You Don't Want to Bite the Hand That Feeds You

Where to even begin? January 2nd was the last show at Birmingham's original Cave9, one of the only all ages DIY punk venues left in the US. The club is continuing in a new spot and I'm not upset about it because I think it will flourish, but it was kind of an emotional night for all of us that sort of considered it moving out of our childhood home. I wasn't happy about the fact that the line-up that night included only two local bands (Ex Members of the Holy Trinity and Legion) and then something like 8 completely over rated touring "hardcore" bands that couldn't give a shit about the scene here and weren't anywhere nearly as good as what's coming out of this city right now. It just felt like the last night was so irrelevent and got over run by all these outsiders who don't ever support shit that came out and talked about how important that club had always been to them even though they were probably only there like twice a year.



Friday night we practiced in Tuscaloosa and I ended up staying in town because we needed to practice again Saturday (we hadn't done anything over the holidays we've got shows with Lewd Acts and Agnostic Front this month) so I wound up at Egan's for the show that night. Silky Snowflake was fun to watch/hear, and the Necronomikids put on a great set of well crafted neo-surf that is definitely worth the time to check out. The guys are/were in a bunch of bands like Green Beret, The Hell, and Model Citizen. Buy their demo and rejoice.



Kings of Nuthin'-Old Habits Die Hard

I don't even know if this has been released yet. I guess this was recorded in '07 and was supposed to have come out that year but kept getting delayed. Maybe it's already out in Europe and just not the US, I don't know. If not, someone needs to release it because it rules. There are two songs with guest vocals and I fucking hate them, but other than that, it's great (and it's 18 songs so 2 duds are forgivable). Great lyrics, great songs, great band. Why aren't they climbing the charts? Via PunkRockOi.

Future Myth

2008 is over. Everyone has been posting their "best of" lists for the year, and I don't see the point in even trying. There are so many records I haven't even heard yet and I can't imagine trying to order the records I have heard just so someone will think I'm cool. I'm sure there were a lot of records that went completely unnoticed that are way better than most of the stuff topping the lists this year. Maybe I'm jaded, but I can't get into a band like Torche, whose Meanderthal LP is a huge deal to everybody else. I will admit that there were aspects of the record that I like, but putting it on such a pedestal is kind of ridiculous, which the same way I feel about The Chemistry of Common Life. I appreciate the album (and the aesthetics of the band), but to say it's that much better than anything else this year is kind of short sighted.



On a personal level, 2008 was total bullshit for me. On the upside, I haven't had a cigarette in over a week, so maybe this time I can finally quit smoking for good. I doubt it, though. The problem is that everyone I know smokes, and the people I know who didn't used to smoke have spent so much time around me that they invariably start smoking. And the cycle continues.

Happy New Year, assholes:
Infest-No Man's Slave
Akron/Family & Angels of Light-Akron/Family & Angels of Light
Charles Mingus-Mingus Ah Um
David Sedaris-Live at Carnegie Hall

Don't Call Me Daddy

This is my last day of work for a week. I have to drive out of state for a custody hearing in Illinois on Tuesday that I'm not looking forward to. Custody laws never favor the father, even if the mother and her entire family are literally insane. Yes, insane. And that's not just talk, buddy, that's the truth.

I know nobody cares about my personal life, and there's a lot of other shit I want to write about here that would probably be a lot more interesting, but I don't really have the time. Between preparing for court, this new job, promoting the new Korova full length (which you should buy, by the way), and trying to stay calm through all this recession bullshit, I am swamped here.

And I have another problem. Do you know how hard it is to meet women when you're still married and you don't lie about it? Something about a conversation that is interrupted by "Hold on, I have a new text message," and continues when she says "Oh, who is it?" and then further continues when I say "My wife. She's asking about the child support payment and the month hasn't even started yet. God she is such a bitch" is a total turn off to most females.

Maybe I need to have a set of rules for the women I talk to. I think they're called "standards" but I don't know because I've never had them before. I think I can devise a pretty good set of rules here:

1. Must be a Mod.
2. Preferably African American. Or African...British. I'd like that better because then you get the cool accent. I'd also settle for just African.
3. Must own their own scooter.
4. Must tolerate me listening to/talking about hardcore music.
5. Must have a good job but complain about it.
6. Must not listen to the Bright Eyes
7. Must not read Jane Austen
8. Must drink IPAs.
9. I'm out of stipulations. I never really had any in the first place I just made all this shit up.

Any and all of these rules are excusable if she is or was ever a member of the Vivian Girls.



Baroness-The Red Album

I've been listening to this non-stop for the past few days. When this record came out a friend of mine said that it sounded "Like what Led Zeppelin would be doing in 2007" and I think that's pretty accurate. The CD came out on Relapse Records and the vinyl was a double LP on Hyperrealist, but I think it's long out of print.

This file is hotlinked because I'm at work and can't upload. The file has a password, and it's "thecanyonbehindher"

Rock Me (Amadeus)

Work is kind of stressful. I've been showing up at 6AM the past few days. Fuck...at least I have a job. I don't really have a lot to say. But someday, someday soon, I will rant for a long time.

I have to be up North next week and I am not looking forward to the cold.



This weekend I saw Legion who played a whole bunch of new shit that ruled. Earlier that day, the Crimson Tide lost. It was a good day.

Soundgarden-UltraMegaOK

From 1987 on SST Records. This is the best Soundgarden and if you don't agree then you don't know shit.

Dirty Dead-Carnivorous Lunar Activities (Nothing But a Nightmare) Review

I have to catch up on some review stuff I've been neglecting.

I don't really understand horrorcore as a genre. I mean, I understand psychobilly. I think it's stupid, but I get it, and with psychobilly you at least have a lot of room to experiment with the sound, so there are some really great bands in the genre that stand out among the thousands of terrible ones. I don't think there are any bands in horrorcore that hold that distinction. It's all terrible. And the bands can talk about their list of influences and how broad their musical pallet is all they want, but they're lying. They all sound like Graves-era Misfits and all their songs about the most inane shit they try to pass off as a "statement on the social condition of the United States" or something really pretentious like that. Yeah, I saw Night of the Living Dead, too, and George A. Romero you are not.

I got this CD in the mail on Halloween and I knew it was going to be terrible because it came with a one sheet and I have decided that if you need a one sheet written in third person to send to my blog, you are not a good band. However, it had cool looking Pushead style artwork and a creepy intro and I got really, really stoked. But I shouldn't have, because once the creepy intro was over it turned out to sound exactly like I thought it would. Actually, some of the music isn't that bad, but there's absolutely no range in it at all. There are 26 songs on this CD and they all sound exactly the same. Outside of a couple of intros on songs and a couple of breaks, I can't tell any of this apart. And the vocals are awful. If you can't sing, don't sing. And if you can't sing, especially don't sing and then go and compare yourself to Glenn Danzing, because that is fucking heresy. Maybe if there was more edge in the voice then the parts where he's out of key wouldn't sound so bad. I don't know. There is also a part on "Meet Me at the Morgue"* where the guitar goes completely out of time and for some reason they left in the mix.

MySpace
Interpunk

*Do stupid song titles get you punk points? Because they have 24 of them on this CD plus two covers, one of which is an absolutely terrible (albeit obligatory, I guess) cover of "Hybrid Moments" that is so fast it strips the song of any of it's great qualities. "Hybrid Moments" is my second favorite Misfits song of all time (right after "Children in Heat"), and it's really disappointing to hear it ruined like this. The other cover is "Maneater" by Hall and Oats, which I find completely unnecessary and I'm sick of bands doing "ironic" covers of Top 40 songs and thinking they just came up with a totally new and unique joke to pull on everybody. For the record, though, it's the only song on this CD that's worth listening to.

Punk Rock in the Wrong Hands

I usually take a bottle of water to work with me to drink at my desk and fill it up throughout the day. The past couple of days, which have been mind numbingly boring, I have been drinking 9 or 10 bottles of water a day without realizing it (I think I just go through the motions as a way to pull my mind away from my work -- which is tedious as hell -- for two seconds). The positive result of this is that I have to go to the bathroom like twice an hour, which is a good excuse to get up from my desk for two minutes. The negative result of this is that I have to go to the bathroom like twice an hour, and the people around me all think I have over-active bladder issues. Oh yeah, the girl who sits next to me is smoking hot. Just sayin'.


I wish I lived in an era populated by fashionable women who could sing, like PP Arnold

My boss just left for the day and informed me that tomorrow, being the last day of work for the week, counts as casual Friday. So "blue jeans" (not just any jeans..."blue jeans") are in dress code. Everyone is excited. I don't get it.

pg. 99-Document 8

This band was awesome. This album is awesome. The label that put it out rules. You need to go buy it ASAP. It got re-pressed on vinyl earlier this year. But seriously, you need to listen to it...and you need to buy it so you can read the lyrics. And Robotic Empire deserve your money, they're good peoples.

He's Cursed

The new job is kind of boring. It's a little more stressful because I have a lot to keep up with, but it's not terrible, really. I have my own space and nobody really bothers me. I can only update on my breaks, though. And I have a cold that I wish would go away.

Korova (how many times will I link to my own band's page? However many it takes for you to offer us a record deal!) played in Tuscaloosa this weekend. Totally last minute show at a bar called Egan's. We figured maybe 5-10 people would show up and by the time we went on the bar was pretty much packed and went completely nuts as soon as we started playing. To describe everything that happened before the bar pulled the plug after 3 songs would be a pointless endeavour because it wouldn't come close to explaining the sheer pandemonium of our set. We were permanently banned from playing there (to be fair, they had pretty good reasons). The (much bigger) bar next door told us we were welcome to play whenever we wanted, and I woke up the next morning to e-mails from Tuscaloosa bands offering us shows whenever we were able to make it back down. Good times.



Butthole Surfers-Brown Reasons

The first release. This band is awesome.

Old posts I like

Reflecting on the "early days" (before I started posting all the time again), of this blog, I found some things I'm quite proud of. Most of them are negative reviews. I wanted to re-post because I've had some people sending me stuff again and I want them to know what I will say about their record when I inevitably hate it. I love getting negative reviews of my bands, but I think I like writing negative reviews about other people's bands more. And there are some other articles, too. Seriously, I'm just trying to up my hit count like Mental Floss does.

Dynamite 8-The Medicine CD review. -- The best part is the comment left by the singer of the band threatening to get people to beat me up. Punk rawk! (PS. The "super hot blonde girl" I mention in the last paragraph is MOST DEFINITELY the guitarist of the wicked awesome thrash band Rager because she is the hottest girl in punk and I don't care who knows I think it.)

An open letter to the American Record Industry. -- This isn't very well written, but it's important and you should read it.

New Society of Anarchists-For the Forgotten CD Review -- Haha. I laughed so hard when I re-read this. These guys seem nice so I feel kinda bad, but c'mon!

Hardcore is a Festering Sea of Bullshit -- OH MAN WAS I PISSED!

The Skels/Armed Suspects spltit 7" Review -- "Over the past couple of weeks the Armed Suspects side of this record has grown on me. When I first listened to it, it sounded awful and I couldn't even think of what to write about it, but now it's reached a level of mediocrity that makes it hard to hate, but impossible to like."

I'm not alive

If you actually read the shit I post instead of just skipping down to the music, you already know that the department I'm in at work is set to be dissolved in mid-December. I just got word that it will, in fact, be done tomorrow. There are three of us that all share a cubicle here; two of us are being let go, and one is being transferred to another assignment in a different department. That person will get to keep their same rate of pay and get their own cubicle (so they don't have to deal with the shit described in the next paragraph). That person is me. Somehow my superiors are under the impression that I'm a good employee.

This could not have happened sooner. The girl who I share a cubicle with that sits on my right -- the one I get along with -- and I are starting to really hate the other girl who shares this over sized bathroom stall with us. We've never spoken about it, but there have been enough instances of eye contact while this girl is pissing me the fuck off for me to know we both feel the same way about it. She's currently watching a reality TV show on her computer about an old woman that is selling crack with her much younger boyfriend to "provide for her family", but her daughter is Karen Clark Sheard, who has won a bunch of Grammys and I assume makes enough money to pay her mom at least enough to not sell drugs on the street. It's got a lot of really loud yelling and swearing and really terrible music and this girl insists on listening to it at a volume that makes it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. I've been typing this paragraph for 15 minutes and it doesn't even make sense to me because all I can process is this family's conversation over dinner about how they all need to live in the glory of God. I just asked her the name of the show so I could post a link, but she took it as me being somewhat interested in the content and I missed what she said the actual name was, but I do know that it comes via BET.com. They talk a lot about prayer and being good Christians on this show. What the fuck?



Vitamin X-Full Scale Assault

This is the newest Vitamin X LP, produced by Steve Albini. This is definitely the best they've ever sounded. The drums and guitars sound sweee-eeeet. Two songs feature guest vocals by John Brannon of Negative Approach and I don't really feel it. His voice sounds weird on these recordings and Vitamin X don't need gimmicks like famous guest singers to win me over. But I guess they enjoyed doing it. They should have just let me record his parts, I would have sounded way better(pretentious much?). Tankcrimes put this out, who are a really cool DIY label from the Bay Area and Scotty is a wicked nice dude, so help him out and buy the record, you cheap asshole.

The download was originally upped on Short, Fast, Loud

P.S. Eliot-Bike Wreck

And on a continuation of todays hotlinking theme, I provide you with the Ackley's...I mean, P.S. Eliot's Bike Wreck Demo, via I Could Die Tomorrow (who bring it via Puzzle Pieces). I guess this might be the demo the band gives out for free at shows, but I never picked one up because it was in the same fabric cover as the King Everything demo that came out last year so I just assumed it was that. I've probably already said enough in this paragaph to where if the members of P.S. Eliot found this post they'd be super pissed off and I'd have to deal with the Crutchfields giving me dirty looks for the next 15 years, but I will continue.

This demo is so lo-fi and crappy and awesome. The total lack of any sort of production makes the music sound so much better. There's something about girly pop punk that sounds like it was recorded in a tin can that gets me off. The songs are awesome. The writing is awesome. P.S. Eliot doesn't sound like this anymore and I honestly think I like this incarnation better.

Oh shit, is that promo pic for the wrong band? Shit...maybe they should do a reunion so I could write about them instead.

No Headline

Cheat and lie, cheat and lie

The show in Alabaster ended up being a complete bust. After dealing with an embarrassingly low level of professionalism from the club "manager" (long story), we ended up shrugging our shoulders and driving back to Birmingham. We ended up playing a house show to about 20 people, which was a great show and a fun time. Rusted, a new band from Birmingham made up of younger kids, played the house show,(their first), and were awesome. They were vocals, bass, and drums, and played bottom heavy sludge that made you wanna' groove out.



Vivian Girls-Self Titled

This album is getting a lot of press, but I don't imagine a lot of punk kids will check it out because they're the kind of band that hipsters get into and Pitchfork raves about. Regardless, this album is an easy listen but isn't a bore. They have a myriad of influences that mesh well together so it doesn't sound disjointed in the least. They take some obvious cues from the shoegazer style but have melodies that remind me of old Detroit girl groups, but play it all in a style reminiscent of the old Olympia style (Beat Happening, anyone?). I'm a couple of months late jumping on this, but I wanted some time for the hype to cool off before I admitted I liked it.

In the end, she drank petrol

My band, Korova, is playing at some warehouse in Alabaster, about a half an hour South of Birmingham, tonight. I hate to admit it, but shows like this seem to function as "practice shows" for bigger places. Hell, the place might be packed for all I know. I don't know what the hell there is for kids to do in Alabaster, so maybe they just go to this place every weekend night.



I'm sort of weirded out by the current state of the underground music scene. It's so fickle and sectioned off. We've all installed glass ceilings above our bands and say it's in the name of DIY or "staying within the scene", but I don't really see how being DIY means "be poor at all costs". To me, being punk and being DIY simply means maintaining your autonomy. Sure, there are a lot of political things the go right along with the punk mindset, and I believe in the communal aspect of hardcore music, but using that as the reason to never try to have an audience outside of your close friends isn't exactly progressive thinking. We're all playing the same clubs to the same kids all the time, and preaching to the choir. We're getting nothing done. I don't know. Tomorrow I'll probably bitch about outsiders making it big and saying they still believe in the struggle. I'm such a jaded old man.



The Loose Skrews-More Than a Few

I mentioned them in a post the other day. Drunk punk from Atlanta with an obvious nod to early Skrewdriver (hence the name), and a heavy dose of Anti Seen style punk rock thrown in to spice it up. They've got a new record coming out. This is their first album that they self released, and they have a second full length that came out on that punk label that the guy from Hairball 8 tried to start, but I guess he fucked over his bands or something. I don't know anything about that. Fuck psychobilly. I opened the liner notes for this CD up while it was uploading and, what do ya' know, I'm on the "thank you" list. I wonder how many thank you lists I'm on that I don't even know about. God, I'm such an egotistical prick...

There's some other band called the Loose Skrews and I just found their web site. They do weddings and whatnot, and have really pompous bios of each member like they're going to be on VH1 one day and this shit will be totally necessary. They describe their individual members with unintentionally funny exaggerations like "Doug Nations - without a doubt - one of the best bass players in the southeast area" and "Rhonda Porter - Our Angel voiced sweetheart", and I guess most everybody in the band used to be in another band called The Buttercats, which I hope is a name that is completely indicative of their style. The funniest thing is that they're also based out of Georgia. I wonder how many embarrassing booking mix-ups there have been over this. I also wonder if the other band knows that their name is an obvious reference to a legendaryn band that regretably went on to be white supremacists in the 80s. I'll bet they do. They look like they get down to White Rider

"God" is "Everywhere"

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I don't really have a cubicle, because it's not a cube. I share it with two other people, so it's too long to be a cube. It's like a rectacle. Anyway, it's annoying as fuck, because the girl on my left is always listening to awful music or watching soap operas on her computer. Of course I don't say anything because honestly, it's not even worth it, but it seriously annoys the hell out of me. The other day I came in and for some reason she actually showed up to work on time for a change and was booting up her computer and listening to Aaron Neville. Seriously, Aaron Fucking Neville (I believe "Fucking" actually is his middle name). I didn't know people still knew who Aaron Neville was, let alone listened to him of their own volition.

I once worked with a woman who listened to nothing but Shania Twain, and I kind of feel the same way about her and this girl who sits next to me now. I wasn't aware that Shania Twain actually sold records, I kind of just assumed she was one of those people that just had videos on MTV and made money from endorsements or something, like a Nascar driver. I'd never met anyone who actually admitted to liking her music. Maybe I'm crazy. Or maybe I have avoided the outside world for so long I haven't met all these crazies who think this shit is good. I consider myself lucky though, because it seems like people who get really into bad music go crazy and kill themselves in front of their obsessions' houses.

Well, fuck me, I just looked at the Aaron Neville web site and it turns out he's playing Birmingham tomorrow night. I guess maybe people still give a shit.



Anges Bernelle-Father's Lying Dead on the Ironing Board

I know I played a track from this LP on the radio show once. I picked this record up for a dollar because it looked interesting, and it is. The liner notes are really good and paint a good picture of cabaret music and the political connotations behind it, and the music is superb. I don't really know anything about the genre, but this makes me want to check it out more. Dry sarcasm, macabre humor, it's all here. According to her Wikipedia, she was more of an actress than a singer, but it doesn't mean this album isn't great.

Going Dead

I'm pretty tired/hungover from the Municipal Waste show last night, but it's worth it because they put on a pretty intense live show. I mostly stayed out of the action but managed to get sucked into the pit a couple of times. I spilled more beer than I drank during their set, and this morning I woke up and went to work still drunk from the night before. Punk rock, right? Download below for those of you who for some reason don't know what I'm talking about.



I was at a friend's house before the show last night and she pulled out an old Chess Records single from '61 by a singer named Betty James. I'd never heard it before but it was spectacular and I can't find any info on her online. I just did a quick eBay search for it and found a copy that's at 30 bucks with another day left to go. It's so weird running into these ultra obscure 45s from the 60s that are so great and yet so unknown. I mentioned the Thee Avantees to her, because they're my prime example of the case for obscure music. They recorded a single called "I Want to Understand" sometime in the late 60s that wound up on the first volume of Quagmire and the liner notes of the CD say there's no info. on them. That's depressing because these guys managed to go into the studio and lay out one of my top 5 favorite rock n roll songs of all time and I don't know if they recorded more stuff or went on to be in other bands that I would like or what. I've been trying to track down a copy of the original record for years now, if only just to hear the B side, but I've asked about it in record stores all over the country and nobody's ever even heard of it. Music hoarding is making me weary.



Municipal Waste-The Art of Partying

I downloaded this from another blog, but I don't remember which one. I have the 12" picture disc version, which looks bad ass.

Life's a bummer

So, apparently (I don't know how I missed this before), Meghan McCain is a "punk rocker" and listens to "punk rock" and is going around telling everybody "what it is" to be "down with the Ramones." Now, the Ramones are the greatest band of all time, but a lot of complete douche bags listen to them, and she seems like a good example. I know I don't "know" her, but I know one thing for certain; you can always tell when a Ramones "fan" is a douche bag, because their playlist only consists of songs from the first two albums, and OH SHIT, what was her top pick? "Blitzkrieg Bop". That song might as well be about Palin, coming in to take over the US and instate a fourth reich under the neo-Conservative Christian guard.

I consider myself politically conservative, but I feel no camaraderie with these assholes.


"A volunteer wears a shirt from the band "Disturbed."

Templars-Omne Datum Optimum

I had to upload this for a friend last night and figured I might as well post it here since I spent all the energy putting it on Mediafire anyway. Also, the bulk of my postings since I've taken up the blog again have been decidedly unpunk, and I wanted to give you assholes something you might enjoy. Go figure, this is my favorite Templars record. I like the older stuff, too, but this one just has a lot more to it.

The entire grill is hot.

Some "collections agency" has been calling me non-stop for the past three days, claiming I defaulted on a Chase credit card a few months ago and I owe around 300 bucks. The guy that calls me is a huge dick...which I guess is a good thing to have on your resume if you're applying for a company that tries to scam people out of money they don't have a right to. The guy's name is RONALD POLIN from MRS COLLECTIONS. I hope he Googles himself and finds this page. Hi, Ron! Fuck you!



Municipal Waste are playing Bottletree in Birmingham tomorrow. I'm stoked in a way that I rarely get stoked about shows. I got pretty excited about Ceremony a couple of weeks ago, who put on a great show, but were touring with terrible bands. I also managed to break my nose that night, and just as it was healing up, some asshole head butted me at the Loose Skrews gig at the High Note (I hate that bar) this past weekend and now it hurts like hell again. I spent $60 that night buying shots for roller derby girls at the bar while I walked around being a belligerent asshole. Sorry if you saw me that night and I just gave you a hard time for half an hour before walking away in the middle of one of your sentences.

Mitch Hedberg-Do You Believe in Gosh?

This album is hil-ar-i-ous. I guess it was the last show he recorded before he died, and it's all rough drafts of jokes he was putting together for what was supposed to be a proper full length. It came out a few weeks ago. Download it and improve the quality of your life.

We Don't Need No Law