I have pretty much ceased writing for MRR in the columns dept, this is partially bc of a brutal case of writer's block I am currently afflicted with (tho I still review records every month so if you are totally desperate to read my sordid opinions you can read them in black and white newsprint...) I am thinking about turning some of the older columns into a zine/book, not sure if I will, but am actually working on a fanzine too... with interviews!
This is a list I made last month of my mid year JAM REPORT/most of the things you can click on and listen/I was gonna write reports on each release but I lost the will to live after embedding half of the stupid bandcamps etc I made this list in July, and am adding the following to it: new Life Stinks 45 on total punk,I forgot the other stuff I was going to add (see section on losing will to live).If you click on the band name most will lead to you a bandcamp/listening opportunity. other wise use your intuition
SHORT PLAY
pang-young professionals EP (perfect post eno post punk sounds, like magazine was all girls, dreamiest record of the year... great tragedy they broke up! all in new bands already tho...)
nots-fix/modern 45 (Kleenex meets the Urinals in Memphis? in short another perfect 45 followin on from the perfection of their last. Can't wait for the LP)
la misma-EP on toxic state (think this is sold out but distros probs still have it)
in school-Praxis-EP
hysterics-EP
multiple man-Body Double/Surface Roads 45
coolies-punk is bread-EP
southern comfort (tho I preferred their 45 from last year)
black lagoon-oxygen EP
video
red red krovvy
lumpy
courtneys-lost boys
wanuy
personnel
dark beach
oily boys
LONG PLAYERS
watery love
east link
vexx
low life
total control
farang
good throb
Nun
apathy-war peace
rakta (2013? but Timmy has reissued it)
flesh world (also dec 2013?)
MOB
ex cult
lowest form
brain f≠
Juanita y los feos
Priests
reissues
electric eels 45
x_x LP
dishrags LP
autistic behavior LP
amadots LP
shoes this high 45
c.o.m.a LP
stigmathe 45
simply saucer 45
shivvers LP
crisis 2xLP
remarema 45
neo punkz 45s
human error LP
mary monday 45
alerta roja LP
christian d'orbit/curtis seals 45
Xerox LP
bands i wanna hear more of:
VIAL (LA)
mansion (SF/OAK)
CCTV (Northern indiana scene is insane)
family outing (lond)
witching waves (london)
nandas (NY)
Big Zit (NI)
Sheer Mag
While (rumored new band with Christina Bilotte?!)
Spider and the Webs
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
bazooka smooth
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| Skinned Teen in the Rough Trade Records basement |
some dude wrote about us for the onion (PS that is not the band on our LP cover, our proper cover got rejected by the record label so we took a photo of a bunch of our friends hanging out in a grave yard)
someone wrote a wikipedia about it all too for some reason? how many more inane things can I put here? hmmm I am sure some other dudes have written about skinned teen? oh wait here is a thing I wrote for the BK website about skinned teen forming directly as a result of huggy bear/Bikini kill
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
I HATE ROCKNROLL RADIO
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Houston punk fan at home 1980 (photo by Ben DeSoto)
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Thursday, April 3, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
2013 rocknroll (sung to the tune of GG's 1980s rocknroll) YEAR END TOP TEN TYME
As always there were things
I listened to relentlessly that didn’t make this list because of company policy
(ie no records that were released by an indie but distributed by a major label
conglomerate or you know, music that falls outside of the Maximum Rocknroll
realm for musical reasons etc) and as always it is really hard to sum up a year
of sound using words and…
LPS
From the insane cover art to the sounds on the vinyl this is
insidious genius; scrape your eyes out blood thirsty raw punk that hasn’t left
my listening pile since I got it. Fucking sick sounds and the definition of
punk, Violetta’s voice marking the end of time in musical format. If you dug
the song she sang on the last RATAS DEL VATICANOS LP grab this ASAP!
Goofy charming CLEAN tribute record by three women who write
the most ridiculous ("You're a big big dog on a small small blanket" BEST!) yet heartfelt lyrics over music that makes me feel the same
way I do after listening to LOOK BLUE GO PURPLE’s “Cactus Cat.” Sound of the
summer, and of skating with your friends, aimless and fearless.
Their demo tape was one of the best of the decade for me, I
was nervous about the LP, because you know, recording studios and vinyl can’t
help but make things more professional and tidy… But the LP rules, sick HC by
an all female group that brings to mind the song “Explode” by VOID, a rare and
noble feat. They rule and this record demonstrates that fact.
Oakland’s only band. Protection against being the only women
on the last train home. Will make you want to start a band with the meanest and
coolest girls in town. Like LYDIA LUNCH formed a hardcore band, but is this HC?
It is the most. You know that SLITS song “So Tough?” This is the answer to that
question.
Yet another soundtrack to the end of the world: creative
destruction, brutalist realism and a response to our endtimes capitalist
degradation in musical form; doesn’t feel like a lecture, feels like an
invitation to the apocalypse.
Songs about making fanzines and mixtapes, but also about
spitting on the pope, the disdainful vocals espousing ideas we can all get
behind. UKDIY style like the best post DESPERATE BICYCLES sounds, stuck in a
stormy English seaside town making dreary yet dreamy sounds reflecting our
dreams both crushed and hopeful… This was a tape but now it’s an LP. Get it or
regret it!
Somewhere between the dirge/Xpressway that seems to have
infected all Australian music of interest as of recent times and the UKDIY
spiel of the first LP. A good place to be stuck.
Sparse reflections on a certain reality, sort of somewhere
between YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS and the RAINCOATS with some added early
EMBARRASMENT maybe? It’s got the sound of radical feminist punk of the ’70s,
smart art school girls making nervous deconstructed punk music for other
nervous girls ready to deconstruct society / punk etc.
Droning monotone yowl that sounds ideal on good headphones
when it feels like there’s no solution; like a slow motion ROYAL TRUX playing
early CHROME, downers and doubt.
POTTY MOUTH – “Hell Bent”LP (Old Flame) / CRAZY BAND – “Live From Prison” LP (Teenage Teardrops)
POTTY MOUTH combine the melancholic BRATMOBILE songs with
the force of early DINOSAUR JR, Homestead Records rather than K Records ya
know? CRAZY BAND sound like suburban car park boredom, basement bands, underage
cheap beer, in short skate for fun or not at all. Somewhere between JFA and
XRAY SPEX. I couldn’t pick between these two acts.
GUN OUTFIT / HOAX / FLOOR ABOVE / AUSMUTEANTS / SHOPPING /
RUBY PINS / SCRAPER / HARD SKIN / LAS OTRAS / LIFE STINKS / BAD NOIDS / WIRE
EP
All the ingredients for my ideal 45; KLEENEX girls with a super
slight garage lean… Really tough without being a pose, really cool without
being a put on. A tough balance to catch, but the band I am most excited to hear
more 45s from on this list… Vicious / rambunctious: NOTS has the formula down. Cyclotron-core.
My most listened to record. Another close to perfect 45 for
2013. I am not a huge proponent of the post-punk tinged darkwave / deathrock
revival that the punk hordes are creating and consuming, but this record somewhat
exists in that context, but it’s miles away from the trite revivalists. Watching
PLEASURE LEFTISTS play was transformational. Sound of industrial landscapes in
ruin, with more post-Thatcher’s Britain dissolute aftermath of punk than
deathrock, like NEW ORDER’s first 45 not CHRISTIAN DEATH. Haley is an amazing
front person, sort of IAN CURTIS frantic style in terms of visuals and vocals…
Her voice is so cool, like the woman from PYLON meets the aforementioned JOY
DIVISION vocalist, hints of chanson too, so insane and rad. I could imagine
this band playing with MALARIA! or at the Hacienda. Cleveland.
The EASTLINK 45s that came out last year were from a 2012
tape… Great trebled out synth / guitar thug punk, like a JG Ballard book in 45
form. Metal machine music. Sense of humor / sense of style and further evidence
that Australians are making the best sounds; can’t fucking wait for the LP on
In the Red this year.
Like MEKONS meets CRISIS. The guitar line is like a bullet,
wired and insurgent, the vocalist intones of public transit crowds complaining
about a Trans person’s suicide fucking up their commute; the inconvenience and
brutality of every day life / griping humanity in a perfect under three minute
punk number. Made by ex-members of bands you might have records by, and more
demonstration that London is the place right now for punkers…
Intellectual lunks, reminiscent of ancient times Cleveland /
Detroit, but from current day San Francisco. San Francisco’s only? The sound of
too much drugs / fast food / nihilistic literature / TV; clumps along like a
Quaalude and makes for the ideal 45.
Watching this band play was revelatory / incendiary.
Liberation and fuck you all in one. Like JOHN BRANNON was a woman and NO TREND
was a hardcore band from London. So sick.
This singer of this band has a similar languid vocal tone to
Justine from ELASTICA, and the music makes me think of all the bands that
formed after hearing ROXY MUSIC, mixed with UV RACE / TOTAL CONTROL and some
sorta Messthetics radness. I got so
obsessed with this I made someone send me their unreleased tracks (they broke
up! Such a bummer), and now I hear those songs are coming out on a 45 and they
are playing one more show. Seriously, so cool. Like my birthday everyday.
Savage PUSSY GALORE deconstruction from Australia, girl is
out for blood and it’s as brutal as the first BABES IN TOYLAND record but with
no grunge, just fuck you punk in a more gassed in the garage rumble with
TEENAGE JESUS or something. Sick as hell.
The best FLATMATES / SHOP ASSISTANTS / BUBBLEGUM YELL update
from a band that’s usually operating under very different color schemes. The
singer’s voice is so cool, makes me wish this band always sounded like this…
Perfect punk/pop for mod rockers, somewhere between the
GOBETWEENS and SUBWAY SECT… Brighton alleyways and Crystal Palace leylines.
Also: KANTUTA / VIDEO / MANATEES / SECTOR ZERO / CAGED
ANIMAL / MANE / BRILLIANT COLORS FLEXI / CHEMICAL PEEL / VARIX / REPLICA / LUMPY
AND THE DUMPERS
TAPES
FRAU / LAS TIMIDAS / FAMILY OUTING / TOTAL TRASH / FAILED
MUTATION / IN SCHOOL / SHIRTLESS THUGS / PRIESTS / HAG FACE / KIERNAN PARADISE
/ LA LUZ
REISSUES
KAOS - Betonska Djeca LP
DIVISION FOUR-1983 Demo Cassette-12″
BONA DRAG-LP
PETER GUTTERIDGE 2xLP
THE GRABBIES-Live-EP
EGO SUMMIT-The Room Isn’t Big Enough-LP
FOTTUTISSIMA PELLICCERIA ELSA-LP
SATAN PANONSKI-Hard Blood Shock-LP
THE KICK-LP & 45
NEOBOYS-2xLP
VENOM P STINGER-all
CORPORATE ROCKERS NOT IN THE MAGAZINE VERSION: BODY//HEAD / HIS ELECTRO BLUE VOICE/ VERONICA FALLS
/ ICEAGE / LA LUZ / BLEACHED / GOLDEN GRRRLS
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