Garage Freakout!
The third in our exciting series of podcasts is a garage special featuring a cornucopia of stripped-down sounds liable to cause an outbreak of rug-cutting and lindy-hopping in even the most sedate of drawing rooms. Recorded before a disgruntled goat, Deke Weintraub spins some essentail wax, both new and old!
Check out the mayhem by clicking HERE
Our two earlier podcasts are still out there polluting the ether and those particular palaces of excess can be accessed by clicking on the linkage below:
Whatevercore
Circa 2012, hardcore comes in many different varieties. These nuances are nigh on impossible to quantify with any degree of absolute accuracy, or with anything other than relative authority. Maybe that’s half the fun. Of the current crop du jour, the UK seemingly leads the field, for once (hurrah!). Having lived with the ‘Stab Nation Rising’ EP for the last few months, the sense that the bar has been raised, or that the baton has been grasped, has grown in resonance with every subsequent genre pool swimmer. The following Top Five ‘Whatevercore’ round-up of acquisitions amassed over the past few weeks duly reflects this observation (in meritocratic order):
1. NO – S/T 12″ (Static Shock Records)
London’s NO deliver eight slices of apoplectic, ruthless UKHC, not entirely dissimilar in texture to that of current touring partners, Stab. These miscreants have previous, too, having put in time at the coalface with Shitty Limits, Satellites Of Love, and Tremors. NO’s sound may have its antecedents planted firmly in the rage-strewn miasma of 80’s Mid-Western USHC, but the band transport said inspiration deftly by Tardis all the way to 2012, rendering it vitally contemporary in the process. This is stupendous stuff: fierce, ferocious, forceful and duly destined for future retrospective reverence. 400 copies on black vinyl, 100 copies on grey.
2. Creem – ‘S/T’ 12” (Katorga Works/Deranged Records)
Hot on the heels of a natty demo and a subsequent corking debut seven-inch, NYHC motherfuckers Creem drop their debut seven track 12”, and spectacularly fail to disappoint in the process. Channelling the ghosts of Blitz and No Future Records through a Boston HC mixing desk like psychic mediums, Creem bring a thuggish accessibility to the Whatevercore party: a party seven? Considering the strength of their previously aired material, the six originals here mark a quantum leap in terms of both fidelity and dexterity:
“I ain’t got no future, so what the fuck/I’m a born loser, I never had no luck” (‘What The Fuck’)
An essential split release from Katorga Works/Deranged Records.
3. Stripmines – ‘Crimes Of Dispassion’ (Sorry State Records)
Those of you with a penchant for fucked off, crust inflected HC with a Negative Approach jones will doubtless piss your pants for Raleigh, NC’s Stripmines. ‘Crimes Of Dispassion’ might make little sense as a title, but it sure makes a hell of a lot of sense as a rekkid. Stripmines may be lying in disarray on the rehearsal room floor right now following the departure of vocalist Matt Lavallee, but this LP is good enough and big enough to look after itself. Here’s the rub: if the band don’t find a replacement, ‘Crimes Of Dispassion’ will gain instant recognition as a genre classic. If they do, however, and tour later this year, they won’t match the intensity of this recording. It’s that rugged. When played back-to-back with every other rekkid in this pile, ‘Crimes Of Dispassion’ is noticeably ‘one louder’. It sounds like it’s had a bit of money thrown at it. It sounds like the kind of HC rekkid Southern Lord would give their dry ice machine to release. The guitars, the breakdowns, the melodic expansion of the bass runs, the inventive precision of the drumming, the fuck-you intensity of the vocals, the eclectic approach to song writing, this rekkid shreds on just about every level. Stripmines have been refining this sound since 2009, and any relevant criticisms of their ‘Sympathy Rations’ EP have been effectively ironed out on ‘Crimes Of Dispassion’. If you’re off out to occupy anywhere today, or are considering protesting against animal testing before meeting your crew down at Starbucks later, Stripmines are surely the soundtrack for your angst.
4. Bi-Marks – ‘The Golden Years’ (Mata La Musica)
Portland, Oregon’s Bi-Marks have an illustrious past, and an exciting future. Populated by members of Nerveskade, Bog People, Frenzy, Pale Horse, Funeral Parade, and Death Machine, Bi-Marks have been waiting since their inception in 2008 to finally get around to dropping what is, in many senses, a truly remarkable collection of HC jams. Dripping shades of all stripes of punk rock into pools of 70s doom rock, Bi-Marks peddle melody and revelry in equal measure. Eighteen cuts of constantly engaging, thoroughly entertaining HC punk rock that pits memories as distant as the Dead Kennedys against a sound that’s decidedly now! The artwork utilizes Rudimentary Peni inspired Blinko-esque graphics that are decidedly out of kilter with Bi-Marks’ sound, but even that anomaly fails to detract. ‘The Golden Years’ is an incendiary record that surpasses anything and everything its members have created elsewhere.
Bi-Marks on the Ruido Y Asco blog
5. Joint D – ‘Strike Gently’ (Sorry State Records)
Nick Goode’s resume includes Logic Problem and Brain F . . . and now, following a ‘cease and desist’ letter (contained) from a bunch of rap-metal clowns unwilling to give up the moniker Joint Damage, Joint D. As is often the case in these scenarios, there’s an uncanny sense of poetic symmetry in the way Joint D compliments Brain F, in terms of the nominal, the titular, the sonic and the graphic. The artwork to ‘Strike Gently’ duly echoes that of ‘Sleep Rough’ in its use of a no-logo art shot that belies the contents contained therein. This is either a neat trick in the self-referential department, or a cloying attempt to manufacture connectivity, depending on your attendant levels of cynicism. The hype surrounding ‘Strike Gently’ repeatedly cites The Wipers. Invariably, bands who wished they sounded like The Wipers instruct their pluggers to say stuff like this. As usual, Joint D don’t sound like The Wipers. Joint D sound like Brain F, but with a male singer. Elise even crops up here and there to sugar coat the spangles, most notably on ‘(I’m) Haunted’. If you like Brain F, you’ll like Joint D. It really is that simple. Unsurprisingly, Nick’s pedal-to-the-treble guitars dominate proceedings. The production is frustratingly lo-fi, with clarity being sacrificed for ambiguity for much of the rekkid. With ‘Sleep Rough’, I felt that was deliberate, with ‘Strike Gently’, I’m no longer so sure. Whether Joint D can truly claim to be HC or not is a moot point. To these ears, much like Brain F, they sound deliciously ‘pop’.
Short, Sharp Shock!
The second in our series of chats with the UK’s finest contemporary independent labels, trakMARX is pleased to present the thoughts of Tom Ellis, proprietor of Static Shock Records, home to Brain F, NO, and Deaf Mutations, to name but three. Operating out of London, Static Shock forms a triumvirate of essentiality, standing shoulder to shoulder with Quality Control HQ and La Vida Es Un Mus against the hegemonic rule of HMVAMOZONPLAY.com PLC. As well as his sterling label work, Tom also runs a distro, punting likeminded DIY artefacts from the punk & hardcore underground in various mediums: vinyl, cassette, paper fanzine and live performance.
trakMARX: Static Shock established a beach head with The Dangerloves’ ‘Young Pretender’ (2008), can you talk us though the birthing experience, in terms of inspiration, models, objectives and outcomes?
TE: Static Shock started up in early 2008. I had put out a few releases on a label before that, but I wasn’t totally happy with a couple of the releases and how they came out, and decided to have a clean break and start afresh. I wanted to do stuff of a generally higher quality and have a catalogue of releases that I could look back on five or ten years down the line and not cringe at. So far, I think that’s pretty much worked out, give or take the odd mishap. As for inspiration, I’m not sure if it inspired me directly, but at the time, I was definitely super into and ordering every release as they came out from labels such as Fashionable Idiots, La Vida Es Un Mus, No Way, Sorry State, etc.
Brain F were still relatively unheard of when you elected to release ‘Restraining Order’, how did that release evolve, and did you expect it would result in the solid long-player that is Static Shock’s debut LP rekkid release, ‘Sleep Rough’?
I already knew Nick from the band from when my old band toured across the UK and America with his other band, Logic Problem, and we always got on really well. I was actually a bit of a latecomer to the demo, and got played it by a couple of friends, but it grew on me really quickly, and I ended up offering to do their first single. Just as it was coming out, they got picked up by Grave Mistake, and they started getting way more attention. When I found out they were recording an album, I offered to put it out over here, and thankfully they were totally into the idea. I love the album and am definitely stoked that they let me be a part of it.
The Deaf Mutations 45 ended 2011 firmly in the higher reaches of the best of the year’s vinyl releases – we know the band comprises members of Fucked Up and Career Suicide, can you tell us anymore about the band, and do they plan to issue further material through Static Shock?
The Deaf Mutations record is definitely one of my favourites! The band was pretty much just Dave from Career Suicide’s studio project that was recorded by Jonah in 2008, with him also playing guitar. The recording was released as a demo that never really made it out of Toronto, minus a few blog postings, etc. I was chatting to Dave one night when I was over there and he asked if I’d be into putting it out in the future, and I jumped all over it. It was originally going to be a new single, but he was unhappy with the recording, so we decided to just do the original recording instead. Fast forward two years later, and the artwork was finally finished, and it came out! There’s no plans for future releases, and although it could be great, I kinda like the idea of one killer single, and then that’s it.
The global DIY punk underground is a bugger to monitor, in terms of reliable resources , what fanzines, blogs or websites do you check on a regular basis?
I still read MRR every month, and keep an eye on sites like Collective Zine, Terminal Boredom and Viva La Vinyl on my lunch breaks at work. I try not to miss any issues of Distort, Modern Hate Vibe, Ratcharge, Accept The Darkness, Counterfeit Garbage and Limited Readership, either.
With vibrant contemporary DIY punk & hardcore scenes seemingly flourishing in countries such as Spain, Italy, Denmark, Japan & Australia – how do you view responses from the UK and US, by comparison?
The UK is definitely doing good at the moment, and appears to be going through one of its more solid periods currently. Recent releases by bands like The Lowest Form, Stab, No, Endless Grinning Skulls, The Love Triangle, The Sceptres, Tortura, Mob Rules, Satellites Of Love, Woolf, Perspex Flesh, etc, have all been very good, not to mention some great ‘zines and labels. Local gigs have been the best they’ve been in a while recently, too. I can’t speak for the USA, except from an outsider’s perspective.
Which other labels do Static Shock regard as like-minded comrades, both here in the UK, and on a global perspective?
Without a doubt, La Vida Es Un Mus, Dire and Quality Control over here. All are run by good friends, and I’m definitely inspired by what they do, and love pretty much everything they’ve been involved with. On an international basis, there are many, but most of all Sorry State Records is a constant. There’s a ton of labels I personally admire worldwide, for various reasons, whether it be Looney Tunes or Numero. Any label that treats bands properly, puts pride into their releases, and sells records at reasonable prices without fucking anyone over is worth celebrating.
Do you acknowledge/recognize any inter-connectivity between socio-political imperatives and DIY punk and hardcore, presently?
I think that there will always be a percentage who would never separate the two, as they are so intertwined, and a percentage who couldn’t care less. I definitely feel that people are getting more apathetic these days, but whatever.
In an age dominated by uber-capitalist-neo-liberal principle, what do you see as punk rock’s job description, circa 2012?
Do It Yourself, and do it properly. Help others when you can, don’t fuck people over, don’t act like a cock. That’s pretty much what punk rock means to me and what it should be in my eyes.
If you could chose one rekkid, by one band, from any juncture during punk rock’s evolution, as a Static Shock’s fantasy release , who are that band, and what is that rekkid?
One record? Seriously, that’s too difficult! Okay, as much as I’d love to have put out, say, The Fix’s ‘Vengeance’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lVjvxCghSk, or Television Personalities’ ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now?’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N16MkBZPW90, or something, I think I’m going to have to go for J Church’s ‘Arbor Vitae’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BePK94glgGc: My favourite band of all time, and probably the most constant record for me, personally, over the last fifteen years or so years since I first heard it.
What can we expect from Static Shock in 2012?
At the time of writing, I’m currently preparing to release 7″s by Violent Reaction and Sauna Youth. I’m also planning to repress the NO 12″ and Urban Blight’s ‘Total War’ 7″ in the next few weeks. Following that, there’ll be a new NO 7″, and a couple of more things to help keep me in eternal poverty!
Flying Squad
Dr Feelgood – ‘All Through The City’ (EMI)
1975. The idle purr of a Ford Granada engine. The smell of damp sheepskin, Players No.6, Old Spice, Watney’s Red Barrel. The static created when manmade materials mesh. Three star jumpers, four button waistbands, six-inch stack heels, the friction of five-o-clock shadow against Avon cosmetic foundation. The light from the youth club doorway floods the village hall car park. Someone’s older brother is about to fuck someone’s younger sister. I’ve still got a year or so to go.
Dr Feelgood were always an older brother’s band back in my formative years. ‘Roxette’ blaring from the youth club decks, ‘Stupidity’ posters alongside ‘Slaughter On 10th Avenue’ posters in bedrooms that smelt of stale sex and tobacco when I still smelt of Blue Stratos and Polo mints. I was familiar with the aforementioned ‘Roxette’, of course: ‘She Does It Right’, ‘All Through The City’, ‘Back In The Night’, all Hampton Magna disco staples. I was au fait with the long-playing artwork image of four Thames Delta bluesmen posing as Flying Squad thugs from my trips to Regent Records, but I was never going to trade in my copy of ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ for ‘Down By The Jetty’ or ‘Malpractice’. A couple of years later, punk rock happened, and I did take all my Led Zep, Sabbath, Purple, Rainbow, Quo and Queen LPs down to Renton’s Records in Leamington Spa, and traded the lot for ‘Damned Damned Damned’, ‘Rattus Norvegicus’, and the ‘New Wave’ compilation on Sire Records. Dr Feelgood knew something was in the air, they just left the jetty 18-months before the boat docked.
Those older brothers, the ones that formed the first wave of punk rock, they’d been down the front taking sweat-drenched notes whilst the Feelgoods took the capital by force as the mid-seventies ticked down to year zero. John Lydon stole safety pins and sartorial guidance from Ian Dury to go with the bits Malcolm stole from Richard Hell and brought home from New York. Joe Strummer stole Wilko Johnson’s manic energy, the thousand-yard-stare, the twitch, the Fender. Despite the R&B under-carriage on which the Feelgoods rolled, Wilko’s guitar sound would light a thousand touch papers to influence what came after punk in ways he could never have imagined circa then.
Having waited way too long before sitting down to watch Julian Temple’s ‘Oil City Confidential’, the arrival of ‘All Through The City’ is timely, to say the least. The movie itself I found intensely moving, it made me realise that Dr Feelgood were far deeper ingrained in my pre-punk subconscious than I’d ever given them credit for. The sight of Wilko and Lee in full flight on stage was a revelation in reverse. I have spent the majority of my life running in the opposite direction to rock’n’roll, now it’s caught up with me, and bitten me on the arse!
‘All Through The City’ is all the Dr Feelgood you’re ever going to need. It covers the Wilko years, from 1974-77, boasting all four long players, non-album singles, thirteen unreleased studio takes, three unreleased live takes, and twenty-two TV and live concert appearances. Standards, classics, and interpretations galore, but it’s the Wilko originals that cut to the bone. The man was a cosmic foil to Lee Brilleaux’s Dennis Waterman, an acid-fried toker in a den of thieves. Don’t listen to those that tell you they were a one-trick pony, there’s more to Dr Feelgood than meets the ear. All the young punks, laugh your life, ‘cos there ain’t much to cry for!
Complete Aural Turmoil
Mauser – Isolation (La Vida Es Un Mus)
Straight out of Gainsville, Florida, Mauser spray raw hardcore punk from the hip. I was so impressed with their debut EP, ‘End Of the Line’ (Vinyl Rites), that I even bought the red vinyl second pressing. That either tells you how good I think Mauser are, or how sad you think I am. Either way, the band are big in Japan right now, where they’ve just toured with D-Clone & Folkeiis under the “Complete Aural Turmoil” banner.
Fresh from dropping ‘Silence’ and ‘The Storm’ for the titular split tour EP (Hardcore Survives), Mauser return to the fray with this, their debut 12-inch for La Vida Es Un Mus (Vinyl Rites in the US). Pressed on lurid green vinyl, ‘Isolation’ ups both the tempo and the quality. These seven rippers are rawer than Lee Woods’ business acumen, and twice as vicious. The production here is an exponential improvement on the aforementioned ‘End Of The Line’, proffering both clarity and volume, without sacrificing any of the band’s essential harshness. There are a bunch of raw punk bands across the hardcore globe vying for your punk rock dollar right now, but Mauser are ahead of the pack by some considerable distance.
Order ‘Isolation’ from Vinyl Rites
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