various artists - Audioflashcard

Note: fixed the link to include the entire comp. Thanks to Friend for leaving the comment.

GSL made it a decade and a half, starting out in Boulder in 1993 and wrapping things up in Los Angeles in 2007, with a stop-over in San Diego. During that time, they released no less than a half dozen records that I still find irreplaceable. Early releases from the Locust, the V.S.S., and Get Hustle built a track record that would soon include the Mars Volta, !!!, and the Rapture. This was the sound of late 90s hardcore growing up. And I'm not talking about the youth crew...these were the weirdos from your town who were booking Born Against and Heroin and Huggy Bear in their basements, then going off to college towns where they'd get into Christian Death or Albert Ayler or Karen Dalton. They'd meld it all together, making sounds that'd turn off every macho shithead and turn on their friends and younger siblings.

This sampler came at the midway point of Gold Standard Laboratories' lifespan. GSL would put out the first !!! full length, a Mohinder discography, a collaborative 7" between xBxRx, Miss Pussycat, and Quintron, the Locust's remix 12", and the first post-At The Drive-In release from Cedric and Omar as De Facto in 2001. The last of those would lead to the Mars Volta, who ultimately reached the sort of popularity that honestly blew everyone's I knew's minds. These were deeply different, viewed with some level of distrust, and thus were deeply, honestly, punker than anything else running at the same time. 25 years on, this still feels pretty transgressive, and makes me wonder why the hell we thought anyone was selling out.

Discogs

Click here to download.

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.

Discogs

Click here to download.