Showing posts with label 2004. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2004. Show all posts

Friday, September 26, 2025

various artists - Mojo Music Guide Vol. 3: Raw Soul

Dear Mrs. Pettigrew,

Please excuse ApeMummy from class this week. His absence was due to ingesting too much raw soul. It's given him a case of shakes, and the only prescription has been to dance it out.

Sincerely,

Mummy Mommy

Click here to download.

Thursday, August 21, 2025

various artists - REV110: Revelation Records 2004 Collection

You can call me out if I sound like a dick, but by 2004, Revelation Records, a record label I had always held in very high esteem, just wasn't throwing its fastball anymore. Just five years earlier, they'd released a number of outstanding records, all branching out from Rev's hardcore roots while remaining in fidelity to the underlying ethos. Farside's "The Monroe Doctrine", the Sparkmarker anthology, the first Judas Factor full length, Kiss It Goodbye's "Choke" EP, and Himsa's "Ground Breaking Ceremony" all came out in '99, and, for me, represented the ways you could evolve hardcore.

But by 2004, that wasn't the case for me. Which is why this sat in a box for a decade plus before I broke it back out to revisit a few months back. Granted, the scene had changed a bunch in the intervening five years. But Curl Up And Die and Since By Men just didn't hit the same way as their predecessors. The idea of a Dag Nasty reunion full length was a lot cooler than the actual full length. The best contemporary bands here were Long Island's On The Might Of Princes, whose last LP had been released by Revelation in 2003, and Oakland's Pitch Black, who played a sort of West Coast punk that wouldn't be out of a place on Epitaph or even a major label in 2004.

If the dating on Discogs is to be believed, it was just a lean year for Revelation. While their distribution wing was still going strong, this sampler and a Since By Man EP were the only records they put out in 2004. The following year, they'd release the Judge discography, the Bold discography, a Shai Hulud rarities disc, and the most excellent "Generations" compilation, arguably one of the best comps from that era. In 2006 came their first releases from Shook Ones, Sinking Ships, Self Defense Family (as End Of A Year), and Down To Nothing.

Click here to download.

Monday, February 10, 2025

The Musings of Sense Field and Running From Dharma

I don't write about split releases all that often, in part because there aren't a great deal many that I've wanted to revisit. But this one resurfared recently, and upon giving it a few spins, I figured, "what the hell?" and sucked a high-quality, 320kbps rip up into the ol' MEGA portal for your listening pleasure.

I've wirtten a fair amount of Sense Field-related posts over the years, but nothing since 2020, so as one of my favorite bands of a certain era, it makes sense (HA!) to dig back into my recollections and share this latter-day release from 2004. You get a Smiths cover and a live recording of Killed For Less's "Soft". The other two tracks are from Central PA's Running From Dharma. Truth be told, I should be able to remember these guys, but nothing comes to mind, despite an acoustic version of "Drive Not Driving" and their own take on a Marr/Morrissey classic.

It has occurred to me in the writing of this blog that this was the last new Sense Field release before Jon Bunch's death in 2016. What a loss. This is a good way to remember a very good guy.

Click here to download.

Thursday, December 12, 2024

various artists - Golden Grouper Vol. 1

The subtitle reads "18 California Bands You Won't See On The Warped Tour!", which is an awfully quaint sentiment twenty years after the fact. I can't imagine anyone born in 2003 involved in music today seeing fulfillment in the grimy DIY world that I lived in. They'd probably think old Uucle Ape has brain worms.

I probably do have brain worms. It has nothing to do with an adolescence spent in basements, garages, and out of the way clubs listening to loud-ass music, tho.

But this comp, from the esteemed and missed GSL, takes a pretty important snapshot of the noisy punk scene in California state circa 2004. When indie sleaze was just starting to fall apart, bands like 400 Blows, Wives, Wires on Fire, and Mannekin Piss were up and touring, making a racket to tens (literally TENS!) of fans across the country. I was one of them.

That time is long gone, y'all, and I don't see it coming back. The circumstances that allowed us to rent out warehouses and storefronts to throw $6 shows for these bands just don't exist any more. I have no doubt that kids today are still finding a path forward; I commend them for it. But I don't envy anyone trying to make or support art today, especially art that is patently anti-commercial. It's a fuckin' drag, every time I think about it.

Click here to download.

Monday, October 14, 2024

Post #600 - A Dirty Shame (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I'd had this idea once that I would gather all the soundtracks from John Waters' filmography, and post them here, along with my thoughts on the film and sounds. Clearly, I've not followed through until now, and I don't think I'm going to do it, but better to disclose, I suppose.

This is, at this late date, the final feature from the Baltimore auteur, a development that makes me sadder every single day. While a lot of folks don't think highly of "A Dirty Shame", I like it just fine. I love the ongoing images of Tracy Ullman manning the register at a High's Dairy Store, Johnny Knoxville hanging out on Harford Road, Selma Blair flouncing about northeast Baltimore. By the time this came out, I had a few friends who'd bought houses out where this was shot. I still lived downtown, so I took joy in calling them neutersm teasing them for finding housing outside the Beltway.

"He who fucks nuns/will later join the church," the saying goes. And the author types it up in a comfy suburban apartment, overlooking a pool turning green in the fall's light.

The soundtrack reflects Mssr. Waters' taste to a T; a mix of rockabilly, jump blues, rhythm & blues, novelty cuts, and early rock 'n' roll. James Intveld's score gets represented with "Let's Go Sexin'"; fine advice, if I've ever heard it. It's all enough to make a Balmer boy miss home, to lust for a RoFo 2-piece and a roll, a trip to Sherri's Showbar, some late night hangs Holiday House.

Click here to download.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

various artists - Sub Pop: Patient Zero

It's been twenty years since the release of this particular Sub Pop sampler, and if you don't think the gravity of the fact that it's been twenty years since "Our Endless Numbered Days" and "Burned Days" came out isn't weighing on me like so many dozens of boxes full of vinyl being moved from apartment to house to apartment to storage unit then homey you're clearly a boomer or a Zedder.

The fun part is admitting that, at least where this spotlight on Sub Pop's discography is concerned, my taste remains pretty fossilized. Still love the Thermals, iron and Wine, and the Catheters, hate the Shins, feel ambivalent about the rest. But, hey, you might be really into Rogue Wave or the Helio Sequence. And there is a Postal Service remix on this that I didn't previously own, so I guess it was worth the buck plus shipping I paid a few weeks ago.



Click here to download.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

various artists - This One's For The Fellows: A Sonic Salute To The Young Fresh Fellows

One of the things I enjoy about living in the Seattle area is stumbling across the regional releases that I never saw or even heard of back on the East Coast. Rarely are they much money, so it's really easy to stock up on recordings from 15, 20, 30 years ago that I might otherwise not consider picking up. I've ended up with a bunch of releases on C/Z and Up!, all kinds of records from the Murder City Devils family tree...even those bands that might have opened for R.E.M. back in the 90s that I would never have bought at full price.

Case in point: this tribute to the Young Fresh Fellows, released by Visqueen associate Peter Hilgendorf on his BlueDisguise Records, I get power pop a lot more in my 40s than I did in my 20s, so this vein of PNW punky sweetness in literally music to my ears. Hilgendorf assembled a great lineup for this one: YFF contemporaries like Robyn Hitchcock, the Figgs, and the Silos, locals like the Makers, Mono Men, and Presidents of The United States of America, and out of towners like the Groovie Ghoulies and Stephen Malkmus all contribute their takes on a catalog that stretches back to the days of the Paisley Underground. It's pretty good stuff, all told, made all the sweeter that I think I found it for $2 in one of my regular huants.



Click here to download.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Fighting Dogs - s/t

I wrote about Fighting Dogs all the way back in 2009, and have been sitting on this, their first and only full length, for about five years. So, in the spirit of clearing the decks, here you go: a quite good hardcore-bordering-on-crust record out of Philadelphia, circa 2004. Two thirds of this lineup played in R.A.M.B.O., as well as Virginia Black Lung, which is how I came to check out Fighting Dogs in the first place.

Discogs


Click here to download.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Tracy + The Plastics - Culture For Pigeon

There's a big, thick thru line from the Screamers to Tracy + the Plastics, who combined DIY music, filmmaking, and queer culture into a multimedia performance that the likes of the Whitney fawn over, but kids with mohawks sadly tend to overlook. I only saw this once, possibly during the tour in support of "Culture For Pigeon", the third and final full-length from Wynne Greenwood, and it kinda blew my mind, to the point where I still wonder what I saw that so many others overlooked.

I really just wanted to dance, you know? I was a young white cis male, finishing up college, in love, finally confident enough in myself to accept it was ok to like Madonna as much as I like Fugazi. And where a lot of the electroclash scene felt ultra posey to me, this was mutant dance, for a weirdo who was looking for something that felt as honest as Gang of Four. This was a start for me.

Discogs


Click here to download.

Monday, January 4, 2021

various artists - Let There Be Doom II (A Kult Collection Of Massive Sub-Harmonics)

It's Monday. "Happy first Monday of 2021," says I. How about some doom metal?

What you have here is a sampler from the good folks at Southern Lord, circa 2004, of some of their finer doom metal bands. Now, I'm not nearly kvlt enough to offer some new and interesting insight into what you'll hear here, should you wish to download and listen. But I've found Greg Anderson to be an arbiter of good taste, it's his label, and he has half a dozen songs here, so I'm guessing that's why I snagged this when I did. Wino also appears a few times here, via songs from the Obsessed and Saint Vitus, and a guest appearance on a Place of Skulls track. Hell, things wrap up with a cut from Dave Grohl's Probot project, featuring Lemmy on vox. Skål!

So if you're feeling some bass-heavy sounds on this Monday morning (or whenever you happen to read this), then dive right in. I find this to be an excellent set of recordings to read e-mail and write white papers to. But I have issues that I solve with prescribed pharmaceuticals, so take that with a grain of salt.

Discogs


Click here to download.

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Post #300: Kind Of Like Spitting - 2004 4-track demos

I try to bring some real quality for every post, but when I hit a landmark like a post that ends in "00", I feel like it's time to really dig deep for something most folks haven't heard. So let me give you something from my old friend Ben.

I met Ben Barnett for the first time when he was opening for Braid and Cross My Heart at the old Ottobar in 1999. Braid was on what was then billed as their final tour, soon to partition into Hey Mercedes and the Firebird Band. I know XMH was playing songs from "The Reason I Failed History", arguably their finest record. But it was Kind Of Like Spitting that blew me away, with a folky emo sound that I hadn't really experienced before. Plaintive songs, cracking vocals, violin accompaniment? Yes, yes, and hell yes! I bought the "Birds Of A Feather" 7" that night, and damn near wore through the vinyl over the next year between listening at home and playing it on my radio show.

When Ben came back to Baltimore the following year, he was playing solo, backed with an Insound tour EP and more plainly showing his influences (Joni Mitchell! Jimmie Rodgers! Leonard Cohen!). I ended up chatting with him for almost an hour after his set in the parking lot next to the Sidebar, just rapping about music and touring and how to deal with depression with art. We exchanged numbers, and I told him to give me a shout if he was coming back through town and needed a place to crash. Within a few years, I'd end up booking him a number of shows, both as Kind Of Like Spitting and with the first Thermals tour. The stays would range from a few hours to a few days, and it was great to chop it up with hot goss about what was happening in Seattle and Portland, giggling about his buddies who were ending up in Spin Magazine.

Sometime in the summer of 2004, Ben came to stay with the girlfriend and I in our garden apartment on Calvert St. for a night or two, and ended up crashing for a couple weeks. It'd been a couple of years since he'd put out "Bridges Worth Burning" with Barsuk, and was pivoting towards a more folky sound. After all, mainstream emo only had room for one sensitive singer-songwriter in Chris Carraba, so why not lean into a love of Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger? Before he split for Philadelphia, Ben laid a CD-R on me of songs he was demoing for a new record. And that's what we have here.

The material from these 17 songs would make up parts of the next two Kind Of Like Spitting full-lengths: 2005s "In The Red" and 2006s "The Thrill Of The Hunt". The arrangements are simple and spare. "Worker Bee" here is just acoustic guitar, double tracked vocals and metronome, which gives this early version a real ghostly feel. "Grapes" from "In The Red" is titled "Line And Sinker" in these demos, and has this wonderful hissy quality that reminds me of Ben's earliest tapes. It's the songs that don't appear in studio versions elsewhere that are worth diving into. There are covers of Neil Young's "Losing End", Bad Religion's "You", and Mojave 3's "In Love With A View", the first of which only appears here. "Cheap Drinks" is a great song that really deserved a fleshed-out version. But the capper here is the beautiful rendition of "This Little Light Of Mine", the lullaby turned protest song. It's really outstanding.

I'll argue that Ben Barnett is one of the most underappreciated singer/songwriters of the past 25 years. There's an integrity and honesty present that few artists possess, and fewer still manage to not to lord over people. He's just a fella, as willing to talk and sing about the folk scene in the late 60s as he is about smoking dank buds. There's more than a bit of Ben Barnett in the character Llewyn Davis, although I doubt the Coens ever listened to "$100 Room". That authenticity, even when there's appeal to turning it all down, can't be manufactured; it just is. And it's present in these songs, whether an original composition or in a cover choice.

If you like what you've heard here, and you've not familiar with the Kind Of Like Spitting catalog, swing by the Bandcamp page, where's there's just a monster amount of music to dive into. As I noted a few months ago, the newest Kind Of Like Spitting release is a tribute to the late Karl Hendricks, benefitting his family. Anything you purchase on the page goes to the Hendricks clan, a worthy spend if ever there was one.

Thanks for your continued visits, friends. Enjoy.


Click here to download.

Friday, November 6, 2020

The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Soft Pink Truth?

When he's not teaching English at Johns Hopkins or making sounds with legendary noise/musique concrete/electronic duo Matmos, former Louisvillan and Slamdek alum Drew Daniel transforms the sounds of our youth in his The Soft Pink Truth project. I tripped, dingus first, on this CD while bin-digging a few weeks back, and grabbed it based on label (Kid 606's Tigerbeat6) and price (50 cents). The cover was just...icing on the cake. Also, maybe I thought the title was "Soft Pink Turds", which is perverse and just what I'm looking for in a mystery recording.

And what did I get? It's techno adaptations of classic punk, hardcore, and new wave songs, along with a Carol Channing standard from the 1974 musical "Lorelai". Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Blevin Blectum, Dani Siciliano, and Matmos bandmate M.C. Schmidt all take turns on the mic. There are covers of Crass, Minor Threat, Nervous Gender, and a version of Die Kruezen's "In School" that just melts like a steel beam covered in jet fuel. All of it leads to my conclusion that there should be more house/hardcore homages.



Click here to download.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

The Hissing Choir, live at the Talking Head, 2003

Violent Noise Party #1 (flier by Eric T. Neal)

I remember this being a stressful, yet ultimately fun show.

I started booking shows at the Talking Head for a few different reasons. I wanted to be able to have a drink if I was going to be stressed during a show, and I'd gotten roofied at Gallery One at least twice during CCAS shows. I was also booking bands that would have been tons of fun at CCAS, but needed a little more room to move. When Blake asked if I'd do a show for Triac with a new Pageninetynine band, I jumped at the opportunity. It was New Year's Day 2004, it'd be an occasion to have some hair of the dog, it'd be loud as fuk. So I went about putting together a super-solid lineup to start the year off right.

Now, it all went pied shaped when, about 20 minutes before the show actually started, Rebecca from Flowers in the Attic came to me, a bunch of long-hairs in tow, and asked if her friends from Savannah could jump on the show. I said, "sure, do three songs after Shitdogs of War," figuring, "how bad could it be?" and away we went. Shitdogs ripped it, the changeover went quickly, and then...nothing. Bupkus. Zilch. I think 30 seconds into their first song, someone's guitar or amp shit the bed, and everyone stood around for almost 20 minutes trying to get the issue fixed. Once it finally got settled, I'd had two more whiskeys, and Baroness played two songs, both of which destroyed everyone.

The bands afterward weren't anti-climatic, but it set a really high bar for the rest of the night. The Hissing Choir were J.R. was Pig Destroyer, as well as Jake from Triac on drums and Mike from Pageninetynine on guitar. They were doing their best Swans impersonation, which fit wonderfully in with the rest of the night and had me thinking, wow, this is a really great show.

I had no clue anyone was recording any of it, but Andy Low of Robotic Empire apparently did, and a few years later posted it up on the R.E. page with some background. It sounds exactly like you'd expect a bootleg recorded to minidisc would sound; just ugly and cheap and dirty. It's a great encapsulation of what that night was. If memory serves, the Hissing Choir only played another few shows, none of which happened in Baltimore.

Click here to download.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Deep Throat Anthology, Parts I & II

Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems in Deep Throat (Gerard Diamano, 1972)

I've always been drawn to the feature-length pornography of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, aka The Golden Age of Porn. It's not necessarily because of a prurient interest (although I'm not just reading Playboy for the articles, if you know what I mean). I'm interested in it for the same reasons I like watching American International movies from the same period, or listening to lo-fi, limited edition cassettes, or finding yellowing paperbacks at the bottom of a box. It's all low culture shaping high culture; in this case, it's the start of a sex-positive culture.

Also, the music slaps.

I mean, when you're describing makin' LUV to your honored partner, doesn't "BOW WOW CHICKA WOW WOW" come to mind, if not get verbalized? Even if you don't engage with hardcore pornography, the soundtracks are part of our cultural language. They were made by under-recognized composers, who often filled the role as performer. AND they were made under less-than-optimal circumstances: sometimes written and recorded within the space of one or two days.

The soundtracks to Deep Throat and Deep Throat Part II are infinitely interesting to me, and should intrigue you as well. There is little to no background available on the recordings from Deep Throat, due in great part to the U.S. government having seized the master tapes during their 1976 Memphis obscenity prosecution. So no one is quite sure who recorded what, who wrote the score...nothing. It was also a press-only giveaway, so the original pressing is worth a pretty penny.

The soundtrack for Deep Throat Part II, the R-rated sequel released in 1974, is more documented. Kenny Vance, working under the pseudonym T.J. Stone, put together an outstanding slab of sleaze soul. The two tracks featuring vocals from Laura Greene are particularly good. The soundtrack, along with lead single "She's Got To Have It", were the lead releases from Bryan Records, the label wing of noted mob-owned film distributor Bryanston Distributing Company. Bryanston, as we all know, was the short-lived distributor of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dark Star, The Way of the Dragon, and the Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey films Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein.

Look, this isn't my favorite porno soundtrack (that would be Patrick Cowley's Fox Movies work...duh), but it's more than just a curiosity. Give it a listen.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

This Song Is A Mess But So Am I - Church Point, LA

I haven't thought about this record in 15 years, but I saw it between This Mortal Coil and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments in my iTunes, so I gave it a whirl. It helped me recall a few things about this period: I booked Freddy on a bill that included Dan Deacon's first club show in Baltimore; I got super into experimental pop after hearing this record; I'd ride my bike up Calvert St. at 3 in the morning listening to this on my last Walkman, watching the sex workers on each corner fidget and adjust themselves between propositions.

This is an unpleasant, unhappy recording that, performed live, proved to be gripping. There's so much sadness and pain here that it feels like the room got darker as I listened to it. It's also painfully honest and young, which may be why I enjoyed it as much as I did, and why I dug revisiting it. "Church Point, LA" is an interesting synthesis of industrial/EBM, pop, and emo that would be representative of that whole Not Not Fun Records scene from the early aughts. I recommend a spin.

Click here to download.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Infomatik - demo

The fun part about moving to the Seattle area is discovering those local bands that never really broke out regionally. I'm sure you can do the same thing regardless of where you move, but there's a rich vein to be tapped here, dating back to the area's jazz scene in the 40s. The craziest part is the secondary market on something you find at a Goodwill or at the Half Price Books warehouse sale. And much like Greg noted at MusicWhore.org, you have to judge these finds by their covers. That's how I came across a copy of Infomatik's 2004 demo.

To tell the truth, I honestly thought this had been misplaced in the CD section at St. Vinnie's. Infomatik had gutted a 5.25" floppy disc, replacing the magnetic disc with a CD-R. I thought it was a clever package; I'll almost always pick up cheap colored vinyl, die-cut covers, and weird CD trays. If the music doesn't pan out, c'est la vie.

Thankfully, these four tracks DO pan out. Sonically, these cats come from the wellspring of Joy Division, albeit with vocals A LOT more up front in the mix. They remind me a lot of Baltimore's Two If By Sea, a similarly-sounding contemporary who drew more from the Screamers than Interpol. It's a crying shame these guys had to release their own EP and LP; maybe it's just a fluke of the time when they were playing, but I feel like Infomatik could have toured behind a few limited run cassette releases. Regardless, it's a clever package containing four fun, danceable cuts.

TLDR: if you like your synthpunk dancey and spazzy, you'll definitely dig on this. I spent one dollar American on this bad boy.

Click here to download.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Worst - The Worst Of The Worst

So back around 2001, some amazing soul released ten fan club 7"s of early 80s American hardcore under the label Reagan Era HC. When you've only heard old heads talk about how great YDI or Offenders were, and you suddenly can cop a bunch of their master works at $4 a pop, you don't quibble over the morality of buying bootlegs. You just gobble them up. That's how I heard the Worst for the first time.

Their 1983/4 12" Expect the Worst, a proto-crossover classic, was suddenly available in a conveniently inexpensive format. And I was hyped. Expect the Worst was short/fast/loud...just perfect for what I was looking for. It took me down the road of exploring all the Mutha Records catalog...this really fun suburban New Jersey 80s label that stood as this counterpoint to the super-serious NYHC scene of Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, and Warzone. I mean, any label that put out Chronic Sick records had to have a good sense of humor.

Flash forward almost 20 years, and I'm making the rounds of local thrift stores. I hit this cache of what seems to be someone's hardcore/grind/emo CD collection. Lots of fun stuff...most of which I already owned. The best finds were the White Cross discography on Grand Theft Auto, a CD version of Propaganda - Russian Bombs Finland, and what you have below: The Worst of The Worst.

So what you get is pretty comprehensive. The Worst of the Worst starts off with their self-titled 1982 7", then crashes into the aforementioned Expect the Worst. THEN you get an unreleased 12" worth of material that was recorded for a 1984 release. The CD is capped off with a portion of a Worst live set from Max's Kansas City in 1979, all with unreleased songs. All told, it's a 29 song, 43 minute banger. Sadly, it's out of print, and currently selling for around $20 online...if you can find one. It's worth finding one. Stuart Schrader wrote a fantastic set of liner notes that serve as a loving history for this band that might otherwise be a footnote in some granddad's remembrance of the "good ol' days".

Yeah, here's the discography. If you like trashy, thrashy 80s hardcore that sounds like it was recorded on a boombox (and, yeah, that's a GOOD stylistic choice), then this is right in your wheelhouse. I picked this up for $3.


Monday, July 6, 2009

Shook Ones - 2004 demo

(image from the Shook Ones MySpace page)
A real quick one, before it's my turn to hit the Wii Fit. The extended weekend was very boss...thanks for asking. The following things are currently on my mind:
  • Who keeps stopping in here from Columbia, Maryland? Leave a note or something, wouldja? We should probably bro down.
  • Do I really have to go to San Diego in two weeks? Can't I just hide under my bed and pretend I went?
  • Should I even whine about going to San Diego, especially when everyone I bitch to sounds really impressed by it? Should I just remind folks that its name translates to "The Whale's Vagina"?
  • Why do cats keep slagging off Shook Ones as a Lifetime rip-off? Don't you like Lifetime? Wouldn't you like kids to take Lifetime as a positive influence on their current band? Or do you just want your bands to suck, not rule? Is that what it is?
My favorite recent line from the doods from Shook Ones was that they originally wanted to call their band "Lifespan", but thought it sounded too tough guy HC. Their new record The Unquottable A.M.H. came out a couple of weeks ago. Buy it; it's the tits. Here's their demo from 2004. 4 cuts that'd later pop up on Sixteen. Rough yet crucial, especially coming from a bunch of Washington state fancy lads.










Shook Ones - 2004 demo
(click the record to DL)


RIYL: harmony, TDK C-90s, 3 chord justice

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Flowers In The Attic - s/t

I cannot stress highly enough what a special place to live and go to shows Baltimore was at the early part of this decade. At a time where we were known more for Homicide, instead of The Wire, and long before a bunch of kids moved down from upstate New York to kick off Wham City!, a group of youngbloods came together in the city, just as they had since time immemorial, to play punk rock and all of its bastard offspring. Between legit venues like the Ottobar & the Talking Head and DIY spots like Charm City Art Space & the Bloodshed, a music fan had more places to watch independent music in Baltimore than at any other point in its history. Additionally, a number of bands starting playing shows, pulling from any number of disparate influences and creating some really distinctive music.

One of the bands that made the scene what it was Flowers In The Attic. Female-fronted and influenced by the late 80's ABC No Rio/Gilman hardcore & crust scenes, as well as a healthy dose of circa '85 SST releases, FITA dropped two EPs and a split 7" during their brief existence. Watching them live was a cathartic experience. I never knew whether to bottle up or explode.

Judge for yourself on this, the 1st of two EPs released on Reptilian Records. Members have moved on to work with a variety of projects, my favorite of which is Hollywood. They rule pretty hard.










Flowers in The Attic - s/t
(click the record to DL)

RIYL: side 2 of "My War", "Document #8", chest tapping, stage dives

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Medic - Greetings & Amputations

Grind yr fuckin' ears out, jerkface!!!!










Medic - Greetings & Amputations
(click record cover for DL)

RIYL: skatin', Satan, Katan

Read This One

Post #400: Double Dagger - Ragged Rubble

It took from May to August 2000 to go from 100 to 200 posts. Then I hit 300 posts two days before Christmas 2000. And now I'm here, anot...

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