I remember Halloween...

Halloween is almost here, and I'm seeing that many of my friends are getting in the spirit by holding parties and dressing up this year. Going along with this, I thought the blog could do with a special seasonal entry - complete with some music that would work perfectly at your theoretical Halloween party.

Hour of the Wolf.
An Arizona-based horror punk band made up of 4/5ths of Life in Pictures, a now-defunct metal-core band that was a hell of a lot better than most other metal-core bands. A couple years ago I bought some vinyl off their singer, Hank, and he's a nice dude. Also, his band is one of the few non-Danzig horror punk bands that doesn't suck complete ass. They've put out an EP, a split and have a 10" coming out soon. Catchy, trashy fun - very highly recommended.
Hour of the World - Power of the Wolf (192 MP3)

Bloody Panda.
Based in New York City, Bloody Panda are a sludge band with a Japanese opera singer as a vocalist, and when used together these two elements make for one evil-sounding band. I don't recommend playing this at a party, but if you were too cheap to buy candy for the little tykes, opening the windows playing this a high volume should make them too shit-scared to knock on your door. Throw out that CD of cheesy ghost noises, this will work much better.
Bloody Panda - Pheromone (192 MP3)

Portal.
Put this into the same category as Bloody Panda - not party music, but scary as all fuck. Play this after the party's over. Picture it: you've had your fill of entertaining, you drop some acid and put on this record; if you wake up the next day and haven't pulled all the flesh off your face, you're harder than most. After years of hypnotising Australian audiences they're doing their first set in America at Maryland Death Fest. Brutal.
Portal - Outre (V0-VBR MP3)

The World/Inferno Friendship Society.
My favourite band. Ever. Evereverever. Not only do these guys put out sweet records and put on the best live show I've ever seen, but they're a good Halloween band if you're going for the old-school cabaret punk vibe. Every year they have a special Halloween show called Hallowmas, and they have a live album from one of these shows which fucking rules, but this is their latest studio release and it once again ups the ante for this amazing band.
The World/Inferno Friendship Society - Addicted to Bad Ideas (V0-VBR MP3)

Alive.

Kinsemo: a form of post-hardcore music created by Chicago's Kinsella brothers - Tim and Mike, namely. This music takes form as many different outfits: Cap'n Jazz, Owls, Owen, American Football, Tim Kinsellas, Make Believe, Joan of Arc, etc. Bands such as Noyes, The Promise Ring and other outfits that include former Kinsella contributors are deemed 'Kinsemo by association.'

Now that we have the education portion of this blog out of the way, let's talk about Victor Villarreal. Victor was the guitarist in Cap'n Jazz and Owls who made a single EP under the name Noyes before literally disappearing. Nobody knew where the hell this guy went; all they knew is that he was a heroin addict and wherever he was he was probably up to no good. This is a shame for any person but in the case of Victor, a guitarist that has been massively influential on countless players and bands, it was particularly worrying. Would we ever hear from him again?

Well, it took seven long years but the answer is a resounding yes. Victor is back, clean, and brandishing an acoustic guitar and singing in a solo project done under his own name. This came out earlier this year and I'm really kicking myself for not discovering it sooner. Rumour around the Internets was that he was gearing up for a new Noyes release, but it looks like this is what eventuated instead. And if we get more Noyes and I'm wrong, I'll be nothing but happy about it.

This album shows off a different side to Victor than we're used to hearing. From past output we expect him to be playing along, lending his talents to a bigger whole and letting his fingers do all the talking. This time around he's playing and singing, and while he doesn't go as crazy with the former as he used to, these being simpler songs - he puts forth a good amount of noodling for all the guitar nerds but keeps the focus on playing and singing sincere and honest music. Much of the album is about the passing of his brother, and some of the proceeds from sales are being donated to Mission USA Prison Ministries in his memory, so if you dig this one, getting your hands on a physical copy would be the thing to do, which you can do here.

Here's a video of Victor playing one of the songs on the record, and hard proof that he's still got it.



Victor Villarreal - Alive (V0-VBR MP3)

We Heard the Tree Fall

I acknowledge the fact that what follows here is completely self-serving and not exactly necessary. It's an entry about a band that played six shows in and around one small city. It's a band I wrote for and played in for two years, and due to a revolving door list of drummers and other assorted issues, never got to a place where we played an awesome show or released a good-sounding record. We've shelved the project and already moved on to new things, and as much as I get a massive douche-chill writing about my own band I feel it deserves something resembling a proper send-off.

I used to live in a share house with my old band, Defamer. We were (and they still are) a death metal band, and together we lived in an old house in Auchenflower that was falling apart. After Leo (my best friend) and myself quit the band we decided to write some songs that were more in the vein of the punk music we grew up on and the stuff we were listening to heavily at the time - but it had to be faster, more caustic, and under it all still have melody.

Before we got the idea to put together this band, I wrote a song for a band that consisted of my friend Will and I. The band was called Deep Stones and the Mountains Thereof (basically the wankiest band name Will could come up with, have a search on MySpace, the old profile should still be up) and we wrote and recorded one song in my bedroom, which ended up being "Social Anxiety Attack as Self-Affirmation Ritual." After this band fell apart, I commuted it to the project with Leo, and this song opened every show and every jam.

At the time, Leo and I were listening to lots of bands like Orchid, Saetia, Joshua Fit for Battle, Love Lost but Not Forgotten, Ampere, Combatwoundedveteran, Reversal of Man, pg.99, etc. We loved how fucking heavy these bands were while they played (for the most part, anyway) in E standard tuning. We liked how it was angry music that often remained coherent and intelligent. We liked how they embraced the DIY philosophy like the punk and hardcore bands we looked up to as teenagers. That's what we tried for, and we ended up writing three more songs and looked to start rehearsing with a drummer.

Our first jam with a drummer was a short one due to the fact that he crashed his girlfriend's car on the way to the jam - he learned one song and we never heard from him again. We tried out someone else, but after one jam he decided his style didn't fit with the band. We finally got a drummer, played two shows and recorded a demo with him but after decided he didn't like how melodic things were getting, he quit. We tried out another guy who couldn't physically play fast enough. We got another drummer, who played three shows with us but his hectic schedule made it so he couldn't play with us. We got a replacement, who played one show with us, only for him to leave for much the same reason as the guy who preceded him. And those were just the ones we got into a practice room - we asked countless others to play but they could smell the drummer curse lingering on us. Or something to that effect.

If you're tl;dr-ing at the above paragraph (and understandably so), all you really need to know is that we were Spinal Tap. That sums it up nicely.

Anyway, after two years, teaching the same songs to three drummers, a bunch of tryouts, one four-song demo, eight total songs written (two of which were never performed live), a few new friends, a stolen Marshall head and something in the neighbourhood of $70 made in total, it's over. A part of me is relieved, to be honest, but moreso than any band I've played in before I feel regretful that it simply didn't work. This was the first band I played in where I wrote the vast majority of the material, and I took a lot of pride in what I did, as I'm sure Leo does in regards to his contributions.

We're playing with the idea of recording everything in a single session and making it available somehow. Maybe.

Anyways, enough bull-shitting. Here's a download of our sole release and some live videos - four taken by the awesome Yudhis who writes a blog called Caffeine at Night and one taken by Leo's lovely fiancee Brooke.











A German Spectacle - Demo (V0 MP3)

And if I can't see, it's for want of you.

Live recordings of punk bands (especially those put to tape in the seventies and eighties) are a mixed bag, to put it nicely. Most of the ones I've heard were gotten out of a desire to hear a band that came and went before my time, hoping to get a bit of a feeling of what it would've been like to see them live. Problem is, for the most part the tapes from this time sound like someone set up a mic in front of a washing machine, and occasionally you'll get one good enough to hear someone's vocals atop the din of said washing machine. Lame - all that wasted bandwidth for nothing.

Most of these tapes come from people standing in the audience trying to capture what they're seeing on tape, to have a record of something they deemed worthy of such an honour. It's a noble act, and you can't blame someone for trying. Add on tons and tons of tape dubbing and signal loss that's happened over the years and there you have it: the reason most old bootlegs suck.

However, every so often you come across a really, really fucking good live recording from this time, and the amount of rubbish you have to wade through to get to it makes it all the more special. Especially when the band in question is Rites of Spring.

I shouldn't have to introduce this band to anyone who's reading this, so I won't - instead, I'll tell the story of how I got into them. I was a dumb kid, as I'm sure you were, dear reader, when you were younger. I was in a dumb band with other dumb kids with dumb ideas about what punk was and what it wasn't, and after a while I started opening up my mind to other things that fell outside my little circle of acceptability. The three bands that really struck a chord who still do to this day were At the Drive-In, Texas is the Reason and Rites of Spring. The latter remains as the most cathartic and sincere hardcore band I've ever heard, so you can imagine my excitement when I came across a soundboard recording of one of their fifteen live shows, complete with good sound and a great performance.

I don't need to hype this up, it does that very well on its own. So go ahead, download this and wish you were there.

Set List: Nudes - Deeper than Inside - Hain's Point - Theme - Spring - All There Is - Drink Deep - For Want Of - Persistent Vision - End on End.

Rites of Spring - Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington, DC - June 14th, 1985. (192-CBR MP3)

Submit to your higher power.

I'm really, really proud to be from New Jersey. Sure, it's a state that's the butt of countless jokes, but it's also a place that's been home to countless amazing bands, Rorschach being one of them. For those unfamiliar with these guys, they were a band from 1989 to 1993 who proved to be hugely influential. Early on, their sound was fast and more reminiscent of traditional hardcore, and they went on to slow down the tempos and inject more sludge and dissonance to their sound, something that heavily influenced bands like Converge and Coalesce. Most people I've talked to love the later Rorschach stuff (the Protestant LP and other releases from that era) - and rightfully so, it rules. But personally I favour the earlier stuff (Remain Sedate, Needlepack etc) - there's a frantic energy to it that I just love.

With that in mind, you can tell why I dig this 1990 performance the band did on WFMU. The screams are more over the top and the songs are played faster, to the point where you think they're just gonna fucking collapse from exhaustion, Charles Maggio (vocals) in particular. In between songs and his laboured breathing he blurts out the ordering info for what was then their upcoming debut LP, Remain Sedate. There's a hunger in his voice as if he's saying to himself, "if enough people buy this thing we can afford to eat." Keep in mind too that this was done in a radio studio; there isn't a crowd there cheering them on, they were probably playing to one or two people sitting in front of mics and manning the soundboard. Still, they go through their material with an energy and urgency that most bands couldn't even touch in a traditional live setting.

I wouldn't suggest this as a good introduction to the band - get the discography CD, Autopsy, first if you haven't already. Chances are if you like the first half of that disc, this will blow your mind.

Don't mind the low bitrate - it was recorded off the radio so it's more than adequate.

Set List: Lightning Strikes Twice - Skin Culture - In the Year of Our Lord - Seconds in Hell (early title) - Laryngitis - Impressions - Pavlov's Dogs - No One Dies Alone - Clenching - So it Goes - Oppress

Rorschach - Live in December, 1990 on WFMU (128 MP3)

you do not get to keep your silence.

Muir is a project written and performed by Max Buchanan.

I remember listening to his stuff for the first time via a random MySpace add back when the project went under the name The Weather Council, and I liked what I heard, but it didn't quite prepare me for seeing and hearing it live. By the time that happened, he was going under the name Piers and putting a guitar tuned to B going through tons of pedals spread in a half-circle in front of him. Swiveling back and forth on a drummer's stool, he'd control and mutate his sounds while layering them until it became an assault of noise. Don't let that confuse you, though - I don't mean Sonic Youth noise or Merzbow noise or whatever you'd first expect upon reading a description like that. Instead he layers beautiful guitar lines on top of one another until it's all hitting you with beauty and heaviness all at once. It's very easy music to get lost in.

Max has two releases out there now, one under the name Piers (a split with local hardcore/screamo band The King of Red Lions, still available in stores and through the bands) and a tape limited to six physical copies.

Now playing as Muir, Max has introduced more sound samples and keyboard to his sound, adding more to an already promising mixture of sounds. If you live in the Brisbane area and have yet to see him play, do yourself a favour and change that as soon as possible. If you live elsewhere, well I guess you're shit out of luck. Either way, download this rip of his limited tape release and enjoy.

Muir - I am a Person I am Breathing (192 MP3)

Death to False Metal

Wow, what a way to kick off a music blog, huh?

It’s been two months of complete silence since I wrote here last, and I figured if I’m going to make people wait that long, I better come back with a bang. Something big, something awesome. I’ll let you be the judge of that, but personally I think I’ve have done a good job making up for lost time.

This entry is about Deadguy. Don’t know who they are? If not, shame on you. Deadguy were a short-lived metallic hardcore band from New Brunswick, New Jersey – members played in or are currently playing with bands like Lifetime, Rorschach, Human Remains, Doc Hopper, Kiss it Goodbye, Playing Enemy and others. They’re another band that I consider disgustingly underrated. Not only is their output some of my favourite music, but it’s easy to see the massive impact they’ve had on their genre whilst for some reason remaining obscure and ultimately forgotten by the majority of the people/genre that owes them so much.

For a few years now I’ve maintained a Deadguy tribute/resource page on MySpace, and I’ve been contacted by countless fans, members/ex-members of bands they played with and even some of the boys themselves, and it’s been a fun thing putting all the Deadguy-related stuff I could find or was sent in one place. The page doesn’t get much attention these days due to my studies and trying to focus more on my own band than one that’s been broken up for almost fifteen years but the love is still there, and being the caring person that I am I’d like to share it with you.

Work Ethic (192)
A compilation of Deadguy’s first two 7” records – White Meat and Work Ethic. Tim’s scream is still somewhat unformed, the performances aren’t as explosive as they’d become later on, but it’s still better than any music I’ve made or will ever make. There are some tagging errors in this but fuck you, it’s free.

Fixation on a Coworker (V0-VBR)
Deadguy’s sole full-length album. This is their masterwork, a record about being pissed off for pissed off people – a recipe for success if I’ve ever heard one. Great songs, interesting artwork (buy it if you can find it), this is a complete package and one of the most influential and well-aging discs of 90’s hardcore.

Screamin’ with the Deadguy Quintet (192)
After the band parted ways with two of their members who then moved to Seattle and formed Kiss it Goodbye, the band had a bit of a line-up shuffle and introduced some new players. This is their final studio release and it’s a bit different from their earlier work – more overt Today is the Day influence (it helps that Steve Austin produced the EP, too) and more weird time signatures/riffs. Regardless of the style shift, it still holds up as a great record.

I Know Your Tragedy (192)
Deadguy’s live album, recorded with the Screamin’-era lineup. I’m not really a fan of this one; hearing the older songs played by the final line-up just doesn’t sound right to me, but for the sake of putting all the stuff in one place I’ve made it available here.

Decibel Magazine ran an awesome feature on Deadguy’s Fixation album and added it to their Hall of Fame. I’ve scanned the story at 300 dpi and you can download it here.

So, was that worth the wait?

Another blog... why?

Yeah, I know - there's already enough blogs out there and here I am, throwing more rats onto the plague ship that is already overrun with vermin and body piles that obscure the work done by qualified and genuinely talented writers. I am now officially part of the problem that has come to be now that anyone can make one of these things, and I acknowledge that it's a terrible thing to do.

This will end up as a music blog of some description. I'll put up some music, review shows, and try to entertain with some witty banter.

I'm pretty sick of music blogs that don't tell you the bitrates of their rips, so I'll do just the opposite whenever I put something up for grabs. If it's one of my rips it'll be done in EAC/LAME V0, which is the ultimate variable bitrate for .mp3 files, preserving maximum quality while taking up less disc space. Trust me, your ears (and your hard drive/mp3 player) will thank me.

Ah what the hell, I might as well provide a sample.

Milemarker - Satanic Versus (V0-VBR)

The name of this blog comes from a Milemarker song, so it makes sense to start here. These guys are originally from North Carolina, USA and then moved to Chicago when they got tired of crowds asking for Skynyrd songs. Made up of ex-members of Sleepytime Trio and Maximillian Colby, they have a pretty unique sound; originally they sounded like video game music but then they progressed into a more fleshed-out outfit. Imagine Fugazi in an alternate reality where Russia won the Cold War and add a keyboard  to the mix and you're getting somewhere. They're criminally underrated in my opinion.

Satanic Versus is a strange record; half of it was recorded with and produced by the legendary Steve Albini, while the other half the band did themselves. It's split between new tracks and re-recordings of old songs, most notably of which is this EP's version of "New Lexicon," which was originally done with minimalist electronics, while here it's Albini-aided full band bombast.

If you like it, check out Frigid Forms Sell, Anaesthetic, and possibly Future Isms for some of their more electronic stuff. These guys are one of my favourite bands and I'd kill to see them again - with Roby Newton back in tow, of course.

So yeah, here's to yet another music blog.