1990s dance party.

A trip back to yesteryear with the great It's For Life compilation. What we have here is Lifetime before they decided to be a pop punk band, One of my alltime fave edge bands, Ressurection (sic) and a who's who of 90s east and west coast edge bands such as Mouthpiece, Strife, mean season, flagman-you get the idea. My favorite songs on this are the songs "submerged" by Reveal and the Ressurection live version of "why?" but if you're into this style, it's an all around good compilation and a pretty good representation of the era and subgenre when sxe hardcore was in it's early adult years. So check it out (or don't).

http://www.mediafire.com/?5gh6xbjs5hdzpu3

Admiral!!!

So I was in High School and my friend Dietrich told me about this band our Friend Joe had just seen at Club Soda. They were called Admiral. Kalamazoo Michigan figurehead Joel Wick had put together a benefit show for homeless people or animals or maybe both (?). Anyways, Laughing Hyenas, Circus Lupus and several other bands played. As I previously stated one of the bands went by the name of Admiral. In Joe's words, the singer looked homeless and their performance almost made him cry-which was pretty absurd to my 15 year old ears. Anyways, as I was slipping out of metal, this was one of the first contemporary hardcore/punk bands I was to hear on a mixtape dietrich made for me. Needless to say, I thought they were great. Emotional and intense without seeming to be playing a card of some sort. It just seemed legitimate and, unlike some bands to come along later it still seemed steeped in that world of hardcore punk from a musical standpoint. Anyways, here's both of their 7"s and a live set that they played in Washington, DC courtesy of the emoisdead group on mediafire. If you haven't you should check them out, lots of good stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/?xd4weq5da6dxuzz

Bastard

i haven't really done a post about a hardcore in awhile, mainly because nothing has really jumped out at me that i felt like i should post about, then tonight i decided to pop in this album and give it a listen and knew instantly i had to make a post about it, i decided to keep the post pretty short because i know there's already quite a bit of info out there about this band (especially on mp3 blogs) but hopefully this will reach some new ears.

Bastard were a (now somewhat legendary) crusty hardcore band from Tokyo. In the late 80s and early 90s, they self released their "Controlled In The Frame" 7" ep and "Wind Of Pain" lp as well as a couple comp tracks, all of which are collected on the "No Hope In Here" Discography cd.

Bastard's sound is, easily put, what Tragedy (and all the watered down tragedy rip offs) wants to be but can't seem to pull off as well as they'd hope. So, that means you take the standard Discharge style d-beat with some crust but add in alot more speed, some really rad thrash metal guitar solos, gnarly gutteral vocals and even a lil melody (ala Paintbox) and there you have it, one of the best d beat/crust/hardcore/whatever bands of the last 20 or so years.

I have but one complaint and that is that there isn't enough! this entire discography is only about 35 minutes which means by the time you've really started enjoying it, it's over. So, anyway,  I'm not gonna go on and on about standout tracks or certain things i enjoy about this band because everything about this is great and this collection is ESSENTIAL!

Enjoy!

Bastard "no hope in here" discography

Tree Wave

A few years ago I ordered a Cynthcart for my Commodore 64 which basically turns a C64 into an amazing 3 note polyphony synth. Ordering the Cynthcart also introduced me to Tree Wave. Paul Slocum is the extremely talented man behind both of these projects.

Tree Wave is a dream pop, shoegaze, electronic noise outfit from Dallas Texas. Tree Wave consists of Lauren Gray, Paul Slocum, two Commodore 64s, an Atari 2600, a Compaq Portable II, and a hacked Epson dot matrix printer (all driven by Mr. Slocum’s code that produces Soft female & male vocals over washed out computer noise).

Unfortunately this project is on hiatus. Check out the two links listed (Tree Wave’s 10” & the Cabana EP).

Official Site

Tree Wave 10”

Cabana EP

Swimsuit

Swimsuit are a newer band (been around just under a year) from MI/NYC (me thinks) featuring various veterans of the MI music scene, the most prominent being Fred Thomas, formerly of Saturday Looks Good To Me,Lovesick,Flashpapr (a band very near and dear to my heart, but ill save that for another time) and currently of City Center. In their short time as a band they've managed to release two (now sold out) tapes and most recently a 7"

The music is mostly instrumental lo fi/surfy/dream/twee pop (buzz words!) stuff drenched in tape echo/reverb/chorus, somewhat equatable to certain parts of SLGTM, but by no means a continuation, Swimsuit can definitely stand on its own with no points of reference to former bands really needed. As much as i really enjoy the instrumental songs the real standout ones are those that have vocals, "Evaporation" has become a mixtape staple ever since i heard the demo a few months back, the reverb soaked female vocals overtop of the surfy twee pop (with a bit of Black Tamborine) makes for 1:58 seconds of pure bliss that leave me wanting more even though i can't imagine the song getting better than it is. The other non instrumental track on the demo, "Sunlight" has some nice sparse vocals that feature Fred most prominently.

The demo is by far my favorite release, short and sweet (which works perfectly for my limited attention span), the "peace gull" tape has a nice flow but sometimes i feel like the cymbals get a little too distorted and other times i think the flow is a lil too nice i kinda zone out on it, its still great though and certainly worth a listen. the first show recording sounds fun and kinda sloppy and basically what first shows are supposed to sound like, so whenever i listen to it, i get that feeling of the nervous energy that playing a first show brings and it makes me very happy. I just ordered the 7" which apparently has an Albert Ayler cover on the b side, so i'm very excited to hear what that's like.

I could go on and on and make less and less sense but i really just wanna go drink orange juice and listen to bad hardcore right now.

so without further ado:


5 song Demo Tape

'Peace Gull" all instrumental Tape


Recording of First Show

update!
Swimsuit - Dolphins/Heart Love 7"  

Fred Thomas' City Center Blog (loads of mp3s etc)
Life Like Tape Label (Order the new 7", Only 300 of em, so don't sleep on it)





Swimsuit at Glasslands November 12 2010

J. Roy Stalcup

For my first post I had to choose J. Roy Stalcup (1903-1990). J. Roy Stalcup was an amazing banjo player from North Carolina that was known for his distinct two finger style. I really got into Stalcup after becoming frustrated trying to learn to play banjo. I could never play clawhammer or frailing style and could only pick with my thumb and forefinger. After a few Google searches I came across Stalcup. Stalcup intrigued me because he really did not fall into the trap that an instrument had to be played in any certain manner. A master of multiple tunings, his rough voice over a slightly out of tune banjo is endearing.

This recording is filled with stories, amazing folk, and a time when songs were learned from family and community and made your own. Stand outs for me are “Stay all Night”, “Back in The Country”, and “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss”.

J. Roy Stalcup (Songs & Stories)

Merchandise

i realize its been awhile since my last but i had planned on having multiple contributors for the blog and as of yet none of that has reached any sort of fruition, but i digress.


Merchandise is a somewhat newer band from Tampa,Fl that features members of some more recent hc bands such as Divisions,Nazi Dust & Cult Ritual. Merchandise however is a far cry from those bands. Instead, what Merchandise creates is a mish mash of post punk, goth, shoegaze and a lil wipers all ran through a heavy layer of distortion and lo fi recording techniques.

The band has several releases out but today i've decided to focus on my favorite two:

"(Strange Songs) In The Dark" is the band's recently released full length, which opens up with "Loss" a song i actually think is a bit of stinker, so i usually skip over it when im listening on my computer...luckily its followed by two incredible songs in a row "I Locked The Door" and "Foolish" but really the whole thing is incredible.

Up next is the "Terminal Jagger Janes Addiction Addiction Box Set" Cassette which came out in 2009 (or maybe it was 2010, i get it all mixed up) but is sadly now out of print. "White Walls" is one of the bands faster songs and shows a bit more of the Wipers influence i mention earlier, though the standout songs on this tape for me are "I Know The Light In Your Hall", which at the moment i believe may be my favorite song by any current band, its immediately followed by the equally amazing "What I Want/What I Wanted", the great thing to me about these two songs is that they're both over five minutes long each and yet they manage to stay interesting the entire time and keep your attention (which for me, with my years of untreated ADD, is no small feat) as if no time at all has passed.

alright i could go on for way too long, just do yourself a favor and download these now

Download Both Releases (as well as a couple others, which are also great) on the band's website
Buy 'Em Here and Here




Merchandise - I Locked the Door from Id House Vid. Group on Vimeo.