1984-"Barranco" video (or, fuck the World Cup)

Everyone's going ga-ga over the World Cup currently, so 1984's debut EP is timely. Some of you may be following the on-going protests against World Cup spending in several Brazilian cities. If not, the basic point is that it's criminal to piss away millions of dollars/pesos/reales/whatever on a tourist circle jerk when millions of your citizens are living in desperate poverty. If you want a reminder of how little the money wasted on mass sporting events does for the cities concerned, take a stroll around the 2004 Olympics buildings in Athens, Greece.

In any case, 1984's "Barranco" is a savage bit of basic, direct hardcore. They sorta sound like Los Crudos, but with something approaching production (gasp!). The video intersperses footage of the band with shots from their hometown, showing some of the squalor that billions of people worldwide live in every day. I like football as much as the next person, but 1984's video is a timely reminder of what daily life is like in Brazil, and what it will probably continue to be like long after the 2014 Cup is over. Fuck JLo, check this out.

Urbanoia-Svart Sement EP (2013)

Well, I haven't reviewed any hardcore records in awhile. Hell, I haven't reviewed anything at all in awhile. So why not get back to music-writing, and the music of my youth, with Stavanger's Urbanoia, eh? Following in a venerable tradition of heavy Scandinavian ragers, Urbanoia presents thee with four tracks of 'eavy, 'eavy blitzkrieg bop.

 I'm pretty sure it's obligatory to mention Discharge if you're reviewing a hardcore punk record these days, but actually Urbanoia doesn't really do the d-beat thing. As far as I can tell, who knows, maybe d-beat has morphed into how Urbanoia sounds. In any case, this is heavy (not metal-heavy, though) hardcore that goes for mid-tempo, clean production instead of a wall of shrieking feedback. It's raining, I'm hungover, the sun hasn't been out in days, and I'm pretty sure lots of bad things are happening in the world right now: Urbanoia's just as good a soundtrack for this mood as anything else.

You can listen to Urbanoia, and possibly buy their EP, here.

Catholic Guilt-Futile Attempts 7" EP (Doomtown Records, 2013)

Hardcore's psychology and historical development can be divided into two categories: Giving a Fuck and Not Giving a Fuck. The former produced such luminaries as Minor Threat, Black Flag, Aus Rotten, and pretty much every band on Revelation Records. The latter gave us relatable deadshits such as Poison Idea, Negative Approach, Government Warning, and The Men.

Of course, most of us oscillate somewhere between these two moods, depending on how hungover or high we are. So it's nice to have a few records from the former category in your collection. Hell, on a fine spring day, I find myself singing along to "Minor Threat"! Usually, though, I wake up feeling like nothing. So I typically turn to the carrion pit of misery offered up by the second category.

Catholic Guilt falls squarely within the Not Giving a Fuck category, so blasting this EP at 3 AM was a whole lotta fun. My juvenile kicks were bolstered by the knowledge that I was waking up any upstanding neighbors of mine who actually have jobs and/or families (HA!). CG almost measures up with Poison Idea when it comes to dashing off cogent, well-written songs that eloquently express the entire band's lack of interest in most of humanity. The singer sounds as apathetic as Jerry O., and the band is adept at stop-on-the-dime hardcore humdingers.

Throw this one on when you're slobbering drunk, lurching around your apartment in a Vicodin-and-whiskey haze, and don't wanna remember the whole ugly experience. Shit, who woulda thunk it that Austrians could relax long enough to write music this loose, huh?

Listen to a few tracks from the EP here; the physical deal drops on December 20th. Just in time to buy it for your high school sweetheart before asking if you can kiss her on New Year's, kiddies!

Idle Minds-Teenage Suicide CS (2013)

Maybe it's the winter blues, maybe it's the terminal lack of leisure options if you're dead broke, but I've been listening to more hardcore lately. As much as I'd like to think I'm somehow too old for it or that I've learned enough to not need obnoxious noise in my life, hardcore is like alcohol. You think you can live without it when things are going great, but those periods are fundamentally transitory and it's always waiting for you, patiently, when you bottom out and your friends leave you in the cold grey dawn.

Melbourne's Idle Minds are ready for you, the next time your life hits the skids, and you'll be met with sweet sonic oblivion. It takes a lot of wasted years to be able to distinguish between different strands of hardcore, but I wasted said years happily and eagerly. So it sounds like Idle Minds is torn between the possibilities of manic fastcore (Dropdead, et. al.) and "emotional," grown-up hardcore like American Nightmare.* I'd like 'em either way, but that's a backhanded compliment: hardcore is either abject teenage oblivion or it's self-conscious, which is to say, it negates its own reason for being.

This tape is as frenetic as a 15 year-old hardcore kid who just gobbled up a month's worth of Adderal, and as crude as the cover art. The songs tear by in a whirlwind of juvenile anger, pulsing rage, and sheer annoyance with whatever's happening when you play this tape. Idle Minds is as bratty as you are in your worse moments, and it's better to embrace them rather than reject them as somehow below you.

Check out Idle Minds here!

*It's only a matter of time before this stuff is popular among yuppies and "cool" parents. Buy your copy of the last AN LP now and start dubbing copies for your grandkids.

Alone & Forsaken XVI: Teaching you the Fear

Hey hey, whaddayaknow, kiddies? 'Nother mix, this time a primer in American Hardcore. Most of you probably know the bands featured herein, but maybe some 13 year-old kid will stumble upon this and it'll prevent him or her from identifying "punk" with Fall Out Boy. It could happen...if you're an aging (21 or above) punk like myself, on the other hand, get blackout drunk and slamdance around yr room to these classics. 19 songs in 33 minutes.

Flex your Head!

1. SSD-Boiling Point
2. The Fix-'Cos the Elite
3. the Ropes-Down in Flames
4. Middle Class-Situations
5. The Observers-Walk Alone
6. Youth Brigade (LA)-Violence
7. The Germs-Circle One
8. Adolescents-Wrecking Crew
9 Social Unrest-Making Room for Youth
10. Circle Jerks-Back Against the Wall
11. Artificial Peace-Wasteland
12. The Dicks-Lifetime Problems
13. None of the Above (N.O.T.A.)-Propaganda Control
14. Millions of Dead Cops (M.D.C.)-Born to Die
15. Opinion Zero-Mass Society/Pawn to Futility
16. Reagan Youth-U.S.A.
17. Hoax-Faggot
18. Negative Approach-Negative Approach
19. Cro-Mags-Survival of the Streets

Violent End-demo CS (2012)

The cover says it all: violent music with nothing but malice lurking beneath frenetic drumming and ugly, mutilated guitar riffs.

Violent End is the current darling of the Chicago punk scene: current or ex-members of Raw Nerve, Manipulation, Chronic Seizure, Vile Gash, et. al. If you know anything about those bands you can expect a similar dose of barebones, no-frills hardcore. Angry Andy from Vile Gash delivers his trademark snarl, barking out words of hate (I can't make 'em out but I'm sure the words are as violent as the music).

I don't need to say any more; if you like raw American hardcore, you'll like this.

The songs aren't separated, so it's just one big file. Deal. Check it out here. You can still buy a physical copy from Sorry State Records. Do it, now!

Violent End is playing with Hoax, Kontaminat, and NEGATIVE APPROACH on September 9th at Chicago's Cobra Lounge. It'll probably be the show of the year, so go if yr gonna be in my hometown. For more info, read this.

Social Unrest-Making Room for Youth 7" (1979)

Raging it too hard last night=vicious hangover today, so nothin' new, just an '80s classic....

Social Unrest was one of the early East Bay (i.e. the cities just across the San Francisco Bay from SF, for non-American readers) punk bands. Their "Their Mistakes" was featured on the infamous MRR comp "Not So Quiet on the Western Front," and this is one of the best products of first-wave American hardcore.

 Social Unrest's work was incredibly economical: no pointless intros, wasted chords or unnecessary flash. "Rush Hour" is a moronically simple guitar pattern and stutter-step drumming, with Creetin K-OS (dontcha love those first-wave punk names?) hollering about....rush hour. The bridge features a sweet, lazy riff that veers into surf territory.

"Making Room for Youth" is a lot faster, closer to the Middle Class' first 7" than contemporary East Bay punk.  Danny Radio Shack and Doug Logic's guitar playing winds up and speeds through a typically naive punk call to arms for American youth: "The future of the world is up to us/but the older generation will only fuck it up..." Creetin chants, screeches, and lectures his way through the song. "Join the People that Join the Army" doesn't count as a song, really, more an afterthought-clocking in at 22 seconds, it flies by in a rush of stupidity and inspired succinctness.

MAKING ROOM FOR YOUTH. Social Unrest released a slew of albums throughout the '80s; read an interesting interview with a later member, not featured on this 7", here.

Middle Class-Out of Vogue 7" (1978)

Until the advent of online file-sharing, Santa Ana, California's Middle Class were one of those legendary early punk/HC bands that most punks had heard of without hearing (myself included). Regardless of whether this was the first "hardcore" record or not (and really, why does it matter?), this is a classic that I'm happy to be sharing with you lumpen masses.

Opening with an impossibly taut, frantically repeated guitar riff and wobbly bass line, "Out of Vogue" careens through a Ramonesclone song structure, dragging you along as singer Jeff Ata intones against the brave new world of mass media: "we don't need your magazines/we don't need your fashion show/we don't need your TV/we don't wanna know!" The music is so fast, the shouted words are like a ritual incantation at breakneck speed. The song ends with a clipped "OUT OF!..."

"You Belong" starts off slower, building up momentum until the crushing transition to more sonic oblivion; Ata's singing is even more rushed as the Middle Class careen through a tale of...I dunno, the words are incoherent. The beginning drumfill of "Situation" is killer, holding you in suspense until the divebomber bass line and savagely strummed guitar hover into focus. The song is slower than the first two, effectively slowing down and intensifying the groove so that you can almost make out Ata's words: "no use in trying..." The slow down only sets the scene for "Insurgence," which flies by at one minute, one second. The whole band gallops along at top speed, trying to beat its own pace; there's no center to the song, it's pure rush: Johnny Rotten's "I just speed/that's all I need!" dictum taken literally.

This EP blew me away when I first heard it, and I still spin it at least twice a week. It's the essence of punk as a musical genre, condensed and compressed to the point where form becomes content: a formalist's wetdream. Yet this isn't retarded, inept, slipshod thrash in the tradition of the early harDCore bands like Teen Idles, SOA et. al. Middle Class were great songwriters, and would go on to prove their deft handling of tempo, rhythm and harmonies on their next outing, 1980's Scavenged Luxury EP. "Out of Vogue" was a perfect statement and on Scavenged Luxury they were already headed in the direction of 1982's LP, "Homeland": tense, despondent goth in the vein of early Fall or Joy Division.

Basically, if you don't like this EP, you don't like punk or hardcore. YOU BELONG  You can buy a repressing of the 7", or an LP-length collection of the first two EPs plus outtakes and demos, at Frontier Records. You should also read an interesting 2011 interview with all the original members, here.

*Edit, 9.10.12: Reup'd the file, get it HERE. *

*Edit, 1.6.13: Re'up'd it again, AGAINAGAIN.*

Dirty Work-Demo (2012)

Kansas City's Dirty Work bashes out four tracks of bare bones, no frills American hardcore on this demo. They're about as subtle as a punch in the face, and the only image that comes to mind when listening to them is sweaty, gross punks slamming into each other in someone's parents' basement before the cops show up and cite everyone for curfew violations. If that image is a blast from the past for you (as it is for me), or sounds like fun, you'll dig this.

Check it out.

Cease to Exist-Heptaparaparshinokh EP (2012)

I first found out about the DIY hardcore scene (as opposed to being into punk as a historical genre of music) when I was 17 or so. One of the first LPs I bought after I started going to basement shows was Deathreat's "The Severing of the Last Barred Window." I can still remember the amused look on the woman behind the recordstore register's face as she rang up my eager young friends and I. "Oh, yeah. Deathreat. I'm a little too old for them now." Of course, being 17 year old kids, we thought this was preposterous-how could one EVER be too old for a hardcore band?!?

Much the same thought crosses my mind with Cease to Exist's EP. It's not bad: fans of His Hero is Gone, especially their first 7", will enjoy it. Brooding, downtuned guitars, spastic drum pummeling, and harsh, scratchy, growled vocals sprawl over the six tracks. I would have a lot of fun catching them at a basement show, and they actually remind me of some band I saw in Olympia last time I was there, which sounded like From Ashes Rise. I just think I'm pushing the maximum age limit as far as "ability to enjoy this on a visceral level" goes.

Check out CeasetoExist on facebook here. Download the EP here.

Government Warning-No Way Out EP (2006)

Nothing new today, just a great 7" of barebones, confrontational hardcore by Richmond, Virginia's much-missed Government Warning.

This was their first release, and it's still my favorite: six tracks of fast, angry hardcore. GW spearheaded the No Way! Records scene, which specialized/es in straight-ahead hardcore a la early Dischord. GW was the best, though: the guitarist manages to toss in throw-away surf riffs throughout these songs, Kenny belts 'em out like a maniac, and the rhythm section is rock solid.

My favorite songs are "Ghost Town," with its manic Adolescents-style riffing, and "Self Destruct," one of my favorite anthems for aborting .40s of malt liquor as a young'un.

I saw these guys on the "No Moderation" tour in Chicago at Albion House years ago, and they slayed. Everyone went nuts for their cover of "No Way" and some Minor Threat song-"Filler," I think, or maybe "Stand Up." I guess they got int trouble with the MRR scene police a few years ago for off color remarks. Whatever. They were a good band, and I miss 'em.

I'M GONNA SELF DESTRUCT!!!!

Kontaminat-2011 demo

Punk bands in 2011 generally boil down into two groups: those who are young, inexperienced, and eager to learn-as-they-play (Culo, Birth Deformities, et. al.) and those who, like Kontaminat, have been doing this so long, punk is in their DNA.
Hence, it's no surprise that this demo fuckin' slays. Whereas they seemed headed in a crushing, Framitid-style wall of noise in the live videos I've seen, on this demo Kontaminat has headed in a direction closer to Deathreat than Kochi City Madness. Everyone's favorite Chicago HC hearthrob, Mike Thrashberg, has mutated into Joe Denunzio's (Ebro's?) ghost on this demo: harsh, admonitory barking rides a wave of unrelenting, but refreshingly well-mixed, US hardcore.

I don't have a lyric sheet in front of me, but with titles like "Tenure Hellstorm," you can't go wrong. The mix is relatively clean, which is great 'cause all the instruments pull their weight-the guitar fuzz on "Team Player" is closer to post-punk than hardcore butchery, and I love Pat's bass riffing, especially on "Costume." In short, Kontaminat is one of Chicago's best new HC bands, and you should, uh, getcha punk on and catch 'em on the 27th. Details to follow.

They say it's lonely at the top.... I'm reposting this from One Track Hell, which I cordially thank for boosting the volume on the recording. Contact the band, and try to scrounge a copy of the tape, via THIS!

Hedge Fund-demo 11.11 (2011)

Hardcore punk has reached an interesting point in the last few years. As the grunge/shoegaze revival gathers steam, there's a temptation for bands to jump ship to the sunnier climes of MBV-/Nirvana-worship. Despite musical disparities, I see the whole "mysterious guycore" thing as riding the wave of '90s fetishism percolating of late: "oh cool! these guys were in bands in the (late/mid-)90s! They must be cool!"

Hedge Fund, a new band from Boston, straddles the line between HC and sloppy, gazey mucky muck. This four-track cassette demo is essentially hardcore punk played with a grunge attitude (or grunge played with a punk attitude). The opener, "Locutus" (sick Star Trek ref., no?) mines the vein Thulsa Doom quarried ages ago-piledriver drumming and overloaded guitar chugging.
But the next three tracks go in for the sort of fuzzy, squalling, meandering guitar I associate more with new bands like Psychic Blood as much as traditional HC name checks like Siege. It makes for some interesting listening: straightforward, shrieking intensity mixed with more complicated, grinding sludge.

Y'know ya love it. You can buy the radness here.

The Repos/Fourteen or Fight Split (Gloom, 2004)

First of all, can I just comment on how amazing this cover is? I can only say that I wish more hardcore kids were rockin' DIY '70s stoner metal jeans these days instead of crotch-crunching designer denim.

On that note, if you're familiar with this blog, you're familiar with my love of The Repos. Not much to be said about their side: seven retarded, magisterially executed tunes about...uh...whatever.
Not many people outside of Chicago remember Fourteen or Fight, which is a shame. They were just getting started when I began going to DIY shows; I saw them maybe 3 or 4 times. They were great. No fuss, no muss, no fancy art school shit; these guys belted out direct, barebones hardcore with Frank's desperate, earnest vocals cresting the

riffs.

Light up that bong, and dive into this fucked feast from Gloom. It's long out of print...be an aggressive collector, and try EBay.
*EDIT, 9.20.12: REUP is HERE.*

*EDIT, 1.9.14: Re-up'd it again, HERE!* 

Cro-Mags-Before the Quarrel demo (1986)

  For the past few months, I've been living in Rome's San Paolo neighborhood. For the most part, it's a quiet, workaday neighborhood, but the defining geographical feature is the innumerable public housing towers that dot the landscape. When night falls, Moldovian prostitutes and East African heroin dealers dominate the asphalt, in between Carabinieri flying squads. Violence around here is a necessity, not a choice.

 The point is that this area is the closest I hope I'll ever come to experiencing the Cro-Mags' native landscape. Read John Joseph's autobiography and this background really comes into focus (although listening to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" is more succinct).
 This is violent music from a violent time and place: New York City (the Deuce, not White Plains), ca. 1986. John Joseph sounds like the street kid he was, Harley Flanagan's bass has the entrancing effect on the opening track, "World Peace," that it managed to miss on the  LP, and Parris Mayhew's guitar soars and hovers over Mackie Jason's drumwork, which gallops through these tunes like the long-lost, essential ingredient it truly was. Fuck the "Age of Quarrel" LP. This demo captures the 'Mags as they were: angry, desperate street kids straight off the LES, long before Giuliani and his urban cleansing.


WORLD PEACE CAN'T BE DONE.

  I can't remember what blog I stole this demo from, but read this and you'll want to start selling fake acid to burnouts at Mets Stadium, too.

*EDIT, 7-14-12: Re-upped the file, fixed the link. It should work now.*