Guys are obscene / Vile and unclean

Bands need to stop reuniting. Start a new band, a new idea is better than soiling the memory of what you had, of attempting a new reincarnation of something for an audience that demands entertainment in a variety where they know what to expect... or else. People find solace in repetition, in a ritual that they can feel part of where they know what is going to happen next, like watching a rerun of a favorite TV show. Is that what you want out of punk? An all expenses reunion show covers the plane tickets, half original members half original audience, let’s get together for a group photo... Rock around the clock, authentic, established and guaranteed. Sponsored by a youth orientated corporation in exchange for all the personal details of all the attendees; there will be free beer for all.
I have a better idea, maybe write about it, in the style of Richard Meltzer/Lester Bangs/Pushead/another authentic rock scribe. Let the spittle hit the typewriter keys, recapture the days when there was something to be captured, the flaccid entity of rock music compressed into a bile filled sentence that will make all the readers deflate and expand at the same time. Elevate the most average bloke rock reenactment society into something that really meeeeans somethin’ maaan. Or you could blog it. There’s a coffee shop I go to sometimes and one of the guys that works there wears a Triumph motorcycle t-shirt that’s exactly the same as the one Dylan wears on the cover of Highway 61. As if wearing this totem will somehow... do something, bring him closer to that thin high mercury sound. If you simulate something, the right clothes, the sound, the correct collection of references does it make it happen?

“The Godhead. Reminds me of Teddy and the Fratgirls or the Foams in the sense that one gets the notion that these must have been fun gals to hang out with or date. The timeless splendor of the arty urban misfit girl: Her goofy charm and no-holds-barred enthusiasm for all that she found weird, interesting or sexually appetizing. A toast to the art school weirdo outcast girls of the world: May they forever paint their room black or read Hermann Hesse to you in bed! The music is wild, out of control amateuristic slop goes from Electric Eels fuzzed out haterock to drumkits thrown down the stairs to minimal teen-angst and then back. Beautiful stuff. Got this in trade from Thurston Snore for some boring free jazz records back in the day. What a chump!” Johan Kugelberg

This is in reference to the Pervers / Deutscher Abschaum record, technically a split 7” though members of Pervers were also in Deutscher Abschaum. I read an interview with Beta, who was in both bands, where she talks about MRR giving them a great review. I couldn’t figure out if she was talking about a tape if that 7”, but alas, neither are in the collection for me to investigate at this point in time. This record is sinister, dark and otherworldly, really evocative and powerful, not just “crazy wild ladypunk!” All of which mean this is obviously a top want for me, not because I have sexual fantasies about wild crazy girls who play totally like, free music but because... I want to listen to those sounds and be transported out of a world in which the possibilities that women create in aural form are easily packaged up by a record kollector/kritic into “would DO her, she sounds WIIIILD!” It’s just so rad and refreshing to always have your do-ability factioned into every thing you will ever write, record, create as a fresh wild female punker, and it really adds to the music too. To know that basement dwellin’ record skunks would like, totally like to go back in time and bang the Foams. I got into music, into underground DIY punk and hardcore music specifically because of the possibilities that existed with limited resources. What people could do with one or two chords is more interesting than an avalanche of shredding guitar center solo bro-hymns. From Huggy Bear to Sheer Smegma, from Glueams to Neos, Noh Mercy to Flipper. Electric Eels! Void! X_X! What punks come up with on their own terms, with the limitations of cheapness/broke-ness, a lack of resources and access to the rock vocabulary creating it’s own method of speaking. Different languages. When stupid shit, casual flippant misogyny, the endless jock mentality impedes on this invented world it’s... frustrating.
There’s this scene in The Great Rock’n’roll Swindle, where they have some sorta fake ad for Vicious Burgers, reiterating that this is a product, a financial scheme enabling you to buy into the punk rock wholesale. GG, Sid, Lemmy, Iggy, Stiv, just pick a sneer and run to the bank. No need to shift your focus or way of doing things, just buy in! Punk rock’n’fuckin’ roll baby. Punky chips ahoy. You have been given your instructions, now follow them! The legions of drones who think of punk as being this way, an outfit, an FU that meant something maybe in 1978 but now!? Is it a retread? I think of all the crazy girl bands that formed in the wake of punk rock, of post-punk and new wave, no wave and so forth, who found something that worked for them that they could mutate… and how no matter what they created the constraints of their gender is reflected back at them. “Punk is all about not giving a fuck bro, fuck the PC police!” Who gets the freedom to “not give a fuck!?” and how come not giving a fuck basically means not having to think about how your shitty aggro-dude behavior could possibly be alienating to punks who would love to “not give a fuck” but unfortunately due to the constraints of gender, sexuality and or race are not given that option. This train of thought brought to you by the trolls that populate the MRR facebook page. It’s depressing how many men whose opinions are reflected in the mainstream media also seem to need punk…
I had a teacher who claimed that if there were a referendum in regards to abortion it would be made illegal, if there were one about bringing back hanging it would of course be made legal. The people of Britain would have their say; kill the rotten, save the innocent balls of cells. Reading internet comments on newspaper articles is a good way of affirming the idea that said teacher espoused, that some things should be out of the hands of “democracy.” It’s just disconcerting when this shitty reality is reflected in the comments on something Maximum Rocknroll related. This person gets something from MRR!??!
As I was working feverishly on this magazine I listened to a podcast put together by Mary of the awesome Neonates... You can listen to it here: http://web.me.com/gendertrouble/televisiondinner/TV_DINNER/TV_DINNER.html
There are lots of shows to choose from, each one has many amazing secret histories put together by girls from various eras invested in punk, art, destruction, dance and soul... Not every song is a jam, but there are so many things to investigate, it’s like a way more curated version of that female fronted lady punk box set some dude did a few years ago. Some of my faves so far: the band the Take who had a song called “Summer” on a compilation 7” that is somehow related to the Primitive Calculators, which was released in 1979. Angular Australian aggro art. “I Need a Jerk Like You” by Boston art damage Black Cat Bone, has a sleazy Patti Smith intoning over the Lounge Lizards appeal... “This is not what I want / This is just what I get” The singer was in Colorado goth punker group Your Funeral in the early ’80s... The Anemic Boyfriends, girls discussing what guys are really into over this weird anodyne reggae/new wave beat... it’s compulsive stuff. Also: the Chalk Circle and Glueams reissues demonstrate that this is a good month of lady punk history
I hate pictures of people standing together where some of the people are talking on their cellphones, or texting...

this is the best. bobby soxx is masterpieceful




this is teenage girl punk from NORWAY-all girl band called Razika-as far as I can tell this is their only punk song, the rest is really poppy ska-but this song is great!

tapes tapes tapes tape it to go

When Cissie was coordinating the magazine with me we used to joke about doing a women in punk issue, without mentioning that that was what was happening. Just do it. See if anyone noticed that every band had women in it. I did a tape review column a few months ago, and said there would be a second part following shortly after, well here it is! This is the inadvertent women in punk edition as most of the tapes have ladies on em. Not all. Nearly though!
d.vassallotti “False X-mas” tape has a morning after haze, a photo with the light bleaching everything out, like someone in the room next to you is listening to the first New Order record. Ghosts and radiator noises. Excellent atmospherics, recommended... Wasn’t sure how to label this, as it arrived in a black envelope with no decipherable band name, but I was informed this human was in the Cult Ritual so I went with the name on the lyric sheet. Cult Maternal 804 E Genesee Tampa FL 33603
Livid are from San Francisco and Oakland and are my current favorite local live band... They are the best. Seeing them play is the best, but since I am not sure if they are playing in your town soon, they made a tape! It’s not quite as raging as the live experience, maybe as it was recorded a bit ago, earlier in the band’s existence? Live they have this Alice Bag swagger that is the best, on tape the Dangerhouse thing still comes over but the danger is a little less intoxicating. One of my friends think they sound too talky-riot grrl, I personally don’t think that’s a dis first off, though I think it was meant as one, but I honestly don’t see it THAT much. On full listen to the tape, I detect a little Bikini Kill Peel Session 7” appeal, but honestly way more Alice Bag bands!! Amelia has a really cool voice and stage presence, and Mason has excellent We Got the Neutron Bomb riffs and the rhythm section will cut your throat if you look at em wrong. Every show this band plays has a million tough girls up front losing their shit. Get it or regret it. Livid: PO Box 40711 SF CA 94140
Hysterics are from Olympia. The first tape got destroyed by the postal service: coincidence??!! The second arrived with two cool pins with bloody tampons in the Black Flag logo that were instantly stolen by me and Mariam. This tape rules so hard, totally raging and classic sounding yet innovative and interesting hardcore from Olympia, it’s so fucking good! Just straight ahead hardcore that I wish all isolated teenage weirdo girls into HC would get sent upon entrance into the scene. Perceptive, angry fuck you lyrics, awesome vocal delivery, seriously one of the best HC tapes of last year in my eyes. People always complain about how girls just aren’t hardcore, just don’t make good hardcore bands, should just stick to uh... whatever it is they do, but fuck that, not every girl band is fucking Spitboy... This shit rules, someone needs to put their band’s record out before they break up as seems to happen to all bands I love. I think this tape is sold out from the band but you can still get it from K records www.krecs.com/Shop/product_info.php?products_id=4676
Firebrand are from New Orleans, feature an ex New Blood and an ex Necro Hippie and manage to capture the Young Marble Giants dreamscape that so many are mining right now without any syrup or plaintive girl wimpiness. They mush it up with an awesome Excuse 17 bratattack making a disconcerting sound that is strong and powerful, important music... More of a post punk experimental idea than grrrl sound, but there are echoes of different personal female takes on the punk idea through out. nomorefiction@gmail.ccom
Goodthrob came with a nervous note about the guitar player was waaay better now, but seriously fuck that, this tape rules regardless of guitar strut. It’s rudimentary stroppy punk that in parts sort of reminds me of the scree of early Gravity records chaos. The more hardcore less indulgent element of that idea, bashed out and readjusted for the needs of hardcore girls in 2011. This band’s existence is exciting! As someone who bought Gravity 7”s in the early ’90s from the Rough Trade basement shop it’s with excitement and amazement that finally in the year 2011 there are English girls making these sounds their own! With added bile and punk snot obvs. I am not sure how to get this tape, but I will keep you updated on any future happenings or you could go to modernhatevibe.com and see if there’s something there? Maybe there will be!
Sceptres put out this awesome tape that may or not be a discog of their 7” output? I think it is but I am writing this in a state of total laziness and don’t feel like scrollin’ through my 7” boxes to investigate. At any rate, it demonstrates the melodic spikey ’78 punker brat majesty in an admirable fashion, vocals somewhere between Fisticuffs Bluff and um, Penetration. Everything is wound up tight for the up all night pogo punx, there’s a Shitty Limits connection, Modern Hate Vibe for life round these parts. www.direrecords.com
Hell Woman – This is rock tinged hardcore, the riffs are riffs, hardcore for stoner girls? Actually maybe it’s just grunge!?? I mean it’s not really that hardcore, I think the person that got me the tape described them as a HC band. I missed them when they played at the 16th BART station here as I had to work, but I have a feeling I would like it more in that format. It’s pretty cool though, like a more rudimentary Girlschool, emphasis on the rudimentary! From Olympia, not sure how to get one of these?
Deadhead are from Olympia too, Olympian assault on my ears this month! This band is sort of more in the tradition of KARP than any other of the Oly tapes sent in, sort of weird punker space basement dirge with pot leaves drawn on the tape, that signify more than my mere words would. Plus scrawny heavy metal parking lot vocals. When that voice lets rip, it feels like all time is yours, some of the jammier parts lose this essence and power. The band is called Deadhead and are from Olympia. You can smell the smoke on your clothes. Are you gonna submit?! PO Box 8355 OLY WA 98507
?-I picked up this tape after I saw the band play at Thrillhouse, three suburban kids playing what seemed like an inadvertent KBD take on the hardcore idea, totally falling apart FlipperGermsStickmenwithrayguns terrible genius. Not made by knowing kids, but by seeming anti social weirdos, I cannot read their band name on the tape case, nor remember what they were called, and while the tape is no way as rad as they were live, there is no contact info on it so... no use! I should have reviewed this shit when I got it a million years ago. Oh well. They have songs about rotting babies in the street making a sort of welcome matt, and one called “Drooling Blood” and one about killing a bartender who wouldn’t let them play because they were underage. so maybe they are actually 14 year old boys?! I remember there was a girl in the band. I bet that if I saw them again I would not be as impressed, but since they are this crazy mystery band now the mystique exists!
This Tyvek tape on fag tapes smells absolutely terrible, like someone puked in the car you have to ride for the next couple days. That’s OK as my tape player is across the room, and I threw the tape case away from my current position. It’s a collection of live tracks and demos and practices and chopped and screwed stuff. I love Tyvek, they make mostly the sounds that make it clear it’s a good thing to be a punk that is in existence now. If you like this band you probably have a record or tape or two already, I would suggest getting this to add to your Tyvek collection. Listen to all of them in a row and you have a full days activity planned. I have never seen them play as they always play SF when I don’t wanna go out, at bars I don’t like going to. This is not relevant to the review of the tape but I would like to see them play at some point, and I imagine the tape is a good approximation of what that would be like. No contact but you could enter ffag tapes into a internet search engine for shits and giggles.
Panzram are two dudes from Florida, playing angular heavy very ’90s hardcore, in fact this sounds like it could have been on an Old Glory compilation, something like that. It’s pretty cool that this is a two person band, it doesn’t sound like it, it does totally sound like something I would have seen in a basement in Columbus OH in 1995. Fahy_john@hotmail.com
Mixed Combat is a mix tape made by the excellent punker DJs at KBOO up in Portland OR featuring many of the amazing sets from visiting bands during the Life During Wartime radio show. A solid representation of the last six or so years of the punk landscapel, from Gorilla Angreb and the Nix to Vivid Sekt and Nerveskade, the Exploding Hearts through to Tragedy and even Fucked Up. I am again not sure how you would get the tape, but you should check out the radio show regardless, lots of MRR shitworkers and even a former coordinator participate! www.kboo.fm/LifeDuringWartime
Well, I have more to get through so maybe there will be more next month? Or at a later date, but I like getting tapes and zines, so if you want to send em in with my name on the envelope, or just send it in for review to MRR regardless. We are still interviewing people for the coordinator position, since I am leaving this summer, but I will still be doing shitwork and writing my column, so submit your coordinator application or start a band, make a tape and send it to me
Layla at maximumrocknroll.com
Whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com

more jams

SCREAMERS!!!!



PERVERS!!!

some current jams

PLASTIX - Geschlechtsverkehr (1981)



THE TAKE - "Summer" (1979)



ANEMIC BOYFRIENDS - "Guys are Not Proud" (1980)

this is a BORING column from MRR #334

Usually MRR has another shitworker edit and compile all the year end top tens, as it’s a huge amount of work on top of the already heavy coordinator workload. This year the task ended up in my hands. And what a task! I would say we have about ten times the usual amount of lists this issue, some of the top tenners wrote over 3,000 words! I looked back at a few old year end top ten issues, and noticed that the same people had complained about what a shitty year in music it was every single year for the past five! Makes you wonder when the mythical “good” year in punk rock was.... Every year is a shitty year; we’re doomed! There are also a few records that made 2009 top tens as well as 2010 top tens (some records even made the same contributors lists both years!) We tried to edit out anything that came out in say, June of 2009, from the running, but it can get confusing because of the cover date of the magazine. For example we work on the issue that says February on the cover in December. Any records that are reviewed in the February issue actually came out the year before despite the cover date. The issue you are reading right now is the March issue, but most of the records reviewed in it came into the magazine in December, so again, more year end confusion to come! We also try to only cover stuff that’s reviewable in the magazine. Have you already done your year end top ten? Probably, since by the time you will be reading this it’s a few months into 2011. I found mine a lot easier to do this year than usual; I guess I have an advantage being that I have to listen to every record that comes in for review in order to assign them to the various reviewers each month, but some years it’s definitely been more difficult than others to pick ‘em out. I think 2010 was a good year, a ton of cool fucked up girl bands and female voices, and a fine selection super raw destruction sounds from the garage, hardcore and shitpunk planets. I am also excited about some new and imminent releases from new bands and old favorites...
All of Chalk Circle’s recordings will soon be available on LP courtesy of Mississippi records and PPM... In case you are interested in finding out more about what that means read the Sharon Cheslow interview in MRR #298 or reread her photobook Banned in DC. Chalk Circle were too arty for early ’80s Dischord to put out so they just had a few random compilation tracks here and there, all of which are great. I am excited to hear any unreleased stuff. I feel like I have written about them extensively in my column throughout the years! One annoying thing recently happened as a result of my extensive girl punker history column writing. My boyfriend tried to buy me a copy of the Foams 7”, awesome experimental girl punk from early ’80s Texas, but the seller wouldn’t let him buy it because “Layla at MRR really wants this. I have to find out what it’s worth.” Gah! It’s such an obscure record that there aren’t any listings on popsike or collector’s frenzy I guess for anyone to gauge the price/value from. So he got it from my fuckin’ column/my desire to own that record. Is it the only thing that comes up when you google it or something?? Jeez. I was told by all my kollector skum friends that this is why you keep your want list secret. However, while this was a supremely frustrating event I sort of feel like writing about weird, obscure fucked up girl punk that has been wiped from punk history is important and something I will continue to do. I would love to own that Foams record, but while I have a pretty big record collection, I am not a record collector. I am happy with a decent vinyl reissue over an expensive OG.
I am also excited by the fact that apparently there is a Neon Blud LP headed to the compound. I heard a rumor that it’s not as compelling as the 7” but I refuse to believe this until I hear with my own ears. Also a split with Diet Cokeheads in the works?? I really liked both of their 7”s, seems like it’s gonna be right up my street. I have also been enjoying tapes by Firebrand and the Sceptres. The Scepters feature MRR’s own Bryony Beynon on vocals, and assorted Shitty Limits on instruments I believe. I have heard as a band they are headed to the exit door which is a bummer as this tape is as killer and sardonic and spiky/restless as their previous 7”s but the tunes have an extra catchiness that sucks you in and pulls you under my friends. Such a good band! www.direrecords.com. Firebrand features another MRR columnist, Osa Atoe, and Candise from one of my favorite HC bands of 2009, the Necro Hippies. They have this cool Young Marble Giants undercurrent, an unsettling but calm feel, with propulsive bass and drums. Really excited to hear/witness what these ladies come up with in the future! shotgunseamstress@gmail.com for more info on that!
Also from our UK correspondent I got an amazing fanzine, Langon Olgar. I think it will get a proper review in the next issue, but I wanted to write about it briefly here as I was so blown away by it. Created by a bunch of girls for Hollaback London, it looks more like a literary journal than a zine; it’s beautifully put together and the writing inside is really powerful. Word from Ms Beynon herself:
“Back story for review tru-facts: first issue, launched at Reclaim the Night (wish I’d met your mum when we was there!) made to raise funds for Hollabackldn which we also distribute to related feminist/community orgs (Southall Black Sisters, Croydon Rape Crisis) limited to 100—it’s $10/6quid unfortunately. For contact bryony@hollabackldn.com works and order at www.direrecords.com or www. ldn.ihollaback.org . Oh and Langdon Olgar is Lisa Simpson’s one time boyfriend, ha!”
Resistance in the face of rape culture. There are pieces about street harassment, sexual harassment, assault, rape, sexual politics, the exclusion of women from certain spheres, power, powerlessness. Writing is both personal and theoretical, some of it is a difficult read and will be triggering obviously. I will write a full review next month in the zine section when I have gotten my thoughts together. Seriously though, this is one of the most important feminist DIY projects I have read in years…
OK, sorry for the rambling column! I am not sure if you read my column last month, but I am stepping down as content coordinator in May/June of this year. If you are interested in applying for the position hurry up and email us for info! Applications must be in by March 15th. I will still be working on the magazine and staying in the Bay Area, but just not coordinating MRR. It will have been about three years and I just need a break
Old columns: whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com
layla@maximumrocknroll.com

Gluebag estate

This is going to be a short column, even though it’s probably one of the hardest ones I have had to write… MRR is one of the most inspiring life changing frustrating things I have been involved in. This month, at the year end shitworker meeting I gave my six month’s notice as content coordinator of this magazine. I do not intend on leaving the Bay Area, or stopping working on the magazine totally. I just realized a few months ago that I would like to come home from a days work at my crappy retail job, and not have to work for another six hours on the magazine, then do the same thing the next day and the next day. This is partially due to my own workaholic nature, I know this, which is why I am not abandoning ship totally. I just want a break. I intend on continuing to write for this rag—that includes coming up with content, (you should do this too! Interview your favorite band and send it in!)—and of course to continue on with the epic work that goes on behind the scenes. Most of you will have no clue how much effort goes into this thing you hold in your hands, every month, year after year, over one hundred shitworkers and three coordinators all working for free.


(The below is a pic I took when I interviewed Raymond Pettibon-that's his dog in his studio. You can still get this issue on the back issues page here, it's #304 www.maximumrocknroll.com)
I want to continue to be involved in the magazine for years to come, which is why I am handing in my dance card or whatever twee way there is to put such a thing. I think it’s time for some new blood to take over… I have volunteered here for seven years, and I will have run this magazine for three of those years, which is a pretty good average. I think Arwen did six as coordinator? No one has beat Tim Yohannon of course, but a shitworker expressed surprise that I wasn’t planning on trying. I mentioned before that the workload was intense, it is, but the main thing is how totally life encompassing it is. I have friends I have not seen since I started coordinating MRR and I haven’t been in a band or written for my own zine Chimps either. I find it difficult to leave town for a few days without feeling guilty.
Punks are always surprised when they come here; that it’s not a squat-like building filled with GG style miscreants. Some kids from NYC dismissed me and Cissie as a bunch of “old ladies in sweaters” when they stopped by the house when she was still coordinating the magazine last year, which I thought was funny. Like how do people think this magazine happens? A bunch of punks grab glue bags and typewriters and hope for the best??!! Actually, that is how it happens. Maximum Rocknroll is not an easy thing to run. Essentially you are running a small business, a magazine, in the face of the supposed death of print media. You get to pick what runs in the magazine, but you also get to work twelve to fourteen hour days in a building with no heat, figure out how to do the yearly sales taxes for every county in California with no “boss” to tell you the right or the wrong way to do it, figure out how the rent is going to be paid each month, and deal with the fact that your house is a community space, a library of punk. This is awesome when you want to listen to Rutto 7”s and read old issues of the classic San Jose zine Forget It! Shitworkers will call me boss sometimes, but it always makes me feel weird. MRR is what it is because of all of the people that volunteer here, whether that’s the punks that email or mail in interviews and scene reports from Nepal, Venezuela and St Louis, or those that spend the Bart fare to get here from Oakland to green tape records. Punk is what you make it, whatever Brace says, it isn’t an outfit, it’s something you do. This magazine is evidence of that fact and I am proud to have been a part of its continued existence.
Are you interested in applying to be coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll? Email us mrr@maximumrocknroll.com for an application. Must supply own gluebag. Actually, no gluebags allowed.
layla@maximumrocknroll.com
whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com

Life in the Fridge Exists

My Mind is a Plastic Bag/I’m a Cliche

This month I have nothing to say! Really, nothing. I’ve spent about ten hours staring at this fake piece of paper on my computer screen thinking about the extent to which I have nothing of value to impart to the readership of MRR this month. I am eating green beans and listening to X-Ray Spex. My boss cut my hours in half, which is making my financial future fragile. Other things of note that are withering into nothin’ in my numbskull include… a general excitement about the Olympia hardcore scene after witnessing both Outlook and Weird TV destroy it in the Bay Area this month. I already touched on the majesty of Weird TV on tape (you can read all about that at my online column archive whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com) but seeing them live??? Definitely one of the best live bands so far this year, and I wait with bated breath for their record, which will be released on the faultless Perennial records, out of Olympia too. I would advise buying everything Perennial put out. So far, it has all been essential… And Weird TV are probably the band I am most psyched on since the days of extolling the merits of Sex Vid, no lie. Totally different band idea but when listening, there’s a similar level of dopamine injected into brain cells or however that works. You should send off for the tape if you want to hear the most frantic raging lady vocals that combine most eloquently the best parts of Alice Bag and Theresa Brat, emphasis on the word “raging.” I am trying to figure out where you can get one, but all the options seem to be moot, sold out, not available. An EP is forthcoming on Perennial (www.perennialdeath.com), and also something on singer Lizette’s sister’s label M’Ladys is mentioned!?? Who knows, at any rate Weird TV is the sum of its parts, Ben’s drumming is propulsive and somehow reminds me of Minutemen but this is a hardcore band, Erica’s bass playing is relentless and the guitar is mindmelding psyche doom hardcore youth grab your knives now. Also, apparently the girls of Olympia are influenced by the Australian sharpie movement of the ’70s in terms of hair cuts! FUN FAX.
Outlook are part of a new politically charged youth crew orientated Olympia hardcore scene that also includes the Hysterics, an all girl band I have yet to hear to my chagrin. We saw them play at the best new secret all ages space, the basement of an arts center warehouse. Something about seeing a hardcore band blow minds in a basement will always check all the right boxes in my tired brain at least… Honestly was not expecting much, went to check out Neo-Cons and No Statik, local bands, and after a week of putting this thing you hold in your hands together 12 hours a day a million days in a row was planning on leaving soon after aforementioned bands played. This did not happen! Outlook killed it, we bought the 7”, and next month there will be a review of said record and an extensive Olympia scene report penned by Ben of the awesome Nuts!? zine… You can check out the more crew oly HC shit here: www.oursound.net. Alsoof note: Scotty Karate told a story about how the last time he saw Mariam was when he stayed at her house in Chicago after a show, and woke up to some girl pissing on him.
ENDTIMES!
layla (at) maximumrocknroll.com
1-watch my teenage band and see how much my accent has mutated via this video of the Huggy Bear/Bikini Kill tour of the UK in ’93 http://vimeo.com/11737681 also contains super amazing footage of the Raincoats with palmolive on drums... 2-next month the second volume of my tape review backlog!

R.I.P. ARI UP/Silence is a rhythm too...

R.I.P. ARI UP/Silence is a rhythm too...

I was watching a You Tube video of Bikini Kill, when they played London for the first time and remembered the show. After the fact the NME (or Melody Maker) had asked all the doyennes of first wave punk what they thought about this newfangled riot grill business. Poly Styrene said she was at the show, and thought it was boring, a lame rerun of something that had been cool when she was a teenager, but had since played out... I remember reading that, and wondering if she had been at the same show I was at, because as a 14 year old, my experience was completely opposite. I felt engaged, and alive, felt like we could do something, me and my friends, make something out of what we had seen.

A few years after that there was a feature in a women's magazine, the English equivalent of something like Good Housekeeping that documented some of the women of punk, what had happened to them, from Jordan, the cat lady of the Westwood/McClaren Sex shop, to one of the Slits (maybe Viv?? I honestly can’t remember, though I did rip it out surreptitiously whilst at the newsagents, so it should be floating around in my random papers) through to Gina from the Raincoats and Gaye from the Adverts, and I think Palmolive and Poly too, X-Ray Spex/Raincoats/Slits... Gaye Advert said she still listened to “punky music, like Limp Bizkit.” Cripes! That always stayed with me—as soon as you describe a shitty rape-rock band as “punky” you’ve had it, time’s up. Such a grim adjective, and for a band so opposite of the punk ideal. I still need to get the second Adverts LP, it’s so good and despite finding many copies of Crossing the Dead Sea... for not very much money, I have never seen Cast of Thousands in person.

I lived in NYC for a few years in the early ’00s and one of my clearest memories was going to see Ari Up perform at a reggae night somewhere in Brooklyn. She was sort of cartoon like, really vivid and ridiculous in this one way, but it was clear she was self-made, her own person in a really inspiring way that sort of negated the comic stripness of it all... Even though I devoured ’77 punk as a kid, the Slits were harder to get into. I had only heard their later more experimental world beat stuff, at a time when I wanted Sham 69 and at most, Patti Smith. Stuff that’s still somewhat in the rock’n’roll tradition you know? So was not into them. When my teenage band started this girl at one of our shows was totally shocked that I did not seem like care about the Slits, so she made me a tape I still have with the demo and the Peel Session on it. I can still remember the feeling of hearing it for the first time, how wild and unfettered Ari’s voice was, the music was sort of like a drawing, not a rock cliché, but a total deconstruction, which is what punk had promised. This was no Elvis, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones. The demos are wild bedroom recordings, they have a bedlam-ic quality to them that is not artificially manufacture-able if that makes sense. The sound of possibility and adventure and creation thru destruction!! The Peel Session is a little more “trad” punk, but not really, and many think it’s their finest hour. You can get “fanclub” records that have these songs on them, or of course use the power of the internet to find ‘em for your computer listening pleasure. I wish someone would do a legit reissue... I remember staying at Rosie from Month of Birthdays/Pussycat Trash’s house in Newcastle once, and she was really into late era Slits, and me and my friends were just getting into post-punk, but were definitely not at the point where we could listen to anything Slits related that was released post-Cut. Now I really like the fact that they kept going, kept exploring, didn’t remain with one idea of music, but lived through many during their existence. I think it’s easily watchable on YouTube, but there’s this amazing Don Letts footage of the band dancing at a reggae club called the Four Aces, which has itself been immortalized in film by the awesome Winstan Whittar. He made a great film about the history of skateboarding in the UK, so I am really excited to check this one out when it gets to DVD.

We ran Viv Albertine’s memorial to Ari in the news section, which I implore you to read. It’s unreal that she was 14 years old when she started...

my current favorite band... weird TV from olympia

love.... shock

KILLER dead moon cover towards the end of this! thanks to chuck bettis for uploading this show... you can watch the whole thing

Bikini Kill in the UK! my old band is on this video... you have to watch it on vimeo

you have to watch it on vimeo. how my accent has changed since livin in amerrrrica. that picture is tobi from BK. from the tullycraft website so I assume the girl who did that zine took the photo? the other one is huggy bear with no niki

innit

This month’s column covers the some of the backlog of tapes I have been handed or mailed over the past uh, entire previous year to now, ie tape fest 2010 shall commence! Even though MRR convention details that only music columnists get bands in capitals in the columns section, I am using my coordinator clout to flout this rule just for clarity and understanding since this is a music column basically... First I will comment on a CDR sent to me by James of UK DIY nexus Germ of Youth, who have put out a most excellent 7” by COMET GAIN and the recent double disc of dreamy DOLLY MIXTURE Demonstration Tapes LP. This is his band, VERONICA FALLS. They elegantly, yet with suitable intent to disgust and disrupt, channel the Medway sound along with the more mod TVPs influenced C86-wave. The girl/boy vocal harmonies, band aesthetic and tuff guitar sound make me think of the early days of COMET GAIN and HUGGY BEAR more in terms of hanging out than sound. Total beatnik beach party, watch out for the LSD in the drinks though. There is venom in the sound; this isn’t a cozy reunion of Sarah records fans at an anorak warehouse. My favorite song is about popular seaside suicide spot Beachy Head, made famous in the movie Quadrophenia. I believe all four of these songs are now 7”s , on the sordid Captured Tracks label outta Brooklyn, seek them out!
NEONATES are from LA, they played Marissa’s backyard last month, and I totally enjoyed their nervous yet powerful stage presence. They trade instruments and sort of seem scared and bored by the audience at the same time in a most compelling way. The music is like MELTDOWN playing CHALK CIRCLE songs, two all girl DC bands from different eras that require your immediate investigation if you do not get that sound reference. NEONATES play deconstructed punk, anti-rhythm yet rhythmic like post punk girls that no wavers then carved up. The girls that wanted to make sounds but weren’t that invested in rock convention. I have a tape and a CDR, I think the tape is available from a UK operation called Clan Destine, but you should write the band for more info, they have a myspace, www.myspace.com/neonates. I like bands that sound like they are putting something together as they play, and yet they’ve created a powerful and total end result...
CERVIX are part of the Spending Loud Night NYHC destruktion crew, Amelia’s vocals are yowled out, total frenzy style over metallic hardcore that’s sorta UK inna SACRILEDGE stylee but this is framed in a CONFUSE GAI hardcore aesthetic and it all feels endtimes like ultimately. Comes with a patch for your denim. PO Box 30 NY NY 10276... EPIDEMIA are from Spain and play some of the most desperate lo fi shitpunk I have heard in an age, (un)holy shit... One two one two drums, shards of guitar and (female) vocals that are borne of terror and rage, the rumble of bass serves only to remind you of your puny ears and it is futile to resist! You must send off for this... Except they didn’t put an address on the tape. I tried searchin on the internerd, but only found a you tube entitled “Spanish Crust Punk”... hmmmmmm. Essentialessentialessential.
MY PARADE are from Seattle and play choppy dance punk that’s more riot grrrl inflected that anything I have heard that’s clearly as influenced by 99 records. In short this isn’t some Gang of Four disco beated out cliché; they have this cool SUBTONIX styled garage freak out and you can tell they heart ESG so totally too (so 99 records reference referenced). They are a self-described all POC dance punk band, and I am super bummed I missed their tour with the also awesome AGATHA from Seattle. Dude, someone needs to do a Seattle scene report... myparademusic@gmail.com. SFO stands for Social Freak Out... They are from Chicago and play politically charged punk, it feels like a battle cry and that’s because it is. Songs about creepy “secret admirers” out on the prowl, about protecting yourself and how male attention can be violating even if it’s not violent. About fighting back against oppression, against the rigors of gender, about liberation and freedom, against borders and yes this tape is a fight song... If you are in the mood for some raging, incendiary all female punk attack, this shit has your name on it. Fucking radical, in all senses of the word. sfochicago@gmail.com. I got the SURROGATE ACTIVITY tape along with a letter that discussed the politics of Mysterious Guy Hardcore, and teenage girls in Floorpunch hoodies... This is FU pop punk with sweet vocals delivering a message that veers pretty far from typical pop punker lyricals, then swoops back in with something about lost friendships and cold coffee. You will probably like this if you are on the hunt for catchy songs that are on the punker side of the pop, sung by a girl with a cool voice and a rad way of putting words together... julsgeneric@hotmail.com
THE GIFT are from DC and feature the ever dreamy Beck Levy on vocals, previously known for the seriously amazing TURBOSLUT... They play gnarled up, epic hardcore punk that sort of made me think of a less coiled up BABES IN TOYLAND somehow?? I don’t know, maybe it’s the dynamics of the songs somehow, but this is hardcore... makes me think of being a furious teenage girl, listening to blown out ’90s hardcore 45s and typing letters to my pen pals in various locations. Not sure I have done a good job describing these sounds, but epic experimental hardcore, lady fronted grunge, dynamic, interesting song structure... Epic sounds like it’s gonna be some horrible tech bro core nitemare. It isn’t! Promise. thegiftdc@gmail.com.
WEIRD TV are part of the continuing Olympia trail of destruction, playing simple yet direct and doomed hardcore punk with Lizette’s totally deranged and perfect vocals. I hunted high and low for this tape, the first one came direct from Tobi but was destroyed by the USPS! Conspiracy... Urgent times call for urgent measures so another was hand delivered by a NECRO HIPPIE (thanks Candice!!). Honestly this is probably my tape of the year. Perfect Layla-core. Atmospheric, doomed hardcore with the most destruktive female vocals intoned over it, like Therasa BRAT was possessed by ALICE BAG, Lizet=best singer, should sing for every band, would make the worst band amazing... So charismatic! Seriously, she has the personality and power and emotion that Theresa puts into her vocals, but the total death stare fierceness of Alice... DAMN! But the music isn’t straight ahead hardcore, it’s interesting and multi dimensional and raging... Surges into a deconstruction of the olde standard “Gloria” that’s enough to make you wanna give up on life, move to Oly and make your own band/cult... Vocals in Spanish. So fucking good. I want to form a band now, will listen to this tape every day instead. Get this. weirdtv@ymail.com
I am out of room, but UV RACE tape is also my doomed date tape of the century fuck is this band real????? Not sure how to get one, but you must! I was reminded of the fact that Australians invented punk. These ones took a bunch of LSD at some museum (not a metaphor, a literal reality, a literal literality), and made a mutated CHRIS BAILEY sings for the SWELL MAPS slice of perfection. I believe this is going to be another LP, on Aaaarght! But all of this, the bored yet necessary sometime lady vox, the intoned gentleman that was the one that brought to mind Epic Sound Tracks and Chris Bailey in one of the best musical combinations of invention, wit and genius heard as of recent times. Also from Australia we have WHITE COP who play flailing shitpunk too, but different from the Spanish one. This is blokish and more hi fi, sort of like getting yelled at by a stranger when you’re not sure what’s meant to be happening... “You are a shit” they scream, and they’re right. This is part of the Negative Guestlist empire, an excellent publication that is part of legions of examples of how the Australian punks have recusitated the fanzine format. This is trebled out, feedback enriched punk that feels like an attack, a punch in the face at random, like falling over and getting cut up reallyt bad for the first time in years, the guitars are bleached out, blaring monstrosity like NO TREND were actually trying to hang out in Georgetown. No address but try this www.myspace.com/brisbanefanzine.
More tape reviews will come! I have a whole box to go. Punk rock is an endless adventure.

MELTDOWN!!!!! super 8.

teenage girls in DC influenced by Scissor Girls and No New York... From 95?? So cool... they have an LP and a 7". I think the 7" turns up pretty easily as it was a split release with dischord.

spinach blasters

When you watch the end of punk rock history documentaries, the part where the protagonists claim it all died when they lost interest, how does it make you feel? When you talk to former kids, who slept on the floor of your house whilst on tour, who now are touring again with the same band, on a reunion tour playing rock clubs, pro sound pro audio... The idea of punk that resonates most with me is that of exchange, where someone stays on your floor when they’re in your town, and then in the future you stay on someone else’s floor when you’re in some other town. Where the humans in the audience are not “fans” per se, but are people that are part of the punk rock community. People that put on shows, take photos, write zines/blogs/letters, make podcasts or mixtapes, put out records, make music, and so forth. People that make the culture they participate in, that is the basic DIY ethos right? You’re bored in your hometown so you make your cohorts start a band, or you write a fanzine describing the indignations you suffer as a result, or maybe you set up shows for your friend’s bands, or take photos at those shows, or whatever the hell it is you do.
I went to see Cap’n Jazz, a band I was obsessed with as a teenager when their LP came out. They broke up before I got to see them but I played the LP to death, and my ticket purchase was fueled by nostalgia, the memories of traded zines and mixtapes from girls at expensive liberal arts colleges in the Midwest pouring into the boredom plagued teenage existence of growing up in Brentford, England. Fanzines, letters, seven inches and tapes enabled me to imagine a world outside of the non-DIY teenagers I grew up with, and along with most of the Dischord, Gravity and Kill Rock Stars catalog Cap’n Jazz were part of that imagined landscape. Boys with gas station jackets and high water pants who owned the Faith/Void split, girls who read Audre Lorde and made furious bedroom punk bands, these people did not exist in Brentford. I had no idea what to expect from this show, and obviously no one I knew wanted to go so I ate some pizza and ended up walking over one of the hugest hills in SF that seperates the MRR compound from the douchelords that populate North Beach (what was that Big Boys thing—about making you wanna kill some frats??).
It is a genuinely disconcerting experience to go to a reunion show of a band that were around when you (meaning me) first got into punk. The first thing I saw when I pulled up to the club after aforementioned epic hill walk was a huge gaggle of Urban Outfitters teens smokin’ and squawking in the regulation smoking area. Their outfits probably cost more than I earn in a pay period and my heart sunk, that weird eternal high school dork feeling when confronted with those who ooze the confidence of “cool.” No gas station jackets or Audre Lorde here… The realization struck that this was probably gonna be a long and weird night. The music was great, but I felt like I was watching a play rather than a show, a performance and that I didn’t feel part of anything. Everyone around me seemed all swept up in something that I felt so separate from to the point of repulsion. True feelings of horror! These people went to rock shows and wore merch and chugged $8 beers and so forth and so forth, if twenty people in the room had been to a basement show in the past year I woulda been shocked. I felt shitty for feeling so separate from the good times of these humans, but what we do is secret, and merchandise kind of gets in by design and so forth and until it makes you more a kid if you wanna off a pig. Afterwards I talked to the person in the band I knew from my youth, and honestly felt so gross and fan like that I had to leave—it made olden times seem all grim and for sale... I was really looking forward to the show, and musically it was what I wanted, a replication of something that meant the world to me, but it also reinforced the fact that it was not what I wanted.
The other thing that reinforced this sorta obvious fact (and yes I am sure Tim Yo is turning in his grave, clutching Ben Weasel to his chest as he recoils in horror that a current coordinator went to a Cap’n Jazz reunion) was a show in Marissa’s back yard last week, in a rare spot of SF sunshine... Featuring Los Angeles’ own Neonates, Nuclear Family from Albany NY, Daylight Robbery from Chicago and Brilliant Colors and Airfix Kits from San Francisco and Oakland respectively. Neonates play furtive ingenious girl punk, demonstrating their encyclopediatric knowledge of the history of ladypunkers, they reminded me at once of Washington DC’s Meltdown (most excellent No Wave inspired Scissor Girl worship from 1995—get the LP if you see it you will not regret it...) and the Slits demos and um, the Ama-Dots from early ’80s Michigan, all hail furtive exploratory girl sounds!! They were exciting to watch, used their instruments like toys rather than tools—weaponry listens to love… Then Brilliant Colors played a dreamy as usual set with Jess at once channeling Brian Jones and the girls from the Shop Assistants. Again, all hail exploratory girl encyclopediax! Let’s make a new sound that will banish these memories of historical endeavors in basements and youth halls, that are now being sold back to us, reinvent a movement!! Thrift stores and record shops and I don’t know what you’re talking about.... Nuclear Family played next, and while I loved their first tape for it’s raw destruction everything else has seemed so polished and wrong when you think of the people in this band and what they can do to a sound... This show (and their incredible LP coming out on Loud Punk this month...) negated all past ideas. Nuke Fam feature Zach and Paul from Acid Reflux, and Jen and Kevin, all true Albany up all night punkers, ready to half plate a buffet or play golf on the weird science fiction state capital at 2am. Zach’s guitar attack and Paul’s drums of doom, with Jen’s swooping all encompassing vocals... So good!!! Really though, the LP and live show cement the fact that it is a bummer that this band will probably be no more after this fall, so go see them when they play your town punkers! Daylight Robbery have put out the LP I listen to the most right now, it makes me think of similar things that the Observers LP did, in that I think it’s that important and good a record. The way that Christine and David’s vocals collide over the desperate Wipers guitars that also bring to mind John Doe and other things... the lyrics are great, and I love this band so totally. Jeff Rice on drums! Airfix Kits played last, had the driest stage banter, and both Allans in the band fell through the rotting on which they were performing. Tetchy, tense punk that’s bloodstains over Scotland, the problem of leisure and our band could be your life. Seriously! Punk rock is the eternal adventure, the endless possibility, this thing we make with our hands and our friends help. I am going to make myself a Cap’n Jazz t shirt, because I still love that band, but I did not want to get into the American Apparel situations. And in regards to the liner notes on the recently reissued Analphabetthology? I still get thriftstore pants for $3, even if you do not Tim Kinsella. Blah blah blah. This column was supposed to be reviews of all the demos I have been sent this year that have yet to make it to the review section. Next month? Punkie swear.
Layla at maximumrocknroll.com / Whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com

RIP ARI UP

I did the radio show....

You Can Listen

Intro song:
DOUBLE NEGATIVE – In Patient Out

Frequent Mutilation
CRAZY SPIRIT – Burning Children
WEIRD TV – Canalla
DRUNKS WITH GUNS – Zombie
KEBAB – Anti-L
CHANNELS 3+4 – Pills

“Belief in Repetition as Deliverance…”
FRUMPIES – Wrong Way Round
BLOOD SAUSAGE – Haunted House
CUPID CAR CLUB – Edge of the Envelope
HUGGY BEAR – Our Voltage
CIRCUS LUPUS – Tightrope Walker

TVP is an acronym for a band and for a fake meat product
VERONICA FALLS – Beachy Head
COMET GAIN – Beautiful Despair
BLACK TIME – Corpse Life
KIOSK – Royal Jerks
ACTION SWINGERS – Watch Out

I’m a Nice Guy Now
UV RACE – Girl in My Head
PEREPHERIQUE EST – Tous Les Monts
SPLINTERS – Hot Hands
TIMMY’S ORGANISM – I’m a Nice Guy Now
THE MOONHEARTS – I Hate Myself

Outro songs:
FURY – Space Love
MELAKKA – EI

on the record player on repeat

weird TV is my current obsession




I love this song by Veronica Falls from London/Brighton...

also UV race has a new tape which is gonna be an LP on arrrght i think



The Libyans new LP on Sorry State is amazing. You can listen to a song here, but the whole record is so good! On constant rotation. I tried to find a youtube but could only find some other weird HC band with the same name. who do soundtracks for video games. WEEEEIRD

las señoras are from Spain, and made my favorite 7" of the year so far, like Adolescents radness but with all girls! and some sorta weird fucked up art damage! yes!



Kebab are a post Crass post-punk influenced band who just got reissued, from the early 80s, really cool...

I wrote this for Bikini Kill's archival site, re: i was a teenage tearaway skinned teen

Before I saw Bikini Kill I mostly discovered music via the Melody Maker, a weekly music paper that no longer exists, and via the pages of Sassy magazine, which also no longer exists, that my American grandparents had gotten me a subscription to. I listened to bands like the Breeders, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, the Jesus and Mary Chain, went to as many shows as my mum would let me (I was 12-13 years old at this point) I felt like punk had happened, passed me by, and that although I loved the bands I was into, it wasn’t the same as “the olden days”. I always felt like I was missing out somehow. At any rate I read about BK and riot grrrl in Sassy, and immediately wanted to get involved but couldn’t figure out how as it all seemed to be happening in the USA, and I was stuck in London. I sent off for Girls Germs zine, which led to Jigsaw, and the BK zines, and Germ of Youth too-all of which I combed through for info and bands to investigate and other girls to write. THEN there was a piece on Huggy Bear in the Melody Maker, and suddenly, finally there was something happening in my town! London! Me and my friends started to go and see them play whenever we could, and they also made zines and tapes that they would give out/sell at gigs, which got us into other music and ideas , things to read, movies to watch, records to check out… Plus we all became pen pals with them (Huggy Bear) and they would make us tapes and send us letters, and send us letters written by other girls in different parts of the country to write to. We all made our own zines, and started trading them with people. It was rad!
Finally, the inevitable most dreamy thing happened-Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill toured the UK! We all bought tickets and went to every show that we could, and I think my friend Flossy told Kathleen that we were in a band (we weren’t. we had just talked about the fact we needed to do one-I had a guitar but none of us had really played music before…) Kathleen said Blood Sausage and BK were playing a show next week, and would we play?
We freaked out. We did not have a band or any songs, plus I think we were all 13/14, and couldn’t always persuade our parents to let us go out to gigs on school nights. But it was clear that we needed to do something. I don’t remember why we didn’t play that show-but we formed a band and made a tape that week. We had to come up with a band name, and had a bunch of contenders, which a girl who worked at the skate shop we hung out at (Slam City Skates!) looked at and said we should pick Skinned Teen, so we did. We gave Huggy Bear and Kathleen our tape, I think at that show, but we actually played our first show at an all girl gig, which Tammy and Jen from Linus set up, that Jo and Niki’s from Huggy Bear’s other band played, the Furbelows-they were awesome but I think they only ever recorded one song on a Huggy Nation tape?? Anyway Skinned Teen didn’t ever play with Bikini Kill but they were the reason we realized that at age 13/14 we could be a band. I didn’t ever get that feeling from listening to say, Nirvana. Bikini Kill made that world seem like something that was ours, a sound we could make rather than just consume if that makes sense. Listening to them and seeing them play was life transforming and opened up a world of possibilities, introduced me to DIY punk and making your own culture for your friends, and communicating that with other kids/punks in different places that felt the same way you did, on your own terms.
There’s a movie Lucy Thane made called Bikini Kill Changed My Life, about the BK/HB tour that you should try and watch-someone “borrowed” my copy, but on it you can see a lot of what I talked about. I feel like I haven’t talked enough about the politics of Bikini Kill maybe, the power of hearing their words of resistance and power after spending so long getting physically and verbally harassed at shows, in the pit, on the way to the show, and internalizing that. “Oh well, that’s what you get for being a girl…” and also being made to feel like my love for music wasn’t authentic or as real as some guy’s… PLus all the boring and endless explanations you had to give to clueless jerks who wanted in on riot grrrl, even though they had the rest of the “rock” world… The aggressive shitty creeps who would show up just to fuck with girls, the threatened journalists, both male and female (one women journalist made a fake zine, which was an embarrassing attempt at ridiculing riot grrrl, but her idea of feminism seemed to be from some wooden headed hippy’s description of what the women’s liberation movement was…) I just wanted to get across the idea that what Bikini Kill did for me and my friends was show us how to make our own band, our own culture, and how life changing that was. You don’t have to be Slash to pick up a guitar, you don’t have to be Thurston Moore-having an idea is sometimes more important and interesting than ability…I think Bikini Kill were my generation’s Minor Threat.

I also think girls should continue with BK and riot grrrl’s work-keep making noise, and bands, and zines, write each other, make your own girl culture…
http://bikinikillarchive.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/skinned-teen/#comments

early practitioners

When my Dolly Mixture double LP arrived in the mail, my first instinct was to play the godamn thing, much to the displeasure of my co-coordinators, who were polite, but it was soon apparent that this was music to be endured with a grimace rather than an indifferent shrug... This is the reissue of the much sought after Demonstration Tapes, an almost perfect vinyl reproduction of the bands only long player, originally released in 1983. I have had Dolly Mixture songs on mix tapes over the years, but when this was reissued in the ’90s on CD, it was super hard to find, plus I did not own a CD player, so this is the first time I have had all these songs in one place by this genre defining all girl indie pop group. Did they in fact invent twee? Dolly Mixture started in 1978, who knows if they were the first to twee, not me, that’s for sure... They were definitely early practitioners, and the first platter of the aforementioned double LP features the dreamiest early stuff, including a somewhat barbed ode to Jane, of Modettes fame, and her prowess with gentlemen, entitled, “How Come You’re Such a Hit With the Boys, Jane?” Along with my favorite, an ode to being the other woman, “Side Street Walker.” Their sense of melody is so incredible, and perfect, and the fact that teenage girls constructed these songs is so inspiring and cool... It’s funny, whatever I have read about the band refers to the fact that they didn’t make it, as if they were the British Go Gos that shoulda coulda woulda, but I think they are from a completely different planet from that band. This sound would not work in an arena! And as if “making it” has that much to do with history’s judgment of how good a band is…
The ’90s CD reissue of this record goes for over a hundred bucks. (’90s CD! $100!!!??!). Which is basically why I am writing this. The aforementioned reissue I was making Mariam miserable by listening to is already sold out. Dolly Mixture may not have been the English Go Gos, but more than 300 people wanted this record obviously. I think it sold out in two days! It’s a certified classic, made by three teenage girls because of, and in spite of the DIY explosion caused by punk. I am not the hugest indie pop nut; I prefer stuff to have at least some infusion of punk, some sorta early Television Personalities or Desperate Bicycles intonation... My teenage band used to play with Comet Gain a lot in the early ’90s, but I did not start liking them until they moved on from the cleanliness of the Style Council twee soul sound and incorporated more of the aforementioned punk sneer, starting with the majestic Tigertown Pictures LP. In fact their last three LPs and the Beautiful Despair 12” are close to punk-soul-perfection... I just write this random disclaimer to indicate that I am not usually swayed by the twee. I am in fact writing this whilst wearing Bruce Roehrs’ Raw Power t-shirt that he bought at a Rock Against Reagan show in ’84. There are no hair clips in my bangs, I am not sporting an anorak, nor do I own any records on the Sarah record label. I like pop music, but I like it when it’s made by a band that fucks with the constraints of twee, more Shop Assistants than Tallulah Gosh. I think that’s pretty much the rule to most music I like. I am not interested in perfection, I like mistakes, music that sounds like it couldn’t be any other way, like it had to be made. Rather than perfect constructions of musical genres. The last song by Void on the Faith/Void split is my favorite song of all time. This of course is a perfect construction. EXPLODE!!!!
Speaking of Roehrs, we are running an Agnostic Front interview this issue that was his last before he died. Before he did it, he asked our permission, in light of MRR and that band’s antagonistic history. Bruce and Tim Yo were close, and he knew that Tim would have had something to say about this interview being in the magazine. Initially we were going to send someone alongside Bruce to make sure that the questions weren’t too deferential or unchallenging, since he was not only good friends with the band members, but they were his favorite hardcore band... (Going by the band’s first two records it’s easy to see how he reached this conclusion). I think the interview demonstrates that the fears we may have had were not realized. It may not provide a voice for Tim’s ambivalent feelings towards the band, but Bruce did not shy away from controversy, or ask only easy questions. Bruce was a complex, charming and often difficult man, and the fact that he is gone is still hard to comprehend, in terms of his history with the magazine, but also in terms of my friendship with the man. I think about him often, and his absence is a void, his voice still rings in my head, his particular and peculiar turns of phrases appear out of the blue, along with the memory of the way he bear hugged everyone.
We are currently raising money to make sure he gets a permanent memorial worthy of a man of his stature and character. One of the places that he took out of town guests, (and in town guests, present company included!) was the San Francisco Columbarium. A copper domed grand Victorian building that was built to house the ashes of some of this city’s founding families, especially popular after cemeteries were banned from SF city limits. It is now a non denominational resting place; apparently San Francisco’s “Pope of Punk” Dirk Dirksen is there... Our goal is to raise $12,000 to secure Bruce a spot. We have gotten about half way there, and have a memorial nook secured. We need help to make the rest of the money, and anything you can spare would be a huge help. I know that there are some memorial benefit shows planned, and if you would be into doing something like that I know Bruce would have appreciated it. He was most at home at the front of a show, fists in the air… If you want to make a donation via paypal this is the email: brucememorial@maximumrocknroll.com, or you can send checks payable to Maximum Rocknroll—please make sure you put Bruce Memorial in the memo line of the check or MO.
layla at maximumrocknroll.com
whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com

Tell your children

I went to a bookstore today, and the clerk was holding a copy of a comic, reviewed in this issue of MRR, called something along the lines of Henry and Glen. He asked me if I liked the Misfits/Danzig, then told me Glenn Danzig had just walked past me as I was entering the bookstore. He had gone and grabbed the zine to prevent Mr. Danzig from having to see it and thus be upset if the warning Rollins wrote on the back of said book holds any weight… Anyway, I totally did not see Danzig, or notice anyone that looked remotely Danzig-like anywhere nearby even though he allegedly brushed past me after putting all the book store clerks on the guestlist for his show tonight. I am very disappointed and am, as I write this simultaneously watching the video of “Mother” on YouTube. This isn’t because I am not presently at a Danzig concert in 2010, I think that would be a spectacle and a disappointment, plus I don’t think I would have gone to see Danzig at any point unless it was free. Just disappointed that I did not get to gawk at him. DISAPPOINTED! All caps style. I like Danzig’s voice, but my favorite vocal stylings are those of Bobby Soxx, especially when he says “Even the laydeeeeeiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” (Apparently he doesn’t say it like that—I say it
like that. I do, frequently). LEARN TO HATE! IN THE EIGHTIEEEEEEEEEES.

Speaking of Texas punk, I also am consumed by the Foams record, which seems to have been pilfered from the MRR kollection since I got here… Or at least “misfiled” An all girl band from Austin that served mainly to prove how music was as apt an art as any to take apart… While putting together the article on the Curse in this issue I also discovered the split record they did with the Diodes had also disappeared. I think Graham wrote this month about how crazy San Francisco Amoeba has been recently,
and about Martin’s big score. I picked up Government Issue’s Legless Bull for a dollar,
which is probably the best record score ever for that price for me. I have been attempting to put together a want list so I feel less bewildered when I go to the aforementioned former bowling alley now record store. Most of the platters I am on the hunt for tend to be shit like the Foams, and other weird punk girl bands, Teddy and the Frat Girls, y’know. I have been picking up anything that looks like it might be along those lines in those mystic 7” bins, but nothing I have grabbed has been as cool as the Ama Dots 7” which was acquired by my friend Scott about ten years ago, same location, 50c. I think my favorite punk 45s are desperate sorta repulsive hardcore
items such as Neos or Mecht Mensch or Die Kreuzen or United Mutation, or their fucked up girl counterpart art punkers...
layla at maximumrocknroll.com

random hippie dirge

This is a collection of random things that sprung into my brains. This is not an epic Greek poem, or a Victorian novel, this is not New Journalism, this is not bathroom graffiti. Random brains. Brain springs. We tried to watch the bio-pic cheezecore movie about Dogtown—not the Stacey Peralta documentary, but the movie with actors aping it. It was the sort of movie that whilst watching you wondered how no one involved realized how stupid and corny it was. As a punk I love teensploitation movies, from River’s Edge to Foxes, Out of the Blue to Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, but I was not able to transmit this love into the transformation of belief required to finish watching the absolute soiled turkey that was Lords of Dogtown. Someone ollies out of their second story bedroom in one of the first scenes, an act of very believable activity for this era of skateboarding especially on a banana board. I didn’t go see the Germs movie or American Hardcore; I probably shoulda seen the latter just for big screen dynamic eye catching ferocious footage of best bands ever. I just got so annoyed by the book I figured the movie would feature that idiot that wrote it in such a way that I might need to rip my eyeballs out after viewing. Maybe movies about culture that you feel a part of that are made for mainstream appeal should just be avoided unless it’s the midnite movie and you got a crew of rowdies? “That guy would not have been wearing a Misfits shirt! Jeez... what year is this supposed to be etc etc etc” At any rate, what do you guys this about the Tater Totz 7” that Cherie Currie sings on? That also has that insane Pat Smear led overblown cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody”?
When I first starting doing shitwork at MRR there was some random hippie dirge carved into the sidewalk in front of the house. Something about the spiral tribe? The viral tribe? I have forgotten what it said exactly but it included a shitty mosaic that an angry punk smashed at some point. The city redid the sidewalk, not before a scam punk carved something marking his or her presence... And someone across the street has carved in a selection of sidewalk penises. Or penii? Sidewalk messages. I am currently sitting in my room listening to the Sublime Frequency reissue of Dara Puspita, an insanely good Indonesian all girl garage band from the ‘60s. On headphones... Looking through the booklet that came with the CD and reading about how these musicians suffered for their art via brutal government oppression, weekly grillings, where they were forced to play their hits to assorted officials who would deem whether a song was too wild for the youth of Indonesia... and yet their music is at once liberated sounding, fun and refreshing. The music is sorta Girls in the Garage stylee, except these girls actually played their instruments, they were not just dollybird frontgirls with faceless session musicians or puppets performing some small town producer’s idea of rocknroll. Some of the music borrows hooks from contemporary western rocknroll songs, but they totally transform it into their own sound somehow... Cool.

I have been, as always, been thinking about girl sounds. MRR puts on a show one a month (third Thursday at Balazo!) and this month I think nearly every band had a female musician—one, Mothercountry Motherfuckers, wore masks so I was unable to discern gender. Genderpolice. In the style of previous Mike Kirsch bands witnessed by these eyes, they had a full multi media projection thing behind them and a sorta NOU-ish manifesto band thing going. I like it a lot more than Baader Brains and am excited to get a hold of a tape or other recorded artifact when it surfaces. Former member of John Henry West! No Statik are a reasonably new Bay Area band, I mighta written about them before? Not sure, at any rate I believe a record is to appear on Prank soon enough, but you can and should send off for the demo before that. So good. Most raging female local fronted hardcore since Look Back and Laugh? Possibly, could be due to the ex member of... The ex member of list for this band is sorta epic, but let’s just say they play tight and raging hardcore at volumes and with vigor that make paying attention to anything else futile. Then there was the incredible Necro Hippies show at Thrillhouse, which also featured Diane’s new band Livid, (Diane, soon to be former distro coordinator of this thing you currently hold... More on that in a bit), Livid were the best kind of basement punk, with the most compelling frontwoman, total Alice Bag delivery… The rest of the band had their own rhythm and idea of punk, so it made for a most killer combination with the snarled and stuttered vocals. Really had a most enchanting Dangerhouse situation and the idea that they have just recorded a tape makes this girl extremely happy for the state of Bay Area music. And yep, you read right, Diane is leaving the distribution coordinator position at MRR; Fred Schrunk of Thrillhouse Records will be taking over, starting in July, so if you wanna start selling MRR at shows or at your skate shop you should email distro@maximumrocknroll.com. Fred rules and is a long time architect of San Francisco punk, setting up the collectively run all volunteer record store and sometime show space Thrillhouse, and also tirelessly searching for a new and legit all ages space for San Francisco. We are super excited to have him as part of the coordinator power trifecta. Back to the show—Necro Hippies ruled, playing trashed out basement hardcore, timeless and true. They have a record on Raw Sugar records out of New Orleans, where they are from, and Candice, the guitarist is involved in a cool all girls show collective No More Fiction… Hardcore for the hardcore.
Anyway-listen to the song “Chronic Thoughts” by Malefice, and I promise next month this column will be less a collection of brain sewage and more a cohesive dissertation of reality.
layla at maximumrocknroll.com

Marissa and I did the radio show

that's Tim Yohannan and Jeff Bale in thee olden MRR radio days
this is us:

super wild horses. i like the song enigma best from the new LP

U (angry side)

Badge monsters

YES! MRR has new buttons! Buy them peops for your denim vests, fake fur shrugs etc etc
Designed by Avi Spivek and Guillem from Destino Final!!

RITE HERE!

Teenage Tantrums

I have been playing music since I was thirteen. I am now 32. I think I have played in eight bands total. I moved to San Francisco in 2005 and since then have played in one band, with my former roommates Jess Scott (of Brilliant Colors fame) and Tommy Strange (of Zero Defex fame). We have a tape, it was made in an afternoon, which is also how long the band lasted. It is now 2010. And I have been in one band, for one afternoon in the past five years. My first band, Skinned Teen, formed after we went to see Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill in London, where I grew up. One of the girls I was hanging out with told Kathleen Hanna we were in a band, and she offered us a show the week after that. We were not in a band, just wanted to be after witnessing the life affirming and life changing spectacle of Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear… We were thirteen and fourteen, and had just discovered underground punk rock, after a year or so of going to see bands like Mudhoney and Nirvana, Jesus and Mary Chain and PJ Harvey. Whatever the NME and Melody Maker were championing that week was what we were into, obviously not completely, for instance the Grebo scene seemed dire to my ears at least... Witnessing the HB/BK tour made us feel like it was in our hands, our boredom and alienation could be transformed by none other than our own sense of what was possible. Huggy Bear used to make a fanzine for every show they played, sometimes a huge elaborate 100 page opus, sometimes a one sheet thing folded in half, that they called Bullet-Teens. The fact that they were all super ancient (probably in their twenties…) yet constantly referred to teen culture and youth as being the true punk troops made us want to realize that vision. And we did.

We didn’t play our first show with Bikini Kill, we played a month or so later at an all girl band show, which also featured the awesome Furbelows, which was Jo and Niki from Huggy Bear’s all girl garage band. We made a tape in my bedroom and gave ‘em out to whoever asked, and ended up putting out four records by the time we broke up, when we were all seventeen. After that I played in a bunch of bands that only made tapes, bands that only existed in name and concept, and bands that were more about hanging out and skateboarding than actually making music. From the Fucking French Boyfriends to Elle Touer, SS Lucifer to the Frigidairres, the first “real” band I did was when I was 19, called Petty Crime. By “real” I mean a band that played shows and existed as part of a punk community rather than as a hang out opportunity between the six or seven girls I skated with. I actually have a list somewhere of every band name we came up with, something like fifty conceptual bands, some of which made tapes, which I think I still have, some of which were just conversations.
When I was in Skinned Teen there were a group of dudes at our drummer Esme’s secondary school who were in a Pearl Jam cover band. It used to drive them absolutely fucking insane that we played shows with Sonic Youth offshoots and they were playing in the beer garden at local pubs. They couldn’t understand why we, who “couldn’t play” were somehow given all these opportunities to “make it,” while they languished with their guitar skills and “Jeremy” covers in cruddy old Brentford pubs. We refused to give interviews to the music papers, we didn’t want to “make it” we wanted to make music, have a good time and connect with other grrrls. We wanted to find the weirdos who didn’t want to be part of the music industry, who wanted to make their own thing on their own terms. To make a subculture rather than pursue sponsorship opportunities. When we get sent demo tapes at MRR, I like the ones that sound like they were made by people who can’t help but exist in that same idea of music. Music that sounds like it wasn’t an attempt to make a perfect carbon copy of a specific era of hardcore or punk history. I like it when a band sounds like they were trying to make a certain sound, but couldn’t, so they ended up with some weirdo shit out of necessity rather than conceit.
I started writing about this because for the first time in about five years I picked up my guitar and started playing again last week. I am not sure why I stopped, but I am going to try make myself play regularly. My friend Tobi says that she sets aside a couple hours a week just to play guitar, otherwise it doesn’t happen. I am going to try do this. I am also going to try and write every day. This pile of drivel that I emit each month is the only thing I write anymore. I used to put out my own zines, which I haven’t for a few years. Mostly I don’t think I have the time to do it, running MRR is super life consuming… I haven’t even made anyone a mix tape for an epic amount of time, which I used to do on a monthly basis. I wrote this just to remind myself to continue to produce punk culture outside of these inky pages you hold in your hands. And if you are reading this, and I owe you a mix tape—it’s on the way!
Whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com
layla@maximumrocknroll.com

how come you're such a hit with the girls

better get on it

Puffy Areolas? Really tho

New LP on Siltbreeze rages.

Here is a tape

necro hippies rule

Necro Hippies Garage Show 2.15.2010 from paul danos on Vimeo.

go see them play fools!

RIP

This city, San Francisco is the first time I have lived somewhere within walking distance of the ocean since the ’90s. when I lived in Brighton, England for three years of college. I have now lived here for five years, with two years spent in Oakland before that. Prior to Oakland I lived in London for a year, before which I was in New York City for close to two years, I moved there from Orange County, California where I lived for a little over two years. I moved to the OC to care for my grandmother, just after I graduated from college in England, where I am from. I moved to Brighton as a teenager from London, the city in which I was born and raised. A somewhat incongruous, sloppy and inadequately put together paragraph to indicate that I started volunteering at MRR shortly after moving to the Bay Area, which is the place I have lived the longest since abandoning my home town, London. Every so often people will ask why I don’t move to NYC or LA, or back to London. As if I am here while I figure out what my “real life” is going to entail in a big city… When I lived in all those other places, I used to think, when things got bad—well, you can always leave.
At first MRR was just something I did every so often, hopped on a BART train and did the radio show a couple times a month. Then I got sucked in, through new and different responsibilities, eventually leading me to coordinator-ship. I think the longest anyone has been a coordinator of this magazine, barring Tim, is Arwen’s six year run. Most other coordinators seem to last around three before burn out strikes. I started in ’08, so I guess if I succumb to the same disease that affected all the others, I’ll burn out in 2011. A year before the apparent end of the world. Hopefully by that point I will have achieved my goal of owning the Foams 45, publishing a fanzine that is not MRR, making mix tapes for all those I’ve promised them to, and finding more new bands that affect me as much as Sex Vid did. Dare to dream…
I have been thinking about all of this stuff partially because of training a new coordinator, and partially because of Bruce’s death. Endings and beginnings. Someone said that Lance Hahn, Tim Yo and Bruce were the trinity of Maximum, that it really was the end of a real and specific era. When I first got my column in the magazine a few long time shitworkers wrote me postcards and emails, commenting on things I was obsessing over. Lance wrote me about going to see Unit Three Plus Venus, an early ’80s band featuring a mildly exploitative stage mom’s attempt at finding fame through her twelve year old daughter. Lance saw them play in Hawaii, when he was growing up, and wrote about going to see anything, any show, any punk event, which I totally could relate to. I always felt like punk was happening far from my eyes, in a different town, a different country. Bruce Roehrs always made jokes about how he didn’t read the magazine, and yet if I mentioned that I was looking for a record in my column, it would come up in conversation somehow.
When he finally got his records out of storage, he pulled out a Desperate Bicycles 45 for me, remembering that I had talked about never seeing their records in record stores in London as a kid. He was thoughtful like that. Kind. Open minded. The kind of man who claimed he couldn’t stand bands with female vocalists, yet frequently wore a Red Aunts shirt. Not one of my favorite bands, or even a band I can understand liking, but an all girl band nonetheless. He claimed he hadn’t eaten a vegetable since 1969, yet went out to dinner to Thai and Indian places twice a week with his best friend Dirk, and Dirk’s two year old daughter. It’s strange writing this, knowing that this month is the last month that this magazine will feature his music writing. I will never have to call him, a week past his supposed deadline, waiting expectantly for the reams of yellow lined legal paper that made up his column, his music reviews. He was supposed to review the new Antiseen CD, the THUG 12” and a Thieves 7” this month. Who else can review Antiseen? The idea that anyone else at this magazine is qualified would have made Bruce roll his eyes, and roll up his sleeves and get to work. He loved both the THUG and the Super Yob records, played them constantly the way he did all the records that came in that consumed him. At top volume, always wanting others to share the pleasure he got from punk, from hardcore, from oi! He loved talking to everyone here about music, from Steve Spinali, to Marissa Magic. He was able to find the common ground, the shared love of sound, that particular feeling that you get when something hits you just right. He never stayed still, was never static, stuck in the sounds of his youth. He always wanted to hear the new bands, the local bands, the support bands. I often witnessed him leaving shows early, just watching the support bands, for whom no one else could spare the time.
Interviewing Fred and Toody Cole of Dead Moon with him was one of the coolest and most enriching experiences of my time here, all of us crammed in the MRR courtyard, asking these legends about how they got to where they were, what decisions they made, how they made those sounds. Bruce sitting there, beside himself with happiness to be in the company of others who loved music as much as he did, who had also stayed true to their idea of what rock’n’roll is, and what it could be. It isn’t an oldies station, playing the same five songs on repeat. It’s in the blood of people like Bruce, like Fred and Toody who are always looking for what’s happening now, at the same time as staying true to what they believe. Connecting the past to the present without writing off either, experience and excitement, being a fan. Music is lived experience, and Bruce was the living embodiment of someone who lived for music, who loved music and was able to communicate his enthusiasm and passion to an audience in such a unique way. Who else could review the new Antiseen CD? No one could give it the review Bruce would have, and that makes me sad, makes me realize what we have lost. A brother, a friend, a true rock’n’roller, a man who lived on his own terms until the end. It’s been hard writing this, trying to encapsulate all the complexities that made up the man, what stories to tell, and what are best forgotton. I have a feeling that the stories are going to keep pouring out, from all over the world, from all the people that were affected by Bruce and his pure love of rock’n’roll as well as his kindness and friendship.
layla at maximumrocknroll.com / whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com