Music To Tag To

Here's a soundtrack snippet by a gang I've mentioned before, the somewhat infamous DayByDay comedy duo of Will Carsola and Dave Stewart. Culled from their 2006 comedy sketch flick Teenagers From Uranus, today's/this months's upload features three-ish hip-hop tracks from the DVD soundtrack. Played over several "intermissions" (a.k.a. run time filler) of graffiti artists running around in what I assume is Baltimore, the tracks are probably local RVA artists and probably demos or unreleased. Couldn't get a whole lot from the credits so best guessing one or all of the artists are local legend Oxen Johnson (with or without his group Luggage), Ali Thieves and maybe some remixes by Kjell. Good old-school gangsta rap for us old fucks out there. As for Carsola and Stewart, I only recently discovered these guys made their way out of the River City towards sunny CA to create the Mr. Pickles show for Adult Swim. Who knew and good for them escaping the tri-cities. Check out some more of their funny sketch comedy shit here.

Sloppy Seconds

Draw The Kitten

Go figure, in the cut-out dustbin at the local library I found this long-forgotten Richmond, VA gem. Mixed in with a sorry collection of Celene Dion, Billy Joel and Miley Cyrus beer coasters was a strange photocopied CDr that just screamed for its generic 50¢ "donation" fee. And boy, it did not disappoint. Recorded sometime in the early part of the millennium, this self-released demo (the CDr is hand-written "Rough") is a refreshing lo-fi garage rock dream. Think a slightly bluegrass-tinged Ween with some other assorted Kids Eat Crayons jazz oddity and you'll have a general idea of what to expect. Thanks to some sparse info on Teen Beat Records' website (forever noteworthy as being the label for the debut recording of one Mr. Aaron Freeman and who put DtK on the map with their inclusion on a 2004 compilation), Eternity With Numbers was piece-mealed over several sessions at a few different VA studios and had almost a dozen musicians (both official and non-official band members) contributing. The number of performers explains the somewhat chaotic style of the record which spans genres to the extent it almost doesn't sound like the same album from song to song. The record appears to have been intended for a legitimate 2007 release by Teen Beat but there is no mention if that really happened and I can hardly find anything about the band on the web so me thinks not. Which makes this CD even more rare and kind of even more cool so enjoy this slice of Richmond indie rock history.

Meridian

Bone Crunching Carnage That Will Fuck Up Your Entire Day

Jesus, after dealing with a week of my poor little south-of-the-Mason-Dixon city struggling to deal with the twelve inches of snow dumped on us last weekend it's no fucking wonder some of the most miserable music in the world comes from such frost-addled climes as Norway, Sweden, and the home to today's music lesson, Finland. Thankfully not another run-of-the-mill black metal band (my initial idea for this post), the oddly named Arson Under The Sea spawn from the city of Oulu and play a rather devastating blend of sludge noise which was perfect to be pissed-off and shovel my driveway to (actually, it was the band's no-nonsense self-description I used in the post header that initially hooked me). The band has a few short releases, my favorite is their 2013 demo for an EP which came out a year later. Raw, overdub-free practice space recording which is probably the closest thing to the band live you can get from this side of the pond. If you like what you hear be sure to check out the plethora of websites fronted by this internet-savvy band: fb/bc/tumblr.

Oarfish

That's not noise. That's just my mind blowing off in different directions...

Probably my least favorite release from the ol' Geeg, and that's saying a lot when compared to dreck like the Live Fast Die Fast 7" and the umpteen posthumous live LPs. But it's still essential just, y'know... because. If it was some post mortem cash-grab it would be a lot easier to write off but the fact that there's quite a few interviews out there in which GG freaking extols this record (listen here) demands another listen. M. Physema was the multi-talented lead vocalist/programmer of Pittsburgh, PA lo-fi industrial unit Shrinkwrap (already with a half-dozen indie releases under their belt) who contacted the incarcerated Allin; over mail and phone the two conspired to create the 45-minute opus War In My Head/I'm Your Enemy. So what's it all like? As far as Shrinkwrap goes, listening to their non-GG recordings is a lot like listening to some of Ministry's Wax Trax outtake stuff. Pretty aggressive guitar-heavy industrial, not bad at all, just somewhat redundant at times. With that being said, WIMH/IYE can be a long listen. With most spoken material lifted from the GG/ANTiSEEN Murder Junkies album dubbed over looped music from throughout the scumfuc's career, it just feels too much like you've heard it all before. A trip into GG's mind? Yeah, kind of, I guess, but nothing too shocking for the seasoned fan. War In My Head/I'm Your Enemy would probably have the greatest impact on someone who had no idea what GG was all about - it almost works best as a sampler to the chaotic sociopathy (and discography) of the guy. Highlight is the last 5 or so minutes with an unreleased (by 1993 standards, anyway) spoken word over a bleak-ass noisy maelstrom. I think if anything, because GG and his bands changed sounds and styles so much over the decades it's a little tough to digest WIMH/IYE as a coherent piece. Still a worthy effort though, especially back in a day when it was obvious GG was mid-life crisising what musical direction even he wanted to go in. Ironically, something like this could be pasted together in GarageBand by any amateur mixer with enough time on his hands... a real example of how much technology has changed in the near-quarter century Allin's been dead. For those who are interested, M. Physema resurrected his Toilet Rock Production label in 2006 and re-released over thirty rare and long-lost GG demos, cassettes, live shows, etc on CDr. It's a pretty amazing selection, potential copyright infringements and all. Check it out here.

Highest Power

Aussie Slam

Lets start off 2016 with the first full-length by Melbourne brutal death metallers Whoretopsy. The band caught my eye sinply for the fact they call themselves a blend of deathcore and BDM, two genres which I'm trying to get back into after being out of the intestinal loop for a couple years. So how does the merging of such misanthropic styles sound? Pretty fucking good actually. First off, it is really nice to hear good musicians actually playing together, no drum machines, loops or over produced effects. The riffs and breakdowns are plentiful and absolutely vicious - the kind of stuff I wish there were still huge floor-sized speaker stereos to blast through. The weird deathcore guitar noodling (of which I never understood the popularity) is still there to an extent but it's completely overshadowed by the sheer crush of down-tuned power chord monstrosity. You still got to deal with a token movie sample intro on most of the songs but hey it wouldn't be brutal death without 'em, no? Great shit to nurse a hangover and rip the holiday decorations down to. Happy New Year.

Potty Mouth

Ho Ho Ho

Leave it to Polish conductor Krzysztof Penderecki to suck all the fun out of Christmas with his haunting, almost hellish Christmas Symphony. Recorded in 1981 with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and a cluster of evocative of vocalists, the symphony is a exactly the opposite of what one would assume from a holiday piece. Dark and foreboding, the music is actually an interpretation of "Silent Night" though listeners will be hard-pressed to discern any details. Discarding the more minimalist/conservative avant-garde style of his earlier works, Penderecki considers his Christmas piece a turning point in his career, what most classical reviewers mark as his maturation into neo-romanticism (I wouldn't be pretentious enough to claim that analysis as my own). Included in the performance is Penderecki's wonderful rendition of Te Deum ("Thee, O God"), an Ambrosian hymn still quite popular in the Catholic Church (evidently during papal ceremony). Equally as unsettling as it's predecessor, the piece and would find itself perfectly at home in any number of cerebral horror flicks (Shining anyone?). Significantly more choral, the last third of the movement is my favorite, a typical Penderecki tradeoff between soprano and baritone that simply sounds ominous and fearful. Enjoy.

Dóminus Deus Sábaoth

Pathologically Explicit

Ah, nothing creams holiday spirit like a 30-minute dose of Spanish brutal death metal. Straight outta Lleida, Catalonia comes Haemophagia. I don't know what got into me over the last few weeks but man I was getting tired of the pussy shit that kept popping up on my iPod and felt it was time to find a new BDM band. Originally spawned in 2005, the trio began life the sorta-stupidly named Triskaidekaphobia (technical term for fear of the number thirteen), recording a 3-song demo and eventually settling on their current moniker. While the "low" guttural vocals are a tad bit lower than I'd prefer if I was mixing this myself, it's still a great album and one that isn't marred by shitty production, a tinny drum machine or endless movie samples. The breakdowns are heavy and plentiful, the song titles are meaningless and offensive, and while there's nothing you haven't heard before it's performed by a bunch of guys who know their death metal history and play what they like. Break out the egg nog and throw this disc in the CD player for a cozy night of holiday cheer. Enjoy.

Appealing Obliteration

What Have You

Goddamn I wish I was Nick Hexum. Not only does the guy not look like he hasn't aged a fucking day since he graduated college but he owned a fucking island in the Florida Keys. An island. That is some serious shit. Anyways, twenty years before he became a paradise entrepreneur, his band released their second demo on Hexum's What Have You Records. In case you've been living in a soundproof cave on Mars since 1990, Hexum is the lead singer for perennial funk rockers 311; one of the few 90's bands that weathered the death of MTV just fine and still release arguably good shit to this day. I just picked up 311's 4-disc Archive box set and was kinda disappointed they didn't include the band's pre-Music demos. I've sifted through boatloads of illegitimate mp3s over the years trying to find a definitive copy of most of them and the aforementioned Dammit! (1990) has proved the most elusive. Sure there are umpteen "first generation" rips out there but they all seem to be from one of two sources; are completely inconsistent in their mastering; are actually songs from the more readily findable Unity (1991); and many rips clip off several minutes of some tracks (or are missing a song or two entirely). With that being said, I compiled a few "versions" and tried to form what is a reasonable facsimile of an entire album. Side A is actually pretty listenable but make no mistake, the quality is rough (think 64kbps mp3s sleazily up-ripped in disguise). Oh well, what the fuck, you can't have everything. Enjoy.

Fuck The Bullshit!

Mozcore

Yep - my first reaction when this 1996 compilation was recommended to me was a nonplused "are you fucking kidding?" Interestingly, after I looked at the bands on the roster I belched out another "are you fucking kidding?" Having never knowingly heard a Smiths or Morrissey song in my life I wasn't sure what to expect from a punk/hardcore homage to the Manchester woe-is-me rock kings. In short though, I dug it. Probably the absolute antithesis to the original vibe of the songs, each cover are if a fast rocker, some a little more poppy then I'd like (a bunch of songs really sound like the Bouncing Souls) but I can't help but crack a smile at the idea of each vocalist taking a bit of a piss out of Morrissey's whiny style. Christ, even Anal Cunt (circa the 40 More Reasons To Hate Us-era) make an appearance - and their song is damn straight! Dare To Defy's "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" is a fantastic opener - if I didn't know better I would think I was listening to some old Snapcase song. Sub Zero has their Sick Of It All groove going, even the Meatmen rock their anthem with tongue planted firmly in cheek. I think the only song I could skip is Lament's restrained closer, "Back To The Old House" which is a little too close to the irritating original. Smiths fans prepare to be disappointed, all others, enjoy.

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Government By The Wealthy

I don't know why it took me 20+ years to stumble upon this classic slab of crusty powerviolence grindcore or whatever pretentious audio tags I'm using today. Ironically, I've been pretty aware of Plutocracy's existence for some time, somewhat ashamedly from perusing the endless porn-laden liner notes (and "thank you's") on a few of my dusty Meat Shits 7-inchers of which Kindred (guitar), Max (drums) and Thomas (guitar) were all musicians(?) in at one time of another. Regardless of their pornogrind origins, Plutocracy's debut LP Dankstahz is chock full of crusty stop/start mincecore (what I always wished Man Is The Bastard actually sounded like) interspersed with solid, riff-heavy grind. Wicked fast A.C.-esque blastcore screeches to a blistering halt and crawls along at a leaden pace with some cool crusty Dystopia-vocal tradeoffs. Completely at the forefront of what better-supported bands were dropping at the time (and it's tough to know who actually influenced who), it's too bad these guys never broke out of Palo Alto. And the old-school rap samples are priceless. Surprisingly, Plutocracy had a tough time actually getting Dankstahz on record shelves, most of this LP (recorded in 1992) didn't see the light of stereos until their eponymous compilation CD dropped in '94. Evidently dropped by both Psychoslaughter and Schematics Records (how? why?), the pressed vinyl sat in a warehouse before one of the band members hand-screened a bunch of covers and finally got it in the stores years later (completists note there was a limited 10" that came out on a Germany label in '96 as well). For those interested in the further musical endeavors of the posse surrounding Plutocracy check out this blog run by Agents Of Satan vocalist Jason Balsells - lots of good downloads and stories. Enjoy.

Listen you fuckers...