rolling punk / non-indie underground 2013

cool

just taking advantage of Sorry State Records sticking everything on their bandcamp and in doing so vibing to ROUGH KIDS - I believe they're from Chapel Hill - UK 77/NYC 76 (ish)/powerpop done perfectly - below seems p reasonable

Building on the sound of their previous two singles, LA's Rough Kids polish things up for their debut full-length on Sorry State. Benefitting from a bigger, more ambitious sound (including a punchy mastering job by Dave Rahn from the Carbonas), Rough Kids trade in classic punk hooks delivered with an intensity that will snare even the toughest hardcore kids. Lovers of '77 punk will flip for the sick Johnny Thunders licks, fans of modern bands like No Hope for the Kids and the Observers will love the big, dark vocal hooks, and the hardcore kids will bang their first the entire time. A truly outstanding collection of songs.

weakwick, kinda noise assault stuff w/bratty punk vox

http://soundcloud.com/weakwick

i need to see stnnng again. last time involved a birthday cake and shenanigans.

is colonel poo still around? I wonder what he'd make of this comp of pvd hardcore bands, sounds like 1986 up in here: http://atomicactionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/v-a-you-cant-kill-me-im-already-dead

I am around but not posting much... thanks for the recommendation, will check it out!

Also psyched for new Hard Skin!

fyi I've been singing your user name to the tune of "dr wu" all week

Just got into Whore Paint. They get a lot of Arab on Radar and Doomsday Student comparisons, but I don't hear it. I think MRR described them best "babes in Toyland meets Christian Death."

Also, drum n bass darlings, Sheeps Head just keep getting better and better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drAu_Pt6MzU

yeah, whore paint's been tearing it up for a couple years now, glad to see they're getting some notice. AoR/doomsday student comparisons are just lazy, I can name bands that sound like AoR (pre, aids wolf) and whore paint ain't one of em. it's fractured surf/garage/hard rock riffs with tribal drums and vocals like a torch singer dropped in a bottomless well. I dug the whore paint single but it didn't fully capture the sweaty muscle of their live sound. they've got a full length in the can that should be out this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35TLwKwwIWE

in other news, caught guerilla toss last night. yeah they're another no wave outfit. but they're great players with an aggressive rock feel, so give em a chance even if you're not down with the herky-jerk. the "singer" will be a dealkiller for many, but the vocals are tightly synced with the music, and it's a neat trick to sound wild and spontaneous on something that's obv well rehearsed. plus they're having a good time at all times. they've got an LP on feeding tube, a tape split with flaming dragons of middle earth, and an upcoming CD on tzadik.

from monday's baltimore show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji9AEYfN_yI

haha as soon as you said "the singer will be a dealkiller for many" i thought that it would be something i'd be into. She's kinda somewhere in between Christy from K.I.T. and the woman from Ponytail.

yeah it's right up yr alley. I picked up a tape from them called gorilla tease. good shit.

new EP by INSERVIBLES out of Mexico is great and ridiculous. the guitars are almost like some freeform psych thing played w/ the intensity of like Void. you can download it on the link above btw I think

got some questions for you guys...

are there what is i guess derisively called "p.c. punk" scenes in your cities? what are your experiences with them? what style of music do they tend to gravitate around? have you ever had difficulties booking shows at safe-space/anti-oppresion venues because of the name or lyrical content of bands on the bill? have there been any confrontations between members of the broader punk scene & these scenes?

This was actually released last year but since no one mentioned it then, for fans of noisy-melodic pop-punk, Audacity's Mellow Cruisers is one of the best in the genre since the FM Knives folded.

The Bay Area has a pretty strong scene that could be considered "PC." When I lived up there I went to a lot of shows in that scene. I had a mixed experience with it. First off, I would like to say, almost all of the bands were/are great. The music style tended to shift toward noise, punk, and weird noise punk stuff. Examples would be Sister Fucker, No Babies, Strip Mall Seizures, High Castle, Dadfag, Stillsuit etc. I'm only going to speak of my experiences personally. While I lived in the area, the shows were great, everyone seemed to really get along, and some great music came out of it. After I moved back to Socal, that was around the time the Occupy movement started up, and so a lot of racial and gender related issues were being brought up and discussed. At the time, I had a less than enlightened view on such subjects, and while no malice was intended, I certainly did express some fairly ignorant white-male-hetero-privileged viewpoints. Nothing actually against any group of people, more full on ignorance such as "reverse discrimination" bullshit, taking offense to the idea of shows for marginalized groups only, and not understanding the purpose/function of safe-spaces. Understandably so, I did experience some animosity and extreme backlash, and cut ties with / was cut off from a lot of the bands/people that I admired / respected/ enjoyed hanging out with from that scene. That was a couple years ago, and I have since learned the errors of the ways I used to think, and have gained some more cultural perspective, so in a sense it was kind of a good thing that it happened. I do truly regret some of the views that I espoused at the time, and it is a shame that I lost touch with so many people because of it, but at the same time I am a little grateful that it happened, because it definitely did get me thinking about my own privileged mindset. While I can't say I totally "get" or "understand" the struggles of people of color, women, or the LGBTQ community, as I don't know what it is actually like to be a member of an oppressed group, I definitely have gained more empathy and perspective on the matter.

killer song: Bed Wettin' Bad Boys - Bite My Tongue

https://soundcloud.com/ripsociety/bed-wettin-bad-boys-bite-my

new EP by INSERVIBLES out of Mexico is great and ridiculous. the guitars are almost like some freeform psych thing played w/ the intensity of like Void. you can download it on the link above btw I think

Wow. Shit's crazy, I can't decide of I'm really hearing a Bone Awl/Akitsa influence there or it's just the filthy production.

have you ever had difficulties booking shows at safe-space/anti-oppresion venues because of the name or lyrical content of bands on the bill? have there been any confrontations between members of the broader punk scene & these scenes?

nice response by izzy pod. these types of things flare up from time to time here but the scene is pretty strongly progay (for a couple years there was a gay bar booking shows downtown and everybody from noisers to punkers to metal dudes lined up to play in front of a screen projecting hardcore gay pr0n) and prowoman (there are a couple of feminist collectives involved in the scene, one has been around for almost 15 years), with a high tolerance for outlandish behavior from all sides. most conflict I see is folks crowing on the local muso forums, I remember a post from somebody complaining that a band called faggot used the n word - personally, I did not expect that band to provide a flagrant display of decorum.

obv a lot of punk and noise bands are reflecting negativity or exploring transgression or w/e, and I'm kind of reading into yr post here w/o the details, but it's a tricky line to walk between critiquing oppression and being oppressive and a lot of bands can get it wrong real easy. the basics of aesthetics are tricky enough for most folks without playing with the fire of inflammatory speech. and nothing gets me crazier than ppl who go all out to offend and then get pissed cuz someone is in fact offended.

generally speaking if somebody's running a safe-space/anti-oppression venue and they don't want to book you, getting confrontational about it is NAGL. it's all well and good to defend freedom of expression but if somebody starts sounding like some pushy reverse discrimination asshole on fox news they might be part of the problem. and, real talk, if somebody doesn't like a booking policy they should book their own shows or start their own space.

new blank realm album on siltbreeze is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI-JwaGmeQI

the album is a lot less "punk" than that live clip, more synths and clean guitars and weird shit, but is still cool

Los Crudos are playing a reformation show in Chicago in a few weeks at what appears to be a five-a-side soccerball pitch

new stnnng album is gonna smoke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXG6nEWXeE

Izzy Pod, thanks for that.

i'd say that the bay area has many different scenes and factions, with some crossover. i'll break it down for you a bit.

- art/noise punks: i'd say that most of the band Izzy mentioned fall within this camp. tend towards either harsher noisy punk, minimal no-wave style, spastic sounds, or synth-punk. it's pretty diverse and pretty "pc" so to speak, but there's also some of the "let us use offensive imagery" bullshit (as in bands wearing Asatru symbols and other white supremacist related bullshit) within that camp. which is why....

- the anarcho-punk/crusty kids hate the art punks, but also engage in some heterosexist and homophobic shit from time to time, despite the fact that so many squatters and punks in the bay are queers. the sort of nasty shit that goes on in this scene mostly comes from...

- the metal and crossover kids, who are mostly fucking assholes. what's weird is that a lot of these people also are really into pop-punk, and are constantly at war with the art/noise punks because there is a noise/improv/weirdo music venue right next to a venerable old punk house in west oakland. no shit, when there are shows at that venue, the punk kids BLAST music from all the speakers in the house out the windows so that no one can go into the noise venue without being assaulted by punk spit and bile.

anyway. enough from me.

thanks for being really forthcoming, Izzy. sorry i didn't engage you in dialog at the time, but i was too pissed off to maintain composure. hope to see you again sometime.

do you guys listen to any european punk bands, new or old? i have been reading a lot of punk bands described as "euro-influenced" lately but i never know what they're referring to...

Concrete Sox have just cancelled all their upcoming shows.

xp any bands in particular? obv Europe is tiny etc etc but "euro-influenced" seems unhelpfully vague

hardcore punk bands i guess

if I was a betting man I'd envisage the more crazypants Italian and Finnish kinda bands from the 80s but yeah who knows really

there's still a finnish hardcore scene, as bands w/ unpronounceable names still come through town from time to time (and I'm in the US)

Any thoughts on the new Iceage album? Discussions on them are getting pretty heated lately

always been lukewarm on those guys, new album did nothing to sway me

more discussion here Iceage - You're Nothing

thought it was ok, "Burning Hand" and "You're Nothing" are the ones that stick out for me. New Brigade was better.

but yes the number of people retweeting an iceage pitchfork review and saying "fuck these Nazi assholes" is def on the uptick

been listening to the new pissed jeans. "cafeteria food" is funny to me.

you're dead
you died
and I'm feeling like http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyzolq3TtV1roaunyo1_250.gif

would be cool if they could sing a gif

pissed jeans and iceage are all good. not sure how i feel about iceage's politics, but i'm kinda used to that feeling of unease with metal bands.

I think Iceage write some really good songs (as in they sound awesome, but nothing groundbreaking), but the use of their imagery is stupid. It has nothing to do with their songs, so they have no reason to use it. I think if you're going to use imagery like that, you better have a reason, or be able to put it in context, like explain what you hope using those images will communicate. The way they just put it out there and refuse to talk about it just makes em seem like they want to stir up trouble in the easiest, laziest way possible. Not only that, but they've had tons of opportunities to defend themselves or at least give the images meaning, and instead, all they do is whine "we're not nazis, I don't get why everyone is so mad." I don't think theyre bigoted, or right wingers, I just think they did something stupid, and hopefully they learn from it as they grow up.

The way they just put it out there and refuse to talk about it just makes em seem like they want to stir up trouble in the easiest, laziest way possible.

if this is the case then it strikes me they've been largely unsuccessful in their efforts. to my knowledge the only outlets that have independently thrown accusations of fascism, or the imagery of such, out there is a blog from a year or so back, and an Australian music website last week, which took nearly all its observations from the previous blog. everyone else has been commenting off the back of these. the rest of your post is more or less otm the way I see it (although, unless there's something obvious I'm forgetting, none of the imagery or references that are catching them heat took place around the promo for the new album, and possibly not in the last 12 months - which makes it seem eminently possible to me that their interest in it is already fading)

bands using fascist imagery that aren't fascists = total bonerkill, incredibly lazy bullshit. GTFO as far as i'm concerned.

i think by euro people probably are talking about Finnish and Scandinavian hardcore in general, btw.

i want Skitsystem to come to the US again, btw.

http://www.chaosintejas.com/img/FLIER-0107_sm.jpg

lineup for this gets more :D every year

pretty sure i'm going this year :D

i didn't know the marked men were still around! fix my brain = all time classic

who's all in the damned nowadays i wonder?

bolt thrower AND manilla road!

i went in 09 & 10 and god i miss it

This looks mental:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/387082_523710637673600_1831411193_n.jpg

HIVE BENT
http://hivebentmd.bandcamp.com/

also batcave who is no longer a band i think
http://batcave.bandcamp.com/

i think some of you will like this

http://vimeo.com/60730900

Shit, that rules

in other news boston hardcore band brain killer have called it quits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJN9KSzze1g

yeah i like how they throw in a lot of tempo and feel changes in their songs a lot of those bands don't do that

new Fake Limbs album: http://fakelimbs.bandcamp.com/

What's the name of the Audacity LP? I'm only seeing a 2012 one on their Bandcamp (I am bad at Google)

new one's called butter knife and features an incandescent chest wound. i owe know why their bandcamp is still pushing last years's model.

i like the audacity. seems a bit monochromatic. but i can give it time.

prefer gaytheist at the moment as far as bratty/snotty guitar records go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g2KNxYVPd54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2KNxYVPd54&feature=youtu.be

that's so cuet :) the church of punk!

have we talked about the new Cheap Time...it's fucking great!

I see the guy who does Church of Punk at gigs all the time. Crusty dude with face tattoos. Don't know him tho.

I skipped Cheap Time gig last week to see the Cockney Rejects/Spizz Energi/Chron Gen/Vice Squad instead. Keeping it old school. Going to Conflict/Subhumans all-dayer tomorrow, not sure if system will be comprehensively smashed but I'm sure they'll have a good crack at it.

I haven't listened to the Cheap Time album yet but the Jeffrey Novak solo album (Lemon Kid) is pretty good.

I googled this band so you wouldn't have to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i07jeinliKE

brainbombs have a lot to answer for

(awesome track tho!)

got the Hoax LP in the post today. the packaging is awesome, with six hueg doublesided foldout posters with artwork and lyrics for each song. the only thing is their lyrics are basically terrible so it kind of comes off as absurdly hubristic

can u post some lyrics

band from Mpls:
MRS.

they have a new album:
https://mrsband.bandcamp.com/album/cave

it's pretty 90s non indie underground, but i'm really into it. it's got this hyper percussive white funk goes Am Rep/Pigbag meets DEVO...the vocals could be a love it or hate it deal...i dunno...the hyper fussiness of the arrangments is doing something for me

I've been loving the Weed and Ovlov albums people mentioned in this thread - what other bands are doing that 90s-aping Dino jr. Worship stuff?

Whoa I hadn't listened to Ovlov yet and it's fantastic and I'm not even really that big of a Dino Jr fan.

xp

California X is very much a bubblegum-y take on Dino jr. worship and very good

Milk Music too, not bubblegum, just Dino

This rules: http://cleangirls.bandcamp.com/

noisy/goth-y/punk stuff. First song reminds me a bit of Pissed Jeans; third track is probably the most hypnotic

whoops; specifically meant this e.p.: http://cleangirls.bandcamp.com/album/last-house-ep

thx, that's some good shit

(to give credit - I was hipped to it via Mosurock's tumblr: http://still-single.tumblr.com/)

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/216461958/first-listen-potty-mouth-hell-bent

Since the album was from 2013 and is still streaming and they're on tour in the US now (DC tomorrow night) I posted that here. Does NPR streaming status make them no longer non-indie?