ARROTZAK - Tape - 2016

    Upon arriving for our last show of tour in Zarautz in the Basque Country a couple of weeks ago, our band was tired, kinda sick and frazzled. After playing close to 30 something shows, mostly in a row with only 2 days off, it's a little hard to feel excited about another punk show.....but we were and the Basque punks did not disappoint. Our host Juanma told us that the venue would have dinner ready for us in a few minutes, but if we ate then, we would miss the first band and something about his tone helped convince me that we would be making a huge mistake by doing that. (sidenote for punks from the states: If you've never toured Europe, every venue, every squat feeds you dinner before your show and this simple act makes such a huge difference in the day to day brain decay of tour. The US could learn a thing or 5 from punks there) So, we held off on dinner and I'm glad we did. When ARROTZAK played their first song, something was off. It didn't feel right. I was starting to doubt Juanma, but the members of the band adjusted the amps, moved a drum or two and -- BAM -- way better! They played the kind of punk that I'm sick of describing...the kind of punk that you can't make sound good on paper (or a screen) but still sounds so good when it's done right in front of you. Melodic and gutsy and wonderful.
   When they finished their set, our band ran upstairs to scarf our food and get back into the show before MANAGAITZ played their first song, who were also great.
    This ARROTZAK tape is a couple of years old and features a different singer (and maybe even a different drummer). The live set was better, even though this tape is great but I hope they record some newer stuff soon.

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Yes, someone made matchbooks for our show. 

SHITTY DARKNESS - Demo - CD-R - 2011

    These stupid little CD-R's are not built to last and I found this one rolling around in the bottom of a filing cabinet, all scratched up but still playing perfectly. SHITTY DARKNESS barely caused a blip during a brief tenure in their hometown of Athens, GA, serving as a pit stop between the bands CARRIE NATIONS and WADE BOGGS. Ian wrote these songs after (and during) the demise of CARRIE NATIONS and brought them to his new band PILLOWFORT, which maybe kinda morphed into SHITTY DARKNESS. They recorded this demo and then (I think) Ian broke the band up, only to have all (or most) of these songs reappear as WADE BOGGS songs a short time later.
   But if we get past hazy facts and just get into emotion, these songs are sooo catchy in their raw pop presentation. It reminds me of why I (and you) was up front at CARRIE NATIONS shows, screaming the words on the verge of tears. Put these songs on your stupid digital device, walk to the top of the tallest hill in your town while listening and see if you're not walking faster and feeling like a wet hundred dollar bill once "Senior Citizen" hits your ears. (If you don't have hills in your town, just walk downtown and glare at people until someone tells you to go away. If you don't have a downtown, walk into the field and scream these songs until your voice goes hoarse, even if you don't know the words). After all that, walk yourself over to Athens, GA and ask Ian what songs he's writing now. If he comes up empty handed, tell him the world needs his music now and always. (it's true, Ian.)

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If you need more music by this guy (you do), he was also one of the responsible parties for WELCOME HOME, NEMO.

THE YOUNG MEN / HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE / NEON PISS

   This one has been a tough one to get around to writing and going into it right now, I'm not even exactly sure what I'm going to say. Our friend Barker Gee took his own life in Conway, Arkansas on June 22nd this year and I'm still waiting for him to pop out of the bushes with that big dumb grin on his face and say "haw haw!! GOTCHA!"....and just walk off smoking a cigarette like nothing happened. To say that it's devastating to our community of friends is the understatement of the year. I hate it so much.
   I have too many stories to share about Barker. They're all darkness and light. Some of them are side splittingly funny. Others are so crushingly sad that if I think about them too much, I can't do anything but cry. He had a spark that is rare for the people you meet in this life. (I've now been sitting here staring at the screen for 20 minutes with my fingers on the keyboard thinking about everything....every interaction...and I just don't know what to say, still.)
   Once, our old band NEON PISS was driving up to Portland to play a show. I was driving and Barker was in the back seat asking if he could smoke in the car again (no). The mix tape I made was playing when "Tabletop Hop" by THE YOUNG MEN came on. Barker yelled "Whoa! You put this on your tape??!!? Hell yeah!" When the guitar solo - his guitar solo - came on, he yelled "Turn it all the way up!!" I did and he played air guitar to it. The whole thing was so ridiculous and endearing and we all just laughed like idiots.
   THE YOUNG MEN was Barker, Jamie, Ren and Skip. They started after BENT OUTTA SHAPE split up and (predictably) did not get the respect they deserved following the foot print that BENT left behind. Barker put this tape out years after the band split up and it's a bunch of stuff they never got around to releasing. The tape includes 10 songs from "The Chris Pierce Sessions", 3 songs I know very little about and their 4 song demo. "Alabam'" from the demo is easily my favorite song about my home state written by someone who never lived there.
   HUFF STUFF MAGAZINE was a short lived Oakland band featuring Barker on guitar and vocals, Stevo on bass and Brad on drums. One time, Barker called me and asked if I had ever listened to their demo tape. I said "Yeah....once." He said "Well, listen to it a few more times. We need you to play drums for us at Thrillhouse tonight." I did listen to it some more but  then I showed up too late and missed the entire show. I heard that they just grabbed someone from the audience to play. Regardless, through the repeated listening, I realized that the tape is excellent. You can still order their LP here. At a recent memorial for Barker, I noticed that almost every time I paid attention to what was on the stereo, it was the HUFF STUFF record.
    At some point while NP was still a band, Barker took off to New York to get clean. While he was there, he started playing some music with Aaron Cometbus and was supposed to get some dude from FUGAZI in the band too. I don't think that ever happened, but he sent me an email one day telling me about what he was up to on the East Coast. He sent me an mp3 of his new band and said "Don't ever let anyone hear this!!" Sorry Barker. Someone already put this song online anyway.
   I'm including the NEON PISS LP. 45. demo tape and weird "rarities" CD that we sold at our last show because I realized you can't download it for free on our Bandcamp page. I don't know how to log into that page anymore, so here's everything for free. Also included is the rough mix of "Siege Mentality" off of our LP. I threw this one in because Barker whispers "There is no God"during a break in the song towards the end. On the LP, it got mixed really far down, but on this mix, it's pretty prominent. It's one of my favorite things on the LP because it was an off the cuff thing that Barker decided to throw in without really talking to us about it. There's also a practice space recording of a later song that never got fully worked out that Barker wrote. (haha! I just remembered that this song is already included in the rarities CD. Ooops!)

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Why? by Huff Stuff Magazine from John No on Vimeo.

From John No's piece about this video in the memorial zine edited by Janelle Hessig: 

"Barker cracked an egg into the pan as the camera rolled and it had TWO YOLKS - Which is always freaky but of course it happens from time to time....then he cracked the second egg and it had two yolks AGAIN! This time, we were like "Holy shit!" and started laughing pretty hard so his cigarette fell into the pan. He left it in there, kept cooking the eggs and lit another cigarette and then put that one out into the pan. Barker ate most of it and promptly puked."

Barker at Kurt Cobain's house. Photo by me.

THANKS:
Alex Turner for finding the things I don't have.
Caitlin Kelly for repressing the YM tape for the memorial and being a perfect angel.
Barker Gee for being such a singular, weird, engaging and loving human freak in this world. 

WOTZIT - Demo - Tape - 2016

    Believe or not, sometimes I don't have a story or the reference points or the "members of" list or anything to go on. Every once in a while, I just get a tape that makes me stop what I'm doing and pay attention. This is that tape. Sometimes, I just think "What if Fred Frith played guitar in a punk band?" and this is what I think about. This is the band's second tape. They're from Tokyo.

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Find other stuff by the band here 

SEXY - Demo - Tape - 2001

    Tapes like these are the reason I started the blog. Trying to track down these nearly ephemeral documents of a scream in dark warehouses and shitty basements is what this thing is about. I don't own this tape, but I thought that trying to get a copy of it would be a task that could be easily accomplished in a few days. Nope. The first post of this blog is dated June 23rd, 2011 and now it's nearly 5 years later. I asked the people who played the music, the people who loved the band, the people who hated the band, the punks who lived with them and I scoured Bay Area yard sales, free boxes and record stores (and their free boxes). Nothing.
    Baby Ian (we can just call him Ian now, right?) pulled a box of old stuff out of storage and came up with his copy of the demo...and here we are. I haven't heard this thing since 2001 or so and I forgot how goofy it is. If you're just hearing SEXY for the first time (and I'm sorry if you're just now hearing them) I would suggest starting with their first album (it's right here) because it's a completely perfect snapshot in time of an insane band at their absolute best. It contains all of the drunken abandon, the hooks and the trainwreck-style tempos. This first demo shows the band still trying to find their footing and swimming in drunken goofiness. A few of the songs that were later re-recorded for the LP are downright sllloooooowwww (check out "Purple Mini Van"). Half of the songs on here just got fucking dropped and were never heard from again. Maybe you'll enjoy it.

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Technical notes: I'm sure you've come to expect a fair amount of tape hiss on this blog and I will tell you that there is a FAIR AMOUNT of tape hiss on this download. Ian sent over the tracks and I tried to mess with them to lower the hiss and it just sounded worse...so here we are....warts and all. You can even hear some of the tape it was recorded over. History isn't pretty and that's why we all need to keep moving forward. 

Thanks Ian. 

Thanks SEXY.

INTREPID HEARTS - Demo - Tape - 2016

    Recently, a personal mission landed me in Minneapolis for a few days and I arrived with high hopes and too many plans. As someone who desperately needs a vacation, this was a stupid idea and I should've just sat in Powderhorn Park for 4 days straight. Instead, I fruitlessly tried to track down some long lost friends and rope unsuspecting fools into my dumbass ideas. Some old friends had time for porch hangs and others kindly offered up comfy sleeping spaces, but largely I was on my own to try and remember how to relax. I never really did. I walked all over the goddamn city until my legs ached. I saw the PRINCE memorial at 1st Ave N, went to the library, became familiar with the Greyhound station, went to karaoke at the Seward, looked at the old Medusa club, walked out to Extreme Noise, saw a gigantic rideable cock in a sex shop and read for hours in Hard Times.
   Then, I drove across the country with one of my best friends. When I got home, I found this tape in my mailbox and looking at the return address, I realized that I walked by this band's house (or one of them) at least twice in the past week. I could've just picked it up while waltzing by. It also would've been nice to have these songs blasting in my head while walking down the streets that inspired them, but I was happy with the S MPLS weirdo tapes I got instead (more on that in the future).
    I think I only know one member of this band and she (Britt) has appeared a few times on the blog in the bands B ARTHUR and BABE QUEST. Even though the BABE QUEST song "The Wait" can not be trifled with in any capacity, INTREPID HEARTS may be my favorite band that Britt has ever been in. I keep having a lot of thoughts about the songs and everything I think feels like a backhanded compliment, but it's genuine in my head!! Like, this band has cool "hot licks"!! Ya'll listen to metal, right? I truly like POISON (I know that's not metal) and I wanna say that the members of INTREPID HEARTS like POISON. Maybe they like THIN LIZZY. What the fuck ever. I don't know what they like. It's hook filled melodic punk that is truly tight as fuck. The vocals have the perfect amount of bite and rasp. I'm gonna go ahead and compare them to my ex-bandmate/current roommate Ivy (ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT / MIAMI / BLACK RAINBOW) because Ivy's voice is great and Britt knows that because I once heard her tell Ivy that. There is no cowering in the shadows though because we're all just people doing our thing out there in the world and Britt has been doing her thing for a long time and it shows. This band sounds like they've been doing their thing for a long time too, but this is their first tape, as far as I know. It's a truly great tape. You should write to them and try to get one off of them because it has a lyric sheet and a lot more plastic than an ephemeral download.

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Thanks to Cobs for mailing me a tape. I'll knock on the door next time.
Oh, the other thing that felt backhanded is that the verse part of the first song sounds like it was ripped off from "The Descent" by BOB MOULD, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and I'm sure it was unintentional and, like, Bob Mould doesn't own the rights to those chords or anything. 

JACOB THE TERRIBLE - "Sings Songs of It's Complicated" - 7" EP - 2014

    When I wrote about JACOB THE TERRIBLE's demo, I said just about everything I could possibly say about the band. By the band's account (not mine), that demo sounds like dog shit, but I like to go back to it to listen to the timeless and now-classic songs that didn't make the cut for the jump to vinyl. So first off, I'll tell you what you're missing with the vinyl. Oh, you wanted to sing along to "Twin Elephants" in a well-produced, studio-recorded fashion in the privacy of your own bedroom? Nope. Sorry. You'll just have to imagine the chunky guitar and pounding drums as you scream out "The world can be so fucked!! But there's only so much shit you can shit....ON A FACE!!!"  You're also missing the gripping story of waking up in the morning to face another day of working at the Hello Kitty factory. Look, every JACOB THE TERRIBLE song is a perfect fucking snowflake but you can only cram so much music onto a 7" record before it starts to sound like a 9th generation Misfits dub from 1982.
   I'm gonna assume you didn't click over to the demo since I said the band said it sounds like dog shit. JACOB THE TERRIBLE is a band from Providence and Worcester. THE TERRIBLES are a pre-existing band. Jacob is a pre-existing human. They all got together to make full rock versions of Jacob's pre-existing songs, which had previously existed in more minimal forms. They ended up being one of the most charismatic bands I've ever seen. Any band can write a good song (JTT has many) but not many can engage you in their live performance in ways that feel real and inviting to nearly everyone in attendance. They also write good songs. Some are anthems in ways that I didn't perceive when I was first hearing them. Nary a week passes when I'm not singing "Things mean things! From Milwaukee to Osaka, does the postman know the joy he brings?"...usually in the post office. As I said in a print review, Jacob manages to fit ten pounds of words into five pound word-capacity songs. In other's hands, this might sound clunky and awkward, but Jacob lets it flow out of his lungs with an ease that sounds nearly effortless. I love the way he bends the word cigar to make it rhyme with roar. The song title "What I Love About You (I Hate About Myself)" is an easy comforting genius line and the song can fit that description as well.
   Okay, I'm done babbling. The record is great. I like all of these people who wrote it. It's not leaving my head anytime soon. I'm gonna go over to the bass player's house and screen print in his living room while listening to this to annoy him. You should order this record so that you can play it on your turntable while gazing into the beautiful Mike Taylor-penned art. I'm not sure where to order it though because the record label's site is down. Maybe try here or maybe here or just send some cash in an envelope to Corleone Records at P.O. Box 65, Providence, RI 02901 and hope for the best. I know that I could go back and erase that stuff I just typed, but I just got a text that said that the record is SOLD OUT, so don't send money anywhere for anything ever, okay? Okay. Enjoy this digital file instead.

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Thanks to Jacob for the digital files

Thanks to THE TERRIBLES for not being terrible.

 

THE LAZER//SCENT OF HUMAN HISTORY - Split - CD - 2002

   What the fuck is up? I've been thinking about the ghosts that you see when you walk down the street and you can only look at your neighborhood through a lens of what used to be there. I'm trying to stop doing that, but it's hard when everything changes so quickly.
    One of the last times that I talked about my friend Jamie's bands, I did not use any filters and I didn't think too closely about what I was putting out into the world. Without going into detail, I was visited by different kinds of ghosts and put into sudden serious conversations with people I never thought I would encounter in my life. I don't plan on revisiting these conversations anytime in the near future and sometimes, it's better to let ghosts rest. That is why this entry will be noticeably vague and feel devoid of some kinds of obvious info.
   Both of these bands were from Long Island during the early '00's. Both of them played shows in Chattanooga when I lived there. One of them I liked. The other...not so much. When THE LAZER came into town, it was the first time I met Jamie after being his pen pal for about a year or so. I took him out for pizza even though I could barely afford it. He complained about the pizza because he is from New York and this is what New Yorkers do, but when I went to see him, he returned the favor because that's what friends do.
   THE LAZER broke up and some of the members soon started the freight train known as BENT OUTTA SHAPE. SCENT OF HUMAN HISTORY soon became extinct and did other things too. I can't tell you what those things are, but you can find more info about this release here.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - "2846 Chapman St" - Comp - Tape - 2002

   Today, I went to a yard sale in Oakland and ran into a tiny boatload of cassettes. Of course, I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame.  The pile was full of Burger Records stuff and since I've made a decision to try and keep this blog mostly positive, I'll just leave that statement there. There were a few gems hidden beneath and I mostly left them hidden beneath because I live in a tiny room now and I could already build a small house out of the tapes  that I currently own. I even found my old band's discography. Unlike many people I know, I love seeing my band's stuff in a yard sale or a dollar bin.
   I walked away from the sale with three tapes. One of them was the SEXY demo tape. I have been looking for this tape for fucking YEARS and I was so happy to have it in my hands. When I got it home and found that it had been dubbed over with super fucking shitty metal, I can't even find the words to convey my disappointment to you right now. Another tape was a home dubbed Japanese garage band who mostly covered SF garage bands from the 90's. The third tape was this one right here.
   I only visited the Chapman Street warehouse a couple of times because it was way out in Fruitvale.. Some people called it the S.P.A.M. warehouse. They put on a ton of shows back in the early 00's, had a beer vending machine and was inhabited by at least 30 people at all times. (That beer vending machine lives on in a current Oakland punk house). One of the only things I remember about visiting there was that I saw a great BANANAS show there. It was packed and the band was in that perfect form of being drunk enough to be really fun but not too wasted to play. I remember that a teenager kept jumping on the stage, grabbing the mic and screaming the words louder than anyone in the band. It sounded terrible and everyone kept dragging her off the stage. For their last song they played the (at that point) new and incredible song "Nautical Theme" and -Oh My God - it sounded so good. When the whole band was about to kick in at the end, we looked and the teenage girl was mounting the stage again to scream the last lyrics with the band. I'm a firm believer in a lack of divisions between band and audience, but there has to be a line drawn sometimes. Someone has to take action. That was the moment when my friend Janelle shouted "NOOOOOOO!!", downed the rest of her beer, threw the empty can as hard as she could, hit the girl in the head, knocked her offstage and the girl was gently crowd-surfed back into the throng. The band sounded great and the girl was wasted and unharmed. I've been hit in the head with empty cans many many times and that shit does not hurt.
   I've already written about almost half of these bands here, here, here, here, here AND here. That was TOMMY LASORDA, FLESHIES, LOS RABBIS, POSER POSSE and SEXY. The other bands (CIVIL DYSENTERY, BOZAKS, SCORPION DEATH ROCK, DISMEMBERS and WEAK LEADS) are part of a scene that I know almost nothing about. You can listen for yourself and make up your own stories.

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The sound quality ranges from pretty bad to "holy shit"

Still looking for that SEXY demo. 

SEXY - "Por Vida" - LP - 2004

   One night, I walked over to a show in north Chattanooga at a house with a falling in kitchen (one night, that kitchen's floor fell in during a show, but not this one). I showed up because PANTY RAID was playing, but they were with these two total fuuuuucking goofballs who immediately decided that we were friends and, yes, we were all going to get wasted together. It was a dark period in my life when I lived on a weird, filthy houseboat (no shame. that boat saved my life) anchored in the stinky ass Tennessee River. I was ready to get drunk and die at the drop of a hat. So were these two guys, so we got along great. It wasn't until I saw them tuning up that I even realized that they were in a band playing that night. I thought, "These guys can barely stand. Will they be able to play?" This situation is not uncommon in Chattanooga, but is usually best executed by locals. The touring bands almost always fail and pull off one of the worst sets of their tour. SEXY did not fail. Joined by Baby Ian on bass, they played the best set of the night. The floors were so unstable that their mic stands were bouncing all over the place, but Ashley and Chris (my two new friends) just followed as best they could while wildly pounding out some of the catchiest songs I had heard in years. I didn't buy their demo tape and I still regret it.
    When I moved out to the Bay Area a year later, I hung out with these two fools when I could, at shows, on the street, getting booted out of breweries, on the waterfront, etc, I trekked up to Pacific Heights (aka Specific Whites) to see them play in a cool teen's parent's house (whassup Chloe Puke) and everything seemed wrong. They played two songs and looked at each other...."This sucks. Why do we sound so bad?" Chris pulled a huge jug of wine out of his bag and started chugging it. He passed it to Ashley, who followed suit. As they kept playing, they sounded better and better until they were (as usual) completely annihilating the show.On the bike ride home from the show, I watched Chris get sideswiped by a city bus. He sat on the ground for a second and said "Aw man..." before getting back on his bike and continuing on with us.
   I kept watching them everywhere I could: in shitty bars, in humid Florida warehouses, on the street and in the women's bathroom at Gilman. Once, I yelled "NOOOOOOOOO!!" at them for the entirety of their true-to-form cover of THE BAND'S "Up On Cripple Creek". They almost always seemed to harness that sweet spot of perfect abandon. almost-too-drunk and true freedom when it was all at it's breaking point.
   When I heard they recorded an LP, I wanted to hear it immediately, but I was skeptical. Could this band actually harness the sound of ridiculous, unhinged, drunken abandon? Yeah, they did. This record sounds exactly like SEXY live. Better, even...and to actually read the lyrics made you understand that this band was pretty funny...and fucking sad. Metaphors are few on this LP. They  talk about writing songs on the bus, smoking crack while watching the ships roll in, breaking down in Kettleman City (a shithole if there ever was one), shotgunning 50 beers in the shower to dull the pain, etc. This record also came into my life at a perfect time...when I felt terrible...when I felt okay about listening to songs about pain and heartbreak without thinking too terribly much about how my actions caused serious pain and repercussions to the people around me...when I didn't think too much about how you can write an unforgettable, classic song about someone, but that someone is actually someone, you know? They're a living, breathing human being that has to endure idiots like me blabbing on about this wonderful shit, while they're like "Great...that dude gets to be validated for the rest of his life for being a drunken guy who broke my heart and stole my SMOKING POPES record." That is a simple over-analyzation of a bigger thing, but you get where I'm coming from, right? I love this record. I always will, but I think too much.
 

There's Craig D's face. He wasn't in the band. 

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The song is called "Thank  You Dead and Gone" because the wood block and percussion used on that song was found in the trash outside of DEAD AND GONE's practice space. 

Yes, this is a record...not a tape. It was a request. 

The original press of this LP has a pressing flaw and it has skips in it. The band kept giving me copies of it when I kept telling them that my copy skipped a lot. At one point, I had 8 copies of this record. Thrillhouse Records repressed the LP and made new plates so it doesn't skip. You can still order it from them.

If I wasn't clear, this is one of the best records of the last 15 years. If you've never heard this record and like melodic punk on this blog, this is essential. 

WOUNDS - "MMXIV" - Tape - 2014

   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.

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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. 

LIQUIDS - "Mat's Demo" - Tape - 2015

   Basically, everything I wanted to write here could be a re-hash of all of the things I wrote in the previous entry, so I'll spare you. The only real difference is that the people I was going to talk about are (in my eyes) still relevant players in the DIY and art community....still active in the scenes they claim to be a part of...still creating and trying to move forward in a world that probably wishes they would just play the hits and let us all have fun.
   The short version: I walked over to the LIGHTNING BOLT show in my neighborhood, which has been sold out for two months. I tried to get in anyway, but it was solidly sold-the-fuck-out. The venue and area around it is....boring. It caters to money and power. It's an old, stale tale and I'm sure you already know it front to back. I would gladly give my money to LIGHTNING BOLT to entertain me for a spell but not that venue. (I hate being vague. It's called The Chapel.)
   Out front, I clicked on the LIQUIDS tape and started walking...and kept walking and walking away from the crowds, the douche bros, the bars, the cars and the Friday night crowds until I realized that I'd probably listened to the fucking tape nine times in a row and now I was on the top of Potrero Hill overlooking all of the city of San Francisco. It got me in a zone. The tape is hyperactive, hook-laden straightforward punk...the kind of shit that you can't explain or make it sound good in print, but once you hear it, you realize it's everything you've been missing. It's the kind of thing I would expect from members of CONEHEADS and OOZE. You can download it for yourself and decide if that description is correct for your worldview or not.
   I'm not a person who looks at messageboards (actually, do people still use these?) or tries to pay attention to the arguments that people have about the current state of punk because my eyes just glaze over. (trust me, I can see the hypocrisy of that statement.) BUT, I've seen the term "hype bands" being thrown around when referring to some current bands and their sudden popularity, such as CONEHEADS, G.L.O.S.S., BIG ZIT, etc.... The thing is, these bands are hyped for a reason...because they're fucking good. Sadie from G.L.O.S.S. told me that when her band was getting ready to press tapes, they had no idea how many to make and they all thought that 600 was a stupid, insane amount of tapes to make., so they made 300 and it sold out immediately. Plus, we're fucking punks and we don't have the money to be throwing around to make a shit ton of stupid tapes that could potentially just sit in a band member's room for years to come. Is this even making sense? I'm just saying that bands just do their thing. Sometimes people latch on to it and sometimes people don't. It's a big world and we have the capacity to enjoy lots of different shit..from CONEHEADS to every single thing ever played on KPOO to TENDER TANTRUM to old scratchy jazz records to harsh noise. Hyped or not. Don't deny yourself great music just because other people like it. And don't lose your shit because you can't track down the original tape because some band doesn't have the money or resources to cater to your every need. I'm done. Enjoy this tape.

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Fun fact: Speaking of hype, THE BODY listens to Taylor Swift on tour. 

Next entry will have much less words, I promise. 

ROBOT POPE - Demo - Tape - 2005

   The other night in my room, a compilation of bands was playing on my stereo. Most of them were good, but when ROBOT POPE came on, I put my pen down and just stared at the receiver. I forgot just how good they were, mostly because I never got a copy of their tape and didn't live in Chattanooga (their home / my former one) anymore when they were an active band. Since we now live in the future, I sent a few quick texts and found all of the ROBOT POPE songs in my inbox within ten minutes.
    First off, whoa, this recording is rough, but I think the band's excellence shines through. The band consisted of Cousin Scott on bass, Bill (FUTURE VIRGINS, GIANT BAGS OF WEED and many more) on guitar and vocals, Daniel (ADD/C, BRIS and much more) on drums and Laura on vocals. According to mixed reports, all of this was recorded in a little studio on MLK in Chattanooga above JJ's bar, using a lot of the same gear that was used to record the ADD/C LP Keepin It Real....meaning a big Tascam mixer and a reel-to-reel 8 track. Even though this is recorded in a "studio", why does the guitar sound like that? Laura wanted her vocals to be almost inaudible because she was so nervous about singing for a band, but as you can see, there's absolutely no reason for that fear because she's a talented and extremely capable singer (see "Mortal Medicine" for indisputable proof).
   The band name comes from an inside joke from an ADD/C tour. Daniel was reading "an okay book, not a great book" (his words) called Project Pope by Clifford D Simak. His bandmates, Grady and Cole kept referring to it as "Robot Pope", based on the cover illustration and it became a running joke in the band to point out Daniel's "affliction for science fiction". When it came time to name this band, Daniel suggested ROBOT POPE as a way to neutralize the joke..and it stands alone as a pretty good band name anyhow.

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Thanks to Daniel for sending over the tracks and providing info.

Thanks to Robbie and Shannon for extra info. 

Thanks to Laura for being okay with this going online.    

Scott and Laura live in Chattanooga and keep it real.

Daniel is in Berkeley and moves bacteria around on petri dishes, among many other things.

Bill is walking around with some cows in India. 

REMOTE OUTPOSTS MIX #2 - 2014

    It's 6 am. I've been awake for 20 hours and I won't get a chance to sleep for another few hours. I'm not complaining. I've got a box of old tapes sitting on my floor that are waiting to be digitized. I'm bugging some other people to write about them so you don't have to only hear my opinion all the time. I think they're good tapes. You might disagree.
   In the meantime, I made this mix for you...just for you. If you download it, you can imagine that I made it specifically with your tastes in mind....and then decide if I succeeded or failed in making a mixtape that you would enjoy. Big surprise: It's mostly punk. There's also some not-punk on it. The years span from 1961 to the last couple of months. Enjoy or don't.

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MAD SWIRL - "[Pop] [Damage]" - Tape - 2007

   Just after the new year of 2008, I was a roadie, on tour with my friends from California when I still lived in Indiana. At that point, I didn't really know what I was doing with my life, but I was almost positive that I needed a big change. For some weird reason, I figured that subjecting myself to extreme temperatures, no sleep and damp basements was a good idea. I was right. I ran around in the snow in Worcester, shot silly string all over SHELLSHAG in Brooklyn, made out with someone in the cold on the hood of a broken down car, rode in the back of a freezing truck for 14 hours, swam in the ocean in South Miami Beach and did some other stuff that should probably not be repeated. It made me want to move away from Indiana...so, I did.
   In Huntsville, AL, I got unreasonably upset over mundane things in that way that one can only get upset when returning to a disappointing town where they used to live. Overall, I don't think Huntsville is disappointing, but I had a really depressing "back in my day" moment that could have been easily avoided if I just didn't care so much about ridiculous bullshit. In short, when I lived there, we had shows in dive bars, parking lots, thrift stores, houses, ice cream shops and parks. The show that night was in a fancy bar and a lot of my old friends were missing or born again. Time marches on. It's fine. Huntsville now has an amazing resource called Lowe Mill and I'm sure there have always been teenage punk bands playing in garages consistently for the past 30 years or more.

  I spent a lot of time walking around downtown...jumped the fence and rang the incredibly loud church bell for old time's sake....ran through my favorite secret alley. It was fine. I walked back in the bar just in time to see most of the bar patrons trying to ignore MAD SWIRL, who were from Milwaukee and a pleasant sight for these eyes and ears.
   The beautiful thing about that era of Milwaukee punk is that almost all of the bands were fun, jangly melodic punk bands who kinda didn't give a fuck but were always good. The other thing is that they always traveled in packs. It seemed like all of the bands shared this one fucked up minivan  and they would somehow pile 15+ people in it for cross-country tours. MAD SWIRL was no exception. Their set was fun and kinda reminded me of ANGRY SAMOANS, but maybe that's only because they covered them, because this tape doesn't sound like ANGRY SAMOANS...but it does sound like fun.
  I should have been hanging out with MAD SWIRL all night and becoming better friends with them rather than trying to catch up with people who seemed like they wanted to get away from me. Lesson learned. I assumed we'd all be sleeping at the same house, but instead, I found myself at 5 am drinking beer and watching a dolphin documentary with my tour-mates while we all muttered "fuck yeah, this is cool."

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Tomorrow is my birthday. Send presents.

CONSTANT INSULT - Demo - Tape - 2014

    Last night, I was on the train blasting this tape into my earholes as I tried to tune out the rest of the world, so it (the world) wouldn't ruin the only good mood I'd been in for at least 18 hours. I was rushing over to the warehouse show and hoping not to miss the beautiful chaos of SBSM, who were playing first. The train was packed assholes to elbows with people who smelled like a perfume counter in a laundromat, which made me want to barf on their blazers. Instead, I raised both of my arms to hold onto the bar and unleashed my unwashed pits into their nostrils while I turned this tape up even louder. I don't really know what this band is singing about in their theme song because there's no lyric sheet, but I understood it as how all the casual bullshit of this world (wage drudgery, being broke, having to share space with people you'd rather throw into a bottomless pit, etc) adds up into a daily constant insult on your psyche. As the air grew thick with chemicals and the growing number of people backed me into the corner and the dudes stared down my non-gender conforming attire and the train rattled into a rickety tube that shoots right through a body of water, I closed my eyes, turned the tape up all the way and started feeling it pretty hard.
   My good friend, Erin Yanke wrote about my own band one time, "I don't know how to describe music like this anymore, but I know when I like it." This is how I feel about CONSTANT INSULT. They have hooks out the ass. They split the vocals between genders...sometimes alone..sometimes together. They're not reinventing anything at all, but they're doing something that many bands are neglecting to do in these times, which is just write a solid fucking song that will stick in your head for longer than ten minutes. There's a hint of the beauty that makes FROZEN TEENS so undeniably good, because one of those guys is playing guitar and singing. It's not FROZEN TEENS jr though. It's really, really great.
   The train was approaching my stop and I felt like all the oxygen had left the train car. How the fuck was I supposed to get off this train?! As if on cue, the party girl next to me fainted...just flat out onto the floor of the car. Everyone gasped, but also just kept texting...or more, likely, tweeting about it rather than offering any help. I took off my headphones, but quickly saw that she had a supportive crew of ladies with her who sprang into action. The train doors opened and we all yelled "Clear a path!!" Her friends dragged her off and pulled out so many bottles of water that it was mind-boggling. I followed in their wake and made a hasty retreat, flipping the tape over before riding off into the night.

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I don't know how to order this tape, but maybe a band member could let me know in the comments.

Members of ALAS ALAS, FROZEN TEENS (if you like desperate melodic punk and don't own their LP, then I don't understand you), HARD FEELINGS and URANIUM CLUB



   POSTSCRIPT: In addition to THE NEW FLESH, REPLICA and MÜLLTÜTE, I got to see SBSM even though I was almost an hour and a half later than the time listed on the flier. On the train home, it was much less crowded and I enjoyed an adult beverage with my good friend Robert as we laughed about the fucking utter buffoonery of Blag Dahlia. Good night and I'm looking forward to another good one tonight as I attend my 5th punk show this week. See you in the pit (or, truthfully, next ot it) at WHITE WARDS, THE LOWEST FORM, PIG DNA, THE LIGHT and INTERIOR 27.

SOCKS & SANDALS - "No Biggie" - Tape - 2009

   I had to take a break from the blog for a minute to move my hundreds and hundreds of tapes to a different location (in addition to all of my other belongings), but this remote cave on a cliff overlooking the Adriatic Sea seems like a good fit for me. Back to the music. 

   During the break, I got a few submissions and some good new tapes, so maybe I'll throw those out over the next few weeks. Maybe I'll just dig up another forgotten band from 85 years ago. I don't really know. Today, I'm bringing you a submission from my friend, Alex Turner, who you may have seen working behind the merch table at a SHARKPACT show or you may have seen him setting up the lighting for the recent BEYONCE shit-show in SF. Here he is to tell you what little information is known about the legendary, short-lived band SOCKS & SANDALS. 

   SOCKS & SANDALS was a mysterious group with obvious 90210 influences. Little is known about this (self-described) very influential Olympia band. The members have split up between Olympia and New Orleans. They can be seen playing in THE CHAIN, CHIN UP MERIWETHER, RVIVR, SHARKPACT and ROCK BOTTOM GIRLS.

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HIGHLANDS - "Rear Entry Recordings" - Tape - 2000

   This tape is a companion piece to the DICK VAN DYKES post from yesterday because it was recorded on the same day in the same place with most of the same people. THE HIGHLANDS was our friend, Ryan's home recording project where he played short, fast, catchy songs that rarely, if ever, lasted over 45 seconds. He would include tapes of these recordings with his zine, 5 Minutes of Your Time. We (D.V.D.) encouraged Ryan to play shows with a live band, even though his set would last 5 minutes or less. When we recorded the D.V.D. songs, we got Ryan to play some of his songs with Chrissie and I accompanying him on bass and drums, respectively. It's a little rough, but I like the songs a lot. We even got him to record his epic two-and-a-half minute super pop jam, "Changes Pt 3", which has Bob playing drums and me on bass. If I can track down the original home recordings, I will post those one day, even though you have to turn those up all the way just to hear it.

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7 songs. About 7 minutes of your time. 

VARIOUS ARTISTS - Mix Tape - 2001

   The fun thing about making a mix tape for yourself is that you don't have to give a fuck. You can jump to different genres and not worry about the continuity. You can put on "songs for your crush" without feeling all weird and self-conscious about putting on a "song for your crush". You can pitch-shift the whole thing up a notch so the songs are faster, because that's how you want to hear everything. You can put on songs that might be embarrassing.
  I made this mix sometime in 2001 when I was traveling a lot by myself. It's a lot of my favorite songs from that time in my life and I think it still holds up today. I still like every song on here. I'm not gonna tell you who any of the bands are. You'll just have to figure it out when you download it. If you're into hardcore, you'll like this tape. Also, if you're into hardcore, you might not like this tape. Here's what I will tell you: The RSS song is one of my favorite songs of all time. There have been numerous times when I've screamed along to every word of the song that starts with "Sing it again..." and then looked down to realize that I'm driving over 80 MPH. Same thing with the S.R. songs. Luckily, the songs that follow those songs will jolt one out of their speed demon stupor. Just go for it...or don't.

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As always, no apologies for sound quality or volume changes.

BABE QUEST - Demo - Tape - 2013

   I wish that US DIY musicians had access to a magical free recording studio where they could take in their crappy, duct taped instruments, bash out their stupidly flawless songs and always have it coming out sounding as good as even the crappiest FASTBACKS EP's. I started thinking this when I had "The Wait" by BABE QUEST cranked up to ten in my room and wishing that I could have it cranked to 20 without even distorting a little bit.
   I think BABE QUEST was produced by a bitterly harsh Minneapolis winter...a winter that I hope to never experience or even begin to understand. These two women bash out hook-filled melodic punk that will be stuck in your head all day. Sometimes, it sounds fast and punk. Other times, it can sound like a lost RUNAWAYS demo. Like all demos, it has some missteps, but if you breeze past this and don't have the chorus from "The Wait" stuck in your head for at least an hour, I don't even know what you're doing here.

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If you can't tell, that's a fabric tape case at the top with "BABE QUEST" written in glitter paint. 

Find BABE QUEST here and encourage them to upload their songs to their Bandcamp page.

Members of RAG RAGE, B ARTHUR, CHIPPER and SNARLAS