ANTISOCIAL ACTION

 

Not going to bore you with the lineage here (though ANTISOCIAL ACTION's sole proprietor first appeared here more than a dozen years ago and the output has never stopped). What's important is noisecore. 40 tracks in just over ten minutes - carefully thought out and constructed anarcho violence and unfiltered bursts of reality addled mania. Half-minute quasi-DBeat/blastcore micro masterpieces interspersed with a barrage of sub-5 second bursts of noise. "Mangled Musick" as an example - a fully formulated abrasive (and arguably perfect) raw hardcore track followed by eleven songs that collectively consume a mere 62 seconds. And this ain't speed trials, it's not about how many and/or how fast, but the assault as concept approach is both notable and beautiful. "Anti-Tech," "Rotting Body Of Android," "Caught Up In Gears Of Slaughter" - this isn't noise for show, this is sonic abuse made out necessity. There are two more tapes....sadly I only have one of them. 

ROT IN CHEMICAL WORLD

STELLATONE

 

Another day, another under-the-radar regional banger. If you weren't in the southeast (or Mississippi), then you might have missed STELLATONE completely, but these kids pumped out a solid batch of releases during the 2010s and their brand of classic US punk tempered with spaced out heavy blues/psych deserves attention. You're gonna hear WHITE TRASH SUPERMAN and MISFITS and FLAMING LIPS and ADOLESCENTS and BLACK OAK ARKANSAS and LOST SONDS and goddamn the whole this is just so fukkn catchy that it's hard to believe.  Hattiesburg.....who knew, you know?

ASTRONOMICON

BIG LAUGH

 

As USDIY hardcore in the 2020s seems to be increasingly anchored by bands from the smaller "scenes" (don't ask me to justify this stance, it's just a vibe) labels like Unlawful Assembly are fast becoming go-to sources hot current hotness, much like Not Normal buoyed the upper Midwest scenes in the 2010s. Anyway, before SLOGAN BOY and INNUENDO  and NECRON 9....there was BIG LAUGH. Sure, the Consume Me LP on Rev is a monster, but this 2019 demo....this is basement hardcore. 

BIG LAUGH

KALX - BALE BOND

 

I repeat: These KALX broadcasts are an absolute treasure. From free jazz to classic gospel and soul to proto-industrial to frustrated noise punk to an absolute banger from a ( new to me) post-DMZ band called LYRES. An embarrassing era-appropriate track from IGGY POP flows into ESG's "You Make No Sense" ...then you remember that 45 minutes earlier you were listening to DON CHERRY, JOHN TCHICAI and ALBERT AYLER wailing into "CHRYSTAL BELLE SCRODD's "I Death" and that shit doesn't happen on the radio anymore. These broadcasts opened eyes and changed lives, and this set from Bond is casually brilliant beyond words.

KALX - 03 NOVEMBER 1986

SOFT CELL

 

Hot on the heels of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, SOFT CELL were already deep in the well documented throes of consumption by the time The Art Of Falling Apart was released in 1983. An incredibly adult synth pop record - a parade of upbeat dancefloor bangers with Almond's sweet lilt delivering legitimately dark tracks like "Loving You, Hating Me," "Forever The Same" and "Numbers," an incredibly introspective assault on consumption and promiscuity. Listening to this record in real time (or in the years after its release when I was a young teen discovering and devouring UK synth and new wave) it was just another collection of songs....I am a middle aged man now and my ears, head and heart are different. The Art Of Falling Apart is a mature and real collection of songs anchored by a tortured two verse title track. Makes me want to dance like I'm too young to drive and can't identify with any of this. Don't dismiss SOFT CELL, they're (far) more than a kitschy cover tune. 

THE ART OF FALLING APART

=============================
I'm skilled at the art of falling apart

It's the holding together, together forever

Trying all of the vices is what's doing the damage 

All the good things are bad things 

And I'm paying the prices

ARMOR

 

They do shit different in Florida. You surely know this, but rarely have you heard a better example than this ARMOR demo from 2019. It's the hardcore that you love, just delivered with a murky, dangerous, desperate edge that makes it clear that ARMOR are....different. Mayhaps no better example than "Age Of Machine," a full on juggernaut of galloping fury that slides into the down low crouch and squirm of "Daydreaming" that puts the whole thing to bed. You know these sounds, you just don't know them like this. Not yet. 

ARMOR

======================

SENSUAL WORLD

 

I love everything about this - the urgency, the WIPERS caliber drive, the....songs. This is the shit that you need/ed then but it's still here for you now. You're welcome. Punk rules, ok?

REHEARSAL #2

FASLE TRUCE

 

There is perhaps no better example of Covid Creativity than Austin's FALSE TRUCE. From the isolated mind of Chris Pfeffer (STORM THE TOWER, SEVERED HEAD OF STATE, CRIATURAS, SIGNAL LOST, THE ALTARS, J CHURCH, MEADOWLARK, OBEDIENCE....need I continue?) came eight doses of urgent and force-filled BLITZ-influenced punk with subtly dark undertones. The aptly named MMXX sounds like we felt; full of joy and determination in the face of uncertainty and deceit. It had been a while since I visited these tracks....and of course they're just as powerful today as they were then. When it comes down to it, we're in the same world we were in then.

MMXX

FALSE FLOWERS

 

Saw FALSE FLOWERS last weekend at Bottom of The Hill, opening for two other bands whose names I can't remember. After their set those other bands didn't matter. After their set, nothing mattered - because their set was perfect. It's hard to apply monikers like "goth punk" to FALSE FLOWERS because these punks are elevating every subgenre they touch, and their performance was a master class. Listen to the chaos that closes "Another Lullaby" and know that dark punk done properly should never be relegated to a novelty genre. Listen to "Unsafe Numbers" and know that dark punk is just fukkn punk - this shit is literally everything. Watch FALSE FLOWERS live and know that punk can be better....that it is better. 

That show was really fucking good - this band is really fucking good. 

FALSE FLOWERS

ALABAMA

 

The first non-country concert I saw: STRAY CATS @ Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. 
The first real punk show I saw: THE DEAD MILKMEN w/BABY M in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 
Perspective is wild, because there were probably less than six years between these two events.

The first record I bought with my own money: CHARLIE DANIELS BAND Million Mile Reflections.
The first cassette I bought with my own money: ALABAMA My Home's In Alabama. 
The first punk tape I acquired: Tough call, but I traded Nikki Jorgensen my copy of BON JOVI's Slippery When Wet for her copy of SUICIDAL TENDENCIES' self titled debut in 1986. 

Notable: 
• Several country concerts pre-dated the benchmark gigs - RONNIE MILSAP, KENNY ROGERS, HOYT AXTON, WILLIE NELSON, DOLLY PARTON and others. Living in Austin had its perks, even though I could have been seeing DICKS and BIG BOYS if I had been a couple of years older. 
• I read a review of HÜSKER DÜ's Flip Your Wig in an issue of Creem that I picked up from the magazine rack in Safeway; it inspired me to shoplift a copy of Candy Apple Grey a few weeks later when I was on an orchestra field trip to Oklahoma City and we went to the mall (because shopping malls were a novel treat to us small/er town kids). Shit blew my mind. 
• My step-cousin visited in 1987 ands saw that I was getting close. She bought me Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, Never Mind The Bollocks and X's See How We Are and helped me bleach my jean jacket and paint the evil dude from ST's Join The Army on the back. I am eternally grateful, and will always remember how disappointed she was with that X record. 
• Two shows I wish I could revisit now that I know more things: GRIMPLE @ Kelly's Bar & Grill in Norman, Oklahoma (1992 I think) and BORN AGAINST in Cudahay, Wisconsin (1993). They were both milestone gigs, but I was clueless.

Really though...I still am.

THAT FIRST TAPE
My mother cleaned some shit out of my sister's room recently, and handed me a small bundle of tapes that survived the decades. Not quite ready to listen to the tapes of her talking and singing yet, but I was very happy that she held onto the shit from my younger years. I've listened to this tape hundreds of times - but last week I popped this physical copy in a deck for the first time in thirty years was truly special.

DJARABI SONGS

 

A gorgeous collection of upbeat West African love songs from artists that will be new to all but the most studied TE visitors, which is typical for Little Axe compilations. Contributors include WASSOLA FANTA, TATA DIAKITE, MAMOU SIDIBÉ and others, closing with a lament to the Sahel from IMMA BABA COULIBALI. Many things in and of this world are very ugly - these sounds are beautiful. 

DJARABI SONGS

ASPS

 

Sometimes it takes less than ten minutes to make you reconsider. ASPS is the solo embodiment of Andrea Blake (CHROME DOME, VACUUM) and their sole release is a dose of gloriously dark, minimal(ist) Australian synth that will remind the careful listener of WAX IDOLS and TJO. The causal listener will experience dark and deliberate sonic beauty...and isn't that enough?

ASPS

FUN CONTROL

 

I saw FUN CONTROL last weekend in a batting cage in San Francisco and they opened with the first song on this tape....here are the thoughts that I had watching this song live, which correspond perfectly to the thoughts I had listening to the tape for the first time:

HICKEY

CAPITALIST CASUALTIES
Y2K Thrash 

D-CLONE

UNA BESTIA INCONTROLABLE...and then I'm hearing '90s Merge Records shit start the second song before more erratic thrashcore wastes my sorry ass. More songs bring more brilliance and more confusion, because the current crop of San Francisco hardcore bands give no fukkn shits (and that's before we address the "Emptiness" issue - when you listen you'll understand). I haven't even scratched the surface.

TEST RUN

GRASP OF DYNAMITE

 

This is the embodiment of '00s stadium crust never realized......except that it was realized. TRAGEDY and and THE TOTAL END and ZEROID and FALL OF EFRAFA and....GRASP OF DYNAMITE but a decade later. They took the sounds and the energy and made it something else entirely. Something you already know but something you've never felt before...not like this. 

THE ABYSS

FULL MEAT JACKET

 

There's another (relatively well known) release titled My War but goddamn that shit if that shit doesn't escape me because it doesn't sound nearly as fucked up as this shit. FULL MEAT JACKET come off like a real and desperate internal struggle manifested as improvisational noise punk. If mental anguish had a sound, it would be FULL MEAT JACKET. If emotional frustration was a band, it might be FULL MEAT JACKET. If punk lost all pretense....it might sound like My War in 2004 (say it out loud to get the rhyme). 

MY WAR

The label boss says it better than I can, naturally. 

SOLVENT

 

Bombastic, raw Covid-era DBeat from Seattle. Six minutes of insistent distortion drenched urgency punctuated by a 55 second manipulated missive that sounds like you're standing at apocalypse beach watching studded jackets wash up onto the shore. That's how I want the world to end. 

SOLVENT

KASHAIOF

 

Deliberate and cerebral industrial tinged dark electronic mania. Their sound seems to fill unknown voids; existing in darkness and shadows - existing, as in "A Sofa," awkwardly and with no real definition of (or?) purpose. But the duo exists, and 2020's Home is a master class in presence. This is the experimental goth I needed when I was a teenager...better late than never. 

HOME

DÉFAITE

 

If someone wants to get into a deeper discussion about subgenres and why I like what and when I prefer one thing or another and which sounds push certain buttons in certain ways...? Well, obviously if you've been here before then you know I can do that. To a fukkn fault. But sometimes you're talking to a civilian and you just want to say you listen to punk music but then they want to start with a story about how they saw TOOL or took their kid to see SUM 41 and they try to create a false equivalence and there's no hierarchy or judgement but it's just....different. It's not the same and they aren't going to understand (and that's okay). And sometimes in those moments if someone seems receptive, I think about playing them a punk music to show them what I mean when I listen to punk music - the next time that happens I'm going to play DÉFAITE. The shit just captures so damn many things that make punk perfect - CRIMINAL DAMAGE, SOVIETTES, LES THUGS, NEON PISS, GENERACIÓN SUICIDA....you know, punk music. I like punk music. 

DÉFAITE

SUMMER JAM LOVE CLASSICS

 

Summer is right around the corner - shit, looks like the Central Valley is going to kiss 100 degrees this weekend - and that means it's time to dust off some summer love jams. Don't worry though, we've got you covered. I don't know what subsequent volumes of Summer Jam Love Classics had to offer, but it's entirely possible that the creator/s simply looked at this first volume and decided it would be pointless to try to top perfection. Kinda like SLAYER should have done after Reign In Blood - even South Of Heaven was a lateral move at best, but I digress. A solid hour of slow soul grooves, late '70s to early '80s R&B...Summer Jam Love Classics, just like the title says. ENCHANTMENT, WHISPERS, SKYY, DENISE WILLIAMS, ATLANTIC STARR all anchored by PEABO BRYSON's excruciatingly sexy "I'm So Into You." Yeah, summer will be here before you know it. Get ready to sweat. 

SUMMER JAM LOVE CLASSICS Vol.1 

WORMHOLE // BLÜMGART

 

A truly unique and/or mystifying cassette.....that's what you're here for, right? One side is proto-electro/house jams, the other is electric piano improvisations. I really can't think of a better reason to visit The Escape on a Thursday, so you're welcome. Today's responsible party has been (at least partially) connected to for MOZART, QUEST FOR QUINTANA ROO, YI, CAGED ANIMAL, SHARP KNIFE and a ton of other shit....but this shit is unlike that other shit. This shit is for real. That other shit is also for real, but this shit is real.

COMMUNICATOR SERIES

DESBORDE

 

What if LIMP WRIST and PURA MANIA made a weird Argentinian synth / egg punk band?

What if they sounded like Slash Records circa 1979 and had one part that was kinda NIGEL PEPPERCOCK and THE CARS circa 1979 even though those things shouldn't overlap?

What if that band was really fukkn good?

DESBORDE

HEAVENLY BLUE

 

The Provinces keep delivering, this time with a new offering from HEAVENLY BLUE. They've sharpened their sound to a jagged point, polluting '60s garage punk with sinister snarls and gloriously damaged psych guitars. 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS fucking with Japan's MASTURBATION and/or SONICS reinterpreted by ghoulish South of Market meth fiends. The previous releases have all been great, but these Nova Scotia punks have absolutely outdone themselves here, and I think it's about time for a full length.

KNIFE

MORALLY STRAIGHT

 

In a way, MORALLY STRAIGHT came two years too late......but isn't that want makes them perfect? 2012's Normalitas is a master class in posi-Y2K fastcore, giving off serious LIFES HALT vibes with shades of 97A and some of the more 'crew iterations of the era. I wax nostalgic about this period every so often, choosing to remember the positives and skip the frustrations, and it's bands like this that really drive home how many great people and relationships came out of that time....bands like MORALLY STRAIGHT that help me remember that while hardcore rules, your hardcore (whatever era and/or genre you're a part of) rules more. Pretty sure these kids from Bandung are never going to forget the bonds they made in the early 2010s, and that makes this old white guy smile. 

NORMALITAS

HOPI BUTTERFLY

I encourage you to listen with intention. I stopped partway through my first listen; I understood that these recordings needed my full attention and I waiting until I could dedicate my ears and my self properly. It was the right choice. In the right environment, listening can feel like being a part of - I know that I'm not, but for 34 minutes it almost felt like I was. And it was nice to feel like I was a part of something. 

HOPI BUTTERFLY DANCE