This is the 511th post on this blog, which is a large number but by no means a milestone. I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of the folks who find their way to the blog and either read all of this silly bullshit I have to say or simply download the music and get the fuck out. When I started this thing, I just wanted to share a lot of my friend's bands...bands who put out only a few copies of their tapes and just shared them locally. I really didn't think anyone would pay attention, but they did. I don't know why, but they did.
The internet is a strange place full of sad men who like to fill their time asserting their dominance with useless knowledge of shit no one cares about. I'm not saying that I'm any different (besides the dominance part...I don't care about that), but I like that this small section of the internet has been largely devoid of brashness and outright hostility. I appreciate the fact that most of the people who comment on these posts and contact me in other ways have been largely positive experiences. So thank you. Thanks for taking your precious time to look at this or engage in any way. Thanks to bands (and not-bands) for sending me tapes, whether I like them or not. Thanks to 99% of the bands who have been okay with sharing their music for free throughout the world, including such faraway places as India, Russia, The Ukraine and....Canada.
Also, I feel like I've been slacking on the politics lately. It's been more like "the personal is political", so just in case there's any confusion, here we go with some of my personal guidelines: This is not a review site. If I like a tape, I share it. I don't talk about tapes I don't care for. DIY all the way. I don't even write about bands who use Kickstarter. Fuck Vice. Fuck Pitchfork. Fuck the cops...including the one in your head and people who just film illicit acts on the street and turn it over to law enforcement. DEAD MOON is the best band. I share a lot of bands comprised of men but I make an effort to make room for more marginalized voices as well, including women, people of color, trans people, genderqueer people, total fucking outcasts of society, freaks and disabled punks. I do my best to not promote anyone who has sexual assaulters in their band. I've definitely slipped up on that one, but a goddamn sad fact is that it's hard to keep track and I'm sorry for that. Is that it? That might be it.
Anyway, thanks for being here and thanks if you read this far. Thanks if you didn't too.
"What's more society and normal than being a misogynist prick? That's totally mainstream culture, so why would you be a punk if you were interested in doing that?" - Erin Yanke.
Onto the music....Speaking of people who get in touch, Elaan is a supporter of the blog and got in touch to tell me about WOUNDS. Lots of people tell me about bands, but truthfully, it's usually the band they play in. I don't fault people for that. It's cool to be stoked on your own band. Why bother otherwise? Elaan said they'd send me their own personal copy of the tape if I wanted to digitize it for the blog. I was hesitant because what if this person sends me their tape from across the country and I absolutely hate it and I'm like "Oh thanks.."....and then I'm just sitting here with this tape that I don't care about...taking up space with the 999 other tapes in my tiny room? Luckily for all parties involved, it was not a waste of time. WOUNDS was a (I think) short lived band from Portland, OR that featured members of heavy hitters like DEFECT DEFECT (r.i.p. DEEF) and RED DONS. It's dark and urgent and has hooks that sneak out of the mire to stay in your head all day. Their singer does this thing with his voice that reminds me of Nick Blinko on Cacophony...It threw me off at first but I think it's okay now. I'm also totally jealous of how fast their drummer plays sixteenth notes, but I can live with it.
Thanks to Elaan. I'll mail your tape back to you. You should have it.
Thanks to MRR for letting me use their stereo to rip this tape. Something was off with mine.
Thanks to the punks worldwide for looking here.
You can buy your own WOUNDS tape here.
You can buy your own WOUNDS tape here.
3 comments:
Great post, always glad to hear you and other peeps in support of people who are trans and disabled (as well as all other minorities of course). Its a fuckin shame we still deal with assholes in these small-knit scenes. Keep up the good output, excited for more Chicago/NWI stuff such as Liquids and the like.
I know i've been commenting a lot lately, Greg ...but, I have to outright thank you for continuing this blog. I know you like other people are busy doing things and have the stresses that most of us have in some way, shape or form. Taking time to not only rip, but write personal associations with the bands &/or people around them. I value your allowing commenters to share their opinions - however strange, unshared or brief (now, there's a word for ya) they may be.
There are only a few places I visit regularly online - all of which have nothing to do with message boards, or any social (maybe 1) human virtual contact. Here, TE ...and that addicting picture place (plus 1 more). Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Awww, mush. :)
thx dude. you've turnt us all on to a lot of good bands. your site is a cool way to keep tapes in circulation forever. fuck cops.
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