various artists - Art Of The Underground 2005 Sampler

It's 2005, and your faithful servant is a newlywed, trying and failing to make a go as an indie promoter in Baltimore and, in retrospect, in the throes of a major depressive episode that would wax and wane but never really go away until the start of Obama's first term. I was listening to a lot of what Alex Kerns was putting out on Art of the Underground. First amongst equals was the Buffalo trio Lemuria, formed by Alex with Sheena and Doug, with only a demo and 7" to their names but already grabbing my attention with their tuneful Superchunk-style punk. I also loved Out of Vogue and Robot Has Werewolf Hand, a pair of Buffalo local weirdo hardcore bands with 7"s out on the label.

All three appear on this sampler, a survey of the first dozen or so releases on AotU. They're joined by Erik Petersen, who made folk punk par excellence out of Philly, and Albany's Kitty Little, who had a pair of dudes from John Brown's Army making super fun indie rock. The rest of this didn't make much of an impact on me back then, but 20 years distance has refreshed my taste for mid-aughts DIY indie. I spun this one a few times after recently re-ripping it and thought, "yeah, this one's worth sharing."

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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various artists - Power Flush: San Francisco, Seattle & You

The rare "two cities' scenes" compilation, spread between Seattle and San Francisco, courtesy of Broken Rekids in San Francisco, and the Emerald City's Rathouse Records. There are some strong contributions here, provided by the Gits, 7 Year Bitch, and Alcohol Funnycar from up this way, and J Church, Naked Aggression, and Bedlam Rovers from the land of the Golden Gate. There are a pair of contributions from S.F.'s Mudwimin, including a collab with Steel Pole Bath Tub. Mudwimin were one of those mysterious bands that my riot grrrlfriend had dubbed tapes of, but I had no recollection of ever hearing. 

If there's one thing that comes to mind while I was listening to this, it was, "god DAMN I'm getting old!" I'm sure I could find distro lists from Broken inside 7"s I've owned for a quarter century without even really looking. Just about every band on this list was someone whose records I priced and shelved before the year 2000. It doesn't feel that long ago, but that copyright date doesn't lie. This came out 29 years ago.

The fact that I published "Power Flush" less than 12 hours after most people consumed mass quantities of food during Thanksgiving is mere coincidence, I assure you.

Discogs

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various artists - I Pee In Pools

Straight out of San Pedro, it's an 11-year-old sampler of one of the most underrated labels around, Recess Records. If you're into the kind of punk rock that Razorcake champions, then you'll probably dig this.

Remember: we don't swim in your toilet, so please don't pee in our pool.

Discogs

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various artists - Down In Front

It's pretty comforting when I still have to seek out information on someone who interests me, instead of just stumbling across it in social media. The search is still valuable, I think. To go out, almost blind, into the world and to find something new by choice rather than have it broadcast at you is a delightful thing. Sure, Instagram will, thankfully, keep me fully appraised of what John Brannon and Coop and Baseball Card Vandals are all up to. But if I want to keep up with the likes of Aaron Cometbus, historian of the East Bay scene, zinester extraordinare, and drummer of a million bands, I still gotta pick up a copy of his eponymous zine (now on issue 59). 

Anyway...so Aaron Cometbus. The dude started a tape label and his zine when he was 14. The zine is nearly 40 years old, and I get something engrossing from it any time I read it. I'm not sure if he's still making music; he was a part of the short-lived Thorns Of Life, but after that, nothing that I recall. I suppose we all step back eventually.

No Idea put together this CD version of a simultaneously-released 7" box set of unreleased Aaron Cometbus songs. The CD has one unreleased song from each band, along with a previous vinyl-only release. Confused? You shouldn't be. Here's who's on the CD:

• Redmond Shooting Stars - a three-piece that existed in Eugene, OR in 1995 and 1996 and did a single 7" on Broken Rekids
• Astrid Oto - a female-fronted, Asheville, NC-based quartet with 7"s on No Idea, Broken, and Meconium. They'd get a discography on No Idea in 2002
• Pinhead Gunpowder - arguably the best known of Cometbus's post-Crimpshrine projects, this band featuring Billie Joe and Jason from Green Day and Sarah and Bill from Sawhorse put out four albums and a host of 7"s from 1994 to 2008
• Cosmetic Puffs - this punk band from Eureka, CA made their only recorded appearance on the "Down In Front" comps
• Sweet Baby - Cometbus replaced Sergie from Samiam on drums for this East Bay band's post-LP songs back in 1989
• Retard Beaters - this four-piece with the awful name put out a single 7" on No Idea in 1998. They do not appear in the 7" box set
• EFS - EFS self-released a single cassette containing 25 songs, six of which made it to vinyl via the 7" box set
• Shotwell - Shotwell is still a band (!), although Cometbus left this Bay Area institution after the release of their first LP
• The Blank Fight - pre-This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb folk punk from around the same period as Astrid Oto. Their two songs on the CD were their first releases
• Mundt - a one-off project made with Quitty from Behead the Prophet NLSL/Mukilteo Fairies. They did a single split cassette with Long Hind Legs on Punk In My Vitamins
• Cleveland Bound Death Sentence - best known as Paddy Costello's Dillinger 4 side-project, CBDS did a pair of 7"s for THD in 1997 & 1998, then reunited in 2005 for four more songs on No Idea

Discogs

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various artists - Germs of Perfection: A Tribute To Bad Religion

Here's another Spin Magazine comp, this time featuring covers of Bad Religion. As tribute comps go, it's pretty solid. You get 12 artists covering a wide range of B.A. songs, along with a cut from their "Dissent of Man" album. And Spin lined up some decent names for the comp: Ted Leo, Tegan & Sara, Frank Turner, and the Weakerthans are just some of the headliners here. I remember thinking this was a lot more interesting to me than the new Bad Religion record, which had come out a month before this download-only release.

I have some really ambivalent feelings in general towards Bad Religion. I think it's cool that Greg Graffin and Jay Bentley have continued to keep the band going for nearly 40 years. But I'm struggling to think of a Bad Religion record I've been excited to hear since "No Substance". I had no clue that they had released a new record in 2019, or that Greg Hetson hadn't been in the band for seven years. I'm grateful that B.A. is the foundation for the whole Epitaph/Anti- apparatus, without which we wouldn't have gotten some great Tom Waits records, the last two Pianos Become the Teeth albums, and a fair amount of other good-ass records. It's going to sound rude, and there will be a ton of people who disagree, but they've always struck me as a starter band for punks.

Fuck, that was rude.

Anyway, that's a couple hundred words on a band I'm very "meh" about. The comp's good, though. Let's listen to that.

Discogs

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various artists - Better Dead Than Read

Let's make this quick, as it's 2am and I've been tip-toeing around a panic attack all day.

I miss seeing AK Press tables at shows. I miss distros and Food Not Bombs and ARA tables and all the non-band-related activity that'd bubble around a hall in the 90s.

John Yates should be a lot more lauded than he is for his graphic design. Even 30 years on, his record covers remain some of my favorite design pieces of all time. Take the below: you can immediately identify that this is going to be some hard left material. His use of imagery and fonts do such a great job of communicating message. If you engage with Instagram, I highly recommend following him; he's been turning out pretty great leftist propaganda this year.

This might have been the first release on Epitaph that I made a point of purchasing. I had a mean hard on about barcodes on records and CDs in those days (thanks, Tim Yo), and most of what came out on Epitaph was more mainstream than I wanted to listen to. But this had a ton of interesting weirdo music on it (Spazz! Tribes of Neurot! Chumbawamba! The Levellers!), so I snagged a copy. Turned me onto a lot I'd otherwise never encounter. No regrets.

Discogs

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New music from Frankie Stubbs

I've made no secret of my deep, abiding love for Leatherface. Since breaking up on the eve of a North American tour in 2012, singer/guitarist/icon Frankie Stubbs has kept a fairly low profile. Of course, there were the 2018 "Heart Is Home" and "Don't You Ever Say Goodbye" singles, but I don't recall hearing much about either when they came out. His acoustic dates have, with the exception of a Pouzza Fest appearance a couple years back, only taken place in the UK and Europe. So I was proper chuffed to get the e-mail overnight that a brand new EP was on its way to fans in June. Nice country!

Pre-orders are live now for "Blood Orange Moon". Europeans can get it through Little Rocket Records in the UK, while North Americans can get a copy via Rad Girlfriend Records in Ohio. This is a 1,000 piece release: 300 on yellow, 300 on red, and 300 on orange, as well as a measly 100 on black. Former Leatherface bandmate Graeme Philliskirk minds the mixing board and provides backup guitars on "I Liked Being a European" and "Jimmy Jesus". The official release date is June 12, so expect to start seeing your preorders arrive then.

Here's the first song released off the EP, "Jimmy Jesus". It's exactly what you'd expect to hear from a Frankie Stubbs acoustic song: super stripped back to a man and a guitar, with a voice reminiscent of both Lemmy and Robert Wyatt. This is punk rock at its most elemental. Stubbs is rightfully considered one of the great poets of punk. Much like his American counterpart Bob Mould, this latest release shows him at the top of his game.

Check out "Jimmy Jesus" below.