Long before Steve Aoki became a famed cake thrower, but after he booked HC & emo bands to play shows in his dorm room at the Pickle Patch at UCSB, he was a purveyor of some renown for the cutting edge of indie rock. This 23-year-old relic comes from just before he linked up with Bloc Party and helped break them here in the States. So it has sprinklings of fun stuff from Pretty Girls Make Graves, Panthers, the Gossip, Die Monitr Bats, and the Von Bondies. I'm partial to the contribution from post-Huggy Bear outfit the Phantom Pregnancies, as well as a live Soledad Brothers cut. It's a fun reminder of the time when the hardcore kids were playing house records alongside riot grrrl, and coke mirrors with the logo of your band were a crucial element of your show merch.
