MYSTIC INANE

 

There was a hot (long) minute around the turn of a couple of decades ago where I was no-at-all low key obsessed with New Orleans punk. It was really NECRO HIPPIES in a bedroom in Oakland that did it, but I kept running into these little strands that connected people I encountered to bands I like and every discovery seemed to lead to another discovery and every new discovery was a new band I needed to devour. MYSTIC INANE appeared on my radar in the early '10s and everything kinda clicked - this was a similar brand of disjointed and awkward punk, this band was also playing by their own rules...but MYSTIC INANE were fukkn dangerous. MYSTIC INANE were dirty American DIY punk weening themselves off of FU82 and Mad Dog 20/20. They're from the South and you can feel that energy before they even play a note....the shit is (was) just different. And I guess that not-at-all low key obsession is still in full effect.

MYSTIC INANE

JUSTIN WILSON

 

I was digging in Fresno a few weeks back, looking for some relic from a different time without knowing exactly what kind of relic of from what time because...that's how thrifting works. If you're trying to find a '_____' then you'd just go to the '_____' store, right? It's the adventure and the mystery and the unknown that keeps us digging, and so I was digging. And I dug until I pulled out this Cajun Comedy tape and then I figured "yeah...this is probably all for today - this is what I was meant to find" and 25¢ later I was on my way out the door. I suggest pulling up a chair here, maybe cracking open a cold one this afternoon (as I did on that afternoon a few weeks back) so you can really settle into Justin Wilson's brand of story telling - because it's really more about the stories than the comedy here, and anyone who knows me knows I enjoy a good story. Maybe I should start recording my stories and leaving them in thrift stores for future searchers....

HUNTING WITH JUSTIN WILSON

Cajun Humor Recorded Live!

JIMMY C. NEWMAN

 

Spent last weekend in sunny Fresno, California shopping for a couch. Hit a few furniture super stores and scoured second hand market places online and mostly struck out before we made an appointment to meet with a kid selling a slightly stained brown number for a cool $75. Looked comfy enough and we are probably going to stain it anyway so we headed over....but wait, there's a Goodwill on the way so we decided to pop in. The couch selection was atrocious, but they had a few tapes (and let's be honest here, that's the real reason I suggested stopping) and I snagged some private press '80s white mystic shit and this jammer from Louisiana's JIMMY C. NEWMAN. Jimmy C. Newman & Cajun Country was released in 1986 with his radio hits and time on the Louisiana Hayride barely visible in the rearview mirror, but "Rhinestone Cajun Rides Again" is a dusty floor '80s country stomper of the highest caliber, proudly announcing that Newman had assembled new ensemble and his brand of Louisiana swing was back in action. The cajun influence that defined Newman's career is blatant on tracks like "Tawna Woo Woo" and "Cochon De Lait," adding a distinct swing to a tape that is filled with could-have-been hits like "Good Ole Boys From Louisiana" and "My Toot Toot." We ended up grabbing that $75 couch from a nice kid who was willing to deliver it for a few extra bucks, and it turned out the stain probably isn't bodily fluid. Basically? It was a really nice day with a few really good scores. 

JIMMY C. NEWMAN & CAJUN COUNTRY

TROPICAL DEPRESSION

 

Even a casual visitor here knows that I am drawn to freak sounds. The difficult listens are....are a fuel. It's not always comfortable (and that is, in fact, the point), just like working out your own thoughts when you don't have words. Or when you don't know what the thoughts are. The difficult listens are good because they challenge you(r ears), because they are awkward, because they are unfamiliar. Thunderous fist banging kång and a wall of pummeling DBeat? Shit, that's like a bowl of grandma's mashed potatoes and gravy compared to New Orleans trio TROPICAL DEPRESSSION. Hold The Knife Close is a four song lumbering exercise in patience....guitar squawks like a free jazz alto, the bass plops, the vocals wail like a feral child crying for ice cream before bed at 3am and the drums that are supposed to hold everything together instead seem to just encourage the sonic mania. There are times when you wonder if the members of TROPICAL DEPRESSION are even on the same page at all and then....."fukk, this is intentional" and everything changes. Imagine CRUCIFUCKS and STILLSUIT and FLIPPER trying to work out a SWELL MAPS cover set and you'll be on the right path...or the wrong one. Five songs on the lyric sheet....four on the tape (and one of them cuts off). Because you need to keep wondering. Keep fighting. Keep trying. 

HOLD THE KNIFE CLOSE

CHARDONNAY

 

This one just makes me feel right...and sometimes it feels pretty good to feel right. 

DO YOU HAVE MAXIMUM INTUITION?

PUNK SINGLES

Remember a few days ago when I posted that (killer) SOCIAL UNREST demo and talked (for the umpteenth time) about how cool mix tapes are and what an invaluable service the tape makers and traders provided for their contemporaries (and countless punks to come)? Well, allow me to present this unnamed slammer probably created sometime in the early 1990s by persons unknown. DOGS, NUNS, EAT, ANGELIC UPSTARTS, THE FREEZE THE FUCKIN' FLYING A-HEADS, NORMALS, BLEACH BOYS, MOLESTERS, SLEEPERS....all tracks taken from singles that were probably (almost) affordable when this tape was put together. Solid as fuck from start to finish - this is the kind of tape that distracts you when you put in on while you're hanging out or trying to do shit. also the kind of tape that makes you want to just sit and listen and think about all of the records you don't have. 

PUNK SINGLES MIX TAPE

FIREBRAND

 

Good luck finding a duo more compelling than FIREBRAND. The members' respective resumés start to tell the story, but the way Candice and Osa make the minimal sound like everything you could possibly need is perhaps unparalleled. "The Way We Were" is a perfect jerky dance number and "Hot Out" is as addictive as anything I've heard since - shades of early Rough Trade to be sure, but this band made a stamp that is (was?) truly their own. I guess this would have been a good tour to see...but I'm glad that someone else did, and I'm glad that they bought the tape, and I'm glad that they sold the tape to a record store in New Mexico. And I'm glad that I bought it. 

TOÜR TAPE

A MIX OF TAPES

 I try to post compilations on Fridays just because routine can be healthy sometimes. Gonna pump things up a bit because it's Thursday and post a few tapes that were kicking around with no covers...

SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The Arkansas SHUT THE FUCK UP! The bass/drums/vocals SHUT THE FUCK UP! I posted their (other?) demo a few years ago and the link is still live. This one is just on a commercial blank with a hand written label, but the sound is unmistakable. Thirteen songs here...might be a tape of the EP, might also not be a tape of the EP. Too many tapes too early in the morning to bust it out and check and besides, that band was amazing so there's nothing wrong with having the songs twice, you know?

GREG INGRAHAM
One of the coolest artifacts from Pat's immense collection, four instrumentals recorded by AVENGERS guitarist Greg Ingraham in 1984/85. Serious WIPERS vibes on the opening cut, then veering into laid back rock with a(n almost) Fahey bent before the gorgeous closer "Moon All Alone." Someone should re/issue this. 

20•4 AUGUST
No idea where this came from - just a loose cassette with a handwritten label that reads 20•4 August. Some metal, some prog, some punk, some outsider sounds - an excellent hour of sound with no track listing to guide you. And it's a mix tape...so I'm staying within my self imposed parameters. 

SOUP
More legendary (early) East Bay punk. Karoline told me that the kids in Milwaukee and Madison were all obsessed with this tape, and freaked out when the bass player rolled through their scene on a road trip. I get it, but it doesn't really to anything special for me - I like it as an place in time more than as a sonic experience (the tape is an original and well partied - I wouldn't mind if someone could scan me a copy of the cover, just saying). You can absolutely hear the (later) East Bay sound formulating here though, and that bass player drew the cover for Dookie. 

THE SKINFLUTES
Low key legendary Bay Area band, probably most famous as Sarah Kirsch's first outfit. Later became SAWHORSE (an equally weird but objectively better moniker) and had a killer EP on Ebullition. I posted some of (more of?) these tracks a few years ago too, but you might have missed it...and this is a different tape. 

CORRUPT YOUTH
There's an OP IVY cover, but most of this demo has a harder, sloppier edge. I feel like I'm inside Mission Records on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in 2001 and I'm watching some band from Missouri playing like their life depends on it. 

LASSIE
Not to be confused with the German LASSIE, the New Orleans LASSIE are a demented, soulful and angular punk experience - like TELEVISION reborn in the midst of the NWI punk scene of the early 2010s. My tape has a classy and stylish handwritten label but no song titles or anything....if this post demonstrates anything, it demonstrates that a little mystery keeps things interesting. 

SHITLOAD

Another nail of insanity into the lid of the coffin that was The Before. And we move into The After filled with uncertainty and chaos and lies, serenaded by SHITLOAD. One quarter hour of mania recorded on the heels of a third vaccination dose - 5G microchip noizecore. 

MORE VACCINATED THAN YOU!

 

SHITLOAD

 

Long time visitors will remember Mondays. Week after week of blown to shit distorted, noisy non-music. Week after week of sonic abominations. I've gotten (a lot) less strict on my scheduling, but I don't think there's a band more perfect for the Monday slot that New Orleans based Covid project SHITLOAD. Complete noisecore. Nothing else. Bass and drum (machine) destruction that makes GODSTOMPER sound like pop punk. With 40+ releases in less than two years, it's impossible to keep up...but please believe that I'm going to try, because this is either what the world sounds like or this is what the world needs. Probably both. 

MOWERVIOLENCE

SHITLOAD / XBRACKISHX

 

Harsh noise, samples pulled from your favorite era of power violence, shitfi grind and all consuming irreverence combine forces on this split - the result is a complete filthscapade from the murky swaps of New Orleans. Two solo noise core acts, seemingly born out of 'rona related boredom and frustration, combine efforts for nineteen doses of colossal madness. 

DA PARISH X WESTBANK UNITY

BRAIN OF STONE

Come on, do we really need to have a discussion about the importance of BCT in the '80s? Or a discussion about the impact that the OG tape traders had on the spread of music and scenes around the world? We should not need to have this conversation, so instead here's BCT-11: Brain Of Stone. 

A couple of standards on this one (ACCUSED, CANCEROUS GROWTH, YOUTH KORPS), and a healthy dose wild ass under the radar bangers (DIET OF WORMS, ÄMIVÄX, WILD HAIRS, KANALKOTZER, BILL OF RIGHTS, KILLING CHILDREN and loads more) who never received attention, much less accolades. Like the subtitle says: 23 International Bands, 58 Cuts. 

BRAIN OF STONE

Louisiana's contributions here are SNUFFLIX and TOXIN III, both rippers (I'm in the market for their split tape if anyone's holding). And while we are on the subject of Louisiana, check out this 1978 New York City set from New Orleans first wave power pop punks THE NORMALS over at Escape Is Terminal. There's a good New York radio interview in the file as well, and some general shenanigans. Who doesn't like shenanigans?

PSYCHIC HOTLINE

The brooding and foreboding introduction of "Nostalgia" sets the scene, pulling down the shades and blocking escape routes to give the rest of Phone Sex an unhindered platform and/or playground. Primitive dance floor fetish slammers in the vein of CHRIS & COSEY or Voice Of America-era CABARET VOLTAIRE, PSYCHIC HOTLINE add an air of innocence while keeping shit decidedly weird and disorienting ("Intimacy" is the perfect example of this sonic conflict). It's a sonic existence rooted in the past future, and the result feels wholly present. 

PHONE SEX

CURVED DOG

Comparison are the laziest way to try to describe music, but sometimes the shit is just so out there that one's only recourse is to relate the sounds to something that you already know...something that you can put your finger on. So, while CURVED DOG doesn't sound like THE FALL, they share the same angular abrasiveness. And while there are only a few moments where I can actually say "oh man, that's some D. Boon shit right there," I still think that MINUTEMEN probably approached songwriting in much the same manner as CURVED DOG. And yeah, I want to say that somehow CURVED DOG land in between Sonic Death and ERASE ERRATA...even though objectively that doesn't make any sense at all. But that's how I compartmentalize CURVED DOG, and these are the things I think of when I pull out this 2013 demo. I also think that "2nd Hand Patois" is nothing short of brilliance, and that the guitar work on In Defense Of Plagiarism is actually closer to James Blood Ulmer than to D. Boon, but I digress....

IN DEFENSE OF PLAGIARISM

OBLIVIA

There is no logical reason for this to be in my life, and likely not yours either. There is also no logical reason for me to like this....but I do, and I trust that (some of) you will also. When enjoyed at an appropriate volume, I feel like an old man in the corner at a packed club in a strange town where I have no friends, and the 20 year olds are going wild and rubbing on each other with an MDMA fueled fury. It's sweaty and weird, but it sounds good and there are probably light effects so I stick around....because fukk it I'm already there, right? Their virtual presence states that New Orleans' OBLLIVIA are a: "mystic noise diva narrating the fall of mankind in a pitch shifted key" and honestly that sounds about right. It's a serious trip to listen to, but it feels even stranger to enjoy. Perceptions and aural observations welcomed. 

MARTYR COMPLEX

GASMIASMA

I guess this is a super group? Whatever man. Grinding, grim and nasty DBeat hardcore from Louisiana delivered live and furious on the radio. Check the bass at the start of "D-832 Mortar Waste" and you'll be taken back to a time when the shit was less calculated, more filthy, less predictable, more reckless....and dare I say better? At least in some ways, I suppose it was. Derivative, definitely, but these fukks give zero fukks, and I like that. 

KRVS (KADAVERS)

TORTURE GARDEN

HECATOMBS

GLUT

It's nothing fancy....but it doesn't need to be fancy. You want to listen hardcore? Ok...let's listen.

PRIMITIVE

GLUT

BITCHFACE

Between this demo and watching MYSTIC INANE positively own an art gallery two blocks from the ocean last night, I feel like New Orleans might be where it's at right now. These punks deliver snarky and disjointed (and catchy) tunes that launch into "grab your throat and pay attention you fukk" hardcore that is about six steps beyond punk as shit, and their ability to combine 2015 retro hardcore with a delivery that actually sounds like it's from the '80s...? That's a feat. And "I Hate Burlesque" is a pretty untouchable jammer.

HIGH MAINTENANCE

PRESSURES

I had owned the self titled PRESSURES 12" (which features all of the tracks on this Casting Shadows cassette) for a few months before I saw that they were scheduled to play a fest that I was already planning to attend - needless to say I was very excited. The band is such a perfect time warp, electro/synth dancefloor bliss with brilliantly robotic vocals...they do absolutely everything right. It's perhaps not hard for bands to simply recreate, but when the bands take the feeling and the energy from bygone eras and long passé subgenres and breathe life into them, make them feel new again? That's something special, and that is what PRESSURES do. So yeah, I was excited. They were slated to play in the small room at Mohawk with a bunch of other not punk at all bands, which suited me fine (I would be seeing a lot of punk bands over this four day event), and their time slot didn't really even conflict with anything else I wanted to see, so boom. Robert wins. I arrived late and missed SURVIVE (which I still lament), but got to see New York band DIIV who, based on preliminary research into this not punk at all gig, seemed to have a few good tracks, and they were really bad. Like, absolutely terrible...but I've committed to spend the evening at the not punk at all show, so fukk it, right? I mean, it's not like I was going to go see MILK MUSIC, so I just stayed and drank - though I admit that I sneaked out to peep a few minutes of the POWER TRIP set (ruled, duh). And then 11:50 had arrived and it was time and I was pumped, I was going to lose my shit and dance my ass off.....and then it was 12:15....and then 12:30, you get the idea. Are you fukkn kidding me? I know there are a lot of things to plug in, but seriously?! It was taking them over an hour to set up four damn keyboards, and there seemed to be zero urgency as they just lolligagged around the stage, drinking, talking, casually plugging in patch cords while I waited. And waited. At a certain point, I started to take it as a personal affront, as if these two men were intentionally ruining my night, making me regret my decision to attend the not punk at all show instead of seeing punk things. Well, PRESSURES, maybe you won that night, because after standing in the back with my thumb up my ass waiting for you to figure out how to make sound come out of your overgrown Casios, I fucking left. I walked two blocks and I saw INSERVIBLES deliver the absolutely punkest set of the entire weekend. They were so punk, and they were so good, and even though it was still early when they were finished, I didn't even bother stopping back by Mohawk to see if you dummies had decided to entertain anyone because I didn't need you anymore. Good tape though, I listen to it often. 

CASTING SHADOWS