PSYWARFARE // BBVGC

 Not to be confused with the recent P.S.Y.W.A.R. post, this is Dwid's PSYWARFARE sharing destruction duties with Japan's BBVGC. The latter takes the BLOODY MINDED hardcore-as-noise-as-hardcore approach and makes it spooky and theatrical while the former....well, I can't speak on the world of Dwid but I recognize that it's a world. And I respect that he has been doing the shit for three decades (plus). And "Evisceration" is a perfect mind-melt of erratic power electronics, harsh noise and deliberate constructions of desperate sound. If you're looking for something to fukk up your day, then look no further. 

DEMONS MOURN FOR BLOODSHED

SOCKEYE

 

Can't remember if this was a gift from Food or Poopy, but three decades later it s a gift from me to you. So many of the hits are here, mingling with live tracks, alternate takes, misfires and...well, it's SOCKEYE. 

SPACE $5 // SOME DUMB SONGS WE HATE

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SOCKEYE

 

How do you describe SOCKEYE to the uninitiated? Folks who've spent any time here should already know (as should anyone who paid attention to US DIY freak shit in the 1990s), but...how do describe SOCKEYE to someone who simply has no idea? And I'll take it a step further and ask: How do you explain SOCKEYE to someone who has only existed in the internet era? I don't think a SOCKEYE could organically evolve today, in a world that is curated and intentional. SOCKEYE were....different. They took not giving a fuck to new levels before not giving a fuck was even a thing. Confrontational and/or intentionally offensive bands had come before them and outsider art punk was already passé long before they started in late '80s Ohio, but the level of "fuck it" that SOCKEYE projected can't be understated. For the newcomers: think THE DEAD MILKMEN and SCHLONG with an (early) ANAL CUNT sense of "humor" if such a thing actually exists (existed). Alternately, what if a bunch of boob and poop jokes formed a band? Like, maybe this is just the sonic embodiment of an eyeroll. I've Got An Indian Reservation In My Cum is a collection of (then) unreleased cuts recorded between 1989-1991 on one side with live sets from 1990 (opening for SUCKDOG) and 1991 (opening for POST MORTEM) on the flip. It's a lot....90+ minutes of innocent immaturity that feels more welcome in today's very adult and very real reality than I can properly explain.

I'VE GOT AN INDIAN RESERVATION IN MY CUM

PUBERTY WOUNDS

 

It's entirely possible that I have posted this before - I recall it had a yellow cover but I recognize the weird ass cover and I swear I've had my life changed by "The Slow Apocalypse" before "The Slow Apocalypse" changed my life (again) after work yesterday. This shit is like modern noise punk at the altar of JESUS LIZARD - the damage is so focused and deliberate that the shit is straight terrifying. So yeah...maybe I have posted this tape previously, but it's giving this reality a meaning now. And that's important.

STRANGE EDGE 

FOGBANK

 

This shit is fukkn nasty and after the weekend that just dominated my reality FOGBANK is precisely what I am looking for. Take S.H.I.T. caliber squirms then inject shirtless '80s Detroit energy and a healthy dose of ferocious Midwest basement hardcore and....well, FOGBANK are precisely what I'm looking for. "Fed Smoker" on repeat is all I want in my life today, and raw bombastic hardcore is what I need. Tomorrow I'm gonna start with "Marlboros And Molotovs" and then probably terminate existence. Because....why bother? Hardcore rules. 

[REDACTED]

SOCKEYE

 

It's been a while since SOCKEYE have graced these pages, and when it comes to SOCKEYE...? "A while" is always too long. This one was released around the time we first crossed paths with them at The Mantis in Kent - maybe it was the time we all hit a thrift store in Stowe for blank shirts to turn into FUCKFACE shirts, or it might have been the next year when we went for a bike ride and got caught in a Midwest flash thunderstorm and I didn't have a change of clothes so I had to explain myself to some cops while I was chilling in the nude while my clothes dried. It was the mid-90s and SOCKEYE were fukkn king - they were like HICKEY without the hooks....actually they had the hooks, you just had to wait waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy longer to hear them. Because for every  "Boy With Breast Implants" there is a "Yo Me Gusta Cum," a "Baby Boogers" and a "Your Dick Is A Junkie," you know? If you don't know, then it's time to learn...and if you already understand, then it's time to get some more SOCKEYE in your life. I wonder if Dave Schall would do a split spoken word release with me - maybe I could get Max Nordile to contribute the backing track. Ideas....

WARNING: BURN HAZARD

S.M.I.L.E.

 

Can I tell you what I hear here? Well, of course I can because that's literally why I'm here...to tell you what I hear, so it's this: What if a band went straight from STOOGES and MC5 to squirmy modern hardcore punk? What if....what if there were no in between and a band skipped DAMNED and MINOR THREAT and THE STALIN and just drew a line from "1979" to S.H.I.T.'s What Do You Stand For? and didn't make any detours? You might get S.M.I.L.E., who are one of the most honest sounding hardcore bands to pollute my earholes in recent memory. And I really do like honest hardcore; shit just feels real. 

S.M.I.L.E. SOME MORE

SOUR

 

Picture perfect modern melodic mosh-friendly hardcore. SOUR do the damn thing so well it makes me wonder how many other bands that could be lumped intro the same sub-categories I have just skipped over because I am old and irrelevant and I feel like these are the kids who are making music for their own kids and not for me, you know? It's different when you know the hardcore but it seems like the people creating it got to MADBALL via SOAD and their brand of trippy breakdowns starts with TOOL instead of HAWKWIND. None of this is bad, none of this is a critique - this is just vibe and context and those are things that influence the listening experience. In this case, it's a very positive influence. 

SONGZ

HEX NOIR

 

You'll excuse the inclusion of the first track - damaged though the cassette may be I still felt the sonic damage represented was worth...presenting. Ohio's HEX NOIR are a painful amalgamation of deliberate industrial noise, raw black metal and oppressive grind - the punks don't make 'em like this very often (Demo II comes from 2009) so when the punks do? We take them in whatever primitive and excruciating form they are offered. The replication is DIY to a fault so the listener suffers while the tracks themselves flourish....

DEMO II

TV DRUGS

 

I really like listening to punk. Sometimes I go far too long without having my ears shredded live, and sometimes I go days without sitting down (in my case: pacing back and forth) and really listening to records at volume. But I blast these tapes...I rip and/or edit something damn near every night that I'm home, and these built in iMac speakers have pump countless low fidelity hours of DIY punk and noice into my earholes. Sometimes I'm distracted while I'm ripping - work, Murder The Cat, dishes - and the sounds are just kinda 'there' until I edit. But if I'm editing in a hurry I might not spend real time with these little plastic cases until it's their turn to share them here. I'm not proud of the attention that I'm (sometimes) not able to give but.....life gets in the way of living sometimes. Sometimes. Not today, but sometimes. Today? Today I'm listening to TV DRUGS on repeat. I sat down with TV DRUGS whle it was ripping and I got lost while I was editing, wondering how I could describe the magic I was experiencing....apparently I came up with nothing because here I am talking to you about shit that has nothing to do with TV DRUGS, you know? This shit fucking demands attention. This is a 'stop what you're doing and recognize" kind of tape. I hear '80s California beach hardcore, I keep hearing rockabilly in the double snare hits on "Medicated" and speaking of "Medicated" there's a desperate MEDICATION TIME energy in the vocals that I am way the fuck into. Urgent '10s North 'Merican DIY stomp vibes creep in with some frequency, but it's tracks like "Consume" and "How Far?' that push envelopes and challenge descriptors. Look, TY DRUGS released a ripping hardcore punk tape back in 2021, pure and simple. Listen properly and you'll get way more than 'just' a ripping hardcore punk tape. I've learned my lesson. 

FFO: EVERYTHING TERRIBLE

SOCKEYE

 

Ahhhhh SOCKEYE. Early (1989) live recording from Ohio's finest purveyors of whatever it is that SOCKEYE purvey. There's a radio interview too, because someone thought it was a good idea to put SOCKEYE on the radio. There's simply nothing like it. 

A BUNCH OF STRAIGHTEDGE FUCKS TRIED TO RUIN OUR FUN - BUT FAILED

PLASTIC HEAP

 

I love a band that feels like they were born in the wrong time and place. A new century grimy punk band from Ohio who would have made more sense playing with TRAGIC MULATTO and FRIGHTWIG but here they are in my living room with a lurch and a squelch and a mid tempo burner called "Wild Strawberries" that channels all of the right kinds of sonic damage. I posted another tape a few years ago (it's good too) and I'm going to revisit that one as soon as I finish writing these words, because we need more bands that don't quite fit, you know?

RED TAPE

PUBERTY WOUNDS

 

Listen to some words that may or not be "feeling is a pain" repeated. PUBERTY WOUNDS have been here before, and their damage has manifested in other realms. But today I want you to listen to feeling. Today I want you to feel pain, because pain is the essence of feeling. Know that your puberty is never ending, know that your evolution will fail. PUBERTY WOUNDS are the sound of eternal adolescence. Eternal frustration. Eternal failure....the sound of feeling. The sound of pain. Sweet dreams, my friend.

WERE IT NOT THAT I HAVE BAD DREAMS

MÄNSKLIG TORTYR

 

This project is going to fly under a lot of radars, and that's a fukkn shame. Imagine a bedroom DBeat / black metal project obsessed with early PENTAGRAM....image a subgenre called DoomBeat - imagine this, and know that it is real. Dust And Screams is a perfectly primitive missive - bleak and raw, oozing desperation and shrouded in actual mystery. Drop this on unsuspecting mutants and tell them it's a lost Brazilian band from Belém circa 1989. They'll believe you....and at the right volume you'll believe yourself. I haven't heard anything like this in forever - and I hope they never come out of their bedroom. 

DUST AND SCREAMS

VERMIN RITES

 

We were moving from the aughts to the twenty-teens, finally getting comfortable with the fact that we were out of the '90s and that we had emerged from the first decade of a new century that some folks thought we'd never see....and we had emerged mostly unscathed. I had just moved back to California a couple of years earlier, I was active in three more or less functional bands, and there was hope - at least for a present if not a future. It feels like yesterday, and it seems like a lifetime ago. It was 2010 - and this is what DIY North American hardcore sounded like. Adult but still young. Still pissed. Still optimistic because of how shitty the world is because it means you're still connected with the Forces Of Good trying to help. Not mysterious (that was a different trend), but also not confident. Very very fukkn real.

VERMIN RITES

MARDOU

 

There are subgenres I don't spend too much time with, not because I'm not a fan, but because there's just too damn much. I would like nothing more than to spend hours every day just listening and discovering and remembering and contextualizing sounds, but life...life is a motherfucker sometimes. So certain the surfaces of some sonic realms remain only slightly scratched and I settle for "this hits just right for me" and that's enough. MARDOU is kinda like that - the sound is instantly recognizable, but I could never fully pull them apart and separate the dark INTERPOL-esque sounds of "Earth" from the Nuggets swagger of "Dirty Streets" - dark indie by way of garage punk vibes. But then I stop analyzing, because I want to keep listening. 

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LIVE FOREVER

SOCKEYE

 

You know what the world needed 33 years ago? SOCKEYE knew. The world needed a collection of SOCKEYE rarities and outtakes, because the readily available SOCKEYE recordings were just a little too accessible. You don't know how much you've missed out on by not having an acoustic version of "Double Dork Piggy" until you hear the acoustic version of "Double Dork Piggy," you know?

EYE-GOUGING PROJECTILE-SHITTING FUN!

•••

And in case you were wondering, in case the suspense is just too much...yes, there is also an acoustic version of "Boy With Breast Implants." You're welcome.

FRENTE NORTE

Still can't figure out what exactly sets FRENTE NORTE apart from the pack. Tough and gruff punk that lands somewhere between CRIMINAL DAMAGE and Deluxe Bias, followed by a track that sounds like 2004-era FUCKED UP reinterpreting an outtake from Rio Grande Mud. There's one more cut after that, an Oi! inspired mid-tempo groover that makes you really question what is happening. Guitar leads are constant and squirrelly, and the vocals are the perfect combination of tough 'n gruff. For the folks who need a little more stripped down rock 'n roll in their punk or bit of ramshackle COCK SPARRER in their FOGHAT perhaps - FRENTE NORTE sound like no one else, maybe because they're from....Ohio.

 

DEMO 2

SOCKEYE

 

Listen to the first few tapes and think about an alternate reality - one where SOCKEYE evolves in to a raging hardcore band who tempers blazing riffs with irreverent wit. Then again...maybe that's what happened, and maybe the rest of us (still) take ourselves too seriously. 1989's It's A Crazy Elderly World features "Everyone I Know Is An Asshole," "Kill Yourself," "Messiah Sandwich" and an early version of their future hit "Sexual Retard" along with DOORS and CRASS covers. I've met the people who make these sounds - but I really want to meet the people who listen to them. 

IT'S A CRAZY ELDERLY WORLD

WOLVES OF HEAVEN / NYODENE D

Crushing dark electronics from NYODENE D - like the dust left from the joint disintegration of industrial noise and black metal....hell, like the dust left from disintegration in general. When there's no world left, this will be the soundtrack while the unfortunate languish in hopelessness, waiting to die. COLUMN OF HEAVEN offshoot WOLVES OF HEAVEN occupy the flip and offer no relief at all, instead they act like a warning beacon in sound. Desperate, anguished screams on top of a blinding, pulsating hiss - it's the moment of realization and your last breath, encapsulated in sound.

WOLVES OF HEAVEN // NYODENE D