18 March 2024

SUNSHINE WARD

 



I dunno - maybe I should still post this shit on the Live Blog (because it's live) but....this shit needs to be blasted. Twenty plus minutes of sweaty, studded, raw Boston hardcore released for their summer tour in 2016. Readers looking for pretty things should just come back later, because SUNSHINE WARD are anything but. 


 

17 March 2024

UTAH JAZZ

 



I posted In Retrograde a little over a years ago, and it was likely the introduction to UTAH JAZZ for many folks. For those folks - here's more freaked out acid punk from Buffalo. For the readers who missed that post - here's some freaked out acid punk from Buffalo. Everyone wins today. 




16 March 2024

PESADILLA DISTOPIKA

 



You know when you hear something that sounds so punk that you kinda feel more punk just by listening to it? ELECTRIC CHAIR fits that bill currently, but that's how this PESADILLA DISTOPIKA demo hit me when I first heard it ten years ago. And this morning? I straight up feel guilty for taking a shower before I cranked this motherfukkr - it's that punk. Even the cover and insert are cut all fucked up and jagged. Maximum energy open throttle hardcore punk with no surprises....these kids did it right, and I am grateful.



15 March 2024

MAKE WAR NOT LOVE

 



Not sure there's an appropriate way to write words about this comp without just blurting "Look at the bands, dummy" but I'm gonna try. A Euro boot from the early '90s (when these tracks were practically contemporary but already legendary), Make War Not Love compiles a handful of Japan's most legendary first wave hardcores in one place. It's been re-booted several times by and for generations of new fans - COMES, GISM, KURO, CRIME sharing space with lesser knowns HEADLESS and ANTISEPTIC, this is as close to essential Japanese hardcore as you can get without any GAUZE tracks. 



14 March 2024

CRAZY DOBERMAN

 



To create. To be driven to create. To feel compelled to document....everything. 
To see the importance of creating sound and capturing sound.
CRAZY DOBERMAN are undefinable.
Experimentation and sonic freedom, folks...that's what it's all about. 




13 March 2024

BUTANNA

 



More Bay Area...more 2010s...more off kilter quasi angular urgent punk dirges - listen to this shit and picture yourself in a '90s basement and it all fukkn makes sense. I only saw them once (maybe OPT//OUT played with them?) and it was not the feeling i get from listening to this tape with today's ears. With today's heart. Listen to the walking bass on "Danny's Song" and check the constantly lurching drums...then listen to the vocals that just drip with rock 'n roll attitude filtered through millennial disgust. You give me one word for BUTANNA? Piercing. Would love to go back and see that set at Thee Knockout again...but life doesn't work like that. 

BUTANNA


12 March 2024

THE MANUAL AND THE MACHINE

 



The visitors who have paid attention might remember THE MANUAL AND THE MACHINE, though I realize that it has been a solid decade since I have posted any of their material here. I can't describe the sounds except to say that this is what I imagine punk sounded like when there weren't any rules - actual outsider music. A mix of desert dirge, urban desolation and modern misanthropy, Criminal Justice / Population Bottleneck lands like a collction of fervent sounds that should have been (but never were). I Never saw them in the flesh....but I wish that I had. Think Ecstatic Peace, GRINDERMAN, Bargeld....sonic damage and complete intent. Think: Success.