Eunuch - Castration 7" [2013]

Ok, I haven't been writing much lately but this record came in the mail months and months ago so I gotta get back to it. Here goes:

Mid-tempo grooves, Stooges riffs, and a whole ton of mental anguish and paranoia borne out of the desperation of living in Kansas City, Eunuch bring no new tropes to the grungepunk idiom on this bass-driven 7" out on XO Press. Not that they care, and neither should you. This is not a record for sitting around, craft beer in lap, searching for some kind of political or cultural message within it. No, this music demands thrown bottles or a lurching dance. Love or hate I mean; look at the other acts on the XO roster: names like Meat Mist, Robert Plant's Dingleberry, a record entitled 'Pussy Cola,' (Fugs, anyone?) ... this KC crowd doesn't seem to take itself to seriously. Listen to 'Endless Drone Strikes' enough times, though, and the bass will drive you mad. 

Listen here. Inquire with soitoldthemto@aim.com to obtain a physical copy.

Mystic Inane - Demo [2013]

At certain hardcore shows, the kids don't bother with shoving elbows or macho mosh ritual violence, preferring instead to fling and flop and squirm across the floor like a zombie being dragged by fishing line. I don't know what the shows are like in Louisiana (other than drunkenness and playing under bridges), but Mystic Inane seem like a band well-suited for this kind of unskilled herk-jerk "dancing."

Their demo has been sitting in my tape deck awhile since it came in the mail. Four songs, each hovering around two minutes, emitting sputtered beats and atonal guitar deviations in the vein of A-Frames (+ the various bands affiliated with them). To make an arbitrary Chicago connection, it reminds me of the Daily Void, but less apocalyptic and more juvie. What this stuff boils down to, though, is discomfortable, mid-to-fast besnotted punk -- tight but with just the right amount of looseness to get the listener unhinged. Highly recommended. It looks like they just played with Glue and Gas Rag in New Orleans, a lineup I imagine was pretty explosive. 

Stream it at their bandcamp, download here. Get yourself a copy: contact mysticinane (a) gmail, or send $5.00 ppd to 3111 Palmyra St, New Orleans, LA 70119.

Lumpy & the Dumpers - Sex Pit

I posted this band's 7" and demo CS a while back, and well they just released a video. Check it out you stooge.

THEY LET ME ON THE RADIO

So I do a show Monday nights 10 til midnight on air at WRFU 104.5 FM in Urbana Illinois. Shortly thereafter I'm putting up streams of the show. Playlists and stream links will be available at:

http://night-collectors-wrfu.blogspot.com/

First stream available here:
http://www.mixcloud.com/inthezenarcade/night-collectors-wrfu-12022013/

Night Collectors WRFU - 12/02/2013 by Inthezenarcade on Mixcloud

Nancy - S/T CS [2013]

Punk n roll channeling the sort of AM radio sounds that probably inspired the Heartbreakers or the Dictators, or the more rockin' moments of Big Star. None of those name-drops are very accurate in describing Nancy, though. For a style that's been done to death for the past 60+ years, it amazes me that a band could come up with tunes that sink in as deep as these ones do. Really though I don't spend much time thinking about influences or the merits of 'originality' when I'm listening to this, because the songs quickly make that shit irrelevant.  And there are some serious earworms on here -- just try to remove "Midnight" or "Malt Licker" from your head once you've heard 'em. Hands down, this is one of the best releases of 2013.

Listen here, then get yerself a copy from Eat the Life (second pressing is now available!). And keep an eye out for the Nancy 7", comin' at you some time soon.

BIG ZIT

Now that they've let this loose on the net I might as well pass it along. Big Zit have been tearing up midwest basements over the past year and it's about time you heard em. Other people have already said this but I'll repeat it in agreement: these are some of the most freaked-out vocals I've heard in quite a long time. Really excellent tunes, especially the first one; it's no surprise that this band shares members with Ooze because they're both so fukkin groovy. To add to my general disorientation upon first popping this in my tape deck, the last song on my copy is a magnetically-degraded version of "Voice of Q" ... this band is a total cultural assault.

BZ Int'l Plyrs Clb Prznts:

Total Trash - You Don't Try CS [2013]

Total Trash came thru town a coupla weeks ago on the tail end of their recent tour. They slayed the room with crunchy riffs and winning stage/floor presence. Their 7" is out right about now, and while it's good, this tape from earlier in the year wins out coz it's a little more raw and angry (to my ear). Plus they do a Germs song on this one. Besides Wild Child, Total Trash are probably the best thing Minneapolis has going right now as far as this ignorant monk can tell. Shambling punk with dynamic (a)-melodic vocals and a guitar that sounds inspired by Bitch Magnet. And they know how to draw you in with a slow tune without it getting stale, as evident on the last track "Know." All-around solid release. 

You can get through their bandcamp, pay-what-you-want for digital or cough up a few bones for the actual tape. 

Slut River - Off White 7" [2012]

When these punks rolled through Champaign last month people went wild for it. Definitely one of the best shows I've seen in town in quite a while. Snotty tunes by people who know how to beat you on the head with groovy punk rhythms and treat yer mind to excellent pop melodies. Somebody on their bandcamp likened the sound to Mika Miko, which isn't real accurate but not totally off either. Hardly an unfavorable comparison in any case. Slut River are further proof -- if you needed any -- that Iowa City has an excellent scene despite (or because of) its prairie isolation. Get this one.

The actual 7" has five songs on it, while the digital version has seven with a slightly different song order. I'm going off the physical release but I bet the other songs are just as good. Just make sure to spin it at 33 1/3 unless you wanna hear chipmunk vocals. 

one sick pup

Lumpy & the Dumpers - 7" [2013]

Gonna make this a quick one, coz I'm driving down to St. Louis to see these freaks play with Dawn of Humans tonight. If you've been paying any attention at all, you already know Lumpy & the Dumpers are one of the active best bands in the midwest, if not the country. Hell, at this point they've got bands in cool-guy towns like New York ripping off their sound. This 7" continues in the vein of their previous cassette releases, twisting hardcore punk out of its stale formulae and injecting an unhealthy dose of slime muck. All three songs on here are rippers, but if I had to pick, I'd go with the last one. 

Anyway, this is up on bandcamp for pay what you want, but as with all of Martin's visual art this is one you should really get a physical copy of. 

Lemme see you nitwits pogo

The Ex - Aural Guerrilla [1988]

Been meaning to put this up for a while. The late '80s were a peak for the Ex. By then they'd honed a nimble, unconventional post-punk groove and on this record they throw some noisy weight behind it. These songs sound like machines the band built: lurching forward at a seemingly haphazard pace, but masterfully steered by drummer Katherina Bornefeld. At sharp turns the guitars spill feedback out over the sides, creaking and sputtering and screaming. Combined with Sok's defiant agitprop shoutspeak, which goes well beyond base sloganeering, the result sounds almost weaponlike, corny as it feels to say. Comes together real well on "Carcass," maybe my favorite tune on here. I don't feel like going on about it since in my mind the Ex need no introduction, but if you're not familiar with them, this is a pretty ideal place to start since it's relatively straightforward. If you dig this, see if you're up for their musique concrète double-album Joggers and Smoggers, released a year later.

theex.nl
everything is falling into place

re-up'd: Toothpaste - EP [1983]

Yes, that's a Colgate-Hindenburg doing a Led Zeppelin -- enter Toothpaste, Chicago's Masters of Provocative Funk. This is their first of two releases, an EP recorded in late 1982 and released on Schwa Records, which also put out a 7" by a later incarnation of Silver Abuse around the same time. This 12" EP, recorded at the old Chess Records building on South Michigan Avenue, is a worthy example of the satirical/weird side of Chicago punk. The EP came out toward the tail end of the city's first wave of punk bands, and sounds nothing like the ossified, macho hardcore ritual that predominated by mid-decade (thanks a lot, Effigies/Raygun copycats). Instead, you get swirling guitars -- evoking new-wave on the one hand, early-'80s Bob Mould on the other. "Amerikan Beauties" mockingly apes the opening riff from "Pretty Woman." One minute they're singing blithely about the occupation of Palestine, next thing you know they're groaning about hardware as some kind of metaphor for fucking, or for American prudishness, or something. Toothpaste holds a mirror up to the banal tropes of Midwestern culture, its silly excuses for counterculture, and a Cold War too absurd to care about anymore. But nobody's looking anyway; probably Toothpaste was too absurd to care about. But they're precious currency for a certain type of weirdo, you know who you are. The video below gives you some idea, though the tune sounds more like Special Affect or End Result than what's on the EP:

The blog I Have a Brain in My Ass has video up of Toothpaste's set at the 2010 Riot Fest Busted at Oz reunion ... honestly they sound pretty stiff and uninspired, but if you're already a fan and need to hear some songs that never made it to record, check it out.

Every one was a terrorist, can't say that about our boys

Gas Rag - Gas Rag CS [2013]

Saw these dudes open for Crazy Spirit back in January, and their set was early enough in the lineup that it didn't suffer from the ridiculous overcrowding that came after. Besides that they were one of the highlights of the night. Rapid, nihilistic drug-punk songs about the drone war and other things that tug at your angry damaged heartstrings. The six songs thrash by in less than five minutes that I know you can spare, punk. Give it a spin; if you dig it, email durso1753@gmail.com for a copy of the tape.

War pervert

re-up'd: LIVE OOZE

So this is my penance for missing these dudes opening for Skrapyard and Iceage this weekend (Iceage played a pretty sweet set, though). Ooze is a band in Chicago/NWI. I know the guitar player was in the Outs and Night Fever but that's just off the top of my head. Oh, the singer played in Raw Nerve. Anyway, this is a somewhat hi-fi recording of what was something like their third show. Seven songs in just under nine minutes. What can I say? It's hardcore punk played by people who evidently breathe the stuff. Comparisons to Brown Sugar wouldn't be unwarranted; Ooze has a similarly swinging rhythm, and the instruments are played in a way that harkens back to older styles of rock and roll (they open the set with 'California Sun,' à la the Dictators/Ramones) while maintaining a manic hardcore pace. If you've seen these dudes play, you know to be excited about them. The audio comes from the video below.

For the sake of convenience I ripped the audio from the vid and broke up the tracks. Though I don't know what any of them are called. The cover art is from the gig flyer.

Ooze roolze

re-up'd: Hüsker Dü - Metal Circus [1983]

As you probably know, I get the name of this site from the most famous album by St. Paul, Minnesota's Hüsker Dü, as they are one of my favorite bands of ever. Zen Arcade was part of a paradigm shift in punk and hardcore, as the Hüskers, alongside Black Flag, the Minutemen, Sonic Youth, other SST bands, and countless others the world over were permanently expanding the creative capacity of counter-culture music.

Ten months before Zen Arcade was released, they put out the Metal Circus EP. It is the pivot around which the band changed its direction, from the 'ultracore' of their earlier singles and albums toward the stuff that got them remembered (and ultimately destroyed by a major label). You can read a 1982 interview with the band in the second issue of the D.C. zine Thrillseeker -- their answers are very foretelling.

As for the songs, this is when Hüsker Dü really hit their stride. The 'Minnesota guitar snowstorm' sound is fully operational, and the record is filled with soaring harmonics that let melody sneak into unexpected places. 'Real World' is a folk tune for the disillusioned rebel ("you're not a cop or politician, you're a person too -- you can sing any song you want, but you're still the same"), but it somehow sounds hopeful rather than cynical. The next two are some great Reagan-punk sort of songs about coping with impending nuclear apocalypse. The first side finishes with the boozer's lament "First of the Last Calls," borne from guitarist Bob Mould's own troubles with drink.

The the second side could be read as the thematic conclusion of the problems brought about in the first. After the brief whirlwind of "Lifeline," in which Bob screams about falling into the abyss, the abyss is reached. "Diane" starts. Greg Norton's bass churns out ominous chords, and Grant Hart drums along as he sings the true story of a woman raped and killed in Minnesota, from the p.o.v. of the perpetrator. It's a haunting electric murder ballad, a apt climax to the five songs that preceded it. The record ends with "Out on a Limb," a Sabbath-y dance of precarity. Listening to the words or reading along to this EP, there's a sense of narrative progression. Once they were able to show themselves capable of doing a concept record, they went all the way with it and ended up with the 'concept double album' that followed it in '84.

In my upload I included four outtakes from the Metal Circus sessions, which are of variable fidelity. However, they are some fierce punk tunes. Hüsker Dü are one of the few bands whose rejects are practically as good as the stuff they commit to wax. One of these, "Standing By the Sea," would be attempted again on Zen Arcade.

Finally, if you're still reading along with this, you're probably a big fan of the Hüskers yourself. So you might appreciate this graphic about the cover art, if you haven't seen it already.

graphic belongs to Patrick Smith

The inscription on the A-side reads, "That old stainless charity. If you could see me now, Shirley." On the B-side it's "Falling from grace with the goose; Howard Hughs, a wing, a prayer, (see below)."

Buy Metal Circus on insound
Discogs vinyl link
I like to protest but I'm not sure what it's for

re-up'd: End Result - Ward EP [1985]

Chicago punk in the '80s had its fair share of weirdos, but End Result in particular pushed the envelope of what people would tolerate hearing. Not quite as blatantly crass as, say, the Mentally Ill, but musically these Southside punks could really test your patience. Don't let the more-or-less straightforward opening track deceive you; the Ward EP quickly devolves into an unrighteous mess of horns, semi-competent guitar squall, and psychotically howled vocals. The bizarre rendition of Petula Clark's 'Don't Fall Asleep in the Subway' must be heard to be (dis)believed. 

from Maximumrocknroll #3

From Roctober:

Chicago's End Result was a multi racial experimental No Wave band born out of the early 80s hardcore scene. They managed to limp all the way to the end of the 80s with a rotating cast (at one point they advertised they were seeking a "singer with a hatred of music") built around guitarist [Alan] Jones. Perhaps their greatest legacy is that they paved the way for No Wave/artfuck bands presenting themselves to an all-ages, hardcore/punk audience, something that defined the Chicago underground of the 90s (Milk of Burgundy, Skingraft, etc.). Their odd songs (a straightforward tune about amputation wasn't atypical) were released on Articles Of Faith's Wasteland label, and on several important Midwestern hardcore/punk comps, resulting in fans of boundary-pushing gravitating towards them, including Steve Albini and Sonic Youth. No child of privilege, Jones lived in a mission for a while, and turned lemons into an odd tasting lemonade by briefly making the mission's basement a site for punk shows.

End Result fit into the Chicago punk puzzle somewhere between early Silver Abuse and ONO. Here's a video of them circa 1984:

I know it was my fault, but I'm gonna take it out on you

re-up'd: Аквариум - Акустика [1982]

Here's an album I've really been digging lately. Russian folk from the last decade of the Soviet Union. Aquarium (alternately known as Akvarium) was formed in 1972 by Boris Grebenshchikov and Anatoly Gunitsky. The band spent the first decade or so of its life doing mostly apartment concerts -- house shows with high political stakes in a country where "rock and roll" needed explicit state approval to play in the official concert halls. Aquarium is much more of a folk band though, in the style of бард "bard" music, which had since the 1960s referred to original music (one name for the genre is самодеятельная песня, literally "do-it-yourself song") by musicians who worked outside the Soviet musical/cultural system. From Wikpedia:

The first six years of Aquarium's history lacked cohesion as Grebenshchikov and his various bandmates followed the Soviet equivalent of the hippie lifestyle: playing apartment jams, drinking the low-quality port wine available from the Soviet stores of the time, and intermittently travelling to remote gigs, even hitchhiking on rail freight cars.

The album Akustika was made at the start of the '80s, just before the state music industry started allowing this kind of stuff to be more widely disseminated. It contains a dozen-plus real pretty folk numbers, mostly on acoustic guitar plus bass, violin, and the occasional flute. In contrast to a lot of the kitchen-recorded stuff by Yanka Dyagileva or Grazhdanskaya Oborna, this album is fairly high-fidelity (and a lot less noisy than GrOb), thanks to Grebenshchikov's access to academic recording facilities. The songs clearly demonstrate the influence of Bob Dylan on Grebenschikov, and Allmusic associates Aquarium with the likes of Neil Young, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, as well as Dylan of course. By the second half of the decade Aquarium were selling millions of records, which speaks to the popularity they garnered in their first 15 years of existence.

Boris G. is a huge name in Russian music, and when you hear his voice and songs it's not hard to understand why. Check out this video of Aquarium in what looks like a TV performance from 1986:

I should mention that I was turned onto this stuff by fellow St. Petersburghers Sonic Death (a band I can't recommend enough), who did a few Grebenschikov songs on their Boris Session EP, released in the summer. Needless to say the material is good and their take on it makes for some righteous jams.

Buy Akustika on CD at UkrMedia
My house is already not my home

VA - Busted at Oz [1981]

Okay, this was getting kind of hard to find online so post it I shall. Early document of the old Chicago punk scene, which centered around a handful of bars, such as Le Mere Vipere, Tut's, the Cubby Bear, O'Banions, and OZ, that would spin new punk and reggae records and book groups other than cover bands. Opened in 1977, OZ was the place at which many Chicagoans were introduced to the likes of the Fall, Black Flag, and Hüsker Dü (the infamous "blue paint show" was here). These songs were all recorded live over the period of March 9-11 1981. Side one opens up with the earliest recordings of Naked Raygun, back when they were a  bunch of freaks and didn't do 'woah-ohs' in their songs. Then you've got a couple tracks each by the Subverts, Strike Under, and Da, which don't appear on their records. The Silver Abuse songs include a Urinals-meets-Pere Ubu pisstake cover of Skrewdriver's "Antisocial." The two Effigies tracks are the most straightforward material on here; pretty good midtempo '80s hardcore but I prefer the weird stuff.

Anyway, I don't know if it's a matter of hometown sentimentality or what, but I return to this comp pretty often. Some people even consider it a 'classic' of sorts.

I saw a woman, gasoline, she burned herself to death

Kowabunga! Kid - Surf Witchery b/w Wolf Luv CS [2012]

Since I saw these wolf luvvers the other night, I thought I should share their tape with you. As you can probably tell from the cover, this was released for the occasion of All Hallow's Eve. The title track is the tale of a witch who surfs in the moonlight, set to a mid-tempo hardcore beat sure to have you stomping across the room. On the other side is a instant-classic murder ballad about a wolf who solves the problem of unrequited love by killing all the friends of his beloved. On this release K!K incorporate black metal howls into hook-laden, lo-fi pop tunes so intuitively I'm still scratching my head in confusion. Throw this on when the moon gets full and see what happens.

Listen/download here. This tape is part of a Halloween Cassingle series, released in conjunction with southern Illinois bands Lumpy & the Dumpers and Trauma Harness. All good! Lumpy's tape features a cover of fellow Bellevillers Max Load, whom you might remember from a Killed By Death Compilation (#17?). Check them all out at Spotted Race.

Lumpy and the Dumpers - Demo [2012]

Continuing my series of "favorite tapes of 2012" posts, I present to you Lumpy & the Dumpers. Coming from the southwest corner of Illinois (in the vicinity of St. Louis), they exude all the boredom and disgust you'd expect to be felt in such a place. When they played in Champaign with Dirty Work last month, the singer (and a couple punks in the crowd) were flinging themselves around wearing nothing but diapers made of tissue paper. Needless to say the ensuing crowd action resulted in said diapers dissolving in to fine flakes of confetti.

Anyway, onto the tape itself: it consists of three zit-poppin' punk songs in a mid-tempo KBD style, so get ready to dance like an idiot with snot hanging out your nose. They're all jams but the standout to me is the first song, about getting addicted to huffing eel goo. Oh, the humanity! Do yourself a favor and get this tape for cheap, or on Lumpy's bandcamp for free

Lumpy & the Dumpers will be playing in Urbana on Feb 22 and Chicago on February 23. Both bills are pretty stacked, so come rock out and rub puke in yr eyes.

Contact Lumpy:
Lumpy and the Dumpers
21 W Garfield
Belleville, IL 62220
"Please send teeth, nails, slime, mulch, or rubber cement."

Dirty Work - Tour Tape [2012]

In case it was not yet clear to you that Kansas City harbors some of the wildest hardcore around: enter Dirty Work with an elbow to your gut and cinderblock flying dangerously close to your face. Seriously, each of the three times I've seen these guys since last September has surely ranked among the more chaotic and violent shows of 2012. But too often bands hide weak songwriting behind their live antics; not so here. I defy you not to get "Bloody Concrete" stuck in your head. You won't be able to resist strutting around your room and jumping off your bed into the wall. Its lyrics are insufferably juvenile and full of self-loathing, which suits the music perfectly. The rest of this tape keeps the madness at cranked up through its five minutes, leaving you reeling in a manic stupor with bruises you'll be discovering for days.

Chicago DIY label Eat the Life put out both the tour tape and the Dirty Work demo. You can hear/download both on bandcamp. And stay tuned, because EtL will be releasing Dirty Work's vinyl debut sometime soon!