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

PEACEMAKER

 

A few hours ago REALISTIC played our informal cassette release show at a weird and cool spot in Richmond, California. Our tape is short (less than ten minutes) and there was a discussion about whether or not duration should factor in when calculating sale price (because the production expenses for a cassette are essentially the same regardless of length). Craig wisely noted that if a record is good, then it didn't matter how many songs were on it or how long they were....you aren't complaining that the flawless 11 minute mini-LP isn't 17 minutes long....you're flipping that shit over and blasting it again. I agree, and these are my thoughts as I listen to PEACEMAKER's two song, four minute cassette for the one-hundredth time. Two songs....that's all we got, but maybe that's all we needed. 

SEE YOU DEAD // GREED

INNUENDO

 

For those of you who don't know, there's a pretty killer little punk scene in Milwaukee these days. There has also been a pretty killer little punk scene in Milwaukee during virtually every era of punk since punk had eras....punk I don't want to digress or divert attention away from INNUENDO's 2024 banger. Insistent and infectious hardcore recorded in the spirit of the greats, even though those greats were great 40 years ago and INNUENDO are great now. So don't think about the history or the context - think about furious treble-heavy USDIY hardcore punk made by awkward Midwesterners....there's a template for that shit. And it fukkn works. Think about that, and you'll think about INNUENDO. 

PEACE & LOVE

Unlawful Assembly is flying the flag here. I suggest you pay attention to everything that label touches.  

ACROPHET

 

Mind melting Midwest thrash assault. Brookfield, Wisconsin denizens ACROPHET would wrap the decade with two full length discs on Triple X Records (where they were overshadowed by bands like JANE'S ADDICTION, D.I. and MIND OVER 4), but you won't be surprised to hear that this demo session captures the band at their most primal. Seven determined apocalypse thrashers land like COC smoking Hell Awaits in the fast lane, almost like they recognize the limitations of the relatively (but appropriately) primitive recording and compensate by playing everything harder...and faster. I have to think that every suburban enclave had their ACROPHET in 1987, but I have a hard time imagining that all of them raged this hard.

THE ANSWER WITHIN

=====================================
Friends of The Escape did a very nice reissue of this tape for folks interested in a physical copy. Those folks (and folks interested in BUTTHOLE SURFERS and ANTI-STATE CONTROL tapes or HICKEY photozines) are encouraged to click HERE. 

DEMISE

 

Give it another ten years and someone with too much money is going to "discover" DEMISE and package up a discography LP and pat themselves on the back for bringing sweaty Wisconsin basements to the new century punks. While I will applaud those efforts (and I will purchase that future LP), the joke might be on that self congratulatory entrepreneur because those sweaty Wisconsin basements were cranking out magic long before DEMISE and they've never stopped. But since we're focusing on this 1992 demo (or, Promo Tape) lets soak up some of the songs that will be on that collection. The vocals are more mature than on the previous year's Apathy Will Get You Nowhere - which works frighteningly well on the dirge "Not By Choice" (though not so much on the verses of "Fear Itself") and Grant's guitars are kicking open the door that would lead to ANIMAL FARM (shit, "Not By Choice" could have been an AF track) and then OJOROJO and TALK IS POISON after The Great Relocation later in the decade. DEMISE is a flagship band in the argument for not forgetting the '90s - they were fukkn fierce, they were intense, the songs were powerful and thirty years has done nothing to make them feel (or sound) any less relevant today. So to whomever puts that discography together, you've got my $20. I'll even preorder.

PROMO TAPE 92' 

all we have is fear itself
the cops, the landlords and everyone else

GENETICA

 

Monday. 
Some people are starting their work week.
These fuckers though...they never stopped. 

GENETICA

NATURAL CAUSE

I'm going to accept that the target audience for this recording is REALLY small, but the few of you who know and or get it....get stoked. Madison, Wisconsin's NATURAL CAUSE were the perfect balance of DIY Midwest hardcore, blistering technical metal and PLAID RETINA-esque prog hardcore - we can debate whether or not that balance ever needed to exist but it fukkn worked for those kids. This recording comes courtesy of Tim (also responsible for the SOCIAL INTERROGATION tape) and has four songs from a NATURAL CAUSE rehearsal (or show?) sometime in the early '90s....the recording is rough, you've been warned. Like I said: "the target audience is really small."

NATURAL CAUSE

SFN

 

Spent a lot of time over the last few weeks revisiting the Midwest. That's OK, of course, because Midwest hardcore is (objectively speaking) the best hardcore. I only saw SFN a handful of times (and only in their infancy, as previously discussed), but those kids fukkn started strong. Perhaps the sound was a product of the clash between their environment and their influences, but they got even better. All of the records are worth your time (especially Itching), but this tape came first. 

SFN

INSPECTOR 12

 

On the flip side of the SOCIAL INTERROGATION recording that started the week, I found this recordings from Madison's INSPECTOR 12. They were before my time (Speak Your Mind is from '88) but everyone I would meet from Wisconsin talked about the band and listening to them with hindsight it's easy to understand why. Draw a line between the positive idealistic hardcore of 7 SECONDS and the melodic nihilism of GRIMPLE...you'll find I-12. There were a slew of EPs through the start of the '90s and most can still be had pretty cheap - but you're here for the tapes and this is a solid half hour of determined Midwest DIY punk. 

SPEAK YOUR MIND

SOCIAL INTERROGATION

 

A well loved and never released piece of Wisconsin hardcore history courtesy of Tim Burton (DEMISE, NONE LEFT STANDING). Madison's SOCIAL INTERROGATION existed for a blip in the late '80s, kids who ran with bands like INSPECTOR 12 and KAVITY KREEPS and recorded a ripping (if rudimentary) collection of tunes around 1988. "Poor Little Monkey" is the standout - the drums try to pull away (especially on the live version) while the band pounds the shit out of the simplest three note riff with determined teenage ferocity. Six studio tracks and six (two from the demo and four covers) recorded live...and the joy of (still) discovering this shit is indescribable. 

S.I. - SOCIAL INTEROGATION 

Live photo from The New Loft from Tim. 
Shirt photo from Grant. 

THE CLITBOYS

 

Shouldn't need much introduction here - We Don't Play The Game is a perfect slab of '80s US political hardcore punk. Milwaukee's THE CLITBOYS skipped mindless songs about violence and chose tracks like "I Hate The KKK," "Gay's OK," "No Such Thing" and the sarcastic "Apathy Rules" to poke a finger in the fat fucking gut of their closed minded Midwest surroundings. I could blather on about the scene in Wisconsin, about how it stood out (culturally and sonically) from much of its Rust Belt contemporaries, but it's worth noting that many local punks thumbed their noses at this idealistic trio. They didn't even last two years - but left us an essential demo tape and the aforementioned EP, both of which are on this tape the kids from Ultrawaste released ten years ago. Also - the name was a dig at THE MEATMEN, which is pretty rich. 

THE CLITBOYS

SFN

SFN were just starting when we moved from Wisconsin back to SF. The kids were around at shows in Madison and sometimes Milwaukee (they were from Stoughton, the birthplace of Naugahyde) but I had no clue that they were on the cusp of unleashing this when I met them. 2008's Fouled Nest is an absolutely brutal document (625 later slapped it on wax); churning blasting PV/HC with a perfect groove on the slows and perfect adolescent desperation in the vocals. An absolute killer. 

FOULED NEST

THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE VIOLATIONS BUREAU

 

Grant gifted me this capsule of (mostly) Milwaukee 1990s DIY hardcore near the end of 2021, and I got a little giddy just holding it...and that was before I realized that the ANIMAL FARM doesn't appear to be released anywhere else. That was before I heard the 'where is the god?!' chorus in HINGE's "Psalm." That was before I heard the anguished metallic screamo of REHASH or the experimental mindfuckery of EAR for the first time. Rest assured that the smile on my face and the wonder in me eyes (ears) only grew as I listened, hearing GORDY (two tracks from their demo), MORAL DISGUST and one cut from Ohio's NIMRODS thrown in the mix just to keep you on your toes. Yeah, after all that I was walking on fucking clouds. 

THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE VIOLATIONS BUREAU

CHRISTIN DIOR

My first thought was that CHRISTIAN DIOR sounded like KILLDOZER and THE VSS conducting a weird transactional mating ritual....then it just kept getting weirder. It's noisy, damaged modern grunge from 2025 - a time when all things old are still old but you live in the future past. They're from Madison, and they way they go from complete chaos to BREEDERS on mushrooms is...well, it takes me back to that future place. Also, if "Mu" is an Ed Gein song...it is in fact Ed Gein song. Then listen to "Iodine" on repeat. 

PATRIOT GLASS + DIORIA

you are nothing 

come from nothing 

and you will be nothing

 

DAMITOL

 

You've probably noticed that I don't really fuck with year end wrap ups or 'best of' nonsense. It's all subjective anyway, and unless you're a professional music critic then your "best" releases of the year are probably going to be the ones you listened to the most, not necessarily the ones that are objectively the best. What have I listened to a lot this month? This DAMITOL tape that Grant gave me a few weeks back. It's the four tracks from the second EP, which would have been they record they were slinging when they played my living room on DeBarr Avenue in Norman, Oklahoma. I don't know if anybody came to the show except my roommate, but I don't know if I told anyone that they were coming. But they played. And it was sweaty. And even though the style here is (really) dated and the vocals are so brutally out of tune, they were playing an advanced technical hardcore that I had never seen before...and they toured with a bag of TVP and we all made dinner in my kitchen and holy shit those are the things that stick with you. So yeah, the new RUDIMENTRY PENI record is monumental, the SLANT 12" is an absolute motherfucker, LINGUA IGNOTA's Sinner Get Ready gives me chills and the ANTIBODIES EP frustratingly titled LP 2021 is flawless....but I'm always going to keep coming back to the sounds that shaped me. While this doesn't mean that my "Best Of The Year" will be the same every year (that would be very boring), it might mean that the experiences in your past help give you the tools, and the context, to truly appreciate your present. 

DAMITOL

Good chance that the best sounds of 2022 are going to come from folks like Sewercide, Iron Lung, Warsaw Pact, HIDE, Hair Clinic, and Unlawful Assembly...safe to say I'll be listening to a lot of BORN AGAINST too. 

UNCLE SMOOTH AND THE LOST MAYANS

 

In case you thought the first tape from Waukesha, Wisconsin's UNCLE SMOOTH AND THE LOST MAYANS was something, let me introduce you to their follow up. The weirdest part (to me)....? Listen to "Sledding," and realize that this shit sounds years ahead of its time. 

4...5...9!!!

SCHADENFREUDE

Light years more advanced than their debut Destruction Workers, Waukesha's SCHADENFREUDE combine teenage punk experimentation and adolescent isolation to create something that exists in a void between time capsule and accidental masterpiece with Death Hawks, Killing. Primitive and rudimentary but time appropriate (late '80s - early '90s) industrial/electronic (mostly) dance punk, but with vocals ripped from early BOY IN LOVE material. It's as if they are thumbing their noses at future music - Grill T. Cardinal and Grimlock combine forces (presumably/hopefully in a suburban bedroom) for tracks like "Evil Doing Evil" and "Eighteen Random Stabbings" over the course of a tape that requires constant attention. I'm not saying these kids were brilliant...but I know that I wish there were more than these two tapes. The journey through Wisconsin's odd past continues. Someone want to send me a CRUSTIES demo? DISDAIN? MALIGNANCE? Anyone?

DEATH HAWKS, KILLING

look into my eyes, what do you see?

the end of what was, and what will be...

SHADOWED VEIL

Why not stay in Wisconsin for a dose of true freak shit? My thoughts exactly. The Oshkosh duo of Pus and Skabb made up SHADOWED VEIL, who released just this one cassette as far as I can tell...if there's more, then I fucking need it. I posted half of Resist The Punisher back in 2015, but the half hour of untitled sonic experiments on the flip side was too good to not revisit (and plus - Wisconsin), so here we are. Primitive industrial bursts, audio collages and general aural torture awaits you...

 

RESIST THE PUNISHER

AMERICA'S DAIRYLAND

 

The cover is so simple, right? Upper Midwest farmland. Quaint. Peaceful. Winters are cold but oh let's talk about the unbridled joy of spring, and think of the warm summer nights after the mosquitoes have abated. How do you justify that illustration with the completely damaged hell guitar in G.F.O.'s "Police Raid," or the 74 seconds of pure rage that is "Anti-Christ" by Mishicot, Wisconsin's NO. This 1983 compilation from Last Rights is classic for a reason....it's also untouchable. Simply one of the best and most essential regional collections of USHC ever, even (especially) as it approaches its 40th birthday. Part of what makes America's Dairyland hold up so well is that mixed in with the bands who "made it" out of the state or later became immortalized by collectors and taste makers (DIE KREUZEN, MECHT MENSCH, CLITBOYS - and to a lesser degree SUBURBAN MUTILATION, SACRED ORDER and IMMINENT ATTACK) are bands never "made it" beyond this tape - and some of those bands stand out just as much as, if not more than, the legends. Of course you've heard DIE KREUZEN's "Enemies," but what about "Frozen Popsicle" from Sturgeon Bay's MALIGNANCE? The tracks from the aforementioned NO are straight stunners across the board, buried underneath the raw noise of a live recording are three pure burners from Madison's N.F.O.D., and Wauwatosa's DISDAIN are off the rails and unhinged, especially on "School." Sure, CLITBOYS shine (not surprising that, even in 1983, they knew to offer their three finest cuts to this would-be classic comp) , but the manic blob of BACKSTAB's "No Rules" sounds less dangerous than they probably were (and it sounds fucking dangerous). Of course BLOODY MATTRESSES (pre-TAR BABIES) sound good on "Red White And Blues" (that drum beat, seriously), but there's a reason why THE CRUSTIES are quietly legendary in Milwaukee...even if few folks outside of the region ever paid attention. And maybe that's what makes America's Dairyland (still) hit so damn hard, because these bands (and songs) were a product of the myth of that simple illustration, a product of the Rust Belt collapse of the '70s and '80s, when the shroud slowly and cruelly fell off of the American Dream for so many people who had fallen for the lie. The reality, and the reality of the failure, hit different in the Midwest...and maybe their brand of hardcore was a result. Listen to IMMINENT ATTACK's "We Are Not Alone," perhaps the most accessibly punk song on the comp, at least twice today. Please.

AMERICA'S DAIRYLAND

TRADEMARK

Second offering from suburban Milwaukee's TRADEMARK, following up Walking The Dogma with Woking The Dogman like a bunch of geniuses. Early '90s USDIY that bridges some unknown chasm between the (slightly) less hardcore end of early SST (I'm talking MINUTEMEN, not FLAG) and emotive Midwestern basement punk. It works folks...it works really well. Featuring future members of I GIVE UP, MACHINE THAT FLASHES, HINGE, BURIED and many many more, for those keeping track. 

WOKING THE DOGMAN