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