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

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various artists - Gern Blandsten: The First Nine Years

Gern Blandsten was one of my favorite labels of the 90s and aughts. Along with labels like Ebullition, Vermiform, Lengua Armada, and Gravity, the records Charles Maggio put out made up the deep underground of my teens and early twenties, a very strong counterpoint to the punk from Epitaph and Fat that was creeping above ground, or even the sounds bubbling out of Revelation or Victory. In short, when I picked up a Rorschach record, a Native Nod 7", or a Chisel release, I knew it was something very distinctive from anything I'd turn up at a Borders or Sam Goody. And, like all the great HC labels of the 80s, it was very locally focused and made up of friends all growing together. This was achievable and approachable.

This survey works back through the history books, leading off with the likes of Radio 4, the World / Inferno Friendship Society, and Ted Leo, all of whom would gain greater acclaim post-9/11. Dälek's hard progessive hip-hop flows into the Yah Mos big, emotive hardcore sound which flows into the math rock of the Impossible Five. By the final third of this sampler, the listener is back in the ruins of ABC No Rio and the basements of north New Jersey, mixing Weston's pop punk with the Dischord-colored post hardcore of Garden Variety and the proto-screamo of Native Nod. These bands were all on the same bills together; it was all punk, and it was a great time to see six wildly different musical styles for $6 in a high school gym or a church hall.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Roots Of Nirvana (Distorted Sounds From The Punk Underground)

I would have thought there would be no surprises in a "Roots of Nirvana" comp. The tastes of Msr. Cobain and Novoselic are fairly well-documented at this point. So it is that you se a lot of the names and songs you'd expect to see on this sort of comp.

There are the local influences: Melvisn, Beat Happening, Green River covering the Dead Boys. My all-time fav Stooges song in an extended live version pairs nicely with Flipper's "Sex Bomb" at the tail end of the CD. There are a few bands from Kurt's legendary mixtape that he was arrested with: Big Black, Scratch Acid, Young Marble Giants, and Shonen Knife. There are a pair of tracks present that Nirvana would later cover in their Unplugged set. Meat Puppets' "Plateau" and the Vaselines' "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" both appear in their original forms.

Two songs shared here weren't on my radar until I heard them here.  Clown Alley's "On The Way Up" was on their single LP for the legendary SF thrash label Alechemy Records. Alchemy would also serve as the initial home for Melvins' "Gluey Porch Treatments", Neurosis' "Pain Of Mind", and Poison Idea's "War All The Time". "On The Way Up" makes me want to drop some coin on the 2009 expanded reissue on Southern Lord. Big Dipper's "You're Not Fancy" appeared initially on a 1987 Homestead Records comp alongside songs from Naked Raygun, Big Black, Death of Samantha, and Dinosaur (Jr); it'd also show up appended to the cassette version of their 1987 "Boo-Boo" 12". All of this would fly below my radar until discovered here. Merge reissued their pre-major label output in 2009 as part of a 3-disc CD set. And this intro is a proper appetizer. To my aging ears, I can hear a band traipsing the same sort of aural ground that would lead Nirvana to become the biggest band in the world a few years later.

Discogs

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various artists - Nothing's Quiet On The Eastern Front

I've been digging through boxes of CDs at the storage unit, looking to (re)rip stuff that I haven't listened to in forever and write about. I've come across unlabeled CD-Rs, a few of which I'll share here in the coming weeks. There's been a ton of promo CDs and demos. And there's stuff like this, which I should have never forgotten about in the first place.

I picked this up via mailorder from Revelation Records, along with a Texas Is The Reason long sleeve t-shirt and a Youth of Today tee, with the $100 my mom gave me for my 19th birthday. "Nothing's Quiet On The Eastern Front" was released by Reservoir out of Queens, New York, and documented the extreme hardcore, grind, and power violence that was coming through the Northeast in the mid-90s. I'm pretty sure I snagged this because Suppression was on it, and they were from southwestern Virginia, as well as fukkin' nuts; a very appealing mix for me, since I was a recent transplant from SWVA. I knew of Brutal Truth as well from being on Relapse, but the rest of it was a mystery at the time.

This one was a huge ear opener. I was diving fully into the relatively sedate sounds of contemporary hardcore and emo, and "Nothing's Quiet", like its West Coast namesake from a decade plus before, served as an immediate scene report of bands to check out. I immediately fell in love with Albany's Monster X & Devoid of Faith, who shared Nate Wilson, whose Gloom Records' releases were all must purchases in the coming years. Dropdead from Providence were already five years into their ongoing, illustrious career, and their two contributions were twin hammers to my forehead. Assfactor 4 had an amusing name, came from the Deep South, and made hardcore more in line with Born Against than Sick Of It All; of course I dug them.

And those are the highlights for me. Which is selling every other band present here short. Unfair, but it's the deal.

It's not fun to consider that I've owned this over half my life, yet listen to it infrequently. For the places it led me, for the labels and bands and showspaces it took me to, it should be up there as a more regular spin. But here's to fixing that, and cranking C.R. and Black Army Jacket while bombing down I-5 all summer long.

Discogs

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various artists - This Comp Kills Fascists Volume 2

The follow up to 2008's "Volume 1", this one matches the intensity of its predecessor, and, frankly, is needed now more than ever. This one has homeys from back home on it: Triac, Drugs of Faith, and Strong Intention were regulars on bills I booked and shows I attended. There are true heavyweights present as well, with Apartment 213, Despise You, Vöetsek, and Lack of Interest all turning in superior offerings. It was my first exposure to Hummingbird of Death and Marion Barry. They still get turned up and blasted hard whenever they come on the old headphones at work orat work. Put this on and bash a fash.

Discogs

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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 artists - The Thing That Ate Floyd

I got a couple hundred words into writing this one last week, then forgot to hit post. By the time I came back to it, the sentiments I shared had passed. It was time for a rewrite.

When I was a kid, I'd hear folks in my southwestern Virginia town talk about being anywhere than where they were. "I wish I lived in Seattle/Athens/Chapel Hill/Minneapolis/DC/London." All completely understandable sentiments, when you're 16 and the closest college town is an hour plus away. It felt like there was so much coolness going on...just not where we lived.

For me, along with DC, the Bay Area was the place I dreamed of. It was where Lookout Records was, 924 Gilman (even tho Jello Biafra got beat up there), Epicenter, Maximum Rock 'n' Roll, Amoeba, Bottom of the Hill. So much coolness, and what a mix! Neurosis and Operation Ivy and Jawbreaker and Steel Pole Bathtub and Tribe 8 and the Mr. T Experience! Sometimes playing together!! This wasn't the 60s, when San Francisco was one of THE big stops for every band worth seeing. This was the 90s, right before punk broke, and the freaks had carved out their little niche.

"The Thing That Ate Floyd" captures the front end of that wave. A proper monster of a comp, assembled by Lookout co-operator David Hayes and recorded in large part by Alex Sergay, Lookout! No. 11 is an amazing scene report. The iconic artwork by Hayes immediately evokes for me Crimpshrine tapes and punk rock dorkiness. There are some hall of famers present: OpIv, Neurosis, Crimpshrine, MTX, and SPBT all provide tracks from early in their respective catalogs. A number of folks who would later record for Lookout and Very Small also make early appearances. The comp wasn't limited to bands from the Bay Area, either; Fresno, Chico, Chula Vista, Stockton, San Jose were the places they came from, all trekking into the big city to make a little noise to sympathetic conspirators.

I'm pleased to be able to direct folks over to Lavasocks Records, who brought this one back into print in 2021 with a handsome repress with a wonderful yellow cover and one of four colors of wax. If you download this one and dig it, pay them a visit over on Bandcamp and kick them some bux.

Discogs

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Masshysteri - Vår Del Av Stan

I popped into one of the many record stores that have popped up in the north Seattle suburbs in the past couple years today. I didn't know what I wanted; only that I wanted to hang out for a while, have a beer or two (it's a record bar, duh), and buy something based on someone else's taste.

It didn't quite work out that way. While my bartender and I discussed the finer points of late 90s power violence and I shared my opinions on Coalesce, my record tenders couldn't quite point me in the direction of something I didn't already own. They DID suggest Lip Cream's "Kill Ugly Pop", an Abrasive Wheels compilation, some Sleep records. All good recommendations; all recordings I already own.

In the end, I picked up a copy of World Burns To Death's "The Sucking Of The Missile Cock", a Portland crust classic, the Hardcore Holocaust release of which I probably sold in the mid-aughts to make a mortgage payment. This led me down the path of talking about records that Sonarize had reissued in recent years, which took me to Scandanavian hardcore, which brought me to Masshysteri, one of the most perfect punk bands of the past 20 years. This is their first of two full lengths, released by Feral Ward here in the States and by Ny Våg in their native Sweden. Masshysteri was the continuation of a line that includes the Vicious, Regulations, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Insurgent Kid, and INVSN. Hell, one of their members used to be in Doughnuts, a Victory Records band that I actively ignored in the 90s but keep thinking I'll finally check out one of these days if I can just find a copy of their full length in the dollar bin.

ANYWAY...

Masshysteri: good-ass band. It's hardcore kids playing power pop, which is my favorite performance style of power pop.

Discogs

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various artists - This Comp Kills Fascists, Vol. 1

I had intended this to be posted on Monday, January 20th, but having a move thrust upon me kind of threw things out of whack, Instead, you get a a few days late.

It's taken forty-seven years, but I can wrap my brain around why someone might embrace fascism. And by "someone", I mean a normal human. A person who 30 years ago might have resided firmly in the middle class. That stability no longer exists. The world has gotten faster, the sensory input amped up, and still no answers present themselves. In the ensuing madness, I can understand why anyone might turn to a strongman, someone providing easy solutions to difficult challenges. Fuck the immorality or cognitive dissonance that comes along with accepting giving in; the trains might run on time, and you might get a deserved bite of the apple, a taste of the good life that you've been told is your birthright.

But it's all bullshit. It always has been, and, especially now, it will continue to be. After all, I lived through 2017 to 2021. I remember what has already happened; I can anticipate what will come.

A lesson I took from a life in punk rock is that you can do it yourself. You can start your own band. You can release your own record. You can publish your thoughts. You can create and distribute and connect and evolve. The scale is irrelevant. Whether you make 25 copies of a fanzine, or you start a mutual aid society in your town, you reject the dominant message that you cannot and embrace the message that you can.

i guess what I'm getting at here is that this is not a time for whining, or despair, or surrender. It's a time for regroup and realign. Figure out what sort of world you want to live it, and set about creating it. I promise there are others who feel the same way, and want to help. What your President, your MP, your Premier, your Prime Minister, and the men who back them, doesn't change what you can do at home.

Anyway, here's a comp from 2008, embracing Conflict's message to see who's who. Let's not be afraid to fight for a better world with this as part of the soundtrack.

Discogs

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various artists - Only The Strong MCMXCIII

Considering I've been listening to hardcore for 31 years is warping my brain a little bit. Which may be why I'm willing to consider a release on Victory Records, a label that Mark McCoy once sang "sucks" in an all-timer from Charles Bronson. But this comp, the tenth release on the now-notrious Chicago label, decidedly does not suck. It's led off by Warzone, one of the few bands still live and kicking from the seccond wave of HC.Then it's a pretty great lineup of bands that felt super huge to me when I was 16: Resurrection from New Jersey, Snapcase and Zero Tolerance from Buffalo, L.A.'s Strife, Louisville's Endpoint, and Black Train Jack from NYC.

In a time long before the internet, Warped Tour, or reunion package tours, or even when you could find many punk/HC records at your local record store, this was an audio flier for bands you could actually see play live. You could be that kid on the cover. You could drive to Blacksburg or Charlottesville or even all the way to DC to see someone like Bloodline play. It was the damndest game of telephone: reading zine reviews and fliers and thank you lists and distro pamphlets to discover what was available and currently happening. Resurrection was how I got into Lifetime; Endpoint led me to Slamdek Records; Warzone had me ordering records every three months from Revelation Records, newly relocated from Connecticut to Southern California.

The best part of this? I probably hadn't listened to this since the late 90s when I pulled this out of a box a bit ago. But the music still sounds vital, the lyrics no less strident than they did three decades ago. This still fucking rips.

Discogs

Click here to download..

various artists - Tomorrow Will Be Worse Vol. 4

Well, that was an unwelcome bit of news.

So why not wash the political developments of Tuesday out of your brain with the aptly-named fourth volume of "Tomorrow Will Be Worse"? A snapshot of the waning days of fastcore, featuring six bands from the US and Japan, this was the final volume of the influential series from Covington's Sound Pollution Records. And it captures one of my favorite eras of punk rock, chock full of blazing fast sounds, perfect for circle pitting and skateboarding and flipping the brim of your baseball cap up.

For me, Vöetsek is still the stand out here. This was Scotty Tankcrimes and Athena of Six Weeks Records, and if you know anything about the records they've put out, you know they have expert taste in punk rock. That doesn't diminish any of the other bands here. Orlando's RunnAmuckS is the other "big" name here; they are still playing out and releasing records (as of last year, at least). No Value, the Sprouts, and Fasts all hailed from Japan, and are all bands that I'd happily have bought 7"s from back then. Finally, there's Michigan's Threatener, featuring members of xBrainiax and Saturday Looks Good To Me, a combination of related bands that tickles me to no end.

You want the advice of a white cis male, speaking from a place of privilege? You cannot change the path of a nation. You can change the path of your town, your neighborhood, your street, your building. Take a little time over the coming days to think about what matters to you and how you can help build the world you want to live in. Or download this, turn up your speakers, and circle pit in your bedroom until you get dizzy and pass out. There's a fair chance I'll do both.

Discogs

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various artists - Northcore: The Polar Scene Compilation

Just your run of the mill Swedish punk and hardcore comp from 30 years ago, split between bands I knew already and bands I didn't.until I laid my paws on this eighth release from the esteemed Burning Heart Records.

Yeah, so I know Refused all too well, Randy, Fireside, Doughnuts, and Abhinanda. I feel varying levels of interest in them. But to discover Drift Apart or Breach here was well worth the $2 I think I spent earlier this year. Somebody like Shredhead isn't what I would seek out, what with their proto-nu metal groove thrash, but it's not bad. It's the kind of scene curiousity that existed a lot back in the 90s and seems to have died away as the internet consumes us all.

Discogs

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various artists - Voices N°2 - Auchardcore Punk Compilation

I have no clue how I got hold of this. I've never been much of a crust collector, and Auch is such a tiny commune in southwestern France. It'd be like someone not only pulled together a comp of ska bands from Mount Vernon, WA. And yet...

This is the second of three "Voices" compilations springing from the Gers Valley, a rural area known as the largest producer of foie gras in France. Is that the reason Auch was able to turn out Auchardcore? What sounds small-town kids create in their local bubbles will never not be interesting to me, even if it's taking place in a language foreign to me.

A note: this is missing the last track on the comp, Death Buring's "The Gates of Kthulu". Despite it appearing on both the track listing and the Discogs page, my copy, factory pressed and otherwise pristine, was missing this cut. A shame; I'll always geek out to a Lovecraftian crust jam.

Discogs 

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various artists - Take Your Medicine::A Heavy Dose Of Sonic Overload

I do a fair amount of my writing on Sundays while I'm doing laujndry adn avoiding more focus-intensive chores. The trade-off here is that Mrs. Mummy plays one of her numerous YouTube playlists, comprised of the outer edges of international popular music. It pushes me back to the familiar; not that I don't love NewJeans or whatever Mexican pop princess she's playing, but I does force me consider what I'm going to share, and why.

Take this 1996 compulation from Boston's Wonderdrug Records. I was familiar with a few of the names on this comp when I snagged it online for a $1 a few months ago: Scissorfight, Slughog, and Honkeyball, to name a few. I knew the label itself was of the same area, temporally and geographically, as Big Wheel Recreation and Tortuga Recordings, although they covered a different piece of the heavy music world. This is more stoner rock/desert rock/acid punk than I listened to back then. While most of these bands wouldn't be out of place on an Eyehategod or Nebula bill, I'm still not sure it holds my interest so far after the fact as bands that came out on AmRep or Man's Ruin during the same time.

Discogs

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various artists - D.U.M.B. Rock: The Hollywood Tapes

Focusing one's attention on cheap comps allows one to take some risks and discover sounds you would have never encountered otherwise, Case in point: this 1993 compilation of NYC sounds, featuring liner notes from contemporary Maximum Rock 'n' Roll columnist George Tabb, whose writing I took a liking to in my first years of punk rock discovery.

This one came out on Celluloid, a label I've always found curious for the breadth of their releases. Their early US releases were a who's who of Downtown sounds: Bill Laswell, Alan Vega, Phase2, and Grandmixer D.ST. They put out a few Fela Kuti records in the 80s; I think the first things I owned on Celluloid were "Hustlers Convention" and "This Is Madness". By 1993, Celluloid was on its last legs, having been sold for a dollar in 1989, and mostly existing as a catalog label by this point. I can only speculate, but Vital Music, who'd released the other "Dumbrock" comps, probably piggybacked on Celluloid's transcontinental distribution reach in order to get this one in as many hands as possible.

"But is it any good?" you ask. Good question; you be the judge. I don't feel like it was a buck poorly spent on my part. And that's all the insight I'm willing to spend on this one.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Capitol Radio

Wabbit wabbit, dear reader.

I miss playing records on the radio. I miss having ime to play records on the radio. The key here is that I wouldn't necessarily sacrifice the time and energy that it'd take to play records on the radio in 2024; I'm ure I could probably find a once-a-week slot at some left of the dial, 200 watt station around here.

Or maybe that's just ego talking.

The details behind this comp are a bit hazy, and I put it into a box after re-ripping it at 320kbps, so maybe one of my few readers who also lived in Delmarva around the turn of the millenium can fill in the blanks. At the same time I was blasting out punk, hardcore, and ska up near the PA border, there were a few dudes down around DC doing the same. They had much more juice than I; I believe Kent Stax was somehow involved in their show. So when it comes to members of Scream participating in your radio show, they had a 1-nil lead.

This 1999 comp bears their mark. There are a few familiar faces in the liner notes; dudes who you'd see at shows and record stores and the occasional Orioles game. And the bands harken back to an age I find particularly golden. It was a wonderful clash of sub genre; '77 punk next to org-core alongside third wave ska and Dischord post punk, all bounded by Chicago-style pop punk and . 1998 and 1999 were very good times, friends. The wave had just barely started building, and it felt like your friends wouldn't have to starve while they went out on tour.

And that was all a quarter century ago. Fuck, I'm getting old.

Discogs

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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

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Ladd

various artists - This Is Bad Taste Vol. 3

When I bought this a few months ago, I swore I was picking up a Burning Heart-related sampler of early 90s Ümea hardcore. This, instead, is what some of those X'ed up yoots moved on to when they graduated university. Lest you get it twisted, I'm not unhappy with this. There's a fair amount of snotty-nosed punk rock (Satanic Surfers, Chixdiggit, Trigger Happy), more serious political rock (Weakerthans), and, yes, a smattering of mid-90's hardcore (Within Reach, Misconduct).

But what really matters is there's a Hard Ons track. Who doesn't love a little Ray Ahn? Amirite, or amirite?

Postscript: Bad Taste eventually grew up, quit putting out records, and became a management company, splitting time between Santa Monica and Stockholm. It's a classic story, really.

Discogs

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various artists - Off Target: A Coalition Records Sampler

I've written a bit about a Coalition Records release before, but this sampler, which came out nearly 20 years ago, serves as a pretty great survey of what this Dutch label was. Inspired by the likes of Lärm and Seein' Red, Jeroen and Marcel helped set the trend for the turn of the century with a ton of über-fast hardcore releases. As the initial wave of power violence petered out, they then got weird with Mark McCoy and Nate Wilson in their post-Charles Bronson/Devoid Of Faith bi-continental outfit Das Oath.

It's tough to overstate how special the early aughts were for hardcore. There was still the cultural push against over-commodification, but that was running headlong into the possibilities, good and bad, of what the internet could be. The world was shrinking in a lot of good ways, to the point where it was easier to discover the more obscure parts of the scene than it'd ever been. But it still felt small; you felt like you could still be a part of it.

And that's what listening to this reminds me of. It's the first few years of the Art Space, bands coming from all over the world and playing in that dank-ass basement. It's Mark living in Tony's spare room for a few months...like, why did Mark McCoy even come to Baltimore? It's the natural progression from being pen pals, one letter at a time, to being email mates, sharing tips on what bands to check out and zines to read and, hey, did you check out this new website? It was a world of possibilities, in spite of 9/11 and the War on Terrorism and Bush's America.

I digress. Short/fast/loud. It's still pretty damn rad. And with 35 songs, a hell of a bargain, whether it's 2005 or 2024.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - The Future Looks Brighter

Turned this up a few months ago, and even though I own a couple of these on vinyl already, and had everything but the Symbol Six cuts on my hard drive, I couldn't pass this up on CD for a couple bux. Collecting is an illness; a, at times, delightful one, but it leads to moments like these when you end up with several copies of the same recordings.

But what recordings! This Posh Boy sampler, inspired by and partially derived from 1981's split release with SST, "The Future Looks Bright Ahead", compiles:

• Social Distortion's songs from the original 1981 sampler, plus the three additional songs on the otherwise-unreleased "Posh Boy's Little Monsters" 12" and their contribution to "Posh Hits Vol. 1"
• Shattered Faith's "I Love America b/w Reagan Country", their cuts from "Bright Ahead", and their offering from "Rodney on the ROQ Volume 2"
• The entirety of Redd Kross's 1981 "Red Cross" 12"
• Channel 3's "CH3" 12"

This is an embarrassment of riches. And if you're at all familiar with early 80s LA punk & HC, you know all these by heart. But if you don't, I'll just say this is worth downloading for Redd Kross alone.

But that's me; a Virgo with a sick record collection.

Discogs

Click here to download.