If you can’t tell the difference between glorification and ridicule—does it matter? —Spencer Sunshine I read recently that San Francisco’s Financial District, called “Wall Street West,” is being downgraded. The district is both downsizing economically and shrinking physically. Financial services are moving online and it’s just too damned expensive for employees in downtown banking and […]
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There aren’t many female-led bands doing the unhinged TY SEGALL garage thing these days. So it’s really nice to have this debut album from LADRONES. Vocalist Valeria Sánchez has a wild style with frantic yelps and elongated howls. The band plays frenzied, distorted garage punk. It sounds great. The best song, “La Pichaera,” sounds like […]
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Secret Mission continues to make vinyl wrongs right by issuing the 2016 debut by Tokyo’s FLASHLIGHTS on LP. Originally released on CD only by Fifi (TEENGENERATE and FIRESTARTER) on his Stay Free imprint, this album has been a dark horse favorite of mine for a couple years now. Though boasting members of ROCK-A-CHERRY and the […]
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We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered picks up where most Clash histories end: The US Festival, 1983. Financed by Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, The US Festival was a last grasp towards some confused idea of corporate hippie values. The Clash played with a new drummer, having sacked […]
Read full "We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered" reviewThis week on MRR Radio Matt and Paul drum up a punishing show that actually turns out to be good.
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I saw Bikini Kill play at Brixton Academy last week. The former music hall has a sloping floor, I had the distinct impression of nearly falling but not quite, tripped up by strangely apt gradients. I was too young to be an OG riot grrrl and way too into the Cro-Mags to ever find my way […]
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Earlier this year, I needed to get some repair work done on our dishwasher. I asked a good friend who runs a record label near our house if he could recommend anyone, since he’d help us find repair people in the past and I trusted his opinion. He said he knew a guy who had been involved […]
Read full "A Day Without Music? A Lifetime? Unthinkable!" column
Tim Mohr’s deep dive into the punk movement of East Germany from the twilight of the ’70s, through the penultimate fall of the devilish wall dividing the nation, is a heavy and captivating read. Mohr follows the travails of punks of all ages feeling their way through this new vehicle of opposition via the music, fashion, […]
Read full "Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall" review
The weirdest thing happened to me. After school one day, I was checking my email, and I see a message titled “BBC Interview Request: Maximum RocknRoll.” Yeah, that BBC. Like, what the fuck? Is this even real? Well, it was real. The BBC is putting together a radio documentary of the end of the print […]
Read full "Blank Generation" column