S.A.S.

A repost from the very early days of The Escape - just two months after inception back in 2009 - but this tape has remained a staple of earhole enjoyment. UK82 circa 1983, S.A.S. take the fury of that genre and apply it to the fierce determination of classic UK anarcho....and it's awesome. The initial link is long dead, and no good punk should live their life without listening to "We Don't Need It" on repeat for at least one afternoon. So yeah...punk rules. 

 SING ALONG SONGS

Read the initial post here, if you are so inclined. And listen to punk and outsider music at all times. It's perfectly fine to acknowledge the importance and/or relevance of so-called "mainstream" music, but remember that those songs are fucking engineered to "speak" to you. You can enjoy it, but it isn't your music. You can enjoy them, but they aren't your songs. This music? These songs? It's something different. And if you don't feel it....then I guess this just isn't the music for you. Me? I'm gonna keep blasting "Empire Of Destruction" until I'm on my fukkn deathbed. 

BE:AT THE START

Noise punk and insanity meets weirdo outsider punk and pure freak out mania. I don't know what to think when I listen to it....but I keep listening. I don't know what to say when I talk about it...but I keep stammering. It's like the Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata LP reimagined by a bunch of midwest basement mutants. And yeah, I am fully aware of the weight that comparison holds....but this tape is from another universe. I don't know if you are strong enough, but if you are....? Then may your strength be rewarded. 

BE:AT THE START

BATTLE OF DISARM

Do I really need to extrapolate on these Japanese DBeat/crust veterans in these pages? I mean, most of you probably have had these sounds dancing around inside your earholes for years already, but in the interest of making sure, here's BATTLE OF DISARM. An unofficial fan compilation sold for cheap with tracks from splits with MASSKONTROLL, SUBCAOS, SNIFTER, FLEAS & LICE, KATASTROFIALUE, and HYLKIO, along with the In The War and Anti-Vivisection EPs. And man, these tracks still rage fukkn hard - ripping this tape put me on a '90s Japanese crust bender for two days. 

TAKE ACTION

CUNTROACHES

Straight up, this is the most compelling band I have heard in a long long time. Last year's demo was mind blowing, but this one....? This one is something else entirely. Germany's CUNTROACHES have taken erratic freak show noise punk and given it the howling intensity or Bl(e)ak Metal, and they've done so without even a hint of pretense, just three people going hard. Total irreverence for everything - everything, it seems, except the Pure Power Ov Sound And Intensity Ov Being. I know I am wont to lean on superlatives when perhaps I should be more subdued, but CUNTROACHES are seriously the most important punk band in the world. 

CUNTROACHES

MULTIPLE CHOICE

I am currently on a short tour with my band STERILE MIND, tonight we play in Ventura, California. A free show at what looks to be a dive bar that doesn't like punk....so full circle. The lead up to this little five day mini-jaunt was fraught with missteps and failures and fall throughs and a comedy of errors that brought to mind my earliest days touring. And you know....I have to admit that I kinda liked it. So here's to a Sunday in Ventura, perhaps winning over a few townies, and maybe even connecting with a handful of punks who had previously never known that we existed. 

BOOKING TAPE

We booked this tour as MULTIPLE CHOICE in the spring of 1995, but then changed our name to FUCKFACE after we got a drummer through a newspaper classified ad about two weeks before we left. We started booking these nine weeks pretty much as soon as we got home from the previous nine week disaster, because we really hated money I guess. Or perhaps because we really loved playing shows, no matter the cost or reward. It's good stuff. It's the stuff that keeps us going. Enjoy my cringe-worthy backing vocals....

ART PHAG

Dubbed copy of a classic (to some) record from my past....I know I owned the Wanghead version at some point in the '90s (purchased because NINE POUND HAMMER was on the same label), though this tape appears to have the tracks from the Vinyl Drip UK press from the following year. Irreverent garage/noise rock clashing with punk attitude in a way that was the norm (well, a norm) at the time but would surely be frowned upon now. Listen to the trance inducing drums in "A Boy And His Gun" setting the scene for the barked vocals and dissonant guitar wailings...it's like CRAMPS deconstructed. This band didn't do much (just two LPs from what I can discern), but this platter is a (still) brilliant time and place marker, and fans of BOSS HOG, GORIES, MORPHINE, JON SPENCER and the like will enjoy this look over your shoulder if you missed this Detroit trash outfit the first time around. 

GODS OF GRUNGE

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL PRESENTS: "Punk From The Middle East And Asia"

Last year Maximum Rocknroll had a fundraiser of sorts for their record archive. It passed a "collection" many years ago, and has evolved into one of the most comprehensive archives of punk vinyl in the world, well over 50,000 records (and growing). The funds were raised to help create a database (that will include original reviews, and will be free and searchable) and curate the existing archive - it was (is) a shitload of work, and shitloads ain't free, you know? Various incentives were offered to encourage donations, including mix tapes....giver's choice. Some enterprising (and brilliant) fukkr asked for the following tape: "one side Asia (non-Japan), one side Middle East." Well played, punk rocker. Archive coordinator Shivaun crushed this mixtape, and I hope that you will be as thrilled as I was digging on the gems she uncovered from all over the damned place. Not surprisingly, Tian An Men 89 Records makes several contributions (I mean, come on - of course that's the first place you look, right?), but Pakistani grindcore? OK....I'm sold. Bands from: Syria, India, Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkey, Singapore, Armenia, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Algeria, Israel, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Sound Korea, Lebanon, Morocco and United Arab Emirates. 

PUNK FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

MUJERES PODRIDAS

If you know the players, then you know you're in for a banger. Eddie (VAÄSKA, MIRROR, CRIATURAS) and Dru (CRIATURAS, MIRROR, KURRAKÄ) team up (again) and dish out even more addictive Spanish language punk. MUJERES PODRIDAS are a little less urgent at first, but they've traded the speed for a truly magnetic vibe, a sinister creep with Dru's vocals bellowing and beckoning and snotty, crackling '80s punk guitars...until the final track "Un Día Mas" ramps the intensity up to close a very short and very very good initial release. It's amazing that new versions of the same animal just keep sounding awesome to my ears....

MUJERES PODRIDAS

CELEBS WITHOUT THEIR MAKEUP

One of the (many) things in my life that I stumble across and wonder Where did this come from? Subdued freak beats and electronic pulsations from somewhere in the American Southeast. Imagine primitive '60s experimental/electronic artists with the access to today's modern technology but without the exposure to techno or EDM or anything of the sort....it's weird and erratic but it doesn't sound intentionally weird. It sounds intentional, to be sure, but organic. Some patience required, but definitely worth the effort. 

THE EMPEROR HAS NO SKIN

FACE TOMORROW

Perfectly executed and determined positive Y2K//SXE hardcore from Seattle. Of course, you would have guessed that if you had read the "Rain City Straight Edge" thing on the cover. Moshes on point, breakdowns on lock, cheat beat fastcore parts dialed in. It's all of the things, you know? And some of you....some of you know exactly what I mean. 

RAIN CITY STRAIGHT EDGE

HERE

TWINK

I work with this dude named Pete. He's a few years older than me, and was geographically blessed....so he saw BAD BRAINS in '79 and SSD in Boston in '81 and the Rock Against Maximum Rocknoroll gig in SF with AGNOSTIC FRONT and FUCK-UPS in SF in '82 where one of the B.A.S.H. boneheads got stabbed in the neck. By contrast, I saw THE DEAD MILKMEN in Tulsa in 1989. You see the difference a few years and a few hundred miles can make? Anyway...while I was getting into Punk, Pete was getting into jazz (he was done with hardcore by then, he's one of those rather annoying old(er) types who thinks hardcore died when they stopped going to hardcore shows. I'm all like "what about NAKED HIPPIES? What about LOGICAL NONSENSE? And that fool just ain't hearing it - at all), but Pete is a record nerd, and a few years ago after he had all of the jazz records he started digging deep into the hard rock record nerd world. He obsesses on $400 bonzers that are sometimes interesting, sometimes only noteworthy because they are rare, and sometimes readily available via reissue....but still, there's some jams in there and the dude's general taste is on point - I've used him more than a few times as a guide and/or advisor into the the jazz/freak rock underworlds, and his assistance is appreciated. So we were working together a few months ago and he was playing some tunes and I was digging them. They were heavy sounds....they were weird sounds...I liked them. The sounds were TWINK's 1970 LP Think Pink. All over the place and out of motherfukkn sight bizarro heavy psych/rock from a dude from PINK PAIRIES, and I was pretty instantly hooked - I didn't care if this was nerd fodder or $1 bin chud because the sounds were pristine. So I used the internet and I ordered a Burger Records 2013 cassette reissue while I was taking a dump (on the clock - "never shit on your time, never sweat on theirs") and before I left work that day a copy was headed my way. The reissue features an entire B-side of outtakes (and, jahbless, they are excellent), and I have listened to this tape countless times since it dropped through my slot. So...even though hardcore didn't die in '84 when Pete stopped going to shows, I am glad that those "other" ears are in my life to help keep mine open. Now....open yours. 

THINK PINK

ZEITGEIST

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

ZEITGEIST

WARSAW PAKT

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

WARSAW PACT

warsaw pact

AFRICAN GUITAR vol. 1

Made a trip to Oakland's Contact Records a couple of weeks back while the wife was getting her eyebrows done. Tiny ass shop near MacArthur BART, but absolutely fukkn rammed with gems. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount (and quality) of punk bangers in a store whose focus is concentrated a little deeper and a little further back. I snagged a few slabs, was introduced to Catherine Ribeiro (thank you), and impulsively grabbed two cassette volumes of African guitar music on my way to the register. It was a good trip. The two tapes are a booted version of Mississippi's brilliant but prohibitively expensive 5xLP box set and the title pretty much sums it up. Artists from Kenya, Sierra Leon, Congo, Zaire, Uganda and Zambia fill almost 90 minutes with sounds that are so clearly from another world. Early blues roots ooze through some of the tracks, tribal mesmerism, subdued psychedelic freakouts...just pure and beautiful sounds. Perfect lazy listening - and yeah, Volume 2 will be up here eventually.

AFRICAN GUITAR vol. 1

BRAINxTOILET

Utterly guttural Southern grind. Forceful, massive, chaotic, relentless....and fukk is it fast. Choice cut is "Infinite Regret" if only for the (slightly) slower kinda '90s sounding guitar part that creeps in just before the robotic lurch/squeal/mini mosh, but each of those parts whizz by in just a couple of seconds. This 2013 release from North Carolina's BRAINxTOILET requires maximum attention, and maximum volume comes highly recommended. 

BRAINxTOILET