Adulkt Life - Book Of Curses

I've had terrible luck with computers and the like lately. As noted earlier, I misplaced my HDD, holding the widest part of my collection, and have yet to turn it up. The battery in my MacBook Pro recently gave up the ghost; it was a real trooper, having lasted almost 7 years. Finally, what I had prepped on the servers to share didn't exactly raise my blood pressure. I think I've used the expression before, but I couldn't be arsed to kick out a few hundred words on much of anything. Having a computer go dead and staying busy at work all combined to give me a perfectly cromulent excuse NOT to hunker down.

It's the first Friday in March, though, and so it is that Bandcamp Friday has come to pass. Has it been a year of these yet? It's truly a great excuse/time to support an independent artist. So it is that I come to insist you check out Adulkt Life, a very very sexy band of grown-ass punks from London town who I'd give my eye teeth to see and shake asses in person to once this pandemic ends.

Adulkt Life is fronted by Chris from Huggy Bear, and includes John and Kevin from Male Bonding, along with newcomer Sonny. They jumped up last year with a trio of PDF zines ahead of their first release, an LP released by What's Your Rupture? Sonically, you can hear the members' previous bands, along with a healthy dose of British riot grrrl and post-punk, as well as Chris Thomson-style vocal madness. The first song on "Book Of Curses", "Country Life", musically takes me back to "The Birth Of The Ulysses Aesthetic", all skronky saxophone and hip shaking. Hell, I'd go so far as to call out some musical cues that bring Sonic Youth's "Goo"-era to mind. All of it adds up to a record that's pretty close to the kind of music I'd like to make myself.

Tl;dr? I think you ought to spend a few shekels on "Book Of Curses" this Bandcamp Friday. It'll put ardor in your larder, the dowser in your trousers, take you back to those days of mixtapes and barrettes in the mid 90s. It's a 10-song refreshing dose of the Before Time, and I'm kind of ashamed I forgot to add it to my Best of 2020.

Bandcamp

Re-up: Lifter Puller - Fiestas + Fiascos

Photo from the Village Voice

(Notes: I originally wrote this 11 years ago, almost to the day. There was a discography released as part of the "Vs. The End Of" book. I couldn't tell you where to find one, but I haven't exactly been looking. I have no idea what I was thinking selling my copy on vinyl of this, but I still have the CD. I still hold very fond memories of seeing their penultimate show at Brownie's in NYC, circa 2000, and just of that general time when we were all young, dumb, full of cum, and thought the world was our bitch.

This is a very not good piece of writing. Of course I stand by it.)

I can't exactly pinpoint when I was hipped to Lifter Puller, which is weird, because there's generally that "Wow!" moment with those bands that I've carried with me since I heard them. Maybe it was the guys from Dillinger 4 talking about playing with Lifter Puller on a riverboat in Punk Planet, or a mixtape from Bachman featuring the Rhymesayers crew dropping LP lyrics into 16 bars. I can tell you it wasn't an immediate thing; I think I had this CD for a month, occasionally listening, before I got it. But I DID get it.

Even though I know Craig Finn was telling stories, there is something unsavory and sordid about Fiestas + Fiascos. Even today it feels hyper-real...a codeine-laced mix of Nighthawks, Jim Carroll and Joe Strummer. This record makes copping dope sound sexy, and deals gone bad sound fun. You want to dance all night at the Nice Nice, then go home to your mattress laid out on the floor and drink shitty booze until 2 in the afternoon. This is the sound of bad choices.

Supposedly there's a Lifter Puller documentary and discography en route. It's not impossible to find F+F or Soft Rock out in eBay land. But enjoy this one while you wait.

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Rapture - Insound Tour Support Series No.19

Photo by Will Oliver

It was really nice when they gave us punks permission to dance back around 2000. It had been such a sexless existence in the late 90s, so when we figured out making out wasn't going to kill us, and we could repurpose our ADHD meds, well, things became a lot more fun. The dorks among us began to embrace New Wave and rhythm and every week there was a Britpop or soul night at the same clubs we'd been moshing in. Apparently, that book Meet Me In The Bathroom captures the spirit of those times pretty well, even with its focus being on New York City.

Insound.com, for a few years, at least, was THE spot on the Internet to mail order indie releases from. Along with Tiger Style Records and early Pitchfork, Insound was shining a light on the cutting edge of what was happening in American music right then. They had this "Tour Support Series" of limited edition CDs that highlighted what was on the road. If memory serves, you could order a specific release, or they'd throw one into your order if you bought more than $25 of records. These still serve as a pretty awesome snapshot of what was worth paying attention to, yet were inexpensive enough to feel sincere and real.

Throw the Rapture into this mix, and you have a grade A, pre-9/11, dance punk banger on your hands. They were already on the edge of that transition from 90s post-punk to indie dance, having released records on GSL and Gravity that were well reviewed and I remember liking a lot. But this...phew, this was like if Factory Records had recorded everything on a boom box in a basement. It was revelatory. It got us ready for "Losing My Edge" the next year, for DFA to blow up, to dance because the goddamned world was otherwise falling apart and we needed something unimportant to pay attention to.

Three of the six songs on this were otherwise never released. I believe these songs come from the same session that gave us "Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks"; one of the first DFA productions, if memory serves. If nothing else, I think this is worth having because the version of "House Of Jealous Lovers" is just intense.

Discogs

Click here to download.

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

Click here to download.

Chromatics - Rat Life Vol. 1

203 E. Davis St. is Baltimore's version of 315 the Bowery. A decrepit three story house, surrounds by city court buildings and other concrete edifices, it housed three of Charm City's famed performance spaces. In the 80s and early 90s, it was home to Chambers. In 1997, the Ottobar opened, and quickly became the go-to indie/punk space in the city. The Ottobar moved uptown in 2001, and in 2003, the Talking Head moved across town from Mount Vernon to takeover the space. Our story begins there.

I'd started booking shows at the Talking Head (in addition to Charm City Art Space) after it moved in. I was starting to get some bands that played better in a bar than they did in a basement, and I loved the room, so it was a good fit. 20 patrons looked like a good crowd, 50 seemed packed. I saw that Glass Candy was coming through on one of my nights off; I was a fan of their first 7" "Love on a Plate", and they'd played CCAS the year before. I made plans to roll up, have a few drinks, and check out their show. The remaining lineup is lost to memory, but Chromatics were the opener. Their first LP, "Chrome Rats Vs. Basement Ruts", had come out on GSL a few months before, and the split with Die Monitor Bats from the previous year was straight fire. Chromatics did not disappoint. They ripped it for 30 minutes with a mix of the expected noisy punk and a newer dancy sound that would begin appearing on the following year's "Plaster Hounds" release. I remember their merch was non-existent; just a pair of CD-Rs. So I bought them both.

That's how I laid hands on "Rat Life Vol. 1". Collecting demos recorded by Johnny Jewel and Adam Miller ahead of that tour, this, along with "Rat Life Vol. 2", was a harbinger of the icy Italo-disco that Chromatics would echo in the coming years. Some of these tracks sound like they were recorded on a boom box; they pulse like the soundtrack to an uncertain doom. Most of the songs on "Rat Life Vol. 1" would appear in better fidelity on their first two LPs, as well as a few 7"s. I couldn't begin to tell you why half the songs on this CD-R aren't listed (this would be changed on the following "As Ratz In The Basement" CD-R). The unreleased gem here is a cover of Syd Barrett's "Love You", which never got re-recorded. It's more than a curiosity; "Rat Life Vol. 1" sets the foundation for musicians who'd revive a scene and score some amazing films in the coming years.

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Dismemberment Plan - The Ice Of Boston

Photo by Kampers

Holy shit, planet Earth! I don't think I ever went full retard over a band like I did after the first time I ever saw the Dismemberment Plan. I went through this phase in '97 and '98 where I'd latch onto a band I saw at the Black Cat or Ottobar or Fletcher's, and, for about 2 weeks (or a fortnight [whichever you prefer...that is to say, wherever you may hail from]), I'd turn into a big slobbering mess, blaring the current record at way-too-loud levels inside the Borders-style book & record store I worked for. And then, as quickly as I got high off the band...

/poof

...the thrill was gone.

The Plan was one of the few exceptions to the rule. I've probably seen these cats at least a dozen times, including a trip to suburban Detroit for the last Michigan Fest, a few performances down at Fort Reno, and a number of local shows. For those of you reading who were not fortunate enough to see them live...FUCK! They were outstanding! Hardcore kids got their groove back when they saw the Plan for the first time. Why did indie rock dance parties get big all over the country back around 2000? Blame the Plan, yo.

So there's a story behind posting The Ice Of Boston. This 4-song EP was a teaser for Emergency & I, which was initially slated to drop in the fall of '98 on Interscope Records. When Universal/Polygram got purchased by Seagram's, however, a ton of bands got dropped, the Dismemberment Plan included. I can't really remember the details of how the Plan got the rights to Emergency & I back, but a year later, it was released on DeSoto, and the kids had a classic. And a mighty cheer went up from the crowd. The title track came from the D.Plan's 2nd record ...Is Terrified. However, the other 3 cuts are pretty hard to find otherwise. I have the Resin Records comp that has "Just Like You". The demo version of "Spider In The Snow" never got released anywhere else, and "First Anniversary" is similarly unreleased.

Shake asses, get your grind on...this one's a keeper, y'all.










The Dismemberment Plan - The Ice Of Boston
(click the record to DL)

RIYL: the noise, the funk, bringing in either