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

FLESH EATING CREEPS

 

In the 1990s, there was no widespread internet access. In the 1990s, there were fewer preconceived notions of what bands were supposed to sound like. In the 1990s, your scene was determined by your friends (especially if you lived in a small/er town). In the 1990s there was a band called FLESH EATING CREEPS from Virginia. Brutal, sarcastic, metallic, emotional. Rough? Yes. Powerful? Definitely. Rules? These kids didn't even open the book to know what they were (or weren't) supposed to do, they just unloaded. This is honest music created from a chaotic world - a patchwork of erratic technical hardcore with screamo tinges and grind tendencies presented with complete disregard for convention. This tape has everything, so you're gonna hear a coupla different versions of "The Brutal Blizzard Of '96" and "I Wish I Could Say I Give A Shit About You" along with "Fuck Your Friends, Every Single One Of Them" and 54 other doses of sonic butchery. In the 1990s there was a band called FLESH EATING CREEPS, and I honestly don't think that this band could even exist in the modern era....so revel in your history, young punk. 

THE BOOK ABOUT THE MOVIE: COMPLETE RECORDINGS 1995-2000

NEGATIVE GEMINI

 

The beauty in the first (?) NEGATIVE GEMINI release is that it's distant and....not just untouchable, but unattainable. Because it's not for you. These four songs sound wonderful this morning, there are moments that might even make you feel good (at least in a moment) and these sounds are there for you to appreciate. But you can never have them - and you can feel that distance when you listen. I could discuss the ominous dance floor sensuality of "Ghost World" and the repetitive "All I Ever Wanted Was To Feel Again..." plea that swims through the beats, but those beats have been analyzed since they appeared on Forget Your Future in 2013 (with versions of the other three songs contained here) so I'll just let you...listen. And maybe that line in “Ghost World” is actually “All I Ever Wanted Was To Feel OK” or maybe it’s both. It sounds wonderful, even if you are not. 

NEGATIVE GEMINI

MENDEKU DISKAK

 

Weird that a promotional Oi! sampler was one of my favorite releases of the year, but once you blast this fukkr you'll understand. Nine essential punk cuts from Basque Country, Spain, Mexico, Virginia, and England that will make your fukkn knuckles bleed. Shit, if this were a one song cassette with the opening track from BRUX on repeat it would make the essential list, so the rest is just gravy. So listen to SELF-INFLICT and ZIKIN and spend a few minutes thinking about what punk and the fine people responsible for Mendeku Diskak have given to you...now think about what you have to offer to punk.

PROMO KASETEA VOL.2

MORE FIRE FOR BURNING PEOPLE

 

Wild and chaotic '90 emo/hardcore, just how I liked it then and, honestly, just how I like it now. Perhaps I couldn't have taken the jazzy meanderings in the 8+ minute "Placid" back in 1995 (though I would have been all over it a few years later), but the power and heaviness that dominates the second half of the song is in line with KILARA, pg.99, or even a future KYLESA. There were clusters of "this band" in every region of the US it seemed (MORE FIRE FOR BURNING PEOPLE were from Virginia), so a full tour would often mean playing with a bunch of them....even if your band played with the sonic nuance of a pants shitting and your band's emotions were intentionally and voraciously masked by drugs. 

MORE FIRE FOR BURNING PEOPLE

ADJUSTMENT CENTER

 

Kinda makes me wonder what it would have sounded like if DOWN IN FLAMES (NJ) had stayed together longer and started drinking and moved to North Carolina and gradually transitioned to meat 'n taters hardcore punk with more hooks but still sounded kinda desperate and adolescent. Actually it doesn't make me wonder "what if" DOWN IN FLAMES (NJ) had stayed together longer and started drinking and moved to North Carolina and gradually transitioned to meat 'n taters hardcore punk with more hooks but still sounded kinda desperate and adolescent, because Virginia's ADJUSTMENT CENTER kinda sound like if DOWN IN FLAMES (NJ) had stayed together longer and started drinking and moved to North Carolina and gradually transitioned to meat 'n taters hardcore punk with more hooks...but still sounded kinda desperate and adolescent.

ADJUSTMENT CENTER

EUROTICS

 

Is sounds like this (relatively) short lived Richmond, Virginia project just took all of the punk and crammed it in a blender. You can hear the blue album, you can hear Walk Among Us, you can hear THE DRONES, you can hear L.A.M.F. - but it's all kinda runny. Because it was in a blender, remember?

EUROTICS

ANIMAL PLANET

I mean, the breakdown in "Runts" should be enough. The whole thing is only like six minutes long, so I suppose it's good to just get straight to business....but ANIMAL PLANET take that ethos to the next level on their 2014 slammer. Fierce, snappy hardcore fucking punk - this is the good shit. Someone hook me up with that tour tape please. 

ANIMAL PLANET 

BENDERHEADS

Right out of the gate, Illusion Dweller is a fucking haymaker - a barebones, full throttle primitive DBeat assault that sounds close enough to touch. Everything is pegged, creating pulsations within and apart from the beats and sounds, and I find my brain migrating to the repetition of those pulses...a a tortured techno record hidden inside a piece of blown out raw hardcore. This one is real simple on paper, but it's tough to really unpack the the dupa dupa crush of "Reflect" or how "Who's Watching The NSA?" feels like ripping an adhesive bandage off of your hairy shin. Destruction is your friend. 

ILLUSION DWELLER

LIPID

Y'all heard this banger yet? Virginia's LIPID make squirmy DBeat adjacent hardcore like it just got teleported from Rust Belt 1984. Freak Beat is a couple of year old now, and there's another tape that also rips, so I'm just gonna suggest that you stick this in your ears and then get on with my day. 

FREAK BEAT

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?

CRETINS

You ever feel like you're spending your entire life just playing catch-up? Taking a break from looking out the window to look in the mirror and reach backwards to grab the things that you missed as you were too busy just getting by? Well maybe the bright side of getting buried in missed opportunities is the joy of digging yourself out...and if Virginia's CRETINS are in that pile of loss then I advise adjusting the volume knob on your metaphorical shovel while you dig. This wax-ready 2013 slammer came before EPs on Vinyl Conflict and Deranged before silence fell over the band. Six tracks, nine minutes, pure rage. 

CRETINS

COQ

A disjointed art school freak out from Virginia - so mysterious that they couldn't even dub the last three tracks onto my copy of the demo...so I listen to the first two over and over....and over again. What are they doing? I don't know. Surely they've heard MINUTEMEN before, but they just use that as an embarkation port, and on "Jeff In June" they use it to launch themselves to fukkn Space. Use the internet to hear the rest of the tracks (and the other demo), but start here - like I did. I'm guessing that COG will suck you in like they did me. 

COQ

SINISTER PURPOSE

Fucking devastating motörcharged DBeat hardcore from Richmond. I would have loved this shit if I had heard it 15 years ago...and do love this shit today. Pure power, all power. Check the breakdown in "Creature Of The Night" and consider yourself warned....

BURN IN HELL

KOMMUNION

Raw intensity from Virginia's KOMMUNION on what appears to be their lone release. 2015's self titled demo is a criminally short dose of Scandi-core riffs and a thin, blown out production dominated by guitar and demonic vocals. They stop and stutter without ever slowing down, and even the brief hiccups seem forced at times because this machine is engineered to go....and to go fast. Nice subtle slow warble in the tape adds to the overall knife edge feel of the production, especially on the intro to "Boy O Boy," the only not full throttle part of the whole demo.  

KOMMUNION

RHDP

Raw and heavy rock 'n roll full of fire and dipped in fuzz. RED HORSE DRUNK PUNKS are from Virginia, but their sound is a study of past lives in The Philippines and classic burners sounds from all over the world. I hear Brasil's STRESS, there's some '70s Australian pub rock, early NYC trash, hell, "RHDP Way" even kinda reminds me of EBBA GRÖN a little bit....and the cover of the Juan de la Cruz band's "Beep Beep" is an unbelievably sick move. RHDP do the damn thing with such casual confidence....it feels like they were born to make these sounds. Because they were. 

RED HÖRSE 

ANIMAL PLANET

Weirdo nerd punk with guitars straight out of 2015 NW Indiana (you know the scene I mean, right?) and an attitude lifted shamelessly from 1983. I'm guessing these kids are at home playing in basements and kitchens and perhaps weird coffee shops where one freak works and convinces their boss to have a gig. They just sound like outcasts, and their tracks are deadly good - like SF's SYNTHETIC ID but faster and with hardcore yowls. Check "Let Me Go" in particular, just don't let that crawly intro stomp fool you...(hint: it's not an intro).

 I'M NOT AS STUPID AS I SEEM

KAROLINE

Karoline was amazing long before she was in my life....long before she was in my life. Someone else thought so also, and he made her this tape in 1995ish. It's a pretty good, if slightly dated, collection of tracks - and while I feel like Beau kinda phoned it in in a few spots (the MADONNA tracks are pure pander, let's be real here, and who wants a double shot of ANTI HEROS?), but it's a solid mix of '90s hardcore, rap and "other."  Grouping tracks by genre is a good move, keeps things focused and allows SKYNYRD and TYPE O NEGATIVE and YOUNG BLACK TEENAGERS to share the same space in a manner that doesn't feel weird at all. So here's an excellent cassette for you to listen to (digitally), and please wish my wife a happy birthday while you do...she never reads this blog so she will never know that I sent you.

KAROLINE

DEATH IS YOUR LANGUAGE

Holiday with the family? Painful day alone? Either way, this will help: "The Painful Realization That You Are A Complete Shithead." You're welcome...and have a good day, because I can assure you that someone else's day is much much worse. 

RICHMOND FUCK YOU HARDCORE

MUTWAWA

Gorgeous pounding EDM in the most primal sense. This is Midwest after hours dance clubs circa 1988, but seemingly with more drugs...and it's great.

MUTWAWA