoutingpuke.bandcamp.com/
Ellie from Good Throb, Ben from Stab and a couple other people I don't know making some truly sick sounds. I think you can get the tape from Sorry State Maybe you'll wanna do that?!
really goodness can't stop listening to this tape SHIRTLESS THUGS
I can't figure out blogging formats, i hate blogggering to be honest, but here is a song from prists that got replicated twice on my blog formatting thing, it's a good one, reference to a b52s song got a creepy sick radness to it alright i vote YES.
1983 orstralian oi expeditions
I saw this band play and it reminded me of Italian horror movie soundtracks meets a Christina Billotte band, ie genius sickness
Thursday, September 5, 2013
The Power of the Spoken Word
I have pretty much stopped writing columns for MRR (tho I still write music reviews if you want to read my pithy words on sounds made by punker types grab a mag! www.maximumrocknroll.com) but I am planning on making some sort of publication of some of these old ones, edited, perhaps in zine form. more news will follow when it occurs
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Monday, June 10, 2013
JUNE TOP TEN
THE COURTNEYS RULE!!!
http://thecourtneys.bandcamp.com/
They are playing SF at the end of the month and I am going to go and dance hard. Goofy, fun, plaintive, reminiscent of Looks Blue Goes Purple in a way that is inspiring and amazing rather than tired and limp. They are an exciting band on their own terms I mean, not just because they have somehow captured the excellent stylings of a classic NZ pop band, they are rambunctious and RAD. they make me think of summer, skateboarding, adventure, possibility... wind in your hair, sun on your neck, world is yours but you can't quite touch it but that's OK. I made the music editor at rookie mag cover them because I think all teenage girls should be Courtneys fans, and also start their own bands. COOL.
The news that Spider and the Webs were recording a new record was the light at the end of the tunnel for winter, not sure when it's coming out so listen to their band camp ok, and maybe get a t shirt so they can put the record out.
I have been listening to the following songs a lot whilst working. I listen to the Total Control Henge Beat LP alot, or Taking Tiger Mountain,or Pere Ubu, They seem good WORKPLACE IS RETAIL RETAIL IS CUSTOMERS CUSTOMERS ARE MEAT YOU ARE THE BUTCHER
These are this weeks work jams tho
NEU! Doing Hero from 75. this is one of my favorite records to listen to whilst registering the cash register
CAN doing I want more. I actually listen to the extended version more as it's what is available at my work, but this one is a jammer.
I like this song a lot too. Lonnie Holley All Rendered Truth, it makes me think of certain Arthur Russell songs, the space I think!? ECHO.
http://thecourtneys.bandcamp.com/
They are playing SF at the end of the month and I am going to go and dance hard. Goofy, fun, plaintive, reminiscent of Looks Blue Goes Purple in a way that is inspiring and amazing rather than tired and limp. They are an exciting band on their own terms I mean, not just because they have somehow captured the excellent stylings of a classic NZ pop band, they are rambunctious and RAD. they make me think of summer, skateboarding, adventure, possibility... wind in your hair, sun on your neck, world is yours but you can't quite touch it but that's OK. I made the music editor at rookie mag cover them because I think all teenage girls should be Courtneys fans, and also start their own bands. COOL.
The news that Spider and the Webs were recording a new record was the light at the end of the tunnel for winter, not sure when it's coming out so listen to their band camp ok, and maybe get a t shirt so they can put the record out.
I have been listening to the following songs a lot whilst working. I listen to the Total Control Henge Beat LP alot, or Taking Tiger Mountain,or Pere Ubu, They seem good WORKPLACE IS RETAIL RETAIL IS CUSTOMERS CUSTOMERS ARE MEAT YOU ARE THE BUTCHER
These are this weeks work jams tho
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