CHAOS IS ME

So if I need to tell you about Minor Threat and D.C Hardcore and Rites Of Spring and Embrace and "Emocore" and Fugazi and how that's where Emo comes from then you're reading the wrong blog, frankly. There's so much writing about this that I'm not even going to paraphrase it. Go wiki Emo or something.

But just as contentious and misunderstood is Screamo.
This kicked off in the early 90's, and was chaotic and intense, like D.C Hardcore had been, but new and more expressive. More emotional and less tough-guy. And faster. It wasnt too far removed from Powerviolence/grind at times.
I think it's best if you just check out these videos from shows to get the jist. I love watching these. I love how the kids react to it. They all look just the same as the band and everyone goes insane for a few minutes and then it's over. That doesnt happen at shows anymore.












and as a final treat, here's the Charles Bronson film.






xxxx

YOU CANT BE SAVED

Long time no post. Apologies where relevant.

Want some news? How about a new Future Of The Left LP soon? Good enough for ya? FOTL is, for anyone who doesnt know, the new band from Mclusky's Andy Falkous and Jack Egglestone and Jarcrew's Kelson Mathias. Mclusky were the best band you knew nothing about at the time, and I will always feel smug that I saw them a bunch of times before they split.
FOTL put out first album "Curses" in 07, and now they are back back back.
Viddy this from Andy himself -

"the album, she is finished, and will be released on the 22nd June in the UK/Europe and (as far as I'm aware) June 23rd in the rest of the world. Entitled 'travels with myself and another'. it is 33 minutes long and, to use the vernacular, it's fucking skill.
she dances as follows -1. arming eritrea 2. chin music 3. the hope that house built 4. throwing bricks at trains 5. i am civil service 6. land of my formers 7. you need satan more than he needs you 8. that damned fly 9. stand by your manatee 10. yin / post-yin 11. drink nike
12. lapsed catholics"

So yeah. I'm on that.
Video of the new single via youtube, ->



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Also the new record by PRE is out soon. It's called "Hope Freaks", Albini's done the recording, the band reckon it's better than the first one, and I'm excited about it.

This song isnt going to be on it, but watch this anyway ->



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Recently I've been listening to Arab On Radar a bit. They are really good, it just takes a while to get what's going on. I like the way Eric Paul's lyrics are all about some weird psychosexual stuff, and the way he sings them in a slightly disturbing way. It's kind of similar to the way Bobby Swope used to sing for Beirut Slump, although I dont know if that's intentional or anything. The guitars are kind of Captain Beefheart-esque at times, generally very high pitched and screeching. It's a sound that no doubt birthed AIDS Wolf, although they have now taken it to new realms, so AOR can be seen as more accessible. The drums, for example, stay in 4/4 for the most part, which anchors the songs down to a groove. This approach is taken a step further in The Chinese Stars, a new band featuring ex-AOR members, fusing that sound to more danceable grooves while still retaining the guitar abuse and moaning weirdness.

ARAB ON RADAR - GOD IS DAD



I've only heard one of their records all the way through, it's called Rough Day At The Orifice and I think it's great, despite slightly tinny production. It's really hard to find their records anywhere, especially in the real world. They have a DVD called Sunshine For Shady People out on threeoneg, but I cant find that anywhere either. The good news is you can download a few songs for free from the Skingraft Records website.

That's all for now. Maybe more later.
xxx

GIVE ME SOME OF THAT NATURE SHIT.

Moving on from the hardcore slant of the last post, I'm back on the noise. Haven't been exploring as much music as usual for various tedious reasons pertaining to my actual life, but there are a few things I can rope together by this point.

I've been to a few shows and I'll tell you about them.

Last night I went to see ZOMES, BILGE PUMP and KOGUMAZA crank one out at the Packhorse.
Kogumaza played droney, sometimes mathy, heavy jams backed with real minimal drums, best described at Velvets-esque. The guitarists have played in Glenn Branca's Orchestra (like Sonic Youth's guitarists were many moons ago) and you can hear some of that, in the open tunings and volume pedal control on display. Sometimes they hit some pretty nice Codiene kinda stuff, other times it was more bluesy and fuzzed out. They weren't enormously loud though, people were even sat on the floor. It was definately head music.

Things got less chilled out for a second as Leeds mathy spazz rock legends Bilge Pump played a turn. It's really hard to sum these guys up. They've been around for like 15 years or something, have two records out, and sound like...Primus meets Mclusky with jazzy bits and tech skills? Something like that. They whipped out a few old classics like "Observe These Crazy Arms" too.
They are pretty much the most legitimate band in Leeds, certainly in the LS6 noise rock scene.

Zomes took forever to start their set. Their equipment consisted of three Casio keyboards, a homemade effects box, and a little drum machine. One of the members used to be in Dischord signings Lungfish back in the day. But this isnt any angular post-hardcore. This is strictly drone. Bits of it sound like music from Zelda on the SNES, but if you were on Ketamine or something. It's really good, I could imagine using it as background music for some far-out thinking. Probably good for meditation, I'd say.



Blog where you can hear/read about some Zomes -
http://hardcorefornerds.blogspot.com/2008/09/zomes-st.html


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Before that, I went to see Corsano/Flower Duo, Tsar, Rampant Rabbit's last Leeds show ever, and Action Beat.

Tsar is Brian from Monster Killed By Lazer doing some noise stuff with delay and tapes and stuff, it seems. There's no net presence so you'll have to take my word for it.
Rampant Rabbit are splitting up, they had two bass players and did kind of post-hardcore stuff, that in all fairness is pretty common here. Nothing amazing about them really.
Action Beat were more interesting. It's like Glenn Branca/Sonic Youth massed guitar stuff, I think they have 4 guitarists, but strapped on to a body of rock power. They also had 3 drummers and a sax player. No vocals, just riffs.
The guys from Corsano/Flower Duo can play. They have played in Bjork's band, supported Sonic Youth, been in Vibracathedral Orchestra and know their improv. One guy plays tumbling jazz drums while the other plays a weird stringed instrument on an ironing board. It's really dreamlike, soporific.
www.myspace.com/chriscorsano
www.myspace.com/flowercorsanoduo


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FEATURED RECORD - Cay - Nature Creates Freaks. Cay were an English band from various parts of Europe, I believe. This is their only album. They dont have an official website. I have no idea what the members are doing now. They are a forgotten gem.
I came to hear of Cay beause they were friends with My Vitriol (another very elusive band, although they are still active and occasionally put out bits of new material) and played some shows with them. It would be easy to say that Cay were Hole to MV's Nirvana, but it's not quite like that.
For a start, the production on this, in my opinion, sucks. Vocals too loud, rest of the band too quiet, far too polished. This band wanted to sound raw and fucked up. If they could have afforded Albini you'd all know much more about this disc.
But the songs are interesting. Lots of them revolve around strange chords and weird melodies, twisted in with the grunge dynamics. Vocally, Anet Mook is more Kim Gordon than Courtney Love, and since her voice is mixed so high, you can't ignore it.
There's something nice about a record like this, a failed attempt at something great that's now totally secret. I've never met anyone who likes this band. But for some nostaligic early 00's rainy day grunge rock, this is perfect. As a teenage Nirvana freak, this little pocket of music takes me back to when I started reading rock magazines and hearing new bands. The sound of indie in Britain has changed a lot since then. The Alternative Rock influence of the 90's has been washed out with more retro. Bands now do "all sound the same", and a lot of bands then sounded much the same, but the sound itself was different. There's a line through Placebo, JJ72, My Vitriol, Cay, early Muse, some Manics, and even Suede, that was a fairly mainstream sound at the time, bands and producers alike tried to emulate American bands and records of the 90's, and technology was changing. It was, in my opinion, so much more interesting sonically than what the status quo of indie pop stands at today. Pop music started to get really weird for a moment there.

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SPECTRA-SONIC SOUND

RECENT RINSINGS -

Featured LP : -


Nation Of Ulysses - 13 Point Program To Destroy America (Dischord Records)

I'm shocked that NOU aren't seen in the same high regard as other Dischord acts. I mean Minor Threat are the biggest sellers, no doubt closely followed by Fugazi, Rites Of Spring is some really seminal work. Things like Void and Dag Nasty get mentioned too. In recent years Q And Not U made things exciting for them again. But no-one really talks about Ulysses.

Maybe it's because they were the least "tough guy" of all, which is a huge cliche dished out regarding hardcore, but even compared to Rites Of Spring's pioneering emocore, the focus here isn't on brutality, and it benefits from that.
Instead, NOU were interested in a millitant kind of punk rock. One that celebrated sensitivity, youth, rebellion and excitement. They wrote propaganda that was involving and humourous and intellectual and accessable at the same time.
Their ideas were jacked by a bunch of bands, although most of those bands are good too. Notable are Refused, Ikara Colt and Huggy Bear.
So what does it sound like? Well, singer Ian Svenonius has perhaps a more "post-hardcore" slant to his voice, and a little bit of a soul music preacher man thing too, which of course is excellent.
The band play fairly straightforward DC Hardcore, but more melodic than most and often jazz and soul infused. Ian even lays down some trumpet skronk at one point.
The lyrics are what makes stuff like this, and they are all kid-centric slogan fueled missives to sing along to. There's really nothing not to like, if you really believe in punk rock more than just liking it from afar, then buy this record. If you don't know by now, releases on Dischord are pretty easy to find (especially online) and always cheap, due to their strict pricing policy. In England, LP's retail exclusively under ten pounds in shops (unless they're trying to rip you). There's no excuse not to hear some of the best American Hardcore punk, because most of it's on Dischord.

(Update! - you can download a load of NOU's zines, Ulysses Speaks, from this blog right here. )
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Featured Band - IRON LUNG





As promised I'm writing a bit more about Power Violence, keeping with the Hardcore theme of this post, and so I'm going to talk a bit about Iron Lung. I dont know that much about them so I'll just talk about the music. I borrowed their CD "Cold Storage" off a friend the other day, having soaked up a fair dose of Man Is The Bastard I figured I was ready.
To some extent I was wrong. That's probably my favourite thing about these bands, is that they all have very seperate identities depite sharing similar aesthetics.
Whereas MITB go for sociopolitical themes or just straight rage, Iron Lung deal in really macabre imagery as suggested by the name, medical conditions and surgical proceedures are clearly a fascination of theirs. But this isn't some gore-grind blood spattered stuff. It takes the old "human condition" thing to it's logical conclusion. It's pretty dark, but I highly recommend.

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Vile Vile Creatures

We are trying to put on Leeds shows with Real Feal and Vile Vile Creatures in the near future. I urge you to listen to both of these bands while they are still fresh. RF do a kind of spazz grunge noise rock thing with maybe a bit of Mclusky in the mix. VVC play uptight riot grrl jitters which nods to Erase Errata. Both of them rule hard.


Real Feal


Also a quick note to say I've enabled comments even if you dont have a Blogger account or anything. Please dont hesitate to use this function, as I have no followers and I'd like to know what anyone reading thinks and stuff.

That's all for now.

CASUAL T

What have I been listening to? Well let me tell you.



The Mars LP - MARS
(1977-1978)

So Mars were probably the first no wave band. Also the most extreme of the first wave in my opinion. This CD has just been reissued with all of their recordings in chronology. It lasts about 30 minutes, and it will probably be expensive (I dunno about you guys who buy records online, but I paid a crapload for it from an indie shop) but it's so essential to understanding that sound. The band said they were on a "countdown from ten to one" and that's more perfect than anything I could come up with. The first song "3E", is relatively standard. It cruises along like a Velvets song, with manic vocals which will probably remind you of Talking Heads or Devo or someone like that. It's still has a figety bridge section between verses that swerves into the kind of atonality the Fall made their own, and the guitar sound slashes through the whole song, not a ringing, sustaining powerchord but a brash, harsh clanging sound of two people violently attacking guitars with no regard for convention. It's also got the most lyrics of any of their songs by far.

With that out of the way, the B-side to that, "11,000 Volts" was the start of the real abstraction process. This one's fronted by China Burg, who sings in a kind of sexy slur, stretching the words like she's od'ing or just come out of a coma or something. It's hypnotic. This contrasts with Sumner Crane's style, who strangles and chokes on the words. He actually becomes slightly scary by the end of the record. He's dead now and that's a shame, because he was clearly an awesome front man to the few who witnessed Mars' 30 or so shows.

From here, description becomes much more difficult. Guitars never play what you might call a riff. Instead, China abuses the strings with a metal slide without fail, Sumner does his best to render his guitar unintelligable.
Unintelligible is the perfect word for what Mars were trying to acheive. It even shows up in the lyric book at one point. The instruments try to sound unlike themselves. The resulting sound can't be unscrambled easily. It's hard to tell a bass from a drum from a guitar from a voice.
Next up is the 4 tracks they did with Brian Eno for the famous NO NEW YORK LP.
2 tracks fronted by each singer, although this collection sees more overlap between the two. "Helen Forsdale" is an attempt to recreate insect sounds on slide guitar, over one of Mark Cunningham's straighter bass lines. "Hair Waves" is about a japanese woman listening to the radio. They finish up with "Puerto Rican Ghost", which might be their best song. China's anxious shouting interjected with male voices babbling word play and jumbled letters. It brews to boiling point and then stops dead. It actually sounds like they are having fun playing it though.



What follows used to be called the Mars EP, and was not only the final recording, but the last ever time they played as Mars. (although the members did play together in other projects afterwards)
Recorded in binaural - ie two microphones placed 7 inches apart and at head height to replicate human hearing - and live to tape in an old theatre, these songs are where they obliterate rock once and for all. They arent catchy in any way, often pretty terrifying. "Scorn" is probably the best example of this, where Sumner can be heard rambling inaudible words transcribed from a homeless man, before growling the song's title a few times.
Most of these songs completely forego lyrics for 'abstract vocalizations'. They are teasing music out into a tangle, smudging and blurring and stretching it way out of toe-tapping head-nodding safety. On the final track, they kill it. "The Immediate Stages Of The Erotic" is the furthest they could go. Noise is created with what sounds like the end of a guitar lead being pulled from the jack. Sumner goes mental as usual. Mark Cunningham cuts in with "ancient egyptian consonants" (seriously). Eventually they bring it to a teeming maelstrom and then call it quits for ever.

The whole thing's mind blowing for a few reasons. First, this was 77-78. Nothing like this had come before, it was before noise music as we know it today, before extreme metal, hardcore punk, all of that. They were contemporary to the Ramones, for example. Played the same clubs as them. But were lightyears ahead.
Also, this is devastatingly human music. It's abrasive and agressive, but not in the "I'm a massive demon" way that metal goes for, or even a "fuck you, I'm my own person" punk rock stance. It's unpretentious because it has the same effect no matter what you already know about music. No pretense, it WILL freak you out a bit.

No Wave was about saying "No", just to different things for different bands. Mars said no to all conventions. When people say things like "I wanna be in a band but I can't play well enough yet" I cant help think it's lame because of these bands, how they didnt care anyway, they just did it. Ideas are the currency, not the precision and familiarity of the execution.


(Last minute addition - If you buy this reoord, buy the BLUE one. There is a brown one which contains the same music at a lesser quality. They got the guy out of Foetus to fiddle with it and all sorts. Get this one instead, as it was intended to be heard.)
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Also I quickly want to talk about Power Violence. I'll write more about it in the future but it seems all the good hardcore bands are playing it these days. Power Violence is like grindcore but more punk influenced and less metal, basically. Some names to check off the top of my head include Infest, Man Is The Bastard, Crossed Out, Iron Lung and Capitalist Casualties.
Nowadays, Leeds is holding strong with this sound, we have Warboys (more on them soon), Afternoon Gentlemen (who are a bit more grind/doom influenced), Mob Rules (getting a lot of coverage lately) and to a lesser extent War All The Time, to name just some.



But I'm most excited about the discovery of Keep Screaming Records
http://www.keepscreamingrecords.co.uk/

who put out all sorts of goodness in this vein and even take cash through the mail! That's so rare these days.

I'm ordering the new Spoonful Of Vicodin 7", who are from Rochester, USA. They play short blasts of awesome, they have a girl guitarist (we need more of these in punk rock) and a screaming drummer. They also won my heart with the best song title I've heard this year - "I Dont Lift Weights Or Drive An SUV (Because I'm Comfy With My Genitalia)"




Ok I'm done.

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SOME A DEM A ASK ME WHERE ME GET IT FROM

This is the newwws.

New blog to check out if you like weird music, written by loads of cool guys like Chloe, Alex and Myles out of AIDS Wolf, Mark Mclean, George Chen of XBXRX etc...
Have a deek at this

Thee Outernet

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Lux Interior of the Cramps has died. They were one of those bands that was actually really original and pioneering but really misunderstood. I mean, they were really dark and a bit scary, they took rock conventions and twisted them into a whole new universe. They pre-empted the No Wave aesthetic and were an influence on it, but they were always outside of every scene. RIP, Lux.

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Finally, scope out this band, Breadcat. The plan is for Etai to do a split tape with them when we get recorded properly. They scratch out frantic Candian Now Wave like the good bits of Be Your Own Pet dosed up on Skingraft Records, ie, amazing.

Commotion In The Ocean Collective myspace

You can hear them there, and download an EP for free if you do some clicking.

And that's word.
xxx

PHOBIAS

More news for yous.

Londoners GET CRUCIAL myspace have reformed after a hiatus, claiming "we don't hate each other anymore".
This good news. They had a 7" out a while ago called Planes which was really cool.
But look at this, their second single before the split, Charms. Thanks youtube.



So yeah, they split but now they havent and word has it they have a new member. Awesome.

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AIDS Wolf (again) members Chloe and Yannick have formed a band with Mark Mclean.(formerly of The Sick Lipstick. They were amazing too if you can track them down.)
The band is called CYM and you can here them on their myspace In lovely lo-fi.

(edit - apologies to Mark Mclean, who I kept reffering to as UK children's TV presenter turned irritating morning DJ Mike Mclean in some weird subliminal snafu. This error has now been corrected.)
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PRE have done their new record with Steve Albini. Jealous.

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Kong session tracks/probably some interview stuff on Radio 1 after midnight on Monday 2nd Feb. You do have to put up with Daniel P Carter/lots of terrible metalcore though so be warned.

(edit - another fuck up, for some reason they scheduled a Metallica special instead. More news as I drink it in.)
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ARISE, SIR NEWS

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

you don't even know your own face

EYES AND EARS


KONG myspace

I went to see KONG for the second time last friday at the Brudenell Social Club. I find it really hard to describe them to anyone. The best I can come up with is "like Shellac but a LOT darker", but even still that's not quite right. Their records are angular and a bit scary and heavy on the riff, but the live show is just so creepy and amazing, it's the best introduction. I love it and idiots instantly dont get it.. I also hear you can download one of their tunes via http://www.conversemusic.com/ , but that's your descision.

Edit - I found the video I wanted to show you.


Scope on that.
xxx

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO NO.

This is HYPNOWAVE.
The music covered here will be from the unsung heroes of hip no wave, noise rock, broken hardcore and any other interesting noises.

I make no money from this. I do it because not enough people have heard these bands, and I think they are the future. Dont sue me, it's not worth your while.

Sorry this blog was previously so shit. I'm making more effort now.

With that out of the way, BANDS.





AN EXPERIMENT ON A BIRD IN THE AIR PUMP myspace

Three London goth girls swapping vocals, fuzz-bass and tribal drums to stir up some tense bad-trip lady punk. They have a new single, Lights Out, which is one minute eight seconds of exciting.

Lights Out MP3

They also write a blog, available right here.




AIDS WOLF myspace

Third reprise.
AIDS Wolf is music to listen to on your own, it's alienating bedroom noise. But it's everything punk rock should be. Fuck Gallows, this is real hardcore. I had a little conversation with Chloe, and she's really nice. Get the Lovvers LP first, then ease yourself into their new slice, Cities Of Glass.
I can't reccomend them for everyone, but if you like this then I like you. I want to be Chloe Lum. She's awesome. Also, they have awesome artwork, courtesy of their own screenprinting business, Seripop. I fucking love this band.

We Multiply MP3
AIDS Wolf's blog



PRE myspace


Speaking of which, Skingraft are my new favourite record label. This band are new and from London and have put out some records with them. I could vaguely compare their sound to Melt Banana, but that's mainly to do with singer Exeedingly Good Keex, and the fact that they rock out in a noisy way. I also know they have two bass players, and that they contain members of bands like Seafood and Comanechi. I wish my band was on Skingraft :(

Drool MP3





DEATH SENTENCE PANDA myspace

I've been talking about this band since I saw them by accident at the Cardigan Arms a few years ago. They play rhythm-heavy no wave hardcore with no guitars at all. Instead they use pitchshifted clarinet, sax, flute, glockenspiels, pounding punk drums and Kim West's urgent scream. But sometimes it's really pretty too. I recommend their Insects Awaken album to everyone I meet. It's equivalent to the last Les Savy Fav LP in terms of consistant quality. It's that good. Get on it. God bless you, pandas.

A+ Cannibal mp3
Exit Villager mp3




INFANTS myspace

The final band I give you is Infants. They hail from Tokyo, Oslo and the UK, and they make spazzy no rave with noise guitars, effects pedals, synths, crazy drums and lots of shouting. Apparently they have an album coming out one of these days. They also play in Gum Takes Tooth, Real Feal, Cuntray, DJ Spudboy,and Agaskodo Televerik. No mp3 from them because they have eff all released, but you can buy their 7" Friend Paste, and scope four tunes on their myspace.


(Sorry if I jacked your photos, I will credit you/remove them if you like.)