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A few words on music’s that have made it back to my ears in one form or another… As release, MP3 or whatever… Much of it focuses around the documentary that I just so happened to catch on the Documentary Channel one odd night. I was lucky enough to catch a doc on early Chicago punk-rock called You Weren't There A History Of Chicago Punk 77-94. The doc is a verily well-done, in-depth something great-something great account of The Chi-Punk scene complete with time spent on inner scene rivalries and drama that is still testy to people decades later. A jam-packed, highly recommended compilation has been released featuring many of the bands Naked Raygun, the Effigies, Strike Under, Big Black, Articles Of Faith, Silver Abuse, Mentally Ill, Subverts, Negative Element, Tutu & the Pirates, DA, Toothpaste, The Way-Outs, Rights of the Accused, Savage Beliefs, End Result, Trial by Fire, Seismic Waves, and Painterband.
I enjoyed all the footage and coverage of the bands on the comp as well as the film but my favorite section of the movie dealt with the early punk (of course) that included footage of The Mentally Ill doing “Gacys Place” and a band I had not heard of until the movie, Tu Tu & The Pirates who have also had an LP of their material released that has a strong showing of Punk-Rock (with the dash) back when it was “punk” to have a beard. Their solo issued record is well worth any effort you may put to acquiring the release. It’s called “Suburban Insult Rock For The Anti Lectual” and features some of the best, bordering proto-punk/snotty KBD type beard-punk that money could buy. If you hear songs like “Delinquent Rat” or “Doin’ Nothing” and don’t feel moved and are at least partially convinced at the true coolness of the tunes, then something IS wrong… “Beard-Punk” Fuck yeah! The movie comp also has a version of “Surf Combat” made famous by Naked Raygun, but not entirely a Raygun only song, by a relatively unknown band, The Way-Outs that sounds as if it could have been Black Randy & The Metrosquad doing the track. It is verily superb.
In the movie, a large chunk of the coverage dealt with the importance of the venues, which, at times, was verily comedic and exhibited excellent story telling, including coverage of a venue called OZ that, Back In The Day™ did a compilation of its own celebrating the scene called Busted at OZ. Well, that has been re-issued too featuring a slew of the same bands features on the doc soundtrack. Both the movie comp and Busted at OZ play well together and accent each other nicely. You could pick either one and get the gist of what was happening, but trust me, you need both comps to fulfill your craving cause I cant imagine having to choose just one. Go ahead, be the UntraAmerican™ and get both while you can! Just as with Tu Tu & The Pirates, DA have their own fully re-issue to deal with including fem-punk rocking’s that continue what you were introduced to in the doc and Busted at Oz comps. DA sorta have a more post-punk feel to their thug, but its as easily impressive when grouped together with the punk-hardcore scene they existed in. in fact, in some ways, its even more impressive…
Mp3 versions of The Ed Davis Band Keith Richards’ Dead fully made their way to me so I do not have to be inconvenienced with flipping over records. If I had heard The Ed Davis band as a teen, and appreciated it as much as I do right now in my life, I would have started a zine called LET’S FUCK EACH OTHER after their song. So now, that awesome release is available at the touch of a button! Wow! At this moment, I feel inclined to extend a ‘Thank you’ to UltrAmerica™, you’re the best…
A close bruddy of mein, Timothy “T-Wray” Combs has been navigating himself thru a storm of creativity recently and some good stuff floats among the wreckage. Survivors include “The Devils Blues” a song about a guy that sells his soul to the devil, but the devil didn’t hold up to his side of the deal and now he is left with a damned soul and residence in the poor-house. T-Wray is gathering his songs for a solo release that will be titled Bimbo’s Wish and I’m lucky enough to have a close spot to T-Wray during the storms and calms that tend to afflict themselves accordingly to true artist.
A collection of Jesus and Mary Chain demo’s, or what I perceive to be demo’s, released under the title of “Send Me Away” made it to my ears that feature rough recordings of material that are heavily on the moody side… Good songs, that have an impressive showing for what many people perceive to be Jesus and Mary Chain with a heavy pounding drum machine that sounds angry and mean. The sound quality is something to be adjusted to, but a few songs deep into the recordings and you can take “Upside Down” or “Something’s Wrong” for what it is, an awesome song that inspires you to form your own fictional terrorist network whose leaders cant be killed, because they never existed…
So now I come to Vegetable and their two-song 7” released by Gilgongo Records. Any regular reader of this blog will know how enamored I am with this band… Bordering on the creepy, I think this band is one of the best I have ever heard. Ever. I have been focusing on “Castration Frustration” much more than their other song, “Sol” but that’s just because I have been hitting repeat on “Castration Frustration” over and over. “Sol” reminds me of material from the band Liliput/Kleenex whereas “Castration Frustration” hits\, as Brighty put it, like something you would hear on Cincinnati’s Hospital Records back in 1982 along side BPA, or 11,000 Switches. Uncle Dave would claim responsibility for Vegetable despite the fact that they are a mew band of youngsters from Arizona. They are that cool. In trying to show interest for the band, in hopes that Gilgongo would release a fully by the band, I may have over-stepped boundaries for a 39 year old dude and truly appear to be from the creepy-side of things, but that’s the risk I’m willing to take. That’s the risk concerning enthusiasm vs. infatuation. You do believe I’m enthusiastic don’t you? I totally understand why representatives of the label and band have seemingly ignored my wall-post and e-mails; I truly do and find no offense in the possible shunning and un-acknowledged enthusiasm. 
Shearing Pinx, another treat from Gilgongo features a noisier Sonic Youth style band. Their Haruspex release is a good listen though. It’s at least interesting because it’s new, and released recently. Rounding out a tic tac punk splattering of Gilgongo releases is Soft Shoulder who remind me of a mid-90’s band that would sound right at home on the Kill Rock Stars label of yester-year. Moody, artistic and noisy. There is a point in there so be careful, it could draw blood if your not paying attention and you hit it the wrong way. Ouch. So I had a $25 iTunes card sitting around since this past Christmas and decided I wanted to cash it in. I looked at and sampled recent releases by Gang of Four, The Cars and even Wire without them really reaching out to me. This all sort of surprised me too. Especially with Wire because I liked what they have been doing since their re-emergence and really liked Object 47 which was sort of dismissed in the description provided by iTunes in their newer one. But this newer offering by Wire just didn’t hit me. So I moved on. Maybe I will just listen to Object 47 a bit more. Perhaps it hasn’t outlived itself yet… So I remembered reading on Josh Rutledges’ blog Faster and Louder about a couple bands that sparked my interest…
So I looked into it and downloaded Don’t Be So Cruel by Something Fierce. I am VERILY pleased with my purchase. I had previously downloaded “Empty Screens” by the band for free. It was a good song, I’d say. Played it on F.i. #20 and all. Started to like it a bit more there… But when I taste-tested Don’t Be So Cruel on iTunes, I was sorta blown away… After downloading it and giving it a few listens by now, I can honestly say that I am BLOWN away by Something Fierce. It reminds me of The Fuses Eastern Cities released mixed with a bit of latter era Clash approaching’s. Yeah, I like Combat Rock and I’m not afraid to say it! Something Fierce have a fresh approach concerning their sound. In fact, yeah, the production qualities are verily similar to Eastern Cities, a point I have discussed with the band over fB and they admitted that that LP was inspiring to them, so that’s no big surprise… But Don’t be So Cruel I would say, is a bit better than Eastern Cities. That is saying a bunch because Eastern Cities was an awesome record. Don’t Be So Cruel is an example how someone paid attention. Emulated that effort and added upon the direction. Something Fierce put their own spin on something with excellent results. I could listen to Don’t be So Cruel all day long. In fact, I just about have… You know, I haven’t been buying much ‘new’ music lately. With the happenings of life I just don’t have the time, nor money to really invest in finding bands like Something Fierce, so I’m going to use resources like Faster and Louder, Zach Brauns Random Old Records and Tim Adams’ Unbleeding blog’s to help sift through the abyss for what may hit me…
The Night Birds are another band that Faster and Louder introduced me to. I was drawn in by Josh’s description of The Night Birds bringing to mind a sound mixing of The Adolescents, Agent Orange with a smidge of The Dead Kennedy’s (just a smidge). The other Side of Darkness hits hard. On songs like “Paranoid Times”, “Landfill Land” and “Failed Species” the Night Birds create a sphere of influence that truly make me wish I could skate-board. Maybe I could just walk around with a skate-board and look cool. The Other Side of Darkness is a perfect soundtrack for the last blast. I bet The Night Birds are the sort of band you could sit down and watch Beach Blanket Bingo with and then go get some WC’s and use the phrase ‘Boo-bay’ ala South Dakota Slim, all day long.
I rounded out the Remaining $5 form my iTunes card with some cool stuff too. Have you ever heard the second, more obscure Live at the Roxy release chock full of more punk-rock unknowns that also played the early punk club in London? One of those bands was a band called Blitz that pre-dates the Oi-ish band Blitz… On the other (cause it’s not a volumed series) Live at The Roxy release, Blitz are the strongest shower being a fem-fronted punk band hammering out one of the best punk-rock songs ever performed, the captivating and propelling “Strange Boy.” So, when I heard that this band had their own CD of a live Roxy showing I looked into it… I was quite disappointed because the live songs on this new CD are not of the same quality that you heard from their Live at The Roxy showing where they blew me away with “Strange Boy” that version and recording was AMAZING. This other live stuff is NOT of that quality. It was rough even by my standards… But the whole release was not a duster. There are a few really good tracks. Studio versions of “London is For Tourist”, “Were OK, Sod You” and a nearly as worthy version of “Strange Boy” were worthy for ‘purchase.’ These songs are great and true original punk rager’s that are right up my alley. I just wonder, where the good versions of their live songs are being stored. If I knew, I would plan a criminal mission to retrieve them; they would be worth violence to recover.
With the last $2 worth of money, I decided to go with a couple tracks from a collection of Chocolate Horse rarities called Horse Treats. I could really stand to get the whole release, but there’s always next time right? I settled on acquiring copies of “300 Billion Now Living” which is a great song and has me wondering why this wasn’t on Beast because, in many ways it captures everything, and all the different parts of what The Chocolate Horse is all about. It’s a standard song. If you like “300 Billion” you will like all their stuff. The other song I got was “Take The Kids Home” which has a really eclectic mix of sounds ranging from eastern style water-drop drums to a banjo and further to a flute… It’s almost like this sound could be the other end of the spectrum for The Chocolate Horse. A song that you could bookend the total Chocolate Horse experience with. One could say: “The Chocolate Horse Experience ranges from “300 Billion Now Living” to “Take The Kids Home”. These both are good songs; the best offering from what is my introduction to Horse Treats. Someday, I will get the remainder of that release, but until then I’m happy that I got these two songs.
I suppose one of my favorite local bands, Swear Jar are in the earliest stages of recording a new fully. I promised Shane Chaney that is it isn’t good Im going to steal his shoes at their release show for the record and throw them into The Ohio River. Its my promise to him and good music everywhere.
Last minute ear plugs include items from Destroy All Monsters which I am fully enjoying, a sweet double LP by The Adverts of their BBC recordings which is really fresh to listen to. "Quickstep" is such an amazing song. That bass line kills me dead brothers and sisters! DEAD! Its a real treat. I gIn honor of recent chatter on B.A.G. about cheap bin releases, I scoured Half Price Books Bin's for two finds. Porno For Pyros debut and a later era Gun Club re-issue from 2.13.61 Records that I have just dove into and cant really comment on as much as I proly could in times to come. I have lots to listen to...
I suppose one of my favorite local bands, Swear Jar are in the earliest stages of recording a new fully. I promised Shane Chaney that is it isn’t good Im going to steal his shoes at their release show for the record and throw them into The Ohio River. Its my promise to him and good music everywhere.
Last minute ear plugs include items from Destroy All Monsters which I am fully enjoying, a sweet double LP by The Adverts of their BBC recordings which is really fresh to listen to. "Quickstep" is such an amazing song. That bass line kills me dead brothers and sisters! DEAD! Its a real treat. I gIn honor of recent chatter on B.A.G. about cheap bin releases, I scoured Half Price Books Bin's for two finds. Porno For Pyros debut and a later era Gun Club re-issue from 2.13.61 Records that I have just dove into and cant really comment on as much as I proly could in times to come. I have lots to listen to...
and so I just found a $15 iTunes card.... Oh the choices!
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