Best Friends Forever - Special Limited Edition 2007 Tour EP

I'm a sucker for an interesting cover and a low price. You know this because you're already on the lookout for posts with the meet me in the dollar bin label. So even though I knew nothing about Best Friends Forever, I had to pick this up last year when I found it at a Goodwill wedged between a pair of Laserlight classical releases. This Minneapolis trio made records for 11 years, a number of them for Plan-It-X, yet I'd never heard of them. I feel like I would have booked these folks at some point on either side of my first marriage.

This was a very pleasant surprise. I want to avoid using terms like "sweet" or "naive" to describe this, although it wouldn't be a stretch to use either. You could power a small town with the energy and joy on these tracks. There's a through line from the Shaggs and Beat Happening to Best Friends Forever. This is, very literally (if you're to believe the press on BFF), the sound of best friends making primitive pop music together. You get three tracks from a 2007 radio session, and the two songs from BFF's 2003 split with Everybell and Whistle, all burnt onto a limited-to-150-copies CDr. Enjoy!

Discogs

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Shout! Factory in June

Hey, hey! We're back with another month o' fun from the folks at Shout! Factory. Did you grab anything in May worth talking about? I decided to combine my order with a title from early June and ship it all at once, so I'll hang tight talking about the "Danger: Diabolik" and "Exorcism at 60,000 Feet" discs until they land. Let's get into it!

June 2
There are a ton of titles releasing the first Tuesday of June. I'm most excited for the Shout Select Collector's Edition Blu-ray of "Glengarry Glen Ross". Without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest movies of the 1990s; a classic David Mamet script (adapted from his play) featuring an incredible cast. Pacino, Lemmon, Arkin, Harris, Baldwin, Spacey, Pryce: every single actor turns in an amazing performance. I've been watching my Artisan DVD for almost 20 years, and I'm quite excited to see how this new 4K transfer looks in comparison. There's a new interview with director James Foley, and an interview with actor Joe Mantegna, who originated Ricky Roma onstage in Chicago. There's also a new cubist-style cover, inspired by Alec Baldwin's monologue in the film. If you haven't seen it before, you've almost certainly heard a reference. Always - be - closing, y'all.

Shout! Factory started reissuing Satoshi Kon's film catalog last year, with outstanding Blu-Rays of "Perfect Blue" and "Millennium Actress". The late Japanese director's third film, 2003's "Tokyo Godfathers"(東京ゴッドファーザーズ), gets the hi-def treatment this month. "Tokyo Godfathers" gets a 4K scan and a brand new English-language dub for this release, as well as a wealth of extras on this 2-disc combo pack. As of this writing, if you order direct from Shout! Factory, you'll also receive an 18"x24" lithograph of the cover art, which is always a nice little treat. I only know Kon's work from reputation; all four of his films were out-of-print by the time I became familiar with him. So it's nice to have someone new to discover and dive into.

The latest film in the "Sound! Euphonium" (響け! ユーフォニアム) anime series, "Our Promise: A Brand New Day" also drops this week. The series tells the tale of a Japanese high school concert band and their growth with the arrival of a new faculty advisor. Protagonist Kumiko has entered her second year of high school, and has to juggle playing in the band, building a relationship with long-time friend Shūichi, AND mentoring the new Year One band members. What's a girl to do? This is definitely not in my wheelhouse, but if you're a fan of YA fiction, or have been following the anime and following films, this is a gotta have.

At this point, you're either already sold on the "When Calls The Heart" series, or you're not at all interested. I live in a house that is a sucker for Hallmark Channel productions, so I've seen a few of these over the years. The greatest surprise for me? This has now run seven seasons and five movies! That's longevity, people! These folks are still going strong, despite the loss of Lori Laughlin after season five. If prairie romance with strong family values is your thing, and you're not already into this, then get on board here with "When Calls The Heart: Finding Home & A Moving Picture". This double feature includes the Season 7 premiere and 2019's Christmas episode.

Hey, let's check out some new Russian sci-fi! Last year's "The Blackout" (Аванпост) had a great tag line: "SOMEONE OR SOMETHING IS PLUNGING HUMANITY INTO DARKNESS ..." I caught the trailer on YouTube a few weeks ago, and some of the visuals were striking. I'll always give a "humanity's last stand"-type movie a shot, and this low-budget (around $4 million) foreign release looks pretty promising. This is the first of two films, with a sequel due out this year. I'm rooting for this to be a "Night Watch"-style word-of-mouth release.
Normally, I'd totally overlook a film like "Witches In The Woods". The IMDb reviews are not great, and the whole "college kids get trapped in the snow and flip out" plot seems like something I've seen before. BUT! I see that writer Christopher Borrelli also wrote 2015's "The Vatican Tapes", which I thought was a perfectly cromulent late night watch. I'm also a big fan of shithead college kids getting their comeuppance in horror movies. I think there's a fair chance what you get here. Do you need to own this? Probably not, but I wouldn't complain if someone whipped this out for movie night in the next few weeks.
June 9

Do you like whimsy? Hell yeah you do! I'm pretty certain, unless you stayed home and watched HBO in the mid-90s, that you've never seen 1994's "Princess Caraboo". Based on a true story from the 19th century, this story tells the story of a woman who impersonates an exotic princess and enraptures British society. It's Phoebe Cates' final lead role, and a cast including real-life husband Kevin Kline, Jim Broadbent, John Lithgow, and Stephen Rea leads you to wonder why more people don't know about this. It's one of those movies that Miramax did really well with in the 90s; sadly, TriStar distributed it to theaters, which probably lead to the DVD going out of print fairly quickly. All that makes this a perfect Shout! Select release this week.
June 16
My boss 10 years ago highly recommended "The Hills Run Red" over and over again, and, at the time, I took a pass. It looked like some shitty, direct-to-video, aughts slasher b.s. I'll fully admit that I was wrong. It's not shitty, it's not b.s., it's pretty good, especially with the benefit of 11 years of hindsight. The writing is solid, the plot is meta enough to hold my interest, and William Sadler plays a reclusive director. "The Hills Run Red" has gotten a lot of love over the past decade, and gets honored with a massive amount of extras on this first-ever Blu-ray release from Scream Factory.
Jon Avent's "Three Christs" gets a combo pack release after a reduced theatrical and VOD release earlier this year. This one sat on the shelf for three years after being shot in 2017, despite a cast including Richard Gere, Walton Goggins, and Peter Dinklage. The story of the Three Christs of Ypsilanti is a pretty fascinating chapter in the story of modern psychiatry, and this seems like the kind of dark comedy that'll be a perfect Sunday afternoon watch in my house.
Scream! Factory has been reissuing Paramount's and Universal's back catalog of horror films since last year, and the fifth volume of the "Universal Horror Collection" comes out this week. In most cases, these films have never been available on Blu-ray, and have been receiving 2K restorations and full film commentaries from historians. These were all B-features, the direct-to-video releases of their day, and most of them are rarely explored by casual fans. Of the four films in this collection, I'm most interested to check out 1943's "Captive Wild Woman", a pre-blacklist sci-fi/horror movie from director Edward Dmytryk. Also included here are 1944's "Jungle Woman", and 1945's "Jungle Captive", the sequels to "Captive Wild Woman", and 1941's "The Woman And The Girl".
June 23

I'm grateful that I grew up during the last time in broadcast history when you could watch a wide range of genre film on over-the-air TV. Alongside Shaw Brothers kung fu and Toho tokasatsu, I watched a ton of Bert Gordon's super-sized monsters on WVEU, WTBS, and WATL as a kid. Scream Factory has returned to releasing Blu-ray reissues with a Blu-ray of 1958's "Earth Vs. The Spider". It's a fun AIP mockbuster, having been re-titled "The Spider" before release to capitalize off the success of "The Fly". You get the Season 3 episode of MST3K on this release, new commentary, behind the scenes images, and a new 2K scan of the film.
The final Shout! Select release for June is 1994's "The Road To Wellville", which adapts a T.C. Boyle novel, which is based on the life and beliefs of John Harvey Kellogg, who helped popularize corn flakes, and thus cereal, as a breakfast food. Did you follow all that? All I remember about the theatrical release is that Hannibal Lecter and Lloyd Dobler were involved in giving Ferris Bueller an enema and teaching Janet Livermore how to masturbate. That, and that it totally tanked at the box office. Now, as a more enlightened ad-dult, I can tell you that this a super bawdy retelling of health and wellness at the turn of the 20th century, directed and written by the director of "Bugsy Malone", "Midnight Express", and "The Commitments". I've come to discover Alan Parker as a master storyteller, and I'm looking forward to rediscovering this one.
June 30

Scream Factory saved the best release of the month for last. I was obsessed with "Orca" as a kid; I saw it on late night TV at my grandparent's sometime in the early 80s, and I wasn't allowed to see "Jaws" until I was in my teens. So I drew a ton of man-eating killer sharks in the margins of my notes and all over my notebooks in elementary school. It's a totally insane animal revenge flick: Richard Harris "accidentally" harpoons a pregnant killer whale and murders it, the whale's mate spends the rest of the movie trying to murder Richard Harris. In the interim, Bo Derek, Keenan Wynn, and Robert Carradine all buy the farm in impressively gruesome ways. Charlotte Rampling is the only survivor. This was Dino de Laurentiis' only production in 1977, and it definitely stands out as one of his better late 70s releases. I remember this being kind of campy, in the same, pleasant, earth-toned way as de Laurentiis's "King Kong". This Blu-ray looks to be a little light on extras, but this has never been released in hi-def here in the States, so I'm looking forward to snagging a copy.

And that's it for June. For the record, "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Orca" are my two must-haves for the month. As always, if you don't have a local spot to buy these from, order direct from shoutfactory.com. Everything releasing in June currently shows some discount, and my experience has been that you get your new release by the Tuesday it's in stores. Don't be surprised if Shout! Factory does some sort of big sale towards the end of the month; with San Diego ComicCon cancelled this year, they'll need to replace that promotion with something new and different.

Swiz - With Ramsey [First Demo]

The musical through line that starts with Swiz is pretty remarkable to me. Setting aside Shawn Brown's tenure as Dag Nasty's first vocalist (my favorite era, BTW), you go:

Swiz --> Bluetip --> Sweetbelly Freakdown --> Jesuseater --> Retisonic --> Red Hare

...plus various roots like 108, Battery, Garden Variety, Severin, Shudder to Think. That's a hell of a nice family tree. You could stretch this out even further, if you care to include all the outstanding design work Jason Farrell has done since the late 80s. For the purposes of this piece, I won't. But I WOULD visit a retrospective of his.

I digress.

Back in the halcyon days of 2004, in between Pedro the Lion and From Ashes Rise releases, Jade Tree Records very quietly posted Swiz's first demo, titled here as "With Ramsey". As the story goes, the band initially played out as a quintet, with Ramsey Metcalf joining Jason Farrell on guitar. However, before Swiz cut their first 7", "Down", Metcalf had left the band, leaving us with the familiar late 80s four-piece hardcore band we all know and love.

I'm rather surprised this isn't available on someone's Bandcamp or blog, or that it hasn't been released as a physical artifact. "Lie" sounds a lot fuller on this demo, compared to the versions that would later appear on both "Down" and "Hell Yes I Cheated". I don't hear any difference between this version of "Taste" and the one on Swiz's self-titled 12". You also get four songs that never appeared anywhere else. All in all, this sounds like a natural progression from "Can I Say"-era Dag Nasty; perhaps a little more hardcore than Dag. Check for yourself. And maybe we'll get a nice lil' 10" of this one day.

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Los Campesinos! ‎– The International Tweexcore Underground

Los Campesinos! was probably one of the first bands I heard of exclusively from the Internet.

I was a few years into suburban married life, and I desperately missed going out regularly to see shows and hang out, in addition to dealing with as-yet-to-be-diagnosed mental illness. I'm sure it was a thrilling combination for my ex-wife. I had no interest in Napster or Limewire, mainly because I never gave a shit about Linkin Park and I owned all the Metallica I ever needed to own. While MRR and Punk Planet still existed, there weren't equivalents for what could still be called "indie rock". So thank the gods for music blogs, because I would have otherwise fallen off completely. Somewhere during that time, one of the indie writers I read on the regular posted an EP from this Welsh group that sounded like a K Records group all hopped up on Mountain Dew. What was not to like? Within a few months, I saw the "Death To Los Campesinos!" video, and it was a lock:

Cute British boys and girls making music? Is that singer wearing a Crass t-shirt (note: it was a Xiu Xiu tee)? Are they getting attacked by memes? I fucking love it! So I went to the website of this UK indie distributor, slapped down $12, and ordered "The International Tweexcore Underground".

So what you get here is a non-LP single in the form of the title track, a Heavenly cover, and a Black Flag cover, none of which I was aware of when I ordered the single. There are some sterling lines in "The International Tweexcore Underground": "Said, 'How're you gonna bring the state down /When you're propping it up?' / With daytime radio / And skimmed milk and soppy bows". Man, that's pretty goddamned subversive. They refer both Amelia Fletcher and Henry Rollins within the song, which lead into the two covers on the EP. This isn't LC!'s finest hour, but this EP stands as an entry point for me and a lot of the rest of the world. It's full of piss and vinegar and sentiment and if it were a Simpsons character, it'd end up on the cover of Non-Threatening Boys.

Within two years, I'd left my married home, and met a girl, who'd take me to see Los Campesinos! on our third date. We've been together since.

Discogs

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White Shit - White Shi'ite

What an ignorant, wonderful, ten inch slab o' wax we have here.

White Shit is what happens when the guys from Big Business join the guitarist from Wrangler Brutes. It just gets shitty. Nolen from Double Dagger put me onto these guys' "Sculpted Beef" 12", and it was off to the races for me. These cats recorded a total of 17 songs before they slinked back off to whatever rock they'd been sunning themselves on. The last three are presented here, by the folks at Missoula's finest label, Wäntage USA.

I mean, what can I say about this? It reminds me of Born Against at its weirdest, of the last five years of Chris Thomson's career. Obviously, I fucking love it, and that's before we even get to the G.I.S.M. cover/freakout on side B.

What happens to music like this post-COVID? Does it fade away, because we're all trying not to get evicted, or dodging raiders in the wasteland while searching for guzzoline? Does it get even weirder, reflecting the rise of amorality in American culture and the slide into second rate society? I hope the end result is closer to the latter, because for all the fun of a great pop song, sometimes you just need the soundtrack to scumbaggery.

Discogs

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You And I - The Curtain Falls

You hear a record and it immediately makes you think, "Man, I wish I'd have put that out." "The Curtain Falls" is one of those for me.

I have no clue how I never saw You And I play live. Their heyday very neatly coincided with the first big wave of my traveling to shows. They played with a lot of my friends during their lifetime. And yet, even though I bought records of theirs new upon release, I never actually got to see them. Hell, I don't remember them ever playing south of Philadelphia, which I KNOW can't be the case.

So, yeah, it dawns on me I've been listening to this record for over twenty years now. That makes me feel old. Yet there's nothing dated sounding about "The Curtain Falls". This totally fits in with anything getting released on Zegema Beach today. I'll chalk that up not only to a sound that still sounds vital, but also to the outstanding production from Geoff Turner. That's why I think's cool that Repeater Records, who put out those great City of Caterpillar reissues a while back, is releasing a discography double LP in the next several weeks. I really appreciate that this is going to be available again.

Call it screamo, call it skramz, call it hardcore, call it whatever you want to. It still feels honest, sincere to me.

Preorder the discography here.

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Scientist Wins The World Cup

YO! SCIENTIST!

I dunno why people in this part of the world keep dumping amazing dub records into Value Village and Goodwill, but I'll be damned if I complain. I came across this fun disc a couple years back for all of $2, which makes it a fine purchase. This is the final record Scientist mixed at King Tubby's Studio before he moved over to Channel One. All the Greensleeves themed records from that time period are excellent, but I'm sharing this because it fits the "dollar bin" theme, and who doesn't like a good soccer cartoon cover? This is also the 2002 CD reissue, which includes six extra tracks.

Dub is not for everyone. But if studio wizardry is your bag, well, this one waves a big ol' wand over some Roots Radics tracks and weaves some magic. I've always felt like dub is a great work-from-home soundtrack. Great sounds, few distractions. Check this riddim out, bud.

Discogs

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The Criterion Collection in June

While there aren't a great deal of new releases in June from the Criterion Collection, HOLY SHIT are they all bangers! I can use "bangers" in reference to movies, right? With four new releases and a first-time-on-Blu-ray drop, June should be a lot of fun.

June 9

Criterion takes the first week of the month off, but returns the following week with the release of "An Unmarried Woman" on Blu-ray and DVD. I know a lot of Paul Mazursky's later work ("Moon Over Parador", "Down & Out In Beverly Hills"), but I suppose I haven't seen much of his work from the 60s or 70s. "An Unmarried Woman" tells the story of a new divorcee, and her bounce back from being left by her husband of 16 years. The film has been remastered in 4K for this release, and the surviving cast have recorded new interviews. There also looks to be some cool archive material: Mazursky's appearance at AFI in 1980, the original theatrical trailer, and a commentary track featuring Mazursky and star Jill Clayburgh from 2005. I'm interested to see how this plays, 40+ years after initial release and three generations into divorce being a regular part of family life in America. Angelica Jade Bastién also contributes an essay; I've enjoyed their criticism on Vulture in the past, so I anticipate a good read.
June 16

Hey, hey! It's a Buster Keaton release! This time, Criterion releases 1928's "The Cameraman", his first film with MGM and the last film Keaton had creative control over. Now, I've never dove into Keaton's oeuvre before, but any movie featuring a team-up with a man and his monkey is bound to grab my attention. Criterion has done such an awesome job restoring and re-releasing a number of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd silent features in the past 10 years. I'm excited to see what they do with Keaton, especially in light of how many bad DVD releases of his films have shown up in the public domain in the past. This has a 4K restoration, a new score by Timothy Brock, and a new essay from critic Imogen Sara Smith. There's also a 2K restoration of Keaton's 1929 follow-up, "Spite Marriage", multiple documentaries, plus a commentary track by Glenn Mitchell, whose book A–Z of Silent Film Comedy has been a go-to on my shelf for a long time. It's a good opportunity to learn more about a theatrical legend whose silent output has long been underserved.
June 23

The esteemed Mrs. Ape Mummy has pretty good taste in film; it was one of her more attractive traits when we first started dating, along with a love of Moss Icon and Woodford Reserve. Her pick for the month is the first home video release 2019's "Portrait Of A Lady On Fire" (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) from director Céline Sciamma. I really enjoyed her 2011 film "Tomboy", and the trailer for "Portrait" really grabbed my interest, with no regard to language. This love story of an artist, commissioned to paint a reluctant bride, was the 2019 winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay Award at Cannes last year. The extras here are somewhat spare: interviews with the lead actors and Sciamma, as well as cinematographer Claire Mathon. Why did I pre-order this? I wanted to see the interview with artist Hélène Delmaire, who was responsible for all the paintings in the film. I've really gotten into her portraiture in the past couple of years, particularly her "Eyeless Girl" series, and I'm interested to hear more about her process.

I didn't have the scratch for Criterion's 100 Years of Olympic Films box set when it came out in 2017, and I sure as hell don't have it now. So it was a relief that the 4K restoration of "Tokyo Olympiad" (東京オリンピック) that was released as part of the box set is now being issued as a stand alone Blu-ray. It looks like Criterion really built out this release, compared to the original 2002 DVD release. In addition to the restoration, there's an addition 80+ minutes of footage shot by director Kon Ichikawa at the 1964 Summer Olympics, as well as a feature on the restoration of "Tokyo Olympiad". I'd put this up there with Riefenstahl's "Olympia" as the best of the Olympic films, and I'm pretty excited to see this on something other than a VHS tape played through a 21" CRT television.
June 30

The last release in June is something I've waited a very long time to see, and have only second-hand accounts to recommend it. 1985's "Come And See" (Иди и смотри) is billed as one of the all-time great anti-war films, as well as one of the last great films of Soviet cinema. "Come And See" tells the story of the Nazi occupation of Belarus through the eyes of a teenage partisan. What I've read says that it combines naturalistic performance with a story that swings from hyper-real to surreal. The film's name and following storyline evoke the Book of Revelations, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In short, it sounds like some hardcore shit. Much like the film took eight years to make, I've waited a long time to see it. In addition to the film, there are a ton of extras. New interviews with Roger Deakins and German Klimov pair up with archive interviews with director Elem Klimov and lead actor Alexei Kravchenko. Documentarian Viktor Dashuk's 3-part series on the WWII Belarussian genocide, "Flaming Memory", is also included. I've encountered a lot of anti-Russian influences in my life; I guess it comes with having been a child in the 80s. So my knowledge of Soviet cinema is very limited. But this looks like a great introduction.

That's it for June. I've already ordered "Portrait Of A Lady On Fire" and "Come And See" direct from the source, and I'll more than likely copy "The Cameraman" the next time there's an online sale. I'd love to see more of these covers be made available as posters or prints; the cover of "Portrait" would look incredible framed. Come back next month, when Criterion releases an incredible Bruce Lee collector's set and what looks like an incredible release of George Pal's "The War of The Worlds". Be there...aloha.

Karate - Sever (1993-2005)

Let's be clear: this isn't mine, but it's really good, so I think it's worth reposting.

Boston's Karate was a big favorite of mine after hearing "The Last Wars" on the Southern Tree & Polyvinyl Fall/Winter 1998 Compilation back in...you guessed it, 1998. I really fell in love with this jazzy indie trio; "The Bed Is In The Ocean" remains in my top ten from 1998 and was an early bonding point between Mrs. Mummy and I. They played a total of 695 shows over 12 years, put out six full-lengths and a live record, and toured the globe. If they'd come along five years later, they probably could have had a Death Cab For Cutie-style career arc.

During the Great Blog Bloom of the late aughts, I came across the folks at Baistophe. Their hook was homemade Best Of collections, with bespoke artwork and comp lengths to fit onto a CD-R. It's worth digging through their archives, in spite of their having called it a day in July 2011. I'd been checking up on them regularly for several months when, for their last post in November 2009, they posted up ABO #306: Karate - "Sever (1993-2005)"; 17 tracks of fried gold. The mysterious S.F.P. wrote:

Karate is a band unlike anything you've ever heard. That, actually, was what made a small number of people praise their unique sound but also the curse which kept them from having the success they deserved. Hastily labeled slocore, emo or indie jazz/blues, they were their own breed with Geoff Farina's awesome guitar playing (reminescent of jazz and blues but not just that) and his clear vocals. These two elements, coupled with a precise and skilled rhythm section, defined Karate's sonic identity, one that will evolve throughout their career while still remaining true to their roots. 

Not the kind of band to use sonic fireworks, Karate is, above everything else, a songwriting marvel. 6 studio albums, a live album and a bunch of Ep's and split singles later, Karate called it quits probably because too few people cared. A real shame if you ask me. 

Fortunately, the music remains. Initially, I wanted to do a double disc before changing my mind and packing a 79 minutes set that will either serve as an introduction for those who don't know them yet or a reminder for the others. Be curious, embark on the Karate baistophe, I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

And I wasn't, even though I'd already heard most of what was on this comp. This remains my go-to whenever a friend who loves music hasn't heard Karate. We're all living in a lot more solitude now; this is a fine soundtrack for these times.

Original post here.

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Bastard - Wind Of Pain

The cool/weird part about shopping for records in Japan is the things you'll find that you've never seen elsewhere. Case in point: Bastard's "Wind Of Pain". Either I learned about this late 80s/early 90s Japanese hardcore band when they reunited for Chaos in Tejas in 2010, or via late night text conversations with Sean from Fan Death Records. Regardless of where I heard about them, my last trip (to date) to Tokyo coincided with the 2013 reissue of "Wind Of Pain" by Feral Ward. I walked into Disk Union my last day and saw a small stack on the counter. Fuck it, I'll drop 2,000¥ on a rumor. I haven't regretted it since.

If you ever wanted to learn more about Japanese hardcore, specifically the "Burning Spirits" style, this is a good place to start. How would I describe this? Think posi D-beat. Drummer Koba would continue, post-Bastard, to playing drums in Systematic Death, as well as running Fade In Records and doing some really cool record covers for bands like Rocky & the Sweden. So your chances are greater than nil of ever seeing/meeting one of these guys. Would it be nice if records like this were a little easier to track down? Sure...I guess. But the chase, especially when you have to go halfway around the world to hear a copy, is part of the fun.

Discogs

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The KLF vs. Extreme Noise Terror ‎– 3 A.M. Eternal (live at the Brits 1992)

Of all the music industry stories I've read, my favorite ones are always about the KLF. They represent the self-aware, self-critical artist better than just about any other musician. Here are a pair of musicians, in Bill Drummond and James Cauty, who decided to make a hip-hop record, stealing from the whole of pop music, and ended up creating stadium house. The KLF immediately rose to the top of the UK pop charts, all the while finding ways to subvert the machinery of the music industry. By 1991, just five years after beginning, the KLF had become the biggest-selling singles act in the world. And then they blew it all up.

The KLF had been working on their follow-up to 1991's "The White Room" for almost two years when they were invited to open The Brit Awards in February 1992. "The Black Room" was already shaping up to be the diametric opposite to "The White Room". Where the previous record was influenced by and reflected the growing rave culture in the UK, "The Black Room" was planned to be abrasive, embracing musical movements like EBM, grindcore, and crust punk. Ipswitch's Extreme Noise Terror had been collaborating on the album; now they'd join the KLF onstage at the Hammersmith Odeon.

The scene opens with ENT kicking off a thrashy live version of "3 A.M. Eternal". Dean Jones and Phil Vane trade off vocals, while Bill Drummond stood center stage, leaning on a crutch and smoking a cigar. He introduces new lyrics to the former #1 hit, making reference to the destruction of the music industry and award show. At some point, he escapes off-stage, returning with an AR-15 in his hand. As the song comes to a close, Drummond raises the rifle and opens fire. He's shooting blanks, but the symbolism is apparent: the KLF are here to assassinate the music industry. As the bands leave the stage, an announcement is heard: "The KLF have left the music industry."

Of course, I was 14 and lived on a farm in southwestern Virginia when all this took place. I had no sense of the context of the performance, the politics of immolating one's band. All I knew is that there was a fast metal version of the club song I'd gotten into the previous summer, and I had to hear it. One of my skateboarding friends got a video from a tape trader of the performance; we watched the hell out of it all summer long.

While I don't own it anymore, here's the preview version, taken from the Christmas 1991 episode of "Top of the Pops". I must have ended up with one of the Vinyl Japan 12"s; I definitely didn't have any of the KLF Communications 7"s, and I only learned now that Relapse had done an unofficial release for the US. Do yourself a big ol' favor and cue this up as your alarm clock next week. You'll definitely wake up. And if you want to learn more about the KLF, consult your nearest library!

Discogs

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Chromatics - Rat Life Vol. 2

I wrote about "Rat Life Vol. 1" last week, so I felt like it was fair to go ahead and post up "Vol. 2". I really prefer these tracks. They're so stripped down and cold, especially compared to the versions of "Surrogate" and "Three Hearts" that would show up later in the year on "Plaster Hounds". The standout here is the live performance of "Witness". It remains one of my favorite songs by Chromatics. This version predates the "Healer b/w Witness" 12", and has a much icier feel.

Anyway, it's Friday, in case you haven't been looking at a calendar. Play this after dark, fool around with a switchblade, wear fingerless gloves. Stay off the medium drugs. Go check out Vinegar Syndrome's "Halfway to Black Friday" sale, maybe buy yourself a skin flick or some grindhouse. That's the Ape's advice for yr weekend plans.

Discogs

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Revised: Mega City Four - The Peel Sessions

I originally wrote some bullshit about the first of Mega City Four's two Peel Sessions all the way back in October 2008. It seems like a lot of people visit me to listen to this, so I felt I was overdue to revisit it. Here's what I rattled on about:

I had just written this moderately long screed about how you shouldn't trust hyped rock bands, and that's definitely true. But, in the end, it had nothing to do with what I wanted post today. Mega City Four is easily my all-time favorite Judge Dredd-related band. A lot of the kids here in Baltimore were/are totally fanboyish over MC4, or anything Wiz related. Two songs from this, MC4's first of two Peel Sessions, popped up on my iPod today, including "Clear Blue Sky", one of my favorite songs ever. I think this record had a different cover when it was in my dream the other night, but was definitely at the top of that stack. I can't believe this recording is 20 years old...

It'd only been a couple of years since Wiz died shortly after playing Baltimore when I originally posted this. Hearing my friends rave about MC4 led me to explore a whole world of early 90s British indie with their sandpaper melodies. It blew my mind that I hadn't heard more of bands like Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Snuff, Drive, and Senseless Things. "Clear Blue Sky" remains one of my favorite songs of all time; it, along with "Springtime" by Leatherface, come to mind anytime there's a nice April or May day.
Here's what you should know about this disc. It compiles a five-song Peel Session from 1988 (supporting "Tranzophobia") and a four-song Session from 1993 (behind "Sebastopol Rd"). Five years of regular touring and songwriting, as well as the various pop waves in the UK, have given the "Sebastopol Rd."-era songs a real shine that are not present in the 1988 session. That's not a bad thing, although I prefer the 1988 jams.

Is this era remembered fondly by any more than a handful of people nowadays? My gut says it's as small a group now as it was back then; the bloggers, the record collectors, the folks who still exist on the outskirts of the music industry. I hope this repost leads someone down the same path that I went in the early aughts. I think it's worth spending a tenner on.

Discogs

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Neon Hearts - Venus Eccentric b/w Regulations

I feel like putting on my pogo shoes.

This is one of my all-time favorite KBD singles, released 2 months after I was born in December 1977. Neon Hearts hailed from Wolverhampton, which the map tells me is smack dab in the middle of England and right down the road from Birmingham. They featured future Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven, and the saxophone plays a big role in their sound, which I guess pushes them closer to new wave territory than punk territory. They played together for four years until breaking up in 1981, releasing an LP and three singles in that time, the first of which is presented here.

This is a double A-side, self-released slice of fried gold. "Venus Eccentric" melds jangly guitars with a sax lead that just works. My favorite part? Keith Allen's drums sound so cool, like he has two different sized boxes and a pie tin for a cymbal. "Regulations" is definitely the punker of the two cuts.  It has this fantastic tempo to it; the guitar is a buzzsaw, the sax, honking goose calls. It's super bratty, even with a four-measure guitar solo. This song is pure teenage ecstasy.

Overground Records in the UK reissued these two songs as part the "Ball & Chain" CD compilation back in 1997, and Germany's Last Year's Youth Records reissued them on vinyl back in 2001. So I'd say we're due for another release. In the meantime, check this slab out.

Discogs

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Post #100 - Fuck, 20 Years Ago Was A Long Time Back

Here we go. A truly momentous moment. 100 posts...a huge portion of which have come in the past month.

To celebrate this joyous occasion, I've put together this delightful comp. It's 20 songs from 20 years ago. Pretty simple, no? It was a shit year personally, but a pretty great year for music. It was the year I got turned onto Belle & Sebastian, Cat Power, and Death Cab for Cutie. It was the year of "Voodoo" and "Supreme Clientele", "The Moon and Antarctica" and "69 Love Songs". I went to University of Maryland for the year, and failed out within 9 months. I moved back to the Baltimore suburbs, started working as a buyer for a bookstore, began going to three shows a week.

I could have turned this into one of those amazing Fluxblog-style surveys of the year; it was the first year I intentionally expanded my listening habits, and my record collection still reflects that. This, however, is a punk-focused blog, and I wanted to stick to 20 songs, so, there you go. I think it's a pretty decent cross-section of what I was buying at Reptilian and learning about from Punk Planet and HeartattaCk. Here's what you're downloading:

1. Spazz, "Let's Fucking Go!"
2. Dillinger Four, "Music Is None of My Business"
3. Leatherface, "Watching You Sleep"
4. Alkaline Trio, "Radio"
5. Strike Anywhere, "Chorus of One"
6. The Briefs, "New Shoes"
7. The Fuses, "Solution R"
8. The Hives, "A Get Together To Tear It Apart"
9. Charles Bronson, "Couldn't Fuckin' Care Less"
10. American Nightmare, "Protest Song #00"
11. Assfactor 4, "Free Tibet and Pussy"
12. Hot Snakes, "Salton City"
13. Skull Kontrol, "Primitive Offerings" (HEY!)
14. Lifter Puller, "Space Humping $19.99"
15. Braid, "You're Lucky to be Alive"
16. Shellac, "Watch Song"
17. Midiron Blast Shaft, "With A Fine Tooth Comb-Over"
18. Vaz, "Statik Electrik"
19. Cutthroats 9, "Prey"
20. Pg.99, "By the Fireplace in White"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll acknowledge the elephant in the room. I recognize that there's a real dearth of non-male, non-white voices in this mix. I had less broad taste 20 years ago. It's probably why I didn't date much back then. But this IS perfect to slap onto a C-60, throw into the tape deck, and play full blast while you bomb around a back road with your best friends, chain smoking and drinking Big Gulps and talking about how the whole of your world is still in front of you.

Anyway, enjoy the mix, and thanks for coming back. This is Primitive Offerings 100.

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Is Pissed Off!! Records the best label on the planet?

I have this "old man shaking fist at cloud" block in my head over the cost of vinyl. I know it has everything to do with knowing how much it used to cost to press 1,000 copies of a 7", but I can't wrap my brain around how the cost of vinyl has climbed, while availability has increased exponentially over the past ten years. Why the hell does a new copy of Queen's "Greatest Hits Vol.1" retail for $27? Why the hell is anyone pressing new copies of Queen's "Greatest Hits Vol.1"? It sold 25 million copies! You can't find a used copy anywhere? What the hell, man?

That's why I've been buying a lot of cassettes.

I think cassettes are the perfect format for DIY releases in 2020. It provides the artifact, the collectible, while a digital download provides the listenable content. Cassettes are inexpensive to manufacture, accessible to anyone in the world, can be transported cheaply, and are more easily repairable than any other audio format. You can make one as a gift, duplicate 100 at home, or 10,000 at the plant, based on how available you want the physical media to be, with little financial barrier to entry. They're kinda perfect.

And, with all respect to Burger Records, I don't think anyone is doing a better job with cassette releases than Malaysia's Pissed Off!! Records. They focus on the bleeding edge of punk, hardcore, and Oi! world-wide better than anyone since...BCT back in the 80s. While they've been an active label since 2005, they've really grown over the past five years, with 20 releases last year. I first learned about them in 2018, via a post from the always-amazing Terminal Escape, and I've been a loyal fan ever since. Their releases run the gamut of styles, from a Fy Fan discography they released in 2011, to my first order, 2018's "Complete S.H.I.T." from the Toronto powerhouse, to Mexican Oi! band Dead Hero's Japanese tour tape from last year, "La Voz De Una Generation". They focus on releases for South East Asia, but these are probably the most well-crafted cassette releases I've ever seen. Slipcases, heavy-gauge paper, foil printing; it's hard to believe these only run $5 US. Like their counterparts at Iron Lung, it's easy to see the love and attention that goes into each release.

Last week saw the announcement of three new releases from Pissed Off!!: the first demo from transatlantic hardcore trio Urban Void (ex-Cokebust, Mind Trap), new music from Berlin's The Fog, and some 80s worship from Invalid Format, a new band from Shah Alam, Malaysia. Add to that recent releases from Chicago's Man-Eaters (ex-Cülo), Ottawa popsters Liquid Assets, and a drop dead debut from Texas's Nosferatu, and their 2020 lineup is looking stacked.

Unfortunately, the shipping can run up the tab on an order, and, for some reason, most of my orders route through New York rather than ship into the West Coast, but it's all the more reason to pick up a few titles when you order. It can take almost a month (due to COVID-19) for orders to arrive, which is why I order via the Bandcamp page, so I can listen immediately. If you're interested in what's happening around the world in punk, go ahead and order a few of these.

If you're looking for recommendations, I highly suggest the following:
Sonic Warhead - Bleed Runner EP
C.L.A.W. - Absolute Control EP
Urgent Matter - s/t EP

Tsunami - Deep End

Maybe it's because they were too punk for indie rock, and they were too indie for punks. Maybe it's because their label hasn't been open for over 20 years. Maybe they were the band that inspired the bands to come. In my humble opinion, Arlington, VA's Tsunami remains one of the most underrated bands of the 90s, with a catalog well worth re-appraising.

I'd heard about them around 1993 via the college radio station in Blacksburg, VA. One night, one of the DJs played the entire B-side of "Teriyaki Asthma VII", my first exposure to both Superchunk and Tsunami. "Punk Means Cuddle" became a through-line for me and my girlfriend; she didn't want to listen to Bad Brains or Fugazi, but we could listen to the mix with Tsunami and Tiger Trap on it over and over again. It wouldn't be until the next year when I'd finally come across a physical copy of any of their records. I found the CD of "Deep End" during my first visit to the Sound Garden in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It remained on steady rotation for me over the next couple of years, mystifying my friends who couldn't understand why I'd listen to this AND Youth of Today. "Deep End" is tuneful, emotive, noisy, powerful. I think it foreshadows the kind of music that would make Sleater-Kinney famous over the next 10 years.

I could wax poetic over the entire Simple Machines catalog. Their nine-year run from 1990 to 1998 would make anyone envious. With Tsunami leading the way, it offered a true alternative to both punk orthodoxy and major label co-opting. I'd love to see someone like Numero Group release a comprehensive reissue of Tsunami's back catalog. Until then, we'll settle for opportunities like this to take another look.

Discogs

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