DOGFIGHT

I was familiar wit this '90s Minneapolis act by name only for many many years before I heard them. Saw the name around on flyers for missed shows, heard the band mentioned in passing during jaunts through the Midwest, plus Karoline had a gloriously threadbare DOGFIGHT shirt that was a mainstay during the first several years of our marriage before it was deemed a relic. But I believe that my first proper introduction was when I popped this tape in last week. Acquired from the Daniel Gatewood collection two summers ago, I just kept putting this one off, more interested in the things I had never heard of or the things I already knew I liked and wanted to hear more of, DOGFIGHT always slipped into the "listen to this later" category (the scourge of too much stuff and too many tapes, really: the hundreds that are in line, just waiting for love and recognition, constantly pushed to the side and into the shadows by some newer, fresher, cuter kid at the dance...). But, good things come to those who wait (or, in this case, to those who procrastinate), right? I feel like DOGFIGHT couldn't exist in 2017, and if they did, they would be shoved into some obscure art punk subgenre to be celebrate by a criminally small minority of the larger punk scene (cue '90s nostalgia rant here). Lazy and funky freakouts with multiple vocals, a horn section, and songs that are overwhelmingly dominated by furiously clanging and shockingly proficient bass guitar. File alongside SUBMISSION HOLD, DOG FACED HERMANS, CRASS at times, but all of these categorizations only mean that DOGFIGHT was doing their own fucking thing and didn't sound like anything. Which is exactly why this tape hits me just right, even though I'm hearing the band 20+ years after I should have. 

DOGFIGHT

LIFE DRAG

People try really hard to be this weird. This dark. This pure. This real. But Minnesota's LIFE DRAG aren't trying.....they are just trying to be. Morose and monotone noise rock dissected and dismantled, dragged back to its most primitive and sinister state. Get loose. Let go. 

FEEL YOUR GRAVE

FORMALDEHYDE JUNKIES

You remember the mid 2000s when this band exploded and Andy just wrecked everything in his path with complete disregard for personal safety? I remember that, and it was awesome. Skimming in the wake of those Danish bands who aped everything so precisely in an ocean of full stacks and misanthropy, these dudes were like a fukkn sunrise hurting your eyes so bad you have to look away. Five tracks in five minutes...I want this back.

FORMALDEHYDE JUNKIES

TONGUE PARTY

From play, this one bangs hard. I reviewed this tape in the pages of Maximum Rocknroll a while back, and when I read those words for reference (research is good...sometimes a tape hits me differently on a different day, if I'm in a different mood, or if I am drunk - that's to be expected, right?), and I can't think of anything to say that I didn't cover in that review. So here you go: "I want my independent rock 'n roll music to sound like this. Low end fuzz like THE WHIP, soaring and distant lead vox yearning to break free like DASHER, and a guitar attack that just nails heavy psych-punk. And TONGUE PARTY fukkn jams like a full throttle freight train on wide open tracks. Full cream status. It's over before it really sinks in...so your only option is repeat listens."

TONGUE PARTY

GEIGER COUNTER

Do you remember when I used to post compilation and mix tapes every Friday? Yeah, those things take long time to edit and I'm on fukkn vacation. You know what doesn't take too long to edit? Raging Minneapolis crust. You know what sounds killer while I'm on vacation? Raging Minneapolis crust. You know what GEIGER COUNTER do? They play raging Minneapolis crust. And I thank them for that. 

FEAR TOMORROW

MALA LECHE

Four bursts of Midwest freak punk. You can listen TWELVE times in less than one hour, and I suggest that you do. Because the eighth time "Tracate La Leche" rips through your speakers you will start to feel the change. Inside. And near the end of your hour, on the eleventh "En Celo" listen, everything will become clear. And those last five minutes? The dozenth time these four creamers bang their way into your soul, wild ass keys and mutoid vocals just going nuts? THAT is when you will start to break shit. You will be very efficient. 

MALA LECHE

MARCUS NOISE

The blatantly simple riffs, the funky drum beat, the gruff neighborly vocals...the prevalence of SubPop sounds (and, to a lesser extent, the desire for what was perceived as SubPop success) had a massive impact on underground scenes in the early '90s. Some people surely saw it as little more than another progression, a new interpretation of loud music that was rooted in another old interpretation of heavy music...for others it was their initial gateway into something other than radio rock (ironic, since it's closer to radio rock than most other brands of "underground" music - probably why it so quickly became radio rock). I suppose I was somewhere in the middle, but my musings only relate to MARCUS NOISE anecdotally. So many moments on this 1992 demo are perfectly engineered for the time, straddling Northwest aggression and Midwest pre-emo DIY....it sounds dated the minute you press play, but I suggest working through that and getting to tracks like "Breakneck" (odd that my initial go-to is an instrumental, but it's the jammer here) and "Choke" and listen to why so much of the '90s nostalgia and rehash is, in fact, justified. But I contend that this stuff was so accidental that the rehashes are rarely more than a tiny notch above cringe worthy...I mean, I want to hear something as unexpected as the end of "If Glass Was Broken" today, I just don't want it to sound contrived.

OPEN YOUR EYES, AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH

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

ERWIN SUESS AND THE HOOLERIE DUTCHMEN

I'm telling you, punks, the 25¢ cassette box outside the Central Ave. Salvation Army in Albuquerque is a fukkn goldmine. At the end of 2014 I snagged the FREDDY K. AND THE BREEZE tape, and then a few weeks ago came this score. If you have any question at all as to whether or not this Mankato, Minnesota outfit is legit, then I suggest you check out this footage from '83 when you monkeys were looking at mobiles in your cribs and daydreaming about stagediving to some band playing covers of MINOR THREAT songs that were written before you were born. Am I right?! Personally I like when they pick up the pace on "Hard To Get Polka," but the whole fukkn thing is a winner. 

VOLUME 1