CHIMPS 10.5/who's got the ten and a half etc etc etc does this work!?? we will see

A was for anarchy/Am I Going Insane/The Manic Ride

This month has been a fever pitch of MANIA thanks to a new prescription so I apologize to all my friends and compatriots I have pummeled with my frantic information needs and idea bombardments, my skin feels like it is coated w electrical currents and I am running relentlessly in an attempt to deal but unfortunately my reality is just a child flicking channels at 5am at the end of time right now. Anyway here are my musical manias! I have been experiencing a lot of nostalgia for my teen existence which was fun / wretched / desolate, much like the rest of my existence. I grew up in Brentford, a suburb of London that got bombed during the second world war bc of the mostly industrial landscape and when it was rebuilt the part I resided in looked like this picture

teen tape box at my mom's.

and was not populated by people that were intrigued w my various obsessions, hence the eternal "desolation" feeling. I spent my time skateboarding, mailordering zines n records and going to punk and hip hop shows and listening to tapes and records in my room imagining all the cool things that were happening in places I wasn't. I didn't use a computer until I was in college in the late 90s (actually made fun of one of my friends for having an email address like it was a nerd alert bc I was so clueless), so only communicated via tape trades etc, in real life humans few to none of whom in my area as detailed above were interested in the things that consumed me. In short it was harder to find out about things I might like and even harder to find like minded people to nerd out such things with.I am currently writing something around this for another outlet, maybe my favorite zine I have read in 100 years?! maybe the only zine in america.... demystification!




ORDER IT BC IT IS EVERYTHING YOU NEED







we continue on w what is essentially a repository of my maniac thoughts on sounds I am consumed by... or things I chanced upon. At the start of this month I started out obsessing over revolution summer, listening to my rites of spring tape that one of the dudes I worked w at rough trade recs when I was a teenager gave me. remembering the feeling of looking at the tiny photos of them in the liner notes and for some reason thinking that DC was a weird forest paradise w only perfect HC emanating. a wild and utopian world created by this sound...being the maniac psycho that I am right now I immediately WANTED MORE and started listening to all the surrounding bands that started post or during ROS (After Words/Bells Of//Rain etc) most of which don't hold a candle but I got a cool top secret for my ears only demo as a result of my mania from one o those bands and managed to trade the bl'ast discography for the RAIN 12" another perfect teenage sound from DC...
this image is from a HC flier website but it's actually from a Jigsaw zine written by the wild genius tobi vail/not a flier/put a flier in a frame/don't you know that's not my name/ rites of spring forever

After that I got consumed by the FURY 45 on THD. A perfect hardcore record! Sometimes I listened to it and wondered why HC kept going once it had reached this zenith! Wild and destructive freedom!! Sounds like it's going to explode / kill. Lyrics about vengeance and death!  For most people the first time they would have encountered this would be the random song on the second SWIZ LP, however in 1989 or whenever that record came out I was a mere child that did not know about DCHC so my encounter was via an obsession w Chris Thomson that developed also via  Rough Trade when a boy I thought was cute bought the first Circus Lupus record, such a corny reason to check out a band but I am truly glad I did. Anyway, regardless SWIZ forever, FURY forever, off the pigs and make hardcore that sounds like it's gonna kill/destroy or just don't.
(pictured: my last teenage skateboard w swiz x-girl and bikini kill allegiances outlined and also Michelle Noel's skateboard w Minor Threat/Seven Seconds/xWINDOFCHANGEx spraypainted more on that later)

This wasn't really an obsession, just a cool random discovery but...
Smoke and Mirrors by Pitchman

this early 90s DC band (incidentally made up of teenagers) would have been a TEEN OBSESSION had their tape actually come out, sort of sounding like a huggy bear/fisticuffs bluff/gravity style furtive art HC collision and featuring Chuck Bettis from Metamatics whose LP was also a teen obsession ("makes a lotta sense to kill a cop" etc etc). I looked them up bc of listening to a copy of the Rodeo Riders comp tape that Kim Thompson of cupid car club/skull kontrol etc put out in this era, which also has her band w Mike Fellows (called getwaway car) and the dreamy Star Sign Scorpio which is her and Kathi from Bikini Kill (did they make a tape?! coolest duo) and of course circus lupus covering the avengers....



After this beginning of June era (which also included a brief art monk construction/lincoln/edge-emo(the song thursday by turning point)/watermark revival) I went on a "Despite the fact I worked at Revelation in the late 90s I haven't really actually given much NYHC outside of the age of quarrel 10" and victim in pain a chance" spiral. Things that resonated w my destroyed mind: Krakdown 45!  1st rest in pieces LP! breakdown demo! Side by Side never got listened to bc I don't like YOT or GB and assumed it was more of the same, was wrong. My research confirmed the fact that the best NYHC remains the Straight Ahead 12"which thanks to the amoeba dollar bin I own a bootleg 7" copy of.
1)the age of quarrel 10" is a perfect record and I am annoyed I didn't try and buy one now everythng is three thousand dollars, got complacent listening to the MRR archive copy when I lived in the compound I guess. anyway if anyone wants to trade something so I can live my dreams and own this please email layla (dot) gibbon (at) gmail. I have been running every night to this and it is the perfect sound for my unraveling mind
2)the Our Gang sweater

3) I was trying to locate an interview I did w Dave Jones of Victim in Pain/Metal Abuse etc but maybe this is just a weird refraction of memory bc he used to call MRR a lot when I was coord?! nothing is real.
4) the child drummer from bold. one of my friends (katie) had a German pressing of the first Into Another LP that came with a press release explaining that this was a new group featuring "the child drummer from bold." between manic UNDERLORD listens we competed over which one of us was the actual child drummer. I tried to get her to send me a scan of the press release during this summerlong brain descent into the abyss but she no longer owns it! A disgrace! a true crime, I am the child drummer from bold as is documented below in this scripture from one of my teenage zines. time to listen to UNDERLORD! an anthem for bored youth seeking only riffs.

teenage fanzine CHIMPS presented as evidence by real child drummer from bold

THIS IS THE END FOR NOW more to come as a post DISSIDENT AGGRESSOR existence is unpacked and addressed. APOLOGIES FOR OVERUSE OF THE SAME THREE WORDS WHAT CAN I SAY

YOU COULD
Prison=death/free all prisoners now, irrespective of this health crisis! end carcaral justice NOW!

MOUNT RUSHMORE NO MORE BAIL FUND /LIBERATION NOW

ROCK FOR NO REASON!

how many bands are so studied, have so many well made plans that end in a most depressing and dismal result! I will now tell these bands study the WUFFY DOGS they had it figured out!
Sit! Lay down! Play dead! Rolllover! I ordered this 45 reissue from GONER RECORDS when I was grabbing my PRIMO! LP, I saw it on the main page and was intrigued, how wuffy can a girl be? well... I can't afford an original but I shall bathe only in the wuffiest of sounds from now on out.
One of the tyrannies of our current age is the feeling of watching life through a screen, things that happened things, that might happen, things that won't happen, we are all trapped in plasma waiting for a new reality that seems so wretched... well, while trapped why not watch two and a half long VHS videos transferred to youtube of kids stuck at a fest in fucking Indiana in 1987!!!! You can watch the hated if you pay attention to the commenters or you can watch the kids that set up the fest argue about things that FEEL SO VERY REAL to anyone who has ever organized anything in the context of DIY punk or alternative business structures etc etc and so on... the first five minutes of this video set me on a spiral of despair / years thrown away and for what.... WHO WILL BRING THE MARKERS ON JUDGEMENT DAY!!!!!! rock FOR NO REASON!!!!!!!! ( 1:34:00 The Hated per commenters on youtube. also did you spend the entire 90s w people whispering about the Hated Box set or Hated acoustic but somehow also managed to live thru the 90s never actively enjoying a hated song?! or just me?! ROCK FOR NO REASON!!!!!!! maybe numero will do the hated boxset and everything will make sense!)

when I worked feverishly at MRR as content coord one of the mags I put together was an all fanzine special, we had access to an insane early 80s zine archive (not MRRs tragically!) one of the zines that brought me most joy was Breakfast Without Meat, I think we only saw two issues but one had a blurred out black flag interview and the other had a response to fan outrage at the fact the interview wasn't legible with another unreadable reprint.Anyway my vague memories of Breakfast Without Meat have remained with me to this day as "what a zine should be!" made in ye olde early 80s by Gregg Turkington. My comrade Vinnie, who helped making the zine flashback zone just sent me a message re a Meat Puppets video they posted on their youtube channel, coincidentally filmed at Target Video (me and vinnie interviewed Joe from Target for the MRR film issue) so it's all connected brothers and sisters and apparently also according to Gregg's wikipedia the Meat Puppets were long time contributors to his fanzine.. anyway this video is insane, no words can explain what you are about to experience, the meat puppets are a treasure and a pleasure and it doesn't make sense but here it is watch the whole thing, breakfast without meat! I watched meat puppets play for free in golden gate park for an alarmingly huge crowd of jam band heads but they played my fave songs off II and it was also a pleasure and a treasure. If only they played the first 7" still maybe they will?!
I frequently wake up with bobby soxx "i gotta pee pee in the disco mommy" running through my brains what does it all mean? happy mothers day be free w your pee?! I also like the 90s disco remix version for when your crowd is less rustic. We are currently listening to the insane united mutation reissue that radio raheem just did. truly mutant sounds for skulls and the barely alive. Sohrab Habibion just uploaded a bunch of sick DC live shows from when he was a teenage show setter upper/VHS filmer and there are so many sick things! (one last wish! The Hated! MOSS ICON!!!!
 



I have been also enjoying the gentle sounds of evie sands, bobby gentry, Eduardo Mateo

This ends the report! 

snoopy in space

 I didn't do a year end top ten for 2019, I liked a lot of music! But living in the face of the end of the world feels impossible and writing about anything seems even worse. I am sure it's detailed in one of my many MRR columns buried in this blog but I started writing about punk when I was 13, my zine was called drop babies, called into action by going to see huggy bear every month and how they gave zines and one sheet art screeds out at every show that were wild and surreal and intoxicating. I only have a couple copies of random issues of my old zine now (but quite sure my mom has them all in the box under her bed) and I switched over to Chimps I think when I was 18 inspired by Germ of Youth fanzine by Justin Trosper, and Tobi's Jigsaw and the feeling of not seeing my ideas of what a punk could be represented in the sea of emo / sxe and grrrl zines I sent off for every month... Also because I could print hundreds of copies for free w a print scam! When I stopped writing for MRR I wanted to work on my own project, another zine? Something like that? But instead I just lost my mind at endless minimum wage retail jobs in the most expensive city of earth. at any rate I am working on a bunch of projects right now (some of my teenage band skinned teen's recordings that never made it to record are gonna be 45s-relatedly girlsperm my band w marissa and tobi has a new LP coming out this year i tink unless the world ends, but we recorded it last year) working on a collection of old writing and a new zine, so here is a top ten of things I am currently consumed by just for kicks(there are links throughout to hear things but for some reason I can't figure out how to make them a different color so they are more apparent?!)

BETTY AND KAREN-I'm Not Satisfied / Stop And Listen
Two cool teenage girls who wrote these great melancholic pop songs in the 60s, perfect dreamy slices of NYC life, the music makes me think of old school Sesame Street and the world created by the Shangri Las, you can see a gritty city movie through their lyrics, the feeling of freedom and oppression that is the dichotomy of youth! walking through town with nowhere to go and no power or money and yet the world is yours... truly joyous music and the fact they wrote it makes it more perfect to me! you can listen here: one o the girls uploaded it and talks about writing it! I picked up this 45 on a whim for not much $ but it can be expensive.



I first heard about END RESULT maybe about ten years ago when that documentary about Chicago punk of the early ’80s came out. They were easily the most exciting band in the movie, a multi-racial falling apart teenage fuck you to regimental rules-based hardcore with shades of FLIPPER and NO TREND, but made with their own ingredients. In case you want to read someone else’s contextualization of the group, here’s Albini: “END RESULT was truly a band apart… Alan tuned his guitar like a cello… END RESULT had no drummer to keep the beat, because (in Alan’s immortal words) ‘we think our audience can count.’” I immediately took it upon myself to find some recordings, and picked up their LP, Ward, which was not quite reflective of the footage from the movie that was so intoxicating to me. Chicago people kept talking about these mythical tapes from that earlier era that were going to come out, but despite my mania and constant badgering, reader—it never happened! Until now! Here they are! The 1982 tapes I have been hunkering for since 2008! A no wave band at a hardcore show isn’t shocking in 2020, but imagining a legion of Reagan Youth gazing and trying to understand the strange wonders of this mutant sound in between one-two-fuck-you bands is a quiet pleasure! I might be misremembering this, but END RESULT considered themselves a HC band, not a no wave band. What is hardcore, or no wave? And how can we change it so it makes sense at the end of the world? END RESULT has the answers and the questions; this record is a destructive/constructive demonstration of what is possible when you have an idea and are baffled by genre exercises…(get it here) (also this written by me(writing about music is true suffering and horror) on the new MRR website check it out)

I discovered this record on a youtube k-hole, it's so good, like a sorta shop assistants but before them feeling?! like girls at our best dreamscape.... um it's not very expensive either if you gotta have it.


COMET GAIN - Fireraisers Forever LP
This LP came out last year I think and I frantically ordered the limited version from an English record shop, a band my teenage band played with a lot but I didn't truly love until Rachel started singing for them... Perfect C86 mod/punk dream sounds with Subway Sect, Evie Sands and Dan Treacy feelings, nostalgia is powerful and comet gain make their own world with it, an imagined mod universe where alain delon and billy liar form an alliance against th squares...



PRIMO-Sogni LP
this hasn't arrived on US shores yet bc of the tyrannical virus but when it does I will grab one ASAP!  I loved their last record, but this one is even better. Chair's Missing reverberations! More contained Swell Mapsisms?! Four women from Australia making really cool languid but unsettling sounds grab it when you can here's a glimpse

XV - LP
this was in everyone's year end top tens but they only made twenty copies or somethin... also when you are square enough to only find out about something in a year end top ten it usually means it's a g.o.n.e.r. but then my genius friend osa just mailed it to me when I freaked out about not getting one?! truly so generous and cool! anyway this is a really cool sound, sort of like a Morton/pressler midwestern art destruction deconstruction mutation but also sort on UN siltbreeze feel, like a drawing of music, sort of wild genius nothing dreams...




Vivienne Styg 12" 
 This was a tape then a 12" on tall texan that I think is getting repressed? I am not sure if they are from the same genius scene as Chronophage but they are of a similar sensibility sort of nervous confident shambolic punks that are sorta like a SST meat puppets skree or a ukdiy art girl dream like you know they heart roky and 99 records, it has a wild desert feeling, open space sounds a pure dream for quarantine era! oh they are from houston/ chronophage are austin, anyway all mentioned live in expansive dreams

I picked up this record KING OF CULTURE in the amoeba dollar bin a few years ago bc it looked cool, it was a wild/radical nowwave/punk/funk record from early 80s NYC that I played and filed away forgetting about.... then my friend Justin was talking about this band, the stickfigures, which is sorta the best c86ish sound but from way before, just sick bedroom jangle in a cool punk swing w the raddest girl singer, and I managed to get this 45 at WMFU record swap last year, then I found out the same crew were involved in both records?! this one I think is from before they moved to NY, then there's annother one called nonerotic male bonding w the same crew that's sorta wilder pop damage?!   Maybe I have it wrong but it seems like they moved from florida to baltimore and NYC and did a cool band in each town. stick figures is my favorite though, it's a dream!!! i love this 45. there are 5 different covers!

 

I think someone posted this on their instagram and the cover is so wild I had to investigate! It's produced by Brian Wilson from the beach boys and is a post-HONEYS group. I just got this 45 bc the LP seemed like too much filler for me?! and the cover!!! so good . The b-side is the song! so spooky and unearthly and sort of dream/death like just has that dense beach boys losing it feel, sorta weird plastic psyche outs that are heavy and the ending is so good... anyway if you are a brian wilson fan check it out ok




don't you want to move into this lithics video?!



I have also been listening to early recordings by OPAL who I always thought I hated because of that SST LP i picked up and immediately flipped bc it is the music I do not want, but the early recordings re so dreamy and good!! perfect LA sound, 60s in the 80s, a casual / beautiful pop masterpiece! I think the records are OOP and maybe bootlegs?! or expensive?! but maybe they will get reissued?? do as I do an you can check em out on youtube! jukebox of the bored
 
 HAMMERED HULLS 45
This is a dream super group! Alec MacKaye of THE FAITH!!! the subject to change 12" is one of my fave hardcore artifacts! just power and memory and yeah maybe against the VOID side of the split they can't compete but the 12" is perfect! OK and Mary Timony from Autoclave etc (Autoclave being one of the coolest DC groups of the 90s-their recordings got reissued on vinyl last year and you gotta get it! Christina Billotte dreamiest voice in town, beautiful post-punk reality scapes! looks like it's sold out at dischord but amoeba have it) Anyway I love this 45, Alec's voice is the best, I hope they make more records ? the guitar style is the kind of HC i love, reminds me of why I used to buy every dischord release as a teenager in the early 90s! that urgent feeling!

not only but also /PARSNIP/  DIVORCER TAPE / NOTS LP / JUDY & THE JERKS 45 / COLD BEAT LP

I am reading Sam Macpheeters new book mutations   

also kate zambreno screen tests and charles portis masters of atlantis (which I am not enjoying as much as his other books so it's taking me a long time!!!) I just got some zines from Chris formerly of Huggy bear now of Adulkt a new london HC band via my mom I really enjoyed, Chris Rowley made the best zines in the 90s and the tradition continues! check out reggae chicken the huggy bear collaboration for evidence (here is a weird archive of a page!) also have been listening to a lot of teenage music from my youth, you know frumpies capn jazz NOU fisticuffs bluff unwound and so on so many youtube vortexes secret emo summer