Gern Blandsten was one of my favorite labels of the 90s and aughts. Along with labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, Lengua Armada, and Gravity, the records Charles Maggio put out made up the deep underground of my teens and early twenties, a very strong counterpoint to the punk from Epitaph and Fat that was creeping above ground, or even the sounds bubbling out of Revelation or Victory. In short, when I picked up a Rorschach record, a Native Nod 7", or a Chisel release, I knew it was something very distinctive from anything I'd turn up at a Borders or Sam Goody. And, like all the great HC labels of the 80s, it was very locally focused and made up of friends all growing together. This was achievable and approachable.
This survey works back through the history books, leading off with the likes of Radio 4, the World / Inferno Friendship Society, and Ted Leo, all of whom would gain greater acclaim post-9/11. Dälek's hard progessive hip-hop flows into the Yah Mos big, emotive hardcore sound which flows into the math rock of the Impossible Five. By the final third of this sampler, the listener is back in the ruins of ABC No Rio and the basements of north New Jersey, mixing Weston's pop punk with the Dischord-colored post hardcore of Garden Variety and the proto-screamo of Native Nod. These bands were all on the same bills together; it was all punk, and it was a great time to see six wildly different musical styles for $6 in a high school gym or a church hall.
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