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.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Spin This Six

'Twas about two months ago when I shared the fifth volume in the Spin This series, and reaction seemed about as positive as I could hope for a 31-year-old alternative music sample. So here's Volume Six, or VI, as the Latin speakers at Spin put it. This one's a bit less girthy than the previous volume. But it has Archers of Loaf, Goops, and Knapsack, all of whose records populate my regular listening in this year of our Lord Twenty Twenty Five. For less punky sounds, tune in for Morphine, KMFDM, Belly, and the Wolfgang Press. Very few duds here, truth be told. And, daddio, that's all I ever want from free curated listening; something that doesn't exist to reinforce my taste, but to broaden it.

Discogs

Click here to download.

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.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Mojo Presents: This Is A Call! (15 Brainmelting Dispatches From The Golden Age Of U.S. Alt-Rock)

This is a just a front-to-back KILLER collection of what, indeed, was the Golden Age of U.S. alt-rock. Sure, maybe it kicks off with a lessor Sugar song (if you can deem any Sugar song as a "lesser" effort). But things spring right back in with a run of Superchunk/Sebadoh/Shudder To Think/Lotion/GvsB. That's a Murderer's Row of boys and guitars (apologies to Ms. Ballance). Things take a relative break with contributions from Pond and Madder Rose, a pair of bands I definitely vaguely remember from issues of CMJ and Option, but otherwise own nothing by. Then things pick back up with my favorite Built To Spill song, Bob Pollard, Sunny Day Real Estate, and the god-damn Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. It's all capped off with the Grifters, who I only discovered and appreciated in the last few years, and the Jesus Lizard, who I discovered first of all these, and have loved the longest.

I'm not ignoring Red Red Meat for any good reason; I just typically skip the track, the remnant of a poor impression they left me with when i saw them open for Smashing Pumpkins at the Salem Civic Center on the "Siamese Dream" tour. And remembering that reminds me that it took place 31 years ago, which is just...man, that is a terrible realization.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Back To (Old) School

Confession time: I bought this on account of its cover, which reminded me of the alma mater of one Ms. Rory Gilmore. This is the sort of thing her friend Lane Kim would have made as a mix, had she worked in the radio trade in the mid 90s.

Also, there's a lemur theme throughout the liner notes. Bonus.

I vaguely recall seeing Hits Magazine come into my local college radio station. But I was always more of a CMJ reader, so what Hits was hawking generally passed over my head. No so this compilation. Led off by the beloved Superchunk, who apparently spent money on a radio-friendly mix of "Hyper Enough", this is a shockingly good selection of what was being pushed in 1995. Sure, Semesonic and Toad the Wet Sprocket and poe. are all kind of duds to these ears. But Spacehog and Air Miami still rule; the UK contributions mid-CD are all pretty rad, and Knapsack and Deftones highlight the tail end. There's even a cover of "You Oughta Know" by 1000 Mona Lisas that I remember turning up a few times when hearing it on WHFS.

And now the title holds true, as this all makes up the C playlist of oldies radio around the country. We are all slowly rotting bags of flesh, holding tight to memories of misspent youth.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Bifocal Media: Kampai Compilation

The Bifocal Media folx have always had my admiration, as well as a fair amount of my punk rock dollars, over the 20+ years I've been aware of them. I first crossed their paths with their first release, a video zine called "The Actuality of Thought" that I picked up at Reptilian and had the likes of Piebald, Braid, and Spazz on it. 'Twas a murderers row of what was punk in 1998, and a great way to get introduced to the bands I'd obsess over for the next half-decade.

They showed up in my life a few years later as they shot thousands of feet of digital video in suburban Detroit at the last Michigan Fest. Jamie and I drove out from Baltimore to rep for Oxes, to see Hot Snakes live (they weren't going to play east of the Mississippi ever!), and to interview a bunch of bands for my radio show. We watched John from Sweep the Leg Johnny climb into a drop ceiling and fall into the crowd during "Bloodlines", Vaz clear the room in a mid-afternoon noise set, hung out with Death Cab for Cutie. And the Bifocal crew was there to document it all.

These North Carolina dudes didn't just record the turn of the century punk rock scene on video. They also put out a bunch of great, under-recognized records, headlined by the Ladderback and Goner from Raleigh. Their first and only comp, "Kampai", came in 2001. It had an early appearance from future legends Strike Anywhere; the White Octave, featuring Stephen from Cursive, also had just released their first record on Deep Elm in past year. Serotonin, Crash Smash Explode, Secret Life of Machines, and Legend Of The Overfiend would all release records with Bifocal during the label's 11-year existence. As they write on the discography page for "Kampai", this was Bifocal Media's contribution to the Great Compilation Pile of the Late Nineties/Early Aughts.

While they haven't released a record in (checks Discogs) fifteen years (!!!), Bifocal Media stays incredibly active with their limited edition t-shirt collabs. I own a bunch of these, and they are both comfy AND fashionable. It's a great way to pick up a Thomas Hazelmyer, a Chris Shary, a Brian Walsby and wear it around town. I say, check 'em out.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Ladd

various artists - Troubleman Mix-Tape

I look at this and think of the old adage, "How you goin' to keep 'em down on the farm when they've seen the big city?"

How are you going to keep the kids from getting even freakier with their sound after they've been on the bleeding edge for years? When they've gone off to college and broken edge and read Baudelaire and taken modern lit and political science and moved past three chords and the truth?

You can't. You never have been able to. It's how we got this comp, 52 tracks from folks who had populated your 7" collection back in the 90s but were ready to reintroduce disco and no wave and free jazz as the  new century dawned and before the world went to shit, all filtered through this lens of basement shows and fanzines. DIY as an ethos, art as a goal. Tell the story however you think fits the moment.

It absolutely shows that it took Mike S. 4 years to put this one together, because it is more than a kwal-lit-tee compilation. It's a perfect mixtape.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Get Up Kids Last Tour Sampler

This one's pretty straightforward, like a handshake from an Elk.

Back in the good ol' days of 2005, the Get Up Kids decided to call it a day.

They went out on a final tour (as was the custom at the time), taking some of their buds from Kansas out on the road with them.

The gang at Blue Collar Press put together this sampler, featuring each band on the tour plus Matt Pryor's new band for kids.

I presume this ended up in my collection as a result of Mrs. Mummy having attended at least one or two of those shows.

I've been listening to a fair amount of GUK's more contemporary work, so it made sense to me to share this with y'all.

See? Straightforward. Like the answer to the riddle "Would you eat the moon if it were made of spareribs?".

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Thrasher Skate Rock Vol.12: Eat The Flag

It has not been a good day. Or week.

My living situation, never a bright spot in my life on even the best days, has turned very shit over the past 10 days or so. To make a long story short, there's a good chance that, in a week, we may be evicted. We're doing what we can do, which hopefully will take care of the current situation, but who knows? I live in a very expensive part of the country, so even finding a decent place to live going forward will be impossible. Add in a long-standing diagnosis of major depression, anxiety, ADHD, and a possible executive dysfunction disorder issue, and, yeah, things are pretty fucked.

So while I submit a ledger of rental payments and start browsing governmentjobs.com, I'll play this in the background, and harken back to the days where I didn't have to worry about much more than finding a decent curb to skate and not bailing. "Eat The Flag" was the first Skate Rock comp in 12 years, and the only one outsourced by Thrasher to a third party (the now mostly-deactivated Volcom Entertainment). As a result, this one feels a bit more Warped Tour adjacent than previous editions; no doubt, this is thanks to the presence of Alkaline Trio, Gnarkill, and Riverboat Gamblers. But make no mistake; this one is still bona fide. I'd argue it's more listenable than other editions. Pressing this on a DualDisc was an inspired choice for the era. Yeah, this content is probably on YouTube now, but 18 years ago? Slapping this one in your PS2 and hitting play to watch video of Duane Peters and Turbonegro fits really well with the whole premise of Skate Rock.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - No-Fi Trash: A Floppy Cow Records Compilation

I'm not going to say that I have a thing for circa-"turn of the millenium" punk samplers, but I'm not not going to say it, either.

This one came to us from Switzerland, by way of a seller in San Diego, who may have gotten it via Suburban Home Records, then someone who probably received it in some mailorder sometime in the past 20+ years. It has a sampling of the finest names of the era: "Very Emergency"-era Promise Ring, one of my favorite Hot Water Music cuts, the same from the Get Up Kids. There are those who I liked in small does (Sarge, the Anniversary) and those who I avoided wherever I could (Lagwagon, Useless ID). Then there is the vanguard of the early aughts pop punk explosion: New Found Glory, Alister,  and No Motiv.

Truth be told, I dropped the buck on this because there was a Tugboat Annie track that I didn't already own. Totally worth it.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - The Hope Machine

Here's a (at the time of this post) 23-year-old cross section of Long Island DIY, courtesy of a label that, sadly, seems to have not made it through COVID intact. Rok Lok put out an early Loma Prieta record, and did a tape release for my buddy Nick's project about 12 years later. It's a small world that felt a lot bigger back then.

Geez, a lot of these folks ended up playing CCAS back in the day: Latterman, Nakatomi Plaza, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, De La Hoya. A hundred fliers flicker through my mind's eye.

The way the memories have faded, it makes me wish I'd done more party drugs, so I'd have a better excuse for faulty recollections of hazy summer nights. It makes me wish I'd spent a few more weekends in vans on I-95, rather than working a straight job or going back to school. At the risk of wistfulness, I sometimes think of the paths not taken, and where they might have lead. Maybe I would have been in one of these bands, immortalized to be rediscovered nearly a quarter century later.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Mailorder Is Still Fun!

 Oh sweet zombie Jesus...I forgot to write anything over the weekend. Time to bust out a quick 50-100 words on a 24-year-old label sampler.

"Mailorder Is Still Fun!"...and it still is, really. Asian Man always came correct with a package full of stickers and fliers and every once in a while a 1" pin or tow. It was most welcome getting a shit ton of swag on top of an Alkaline Trio LP or a Link 80 CD.

Extra tracks appended to the end, courtesy of Tomato Head Records, if the ol' noggin recalls correctly. This would have been the place I would have heard Big D and the Kids Table for the first time.

And done with 4 minutes to spare!

Discogs

lick here to download.

various artists - Topshelf Records 2012 Summer Sampler

Another day, another time I forgot to write something. Selah.

We'll keep this short and sweet. This was the state of the union in 2012. Just a step up from basement DIY, featuring a pretty decent mix of emo, hardcore, indie, shoegaze, post-hardcore, and probably some other subgenres I can't remember. A lot of these folks played the Art Space that summer. If a generation in punk lasts three years, then I was probably five generations past what was appropriate for attending these shows in 2012. No bother: I had a good time working the front door and cracking wise to a bunch of kids.

The Slingshot Dakota track is an all-time banger, Pianos Become The Teeth still rip, and I found a Code Orange CD for $2 at the thrift store the other day.

I gotta go; I just encountered a Busch Light commercial with Sarah McLachlan appearing in it. I think it's time to call it a day.

Discogs

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various artists - Slightest Indication Of Change

Rabbit rabbit, as the kids have said from time to time. It's the first of the month, so get your check and get up.

"Slightest Indication Of Change" is the seventh release from Slowdance Records, a perfectly cromulent label from San Diego whose six year output covered a pretty wide swath of what was going on in the world of independent rock back at the turn of the millenium. Their first release was a Boilermaker/Three Mile Pilot split 7" that still gets the occasional spin on the turntable at Ape Central; they also did a tour split with my buddy Ben and Braid vocalist Bob Nanna that I've never managed to lay my hands on.

So it was that I snagged a copy of this shortly after its release in 2000, mainly b/c it had a Kind Of Like Spitting cut on it I didn't own, plus anything from Piebald and Small Brown Bike at that time was going to pique my interest and get my money. I'd heard Jejune and No Knife before, via splits with other bands I'd liked, and even the likes of the Casket Lottery and the Six Parts Seven weren't completely unknown to me back then. This was, and remains, a great snapshot of the more tuneful part of the touring scene pre-9/11, where the boundaries of genre remained blurred and everyone still played basements and dive bars and hadn't gotten publicists yet.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Rain - La Vache Qui Rit + demo

When sadness comes, you can watch videos of dogs being obnoxious on YouTube, or you can listen to tight jams. Whatever floats your boat. I guess since you're here that you don't want to see a French bulldog sneak french fries off its owner's plate.

Rain was a short-lived DC band of the Revolution Summer vintage whose recorded output consisted of a 1990 12" on Guy Picciotto's impeccably curated Peterbilt Records and an appearance on 1989's "State Of The Union" comp on Dischord. The lineup is a Murderer's Row of DCHC/post-hardcore luminaries: Scott McCloud (Soulside, Girls Vs. Boys), Eli Janney (Girls Vs. Boys), Bert Queiroz (Double-O, Youth Brigade, Manifesto), and Jon Kirschten (The ChrisBald 96). And you get exactly what you'd expect: that heady mix of emotive hardcore that stood apart from much of the East Coast's dominant trend of youth crew and crossover from the same era.

Now, typically, I wouldn't share a record that you can readily acquire via an inexpensive Bandcamp download (which you should totally do). But I thought it'd be good to contextualize the real gold, which is a 4-song demo dating from 1986 of Rain, featuring a track ("In Rain") that didn't make it onto the EP. I think I might have gotten this from Stormy over at Blogged & Quartered before his hosting service went tits up; I do know I've had it for a long time.

Anyway, I figured it was a good time to share this one, it being that time of year, and all.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the vegan pot roast; it's better than it sounds.

Discogs / Bandcamp

Click here to download.

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.

The Anasazi ‎– Calculating Components And Compound Formulas For Mass Population Reconstruction ... ... A.K.A. Measurement & Control

A week of great potential has emerged here in the northwestern corner of the empire. Cher boi's DVD-ROM drive in the ancient MacBook Pro has gone to the great recycling center in the sky, meaning it's come time to, at the very least, to replace the drive, if not the entire computer. Do they still make laptops with an internal disc drive? Or should I just chip up the $50-$100 to get an external drive, and keep using this here steel-encased marvel of late-aughts Apple technology?

The missus and I have also been engaged in serious talks to relocate back to our homeland of Charm City in the next few months. Let's face it; it's REALLY - FUCKING - EXPENSIVE to live in our corner of paradise, and last month's heat dome laid plain a number of the disadvantages to remaining here. So, here I am, packing boxes at 2 in the morning, with the portable air conditioner working it's lil heart out, and "Bob's Burgers" playing in the background. 100+ years worth of pulp paperbacks and out of print cookbooks, collected over the past five years, all going into 12 x 12 x 12 double walled cardboard.

The Anasazi sounded like the future 21 years ago. Made up of former members of Jenny Piccolo and Casey from Yaphet Kotto, it was the sort of progressive hardcore band that I was taken in by.  It, too, goes into a box, one of the last things I ripped before the drive gave up the ghost, now to be immortalized in 320kbps bit rate, on a blog unbound by time or location.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Hey, is it Bandcamp Friday?

...there's only one way to find out. Click here, and it will either be, or not be.

In my house, any Friday can be Bandcamp Friday. But having the day is a good opportunity to talk about new music I've been listening to and records I'm planning on buying. Here's a few worth looking into if you have some bread to spend.

I definitely slept on the release last February of "Brave Faces Everyone", the newest full-length from L.A.'s Spanish Love Songs. It took this showing up in the #1 slot for Best of 2020 at Sophie's Floorboard to even hit my radar. And you may ask yourself, as I did, "Who is this band with the terrible name, to have the best record of 2020?" Well, fer Crissake, do yourself a big ol' favor and stream it, tout en suite! Then drop the $5 on a digital download, or $20 for a record via their MerchNow. I'm almost embarassed at how into this record I've been. I've seen it described as "Depression: The Record". That ain't wrong, but that's not the full story, either. It's angsty without being melodramatic. The songwriting is great; the lyrics are a reflection of what it's like to be overeducated, underemployed, and up to your neck in meds and debt. A very apt record for this day and age.

I loved Loved LOVED Slant's 2018 demo, released on cassette from the folks at Pissed Off! Records. Just an angry hardcore band from Seoul, doing what they do best. They released a really limited 7" on Iron Lung the following year that I slept on; no doubt because it would have cost me over $10 for seven minutes of music on an EP. But they're back with their first full-length, titled "1집" (imaginatively), collaborating again on the release with the best label in Seattle (don't @ me). It's 10 songs, 17 minutes, and comes in marble blue, translucent pink, or black. As the page alludes, this mixes the fury of the NEHC scene of the teens with the classic rhythms of, say, a Minor Threat. And Yeji is a brutal vocalist. Approved! I'll be taking mine in pink, please and thank you.

Those Taylor boys are back at it again. I make no secret of what love I have for their previous bands, pageninetynine and Pygmy Lush. We may not have been next door neighbors, but they were kindred spirits who I was always happy to see out in the world. They have a new band with Ryan and Adam from City of Caterpillar called TERMINAL ESCAPE. Based in Richmond, I'm pretty sure they have yet to play out. But they do have their first record coming out, a one-sided 12" called "BRUTE ERR/ATA" on Relapse that's been ripping me from neck to nuts every time I listen to it. Think of your favorite iconoclastic hardcore bands from the past 40 years: this harkens to each of them, whether it's in Cris's lyrics (a la Born Against or Dead Kennedys) or in the absolutely gross, blackened sound (Void, Gauze, Necros). Their Bandcamp has a few preorders left for the limited-to-300-copies on clear with black inside. This is the aural equivalent of this Takishi Miike movie I'm watching right now; brutal, dense, and weird.

My buddy Jumbled has a new physical release coming, inventively called "Just The Singles". He provides the beats, lyrics come via Dwell, Taylo, Nyoka Ny-D, Ill Conscious, Vans_Westly, JBerd, ALYX Ryon, Jack Wilson, Berko Lover, Cody Cody Jones, Alaska, Action Bastard, Dot Com Intelligence, Butch Dawson, salk., Ullnevano, Drew Scott, Special Berriez, Torito, Bito Sureiya and more. If you're into the boom bap, or backpack hip-hop, or just punks making non-punk music, give this one a spin. He also has a new beat tape out, "Classic Rock Breaks Vol.1", in a limited edition of 10. It's not J.Dilla, but I like it. Don't think it's not tearing me up inside that I can't remember what this cover is calling back to.

This is but a sample of what's out there. I actually like going to Bandcamp's front page on days like today, and just finding something that catches my eye. Had I previously considering copping some Flying Lotus? No, but seeing this article makes me think about it. So, you know, live a little. It's Friday, you just got paid, son.

Sea Of Cortez - Age Of Anxiety

I don't have a lot to really say about this. Sea Of Cortez was one of those emo-bordering-on-math rock bands that existed all over the place back in the late 90s. Their name came from the old Spanish, describing what we know as the Gulf of California. Or was it after the Promise Ring song? I couldn't say. They came from the outskirts of Phoenix, made a full-length, a 7", and a split, and appeared on a few comps. I remember them sounding a fair amount like Unwound. The members have probably gone on to separate lives.

This is the sort of record one never expects to turn up in a Goodwill; after all, were there more than 1,000 copies pressed on CD or vinyl?

But that's been one of the nice things about living where I live. I see all these recordings I remember from the back pages of zines from 20 years ago, except now, it's there on the shelf for a few bucks, so why not give it a go? Multiply that by three records a visit, two visits a week, and...well, that's how I quietly crept over 7,000 CDs in my collection in 2021.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Land Of Greed... World Of Need

I keep coming back to Rick Pitino's quote about being saved:

"Larry Bird isn't walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they're going to be gray and old."

If there's a better summation of where we are as a country as we end 2020, I've yet to hear it.

Hope and cynicism rarely go hand in hand, which is probably why I've been diagnosed with major depression and really connect with "Welcome To Hell World". If I've been able to weather COVID-19 and layoffs and potential evictions and the deaths of family members and everything else that this year has thrown at me...welp, I'm sure that it's because I live the old adage "Hope for the best, but expect the worst," and I've lived believing that it's only those closest to you that will be willing to help when the chips are down. It's almost validating to see a jowly Senator decline to offer a financial lifeline to people days away from homelessness while pushing for corporate protections and military funding.

Jack Crosbie had a very good blog the week before Christmas about mutual aid, and it was a great reminder that, even when the pillars of power refuse even bread and circuses, there is empowerment and growth available by banding together. Not only that: it's easy to support mutual aid, and it's easy to do it yourself. We can keep each other afloat. Each other is all we have.

Punk and hardcore comps were the first examples I had that facilitated mutual aid. Case in point: 1994s "Land Of Greed... World Of Need". It was a tribute to Embrace, that short-lived Revolution Summer alliance of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye and members of Faith. A contemporary band covered each song on the sole Embrace LP, with the proceeds going to local, grass-roots homeless shelters and organizations. It's still a pretty great comp: the cuts by Lifetime, Rancid, Farside, Ashes, and Avail remain standouts. And it taught me that, if you want to see a change in the world, it's not even as complicated as coordinating a 14-band compilation. Just figure out what you want to see done, and do it.

Whatever the analogy, no deus ex machina is going to save the day for us. The vaccine isn't going to solve all illness, Joe Biden surely isn't going to lead us all to a promised land, and Amazon isn't going to magically keep your fridge full. WE are going to have to make things suck a little less in 2021. But we already have the examples available, we have the power, we have the ability, and we have the time. So let's get to it.

Discogs

Click here to download.