Ramones

Well, today found out that the last original Ramone, Tommy, died yesterday. They're all dead now, and I guess I'm of the age where the people I look(ed) up to are dying of natural causes, although Tommy was only 62 and no cause of death has been released yet. The Ramones were the door that opened a whole world to me in my pre-teens. No more Bee Gees, no more KISS, this world was a real one, not polished to sell to masses of people who have a fascination with shiny objects. These guys spoke to me like nothing before or since. I can remember watching Rock and Roll High School with my buddy Alex, must have been not too long after it was released in 1979, memorizing the dialog and jumping around to the live sequences. Everything must come to an end. Here's a great live version of my favorite tune of theirs...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNpxS7iE5Tg]

One of my prized records was the "It's Alive" double LP, such a good live recording of a great set in London 1977, the video is amazing. As I've said a shit ton of time around here, my memory is terrible, but I remember specifically, my second year of college, 1988, at my buddy Gage's house trading him that hunk of gold, for the Bauhaus "Bella Legosi is Dead" blue vinyl 12" on Small Wonder Records (Gage was a huge fan of the Ramones, in fact when I first met him he looked just like a Ramone). I don't know what the fuck I was thinking, but I sold out my boys. I still have the Bauhaus record and a few years ago I made amends and picked another copy of the 2xLP. Here's another one of my favorite tunes from that live set...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO2ROJ6pr2w&w=560&h=315]

RIP Ramones...

Animated Shorts #5

I call this, "don't hate me because I'm beautiful."  You know even in the throes of middle age, I still find falls and farts funny.

A while back, on the dreaded blog killing Facebook, a buddy of mine challenged me to name 50 bands I had seen live. It was interesting because I',ve seen 100s of bands but remembering 50 wasn't so easy for this old burn out. Here's some very varied ones off the top of my head... Sha Na Na, Rod Stewart, Joan Baez, Pete Seger (The Weavers), MDC, Operation Ivy, Bo Didley, Swa, DOA, Fugazi, No Means No, Return to Forever, Alan Holdsworth, Hank Williams Jr., Youth Brigade, English Dogs, Stanley Clarke, Slightly Stoopid, Kittie, Willie Nelson, Kansas, Yellowman, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Bad Religion, Bad Brains, Capitalist Casualties, Venom, Cypress Hill, Beastie Boys, Creedle, Slayer, Bl'ast, Kris Kristofferson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mr. Bungle, Primus, Meat Puppets, The Hitch, NOFX, Crimpshrine, Capitol Punishment, War, Skatalites, Dieselhed, Exodus, B B King, Dr Know, Final Conflict, Dead Kennedys, English Beat, Bo Diddly, Link Wray...

This was a pretty memorable show, even though the headliner was pretty weak in my opinion, too Exploited, GBH-ish.  Way back when I posted a band called A.R.R. (this post regurgitates most of what I mentioned in that one) who were one of the lesser known bands that I kinda dug, but for some reason they aren't mentioned on the flyer.  U.K. Subs killed it with their '77 style, but by the time they were done playing, the frontman Charlie Harper was completely covered in spit, gobbed (one of the most idiotic imported practices from England). This was the only time I saw Youth Brigade, a band I was very keen on at the time.  The Olympic Auditorium in LA was an extremely big place for punk/hardcore shows, holds 1000s, there were lots of shows there in the 80s.. Anyway, the show was packed, all the gangs were represented, various skinhead gangs, along with the Suicidals, L.A.D.S., FFF, BPO, et al and the whole show was non stop fighting. There were a few one on one fights that I saw but mostly it was ten beating or chasing one. I remember specifically, the only time the fighting stopped was when Youth Brigade played "Sink with California". Everybody was arm in arm all over the place, even in the pit (which had been massive all night). As soon as the song was over, the non-stop fights picked up where they left off.  This show had some particularly huge pit(s), I remember my 150 pound frame being tossed all over the place.  I also recollect that my good friend Davrick was there, sporting his yellow fisherman's hat, as he always did, along with his devil lock.  Some guy snatched his hat and, plain as day I can remember Davrick chasing that guy all over the place before he kicked his ass and got it back.  All in all, not a bad show, but I preferred the more intimate smaller shows, wit less fighting.  On a side note, when we got back to my bug to bail, my stereo had been stolen... Youth Brigade - Sink With California

[audio mp3="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/YOUTH-BRIGADE-SINK-WITH-CALIFORNIA.mp3"][/audio]

Another very memorable show from a few years earlier and the only time I would see these bands, in fact one of the few straight up metal shows I've gone to, but I fit in quite well as I had very long hair and was about as hesher as you can get.  The Hollywood Palladium was another hell of a place to see bands.  I was there with my friend Roy (Hamsterhead), we had known each other since we were five, his Mom had dropped our 15 year old asses off (as far as I know, these days Roy is a Buddhist monk...probably the only one ever to have seen Venom, Slayer and Exodus).  At this show the pit was huge, but it was much more violent, basically just one big fist fight in motion.  Lots of bloody, broken faces left that thing,  I did not venture in.  We parked ourselves on the two steps leading out of the dance floor, a good spot to enjoy the bands and be on the edge of the action in the pit.  At some point during the show, I get punched in the back of the head.  I turn around, like what the fuck and there's this like 30 year old dirt bag giving me this look like "you want some more".  At this point this big Mexican biker looking guy puts his hand on dudes shoulder and tells him to get lost.  Turns out my savior was the drummer for Saint Vitus, Armando Acosta.  Otherwise the show was a blast.  All three bands are very different from each other even though you could call them all metal and they tore shit up.  One of my favorite bands at the time was Venom and they were my favorite at this show, but I received an invaluable lesson in how to shred at the hands of Venom and Exodus.  Looking back, I don't think that my Mom would have let me go to that show if she had known what it was going to be like before hand. Venom - One Thousand Days In Sodom

[audio mp3="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Venom-One-Thousand-Days-In-Sodom.mp3"][/audio] Slayer - Kill Again

[audio mp3="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Slayer-Kill-Again.mp3"][/audio] Exodus - Bonded By Blood

[audio mp3="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Exodus-Bonded-By-Blood.mp3"][/audio]

I dig the storyboard type animation... "The Facts In The Case Of Mister Hollow"

[video width="480" height="360" mp4="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Facts-in-the-Case-of-Mister-Hollow.mp4"][/video]

This one is freakishly trippy.. "Rubber Johnny"

[video width="600" height="360" mp4="http://mustard-relics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Rubber-Johnny.mp4"][/video]

Street Sects - Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings 7"

Been sitting on this one far too long, just been out of sorts for about a week. A handful of possibilities for that I suppose, melancholy is what you might call it, the end result is laziness. Thought about just posting the Bandcamp addy, and letting the two guys who comment around here, do whatever they wanted with it, but this shit is too good for laziness. In fact going to the Bandcamp page myself and, taking in the music and words again tonight, brought me out of my funk for just long enough. Well my bud Leo and his partner in crime Shaun of the felonious monster that is Street Sects are up to no good again with part 2 of 5 of the "GENTRIFICATION: A SERIAL ALBUM" (which will eventually be released as a boxed set). Took a good hard look at part one a while back in the The Morning After The Night We Raped Death 7" and we also poured boiling lead into our ears with a live tune after that. I don't know if I need to do the song and dance again about how great these guys are, because they picked up right where they left off with this newest release. I asked Leo to give me his take on it and he delivered like a true word-smith,

"Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings is a record about paranoia and anxiety taken to their furthest extremes, when fear is no longer a feeling but rather a physical presence. A sick and obsessive presence, one that follows you around tirelessly, breathing down your neck in broad daylight and looming over you while you sleep, aroused and erect with predatory desire. The title is a riff on the "broken windows theory" which was introduced in 1982 and later used to justify excessive policing, randomized street harassment, and unabashed profiling. It used fear as a method of order, an ever present shadow of imposed civility, but instead it only reinforced the resentment for authority already deeply embedded in the under privileged and working class. When fear is a constant, its edge becomes dulled and its purpose becomes easier to ignore. When it becomes obsolete, the urges that propel criminal behavior are magnified. Sexual frustrations become all consuming and violence becomes a form of sustenance, of nourishment, a way to fill the holes. These holes exist in our stomachs, in our hearts, and in the ceilings hanging above ruined mattresses, half empty high school homerooms, and endless rows of cots lined wall to wall with the homeless and the defeated. Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings is about realizing that every day we grow older, the ceiling hangs lower, and the walls of the world contract further."

So what does all that mean? In my opinion, this shit is relentless, like a bunch of hyenas tearing apart a carcass, chunks of flesh, shattered bone, unnaturally stretched sinew. I see blood everywhere. All three compositions put you on the edge of your seat or better yet the edge of a cliff, with that uneasy feeling in your stomach...in the end you fall over the edge. Torturous bliss. I don't have a favorite, it's like having to choose who's going to die, but as with the last single, the first two songs are on the vinyl, the last is digital only. On the previous too posts I talked about Leo mostly, who is the words and voice, and I've gotten to know him a little bit virtually, but I didn't know too much about Shaun, who is some kind of necromancer when it come to creating music...I asked Leo to give me his take on the man...

"The other half of Street Sects is Shaun Ringsmuth, and he's the composer/producer/musical genius in the group. He basically locks himself in a room for hours at a time, completely loses his mind for a while (not joking), and these horrifically incredible pieces of music come out. He will send me parts of songs, or nearly completed songs, and we will go back and forth talking about them, deciding what's best for the particular song, and all the while he's making changes and perfecting the work. I've been working with guy for over ten years in various projects, and I'm still always blown away every time he finishes a new piece of music. It's really incredible, and I wouldn't want to be working with anyone else, at least not on a project as serious and personal as Street Sects. I do the vocals, as you know, as well as the words, art direction and design stuff. Also mixing duties, though that is likely going to become more of a cooperative effort. But the music... that's all Shaun."

Embedded below is the Bandcamp link, for your listening pleasure, perfect if you're not overly curious or perhaps are just lazy. Do yourself a favor though and go directly to their Bandcamp page and while you're head gets cracked open to the music, take it one step further and read the lyrics to the tunes, and that fucking short story of sorts, surely will get you thinking. http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=83169059/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/