various artists - Bread: The Edible Napkin

Look, there's no way I'll ever look at the late 90s as a golden age to grow up punk. You could grow up poor & ugly, yet still be happy, because the shows were typically going to be $6 ($5 with a canned food donation) and if you didn't live in NYC or California, you had no expectations of being offered the opportunity to sell out. So you just did it with a bunch of like-minded nerds and freaks, raised on Lucio Fulci and "G.I. Joe" and Tetsujin-28 and Fugazi shows. If you were lucky, you'd run into folks like Var, who created No Idea down in Gainesville, and they'd introduce you to a world of new sounds.

It's how bands like Braid and Hot Water Music show up alongside Cavity and the Locust, right next to Skankin' Pickle and Against All Authority on the same bill or, in this case, on the same comp. "Bread: The Edible Napkin" came as a CD or double LP attached to No Idea #12. My copy of the zine was long ago donated to the CCAS zine library, but I've held onto my CD copy for almost 30 years since getting it. It's a great snapshot of the underground from that time, featuring names that continue to tour and play regularly, and those who made only slight inroads outside their home scenes. No Idea was always good about that, drawing the bands together under one banner of punk rock, regardless of what subgenre you could group them in. It became aspirational for me, whether I was making my own zine or booking shows, to pull from disparate tribes and bring them all together.

Discogs

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various artist - Experiments In Audio Rocketry: A Mostly Acoustic Compilation

I'm not sure how I didn't own a copy of this until I came across one for a penny in an online auction. I was on board with 1-2-3-4 Go! from the jump, picking up copies of the Splitting Teeth 7" and the "Power Of Ten" comp when they came out. I booked a show for House On Fire when they stopped off in Baltimore during their first our, and Foundation came up from Richmond often enough that I've seen them half a dozen times. "Experiments" has a loaded lineup, headlined by Against Me!, NOFX, Jesse Michaels, and the Lawrence Arms.

Longtime readers will note a recurring theme here, wherein I correctly identify myself as an idiot. There are so many things I slept on b/c I was too punk, or too young, or too broke to dive headfirst into. It's nice that with age has come self-awareness, and a healthy sense of humor about my youthful obstinacy. it's also quite possible (likely?) that the record store I worked at in 2003 just passed this over, on account of a focus on noise rock and metal in the buying regimen.

At any rate, it's never too late to listen. This was worth waiting for.

Discogs

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Planes Mistaken For Stars ‎– We Ride To Fight! (The First Four Years)

Let us remember our honored dead.

I had been a fan of Planes Mistaken For Stars going back to their records on Deep Elm. But I fell in love with them on "Fuck With Fire", this ridiculous blend of hardcore and 70s rock. It felt like everything I loved about Hot Water Music and Leatherface, but just a bit more Molly Hatchet, Black Sabbath, James Gang. Just this groove, this sexiness that most bands I was listening to didn't possess. You couldn't pigeonhole them into one scene; they'd fit just as well on a bill with Converge as they would with Braid or Life's Halt or Oxes or Dillinger Four.

I talked to Gared about it all in Detroit in 2002. PMFS was playing Michigan Fest, we'd been introduced by mutual pals in Cross My Heart a couple years back, so I dragged a six-pack and my tape recorder out to their van and away we went, just chopping it up about music and being in our mid-20s without any greater goal than to share honest art with an increasingly commercial world. They were playing in the early afternoon on the second day of a three-day festival, on a bill with Death Cab For Cutie, in what even then seemed like the last gasp of that little bit of DIY culture. Everything was on the cusp of being driven by blogs and publicists and the collapse of the physical media market. Planes were fucking great that day, just heavy and loud and raucous and everything a group of 30 or so fuzzy cheeked fellas, drunk on cheap beer and being far from home, could ask for. It was the best of times; it was the blurst of times.

Where was I? Yeah, Gared. I saw him a year later, pulling up with the band for an afternoon show at the Ottobar. While we didn't get to hang out quite as hard as we did in Detroit, it was nice to get to share a smoke and a drink after their set, to talk about the new songs that would come out the following year as "Up in Them Guts" (a terrible, wonderful name for a record) and share another moment in time. Things would move fast from then; I had my first panic attack at a Converge show a few months later, got fired from the bar, had to find a real job. I quit booking shows and fell away for a while. Got married, then divorced. By then, PMFS had broken up. Gared put together Hawks & Doves, but I wasn't really interested in hearing anyone cover Springsteen, no matter how great they'd been on other records.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. Really. I'm not feeling nostalgic, a desire to go back to those they, because while they were good, they're done. But I sure as shit wish I had gotten to have another beer in the 18 years between that show in 2003 and Gared passing away last November, because the value in those sort of moments is priceless, and they are what make this life, so painful so often, worth living.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Pee Tanks - Picnic With Your Mom

Well, at least I know honored pal o' the blog and regular mix master Jonder is stopping by. Glad to have you, old chum.

I was kinda surprised that I haven't shared this, a classic Maryland punk rock record that is FUCK ME 28 YEARS OLD THIS YEAR! The Pee Tanks were the only Baltimore (ok, Annapolis [ok, Bowie {?}]) band I'd already heard when I moved there in 1994, courtesy of their cut from the still-classic "Baltimore: The City That Breeds" comp that someone slapped onto a mixtape for me. I'm not certain I ever got to see them, but this was an early purchase from Reptilian during one of my first visits there, and has lived in my collection ever since. Dare I say this sits well in any collection of ALL, Crimpshrine, Less Than Jake, and all manner of proto-.org-core bands?

It's worth jamming out to, is what I'm saying.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Pope - JohnPaulGeorgeRingo

Like a lot of great bands, I discovered Leatherface just after they broke up. It was Jack Rabid and The Big Takeover (now in its 40th year!!!) that had banged that drum and served as John the Baptist to Frankie Stubbs' Jesus. So, of course, as soon as the impressionable 16-year-old Ape Mummy reads about Sunderland's finest, he goes looking for Leatherface records. Of which there are none available in mid-90s southwestern Virginia. Because small town record stores just don't carry the early Domino catalog.

And so it happened that it'd take another two years until I'd even hear the melodious tones of Mr. Stubbs, and that was via Pope, the band he started with bassist Andy Crighton after Leatherface. The 12" originally released by Rugger Bugger in the UK during Pope's short life-span would get a reissue on CD via the then-embyronic Tokyo label Snuffy Smile in 1996. By then, Frankie had moved on to his next trio, Jesse. But I found the CD during an early visit to Reptilian, and discovered that, even though it wasn't Leatherface, this absolutely lived up to the hype.

I kind of wish I still had that CD; it sells for a pretty penny these days on the secondary market. I believe this rip comes from BYO's 2001 reissue of "The Last" 12" on CD; the Pope songs were tacked onto the back end of that CD. It's the sort of passionate punk rock, in the vein of Stiff Little Fingers, that has inspired so many kids, myself included, to write from the heart, proficiency be damned.

Discogs

Click here to download.

None More Black - None More Black

None More Black, live at the Fest 7, 2008 (screencap by BlankTV)

I'll let you in on a little secret: I like the post-Kid Dynamite bands a lot more than I like Kid Dynamite.

Is it because I saw both None More Black and Paint It Black within weeks of each other on their first out of town shows? Is it because there wasn't overwhelming hype behind both bands when I saw them? They were just normal-ass bands, down from Philly, playing second support on hardcore matinees. They did, however, have superior pedigrees, and the new music ripped.

I want to say that None More Black wasn't even a full-time band when they came to Baltimore with this slab in hand. There was talk Jay was going to sing for Beau from Kill the Man Who Questions's new thrash band (which eventually became R.A.M.B.O.). So to see he and his brother Jeff show up, playing music more akin to something from No Idea than Havoc was a very pleasant surprise. There was more than a little Dag Nasty influence present, which I'm always going to get hyped for.

500 of these were pressed, all on black. None of the three songs here appeared on any future NMB releases; the band definitely slowed their tempo a bit once they signed with Fat a couple years down the road. I'd suggest going back and celebrating their entire catalog with a listen.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Leatherface / Jawbox - Your Choice Live 023

Photo by P Squared

I wrote about the Your Choice Live series a little bit ago; now let's talk about the first one in the series I ever copped. I snagged this in 1996 primarily because it was a live Jawbox set. Never got to see them live, even though I probably had three years worth of opportunity to do so. Shoot: I got propositioned by an NBC page to attend an episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in 2009 and turned it down, not knowing that Jawbox was reuniting on the show that night. Jawbox is definitely one of the only gaps in my live viewing, and crossing paths with the members over the past twenty years are some of the few times I've gotten starstruck.

Leatherface, on the other hand, was a band that, at the time, I was only somewhat acquainted with. I had glossed over Jack Rabid's rave reviews in The Big Takeover. But the one record that had been released here in the States, "Mush", got deleted about 3 days after it was released by an Atlantic Records vanity label. So it wasn't getting any reviews in MRR or No Answers, regardless of what an amazing record it was. Leatherface had been broken up for close to three years by the time I snagged this. Nobody I knew was talking about them.

So, yeah, this record was a revelation to me. One of my favorite things about punk is finding something for the first time, and sharing it with everyone you talk to about music. And to hear the power of THE classic Leatherface lineup of Stubbs/Hammond/Crighton/Laing when you don't know what to expect - FUCK, it gives me tingles thinking about it 24 years later. Then to roll right into Jawbox, at the height of THEIR power, playing songs from their self-titled record a year before they'd be released - YES YES YES! I revisit this rarely these days, but when I replayed it in anticipation of posting it, it brought back so many great memories, while still sounding vital and fresh.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Leatherface - Fill Your Boots

I'd love to know why the site traffic jumped from my normal gang of 20 punk rock zombies a day to over 150 folks just today. A lot of kids seem to be watching the Ben Kingsley as Ian MacKaye video I posted back in September. That's kinda cool. I'd just like to know where the hell these people magically came from. As one of my favorite writers once noted, "Comments are the lifeblood of any author, good or bad." So, let me hear from you, interwebs, if you like what you see. Or if you feel I'm only contributing to the further downfall of the music industry with my efforts herein. Either way, a roll call is in order...comment below. It's like a Xmas gift you don't have to pay for!

Speaking of Christmas presents: a co-worker of mine, who knows how into HC I am, dropped my Xmas present on me a little early today.
I haven't read a lot of it, but it's by far the best representation, book-wise, or early American hardcore out there. Get it for the old scenester kid working in the cubicle next to you, or ask Santy Claus to bring you one.

I'm sure it has something to do with its in- and out-of-print status since being release nearly 20 years ago, but people just don't seem to as hip to Fill Your Boots as I think they should be. It's never received a legit American release (unlike BYO's releases of Cherry Knowle and The Last), although it looks to be available via Amazon.uk for the bargain (?) price of 8.79 (that's pounds, sucka). It also sounds a lot more like the Leatherface I fell in love with on Mush. Finally, I totally love the sincere covers of "In The Ghetto" and "Candle In The Wind". I mean, who today would try to pull this off without their tongues firmly tucked into their cheeks?

See you Saturday for more punk rock sounds.










Leatherface - Fill Your Boots
(click record cover for DL)

RIYL: gargling with whisky, Sunderland, karaoke bars

OnGuard - This Has It's Price And That Price Has Been Paid

So when I initially heard about Red Star Records, and their mission to highlight tough-to-find demos, I thought, "Awesome! I love demos!" Then I promptly forgot about them for six months.

Imagine my surprise as I'm dicking around on punknews.org today and see that Red Star, now called Red Sound Records, has released their second record. And it's from Jay Shevchuk. At some point post-None More Black, but pre-LaGrecia/NMB reunion, Jason sat down and recorded some demo material under the name OnGuard. The verdict? It's pretty damned good, especially for a free record. I hear a lot of 90's singer-songwriter here: a dash of Fiona Apple, some Mike Ness, a little Billy Bragg. OnGuard also recorded "Give My Love to Rose" for the newly-released Johnny Cash tribute, All Aboard. I'll tell you...this is a damn sight better than the last None More Black record I spent money on. And that's a fact.

So, please visit the Red Sound Records website to pick this up...FOR FREE! It's worth your while, and the two minutes it'll take to download everything.










OnGuard - This Has It's Price And That Price Has Been Paid (demos)

RIYL: LaGrecia, free stuff, sad songs and waltzes

Reactionary 3 - Euro Euro Y'all

So the full schedule for the Fest 7 got posted recently, and my jealously is in full effect...GO GET A LATE PASS...STEP! This year, I believe Baltimore is represented by two bands: Ruiner and Deep Sleep. If you're going, do yourself a favor and check out both. They fucking rule, and, contrary to what either band would have you believe, they're all swell cats. Saturday at the Venue looks really fucking sweet: D4, Coalesce, Atom & His Package, None More Black, Paint it Black, Municipal Waste...it's like it's 2002 all over again! Like I said, I'm rather jealous of anyone with the time and loose change to head down to Gainesville in a couple weeks.

In honor of the Fest, and all festing Festers, here's Gainesville's Reactionary 3. This CD was made in preparation for a European tour a couple of years ago. It's pretty fucking fast, amateur and all around awesome. There's also a Soulside cover. Highly recommended.

Reactionary 3 - Euro Euro Y'all

RIYL: Common Grounds, Minutemen, neckbeards, Nothing Nice to Say

SCRM & the Tim Version Go Halves on a Bastard

And so we come to the end of our half-assed feature on Superchinchillarescuemission. A.D.D. Records must not have lost any money on their 4-song EP, so they grouped SCRM together with Tampa's the Tim Version on this 9-song CD. For me, the Tim Version was the revelation here...I hadn't heard them before cracking the plastic, but I kinda got a big ol' .org-core chubby for 'em. If memory serves, you can still find this 5" slab o' plastic fairly easily, although the ADD Records site says this is out-of-print. Definitely worth owning the genuine article...

As a side-note (and this is the really fun part of research): were you aware that the saying "go halves on a bastard" refers to two unmarrieds copulating for the purpose of conceiving offspring? Ha, I love a good euphemism on a Sunday night!










SCRM & the Tim Version Go Halves on a Bastard

RIYL: PUKU13, fishing, the dried-up smell of PBR

Superchinchillarescuemission - s/t 10"

Quite frankly, I'm fresh out of give a fucks. I'm sitting in my office upstairs right, and Sarah Palin's voice occasionally wafts upstairs from the ongoing VP debate. I'm getting steadily more depressed every time I hear someone say they're voting Republican this year. Work is not going as well as I'd hoped when I got this promotion. I'm worn out with performing tasks that tangentally apply to what I'm theoretically supposed to be doing on a daily basis. That said, our webmaster asked me to start a toy blog. So maybe I'll get to talk about the badass Kozik & Dunny stuff I'm buying. That might be cool.

At some point in my misspent past I mislaid about 30 gigs of pictures I took between 2000 and 2003. Had this not happened, you would see quite a few pictures I took of SCRM in their last year of existence. That said, here is the 10" released by ADD Records out of Tampa back in 2002. I say 10", although I'd be remiss to not acknowledge that this is a rip of the CD. I try to lie to you, my sweet, but I cannot.


Superchinchillarescuemission - s/t 10"

RIYL: yesterday's post

Superchinchillarescuemission - demo

Tell me about your first love.

Tell me about the one that popped your cherry. The one that made you dance the hardest and scream the loudest. The one that only a small circle of friends knew about. The one that lived "What We Do Is Secret" hardest of all...

For me, it was Superchinchillarescuemission. This D.C. quintet had more in common with Hot Water Music than Q & Not U, barely toured and broke up to little fanfare sometime between the end of 2002 & middle of 2003. When they formed, it was three of the guys from De Nada, the old singer from Latebloomer and a Florida transplant named Jimmy the Truth. The highlight might have been the cover story in an early issue of Razorcake.

More to come. But, in celebration of Fest 8, enjoy SCRM's 2001 demo.

Superchinchillarescuemission - demo

RIYL: Panthro UK United 13, the No Idea catalog, cheap beer and fast songs