October 30, 2002
This is the last stuff that I wrote in 1999 that may or may not have been published in “Punk Planet”. I will never know because those bust outs never sent me my comp copies and I was not buying the magazine for any reason. I still won’t. Nor will I name where I usually steal it from. You can all kiss my ass.
1999 ended with me working retail over the holiday season. Do you want to talk about things that suck?
I know that with the country gearing up for the holiday season and all of that shit, nobody wants to hear it but maybe we should take a break from all the shopping and obligatory duty buying. I am voting that the holidays be food, drink and song oriented only. Chow down. Get loaded. Sing along to Jim Nabors. But save all that what should we get Aunt Tilley shit for somebody else. Does anybody hear what I am saying? I would rather party like mad and share memories and good times and the like with my friends and family for two months than spend one more second at the mall looking to buy somebody something just because they are buying me something. It is still early but, then again, tomorrow is Halloween and we will be in the middle of it all before we know it and I just wanted to get this out before it is too late.
From “Punk Planet”:
No Comment – S/T, CD
This is one of the missing links that pulls together the classic hardcore and original youth crew movements with the speed core or power violence stuff of today. The CD is a complete discography of this turn of the nineties band that features a member of Man is the Bastard. It is not as fast as the new stuff but it totally rocks. Absolutely essential.
(1999)
Annoyance Zine
Number Twenty
A hard to read, cutesy, personal type zine is what you get when you buy the latest Annoyance zine from your neighborhood’s small press coop/radical newsstand. What your neighborhood does not have a small press coop/radical newsstand? Oh, too bad. Annoyance Zine has a reverse 51/2 X 81/2 layout that is interesting but it has novelty fonts all over the background pictures that leave little distinction between the two. Visually- it is a mess. The writing is that false George Tabb styled innocence that you find way too many times in punk rock. Top Twenty pop punk records of all time, interviews, record reviews and personal observations are the content. 81/2 X 51/2. Copied. 54 pages.
(1999)
The Drones/Adolf & The Piss Artists – Get Sorted Tour ’98 Sampler Live. 7”
Recorded live, this record completely captures the spirit of two similar, yet different, old school styled ’77 punk bands on the road. I can see the spiked hair and leather jackets. I can smell the body odor. The Drones are the tamer of the two bands, which is like saying that one of my Grandmas could kick the other one’s ass in a fight. Both of the bassists in these bands sound like an early Sting and the lyrics mention the Queen and bootboys. Punks laugh at hippies for being completely out of touch and devoted to a style and aesthetic that serves no purpose except to blindly worship the past.
(1999)
Sportswear – Sportswear, CD
The Haiku Review:
Norwegian Straight Edge
Youth Crew Hardcore. Excellent.
This Disc Fucking Rocks.
(1999)
Beer Can Fanzine
#3
This zine has a loose affiliation with beer drinking and a decent mix of punk rock music coverage- from power pop to hardcore with its focus being your hedonistic garage punk rockers like the Sinisters and the Dwarves. The zine has your typical interviews and reviews with an interesting contest where you have identify 50 pictures of New Wave girls and their respective bands. Neat. I am all together not too excited by this type of thing anymore. I do not drink beer or any other alcoholic beverage. I think that bands whose primary objective is to get fucked up and rock out are a waste of my time. I do not party. I know a ton of people who are into this type of thing and Beer Can Fanzine is a good read for the morning after hangover but I have a difficult time endorsing this lifestyle. 51/2 X 81/2. Newsprint.
(1999)
Subdrive Magazine
Vol. 1.02 Aug./Sept. 1999
I was slightly thrown by the Boston scene report at the very front of this zine as this is a Long Island, NY publication and is geared accordingly. This magazine has some very pedestrian reviews and articles about some very pedestrian bands such as the Scofflaws, Youth Brigade and Blink 182. This mainstream coverage did nothing for me although I was pleasantly surprised by the DJ Krush review. If you can get past their Warped Tour coverage (snooze) there is an interesting article concerning the birth of the Skull & Bones- a Yale secret society that has produced a good number of power brokers throughout the years including one President George Bush, and a narrative where some gentlemen get busted for open containers outside Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ. They say that they are looking for writers. Perhaps I will submit some thoughts on free legal and otherwise parking in Hoboken, NJ since they claim that there is “Fewer vacant parking spaces in New Jersey at any given time than at a Jack in the Box parking lot”. I think I can help you. 71/4 X 101/2. Newsprint.
(1999)
Abus Dangereux
Face 62 Juillet 1999
Straight European music magazines, as a general whole, are way slicker than their American counterparts. Compare Mojo to any American rag and you will realize that there is really no comparison. Terrorizer vs. The Pit. Straight No Chaser vs. Stress. Abus Dangereux vs. Magnet. Chalk one up for the home team. Magnet wins, although this mag is pretty decent. This is a French indie rock magazine with a glossy cover, adventurous layout and a free CD. Written in French, the magazine has Andre Williams on the cover and an interview with Pavement among the other smaller features including a review of the Radiohead movie (awesome). Vive l’anarchie. 81/2 X 11. Glossy. Pro.
(1999)
Seti Alpha Six – Thousands of Feet Above the Earth He Believed that Rockets Could be Flown to the Moon, CD
And the winner for the longest title of a modern emo rock record is… Seti Alpha Six. This is a better than average emo rock record that did not get on my nerves while listening. I liked the record because the rocking contained within was much less wussey than your everyday indie emo rock. There was a point during the intro to “78 West” when I thought that Seti Alpha Six was actually going to rock out. How about that? This band kept the tempos brisk on each of their tunes and the more conventional chord choices added to the rock. The vocalist sounds like the dude from Pegboy so there was no whine to ruin it for me. This has more in common with the Foo Fighters and other modern rock stuff (they have an acoustic jam for crying out loud) than it does with punk rock- not that I care because I do not.
(1999)
Derail – Picturesque, CD
Man, this emo rock stuff is really lost on me. When I was younger and I was depressed or feeling overly sensitive about my lot in life, I did not write a song about it. I kept in my pants, junior. Nobody wants to hear your boohooing. I could not tell the difference between good or bad emo on a bet. It is all totally musically bland and uninteresting to me- kind of tuneless, kind of soft then loud, kind of tin ear wailing vocals, kind of slow to mid tempo, definitely tired. I was going to try to write some false novelty lyrics in an attempt to poke fun at Derail but they took care of that for me. “Maybe some day the world will drown in its own tears”. They also mention pyrite and cubic zirconia in two different songs.
(1999)
VA – Loco Diablo Underground Sampler Vol. 4, CD
The bane of the record reviewing industry- the compilation CD. I can see the point if you are putting out a record to document some type of thing, whether it be a geographic or aesthetic brotherhood, but the random collection of bands you have never heard before with no shared anything besides the desire to be on a compilation with other bands that nobody has ever heard before has got to go. This compilation seems to be even worse as it has ads inside the single panel CD cover for the printer and the CD pressing plant. This is a sham. Does anybody go out and buy these things or do the bands pay to get on them and then get a certain amount of free copies to sell at shows? Anyway, the sixteen bands on this record play punk rock- poorly. I will mention the comical thrash of the Holy Whores, the rough around the edges hardcore of Lugano and the Helmet styled groove metal of Stronger than Seven as worthy of note but I fear that I am not doing these bands any favors by associating them with bad scam comps. If you want to be a part of the problem, contact them.
(1999)
Free Yourself – The Head of Truth on the Body of Lie, CD
I do not know what this says about anything but I was trying to figure out where this emo rock band is from while listening to the mid tempo tuneless vocal dissonant rock on this CD. The lyrics are partly in English, German and some language that has its own exotic looking alphabet. Are they from Finland? Norway? Iceland? I do not know because there is no address and I am not so hip to lands outside of the U.S. I was starting to think it was sad that it seems as if most non-American countries know more about our culture than we know about theirs. I have no idea what is going on in Europe and doesn’t everybody speak English these days? Free Yourself have a song on this record, “America Lied”, where they lash out at the Americanization of the world’s culture. They hate Disney, Hollywood, the U.S. military and they even want to take a dump on the statue of liberty. They sing this song in English to the tune of rock-n-roll that was invented in the United States of America. At the beginning of 1999, I vowed to live a life completely free of irony.
(1999)
Umlaut – Umlaut, 6”
I puzzled over this record for a few listens before attempting to commence with a review. The packaging and the music do not seem to correspond with each other. Audio enjoyment should not be so hard to come by. After pulling my junior detective kit out of the closet, I was finally able to match the lyrics and the million times longer song explanation with the corresponding song on this tiny piece of thrash. Umlaut rules. They claim to be from Finland but I do not believe it for one second. Their music is thrashy hardcore with more than a few double kick drum blasts of grind. The lyrical content of their songs is sweet and naïve political blah blah. How am I supposed to take the song “U.S. Out of North America” seriously? I can not but this record rocks none the less.
(1999)
Dexter – The Worst You Can do is the Twelfth Row, 7”.
I do not care what the label says, baby, I can not listen to this record at 33 1/3. It is just too damn slow. At 45 rpm, Dexter sounds like what would have been called psychobilly except for the fact that they have more of a surf vibe than the rockabilly thing. But either way, this band from Amsterdam would probably sell its soul to the devil to tour with the likes of the Cramps or maybe the Flat Duo Jets. The record is lofi and punkish but I am not totally convinced it is by necessity but rather a devotion to some sort of trashy aesthetic. It sounds like these cats are real players who are dumbing it down for the punk rock crowd. I would be more convinced by this band if they either really ripped or sucked more.
(1999)
Molotov Cocktail – United Colors of Poverty and Shame, CD
This is the after school special version of punk rock. It is like the Dead Milkmen except that Molotov Cocktail is serious. This poser New York trio plays three chord, up-tempo, street and drunk punk. Ridiculous. This has absolutely no validity in 1999. The record has songs about MTV, China, the FCC, cops, TV talk shows, part time punks, the environment, TV again, alcohol, aliens and the scene. Is this a joke or I am just dense? I would be really embarrassed to get up in front of people and play such uninteresting music. I bet that the guys in Molotov Cocktail feel real rebellious compared to the other accountants at the office. The disc ends with a half hour loop of a Latin groove and a repeated utterance of the word “motherfuckers” that was more interesting than the entire rest of the record put together. The back cover art by Eric Roper is top notch.
(1999)
VA – The Spirit Lives On: A Tribute to Raybeez and Warzone, CD
Suffering Succotash. It’s a tribute record to the deceased hardcore hero. Twenty-seven bands doing Warzone covers plus a Warzone track. All in all it is a pretty decent compilation and I could sense the involved’s affection for the music and dedication to hardcore. The stand out tracks are Days Lost’s “We’re the Crew”, Mushmouth’s “Open Your Eyes”, Phanatik’s “Crazy but Not Insane”, Strong Intention’s “Under 18” and Dogfight’s “In the Mirror”.
(1999)
posted by Thea at 6:55 PM
October 29, 2002
Today was a strange day. Shit, it still is happening so it still is.
I wrote first thing this morning and, after I was done, I just sort of blanked out. It was weird. I was thinking about stuff like usual – what I have get done, where I am going to go, just what I am doing in general – and then I blanked out. I either realized that all my desires are meaningless or I actually have no desires at all. I don’t know. I sat in my home office chair and achieved nothingness.
What am I working for, I asked myself. Nothing, I replied.
I normally have these feelings but they don’t normally hit me with such force.
So what did I do? Since my wife wasn’t home, I turned on Tool at full blast and rocked the fuck out. What else was I supposed to do?
I went to work and blew more time than I want to think about or, probably, the bosses want to hear about doing nothing. I went to the library on the clock and got “Sybil” and started reading it for a couple of hours in my office. The book is different than the movie. I don’t want to get into how because I don’t want to ruin it for the radio adaptation. Let’s just say the Sybil in the book is still a totally crazy bitch but she does not seem as crazy for some reason.
I just had to break up the cat fight in my living room. Russell had Rupert’s hair in his mouth.
Now, I am BLOGGING while listening to ELO. Disc two of “Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra” fades fast into garbage about half way through. Bummer.
I am going to run and then watch “NYPD Blue” and then watch the Cavs.
I hope that tomorrow is just like today.
posted by Thea at 8:01 PM 