January 2012
2 posts
3 tags
Short reviews of boxes of records that were...
Wolfbrigade: “Progression/Regression” LP
This is as corny and pretentious as movies like “300” or “Clash of the Titans.” A far cry from the absurdism of their Swedish hardcore forebears: not only were the Shitlickers named *that*, but their EP featured a cartoon punk ripping a cop in half. Wolfbrigade—with the picture disc as their canvas for...
1 tag
Agent Orange- "Your Mother Sucks Cocks in Hell"...
Punk has something to teach us. It always has. When I was 16, punk had something to teach me about how not to grow up to be my parents. Bands like Crass, Drop Dead, the Dead Kennedys, and Los Crudos made me feel bad for some unquestioned habits of thought, especially the errors and limitations of a spontaneous political good will. Discharge, on the other hand, made my own thinking look...
December 2011
1 post
1 tag
Totalitär
I wrote an introduction to this blog in my very first post, but perhaps I can say more about what this all means to me. I want to say something in a moment about Totalitär, who are not for me just any old band.
When I was in college, I frantically produced a little punk fanzine called Voices Wake Us…, pretentiously named after a line in T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock.” On top of...
November 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Agnostic Front- Victim in Pain (1984)
I don’t think one really understands America without understanding 1980s hardcore. Not that there’s any great truth written there, any great analysis. You might say that 1980s hardcore *also* does not understand America. But the frustrations, the stupidity, the dirtiness, the moral decay of Reaganism, the death of the 1960s vision of flying to the moon and a “Great...
2 tags
The Dicks- "Shit on Me" (live)
There are probably some people who will never be able to get down with a song called “Shit on Me.” Their loss.
In the 1980s, when Austin, Texas was not yet the East Coast’s collective crush object, and its “weirdness” was in no danger, it was home to America’s #1 and #2 best gay hardcore acts: The Dicks and The Big Boys (with MDC occupying an ambiguous...
1 tag
Nailbiter- Abused LP (2003)
The other day I was in a record store, dressed in my far-from-punk “everyday” clothes, and about to purchase some very un-hardcore 1970’s soft rock, when I became aware of the presence of a gaggle of youngish hardcore dudes flipping through the new arrival bin nearby. They were audibly nerding out, trying to impress each other, and throwing out the periodic “Do you have...
August 2011
1 post
4 tags
Bad Religion
I have this problem: I listen to Bad Religion constantly. Well, Suffer, No Control, and Against the Grain. (My thoughts on How Could Hell Be Any Worse? will have to wait.) Once I listen to one of this trilogy, I inevitably play all three for a week. This despite finding Bad Religion pretentious, politically misguided, one-dimensional, corny, poser-y, and anti-art. The grossest thing is to imagine...
June 2011
1 post
2 tags
Best Swedish Hardcore 7"s: Mob 47
This is the first entry in a series of posts on Swedish hardcore EPs. Having been a student of Swedish hardcore for many years, it is my scholarly finding that the Mob 47 EP (“Kärnvapen Attack”) is the finest outcome of the Discharge influence from those northern climes. But what sets Mob 47 (pronounced in Swedish, it rhymes with “shoe”) above such fantastic groups as...
May 2011
2 posts
Human Bastard- War of the Lords EP (2005)
There is an interesting scene in the Metallica “making-of” documentary Some Kind of Monster, where the label guy Cliff Burnstein drops by the studio to check up on Elektra Records’ investment and hear the progress the band has made on Saint Anger. He puts on his “rockin’ out” face as Metallica plays all of the tracks off the big Pro Tools monitor.
You realize...
Born Dead Icons
We’ve all dated boring people, and justified this to ourselves in various ways. The death sentence is to say that someone is merely “nice,” meaning: not interesting, not funny, just… pleasant. But mostly what it is like to date a boring person is to wait, and wait, for the light switch to be turned on. One becomes a real observer: is he/she going to say something smart? Was...
April 2011
3 posts
Kriegshog- s/t LP (2010)
To some people, Kriegshog might represent “more awesome, insane Japanese noise-crust,” one among a series of bands like D-Clone, Death Dust Extractor, Hermit Prose, Total Noise Accord, Contrast Attitude, etc. This is not the case for me. With the exceptions of this band, and Framtid if they ever release more music, my interest in this music is dead. Just because I like Virgil, does not...
1 tag
thoughts on the Misfits (Part 2)
Since the Misfits broke up when I was only several months old, I rarely if ever got to see them perform live. By all accounts and historical documentation, however, they were a terrible live act. I’ve heard any number of live bootleg albums, and while these hold an inexhaustible thrill for me, you couldn’t really say that the Misfits were “tight” or even...
1 tag
thoughts on the Misfits (Part 1)
A few years ago (Halloween of 2004), I put out an issue of my zine that was entirely about the Misfits. In 2011, this band is as ubiquitous at ever: their logo has been used in Shepard Fairey street art, their t-shirt interchangeable is with a Motorhead t-shirt for a certain kind of photo shoot, the embarrassment of the Jerry Only-only Misfits is fading… So it is perhaps appropriate, in the...
March 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Fucked Up: Everything after the "Generation"...
[EDIT: The point of this post was to approach, obliquely, even allegorically, a point I wanted to make about Fucked Up. The problem with writing about this band, however, is that they have seemingly forestalled in advance the criticism of the “close-minded hardcore fan who only likes the early singles.” But as someone who likes Eno and Neu! more than Verbal Abuse or Christ on Parade,...
Tragedy- s/t LP (2000)
This is one of those albums where it is particularly hard to get at “what it really sounds like,” at what is really encoded in the wax grooves—so obscured is it by its own massive influence, a decade of “epic crust,” the proliferation of side-projects by the musicians here, and the massive shadow they cast even at the time.
It’s easy to forget what the 1990s...
February 2011
1 post
The Fix- At the Speed of Twisted Thought LP (2006)
Here’s a naive question: how good were The Fix? Their first 7”, “Vengeance” b/w “In This Town,” is the most expensive hardcore EP—is it the best?
A lot of this depends on the answer to the question, how good a song is “Vengeance”? For one thing, it is a *much* better song in the context of a 2-song single than as it appears on this...
January 2011
1 post
1 tag
Wolfpack- A New Dawn Fades LP (1996)
At the peak of my interest in Swedish hardcore, in the early ’00s, Wolfpack (later Wolfbrigade) was a decent outfit, with lineup troubles, name changes, drastic fluctuations in sound, an embarrassing flirtation with “epic crust,” break-ups, and a Profane Existence-style aesthetic that did them no favors. Like Skitsystem or Disfear, Wolfpack/brigade was obviously past their prime,...
November 2010
1 post
Discharge- Why? mini LP (1981)
The last time I wrote about Discharge, I had this to say:
“The whole point of Discharge was not to “rock.” Discharge were a very abstract, cool-looking, almost inconceivably arty, monotone, and minimalist outfit. They weren’t into tattoos or brass knuckles or sad/tough fonts. Discharge invented a timeless form of hardcore at a single stroke, by detaching melody, narrative,...
September 2010
2 posts
1 tag
The 100 Essential Hardcore Records
1970s EPs Middle Class- Out of Vogue EP Black Flag- Nervous Breakdown EP
1970s LPs Germs- G.I.
1980s LPs Crucifix- Dehumanization Zero Boys- Vicious Circle Bad Religion- Suffer Raw Power: Screams from the Gutter G.I.S.M.- Detestation Rattus- WC Rajahaita Rudimentary Peni- Death Church Descendants- Milo Goes to College Agnostic Front- Victim in Pain Appendix- Money is Not My Currency Youth of...
None of the Above- Moscow 7" (1982)
Some of my favorite “political” lyrics in early hardcore are bands like Raw Power, MDC, and None of the Above, where a dominant theme is hating cops. Of course, a wonderful mix tape could be made of all the great anti-cop hardcore songs, but there is something special about these bands. They have pieced together, out of their miserable daily lives, some sense that the cops, their boss...
August 2010
7 posts
Axewield- Wisdom of Doom 12" (2010) [revised]
While not quite on the level of Iron Maiden v. Judas Priest or The Beatles v. The Rolling Stones, for a brief moment in the early 2000s one could speak of a Zoe v. Effigy rivalry for the hearts of hundreds of metal-crazed Japanese crust fans. What Dark Master was conducting the orchestra at your shredded-clothing axe-feast? Effigy’s Grinding Metal Massacre or Zoe’s From Hell? I always...
Wretched- Libero di Vivere, Libero di Morire LP...
It occurs to me that the Wretched are a much more stylized band than one gives them credit for being. (Please note the guitar and drummer are different here than on the split 7” with Indigesti, which is a wonderful record but to which the following comments do not really apply.)
On this LP, the guitar is all shimmering atmosphere, laid out in oblique slabs—hardly the mighty roar of...
Negazione- Tutti Pazzi 7" (1985)
“CRAZINESS” IN HARDCORE
Have you ever tried to imitate speaking a language that you know nothing about? If I try to “speak” Chinese or Finnish or Italian, I can only replicate a few typical sounds, an accent, and maybe some stereotypical gestures. Maybe I have heard the pitch system in Chinese, or what seems to me a preponderance of diphthongs—but my observations...
Lip Cream- 9 Shocks Terror LP (1987)
Are Lip Cream good? What are they doing? What did *they* think they were doing?
Here are some argument on why Lip Cream might not be good: 1) All their songs sound the same. 2) No understanding of dynamics. 3) Not catchy. 4) Have polished their style down to an affect-less, one-dimensional algorithm.
Let’s grant all of this. There is no “song-writing” in Lip Cream. Even worse,...
86 Mentality "s/t" & "On the Loose" 7"s (2004,...
These records are the exact opposite of the Hatred Surge record reviewed in the last post, in this sense: where the description of the Hatred Surge 7” trumped its actual existence as music, any such description of 86 Mentality undersells the band and is a thing apart from the experience of sitting down and listening to these records.
How to describe 86 Mentality? They sound like Iron Cross....
Hatred Surge "Servant" b/w "Bestial" single (2008)
This is a really cool idea for a record: a two-song single, packaged in a generic “Singles Club” sleeve, from a band whose first record crammed 9 songs into about 6 minutes, and who play a style that certainly doesn’t conform to the A-side/B-side logic of the 45 rpm single. (One always says that “Reggae is a singles genre,” or powerpop certainly.) But this...
The Bad Brains- The Youth Are Getting Restless LP...
Due to punk’s collector mentality, this widely-distributed live album from 1990 (but recorded in 1987) will never have the reputation of the ultra-rare Pay to Cum single; or, for that matter, the perennial tag of being “underrated” that I Against I profits from. Rather, like the Omega Sessions 10”, The Youth are Getting Restless is an actually underrated, nearly...
July 2010
1 post
Ramones- End of the Century (1980)
For being the world’s best-known punk band, the Ramones’ discography has always been subject to a terrible misunderstanding: that only the first four albums are good. The story goes: when the Ramones first hit the scene and were critical favorites, everyone expected them to become huge and to save rock and roll. A few records later, this was evidently not going to happen… and...
June 2010
2 posts
Framtid- Under the Ashes LP (2002)
Of course the Framtid album was an instant classic, and has never been surpassed. That we can even speak this way is already something rare. Records are still hyped, certain records are still “events”—but in this way their factical existence overshadows their artistic existence, their descriptions loom larger than their impact. Indie rock bands like the Animal Collective or...
Gordon Solie Motherfuckers- Chairshot Politics EP...
A few months ago, a friend came over to my house and we were playing some power-pop and early punk 45’s. Of course, when you do this, you only play the A-side, and after 2 minutes, 3 minutes, you know whether it’s a good record or not. There is no element of uncertainty, although a more eccentric band may be more divisive. But if a song is catchy, to-the-point, and engaging, it’s...
May 2010
9 posts
Result s/t LP (1999)
I don’t pretend to know a great deal about the Japanese crust scene, but I do know the singer in this band was in C.F.D.L. Now that over a decade has passed, it is apparent that Result were one of the premiere bands of that entire scene (Abraham Cross, Gloom, C.F.D.L., Crocodile Skink, S.D.S., Frigora, etc.) but at the same time this album represents a direction in music that was...
1 tag
Puke- Back to the Stone Age (1987)
This band first came to my attention a few years back, from an unlikely source: the drummer of Norwegian black metal band Darkthrone, Fenriz, announced that he was a huge fan of Puke. Of course, Darkthrone being one of my alltime favorites, I listened to the Puke records at MRR in the hopes of discovering some antecedent to the Darkthrone sound. Of course, that’s not really the case,...
1 tag
Meanwhile- Reality or Nothing (2008)
For a long time, I was convinced that Jallo (from Totalitär) could do no wrong: his bands Äaritila, Krigshot, and Meanwhile were among the best hardcore bands of the 2000s. However, I was not a fan of his new project Kvoteringen, and the most recent albums by Äaritila and Krigshot were unmemorable. But, there was still hope that Meanwhile would still carry the banner high. Sadly, this is not borne...
Sex Vid- Communal Living (2008)
In a previous post, I compared the Failures album unfavorably to Moby-Dick and Paradise Lost, and it should be said that the Sex Vid album also is in no danger of toppling Don Quixote or Beowulf in my regard. But more to the point, Communal Living is unlikely to unseat favorites like Kings of Punk, Tied Down, the Die Kreuzen album, or Conquest For Death.
Still, the record starts off strong:...
Kansaan Uutiset- Beautiful Dreams LP (1984)
I always felt that Kansan Uutiset were the “poor man’s Terveet Kadet,” because they both played deeply eccentric, sloppy, Finnish hardcore, having the strangest conceptions of what constituted a “song” (or a riff!). On this, their only LP, Kansan Uutiset obviously made no attempt to outdo Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon for studio magic: I would be shocked if...
Destino Final- Atrapados (2009)
Spanish hardcore band Destino Final is an improvement on their previous incarnation, Invasion. Gone are the all-reverb vocals, gone are the dreary guitar-drone “soundscapes.” I respect the band’s decision to just ROCK, and to dispense with noise-for-its-own-sake.
At the same time, this record was hyped to death, and I can’t really see why. Leaving aside the quality of the...
Failures s/t LP (2009)
Disclaimer: I am the world’s most biased person in favor of liking this record. I was a huge fan of singer Mark McCoy’s previous band, Das Oath; I saw Failures live and was quite impressed at their 10-minute set; I eagerly bought the album and raced home to listen to it…
And now, ten months later, I’m listening to it for a second time. This is extremely punishing,...
Negative FX s/t LP (1984)
Disregarding their popularity, about which I know nothing, Negative FX never seem to fit into any of the great narratives of early US hardcore. Maybe because they didn’t play out much, released their album posthumously, were not on the great Boston HC compilation LP, were not on XClaim!, were overshadowed by Choke’s later career in Slapshot, their “album” is less than 18...
Punk Record Reviews
This is a new blog that will consist only of reviews of punk and hardcore records. Its historical premise is simple: hardcore was a revision of punk, and not merely its continuation. “Punk” essentially names a sound, a period of time—the late 1970s—and a genealogy. “Hardcore” names the attempt to employ elements of punk (sonic or otherwise) to do something quite...