SKATEBOARD & THE PUNKS

 

I remember a conversation a lifetime ago about the then-changing dynamics (and admittedly, economics) of DIY punk record production, distribution and consumption. The internet changed shit (...duh) and there were so many more options - options in general but specifically options without the realm/s of things classified as DIY punk. Gone were the days when a mediocre band could self release a mediocre EP and go on tour and hit a few distros and move 1000 copies (or more) with relative ease while the "bigger" bands could reliably crank through five times that number. We were (at the time of this conversation) in a place where even the flavor-of-the month bands would struggle to sell more than a few hundred records and hope that their online streams and bandcamp DLs might result in enough visibility for their live shows to be well attended. Maybe they'd sell some shirts, you know? And it's not about money - it's about survival. It's all connected. Anyway, as a contribution to this conversation, my buddy mentioned a band from Buffalo called BROWN SUGAR who dropped a stellar full length back in 2011 and flew through 500+ physical copies like it was 1994 when they hit the road. See, the internet didn't care....but the punks did. Tour. Put it in their faces. Play shitty shows where none of the people are cool - they'll recognize that you aren't cool either and you will all realize that you're on the same team. Fuck selling records, it's about getting to the next place to connect with new freaks - or connect with the one freak in that next place, you know? 
Why do I say these things? Because the dude who played guitar for BROWN SUGAR later played in a band called SKATEBOARD and also in a band called THE PUNKS. Each band released a demo in the 2010s and some genius packaged them on one destined-to-be-overlooked cassette in the 2020s. But let us not get bogged down in the connection to a conversation about punk economics, instead lets talk about how fukkn much undiscovered DIY punk lights a fire under our collective ass. The five tracks from THE PUNKS are enough to make your old-ass self want to go start a new band (tonight) and the twenty punk minutes on the SKATEBOARD side...well, sometimes the shit is life affirming even if there isn't a story attached to it. This time though, there is. Kinda. 

SKATEBOARD & THE PUNKS

SPOOKY VISIONS

 

There's something particularly and peculiarly special about a solo project when everything hits, you know? Of course we all love when a group of individuals present as one fine tuned sonic machine, but the freedom of one vision unencumbered is something truly unique. And when it works, it's beautiful. SPOOKY VISIONS works - fiery synth punk that is undeniably punk. We're talking late '70s first wave California shit reimagined in a new century Rust Belt basement (or closet) - a project that owes everything to the past while borrowing nothing. Instead, SPOOKY VISIONS create the shit they wish they had been able to hear in their own adolescence....so you don't have to wish. You can just have. You're welcome.

SPOOKY VISIONS

SLINKY X

 

I love a tape that asks more questions than it answers. It's like when I listen to FANTASY (which doesn't happen nearly as often as it should) and I can't decide if the band is simply brilliant or just a brilliant pisstake (or both). And here I am listening to SLINKY X wondering if they are conjuring T. REX or VASELINES and accepting that it's probably neither but also potentially both....you know? And if you know what I mean, then you know what it means to love listening to a tape that asks more questions than it answers. Darn. is fully realized, brilliantly constructed and simply gorgeous to listen to. If Todd and I had listened to this in our 1991 Norman, Oklahoma living room we would have bent to the altar of SLINKY X....which makes me wonder how Todd is doing these days. I'm gonna write him tomorrow - because friends and shared experiences are not just important; they are irreplaceable. 

DARN. 

OUTRAGE FACTOR

 

Some people are just geniuses. I have a few in my orbit and I feel lucky to know them - their compulsion inspires me. Biff is one of those people, and a couple of years ago he got a hair up his ass to make an '80s USHC band to he could get better at playing drums. Oops, motherfucker got a hair up his ass and made a perfect USHC recording. Blatant stylistic ripoffs that are just disparate enough that the whole fukkn thing ends up sounding more like a relic than mimicry....file this recording alongside ADOLESCENTS, ZERO BOYS, Blood, Guts & Pussy, CIRCLE JERKS and no one would ever know the fukkn difference. And some cat in Buffalo just whipped the shit up on a whim then recorded and played everything himself. Shit makes me want to puke before I get dressed and go to my stupid job in the morning. (I'm a) sellout.

NOTING EVER CHANGES

EYES AND FLIES

 

More of that good shit from Buffalo, New York. In a different life I think I would (have) live(d) in Buffalo - hell, in a different life I would be from Buffalo - but I live in this life. In this life I say I'm from Oklahoma even though I didn't move there until I was twelve and I always wished I was from Texas while I lived there (but really I wished I lived anywhere but there while I lived there) and I've probably been to Buffalo less than ten times but....I still feel like I would live there, you know? Tapes like this aren't the reason for those feelings, but they surely don't hurt. This is the shit that (only?) happens in a vacuum - college alt through a modern basement DIY filter, presented in a way that focuses on neither but showcases both. This is what happens when you live in a place where you might have rules (there are rules everywhere) but the guardrails are off and you can still do what you need to do with the people you love. And this....this is why I sometimes feel like I want to grow old and die in Buffalo. Not because of EYES AND FLIES, but also a little bit because of EYES AND FLIES, you know?

 MANIC AM

DJ UDJAT EYE

 

When the first DJ UDJAT EYE mix dropped into my box last year, I was chuffed before I popped it in the deck. You see, Dave doesn't fuck around.....and if Dave took the time to create and reproduce a mix? It's gonna be good, and it is good (of course) - but that tape still didn't prepare me for this volume. Seven minutes into the first side and we've moved from ALBERT MARCOEUR to VOLYA to MAGDA MAYAS infected with PIG DNA....and that only lays the foundation. This is an expertly crafted cassette, a collection of sounds and creations that is far greater than the sum of its parts. RINGO STARR. NO COMMENT. MARION BROWN. NEFTALI. PEGGY LEE. SUPPRESSIVE PERSON. A truly crafted and curated mix is so much more that a simple collection of songs, and this is is so much. more than even that. An altogether other worldly listen that I cannot recommend more highly. 

DJ UDJAT EYE

MUCH BAND

 

File Under: Things I'm Not Trying To Describe. MUCH BAND are equal parts free form jazz and jam band and hippie prog and indie/alt and....look, punk: MUCH BAND sound like whatthefuckever they want to sound like, and if you can't at least appreciate that then you are on the wrong fucking team. It's not as if you need to like it, but you must recognize it. 

LITERALLY TOO PLEASURABLE

NERVOUS TICK AND THE ZIPPER LIPS

 

Okay - a little about me. I produce a shocking amount of earwax. I't kinda gross but I'm used to it. I've tried the oils and the candles and the doctors and the drops and every homeopathic thing, but it's just...a lot. So I get my ears professionally flushed every year or two and these wild black plugs come out and without fail the medical person performing the flush gasps or exclaims in some discrete manner and then I walk away feeling like I'm on some alien planet (and/or drugs) because I can hear every footstep and every paper crinkle and it's like this wild world of sound that takes a couple of days to get used to. Why does this matter? Well, I ripped and edited Something's Gotta Bleed last week, and I had my ears flushed this morning and motherfukkr this thing sounded good last week but THIS?! The fuck?! Today is an entirely new listening experience and maybe y'all should all clean yourselves before you listen to this masterpiece. NERVOUS TICK is to Buffalo what SHRINKWRAP KILLERS is to California, you're welcome. 

SOMETHING'S GOTTA BLEED

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. 

GREEN TRACK + BROWN NOTES

BLOBS

 

There's something about Buffalo. Upstate New York in general of course, but specifically Buffalo. I've always liked the town, I'm drawn to it in much the same way I'm drawn to much of the Rust Belt - just feels like a place where the people are real because...well, why bother being anything else, you know? It's not perfect, it's kinda busted here and there, but it's also not a place trying to be anything it's not. And the bands.....seriously. Quality and quantity, and a town responsible for CAGES and GAS CHAMBER and SKATE KORPSE is a town you're going to want to pay attention to, you know? So anyway, here's the BLOBS tape that came out in 2015. Hot swinging high energy punk with a relentlessly walking fuzz bass and sonically advanced clean guitars that make you wonder if someone from BLOC PARTY is moonlighting in a basement in upstate New York schooling some grimey punk kids. There are horns and synths too, but you might not notice them because they sound like they just...belong. You're going to want to dance and you're going to smile, but you'll also never forget that you're listening to a no bullshit punk band. Because in Buffalo...you get all of it. Because it's all real. 

SHAME

BASEMENT RAT

 

BASEMENT RAT are glorious. A lumbering, lurching angst filled collection of disjointed punk stomps delivered with pure honesty...and it's the honesty that becomes the real focus. While "Tristeza" is the standout track for me - an awkward slow start that gives way to a song written to be played just a little faster than the band can successfully muster - every song on Pura Mujer is intense and real.  It doesn't always have to be pretty...but it always has to be honest. How long has it been since you listened to a band that made you think about Surfer Rosa and SPITBOY? It's a shame this recording is all I can find.

PURA MUJER

SLOW COOKER

 

You see the guy on that skateboard? That fukkr likes to get wild. Like....real fukkn wild. That fukkr also has nothing whatsoever to do with SLOW COOKER, but I love this tape. Kinda lands like a chilled out SoCal skate punk approach to FRANZ FERDINAND and STROKES and maybe even the first INTERPOL record with grit in the grooves...but it sounds like it comes from a different time entirely. You know the tapes that sound cool that you realize are even cooler because they don't actually sound like anything? Allow me to introduce SLOW COOKER. That fukkr on the skateboard? He loves 'em. Just look at his face. 

DO A KICKFLIP

GAS CHAMBER

 

More than five years after seeing their final show in Seattle, the power of GAS CHAMBER still mesmerizes me. I've never seen or heard a band like them, and very few have even come close to matching their emotional power. Advice From Yama is a collection of recordings spanning 2008-2016, for the very beginning to the very end of their existence, but it presents as a fully realized concept. Uncompromising and advanced hardcore punk melts into disorienting noise and experimental soundscapes, something like what progviolence would sound like if progviolence existed. But it did exist, and it was brutal. And it was beautiful. 

ADVICE FROM YAMA

THE WRENCH

 

This mysterious gem from Pat's collection is full of gritty, early '90s hard driving college alt that would have fit nicely alongside SOUL ASYLUM, early GOO GOO DOLLS, FLUID...even a taste of NIRVANA here and there. Check the chorus on the third track on the demo - "you're making fun of me again...I can tell" - it's gloriously innocent and just begs for anthem status, but it never feels slick. The harmonies on the following cut are more nods to GOO GOO DOLLS - "I'm drinking....I'm drinking way too much" could have been ripped from the grooves of Jed (which is still a near perfect record sans the CCR cover, fight me) and by the time the crunchy Cobain riff carries the post-chorus of the fifth track to the end of the tape I am completely hooked. The GOO GOO DOLLS observation isn't completely accidental, since the bassist recorded the sole full length from THE WRENCH, released in 1992 ('93?). That full length is way poppier than these five tunes, way cleaner, way...well, let's just say I like this one better. 

THE WRENCH

Update: Four of these tracks appeared on the self released "Cop Krueller" EP in 1994. 

Another record that I want now. Great. 

TANK

 

I guess this is from 2006, but all hail to the folks who made it available (again?) for consumption a few years back. Just a nasty dose of USHC. Filthy. Intense. You've got your '90s (upstate) NY hardcore, you've got you Midwest basement energy, you've got early '90s California hardcore (I'm talking about the CAPITALIST CASUALTIES kind), and you've got the kind of riffing (and attack) that makes me think that at least one of these dudes is in a death metal band now, and TANK don't sound like any of the things I just mentioned. And what the fuck is happening in the middle of "Necronomicon"? Because that shit is weird and awesome. So yeah, thanks Black Dots.

TANK

PERSONAL STYLE

A relatively recent release, and one that has stuck with me even though (or especially because) it falls well outside of my typical sphere. Buffalo's PERSONAL STYLE are doubtless well oiled and ready, the six songs here are ready for mass consumption, even by commercial standard. But there's a thing buried in their particular brand of hard indie, and you get the feeling that this particular thing that makes them bloom is the very seed from which they have grown. The hiccup in the drums after the chorus in "Bubble Yum," the way the backing vocals haunt the mix rather than dominate it, the single note picking in the chorus of the otherwise hard driving "Defensive," the booming '70s bass rumble - everything is clean, polished, professional...yet it still sounds like punks are behind this. So I guess if it's all a ruse then I'll just tip my hat to PERSONAL STYLE. 

PERSONAL STYLE

 

NERVOUS TICK AND THE ZIPPER LIPS

The Era Of Covid is perfect for one person musical projects. My daily doom scrolls are often interrupted by THE LOVE SONGS' Song Of The Month or a new SHRINKWRAP KILLERS video, so I wasn't surprised to see a collaboration between SCIENCE MAN and Buffalo's NERVOUS TICK AND THE ZIPPER LIPS pop up last week (there's one with Ricky Hell also). As a result, I was inspired to bust out the self titled Nervous Tick tape from a few years back, and remind myself how fukkn brilliant it is. So I guess the lesson here is that friends and social interaction only really serve to stunt artistic development, so let's all stay inside forever and not talk to each other and just make stuff. This tape rules. 

NERVOUS TICK AND THE ZIPPER LIPS

HALFMAST

Md-90s emotive straight edge hardcore from upstate New York. Honest. Earnest. This shit seriously rules.

SUNRISE

BIG SUZE

If you didn't think it was possible for a cacophonous, fuzzed out guitar driven mess to be positively dreamy......well, then you have two choices:

1) You were wrong.

2) You need to open your mind.

You're free to choose, but I'm afraid that there is not third option here, and you may need to listen closely and repeatedly until you have either made your decision, or decided to remove yourself from that list altogether. 

 BIG SUZE

From our friends at Drug Party. 

THAALS

Who knew that squirmy garage punk existed in other spacial realms? Like, specifically not the Earthen realm. The internet says they are from Buffalo, and they are surely weird enough to be from Buffalo, but these jams are like a NWI pod bound for desert galaxies, and even though the ship left in 2013, somehow you are still able to beam up through the self titled THAALS cassette. Whether you decide to go or not...? Well, that's up to you. 

CASTLE CLAREMONT

When I see your face...I wanna peel it from your skull

You can wear it as a shirt, or I can wear it as a bra