CAS PRAWDE - Last Hour Of Warning EP

Here's one I don't really know much about. There doesn't seem to be much talk about this record out there on the internet, and I find it to be pretty cool, so here it is! Decent upbeat punk from Holland circa '86, with their heart and intentions in the right place. Think other Dutch contemporaries like FRITES MODERN, FUNERAL ORATION, or GEPOPEL, but less HC and more UK punk influenced.

CAS PRAWDE

SO MUCH HATE - A Day At The Station/Progress 7"

One of my objectives while on unemployment is to play guitar a lot, and maybe get really good. So the other day while listening to every band by one of my favorite guitar players, Børre Løvik (RIP), I decided a good exercise would be to sit down and play along with and learn all the guitar parts to the first SO MUCH HATE album. I got to the third song and thought, "yeah right!" and called it a day. Here's SO MUCH HATE's sole 7" from 1991, after they had been a band for 5 years. I love their first 3 LPs (and their fourth for that matter), but something about this single just gives off so much power. The riffs are extra dynamic and propulsive, and Gunnar's vocal delivery is even more vitriolic than normal. And the lyrics to "Progress" are so sadly foretelling of what has even  become even more of a punk/hardcore "mainstream rock'n'roll circus" since. On the last part, the guitar lead comes in as he exclaims, "but this has been my life / for so many years / and it's so sad to see / we're only feeding the lions..." Gives me chills every time. 

A DAY AT THE STATION/PROGRESS

Рок Фестивал - Мичурин '89 - Свят, Чудни Хора / Rock Festival - Michourin '89 - World, Wonderful People

Sticking to the motif of rare Eastern Euro records, I share here a rare compilation from Bulgaria. This is a live document of the second Michourin Rock festival in 1989. Released by the state run Balkanton label. World, Wonderful People captures various rock/punk/metal bands at a time when Western culture began to make it's way in to Bulgaria and influence the music. CONTROL= fast, driving punk with keyboards, KONKURENT=metal, ERA=thrash metal, AHAT=metal, with a singer that sounds like Bruce Dickinson!, ATLAS=new wave, NEW GENERATION=new wave, REVIEW=new wave. The live recording quality is superb, and the roaring crowd throughout the album really proves the enthusiasm people felt for new music at the time. 

Рок Фестивал - Мичурин '89

Here's a Slovenian punk treat! The five songs here are were recorded in 1986 and are a very unique blend of gloomy but fast punk with some experimentation with non-traditional rock instruments (notably an organ and some weird percussive stuff). CZD formed in 1984 and have existed in may capacities to this day, also in written word, video, political activism, etc. This 7" is particularly cool because it is accompanied by a sort of thesis/cultural analysis by a fellow named Rajko Muršič (professor at the Faculty Of Arts) called Punks In The Village. This was actually published as a book in 1995, and it appears that the whole text is included here, but I'm not positive. Anyhow, it's a very academic but fascinating look into punk and subcultures forming in small villages in Slovenia, and the effects it had regionally. I've included a portion of the text at the bottom.

CZD - On The Red Screen

Something must be stressed: rock subcultures have a lot in common with the way of functioning of tribal communities - rock concerts are a kind of a surrogate deep feeling (and identification) with the collective. The main theme in rock movements are diversities - not to be the equal to the surroundings is the currency of rock subcultures. Punk was a radicalisation of the rock subcultures: it was provocative, the behaviour or punks was always in opposition to their surroundings, their world was a kind of upside-down "normal" world. The punk pose was a pose of disobedience, their aesthetic and ethical values were a negation of the dominant rules, although punks were never really violent, dirty or asocial. Their whole pose (acting) and their lifestyle was itself a provocation. In Slovenia, the first punks appeared in the 1978 (the band Pankrti), and in the beginning they caused no reactions in the public. The only reactions came form the "older" rockers, who claimed that punk wasn't music at all. When punk became more and more popular, people slowly noticed the new phenomenon, but the individual reactions weren't too aggressive. Everything changed when the politicians and the R.S.A.'s forced a trial against a group of the so called Nazi-punks. In fact, all of the accused were later acquitted. The mass media (under government control) caused a kind of hysteria against the punks and repression became apparent (closing of the pubs and clubs, police oppression, even arrests...). By that time punk came to the villages near the border, too. The elements of pressure in the village Trate, a group of youngsters formed the Club, soon after they organised themselves in the village youth organisation (ZSMS - The Association of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia). The former was necessary, because to be organized politically was then the only possible way to legitimate other common youth activities... Once again, the whole punk pose was provocative: clothes, hair-dressing, speaking, music, dance, art... And, of course, in time it lost its sense. Punks grew up, society was democratised. Although some of them have families now, they are still pretty free-minded. Some of them play in one of the most interesting underground rock band, called CZD. Legitimisation through the success CZD's music is very innovative. It do[es] not come out form the local tradition, in fact, it transcends it. The group plays music, suitable for all the rock places in the world. It is still modern (no more punk) and attractive. But we can trace enough elements of the local characteristics in the activities of the band. The members of the band are as stubborn as the local population is, they are as rude as their surroundings are, and they work as hard as their parents do. Naturally, their career is absolutely different. Their music is part of a planetary popular culture."

U THANT - Bugeilio.. LP

I share with you something really obscure today. I don't know much Welsh punk aside from ANHREFN and Y SEFYDLIAD, but I spotted this in a clearance bin a few years ago and it looked worth the risk. Luckily this 1988 LP contains the right balance of spunk and driving post punk-edge to get my toe tapping and wondering what their other records are like. The kick drum obnoxiously clicks away, but the melodies are good and there's enough texture and originality to the overall sound to save this one from falling victim to my routine record purges. 

U THANT

THE NEW FLESH to the Northwest!

Leaving for tour again tomorrow...
We'll be playing a few shows in the northwest and recording 6 new songs for upcoming releases! 
Come say hi.

the dates:
March 29th - Portland, OR @ Blackwater Records w/ Bellicose Minds
April 1st - Olympia, WA @ Le Voyeur w/ Hysterics
April 3rd - Victoria, BC @ The Grid  w/ Kaiten, Nearly Dead
April 4th - Vancouver, BC @ 333 w/ Lie, Koban, Infidel
April 5th - Seattle, WA @ Victory Lounge w/ Kohosh, Murder in the Wood


We'll be headed to Europe in the fall as well - more details on that later!

R.I.P. Dave Brockie --- Best of GWAR

This weekend the world lost one of the most creative, inspiring, unique, and hard-working artist/musicians to ever emerge from the underground music scene. Dave Brockie, aka Oderus Urungus, was found dead in his apartment in Richmond, VA. He was only 50 years old and there haven't been any reports of cause of death thus far. It may come as a shock to you based on the material I've shared here on the blog, but GWAR was one of the first bands I got really into as a kid, and I've continued to consider them as one of the coolest bands out there. I saw them every time they came to town for nearly a decade, and I still have a blood-soaked Amebix patch I wore to a GWAR show! I only interacted with Dave once...

Some time in high school I went to downtown Dallas (Deep Ellum) with my two best friends at the time to see The Dave Brockie Experience - a pretty terrible jokey side-project punk band he was doing with two other GWAR members. We had caught wind of a secret RAWG (GWAR un-costumed!) performance that night since the other two GWAR members lived in Dallas! We showed up super early, as we were very anxious and didn't know any better in those days. We decided to kill time by trudging around quiet daytime Deep Ellum when we stumbled across a lonely baby bird that had fallen out of a nest, right in front of the venue we would attend that night. Having heard that you're not supposed to touch a baby bird because it's mother will abandon it, we started brainstorming ways to get it back up there. Right then some fellow in shorts and a baseball cap came out of the club and joined us in our efforts. He popped into the bar to grab a newspaper or something, and we managed to scoop the little birdie up and into the nest, free of human-finger oil! The guy wished us well and disappeared down the block. You can probably guess that later that night when DBX took the stage, the frontman was in fact the guy that had helped us! So, to those who've written him off as some sicko metal singer - Dave Brockie helped 3 high-school punks save a baby bird.  

Though most of the music hasn't held up for me after all these years (and I haven't even bothered to check out any new albums since about the year 2000), I'm listening back to some of their older material and am feeling really heavy nostalgia. I always appreciated the social/political satire and mockery Brockie implemented into GWAR's themes, and though some of the really over the top jokes and offensive humor really never appealed to me, I can't help but acknowledge that he was quite the fearless agitator. I've also been watching every interview I can find on Youtube - this is where the true proof of Dave's brilliance shines! If you haven't already, definitely check out the older interviews by Joan Rivers and Jerry Springer, as well as Oderus' short-lived spot on late night FOX News show Red Eye (as an agitator, of course). All the old VHS movies they made are classic as well - surely you can find them on the internet somewhere. 

Aside from GWAR, Brockie also wrote the novel Whargoul, which I admit I have not read, but promptly ordered once I found out he had died. 

In remembrance, I've made a playlist of all the GWAR stuff that still somewhat holds up for me now. Most of it leans toward the punk/hardcore side, and I only bothered with the first few albums (Hell-O, Scumdogs Of The Universe, America Must Be Destroyed, This Toilet Earth, Ragnarok, Carnival Of Chaos, and We Must Kill Everything) since they were the ones I listened to growing up. 

RIP DAVE BROCKIE: The best of GWAR, according to me