Stack - Selbstfindungsgruppe 6"

The Big Lewbowski, almost goes with saying, is one of those contemporary classics, and, with John Goodman, John Turturro, Sam Elliott and Steve Buschemi, how can it miss. Saw a thing on the Bio channel about Jeff Bridges and found him to be a genuinely interesting, extremely creative and a down to earth person (and I'm not much of a celebrity fan). They also had some interview clips of John Goodman and that man has definitely lost weight/aged. I think I've mentioned my adoration for the movie before and along with that, for the hardcore fan, a celebration of all things Lebowski. Kind of quiet around here since the holidays, maybe everyone is still digesting. Made me think of this time, must've been around 1980 when I was with my Mom and her best friend at this store in Hollywood called the House of Hermetic. Not sure if it's even around anymore, but it had been around for a while, run by these elderly sisters who were a lot older than they looked. The store was sort of a full service, everything that you could imagine that would be necessary for witchcraft/Wiccan, Santa Ria, Voodoo, Rosacrucian, etc. place. Nothing hinting at New Age, this place was the real deal. I think between my Cuban Godmother's passive Santa Ria and this store, my superstitions and spirituality were born. So anyway this one time we were there and there were three or four of these guys/gals who were being loud, obnoxious and generally rude. In my mind kind of stereotypically white trash, but more in general not believers and definitely not even curious. I was pretty young, but no so young that I didn't know that they were just assholes. Not to long after I made that realization, a funky odor started to fill the store. It was a stink, but not like an obvious stink such as a rank fart or rotten food. An interesting stink, let's say. While I was thinking about that, the offensive people just quietly left. I didn't put two and two together until later when one of the old ladies apologized about the smell which as quickly as it had come had been replaced by something more pleasant. She told me that she had lit something that for most people burns with an unpleasant smell, but for those few people who put a lot of negativity in the world it is nauseating and will make them immediately try to escape the smell. I hope that's not the explanation for it being so quiet and empty around here, ha, ha.  True story. A couple of posts back I posted this epic tune, one of the best of over a hundred that you can find on Crass Records three Bullshit Detector comps, Counter Attack - Don't Wanna Fight For You After that, spent some time trying to track down anything else by the band or even any kind of info, but nothing so far (although still waiting on a reply to an email from one of the heavy hitters of that scene). In the meantime, found this cover, not as good as the original, which almost goes without saying, but it is Citizen Fish so it is worth a listen, Citizen Fish - Don't Wanna Fight For You For you hardcore fans, I was recently reminded of, and want to highly recommend you give Mystic Records' "We got Party" a listen.  Years ago I had a dubbed tape of it which must have been played to death. I found it again over at Glorify the Turd.  All kinds of "hits" by mostly unknown bands on that, including, No We're Not - Smokey The Bear Toxic Noise - Janitor Skullbusters - Rat Race ...and probably my favorite... The Grim - Venetian Blind For you not so hardcore folks, my old bro, Sang, years ago turned me onto Throwing Muses and to this day I'm still thriving on them, off and on. I don't know anything about what the band is doing today (as stuck in the past as I am), but I've gotten some enjoyment out of one of their founders and I guess a serious creative force, Kirsten Hersh. Think I posted my favorite tune of theirs in passing a while back, so this time may as well do some overkill on it. From the (must have) 4AD comp "Lonely is an Eyesore", Throwing Muses - Fish ...the "In a Doghouse" demo Throwing Muses - Fish ...live, Living room, Providence, 28.03.87 Throwing Muses - Fish ..live, Glastonbury Festival '89, Throwing Muses - Fish ...the video. Got this one not too long ago, for no other reason than it was an unusual 6". I'd heard of these guys before, seriously noisy stuff that these days I seem to be shying away from, but you can't deny these guys were fucking great at what they do. Can't really find anything about them, maybe if you give a fuck you can, but what I did find out there is a least one lame band called Stack out there. My buddy Billy over at 7 Inch Crust has a post on them that gives you much more info than I could ever find. This was released in 1997 and if you check the blogosphere it's been posted at least a half dozen times, but it was something I just listened to, I like to mix things up a bit around here and really, I can post what ever the Greatful Dead I want to around here. Ha, ha. Erase In The Line Of Fire

 

Truck Johnson - s/t 7"

Had this out of this world, vivid dream, the other night.  Most of humanity was made up of zombies, vampires and werewolves. There were just a few "regular" people left running, hiding and fighting to stay alive. Blood, brain matter, guts and body parts everywhere! I'm a huge fan of gory special effects, but of course this was a dream and not limited by technology or creativity. They reflected this disgusting hunger, taking bites and swallowing without chewing. You could feel the fear and despair like they were tangible, I could definitely feel it inside and out.  Not a nightmare really,  my adrenaline was pumping, but in my mind I just accepted it for how the world was.  It felt very real while I was dreaming and even for a few seconds after I woke up.  It's interesting because I've been reading some text book type stuff on traditional Native American belief systems and one of the many topics is the importance of dreams.  Spirituality was a part of every day life down to the most seemingly insignificant act, so dreams tended to reflect that sensitivity and connection.  Insight into cosmic balance and imbalance.  For me of course I'm pretty far removed from that in a completely different culture setting, so even though there might be some insight to be found in my dreams they take on a different form.  A reflection of my world.  My favorite show this year was the Walking Dead so go figure I would have a similar experience in my dreams.  But I feel like there's something relevant in the dream.  The ugly, disconnected, imbalanced side of humanity that seems to be way of life for the vast majority of people.  Selfishly feeding off of each other, like cannibals.

Was at the low income housing where one of my clients lives and I could hear children playing. The sounds of glee filled laughter, raucous giggling and the pitter patter of little feet running all over the place. I couldn't see the kids but all of a sudden I had this profound realization...sooner or later when you hear those things, the sounds will always stop and instantly stop and be immediately replaced by one kid screaming hysterically and crying uncontrollably. Pay attention sometime when you're around a bunch of kids playing. "It's all fun and games till someone get's their eye poked out" - unknown.

Whenever I'm on the computer I'm pretty much constantly listening to music.  Youtube is good source for finding that one song that's been hiding in the back of your mind and for some unknown reason has decide to step up to the front.  This tune was a pop(ular) one in about 1979 but I think it still sounds good, with it's catchy melody and almost heavy synth sound at times.  CLASSIC! Gary Numan - Cars I saw this one performed on the early 80's LA public access cable show New Wave Theater.  20 years ago and I've never heard anything else by them, nor will we I guess because there is no presence on the web except for the video on youtube and one of the comments.  Trippy minimalist synth/slide guitar stuff with clarinet solos. Heroic Struggles- Cool Monsters From the Deep In that comment on youtube apparently the singer and maybe a couple other members went on to be in a band called Outer Circle.  The Systems of Romance blog offers up both their 12"s for our listening pleasure.  The 2nd 12" was just unimpressive new wave but the 1st one started out with this killer track Outer Circle - Blind Venetians Quite a variety on that 1st 12, this tune wasn't bad either, Outer Circle - Another Moon My buddy Batguano over at Fugitive Equilibrium is always coming up with some good harder edge listening.  This band has an out of this world female vocalist (reminds me of Jae from A.P.P.L.E. who was featured here at MR), backed up by some hard hitting music, Godless - OCA They do a nice (not as good as the original of course) Rudimentary Peni cover Godless - Blissful Myth And a Conflict (featured here as well) too, Godless - I've Had Enough My buddy Erich mentioned these guys as being "the millisecond before blastbeat." A pre-Repulsion band, who of course are one of the godfathers of grindcore. Some seriously driving music, a couple for you from their WFBE radio show demo, Genocide - Slaughter of the Innocent Genocide - Six Feet Under I got this record for a $1 from Devin over at IFB Records.  Check his site out because he's got quite a label along with killer distro/used stuff.  Pretty much picked this one up just because Truck Johnson are outta Omaha Nebraska, similarly isolated here in the "real" midwest.  Except when it comes to college football I think a lot of people here in northwest Kansas see Nebraska as being similar. Omaha is of course a city so they've got a lot more going on than I do around here including Truck Johnson.  I labeled them as hardcore but really this isn't very harsh.  Hard hitting at times and overall well worth the dollar I paid for it.  The vocalist reminds be of my buddy Chris Squire from Labrador and Mach 5, and a shit load of other bands.  Anyway, I really don't know shit about this record except that the first song there is a killer, I just fucking love it.  Careful though it's catchy as fuck and will get stuck in your head. Red Menace Methuselah Phil Jones, Iron Man! Avail Show

 

Pilleemandjoonks & Unter Den Linden - random live & demo

EDIT:  Post under reconstruction... My first post of the New Year.  I have an incredible grasp of the obvious and it pre-supposes that you, the few the proud visitors here, do not.  A question posed to me (and potentially you, if hadn't of zapped it) by one of the numerous spam-bots (or maybe I was even blessed by a live spammer) was, "how old are you when you are said to have died of old age"?  That's probably as profound as my thinking got for the New Year.  At a time when some of us reflect upon the past (hopefully learning from our mistakes/successes) or look forward to a brighter future, even in my partying days I was never one to stay up all night and "celebrate".  An arbitrary thing going from December 31st to January 1st, based on the Gregorian Calendar essentially a movement from the Julian calendar by changing the calendar year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days (a difference of 10.8 minutes per year). Still based erroneously on Jesus' birthday and trying to get Easter (the lunar cycle) just right. All kinds of people around the world have a different New Year, so really, maybe, we should celebrate everyday as a new day (year).  A little after New Years I turned 42.  An insignificant number when you compare it to 18, 21 or, for me 40, and it got me thinking.  Definitely not a member of the 30-something crowd any more and all that's left to do is creep up to 50.  When is a mid-life crisis okay or justified, ha, ha? Still on a borrowed computer which sucks, because you don't want to be indebted to someone. On top of that a used computer is like a used car, they are considered used the minute after you start using them and the longer they go the greater the chances of them breaking down. This computer came with viruses/malware/spyware already on it, so I spent a good deal of time trying to clean the damn thing up (the least I could do really for the loan). I signed up for and used the expertise of one of the guys/gals at Techspot and I recommend them if you run into some shit that you just can't shake.  So now that this thing is squeaky clean I want to give it back to the loaner.  Never borrow something from someone that you wouldn't invite over to your house, even if you "need" it, it's a moral dilemma.  The holiday/birthday season was kind to me so I have $$$, it's a question now of...replace two bald tires with some used ones or get the computer fixed...hmmm. On my birthday I got a CDR from Bjorn, a virtual friend I "met" through another virtual friend Peter's KBD Records. World Wide Web is accurate because it's easy as sin to get in touch with people from all over the world. These days Bjorn plays guitar/vocals in a band called Pilleemandjoonks. Some pretty modern almost poppy stuff that is really soulful and I'm a sucker for anything that's got a saxophone in it.  If you're not into the harsher stuff that seems to make up a big percentage of what I post, these guys might be toned down enough for your taste.  High quality stuff that could easily be playing on the radio (at least a station I would listen to).  They're still around so be sure and check out that link to get a better taste of them.  Check out some of my favorite tunes (three very different songs so give them all a "spin"), Pelikan Jannes åker Luxemburg Going back in time, Bjorn was in the band Unter Den Linden (among others) outta Sweden. He knows I'm a big fan because right from hearing them for the first time at KBD I hunted down everything I could find by them, which unfortunately is all digital as all their releases are way out of print (and even if they came up on ebay they'd be way out of my price range).   From punk to hardcore to post punk and maybe even new wave.   Peter described them as "dark gloomy punk (Motstand i lader) and straightforward HC (Fat Boys and Little Boys)."  You get all kinds of impressions, Joy Division, early Wall of Voodoo, Xray Spex, but these guys stand alone as far as their originality, musicianship and creativity.  I totally dig Bjorn's vocals (powerful) and his guitar work really is all over the place.  How many bands from late 70's/early 80's Sweden can you name...probably none better than these guys.  If they'd have been from the US or UK I know they would have had a name that people were familiar with.  Too bad really, but there's a variety of sounds in these rare gems for you. Fat boys Little Boys Arabenrein This town Dom hade karvat på mej Whats the problem down here Motstånd I Läder Vända inåt Att döda ett barn